Author's Notes: Some light angst and brother moments. To be honest I find Leonardo the most difficult to write so I hope he turned out all right.

Side note: The better he feels the sassier Donnie gets :0)


Chapter Twenty Two

"So, what's the plan?" I ask, grimacing when Leo presses my knee closer to my chest.

"Don't worry about it," he replies, leaning against my shin and tilting my leg slightly to the left.

The stretch is tight and more than a little painful against my hip but I try not to fight against the movement. The pain will ease away eventually and it's a necessary evil to combat my weak muscles and joints. I need to get my strength back so I can get out of this bed. I need to get my strength back so my family and April will stop giving me those sidelong glances they think I can't see; those glances that are full of caution and fear that I'm broken. His words irritate me more than the pull on my joints and I frown when he eases my leg to the right.

"Of course I'm going to worry about it. I worry about everything," I reply, grunting when my hip catches and there's an audible pop. "You do have a plan, right?"

Leo eases up and lowers my foot back down. "Yes," he says when I think he means no, not really.

"I can help," I insist, wincing when he pushes his thumb against the knot in my hip.

"You can rest," he replies, pushing down with more pressure until the knot starts to loosen and the pain lessens.

"Or," I say, stretching out the word and earning the tiniest annoyed sigh for my efforts. "I can help."

He closes his eyes for a few moments longer than a normal blink and his mouth forms into a straight line. It's the look he gets when Mikey does something particularly annoying or Raph argues unnecessarily. It's not a look I earn too often, but I know when I do he's done and won't put up much of a fight.

"Fine," he says, adding quickly as a caveat before I get any ideas. "But you can help from here. You're not leaving the lair."

"Right, of course," I say quickly as if the thought had never crossed my mind, all though it most certainly had. "So, what's the plan?"

He doesn't have one.

"Leo?"

He gives a little shrug and walks slowly to the other side of the bed. "We're going to the warehouse," he says and his voice has that cold edge to it when he's readying for a fight. I can't help but notice his eyes are locked on my right hand and the thick bandages hiding the wound from view. "We'll take care of it."

I don't like the insinuation lurking behind his words or the miniscule grind of his teeth. They don't need to avenge me or defend my honor or whatever horrible and frankly insulting, thing they have planned. We have to stop these people before they hurt anyone else. What happened to me shouldn't factor in to that. Revenge shouldn't be at the forefront. I'm fine. I don't need avenging. I push up on my elbow and don't take the offered hand, instead stubbornly taking the time to sit up on my own.

See, you're fine. You can sit up on your own and everything.

"Yeah, okay, you'll take care of it. What does that even mean?" I ask, at least giving him the chance to prove my assumptions wrong.

He bristles, never one to like it when his word is questioned. "It means we'll take care of it, Donnie," he replies with a slight narrowing of his eyes.

"Uh huh," I mumble and shift away from him when he tries to take hold of my other leg.

I keep my right arm held against my plastron and roll over to the other side of the bed. The movement, coupled with my previous efforts to sit up sends my head spinning and exhaustion crashing down on my thoughts. I do my best to ignore it and squiggle, flail over to the edge near the nightstands and my laptop. Leo sighs and possibly grumbles something under his breath, but I can't be certain. What I am certain of is that he beat me to the other side of the bed and now has his hand pressed firmly on my laptop, keeping me from taking it off the nightstand.

"What are you doing?" he says evenly.

"I'm helping, remember?" I say with enough attitude to make him lose some of the sternness in his jaw.

I use the second or two of distraction to snag the laptop out from under his hand. "If the three of you are going to charge in there without a plan I can at least try to disable their security system."

Leo bristles again and something close to shame flashes in his eyes. "We…I have a plan," he insists, sounding less than convincing.

"Right, operation Take Care of It, how could I forget," I grumble, turning on the computer with a comforting and familiar hum of electricity.

"We've done recon missions and…and we have the sound canon," he says with an annoyed huff. "We've waited long enough. They have to pay for what they did."

There it is.

He sounds a lot like Raph in that moment and I know he hears it too because he clears his throat and the stern leader tone is back. "We'll destroy the cartridges…"

"And then what, Leo?" I ask, catching his gaze over the top of the computer screen.

My stomach squirms and twists painfully when he can't hold my gaze. Maybe he does have a plan. Maybe they all do. He just knows I won't want to hear it. What else have they done that I don't know about?

