Work Text:
It has been months now as you silently watched the four brothers. Each one had their own set of hobbies and you were set on getting the perfect christmas gift for them. This mission had all started whenever you had first met the turtles. It was around valentines day. You were aware that not everyone celebrated the holidays, but it seemed like the turtles were excited about it.
You quickly realized that it was a day that they set aside for some family time as well as to show their affections towards one another without making it weird. It was their own version of the holiday and you loved it. Obviously, having just met them, you had just sat back and enjoyed the games instead of participating in the exchanging of gifts. Besides, you had barely known them, so giving them something for Valentine's day would have been weird.
It was a rather enjoyable day and your affections towards the turtles grew. Months passed as you started to get to know them better to the point of being a member of the team. It had honestly warmed your heart. You didn't care that they were different from you. You cared about each and every one of them. As you got closer to the holidays, the determination to find the perfect Christmas gift for them grew. That is when your investigation began.
----------
It started with Mikey. He was the easiest to get to know. He was a very talkative and hyperactive person. You both bonded over your love of video games, comics, and cooking. Throughout your bonding, you quickly came to realize that Mikey probably had undiagnosed ADHD. That didn't bother you though. You had friends with similar issues.
Your understanding of Mikey only grew during one game night. Unbeknownst to you, Mikey was having one of the worst days of his life. It had all started with the awful nightmare he had the night before. It was all of his greatest fears put into one dreadful moment. He was called useless and bullied by his brothers, he was disowned by his father, and then he was left alone forever. He had woken up around 1 in the morning, shaking and crying, and stayed like that for a couple hours after that.
He had finally calmed down enough around the time his other brothers were getting up. He stayed rather distant from them throughout the day. His only focus was to forget the dream, but he couldn't. Everything kept getting worse. He did bad at practice. He did bad at the training exercise and he did bad at the new food he was trying to make. It was just awful.
He hoped his day would get better as he had a game night with you, but that was the final straw. He kept losing, which you had quickly noticed. After 8 losses in a row, you finally paused the game and turned to look at him. He was crying. You asked him what was wrong and he told you.
His head was pounding and everything was too loud and too bright. His breathing became even more erratic and his sobbing got louder. He was having a panic attack mixed with a sensory overload. That was not a fun deal. You quickly turned off the TV and nearby lights. You have had similar experiences and tried to help him through it.
You both sat there in the middle of the living room floor. You held his hands in yours and talked to him softly the whole time. He had seemed to shut down halfway through. He was not really talking. He only responded in grunts and whimpers. This concerned you more.
You continued this soft talking and slowly pulled him out of his panic. You were both exhausted, but he was more than you. Making the executive decision, you leaned up against the couch and pulled him into your lap. Albeit, it was a bit awkward, but you made it work. You covered him and yourself up in a blanket. He quickly fell into a deep sleep.You had turned on a movie to entertain yourself. You fell asleep a few hours after.
Of course, you were both teased in the morning, mostly by Raph, due to having been cuddling when you woke up. Both of you didn't care. You had grown closer and more understanding of one another after that one night. That was all you could ask for.
----------
The next easiest person to get to know would have had to be Donnie. While he did have some heavy boundaries when it came to touching his stuff, he was a rather fun person to be around. He loved to talk about his ideas and inventions and you loved to listen to them. It wasn't hard to listen to him, but he seemed shocked by the prospect that you would want to actually listen to him. His shock also seemed to grow as he did not have to dumb it down for you. Instead, you let him ramble on and on. Whenever you did not understand something, you asked what it was which furthered his rambling.
Your understanding of Donnie grew during a random hangout in the lab. You had gotten bored of watching Mikey play games and the others were busy doing their own thing, so you decided to bug Donnie in the lab. You hadn't seen him in a couple hours and wondered if he did this often. It wasn't healthy for him to stay cooped up all the time.
