Morgan opened the laptop again, may as well video conference when I can. "Hey Momma, how you doing?" He hoped she was having a better day, not being able to track down the Hamato boys or this Barry Draxum character was really wearing on their Mistress of the Net.
"Well, better. I think. Maybe…" She huffed, blowing a loose curl out of her face, "I THINK, I've found something, heavy emphasis on think, but, I dunno."
"Talk it out with me Baby Girl, what're you looking at?" Derek asked, settling down to sip at his steaming coffee.
The bubbly blonde inhaled deeply, then let it all out in a puff, gesturing with a bright pink quill. "Okay. So, when you're online, as long as you don't do anything, stupid, you can pretty much stay anonymous to like ninety-nine percent of the people on there. Y'know don't give out your real name, don't talk in detail about your life, stuff like that."
"Yeah, common sense internet safety." Huh. That place at the corner does good brew. Gotta thank Detective Moros for the rec.
"Right, now people like moi," she blinked fetchingly making Derek smirk, "can dig in a little deeper, trace connections, follow the fingerprint of your activity back to the source…"
"Again, so glad you're on our side now," he mumbled into his drink.
"Hah!" Garcia barked in response, "Oh Honey Mustard and Chili I would love to do a deep dive into your internet activity. But, not what we're here for." Penelope shook her head, getting back to business. "People like me though, we can ALMOST disappear online, almost but not completely. So, since our unsub, his victims, et all were kinda, a dead end, no offense to the departed, I decided to take a stab at tracking down the illustrious Othello Von Ryan."
Taking another sip of rich coffee, "You said you had his signature."
Her grit teeth glare let him know how that was going. "Yeah… I can tell where he's been, stuff he's done, but, Othello hasn't actually been hiding that. He likes bragging about his hacks, obnoxiously so really but, that's not unusual. Most hackers like to toot their own horn in the community; admiration of your peers kinda thing." She said, shrugging.
"Hence the pretentious screen names?" Morgan needled.
His best friend pantomimed a mocking laugh in response to the jab. "Aaaanywho, Othello's covered his actual connection pretty good and I haven't been able to find him revealing anything I could use to identify him, but…."
Derek's eyebrows climbed up his forehead. "But?" he prompted.
"Well, if you tick off enough people, someone's gonna talk."
He leaned forward, "Somebody's outing him?"
Garcia heaved a sigh. "Sorta?" She kept reading as she spoke, "There's this other hacker, Special K, they've got some kinda axe to grind with Ryan O' the ello. Lot's o' shade thrown in his direction, flame wars with his fans; mostly he just sits back and laughs at them. Buuuuuut, I've been digging through it all to … see …. i…." she trailed off, dark eyes widening, "ohhhhh."
"Penelope?"
Reading from her screen, "'It's your fault. It's your fault I went to jail. You...'" she tilted her head, "blankety, blankety, blank, blank … ohhhhh sweetie, even on 4chan you couldn't get away with saying that. Long and short of it, Othello screwed up some project Special K had going on, apparently resulting in K getting busted by the cops."
"Does K say what they did? Maybe we can backtrack the connection to K and get more info through them directly." Morgan asked, grabbing a sticky note and pen to make a reminder for himself.
Furious tapping of Penelope's nails against her keyboard rang out. "Uhhhh…. Not her, but Othello says 'You were an idiot going after Nakamura. Way beyond your paygrade.'"
Derek perked up, meeting Garcia's eyes, "Nakamura? Is that another hacker?"
She paused, leaning back to take a sip of her own drink, chewing on the straw a bit. "Could be. I can think of like, three Nakamuras off the top of my head, nine if you want to go Nakamura-adjacent. Might not be another hacker at all though, he could be referencing something else, a place, an event, a company… I don't know."
"It's a lead though Penelope. You found us a lead."
Leo jolted on the couch as another crash sounded out from their dojo/garage. Dropping the edge of his comic, waiting for any further noise, he was relived to hear a cry of "Victory!" from Casey Sr. Post training session training sessions between Raph and the Caseys™ could range from rowdy to "hey Leo, is this supposed to bend like that?"
