semilethal | LEO - POST MOVIE

LEO - POST MOVIE

[ nobody asks where april found the van. some mild criminal activity feels irrelevant in light of the day they just had anyway, and they couldn't exactly walk all the way back to the lair.

not with leo like...this. not just leo either; raphael couldn't hardly hold his head up, hunched and clearly wearing his 'i'm the eldest and i won't complain' face as he cradles leo so carefully on their way to the van. mikey's hands and arms won't stop trembling, even when he twists them together and presses them to his plastron. donatello is sore all over and his skin and shell feel raw, like someone rubbed him down with sandpaper.

and leo's quiet. leo's too quiet.

so there they are in the cargo van, raph tucked toward the front with a leg stretched out for mikey to use as a pillow to doze upon. april and casey sit up front, throwing concerned glances over their shoulders as often as is safe while april slowly weaves the vehicle through the half-destroyed streets toward the nearest access point. splinter sits near the doors as their only other capable fighter, though he keeps his tail curled around leo's uninjured ankle.

and donatello, he's stripping off his gloves because he's going to have to touch his brother to get a better idea of his injuries, and his skin doesn't feel like his own and that'll interfere with his judgement. the fewer layers between he and his brother, the more accurate he can be. ]

Alrighty Leon. Look alive, let's...let's diagnose.

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[And with that, Casey leaves him to his breakdowns with a gentle squeeze and a knowing smile.
___________
Later that night, Donnie lets himself into Leo's room without so much as a knock. It's better if he's sleeping anyway; he needs his rest, and Donnie's just here to check his vitals. Even though Sheldon can do that. Remotely, and then transmit the results to Donnie's wrist computer so he doesn't even have to move from where he is.

As quietly as he can, he pulls a milk crate over to the cot and sits down next to it. He's typing softly at his wrist computer, display dimmed to the lowest setting and the usual "beep boop" sounds of data input silenced. He's probably going over Leo's vitals, maybe taking a scan or two. Or six. Maybe he's just reviewing his work, over and over, while watching his brother to make sure he keeps breathing.]

Edited 2022-10-25 03:24 (UTC)

[He did finally fall asleep. It took a bit, some actual conscious effort to let his mind stop running, and a promise to himself that he'll do all the front loading sleep now and be back on his normal (nonexistent) schedule after so he can keep watch on everyone else. It's blissfully quiet now, no one fretting over him or trying to get him to talk about it because god no.

It's fitful, though. The occasional twitching of a finger, the turn of his head in his sleep. Around test five is when the results spike up; pinned and he can't get up, he's trying to get up but he's stuck, and the wind is knocked out of him, why can't he just get up, he can't breathe because of the pressure pinning him down and he can't shout-

He jerks awake, trying to sit up and can't because Shelldon's keeping him secure - that whole 'no moving' thing quite serious really - so he's left to quickly get his bearings. His eyes shift around quickly to figure out where he is, what's happening, what he needs to do.]

[Of course Donnie was watching, wondering if he should wake Leo or let him sleep, when he startled out of the nightmare himself, panting and shivering.

He watches for a moment longer, before turning on the crate to rest his hand atop of Leo's and go back to the display on his computer, reading. They don't need to talk about it. He doesn't need to, and Leo doesn't want to.

Maybe this is what compelled him to come in here. Maybe somehow Donnie could tell (not that he prescribes to this woo woo science "twin" telepathy nonsense) that even if Leo wants to be left alone, he doesn't want to be alone.]

[His skin jolts at the touch but he turns his head to look at his brother. A sort of unspoken understanding there and Leonardo settles.

It goes like that for a while, a few nights. Sometimes it's just the Krang, sometimes it's a fully converted Krang-Raph piloting that stupid mech suit, sometimes it's all three Krang, sometimes it's his brothers. But he keeps waking himself up in the same manner, wordless and shaken.

One of those nights he's staring at the ceiling (can't hold comics, can't hold his phone, grip too tired still to hold a tablet) and laying quietly.]

How much longer, Dee?

