Whumptober: Im Better Off All By Myself (5/5)

Whumptober: I’m Better Off All By Myself (5/5)

A/N: Title from Toxic by BoyWithUke

~~~

Whatever Donatello was expecting, it was not for Leonardo to suddenly collapse like that. By some miracle, he caught the oldest, and noticed a few things. The first was a wound on his shoulder, just a small incision made recently. The second was the sheer amount of scars that littered his brother’s skin, looking more like a canvas drawn on with pastels by a toddler than something blank. The third was how light he was. For giant mutant turtles, they were really heavy, as long as they had been maintaining their health. However, he was worryingly easy to hold after he was caught, even while unconscious.

Raphael reached over on instinct, a little late, but there nonetheless.

"Wait what-"

"What's wrong, Doctor Donnie?" Michelangelo whined.

Donatello fixed his grip on Leonardo to pull him closer. "I've got a few ideas, but let's just get him in the lab for now. Set up a cot."

He shifted Leonardo to rest against his side and Raphael and Michelangelo disappeared. Donatello was assuming that it had to be some kind of exhaustion, definitely severe, but he'd have to be sure.

After laying the oldest down, Donatello stepped away to grab his tools, then returned, giving him a thorough once over. Dear God, what had he been doing in his time away?

"Well," he finally concluded, "I'm sure that he collapsed from severe exhaustion. There are multiple injuries from various sources all across his body, and residue of metal in his shoulder. There's also red marks on his wrists, most likely from restraints. He's been working under severe malnutrition, probably for some time."

Raphael took a sharp breath, Michelangelo's breathing hitched.

Oh well, they had to find out one way or another.

%%%

Leonardo blinked a few times upon waking, trying to gain his bearings. He was laying on a cot, he noticed first. And he was in a lab. Now, was the lab good or bad, and why was he-

"LEO!" Michelangelo launched himself onto Leonardo, wrapping him in a tight hug.

Donatello and Raphael followed shortly after, Raphael taking his hand and holding it tight, Donatello crouching beside him.

"Now, Leo," Donatello started. Oh dear. "I'd love to stay and celebrate, but WHAT THE ACTUAL F-"

Leonardo frowned and elbowed him hard before wrapping his arms around Michelangelo and sitting up.

"What happened? You literally collapsed in front of us!"

He flinched. They were really asking? Already?

Instead of saying something that would probably be more healthy, he smiled and said:

"Donnie, I just got back. Can't we wait?"

All eyes turned to Donatello, some neutral, some pleading, and the doctor huffed, clearly unhappy with this arrangement.

"Fine."

%%%

Leonardo, after he had gotten Donatello to stop asking questions, had been dragged to watch a movie with them for "quality bonding".

Actually, this scene kind of reminded him of-

Walking and walking, all across America. No way to get directions, unable to find home. He wanted to call home, but his phone was probably getting tracked, and he couldn't risk letting them find his home.

Maybe if he got the microchip out and his vitals band off, but he couldn't, not easily.

Back and forth, running and getting attacked, getting found over and over again because they were tracking him.

He had to get that bracelet off. If he could get the bracelet and microchip out and off, he'd be completely off the grid, they'd never find him again.

Leonardo grabbed a brick and slammed it down, over and over. He didn't care when he hit his own skin and busted open flesh, bruising and bleeding. He just needed it OFF. The band continued to wear down until it broke off, it's more delicate bits shattered to pieces. One down, one to go.

He was breathing heavily when he snatched up one of the broken shards, cutting open his shoulder and digging around to find it. His fingers bumped the little metal chip and he latched on, ripping it out, using the very same brick to smash it to pieces.

He was finally-!

Metal scraped against concrete.

They found him again.

"Hey Leo, you’re looking kinda distant, you good?" It was just Michelangelo. He was back.

"Mhm, I’m just gonna go to the bathroom."

Leonardo untangled himself from the pile they had made, excusing himself to the bathroom. After locking the door, he fell back against the tub and let out a short breath. The cold felt nice against hot skin. It helped soothe him.

He felt sick.

There was a roof over his head, he had his family, he was safe, and yet he was still scared. He was worrying them, like an idiot.

Somebody was knocking on the door.

"Hey, Leo? You okay? I'd uh- I'd also like to use the bathroom."

It was just Michelangelo. Nobody else.

Leonardo hurried to his feet, unlocked the door, and threw it open.

"Sorry, sorry. Didn't mean to take so long."

%%%

Leonardo skidded in a sharp turn, nearly falling onto his side in the rain. He liked the feeling of the icy rain pelting down on him. It made him calm, it made him feel clean. He liked the cold, but he didn't like-

Thunder, rain washing blood-stained scales. A voice came over comms, startling him out of his thoughts. It was too loud.

"You have your target?"

"Of course."

He always had his target, like it or not. Leonardo released a low breath before slipping into the building. It was one more person, one more civilian. He didn’t know them and he honestly didn’t care to know them. But that didn’t mean that he didn’t see the fear in their eyes before death, the strangled scream that never got to escape, because they were already dead, harsh breathing coming to a stop from an untimely death.

His morals had been lost a long time ago, this only put up walls to prevent them from returning.

It didn’t matter though. He’d do anything as long as they didn’t go looking for his family to hold them at gunpoint and threaten him, or, worse, kill them.

Lightning lit up the sky, revealing silhouettes that waited for him to give them the all clear. He hated this job, hated being a hitman, it went against everything he had believed. But if he needed to, he would train his hands to never let go of the hilt of a sword, always have a weapon or something dangerous on him, prepared to kill anyone at a signal. If he needed to, he would only know blood and death, fear before a killing blow, and darkened skies.

He wasn’t standing in front of a body, covered in blood. He was standing in front of the turnstiles, soaked and too afraid to come in to get a towel because he didn’t want to leave puddles on the floor.

Pathetic.

Raphael paused, letting up the heat on the training dummy for a bit to come and greet him with a towel in hand.

