Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Krang lost.

And Leo was going to die.

He’d honestly prefer it if only the first fact was true, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. They’d tried everything else - destroying the key, the Technodrome, the Krang themselves, heck Future Leo and Co. even tried time travel - but in the end the only plan that had a permanent solution also meant…a permanent end. To Leo.

Because he was trapped in the prison dimension with Krang Prime, weaponless and exhausted and drained of ninpo, already bruised and battered from their hours of nonstop efforts to counter the Krang and free Raph. And Krang Prime had seen him smile at the little treasure in his hand, the photo Casey had brought back from the future with his whole family posing cheerful and beautiful and encompassing everything he was trying to protect, and—

—he just—

—wouldn’t—

—stop—

—well. It wasn’t the first time Leo’s smug grin had ticked an enemy off. But it was…probably going to be the last.

Krang Prime slammed him down on the floating island of debris with such force Leo went straight through. The cold air clashed against the molten river of pain in his carapace. His shell had been cracked.

That’s going to be a pain to treat, he thought absently. He’d have to get one of his brothers to help him. Not Raph — he wouldn’t be able to get as delicate as needed. Depending on the day Donnie might be the best choice. If he wasn’t feeling up to it, then Mikey would surely do well with his deft artist’s fingers — as long as the break didn’t look too nasty.

Hmm. No use worrying about it. Dead people don’t need medical attention. 

Krang Prime snatched him out of the air with metal claws, whirling around and yeeting him into an upside-down petrified tree. He took the impact with his shoulder this time, and the limb popped right out of the socket. 

OUCH.

At least it wasn’t the arm holding the photo. He wanted to keep that last morsel of comfort with him for as long as possible.

Leo drifted aimlessly, taking slow measured breaths to lessen the pain. The Krang was just toying with him now, crouched on a floating chunk of land with its armor’s long tail lashing like an angry panther as it leered at him. 

He closed his eyes, just for a moment, and something warm sparked to life behind him.

“Leo!”

Mikey?

He twisted around. 

It was…a portal. Bright orange flames whirl-pooling into a pure white center. He couldn’t see what laid on the other side, but his brothers’ voices echoed through it, muffled and distorted like they were underwater.

Metal scraped against rock. The Krang in its mech suit was soaring towards him and the portal. It might as well have been in slow motion.

“Leo never gave up on us.”

When Leo was having trouble controlling his own portals, he’d quickly learned it was much safer to only enter them if he could see through to the other side, at least until he was better at actually making them go to where he wanted them to lead. Of course, there wasn’t always time to follow safety procedures. Hence the…many, many incidents such as the space leviathan.

“I’m…”

This was one of those times. But hopefully not one of those incidents.

“..not…”

The Krang’s razor sharp fingers inched through the air towards Leo. They were close enough to touch, now.

“…giving up…”

He curled his legs to his chest and kicked off the metal before the claws could clamp down on his feet. 

“…on him!”

He somersaulted straight towards Mikey’s portal. He stuck his tongue out in Krang Prime’s vague direction. Flashed a peace sign. 

And with his last breathe before he went through:

“Sayonara, suckah!”

.

.

.

“Mikey, I’m sorry, but you have to stop!”

“But—”

“Stop! Please! I don’t—I don’t want to lose you too!”

“…okay. O-okay.”

.

.

.

Ugh.

So.

It seemed Mikey’s aim might have been…a little off. Unless his brothers were hiding out in this random…what was this, a fabric store? Or a tailor’s shop. Did those even exist nowadays?

At least he had something soft to break his landing.

He hissed as his shell twinged in protest of being the first thing to hit the ground, even if it was something soft, and blinked rapidly as his eyes adjusted to the room’s unlit interior. A sewing machine, shelves of fabric, and mannequins in various states of dress lined the cozy little shop’s interior. Bright moonlight shone through the window of the door, which had a sign hanging from it flipped so that it read ‘Open’ to the turtle inside.

Yeah, no brothers here. Was he even in New York? Mikey really needed some portal pointers from his awesome big bro if he wasn’t.

Who was he kidding, of course he wasn’t in New York. It was dead quiet and he could see the moonlight instead of it being drowned out under neon advertisements.

He tensed as his wounds pulsed in unison. First things first, make sure he wasn’t dying. Then he could call his brothers to let them know Mikey didn’t drop him off in the void of space or something equally fatal and after that he could fix up noncritical injuries and figure out where he was. 

Leo gingerly pushed himself off the pile of discarded linen he’d landed on and prodded his limbs with his good hand, keeping the photo held awkwardly between two fingers to keep it away from blood. Dislocated shoulder, gash on the left leg in need of stitches, possibly cracked and/or fragmented shell, and - oooh a broken rib or two which was not good. If those stabbed any of his delicate insides he would need a hospital.

Okay, okay, so just don’t let his insides stab each other. Easy peasy. No immediate danger of death, so he could call his brothers. Good.

He checked his pouch and thank the Pizza Supreme his phone was still in it and intact. Donnie’s icon was the one he clicked on first, because if anyone’s phone had survived an alien invasion it would be his dear twin’s. Also, Donnie totally had a tracker on him so maybe he could tell Leo where he was without him having to go poking around human civilization.

Except — “Bzzt.” The call didn’t go through. Not even the ‘Sorry-not-sorry, but this is the sound of me ignoring you!’ that was Donnie’s current voicemail message.

Huh. Guess Donnie’s phone didn’t survive an alien invasion. Weird. He tried again, just in case, before attempting the rest of his contact list.

Neither Raph’s nor Mikey’s worked. Same for April’s and Dad’s. Not too surprising since, again, alien invasion and all that. Maybe they all broke their near-indestructible Donnie-approved phones.

Oh, who was he kidding. There was no way out of all of them only Leo had a functioning phone. Maybe his phone wasn’t as functioning as it looked? He poked around, checking the WiFi and data, which were on but alarmingly enough disconnected. As soon as he noticed this, an automated message popped up on his screen with an emoji of Donnie’s disapproving face frowning at him.

< Where are you, a whole different galaxy? Networks unidentifiable. Performing security check, try not to die of boredom while waiting… > The emoji stuck its tongue out right before a loading bar with an estimated time remaining replaced the message.

“Two hours!?” Leo yelled in disbelief. “I know hacking takes longer than movies pretend it does, but that’s just ridiculous!” He groaned dramatically as he tried to assess his options. The loading bar could be minimized so he could still use the phone but it wasn’t much use if he couldn’t access the internet or call his family so he simply turned on the inbuilt flashlight to look around the shop with, careful not to shine it straight out the windows. He could see fabric, some half-embroidered clothing, etc. Plenty of material to wrap his wounds with, but was there a first aid kit? A bathroom? At least he would be able to find a needle somewhere to stitch up his leg if it came to that.

He did a quick search and didn’t find a kit stowed anywhere, but there was a small bathroom in the back that had a roll of sterile bandages, aspirin, and a bottle of antiseptic in the cupboard.

He immediately washed down two pills of the aspirin with the sink water and cleaned up his leg while he waited for them to take effect. When he was ready he went through the extremely uncomfortable zero-star-rated process of putting his arm back into its socket. Once that was over - or rather, once he was no longer in danger of fainting from the pain the aspirin did a terrible job of quelling - Leo patched the rest of himself up the best he could. His leg got the deluxe treatment of sewing needle and embroidery thread sutures topped with the sterile bandages while his smaller cuts were left open to the air, albeit cleaned up. He stashed the remnants of the bandage roll in his pouch just in case, and after a second figured he might as well steal the other stuff too. 

His carapace…would hopefully be fine. He couldn’t get a good look at it in the dinky bathroom mirror but the cracks were thin and he didn’t see any loose fragments. He cleaned out what he could reach, but he would try again in a more secure location when his arm had recovered from its former dislocation.

“Okay Neon Leon,” he muttered to himself. “Time to skedaddle! The world was saved and I’ll bet your brothers are sorely missing your medical mojo right now. Let’s figure out where you’re at and get the heck back to them.”

And so a shadow slipped out into the night.

Chapter Text

Fawcett City was a nice place. From what he saw of it, it was quaint for a city — calm without being dull and colorless, lively without the rowdiness of New York’s evenings, and clean. The sewers weren’t spotless, of course, considering what they’re used for, but Leo has never seen a sewage system this clean. And sure, like any city it had downsides, like a culture that was weirdly stuck in the 90’s and the very important fact that it was far away from home. 

See, Leo may not be a genius like ‘Tello but he still uses his brain. And he did a little looking around, found a newspaper, read it and all that jazz - and Fawcett City, the place he’d landed in (assuming the newspaper wasn’t from, like, five states over or something), was located in Indiana. And - get this - like being several states away from New York and unable to portal back yet wasn’t enough, he wasn’t even in his own universe anymore.

But. On the bright side. It wasn’t Jersey, and this universe had superheroes.

Favorite Universe status earned. Instantly.

“Dontron’s gonna be sooooooo jelly~” He laughed out loud. “Best day of my life!”

Look, mystic powers and the Hidden City and stuff were cool, but nothing trumped superheroes except for Jupiter Jim. And he wasn’t in a universe where Jupiter Jim was real, so — wait, was there a universe where Jupiter Jim was real? He needed to find it ASAP. Screw finding a way home, he was finding a way to insert himself into the world’s best sci-fi ‘verse and no one could stop him!

Ha. If only. Truth was, fantasies of exploring their favorite alien worlds or cruising along in space were fleeting distractions to the anxiety flooding his mind. Being in an alternate universe perfectly explained why his phone had such trouble doing something as mundane as connecting to WiFi, and despite Donnie’s brilliance there was no way any trackers on Leo’s person were transmitting his location back to his brothers. That orange portal that was so obviously a new manifestation of Mikey’s mystic powers was just that — new. Thanks to Casey Jr. they knew it could achieve time travel, but none of them had any idea it could access the multiverse. From their perspective, Mikey’s portal hadn’t worked and Leo was still stuck in the Prison Dimension. They weren’t coming for him. Pizza Supreme, he hoped they would heal up okay. Had Future Leo taught Casey anything about medical care? Would they be fine with just themselves or would they have to go to a yokai hospital or — ugh — Draxum?

Deep breaths, Leo. In and out. No panicking. 

He scratched at the flesh of his leg, barely restraining himself from trying to dig under the bandages to get to the itch better. Pulses of heat shot up from it, echoing with the burning pain of his broken rib(s) and strained shoulder muscles.

Did Raph lose his eye, or had the Krang only scarred it?

Breath in. Breath out.

He defended himself from a mosquito with the newspaper, smashing it into the ground of the empty maintenance room he hid in. His phone was in his lap and his pouch was on the floor, half open with the medical supplies spilling out. The family photo was laid right on top of it so he could see it from where he sat on his rear, legs straight out in front of him and slouched over himself so his shell wouldn’t graze the wall. 

Was Donnie’s shell okay? He’d taken his Battle Shell off for a little while, did the soft shell get damaged when it was exposed?

Breath in.

Breath out.

They’re going to be okay. They are okay. He needed to focus on the patient he could actually help — himself. It’s only been five hours and he can already tell: the gash on his leg is inflamed. That in and of itself isn’t too worrisome, but he’d thought he cleaned the wound well enough that it wouldn’t happen. There was a bad feeling lurking in his stomach. It could just be inflamed because he’d had to use embroidery thread. But if it wasn’t simply that then it could be a warning of infection. If he got an infection, what would happen? Would he stay lucid enough to take care of himself, or would he wither away and die here?

He needed better supplies in case one developed. Fever reducers, and a heating pad. Washcloth and clean water and something to warm them up for when the wound was safe to get wet, if he couldn’t get a heating pad. Antibiotics were a must.

He checked his phone, which had thankfully synced to the proper timezone when it hacked into the WiFi. 7:29 AM. It was too risky; he didn’t have the clothes for a disguise nor any money to try to buy what he needed. Despite the presence of superheroes, in this world a humanoid turtle would still draw unwanted attention. He had to wait for night to come again.

Leo huffed a sigh, then started browsing the app store to see if there were any free games unique to this universe. He had a feeling trying to sleep wouldn’t be successful. 

It was going to be a long day.

.

.

.

He realized he had a fever half an hour before sunset.

The heat from his leg had crawled up his skin until sweat drops beaded at his temples. When he redressed the wound, yellow pus stained the old bandages. His limbs shook as he stood up and he was forced to lean on his right leg.

Shell. He wished the stores closed sooner, he wouldn’t even bother waiting for it to get dark. He didn’t think he could climb the ladder back up to the surface, either, so he took his pilfered sewing needle and infused it with enough of his somewhat-recharged ninpo to morph it into the familiar shape of a katana. He had enough juice for…hopefully multiple portals. One to get to the surface. One for a pharmacy. One for a supermarket. A final one to return to the sewers. He could manage that, right? Just four portals.

He checked his phone. Twenty more minutes, to make sure nobody was lingering past their shifts. Then he’d risk it. 

The time passed sluggishly. He gave in to his sense of urgency after fifteen minutes and raised his sword, focusing his ninpo to pierce it through the air and carve a circle of crackling blue into reality. Once the infection passed he would have to see if he could portal his way back home, but right now he needed to reserve his energy for this supply run. It would never be that easy, anyways, that he would be able to travel through the multiverse on his own.

The portal stabilized to show a dark blue sky from a bare rooftop. He stepped through it and swiftly closed it, aware of how bright the glow was in this sleepy city. Then he made his way to the edge of the roof and searched for his first target. This world, fortunately, had decent online navigation and he was pleased to see his portal had plopped him out near his chosen supermarket. On the outside, it was just as old fashioned as the rest of the city, but it took up half a city block by itself and he knew on the inside it was just as modern as any other supermarket; or, at least, that it would have the right merchandise. He didn’t have much experience with how normal supermarkets looked, after all. At best he’d visited one in the Hidden City which was understandably not any sort of example of human consumerism.

Leo glanced around the rooftop, finding few places for cover. But he didn’t really want to aggravate his injuries by trying to move to one of the neighboring roofs, so he made do with sidling between two air conditioning units and prying open a portal as small as he could fit through before entering the dimly lit building.

Perfect. He was in the clothing section. He helped himself to the largest hoodie he could find and a pair of athletic pants. The weight of the clothing quickly began holding in the heat of his fever but it was a reasonable price for obscuring his inhuman stature. He just had to move fast so he could get back to his little sewer hideaway quicker.

He moved through the store, leaving the portal open behind him. Fully embracing his new criminal lifestyle he snagged a pillow and blanket from the ‘Home’ section, snacks and cans of food from the grocery, and finally located a heating pad on the displays near the checkout lines. As he collected his items he routinely limped back to the portal to toss them through until finally he decided he should leave, disappointed that this market didn’t have a proper pharmacy section, only a shelf where he grabbed a fever reducer but couldn’t find the proper antibiotics.

He stepped back through the portal and dismissed it, surveying the fruits of his first haul with a proud eye. No sirens, no police, no other human activity; his robbery hadn’t tripped any alarms or summoned the superhero of this city. Sure, he was now sweating buckets and his vision was a little fuzzy, but he only had to get the medicine now and he’d be figuratively home free.

He nudged his pile of goodies away from the air conditioning units so he had more room and then swung his sword to open the next portal. It swished through the air, leaving blue sparks in its wake, and he tipped forward at a lack of resistance. He paused, blinking rapidly, only his sword partially embedded in the roof keeping him upright.

He cleared his throat, righted himself and pulled his sword back up, and tried again.

The portal fizzled into existence slowly like it was grumpy from being woken up. Leo waited a few seconds to make sure it wasn’t going to die on him, then hurriedly stumbled through it with multiple suspicious glances backwards as he went. 

Okay. Well. It was stable now and had properly deposited him at the pharmacy’s storage so it must have just been a fluke. He turned his attention away from the portal and started scouring the containers locked behind the glass doors, grateful that the light of the portal was enough for him read the labels because his vision was protesting enough without him having to try to read in the dark. 

T…Tamsulosin…Terbinafine…ah-ha! Trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole!

He squinted to make doubly sure he was reading it right through his blurry vision, then raised his sword up from - where he’d been leaning on it? Huh. Anyways, he simply shifted his weight back to his right leg and turned the katana hilt-first towards the medicine cabinet. Here was when things might pick up. He was pretty sure the glass had a sensor on it that would trip and alert police the instant it broke, so he needed break it, grab the medicine, and then get the heck out of there.

Just break it. Easy.

His arms felt like noodles. Maybe he should have taken a pill or two of that fever reducer he stole before hopping in here.

The sword hilt bounced off the glass. Crap. He leaned his forehead on the cool surface, angling his arms closer to the glass. Again — a thud resonated, vibrating through his head and fingers, and the window splintered under the force. Again.

Crrk. The cracks spread. He should probably stop leaning on the glass he was trying to break.

Again.

The hilt broke through, and he swayed backwards for moment to observe the damage in the flickering light. Okay. Good. Just another hit and he could put his hand through without scraping it.

Again.

The light from his portal disappeared. Um. Oh, it was fine, his ninpo was still active. The light was just being blocked.

Was somebody speaking?

Leo turned around. He felt really hot and dizzy. Was he suffering heatstroke? If so, it was awfully nice of this stranger to block the sun for him. Hey, why was the sun blue?

A tall silhouette loomed over him. Poof. Oops, there went the portal. But wait, that was a good thing, right? The Krang couldn’t escape through the portal if it was gone.

The Krang was grabbing him now, trying to yank him off the dirt so it could pound him back into it. Where was—his hands were empty where was it wherewasthephoto— it        was  

gone    ?

No. Leo was gone.

Chapter Text

Champion…

A young child groaned, pulling his pillow over his head and squishing it to his ears. A foot twitched from where it stuck out under his soft blanket.

Champion of the Old Gods…

Did Uncle Dudley leave the TV on? What time was it?

Billy Batson!

“Huh! What?” Billy shot upright, looking around his bedroom wildly. “Wait, I know that voice! Mr. Wizard, is that you?”

There was a pause, where Billy thought for a second it had just been a dream, before the wizard Shazam sighed into his mind with fond exasperation. Yes, Billy. It is me. I have sensed a curious energy once more.

Billy blinked blearily, his heart sinking as he realized he wouldn’t be going back to sleep. “You need me to check it out again?”

If you would be so kind, Shazam said with sympathy. It made it hard for Billy to be upset with him for waking him a second night in a row. He wasn’t sure if the wizard could tell what time it was for him from the Rock of Eternity, but it was very rare for his requests to occur past Billy’s bedtime.

“Of course,” he answered, trying to inject some energy into his voice as he slid out of bed and searched for some paper so he could leave Uncle Dudley a note. “Where is it this time?”

To the east. I will guide you there once more. Be warned, it is more persistent than it was before.

Warning or not, the young boy held onto hope it would be the same as last night - just a quick investigation of the affected area. He might be able to go back to bed, then. But that was a Billy Batson hope. And right now, he needed to be Captain Marvel.

Message written in case Uncle Dudley woke while he was gone, Billy threw on some shoes in case he was forced to become Batson again out in the streets. Then, with a quickly whispered ‘Shazam!’, the lightning bolt of his transformation struck and the larger figure of Captain Marvel slid stealthily out the kitchen window.  

“Okay Mr. Wizard,” Marvel muttered, letting the Wisdom of Solomon orient him east and softly gliding through the air. “Lead the way!”

With the Speed of Mercury and Shazam’s guidance, it should have been relatively simple to reach to location, but according to the old wizard the energy - unknown magic, he managed to clarify from its lingering traces in a spot in the sewers - was split apart and fluctuating, sending them on a slightly more erratic route than anticipated before Marvel managed to spot a blue glow on a rooftop with his enhanced vision.

Instantly he knew this would not be like the blood-spotted tailor’s shop the night before. The magic was still active. Its user would be there.

Sure enough, a shadow briefly blocked the blue light before vanishing. Marvel slowed his approach to land on the rooftop cautiously, and intending to peer around the air conditioning units the glow was hidden behind to assess the situation.

Except even through his magic suit’s boots he could feel he had stepped on something fluffy. The Champion blinked at the sensation and glanced down. It was a…blanket? And a pillow…and a heating pad still in their packaging and canned food and junk food and a bottle of medicine. Abruptly, Captain Marvel recalled Billy Batson’s time on the streets, when he’d relentlessly ran away from his foster homes, stealing the fuzziest blanket and least vegetable-filled nonperishable food he could find each time.

Captain Marvel’s first stop that night had led him into the sewer system, where the magic was rapidly dissipating from a maintenance room that he’d been inches away from opening before Shazam had detected a fresh surge of magic on the surface, and Marvel had hurriedly left to chase it down. It struck him as a very secluded place, one that a homeless person might stay in for a night or two if they valued privacy over the nasty stink.

We’re tracking down a homeless person, Captain Marvel realized. Then he thought of the blood in the shop, that bottle of medicine he could see was labeled ‘Fever Reducer’, and amended the statement. A hurt, sick, magical homeless person.

The wizard Shazam was quiet in his head, but then again Marvel wasn’t talking to him and he was pretty sure he couldn’t just see through his Champion’s eyes and hear his thoughts at any given moment. 

Chink. Marvel looked up from the ground sharply at the sound of chipping glass, finally looking directly at the magic he was there to investigate. It was a flaming and azure blue manifestation of a circular portal that revealed somewhere dark on the other side. He saw the shadowy figure again, a human - if hunchbacked - shape clothed in a hoodie and pants in the other side. Not an uncommon outfit for thieves, but it was the height of summer. Even at night that had to suck.

Portals. Okay, he could handle portals. Oh, and the magical homeless person had a bladed weapon, if the glint of metal was any indication. More glass broke, and Marvel winced at the indication the person had probably not portalled home for a cup of cold lemonade. Without wasting anymore time, he squeezed himself through the awfully small portal a few steps away from the oblivious…pharmacy robber. This was a pharmacy, which meant this guy was trying to get more medicine. Briefly, the thought that he was dealing with a drug addict crossed his mind, but again. There’d been blood last night. Probably stealing medicine to use it for its actual purpose.

For a moment Captain Marvel stood there, considering whether he should announce his presence or try to remove the sword from the situation while the perpetrator was still unaware. But before he could come to a decision, the figure paused. Their sword — which they’d been using to break the glass locking up the medicine — drooped in their hold, slowly sliding out of and then falling from their hands with a loud clatter.

Marvel cleared his throat, hesitating to approach even though they were now disarmed because of the way they wobbled on their feet. Injured and sick, his earlier thought repeated itself. “Uh, hey. Are you okay?”

They shuffled their feet and turned around and he squinted, focusing on their face. It was an odd color with the portal’s blue light shining on it, but he thought it might be orange or green, with vibrant red crossing down over the glassy eyes like scars. They didn’t so much have a nose as a slope that merged with their mouth into some sort of pointy snout. A beak? His eyes darted to the hand still clenched like it was holding the sword. Two thick fingers and a thumb, but otherwise very human. Not bird claws. No feathers. A reptile?

Whomp. Uh oh. Maybe he should have spent less time staring and more time catching them. Now they were on the floor, barely having avoided landing on their own sword, and the portal had totally vanished - probably linked to their consciousness. 

Captain Marvel toed the sword out of his way and crouched next to the magical homeless reptile alien(?), poking them once to make sure they weren’t faking before he actually felt for a pulse on their neck. It seemed a little fast, but he barely had any first aid training so he was just glad it was there. And hey, no gills, which meant they weren’t Atlantean and on one hand that was a point in favor to the alien theory. On the other, though, aliens didn’t tend to use magic so he wasn’t going to assume anything yet. 

He hovered his hands over the reptile kid, debating wether or not he should poke and prod them more. Well, they had to have fainted for some reason, and assuming they were the same magic person responsible for yesterday’s incident they weren’t just sick. They had to have a physical injury somewhere.

After some careful investigation he found a blood-soaked bandage on their leg that must be hiding the offending injury, and a hard shell under the hoodie (turtle??) that he could feel was also wrapped up, going around the midsection as well. Now knowing where the kid was injured, Marvel figured he was probably safe to pick them up. The problem now was how to get them help.

He wanted to take them to a hospital, but a hospital wouldn’t be able to treat an inhuman patient. Atlantis was, well, underwater so even if they had the expertise for an inhuman that was also not atlantean Marvel had no idea how to find help there. His best option was the League - he knew for a fact that Martian Manhunter and the Hawks had been treated in the Watchtower medbay before so someone there had to have an idea what to do.

No time like the present to find out! Captain Marvel carefully scooped up the humanoid and made his way out of the pharmacy. Regretfully because both of them had teleported inside he had to break the doorknob to get out, but he’d swing around as soon as he could to smooth things over with the police. No sleep for Billy tonight. Thank goodness for Summer Break or he’d have to worry about school in the morning, too.

It was when the Champion arrived at Fawcett City’s nearest Zeta-Tube that he realized he might have a problem. His DNA was registered in the teleporter of course, but his impromptu guests’ certainly wasn’t. He knew some leaguers could register guests, but he had no idea what the process was or if he even had that privilege. And he’d neglected to bring his communicator with him, so he couldn’t just consult whoever was on Watchtower duty tonight.

“Uhh…” he stepped into the disguised teleporter awkwardly, barely fitting with the extra mass in his arms, and keyed in the code for the Watchtower before letting it scan him. “Please work…”

“Recognized: Captain Marvel 15,” it droned. “Error. Unauthorized life form. Transport cancelled. Please try again.”

Darn.

He keyed in the code again. “Zeta-Tube,” he commanded, hoping the thing had voice recognition or something. “Register Guest. Uh… A-07?” The last guest number he’d heard was 06, so 07 would be next, right? He hoped nobody had registered a guest since that last time.

“Error. Invalid command. Transport Cancelled.”

Double darn. Guests probably had to be registered in the League computer first. But wait! The Zeta-Tube at least registered he’d spoken. Maybe he could contact the Watchtower from here? He didn’t want to go all the way back home to get his communicator.

“Zeta-Tube,” he tried again, “Contact the Watchtower. Please?” 

“Recognized: Captain Marvel 15,” the computerized voice repeated. “Contacting Watchtower…”

“Yes!” He fist-pumped, and immediately regretted it when the motion almost threw his guest out of his arms. For the first time since he picked them up they groaned in pain, squirming a little before settling down. “Whoops. Sorry!”

Be more careful, Billy! He scolded himself just as the Zeta-Tube AI announced that the connection was established.

“Marvel?” Martian Manhunter’s voice came through a little crackly, probably because this was a phone call into space. “Why are you not using your communicator? And what do you need?”

“Well I left it at home and I’m in a bit of hurry — man, I’m glad these things can call people, it’s really a lifesaver! Oh!” He caught himself before he could start rambling. “Right, sorry, uh I’ve got a hurt person here who’s totally an alien or something so I couldn’t really just drop them off at a hospital so I thought I’d bring them to the Watchtower? But I don’t know how to do the guest thing, think you can help a fellow out here?”

“Hmm. I suppose…how injured are they?”

“They’re passed out right now and I think they have a fever. I can’t see their wounds, they have them wrapped up, but the bleeding one is on their leg and they have bandages around their back and torso. They have, like, a turtle shell? Not really sure.”

“I see. I believe it’s safe enough for them to take a Zeta Beam. However, you need to lay them in the Tube alone while I teleport them. It is not safe for multiple people to come through at once.”

“Right. Okay. Doing that now, I’ll come through after them.” He did so, backed off, and waited a minute after the kid was teleported away to go through himself. He reassembled inside the Watchtower to see J’onn floating their guest with his telekinesis towards the Medbay and trotted to catch up.