[They're spending most nights in Leo's car now; Donnie's even taken to sleeping on Leo's bed as he needs to remain on the cot, though he did drag in his own soft blankets to make a sort of piled-up nest in which he bundles himself to read next to Leo nightly. They don't discuss the nightmares, they never do (and never will), but he can't let Leo wake up from those alone.

Mikey would dote. Raph would fret. And their father would pile the guilt onto Leo, with just having witnessed his son in pain. Don, he can accept his brother having nightmares as a matter of course, and just exist there as confirmation, readily available, that it wasn't real.]

Tomorrow morning, [Don says from within his blanket pile, snuggled up in a hoodie as he reviews for the eighth time the procedure with explanatory diagrams on his tablet.] The last tools I need will be here as soon as April brings them. Cleanroom's converted, I have everything else. We're both as prepared as we're going to get. [Glances at Leo over his tablet.] No eating or drinking from here out. You can have water when you wake up after the procedure.

Edited 2022-10-25 04:10 (UTC)

[He nods at the bit of instruction, the reminder, with eyes still fixed on the ceiling of his car.] Good. [His voice is cracked at the edges, threatening to shatter if he thinks about it a little too hard.] I'm ready to be fixed.

[Because that will do it, right? Don fixing him, physically healing will solve the rest, won't it? It has to. It's the worst any of them have ever been injured, so someone has to get the experience and be a test subject, he guesses. And as great as the pampering and waiting on was the first day, Leonardo is internally screaming to be able to do things on his own again. To make his own food, use his own phone, get his own damn cup from the cupboard.

His vision traces the lines of the car's metal seams. He's just about got every single dent and ding in the ceiling memorized now. But he keeps his voice low:] Sick of this.

[Don hums, noncommittal. Soft taps of his fingertip against the tablet as he restarts the tutorial.]

Being stationary, or being scared?

Does it matter?

No.

[Tap. Tap, tap.] Mikey would say yes. Probably.

.... Then let's say both. Yes.

[Tap tap. ...tap.

Donnie heaves a sigh before lowering the tablet to his bundled lap, staring down at it. He rubs the back of his neck (Leo), fiddles with the edge seam of his sleeve (Raph), rubs his toes together beneath the blankets (Mikey). An amalgamation of his brothers' tics, his own likely entrenched in theirs. All an equal part of each other.]

I'm not trying to make this about me, [he starts uncertainly, because that's a thing he does apparently. Not on purpose -not usually on purpose, but he doesn't know how else to impress upon his family that he gets it other than with experiential evidence. With proof.] And I don't know what it's like to do what you did, to make that decision. I couldn't. It's unfathomable.

[Buffs at a scuff on the tablet's casing with the hem of his hoodie.] I can't fix everything. But I don't want you to be afraid of tomorrow. Because I'm going to use every iota of my very considerable genius to fix what I can so flawlessly, so completely, that you will heal as quickly and painlessly as is possible. You'll be back to normal, you'll be free to walk and run and dance and whatever other urge occurs to you at the witching hours when we're supposed to be sleeping.

Everything else, [lifts tablet to gesture before lowering it back to his lap.] I don't know. Short of recreating the F.A.B. incident to keep us literally attached at the hip for the next twenty years, I don't know how to fix any of it. I just...don't want you to be afraid of anything I can control.

Thanks. I'm not afraid of that. I- I trust you.

[Honest is difficult. It is so difficult. But he's had a little too much time to reflect on himself, on what happened. What it could mean.

There is something that's been on his mind the last day or so. An inkling of an idea of a thought that's been slowly growing like mold in the back of his mind, festering and creeping into every other thought he's been able to have.]

I just... What if. What if there's something out there worse than the Krang?

We thought petty criminals were the worst, then there was Shredder. Then we thought Shredder was the worst, and then there was the Krang. What if - What if there's more.

[He swallows nervously, already a problem given how dry his mouth is.] What if I make another bad call like that? [The subway.] What if we have to make even worse choices?

Edited (FIRST LETTER GONE... NO... it would have haunted me) 2022-10-25 15:57 (UTC)

[Donnie tilts his head, frowning. He traces the edges of the tablet, the smooth corners.]