“Where were you?” He rumbled, “We thought you ran off on us so soon after coming back.”

Hardened emerald green eyes, softening with guilt and fear as they were taken away. Wondering, desperate as they looked to the bound hands of their older brother.

Leonardo took the towel. It was soft and warm, like it had just come out of the dryer.

“Sorry, I just wanted to get out, and then it started raining.”

Raphael nodded like he understood. He probably did. Leonardo had seen the hot head leave to blow off steam enough times to know that he definitely did.

Once dry, Leonardo quietly thanked Raphael, took the towel right back to the washing machine, and left to go practice a couple of katas.

The dojo was, thankfully, nothing like-

An eerily silent dojo with a wooden floor that hurt to fall on, so he tried not to. Still, that was hard when he was fighting too many enemies. They wanted him to be able to fight a group, but they had already injured him beforehand and his blood stained the wood red. It was a test, and he was failing.

Somebody knocked him onto his plastron, and suddenly they were all upon him, pinning him down, hands on the edge of his shell to keep good control of him.

Then, by some silent command, they were called off. He was released and exposed to a different kind of pain. Electricity coursed through him from both the chip and his bracelet, hot and agonizing. Leonardo could only whine, too used to this treatment-

Leonardo was not laying on a wooden floor. He was crouched on a tatami mat, silent tears running down his face while somebody rubbed soothing circles on his shell, hushing him.

They… Didn’t ask about why he was crying or what was wrong. They just soothed him and respected his boundaries.

He didn’t think he had ever been more grateful for his family.

Whumptober: That’s Gonna Leave A Mark

Leonardo didn’t mean to get hurt.

Well- Backtrack, he never meant to get hurt any of the times it happened, just this time especially, he didn’t mean it.

Because now, he was alone and bleeding in a pitch black part of the sewers that he knew nothing about with a cut up leg and side, so close his plastron he thought it would peel away, and the water level was still rising. At some point, towards the beginning of the whole mess, he had gotten separated from Raphael too, and he had no idea where he was either. Welcome to Leonardo’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

With a low sigh, he took off his mask, although it was dirty with the sewer waters that was filled with who knows what, and tried to use it to bandage his leg. His hand bandages were already bloody, and he definitely didn’t want to use the ones on his feet to try and get better compression.

He hoped Raphael was alright. He wasn’t sure what had happened after they got separated, and his mind ran wild with thoughts and ideas of what could have happened.

Shaking his head, he went to stand up, and immediately crumpled back down, gripping his leg and feeling warm, sticky blood flow past his fingers.

Shoot.

Leonardo grit his teeth and leaned against the wall, using it for a support as he got back up. He was not going to stay down when he had no idea where he was, nor where he could even go if he had any clue about what section of the sewers he was in.

Jeez, how far had the waters carried him?

It was still raining, too. He could hear it pattering on the concrete above him, driving people into their homes or other shelters to get out of the downpour. At least the water wasn’t rising anymore, by some miracle.

Turtle luck was a strange thing.

Leonardo eyed the black waters below them warily, noting how much they had risen from their normal position. He elbowed Raphael and received a strange look in response, the hothead questioning his brother's sudden alarm.

“Hey, watch out for the water, okay? I don’t want to be out here much longer with it rising like this.”

“Yeah yeah Leo, I get it. I see ‘em too.”

Leonardo wrinkled his beak at the younger’s dismissal of the possible flood, but left it at that, letting him go and continuing to walk.

And the water continued to rise, spilling over the edge, going onto the paths on the side. The two moved farther away from it, but it kept going, rising until it was up to their ankles. By the time they had agreed to try and find some high ground or go back home, it was all the way up to their knees, forcing them to wade through the disgusting water. Past the rushing water and the downpour above them, Leonardo could have sworn he thought he heard something. As he slowed to a halt, he turned to look behind them.

Somebody down here? In this weather? He wondered, searching the darkness.

“Leo?” Raphael rumbled, stopping as well to see what was up, “Didn’t you just say that we needed to get somewhere safe? The water’s-”

Something whistled as though cutting through the air, and embedded itself into the edge of Leonardo’s shell before he had the chance to move.

That was a throwing star.

They were being attacked.

Leonardo stumbled back in now thigh high water. It was rising higher, fighting like this would be clunky and hard to do, risking more severe injuries.

The Foot crept out of the darkness like spiders, red eyes glowing as if they were in some kind of horror movie. Leonardo drew his katanas, eyeing them and waiting for them to come to him and Raphael. He knew Raphael was grinning behind him, looking forward to a fight.

One of them lunged forward, and Leo stepped back, slicing through them like they were butter. That was one down and…

He had no clue how many left.

Another pounced out of the darkness, then another, and one after the other, they charged into battle. Steel met steel, lighting sparks that lit small sections of the sewer for only a moment.

Then a knife went into Leonardo’s side and a gasp of pain escaped him as agony shot through his torso. The blade went down, tearing through skin, making him choke down a scream. The water wasn’t rising anymore, but he could hear a distant rush, it was flooding, they needed to get somewhere high and dry-

The current slammed into his legs and both he and the enemy tumbled, with the weapon carving through his leg as well. A short scream escaped him, it didn’t take long to realize he was moving away from the battle- Scratch that, everybody got taken by the current, moved different directions to many parts of the sewers-

Leonardo slipped and fell, letting out a short yelp of surprise before he hit the ground with a low groan. Fantastic, in disgusting water, injured, and not even able to use anything else to try and bandage the wounds he had. A low growl escaped him as he got back up and pulled his Shell Cell out of his belt. He wondered if it would work still, after being doused with water, and was pleased to find that it did, just barely.

...Nevermind, he did not have data where he was.

There went the relief.

%%%

Leonardo spent hours wandering, maybe more, maybe less, just walking through an unfamiliar patch of sewer with no idea where he was going. Sometimes he knew he was getting higher or lower by the water level, and sometimes he had no clue what direction he was going, nor if he was getting any closer to a place where he could finally leave, or a place that he knew something about.

