Chapter Text
Right under the surface of New York City, in the deepest parts of the sewers there is nothing but the sound of rushing water.
Not until the sounds of repeated splashing and heavy breathing are heard barreling down the dark corridor. A dark cloaked figure with a blue rapped odachi in his hands turns around the corner, slices at the area in front of him and opens a glowing blue portal in the air. He immediately dives straight though, rolling on his back to soften the landing.
The blue portal closes behind him just as he jumps though and he sighs in relief before pulling off the hood covering his face. It reveals a lime green turtle mutant with two red stripes over his eyes takes a long sigh before sheathing his odachi behind his back.
Just a fraction of a second ago he had been running for his life in the dirty sewer and now he was sitting in a dusty old abandoned warehouse, or as he likes to call it, home.
The mutant walks toward the back of the warehouse where there is a curtain draped over a doorway. He pushes one of the sides over his head and ducks into a purple litten room. Multiple old computers and wires littered the floor and various gears and bolts strewn about the tables and other surfaces. The turtle turns and looks towards multiple blindingly bright monitors with a figure hunched over in an office chair in front of them, obviously engrossed in his work.
“Ugh Donnie! Your room is a mess!” He says dramatically while waving his arm around to grab the attention of the figure.
There is a slight creak from the office chair as it turns around, revealing a separate turtle mutant with purple rectangular markings and dark circles under his eyes. He reaches up, takes off the headphones he had been wearing and puts them on the table in front of him.
“Oh hey Nardo, didn’t know you were home… I'm lying of course, I always know where you are at all times.”
Leo walks over to the table and leans onto it, “Yeah I know Don! You know normal people call that stalking” he says with a condescending expression.
“We are far from normal people Leo, and besides It’s my job. I make sure you don't die the moment you step out of the wearhouse, and speaking of dying give me your arm.” Donnie reaches out his hand in expectancy.
“What? My arm? What do you mean?” He laughs nervously.
“Sigh, Your left arm that you have hidden in your cloak that you have yet to use or put pressure on once?”
“Oh… That arm! Haha Don't worry about it Tello, it's just a little scrape. I can totally take care of it myself!”
Donnie just responds to this by tilting his head and folding his arms. Leo knows there’s absolutely no winning when he’s made up his mind, so he reluctantly pulls his arm from its hiding place and gives it to him. He hisses at the sting.
“Leo…” Donnie says angrily with one of his scariest expressions he owns.
”’It’S jUsT a LiTtLe ScRaPe DoNnIe!’ I CAN SEE THE BONE NARDO!” He yells.
Leo winces at Donnie’s yelling, he hates getting found out. He had in fact lied about it being just a scrape, while running through the sewers he might have slipped onto an exposed steel cable and sliced it open, but who would know?
“Bigger sigh, I’ll go get the medical kit, just sit right there and DON’T. DO. ANYTHING.”
Leo groans before jumping up onto the table he had been leaning on to sit down on it. Donnie looks around for a bit before reaching to the side of his chair and pulling out a purple cane with patterns covering it mimicking a motherboard. He takes the blanket he had on his lap off and pushes himself up before walking away from Leo to grab the med kit.
Leo sits there looking down at his injured arm and, huh, it really was worse than he thought. The gash in his arm is dripping blood down onto the table he’s been sitting on and if he looked closely there was a small amount of white bone that was present. He only sighs at it before looking up to Donnie who was currently leaning on the floor rummaging through his supplies to find what he needs, back scars in full view. Leo’s stomach churns at the sight of Donnie’s softshell.
When they both had been around six or seven, Draxum had sent them away for a bit to train with Big Mamma while he continued rebuilding his laboratory. Living in the hotel had been great in the beginning, all of the staff had been kind to them and Gus would give them candy when they were good or making progress in their training.
Unfortunately it didn’t last long, Gus had told Big Mamma how well their training was going and she decided to put it to the test. She had told him to come at them with all he's got “ No holding back ” she had said. Bad idea.
Leo and Donnie had been holding their own in the beginning, up until Gus snuck up behind Donnie and full force attacked him. Leo had seen Gus behind Donnie right before he had been hit, but he had been too slow to save him. It was his job to get Donnie out of danger, his mystic ability was basically built to get him and others out of danger and he had trained in it profusely but he was still too slow…
Donnie had been permanently injured because of that training session. He couldn’t walk normally anymore and had to go through years of physical therapy just to be able to use his legs again. Big Mamma had completely sidelined him the moment Donnie woke up and continued to train Leo without him up until the Baron found out about the incident and immediately took them back from her. Leo still blames himself for what happened. If he had just been faster, Donnie could have still been able to walk, of course if he told Donnie this he would probably just say, ”something something it's not your fault it was mine” or something else just to make Leo feel better but he knows otherwise.
“LEO?” a voice snaps him out of his thoughts.
“Oh um, yeah Don?”
“I yelled your name like four times and you didn’t respond?!”
“Oh right, sorry… must be the blood loss or somethin’ “ He slurs out.
“Sigh, it's alright but I need you to hold still for a bit while I clean and stitch up your arm, can you do that for me?”
“Yeah. yeah I can do that.”
“Good, now this might sting a little bit.” Donnie says before putting disinfectant onto a cotton ball and placing it on Leo’s wound.
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It hurt more than a little bit, it hurt a lot actually. So much so that Leo only came back to reality once his arm was just about to be finished being wrapped with bandages.
“Aaaaand done! See? It’s not so bad.”
“I hate you.” Leo jokes
“Yeah, yeah.” Donnie rolls his eyes, “Now, are there any more injuries I should know about?”
“Nope, that was the only one… Well, that I know about.”
“You know you’re really lucky I haven’t keeled over because of how stressed you make me.” He pokes Leo’s head a few times to emphasize parts of his sentence before grabbing his cane again and standing.
“Awe I love you too!” Leo says as he gets up from his seat while batting his eyes, “You wanna grab some dinner with me?”
“Only if it’s not pineapple pizza.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it brother.” Leo says while walking out, pulling up the curtain so Donnie can go through, “after you.”
“Why thank you kind sir.” Donnie swipes his cane at Leo’s feet, hitting him in the shins. Leo completely crumples to the ground and holds his leg with his good arm.
“What the heck? That hurt! I also kinda deserved it.” Leo whines to him while Donnie snickers. The moment is quickly over when Donnies phone starts ringing. The two brothers look at each other before Donnie walks over to look at who was contacting them so late in the night and Leo gets up and joins him.
All breathing stops when they read the contact name…
Baron Draxum.