No hesitation. No arguing. As soon as his suspicions were confirmed, what for a brief moment had been the barest inkling of an idea became a full-fledged plan in a matter of seconds. They didn't have time to talk this over, and this was what he'd been assigned to do, born to do. A leader was someone who, in times of crisis, acted quickly, arranged and rearranged strategies in the very midst of chaos. He'd learned to hone this craft into an instinct so that he knew when he had to make a quick decision and when that decision was the right one.
With a crease to his brow and a resolute frown, he glared at his brothers and swiped a katana from its sheath. "Go!" he ordered.
All three of them gave him wide-eyed expressions of panic. They didn't move.
"Whoa, Leo," Donnie said. "You're not thinking what I think you're thinking," he pleaded.
Leonardo said nothing. Instead, his response was to turn swiftly on his heel and take off at a sprint, trusting his brothers to obey his command.
"He's thinking it," he heard Donnie shout in alarm. Nevertheless, when Leo glanced over his shoulder, he saw the three of them high-tailing it for the exit.
A small burst of relief spread through his chest, calming his heartbeat, clearing his mind. He was suddenly hypersensitive to every facet of his surroundings—the Kraang, Traag, the portal, and his target: the power cell.
With focus narrowed to the sharpness of a needle, he sliced his way cleanly through three Kraang bots and sped at a blurring speed around the energy-spewing portal, avoiding every hot-pink laser fired in his direction. He leapt with a flip onto the ledge where he ceased one Kraang's assault then sprung to the adjacent staircase to dismember another.
The moment the Kraang's defenses were down he turned, tightened a committed grip on his katana and propelled himself forward without another thought. Diving toward the floor with a battle cry, the glass dome surrounding the power cell gave a satisfying shatter as his sword speared the portal's energy source. A high-pitched charge gave out the briefest of warnings before a blast of pure energy burst from the power cell and knocked the wind out of everything in the room.
Leo used the torrent to boost himself straight up just as the base of the portal erupted with smoke. He managed to leap high enough to kick off of one of the portal's three generators, then a platform, using the succession of blasts to thrust himself higher with scarcely enough seconds in between to avoid being scorched.
His hand locked around a metal rafter and, in keeping with the build of momentum, he swung himself around to spring off of it, straight through a window. The glass shattered effortlessly, spitting him and hundreds of shards out into the dark, open air mere seconds before the entire TCRI building groaned and erupted once and then a final time with a deafening explosion that engulfed him in darkness.
The next time he blinked his eyes open, he was falling at a gut-wrenching speed. He felt his heart kick into gear again, as though suddenly aware of the corner he'd backed himself into. It jumped up to his throat with a stunned beat and clung to his Adam's apple for dear life as he stared unblinkingly down hundreds of feet at the black pavement he was plummeting straight for.
He clawed and kicked at the air, as though by flailing his limbs enough he might make himself fly, might prolong the end. But his arms and legs cut through the cold air with so little effort that it was like the god of fate was laughing at his pathetic attempt to live.
Wracked with a violent shiver of fear, he tore his gaze away from his fast-approaching end and threw an arm across his face to blind himself. If he was going to die, he didn't want to see it coming, lest he go out with a heart attack first. Or maybe he just didn't want to believe it was his death awaiting him with dark, menacing arms that wouldn't catch him but allow him to come to a halt so abrupt that it would shatter his shell to pieces and splatter the rest of him across the street in a mess of blood and innards.
Sure, when he'd left the lair only hours earlier he'd been prepared—if not ready—to quite possibly meet a very early end, and in the back of his mind he was glad he'd be leaving the world in a version of the heroic, blaze-of-glory type of way he'd wanted to. But falling quickly became a manipulator of the soul and all its deepest desires, shoving the things he'd neglected to do in life up to the forefront of his mind and hitting him with a breathtaking realization. He did not want to die. Not yet. He was only fifteen! He had a father waiting on him to return home. He had brothers he hadn't said goodbye to. And there was so much more he was willing to contribute to this city.
A sting of tears attacked his eyes, but he kept them squeezed shut and held his breath, waiting, however reluctantly, for the end of this endless fall.
