Chapter Text
The trees were green again, and the forest was growing back.
It had been for a while, of course, but it wasn’t the type of thing that made noticeable progress every day. It was the type of thing that just dawned on you every once and a while, the type of thing that hit you out of nowhere and made you stop and blink. Leo didn’t remember the exact day that he’d grown tall enough to jump into April parents’ wagon without a running start, but it had to have happened at some point. Just maybe too slowly to really put his finger on, until it had long since passed. He could ask Mikey about but Mikey probably wouldn’t remember either
Anyway, there was grass beneath Leo’s feet, and that was a win, because a few months ago it’d been burnt to ashes. A few months ago, Leo had burned it down. And now he was stomping all over it again as he tried to get his disinterested younger twin to pay attention to him.
Such was the life of having siblings. Such was the life of having Donnie as a sibling, because if Donnie didn’t want to be doing something, then he wouldn’t. Simple as that. He’d met his match, however, in how Leo was too determined to give up on him. Raph and Mikey always said that watching them go at it was like watching an unstoppable force meet an immovable object, but Leo just thought it was fun. It went without saying that Donnie didn’t share his opinion.
Donnie was standing across from him and frowning, his arms crossed and his foot lightly tapping. Leo rolled his eyes.
“You agreed to do this, you know,” Leo pointed out, lifting his arms above his head in a lazy stretch.
“I really don’t think that I did,” Donnie replied slowly, narrowing his eyes at Leo’s outstretched limbs.
“You totally did,” Leo said, completely sure of himself. He put his hand over his heart dramatically, adopting an appropriately offended expression. “I can’t believe you would lie to me, your own brother. Your own twin”
Donnie huffed. “My statement still stands.”
“Guess we’ll need a third and fourth opinion, then.”
Leo and Donnie turned in unison to face their older and youngest brothers, who were sitting against a tree on the edge of the clearing. Well Raph was anyway. Mikey was right beside Raph, glowing a soft orange as Mikey was channeling his ninpo. Sensing eyes on them, the sunset duo looked up, saw the looks on the twins’ faces, and both of them sighed, with Raph’s being the heaviest of all.
“What?” Raph asked flatly.
“Our dearest brothers,” Leo began, and Raph and Mikey narrowed their eyes suspiciously. He winced and backtracked. “Donnie agreed to do this, right? You both were there. You both heard it.”
“Yeah, he did,” Mikey said honestly, ignoring the frantic motions that Donnie was making off to the side. “All three of us did. I don’t know why you thought that would work, Donnie.”
The younger twin just groaned in frustration as Leo laughed in triumph. Mikey went back to messing with his ninpo, while Raph choose to watch the twins while also playing with his own ninpo.
“Okay, so, as I was saying,” Leo said, turning back to Donnie, “this next move will disarm your opponent, if they happen to have a sword, or like, a dagger, or a pointy rock.”
“We can’t use your sword,” Donnie pointed out.
It was true. One of the conditions of letting them leave the castle and spar alone was that no weapons were involved, and Leo wasn’t keen on breaking the adults trust in them. He had his swords with him, of course, laying on the grass near Raph and Mikey, but it was only for emergencies. Only if he needed it, and he hadn’t for a long time.
The only thing that they could use was their ninpo, but their ninpo couldn’t really work unless they had their medallion pieces with them, at least that is what Hamato Yoshi told them. Combined with their weapons, they could do some crazy things with their ninpo. Their dad had been teaching them how to better channel their ninpo and they had learned that they could do some crazy things with it
Raph could make projections and grow huge, just like he did when he destroyed that building
Mikey nunchunks turned into bright glowing orange chains
Donnie’s bo staff could make what Donnie had coined ‘mystic tech’. They were kinda of like Raph’s projections, except they were, of course purple, and they consisted of any tech and sciency thing that Leo’s younger twin could think about
For his part, Leo could make portals with his swords, transporting himself from place to place, as long as he could picture where he was going. It took him several months to get it down as it was tricky and hard at first, as making portals was easier said then done. But once he finally got it down, he used it to his full advantage. A lot of it was so that he could mess with his brothers. But, he also used it to help them get from place to place. He wanted to do it today, but Raph insisted that they needed to take a break from using their ninpo and go on a nice walk
And yet, him and Mikey were messing with their ninpo right now
Hypocrite
“We’ll use nature’s weapon,” Leo said, and he picked up the stick he’d picked out when they’d first arrived at their little clearing. “Ta-Da!”
Donnie stared in unimpressed silence, following the object with his eyes as Leo waved it in front of his face.
“Better be careful with that,” Donnie remarked, something faintly teasing in his voice. “It might catch fire and burn the forest down. That would be a shame.”
