Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Maybe Raph should’ve been taking this time to appreciate the sights that circled the city. He hadn’t had the chance to on the way out. They’d all been crammed in the back of Mr. O’Neil’s crappy van, April shouting out directions as they frantically applied pressure to Splinter’s wounds, Mikey crying loud enough that Donnie couldn’t hear their father’s heartbeat for a few scary minutes. It was pretty shitty, but during that in-between moment where they didn’t know if they were orphans or not, all Raph could think about was if there was already a shovel at the farmhouse or if they’d have to go into town to buy one. 

So yeah. Raph hadn’t been very mindful of the views during his first time out of his hometown. Then again, he hadn’t been mindful of a ton recently. That was the deal with being the family idiot, after all. He hit first, answered questions later, and argued with anyone who stood in his way. He used to think he was the first line of defense against dumbass ideas, but then he’d been culpable in losing his brother in an entirely preventable tragedy, so fuck him, he guessed. 

He let out a breath. Water over stone. 

On the other side of the Party Wagon’s windows, the countryside gradually transformed into something of concrete and metal. That was what he’d miss most about the outside world – all that nature. The first time Mikey had seen a tree that wasn’t restricted to a five-by-five planter in a run-down park, he’d nearly fainted. It’d been funny as hell, and now the memory just left his chest tight, because he knew that Leo should’ve been chuckling at their little brother with him. 

It should’ve gotten old, that sinking feeling in his gut whenever he thought about Leo. But if nothing else, Raph knew that his brain was stupid as hell and refused to do what was expected of it. So like clockwork, he could anticipate the pang in his stomach just moments before it hit. Sometimes it was triggered by something external, like a particularly corny joke in one of Mikey’s cartoons or the smell of burning toast coming from the kitchen. But most of the time, Raph’s thoughts naturally neared toward the missing piece in their living room. 

Your brother is probably dead, he thought, the same way as he had every day for the last four months, and you have no idea what happened to him. 

They’d never been separated before. For the first fifteen years of their life, they’d remained within the same four walls, only ever distanced by more than a few yards if they all mutually agreed to restrict themselves to opposite corners of the lair. That never worked for long, though. It usually ended up with Mikey forgetting that they wanted space, or through Raph deciding that being alone was boring and stupid. 

Even once they were allowed topside, they’d only ever been by themselves for a few hours at most. Last year, Donnie accidentally fell asleep at April’s place while helping her out with a chem project, and Leo had lost his shit trying to find him. As much as the goober pretended that he was just doing his leaderly duty, they’d all seen the way his face had lit up once Donnie had finally come home. 

But in the farmhouse, they were three of four. Raph couldn’t count the amount of times he’d instinctively turned to lodge a complaint that he knew would bug the scales off of Leo, only for there to be this giant gap in the shape of his brother. Casey ate double breakfasts for six weeks straight just to keep Mikey’s spirits up before the sight of scrambled eggs started making him sick. 

They didn’t work without Leo. It turned out, Raph and Donnie had this fucking fantastic ability to disagree over every little thing imaginable, from the katas they trained with to the air freshener in the van, yet neither of them could muster the energy to put their foot down when Mikey coped with the loss in increasingly reckless ways. Their little brother was convinced that Leo’s soul would be able to sense if they were in extreme levels of danger, and had taken to throwing himself in every situation that he came across. 

Raph didn’t have the heart to tell him that maybe the silence was more telling than any of them were willing to admit. He wished he could go back in time and shake his dumbass self whenever he got into a stupid argument with him. You need him! he’d say, and probably slap him because goddamn, was he dense. He’s your brother and you sort of hate him but you love him more! Get over yourself! 

Without meaning to, he bit down on the inside of his cheek, hard. Chances were, he was never going to get the chance to sit Leo down and apologize to him for arguing when the world was ending and for lashing out at every turn and for leaving him behind, because fuck, he’d left him behind. The others had looked from Splinter’s borderline corpse to him, the unspoken title of leadership hanging over him like a noose, and all he’d managed to think was, I’m not strong enough to bury two bodies. 

He still wasn’t. Problem was, with the decision he’d made, he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to find anything left to put in the coffin. 

“How long we got left?” Raph murmured, careful to keep his voice low. Almost all the others were dozing in the back with him. Almost, he said, because Mikey was completely conked out on Raph’s shoulder and Casey had taken over driving the last half of the trek about twelve miles back. 

His friend didn’t take his eyes off the road. “Couple of hours. Less if I push the speed limit, but I’m not sure if the cops out here are gonna be already Kraangified or, you know. Just regular fucking pigs.” 

Made sense. Raph nodded even though Casey couldn’t see from his angle and rested his head against the sliding door. Then, without even realizing he wanted to ask the question before it was slipping out of his lips, he said, “You think he’s still alive?” 

He regretted it as soon as he heard it. The friendship between him and Casey was male bonding at its finest; stabbing shit when they were angry, punching shit when they were sad, and making up whatever shit they needed to pretend that they weren’t scared at all. If Raph wanted some deep introspective conversation, he’d be better off with Mikey or April. Maybe even Splinter, if he was willing to deal with a proverb or two before they got to the real root of the problem. 

But Casey didn’t sigh or roll his eyes or flat-out ignore the issue. He just drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, this nervous tick that had peaked full-force during that stupid road race he and Donnie had gotten themselves wrapped up in, and frowned. A silent moment later, Raph realized that, against all odds, Casey Jones was pondering. 

After a minute, he pressed his lips together and said, “Yeah. I think he is.” 

Raph didn’t say anything, waiting for more. Then he recalled that while Casey was a pretty emotionally-conscious dude, he was also still a dumbass and probably planning to leave it at that. “You do?” 

“Yep. Leo’s strong. He’s a fighter, through and through. He found a way to survive, even if he had to grab at it with his bare fucking hands.” They passed a sign that warned of wildlife crossings. Casey gunned it, one hand casually flipping off the poster with his free hand, and Raph remembered that, oh right, Casey didn’t believe in deer. 

It was all the right words that were supposed to leave Raph with hope and newfound energy for their coming battle, but he couldn’t gather his own spirits. He just shifted on the floor of the van and asked, “How are you so sure?” 

“Because as much of a by-the-book tightass that guy is, I know he’d tear through any obstacle that made the mistake of fucking with him if it meant getting back to you guys.” 

“You’re – You’re right.” Despite himself, a smile crept along his face as he pictured Leo cutting down hordes of Foot Bots just in time to make it to dinner. “You’re a good man, Jones. Thanks.” 

“Don’t mention it.”

For a city that never slept, New York was fucking dead. 

Not dead like – like bodies lining the streets, which was probably a much worse possibility, all things considered. Dead in the way that the only movement any of them caught as they crept down the barren roads was the flashing of neon sides advertising shops whose windows had long since been smashed in. It felt like one of Mikey’s crappy horror movies, the idiot protagonists bumbling into a jumpscare-ridden ghost town. 

April could only sense a few hundred minds, a far cry from the sky high population they should’ve been dealing with. It was quickly chalked up by Donnie to be a side effect of the mind control devices they’d seen on the guards by the gates, but Raph wasn’t so sure. Conquerors didn’t exactly need survivors. 

If they got out of this, Raph was gonna have to find some sort of online therapist, ‘cause even he knew that it wasn’t normal for him to be thinking about death this much. 

“The manhole on Sixth is comin’ up,” Casey said over his shoulder as they drove so slowly that they should’ve been in bumper-to-bumper traffic. “Am I pulling over there?” 

“Yeah,” Raph said, just a heartbeat before Donnie shook his head. “Fuck you mean, Dork-atello?” 

His brother glared at him, a sight Raph had become unendingly familiar with over the last few months. At this point, the squabbles between the two of them were going to give Leo a run for his money. If – If he still had money. If he wasn’t dead. Fuck. Raph had to stop doing that. 

“Not sure if you remember, Raph , but the Kraang know where we live. It’s sort of what prompted their full scale invasion.” Beside him, April stiffened. She turned to look out through the window, and it was a testament to how caught up Donnie was in his own bullshit that he didn’t immediately backtrack to comfort her. “There’s no way we go back to the lair and make it out alive. They had to have put some sort of trap there.” 

“Leo might be there.” 

Donnie rolled his eyes. “He’s probably not.” 

In a flash, Raph was standing best he could in the cramped back of the van. He lurched for Donnie, only barely held back by a pair of hands tugging him by the bicep. “Don’t say that!” 

The edge in his glare vanished. Donnie didn’t flinch back, but he did bring his hands up. Don’t shoot. “I didn’t mean it like that! I just – It just – Even if he did make it back home, he probably – had to leave, sooner or later. It’d be stupid of the Kraang not to have constant sweeps back there.” 

“But they are stupid,” Mikey mumbled. 

“I’m about to pass the manhole,” Casey hollered. “Am I stopping or not?” 

Raph didn’t let Donnie get a word out. “Yes.” End of discussion. 