“Are they gonna be okay?”

The martian raised a brow as they moved. “I have not had a chance to check on him yet,” he pointed out dryly.

“Right. Sorry.” Marvel rubbed the back of his neck and kept pace. The Martian Manhunter seemed to sense his anxiety (he probably literally sensed it - he could read minds, after all) and relented.

“Based on what I can observe so far, I believe he’ll be just fine.”

“Great! That’s good. I owe you. All the Oreos you want!”

J’onn shook his head, but Captain Marvel caught a hint of a smile. That the alien loved Oreos was a little known fact among even the Justice League, but Marvel had his ways. He wondered if this kid, too, would appreciate the chocolate treats. Might as well ask him when he wakes up!

Chapter Text

Gold.

The sun was gold. Yellow so bright the color was bleached in the middle. There was someone on the other side he had to reach, he .    .     . stretched out an arm that burned under the sun’s fire, black form shadow on one side    and light pouring past the edges in a waterfall of heat     forcing his eyes closed    he breathed and   could not   reach

his arms were peeling      away     the gold     was not enough too much,     cracking     them   from the   inside 

and the light

made Leo hiss as he struggled to get his eyes to adjust to it. Whose bright idea was it to make white the universal color of recovery rooms? It made artificial light bounce off the walls too easily, blinding poor innocent patients like himself so that they can only realize they’re receiving medical attention from the infernal beeping of a heart monitor and the sharp scent of disinfectant and the fact that none of his injuries were more than a 3 out of 10 on the pain scale.

Thankfully his hiss wasn’t loud enough to attract the attention of the two people in the room with him who continued in their game of Go Fish obliviously, meaning Leo could just give up on trying to open his eyes and instead eavesdrop. But was that really a good thing? There wasn’t anything to eavesdrop on except family friendly trash talk. 

Booooooring. Time for Leon to crash their party.

He peeled open an eyelid again, managing to turn his head from where it stared at the ceiling and land his gaze on two adult men in red and gold spandex costumes a couple meters away, playing their card game on a round metal table. He vaguely recognized them as superheroes of this universe; one was the ‘Flicker’ or something who had super speed, and the other was the guy featured in Fawcett City’s newspaper AKA the most likely person to have stumbled upon him last night. Or what he hoped was last night. Might’ve been longer. Anyways, that was probably good news. He probably hadn’t been taken captive by a cult of red and gold spandex wearing men.

“Do you have…an ace?” Red Spandex #2 asked.

Red Spandex #1 didn’t miss a beat. “Nope! Go fish!”

#2 grumbled and moved to pick up a new card.

“He’s lying,” Leo accused with a hoarse voice. “Totally just threw it under the table.”

The Red Spandexes yelped in surprise and the table went flying with a clamorous noise — spraying the floor with cards and thus removing the evidence of #1’s sneaky maneuver — when #2 sprang to his feet. 

“You’re awake!” Spandex #2 exclaimed with a giant smile. “How are you feeling?” Man this was a really goody-two-shoes type of hero, huh? He was just completely ignoring he caught Leo green-handed robbing a pharmacy. 

The other hero flashed — oh right, not the Flicker, he was the Flash — him a quick smile before saying something about ‘fetching John’ and zipping out of the room through the automatic door that was somehow fast enough to open for him. Fancy.

“I’m feeling incredulous,” Leo grumbled in reply. Ha! Take that Donnie. He could use big words too. “What kind of lowlife cheats at Go Fish?!”

Spandex #2 snorted. “The kind whose nephew rubbed off on him, I’ll bet.” Then the man winked at him. “Nah, it’s fine. I was losing anyways. Now really, are you okay dude? I dunno the specifics, but you were really sick.”

Brushing aside how weird it sounded to hear ‘dude’ coming from the mouth of a fully grown man, Leo attempted to shrug nonchalantly. His shoulders, like most of his drug-laden body, did not obey. “Peachy,” he said instead of relying on his malfunctioning limbs. “Really…feeling the love here. Big fan of spotless white medical settings, being tied up and drugged to high heaven. Mad scientist vibes much?”

And he knew these guys were superheroes, but still. Why hadn’t he just been dropped off at a hospital? Heck, why not even dump him in the hands of some prison’s medical team - it would deal with both his boo-boos and his short-lived criminal career at the same time. There had to be a catch.

Spandex #2 looked down at him thoughtfully. “Uhhh you’re not tied up.”

“Wait really?” He strained his neck to peer at his limbs. His hands were above the blanket and perfectly unrestrained, while his feet were hidden beneath and he could barely feel them (not in a worrying way, more in a they-fell-asleep way) enough to wiggle them around and deduce they were also free. “..why not?”

“Because you’re injured? You may be a thief, but that was just ‘cause you were hurt. Tying you up isn’t going to solve that problem.”

“You’re working off a lot of assumptions,” Leo drawled, but bit his tongue before he could list all those assumptions and an insult or two while he was at it. Nothing good happened when he tried to push on people’s buttons. “So. It was as simple as seeing someone in need of help and helping them, huh?”

The superhero nodded, an earnest sincerity about him that reminded Leo of a puppy dog — or worse, of Mikey. Because it was just like his little brother to say ‘hey, a bad guy! I bet he’s not as bad as he looks’ and then act based on that naive assumption.

Granted, Leo hadn’t thrown this guy’s handsomest brother off of a building. Maybe Spandex #2 wasn’t as forgiving as Mikey. It remained to be seen.

“So—” whatever the superhero was about to say was cut off by the sound of the automatic doors opening. Whoever was on the other side began to enter. Was this the ‘John’ that the Flash guy ran off to fetch? A doctor, maybe?

An imposing figure dressed in sleek black and two little horns adorning its head glided into the room like a grim reaper.

Leo stared. “You don’t look like a John.”

Spandex #2 smothered a laugh. “No,” came a voice outside the room. Its speaker stepped in, revealing a green man with creepy red eyes and a caped dark blue costume with a red ‘X’ crossed over it. “That would be me.” The man(? Yokai? Alien?) nodded a greeting towards the bedridden turtle. “My name is J’onn J’onzz, better known as the Martian Manhunter. He is Batman.”

“Omigosh,” he slapped a hand over his mouth and used his ensuing laughter to hide the wince that motion elicited. “So— so those are little bat ears!? Aha ha ha that’s so cute ha-ow ow ouch,” ooooooh broken ribs stop laughing owwww. Man, he wanted to make a quip about the martian but now he was struggling to save face!

“I would recommend you refrain from moving,” Manhunter said in an unimpressed tone. He crossed the room in seconds and began adjusting the iv drip. “You have two fractured ribs, multiple abrasions on various points on your body, and a severe laceration to your left calf whose infection you are still recovering from. The muscles of your right shoulder were swollen, but due to your accelerated healing should only be sore. Your carapace suffered some cracking, but it was shallow. As long as you clean it properly and regularly you will be safe from shell rot. Any questions?”

That was thorough. “Uh, yeah. Two, actually,” he replied after a moment, a new round of pain numbing medication easing the burden on his ribs. “Número uno: where am I?”

“That’s classified,” Batman spoke, revealing a voice half as gravelly as that one Foot Lieutenant’s, and that was saying something. “All you need to know is that you’re on Justice League property.”

Leo narrowed his eyes. “I’m unrestrained in your secret facility? Getting mixed signals here.” No elaboration was forthcoming. Batman’s face didn’t even twitch. “Ugh, whatever. Número dos: so you’ve patched me up, what now? Are you just gonna drop me off where you found me?”

“Can’t do that. I mean, you were in the middle of robbing—“ Spandex #2 started to point out.

Batman interrupted. “No. Captain Marvel informed us that you are homeless, and due to your injuries and unique circumstances we intend to continue monitoring you.”

‘Captain Marvel’ coughed. “What Bats means is that we’re gonna help you!”

The teenaged terrapin cast a doubtful look at the entire hospital setup. “Help me more?”

“Indeed,” Manhunter stated. “Once you have healed you will need a home, guardian, schooling—“

“Whoa, whoa!” Leo interjected hastily with a hand palm-out to stop the adult. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I already have a- a home, and family, and all that stuff.” That last part was a fib. His level of education was questionable at best.

“Do you?”

The mutant turtle glared at Batman. “Yes, in fact, I do. All you guys gotta do is drop me back off in Fawcett and I’ll be on my merry way back home.”

“So you live in Fawcett.”

“No!” Leo took offense without thinking. Curse his New York pride! “I mean—yes. Indubitably.”

“But you were camping out in the sewer,” Marvel protested. “Alone. That’s not a home. Where’s your family?”

How do you know that?! clashed with Actually I do live in the sewers, just not those sewers, in his head. What Leo spluttered out was: “I’m working on it—“

“Are they missing? Do you need help finding them?!”

“What? No! If anything I’m the one who’s missing—gah! It doesn’t matter—!” And he clamped his mouth shut furiously. Of course it mattered. He needed to get home.

Martian Manhunter gently pushed Captain Marvel out of Leo’s personal space. Batman met the teenager’s eyes. “Do you need help?” The dark hero asked, plain and simple.

“No, I—” Except you do. The more help you have, the faster you’ll see your family again. “It’s complicated, you wouldn’t be able to—” Except they’re part of a whole society of superheroes. Someone’s bound to have an inkling of a way for me to get home.

Leo took stock of his options. Finally, he sighed.

“Ever heard of the multiverse?”

Chapter Text

They had, in fact, heard of the multiverse.

At least, Batman had. Captain Marvel was initially clueless and Martian Manhunter’s expression never changed during Leo’s short explanation of his situation so it was hard to tell. But once the gist of it came across properly, the bat-themed hero nodded and metaphorically sprung into action, leaving the room to ‘consult’ people so that Leo was left with the other two heroes and a growing headache from exhaustion.

The universe (or this universe) was not kind enough to let him vacay in dreamland just yet, however. Manhunter was politely insistent on checking his bandages and even going through the routine hospital questions like name, date of birth, etc. Leo had heard enough stranger danger lessons from Raph to still be wary of giving out such specific information but he was also way too tired to actually care. He decided natural-green-skin solidarity was enough justification to comply.

“I apologize. You said you were born in 2004? What year is it in your universe, might I ask?”

“2019,” Leo said, about ready to throw his hands up in despair. He hadn’t noticed a date difference when surfing the web but that was also the furthest thing from his mind at the time. “I’m almost fifteen. Why? What year is it here?”

“Today’s date is July 21st, 2010, UTC.”

“Ha. Okay. Yeah, I’m not a six-year-old.” The multiverse was annoying. It wasn’t even the same month as back home. He’d have to keep track of the days so he knew when he actually turned fifteen. Which meant math. Why not just punt him back into the prison dimension while they’re at it?

Nope. No. Think positively, Leon! You’ll be back home muy pronto. Soon enough that you don’t have to start counting days.

Eventually the Martian Manhunter was satisfied that Leo didn’t need any more medical attention and left to find him some food and water. Despite the anticipation of his return and the mutant turtle’s persistent insomnia, the lull of the pain meds started to win out and his eyelids drooped.

Aw man. His food was gonna be cold by the time he got to eat it, wasn’t it?

.

.

.

There were no Red Spandexes in the room the next time Leo woke up, just a cold bowl of chicken and rice and a stale cup of water sitting on a rolling tray table. His limbs had more feeling in them now, and he could feel the ache of pain alongside his hunger. He managed to sit up and single-mindedly obeyed his complaining stomach by shoving a spoonful of the food in his mouth. Graceful. Elegant.

A person-shaped shadow in the corner of the room moved.

“Holy crap!” He choked on his rice, spewing it onto the sheets with grace and elegance.

It was Batman, standing at a computer and observing him silently. Leo was struck with sudden paranoia but it took no particular shape. It wasn’t like he thought the food was poisoned (it was too bland to be so) or that the caped hero had any ill intent (because superhero, and also this whole hospital setup), but a knife of anxiety still stabbed his heart and forced him to glance around the room to make sure no one else was hiding there before he could relax again.

“Yeesh,” he muttered — giving the still silent hero the side-eye — and unashamedly brushed the spilled rice onto the floor as he plastered a cocky grin onto his face. “Anyone ever tell you to put a bell on?”

“A few times.” There’s a hint of humor so faint in the man’s reply that Leo might have imagined it. “I’ve arranged for a meeting with someone who may be able to assist you with your displacement. He is also willing to temporarily host you, if you so desire.”

That was pretty quick. Looked like Leo made the right decision after all. He resumed eating his cold food. “Sounds good to me. Who’s the guy, and when’s the meeting?”

“His name is Kent Nelson. He’s an expert in certain fields of magic that he believes are relevant, and has the spare time to help. Martian Manhunter has deemed fit to keep you on bedrest until the afternoon tomorrow, so I scheduled the meeting for tomorrow evening. Regardless of whether this is resolved then, you’ll be moved out of the medbay. If you had any possessions you left in Fawcett that you want returned to you, now would be the time to request them.”

Leo nearly spat out his meal again, but managed to swallow before eagerly replying, “Yeah! I had a bag of stuff in some place in the sewers and I dropped my katana in the pharmacy. You think you can track them down for me?”

Batman nodded. “I’ll coordinate with Marvel.” He went back to typing on the computer.

The mutant teenager finished off the chicken rice and instantly found himself bored. Unlike that Captain Marvel guy, Batman wore a serious mood like his cloak, maintaining an alert, busy posture as he rapidly input stuff into his computer and muttered instructions into his communicator. Leo’s boredom warred with the innate knowledge that attempting to poke the metaphorical bee’s nest would accomplish nothing. This dude wouldn’t be like Raph. He was some hardcore serious adult who wouldn’t rise to petty insults or incessantly off-tune singing.

Shell. He missed his brothers already. The medbay was way too empty, completely devoid of life. He needed a distraction.

“Hey. Hey, where’s my phone?” He wasn’t wearing his shoplifted clothes either, but that didn’t bother him as much as the sudden realization he wasn’t wearing his mask or ninja gear. “And—“

“On your left.”

“—oh. Thanks!” Mask, gloves, socks, ill-gotten garments were all checked off his list when he saw them folded neatly on a chair that was a little lower than the mattress so he hadn’t seen it before. His phone was plopped right on top of them, so he reached over and snatched it up alongside his mask. Once the familiar blue cloth was back in place, he checked his phone. 12% battery. Ouch.

“You won’t be getting any service or WiFi here,” Batman warned, not even pausing his work to look at him.

“Ugh really?” He pulled up the browser anyways. Ha. Looks like whatever super secret WiFi this secret base boasted stood no chance against Donnie’s improvements. While he’d been sleeping the phone had presumably already been working on hacking ‘WT-A’ and was happily connected. “Pfft.” Time for more research on this universe! Huh. Never thought he’d be enthusiastic about research, but such was the circumstances.

Gradually the sound of typing slowed, and he glanced over to see Batman staring at him before typing something rapidly into the super high tech looking computer. The superhero stared at the screen for a few seconds before meeting Leo’s eyes and deadpanning, “That network is for League business only.”

“If I’m going to be here for another 24 hours, I’m gonna be here with WiFi. Deal with it.”

Clickety-clack. A GIF of Donnie gasping in indignation took over his screen as he was kicked off the internet. Did this man want war? 

“You can use WT-B,” Batman said gruffly. Oh, ok. He didn't have a death wish.

“What’s the password?”

“You don’t need it.”

True enough. He was already logged in, Leo was just trying to be obnoxious. 

Now, let’s see what the vast expertise of Wikipedia has in store for me today!

Chapter Text

In the coming hours, Leo swiftly transitioned from a bed-bound turtle to a half-geared-up menace of a teenager bored of browsing his phone and more interested in scoping out the secret base he was in while he still had the chance. Now free of an IV thanks to the switch to oral medication and armed with a medic’s knowledge of exactly which ways he could strain his body without risking his recovery, he plotted ways to escape into the hallway right outside the primary set of automatic doors.

When he inevitably succeeded fifteen minutes after Batman passed Leo-sitting duties to Martian Manhunter, he couldn’t help himself. The largest gasp he’d ever gasped escaped him.

“YOUR SECRET BASE IS IN SPACE!??!?!?!”

Needless to say…now that their general location had been compromised, they no longer had any reason to stop him from leaving the medbay. Ha! What’s that, Mr. Alien Sir? ‘Take it easy’? Leo was the king of taking it easy! He—

—buried his head further under the pillow, grumbling in protest as his current babysitter, one Green Arrow, tried to annoy him out of the bed. He was so sore. Maybe he shouldn’t have explored the vents for so long.

“C’mon kiddo, ya need to be awake for your meet-n-greet with Nelson!”

Leo was awake; he hadn’t slept since the IV was taken out, the new pain medication not making him as artificially drowsy as he was before and allowing his insomnia to strike. He just wasn’t active. At the moment.

Cold air touched his feet as the sheets were lifted. Something feathery tickled the sole of his right foot, causing it to involuntarily twitch. Is this jerk—?!

The teenager slammed his foot out and simultaneously bolted upright to hiss at the Robin Hood wannabe with as much Pre-Caffeine Donnie™ energy as he could muster. The blond man was sent crashing to the floor with a yelp and the arrow whose fletching he’d been bothering Leo with skipped across the ground.

Green Arrow rubbed his face, wilted under the turtle’s glare, and raised his hands in surrender. “Uh…truce?”

.

.

.

Man, this Nelson dude was ancient. 

They met up with him in his home, after taking a teleportation thingie back to Earth. He’d set up a table with tea and cookies, looking British as all shell in his trim suit and grayed hair and gold-handled cane but speaking without an accent — which implied he wasn’t actually British, just posh and old. Leo sat down opposite to him and Green Arrow was invested in something on his phone in the adjoining room so it almost felt like a meeting between two adults.

“Hey, how old are you?” Leo asked, ruining this atmosphere instantly. 

Kent Nelson took it in stride with a hearty chuckle. “106, my dear boy. I know, I look quite good for my old age.”

Leo would have spat his tea out but he was only pretending to drink it so the tablecloth was saved. “Yeah, no kidding!” Didn’t most humans only live to 80 or something???

“Now if you don’t mind,” Mr. Nelson continued, “Could you go over the details of your reality displacement? I’m afraid Batman’s explanation didn’t have the thoroughness I’ve come to expect from him.” Probably because I didn’t tell him a whole lot, Leo thought privately. Out loud he obliged, specifying the how of the universal travel and — as he’d been making a habit of — leaving out most of the why.

“And in your reality, the Justice League and major cities and events of this universe do not exist?” Mr. Nelson clarified.

“Right. The countries and stuff, like America or Japan, and things like the World Wars still happened but there’s a lot that’s different.” He glanced out the window, observing the orange lit streets of the city outside. “New Orleans too, so some cities are the same.” He’d seen pictures of this universe’s New York. It was a little different, but at least it still existed. 

“I see. It is quite impressive that your brother’s first portal was strong enough to send you here. However, I’m afraid the discrepancies also indicate that our universes are quite far apart in the multiverse. If you were, say, from a universe within a dozen hops or so of our own then a Lord of Order such as Doctor Fate would be able to return you home. As it is, our remaining options are far less swift.”

“Doctor Whatnow?” 

Mr. Nelson smiled. “Doctor Fate. The manifestation of the Lord of Order Nabu in the earthly realm. He is a being of vast mystical power, tasked with keeping the universe in balance. Sometimes this means battling Lords of Chaos, others it means — well, making sure entities remain within their own universes. As a being of Order, however, he would be unable to breach the multiverse to the extent we would need to send you back home.” The man sighed. “A Lord of Chaos, on the other hand, would have no such restraint. A powerful enough one might be able to do so. Unfortunately, it is a risk I do not recommend taking. I don’t think there is a Lord of Chaos in existence who would help you without a heavy price, or the intent to backstab you the second they have the chance.”

“Sounds like someone else I know,” Leo huffed. He knew from his experience with Big Mama when not to trust a deal. Sounded like the Lord of Chaos route was off the table. “So are there any other options?”

Kent Nelson nodded. “Your brother.”

“...Mikey?”

“Yes. See, he’s already proven he has the power to connect our two universes, even if he lacks control. I would not be surprised if he was able to connect our worlds again; what he most needs is time.”

Leo fidgeted with the cup in his hands. “And to be looking for me.” 

Mr. Nelson laughed, the sound startling the boy opposite to him for how out of place it seemed. When his mirth tapered off, the old man cleared his throat and said, “My boy, he’s already looking for you. Why wouldn’t he be?”

“When—When I was separated from my brothers, I was trapped with an enemy we couldn’t even beat together. As far as they know…he killed me. Who looks for a dead person?”

“I can’t speak for your other brothers,” Kent Nelson said with a hum, “but your youngest — he manifested a portal that surpassed mere dimensional travel just to free you. No matter the universe, a feat like that requires massive amounts of willpower. And as an untrained mystic, what he lacks in technique was made up for with devotion. Somebody like that won’t believe you’re dead until your corpse is right in front of them, as morbid as it is. That’s what love is, sometimes. Fighting the universe itself until you either know that your precious one is safe, or that there’s nothing else you can do for them.

“All that is to say…there is no doubt in my mind that he is still looking for you. Alive or dead.”

Leo was not gonna cry, the stupid tea’s hot steam just had inconvenient timing in making his eyes water. Freakin’ Mikey, man. All of what Nelson just said, it was all true. But.

Yeah, he knew his brothers loved him. There was never any doubt about that. It was just — he didn’t exactly deserve it. He was looking for a way home to soothe his own selfish worries, not because his brothers wanted him back. Because they shouldn’t want him back. He took horrible situations and made them worse. Who else except Leon could screw up so bad they had to force their own student to go back in time to fix a mess they made?  

Leo hadn’t wanted to die in the prison dimension, but maybe he deserved—

“I see you’re enjoying the tea.”

He blinked rapidly, finding his gaze boring down into the liquid in the cup. The black fuzziness spreading from his peripheral vision thinned and flew away, bringing reality into delicate focus.

“Huh?” He croaked out. He couldn’t lift his eyes up.

“The tea,” There was a motion as Kent Nelson nodded his down at the beverage in question. Leo wasn’t looking at his face, but his voice was filled with a certain kind of understanding that drew him further out of the darkness. “Quite tasty, isn’t it? Even I cry over it sometimes. That’s why it’s my favorite.”

What a liar. He knew Leo hadn’t sipped a single drop of tea yet. 

The mutant turtle set the cup down, pushing it away. He braced his elbows on the table and rested his face in the palms of his hands, the heels digging into his eyes. Mr. Nelson’s words were an easy out, an offer to change the subject and save face. And, honestly? Leo appreciated the thought. But he didn’t need it.

They sat in silence. 

Eventually, he flicked his eyes upwards.

“…I wanna go home. Why am I here if you’re just gonna say all I can do is wait?”

The old man smiled secretively. 

“Oh? I don’t believe I said that…after all, your brother’s reaching out for you. Why don’t we reach back?”

Chapter Text

“Whoa! This is trippier than Meat Sweat’s poisoned pizza puffs!”

Kent Nelson, who Leo was rapidly realizing was way more badass than he’d originally thought, merely raised an eyebrow at him as they walked. This dude had a whole magic tower complete with a key to an invisible door, an illusionary version of a holographic butler, and the room they were currently traveling through that raised its middle finger to gravity. Like, who just casually has a room full of Penrose stairs? Where were the walls??? The door they walked through wasn’t still there when Leo looked back — if he wasn’t having so much fun imagining Donnie having a conniption over this place, he’d be having one himself.

“Here we are,” Nelson stated, pausing on the current platform in front of…nothing in particular. That was all the warning Leo got before he tapped his probably magic cane on the ground thrice, gravity flipped, and they landed in a cozy study room full of cluttered bookshelves, furniture, and a single crackling fireplace large enough to fit an adult human.

“Neat.” The red-eared slider jumped onto a cushioned sofa. Honestly, the best part about this whole place was that despite the shenanigans with the laws of force and gravity and whatnot, his injuries weren’t wildly complaining. He couldn’t use a crutch because of his broken ribs, so he’d been a bit worried when they left Kent’s apartment that morning that the trip would aggravate his leg, but ya gotta love magic. He could walk on the ceiling and do flips all he wanted; the tower was only creating an illusion of travel distance, time, and physics. Or something like that. 

The old man hummed in the background, poking through the shelves for the book he was looking for. “Sorry about the wait,” Nelson said conversationally, “I had it pulled out, but I forgot the Tower likes to put things back where they belong.”

Yeah, the Tower of Fate. Leo got the feeling it might be semi-sentient. Also, totally suspicious that it was called the Tower of Fate — wasn’t Nelson talking about Doctor Fate, and now he just reveals he's the keeper of the Tower of Fate? They had to be related somehow. He would bet Mikey ten bucks Nelson used to be Doctor Fate, if Mikey were here to bet with and Raph were here to steal money from to bet with and Donnie were here to roll his eyes and refuse to participate in favor of gathering evidence. 

Day Six. It was already six days too many.

“Now I’ve got it.” Mr. Nelson held a tattered tome to his chest as he returned to the fireplace. “The ritual is fairly simple. I need to read the words out loud and then we’ll be able to reach out with our mystic energy — or rather, you’ll reach out and I’ll guide you. But it requires meditation. Do you have any experience with that?”

Leo tried not to grimace and wobbled his hand in the air in a so-so gesture. “I know how, but uh, the results vary.” Which was certainly one way to say that he usually ended up getting distracted, bored, or stuck in a tortuous half-asleep where the worst Jupiter Jim movie in his head played on repeat until Mikey came to get him for breakfast. And the single attempt he was actually making progress in, Donnie had walked into his room and tranq’d him because in a wild turn of events his twin had suspected him of demon possession.

Nelson shrugged. “All we can do is try. Would you like to try it in this room?”

“How about somewhere a little less…busy?” 

“Right this way then,” Kent Nelson motioned for him to follow and — walked into the burning fireplace. Leo really should have seen that coming. He started to follow, but had to bite back a yelp when Nelson stuck his head back through for a second. “You might want to grab a few cushions.” He disappeared again.

Leo obediently grabbed the cushions off the couch he’d been lounging on before using them as a shield to walk through the fireplace.

He emerged in a dark, domed chamber with cold marble flooring. He inched forward, a hand probing forward to make sure he didn’t bump into Mr. Nelson while his eyes were still adjusting. 

“I call this place the planetarium. It also doubles as a ballroom, but we never had used it for that. Why bother, when dancing under the stars was so much better?”

He finds Nelson when his hand grazes the old man’s arm, and then Leo can make out his fond smile as he gazes up into the ceiling’s shadows. Now able to see to an extent he returns his hand to himself and places down the cushions, one for each of them. The whole space is large and empty with only a faint glow from some indiscernible light source bordering the floor. It’s certainly far from busy, like Leo had asked for, but now he was faced with a different problem.

It was too quiet. Hollow. An abandoned, deserted space.

“Can we turn it on?”

“Can we?” Nelson turned to him. “If you wish. We are trying to meditate here, remember.”

“Yeah, but you’re also trying to read your spooky latin chant,” the teenager deadpanned. “Hard to do that when it’s so dark in here.”

Mr. Nelson didn’t reply, but Leo heard him laugh yet again. The magic cane glowed and the ceiling melted away, navies and indigos studded with the sparkling dots of planets replacing the darkness. He tried not to gape, but it was unlike any night sky he’d seen before — the light pollution of New York was too obscuring, and their undesired camping trip had taken place in a wooded area. If he’d had any other chance to see such a wide, beautiful view of the constellations he certainly couldn’t remember it. 

