Chapter Text
Staten Island is cold at night.
It’s not even that late - the sun always sets sooner than it feels like it should this early in the year - but it’s the end of the longest day of their lives. It doesn’t help that it was almost the final day of their lives. Raph isn’t sure if the shivering is from the cold or from that sobering realization settling in.
Leo has been collapsed in his arms for the better part of five minutes now, shaking and bloody and cold and mercifully, thankfully alive , still awake in spite of it all, and it’s taking all of Raph’s self-control not to hold his brother tightly to his chest and never let go. They all saw the cracks in Leo’s shell, the awkward angle of his leg, the blood across his face and arms and plastron - no, the last thing Leo needs right now is a terrified too-tight bear hug. He needs warmth - they all do, and none of them are in a space to provide it - but that’s hard to come by this close to the water.
He can feel Mikey pressed in against his side, curled in on himself and shivering. The golden cracks that had spiderwebbed their way up his littlest brother’s arms have faded to a deep red - he’s not bleeding, but that doesn’t make him any less hurt , and it’s all he can do to wedge his arms between his knees and his plastron in an attempt to put pressure on them. Raph can’t help - his arms are full of Leo - but that doesn’t stop him from worrying. He has more than enough worry to go around.
That extends to Donnie as well, because Donnie hasn’t stopped - not since Leo collapsed out of the portal and complained about Staten Island as proof of life as only Leo can give it. Donnie has been moving, working - scanning Leo for injuries, looking over Mikey, inspecting Raph’s eye (still blurred, still stinging, not important ), and heedless of the open wounds on his own shell and limbs. It’s all that’s keeping Donnie steady, Raph knows - Donnie hasn’t said a word since Krang Prime threw him and Mikey off the top of Metro Tower, and Raph’s fairly certain Donnie is one bad moment away from complete shutdown. If Donnie pushes himself too hard, Raph will step in; for now, he holds Leo, and feels Mikey against his side, and keeps an eye on Donnie, and tries to kick his brain into gear. Leo’s out of commission right now, which means Raph needs to step back into the leader role. He needs to get his brothers to safety - get them warm, get them medical attention, get them home , though he has no idea how he’s going to do that when they’re so far away and so hurt. He needs to do something -
He blinks as Donnie’s entire forearm is shoved right in front of his face. It takes him two more blinks to realize that 1) it’s Donnie’s gauntlet and 2) it’s lit up, which means 3) his communicator is on and connected.
“Donnie?” Connected to April, evidently. Her voice is tired, but he can hear steel running through it, keeping her upright. That’s April for you - tail end of a 24 hour apocalypse and she’s still going.
Donnie waves his arm a bit, and- right. Donnie’s nonverbal right now. Time for Raph to step up. “Donnie ain’t talking,” he says, and something else clicks into place in his brain. Status report. Right. “He’s pretty banged up - we all are, but we’re okay. We landed on Staten Island. What about you? How’s Pops and Casey?”
“Bout the same as you,” April replies. “Banged up but okay. Seriously, Staten Island? ”
The question goes unanswered as he hears his dad’s voice next - a bit further away, as he’s probably leaning in to use April’s comms, but also distant . Tired, like they all are. “I am here, Red. I will be alright.”
Casey is next. “Reporting in. I’m at the base of Metro Tower. Only minor injuries.” His voice is tightly controlled. He’d grown up in the apocalypse - some part of Raph seizes in horror at the idea that Casey has been through missions like this before, that he’s used to this-
The arm in front of his face waves again, emphatically this time. Raph shakes his head in an attempt to clear it, glances at Donnie (who looks entirely frustrated), then follows the line of his arm, watching as Donnie points emphatically at Leo-
Another piece of his brain - slow and sluggish and aching and thankfully entirely his - clicks into place. They don’t know about Mikey’s portal. Nobody else knows that they got him back -
“We got Leo,” he blurts out. “We- Mikey opened a portal- Leo’s hurt but he’s here . We got ‘im.”
There’s a collective intake of breath over the comms- a moment of silence before a storm-
Which Leo fills with a quick, pained, determined, and stupid , “Now we’re all thinking with portals!”
-and then the conversation explodes , April and Dad both yelling into the comm at the same time.
“You what?! ”
“ My Baby Blue! ”
“What do you mean -”
“You came back!”
“- Mikey opened a portal?!”
“You’re all together? You’re all safe?”
“Magic hands, baby,” Mikey pipes up, unable to hide the exhaustion and pain in his voice but unwilling to leave the conversation alone entirely. Aside from Donnie, they’re all accounted for in this conversation, and the way things are going Donnie probably won’t start talking again until sometime tomorrow at the earliest.
“Yeah, Pops, we’re all together. We-” He stops as Leo lifts the arm that isn’t quite as busted (he doesn’t have a Good Arm right now; there’s just Bad and Worse) and waves a hand for attention.
Donnie picks up on what he wants and moves the communicator closer to Leo. Leo’s voice is quiet and pained when he speaks up - evidently the earlier quip really took it out of him - but still determined nonetheless. Leo is nothing if not stubborn. “Casey?”
