Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Five years had passed since the invasion, twenty-one years since Hamato Yoshi - aka Lou Jitsu - escaped his confines at the hands of an evil warrior scientist with his four infant sons.

He had spent that time raising a family he didn't ask for in a sewer home he didn't want to hide his mutant rat appearance he despised (and his four mutant turtle sons) from the humans, raising them on his movie star action hero life's savings, as well as royalties and the income trickling in from being the behind-the-scenes owner of the last remaining Lou Jitsu dojo in town.

But now his savings were dwindling, he could no longer rely on it as a means of caring for a large family of five, and it seemed as though he would never be able to marry off his sons.

Mikey occasionally enjoyed the flashy nightclub life - he only ever dated casually for the fun of it.

Raph had gone out with one girl but got in too heavy too fast and ended up getting his heart broken, so he swore off dating all together for the past two years and that didn't show any signs of changing anytime soon.

Although Donnie had the occasional passing crush and tried the dating scene once or twice he was figuratively married to his 'Baby' - his online tech store and the pursuit of outdoing himself time and again with the latest new piece of sic tech - so that he really only ever left home when he went out with his family on patrol or to hang out. (He would consider dating again if the right girl came along, but she would have to be something special to catch his eye and take his time away from his 'Baby'.)

And Leo never really had any interest whatsoever with the whole 'dating/forming romantic bonds with someone' scene.

Quite frankly he didn't see the appeal of it.

• Invite another person into his life?

He already had his family.

• Share his most intimate secrets with them?

His Tío Hueso took on a fatherly role in his life - even moreso since the krang invasion - and he felt comfortable sharing anything that was on his mind with him, even things he didn't share with his siblings.

• Share a room with them?

He liked his room just the way it was thank you very much - a place for everything and everything in its place. No place for changes, no desire for subtractions to make room for someone else's additions.

• Share a bed with them?

The thought sent a chill up his spine. It was not something he could ever see himself wanting to do, especially not after what the krang had done to him. The thought of being touched by another in an intimate manner always reminded him of Krang Prime's tendrils covering his shell in the prison dimension; as well as when they were slithering across his body, poking under his mask, and squeezing in behind his eyes when Krang tried to assimilate him and his brothers - so he could only ever see it as another intrusive, unwanted sensation.

Sure when he was younger there was some sort of faint attraction from time to time, but that turned out to be a phase that lasted no more than a couple of years and then faded away like his memories of the krang invasion (that were traumatic at the time but didn't affect his life so much anymore).

Mikey had once told him there was a word for how he felt but he couldn't quite remember what it was.

Aromantic?

Maybe.

But they weren't one for labels, so it didn't really matter.

So anyway, since he was stuck with his sons for the next forseeable future, Splinter demanded they all get jobs to provide for themselves.

Donnie was already set with a wildly profitable online Genius Build Apparel™ store that Shelldon (who he refurbished after the Shredder attack) mostly managed - giving him ample time to focus on creating and building his new inventions.

There was room for more in his growing business, so Mikey joined him and was given the task of putting his artistic skills to use maintaining and updating the website including all graphic designs (and even getting a little space for himself to sell his Razz-Matazz art), while Raph put his strength to good use by being the one who boxed up and shipped all the orders - whether big or small, light or heavy. And Leo...

Well Donnie approached to discuss the opportunity of opening a physical store in the Hidden City - not so much that he really needed or wanted a physical location considering how successful his online store was but because he wanted to give his twin brother an opportunity to join his team by doing one of the things he did best:

by being the store's faceman.

He had seen firsthand how time and time again Leo was very adept at talking himself out of (or putting himself in to if he so desired) difficult situations - even to the point that about a year before the krang invasion when he portalled them to an arctic yokai settlement - because they apparently had a little mom-and-pop cafe that made the best espresso in the world so Donnie insisted on trying it out - he somehow managed to sell sea ice to a penguin yokai for a little cash to buy a BLÅHAJ the next time they visited the yokai version of Ikea in the Hidden City (because Raph's was getting old and worn so he wouldn't share it anymore).

But Leo wasn't interested in that, he wanted to strike out on his own - to find a way to remind himself that although his family played a big role in shaping who he was he was still more than the sum of his parts. So since their New York hero vigilante work kept them up all hours of the night most weekends he found the perfect part-time job working as a ninjitsu assistant at a night time dojo in the Hidden City that catered to yokai who were naturally nocturnal.

So in this way the mutant family settled into a new norm with the events of the earth-shattering invasion fading into the back of their minds.

Sure Raph's eye still itched on occasion from his double mutation and Mikey's hands sometimes trembled from opening the portal if he pushed himself too hard; Donnie sometimes squirmed under his battle shell and had to leave his soft shell exposed to the air from the memories of being ripped from the technodrome, and Leo still woke up from time to time with nightmares of being in the prison dimension and his shell still bothered him on cold days from the remnants of cracks that had healed from Krang Prime's attack; but overall things were peaceful and quiet for the family who decided to stick together - with a healthy dose of excitement thrown in over the years from fighting villains that were ordinary and of the 'super' variety with their hero vigilante work.

Until one day...

The light sound of fingers clicking on keys was only broken occasionally by the slurping of coffee as Donnie was sitting at his computer desk, working on a new project, with his lab door open behind him as a way to let his brothers know they were welcome to come in and hang out whenever they wanted.

Breakfast was over for everyone except Leo - who slept in - and Donnie casually sipped some more coffee as the sound of snapping turtle feet reached his ears. But instead of joining him in his lab, Donnie listened as Raph walked past - heading to Leo's bedroom.

The light sound of clicking continued with background noise adding to the ambiance.

knock, knock, knock

"Hey buddy, you awake?"

There was the sound of a door squeaking on its hinges and then the noise cut out, indicating Raph must have gone into Leo's room, until...

"You're my brother, not my dad so stop trying to act like one!" Leo yelled.

Donnie stopped his typing to listen in.

Leo and Raph hadn't had a single heated argument ever since the krang invasion five years prior - when Leo started taking his hero/leader role seriously - and it was uncharacteristic for his twin to fly off the handle like that - especially in connection to their big brother filling in the void and providing a sense of stability and comfort by taking on a fatherly role in their lives in place of their emotionally absent dad, which was something they all appreciated and never really had any qualms with.

The sound of angry shouting grew in volume because Leo left his room and was taking the one-sided argument out into the hallway where a loud turtle voice was broken in between a quieter one.

"And dad doesn't care that I was out!" Leo continued in his exasperated tone of voice. "I told him when I came home and all he did was roll over and fall back asleep, so BACK OFF!!!"

"I only asked if you were out Le...did you get hurt? You're walking kinda funny."

"Yes I was out late, I needed to clear my head after work!"

The voices got louder as Leo stormed down the hall, but he spun around on his heels outside Donnie's lab door to glare at Raph (who still wasn't raising his voice) with his concerned big brother repeating his previous unanswered question by asking: "Are you hurt bro?"

Leo readjusted the back of his hoodie he was wearing - pulling down on the bottom - glanced at Donnie (who was not hiding the fact that he was listening in to this curious interaction) rubbed at an old wound Krang Prime gave to him on his plastron when he split his shell from his chest all the way down to the bottom, and lowered his voice while retaining his tense body language when he said (lied): "My shell's still sore from the cold night air is all."

The worried tension in Raph's voice left and was replaced with loving tenderness from Leo's statement, and he kindly offered: "You want me to get that shell ointment and..." "No, I don't want you TOUCHING me!!!" Leo unexpectedly screamed at his caring big brother, tensing his body more than it already was and clenching his fists all over again with spit flying out of his mouth from the ferocity of the words he spewed out at him.

Ok that was really weird. Next to Mikey Leo was the most huggy-feely of the bunch - usually seeking out someone to hug or cuddle with before starting his daily routine.

The lair fell silent and the air seemed to still for just a moment as Raph was left speechless and Leo just glared at him before tugging at various parts of his hoodie - as though he was physically uncomfortable - before glancing at Donnie and spinning around on his heels to storm away.

And that was the beginning of a day marking a confusing change in their red-eared slider brother that no one could explain.

Chapter Text

That Afternoon

Leo sat hunched back in his favorite booth at Run of the Mill, with his hood pulled up over his head, tapping a foot on the floor, and staring at the spoon that he was twirling around in his hand and routinely clinking against the table or his glass of pop that had some condensation dripping down on the outside because of how long it had been sitting there untouched.

Another thing that was practically untouched in front of him was the bowl of soup he ordered despite being in a pizza joint - but that was only because he didn't think he could stomach a pizza right now with the way his stomach was churning inside of him.

At first when he came in alone wearing a hoodie with the hood up over his head Hueso hadn't paid him any mind besides a nod in greeting as he attended to his many duties in his bustling restaurant. After all a chill in the air outside indicated they were going to have early fall weather this year, and it wasn't unusual for one of his turtle friends to come early to save a seat for the rest of them, or even to routinely pop in alone for a pizza or to grab a to-go order.

What was unusual was the way Leo sat flopped back in the booth hunched back so far his head barely came up over the table and it looked like he was about to fall out of it; the way he kept his hoodie on and his hood up over his head despite the fact it was warm in the busy restaurant and he had ordered a steaming bowl of chicken noodle soup instead of his usual pizza; and the way he was nervously bouncing his knee and had been absently fidgeting with his spoon instead of finishing his meal (that was likely luke-warm by now) after eating only a few small bites.

It took a considerable length of time before the busy skeleton had a free moment to approach the mutant turtle he affectionately called 'pepino' and over the years came to view as a nephew (along with his three turtle brothers), but Leo didn't show any signs of leaving all during that time frame, so when there was finally a lull between the lunch and dinner rush Hueso approached and sat across the table, opposite his turtle friend.

"Pepino, you have been here alone for a long time, is anything the matter?"

Instead of looking up Leo kept his eyes focused on the spoon he was twirling around, and with a little smirk Hueso could barely see from beneath the hood he joked: "I wuz gunna head home an hour ago but I guess I chickened out." He glanced up at Hueso to see a very serious face staring back at him that uncharacteristically made him feel self-conscious so he dropped his smirk, leaned ahead to hunch over the table, and dipped his spoon in his chicken soup - sticking it in his mouth to eat the contents while yanking on the back of his hoodie to make certain it was pulled down far enough that he was fully sitting on it.

"Leonardo..."

Eugh boi, full name? Was he in trouble?

If not for the softness to Hueso’s tone of voice Leo would have thought 'yes'.

"You are aware that I know you use humor to cope," Hueso flatly told him, his eyes never leaving the turtle in front of him, who kept squirming uncomfortably in his booth with his head down and his hood covering his face enough that he couldn't see Leo's eyes (and - more importantly - so Leo couldn't see Hueso's face).

'Bus-ted!'

"Heh, yeah," was the only soft-spoken reply he got.

After frowning at the antsy turtle who was clearly upset about something, Hueso inquired: "Is there a reason you do not want to go home?"

Leo spoke the next words without thought, blurting them out on autopilot because sharing mundane family issues with his uncle was second nature to him now.

"It's just that Raph's breathing down my neck and he keeps complaining 'you're not acting like yourself today bro'," he said in a slightly lower pitched tone (in imitation of Raph) with a sarcastic inflection, "and Mikey's going all 'Dr. Feelings' and tryin' to get me to open up and Donnie keeps implying he's worried there's something wrong, and . . . I guess . . . I just needed to get away from it all."

"Those sound like valid concerns to me, pepino."

Leo glanced up for a second at the tenderness to Hueso's tone but then put his eyes back down on his spoon.

"Yeah, I guess."

He squirmed around some more but when it became evident he wasn't ready to share what was on his mind, Hueso next asked: "Is the cold bothering your shell again?"

There was a pause - a moment of contemplation - during which time Leo ate another spoonful of his lukewarm soup before answering with the vague response: "Something like that."

"If you have run out of the medical shell ointment I gave to you I can always get more," Leo's Tío kindly offered.

Still while curiously keeping his head down, the normally confident, out-spoken mutant mumbled something about having lots before dipping his spoon into the bowl and slurping up some more soup - eating mostly broth this time despite the way his stomach growled in protest of lack of food.

But he honestly felt so queasy from the memory of what had happened to him the night before that he didn't think he could stomach much more.

Then - as expected - came the kind-hearted offer: "You know if there is something bothering you, you can always talk to me, sí? We can go in my office if you would like some privacy."

And there it was - the reason why Leo had come here in the first place: to take shelter under the wings of his loving Tío Hueso who took on a father-like role in his life. But now that he was faced with the actual task of opening up and sharing what was on his mind he froze up and opened his mouth with the intent of brushing him off, but closed it again when he glanced up to see the look of love and compassion in Hueso's eyes. So instead he dipped his spoon in the bowl - not to take a bite but to slowly stir it around as he thought.

clink, clink, clink, clink

Huseo had been someone Leo knew he could tell his woes to.

clink, clink, clink

He had been there for him - for all of them - after the invasion.

clink, clink, clink

He had been someone Leo opened up to more than once - sharing his feelings around things that had happened to him in the prison dimension that he hadn't even shared with his brothers.

clink, clink

But there were some things he couldn't tell anyone - not even a loving friend/uncle who took him under his wing and called him a nephew.

However there was one thing weighing heavily on his heart and mind that he felt he could share - something he hadn't told anyone yet because he knew sharing this particular bit of information with his family would open a whole can of worms he was not ready to deal with (he never wanted to deal with - he wanted to bury alive and walk away from, never to think of again).

So tensing a little from the bad memory, curling in on himself a smidge, and with a sadness overlaying his words, Leo shared a disturbing truth with Hueso when he told him:

"I got attacked last night on the way home from work and ... and I was hurt."

He cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably in his seat - tugging on his hoodie again to make sure it was covering a part of his legs - before continuing.

"And I went to dad for help with, uh..." he cleared his throat a second time, changing his mind at the last second. "For help, but all he did was tell me to get Raph . . . Then he rolled over and fell back asleep."

Hueso sat up a little, stiffening from a combination of worry and surprise, and asking: "You were hurt pepino?"

Leo cleared his tense throat once more and shifted uncomfortably again, keeping his head down for this entire conversation.

"Yeah."

He took the spoon out of the bowl and laid it down on the table without eating any more.

"Are you ok now?" came the next question Leo realized he should have been expecting.

He scratched at his stomach where an old crack from the krang's attack had been re-opened the night before while considering how to respond without eliciting too many questions from the bone yokai who took on a fatherly role in his life. But in the end he realized there was a burning desire deep down inside of him, screaming at him: 'You can't hold this in! TELL SOMEONE!!!' So he gave serious thought to spilling the beans and opening that can of worms he sealed tightly away around his family, and settled on starting off by sharing a little:

"Yeah, I stapled it up myself." He scrunched his head down, picked at the spoon, and deflected by hastily tacking on: "I am the team medic, so it was no big deal."

"Stapled!? Did someone crack your shell?"

"Uhhh..."

Leo didn't know how to answer that. The quick answer was 'yes', but the sharp urgency to his Tio's voice made him scrunch his head down a little into his shell from a wave of embarrassment that came dangerously close to painting his cheeks a bright shade of pink.