Snuggling under the heavy quilt Splinter had painstakingly sewed together, Leon
delved back into his comic; bad guys were in the middle of getting a well-deserved beat down. He was again interrupted by a very smelly woman heavily plopping down on his blanket covered feet. Beak wrinkling, the slider turned another page. "I don't hear anyone calling my name, so I assume you're all still in one piece."
"Hah!" Casey barked. "Not for lack of trying my friend! But your brother did not think we should burden you with unnecessary labour." Pulling his comic down enough to look at her over the edge, "Thanks for that." the ninja mumbled, glad he didn't have to deal with any dislocated limbs today at least.
"I see my progeny was correct in saying you're being a real bummer."
Why can't she talk normal? Jr isn't like this. "Am I now? So sorry for bringing down the vibe." Be nice Leo, she's family. Kinda. Sorta. Adjacent.
A heavy silence weighed between the two, staring at each other sceptically. Leo broke first. "What?"
"I was told that connecting with your grandparents was going well. Why does this upset you?" It was really hard to be mad at her bulldozing into sensitive matters when she was so sincere about it. Eyes wide and guileless, Casey Sr leaned forward, hands clasped in her lap.
Dangit Junior. He meant well, but Leo's pseudo-son really didn't know when to keep his mouth shut. Probably got that from me. Leon sighed, You're trying to grow, remember? "It's going fine. We've got another call with them in a few days. They want to introduce us to their other son."
"Isn't that good?"
"Yeah, I guess." Fiddling with a page between his fingers, he tried to ignore the tension squirming under lime green scales. "Still nervous though."
Sr scrunched her brow. "Why?"
Giving up on his comic entirely, the slider resigned himself to his fate with a huff. "There's a lot up in the air Casey." Meeting those dark almond eyes, he continued, "Sure they're ok with having grandsons of dubious origin, but they don't know about the mutant thing, or the weapon thing or that we were getting tight with their daughter's killer…." trailing off, Leon shrugged helplessly. "It could all still go wrong, so I'm nervous."
Pulling her feet up to sit cross legged and armed on the ratty cushion, Casey Sr looked down, deep in thought. Honestly, it was touching, in a weird Hannibal-Lector-cares-about-you-apparently kind of way. While Leo and Sr had been civil after the whole summoning Shredder, kidnapping Dad incident, they hadn't been close. First, she'd been basically adopted by Pops, after bonding during his capture (cough, Stockholm, cough), then Raph had discovered a sparring partner that would take everything he had to give and come back running.
Mikey had been welcoming of course, but his drive to "fix" her had their new lunatic dodging him with a side eye more often than not. April'd been happy to have another girl in the sea of Hamato testosterone, and Donnie? Was, well Donnie. As long as Casey stayed out of his space, he didn't really care, though she'd promptly been given her own Genius Built™ phone, ("She's not connecting that piece of crap Motorola to my network.")
Post-Krang though, a weird "co-parenting" bond had started to form over their mutual care for Jr. The poor kid was like a lost puppy; Kujo as a puppy, but still a puppy. Tripping over himself, so sad and jumpy, the entire clan had melted en-mass at his feet and glomped onto their newest child. Being the younger versions of Casey's parents pushed Sr and Leon to start working together for Jr's sake. In the end, they'd settled on him attending school and working on integrating with humanity under Sr's supervision (who in turn was under April's semi-sane supervision) while living in the Lair where he could completely relax; being his own apocalypse brand of "normal" and process his loses with people who could understand that part of his life best in the current timeline.
"Bull." he looked back up to Casey sitting straight, fists braced on knees.
"Exsqueeze me?" Ok, she's not so endearing anymore.
"You are not hesitant because of being a mutant, you know humans can accept you. And it is not because of your connection to Draxum, there is no necessity to reveal that." She leaned forward, head directly over Leo's covered knees, "so, what is it Leonardo? What is holding you back?"
