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Leo's breath stilled.
He knew that silhouette. Knew it better than his own shadow. For half a moment, he thought he'd found the brother he'd been searching for. But then he blinked, and the familiar shape morphed into a black shadow with a metal helmet.
He didn't know why he'd thought of Raph. The familiar feeling was probably from seeing the crunchy novice photos of the Nightwatcher in the papers. Yes, that must have been why he recognised the figure.
This wasn't what Master Splinter had sent him out to do. He was meant to be looking for Raphael, not this hotshot vigilante. For another precious moment, he considered walking away. He was needed elsewhere.
But Central America whispered in his ear. He could feel the curl of the sticky jungle air, the loam of the rainforest floor beneath his bare feet. He could smell the scent of moss and earth, hear the distant cries of wild animals as they went about their own business. And he could feel the thrill of alarm in his system as his body registered a threat.
The Ghost of the Jungle took over almost instinctually. A bō-shuriken with a tasselled ribbon tied on the end - a challenge - landed in the open cash tray that the Nightwatcher still clutched in their gloved hand. He saw the glint of their visor as they turned to look up at him. Spotted.
To Leo's surprise, the dark figure took off running. That wasn't the reaction he'd been expecting from the fabled Nightwatcher, but he wasn't about to let them slip away into the city. Leo paused just long enough to track their movements, calculating the path they were taking in case they somehow managed to give him the slip. Then he was off.
Traversing the city was not the same as moving through the jungle, but muscle memory came back like a faithful hound to its master's call. His feet naturally fell into stride on the concrete rooftops, his legs leapt at the right moments without having to be prompted. The heaving clouds gave up resisting and dropped their burden upon the busy city below. But no rain was going to make Leo lose his quarry.
He'd tracked foes for miles through the jungle. But it was the urban jungle of New York that he'd been born and raised in. He knew this city like he knew the blades of his katana.
Leo funnelled the Nightwatcher to a dead end - the rooftop of the Red Eye Club building, which stood on the corner of a cross street and therefore had no easily accessible onward path. The vigilante was trapped.
Leo's breath kept pace with the steady rainfall. He was barely winded from the chase, despite his shoulder beginning to smart where he'd slammed into a metal fire escape. That was going to be stiff in the morning. He pushed it down: now wasn't the time to show weakness.
"I want you to know that I appreciate your intentions," he called, barely registering that he was adopting the same stern tone that Master Splinter had directed at them - at him - the last time they'd all been home together, "But you can't change the world like this."
The Nightwatcher turned, finally giving Leo their full attention. Something flared inside his chest as he was met with the impassive glare of their helmet. His own eyes reflected back at him from the dark visor.
The words tumbled out before he was even conscious of what he was saying.
"The road you're on is a dead end. Believe me; I've tried it."
Why had he said that? Why was it here, on this rainy rooftop, that he was finally able to voice the ember of guilt that smouldered inside his chest? And to a complete stranger at that!?
Don't show weakness. Force the doubt away. Project confidence and conviction.
"So, I'm going to give you one chance to just walk away and stop this vigilante nonsense."
For a beat, Leo thought his words might have actually reached the Nightwatcher. But then they drew some weighted chains, their stance shifting in preparation for a fight.
"Look. Trust me when I tell you," Leo knew what he'd said. Yet still, he gave them one last out, "You don't want to do this."
They'd chosen the wrong path. But that didn't mean he wanted to have to hurt them. If that made him a liar, then so be it. He'd rather hold his head up high, knowing he'd tried to do the right thing.
But the vigilante wasn't backing down. A weighted chain swung at him, whistling through the air as it narrowly avoiding his head. Leo was forced to duck as it snapped back around. The Nightwatcher had answered, clear as day.
A barking laugh escaped Leo's throat, more a reaction to the adrenaline than out of any sort of humour.
"Oh ho ho, yeah. Well, I noticed you have quite a temper."
