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aealzx · 4 months

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Letting the drape over the infirmary entrance drop closed to muffle some of the external noises, Don made his way to the kitchen to finally oblige Mikey’s demand to feed everyone. It was normal to have a commotion coming from the room, so he wasn’t surprised at the noise of boisterous chatter filtering out from the entrance. Especially since it looked like Casey and Mom April were there early, already seated at the table and asking questions.

“Actually, the Donnie is the feisty one.”

Don reached the kitchen entrance as Raphael responded to Casey’s comment, Raphael’s voice saturated with amusement at the fact. Don hadn’t caught what Casey said before, but it was easy to hear him now.

“What? You gotta be kidding. Don is the hot head in their family?” Casey gawked, looking over at Don in disbelief.

“Not a hot head, just aggressive. Kid totally bit through someone’s arm and broke the bone. It was awesome, if not for the fact it was some scientist treating him like a lab experiment,” Raphael corrected, folding his arms. If it weren’t for the situation Donnie and Lil Mikey had been in many of their feats would have been subject of quite the boastful conversation.

“You’re kidding!” Casey gawked again.

“Not even. We saw it on camera. He was completely restrained and then just chomped down on some lady’s arm and didn’t let go even though she punched him in the nose. It was impressive,” Mikey chimed in, semi miming some of the actions. “They’re both crazy strong. AND the Leo. He showed up a little while ago, and get this, the kid can teleport.”

“Okay I don’t believe that. They’re not superheroes Mikey,” Casey retorted, wrinkling his nose a little. Teleporting mutant turtles? That sounded like something that would be from the Justice Force, not the sewers of another world.

“‘Course they aren’t. Lil me said they’re actually super soldiers. Like Cap’n America and Winter Soldier. Sick, right? The lil guy can totally fling those giant mechas around like they’re baseballs,” Mikey countered, hopping up to lean across the table with a huge grin.

“Are they alright?” Mom April asked yet again as Casey took Mikey’s taunting bait and jumped up to tackle him. She was looking up from where she was helping Junior with some mash Mikey always had on hand these days, and seemed more concerned about the visiting groups’ health than their abilities.

Giving a bit of a sigh that was a mix between amused and exasperated, Raphael looked over to Don, gesturing a hand at him to answer. Maybe if the doctor of the house answered she would finally be reassured that the kids were going to be fine. “They’re alright,” Don assured confidently. “They’re all sleeping now, I don’t think they got much lately. But their wounds have been taken care of, and they seem comfortable. All four of them are here, and they even have their version of you with them too.”

“Me?” Mom April sputtered slightly, having not thought about the possibility. She was definitely more assured of their state now that Don gave her an answer along with the others, making room as he took a seat on the other side of Junior as her.

“Yeah, she’s nothing like you either,” Raphael laughed, rocking back on two chair legs after Leo chased Mikey and Casey out of the kitchen before they broke something.. “She’s a spunky lil gal. Fresh out of highschool it seems, and could probably crack my skull if she wanted to. I almost thought she was an alternate Angel instead.”

“It seems to run in the group. They’re all a lot more… brazen than I would expect. They don’t seem to have much discipline,” Leo commented, noting that many of the comments so far about their guests had been about how rambunctious they were.

“What makes you say that?” Mom April asked. She knew Leo had always been the one of the brothers that was more strict about discipline, following Master Splinter’s teachings the closest. But over the years he’d become less prone to associate an abundance of energy with lack of discipline.

“We fought their Leo a bit when he first came here – there was a misunderstanding that got cleared up – but his movements aren’t refined. It’s almost as though he was self taught,” Leo pointed out, having to quickly reassure Mom April that there hadn’t been too bad of a skirmish.

“You noticed it too, huh,” Don voiced his agreement. “We all had Master Splinter training us since we were kids, but Leon seems to only recently be getting some sort of structured tutelage for his martial arts.”

“He fights like he learned from watching movies,” Raphael huffed, amused at the thought. “It’s surprising he’s figured out how to make it work.”

“He does seem to learn fast though. I wonder what he would have done if you had actually shoved him off,” Don added, his mind wandering off to consider the possibilities.

