Archive of Our Own

Donnie turned away for a minute to fiddle with the IV bag, and jumped a mile when he turned back to see Leo's eyes open for the first time since the invasion.

"Hey." Donnie breathed, heart immediately picking up, a thousand things running through his mind at once. There he was, he took his sweet time coming out of it. His brothers were going to be so happy he was finally awake, Donnie couldn't wait to tell them.

The drugs must've still been quite thick, as Leo didn't even blink at Donnie's voice. That was fine, he dragged the chair close and leaned into his line of sight, giving the incredibly indulgent smile he gifted Leo only when he was being particularly sentimental to his twin. "Hey. Hi. It's good to see you."

This time, when there was no response, the denial kicked in.

He just wasn't awake properly yet. Donnie reached out, hesitating only a moment before taking the remaining hand and squeezing it tight. His voice rasped a little when he said, "Leon, I'm right here. It's your twin."

A delayed, slow blink. A grey haze in his eyes, distant and absent. Donnie's brain ran a marathon ahead of him, worst case scenarios of brain damage and cognitive function sparking a hysterical little bonfire inside him. The hot flames of denial roared. No. Not when Donnie had worked so hard to save him. Not when he got his twin back after he thought he'd be lost without him.

Donnie had done everything right and yet Leo still didn't look at him.

Frustration zinged, trying to be louder than the slap-slap-slap of panic racing through his veins at top speed. "Hey. Leo, I really need you to look at me right now."

No response. All the worst-case scenarios got louder and louder and more unignorable. His voice cracked damningly as he said, "Please?"

Leo's chest rose and fell with his breath. His foggy gaze blinked, unmoving from the nothing he was staring at. It was haunting. Leo should never look like that. Something was so deeply fundamentally wrong and Donnie just didn't know how it got here or how to fix it.

He didn't know how much time there was before someone came in to check on them, and that motivated Donnie to snap out of his racehorse of panic, because he needed to have an answer before someone else saw Leo like this. As much as he wanted to live in Schrodinger’s Leo, in this moment both brain damaged and not brain damaged, he wouldn't be able to run the tests he needed if everyone was in here freaking out.

It was a burden he needed to bear on his own, this uncertainty. If the answer was that he was fine and just disorientated, Donnie didn't want to inflict another family member with this feeling that he might just explode from how much agonized suspension he had right now.

Okay. Okay. Figure this out. There was an answer, he just had to find it. He was swift and quiet as he left the med bay to go find his scanners from his lab, sure that he'd calibrated one for brain waves recently. He hadn't wanted to need it, but well. He was a realist, so he had.

Donnie wished that he had some coherent, some super smart plan, but in reality his mind was the words brain dead bashing against his skull over and over and over again.

His hands shook as he set the prods on Leo's forehead. A little hysterically, he muttered, "Hold still."

Leo was the stillest he'd ever been in his life. It was unnerving and frankly a bit uncanny valley, like the world was wrong, like he was asleep while awake. Eerie and terrifying with the lurching implications.

The scanner came to life and normal brain waves floated across his screen. The wash of relief was so potent that Donnie collapsed into the guest chair, shaking from head to toe, covering his face with his hands. He said, "Thank fuck, oh my gosh. Fuck. Okay. Okay."

Leo was still in there. Even though he was frozen, staring straight ahead. Donnie would claw him back out with his bare hands if he had too, as long as Leo was in there. He could do this. He had to do this, even if it currently felt like he was being torn apart, a feral beast clawing his insides to shreds. He could do this, even if he had no idea how.

Next steps. Donnie forced his trembling self up, taking Leo's pulse, his blood pressure, and tested his pupil reactivity. That was the biggest flag to Donnie that he was awake. The pupils still contracted. His body was fine (relatively speaking), his mind was alive, it was just like there was a wall between him and Leo.

Frantic internet searches for vague statements like 'alive but not present' brought him to dissociation, and it was with thick foreboding that he connected it with catatonic dissociation.

The final test was to raise Leo's arm and watch it stay exactly where it was placed, a waxy movability that turned Donnie's empty stomach. Something about how Leo never did exactly as he was told, he would never just blindly follow the movement, something about how unnatural the position was, and Donnie carefully returned Leo's hand to his lap as his heart beat so uncomfortably hard that it physically hurt.

Then his stomach turned again, and Donnie bolted to the bathroom.

[]

It was the middle of the night.

After Mikey's little... ahem. Meltdown. Donnie had perfected a vital monitoring clip that also detected movement. An innocent little purple thing he'd made to clip to their catatonically dissociated brother and to allow him to be left alone without constant supervision. Without Mikey wasting away, staring at him watching for even the slightest movement.

