Chapter Text
Almost six months into their stay at the farmhouse, Mikey can finally say it feels like home.
Now, nothing can match their life in the sewers, and he misses his full collection of comic books dearly, but he’s settled into a sort of routine at the O’Neils’.
His chores, at least, helped to create a sense of normalcy, but nevertheless having one brother unconscious and two others about to combust from stress put a pretty weird vibe over the first half of their retreat.
The second half had been… also weird, in a slightly different way. Raph and Donnie’s stress levels remained pretty much the same, except this time Leo was awake, definitely not healed, and determined to convince everyone that he was.
He hasn’t made a huge deal of it, for the aforementioned reasons, but all the turmoil and miscommunications were getting to be a lot for him. Emotionally speaking.
In their family, Mikey’s the best at handling feelings by far, and as proud as he is of that title it gets to be a full-time job in situations like this one.
A super-duper difficult job, for the record.
Anyway, things are settling now. Raph’s had a much-needed cry-fest, Leo’s finally promised to talk about his issues with the gang, and as a nice side effect he’s being a pretty good patient for Donnie, meaning the genius can relax for the first time in… realistically, six months.
Today, Mikey’s attempting to pin down a date for that talk.
He trusts his brother’s word, truly he does, but he also knows Leo is going to put off their household chat if left to his own devices, out of anxiety and awkwardness and a whole bunch of other stuff. He’s just taking the initiative so the oldest doesn’t have to (and so he can get a much-needed break from therapizing after everyone’s expressed themselves).
First up is Donnie.
The genius is, as usual, holed up in the barn tinkering. Casey’s with him, despite their work on the hot rod being complete- the two have taken to hanging out even when only one of them is working.
“Hey, Dee. Hi, Casey.”
It takes a minute for Donnie to detach himself from his blueprints. “Hang on, almost doneee... there.”
He looks up right as Casey kicks himself over to the desk in a wheely chair, his momentum halted by a well-placed foot from the tallest turtle. “What’s up, Mikester?”
“You remember how Leo promised he was gonna talk to all of us about how he’s been doing?”
“Mhm.” Now, Donnie’s really paying attention. “Why, did something change?”
“Nah, I just wanted to see if you guys are cool with that happening tomorrow. Like, officially, so long as Leo’s up to it.”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, that sounds good,” The second-youngest glances over to Casey, who shrugs.
“Cool with me. I’m just glad it’s happening.”
Satisfied, Mikey heads out of the barn and behind the house, where Raph and April are hanging up laundry from the humans’ recent trip into town.
Repeating the plan, he gets agreement from both of them, though it’s far more animated on April’s part.
Before he goes back into the farmhouse, Raph gives him an awkward pat on the shell. “Hey- thanks for getting the ball rolling on this, Mike. And… shell, I can’t believe I’m saying this- thanks for locking Leo ‘n me in the barn. It… helped. To get everything out.”
There’s a vulnerability to the last part of the sentence, but Mikey doesn’t point it out; candidness like this from Raph is rare, and it’s best not to make a big deal out of it, especially in front of April.
When he enters the house, the downstairs is empty, so he climbs the stairs to Leo and Raph’s room and raps lightly on the door.
“Come in,”
Leo’s sitting in a chair next to the bed, left leg extended straight in front of him. As Mikey somersaults onto the mattress he lets it drop slowly (one of the exercises Donnie gave him to help stabilize his knee) and gives him a small smile.
“Hi, yoko. What’s going on?”
“I wanted to talk to you. About… talking to us.” Mikey flops over onto his plastron, watching as Leo straightens in his seat.
“...Oh. Of course. I haven’t forgotten, I swear, I just-”
“It’s okay, I know,” He waves his hands reassuringly, like he’s trying to bat away the tension in Leo’s shoulders. “I’m not trying to get on your case about it or anything, but I think it’d be good to, y’know, put it on the schedule. Does tomorrow sound good?”
Leo nods, but it’s hesitant. “That’s soon.”
“Yeah. Are you feeling up to it? We’re not gonna force you or anything, but I think, like, the sooner the better, right?”
A shaky sigh. “There’s- there’s a lot, Mikey. I don’t even know where to start.”
It hurts to know that his brother’s been having such a rough time the past few months, but it hurts more to be in the dark about it, unable to help.