Walking into the lab, You immediately noticed the smell of motor oil and loud thunking coming from under the van. You easily joined Donnie underneath the van and unintentionally scared the living crap out of him which caused you to burst out laughing. For a ninja, he was rather unobservant at times. After the small laugh, you helped him fix up the van as best as you could. Apparently, it got broken during the last mission and since you were on said last mission, you deemed it fair to help fix the damage. Being a team also meant helping others with the mistakes you caused during missions and the damage to the van was a mistake.
The time flew by as you both worked. It wasn't until almost eleven at night did you guys notice how late it had gotten. Instead of walking home, you decided to just crash in the living room for the night. As you were getting ready to sleep, you noticed that Donnie was not stopping. This caused you to frown. You both had been working nonstop for hours now. He needed a break.
Slipping into the kitchen, you start quietly rummaging around. After a moment, you found the things you needed. You were making your own bedtime tea recipe. You had come up with it years ago to help fix your own sleeping problems. You didn't use it as much anymore, but decided that tonight was the night for it.
As the tea steeped, you dug around the cupboards again. You pulled out a couple of mugs. You ignored the slight chips and broken off pieces that were on them. The turtles lived in the sewers. They made due with what they had and you couldn't judge them for that. Pouring the sweet smelling tea into the mugs, you cleaned up your mess and left the kitchen.
Donnie only noticed your arrival once you set the mug down beside him. He was again busy with his work. You knew that coffee was more his cup of tea, joke intended, but either way he accepted the warm beverage. You both talked for a while and you kept noticing the pauses in conversation as Donnie tried to stay awake. A few more minutes of this and you finally sigh.
Setting your cup down, you grabbed Donnie by the arm and gently dragged him up out of his chair. You ignored his protest and firmly told him that he needed rest. You continued your small rant softly as you dragged him to his room. You implied that he needed to take better care of himself, and even if he was healthy and active, then he needed rest to balance out all this activity.
You had finally entered his room and lightly pushed him towards the bed. You closed the door behind you and crossed your arms. You were not intending to leave until he was asleep. You knew he would just sneak out if you went back to the living room. Instead, you motion for him to scoot over. He quickly complied though you couldn't help but notice the light blush on his face.
You curled up into him. He was warmer compared to the cooler air of the lair. It took a couple moments, but you both relaxed into one another. About thirty minutes into your cuddle session, you both slowly fell asleep.
Sadly, both of you were woken up by Mikey due to his reasoning of you guys needing brunch. Luckily enough, the others had let both of you skip early morning training. Again, there was some teasing from the others, but it didn't matter.
During your time with Donnie, you came to realize that he pushed himself due to the fact he viewed himself as the person who needed to fix everything. He was the most technologically advanced, so this further pushed his notion that he was the one who had to make things right. Even if there were other people that could do it, he had to do it. This delved into him being a slight control freak and these controlling tendencies caused you to believe that he most likely had some form of OCD. This is why he is so territorial when it comes to his things or when it comes to doing certain things for the team. There is nothing wrong with that, but it also made his burdens much larger than he could manage. These were only some of the observations you made about Donnie during this day of hangout sessions. Your understanding of him only grew as you continued to get to know him.
----------
After getting to know the two younger brothers, Leo seemed to warm up to you as well. While he wasn't particularly distant at first, he wasn't really open to you either. He still was trying to hold this leader type position towards you. He was trying to prove that he had everything under control. You meeting them was just an accident, but he was still nice.
You assumed he acted like this because he did not trust you. You found that fair. A simple click of a button on your end could ruin their life. But it seemed that since you got to know Donnie and Mikey that he had lost the constant leader act. He became more relaxed and comfortable around you. He wasn't worried about you ruining his family's life.
Your connection and understanding of Leo grew after a late night of getting home from patrol. It hadn't gone the greatest. All of you came back with minor injuries. It frustrated Leo to no end. He viewed this patrol as a failure because of his leadership skills not being up for the task. He became distant from the rest of you after you got home. You did notice he had a brief talk with Splinter, but other than that he had disappeared to his room. It was after most of the others went to bed that you decided to check on him.
