Whumptober: All Work And No Play

Whumptober: All Work and No Play

Leonardo was usually the one who got captured or hurt. Of course, Donatello only thought it logical, as much as it distressed him. Leonardo was the oldest, the leader, and now, their sensei. Taking him down would most likely destroy the rest of them as well. A simple, but efficient, way of taking what remained of the Hamato clan off the face of the planet.

Somehow, Donatello managed to overlook the fact that, being the person who knew the most about medical things and the smartest of the group, a bright red target would be painted onto his shell, too.

The first month in enemy hands was brutal and violent- Well, more violent than recently. He was tortured almost everyday, only given a week or two at some point to recover before they brought him back, shoving him underwater and pretty much trying to tear him to pieces. Eventually, he gave up, desperate for the pain that clouded his mind to stop. What they wanted was for him to build for them. No information on where they were hiding, not their weaknesses, nothing that he would have expected. They just wanted him to build them weapons.

At first, he had complied as best he could, working through the agony caused by injuries. Almost immediately after starting, he tried to be half hearted about his work. He didn’t work as well as he could, he went slower and pretended like he needed more than he actually did. Of course, those attempts to slow them down were quickly put to a stop. His head still felt scrambled from that chair, he could still feel the metal gag in his mouth and the restraints around his wrists as electricity coursed through his body-

It was bad. He didn’t like to remember it.

Knowing what they had done in the beginning, sometimes he would completely stop or go on strike. They knew he was afraid, though. They could tell, they always did. Stopping wasn’t a privilege he got. When he tried to just not work, they starved him until he started doing what they said again. “You work if you want to eat”, they had said.

So he did. He worked long days and even longer nights without sleep, constantly telling himself “they’ll come”. Every night as the lights went out so that he had to work in near blackness, he told himself again, “they’ll come”.

For a long time, they didn’t. Obviously, he didn’t blame it on them. He knew that they had to be looking everywhere for him, the same that they would do for any one member of their clan, but everyday that nobody came, his hope diminished just a little more.

Just a little more, every time they would hit him again or drown him.

Just a little more when he went yet another night without sleep.

He was locked to the desk, of course. They didn’t want him trying to escape when they weren’t supervised, but that posed some… Problems.

Such as when things blew up.

The fire was so close to his face, and he couldn’t breathe through the smoke. Heart beating a jackhammer, Donatello grabbed a wrench from the flames, crying out when the fire wrapped around his hand greedily, trying to tear away the flesh to eat. He tore his hand back out almost immediately and began beating the chain, growing more and more frantic by the second. The fire was still growing, still reaching out and trying to take him for its never ending appetite.

Donatello had broken himself out from the chains, and the guards came in almost immediately after, allowing him to reel backwards while they put the fire out.

Because he broke the chains, he was punished for it.

He sat at a scorched workstation, fidgeting and tinkering to make up for his lack of ideas that would most certainly get him injured, when he realized that somebody was behind him.

"You're still not dead?" They asked, sounding like they were mocking him.

“No Mx.” He couldn’t tell their gender and, honestly, didn’t want to risk offending them. He knew what that would do for him.

They scoffed, “Good, keep it that way.”

He was scared to death when they hovered behind him, clearly not leaving any time soon. Eventually, he started bouncing his leg to try and soothe himself, but stopped working in the process.

A hand connected with the back of his head and sent stars flying across his vision. He went back to work.

Shortly after, they finally left him alone, and let out a breath of relief.

They’ll find me, he told himself again.

%%%

Surprisingly, they had given him a break.

It was unusual, and sent his nerves into a frenzy, but he was in no way ungrateful for the rest period. He wasn’t quite sure when the last time he slept was, and with no coffee, he was barely functioning. So, he took the break as a chance for a nap, even if it meant waking up to pain for sleeping over his break time.

God, he was tired. Everything hurt, and he just wanted to be home where Leonardo would eventually mother hen him off to bed, or Raphael would drag him out of the lab by the edge of his shell, or even have Michelangelo come running in and messing with his experiments. Anything would be better.

With a groan, Donatello realized that he couldn’t sleep. Homesickness was getting the best of him, and the hunger gnawed on his stomach, keeping him from any real rest. So, he tried his hand at lockpicking. He certainly had the things for a makeshift lockpick, if he just tried hard enough he was sure that he could get out-

As he began, somebody appeared behind him again, and he briefly wondered if he was clocking out for long enough that they could get in without him noticing.

