VIGILANCE

Disclaimer: Make no money on this.

Rated: MA

Warnings: Mentions of rape, violence, interspecies innuendo- sexual situations, character death, destruction, kink, heartbreak, comfort, tons of sexual tension and angst, sex toys, dirty minded turtles- Don't like, DONT READ.

Summary: The city is safe from Krang and Shredder for now, the turtles focusing on patrolling the streets of New York, protecting its citizens from criminal threats that lurk on every street, hidden in plain sight. When Leo saves a young woman from such a threat, he finds himself battling not only the bad guys, but his own foreign emotions. With the Foot Clan exploring ways to bring back their leader, will Leo's distraction come at the expense of the world?

AN: I will endeavor to make these chapters short, as I tend to be long winded.

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Chapter One: Don't Let the Bad Men Win

Blue eyes scanned the street several stories below. Their gaze missed nothing, honing in on the slightest detail. Every person was evaluated and dismissed with a practiced eye. Any form of dishonest behavior, and the blue eyes would have pierced them, watching their movement until they were alone before pouncing. Many bad men had been apprehended since the turtles had saved the city from Krang and his war machine. Chief Vincent had been very accommodating, giving the turtles their own special code to contact the police for when they catch a criminal. Crime rates were on the decline thanks to the shelled protectors.

Each night, the turtles focused on one section of the city, hoping to appear as random as possible, lest a pattern be detected and their movements predicted. That could be disastrous. Though the officers who had assisted the turtles during the invasion were more welcoming and friendly, there were still people who would not understand the vital role the turtles played in saving the world. And those who have limited information were usually the first to jump to conclusions and cause untold suffering, for all parties involved.

With Shredder gone, his Foot Clan scattered and leaderless, and Krang in another dimension, the turtles had no enemies in which to fight. But Leo would not allow them to fall into an idle rut. He demanded excellence, every day.

So that is how Leonardo ended up on the rooftop of an apartment building, watching the streets below. His brothers were spaced out 5 blocks away, maintaining their own surveillance, yet close enough to offer assistance if so needed.

Leo's walkie on his shoulder chirped, letting him know someone was breaking radio silence.

"Dudes, this wind is irritating my shell." Michelangelo complained from his perch on a radio tower.

"Bull," Raph growled. "You just want to get home and watch Dancing With the Stars."

"Hey, those dancers are kick ass," Mikey said, watching the foot traffic below.

"What part of radio silence don't the two of you understand," Leo hissed into his own walkie. Honestly, his brothers were more talkative than women at a salon.

"Bored, bro," Mikey said, swinging on the metal of the antenna above. "There's no action here. It's dead. Night is a bust. We should totally go home."

"Agreed," Raph said.

Leo saw motion out of the corner of his eye. He sighed in exasperation as his brothers converged on his location. Donatello was the last to arrive. He flicked his wrist to activate a device. The light cast a pale blue over his green face.

"Leo, crime statistics for this neighborhood are less than 5%," Donnie started. "However, if we moved twenty blocks north, the statically probability of a crime increases exponentially to 68.3%, with a slight variable adjustment for Wednesday."

"Wednesday, dude?" Mikey asked. "What does that have to do with anything?'

Donnie opened his mouth to begin a long winded theory about the day of the week that correlates with crime, when Raph pushed past the gangly turtle to approach Leo.

"Leo, this night is a bust. Let's go home."

"Totally second that motion!" Mikey put in, grinning. No doubt there was a long list of shows he wanted to watch.

"I would recommend returning to the lair as well," Donnie put in, turning off his wrist devise. "We have been on patrol for eight days straight. There should be random times we take a break. It would help distort any possible pattern to prevent us from being tracked by unsavory eyes."

Leo sighed in resignation. All three of his brothers were talking in very loud voices which surely carried to the street 15 stories below. Had they no concept of the definition of ninja?

Knowing he was defeated, Leo nodded toward the east side. "Go. I'll be in later."

"You're hopeless," Raph said, already heading toward the side that offered the best access to the sewer. "Enjoy yourself. Come on, guys. Let's go home."

Mikey whooped, his voice hollow along the concrete ravine. "Dudes, I bet you a whole pizza Leo has a girl and wants to be alone with her."

"Shut up, Mikey," echoed down into the sewer were the brothers disappeared.

Leo waited until his brothers were gone and slipped between the shadows, making his way north. Given the loudness of his brothers, it was prudent to move on. Finding suitable shadows in which to hide, Leo crouched down, watching the street from above.