He raised his fists to strike back, but the vigilante swung at him again. Leo was forced to jump and flip backwards to keep himself out of reach of the snapping chains. But the moment he landed on his feet again, he shot his opponent a mocking shrug.
"Hey, have you ever done this before?"
The barb met its intended mark. Their temper rising, the Nightwatcher hurled both chains at him. Leo sprang effortlessly up onto the parapet behind him.
"Oh, c'mon! You call that an attack?"
His opponent's next lunge had just a little too much weight behind it. Their fury and power caught Leo by surprise. Maybe he'd taken his goading just a little too far.
He huffed as they turned to face him again. Had they recognised it too? They hesitated to attack him again. If they realised things were getting out of hand, maybe they might-.
Their chains retracted with a snap, and the Nightwatcher's fists lifted instead. So much for that idea.
"Alright!" Leo let the smugness bleed back into his tone, "Finally, some excitement!"
He let the Nightwatcher charge at him, making the first move. It was easy enough to duck under the swinging fists, countering with a jumping kick that met his opponent's helmet with a clang. The vigilante doubled down, forcing Leo to block as their attacks came faster, harder.
A punch to his chin radiated up his jaw, but the turtle shook it off. He'd taken worse hits in the past. In fact, if anything, that blow had felt more like it was intended to stun than to hurt. It had almost felt... familiar...
Leo didn't get a chance to think as his opponent ran at him again. But he'd successfully riled that hot temper up, just like he'd intended. Now, it was time to finish this.
"Funny thing about anger," Leo lectured, as he blocked punches and kicks with ease, "Let it consume you, and soon enough..."
He leapt, just as the Nightwatcher threw another punch. They pitched forward but caught themselves quickly. It was the distraction Leo was looking for.
He landed silently behind them, a harsh whisper in their ear. "…You lose sight of everything."
The vigilante swung back at him, but Leo ducked. His own fist came up, the full force upper cutting them right in the chin. The impact lifted the Nightwatcher off their feet, knocking the bulky metal helmet off their head as they were hurled in an arc across the rooftop. They landed heavily on their front.
"Goodnight, Dark Prince," Leo snarked, walking over slowly.
Everything happened at once.
A familiar groan, now unmuffled by the bulky helmet.
The way the neon light reflected off the vigilante’s all-too curved back.
Another source of red, entirely separate to the buzzing sign overhead.
And Leo couldn’t ignore the truth anymore.
The rest of the night passed as if Mikey had been leaning on the fast forward button.
Admittedly, Leo had been unconscious for a good chunk of it. But the slices he was awake for would be burned into his mind for the rest of his life.
The fight with Raph.
Getting caught out in the open with his guard down, like some sort of amateur!
The blinding pain as he was shot with enough tranquilisers to subdue an elephant.
The vague sensation of being hoisted onto cold, rough shoulders, before the world went dark.
A heavy, dreamless sleep.
Being lifted onto his feet by an entirely different set of arms – these ones warm and supportive, alive with a lifeblood as familiar as his own. He knew who they belonged to even before he forced open his bleary eyes.
Raphael handing him his set of back-up swords.
Fighting beside his family to save the world. Again.
It was only once they were all finally safe back at the lair that Leo allowed his guard to drop. A bone-deep exhaustion quickly set in. Even though he’d been passed out for several hours, he felt like he could sleep for a week straight. But Donatello wasn’t about to let him.
“Nuh-uh, no,” Donnie grabbed his shoulder as Leo groggily turned towards the stairs leading up to their bedrooms, “You’ve been exposed to an unknown substance, and been unconscious for an indeterminate amount of time. You’re getting a full medical check over. Now.”
“Donnie, I’m fine,” his oldest brother groaned, but Leo really didn’t have the energy to resist as Don guided him over to sit at the kitchen table. The genius turtle had already given everyone a once over on the way home from Winters’ tower, but aside from minor cuts and scrapes the family was miraculously unharmed. Leo had foolishly assumed that was the end of it.