As soon as the Party Wagon’s wheels stopped spinning, Raph was out of there. Yanking the cover off was second nature, the same way most people easily slipped a key into their front door. He didn’t check if anyone was following him before taking the ladder down into the sewers. There was some soft splashing behind him, right before the telltale sound of Casey suppressing his instinctual gag at the smell the rest of them had all grown used to, so he supposed that the rest of them found their way alright. 

As much as Donnie bitched about it, Raph was careful, alright? He didn’t just mindlessly stomp forward, a man on a mission. He scanned his surroundings, one hand on the pocket with his shuriken, the other wrapped around his sai. To be fair, though, he didn’t do much to quiet his own footsteps. If Leo was close, he wanted him to be able to hear him. And if someone other than Leo was nearby, then it wouldn’t be terrible to get some extra training in. 

Right before they made it to the turnstiles Raph had leapt over more times than he could count, he was stopped by a palm on his shoulder. It was only because he could tell the difference between his brothers’ blocky hands that he didn’t rear around to punch the owner right where the sun didn’t shine. 

Already growling under his breath, he turned with a barely quieted sigh. “Sensei, what – ” 

His father raised a finger to his own lips. The unspoken was obvious. Shush. 

Raph felt the top of his mask dip down, brow furrowing. It wasn’t until he picked up on the voices echoing from inside the lair that he realized what Splinter’s more powerful hearing must have noticed. Behind them, the others had their lips pressed shut, weapons at the ready. They could storm their lair in an instant. 

But Raph lifted up his closed fist, the same way that Leo had done dozens of times in the past. He was always trying to make up sets of signals for them all to use, and the rest of them had done their absolute best in ignoring this, but some of them had stuck around despite their best efforts. 

It’d be the type of irony from one of Leo’s nerd shows if they burst in, blades and barbs hefted high, only to find the dumbass half-buried in the fridge. Come to think of it, that actually might’ve been a plotline from one of the sitcom episodes Raph had caught glimpses of as a child. It would be cliché and boring as hell, but after barely making it out of a goddamn alien invasion, Raph wouldn’t hate boring. 

But it wasn’t sounds of Leo coming from the lair. It was creaking metal, ragged pants, and the tussling of two larger than life beings. 

“Shut yer gillweed mouth!” Rahzar roared, right as a heavy weight smashed into a sheet of glass. Raph ran through the few breakables they owned; must’ve either been the pinball machine or some of Splinter’s pictures. From the way Mikey nearly fell to his knees, it was probably the former. He made to throw himself forward, only halted by April and Casey frantically pulling him back. 

“Are you done throwing your temper tantrum, Bradford?” A lighter tone, almost humorous if it didn’t have that rolling accent that Raph knew to belong to Fishface. “If so, I’m sure that I can rustle up a jerky stick from somewhere around here.” 

There was this wordless snarl, almost definitely from their resident mutt, that was just met with another laugh. “Disloyal idiot,” was all Raph managed to make of Rahzar’s rumbles. “If you think I won’t tell Master Shredder about this, yer more of a bottom-feeder than I’d thought.” 

This time, it was Splinter who leaned forward. Raph saw the way that his grip tightened around the top of his staff. That was the awful thing about those two. The Shredder was willing to burn down the entire world if only to spite Splinter, and Splinter’s whole world always whittled down to quelling the flames. 

“Listen, why don’t you? After what he did to the turtle, you think he’s going to stop?” 

Turtle. Leo. It had to be. Splinter had said that there’d been a sea of Foot Soldiers slumped on the ground by the time the Shredder had struck the final blow. Someone who could deal that much damage in that much time wasn’t just going to be finished with a slit throat. Besides, the dickhead duo wouldn’t be so freaked if the Shredder had just killed one of their adversaries. 

“He exterminated an enemy of the Foot.” 

“He broke that boy and you know it!” 

“Bah,” Rahzar grumbled. “You’re just upset you didn’t win the bet.” 

“This is about more than my pride, you fool. If he was willing to do what he did to that turtle, what’s to stop him from doing the same to us the instant we falter?” 

“Then don’t slip up.” 

Fishface laughed, this disbelieving huff that was such a far cry from his teasing earlier that it nearly gave Raph whiplash. “As if it’s that simple.” 

“It is. You do as the master says, you never question orders, and you definitely don’t go around spreading treason!” 

“He views that boy as an animal!” Fishface yelled. “Enemy or not, he is as human as we are, and the Shredder doesn’t care. How can you not see it? We are his pets to break and buy as he pleases. He will kill us in his pursuit of a vendetta from a bygone era!” 

“Loyalty is rewarded. We’ll be fine if we stay true.” 

“Loyalty is crammed down our throats. It is only a matter of time before he decides he’d rather prefer a fleet of attack dogs than a soldier’s armada.” 

“Then you better earn a place by his side, collar or not.” 

There was a pregnant pause. Raph took a second to glance behind him, and he was met with a quartet of wide-eyed jaw drops. By the time Fishface found his voice again, Raph had almost thought he’d left. “You truly enjoy serving him.” 

The words were one-note. Final. A conclusion long in the making but no less easier to push out. And all Raph could think was, Villains aren’t supposed to act like this. They aren’t supposed to be sad. 

“Don’t you?” 

He sighed, and it hit Raph like a truck that at the end of the day, this was a man named Xever. “I’m a giant fish, my friend. I don’t exactly have my pick of a career path.” 

If there was a time to strike, it was now. The two had fallen into a tense silence, no longer breaking Raph’s home in their anger. But Raph was reeling from the overload of information that’d been dumped on him, and he had no idea how his family was dealing with it all. What did that mean, that they’d broken Leo? Splinter had said that he didn’t look to be in great shape at the end of the fight, which was saying something, given that Splinter had fallen into a weeks-long coma after his own grapple. 

So when two sets of footsteps began to near them, Raph motioned for his family to stay still. Rahzar left through the opposite exit first, stiffing the air once before stomping off. Raph would’ve been concerned if he didn’t know for a fact that the rank smell of the sewers blocked out just about everything else that made it down here. Fishface followed him right after, though he was careful to keep his partner in eyeshot as the two of them left, not a word spoken between either of them. 

After they’d long since faded from earshot, Raph felt himself almost bowl over as Mikey tackled him in a hug. Six months ago, the little shit would’ve been shoved off before he knew it. But in the absence of their oldest brother, Mikey’d gotten clingier and clingier, and Raph didn’t have it in him to turn him down. 

“He has Leo,” Mikey hiccuped, tears threatening to roll down those baby fat cheeks. “He took him. He hurt him.” 

“Yeah,” Raph said, because how the fuck else was he supposed to respond to that? An elbow struck him in the ribs, quickly batted off by his free hand. “But that’s not the important part. Didn’t you hear them? He’s alive, man.” 

Because as much as the Shredder hated their family, blazing any scrap of happiness he came across, whatever he’d done to Leo was reversible. Leo was strong. Leo was a fighter. They could fix up any broken bones ol’ Shred Head might’ve given him, so long as he was alive alive alive. Raph’s brother was alive alive alive. 

Donnie pressed forward, some metal rectangle with a long antenna in hand. As he swept it from one side of the lair to the other, he said over his shoulder, “Those two were probably wrapping up a routine inspection. There’s a good chance another patrol is incoming, so we should get in and out of here fast.” 

“First good idea you’ve had all day,” Raph muttered. If he squinted, he could pretend that the reactionary huff came from a brother in blue, rather than a cooler color. 

Mikey lit up. He sprinted out of Raph’s arms, knocking into Donnie hard enough that he fumbled the weird machine as he hurled himself over the turnstiles. “I’ll get Leo’s nerd stuff!” 

“Wait,” Donnie tried, but Mikey was already a long-gone orange blur in the distance. He threw his hands up. “Fine! Trip a landmine, blow us all up! Not like I spent four days developing a signal that works on transuniversal technology for nothing.” 

Splinter drifted toward the kitchen, every bit of the borderline ghost he’d been since waking up to a family snugger than it should have been. “I should have some nonperishables stocked in the back.” 

“Help him out?” Raph mumbled to Casey, who was sort of awkwardly shifting his weight from one foot to another. It wasn’t like he had much here anyway, and the last thing they needed was for the old man to return with a year’s supply of cheesicles. “We’ll take anything we can carry in one trip.” 

His friend nodded and made to follow him. April frowned a bit, and Raph could see her carefully picking through her options before she gestured vaguely toward the dojo. “I’ll get some of his pictures. See if there are any boxes lying around here or something.” 

“Grab something of Mikey’s, if you can find anything small enough. Big dummy won’t remember to take anything that isn’t Leo’s until we’re halfway into Queens, and then he’ll end up crying until we come back.” 

She just smiled, this look in her eyes that spoke of her catching him exactly on his bullshit. Whether it was from her freaky psychic powers or just, like, the aura of April O’Neil, he wasn’t sure. “Sure thing.” 

