Chapter Text
April really, really hates the cold.
Sure, there’s many ways to warm up through layering clothes and gloves and beanies or toboggans or whatever other names exist for the hats covering everyone’s head when winter comes, but April still hates it. The gloves are never warm enough, the hats never snug enough, and she can’t seem to make her winter jacket look cute while staying warm. And, if it just so happens she finds all the specific clothing that fits her specific needs just right… then the mix of fabrics and the freezing zipper under her chin and the velcro lining her wrists thanks to the adjustable gloves she has… well, let’s just say that’d be even worse, somehow.
That’s not even mentioning how restrictive winter clothing can be. For a kunoichi, that can mean a painful death. She needs to be limber! She needs a full range of motion! If she can’t do the splits, it’s a no. She’s come so far in her training, but not enough to fight in full winter gear.
So April really, really hates the cold.
Having a thin jacket with thin leather gloves on in the middle of New York winter while riding on a bike down the street in the freezing twilight is making her hate the cold much more.
And it’s not even snowing. What is the point of cold weather if there’s no snow?!
She curls her arms tighter around the boy cycling her home, grumbling to herself and hoping he doesn’t get the wrong idea with her arms around his torso. Sue her for maybe accidentally giving him hope there’s something more. She’s cold and he’s super warm underneath his many layers and stupid beanie over his stupid headband bandana thing. If he does get the wrong idea, she’ll scold him in school tomorrow. A future problem for a future, hopefully warm, April.
Casey, thankfully, doesn’t so much as bat an eye at her increased pressure or how she buries half her face into the back of his shoulder blade. He keeps cycling, lets the wheels spin without his pedaling for a turn left, and then moves the bike forward.
“I bet my lips are blue,” April grumbles into the night air, half muffled by the hoodie beneath her. “Or that my ears will fall off.”
“We’ll put them in ice, then,” Casey tells her. It makes her wonder if he heard her correctly. “Put’em in some ice, take you back to Donnie, and sew them back on!”
April huffs. “So I’ll have dead skin sewn back onto my head? Great. Maybe my headband will cover the discoloration of my frozen ears.”
Casey barks a laugh, his shoulders jumping suddenly and nearly taking out her nose. She jerks away from his back, glaring at the back of his head for making her move away from his warmth. Rude!
“You know, you’d make the look a new fashion trend, but the ears wouldn’t be dead if we get them on fast enough,” he informs her, half teasing and half serious. “It’s something about the ice, keeps them fresh.”
“That’s morbid.” April leans as far away as she dares from Casey’s back (barely an inch). “Why do you know that? How do you know that?”
That is not common knowledge. April would know. She’s pretty school smart and has learned a lot of street smarts from the turtle guys they just left behind after helping out for a split patrol. Turns out mutant reptiles also don’t do well in freezing weather and Leo thought another pair of hands or two would make the patrol quicker.
It did, but at what cost? April’s fingers, ears, lips, nose, and toes. That’s the cost.
And apparently her sanity as well since Casey is full of a variety of fun facts tonight. Yay her. She’s thrilled. Really.
The boy in question smirks under her concern and risks a glance over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised. “I just do,” he answers cryptically.
She blinks at him. April thinks she hates him. Not more than the cold, but she hates him enough to try to pinch his side. It’s unsuccessful because of her gloves, so instead her eyes roll far back into her head before she leans back into his hoodie again.
“The hotheaded vigilante that I’ve known for a few months knows how to preserve flesh,” April laments, trying to keep the smile that’s surely forming on her face from coming across in her words. “The one that knows where I live. That one. That’s probably a cannibal now that I think about it.”
Casey laughs again and she fights not to follow along. “Cannibal?” he questions. “Not murderer?”
“Why would a murderer need to preserve the dead, Casey?”
She feels him shrug after a small pause. “Fair, but now I gotta ask why do you know so much about murderers, Red?”
