Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The early winter air was cold against him as they made their way across the rooftops, prickling his skin and causing a slight but consistent shiver in his core. It felt like each press against the ground took a little extra effort, and his knee was aching in that way that it often did now, but still it felt good to be outside again, to be moving again. He’d gone out with his brothers before this—trips to see April and Casey for movie nights, or pizza runs to Huesos—but this was the first actual mission they’d been on since the invasion, and there was a certain kind of rush to it that Leo had been missing desperately. 

It wasn’t anything big, New York had been uncharacteristically quiet for the last several months, but as the city finally started to settle into itself again there had been a bit of crime popping up. Donnie had picked it up on one of his scanners—activity at the docks. It was a group of yokai, which, a bit surprising, but Leo would take any excuse to get out of the liar. 

It wasn’t that he didn't like home, he did—there was something sort of indescribable about the relief he’d felt when he’d first been able to leave the med bay, some kind of stuttering ache and longing as he took in all of the little things he had found himself unable to remember in the prison dimension—it was just that it often felt like home was holding too much . Everything was all everywhere, spilling into itself, always. Not so much anything physical, just. Mikey had cried so much in that kitchen, shaking and shaking, he couldn't even grasp a spoon properly. Raph had a hard time sleeping for a while, Leo could hear him through the walls. In the dojo for hours, pounding out his grief and his hurt. He’d come to breakfast with a gentle smile and soft words and wrapped, bleeding knuckles. Donnie— there wasn't an inch of the liar untouched by his tech. All just attempts at safety, at some kind of solace, but he saw the way it weighed on his twin. It also served as a reminder that there was something they hadn't been able to protect themselves from. Leo's train car, when he had finally returned, just felt sort of small. He was scared to touch anything in it, it had all felt so far away. He wasn't who he was when he’d left it that one morning, and it didn't belong to him anymore. There were the months of hard recovery that had taken place, too, that he could see in everything, and sometimes the reminders of it were too much to endure. More than anything though, there was the room . The one he used to love, the one he spent upwards of a month in, hardly able to move, the one where his brothers nearly had to mourn him. 

Leo loved home, just sometimes he couldn't breathe in it. So he was happy for the chance to get out, for a bit. 

The bay was just starting to come into view when he spoke up. 

“Okay, Mikey, Don-Tron, you guys got the plan?”

“You betcha!”

“Affirmative. The plan has, in fact, ‘been gotten,’ Nardo.”

“Great. Great, great, great,” Leo answered his brothers, sparing a glance at Raph who offered him a small smile. “Raph?”

“Loud and clear, little brother,” he responded. Okay. Leo drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, steadying himself. He let himself fall into a rhythm, focusing on the pound of his feet against the rooftops, on the slight burn of his wind-whipped face, on the pinch in his leg, on the flow of not only his own ninpo, but of his brothers, too, burning deep and easy alongside his. First mission, he adjusted his grip on his katanas. Lets do this.  

In a flash of blue the four were at the docks, easing into a crouch on top of some shipping containers. Just to the right below them, Leo could make out five figures. They wore black wraps around their arms and feet, and large hoods obscured most of their faces. He could make out undeniable yokai traits, however—clawed feet, a spiny tail, a snout, wings. They were gathered in front of a cargo container, the one with the clawed feet drawing up some rune to presumably get into it while the others stood guard. 

“What do you think they’re after?” Mikey asked, a slight furrow to his brow. Next to him, Donnie flipped his goggles over his eyes. “Hmm. I’m not sure, it looks to just be some building material in that container. Steel beams, reinforced concrete—things like that.” 

“Well whatever it's for, we're not gonna let them steal it. Guys?” Leo glanced at his brothers with a grin as he received a nod from each of them. Simple. Easy . Leo readied himself. Ninja in, ninja some bad guys, ninja out. Deep breath. 

Go! 

They jumped down from their hiding place and spread into different directions, effectively catching the attention of the yokai. 

“Hey, I don't know if you missed the memo, but typically city rebuilding takes place during the day . Tends to upset the locals a little less if the construction noises take place at the same time as the impatient rush hour driver noises, you know how it is.” The yokai Leo could now make out to be a fox snarled at him as he spoke, grip tightening on the daggers they held in their hands. “But hey, appreciate the helping effort!”

