Archive of Our Own ^beta

With every hop, Leo feels the tug of his hand just a little more insistent.

She’d stormed the lair moments ago, declaring she had something monumentally important to show him. “Come on. Come on, come on!” she’d cheered, and spun him towards his closet, ordering him to put on some beachwear.

“Y’know, it takes a while for me to look this—“ She hadn’t even let him finish his quip, shoving the floaty over his person and dragging him out of his room, past his brothers, and into the tunnels

“Hi Raph, hi Mikey, hi Donnie.”

“Hey, Y/N,” they chorused.

“Bye Raph, bye Mikey, bye Donnie.”

“Bye, Y/N.”

“What about me?!” Leo had cried out, heels gathering steam from where they were skidding along the floor.

Of course, things look even odder when the pair of them reach the surface and it's pitch-black nighttime outside. But, then again, who's watching? She leads him down alleys and up roads and around corners until finally:

“Okay, okay,” she says excitedly and tells him to cover his eyes.

He does so maybe a little too trustfully and Y/N guides him the rest of the way by the arm. She stops them just outside a chainlink fence. 

She’s out of breath and giggly and Leo’s never been more sure he’ll love a surprise. He’d love anything Y/N planned but that's neither here nor there.

“Tada!” 

He opens his eyes.

He’d been right. He loves it.

The city's public pool stares back at him beyond the wire mesh, the water smooth and shimmering.

“I know you were bummed about having to spend the heat wave in the sewer so…” She gestures out at the site enthusiastically, if a little bashful. "I know it's not the beach but—" 

“Y/N,” he says, “it’s perfect.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He holds her gaze a moment too long, with half a mind to just kiss her in his exhilaration but instead, he gives her a boost to climb the fence.

New York had been hot as balls the last few days and although Donnie made sure his family had more than enough accommodations, Leo couldn’t help feel a little left out from the fun in the sun up on the surface. Where were his beach days and water parks and pool parties? When did he get to soak up the sun and go surfin’ safari-ing? Sure, the super-blast air conditioning was nice and the sewer streams were fun to ride, but he couldn’t help feeling like he was missing out on beach volleyball and pool-side (virgin) margaritas. 

Y/N, ever the mindful friend, did her best to give him a taste of that kind of world, and it brought them… here, scaling a wire barricade and breaking into municipally mandated property. 

Leo leaps over easily, and finds himself crouching down next to her.

“Why are we hiding?” he whispers.

“Mission number one: successfully completed,” she whispers back. “Mission number two: take out the night watch.” She points to the several security cameras and pulls out two rolls of black electrical tape from her bag.

He nods at her with all the importance of James Bond himself and barrel-rolls to the nearest camera.

She tiptoes over to another and stands on a lawn chair to reach it, stretching tape over the lens. It isn’t long before every piece of security equipment is covered up, and they meet in the middle of the enclosure to high-five, proud of their handy work.

Y/N unzips her duffel and pulls out a set of towels, snorkelling goggles and folded pool noodles. “Whoa-ho-ho-hey! You’re all decked out!”

“This is the full experience, Leonardo.”

“Aw, I didn’t need any of that,” he says softly in a rare moment of sincerity. He grabs her hand, prompting her to drop the bag. “All I needed was you.” And then he tugs her hand and surges forward high in the air, and then down, down, down into the cool waters below. 

Y/N doesn’t let herself think about the implications of those words as she sinks momentarily, weightless. When they come up for air, she’s grinning like a lunatic. 

“Yeah-heah-heah-heah!” he shouts, fist-pumping the air. And then, with the pull of her wrist: “Oh, this is gonna be fun!”

They spend the night splashing, ducking, jumping and diving.

They meet underwater to make funny faces at each other and see who can hold their breath the longest—it’s Leo. (It’s always Leo.)

They race from one end of the pool to the other and he lifts her onto his shell and parades her around in celebration when she crosses the finish line. He beat her by a landslide, but he’s a water turtle, so that’s kind of cheating now that he thinks about it. She clings to him tiredly and lets out a loud laugh, spouting water out of her mouth like one of those renaissance fountains.

They pile onto his unicorn floaty to test its float-ability. Turns out, it's not its ability to float so much as the lack of general space that sends them flying off.

They do handstands and somersaults and all kinds of tricks underwater.

And, finally, they swim to the very bottom of the deep end and go snorkelling for the lost treasures that are only ever nosed out of public pools.

“Alright, whaddya got?” he asks when they meet back in the shallow end.

“Okay, okay. You ready for this?”

Leo nods with the enthusiasm of a five-year-old. Who's eating ice cream. At Six Flags.

She pulls out several objects from behind her back and lays them out on the edge. “I’ve got a dime,” she starts, pointing, “a button, a singular dangling earring, and my new prized possession—” She grabs for the pink sparkly sunglasses, which, by the looks of them, were previously owned by quite possibly the world's smallest baby. Y/N forces them over the bridge of her nose, cracking the frame in the process. She grins.