“Appreciate it.” Raph turned to check for their stash of spare cash they kept, ironically enough, under the couch cushions, but he paused at the sight of Donnie hauling ass back toward the manhole they’d come through. “Jeez, missing Casey’s Slim Jim jumbo pack much? Don’t think that the van’s gonna drive itself away.” 

His brother didn’t even look back, just patting the duffle he had slung over one shoulder. “I got my go-bag. Everything else here is replaceable.” 

“Everything else here is replaceable,” Raph muttered under his breath. There was the slightest hitch to Donnie’s steps that spoke to him hearing the jab, but he didn’t comment on it. Raph rolled his eyes. “Fucking robot.” 

They may have had a roof over their heads back in the countryside, but they sure as hell didn’t get by fine. Raph could count the amount of times Sensei had spoken on one hand – on one human hand, at least – and their butchered attempts at physical therapy were laughable at best. Each of them were a bona fide mess, only held together by scotch tape and the heart-in-chest desire to get back to their old lives. 

It made him pissed like nothing else when Donnie would try to brush off the tar in their throats. Their injuries could’ve been much less treatable, after all. They were lucky that the O’Neils had a second property outside from the frontlines. When it came down to it, the invasion could’ve been much worse. 

Then Raph would remind him that while they might have remembered to bring their phone chargers, they lost their fucking brother, and then it’d get all awkward and quiet for a while. Yet no matter how thick the air got, Donnie always found the strength to open his big mouth again. It’d be heroic if it wasn’t so damn annoying. 

The money was where he thought it was, but way lower than he figured. Then again, Leo did always make a habit of tucking a few bills into Casey or April’s wallet when they weren’t looking. It all evened out, since the two made a habit of bringing by food or extra linens. Come to think of it, Raph should probably grab a couple blankets. They hadn’t thought to take any from the farmhouse until they were too far gone to go back. 

Raph was debating between the tattered quilt Splinter used to bundle around the four of them when they were so small Raph surprised himself by recognizing it or the thick duvet April’s aunt had spilled wine on when he heard a wheezy sob from down the hall. It wasn’t exactly rocket science to figure out who was making a fuss in there, even before Raph pushed open Leo’s door. 

“You don’t drink enough water to cry this much,” he warned, because at this point, it was on its way to becoming a health risk, and thinking about dehydration was easier than thinking about how lifeless the room was. “You’re gonna end up passed out again ‘cause you think Sprite and spite is enough to keep you going.” 

Mikey didn’t bite, which was one of the first things to set off the alarm bells in Raph’s head. He just doubled over, half-filled grocery bag in his arms, already kneeling, and made this sickly keening noise. “His stuff’s gone.” 

He sat down next to him, open arms. Mikey leaned into the sideways hug as soon as it was offered. “Dumbass. What are you talking about? Leo’s shit’s right here.” Raph nodded to the dork memorabilia lining the walls. “That ugly poster he snatched April’s hair dryer to fix up after he found it half-drowned, way more Cabbage Patch Kids than anyone should own, even his stash of sour strips he thinks we don’t know about.” 

“But his headphones aren’t! Or his Captain Ryan action figure or his pillow!” 

A quick glance confirmed this. There were awkward spaces on some of the shelves. Weirdly enough, the emptiness was deliberate; an off-center gap in a line of comics, a missing piece in an otherwise complete set of sword maintenance equipment. Things had been taken, and they hadn’t been random. 

“Maybe,” he tried, even though he didn’t believe his own words for a second, “Leo made it back and took his favorite stuff.” 

“He would’ve tried to find us first. He likes us better than stuff,” Mikey grumbled, but his tears had tapered off. 

“Yeah, he does. So we better find him quick and remind him of how awesome we are before he gets pissed that Casey tipped over his bonsai tree.” 

Mikey’s jaw dropped. “Bro didn’t.” 

Raph hiked a thumb over his shoulder. “Only one way to find out.” 

He scrambled to get to his feet, but he hesitated with one hand hovering over the bag’s strap. There was still space to be seen at the top. Mikey worried his lip as his gaze flickered around the room. Raph understood the sentiment; in the grand scheme of things, they knew fuckall about what Leo’d want once they got him back. Raph hadn’t been lying, though – at the end of the day, he was sure that Leo would much rather be with them again than within reach of his geek books. 

So he grabbed the tote before Mikey could beat his own thoughts, a foe that he’d give anything not to tangle with. “Go get some of your own crap before April fills your bag with squirrel feed and vegetable seeds. I’ll take this back to the Party Wagon.” 

His brother laughed, this lighter than air sound that hadn’t changed since they first turned double digits. He was so little, even though they were all the same age. It never failed to amaze Raph how they could be fucked five ways to Sunday, and still Mikey would answer the call of danger with a giggle and probably a water balloon. 

He’d never tell Mikey this, of course. Because for as much as Mikey was the fun one and Donnie was the smart one and Leo was the good one, Raph was the angry one. It was written in his bones until the only way he knew how to show love was to wrap it thrice around his knuckles as he shoved his way through problems. 

If he’d had been snatched instead of Leo, he was sure that he would’ve gotten home within the day. Leo would’ve fought tooth and nail for even the smallest chance at the slightest possibility of reuniting their family, while Raph turned tail before the going really got tough. Because Leo was Leo, and Raph was stuck being – being not-Leo. 

Leo’s love was persistent reminders about checking their gear and long-suffering sighs even as he gave into their whines. It was protecting and preserving, and it got the job done. Raph couldn’t be that. He couldn’t plan to ensure that they reached tomorrow. But he could fight like hell to get Leo back, and duct tape any frayed ends until things were okay-enough again. 

Mikey smiled. “Thanks, dude. You’re a real one.” 

If Leo was here, he’d make some sort of heavy handed reference to a Captain Ryan line. Just doing my deep-space duty, citizen. Rest assured that your fate is secure in blah blah space pun. 

Raph just shrugged. “Don’t mention it.” 

“Tell Ice Cream Kitty I miss her and I love her and she’s perfect in every way!” 

He made for the van, intending to do absolutely none of that. “You saw her half an hour ago.” 

“She needs constant reassurance!” 

Goddamn idiots, every last one of them. 

When they were kids, Mikey used to keep them all up for hours, crying that there was a monster under his bed, which was fucking stupid since if anything, they were the monsters spooking normal children. But in a sort of precursor to what would come, they’d all risen to the challenge. Leo had staked out the spot while Donnie’d absolutely covered Raph head to toe in bubble wrap, and then they sent him on an expedition for the ages. 

Where they’d promptly realized that Mikey’s mattress had become infested with a family of cockroaches, and Raph had lost his shit in every way possible. 

It’d started this godawful chain reaction. Raph had started screaming in panic, which set off Mikey, who’d freak out over everything and anything if given enough of a reason. The duet had spooked Donnie into bursting into frightened tears solely from the sudden sound, and by the time Splinter stumbled in from his own room, all four of his sons were sobbing. He’d brought them all close, running his hand up and down their shells in that way he’d done since before they could remember, and they’d calmed. 

Except Leo. For the life of him, Raph couldn’t remember what it’d been to trigger him. Maybe the loudness of it all, like Donnie, or maybe just the potent strength of all of his brothers in this one epic, if stupid, moment of fear. But he’d ripped himself out of the hug and tore across the room, diving for the mattress with all the power in his little limbs. Then he’d squashed each and every last bug, even as the three of them shrieked at the sight. 

When it was all done, Raph had refused to get near Leo until Splinter spent two hours disinfecting him. Then he’d hugged him so tight that when he really thought about it, years later, he could still feel it in his bones. 

Raph stopped right in front of the ladder. In front of the lowest rung was a roach, a skittering thing that stilled for the briefest moment. Nausea lurched in his stomach, but the knee-jerk terror didn’t rise. If anything, his breath was held not because he feared losing his lunch, but because some fucking stupid part of him half-hoped that Leo would dart out and smash the damn thing. 

The roach ran away. Leo didn’t run up. 

Goddamn idiots, even him. 

There was a tense muttering in the air when Raph made it topside. He picked up on it even as the manhole was dragged back to its rightful spot with a dull scraping sound. It got clearer as he neared the Party Wagon. 

“ – bandages, antiseptic – shit, that’s empty. Why didn’t I  – ugh. Hydrocortisone? Maybe where my backup batteries are…” Before Raph could tease him for the nerd monologue definitely picked up from a certain show, Donnie growled and hurled something from his belt. “Fucking dead. Shit, fuck, fuck – fuck!” 

Three solid weights smashed into him, right in the plastron. They were light as fuck, though, and Raph didn’t give them even a second. What he did worry about was the way Donnie clenched his head in his hands, nails scratching deep enough to leave white lines stretched tight across his skin. 

He rushed forward, taking Donnie’s hands in his with a sharp tug. The motion was protested but Raph could deadlift triple each of his brothers’ bodyweight, so it did fuckall. “Woah there, take a chill pill, Dee. You’re the only one who knows how to give stitches, so all you’re doing is giving yourself more work.” 