He had opened up too much, he suddenly realized he wasn't ready for this - wasn't ready for the questions. An urge inside of him was telling him to run, but if he bolted this second Hueso would know there was more going on that he was holding back and the thought of him perhaps calling April or one of his brothers for information (or to express his concern) sent a shot of fear creeping up his neck.

At that moment Hueso reached his hand out.

There was the clatter of cutlery falling to the table when Leo dropped the spoon because of how quickly he yanked his arm away when Hueso tried to rest his boney hand on his, laying it on his lap, where he fidgeted with his hoodie.

Leo raised his eyes to make sure he didn't upset his tio with that abrupt motion, but the eyes gazing back at him radiated the same loving concern that had been in his tone of voice ever since he stopped working to come over and sit with his sobrino.

Not wanting to pry by bombarding his honorary nephew with questions he wasn't ready to answer, Hueso pulled his hand back and watched in concern as Leo put his eyes back down while lowering his head so that his face was obscured by his hood once more.

The skeleton yokai had seen the turtles beaten, bruised, cut, and bloodied time and time again as a result of their hero vigilante work. He had even reset a joint a time or two and had a first row seat to the injury done to them on the day of the invasion because of how he had opened up his restaurant to injured and displaced yokai, and the turtle family had gone there for medical care since their place (along with their high-tech, advanced med bay) had been destroyed.

Even on that day while Leo was being stitched up on his skin, stapled in his broken shell, checked over for a concussion, mended and had a few bones reset and casted, he was firing out the jokes and cracking a smile in between the winces, grimaces, grunts, and occasional screams of pain. But now...

This was different, and the gears were turning in Hueso's cranium as he tried to fit the pieces together - trying to figure out what Leonardo was holding back from telling him, and coming to the wrong conclusion that perhaps his rat dad's inattentive attitude was to blame, so he tested the waters by offering some words of advice.

"I remember Michelangelo told me it is difficult to wake your father, and he sometimes falls back asleep again without even remembering he had woken up."

Hueso only got something that was between a hum and a grunt in reply.

He cast his eyes down from the hooded head to the green turtle hand when Leo raised it off his lap to fidget with the spoon some more - but he still wasn't finishing the soup he barely touched.

"Perhaps he wasn't fully awake and was unaware of how seriously injured you were. Or maybe he thought it was a dream," the concerned skeleton yokai suggested as possible reasons for Splinter's apparent apathy.

"Try talking to him," he next suggested, getting Leo's attention enough with that statement that he raised his head slightly to look at him before putting his eyes back down on his spoon.

"There may have been a misunderstanding that can be settled with a few words."

"Mmm, maybe," Leo gave as a quiet, grunt-like reply, while giving consideration to the issue at hand and the way his caring tio was showing him extraordinary kindness and patience.

Maybe... Just maybe it wouldn't be that bad opening up to his uncle. He did offer to let them go to his office for privacy...

Uncle and sobrino sat in silence for a while as a second wave of customers began coming in the restaurant for the evening rush, and just when Leo seemed about ready to open up - relaxing his tension a little and saying: "There's something else that happened last night..." - a server approached and interrupted the conversation, telling her boss: "Phoebe and Sparkle called in sick, we've got a table of sixteen showing up any minute but nothing's set up for them, and the Maze of Death is double booked."

After quietly mumbling some Spanish curses under his breath from the terrible timing of this interruption, Hueso kindly told his pepino he would be back in a minute and left to tend to the necessary issues at hand.

. . .

But when he was in the middle of arranging the tables they needed for the party of sixteen, he looked up at where Leo had been sitting to see nothing but an empty booth containing a bowl of soup and a few bills slapped down on the table to pay for the meal Hueso didn't get a chance to tell his nephew was on the house.

Chapter Text

The sound of boisterous laughter echoed from the living room where Splinter was sitting back in his recliner, thoroughly enjoying one of his absurd game shows when his middle blue-clad son walked up to stand beside him.

"Uh, dad..."

"Not now Purple, they are about to take out the cobras!"

Leo silently stared at the screen, watching as a box of snakes was opened and dumped over the heads of the contestants who were frantically searching around in a ball pit for something or other, listening to his dad laughing at the show, and nervously fidgeting with his hoodie over the fresh bandage that covered a new wound in his shell, on his stomach.

Instead of leaving, Leo thought about Hueso's words and gave it a second try.

"Dad, I got hurt last night and I went to your room cuz I needed help, but you told me..." "Yes yes my son, the broken lamp is on my nightstand, you can go in my room to fix it."

"I'm not Don..."

Leo's frown deepened when his voice was cut off by another round of heavy laughter, and after staring at the side of his dad's smiling face for a moment he gave up trying, turned around, and walked away.

Mikey was sitting on his room floor with art supplies scattered out around him when he looked up to see one of his brothers briskly walking past the open bedroom door - the one he had been trying to get to open up all morning until he abruptly left the lair to 'get some air'.

Perhaps a different approach was needed to help him feel comfortable opening up...

"Leo! Wanna come paint with me!?" came the sudden, pleasant request.

Leo stopped dead in his tracks and stared at Mikey's smiling face in a daze before blinking himself out of his mind and sticking on a smile for his little brother.

Perhaps some good ol' arts and crafts with his hopelessly optimistic little bro was just what was needed to take his mind off his woes. So sticking his (fake) 'face man' grin on his face Leo pleasantly replied: "You bet mi hermano!" and went in the room to gingerly lower himself on the floor - being careful not to disturb the stapled crack in his shell but not realizing until it was too late that sitting on such a hard surface would pose a whole new problem for a different kind of pain he was in.

At first the artsy younger turtle tuned out his older brother's fidgeting and constant squirming around - commenting once that he couldn't understand how Leo could be wearing a hoodie when his room was so warm and trying to keep things light after Leo's unusual behavior earlier that day. Then he commented on the new picture he was drawing and stuck his tongue out to curl it up over his tip lip while he focused on his artwork. But when he and Leo reached out for the same paint tube at the same time he couldn't help but notice the way his brother flinched back and jumped up to his feet the moment their fingers brushed together.

Neither could he help but notice the way Leo winced and hissed through his teeth when he did so.

Or the way his eyes widened for just a second, or the way he rubbed at his hand as though Mikey had burned him, or how he was anxiously squirming around and avoiding eye contact.

Mikey sat up from surprise, staring at his brother and about to ask if everything was ok (not for the first time that day) and hoping he'd get an actual response this time, but he was beat to the punch when Leo cleared his throat and said (with tension to his voice): "Thanks for the coloring Mikes but I gotta hit the sack. I hardly slept a wink last night, catch ya later."

"Are you having nightmares..."

Mikey didn't get a chance to finish his question because Leo was gone like a bullet train leaving the station, with the dumbfounded box turtle staring at the empty opening to his bedroom, trying to process what just happened.

No more than a minute later - while Mikey was still trying to understand what was going on with Leo today - Donnie showed up in his doorway because of the way Leo had rushed past his open lab door like he was being chased by a pack of wild dogs, before retiring to his room and shutting his door in such a hurry he accidentally slammed it.

"Is Leo still acting off today?" Donatello asked his little brother.

"Yeah, we were coloring together and then he just took off," Mikey replied, his eyes still a little wide from the surprise of what just happened during what he thought had been a pleasantly peaceful moment between him and his slightly older brother.

"Perhaps one of us should go talk to him," Donnie next suggested as his way of beating around the bush and saying he wanted the one in the family who best knew how to deal with feelings (aka Mikey) to handle this delicate situation.

"I'd talk to him but he just ran away from me. I don't know what I did wrong," the concerned youngest brother told him.

Repeatedly snapping his fingers as a nervous habit, Donnie cleared his throat and nervously offered: "I suppose it will have to be..." "Guys, did you see Leo?" Raphael suddenly interrupted while he walked down the hallway toward them. When he got to Mikey's room he scanned his eyes around - looking for their blue-clad brother - before saying: "He seems off today, Raph wants to talk to him. Did he come home yet?"

"Oh thank Newton," Donnie breathed a sigh of relief, grateful he wouldn't have to be the one to deal with feelings and opening up (not that he wasn't willing to do so for his siblings, but the whole 'sharing your feelings' thing wasn't one of his strong points. He was more of a 'make fantastical tech to solve problems' kind of turtle).

"Yeah, he's in his room," Mikey answered, watching as Raph nodded his head before leaving to try and find out what was up with his brother.

Chapter Text

knock, knock, knock

Leo clicked out of the mindless video he was watching on his phone, put it down on his nightstand, wiped away the tears on his face, rolled over in bed to face the wall, and grabbed his blanket to cover himself - hoodie and all - before calling out: "Trying to sleep here."

"Can I come in? Just for a few minutes?" his concerned older brother called out from the other side of the door.

As much as Leo wanted one of Raph's big bear hugs right now (wanted to cry on his chest and tell him everything that had happened to him) the thought of physical contact of any kind made him involuntarily shutter, and he called back: "Seriously bro, can't this wait 'til morning?"

"Please Leo, I wanna talk."

The tenderness and concern in Raph's tone of voice told Leo his over-protective big brother wasn't going to drop it so easily, so after an exasperated groan Leo yelled loudly enough to be heard on the other side of the closed door: "Alright come in, but make it quick!"

He hastily wiped away a few stray tears as the door clicked open behind his back and Raph walked in, looking at him at first but then gazing around the bright room, commenting: "You're tryin' ta sleep with the lights on?"

Leo repositioned the blanket over his shoulder and just replied with a bland: "Yeah."

Raph sat on the edge of the bed, making Leo tense and forcing him to put in considerable effort not to arise suspicion by spinning around in a panic or jumping up and running away.

Over-looking what he figured was probably a lie, Raph tried to do the big brother thing by focusing on the reason why he came in the first place, and asked: "Is something up bro? You haven't been yourself all day."

He rested a hand on the back of Leo's shell.

Leo visibly cringed under his touch and shot out of bed like someone had just shoved a beehive under his blankets, yelling: "Don't touch me!" and glaring at him with his fists clenched, trying to resist the urge to hug into himself for comfort or high-tail it out of there.

Then he threw his hand out, gesturing vividly to the door, and - trying to deflect from his over-the-top reaction - yelled in anger: "I didn't ask you to come in, I was tryin' to sleep!"

Raph stood up with his body tense as well and trying to keep his own anger in check because of how Leo's outburst put him on edge and how his over-protective big brother sense was tingling. But the underlying stress still came through in his tone of voice when he questioned: "With the light on?"

"Yes with the light on!" Leo forcefully yelled in reply, clenching his fists tightly and leaning his face ahead as though he was challenging his big brother for reasons Raph couldn't understand.

"I slept with the light on for three months after the invasion, so why is that so hard to believe!?"

"Are you having nightmares again?" Raphael immediately asked in concern, but before Leo had a chance to answer he tacked on the question: "And you're tryin' to sleep in your hoodie? This doesn't make any sense, bro."

"What does it MATTER to you if I sleep in my hoodie!?" Leo screamed in response, getting the attention of their other two brothers, who came to stand in the doorway and watched this worrisome interaction in concern.

"I just don't understand Leo," Raph replied with mild annoyance overlaying his concerned tone of voice. "If something's wrong you can tell us."

"The only thing wrong is that I told you twice I was trying to sleep but you wouldn't take no for an answer!"

Leo's eyes shifted to his two worried brothers standing in the doorway for a split second before putting them back on his big brother.

Leo was the only one obviously angry.

He was the only one tense.

He was the only one yelling and breathing through his mouth because of how his heart was pounding in his chest and the only one who wanted to curse and scream and run away and find somewhere he could go to be alone and collapse into a blubbering mess on the ground.

"We're worried Leo," Mikey shyly spoke up. "You're not acting like yourself today."

"What if I am acting like myself today!?" Leo combatively countered. He switched from staring at Raph to glaring at Mikey and Donnie - who were staying in the doorway - yelling with an angry scowl on his face and tears in the corners of his eyes: "What if this is the real me!?" he forcefully pointed to his chest with both hands, hiding his fear, shame, guilt, embarrassment, and all those other intense emotions over what happened behind a wall, not of humor, but of anger.

"What if I'm done being the faceman!?" he grasped his head with both hands, pacing the room while his three brothers watched on in a mixture of worry and confusion.

"What if I don't want to use humor to deal with this crap anymore!? What then, hey!?"

He stopped pacing to stare at his brothers, waiting for a reply, taking quick, shallow breaths through his mouth and tugging on the bottom of his hoodie to pull it down over his legs more as if it wasn't long enough for his liking.

Mikey took the figurative wind out of his sails and the literal breath out of his lungs when he replied with the heartfelt statement they all agreed with:

"Leo, we love you no matter who you are."

His scowl fell, his eyes widened, his tension melted away, and his hands dropped down at his sides as he stared at his three brothers in surprise, with two of them nodding their heads in agreement with Mikey's words.

Then the stunned silence was replaced with a static in Leo's head and a ringing in his ears when Raph asked the impactful statement:

"Did something happen to you last night bro? Because if it did you can tell us."

Leo's mouth went dry and he absently pulled down on the back of his hoodie.

. . .

One day.

He couldn't even get through one day without arising suspicion from everyone except his emotionally neglectful dad, and he was so not ready to answer that question - not here, not now, not with three sets of eyes waiting expectantly.

He cold have lied.

He could have stuck on his fake faceman smile and deflected with a few jokes.

He could have shared some of what happened to him while leaving out the worst parts.

But he uncharacteristically decided to tuck tail and run.

Instead of saying anything in reply he rushed to the back of the room - away from where his three brothers were standing either in or near the doorway - and reached up for one of his two katanas that were hanging in their wall mounts.

Raph's shoulders fell at the sight, but he didn't say anything to try and stop him.

Staying back-on to his brothers, once Leo got the sword in his grasp blue light sparked around the handle.

"Leo, you know you haven't been able to open your portals since the krang attacked," Leo's big brother tried to reason with him.

"Just let me try this!" Leo barked at him, snapping his head to the side to glare at him out of the corner of his eye before putting his attention back on his sword and reaching within himself - trying to concentrate on using his ninpo that the krang somehow stole from him inside the prison dimension.

Blue sparks lit up on the handle again, singeing his hand, making him cry out: "Aah!" and involuntarily drop his sword from the intense shot of electrical pain.

He stared down on his katana with a mixture of shame, upset, and disgust - all of which was directed inwardly, and all of which was the same inner shame, upset, and disgust he had been feeling ever since his harrowing ordeal the previous night.

Leo's brother's gave him a moment to gather his thoughts as he frowned down on his sword, thinking over Casey's words from when he told him that the krang had done the same thing to his future Master Leonardo and he was never able to regain his mystic powers.

Then he couldn't help but curl in on himself from the combined memory of the intrusive sensation from what happened to him the night before and the fear he had felt when Krang Prime wrapped his cold tendrils around his shell in the prison dimension and somehow sucked his ninpo dry - so that ever since that day the most he could do was make a few sparks appear every time he tried.

Tears flowed down his face from a combination of the sorrow he was feeling and the memory of having been violated the night before. How he had been held down with those very same cold, slimy krang tendrils and...

His breath hitched.

His family couldn't see the tears because he was still standing back-on to them, but they could see the way he carried himself - how he hugged himself for comfort; how he curled in on himself, pressed his legs together, and slunk his head down into his shell a bit.

. . .

How he looked so small.

Leo sniffled.

