Well, I haven't written fanfiction since I was 17 so this is literally six years of procrastination writing

I still love my turtles and ever since Mutant Mayhem came out, I've had them on the brain so getting back into writing was inevitable

I don't see a lot of stories like this where it's just April and the turtles being close platonically and the ones I have read have always been my favorite so I thought I'd just make my own

This is gonna be a mix of the 2003 version along with the 2012 version and Bay version, maybe a bit of Rise so it might be a bit all over the place, just to clarify it's not set it one specific universe it's just a bit of everything. Their designs are closest to the Rise version though for this story.

April is 21 Leo and Raph are 20 and Mikey and Donnie are 19

Everything belongs to Eastman and Laird and Nickelodeon

Enjoy

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Sometimes she forgot just how big Raphael was.

Spending a Friday night lying on her back wouldn't have been so bad if she had been accompanied by the cute guy from her Physiology class, but no, she was stuck on the corner of sixth and west 34th with the second oldest Hamato brother's hands plowing into the concrete on either side of her head.

Patrol normally went pretty smoothly on Fridays, despite the number of alcoholics flooding New Yorks streets there were never any major issues despite the here and there bar fight moved out back to one of the alleys, and they usually finished up way before any of the boys felt the need to intervene.

Expecting no more action than usual is probably why all of their guards were down tonight, turtle tank parked nearby and full of Tony Lou's pizza they were more than happy to dawdle through the alleyways in their own worlds, even Leonardo despite his stern whisperings to remember to stay on guard. It felt good to have a night off from her low paying job at TCRI doing paper work, and she was more than happy to spend it with her boys.

That is until the Purple Dragons came along.

Her Tessen had been snapped in half by a guy with a neon green mohawk and all she could think as the switch blade flew towards her face is how disappointed Master Splinter was going to be, and how annoying groveling to Donatello to fix it for her would be.

Oh, he won't need to fix it if I'm dead.

The thought ran icy hot through her body and she ducked just in time, pulling her knees to her chest and rolling away as the large knife smashed through the lower-level window behind her. She heard Donnie yell her name and thought back to him meticulously putting her Tessen back together, carefully polishing and smoothing the metal before clicking the blades back into place, probably even more perfectly than they had been before. She knew he would always fix whatever she needed no matter the ask, but he seemed to revel in the slight begging he made her do before he stopped dragging it out and did the task joyously locked away in his laboratory.

He screamed for her a second time and she looked up in surprise, shock making her freeze up and stiffen from her position on the road as she saw a large barrel of some sort hurtling through the air, heading from the roof ledge above and seconds away from splattering her brain matter across the pavement.

She heard Raph more than she felt him, her eardrums practically bursting as he threw his massive form over her smaller frame, his hands slamming into the concrete and kicking up sharp bits of rock into her ears and hair to stop himself from crushing her. He was panting heavily and his breath ran hot over her face, making her nose wrinkle. She felt like her chest was being crushed only to be released and then crushed again, realizing it had been his own chest heaving and his plastron pushing down and up against her. The barrel had exploded into a flurry of splinters against the back of his shell and she could see a strip of wood lodged onto one of the spikes over the back of his left shoulder.

"I've got you! You're ok, everything's ok! I'll get you to Mikey."

He was probably saying that more for himself than he was for her but she was grateful none the less, reaching up to pick bits of debris out of her hair as he scooped her up under her arms and threw her over his shoulder as gently but quickly as he could. He hair ties had sprung loose at some point during the fight and her afro had formed into one big clump on her head, Raph's mask tails flapping behind him and velcroing to the side of her face as he ran towards the turtle tank.

Michaelangelo was already there, the engine roaring as he furiously jammed the key into the ignition and revved up the gas. Half hanging out the driver's side door he threw his arms out much to April's confusion, only for it to click into place a second later as Raphael threw his shoulder forward to catapult her into his baby brother before turning around and stabbing into the shoulder of a gang member that had been hot on their tail with his Sai.

April felt herself gag at the spray of blood as Mikey wrapped his entire body around her, his shell slamming back into the passenger side seat before quickly stretching his leg out to pull and slam the door shut with his right foot. She could hear him chanting furiously under his breath over and over again as he picked glass out of the back of her jacket, seeing speckles of blood on his fingers and wondering who's it was.

"Donnie's gonna fix you up when we get home April, don't worry, Leo and Raph are gonna take care of this, I love you, I'm sorry, everything's gonna be fine!"