“Very nice, very nice,” he applauds. Then he puts on his best tour guide impression. “If you’ll turn your attention to my pile, you’ll see several of earth’s most precious rarities: This clump of hair, this torn strap of a sandal, this bandaid—which I'm sure I just contracted hepatitis from—and…” He gets down on one knee so that the water only reaches his neck and holds out a severely rusted ring with the gem missing from its holder. 

Her heart begins to hammer in her chest and she begs it to quiet down. There’s a joke that's going to follow this but the display alone is enough to make her body react of its own volition. Especially when he says:

“Will you, Y/F/N, do me, Leonardo Hamato, the honour of being…” 

Leo begins to fake tear up. He fans his face and his voice wobbles. 

“The honour of being my... losing competitor in every one of our cherished duels?”

Y/N lowers her glasses sumptuously. 

“My dearest beloved,” she says, trying desperately to keep the laughter out of her voice, “I cannot. I… I simply refuse." 

Leo gulps dramatically. “But why, my love? There’s another isn’t there? Say it isn’t so!” He stands and grabs her shoulders.

She squeezes his arms. “I have done you a great disservice, Mr. Hamato, for I have been unfaithful.”

“No!” Leo gasps. “Whom is this foul beast that has stolen thee fair maiden’s heart?”

“’Tis—’tis—“ Y/N chokes out, wracked with sobs. “’Tis Donatello!”

“Egads!” he yells, ripping himself away from her. “Mine own brother!"

She has to cover her mouth to stop from smiling but Leo’s really into this. She pictures him in front of the bathroom mirror, rehearsing lines from his favourite old-timey movies. 

“Alas,” he sighs. “I always knew it would come to this. Weep for me not, Y/N. You were the fairest lady one may ever know.” 

“No!” Y/N shouts brokenly, as Leo falls back into the water with a loud smack. She holds her posture but the applause never comes. Finally, that chortle she’d been holding escapes her. She waits for him to come up and join in on the fun.

Fifteen seconds pass, then thirty… Y/N counts, holding her own breath. She knows he’s semiaquatic and all that, but surely he's not choosing this very moment to show off...

Just as the realization hits her, something ghosts her ankle and then three large fingers wrap their way around it. She doesn’t even have time to yelp before she’s dragged under, thrashing and sputtering.

Leo’s laughing like a madman by the time they surface again. 

“You’re a dick!” she squeaks, coughing up water. 

“Says the unfaithful cheater.”

“Hey, I'd never cheat! ...Fine, only in competition Donnie! Seriously he beats me in, like, everything.”

“Oh, I know. He plays Nerf Wars 2 with his eyes closed. It’s terrifying.”

They shiver in unison—from terror, not from the cold. It’s ridiculously humid out. 

There’s a small quiet moment between them, and Y/N breaks it to look out at the horizon. From this side of the pool, they can see most of lower Manhattan. The lights in the buildings seem to twinkle. Manmade stars for the manmade city.

He comes up behind her, arms circling her shoulders. “Thank you for doing this,” he tells her seriously. 

“You’re so welcome. I’d always risk jail time for you.” Instinctually, her hands come up to hold him in place.

“Aw, you really mean that?” he asks glibly, chin resting on her head.

“Not in the slightest, loser. If we get caught, I'm hauling ass.”

“I always knew you would abandon me in my time of need.” He feigns hurt and forces himself to pull away, splashing water at her. She splashes back and that turns into a whole other thing.

They shout and scream, swallowing mouthfuls of water each, relentlessly pushing waves in the other’s direction. They can’t even see each other anymore and it’s Y/N who finally calls a truce when she feels something very, very wrong.

She turns away from wherever she hopes Leo is still standing, folding in on herself.

He’s by her in an instant. “Hey, what is it?” His hand finds her shoulder when she doesn’t answer. “Are you okay?”

She nods, keeping her back to him and following the front of her swimsuit up and around with her hands. She’s having trouble finding the strings but at least she’s holding it up.

Leo spots them dangling on either side of her waist, one half much longer than the other. With fumbling fingers, he stretches it out gently until it's even, and ties it around her back. He’s so close Y/N can hear his breathing. “Is that too tight?” he asks, voice barely above a whisper—which is new and out of character and so... captivating.

She shakes her head, cheeks burning. Her heart is in her throat; she couldn't speak if she wanted to.

“Can you move your hair for me?” he asks, then, lowly and in her ear. 

If he notices the goosebumps forming up her arms, he doesn’t comment. His hands move to her neck just as quickly as they had to her back, and he's careful to pull until it's just taught enough. He ties a second knot for good measure. 

“Splinter could never get me to wear a mask when I was a kid. I hated the way he tied it. Always too tight or too loose, it drove me nuts." He lets out a small chuckle. “Learned to tie my own mask pretty quick.”

