#raph and splinter are in it too but theres no much focus on them so i wont tag | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

tangledinink · 1 year ago

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"This was supposed to be easy. A simple re-introduction to crime-fighting after taking so much time off to heal after the invasion. Dipping his toes back into the water, so to speak. Maybe it was because it was easy that he let this happen."

my beta @livsinpjs and i are playing a game where they choose a bad things happen bingo prompt and then i write a thing for them. i'm having a lovely time. guess which prompt this one was? anyway, read on ao3 or below the cut! :3c

This was supposed to be easy.

Baby’s First Mission, so to speak. Or perhaps, more accurately, Baby’s First Mission, Take Two: Electric Boogaloo, because it was certainly not the first time Leo had debuted his mad skillz on the mean lean streets of NYC, thank you very much. It was, however, the first time in… a while.

Assuming Leo had his math right, it had been about four and a half months. Four and a half months since he had participated in any degree of crime fighting.

It took him four and a half months to recover enough from the invasion for his family to even consider letting him participate in the simplest of ninja tasks. And, okay, fine. It was… kind of understandable. Leo wasn’t a total idiot. He could recognize that he had been pretty fucked up. Like, for real fucked up. Not that everyone else wasn’t, he had just…

He had just had a bit more ground to cover. After the Prison Dimension, and stuff. That was all.

Nothing he couldn’t handle. No big.

… Because he had! He had covered that ground! It was all covered now, totally out of sight and out of mind, and honestly, he was basically bounced back, good as new, as if the whole thing had never happened! Yes, okay, he did have some… lingering scars and aches and such, but so did everyone else! And they were super-soldier mutants, after all. They healed fast. All the broken limbs, the torn muscles, the lacerations and the cracks and the internal injuries-- they were all good now. He had a clean bill of health! Sure, he had given the clean bill of health to himself, but he hadn’t cut any corners or given himself any breaks.

He wouldn’t do that to his family.

He knew it had been… hard. Usually, he was the one who took care of any injuries or boo-boos, and things had admittedly been kind of touch-and-go there for a minute before he had recovered back enough to offer any of his (self-taught…) expertise, with his family struggling to fill in the gaps he left behind. But things were okay now. He had been good and patient and tolerant about being trapped in the Lair, bored out of his mind, for four and a half months.

He was ready to be back out here.

And it was just a patrol!

“Things have been, like, stupid quiet today,” Leo muttered softly to himself as he wandered along the rooftops, balancing on the edge, his arms held out to keep himself steady. “What’s the deal?”

“Isn’t a lack of crime considered, you know, a good thing?” Donnie questioned, looking up from his tech gauntlet to raise a brow at his twin. Leo scoffed softly, rolling his eyes.

“I’m not saying it’s bad! I’m just making an observation!”

“Things have been a little calmer ever since the invasion,” Raph observed, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I guess even the criminals are still spooked,” Mikey chirped.

“Boring,” Leo muttered under his breath.

“I heard that,” Donnie said, and Leo shot him a mischievous grin.

“Oh, please, as if you’re not dying to go beat up some bad guys, too!” He flashed back, hopping down from his makeshift balance beam to fall into step with his brothers, looping an arm around his twin, who groaned in irritation. “We’re ninjas! We need things to ninja! It’s the natural order of things, Dee! We need, like… enrichment! For our enclosures!”

“Leo, get off of--”

Donnie’s gauntlet began to chirp brightly, and Leo gasped, reaching over.

“Ooh! Is that a bad guy code!? Is that one of your crime alert things!? What does it say!?”

“Well, get off of me so I can read it!” Donnie snapped in response, growling softly as he kicked his brother away. Leo whined but allowed himself to be shoved, stumbling and spinning dramatically as he went. Mikey caught him with a giggle and Leo slumped into him, draping an arm over his head.

“By my own brother…!”

“Shut up,” Donnie muttered. “A convenience store three blocks from here was robbed. Four suspects fleeing north. And by the way, that would be code six-seven-five-point--”

“A robbery?! Perfect! We could handle that in our sleep! And they’re even running towards us! Isn’t that a fun change of pace?” Leo cried, grinning big as he rose back up to his full height, unsheathing his katanas with a satisfying shwing . God, it felt so good to do that again. “What do you say, hermanos? ”

Three grins echoed his own-- even Donnie.