Well, okay, he could see the stars from the Justice League’s super secret space base. But that was just white dots on a black background. Earth and the Moon were the most impressive objects in those windows, whereas here it was so much more colorful and breathtaking in its expanse.

Kent Nelson moved. He lowered himself down onto one of the cushions and snapped the watch Leo hadn’t seen him pull out closed and put it back into his pocket. He set his cane across his lap and splayed open the spell tome over it, tracing the lines of foreign language with a finger and flipping through its pages.

Leo didn’t stop staring at the stars until he heard the rasp of paper stop. They seemed to shift every time he blinked. Here, the Big and Little Dippers that were the first constellations Mikey could find on a star chart. There, the Gemini constellation Leo’d once pointed out to Donnie in the latter’s astronomy textbook (‘See here Don? It’s the twins! Casper and Chicken Pox!’ — ‘Castor and Pollux, you Dum-Dum!’).

He tore his gaze away. Kent Nelson spoke. “Are you ready?”

“Yup!” He sat criss-cross on his own pillow.

“Then let us begin.”

True to Leo’s expectations, all sorts of latin-sounding mumbo-jumbo left Nelson’s mouth as he read out loud. His cane glowed and the whole room felt like it shuddered while the spell settled around them, a blanket of gauze that would tear if he even twitched. When the words tapered off, Nelson didn’t speak. All he did was nod at the teenager. Go ahead, his eyes said.

He relaxed his body, trying to measure his breathing the way Dad taught them. Maybe it was because of the spell, maybe it was because his brothers were far more important than any silly thing that could possibly distract him from his goal; whatever the reason, he fell into the meditation more easily than he ever had before. 

Leo looked deep inside himself, locating his ninpo. Though his body felt trapped by the spell’s thin presence his mystic core was now unanchored, floating in a yawning void of absence. He searched the emptiness intensely. Where were his brothers? Where was his family? The Hamato Ninpo was supposed to come from the whole clan of ancestors. He still had his abilities, his ninpo, so where were they? 

Something yellow brushed against his consciousness and he nearly flinched away before glimpsing its hue, the same yellow Nelson’s cane glowed. “Not that way,” the old man’s voice rang clearly in his head. He was nudged towards the soft blue of his mystic core.

Okay then. Time to go deeper.

Like dipping under the surface of water he sank into the presence of his own ninpo, not sure what he was looking for. His guide tiptoed behind him in the shadow of his movements without a whisper of advice. 

There: a pale teal orb of light, as small as a firefly in the lake of Leo’s own ninpo.  He touched it and it expanded into a large circular symbol — the Hamato crest in all its glory. Without a second of hesitation he stepped through and…

…surfaced. He bobbed in an ocean of energy, paper-thin layers of sky resting above just out of his reach.

“Here’s where I come in,” Nelson said, still filling his nonexistent shadow with yellow. He felt something pushing him up — or was it pulling the sky down, closer? And then they were solidifying, not that Leo knew when they had become formless in the first place, and he had a hand to pull himself onto the first layer with.

A string of blue ninpo dangled from a fingertip, down past the new 'floor'; above and around and below, the layers of sky refracted into a colorless kaleidoscope.

The yellow presence reached from behind him, tugging at something invisible. It placed a string into his grip; he couldn’t see it, but he could feel a familiar energy throbbing along it like a heart beat. 

Mikey was reaching for him. He curled his grip tighter, pulling, like he could wrest his brother down from the kaleidoscope sky. 

“Reach back.”

< How? >

A light tug on the ninpo string attached to him. Could he…? Leo pulled the blue from the string into himself, and back out across the invisible connection. The string’s path was briefly highlighted as the pulse of blue raced along it revealing a spiderweb-like network splitting off into different sky fractals where he easily lost track of it.

Even though he knew, somehow, that it wouldn’t work, he tried to follow the string. Jumped and stretched and tried anything he could think of to follow it into the kaleidoscope, but the closer he tried to get the farther the sky seemed to drift.

When he settled down, it snapped right back into place. Good to know trying wasn’t making it worse, at least.

“Now it’s up to him,” Nelson said.

< That’s all? What happens when we leave here? >

“The connection will weaken. To give him another chance to locate you, we can repeat this process in a few days.”

< And I can’t stay here until he finds me because… >

“It’s not sustainable. Your body would wither, perhaps even die before he could find you.”

Leo felt along the string. It didn’t have a limit on his side, but he scratched curiously at the portion he clutched until it frayed, and then he held a new connection that had a loose end.

“Did you just—”

He tied the loose end to his string on ninpo. The knot absorbed into the string and it was like the spiderweb had been lit up from the inside, turning bright white with his blue racing along a predetermined path to disappear into the kaleidoscope. It didn’t merely pulse this time, but streamed consistently along the string.

Kent Nelson’s disbelieving guffaw was the last thing he heard before somewhere many, many universes away, blue on a string brushed orange, and the world was washed out from under his feet.

.

.

.

CLANG!

A black skillet landed on tiled flooring. It was tough enough it must have cracked the tile, but he didn’t see a marred surface. The whole kitchen was squeaky clean like Donnie had just swept through in one of his germ purges, and look, there was the back of Mikey’s shell as he tried to reorganize stuff back the way he liked it. Except something must have interrupted him, because he’d dropped the skillet and was standing rigid, tense, a million miles away or ten feet straight ahead.

“Leo?”

Oh, right. Leo existed. Leo was home. Leo was standing a million miles away or ten feet behind his baby bro watching as Mikey shivered still facing the wrong way, arms wrapped in bandages where did those come from why did he have those who hurt —

— Mikey turned around. The kitchen melted away. They stood where orange met blue no it was all the cyan of Hamato ninpo, a little pocket of mystic energy that let two consciousnesses touch across who-knows-how-many universes — and their eyes met. 

A trembling arm rose, hand covering Mikey’s mouth as tears sprang into his eyes. “Leo?” His brother repeated, voice muffled equally by the beginning of a wet sob and his hand. 

Leo — because he forgot he existed again for a second there — couldn’t quite think up an appropriate response, so he simply let his happiness bubble up so much it lifted his beak into a smile.

Mikey glomped him.

This wasn’t under any circumstances the real world, but Leo felt Mikey’s intent just as vividly as if he were actually here, squeezing his ribs that magically weren’t in any pain and sobbing a waterfall into his shoulder. He swung his arms around and wrapped them around his brother’s shell as tightly as he could because he already felt himself slipping away and he didn’t want to leave, not yet not now 

“W-wait, Leo!” 

not ever

but

“You’re really something, son.”

The planetarium. Its ceiling was now a soft but bright white, illuminating Kent Nelson clearly where he stood leaning on his cane, couch cushion barely touching his left black dress shoe. 

Leo’s arms hovered in the air like they were still trying to hold onto Mikey. As soon as he realized this, where he was, the abrupt exit from the meditation, they fell down to his sides. 

Nelson knelt down in front of him, giving Leo another few moments to collect himself before the old man continued, “It’s unlikely we’ll need to perform that ritual again. You managed to create a link that’s sending out pulses of magic subconsciously to your family. But you drained a lot of your mystic energy to establish that connection — you even completely reached him for a moment there, didn’t you?”

Leo didn’t dignify the question with its obvious answer. He scrambled to his feet, kicking the pillow aside when he leapt upright. “I need to go back in. I need to—“

“The spell can only be cast once every 48 hours,” Mr. Nelson said. “But fully taking yourself to them like that isn’t healthy. It will hurt both of you. You didn’t just push yourself towards you brother, you pulled him towards you as well.”

He tried not to glare daggers at the old man because of course it wasn’t his fault magic sucked and couldn’t fix everything or be so kind as to let Leo have a way to communicate while waiting for Mikey to come pick him up, but his frustration knotted all his muscles so stiffly he could barely move them, so he had to tilt his whole head away to stop the glare from facing Nelson straight on.

“Fine,” he spat at nothing in particular. “Fine.” 

If pursuing the idea wouldn’t be putting Mikey at risk too, Leo’s acquiescence would have been a lie.

.

.

.

The next day they’re sitting back in Nelson’s Orleans apartment, and for lunch they sat at the same table again and Leo was actually drinking the tea instead of crying over it. All the meals he’d spent with Nelson had been a far cry from the rambunctious Hamato family gatherings back home, but there wasn’t anything wrong with that. Honestly, if he ignored the entirely different universe thing it was sort of how he’d imagined hanging out with Gram-Gram for some one-on-one time could have been like. 

Kent Nelson was easy-going and wry, making oddly entertaining company for a man a century old with stories to match. Once Leo’d asked he’d outright admitted that he was a retired superhero, the former Doctor Fate; darn he wished he had someone to bet with about that he totally would have won. Also, since he used to be the ‘Sorcerer Supreme’ in question, that was why he had that epic mystic tower, ’cuz the hat or whatever that let Nabu possess people was kept safe there.

“So why’d you retire?”

“My wife, Inza,” he said, pulling out the stopwatch Leo’d seen before and looking at something inside it before setting it down between them so the teenager could see. There was tiny portrait of an auburn-haired woman in it. Aww, was that who Nelson was talking about when he said he used the planetarium for dancing? Did he use to dance under the stars with Inza a lot? That was tooth-rottingly sweet. Leo, expert romantic, approved. “At her encouragement, I accepted a life without so much danger. That,” he added with a chuckle, “and I’m hardly in fighting shape any more.”

He knew without asking that Inza was dead, had been dead for a long while. But filling the room just as equally as her absence were the traces of her presence. The well-worn pocket watch, the fancy china that was probably some family heirloom, enough furniture for two constant inhabitants and even a pair of women’s shoes tucked neatly under a chair with embroidered cushions, dust-free like they hadn’t been sitting there for possibly decades. He wore no wedding ring, but it was obvious all the same Inza had been his one and only.

“Do you have any family left?”

“Not at all. I’m just an old man, waiting for his time to come. Ah,” he coughed when he saw Leo’s face at that comment and quickly assured him, “don’t worry, Fate still has plans for me yet.”

“Jeez, don’t scare me like that Gramps,” Leo put a hand over his heart dramatically, completely oblivious to Kent Nelson doing a double-take. “I need you to stay alive long enough to make sure I get home!” Totally the only reason he cared about anything happening to this aged, sly coot. 

“Of course,” Mr. Nelson said. His eyes twinkled humorously. “I’ll do my best.”

.

.

.

“Ah yeah, this is great!” He tipped back the hood of his pilfered shirt just enough that he could look around at the streets without revealing too many green scales. He trotted behind Kent Nelson happily, feeling more comfortable without his swords and gear than he usually did since he had a human to hide behind as they wandered the lively neighborhood in New Orleans. The city’s famous music floated in the evening air, street vendors shouted out their wares, tourists popped in and out of tacky looking stores like they were competing for the title of Most Empty Wallet. 

It was an experience he’d only had the chance to partake in within the Hidden City occasionally — due to Raph’s overprotectiveness on the surface and then his brothers’ mischief making down below — and it was a much needed distraction from Day 10 of his undesired multiversal adventure. He should get souvenirs. How about a t-shirt reading, ‘I Survived an Alien Invasion and Being Yeeted Into an Alternate Reality and All I Got Was This T-Shirt from New Orleans’?

Nah, it was a little wordy. 

“Oh-ho, look at that!” Nelson pointed with his cane towards a little shop sporting a golden plaque with an eye symbol and the presumed owner’s name. “Commercial divination is still going strong, eh? Care to go in?”

Leo raised a brow. “You are literally a former vessel for a magical entity and own a whole tower of magical thingamabobs. I’m 100% sure there was an actual future-seeing crystal ball on the shelf in that library. And you want to get your fortune read or something at this tourist trap?”

“There are many psychics in existence,” Nelson defended in a neutral tone, “Why not see if she’s one of them?”

“Pfft. There’s no way this Madame Xanadu is anything but a phony.”

Nelson obviously remained open to either possibility as he straightened his tie, fingering the chain of his watch and clearing his throat theatrically. His face fell into a weary somberness that spoke of experience being worn naturally.

“What are you doing?” Leo asked curiously.

“Getting into character,” he stage-whispered back. Without further warning, he pushed through the door. The turtled hurried to slip in after him, momentarily wavering between following him up to the fortune teller’s table or avoiding revealing himself to her at all before deciding the show would be more fun if he had a different angle and shimmied up into one of the decorative curtains before the entertainer even emerged from a side room. Ha! Still got that ninjocity. Boy did this place make it easy though. So many moody shadows! And those candles just plain looked like fire hazards. 

Madame Xanadu went through a predictable spiel and ritual that Mr. Nelson interrupted halfway through, proceeding to critique her on her choices of stage magic machines. He wasn’t even being mean about it — past the part where he laughed in her face for her portrayal of his wife, ouch — and was only shaking his head with matter-of-fact disappointment. 

“A shame, too,” the old man lamented like he was some sort of connoisseur, “You have the perfect aura for the work. And nothing would have pleased me more than to be reunited with my bride.”

Leo was impressed. Did Kent Nelson make a habit of doing stuff like this, because it was hilar—wait, who was that!?

A man strode out of the other deep shadows in the room (uhhh maybe Leo shouldn’t have assumed he was the only one taking advantage of this random fortune teller’s moody shadows) spouting some supervillain line about reuniting Mr. Nelson with his wife wait a second —

In a flash of blue-white, the two men vanished. Leo leapt out his hiding spot a moment too late to reach them, only accomplishing drawing a scream out of Madame Xanadu when his hood fell down at the motion.

Crap, why was he so—!

Ugh!

No, no time for that. There was a golden glow, and he realized Nelson had dropped his cane when he was dragged out of his seat. Leo automatically grabbed the stick when it floated upright which might have been a mistake because the next thing he knew he had been teleported from the little shop, too. Whoops.

Chapter Text

The turtle huffed and puffed as he raced down the hall, abandoning all notion of stealth in favor of speed. Here the former was of little concern, even if he might scare the neighbors.

This was April and Draxum’s apartment building, after all.

Mikey kicked open his targeted door with barely enough gentleness to leave it intact. “Baron Draxum!” He hollered, “You HAVE to—!”

He faltered at the sight in front of him. Barry blinked at him indifferently from where he stood, hands held up in surrender, with his jugular under a knife held by someone Mikey hadn’t seen hide nor scale of in nine days.

“Wh-!” The orange clad turtle started, only to be spoke over.

“Ah, good, you’re here,” his brother of questionable sanity greeted him. “Draxum refuses to relent under the threat of fatal blood loss. It would be greatly appreciated if instead, you used your youngest child charm to aid me.”

Not sure why Donnie had finally left his lab long enough to be spotted, much less come here to confront their creator, Mikey approached carefully and took the dull blade out of his brother’s grasp only to gape at it indignantly. “Donnie, this is my favorite butter knife! I told you to stop threatening people with my butter knife!!”

“My mistake,” the purple turtle said, and pulled Mikey’s favorite butcher knife from his battle shell.

“Oh for goodness’s sake.” Mikey snatched it away before it could go to a completely unbothered Draxum’s neck. No wonder he couldn’t find the knife block earlier. “Dee, why are you trying to kill Barry?”

“I’m not trying to kill him, I’m simply acquiring necessary resources.”

The younger had to plunge his hand into the battle shell compartment with a “No! BAD Donnie!” when it opened to allow a robot arm in. He fished out the block of sharp kitchen utensils before Donnie could pull out another blade and hugged the whole thing protectively against his plastron. 

“What ‘resources’ are so important you’d rather commit patridgecide than eat the French toast I made this morning, or dinner last night or I dunno any food!?”

“Patricide,” Donnie corrected coldly, “— and Draxum won’t die if he just coughs up what he knows about portals.” He hesitated, then assured him, “I have been eating. I simply made a stash in my lab so I wouldn’t have to leave.”

Mikey was gonna find that stash and burn it to the ground. Smoke ‘em out so his brother had to leave the lab more. But that was a task for Dr. Delicate Touch. Right now Mikey needed to address Donnie’s research topic. “Dee, portals? You know you can’t…” But he trailed off, feeling his own hypocrisy in the twinging of his arms. After all, wasn’t that why he was visiting Draxum in the first place?

His genius brother finally glanced at him. Something he saw must have surprised him because suddenly he was whirling to fully face him, facade of frustration dropping and body going still as he examined every inch of the youngest turtle. Draxum, too, observed Mikey with a frown.

“Michelangelo—” turtle and yokai spoke in tandem. They paused to glare at each other, and then Barry made a shooing gesture at Dee.

“Offended gasp, did you just shoo me??”

The warrior alchemist rolled his eyes and tossed something at the softshell, making him fumble to catch it, then shoved him out of the apartment. “You may use that to aid your research, but it is my understanding that your siblings and Lou do not wish for you to experiment without their consent, else they may come for my head. You’re welcome.” He slammed the door in Donnie’s face.

“What’d you give him?” Mikey asked curiously. A moment later his left arm spasmed and he yelped, dropping what he was holding to floor with a clatter. 

Draxum looked at him sharply. “Michelangelo, this is important. I warned you to not try to open another rift.”

“I didn’t!” He massaged the tender limb. The aftershocks of what had occurred that afternoon had mostly died down, but maybe the stress of just this interaction with Barry and Donnie had caused this last little episode.

“Then why is your injury acting up? Why have you been crying? Why are you here?”

He noticed? Of course he did, his mask was still wet and even just the thought of why he’d been crying in the first place made tears well up again. Donnie’d probably noticed too, but his brother avoided emotions like the plague so of course he didn’t mention it before he got kicked out. 

“Because…” Mikey scrubbed out the blurriness in his vision. “Something happened. I-I felt him, saw him. And I need you to tell me — you have to tell me that it was real. You have to.”

“What are you talking about? Who did you sense?”

“L-Leo. Leo’s still alive!”

.

.

.

Days later and a million universes away, one very much alive Leonardo Hamato was just about ready to fistfight a sentient tower.

-

Confirmed: the Tower was sentient enough to have logic and reasoning.

Unconfirmed: the Tower was purposefully using this sentience to troll him.

“Please, just let me out,” Leo begged - begged! - Nelson’s magic butler doppelgänger as he stood in front of the wall that was probably the Tower’s entrance. “I swear, I’m trying to help Kent Nelson!”  

“You are where Fate has ordained you to be,” the Tower’s magic hologram repeated for the gazillionth time.

“I,” Leo enunciated, eyelid twitching, “am. looking. for. Kent. Nelson. KENT NELSON IS NOT HERE.”

“Fate has led your search here.”

“If he was here, I wouldn’t still be looking for him!”

The illusionary copy of Mr. Nelson looked him dead in the eyes. “You are where—“

“—Fate has ordained me to be, yeah I know you said that already. You were a lot cooler before Nelson was old-man-napped,” Leo muttered. “Do you at least know where he is?”

“Such knowledge is unauthorized.”

“Alright, that’s it!” He pulled the sleeves of his hoodie up like he was ready to brawl. “If you won’t reveal the door or let me portal out, I’ll just leave the old-fashioned way!” 

He approached the wall, ready to punch it and hopefully break brick instead of bones. But his first step past Tower-Nelson was met with chilly air and damp sneakers plunging into cold wetness. He found himself back inside the snowy pocket dimension the staff had originally transported him to hours ago.

The teenager released a scream of incoherent rage. He kicked snow around, digging random trenches around that kept filling themselves back up, and eventually stopped to shiver in place.

He looked over at where Nelson’s staff floated. He’d left it here when he’d first arrived, teleporting out of the pocket dimension with freshly constructed katanas as soon as he could because of the cold. He’d ended up in one of the only places he seemed able to teleport to right now — the many rooms/pocket dimensions within the Tower of Fate — and hadn’t given the turtle-abducting staff a second thought. It was giving him thoughts now. Thoughts and an idea. 

“This is a very stupid idea,” he told himself.

Too bad.

He grabbed the staff and paused, waiting to see if it would carry him somewhere else again. No dice, so he followed through on his stupid idea and tried to channel his ninpo through it instead of his swords. His logic was that, if it didn’t blow up in his face, the thing that got him into the Tower in the first place could also get him out of it.

One second. Two seconds. Three—

It blew up.

Of course.

“Ouff!” Leo ate snow as he tumbled backwards from the golden explosion that defended Nelson’s staff. The glow pulsed warningly, then settled back down to its current normal.

He pretended it was shaking a finger at him and maturely blew a raspberry at it. No response. Well, it wasn’t like he needed another sentient magic object to deal with, so he was gonna assume that was just some inbuilt defense mechanism, or even just a natural result of trying to conduct his mystic powers through a different magic-user’s thingy. 

Okay, so now what? He was gonna leave this pocket dimension again because he wasn’t dressed warmly enough, but what about after that? He would just be stuck wandering the Tower looking for anything useful, like an exit sign or a missing-old-person finder.

He pinched between his eyes. “Just…keep moving forward.” Nodding to himself, he used his blades to open a portal back to what he’d dubbed Penrose Stairs Central, after tying the staff on his back next to the sheaths he’d moved to the outside of the hoodie, and hopped through.

Time moved strangely in the Tower of Fate. He felt like he was frozen within the same millisecond that he had entered in, while at the same time it took him a solid half hour to climb down ten steps into a lower(?) floor. The letters and numbers on his phone glitched sporadically making it nigh unusable. As he explored, he was bursting with energy right up until he eventually found himself in the planetarium — Aurora Borealis dancing across the ceiling and a random sleeping bag slumped against one side of the rounded wall — and drowsiness roadblocked the Insomniac Train of Thought.

Message received. Leo shook out the sleeping bag and laid the staff and other gear on the ground. Guess the Tower isn’t a total jerk. 

Hopefully a fresh mind would help him get out of this place.

.

.

.

When he woke up, it was because the sleeping bag disappeared. Just…popped out of existence, sending his body down an inch or two.

“Wha—!?” Leo scrambled upright, scouring the planetarium for whatever enemy had vaporized his makeshift bed. The room was empty aside from him, his gear, and Nelson’s staff. The ceiling was lit up to daylight levels, but that didn’t guarantee what time it was.  

Unbidden, he recalled something Nelson had said. “The Tower likes to put things back where they belong.”

The Tower had given him the sleeping bag, but couldn’t even wait until he was done with it to take it back? Earlier theory confirmed: the Tower was a total troll. And now that he was awake and un-bedded, he definitely couldn’t go back to sleep. Guess it was time to resume looking for a way out. In the planetarium, at least, the doors stayed where they were supposed to be - the double door he’d used to enter it this time was on one side of the room, and directly opposite was the fireplace that hopefully still led to the library room, coals alight now that the planetarium wasn’t in starwatcher mode.

The teenaged turtle pulled his gear back on and tentatively stepped into the fireplace. The transport was immediate and he walked out into the library. He looked around; he hadn’t been in here since Nelson had gotten that ritual tome. He didn’t see any obvious doors, but that just prompted him to examine the shelves. Every library had to have a secret passageway activate by moving a book, and that went double for a magical one. It was practically a law of the universe!

All the books were huge and in various states of disuse, nothing was really popping out at him but — ah, there next to a snow globe was that crystal ball he saw the other day still on the shelf. Maybe that would do something? He hummed, moving it onto a round table. It was foggy inside and he didn’t want another magic object to blow up on his so he simply hovered his hands over it, humming, “I scry with my little eye — Kent Nelson!”

Stiiiilllllll foggy. 

“Alphabetized mystic relic storage? Little boy’s room? Cafeteria? A way out?” Nope, no, nada, zilch.

He flipped it over. Made in China, a label read.

Why did he even bother???

He was inches away from shattering the darn thing on the ground before deciding to take mercy on it for fear it was actually something important, and moved to put it back on the shelf. He paused. The snow globe it had been sitting next to, which held a mini copy of the Tower inside a blizzard, had something moving around it. Tiny, colorful human figures approached the door, unlocked it, and entered the Tower.

Oh, so the crystal ball is fake and the snow globe is the magic one?! He shoved the offending item in his hands onto the shelf and yanked his swords out of their sheaths to carve out a portal to the entry hall. No time to waste when those people could be his ticket outta here!

He walked out into the chamber where Tower-Nelson stood impassively, back facing him, as a chorus of screams rent the air. His walk turned to a sprint instinctively, swords moving rapidly as he registered the lack of people but presence of a large pit and sweltering heat.

He reached the edge and peered down at…a gaggle of humanoid teenagers in precarious positions above a pool of lava. 

A green-skinned girl, possibly a martian, who floated in the middle of the pit was sinking down under the weight of her ginger caucasian friend. A pale black haired boy wearing a shirt with the Superman symbol held desperately onto the walls, shoeless feet and burnt pant legs yanked up as far away from the molten pool as they could get while a white-haired teen with dark skin dug his webbed fingers into narrow crevices a few feet above him, about ready to slip. 

“Hoo, boy!” Leo exclaimed, lazily leaning on sparking blue katanas to meet eyes with the incredulous, alarmed teenagers who glanced up at him. “The Tower’s really giving you a warm welcome, eh?”

“Help would be much appreciated, friend,” the teen with webbed fingers (Atlantean?) gritted out as dirt crumbled under his grip.

Leo waved a hand dismissively. “You’ll be fine.”

“We’re about to take a dip in lava,” Ginger exclaimed. “There’s nothing fine—”

He was interrupted by the Superman fanboy. “Huh.”

“Huh wha—aaaat is that!?” They all finally noticed Leo’s portal filling up the bottom of the pit, completely covering the sight of the lava and showing its other side, which was the space behind Leo and Tower-Nelson. Ginger continued in his disbelief, “Where’d the lava go??”

“Drop.” The teenagers startled at the Atlantean’s command.

“Dude, are you crazy?!”

Leo sighed dramatically, drawing attention back to himself. “I’d do what he says,” he advised. “I can’t hold open a portal this big forever, y’know.” 

“Screw it.” Superman Fanboy released his grip and dropped through, shortly followed by the Atlantean. Leo watched in amusement as Ginger’s trepidation was ignored by the martian girl — who fell through with him yelling in her ear.

Now that the portal was clear he closed it up and spun his swords in a flourish, turning to observe the teenagers picking themselves up off the floor. Or, well, Ginger. The other boys had done superhero landings, and the martian simply floated. Tower-Nelson frowned at them all as if disappointed they’d been rescued from his totally uncalled for volcano trap. Seriously, even if by some chance they were villains, who threw people in lava? Opposite of cool, man.

He decided to ignore the Tower’s terrible host practices and looked the kids over to make sure none of them had actually been hurt. Only Superman Fanboy’s pants bore wounds, though his feet were slightly flushed red, and Leo wondered if he’d actually slipped into the lava a little, melting shoes and socks off. If so that would mean he had superpowers, or was inhuman to a degree. The martian girl looked exhausted but otherwise fine, and the remaining two were just sweaty. They all seemed to be around his age though he pegged the Atlantean as the oldest, or at least the most mature.

“So,” he sheathed his swords with a practiced smirk. “You guys from Jersey?”

Chapter Text

The Atlantean stepped forward, offering a hand for him to…shake? Was he sure this guy was a teenager? “You have our gratitude,” the young man started as Leo eyed the appendage. He took it, because why not. “Am I correct to assume you are Leonardo Hamato?”

“The one and only! But, uh, how the shell do you know my name.”

“We are with the Justice League. You and Kent Nelson failed to check in at the agreed time, so Red Tornado sent us to check on the wellbeing of the Helmet of Fate while he pursued other leads.”