It's my blood. She felt the pricks up pain creeping up her shoulders then, realizing her adrenaline must be wearing off and seeing an oozy trickle of crimson slide down the side of her temple out of the corner of her eye. The glass from the window that Mikey was manically pulling out must've sliced into her back, and she remembered faintly her glasses smashing back into her nose after getting a rather hard slam to the face by one of the dragon's fists.

The passenger door sprang open and she shrieked, making Mikey flinch at the unexpected volume before she felt his nun chuck slide out from his belt that was positioned under her left hip, the chain rattling loudly as he threw the other end of the handle at the unsuspecting attacker. She only had a second to gasp before a three fingered hand closed tightly around the orange coloured band, Leonardo's eyes flashing icy blue as he parried the attack and threw himself upwards into the truck.

"Move! You drive!"

Mikey didn't waste a second before springing back up and shoving her into the blue clad turtle's lap, his foot slamming onto the gas and sending them flying out into the streets and then down a stairwell and onto one of the nearby subway tunnel tracks. Her shoulder slammed into the middle divot between the plastron plates on Leo's chest when Mikey floored it and she heard him grunt in pain, looking down in horror to see the large jagged gash that had been sliced right down to middle. She faintly heard something huge slam down in the back followed by some cursing, indicating both Raph and Donnie had also jumped back into the turtle tank at some point during the scuffle.

Leonardo wrapped his left arm around her and she heard the faint click of the seatbelt lock into place, his right arm scooping under her knees and pulling her into him, his own knees bending up to lock them together in a joined fetus position.

"God April, I'm so sorry, I should've been more vigilant-"

"I'm fine, you're beating yourself up over nothing fearless, things happen-"

"April you're completely sliced up!"

She looked up to come face to face with Donnie, feeling him grab her chin delicately before a wash of saline was poured down the left side of her face.

"Ow! Dee-"

"You need to stay still! The blood vessels in your eye exploded".

She started to argue before feeling the grip on her jaw squeeze a bit tighter, going quiet at the pained look on the brainy turtle's face as his thick eyebrows scrunched up and his mouth flattened into a straight line. She felt Leo's right hand go up to the back of her neck, holding her firmly and digging his fingers softly into the baby hairs curled up on her nape from all the sweat. Right, not the time to argue.

"Mikey what's our time estimate?" Raph asked hoarsely, lumbering up behind Donnie and placing his hand on the back of the driver side head rest.

"20 minutes, I think? It'll be a tight squeeze but if we cut through the main drainage pipe, we can save an extra 10 minutes."

Donnie ripped the plastic off a large package of gauze from the tanks first aid trunk, quickly wrapping a large strip around Raph's arm that April noticed was puffy and oozing thick clots of blood on his upper right bicep, making her gag again and turn to press her face into the crook of Leonardo's neck. He flinched and she took a deep breath before mumbling into his sweat soaked skin.

"If I need to puke I'll move away".

He relaxed slightly and let his shoulders go limp, turning his head to glare over the passenger side seat at Raph who was attempting to swat Donnie's fussing hands away from the small puncture wound on his right thigh.

"I'm fine damn it! HELP APRIL!"

She was quickly but gently bent forwards, her forehead resting cooly against the passenger side window as Don softly grabbed the back of her head and used his other hand to start rolling down the right side of her jacket shoulder, Leo joining in quickly after to tug on the left side as well. The fabric slipped down easily and she realized the glass must've basically sliced the sleeves right off.

"You guys!-"

"Dudette you gotta stay still, your backs really fucked up."

Hearing Mikey's voice catch like he was about to cry made her stop squirming, letting the two boys resume their undressing and digging her nails into her own thighs. She flinched feeling pain flare up in her right ring finger, looking down to see the nail had split right down the middle and was oozing puss, hanging off the side like a slab of deli meat. She made a gargled choking sound and Leo quickly rolled down the window, holding her hair back as she pushed her head out to throw up into the moving tunnel. She coughed a couple times and felt a soft cloth press up to her mouth, taking the blue leader's handkerchief and wiping away the rest of the spit dribbling from her mouth as she leaned back into the truck.

Leo rolled the window back up and delicately held the back of her head so her forehead was pressing against the glass again. Donnie was quickly unzipping the back of her yellow dress and she only had a second to be surprised when he unsnapped her bra, lightning bolts of agony searing through the skin on her back a moment later as he poured a gallon of hydrogen peroxide down her spine and shoulder blades. If she wasn't in so much pain, she would've been impressed that a virgin with three fingers had been able to get her clothing off so quickly.