“Leo knows how to do stitches,” Donnie spat. He yanked his hands back again, to no avail. “Leo knows how to take basic fucking inventory too. He knows that – you don’t – max out – on offense gear!” Each few syllables was punctuated with another pull, but they got less intentional and far rougher as he went on, until he was just thrashing in his own frustration. “Fuck!” 

Raph’s gut twisted. “Tell me what’s wrong so I can fix it.” 

“You can’t. I fucked up. Again! Every – fucking – time! Gah!” In one desperate twist, slightly off-beat from the rest of them, Donnie’s wrists slipped out of the grip. Raph scrambled to catch them again, but Donnie was quick to fling more shit out from his pockets. “Shuriken, EMTs, even extra screws! I brought a whole armory in here but I didn’t think to take any painkillers or closure strips or – or even a thermometer.” 

“We have a med kit in the lair,” he tried.  

Donnie didn’t give any indication that he’d heard.“Four months to prep, and this is what I do with it? I should’ve sewn more space into my belt or fixed up the party wagon sooner. Jeez, if I’d know, I could’ve even attempted to forge a connection to his spirit, so that at least he wouldn’t be alone, but no, I just – ” 

“Hey!” Raph barked. “It’s fine. We’re fine. Leo’s fine, so you have to calm down before you hurt yourself! You’re no help to anyone if you’re too busy bleeding out in the back.” It was curt, but he knew how Donnie operated. Ones and zeroes, strict data that either pushed them toward their goal or strayed them from the path. It was the clearest cut way to voice that he needed to relax. 

And it worked. Donnie huffed again, but he shoved himself away to plant himself on the floor of the van, legs dangled as he drummed his fingers on the open door. After a moment, Raph took a seat next to him. He didn’t say anything, ‘cause he understood anger better than probably anyone else, and he got that most of the time, the words were acidic and aching to split out of a lock-jawed mouth. 

Sure enough, Donnie took in a quick breath and, like a confession, hissed out, “I didn’t think he was alive.” 

Raph had to bite his lip hard not to react to that. Fucking hell. He knew it. Every time that he’d prioritized building a new life for themselves out in Northampton instead of clawing their way back to this one, the emptiness in his gaze when Mikey scribbled down the plots of his Crognard episodes so that Leo could catch up. He’d just been humoring them. He hadn’t thought Leo was strong enough to survive. 

As much as his brother had denied it, Raph had suspected ever since Splinter woke up. Jeez, Donnie’d sworn up and down that he hadn’t given up, and he’d lied. But Raph was right. An ugly, rotten string of words sat on his tongue, only held back by the tears locked in the corner of Donnie’s eyes. 

“Shredder – It would take so much to keep him alive, in terms of the resources. Splinter said he’d wrecked him, so there’d be medical and security issues to keep him there, much less keep his other goons from finishing the job. It just – It doesn’t make sense. It’s not logical. It’s not worth it.” 

“But he’s alive. We know now that he’s alright.” 

“He might not be!” Donnie cradled his own neck in his hands, seeming about five seconds from dipping straight into his shell. “He could be in pain or scared or traumatized for all I know, and I didn’t do a thing to account for it. I spent all my time working on guiding Mikey and Splinter through their grief that I didn’t consider any sort of rehab.” 

Sitting there, slumped spine, Raph’s shell hurt. He’d taken an awkward fall while training by himself a few weeks back, and he hadn’t been able to muster the energy to get Doctor Dee to check up on him, since he knew that he’d be interrupting something far more important at work. 

“You’re not a mindreader,” he managed to say. “None of us are mad that you couldn’t see the future.” 

“I was so tunnel visioned by my own assumptions that I didn’t see much of anything.” 

“I guess,” he said with a shrug. “But you also rebuilt Mr. O’Neil’s van from scraps and seventies vibes. And you got Splinter walking when we weren’t sure if he ever would again. And you gave Mikey shit to do before he went stir crazy.” Raph thought of that too-big house in a too-quiet forest, too-unsure of everything to do anything. “You kept us together until we got back.” 

Donnie wrinkled his nose, already shaking his head. “You kept us together,” he corrected. “I just tinkered in the barn.” 

“It was a joint effort.” Even when they’d been screaming at each other harsh enough to send the woods rumbling, they’d both dropped everything the minute that any of the others had needed them. “Look. Neither of us are Leo enough to be Leo, but I think together, we’re enough to get him back.” 

Donnie glared at his empty palms, this resigned hatred that settled far too comfortable in his gaze. “What about after, when it all goes to shell again?” 

“We’ll deal with it later.” Raph hopped off the van, pulling his brother with them. “Now come on. April left her backpack here and I’m sure she won’t mind a pit stop at the drugstore to fill it up with all sorts of goodies – ” 

He was interrupted by Donnie smacking into him, arms wrapped tight, a cut-off sob in his throat. His little brother buried his head underneath his chin despite his height. On instinct, Raph returned the hug. When Donnie pulled back just a second later, he rubbed his eyes. They were red. “Thanks,” he mumbled. “You’re – a good brother.” 

“I love you.” Donnie blinked, a little surprised, and it made Raph queasier than he’d been in days. “You know that, right?” 

“I do,” he insisted, like a liar. He wouldn’t be holding himself so tightly if this was open information. “I just – I know we haven’t gotten along great recently, and I’m too annoying.” 

“Yeah, you’re annoying.” Donnie deflated, but Raph just pushed forward. “So’s Mikey and Leo and Casey and even April, even though she’s probably the least of all you guys. You’re annoying and I love you. They’re not, like. Separate.” 

“Oh. Right. I – forgot.” 

“Don’t. Or I’ll have to remind you, and that’ll ruin my reputation.” 

Donnie laughed a bit, though it was unshaky enough that it sort of became this off-color wheeze caught in his lungs. “Okay. Okay. Yeah. I love you too, by the way.” 

“I know. I’m awesome.” He slung an arm around him. “Come on. Let’s go get our dumbass brother.”

About halfway through their stay at Northampton, Donnie and Casey had taken the van and taken the freeway headed for New Hampshire for about five days. Only when they were absolutely sure that their location couldn’t be traced back to the farmhouse, Donnie had cracked open the decades-old, absolute brick of a laptop he’d snatched from a Best Buy in Lowell and hacked into the Foot’s database. 

He’d gotten in and out, a program scanning for information about Leo while he downloaded a set of blueprints for the New York base. Once he concluded that there was nothing to find, he’d tossed the device into a ravine and driven back. Even with all the precautions they’d undergone, it was still risky as shell. It’d taken them almost twice as long to come back, with how many offroads they'd insisted on going through. But it was worth it because now, months later, they had a map leading straight to the heart of the beast. 

There was a set of sewer tunnels that didn’t connect to their home. They had to go topside for about half a mile before dipping below again, but once they got there, it was practically a straight shot for Stockman’s lab. The plan was to stake out the place for a max of twenty-four hours. Either they’d use whatever information they found to their advantage or, if none was there, they’d snatch Stockman and beat it out of him theirselves. 

Well, Raph would beat it out of him. Maybe Casey. Probably April. The rest of them were a bit too goody-goody for it. 

The two humans were responsible for getaway and watch, jobs they both protested until they remembered that Raph and his brothers would be spending an entire day crouched in the rafters of one of the most dangerous places in the city. Donnie had spent almost a week back in Massachusetts teaching April the basics of his data-tracking system, so she’d be running twice-hourly checks to confirm that the rest of them hadn’t been spotted by Foot security. Casey, by contrast, was responsible for getting them out when it all inevitably went to shit. 

It was a good plan, all things considered. Probably not whatever Leo would come up with, but between Donnie’s idea of laying in wait until a golden opportunity presented itself and Raph’s impatience to get in and get out ASAP, it wasn’t half bad. The only problem was convincing Splinter of this. 

“Sensei – ” 

“Absolutely not.” Though they were parked in camera blindspot, they all flinched at how loud Splinter’s voice rose. “How could you expect me to sit idly by instead of retrieving my son?” 

“You’re not sitting by,” Donnie protested, fingers drumming against his bō as he glanced over his shoulder for the fifth time that minute. Raph just huffed. If the brainiac thought he was going to be able to convince paranoia incarnate of letting them take the lead, he was deluding himself. “We need you as backup in case things go back. April and Casey are our last resorts but you’ll be on-call for the moment we need you.” 

“You need me now.” 

“Chances are, Shredder’s got some sort of trick up his sleeve. It’s better in the long run to have you as an option, rather than get swept up in the same strike we take.” 

“Plus,” Mikey added with a sheepish shrug, “you’re not exactly in top shape. Like, you’re still a badass, for sure!” he was quick to correct. “But you were in a coma for, like, five-ever.” 

