#someone else could pick up the title after AP and send it in whatever direction if needed

[zahri-melitor]

Look, one of the fundamental things I keep an eye on for DC writers these days is "is this person plotting a story arc that has sufficient escape valves in case of cancellation".

Because, realistically, even if you've been handed a headline title and an ongoing run, any writer should be tying off their story every 12 months and immediately before every major company-wide event. They shouldn't need to yank that cord, but you can always tell the difference between someone who has figured out how to exit their arc in advance and has just had to compress the story, and someone who's been caught on the hop (for active examples of this, go read literally any comic leading in to either Infinite Crisis or Flashpoint, as everyone got shuffled on their titles after both. You can see when teams were informed they were about to lose their books and when books were needed for the event in terms of how the stories all suddenly pivot to Getting Stuff Done ASAP).

There is also the evil cousin, 'run extended beyond expected plotting and ideas' which can show up but obviously is a rarer beast to spot.

[semperintrepida]

The Sellout, chapter three

three: the bad news

"So are you going to look at it, or what?"

Ellen was talking, from her favorite seat on the couch with the best view of the register, but Kyra just stared at the jar on the counter, at the card lying face down and innocent on top of all the other cards inside it. She knew damn well what company that card came from — she'd seen the flash of green as it spun in the air from being dunked into the jar with savage glee.

Starbucks green.

"Kyra?" Ellen's voice was closer now. Right at the counter.

Kyra wordlessly pushed the jar in her direction, and Ellen pulled up a sleeve and stuck her hand in, her head tilting into a question. Is this it?

Kyra nodded.

Ellen fished the card out of the jar, her eyes widening as she read it. "Motherfucker," she said. "You were right — she is bad news."

"Show me." Kyra held out her hand.

The card landed in her palm, and as she flipped it over, her fingertips slid across bumps embossed onto its surface. Braille. On a business card. There was nothing a billion dollar company wouldn't do to give itself the tiniest edge over the competition.

The Starbucks logo greeted her on the front of the card. No surprise there. She scanned the text, eyes glancing over the woman's name — Kassandra Agiadis — but her name was less important to Kyra than her title: Vice President of International Real Estate Development.

The words on the card began to smear, and it was like falling while roped in during a climb; that sudden, twisting spin before the world dropped out from under her.

Real estate development. What's the premium for a high visibility retail space in this neighborhood?

She considered the card in her hand — amazing how something so weightless could be so crushing — then tore it in half, flinging the pieces onto the counter hard enough for them to fly off the edge on the other side.

Ellen's head swiveled to follow their flight path, and then she silently walked past the counter and stooped to pick the pieces up from the floor.

Kyra knew this day would come, but like all disasters, it had sat off in the distance until the moment it showed up on her doorstep. For years, Starbucks had been content to keep mostly to the west side of the river, with seventeen stores crammed between I-405 and the waterfront.

Seventeen stores. Down in the Pearl District, there was a Starbucks on every fucking corner, choking out all but a handful of indie shops. But the river had made a good moat, and with Starbucks contained, she'd been able to make a decent living within the rougher, more corrugated edges of the Central Eastside and Distillery Row.

She'd survived Dutch Bros putting in drive-throughs north and south of her on MLK, the coffee shortage of 2011 that tripled the price of beans, and the slow sprouting of competing coffee shops across the neighborhood. She'd managed to stay on the right side of the profitability line, but she'd been clinging to survival by the smallest of handholds for months now. One slip would be enough to send everything plummeting to earth.

She should have taken Thal's money and opened up more shops. She should have sold to Stumptown when she had the chance. She should have—

Her eyes began to sting. She resisted the urge to flee to the storeroom; if she went back there and let the tears leak out, she wouldn't be able to stop them again. And running off wasn't an option even if she wanted to — she was the only one working this shift and someone had to watch the fort.

She breathed in slowly, breathed out, until the prickle in her eyes faded enough for her to push the retail mask back into place.

Ellen was still standing there, watching her. "You'll figure something out, Kyra. You always do," she said, placing the torn halves of the card on the counter. "Hang on to this shit, huh? Just in case."