Raph and the others resisted the urge to do their usual brotherly thing by hugging him because of how three times that day he had screamed at them not to touch him.

They waited patiently for him to open up, but before he was ready to speak he reached up for his sword that was still in the wall mount and sheathed it.

He looked down at the sword on the floor.

He was not interested whatsoever in dealing with the pain of bending down to get it and he didn't want his brothers to see the tender way he would move if he tried, because if he gave away how much pain he was really in they likely wouldn't let him leave until he told them something they wanted to hear.

While he was staring down on his katana on the floor, he disappointed his family by telling them: "I'll tell you what happened when I get home," instead of opening up to them now.

Then he stuck his eyes on the floor, turned around, and briskly walked straight past his brothers to the door - taking wide steps and lightly clenching his fists along the way.

His brothers saw the tears he hadn't bothered to wipe away, and he felt too ashamed of himself to look up at any of their faces on his way past.

"We'll wait up for you," Mikey offered before he left the doorway.

Leo stopped and without looking back requested: "No, don't wait up. If I'm not home until late I'll talk to you tomorrow, ok?"

"K," Mikey quietly agreed with a frown on his face, joining his brothers in looking at the back of Leo's head with sadness and worry.

As if he could sense their eyes on him, Leo raised the hood to cover his head before walking away.

They listened, motionless, until the chime indicating the lair's front door had been opened was followed by the sound of it slamming shut.

Then - suspecting he knew where his twin was headed - Donnie took out his cell phone to text their human sister:

"Leo's on his way over. Something's wrong."

Chapter Text

Completely unaware of the text conversation between Donnie and April, Casey Jones was sitting at the kitchen table in the New York apartment he shared with his honorary human sister, sipping on some chamomile tea and yawning as he finished up some studying for a test he had in one of his university courses the next day.

Meanwhile April was showering now instead of doing so before work the next morning because she was expecting to have a late night since Donnie texted her that Leo was coming over and something was wrong.

After flipping a page in his notebook Casey heard a light knocking, not at the door but coming from the balcony of their forth-storey apartment - a sure-fire sign it was one of their mutant turtle brothers showing up for something or other.

Yawning for the second time, Casey rose to go unlock their balcony door, and was greeted by the smiling face of one mutant red-eared slider, who was wearing his hooded sweatshirt and rubbing his hands up and down his arms for warmth.

"Hey Leo," CJ cheerfully greeted, with the slider giving as his form of a greeting: "Brr, it's chilly out there tonight," while stepping into the living room with a smile, and then commenting: "You're up late, don't you have school in the morning?"

"Yeah but I've got a test I'm cramming for," Casey informed his turtle brother before letting out the biggest yawn yet and heading back to the kitchen table, saying: "I poured some chamomile tea to help me sleep tonight but perhaps I should have waited until after I was done studying."

Because Casey was walking back to the kitchen he didn't notice how Leo was walking a little stiffly, or that he raised his hoodie in the front for a quick peek to make sure he couldn't see any specks of blood on the bandages because of how he had pushed himself a little too hard ninjaing across rooftops on his way here, for a little endorphin-producing exercise in an attempt at distracting his troubled mind with some parkour.

Instead of joining Casey in the kitchen Leo sat himself down on the living room couch, waiting for April who he could hear was taking a shower.

That was until CJ called out from the next room: "You're not going to bother me, I'm almost done for the night anyway," so Leo took that as his cue to go join Case in the kitchen. He sat in a chair opposite his human brother and tried to keep the conversation light by asking: "What's ya studying for?"

"Canine anatomy," the vet in training replied.

Leo hummed in acknowledgement with a nod of his head while bouncing his knee to distract from the pain he was in, as well as to provide something grounding to distract his mind from the emotional turmoil he was dealing with (plus were April's kitchen chairs always this hard? This was worse than sitting on the floor with Mikey!)

Then the future veterinarian raised his head to say something but closed his mouth, raised one eyebrow curiously, and asked: "Are you in pain?"

Leo's knee abruptly stopped bouncing and his fake smile fell.

Although he mostly came here to talk to April he knew Casey was just as good as her for holding a confidence and not prying into matters he didn't want to discuss.

And with the way the re-opened crack in his shell was throbbing in unison with his heartbeat after his rooftop parkour here he really wanted to get a good look at it again.

(Plus a second opinion wouldn't hurt)

So instead of deflecting with a lie or a joke he decided to tell the truth by saying: "Yeah, I got hit last night, it opened up a crack in my shell. Mind taking a look?"

With a grimace Casey hissed through his teeth before giving the reason for that response when he said: "That must have been some hit to open up one of those cracks after five years!"

"Yeah," Leo mumbled, clearing his throat from the tension and hoping Casey wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a crack splitting open from a direct hit versus what had really happened to him.

A few minutes later April walked into the living room to the surprising sight of Leo holding his hoodie up over his chest with bandages flecked red with blood resting on the coffee table and Casey having a good, hard look at a fresh, jagged crack extending from the bottom of Leo's plastron over halfway up his abdomen, that had been stapled shut.

"Leo what happened!?" April cried out in alarm, rushing over in her robe with her wet hair still wrapped up in a towel.

Leo's cheeks blushed a bright red but he didn't want to look suspicious so he powered through the embarrassment to look her in the face and told her: "I was wolloped good when I was out last night."

"I'll say!" April exclaimed, staring down on the wound that Casey was dabbing with a lint-free disposable medical cloth before announcing: "The bleeding stopped but you need to make sure not to over-exert yourself for the next few days or you run the risk of irritating it again."

Leo kept his hoodie up as April helped Casey affix fresh bandages - all while turning away and blushing from a combination of their close proximity and the unwanted touch that was making his skin crawl. But just like with the embarrassment he powered through it so as not to arise suspicion and was quick to push his hoodie back down and scooch away from them when they were done.

After that, as Casey was standing he gave Leo a look that told him: 'I know that isn't an impact wound', but thankfully he didn't say anything in the moment, opting instead to tell his family he was hitting the sack before cleaning up his mess in the kitchen and going to bed.

Leaving brother and sister alone.

. . .

April wasn't one for beating around the bush.

Her direct bluntness balanced well with her logical side, compassion, and listening ear, making her easy to talk to because there was no reading between the lines or saying one thing and meaning another with her. Which was why Leo left the uncomfortableness of the lair where his brothers were waiting for answers to spend time with her first.

And with the way he had been holding in the trauma he experienced at the hands of someone he had known for years he had to tell someone and soon - and talking to April would help him figure out how best to tell his brothers. After all a 1v1 match was a much better option than a 3v1 match - even if they were technically all on the same team.

Hopefully.

Would they look at him differently if they found out what had been done to him?

Treat him differently?

Would they point fingers and blame him like how he placed the blame squarely on his shoulders?

. . .

Would they be just as disgusted by him as he was with himself?

"Sooo, what happened?"

That innocent question from his caring sister who he loved as much as his brothers almost got the waterworks flowing, but Leo managed to skillfully hold back, grabbed a couch pillow to hug into and to give him something to look at other than April's worried gaze, and for the first time since this whole thing happened he shared some of what he had to endure the night before by somberly telling her:

"I wasn't hit."

He forced back the tears again.

"I was cut."

A stunned silence filled the air.

Leo couldn't bring himself to look at April's face and instead focused on the pain in his abdomen and backside that throbbed in unison with his heartbeat.

(That wasn't much better so he switched to focusing on the sensation of the pillow in his grasp)

When April finally did speak her words came out hushed.

"But the only way to cut through your shell..." "Is with a saw, I know."

Leo squeezed his eyes shut, hunching his shoulders and scrunching down his head as the whizzing, whirling of the hand-held medical bone saw reverberated in his ears.

"How did it happen?" April asked with her voice coming out somewhat bland because of how her brain was having trouble processing that disturbing news (as opposed to apathy).

"They, uh..."

Leo swallowed down a lump in his throat but he couldn't stop the tears from welling up in the corners of his eyes at the memory.

He shut his eyes.

When he did so two tears involuntarily spilled out to fall down either side of his face.

"They found a way to control those k..."

The word stuck in his throat.

"Krang thingies..."

April gasped. "You mean the krang tendrils the Earth's Protection Force has been experimenting on?"

Leo opened his mouth to reply, but instead his bottom lip trembled so he shut it and nodded his head.

"Who?"

"The..."

Rather than finishing his sentence, Leo squeezed into the pillow and sobbed openly.

Tears dripped off his chin onto his arms and the pillow he was hugging into.

April moved closer to pull her weeping brother in for a hug.

Leo instantly flinched back and shot up on his feet at her touch, dropping the pillow and instinctively assuming a defensive fighter's stance, yelling: "Don't TOUCH me!!"

Shocked by his very unexpected reaction, April stumbled over her words when she tried apologizing.

"Leo, I'm... I'm sorry, I thought... it's just that..." "I gotta go, thanks for the talk!" her turtle brother blurted out as he high-tailed it out of the balcony onto the roof, leaving the sliding glass door open in his haste to disappear.

April stared at the opening with a frown before the rush of cold air blowing in on the wind made her shiver, so she got up to close it - gazing out into the darkness of the night, hopeful Leo would return.

He didn't.

Another gust of wind made her shiver a second time so she shut the door before walking over to the coffee table and reaching out for her phone to text Dee.

Chapter Text

In the new lair they settled into after the krang invasion destroyed the lair they lived in after the Shredder destroyed the first one, Leo's bedroom was the last door on the left, down an old sewer tunnel turned hallway, past the rec room, Raph and Mikey's room on the left and Donnie's much larger lab on the right.

The lab.

Where Donnie was tinkering with upgrades to their central air conditioning system now that the weather was cool enough to let him take it apart without prompting Splinter to come yelling at him that he was too hot.

It was so late at night by the time Leo came home that Donnie was the only one still up - with Raph and Mikey only giving up the fight with their heavy eyelids because Leo had asked them not to wait up for him before promising to tell them what happened to him the next day.

The soft shelled turtle of the family was intentionally engaging in a quiet, mindless activity so he would hear the pitter patter of mutant turtle feet when Leo came home.

Which was why he heard the chime indicating the front door off the rec room had been opened and a moment later heard his slightly younger (by three minutes) brother walking down the hall in his direction.

He stopped his work, put down his tool, and was about to ask Leo to join him in his lab when he walked past, but he realized that wouldn't be necessary with the way Leo appeared in his doorway instead of heading to his room and stood there facing him with his head down and one arm wrapped around his body like he was giving himself a self-hug (he was).

He also didn't need any prompting to open up with the way he unhesitatingly asked: "Can we talk?"

Donnie pulled a chair out as his invitation to come in and open up, and Leo accepted the invite by entering the room and shutting the door behind him.

Some time later

Leo hadn't shared everything.

He couldn't share everything.

But he had shared a great deal.

About how he was drawn to an alley by the pitiful cries for help of a meowing kitty beside a dumpster.

About how he crouched down to get close to it and untangled it from the fishing line it was caught in.

How, the instant after it ran away krang tendrils shot out seemingly from nowhere and slammed him against the building behind him.

About how he had tried to fight them off but there were too many too fast.

About how they had ripped the sword he managed to grasp out of his hand before taking his other sword out of the sheath on his back.

And about how they wrapped around his arms and legs, stretching him out against the wall like he was nothing more than a puppet on strings.

That was when a cloaking mechanism was removed, revealing two shady figures where a harmless-looking pile of garbage had been.

Leo didn't tell Donnie who it was that attacked him, or all the details of the attack itself.

Such as the whirling of a medical bone saw he could still hear in his head.

The sweat beading on his head as it was brought up to his shell.

The way he struggled to free himself and how the saw was perfectly lined up with the largest crack that extended all the way down his abdomen before making contact.

The animalistic shriek of pain that followed coming from his mouth, making his throat rubbed raw.

Those were all the details Leo kept to himself.

As well as what the tendrils did to him in between being pinned to the wall and having his shell sliced through.

How they had crept up under his shorts and...

He shivered and curled in on himself from the memory.

Now they sat together in silence.

Brother and brother.

Hermano y hermano.

One sitting hunched over with his hands in his lap, tugging on the bottom of his hoodie as though it was too short and one staring blankly ahead at nothing, lost inside his own mind.

"Let me see."

The words tasted bitter in Donnie's mouth and sounded foreign to Leo's ears.

"I already showed Casey, he said it's fine."

"I'm not Casey and I need to see it."

Leo stole a glance at his brother seeming to understand his thinking, so he sat back and proceeded to raise up the front of his hoodie.

Donnie's eyes widened from the size of the bandage but he didn't say anything.

"Don't touch anything!" Leo chided before slowly peeling back one of the top corners of the bandage, revealing the stapled crack beneath.

Donnie was at a loss for worse all while Leo finished showing him the gash, reaffixed the bandages, and lowered his hoodie - turning away and blushing from embarrassment as though this whole thing was somehow his fault.

(Deep down inside he carried a heavy weight of shame that it was.)

That was the moment Donnie found his voice again and asked: "Why didn't you wake us up to help?"

"I woke up dad," Leo abruptly told him in a defensive tone of voice as though he felt he had to justify himself.

"So pops stapled your shell?" Donnie asked for reasons Leo didn't understand.

He blushed again.

"No, I did them myself."

Donnie's eyes widened and he raised his head to stare at Leo's face.

Leo's cheeks turned a brighter shade of red and he curled in on himself even more.

"Why did you do them yourself if you woke up papa to help?"

Leo raised his face to meet his eyes with Donnie's and told him the weighty (somewhat sour) words: "I said I woke him up, I didn't say he helped."

"Why didn't you come to one of us!?" Donnie yelled without meaning to raise his voice - just like he didn't mean to stand up on his feet.

Leo's twin didn't think it was possible but Leo blushed even redder as he squirmed around in the seat, tightly crossing his legs, fidgeting with his hoodie, and gazing around at the floor, being careful not to look in Donnie's direction.

"I . . . I couldn't."

"What do you mean you couldn't!?" Donnie blurted out, once again not meaning to raise his voice.

Leo couldn't take this... this pressure anymore. He stood as well, kept his face down with his eyes glued to the floor, hastily stuttered out: "I . . . I tried getting dad to help b-but he wouldn't get outta bed and I couldn't..."

His voice trailed off.

"You couldn't WHAT!!?"

"I couldn't HANDLE it!!"

Leo covered the sides of his face with his hands, hovering them in the air with his fingers curled as though he was about to try and reach into his head to rip out the memory of what had happened to him; and raising his voice from the panic beating inside his chest he yelled:

"I tried telling dad and he wouldn't HELP and I just . . . I just..."

He gritted his teeth and closed his hands into tight fists, digging his nails into the skin on his palms so hard he wondered if he was drawing blood, and feeling like he might never be able to get them unclenched again.

"It was TOO MUCH!!! I couldn't handle the questions! I couldn't... I couldn't... what if you BLAMED me or something, I couldn't..." "Blamed you for WHAT!? Getting AMBUSHED!? That wasn't your fault!!" Donnie interrupted, yelling just as loudly as Leo and still not understanding why his brother didn't come to them for help with something so serious.

Leo frantically shook his head back and forth, keeping his face pointed on the floor but squeezing his eyes shut as he blurted out:

"It's my fa... it's my... I shoulda kept my guard up, I shouldn't have taken the same way home every day! We've got enemies everywhere I should've know it was a trap or something! I shoulda... it's my... I gotta . . . I gotta..."