“That’s what I like to see,” Leo sang. “C’mon, let’s go ruin some bad guys’ day!”

---

Maybe Leo was a little rusty, but he wasn’t wrong, either.

They could handle these shmucks in their sleep.

Maybe that had been the problem.

Things had been going well, quite frankly. Really well! Leo still wasn’t sure where he miscalculated-- where he had missed. The game plan had been solid! They were all totally in sync and completely in control. Everything went just the way it should. They got the jump on the suspects, and when two had fled left and the other two right, Leo had sent Mikey and Raph in one direction, and he and Donnie had gone in the other. And they weren’t even far from each other-- he could still hear Raph and Mikey yelling from here, just around the corner, having easily cornered their part of the group and making quick work of them. And he and Donnie had been doing the same. It wasn’t even hard. I mean, come on. They had defeated the Kraang. What were these guys to him?

That one guy had just barely gotten a hit on him. Just barely.

It was just bad luck, really. He had jumped out of the disarmed robber’s clumsy attempt at an attack, leaping up onto a nearby dumpster and then flipping over, back behind him. And he didn’t get hurt, per se, he just--

He just landed on his bad leg. That was all. And his knee kind of… didn’t appreciate it, was the thing. And so he stumbled. Just a tiny bit. Just ever-so-slightly.

Just long enough for that stupid asshole to whip around and slug him, sending him reeling backward.

“Leo!” Donnie hissed in alarm, his eyes widening as Leo fell back, stumbling slightly. With a quick sweep of his bo staff, he had thrown the other criminal to the ground, promptly abandoning the fight in order to instead rush to Leo’s side. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine! Takes more than that to knock me out,” Leo scoffed, waving off his concerns quickly. “What are you over here fussing at me for? We still got two dudes to take down! Mikey and Raph are gonna win and embarrass us!”

“Maybe we should re-evaluate--”

“Dee, chill. It was one punch. I’m not even bleeding,” Leo snapped, just barely sparing Donnie a glance before he was re-focused on the task at hand-- at the two goons who they had now allowed the space to regroup and begin a hasty retreat.

“But you’re hurt--”

“Come on! They’re gonna get away!” Leo hissed, brushing past Donnie so that he could give chase. He grit his teeth as the pair darted back around the corner of the alley, picking up his pace to pursue and re-adjusting his grip on his katanas.

“Wait--!”

“Dude, I’ve got it, chill,” Leo snapped, bristling the tiniest bit from irritation. Look, sure, he knew he had gotten fucked up and that it was scary, but he was better now! They didn’t have to keep acting like he was some fragile doll-- why couldn’t they understand that and just trust him--!?

“Leo--!” Out of the very corners of his eyes, he saw his twin brother surge forward, a hand clamping onto his shoulder and attempting to yank him back behind him. Leo cursed, stumbling slightly, pulling back in resistance and turning slightly to glare.

“Dee, stop it, I’m--”

His words died in his mouth as an explosive bang cut through them both, echoing through the alley, dramatic and demanding-- insisting it be heard. Leo flinched back at the assault to his senses. He could feel the noise bouncing through his head. His ears were ringing. It was so loud. His vision blurred for a second as his balance wobbled.

He thought blearily for a second, what the hell was that?

And then he thought, that was really loud.

And then he felt Donnie’s grip on his shoulder falter and loosen.

And it fell away.

---

Maybe it was because it was easy that he let this happen.

Maybe it was because it was ‘no big deal’ that he had disarmed the suspect and left it at that, and hadn’t thought to check or wonder if that was his only weapon.

---

A second ago, it had been so loud, and now all of a sudden, it was so quiet, and it took a second for Leo to force his body to move enough so that he could wrench his head up enough to look over at his brother.

“Oh my god--”

Donnie kind of seemed like he was trying to respond, but he didn’t quite manage it. He curled a bit further in on himself, struggling to keep himself up on his knees rather than falling over entirely. And the next sound Leo heard was the splash of liquid dripping down onto asphalt.

---

Everything was moving kind of fast.

Which was probably good. Because Donnie was bleeding a lot.