“Sensei?” There’s a waver in Casey’s voice that hadn’t been there before - evidently that control doesn’t hold up in the face of a minor miracle.
“You did good.”
The silence on the other end of the line stretches for a few moments, only to be broken by a quiet, choked sob. Raph makes a decision then and there: after they all get back to the lair and get some medical attention, he’s giving Casey the hug of his life . Casey gave up everything to give them the chance to succeed; it’s the least any of them can do for him.
“I mean it, Case,” Leo continues. “Thank you.”
There’s another sob, stifled this time. It’s Pops who speaks up next, taking the attention off of Casey and giving him a chance to pull himself together. “We should all get home and patch you up.”
“Right.” April snaps into business mode, steel threading through her voice again. “You guys near the water or the road?”
“Water.” Raph shivers as another gust of wind blows off the water and over them, and swallows back guilt as Leo yelps, injuries jostled by Raph’s involuntary movement. “We’re goin’ inside one of the buildings - it’s too cold out here to wait near the water.”
“Okay. We’ll get there soon as we can. Casey, you remember how to get to the lair?”
“Yes.” No hesitation, no wavering. If Raph hadn’t heard the sobs earlier, he wouldn’t have believed they’d ever happened. Casey bounces back fast.
“Go and get the medbay set up. It’s gonna take us a minute to get there, but we’ll be coming in hot .”
“Got it, Commander. On my way.” Casey’s end of the line goes silent.
“You guys hunker down, okay? We’ll get there as soon as we can.”
“Okay.” He doesn’t ask what April’s plan is - between her and Dad, they’ll make it here as quickly as possible in a city that’s just been upended by aliens. He just has to keep his brothers safe and as warm as they can manage in the interim.
“ Please be safe.” Dad is back on the line, and Raph can’t blame him - the fact that all of his brothers are with him and breathing and that the rest of his family has checked in is about the only thing keeping him from going out of his mind with worry.
“Don’t worry, Pops. We’ll be okay ‘til you get here.” Donnie pulls his arm back in and lets the line go quiet - not dead ; just quiet - and Raph hopes the next however long won’t make a liar out of him. He nudges Mikey - “C’mon, big man, we gotta move.” - and waits until Mikey stands (slowly, carefully, without using his arms) before getting his feet under him and standing as smoothly as he can. Donnie already has some sort of projection pulled up - a map of the area, from the looks of it; maybe blueprints? - and directs them towards one of the buildings. The door doesn’t budge, and Raph can’t break it down with an armful of Leo, so Donnie simply builds his ninpo into a buzzsaw and saws through the lock. The building’s some kind of warehouse, which means lights but little insulation, but at least they’re inside . It already feels warmer without the wind off the bay whipping through their shells.
Raph takes a seat against a stack of crates, and it doesn’t take long for Mikey to settle in next to him, curling up against his side again and trying to put pressure on his arms. Raph wants nothing more than to wrap an arm around his littlest brother and hold him tight, but he can’t put Leo down - he knows Leo’s injuries are bad , and there’s some awful part of him that’s afraid to let Leo go, like Leo will fall through another portal the second Raph’s hands aren’t supporting him.
Never mind what he did the last time his hands were on Leo-
He shakes his head roughly, dislodging the echo of orders in his mind, swallowing back the taste of the Krang-induced craving for violence. He protects his brothers, and that’s what he’s gonna do. It’s what Raph is for . They’re already so hurt- he can’t fail them again-
Donnie derails that train of thought far more effectively than Raph has managed by showing up in front of Raph again, this time with a white box in tow - the building’s first aid kit, Raph realizes slowly. “Good thinkin’, Donnie.” He can’t balance the bad out with the good in Donnie’s case - what Donnie needs to recover is safety and rest and time - but he can at least not make things worse. Donnie opens the kit, gives its depleted supplies a brief perusal, pulls out a sealed gauze pad, delicately unwraps it, turns to Leo, looks him over-
And stops short, expression frozen and breath caught in his throat. Raph knows that look - Donnie is overwhelmed; if Raph doesn’t do something soon, Donnie’s going to shut down entirely, and they can’t afford that right now. Raph can’t carry them all - not when Leo needs to be held so delicately and Mikey can’t hold onto him to ride atop his shell. If Donnie goes down too, they’re in trouble.
So he lightens the load.
“Donnie, deep breath. Leo, Raph’s gonna move you a little, so hold on.” He hears Donnie suck in a breath and gives Leo a moment to brace himself before he adjusts his grip (and feels the pained noise Leo gives as a result sink into his soul, where he’ll have to face it later, along with all the rest of the pain he put Leo through today), leaving Leo cradled entirely in his good arm and freeing his injured one. He holds out his hand to Donnie. “Give Raph the gauze.”