Humans milled about, going about their evening rituals. Stray cats offered their own mark to the heavily graffitied walls. Traffic rumbled as background noise. Pedestrians went about their daily lives, oblivious to the 6foot turtle watching over them.

An hour passed in statuesque silence. Had one glanced up, they would have assumed there was a strange gargoyle perched on the ledge. As always with the bustling city, it never slept, something always going on along the avenues and in the many clubs that throbbed with the life of the city.

Leo checked the time on his phone. He suppressed a sigh at seeing the screensaver Mikey had snuck onto his phone. He'd have to get Donnie to remove the picture of the naked girl and replace it with his customary turtle crest.

11:06

Hardly late by New York standards, but Leo was getting a little stir-crazy. Traffic was sparse along this avenue, capturing very little interest. Leo stood, stretching his muscles before heading back to the lair to find out what craziness his brothers had gotten into on their night off.

He was about to leave when movement caught his eye.

Three males, hiding in the shadows of the adjacent alley. They had walked casually down the block and secreted themselves into the darkness. A rather furtive move. Highly suspicious. Less than a second later, Leo realized the object of their attention.

A woman. Wrapped in an oversized jacket, her head down as she plod along the sidewalk. Completely oblivious to her new audience.

Muscles rippled beneath green skin.

The men hidden in shadows bled one to another, following the woman's progress. When she turned down a deserted alley, they mirrored her actions, obscured by the night.

But not to the watchful eyes of Leonardo. He in turn, mirrored their action, alert to any hidden threat as they advanced toward their prey, unknown they were not the hunters, but the hunted.

Leo waited, poised above the gloomy corner. Just as he thought, the men attacked, grabbing the woman and spinning her around. Her cry of pain as she disappeared into the opaque maw sent Leo into action. The darkness swallowed him as easily as the woman, though he was a highly trained warrior, thirsting for combat.

Power radiated through his frame, a delightful crunch of bone to knuckle created a symphony in the alley. One man went down with a single blow, his face partially crushed from the impact with Leo's steel fist.

The second man tried to fight the darting shadow, but he too suffered a heavy blow that rendered him unconscious. He crumpled in a bloody heap, his face smashed into a vomit stained copy of last weeks paper.

The third man grabbed the woman from behind, holding her as a shield in front of himself. His eyes tried to make out the large shape in the dark, but he was unable to penetrate the night.

"Back off, man! Or I'll kill her!" A sliver of a blade flashed in his hand, held close to her throat. "Back off, or I swear, I'll kill her."

"I highly doubt that," Leo said, his voice low, threatening. Terrifying.

With the speed and accuracy of years training in martial arts, Leo lashed out, knocking the knife aside and slamming his fist into the side of the man's head. Screaming, the man tried to regain his weapon, but Leo was faster, punching him to the face. The criminal fell to the ground, immobile.

"Oh my gosh," the woman cried out, lurching toward Leonardo. "Thank you! Thank you so much! Oh my gosh, those men were going to hurt me!"

Leo stepped out of her reach, dodging her open arms with ease while he spoke. "No problem, Ma'am. I suggest you alert the authorities."

"What?" the lady gasped, arms dropping to her sides. Her silhouette was a lumpy shape in the pale illumination of the yellow streetlamp that peered around the corner. "The police. Yes. Yes, of course. You're right. I need to call the police."

"Stay safe, Ma'am," Leonardo said before swinging up to the side of the building and disappearing over its edge. He was sure the shadows hid his features. He jumped from the rooftops, circling the alley he just abandoned and watched from the opposite side as the woman pulled out her phone and called the police. Leo followed suit, texting the emergency number and location to Chief Vincent.

Within ten minutes the police arrived. The three thugs were still unconscious as they were arrested and transported away. Leo observed from a safe distance as an EMT approached the woman and began talking in hushed tones. After a minute she nodded and followed the young man to the back of an ambulance, where Leo was able to get a view of her for the first time.

A round face framed by a wealth of dark red hair. Her lips a strawberry pink and formed a perfect bow. Her skin was a pale, flawless porcelain that made her eyes appear overly bright. But it wasn't her beauty that caught Leonardo's attention.

It was the blood that stained her temple and cheek.

Leo's fists tightened in anger. It was one thing to fight an enemy that meant to do you harm. There were no genders when it was life of death.

But for a male to attack a female? A helpless, innocent woman, simply for the act of terrorizing and abusing her, was beyond imagining. Leo growled, wishing to find the men again and give them a beat down they wouldn't soon forget. But it wouldn't be out of spite or revenge. Revenge was dishonorable. However, if he lectured them, it would be more of a 'learning experience.' A very brutal lesson.

