A/N: Hello! I am crossposting my TMNT pics from AO3..which I meant to do as I finished them in the first place but forgot - oops! This is kind of outdated (though that depends if you've seen S4 or not, I suppose..). All of these are Leonardo centric cos he's my fave and after the S2 finale, I was so overwhelmed by my feelings about it that when we got S3, I had to write something after the first few episodes. There were more, but none of them really got finished.
It'll take me time to transfer what I've written - but in the meantime, you can find me on AO3 under the same username. Enjoy!
"Okay, Leo, let's get you checked out." Donatello's standing at the living room doorway; carefully eyeing up his eldest brother. He's just finished cleaning up some of the scrapes on their youngest brother, Michelangelo. Thankfully none of them had sustained any serious injuries from their fight with the creep. He'd been awake for about twenty four hours by now; working all night to find a way to turn Raphael back to normal. While he was waiting on the serum to drain, he'd checked over April, Casey and Michelangelo. He'd come for Leonardo, first, actually. He'd seen how much his brother was thrown around in the fight with the Creep and he was concerned that it had been too much for his brother; that it would set back his healing. But Leonardo had refused, telling him to check over the others first. Donatello allowed it; he needed someone to be looking over Raphael, anyway, and Leonardo had the best knowledge of medicine after Donatello; he was always the one handing him things, watching him fix up their brothers whenever things went wrong. Plus, he understood that his brother needed normality again; he needed to feel like he was helping.
"I'm fine, Donnie," Leonardo tells him, but he moves to stand anyway, prepared to follow his brother into his lab because he knows his younger brother won't back down.
"No, no, stay sitting, I'll come to you," Donatello rushes over with his first aid kit. "Anything new hurt?"
The older turtle shakes his head, but Donatello checks him over quickly anyway. It wouldn't be the first time that his brother has hidden his injuries from him, afterall. But Leonardo looks to be telling the truth this time; he's a little banged up, but nothing serious.
"Hey, Leo?" Donatello's eyes flicker to Leonardo's face for a second. He's resting his head against the sofa. Leonardo has lost weight in the months since the invasion; he looks more fragile and vulnerable than ever. Donatello makes a mental note to ask April to pick up some junk food next time she leaves the farm; Leonardo needs to start gaining weight.
"Yeah?" "I'm really sorry," Donatello finishes cleaning one of the scrapes on his brothers shoulder. "I should've worked harder on that medicine mutagen; it's my fault Raphael got turned into a plant. My fault you had to get in the firing line again."
Leonardo's eyes open again and he sits up straight again, "It was an accident, Donnie," He tells his younger brother, softly, "No one thinks it was your fault"
"You should," Donatello sighs as he puts his tools away. "If I had just listened to you none of this would have happened in the first place and you wouldn't"-
"Woah, Donnie, hey," Leonardo's hand is on his shoulder, "Stop. Have you been feeling responsible this whole time?"
Donatello's guilty silence is answer enough.
"Donnie, you didn't do this," Leonardo tells his brother, "It was the Foot, not you."
"Yeah, but I argued with you and you got hurt"-
And I'll get hurt again. We're ninjas, Donatello," Leonardo tells him, firmly. "We're all going to get hurt. But what happened to me wasn't your fault; we couldn't have handled all of them. And then you and Mikey would have gotten hurt, too, and you wouldn't have been able to fix us up and know what to do."
Donatello opens his mouth to protest but Leonardo cuts him off, tightening his grip on his shoulder. "You did good, little brother."
"No," Donatello snaps. "I didn't do good, Leo. You almost died! I thought - I thought you were dead, when you crashed through the window. You weren't moving, your breathing was faint and I-I thought we'd lost you for good- "
Leonardo pulls Donatello into him, suddenly. Partly to shut him up, because Leonardo doesn't really want to think about that day. He hasn't offered up much information about what exactly happened to his brothers, and they haven't asked. He knows that they're waiting for him to tell them all about it; but he can't.
Donatello hugs his eldest brother carefully, "Don't leave us again," he mumbles.
"I'm not going anywhere," Leonardo promises. "Don't apologise to me again. Because I don't want to hear it, okay? You don't have anything to apologise for - in fact, I'll hit you if you try to apologise again."
Donatello gives out a shaky laugh in spite of himself, turning his head from his brother in the hopes that he won't notice his watery eyes, "You sound like Raph."
Leonardo grins at him, though it doesn't quite reach his eyes. Still, Donatello lets him off. Leonardo hasn't been smiling or laughing much since he woke up; but he understands that his brother has more than just physical wounds.
"What have I told you about stealing my lines, Leo?!" Raphael's head pokes around the door, suddenly, but he's grinning at them, "You guys coming for breakfast? Mikey's made pancakes."
Donatello straightens up, "Yeah, just a sec. I'm gonna go put my stuff away." He leaves the room quickly, sniffling a little. Raphael frowns after him for a moment, before he notices Leonardo moving stiffly and slowly to get to his feet and grabs his crutch for him, moving it closer for him to hold onto. His eldest brother gives him a small smile as a thanks.
"He's fine," Leonardo informs him, "He just needs a minute."