Ellen made it halfway back to the couch when Kyra spoke up again. "Do you have your laptop with you?"

"How else would I abuse your wifi?"

"Can I borrow it for a few minutes?"

Ellen's grin was feral. "I thought you'd never ask."

.oOo.

It took a while to get the laptop sorted, much of it involving frantic clicking and password after password as Ellen rambled something about needing a VPN and not trusting the government, but eventually Kyra found herself looking at an empty browser window with a cursor blinking lazily in its address bar.

"Where are we stalking first?" Ellen asked, rubbing her palms together in anticipation.

Kyra pulled up LinkedIn and typed "Kassandra Agiadis" into the search field, and when the results appeared, the photo at the top of the list smiled a familiar smile, the woman's confidence captured in pixel form along with that sharp glint in her eyes.

Kyra opened the profile.

Executive leader and consummate strategist with a proven record of results in aligning real estate acquisitions and portfolios with business goals...

She skimmed the suit-speak until she reached the background part of the profile.

MBA, Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology BS, Economics, Stanford University

A lengthy list of job titles followed. Kassandra had only been at Starbucks a little more than a year. Before that, stints at Apple, Chipotle, CVS. The list went on. She'd rarely stayed longer than three years in a position.

Ellen whistled. "That's a lot of different companies."

"She's a mercenary," Kyra said. "Hired to do something specific and then move on."

Kyra opened another tab and searched Instagram, finding the woman's profile easily enough. The grid of photos featured a lot of concrete and metal, clean lines and minimalism, more Dieter Rams and Mid-Century Modern than any ostentatious displays of money being tossed around. Kyra kept scrolling. Except for the cars. And motorcycles. Apparently Kassandra liked her cars fast and her motorcycles retro.

"It's all very sterile, don't you think?" Kyra said, tapping a finger against her lips.

"I'll say. It's fucking fake. No one lives like that."

"I'm not sure all of it's fake, but it's definitely curated." She wiggled the cursor over a photo of the interior of a cabin, blonde wood and floor-to-ceiling windows framing a view of a lake. "She's paying someone to manage this for her."

"What's the fucking point of that?"

"Maintaining an image. Projecting a sense of old money." But something didn't add up, and Kyra couldn't pin down what it was.

She opened a third tab, this time for a good ol' Google search, and skimmed the list of results. A press release announcing Kassandra's hiring at Starbucks. More press releases. Talks at various conferences. Nothing particularly revelatory in the first few pages, but then a headline caught Kyra's eye and she clicked through.

Agiadis leads Stanford to national championship win

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Led by a scintillating performance from Kassandra Agiadis, Stanford won its second consecutive national championship in a come-from-behind victory over rival Tennessee on Monday night.

Agiadis scored 24 points, muscled her way to 12 rebounds, and was two assists away from a triple-double as she powered Stanford to a 76-72 win, including sinking three crucial free throws in the final 34 seconds, in a game where Stanford found themselves in an early 12-4 deficit at the end of the first quarter.

"She wants to win more than anything, and she showed that tonight," Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer said of Agiadis. "We were in a hole after that first quarter, but Kassandra lifted this team up and said, 'Whatever it takes.' She simply refused to lose."

The article was old, and the photos accompanying the text were small, but unmistakably her: Kassandra, basketball in hand, pushing past two orange-clad players under the hoop. There was plenty of broad-shouldered muscle in that white Stanford jersey, but it was Kassandra's eyes, bright and clear with relentless focus, that caught Kyra's attention.

Ellen snorted from over Kyra's shoulder. "So she's a fucking jock. Why am I not surprised?"

Kyra didn't respond, too distracted by the second photo, which showed Kassandra surrounded by her teammates in a storm of confetti as she held an enormous trophy over her head in triumph, her smile as radiant as the sun.

And now she wore a suit instead of a basketball jersey and cut real estate deals for fun and profit. Seemed she was good at it too, but did it ever make her smile like she had while holding that trophy?

