A/N: Chronologically, this takes place about a month after "Auld Lang Syne", and features the same versions of the characters. All of my TMNT fics take place in the same universe, and I'll be posting them in order here.
February 9th.
This isn't the first or even the fifth time April's woken up in the hospital, and as always, Casey's sitting next to her bed, looking almost as bad as she feels. He's asleep, head dropped low between his shoulders. The room is dim, but in the weak light filtering in through the curtains, she can see two handprints' worth of bruises ringing his neck.
"Casey?" she whispers, and cringes as the plastic tubes around her face shift. At least there isn't a feeding tube this time. He doesn't move, so she clears her throat and tries again.
"Casey. What —"
He jolts awake, eyes wild until he sees April reaching out for him, and then he grabs her hand and squeezes until she hisses and tries to pull away.
"Hurts," she says, in her new, sand-blasted voice. Everything hurts, but there's a special pain knotted in her thigh and in her shoulder. Her body feels thick and heavy, like she's filled with seawater. A quiet, serious voice in the back of her head tries to estimate just how much pain medication has been pumped into her to keep the pain at arms'-length, but she can barely concentrate hard enough to keep Casey's face in focus. "What happened?"
For a long, wandering moment, Casey looks like he's about to be sick, and panic slams April right in the gut.
She tries to sit up, hooking numb fingers in the tubes bunched around her head and arms, trying to pull free. If Casey's that bad, and she's this bad, then the guys — then Donnie —
"The guys," she says, already close to crying. "They're not — oh, god…"
"April, April!" Casey squeezes her wrist until she settles back against her pillows, panting and aching. The pain in her thigh gnaws into her muscles, jarred awake by her movement. "C'mon, April, you gotta calm down. The guys are fine."
She sucks in a rattling breath and lets Casey chafe her hand in his to warm it. "They're okay?" There's another question underneath it, a purely selfish one. Casey answers it with a wink and brushes the hair out of her eyes.
"Nothin' worse than what they're used to. Splinter patched 'em up. They been textin' me every fifteen minutes about you for the past two days. I think they're stayin' up in shifts to do it."
"Two —" April tries to blink past the haze from the medication. She knows it's a bad idea to wake up, especially when her thigh already hurts enough to take her breath away, but she does it anyways. "Two days?"
Casey sits down on the edge of her bed, still holding her hand. "Yeah," he says, with the air of a man who really, truly wishes he had never said anything at all.
"W-what the hell happened?" she stutters, and promises herself she won't cry.
Before he speaks, Casey takes a long moment to compose himself, and that, more than the hospital bed, or the tubes and needles, or the pain, is what makes April realize just how bad it was. Casey never hesitates; he goes in yelling and swinging, and Godspeed to whoever gets in his way.
"You fell," he says eventually. "Donnie tried to catch you, but —"
February 7th.
"— April, I didn't catch that. What did you say?" Donnie turns up the volume on his headset and waits for April's reply. He feels his brothers at his back, leaning in close to listen. He waves them back impatiently, wishing at least one of them understood what personal space meant.
"Got movement down by the docks," she whispers, lisping to hide any sibilants that could give her away. "Looks like smugglers — electronics, I think. Casey, don't you dare."
Donnie can only imagine what Casey is trying to do. And he can only imagine the look on April's face, the one that says move one muscle and I reach down your throat and turn you inside out. He's been the recipient of it more than once and it will never not be terrifying.
There's a low sigh from Casey, aggrieved but obedient, and then April's back.
"Sorry, Casey's getting a little excited. Anyways. They're unloading crates of — Casey, can you see? Oh, shit."
"April, April, what is it?"
"Those aren't electronics, they're guns."
Donnie hisses through his teeth, but he's not surprised. New York has been quiet lately — the gathered, waiting kind of quiet. Something big has been heading toward them for a long time, something hungry, and now it's here.
Leo murmurs something to Raph and Mikey, who speed off into the lair. Donnie hears the lock on the armory falling open, and then he refocuses on April's voice and the thin stream of information she's feeding him.
"Looks like small arms, mostly. Handguns."
"Bad news," says Leo, who's draped over the back of Donnie's chair to listen. Donnie gives him ano shit glare and brings up a new window on his monitor. The docks in question have been shut down for years, and even the security cameras are dead. No one uses this place; it's dirty and old, the buildings surrounded with heaps of scrap metal.