It had been over a week since the invasion and the brothers were all still healing from their own injuries, and it was important that they get back to a somewhat normal schedule. Sleeping at night was important, and Donnie assured his brothers a hundred times that the clip he'd come up with would notify Donnie of even the slightest change. And Donnie from experience that trying to sleep in Leo's room only meant waking every ten minutes to check and see if he was 'up' yet. Since Donnie was the one who was monitoring if Leo moved in the night, leaving no time for the genius himself to sleep. This was by design.

It was an important step, because the longer this went on the more they needed to accept that it was something that needed to be accommodated for, that they needed to try and, urgh...

His least favourite thing. Change. The words, 'get used to the new normal'.

Donnie preferred his old normal, thank you very much. Probably the autism. That wasn't to say he wouldn't put all of his effort into making sure Leo was comfortable and well cared for in his new state, but that also was a painful ache behind his sternum, that things weren't right. It wasn't how it was supposed to be. He was meant to have Leo. Properly.

It was later in the evening and Donnie joined Splinter in the dojo, beside him on his heels. He had been intending to come and give his dad an update, and instead found himself sitting and meditating. He wasn't a huge fan of meditating, he usually lasted about five minutes before the invention he was tinkering in his head needed him to grab something to write it down before he lost it.

Donnie pressed his feet into the floor, trying to physically push the sensation that he was floating away into time and space. He breathed in time with his father, wanting to center a little more in body, because they truly did not need another person dissociating at the moment. Even if the exhaustion was a heavy weight he could not put down, both physical and mental.

Like most times trying to meditate, Donnie's brain sprinted full speed ahead of him, the unruly toddler running directly into the road. Unlike his usual, it was not schematics and inventions, but a laundry list of worst-case scenarios and the hatred of change insisting that this was forever, that everything was terrible and awful and would never be the same and he was going to have to live like this for the rest of his life -- Leo never improving, just dead eyed and gone and Donnie would be functionally without the twin he pretended he didn't desperately need. He felt like he was clinging to Leo pleading don't let me go don't let me go while his twin had loosened his grip a long time ago.

Warm fingers curled around his own. Donnie's breath shuddered whole body, and he turned his hand to grip his dad as tightly as he could, hoping they'd both ignore the shake.

The constant lurching made everything hard -- hard to eat, hard to sleep, hard to think. But there was no stable ground without the foundation of his other half.

Donnie whispered, "How do I do this?"

"Hmm." Splinter squeezed back, shuffling a little closer to lean against Donnie's side. After a long moment of thought, he said scratchy and quiet, "Ashita wa ashita no kaze ga fuku."

Donnie gave a damp little huff. It was one of those phrases that Splinter liked to break out -- to a Mikey who's baking attempt failed, to Raph worrying about his brothers, to Leo slogging in at breakfast obviously not having sleep. But most frequently to Donnie, who felt the world was over when it changed even slightly. It meant, literally, 'tomorrow is another day'. But more accurately, everything will be solved with time.

It wouldn't have nearly as much meaning as it did, if Donnie didn't have the echo of hundreds of times Splinter promised him this, and been right.

"Thanks, Papa." Donnie rasped, and turned to swallow his dad in a hug. Splinter carefully held on, twining smaller arms around his neck, careful of his sensitive shell.

"It will be okay." Splinter whispered, turning to tenderly kiss Donnie's temple.

"You promise?" Donnie replied, voice straining, feeling about four years old standing at the foot of his father's bed, needing the word of his dad to convince him that just because things were different sometimes it didn't mean the world was ending.

"I promise." Splinter said, even though he had absolutely no empirical evidence, he had no basis for the claim. There was no way his dad knew that things would be okay. His word functionally meant nothing, because the universe was still going to change and be different and terrible and -- and yet. It meant everything, and Donnie pressed his head into Splinter's shoulder, trembling, holding on. Wanting to swallow the belief like he was four and his dad knew everything.

Donnie was reasonably confident nowadays that he knew far more than his dad. But at least, in this, he'd always been right. Donnie wanted him to be right about it just one more time.

Splinter rubbed the back of his neck until Donnie stopped trembling like a leaf, going boneless and miserable in his grip. Then he said, "Get some sleep, Purple."

"Of course, Papa." Donnie replied, because a ten minute cat-nap was some sleep. It wasn't a lie.

Splinter gave another squeeze, tight and with that hidden strength he pocketed away except when he needed it – like in this moment, to comfort his kids.

He didn’t move until Donnie did, the softshell disentangling and breathing steady to try and keep any of those pesky emotions at bay. Everything still felt that up-in-the-air, suspended feeling. Breathless. Holding his breath.

Back in the lab, Donnie set up the clip monitor where he could clearly see it and got to work. Pulling on Raph’s hoodie for warmth because he couldn’t feel his fingertips. One by one, all the doors down the hall closed and Donnie was too overstimulated for music but also couldn’t stand his own thoughts, so he did something only a little bit deranged and listened to a recording he’d taken of him and Leo playing Mario Kart. Just to hear Leo’s voice. It kind of backfired, though, because it was making him want to cry.

