Archive of Our Own ^beta

So there's a pattern, right—but there's always a pattern. See that red thread? It runs through the order that holds all these worlds together. Invisible yet necessary. Which is to say: this is a story about lineages, but mostly about Leonardo Hamato's shit luck.

But you already know that, don't you?

So get this, right: in one corner of our unfurling universe, one Leonardo unwraps twin blades, a gift from his father. Thinks, haha, sweet! Maybe I'll play with them for a bit, but there's no getting off this ride, not really.

He's thirteen when Splinter appoints him leader. It's crazy fun. And then he's sixteen, and people want them de-shelled, and it's no longer fun, no longer the shiny cool thing he gets to lord over his brothers—like getting to pick the day's pizza flavor, leader privileges, baby.

Even Raph stops pestering Splinter to take the title back, which is all good and fair; Leo just wishes this whole situation came with an instruction manual: How Not To Lose Your Shit, A Handbook for Clan Leaders Who are Teenage and Also Mutant, but Leonardo can't have everything, can he.

In another world, a bootleg Space Trek cartoon gives him a bad idea. Then he asks something that has all his dimensional alters groaning across the space-time continuum:

Can I be leader?

So the kid gets all the important Leo bits in his dimensional Leo shit-pizza, only with a few extra toppings: he's the youngest, for one, of all Leonardos to master his niten-ryu. First to taste this Mikey's chef-d-oeuvre—his candied bacon with sour patches cheese pizza. And what other Leonardo can say they got a custom-made, futuristic prosthetic leg, courtesy of this world's Donatello himself?

Fucked up knee aside, it's the most radical, space-punk he's ever felt, and maybe Leo will never be the same wide-eyed kid he was before flying through that window, but back to the leg though; can we talk about the leg?

It's a pretty cool leg, Raphael agrees, gruff.

Just 'cool'? He's like, a freakin' turtle robot, Mikey crows.

Cyborg, Donnie corrects. The technical term would be—

Thank you, Raph, Leo says. And thank you, Donnie.

Ninja cyborg, Mikey repeats. Cyborg... ninja?

And Leo closes his eyes with a smile, letting his brothers fawn over him, a kind of loving attention that seals all cracks, washing over like a salve.

Feeling frisky, the universe shuffles the leader's role around. It dangles it over Raphael's head for a bit—the big brother in this iteration—before eventually dropping it on Leonardo's lap, like a game of hot potato. Didn't see that coming? Or what of the way he gains renown in NYC's crooked underbelly, years later when their father's murder scatters them out into the streets? Red thread, baby. Patterns. In some part of his soul, Leo has always known. It has to be him.

Any crook worth their salt knows what it means, to see those red crescent stripes emerge from a dark alley. Their own end suspended in the air like a blade in wait.

There's our superstar, Donnie mocks as Leo returns to the lair, gore freckling his face, and Leo has never felt this close to his father in his life.

Down another branch of reality, Leonardo loses a war, his genius brother, his eyesight, and his father—not necessarily in that order. At least he still has his old tricks. Father was right about meditation, he thinks, floating above his war-ravaged body. This shit fucks.

In another, Leonardo gets sent to Central America for a year. A whole glistening year, fat with freedom. He’d cared little about topside before this—and why would he, when his family had been his entire world? But every sunrise in the strange new country is revelatory. At night, a creeping vine of wonder tendrils through him, budding with new grief: how little he’s lived; how long he and his brothers subsisted on scraps of a life.

One day Leo looks out over an ocean of trees, and something bright pools in his chest, dewing with hope. He thinks, what if—then pops that helium balloon with a nick of his blade. A week later, April finds him in the forest, casts the final hook in his heart. Your brothers need you back home, she pleads, and it startles a laugh out of him. Can't she see Leo's never left?

It's kind of my Thing™, concurs the Leonardo in the prison dimension, humming one of Donnie's awful Vocaloid tunes until—wait, what was he doing again?

He drifts until he loses the lyrics, full electronic synths, the memory of his brothers' voices, then his own mind; drifts like a slow fade that doesn't know how to finish. So much more topside had to offer, and his brothers were all brimming with possibility; Leo always knew he'd be the last to go, the one still holding on.

Out here nothing but purgatory and dead comets and the Kraang's ancient rage, and still Leo holds on. He holds on for as long as he can. Blueing, blueing, gone. And the universe stills.