What he did know, though, was that he had been followed. At some point, he got attacked again, almost ripped apart by the people who were trying to kill him. He had to run, as shameful as it was. He was already bleeding, and somebody stabbed him in his already open wound, trying to limit his movements so that he couldn’t get away.

Later, he felt feverish and sick. He kept coughing, he was tired, at some point he started convulsing, agitating injuries and causing bleeding to start up again.

Shoot. Had that been poisoned?

It wasn’t like he could rip it out, anyway. He wouldn’t get more poisoned because of it, and having the knife there helped keep him from bleeding further.

Leonardo decided to leave it, continuing to limp forward.

%%%

By the time he had finally found his way up to the surface, he felt like he was dying, sickened and still shaking every now and again.

But he did have a chance to contact his family.

Finally.

He swallowed, checking his phone for any data.

Oh yes, he had data, finally.

He also had one hundred and twenty-six unread texts, thirty-seven missed calls, twenty-nine new voicemails, and multiple people’s locations shared to him around fourteen times.

Leonardo let out a short breath and sat down, huddled between a dumpster and the wall of a building, scrolling through the messages.

Coffee_In_Sight (Donnie): Leo?

ketchuprelishicecream (Mikey): BRO WHERE R U

Raph.JustRaph (Raph): were getting worried

Raph.JustRaph (Raph): we’re*

Raph.JustRaph (Raph): get your shell back here

Coffee_In_Sight (Donnie): Raph says he lost you, Leo

Coffee_In_Sight (Donnie): Are you hurt???

Coffee_In_Sight (Donnie): Where are you?

Coffee_In_Sight (Donnie): Dude, you better start answering soon

ketchuprelishicecream (Mikey): u better find us soon

ketchuprelishicecream (Mikey): i’ll cry if u don’t

Coffee_In_Sight (Donnie): The lair flooded, we had to leave

Raph.JustRaph (Raph): i shared my location for Don

Raph.JustRaph (Raph): so get over here

More and more, along those lines, asking where he was, if he was okay, that he better start responding. He put his phone on a low volume, listening to the voicemails that had almost the same content, besides Raphael’s being more… Colorful, to say the least.

Shell, he had worried them.

They thought something really bad had happened to him, that maybe he had drowned or been killed by an enemy while exploring, trying to find a way back up!

A harsh, rattling cough escaped him, leaving him shaking and gasping. The poison was getting to him, and he needed to find a way to fight it, fast. He hesitated while looking through to see which one of his brothers would respond the fastest if he called them. Raphael held the title of being the second fastest, Leonardo being the first.

He pressed the call button, and waited.

Exactly two rings went by, and Raphael responded.

"LEO! Where the shell have you been?! You've been gone since yesterday morning!"

Leonardo blinked and swallowed. Yesterday? He thought it had only been a few hours, not a full day.

A convulsion shook Leonardo, and he bit his lip to keep from crying out. They were getting more frequent, he noted. Should he be worried about that?

“Leo?” Raphael’s voice was softer that time.

“Hey, um-” Leonardo breathed, tapping his knee with his free hand, “So you know how we got in that fight before we were separated? Um, I may or may not have been poisoned, sometime after that.. I think.” Raphael’s breathing hitched, and Leonardo rushed to fix his statement. “Not- Not that it’s bad, or anything! I made it this long, so it can’t be that bad-”

“Can ya count to ten?”

He sounded skeptical, probably from Leonardo’s bad track record of downplaying his injuries, or anything else that happened to be wrong with him.

“What?”

“Count to ten fer me, if it ain’t that bad.”

Again, what? Of course he could count to ten, it wasn’t hard-

...It was hard.

Leonardo got lost at four, needing to pause and repeat himself before then trying to keep going.

“Mhm, that’s what I thought. Hold on for just a second, mkay? I’ll be right back.”

There was silence for a few minutes, then Raphael returned.

“Alright, do you think you can walk to where we are since you have our location?”

“I think so, I mean, I walked a map in the sewers so…”

“Okay, we’ll be waiting, alright Leo? Don’t do something stupid, and get here as fast as you can.”

And just like that, he had hung up. Leonardo took a shaky breath, pocketed his phone, and stood back up, practically crawling through alleyways and over rooftops as he followed the path to their location.

It was a long abandoned office building, high enough to be safe from water if the streets happened to flood. He gripped his leg when sudden burning pain burst out and dropped to his knees, mouth open in silent, unheard screams. Moments after, he convulsed again, crimson blood pouring past his fingers and down his side, the rain washing it off of him and filling the air with the scent of copper, copper and rot. It wasn’t just blood, he finally realized. There was infection, and infection meant pus. When the convulsions ended, he gasped for air and shakily stood back up. They were right there, they were so close, just a few more steps…

Leonardo stumbled forward, creeping in through a hole in the concrete, and was almost immediately met with screaming.

Raphael gripped his arms, shaking him lightly.

“You frickin’ idiot, fearless! What were you-”

He trailed off, eyes fixating on the injury with festering infection, a knife in his leg that he never removed so that he wouldn’t bleed more than before. Then there was a crash, and Donatello came running after Raphael to try and see the brother who they thought was missing. He paused, shooing Michelangelo so that he wouldn’t have to see the rather gory injury.

He ended up prying Raphael off while he was frozen to the spot, and dragged Leonardo along, forcing him to sit down in the spot he deemed the cleanest to look him over.

“Well…” Donatello began. Him trailing off was not a good beginning. “I can probably fix up your side easily but, your leg is… Your leg is certainly something. You should be glad the infection didn’t get in your side, too. I’ll- I’ll have to see what I can do, but this looks bad. Just rest now, alright?”