He had started screaming for Raph and Mikey, he remembered, sort of vaguely, though it felt like a long time ago now. And he was sure that they heard him, and he was sure they were coming, but after about five seconds of watching Donnie bleed like that, making these fucking horrible noises in the back of his throat like breathing was suddenly hurting him, Leo decided he couldn’t wait.

Mikey and Raph would catch up.

Donnie needed first aid right now.

The Turtle Tank was close. He could get them there. He was out of practice and panicking, but he knew he could teleport them there, at least, and they had supplies there, and Mikey and Raph could come and help, and it would be okay--

It would be fine.

Donnie would be fine.

It would be fine if he could just get them there. Just to the Turtle Tank. It was close. He just had to get Donnie to the Tank, and he’d be okay.

“Hang on. Hang on, don’t move. Just-- don’t move--” He bit out, his voice frantic as he kneeled down next to the other, grabbing onto them. He was embarrassed to admit that it took him a few tries, but all he could see in his mind when he tried to focus his energy was the blood and how fucking awful the wound looked, oh my god--

But he got them there. They jolted slightly on arrival, and Leo winced, listening to this short groan be pulled from Donnie’s chest as his knees finally buckled fully beneath him.

“Sorry. I’m sorry. It’s okay. Just-- it’s fine. You’re okay--” Leo kept biting out as he held onto his twin, easing him down onto his back on the floor of the tank, and he wasn’t really sure who he was trying to reassure. And up until now, Leo had been panicking, but he hadn’t been crying.

Now he was looking at his brother, his shoulder torn open like it was fucking raw, chewed-up meat, trembling on the cold metal floor and wheezing painfully. And he hiccuped, tears welling up in his eyes.

“Oh, fuck--”

Because it kind of sunk in for the first time that Donnie did this on purpose.

“Why-- why did you do that?” He hissed weakly, his voice trembling as he rushed to grab the first aid kit. “What is wrong with you?!”

Donnie gave this very weak, strangled sort of noise, which sounded like it was trying to be laughter, but was shaking and wet.

“This is why you always lose at team FPS games,” he mumbled, his speech slurred slightly, lips ever-so-slightly turning up into this pained little half-grin. Leo swallowed at the sight of it, forcing his eyes away, hurriedly yanking supplies from their first-aid kit and ripping open packs of gauze.

“What-- what the fuck are you even talking about? Just-- stay still, I, I have to apply pressure and it’s gonna suck, just, try not to move--”

“Gotta protect your healer, dum-dum,” Donnie muttered, agreeably going limp beneath Leo’s hands, his head lolling back against the metal of the tank with a soft thud as his eyes fluttered shut. “Tha’s… basics. N-now-- hurry up and-- and fix me.”

Leo sobbed.

“I hate you. I fucking hate you,” he whispered in a shaky little mantra, tripping over his own words over and over as he shoved bandages up against the honest to god hole in Donnie’s shoulder, blood bubbling up like a fucking drinking fountain, just below his throat and just barely to the right of the metal strap of his battle shell because of course it was, of fucking course it was. The bullet was most likely literally lodged inside his fucking battle shell right now, but a lot of good the stupid shell did if the bullet went through his brother to get there--

His clavicle is probably shattered, he thought to himself, and he swallowed hard-- but he didn’t allow himself to hesitate. Even if he didn’t wanna do this.

Donnie couldn’t afford to lose much more blood, and he couldn’t afford to lose any time to Leo hesitating over putting him in more pain.

Leo braced both palms over the wound, internally said a preemptive apology, and shifted his entire weight forward onto his hands, leaning hard into his brother.

Donatello’s eyes flashed back open.

Somehow, his strength seemed to renew itself, which would be comforting if it wasn’t all being wasted in his body instinctively fighting back against the pain, jerking sharply beneath Leo’s touch. A choked howl wrenched its way from Donnie’s throat as he writhed against him, all his limbs flailing for just a second and his muscles twitching before he could gather himself enough to try and wrest control of his body again, attempting desperately to follow directions.