Kyra hoped the answer to that question was no.

.oOo.

She drifted through Wednesday and Thursday, irritable by day and sleepless at night, and when Friday evening arrived with its expanse of free time, she made three attempts to dig into Green's translation of the poetry of Catullus before setting the book aside and walking out to the shed in her back garden where she'd built her bouldering wall.

The faint scent of sweat, chalk, and dusty earth greeted her inside. It was her sanctuary, her shrine to defying gravity. Every handhold was as familiar as a lover.

But tonight she couldn't even climb the simplest problems. Her toes kept slipping and her fingers faltered.

She'd lost her grip.

Eventually she gave up and lay on her back on the crash pad, staring at the curving shadows the holds cast upon the wall, thinking of how problems she'd solved a thousand times could suddenly become so impossible.

.oOo.

Five minutes before closing on Saturday night, Kyra was wiping down the fridge under the counter when the door opened and a presence entered the shop. Maybe it was the way her visitor displaced the air in the otherwise empty room, or the sound of heavy footsteps, but Kyra knew exactly who she'd find when she stood up again.

Kassandra was standing next to the table closest to the register. This time, she wasn't wearing a suit — just an untucked linen shirt over tailored slacks — and she'd pulled her hair up into a loose chignon. The effect was to make her seem casual and relaxed, but no less moneyed.

Kyra wiped her hands on a clean rag to keep her eyes off the intersecting curves of Kassandra's jawline and neck. "Are you going to ask me to make you another fucking cappuccino? Because if so, I'm closed."

That drew a short laugh from Kassandra. "No. As much as I loved the one you made for me, even I'm not evil enough to ask for another this late."

"Then why are you here? So you can gloat before you put me out of business?"

"I don't want to put you out of business." Kassandra pulled a chair out from the table and made herself right at home, stretching her legs out before her. "I want your business."

Kyra's eyebrows lifted.

"I'll buy this," Kassandra said, as easily as if she was ordering a drink. She gestured around the room. "All of it. Right now."

"You can't be serious."

"I'm very serious. How much would it take to get you to say yes?"

Kyra walked out from behind the counter to the narrow wooden bar that ran along the windows, and began flipping stools over on top of it. "Never mind buying me out — why are you here? Don't you have some lackey to work deals like this for you?"

Kassandra shrugged. "I like your coffee."

"Enough to buy my shop." She tugged the pull cord on the OPEN sign to turn it off.

"It beats the alternative."

Kyra skirted around Kassandra's outstretched legs on her way past, and when she reached the counter, she leaned back against it and crossed her arms. "And that would be..."

"We put in a new flagship store down the street from you on MLK — and you take your chances."

Ten years ago, Kyra would have been thrilled at the news that Starbucks was opening a store nearby. In those heady days, Starbucks was a tide that lifted every coffee shop around it. It was Starbucks that taught the average American that there was better coffee out there than freeze-dried instant — and that it was worth paying more than fifty cents a cup for. The spillover in foot traffic from a nearby Starbucks could launch a shop's profits to stratospheric heights.

Those days were long gone. Coffee had become cutthroat and commoditized, and now people bitched that her lattes cost a nickle more than the ones they could get at Starbucks. Sure, there were people out there who cared that her coffee was sourced from a roaster who paid a fair price for beans from small, family-run farms, but there weren't enough customers like them to keep her lights on and her espresso machine humming. So she kept trimming her margins, trying to stay competitive on price while offering better product, knowing it was unsustainable in the long run.

Kassandra's offer was tempting. She could take the money, take a real vacation for the first time in years, make the funds last long enough to find a job, somewhere. Fuck, she could go and work for Thal at his chain of shops over in Bend. She'd probably make more money with a lot less stress, and she'd even have time to climb—

The sound of the door opening again brought her back to reality. A man stumbled into the shop, disheveled and dirty, wearing an oversized puffy coat and a shredded pair of work pants. He shuffled closer, stopping a few steps away from Kassandra. His body swayed with the restless twitching of an addict, too far gone to know where he was, much less care about sweltering in a heavy winter coat during a spring heatwave.