Leonardo didn’t respond, looking it over. In the darkness of those flooded sewers, he hadn’t realized just how bad it had really gotten. He knew now, though. In some places the tissue had begun to grow black, most likely dead and rotting. The skin around the injury had paled from blood loss, and it was a wonder he had survived, he thought. His whole right side was cut up, blood and pus having doused his side. He was freaking filthy, too. He didn’t want to think about what he had been trudging through in the time he was down there.

“-alright?”

“Hm?”

“Oh, sorry- Um, so, from what I’m seeing, you have a really nasty infection in your leg, and some poison that probably was probably just meant to make you really, really sick. I don’t think I can save the tissue around the injury… Most of it has rotten from the infection, and if we don’t want it spreading, I’ll have to cauterize it to try and burn the poison out, and get rid of all the dead tissue in there.

And- We don’t have any anesthesia available, but from what I’m seeing, we don’t have the time to wait to get it. I’m so sorry, Leo, I didn’t know we would need it-”

“Oh,” Leonardo said, already having accepted his fate, “This is gonna suck.”

“I’m so sorry… Raph, can you- Can you hold him? For safety reasons.”

Raphael, now snapped out of his stupor, blinked a few times, looked between them, and nodded dutifully, grabbing onto Leonardo’s shoulders while whispering apologies.

After that was a blur of bright and dark, suppressed screams, and fighting kicking.

When it was over, he was shaking, blinking while Donatello examined his work. Oh god, that was burnt flesh he smelled. He had to swallow, praying he wouldn’t throw up.

“I’m so sorry- This isn’t- I didn’t think-” Donatello whispered and looked up to Leonardo with wide, tearful eyes.

“It’s alright, Donnie,” Leonardo whispered back, gripping Raphael’s hands with almost crushing force. “You’re just doing what you can, it’s fine.”

“Are you sure? You won’t- You’ll have a hard time walking for a while, if not the rest of your life, I had to burn out a lot of tissue.”

“Don, I’ve already got the knees of an old man, it can’t get much worse.”

Donatello cracked a sad smile at the joke, then went on with the list, trying to get it over with.

“When we get home, here’s what we’ll need to do for recovery, to make the best out of the situation, okay?…”

Oh. That was a long list.

Whumptober: Oops, I Did It Again

They were about nine when Leonardo's asthma started getting bad. He had always had it, and they all knew it, but the symptoms were less before, now they were persistent. It was probably the more advanced training they got, which was why he had to tap out more often when it acted up, moreso in the winter. It wasn't terrible, but was definitely annoying for him, especially when he was striving to be the best out of them.

%%%

God, NO, why right now?

There it was, the growing wheeze, an inability to breathe, the growing urge to cough, right when Leonardo needed to not have an asthma attack. Splinter had promised to teach them something special on their eleventh mutation day, and low and behold, he had a flare-up right after warm-ups.

Leonardo grit his teeth, swallowing his anger, and clenched his hands into fists before opening one back up and raising it.

"Excuse me, Sensei?" he began politely, catching the attention of his brothers as well, "Can I tap out for this session?"

Splinter looked almost surprised- Scratch that, he was astonished that Leonardo was leaving a lesson he had been so excited for for months. He looked as though he was about to ask why, but the faint wheeze coming from Leonardo filled the silence and answered the question as to why he was asking to sit it out. Splinter nodded, and Leonardo spent the rest of the lesson with a quick-relief in his hands, watching the others go through katas.

Occasionally, his brothers glanced over to him, seeming concerned and guilty, but nothing was said and he only waved, smiling to reassure them.

By the time the lesson was over, the attack had ended, leaving him in a frustrated bubble. He sat there, just a little longer, then shook his head to try and dissipate the anger he felt and stood up.

Maybe next time.

%%%

He was about fourteen when his symptoms started fading. Slowly but surely, he started getting less and less attacks, until they one day faded all together. By the time they were almost fifteen, he was completely free. Donatello said maybe he outgrew his asthma, but he couldn't care less about what happened that caused it, he was free from it!

And just in time for them to go up to the surface.

%%%

The air on the ship was cold.

It was like being in a fridge if you weren't up and active, and even then you'd end up in an uncomfortable, cold sweat. The effects of space, they presumed.

Leonardo didn't realize that his asthma was acting up again until he was wheezing, pausing his katas to figure out what was happening.

Oh heck no.

He thought it was over!

He thought he outgrew his asthma, he wouldn't have to deal with it again!

Leonardo growled quietly, sheathing his katanas and going to Donatello. They always had a good quick-relief on hand, just in case, he had just hoped that they would never need to use it again.

"Don," he whispered to get his brother to look at him, then came closer, “Don, it’s back.”

Donatello tilted his head, confused. “What?”

“My asthma is acting up again. I was just training and it suddenly flared up.”

The genius’ eyes widened in concern as he reached over for the medicine Leonardo was all too familiar with and handed it over to him. Taking a quick puff, Leonardo sighed. The relief, the first time he had done that, was like a miracle, but now it was nothing more than some fast working medication, used to the feeling that followed.

A little while later, the symptoms passed, leaving the two in uncomfortable silence.

“Well,” Donatello started, sounding unsure.

“Well,” Leonardo repeated.

“I guess this means it’s back. Be careful, would you? We don’t want to have a severe attack.”

%%%

Leonardo stared at the ceiling, laying in bed, awake.

A familiar wheeze filled the room, making no space for silence.

He groaned softly, sitting up. There would be no sleep that night, he could already tell. Looking over to the inhaler that Donatello had given him, he considered using it, then shook his head. It wasn’t too bad, he could do without it.

Instead of staying in his room, he decided to move to the common area. Maybe he could wait it out? Leonardo grabbed his inhaler and moved slowly, not wanting to aggravate it too much.

The wheezing got worse.

It was getting increasingly difficult to breathe by the minute, and breaking down into coughing didn't make it any better.

He grit his teeth and took a short breath of the medication, leaning back against the wall and sliding down.

Seconds ticked by, then minutes.

The quick-relief wasn't working, why wasn’t the quick-relief working?

