"They have spaghetti listed in here twice," Leo said, looking through a menu from the pizza place where Woody worked.
Mike came around the kitchen table and looked over his shoulder. "No they don't."
"It says spaghetti and then baked spaghetti. They don't feed people uncooked, crunchy noodles, right?" Leo made a face.
"No, dude. Baked spaghetti is a different kind of spaghetti."
"Different how?" Leo asked.
"It's baked."
"..."
"..."
"I'm going to see if Raph wants to go with us," Leo finally said, rising from the table and leaving Mikey and the frustrating menu behind.
He headed into their bedroom and almost tripped over all his books which were now haphazardly spread out across the floor.
"Raph?" Leo asked, eyeing his mate who was sitting up on the bed with his shell pressed back against the wall.
"Spider," Raph muttered, eyes scanning the floor.
"Raph you destroyed my bookshelf!" Leo said.
"Big spider."
"Jeezus, Raph, did you honestly go after this thing with your sais?"
Raph shrugged.
"Did you at least get him?"
"Little fucker got away."
Leo moved around his books and climbed on the bed next to Raphael, taking his hands and scanning them for splinters, just in case Raph had also tried to use his fists. "You're a skilled ninja, Hamato Raphael. I can't believe you killed the bookshelf and not a tiny insect."
Raph dragged his eyes from the floor and glared at Leo's amused face.
"Call me in next time, will you?" Leo asked. "Do we need to have another discussion about the importance of calling in back-up during a dangerous situation?"
"Leo," Raph growled at him.
"Are you going to replace the bookshelf?"
"I'll build you a new one," Raph said.
"You'll build me a new one?"
"I'll ask Don to build you a new one."
Leo sighed. "Mikey and I are heading out to meet up with Woody. He's got some food that was paid for and never picked up so we're going to bring it back. Want to come with us?"
Raph hesitated. He'd rather go with Leo but he knew he needed to confront Casey and he'd rather do it alone. "Nah, I'm going to meet up with Casey."
Leo nodded. "And if you get into a dangerous situation you will call for back-up?" Leo asked, a big grin on his face. It earned him a light punch to the shoulder.
"Um, Leo? Can we not tell the others about this?"
"How do we explain the bookshelf?"
"We can tell them you tripped?"
"I tripped?" Leo asked, dryly. "There's fractured wood pieces all over the floor."
Raph looked at the floor and then pleadingly back to Leo.
"Fine," Leo said. "I tripped. But you know no one is going to believe that. And you're cleaning this up before you go out."
"Knock knock."
Don lifted his eyes from his computer screen and smiled, "Hey, April."
"You busy? I just stopped by to say hi. I saw Mikey and Leo on their way out and Raph said something about going to see Casey as soon as he was finished throwing away what looked like broken furniture. Looks like you're the only turtle in tonight."
"I wish I could go out," Donnie said, looking back to the computer screen.
"Working on a big project?" she asked, moving around the table to see what was on the screen.
"Not me, its Sadie," Don said, gesturing to the screen. "Its senior thesis presentation night for her engineering program and family and friends are allowed to go and sit in the audience. I get to sit here and watch on my computer."
"I'm sorry, Donnie," she said. "But they have a live recording for people who can't make it?"
"No," Donnie said, chewing on the end of his thumb. "They record the event to keep record of it. I may have tapped into the feed."
April grinned at him. "Well, I'm sure Sadie knows you're watching."
Donnie nodded absently. "Oh, oh, here she is!" he said, sitting up straighter while tapping the stool next to him.
April sat in the offered seat and turned to the screen. They watched Sadie stand up at the podium while her PowerPoint presentation began on a large screen behind her. They sat in silence for a while listening to Sadie explain the gadget she had created.
"Wait a minute," April said, "what did she make?"
Donnie grinned. "Well, I wanted her to present the radiation de-exposure tool I used on Leo last year. She did help me come up with the idea in the first place. But she didn't want to take credit for my design. So instead she created a motion detector system which can not only send you an alert when someone is near but will also tell you which direction they're coming from and exactly how far away they are." Donnie's eyes were wide and his hands flew through the air as he talked. "And, that wiring we got out of those guns from Stockman not only prevents other radar weapons from detecting the user of her tool, but also prevents any de-scrambling technology that would try to hide someone else in plain sight."