Her words asked, but her eyes were filled with a disturbing certainty. "Ever heard of personal space?"
"Ever heard of honesty?" Casey shot back, tone heavy with challenge.
Leonardo was absolutely a liar, he was also absolutely a coward. These were both things he needed to change, though the urge to spin a fancy tale and twist her up in word play burned in the young leader's throat. You're trying to be better. For THEM. …. But not all at once.
"Look. I'm ok. It's not that deep. Just leave it alone Casey." And he hid behind his comic again. Bravely.
The antique clock Pops insisted on keeping around ticked loudly on the wall. Suddenly, his feet were seized and yanked off to the side, flinging the striped ninja down to the floor. Rolling to a stop, shell clanking on the concrete, he found himself blinking dazedly at the nutcase standing over him. Astonishment rapidly bled into anger. "What was that for?!"
She cocked a hip, arms crossed and supremely unimpressed. "Lying to me. I hate that."
Leo snorted and started to lever himself up, only to stop dead sitting as she spoke next. "You still blame yourself for the Krang." Heart stuttering, he struggled to keep his breathing steady as his deepest secret was just casually tossed into his lap. Valiantly fighting against the numbness creeping over his mind, Leon looked up to meet her dark eyes, something inscrutable swimming in their depths. "What do YOU know?" he challenged, grasping desperately to maintain some level of control over the situation.
"Like recognizes like." Casey murmured, the quietest he'd ever heard her.
Blinking rapidly, flatfooted by the completely unexpected reply, Leonardo finally surrendered. Wherever Cassandra Jones was taking this, Leo was just along for the ride.
Crouching in front of the floundering turtle, Casey continued, "You're not the only one that still blames themself for nearly ending the world."
Oh….. that.
After reading his silence for a moment, she continued. "Thing is, I was a willing accomplice… so if I'm forgivable, why aren't you?"
Her cold brutal logic ripped across his mind. Where the others had argued that the Foot would've just restole the Key later, that he couldn't have known what would happen, that he was really just a kid too young for what dropped onto his shoulders; Leo's mind had always whispered, you still could've prevented it all by just not being an idiot.
This argument was different. She didn't say that he didn't do anything wrong, just that what she'd done was WORSE.
Casey was right. She'd CHOSEN to help the Foot, knowing they were criminals, knowing that they intended to rain destruction down on the earth. She'd chosen to hurt people, but Leo didn't hold that against her. The moment she'd turned on the Shredder and stood to fight alongside the Hamatos, risking her own life, he'd forgiven her. Draxum had only changed after being thwarted and then dragged into the light by Michelangelo, kicking and screaming all the way (sometimes literally). Casey made a choice, to abandon all her goals and chance the ultimate sacrifice to do the right thing. There was no question in his mind that she'd redeemed herself, so why hadn't he?
I set it all off.
You didn't choose it.
Everyone could've died. People DID die.
You almost died too. You saved everyone else. Everyone that KNOWS has forgiven you. Are they stupid?
No.
Then forgive yourself.
Awareness trickled back in, still sitting on the floor, Leo's hands had come up to cover leaking eyes while his breaths shuddered through soft sobs, stitch pinching in his side. A strong, calloused hand firmly gripped his shoulder. Looking up past his hands, there she was, face soft like he'd never seen before, her own tears lingering behind lashes. "Thank you." He managed to whisper. Expression twisting, she leaned forward to bonk foreheads like the rest of the clan for the first time, "Just returning the favour Blue."
Jr smiled softly to himself, easing back into the shadows as he'd been taught to all his life. Mom'd always been on the short list of people that could get through Sensei's thick skull when he was being particularly bull-headed…. Whatever a bull was.
Learning how the Foot had gotten ahold of the Key in the first place had certainly explained a few things. There'd always been an extra layer of something on Sensei when he was mourning, Casey now knew that it was guilt. To be able to nudge things along to help Leo forgive himself eased Casey's own pain. Sensei had given Casey a future, Casey would do his best to help his father have the happiness he deserved.
