Crime fighting And The Art OF Motorcycle Maintenance
Please note (as it should become obvious) that this story plays heavily with different cannon versions of the various TMNT media such as the original comics, the Archie comics and the what the 2007 movie suggests to us if we were to pay attention and use our imaginations instead of falling back to the safe zone of "It's all the same as teh first mooovieeeee!!!11!!" If something dosen't make sense to you, it's because even if events described in this story didn't take place in the movie they most certainly did in my head, there's nothing to prove they didn't happen in a universe where according to Kevin Monroe "They've had all their adventures" and Laurence Fish burn "they battled many creatures and foes before defeating the Shredder" and their all cool ideas anyway. Biased fans of either side of the following arguments are asked to check their rabid fanisim and "OMG tey suxz an I hate em!!!" attitude at the door. Both views are valid. I should know.
After all, who said movie Leo and Raph had to hate each other all the time?
---
Raphael hissed, trying to ignore the smell of disinfectant and other more chemical smells.
"Yeah, don't hold back or nothing Don."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
Donatello's hands glided over the bandage covering the gash across his brother's shoulder, moving slowly and quickly respectively. Stitches had been out of the question until the flesh lost that poison purple and matted black motif, so delicacy in apply suitable protection from infection was secondary to actually getting the thing to hold. Also maybe this would actually get the point across to the universe in general that it wasn't polite to deprive people of much needed caffeine.
Mike snickered.
"Shut up." Raphael said, but his heart wasn't in it. No arm jab or anything. Downright worrying. Almost.
Mike shook his head, tightening his bandana.
"Dude, c'mon. It was funny."
Raph's lip curled.
"You wanna be over here for a broken back?"
"Mmmmm…nope."
"Then shut up."
Don, ever the scientist, was curious despite himself.
"So where did tonight's little souvenir come from?"
"Okay." Mike piped up, before Raphael could say 'Nowhere.', "So we're like, down in Chelsea, y'know that kinda little park 'bout a hundred miles or something between the High Line and London Terrace?"
"No." Don replied. That was ignored.
"So we're, like, up on the roof of this apartment block after taking out these idiots…"
"What are thieves doing on top of an apartment block?"
"Dude, cat burglars."
"You don't get cat burglars anymore."
"Yeah you do."
"Selina Kyle dosen't count, Mike."
"Shut up. Anyway, we've taken them out and it was all kinda like 'Huh', 'cause y'know, you don't get that kinda thing in Chelsea."
"I know. You wouldn't think so would you, it's such a nice little place."
"Dude, have you ever been to Chelsea?"
"Yes, that's why I think it's a nice little place."
"On garbage night?"
"Why would I go there on garbage night?"
"I dunno."
"Can I go now?" Raphael asked without really asking.
Don's hand was like a manacle as it forced him back down onto the toddler's straddle on the gurney he'd been trying to get off of.
"Sit. I have been to Chelsea, I think it's kind of scenic."
"Anyway we just took out these guys, okay? And we're heading over to this little park, lot of shadows and stuff, when we hear this sound, this kinda mewing sound, y'know? And we see this little kid, little girl. Couldn't be more than…I dunno, five? Six maybe? Seven?"
He turned to Raph.
"Would you have said she was five?"
There was a sound like a wolf just before the pounce.
"Six." Mike decided.
Don blinked, gazing at first one, then the other.
"So…this entire thing was caused because a cat was stuck up a tree?"
"This is not an 'entire thing'."
Raphael winced at the defensive edge to his voice. Or maybe the shoulder wound, both hurt like hell.
"Uh huh." Don replied, dry as sandpaper and just as unimpressed.
Mike had taken the opportunity to start snickering.
"Mike, if you don't shut up I am getting up and I am getting my bike, and I am running right over your shoulder until you don't even remember having one anymore."
"Love you to." Mike winked. He turned to Don.
"Know what the best part is? After Superman here almost bursts his arm open falling off that branch…"
"It was rotten." Raphael shot back, but the effect was ruined slightly by the mumble that slurred his voice.
"…the first thing she says is 'Are oo an angul?'! How freaking cute is that?"
Don simply smiled as opposed to Mike's guffawing (actual guffawing, like he was trying to heave up his own stomach) but Raphael still felt…not embarrassed by it, but more aware of the wound than he should have been.