“That was one time!” Leo exclaimed, exasperated, and he smacked Donnie lightly on the arm with the stick, graciously ignoring Raph and Mikey’s snickering from the sidelines. “Stop bringing it up!”
“You remind Raph that he exploded a weapons armory, like, twice a week.”
“It was just a warehouse!” Raph interrupted, frowning at Donnie with no real frustration. “Saying that it was a weapons armory sounds so much worse.”
All three of Raph’s younger brothers giggled quietly, and Leo chose to continue with his lesson while Donnie was in a good mood. Some days were better than others, when Donnie remembered that this was something he’d agreed to do. When he remembered that he’d said yes when Leo had offered to teach him to fight.
Sure, Donnie knew a little bit about fighting because of his bo staff. But, according to Leo, he didn’t know how to properly fight, always bringing up their first encounter. While Donnie would always roll his eyes at that, he silently agreed that maybe he could learn a thing or two from Leo and Mikey about fighting, before verbally agreeing to letting Leo teach him. Donnie would never forget the excited look on his older twin’s face as he hugged him, and Donnie couldn’t help the fond look on his own face as he hugged Leo back
“Okay, take the stick,” Leo instructed, putting it into Donnie’s hand before he could protest, “and just— Hold it like a sword.”
“Can’t I just hold it like I do my bo staff?” Donnie asked.
Leo thought for a minute before shrugging his shoulders. “Sure…if you want. But just know that I don’t have much experience with bo staffs. I’m only good with swords”
His student sighed, but complied, holding the stick out in front of him in a halfhearted grip.
“Good,” Leo said absentmindedly, getting ready to perform the maneuver and trying to work out how to teach it. “So now I’m gonna get you to drop it, and then I’ll let you try it on me.”
Donnie shrugged and nodded, signifying that he was ready.
“Okay, so like, try to stab me,” Leo instructed.
Donnie huffed a laugh, but struck out with the stick. Leo twisted out of the way and grabbed Donnie’s arm with both hands, one on his forearm and the other near his wrist. Which of course, caused problems. Leo wouldn’t have felt or seen the flinch if he’d been any farther away than he was, but he did see it, and it took him longer than it should have to figure out what had caused Donnie to react that way.
He’d grabbed on to the same wrist that Donnie had injured all those months ago. The same wrist that had been hurt multiple times by someone else, someone bigger and stronger and far less kind than Leo was. His twin’s wrist had healed, sure, but his mind was still catching up.
Immediately, Leo let go and stepped back, letting his hands fall awkwardly to his sides. Donnie dropped the stick on the ground and frowned at his hands.
“Dee…I’m sorry. You okay?” Leo asked, and he could see Raph and Mikey’s heads lift up out of the corner of their eyes, probably catching on to the fact that something had changed.
“I’m fine,” Donnie said, but he sounded irritated. “I just— Sometimes I forget that it’s not, you know, hurt anymore.”
“Yeah,” Leo said, thinking of how he still reached for his sword when he was startled, how it made him nervous to be without it. “I know.”
Raph and Mikey stopped playing with their ninpo as Donnie sighed and looked somewhere off to the left. The wind picked up a bit, causing Donnie’s signature cloak to sway gently in the breeze, and grass to tickle their ankles. Leo glanced down at the stick on the ground.
“Do you want to stop here for today?” Leo asked, giving them all an out.
Donnie was quiet for a moment, and then he shook his head forcefully and picked the stick up from where he’d dropped it.
“No,” Donnie answered, getting back into position, a little more determined than he had been. “Show me.”
Leo smiled…and he did
.
.
.
It was gratifying, to hear the birds chirping and the wind rustling the leaves of trees and bushes. The forest wasn’t quite fully recovered from the ‘incident’ six months ago, but it was well on its way, and so were they. Nature had a funny way of healing itself, and so did people, although usually the latter needed a bit more help. (And time, especially if the injury wasn’t of the type that you could see.)
There weren’t as many leaves on the trees as there might have been, considering the minor setback they’d had, and so the sun was shining brightly on them as they made their way back to the castle. Leo and Mikey were liking it, but every time Leo looked at Donnie, he was squinting up at the sky as if it had personally wronged him. Raph didn’t seem too disturbed, but he did let out a relieved breath whenever they came upon some shade. Leo couldn’t help but be entertained by it, though he graciously held back any teasing on account of the glare Donnie had sent him the last time he’d tried it. The twins did share a room, after all, and he liked to feel safe when he slept.
