Mikey's doing cartwheels that become handsprings after training some early morning, just easy, lazy flips and turns while the rest of them cool off, and Casey and Donnie start in on each other again. It's over something stupid, as usual, so Raph rolls his eyes and tunes them out, helping Leo stretch his right leg.

Then out of nowhere April shouts, and Raph and Leo whip around in time to see the rest of their family go down in an impressive tangle of limbs. It would have been funny, except April's furious.

"Oh, way to go, guys!" their kunoichi snaps, yanking Casey one way and shoving Donnie another, creating room for Mikey to roll free of them. Once he does, he doubles over on his knees with his forehead braced in the grass, cradling an arm against his plastron- utterly silent in a way that tells Raph better than any doctor could that he's hurt.

Leonardo's there in a heartbeat even with a stiff knee, a hand on Mikey's shoulder to ease him upright, and it takes some gentle coaxing on big brother's part for Mikey to surrender his guarded arm. The reveal of his wrist- already swelling and colored- is enough in itself to make Raph need to hit something immediately.

"What happened?" he asks instead, sharply, and April scowls.

"These two weren't watching where they were fighting and got in Mikey's way as he was coming down on his hands. It looked like he rolled his wrist."

"Mikey I'm so sorry," Donnie blurts, at the same time a shame-faced Casey mutters, "Sorry, little dude," and Mikey winces through a smile.

"Aww, no big," is what he says, even as he curls his arm back against his center the moment Leo lets it go. "It was an accident! I'll go put ice on it or whatever."

"I'll come help," Leo's quick to offer and Mikey waves it down.

"Thanks, bro, but you should probably stay and finish up out here. You gotta stretch properly, you're still getting better. I'll just ask Kitty to lay on my wrist- she'll think it's fun!" Leo hesitates, and Raph and April must look similarly disinclined, because Mikey makes a face at them. "It's just a sprain! Come on, guys, we've all had one before."

But there's something intensely personal about Mikey getting hurt in the athletics that come as naturally to him as breathing; Raph hasn't seen him scratch a landing like that since they were chubby little toddlers. It would probably feel about as miserable as Raph cutting himself on the sideguard of one of his sais.

"April, will you stay here and help Leo? I'll head in with Mikey," he says. April nods, and Mikey frowns, brow wrinkled under the bright orange of his mask, prompting Raph to add, "Just to make sure it's not broken."

"Well... make sure you keep it elevated," Leo concedes reluctantly, looking more like a mother hen than it's safe to admit out loud. Raphael heaves a long-suffering sigh as he shoves Mikey along in front of him that's more for Mikey's sake than anyone else's.

"Yes, mom."

Once Ice Cream Kitty is settled in her bowl on the table, and Mikey's planted in the chair in front of her, under oath he won't move an inch, Raph goes to the laundry room in search of a dishtowel or something he can wrap some ice up, since the cold compress has up and vanished. He's making his way back when he overhears Mikey talking to his cat, and it's the bleak undertone to his voice Raph's never heard from him before that leads him to pause in the hall a few steps from the kitchen.

"I'm okay, I just hurt my wrist cause I landed on it wrong. Jeez, I can't believe I messed up a flip. Some ninja, huh, kitty?" Mikey's murmuring, and Raph's eyes widen- there's an echo of himself there, in his baby brother's quiet deprecation, and it sinks through his chest like a stone.

No- wait a minute-

On the other side of the wall, Mikey sighs.

"Maybe I really am worthless."