Archive of Our Own ^beta

Leo sat on the floor and frowned at the present wrapped in glossy paper. “It’s missing something.”

Donnie paused in his battle with the tape dispenser. “I missed a spot?” 

The softshell picked up the box between them and began looking critically over the different sides. The paper, while surprisingly mostly stain free, had many creases and taped-up rips, showing where it had previously been used—like so many of the every day items they had picked up from the sewers. Leo was just happy they found a shade of red in time for Raph’s 8th birthday.

Mikey leaned in closer to the twin’s huddle behind the couch, his head drifting directly in front of Leo’s to get a better look at the wrapping. Leo mindlessly nudged Mikey’s head out of his way. “No, it’s just boring. It needs something to make it specialer.”

"More special,” Donnie corrected. He tilted his head thoughtfully, adjusting his glasses. “Glitter?”

“Mikey used the last of it.”

“We can ask Papa to find more.”

Leo sagged forward dramatically. “Nooo, that’ll take too long! I wanna give this to Raph now.”

Donnie set the box back down between them. “You said this was his birthday present.”

“Duh.”

“But his birthday’s next week. Why do you need to give it now?”

Mikey turned to face Leo, sitting up on his knees to match Leo’s height. “To make Raph feel better because you maked Raph fall?” Mikey’s blunt question hit Leo with the scent of peanut butter, his masked face leaning so close that Leo could only see an orange blur.

“I didn’t make him fall!” Leo pushed Mikey back again, trying to talk over the uncomfortable swirl that grew in his belly at Mikey’s words. “He just couldn’t skate my obstacle course because I’m too good at making them.”

It wasn’t his fault he forgot to tell Raph about the obstacle course before Leo pushed him down the ramp on his skateboard. But Leo had spent so long setting it up that he kinda forgot Raph didn’t already know about it. So rather than Raph expertly steering around the course like Leo had imagined, it had turned more into an unexpected game of bowling that left Raph in a pile of books, chairs, wood scraps, and cooking utensils. 

By the time he sat up, Raph was holding his head and swaying like he’d just taken fifty spins in Splinter’s chair, and Leo felt the familiar twinge that always happened moments before getting in trouble.

“Raph! You okay?”

He hadn’t answered, but Leo hadn’t seen any birds fly around his head either, so it couldn’t have been that bad; he knew that much from watching the projector on Saturday mornings. Still, even without the birds, Raph was blinking an awful lot… Leo tried to remember what happened next in the movie.

From the top of the ramp, Leo stretched out his arms and shouted down to Raph. “How many fingers am I holding up?! Wait, hang on…” 

Leo quickly pulled his hands back and counted his fingers so he’d know the correct answer, but instead of Raph yelling back a number, he heard a completely different shout.

“Blue!”

Yup. Big trouble.

Once Splinter had Raph settled on the couch with a bag of frozen blueberries against his head, he had Leo spend the next hour cleaning up his obstacle course while being lectured on his reckless behavior. Naughty turtles, why can’t you behave? You should be looking after your brothers, not sending them off to get hurt! You need to keep each other safe. How many times do I need to remind you? You should know better by now. 

But that was yesterday and Raph only had a tiny bump under his mask now. Splinter said he’d be back to normal by his birthday, but Raph should sit out on their usual plans of exploring the sewers until then. Raph looked a little disappointed and Leo wanted to do something to help make up for it. Not because it had been Leo’s fault. Because it wasn’t. 

“I’m making him a birthday surprise. And you can’t be surprised if happens on your birthday because you always know you get presents on your birthday, so it has to be before his birthday.” Leo said it like it was true so Mikey would let it go. He grabbed the red box, holding it up to move his brothers’ focus. “And birthdays are special, so it needs something special.”

“I guess you’re right,” Donnie said. He wiggled his fingers. “It would look better with a little more pizazz.”

“Pizzas?” Mikey perked up, scooting closer again.

“Pizazz. Like something fancy.”

Leo snapped his fingers. Or tried to. He imitated the motion he’d seen Raph do, but didn’t quite get the same sound he was hoping for. So he made up for it with his voice. “OH, I KNOW!”

“Shhh!” Donnie reached up to slap a hand over Leo’s mouth. “You’re always too loud. You want Raph to find us and ruin the surprise?”

Leo answered with a lick to Donnie’s palm. He watched smugly as Donnie yanked his hand back with a squeak, frantically rubbing his palm against his purple hoodie. Leo turned to his little brother, who had both his hands pressed against his own mouth to muffle his giggles at Donnie’s reaction.

“Mikey, do you still have those ribbons in your stash?”

“Oooh, yeah!” Mikey said, catching on quick. “We can make a bow!” Mikey jumped up from their hiding place behind the couch and ran off to his room. It was only a minute later when he came back with an old shoe box tucked carefully to his chest. He set it down in the middle of their huddle and pulled open the lid proudly, revealing a colorful nest of old ribbons. 

They spent a few moments sorting through them. Mikey pulled aside ones that were too short for their needs while Leo and Donnie detangled ones that seemed long enough. Once they had found the perfect one, Leo draped it on top of the red present. 

Leo looked at Donnie.

Donnie looked at Leo.

Mikey looked back and forth between them both.

“Well, go on then!” Leo gestured impatiently.

“What? I don’t know how to tie a bow.” Donnie waved his arms defensively. 

“Well, I don’t know either!”

  “This was your idea, I thought you’d know how!”

“Why would I know how?”

The twins glanced sideways at Mikey. He quietly shook his head, making the short tails on his mask sway.

Donnie sighed. “Fine. Hang on.” He got up and stepped up on Raph’s gift, giving himself a boost. He then folded himself over the back of the couch, legs wiggling in the air as he strained to reach for something on the cushions. Leo reached a hand up, grabbing Donnie’s ankle to keep him from tipping too far over. When he felt Donnie start to lean back, he gave a helpful tug.

Donnie landed on his backside with a thud, barely missing the present. Donnie gave a quick glare to Leo before readjusting his tilted glasses and turning his attention to the iPad in his hand.

The three brothers pressed together, watching as Donnie scrolled through gift wrapping tutorials until they found one they liked. While they watched, Leo noticed Mikey had grabbed a spare length of orange ribbon and was trying to follow along. Leo found a blue one for himself and handed a purple one to Donnie. About fifteen minutes, many trapped fingers, and seven rewatches later, Raph’s present was covered in a dozen ribbons, all ending with wobbly bows of different sizes.

They sat, admiring their creation. Mikey was happily fluffing up the bows when they heard a voice down the hall.

“Guys? Where’d you go?”

Leo instantly pulled at Donnie’s sleeve, whispering, “Go distract him!”

Donnie whispered back, “Why? We finished—”

“Nooo,” Leo whined. “I wanna do the curly thing she does with the scissors.” He pointed at the muted video where it showed a woman’s hands running the ribbon against a single blade to make the ends spring into tight coils.

“Yeah! It looks like April’s hair,” Mikey, excitedly joining the whispers.

“Then why don’t I do it and you distract him.” Donnie picked up the tiny pair of craft scissors he’d used to cut the paper.

“Because it was my idea.” Leo snatched the scissors and gave Donnie a small push toward the hallway.

“What am I supposed to tell him?”

“Make something up!”

“Umm…” Donnie tapped his fingers together anxiously as he thought.

Leo groaned, throwing his head back dramatically. “Just tell him…tell him you have a new skateboard trick to show him.”

“Dad still has them put up, dum-dum.” Donnie raised an accusing brow. 

“Then say you have some of your nerd stuff to show him! He’d believe that more anyway.”

Donnie rolled his eyes. “Fine. But then you keep an eye on Mikey.”

“Yeah, yeah, hurry up, he’s coming.”

Donnie disappeared around the couch and Raph’s voice sounded at the doorway.

“Oh, there you are. Raph was getting worried. Where’s Leo and Mikey?”

“Yes, our brothers are fine. They are…busy…um…uh…”

Leo poked his head carefully around the edge of the couch. He saw Donnie’s eye catch his as he tried to casually look back for help. Leo widened his eyes and shooed his hand, trying to get Donnie to look away before he gave up their hiding spot. 

“Dusting!” Donnie finished in a panic. This time Leo rolled his eyes as he ducked back into hiding.

“Dusting?” Raph said, understandably confused.

“Yes! But my share is done and I would much rather show you my new experiment that is on my desk and not in this room.”

“Oh, uh, okay.”

With Donnie as the distraction, Leo guessed he had about five minutes before Raph figured them out. Leo flipped open the scissors as their voices faded down the hall. He placed the edge of the blade against one of the ribbons, carefully pressed it close with his thumb, and yanked the blade through.

“Oooh.” The two turtles stared wide eyed at the magically appearing curl.

“Pizza,” Mikey said with awe as he plucked the ribbon, letting it spring tightly back into place.

“Pizazz,” Leo corrected proudly as he made a second ribbon curl. He wiggled in excitement, imagining Raph’s reaction to his gift. Leo would hand it over and Raph would be so surprised and impressed and he’d forget all about the skateboard mess, and Splinter would ask who could possibly have made such a wonderful and perfect and thoughtful gift, and—

Leo was about to curl a third ribbon when he saw a green blur at the corner of his eye. Leo managed to get an elbow between him and Mikey, successfully blocking the little box turtle from snatching the scissors from his hand.

“I wanna do it!”

“No! Back off, Mikey, you’re messing me up.”

“But I wanna try! I get to do some.” Mikey tried again for the scissors. 

“No, it’s my idea. You’ll be too slow anyway.”

“I’m not too slow. I’m a ninja!”

“A baby ninja.”

“I’m not a baby!”

“You’re only four. That’s a baby.”

“Nuh uh, I’m five now!”

“Well, I’m gonna be seven. That’s still waaaay older, so I’m in charge and I’m doing the ribbons.”

“Raph’s in charge.” Mikey folded his arms, his lip pouting. “I shares my ribbon. You have to share scissors!” 

When Leo didn’t answer, Mikey gave an angry chirp, reared back, and crashed his forehead into Leo’s shoulder.

“Ow! Don’t headbutt me! Dad said to stop doing that when you’re mad!” Leo used his foot to leverage more space between him and his struggling brother. “There’s only one pair and there’s not enough time for us to share. Raph’s gonna be back any minute, I gotta finish this.”

Mikey stood, took a deep breath, and ran out of the room. Leo quickly returned to his task before Raph came back even faster from Mikey telling on him. Maybe if he finished in time, Raph will be so surprised and grateful about the gift that he won’t even bother getting Leo in trouble again.

But some of the ribbons felt different than the others and didn’t want to curl, no matter what he tried. Leo was so focused on a stubborn green one that he didn’t notice someone was behind him until he heard the clatter of metal. He glanced over to see Mikey was back, still tucked behind the couch but sitting further away from Leo than before. His tongue poked through his teeth with a stubborn look of determination. He held a ribbon scrap to the open edge of a very large and very sharp pair of scissors.

“Mikey! No, those are Dad’s! You’ll—”

Mikey pulled the ribbon through his hand with a quick jerk. 

Then his entire body flinched as he dropped the scissors. His tongue quickly snapped back as he opened his mouth in surprise, his hand curling into a fist and tucking close to his body. He looked up at Leo, his eyes filling with tears.

Uh oh.

Leo quickly went to Mikey, grabbing the scissors and tossing them out of reach underneath the couch. “Mikey, we’re not supposed to use Dad’s stuff. We’ll get in trouble! What’d you do?”

Mikey poked his thumb out from his fist. They both watched tensely as a bright red drop of blood slowly beaded up from the cut. Mikey began to breathe heavy and start up a crying whine at the sight. 

“Shh, Mikey, it’s okay!” Leo gave Mikey’s head a pet, automatically taking a quick peek around the couch to check for an empty doorway. He turned back to his little brother, grabbing his wrist. Leo licked his own thumb and tried to brush away the blood like it was marker, but that just left it smeared over both their hands. After a moment, the cut starting bleeding again, which caused Mikey to draw in a shaky breath, and cry harder.

Leo bit his lip as Mikey added a quiet string of shuddering ow’s to dot his sobs. The wiggling feeling in his belly was back, reminding him he supposed to keep an eye on Mikey. And how many times has he already gotten in trouble for getting his brothers hurt? He had to make it better. So he did what he knew best.

“Hey, Mikey! Mikey, look!” Leo crossed his eyes, puffed out his cheeks, and stuck out his spluttering tongue. This move always got Mikey in a fit of giggles and Leo knew you couldn’t be sad and laughy at the same time. 

Once his eyes started hurting, Leo shook his head, refocused his eyes, and looked at Mikey with a grin. But Mikey was still staring down at his thumb with a steady whine, tears soaking through his mask and dripping down his round cheeks.

“Mikey, you didn’t even look.” Leo said softly as he tapped Mikey’s shoulder, which only caused Mikey to start to retreat into his shell. “No, no, no, no, you’re okay! Um…”

Leo wracked his brain. The best way he knew to make Mikey stop crying was to make him laugh, but if Mikey was too busy looking at his cut to pay attention to Leo…

His gaze drifted to Raph’s present.

Oh!

Leo grabbed Mikey’s wrist again before it could disappear into his shell with the rest of him, and with his other hand, pulled a soft length of ribbon from the shoe box. He wrapped the strip several times around Mikey’s thumb until it covered the cut, then carefully tugged the ends into a bow.

Leo leaned back, admiring his work.  It was one of his best bows yet! 

“There you go, Mikey!” Leo said as Mikey’s watery eyes poked curiously back over the edge of his plastron. “Now you’re the present!”

Mikey slowly pulled free of his shell, sitting quietly. He wiggled his wrapped thumb, the ears of the bow flopping at the movement.

He giggled. 

Leo sighed in relief and grinned back. He lifted a corner of his blue shirt to wipe at Mikey’s tears. “Okay, so, remember, if Dad or Raph asks, we say—”

“What is happening back here?”

Leo chirped in surprise, turning to see Splinter standing behind him. “Nothing!”

“Papa!” Mikey stood and ran to Splinter, crashing into his legs and hugging him tight.

Splinter patted his shell. “Is that a crying turtle I see?”

“Nothing,” Mikey said happily as he blinked up at Splinter with smeared tear tracks still shining on his face. He grinned and gave a long, wet sniff. Leo groaned.

“I see.” Splinter flicked his gaze to Leo before taking in the mess behind the couch, the red bow-covered present sitting in the center.

Before Leo could make something up, Mikey thrust his wrapped thumb in Splinter’s face. “Look what Leo did for me!”

Splinter raised an eyebrow, then held Mikey’s thumb, looking at it closely. He didn’t undo the bow and Leo thought he might be in the clear. Until, with a single tug of his clawed fingers, Splinter pulled the entire wrap of fabric off of Mikey’s thumb like a pen cap. 

At the reminder of what happened, Mikey’s bottom lip poked out and he reached his arms up to Splinter. He easily picked up the little turtle, adjusting him so he could still examine his thumb while Mikey silently buried his face in the rat’s neck. Splinter’s eyes locked onto Leo’s. 

Words suddenly started falling out of his mouth. “It wasn’t my fault! It was an accident! We were wrapping my present for Raph and but it needed some pizza and the lady said use scissors and Donnie left to dust his experiment and Mikey tried to help but he’s a baby ninja and—”

“Blue.” 

Leo clacked his beak shut.

“Orange accidentally cut himself, yes?” 

Mikey quietly sniffed, turning to lay his cheek on Splinter’s shoulder so he could see Leo’s nod.

“And you did this?” Splinter held up the soft tangle of ribbon.

Leo nodded again. “I was just trying to help…”

“Hmm…” 

Leo pinched his eyes closed, waiting for the lecture. Naughty turtle, why can’t you behave? You should be looking after your brothers. You need to make sure they stay safe. You should know better by now. You—

“You did good.”