With a sudden lunge from the fox, the fighting began. Leo deflected the first jab easily enough, the daggers sliding off his blades as he blocked. “Not one for casual conversation, huh?” He could make out the sound of his brothers engaging their own opponents as he dodged another jab. “Thats fine, we can just fight.”

“You talk too much, little kappa.” 

“I have actually been told that before, believe it or not.” Leo spotted an opening as the fox reached again, and sent the blunt end of his katana into their ribs. They stumbled back at the hit, but faltered only for a moment. It seemed to aggravate them more than anything, and they came at Leo with more aggression on the next swipe. He wasn't expecting such a quick recovery, and the dagger grazed his cheek as he just barely leaned out of the way. 

“Woah, a little aggressive, no?” Leo parried another attack, this time with a little more struggle. Alright, fine . With a smooth motion of his wrist he carved a portal beneath himself and slipped into it, away from the foxes’ hold. He reappeared behind them and struck them again with more force, sending them sprawling on the ground. But just as Leo was about to knock them out, they managed to turn enough to get their legs under Leos, bringing him to the ground with them. His knee flared in protest at the movement but he stifled the wince, quickly bringing his katana up to block another blow. He had to give them credit, these yokai were a lot stronger than he had been expecting. 

A sharp yell sounded from somewhere to his left and Leo went rigid, suddenly remembering what it was to be back in that place, back with his brothers and that thing . He could remember the way that the veins of the Kranng had worked their way into his flesh, pulsing and foreign and wrong. He could remember his brothers, strung up in it, arms twisted uncomfortably as they were forced to watch. The look that Donnie had as Leo struggled against Raphs hold. The way that Mikey had cried when he stopped fighting, a kind of acceptance, resignation. A kind of penance. Leo remembered what he had led them to, he remembered what he had done to them . 

In his moment of distraction, the fox yokai gained a bit of leverage and cut a sizable gash into Leo's right bicep. The sharp, searing pain of it brought him back into the moment, and he threw them off of him, buying himself a few moments. The second he had his feet under him again he was back on them though, and this time he made short work of knocking them unconscious with a swift hit to the side of the head. They crumpled to the ground, and Leo whipped his gaze towards where the yell had come from, clasping his hand around the fresh wound as the blood began to run down his arm. 

“Mikey? Donnie, Raph??” He was searching frantically, trying to figure out if he had hurt his brothers again with his poor plans, his poor leadership. He was able to make out the glow of Mikey's chains as they wrapped around the yokai he was fighting, and Donnie and Raph seemed to be faring just as well against their opponents, lit up in their respective purple and red. It didn't do much to dislodge the discomfort Leo felt however, his breaths still stuttering harshly against his ribs at the sobering reminder that he was the leader . He was the one responsible for keeping his brothers safe. And he had failed them before. 

They trusted him, he knew, and he trusted them too, but it almost made it worse. They had trusted him before and they had nearly paid with their lives. He’d almost killed them. There was a timeline where he did kill them. There was no form of penance enough for that. 

And they’d talked through it, and he’d been working on it, really truly, and he’d gotten enough whispered threats to never do anything like again again or so help me, Leo , that it was starting to settle within him that maybe he actually, genuinely was worth something—but that was all different from now. That was when his family was safe, not following his word after the near end of the world because, for just a little while, the world had rested. But there was a short turnover, it seemed, before the restlessness and the anxiety of sitting still too long took its toll. Because the world was moving again, in some ways faster than before, and because there were endless things that had to be done, and because his brothers were looking to him to lead again, even though he couldn't really get it right, not without messing it all up a few too many times first. 

“Leo!” 

Raph's voice came in over the comms. 

“I don't have eyes on the fifth yokai anymore, I think she might be headed over your wa-”

And he was on the ground again, gritting his teeth as another wave of pain washed over him. “Yeah, I think I found her,” he managed to respond, fighting against the talons that had him pinned. In another flash of blue Leo was back to standing, back to trading and parrying hits. The owl was agile and fast as they fought, keeping up with the way he flitted around between portals well, using her wings to make sharp movements. It was a steady back and forth—precise and exacting and familiar—but it was one with little progress, the exhaustion starting to set in.

God, Leo was tired . He had always been familiar with some kind of a persistent exhaustion, a byproduct of his insomnia and love of comic books, and, more recently, the nightmares, but it had been a while since he’d felt it this deeply. Like it had made home within his bones and settled into his chest, heavy and immovable. There was a bit of a sting that came with it. Logically of course Leo knew that recovery wouldn't stop only when he had healed physically, he knew it would take a long time to build back up his strength and endurance after such extensive injuries, but he felt this rush of inadequacy at how he was struggling. He knew he wasn't going to be where he was just yet but he had hoped he would be doing at least a bit better than this. 