"She saw you?"
He didn't look up, as Don and Mike did. His face seemed too heavy from hardening.
Leonardo stood in the chamber doorway. Arms crossed. Never a good sign. Raphael should know. That was what he did when he was really pissed.
Mike looked from brother to brother, blue eyes nervious. Don simply looked resigned, chair and shell scraping off one another as he stood, pushing it back to stand. He tugged at Mike's arm.
"C'mon Mikey, I've got the second round on Preteen Metahuman Samurai Chickens."
Mike followed, firmly shrugging off Don's hand, but still looking a lot smaller and younger than he should. Raphael felt a lair slip off his face slightly as he watched the back of his shell. Leo didn't turn his head to follow the others as they left, statue solid. But his eyes did flicker to the floor. Don paused out in the hallway.
"Guys? At least try to keep it down, huh?"
Their eyes met as he left. After a while Leo unfolded his arms, sliding the door shut. Not slamming it, but the click as it reached the end of the arch had a certain finality.
"Is it true?"
"Yeah."
Raphael felt himself glaring as he spoke.
"What if it is?"
Leo's brow furrowed as he stepped further into the room, firm steps carrying him quickly across the floor and in front of Raphael more suddenly than either of them seemed comfortable with.
"You let a human see you?"
It wasn't a question. Raphael didn't know what it was, but the tone made a jarring rattling as it bounced off his armour.
"Yeah Leo. You don't listen in to conversations when yer spying on them?"
The silence was as heavy and as sudden as an anvil to the head.
"Look, that came out wrong…"
Leo sighed.
"Figured. But still…"
"Oh come on!"
"It was a cat, Raph!"
"She was six years old, Leo!"
"You don't…"
Leo stopped himself, but that didn't make Raph feel better. If it had been anything nice he wouldn't have had to.
"I don't what? Come on fearless leader, take yer shot. It's what you're for right?"
"You're being defensive." Leo said, but he backed away a little, resting against a wall.
"I think I'm kinda entitled."
Leo sighed, looking away.
"I thought we were passed this."
Raphael stood up suddenly, almost surprising himself as much as Leo.
"So did I! You're the one who cracked the whip, not me."
Leo folded his arms again.
"But you just get to break every bone in your body and wind up on CNN and I'm supposed to say nothing?"
Raphael felt himself clutch his shoulder almost guiltily, the slight sting fading in the rising throb in his head.
"CN…Leo, what the hell? This is over the top. Even for you."
Silence again. He hated the silence. It made it easier to hear the pulse drumming away deep down in your chest, and if you heard that the next thing to break the silence probably wouldn't be very nice.
"You got hurt." Leo said quietly. Raphael almost missed it. He sat down on the gurney, the throbbing covered by the sudden squeak of hinges.
"Just a scratch, Leo. Donny insisted on treating it. It'd be gone by morning." The last part was almost a laugh. Leo wasn't smiling. It wasn't quite clear what his face was doing.
"Hurt. Seen. Alone. Not exactly something I'm comfortable with."
The last couple of minutes made a lot more sense.
"Christ, Leo…"
Leonardo looked down.
"Had nightmares about that a couple of times. Talked to Splinter about them, but I wouldn't be me if I didn't have something paranoid going on in there."
He shrugged far too casually for Raphael's liking.
"Comes with the territory."
Raphael shook his head, arm forgotten.
"Why do that to yourself, man?"
"You're the one who'd sneak topside looking for walking punching bags whenever you're favourite TV show got cancelled. Don't you berate me."
Ignoring the fact he hadn't been, not entirely, the fact he'd met his best friend that way, and the feeling that flashed like the glint of a tiger's claw through his brain, Raphael let that one slide, changing gears.
"At least I dealt with it."
"So do I. I meditate."
"Ya think. Yeah, that's what you're good at. I can do that to. And I know you, Leo."
Raphael looked up, straight into his brother's brown eyes. They reminded him of brownstone bricks, solid and firm, like the earth had burst through the sidewalk and risen in complex yet simple shapes, one of the reasons he loved the city as much as he did. He'd seen them like that in the face of a good fifty Foot Ninja. From behind a helmet visor over a busted police scanner crackle. They didn't look like that right now.
"This isn't about the cat, so how about you ask the real question here?"