In the days that followed, he basked in the new happy atmosphere that followed Leonardo everywhere the slider went. Chirpy, bouncy and eager to spread the joy, a new lighter Leon flitted about leaving a trail of laughter behind. Is this what Sensei was really like? Before everything? Jr asked himself, dragged along by his mischievous mentor as they prepared a prank for Splinter. "Look, itching powder in the undies is cruel, but it is also absolutely deserved and long overdue."
Within a couple hours they were running for the tunnels, laughing as they scrambled to evade an enraged ninja master who was spewing things in Japanese that Casey was pretty sure he wasn't allowed to repeat. Leo's cackles cut off as a slipper nailed him in the back of the head, making him stumble. Deciding that his father would want him to save himself, the human pelted onward into the safety of the sewers, leaving a pleading turtle behind in his wake.
Eventually sneaking back in for supper later, Jr was relieved to learn that Splinter wasn't holding anything against him, believing his son to be the main instigator. Casey smirked at Leo's indignant squawk, revelling in having grandson privileges. Slurping up his serving of noodles coated in a sauce of new flavours that the future refugee was enthralled to experience, he watched his new/old family shove, laugh and discuss their days. Notably, Leo and Raph were talking about what to do for training the next day. From his discussions with April, it sounded like Leon was finally settling into a balance between the happy go lucky goofball he used to be and the reliable leader he was working to become.
Laughing under his breath as Splinter squirmed a little on his stool, Jr turned his attention to the right when Donatello was crunching his way through his own serving of noodles, no spice, added octopus and crackers. "So, your next phone call is tomorrow, right?"
Pausing to swallow a tremendous mouthful, Donnie nodded and answered. "Yes, tomorrow at 2 hours post meridiem to be exact. Their elder son, Mark, is supposed to be in attendance this time."
"How do you think it's gonna go?" Casey asked, bringing another bite up from his bowl.
Don's eyes cut across the table to Leo laughing wide and loud with Mikey. "Quite well I believe."
After a delicious lunch, four members of the Sullivan family sat down around a brand-new Bluetooth phone interface so they could all hear and be heard better. Bruce brought in coffee and some soft cookies. Mark especially was fidgeting, nervous about speaking to his nephews for the first time.
They all jumped a little when the phone finally rang. Ruefully shaking his head, Bruce reached out to answer the call. "Hello?"
"Hi… uh …. Poppa." Leonardo answered first this time, hesitating on the new family title.
Smiling at already having made some progress this call, Bruce answered his more reluctant grandson. "Hello Leo. It's good to hear you. Your Nonna, Jake and Mark are all here too." The others called out their own greetings.
"Yeah, Donnie's here too," said brother's voice piped up, "Salutations." This kid. He's hilarious. Bruce chuckled to himself. "How have you been?" he chose to ask.
"Ok." Leo replied.
"Leon pranked Dad."
Said prankster screeched and a loud scuffle broke out on the other end of the line, shouts of "Traitor!" and "Court Jester!" ringing out.
The Sullivans exchanged grins at their antics, remembering when this very house rang out with similar hijinks from four mischievous children. After a couple minutes it sounded like some real property damage was starting to happen, time to step in.
"Boys? That's enough now." Bruce called, hoping he struck a tone that got their attention, but wasn't too stern, leary of potentially scaring the twins off. Sounds of scuffling stopped almost immediately and they sounded off with contrite, "Yes Sir"'s. Hoping to encourage them, their grandfather got closer to the speaker and murmured, "So what did yah do?"
A nervous giggle tittered over the line. "Uh, put itching powder in his tighty whities?"
Don't over react, don't over react. "Oof." He started, sharing winces with everyone else. "That's harsh kiddo."
"It was deserved." Was their stereo reply. Oh wow. Note to self, don't tick off the twins.
"Oooohhhkay." Jake drawled, giant grin across his face. "Pranks a common occurrence in the Hamato household then?"
"Four boys and a father who is more than willing to turn a blind eye." Donatello countered.