There's always going to be more. That's natural law. [Lifts a hand to show an upward trend, then flat-] Growth, plateau, decay. -[and then decline, a slope down.] Plus cause and effect. For example: the Shredder made us realize we needed to be better. We improved, we succeeded. The Kraang almost took some of us. But it didn't, so we succeeded. We improve again. [He twirls his finger to gesture around the lair, to indicate "all encompassing" for his vision.] I already have ideas on how to improve the lair security to make sure break-ins are even more difficult because of how easily they got in.

-but I know there will be. [Taps his fingers nervously along the edge of the tablet.] There will be...psychological ramifications to deal with. I know not everyone can dissect and address those concerns. For me, it helps to put things into context of natural laws that cannot be changed, because then you can just. [Swerves his hand around his leg, like a vehicle avoiding an obstacle.] -work around them.

I don't think what you're concerned about is dumb, or wrong. But they are certainties and there's no way to avoid them. The only option we have is to improve.

[Leonardo listens, his eyes watching Donnie for a moment. But by the time he finishes, Leo's eyes are fixed firmly at the ceiling again, hands gripped into tight fists at his side on the Shellcot.

A certainty that there will be something worse than the Krang at some point in their future. He hates this. He hates it with almost everything he has. And the fact that ,as long as their dad says he's the leader, he'll have to continue making decisions he hates.

He didn't ask for this.

He never wants to see his brothers taken, or hurt, or go through anything like that again. His father and April count on him now. And Casey keeps looking up to him to fill that void of whatever future-him is like. So Leo will have to... do whatever he can to make sure no one gets hurt in the future.]

Thanks, Dee.

[What else could he possibly say to that?]

[Donatello's no fool. He might be...somewhat emotionally stunted (a lot), but he knows that didn't help. Acknowledging the reality of the situation and resolving to many sleepless nights building contingency after contingency helps him, but it didn't help Leo. Leo feels worse.

A change in approach is in order. Should he try to comfort his brother the way Leo would comfort them? Would that help him?] -what's a ninja's greatest weapon?

[The question jolts him out of his thoughts, rolling his head over to look at him tiredly.

That question, huh? He huffs out a little breathless sound.]

Hope.

So what do you hope happens? [Puts tablet aside, waves hand nonchalantly.] Even if it's ludicrous.

I hope that I'm fixed, we pick up and move on, and never have to deal with anything that earth shatteringly threatening ever again. Go back to petty criminals like Hypno and that stupid worm guy. April goes back to her classes and doesn't get kicked out for whatever that stuff was she got [she wouldn't shut up about that investigation for months leading up to it and then she shows up with near-explosives in her bag? Yeah, nah.] Mikey can train on mystic stuff with Draxum and see if those marks on his arms can be healed, Raph makes a full recovery and full sight back, and you - I dunno, you can make a new super computer with that big brain and what you got to do.

Okay. And which of those are completely out of reach, never gonna happen, not even remotely possible?

All of them if we get stuck fighting even worse baddies.

I didn't set conditions, I asked which outcomes are impossible! [POINTS AT] Stop trying to skew the results with hypotheticals. You said you hope those things all happen. Coincidentally, so do I, and so do our brothers and the rest of our family. Now, which if those are completely impossible to achieve?

According to you, going back to petty criminals apparently.

[He's frustrated. He's in pain, and he's sick of nightmares and being worried and scared, and he still hasn't actually talked to any of them about what happened. And has no real plans to as of now. He can already feel the muscles in his neck and shoulders stiffening worse from being stuck like this for days on end. He's just tired.]

What I really want? What I really want is for none of this to have happened. So I hope we can figure something out to change that.

We technically already tried that. And apparently the effort to send Casey back to our time killed the Mikey of the future.

[Yeah. You can bet he went to Casey and wrenched the entire story out of him during this preparation time. Having that many unknowns makes him uncomfortable, and if there was any future knowledge that could help him figure out how best to repair, recover, and support his family, he would take it no matter how hard it was to hear.

His own death was...well. It was at least suitably dramatic.]