Leo's eyes asked the question for him. Raphael narrowed his.
"The helmet's out on display if you'd like to check."
"And the rest of the stuff?" Leo looked away. Sorry at how forcefully the question had come out. Raphael held back the sharp retort, electing for the basic facts.
"Gave it to Don. Haven't seen it since. Casey got the bike." He smiled. "Knucklehead's probably got it wrapped around somebody's fender by now. But you can trust me bro. I promised and I stuck by it."
How could he not have?
"I do. You've been at my side and had my back as much as Mike, or Don, or Splinter or anyone we've fought alongside. You've taken worse than that scratch to. For me or just because you were you. At the top of the Foot's skyscraper, the Rat King's tunnels, out on asteroid belts and planets we don't have names for. I'll do everything I can to hold onto your life, but don't think for a second I won't put mine in your hands."
"So? It's still me under the costume." He caught himself. "Was. It's still me, still the same."
"No. It's not."
"What?"
"It's not the same. Never has been. Never going to be. It's not."
"How?"
"It's just not."
Raph felt the all too familiar feelings seep in, almost overflow. His palms itched, demanding to be clenched, but he fought it. This might actually get him to the route of Leo's vigilante problem. Maybe understanding. Each of them could use a little of that. At least he'd be trying to get why rescuing a cat was such a big deal.
"Okay, so…you trust me. So what's the problem?"
"I know I can trust you."
Leo looked at him for a long time, face unreadable, until…
"But I couldn't trust him."
A crack. A slight narrowing of the eyes, as though at a bad taste. Raphael raised an eye brow.
"Can't. Trust. Him."
Leo nodded, that same look on his face. Raph felt he ought to be offended by it, but also as though it wasn't aimed at him. Maybe that's why he let Leo continue, but being on the verge of this reasoning he could only continue, keep going until he struck gold. Or lava.
"No. When I returned… found the city like that, under the protection of an unknown…it felt twice as dangerous. The crooks were gone, yeah, but people knew. People knew something was out there, something not…normal."
The throbbing was a sound, Raphael realised. The sound of rain and far off thunder. Closer thunder, angry sparks of thunder pounding out of the words and across the rooftop. The Halloween comment. The danger to the family.
"I was careful." Raphael said coldly. "The entire outfit was so people wouldn't know what was out there."
"How many people did you punch?"
Raphael blinked. What the hell kind of question was that? Leo shrugged.
"In the face."
Raphael shrugged back.
"Couple of hundred?"
"With three fingers?"
Raphael caught on.
"That dosen't matter."
"It could."
Leo sounded a lot more surer than he had been.
"But it didn't."
"But it could."
"So?" Raphael almost got off the gurney, but instead stayed still. No moving, no backing down. Not that Leo would think that way, but maybe…damn it.
"Okay, yeah, I can see how that works, but so what? The cops only knew I was…that someone was out there because I left evidence."
He almost winced at how stupid that sounded.
"I know. All they had was a name. No photos of him. No photos of this guy who can jump over rooftops, who can catch the punks they can't. No photos of someone who rides a demon from hell and can put a human skull through solid brick like it's wet cardboard. Even though there are cameras everywhere."
Raphael blinked as though Leo had just appeared out of thin air, and not the usual ninja way. That sounded like the bottom of page seven from the kind of newspaper that kept up with the Lockness Monster and Elvis' secret island get away.
"You're gonna have to teach me that one sometime, Jungle Boy."
"Those are some of the rumours I overheard about the…about you when I came home. All over the TV, on the street…not all of them were that nice."
"But it all adds up. No one knows exactly who this dwarf in the black suit is, and all that alien demon rider garbage just piles on top of itself."
"Right. No finger prints and they're not even sure how many fingers he actually has, if he even has hands. Custom tires, the same you and Don scrounged up for the Shell Cycle way back, and all they really know is he rides a bike, and that piece of concrete is less hard than they thought because it could go anywhere from make to length to metal. He can't possibly be human, but what else could he be? No pictures of him even though there are cameras everywhere. How could they not be afraid of you? How long until they started looking for something tangible?"
Raphael did stand up this time.
"Hey, we're ninjas. If we're as good as we say we are, we don't leave a trace. Although apparently we're ninjas meant to do nothing about society's problems because they're too scared to let us help."
"But we're not part of society Raph."