“Don't do that,” They warned with a low growl.

Donatello flinched. “Sorry Mx.”

“I know what you were doing,” They ventured further, voice rising a bit in an accusatory tone. He couldn’t deny it, it only meant that he would probably get sent back to the chair.

Instead, he let them hit him harder than before, and bit his tongue to keep the cry from escaping him.

He was so, so tired. He thought he might die from it.

Suddenly, there was something crashing behind him, and his adrenaline got going, screaming at him to go go go there’s a fight get up right now.

The genius obeyed the frantic call of his body, standing up and spinning around to face the source of the sound.

Or, at least, he tried to.

When he went to get up, he crumpled to the ground, dropping to his knees with the only thing holding him up being the chain that held him by his wrist. New pain blossomed there and, honestly, he couldn’t force himself to care.

The crashes stopped and somebody called his name. There were hands on him, warm and calloused, friendly. A few clangs followed the calls, and then the hold on his wrist was released. Instead of hitting the floor, he fell into waiting arms, holding him off the ground.

“Donnie? Donnie, wake up. Please, wake up.”

He knew that voice. That was a friendly voice. That was one of his brothers.

“Hey, come here- Please, keep your eyes open, you can’t close them now.”

Oh, yeah. He would’ve loved to, but he could barely do just that. Before, he had such a hard time sleeping. Now, he couldn’t stay awake. Sleep tugged at his mind and the longer he had his eyes closed, the more he slipped. Rest sounded really nice. Maybe he would…

“Donatello Modesto Hamato, open your eyes right now.”

Oh, that was his full name. Not just Donatello, or Hamato Donatello, or that switched around, but his full name, with the middle name he assigned himself. He had really liked that name, it came from the same era that his first name did. Not the point- That was his full name, which meant something important was happening.

Slowly, Donatello cracked his eyes open, squinting in the harsh light. He could see blue and brown and green, behind that was orange and brown and green. Those were good colors. He was almost certain that if he looked up, he would see the same color combinations, except with red. “Wha’s happenin’?” He mumbled instead of looking up, tempted to squeeze his eyes shut again.

“Get up,” The blue said urgently, “We need to go now.”

“Alright,” Donatello didn’t try to get up, even though he agreed to getting out of there.

Somebody hooked their arms under his and lifted him up, then let him lean against them, trying to go fast and forcing him to stumble along in an attempt to walk. He frowned. That wasn’t very nice. His legs were asleep and he was tired. Wasn’t it rude to wake somebody up like that?

“C’mon,” The same person who called him by his full name whispered in his ear, “We’re going home now.”

There’s lots of controversy about how 2012 Donnie and Rise Donnie would react meeting each other but I love that there’s one thing we can all agree on: They would absolutely arrange playdates for their robot sons. In the case that the two Donnies hate each other, it’d just be like when your parents and your friends parents are mortal enemies, but you two are besties, so every time you go for a playdate the parents end up glaring at each other while you have the best time of your life

Whumptober: Rise and Shine... Turtle? I Think? (3/3)

After the crash and his kidnapping (could he even call it that? He was already a captive), Leonardo was passed from hand to hand. He went halfway across the country, and then further. They ended up bouncing him across countries, sending him to almost every corner of the world so that multiple people could use him as an attraction, an exotic animal.

He refused to say pet. He was not a pet. The word felt like a toxin on his tongue and in his mind, bitter and sour and bad.

His appearance in private collections called scientists, reports, journalists, the press, everyone who wanted to see what he was. Of course, his existence was not something that people wanted to share. He didn't know a lot about his situation, but he did know that there was a lot of money paid to keep people quiet.

Still, that might have been a dream, or some hallucination. To keep him quiet while moving around, Leonardo was drugged in mass quantities. At that point, he was numb or asleep half the time. Sometimes, though, he'd remember the people he left, suddenly dragged out of the fog. He remembered falling, knowing that he wasn't going to come back. He remembered a violent fight with some sedative, trying to stay awake because people needed him.

It made him sick. He preferred not to remember, and fell back under the influence of the drugs.

Leonardo spent a lot of time getting moved around, unaware of most of it. One day, though, he couldn't sleep at all. He was sick and trembling, unable to move but barely able to do anything else. It clicked that he was addicted. He wanted to throw up.