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Dee. I have to,” Leo hissed through clenched teeth, hiccuping softly, shifting slightly so he could pin his brother down properly-- holding him forcibly in place by his injured shoulder. Luckily, the fight didn’t last long, and soon Donatello had settled back down again, only trembling and twitching beneath him. Leo tried to find it in himself to be grateful, but honestly, the stillness was somehow even worse. “I’m sorry--”

“This does suck,” Donnie wheezed out weakly, gritting his teeth, and Leo forced this watery little chuckle in reply.

“I told you,” he bit out, sniffling a little. He knew that he was dripping tears down onto his brother with how he was hunched over him, and he knew that under normal circumstances Donnie would think that that was fucking disgusting. But he couldn’t free up any hands or move right now to wipe them away, and honestly, Donnie probably had bigger things to worry about at the moment. “Oh my god. I hate you. I f-fucking hate you. Why did you do this…?”

“Payback,” Donnie slurred, and Leo decided right then and there that that was going to haunt him for at least the next ten years of his life.

“I’m sorry--”

“Don’t--” Donnie had more to say, Leo could tell, but his words kept dying in his throat like he was forgetting what he was gonna say halfway through.

Or like he was giving up.

“Hey. Don’t go to sleep,” Leo hissed, increasing the pressure ever so slightly and jostling him, his brother wincing and wriggling in response. “You gotta stay up. Okay? It’s gonna be fine. You’re okay. It’s-- it’s just your shoulder. No big deal! The technodrome was way worse than this, this is like-- like a papercut! You’re gonna be fine,” he insisted, though he could hear how his own voice wobbled. “Come on. Just stay awake with me, okay?”

Donnie moaned softly in response, forcing one eye open again.

Leo swallowed hard, squeezing his own eyes shut for a moment to try to force himself to refocus.

He couldn’t just sit here and apply pressure. He had to-- he had to get him back to the Lair. To the Medbay, so he could actually treat him properly. He racked his brain, trying to calculate how many blood bags they had in storage. They had learned their lesson after the Invasion, and they kept blood bags, because they were stupid fucked up mutants and they couldn’t get blood from anyone except for each other, but blood only kept for so long! And even if they did still have some, they were all stored cold. They were all in the fridge in the MedBay. He couldn’t use cold blood. And they wouldn’t have time to warm anything up. Donnie would be dead by the time it was usable.

So he was gonna need Mikey. Mikey had the matching blood type. Mikey had universal blood, and none of the rest of them matched. And Donnie was losing so much blood still. All the gauze was soaking through. Fuck. Had they hit an artery or something? For a moment he brain racked frantically through all the major arteries and their locations, trying to name and place them, before he snapped out of it, giving a sharp shake of his head. Focus! Blood. Mikey. Mikey and Raph-- we need them.

“Hey. Hey, Don, I need you-- I need you to lift your left arm for me a tiny bit, okay?” Donnie stiffened slightly and whined. “I know. I know, I just-- I need to call Mikey and Raph and tell them where we’re at, okay? C’mon. Just for a minute, I swear--”

And Donnie made this fucking horrible noise as he did it, but he was a goddamn champion and a trooper and he did it anyway, and Leo dared to remove one of his hands from the wound just long enough so that he could smack at the screen of Donnie’s gauntlet. He smeared blood across the glass, pushing away all the notifications and alerts that were flooding the space. It had been beeping like crazy for a while now, Leo belatedly realized, and while he was sure a lot of this was due to Donnie being literally shot, he would also not be surprised if Mikey and Raph had tried to call them about eighty times now.

He managed to place a call back.

Raph picked up instantly.

“LEO! Where are you!? Are you hurt!? What happened--”

“We’re in the tank!” He hissed, fighting to keep his voice from breaking. “It’s-- w-we’re okay, but I, I need you to get back here ‘cause we-- we gotta go home, like-- like, right now--”

---

Once his brothers were there, he could make them hold the gauze in place. He could wrap the wound enough so that he could maybe feel halfway okay with moving Donnie. And he could take the five seconds he needed to recenter himself and make a portal back home.

And that was all good. But it was also when things started to get really fucking scary.

Because even though he knew that Raph was holding him so, so fucking carefully, just the movement of jumping through the portal and into the Medbay back in the Lair tore this horrendous fucking scream from Donnie, his entire body jerking and locking up slightly as he curled up against Raph, and then he had absolutely sobbed and Leo’s heart went up into his throat because Donnie wasn’t a crier. Donnie cried, sure, but rarely. And he certainly didn’t cry from pain.

