Set in some indeterminate future after both Timothy and Martin are un-mutated, I couldn't help thinking they might have a lot in common.

"So what's thine story?" says the other guy. "Did you get hit with one of those canisters on the roof, too?"

Tim shuffles his feet and rubs the back of his neck. "Uh... not exactly. I kinda... did it to myself."

"Zounds." The other guy blinks. "That sounds hardcore."

"Yeah. Yeah." Tim winces at the memory. "Actually, to be honest—no. It was kinda dumb, and it hurt."

"Oh." The other guy nods. "Yeah."

The truth is, Tim doesn't really remember much after the pain, and the weird sticky-acidy feel of mutagen all over him. He has a memory of Donatello shouting something, and then it's all vague, fuzzy fragments and cold until he came back to himself on the floor of the lab, coughing, on his hands and knees, with the turtles in a loose circle around him. So he doesn't remember what happened, what he turned into, but he doesn't think it was something cool or awesome, not from the wary way everyone was looking at him, or the way Donnie kept apologizing afterward.

"I'm really, really sorry," he said, still not quite meeting Tim's eyes. "That it took so long, I mean. It took a while to figure out how to make the retro-mutagen, and then I didn't have the components—I need to make it out of mutagen, and I need a lot, so— I'm really sorry."

"Hey," Tim said awkwardly. He wasn't really sure he wanted to know what had happened, all those months he can't remember, but—he remembers before that just fine, and he knows Donnie always tried to help him, and was right about the mutagen in the first place. "It's okay. I mean, that's pretty incredible, just figuring it out at all, so— thanks."

Donnie does meet his eyes, then, and gives him a kind of hesitant smile. "Well, you— I guess you don't remember, but I did promise."

"I'm Martin," the other guy offers. "Or you can call me Sir Malachi."

Huh. That's kind of a funny nickname. "Timothy," he says in turn. "Or, uh... people used to call me Pulverizer." Although nobody ever really called him that but the turtles, and that was mostly because he hadn't told them his real name yet.

"Pulverizer? That's cool."

"Yeah," Tim says with a bit of a sigh. It seems like a long time ago. "What did you, um— become?"

"Me? Oh, I was a bird. Sparrow." Martin taps his prosthetic leg. "Made this a little awkward. Didn't fit any more."

"Dude," says Tim. "That sounds rough."

"Aye, I mean, I can do a little wood carving, and I made a new one, but it was tricky." He hesitates for a moment before adding, "I had some kind of mind control powers, too."

"Really? Wow." Tim's impressed. "That sounds really cool!"

Martin hunches his shoulders. "It was, but... I did some things I shouldn't have, and it was always tempting to... I mean, I could really mess people up, make them see things that weren't there."

Tim doesn't know what to say to that for a moment. "That's... heavy."

"Verily." Martin sighs, and they're both quiet for a little while.

"It's weird now," Tim admits. "I mean, my mom is glad to see me, and all, but I can't really tell her anything. She got scared enough without totally freaking her out with the whole mutant thing, you know?"

"Forsooth," Martin says. "Mine too. I got my own place so I hath some privacy."

"Sounds nice," Tim says, a little wistfully. He's happy to see his family again, he really is, but it's hard being around them all the time and trying to dodge the questions.

Martin opens his mouth, hesitates for a second, and then says in a rush, "I could use a roommate. It would be a lot cheaper."

"Oh. Really? I don't... exactly have a job yet," Tim says. He missed a lot of school, and he's still trying to figure out what to do next.

"Well, thou couldst... come see it, at least?"

"Sure. Yeah," Tim says, with growing enthusiasm. It would be nice to spend more time with someone who gets it.

"Let's go, then," Martin says, brightening. "Say... hast thou ever played Mazes and Mutants?"

Tim blinks. "Once or twice."

"Wanteth thou to play?"

"Sure. Sounds fun." He thinks about it, trying to remember what kinds of characters he could be. "Can I be a mutant? A cool one, I mean." Not... whatever he'd been, that he couldn't remember.

Martin grins. "Yea, verily. Let's go roll up some characters."