Leo sounded so…empty when he said that. Raphael couldn't quite see where this was going anymore. Never could with this sort of thing, but it was unnerving. Not words so much as tone, like Leo had given up. Their gazes never wavered from one another but it wasn't a contest anymore, it just…was.
"You go out there, you say you go out there and watch over them and everything, but last time you hit the surface, what did you do?"
Raphael opened his mouth to respond, but paused as Leo seemed to think it over a little more.
"I mean…" he sighed "Did you hit another movie theatre? Like you used to, y'know?"
Silence. Raphael shook his head, sitting back down. The joints didn't make a sound this time. It may as well have been supporting air. Bubbling, hot, angry air.
"Is this your new philosophy again? Letting punks and pimps and pushers get away with worse then murder because you can't be bothered to save anybody?"
This had been an issue in the months before Leo's training, after the lack of Shredder after so long had truly started setting in. The crime syndicates dried up fast, and while Leo seemed to see that as them scrambling to dig a well to fill up the gap the disorganised remnants of the Foot had left behind, Raphael saw it as burying a lot of things people like Casey and April didn't need. Not that he'd said as much. They'd moved onto insults by then. A new high (or low) given their usual arguments over methodology. But for a while it had become about everything. Books, TV, the fact the lair never seemed clean enough…
"People pay the police to handle anti social dangers to their community because they are the designated authority. I know that sounds like a congressman trying to slide out of something, but that is how it works."
Raphael took a step forward. Leo didn't move.
"Congressmen also pay cops not to talk about the dead under eighteen year olds under their beds."
"Then that's the communities problem."
"Oh, so then I shouldn't gut the fat ass, and leave him hanging outside the mayor's place as a message to him and the rest of his assembly line yes men?"
"No."
Leo's pose was suddenly a lot more firmer, his eyes sharper than his blades and twice as narrow.
"You see some one pulling crap like that, right in front of you, just like that, to a loved one or just somebody in the wrong place and the wrong time, I expect you to give him a taste of hell and leave him alive if you feel like watching his career drag his life down into the dark with him. Some mugger tries to take more than just a person's money, I damn well expect you to cripple him, even if you have to break cover from the shadows, and only because I know each of us is fast enough to do it without being seen. But…"
Leo paused there, eyes slowly moving over Raphael's face. Something strange was happening in them, like water in the southern hemisphere flowing backwards. Or like a vault lock turning, the combination coming undone. Opening up…
"Know what I used to think when we'd take out a Triceraton platoon, back before we found out they were getting beamed in from TGRI?"
Raphael said nothing.
"One down."
Leo turned away, his shell to his brother, addressing the wood of the door. Probably because if he collapsed from the strain of getting this off his chest he'd at least have something to support himself against.
"One more of the freaks and monsters and ninjas and demons down, and back to hunting for food and places to hide so we could play video games and watch TV and eat. Like a family should. Because eventually we would run out of guys like the Shredder and Savanti Romeo, and maybe even start thinking about life beyond just…surviving."
When he finally turned to look over his shoulder slightly, it wasn't the face of a berating leader looking back. Raphael realised it never had been.
"But when we took down all the bad guys and mad scientists and mousers, evil didn't go away. It never does. Not that kind."
"What kind?" Raphael asked softly.
"Humanity."
Leo shut his eyes for a few seconds, substituting it for a big breath.
"And you just had to pick an enemy you couldn't beat."
"The horn heads may have blown up their own planet Leo, but last I checked they seemed capable of making babies much as the next species. How's that supposed to be different?"
Leo turned sharply.
"Because their not part of society. They're a problem to society, yeah, but so is an asteroid on collision course with the equator. It's a planet level threat. Like you said, they may keep coming, but they don't have enough for full scale invasion, not anymore."
"We can't take a comet, Leo."
"We can take a Triceraton platoon. Especially the last ten stupid enough to still be walking around the same solar system as us with no atmosphere converter and no commands from the top brass."
"But you just proved what I've always said."
Raphael unclenched his fist. He was very worried by the fact he didn't remember closing it.
"Burn out the nest, and the infestation is halfway gone."
"Except there's maybe a thousand Triceratons left in all of Dimension X, those that didn't retire out to Stump Asteroid anyway. And there's well over six million people on this planet right now. Maybe fifty more by the time I stop talking. More than us by the time we die."