“You let him catch you?” Leo’s incredulous voice snapped as he rounded on Raphael, a scolding lecture quickly rising.

“Duh,” Raphael snorted, narrowing his eyes at Leo and leaning away from him. “The kid’s a toothpick. You really think he could keep me pinned like that?”

The retort only served to rile Leo up more though, and he smacked his hands on the table to lean over Raph. “Oh, that’s great. So what was your plan if he actually slit your throa-”

The words were interrupted by a piece of chicken from Mikey’s stew smacking him in the side of the head. As both Raphael and Leo blinked in surprise they broke off their conversation to look towards the source of the launched food only to see Don giving them a pointed stare. He didn’t have to say anything. They’d had this lecture from him many times before. Walking them through their word choice barrier that only caused fights instead of helped. It caused Leo to shrink down in his usual embarrassed retreat as he forced himself to reanalyze his distress and word it in a way that Raphael would understand better.

“.............. You scared me,” Leo finally muttered, keeping his gaze elsewhere. “I thought…. I didn’t want to see you gushing blood from your neck.”

Oh. So that’s what it was. Like always Raphael didn’t see how the previous lecture connected to what Leo admitted, but he still understood by now that this was just the way Leo reacted. Blinking as the dots connected in his own brain, it was Raphael’s turn to shrink in mild sheepishness as he fully realized what could have happened. Sure, Don could have taken care of the injury if it had happened. But was it worth the mental and emotional distress he would have caused the others? “...My b-.... Sorry,” he responded, equally muttering and switching for words he knew Leo took to heart better. “I guess I was just more focused on getting the kid to stop moving and calm down.”

It made sense, and Leo let out a sigh as the tension from that fight finally eased away into his normal pool of anxiety over possibilities and not actualities. Letting himself droop forward a bit, Leo awkwardly knocked his forehead against Raphael’s shoulder to let him know he accepted the apology and reasoning. As Raphael raised a hand to roughly pat the back of Leo’s head, Don exchanged a soft chuckle with Mom April over the interaction while Master Splinter hid a smile with his teacup. With the bubbling argument abated, Don pulled them back to thoughts that had returned to his mind after one of Raphael’s comments

“Speaking of getting Leon calmed down,” Don spoke up, grabbing their attention. “I think Leon suffers from traumatic flashbacks.”

The sudden shift into a more sensitive topic caused the others in the room to still, and Leo quietly pulled a seat over to settle in. Raphael shifted uneasily, making an uncertain connection that he had to clarify. “...Like the waking dreams Leo sometimes had after Shredder’s men put him in a coma?” he asked, feeling a little bad for mentioning it when Leo fidgeted.

“Yes, but I think they’re worse,” Don answered, forgetting his half eaten meal in front of him for now as he started to explain his reasoning. “When he was attacking us it was calculated at first, but I noticed at some point something happened and he got… frantic. His attacks had more force behind them and were less structured. Almost like a panicked fight response to keep from freezing up. I thought it was weird at the time, but it wasn’t until he was with Lil Mikey that I had the thought he may have had a flashback. It was quiet, but I heard Lil Mikey asked Leon ‘are you here?’ And when I mentioned everyone’s concern about a secondary mutation I noticed he was using a grounding technique while April answered. Pressing his fingers into his arm to distract himself.”

The revelation caused an uncomfortable silence to fall over the room. But Don remained quiet as well to give them time with their thoughts. There was no rush anyway, they had time.

“....... So… what? We can’t exactly ship him off to the Ancient One like we did with Leo,” Raphael was the first to speak up, having already run through his own thoughts and not finding an answer to why Don was bringing this all up.

Don had to give a bittersweet chuckle at the thought, and shook his head. “Nothing serious. I just wanted you guys to be aware of it. I know we don’t know them very well, so it’ll be a little hard to tell if he’s not acting like himself. But, if he suddenly gets violent again for no apparent reason I just want you to realize he probably doesn’t recognize it’s you.”

“.... Fair enough,” Leo agreed, still trying to figure out how he felt about the whole topic. He didn’t think the same ‘fix’ for his own issues would work with Leon. But he also didn’t think it was appropriate for them to ask why he was having flashbacks either. There was a question that bubbled up in his mind that he ended up asking though. “...Are any of the others affected as well?”

