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Your first thought: Oh, it is a cold day in hell! Hah!
The bitter chill in the air makes sense, all things considered. An awful hell-dimension full of alien corpses probably doesn’t have central heating. Hah. Losers. They’ve got all these destroyed ships and couldn’t even scrounge up some alien air-conditioning? Laaaame. Massive L. In five minutes your brother could have rigged up a space heater from a toaster. A broken toaster. And he’s only sixteen. What does that say about the aliens, huh?
You shiver involuntarily, and wince a little bit when that little movement aggravates your injuries. Geez, it really is cold here. If you’d known, you would have brought a scarf. It’s not about you, of course! But if it were, it’d be nice if it were warmer. Hypotheticals are allowed, right? Hm. It’s not as though there’s like, a book to consult or anything, so you’ll have to rely on your own internal judgments on the unspoken Hero Rules™. Yes, with the trademark. You’re sure someone out there has the trademark.
The Krang rears back and punches you through a wall. You decide hypotheticals are probably allowed. Cool! In theory, if you’d have known, you would have brought a scarf.
Your newfound worst enemy/torturer/failed alien overlord seems pretty cheesed that you’re mostly ignoring him. Well, sure, you make noises of pain from time to time— it hurts, dude, okay— but all this time in here and he’s hardly gotten a cough out of you. He’s not the thing you want to remember, after all, and you’re kind of dissociating like, a lot? Y’know. Wow, the past twenty-four hours— probably less than that, but you’ve never been great with time, give or take whatever— have been really, really stressful. So if you’re being honest with yourself, you hardly notice him. The screaming makes great white noise. Really sucks to be him, huh?
(Really sucks to be you.)
Hey, none of that! It’s not about you.
The thing about being a hero, a real, genuine hero, is that there apparently come rules. The Hero Rules™! Yes, with the trademark. Starting with the first and most important: It’s not about you.
Youuuu kind of wish that one had been phrased a little differently, because it’s not about you is a sentence that makes you angry. It’s one of those phrases that feels exactly like people telling you (always telling, never asking) why aren’t you trying when you were, or maybe if you just applied yourself when, again, you were. It sounds like one of those phrases that was nothing more than a slap in the face when you really, really were trying your best. It’s the kind of thing a parent yells at their misbehaving kid, no matter whether the kid was trying to cause trouble or not, and you hated it, and didn’t really get what it actually meant until it was too late.
Raph yelled that one at you a lot, and you kept fighting back, tooth and nail and… what’s another thing turtles have that’s sharp. Beak? Tooth and nail and beak. You know now he was scared. That he saw what the Shredder did to your home and wasn’t even given a chance to learn from his mistake. That he wanted to make sure that you never felt like you had to cry like he did back then— I’m failing you guys, he’d sobbed, and you’d seen something visibly break.
But it was too late, and he didn’t seem to get that. Even then, you were already struggling. You’d never been the sole leader before! None of you really were, not even Raph! The duties of the team used to be shared, and then suddenly it was all on you, and you were always so tired, and you didn’t know how to tell Raph or Dad or Donnie or Mikey or April, I know, I know it’s not all about me, but I’m trying, I am, and none of it is ever enough. I don’t know how to give more than I’m already giving. I know it’s all wrong. I know. Please stop telling me!
You didn’t understand. And that wound just festered, until I’m trying became fine, I won’t try, and I don’t know how to do this became okay, I’ll stop trying to learn.
It’s not about you. Yeah, you knew. Or at least, you thought you did. Turns out you were wrong about that, too, huh? You were wrong about a lot of things.
But hey! Lesson learned! Now you know. You understand now! You did something right for once! For realsies, it’s not about you doesn’t mean that you have to keep giving and giving until there’s nothing left of you. It actually means… it means that your team comes first. It doesn’t mean that you don’t matter, you’re not that self-deprecating, but it does mean that… you have to let them do what they can do. You have to let them go.
And if anything goes sideways, that’s when you do what you can do. It becomes your job to take it like a champ and face the consequences so your team doesn’t have to. It was never that the way you were doing it was wrong. It was just that you didn’t have to do it all the time. Only for the important parts. Like this is now.
Frankly, if it were just your team you were doing it for, you’d probably throw the whole hero thing away and run for the hills. Luckily, your team happens to also be your family that you happen to also also love more than life itself, so. Hero Rules™ (yes, with the trademark) it is. You’ll do it. You’ll do anything if it means they get to live.
Even let them go.