Leonardo tried to steady himself before the panic grew unmanageable. Worrying would only make it worse, he needed to stay calm.

...Too late, apparently.

His heart trimmed nervously against his ribcage, trying to free itself from his prison. It was getting worse. He needed Donatello soon.

Leonardo fumbled for his shell-phone, he always had it with his brothers on speed dial. A low, quiet ring started up, waiting for Donatello to pick up. He tapped the phone case, waiting, waiting-

"Hello?"

"Don," Leonardo gasped, "It's happening again. The quick-relief didn't work."

Donatello's breathing hitched. "Where are you?"

"Hallway between the common room and my room."

"Alright, I'll be right there."

Donatello hung up almost immediately, and a few moments later, he was in front of Leonardo, holding a pill bottle and a glass that was mostly filled with crushed ice, and just enough water to take one or two pills.

"Do you feel alright enough to drink without choking?"

Leonardo nodded stiffly, and took the pill and water handed to him, sipping carefully so he wouldn't end up accidentally drowning himself.

A little later, breathing got easier, and Leonardo reveled in it, taking deep breaths and sighing softly. He sucked on some of the ice while waiting to see if Donatello would initiate the conversation. When the other remained silent, he swallowed, paused, and finally asked.

"Why did this happen?" he asked softly and traced shapes into the condensation on the side of the glass, "Why is it back?"

"Well…" Donatello began and faltered, then shook his head, "I'm not sure. Sometimes asthma can be triggered by extreme stress, and there's been plenty of that around lately. Also, cold, dry air helps in triggering attacks as well. It may just be the environment and current mood.

"...So, I guess we're back on asthma watch?"

"Mhm."

"Shoot."

Whumptober: That’s Where The Blood’s Supposed To Be

In hindsight, this really wasn't his best plan.

The enemy was kind of like Rocksteady. They were big, sturdy, incredibly strong, and notoriously hard to take down. So, his plan was simple. It was a long abandoned theater. Tall columns, a lot of open space, and nothing that would be missed too terribly once it was. The plan was even simple, for the first time in a very, very long time. They were going to lead the enemy- Chad, as Michelangelo had named him in a creative stump- Into the center of the open theater, then set off the bombs that were attached to the columns. Said columns would then collapse and bury "Chad" underneath. Even if it didn't completely put him out of commission, it would at least immobilize him for a bit.

Of course, it went wrong. The bombs went off on time, and they did get Chad down. However, somehow he completely managed to miss the fact that once the columns went down, so would the rest of the building. The whole place was falling apart, and still they fought. People would die if they didn't.

He got hit. A rather large piece of debris hit Leonardo's shoulder, followed by a loud, reverberating pop. The dislocation was enough to stun him into stillness for just long enough to get hit. Of course he tried to duck out of the way, to move so that he could avoid injury. By the time it registered, though, it was too late.

Leonardo stumbled back, squeezing between two boulders and gripping the side of his hide. Lightning bolts of pain met him, and when he pulled his hand away, he only saw scarlet.

Scarlet was not good.

Chad was outside, working to tear him out of his hiding place, but Leonardo paid him no attention. He only looked at the red dripping from his face, clouding his vision, and trailing outside.

He placed his hand back on the side of his head, placing pressure where there was pain. Pressure was good. Vibrant red was not.

The banging outside stopped. Instead, there were voices. When did the banging stop? His head was spinning and his hand was slipping. Something in the back of his head screamed wrong. He could usually trust his gut. His mind was right. Maybe he would stay where he was until the sound stopped.

But then there were mahogany eyes and a purple mask. Don’t move, they said. Donatello's mouth was moving. It made no sound.

Please.

Donatello pulled his hand away from his head, and his panic spiked momentarily. He needed the pressure, he didn't want to die-

Now the pressure was back, cold and welcoming against the warmth of the blood on his face. Right, the red was blood. Bleeding meant he was injured.

They were outside. When did they get outside? He remembered crawling into that rock shelter with the building falling apart around him. Now he was in front of a pile of rubble, multiple blurs of green fussing over him.

"It's still bleeding!" He caught a glimpse of their conversation, and strained to hear the rest. "We need to get home or in the Shellraiser soon. Somewhere where I have more medical equipment than this!"

It was that bad? He needed to get up or do something to help, but his body wouldn't move, wouldn't respond to his commands.

Leonardo was next under a bright, near blinding light. He could smell chemicals and copper. Copper? Copper was bad. Somebody gripped his hands, whispering apologies and trying to reassure him.

No, not him. They were trying to reassure themselves.

"Not- Your fault," he whispered with a smile. If they needed reassurance, he would give it.

%%%

"This is my fault," Donatello whispered, staring at bandages that were finally staying white.

"It's still bleeding!" He was right, too. The bandages were running out, but they were still turning red. That wound needed to be closed or else it would never stop bleeding.

Well, he finally closed it. It was carefully stitched up, a neat row of black lines along the side of his head.

"Donnie-" Michelangelo started from where he was sitting.

"No, Mikey, listen. I’m the doctor, I’m supposed to make sure that people don't die. He almost bled out and-"

"No-"

Wait what. Wait, what. How was he even talking?

"My plan," Leonardo murmured, still not opening his eyes, "My fault."

"Leo, please don't-"

"'M so tired… Don't blame yourself, mkay? Shoulda seen it comin'."

"Leo, this wasn't your fault, you don't have to see every future that could possibly happen, please-"

His pleading and rambling fell on deaf ears. Sleep was not a good thing when they didn't know what kind of head injury they were looking at.

Whumptober: You Break It, You Buy It (2/3)

Leonardo could not stand it anymore.

Locked in a cage, muzzled, stuck in a room blacker than space where the only thing he could hear was the cries of other animals- No, not animals. Creatures, beasts. Artificially made and genetically improved until they were nigh indestructible. Beasts larger than most living things he had ever seen. For some, it was a wonder they were still breathing, with oddly placed nostrils on flattened faces. All desperately screaming until somebody came in, injected them with another chemical cocktail, and then left as they went silent.