A spare glance towards his brothers showed Leo that they had just about taken care of their guys, Donnie in the process of securing them temporarily with mystic cuffs, and he spoke into his comm. “Hey Mikes,” he slid under another kick, feeling a tightness in his lungs as his breaths became more labored. “Think I could get a hand? Maneuver seven?”

“ Maneuver seven, baby!” 

Leo sliced open a number of portals as he moved around the owl, bathing them both in a pale blue. “Hey, bird brain,” she glared at him as he stepped away from her. “Might wanna watch the claws, a-buh-bye!” He fell back into a portal with a smug grin and a salute just as Mikey's chains burst through them, brilliant and burning. In seconds they had caught on the owls’ legs and wrapped around them tightly, trapping her. Mikey flipped through shortly after with all of the razz and tazz, flashing her a grin. “Sorry, but you're grounded!”

Raph and Donnie came shortly after, sporting their own grins and dragging with them the other three knocked out yokai, Leo's portals dissolving once they had stepped through. “Yeah! That's what you get for trying to take, uh…” Raph paused for a moment, considering. “Y’know. All that metal and stuff. For whatever reason.”

“ Reinforced steel beams , dear brother, often used in large-scale construction but yes! Grounded!” 

Leo heaved the previously forgotten fox yokai into the pile with the others and did a quick once over of his brothers. Mikey’s hands had that shake to them and Raph was favoring his right shoulder and all of them sported a few new scrapes, but it was nothing too bad. Nothing they couldn't recover from, Leo had to remind himself. He let out a silent breath of relief as his brothers fell into a conversation about ninjacity and radness, both of which, according to Donnie, were ‘ off the charts .’ 

“So,” he started, focusing his attention back on the owl yokai in front of him. “That does bring up the question– why are you stealing construction materials?” All he got from her was a cold stare and a string of mumbled curses and annoyances. “Yeah, yeah,” the runes on his katana started to light up. “Save it for the Hidden City police,” and he sent them through a portal.

Chapter Text

“I'm just saying, I don't think mushrooms even deserve to be mentioned.” 

Mikey scoffed in offense. “That is, quite simply, a horrible take.” 

Leo lagged behind a bit as they made their way back to the lair, half listening as his brothers discussed pizza toppings from least to most valid. Normally he might join in with a comment about how pineapple is and always has been superior, thank you very much, but it felt hard to speak right now. Which felt kind of ridiculous, because it was a good mission! It had gone well! And his brothers had done especially great. For some reason though, Leo couldn't get himself to feel good about it. A kind of wrongness and unease lingered in him as he mentally ran through the fight. He could have done so many things better, he could have, should have, gone into it with a better plan. Splitting up and fighting separately was a bad call, they should've worked together, hadn't he learned that by now? And what if the yokai had been stronger? What if his brothers had gotten hurt? 

Leo shivered as another gust of wind blew over him. It had been just past dusk when they’d first set out but now the sun had fully set, taking with it the last bit of warmth. He looked into the dark sky as he rubbed his arms. There wasn't much by the way of stars in New York, but there was light. Everywhere . Each building was illuminated with pinpricks of it—warm amber from skyscraper apartments and an electric, buzzing white from large signs and logos. Closer to the streets there was a mix of violets and blues and reds from the storefronts, blurring into smears of color. It stretched so far, this dappled glow. And there were all the sounds of the city too, sounds of all the life . Cars honking and the faint screech of brakes. Construction, somewhere, and wind whipping between the buildings, and maybe, if he really listened, people laughing. It wrapped around him, held him close. 

Leo drew in a deep breath as he took it all in, the air cool and light as it sunk into his lungs. He’d often forgotten, before everything happened, how beautiful his city was. 

There had been this moment, on the Technodrome, when it really hit him. Just before he teleported himself and the Kraang into the prison dimension, he allowed himself this one, quiet, remorseful pause for grief. For his family, for his brothers and his home. For the only people and the only place he had ever known to love. He had looked out from his resting place at the top of the world, past the tangle of debris and the smoke and the destruction, and he saw the city. Maybe it had just been that he had thought it was the last thing he’d ever see, but right then, alone at the end of his world, there had never been anything so beautiful. 