Splinter’s nostrils flared. He glared at the van’s floor, rather than make eye contact with his three sons already halfway out of the door. Weirdly enough, it reminded Raph of the first time they’d all left the lair, so eager to explore the outside even if they had no idea what was facing them. Sometimes, he wished they’d stayed where it was safe, instead of risking it all on the idea of a new chapter. Other times, though, he couldn’t imagine his world confined solely to those same four walls. 

That was the difference between them and Splinter, at the end of the day. Splinter had been burned by the world badly. He’d seen it all and come off hurting from it. The four of them, though, still hurled themselves toward new experiences, because they hadn’t had reason enough to assume that they’d end up worse for it. 

When Leo had gotten his ass kicked for the first time by Karai, he’d just smiled and pointed out the bright side to it. Donnie was star-eyed for a girl who only ever awkwardly smiled back at him. Mikey had gained and lost enough friends to win a record at this point. Yet every time they were thrown back to the ground, they picked themselves up before the dust had time to settle. 

The worst thing that had happened to Raph before the Invasion was Spike leaving him. Even though it’d been months and months ago by this point, he still felt the loss sharp in his chest every time he remembered it. His best friend, gone and kinda sorta hating him. But in return, he had Casey and April and pizza gyozas and the sky and the stars and the sun. It was a deal he didn’t completely regret striking. 

But if the price of all that and more was Leo, he didn’t think he’d ever forgive himself for tripping into making the trade. 

Splinter sighed. “Do not hesitate to get me.” 

“Aye, Sensei,” they chorused. 

Mikey hopped out of the van first, shaking out his hands as he popped the blade from his ‘chucks in and out, in and out, in and out. With a deep breath, Donnie was after him, before Raph followed the both of them. As soon as they were out of the van’s earshot, Donnie slowed his pace enough to where a gap a couple meters long stretched between the two of them and Mikey. 

Softly, so that Raph had to mute his own heartbeat so that he could hear him, he murmured, “We’re not calling him, are we?” 

Raph shook his head. He’d caught Donnie’s gaze as he’d spewed that bullshit about the necessity of backup, just as he was sure that April and Casey had. “If Shredder gets eyes on him, he’s not letting him leave. Either of them. He’ll kill Leo just to see the look on Sensei’s face, then kill Sensei so he never has a chance to be happy again.” 

When it all came down to it, it wasn’t aliens or mutants or covert companies that they needed to really worry about. It was a human, and he was the most monstrous of them all. 

If he had the chance, Raph wasn’t sure if he’d take the final shot on the Shredder. He liked to think that he would, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew there was a difference between imagining taking a life and the real deal, just as insisting that he was going solo wasn’t the same thing as actually doing it. The others liked to say his bark was worse than his bite, but teeth could still draw blood all the same. 

Part of him pictured black slime pouring out of the wound in place of what would actually be there. That was what happened when you killed monsters, after all. They stained the world one final time before disappearing. But he wasn’t a child. He knew that if he really took down the Shredder, all he’d be left with was red palms and a body to dispose of. 

Lost in his thoughts, he didn’t notice Mikey had stopped until he was all but running into him. He swore and stumbled back to his feet at the last moment, already planning on slapping the crap out of him for that one, but he paused at his little brother’s uncharacteristically deep frown. It didn’t sit right, like a clown at a funeral. 

“I’m seventeen.” 

“What?” 

“I’m seventeen,” Mikey repeated, “just like you guys.” He gritted his teeth. “I’m not a baby. I’m not a kid. You can’t – You can’t treat me like I’m stupid, or like I need protecting. That’s not fair.” 

Raph blinked. 

What he said was simple. It was straightforward. And it wasn’t untrue. As much as they joked that he was just a little kid at heart, Mikey wasn’t actually younger than them. It just seemed like it, from his attitude and the silly things he got up to. Then again, there hadn’t been much silliness to be had lately. 

“You’re right,” Donnie said quietly. His gaze was far away. “We haven’t been fair. It’s just…” 

“If you of all people are getting serious, things are really bad,” Raph filled in. There was this hollow sensation in his chest. The best way he could describe it as the feeling he’d got as a kid when he realized Santa Claus wasn’t real. Disappointment, maybe? Acceptance, mostly. “But yeah. It’s – Yeah. Things are really bad anyway.” 

“Are we gonna kill someone tonight?” 

Raph bit down on his lip until he tasted blood. Then he bit down some more. “If it comes down to it.” 

“If it gets us Leo,” Donnie corrected, as if he was on the same page as Raph. Maybe he thought he was. Privately, Raph knew that if it really came down to it, the choice wouldn’t be made by him. It’d be whatever desperate adrenaline had him diving for his weapons. 

“Okay,” Mikey said softly, eyes wide. “Okay.” 

“Are you – fine with that?” 

“I think I have to be. Right? I mean, if it’s Shredder or Leo, I’m picking Leo, so – yeah. I guess.” 

Raph’s mouth was opening before he could help it. “You won’t have to do it. I’ll do it, if it really gets tight.” 

Mikey frowned. “I don’t think that’s up to you.” 

Huh. They really were fucked if Mikey was offering insights.

They’d planned on a day-long stakeout. The snacks they packed were small and filling, Mikey’s fidget toys wouldn’t make a sound if they clattered to the floor, and they’d triple checked that their comms were on silent mode. In short, they expected an achingly slow stretch of time where all they’d do was watch and listen. 

But the moment they settled in the rafters of Stockman’s lab, Raph nearly toppled off at the sight of Leo. 

First things first, he didn’t seem completely fucked. Raph didn’t have a great shot of him from here, so he couldn’t pick up on everything, but there weren’t any broken bones or casts. Might be a mottling of bruises, though that could easily be just a side-effect of the freaky lighting. His posture was slumped, a rarity when it came to him. 

He was sat on the edge of a medical table. There were restraints attached to the side, but they hadn’t been fastened. They were almost like an afterthought. Hands at his sides, Raph saw Leo actually pick at one of the binds, running his nail up and down as he kept his gaze low. His legs were dead still, and Raph knew for a fact that they should have been swinging back and forth. For as much of a hardass his brother pretended to be, there was only so much he could do to pretend that he wasn’t as much of a kid as the rest of them were. 

Then came the weird parts. For one, some sort of funky headset was strapped onto him. It looked like a regular chunky pair of headphones, except they reached down to bookend both sides of his jaw. Almost like a ram’s horns. There was a short bit connected to one side, and Raph had the distinct feeling that a piece was missing. Whether that was a metaphor or not, he had no fucking clue. 

What really took the cake was the freak next to him. Shredder had his hand on Leo’s shoulder, in this facsimile of one of those proud dad moments on Mikey’s crappy sitcoms. He was talking to Stockman about something stupid, probably, and even as the fly messed with a gigantic tank of frothing water, he didn’t take his grip off. He just angled himself a bit and kept his hold tight. 

And Leo didn’t protest it. He didn’t move an inch, really. He just sat there, almost like a doll. If it wasn’t for the fact that he was sitting up by himself, Raph might’ve thought that he was dead. 

Raph turned toward the others. Mikey had gotten pale while Donnie turned contemplative, tongue poking out of his mouth as he studied the scene below. They made eye contact, Raph pointedly gesturing to the trio, then back at Donnie. Their plan had been long-term recon, but if they had their target in sight, why not strike now? 

At least, that was what he tried to convey. How much got lost in translation, he didn’t know. But Donnie just shrugged and slowly worked out the tranq gun he’d stashed in his bag. The projectiles were designed to implant sedatives proportionate to bodies they embedded themselves in, apparently. They were just as capable of taking down Tiger Claw as they were a basic Foot Soldier. 

It was a helluva lot sooner than anyone thought they’d fly into action, but that wasn’t the worst problem to have. If anything, it was a fresh burst of good luck that they’d been missing for a damn long time. It was karma, really. It was fine, this was fine, and Raph was being dumb to have his gut twist as Donnie took aim. 

There was movement in the tank Stockman was fiddling with. Something that disturbed the bubbles, or maybe something that made the bubbles. 

Shredder turned fully so that his back was to Raph and his brothers, facing Stockman head-on. He said something that Raph couldn’t catch, and as he moved, his hold on Leo’s arm lifted the slightest. 

Something pale in the water shifted. 

Leo shifted. Barely a centimeter, barely noticeable if Raph hadn’t been trying and failing to pour the entirety of his attention on his missing brother. He shifted, and he pushed himself closer to Shredder’s bare skin. 

From behind a flurry of bubbles, Karai’s sickly but ultimately human skin peaked out. Her green eyes went wide, slitted pupils that weren’t focused on the form on the table, but up, up, up.  Raph’s lungs seized as a mission to return one child to their father doubled in an instant. He – He didn’t have the space in his brain for this. 

The thousands and thousands of hexagonal plates in Stockman’s eyes glinted. They were reflective, Raph dully thought amidst it all. 

Donnie squinted one eye. 

Karai smashed her fists against the class. 

Then, again, they were reflective. 

Donnie pulled the trigger. 

“Wait!” 