“Uh huh, right,” Donnie snarked, preparing something just out of Leo’s eyesight, “And I’m sure the fact you’re as weak as a newborn kitten has nothing to do with it?”
“I’m just tired,” Leo insisted, feeling his pride flare slightly at being called ‘weak’. He consciously pushed it away; he knew Don didn’t mean it like that, “In case you’ve forgotten, we have just been fighting for our lives against soldiers made of living stone.”
In response, Donnie stuck something sharp into Leo’s arm.
“Ow! A little warning, next time!”
“Oh, don’t be such a toddler,” his brother chided as the syringe slowly filled with maroon liquid, “It’s just a blood sample.”
“You didn’t take bloods from Raph when he was tranquilised,” Leo grumbled, not beating the ‘toddler’ accusations.
“We were at Casey and April’s,” Don listed off as the needle was carefully withdrawn. He placed a ball of cotton wool over the pinprick in Leo’s arm, and kept pressure on it to stem the bleeding, “I didn’t have my equipment with me. And Raph took off before I could corner him. Besides, it’s probably all worked itself out of his system, by now.”
Donatello meticulously applied masking tape to hold the cotton wool in place. Only once he was done, did a thoughtful look cross his tired face. “But it wouldn’t hurt to check him too, just to be safe.”
A little bit of petty self-satisfaction trickled into Leo’s chest at hearing that his brother would also have to suffer Don’s medical exam.
A quiet pause settled over the turtles as they both lapsed into thought. Leo resisted the urge to scratch at the fresh tape pulling against his skin. Movement caught his eye, and he lifted his gaze to follow as Raphael stepped after Master Splinter into their Sensei’s trophy room. In his hands was the Nightwatcher helmet.
The warmth in his chest drew the corner of Leo’s mouth up slightly.
A muted clatter to his side brought his attention back to his genius brother. Rather than take the sample to his lab, Don had opted to bring his equipment over to Leo. Given how often he’d chided his more rambunctious brothers about how delicate some of his tools were, Leo was surprised at how heavily Donnie had set his small microscope down on the kitchen table. He raised a single brow in silent question.
Donnie sighed heavily. “They pumped you full of the same high-strength sedatives they were using to take down those monsters,” he explained, and suddenly Leo could hear the thinly veiled concern hiding beneath his brother’s sharp tone, “It’s a wonder you woke up at all…”
Just like that, Leo’s exhaustion drained away, replaced with a cold lead weight in his chest.
“Donnie…”
His brother didn’t seem to hear him. “Perhaps another side effect of our mutation…?” Donatello murmured to himself, as he set about preparing a slide with Leo’s blood, “Though I’d rather not get any more data with a repeat.”
“Don.” He finally stilled when Leo’s hand came to rest on his arm, but his eyes wouldn’t meet his oldest brother’s. “I’m ok. I promise. I’m not going to fall asleep and not wake up again.”
Donatello’s brown eyes finally lifted to Leo’s face.
“You don’t know that.” His voice was almost a whisper, but it echoed in Leo’s ears like a scream.
Leonardo’s breath caught in his throat as he saw all the raw grief and heartache in his little brother’s gaze. This went back beyond tonight.
Over a year back.
He hadn’t seen it when he returned. Of course, he’d felt his family’s joy and relief that he was home. And he’d picked up almost immediately that Raph had something simmering just below the surface. But it had still taken that confrontation on the rooftop before Leo realised just how deeply his absence had affected Raphael.
Only now was it dawning on him that it might have affected the rest of his family, too.
Leo made a mental note to check in with Mikey as well. But at this moment, Donatello needed his big brother the most.
“I’m sorry, Don.” His own voice sounded strange to his ears – older, wearier. More vulnerable. “I got so caught up in helping the people I saw on my travels, that I managed to convince myself they needed me more than you guys did. But I was wrong.”