Huh? 

Leo’s eyes flew open. “Mikey’s…okay?”

“The bleeding has already stopped. I suspect it will all be gone by morning.” Splinter was rubbing his thumb over Mikey’s. “I know you like to try to fix things, Blue. You had good instincts to wrap his cut when I was not around. Although if you had gotten me first, I could have told you we have band-aids in the bathroom.” 

“You mean,” Leo looked up at Splinter, his eyes shimmering. “I helped?”

“You did. Though perhaps it could have been tied on a little bit tighter.” Splinter said lightly. He popped the makeshift bandage loosely back onto Mikey’s thumb, who instantly started playing with the bow.

“Oh.” Leo thought for a moment, twisting his fingers together. “Can you show me how to do it better?”

“Hmm…” Splinter gave Leo a long look, whiskers twitching. “I’m sure I can teach you a thing or two.”

“And is it even worth saying ‘under no circumstances deviate from my map’, because it feels like you are no longer listening. Nardo.”

Leo felt a sharp flick from Donnie’s finger against his temple. “Oww. Okay, add nail files to the list or I’m duct taping mittens to your hands for my own safety.” He gave a passionate tap to the papers Donnie held.

“I’ll let you duct tape Mikey to the ceiling if you can tell me what I just said thirty seconds ago.” 

“Wait, what?” Mikey looked up at his name, pausing the kick of his dangling heels off the concrete ledge that lined the low stream of water.

“Pfff, easy.” Leo raised a hand to puppet his words. “‘I’m Donnie and I’ve got a list the size of my forehead and even though we’ve all lived in the same sewers for the last eleven years, I know it best.’”

Donnie gave Leo a deadpan stare. “Mikey, you are safe from being stuck to the ceiling.”

“I dunno, it kinda sounds fun now.” Mikey stood, bouncing on his toes. “Can we?”

“No one’s getting taped to the ceiling.” The three turned to see Raph walk through the entrance to the sewers.

“Why not?” Mikey complained.

“Because we should try it on the wall first. If we stick, then we’ll try the ceiling.”

“Ten rolls…duct tape…” Donnie muttered, writing on his list before clearing his throat. “Okay, now that Raph’s finally here, we can get started. We’ve got too many things we need this time and it will take too long if sneak through go our usual route, so I’ve split the list over town so we can divide and conquer.”

“And first team back with everything on their list wins?” Leo snatched one of the papers from Donnie’s hand, giving it a quick scan. He flipped the page to see a map of the sewers sketched on the back.

“First team back doesn’t have to wait on the others to start eating the pizza.”

“Oh, you are on, Donnie Kong!” Leo leaned over Donnie’s shoulder, taking a moment to compare the two pages. “Hang on, your list is the only one with pizza on it.”

“Oh is it, I hadn’t noticed—Mikey,” Donnie spoke quickly before Leo’s protest made it through. “Your choice. Which brother do you want to go with?”

“I’m going with the pizza brother, baby!”

Without taking his eyes off his list, Donnie raised a hand for Mikey to eagerly high five, the sound echoing down the sewer tunnel. “Okay, Michael and I will go north, Leo and Raph go south, and we’ll meet back home when we’re done. Oh, and Raph, you missed it earlier, but I was saying be careful when you go by 9th street—”

“Come oooon, Raph,” Leo started tugging on Raph’s arm, walking backwards to tow him down the tunnel. “We’ll find everything on our list and be back by the time Donnie’s done info-dumping.”

“Leo, this is important—”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time. I’ll tell Raph all about it, don’t you worry your pretty little eyebrows.”

“Sigh. Just stick to the map.” Donnie shook his head and began walking with Mikey down the opposite direction, disappearing with the curve of the walls.

“What was Don talking about?” Raph questioned as Leo let go of his arm to walk beside him.

“Eh, who can say.”

Raph raised an eyeridge. “You, Leo. You are supposed to say.”

“It’s fiiine, big guy. You know Donnie, he was just talking directions as if he’s the only one who knows where he is at all times.” Leo scoffed, flicking the back of his hand against the list. “Look, he even drew an arrow leading to each stop and showing the way back home. He didn’t even pick a good route. The other way is so much shorter. See, he acts like I don’t know anything and yet he doesn’t even know the quickest way to the corner store.”

“So?” Raph shrugged his spiky shoulders. “Donnie likes to plan. I’m sure he had a reason to pick the route he did.” 

Leo rolled his eyes, giving the paper to Raph by slapping it to the snapper’s chest. Raph grabbed it before it fell, sending Leo a warning look the slider didn’t bother seeing.

They walked the first few minutes in silence, Leo trailing his left hand along the graffiti covered wall as they followed the slight curve of the tunnel. Most of the creations were Mikey’s, but they all tried their hand at it. When they approached the first intersection, marked with the painted sketch of a pizza slice dripping with cheese, Raph automatically turned left. 

“So. How was dad?” Leo said as he followed, using his finger tips to grip the corner of the wall at the last second and swing into the turn. He kept his eyes on Raph, noting the snapper’s small shift in stride and the glance back that never fully connected with his eyes. Leo sniffed. Among the many smells of the sewers, Raph’s worry stink filtered through.

“Yeah, he, uh, was watching his show…he ate the plate Mikey left him, so, that’s good.”

“Yeah, wow. What an achievement.” Leo kicked at a crumble of concrete, skidding grit into the water down the center of the path.

This time, Raph did look at him. “It’s not his fault, you know. I don’t think he can help it.”

“He’s been in this funk for weeks. Maybe we should make his own category in the Lair Games because he’s going for a record.”

“Hey, he’ll come back around. He always does. That’s…just how he works. It’s only taking a bit longer this time…” Raph’s voice took on a new level of assurance. “But that’s why Raph’s here. We’ll be okay.”

Leo hummed in response, letting his hand trace the form of Mikey’s name spray painted on the wall as he walked past. The kid had talent. It looked way better than Leo’s attempt at a tag. He scraped his nail down the accidental blue drips in the L of his name before skipping to Donnie’s name set next to his, tapping each sharp, uniformed letter. Leo had to stretch his hand all the way up to reach the splatter of Raph’s dripping name. As they walked, the drawings appeared less frequently and Leo dropped his hand away from the wall.

Eventually, they passed by an intersection that made Leo pause. 

“Did you hear that?”

“Wasn’t me, I swear.”

“No, it was back here.” Leo backed up a few steps to peer down the length of the side tunnel. After a moment, a muffled thud echoed, more noticeable now that he was listening for it. “There’s something going on down there.”

Raph paused for Leo, crossing his arms. “Probably just another lost raccoon. And I have no interest in meeting another one of those again. Deceptively cute. Cold and heartless on the inside.” He hugged his arms closer around himself.

Leo squinted at the threshold of the tunnel, taking a minute to orient himself with the different marks and cracks along the wall. He brightened. “Hey, this is the shortcut. We need to go this way anyway.”

“Hold up, Turbo.”

Leo had started marching down the tunnel until his head suddenly jerked to a stop, the rest of his body taking a half second to follow suit. He glared at Raph’s grip on his mask tails, forced to stand and wait while Raph studied Donnie’s map in his other hand.

“Donnie says keep going straight.”

Leo tsked. “And what does Donnie know?”

“This tunnel is very specifically crossed out on the map.”

“He’s probably just bitter that team PB&J is gonna lose so he’s taking every advantage to cheat away our victory as team Primary. There’s no real reason to not go this way.”

“There’s a note in the corner that says ‘DANGER: LEO, DO NOT GO THIS WAY.’”

“Oh, now he’s just exaggerating.” Leo leaned away from Raph, angling his head sideways until the tension on the tails smoothly pulled the his mask off over his head. With red stripes on full display, Leo strode freely into the tunnel. 

He heard Raph sputter behind him. “Okay, that’s it! You’re officially a leash kid now. I’m adding it to the list.”

“Yeah, go ahead and replay the last five seconds to see exactly how that won’t work.”

Leo laughed when his mask hit the back of his head with a thwack. He turned to face Raph, walking backwards as he retied the fabric back on. “Come on, Raph. It’ll be fine. If we run into any raccoons, we’ll turn right back, I promise.” 

Raph grumbled.

Leo sweetened the deal. “You know, our list doesn’t have any pizza, but what’s stopping us from grabbing our own anyway? This way we’ll be halfway done with our own personal piping hot pie by the time the others get back.”

Leo swiveled around to walk straight once Raph caught up to him.

“I get dibs on the first slice.”

“Of course, big guy.”

It wasn’t long before Raph started hearing the sounds too. It came seemingly at random, but grew louder and more consistent the longer they walked. Deep thumps, muffled rumbles, and occasional high pitched beeps. Leo couldn’t find the cause until his eyes caught a small surprising beam of light flicker across the ground. He tapped Raph’s arm and pointed up at the tiny hole near the ceiling.

“Well that can’t be good.” Raph stared at the spider-webbed crack, waving his hand through the thick cloud of dust that turned visible in the shaft of light as another heavy thud sounded above them. “How is there sunlight down here? Aren’t we like ten feet underground?”

“Huh, yeah… Give me a boost.”

Raph’s head snapped toward Leo. “Did you not just hear me say how not good this could potentially be?”

“A little crack in the sewer? Donnie can patch it up in his sleep. Until then, I wanna see what’s happening.” Leo scrambled up Raph’s back, perching by his shoulder to get a closer look at the structure of the wall. It had a rough texture with a few good handhold scattered throughout if he really concentrated.

“Leo, I can hear humans out there.” Raph warned.

Leo paused, picking out the telltale shouts of New Yorkers in the rest of the growing commotion. They were too far away to pick out anything that they were saying. “All the more reason to take a closer look. Maybe we’ll stumble on something good, like a new Jupiter Jim release date, or a newly invented pizza topping.”

“Leo.”

The slider reached over Raph’s head and hoisted himself onto the wall. He only had a about another foot to climb before becoming eye level with the hole. 

“See anything?”

“Oh ho ho, look who’s curious now. Uh, but hate to disappoint—there’s nothing much. All I can see is just a bunch of orange. Mikey’d love it.”

“Orange?” Raph questioned.

There was another thud, louder than before. It made the walls shake under Leo’s grip. Dust shook loose from the ceiling and there was the overlapping splash of grit dropping into the low water below.

“Is there a parade going on up there?” Leo blinked the dust from his eyes, trying to get a better view.

“Leo, get down.”

Leo could smell Raph’s anxious stink.

“Hang on, I think I can hear what they’re saying—”

“LEO!”

He felt a hand grab the edge of his shell at his neck just as the view from the hole was suddenly blacked out. 

Leo wasn’t sure which had come first, being yanked backwards off the wall or that same wall exploding inward with a thunderous crash of crumbling stone. All Leo knew was that he was suddenly flat on the ground in a heavy haze.

He groaned and the sound felt trapped in his chest. 

“Raph?”

Leo tried to shake his head, tried to get his voice to project past his own head. All he could hear was a high pitched whine that seemed to blur sound in the same way his eyes wouldn’t focus.

All he could see was shifting dust and piles of rock. They looked…off. Brighter than they should be. With every inhale, he could taste a film of dirt dragging through his teeth. He coughed, his head feeling like a slurry as he sat up. He rubbed at his eyes until he could look around properly. 

Leo had been thrown back a few yards away from where he’d been, and the small crack in the sewer wall was now a couch-sized hole. The section of wall Leo had been clinging to moments ago along with half the ceiling was now as a pile of rubble. The pile was big enough to hide everything except for one unmoving green hand.

“…Raph?”

Bursts of chattering laughter harshly broke into Leo’s awareness. He flinched to see shadows form around the edge of the hole at surface level, still several feet higher than where the ceiling had been. Humans in bright vests, kicking loose dirt over the edges as they peered down, loudly calling out to each other.

Leo quickly shrunk back deeper into the shadows, his heart pounding like a rat before a street cat. He tried to watch the threat above, making sure they didn’t move any closer. But he couldn’t stop his eyes from continually flicking back to Raph, trying to track if there had been any movement in his hand from the last time he checked. 

Stupid, stupid, stupid, he was so stupid. Donnie must have heard this street was scheduled to be dug up for construction. 

Donnie tried to warn him. 

Raph tried to stop him.

By the time the shadows moved away, Leo was shaking from holding himself back. The second it was clear, he sprang forward, stumbling on sudden sore muscles and broken bits of the stone until he was at the base of the rubble.

“Raph? Raph, please—” 

He let out a breath as Raph’s fingers twitched, curling in slightly. Leo started shoving away heavy chunks of debris, uncovering more of his brother’s arm, trying to follow it to find his head. His vision started blurring again.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.

Leo didn’t realize he was speaking aloud until he heard a quiet chitter that made him freeze. His throat instinctively clicked in response, listening past the scrape of rock.

“Raph? Can you hear me?” 

Leo dug through the more frantically, too aware of the loud machinery that still rumbled just out of sight on the surface. He followed glimpses of red fabric until he finally uncovered Raph’s face. It was dirty and scratched and his mask was torn, but his brow furrowed as he slowly stirred.

“There you go—come on, Raph. Wake up, wake up. Wake…up!” Leo threw his weight against a large slab that rested across the back of Raph’s shell. If Leo could just get this piece off him, it might free him enough to get away. The rubble scraped Leo’s shoulder as he pushed against it. He managed to tilt it up about an inch before his arms trembled and gave out, dropping it back down. Leo panted heavily. He gave himself to the count to five before he braced and slammed against the weight again.

Raph opened his eyes as the slab shifted only to fall back down onto his shell again. “Lee?”

“Hey!” Leo shakily dropped to his knees, feeling the sting of scraped skin on gravel and fighting for breath as he met Raph’s eye. “Raph, hey, can you hear me?”

“Mmph…happened?” Raph tried to shift, but any motion past his arm and the turn of his head was stopped.

“Yeah, um…kind of a rock and a hard place situation.” Leo glanced up as voices drifted past again. He didn’t see anyone outlined against the opening, but he didn’t know how long that would last. He carefully gripped Raph’s arm, leaning close. “Listen, we need to get out of here, but you’re pinned down under a piece of the wall and I can’t lift this thing myself. I need your help, big guy. Please.”

Leo bit his lip as he watched Raph slowly process and begin testing his range of movement with a wince. Finally, he nodded. His arm shifted to brace against the weight on his back. Leo scrambled back onto his feet, settling back into position.

“Okay, ready? One…two…” Leo shoved against the slab, his heels slipping back against the gritty floor as he gave it everything he had.

He felt the exact moment that Raph joined in. Under a deep grunt of effort, the weight suddenly tilted, and with a quick shove, Raph tossed the chunk of rubble off his shoulder. It landed to the side with a skidding thud that further cracked the surface of the stone. Leo blinked, suddenly unsure if he’d actually helped lift any of the weight at all as he watched Raph catch his breath. Raph had always been the biggest and strongest of them, obviously, but it didn’t really occur to Leo just how much Raph held back when rough-housing with them. Leo rubbed the back of his neck, feeling the ghost of Raph’s grip that had thrown him clear.

The thought left Leo’s mind as when he spotted the blood.

As Raph pressed up to his knees, Leo stood eye level with the crack along the right side of his chest. The line of blood was dulled with a dark layer of grit.

“Are you okay?” Raph asked before Leo could. He looked at Leo with concern as the shine of fresh blood slowly pressed its way past the snapper’s broken shell. 

Leo’s eyes suddenly stung more than the scrapes across his hands and knees. “Raph…we gotta get out of here. Can you walk?”

Raph nodded, slowly standing to his full height. Leo tucked himself under Raph’s arm to help keep him steady as they hurried back into the dim tunnel toward home.