So, that's off the table because the cost is too high. But everything else? Doable. [Leans forward and if he'd looked or sounded irritated before, that was just his face, his voice. Donnie's brow is set with determination, and his eyes are lit with confidence. Whatever plagued him previously, when he'd cried while staring up at the x-rays of his brother's fractured skeleton, his internal bruises, at what he'd suffered for his sacrifice...Donnie's come to terms with it, at least.

If he has to drag Leo kicking and screaming to that same goalpost, he will. If he has to suffer these emotional talks for weeks or months or until the end of time, he will. If he has to be the one to pull the hope card sometimes, he will. Mikey is the baby. Raph deserves the rest. If Leo's hurt or in danger or troubled, Donnie will readily accept the unspoken second-in-command role and either prop Leo back up, or cover him until he can do it himself.

Coming to terms with that reality? Wasn't nearly so difficult.] If I can come up with a way to deliver an atom bomb to the prison dimension to nuke the everloving newtons out of the Krang, you better believe you'll get first dibs on pressing that button. And if Dad ever lifts the uranium ban, I'll make us a gigantic mech suit so undeniably killtastic that we won't even have to throw a punch to win the next Krang-y fight.

The point is, if something big comes for us again? You aren't alone. If you don't think you can do it, you get Raph, or you get me. You can even get Mikey, he'll be insulted if you don't. Just because you're the leader or because you're the plan guy doesn't mean it's just you. We tore open spacetime to prove that! Okay so Mikey did, me and Raph just helped.

[It's rare that Donatello gives these kinds of speeches. Even rarer that there's this much emotion behind them, something he's feeling particularly strongly about. It's good to hear. Even if Leo may not be in the right mindset to hear it, to accept it. Some part of him is still stuck in that dimension, floating in the dark having not made it back out with the rest of him.

But he listens.

A ninja's greatest weapon, huh.

Hope doesn't make the panic stop. Hope doesn't stop the way his nerves freeze when he hears metal clanging against solid foundation. It doesn't stop the way that, when it's deathly quiet at night and he's the only one awake, he can still hear his brothers pleading for him to find another way.

Had their father ever intended for things to turn out like this? When he started letting them learn ninjutsu, is this what he'd had in mind? For them to be heroes saving the world from otherworldly beings when they're just sixteen?

But Donnie is trying. He's trying so hard.

He can't lift his arm properly for a fist bump or a forearm tap, but he can just lift his fist enough to show what he wants, watching Donnie quietly. An offer. An almost promise for the time being. He'll try.]

[And he'll never admit it or talk about it in a hundred thousand years, but Leo lifting his fist for a bump makes something huge and warm swell up in his chest, overtake his organs, his muscles, his bones. He doesn't feel things of course, and he'll maintain that until his dying breath ~~or until he finally gets some therapy tailored specifically for people on the spectrum~~, but this...

He lifts his own fist to tap it against Leo's. It's okay if Leo's not okay yet- not that it's okay that Leo's not okay, but it's okay if Leo isn't ready to be okay too. Leo heard what Donnie was trying to say, with too many words and not enough kindness, probably, in his tone. Mikey can sit there and sob and hold onto people and they can feel it seeping in through their skin, and Raph just has a way of speaking that's so sincere, so clear, that it's as if he's cracked open your chest to speak directly into your heart, but Donnie-

Well, when Donnie talks it usually doesn't work out well. Not that it stops him, it's just-

Refocus. Leo's not okay but he's willing to try. He's willing to let Donnie handle things while he's not okay. He understood that all of that was Donnie saying, I'll handle things, and I'll help you make sure we're okay, and I love you.]

Welp. That's enough brush-up, I think. [Donnie tosses his tablet onto one of Leo's shelves and slaps his knees.] Give me a second and I'll put together a rig with a widescreen on your ceiling so we can play Mariokart. [Also useful, since Leo's going to have to be generally stationary after the surgery, too.

And he really did mean it about a second or so, because within minutes Donatello and his robotic arms have assembled a complex framing apparatus that suspends a TV not directly facing down, but such so that Leo doesn't have to crane his neck or try to look down in order to have a perfect view. Donnie passes over a controller as he sets up Mariokart, so they can play and have fun and be ready for tomorrow, a day which might change everything.]

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