A startled laugh barked out of Mark. "Sounds like fun." He commented, studiously avoiding his mother's unimpressed gaze.
Leo, surprisingly, took the lead again. He launched into a recollection of various exploits all four of the brothers had engaged in over the years. Bruce took Maria's hand, sharing a meaningful look. Leonardo's been so quiet and defensive until now. Are we turning a corner with him? Are they starting to trust us?
Not wanting to get ahead of himself, the family patriarch focused on the here and now, especially focussing on slowly introducing his elder son to the twins. Mark had been more reluctant than Jake, though not outright opposed as Sofia had been.
Right now, Jake and Don were going over a new website that Jake was setting up for Mark's restaurant. The conversation flowed along mentioning links to Mark's blog that, as it turns out, the twin's baby brother, Michelangelo, followed. Small world, Bruce mused, listening as Leo once again launched into a glowing description of his little brother. It seemed that once Leon warmed up, there was nothing he enjoyed talking about more than his family.
Mark was relaxing too, offering to trade tips with little Angelo if they'd tell him what the kid's screen name was. "Who knows, maybe one day he could come join me in the kitchen for a bit. Sounds like it'd be a hoot." And it's awkward again.
"Yeah. Sure." All enthusiasm had been sucked out of his younger grandson's voice, hurting something deep in Bruce's heart. They're so afraid of meeting us.
"Leo," Jake started, when did my kid get a dad voice? "I know you're scared, but we can meet safely. Not even involving the FBI, we can keep things quiet and private. Heck, we rent a cottage up north every year, we could all go up there. There's nobody around for miles." Pitched low and soothing, Bruce admired his son's attempt to calm the boys and cajole them into moving beyond just phone calls. I'm not sure that they've opened up enough for that just yet though.
There were a couple beats of silence, Leo and Donnie likely trading looks on the other end, then Donatello took the lead again. "It's not just a matter of safety," he sighed. "You're aware of the deformation of our hands?"
"Yes." Maria stepped in, no longer needing to stand back and let her boys bond.
"It's not just our hands." Bruce watched his wife's face close down, suppressing her rage at her family being hurt… again. "How… extensive?" He squeezed her hand. She's going all scientist to avoid saying something she doesn't want to.
Don responded in kind. "We're healthy, more robust than average frankly; but our appearance is entirely abnormal."
"Maybe.. maybe it'd help if we kinda, forewarn them?" Leo murmured softly, probably to his brother.
"Donetello?" Maria prompted.
"In addition to having three digits on each hand, we have two digits on each foot, with a slightly elongated heel." He huffed, clearly not happy about giving this description, "Scaley skin, low body temp, variable skin pigmentation and completely hairless."
"Except for the eyebrows Donnie draws on everyday." Annnnd another scuffle sounded off from the phone speakers.
"Boys!" Maria cut in, "You're sure you're healthy though, everything else aside?"
They settled down quickly, rushing to reassure their grandmother. "Yes Nonna, we're healthy, just, y'know, sometimes get mistaken for monsters or people doing cosplay." Leo answered, trailing off as he tried to downplay how they'd get treated in public. No wonder they're avoiding us seeing them. I'd do the same if people called me a monster for my face. His own protective anger started to boil at what his grandsons had already been through in their short lives. Made by a serial killer, raised in the shadows, mistreated for their appearance, how much are they going to have to deal with?
"Leo, Don, we don't care how you look, as long as you're happy and healthy." Bruce tried to reassure.
"I … it's." Leon sighed, "We know that people can get over it, we've got a few friends, but…"
But you never know, went unspoken. Not to mention, there's always that initial reaction that you might not be able to control, no matter how you really feel about things. "But you're nervous. Perfectly reasonable. Why don't we keep doing phone calls and work our way up to it. Whatever you're comfortable with."
"Ok Poppa, sounds like a deal." Donnie replied, muffled as if he were turned aside. From there the rest of the conversation went much smoother, new bonds slowly forming.
