Chapter Text
It all started with me being thrown off a building.
Actually, maybe it ended because of that? No, not my life, thankfully. I certainly hope that my life doesn’t end with me being thrown off a building.
No, what happened is that I started having… feelings. Or did I just realize that I couldn’t keep pretending that I didn’t have these feelings? See, it’s a dilemma.
Back to being thrown off the building though, as that’s kind of important. It’s happening right now, actually. I’m plummeting to certain death as the neon lights of the New York night flash by me. My hair is whipping by my ears, my arms are flailing, and I’m definitely screaming. Everything is in slow motion. I twist and turn through the air, my body seemingly undecided between whether I should die looking at the stars, or the pavement.
This slow-motion allows me to reflect. Should I have said something? Why didn’t I ever get the courage to tell him how I feel? Is it better that I never got to express these feelings? I am speeding towards the ground right now, and my dying probably wouldn’t help our relationship. I’m weighing the pros and cons of my denial instead of, I don’t know, praying to God? I’m really avoiding my current problems, aren’t I?
Just before I had been thrown off the building, I had heard my name screamed into the night. Right before that, the sarcastic comment that got me thrown off the building had been made.
“Really, dude? Throwing people off buildings is super unoriginal. It already happened to me. You villains really need to think of new ways to threaten people.”
I would have said something, but I was too busy being thrown off the building at that point. Thanks, Leo, this is really how I wanted to spend my Friday night.
I hear my name screamed again, and I manage to look up. Oh, there’s someone else barreling towards the pavement with me; the very one causing all my feelings-- Donatello. His jetpack has bright blue flames bursting out into the air as he shoots after me. He’s not falling, he’s flying.
So he’s going to try and save me? That’s cliche. I’ll have to let him know that. Right now though, this is serious, and I’m scared as hell.
“Donnie!” I scream, trying to turn my body towards him and reaching out my arms. Tears brush up my face as I cry out to him. He looks about as scared as I feel.
How did this all happen? I think to myself as more tears escape from my eyes into the night.
It was a closing shift. Monday-- no, Tuesday night. That night I had been working at the pub. Tuesday nights were our slowest days, so it was only me and the cook. Nathan? I could never remember his name. I had locked the doors, counted the cash register, and waved goodnight to my coworker as they rushed out the building. Normally, we’re supposed to have two people in the building when we close, but he had a minor family emergency come up, and I had told him to go. I said I could handle doing the rest by myself.
There was nobody outside, as rain poured down and pounded the roof of the pub. Nobody wanted to be out in the rain at 10 pm on a Tuesday. I felt safe being alone. I was sweeping the floor, listening to the pitter-patter of the rain mixed with the music coming from my speaker. A good song came on, and I allowed myself to be unprofessional as I sang along and danced. The broom was both an excellent dance partner and microphone.
The place was almost perfectly clean when I thought I heard a noise. I was in the kitchen, and looked around, but saw nothing that could have fallen. I stopped singing, turned off my music, and listened. There was silence, but then, another noise. It sounded like a crash. I left the kitchen and went out to the bar. I heard another noise, it sounded like someone yelling. Was there a fight going on outside?
I crept to the front of the pub and looked out onto the street. It was empty. I shrugged internally. I guess I’m just imagining things. I thought to myself.
Then something smashed through the roof of the pub.
I leaped back and screamed. Then something else came crashing through the same hole, indenting the floor. I ran back to the bar and grabbed my broom-- it was now going to be my weapon. As I ran, two more things fell from the sky into the pub. I dove behind the bar and hid. I heard loud footsteps on the roof, then a loud voice rang out.
“You stupid turtles can’t beat me! This has been too easy!”.
Turtles?
I peeked over the bar. I looked up at the big hole in the roof and saw a creature standing in the rain looking down into the bar. It looked like some sort of human-lion hybrid, and it terrified me. Its fangs flashed in the light as it spoke. It started monologuing about how powerful it was, and I turned my attention to whoever this lion-person was talking to.
Four turtle-like people stood in the middle of the pub, all looking up at the lion with varying degrees of anger on their faces. I took in their outfits-- Red, Orange, Blue, and Purple-- and their weapons.