Unfortunate. Crying was not productive. Donnie hated how he didn’t understand his own body and its reaction, even after years of research and experimentation. Leo was going to be fine. Dad said so.

Then the monitor flatlined.

For a moment, Donnie’s heart stopped with it. Followed by tripping over itself, redoubling in panic. There was no way. He – he couldn’t, no, Dad had promised–

All rational thought fled, and Donnie moved so fast he couldn’t process what he was doing, just that he had left Leo alone for an hour, and he told his brothers he would be safe by himself, that he’d accounted for everything, and how the hell was he going to tell them that he was, he was…

“If you’re dead I’m actually going to kill you.” Donnie managed through heaving breaths, strangled and torn apart and striding to his brother's bedside where his eyes were open. Wait. Had he taken it off?

Hope was a dangerous thing. But it was better than the alternative.

[]

During the first breakfast that Leo attended since the invasion, April texted Donnie underneath the table that she thought Leo might have brain damage.

His immediate response, not wanting to worry her, was: ‘I checked.’

‘I’m sure you did, boo. But he’s got some weird inconsistencies going on right now. Maybe it’s something a little more complex?’

The rumble of nervous laughter at Mikey’s joke, as their family continued around them unaware at the mini-crisis April was giving him. Leo had already gone dark again, right there at the kitchen table, and it. It just fucking sucked, okay?

‘I’ll look into it.’ Donnie assured April, finding the daunting task of trying to solve this tying him up in a tight knot. Combined with the shit experience of watching Leo go dark right in front of his eyes, it was all creating that immense, overwhelmed pressure that made talking hard.

Donnie didn’t enjoy beating himself up for his autism – he was the first to embrace it, to claim victory in the name of autism, to say his brain was different and therefore amazing – but fucking hell sometimes it was like he was on hard mode when everyone else was on easy. He loved to talk, talking was awesome because he could make his ideas heard and people would listen to him and be proud of him and –

Being non-verbal for Donnie was just like there was a voice his in head chanting I DONT WANT TO I DONT WANT TO I DONT WANT TO. And sure, he could. Physically his tongue could make the shapes and his throat could produce the sounds. But his dad had sat him down after a few screaming fits and told him gently that he needed to listen to that voice, to not push through, to honour his feelings and if that feeling meant not talking, so be it.

Donnie felt like the luckiest turtle alive because he had been raised in this haven of unmasking, that he had a family that never wanted him to be anyone but himself. While frustrating that it often felt like everyone else understood how his mind and body worked better than he did, at least he had some lift raft in the choppy current that was Being Alive.

So yeah. Staring at articles about possible signs of brain damage, running through all the possibilities in his mind, holding the hand of a twin gone where he couldn’t follow, he was just a little bit non-verbal, a little bit a slave to that wild flailing in his mind of NO NO NO NO.

The worst part was… brain damage was an incredibly vast term that could cover anything from feeling a bit nauseous to a permanent cognitive impairment. Scrolling through medical journals on the told him that just because Leo’s brain waves were normal did not actually rule out brain damage. He had to watch for nausea, headaches, fatigue, weakness, seizures, sensitivity to light, paralysis (!), slurred speech, changes in sensation, spatial disorientation, balance issues, difficulty processing information, difficulty –

See now, this was why Leo was the medic and not Donnie. Because as always, his brain was a mile away with his shoes, overwhelmed and swirling with worst case scenarios. The list just kept going and going and going.

Then Draxum showed up and said that Leo had something in his head. Something else. And Donnie had about two milliseconds of relief that it wasn’t this daunting, vast concept of traumatic brain injury before his brain took an immediate nosedive, latching onto the new horror that was somehow worse, because it wasn’t like there was a mystic Google he could go reading articles about fucking possession. Science lose.

The terror of the unknown had him pissed off and that same stuck-overwhelmed-helpless. Donnie kept thinking, the record skipping and bringing him right back repeatedly, that he should’ve known. Donnie prided himself in knowing Hamato Leonardo. And yet somehow someone was masquerading as him and Donnie accepted it? He had to be told by Draxum of all fucking people?

When the fucking ghost surfaced, Donnie was ready, he caught it the moment it showed its face. And he flicked his bo staff to push against his twin his twin his twin. Cold fury and fear fuelling him, even as he felt he might collapse.

Which he did, as soon as he stormed out of the room later. He locked the door to his lab, turned on his soundproofing, and curled up on the floor to scream. Sometimes autism stole his voice. Sometimes it gave it back tenfold.

[]

“I think you should leave.”