. . .

"You gotta WHAT!!?"

"I GOTTA GO!!!"

Leo whipped around and made a bee-line for the door. He put his hand on the handle but before opening it Donnie commented in a quieter, calmer voice than before:

"The krang did worse."

"WHAT!?" Leo snapped, feeling about ready to rip Donnie's head off for daring to spit out such a callous statement.

Despite the aggression to Leo's voice Dee calmly repeated his phrase, with an explanation thrown in:

"The krang did worse to us - they did worse to you - but it never affected you like this."

Leo looked down at his hand holding the doorknob, gritted his teeth again, and quietly replied:

"No, they didn't."

Donnie stared wide-eyed at the back of his brother's head.

Leo turned his head just far enough to see his brother out of the corner of his eye and told him something he had been holding in and swore never to reveal to another living soul:

"They didn't just crack my shell."

"What else did they do to you?" Donnie asked in a equally quiet - yet strained - tone. "Did the EPF get their hands on you? Do you have more cuts? Is that why you're wearing your hoodie, because you need the sleeves to cover up... I don't know, injection bruises on your arms? Did they experiment on you, put something in to you? Whatever they did if you don't want to tell the others I can help, no one else needs to kn..."

Donnie stopped mid-sentence and his eyes trailed down, following Leo's hands as he bit his bottom lip from the swell of shame he felt bubbling up from deep within and pulled down the front and back of his hoodie.

Covering himself in the two other spots where the worst - most humiliating and intrusive - part of the attack took place.

His face turned beet red from shame and he let out a wobbly breath through his mouth from the sickening sensation he felt before hunching his shoulders and hugging into himself.

Donnie stared at his brother in stunned disbelief as the gears turned in his head, until something clicked.

Whoever had harmed his brother had done so much worse than inflict physical pain.

He realized in that moment his brother was right - what was done to him was worse than what he had to endure from Krang Prime's murderous attack, prompting him to slip out the somewhat inappropriate phrase (considering the seriousness of this situation) on auto-pilot:

"Oh my banana pancakes."

Leo opened his eyes to glance at his stunned brother before reaching for the doorknob again.

"Who?" came the somewhat bitter one-word question.

"The Purple Dragons," came the rushed three-word reply.

Then the doorknob turned, the door flung open, and Leo was gone like a bat out of hell.

Chapter Text

Donnie's first instinct was to rush out of his lab to make the Purple Dragons pay for what they did to his brother.

But first he needed to collect data, to learn as much as possible as he could about what happened.

. . .

Because he needed to know exactly how much he had to make them suffer.

The most reasonable first course of action was to run the lair's security video from last night to find out what shape Leo was in when he arrived home. So he clicked at his computer bringing up the footage that began recording when the motion sensors picked up activity outside the lair's front entrance off the rec room at 4:04am.

There, in the dingy, dark sewer tunnel was Leo, shuffling his feet, walking hunched over with one hand covering the bleeding gash cracked into his shell and periodically positioning his other hand to protectively cover his aching backside.

The way he walked - taking short steps and keeping his tense legs so close together - indicated he was in a lot more pain than just the one visible wound in his shell, and Donnie watched carefully all while he entered the lair and slowly made his way to the living room that was off the rec room, where their dad's bedroom was located - dripping blood all along the way.

The previous night

When Leo made it to the rec room he carelessly threw his katanas to the floor to get his belt that carried them off his injured shell - before creeping his way to the living room and from there pushing Splinter's sliding door open.

"Dad?"

Splinter continued snoring, oblivious to the plight of his injured, traumatized son standing right there before him.

He tried again, but louder this time.

"Dad!"

A harsh snort followed by some inaudible grumbles indicated Splinter had woken up.

"Dad I got hurt, I need help."

"Ugh, go get Red," Splinter mumbled in reply before rolling over and falling fast asleep.

The snoring resumed.

"Dad, please."

No response, only snoring.

Tears welled up in the corners of his eyes.

"Dad I need help!"

Leo stayed there, staring at his dad for a few moments before making up his mind and turning around to walk away, leaving the bedroom door open behind him.

From there he groaned and grunted and gritted his teeth all the way through the rec room to the hallway where Donnie's lab, the med bay, and the rest of the bedrooms were located. But instead of stopping at the med bay he shuffled down the hall to Donnie's closed lab door and tried the knob, only to discover it was locked - a sure indication his twin brother was asleep in his room.

Leo next looked down the hallway toward Raph and Mikey's rooms before making up his mind not to get anyone else involved, gradually making his way to the last room on the right - his bedroom - quickly grabbing a pair of his black shorts he always wore under his shell, and then groaning and painfully making his way back to the med bay, where there was a built-in bathroom with a shower that didn't have a big step to get into it, unlike the tub in their main washroom.

After getting through the med bay to the bathroom, Leo shut and locked the door behind him, staring at the toilet the entire time because of how his queasy stomach began churning the second he entered the room.

The next thing he knew, he had to throw himself at the toilet, grunting from pain when he fell to his knees and began hurling what was left in his stomach from the memories flashing through his mind - which didn't amount to much more than acid and bile because of how he had already thrown his guts up in the alley where he was attacked.

After heaving his body with dry urges quite a few times once his stomach had been completely emptied, the intense nausea passed but he stayed there for a moment, dripping sweat from his forehead and panting with his head hung partway in the bowl, before reaching up to flush the contents and then raising his head, wiping off some spittle from the corners of his mouth, and looking at the shower.

As soon as he felt he could muster up the energy, Leo put both hands on the toilet seat to push himself up onto his feet - groaning as he did so.

After peeling off his soiled shorts he looked down on them and noticed for the first time there was caked-on blood in the back of them, so he turned his head to look down at the back of his left leg above the crook of his knee, where one of the krang tendrils that held him fast had slithered down after the most intrusive part of his attack - only to see a trail of slimy blood; the sight of which combined by the memory of how it got there left him leaning over the toilet, heaving with some more dry urges, before spitting into the bowl and standing upright to turn on the shower.

Despite having a ghastly wound in his shell, Leo turned the heat up as high as he could bear so that the room quickly began filling up with steam. Then when he got under the waterworks started up anew, so that he wept and sniffled all while grabbing the scrub brush and squeezing out a heaping helping of body wash - emptying half the bottle so that big globs fell over the edges of the bristles onto the drain at his feet, before getting to work intensely scrubbing at every inch of his body.

But no matter how much he scrubbed, no matter how many times he dumped more body wash onto the scrub brush (to the point he emptied the bottle so that the only thing he could get out were a few bubbles), he simply could not wash away the pervasive dirty feeling left inside of him. So he wound up kneeling down on the drain, letting the shower water pour over his body, weeping bitterly over the invasive attack he endured this very night - sobbing over the fact he went to his dad for help but was rejected - until the water started cooling off because he was using up all the hot.

So as a last ditch effort to try and feel like he managed to make himself clean, Leo stepped out and left wet footprints over to the sink and back again, where he grabbed the bar of soap and proceeded to use it to once-again wash over his entire body.

But nothing worked, nothing could wash away the intense filthy sensation that seemed to come from within. Even long after the last of the soapy bubbles went down the drain and the water turned cold he still couldn't get himself clean and wondered if he would feel an inner filth as pervasive as his self-loathing from here on in for the rest of his life.

But he had more important things that needed to be dealt with right this moment - namely a busted plastron that was still slightly bleeding, spread open a bit on the bottom, and required staples to keep it closed. So he shut off the now-frigid water, and not caring that he was once again dripping all over the floor he stepped out of the shower with a pinkish hue to his green skin because of how he had rubbed every inch raw, grabbed the fluffy green towel hanging on the towel rack, and proceeded to dry off every inch of his body just as intensely as he had scrubbed it with soap - with the crack in his shell still stinging in pain from the soap he got in it over and over again.

After he was done that and there was nothing left to dry, Leo looked down in disgust at his black short laying haphazardly on the floor.

An intense, overwhelming rage combined with a self-hatred overtook him at the sight, so he hastily shoved the towel over it, wrapping it around the shorts so he never had to look at them again, and from there decided to grab the ninja wrappings from his arms and legs he wore this night and took off before his shower, to stuff them in the towel with his dirty shorts.

But there was still his blue mask, that he threw on the counter and was laying halfway in the sink.

The mask he had worn when it happened.

He stared at it for a moment, deciding he had a backup mask so no one would notice what he was about to do next, and he added that to the towel, before dropping it in a heap in front of the door and pulling up his clean shorts.

After that he did what he felt needed to be done by picking up the towel stuffed with his clothes, opening the bathroom door, and heading toward the incinerator's door built into the wall straight across from him.

He held the bunched-up towel out in one hand, away from his body as if he was afraid there was some sort of vicious wild animal confined inside that was going to jump out and bite him in the face; and he proceeded to shuffle his way over to the door for the med bay incinerator Donnie built and installed about a year prior, pulled the square metal door down to open it, and chucked his stuff - towel and all - into the opening before firmly shutting and locking it.

He stared at the big red button sticking out of the wall for a moment before lifting up the safety cover, resting the palm of his hand on the button, holding his breath, and firmly pushing in on it to completely burn up all the contents until nothing was left but ash and dust.

After doing that he lowered his hand and Leo stayed there, staring at the heavy metal door to the incinerator for some time before he busied himself with the required work of stapling the crack in his shell closed to stop the trickling of blood that was still coming out, and to make sure it healed the right way.

When that painful yet required task was complete and after he cleaned up the mess of gauze, bandages, and other medical equipment (chucking what he could into the incinerator to not leave any evidence behind), Leo grabbed his belt and made his way to his bedroom again - carefully tip toeing over his split blood along the way.

But his exhausting night wasn't over just yet.

Instead of going to bed he emerged a few minutes later wearing his blue and white striped pyjama bottoms instead of his black shorts, as well as his blue hoodie despite the fact the lair was comfortably warm (that he kept yanking on to pull down as though it wasn't long enough for his liking).

Then he proceeded to clean up all the evidence of his injury - from the blood droplets on the floor, to the blood on the handles of his katanas that he put in their wall mounts in his room, and the blood he accidentally splattered on Donnie's lab door and Splinter's bedroom door - stopping once to stare at his sleeping dad with a frown on his face before shutting his door and from there sitting curled up in Splinter's living room recliner and crying for a good ten minutes; wishing his 'daddy' was here to make it all better like one time when he was little and scared of the thunder, so Splinter had let him fall asleep on his warm, soft lap while he watched late-night game shows.

It didn't matter that he was technically an adult - it didn't matter how old he was - at times like this he felt like he needed the warmth of his dad's soft fur hugging into him to make everything right once more.

And the worst part...

...the worst part wasn't the pain of the attack. He could handle pain, he was a ninja warrior after all.

The intrusive, filthy nature of what had happened to him was part of the worst of it, but the thing that hung heavily on his heart and mind right this moment was the fact that not everything that had happened to him felt bad.

Some of it felt good...

...and he was thoroughly disgusted with himself because there was a part of him that wanted to feel it again.

In Donnie's lab the next night

Once Leo was finally done with everything it was pushing on seven am according to the time on the security video, and Donnie watched with a frown creasing his face as his brother retired to his room no more than two hours before Raph got up.

Donnie closed out the window, sat back in his computer chair, and rubbed his bleary, bloodshot eyes with the palms of his hands before reaching out for what was left of his cold coffee.

But he wasn't done his research just yet.

He still had an evil genius tech base to infiltrate. Because he knew if Kendra was anything like him, then she recorded everything.

Chapter Text

Determination combined with an unhealthy dose of rage can be a strong motivator - which was why it took Donatello less than an hour to locate, infiltrate, and search through the Purple Dragon's security files - where he discovered exactly what he was looking for.

The footage taken the prior night from Kendra's very own body cam - in addition to the security camera the Purple Dragons had two weeks prior strategically placed in that very alley where they attacked Leo, indicating they had been watching Donnie's twin for some time and planning this for a while.

Meaning it wasn't a spur-of-the-moment, last second attack but rather a pre-meditative, planed-out assault.

The thought made Donnie's blood boil but he had to keep it together for his twin so he would know exactly what happened, and therefore would know exactly how much to pay them back for what they did.

When he was done his research, erasing data and wiping all trace of the videos he was about to watch would be an easy task. And with the way his lab door was currently shut and locked there was no risk of someone coming in to witness what he was about to witness, so with confidence Donnie pressed play - showing the video from Kendra's body cam in full-screen with the Purple Dragon's alley security video playing in a smaller window.

He skipped past the mundane stuff she did to lay her trap - such as luring in an alley cat with food and ordering Jeremy to tangle it in a mess of fishing line to ensure it couldn't escape, before attaching the same line to the wheels on a dumpster to keep it confined in just the right spot.

When Jeremy pointed up to the roof and he and Kendra squatted down by the building wall across from where the cat was - to use their tech to conceal their presence by making it appear as though they were nothing more than a pile of garbage bags - Donnie clicked play just in time to see the back of his brother's shell when he jumped into the alley from above, to address the poor stuck kitty that was meowing to be set free.

"It's ok little fellow, I'll cut you loose," came the tender sound of Leo's voice.

Donnie leaned his face in close to the screen to get a better look, but jumped back with a yelp and almost fell out of his chair when four or five krang tendrils burst out at Leo's face, slamming him so hard against the wall behind him his body made an audible thump and he let out a winded: "Oof!"

Leo was quick to grab a katana with his free left hand while his right arm, both legs, and half his shell were wrapped in slimy pink tendrils. He successfully hacked away at two vines that shot toward him - squirting out a slimy mass like some sort of green krangy blood when they were severed - but then his wrist was pinned to the wall, crushing his communicator at the same time, and both swords were forcibly ripped away from him.

That was the moment Kendra and Jeremy showed themselves.

"You! I should've known!" Leo growled at his attackers. "You're even crazier than I thought trying to control krang bits! Not even Earth's Protection Force can get them under control and they've been trying for years!" he shot out at them like venom, struggling against the cold vines that were squeezing him against the wall and threatening: "Let me outta here so I can kick your nerdy butts!"

"Such temper," Kendra smirked, resting a hand on her curvy hip with Jeremy standing to her left, behind her, looking at his feet and seeming to be a little unsure of himself.

Then, to show off her new genius invention, Kendra gently tapped on some sort of visor that appeared to be attached to her left temple and had an orange lens going over her right eye, removing it to show off the tech literally built into the side of her head to gloat: "My patented brain chip allows me to have full control over the krang goop we collected and grew in our labs."

"Wha..?" Leo's scowl fell and he raised his eyes to stare in confusion at the tech that was literally built into Kendra's head - needing a few second to wrap his mind around everything packed into that single sentence. Then his angry scowl returned as Kendra clicked the visor back into place and he spit out at her: "You experimented on yourself!? I always knew you were crazy but this is a whole new level!"

Completely unoffended, Kendra stepped closer to the incapacitated turtle who was helplessly hanging from the krang goop that was stretching his arms above his head and wrapped around his legs up to the knees, to stare into his eyes and cooly tell him: "Crazy and genius often go hand-in-hand..." an angry snarl came across her face when she added in a more aggressive tone: "Just ask your brother, Othello Von Ryan! Thanks to his crazy genius he found a way to wipe all my data on my last mech and programmed it to blast off into the mesosphere, where it exploded!"