He might be a nerd and a drama queen, but he was way tougher than he let on. Combat may not always be the main focus in his world, but he was perfectly capable of going toe-to-toe with the rest of them without breaking a sweat-- sometimes even outpacing them-- and he wasn’t afraid of pain.

Donnie was perfectly capable of growing overwhelmed and emotional and being brought to tears. Of course he was. He was a person. Leo had seen him cry plenty of times before, even if it was a rarely-observed phenomenon.

But he didn’t cry from pain.

Which meant that right now, Donnie was clinging to Raph and fucking weeping not because he was in pain, but because he was scared. And that was what scared Leo.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, we made it. Everything’s gonna be fine now, hermano, I swear. We’ve got you,” he hissed, rushing to begin throwing open cabinets, yanking supplies out of drawers and storage bins. Blood. We gotta deal with the blood loss first, and then everything else. He’s gonna bleed out if we don’t-- “Raph, put-- put him down on the bed, and Mikey, you run-- No. No, wait, Mikey, don’t go anywhere. Raph, you go get Dad. Mikey, you-- you and Raph gotta switch off, you gotta keep the pressure on the wound--” he hissed out frantic instructions, his mind tripping over itself in his haste.

He was dimly aware that Raph and Mikey were in tears, too, but his had stopped a while ago now. He had had his turn, and he needed to focus right now. He didn’t have time to cry anymore.

By the time he had what he needed, which had only taken seconds, Raph was already gone and Mikey had taken his place, holding Donnie down to the cot by his shoulder and sobbing weakly.

“It’s okay, we’re home now. Everything is gonna be fine, Dee…!” He kept saying in between little sniffles and hiccups. “We’re home, it’s okay…!”

“Good job, Miguelito. Uhm, here. Can you-- I need you to twist your elbow a little, okay?” He instructed, a bit haltingly, tossing the required supplies down on top of Donnie as he tried to navigate between them, ducking past Mikey’s arms. “Okay-- yeah, yeah, good. Alright. Uhm. Dee-- Dee needs some blood, okay? So I’m gonna-- Mikey, more pressure than that--!”

“It’s-- it’s hurting him--

“Do it anyway. Yeah, okay, Yes. Like that. Okay, good. Uhm. I’m just-- I’m gonna poke you real quick so he can have some of yours, so I just-- I need you to stay still for me so I can find a vein. Okay?”

Mikey just sobbed in reply, nodding fervently.

It took Leo about four tries to find a vein in Mikey’s arm, and then three tries to find one on Donnie, and he cursed himself and apologized about eighty times, swearing that he would practice more later and get good enough so he could get the vein on the first time, every single time, no matter what.

(Goddammit, why did Mikey have to be the universal donor? Why couldn’t it have been Raph? Or him? Mikey was so small. He kept missing the veins because his hands were shaking so badly. He had never done a direct transfusion before. It would be so easy to take too much. If he didn’t pay close enough attention he could end up killing Mikey with this so easily--)

“Purple!”

Leo’s head jerked up slightly, his eyes wide. He hadn’t even heard Dad and Raph coming back until they were here. Their dad absolutely flew to Donnie’s side, all but jumping on him, finding his hand to grab, his other hand resting on his child’s cheek. “Oh-- oh, Purple. It’s okay. It is okay, my son, we are here. Your family is right here. You’re going to be okay--!”

“Dad--” Donnie whimpered, and his voice sounded so small and weak and un-Donnie-like that oh, actually, okay. He had thought he had worked past the tears.

But he had not. They were back now. And Leo sobbed, his knees nearly going out from under him, because oh my god.

Jesus christ.

Donnie was shot. Donnie got shot and he was bleeding out right now in front of him, and it should have been him.

He should have been paying attention and being more careful and now Donnie had been fucking shot and it should have been him--

“Blue.”

Leo choked on another sob, his head just barely lifting up to meet his father’s eyes. And his voice was so gentle and careful, but so firm as he grabbed him by the back of the neck and yanked him back out from under the water where he had been drowning a second ago.