The cage was too small, too cramped. He could barely stand up on two legs, let alone stretch out on four. Of course, though, he should have expected that. Playing the dumb animal card did that, he guessed.

Suddenly, the lights flicked on, blindingly bright, white light that overwhelmed his senses but god he could see again.

...Nevermind. He wanted the blindness back.

He thought the creatures he had to be around were bad enough just going off of sound. It was so much worse when he could actually see them.

Some were actually kind of cute, small and fluffy, but with jaws that parted into three and multiple rows of teeth. There were some that were shaped like bears, just make them bigger and set them aflame. Across from his cage was something long and spindly with boney, spider-like legs and six eyes that fixated on him.

Leonardo shifted uncomfortably under its gaze, making himself as small as he could as he took in the area. The gaps between cages were extremely wide, possibly to keep conflict to a minimum, and the cages themselves were of varying sizes, stacked carefully to avoid toppling. The roof, to house the bigger creatures, was extremely tall, high enough that Leonardo probably could have fit a house or two inside that one room.

Somebody drove a forklift into the room, moving in the gaps between the cages, and picked up one of them, moving it onto a conveyor belt. Slowly, the cages that were small enough to be moved were moved out, disappearing one by one, until it was just him in a mostly empty room with only a few of the larger creatures for company.

The forklift drove over to him at last, then stopped, the person who drove it hopping out and crouching down in front of him.

“You’re the prize piece of this show,” They drawled with a smirk, causing Leonardo’s heart to jump into his throat. “Everybody’s been waiting for you.”

%%%

The fact that Leonardo was probably dead did not stop them from searching.

Each of them had done their part. Raphael helped manage current crime while they planned, Donatello provided them with tech and medicine in case something went wrong, and Michelangelo scoped out the complex almost daily to make sure nothing had changed. When they were all together, they had tried to research what that place even was.

Key word: Tried.

Nothing came up about the building. Ever. Sometimes they would catch glimpses of "government owned" or "private property", but nothing more than that. It was like it never existed in the first place. They knew better, though.

"So here's the plan," Raphael said one day after gathering them together, "When we get there, what we're going to do is…"

%%%

The muzzle got torn off of Leonardo and the man reeled backwards before he could try to do anything. Then, he clambered back into the forklift and lifted him up, leaving Leonardo to scramble for a foothold as the cage tipped slightly. In the end, though, he fell in an ungraceful pile in a corner, pressed up against the bars and waiting for his situation to be a bit more stable.

Sure enough, he was placed on the conveyor belt and got moved along to… Wherever they decided they were going to take him. He slowly rose to his feet as the light in the corridor slowly grew and faded as he passed the yellow emergency lights. But finally, he came to a stop at a large metal door that slowly opened to allow him through. As its gaping maw opened, Leonardo froze.

About fifty-odd pairs of eyes, all locked on him while the conveyor belt kept moving him forward to the end of a stage. Was stage the right term? It sure felt like it.

His skin crawled and he felt like his scales were just going to raise up and fall off. Something squirmed in his chest, wet and disgusting like worms and slime and other insects crawling around, as warm as the sewers got in the summer when the heat was trapped underground and made everyone miserable. He spent his whole life learning to hide from humans, that the shadows were his friends and to ask for their aid as much as possible when risking getting seen. But now? Now, there were no shadows. There were only eyes and lights fixated on him and mumbles and whispers ran their course through the crowd.

His breathing hitched when an electric jolt came from the collar, a voice from a speaker in it followed up when: “Get moving, the people want to see something from you.”

Not wanting another jolt, although very bitter about it, Leonardo paced back and forth, keeping his gaze locked onto the crowd in case they tried anything. It wasn’t everyday he was placed in front of so many watching eyes like he was some attraction at a zoo.

“Here we have number 131. It doesn’t have a species name yet, nor an actual name, however, we can tell that it is most likely extremely intelligent, having about the same intelligence of an adult human,” Oh. They knew? Well that was alarming, at the very least. “The auction will start at $200,000.”

He was certainly flattered that they believed him to be worth that much, but there was still that flare of anger about being sold like an object. A few voices raised, the amount getting higher than the last with every new offer, until finally-

"Sold! To the man in white."

Shoot.

%%%

They had hovered on a rooftop for what felt like hours while watching vans of various sizes leave one by one, along with a handful of normal cars. Had they had some kind of event or something? From the outside, the people who ran the complex didn't seem to have a lot of connections, but who knew what they were capable of.

Raphael dug his fingers into the concrete of the roof and shifted from side to side anxiously, looking to the others occasionally to see if he was alone in his fidgeting.

Donatello watched the people below, leaned against the edge of the roof and looking almost thoughtful, but he was drumming his fingers against his thigh, seeming as nervous as Raphael.

Michelangelo was more obvious about his apprehension, shifting side to side, turning, and pacing. Occasionally, he'd pull out his Shell Phone, but never for long, going back to his previous cycle almost instantly.

Everybody had cleared out, Raphael realized. Once he gave the signal, they'd have to be on edge and constantly aware to avoid falling victim to the same fate as their oldest.

Raphael waved his hand anyway, well aware of the risks, and made the jump past the barbed wire.

The entrance was easy. They went in through the roof access like they had the first time and slowly worked their way down through the floors. The top floors seemed more like management than anything else, and definitely not what they were looking for. The further down they went, though, the more it looked like an actual workplace. Occasionally, they would pass empty rooms with large windows that looked as though they had once housed something living. Donatello said that maybe they had kept unusual animals, and Leonardo would definitely count as one.

As they moved further, the lights got dimmer and dimmer, until they were left in near darkness. It wasn’t like any of them minded, though. They were most comfortable in darkness with the way they lived their life. Eventually, they came across a large, brightly lit, open room with ceilings so high that they were almost surprised that this part of the building wasn’t taller than the rest.

In a few areas, creatures that looked like they were straight out of a horror movie stared at them and growled.