“Just say what you feel. Say what you want us to know. It doesn’t have to be like your poetic leader speeches.” He elbows Leo playfully at that, and the smile is back, more relaxed now. “And you don’t have to do aaaall the talking. The rest of us have got plenty of feelings about what happened, too, and we’ll be happy to share them. It’ll take some pressure off you, yeah?”
“Okay.” He nods, firmly this time, and takes a deep breath. “It can’t hurt, I guess.”
“That’s the spirit!”
Mikey leaves the room with a sense of triumph, like he’s found the “light at the end of the tunnel” and is carrying it in his pocket. Against unsermonable odds (or however Donnie says it- insummountial? Inseve- whatever.), Leo, Mr. Poker Face himself, is going to have a heart-to-heart with their family of his own free will, and on top of that the family in question is cooperating.
Mikey, you have done it again.
As soon as this is blown over, he’s taking a well-earned vacation.
**********
The next day at noon, like clockwork, Leo is summoned into the farmhouse kitchen.
His brothers and April are seated around the kitchen table, doing their best to look casual despite the situation. Casey had been outside as well learning a kata, but now he plops down next to April, leaving an empty spot between her and Raph.
He takes his seat.
“Soooo,” Mikey, unsurprisingly, speaks first. “We’re all here! This is looking really formal, I know, but let’s try not to make this stressful. Uh, Leo… whenever you’re ready, I guess?”
Five pairs of eyes turn to look at him, and wow he really should’ve planned what he was going to say first because how do you start a conversation like this-
“He didn’t attack me himself,” The words rush out of his mouth before he can think.
A subtle shift moves across the table- he’s given almost no details, still, about the day of the invasion itself.
“Not at first, at least. There were Footbots- uh- a lot of Footbots, I lost count, and some archers. They sort of- drove me into this… construction pit.” Leo swallows hard. “For a while it was just them. They were wearing me down, I think.”
Someone inhales quietly across the table, but he doesn’t look up to see who.
“I- I was doing okay, there were just so many... one of them got a chain around my arm, sort of dragged me back against a fence, and that’s how it got dislocated. But, um, Rahzar and Fishface were with him, and Tigerclaw- they were just watching. Waiting, probably. He said-”
His breath hitches.
“He said he wanted to see me suffer. Be-before they ‘finished me’, and- well. They did their best. I think it was Fishface that messed up my knee. Someone stomped on it, but I don’t really remember who.”
Leo gestures weakly to the two scars across his plastron. “...That was Shredder. My throat, too. He choked me until I passed out, I guess, but at that point I couldn’t really move anyway. It’s the last thing I remember.”
His knee is throbbing from the retelling and he’s stiffer even than when he sat down. Stay calm, stay calm.
“It was actually sort of a surprise, when he stepped in.” He winces. “I told him to face me himself- stupid, in hindsight- but he wouldn’t. He- he didn’t think I was worth getting his hands dirty.”
When he finishes speaking, the room is so silent that he looks up and-
Maybe he underestimated the effect this recounting would have on everyone.
Raph’s absolutely seething, staring at the wall like he’s going to set it on fire, and next to him Mikey’s gaze is filled with concern, hands balled up on the table. Casey’s arms are folded tight across his chest- he looks a little scared, weirdly enough. When Leo turns to April, her face is one of sad understanding, and Donnie…
Donnie looks wrecked.
His hands are twisted together in his lap, mouth pressed into a thin line, and his eyes are so wide and pained and guilty a stranger might think he was the one who sent Leo off to his dea…
Ah.
“It- it was a trap.” His voice is small and watery. “He wanted us to try and fight him, he was expecting us, and you had to go through it all alone because we-” He stares down at his hands, shoulders pulling inwards. “I left you.”
“Hey,” Mikey pushes lightly at Donnie’s shoulder, angling to meet his eyes. “No blaming yourself. None of us knew Shredder was trying to get at us.”
“Donnie,” The genius’ head snaps up when Leo speaks. “What happened was never your fault. I know we argued, but I chose to go off on my own. And not because of that. Honestly,”
They’re not going to like this next part, he already knows.
“I’m… glad, that none of you were there. I wasn’t ready to face him on my own, obviously, but- Shredder didn’t get the chance to hurt you guys. If being alone like that kept you all safe, then I can’t regret it.”
Raph’s fists loosen just a bit at the words, he and Mikey turning to look at Leo as the youngest turtle frowns.
