-After some 'splaining (est., 4 hours) -
"A Rat?" Asked Robbie, his love of orange soda evident on his upper lip.
"Yup," Mikey said sipping from his own can Robbie had grabbed him "We don't call him dad, we call him Master,"
Robbie and Mikey were having their own conversation about their families on the warehouse's climbing equipment. They were suspended above their relatives completely ignoring the adult's intensity below.
Now that the ceiling was closed completely and the warehouse lights were on the surroundings looked similar to the turtle lair.
There was a huge wall and ceiling full of climbing equipment in the warehouse, and Robbie moved like a boy half his hulking size. It was obviously built for both training and for fun, with scrap metaled some pretty impressive welding techniques. Mikey noticed the jungle gym immediately begged Leo and was dismissed.
Leo seemed to trust this new group. Donny was harder to read, but Raph straight up did not trust anyone other than his family. Even April was a stretch sometimes, despite Donny's relationship status.
The whole situation was odd to Raphael. The New Jersey ninjas were just an urban myth, or four dudes with some bad Halloween costumes pulling pranks. At best vigilante off-duty cops. They'd reportedly used guns and had used bombs to diffuse situations, so they were at least morally looking at things from a different perspective. Now they were here and ready to do some vigilante justice in New York. Unbelievable.
Raphael couldn't help but steal glances at Robbie's family.
They had introduced themselves and their activities in splotches, but he could tell you based on their interactions that they were a family. They had been vigilante ninja for quite some time, and much to his and Leo's surprise had known almost immediately they were being followed.
The girls now knew about the ooze, all the evil in the city and had recounted some stories of their own. They were a cohesive unit much like the turtles, but they had more variation in fighting style.
Apparently some of the ooze had made its way across state lines, because they had their share of adventures with other mutants in their past. They'd done much good in their city.
Leo and Donnie had explained their life stories to the newcomers, but had nothing to show for it. No information, just what they could gather by looking over their- wait, this couldn't be their house, could it?
The warehouse had a living room area and he could tell there was a fridge somewhere, based on the humming on the other side of the cement wall. The rest of the big open space was concrete and mats obviously put down to create a training space.
The little weight lifting equipment they had was put next to the training floor, and there seemed to be climbing bars and ropes along one wall that lead up to the ceiling.
Their ceiling trap, as the girls explained was never tested, and was completed only a few days ago. Forever the engineer and the inventor of the family, Donnie made mental notes to get the blueprints from them if the turtles and the New Jersey Ninjas were to be allies.
Leo was giving the girls their life story, while Mikey and Robbie kind of… did their own thing, they just got along, and they seemed to gel. They were hanging out (Literally) 15 feet above their families chatting and laughing.
Raph stood off on his own, arms crossed staring up at his younger brother and his new friend.
"Autism." Natasha said blatantly to interrupt Raph's thoughts. She got off the table where she sat staring at each turtle in turn. "He doesn't have-" Raph started before Nat raised her hand, stopping him before he finished the sentence. "Rob, not Mikey."
He looked at her sideways where she came to stand next to him. Leo kept talking to the others, ignoring the side conversation in favor of gaining knowledge of their new counterparts.
Natasha had been introduced as the oldest and the muscle. Her ninja mask had hid her highlighted hair and earrings as well as her red lipstick. Raph found her strangely familiar, but also didn't trust anything any of the outsiders said.
The group of four sitting around laughed, and it broke Nat's concentration as she checked on her family, never fully turning away from her brother.
"Robbie has Autism, and 4 new people make him nervous, so he singled one of you out to focus on." She fingered the studs in her right ear as she talked. Not nervously, thought Raph, more like she was absent-mindedly touching them. She was distracted.
"Mikey does that, if there is too much going on in a fight he sticks near one of us, it's easier to defend someone else than yourself. Same idea, I guess." Raph nodded at his own statement and looked up at the two again. He couldn't figure out why she made him nervous, but he didn't like it either.
Natasha and Raph stood next to each other, watching Mikey and Robbie as they hung off some of the wall bars, playing some form of tag, still ten feet up.
Donnie called both Raphael and Natasha back with questions. "So, Natasha you're the oldest? Are you all siblings? Why did you leave Jersey City?"
Natasha smiled up at Robbie, not taking her eyes off of him and his newfound kindred spirit. They laughed at each other and swung from the iron bars playing.
"We left because there was nothing keeping us in New Jersey anymore. My parents raised us as siblings, Ronna and Ally's dad beat the piss out of them and their mom when we were little, so they lived with us since before we can remember. He's in prison. Their mom became a nurse, but when she treated a patient with mental problems he stabbed her." She was very straightforward and to the point, Leo visibly grimaced at her bluntness.
Her smile fell and her cousins grew quiet. "She was hugging him while he cried and he just stabbed her. No-one's even sure where he got the knife."
There was an awkward silence until Ronna picked up where Natasha left off
"Nat and I are two months apart and Robbie and Ally are a few months apart, and we grew up really close. My aunt and uncle adopted us legally so we are siblings in a weird way. In New Jersey Natasha and I got notorious at our school for fighting. Her temper and my… well, I like to hit things, so that led us to have terrible reputations."
Raph peered at Natasha's gap-tooth grin as she laughed at Mikey chasing Robbie around on the suspended bars. She seemed to tune out the conversation, and would rather spend her time ignoring the deep discussion in favor of watching the two boys monkey around.
Ronna continued, "Our last name is technically Sycamore, but we've been using our mom's maiden name for a while, Bear. That's their last name." She gestured to Natasha and Rob with her hand. "We all studied martial arts from a young age as a bonding experience and for an outlet for anger. Natasha had a judo scholarship until she blew out her knee when we were sparring. Ally just graduated high school this last past year, but we," She motioned to Natasha and herself "are both seniors at NYU now."
Donnie and Raph both noticed how skinny and small Ronna was for how old she claimed to be. If everyone else in her family were any indication Ronna was respected, but not self-confidant. Neither was Natasha, but they fed off of each other in one of the strangest symbiotic relationships the turtles had ever seen.
They leaned off each other if they were sitting or even standing near. They handed each other things without looking and sometimes answered for one another. It was almost creepy.
Leo was sitting cross-legged on a sofa next to Ally, who sat in an odd folded up way. He dwarfed her, but they both looked comfortable with their weapons in their laps. "What happened to your parents? Robbie is still a minor, right?"
Natasha looked him in the eye, and quirked an eyebrow "They're dead, targeted because of my dad's high profile job in an insurance company, and knocked off because he thought that insurance fraud was wrong." When Leo didn't flinch she glanced over at Ronna.
They were trying to test their visitors, see their character and if their reactions and stories were anything to go by, then these turtles were really a godsend in the new city.
The usually soft-spoken Ally actually spoke up next. "That's why we became the New Jersey Ninja. It's been almost 2 years. We started to avenge our family. The drugs in the guy's system that killed my mom were being covered up. Uncle tried to expose it, so they killed him and Aunty."
Noticing how sullen they all got Ronna interrupted. "Oh and Donnie, Nat and I are CO-Leaders. Right Nat?" They all laughed at that. "What? We work well together!"
"Leo and Raph would kill each other," Donnie chuckled. The other turtles agreed.