It took a while. By the time they reached the lair, despite Raph trying not to lean too much on him, Leo was shaking. Thankfully, the bathroom where they kept medical supplies was one of the closest rooms to the entrance.

“Okay…okay, you need to get patched up.” Leo helped steer him into the bathroom and settled him on the toilet seat. As soon as Raph sat down, he sagged like he’d been walking for three days straight. He leaned heavily to one side.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Leo leaned into him, pushing him back upright with effort until Raph was able to right himself again.

“Sorry…” Raph mumbled.

“S’okay. Giving me a workout today, huh?” Leo carefully let go of him, but kept his hands at the ready. He felt painfully aware of Donnie and Mikey’s absence as he started pulling out the bins of first aid supplies and set them along the counter. “Okay…okay, so we just have to get Dad, he’ll do his thing, and you’ll be good as new. Like…like it never happened.” 

Leo looked out past the bathroom door, hesitating. Splinter’s room was at the end of the hall and he could hear muffled cheers from whatever show he was watching. He knew Splinter was in there, but Leo was too scared to leave Raph alone. So he leaned away and called out as loud as he could.

“Dad! Dad! We need your help! There was an…an accident and Raph…Dad, we need you!” Leo waited. The only change was the slight flicker of light from the projector cast onto the hallway wall as his show carried on. “Dad!…Daddy!”

“Leo.” 

Leo gripped the countertop. His throat felt tight and his chest burned. 

He finally looked at Raph, who thought he hid his wince as he pulled his hand away from his bloody plastron. Raph glanced at the red on his hand before trying to get a good look at his shell, but it was a little too high on his chest for him to easily see. He looked back up to Leo, his expression pained but soft.

“I could use your help.”

“But, Dad—”

“You can do it.” Raph’s voice was steady.

Leo’s shook. “I don’t—I never…it’s cracked pretty bad, Raph.”

“You got this. You patched up Mikey before.”

“It wasn’t anything like this! It didn’t even bleed! And Dad always helped me before.”

“Dad’s not here.”

Leo automatically looked to the hallway. “He’s—”

“He’s not here right now. You are.”

Leo stared at Raph’s plastron, packed with dried blood covered in grit and dirt. 

“What if I hurt you…” His voice came quiet and died off before he could add what he really wanted.

...Again.

Raph shook his head. “That’s okay.”

“No, no it’s not! I can’t even remember all the steps!” Leo started rummaging through the first aid bin. “I don’t know if you’re supposed to apply the patch kit wet or if it has to be dry. I don’t remember if I should give you Tylenol or ibuprofen. I-I don’t know if we even still have antibiotics or if that was on Donnie’s list too and I don’t have any way to ask him because we split up! It was a stupid, stupid choice! If you’d gone with Mikey, he’d be here right now and would have been able to get Dad to answer.”

“That’s not—”

“If you’d gone with Donnie, he’d remember what to use. No, no, actually, if you’d gone with either of them, this wouldn’t even be a problem right now because you’d actually go where you were supposed to and avoid this whole mess in the first place!” He threw a bottle of pills back into the bin, giving up trying to decipher the small print. “I can’t even go on a supply run without messing everything up—”

“—Leo—”

“—Oh, how’s the pizza, guys? Was it worth getting half your brothers killed??”

He didn’t even know what he was saying anymore and he wasn’t aware he was crying until Raph grabbed his arm to stop him from further destroying the first aid kits. He pulled over the slider to face him.

“Leo, breathe. You didn’t get us killed, we’re okay.”

Leo’s chest stuttered as his words pressed through tears. “It’s my fault, Raph, it’s all my fault. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt and I don’t even know how to—”

“Look at me, Leo. Pause everything. Take a breath. Deep breath, all the way. There you go. And all the way out. That’s it, and do it again, like me. All the way in…”

Leo focused on Raph’s example, leaning into the feeling of his big brother’s grip on his wrists, keeping him still and present. They continued the cycle together, Leo quickly falling into the familiarity of the timing from their meditations with Splinter. After a few minutes, his breath calmed back into a steady rhythm. He was left with a raw feeling of embarrassment and shame.

“Sorry.” Leo pulled a hand out of Raph’s grasp to swipe at his drying tears.

“It’s not your fault.”

“But if it wasn’t for me, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Leo—”

“Don’t lie.” He pulled his other hand free, crossing his arms. “Would you have stupidly walked down a tunnel set for demolition today if it weren’t for me?”

Raph looked him in the eye, reading the slider’s stubborn expression and meeting his challenge. “Okay, let’s do it your way. No, I wouldn’t have. You messed up. You ignored any warning signs and you made a mistake. It’s not your first and it for sure won’t be your last. So, here’s the thing: what now?”

Leo curled into himself a little, kicking his toe across the one water-stained tile he always thought looked like a deeply insulted cat. “I lock myself in my room for the foreseeable future to save everyone the trouble?”

“No. You fix it. You make a mess, you clean it up. We both got into a mess today, now we’re both going to help each other make it better.”

Leo looked at Raph, confused. “But it was me. You didn’t do anything.”

“You’re right—Raph didn’t do anything, and that’s Raph’s mistake. I could have easily stopped you from goofing off down that tunnel, but I didn’t. I could have asked Donnie what he meant about 9th street, but I didn’t. I could have even looked up the info myself beforehand to be more prepared, but I didn’t.” Raph sighed. “It’s never just on you, okay? I’m the oldest and I’m in charge of looking out for you all. If something happens, I don’t care who started what. It doesn’t matter, because we’ll always make it right again together.”

The cold worry biting at Leo slowly warmed away as he remembered time after time of Raph doing just that. Hanging out in the lair, exploring the sewers, or sneaking around the surface—he was always there, hopping in and out of mischief with the rest of them, but always being the first to shield them from any real trouble, and even apparently shielding them from himself as he roughed around with them. If things went wrong, Raph always led them back to being okay.

Being careful not to brush against Raph’s bad side, Leo fell into him, expertly arranging himself around spikes to hug him tightly. He felt Raph’s arm wrap around his shell in return. 

After a moment, Leo sighed, pulling away. “Why do you always take the hit for us?”

“Cause I take damage like a boss. You can’t even bench press Mikey.” Raph gave Leo a poke on his bicep.

“He has freakishly dense bones!” Leo tossing up his hands in defense. “And you know he goes limp like a big cat.”

Raph gave a teasing grin and Leo gave him a slight eye roll in return to make things even. Raph cleared his throat, his face turning serious. “Now. What are you gonna do?”

“I’m…” Leo studied the crack on Raph’s chest. “I’m going to grab some disinfectant and wash all this shit out. Oww.” 

He pressed a hand to the spot where Raph had flicked his forehead, sure that it had added a new temporary splash of red to his face.

“Step one, Leo: wash your hands. And if you keep that language up, step two will be your mouth.”

“Don, Don, Don!” Leo burst into Donnie’s room. He found the softshell in the exact same position he’d been in for nearly two weeks straight: hunched over his desk, red and blue goggles perched at the ready on his forehead as he worked over his newest tangle of wires and diodes.

He didn’t bother looking up. “You ever hear of knocking?”

“That’s what I did. Just now. With my mouth.” Leo said distractedly as he stepped around one of the many stacks of half finished tech projects and materials neatly lining the floor. There was an established pathway between the door, the desk, and his bed, but even that surface area was slowly getting overtaken by overstuffed boxes in the small room. Leo carefully stepped around one stack topped with a large metal object, clearly unfinished with stripped wires poking through gaps underneath. Battle Shell v1.7.14, according to the the blueprint it was sitting on.

“By basic definition, I’d disagree.”

Leo bounded the last steps over to Donnie and rapid fired his knuckles against the desk at his twin’s elbow. The desk shook from the force, skewing a line of circuit boards and sending previously neat rows of microscopic screws jumping and rolling over the surface. Donnie stiffened as several dropped onto the floor, disappearing under his desk and chair.

“Whoops.”

“Is there something you wanted, Nardo, besides messing up my system?”

Leo ducked down to grab one of the tiny screws that rolled by his foot. “You remember the other day when Raph said he was going to marathon every movie in that box he found?”

“No.” Donnie started carefully resetting the line screws along his desk.

“Well, he did.” Leo crawled forward to stretch his arm under the desk, reaching for the glint of metal he’d spotted. “But—and you’re gonna love this—the disc for one of the movies wasn’t actually the movie on the cover; it was a video game!”

Donnie gave an indignant chirp as Leo abruptly rolled his chair to the side, gathering two more screws from underneath. As Donnie grabbed at the desk for balance, it caused the screws to fall out of line again. One rolled off the desk directly in front of Leo, who added it to the pile in his hand.

“I know, right? It’s called Opossu-bilities.” Leo stood, noted Donnie’s less than happy eyebrows, and rolled Donnie and his chair back where to he’d found them. “Apparently you play as an opossum who eats radioactive garbage around the city, and depending on which dumpster you eat from, you get different superpowers!”

Leo leaned back against the desk, ticking off a finger as he spoke, “You can get night vision, poison rabid fangs, come back from the dead—”

“Normal opossums do those things every day.” Donnie said, re-centering a circuit board and reaching around Leo’s elbow to grab a soldering iron from its stand.

“Can normal opossums shoot lasers from their thirteenth nipple? Cause with the right dumpster meal, this one can.” Leo’s eyes widened as a thought occurred to him. “Do you think we’ll ever get powers like that one day?

“Fire lasers from our nonexistent nipples?” Donnie pulled his goggles over his eyes. “Unlikely.”

“Maybe not that one specifically, but I mean, we are mutants. That’s basically the same as radioactive, right? Maybe we’ll get powers where if you think real hard at something, it explodes!” Leo flung his arms wide, sending the forgotten screws in his hand flying across the room. He grimaced at Donnie’s stoic expression while they listened to the musical clinks as they disappeared. “…I can find those.”

Donnie stiffly returned to his soldering.

Leo rubbed the back of his neck. “Anyway, it’s only a one player game, but do you want to come watch me?”

“No, thanks.”

“We can take turns.”

“Again, no.”

“Come on, Dee, why not?”

“I’m busy.”

“But you’re always busy now. I’ve hardly seen you all week!” Leo sulked. He took a closer look at Donnie’s desk. “What are you working on, anyway? Can I help? It’ll go faster, then you’ll be free to hang out.” 

“You don’t even know how any of this works.”

“So teach me!” He picked up one of the diodes, rolling it between his fingers.

“Leo, every time I try to teach whatever you beg me to, you always zone out and I find you ten minutes later reading a comic with no greater knowledge in circuitry programming.” Donnie stabbed the soldering iron at the wires with a bit more force than before.

Leo waved a dismissive hand. “I know plenty about circus programs. There’s that one that Dad’s gonna sell Mikey to if he doesn’t eat his asparagus. Ooh, or the one with the magic tricks! Here, hand me that screwdriver, I’ll show you. Nevermind, I got it.” Leo leaned forward, stretching his hand across the desk to grab it.

“Nardo. Watch it—don’t tou—”

Sparks flashed as the metal tip of the screwdriver clipped against one of the circuit boards and Leo felt a biting shock against the side of his hand. He dropped the tool and snapped his arm back.

“No, no, no!” Donnie jumped up, abandoning his work to quickly flip the button on a switchbox and yank a wire free from the circuit Leo had touched. Singe marks blackened where the wire had been and there was sharp burning smell.

Leo shifted back, holding his hand to his chest. He opened his mouth to apologize, but stumbled as his heel kicked into one of the Donnie’s stacks. The prototype battle shell on top started to slide free. Leo quickly grabbed it, but the rest of the pile tipped and fell from underneath with cacophonous crash of broken down parts. Donnie instantly pressed his hands tight against his ears and Leo waited tensely, trying to think of something to say as the final metallic clangs died out enough for his twin to uncurl.

“You need a bigger place to keep all these, Donnie. Your room is not cutting it.”

Leo felt an instant regret when Donnie pulled off his goggles to face him, his eyes deadly. “It was plenty big enough before a certain slider came bursting in uninvited.”

Leo realized he was still hugging the battle shell tightly to his chest as Donnie gave a territorial click in warning. Equally instinctual, having been on the receiving end of many childhood bites from Donnie, Leo quickly held out the shell to his twin. Donnie’s shoulders were nearly touching his ears as he rigidly marched across the room, snatching back the battle shell.

“I knocked?” Leo tried to keep a safe orbit of Donnie’s grinding teeth.

“You didn’t! If you had, I would have told you to leave me alone! Not that you have the capacity to listen anyway.” Donnie turned the shell in his hands, looking for any damage before setting it on his desk.

Something switched in Leo. He tightened his fists as he felt a heat start to rise in his core. “I listened every other time you shooed me away like some dumb fly! Sorry for wanting to actually hang out with you for the first time in weeks!”

“And hanging out is destroying all my stuff like some mutant turtle Godzilla?”

“I didn’t mean to!” Leo rubbed the side of his hand. It was really starting to sting.

“You never mean to! But now this circuit board I’ve spent the last three days programming is completely fried!” Donnie grabbed the charred board and threw it at an overflowing trashcan. It cracked off the side and tumbled across the floor.

Leo glared at Donnie. “I’m sorry, okay? But maybe this wouldn’t happen if you’d come out of your cave every once in a while. Maybe you can even pretend to miss us! You know, it’s funny, for some reason I missed you. Can’t image why now.” 

“Do you know why I’ve been busy this whole time?” Donnie crossed his arms, aiming his own glare at Leo’s shoulder. “I don’t know if you remember when you and Raph got trapped in that cave-in in the sewers?”

Leo’s anger faltered for a beat, replaced with a shock of ice. He could feel where Donnie’s eyes hit; not on his shoulder at all, but on the same spot where Raph now sported a white bandage patched to his shell.

“Because I do. Mikey and I didn’t know anything about it for another three hours when we finally got back home. And after, I couldn’t stop thinking what would have happened if you couldn’t have gotten out. What if you had been stuck down there for real? Raph has the most protection out of all of us and even he barely got out, and not without major injury.” 

Donnie’s hand fell onto his battle shell, slowing drawing his fingers into a fist. His eyes flashed angrily, shining with a rim of tears as his voice grew. “I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to find a way for us to stay in contact where cellphones don’t have range so that the next time some of us decide to go skipping off into the next death trap, we might be able to know about it before it’s too late. So, yeah, Leo, somehow I do tend to enjoy the company of my brothers, which is why I’m trying my hardest to keep you all alive, despite your dum-dum self constantly making it one of the single most difficult things I’ve ever had to do!”

They stared at each other as Donnie’s shouts slowly faded. Leo gently rubbed at the side of his hand before nodding, looking down to assess the small blister that started to appear around the burn. 

“Okay.”

Donnie’s ranting breaths tried to reset with a sigh. “Leo…”

“Nah, no worries, bro. Let me help you out then.”

Leo turned and left the room.

***

Leo sat on a beanbag in front of the TV, carefully guiding his opossum to the top of a building when he heard soft footsteps behind him. Without looking, he knew it was Donnie. After a few moments, he still only stood quietly, not saying anything. Leo waited until his opossum reached a safer platform before shifting in his seat, resettling a few inches over. Immediately, Donnie walked around and claimed his spot in the extra space, twisting to lean his leather shell against twin’s side. Leo continued to silently button mash his way through the level, feeling Donnie slowly relax as he fiddled with something in his hands. 

Getting lost in the game, Leo startled slightly when he eventually felt a tap against his wrist. He glanced over at Donnie who held out his hand, signaling with a twitch of his fingers for Leo to give him something. Leo rolled his wrist, offering over the controller, but Donnie ignored it, instead pulling Leo’s arm closer. He seemed to pause, examining the bandage on Leo’s hand, before placing something around his wrist. He snapped it closed and let go.