Maybe it was Karai’s line of sight straight for them, easily traceable from anyone paying her even an ounce of attention. Maybe it was the way that Stockman’s big ass eyes bounced off images like he blinked back mirrors. Maybe it was Raph’s own voice, a hissing bark so loud in a environment so quiet, that fucked them over. In the end, it didn’t really matter. It all ended the same. 

Shredder didn’t rotate, so much as he pivoted, shifting on the heel of his foot to whip out of the way of the dart. His hand was dipping into his pocket and flinging a set of shuriken before his own duck was complete. Raph rushed to dive out of the way, but he wasn’t the target. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Donnie bite back a yell as one flew right into the meat of his nondominant arm. 

Despite the blood running down his skin, Donnie scrambled to reload. Raph’s heart just about pounded out of his chest. Fuck. Fuck. He should’ve brought the bow and arrows Splinter had strung by hand when they were young and clumsy. Should’ve snatched the gun Casey’s dad had stashed in the floorboards under his bed and gone batshit with it, should’ve thought of a backup plan like Leo would’ve. 

To his credit, Donnie took advantage of the moment to shoot off half a dozen more rounds, but the Shredder just yanked Stockman into the line of fire. The tranqs buried into his squirming form with a sickening thunk-thu-thunk, and he was out before he knew it. Shit. Their only chance now was to catch Shredder off guard before he scraped enough of himself together. 

Raph sprung off of the beam with both feet. The drop wasn’t a short one, and it gave him plenty of time to tighten his ironclad hold on his sai, albeit with the drawback of leaving him vulnerable to aerial attacks. It was fine, Donnie would cover him. He hit the ground running, heart racing as he neared his brother for the first time in months. 

Shredder raced to meet him first, something that Raph didn’t have much issue with. He jammed the pronged side of his sai right into the jackass’s jaw, only to be batted away with the backside of a forearm. Something slammed into the side of his head, and he didn’t hesitate before sinking his teeth into it. That didn’t give him much mobility as a result, so his attack got a bit – scrappier. 

He smashed his fists into both sides of Shredder’s arm, searching for a give that didn’t greet him. A hand swallowed both of his in an instant. He was raised off of the floor, kicking wildly, a fish caught with rotting bait. Behind him, he could see a flash of blue, so utterly still. Shit, fuck – He bit down harder, grinding his molars until he could feel something cracking. 

“AAGH!” 

Raph was hurled off the instant he tasted copper pennies on his tongue. There was a hard crack of something solid, and it was only when he blinked blurry tears back for the fifth time that he realized it had been his skull. His gut protested. Shit, he was probably concussed, but Leo, he had to get to Leo. He rolled onto his plastron, heaving in desperate pants. 

Above him, Shredder had gotten his grubby mitts on a meter-long piece of rebar, probably scrap metal from the fly. He slung it over his shoulder like a baseball bat, and Raph swore he felt every cell in his body revolt. It was a trainwreck in action, it was a station wagon revving down a freeway only to head-on collide with a deer, and he was the fucking deer, and he needed to get to Leo and he needed Leo and Shredder was winding up and – 

Shredder launched the rebar like it was a javelin, high into the air, into the rafters above shit shit shit – 

Mikey screamed. 

Raph’s stomach turned. Behind him, a weight hit the ground in a sickening thunk. It was all he could do to crane his head toward it, half-twisting because he couldn’t get his legs to move and that was something that was becoming more concerning with every heartbeat. Mikey was belly-up – no, fuck – Mikey had his shell to the floor and the rebar was missing – No, it was buried into the wall over there, not in Mikey, but Mikey was crying so – so – so something was wrong. 

A flurry of tranqs rained down on them. It was all Raph could do to curl up into the smallest form he could manage, hoping against all hope that he didn’t get nicked and brought down for the count. There was the sound of metal against metal, reverberation and reflection, until it all came so suddenly still. Unnaturally still, a pause in the shots that shouldn’t have happened, because Raph was counting the rounds and Donnie still had some left in the barrel. Throat desert dry, Raph cracked an eye open. 

Shredder had Leo pressed against him, a knife to his throat. 

His hold was around his neck. That was what Raph noticed first, since he had to know what to be wary of when he ripped Leo back with his bare fucking hands. Elbow pinning him into his chest, the bastard had Leo balancing on the tips of his toes just to keep himself from choking. He’d made his arms into a noose, what the fuck. There was so much skin-on-skin contact, Leo must’ve been feeling sick with it. 

Leo wasn’t squirming, though. Wasn’t fidgeting, wasn’t cringing away from the touch. Probably too scared to do anything. Who knew how present the poor guy was anyway? Shock was a helluva drug, after all. And those freaky headphones probably weren’t helping much either. 

“Drop the gun,” Shredder said, so quietly that Donnie might not have been able to pick it up from all the way up there. Even as Raph squinted, he still couldn’t quite make out his brother in the rafters. The probable concussion didn’t help, but there was so much darkness up there that it all became one hazy fog. 

The tranq gun clattered to the ground. It split into two jagged pieces upon contact, the sedatives spilling onto the hard concrete. 

“Good.” In his arms, Leo twitched. Even as his body thrummed in one giant bruise, Raph tried to catch his gaze. He needed some sort of peek into whatever was going on in Fearless’s head, but Shredder clapped his hand over his eyes and brought him closer. An off-note, rumbling sound just barely escaped from Leo’s lips. Fuck, poor guy must’ve been so scared. “Get down here.” 

Donnie skidded out from the rafters like there was a fire under him. An unsettling amount of blood trickled down him as he came to land a scant few feet away from Mikey. He was standing crooked, one arm sagging unnaturally. Raph couldn’t see the whites of his eyes from here. 

“You too.” Shredder nodded to him, and Raph felt his skin crawl at it. “Run to your brothers, little freak.” 

He tried to get to his feet. Really, he tried. But just bracing his palms against the concrete sent his vision swimming, nausea flip-flopping like a shitty weathervane. Something was wrong and moving was only making it worse, except Leo had a blade less than an inch from his bruised, blue-purple throat, so Raph had to grit his teeth and stumble forward until he was colliding with Donnie. 

Donnie braced him without a word, slinging his arm over his shoulder so that he could bear some of the weight. Raph probably shouldn’t have let him do that, bum arm and all, but the thought abandoned him when Donnie leaned close in the transfer and murmured, “Mikey’s alright. Bad fall, faking most of it.” 

He snapped over to Mikey, still curled up. Soft sniffles leaked out as he stayed huddled there, but when he shivered and the hands slapped over his skin shifted, Raph saw that there were just a couple scrapes hiding underneath. Still, the crocodile tears poured. Smart kid. 

“Come out, Yoshi.” Shredder whipped his head back and forth, glaring daggers into empty shadows. When Splinter didn’t creep into the light, Shredder growled something low and brought the knife closer, until the blade bit deep enough into Leo that Raph couldn’t help but watch for the tell-tale splash of red. “Don’t be a coward. Fight for your children!” 

“He’s not here,” Donnie said evenly, gaze locked onto Leo. 

Shredder’s eyes flashed. “Summon him, then. He is to be here – now.” When none of them moved, he contracted the fingers clasped over Leo’s face. They dug into his skin, apparent even from here. One of Leo’s legs kicked out, jittery like a bug’s, before he stilled. Raph could hear how his labored breathing caught. “Get the rat!” 

Distantly, Raph knew that Donnie was taking painstakingly slow measures to take out his T-Phone. That he was calling April or Casey or even Splinter himself. That Mikey was tugging on his ankle and that he needed to do something about it. But it was all he could do was take heavy breaths in an effort to keep the panic locked tight in his chest. If it spilled out, he didn’t think he’d be able to scoop it back behind his incisors before it stained. 

Maybe a few minutes later, maybe more, Splinter came marching through the doors. He hadn’t bothered to sneak in like they had. His cane clacked on the floor, seeming less like a walking tool for his bad hip than it’d been in months. Raph could see how his teeth clicked against each other as he came to a stop halfway between the both of them and hollered, “Saki!” 

Shredder smiled, this oh-so-pleased smirk that nearly made Raph lose his lunch on the spot. “Yoshi. You’re looking senile, brother. Has your time in exile softened you as I suspected it would?” 

“You release my boy this instant!” Splinter shouted. “I will have none of these games with you.” 

“Because you realize even now that you’ve already lost. But, in the spirit of keeping things fair, I’ll comply. I like my wins to have been earned.” With an easy shrug, Shredder slackened his grip, shoving Leo to the ground without care. Leo collided with the concrete hard enough that Raph winced. 

“Those things on his ears too,” Splinter demanded. When Shredder did just that, Raph felt his mask dip in that way that April’s eyebrows did when her muscles locked tight. This wasn’t right. It made no sense for Shredder to go along with this, not when the guy dealt power trips like they were offered BOGO at corner stores. 

The headphones were tossed onto a work desk without care, crashing into the surface with a rattling clang. The sound echoed in the quiet chamber, and Leo flinched as he brought both hands to his tympana. His eyes were screwed shut, lips pressed tightly together. After a moment, though, he cracked one open. The next followed as he stared wordlessly at Splinter and the rest of them. 