Pulses twice—

And spits out a brand new star of a world, whorling with the violence of its predecessor in brutal technicolor. You already know how this one goes.

And so Leonardo inherits the war.

And he takes up the task.

And he faces the tyrant.

And he cuts off the fucker's head. And cuts off his head. And cuts off his head.

Who keeps putting these damn weirdos in his path, anyway? A better question would be: who keeps sliding a sword in this kid's hand? There are no good enough answers. Rumor has it we're still waiting. The Eternal Shit-Pizza Supreme In the Sky has offered him one (1) powered-up pinball, but someone has jammed the keys. He keeps tripping down sewer drains, waking up with broken swords in his hands. Blood slicking his grip, so thick he can't tell if it's his own or someone else's—someone he must've loved, only he can't remember the words, can't be anything other than the blade his father forged him to be.

It's always here that he sees it most clearly: the shape of the thing circling the dark drain of all he is.

You know, it tells him, all this could be different.

Leo knows this. He knows.

Mercifully, no one yet has cornered him to confess what he wants; that dark vortex, always tugging.

He's afraid, is the thing. Of what, exactly? Everything, maybe. Every dark, improbable wanting that'll come hurtling out of him, looking very little like the life he's been given.

Maybe there's nothing he wants. He's afraid of that, too.

Are we only ever going to be what was done to us?

Splinter replies, meditate with me, my son.

Shakily, Leo nods, sits, and closes his eyes to the question. His father's silence ringing, like tinnitus, with all the disquiet of a world after a bomb has kissed it.

So there's room for flux—but there's always room for flux. Tiny, trivial variables. Nothing to be worried about.

Like that offshoot dimension where Leonardo is a chakram master and owns a truck driver’s license. Or that universe parked in the back, where Leo's the purple one. Another where Draxum raises him, never speaks of the three other boys who look just like him, dream like him. Or that sparkly, swirly reality where he gets to be inexorably, radiantly gay, in every sense of the word.

Again, nothing to be worried about.

The thread connects them all, you see.

Energy discharged in one corner ripples across the rest. Small shifts become big ones. Then big ones become massive. And by then it's too late; we've fucked it all up in the best unplanned way, things are spilling over—into a new vein, headed faithfully towards an empty basin of nothing where something new and untold can exist.

This Leo looks over his shoulder and sees it: all the pasts that make this present possible. All his debts lined up. Too many to count. Every small kindness, every wishing coin thrown his way:

Green peppers in his pizza, because Mikey never forgot his order. Raphael, the long days after Leo's coma; the strength and tenderness he bellied cleaning Leo's shell, flinching from nothing. A rose from a stranger. The day Leo's cataracts finally glazed over, and Donnie had read to him each of Usagi's meandering letters in five different accents. Casey Jr.'s bright, unruly laugh; a second chance. Splinter saying, my son, with pride so fierce and iridescent Leo felt closer to a winged thing than anything shelled. Loving; loving; being loved.

Leo picks one of these at random, puts it up to the light: that summer he and Raph try on the cloaking brooch for the first time. Little sibling rendevous in a fine-dining restaurant; four toddlers in a coat. You think, maybe—Leo starts, something old and lonely like an eel coiling around his heart while he watches the couple seated next to their table. So much love in their eyes, their future assured, maybe two kids, a cat, and a loft too, the one with an extra guest room, because that's how you know you've made it in the city—you think, I don't know, there'll be someone out there for us, maybe?—and it would've been so easy, to be cruel. To rain a cloud of hail on Leo's ridiculous parade.

Instead, Raph says, no offense, Fearless, you're a kind of a little homely-lookin’, and you snore like the fucking subway train that screeches on top of the lair—but if it's you? Hey, why not. I see it. Heh. Loverboy. Why, what's up?

Nothing, Leo says, just thinking. And, stop smirking Raphael, I said it's not a big deal. And if I'm ugly, you are too, we're related, dumbass.

Yer a dumbass, Raph shoots back. Ooh, bread basket's here.

Leo will never tell him, but on his lowest days, it's this memory he keeps turning like a rosetta stone, over and over, rereading his brother's promise, those silly words that saved his life.

It shouldn't be enough. There are far too many universes where Leonardo still loses the brother, the arm, his mind in a shape-shifting fox's snare, still dies at 22, because death loved his warrior's spirit so—and yet.

Every stray kindness ricochets off into the dark to shake itself loose. A plink in the bucket, but water all the same. It collects, brims—

Spills over—

A new universe in the game.