“It’s been that long already? Man, this place really needs a clock.” If he’d been here three days already, his bodily needs must have slowed down cause he barely felt peckish or even thirsty. Hey, wait, how could these guys be with the League? All the members he saw listed were adults, weren’t they? Unless… “Oh!” He exclaimed triumphantly, “You’re their sidekicks!”

“Do not,” Superman Fanboy and Ginger seethed in unison, “call us sidekicks.”

OK, sore spot, noted. He raised his hands in surrender, “Chill, chill, I hear you. Then do you wanna tell me your names, or superhero names, or whatever?”

“I am Kaldur’ahm, but you may call me Aqualad,” the Atlantean introduced and okay yeah that made sense, Leo’d seen an Aquaman on the roster. “My comrades are Superboy, Kid Flash, and Miss Martian,” he introduced Superman Fanboy, Ginger, and Martian Girl all in turn. 

He didn’t know the other two, but he’d seen news clips of Kid Flash. In a mask and costume. “Don’t you have a secret identity?” Leo asked the boy. “Actually, why are none of you geared up if you’re on a mission?” Even Leo and his bros, pinnacles of professionalism that they weren’t, at least brought weapons. He couldn’t see the bulge of weapons on any of these guys, only casual surface clothes.

“It was supposed to a reconnaissance mission.”

Kid Flash jumped in to add, “Besides, we have our superpowers if anything goes wrong!”

Leo stared at him blankly. “Suuurrrre,” he drawled. It didn’t come off as sarcastic as he wanted it to, though. The way the Krang had sealed up their mystic powers was a little too fresh on his mind for that. And if they hadn’t even had their weapons or Donnie’s tech to fall back on, just been left completely defenseless…he never would have said it before — because it was Raph’s job to say that sort of stuff —but better safe than sorry.

Aqualad continued, “We were not expecting to find anyone here. Is Nelson with you? What happened?”

Leo tried to stay nonchalant by shrugging as he answered. “I can’t find him anywhere. We were checking out some fortune teller’s shop when this man grabbed him and teleported them both away. Then Nelson’s magic staff —“ he jabbed a thumb at the offending item on his back, ignoring a muffled scoff from one of them because who knew what that was about, “Took me here. The Tower won’t let me out even when I portal so I’ve been stuck here ever since.” He paused as a thought occurred to him. “And I wasn’t a victim of attempted barbecuing. What did you guys do to get yourselves into hot water with J.A.R.V.I.S. here?” In the three seconds it took me to get here from the library, he didn’t say.

The group collectively hesitated like they weren’t sure where they’d gone wrong. Then Miss Martian slapped herself upside the head. “Oh, duh! We never truly answered the question.” She turned to address Tower-Nelson. “Red Tornado sent us to see if the Helmet was safe!”

The holographic man tilted his head in acknowledgement and flickered out of existence. There was a rumbling, and the temperature of the room decreased back to normal levels as the gaping hole in the floor shrunk until it was gone. Then bricks peeled themselves away from the floor like they’d just been stickers, the walls descended, and the entire group found themselves standing on one of the Penrose Stairs platforms.

“W-what?!” Kid Flash did not seem to be having a good time with the reality warping. “H-how — I mean,” the boy glanced at Miss Martian and said in the fakest voice, “Whoa, cool. Magic.”

Was that the tone of a scientist restraining himself Leo detected? “Oh, you think that’s cool?” In a move Leo knew would drive Donny absolutely nuts, the teenaged turtle flipped off the edge of the platform and let the change of gravity land him on a perpendicular one. Now from his perspective, the teenagers were now standing on a wall or, conversely, he was the one walking on a wall.

The redhead pointed a finger at him accusingly. Too easy. “Oh come on! That’s obviously just magnetics, or well-placed gravitational modifiers!”

Aqualad sighed and pinched his nose. Superboy stared on impassively. Miss Martian stared at Kid Flash like she was seeing him in a new light. “Wa-Kid Flash, what are you talking about?”

Oops. Did Leo stumble across another touchy topic? He was rolling all zeros today.

“I—“ the boy stumbled his words.

“Kid, now is not the time,” Aqualad cut in wearily.

Aw, crap.

Even though it wasn’t directed at him, all of Leo’s amusement vanished in an instant. While Kid Flash admitted his disbelief in magic to Miss M and argued with his teammates about it, Leo was trying not to drown in the sudden guilt that washed over him. Why was he goofing around again? It wasn’t lightening the mood, it was just egging on the hang ups this skeptic already had about the magic situation. That wasn’t going to help save Mr. Nelson. Why was he acting so obnoxiously that Raph had to reprimand him again…

…not Raph. Raph wasn’t here. Just this group of super-powered teenagers who weren’t his brothers but were still arguing about just accepting the existence of things you can’t explain with science, D—Kid Flash. 

He shook the thoughts out of his head.

Leo sprang off his platform, landing in the midst of the argument to break it up. “Look, I don’t care how you want stuff to be explained, but the fact of the matter is that this stuff doesn’t work the same way as traditional science. Think of mysticism as a separate set of rules and leave it at that. If you want to science it up, do that on your own time. Nelson’s in trouble. His kidnapper wasn’t exactly planning a nice picnic for him so we need to hurry.”

That shut them up for a moment. Aqualad took the lead again, “Of course. Can you describe the man you saw? Did he say anything? We might be able to figure out who took him.”

After Leo relayed what he’d seen, the Atlantean nodded thoughtfully. “That sounds like…”

“Abra Kadabra,” Kid Flash finished. “Uses advanced technology to smoke-and-mirror his antics. A known fake.”

They barely acknowledged him. “He is most likely using Nelson to find the Helmet of Fate,” Aqualad said, “We need to make sure it is still secure. Leonardo, do you know where it is held?”

“No I—“ He froze. A warm sensation grew against his shell, and he realized it was the magic staff when he saw a yellow glow over his shoulder. He pulled it off his back to see what it was doing, holding it loosely in both hands. “Last time it did this…yup, there it goes.” It floated into an upright position in the air. He grabbed at it not wanting to lose it if it teleported away again. Kid Flash was faster, inadvertently snatching it out of his reach.

“Sorry, I didn’t realize…” the not-sidekick began awkwardly.

“It’s fine,” he lied. Scientists and their grabby curiosity. He was a bit irked, so he reached out to take it back. But movement on an upside-down platform farther into the Penrose Stairs made him pause with his hand on the staff. A few people descended into view, traversing the confusing landscape. If he squinted he could make out two familiar faces; the kidnapper, and “Mr. Nelson!?”

Immediately everyone’s heads swiveled so that the two groups were looking at each other across the distance. The mutant turtle automatically tried to let go of the staff in his surprise, but his grip was stuck in place. Judging by Kid Flash’s reaction the same thing was happening to him. They shared a wide-eyed glance as the cane flashed yellow and —

— teleported them right over to the new group. They fell to the ground when they were suddenly released, both scrambling to dodge the blasts of energy sent their way by Abra Kadabra and the presumed other villain while the staff settled into Nelson’s waiting hands. 

Leo drew his swords as he dodged streams of magic and electricity. Rope around Nelson’s hands and some sort of collar around his neck fell away under the glow of his staff and then the old man was being pulled out of the way of an attack by Kid Flash. Leo darted in quickly to distract the mystery villain — a pale goth-looking kid with hair stylized into horns, a cat perched on the shoulder, and vicious red magic — with a simple slash of steel. As the creepy tween turned around to dodge he followed the movement, dancing behind his rotating back until he grouped up with Kid Flash and Nelson, then redirected the retaliatory magic to hit the shoulder of Kadabra with a quick portal. 

“Leonardo, the elevator,” Nelson whispered harshly as the fake magician cursed and the real one charged up another blast.

“You got it, Gramps!” He sliced down and they dropped, barely avoiding another attack. He closed the portal quickly before he let himself take a breather to recover from the surprise conflict. Huh, looked like the Tower actually did have an elevator. He’d sort of portaled blind there. It was a little smaller than the one in Big Mama’s hotel, but fit two teenagers and an adult well enough. It even had elevator music.

Mr. Nelson poked one of the buttons with his cane. With a cheery ding, the elevator rattled and began to ascend.

“Are you okay? Did those guys do anything to you?” Leo stored one sword but left the other one out in case either of the villains could teleport into the space. Nelson didn’t look injured, but he also wasn’t standing quite as proudly as he usually did. His knuckles holding the cane were nearly white, his pleasant smile was strained, and occasionally he trembled like his ancient bones were complaining at him. It was nothing unnatural for a man his age, but it wasn’t natural for Nelson.

“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” the old man said, which told Leo nothing at all. “Ah, I’m Kent Nelson by the way,” he introduced himself to Kid Flash.

“No duh,” the superhero muttered. “I’m Kid Flash. And I know Abra Kadabra, but who was that other villain?”

Nelson cast Leo a significant look. The turtle only realized why once the man said, “Klarion, a Lord of Chaos. They’ve joined forces to steal the Helmet of Fate. I would have called reinforcements if I had the chance but now it’s too late. They’re in the Tower, they’ll find it soon. We need to force them to retreat so the Tower can relocate. But I’m in no shape to do it on my own.”

“Well, now you’re not on your own,” Leo said. “We’re gonna help, so maybe you should stay on the sidelines? Is there a panic room in this place?”

Nelson’s reply was dry. “If there was the Helmet would be in it. No, nowhere is impenetrable to a Lord of Chaos. And you need me to reach the Helmet’s location so you can intercept them. Besides, I’m not out of the game yet.” He smirked at the turtle. The nerve! Smirking at people was Leon’s thing. “I appreciate the worry, but I’ll be fine.”

“The only thing I was worrying about was you getting in my way!” Leo spluttered.

“Sure kid,” Nelson said generously and the elevator chose that moment to reach its destination. The doors opened to reveal…they were still in Penrose Stairs Central. Wow.

What was new, however, was the giant bell stationed on an equally big platform attached to the elevator. Kent Nelson strode toward it. Leo and Kid Flash flanked him, keeping their eyes on the fight between Superboy, Miss Martian, Aqualad, and the villains some distance away. Nobody noticed their reappearance yet.

“Be ready,” Nelson warned.

The old man struck the bell with his cane. Both objects glowed again, but the bell reverberated with loud ringing. Instantly Leo saw the beginning sparks of Klarion’s red magic a few feet away, curling into the shape of a portal. “Whatever you’re doing—“ he started to say to Nelson, only to cut himself off when the old man walked straight into the bell like he had the library’s fireplace. “Okay, fair enough!” He grabbed Kid Flash and went in after the former magical hero just as Klarion emerged behind them.

It was more like a teleportation than the fireplace had been; when the bell transported them, they fizzled into existence behind Mr. Nelson on a brick, castle-like roof that could only be the very top of the Tower of Fate.

A yellow helm with holes for the eyes but none for a mouth or nose floated openly in the center. Kent Nelson was reaching out for it —

— but blood red light struck him at the torso, nearly collapsing him to the stone. Leo reached him a millisecond later, torn between taking a guard stance with his swords or dropping everything to check over the old man struggling to stand up even with his magic cane. Then Kid Flash was there, doing that job for him, so both katanas pointed at the enemy who’d followed them through the bell.

“Oh, you wanna play?” the Lord of Chaos sneered with his cat winding around his ankles attentively. He brought both hands up and charged them with crimson energy. Even his eyes glowed, turning into small pinpricks of red in a way Leo’d only seen in horror movies. 

“Then let’s play!”

Chapter Text

A gut feeling strikes him fast and hard. This battle will not end well, it tells him, and he tries to get it to shut up the way he always does: with a quip and a smirk.

“Oooh~ someone’s cranky! Is it past your bedtime?”

Klarion aims and fires. Leo slices open a portal to reflect the attack back at him.

But—

The stream of red magic, inexplicably, morphs into the shape of a clawed hand and grabs the edges of his portal like it’s a physical thing. There’s an unbearable compression on his ninpo and before his startled eyes, the portal is wrenched shut and fizzles out of existence.

He’s too surprised at the fact that it’s even possible to do that to react as quick as he should. The claw shoves him aside as it continues past him, towards the Helmet —

—only to scrape against a transparent gold dome that falls over Kid Flash, Nelson, and the magical artifact. Nelson wavers in place as the spell finishes casting. And then he crumples to the ground.

You messed up already.

“No, no, no!” Klarion rants, stomping his feet on the ground like a toddler throwing a tantrum. 

Leo almost feels like he’s moving through molasses but he turns and swings both swords down, infusing them with more of his ninpo to chop the magical projection in half. The entire arm of bright red energy dissipates into the air. The Lord of Chaos screeches in rage and throws an octopus’s worth of thinner clawed arms at him.

“He’s not breathing,” he hears the not-sidekick behind him say.

“Chest compressions!” Leo yells automatically, straining his arms to fend off the tendrils of magic. It feels like, at the same time, he’s also fending off panic for the old man possibly dying on the ground.

“What do you think I’m doing!” is the harried reply and when he chances a look backwards, Kid Flash is indeed already going through the motions of CPR. 

A razor-sharp claw catches on the edge of his shell and Leo tosses a sword to recover from the ensuing throw. He teleports midair to the side of Klarion with a spinning kick that almost gets tangled in the newly torn fabric of his hoodie. The brat ducks and the turtle lands then trips over that stupid cat when he tries to run at the sight of another charging attack.

So. Instead, he opens a portal under Klarion’s feet. The evil child simply floats in place to avoid falling through but it at least distracts him enough Leo can get some distance between them. He scrambles in front of Nelson’s protective dome. It’s solid beneath his hand, not letting anyone in or out. Kid Flash is roughly two minutes into the resuscitation attempt.

Leo feels the open portal slam closed and whips around to counter another barrage of taloned hands. They don’t all focus on him this time; they split off from each other, surrounding the magical shield and digging their claws into it. The others avoid his slashes and snake around him, holding him up in the air. He escapes quickly, dropping a sword and teleporting to it, but not once does he ever gain the advantage. He’s on the defensive — his portals are forced closed or even shredded to bits with relentless prejudice and he’s just not fast enough to stop all the magical extending arms from prying at the dome. He’s stalling for time, but the only thing that time is doing is wearing him out. The rest of Kid Flash’s team hasn’t caught up to them yet. The dome has cracks in it. And he looks inside it, and the superhero isn’t even doing chest compressions anymore, just has a hand on Nelson’s wrist and—

—looks up. Shakes his head grimly.

Leo’s heart skips a beat. 

If he hadn’t hesitated when his portal had been forced shut — if Nelson hadn’t had to invoke that shield because of his lapse in concentration —

Blazing energy blasts him in the chest. The rest of his hoodie is ripped off from the impact, but Leo hardly notices. He collides with the golden dome and it shatters into nothingness beneath him. He lands hard on his shell (which takes the fall like a champ considering it isn’t finished healing) and skids to a stop under Kid Flash, who’s leapt to his feet and is reaching up for something as red claws chase the teenager into the former safe zone.

“Hey dumb kid! You put that helmet on, you may never get it off!” The words are Klarion’s. 

What? Leo tries to get back up. His hand accidentally lands on cooling flesh — Mr. Nelson’s wrist — and he jerks away.

Not knowing what to do, he falls into a familiar mantra: breathe in, breathe out.

The world lights up gold.

.

.

.

It wasn’t Mikey. Despite what his malfunctioning, stuttering brain had the audacity to think for a solid fifteen seconds, the light wasn’t Mikey. It was the Helmet and a yellow cape, navy garments under ornate gilding, settled comfortably onto Kid Flash’s body. When Dr. Fate spoke it was two voices layered over each other. The mystical warrior floated with ease, parried the Lord of Chaos’s attacks blast for blast, and they were still losing.

His ninpo flickered like a dying candle when he tried to help. Deflect attacks, sneak up behind Klarion, anything. It refused. It hadn’t been fully recharged when he’d gotten stuck in this tower, but after all his attempts to leave and then even just his brief tussle against Klarion? It was useless. He was useless. He couldn’t help, he couldn’t move, couldn’t even look at—

—look at Nelson—

Inhale…

Exhale…

He zoned back in just as Dr. Fate landed a hit. Not Klarion but rather the cat that had mostly slunk at the edges of the battle was knocked to the ground by a stream of yellow. 

“Teekl!” The witch-boy’s shriek was high enough to crack glass. “How dare you! I can’t believe you’d hurt a harmless pussycat!” Klarion’s body flickered in and out of existence as he hugged the cat to his chest. 

“We both know that’s not just any cat,” Dr. Fate droned. “And without your familiar, you have no anchor to this realm.”

“Bully! Killjoy! Geezer!” The Lord of Chaos howled. Dr. Fate fired another attack at him, forcing him to dodge backwards into one of his red portals. He emerged briefly, a livid expression on his face. “This isn’t over, Nabu!” Then he fled.

The rooftop was silent. Dr. Fate’s cloaked figure stood unmoving, staring into the distance. The glow of Nabu’s magic retreated back into the helmet but the costume remained. No move was made to remove the Helmet of Fate.

“…Kid Flash?”

No response.

(You put that helmet on, you may never get it off!)

Leo was too…something to deal with this crap. Dr. Fate or Nabu or whoever was supposedly a good guy, he better not be trying to pull some body stealing nonsense right now or Leo might just give that fancy hat the One Ring treatment. Without Kid Flash attached, of course.

And maybe Nabu could read minds, because after a second the possessed teenager pulled off the helm easy as could be. The outfit disappeared instantly and the ginger turned around, catching Leo’s eyes with a serious gaze that flickered between the turtle and the human body he still crouched next to. He approached slowly and kneeled down next to them, putting aside the Helmet. Leo watched as he reverently moved Nelson’s dropped watch into the old man’s limp hand and curled the fingers over it before picking up the helm again and backing away.

Mr. Nelson’s magic cane was gone. Leo thought he saw it shatter when the shield did. He morbidly wondered if his katanas would do that when he died. A bit belatedly, he decided to get some space away from Nelson’s body and stood up to hover next to the teenaged superhero. No visible injuries, but what did he expect in the aftermath of a magic duel?

“He’s not…completely gone,” Kid Flash spoke up, referring to Nelson. “I mean — he is dead, but, his soul is in the Helmet.”

The mutant turtle stared at said magic item. “How does that even work,” he asked hoarsely.

Kid Flash shrugged, looking like he’d bitten into a sour lemon. “Magic, I guess.”

“He’s not stuck in there forever, right?”

“Just for a while. He sort of…convinced Nabu to give me back my body in exchange for keeping him company. He said he’ll move on eventually.”

“Right.” None of this was fair. Nelson was dead. 

He was dead.

“Hey,” Kid Flash nudged him with an elbow. “Ready to get out of here?”

Leo looked where he was pointing. The bricks of the Tower’s roof were wobbling and dropping away, revealing a staircase down. He looked back to Kent Nelson. “We can’t just…”

Kid Flash gave him a knowing look. “The League will arrange a funeral. So, are you ready?”

The turtle ran a hand over his face. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

In solemn camaraderie, they descended.

Chapter Text

Leo didn’t entirely pay attention to what happened around him the day following the whole Doctor Fate mess, so he may or may not remember how he ended up with his meager pile of belongings in a bland, undecorated room inside the Justice League’s sidekicks’ — sorry, protégés’ — seaside mountain bunker. 

At least the group of teenagers didn’t mind his informal introduction. Actually, they almost minded too little; they were assigned some other mission not too long after Leo moved in and it wasn’t until the mutant turtle walked into the kitchen a day or two after that to raid the cupboards that he realized his presence in the base had been so quiet that they’d nearly forgotten he even existed. Donnie would be proud. Heck, Raph would be proud. Everyone was always complaining about his obnoxious loudness, who knew all it took was a little — a little, uh…um…y’know…to shut him up?

A trauma sundae with a cherry on top, his brain helpfully supplied. Nelson was the cherry.

Thanks for nothing, brain.

“I am so sorry,” the martian girl was saying. She hurried to smother him with napkins in an attempt to help him clean up the eggs she lobbed at his face out of self-defense when he unintentionally snuck up on her. “I wasn’t expecting anyone — well, I wasn’t expecting you to be out of — well, you startled me, I’m so sorry…uh, Leonardo, right? Oh my gosh, we never introduced ourselves! Like, properly. And Robin hasn’t even met you either, and — oh, right, introductions,” the poor girl had to pause for breath. Thankfully, she also let Leo take over cleaning himself off. “You already know I’m Miss Martian, the Martian Manhunter is my uncle. But since we’re housemates now, you can call me Megan Morse — that’s my Earth name — or M’gann M’orzz!”

He gave a half shrug and threw the rest of the soiled napkins away. “Leo or Leon is okay.” Embarrassingly, his voice chose to crack at that moment like he was still going through puberty, or maybe like he’d spent the last few days crying alone in his new room, refusing to open the door for anyone, and desperately wishing Raph was there to hug him to death.

Which he hadn’t been doing. Definitely not.

“What are you baking?” A+ deflection skills. Wait what was he deflecting in this conversation, she hadn’t even asked him anything. Uhhh A+ self-distraction technique, yeah that sounded more accurate.

“Cornbread!” M’gann said brightly. Then her expression dropped into sheepishness. “Oh, but now I’m out of eggs…”

What time of day was it? Leo had no idea. Probably not breakfast anymore, if she was making cornbread. Or did people eat cornbread for breakfast? “Can’t you use, like, yogurt or something as a replacement?” He’s pretty sure that was what Mikey did when a recipe called for eggs they didn’t have. He walked over and opened the fridge and — wow, this thing only had the bare essentials. Definitely no yogurt. “Never mind.” 

“The recipe is special, I really can’t use substitutes.” The martian girl sighed and started putting away the ingredients she’d gathered with casual telekinesis. “I’ll just have to go shopping this week.”

“Uh-huh.” He rifled through the cupboards, dodging floating ingredients until he found a few boxes of sugary cereal. He grabbed one at random, made up a bowl, and sat down at the counter to eat.

She left the kitchen and came back with a notepad, muttering and scribbling a list down on it as she presumably inventoried the pantries. “Any requests, or dietary restrictions?”

Oh. Right. He did agree to live here, didn’t he? It wasn’t just going to be a temporary stay, although he had a feeling that if he asked the Justice League would set up some different living arrangement for him. 

“No…” He was barely hungry enough to eat the cereal, he couldn’t really think of what food he’d want to eat later in the week. Maybe pizza? “Where is this place, anyways? Mount, uh, Justice?” Wow, he couldn’t believe he only just now noticed how on the nose that name was.

“Happy Harbor, Rhode Island,” she said. “Just on the outskirts of the town at least. We’re right next to the water, too! Kaldur’s trying to coordinate a beach day, are you interested?”

“Maybe,” he shrugged noncommittally. In theory, it sounded fun. He’d been trying to cajole Raph into letting all of them spend a day on a beach now that he had a hang of his portals, but his big brother still hadn’t been convinced any beach would be safe in daylight by the time the Invasion rolled around. But now he wasn’t sure he wanted to do something like that if his family wasn’t even going to be there with him. “Uh, Kaldur’s Aqualad, right?”

“Yup! I’m sure he’ll let you use Kaldur now that you’re staying here. We have mandatory training in a couple hours, so you’ll get to see the rest of the Team then.”

“Who says I’ll be at training?”

She blinked. “Well, you’re part of the Team now right?”

He let his spoon fall noisily against the side of his somewhat empty breakfast bowl and stood up. “No. I’m not.”

“But I thought…” M’gann frowned, a hurt puppy expression taking over her face. 

He picked up his bowl and dumped it into the sink, making himself busy scrubbing it clean before the weaponized innocence could latch onto him. “I’ll talk about it later.” 

She gasped, eyes sparkling with hope. “So you’ll be at training?”

Shell, he’d already fallen for it. “Yeah, whatever.”

“I’ll go tell the others!” The martian girl exclaimed, and flew off before Leo could protest.

The teenaged turtle huffed in amusement, picked up a towel, and dried his dish.

.

.

.

He retreated into his room when he was done but the next time someone knocked on his door he actually answered, sliding the door open to acknowledge them. It was M’gann in her hero costume, hovering an inch above the ground excitedly.

“C’mon,” she said, grabbing him by the wrist, “Black Canary’s here, we’ll be starting soon!” She pulled him out and he was forced into an awkward jog to keep up with her. Still, he didn’t complain. It was nice to get the blood flowing again.

By the time they reached what must have been the training room Leo felt a little more alive. M’gann’s enthusiasm was an infectious thing, much like Donnie’s or Mikey’s, and despite how stubbornly he’d wallowed in self hatred the past few days he was hard-pressed to let the negative thoughts fester with her chattering in his ear. 

“Yo Leo!” Kid Flash greeted from the huddle of already present teenagers. “Finally gracing us with your presence?”

“It’s twenty bucks per meet-and-greet,” he shot back with a secret relief at the casual welcome. “Thirty for an autograph and forty for a picture. Fork it up!”

“Aww, no discount for a friend?”

“That is the discount, catching a glimpse of this handsome mug is a priceless experience!”

“I’ll pass.” 

“Your loss,” Leo huffed, but before he could continue his dramatics the singular adult in the room cleared her throat.

“Leonardo? I’m Black Canary, it’s nice to meet you,” the blonde superheroine said. He recognized her, especially her outfit, which was a simple but sexy combo of sleek black leotard with grey leggings and a jean jacket. “I’m in charge of hand-to-hand combat training. Will you be joining us today?”

“I think I’ll just watch.”

She smiled with a soft, sympathetic expression that the turtle tried not to grimace too obviously at. “That’s perfectly fine. Well, is everyone ready? We’re starting off with one on one combat again, who’d like to go first?”

The answer was Superboy. Judging by the gossip, the superpowered boy was intent on making up for a previous session with Canary that left him embarrassed. Also, apparently he had enhanced hearing because he was very vocal in stopping said gossip. Leo got a fleeting introduction to Robin, apprentice of Batman himself, before the younger boy took his turn with Black Canary. As the sessions finished up he learned Kid Flash’s real name was Wally and was — true to M’gann’s prediction — promoted to a first name basis with Kaldur. Apparently Superboy didn’t have a civilian name? That was weird, but he didn’t really feel like prying into it at the moment.

“And that is one way to take down an airborne opponent,” Black Canary finished explaining, releasing Miss Martian from an impressive chokehold. “It’s time for a break. Make sure you drink plenty of water and be back in fifteen minutes.”

The moment this was announced, the protégés swarmed to Leo like he was the most interesting thing in the room, which was probably normal teenager behavior when a new kid joined a group. Probably, because how would he know? He’d literally never met a group of teenagers in a casual setting before, yokai or not.

“So are you sure you don’t want to join the Team?” M’gann asked right off the bat, which had to have been planned because judging by Wally and Robin’s surprised faces, this was news to them. “We’d love to have you.”

“Whoa, I thought the Cave dorms were only for housing Team members,” the speedster said. “Why did Bats put you with us if you aren’t gonna join the Team? Not that I mind you being here.”

Kaldur sent Wally a reprimanding look. “It’s likely nobody else was able to host our guest. The adults of the League have lives outside their heroic excursions, and due to his circumstances they would want Leonardo in an easily accessible location. The Cave was the best choice.”

“Sure, yeah, what are those circumstances again?”

“Dude,” Robin rolled his eyes — or at least, Leo thought he did. It was hard to tell under the sunglasses. This kid sure took his secret identity stuff seriously. “You need to read the case files. He’s—“

“Wait, wait, hold on,” Leo stopped him with a smirk. “Let him figure it out by himself. I’ll bet you twenty bucks I don’t have that he won’t guess it in the next two weeks. No cheating by looking at any files or asking Leaguers or whatever.”

Wally narrowed his eyes. “Oh, you’re on.”