She shrieked in pain, opening her eyes after the initial spike of hurt past she vaguely saw the reflection of Raph in the back seat in the window, his ears covered and his eyes squeezed tightly shut.

"Mikey?!"

"10 minutes!"

She panted against the glass, her breath fogging up the window as Leo whispered gently in her ear and Donnie pushed his hands past her waist into her clothes to pull strips of bandages around her chest to cover her back.

"It's ok April, we're almost to the lair, I'm so sorry, so so sorry."

Leo's voice was husky and tired with hurt, his hands hot and burning into her skin as he clutched her to his chest tightly. He wasn't normally this touchy and she wondered what all the fuss was about. It's just a couple scrapes. His grip loosened momentarily and she was leaned back into Donnie who was crouched between the center consol and the driver side seat. She heard Leo hiss in pain a moment later as the purple banded turtle poured and dabbed at the sliced flesh on his chest, rolling the gauze around his body as well before leaning April back into him.

"Almost home, we're almost home April."

She felt her eyes droop and the exhaustion of the night finally hit her, making her body go limp and curl deeper into Leo's carapace, feeling him start to shake slightly as he choked on small repressed sobs. She let herself drift off, feeling Donnie lean down and gently kiss the top of her dirty oil covered hair.

So much for a night off.

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Her back hurt. Her hands hurt. Her face hurt. God even her hair hurt.

She'd been in fights with them before, obviously not every patrol was a cool night out, but she was usually told to dip out before they got too intense for her to handle back when they'd still been teenagers. The baseball bat she'd picked as her main weapon had always worked just fine for her, but after the invasion and Casey's arrival Master Splinter had really started to put more effort into training them as proper ninjas, and that included her too. Equipped with her Japanese fighting fan and pure stubborn determination, she'd become quite the eligible kunoichi.

That is, until tonight.

Something was off about the dragons that had ambushed them tonight. They weren't acting like your run of the mill human gang. They were stronger, faster. They'd fucked her up bad, bad enough to the point she was almost in too much of a daze to realize what had been done to her.

"I really should go to the hospital," April mumbled to herself quietly, groaning and turning on her side a moment later.

The hospital was usually a bad idea, came with a lot of questions, and Donnie had enough medical expertise to have graduated from Harvard anyways. She'd been awake for about half an hour now, finding herself lying on the pull-out bed kept in the brainy turtle's lab space dedicated for the 'infirmary section' as he liked to call it. The main overheard lights were off which she thanked God for, she'd probably just end up puking again if she had to deal with any fluorescents, and she could see a sliver of light moving around and shadows darting under the crack under the door that led out to the main part of the lair. She groaned again before sitting up, going to stretch her arms above her head before wincing in pain.

Yeah no bad idea, super injured, forgot.

She swung her legs over the side of the pullout and sighed in relief when she realized she felt pretty fine from the waist down, which made sense since Master Splinter always let her know she had impeccable footwork compared to the boys. Well, three of the boys, Leo was perfect at everything as per usual. She flashed back to him trying to muffle his sobs in the truck as she drifted off, and she felt a sad, sour note of anxiety as she padded her way over the sliding lab doors. He was always the one beating himself up the most out of everyone, and she had a terrible hunch that he was blaming himself for this whole situation.

Sliding open one of the giant metal barn doors with only a slight grunt of pain, April let her eyes adjust to the light for a moment before she zeroed in on Raph sitting crisscross on the living room carpet, twiddling with his Sais as he half paid attention to whatever was playing on TV. April could faintly hear noises coming from the kitchen, Donnie and Mikeys voices muffled and the smell of something salty and meaty wafting out to greet her. Master Splinter sat quietly in his E-Z chair behind him, his hands resting politely on the armrests and he spoke quietly to his second eldest son.

"April will wake up soon, you did very good my son."

"Not good enough pops."

"I saw that piece of wood Donatello took out of your shell, that surely would've killed her if you had not been there Raphael."

The hotheaded turtle made a grunting, choked noise, turning his head only for his eyes to catch on April standing in the door frame.

"April!"

He jumped up and Master Splinter leaned forward to get out of his chair, the sound of something crashing came from the kitchen before Michealangelo bolted out into the corridor, running up to her and quickly picking her up by the waist to twirl her up in the air.

"APES!"

"Mikey too rough!"

Donnie had pulled her out of Mikey's arms, setting her gently back on the ground and gripping her shoulders so he could look over her body to examine her. She batted away his hands and he took hers instead, looking at her through big brown worried eyes.