That was probably the last thing on the planet that Donnie wanted to do right now. It went against every single instinct inside him. Call it twin sense, whatever, Donnie always could tell when Leo was in trouble. And it had been this low level, constant gross sensation for weeks – understandably so, considering the circumstances. But now it was a wail, caterwauling inside him, Leo's in trouble.

And now Leo wanted Donnie to leave him alone. Him. As if Leo hadn’t been saying ‘leave me alone' then dragging Donnie away by the hand a hundred times before. It didn’t count when you were twins, everyone knew that.

… he thought Leo knew that.

He’d gotten to see the inside of Leo’s mind, the tree that was apparently Sensei and then Sensei himself – annoyingly tall and heart-achingly tired looking, like someone took a funhouse mirror to twist his twin’s smile into something sad. Like someone beat down his twin for decades and – yeah. Not thinking about that right now.

Donnie wanted to think about how easily the two had reached for each other, how Donnie felt that moment of embrace was probably the nicest he’d ever seen Leo treat Leo. To actually see how they interacted meant more to Donnie than he could really say, because he had to trust these two together metaphorically locked in a small room not to hurt one another. Judging by the painful amount of care on Sensei’s face when he looked at Leo, it would be okay.

But then they were unceremoniously booted out, the moment Draxum mentioned that Sensei might be lost. And since Donnie was in Leo’s mind, he had a phantom sensation of his stomach dropping out his toes, and nothing else.

It felt him chilled when they emerged, Donnie watching Leo’s face waiting for the resurgence. And it did come, but something was off. The quiet gnawing of Leo’s in trouble did not abate, only exasperated by his unnerving change. They watched a movie and Leo put his headphones in. At first, Donnie assumed it was trying to shake off the feeling of intrusion at having had people in his head. But it dragged on, and the gnawing grew, and –

It was hard to articulate, but each of them felt it. Raph shooting panicked eyes over Leo’s head at Donnie, something like ‘what’s happening’ or ‘fix it fix it’ – which, for the record, Donnie would love to.

It was just all wrong. Mikey curled up beside him like a worm, all wiggling and cute little brother and Leo barely looked at him.

Instead he sealed himself in a little isolated bubble with his phone and didn’t look up at the movie, not at his family, he hunched in on himself and looked more and more…

Well. Defeated.

It wasn’t a word Donnie wanted to ascribe to his fearless twin. It was a word he hated, and the dread of it almost made him sick with worry.

And then Leo asked to be alone? The world truly was ending. As much as he wanted to disobey, to push and stay and prove to him that he cared and get it through his thick skull… Sensei promised he’d look out for him. So even though it went against everything Donnie was feeling, he walked away.

And boy, did it not take long to regret that decision.

The low-level Leo’s in danger signal just got. Unbearable. And he was pulling out his tracker pretty much at the same moment it dinged to tell him that Leo left the premises.

Terror wasn’t really a big enough word to describe the feeling Donnie had. That Leo had looked so… crushed. That he’d isolated himself and pushed Donnie away, the only person he pulled closer when hurt, because… because…

Donnie didn’t even let himself think the suspicion, it was just this huge unnamed hanging cliff face. An avalanche promising to shatter every bone in his body giving the smallest tremble. The fear felt like skidding on black ice, like missing a step on the staircase, like looking up at the New York skyline and watching a portal close with the other half of your soul still inside.

Maybe it really was the end of the world.

Donnie opened Leo’s room to find nothing inside. He hadn’t really thought his tracker had malfunctioned, but he’d feel stupid if he didn’t check there first. His vision had tunnelled kind of annoyingly, grey on the edges as he gasped for air. He texted Leo, hoping maybe he’d just fucked off to go get snacks, as if he’d leave silently without a word while looking haunted and defeated to what looked like the edge of a subway line – only to hear his phone beep in the room Donnie was standing in.

Okay. Fine. This was fine. Donnie totally wasn’t freaking out. He was a genius, calm and collected, and his physically and mentally wounded twin brother just silently portalled himself to a subway track after isolating himself. There was a totally logical explanation that wasn’t – that wasn't –

Fuck.

Donnie didn’t allow more thoughts, because thoughts were dangerous and they were going to impede his crucial mission. He locked onto the coordinates of the tracker and mapped a route – it wasn’t too far but it also wasn’t fucking close either, and it required him to dodge a couple cameras. Never mind, he fried those remotely. Okay. He needed to get there and fast.

The turtle tank was the obvious option, but not practical for roaring down a subway line full of humans, plus the quickest route required a bit more flexibility. What Donnie really needed was – he needed…

Donnie hit the summon button on his tablet and listened to his battle shell whistle out of the lab directly towards him. It had been weeks since he had so much as looked at the thing, too afraid of the sensation of it pressing against his sensitive shell to even consider it. The flesh was still incredibly tender and sore that Donnie did not imagine he was going to enjoy strapping a piece of heavy tech against it.