“I like how you think.” Robin grinned. “I’ll make sure he follows the rules.”

Behind them, their atlantean leader pinched his brow like he was already developing a headache.

“But Megan has a point,” Wally changed the subject back, “You have the skills, you’re already living at our base, why not help us beat up bad guys? The more the merrier!”

Leo shuffled on his feet, feeling oddly awkward under their curious gazes. “I don’t belong here. As soon as I can, I’m going home. Being part of a team is a commitment. I can’t…I can’t let you guys count on me being there when I’m not always gonna be there.”

In the silence that followed, Kaldur’ahm nodded seriously. “Those are wise words, my friend. However, we are not like the Justice League. The Team was created with the understanding that it would be innately transitory — as we grow and mature, members will be accepted into the Justice League or strike out on their own, or maybe even pursue civilian affairs such as college. Our missions are for the most part short-term, and you would aways have the option to opt out of longer ones. I am willing and able to accept a temporary member into the fold. But there is no pressure. You are welcome to stay here as long as you need, regardless of your status with us.”

Kid Flash slung an arm over Leo’s neck and leaned in to whisper conspiratorially: “No pressure from him maybe — but I, for one, am rooting for you to join the Team.”

 Robin dragged the speedster off with a playful, “This guy desperately needs a friend.”

“Hey! Aren’t you my friend?!”

“Hehe, am I?”

“I know your secret ID, that automatically makes me your best friend!”

“Batman knows my identity too, it doesn’t make him my bestie~”

“You little—”

They descended into light roughhousing as they bantered, only to be distracted by Black Canary returning to the room. “Ready for round two already?” She asked wryly. “Let’s do two on one. Robin and Kid Flash, since you’ve so kindly volunteered, why don’t you take your positions?”

“Does that help you make up your mind?” M’gann asked as the boys obligingly readied themselves opposite to their teacher. “You won’t be a burden.”

Leo sighed. “You’re pushy, you know that? I’ll think about it.”

She smiled in that annoyingly knowing way little siblings do when they think they know what your final decision will be. “That’s good enough for me!”

“Who’s next?” Black Canary called. Robin and Kid Flash fled the glowing floor of the sparring circle with a few new bruises.

“Actually, I wanna give it a try,” Leo decided, abandoning M’gann to trot up to the woman.

“Ah, Leonardo. Let’s do a one-on-one so I can assess you better.”

“Fine by me,” he said, because he already knew what the outcome of this spar would be.

She proceeded to kick his butt three times over. Yep. Ouch. His hand-to-hand was severely rusty. 

“You are way better when you have a sword, bro,” Wally said as he leaned over Leo’s carefully staged corpse cosplay.

“Believe me…I know.”

Chapter Text

Much to M’gann’s clear delight, Leo relented. What, did he really have to say it out loud? Okay fine: invitation accepted. He would join the team. (Or, Team? Did they have a name for it? Apparently not.)

She promptly gave him a tour of Mount Justice, which he bet she would have done anyways because he lived there with her and Superboy now, but then followed it up with a crash course on the Team — the training schedule, how they got assigned missions, what Leaguers to expect coming in and out (apparently they had a babysitter, Red Tornado), and even their origins as a team. M’gann was technically the newest member before Leo, although only because she was introduced by her uncle on the day the Team was approved into existence. Shortly before she joined, a group of protégés — consisting of Robin, Kid Flash, Aqualad, and the apprentice of Green Arrow who went by Speedy — had a dispute with the League that resulted in Speedy going solo and the remaining trio investigating a shady science lab called Cadmus in order to prove themselves. There, they found —

“—Superboy?” Leo interrupted. “He’s a clone of Superman?”

“Mmm-hmm.” M’gann nodded. 

“That’s so cool! We can be clone buddies!”

She blinked. “You’re a—“

He shushed her obnoxiously, slapping a hand over her mouth as a certain speedster was announced as arriving through the Zeta tube system. “Ixnay on the spoilers, ‘kay?”

“Hellooo, Megan!” Wally singsonged. “Ready to witness my amazing skills?”

The martian girl’s expression went deadpan. “My lips are sealed.”

“Wait, are you telling secrets to her?!”

The green-skinned duo ignored him.

.

.

.

Because he had nothing else to do but sulk when he wasn’t partaking in training sessions, Leo joined the group for Beach Day. Hilariously enough, Kaldur wasn’t able to coordinate a good time for everyone, so the Team was one teenager short when they all gathered in swimsuits and shorts to play volleyball in the sand.

Guess who was the unlucky one out?

“But first,” Robin placed a hand to his heart and tilted his face down like he was attending a wake. “A moment of silence for our absent comrade.”

“Poor Wally,” M’gann shook her head.

“I can see it now —” Robin raised a hand to the horizon. “He walks through pearly gates and is greeted into the fold: ‘Welcome, class, to your first semester of sophomore year.’ And ‘Hark!’ the herald angels sing, ‘Let’s start off with some factor~ing~!’”

The boy wonder was interrupted by a beach ball to the face, and he paused to right his sunglasses before glaring at Superboy, who shrugged unapologetically.

“Sucks to be him,” the alien boy said without a hint of sympathy. “Are we playing or what?”

“Careful what you wish for!” Robin shot back, and went to grab the fallen ball. But he was a second too slow.

“Leon’s got it!” The turtle scooped up Donnie’s mortal enemy and hurled it back over the net in what probably wasn’t a proper serving move. Not that they were playing a serious game, considering how light the beach ball was compared to a volleyball. 

Kaldur, their sidelined referee, said nothing on the matter so clearly it was an acceptable move.

M’gann received the ball and battered it back, entering them smoothly into a few rounds of volleys with few incidents up until the moment Superboy hit the ball a little too hard and it popped, flying off with a sad squeal into the sand — where an ocean wave came and dragged it off.

Superboy stared at his fist with a betrayed look.

“Save the turtles!” Leo hollered, and leapt in after the colorful plastic.

He was far from a sea turtle, but he’d always been a good swimmer so he caught up to it easily. After a bit of investigation he diagnosed that the ball was indeed unfixable and waded back to shore with it to stick it under the water cooler so it could be trashed in a more environmentally acceptable manner. The other teenagers gathered up the surfboards to take to the waves now that they were done with volleyball.

“Hey Kaldur!” Leo called. “Wanna race?”

“If you so wish. But be careful, friend — the sea is an unforgiving mistress.”

“Oh, I see how it is! But you’ll be eating those words with a helping of my dust in a second!”

“We’ll see about that…”

.

.

.

Much like his first session with Black Canary, Leo’s loss to Kaldur was expected. The dude was literally born and raised in an underwater empire, Leo’s semi-aquatic butt barely held a candle to his skill. It was exhilaratingly fun though, and Leo was going to have to get some swimming lessons out of this guy. Heck, maybe he could find a way to make a day trip to Atlantis since he could hold his breath for a good few hours.

What wasn’t expected after their morning of beach fun was the sheer amount of sand hitchhiking on him afterwards. Leo had no idea sand could be this annoying. It was between his toes, it was in his armpits, it was under his knees. It. Was. In. His. Shell.

UGH. He spent forever in the shower room trying to scrub it all out and he could still feel it in there. Thankfully the cracks (and the injury on his leg) were sealed up, or he’d be trying to pick sand out of literal wounds too. When he caught up to the rest of the team, they’d already started taking turns sparring with Black Canary. Today was a voluntary training session since Kid Flash had school (although he was actually supposed to be back by now), but Leo needed to drastically improve his weaponless combat so he lined himself up for another few painful rounds with the blonde superhero which, fortunately, were filled with pointers on how to improve his form and whatnot so it wasn’t like he was only getting beat up during the sessions.

Right after Black Canary called it a day and left, the Zeta tube whirred to life.

“Recognized: Batman 02,” forewarned the arrival of not their tardy teammate but rather the Dark Knight.

“Looks like we have a mission,” Aqualad commented. 

Batman tilted his head in acknowledgement at the leader and silently moved out of the way of the still active teleportation device. Metallic footsteps in the hallway announced the arrival of Red Tornado, too, coming to greet their arrivals.

“Recognized: Green Arrow 08, Artemis B-07.” Two more people came through, the first archer being one Leo was well acquainted with while the second was another teenager, a tan-skinned girl with a long blonde ponytail and green gear.

Leo leaned towards Robin discreetly. “Is this a teammate you guys forgot to tell me about?”

The smaller boy shrugged and shook his head.

Green Arrow coughed into a fist. “Before Bats gets you started, I’d like to introduce my new protégé, your new teammate. Team, this is—”

“Recognized: Kid Flash B-03.”

Wally, adorned in swimming shorts, sunscreen, flip-flops, and an armload of beach paraphernalia, chose that moment to stride into the Cave like he owned the place.

“The Wall-man is here! Who’s ready to get this party starte-eahh!” He tripped over the large umbrella he was carrying, sent a beach ball bouncing across the room, and landed with a painful squeal of skin on metal flooring that was punctuated by the radio dangling from his hand glitching into silence.

Rest in peace, Wally, Leo thought. You will never recover from this glorious, glorious moment.

“The Wall-man huh?” The new girl raised an eyebrow as she spoke in a dry, sarcastic tone. “Love the uniform. What are your powers, again?”

Wally clambered back to his feet, abandoning his dropped items on the floor. “Who’s this?”

“Artemis,” she introduced, “Your new teammate.”

“Kid Flash. Never heard of you.”

“She’s my new protégé,” Green Arrow said.

“What about your old one?!”

Speak of the devil and he shall appear — Green Arrow’s former partner walked through the Zeta tube to its monotone announcement of a ‘Speedy B-06’. “Well for starters, he doesn’t go by Speedy anymore,” the redheaded archer stated sourly. “Call me Red Arrow.”

“Roy!” Green Arrow stepped forward. “You look—“

“Replaceable?” Red Arrow obviously hadn’t gotten over his falling out with his mentor, but he let Aqualad sweep aside the matter of Artemis to focus on the purpose of his visit. “Doctor Serling Roquette is a nano-robotics genius and claytronics expert who worked at Royal University in Star City,” he said, pulling up the holographic screens to display the subject’s profile. “She was abducted by the League of Shadows two weeks ago.”

“Whoa! You want us to rescue her from the Shadows?” Robin elbowed Kid Flash with excitement, earning a companionable fist bump. “Hardcore.”

“I already rescued her. The problem is, they’d already coerced her into creating a weapon: ‘the Fog’, comprised of millions of microscopic robots capable of disintegrating anything in its path,” his eyes narrowed. “And I mean anything. But its true purpose is theft. The infiltrators can store raw data from any computer system and deliver the stolen intel to the Shadows.”

“Perfect way to get information for extortion, manipulation, power-broking…yeah,” Artemis listed off, “sounds like the Shadows.”

Kid Flash scoffed. “Like you know anything about the Shadows.” She cast him a sly smile. “Who are you?!”

Keep in mind, this was the guy shirtless in beach shorts and a blotch of white sunscreen on the bridge of his nose. Even Leo didn’t think he had a leg to stand on at the moment.

“Roquette is working on a virus to render the Fog inert,” Red Arrow continued with a scowl at the interruption. “This makes her a target for the Shadows. Right now she’s off the grid. I stashed her at the local high school’s computer lab but the less time she spends unguarded the better.”

“Then let’s you and I keep her safe—” Green Arrow started, only to be cut off by his former partner.

“You and I? Don’t you want to take your new protégé?”

Batman stopped Green Arrow from following after Red Arrow, who was already walking towards the Zeta tube. The elder archer visibly collected himself before continuing, “You brought this mission to the Team. That makes it her mission now, too.”

Red Arrow didn’t falter. “Then my job is done.” He left.

The Team exchanged glances. Batman directed their attention to himself fairly quickly. “Get ready,” the Leaguer commanded. “Time is of the essence.”

Wally rushed off to change into his gear with the rest of the Team trailing after him, aside from Superboy, Miss Martian, and Artemis. Leo hesitated. Was he supposed to join them? Was a bodyguard mission, where someone’s life was at stake, really a good choice for integrating a new member into their team? It couldn’t possibly be — but Artemis was joining the mission. What should he do?

A solid black shape separated him from the other teenagers in the room. He twitched, frowning automatically up at the intruding figure. It was just Batman.

“M’gann informed me you’ve officially joined the Team,” the man stated. His gaze bore down on the turtle expectantly.

Leo twisted his mouth into a weak grin. “That’s right! But uh, I think I’ll skip out on this one. A life-or-death scenario is not the right time for them to get used to me, y’know?”

“There will never be a right time.” It wasn’t a harsh statement. Just matter-of-fact. “Every mission is important. Every mission, something is at risk. Even if this were mere reconnaissance there is always a possibility that the worst will happen.” The man paused as if to let his words sink in. “Do what you feel is best. But if you’re going to be part of this team, you need to let them trust you.”

And then the searching stare was gone, a cape fluttering as Batman turned around and walked away. Leo was left frozen and mouth agape.

A rush of wind accompanied a blur of yellow and red. “Oooooh looks like turtles really are slow! Aren’t you missing a few pointy objects?” Kid Flash slowed down to human speeds to saunter past Leo. “Better hurry, Aqualad was right behind me!” The ginger glanced backwards. “Keyword: was. He’s a slowpoke, too.”

Leo clamped his jaw closed and ignored the ribbing. He couldn’t get Batman’s words out of his head so he walked on autopilot, speeding up to a run with the comprehension that if he was really going to do this he shouldn’t keep them waiting.

He grabbed his katanas and the rest of his gear. It was okay. He could do this. He knew better now. He wasn’t even the leader. He could…he could let them trust him.

Because even if he couldn't trust himself, he could always, always, pretend.

Chapter Text

His first impression was that being on a mission with the Team was nothing like beating up bad guys with his brothers and April. Compared to the chaotic ruckus that trailed the wake of the Hamato siblings and their typically accidental fights, the Team was quiet as they boarded their literal alien spaceship (he was never going to get over that - why were so many things pseudo-sentient in this universe?!) aside from Kid Flash and Robin’s light-hearted banter. Despite the group being a bunch of teenagers, they were calm and organized.

It wasn’t until they’d introduced themselves to Dr. Roquette and settled on initial routes for patrolling the school that interactions started to become…unprofessional. 

“Ugh, this is weird,” came Artemis’s voice echoing through Miss Martian’s mind link and almost making Leo stumble as he stalked the roof of the school building. He’d expected it after Aqualad warned them that they’d be using M’gann’s mental abilities in case the Shadows could intercept their comms, but he was only experiencing it now. It was jarring how different it was to a Ninja Mind Meld - but on the upside, it was more convenient.

“And distracting. Coding a distributed algorithm virus on a kiddie computer with less RAM than a wristwatch is hard enough, now I have to hear teen-speak in my skull!”

Well, sort of more convenient. Dr. Roquette wasn’t too happy about it. Plus, Leo could hear it plain and clear when Kid Flash and Artemis broke out arguing over her being on the Team instead of Red Arrow. It was a small relief when the green archer finally distanced herself to join the outside patrol — until she made a thirsty comment about Superboy and ticked Miss Martian off. Leo could tell it wasn’t even very genuine; she was still trying to provoke Kid Flash.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the mind link, Aqualad announced that Dr. Roquette had located the Fog. “Reconfigure the bioship so that Robin and Superboy can pursue.”

Leo teleported to the guarded gate as the boys ran to the spaceship. “Where’s the location? I might be able to give the ship a shortcut.”

“It just landed in Philadelphia International Airport in Pennsylvania.”

“Ha! Piece of cake!” Leo swung his swords wide. “It’s not gonna be exact, but I can at least get you to Philly.”

“Good enough for me,” Robin’s reply faded as the bioship closed up and hovered in place. 

Leo pried open the rift, dragging his swords through the resistance until it was wide enough for the bioship to enter. He waited a moment, checking that it actually went where it was supposed to, then announced, “You’re clear for take-off! Thank you for taking Leo Airlines—“

The bioship flew through.

“—Aw man, they didn’t wait for me to finish!”

“It’s kind of time sensitive,” Miss Martian pointed out.

“Right, right,” the turtle acknowledged, giving the area one last survey before stepping through reality onto the roof of the building again. “Looks like you guys have it handled here, I’m going around back.”

Maybe that was a mistake, because the second he was gone the girls started bickering with each other. It was so distracting. He was having a hard time focusing, and he actually wanted to focus for once.  Leo was starting to feel a terrifying sympathy towards Raph. He, Donnie, and Mikey weren’t this bad, right?

…Leo was. Maybe not in the same way, but he definitely was.

Shell, he needed to stop getting distracted. Leo shook his head like he could physically remove the voices from it and paced the top of the courtyard fence. It would be deathly quiet if not for the mind link. It was school season now. He wondered how lively it was during the day - or, actually, this was the school M’gann and Superboy said they would be attending, wasn’t it? Must not have started just yet. Wally was the unlucky one.

“Team, we are under attack in the computer lab!”

Leo reacted instantaneously. Before he even processed the alert, his swords were drawing a portal in the air.

“On our way!” Miss Martian and Artemis.

The teenaged terrapin leapt through and tackled the first stranger he saw sloppily to the ground. They rolled with the momentum and leapt to their feet smoothly. Leo glimpsed their grinning cat mask, bushy black hair, and twin sai a split second before one of the pronged daggers dove at his face. The other was simultaneously thrown towards Aqualad, who was guarding Dr. Roquette in a firm stance. 

Leo dropped through a portal and landed on the side of the assassin where they’d just sacrificed their weapon, swinging both swords down.

The assassin was forced to transition their swipe into a forward roll to dodge. They swept out a foot as they did so. Leo tripped and scrambled to avoid falling, inadvertently creating distance. He twisted around.

The assassin - who he could see more clearly now was a woman - aimed her remaining sai at Aqualad and Roquette. An arrow from Artemis in the doorway was quick to knock it out of hand, and another one was strung almost instantly.

“Don’t. Move,” the archer growled. 

“Where are Kid Flash and M’gann?” Leo sent through the link as he readied his weapons.

“Just a moment,” Miss Martian replied hurriedly.

“Ooh, this gig’s getting interesting,” the assassin purred as she eyed the trio of teenagers pointing weapons at her. A blade dropped out of her sleeve, extending into a short sword and deflecting the arrow Artemis sent at her in response to the movement. Leo lunged, knocking the deflected arrows out of the air before they could threaten the doctor. The assassin advanced through Artemis’s onslaught of projectiles. 

“Hold your fire so I can intercept!”

A split second of consideration. “Holding.” 

Artemis’s withdrawal tipped the assassin off though, and she jumped over the portal forming beneath her. He pushed forward and twisted his katanas together as the sword rose to meet them, catching the blade between them and flinging it down into the portal instead. 

A half-dozen shuriken appeared in her fingers and he flinched away but the throwing stars soared towards Aqualad and Dr. Roquette instead. The atlantean moved to block with his weapon. The shuriken halted mid-air and fell to the ground. Miss Martian had arrived, her and a sodden Kid Flash joining Aqualad in front of Dr. Roquette.

“Maybe a little too interesting…” The assassin ducked a swipe from Leo and threw something to the ground. A plume of smoke burst into existence, masking her movements. Something barreled into Leo’s side, sending him tumbling into another figure with a surprised yelp. Seconds later M’gann cleared the air with a push of telekinesis, revealing that the turtle had ended up in a three person pile with Artemis and Kid Flash — the assassin nowhere to be seen.

“She’s getting away!” Dr. Roquette exclaimed. “You’re letting her get away!”

“This is all your fault,” Kid spat at Artemis as he pulled himself out of the pile. “You were on perimeter, how’d that Shadow get in!”

Artemis got to her feet with a silent glare at her accuser. Leo sort of just wanted to stay on the ground. But, uh, he should probably get back up in case that assassin was faking them out with her retreat, so he did. And backed away from Wally’s grudge contest.

“That’s not really fair. I was outside too, and so was Leonardo,” M’gann tried to deescalate.

“Outside…being distracted by her!” Kid Flash spluttered. “Besides, I can’t be mad at you.” Then, mentally: “You gave me mouth-to-mouth.”

“We heard that!”

“Dang it!” Defeated by his own idiocy, Wally walked away as M’gann apologized to Artemis in his place. Meanwhile, Aqualad seemed to be discussing relocating with Dr. Roquette, so Leo jogged over to a sulking, soaked wet Wally.

“Hey, what happened when Aqualad’s call went out?”

“Don’t remind me,” the ginger muttered. “That assassin got to me first. Megan had to fish me out of the pool.”

“Wait — so that’s what you meant by mouth-to-mouth? You needed CPR?!”

Wally held two fingers close together. “Only a little CPR.”

Only a little, he said. What a jokester. Leo ignored the boy’s protests at his grabbiness to check his pulse and breath anyways. “You’re not even clammy or short of breath, so I guess you’re fine…” He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “But you better tell someone if you experience any symptoms from oxygen depletion, or secondary drowning.”

“I will, I will, jeez!”

Leo turned around, his med pouch at the ready. “Anyone else injured?”

Kaldur slowly raised a hand. “Do you have experience treating jellyfish toxin?”

“Do I what??!?!?”

.

.

.

Leo tugged the last of the bandages into a snug knot and reflected on his work with grim satisfaction. Who would’ve guessed that the dark, tough atlantean skin was hiding a dozen poisoned wounds? Aqualad, apparently. The team leader insisted he was immune to this type of toxin, but was clearly getting the definitions of ‘immune’ and ‘resistant’ mixed up.

“Any questions about the plan?” Their leader asked through the link. “We may not have much time before more assassins come.”

“I’m good,” Kid Flash replied, Miss Martian and Artemis following suit. 

“Can we come up with one that doesn’t risk me getting murdered?” Leo asked rhetorically.

“You’re the one who insisted I not be the one to do it,” Aqualad responded. 

“I just didn’t think a walking pincushion was the right person for this job.”

“You volunteered.”

“I’m changing my mind.”

“You can handle it.”

Oh crap was this the trust thing again? It was totally the trust thing again. Was Aqualad conspiring with Batman? No actually, based on his body language he was simply being honest. 

“Right, whatever, I’m leaving now.” Leo zipped up his bag of supplies and walked out of the room the group had moved to. “Don’t get stabbed again. Seriously, don’t even move, we don’t need that poison circulating any more before we can get you an IV.”

“I don’t believe I’ll have much of a choice.”

Leo rolled his eyes at the reply. Wordlessly, he continued out of the building and took his place strolling the wooded section around the harbor welcome center they’d taken residence in. It wasn’t very long before he could detect someone else’s presence there with him.

“Miss Martian,” He said carefully, trying not to be too obvious about it. “Stay camouflaged. I’ve got this section, you do a wide perimeter sweep.”

He paused for a minute, relaxing and watching the area with a sharp gaze, then tried not to screech in surprise when three dark figures dropped out of the trees onto him. A heavy metal weight slammed onto the lip of his shell from above while something else snagged his swords from his grip. His plastron hit the dirt with a muffled thud.

That sure was quick, was all he had time to think before there was a boot making contact with his head.

.

.

.

He blinked an eye open, checking to see if they’d really left.

“They took the bait,” he reported.

“Good. We are ready. Are you en route to Roquette?”

“Yep.” He sat and nursed his aching head, glad that the assassins were in too much of a hurry like Aqualad had predicted to bother finishing him off or even to confirm his unconsciousness. Now, where were — oh thank the Pizza in the Sky, they didn’t even take his swords. These guys were getting a little desperate. And for good reason, too; Roquette was almost finished with the virus, and Robin and Superboy were hot on the tail of whatever Shadow agent was in charge of the Fog. 

Leo stood up, fetched his swords, and sliced open a quick portal to the internet cafe Dr. Roquette was hunched over a computer in. She acknowledged his appearance with a cursory glance and once she recognized there wasn’t any danger, returned to her work.

He sneakily peeked over her shoulder. A mass of text and nerd symbols met his eyes. 

Meanwhile, in the mind link: “They’re here.”

Silence.

“Could you not?”

Leo cleared his throat and stopped his anxious pacing. “Sorry.”

“I’ve almost got it,” Dr. Roquette sighed, and resumed her coding.

“Leo, the assassin from before has fled the building. She might be tracking Roquette down. We have the other two handled.”

“Got it.” Sounded like M’gann’s disguise as Dr. Roquette hadn’t lasted as long as they’d hoped.

Leo eyed the windows and the door, waiting, but not yet warning Dr. Roquette in case it distracted her from her work.

A triumphant press of the keyboard. “Uploading now!”

“Great timing.” He gritted his teeth. “‘Cuz you might wanna duck!”

Three shuriken pierced through the glass of the windows. He let a portal swallow them up as Roquette dove under a table for cover. Another slash and parry as the cat-masked assassin burst into the cafe, showering glass in an explosive entrance and prying at his swords with her sai.

Huh. Apparently she knew how to use sai for their original purpose of disarming katanas. Too bad for her that he had so much experience sparring a certain sai-wielding brother of his.

Leo slid out of the tangle of metal and elbowed her as hard as he could in the mask. She stumbled back with a curse but instead of taking a moment to recover, swung out with one blade and caught him in the bicep with it. It wasn’t so much the pain as the burning sting that accompanied that had Leo jumping away in a hurry.

“Are you also ‘immune’ to jellyfish toxin?” The assassin asked teasingly.

Leo glanced at the throbbing wound. The toxin wouldn’t be fatal - if he was right, it was simply a paralytic, unless the dose was high enough - but without backup he couldn’t afford to even be slowed down. Crap—

—a computer dinged. The assassin paused. Slowly, both of them tilted their heads to look at the computer Dr. Roquette had been working on.

“You just uploaded the virus, didn’t you,” the assassin said, monotone.

In the corner of his vision, Leo could see Dr. Roquette grin silently, until the assassin had a few shuriken in hand to point at her. He lurched to block the villain’s aim, but all the woman did was giggle at his slowing movements. “It’s really a pity. I suppose you can live for now, Dr. Roquette. The Shadows may still have use for you.” She flicked a hand and the shuriken disappeared back into the folds of her clothing. “And like the Cheshire Cat, I’ll just…disappear.”

She hopped into the dark outside the windows of the shop. Leo wavered, wondering if he should chase after her, but the paralytic in his system decided to remove the use of his legs. So.

Maybe two minutes later Aqualad flung open the door to the cafe. “Is everyone okay?”

“Do I look okay?” Leo grumbled from where his face was mushed into the tile. “Really lady— you’ve had, like, five whole minutes to help me up.”

“Sorry, my life was a little busy flashing before my eyes!” She snarked at him.

“She didn’t even get close to you this time!” Leo sighed as dramatically as he could while still face-first on the ground. “The assassin left out the window, did you see anything?”

“Artemis confronted her, but she got away again,” Aqualad said. “Here, I’ll help you.”

Wally walked in, followed by Artemis and M’gann. “Oh that’s where you went, Kal. You good Leo? Nasty looking cut.”

“It’s not deep.” Leo pulled a face at his body forcing him to dangle from Aqualad’s side. “And the poison is only paralytic, just hook us up to some IVs for a bit and wait it out, we’ll be fine.”

“‘Us’?” Kaldur raised an eyebrow.

“Better safe than sorry. Also, it’s not fair that you can still move around after getting poked by like ten times more the amount I’ve been exposed to. If I’m suffering, you’re suffering too. How’d Robin and Superboy’s mission go?”

“They successfully neutralized the Fog,” Kaldur said. “They’re on their way back now.” 

“Fabulous!” Ugh, he couldn’t even grin, it was miracle he was able to talk. “Does that mean the mission is over?”

