There were always concerns with him.

Battat was a mess, but he was their mess. The other two Mikes never took him for granted, because they knew that he didn't take them for granted, either. Pluey would nod along to his lengthy rambles and tuck under his arm to provide cuddles. Jongler left his clothes out for him after taking them to the washer and helped him don the Mike suit when it came time.

It was always little things, because that was all they could really do for him. Any insistence to rest was treated as if they'd spouted the recipe for the next plague. Food of only mildly questionable quality was shooed away without a glance because the Pippins was "too busy". They could hardly get him to take showers, not even when Pluey offered to sit outside for him despite hating the water himself.

Jongler was the more open worrier, always mumbling to Pluey about how Battat looked every single day and fretting over what they could be doing for him. What they should be doing to him. Pluey, for all of his sweetness and bubbly joy, couldn't reassure them, because he was shaken himself.

On those days where their sweet little partner seemed on the verge of collapse, when he looked too tired and riddled with unseen woes to keep going...they worried that he may not get up if he fell.

So they tried their hardest, even on the days that Jongler was wobbling on his foot and Pluey could barely make any sounds. They tried to coddle, to hold, to love, anything that would draw Battat away from that too-close edge of breaking. And, for the most part, it worked.

Until he teetered and fell off of it.

It’d started from generally nothing. The month had been tiring, wearing on his mind and tearing it uncomfortably, and tonight left him to simmer in it. Both of the other Mikes were out doing their varying jobs, Pluey posing as the fake Mike for the night, leaving Battat to sit at his desk and rifle through his theories.

Except he could hardly focus. There were so many papers that they covered the desk’s surface entirely, and each shifted note made the lines grow blurrier. The sketches, the information, all of it was growing more and more incomprehensible to Battat’s eyes.

It’d surprised even himself when an arm suddenly came down on the desk, scattering the papers to the floor as he shoved to his feet. The rest was a blur — ripping down theories from the corkboard, shoving the chair onto its side, kicking the desk’s leg over and over until his foot ached too much to keep going.

Only when he stopped, heaving and shaking, did he even realize that he was crying at all. The Pippins’s face was soaked with tears that ran and fell into the papers beneath his feet, and his blurry gaze was enough to take in the cuts and holes in his hands from the pins on the board and the edges of the papers.

The red contrasted harshly with the green.

Of course, that was the perfect moment for Jongler and Pluey to return — having gotten off of their shifts at the same time, they were walking back to the room together, laughing and humming as the Zapper opened the door.

The chaos of Battat’s breakdown inside left them both reeling. Neither could move at first, their invisible gazes locked onto the destruction, then onto the Pippins. They weren’t sure that they’d ever seen him cry…and this made them realize that they never wanted to again.

Pluey was the first to act. Feet padding against the floor, he rushed to Battat’s side, a mic hand (still in Mike costume, unluckily) placing on the littler man’s shoulder as his ears pinned back. The strangled, erratic jazz noises that escaped him were panicked. Fearful.

Jongler came not longer after. They were in front of Battat in a few seconds, knee dropping to the floor as they cupped both of his hands in their own. Their head shook as they observed the blood and minor injuries, and they moved to undo their scarf to wrap around the worse hand.

“Awh, geez, boss…there, there, ‘s alright. Ya really gotchaself hurt there, huh?”

Both weren’t just worried. They were horrified.