“It’s going to be okay,” their dad said. “Just tell us what you need us to do.”

Right. Right.

Leo swallowed hard, squeezing his eyes shut.

He was the healer.

And he had to fix Donnie.

He could do this.

“I--” His voice shook, so he stopped and sniffled and started again, hurriedly wiping at his face. “H-he’s, he’s s-still bleeding, really bad, and I-- I think it h-hit an artery or something so I. I gotta g-go in and, and put in a clamp, or, or do a repair, or s-something, so I--”

He took in a long, deep breath, his entire body trembling.

“So I need Mikey to sit down and stick close. And I need someone to get him food and water ‘cause he’s Donnie’s lifeline right now so he can’t pass out. And I need Donnie’s battle shell off-- carefully. And I need to grab the drugs to put him under and I-- I need to scrub in.”

---

Leo had never intended to be the medic of the team. It was never a goal of his or anything-- it’s not like one day he sat down and said, ‘oh, you know what would be super fun? Being responsible for the health and safety of all my family members in times of crisis!’

‘Cause, uh, no. No, thank you.

It had just… it had just sort of happened.

He had just fallen into it at some point. Whenever something went wrong or something got hurt, if Dad wasn’t around to immediately pick them up and patch them up, then somehow, it would fall to Leo to take over until Dad got there-- because Donnie was squeamish with blood and Mikey got distracted, and Raph would get so focused on trying to get whichever brother was crying to calm down that he’d kind of forget about the whole first aid bit.

So Leo would do it. If Dad wasn’t there right away, then Leo figured could get out the bandaids and the neosporin and get the scraped elbow or bloody knee all fixed up. And then when he did, once dad did get there, he would always smile and pat his head and say, ‘good job, Blue.’ And every single time, Leo would just beam at the praise, all filled up with excited and warm and fuzzy and proud.

So he took it upon himself to always jump in and help whenever anyone got hurt-- not just when Dad wasn’t around. And eventually, he learned how to do more stuff. When Mikey sprained his ankle skateboarding, he got Donnie to help him look it up on the computer so he could help treat him. And when Raph tore out one of his claws, he scoured WebMD and VCA articles alike to figure out how he could best help. And then, slowly but surely, he fell down more and more rabbit holes. He’d look up the symptoms of concussions when Donnie fell and bumped his head, and then he’d just end up opening up every related and suggested article. Internal bleeding, TBIs, nerve damage, spinal cord injuries…

He devoured medical textbooks. He watched videos of surgeries on YouTube. He studied recorded lectures from college classes online. The more he learned, the more he found it to be genuinely interesting. So he learned more.

And the more he learned, the more often he could say, “I know how to take care of that,” when someone was injured. And the more often he said that the more people would come to him when they were injured and ask for his help.

And he liked that.

Every time he was able to help, he’d still get that warm fuzzy feeling. Because this was something he could do. This was how he could help his family. And god, that fucking meant something to him.

And by now, he was… he was pretty good at it. Or, at least, he thought he was. He was pretty sure he was…! But he was still just…

Leo.

He was still just some dumb teenage kid, barely seventeen, who grew up in the sewer and had literally no formal education or training.

He was a decent medic, sure.

But a surgeon he was not.

He had watched surgeries. He had studied them. He understood the concept and what he had to do and how it had to be done. But he had never really done it before.

About five different times, he thought, oh my fucking god, what am I doing? I’m going kill him--

And then five different times, he thought, what other choice is there? If you don’t try, you’ll still kill him.

So he washed the ever-loving shit out of his hands. He got things as sterile as he possibly could in the MedBay. He drew up the required drugs, all acquired through illicit means by the brother they were now being used on and pushed them through the IV line he had set up. (‘Nighty-night, motherfucker,’ he had said to Donnie, and they had kind of weakly, shakily laughed in response.) He got every tool and drug and contingency that he could possibly think of and he made sure it was all within arm’s reach.

And then he had opened his twin brother up.

And suddenly the MedBay was his OR. And he was the trauma surgeon. And he was also the anesthesiologist. He was the nurse and the assistant, too, and the doctor for his youngest brother at the same time, who was now also actively bleeding out alongside Donnie for his sake, desperately attempting to use what he had to keep two bodies alive instead of just one. And Raph and Dad were there to help, but there was only so much they could do. Dad was pretty knowledgeable, but only to an extent! And he was so fucking glad they were there, thank god they were all there, but it was still…

He was the medic. It was on him.