"No one hurts one of my brothers and gets away with it," he says and I feel sick inside.

"I…I'm fine, Leo," I insist and my quiet voice makes him flinch.

"You're not though," he says quietly and the words pinch something deep in my chest.

He thinks there's something wrong with you. You're broken. You need avenging, because you're broken and they all know it.

"I don't need you to take revenge on my account," I say and my voice is twisted, ugly and foreign to my ears. "If you want to hurt these people because they're going to release those things on the city then be my guest, but don't use me as an excuse to forget your honor."

I stare straight ahead at the computer screen and type slowly with my left hand as my brother remains silent.

Focus on the work. You can hack this security system in your sleep. You can help. You're not broken.

"I…I'm sorry," he whispers and my hand pauses over the keys, but I can't bring myself to look at him. "I'm sorry I couldn't help. They hurt you and I couldn't do anything to stop it or make it better."

Look what you did.

"No one knew what it was," I say and I clear my throat around an uncomfortable tightness that has settled on my windpipe. "There was nothing you could have done."

"You would have fixed it," he says and I'm forced to meet his gaze. "If it was one of us, you would have fixed it. It never would have gotten this bad," he adds motioning to my bandaged hand.

I turn my wrist over, rolling my front teeth over my bottom lip. I want to pull the covers over the bandages and hide the whole thing from view. Out of sight out of mind. It wouldn't matter. Leo has changed those bandages. He knows what it looks like. He knows the truth of it. There's no way I'm coming back from this whole, the cuts are too deep, the infection too wide spread. Master Splinter did what he could, but he's not a surgeon and this isn't a hospital. I don't want to think about it. I want to work, I want to help and I don't want any of my brothers feeling responsible for what happened. They don't deserve that. So I do what Mikey would do. Say something not entirely appropriate.

"Maybe," I mumble with something that almost resembles a smile. "But I'm a lot smarter than you guys."

He blinks and that awful haunted look vanishes from his eyes with a tidal wave of confusion.

Nice going. What is wrong with you? This is not the time for jokes.

I start to go over excuses for my behavior in anxious rapid-fire procession in my mind. None of the options seem entirely believable and I instead clamp my mouth shut. I'm about to settle on something, anything when a deep, rumbling sound makes me pause.

Is he…laughing?

He is. He's laughing. It starts off quiet and tentative, but soon he does nothing to hide it and I'm the one looking confused. "I don't know," he says around another stray chuckle. "Mikey has his moments."

My own laughter passes my lips and soon we're both cackling like crazy people. It makes my sides ache and my eyes water, but I don't care. I can't remember the last time I laughed like this with any of my brothers and I'm not going to take it for granted. It's ridiculous and maybe not entirely justified. Our problems still remain, they always do. It doesn't matter. For a few moments we can pretend everything is all right and it lessens the weight on my shoulders just a little and makes me think I can carry it after all.

"Hey…what's so funny?" I hear Mikey ask from the doorway and he joins in the laughter without a clue as to its cause. The question sets Leo and I both off laughing again.

"Nothing, little brother," Leo says, finally gaining control.

Apparently appeased Mikey shrugs and flops onto my bed and looms behind me so he can stare at the computer screen. "What are you working on?" he asks in a sing song voice and rests his chin on my shoulder.

"Donnie is going to hack into the security system at the warehouse," Leo says and he perches on the bed beside us. "Think they have the building's layout on there?" he asks.

It's as close as he's going to get to admitting that they never had a real plan, but I won't call him out on it. I feel guilty enough.

"Most likely," I say, leaning forward as I start to work.

Even with the unavoidable slowness of only typing with my left hand it feels good to have a goal, a project, something to work on. The pain of the last few days was nothing compared to the unbearable idleness. Lying in bed with nothing to occupy my mind but worry was enough to push me towards the edge where the dark thoughts lurk. Forced stillness did not make me relax or reflect it made me angry and irritable and twitchy. I need to work. I need to fix things. That's what I do and I'm not going to let anyone take that away from me.

"What are you guys doing?"