“Definitely keeping ‘unusual animals’,” Donatello breathed.

“This ain’t ‘unusual animals’, Don,” Raphael remarked, glaring back at something that held resemblance to a hydra, “This is full on mythical monsters an’ stuff. You think these are natural?”

Donatello went silent after that, and they continued to search, careful not to be seen by any humans or to set off an alarm.

There was nothing in the main building, and as they moved on to the others, they found less and less items of interest, and no Leonardo.

Raphael curled his hands into fists and let out a short breath. Nothing. They had failed. They had failed and he was probably dead or taken somewhere else and being experimented on or worse.

He wrinkled his beak in annoyance and shook his head. He needed to make sure that his younger brothers were safe for now, then he could worry about Leonardo later. Besides, the oldest was known to be notoriously hard to kill, and even harder to keep a grip on when taken. He would be fine, right?

Raising his hand in a signal he learned from many years of experience, Raphael led them outside.

%%%

Leonardo sighed and shifted in the hay again, as he had for the past seven minutes. He had thought that failing at that test in Chinatown was bad, but this? Getting sold to the highest bidder while acting like an animal? This was a new all time low for him.

Obviously he had fought back when they tried to move him, snapping at and hitting the handlers, but they only took that as a sign of stress and put a hood on him. As if not being able to see would calm him down. It only made him more nervous. He didn’t know where he was going, and while the van was much roomier than the cage, he still couldn’t get out or move far. There was a thin wall, he knew, towards his left (he crashed into it a while ago, not that he would tell anyone), and from the laughter that followed his bumping into it, he knew that there was somebody on the other side watching him. If it weren’t for them, he would have removed the hood long ago.

A couple more uneventful minutes passed where he only shifted around and tried to explore without prompting any more embarrassment than before. Then, he was spinning around and around with deafening crashes and some screams following. His adrenaline got going, and he was immediately on guard, ready to stand up and fight at any second. Leonardo was flipped onto his shell right before gunshots and yelling started up, but the gunshots stopped as suddenly as they had begun. He started wiggling onto his plastron, hands up to rip the hood off, but somebody kicked him, muttering something, then something hit his head, hard.

He writhed for a bit and let out a short cry of pain, before going still, completely unconscious.

Well, that struggle was a waste.

%%%

One of the next things he remembered was hearing somebody taking pictures of him. Oh, should he strike a pose? Maybe blink some sparkles at them if they really wanted-?

Right, not the time to make wry jokes.

The camera shutters stopped, replaced by low mutters about money and ransoms. How many people were going to try and use him for money and why?

Leonardo deadpanned and slowly shifted into standing, reaching out to try and test his surroundings, only to find out that he was in a cage that was smaller than before. He couldn’t even reach out without touching one of the bars, or turn in any direction. He was just supposed to stand or lay there. Fantastic. What a wonderful day he was having. In the background, he heard the phone ring a few times and people talking. He tried not to listen in, though, knowing full well what that conversation was about. Instead, he focused on how he planned to get out of this when he couldn’t even move.

Laying down, he caught the words “new toy” from the ransomer and the person who bought him, and just settled for pretending that he didn’t, especially when the dial tone came along.

“Well,” The ransomer hummed, and Leonardo stilled, “I guess we have a new subject, 131.”

Whumptober: One Down, Two To Go

Raphael hit the ground hard when Leonardo flipped him, but bounced back to his feet almost immediately, spinning his older brother around and trying to land a good hit.

The elder twisted out of his grasp, dancing around him with a wild grin. He hopped closer, grabbed Raphael and kneed him in the plastron, hard, right where the bony plates intersected. Raphael doubled over in pain with a gasp, leaving Leonardo to lunge forward, grab him by the shoulders, and shove him down.

He rolled him onto his plastron, pinned his arms behind his back, and waited. After a few seconds of waiting, Raphael sighed and went limp, but smiled nonetheless.

“I still can’t beat you? How many hours of training are you sneaking in?” he joked as Leonardo stood and helped him up.

“You’d be surprised,” Leonardo rumbled, stepping back. “Good to know you finally don’t beg for rematches.”

“I did not!”

“You did every time you lost, Raph.”

Raphael huffed, but smiled anyway, and started walking away. “Yeah yeah… I’m talking to the golden child here, what’d I expect?”

“Hey!”

Leonardo scoffed indignantly, still following him. The two flopped down on the couch with a sigh, and while Leonardo flipped on the TV, Raphael looked through a pile of comics that he hadn’t read in a while. Like, a really long while. Seriously, when was the last time that he had read these? He hummed softly as he flipped through smooth paper and softened edges, listening to some movie that his brother decided to put in. It took him a couple moments to realize that it was in Japanese and looked up to find that Leonardo was playing Spirited Away, an old favorite of the family. Well, that wasn’t too surprising.

His gaze trailed over to said brother, and fixated on the scars on his throat and plastron. Generally, they all agreed to avoid looking at or talking about them, but sometimes they slipped up, and once they did one of those things, they couldn’t stop thinking about what happened then.

None of them knew what happened really. Leonardo had a bad habit of brushing off trauma and downplaying injuries, both mental and physical, so he never answered them honestly about what happened, and they stopped asking.

The question burned in his mind and tasted bitter on his tongue. Raphael wanted so badly to know, to finally ask about what happened and strangle a straight answer out of his older brother. He had tried to hold it back, he really did, but in the end, it just popped out all on his own, as much as he tried to rein in his tongue.

“What actually happened, Leo?”

“What?” Leonardo looked to Raphael with a calm expression, seeming completely unbothered by this question.

“Those scars, when we had to run from the city?” Raphael pointed at the scars on his chest and throat, and Leonardo’s breathing hitched. “You still haven’t told us what happened.”

“Raph, that’s not something I’d like to talk about right now-”

“It’s been years of dodging that question!”

“It’s just a sensitive topic. I don’t push if you don’t want to talk about it.”