But … just as he swore he could feel the ground coming closer, he grunted as something plowed into him from behind. Strong hands locked themselves around his biceps, pulling his arms away from his face. He saw the ground glare at him hardly inches from his face as his whole body dipped with a rush of wind and adrenaline just before he was pulled back up. His stomach dropped, and he imagined if he'd ever get the chance to ride a roller coaster he'd already know the exact feeling.
His lungs burst with a gasp of both relief and surprise and he continued to stare down at the shrinking street in bewilderment until he heard his brother's voice shout triumphantly.
"Whoo! In your face gravity!"
Leo, heart undergoing ballistic palpitations behind his plastron, looked up at Raph's smiling face with wide eyes. He felt his breath catch again as the sight of Raphael had never been so astonishing. It took a moment for his brain to catch up with the whir of emotions spinning in his head. But he felt Raph's grip tighten around his arms. His hands were strong, confident, albeit a little sweaty, but hell Leo wasn't going to complain. Under Raph's confident smirk, in Raph's secured embrace he was safe, he was alive, and he felt the nauseating tension in his muscles whisk away like a flame being blown out, and with it came a sigh.
"Thanks, Raph," he said. He meant it to come out passive and unfazed, as though he hadn't been the least bit worried, but his voice betrayed him with a breathless waver.
Raph glanced down at him with victorious green eyes. "Anytime, buddy."
He opened his eyes, drawing in a long stabilizing breath as he did so, attempting to shake the trembles of adrenaline and relief while at the same time dragging himself dizzily back into reality where his cheek was pressed against something warm and muscly.
He blinked at the plastron situated mere centimeters from his nose, for a moment quietly—but comfortably—disoriented. The arm cushioning his head twitched, and Leo glanced up with baited breath as Raph's arm curled definitively around him before relaxing again and draping over his neck, his fingers brushing Leo's cheek. The older turtle watched his brother's head fall sleepily to the side, his face now in full view and only inches above his head. Raph gave a soft snore indicating that, if he'd been disturbed at all, he was now well settled back in his own dream.
Leo stared.
He'd seen Raph sleep plenty of times, but never quite this close. It was astonishing really, how relaxed his expression was—all traces of anger, irritation, and the normal grimace of distaste gone from his brow and cheeks. Leo could've sworn Raph's usually frowning lips were even slanted with the slightest of smiles, though that could've been the way he was angled. Whatever the case, Raphael was completely at peace, and it was a moment so sacred Leo thought he should look away … But he couldn't.
Had his brother always looked like this? Had he always had this face? Had his jaw always been this strong, this masculine? Had his skin always been this shade of green? Had his nose always curved up like that? Had his bottom lip always been more prominent? Because if it had, Leo didn't understand how it had escaped him that Raphael was an oddly handsome being. Maybe it was just Raph's state of unconsciousness. Maybe it was because his sleep wiped away all glares and grimaces and left his face clean, pure, and natural. Leo's stomach twisted, a delayed reaction to what should have been an earlier realization.
His brow furrowed. He lifted a hand, intending to move Raph's hand away from his face, but only found himself lying his own hand on top of his brother's and leaving it there, his fingers automatically curling around Raph's. A warm shudder shook his shell as he dipped back into his dream for a moment and recalled the way Raph's hands had once, and probably always would, hold him. And he was overcome by that release of tension again, that feeling of safety and security.
He wanted to thank him. The incident with the Kraang invasion had happened months ago, and yet he felt as though Raph and just saved his life all over again. Of course, it wasn't exactly an uncommon thing to happen. Leo and his brothers saved each other's shells all the time. He didn't know why he'd dreamt of that moment in particular. He just knew he was grateful and a little ashamed for not continuously acknowledging that his brother would always have his back, always keep him safe, always stop him from falling.
He pressed himself closer and nuzzled his face in the crook of Raph's neck between his chin and plastron. Still gripping his brother's hand, he nudged his nose against Raph's skin. He smelled just like that—skin—a slightly salty, moist scent, a very natural musk that Leo didn't mind at all.
He closed his eyes, listening to the rhythm of his brother's heartbeat, and drifted back to sleep.