He worked for almost an hour before he had to call it. He actually tried to call it two times before that, worried about how much blood Mikey was losing, afraid to keep going. But every time he did, Mikey set his expression and shook his head and asked, “Is he okay yet?”

And Leo would hesitate just long enough that Mikey would narrow his eyes and say, “Keep going until you’re sure. I’m still okay. I can keep going.”

At some point, Raph’s sole responsibility to the operation was just to watch Mikey and nothing else. To sit with him and monitor his heart rate, to talk with him and make sure he was breathing okay, that he was still able to move, to speak clearly, to follow a conversation.

But eventually, he had to call it.

He just had to trust that he had done enough. To just pray that things might be okay. That he had done a decent enough job for Donnie to live. His collarbone was still totally fucked , but at least the artery was patched, and that was the most important thing-- or at least, he thought it was patched. He hoped it was. But he couldn’t go any longer. He couldn’t take anything else from Mikey or else they were gonna have two unconscious brothers.

He wasn’t a surgeon.

He just did the best that he possibly could.

The entire time he worked, he was laser-focused, desperately willing himself to keep his eyes on the task at hand. But in the back of his mind, he couldn’t help but think about the invasion.

And he kept thinking about what a horrific state they had all been in after the invasion. And he thought about how he still couldn’t remember… the first, like… five days after Staten Island. And he didn’t really even know what they did. Or how they managed.

He had come home in fucking pieces. They all had. Mikey’s burnt skin had been fucking sloughing off his arms. He remembered realizing that Donnie was leaving bloody footprints behind him when he walked for how much blood he was losing, dripping down his legs. Half of Raph’s face had been an open wound, and he swore he could still see it when he closed his eyes, through all the bits and pieces, in between all the massive gaps in his memories.

And he just kept thinking about them all dealing with this same situation, but a million times worse. And he hadn’t helped.

He got Donnie all stitched up. He got Mikey laid up in a second bed and gave him some of his own blood from, like, a month ago because they did still have a blood bag in cold storage that they had been able to warm, and then finally allowed him to pass the fuck out after shoving, like… so much pasta and cookies into him. He pushed the reversal dose into his twin.

He still had no idea if he actually fixed it. He didn’t know if he had actually managed to stop the bleeding entirely or not. For all he knew, he was still bleeding out now. For all he knew, he wouldn’t wake up.

He settled down to wait and to watch.

---

The sound was so soft, he almost didn’t hear it.

It was hardly even there.

It had been a while now. Raph and Dad waited with him, taking turns watching Mikey and Donnie and doing whatever they could to help and trying to get him to rest, too.

But he didn’t want to rest.

(Neither did they. So even though they all repeatedly said to each other, ‘seriously, you should get some sleep, you look exhausted, I can watch him for a while,’ none of them really listened and none of them really had the room to push it, either.)

It was just weird luck. Dad had gone to fetch some food and tea for them. And Raph had just left, carrying Mikey back to his own room, because Leo had finally declared him stable, though exhausted, and he kept getting woken up over and over by the rest of them in here, and while Leo knew he’d never complain about it, it was a little heartbreaking to watch.

So for just a moment, it was just Leo and Donnie in the Medbay.

And Leo sighed very softly, laying his head down in his arms and bouncing his leg anxiously, biting at the inside of his cheek.

Please. Please. Please wake up. I swear, I will never do anything stupid and dumb or selfish ever again. I swear I’ll learn my lesson this time. Please. Just. Please. Please wake up. Don’t make my fuck ups be his consequences, please--

And he was so caught up in his own thoughts, he almost didn’t hear it at first.

This tiny, soft little chirp, just barely echoed through the cold white space.

He almost didn’t hear it.

But he did.

And his head snapped up, his eyes wide.

Donnie blinked very slowly, twitching the tiniest bit and visibly struggling to force his eyes open. And he chirped again. And Leo almost immediately burst into tears.