He could only lay still in the newest enclosure stopping point when somebody came in. There was silence for several minutes, then-

The sound of someone loading a gun was familiar to him after years of fighting Purple Dragons. He froze, did not try to move out of the way, senses and reflexes horrifically dulled.

For a second, he mourned the person he used to be. The one who would fight back, who would run out of the line of fire and immediately disarm whoever was wielding the weapon. Instead, he laid there quietly, sighed softly...

%%%

...And opened his eyes to a sterile, cold, white room.

It was all a dream, he told himself, you never left here. They've been messing with your head.

It was so real, though. The dream was so vivid, he had thought it was real. To say the least, he was unnerved.

Leonardo sat up and leaned against the wall, then felt himself over to see if he was injured at all. Feeling nothing out of sorts, he let out a short sigh of relief. Good, it really WAS just a dream.

The voice over intercoms wasn't, though.

“Good. You’re finally awake.”

Leonardo's heart thrummed loudly, so loud he couldn't hear anything else between that and the blood rushing in his ears. Distantly, he recognized that voice. It was the same person who was making ransoms for him and said that he would make a great subject.

“Don’t worry,” They soothed, as if that was what he was worried about, “That was all in your head, an unfortunate effect of the sedatives.”

That sent him reeling. Now that, that, was something to be worried about. However, he wasn’t really that surprised. He’d had various experiences with tranquilizers throughout the time that he had been stuck with humans.

Still, his heart rate picked up, hammering against his plastron like it was trying to free itself, trying to get a lifetime of beats in before it was, suddenly and untimely, stopped.

He couldn’t breathe. There was silence, the person on comms wasn’t speaking anymore, but it felt too loud even so. Something was in his lungs, and he couldn’t breathe- He couldn’t breathe-

Across the room, a door opened.

%%%

By the stars.

He was finally free.

Over the past (he assumed) few months, he had eyed every possible exit, risky or not, and constantly sized up their security, just in case. His plan had worked, too. Maybe he was a little busted up, and sure, the shock collar they put on him was on the fritz, but he was in one piece and at that point, the area of the burn was numb.

(It probably wasn’t supposed to be numb. He was fairly certain he heard Donatello talking about how once burns got bad enough, they caused permanent nerve damage, which caused a lack of pain or complete numbness.)

(...Yeah, that burn was probably really bad.)

It didn’t help the mood at all that it was raining pretty hard, complete with thunder and lightning. When the collar beeped a few times, it suddenly occurred to him that they might be tracking him. The thought passed quickly and urgently, getting its message across with ease. He needed to hide.

Leonardo trusted his instinct, as that usually went well, and started running. Sure, he needed to find his family, but he also needed to not accidentally get them killed in the process. His captors would most likely find him soon, anyway. There were quite a few options he had for hiding places, but settled for an oceanside warehouse where they kept a lot of fishing equipment. That way, he might be able to escape into the water if anything went wrong. Swimming in the rain was nice, as long as he didn't get struck by lightning in the process.

As he came closer to the warehouse, he slowed down, waiting for the last worker there to lock up and leave. Maybe it would complicate things a bit, but he wasn't known as "The King of Lock Picking" for nothing. He'd just need two needles, or something like that. The windows were also always available.

The windows were also probably the better option.

Leonardo circled the building a few times before climbing up a small boat and breaking the window with a fishing hook he had found lying around. He rolled inside of it, and almost immediately got to trying to rip the collar off. They had to be tracking him, they wouldn’t just not track a human-sized turtle that suddenly landed in their lap. The fishing hook wouldn’t work. With how tight the collar was on him, he would probably accidentally hook it into his skin. Not only that, but he couldn’t feel any kind of buckle or clip that might help him out. He really was stuck. That numbness in the burn was suddenly a very good thing.

Something pounded on the door and his heart leaped into his throat. He was right, he was right he was right they were tracking him they found him-

No. No, there was no time for panicking. He had to act fast or get taken back there, and that wasn’t something he wanted. His gaze flitted around the room, wild and panicked, before he settled for climbing up into the rafters and huddling up there.

The pounding on the door got louder before it suddenly broke open, and people all in black and holding guns flooded in. They fanned out across the warehouse, looking for him in every nook and cranny, and talking in a language he didn’t understand.

He started to slink back over to the window, crouch-walking over the rafters and trying to make as little noise as possible to avoid getting noticed, but somebody finally looked up and pointed him out, yelling something to the others.