You knocked softly on his door. It took a moment, but he finally muttered a soft come in. Smiling a bit, you made your way inside. His room was the cleanest out of all of the turtles. It was well organized, but you couldn’t help but notice the Space Hero memorabilia that he had. After your brief glance around, you finally turned your attention back to Leo. He seemed a bit down as he sat on his bed. His shoulders were slumped and he wasn’t really making eye contact with you. You gently reached out and grabbed his face with your hands. He had a confused look on his face.
Chuckling a bit, you leaned forward and lightly kissed his forehead. You ignored the dark red blush that crossed his cheeks. You told him that he did great tonight and that they wouldn’t have gotten out of there alive without his quick thinking. He seemed to relax into your touch before he reached out and pulled you into a hug. He muttered a soft thank you. You smiled a bit and offered to watch Space Heroes with him to help cheer him up. He happily agreed.
You both made your way quietly down the stairs. You didn’t want to accidentally wake up the others. You gathered some blankets as Leo turned on the recordings. Before starting, you made your way into the kitchen to make some tea and popcorn. It took about ten minutes, but you guys were finally situated. Both of you binged watched the series for hours. It seemed like Leo had most of the episodes memorized. It also seemed like he had finally stopped punishing himself over today’s events. The failed mission was out of his head and he had finally accepted what had happened.
After the first few hours of binge watching, you had finally fallen asleep. You woke up the next morning with Leo gone, but you quickly noticed the sound of fighting coming from the dojo area. You decided that he had gone to early morning training. You sat up and the sound of paper crinkling hit your ears. You finally noticed the note tucked under your arm. Confused, you grabbed it and did a quick once over. You smiled as a warm wave of emotions hit you. It was a thank you letter from Leo.
Your understanding of him had grown like it did with other hang out sessions you had with the other turtles. You came to realize that Leo deeply cared about each member of his family and every one of his friends. He felt awful and seemed to hold in guilt when one of them became hurt or injured under his orders. It seemed like he never wanted someone to get hurt because of him. If someone did, he held himself accountable instead of the actions of his enemies. With that guilt and responsibility came a ton of stress and worries. Though, throughout all of this, he was a generally hilarious person. He seemed to love the humor in Space Heros and made some pretty hilarious jokes as you guys had binge watched the series. Despite all of this, You hoped he would learn that he could talk to you or someone else in the team if the stressful emotions became too much for him.
----------
Raph was one of the last and hardest brother to get to know. He was always distant and aloof towards you. You tried to get to know him, but he either ignored your attempts or exploded in anger whenever you went too far. It wasn’t until you took a hit for one of his brothers did he finally accept you into the group. To be specific, it was a hit aimed towards mikey. It could have gravely injured him, but you jumped in the way at the last moment. The weapon went deep into your shoulder, yet everyone agreed that it was better than mikey’s neck.
You had promptly fallen to the ground clutching your shoulder in pain. The turtles quickly took care of the rest of the enemies before coming to your aid. Your vision had become blurry as an unwarranted amount of pain hit you. The last thing you remember was a blob of red and green and your body being picked up off the ground.
You woke up hours later. Your wounds were stitched and wrapped and sitting next to you in a chair was Raph. You were a bit confused as to why he was here, but shrugged it off. You viewed it as a way to spend some much needed time with him. You turned your body and propped yourself up with your uninjured arm. You stared at him for a bit. He blankly stared back before sighing.
He muttered a soft thank you for saving his little brother, because he couldn't in that moment. You smiled lightly. He really did care under all that anger. You wondered if anger was the only way he knew how to express himself. You nodded over at him and said it was no problem. You did love them all and one of them dying was not gonna happen under your watch.
Raph noticed the sudden yawn that overtook you. You did have a long night after all. He stood up as you tried to get comfortable in the uncomfortable metal table of sorts. He, again, did notice your discomforts.