"Hah!" Leo laughed out loud, "I remember that!" With a cocky grin on his face he smoothly asked: "Wasn't your buddy Jason arrested for terrorism and locked away for the rest. of his. life after that little stunt you tried to pull?"

Leo snickered when Kendra growled in anger, stomped her foot on the ground, and exclaimed: "Jason took the fall for me so I can continue with our important work, but Donnie crossed the line when he destroyed my mech and I say we're getting even!"

Leo snorted out another laugh because of his ability to enrage his captor so quickly, and questioned: "If you're so mad at Donnie, why take it out on me?"

"Because you're the leader so I say that means you're the one who has to pay!" Kendra aggressively snapped, before cooling her temper and coldly adding: "Perhaps after today you'll think twice about sending your family of heroes out to ruin my plans, because I have a special treat in store. Just. For. You."

"Uh, Kendra, are you sure we should really be doing this?" Jeremy asked in apparent concern that got Leo looking at him in a mixture of worry and confusion.

"Don't you think we're crossing the line..." "Shut up Jeremy!" Kendra barked. "If you're too squeamish for a little revenge then go keep watch!"

Giving Leo a sad look the slider didn't quite understand (one that got his heart pounding) Jeremy stuffed his hands into his pockets, hung his head, and walked away to go stand watch near the entrance to the dark alley so he didn't have to feel like he was a part of what was to come next.

Leo watched as Jeremy was walking away, but Kendra put that smug smirk back on her face, raised her hand to rest her fingers under Leo's chin, and forced his face forward to look at her - about to say something to him. But he beat her to the punch when he yanked his face away from her grip, narrowed his eyes in anger, and fearlessly glared into her eyes when he sternly warned her: "If you kill me my brothers won't rest until they hunt you down and make you pay!"

Once again seeming to be completely unbothered, Kendra's shoes clicked on the concrete as she stepped back to get a better view of her captive and watched with that smirk on her face while making the tendrils under her control slowly slither their way up his legs.

"Oh no, if I kill you the pain would only be temporary," she told him.

Leo's heart rate skyrocketed as he watched the cold grip of the krang bits slither their way up his legs, past his knees, wondering what they were going to do to him as horrible memories of the time Krang Prime used them to try to assimilate him and his brothers ran through his mind.

"I have something a little more lasting in store for you."

Leo's eye winced from the grotesque sensation of the slimy bits continuing to travel up, up, up - two in the front and one thicker one in the back.

"Pain vanishes," she told him while she kept her eyes on the biggest mark in Leo's shell that extended all the way down to the bottom lip and was a leftover reminder of what the krang did to him.

"Wounds heal and scars fade," she added.

He flinched when she reached her hand out to gently trace her finger along the longest leftover mark.

The groping bits had almost reached all the way up to his shell now.

"But some things change a person and last a lifetime," came the final warning.

The tendrils crept up under his black shorts in the front at the same time the bigger one slithered its way under his shorts in the back.

"No," Leo let out as a hushed gasp when he realized what was about to happen to him. Then he struggled anew and raised his voice:

"You sick, twisted...No Kendra don't do this to me DON'T DO THIS!!!" he pleaded with her, fighting against the goop holding him tight, stretched out against the brick wall with all his might.

But his struggles to free himself were in vain and pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears.

When everything was over and the three tendrils that had crawled up his legs in the front and back rejoined the rest of the krang mess that was completely engulfing his legs just below the knees, Leo let his head fall limp to the side, cringing involuntarily from the residual feeling and thought of what just happened to him, and quietly told his attacker through puffs of air: "Alright. You did what you came here to do. Let me go now."

"Oh no, we are we are not done yet," came the cold-hearted reply.

"Wha..."

When he heard the sound of shuffling Leo opened his eyes and watched as Kendra searched through her bag that was draped over her shoulder, asking in a thoroughly defeated tone of voice: "What nooow? What more could you do to me?"

But that answer became apparent when she withdrew her hand, producing a medical bone saw from her oversized purse.

Leo grimaced and kept his eyes glued to the circular blade in the saw on her hand, asking: "Whaaat are you gonna do with that?"

"Oh nothing much," Kendra replied in a fake sweet tone. Her shoes clicked on the pavement when she walked up to him, and he flinched and pulled back as best he could when she reached out to unclip his belt from around his waist to better get at his shell. After doing that she rested the blade of the saw against one of the marks in the center of his chest that extended all the way down through his stomach.

His heart began pounding anew as he anxiously watched her, taking quick, shallow breaths through his mouth and clenching his jaw in anxious suspense, but Kendra wasn't ready to finish the job just yet and calmly told him the comment that was clearly meant as a threat: "I love suspense movies, don't you?"

She shot her eyes up to look at him with a deceptive smile, but Leo couldn't reply, his voice left him as he kept his wide-eyes locked on the blade of the saw designed to cut through bone that Kendra could turn on any second with nothing more than a flick of her thumb.

"I wonder how it feels for a turtle when his shell is cracked."

"D-don't do it Kendra," Leo stuttered out.

"I imagine it feels a lot like a broken bone."

She watched the blade closely as she slowly traced it all along the length of the longest crack - tickling his shell along the way.

"But you already know the answer to that question, don't you?" she slyly asked, as the blade reached all the way to the bottom.

"Please, haven't you..."

Bzzzzz

Leo gritted his teeth tighter and squeezed his eyes shut the instant Kendra flipped on the blade, holding it so close to the bottom of his shell that he could feel the breeze generated from the spinning parts brushing against his plastron.

"For extra insurance so you don't get any bad ideas to try and fight us when I set you free."

"AAAAUUUGGGGHHH!!!"

The whirling of mechanical parts was accompanied by a screech of pain when Kendra pushed down on the saw, coming in contact with Leo's hard shell and flicking tiny bits of splintered scutes mixed in with his blood up over his chest.

He screamed out in agony a second time when she ran the blade up along the hairline crack leftover from Krang Prime's murderous attack, running it up above where his belly button would be if he had one, before finally shutting it off.

Leo fell limp, hanging from the vines with sweat dripping off his head and blood drizzling down from his throbbing shell onto the ground beneath him.

"Jeremy!" Kendra snapped.

Leo kept his head down and dared to open his eyes to get a look at the damage done to his shell as Kendra's second in command came running into the alley to stand by her side.

Leo raised his eyes briefly once, not to look into Kendra's eyes that were glued to his face, but to glance at Jeremy - who kept his head down and refused to look anywhere near the bloodied, thoroughly humiliated turtle hanging by krang bits on the wall in front of him.

"We're going now," she ordered as the krang goop slithered off Leo's arms and legs, dropping him to the ground with a pained: "Augh!" on his hands and knees.

That was apparently the cue to return his weapons, and Leo looked up when the clatter of two swords landing by his head caught his attention.

Keeping his left hand wrapped around his bleeding gut, Leo instantly reached his right one out to grasp the hilt of one of his swords, scowling in anger but keeping his head down and speaking in a hushed voice when he whispered: "I'll kill you for what you did to me," more in reference to the sexual assault than the painful attack on his shell.

"What was that?"

Despite the way her enemy was grasping his deadly sword, Kendra boldly stepped ahead and bent down - leaning her ear in closer to Leo's face to confidently ask him: "I didn't catch it." even though she had clearly heard Leonardo's death threat.

Tensing his body, tightening his grip on his sword hilt, and snapping his face up to glare at her with an angry scowl, Leo screamed at the top of his voice:

"I'LL KILL YOU FOR WHAT YOU DID TO ME!!!"

With an over-confident chuckle, Kendra straightened up, rested a hand on her hip, and told him: "No you won't."

Leo stay there, bent over double on his knees, panting through his mouth and sticking his face back down to stare at the blood dripping onto the ground beneath his body - not making any move to do as he said by striking her down here and now.

"You're the hero, and heroes live by moral codes. Which means you. don't. kill."

Leo gritted his teeth so hard his jaw and teeth were hurting, but still he didn't move or in any way strike out with the hand holding his sword.

Kendra watched with a satisfied smirk as his body suddenly relaxed and he lightened his grip on his sword - winning the battle for his psyche by following the hero's code he lived by and not striking down his attacker right here and now.

"You're right," he mumbled - being sure he was loud enough for her to hear. "I won't sink down to your level." He spit on the floor at her feet in contempt and then spit out the sour words: "You're nothing but a crazy bitch and you're not worth turning myself into a murderer."

Kendra barked out a condescending laugh at him, Leo turned his head away from her with his cheeks blushing a bright red, feeling thoroughly humiliated by what she had done to him - by what he let her do to him because of not keeping his guard up, like he realized too late he should have done, therefore mentally taking the blame for her ruthless attack onto his turtle shoulders - a sickening, heavy weight that was almost too much for his turtle soul to bear.

He knew what she meant now, about how some things stayed with a person for life, because he knew there was no way he would ever forget what had happened to him here this very night.

Without another word, Leo listened but didn't turn his head to watch as two sets of feet walked away, leaving him here alone in the alley, where the gravity of his situation and what just happened to him sunk in so heavily into his heart it seeped down into his stomach, leaving him with a sickening feeling that overwhelmed his senses with nausea.

Without warning the entire contents of his stomach was expelled right there, where stayed hunched over on his knees.

Then, from his computer chair Donnie watched as his twin brother sat back on his knees, let his head fall against the wall behind him, and let his body heave with heavy sobs as he wept openly and bitterly for a good, long time - wiping his sweaty, teary face off with his right arm because of how the black ninja wrappings covering his left one were soaking through with his spilt blood.

Then, when he finally regained control of himself he clipped his belt closed around his wounded waist because he needed it to carry his swords. From there he reached a trembling hand out to pick up his two katanas.

As Leo slowly pushed his agonized body up onto his feet Donnie paused the video and then sat back in the quiet darkness of his lab, with the only light in the room illuminating on his face from the oversized computer screen right in front of him as he let his mind process everything he had just witnessed.

When that process was thoroughly complete Donatello clicked out of the video, deleted everything he downloaded from the Purple Dragons, and then proceeded to wipe clean any vestige of data indicating what he witnessed (what he felt he needed to watch to best defend his brother) so that no one would ever know he had seen what they had done to Leo.

Then, a few seconds later, with another click of his mouse a new screen popped up - one that gave him access to a piece of ingenious tech he created shortly after the invasion.

One that would help him get even with Kendra for what she did to his twin.

One corner of Donnie's mouth curled up into a devious grin.

"I always heard revenge is sweet," he thought out loud to no one but himself.

Rising from his computer chair, he next walked over to a safe in his lab, unlocked it, pulled open the heavy door, reached in to take out a small box, and opened it to carefully hold up the contents: a single purple hair.

Staring at it intently with that grin stuck on his face, he added in a sly tone of voice:

"I guess I'm about to find out."

Chapter Text

"I'm inside your head, Kendra."

"Who's there!?"

Kendra whipped around from the mech she was working on late at night in her secret lair, but no one was there besides herself.

After suspiciously gazing around she returned her attention to her invention, mumbling something about chugging too many energy drinks and needing to start on a better sleep schedule.

But then she froze and her eye twitched when she heard the same malicious voice tell her:

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, patenting your brain chip? What a bad idea, just about anybody with enough knowledge can hack into the patent datafile and learn how your little invention works."

"Don-a-tello!" Kendra hissed through her teeth. She spun around in circles, scanning her eyes everywhere, searching for any sign Donnie had broken into her base as opposed to believing what he had said about taking control of the brain chip surgically installed in her head.

"And Brain Chip? What a lame name," Othello Von Ryan's voice tauntingly chided. "I would have called it..." "That's enough!" Kendra aggressively interrupted. "How did you bypass my securities!? That should have been impossible!"

"Nothing is impossible..." a locked box sitting on a table behind her began rumbling, "...with the right motivation."

A single pink krang tendril slithered out from beneath the lid of the tech box that should have been locked.

Kendra gasped at the sight and backed up until she banged against the table where she had been working.

"Ingenious idea combining your tech with krang parts," Donnie's voice came from all around.

"What do you want from me!?" Kendra weakly demanded with nervous sweat forming on her head and she trembled from fear while reaching behind her to grab a wrench she had been using, because it was the only weapon she currently had at her disposal.

More slimy krang vines crept out from beneath the lid, growing in size and thickness as they slithered down the box to make contact with the table.

In a menacingly cold, spiteful voice Donatello replied with the words: "I want you to pay for what you did to my brother."

The krang vines shot at her.

Kendra squealed and protectively covered her face with her hands...

...then she woke up in bed with a jolt, sweating buckets from the unusually vivid nightmare, hyperventilating with her throat sore from having screamed for real.

Upon realizing she was safe in bed, Kendra focused on getting her breathing under control while resting a hand on her chest over her pounding heart.

"Stupid dream," she grumbled once things started settling down. She readjusted her blankets and motioned to lay back down again, thinking out loud: "That's the last time I mix espresso with an energy drink."

"BOO!"

"WHAAA!!!"

Kendra not only jolted up in bed but also jumped up on her feet this time, with her heart racing as she fearfully darted her eyes around her dark bedroom.

"I told you I'm in your head, Kendra."

"No, no this can't be happening! This is impossible!"

She fumbled to click on her lamp before shoving on a pair of slippers and last of all grabbing her lilac robe from off the back of her bedroom door to hastily put on over her nightgown all while Donnie's maniacal laughter echoed in her head.

The door flung open and Kendra fairly flew down the stairs in her rush to get to her evil hidden lair to find a way to get Donnie out of her head.

Through the whole frenzied process she heard 'Othello Von Ryan's' voice maniacally cackling in her ears, and as she drove down the street he threateningly told her in a diabolical tone between his crazed laughter:

"I've always been holding back, Kendra!"

"Jeremy meet me at the base!" Kendra yelled into her phone's communicator.

"My brothers never let me shine, you see, because they worry about trivial things like safety." (Donnie)

"It's five am Kendra, what's so important it can't wait?" (Jeremy)

"But you raised the bar, my dear." (Donnie)

"Don't call me that!" (Kendra)

"Don't call you what?" (Jeremy)

Kendra's hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles and fingertips were turning white.

"Just meet me at the base! Donnie hacked into my brain chip!" (Kendra)

"But you said that was impossible!" (Jeremy)

"I know what I said, JUST MEET ME AT THE BASE!!!" (Kendra)

Tires screeched as Kendra ran a red light, taking the turn at the intersection much too fast.

"Yes, meet him at the base, Kendra. I have a surprise in store for you when you get there." (Donnie)

SCREEEEEEE!!!

Kendra squealed her car to a halt.

"You don't know where the base is. The brain chip doesn't give you access to read my mind!"

Sweat drenched through Kendra's nightgown as she continued staring ahead with her hands so tight on the steering wheel it was hard to tell where it ended and her fingers began.

"Maybe I do, maybe I don't, there's only one way to find out," came the cunning remark.

Kendra needed to go to her base in order to reset the chip, it was the only way to get Donnie out of her head because the only way to access and make changes to the complex programming was through her personal supercomputer in her hidden lair's private office.

And Donnie must have known it.

Screaming out from rage and cursing a good many times Kendra decided the best course of action would be to continue on with her original plan, so she shifted her car into gear and tore down the road all while Donnie remained eerily quiet inside her head.