Surprised, and more than a little curious, Leo twisted his wrist back like he was looking at a watch. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Donnie’s fingers tap on his own wrist before a screen blinked awake to display a message in the center of the band.

<SORRY.>

“Whoa.” Leo dropped the controller, swiping through the list of options on-screen. “This is so cool, Dee. But, I thought I wrecked it?”

“You fried one, but there’s one for each of us, plus Dad. Don’t tell April that hers will take longer.” Donnie glanced at Leo. “They’re not fully done yet. I still need to test the quality in range for any audio or video. And maybe add solitaire. But I thought you might like a sneak peak before they’re out of beta.”

“Ooh, exclusive twin privileges? I always knew I was your favorite brother.” Leo pressed close to display his knowing smirk.

"Just do us both a favor and learn to how knock." Donnie answered with a palm to Leo’s face, pushing to gain back those lost inches of space.

“Sure thing, Dee.” Leo picked up his controller again, slouching more reasonably against the softshell’s side with no further protest. 

Leo pursed his lips in thought as he navigated to a new level. “You really do need a better place for all your nerd stuff though.”

“Hmm…how attached are you to your room?”

A precision cut of steel brought with it an electric scent of ozone. Leo watched the retreating figure, unable to stop the slow-growing smirk as he counted the panicked stomps until—three, two, one—his target stepped and fell through the thrown surface of his portal.

An animalistic cry of surprise landed behind Leo. He turned to see Hypno now lying dazed on the pavement, having just spilled out from the portal’s exit a convenient sword’s length away.

“Oh, good. You’re back.” Leo said, feigning nonchalance as he hovered the tip of his katana before Hypno’s wide snout with a flick of his wrist. The hippo mutant’s eyes nearly crossed as he focused on the blade. Leo tauntingly raised a brow. “Enjoy your trip?”

Hypno snorted angrily, looking up at the turtle. “You know, it is considered impolite to not believe a bloke when they tell you they’re innocent.”

“Are you innocent?”

The hippo wavered a moment in thought before raising a finger. “Can I get a definition, please? Just to avoid any unfortunate cultural misunderstandings.”

“How about the definition of suspicious.” Leo used his free katana to gesture around them, the metallic edge singing freely through the air. “Which I would describe as this section of the harbor having been closed down for weeks, despite no city records saying anything about it; almost as if someone else has been using this place as cover. A front? A hideout for some cruel and unusual activities that happen to line up with the latest streak of mutant break-ins all over town? Mm? Sound familiar?”

Hypno worked his way up to his knees, still wary of the steady sword point following his movements. “And what do I have to do with this? This could be anyone’s doing!”

“Yet this is the third time my brother caught you on security footage sneaking in here. You can thank Donnie’s lack of social life and normal hobbies for that incriminating tidbit.”

“Ahh, right…” Hypno said, sounding a little more unsure. “Would you believe I came through here because I needed the dunny?”

Leo cocked his head. “You’re working with a bunny?”

“No, I’m working with Warren—I mean, no one!” Hypno quickly amended, leaning away as Leo pressed his sword closer. 

“…Who?” Leo paused, unable to quite place the name like Hypno seemed to think he would. 

“Warren? Warren Stone? Your greatest nemesis?” Hypno huffed, apparently offended on this Warren’s behalf when Leo only gave an asynchronous blink in response. “The worm you literally ran past moments before chasing me down and accosting me?”

“Oh, the worm guy. Right, right.” Leo eventually nodded in bored recognition. 

Hypno’s eyes sparked with fury. “What have you done with Warren? Where is he?!”

Leo took a careful half-step back. “Alright, geez, there’s no need to get all hungry hungry Hypno on me, m’kay? I almost stepped on him—”

Hypno gasped. 

“—almost, I said almost. So I threw him over the fence to get him out of the way. I think there was a little potted garden on the other side. Worms love gardens, so don’t say I’m not considerate to you villains.”

“A garden?!” Hypno jumped fully to his feet and Leo tensed in surprise at the swift movement, pulling both swords into a defensive stance. “At this time of day? There’s birds there, you muppet! He’ll be eaten alive!”

Distantly, Leo heard his name being called from across the lot and automatically glanced over to the source. He quickly corrected himself to reface the distraught hippo, but not quite fast enough. Hypno’s eyes locked onto his in a way that Leo couldn’t tear away from. He heard a vague clash of syllables that meant nothing to him and the next time he could force himself to blink, Hypno was gone.

“What?” Leo muttered to himself, gripping his swords on high alert, ready to make a portal at any sign of him, but it was no use. Frustration itched along his skin as Leo heard Raph calling his name again. 

With a sigh, his stance fell slack and he moved to stow his katanas across his shell. Except when they passed through his sight, he no longer saw a pair of swords in his hands.

“Holy sh—” Leo flung his grip wide open, stumbling back several steps. “No, no, no, no, nope, no, gross—”

“There you are. Where’s…” Raph trailed off as he finally closed in, dropping down from a structure behind Leo. “Uh, you alright there?” 

“My swords are snakes!” Leo frantically wiped his palms against his thighs as he backed into Raph, simultaneously trying to keep the snapper from stepping any closer and also hide behind him. 

“Say what now?” Raph asked, confused as he tracked Leo’s movements.

“My swords are snakes.” Leo pointed as he leaned around Raph’s arm, unsure how to make it any clearer. His head felt weirdly staticky as he stared at the spot where he’d dropped his katanas. On the pavement, instead of a pair of blue-hilted swords, were two silver-scaled snakes. They tangled over each other in a slithering display that made Leo want nothing more than to keep his distance.

“Is this a new code or something?” Raph questioned. “Leo, we’ve been over this, you gotta tell us what they mean before—”

“What? No! I’m talking literal snakes. Look with your eyes!” Leo slapped his hands on either side of the snapper’s face and directed his attention to the spot in question. 

“I don’t think that’s the issue here. Those are…snakes to you?” Raph pointed at the ground, sounding very doubtful despite the evidence clearly wriggling in front of him.

Leo gave a frustrated sigh, stepping to the side to better gesture his explanation. “They were my swords, and then—”

“Snakes, yeah, I got that part.” Raph looked down at Leo, squinting slightly. “You didn’t happen to catch Hypno by any chance, did ya?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure, definitely got him. Why?” Leo asked, not fully processing what Raph said over the persistent alarm in his head. Two fingers gripped his chin, dragging his face away from the snakes and angling up to Raph’s inspecting gaze. Leo blinked, trying to pull Raph into focus, which was proving more difficult than it should be at this distance. Oh god, did he need glasses? 

“Leo, I think Hypno caught you,” Raph said.

“Pfff, what?” Leo scoffed, his neck craned awkwardly in Raph’s hold. His eyes flicked reflexively back to the snakes, making sure they hadn’t moved any closer. “I think I’d know if Hypno got me.”

“Trust me on this. You got a case of the crazy eyes.” Raph said as he let go. “Those are just your swords lying there. You don’t see that? Here, let me just…” He made a move to pick them up.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no!” Leo dug his heels into the ground to pull Raph back, unable to speak anything else over the sudden panic that rose at the idea.

Thankfully, Raph took notice and stopped, moving his hands like he was trying to calm a toddler on the brink of a meltdown. “Okay, okay, okay, I won’t touch ‘em. Um…here, how’s this? Why don’t we…” Raph glanced around. He generated a red-tinted fist to reach over and grab an old crate from a nearby pile. After a quick flip to dump out the few miscellaneous items inside, he settled the solid wooden box over top the snakes, effectively trapping them. 

“That better?” Raph asked as Leo rubbed his eyes.

As soon as they were decidedly out of sight, Leo felt some of the fog lift from his head and the tight panic die away. It was like his ears had popped after a long head cold and he was suddenly aware of just how much he’d been missing now that his senses were clear.

“Um, yeah. Better.” He flexed his empty fists. “Okay, maybe there’s a slight chance you were right about it being a Hypno spell.” 

“Didn’t realize you were so scared of snakes,” Raph said, a smirk growing across his face. “It’s a good thing Raph came when he did.” 

“Hey, I could have totally handled it on my own. I was just still processing when you showed up.” Leo said, the need to defend pressing like a sore bruise. “And I’m not scared of snakes; it was all just Hypno’s mumbo jumbo to keep me from my swords.”

“You practically climbed up my arm like a cat,” Raph said with amusement.

“Surprised isn’t the same as scared. So to sum up: I wasn’t scared.” Leo walked over to the pile of junk that had been scattered along the ground, kicking through items until he found a battered box of rusting nails. He plucked one from the pack and twirled it artfully between his fingers until it settled in his grip with the tip pointed at Raph, who raised a brow. “And even if I did happen to be scared of snakes, then we can both agree I was being very brave about it, actually, so think about that.”

With a flash of blue, Leo sent a burst of ninpō to transform the metal outwards into a long, sharp snake.

Snake?

Leo’s head swam as the tip of his newly formed katana shimmered and suddenly bent back to face him, suddenly silver-scaled and beady-eyed. It gave a threatening flick of its tongue. The slider dropped his hold with an alarmed chirp and its scales hit the pavement with a clatter. 

“Nope, nope, not again! I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, why does this keep happening to me?!” 

He didn’t realize his feet were moving until Raph’s hand on the back of his shell stopped him with a jerk. Leo dangled from his grip while Raph silently tucked the offending creature away underneath the crate. And once again, as soon as it disappeared out of reach, Leo felt much more levelheaded. He also felt an extra touch of embarrassment as Raph set him back on the ground.

“Don’t say it.” Leo crossed his arms.

“I wasn’t gonna say it. Raph knows your brain’s broken right now.” Raph scanned the buildings around the harbor over Leo’s offended grumble. “I’m sure Donnie’s got a recording saved somewhere that’ll fix it for real.”

“He better. This pattern’s becoming a problem.” Leo sighed, feeling a little lost without his weapons. It took him a moment to realize Raph was staring at him like he was waiting for something. “What?”

“So where’s Donnie?”

“I don’t know,” Leo said it like it was obvious, because it should be. But Raph only sharpened his gaze.

“…What do you mean you don’t know?”

A flash of unease traced through him. “What do I mean—what do you mean?”

“Leo, where’s Donnie and Mikey?” Raph said with a little more intensity.

“How should I know? I thought they were with you!” 

Raph’s finger pointed at him, drifting closer to his chest with each point emphasized. “You should know, because, like it or not, Leo, you’re the leader now. You need to know where your team is at all times.”

Leo bristled, knocking Raph’s hand aside. “And I thought I did! I told you guys to go check out that first warehouse while I checked out this side.”

“No, you told me to check out the warehouse. What did you tell them?”

“I, I don’t know!” Leo thought back over his earlier words when they’d been crouched on the roof to survey the area. He hadn’t really been paying attention to who was still behind him, busy imagining his own confrontation with Hypno…and maybe running some occasional commentary as it came to mind. “I might have said that someone needed to see about that sketchy storage shack by the docks, but I meant it in like a professional who knows what they’re doing really needs to rebuild it because the whole thing looked like an OSHA violation, not for Donnie and Mikey to go check it out.” 

They knew that…right?

“And?”

“And then I thought I saw Hypno, so I portaled over to catch him.”

“So you told them that?”

“I…’m sure they figured it out when I disappeared.”

Raph groaned, running a hand over his face. “Leo, you gotta stop keeping all your plans in your head and actually tell us what’s goin’ on! Not everyone reads the situation on the fly the same way you do. You can’t just disappear and expect us to know what you’re thinkin'. You were able to get away with it before, but things are different now. You’re the leader, you’re supposed to—”

“Oh, am I the leader, Raph?” Leo snapped. “I wouldn’t know from the way you’re constantly telling me what to do all the time and reminding me of all the ways I keep messing up.”

“I’m not—” Raph gave an irritated sigh. “Look, I’m just trying to help you out.”

Leo made a show of tapping his chin in thought, leaning into the hand on his hip. “Mmhmm, interesting. Hey, here’s a thought—and let me know what you think: I don’t want your help if you’re going to keep acting like you’re in charge of me!” 

“Oh, yeah?” He said, the challenge barely concealed.

“Hyeah.” Leo returned, flickering his fingers at Raph. “I didn’t sign up for your little How To 101 course, so you can stop hounding me at every turn.”

Raph folded his arms. “You said you wanted to know what I think?”

“Ughh, no, I take it back.”

“Well, tough noogies.” Raph carried on, his voice sharp and final. “Dad put you in charge of the Mad Dogs, but I’m still the oldest brother and it’s my job to make sure you do yours. And one of those jobs is actually knowing where you’re sending your teammates while on mission. Which, by the way, is somethin’ I didn’t even think I should have to mention!”

“Wow, these training wheels feel great. I’m definitely feeling more like a competent leader thanks to your great hovering I-told-you-so’s, o my wisest, biggest, and most superior of brothers.” Leo heard the bitter sarcasm ooze from his mouth before he barely formed the thought. 

Raph, on the other hand, looked like he fought hard to swallow back his next words. He eventually shook his head, letting out a harsh breath. “I’m not doing this with you right now. Let’s just find the others before there’s trouble.”

Leo groaned. “Stop thinking worst-case scenario. I already chased off Hypno, what other trouble are they gonna run into?”

The communicators on their wrists chimed a synchronized alert, the screen flashing a purple exclamation mark that made Leo’s stomach drop. 

Donnie almost never used their distress signal.

“You were saying?” Raph looked up from his wrist. 

Leo bit his lip as the coded protocol automatically pulled up the GPS, placing a purple and orange dot right at the old building Leo had never meant for them to go, about a quarter mile down the lot. 

“Okay, fine, but just one thing, Raphala, before we go charging into unknown disaster? I don’t know if you remember, but I don’t have access to my weapons.” He listed off his fingers. “No swords, no portals, and no saving our precious turtle butts from last-minute trouble like I’m prone to do. If Don and Mikey are out of it and a fight breaks out, then it’s all on you, big daddy.”

Raph paused for only half a second before reaching for his own weapon. He flipped the sai in his hand, exposing the hilt and pressing it roughly into Leo’s hand. “Here. Let me know if it turns into a scorpion or somethin’.”

Slightly surprised, Leo wrapped his fingers around the unfamiliar hilt. He winced as he waited, but his head stayed clear and the short blade kept its shape, evidently not meeting Hypno’s parameters. When nothing happened, Raph offered his second blade, a bit gentler this time.

“Better than nothing, I guess,” Leo said as he took it, completing the set. Following Leo’s earlier example, Raph grabbed a handful of nails for each hand, letting his ninpō follow each point between his fingers and generating his own pair of battle-ready sai.

They seemed so natural in Raph’s hold. Leo looked down at his own, adjusting his grip to match Raph’s. The weight hit differently than he was used to, feeling almost too big and too small at the same time. He gave a few testing motions, feeling for a brief moment like a little kid again, copying movements he’d seen a million times and wondering if he would ever grow enough for it to fit him right. But a quick side glance showed Raph was waiting on him, so he quickly shook off the feeling and slipped the sai into his belt.

Silently they ran, tracing along empty buildings that followed the water line until they neared the supply shed. Crouching behind a half wall that edged the building, they spied a dock that stretched out into the water several yards down. And near the end of that dock were Donnie and Mikey, surrounded by several figures dressed in black with a bold orange symbol stamped across their faces.

“So, good news,” Leo whispered apprehensively. “I was right about something funky going on with that shack.”

“‘Right,’ my snaggletooth—you didn’t know jack!” Raph hissed back. “You sent Donnie and Mikey into the middle of a Foot Clan meeting.”

“Not on purpose!” 

“My point exactly.”