Sighing, he gently lifted you up into his arms. Something clicked within your brain at that moment. It had been Raph that had carried you back to the lair. You smiled a bit, a light blush on your face, as Raph carried you to his room.
He gently placed you in his bed. He got comfortable beside you. You waited for him to settle down before curling up into him. You made sure your injured shoulder would not get hurt worse throughout the night before going into a comfortable sleep.
You woke up the next morning to Raph trying to awkwardly climb out of bed. It was obvious he was trying to not wake you up. You were a bit groggy, but just muttered a soft good morning. You curled back into a cocoon and slept for a few more hours. Unlike the others, you weren't teased by anyone for sleeping in the same room as Raph. You assumed he had shut that down earlier in the day.
Throughout that interaction, you learned that Raph wasn't as mean as he seemed. He was actually a huge softie when it came to people he cared about. He had a desperate urge to protect his family, so meeting and accepting new people wasn't his strongest suit. Anger is the easiest emotion he knows how to express, so he uses it to cover up things like worry or doubt. This is why his temper is short compared to others. But even through all of this, he still cares. He cares to the point it hurts. Learning this about him really helped you understand him better. This only made it easier for you to get closer to him throughout the rest of those months.
----------
It was Christmas Day. The day you had been waiting for ever since you had met the turtles. It had taken all months to get to know each turtle on a personal level. For some longer than others, but eventually it had gotten there. You were all friends and dare you even say family now. After all that, it was time to give them their perfect gifts.
----------
It started with Mikey. He delicately opened the first gift in his pile. His eyes widened in amazement at the new set of mixing bowls he got. They were a deep orange color and they were made out of this lightweight glass. He opened the gift further to reveal the other cooking utensils. Along with the mixing bowl, the set came with new glass measuring cups, new spoons and spatulas, pots and pans, and anything cooking related you could think of. It was like you just bought him a full set of kitchen supplies. This set of clean new dishes was not someone's garbage he dug out of the trash, but something new and fresh and it was just for him.
Gently setting that aside, Mikey grabbed another gift and continued along. The next gift was a set of recipe books. It ranged from simple soups to delicate desserts. It was something he could use to further explore the culinary arts he was interested in. You had heard about some of the monstrosities he had attempted to make and decided that having some recipes to follow along would work better in the long run.
The final gift he got was a new set of comics. You had noticed the love he had for super-hero type comic books and was surprised by how he didn't have any from the Marvel or DC universe. You had decided to get him a mixture from both Universes. You didn't particularly know what superheros he would like, so you got multiple comics within the different universes.
Mikey was at a loss for words. Each item had a significant meaning to him. He also couldn't help but notice how each item he had was thoroughly thought out for him. He loved cooking and comics and you getting some for him brought a new wave of emotions. He was happy how someone had taken notice of him and didn't bash him for what he liked. Along with this, he couldn't help but notice how each of his items were new. They weren't someone else's garbage. It was his and no one else's beforehand.
----------
Next up was Donnie. He eagerly ripped into his first present and froze. Inside was a perfectly new tool set. He hesitantly opened the box and was amazed to see the pristine condition of the various tools. There were screwdrivers, wrenches, ratchets, pliers, and various other tools you couldn't place. He seemed to hesitantly run his fingers along each and every item inside. Before he could ravel more into the new tools, Raph snapped him out of it by telling him to hurry up.
Donnie reluctantly grabbed the next gift, and a bit more slower than earlier, opened his gift. Inside was the biggest thing of coffee you could imagine. You knew you were fueling an addiction whenever you bought that, but you didn't care. Donnie chuckled a bit at this before grabbing the next item. He found wrapped in bubble wrap was a purple colored mug. It had the chemical equation of coffee on it. This brought a genuine laugh out of him. You felt like you could see his eyes sparkling.
His attention went solely back to his new tool set as he was finally done opening the rest of his presents. He had never had a complete set before. It was usually tools he found left by construction workers or ones left in the trash. If not, they were something he had to make himself and they usually only lasted for a couple weeks. This gift was the most thoughtful and useful he had ever received from someone. He was touched. He didn’t know how he could repay you for this sort of gift. He cleared his throat a bit to stop the small lump forming. He was too stubborn to cry in front of his brothers. He glanced over at you thankfully as Raph began with his gifts.