"That's amazing," April said. "That would be helpful for the military. The police. You guys." She paused. "That's it, isn't it? She made it for you guys?"
Donnie tried to hide his smile, but he was pretty sure Sadie did have them in mind when she was coming up with a project idea.
"And it's pretty cool that she didn't want to take credit for your design," April said.
"Yeah but it still left me without a good way to get it out to the world. But Sadie said she could help with that. So last summer she signed me up for an online GED test and then she took the scores and secretly enrolled me in an online college program last fall."
"What? You've been taking college courses this whole year?"
"Yup, and I'm on an accelerated program." He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. "I should have my college degree by next spring and then I can look into online graduate programs. It'll take a little time but in the end I should be able to get this tool to the surface."
"That's amazing, Donnie. Good for you." She paused again. "Sounds like you have a pretty great girl there."
Donnie slid his eyes over to April's face and nodded slowly. "For now, I guess. She could always leave later."
"Not everyone does that, Donnie," April said. She felt like she should say more, but her thoughts were interrupted by another knock on the lab doorway.
It had taken Raph longer than it should've to clean up all the wood pieces in their bedroom, mainly because he knew the spider was still on the loose. He ended up dropping the debris more than once when he thought he saw something moving among it.
He'd sent Casey a text telling him to meet him on his rooftop and was happy the stubborn human was already standing there when he arrived.
Raph stopped several feet away and crossed his arms.
"Yer alone," Casey said. "I didn't think Leo let you out alone anymore."
"No," Raph said. "We're not gonna talk about Leo. We're gonna talk about you."
"So yer ready to focus yer attention on me, then?"
"What kind of attention are you after here, Casey?" Raph asked. He watched for a moment as Casey's expression faltered. He rubbed a hand against his upper arm and looked towards the ground.
Casey glanced back up to find Raph still glaring at him. "I -," he started and stopped.
Raph waited and watched Casey fidget. His attention was taken away from Casey when his T-phone started buzzing on his belt. He pulled it out and saw that it was Don calling. When he answered, Donatello immediately asked where he was.
"Casey's rooftop," Raph said, tensing as he heard Don's tone of voice.
"Woody's here. Leo and Mike never met up him and they didn't answer their T-phones."
"Well then where the hell are Leo and Mike, Don?" Raph asked, practically growling into the phone.
"I'm tracking them now," Don paused. "It looks like they're a few blocks from Casey's place. The signals aren't moving."
Raph took off in a run as Don read him an address, vaguely aware that Casey was following him.
Awkwardness or not, if the turtles were in trouble, then Casey was tagging along to help.
When Raph finally stopped running, they peered over the edge of the rooftop and saw flashing police lights sitting outside a jewelry store.
"That's a good sign that they were here," Casey murmured, scanning the street below.
Raph moved to the side of the building and scanned the darkened alley across the street from the jewelry store until he finally saw what he was looking for.
"Leo," he whispered. He moved to the fire escape and scaled down quickly.
Leo had pulled Mikey back behind a dumpster and was tying his blue bandana tightly around Michelangelo's arm. He didn't even glance up when he sensed Raph and Casey come up behind him.
"I need more gauze," he said, quickly. "He already bled through what I had in my belt."
Raph dropped to the ground next to Leo as he pulled more gauze out of his own belt. He nudged an exhausted-looking Leo to the side a little so he could take over. Casey stood behind them, watching the street-end of the alley to make sure no one came near them.
"How long's he been knocked out?" Raph asked. He pulled the soaked blue bandana away and swore. "He got grazed by a bullet!?" He looked over to Leo and noticed that Leo looked a little pale and his breathing was getting heavy. "Tell me right now that you haven't been hit by a bullet," Raph growled at him.
Leo shook his head at Raph. "I haven't."