That didn’t stop him for a second. Battle shell on. Perhaps it would’ve been painful or upsetting or uncomfortable if there had been literally even an inch of room left in his brain for thoughts that weren’t the nosedive terror for Leo he was experiencing.

Flight mode. Activate, go. Follow the path. Find his brother. Drag him home.

(hope that he’s still whole enough to take home and not a splatter of blood on iron–)

Donnie had never wanted to be wrong more in his entire fucking life.

But this wasn’t something stupid like lemmings. This was something so desperately important as Hamato Leonardo and Donnie was never wrong in that area of expertise. There were probably kinder things to say to someone you caught mid suicide attempt, but in his hysteria the only words that came out of his mouth were, “What the fuck, Nardo?”

For a second, Leo met his gaze. There was a flash of recognition. Then possibly the most painful emotion that could’ve crossed Leo’s face.

Disappointment.

Then he was gone. The immediate way his gaze went further and further away, as if his twin was a rope slipping between his fingers. Until he was disturbingly blank and the ever painful still.

Donnie didn’t move for a long minute, unsure what he was even waiting for, as if Leo might resurface. Then the air began to move, and Donnie turned just in time to watch his vision fill with the burst of train – pockets of time in each window, a snapshot of humanity passing by, as the express train didn’t slow for the stop, it just kept going. Taking the whirlwind of air along with it, leaving Donnie rattled and shaken.

It would have taken his brother without pause, without second thought. It would have been a delay in the commute home.

They were less than a foot away from the tracks. It would’ve been so easy.

Donnie reached out and gripped the edge of the platform, feeling his fingers curl around it. Something so fast and so final, like the world’s worst magic trick. Make his brother disappear. That hysteria ballooned, going impossibly large and unmanageable, and Donnie had no idea why but he was suddenly laughing.

Each hiccup of it hurt more than the last. He shuffled to sit between Leo’s unmoving body and the tracks, facing his brother and tugging on his arm to pull him close enough to lift.

Donnie giggled hysterically into his shoulder as he pulled him up off the ground, flight engaging enough to lift. The weight pulled and shot a sharp sting of pain through his softshell that sobered him up more than anything. It was fine, Donnie wasn’t planning on carrying Leo home – just moving him somewhere that he could call Raph for a pick up and not give him the same heart attack Donnie was currently having.

His shell arms picked up the sword as an afterthought. For once, quietly cursing its existence. As if their mystic ninpo should’ve denied to transport Leo to do something so – something so –

Donnie had no proof that was what was happening. He also had no proof that it wasn't.

He called Raph.

"D?" Raph answered, confused. Understandably so, the last he'd known Donnie was still in the lair.

"Hi Raphael." Donnie said, hearing the strangest mix of robotic lilt and giggling hysteria. "We need a pick up, I've got a dark Leo about six blocks from home right now."

"What? How? Nevermind, I'm coming, are you okay? You sound weird."

Donnie pressed his forehead into his unresponsive brother's shoulder and said, choked, "I'm fine. Please come get us."

“I’m coming.” Raph promised. “Hang tight, buddy. Send me your coordinates and I’ll be there. Do you need me to stay on the line?”

Donnie shut his eyes, feeling a wash of something. Maybe shame. Maybe fear. Maybe a hundred things, he had no idea, it was like looking at a crowd of humans throwing their hands up and trying to distinguish who was making what noise. Overwhelming and impossible.

He answered the question by merely just not hanging up, cradling the phone to his ear and shutting his eyes.

“I’ve got you, D, hang tight.” Raph promised again, shuffling in the background.

“What’s goin’ on?” Mikey’s voice asked distantly.

“Raph doesn’t know.” The reply was threaded with fabricated calm and nerves. “Here, hold the phone, keep D company. We’re gonna go pick him and Leo up.”

“What?” Mikey repeated, alarmed.

A little shuffle as the phone was covered with a hand. Donnie squeezed his eyes shut harder, the hysteria wrestling up his throat. Clutching his twin closer, hidden down an access door far away from the tracks.

Unmuffled. Mikey said, “You’re doing great, D.”

Donnie hummed. Mikey was coming too. They muttered back and forth about their path to reach the location Donnie sent them, the tank starting up and chugging in the background.

“Any chance you could let us know if someone’s hurt, Don?” Mikey asked, almost sudden.

“Not hurt.” Donnie replied, and he hated that it felt like a lie when he looked at Leo’s face.

It must’ve come through his voice, because Mikey said, all serious, “Are you in danger?”

Not anymore, Donnie thought, that same ridiculous hysteria that he couldn’t shake. It was not the reaction he should’ve been having but he didn’t know how to have a different one. It was just – wasn’t it just so funny? That he’d go against every instinct, that he’d known to leave him alone – that he’d clawed back to get Leo back from the portal, to get him back from the darkness in his mind – only to what? Lose him to himself?

