AN: Thank you so much for your kind reviews! They're doing a lot to keep me motivated to write as fast as I can!
gwencarson126: 72 'OMG'! What can I say, except OMG!
Sairey13: Good questions… Very good questions… :D
Shaymandy: Thank youuuu!
Techno Dawn: Yes! Mikey outright refused to be written any other way.
Nutella Swirl: I think too! :D And it's the story's fault! Totally the story's fault! *nods convincingly*
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Shock Wave
"I don't have brothers," Leonardo uttered stupidly.
My father found me when I was but a few years old. I was all alone.
The three turtles in front of him looked shocked. Hurt, even.
Leonardo's heart tore. He tried to extract himself from his current state of shock to explain himself better.
"I mean, of course I see you, but it doesn't mean… I've never… I'm an only child," he stuttered.
"Not anymore," Michelangelo retorted, sniffling.
Leonardo couldn't bear to watch his upset expression. He looked at Raphael, but the reproach on that turtle's face didn't make it any better. Leonardo's eyes jumped to Donatello, who was watching him with a calm, understanding expression. Leonardo locked eyes with him as if he was a life preserver.
"It's hard to believe, right?" The tallest turtle said softly.
"Yes," Leonardo merely said, struggling to keep a level-headed voice.
"I can check it if you want," Donatello went on. "Using DNA analysis. But I must say that I'm 99,999999% sure of the result."
Karai's eyes widened.
"You've got the equipment for that?"
"I built it," Donatello said casually, waving her remark away.
"From garbage parts," Raphael added proudly, as if he felt the need to insist on how awesome his brother was compared to the girl in front of him.
"Uh…"
Leonardo didn't know what to say. This was going too fast for him.
"I don't think it's necessary, Donnie," Michelangelo interjected.
He took a step forward so that he was right in front of Leonardo, almost brushing his plastron, and raised his head to look him in the eye.
Oh, how he wanted to hug him right now. But Leonardo seemed unsure and almost afraid, and the last thing Michelangelo wanted was to scare him off.
"Do you know where your name comes from?"
"My name?"
Leonardo watched the shorter turtle's intense expression, and his stomach tightened in knots.
"Yes. Who chose that name for you?"
"I…don't know…"
Leonardo remembered what his father had told him.
Dad didn't know where I was from, but I could understand Japanese. He asked me what my name was, and I kept telling him 'Eo', 'Eo'. He tried all the names he and the Internet could think of until I finally brightened at 'Leonardo'…
"It's the only thing I retain from my early childhood," Leonardo whispered, a lump in his throat.
"Then think about it," Michelangelo insisted, putting in his voice every ounce of conviction he could summon. "Donatello, Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo. What do they have in common?"
To be long, unusual names? Especially for giant mutant turtles – especially for short giant mutant turtles like you?
Leonardo chastised himself. His brain was reacting inappropriately.
Shut up, brain.
He tried to find an adequate answer, but his mind was suddenly blank.
Switched off.
At his side, Karai inhaled sharply.
"Renaissance artists," she whispered.
Michelangelo smiled at her for the first time tonight.
"Yes, you got it," he said.
He spoke to Leonardo again, softly, desperately.
"These are the names of our father's favorite Renaissance artists."
Leonardo gasped. He felt his head spin as that piece of his identity, the one he had been wondering about for so long, came into place.
He had to admit that these wonderful turtles in front of him – Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael - were truly his brothers.
He had to admit that he received his name at the same time they did. That they had been together before he lost them.
Which meant…
"I already have a father."
Leonardo's answer was clearly defensive, but only Karai could tell how upset her friend was at this instant. She knew how sensitive the topic was. She tried to warn the other turtles – Leonardo's brothers, as she had feared - but her widened eyes and discreet grimaces were hopelessly lost to them.
"Yes, you do," Raphael answered, tilting his head. "He's the same as ours. You can meet him as soon as we…"
And that was when Leonardo snapped. He took a step backwards and addressed the three turtles with a decade-long anger that wasn't meant for them.
"I have only one father! The one who took me in and took care of me even if he was a human and I a mutant humanoid turtle! The one who never, ever, gave me up!"
His brothers recoiled, surprised by his sudden outburst.
"Leo, no," Donatello tried to tell him. "That's not how it happened!"
The purple-clad turtle took a deep breath. Leonardo was upset – well, it was no surprise. If Donatello and his brothers were at least prepared for his existence, if not for his living state, obviously Leonardo had had no clue he ever had brothers, and his world had just gone crashing down.
Much like ours a few months ago.
Donatello went on carefully.
"We can explain it to you, if you don't want to ask Splinter directly."
Splinter. His name his Splinter, Leonardo thought. But he didn't want to know, he didn't want to hear about the man who had left him to die, because how was an infant turtle supposed to take care of himself in this world?
"That's enough," Karai spat, reading her friend's turmoil on his face and upset because he was - and because it was partly her fault, too. If only she had had the chance to prepare him for this encounter…
"Can't you see what you're doing to him?"
"I don't see how that's your business," Raphael frowned. "Who are you anyway, his sister?"
He made the word sound as if it was distasteful, and Karai clenched her fists.
"Someone who has known him for years, unlike you!"
"Well, breaking news, we would have loved to!"
"Don't blame me if you weren't able to keep him!"
"That's not how it happened," Donatello repeated, more irritated than the first time.