It was a good day. The twins had come away from their call yesterday in good spirits, Leo was more like himself again, their humans all had the day off and the entire clan was in the Lair for an epic dance party extravaganza. Good food, friends and décor surrounded them as they all took turns picking a song and jamming their heart out on the living room floor.
Casey Jr was showing his skills, well learned from his future family of theatre kids. Leo and Sr had both choked as their adoptive kid crooned a mocking love song in their direction leaving the rest of the family literally rolling on the floor laughing. Raph and April had pulled off a beautiful R&B number, like bosses, and Splinter had made the sewers ring with an unfortunately dour opera solo.
Leo was currently swaggering up, dragging Donnie along as his backup dancer, the opening tones of Despacito ringing out from the speakers. Soon, Leon was in the groove, rapid Spanish spilling from his lips with only the occasional slip up, he and Don twisting around each other with a coordination that none of the others could quite match.
Raphel stopped for a moment to consider his second youngest brother. Glad Casey was finally able to pull him outta his own head. Missed him like this. For someone so smart, their leader could be real dumb sometimes. And he WAS smart, not Donnie smart, no one was Donnie smart, but Leo really wasn't that far behind. The slider could read people like a book, plan around almost anything, was the boss of anything medicine and was working on learning Japanese on top of English and Spanish; he just slipped up sometimes having so many words in his head. That's the next thing, he might be a dum dum but he doesn't give himself enough credit for the smarts he's got. Now that the Krang-inspired guilt was gone, maybe they could work on building some genuine self confidence in Leo, instead of the bravado mask he'd worn so long.
Their song was ramping up, and so were the twins, markings starting to glow, they'd lost themselves in the song and then, Don started to sing too, in the same near perfect Spanish as Leonardo. Only…. Donnie didn't speak Spanish, at all. Looking to the side, Raph caught April's equally confused eyes as they tried to puzzle out what was going on. Scientific terminology was one thing, but other than the occasional word to correct Leo with, Donnie'd never taken an interest in languages. Now they were in a full-on duet, specks of power flickering between the two turtles consumed by their performance. Hitting the finale, marking fading with the music they both blinked rapidly, locking eyes. Jumping back to point at each other, they screeched in tandem, "What was that?!"
A whirl of activity later saw the clan, minus Leo and Mikey, piled into Donnie's lab watching their resident genius run scans and pour over security logs. Raph did his best to stay out of the way, stress eating pasta salad in the corner. A delicate hand on his elbow drew his attention down to April. "You ok big guy?" she asked, eyes full of concern.
"Yeah, yeah," he rushed to reassure, "I just… why is it always them?"
His sister snorted, "Must be the universe's favourite punching bags."
"Don!" They were interrupted by the flurry of Mikey and Leo running into the lab, Leon waving a tablet back and forth. Their two experts literally banging heads to look at the results. Meanwhile Mike scrambled up onto Raph's shoulders, welcome weight comforting him with the knowledge that all his little brothers were close to protect. "What'd Leo say?" Raphie asked his newly acquired limpet.
"The medical info for Donnie's tracker thingies synched up on both of 'em." Angelo answered, swiping Raph's fork to get some pasta for himself.
"Huh." I mean, they reflect off each other all the time.. but this?
"Eureka!" Donnie hollered, "Fam, and my former tumour," "Hey!" "I believe we have an answer!"
They all crowded around to stare at multiple windows open next to each other on the massive screen over Donnie's desk. Each window showed two sets of data starting off different that gradually became identical before breaking off on their own again. "By studying all our biometric data, recorded power levels and .."
"We twinned! Total syncope!" Leo yelled, pushing his hand into Don's face and getting bit for his trouble. "That's not what that means!" The softshell bellowed down at his now floored twin. "All our vital rhythms, including our brain waves, became completely synchronized just as when we were the same person. We were completely aware of each other's intended movements and individual knowledge, as if we shared a brain again. Thank particle physics that is no longer the case!"
Non-bitten hand raised in a triumphant fist, Leon cried into the concrete, "Twins!"
"I hate you so much."