Ugh. The blood filling your mouth is making it kind of hard to think. You glance at the Krang, summon all of your many, many skills as an annoying little brother, and spit the whole mouthful right into his eye. Bullseye! Ha! Oh, he fucking hated that! You could out-spitball any of your brothers any day, except maybe April, but thank Gram-Gram that she thinks it’s “gross” and won’t usually participate. Blood’s not so different from spit, y’know!
Now that you think about it, the Krang is probably screaming more than you are, and that’s probably the funniest thing you’ve heard in a while. The sound that punches out of you when you get, well, punched is more of a laugh than anything else, and that makes him even angrier. Look at you! You’re the one being tortured, and you’re pretty sure he’s in more pain than you are! Haha! Fuck him! You grin wider. You’re like, ninety percent sure there’s blood in your winning smile, but you know what? You don’t even care. You hate him so badly it’s making you choke.
(Though that might also be the broken ribcage. Who can tell?)
You get punted again for your troubles. Okay, ow. Less funny.
This kind of sucks. This really sucks! Some part of you still thought it’d be like the movies, and the hero would have no trouble at all making peace with their big moment. But, who woulda thunk, movies are fictional, and it wasn’t even close to an easy decision. Choosing to come in here voluntarily was the hardest choice you’ve ever had to make, because you didn’t want to make it at all. You’ve never wanted anything less than to be here.
Hey, that’s another thing you didn’t know about heroes: No one is truly selfless. Even the kindest of people want to be selfish at the bitter end. What makes a hero isn’t your lack of want, but your willpower to overcome it. To step aside to let others pass. Selflessness is to know you’re being selfish. Kind of poetic. Mostly just sad.
But, look on the bright side! You’re definitely a hero now! Even if being a hero means being very, very cold with a ribcage more broke than a beggar.
The Krang screams at you. Ha. You laugh in his face, and he slams you through another wall for your trouble. Boy, there sure are a lot of walls here! Ugh, you’re so tired of walls.
You’re kind of just tired in general. Is this how future you, that supposed great warrior, felt all the time? Whew, you do not envy that future. Years of despair sounds like it sucked. This death will be a lot quicker! Less drawn out. Slowly dying for twenty two years is not your thing, thanks. The Krang doesn’t seem super keen on preserving you as a punching bag for all eternity, like you’d originally thought— he’s just going for it, really. It won’t be long, probably, and then you’ll be gone. Out like a firework. Bang.
…Huh.
…You’re going to die.
…Ha. Haha. You knew that, right? You did. You fully knew when you zapped yourself in here that it was going to be a permanent vacation. Early retirement, baby! In maybe the worst way possible, but still. Hamatos are martyrs, is the thing, so it’s poetic, right? You get to follow your family legacy or something, whatever. Mikey was always the artsy poetry guy more than you. Maybe he could write a book! He’d be good at that. Aw, you’d really want to read that book, actually, but it’s not as though you’ll be able to, since you’ll be… since you’ll be—
It’s one thing to know. It’s another thing to… What’s the word for knowing something, only actually, it’s ten times worse because it’s really sinking in this time? You knew what the consequences were and you’d do it again, damnit, but it’s one thing to know what they are and another to actually feel them.
I’m probably going into shock! you think hysterically. Nausea, lightheadedness, anxiety, and distance. Donnie taught you this one too— all four forms of shock are life-threatening. But your life’s definitely already threatened, so it doesn’t matter! You made your choice, and now you die with it. Nothing matters!
Especially not you.
So hey, you think weakly, screw the Hero Rules™. (Yes, with the trademark.) If the only hero here is you, you can probably make your own rules, right? No one’s here to reprimand you, right?
Fuck it. You let yourself have a moment to wish: I want to go home.
This is about the world, not you. Your brothers will live because you won’t, the world will live because you decided not to— but you’re sixteen, and terrified. And cold. And you think— I don’t want to die. I want to go home.
You miss your brothers. You miss your dad and your sister. You never really got to know Casey, but you wish you’d gotten to. Isn’t that the fun part? You wish more than anything you could be with them right now, but given the choice to cut yourself out of their lives again, you’d do it in a heartbeat. Even if it upsets them. Even if they begged you not to. You’d accept your death and whatever consequences you brought upon yourself in much the same way you’re attempting to accept them now.
That’s what a hero would do. But you’d do it even if that wasn’t true.
The Krang’s next punch cracks bone. Really, you think, you could use that scarf like, yesterday. You’re still so cold.