As Karai, Raphael and Donatello came closer to each other and began what could only be called a family quarrel at that stage, Michelangelo wished he had enough water balloons to cool them all down. They were only making matters worse. Of course everyone was upset!
And even if Michelangelo would have loved for Leonardo to immediately accept the truth, leave his actual family – he had at least a father, he had said so – and come with them, he knew that it wasn't fair to demand that from him. Not ten minutes after his long-lost brother had learned about their existence.
Michelangelo turned to Leonardo with the intent of offering him an apologetic smile, and his heart skipped a beat.
"Where is Leo?" He exclaimed, efficiently interrupting his brothers and Karai.
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Leonardo had had more than enough.
He needed time to process what had happened, calm and quiet to sort out his confused feelings.
His friend and his newfound brothers weren't helping.
So when they began quarrelling with each other, he took advantage of it to momentarily disappear in the shadows.
He circled around them, wondering when – or if, he thought wryly - they would notice his disappearance.
When Michelangelo did and they began freaking out, Leonardo felt a strange feeling mix with his confusion, anger and newborn hope.
Something unexpected and warm.
They did care about him, didn't they?
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"I hope you're proud of what you've done," Karai spat.
"Excuse me?" Raphael shouted.
"Okay, no reason to panic," Donatello said, panicking. "Our lost brother who has been found is now lost again. But he can't be far, can he?"
"Leo!" Michelangelo shouted, running from chimney to chimney.
"Aren't you going to help?" Raphael addressed Karai, who had crossed her arms and didn't seem to have the intention to move.
"No," she answered, stubborn.
Raphael sent her an outraged look before lending Michelangelo and Donatello a helping hand.
Karai watched them while trying to discern Leonardo's figure in the shadows. In vain.
A few minutes later, Raphael threw up his hands.
"I can't believe he slipped away from us like that! How hard can it be for three ninja to find a giant non-ninja mutant turtle on a small rooftop?"
"Hard enough, apparently," Leonardo's voice rang out right behind him, and Raphael jumped.
"Leo!" The startled turtle began to protest, before thinking better of it.
Had it been a touch of humor that he had heard in Leonardo's voice?
And wait – was there a slight smile playing on Leonardo's lips?
Raphael felt his heart lift at this thought.
"Leo, don't scare us like that!" Michelangelo protested, running back to them and closely followed by a very relieved Donatello, and he would have jumped at his black-clad brother – not afraid anymore to scare him off, after all, he had been the one scaring them - if Leonardo hadn't been holding their weapons.
"I think you lost that," Leonardo said, still with a slight touch of humor, and his brothers took their weapons back with embarrassed expressions.
"How did you do that?" Michelangelo asked, swirling his nunchucks absent-mindedly. "It was awesome, bro!"
Leonardo winked at him.
"You mean that a ninja like you doesn't already know?"
Michelangelo grinned, delighted because his brother was joking – joking! – with him, and shook his head with strength.
Leonardo looked at him, Donatello and Raphael, and sighed.
"I'll tell you that story – and my story, too, if you want to hear it…"
Three brothers vigorously nodded.
"But not tonight. I… I need alone time right now," Leonardo went on softly. "I hope you understand."
"Of course we do, Leo," Donatello said soothingly, gagging his two brothers with his hands before they had a chance to protest.
"We'll leave you, then," Karai added.
Leonardo turned towards her.
"I said alone time, Karai. Not telling me you had found my first family? How could you?"
"I was going to tell you! I was just waiting for the right time and place!"
"As if such things existed," Raphael muttered behind Donatello's hand. He hadn't liked the 'first'.
We are your family, Leo. Period.
Michelangelo wriggled away from Donatello's arm and took a step forward, folding his fingers under his chin.
"Alright, Leo, but at least give us your phone number!"
Donatello raised his eye ridges.
"Mikey, I don't think Leo has…"
"I do have a cell phone," Leonardo interrupted him.
He brought out the item in question, ready to grant Michelangelo's reasonable request.
"Next time, I'll bring you something better," Donatello whispered, more to himself than to Leonardo. "Something more up-to-date and safer. And there are a few items you might need as well… Hmm…"
Leonardo looked quizzically at him, but Donatello was already lost in thought.
"So… goodnight, then," he said clumsily.
He wasn't sure that it was an appropriate way to part with his three newfound brothers, but he couldn't think of anything better.
"Goodnight, Leo," Donatello told him.
"Have sweet dreams!" Michelangelo chirped.
"See you tomorrow," Raphael answered casually, and it didn't look like the promise it was.
Leonardo exchanged a quick glance with Karai before turning away. The kunoichi seemed hurt, and it made Leonardo feel guilty.
She's the one who keeps hiding important facts from me, he tried to convince himself.
Leonardo made it to his father's noodle shop in record time – he was beginning to be really, really late - and took his keys.
To be honest, he was a little disappointed that his brothers hadn't asked him where he lived nor if it was far away.
"A noodle shop?" Someone whispered not-so-discreetly from the alleyway nearby. "He lives in a noodle shop? Awesome!"
"Shut up, Mikey, he'll hear you," a gruff voice said, and Leonardo couldn't help rolling his eyes and grinning stupidly at the door.
Three brothers…
And he had been an only child for so long…
It might take him some time to adjust, but Leonardo was willing to rise to the challenge.
As long as they didn't ask him to meet their father.