“NO- no, don’t say that, you can’t- you nearly died.” If anything, Donnie looks more upset now, voice raising. “Do you understand that?! Your pulse almost stopped.”
He hadn’t known that particular detail. His chest siezes at the knowledge.
“Donnie, I’m not gonna wish that any of you had to go through that. You could’ve ended up like me. All of you.”
“Sure, or maybe you would have made it out of there conscious. Maybe you wouldn’t have- have nearly bled out on the floor of the van-” He stops short, trying to slow down his breathing.
Leo’s watching helplessly as Mikey tries to calm him when Raph speaks up for the first time, eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, ‘ended up like you’?”
“...Hurt.” And a bunch of other words, one’s he’ll refrain from using because he’s already got one brother upset in this conversation and he does NOT need any more. “I’m weakened, okay? Permanently. My knee’s screwed up, my shell’s scarred, not to mention everything- else…” He trails off there.
“Leo, it doesn’t matter to us how ‘weak’ you think you are now. You’re here. If we all got beaten in that fight, then fine. We’d work through it together. But if you hadn’t made it?” Mikey shudders. “There’s nothing we can do to fix something like that.”
“Hold on,” Raph butts in. “You said ‘everything else’. You weren’t just talking about injuries and shit.”
“Uh- yeah.” God, he can’t get anything past them. Openness is kind of annoying. “Maybe I haven’t been… entirely honest about how ‘over it’ I am. Mentally.”
The hothead nods expectantly. “Well, now’s the time for honesty, Fearless. You care to share with the class?”
Donnie seems to have regained his composure a bit, though he still looks upset, and is looking across the table half like he’s curious about what Leo will say and half like he already knows.
He struggles to find the words, at first.
How can he describe how fundamentally that fight changed him? How sometimes, on cold days, or when his knee is hurting particularly bad, he’ll keep a finger on his own pulse just to make sure he’s still here? How he can’t handle being cornered or pinned anymore, even the thought of it making his throat seize up?
“I don’t really know where to start.”
April’s voice sounds out quiet, but not hesitant, next to him. “You’ve been having nightmares, right? And panic attacks.” She phrases it like a question, for Leo’s benefit.
He nods faintly. Those two after-effects are far from unexpected: They’ve all had their fair share of freak-outs in the past, whether from this particular trauma or their growing list of others.
“They’re not as bad now as they were, but I still… you know. Some days are worse than others. Sometimes I just feel… unsafe, for no reason, like I’m about to be attacked any second, or I wake up and my voice is gone, and I don’t know why it happens, but I just can’t-” He makes a frustrated noise. “I can’t move past it. I fought Shredder six months ago, and I still can’t forget how- how insignificant he made feel.”
If he’s really being honest with them, he may as well commit.
“I’m scared to go back to New York, and I’m scared to face Shredder again. I hate it, but it- I can’t shake that fear- that he’ll hurt me again, worse this time, or that he’ll get to one of you,”
Such a simple statement, and yet something eases in his chest now that he’s let it go.
“I feel so stupid about it. Like I should- I don’t know, be able to move on? Physically I’m doing better, but I don’t feel- I’m not healed.”
Casey tugs at his sweater sleeve for a moment, then speaks up. “I still get nightmares. About the invasion. Running from Kraang Prime, and all that.”
Raph gives a sympathetic hum from across the table, and Mikey pipes up next. “I can’t watch Crognard too late at night, ‘specially not any of the episodes involving aliens. Which is… almost all of them.”
April nods. “I’m terrified of needles, and that’s from the first Kraang invasion. Our point is,” She gestures to the rest of the table. “We’re all messed up from the stuff we’ve seen, no matter how long it’s been. That’s not stupid, it’s just how trauma works. And forcing yourself to ‘get over it’ won’t work.”
Leo snorts humorlessly, shrugging. “Yeah. I’ve been realizing that.”
Mikey interjects quickly at his tone. “It’s not, like, a personal flaw, bro. You get that, right?”
“Yyyeahhh?”
The youngest turtle scoffs lightly. “That’s a no.”
Leo shrugs weakly. “I know I’ve got a lot of, uh, self-worth-slash-leading-slash-fear of failure problems to work out. I’ve been trying, really, but… I’ve been thinking like this for a long, long time. It’s not coming easy.”
