Chapter Text
“You probably love it!”
The rush of adrenaline overwrites Leo’s common sense, and he takes the two halves of the broken staff, slashing both across Raph’s shoulder. In the moment, the first feeling that hits him is pure smugness, some sort of childish excitement when he realises how good of a hit he’s just got on Raph, the once immovable object of their family.
A moment later, though, he regrets what he’s done. Maybe it’s the sight of blood dripping onto the ground, or the fact that Raph barely even cried out, but Leo remembers who he’s fighting and why.
With a choked off cry, Raph charges him, and Leo’s thoughts are slowing down, because there’s two lines cutting the edge of Raph’s jaw and his shoulder, along with a new pale scratch on his plastron. And Leo is the one who just did that.
He’s so, so lucky that he was right.
Raph stops mid-swing, a horrifying gurgling sound escaping him for a few seconds. His eyes flutter rapidly, between pure white and bright green.
Then he drops.
Leo’s strongest brother, the one who does anything possible to avoid showing any weakness, drops to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut, and doesn’t move to get back up. One of the gauntlet’s spikes is only an inch or two away from digging into his head.
A blue and green worm appears from underneath Raph’s head, crawling away slowly. Leo… he reacts. He takes what’s left of the three-pronged staff and skewers the worm, feeling more content in the knowledge that the thing will never live again. He should probably be more sickened by the thought, but all he can focus on is Raph’s clipped off scream, the dazed look in his eyes, his cold voice…
“Leo, you’re a genius!”
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⠀
Leo doesn’t know who grabs Raph’s body in the dash out of the Foot Clan HQ. Donnie’s trailing beside Mikey, one arm out in case Mikey falls, and they’re the only two that Leo managed to keep eyes on once they got out of the smoke cloud.
Leatherhead is carrying Slash, he knows that much for certain. The other turtle mutant is too large to be carried by anyone other than Leatherhead, and Rockwell probably needs a brain break after all that fighting. But between the four Mutanimals, Leo’s confident that Raph will make it back to the lair… in one piece.
For the first time in a while, Leo can’t find it in himself to untense once he makes it down into the sewers. He thinks maybe that this is how Raph feels a lot, he wants to interrogate Stockman until he knows how those worms came into existence, he wants to scream at Leatherhead and Pete and figure out how they didn’t notice anything wrong with their own team members, he wants to take those stupid gauntlets and shove the blades into the Shredder’s eye sockets—
Hoo, okay, okay. Deep breaths. Deeeeeep breaths.
“Is Raph gonna be okay?” Mikey asks. He’s rubbing at his wrists nervously, disturbing the wraps there. Donnie stands directly next to him, waiting in case Mikey needs his support again.
Donnie gives Leo a serious look. It’s not quite a warning, from what Leo can tell, but it definitely means something that Leo can’t decipher. Donnie’s always been a bit too smart to understand.
Leo takes another deep breath. “He’s going to be fine,” he says into his exhale.
Bandages. Concussion check, broken bones check, free of mind control check, average afterparty when you’re a mutant turtle, right? Definitely nothing serious. Or that could turn out to be serious.
Ugh. He’s supposed to be the leader, the unshakable brother of the four no matter what they have to face. He can’t let himself falter just because of improbable what if scenarios, he has to stand tall and confident and pretend like he didn’t give his little brother three new scars.
“And Slash and Dr. Rockwell and everybody else?” Mikey continues, ever the kindest soul of the four.
“Yeah,” Leo replies easily. Donnie would probably be the better one to ask. But he knows how Mikey ticks, his brother’s probably just looking for reassurance right about now. Leo certainly won’t blame him for it.
Mikey nods. “Good,” he decides. Then he pauses, eyes scrunching shut. “Eugh, Don, I think I hit my head…”
Donnie lets out a long sigh. “Yeah, yeah, me too. Let’s just get back home and get some painkillers. A lot of painkillers. I think I might need to update the supply list after tonight.”
“That can come later,” Leo decides.
Without replying, Donnie nods. He’s the first to start walking down the tunnel, eyes expertly scanning the sewer walls for any of the secret landmarks that they’ve left behind over the years. Raph and Casey’s spray paint art, scratches in the walls from sewer adventures even years before they went to the surface, or the occasionally dropped and never to be picked up object. Donnie knows the map better than any of the other turtles, Leo’s learnt over time. Within five minutes Leo already knows exactly how far out they are from the lair.
Mikey, despite the leg that Leo’s 50% sure is injured in some way, dashes past the other two turtles as soon as he spots the lights from inside their sewer home. “Sensei, we’re back!” He practically screams, a note in his voice that Leo’s never quite been able to understand.
Leo can hear the clicks of Mikey failing to jump all the way over the turnstiles, but he makes it around the corner just in time to see his little brother make a speedy recovery, dashing off towards the dojo, then redirecting when he spots the large figures of Slash and Leatherhead in the pit.
Neither of the other two turtles bother with the hop, spinning the old and broken security gates so that they can both walk right through them. Mikey has a tendency to forget that these are unlocked.
“Michelangelo!” Splinter calls, quickly followed by, “Leonardo, Donatello. Are you hurt?”
“Yes,” Mikey declares dramatically, flopping onto the couch as soon as he is in range and relying on Leatherhead’s hand to stop him from rolling onto the floor. “Donnie isn’t the purple one anymore, I am. This hurts…”
Donnie sighs. He walks into the main room of the lair, ahead of Leo, and locates their father easily. “We got thrown on our shells pretty rough, Sensei. Just a bit of bruising, nothing too serious.”
Nothing too serious.
Yeah. Sure. Nothing too serious, no possession involved whatsoever. Leo’s having absolutely 0 nightmares tonight, trust him.
“Is everybody accounted for?” Leo asks, attempting to peer over Leatherhead and Slash in case Raph’s behind them. When he doesn’t see a flash of red or dull green, his heart hammers even faster, Leo can almost imagine it fighting to escape his chest.
Where is his brother? Is he okay, did they actually just leave him there—
“Raphael is resting, my son,” Splinter says calmly. “Dr. Rockwell treated his injuries while we were awaiting your return.”
Like a hivemind, Leo and Donnie take off in a dash for the lab/medical corner/garage, Donnie throwing the door open and dashing towards the other side of the room, where Raph has been layed on the cot. He’s missing the gauntlets that the Shredder gave him. Clean gauze is over the wounds on his shoulder and chin (wounds Leo inflicted). His sai are on the table next to him, his discarded mask looped around one of them.
Rockwell isn’t far away, passed out in a fold up chair.
“He’s okay,” Leo says, he’s not sure who to.