“That’s a lie. We both know it is. Besides, don’t you think that we deserve to know? Y’know, after it put you in a coma?” Okay, maybe that was a low blow, bringing that up. But Leonardo was being ridiculous about this. He darted around that question like his life depended on it, always running from telling them the truth.

Leonardo kept his gaze for a long couple of seconds, face unreadable, before he sighed. “You really-?”

“Yes.” Raphael’s answer was without hesitation. He closed the comic he had, set it down, and leaned forward with his hands clasped together. “I want to know, Leonardo.”

“Oh wow,” The elder brother joked with a little smirk, “My full name, how frightening.” Then, he sighed and paused the movie, resting his chin in his hand. “Well, you see…”

Leonardo sliced through two more bots and squinted. This wave of enemies was down, but he could see another coming along. He’d have to move further, create some distance to get ready and keep them away from his family.

So he did. He turned and ran past the fences, through the open gaps he thought might lead somewhere. The bots caught up, though. They always did. It didn't matter how fast he ran, they were just faster.

To be fair, they weren't even alive. They were just robots, inexhaustible soldiers. Meanwhile, his strength was running out. As the battle dragged on longer, his exhaustion grew. When his initial energy ran out, he began to run on bursts of adrenaline, grabbing the ribbons of it like a lifeline.

If he fell or slowed down, he would die.

A chain wrapped around his wrist and pulled him back, slamming him against the wall and holding him there. A bot ran at him and his fear flared, right before he cut through them and pulled the person keeping him stationary right through the wooden fence.

Distantly, he was aware of the pain that flowered in his arm like a rose, static that engulfed his forearm, but that wasn't important. He needed to stay alive.

Snow fell leisurely as he moved along, and he shivered. At that rate, he was going to stop moving, and he needed to keep running, especially when-

20 arrows were pointed at them, and he let out a shaky breath. People behind him, hot on his trails, and archers aiming his way. Great, lovely, just wonderful.

Leonardo ducked and dodged around arrows, narrowly missing getting hit as he threw kunai at the heads of the archers. He whirled around for just a moment to bring his swords down in a deadly dance on the enemies behind him, then took out the last of the archers, breathing hard by the end of it.

They were done, right? He had finished with the bowmen and assassins? He could go home? God, he hoped so. He was so tired already, the snow and fighting were not a good combination for his energy levels.

A bot that he thought was dead, only held together by strings and wires, suddenly reached up and grabbed his ankle. They yanked it, hard, and he went tumbling, hitting multiple rocks and boulders before falling into icy water with a short gasp.

It pricked at his skin and he could already feel his limbs going numb as he sank. He couldn’t let go, yet. He had to just keep swimming up and up, and make sure that he finished what he had started. Leonardo kicked and struggled, swimming back to the dock and latching onto it as he broke the surface, gasping for air. The winter air was considerably warmer than the water that drained off him before he rolled onto the ground.

Maybe he could let himself have just a minute to breathe. Just one minute.

A minute of rest was not a privilege he got. Leonardo heaved himself back onto his feet when he felt eyes on him, hands already curled into fists and eyes narrowed.

Freaking Shredder was looking down at him, like he wasn't even worth a second of his time.

Leonardo swallowed back a snarl and raised his chin. "Face me, Shredder!"

Tigerclaw looked to Shredder for guidance, received a nod, and smirked. The three henchmen jumped down, and Leonardo was on the ground almost immediately. Pain shot through multiple places, made worse by the fact he was already sensitive from the cold.

A burn turned to a flaring inferno and he screamed, loud and wordless in anger. He lunged forward, throwing Razhaar into the water and slamming Fishface to the ground. Leonardo whirled to face Tigerclaw, landing a good hit on his torso and taking him down, then threw him after Fishface.

The adrenaline faded as he gasped. They were down, they were down, they were-

He froze, and stared at the shadow in the snow. Slowly turning, Leonardo came face to face with Shredder for an embarrassingly short period of time. Agony burst in his throat, and he realized he was falling for just a moment, before everything went dark.

Raphael’s beak scrunched with anger, his eyes ablaze, hands trembling with rage. “What?” he hissed, “Leo, that’s not even a fair fight!”

“Raph, don’t-”

“No, Leo, you don’t get it! Well, you probably do, but that’s just- That’s wrong in so many different ways!"

“So what? It happened a long time ago. Don't do anything you'll regret, it's not worth it." And there it was, that tone as he tried to calm Raphael down. It only furthered his wrath, that Leonardo was being so calm about all this. Why? How?

"...Fine." Raphael growled, trying to swallow his indignance. Like agreeing was going to stop him.

%%%

Raphael reached down to the facepaint, then smeared it around his eyes, a backup just in case the mask didn't do well enough. He closed the container back up, retreating to the dojo to gather his weapons.

Shredder had been cruel to his brother. Raphael thought it only fair to make him feel the same pain.

He closed the closet, backed away, and ran into the sewers. Shredder would feel pain, Raphael would make sure of that.

A thump came from behind him, before somebody ran beside Raphael and cut in front of him. Leonardo stood before him, arms crossed and staring right through him. Raphael's anger boiled up when his older brother spoke, and he forced himself to swallow it before he said something stupid. He did enough of that daily.

"I said not to do something you would regret."

"And? That was an unfair fight, something should be done!"

"It won't change anything."

"Leo! This is-!"

"Raph, speaking as the injured party; No."

"But-"

"Listen, this will only hurt you and the people around you. Don't. I'm still holding you to your word. Didn't you say just a couple hours ago that you wouldn't go after Shredder?"

Raphael deflated, shriveling back under Leonardo's icy gaze. "I just wanted…"

"Go home, Raph. Take a cold shower, drink something, and head to sleep. What do you think we'd do if you died?"

Raphael stilled. If he went against Shredder alone, he would die. He would leave them to grieve. "Oh," he breathed.

Leonardo reached forward and grabbed his arm. "You stink, Raph. Wash that stuff off you, we need to go home."

The hothead nodded, wordless. That time, he meant it.