Chapter Text
The moment Donnie heard the phone ring, he knew it was going to be a bad day.
He half-rolled his eyes as he picked up his phone and held it against his ear with his shoulder as he tinkered with his latest project on the table. “You are conversing with Donatello.”
“Heeey, Donnie,” April said in that voice where she was going to ask something. “Have you, I don’t know, felt any earthquakes lately?”
This made him raise one drawn eyebrow. “Nooooooooo. . . ?”
“Okay, well. . . I just felt an earthquake and now all the adults at my job are gone.”
Donnie stopped his hand just before he started welding. “Okay, that’s- wait, what do you mean by adults?”
“Weeeeellll. . . .” The dread was already setting in. “I’m working at a daycare right now-”
“Nope.”
“Aw, c’mon, Donnie! This is my first day and I can’t call any of the parents- I don’t know how to get on the computer-”
“Then just call the police-”
“Oh nuh-uh, I am not getting the police involved cuz I just know this is some mystic mumbo-jumbo happening here and I’d really appreciate it if you got over here right NOW! Oh, just a second, Elijah, I’m talking on the phone right now~”
Donnie pinched the space between his eyebrows. He wanted to say no. He really wanted to say no, but what came out of his mouth instead was a defeated, “Okay, okay, I’ll get us down there, just send the address or something.”
He could practically hear the smug grin on April’s face. “Thank you sooooo much!”
“So why’d April call us?” Mikey asked as he leaped between two rooftops. He rolled across the gravel of an office building then jumped onto a ridged air vent.
“Yada yada, daycare, yada yada, no adults.” Donnie mimicked April’s blabbing with his hand as he hopped from a fire escape to a building’s ledge. He would have preferred to use his hovercraft but it was daytime, and they were supposed to keep a low profile so Area 51 didn’t take them away and cut them open before Donnie did it first.
“So we’re babysitters now? Ugh, just when I thought we were getting respect.” Leo, ever the show-off, did a backflip from one building to the next.
“All we have to do is call the parents or find wherever the adults went for their coffee break and take care of everything else,” Donnie said after a salto sideward.
“Can’t we stay for a little bit? I kinda like kids.” Raph jumped and rolled over another building’s gravel. He narrowly missed being spotted by a lady washing her dishes.
He could have avoided being noticed entirely via teleportation, but, in Leo’s words, “Baby needs her rest.” Which was just code for, “I can’t get the portal thing to work right now.”
“Yeah, what are they gonna tell their parents? A bunch of turtle people showed up?” Mikey tittered, hanging onto Raph’s back.
“Yeah, they could say that and wouldn’t it be weird if all the kids were talking about turtle people?” Donnie said.
“So a couple of kids say they saw turtle people? Big deal,” Leo interjected along with a head spring. “The grown-ups will just chalk it up to aliens or something and we’ll be scot-free.”
“Ah, yes, ‘our children were abducted by aliens.’ Scot-free indeed.” Donnie deadpanned.
“Look, all I’m saying is that they won’t be looking around in the sewers for aliens, now would they?” Leo said with a shrug and smug smile. Donnie rolled his eyes.
“Whatever, I’m just gonna find the computer, hack in, and deal with whatever mystic thing is happening. I’m not going to have slimy, little pre-adults touch me with their little grabby hands.” Donnie shivered at the thought.
“We gotta turn down this avenue!” Raph hollered.
Leo swung around a flagpole before launching himself along the rooftops of the avenue. “What? And miss the widdle angews?” he mocked in a baby-voice, holding his clasped hands up to his cheek.
“Over my dead body.”
“That can be arranged!” Mikey yelled as he jumped onto Donnie’s back and just as quickly leaping away out of Donnie’s murderous grasp. His laughter echoed against the bricks as he cartwheeled over the edge and down into an alleyway. Raph, Leo, and Donnie followed suit.
Hidden between two office buildings was - of all things- the Happy Turtles Daycare. Complete with a painting of smiling turtles on the brick wall.
“Ooooooooor the parents will think that some people in costumes came! We’re basically the mascots,” Leo said.
“Show us a smile, Donnie! You can’t go in unless you smmmiiiilllle!” Mikey poked Donnie’s face, only for it to be slapped away.
“Stop.”
Raph piped up, “Look, there’s April.”
Indeed, April was gazing out of the front glass doors, smushing her face against the glass and looking around anxiously. Once her eyes roved over the alleyway, she spotted them and waved at them to hurry. They quickly scanned over the parking lot for any passersby, then sprinted across as April held open the doors for them. She tried to pull the door closed, but it was a soft-close system so April was straining herself for nothing.
“THANK GOODNESS YOU’RE HERE!” April whisper-shouted once the doors were shut. “I didn’t know how long I could keep them entertained.”
Mikey walked further into the daycare lobby, looking around. “So this is a-AAAAAAA-”
Raph caught Mikey by his shell just before he fell into a washing machine sized hole in the ground. He was still flailing his arms as Raph pulled him back.
“Oh, yeah. . . forgot to tell you about that,” April mumbled.
“You forgot to tell us about a giant death hole?” Leo asked.
April shrugged defensively. “I just found it after I hung up with Donnie.”
“How deep does it go anyway?” Donnie said to himself. He snatched a pen from the lobby counter and dropped it down the hole, listening for its impact at the bottom. Evidently, there was none. “Huh, that’s not good.”
“Oh, really? I thought this was normal,” April said sarcastically and crossed her arms.
“So where are the kids?” Raph asked, slightly excited. It wasn’t every day he got to interact with slimeballs; i.e. children.
“Oh, I left them in the kiddie room, they should be fine-”
“April?”
All five froze, then slowly turned around to the source of the tiny voice. A boy no more than three stood at the entrance of the hall, staring with wide eyes at the four giant, humanoid turtles.
“Hi, Elijah,” April said nervously. “These are my friends. This is Raph, Leo, Mikey, and Donnie! Say hi, guys!”
All four said a collective “hi.” Some more enthusiastic than others.
“Can you say hi back?”
Elijah continued staring, particularly at Raph, the largest of the bunch. He hesitantly raised one hand and waved. “. . . Hi.”
Awkward silence penetrated the lobby. A couple of beats passed before Elijah shuffled over to April, pointedly avoiding the strange turtle men, and motioned for her to bend down so he could whisper into her ear. A not so quiet but still trying to be quiet, breathy whisper passed his lips, “I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Oh, um, okay, let’s go, then. Guys, follow me, I’ll show you the kiddie room.” April straightened back up and held out her hand, which Elijah accepted. They took the lead down the hall as the rest of them followed. Donnie hopped over the hole.
“So we’re just gonna ignore the hole in the ground?” he questioned.
“Well, we gotta get the kids home before we do anything about that .” Leo answered, walking backwards and shrugging.
Donnie rolled his eyes again.
April stopped in front of a door covered in colored paper, creating a picture of little, happy turtles playing in grass on a sunny day. She opened the door with a bit of a flourish. “Hey, guys! I have some friends here I want you to meet!”
Five little pairs of eyes looked up at the door from their individual activities. A boy and a girl were in the process of pulling a toy snake away from each other, two girls sat at the short table and were busying coloring (one on paper and the other on the table), while another boy (the shortest of them) was taste-testing the plastic fruit at the toy kitchen. All stilled. . .
Then the taste-tester started crying.