“This is the worst day of my life,” Donnie said eventually, scowling at the sun-soaked ground ahead of them. It was an obvious exaggeration – they all knew it was a lie – so Leo just grinned a bit as Donnie continued complaining. “I told you we shouldn’t go out today, but no one listened, and now we’re getting baked alive” Donnie then turned pleading eyes to Leo “Leo…can you please just portal us back already?”
Before Leo could answer, Raph stepped in “We need to not depend on our ninpo so much, plus I think Leo needs a break as he has been doing a lot of portaling lately” Leo found that he couldn’t really argue with Raph’s statement and so he stay quiet, but did send Donnie an apologetic look
“We’re almost back, Donnie,” Raph continued, and the look he gave Leo and Mikey showed that he was trying to keep his amusement at bay. And then, because he was the oldest brother and apparently couldn’t help it: “Just don’t forget to drink water, and you’ll be fine.”
Donnie huffed, but he did take a drink from the flask he’d brought.
“We can even go swimming when we get back,” Mikey piped up, quickly getting excited about the idea. “Dad said we could, as long as we tell him.”
“Last time we went swimming, we got covered in glowing blue algae and Leo got mad at us for stealing his color,” Donnie said flatly.
Leo waved a hand dismissively. He hadn’t actually been mad; just a little miffed. And seeing his brothers covered head to toe in the stuff, pouting and glowing, had been too hilarious for him to really hold a grudge.
“I’ve seen the error of my ways,” Leo said, playfully nudging Donnie in the side. “You guys look great in blue! Absolutely dashing, very heroic, extremely eye-catching. You might even pull it off better than I do!”
They bickered back and forth the rest of the way to the cliff, lighthearted teasing about anything and everything, about things that they hadn’t known about each other when they’d first met, all those months ago. They’d already been remarkably close by the time they’d tumbled through the castle door and into the arms of their long-lost dad, but by now they’d grown even closer. Their relationship had thrived in peace just as much as it had in the chaos they’d been a part of, and Leo at this point could say with confidence that he’d never been happier.
“I still can’t believe that you broke the fountain,” Leo was saying as they exited the forest and kept walking toward the fog-covered island in the distance. “And that was only like, two months into staying here.”
“I wanted to see if I could fix it!” Donnie defended, matching Leo’s teasing tone with a sheepish smile. “I thought the water wasn’t coming through because it was clogged or something. I didn’t think the whole thing would fall apart.”
“It was clearly crumbling, Donnie,” Mikey said through giggles, and Donnie just sighed.
“Okay, maybe, but—”
“The bridge is up,” Raph interrupted, his voice both confused and concerned, causing his younger brothers to stop short.
The bridge was usually up, but exceptions were made for whenever any of them were outside of the castle. When they were in the forest, for example, or whenever they went to town, the guards left the bridge down for them, for when they came back. It was strange that it had suddenly changed, and it was clearly making Raph and Donnie a little anxious.
“Maybe they forgot we were out here?” Mikey offered weakly, staring at the empty space where the bridge was supposed to be.
“They just started letting us go out alone,” Donnie said, hands hanging limp at his sides. “They wouldn’t forget that we left.”
Above them, the sun beat down on them mercilessly, but they now had more important things to worry about.
“Maybe someone got too close?” Raph suggested. “Maybe there was a safety concern.”
Donnie was frowning. “If there was someone out here that they were worried about, they would’ve sent someone to come get us.”
They stood in silence for a moment, growing tenser by the second, Leo’s swords suddenly seeming a lot heavier at his side.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” Leo said, trying to convince them all of it. “We can ask what happened when we get back inside.” Leo then turned to Raph “Do you want me to portal us to the castle big guy?”
Raph sighed as he realized that there was no other way to get to the castle without going down the ladder and then swimming. “Alright Leo. Portal us”
Leo smiled widely as he took out his swords, making sure he had plenty of room for his portal. He pictured the front of the castle in his mind, before swiping down with his swords. A shining blue portal opened up in front of them and Leo dramatically ushered his brothers through the portal, to which they all just rolled their eyes at him
However, it seemed as Leo somehow miscalculated and they ended up at the bottom of the moat
Not exactly ideal and Leo had no idea how he managed to miscalculate. Maybe it was the potential stress of the situation that the bridge was up and something was wrong
He was meet with three unimpressed stares and Leo had a slight guilty look on his face that said, ‘my bad’
After a bit of grumbling and complaining, they dropped down into the water and swam towards where they knew a tunnel was waiting.
Leo didn’t consider himself to be a nervous sort of person, not like Donnie and Raph tended to be, but being back down here brought up all sorts of forgotten feelings that were melding together to form an uncomfortable knot in his chest. As much as they joked about it, falling thirty feet into freezing cold water was no walk in the park, and that was without mentioning the sequence of events that had led them to have no other options.