“That’s okay, Lee. Nothing happens overnight, yeah?” Mikey lets out a long-suffering sigh. “That’s become super obvious trying to get all you dum-dums to open up.”
Raph chuckles, patting him on the head. “You did it, though. We oughta’ give you a medal or something.”
The conversation pauses for a long moment, until finally the blue-masked leader mumbles:
“How do I go back to who I was before all this? How- I don’t feel like I can be the same Leonardo anymore. Like Shredder took something from me.”
His strength. His peace. His father. Every loss feels more permanent than the last.
“You don’t.” Donnie says it simply, a little bitter, maybe, but with absolute conviction. “Stuff like this changes you, like it or not. I think all you can do is… focus on what you are. Not what you aren’t, not what you’ve lost.”
He chews on his lip, the way he always does when he’s thinking hard on his next words.
“Sure, you’re not invulnerable, or unscarred, or ‘fearless’- noone is, really- but you’re the bravest person I know.”
“...You think so?”
“I mean, you didn’t hesitate to take on an army of Footbots, henchmen, fucking- Shredder himself? You throw yourself into danger without a second thought, and it drives me insane,” His shoulders hike up a little, but he forces them back down. “But you do it because you want to protect us, to protect the world. And… you do a damn good job of it, always- no matter how hurt or beaten you think you are.”
Oh no, now he’s gonna cry- Mikey’s nodding furiously across the table, April’s hand has wormed its way into his, squeezing gently, and as the initial shock of Donnie’s impromptu speech wears off the others voice their agreement one over the other.
Raph, unable to fight back the faint smile on his face or no longer trying, punches him lightly. “You look out for us, right? That’s never gonna change, even if you never picked up your swords again. That’s what brothers are for.”
Leo manages a little nod, blinking rapidly, before Mikey practically teleports around the table and envelops him in a hug. “We love you, Lee. And that brother thing goes both ways- we’ve got your back, okay? No matter what.”
He lets out a watery “Okay,” as Raph’s hand makes its way to his shell, and Donnie’s chair squeaks quietly before he joins the hug, churring hesitantly at first but stronger as Leo cries in earnest.
It’s not anything like Raph’s breakdown, incidentally. His tears are quiet, slow to build and slow to fade away, but with every second that passes the awful knot that had been tightening in his chest for months unravels more.
He’s mumbling, he notices distantly, weak apologies and muffled thanks and far less coherent feelings than the ones he’d voiced before, but every word gets a response, whether in Mikey’s tiny chirps or Donnie butting his head against his shoulder or even Raph muttering “Shut up and let us look after you,” with no trace of bite in his tone.
Hours later, when his head is stuffy with long-shed tears and everyone’s too tired for any more honesty, his family (all five of them) drags every mattress and pillow and hideous quilt in the house into the living room for a proper fort, complete with roof and walls. Mikey announces that he’s going on hiatus, and with no further elaboration, falls asleep sprawled on top of Raph’s carapace.
Before he drifts off, he looks down to where Donnie's slumped against his side and murmurs, "Thank you."
The younger blinks up at him, tired but curious. "For what?"
"You did a really good job, taking care of me all these months. I know I've been a shitty patient, and I made it hell for you, but... I could tell how hard you were trying. And how much you care, and I understand what it's like to be scared about people you feel responsible for."
Donnie smiles, caught a little off guard. "...You're welcome. It was hell, thank you for noticing, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat. It's just what we do-"
Brothers don't leave brothers behind.
Days later, he and his brothers head into the woods with weapons all their own, different from Splinter’s hand-crafted nunchaku and sai, staff and swords, but still like an extension of their very souls. When he leaves the forest his knee aches, just a bit, but he feels lighter on his feet than he ever has.
It still feels like he’s lost parts of himself, but maybe he didn’t need to carry them with him. Like a soldier shedding armor, almost- bloodied metal and rusted chainmail falling away until he stands away from the battlefield, out of that cold, snowied pit or off of the mountain, held aloft by the air in his lungs and a hidden confidence that if he falls, he’ll allow himself to be caught.
Weeks later, Casey and April and his brothers pile into the party wagon buzzing with adrenaline. The farmhouse recedes behind them, curtains drawn and heating turned off, until rocky forest turns to the concrete jungle of New York City. He sits in the back of the van and recites their plan of action in a voice gravelly but refusing to falter, hands steady against his swords as they cross the bridge.
He’s home.