Trouble piling on.

"I'm sorry sir, we're closed," Kyra said as neutrally as she could, threading the line between being welcoming and unwelcoming.

His eyes darted to and fro, unfocused, and he kept shifting his weight from foot to foot while he gestured aimlessly around him.

Kassandra eased herself to her feet. "Hey man, what do you need?" she asked, her voice taking on that even, reasonable tone that most people used when talking to the unhinged.

"Got any spare change?" He was shaking now, deep in his need for another hit.

Kassandra slowly lifted her hands. "Sorry, I'm all out," she said. Then she nodded back towards Kyra. "She's all out too."

Kyra shook her head apologetically.

Her movement caught his attention, and he peered at her with manic eyes. "What you doing here? Huh? Huh?" He reached up and pulled angrily at the hair above his ears. "My house. Mine."

"Nah," Kassandra said. "You're all turned around. Your house is out that way." She motioned towards the door.

He didn't seem to hear her, his eyes hardening to glare at Kyra as his face twisted. "You!" he shouted, and then the moment crystallized into a series of quick-cut images, unfurling into a jerky slideshow: the man lunging towards her, Kassandra sliding in between to intercept him, Kyra dodging out of the way as he slammed into Kassandra, knocking her off her feet...

Kyra could only watch helplessly as it put Kassandra's head on a collision course with the display case on the counter.

Chapter three of The Sellout. Continued in chapter four...

Author's Note: I've taken some liberties with NCAA women's basketball history here. Apologies to UConn fans — I've borrowed a couple of your titles and given them to Stanford. Creative license, eh?

[allthethingamabobs]

family sticks together, bruh

Notes: I was re-watching the Bay-verse movies and suddenly got irritated at the no last name thing at the end of the second one. April O'Neil was right there. Their ride-or-die, their badass older sister, their hogosha. So here's my first contribution to the TMNT fandom. I literally wrote this in half a day, so if you see any writing errors all I gotta say is...my bad. Enjoy the found family fluff!

Rating: G

Also on AO3.

April figured it all started with a package hastily stuffed in her mailbox. It was barely small enough to fit, wrapped in that tough paper-cardboard material, and took a few careful pulls to get out. She couldn’t recall ordering anything recently, so the least she could do was try not to destroy what was most likely her neighbor’s mail. But when she flipped it over for the addressee, she was surprised to see “Mikey O’Neil” on it.

April and her “childhood pets” had been reunited four months back now, and it continued to throw her life upside down. A happy upside down, though. Those two names together were doing a number on the loner habits she’d built up since her father’s death. Apparently, all it took was four mutant teenagers and their father to start breaking down those walls.

She snapped a photo of the package and sent it to Mikey as she walked up to her apartment. Her phone lit up with a video chat request seconds later. The boys were just like any other teens when there weren’t bad guys to fight—they loved texting (on their one-of-a-kind turtle phones), sending her snaps, and video chatting whenever they could. April supposed that 15 years alone in a sewer could make one a little starved for new attention, and she was always happy to talk.

One of Mikey’s eyes filled the screen first, and then his grinning face when he pulled back. “You got it!” he hollered.

There was a thump from somewhere behind him, and Leo yelled something about peace and quiet when meditating. Then all she could see was a blurry carapace as Mikey quickly escaped to some other part of the lair. “You got it!” he cheered again, down to a whisper-yell.

“Sure did,” she answered with a smile, while making sure her apartment door locked behind her. “A little heads up would be nice, though. People do steal packages.”

“Man, that would’ve been no bueno. It has my name on it and everything.”

She shrugged—it was New York, what could she say. “About that… Mikey O’Neil, huh?”

He brightened. “Yeah! Makes sense, right? You’ve always been family even if we got separated for like, way too long, and who wouldn’t want to be a badass O’Neil?”

“Hm.” Her smile was fond even as she bit her lip to keep herself from doing something dramatic like tearing up. “You make some excellent points.”