Are they superheroes? They must be wearing costumes. I thought to myself. This lion guy is monologuing, so he must be a villain? I was so confused. I had never heard of any superheroes in New York, but what other possibility was there? Who else would wear such strange costumes?
“You call this a fight?” The blue turtle suddenly spoke “I thought this was Yoga class!” he snickered.
“My horoscope didn’t mention anything about yoga.” The orange one chimed in “Then again, I’m not a Leo.”
“Yeah!” The red one cried “There can only be one Leo around here! You boys ready to finish this?”
I glanced at the purple one, expecting him to comment as well. He was on his phone, so maybe he wasn't paying attention- Wait, what? He was on his phone? What kind of heroes are they?
The lion-man let out a roar and lept at the turtles, teeth and claws bared. With surprising speed, the turtles all reacted and dodged. I watched with amazement as they fought with agility and skill. Each used their own weapon, but they worked together so well. I almost didn’t notice how destroyed the pub was becoming.
The tables and chairs of the pub became weapons and barricades, each being smashed into pieces after a few moments. Walls were smashed when impacted by a thrown turtle or lion. The floor began to catch fire due to the orange turtle’s wild weapon. My mouth fell open into a silent scream as the fight raged on.
Finally, after what seemed like hours of destroying my workplace, the team of turtles used their combined power to literally blast the lion man off into the sky. Of course, they didn’t use the hole in the roof they entered in, so as the lion shot off into the sky he smashed a second hole.
The turtles laughed and cheered at their victory. They high-fived and made comments and jokes about their battle skills and the patheticness of the villain. As they celebrated, I slowly stood up from behind the bar, dropping my broom in the process. It hit the ground with a clatter, and the turtles whipped their heads around to look at me. I almost laughed at the dumbfounded, horror-struck, and derpy looks on their faces.
Instead, I yelled, “You just destroyed the pub!” I paused, looked around, then shouted “I just cleaned this place!”.
“Uh-oh.” muttered the red one.
“Time to go!” the blue one shouted.
“Sorry about that, it’s part of the job description!” The orange one smiled.
“On the bright side, you’ll get overtime pay.” stated the purple one.
I rounded the bar and made my way towards them, speechless. Before I could get too close though, they all began leaping out through the hole in the roof and disappearing into the night. I broke into a sprint and just managed to tackle the purple one before he could leap after the other three.
“Ow! Get off of me!” he snapped as he tried to push me off. I tussled with him for a moment before he could shove me away, but I managed to grab onto his mask and pull it with me as I rolled away from him.
“You can’t just leave, I’ll get fired!” I cried at the floor “You guys have to help me clean this place!” I pleaded as I looked up into his eyes. I gasped as I saw his face. It was green. I looked to the mask in my hand, seeing that it was not a whole face mask as I had expected, but was more of a bandana. “Y-you’re not human?” I whispered, “You’re actually turtles?”.
“Mutants.” he sighed “Half human, half turtle.” He paused “Maybe half sheepman? No, that doesn’t mathematically make sense.” he muttered to himself.
I gaped at him, wide-eyed, then realized I was being extremely rude. Human or not, this guy got rid of that Lion man. I still needed his help cleaning. “Are you a superhero?” I asked, internally cursing for sounding so childish.
“Um. I guess, yeah.” He scratched the back of his head, then frowned “Can I have my mask back?”.
I blushed, realizing I still was holding the stolen piece of cloth. I held it out for him, then glanced down at it “Are those eyebrows drawn onto it?” I laughed.
“None of your business!” He snatched the mask back as I continued laughing “They help me portray my distaste much easier!” He pulled the mask on and stared at me, brows furrowed “See?”.
“I see.” I giggled. He scoffed at me, but I saw his lips twitch to a small smile, that quickly returned to a forced frown. I shot him a smile, then forced myself to stand up. “So, are you going to help me clean?”.
“Scoff. I don’t think so.” He stood up as well, and I saw how much taller he was than me.
“Why not? You said you’re a hero, right? That’s not a very good hero attitude, destroying my pub and then leaving me to clean up the mess and get fired? That’s pretty mean if you ask me.” I tapped my finger to my chin, closing my eyes, acting as if I was in deep thought.
I opened one eye to see him frowning at me. He was silent for a moment, frown deepening as he obviously thought the situation over. Eventually, he shouted “Fine!” and threw his arms into the air.