"Yeah, I heard," Raphael says, gruffly, "You do know that everything you just said to Donatello also applies to you too, right? You don't got anything to be sorry for."
Leonardo grimaces as he finally gets to his feet and starts to hobble, "I didn't say that I did."
"Didn't have to," Raphael grunts, "I know ya."
Leonardo shrugs him off, "I'm starving, let's go eat."
Raphael wakes up to a yelp.
He's out of his bed in seconds, sais in hand. He freezes, listening carefully. It's late - or rather, it's early. There's enough light coming through the curtains in guestroom at the farmhouse that suggests the sun has already risen. But the farmhouse is still and silent, so Raphael knows his brothers are asleep.
All but one, that is. Raphael holds onto his sais just in case, but he has an idea of whose yelp he heard and why. He moves down the stairs quickly, remembering which ones creek and avoiding them so as not to wake anybody else up and slips outside, as quietly as possible.
His suspicions were right, so Raphael returns his sais to his belt and crosses his arms, frowning as he watches his eldest brother training on his own. Leonardo is still shaky on his feet, but he's fighting to put weight on his right leg instead of favouring his left all the time. He's lost more than just a few pounds since the invasion, but Donatello has been carefully monitoring everything that Leonardo eats and he's finally starting to put the weight back on - so Raphael isn't worried about that any more.
Raphael is more concerned that his brother will end up doing more damage to his leg if he keeps pushing himself. Donatello warned him that yes, his brother does to start putting more weight on his injured leg and yes, he does need to start exercising it. But he needs to exercise it gently. His brother is doing anything but that.
If Leonardo does more damage to his leg, he runs the risk of screwing his leg up for good or, at the very least, setting his recovery back by a few extra weeks. And they can't really afford for Leonardo to be out of it for longer than he has to be. They all long to return to the city, to find their father and make the Shredder pay - but they also can't rush it. They can't risk Leonardo doing permanent damage to his leg.
It isn't the first time he's been woken up by his brother this early in the morning; Leonardo has always trained the most out of any of them, so he wasn't surprised by his brothers early morning training session. The first time Raphael was about to yell at him when he caught his brother hobbling downstairs, but when Leonardo finally made it outside, all he did was meditate and do some light stretches. Raphael figured his brother was, amazingly, going to be patient with himself for a change.
But he's not being very patient, today, however. When Leonardo pushes himself to his feet once more to practice another kick, Raphael calls out to him because he's pretty sure his big brother is going to collapse any minute now.
"I think that's enough for today, bro."
Leonardo visibly jumps at his younger brothers voice - and that's worrying because nobody can ever sneak up on Leonardo, but Raphael keeps his face straight and doesn't comment on it for his brothers sake.
"Raph," Leonardo puts his swords away, "I was just, uh, getting some light exercise"-
"Uh huh," Raphael snorts at his brother, grabbing hold of Leonardo's arm to steady him as he almost trips over his own feet on the way back to the farmhouse, "I see."
Leonardo goes to move his arm away and insist that he doesn't need any help but thinks better of it when his brother narrows his eyes at him, so instead he grudgingly accepts the help, but is careful not to put as little of his weight on his little brother.
"You gotta stop pushing yourself like this, bro," Raphael tells him, gruffly, "You're going to really hurt yourself."
Leonardo doesn't reply, too busy concentrating on putting one foot after the other and not tripping up again.
"Leonardo," Raphael full names him so Leonardo knows that he's cross, "Lean on me, you idiot. Stop being stubborn."
"Stop being stubborn?" Leonardo snorts, but he leans a little bit more of his weight on his brother. Not all of it - but enough. "Hi...pot...I'm kettle," he tries to joke, but he's breathing too heavily for it to have the full effect.
They finally make it back into the farmhouse, Leonardo moves to shuffle into the living room but Raphael grabs hold of his shoulder.
"No," he tells him, flatly. "Go back to bed, bro. I've got Don and Mikey today, we'll play follow the leader or somethin'."
"I'm fine, Raph," Leonardo argues, "I can handle it-"
"You aren't fine, Leo," Raphael snaps, "And that's okay. You just woke up from a three month coma, nobody expects you to jump up and be completely healed all of a sudden. Just give yourself a break and rest."
Leonardo stills. He was out for three months, of course it was a coma. But none of them have used the c-word out loud up until now and Leonardo hadn't really thought about it until now and holy crap he was in a freaking coma-
"Leo," Raphael realises what he said, "Shit, sorry, I"-
"Why are you apologising?" Leonardo grumbles, "You're right. It-it was a- coma."
"Shit," Raphael repeats. He doesn't know what to say now. Leonardo sways a bit and he instinctively grabs onto him and steadies him.
"Language, Raphael," Leonardo says, sternly, out of habit. And then he gives his brother a weak grin, "You got the kids then?"
It's old joke - referring to their younger siblings as kids, as though they're the parents. Raphael might not understand the full weight of being leader, but he does understand Leonardo's need to take care of his brothers - to protect them at all costs.
Raphael huffs out a laugh, relieved, "Yeah. Go to bed, bro."