Raphael was as incredulous as he had been the first time he heard something similar, about a year ago in a quite sewer tunnel lit by steam grating filtered star light.
"And we should just let those that don't get the idea they're all in it together do whatever they want?"
"I never said that."
"But ya mean it, don't you?"
Leo's expression almost surprised him from the sheer intensity.
"Damn it Raph! What the hell do you want? Another fight?"
"You do not get to play that card! Guilting me into something…"
"But you do?"
Neither had been shouting, but the room still rang. Too big, too small. A universe of it's own, full of nothing except them. And that couldn't work. If a universe of over a billion couldn't get along, what chance had two? Raphael wondered if they ever would after all that.
"We've always had differences, but that was new."
He looked up at Leo, not realising he'd been staring at the floor. His face tightened with resolve.
"Yeah, but I was way outta line. Not with The Nightwatcher thing," he added quickly ", but the whole…us not needing you thing. We were falling apart, probably because I was doing my own thing, and…I just couldn't…I dunno."
Leo's silence suggested he understood regardless.
"And maybe I could have looked past the role and seen that. Been there when I had to instead of playing ghosts."
Raphael blinked, frowning from something other than anger for virtually the first time in the conversation.
"Huh?"
"Nothing. Well, not nothing. Not…exactly."
"Nah, c'mon. Tell me."
Leo looked away. Raphael couldn't be sure, but he had a hunch the vague itch spreading across his face was an infection from a smile trying to play across his brother's own.
"Sort of…can't find the words. Stupid. It was stupid. Forget it."
"No, c'mon…"
"I don't…uh…"
"Leo…"
Leo shut his eyes, head shaking, teeth flashing.
"No!"
"C'mon!"
A fist tightened, and Leo was suddenly looking at him. Not the leader, not the brother. Just…Leo. The guy who'd watch wrestling with him even if he didn't have a book to read instead, the guy who used to split his share of ice cream back before they really started training.
"It was kinda my philosophy in action."
"Like…what, exactly?"
"There were these…racketeers. I guess. In South America. They shook up villages and stuff. Mob of the jungle. I was near one of villages they hit."
He wasn't smiling anymore.
"No police, no DA's, no help, nothing legal. Not for miles. I couldn't do nothing."
Raphael nodded for him to continue after a few minutes of silence that didn't sound like the end of a sentence.
" I killed their leader. Drove their convoy back to the village outskirts and pushed the whole damn thing back down in there. Maybe a kid saw me then. Maybe it was just one of their urban legends or jungle stories or whatever. But I became something to those people even though I never intended to."
"A symbol." Raphael said simply.
Leo shrugged.
"That what you were thinking?"
Raphael didn't need to ask about what.
"Not at first. But that's kinda why I didn't kill any of the punks I took on, though God knows I should've in a couple of cases. A lot. But that's why I also leave a bunch of idiots still breathing after I hit the streets with Casey. I don't wanna be one, but…"
He shrugged, arm wound (such as it was) forgotten.
"Community can need that kind of thing, man."
"Does family? That kind?"
Raphael didn't answer because he wasn't sure he had one. Leo shrugged in admittance.
"Well…some out there, maybe. Everyone needs stability. Comfort. Hope."
"Yeah." Raphael said softly. "Something like that."
Only…had it really been for them?
"And you still go out of your way to rescue a cat from a tree."
Raphael waved a hand vaguely, grinning.
"Asshole."
"Jackass."
Leo shook his head so fast his bandana tails almost caught in the gravity of his smirk.
"Can't believe all this started this over a cat."
"You can't believe it?"
They smirked at each other in silence for a while, feeling the air texture change. Eventually each gaze moved back to the floor, Leo placing him self next to Raphael on the gurney the only sound. Raphael felt his brother's eyes on his shoulder and looked up despite himself. Leo looked back, honestly.
"I worry about you, you know that right?"
"Yeah."
Silence settled itself, hopeful that would be the last interruption. It would be so lucky.
"Mike, the hell…!?"
"Oh, dude!"
"What is…"
"Don't…I can explain…!"
"Get off!"
"Down boy! Sit!"
"That's…I…that's not…hey!"
"I can fix that, I can fix that…"
"Not in Splinter's room, not in Splinter's room, do not let that thing in Splinter's room!"