She tries to picture him. Tiny tot Leo, running around with the blue cloth much too big for him, plastered to his face too snug. The mental image makes her smile.

“And for the record,” Leo says in that same soft voice, “I didn’t see anything.”

“Thanks,” she manages and finds that her voice has gone gravelly. She swallows it down, hoping it'll clear, and avoids looking him in the eye while he, in turn, does everything he can not to let his eyes fall to her chest.

“Sure," he nods and glances around them. “Should we, uh, call it?”

Y/N looks up, hoping to find some real stars. There never are any. “Yeah.” Clouds roll slowly along the navy sky. “Yeah, let’s go."

Leo lifts himself out of the water effortlessly and holds out a hand for her. She nearly makes a joke about this newfound gentlemanliness, but then he tugs hard, sending her crashing straight into him with a small squeak. She looks up, hand still in his.

Too close. They’re too close.

“Sorry,” Leo whispers, and she can nearly feel his breath. “It got awkward there for a sec, and I don’t do awkward.”

“Clever,” Y/N mutters, gaze trapped in his.

Their height difference feels striking standing in front of each other like this. She shivers.

“Are you cold?” he asks, giving her arm a light squeeze.

They drip all over the concrete. A gust of wind picks up, prompting another shake from her. 

He breaks away to dig through her duffle bag and grab the towels, draping one around her shoulders and pulling her close, moving his palms up and down her arms in an attempt to generate some warmth. 

“It’s not even cold,” she chatters. 

“It’s the water,” he says, like he’s used to this. 

“Y-yeah,” Y/N tries. “Must be.”

If she doesn’t think about it too long, she can just barely convince herself it’s true—that it’s the wind against her sopping body and not what she’s about to do.

Leo’s looking at her like he feels it, too.

“Y/—“

She kisses him. It’s quick and harmless, a lingering peck, but she’s short of breath by the time she pulls away.

Now, he's looking at her like he has no idea what to do. (Funny how quickly expressions change.)

His arms are still around her but he’s frozen in place, gaze skipping from one eye to the other. 

“Why did you…?” he says at the same time that she whispers an “I’m sorry”. 

Instead of saying anything, Leo tilts her chin back up and plants a kiss of his own on her lips—one that’s longer and sweeter and all the rest. His hand comes up to tangle in her wet hair and hers find the top of his plastron, gripping hard. 

The hand that's not in her hair bundles into the towel, keeping it securely around her. He’s not sure why, but he doesn’t think it would do them any good if it fell. So, he holds on tight, for as long as she’ll let him.

***

“Sorry, do you wear more clothes to swim?” She thinks of his swim trunks and tank.

“Yeah, I… It’s best not to think about it,” Leo tells her.

They’re in his room, under the covers, watching cartoons on his laptop. They’ve shared beds like this before, but it’s somehow different now, what with the shift in their relationship. A shift they're not sure how to define and just a little fearful of talking about. 

“Hey,” he prompts.

“Hey,” she replies.

He rolls his eyes. “No. Hey, I have something for you.”

Y/N lifts her head from his pillow, hair still damp, to look up at where he’s stretching to his bedside table.

He insisted she sleep over tonight. The air conditioning at the Y/L/N residence is busted and Donnie keeps the lair at a perfect 75 degrees. Leo figured she might need to cool off again (for a different reason he might add, if he was permitted to toot his own horn. And permitted he was. Toot.) So they walked back to the lair, hand-in-hand, with a ball of wadded-up tape and a duffle bag of wet gear, goofy grins etched into their faces.

Even though she's packed herself a change of clothes, she borrows one of Leo’s hoodies despite herself. A perfect 75 still feels a little chilly in the sewers, especially trapped under the covers with Mr. Zero Body Heat.

“Tada!” he exclaims now, and holds out the ring from their deepsea scavenging.

Y/N lets out a laugh. “You kept that?”

“Yeah… I thought maybe I could have Donnie soup it up a little. You know, polish it out, add a gemstone or something? I dunno—I wanted a souvenir from our date—day. From our day.” He coughs.

She stares at it and then back up at him. Leo with his kind eyes and warm smile and bubbling energy. “No,” she says. “It’s perfect.”

He seems surprised but slides it over her finger anyway, scraped metal, missing jewel and all. It... fits. “Does this mean you’ll be my losing competitor?”

“I’ll be your evenly matched competitor, douchebag.”

“I guess we’ll just see, won’t we?” he murmurs, bringing his face closer to hers. He stops short of her mouth, unsure if he’s allowed.

“Look at that,” she whispers. “I’m already up a point.” And then presses her lips to his.

“Not a chance,” he manages to get out against her mouth before drawing her in so close she’s nearly in his lap. Leo’s nothing if not affectionate and his eagerness sends electric currents down her spine. 

Their breathing is heavy by the time they pull away. He looks at her.

“The ring’s stuck isn’t it?”

“Oh yeah, like glue."

Leo lets out a loud laugh. “I’ll get the butter.”

***