Booting up. The words START blinking across the welcome screen.

And in a timeline not so different from our own, almost-like-the-prime-branch-but-not-really, Splinter gives his son a gift.

Do you want this?

A choice.

A split-second of shock. The scabbards polished, untouched. Unfortunately, Leonardos will be Leonardos, so he picks up the swords. Later, he will learn to exorcise that need to bleed for something, anything, but for now, Splinter nods, turning a watchful eye to his sons over the years.

This Splinter is healing in a way his alters never had a chance to. He meets allies. People like him, who've been turned against his will, who kick his self-isolating ass every few days out of the dojo and into the world above, where every so often the rain turns the air sweet. And sometimes, even sweeter: a stranger ushering you under their umbrella.

Under his tutelage, the world not something to be kept out. When he meditates, it's to hold this moment a little longer. When he leaves, it will be from old age—not from any blade.

In this version, the boys make moorings in the Hidden City. A second home. Sky under which to walk freely. On bad days, a quarter-life crisis. On good days, friends. And so the boys choose each other, not because they are all they have, but because this city makes the choice as easy and clear as air. When they dream, it's large enough for more than four children to live inside it.

Subtract the war, the hundred-year grudge, the seeds of fear that garden into rage and more rage, and what's left?

No mad scientists, no armored van lying in wait? No cursed dark armor, alien overlords; no haunted lineages that stink of blood and vomit and ash?

Perhaps it looks a little like this world: Raphael tending to his farm with his four brown chickens. Occasionally, with Casey. Later putting up a farm-to-table restaurant that Donnie most frequents, who only always orders a single shot of espresso, because it drives Raph crazy; maybe it’s like this Michelangelo, a great mystic apprentice in the Hidden City. Expending his vast stores of youthful, kinetic energy on training, the yokai gig economy, and fun community nights at the shelter; or this Donatello, who enjoys shared living with his father but indulges in a weekend habit of building playthings for the future with an agri-tech startup. Dreaming, feverishly, for other mutants. For people who look like him, who kept themselves alive in a city that once wanted them out.

It’s a world you can settle your roots in. Instead, Leonardo is a restless thing; he keeps waiting for the plot twist, for the grand pyramid scheme of his life to topple over.

By Mikey's repeated (and terrifying) insistence, Leo puts on a cloaking brooch one Tuesday and goes topside, so he can go on a real break without checking in on us all the damn time—go on, go. Sheesh!

So he takes the first bus. Gets off at the harbor. Tosses a couple of salted peanuts in his mouth, then some to the pigeons. Answers a crossword puzzle on a street bench. Then he hears it: a deep horn rumbling out of the air, from a bulk carrier ship in the distance. One by one, Leo watches landlocked ships slide into glassy waters and vanish into pinpricks behind the sea. The ships, he imagines they all just keep going, even if he can't see them anymore. Into the next island, next shore, next world. So much world he hasn't seen. He thinks of his old friend Usagi—traveling dimensions, his pockets always full of stories and odd trinkets.

For one clear, distilled moment, Leo imagines himself welcomed home from one of those ships, jangling from all his adventures—and his chest plummets past the lip of a tectonic plate.

For weeks, he feels wretched. Leonardo, the world’s lousiest brother. And then one day, he wakes up with the ache dulled into a bearable hurt.

He talks to the only person he can face without breaking down. These days Mikey doesn't need a cloaking brooch to walk topside; a near-master now, he's perfected the spell: oversized printed shirt and denim jeans, orange beanie over tufts of soft curls, a sprinkle of freckles, little gap tooth (a personal touch he stole from Donnie). Seated side by side on the bench by the harbor, Leo watches his baby brother scarf down a colossal chicken parm sandwich and feels his own heart widen into a plate of delicious, giggly joy.

Mikey lets out a huge, long, wet, burp. Impressive. Leo says, reaching out to swipe the marinara sauce from his chin. A solid 8/10, even.

Now you, Mikey says.

Leo burps something passable, but it's obnoxious in the open-air promenade. A passerby shoots them a withering look. Mikey explodes into applause as Leo shrinks in his seat. Still got it, Mikey says. Anyway, why this place? Raph will be so royally pissed we're not doin’ lunch at his restaurant. What happened to honor? It's the family code, bro!

Try telling him about honor next time you ask for a discount.