Leo bit back his frustration as he scanned the dock, counting eight masked Foot soldiers plus the familiar Foot Clan Lieutenant. Two soldiers stood on either side of Donnie and Mikey, who were being pushed down to sit back to back on the wooden dock. From this distance, it looked like they were resisting, but awkwardly, as if they’d been tied up. A third soldier stood holding Donnie’s tech-bō. He couldn’t see Mikey’s weapon at all. Other than showing varied levels of annoyance at their captors, the two didn’t appear to be visibly hurt. “What’s the Foot Clan doing here anyway? I thought this was a Hypno situation.”

“Maybe it still is,” Raph gave a hushed reply, pointing toward the edge of the group beside a small stack of crates. “There’s Warren Stone.”

Leo leaned forward for a better look. “Which one? The tall guy on the left?”

“What? No. The worm on the box. The one who’s been hanging around with Hypno?”

“Oh, right, right, worm guy.” Leo furrowed his brow as he spotted the tiny figure. “Wait—that’s Warren Stone?”

“Yeah?”

“Then who did I throw over the fence earlier?”

“Are you being serious right now?”

Leo shrugged. “I mean, I feel really bad about this, but apparently I just can’t tell worms apart.”

Raph stared at him. “He’s the only worm with arms, a full head of hair, and a previous job history.”

“…So which ones are slugs again?”

“Shhh.” Raph shushed as voices started speaking.

“Now do you believe me?” Warren said, his voice broadcasting clearly to their hiding place. “I told you those turtles would show if you messed around enough. So now that I’ve proven myself and Hypno to be trustworthy to you—”

“We’ll be the judge of that.” The Foot Lieutenant’s rasping voice interrupted, his tattooed face set in a sneer. “You also said if they showed their faces, you’d make it worth our while. Yet, not only do we still have two unaccounted for, you seem unable to hold up your end of the deal.”

“In my experience, these shelled imbeciles are never far from each other,” Warren said, examining his fingernails. “But do you really need the whole bunch? All it takes is one to get the answer you’re looking for.”

“Then why don’t we have it?”

Warren’s expression grew anxious at the Foot Lieutenant’s sudden edge. “Ah, yes, of course. Hypno should be here any second. I’ll explain your need to find the turtle’s lair and he can get your answer in the blink of an eye. Just as soon as he…”

“Is this Hypno the same creature one of my soldiers reported climbing over the fence not ten minutes ago?”

“He what?” Warren blinked in surprise.

“I don’t think we’ll be needing your services after all.”

“No, but, this is just a misunderstanding. We can help each other out!”

“Perhaps. But there are many ways to get what I want and if you are unable to provide your solution, then my soldiers won’t waste this opportunity. We have too much at stake for any future meddling on their part and I want these turtles locked down.”

“I thought we had a deal!” Warren protested. “I still have bills to pay, you know, what am I supposed to do now?”

“Unfortunately, our position for bait has already been taken.” The Lieutenant said with a glance toward Donnie and Mikey as his soldiers put finishing touches on their bindings.

“Bait? What does that have to—oh, because I’m a worm, huh? Sure, that’s all I’m good for now?” Warren rose indignantly to his full two-inch height, shaking his fist. “I am Warren Stone! And I will—”

“We’ll call you if another offer arrives.” The Lieutenant rasped, sending Warren flying off the crate with a casual flick of his finger.

“Great,” Raph said. “Now the bad guys are trying to team up on us.”

“Not much of a dream team to begin with if you ask me.” Leo critiqued as Warren peeled himself off the pavement and angrily inched his way past, muttering about lawyers. “What’s the Foot, a hippo, and a worm gonna do? Unless they’re about to walk into a bar, I can’t imagine there’d be much of an impactful punchline from these guys.”

“We’ll worry about that later.” Raph sighed, trying to reset his focus. “What are we gonna do about Mikey and Donnie? Those foot faces are waitin’ for us to go chargin’ in.”

Leo tapped his thumbnail against the tip of his beak as he scanned the layout. He didn’t want to risk anything happening to his brothers with a straightforward attack, but being without his portals made it near impossible to sneak up on the Foot from their position out on the narrow dock. He was working against nine pairs of eyes that were surrounded on three sides by water and the one point of entry was a stretch of open pavement with a sharp drop-off along the waterline. It wasn’t even dark out, which limited their shadow-jitsu. Leo squinted at the afternoon sun that reflected off the harbor water. 

What they needed was a distraction to even the odds.

Leo eyed what looked like an old fishing building set further back on shore to their right that seemed within range. He pulled one of the sai from his belt. 

“How many foot soldiers do you think you can take?” 

“However many wanna come at me,” Raph answered easily before taking notice of Leo, narrowing his eyes. “Care to clue me in on your scheming face?”

“You see how the Foot are all facing towards us? Well, in my experience, I’ve found direct eye contact is not exactly ideal for sneaking past unnoticed.”

“Less snark, more plan.” Raph urged.

Leo resisted the urge to stick out his tongue in response as he carried on. “I’m gonna split their focus so we have a better chance of getting to Mikey and Donnie. If you can draw most of them over to that building, I’ll sneak around onto the dock from this side while they’re distracted and cut our bros free. Then it’s four against nine, and we can ninja their ass and go home. Ow! Oh, come on, even Mikey says ass now.” Leo dodged Raph’s second reflexive scolding whack. 

“You sure about this? They’re being guarded pretty closely. Hypno glitched out your portals and you want me to be based all the way up there; if you can’t get to them in time—”

“You want me to lead or not?” Leo held Raph’s steady gaze. “They’ll be okay. I promise. And if you don’t trust me, the least you can do is trust Donnie and Mikey. They’re not completely helpless down there if we can give them an edge and this is the best plan I got with what we have.”

Raph was silent, searching Leo’s face. Then he sighed, the worry lines that creased between his brows falling away as he gave a soft smile. “I trust you.”

Leo felt some of the tension fall away as he gave a single nod. “On my signal.”

Staying as concealed as possible, Leo peeked around their cover while holding Raph’s sai out in front of him. With little adjustments, he twisted the metal blade until he found the angle that reflected the sunlight. Carefully, he chased that spot of light down the dock and in between two soldiers until he reached his target.

Mikey blinked against the blinding flash across his face, annoyance falling into confusion at the sudden persistence. He carefully searched, his face quietly brightening when he caught Leo’s eye and gave a subtle nudge to Donnie behind him.

Not for the first time, Leo found himself eternally grateful that April had introduced them to sign language when they were kids. They’d started using their modified signs to help bridge the gaps when Donnie was prone to shutdowns when overwhelmed, but as they grew, the skill had easily transferred to their steady need for silent communication. So while making sure Mikey was still looking his way, Leo flashed his hand to signal a simple word.

Distract.

Mikey took about three seconds to process before taking a deep breath.

“Hey, Foot faces! I gotta question for ya!” Mikey’s abrupt shout grabbed everyone’s attention in the way that only youngest brothers can achieve. He may be the smallest, but that meant nothing in stopping him from being heard when he wanted to be. Leo swore he saw a flock of nearby pigeons take off in a panic. With all heads turned in surprise, Leo double-tapped against Raph’s shoulder and the snapper silently slipped away.

“What is it?” The Foot Lieutenant practically growled in annoyance.

Mikey raised his wrists that were bound in front of him to point over his shoulder towards Donnie. “How come he’s got more restraints than I do?”

“Mikey, is this really the argument you want to make with them right now?” Donnie said, sending him a look over his shoulder. Like Mikey, his wrists and ankles were tied, but he also had an extra coil of rope that wrapped around the length of his torso, pinning his arms to his sides. From the glint of one of Donnie’s mechanical arms tightly caught up in the bindings, it looked like the Foot had a close call with his battle shell’s many secrets and was taking precautions. 

“I’m just saying, I’m a perfectly legitimate threat just as much as you are and it would be nice for it to be acknowledged,” Mikey said, holding his chin high.

The Lieutenant let out a chuckle. “That can be arranged.” He motioned for one of his soldiers who stepped forward, steadily unwinding another length of rope. 

A sharp whistle sounded from across the lot. “I wouldn’t waste your resources on him if I were you.” 

Eyes snapped to Raph who appeared in the entryway of the abandoned building, his massive frame impressively filling the doorway. From his smirk and confident cross of his arms, Leo could tell that Raph was well aware of the impression he gave. His imposing stature was slightly ruined, however, when he apologetically added, “No offense, Mikey!”

“No, no, I get it, do your thing!” Mikey called across the lot while Donnie rolled his eyes, looking more trapped by sitting through their vibe-killing exchange than his own hostage situation.

“Get him!” The Lieutenant thrust a finger in Raph’s direction. Six of the foot soldiers charged forward, several pulling out weapons as they dashed across the lot towards Raph, who rolled his neck and boldly readied himself for a fight. 

When the first soldier reached Raph, they didn’t waste a second to strike straight at the snapper’s chest—only for the soldier to stumble forward, their fist falling through thin air. Raph’s ninpō decoy glitched away at first contact with a streak of red light.

“My turn!” Raph’s voice came from an entirely different direction, surprising the soldiers as the real Raph unexpectedly appeared at their side, sending half of them flying with a single mystically projected fist.

While Raph captured their attention, Leo crept low, circling around in the opposite direction, getting as close to the water as his scraps of cover would let him until he had an open straight shot to the dock. Only three bodies stood in his way; one soldier guarding each brother, and the Foot Lieutenant. Wishing desperately for his portals, Leo gripped the hilt of Raph’s sai while looking for an opening.

Mikey found it first. In front of him, the soldier holding onto Donnie’s tech-bō had shifted back one step too close while watching the fight with Raph. Lunging forward, Mikey grabbed the end of the bō and yanked it sharply backward. While the surprised soldier tried to recover his balance, Mikey swept his legs out from under him with a targeted kick. The soldier hit the deck, knocking the wind out of him as Mikey jumped up. He wobbled slightly with his hobbled ankles, but recovered quickly, whipping around to face Donnie’s guard with the bō gripped between his hands.

“Told you I was a legit threat!” Mikey aimed the tech-bō straight at the soldier, who stood warily, eying the staff like he’d had the misfortune of seeing exactly what this weapon could do. 

“Daaamn, Mikey,” Leo whispered under his breath, his plan to join the fight momentarily distracted by the pure delight of witnessing his Lou Jitsu-worthy comeback.

And then Mikey pressed the button on the staff.

“Fingerprint ID unrecognized.” 

Mikey’s confident expression instantly dropped at the tech-bō’s AI response. “Uh, Donnie? When’d you add security to your bō?”

“When Leo kept stealing it to use the blowtorch for s’mores,” Donnie said with a grimace as the fallen soldier began to regain his footing behind Mikey. “Tech-Bō Identity Override Code: Alpha-three-nine-f—ahh!” Donnie’s hurried voice command was cut off as he was yanked roughly to his feet by his guard.

Forgoing the tech half of Donnie’s weapon, Mikey turned and tried to swing the bō back on the rising soldier, but couldn’t get a proper grip with his hands tied. His guard easily blocked the blow and pulled the weapon from his hands.

“Shit.” Leo tensed, moving to charge forward. 

Accident or not, he’d led them into this and now he was going to get them out.

He promised Raph they’d be okay.

He was going to make sure of it.

“Watch out!”

Leo barely registered Raph’s distant warning before sensing movement close behind him.

He turned, his arm flying up on instinct, blocking the Foot soldier’s knife with Raph’s sai. The blade’s edge pressed a little too close for comfort. Leo shoved the soldier sharply away, his reprieve lasting only a second before he was forced to duck another series of strikes.

“Don’t you guys have anything better to do?” Leo asked briskly between dodges. “Catch a movie? Grab a slice? You seem like the type to treat yourself to a good pedicure.”

Leo side-stepped the arc of the Foot’s blade before moving in with a slash of his own. Much to Leo’s growing annoyance, the soldier easily dodged his attacks. Raph’s sai were considerably shorter than what Leo was used to working with and was requiring more adjustments on the fly. Finally, he managed to catch the soldier’s blade, locking it between the crossguard and twisting it away. With his opponent disarmed, Leo kicked out hard with one foot, hitting the soldier dead center and sending him flying backward and hopefully down for the count.

Behind him, Leo could hear Donnie and Mikey’s protests and sounds of struggle on the dock. But as soon as he turned, he felt something catch his ankle. 

He hit the ground hard, his shell landing on the pavement with a thud. Leo grit his teeth as another Foot soldier lunged for him wielding a more traditional wooden bō. 

The staff blurred as it whipped downward, aimed for his head. Leo twisted onto his shoulder, dodging the strike that cracked against the ground but was quickly forced back onto his shell under his opponent’s weight. The staff moved to lock against his throat and Leo’s grip intercepted, pressing up against the force that fought to keep him pinned.

“Leo!” Raph shouted. The change of tone sent a cold flash of adrenaline through him. 

He sounded scared.

Leo quickly found Raph. Though the snapper was in constant motion to fight against three remaining Foot soldiers at once, there was no concern for himself and he wasn’t looking at Leo. It was the rasping voice of the Foot Lieutenant that made Leo identify Raph’s source of fear.

“Do it before they get themselves free. It can at least save us half the trouble in the months to come.”

With trembling arms still holding the struggling soldier above him at bay, Leo shifted, straining to see behind him. He glimpsed the Lieutenant hurriedly retreating along the shoreline with one of the two soldiers. The second soldier had hung back just long enough to shove Donnie and Mikey onto the end of the dock where they fought wildly against their bindings to keep their balance along the edge. 

With one final push, they both fell into the harbor with a deep splash.

His heart racing faster than before, Leo automatically looked back to Raph. 

But Raph was too far, stuck fighting the Foot soldiers who persisted. 

And by his face, Raph knew this too.

“Leo, go!”

With a burst of energy and a carefully placed foot for leverage, Leo threw his weight against the soldier above him, sending him flying in an arc over his head. Leo twisted onto his feet, taking Raph’s order with no question. He barely registered the soldier’s reaching grasp from the ground that just missed him as he passed. He sprinted to the edge of the harbor with only one thought in his mind: 

Mikey can’t swim.

He was the only one who wasn’t an aquatic species by nature. If the water went higher than his waist, Mikey would float on an inner tube or always stay within easy reach of Raph to cling to. But more often than not, he was just as content to sit on the sidelines with his sketchbook while the others indulged in their more water-loving genetics. No matter what they tried, the kid would sink like a stone if they let him.

Leo wasn’t going to let him.

He dove into the water, pushing through the tensing of his muscles at the sudden cold shocking his system as he swam down. The sounds of fighting were instantly muffled, lost under the weight of the murky water he could barely see through. Still, he searched, desperate for any sign of disturbance. 

A trail of bubbles floated past and Leo quickly kicked downward, following the source through stirred clouds of silt as he approached the bottom. He almost swam straight into Donnie’s shell before he could fully see him. 

Donnie was fighting to pull his hands free, the battle shell that weighed him down also releasing steady streams of air bubbles like a beacon to his location. Leo swam around to face him and Donnie looked up at the shift in water pressure, his eyes fully white from the instinctual third eyelid protecting him from the water. Leo knew his eyes looked the same as he reached for the knots that tied his wrists. 

But Donnie pulled his hands back from Leo’s grip, shaking his head to get Leo’s attention before nodding to the side where Mikey must be. The message was clear. Leo knew Donnie would fare much better underwater on his own than Mikey could, able to easily hold his breath for over an hour—annoyingly twice as long as the slider himself. 

However, Leo couldn’t bring himself to just leave him with nothing. He grabbed one of Raph’s sai and pressed the hilt into Donnie’s hand, trusting him to do what he needed to free himself before heading in the direction indicated.

It took only a few streamlined kicks before Leo was hovering in front of Mikey, appearing suddenly as if through a thick fog. His eyes were pinched shut and his face was strained as he fought against the ties, further stirring up the muck around them. Leo grabbed his arm and a stream of bubbles flew from Mikey’s mouth as he startled and blindly tried to pull away. Despite having the same third eyelid as the others, Mikey had never been able to comfortably open his eyes underwater even in the best conditions. 

