Chapter Text
Fractured Shell, Hidden Scars
Leo wasn’t sure when he’d learned to fake a smile.
It might have been after their first real fight with the Foot, when Mikey had come home shaking and Raphael had been bleeding from his shoulder. Leo had looked down at his own cracked plastron and told Master Splinter they were fine. All of them. They could do better next time.
That was the first time.
But it sure as shell hadn’t been the last.
It started with a mission gone wrong. A simple recon in an abandoned Kraang facility—at least, it should have been simple.
They hadn’t accounted for the second wave of Kraang droids. Or the fact that Leo would end up separated trying to draw fire away from his brothers.
He hadn’t screamed when the blast hit.
Didn’t let out a sound as he crashed into a wall hard enough to send pain spiderwebbing down his shell and his ribs. Just gritted his teeth, shoved himself up, and kept fighting.
Because if he didn’t, his brothers might not make it out.
He fought. He led. He kept them alive.
And then, when they were finally back in the safety of the lair, he disappeared.
Just a “gonna meditate” muttered under his breath and a retreat to his room, ignoring Donnie’s concerned look and Mikey’s bounce in his step that faltered just a bit.
He shut the door. Locked it. Sat down to meditate.
And promptly collapsed.
“Something’s off,” Donatello said, frowning at the empty kitchen.
Raphael looked up from his protein shake. “Leo?”
“Leo,” Donnie confirmed.
It had been two days since the mission. Two days since Leo had skipped every training session, every patrol. Said he needed to focus on “strategy.”
But Leo never skipped patrol.
“Maybe he’s just tired?” Mikey suggested, though even he sounded uncertain. “I mean, he did take a pretty big hit. I saw him fly like—boom! Right into a wall!”
Donnie’s eyes narrowed. “You saw that too?”
“He said he was fine,” Raph muttered. “Course, that don’t mean jack coming from him.”
Donnie stood up abruptly, pushing his half-eaten cereal away. “I’m going to check on him.”
Raph grunted. “You’re gonna knock or barge in?”
“Depends on if he answers,” Donnie said.
Leo didn’t answer.
Not when Donnie knocked. Not when Raph came to bang on the door after Donnie’s gentle knocks failed. Not even when Mikey stuck a plate of pizza under the crack and tried to lure him out like a stray cat.
Eventually, they left him alone.
And Leo breathed out a quiet sigh of relief, biting down on the rag between his teeth as he slowly peeled away the cracked section of his plastron, revealing angry bruising and a clearly broken rib beneath.
He hadn’t meant to let it get this bad. But he couldn’t let them see.
Couldn’t let them worry.
They needed a leader. Not a patient.
The fever came on the third night.
By then, Leo was barely sleeping. Between the pain and the effort to keep his groans muffled, he’d been running on fumes. He couldn’t even sit upright without a sharp ache lancing through his side. His skin felt too hot, and the edges of his vision were starting to blur.
Still, he dragged himself into the dojo that morning.
Couldn’t miss another day without raising suspicion.
“Leo!” Mikey chirped, shell already streaked with chalk from his nunchuck tricks. “Dude, you’re up! You look like a zombie, but you’re up!”
Leo smiled. Or tried to. “Didn’t want to miss training.”
Donnie gave him a long look. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Leo—”
“I said I’m fine,” Leo snapped, sharper than he meant to.
The silence that followed was heavy.
Raph’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah. You’re great at lying.”
Leo turned away, gripping his katana tighter than necessary. “Let’s just train.”
It didn’t last long.
Fifteen minutes in, Leo’s vision swam. His footwork faltered. He barely registered Raph shouting before the dojo spun and his knees buckled.
He hit the floor hard, breath rasping.
He couldn’t move.
He couldn’t breathe.
“Leo!”
“Shell—Leo?!”
“Someone get Sensei!”
The infection had spread fast.
A cracked shell and an untreated internal injury—Donnie’s voice was tight with anger as he explained it, mostly at himself for not checking sooner. Splinter was grim and quiet, his hand on Leo’s clammy forehead, his worry unspoken but heavy in the air.
Leonardo was unconscious for most of it.
When he finally woke, it was to the quiet beeping of one of Donnie’s cobbled-together monitors and the dim light of his brothers sitting nearby.
Raph was pacing. Mikey was asleep in a beanbag. Donnie was reading a chart and muttering something about antibiotics.
“...Sorry,” Leo rasped.
Three heads snapped toward him.
“You idiot!” Raph snapped first, storming over. “What the hell were you thinking, hiding that?!”
Leo flinched. “I… I had to—”
“No, you didn’t,” Donnie said, standing beside the bed. “You had to tell us.”
“But I’m the leader,” Leo whispered, eyes closing. “I have to protect you…”
Mikey moved closer, for once not smiling. “Not alone, bro.”
There was a long silence.
Then a sigh. Splinter stepped into the room and rested a hand on Leo’s arm.
“Even the strongest tree will fall if it never bends in the storm,” he said softly.
Leo opened his eyes again, and this time, he let the tears fall.
He didn’t need to be the unbreakable leader. Not all the time.
His brothers would catch him when he fell.