“Thank you!” I exhaled “My hero.”
And so, we began cleaning. The purple turtle, whose name I eventually learned was Donatello, patched the roof and repaired the floors and walls. He then rebuilt all the tables and chairs. I supervised and instructed him as to how they looked before, so that way the bosses would never notice. I learned very quickly that Donatello was extremely skilled with both tech and sarcastic comments.
“Oh yes, because your bosses are going to count every individual screw in the tables.” He quipped when I found a random screw on the ground.
“Shut up, or I’ll make you sweep the floors too!”
“I might as well, seeing as I’m the one doing all the hard work anyways.”
“I’m supervising!”
“I think you need a career change.”
I quickly found myself becoming comfortable around the turtle, despite only knowing him for a few hours. I shoved his arm as he snickered to himself, exaggerating my offense.
We continued to clean, but slowly we became less focused on the actual cleaning and more so on the conversation. We began talking about movies, theatre, and then music. I found my, thankfully intact, speaker and started playing the music I had been listening to before the fighting occurred. Donatello, who told me I could address him as ‘Donnie’, then complained and called it “Uninspired”. He then changed it to a different song, which I said “Sounded like a pubescent canary.”. This began a competition of music, as we took turns playing songs to outdo the other’s taste in music.
To try and outdo me, during one of his chosen songs, Donnie began to sing along with it dramatically. I found my inner theatre kid and did the same during my song, throwing in some dance moves to up the performance. Soon enough we were performing full-on Broadway-worthy acts.
The cleaning ended up being fully ignored as the night went on.
“You know what this reminds me of?” I laughed after a particularly intense dance and song routine from Donnie. He quirked an eyebrow, and taking that as an invitation to continue, I turned on the song ‘Anything you can Do.’
“Oh ho ho, musical theatre. You have just made your downfall.” He smirked evilly.
“Prove it.” I teased, and we began performing together.
As the song went on, at some point, he grabbed my hand and we began dancing. I tried to lead, but he ended up twirling me and I shoved him away by the time the song reached its end. I laughed as he did a deep bow and replied with a curtsy.
“I’d say we’re pretty even” I giggled.
“For once, I’ll agree with you.” He smiled.
I looked around at the pub. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than it was when Donnie’s brothers had abandoned him. It was late, and I felt exhausted from all the fun I’d been having. I turned back to Donatello and smiled.
“Thank you for helping tonight. I’m sorry I was so rude at the start, I was just kinda shocked.”
He seemed surprised by my apology, then played it off and rolled his eyes “Yeah, of course, anytime. I hope you don’t get fired.”
I laughed “Thanks.” I checked the time and cringed at how long we had ended up staying. “I should probably get home now.”
“Can I escort you home?” He said quickly, then coughed “I don’t want you to run into any creeps.”
I looked up at him, inspecting his face. He looked embarrassed and opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off “Yeah, that would be very appreciated.” I smiled warmly.
That was the first time I got home traveling by rooftop. I opened my front door and turned around to say goodbye, but he was gone by the time I had turned around. The next morning, I found a box of chocolate on my windowsill along with a note that read ‘My brothers owe you an apology, but they think chocolate is an acceptable way to say sorry. Feel free to chew them out, or to have more dance battles. -D’. The note had directions to their lair drawn on the back.
So, that was how I met them. And thinking about it, I had fallen pretty hard for Donnie but had just denied it. That was many months ago though, and right now I was still falling from the sky.
I reach my hands towards Donnie, who is getting closer to me thanks to his speeding jetpack. His hand stretches towards mine, and he manages to grab ahold of me. He pulls me into his chest and wraps his arms around me tightly.
“I’ve got you.” I hear him cry “Please, hold on.”
I grab his plastron and press my face into his neck. The jetpack jolts as we suddenly change directions, and Donnie yells as we fight the air currents. I don’t look down, I’m too scared that we’re still going to hit the ground.
“Come on, come on.” Donnie yells, then suddenly we’re shooting up into the sky away from the concrete “Yes!” he shouts excitedly, then whispers “You’re safe.”
My vision begins to darken as the fear and panic finally begin to affect my body. I close my eyes and let the darkness overtake my vision as Donnie’s arms squeeze tightly around me.
“You’re safe.” Is the last thing I hear Donnie say before I pass out.