----------
Raph grabbed the first box out of his small pile of gifts. It was very lightweight and oddly shaped like a book. You tried to resist the urge to laugh as he finally pulled apart the wrapping paper. It was a book titled “How to Control Your Anger and Other Anger Management Skills” Raph gave you a deadpanned look as the rest of the group bursted into uncontrollable laughter. You couldn’t help it. You had to get him at least one joke gift. You gave him a sheepish grin as he grabbed the next item in the pile.
He, a bit more roughly, grabbed onto another gift in the pile. He grumbled a bit, but quickly stopped as he stared at the knitting supplies he held. He had taken up the hobby months ago, but he had tried to keep it a secret. Unfortunately, you had quickly picked up on the new hobby. You had noticed the supplies scattered about his bedroom every so often when you entered to get something. You couldn’t help but notice the lack of materials, so in order to fix that, you decided that he needed some.
The gift he held in his hands was an assortment of tools he would need. Along with that, there were also various types of fabric and yarn that he could use for his creations.
Finally, he grabbed the last gift. It was mildly heavier than the other items so it did make him curious. He tore through the wrapping paper and a grin formed on his face.
Inside was a delicately made dagger. There were small writings in Japanese that depicted different forms of strength through various methods such as poetry or simple sentences. With it this item came different tools that allowed you to care for weapons. There were whetstone for sharpening his weapon or oils and waxes to polish his weapon, etc.
Raph was stunned into silence. The weapon was beautifully made. It had a pretty sharp edge so it could easily be used for his fighting. Along with the other gifts, he couldn't quite think of a way to thank you. He gave a light nod of acknowledgement towards you, before all eyes turned to the last gift opener.
----------
Leo had been waiting patiently for his turn. This year they had decided that they would do the presents from youngest to oldest. Raph and him had sadly lost the vote. Master Splinter had been the deciding factor in it all.
Clearing his mind, Leo grabbed onto the first gift. It was a lighter box and it did make a rattling sound whenever he shook it earlier. Curiously, he ripped open the paper. Inside was a huge box of tea. It had various flavors, such as lemon honey or chai, but these flavors started to become more exotic and interesting as he continued to glance between the flavors. It was nice. He loved tea. It was one of his favorite drinks.
Smiling, he grabbed onto the next gift. It was heavy compared to the previous one. Peeling the wrapping paper away, he was met with more paper wrapped around the object. It was labeled as fragile. Hopefully in this household it won't get broken.
Ignoring his thoughts, he pulled away the rest of the paper and froze. Inside was a beautifully made tea set. It came with a pot and six cups. It was a matching set. The design was incredible. It had a white background and it had depictions of the ancient Japanese zodiac and other ancient history within Japanese culture. It was priceless.
Leo tenderly examined each of the items of this gift. He couldn't express in words how much it touched his heart. He was always learning and keeping things for their history. This was something he would never want to lose. Taking in a deep breath, he grabbed onto the next present. It was put in a rather large box, so he was curious to figure out what it was.
Opening the gift, Leo grinned in excitement. Inside was a complete collection of the comic books Space Heroes. Some artists had turned the series into a comic book series or the TV series was based on the comics. Either way, you weren't sure. Hopefully, he liked his gift. Of course, Leo could not help his little squeal of excitement. He denied that it happened later though. Leo seemed to glance through them all and had to resist the urge to start reading immediately. He was happy with the gifts he received. It really showed how you cared for him and didn't mind his childish hobbies. It brought him joy.
----------
You sat back as you watched them all open their gifts. Each of them taking the time and effort to examine and appreciate them really warmed your heart. It had taken you months to figure out what to get them, but you were satisfied. You hoped that your gifts helped them in some way. You hoped that they were the perfect gifts.