No matter what he did, how hard he tried, it wasn’t enough. Donnie felt so helpless it practically made him sick to his stomach.

The whimper escaped his throat and that hot-wash of shame poured down his back, hearing how the low conversation on the other side of the phone line immediately stopped.

“T-minus two minutes, Don.” Raph reported, further away.

Donnie realized he’d never answered if they were in danger. He needed to do some damage control here. He cleared his throat and rasped, “I might be wrong.”

The responding silence couldn’t sound more startled if they tried. Mikey's voice was, frankly, scared when he said, “Wrong about what?”

Donnie was making things worse. Shit. He rephrased, scratchy, “I hope I’m wrong.”

“Whatever it is, Donnie, we’re right here. We’re pulling up.”

The rumble of the tank filled the space. Donnie didn’t move – maybe he couldn’t move, and he didn’t want to try and find out. Quick-heeled steps approached, Mikey coming to a swift crouch beside them, face lit with the kind of compassion that could fuel the sun. A hand on Donnie’s arm, flickering between Donnie and Leo’s blank face.

Heavy footfalls settled beside them.

“Talk to us.” Raph said, not a question.

Donnie’s throat felt like it had closed, a critical collapse. It just all felt so beyond what he could articulate and he. He wasn’t sure if he was right. But also he’d probably never been more sure, between the alarm bells of LEO IS IN DANGER that just would not leave him alone and the pattern recognition and the fact that every person who set eyes on Leo today asked if he was okay, recognized what Donnie was seeing even if it wasn’t something that could be put into words.

Or that Donnie didn’t want to put it into words because then it might be real. But if it was real — if —

If Leo had just tried to kill himself, this was not something Donnie could sit on. He needs to say something because all of them were going to have to work together to — to save him. From himself.

The random string plucks of emotions, playing all at once in a cacophony. It was selfish but he signed, touching the corner of his mouth then inner cheek with closed fingers, home. And added hesitantly, weakly, please?

“Will you tell us at home?” Raph bargained, hands out.

Donnie had to tell them. He had to. He nodded, holding himself accountable. It was just right now he’d lost all his words and he still had to speak. He wanted to fix this before anyone else was hurt by it but it was staggeringly beyond his scope. Donnie just needed to be somewhere that didn’t have the screech of iron rails nearby as he tried to explain. He needed Leo to be safe and warm and far away from his swords.

Raph picked up both twins, not giving Donnie the option to walk himself, and it was fine. He leaned into his sturdy older brother, trying to promise himself things were going to be fine. They were all going to take care of each other. Things were changing but it was going to be okay.

The placation did nothing for the repeated squeezing of his heart, as if it was being held in a pulsing fist. It was the end of the world. The end of his world, the blank face beside him. Donnie stared at Leo and let the emotions assault him, biting his own tongue, trying so hard. The world moved around him.

Through the haze, there was a hand on his face, soft and gentle, and his dad’s coaxing voice said, “Release, Purple.”

Donnie obeyed, mouth full of blood. The sudden awareness of the coppery taste slammed him with physical discomfort and he lurched forward along with his stomach, how it flip-flopped and churned.

A trash can pressed into his hands. Donnie spat the blood and the heave of bile into it, hacking and feeling the muscles spasm in his chest. His jaw clenched, teeth aching to bite down again. He stimmed his hands violently at his sides instead, not wanting more blood in his mouth.

“Aw, Don.” Raph said, sympathetic, from the side.

“Do we have any idea what happened?” Mikey asked, further away, undeniably worried.

Donnie couldn’t tell them. He stood up and paced, hands still stimming hard, but only managed to crack one of them against a table in his rapid movement.

“Alright, c’mere.” Raph summoned, holding out both his hands in offer.

That little brother instinct that Donnie could never shake around Raph had him reaching out. Raph squeezed his hands hard and firm, a steady pressure. Donnie squeezed back, even if the returned pressure was nothing compared to the strength of his big brother.

The tension grew higher. Donnie wanted to hide. He was – he was –

The pressure on his hands wasn’t enough. He tugged away, released without question, only to climb into Raph’s arms. Immediate wrap around him, deep pressure, clutching Donnie to his chest with a lightly worried chur.

Surrounded and protected. Blood in his mouth. Donnie couldn’t fix this alone. He had to tell them. He didn’t want to break their hearts like his was.

Because. Donnie knew he was right. He knew what Leo had been doing. And. And.

Fuck. He was so scared.

“I don’t know if I’m right.” Donnie repeated, into the safety of Raph’s plastron, hearing his voice crack.

“You can’t just say that as if it’s not the most terrifying sentence on the planet.” Mikey piped up, from where he’d wormed into Raph’s left side, peaking into the crook of his arms to see Donnie’s pale face.