Splinter opened his arms. “Leonardo, my son – ” 

“Ahem.” 

Leo was off like a shot. He scrambled to his feet in such a wild motion that he smashed into a table, pushing off of it as soon as he collided. Beakers and bottles and all sorts of sciency shit smashed into shards. Between one heartbeat and the next, he was on his knees, shell to them, facing Shredder. 

Raph felt his stomach turn. 

Still rubbing at his wet eyes, Mikey laughed quietly. It was forced as fuck. “Uh – Leo, you should – Um, you should get up. So we can go home and – and yeah. So we can go home.” 

Leo didn’t even twitch. He just looked up at Shredder like he was the only thing in the whole world. He barely even blinked, swaying softly as every piece of him devoured the sight in front of him. And all Shredder did was chuckle, a sound that had Leo leaning even closer, if that was possible. Shredder reached out, and Raph finally found his voice. 

“Don’t you fucking dare!” 

Mikey yelled, “Don’t touch him!” 

Shredder just held out his hand, grinning with too many teeth when Leo pressed his face into his palm. That same sickeningly fragile rumble floated through the air, and Raph realized that it was a purr. They – Leo hadn’t done that since they were kids. Little, little kids who hadn’t been sure how human they were, if their tongues would be able to contort into Japanese and English, the way the people on TV did. 

“Kappa,” Shredder said, and Raph straightened when he realized that he was talking about Leo, “would you like to prove how good you are for your master?” 

No. Fucking no. This couldn’t be happening. Raph must’ve slipped in the farmhouse bathroom the night before they left the outskirts. He’d cracked his skull on the clawfoot bathtub, fallen into a coma just like Splinter had, and was now riding some chickenshit product of every one of his fears all wrapped up in one nightmare. Nightmare – It was the Dream Beavers, back for round two, and Raph needed to wake the fuck up. 

Leo nodded into Shredder’s hand. 

Shredder ran a thumb down the side of Leo’s face, smoothing it the way some rich asshole might rub dirt off of a piece of art. Leo’s purr only got louder at that, and Raph distantly realized that his brother had no idea what sounds he was making. “Then tell me five things you love about me.” 

Before Raph could vomit over whatever the fuck that was, Leo was speaking, and every thought in his head vanished in an instant. “Love you, i’lov-you. Uhm. I’love how your skin feels on mine, s’ good, everything I need I need you. I’love how your voice ‘s in my head, meant for it, meant for me.” His scrabbling fingers were yanking Shredder’s hand closer to his face, like he was trying to fuse the two together. 

His eyes were unnaturally wide, dinner plates magnified ten times over. “I’love how y’always give me a – a second chance, ‘cause I fuck up, I’m bad, I’m sorry ‘m sorry ‘m sorry.” A guttural scream burst out, and before it had time to end, Leo was already talking through it. “Please, please, I’love your heartbeat. You live for me, I live for you, you-nd-me, always, just us.” 

Each syllable was barely defined from the last. The words crashed into each other, veering like incoming traffic. Some of them came out in one string of noises, a set of sounds that should have been individual squashed together in one slurred slop. I love you. I’lov-you. Something that had been repeated over and over again, tone deeper than it’d been for the last two decades, until each piece lost all meaning and became one uniform babble. 

“I’love how you teach me. Teach me t’be good, ‘m good, ‘m good ‘m good ‘m good, promise, please, please d’leave. I’lov-you, lov-you, lov-you, y’so good ‘nd nice ‘nd kind, I need you, i’lov-you – ” 

“Shut up,” Shredder cut in, but he didn’t sound mad, just – content. The Shredder was content over Raph’s brother shaking himself to scraps in his grip. What the fuck. Leo’s mouth clapped closed, and he trembled under the weight of Shredder’s gaze. “Good,” he said, and the lab echoed with a bubbly squeal that wrenched itself out of Leo’s throat, like a kid at a birthday party. “Get over here.” 

And Leo leapt into Shredder’s outstretched arms, burying himself into the hold without hesitation. He wriggled in it, pressing closer even though that wasn’t possible, clinging so tightly that Raph felt his own muscles ache. Raph – Raph didn’t remember the last time he’d hugged Leo. 

“What did you do?” Raph heard himself say, though he could’ve sworn he’d locked his jaw to prevent the bile from spilling out. “What the fuck did you do?” 

Through it all, Shredder cupped Leo’s head with his hand, an easy grip betrayed by the ear-to-ear grin he sported. So pleased, so happy with himself. “I turned him inside-out and kept the pieces I preferred.” 

“I’m gonna kill you. I’m gonna fucking kill you.” Then, stronger, feeling the weight of every syllable on his tongue, he screamed, “I’m gonna fucking kill you!” 

There was the sound of quiet crying in the quiet room. Instinctively, Raph glanced down at Mikey, worried that his fake injuries had somehow turned real. But Mikey’s eyes had dried. There was something hollow and burning in his gaze, and as much as Raph ached to do something about it, that wasn’t what he was searching for. Despite knowing better, he looked up, in front of him, and had to fight to hold himself back. 

Leo was sobbing into Shredder's chest, mumbling out something that Raph could barely pick up on. His eyes were closed again, shoulders hiked close to his ears. “Sorry, ‘m sorry ‘m sorry ‘ll be better. I’lov-you, please.” 

Raph had made his brother cry. He’d – Leo hadn’t cried in front of them in years. Not since they were so young that it’d sent all four of them into tears of their own. Even through the worst of it all, Leo had always stayed strong, and Raph had made him cry. Raph had made him cry. Holy shit. 

Shredder just stroked the top of his head, like he would a dog. “It’s alright. You’re safe,” he said softly, the tone clashing against everything Raph knew about the awful man. His smile never wavered as he soothed Leo. If anything, it only grew. “You can calm down, Leonardo. I’m here. Your master is here and he wants you to calm down. Calm down.” 

The worst part about it was that it worked. Leo’s breathing slowed from a frantic near-hyperventilation to something still frazzled but much more relaxed. His tears tapered off, though he didn’t open his eyes. He just stood there with the Shredder, like there was no place else he’d rather be. 

“You know, you’ve done half the work for me, Yoshi,” Shredder said conversationally. “Before I did a thing to him, he was already so very eager for validation. It was almost too easy to guide him toward a superior master.” Leo didn’t so much as flinch. What the fuck. “It hardly took three months to make him like this, and ever since, I’ve spent the time enjoying my new son.” 

That caused a reaction. Splinter roared, an inhuman sound that had Leo forcing himself even closer to Shredder. “He is not your son!” The cane was shifted from one hand to another, until it was the staff that he’d spent decades training with. Splinter marched forward, footsteps thunderous. “Release him. Release him this instant and face me as you have wished!” 

Shredder turned Leo to where he was facing them. He pinned him in place even as he bucked, holding down his flailing limbs like they were nothing. “See how they wish to take you from me?” Shredder hummed. “They despise our bond. They don’t understand what you need. They want to separate us!” 

“N – No,” Leo croaked. “N – Please, i’lov-you, please I – ” 

Splinter crossed the distance in a rush. “Let him go!” 

Shredder just bared his teeth. “Try to take him.” Then he shoved Leo away, sending him tripping over his feet as he dove at Splinter. 

He was going to do his absolute best to kill Splinter. Raph knew that, logically. He knew that if there was ever a moment to gather as a family against a singular common foe, it was now. But for the love of it all, he couldn’t muster the energy to even watch the tussle between the two. As soon as Shredder was distracted, he was sprinting across the divide, toward Leo. 

Mikey beat him there, but only barely. He was crouching down at Leo’s height, ducking into a hug Raph knew he’d been craving for months, but he was denied. Leo smacked him away the moment their skin made contact. He’d started crying again, maybe during the fall, maybe before. The sobs poured out from his lips freefall, not held back in the slightest. 

“It’s okay,” Mikey was saying, open palms, but Leo wasn’t having any of it. “We’re here, we’re back. You’re alright, I promise.” 

“No, no. I need him, d’leave, come back! ” Leo hurled himself toward the fight between Shredder and Splinter, scrambling to get closer. It wasn’t so much as a carefully considered move as it was an instinct for Raph to grab him, yanking him back before he could get hit in the crossfire. Leo screamed like he was being tortured. 

As soon as Raph and Mikey had him somewhat immobile, Dr. Donnie was on it. He gave the world’s shittiest checkup, examining for bruises and breaks on arms and legs that kicked out in wild jerks. At one point, Leo nailed him in the jaw with a straw elbow hard enough that he had to back up, spit something out, and keep going despite the blood running down his chin. 

Mikey was crying too, copying Leo the way he had with all of them since they were tots. It made him a vulnerable target, something that Leo knew in some capacity, because Leo scratched him across the face in a catlike swipe, taking advantage of Mikey’s knee jerk recoil to throw himself forward again. 