However, the only good memory from this was the heartfelt confession between him and Donnie, where Donnie cried his heart out and admitted that they were twins. Leo was sure that he would never ever forget that memory, even if he tried.
Raph and Mikey made it to the walkway near the tunnel first, heaving themselves up out of the water, before Raph leaned down to help Donnie. Leo joined them with surprisingly little fanfare, and they stood on the shore for a minute, looking out at the water, maybe imagining what their fall from grace had looked like from down there. Subconsciously, Donnie leaned his head onto Leo’s shoulder and Leo couldn’t help but smile as he leaned his head against Donnie’s, grabbing his younger twin’s hand and squeezing it. Donnie squeezed it back and sighed contently, seeming to no longer be mad at Leo for the portal mishap
Yeah, Leo wouldn’t trade this for the world
“…It’s a lot quieter without you-know-who,” Donnie said eventually, and Mikey snorted.
“She did do most of the screaming,” Mikey agreed, fruitlessly trying to dry his hands on his soaking wet jacket.
“Yeah, and we did most of the running,” Raph said, shaking his arms a bit in an effort to hurry along the drying process.
“Don’t remind me,” Donnie said. “If I ever run again, it will be too soon.”
“I hate to break it to you, Don-Tron,” Leo said, amused, keeping his hand in Donnie’s as he walked by him into the tunnel, “but I’m pretty sure you’ll have to run again someday.”
His brothers followed him into the tunnel, Raph and Mikey laughing under their breaths as Donnie grumbled to himself about the injustices of the world, but didn’t let go of Leo’s hand. Leo smiled as he listened, looking forward to getting home and getting to the bottom of what exactly was going on. Hamato Yoshi more than owed them an explanation, and it was always entertaining to see how irritated their dad got whenever they burst into his office. Fond irritation, of course. They had learned early on that he was rarely ever mad at them. Not in a way that stuck.
The cavern was just as stunning as it had been the first time they’d seen it, but more familiar now. The glowing blue of the walls and pools; the castle dark and haunting and beautiful, rising to meet the ceiling and go beyond. A few months ago, they might’ve stopped and stared, but now they only pushed forward, an odd sense of urgency sinking deep into their bones and taking root there. Leo was good at ignoring it, but Donnie – despite all his complaints about running – had let go of Leo’s hand and was noticeably picking up his pace, and even Raph and Mikey’s faces had drawn itself into a tense frown. Leo sincerely hoped that they would arrive to find that there had been nothing to worry about, and they could give whoever put the bridge up a piece of their minds.
…
There were no guards at the door to the castle, and the only thing that greeted them upon entering was a resounding silence.
Needless to say, it did not bode well.
“I hate this,” Donnie said, after they’d stood there in the entryway for a while, expecting something to happen. “This is— I hate it.”
“It… could be worse,” Mikey said hesitantly, peeking down a hallway to their right.
“Are you kidding me? I’ve had better nightmares,” Donnie said, his hands twisted into his sleeves as he stared up the stairs directly in front of them, like someone would appear if he looked for long enough.
“We don’t know what happened yet,” Raph said gently, comforting despite the shake of his hands. “Everything might be fine.”
Donnie’s mouth twisted downwards slightly, his eyebrows drawn inward, and Leo knew that his twin wasn’t convinced. He was smarter, sharper, more cautious than that.
“Well we’re not going to figure out what’s going on if we just stand here like sitting— like standing turtles.” Leo shook his head in an effort to dislodge all the thoughts clamoring for attention. He had no idea what was going on, and his fear of the unknown was warring with the thrill of a mystery to be solved.
“We need to find everyone,” Mikey said, and he glanced at them nervously. “Should we split up?”
“No, Mikey, what— It’s like you’ve never heard a horror story,” Donnie said, practically hissing.
“This isn’t a horror story!”
“Not yet, but—”
“We’ll be fine, we’ll stay together,” Leo interrupted, feeling a little out of depth, as he wasn’t usually the one who had to mediate. He walked closer to them and put a hand on each of his little brothers’ shoulders, before turning his attention to Raph. “So…where are we going first, big man?”
Raph sighed and gestured around them. “First floor,” he said, “and then we go up.”
“Up where?” Donnie asked snarkily, as sarcasm was apparently his defense mechanism. “Up in flames? Up to heaven?”
“Upstairs.”
“First floor first it is,” Mikey said, dragging the twins a bit down the hallway to their left as Raph caught up with them before pausing. “Oh, and one more thing.”
He turned back to his older brothers, who were looking at him expectantly.
“This isn’t a horror story.” Mikey gave his big brothers a bright, mischievous smile. “It’s an adventure.”