April and Casey sweep this part of the docks on their patrols — never the same night, never at the same time, just two black-clad shadows moving from cover to cover, Casey all bulk and muscle against April's fleet, quiet grace. They're a good team. Donnie can say that without jealousy now. It took about eight years, but he can do it.
The patrols are what April does when she should be studying: she hunts down the last remnants of the Foot and the Kraang, and she destroys them.
Donnie knows April isn't interested in vengeance. Her enemies assumed she was, back when they thought she was just a precocious little girl with too much power trapped inside her skull. But no, she doesn't care about vengeance. She doesn't want to make them pay for what they did to her and her loved ones.
She wants them gone. It's that pure, that simple. It's her life's work. Donnie knows it hurts her, that she's not giving back to the world so much as she's taking something out, but Donnie watched her come to terms with what she is. She's a forest fire, not a river, and she'll burn out whatever gets in her way.
Back in the present, April's breath catches. Donnie hears the tiny hitch; his hands clench on the edge of his desk
"April?"
Distantly, he hears Casey whisper. "That fucker."
"April, talk to me."
She draws in a shaky breath. "We've got a problem, Donnie," she whispers. "It's Rahzar."
Donnie bares his teeth, every muscle in his arms going wire-tight. Six years ago, that freak nearly put Leo in a coma, and left April with a set of scars that still bloom rose-red and angry across her back. Donnie knows; he's the one who sewed her up after they got back underground.
Rahzar's supposed to be dead; they saw him topple over the side of a building, snarling and whining, with one of Leo's katana sticking out of his chest. But he's there, a sleek black collection of angles, sniffing the air, eyes gleaming in the dark.
Searching. Searching for April.
"What is it?" asks Leo. Donnie turns around and mouths a single word, a word that makes Leo's eyes go flat and blank. He pushes off the back of Donnie's chair and sets off at a run for the garage. Donnie takes a handful of seconds to grab his satchel and shove a random handful inside — flashbang grenades, smoke bombs, throwing knives.
"We're coming to you," says Donnie, and hangs up.
Donnie leaps out of the Shellraiser and crushes Casey's mask underfoot. The wall of the building yawns over his head, three stories up, and this is very bad.
"We gotta move!" he yells, his brothers piling out behind him, and leaps up the closest fire escape. No need for stealth now; he can already hear the fight high above him, punctuated with the low cough of gunfire.
"How'd he find them?" Mikey asks from a few feet beneath him. "They shoulda hid better!"
Donnie tries not to spell out all the reasons why hiding won't work against a mutant dog-human hybrid who, against all odds, has come back from the dead. Ten more feet to go —
Oh shit. Two smugglers converge on him from either side, guns drawn.
"Donnie, over here!" yells April's voice. He can't see her, but he doesn't need to. It's one of their tricks; instead of following her voice, he spins off in the opposite direction, looping back around the smugglers who are trying to find April.
He sweeps their feet out from under them, and Leo follows him, kicking their guns out of their hands. It gives them a second to assess, to breathe, before leaping back into the fight.
Casey's on his hands and knees, retching, and one of the smugglers is pulling back their foot to kick him again. Raph moves, so quickly it's obscene, and the smuggler topples with a sai impaling his leg.
"Bro! Can you walk?"
"I can walk," Casey wheezes, and pushes himself up. He's got one bat, and Donnie knows it's more than enough. If Casey can stand, if Casey can swing, he's okay. Donnie pulls his bo from its straps and leaps, arms held high, and lands his first blow squarely between a smuggler's shoulders. The vibrations travel up his arms to lodge in his shoulders, but by the time he registers it as pain, he's already moving again, form following form in a smooth, unbroken flow.
I am the river. No stone may stand against me. I am the river.
The odds are just as bad as they always are: thirty against six, but numbers only mean so much against a group of six who know each other so well. Donnie's lived and breathed and trained with his brothers as long as he can remember, and if April and Casey don't have that advantage, they make up for it in other ways. Casey is a battering ram of a human being, a simple, effective bludgeon.
April is a knife in the dark.
She circles the edge of the fight, weaving and darting between figures. Donnie is only aware of her in glimpses, a lean figure in all black, her hair and face covered with a scarf. Once, as she spins past him, her tessen flashing, her hand brushes his arm.