Mikey nodded, seemingly proud of his reasoning. “You get me, April. So when are you gonna come hang out?”

“Not until tomorrow at least.” She set the phone on the counter as she turned to mess with the oven dials. “I’ve got to eat, and then a grimy bathroom and donation boxes are calling my name.”

Two weeks ago, a great aunt she hadn’t talked to since her father’s funeral had passed away and apparently left her succession rights to a New York miracle: a rent-controlled apartment above a quiet antique store. It was a dated unit and still smelled a bit like old people, but she was making it work.

A whine came from her phone. “Aw, shell… Oh, hey! We could help! Four mutants and a human are better than one!”

“That’s sweet, Mikey, but I’ve got this.” Plus, she was starting to pick up the brother’s dynamics. That visit would devolve into complete chaos in no time, given the cluttered mess. There were a lot of breakable objects she was still in the process of either packing up or donating.

“Your loss, Ape. Guess we’ll see you tomorrow.” He got up close to the camera again and whispered dramatically, “You’ll bring the package, right?”

She snorted and leaned over so he could see her face. “Pinky swear.”

“I don’t have a pinky, so I’ll have to believe you. Bye, April!”

The screen went blank, and April had a glimpse of herself in the reflection. She had to admit… her smile looked a lot more genuine these days.

In work news, however, life had been a lot of sucking up to Bernadette and the team after getting her job back, so she didn’t get down to the lair until late in the evening. Entering through the water system wasn’t exactly ideal, so they’d built a biometric, heavily enforced door as an alternative. Leo spotted her first as she shoved her way in and waved from where he was cleaning his katanas.

The new lair seemed to change every time she visited—more light-up signs or beat-up furniture appearing—and she still felt a little guilty for being the reason behind the move. The guys had assured her that they didn’t blame her, and they were having fun with the tall ceilings and tunnels in the new space. Splinter had even claimed one to start a bonsai garden.

“Hey, April! How was your day?” Leo called, carefully setting his weapons aside to get up.

“Not too bad, mostly research on some detox craze—”

“April!?” There was a crash from the back where they had set up a gym area in an upper opening. Mikey came tumbling out, almost right on top of where Raph was exiting the lower tunnel, and he gracefully avoided retaliation. “You got the goods?”

Leo shot her a confused frown, and she answered with a fond “don’t ask” look before rummaging in her bag to pull it out. “Yes, Mikey, I have the goods.”

Mikey bounced over and pulled her into a quick, bone-crushing hug before taking the package out of her hands. He ripped into it and pulled out a gaudy gold chain that looked like it once belonged in a 2000’s music video.

“Bling, bling!” he crowed and threw the shell necklace off to be replaced.

“Wait a minute, is that what was so important you had to order it?” Donnie said as he and Raph joined the group. “That’s such a waste of money!”

“Some ninja you are,” Raph snorted. “You can see that ugly-ass chain from a mile away.”

Leo hummed at that and then frowned. “Mikey, did you even ask April if you could send that to her place before you ordered it?”

Said turtle shrugged. “I knew she wouldn’t mind.”

The others seemed to erupt at once.

“Except it’s an unknown package being sent to her place, especially with the Foot Clan knowing her association with us—”

“Even worse, it’s inconsiderate to just assume—”

“Even worse, Leo? What kind of bullshit is that—”

April was an only child (well, not so much anymore), so she wasn’t used to how quickly one small thing could turn into a full blown argument. If pushing got involved, then 6-foot mutant turtles or not, she would break up that fight—yup, there’s the shoving.

“Guys, GUYS!” April moved forward and intercepted the beginning of whatever as they all avoided bumping into her. “It’s fine. You can have stuff sent to my place, I don’t care. As long as I can get it down here.”

It took a little more convincing to assure them that no, they were not imposing on her, and then they seemed excited about this new opportunity. Apparently, they’d had to scout out addresses before and sneak the package away before the occupants realized. Obviously, this was much more convenient.