Which likely meant he was up to no good.

"What are you doing, Von Ryan?" she muttered under her breath.

No answer.

"I know you can hear me!" she yelled, hitting her steering wheel from frustration and driving through the hidden underground entrance to her headquarters, which was in a secret basement located under a downtown office/science research building by the name of TCRI - the front to her evil empire that worked closely with the Earth's Protection Force. That was how she gained access to experiment on krang mutant dna in the first place.

Black marks were left behind on the pavement of the mostly empty underground parking lot that led directly to the bowels of her evil genius lair.

The only other car in the lot was an antique mustang that she knew belonged to Jeremy.

"How'd you get here before me!?" she demanded through a portable communicator she kept in her car, that she took with her as she raced to the elevator.

"What are you talking about? I haven't left home yet," Jeremy asked her in confusion.

She stopped dead in her tracks and spun around to see the only car was hers.

That was when Donnie spoke up again.

"It's fascinating how you connected your chip to the visual cortex of your brain. Why I could make you see just about an-y-thiiiing."

Kendra growled out in anger and rushed at the elevator to hit the button. But as soon as she did that she gasped and backed away from fright when the walls up by the ceiling began dripping black krang blood before her eyes, and the elevator door melted like wax on a candle.

She heard the ding and ignoring what her eyes were telling her she darted ahead into the waiting elevator.

Everything returned to normal.

"Do you like suspense movies?" Donnie asked in an eerily pleasant tone of voice. "I know you do," he answered for her in reference to when she asked Leo the same thing while toying with him before slicing into his shell with her medical saw.

She inputted her passcode and pressed the button to take her up to the level where her office was located.

"They're my faaav-o-rite."

Kendra's breathing was shallow and quick, her pulse raced, throbbing her head with every beat of her pounding heart.

"Did you know I can make you believe what you're seeing is real, when it is only an illusion - a dreeeam?"

At that Kendra woke up with a gasp in her bed, sweating all over and hyperventilating.

"Donnie! You get OUT of my HEAD!!!" she roared out in anger.

No answer.

She was met with nothing but the silence of her empty home and the background noise of a bustling city waking for the day outside her window.

Blinking away the sleep in her eyes, Kendra leaned over to push the curtain aside and was greeted with the grayness of an early dawn, wondering how much of that was real...

...and how much was nothing but a dream.

Meanwhile in his secret hidden sewer lair, standing inside his DreamCatcher9000, Donatello removed the headset with a contented smile on his face over his accomplishment; and as he stepped out he thought to himself:

"I'll sleep good tonight."

Chapter Text

3 Days Later

With bags under her eyes, an elbow on her desk, and resting her chin in her hand, Kendra continued doing what she had been doing for the past three days:

Searching for any weaknesses in her ingenious brain chip that Donatello used as an entry point.

It didn't take her and Jeremy long to locate and delete the encrypted coding Donnie added to her programming (as a distraction, to make her think he actually did access her dreams via her brain chip as opposed to his DreamCatcher tech), but until they found that entry point and fixed the problem the real risk remained that he could infiltrate her tech a second time.

And his implied threat about liking suspense movies indicated there were plans of doing more after leaving her in anxious suspense.

"Why don't you just take the chip out?" Jeremy asked from behind her as he clicked at his computer that Kendra setup in her office so they could join heads and work on this urgent problem together.

"I already told you, it's the only way I found to control the krang vines that'll lead me to being the most powerful person in the world!" Kendra snapped as her way of saying 'shut up and get back to work, now!'

"But is it really worth all of this!?" Jeremy back-talked.

Kendra let out a disgruntled sigh and curtly explained to him: "I can't take it out, Jer-e-my, I designed it to learn and grow from my commands. It's integrated into my neural connections now, so it's a part of my brain, it can't be removed without leaving me brain dead."

"Woah," her second in command gasped, getting back to work with renewed fervor.

For the third day in a row she and Jeremy had been working late together to find a solution to this new set of problems Donnie threw at them head-first, and that was the moment her partner-in-crime enthusiastically announced: "Found it!"

Kendra stopped her work and spun around to stare at the line of coding Jeremy had highlighted on his screen.

"It's so simple!" he exclaimed with a smile on his face. "We were looking for a back door when the solution was staring us in the face all this time!"

Kendra's eyes widened when she read the coding for the port where her tech visor clicked into place, then they narrowed and she muttered in anger: "How stupid could you be Jeremy!? He came right in through the front door!" (because of course she wouldn't take responsibility for her own oversight.)

"Out of my way!" she next demanded, pushing her second in command aside so she could claim the glory for herself by fixing this problem once and for all.

All it took was switching some coding around and then she clicked 'enter' with a triumphal: "Ah ha!"

Alarms blared, red lights flashed, and Kendra and Jeremy gazed around in a mixture of confusion, fear, and anger when a computerized 'Donnie' voice announced through the lair's speakers:

"Congratulations, you cracked the code and won a new mech!"

Kendra jumped up from her chair, gazing around at the speakers built into the walls, and forcefully demanded: "What are you talking about Von Ryan!?"

Then her and Jeremy's attention were diverted to the main room where their evil mech was being assembled because they heard a rumbling coming from that direction.

Both of them bolted for the door, but Kendra slapped a hand on Jeremy's face to push him back so she would be the first one through. And when she saw what was happening before her eyes she grabbed the sides of her head and screamed out in anger.

There, before her eyes, the mech robot she spent years perfecting - her pride and joy, her reason for getting up every morning - was collapsing before her eyes with a bright purple light being emitted from somewhere within.

clunk!

A piece of the chest armor fell off.

clatter, clatter, clatter

An arm crumbled into dozens of pieces that all fell to the floor before her eyes.

thump

off went a leg.

creeeeek

The head tipped forward at an eerily unnatural degree before coming fully detached and collapsing to the floor with the rest of her destroyed mech...

...revealing the menacing form of a purple and black mech ninja turtle staring at her with a pair of glowing purple eyes.

"Impressed?" came a voice that sounded like Donnie's but more mechanical.

clunk

the mech took a step forward, out of the wreckage that was left behind of Kendra's mech - throwing years worth of work down the drain.

clunk

"DONATELLO HOW DID YOU...?"

clunk

"I already told you..."

Before their eyes the mech suit began melting away, leaving a purple puddle of liquid metal on the floor and revealing who was behind this whole thing.

Glaring at her with an evil grin and with his markings glowing brightly, the frightening form of an enraged ninja turtle was revealed.

"...I've always been holding back, Ken-dra," Donatello finished, with that frightening grin on his face growing as he locked eyes with his next target: Kendra.

His main adversary's eyes narrowed in anger as Jeremy reached for a machine-gun sized tech blaster from beside her.

"You made a grave mistake coming here Von Ryan!"

Without warning she grabbed the blaster that was in Jeremy's grip, kicked him away to claim it as her own, pointed it at her enemy, and fired.

But instead of blasting a red-hot destructive beam of plasma...

"Pew, pew, pew," came a computerized Donnie voice.

Kendra stared at the blaster in confusion before growling out in anger and chucking the oversized toy aside as Donnie took another menacing step ahead, never taking his eyes off her. And without moving his lips...

"I'm in your head Kendra."

"How did you get back into my chip!!?" she roared in anger.

Donnie cocked his head to the side, took another step forward, and once again his mouth remained firmly shut as his voice sounded in her head.

"What if I told you you never got me out?"

"Impossible!" she screamed with spit flying out of her mouth.

Meanwhile while Kendra and Donnie conversed Jeremy discreetly grabbed a tech grenade from off a nearby worktable and chucked it as Donatello's feet.

There was a deafening explosion along with a bright flash of light and the entire area where Donnie had been standing was obliterated, leaving behind a thick plume of purple smoke.

"Al-right!" Jeremy cheered at the same time Kendra exclaimed in excitement: "Take that Don-a-tello!"

Both of their cheers were cut off and their smiles fell when they heard the eerie sound of chuckling coming from the midst of the smoke.

They watched in horror as a green turtle leg stepped ahead, bringing with it the completely unharmed mutant soft shelled turtle out from amongst the smoke, whose eyes remained firmly locked on his target straight ahead of him.

Jeremy gasped and Kendra parted her lips to say something but instead the only sound to escape her mouth was a frightened scream because Donnie shot ahead, right for her - pinning her against the wall with his ninpo bo held horizontally across her throat and his angry, scowling face inches away from hers as they glared into each other's eyes.

In front of her to her left Jeremy was forced to his tippy toes by a long, thick krang tendril that had popped out of Donnie's tech shell and was holding him up by the neck, forcing him to frightfully grasp at the slimy mass to try and ease some of the pressure on his throat.

"Bet you didn't know you can control those vies without a brain implant," Othello Von Ryan spoke in a calm, sinister voice, keeping his face inches away from Kendra's and staring into her eyes.

"H-how did you infiltrate our base?" she demanded, but in a nervous tone of voice.

Instead of answering her question, Donnie leaned his face in so close to hers Kendra was seeing double, and he threatened her through clenched teeth:

"If you ever come near my brother again, I. Will. Kill. You."

"You wouldn't kill me, you're the hero," Kendra replied with a smug overconfidence.

shing!

whap!

Her eyes widened when the sharp blade of a katana - Leo's katana - slammed into the wall by her head, so close to her temple it grazed a cut in her skin and cut her tech visor in half - all without taking his vengeful eyes off hers.

She flicked her eyes to the side when the severed half of her visor fell to the floor, then kept them glued to the threat in front of her while blood trickled down the side of her face and pieces of the hair he cut off slowly floated down, joining the broken visor at her feet.

Then she stared into the eyes of her attacker and gasped from surprise. She had never before seen that level of pure hatred in any of the turtle's eyes ever before when they fought.

Maybe Jeremy was right and she did take things too far - but it was too late to undo a bad decision now.

Giving Donnie her undivided attention, she didn't doubt for a second he was speaking the truth with his cold, threatening words:

"The invasion changed us all, Ken-dra. Some for the better, and others - like you and I..." a twinkle gleamed in his eye as if he was deriving excitement from what he was doing to her, and a tense grin spread across his face when he finished: "for the worse!"

A chill ran up Kendra's spine and she flicked her eyes to the side when she heard Jeremy gasp as the krang vine holding him up raised him another inch, so that even the tips of his toes were barely grazing the floor.

Tipping his head and keeping that eerily tense smile on his face, Donnie kept his unblinking eyes on Kendra, seeming to be oblivious to the plight of the person he was choking behind him.

"During the cleanup, when I was searching for Leo's missing sword," Donnie cast his eyes on the sword in reference that he had a tight grip on and was stuck into the wall beside Kendra's head, "I came across one of those disgusting krang hounds."

He spit on the floor at her feet, showing his contempt for the krang and all they did.

"Poor thing," he added in a fake sympathetic tone of voice, "Something had to pay for what that MONSTER..." Kendra flinched when Donnie raised his voice in anger, and spit flew out of his mouth when he finished: "...did to my brother in the prison dimension!"

He chucked lightly, closing his eyes for but a second before putting them back on his newest most hated enemy.

"After I was done with it I had to put it out of its misery, so I sunk this sword..." Kendra flinched again when he pushed on the sword, forcing the blade another couple of inches into the wall beside her head, "...so far in its belly the blade came out the other side and it's intestines spilled out all over my hand."

Kendra's eyes widened from fear when the pupils of the eyes staring back at her constricted into tiny dots, switching the raw anger and hatred she saw in Donnie's eyes to something more horrifying:

a gaze completely devoid of emotion.

No remorse.

No conscience.

No morals.

. . .

No holding back.

Grinning wildly at the enemy in front of him, Donnie raised the krang vine that was wrapped around Jeremy's throat, raising him up off the floor.

He choked and sputtered and coughed as the full weight of his body pressed down on his throat.

"Do you know what I discovered that day, Ken-drrra?"

Donnie tipped his head again.

A second vine protruded from the back of his tech shell, slithering out toward Jeremy's feet.

"I like the smell of blood."

The vine grasp the hapless Jeremy by his ankles, forcing his body down and the frightening sound of gasping and wheezing cut out, being replaced by something even more horrifying:

the sound of silence.

His airway had been completely cut off.

Yelling in a rage, Donatello demanded: "So don't you DARE tell me heroes don't kill!" his tone switched back to that menacingly calm tone it carried before when he finished: "Because maybe I'm not the hero I once was."

"WE'LL STAY AWAY FROM YOUR FAMILY JUST DON'T KILL HIM, PLEEEASSSE!!!" Kendra begged, screaming out the words from her panic.

With a thump Jeremy was instantly dropped to the floor, where he rolled around, grasping his throat, wheezing and coughing while the thick tendrils slunk their way from holding him up to slowly advance on Kendra.

She could do nothing but grimace and turn her head to the side when the slimy, cold surface of the same krang goop she gained control over and used against Donatello's brother caressed the sides of her face, but she carefully kept her eyes on the threat in front of her.

Lowering his voice to a whisper, Donnie gave the very real threat when he said:

"Something tells me you're going to be preoccupied for the next looong while, my dear, but I'm going to give you one and only one warning. The next time you do something to attract the attention of my hero family, if you so much as glance at my twin brother, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day I will hunt you down and I will kill you."

The krang tendrils retracted back into his tech shell, he leaned his face in so close that his mouth was alongside her ear, and he uttered the very real threat:

"And I promise to fill it with that suspense you like soooo much by making it nice and slow."

Suddenly without warning, in one swift action Donnie yanked the blade of Leo's sword out of the wall and plunged it deep into Kendra's abdomen.

She screamed out an unearthly screech from a combination of the fright and pain...

...waking up in bed, screaming so loudly her throat was rubbed raw.

In a panic she reached down toward her stomach to reassure her mind she was unharmed, but when she pushed the blankets back her eyes widened at the sight of a bright, crimson red staining the front of her nightgown.

"wha...wha...nonononono!"

Touching the blood to try and convince herself this wasn't real only proved the opposite when her hands were painted red with her own blood...

...then she woke up in bed for the second time, jolting up into a sitting position before quickly flicking on the lamp and jumping out of bed as though she thought the blankets were about to swallow her whole.

Frantically feeling around her stomach, she realized the blood was gone...

but was she awake, or was she still dreaming?

There was no way to know, no way to tell, the dreams brought on by that mutant seemed to be just as real as real life.

Was she even in her bedroom or was she locked away inside a padded room at some institution somewhere!?

How could she ever know!!!?

With an angry scowl on her face and clenching her fists from an intense rage bubbling up from within, Kendra cried aloud:

"DON-A-TEEEEEELL-LLLOOOOOOOO!!!"

Chapter Text

Leo was in the kitchen, grabbing a bowl from a cupboard for cereal when Splinter walked in, yawning and scratching his lower back and then greeting his son: "Good morning Orang... uh Blue."

Leo ignored his dad completely, keeping his back to him and putting the empty bowl down on the counter as Splinter opened the fridge and scanned over the leftovers, looking for something easy to grab for breakfast.

Meanwhile his son abruptly left the kitchen without a word and without a bite to eat.

Splinter never noticed.

On his way back to his room Leo kept his head down and his hands in his hoodie pocket, only raising his eyes for a brief second to glance at Donnie when they crossed paths because his twin (who knew everything) was heading to the kitchen.