Before he could panic and lose any more air, Leo quickly signed his name several times against Mikey’s temple, an L made with his hand that followed the red stripe of his slider marks, letting him know it was him. Mikey instantly stopped struggling. 

Leo carefully threaded his remaining sai between Mikey’s wrists, sawing at the ropes as fast as the drag of water would let him. The moment the ties fell slack and Leo helped him shake the tangle of ropes free, Mikey grabbed for Leo, his fingers landing on his arm and gripping tight enough to add a new set of stripes down his shoulder from the impending bruises. Leo secured his own grip around Mikey as he started pulling them both to the surface.

Until Mikey suddenly stopped rising with him. 

Leo tried to kick them free from whatever was holding him in place but with no success. Mikey somehow gripped Leo’s arm even tighter and he knew they didn’t have much time to waste. 

Forcing a quick decision, Leo released his hold on Mikey. The slider twisted down, searching through the grimy water until he found the problem at Mikey’s feet. The rope still around his ankles was caught in some anchoring debris he’d kicked up along the bottom of the harbor. 

This time as Leo cut against the final bonds, the task was a bit more difficult since he had to work against Mikey’s twitching kicks. He switched his free hand to grip Mikey’s ankle to combat the movement so he could focus on cutting the restraints and not Mikey himself. He was relieved when the kicks slowed to a halt under his hand.

Then he froze when Mikey’s grip on his arm began to fall slack as well.

No, no, no, no, Michelangelo, don’t you dare. 

Leo cut frantically at the last of the ties. When it finally snapped apart, he yanked the remnants away, freeing him from any restraints holding him down. Mikey hardly had a chance to sink before Leo shot up to meet him, grabbing securely under his arms and kicking up to the surface.

Leo broke through with a gasp, making sure Mikey was up with him. He adjusted his grip, blinking the water from his eyes and letting Mikey’s head fall back against his shoulder so he could get his breath back.

Except Leo couldn’t hear anything coming from him.

“Mikey?”

He couldn’t see Mikey’s face from his angle, but the only movements he seemed to make were from the jostling of Leo trying his best to keep them both afloat.

“Mike—son of a Jitsu, you’re a terrible flotation device,” Leo grunted, kicking them higher above the waterline.  “Come on, Miguel, say something so I know you’re okay. You gotta be okay, alright? I still gotta tell you what a badass ninja you were today. Mikey?”

Shit.

Orienting himself to the shore, Leo swam for the concrete drop-off, hoping the water would turn shallow enough to get them easily back on solid ground without Mikey’s help. He breathed a sigh of relief when his aching legs finally struck against the upward slope of the harbor floor as he closed in on the lot.

Leo stumbled onto his feet through the push of the water and carefully hefted Mikey’s dead weight safely onto the cracked pavement before pulling himself up over the ledge. He dragged Mikey up a little further away from the edge, running a quick check for any nearby Foot soldiers. Leo shivered in the cold air he hadn’t noticed before, realizing Raph must have led the remainders away. They were alone.

“Come on, Mikey, come on…” Leo pleaded, kneeling close. He dragged one hand down Mikey’s arm to latch around his limp wrist while patting his damp cheek with the other, watching closely for any sign of awareness at the touch. “Please, please, please…come on, bro, your shell sucks for CPR. We agreed Donnie’s the only one allowed to need it, remember? Don’t make me have to try it.” 

Leo allowed for a small bit of relief when he found a comforting rhythm pulse along Mikey’s wrist. But his eyes stayed closed behind his darkened orange mask, unbothered by Leo’s tapping fingers. Leo leaned down, pressing an ear to his little brother’s mouth. He held his own breath, running a count in his head over the swarm of competing thoughts he fought to control.

He promised they’d be okay.

He’s going to be okay.

He has to be okay.

He has to.

Leo breathed again when he heard a faint crackle and a touch of warmth brush against his scales.

“Oh, sweet pizza supreme…” Leo pressed back up, swiping a hand across his face to stop the drops of cold water from collecting and dripping straight down onto Mikey. He switched his hand to splay across Mikey’s plastron, shaking him with a bit more insistence. “Come on, wake up, Mike. Wake up and pay attention to me before I do something drastic. I’ll mess with your kitchen pantry if you don’t stop me right now, I swear.”

Mikey’s chest suddenly spasmed, his face pinching together as he fought breathlessly to cough against the water still inside him.

“Knew that’d get you,” Leo spoke mindlessly, heart pounding as he pulled Mikey onto his side. He rubbed Mikey’s shell as he broke into a series of coughs, sounding harsh and waterlogged. “Hey, you’re okay…you’re okay. There you go, big man, that’s the stuff. Get it out, just like when you accidentally chugged your paint water.” 

As if on cue, Mikey’s next cough led to a gag that brought up a puddle of harbor water on the pavement. He groaned as he tried to look up. 

“Le—?” It was all he managed before a wet cough stole his breath again.

Leo kept his hand circling on Mikey’s shell. “It’s okay, I gotcha. Keep getting that up; some of that water’s touched New Jersey.” 

“Ugh, don’t remind me.”

Leo glanced over his shoulder as Donnie appeared, dripping wet and free of his bonds as he pulled himself onto dry land. He was breathing easily as he dropped into an Asian squat beside them, his eyes back to normal and showing concern as they locked on Mikey. “You okay, Angelo?”

Mikey coughed as he raised a thumbs up, still doubled over as his throat caught against the final dregs of water.

“He’s getting there,” Leo answered for him. “You?”

“Please. They’d have better luck drowning me in Times Square on New Year's Eve than in any actual body of water.” 

“Show off…” Mikey managed.

“Yeah, Donnie, don’t insult our weird little landlocked brother,” Leo said, keeping note of his subtle improvements as he gave his shell an extra pat. Mikey just groaned in response, pressing his forehead against his arms as he caught his breath, letting his brothers stand guard.

With Mikey seemingly on the mend, Leo scanned the area again. “Hey Dee, can you check where—”

“Already on it; he’s on his way back.” 

Donnie projected the GPS from his wrist tech so Leo could see the red dot steadily work its way toward them. 

“Which reminds me,” Donnie reached around the underside of his battle shell to pull free Raph’s sai. “Not your usual MO, but this did help speed things up.” He held it out to Leo. 

Leo took the weapon, rolling the hilt in his palm. “Yeah, well, I don’t know if you noticed, but nothing really went exactly according to plan today.”

“I noticed.” Donnie deadpanned, opening a hatch in his battle shell to drain a pool of harbor water. The way he frowned at the water steadily dripping at the seams made Leo think this might be the last he sees of his genius brother for a while before locks himself in his lab for yet another series of upgrades.

“When do things ever go exactly according to plan?” Mikey piped up, his voice cracking and sounding a little rough as he sat up with the rest of them. 

“When Raph’s in charge,” Leo muttered, pulling his mask tails over his shoulder to wring out the excess water. Raph had never let a simple interrogation mission derail to the point of his brothers nearly drowning to death.

“So you’re expecting to suddenly be a perfectly infallible being just because you’re now in charge?” Donnie raised an eyebrow. “Not surprising, but you should know that’s an idiotic rationale.”

“Thanks, asshole.” Leo frowned, flicking the water from his fingers at Donnie’s face.

He wrinkled his nose at the splattering before rolling his eyes. “I mean, you may have been promoted to leader, but you’re still Leo,” Donnie clarified, as if that was meant to make things better.

Still just Leo. Still selfish. Still careless. Still a lazy screw-up.

Mikey must have seen something in Leo’s face because he tilted his head at him. “That's not a bad thing.” He leaned against Leo’s shoulder, giving him a tired grin. “I like Leo.”

Leo quickly scoffed and forced a flashy smirk. “Duh, of course you do. Who doesn’t? I’m a winning combination.” He waited until Mikey looked away before biting the inside of his cheek.

They waited only a few minutes before Raph’s return.

“Did you find out anything from the Foot Clan?” Donnie said, minimizing his GPS screen as Raph joined their circle. “I’m assuming that’s what you were off doing.”

“That was the idea, but unfortunately they were the silent type. So I spent most my time chasing this down for ya.” Raph said, tossing Donnie his tech-bō.

“I love you so much,” Donnie said standing with shining eyes as he grabbed for it. Leo wasn’t even fully sure if he meant the sentiment towards Raph or his weapon.

“You doing okay, Mikey?” Raph asked.

“All good, baby!” The box turtle declared, the color having returned to his face. “Leo got me.”

Raph nodded at the simple statement. “I knew he would.”

Leo tried to hold the same level of confidence they seemed to still have in him. But all he could feel were the wraps of his gear clinging to his scales, cold and smelling like the muck at the bottom of the harbor. The echoes of what happened kept overlapping with what almost happened—what could still happen. He rolled the hilt of Raph’s sai between his fingers.

“Can we go home now?” Mikey’s voice broke through, and Leo realized the question was directed at him. 

Of course it was. He’s their leader.

“Yeah, we’re gonna go home,” Leo said, standing up. “And, Mikey, you’re staying by my side for the next 24 hours.”

“Dude, don’t worry,” Mikey said, already climbing his way onto Raph’s shoulders where he collapsed like a boneless cat. “I’m not even going near the bathtub for at least a month.”

He shook his head. “I don’t care. You almost just drowned.”

“Leo, I’m fiiine.”

Leo didn’t want to scare him with the warnings of secondary drownings that filled his own head, but there was an adrenaline-like drive to be crystal clear pounding through his chest. “Risk doesn’t end once you’re out of the water. Yeah, you’ll probably be fine, but you’re going to stay with me so I can be sure of it, alright? I’m talking use your entire bottle of Elmer’s glued to my side.”

“My FAB spray is out of beta,” Donnie noted, always ready for an opportunity to test his projects.

“You’re going to be annoying about this aren’t you?” Mikey asked. He glanced down at an unsympathetic Raph with a frown.

“Yep,” Leo said. “But lucky you, you get to sleep over in my room tonight so I can keep an eye on you.”

Mikey perked up. “Can we watch Jupiter Jim all night?”

Leo couldn’t help the quiet pull of his smile. “I think we can arrange that.”

“Then aye aye, captain, set wormholes for home!” Mikey declared, pointing the way forward. 

There was an expectant pause.

“Oh, right, I forgot, I can’t portal right now because of the snakes.”

“The what?”

“Tibialis tendon, anterior and posterior—AKA the front side and the ass side…and the other tendon with the dude’s name…um…ar-archy…Archimedes? Ah—achilles, achilles…and…fifth metatarsal…fuck, wait, do we even have that?”

Leo flipped back the illustrated page of muscle and bone in the medical tome in front of him (Humans: five toes). He pulled a second opened book closer, a much thinner one with less detail (Turtles: five toes). He compared the two labeled images, then leaned over with a distinct feeling of irritation toward his laptop, which was currently displaying an X-ray (Mutant Turtles: two toes).

Leo rubbed his temple. “Well, thanks for that, Draxy. Now I gotta figure out which bones and shit we’re missing there too.”

“Do you always swear this much at this hour?”

Adrenaline kicked in at the unexpected voice, but the quick recognition of his twin tampered Leo’s reaction to no more than an internal flinch. His body felt too heavy to move more than necessary at this point anyway.

“My room, my rules, and usually there’s no one else in here to make a fuss about it.” Leo tried to make out Donnie’s shape in the shadowed edge of the lamplight from his desk. “You come here to be a tattle ’Tello or did you want me to tuck you in before bed?”

“Before…” Donnie tilted his head, sounding a bit confused. “Are you not aware of what time it is?”

Leo tried to read the digital clock across his train car bedroom, but the red numbers blurred together into nonsense streaks of light. It must be on the fritz—that’s what happened when most of your stuff came from junkyard raids.

He shrugged. “I dunno. Midnightish? Tried to go to bed earlier but couldn’t sleep.” Leo tried to go back to reading the textbook in front of him, but it now seemed to be having the same glitch as his clock. Strange. That usually didn’t happen on things that weren’t electronic.

“It’s 4:15 in the morning. You’ve not slept at all?”

Leo blinked in muted surprise and his eyes started watering like it was the first time he’d done so in a while. He tried to rub the burning ache away. “’Course I’ve slept. Just not tonight apparently.” He pulled his hands away, not sure if it did anything but make his eyes feel even more wet and heavy.

“Are you familiar with the concept of beauty sleep? Because you look like you need it—boom, zing, roasted, nailed it.” Donnie self-congratulated. 

“Did you need something?” Leo glared in Donnie’s general direction. “Rumor has it, it’s four in the morning—what’re you doing here?”

“Unlike someone, i.e. you, I was asleep when I received a security alert on my phone. May I ask as to why you were attempting to access my files, let alone at this hour?”

“You get an alert for that?”

Damn typo ratting out his first attempt at the password.

“Leo.”

“Relax, Bootyyyshaker, your super secret files of world domination and Astro Girl fanfics are untouched. All I needed was one set of X-rays. I didn’t wanna go all the way to the medbay and I knew you had a copy.”

Donnie leaned closer. “And you needed my x-ray from when you so boldly tried to sabotage my chances at the Lair Games because…”

“It was an accident,” Leo emphasized yet again. “And you’re the one who keeps bitching about it still flaring up from time to time.”

“Hold on—great Galileo, Leo, are you…studying?” Donnie pulled the textbook out from under Leo’s nose and the slider’s hand slapped onto the empty square of his desk embarrassingly late as if he were moving through an atmosphere of pancake syrup.

“So?” Leo said, an annoyance so heavy he could almost physically feel it. Or maybe he was just still sore from training the other day. “I don’t know if you noticed, but we’re in the business of getting our asses kicked a good percentage of the time and as the team medic, I’m the one who has to fix it.”

“You’re also the one who starts it, so…” Donnie muttered as he flipped through the thick set of dog-eared pages, oblivious to Leo’s frown. 

Their last mission led by Leo had been a bit of a disaster when most of them landed in the harbor thanks to the foot clan and Leo’s fumbling. He shivered at the memory of Mikey nearly drowning because of it. Leo had hardly got any sleep that night either while making sure Mikey was okay…had that only been yesterday? Or would it count as two days now by this hour...what day was it?

“Where did you find this?” Donnie questioned. “Do you even understand any of it?”

Leo could feel the heat radiating from his face. “You’re not the only one who can learn things, Don.”

“I’m just surprised, academics are typically your quote-unquote ‘Archimedes’ heel.” Donnie twitched one hand into air quotes while continuing to skim the book still held in the other, squinting at Leo’s scratchy notes and cheats in the margins. “You know, just because it has pictures doesn’t technically qualify it as a comic book.”

“Alright, I get it!” Leo snapped and Donnie looked up, startled. “You think I’m a fucking moron—and sure, compared to you, maybe I am—but, as surprising as it may be, I’m not as stupid as you think I am. Of course I don’t know what everything means, and half of it doesn’t even apply to us anyway so most of this shit is useless. Maybe it is a waste of time, but it’s all I have to go on, and if something happens and I can’t do anything about it because I didn’t know how…” Leo sighed, rubbing his forehead like he could straighten out the tangle of thoughts that struggled to be coherent even to himself. “I dunno, just, whatever. Sorry, alright? I’ll just text you to share your files with me next time.”

Silence fell around them and he waited for that to be an acceptable enough truce for Donnie to go back to bed.

“…I don’t think you’re stupid, Nardo.” Donnie sounded oddly genuine, almost confused. He set the book back onto Leo’s desk. “I assumed you knew that.”

“Now look who’s the dum-dum.” Leo muttered. When had it become so hard to keep his head up?

“Leo…” He could feel Donnie step closer. “…You really do look awful.”