The admission ached: not because it wounded his pride, but because he’d heard those words so many times over inside his own head.
He was wrong. Why had it taken almost losing his family for him to finally say it out loud?
Donatello, bless his heart, didn’t argue with his big brother. He didn’t grow angry, or upset, or try to ease Leo’s burden. There was just a wounded question in his soulful eyes.
“Why did you stop writing?”
The mournful query hurt more than any yelling could have. Deep down, Leo knew the answer. He’d been staunchly ignoring it, burying it under excuses and justifications that ‘he didn’t have anything interesting to tell them’ or that ‘he was too busy protecting people to write’. But his brother deserved the truth.
It stung, like finally opening a festering wound. But they all knew you had to drain the infection before the injury could begin to heal.
“I…,” Leo began, his voice catching in his dry throat, “Master Splinter sent me away to become a better leader. For you. For all of you. And I…,” His voice dropped to barely a whisper, “…I failed.”
Donnie had to lean in to catch his brother’s words. A frown joined the pain on his face. “…What? How? Leo, I don’t understand…”
Leonardo winced. This was harder than he’d expected.
“… I wasn’t becoming a better leader. My skill as a ninja was improving every day, but… But I was starting to lose myself. I didn’t recognise my reflection anymore. I was getting so frustrated with dealing with the same…,” Leo paused, blindly groping for the right term, “…bullies, time and time again, that I started to put them down. Permanently.”
Donnie drew in a sharp breath. It was quiet, but it cut Leo like a blade.
None of the brothers were without blood on their hands – not even their goofy, laidback youngest. But they all tried their hardest to avoid taking a life, if they could at all help it. Master Splinter had been sure to instil in them all the responsibility that wielding deadly weapons carried.
Leonardo could practically hear the accusations on his brother’s tongue (though the voice sounded eerily similar to his own): He’d gone against their moral code. He was a murderer. What right did he have to call himself their ‘leader’ anymore?
Leo braced for the tirade that he deserved. He wasn’t expecting the gentle weight of his brother’s hand on his arm.
“Leo,” Donnie murmured, pausing until his big brother met his eyes. There was no judgement in their kind depths, only concern. “I’m so sorry.”
“…What?” It was Leo’s turn to be confused.
“I’m sorry you had to deal with that alone. I’m sorry you felt like you had to solve the rest of the world’s problems by yourself. I’m sorry you thought you had to earn the right to come back home.”
The words carved open Leo’s plastron, incising directly through his hard shell to slice into the deepest parts of his core. Things he hadn’t let himself think about, hadn’t let himself admit, rushed to the surface like fresh blood. The sob he’d been holding back for over a year nearly forced its way up his throat.
“We love you, aniki,” Don’s voice broke a little, and the low light caught the glint of tears beading in his eyes, “And that will never change.”
Aniki. Big brother. The Japanese term of affection reached into Leo’s throat, latched onto the sob he’d been suppressing, and pulled it out. He surged forward, gathering Donnie up in a crushing hug that his brother readily returned.
Maybe he was tired. Maybe Winters’ drug still had a lingering effect on his system. Maybe it was the culmination of everything they’d been through in the past few days. Maybe it was just that he was finally home, safely back with his whole family with no immediate threat pressing down on them. Whatever the reason, Leo finally let himself break.
“I love you too, otōto,” he sobbed, letting the word for ‘little brother’ roll off his tongue, “I’m so sorry for leaving you.”
Don held him back a little tighter. And then more hands landed on Leo’s shell, his shoulders, the top of his head. He blinked back the tears so he could see who it was.
Raphael, Michelangelo, and Master Splinter all crowded round them, one hand each on Leonardo and Donatello. No one’s eyes were dry. Leo didn’t have the voice to ask how long they’d been listening. He found he didn’t care. Something halfway between a sob and a laugh escaped his chest, and he pulled one arm back to open up the hug to the rest of his family.
They all piled in.