Steadily, they all started to order stuff online (with what money or credit card she had no idea) and have it sent to her place. Parts for Donnie, books for Leo, and though she only felt it through the packaging, yarn for Raph. At first, Mikey was the only one who used O’Neil for the address. Then something changed, and they all started to use it too. A package of tea addressed to Splinter O’Neil gave her a small laugh one day. Raph had been the last to address himself as O’Neil, always so stubborn, and seemed almost shy when she delivered it.

April knew she was very biased on this, having seen them as teeny-tiny babies, but her little-big brothers could be pretty adorable sometimes.

---

The last name thing had come up with Splinter one day as they sat in his quiet bonsai garden, enjoying some tea while the boys burned off energy around the rest of the lair.

“I don’t want to overstep any boundaries or anything, but I’ll admit it’s… nice. My dad was really all I had for family, so it was just us and then me for so long. It’s almost like this has all… I don’t know, come full-circle? If that makes sense?”

Splinter smiled and reached out to lay his hand on hers.

“I was not lying when I said I modeled my parenting after your father. One way or another, you both cared for this family, and you know we consider you a part of it.” April nodded, a little choked up, and grasped his hand. He’d said it himself, but she wasn’t ready to fully relive how Splinter felt so familiar, so comforting.

“Besides,” he continued with a chuckle. “Michelangelo has quite enjoyed having a last name, and I think the others were a bit hesitant before they saw that you didn’t mind.”

“Of course not, I’m all for it,” April laughed, wiping under her eyes. “Now there’s more than just me to make the O’Neil name proud.”

---

One other thing she had discovered about being a big sister to four trouble-prone teens: full names were extremely effective.

“Donatello O’Neil!” she shouted the second she stepped into the lair, and all movement ceased. Leo balanced on one foot, mid-throw, Raph was mid-swing across the lair, and Mikey had an orange soda titled towards his face, where it slowly dripped down his front.

A weak “Oh, shell” came from the direction of the lab, and she stormed over. A taunt from Mikey followed but was quickly cut off with a grunt. Donnie was hunched over his desk, head turned slightly to look up at April’s furious approach.

“Why the hell did I just find a tracker in not one but all of my jackets?” She reached into her pocket, grasped the tiny devices, and tossed them on the desk. “I almost had a panic attack thinking I was being tracked by someone else. You know that’s been one of my worst fears ever since the Shredder, and we’ve talked about privacy and emergency plans, Donnie. I have a panic button on my phone, and I gave you permission to track it when absolutely necessary.” She let out a frustrated huff, pointing at the trackers. “What. Are. These?”

He’d sputtered a bit and avoided her eyes as she spoke, but he finally looked up when she stood silent, waiting for an answer. His shoulders drooped, and he wheeled back from his desk to face her. Even sitting, Donnie was only slightly shorter than her.

“Contingency plan,” he finally bit out. “Phones are most likely the first thing a kidnapper would get rid of to avoid tracking.”

“Wh— kidnapper?” That caught her off guard, and the tension in her shoulders released a little. Was there a new danger she didn’t know about? “But who… Oh.”

Movement on his tablet drew her eye, and the footage there followed a shady van that looked very familiar.

The Foot Clan—because an organization that big could still survive with their leader in jail for a year now—had disabled her turtle-approved security system and ransacked her apartment a couple of weeks ago. The cameras from across the street told them that and how the intruders had missed April coming home by a mere 12 minutes. They had obviously been searching for something specific, and she eventually realized it must have been the box of notes from Project Renaissance. Luckily, they had been stored in the lair for safe keeping.

After coming home to that mess, April called Donnie right away and started packing up her necessities. All four of the turtles had met her at her usual sewer entrance, and they formed a tense detail on the trip back. She worked out-of-office that week as she laid low in the lair and waited for the all-clear while they doubled up her apartment’s security. Splinter and the boys were good about giving her space when she was working, but she could still feel the hovering and worry. The guys had been in and out more often, Splinter always had some tea ready for her, and she just knew there had been many hushed conversations out of earshot.