“I just. I could be wrong.” Donnie shook his head, grateful that the grip around him did not loosen in the slightest. His voice felt fickle and precarious, barely hanging on. He wasn’t sure if he could get through it. He had to try anyway.

“Purple.” Splinter said, solemn. “We are listening.”

Splinter must’ve known too. Something about the grave face – it reminded Donnie of the moment he recognized the Kraang. All the jokes and the bluster falling away to something serious and grim. Leo did the same thing sometimes too.

“Leo was by the train tracks.” Donnie said, and let the factual statement be an answer in itself. Falling back on the monotone, because he didn’t know how else to flavour such a damning sentence.

Raph’s arms went slack. He said, immediate denial, “No.”

Mikey stared at Donnie, searching his face for something. Then he glanced to Dad, to Raph, and said, “Start from the beginning.”

Donnie inhaled. He leaned back so he could rub his face, Raph loosening his grip more to give him room, and felt the nausea from the cocktail of blood and dread in his stomach. “He was acting weird. He wanted me to leave. Then my tracker picked up that he’d left the lair. I found him by the tracks, off to the side, and the moment I confronted him he went dark. That’s the facts.”

“No.” Raph repeated again, agonized denial.

Donnie wished he could still feel that. Instead he had something else – the acceptance that if this meant what he thought it did, then he was going to have to drag his twin back into wanting to live kicking and fucking screaming if he had to. The stark dread and fear and all of it as hot anxiety in his neck and throat and skull and –

“You don’t know that’s what he was going to do.” Raph said, gravelly, eyes a little wild.

“That’s why I said I might be wrong.” Donnie replied, tired and overwhelmed.

There was a strained beat. Mikey looked a storm cloud, conflicted and harrowed, eyes flickering between the three of them constantly.

Splinter exhaled, shuddering. He ducked his head and his face fell into a dark shadow. “But you might be right.”

No one spoke. It hung in the air. Donnie hated this moment. He was wracked with a burst of uncontrolled energy again, stimming close to his body and curling around it, jerky and not nearly enough to help with the barrage inside him.

“Shh.” Raph pulled Donnie close around, tight and intent pressure, chin on the top of his head. “I’ve got you. If that’s what happened…”

A long, searching pause.

“Talk to him first.” Raph said, voice rough. “Just talk to him. See what he says.”

Leonardo? Donnie wanted to cry out, incredulous. Their brother famous for his silver tongue and recent history of throwing himself into prison just to keep anyone else from hurting?

But Raph wasn’t wrong. They had to talk to him first. Nothing would move forward until they did. Splinter took the swords, telling them that he was going to bring them to Casey for safekeeping, and have a word with April while he was there. Donnie stayed with his brothers, Mikey squirming underneath Raph’s other arm and clutching Donnie’s fingers so he couldn’t dig his nails into his palms.

Raph didn’t say it was going to be okay. He just clutched both his brothers close and repeated, “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

Donnie breathed, eyes closed, and the fear would take a very long time to dissipate.

[]

Donnie was coding when Leo showed up at his elbow. He was literally mid-thought and raised a finger for him to wait, saying out loud even though he couldn’t hear it through the mind-numbing bass of his music, “Don’t talk to me right now.”

If Leo did talk, Donnie couldn’t hear it. Instead he sat on the floor with his shell against the desk, scrolling on his phone. The presence of his twin faded into the background, until he almost forgot he was there.

Then Donnie thudded his desk repeatedly in frustration, when the recursion error popped up for the thousandth time. The presence suddenly at his side made him jump, Leo lifting the cup of his headphone and saying to his ear, “Come on, dude. Let’s get slushies.”

Donnie swatted his hand off, snapping the headphone back into place. He turned to glare at his twin, heart still thudding at the frustration of his failed project.

The posture changed, shoulders up, tension in his brow, and Sensei raised his hands to sign at him through the loud thudding techno music, ‘We’re not going without you.’

Stupid Leos. Donnie begrudgingly turned off his music and locked his computer, giving him a little shove as he brushed past. “Fine. Let me get something to wear.”

Leo did an exaggerated fist pump. Actually, it might’ve been Sensei. Cute.

It was over a year since the invasion, since everything. Donnie wouldn’t have said things had gone back to normal, because literally so much had changed, but he still snuck out with his twin at 11PM to get snacks from the convenience store. So maybe not everything had changed.

They were both in disguise, having slunk around the convenience store hiding underneath their hoods comparing snacks and conspiring which ones they would share.

Leo ended up with a blue slushie that was turning his tongue alarmingly neon and a pocket full of Red Vines. Donnie hadn’t really wanted the snacks, more that his coding was making him homicidal and he was hoping if he walked away from it then he would realize the solution to his problem. It was like a law of the universe that you only figured out how to fix it when you were as far away from your computer as possible. 