“The mission,” Aqualad said with a warm smile aimed at everyone in the room. “is a success. Leonardo, Artemis…welcome to the Team.”

Chapter Text

Tired but filled with the satisfaction of a job well done, the Team loaded into the bioship after Red Arrow picked up Dr. Roquette. Leo was hooked into the lone IV present in the ship while Kaldur got off scot-free when he pointed out there wasn’t even any blood soaking through his bandages, proving he really did take it easy in the latter half of the mission.

Deprived of his desired Beach Day, Wally instead pestered Leo with increasingly unrealistic theories regarding his origins.

“No,” Leo said in reply to the tenth one, “I am not a partial clone of the Martian Manhunter. Wouldn’t I be under his guardianship, if that were the case?”

“Hey, you never know! It could be like with Supes, or — Megan doesn’t live with Manhunter, either.”

Leo hummed. “Why don’t you live with your uncle, M’gann?”

Her green cheeks did a complete color 180. “H-he doesn’t have room for me…I kind of snuck onto his ship on his trip back to Earth. I did stay with him until the Team was made and Mount Justice was reinstated, it was just a little hectic.”

So M’gann was a little rule-breaker? He never would have guessed. The mutant teen shook his head at Wally. “Nice try, but I’m obviously green because I’m a turtle, not from being a martian.”

“You are not a turtle,” Wally huffed.

“I’m a red-eared slider, look it up!”

“You’re not just a turtle.”

“What’s with the guessing game?”  Artemis cut in curiously, much to Wally’s clear displeasure. 

“I bet him he couldn’t guess my tragic backstory in two weeks. He’s got about a week left.”

The ginger’s face screwed up. “Wait, your backstory is tragic?”

“What other kind of backstory would it be?”

“A normal one?”

Leo raised a heavily judgmental brow. “Do I look like I have a normal backstory?”

“I don’t know, man! And — hey, you didn’t even say I had to guess your backstory, I just have to guess why you’re under League supervision.”

“Oh right, I forgot. ‘Cause you keep trying to guess my origins instead.”

“And I reiterate,” Wally said with flailing arms, “It could be a Superboy situation. Your origins could be related to why you’re living at the Cave now.”

Leo shrugged. “I can safely say I’m not living at the Cave because of clonehood.”

“How much is this bet worth?” Artemis asked.

Leo and Wally looked at each other. “Twenty bucks,” the turtle said, “but I don’t actually have any money—“ which was a lie, the League was giving him a weekly allowance for some reason, “so realistically, the prize is bragging rights.”

The archer smiled a challenge. “How do you feel about changing the terms of the bet? Whoever guesses right first gets the money from the other?”

“Deal,” Wally agreed. Without any input from Leo, might the mutant add. Whatever, as long as they didn’t try to actually pull him into their squabble he’d allow it…for now.

They arrived at the Cave soon enough, cleaned up, and went their separate ways  after Batman’d reviewed the mission with them. This meant Robin, Artemis, and Kaldur all departed through the Zeta tubes, M’gann and Superboy crashed in their rooms, and Wally hung around a little while because of his newly gained ‘souvenir’, which turned out to be the mask of the cat assassin lady.

“We’re calling her Cheshire,” the speedster told Leo as they walked to the souvenir room. The teenaged terrapin was interested in seeing the collection since the out-of-the-way room hadn’t been part of M’gann’s tour. “She seems to be using it as her code name.”

“I’m more curious as to how you ended up with her mask,” Leo said.

“Artemis knocked it off of her during their confrontation, but she didn’t even catch a glimpse of the lady’s face! If Sp-uh, Red Arrow had been on the mission, he totally would have caught Cheshire. Oh you just passed it, the door is right here.”

Wally went in first and Leo followed, only to stop and stare at the contents displayed on the room’s shelving. Whatever he was expecting to see, it hadn’t been the magical helmet of the Lord of Order Nabu sitting collecting dust next to a few other proudly displayed nicknacks. 

“This is where the Helmet of Fate went?” He asked incredulously.

Wally shrugged sheepishly. “Its original location was compromised, so…”

“It’s as good a place as any,” the turtle deadpanned. “Who needs an invisible tower full of mystic boobytraps when you have a closet?”

“Mount Justice does have ‘magical’ protections in place,” Wally defended, although his words were undermined by the finger quotes he placed around magical, “And we need it easily accessible in case of an emergency. It’s not anywhere the bad guys know to look — the last place they’d expect it to be is with the Justice League’s ‘sidekicks’. Plus, souvenir! I needed something to put on the shelf for that mission!”

The two stood in silence for a moment. The ginger coughed awkwardly, placing the assassin’s mask on the shelf. “Did Batman tell you that the funeral—“

“—Is two days from now? Yeah, I’m aware. The timing is—well, it is what it is.”

“What’s wrong with the day? Something special about it?”

“Heh. You could say that.”

.

.

.

Day 19. The day that would be March 14th in Leo’s world.

His and Donnie’s birthday…

…better known as Pi Day.

Shell, Leo never failed to crack up at that. It wasn’t a coincidence — the brothers had all chosen their own birthdays, after all. But the look on Dee’s face, after four years of rebuking Leo’s idea that they were twins, only for him to realize — when they all four revealed their birthdays at once in black marker on whiteboards to each other — that Leo had successfully guessed and chosen the same day Donnie had? Pricelessly hilarious. He was such a little bundle of murderous wrath. He raged and ranted and complained so much within Raph’s placating hold that toddler Leo had been convinced he would spontaneously achieve the next step in turtle evolution and develop a laser-shooting function from his eyeballs.

But. Not once did he demand Leo pick a different date. Not once did he say, ‘Nice try, but this still doesn’t mean that we’re twins’.

Eventually, he even embraced it.

Leo often took great pleasure retelling the Birthday Picking Incident on March 14th, even though everyone who he told it to had been there or, in April’s case, had heard his boasting about it a million times before. If Donnie was in earshot he would scowl at his self-declared twin until the tale was finished and then turn away when his mouth began to tug in an upwards direction. 

Leo loved their birthday. Because he loved his brother. And nothing would ever be able to taint the positive memories he had of it.

Not even today.

Salem, Massachusetts.  The graveyard was full of strangers — Justice League members in civilian clothes, ordinary friends of Nelson, even the remnants of the old version or something of the Justice League called the Justice Society who had worked with the old man in the past. The whole Team had gathered to pay their respects, not just Wally and Leo, because Kent Nelson had lived a hundred years and had the reputation to prove it.

Red Tornado was the one giving the eulogy. Despite his best efforts, Leo found himself tuning it out. Eventually the drone of ceremony faded and the crowd converged into itself, old friends exchanging somber pleasantries or heartfelt memories. Leo wandered around like he had any right to be there until he literally bumped into one of the few Leaguers in costume — a man with a mustache and magician’s garb whose name probably started with a ‘Z’. 

“Ah, you are…” Z-man peered down at him.

“Leo,” the turtle said shortly. “You a magic friend of Nelson’s?”

“I am Zatara,” the Leaguer provided. “Yes, I…was a friend of Kent Nelson. At least I would like to think so.” He glanced off into the crowd as if searching for someone and Leo took the opportunity to shove his hands into the pockets of his hoodie, fidgeting nervously. Zatara let out a sigh and returned his attention to the teenaged mutant. “I am aware of your situation — Batman initially asked me for my assistance, and I was unfortunately too busy at the time to help. But please know if you still need help, I will do my best to aid you. I may not be knowledgable in that particular subject but perhaps…”

“It’s fine,” Leo interrupted, itching to leave already. “Thanks for the offer. I’m good.” He hesitated a moment but when Zatara didn’t push, he walked away. The gathering was drawing to a close and he hurried to let M’gann know he was ready to go. Some of the Team had already left with their respective mentors, but he caught a glimpse of Wally lingering and gave him a quick wave with one hand before the bioship departed. 

And then he was in his room in the Cave, pockets emptied and a key resonating with the magic of the Tower of Fate laying incriminatingly on his bed. It was…definitely a rash decision to steal it when he sensed it in Zatara’s coat, but Leo would make sure to give it back soon. 

As soon as he didn’t need it anymore, that was.

Chapter Text

The Tower of Fate still loomed in the hills of Salem when Leo returned to it with the key. At least, that was his best guess based on the amount of mystic/magic/whatever energy the turtle sensed. It was very invisible right now.

“Hey,” Leo greeted it, “Long time no see.” He mentally patted himself on the shell for the pun. Then he stuck the key into the air and twisted, being rewarded by the physical sensation and distinct noise of the key turning within a lock. With a creak, the Tower turned visible and the door swung open.

He walked inside. The door slammed shut and disappeared into the wall of the entranceway. Holo-Nelson flickered into existence, looked him up and down, then disappeared before Leo could say a word to explain his presence.

The mutant turtle found himself very offended. Holo-Nelson had just given him the ‘Oh, it’s this guy again’ look — y’know, the same one Senior Hueso liked treat him with when he showed up at Run of the Mill for things other than pizza. Leo didn’t even break anything of the Tower’s, what had he done to earn that look?!

No, no, focus, Leo told himself seriously. This mission is of the utmost importance. Failure is not an option.

That was an easy thing to say, but not to follow through on. Hiking the directionless stairs, falling into the cluttered library, clambering over couches to reach the bookshelves, and Leo found his progress halted by, of all things, his inability to pay attention. He just couldn’t remember what that stupid spell tome looked like. It was old and falling apart, he knew that much, but that fit the description of 99% of the books on these shelves. A dull red color, too, did little to narrow his options down.

He snatched three that looked the most like he remembered. He got as far as making a nest of pillows in the planetarium before he realized that they were useless to him when he couldn’t even read the language.

“It’s fine, I can just wing it,” he muttered, dropping the ancient books onto the bare floor with heavy thuds. Dust puffed out from between their pages and grew rapidly in size until it swallowed the stack whole. When it dissipated, the books were gone. That’s certainly one way to return overdue library books. He rubbed his forehead and flopped down into the pillows. Meditating without the help of dimensional magic it was. Yay.

He squirmed around until he was in a moderately comfortable meditative pose. He stilled his fidgeting hands and steadied his breathing. Time inched forward, itching his restless mind.

Come on.  

The smell of the room was stale.

Just focus.

There was supposed to be somebody else here.

Focus.

H-he couldn’t—

FOCUS.

—!

Leo clawed his way from the watery depths of the Hamato ninpo, greedily gulping down air even without lungs to process it with. The overlapping gauzes of skies drifted serenely above him. He simply floated in place as he recovered, wondering what had made the meditation so hard this time.

That’s easy to answer, a logical yet scornful voice much like Donnie’s answered. You weren’t focusing. Why? Because you’re worried. You’re thinking,

‘What if this hurts Donnie?’

No. It wouldn’t hurt Donnie. He was just going to talk to him. Send a quick message — a little ‘Happy birthday!’ never hurt anyone, did it? All Leo had to do was push, not pull, and everything would be fine.

Speaking of pushing…Leo’d only gotten to the cross-universal threshold with Nelson’s help. The elder’s magical energy had boosted him ‘up’ to the ‘skies’; but alone in the sea of Hamato energy, Leo had no apparent solid ground to stand on nor shape to stand with.

There had to be a way. He’d created a permanent link to Mikey, so realistically his ninpo was already crossing the barriers between universes. It manifested as a string once he could see the spiderweb of universes, so what would it look like here in this…ocean…

Bubbles. Tiny, blue bubbles floating up into the sky.

Leo laughed at the sight. <Donnie’s going to have a field day when I tell him about this,> he mused, and let himself be carried away by his own energy.

Fingers, toes, there he goes! Full-bodied once again, Leo squinted up at the splintering universes. The string tied to the one on his finger, blue-green-orange, shimmered in an eternal pathway to everywhere. No purple or red traced the line.

Push, don’t pull, he reminded himself. If he couldn’t reach Donnie, maybe he could pass on a message through Mikey.

He focused on the thrum of energy leading to his brother(s). Followed it up, and fell short. Followed it up again, and slipped from the sky. The universes refused to greet him; his ninpo refused to carry him.

Again.

And again. One step to cross a million miles. It was a million too small. Again.

Come…on! With teeth-grinding frustration and fist-clenching rage, Leo willed his ninpo to work.

 If he just tried hard enough, he could reach farther. He was on imaginary tiptoes, he was taller than he was, he was closer instead of farther, he was—

bigger than   his body, flesh neurons and synapses meticulously     merging with this biological form programmed in a mechanical manner unheard of on Earth. If not for the undesirable     tactile     nature, his mouth would be watering over this opportunity to                      study alien tech. Alas, he had      never been able overcome his body’s unfortunate gag responses to all things slimy and oozy. Thankfully the sharing       of his nervous system seemed to be suppressing this physical reaction now that he was properly integrated,                but it was also not the time to study further. 

He     had a      

      job        to       do—Do—Donnie?

Dee, is this    you   or ?

hello? h-hello?

please say something

…c’mon, I go through all this trouble to tell you happy birthday and all I get is radio silence? Ugh. Whatever. You better be able to hear me, I didn’t get stuck in that gross memory — seriously when the heck is that even from — just to yell into the void. Welp, here goes…

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NERD!

Nailed it.

.

.

.

When Leo exited the meditation, the hope that he might have actually sent a message across universes was undercut by the miniature heart attack he had when he opened his eyes to an abnormally tall human staring him down.

“Yikes!” He fell over the pillows in his haste to scramble away. The tall human, AKA Zatara wearing his magician’s outfit and therefore the top hat, raised an eyebrow and held a hand out to help him up, and then again in expectance.

The mutant turtle groaned. “If you really wanted to keep it, you should have made it harder to pickpocket.” He gave the magic key back anyways. “How did you even get in here without a key?”

“I was a friend of Nelson,” Zatara said, “I have a spare. I must cut your visit here short today, so I hope you’re finished. And next time you have the urge to steal mystical relics from the Justice League…please just ask me, instead.”

“Sure,” Leo replied noncommittally. “Man, I’m starving.” And his head was being split in half by a chainsaw, but that was par for the course with mystic experimentation. “Any chance pizza’s on the menu tonight?”

“I wouldn’t know,” the magician said, patting him on the shoulder and then leaving his hand there to steer the teenager. “You’d have to ask your housemates.”

Ah, yes, the aliens. Cross his fingers they knew enough to help him make Earth’s best cuisine. ‘Happy birthday,’ Leo hummed with a cheerful lilt as he was escorted out of the Tower, ‘Happy birthday, to me n’ Donnie~!’

Chapter Text

There were few things he would completely silence his phone for, but the right to stay within the ancient, book-laden walls of the Hidden City’s Mystic Library certainly fell into that category. Supplementing this, Draxum had given him an exclusive access library card that allowed the soft-shell into one of the Library’s restricted areas. This was where Donnie had sequestered himself, piling large volumes of transportation and inter-dimensional magic tomes onto his table to page through.

Still, he checked his phone to keep track of when his body would need sustenance. Occasionally he would also immediately turn it on when he woke from sleep, as all sleep was unintentional and he needed to be aware of how much time he had wasted with unconsciousness.

Such as now. He jolted awake from a nightmare whose contents he didn’t bother trying to recall, instead diving for the screen of his phone. It lit up, highlighting the date and time.

March 14th, it read, 4:00 AM. On the shared family calendar, a single event is listed with a cake emoji. A ‘special day’, as Mikey would say. 

This year, the day marked ‘March 14th’ on the calendar was not a special day at all. Donnie swiped the notification aside. Turned the phone to sleep mode again, ignoring the plethora of messages on it. Three entire hours lost. He needed to—

The hush bats on the ceiling squeaked and automatically he stilled. What had…oh. There was a melody dying out in his throat. 

He’d been humming something.

No more. He squashed the sound out. He couldn’t risk banishment from the Library again. Not when he might need the valuable knowledge within. But on the other hand, he was not making much headway in this session. Not a single book hinted at what might be done to locate someone who was in a pocket dimension. Many could tell him how to open a portal to a specific person, but only under the circumstances that they were in the same dimension as the spellcaster. For other dimensions, one could only open a portal to specific coordinates. There were ways to track those as well, apparently, as long as a magical beacon was placed on the other side in preparation. 

That wasn’t possible in their circumstances, but Donnie was a genius. One of the first things he did was build a machine with a rudimentary ability to monitor the Prison Dimension. But the other dimension was so vast that mere coordinates were useless; he needed to know Leo’s coordinates, so that his brother could be extracted swiftly and with as little risk of Kraang Prime’s escape as possible. A way to view the dimension instead of relying on his low-yielding attempts at sonar mapping would also be preferable so that they didn’t open a portal into solid matter, but he digressed.

Donnie needed to pinpoint Leo’s location. But he didn’t know how. Through careful testing, he had deduced Kraang Prime’s coordinates with 70-95% accuracy five times already and anticipated this trend to continue, but not once did his equipment pick up readings that indicated Leo’s presence. Anywhere in the Prison Dimension.

It was driving the soft-shelled turtle mad. There were only a few possible reasons for this lack of data. It could be that Leo was utilizing the terrain of the Prison Dimension deliberately to make it harder for the Kraang to locate him and this stealth was fooling even Donnie’s brilliant inventions. It could also be that there was interference between the dimensions making it harder for Donnie to identify objects — the Kraang had its alien armor, which often contributed to the accuracy of Donnie’s searches, while dearest Leonardo only had his swords as a particularly notable trait to the dimension-scouring equipment. Donnie had located those quickly; each far away from the other and the Kraang in turn. At first the soft-shell focused on those in the hopes that Leo was with one of them but their lack of movement over the duration of his monitoring suggested this was not the case. He still dedicated a machine to track them of course, but any alerts had only been false alarms.

(The last option was that Leo was dead. A cold and still object indistinguishable from the other debris of the desolate dimension. His soul trapped on the other side, unable to join their ancestors and confirm his status of existence one way or another.

But Nardo wasn’t dead. So obviously, that last option was not an option at all. It was just a useless, ridiculous theory that had no right to bounce around in his brain the way it did, distracting him from every invaluable second he should be devoting to research.)

…Donnie closed the book in his hands with a soft thud. As the hush bats chittered in interest, he stood up and cast the pile on his table a disdainful glance. This was inefficient. Statistics demanded he abandon this path of research and seek out a more effective one. But there was no more effective one. He had exhausted all avenues of investigation.

Well, then. There was nothing left to do but start from the beginning again. He would seclude himself in the lab and ensure his machines were still functioning, and with the knowledge he had gained from the Hidden Library it might even inspire new ideas. If not, a second round of seclusion was guaranteed to bring a certain brother to the door, tapping on it in an annoyingly catchy rhythm while simultaneously yodeling his heart out loud enough to penetrate the soundproofing, until S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. begged him to disable his link to the security feed’s audio. Then Donnie would reluctantly let him in, and the idiotic slider would bug him until he spilled whatever problem he was struggling with, and then Nardo would suggest something so utterly ridiculous that somehow had a shred of merit to it, and Donnie—

—Donnie’s inventor’s block would not be removed, because Leo was not here.

But Mikey and Raph were. He had approximately 703 combined unread texts and voicemails on his phone from them, in fact (approximate because this number increased by an average of three-per-minute). April was no slouch in this department either.

It…would be a great pain to ask for help. But it wasn’t unthinkable. All three of them had the same desire to save Leo as he did. And — hmmm. He would never tell Nardo such a thought crossed his mind but…if there was ever anyone Donnie could suck it up and swallow his pride for, it was his twin.

Chapter Text

“Parole.”

“Nope,” Leo popped the ‘p’ in his reply absent-mindedly, working at the paper between his three-fingered hands with uncharacteristic diligence. 

Wally splayed a hand out at the scattered papers. “Then what’s this about?!”

The ‘this’ in question was several pages of written line, all the same sentence, a punishment for Leo nabbing the key to the Tower of Fate. He’d decided to accept the punishment with little fuss since it really could have been way worse. Also, M’gann let him borrow her glitter pens, so at least the one hundred lines of ‘I must not steal ancient magical artifacts’ had some pinache to them.

“Hmm,” Leo pretended to think. “Detention. Also, it’s completely unrelated to my situation. Guess again.”

Instead of making another guess, the redhead leaned in close to read his lines. “Dude, that’s not how you spell ‘artifact’.”

“It’s the British spelling.”

“The British spelling is with an ‘e’, not a ‘y’.”

Leo paused. Looked at the 71 lines he’d already written. “Do you think Zatara’ll make me redo it?”

Wally snorted. “No, he’s not cruel. So what supposedly magical artifact did you steal?”

“I prefer the term ‘borrowed’,” Leo said. “It was the key to the Tower, that’s all.”

“The Tower of Fate?”

“What other magical towers are there?”

The ginger-haired human shrugged. “None. And the Tower of Fate isn’t even magic, it just uses an extremely technologically advanced cloaking function, combined with either a teleportation function or pocket dimension generator to bring you to the rooms within; which have a nanite-based construction by the way, explaining their ability to transform at a whim.”

“You’re persistent,” someone else drawled, plopping down on Leon’s other side and raising a judgmental eyebrow at Wally. “Maybe if you were more accepting of magic you’d have already guessed what Leo’s deal is.”

“Ugh, what are you doing here?” Wally growled at Artemis.

The archer rolled her eyes. “I’m allowed to hang out in the Cave too. Heard your yapping and decided to join in on the fun. Can’t let you settle the bet without even making a few guesses of my own, can I?”

“What, and you think magic has something to do with it?”

“The evidence definitely points that way,” she shot back, pointing a finger at him. “You’d think a scientist would —“

The sandwiched mutant turtle, who had continued serenely writing out his lines as his two temporary teammates squabbled, pointedly cleared his throat and interrupted her. “As hilarious as it is to listen to you two fight over little ol’ me, could you either get to the point and make your guess or maybe just take it somewhere else? I’m like, three lines away from finishing but it’s kind of hard to write when you can’t see what you’re writing on.”

Artemis sheepishly retracted her hand from where it had nearly smacked into Leo’s own. “No time like the present,” she shrugged and cast Wally a sly look. “You’re a kappa who’s been misplaced from the world of yokai, probably by your own portal magic, and Mr. Nelson was your best bet finding or creating a magic gateway back. How’s that?”

Leo ended his last written sentence with a flourish and set the glitter pen down. “Wow, congratulations! You…almost got it!”

Wally, who’d choked on his own breath when Leo had led with a congratulations, recovered and grasped the stipulation like a lifeline. “Ha! But she was still wrong!”

“That may be so,” the turtle spoke as if he was a wise master about to impart some sacred knowledge, “But she was close enough that if your guesses don’t get any better, she deserves the prize!”

Wally huffed. Artemis rolled her eyes at his discontent. The speedster pouted at her with a glare. She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. Leo hummed cheerily as he opened a portal that dumped every page of ‘I must not steal ancient magical artifacts’ onto his bedroom floor to deal with later. As if on cue, Red Tornado walked into the room and diffused Wally and Artemis’s spat with his mere presence.

“There is an incoming transmission from the Batman,” the robot informed the trio. “I believe he has a mission. Please gather the others and meet in the Briefing Room. I will locate Aqualad.”

“What about Robin?” Leo asked as he sheathed his blades.

“He’s with Batman,” Wally answered for Red Tornado.

With Batman indeed. The holographic image of the transmission showed the two caped crusaders in full color. Leo did not hold back his laughter when he saw that both of them were drenched in mud, looking like they’d taken a dip in a swamp or a sewer. Batman’s glare, however, was not diluted by the splotches of mud and its full force was enough to make Leo smother his giggles and stand at attention.

“Attention, Team. Take a Zeta-Tube to Gotham immediately,” Batman started when the Team was gathered. “And rendezvous with Robin at these coordinates.” The coordinates in question popped up, as well as a blurry photo of what looked like a large pile of mud. This was, Batman explained, their target - a monster with some degree of shapeshifter loose in Gotham. Their job was to track it — and only to track it. Batman, supposedly, would be busy concocting a counteragent to the sentient gunk. How mad scientist of him. 

When Batman was finished and dismissed them, the Team turned to Aqualad. The atlantean remained in place, an odd expression on his face.

“Uh, I’ll go put the coordinates into the Zeta-Tube ?” Miss Martian offered hesitantly, looking around at her teammates. Kid Flash nodded and zipped off to get dressed.

“Oi,” Artemis said to their distracted leader. She poked his foot with her shoe when he didn’t immediately respond. “See you in Gotham.”

“Ah, yes,” Aqualad replied. “There is no time to waste.” He turned around stiffly and followed Miss Martian. Artemis, Superboy, and Leo shared a confused look at his uncharacteristic behavior, but none of them commented on it. Artemis left to change, and Superboy and Leo who were already in their ‘hero’ clothes went ahead to meet with their waiting teammates. 

“The Zeta-Tube is ready,” M’gann told them. “Aqualad, should we wait for Wally and Artemis or should some of us go ahead?”

The atlantean’s head was completely in the clouds. He didn’t react to the martian’s question for a good few seconds. Then he cleared his throat. “The Zeta-Tubes are in safe locations, it’s only the rendezvous coordinates that we’ll have to be on guard for. Let’s go.” He stepped through the teleportation device, which announced his departure just as Kid Flash skidded to a stop next to the group. 

“Ha!” The speedster cried. “I got here first!”

The team’s green-clad archer ran up to the group a second later, at a human pace. She panted for breath. “What an accomplishment…it’s almost like you have super speed.”

“Come on guys, let’s go,” Miss Martian said. Superboy took the initiative at her words, leaving immediately. Kid Flash stepped through next like he was eager to get away from Artemis, but the archer was the next one to enter despite this. Miss Martian glided into it silently, leaving Leo last.

Alright Gotham, the ninja turtle thought as he entered the Tube. Let’s see if you live up to your reputation.

Chapter Text

Gotham smelled like home.

To be clear, it didn’t smell homey, and it also wasn’t evoking any positive nostalgic feelings — but to use a Donnie-word, factually the stench in the air was a very close match to home. Specifically the turtles’ first home which’d had a smell as distinct as it was unique: the mustiness of old architecture, followed by the faint scent of sewer that prevailed despite scrubbing or cleaning, and then hints of dubiously legal chemicals that in the old lair had been a result of Donnie’s many experiments but in this gothic city were probably a lingering effect from some sort of villain attack — or layered up from multiple attacks, based on what the internet community had to say about the place.

Funky. The buildings and stuff looked plenty old, sort of victorian-style. Goth, one might even say, especially with the heavy clouds making it seem later in the day than it was. But there were still signs of modern amenities. Leon could see an electronic billboard in the distance, proudly displaying the weather for the day. August 27th, 2010 / 4:30 PM / Moderate Rain in 3 Hours, it read.

Miss Martian and Superboy were visibly taking in the gloomy atmosphere, while their other teammates were unruffled. Leo wondered how much of that was familiarity. Kid Flash, certainly, since he was best friends with Robin. He probably visited this city all the time. He didn’t know enough about Artemis or Aqualad to judge whether or not they’d been here before or were simply adjustable.

“This way,” Aqualad said quietly, taking the lead. The gaggle of teenagers did their best to follow him discreetly. Leo continued to hang back, shoulder-to-shoulder with Kid Flash.

“Is it just me,” the turtle whispered, “Or was Aqualad acting a little weird when Batman gave us the mission?”

“Oh, definitely,” the speedster replied. “I can tell, something’s distracting him.”

“Does it have something to do with this mission?”

Kid Flash snorted. “No, he’s been off all day. Wasn’t replying to any of my texts. But he’s here now, so he’s obviously got whatever it was handled. He would have called out of the mission if he thought he would be a liability.”