I'm here. Still fighting. Be strong.
One of the smugglers fires blind, a hoarse yell breaking out of him when the bullet bounces off the rooftop less than six inches from Leo's leg. Leo freezes, eyes wide, and the smuggler aims for his head. Donnie starts to shout a warning — Leo, move! — but before the smuggler can squeeze the trigger, April lands a kick to the man's neck that sends him flying.
Once guns entered the picture — real guns, with bullets, not the laughable Kraang versions — the game changed. The turtles fight for higher stakes now.
The smuggler might be dead. No one's going to stop to check, not when the shadows at the end of the roof have begun to shift.
April cuts Donnie a quick glance, a simple with me? that he returns with a nod. By the time Rahzar forms himself out of ragged darkness, April's in motion, slicing through the air with a cry.
Donnie hangs back and waits for his moment. Three seconds, two seconds, one.
When Rahzar swipes at April, she feints left and rolls under the sweep of his arm. The forward momentum of his swing carries Rahzar forward, stumbling, right into Donnie's reach.
Perfect, he thinks, and swings. The move worked on Raph in practice, but only once. They won't be able to do this again, but with luck, once will be enough.
His swing connects with the side of Rahzar's head, right along the jaw. He pivots on one foot and cracks Rahzar in the back of the knee; when Rahzar falls, Donnie brings his bo down into the notch between the beast's shoulder blades, where a fragile nerve center clusters.
Rahzar coughs and tumbles face-down onto the roof, claws scrabbling in the gravel as his eyes go dull.
The gunshots have faded. Each rough concussion is followed by a longer silence, broken only by Mikey's yells and harsh panting as the last of the smugglers try to get away. Donnie presses his foot down over Rahzar's neck, where the pulse beats low and fevered, and gives himself a moment to catch his breath and look around.
Raph is huddled against an AC unit, covering Casey as the man tries to shove himself upright. Casey's neck is already bruised, like someone tried to choke him, and a burst of anger pushes Donnie's foot down on Rahzar's neck a little harder. On the far end of the roof, Mikey toys with two smugglers swinging pipes, dancing out of their reach and laughing. They're clouded with fury, and have no idea that he's leading them right into Leo's orbit until his older brother leaps out of cover, silent and shadowed.
They're all fine: battered but fine. April moves back into his sightline, a black shape against the night sky, making her perimeter sweep as the battle winds down. Rahzar shifts against his foot, growling, and April kicks him in the jaw as she passes. Donnie has to smother a laugh that's made of more malice than humor.
The last two smugglers fall to the roof, and Leo stalks over to Donnie and April with blank eyes. It's always disconcerting to see from the outside, though Donnie knows his don't look any different. April moves to stand at the back to let Leo kneel in front of Rahzar.
"You should have stayed far away from New York," says Leo, in a voice as sharp as a winter wind. "Things have changed since you were here last."
Rahzar pulls in enough air to laugh, and Donnie adds a little more pressure on his neck. "Idiots," Rahzar gasps. "You think the storm is over, but it's just beginning."
Between Rahzar and the roof's edge, April flicks open her tessen, the sound small but emphatic. Donnie watches her, hungry for the sight of her in ways he doesn't allow himself any other time. She pulls the scarf away from her mouth to flash him a grin he's been seeing a lot more of since New Year's, and one she only ever seems to use on him. But she's still alert, with that clarity in her gaze that means she's reaching out with all her senses, and Donnie's heart twists with mingled pride and love when she nods the all clear.
She's so strong. He shifts a few feet to his right to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her.
Casey limps over with Raph's arm around his shoulders, and they close in a tight circle around Rahzar, weapons gleaming in the night.
Leo gives Rahzar a sliver of a smile that chills Donnie straight through. "Whatever you've got," says Leo, "we're ready."
Rahzar scoffs. "Are you?" he hisses, and kicks out behind him. April's feet go out from under her, her arms pinwheeling at empty air as she topples backwards.
Three stories down.
"No —!" Donnie claws at the air, inches away from where April's hand reaches out for his, her eyes wide and desperate in her white, bloodless face. "April!" He lunges, stumbling, choking, reaching.
He feels her fingertips against his, and then she's gone in a silent flutter of black silk.