Both turtles sprinted out into the chamber at the sound of furniture overturning, reaching for weapons that weren't there. The scene that greeted them was less disastrous than they had expected, although Don would probably need help getting the couch off from on top of him so he could get off the coffee table, and the trail of junk from Mike's room would need to be picked up and put back down on the right floor. Splinter's room, thank the lord Jesus Christ, seemed to have been left alone. Or at least Mike's legs were sticking out of it, kicking wildly. His torso emerged triumphantly, holding something aloft.
"Ha ha!"
Then he saw them.
"Um…"
"Mike…" Leo began.
Raphael squinted at the emerald sized eyes embedded in the thatch of ginger fur.
"Hey, that's.."
"Yeah." Mike admitted. The small tomcat in his hands sniffed the air and stared at Raphael.
"Mikey, what the hell is that doing here?"
"When we settle on a way to kill him," Don's voice calmly lilted from beneath the couch ",I want to go first. Using his own nunchucks."
Leo looked from all three of his brothers (or alternatively what he could see of them) then focused back on the cat, now held almost protectively at Mike's chest height.
"You kept it?"
"Kinda…"
"How can you 'kinda' keep a cat you pulled out of a tree?"
"I pulled out of a tree." Raphael said pointedly. He felt it was an important distinction to make.
Mike was mumbling, but years of living under the same tunnel ceiling had adapted their ears to pick up the slightest embarrassed vibration.
"Well, after Raph, y'know…dropped him and ran away, I went and got the little guy and she said it wasn't hers and she didn't like cats and I could keep it, so I figured…why not, right? I mean…well, look at him."
He held the creature up again, hopefully.
Leo looked sidelong at Raphael, who was looking at the cat. A certain small but very sharp part.
"You kept him?"
"Yeah."
"Where?"
"I just snuck into my room after Don pulled Raph into the OR. I just figured…"
Mike shrugged hopelessly. The cat placed a paw on his hand thoughtfully, then nestled further into the hold to go back to watching Raphael.
Leo looked at Don, who was up right now and shrugging.
"He got to keep it. No collar. Probably nowhere to go, but pretty clean for a stray. Seems gentle enough with him."
Leo looked at the cat, Raph, Don, then head on at Mike.
"Did he touch anything in Splinter's room?"
"Uh…no?"
"Then we'll probably survive to ask the question. If he comes back from April and Casey's before dawn. And has had plenty of tea."
Mike's face lit up brighter than a Christmas tree in Times Square.
"Dude, for real!?"
"Yeah," Leo smirked. "For real."
"Awesome!"
Mike turned the cat around to face him, smirking as it looked him up and down before pressing an ear against his chest.
"And I shall call thee…Klunk, son of Odin!"
Don swivelled a shoulder experimentally, marching towards them.
"Well if that thing is staying in the same tunnels as us, I'm damn well making sure he gets shots every hour on the hour."
"Dude, no way."
"Yes way."
"Nu uh."
Mike stood up, holding Klunk over his head. Don came closer.
"Yu huh."
"Nope."
"Yep."
"Nay."
"Aye."
"Okay. Cat's yours."
Mike's shell pattern was practically embedded in the air by the source of a sonic boom as he was suddenly hurtling up the iron stairs to the circular catwalk.
"Gotta catch us first!"
"Mike, get back here or I'm going to be very annoyed! Bruce Banner annoyed! You like that kind of annoyed smart person? We can be very evil!"
Don raced after him, paused, spun and shot towards the other stairway, arms outstretched manically.
"Mike!"
Raphael stopped shaking his head because Leo was doing enough of that. But they shared a smile.
"Like a bike, huh?"
Leo turned to look at him, ignoring the clanging and whooping overhead.
"Huh?"
"Ya never forget."
"Y'know I never quite got that. Maybe because I only ever rode a bike once."
"Then I gotta show you this."
Raph snagged his arm and began heading for the old network of passages leading to the warehouse Don had stored some of his larger inventions.
"Got a real live Harley out of the dump. Used it as a template as well as the Shell Cycle when I was putting the Nightwatcher together. Thought I'd get around to restoring it one day. Never did. C'mon, I'll show ya how smooth these things can run when everything does wha it's supposed to."
"No." Leo said. But he smiled and allowed himself to be led along the passageways.