“Right.” Leo breathed out.

“Took you long enough!” Robin’s slightly weary voice cut through the Team’s silent trek. They gathered around the sodden protégé, staring at the open manhole in the alleyway. “Clayface is down here. I’ve got a tracker on him, but it’s less effective underground, so we need a line of sight on him for when Batman gets back.”

Aqualad nodded curtly. “Let’s go.” Immediately, their leader descended the ladder into the sewers.

“Huh. Kinda thought he’d want to make a plan of action first,” Robin said lightly. “Well, the sooner we get it over with the sooner I can go home and shower!” He followed Aqualad willingly, but the rest of the team was more reluctant - probably because they were all currently clean. Leo, on the other hand, had no such doubts.

“What, you scared of a little mystery mush?” He flashed them a grin and went down the ladder in a jiffy. The Gotham sewer was green and murky, so overall not any different from New York’s sewers. Home sweet home, he joked to himself.

“Mind link established,” Miss Martian announced as she floated down. “Which way first?” 

“I vote this way,” Leo pointed at his desired direction with a sword. Along the narrow walkway, a few noticeable splotches of mud led around the corner.

Robin frowned, holding up his wrist’s holo-screen. “The tracker is in this direction, though.”

Aqualad looked down both paths. “I’m not sure…”

Despite what Kid Flash had said, Leo felt like maybe Aqualad wouldn’t be pulling his own weight today. Wasn’t the answer obvious? “Let’s split up. We’re not stealthy at all in a huge group like this, he’d hear us coming a mile away. Rob, you said it yourself — the tracker’s unreliable here. Those mud traces could be from Clayface coming from around the corner instead of leaving around the corner, so I might be wrong too. We can call with the mind link if we find him, or send one of us to get help if we’re too far for the link.”

“Just two groups then,” Robin added. “That way if there’s a fight, there’ll be at least two people to hold Clayface off while one runs for help.”

Aqualad had an expression on his face that clearly read, this is supposed to be a stealth mission. Nonetheless, he nodded. “That is a sound plan. Good idea, Leonardo.”

The teenaged mutant snapped his face away from prying eyes. He scrambled for a deflection from the undeserved praise, but it would be rude to imply Aqualad was stupid by pointing out how obvious the solution was. “Dude, you don’t have to call me by my full name. Only adults do that.”

“Leon, then,” Aqualad decided, probably because it sounded marginally more refined than just Leo — not that the turtle cared one way or another. “I’ll go this way,” he indicated the way Robin’s tracker had indicated. “Robin, I’ll need you. Do the rest of you have any preferences?”

“I’m going with Rob of course,” Kid Flash scoffed into the mental link. Artemis seemed to take that as her cue to choose the opposite path. Miss Martian and Superboy joined her and Leo with a fair amount of indifference.

“Can we go now?” Superboy asked impatiently.

“Indeed,” Aqualad said. They departed.

The distaste his partners held for the sewers was apparent, but Leo padded down the tunnels almost happily. The nostalgia of peering into nasty gunk-clogged canals looking for monsters was so strong he had to keep reigning in his speed so he wouldn’t alert the supervillain by something as idiotic as slipping on a soggy miscellaneous item. Artemis was a quiet walker, so he didn’t have to worry about her, and Miss Martian was flying — but Superboy took heavy steps and occasionally huffed out loud at something said aloud over the mind link, so Leo was constantly sending the alien boy reminders to be more cautious. 

It didn’t end up mattering, because the other team found Clayface first. 

“Miss Martian, we’ve encountered Clayface! We’re locked in combat, do you copy?”

Well. Maybe the other way around, in terms of who was finding who.

“We copy!” She sent back, and then they were sprinting back the way they came.

When the quartet finally located the other half of their team, the battle was well underway. A creature of mud swayed violently where it rose from the river of sewage, slamming Kid Flash into a wall while simultaneously flinging Robin’s mini bombs into the air. Aqualad rolled to dodge the stray explosives, narrowly avoiding crashing into Robin as the younger boy pulled a similar evasive maneuver. Superboy leapt into the fray with a ferocious yell, sinking a fist deep into where the supervillain’s torso might have been had he been in a human shape. Artemis prepped an arrow, relocating herself out of the main line of combat. Leo did the same with his swords.

Clayface’s body squelched under Superboy’s impact, but instead of being repelled by the force the substance surged forward, crawling up Superboy’s arm and trying to drag the boy into the body in a smothering move. Miss Martian was quick to pull her friend out with her telekinesis. Aqualad fashioned the water of his weapon into a mace. Robin reached into his utility belts. A twist of his sword, and Leo was portal-chopping off a sprouted arm of mud that was speeding towards Artemis.

The sewer surged up to counter them.

In one fell sweep, all of their attacks were either interrupted or brushed off. The supervillain had sprouted more arms than an octopus, some rising up from beneath the water’s surface to grab them by their feet or torsos. Leo’s was probably the only attack that landed, succeeding in chopping off the arm, but that meant nothing when there were two more limbs to replace it. He yelled as one of the many hands snatched him by the ankles and tossed him bodily down the length of the tunnel. The enclosed space was filled with the cries of his teammates suffering similar fates. The world went sideways and upside down as he skidded across the narrow walkway, and his flailing attempts to reorient himself only resulted in a dunk in the sewage.

He forced his body to relax when he realized he was underwater. In a few seconds he was able to discern up from down and broke the surface, scanning the tunnel immediately for the enemy.

Nothing but dripping patches of mud, sewer water, and frustrated teammates.

“Where’d he go!?” Kid Flash shouted out loud.

Robin was furiously typing on his wrist device. Miss Martian lifted Artemis out of the water. Superboy brooded close to Aqualad, who was still dragging himself out of an atlantean-shaped indent in the wall.

“He’s fleeing,” Robin finally announced. “It looks like he’s going to leave the sewers.”

Aqualad sighed. “As long as he emerges in an unpopulated area, let him. He had the advantage here. We’ll be able to track him more accurately on the surface, and we need to regroup. Miss Martian, can you call the bio-ship here?”

“Sure,” she responded.

As if on cue, their Cave communicators buzzed. It was Batman, asking for a status update. Aqualad took a deep breath and reported tonelessly as they began their trek back to the sewer exit.

Half an hour later saw the Team in the bio-ship, following Robin’s tracker while the teenagers took turns changing into cleaner outfits. Leo didn’t have a spare outfit on the ship, but even if he did he wouldn’t have bothered. They were likely to fight Clayface again soon, so there wasn’t much point. There was, however, one problem.

“Awwwww,” he moaned in despair as he idly went to check the time on his phone. “Crap!”

“What’s wrong?” Robin swiveled his chair around in curiosity.

The turtle displayed his dirtied gear. Namely, the pouch that had a large rip in. “My phone…I think it’s still in the sewers.”

The other boy made a face of sympathy. “Why’d you even bring your phone…?”

“It’s basically indestructible,” Leo shrugged. “And nobody can hack into it, so I figured ‘why not?’. Guess I should have made sure this belt was indestructible too.”

“We can always go back and look for it,” Miss Martian offered from the pilot’s seat. “Uh, after the mission, of course.”

“That would be great.” More than great. He had to find his phone. That thing had all his pictures from home on it!

“Oh look, Artemis is ready,” Robin noted as the archer returned from the back. “Should we drop now? The tracker says Clayface is among the shipping containers. We’ll have to check in and between each of them because that’s as narrow a location it can give.”

Not much better than the sewers, but nothing could ever be easy now could it? By habit, most of the Team turned to Aqualad to look for his opinion.

Their leader was deep in thought. He didn’t respond.

“Well,” Kid Flash drawled, “Now sounds good to me. We should split up again. It’s close enough range we’ll be able to use the mind link the whole time, so let’s all go separately. That way we’ll find him faster.”

Tired and miserable from the sewer encounter, everyone was quick to nod their heads in agreement. Only Aqualad did not make his opinion known, because of his apparent distraction.

“Yoo-hoo, Earth to Aqualad!” Kid Flash called. “We’re splitting up again. Is that okay with you?”

“Hmm?” Their leader raised his head. “Yes. This is fine. Is everyone ready? Then let us proceed.”

Miss Martian obliged, guiding the bio-ship to hover a small distance above the dock at a spot just outside the pile of shipping containers. A hatch in the bottom appeared, swirling open in the ship’s odd organic way. They dropped down, indicated which directions they were taking, and fanned out.

Contrary to what Kid Flash had said, Leo decided not to actually go alone. Sure, it would be more efficient, but now that the returning adrenaline was making his mind clearer it seemed slightly unwise to be going individually after Clayface had trounced all of them at once earlier. It was too late to try and round up his teammates; they were all rapidly disappearing around corners, eager to get the mission over with, but Leo trotted up to the one he was concerned about the most.

Aqualad didn’t acknowledge his presence. Was the atlantean even aware that Leo was tailing him?

He cleared his throat. Aqualad startled and turned around. Well, that answers that. “Mind if I join you?” Leo asked quietly, forcing some carefree cheer into his voice.

“No,” Aqualad replied, an almost guilty look overtaking his face. “By all means, you are welcome by my side.”

They continued silently, occasionally trading reports with the other team members through the mind link. Until…

They stopped. They stopped hearing the others through the mind link.

M’gann is down, Leo realized in a moment of cold clarity. He paused in stride without even checking to see if Aqualad noticed and whirled around to look back the path they had come, suddenly paranoid. Nothing was there, of course. But when he looked ahead again, nothing was there either.

Either Aqualad had turned a corner, oblivious to Leo no longer following him, or something had snatched him up fast enough that the ninja turtle didn’t detect it.

Stupidly, Leo panicked and ran around the corner of the shipping container next to him. Nothing. The next container. Nothing. The next. And the next. And —

— two shapes. Someone, a lump on the ground. Another person, teenager-sized. Not human shaped.

It was dark, but Leo would recognize his brother anywhere. Clad in his usual purple gear, mechanical bo staff expanding into place in one hand, Donnie’s brilliant, manic grin greeted him.

Leo’s brain stalled. Maybe the evil grin should have tipped him off but…let’s be real. Supervillain grins were Donnie’s default.

“Donnie?!” tumbled out of his mouth. Delight rose in his chest.

A mechanical bo staff morphed into a giant clay fist and knocked him clean out.

Chapter Text

Leo woke up sweating. An unbearable heat bore down on him, scorching his skin. His tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth and peeled off of it painfully slow. He squinted, trying to work up some fluid in his mouth as he peered between his eyelids.

Sand. Endless, sloping sand, dotted by rocks and one or two twiggy shrubs. The turtle groaned as he pulled himself off the ground, leaning against the boulder he was halfway in the shade of. And - oh gosh. Leo had no idea sand could be this annoying. It was between his toes, it was in his armpits, it was under his knees. It. Was. In. His. Shell. It just would not shake out.

Maybe he needed to rethink that beach day plan with his brothers. Speaking of, which of them was responsible for this prank? He glanced around, trying to spot any of them hiding in the area or maybe one of Donnie’s drones keeping an eye on him from the sky. He saw nothing.

…something was wrong. His skin was wrinkly, dehydrated, some bits irritated and flaky in the mutant turtle equivalent of sunburn. Raph would never let a prank go on so long. Actually, how long had he been unconscious in the desert? How had his brothers gotten him here without him waking up? This clearly wasn’t the Hidden City, either.

He chuckled nervously and stood up to his full height. “Haha, very funny! You got me!” The desolate landscape did not reply. His mouth twitched, trying to fall out of its grin into a grimace, but Leo didn’t let it. If this was a prank, his brothers were watching. “C’mon, what’s going on? You trying to make a point or something?”

He sighed at the continued silence and tutted in fake disappointment. “Donnie, if this is about me stealing your invention thingy yesterday—“

He paused, cleared his throat. “Er, the other day, or…” Wait, when had that happened? It wasn’t last night, it wasn’t even last week. How long ago had that been?

Leo couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember anything recent. There was a big gap between his last clear memory and now, he was certain of it. But he had no idea how big the gap was.

Automatically, he did what any sane teenager would do and went to check his phone. He pulled it out of its usual place, but paused before he could click the power button. That was…weird. His phone case was different - there was a mini chain linking it to the inside of his fanny pack. Okay, maybe he had gotten tired of nearly losing it in the sewers? But then he turned it on and found something even weirder. Because his normal screensaver, the one of Donnie wildly waving his staff around while ranting about something, had been changed out for a selfie. A selfie of Leo, of course, but his gorgeous face was mostly hidden by the shadow of the large hoodie he was wearing. The goal of the photo seemed to lie in how it angled to catch a good chunk of another person in the background. They were a human, an elderly man holding a fancy gold cane, smiling wryly back at the camera lens as they led the way through a crowd of other humans. 

What the heck? When and where was this photo taken? Who was the human in the photo?

Why did the date on the lock screen say September 4th, 2010?!  

Leo put the phone down, inhaled long and deep, and exhaled. Okay, so. He picked the phone back up, unlocked it, and immediately dialed his twin. He didn’t know what was going on,  but Donnie’s tech never failed him when it mattered.

*Bzzt*, the phone buzzed. The call didn’t go through. Not even the ‘Seriously, stop bothering me Leo!’ that was Donnie’s current voicemail message. He tried a few more times to no avail.

Leo put his phone away and inhaled again. This time when he exhaled, his head was inside his shell and he was screaming. Uck, sand.

“Alright!” He said to himself as he popped his head back out. “Fulfilled my panic quota for the week! Time for Neon Leon to effortlessly return home!”

He pulled his ōdachi out from its sheath and…

…that wasn’t his ōdachi. It was a katana. He automatically reached back again and pulled out the other one he knew would be there — because he always dual-wielded katana — and stared at them both, trying to figure out where he’d gotten them. He’d assumed that if this wasn’t prank, then he must have had another portaling accident. It hadn’t really made much sense to him since he’d improved a lot at using the ōdachi, enough to absolutely own Big Mama’s champion during the Shredder incident the…other day(?)… but his portals still had the occasional hiccup. 

But he didn’t have his ōdachi on him, just these katana that had enough mystical energy that even his insensitive self could detect it.

There was no way. Yet, he still gave them an experimental swing. With the ease of a knife through butter they sliced a portal open into the air. He could see through to the other side, which was more desert. He closed it. It felt so easy, like the swords were made for him.

He had to know how he got a hold of different magic portal-making swords. Had he been playing with them, somehow screwed up their seemingly beginner-friendly magic and ended up in this desert with his memories gone? It was definitely something he could imagine himself doing.

But whatever the problem was they appeared to be working fine now. He didn’t know what was up with the memory loss or the phone, but once he got home his brothers could fill him in and Donnie would fix the phone, no problem. 

With a quick swipe, he — ugh. Come on, you stupid things. He tried again. But splitting the distance between here and home was…incomprehensibly harder than it should have been. There was a vast length that he couldn’t seem to cross. He could open a portal to a few feet away just fine, but for some reason it was like their home in the sewers was blocked off. So he tried the Hidden City — nada. Run of the Mill Pizza. Anywhere that he knew he had portaled to before…and the portals just fizzled out, refused to open. Was there a distance limit or was something else going on?

He scowled at the katanas and decided that if they weren’t going to be useful, he would just put them back in their sheath. Not like he needed to fight off anything here. There was a whole lot of nobody in this desert.

Leo settled uncomfortably back into the shade of the small boulder. He could feel sweat trickling down his neck. He rummaged around in his bags, but the only water bottle inside was empty. He went through his options. He could try to find civilization while wandering between the shady spots between the boulders scattered across the landscape, but the distance between rocks was pretty far. He could try portaling around in search of a town or oasis, but success at that required luck and he clearly didn’t have much of that at the moment. He also didn’t really trust the katanas. If the had a limit to how many portals he could make in a day, they could leave him stranded in a spot with no shade.

His final option was to sit here, wait for Donnie to track him down, and suffer the embarrassment of making his brothers save him from a problem that was probably his own fault to begin with. But if he was on the other side of the world…if the tracker was like his phone and didn’t even work…what then?

Plan A: he’d wait here and if nobody came to get him by nightfall, he’d travel in the dark. At least that way he wouldn’t risk heatstroke. 

Plan B: there was no Plan B. If he needs one, he’ll wing it.

.

.

.

Three hours later, just as Leo started debating the merits of chilling inside of his shell, he spotted some life that wasn’t a vulture passing overhead or a beetle scuttling over his toes.

A large vehicle chugged along on the horizon, a cloud of sand kicking up in its wake. For a second he got his hopes up, thinking it was the Turtle Tank, before he could make out its generic camouflage patterning and rectangular shape. Not to mention the cannon sticking out the top rather than hiding within like the Turtle Tank’s. Is that a…military tank? He wondered to himself.

It wasn’t headed in his direction. The turtle pondered the merits of getting the inhabitants’ attention. There weren’t many. The government of any country was likely to turn mutant turtles into science experiments, as Splinter had made sure to drill into their thick heads when they were still toddlers. Maybe if it had been a caravan with camels and everything, an obviously non-military or law enforcement group, Leo would take the chance. But even he wasn’t dumb enough to depend on the kindness of trained soldiers when they had missiles and he had only severe dehydration and a pair of swords he was out of practice with.

He ducked back down behind the boulder.

Something exploded in the distance, rattling his backrest.

“Oh, for…” the mutant teenager muttered. He popped his head back up and found a giant plume of dust rising where the tank was headed towards. Had they launched their missile? What had they been aiming for?

…Who had they been aiming for?

Leo leapt to his feet immediately. He knew exactly who else might have a reason to be in this desert, and all three of them were named after Italian Renaissance artists.

(April might be there too, but Leo had no idea what the real day of the week was so there was a 5/7 chance she was at work instead)

He pulled out his dubiously acquired swords and slashed open a portal. Thankfully, they complied, and he could see movement on the other side of the portal. He stepped forward —

—but was barreled over by a blur of black and green before he could cross to the other side. In his surprise, the portal closed. He sprang to his feet indignantly. “Hey!” He yelled at the duo that had practically flown through his portal. “What gives?!”

It was two teenage humans in superhero-like costumes. One was a ginger-haired boy wearing black streamlined clothes with long sleeves and a cowl, all of which was a terrible choice for in the desert, and the other was a blonde girl with green masked outfit that showed her midriff and a bow and quiver full of arrows.

“Sorry dude,” the ginger said as he helped his companion up and dusted his uniform off. “I was just trying to get away from the—“ he cut himself off as he finally glanced up at Leo “—are you an atlantean? What are you doing in the middle of a desert?”

Huh? In Leo’s experience, if a human didn’t automatically assume they were in costume, they typically screamed their head off about aliens. (Though he supposed atlantean was a fair guess, since…since…wait, what even was an atlantean, and why did Leo know they weren’t aliens?)

“I could ask you the same thing,” Leo said flippantly, “Buuuuut I don’t really care. If you’ll excuse me, I need to find my brothers.” He went to open another portal.

“Brothers?” The archer girl echoed. In the background, Ginger glanced around wildly and exclaimed in awe that they had been teleported. Boy, was he slow on the uptake. (Ironic, because of his super — his super-what ?)

Leo ignored both of them and his growing headache as he ripped a portal open. It was bright white, not showing what lay on the other side, but it opened in the same place these teenagers had come from so it had to be in the area the missile had hit.

“Wait!” The blonde grabbed his wrist before he could step through. “Does that go back to the tank? There are more, don’t go through. Me and…Kid Flash were the only ones there other than the soldiers.” 

He paused, not sure if he believed her. But then a full-grown adult human in military gear ran through, aiming a gun at them, and Leo quickly decided that these fellow teenagers had no reason to lie to him. He tucked into a roll, dodging the first shot as he dismissed his portal before any other surprises could pop through, and struggled to his feet. All this action after sitting down for so long combined with his poor shape from the heat was making Leo far more sluggish than he would like.

The boy called ‘Kid Flash’ had scooped up Archer Girl and darted a fair distance away; before the mutant turtle could blink, the human was suddenly a blur of grey that knocked the soldier to the ground and kicked the gun away. That — that was super-speed. Did this boy have superpowers?

Archer Girl nonchalantly picked up the gun and unloaded its bullets, pocketing them. That was also something normal human teenagers did not do, although it didn’t scream ‘super-powered’ the way literal super-speed did. More, ‘assassin spy’, or something.

A shadow passed overhead as Leo contemplated the humans in front of him. He would have thought it to be another bird — since the tank(s) were still visibly on the far horizon and couldn’t possibly have shot a missile so far at the trio even if they’d been spotted — except for the hum in the air and Kid Flash’s quiet curse as he glanced into the sky.

Two small, armed planes looped in the air to face toward the ground.

“Get down!” The ginger-haired boy yelled, tackling Archer Girl. Leo ignored the instruction entirely, opening up a portal beneath all three of them and depositing them behind a larger outcropping of rock in eyesight.

“A little warning!” Archer Girl huffed as she recovered from the drop. Kid Flash spat out a mouthful of sand. Leo gave a grin and a shrug, trying to hide the exhaustion shaking his limbs. In the sky, the fighter jets ceased their fire and looped again. They swept in opposite directions, clearly scanning the landscape for their targets. The blonde teenager pulled an arrow from her bow and started aiming.

“Are you trying to give away our position?” Kid Flash hissed.

“There’s not enough cover,” she muttered back. “Better to take them out while we have the advantage.” She drew the string taut.

“Don’t worry, I’m almost there!”

Everyone flinched at the sudden shout. Archer Girl’s shot went wild, missing the plane. The aircraft swerved until it faced their direction.

“Aw, crap,” Leo said.

“Portal!” Kid Flash yelped, at the same time (Ar—Arte—)Archer Girl asked, “Who was that?”

“Can’t you use your super-speed?!” The turtle bit back. The other rock formation with enough cover in the area was in view of the second jet, so he would have to portal into the open and then again as soon as the planes reoriented themselves. He wasn’t sure he had enough juice for that.

“Portal, portalportalportal—" was the frantic response. Fine, he’d portal, geez!

They plopped down in the middle of the sand as far away from the two planes as Leo felt he could manage without ruining their sense of direction. Just because Leo had no idea where he was didn’t mean these two suspicious teenagers were also lost. He dug a sword into the sand and leaned on it as the two got back to their feet. They were getting the hang of the drops, but the sand did not make it easy to land standing. 

“So what’d you do to tick those guys off?” He asked.

Kid Flash shrugged. “Beats me. Neither of us remember why we’re here in the first place.”

Wait, what? Leo temporarily looked away from the searching fighter planes to squint at the two. Was there a connection between these two and how the turtle himself ended up in the desert? He opened his mouth to question them further, but was distracted by a flash of movement in the sky. He shot his head up and readied his swords in case the fighter jets had located them again…only to gape and lower them when he found nothing but a cloud of smoke and flaming debris falling from where the jets had been moments ago. A floating human-like shape emerged from the sky, approaching the trio hurriedly.

“O-kay, J’ohnn,” Kid Flash drawled as the figure - a redheaded, green-skinned feminine yokai? alien? — got within hearing range. “I’m digging the new looks, but I’m not sure it really screams ‘Manhunter’.”

Leo had no idea what was going on.

“You know my Uncle J’ohnn?” The girl said excitedly once she touched the ground. Then she slapped herself softly. “Hello, Megan! Of course you do, you’re Kid Flash! Wally! And you’re Artemis,” she turned to them, “and Leo! I’m so glad you three found each other!” 

“Wait, Martian Manhunter’s your uncle? Is that how you know my name?” The ginger-haired boy asked.

‘Artemis’ looked at him incredulously. “Your name’s really Wally?”

Wally groaned in disappointment.

“I-it’s okay! I’m M’gann, Megan,” The (alien?) girl said. “We’re teammates. Friends! I made you cookies.”

(“So, do you like them?”

Leo nodded, crossing his fingers behind his back as he spoke through the mouthful of slightly crispy cookie. “Yeah, they’re great.”

Puh-leeze. M’gann was sweet, but her cookies…not so much. Not that she ever had a chance of out-cookie-ing Mikey.)

Garbled words and images flashed across the back of his brain. Leo massaged his forehead roughly, trying to chase the disorientation away.

Meanwhile Kid Flash and Artemis exchanged a few confused words, and M’gann sighed. “You all lost your memories too.” She turned towards the horizon, where the tank that Leo had seen earlier had disappeared behind a dark cloud of smoke. “Come on, I’ll fill you in as we go. Robin and Superboy need our help.”

“Wait,” Leo said. “What did you mean, teammates? On what team?”

M’gann blinked. “I don’t think the team has a name…we all work under the Justice League. It’s a, um, covert ops team?”

“Who else is on the team?”

“I just said,” M’gann replied, “Us four, Robin, Superboy—”

“What about my brothers? Raph, Mikey, Donnie?” He pressed. “I’m already on a team with them, I wouldn’t just join another!”

She frowned. There was a blank look of confusion on her face. “I’m sorry, I don’t recognize those names. B-but,” she added after Leo felt his face do something weird, “I don’t have all my memories back! I’m sure I’ll be be able to answer your questions better soon. Uh, in the meanwhile, can we…?”

“Right, time’s a-wasting!” Wally butt in. “If Rob’s in trouble, we need to go save him! And this Super-whoever, too.”

“Okay,” Leo huffed and sheathed his sword. “Fine. Whatever.” He’d leave it alone. But if M’gann had answers for where his brothers were — or how he could get back to them — then he would definitely be having a conversation with her soon enough.

For now, he joined three strangers in a desert to rescue their teammate, and tried not to feel like he’d been dragged into a side quest.

Chapter Text

The sun set as they followed M’gann, who claimed to be telepathically tracking Robin, but the moon kept the night brightly lit. The path was meandering, since apparently this ‘Robin’ kid was on the move as well, and they also had to take cover a few times as military vehicles passed by. The longer the trip went on, the slower they seemed to move. In a silent agreement to conserve their energy for potential fights, none of them were using their powers to traverse the landscape quicker.

“He’s on the other side of this dune,” the alien(!) girl told them as they trudged up a sandy incline. “I’m starting to recall…I think this was our rendezvous—”

Gunfire cut her off. The group froze, and then burst into motion. They crested the top of the hill just in time to see smoke engulf the area. 

It had a faint chemical smell and hung low and thick, clearly made from some sort of smoke bomb rather than a fire. The gunfire petered off instantly and Leo could see flashes of movement from within as pained grunts and hollers filled the air.

Kid Flash chuckled. “Trust Rob to bring a smoke bomb to a gunfight!” And then he sped down in a blur, sending the smoke swirling in the draft of his inhuman speed. As the fight became more visible, Leo made out a small figure with a cape taking out the soldiers with expert ease. They were outnumbered, but with Kid Flash, M’gann, and Artemis pitching in to pick off the remaining soldiers, the scuffle ended quickly.

They introduced themselves to the kid he assumed was Robin - aside from Kid Flash, who was good friends with Robin from before the memory loss - and learned from him that the period of missing memories seemed to be about six months. While they did that, Leo walked across the shallow area that was now filled with the unconscious bodies of the enemy soldiers. It was a small clearing shielded on all sides by dunes and in the middle of it was a large metal container that stood out against the pale sand. If this was a rendezvous point for the team, had Leo’s new acquaintances been the ones to place the strange container here?

“And that guy’s Leo,” he heard Kid Flash say. The turtle gave a half wave but was more interested in poking the mystery container. “Not sure what his deal is.”

Leo snorted and turned around, treating Robin to a wide grin. “Moi? I’m the greatest ninja the world’s ever seen!”