His cheeks blushed a bright red when their eyes met and he hunched his shoulders and quickened his pace to hurry up and walk past.

Donnie stopped and turned his head to gaze at his brother in concern with a frown. He opened his mouth, wanting to say something helpful, but when he realized he didn't know what to say he sighed instead, watched Leo slip around the corner, and turned back around, continuing on his way to the kitchen.

When Leo got to his room his plan was to grab his basketball and quietly avoid his brothers who he told he would open up to head out under the guise of shooting some hoops in one of the Hidden City parks.

But when he arrived at his room Raph and Mikey were already there waiting for him, sitting on his bed.

"Uhhh, hey guys, what's up?" Leo questioned, pretending not to know why they were there - and blushing all over again while pointedly not looking at them.

Blurting out his words without thought, Mikey threw his hands out and exclaimed: "What's up is that we're here because you said you'd tell...mmft!"

Raph slapped a hand over his mouth and gave Leo a big, nervous grin, saying in an equally nervous tone of voice: "Listen, Lee, we know something's up and we wanna help but..." he took his hand off Mikey's mouth to scratch the back of his head, and lovingly offered: "...if you're not ready to tell us that's ok." He glanced at Michelangelo, crossly adding: "Right, Mikey?"

"Well, Dr. Feelings would say talking about your problems is the best way to overcome them," Mikey objected, before softening his body language (and his tone of voice) when he looked up at his blue-clad brother and added: "But I guess as your bro, I agree with Raph. Even though it's not healthy to keep things bottled up inside."

Leo's countenance softened and he gave his two caring brothers a gentle smile, rubbed the back of his head, and said: "Thanks bros I..."

His voice was cut off by the sound of yelling coming from the kitchen.

Donnie and Splinter were having an argument.

They never argued.

Leo turned around to face down the hall in confusion and Mikey and Raph rose from their spots on the bed.

"That's odd," Leo commented, walking toward the sound of two angry voices, with the equally concerned Raph and Mikey following behind.

When the three of them got to the kitchen, they watched as Donnie and their dad were engaged in a heated debate.

"What is the matter with you, Purple!?" Splinter yelled in anger. "Apologize right this second for your disrespectful attitude!" he demanded.

"What is that matter with me!?" Donnie mirrored, raising his voice louder than his dad. "'What is the matter' he asks!?" he added with an incensed scoff. Then he gestured to Leo when he hurled out the fiery words: "What is the mat-ter is that Leo got hurt..." Leo instantly blushed all over again, hunched his shoulders, and scrunched down his head, wishing he could disappear, "...and he went to you for help..." he thrust a hand out to point an accusing finger at his dad, "...but all you did was tell him to get Raph, rolled over, and fell back asleep!"

"This doesn't make any sense," Splinter objected. He turned his head away from Donnie to look up at Leo, asking: "Blue, why didn't you talk to me about this yourself?" But instead of giving him a chance to reply he indicated he had woken up and heard what Leo requested of him two nights prior when he came home hurt (as opposed to not fully waking up and either forgetting the conversation entirely or thinking it was a dream, like Hueso suggested) when he earnestly told them: "Red has always been the one to clean and mend your scrapes and bruises for you."

Leo's face fell and his heart felt like a lead weight that dropped out of his chest at that definite confirmation that his dad had, in fact, heard him ask for help but chose to ignore him so he could go back to sleep. His mouth went dry, his mind went blank, and his ears filled with a sort of static as he stared straight into his dad's eyes in a sort of stunned disbelief that was accompanied by a deep sadness and that nagging self-loathing that never seemed to give him a moment's peace ever since that night.

The room went silent and everyone's eyes were on Leo. Then he flinched and pulled away when Raph put a compassionate hand on his shoulder, spinning around to silently face his big brother before turning his head to look at his dad again, opening and closing his mouth without a word escaping his lips.

His voice seemed to be failing him, so instead of speaking up he raised his blue hooded sweater over his stomach to show the wound to his family.

Since shell wounds healed best by being exposed to the air once the threat of re-opening and bleeding had passed Leo hadn't reattached the bandages after his lengthy, hot shower that morning. Which was why Splinter gasped at the sight of a long, stapled crack extending all the way up his son's abdomen from the very bottom of his plastron. His face fell and paled a little under his fur as he took one step ahead, mumbling: "Oh, Blue," in regret at the same time Raph and Mikey stepped around Leo to get a better look at the injury he had been hiding until now.

At the surprisingly unexpected sight Mikey gasped and covered his mouth and Raph raised a hand with the intent of resting it on Leo's shoulder but put it down again when he remembered his younger brother didn't want to be touched, saying a tender, compassionate: "Why didn't you come to us for help?"

Leo shoved his hoodie back down, holding it there at the bottom stretched down over his legs as far as he could get it (with only him and Donnie knowing the reason why he was insecurely doing that), and he put his head down, feeling flustered with his cheeks burning hot as they blushed a brighter shade of red.

"I - I..."

He glanced up at Donnie for a split second - the two of them exchanging a knowing look - before he chickened out, spun around, and pushed past Raph on his way out - not only of the kitchen but also out of the lair.

The four of them listened in silence to the chime indicating the exterior rec room door was opened, and then they heard the loud slam telling them Leo had left.

A short time later

Leo was sitting atop the roof of Hueso's yokai restaurant in the drizzly rain - waiting for it to open for the day so he could go in, get another bowl of soup to help settle his upset stomach, and perhaps reveal the woes of his heart to his caring tio - when Donnie landed on the same rooftop and walked over to where he was sitting on the ledge, to sit down beside him.

The outer layer of Leo's hoodie was wet but it hadn't soaked through yet, and rain droplets coated Donnie's skin and shell as they both sat there side by side, brother and brother.

After the silence passed by for a few minutes Donnie cleared his throat and without looking at his twin quietly commented: "I told the others what happened. Um, I told them, ahem, everything."

"So dad knows?" Leo instantly snapped in clear annoyance, resting his eyes on the side of Donnie's face for just a second before putting his head back down to stare at the same dumpster in the alley below them that Donnie was staring at.

Sure he had gone to his dad for help on that night that forever changed his life, but the plan was to let him know he was hurt, leave to shower while he dad got out of bed, and then get help stapling his shell without letting him know all the abominable details.

(Adult or not he still needed his dad and the hope was to receive the moral/emotional support from a parental figure that he so desperately craved in the moment.)

"No, papa does not know, ahem, that. I told him what he needed to hear and Mikey and Raph came to my lab for the rest."

Leo gave a grunt-like hum in reply and then rose from his spot sitting atop the ledge because of how it was making his still sore backside ache.

Donnie rose too but Leo turned his back to him, steadily walking away, and asked for confirmation: "So they know everything?"

"Mm hmm," was the only sound in reply Donnie was able to give because of how the words stuck in his throat over Leo's tone of voice.

Was there a curtness to his tone because of the anxiety he was holding in over this whole situation, or perhaps was it because he was upset with Donnie for spilling the beans?

He wasn't sure, but regardless he needed to be honest with his brother so he coughed into his hand twice to try and relieve the tension in his throat and said: "They're on their way over to April's as we speak."

"Oh great, so now Apes and Case'll know too," Leo complained. "Why not drag out the Hamato scrolls and bring gram-gram up to date!?"

But there was no bite to his bark because deep down he felt a sense of relief that he didn't have to bear this burden alone anymore (and that he didn't have to be the one to tell them).

"Do you want me to stop them?" Donnie offered, zipping out his phone and holding it up, ready to fire off a text to stop Raph and Mikey before they reached April's place.

Leo glanced at it out of the corner of his eye and then put his head back-on to Donnie with the rest of him.

"No," he grudgingly responded without further explanation.

Donnie put his phone away and then a sickening dread welled up in the pit of Leo's stomach - amplifying the incessant nausea he already felt when a thought that had occurred to him previously popped back up in his mind.

"You watched the video. Didn't you?"

Leo kept his back to his brother with the drizzly rain soaking his head and seeping through his hoodie so that it was sticking to his arms and shell by now, and Donnie's jaw fell open from shock at that astute observation. So the first thing he did was deflect from the Purple Dragons video of Leo's attack by replying in as casual of a tone as he could muster (to try and not arise suspicion):

"Yes, I watched the security video when you came ho..." "Not that!" Leo snapped. He turned his head just far enough to shoot Dee a warning glare that they both knew clearly conveyed the message 'don't you dare lie to me' and sternly barked out: "I know you know Kendra records everything like you. You watched that video too, didn't you?"

Donnie's mouth went dry and his face paled a little.

He let out a very slow, monotonous: "Yeeeees," before hastily tacking on: "But-I-skipped-past-the-worst-part!"

The tension Leo didn't realize he had been holding in relaxed and a puff of warm air condensed in front of his face when he let out the breath he had been holding in from the cool air that was growing steadily colder from the chilly rain in the air.

For clarification he asked: "So you saw..." "When she cut your shell," Donnie quickly interrupted as his way of confirming that not watching 'the worst part' was in reference to his brother's sexual assault.

Leo hummed in acknowledgement with a nod of his head and stuffed his cold hands into the front pocket of his hooded sweatshirt (but that didn't do much to help because it was soaked through with frigid rain water).

Dropping his shoulders and raising his head to look up at the cloudy sky, Leo let out a single, bitter laugh and told his brother in a tone that sounded like someone absently thinking out loud to themself:

"She was right when she said some things change a person for life. The invasion was bad but this . . . this is different. I'll never forget..."

Leo cleared his throat from an intense wave of embarrassment and shame that overtook him, instead of finishing his sentence 'I'll never forget what she did to me or how it made me feel'.

Brother and brother stayed like that for a moment - one looking at the soggy wet blue mask tails weighed down with water and the other gazing up into the gray cloudy sky above their heads, deep in thought.

It might be noted that Leo was never one for revenge. He was more of a 'get the job done, do what it takes to be a hero, protect our family and move on' kind of ninja like his big brother ever since the invasion (that was coming up to happening five years prior in a few short weeks). That was why Donnie initially gasped and his eyes widened from surprise when Leo turned around to fully face him, his body tense while taking his hands out of his pocket to clench his fists down by his sides, and asked with a glint to his eyes and a smirk on his face:

"So what'r we gonna do to get revenge?"

Donnie's mind stalled for a moment at that unexpected request, but when it started up again his eyes narrowed, a grin spread across his face to match Leo's devious smirk, and he replied with the confident words:

"Oh I am waaaay ahead of you my brother."

Chapter Text

"This, my brethren, is my DreamCatcher 9000!"

Donnie proudly gestured to the Mental Intelligence Reprogramulator he made years prior and repurposed into his DreamCatcher.

Raising a brow suspiciously and wearing Donnie's purple hoodie in place of his soaked blue one, Leo looked it up and down and questioned: "Isn't this that thing you told us was a pizza fun box but you really used it to turn us into egghead geniuses like you?"

"Not anymore my brother," Donnie smugly replied, stepping into the device up to a comfy computer chair in the middle where the headset was laying. He picked it up and Leo went in, gazing around apprehensively before putting his eyes on the headset in Dee's hand when he was told: "With this ingenious tech combined with this headset I can project my thoughts into the dreams of anyone I desire - as-long-as-I-have-a-piece-of-their-DNA," he hastily tacked on, before returning to his prideful tone with that smug grin plastered across his face, "and control anything therein I so desire."

"Um, ok so if you need DNA," Leo questioned curiously, "How do you get in Kendra's dreams?"

"I may or may not have collected a hair sample during one of our fights," Donnie replied with a smug grin, holding out the headset for his brother to take.

Leo accepted it from his hands, looking it over curiously and asking: "So you're saying I can go into Kendra's dreams and do anything I want? And there's nothing she can do to stop me?" He looked up at Dee, who proudly agreed: "That is correct and you are welcome."

"Have you ever used this on one of us?" came the next immediate question that caught Donnie off guard, so that his smile fell and anxious sweat beaded on his head.

Leo smirked at the grimace on his brother's face and guilty look to his eyes, and Donnie blurted out a nervous: "I would ne-ver!"

Raising a brow skeptically with a cheeky grin, Leo next asked: "So you're saying those two months after the invasion when my krang nightmares suddenly stopped and I dreamed you and I were doing fun stuff together had nothing to do with you?"

"That must have been the works of another mutant ninja turtle Donnie. Now..." Dee left the chamber with Leo following behind and he clicked at a touchscreen on the outside of it beside the door as Leo got a better look at the headset in his hands.

"I'll program my DreamCatcher to send me an alert the next time Kendra's brain enters the REM sleep cycle."

"So you're telling me," Leo spoke up while still looking down on the tech in his hands. "That all I gotta do is put this thing on, sit inside your Dream Catcher thingie, and voila, I'm teleported into Kendra's dreams?"

"'Teleport' isn't the right word but basically yes. Your thoughts will be transmitted into Kendra's dreams and your body will stay here, being completely unresponsive so you don't act out whatever you're thinking."

"Isn't it dangerous to separate my mind from my body?" Leo asked next as Donnie finished up setting the alert and began the process of running a routine diagnostic, like he did regularly to all his tech.

"Once again your thoughts, not your mind will be transmitted into Kendra's dreams. Your mind isn't separating from your body," he corrected. "This device merely puts the user's brain into a sleep-like state and transmits their thoughts to the target person's mind, where the user has full and absolute control of everything."

"So I can do whatever I want to get back at her? The sky's the limit?" Leo cast his eyes up from the headset to his brother's face and Donnie factually replied: "Precisely." He finished what he was doing and turned his head to look at Leo, who stared straight into his eyes and asked in all seriousness:

"None of it's real though, right? She'll wake up and whatever I do to her in her dream didn't really happened?"

"Correct."

"Nothing I do in her dream will be real for me, too?"

"No, but it will feel real."

"Hmmm..."

Leo thought long and hard about this, pondering over a particular type of revenge he was considering that would not only let him get even with her for what she did to him but had the double benefit of helping him to release some pent up sexual tension that he had been dealing with ever since the assault, that was an unexpected aftereffect of the worst part of what had happened to him.

But could he actually go through with it?

Only time would tell, so for now he slapped the headset against Donnie's chest - his brother took it from him - and he said: "Tell me when she's asleep, I'll be in my room," and briskly left the lab for some alone time to think.

Some time later

Leo laid back in his bed, with his hands behind his head, gazing up at the ceiling, lost in his own mind like he had been for the past few hours.

At some point after getting to his room April had texted him and Casey called. But he ignored them both because he wasn't ready to face either one of them just yet, and it seemed as though they both understood he needed his space because beyond a few more text messages he didn't look at neither of them persisted.

There was one point when Raph and Mikey showed up outside his bedroom door and let themselves in when he didn't respond to their knocking, but he only rolled over to face the wall and grunted at them as his way of saying 'go away' when they asked if he wanted to talk.

This particular type of attack their blue-clad brother had endured was so different from anything any of them had previously faced that no one knew what to do, how to help, or how to make things right. So after sharing a disappointing gaze with each other Raph and Mikey reluctantly left, promising Leo they were here for him in whatever capacity he needed.

And now, at the moment Leo was alone like he had been for the past two hours, thinking deeply about what he planned on doing to get even with Kendra.

As far as he was concerned she needed to fully comprehend the scope of what she had done to him, he needed to release some pent-up tension, and none of it was real anyway, so it didn't really matter. Right?