Don seemed mildly surprised at the question, and had to pause when Raphael voiced his own thoughts that had sprung up with the question. “Mikey said the scars on Donnie’s back were also from their version of Shredder. You don’t think it was caused by the same dude, do ya?”

It was an unexpected fact to hear, but Don just switched his surprised expression for a soft smile. “Not unless Shredder has been harassing them until just recently,” he admitted. “The scars on Donnie’s back are a few years old already. But the ones on the other three; the scars on Leon’s legs, the crack in Leon’s shell, the piece missing from Raph’s shell, his scarred eye, and the… rather odd burn scars on Lil Mikey’s arms are all only a few months old. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were from the same event… And I also wouldn’t be surprised if the others were similarly affected in their mentality. We’re already seen how protective they are of each other.”

Hearing that the scars the teens had were almost all fairly recent gave Raphael a bitter taste in his mouth. While one part of his mind argued that they had seen similar injuries when they were teens, the other part of his mind argued that it didn’t matter, they were still way too young to have to go through something like that. “...The little guy did deliberately avoid talking about his arms when I asked,” he commented, not sure if that was support for or against the possibility of Lil Mikey having trauma like Leon. And he ended up giving a frustrated sigh and rubbed his head. “Man, I feel like I’m gonna have to walk on eggshells around them now. So what? Am I not allowed to ask anything to them now?”

This time Master Splinter was the one who answered, setting his empty cup down and rising to walk over and place a hand on Raphael’s shoulder. “You have always been instinctually aware of the nuances of childrens’ emotions. Trust your instincts, don’t overthink it, and I’m sure you’ll be fine. And remember, an uncomfortable emotion is not necessarily one to be avoided,” he assured, giving Raphael a pat when Raphael’s shoulders relaxed and he gave Master Splinter a reassured smile.

Then Master Splinter turned to Leo, resting a hand on his shoulder as well. “And my advice for you is to have patience. Continue to allow them to come to you instead of you running to and chasing them, as you described to me before.” And then his gaze shifted to Don. “Donatello, be careful with your vast, and wonderful knowledge. Remember that the mind cannot often be treated overnight. Try not to overwhelm them.” Don hadn’t been expecting to be given his own warning. But after Master Splinter mentioned it, he realized that he very easily could have ended up stressing the kids out by unloading too much information on them to try to help. As he sheepishly scratched his cheek Master Splinter looked to Mom April as well. “For our dear April, I suggest giving them their space when they need it. Affection can sometimes be the perfect medicine, but from a stranger sometimes it can only serve to cause distress instead of comfort.”

“...Thanks Master Splinter,” Mom April responded, also appreciating the caution she hadn’t even considered she’d needed.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me I’m going to make sure those two hooligans haven’t destroyed any furniture or bones. There has been enough surgery for one night,” Master Splinter sighed slightly, giving Leo another pat before he shuffled out of the room, walking stick thumping against the tile.

The three sons chimed in with their own vocal gratitude and well wishes, and after Master Splinter was out of sight Raphael heaved a sigh and flopped onto the table. “Man. Thirty years and he still somehow has the best advice.”

“You said it,” Leo agreed, feeling a mix of relief and also chagrined by what felt like having his flaw called out before he’d even made a mistake.

“Mhmm,” Don chimed with a hum and a nod, returning to the rest of his dinner turned breakfast. “...Do we still have orange juice?”

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Huuuuaaaaagh why does time pass so freaking fast sometimes =<= I totally got caught up in 2 new projects |D that's why the longer delay this time. Wys got me into trying to make a doll of my OCs, and then I started designing a cosplay outfit to try out.....

Anyway 8'D enjoy a little 03 fam only section. Baby Jones having red hair was picked by Wys not knowing what she was choosing between red or black for X'D He's also wearing a dinosaur onsie, compliments of Don.

#my art #rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #cross dimension kidnapping #tmnt 2003 #rise + 2003 crossover #writing #long post #fanfic #03 April #03 Casey

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