Aw, c'mon Leo, it's just business. You know Raph's got our back when it really counts. Mikey stops chewing when he notices Leo's gone still, like he'd just shattered something important all over the floor. Something wrong?

I think so, Leo wants to say. Something inside me is changing.

This morning, he woke up with a getaway car in his chest, the engine rumbling, key in the ignition, and he was so sure that somehow, somehow he'd been given a chance he'd never had. All his life bad dreams had followed him—someone’s hand crushing his throat, pushing him down a tall height; glass splintering like light around him—and he knows has to do it now, or he never will.

The path ahead of him vanishes softly in ocean fog.

Mikey says, Talk to me, Leo.

There's a boat leaving later, Leo tells him.

Mikey's eyes, blue with knowing. Yeah?

I— The ticket burns a hole through Leo's pocket. I don't know when it's coming back.

In another universe, Leo watches the years twist his brother into a vile, hunted thing. It's your fault, Leo. Watches as a ghost, from an uncrossable distance, as another sword fails to lay his baby brother to rest; violence after violence. Why'd you leave me?

In this version, Mikey sits and listens while the unthinkable rends Leo apart. Leo tells him the plan. Just a year, maybe two. More. He'll find Usagi, he promises, he won't be alone. The world is a big place. It’s so big, Mikey, did you know?

Someone else can be leader while I'm gone, but I'll leave you guys to decide. A watery laugh. Truth be told, I'm not opposed to it being you, Mikey. You always were my favorite. Don’t tell anyone I said that.

Mikey doesn't even crow at that; he just keeps nodding, making no move to rescue Leo from the confessions spilling out of him.

Tell Donnie I think he should try going to school, if he wants. Yeah, like real human school, for real nerds. I saved up a hefty emergency fund, should last him a degree or two, and Leo stops trying to keep the swell of pride out his voice. I want to know all about his new tech when I get back.

Mikey nods. Leo's tongue is a beached, floundering thing.

Give—give Karai my thanks, for helping us restore the city. She'll never admit it, but I know she's been keeping an eye out for us.

Again, Mikey nods.

Tell Raph, and this time Leo's throat actually seizes. Tell Raph—

I will, Mikey finally speaks. 'Course, dude. That's—I—wow. And for one mind-altering moment, he stays silent.

Leo’s face goes bloodless. I'm sorry—

Mikey shakes his head fiercely. Don't, Leo. No, just—give a guy a sec, okay? I'm so happy to hear this, all these years we've been telling you to do it, and—I just. Didn't expect it to be today, I guess. You're actually doing it, huh? Wow. You must have been thinking about this for a while. I'll miss you so much, big brother. Why are you doing this to me, dude?

Another deep, magnificent horn blows from across the Hudson, and Leo knows Mikey means it in jest but he shudders anyway, squeezes his eyes shut as Mikey reaches for his hands, cupping his jaw. Smiling at him so bright like this is the easiest thing in the world, and Leonardo thinks maybe this isn't a story about his shit luck, but of his inheritances; all the ways he is bonded and changed by the people in his orbit, people he'll never ever meet, by his brothers, oh god his brothers; the greatest loves of his sorry life.

I don't know how to do this without you, Leo confesses, any of you.

You'll figure it out. Mikey's faith is absolute. Then you'll be the first to tell us how.

Leo clutches his brother, holding this moment closer with scrabbling fingers and a small breathy noise in his throat, some kind of dying animal; the first and last of his kind.

They pull back together. Beyond the fence, two small birds dive into the water.

Well, dear traveler, if you need me—a guide, extra set of all-seeing eyes, whatever you require—you know where to find me. Mikey winks, conspiratory, dancing a flicker of mystic energy on his fingertips. Family discount.

Leo laughs. I'm counting on it. Hey, Mike, I’m really bad at this, but check it out.

Mikey follows the jerk of Leo’s head. On the other side, an empty street. Fascinating, he drawls, but when he looks back, the other half of the bench is empty. Leo nowhere to be seen.

Mikey's breath hitches in his chest.

Leo's done it.

For the several terrible minutes that he remains alone, his chest fragiles. Then, slowly, like waking from a long sleep, he starts to laugh, the sound hurtling across the river, like he can see it happening—Leo finally climbing out the exit wound, the red gnarl of it withering as he takes the whole thing down with him. Laughs, like he can see the end, and with it the pinprick of possibility pressing in from the other side. Like a brand new planet. Spinning.