(“I’m the greatest ninja the world’s ever seen. You said that.”

“I was wrong .”)

“—pretty ninja himself,” Kid Flash was saying, gesturing at Robin. “Maybe you can have a ninja-off.”

“Ninj-off?” Robin suggested mischievously.

“Dude. No.”

“What, am I overwhelming you with my wordplay? Or was that one actually underwhelming? Hey, why isn’t anyone ever just whelmed?”

“Why do I feel like you’ve mangled that word before.”

“You know what, I think I have!”

Leo cut in, “Anyways, I was wondering if you’ve seen any other turtles around? They’d be noticeably less handsome than me, wearing purple, orange, or red masks…”

“Sorry, you're the first turtle I've seen all day," Robin shrugged. “First friendlies, even. So what’s our next move? I know we’re on a mission where radio silence is key, so we can’t call the Justice League for back-up. But without the rest of my memories I’m at a loss.”

“The Justice what-now?” Leo couldn’t help but blurt the question now that it had been mentioned again.

“The—“ Kid Flash frowned at him. “You don’t know what the Justice League is?”

“That can’t be right,” M’gann said, a hand held to her head. “Even before I met Uncle J’ohnn I knew what the Justice League was, and I lived on Mars! Was the memory wipe worse than I thought?”

“What’s two plus two,” Wally asked franticly. Robin whacked him upside the head even as everyone else answered, ‘Four.’ “Have you at least heard of the Justice Society of America?” 

Leo was very tempted to respond with, ‘What’s America?’, but an inner voice that sounded suspiciously like Raph told him now was not the time to mess around. “No,” he replied instead, “Does it matter?"

“It might,” Kid Flash said. “The establishment of an active group of superheroes was a big part of America’s, and then the world’s, history. Is anyone else experiencing memory loss like this, past the whole six months thing?”

Robin shrugged. “Not that I know of. This might be something else. Leo, you’re not an atlantean or an alien, are you?”

“Nope! Born and raised New Yorker!”

“Cool, cool. So what are your thoughts on Soder Cola?”

What a random question. Leo squinted at the boy. “Do you mean Coca-Cola? It’s okay, I guess.” 

As soon as the words left his mouth, Kid Flash gasped dramatically and pointed at him. “You’re from an alternate universe?!”

A — wait, WHAT?! Was that why — his phone — “What’s the year?” He demanded, “What date is it supposed to be?”

Robin checked a holographic interface on his wrist. “September 4th, 2010.”

That was the date his phone said. He’d just thought it was glitching. Oh, crap. He really was in an alternate universe, wasn’t he? Donnie was going to be so jealous. But — but Donnie wasn’t here. Were any of his brothers here, in this universe? How did Leo end up here? How did he get himself into this mess? “I-I need my memories back,” he breathed out. “I need…”

“I can help with that,” M’gann said. Her soft voice was jarring against the turmoil of his thoughts. “Now that most of us are together, if we combine our memories we can help each other remember. Take a deep breath, everyone. I’m going to bring us into my mindscape.”

“Hold up,” Artemis interrupted. “What do you mean, ‘combine our memories’? Are we all going to view each others’ memories? What about our private thoughts?”

“Only from the last six months,” M’gann assured her. “I won’t be looking too deep, just pulling our shared memories to the front. That should be enough to trigger your private memories, those won’t be shown to anyone else.”

Artemis still seemed doubtful, but Wally nudged her and she relented. “Fine, just make it quick. Last six months only.”

M’gann nodded, cast a glance across the group once, and then the world shimmered around them. Between one blink and the next the desert was replaced by a dome dotted with flashing images, each blurry but with recognizable shapes. Leo could see one of Kid Flash running, another of Robin talking to somebody else, and so on. The images - memories, that’s what they were - were contained in beehive-like pods, and the slim uncovered portions of the dome were a dark pink that was basically red, with some streaks of indigo.

“Is everyone ready?” The martian girl asked. 

Robin and Kid Flash nodded. “Just get it over with,” Artemis said. Leo pasted a quick smile onto his face.

“Sure,” he said. “Let’s do this!”

//

(Gold.

The sun was gold.)

.

(“You have our gratitude,” a young dark-skinned man said. Three familiar teenagers stood behind him. “…you are Leonardo Hamato?”
“The one and only! But, uh, how…”

“…informed us you and…failed to check in at the agreed time and he sent us to check on the wellbeing of the Helmet of Fate…I am…My comrades are Superboy, Kid Flash, and Miss Martian.”)

.

(“…have any family left?”

“…I’m just an old man, waiting for his time to come…”

Leo put a hand over his heart dramatically, “…need you to stay alive long enough to…!”

“Of course…I’ll do my best.”)

.

(The dome has cracks in it. And he looks inside it, and… Kid Flash has a hand on Nelson’s wrist and—

—looks up. Shakes his head grimly.

Leo’s heart skips a beat.)

.

(She blinked. “You’re a—“

Leo shushed her obnoxiously… “Ixnay on the spoilers, ‘kay?”

“Hellooo, Megan!” Wally singsonged.

The martian girl deadpanned. “My lips are sealed.”

“Wait, are you telling secrets to her?!”

The green-skinned duo ignored him.)

.

(It was dark, but Leo would recognize his brother anywhere…Donnie’s brilliant, manic grin greeted him.

“Donnie?!” Delight rose in his chest.

But it wasn’t Donnie.)

.

(“So Kaldur was just homesick?” Artemis asked. “…thrown off his game that much?”

“Well,” Wally speculated, “….might have been a little ~lovesick~ too, hah! Oh, hi Leo! Is your head feeling any better?”

“Yeah. I heal pretty fast, it’s good now.”

Homesick, huh? Leo could relate to that.)

//

He stood in the core of his ninpo. The memories flooded in, one after another, and he slowly pieced together how he’d ended up on this team of teenagers. But. There was still more. It was just out of reach. On the tip of his tongue.

“I don’t get it,” Leo muttered in the privacy of his own mind. “What happened to my brothers? They weren’t—” the real ones at least, “—they weren’t in any of those memories.”

(“—what happens to your brothers—? They die. They all die. ”)

No. That’s not — that’s not possible. Leo would know if they were dead, or hurt. He — where was that memory from? Had someone threatened his brothers? What the shell?! Okay, no, chill out, everything is fine. They’re fine. That was — probably just a movie quote or something. Even if his brothers had been threatened, they could handle themselves just fine. Any danger was probably long gone.

.

but if something were to happen to his brothers, where would Leo be? Who would he be?

would he be in an entirely different world, part of a team full of strangers?

it felt impossible. 

If his family was dead, Leo couldn’t imagine being anywhere at all.

Chapter Text

(“Maintain radio silence at all times.” — Lowering a pair of binoculars held by gloved hands. Superboy toted the mission cache out of the bioship and settled it in the sand. “All clear.” — grabbing an energy bar from the wrist compartment — floating invisibly, entering the tent where the non-terrestrial readings were coming from — )))-…

“Aqualad!!”

Four voices shouted the name out loud, cutting through the…Leo wasn’t sure what to call it. Flashback sequence? Memory soup? Well, whatever it could be defined as, he was yanked from it back to reality. His four companions were gaping at each other with shocked, guilty expressions. What had they just shouted? It was someone’s name, he knew…

Aqua…  

…OH SHELL, AQUALAD.

“We’ve been out here for 24 hours,” Kid Flash exclaimed, “That can’t be good for a guy with gills!”

Robin pulled up his holo-watch thingy, poking it rapidly until it displayed a red dot on its map. “Now that I know what I’m looking for — there! He’s not far, but he isn’t moving.”

.

.

.

Aqualad was in worse condition than Leo had been. They found him lying flat on his face in the dirt, knocked out cold. M’gann rolled him over, her eyes glowing in that tell-tale sign of using her powers. When the glow faded, she frowned.

In her arms, Kaldur began muttering in some other language.

“I…can’t restore his memories in this condition,” she said.

“He needs immediate rehydration. Can you call the bioship over?”

Her voice was tinged with frustration. “It’s out of range.” She turned to Kid Flash. “But you can get him there fast.”

“I can’t. He’s too heavy, and I’m fresh outta fuel. Can’t you just levitate him there?”

Leo pulled his katana out and tried to remember where they’d left the bioship. It couldn’t have been with the mission cache, that was within range of Miss Martian’s telepathic call.

“There’s no time. I have to find Superboy. Six months ago he didn’t exist—“ Leo tuned out the conversation. They wouldn’t have left the bioship in the middle of nowhere, though. Definitely not out in the open even with camouflage mode on, with all these tanks roaming around. Didn’t…yeah, that’s right! He remembered now. It was on one of the bigger rock formations, the one closest to their rendezvous point. He swung the katanas in a wide arc, fighting through his mystical exhaustion to open a window big enough to cart Aqualad through. Success!

“M’gann, wait!”

“We still don’t know what erased our memories! It could happen again!”

…whelp, there goes M’gann, off to rescue Superboy.

“OH!” Wally pointed at the waiting portal. The remnants of their little group swiveled to look. “Well, that solves that problem!”

Leo huffed under his breath, already trying to pick up Aqualad by the armpits. Whee-eew, Wally was right about him being heavy. The other two boys rushed to help the ninja turtle while Artemis darted ahead through the portal to open up the bioship. Then, as soon as their atlantean leader was all hooked up and safe, Leo plopped down in one of the bioship’s fancy morphing chairs with a water bottle from storage. He was about ready to conk out.

“Do you need an IV too, Leo?” Robin asked from where he was messing with the bioship’s controls. It didn’t take long for him to get the ship moving.

“I hope not,” he drawled. “Once was enough. Twice, and I’m gonna have to start calling me n’ him “IV Buddies”, and that’s just plain weird to have on the resume.”

Kid Flash snorted into the energy bar he was chewing on. Artemis rolled her eyes at the speedster from across the room where she was busying herself restocking her quiver. He hadn’t noticed it before because he hadn’t had that frame of reference known as ‘memories’, but she and Wally had been unusually amiable towards each other earlier. It seems that now that they remembered they were back to their typical animosity. Actually, now that Leo thought about it…

The turtle barked a laugh.

“What is it?” Artemis raised a brow.

“I just remembered,” he chortled. “Artemis won the bet.”

“What, no, wait—” Wally stuttered. A smirk grew on their resident archer’s face. “I-I guessed it right earlier! That has to count for something!”

“A full week after the deadline passed?” Robin butt in. “And with no memory of even making the bet anyways? Yeah, no. Sorry buddy, you lost. On the bright side, you already forked over the prize money!”

Wally moaned. He buried his head in his hands. “I can’t believe I have to suffer this humiliation twice.” Artemis was grinning viciously.

“Okay, we’re almost—” Robin was cut off, and everyone conscious let out a shout of surprise as something rocked the bioship in place. “Something’s happening!”

“Duh!” Kid Flash and Artemis said at the same time. They shot each other disgusted glares, then both stumbled because of the alien vessel’s rattling. Leo was smart and stayed seated. Who knew seatbelts were so handy!

“No, look! It’s the encampment we were investigating!”

The bioship’s control panel displayed a video feed of below them. The ‘encampment’ in question, which Leo remembered being little more than a large tent with some Bialyan guards and military vehicles, was being torn apart by some strong, invisible force. In mere moments, all they could see was a large orb of sand and wind. Then Robin rotated one of the controls, and bioship’s shaking began to lessen while the visuals shrank.

“Are we moving away? What about Miss M? That’s where she is, isn’t it?”

“She’ll be okay, KF. She’s more equipped than any of us for a psychic battle like this. Don’t worry, I’m just getting us far enough that the turbulence isn’t dangerous.” 

They all glanced at Aqualad. Leo’s fingers itched towards his swords, but he had a feeling the youngest was right. It made sense that it was a psychic battle; an enemy with that sort of power would definitely have been able to erase their memories.

That was okay. He could wait and watch. He'd messed up enough by jumping into battles before, anyways.

…?

He could…almost remember, now. It was on the tip of his tongue. The events that led up to —

— white flashed through the video feed. The bioship gave one last violent shudder as a shockwave buffeted the moonlit desert. “Whoa!” Artemis clamped her hands onto the cot Aqualad rested on, whether to steady herself or Aqualad Leo wasn’t sure. The few objects surrounding the science-y campsite that hadn’t already been blown away were now flying through the air in various directions. 

Leo eyed the scene sharply, trying to find M’gann and Superboy. There was…actually a whole entire person blasted through the air from that shockwave??? They were an adult, though, tumbling so much he could barely make out their unnaturally white skin and bulging, translucent skull that housed a — had a —

It was pink. Fleshy, wrinkled.

Krang. It was a Krang, they’d failed, the Krang weren’t dead, weren’t gone, they were going to kill…kill…w-what? No. That - ha! That wasn’t a Krang. It was just some villain-of-the-week’s gag. A psychic who could erase memories, so it only made sense they had a big ugly brain to look all villainous with.

Shell. Just how pathetic was he, that Leo saw a tiny glimpse of something like that and almost flipped out? He was glad he caught himself before anyone noticed. That would have been sooooo embarrassing. 

Okay, Face-man. You can do it. The mission is almost over.

They were all crowding the entrance of the bioship. Robin had landed it and opened up the back for M’gann and Superboy to enter through. The kryptonian, despite his invulnerability, seemed to be exhausted from whatever had gone on in that tent. But he was smiling widely, bigger than Leo had ever seen him smile. (Actually, had he ever seen Superboy smile?) And rolling into the bioship behind the two nonhuman members of the team was…a giant sphere? It kind of reminded Leo of a roly-poly bug that was stuck curled up. Superboy was saying something about keeping it as a pet. The weird ball machine beeped in apparent enthusiasm at the comment. Was it sentient? What was with this universe and pseudo-sentient objects????? (And why does he feel like that was the second time he’s thought that?!)

OH THANK THE PIZZA IN THE SKY, everyone was buckling in. That means they’re leaving now. Mission over. Good - Leo was craving a nap. That was the best way to…stop thinking. And right now he really, really needed to stop thinking.

Chapter Text

M’gann prodded everyone awake through the mind link when the bioship entered the Cave’s hangar. Since no one had gotten any sleep during the mission itself (brain-blast-induced unconsciousness didn’t count), it was only with great reluctance and many teenaged grumbles that the Team managed to drag themselves off the bioship and up to the Mission Room, where Batman was waiting for the debriefing.

Now that his memories were back, Leo could say with confidence that while said debriefing was awkward, it was nowhere near as bad as the Disappointed Dad Look™ that Batman had given them in the aftermath of the Clayface mission. That mission had gone bad enough that Batman had to swoop in and save all of them, and they’d been given a set amount of time off while Aqualad went back to Atlantis to get his head back in the game, or something.

Then after the Bialya mission’s debriefing, everyone either promptly left with their mentor (Robin, Wally) or conked out somewhere in the Cave (Artemis - the living room; Kaldur - one of the spare rooms; M’gann, Superboy, and Leo - their own rooms). Of course, because of the timezone differences nobody got as much sleep as they wanted, but it was a small price to pay in exchange for not completely messing up their circadian rhythm.

The next proper morning before Artemis and Kaldur left, Leo did a quick check to make sure there wasn’t anything they’d missed. Everyone seemed to have gotten all their memories back and there weren’t any untreated injuries, but as it turns out Aqualad had a massive wound to his pride. That is to say: their leader was super embarrassed that on his first mission back from Atlantis he’d been dead weight. Leo, personally, didn’t think it was the atlantean’s fault his physiology was such a poor match for the desert environment - after all, the turtle had nearly suffered the same fate - and told Kaldur as much. He thinks it made Kaldur feel better? Not entirely sure.

At least the Bialya mission had ended well, even if they’d failed the ‘stealth’ aspect of it yet again. Superboy had gained a pet(?) out of it, and as the days passed he and M’gann were hanging out a lot more. Of course, that could just be because they were starting school soon. On top of that Batman had tapped those two for a mission that Leo didn’t know the details of but which seemed to involve a lot of research on a pair of twin villain teenagers.

Now with most of the Team either in school or preparing for school, the League members that interacted with them were suddenly very invested in Leo’s academic education. One would think his whole mutant turtle thing would be enough of an excuse to get him out of actual school, but they were considering magical ways for a long-term human disguise before Leo managed to convince them that no, he didn’t need socialization, please just let him be homeschooled. Or tutored, or whatever they want to call the weird set-up they compromise with, where he’ll mostly learn from books but also at least one Leaguer will come once a weekday for actual lessons. He cannot wait to get back home. 

School season was probably also why there weren’t many imminent missions for a bit. Leo had time to just…relax. Sure, Bialya had brought the sting of being separated from his brothers back to the surface, but it’s been well over a month since he was first dropped here and he didn’t really feel like moping over it any more. He’d done what he could, now it was up to his brothers to find him.

In the meantime…well, he’ll admit it. He’s enjoying being friends with the Team. He’ll miss them when he goes home.

Chapter Text

Having time to relax was nice. It was also boring. Because now that M’gann and Superboy - under the names Megan Morse and Conner Kent - had started school, the Cave was quiet and empty 99% of the time. Okay that was exaggeration especially when Red Tornado or another Leaguer was usually around, and of course everyone still came around in the evenings, but Leo thought the point still stood. He was used to a home in chaos, not…glorified high school dorms. 

Don’t bother pointing out that Leo had no idea what actual dorms are like. He didn’t care. 

The first day that the cave is completely empty of the Team, he tried to occupy himself with his own schoolwork. That worked…for an hour or two. Then as soon as Red Tornado’s back was turned he found himself switching on the news channel because he suddenly had a burning interest in current events. 

Ha! No. There was actually one team member who wasn’t stuck at school at the moment, and that was Aqualad. He had a mission today at some peace summit, but Leo hadn’t been interested because it sounded like boring politics stuff. But now he was itching to see a familiar face. One that could express emotions, unlike Mr. Android Babysitter. 

…in retrospect, Kaldur was a bad choice for that but it wasn’t like any of his other teammates were on television right now. 

At first the peace summit was as boring as expected. Leo amused himself by counting the times he can spot Aqualad in the background of the footage. Then he realizes the founding Team members’ friend Red Arrow is also playing bodyguard at the summit, and finds it far more entertaining to watch his face spasm whenever the bald sleazy-looking billionaire speaks. 

Then an assassin tried to blow everyone up, because of course they do. That sure escalated quickly! 

“Leonardo,” Red Tornado intoned behind him, sending him leaping off the couch. 

“Huh? What?” The TV flickered off and The turtle tossed the remote into a portal just out of the robot’s line-of-sight. Leo smiled widely. “I wasn’t doing anything. I mean, I was doing my schoolwork, of course. Nothing to see here!” 

Red Tornado glanced between him and the pile of incomplete exercises. “Are you having trouble focusing?” 

His grin pulled tighter. “Nope! All good!” 

The android stared at him. 

Leo jabbed his swords through the air. “Just taking a break! Getting some other practice in. Gotta stay sharp!” 

“It is important to maintain a balance between work and rest,” Red Tornado acknowledged with a slight incline of the head. There was a moment of awkward silence, and then the Leaguer walked away. 

Wait had he been humoring him or was he completely serious? Leo couldn’t tell with that guy. Ever. Eh, he was gone now so he could — oh. Whoops. He…had no idea where he’d portaled that remote. Well, maybe it was for the best. He’d been on the verge of attempting to get a closer look at (read: join in on) the action, and then he definitely would’ve been busted for not doing his schoolwork.  

Obviously, he still checked on the situation with his phone, because he had to at least know that Aqualad hadn’t been blown to smithereens, but he did actually manage to settle down and finish the worksheets that he was supposed to. By the end of the day, M’gann and Superb— er, Conner — were back and the former was chatting happily about her first day of school, while Aqualad had stopped by without anything more than a few bruises. 

Leo didn’t magically take to homeschooling particularly well, but he liked to think he was managing fine. He spent his days ignoring the emptiness of the Cave and definitely not texting various teammates in the middle of their school days just for an echo of the interactions he desperately wanted to be having with his brothers. 

Remember what Leo had said about not moping about that anymore? Yeah, he might have been lying to himself. Just a little bit. 

A week into their school year, Miss Martian and Superboy departed for their mission. It was an undercover one as inmates at Belle Reve Penitentiary (what a fancy word for jail!) and it was terrible because not only could he no longer have them replying to his text messages (not that Conner usually did, which was why Leo mostly sent him memes nowadays) but they couldn’t exactly hop on over to the Cave for bedtime. For that week, aside from training sessions with Canary and the sporadic team members that could attend them, the Cave really was completely empty. 

Forget about Red Tornado, he still doesn’t count. 

Surprisingly the teenaged turtle mutant ninja survived the week of pure and utter torture. M’gann and Conner return from their mission…dating? Sure, Leo would have to be blind not to notice their resident martian’s infatuation with Superboy, but the other alien teenager had seemed so oblivious to it he hadn’t been sure it would ever progress past a crush. Good for them! 

He found himself seriously reconsidering this opinion when he walked in on them swapping spit like twenty times in the following few days. Obviously, he’d never lived with a pair of lovebirds before…but was it normal for them to smooch so much?! Ironically, he was now secretly wishing they weren’t at the Cave as often as they were. 

The next time it was Zatara’s turn to tutor him, Leo took the magician up on his previous offer. 

“I suppose I could make time for it,” Zatara said. “But I’m not postponing this lesson.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Leo waved a hand dismissively. “That’s not the point. I just want to get out of this cave for a few hours. In fact, it’s better if it’s after school hours!” 

“I thought you enjoyed it when everyone came back from school,” the magician said with a raised eyebrow, which was unfairly observant of him. 

“Sometimes a turtle just wants a change of scenery.” 

“Mmm-hmm,” Zatara hummed judgingly. Okay, maybe that was his imagination. “Now, as I was saying—” the man pointed with his magic wand at a diagram on the white board he’d rolled through the zeta-tube earlier, “—this is an example of…” 

Leo had to admit — science was kind of fun when a stage magician was teaching you how to light water on fire! 

. 

. 

. 

It was a good thing Leo bothered asking Zatara instead of outright nabbing the key again, because they’d finally moved the Tower of Fate to a new location. Now it was perched atop a hill near some mountain in California. Honestly, Leo didn’t pay too much attention to the surrounding area, he cared more about strutting into the Tower like he owned the place. 

Holo-Nelson sighed at the intrusion. 

“He’s with me,” Zatara said, giving the illusionary butler a polite nod as he followed behind. Kind of unnecessary — it’s not like Holo-Nelson had kicked Leo out when he’d come in uninvited before, even when it definitely had the power to do so — but the teenager wasn’t going to point that out. The adult might think it was a security concern and try to ‘fix’ it. Which would be totally uncalled for! Leo didn’t go around handling mystical artifacts all willy-nilly — 

—at least, most of the time he didn’t. Well…some of the time. There are times. 

Leo stopped touching stuff Zatara asked him not to because he was polite , not because he was feeling guilty about a certain pink brain alien relic, okay?! 

They ended up in the study/library room, because of course they did, and Zatara walked right up to the shelves and pulled a book out. Leo squinted at it. Why did it look so familiar…? 

“I presume you’ve been acquainted with the Codex of Cosmic Castings?” The magician said. 

“Never heard of it. Love the alliteration, though. Is that required for ancient magic literature?” 

“Actually, the true title can’t be pronounced by the human tongue. My daughter is the one who nicknamed it.” The magician held it out so he could see it better.  

When he saw the indecipherable language on the front of it, it clicked. “That’s the spell tome Mr. Nelson used!” He held his face with embarrassment. No wonder he hadn’t found it…the front and back of it were red like he’d thought, but the spine was navy blue so when it was sitting squished between other books that was the only part visible.  

“Is something wrong?” 

He coughed. “Don’t worry about it.” 

Zatara hummed, leaving the book hovering between them. “I thought this might be what you wished to use, here.” 

“Nah. I can’t read that stupid thing. Can you even read it?” 

“Yes, I can,” the magician replied evenly, while a proud smirk hid under his fancy mustache. He pulled it closer to himself once it was evident Leo wasn’t going to grab it and started flipping through the pages. “My offer of aid is still open, you know. In fact, while you’re busy meditating, I might as well look through this and see if there is anything else of use.” 

“Oh.” Leo frowned. “Sure, thanks. But I’m actually not here to try that stuff again.” 

The older man paused. “You’re not?” 

He really, desperately, wanted to talk to any of his family again. That’s why this was the first place he thought to go when he wanted a break from the Cave. But he wasn’t going to actually reach out again, for now. That last time — with Donnie — he’d thought he was just pushing, not pulling, but if that was the case then he wouldn’t have experienced that memory. He shouldn’t have been able to feel anything from Donnie at all, because that was a message back from his twin, however unintentionally on both their ends.  

And it was so vivid. What if that was a two-way thing? What if he reached out to one of his siblings and they got a memory from him? Would they hear his thoughts? Would they get a front row seat to how he’s just as much of an idiot on the inside as on the outside? Worse, would they get thrown in…into…the pris—NO. Nope. Not happening, because he wasn’t risking it. 

Leo grinned brightly. “Nah! Been there, done that.” 

“Then why did you want to come here?” 

There were three reasons. The first was, as previously mentioned within the privacy of his own head, Leo wanted a break from the Cave. The second was that — as silly as it sounded — just being here made Leo feel closer to home. Maybe it was because the Tower was an interdimensional nexus, but maybe it was because it reminded him of Mr. Nelson, or maybe both. And the third reason — 

“Well, there’s lots of cool junk here,” the turtle replied with a shrug. To demonstrate his point, he yanked a random knickknack off the closest shelf. It was a pretty green jar-like thing. As he grabbed it, it made a chiming noise, and he realized it was actually a bell. “See? What does this thing do, ring it three times and it summons a genie?” 

“A demon, actually.” 

“What?” 

“That is the Green Bell of Uthool. The demon Abnegazar is bound to it.” 

“Th— wh— what’s it doing just sitting here?!” Leo hastily put it back in place. “Shouldn’t it be locked up?” 

“Maybe. Typically, just being inside the Tower of Fate is enough to consider an artifact secured. But it might be time to take a few extra precautions.” He paused and laughed. “And don’t worry, you couldn’t accidentally summon Abnegazar by ringing his bell. A ritual and other artifacts are necessary.” 

Small relief. Leo sighed. “I wish things were labeled in this place.” 

“I don’t believe anyone’s ever tried,” the magician mused. 

Suddenly a wonderful, brilliant, genius idea dawned in Leo’s tiny lizard brain. He turned to Zatara with what was surely an eager expression plastered all over his face. He didn’t even need to say anything.  

“No.” 

“Please!” 

“No.”  

“Pleeeeeeease?” 

“I sincerely doubt the Tower will let you. You cannot go defacing priceless artifacts—” 

“C’mon, it’s not like I’ll be drawing on them with a sharpie! Surely someone in the League with all their resources can scrounge up a label maker. Plaques, or whatever those little museum signs are called! Index cards and tape! Anything!” 

Zatara ran a hand over his face. “But if I give you such tools, I will find the Golden Eye of Effron has been labeled ‘Gold Googly Eye’.” 

“That’s a great idea!” Leo, who had no clue what the shell an Eye of Effron was, said. “You’re pretty good at this, I’ll make sure to come to you when I run out of ideas!” 

The magician finally put the Codex thing away. “That’s it, we’re leaving. I haven’t had enough coffee to deal with this. Come along, we can visit again tomorrow if you truly must.” 

“Really?!” 

“That was not an agreement to labeling anything.” 

Too late, Leo was already making plans.