That actually gets a laugh out of her. “One, I’m a girl and girls like murder documentaries.”
“Sure.”
“And two,” she continues, “I’m around five teenaged boys all the time. Murder is a constant thought.”
Casey hums thoughtfully, like he’s turning her reasoning around in his mind. “But you’ll make an exception from your murderous plans for one guy because he bikes you home in the dead of night, right?”
“You’re also my heat pack right now.”
He snorts, starting to slow as he turns onto her street. “Good to know.”
As they come up to her aunt’s thrift store, she lets herself relish in his warmth for the few extra seconds she has before he stops completely. It’s below freezing tonight and she really should’ve put something better on — something heavier. It was just patrol but… she didn’t want to risk it.
The bike comes to an abrupt stop. She doesn’t mention it, braces herself for the windchill about to hit her, then hops off the bike. April looks up to her apartment and frowns at the light shining through her dad’s sheer curtains.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” she mutters, crossing her arms around her torso.
Her dad hasn’t been… ecstatic about her newfound friendship with the turtles. He likes them enough considering they’re constantly saving his life but that likability the turtles have grows dimmer every time April’s put in harm’s way or out way too late at night.
And something tells her that using the excuse “I was out so late with Casey” (read: I was out so late with a boy) would be even worse than telling him the truth. So that’s what she’ll have to go with. That she was out with the turtles.
Suddenly, the cold stings a bit less. Another minute outside wouldn’t kill her, would it?
Behind her, the bike shifts as Casey does. She hears it.
“Your dad still, uh, not a fan of the turtles?”
April sighs and shakes her head, slowly turning to face him. “It’s not that,” she says, because it’s truly not. “He likes them. He just doesn’t like that I do more than hang out with them.” She takes a breath. “That I’m a kunoichi.”
Casey blinks at her, shuffling awkwardly. “Ah, yeah. That sucks,” he replies as eloquently as possible.
Right.
Boys.
Emotionally unintelligent boys. The ones that never talk about her feelings. That’s all she’s ever surrounded by and sometimes it’s so annoying.
“He’ll come around,” the boy in front of her tries, rubbing the back of his neck. “I mean, the guys have done so much. And we keep you as safe as we can, you know?”
Okay, maybe they’re a little less annoying when they try to be emotionally intelligent, something reserved just for her. It’s not a great attempt but it is sweet. April gives Casey a small smile for it.
“I know,” she tells him, because she does. Her smile falls. “He’s just worried about when you guys won’t be able to. I’m all he’s got and recent events have made that very clear to him.”
Casey looks straight at her, face surprisingly serious. But his voice comes out soft (or as soft as he’ll let it be) when he says, “We’re all we got, Red.”
“Right.” She gives him a smile. “That’s right. Maybe we could get him to see Master Splinter again. Remind him that he has me and more.”
Something flickers across Casey’s face before he gives her a big smile. She wonders, briefly, what it’s about. She’s not able to ask.
“Sounds like a plan! He’ll be back to loving the Hamato’s, as long as we keep Mikey from giving him jellybean pizza.”
April fake gags at the mention. “Don’t remind me,” she groans, shivering as the wind blows viciously once again. She frowns at it. “You should get home. It’s late and cold. And I bet your dad would be worried too, if he caught you out this late.”
And we have school tomorrow morning, she fails to mention. It’s something she’d care about. It’s something Casey would laugh at. Since when has school ever mattered when it’s come to seeing their guys?
Casey huffs a laugh and pulls the hood of his hoodie over his head, including his ratty old beanie. “Nah, my old man isn’t like yours. Plus, I’m Casey Jones.” He winks at her. “I don't get caught.”
The wind blows once more.
I wish my dad was like that. I wish my dad let me be free.
The thought hits her before she can even stop it. It’s not fair to her dad. It’s not. He’s done so much for her and been through so much for her. It’s understandable why he hovers like she’ll go out one day and never come home. It’s reasonable. It’s the life she leads now and never should have to lead, but the one she chooses.