The paramedic cleaned the woman's wounds, as Leo could detect a small gash on her temple and a more worrisome cut on her cheek that required thin white band aids. She assured the medic she was fine, and escaped his medical clutches, walking the block to her apartment and disappearing inside.

To Leo's delight, the woman's apartment was on the top floor. Ten stories up, with a small bookstand on one side and a restaurant on the other were strange smells curled Leo's nose. He didn't know what they cooked, but it wasn't appetizing. Tall buildings flanked three sides, their shadows casting the woman's apartment building into overlapping shadows. Concealment wouldn't be a problem.

Lights came on behind heavy curtains. Leo slipped onto the fire escape, risking a peek through the inch gap in the curtains and saw the woman he rescued leaning against the door. Three locks were behind her, all securing her inside the small but cozy apartment. Her head lulled from side to side, and with a lurch, Leo realized she was crying. Her shoulders shook and when she stood up from the door, her blotchy cheeks were wet with tears.

He didn't know why he did it. What possessed him to do such a stupid, idiotic, non-ninja move, but his hand came up and gave a soft rap on the windowpane. The woman let out a pitiful squeak, which made Leo feel all the worse, but nonetheless, she approached the window. She removed the two security bars and undone the latch, opening the window onto the fire escape. Thankfully Leo had already gained the roof, the ledge offering him protection from her view.

"Hello?" Her voice was timid. Apprehensive.

Mentally kicking himself, Leo called over the edge of the roof, trying to sound reassuring and not some kind of crazy psycho stalker.

"I just wanted to make sure you were safe."

"It's you! My guardian angel," she said, risking putting her head out the window to search out the voice. The ironwork balcony was devoid of life. "Where are you?"

"Hiding on the roof," Leo said. "Please, don't come up."

"Alright," she said, placing her foot back inside the apartment and opting to sit on the window pane. She had wanted to thank her savior again, but if he didn't want to be seen, she could respect that. "Thank you for helping me. I shudder to think what those guys would have done had you not been there."

"I don't want to think about that either," Leo admitted. He had witnessed some pretty shocking things. It amazed him how vile and utterly evil the human race could be toward one another.

"I would like to repay your kindness," she said, leaning out of the window. Unfortunately her rescuer was out of sight so she had to settle with talking to the darkness.

"There is no need." Leo suddenly felt hot from embarrassment. Usually the turtles were unacknowledged. It was a side effect to being a ninja. You couldn't take credit for your deeds and certainly didn't crave public adulation. The only reason the handful of police knew about them was because their partnership helped remove the threat of Krang.

"It would be no trouble,' she said. "You deserve a reward. Some money or maybe I could make you a home cooked meal, if you're hungry."

The woman's generosity touched Leo. "I'm fine. I don't need to be paid to do what's right. And I have a very strict diet." Not entirely a lie. He did have to watch what he ate. Too many pizzas made one a chubby turtle, and he didn't want to pop out of his shell.

"Oh." She sounded... disappointed? Stunned? It was hard to gauge. Leonardo didn't have a lot of experience interacting with females.

"I only stopped by to make sure you had gotten home safely." Leo said to cover the awkward silence. "I should go. It's getting late."

Lame excuse, but he was a desperate turtle.

"Yes, of course," she said, taking a chance, "my name is Mabel, but everyone calls me May."

Leo smiled in the darkness. May. It was very fitting. She was a breath of spring after a long, cold winter.

"Leo," he offered.

"Thank you, Leo," she said, her voice soft as the spring rains. "Thank you for saving me."

"Any time,' Leo said, rising to back away from the ledge that hid his identity.

"Oh, and Leo?"

"Yes?" He turned slightly, regarding the concrete edge.

"Be safe out there."

"Yes, Ma'am,' Leo said, leaping to the next building and diverting to a safe access point to the sewer. Once inside the tunnel, he replayed the evening, unable to forget the image of her cut and bruised face.

He should have never followed her. Should have never spoken with her. The whole concept of the ninja is to be unseen. Unknown. To move in shadow and never compromise one's position.

He had completely ignored that rule. Truth be told, he had every intention of stopping by May's apartment tomorrow. To see that she was okay. At least, that's what he kept telling himself.

Leo halted midstep, his mind catching up to his emotions to hit him full force in the chest.

Oh rat tails! What was he thinking?!

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Yes, I know, probably been done a million times, but not by me, so this is MY rodeo.

Feedback is greatly appreciated.

Next chapter coming soon!