“So you’ve said.” Is what Leo meant to say, but wasn’t sure if it came out as anything other than a mumbled groan. He was suddenly so tired.

Something cold pressed against his forehead and though it started another full-body shiver, Leo leaned into the feeling. Even when realizing it was Donnie’s hand against his scales, and despite that Leo was still pissed at his twin, a quiet raspy churr rolled through him before he could think to stop it. It just felt so nice.

“You’re burning up.” The back of Donnie’s fingers moved to Leo’s cheek. “How long have you been like this?”

“Like what?” Leo forced his eyes open when Donnie pulled his hand away, not knowing exactly when they’d closed. “I’m fine, m’just tired.”

“You have a fever.”

“Pffff,” Leo said with dignity. He looked over in time to see Donnie returning his goggles to their usual docked position. No doubt he had a thermal scan setting on there. Donnie’s tech was prone to give fairly accurate reads, but still… “I don’t have rat flu. Dad has to get it first and he’s fine.”

“I didn’t say you had rat flu, I said you have a fever. Probably from your dip in that disgusting harbor.”

“But you guys aren’t sick.” Leo blearily eyed Donnie to confirm. “I don’t get sick.” 

“I don’t know if you’ve gotten to the chapter on immune systems yet, but they typically work better when you’re rested, accelerated mutant healing abilities or not.” Donnie crossed his arms. “When was the last time you slept?”

Leo took a moment, quietly twitching a tally along his fingertips as he counted to himself; Today…plus yesterday…was that mission yesterday or the day before…and does that lamp need to be so damn bright? Seriously…wait, was he still moving his fingers? Okay, go back…one, two, thr…one, two, three, four, five…no, he just went over this, five was wrong…so for hands, it was only three…so, one, two, three…but was his third finger the same as a human’s third or should it be considered their fifth to match the position…so which tendon was this and exactly how important is it—and for the love of pepperoni pizza, why is it so hot in here?

“Nardo?”

Leo looked up from his hand, his fingers falling still. 

…Right. Donnie was waiting for an answer.

“Uh…what was the question?”

“Oh, I believe you’ve answered sufficiently enough—come on, you’re going to bed.”

“I will, I’m just gonna figure this page out first.” Leo tried to brush away the hand on his arm working to stiffly nudge him out of his chair.

“You’ll retain the information easier once you’ve had some decent sleep. Where’s your medpack?” Donnie abandoned the shoves, dipping away into the corners of Leo’s room to search.

“If I needed sleep, I’d be asleep already.”

Donnie snorted. “Said the overtired tot. Seriously, Nardo, shall I get Raph to airlift you into your bed?”

“Nooo...” Leo whined, finding Donnie by the doorway, rifling through the blue medpack he’d found tossed on the floor near where his katanas leaned against the wall.

“Then get up, get in, lay down, and go the fuck to sleep.”

“I can’t, okay? I told you, I tried, and I just can’t.” Leo’s voice cracked with tired frustration and he pulled the textbook closer with finality. “So I’m just gonna…gonna work on this until I know it…or until I pass out, you know, whichever comes first.”

He heard the telltale rattle of pills. “Studies show certain frequencies of white noise as a viable sleep aid method.”

“Donnie, this is important, alright? I don’t come and fuck with your tech while you’re in the middle of working on it.”

His twin came back to his side. “For one, that is 100 percent not true and you know it, and for another, you must truly be ill if you don’t remember all the times you forced me out of an unearned overnighter—I am merely repaying the begrudged favor. Besides, you’re not going to be required to know the intricacies of the musculoskeletal system in the next 24 hours, it can wait—”

“But what if it can’t?” Leo protested, no longer able to filter out the misery. 

It was like as soon as Donnie had brought it up, now Leo couldn’t stop noticing how awful he felt. His head pounded and his body felt too hot and sweaty and like he was floating halfway between two portals, not really settled anywhere in space. And now without anything to hold him down, he could feel his grip on that creep of worry start to slip from its careful place inside and the words just kept falling out of his control. 

“Things happen, Donnie. We've seen it a million times. What if I’m not ready? We were lucky that Mikey was okay after what happened because I don’t know what I would have done if he really did stop breathing or his pulse stopped—like, maybe CPR could still work with his shell, but I don’t know for sure, and if it doesn’t, then what? I don’t have room for mistakes with things like that. And what if next time it’s Raph getting stabbed by one of the foot clan, or April getting thrown out a 10-story window, or your next killer robot goes bananas on you? I can’t sleep because I keep thinking about all those what-ifs and I never know what to do.”

“…Okay, Mind Mikey, this is heading into territory way beyond me...” Donnie whispered.

Leo shook his head. “What if another thing like Shredder happens? We barely made it out alive…and not even all of us did…” 

He still missed Gram Gram, and he’d only known her for barely any time at all. 

He can’t imagine the scale of that feeling if something were to happen to his brothers. 

Leo tried to look at Donnie, but his eyes were blurring too much to focus. He felt something wet hit his burning cheek. “What if something worse is next? What if I can’t fix it? What if it’s…” 

…my fault.

“Leo…I know this might sound ridiculous coming from me—but, andImeanthisinthebestwaypossible, it sounds equally ridiculous coming from you right now: you’re planning too far ahead. Obviously, I agree that it’s good to be prepared, but in doing so, you’re neglecting yourself now, which could have major repercussions in the future. I noticed you didn’t apply any of those what-if scenarios to yourself, such as ‘what if Leo ends up in a medical coma because he was so sick and sleep deprived but too damn stubborn to take the time to get better before that point?’ Let the record show that we’d generally like to prevent those scenarios as well.” 

Leo could only mutter a general disgruntled acknowledgment. It was becoming harder to stay upright.

Donnie sighed sharply and wiped the cool pad of his thumb across the scales under Leo’s eyes, quick and efficient. “Take a break and get some sleep. If you find it reassuring, we’ll all stay home today and I’ll take on the role of medic and be on call so you can relax until you feel well enough to start again. Just because you’re the leader doesn’t mean everything’s always on you.”

Leo stared at his twin. “But you always hate anything medical.”

Donnie gave a stiff shrug, avoiding his eye. “Don’t always hate you, so…I suppose I won’t mind it if it helps you out this once.”

“...Did you just say you love me in a Donnie way?”

“You’re delirious.”

“Yeah...that makes sense.” Leo nodded, giving a twitch of a smile. “You sure?”

“The odds of my services being needed in the extreme are slim and you’re back on medic duty 24 hours after your fever breaks.”

“But—”

“Now shut up and take three of these.” Donnie shoved some pills into his hand.

“Your bedside manner could use some work.” Leo gave one final grumble before conceding. 

He swallowed the fever meds and let Donnie herd him into bed, keeping his heavy eyes open just enough to avoid everything scattered across his floor. Once his knees hit the frame, Leo sank into the center of his mattress, and Donnie, with a surprising amount of patience, helped as Leo fussed with his blankets until he finally found the right layer of cool and comfort. He settled with a sigh.

There was a click of Donnie turning off the desklamp and Leo felt the quiet dark press around him. Despite the bitter exhaustion weighing his body down, he could also feel the slight quiver at the edge of his mind; the tension of a self-fulfilling prophecy, the worry about not being able to sleep also keeping him awake. 

And when he was awake in the dark, who knows where his thoughts would—

A sudden shift of the bed made Leo open his eyes.

“Donnie?”

“Scoot over. It’s still 4:30 in the morning and the coffeemaker doesn’t start running until 7:15.”

Leo wiggled back enough to let Donnie slot in beside him, his twin pulling up one of the discarded blankets for himself. The background buzz of Leo’s mind was harder to hear over the sound and feel of Donnie’s familiar steady breathing pressed close beside him. 

Leo would have taken the time to appreciate it if he hadn’t fallen asleep three breaths later.

He saw them fall.

It was happening in slow motion—that or Leo’s mind ran at a ridiculous adrenaline-fueled speed to flash through all his options. That was probably the more logical answer, but he was less willing to write off anything to do with the flow of time since the whole Casey being sent by a version of himself from their apocalyptic future thing. 

But the specifics didn’t matter. The only thing Leo cared about was the growing realization that there was no way he’d reach them in time.

Mikey had already been down, and Donnie’s attempt at a shield may have kept their bones from shattering, but did nothing to keep the Krang’s mechanical fist from throwing them both off the skyscraper that hovered on its side, caught in the gravitational pull of destruction orbiting hundreds of feet above the harbor. He watched Mikey’s ‘chucks fly from his hands. He couldn’t see Donnie’s jetpack activate from his battleshell. Something was wrong and he knew they weren’t going to be able to save themselves.

But Leo still couldn’t stand. The impact he’d made from the Krang’s casual flick of his finger left a crumpled dent against hard rock and steel and he half wondered if his shell now had the same pattern of cracks throughout. His right side had already been hurting from the subway attack, but now it really clawed at his attention with every breath and every failed attempt to unfold himself and rise up past his knees. If he hadn’t broken a rib or two before, they definitely were now.

So Leo did what he always did in desperate times. He looked to his big brother beside him. Leo met his eye past the wet shimmer of panic and pain pooling at the corners and used what breath he could.

“Raph, go!”

“On it!” Raph gave a single nod at the order, immediately stumbling to stand and run after them. Leo tracked his trajectory with Donnie and Mikey’s downward path and grit his teeth as he forced his body to move, slicing his katanas together through the air. A boosting portal opened and Raph threw himself through it into the open air without an ounce of hesitance.

Then just like that, he was gone and Leo was left alone, the follow-through of his swing landing him on his hands and knees. He stabbed one blade into the alien ship beneath him, trying to pull himself farther up, enough to crawl forward and see if he could make out the blur of a red force field meaning Raph had made it to them in time. Meaning that they’d all be okay once they hit the ground.

They had to be okay.

Because if they weren’t…

He was interrupted by the shockwave made by Krang landing nearby. The tails of Leo’s mask snapped back from the wind as he watched the armored alien slowly make his way closer. 

Up. Up, up, up, up. Get. The fuck. UP.

Leo swayed to his feet. He managed to pull his sword free from the ground, but the motion sent a white-hot flash of pain through his side and suddenly he was back on his knees. He could hear the Krang’s heavy footsteps approaching as if he had all the time in the world while Leo tried to power through the spots that edged his vision.

Without his brothers here with him, he needed a new plan. He activated the communicator on his wrist.

“Casey. Casey, come in.”

“Sensei, I'm here,” The boy’s voice was slightly breathless but hopeful. “And I've got eyes on the Key. Just tell me when you're home free, and I'll pull the plug.”

Leo watched the Krang stalk closer, framed by a portal bigger than Leo could ever dream of creating, bigger than the ship he knelt on, and opening to a cold scene of the prison dimension. 

Was that what Casey’s world looked like? What their own future will look like if they fail to defeat the Krang? Dark and broken and empty? All because of that damn Key.

No…not because of the Key.

Because of Leo.

This was his fault. His selfishness, his recklessness—it was because of him that his brothers were now in danger of their lives becoming a living hell, if they even survived at all.

…But maybe there was one last thing he could do to make it up to them, to fix his worst mistake yet.

He was the one to cause the start of all this.

So he was going to be the one to make it all stop for good.

Even if it was the last thing he did.

“Casey, listen to me.” Leo kept his eyes on the Krang, tightening his grip on his katanas. “When I get to the other side, you close that door.”

“What? Sensei, no!”

“Casey, it's the only way. He's too strong. He's not gonna stay on the other side unless I keep him there.”

“There has to be another way!”

“We tried everything, Case. This is the only way.”

Leo spoke past the pull of doubt he felt at the approaching gleam of the Krang’s restless sharp tail and claws. It was the only way he could see…but could he really do this? Was he strong enough? Not even just through pure muscle and ability, but could he keep the crawl of ice-cold fear from freezing him still altogether?

“Leo, please don't do this! Leo!” Raph’s tone was desperate, almost frantic, speaking the instinctual resistance that had been coursing through Leo. 

But in the exact instant of hearing Raph’s voice and knowing his brothers were safe, the overwhelming feeling of pure relief that warmed through Leo was answer enough. From that moment, he knew there was no turning back. 

Eventually, the others might forgive him for this. And even if they didn’t, well, then that just goes in line with what they thought of him anyway. Better for him to be a selfish, reckless, pain in the ass than to let them go through another moment with the Krang. Besides, while he knew this shouldn’t be about him, if he didn’t do this and something happened to his brothers as a result, Leo could never forgive himself.

So when Krang stood his ground, Leo rose to face him.

When Krang slammed his broken body down to pin him underfoot, Leo sent them both through his portal to land them as deep within the prison dimension as he could manage.

When Krang roared in anger at the realization, Leo begged for Casey to pull the Key.

For once, his plan worked.

Suddenly his view of home disappeared, replaced by what was dark and empty and cold. 

“You...” The Krang turned on him, easily throwing him down to the hard surface below. Leo didn’t resist anymore. What was the point? “You ruined everything! And now…my wrath will be reserved for you alone.” 

Leo knew the Krang meant it to scare him, the idea that no one would find him here. But despite the resulting pain tracing every crack in his shell, every fracture of his bones, every cut that leaked his blood, Leo turned to the photo in his hand, tracing each of his loved ones with tearing eyes, and smiled.

It was exactly what he wanted.

With no way in or out of this place, the Krang was just as trapped here as Leo was. His family could be safe. His family could be free to continue on without him.

Raph would be angry with him for a while, in much the same way Mikey would be sad and Donnie frustrated at his choice. But they had each other, and Dad and April and maybe even Casey now; they would be happy again soon enough.

After everything, Leo knew they loved him and knew they felt his love right back. But he did wish he could have told them one last thing.

Leo closed his eyes so tight it caused bursts of orange light to spark behind his eyelids as he pressed the photo to his chest.

I’m sorry.

He dreamed he saw them again.

He just wished his dreams would stop making his brothers appear so sad. Not that he was exactly complaining—it was better than nothing when your world has otherwise become a blur of numbing darkness and rising pain to mark the change of days and nights—it’s just not how he remembered them.

Like Mikey. His little brother with the razzmatazz, the skills, the bursts of creative energy that were as warm and bright as sunlight. It makes sense he’d dream that Mikey could do something as crazy as harness that energy into his own glowing doorway to rip an opening back into the prison dimension to bring him home. 

Leo wished it was real, but he knew it couldn’t be.

Besides, his face was telling enough that it wasn’t real. With that power move? Mikey should have been standing proud with that highly earned attitude of knowing he just did something amazing, not in a selfish way that shows off, but displaying his excitement at getting to play a part with his brothers. Mikey was always proud of how they worked as a team.

This Mikey wasn’t real.

His hands shouldn’t have been shaking like that.

His eyes shouldn’t have been filled with tears.

It’s not how Leo remembered him.

But when the pain spiked again, it was hard to remember anything other than the way his shell had shattered under the Krang’s foot until that cold darkness came back to wash over everything.

His next dream started suddenly with Raph.

And it had to be a dream because when he thought of Raph, he thought of his strength, his boldness, his caring watchful eye that shielded and protected them all. Raph’s presence was synonymous with comfort and safety. It almost felt like Raph, the way he picked Leo up like a fragile tot until he was swallowed up in his gentle giant arms to be carried away.

But it hurt too much for it to really be him.

Raph never hurt him. 

This had to be Krang, in the grip of his iron sharp claws ready to throw him down again and again until he couldn’t feel anything anymore as he finally fell back into the dark.

And this time the darkness stayed. 

But it wasn’t as cold.

And he wasn’t alone.

“—why you did this—”

He wasn’t sure if it was an empty dream or an auditory hallucination. Either way, the instant he heard Donnie’s voice directed at him, he knew it wasn’t real. Because if he really had somehow escaped the prison dimension to make it back home, after what Leo did, Donnie wouldn’t be talking to him at all, not for a very long while anyway. Donnie didn’t handle sudden changes very well. 

