Chapter Text
It’s just a Tuesday when the worst happens. A very average Tuesday in most ways. The boys woke him up early with some argument over the distribution of tinker toys, Raphael broke a plastic spoon trying to stab Michelangelo with it, and Leonardo sat for at least an hour mimicking the voices on the television. Splinter is being their father as best he can, collecting food and supplies to make sure they have enough, and considering--well, everything --all is fine.
Except that something in the air feels wrong.
It has no smell or taste, yet it’s just as rancid as the sensation five years ago when he first entered the sewers to hide. His ears prick up, on edge despite the silence, and he can feel the hairs on his neck rise with unease.
Maybe that’s what it is, he thinks to himself as he approaches the entrance to his makeshift family home. It’s…too quiet.
He quickly sets down the basket of scavenged groceries and tightens his grip on his staff, then hesitantly rounds the corner toward the entrance. There’s only an old curtain between the hideout and the subway tracks, and as he’s discovered, five-year-old turtle boys are not any quieter than five-year-old human boys. There should be a sound.
To his further surprise, the curtain is half-open.
“Boys,” he mutters under his breath, “you had better not have run off and done something stupid.”
Perhaps they’re hiding to prank him, or they decided to take a nap (admittedly, he’s reaching with that one).
The fearful part of his nature almost doesn’t want to move a muscle, to ever arrive at the next moment ( just in case it’s like last time because it can’t be like last time he cannot lose anyone else--). But he breathes out the thought, pushes open the curtain the rest of the way, and steps into his home.
His heart sinks into his stomach like it’s made of lead.
The place is wrecked. Furniture and toys are strewn about. A chair is broken. The tiny television he salvaged a year ago so the boys could watch cartoons (and he could have a few moments of peace) lies face down on the floor, shattered pieces of the screen surrounding it. Every drawer in the room hangs open, its contents either gone or shuffled around.
No amount of martial arts training or meditation can mitigate the way his heart rate is rising now.
“Boys?” He calls out, quickly wading through the chaos to check the other rooms. “Leonardo? Raphael?”
The silence is sickening, and their bedroom is empty, rummaged through like the rest.
“Donatello?” he calls out, sliding open the door to the half-set-up room he’d planned to use as a dojo eventually.
“Michelangelo…?” he nearly whispers it this time, the quiet horror rising up in his throat.
Weapons are lying around on the floor. The sapling he only just planted in a little patch of earth has been cut to pieces. Why? What was the purpose of the destruction?
And then he sees it. Near the tree, next to an old sai of his.
A small puddle of dark red.
He rushes to the spot.
“No,” he breathes, shakily brushing his hand over the nearly-dried substance.
It’s not enough for a kill; he understands this, logically. But all his heart rate knows is that they’re hurt and they’re gone and he has no idea where and it could be Shredder it could be him he could be back to take everything that’s left and worse if it’s not Shredder he has no idea who it could be and time is ticking ticking ticking--
His breathing becomes shallow and ragged as his mind fills with old visions of blood and fire and crashing wood and the dread of never hearing Miwa’s cry again. His hands curl into fists so tightly that his whole body trembles. There is no wisdom he can quote, no solace he can fall back on. Only the burning pain of realization that his second family has been ripped away from him as cruelly as the first. He slowly gets to his feet, unable to steady his breathing for even a moment.
“Rraaaaaagh!” he screams into the emptiness, slashing at what’s left of the torn-up tree until it falls to pieces.
Then he sinks to his knees, sobs slowly tearing through his body. He buries his face in his hands. Devastation roots deep in his chest, decomposing into the most powerful well of fuel some ever know-- rage. There is enough of it, he thinks, between this time and the last, to keep his soul burning for a lifetime now.
“My sons,” he chokes out in a whisper, “I will find you. And whoever took you…will never know mercy from me.”