"You lectured me not me even two hours ago about calling in back-up. Why didn't you call?" He pressed the gauze to Mike's arm and then tightly re-tied Leo's bandana around the arm.
"I pushed the emergency button on my T-phone almost an hour ago," Leo rasped out. "As soon as we ran into the robbers. What took you so long to get here?"
"We need to get out of this alley," Casey said, "Lets get Mike over to April's. It's closer than the lair and that arm needs attention now." He watched as the bandages that Raph had just tied to Mike's arm quickly turned red. "I'm already textin Don to meet us there with his medical shit."
Raph used Mike's good arm to swing him up onto the back of his shell, being sure to be careful of his injured arm. He watched Leo stand and then almost dropped Mike in an attempt to catch Leo as he faltered and fell back to the ground.
Instead, Casey pulled Raph's shoulder back and quickly crouched down in front of Leo.
"No bullet wound but that's an impressive slice across the top of your leg," Casey said. "And we're out of bandages. Come on," he lifted Leo's arm and dragged it across his shoulders to help the injured leader up. He heard Raph huff behind him and quickly said, "You can't carry both of em and I can't carry dead-weight Mikey. I've got him."
"Let's just get to April's," Raph growled out, adjusting Mike on his shell.
Raphael was thankful it was dark out and the streets to April's apartment weren't covered in bright lights. Even though they could've eventually made it to the rooftops with Leo and Mike in tow, there was no way Leo would be able to jump from one to the next, so they were stuck staying on the ground level, moving from shadow to shadow. It was slow going and the only benefit was that when they reached April's place, the shellraiser was already parked outside.
Leo insisted Don focus on Mikey first, which he did with assistance from a frantic Woody. April quickly began cleaning Leo's leg with Raph's help.
Leo winced a little as April began sewing up his leg. Raph watched his eyes droop and then his upper body slump over. Raph leaned forward and quickly checked his pulse and breathing and determined that he had just fallen asleep.
"He's so pale," Woody said, looking over Mikey. "Why isn't he awake?"
"He'll be fine, Woody," Don said, absently, stitching up his little brother's arm.
"I never should've called him out to meet up with me," Woody said, leaving his post of handing things to Donatello to move closer to Mike's side.
"This is the kind of thing that can happen any time," Don said. "You can't blame yourself."
"You guys act like this is no big deal," Woody said in a low voice as he stroked a hand over Mikey's cheek.
Donnie took his eyes from Mikey's arm for a moment to glance at Woody, before he turned his attention back to finishing the stitches.
"We've been doing this for years," Donnie said. "And the guys who thought they were going to rob that store tonight are all going to jail."
"At what cost?" Woody asked, glancing over at the sleeping Leo and then back to Mike. "Anything lost in the store could be replaced. You guys - Mikey –," his voice trailed off.
Donnie placed a bandage over the stitches and then arranged a sling around his little brother's arm to keep it still. He stood and squeezed Woody's shoulder. Woody and Sadie were the first humans to enter their lives where they really had to explain why they did what they did. He wasn't sure either of them really understood it.
Once April had bandaged Leo's leg, Raph sat on the ground and pulled Leo into his side and adjusted his head onto his shoulder. Now that both Leo and Mike had been tended to, he was able to sit and let the guilt sink in. He glared at Casey who had gone into the kitchen and was talking in a hushed voice with April. Raph realized he should've gone out with Leo instead of trying to talk some sense into that moron.
"Should we move them home or stay here?" Donnie asked him.
"Yer call, doc," Raph said.
"Lets move them to the shellraiser and go home then," Don said. "Who knows what bacteria was on Mikey's bullet or whatever sliced Leo's leg. I want to get them home and get a shot of antibiotics into them."
Raph nodded and lifted Leo as he stood. "And not to add to your to-do list, Don, but Leo said he hit the emergency button on his T-phone when the fight started."
"And neither of us got an alert," Donnie said, groaning. He'd programmed the emergency button to send an alert to everyone's T-phones and not just his. "I'll look into it later tonight."
Donnie picked up Mikey while Raphael thanked April before shooting Casey a hard glare. Then they headed out with Woody leading the way as a lookout.