“—have had another plan—” 

But since Leo didn’t feel any pain he couldn’t handle at the moment, he let himself indulge in the idea that his twin really was there keeping him company, just like when their sleepless nights overlapped at home when Leo was hit with a wall of insomnia and Donnie was hyper-focused on finishing a new piece of tech he was creating for them—because Donnie was always generous and always genuine in his excitement when making things for his brothers, either individually or for their lair, and it often turned into an all-nighter. 

“—without even attempting—”

Leo would sit in Donnie’s lab, playing an idle game on his phone as Donnie rattled off more syllables than necessary talking through amazing concepts that were levels beyond him. But Leo just enjoyed being included. 

“—hours of research just to fix—”

This must be a memory. One of those late nights in his lab, because Leo couldn’t understand what Donnie was saying. He even kept hearing the annoying rhythmic beeps of what must be one of his tech alerts. He wished he’d turn it off.

Instead, it just seemed to be getting louder.

“—trying so hard not—to hate you right now.”

Ah…now those were words he understood. He poured all his energy into focusing on Donnie’s voice.

“Believe me, I fully understand you felt you had no choice. I know you did it because you were thinking of a way to save everyone. Our family, our city, the entire foreseeable future timeline of our world…it was a large-scale hero move…so it’s irrefutably stupid that the only thing I can think to say to you now is…” Donnie took a breath that sounded about as painful as Leo’s chest was starting to feel. “Did you even think of me? Because you promised, Nardo.”

…This wasn’t a memory.

This wasn’t a dream.

This was a nightmare.

“Ever since we were kids getting lost in the sewers. I promised not to leave you. And you promised not to leave me. It’s why we’re twins. I know our promise shifted to be less literal as we got older…but it was still a promise. And you broke it, Nardo. You aren’t supposed to go where I can’t follow. But you still left me.”

The sharp ache in Leo’s chest grew, rising into his throat, spreading to sting his eyes, all while Donnie’s damn tech was beeping louder, faster.

“...Nardo?”

“…Dee…”

“—Oh my Galileo—”

“…m’sorry…pr’mise…”

“Nardo!”

He suddenly felt so tired, but there was a touch on his arm. A signal to move. It was dangerous to stay with the Krang. He had to stop dreaming. He had to wake up and move. 

The darkness faded into a blurry blinding light as his senses tried to focus.

“Nar—do? Nardo? Guys, get in here, he’s—waking up! Leo?—Leo, can—you hear me? Leo?”

The view before him wasn’t the dark otherworldly chill of the prison dimension.

It was bright, familiar, and warm.

He didn’t see the Krang stalking toward him.

He saw his brother.

“Dee?”

“Yes! Yes, I’m here—the others are down in the kitchen finally getting something to eat, but they’re here as well.”

“Where…w’happen—” Leo’s breath cut off with a hiss at his attempt to sit up. He quickly abandoned the idea.

Donnie’s hand hovered nearby. “Take it easy, Leo, try not to move around. You’re in the medbay. Your shell’s in pretty bad condition, but you’re home now. Mikey got you out and everything’s okay. You’re here…you’re still here…you’re okay.”

He was home? Because Mikey…that was real? 

Was this all real?

Leo tried to process, but anything more than just lying still and breathing felt impossible. And even that was starting to suck the more he thought about it.

“…Don’t feel so good…” Leo managed to mutter.

“Well, as you might say, yeah, no shit.” Donnie looked anxious. “You were the proverbial bug under the boot. I’ve got you on some pretty strong pain meds though, so hopefully they’re doing something for you.”

Leo looked down, noticing for the first time the IV nestled in the crook of his elbow. He carefully touched the bandage over the site. “…You did this?…”

“Yes. And thank Curie that you’re back, because I will never be doing it again if it can be helped.” Donnie shuddered.

Before Leo could say anything more, a blur of red and orange came through the door.

“Leo!!—”

“You’re awake!—”

“—how’re you feeling—”

“—do you need anything—”

“—that was so crazy—”

“—you portaled like a boss—”

“—but if you EVER do that again—”

“—took five years off my life—”

“—do you want a rice bowl—”

“—and we’re so glad you’re okay.”

Leo blinked at the onslaught.

“Great, you broke him.” Donnie sternly crossed his arms while Raph and Mikey looked on apologetic and worried.

“Leo?”

He could feel the darkness pulling at him again. He fought against it, forcing his eyes to stay open on his brothers, long enough to ask one thing.

“…You guys okay?…”

They looked at each other. Then back to Leo.

“Yeah…thanks to you, Leo, yeah, we’re all okay. But don’t worry about us, alright? Go ahead and get some rest. We’ll be here when you wake up.”

His eyes fell closed, but this time the darkness didn’t feel quite as numbing as it had before.

The lights above him swirled.

They melted into new formations and colors, just like the lava lamp in his room.

…Was this his room?

“You’re in the medbay.”

Medbay.

Mebday.

Meh day.

Meh day in da medbay.

Leo heard a funny noise beside him.

Eventually, he found a way to turn his view from the ceiling toward the sound, but all he could focus on was orange. He tried blinking, but the blur of color stayed more or less in the same spot, crossing over a familiar round face that watched him.

Maybe Mikey knew what that sound was.

“Sorry, Lee, I don’t mean to laugh. I know you can’t help it, but you just say funny things when you’re loopy.”

Loopy.

Loooooopyyyyy.

A hand was moving with the word, drawing slow circles in the air.

It looked weird.

“What looks weird? Your hand?”

His hand?

That’s not his hand.

It felt too…blurry. Fuzzy. 

Bluzzy.

It had to be this guy’s hand.

The hand poked at the orange and Mikey made that funny noise again. He liked when Mikey did that.

“No, these are my hands. Those ones are yours. See?”

More hands appeared and Leo compared them.

Oh.

Leo’s hands felt bluzzy, but the other hands—Mikey’s—they looked bluzzy.

Leo frowned.

That wasn’t right. Something looked wrong. They weren’t supposed to be like that.

“Oh, you mean the…” The hands that weren’t his suddenly drew away. “It’s okay, just a little shaky after…everything.”

Shaky.

Shaking.

Shivering.

Cold?

Leo took a moment to track the heavy pressure against his legs, and another few to get his uncooperative fingers to reach and close around the soft fabric.

“What are you…oh, no, Leo, keep your blanket on.”

But Leo wasn’t shaking.

Mikey was.

He was shaking. He was cold.

Leo knew how to fix that.

But the hands kept Leo from moving his blanket over, smoothing it back over him.

“I’m not cold, I promise. I don’t need your blanket—you keep it. Careful, hang on, you’re getting tangled in your IV.”

Mikey pulled a clear line away from Leo’s fingers. It tugged from where it was taped against his elbow.

Oh. 

Leo knew what that was.

He’d done them before.

In the medbay.

…Was he in the medbay?

“Yep, you’re still in the medbay. You got hurt fighting off the Krang, remember? They’re gone, but you might be in here for a little while to recover.”

Hurt.

Leo’s attention fell toward his chest, his hand already tapping against the bandages there.

His shell…

“Yeah, that’s right. But you’ll be okay, you’re just on a lot of pain meds right now.”

His head suddenly felt too heavy to hold up and he fell back against something soft.

The lights swirled above him.

Kinda like the lava lamp in his room.

But this wasn’t his room.

Leo frowned.

“Hey Donnie, Leo keeps forgetting where he is.”

“I upped his dose from before since he was still hurting—Raph, hold still or I’m going to blind you for real—so he might be a bit more out of it. Wait until he wakes up a bit more and then we’ll see how he does.”

Leo turned to face the other direction toward the new sounds.

He saw streaks of purple and red.

But he also saw white.

White was taking over the red around Raph’s head, even over his eye.

White was patched over almost all of Donnie’s shell.

It was white just like…

He searched to find the blur of orange again, to the wraps around Mikey's forearms and hands that went further than they should, that were white instead of black.

Leo’s fingers scratched the white bandages along his plastron.

Hurt.

Leo was hurt from the Krang.

And they were hurt too.

The Krang were bad.

They were hurt bad.

“Hey, Leo, it’s okay, we’re all okay.”

No…that didn’t make sense. 

You don’t wear bandages when you’re okay, Leo knew that. 

You wear them when you’re hurt.

They were hurt.

They needed him.

What happened?

What happened?

What happened—what happened—what happened?

“It’s okay, it’s over, they’re gone. You did it, Leo.”

Leo did it.

He did it—he caused it—it was his fault—the Krang was his fault—his fault they were hurt.

But he can fix it.

He can help—he can help—he needs to help—he needs to—

“No, no—Donnie, Leo’s freaking out—”

“Whoa, Leo, stay still, don’t get up. Watch it—”

“Careful, careful—Leo—”

Bandages meant they were hurt—his brothers were hurt—hurt—hurts—it hurts—it was his fault—he needs to help—

“Raph, hold him down, I’m getting the sedative before he hurts himself even worse.”

“Hey, hey, Leo, we’re okay, we got it taken care of, alright?”

He can help—they need him—they need—

“Hold his arm.”

“Leo, just lay still. We don’t need your help right now, okay? We’re okay. Just…”

A sudden warmth entered his arm as Leo froze.

We don’t need your help right now—

We don’t need your help—

We don’t need you—

We don’t need you.

They…

They don’t need him?

…They don’t need him.

They don’t need him.

Why would they?

…They never did.

“Leo?”

The blurs of color darkened to black.

* * *

“Leo.”

“Mm?”

“Can you tell us where you are?”

Leo forced open heavy eyes, frowning in annoyance at his brothers gathered around his bed. “What, you guy’s lost or s’mthin’? Why you keep askin’ me that?”

“Your recent history,” Donnie said simply, arms crossed. “Just answer the question.”

“Medbay.” Leo gestured lazily at his bandaged self before his arm dropped more heavily than he’d meant across the blanket, making his IV sway. “Duh.”

“Yeah, he’s back,” Donnie confirmed.

“Maybe go a little easier on the drugs next time, okay, Donnie?” Raph said while trying not to scratch directly at the bandage across his eye.

“Indignant scoff. How about next time, you be the medic, Raph. I’d like to see your equations to dose a drug-resistant mutant to achieve the desired effect without also killing him.”

“How do you feel, Leo?” Mikey ignored their bickering, looking concerned.

After the download he’d gotten on what happened with the Krang after waking, Leo didn’t know how to handle the valid worry his little brother aimed at him, so he let his eyes fall closed again as he sighed. “Sore, but ‘m fine. Just tired right now, I guess.”

“Sure, sure…” He heard Raph start. “We’ll let you rest, but, uh…Raph’s got just one more question for you.”

“For the love of pizza—I’m in the medbay.” Leo dragged his eyes back open to glare at them.

“No, no, we know you’re with it now,” Mikey spoke quickly before biting his lip, one quivering bandaged hand gripping at his other wrist as if to hold himself still. “It’s just…um…something else that we didn’t know…about you, I mean, uh—”

“Why do you think we don’t need you?” Donnie asked point blank.

“Why…what?” Leo stared at them, a sudden uneasy feeling growing heavy in his chest that scared away the tiredness. Normally he loved that chance at being the center of attention…but not when they were looking at him like that.

“You said a lot of things when you were high.”

“Donnie.” Raph disapproved at his phrasing.

“Well, he was. I should know, I’m the one who gave him the drugs.”

“Okay, the point is,” Raph took over. “There was a minute there where you were really upset that we were hurt and couldn’t do anything about it to help.”

“Well, yeah, of course, I don’t want you guys getting hurt,” Leo said, confused.

“Sure, just like we don’t like seein’ you hurt either…except, you kinda acted like since we patched ourselves up without you, we were just gonna throw you out to live on the streets or somethin’. I know meds can make you say weird things…but those things don’t usually come from nowhere…”

“Leo, do you really think we only need you around as a medic?” Mikey asked.

“I…” Leo picked at a thread on his blanket as he absorbed the accusation and quickly scoffed, rolling his eyes to avoid theirs. “What? No, no of course not. I mean, for one, you know it’s not a true Mario party without four, and someone’s gotta keep Donnie in line—” 

“Leo.” 

Against his better judgment, Leo looked up. 

“Tell us the truth.” 

All Raph had to do was look at him, even with one eye hidden behind bandages, and suddenly all his years of struggling to really earn his place next to his brothers came flooding to the surface.

“...Being the medic…it’s the one thing that’s needed that I’m actually good at,” Leo admitted quietly. He sighed, hating how suddenly shaky it sounded as he glanced at the bandages covering them all, dropping his eyes to the IV in his arm. “Or thought I was, anyway.”

“What do you mean the one thing you’re good at?” Raph tilted his head. “You mean, like in the Mad Dogs?”

“In the Mad Dogs…in our family in general—look, don’t worry about it, it’s no big deal.” Leo quickly backtracked at their falling expressions. “I mean, is it really such a huge surprise that out of all of us, I’m the screw-up? I just face-man it up to make it less obvious so I don’t put us at even more of a disadvantage to anyone out there, so it’s fine.”

“You’re no more a screw-up than they are,” Donnie jerked a thumb toward Raph and Mikey who frowned at him. “What makes you so special?”

“Donnie.” 

“What? Don’t look at me like that, I’ll have you know my self-esteem is at a perfectly healthy range. But fine—you’re no more of a screw-up than all of us—happy?” Donnie amended. 

There was a look of concern on Raph’s face as he refocused on Leo. “Is this about the Key? That was one mistake—”

“But it’s not one mistake, is it?” Leo stared down at his hands. “It was another mistake. Just like with every other mission gone wrong because of me.”

“Leo, we’ve all made mistakes. Remember when Raph was leader? Or when Donnie was first learnin’ how to wire and code things in the lair? Or when Mikey’s razz-ma-tazz was just a buncha sour razzberries? What makes your mistakes any different than ours?” 

Leo looked at the wraps across Mikey’s shaking arms, at the faint line slashed across Donnie’s open palm, at the white cross permanently patched across Raph’s shell. 

“My mistakes leave scars.” Leo brushed a finger along the bandages of his plastron. “I just make things worse. I always have. It’s what I do. So the least I can do now is try to fix what I break because, by that point, I usually can’t make it any worse.”

His voice died out before he could say the rest.

But you don’t really need me in the first place.

You should have just left me out there.

You were better off without me. 

“Do you like being part of the Mad Dogs?”

Leo looked up, confused and startled into honesty by Mikey’s sudden question. “Of course. But—”

He was cut off as Mikey threw his arms around him in a hug, careful of his bandages, but still strong enough to take over his focus. 

“Then we like you being a part of it too,” Mikey said like that solved it, simple as that. “And you do have a part in it, whether you see it or not.”

“Mikey’s right.” Raph nudged Leo’s shoulder. “Even before you were leader, and before you got your boss-level portal skills—and even before the Mad Dogs were a thing—you helped keep us all together, Leo.”

“Both figuratively and literally,” Donnie added.

“And you’ve really put in the work to grow even more amazing since then. Raph’s proud of you. We all are. And even if for some dumb reason you think we don’t need you, we’ll always want you. Not only because of what you have to offer the Mad Dogs…but because you’re Leo.”

Leo blinked back the sudden rise of tears at Raph’s words, grateful when Raph moved in to join Mikey in his hug, causing him to be out of view if one happened to escape past his control.

“It’s just good fortune you also happen to be our brother and are therefore stuck with us.” Donnie fit himself into the last remaining space around Leo, the surprising strength of his hug betraying the nonchalance of his words.

Leo snorted at that, letting himself enjoy the warmth of his family surrounding him until he could speak again. “You really are stuck with me, huh?”

“Yup.” Mikey hugged him tighter. “Just the way we like it.”