One of them raised a gun, and he bolted.

%%%

So, as it turned out, like many Americans, he forgot that there was a South America.

And apparently, that was where he ended up. He didn’t know where on the continent he was, but at least getting back home wouldn’t be such a big problem. Besides the walking. The walking would suck. Directions, at least, weren’t actually too hard to find. He had to steal a map here and there, and was constantly looking for road signs or any kind of signal about where he was in a language he could actually read, but slowly, he had found his way past the border and back into the United States.

So yay for him.

He had to keep wandering for a while, even if it wasn’t the best course of action, while trying to find a good enough map of the whole country and not just the state he was in- Which, happened to be Mississippi. At least it was more rural than it could be.

On his way, he found some kind of farmhouse that reminded him of the summer home April had. For a moment, he longed to be back home instead of across the country again, but it wasn’t like wishes were going to do anything for his journey. If he really wanted it, he reminded himself, then he should keep moving. The sun was going down, though, and from the lack of cars and lights, he considered that the people who owned it had left. It would make good shelter for the night, and he could recalibrate there.

Leonardo, as he had for the hundredth time, broke into the building and went to the highest floor he could to hide. Some people probably wouldn’t think that the top floor was the best place to go to, but with enhanced durability that pretty much no normal person has, it was great for a fast escape when he could just jump from a third story.

He settled down in the attic, between two cardboard boxes after clearing away the cobwebs between them and praying that there were no spiders left over. Almost as soon as he was tucked away, the door downstairs opened. Instinctively he wrinkled his beak. Of course somebody was coming home to a house broken into, of course he was going to get trapped there while waiting for them to leave-

That wasn’t somebody coming home. Somebody seeing marks from a break in would have screamed and called the police, or completely left and then called 911. Instead, he heard them pause downstairs, before they started coming up.

They were coming to the attic.

It had to be one of his captors. They’d been tracking him the entire time, but he always managed to dodge them, how had they managed to catch up? Maybe he had paused for too long, or got distracted, or maybe they were just getting faster in order to keep up with the pace he was setting. Either way, they might have found him. He moved further back and pressed himself against the slanted ceiling, making himself as small as he could to fit at the very back of his hiding as the door opened. He could hear beeping, and all of a sudden, the collar he had beeped too.

Crap.

He could only watch as the white light of a flashlight appeared and scanned the floor, getting closer and closer by the second. His breathing hitched when it settled by the entry to his hiding spot, then settled on him. Leonardo had to squint when the blinding light hit his eyes. He didn’t want to have to look away, not when he was in danger. Somebody leaned down and looked him over. From the looks of it, they were no normal homeowner. In fact, he was probably right. They were probably somebody tracking him. A small smile graced their face as they drew a gun. A small pistol, most likely not enough to kill him if they were to shoot at him, but probably more for putting him in enough pain to immobilize him.

They pulled the trigger.

The gun only clicked.

Almost immediately, they froze, realizing that they had messed up.

Leonardo let himself smirk, then rolled onto all fours and lunged at them, knocking them out of the way and running off. If he could help it, he would get out before they figured out what was up with their weapon. 

And, as long as he was smart about it, he would be out of Mississippi before they could give chase and catch up.

God, he hated this road trip.

Okay I think I've seen a post like this before but I love the thought that the 2012 TMNT boys speak perfect, beautiful, flowing, textbook Japanese and just break into it when they get really upset, so sometimes you just hear Raph arguing that "pineapple does NOT go on pizza what are you doing Mikey-" in Japanese, using one of the best accents you've heard (you'd think he's a native speaker)

And then there's just. RoTTMNT. They speak English. They picked up a few languages here and there and then dropped them, besides Leo who decided he was also going to speak Spanish.

In a crossover, 2012 Leo yells something at Rise Leo in Japanese, expecting that their Splinter taught them it as well. Rise Leo just shrieks something back in poorly pronounced Spanish and now both of them are confused

Guilty as charged

ur favourite ao3 author definitely has to go back and reread their own stuff cuz they forgot major plot points in their own writing btw it's just a fact

I feel like sometimes 2012 Leo would do that one thing dads do where someone will be talking with him and then he'll just randomly drop the most jaw-dropping toe-curling heart-wrenching piece of his Dad Lore™️ that they'll ever hear and nobody will believe them when they're told that it happened to him