Everytime he had seen it since, he always gave himself a bit of time to remember. Just to appreciate that he was, in fact, alive. 

“Your knee hurts,” Donnie stated, startling Leo from his thoughts as he fell into step next to him. 

He pulled his eyes from the horizon and tried to gather himself, tried to recall how to be a person. It felt like he fumbled for himself, trying to return to his body and to his mind, trying to let his tongue find words. 

“What? Nahhh, it's not that–” 

Donnie sent him a pointed look, a single eyebrow raised as if he was challenging him to deny it. “A little,” Leo admitted. “Just– took a couple more hits than I was ready for. And also the cold hasn't exactly been doing me any favors.” 

Donnies gaze lingered on him, an unspoken thought turning in his mind, but he let it fade, humming instead. “I have some ideas for how to improve the brace, I can start working on it once I get back to my lab. What are your thoughts on a built-in heating system? It might help to alleviate some of the pain. I'd have to figure out a compact power source but I think I know what I could use.”

“Oh, that would be incredible , are you kidding! Plus I could totally rub it in your guys faces when I’m sittin’ there all toasty.” He sent a smirk towards his brother. Then, after a moment and a little quieter, “thanks, Dee.”

The twins fell into an easy silence, trailing behind Mikey and Raph, and Leo’s eyes fell on the city again. 

Dee , Leo wanted to ask. Do you know how much I missed you in those minutes when you were gone? Or, when I was gone . Because his brothers knew, of course they did, but he had been so caught up in just staying awake those first few weeks, then so distracted by trying to figure out how to exist again after everything, like his entire self hadn't been irrevocably altered, that he hadn’t ever actually gotten the chance to say it . And by now, it felt too late. He knew he could say it and he knew it would be heard , but it felt like enough time had passed now that it would just hurt more than anything to bring it up again. There was so much he had meant to tell them, though. So much he needed for them to understand. 

Dee, he would have said. Dee, I felt myself die. I felt it, the second Casey pulled that key. You were gone. You, and Mikey, and Raph. Dee, I think I died right then more than I did when Kraang found me, more than I did when they kept finding me. 

In the days following him waking up, Donnie had at first been practically bound to him. He spent every waking moment in the med-bay and he always insisted he would be the one to work through the physical therapy exercises with Leo even though any of them were capable. He would take his place by Leo's side when he thought he was asleep and grasp his hands, whispering over and over stupid, stupid, self-sacrificing dum dum. He’d hold tighter and draw in shaky breaths and ask him how he could leave so easily. Once he had been reassured that Leo was not moments from death though, that his lungs would take in the air and hold it now, independent from machines and tubes, Donnie had this anger to him. Never outwardly spoken, but present all the same. It took a long while for it to die down. 

I’m sorry. Leo wanted to stop Donnie now, on the rooftops, and tell him. I’m so so sorry. I never wanted to leave you . Dee, it killed me to and sometimes I think I’m still dead. 

But the words died on his tongue. Instead he reached out and took Donnies hand, giving it three tight squeezes, like when they were kids. A simple unspoken, things are a little hard right now.

Leo wanted to tell him it all, and maybe he would, if he was ever able to piece together the words and work up the strength to push them into the world. In that moment though, Donnie was enough. He looked at Leo and said nothing about the pooling tears or the unsteady pull of his breaths, he only squeezed his hand back. A simple unspoken I know. I’m here.

Chapter Text

“Oh, boys!” Splinter greeted when they got back to the lair. He was shuffling around in the kitchen, pulling mugs from the cabinets and fussing with the tea kettle. “How was the mission, my sons?” 

Leo settled into one of the chairs around the island as Mikey responded, plopping down next to him and folding his legs in his lap. “It was good, Pops!”

“Good, good. And who did you fight?” Splinter tore open five tea bags and put one in every mug. 

“Ah, just some yokai.”

“Yokai on the surface? Hmm. That is strange, though I suppose things have loosened up a bit since what happened.” The kettle began to boil and Splinter pulled it from the heat, turning back to the island and pouring the water into the mugs. Leo watched as the steam rose into the air, bending and curving in the light. There was a time when bringing up ‘what happened’ would silence a room, stop everything as it was. He was glad that now it could be mentioned and the world would continue to turn. 

“Yeah,” Raph jumped in, grabbing a carton of half and half from the fridge. “It was strange though, they weren’t after anything interestin’, just some construction stuff. Cream, Mikes? Leo?”