Donnie drops it into his hand obediently, and Raph nods. He’s got some idea what Donnie was going to do with this - they’ve all got first aid training, even if it’s tough to remember when his brain feels like one big muscle cramp. “One finger if this is for wrapping, two for pressure.” Donnie holds up two fingers. “Okay, point to where.” Donnie points to a gash in Leo’s shoulder that’s dug into his plastron, still bleeding. “Got it.” Raph presses the gauze to the wound - pressure enough to stop the bleeding, but not enough to make any internal injuries worse-
Leo tenses under his hand and another pained noise escapes him, and Raph fights back a memory of what that same hand felt like clamped around Leo’s neck-
He catches Donnie wince out of the corner of his eye, hunching his shoulders like he’s about to retreat into his shell, and yanks himself out of the memory. Nope. Brothers first. “Donnie, sit down.”
Donnie looks at Leo, then at Raph. For a moment, he turns his back entirely, like he can’t bear to look at either of them, giving Raph an eyeful of a soft shell riddled with puncture wounds, no longer freely bleeding but still bad, before Donnie turns again - sideways, like it’s a compromise between himself and his impending breakdown - and takes a seat. Raph tries not to stare.
What had the Krang done to his brothers?
He tries to find words, tries to ease them out of the charley horse that’s tied his brain in knots, and fails. Silence settles as he keeps pressure on Leo’s wound - one of many, but what else can they do with the half-spent kit Donnie found? - and tries to think of something, anything , to put his brothers at ease, and comes up short.
And then Leo opens his mouth.
“Sooooooo. What are we all getting on our pizzas for our victory party?”
There’s no response, but Raph can feel the silence shift in the wake of Leo’s words. It feels less cold, less desolate - less lonely with Leo in it. And they’d nearly had a Leo-shaped hole in their lives-
Raph chokes back the thought as Leo speaks up again. “Double cheese for Mikey, right? Wait, no, we gotta go fancy - bacon and spinach with white sauce.”
Nestled into Raph’s side, Mikey sniffs, and Raph can hear the smile at the edges of his voice. “Think we can convince Hueso to try doing stuffed crust again?”
“‘Course we can. He loves us.” There’s a beat, and then Leo looks up at him. “And Raph’s gonna get double pepperoni and black olive, like usual.”
There are so, so many other things Raph needs to be worrying about right now, but- but they’re all out of his hands, waiting on Pops and April to find them, and he finds himself falling into the easy cadence of the conversation despite himself. “Hey, it’s a classic.”
“Yyyyyep. And of course we all know what Donnie’s gonna get.”
Donnie’s gaze slides towards Leo.
Leo smirks, lopsided from his injuries but still obvious. “Pineapple.”
It takes all of Raph’s big brother self control not to smile at the punchline. Mikey has no such reservations, and his snort is audible.
It shouldn’t be possible for any of them to flip someone off with only three fingers on each hand, but the single finger Donnie very deliberately raises in Leo’s direction coupled with the expression on his face make it very clear that that’s exactly what he’s doing.
“ Donnie ,” Raph says in his best Disappointed Older Brother tone, not because it’s not funny - it really is - but because it’s what’s expected of him. Mikey’s snort grows into full-on laughter, and Raph can feel Leo shaking in his arms as he cracks up, and even Donnie has the faintest edges of a smirk at the corner of his mouth, and for a moment it all feels good and easy and normal -
And then Leo’s laugh shatters into pained yelps, broken like his body, and the moment collapses in on itself in the wake of his pain. Mikey goes silent, Donnie pulls his hand in and hunches in on himself with guilt written on his face, and Raph tries his best to salvage what he can. “It’s gonna be okay. Slow breaths, Leo, c’mon.”
It takes what feels like an eternity, but Leo’s breathing finally slows into something labored but steady, and the pained noises subside. It’s still not good, but it’s better. “Okay,” Leo says once he has his breathing under control, “no pineapple.”
Mikey huffs weakly, but the laughter is gone. Donnie curls in on himself further, turning his face away from Leo. Raph does his best to bite back a sigh. “I think that’s enough, Leo.”
Leo tries to pout and gets partway there before his face curls into a wince instead. “I’m trying ,” he says, and the pout is in his voice instead, thinly spread over what Raph recognizes as desperation and fear. “I’m pretty sure I need to stay awake, and I can’t do that if nobody’s helping me.”
“Oh-” That makes sense - a distraction so he doesn’t pass out. “Okay, uh…” Now if only Raph’s muscle cramp of a brain would give him something, anything to talk to Leo about that isn’t the nightmare that just happened to them all-
“I’m thinking of making a new mural,” Mikey fills the blank, voice quiet and only just barely holding steady, but trying nonetheless. “How d’you feel about that blank spot down the hall from your room?”
“Ooh, yeah,” Leo says, and if Raph focuses on the new enthusiasm in Leo’s tone it’s easy to ignore the fear still lurking beneath its surface, far too close for comfort. But…Mikey’s got it. Mikey usually does, for stuff like this. He tunes the conversation out - as long as it’s still going and Leo’s still awake, it’s fine - and focuses instead on keeping pressure on Leo’s wound, feeling Mikey slowly warm up against his side (Leo’s still too cold, it’s not good but what can he do ) and watching the tension in Donnie’s shoulders slowly unwind as time passes. He doesn’t let his mind wander, doesn’t let it think, because who knows what it’ll come up with if he eases it out of its cramping; instead, he just focuses on the now, on his brothers all still alive and breathing and here , and waits for help to arrive.