Sure, deadly henchmen being in her apartment had freaked her out, but it had really freaked out her new family. April held her own against all of the weird shit they got dragged into, but there were always reminders that she did not have a shell or ninja training; a sprained ankle, one small concussion, too many bruises to remember, and even a few less inches of hair when it got singed in an explosion.

She looked between the tablet and Donnie, but now he held his gaze steady. “The Foot know where you live, and you refuse to move. This was the best way for us to always be there when you need us.” His voice was even, calculated, but his hands were clasped tightly and one foot tapped insistently.

Oh, her sweet, overprotective boys. Under all that bullet-proof shell, they were all just teenagers who had five people in the world to call family, and they did not take that for granted.

April sighed and turned to sit against the desk, holding out one hand. Donnie took it and held on, grip tight. “It comes from a good place, Donnie, but you have to tell me about these things. Trust goes both ways, okay?”

Leo, Raph, and Mikey were hovering around the entrance to the lab, and she gave them all a stern look to reiterate her point. “I know I don’t have a shell, but I am scrappy, stubborn, and awesome at running in heels.”

“Way better than the Jurassic World chick,” Mikey piped up, and Raph lightly punched his arm.

“You’re damn right,” April answered, smiling at his effort to lighten the mood. “So I appreciate the worry, guys, but you need to talk to me. I worry, too. You might forget, but you’re not invincible.”

“Better off than you,” Raph grunted. This time Mikey punched him, not as lightly. “What, it’s true!”

April sighed. “Come on, Raph, you know muscle isn’t everything.”

“No,” he grumbled, “but you got us. Whether or not you like it, we can take the hard hits.”

“What he means to say,” Leo said, shoving Raph back with his shoulder, “is that we were worried, and we didn’t think you were taking the threat seriously enough.” Donnie’s hand gripped hers a little harder, and she looked back to see him nod in agreement. “We are sorry about the secrecy, though.”

April sighed. “Fair point. You know I love you guys,” they perked up at that, “but having back-up is kind of a new thing for me. It’s habit to go solo, and it’s habit for you four to be a team.”

She held out her other hand. Leo was closest, and he took it with some hesitation. “Still a learning process all around.”

Mikey eagerly grasped Leo’s other hand and then Raph’s, refusing to let go even as Raph gave a shake, so they were all joined. “Family sticks together, bruh.”

---

The O’Neils had been a thing for awhile now, but writing it down was very different to actually saying it outloud. Mikey had no trouble claiming his new last name, and had even dubbed some pizza monstrosity he concocted from as many toppings he could get as the “O’Neil Special.” For the others, it took some time to say it—at least when she was around to hear.

Eight months. Donnie had been talking a mile a minute about a phone meeting set up with an award-winning engineer currently teaching at NYU. He’d been given 30 minutes to ask her all the questions he wanted. April had kind of bullied Vern into setting it up with his new connections, and Donnie had asked her to be there for moral support. She assured him it was all going to go great and to just make the call already. His shoulders went rigid under her hands when the call connected. “Hi! Hello, uh, this is Donatello O’Neil, I got your number from Vern? The Falcon?” She squeezed his shoulders in comfort, grinning proudly for many reasons.

One year and 2 months. Raph had been playing a one-on-one basketball game with Donnie while April refereed. Even as the self-proclaimed muscles, Raph was agile, and he did a quick maneuver around Donnie to score a perfect 3-pointer. “And Raph O’Neil makes the shot!” he whooped, doing a quick victory dance. He didn’t seem to realize it, but April certainly did. She felt warm and fuzzy after that, so she let him get away with traveling a couple minutes later.

For Leo, it just hadn’t come up yet. Although, one day she’d been stress cleaning their mess of a kitchen, and opened one beat-up book in curiosity to see “Leonardo O’Neil” neatly written on the cover page. That was enough for her.

Then her amazing family had finally gotten the acknowledgement they so rightly deserved.

“To you, brothers. Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, Michelangelo.” Chief Vincent paused. “Last name?”

The guys all glanced her way, and April didn’t care if her eyes were a little watery at Leo’s answer. “O’Neil.”