“Yes, please!”

“Thanks, Raph.” 

Raph added a little splash into their mugs and his own. “Donnie, do you have any idea why they wanted that stuff?”

Donnie looked up from whatever he’d been doing on his phone as Raph slid his plain tea to him, nodding in thanks. “Honestly, I think it might be as simple as they just needed building material. I’ve run some scans of the Hidden City and, while it didn't take nearly as much damage as the surface, there was still some. It makes sense they’d need to rebuild.” Raph made his way over to where Leo and Mikey were, handing them each a mug and sitting next to them. Leo took the ceramic into his hands eagerly, soaking up the warmth and enjoying the smell of Earl Gray and cream. “My best guess is that materials, at least the more industrial grade ones such as steel beams, are scarce there, hence the need to take from New York's supply.”

“Right, but that doesn't explain their fighting,” Leo joined in. “They were pretty advanced, more skilled than just the average Hidden City resident.” 

“True! And did you notice their weapons? They looked a lot like what Big Mama’s goons usually have,” Mikey added. Leo took note of the tremble in his brother's hands as he drew his mug to his lips. He still had on his compression gloves, but they didn't seem to be doing much right now. He must have strained himself a little too hard during the fight, and Leo asking for backup from him probably didn't help. 

Raph nodded. “I saw that too.” 

Splinters brows knit together across the island. “If Big Mama is building something, it probably isn’t good. Let us hope that she is only repairing damages.” 

“I think that's probably the case, but I can look into it.” Donnie stood to leave.

“You gonna join us for Jupiter Jim later, Dee?” They’d long since given up on trying to get Donnie to not go to his lab when he wanted to go to his lab. It was a fruitless endeavor. 

“Sure, just come get me whenever.” Donnie sent a small smile towards their youngest brother then shifted his gaze to Leo. His eyes drifted over his form, catching on something briefly, before he offered a quick nod, a kind of gentle reassurance. He then turned to head to his lab, calling out as he disappeared down the dark hall, “and get Leo to patch up his arm before he bleeds out, thank you.” 

He’d forgotten about the gash in his bicep until now, the previously sharp pain having dulled into something steady but ignorable. He remembered now though, as his brothers and father turned to him, faces set in varying degrees of concern and irritation. 

“Blue!” His father started, “you are bleeding!”

“Dang it, Leo, why didn't you say anything!” 

“Let me see,” Mikey tugged lightly on his right hand, getting the arm into a place where he could better look at it. The bleeding had slowed but hadn't quite stopped, still seeping sluggishly from the cut. Having it in the light now Leo could see that it went decently deep, enough to need at least a few stitches if he had to guess. 

He jerked away from Mikey's hold and stood, suddenly very uncomfortable with the attention that was on him. The faint look of hurt on his brother's face sent a pang of guilt through him. It was placed onto the pile that was building somewhere within him. Leo had to bite back an apology as he started to move. He felt, with some kind of certainty, that if he tried to say anything that mattered right now he’d simply fall apart. Just deteriorate into nothing but remorse. 

There was too much suddenly, that was too reminiscent of everything that had happened, everything he had put his family through. They had looked at him, for months, as though he was such a fragile thing. And it wasnt that it was unfounded—that was kind of the issue, actually. Leo hated being so weak, so vulnerable. 

The first time he was well and truly awake, Mikey had hugged him too tightly. Pressed a little too hard against Leo's broken ribs. Before he could think better of it, a pained noise had escaped him, and Mikey was stumbling away as if he’d been burned. Leo tried to tell him it was alright, he was fine, but Mikey refused to touch him for an entire week after. Though he’d wanted to, and though Leo wanted him too, he loved his dad and he loved Donnie and Raph but sometimes he just needed the comfort of his little brother , he just wanted to hold his baby brother , he stayed away out of fear of hurting him. 

And just then, Mikey's shaking hands held his own so lightly, so carefully—it was a little too much. 

“It’s fine, nothing bad. I can stitch it up. I hadn't even noticed it, really,” Leo let out in a rush as he excused himself, stumbling a bit as untangled himself from the kitchen chairs. He could feel his family looking after him as he left, but he couldn't find the energy to address any of the anything.