She doesn’t want anyone else to be like her from a year ago — helpless, at the Kraang’s mercy, with no one looking for her or her father (except for a purple banded turtle, it turned out. not everyone would be as lucky).
However, sometimes she wishes her dad would be less of a helicopter parent. That he would trust her and her abilities. That he would trust her judgement in the company she keeps. That he would let her save people, that he would understand—
Some of that is just the teenager in her. Some of that is a reasonable request, in April’s opinion.
And here’s Casey with his unlimited freedom. She wants that. She wishes she had it. It’s not what she has, though, and she’s learned to live with it… mostly.
“You’re lucky,” April tells him. She believes it’s true.
It must be exhilarating to do anything at any time. He must feel so free.
Casey, humble as always when it comes to a real compliment, shrugs and looks away with his smile still plastered to his face. “Sure,” he agrees easily with a wave of a hand. “But you are too.”
April hums and echoes him. “Sure.”
She can be pretty lucky too, she supposes.
“Get inside, O’Neil,” Casey says, pointing a finger at her as he readies for take off. “Can’t leave a woman outside this late without company and I am starting to freeze my tail off.”
Why that—
“I can take care of myself!” April snaps, enjoying the way Casey jumps at her tone. Regardless, she starts to walk backwards. “I’m a capable kunoichi, Jones!”
“And I’m just a worried gentleman,” Casey calls, laughing when April scowls harder because Casey Jones is anything but a gentleman. “Goodnight, Red! See you in the morning!”
In lieu of an actual answer, April flips Casey off. It feels like the perfect way to end her day.
Her back bumps the door and she turns around once again, opening the apartment building. Once she’s inside, she looks out the window for Casey, but he’s already gone.
“I’m just a worried gentleman,” April mocks under her breath as she rubs her hands together. “And I’m a twelve foot tall purple platypus bear.” She glares up at the many stairs ahead of her. “With wings.”
She grumbles under her breath the entire way up the stairs, wondering why she puts up with the likes of Casey Jones when he’s the most annoying person in the world. By the time she reaches her floor, her lips are back to their perfect pink from all her mutterings.
At least he takes the time to pay her back with rides to and from school, or even the sewers if he happens to bring his bike instead of his skates. And it is nice of him to walk her home whenever he doesn’t have his bike, but that unfortunately means he skates circles around her the entire way home so, really, is it a win?
If only he finally got the hint he was only a friend. That’d make him ten times more bearable.
Then again, the flirting had turned more playful the last two weeks, so maybe it had sunk in and she was reading too far into things. She did have a habit of doing that.
Her hand hovers over the doorknob to her apartment, keys already having been absentmindedly inserted. She silently steels herself for her newest mission: get into her room without being seen by her father. Again, she’s a kunoichi and she takes much pride in that fact. It should be easy to get past her living room, kitchen, and her father’s door.
It is not.
This lecture lasts a bit longer than the last. At this rate, she may have to start sneaking in like the boys do when they come over. She may have to start leaving her window unlocked. That’s annoying and somewhat unsafe, but surely it’d be better than this.
Once she’s able to escape to her room, she does so. Her tongue is sour with the taste of empty promises that she spewed under the face of her father’s pressure.
April knows she’ll go back out again. Maybe a year ago she wouldn’t. A year ago, she’d have gawked at the thought of being a vigilante since that is basically what she is now. Who knows how many laws she’s broken and gotten good at breaking. It’s uncountable.
But that April is gone. That April can’t return. She doesn’t want her to. This new April, the April she’s become, has five brothers and one mentor and one father. She can’t give that up. She can’t let them go out without her. She tried that a few months ago, when anger consumed her more than the love she had for them did.
It was a miserable time.
She sighs against the back of her door, slowly peeling off her gloves. This would be much easier with the freedom Casey has.
If only.