It was a win-win, right?

So why was there a sickening knot in his stomach every time he thought about it? Why did his body break out in a cold sweat and why was guilt gnawing at every corner of his mind, eating away at his hero's conscience?

He would simply do the same thing to her that she did to him, but in a different sort of way.

She deserved it.

Right?

Of course right.

The guilt eating at him like a festering rot was only there because he wasn't the 'revenge' type, he decided, swallowing down any doubt in the back of his mind like a bitter poison that gave him a sour stomach.

Before he could think more on the matter there was a light knocking on his door he didn't recognize.

Raph's knock was louder, Mikey's faster, and Donnie's was usually in harmony with the beat to whatever eighty's jam he had stuck in his head at the time. Casey's was soft but not that soft, and April always announced it was her when she knocked, so who...

"Oh."

Leo groaned aloud, grabbed the blanket to wrap it around himself, and rolled over to huddle up on his side and face the wall - even completely covering his head this time - when he realized it was his dad at the door.

Maybe he would give up and go away.

Four more soft knocks, followed by silence.

It was at times like this Leo wished he could use his portals and amscray.

The door squeaked on its hinges when Splinter pushed it open and gazed into the room at the lump under the blue blanket on Leo's bed.

"Blue?" came the sound of a voice that was just as soft as the knocking had been.

No answer, Leo was careful not to move.

Maybe Splinter would think he was asleep and finally go away.

"Leonardo?"

Still no response.

The humidity in the air from the dampness outside made the stapled crack ache, but he resisted the urge to itch his shell around the spot.

Instead of leaving, Leo heard the soft padding of mutant rat feet as Splinter let himself in. Then the bed creaked and the mattress shifted when a plump, short rat joined Leonardo by sitting on the edge of the bed.

Splinter let out a deep sigh and gazed at his injured son who he knew was hiding away under the blankets, pretending to be asleep.

He reached a hand up, hovered it over the lump for a moment, and opened his mouth to say something while lowering it to rest it on the back of his son's shell.

But before he got a word out Leo cringed from the touch, squirmed out from under his hand, and let out a muffled, curt: "Don't touch me, go away."

Splinter instantly pulled his hand back and gently requested: "Leonardo, can we talk? Please?"

Leo didn't respond, he just repositioned himself, being careful not to let as much as the tip of his toe poke out from under the blanket.

After another moment of silence when no reply came from his son, Splinter let out another deep, regretful sigh - figuring Leo needed some time and space most of all right now before he was ready to talk - and said: "You know where I am if you change your mind."

The bed shifted again when the weight of his dad lifted, and after listening to feet padding on the floor and his door squeaking on its hinges and clicking closed Leo popped his head out from underneath the blanket to gaze sadly at his bedroom door.

Splinter hadn't even really tried, had he?

He just came in, said a few words, and left when he encountered the slightest resistance.

Deep down Leo had hoped perhaps his dad would stay and try a little harder, and he had to remind himself he was an adult now and didn't need his father's warmth, love, or approval, as if something like that would ever be true.

That was when a text notification chimed on his cell phone, interrupting his train of thought. He picked it up to read the message Donnie sent, letting him know their target was asleep.

At that word Leo slapped his phone down on the nightstand a little too aggressively, thrust his blankets aside, and stormed his way to Donnie's lab, ready to dish out to his attacker what had been forced upon him.

"Hello Ken-dra."

"AAAHHH!"

Kendra's body was slammed back against a wall by the same type of cold, oozing pink tendrils she used to hold Leo in place, and in like manner they stretched her legs down and her arms up above her head as a spiteful red-eared slider leaned his face in too close for comfort, placing a hand on either side of her head and staring into her eyes with a strained, inhospitable grin.

In fact Leo's face was so close to hers she could feel his breath on her skin when he spoke.

"You were right when you said crazy and genius go hand-in-hand," he told her with a menacing inflection to his otherwise calm voice. "Take my brother, for instance. What a crazy thing to do, infecting someone's dreams like a par-a-site."

"W-what do you want from me?" she sputtered out in fear.

"You were right about something else too," he added coldly, ignoring her question.

A creepy grin spread across his face and he added with a threatening undertone: "Some things change a person for life."

"I-I'm sorry Leo, I never should have.." "That's RIGHT..." she flinched when Leo slammed a fist against the wall by her head, "...you should never have done what you did. And now I'm gonna make you pay!"

With that Leo pressed his body against hers and stared down on her with a grin, never taking his eyes off her face.

She turned her head away, realizing what he meant by saying he was going to make her pay, and begging pitifully: "P-please don't do this to me..." "Where have I heard that before!?" Leo forcefully interrupted, referring to when his pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears. So in a desperate tone she begged: "I'm sorry! Please, pleeease don't!" Tears streamed down her face, making Leo's countenance fall slightly, and she continued in her pitiful tone of voice: "And tell your brother to stay out of my head. I learned my lesson I-I'm sorry, I really am, if I could take it back I would. I'll do anything to make it up to you, say the word, I'll do it. Do you want a new mech suit, perhaps..."

As Kendra continued her stress babbling Leo's face softened, his stone-cold gaze gave way to reveal the regret he felt over his planned course of action.

This wasn't him.

He was a hero.

Heroes like him lived by moral codes that the villains they fought often ignored.

What would that make him if he lowered himself to stoop to her level?

He was a ninja. Ninjas were supposed to have self-control. If he could exercise self-restraint in other areas of life he could learn to do so with this new unexpected urge he faced as a very unexpected result of his sexual assault.

Leo's shoulder slumped when he came to the realization that he couldn't go through with giving her a taste of her own medicine and he turned his head aside to let out a regretful sigh while she kept her eyes squeezed shut in anticipation. Then his entire body filled up with a rage he hadn't felt since the krang invasion and he once again slammed his fist into the wall by her head, leaving a crater-like indent behind while simultaneously blurting out in anger: "DAMN it!"

Kendra flinched again from fright but then she opened her eyes when Leo backed away, only to see a pair of cold eyes narrowing in anger staring straight at her.

"I'm not like you," he firmly told her with conviction, his words like ice. "But I promise..." he leaned his scowling face in closer, and spit flew out of his mouth and peppered her face when he spoke the somewhat quiet yet fierce words: "...if I ever see your face again I will..."

What?

Make you regret it?

That was too vague.

Kidnap you? Torture you?

Kill you?

Make sure what you did to me was done to you?

He knew that despite everything that happened to him his hero's morals wouldn't allow him to stoop to her level.

Then his eyes gleamed and his smile spread across his face when he thought up an idea and he leaned his head in closer to whisper in her ear, issuing the very real threat:

"...tell Donnie to do whatever he wants to you. And I don't mean only in your sleep."

She gasped and her eyes widened from fright.

"I know he's been holding back, Kendra," he continued whispering in her ear like he was telling her a secret - his words like poison to her heart. Then he ended with the same menacing words Donnie had spoken to her that were clearly meant as a threat:

"Pleasant dreams."

Leo disappeared, the dream faded away, and Kendra jolted awake in her bed, grasping the sides of her face in a panic and hyperventilating.

Now there were two of them infecting her dreams.

Would Leo come back? Would he finish what he started?

What was Donnie going to do to her the next time he infiltrated her dreams?

Was she even awake this time!?

She really didn't know.

Meanwhile in Donnie's lab Leo ripped off the headset, stood on his feet, and thrust open the door to the DreamCatcher9000, coming out to see Donnie working on some tech at a nearby table.

He stopped what he was doing when Leo stepped out and their eyes met.

"Well?" he asked, putting his tool down and turning to fully face his red-eared slider brother, with his body slightly tense from anticipation.

Leo stepped all the way out of the DreamCatcher, closing the door behind him and saying the honest truth: "I couldn't go through with it."

Not knowing what Leo had really been planning Donnie's body relaxed and he nodded his head in apparent understanding, actually feeling a surprising wave of relief from the knowledge that Leo couldn't go through with seeking revenue - that his brother's life-altering experience hadn't changed who he was at the core (unlike him during the krang invasion when something snapped inside him the instant the prison dimension portal snapped shut with his one and only twin brother on the wrong side).

But then a sly grin came across Leo's face and he told Donnie in a tone that conveyed his firm conviction:

"But I told her if I ever see her face again I'll let you do whatever you want to her."

A smile spread across Donnie's face in response to those words, and as his way of saying 'yes, I'll follow through with your threat' he said:

"I like the way you think, brother."

Chapter Text

Leo's already rocky relationship was strained with Splinter after the events of the Purple Dragons attack, but they took it all in stride and hurt feelings were mended - at least a little - after a heartfelt apology from his dad who wronged him by ignoring his cry for help.

Even though his five siblings didn't always know what to say - and sometimes unintentionally said the wrong things that made anger or shame bubble up to the surface from deep within Leonardo's wounded heart - he never held their faults against them and appreciated the daily loving support they showed to him.

He also appreciated the love his Tio Hueso showed him ever since he showed up late one night after the restaurant was closed for the day and poured out the concerns of his aching heart over a cup of tea - sharing things with him that he hadn't even shared with his brothers and sister.

He was also glad to come to know that he had been wrong. Although there were a few days after the truth came out when a tension and uncomfortableness hung thickly in the air, his loved ones who knew what had happened to him (minus Splinter, who they all kept in the dark to respect Leo's wishes) time and time again showed that they loved him and they weren't going to blame him, treat him differently, reject or loathe his existence for something that they adamantly insisted over and over again wasn't his fault and was beyond his control.

A few months had passed since the attack and although Leo still had an off day from time to time where he loathed himself and couldn't look at his face in the mirror, overall he was slowly but surly healing from his traumatically intrusive encounter.

But Kendra was right, some things stay with a person for life and as time went on Leo knew he would never be the same as he was before.

He was more cautions, watching his back, had days when he didn't want physical touch from anybody, had days where he mostly confined himself to his room and didn't want to talk to anyone, and made a concerted effort to map out and take various different ways home from work - being certain to never take the same path twice in a row and never to stick to any sort of predictable pattern his enemies could use against him.

However his experience also had the strange effect he didn't expect of opening up a greater empathy for others who were suffering. He became a better listener when his brothers or sister opened up the concerns of their heart or needed a shoulder to cry on.

He was more observant to the needs of victims they came to rescue when they were out on patrol - with some humans appreciating his kindness so much they weren't put off by his ninja turtle appearance (he even made a human friend along the way, who he routinely visited and took to various spots in the Hidden City he frequented - like the arcade and skateboard park, where they could hang out, often with his family).

Most important of all though, his relationship with his five siblings and his Tio Hueso - who filled a parental-like void he craved all his life - was strengthened as he witnessed them time and again pulling together to help get him through the aftermath of the trial he had faced.

And as the days bled into weeks he did something he thought he would never be able to do again.

He learned how to laugh once more.

Laughter.

Such a simple thing that was so easy to take for granted but sorrowfully missed once it was gone.

Laughing.

That was exactly what he was doing crammed into a booth at Hueso's with his three turtle brothers and human brother and sister, where they all got together after watching a movie in the Hidden City theatre depicting the krang invasion.

"Did you get a load of those krang aliens!?" Leo asked jovially. "What was up with that?"

He chomped into his slice, sitting in such a way that he was leaning against his big brother instead of the booth's back cushion.

"You'd think they hadn't seen a krang in their life," Donnie dryly commented while reaching out for his second slice.

"Yeah, and there weren't twelve, there were three!" Mikey agreed with a big grin on his face. "They couldn't even get that right!"

"Ohohoh, what about those blasters the heroes used to implode the krangs brains!?" April asked enthusiastically before taking a bite and speaking while chewing her food when she added: "That is not what happened!"

"Brain imploding tech doesn't even work on them," the future apocalyptic boy pointed out before stuffing his face and then looking up at his family when the booth went quiet, to see them all staring at him, wide-eyed.

"What?" he innocently asked with his mouth full of food.

Raph raised one brow and asked him: "How do you know that?"

Casey swallowed his mouthful of food and answered in a somewhat factual tone, like he was telling them nothing more than the instructions to changing a light bulb: "Master Donatello made something he called the Brain Buster 9000 that was supposed to implode their brains." He raised his slice in preparation of taking another bite and added as though it was no big deal: "It didn't work on the krang aliens, but it did work on those krang hounds. But boi, something was off with his calculations! Instead of imploding their brains they exploded ev-ver-rey-where. What a mess! It took over a week to get the stink out if any of it got on you so we only used it as a last resort."

Casey shoved more pizza into his mouth, completely oblivious to the horrified faces staring at him, or the way Mikey (who had the most sensitive stomach of them all) pushed his half-full plate away from him.

April though wasn't grossed out in the slightest and she slapped the sides of her face, squealing: "They should've put that in the movie! That would've been sic with those mystic 3-D effects!"

"Sick is right," Mikey sourly agreed with his stomach rolling at the thought, and Leo rested his elbow on Raph, still leaning against him and pointing to April with the slice in his hand, saying with a smile: "What they should've put in the movie was how a certain awesome ninja used his rad skills to destroy their ship and sent that creep back where he belongs!"

"Yeah, I agree with you little bro, they should have made the movie about me," Raph playfully joked with a cheeky grin.

Leo looked up at his big brother - still with that smile he had been sporting ever since they arrived at his favorite pizza place - and joked in reply: "Oh sure, real funny, eat your pizza it's gettin' cold Mr. Krang busting scene-stealing hack!"

The joyful conversation continued on with the booth roaring with laughter time and again, and that was around the time Hueso walked over to check on his extended family. When he locked eyes with the slider Leo gave him a wink and asked: "We still on for tomorrow night, bonsey?"

"Si pepino, I'll wait for you and Michelangelo at the usual time," Hueso agreed with a fond smile for the both of them.

After the attack by the Purple Dragons Leo had gotten in the habit of joining Mikey each week when he showed up at the restaurant after closing to change out the art and weekly speciality rotating menu on the chalk sign in the front, with the three of them spending time together bonding. And once a month while Mikey was razzing his tazz with the chalk art Leo helped Hueso disinfect the kitchen, where they both thoroughly enjoyed their special one-on-one time together.

And that was how things went for the mutant turtle/human family.

The Purple Dragons mysteriously stopped rearing their ugly heads. Kendra abandoned work on her mech suit and the krang tendrils. Instead out of fear of retaliation she put her villainous ways behind her to focus her time and energy on her legit TCRI company and on the important task of discovering how Donnie was manipulating her brain chip to access her dreams (never finding out first or last that he hadn't gone through the chip at all).

Meanwhile, the morally ambiguous Donatello made sure to pop in on her dreams - keeping his visits with her completely random without sticking to any sort of schedule she could predict - to keep her on her toes and at a healthy level of near-insanity so she didn't get any bad ideas of causing trouble for his family.

For Leonardo the events of that night - although life-altering - faded as a distant memory like the krang invasion, and traumatized turtle learned the depths his family would go to show their love for him as they helped him heal from past injustices.

. . .

Time ticks by.

Minutes turn into days, weeks bleed into months.

Seasons come and go like the ebbing and flowing tide, bringing with them change as the years pass by.

Wounds heal, scars fade, along with memories.

Some disappear and some stay with a person for life, changing them like the shifting seasons, bringing out the worst in some...

...but the best in others.