It was only once the doors to the med bay had slid shut behind him that he began to falter. He opened the drawers he had not touched in months, pulling out alcohol and gauze and surgical thread and a suture needle, and he tried not to think about the last time they had needed these things. And he tried not to think about the last time he had been in this room. And he made his way to the sink to wash his hands and they were red. Somewhere in his mind he could recall pressing against the wound, attempting to stop the bleeding, but it didn't matter so much because blood on his hands still looked like blood on his hands. He lathered on the soap and scrubbed and tried to breathe through the panic edging at his mind. He thought about the warm water on his hands. He thought about warm tea, and a warm home, and the warm embrace of his brothers. He thought about warmth. He let it run over him. 

Warmth, something solid, something he could feel. Something that did not exist in the prison dimension. His hands were warm and so that meant he must be home. 

His eyes must have slipped shut at some point because now Leo found himself opening them. The water was running clear. He turned off the faucet and dried his hands, still just trying to steady himself, stay steady. He pulled a chair over to the counter and leaned a small mirror against the wall so he could see what he was doing. He had done this enough times that he didn't have to think much about it, and with a practiced hand he disinfected the cut, wiping away the blood that had trailed down and dried on his arm. With it clean, he moved on to threading the needle. 

Steady, stay steady . He pinched the thread between two fingers and held it in front of him. Slowly, he attempted to slip it through the eye of the needle. And this should have been easy too, mindless, but the thread glanced off to the side. Leo adjusted his grip and tried again. And again after that. And another time. He couldn't stay still, he couldn't stay steady. He tried again, hands trembling with the effort as the thread began to fray. He tried another time, breaths picking up and vision blurring. Why couldn't he just do this?

With another failed attempt he dropped the needle and thread, hearing a light tink as it hit the counter, and shoved it away. He tried to breath through the frustration but it welled up inside of him, slipping hot tears down his cheeks. He was all too aware of the things he couldn't do right and of the hurt he had caused and of the room he was in. The room, the room, the room, he couldn't breathe in this room. 

Leo had a few memories of the immediate aftermath of the Kraang. They were blurred and scattered, and it dug up something indescribably uncomfortable to try and recall them, but Leo did remember a little. He could remember a physical pain worse than anything he had felt before. This sensation of his flesh and muscle severing, being ripped away from bone. He could remember his brothers there, trying to hold him steady. He could remember the weeping, choked apologies from them as they pressed into his torn leg in some attempt to slow the bleeding. 

There had been the pain of this weight pressing, pressing against him, into him . It was a heavy thing that lodged itself in all of the most tender places, worked its way into what felt like his very center. It brought with it the fear of drowning, and also the feeling of it. And it was a sick thing because there had been air all around him—it was just that the pain of inhaling had been too great. Consuming. He could remember thinking it would be less cruel to simply allow him death. 

And Leo could vaguely remember that he very nearly had died—the hurt had gone and his vision was rapidly falling into nothing, his family slipping out of focus, and there was something sort of euphoric to it all in a way that, in that moment, he couldn't find it in himself to be sorry—but then there was a plastic tube being shoved down his throat, scraping and harsh, and the air was forced into him again. And the life was forced into him again. 

Leo remembered his brother's hands reaching for his face, covered in his blood, and the way the ceiling swirled above him as consciousness left and returned. He remembered flashes of the first few nights, waking up shivering and feverish, to the crying. Everytime, there was crying. 

And all of it had been here, in this room. Sterile and cold, with all the life sucked out of it. It felt like it held death because, really, it nearly had. Leo was alive but his family had still mourned. It had been purged from the rest of the lair because there was more that had happened, the grief had been painted over, but not in this room. This was the room that no one returned to. 

Except that, now, Leo had returned. 

The floor found him quickly and he was curled against the cool tile in moments, pressing his eyes shut against the memories. He likely would have stayed like that for a very long time, too, had it not been for a soft knock against the wall. 

“Leo?” 

A shadow fell over him and Leo opened his eyes to Raph sitting on the tile too, face pinched with concern. 

“Hey,” Leo greeted as casually as he could, rubbing a hand over the tear tracks on his face. 

“Hey.” 

After a number of moments of Raph looking at him with one of the most intense worried big brother faces Leo had seen in a while, he shifted his body to be more parallel with the ceiling. He quickly thought better of that though when he was greeted with a horribly familiar sight, and instead opted to sit up and lean against the cabinets behind him. 

“Can Raph help?” Raph asked quietly, gesturing towards Leo’s still unstitched arm. He gave a small nod, and Raph stood to gather the abandoned supplies. When he settled in front of him again he didn't speak, just gently turned Leo at his shoulders so he could see his arm. 