“Pleasepleasepleaseplease – ” 

“We’re right here,” Mikey was insisting, because he just didn’t get it. To be fair, Raph wasn’t all that sure that he did either. “It’s okay, you’re okay. We love you. Please, Leo, it’s okay!” 

Raph gritted his teeth. He turned to Donnie, who was pressing the pads of his fingers against the gouges inset on Leo’s ankles. “Do you have more sedatives?” 

Maybe it was cruel. Maybe it was overkill when they were already dead and drowning, but Raph had no fucking clue was else to do. Donnie just nodded and slung his back off his shoulder, rifling through it with lightning speed. Then he brought out a small needle. At the sight of it, Leo’s struggles doubled, this bone-deep terrified scrambling that finally sent Donnie flying with one unlucky strike. 

“Donnie!” 

Mikey’s surprise had him weakening his grip despite the threat. With a harsh shove and a growl, he tumbled onto his side. His eyes widened as a loud crack came from his pocket, right before a plume of purple gas erupted and swallowed him whole. The smoke crept into Raph’s lungs, sending him coughing hard enough that it couldn’t have been all that hard for Leo to smash their foreheads together and send him stumbling back. 

At least three of the smoke bombs Mikey’d brought must’ve gone off. It was the only explanation for how thick the air got with gas. Raph felt around for Donnie and just managed to grab Mikey, hauling both of them out of the immediate epicenter before they choked. A few yards out, it wasn’t much better, but Raph was able to see two inches from his face. 

If nothing else, at least this would slow Leo down. With how off-balance he was, there was no way he’d be able to find Shredder, regardless of how loud his clash with Splinter was getting. It gave Raph time to check over Donnie, who was lock-jawed but still conscious. He had to get him out of here, he realized. There were too many wounds cutting too deeply. They wouldn’t be mendable for much longer. 

“Sensei!” he shouted, hoping against all hope that he wasn’t drawing Shredder right to their location. “Sensei, we have to go!” 

In the less hazy parts of the smoke, he caught sight of Splinter smashing Shredder’s skull into a wall. He raked his untrimmed claws over the man’s bare skin, kicking out his feet in the chaos of it. Shredder managed to stay upright by pushing off of a work desk. He got his grubby hands on a beaker and smashed it over Splinter’s snout, who didn’t so much as falter as he bashed Shredder once, twice. In a flash, he snatched a knife from Shredder’s belt and dove at him, blade snapping to Shredder’s throat – 

Only to freeze like someone had hit pause on him when Leo flung himself at the Shredder, clinging to their family’s enemy with every scrap of himself. 

Everything went still. Even the smoke seemed to solidify in the air. Shredder blinked down at Leo, and Raph could’ve sworn he saw a hint of surprise there. Splinter’s free hand reached out, trancelike. He didn’t grab Leo. He wasn’t going to grab Leo, Raph knew, because that would undoubtedly leave Leo in tears, and their father had always hated making them cry. 

Raph didn’t know how he was going to fix this. 

It didn’t matter, though, because Shredder hissed, right into the shell of his ear, “Kappa, maim.” 

And Leo lunged – 

And Splinter screamed – 

And Shredder smiled – 

And despite it all, Raph thought back to the warning he’d received without knowing it, that he’d thrown away as soon as he gleaned the facts he’d wanted. He views that boy as an animal, Fishface had said, and Raph had waved it off as exaggeration. Because even though Shredder had swiped a baby from a fire, even though he had tossed an almost-corpse through a window, even though he had sold out humanity for the sake of a broken heart, he was human. He wasn’t a monster. 

But as Leo sunk his teeth further into his father’s fingers, Raph didn’t believe that anymore. 

Splinter fucked up, then. In a pain-hazed panic, the hand holding the blade crashed into Leo’s skull. It wasn’t his fault. He couldn’t have been thinking clearly. But what happened happened, and Leo went skidding back with a yowl. He clutched the bleeding side of his face for only a second before Shredder was yanking him by the wrists, pressing their faces so close together that Raph nearly puked for the millionth time today. 

“This is how much I love you. This is how grateful you should be!” Shredder was yelling, and Leo just shrieked back, so unendingly terrified despite the i’lov-you ’s spilling from his lips. “They don’t love you like I do. I will burn down the world for you!” 

Part of Raph wanted to watch the rest. See what inanity Shredder would force Leo to perform, get angrier and sicker at the lengths Leo was forced to. But he knew what would happen. Shredder would scream and Leo would survive in the only way he knew would work, and it’d end with Shredder shoving him away and Leo throwing himself back toward him. It was toxic and it was intoxicating. 

Raph couldn’t save Leo today. But he could save the rest of his family, at the cost of dipping now. It was fucked. It was. And it wasn’t the first time this had happened, and Raph had no clue if that made it better or worse. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe bad was bad was bad, and this was all there was to it. 

He didn’t know. He just took his other brothers by the arm and dragged them away.

They escaped. Barely. Mikey cried the whole way back. Whenever Raph tried to set his hand on his shoulder, he was shrugged off and the wails got louder. Only April was allowed to touch him, and even then, he wouldn’t say a word when she softly probed him. She didn’t push it, just running her nails up and down Mikey’s shell. If Raph squinted, he could switch out one brother for another, one human for another, and he had to look out the window before he jumped through it. 

Donnie was in the passenger seat. He’d climbed in as soon as the Party Wagon came blazing down the corner. That was the best place to fire the weapons. It was also the only place in the entire van with an armrest, which he put to good use as he picked out shards from the gash stretching from his elbow to his wrist. 

Until they got back home, or wherever the hell they were driving, it was on Raph to keep ahold of Splinter. It’d taken all three of them to force him into the van, and he’d tried leaping out twice already. No one had said anything about the hand bleeding onto the seat covers. Raph didn’t know much about anatomy, but he’d heard about how much bacteria and crap lived in a mouth, and they sure as shit weren’t up to date on their vaccines. It was more likely or not that they’d amputate in one way or another, and he couldn’t be the only one thinking that. 

No one had told Splinter that Karai had been there, Raph was pretty sure. It’d be a while before they got around to it. It wasn’t like they were starving for bad news, after all. Just one shitty situation stacked atop another, like a lasagna from hell. 

After a far too long stretch of silence, April mumbled, “If it’s his head that’s wrong, I could fix it. Take a look, see what they did.” 

“You think it’s, like, mind control?” Casey said from the wheel. 

“Might be. You guys said he wasn’t acting like himself, right?” 

None of them answered. 

A beat passed, then April continued, as if one of them had made a really good point, “Right. So next time, I’ll get as close as I can and check him out.” 

Donnie set down a pair of tweezers hard enough that they rattled. “Next time?” 

She nodded. “Yeah. Next time.” 

“What if there’s not a next time?” 

This was the part where Raph jumped in, angry as a bee in a bull bonnet nest, or whatever the fuck it was. He’d say something about Donnie giving up and then they’d go ‘round and ‘round in circles until one of them got sick. But Raph wasn’t angry. Or, maybe he was, but it’d have to be under the layers of exhaustion dragging him down. He wasn’t sure he had space for anything else, really. 

“But there is. I mean, we’re going to get him back. We have to. He’s your brother.” 

Donnie’s eyes settled on something far, far away. “He’s malnourished. Probably hasn’t eaten solid food since the Invasion. Dehydrated too, with all the crying. There were injuries that were just barely healed past the point of getting infected. His knee is in such bad shape, I don’t know how he’s standing.” He bit his lip. “No, I do, actually. He’s in tremendous pain, but he’s prioritizing the Shredder’s approval over that. That’s just making the wound worse, though.” 

“That’s – That’s really awful,” April said, “but what’s your point?” 

“The Shredder’s going to end up killing him, is my point.” 

Casey sucked in a breath. His hold on the wheel turned white knuckled. “Fuck.” 

“You don’t know that.” 

Donnie just looked down. “The Shredder’s insane. Past reason by now. Leo’s in a state where he’s willing to do anything for him and Shredder’s at the point where he’ll ask it. There’s going to be a time where Leo just – can’t. Shredder will demand something, and either he’ll die trying, or Shredder will kill him for failure.” He squeezed his eyes shut, looking greener than he should have. “This setup they have, it’s not feasible in the long run. Sooner or later, it’s going to collapse.” 

“Then what do we do about it?” Mikey croaked, speaking for the first time since the lab. 

When they were little, they used to play Simon Says. Donnie was awful at giving directions, too specific for their uncoordinated limbs to follow, while Mikey got distracted and always ended up wandering off. Raph never liked it much. He’d spend his turns in charge annoying the others into quitting the game out of frustration so they could play something else. 

It was only really fun when Leo was Simon. But when he wasn’t, he was usually the first out. At some point, the directions would speed up and get tricky and contradict each other, and he’d end up overwhelmed and crying. As much as Raph liked to tease him for being a robot, Leo really wasn’t meant to take orders. 

Donnie picked up the tweezers again. “I don’t know.”