Raphael's voice breaks through my focus and I let my other brothers answer so I can keep working. The bed groans and I assume he sits down. They talk quietly amongst themselves and I let the low drone of their voices fade into the background. I'm used to this; working while they're around. I shift my focus to the task at hand while they talk or fidget impatiently waiting for me to finish. It's familiar and safe and more than a little comforting. It's good to know that some things never change. Mikey moves and leans more of his weight against my shell.

"Dude, back off," Raph grumbles. "Give him some space."

"I don't mind," I murmur over the sound of hurried keystrokes and I don't.

There are times I want nothing more than to be alone; when even the sight of another being sets my teeth on edge and sends me scrambling to my lab and glorious solitude. This isn't one of those times. I know that I owe Mikey more than a little for his help over the last few days, so if he wants to perch on my shoulder like a parrot that's just fine.

Mikey blows a loud raspberry in Raph's direction and settles back against my carapace. "Any luck?" he asks and I can hear the annoyed grunt from Raphael's direction.

"Hmm, maybe," I say, crinkling my nose and sticking my tongue out in thought. "This is an incredibly sophisticated system for a warehouse."

"Kraang?" Leo asks.

"No…I don't think so," I say after a few more key strokes. "Unless they've translated Kraang code to work with standard human security programs. It almost seems…military."

There's a comforting thought.

"That's…odd," I murmur, jerking forward when Mikey leans over to see for himself.

"What?" he says, squinting at the schematics flickering on the screen.

My other brothers are leaning in too, all with that same confused and doubtful expression they wear when I understand something and they don't. "Okay, see this here?" I explain, minimizing the screen to pull up a saved document. "This is the building's blue print from the city's records, and these are the schematics from their security grid," I say, pulling up the security system schematics alongside it, waiting for them to catch on. They don't. "There are three extra levels."

Leo leans back, his face settling into a frown. "So, they've been building underground."

I nod. "And whatever it is they have down there they don't want anyone getting in."

"Or out," Mikey adds with a wiggle of his fingers and a horror-movie cackle.

Raphael rolls his eyes and punches his hand into his other palm. "Who cares what they want. Above ground, underground it doesn't matter. Just tell us how to get in so we can bust some heads."

"It isn't going to be that easy," I reply, biting back the urge to sound annoyed or roll my eyes. "Every entrance is tagged…the camera system alone…" I trail off, not wanting to take any more of my focus off of the task at hand.

"How long will it take you to crack it?" Leonardo asks and I know he is trying not to sound impatient, but it sneaks in around the edges of the question just the same.

I shrug, only half listening to him anyway. "Couple hours."

Click, click, click.

They won't wait in here for that long. They'll make their excuses and go off on their own pursuits until I call them back. I don't particularly want to be alone, but I won't ask them to stay. Despite Leo's admittance, I'm not convinced everything is all right between us or with Raphael for that matter. There's something deep and buried under the blurry and fevered memories of the last few days that rings sharply of betrayal. I'm not about to bring it up on my own. It can stay shoved down in the dark where it belongs.

Fix it Donnie. Just shut up and do what you're supposed to.

"Let us know when you get through," Leo says and he's already standing.

I nod and don't bother to look up from my work.

"I'll get you lunch," Raph adds with a crack of his neck, already eager for a fight.

I'm sure he's off to go take out his frustrations on the practice dummy before food is even a possibility. I mumble a thanks and keep working. The weight of Mikey's chin is still on my shoulder and I feel a little sigh travel up through his chest. Leo or Raph tells him to leave me alone, I can't be sure who, I'm not entirely paying attention, but he waves them off and stays put. I wait until the others leave, hovering over the keyboard before my work can steal my focus again.

"You don't have to stay here if you don't want to," I say quietly. "I know it's boring."

"Nah," he replies with a dismissive chuckle. "I like watching you work."

I'm not sure if he means it or if he just thinks it's what I want to hear, either way it's nice of him to say it. I flex the fingers on my left hand and let them rest idly on the keypad. That bothersome tightening in my throat has come back and I cough in an attempt to clear it.

"Thanks," I say, clearing my throat again when the word comes out like a croak. "Thank you, Mikey. For…for everything."

I should be more specific or eloquent, although an abundance of eloquence has never been a prerequisite in talking to my brother.

"No worries, man," he says, wrapping his arms around me. "The B-Team has to stick together, right?"

I reach up and take hold of his wrist and can't help but let out a quiet laugh. "Don't call us that," I say and he snickers before settling in to watch me work.