Raph was hardly ever the first to be volunteered to stitch someone up just because his hands were so big, but it was never that he wasn't good at it. If anything, it made him better, more careful. He worked slowly, but with a certain kind of precision and gentleness Leo often forgot his older brother possessed. 

He was knotting off the third suture when he spoke again, voice hushed. 

“Please talk to me, Lee.” 

But what was he even supposed to say? 

There is so much that has changed and I am so changed and I am scared of so much. I feel my failure like a vice around my very soul, and it gets tighter with every moment, every day. 

I see you and I see our brothers and I wish I could have changed so much. I am so sorry, so endlessly sorry. Big brother, please, I need you to understand how sorry I am. 

I’ve forgotten how to breathe, can you show me how? Like when I was little, and you’d put my hands over your heart and count. In for four, hold for seven, out for eight. 

This house is suffocating me, and this room is too, and I remember too much. I can't bear the cold. I miss when I could sleep in the dark. Big brother it's all so painful and I am always feeling it. I don't know how I’m meant to endure it, and sometimes I wish you’d have let me die. 

He began to fidget with the hand of his uninjured arm, working his fingers open and closed and pressing them into his upper thigh. 

“What's in your head?”

“Ah, so many things,” he said with a bit of a harsh laugh. “I just–” 

Leo tried to sort through his thoughts and get them into something digestible. 

“You were such a good leader,” is what he finally settles on. “And it seemed like you always knew what to do. You were always so— so strong and solid . It was so easy to follow you. I know I didn’t always listen and I know I fucked around a lot and I know I went against you so much — but… Raph there was never a single time, not any instance, where I didn’t have absolute trust in you. And I think part of the reason I always goofed around is because I knew that I could, right? Like, I never felt scared. Because I knew that you had a plan, and I knew that you, somehow, would keep us safe.” 

He could feel Raph looking at him but he kept his gaze cast strictly to the floor. 

“And there was a moment earlier, during the mission, and I thought one of you guys got hurt. And it was terrifying, and horrible, and it felt so much like…” His fingers clench into a tight fist in his lap. “And I feel like I can't even function anymore because I know what might happen now if I make a bad call and it's all just… how did you do it, Raph? How did you do it so well?”

“Oh, Leo .” His brother's voice was impossibly soft. 

He looks up finally and Raph seems so young suddenly. Freshly eighteen, his big brother is still so little. He places down the needle and reaches out for Leo, carefully unfurling his fingers and taking them within his own. 

“I had no idea what I was doing most of the time. I think… that I grew into it. I picked things up as I went. But at first, I had no idea. I just knew that pops gave me a job, and part of that job was to keep you knuckleheads safe. I didn't know about strategies or good planning or anythin’ much beyond just ‘smash stuff.’” Raph smiles sadly. 

“I took up the role because I was told to and because I thought I could keep you safe. But Leo, I was never as good at all the leader stuff as you were.”

“That definitely–”

“Remember that time,” Raph cuts him off, “we were fighting Hypno, and had that dumb thing with all the pigeons. 

“Sure, but Raph–”

“You were the one who figured out he wasn't the one controlling them, Warren was. And then you made the plan to hold him for ransom.”

“Ehh, I’d say that was more of a team effort,” Leo mumbles. 

 “Sure, that's how a team works, but it was your plan . And what about when you tricked Big Mama to defeat the Shredder? That was you. All you!”

“Okay, I will admit, I was kinda on fire that day.” 

“Yeah you were!” Raph lets go of his hand and returns to stitching. 

“You make a good leader, Leo. A real good leader. You just need to get some better jokes.”

“What d’you mean? My jokes are great.”

They fall into an easy silence after that, just sitting quietly as Raph works. He’s got this furrow in his brow as he ties the last suture and it settles something in Leo. Like a kind of proof that even though so much is different, his brother is still his brother. 

“The fear never goes away,” Raph says suddenly, voice low and gentle. “I just learned to trust. I trust you, little brother.”

And its Leo who reaches out this time, closing the space between them. He presses his face into Raphs plastron as he feels his brother's arms enclose around him. 

“I love you,” he whispers. 

“I love you, Lee,” Raph whispers back, arms wrapping ever tighter. “Now c’mon, Mikey’ll kill us if we're late to JJ night.” Neither of them move though, holding on a little longer.