“Holy fuck. Don. Oh my god-- Never do that again. I-- oh my god. Thank fuck. I’m so fucking sorry--”

Donnie chuffed shakily in response and mumbled something completely incomprehensible, but didn’t quite have it in him to reply with words just yet. Leo didn’t mind. He’d take the opportunity to just continue to cry and hang onto him and touch his face and make sure he was actually there, actually alive. And to bite out apologies over and over and over until Donnie was finally awake enough to cut in.

“Leo. Shut up.”

“Sorry. Sorry, I--”

“Stop saying sorry.”

“Okay,” Leo finally whispered, hiccuping weakly, laying his head down on the bed again, sniffling a bit. “Okay. Uhm. I-- are you okay…?”

“Peachy.”

“Don’t be a bitch,” Leo mumbled weakly. “I’m trying to be the goddamn healer, remember?”

“I’m okay,” Donnie breathed, shifting ever-so-slightly in bed and wincing a bit at the movement. “Fucking-- sore. But I think I’m okay. Drugs’re working for sure.”

“Good,” Leo said, and then was quiet for a little bit.

“Never do that again,” Leo whispered.

“I still think my logic was solid--”

“Donnie--”

“Okay, look,” Donnie sighed. “It’s not like I made a conscious choice, okay? I wasn’t-- I wasn’t trying to get shot. I would have actually really, really preferred not to get shot! Two really’s! My goal wasn’t to take the damn bullet, okay? I just--” He huffed softly, letting his eyes flutter shut again.

“I just saw the gun and I wanted you to be safe. So I moved. I was just trying to get you out of the way. That’s all.”

Leo swallowed hard, covering his mouth with his hand and gritting his teeth. “If I hadn’t-- If I hadn’t let that guy hit me. Or if I-- if I listened to you when you told me to stop, then they wouldn’t have--”

“Yeah, maybe,” Donnie scoffed. “And if I hadn’t gotten all protective over your getting hit one time, and if I had listened to you when you told me that you were fine, then maybe I wouldn’t have gotten shot then, either!”

“I’m-- I’m sorry, I should have--”

“Cut it out,” Donnie immediately cut off. “You didn’t do anything wrong, okay? Shit just happens sometimes. It’s not like you were being a reckless idiot. You weren’t trying to get shot, either. Sometimes, things just happen. This is unfortunately the way of the world. It’s just a big random number generator. Or something,” he grumbled a bit, wrinkling up his nose. “I dunno. I’m pretty high. You get it, though.”

Leo kept quiet for a minute, and then slowly nodded.

“... Yeah.”

“And it’s not payback, either,” Donnie mumbled tiredly. “Sorry I said that shit. It’s just that I was in shock and bleeding out at the time, and therefore not really in the best mindset…”

Leo scowled. “You don’t have to apologize--”

“We already talked about it. And we’re okay. I shouldn’t have brought it up,” he said. “So just, like… let me apologize or whatever. You know how rare of a moment this is. So just take it.”

The two of them were quiet for a second.

“Were things really bad after the Invasion?” Leo asked. Donnie cracked open an eye so he could look at his brother.

“What? Obviously, things were bad, Leo. What kind of a question is that?”

“Because--” Leo broke off, frowning. “Because I didn’t help--”

“Well, yeah, because you were literally comatose.”

“Y-yeah, but-- I-- If I hadn’t, it would’ve--”

“Look, Leo, if you had been around immediately after the Invasion, it probably would have helped,” Donnie sighed. “But it still would have sucked! And you weren’t, and we were still okay. None of us died. You didn’t die. We had people to help us, and it was okay. And it’s not your fucking fault that an alien literally tried to beat you to death. I dunno how many times we have to go over this-- fuck. Can we please not discuss this anymore while I’m high? ‘Cause I’m on, like… so many drugs right now, I’m pretty sure. So I’m probably being kind of an asshole. Oh my god. What did you give me?” He muttered, his voice slurring a bit as his head lolled to the side, his will to keep his eyes open failing him once more. And Leo laughed despite himself, reaching over to pat his brother’s head.

“The good shit, brother,” he said, exhaling softly through his nose. “... Yeah. Okay. Understood. I’m just. Fuck. I’m just really glad you’re okay.”

Donnie chirped very softly at him.

And Leo chirped back.

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