Plus hanging out with Leo when there wasn’t a crisis was, well. It was getting to hang out with his best friend. Leo had started a tangent about replacing one character in a movie with a Muppet and his results were making Donnie practically shriek with laughter. His Muppet impressions were just so good. There was nothing better than when Leo found something that made Donnie laugh because he could drag out the bit for hours, that pleased-smug-fond smile on his face.

He was wearing that exact smile when his foot got caught and he tripped and fell flat on his face.

Donnie was a good brother and laughed without hesitation. The two (or three, counting the two clowns driving one car of Leo and Sensei) of them had been hopping down the subway tracks, taking the opposite of a shortcut – a long cut? – to stretch out their time together. Blue slushie sprayed over the rocks, and Leo groaned, immediately obvious to Donnie that he was hamming it up by the tone of his voice.

“Walk much?” Donnie said, crouching beside him, grinning.

“Phooey.” Leo raised his head and stuck out his blue tongue. “Now I get why April’s always on my ass about tying my shoes.”

They’d grown up barefoot, it wasn’t second nature. Donnie laughed at him a little more but still helped leverage him up by the elbow, glancing down at where his Nike laces were tangled. The tracks were criss-crossing in the middle with a rail switch that had swallowed his half-tied laces.

“This is just embarrassing. I’m a ninja.” Leo gave a self-deprecating laugh and leaned over to tug on the shoe. It didn’t move.

“You’re right, this is emb–” Donnie began, then was cut off by the worst possible sound in that moment.

The unmistakable roar coming down the tracks, directly towards them. “Train.” Leo blurted, flashing his eyes up to Donnie.

“Move.” Donnie hissed, lurching forward to try and help untangle the laces from the tracks. They were right in the middle, they had to get off.

“I’m trying!” Leo replied, high and a little hysterical.

It was just a shoelace. But the train was coming, the rush of air already bursting down the tunnel, the slick of slush against the iron, and Donnie was quite sure he’d never actually been more afraid. There should’ve been a quick and easy solution, if he had a moment to think, if he had even a coherent thought in his head that wasn’t the lurching terror that – that –

Donnie had once read about train conductors and how there was a point where if there was someone standing on the tracks and there wasn’t time to stop, they were advised to cover their ears. For a moment, Donnie wondered if this was something he was going to have to see, to hear –

Then the whole-body change, Sensei straightening up with a snarl, the dark serious expression as he lightning fast drew the sword from underneath the blue hoodie and sliced it clean through the laces. Then it was Sensei grabbing Donnie’s arm and pulling both of them off the tracks, leaving a shoe to get obliterated by the train roaring past, practically licking their toes at how close the blitz of metal came blurring past at ear-splitting speed.

Sensei had Donnie’s arm in a death grip. Both of their chests were heaving, but it couldn’t be heard over the sound of the tunnelled echo chamber. Then, just as suddenly as the train arrived, it was gone and left a vacuum in its wake. Silence and stillness.

“That was so stupid.” Donnie said, in breathless disbelief, the adrenaline and fear running so hot in his blood he felt like if he stood his knees would just give out.

Beside him, posture fell into something crunched, smaller, curling up as Leo covered his face and laughed. It was not the same laugh as before, not even in the same leagues as stupid Muppet impressions. It was something laced in pain, crackling down the middle dissolving just as quickly into tears.

“Hey.” Donnie said, and scooted closer, the little rocks digging into his palms as his thundering heart ached at the sight of Leo hiding his teary face from him. He almost immediately, helplessly, wrapped his arms around his twin and pulled him close.

A harrowed sob broke from Leo’s lips, and at least he turned his face to hide in Donnie’s shoulder instead, shaking with the force of his sudden tears. He gave a hiccupped admittance to the soft purple hoodie, barely audible but Donnie was listening so intently he heard every syllable. “Holy shit, D. I didn’t want to die.”

Donnie’s mind went blank. His fingers trembled as he tugged Leo fruitlessly closer, even though they were already as intersected as they could be, and he whispered, “I've got you. I've got you.”

Leo cried. Donnie slowly felt all the feeling return to his limbs, to his fingertips and toes, and he experienced an emotion he never thought he’d feel with Leo so close to train tracks. Relief.

Bone deep, like a fulfilled promise from his dad that it was going to be okay. Donnie felt like maybe it actually might be.

The tears became hiccups. When Leo peeled himself off from making a huge mess of Donnie’s hoodie, eyes red and damply sniffling, Donnie helped by tugging his sleeve over his thumb and trying to clean the wet stripes.

“You’re gonna need a new shoe.” Donnie said, achingly fond, giddy with leftover adrenaline. And heart-thudding relief that his twin wanted to be alive, he wanted to be alive, he wanted to be alive.

Leo broke into a helpless laugh, hugging his stomach, turning glittering eyes to his twin. It was the best sound in the world.