"How are you feeling? Is your back starting to scab over? I'm sorry about the hydrogen peroxide but you know it really is the best chemical to have on hand-"

"Donnie", she gently pulled her hand out of his and placed it over his mouth, watching his eyebrows dart up as he went silent.

She smiled at him softly and took her hand away, only for him to shriek in surprise a second later when she grabbed him by the mask tails roughly and pulled his face under her armpit, rubbing her fist into the top of his head to give him a noogie.

"You dummy! You don't just go unhooking a girl's bra without asking!"

The others were silent for a minute before Mikey started cackling, heavy breaths coming out of him as he leaned over with his hands on his knees. Raph followed shortly along after, pointing and laughing at the scene in front of him as Master Splinter looked at them all in mild alarm.

"I'm sorry what did my son do?"

"Don't worry about it sensei."

She let up on her best friend, letting him pull his head out from under her arm to glare at her for a second before breaking out into a soft, relived smile. She hugged him quickly before he could pull away, and then Mikey was on her again in a second as Raph lovingly patted the top of her head.

"I'm so happy you're feeling better."

"You got shred to hell and back girl!"

"No more patrols for you for a while."

She started to squawk a bit in indignation only to see Master Splinter give her a very pointed look, letting her know she would in fact NOT be going on said patrols for a while. She sighed and nodded slowly in resignation, looking back up to give a quick gaze around the rest of the lair.

"Where's our big brother?"

It got kind of quiet and she almost thought maybe she shouldn't have asked, but after a second of awkwardness Mikey spoke up, which was usually his thing, he couldn't really handle silence for that long.

"He's really up in his shell about this Apes."

"You know how fearless is, always gotta be the responsible one."

"He's kind of blaming himself, could you go talk to him? If you feel good enough that is."

She thought about it for a second before looking questioningly at Master Splinter, and seeing his nod of encouragement she nodded herself before heading off to the area she knew the blues leader's rooms resided. She heard then drift back over to the living room and start conversing in Japanese as she walked down a side corridor that was on the east side of the lair, punching herself silently for not keeping up with her language lessons at school as she spotted Leo's bedroom door. She knew enough to make small talk and basic phrases for training but never enough to understand what they were saying whenever things got really heated and they started yelling at each other. Usually over something stupid. Something about the heat of the moment made them revert back to their first language. The only other times they ever did that was when they had to talk about something serious, or when they didn't want her to hear.

"Mikey will tell me later",she thought to herself as she knelt down on her knees in front of the paper sliding doors that had long strips of kanji written in dark blue ink written all over them. She usually knew just how to bribe the baby of the group and she took no shame in doing it too.

April gently knocked on the wooden doorframe twice, the smell of incense seeping out from inside and invading her nostrils pleasantly.

"Hitori ni shtekudasai Raph."

"Its's April, haitte mo yoroshii desuka?"

Silence. She bit her lip gently with anxiety and cringed when she realized it had busted open during the fight and she'd just reopened the wound. She hesitated before licking the blood away, stopping herself from making a gagging noise so not to upset Leo. He was a pretty big germaphobe and she didn't think he'd be too happy if he thought she was gonna puke everywhere again. More silence followed and she opened her mouth to speak again when a small, sad voice came out from behind the door.

"...Hai".

She let out a breath of relief and placed her palms flat against the door to gently slide it open, staying on her knees and bowing gently with her hands flat on the ground above her head before getting up to walk over to the eldest brother. Formality and keeping in tune with their culture always seemed to make Leo more at ease, so she decided to be merciful and be more accommodating after their big scare today.

"Hey handsome."

Leo looked up and her from his position buried under his bed covers where he'd clearly been curled up all evening, blushing slightly and averting his eyes as he pulled them tighter up under his chin. It was moments like this where she thought they all still acted like teenagers most of the time, which wasn't surprising considering they'd always had limited access to the outside world in terms of socialization with people their own age besides her. She had a quick flash back to when they were kids, about 10, and she'd scraped up her knees pretty badly after falling down a scary pipe far from the lair on her way down to see them. Leo had let her sleep in the bed with the rest of them later that night after they'd gotten permission for a sleepover and Master Splinter had patched her up.

"Can I come snuggle? That looks pretty comfy."

"...Yeah, I guess that's ok."

She smiled sweetly and waited for him to pull up the lip of the covers, sliding in next to him and wiggling down so that they were at eye level. Sometimes Leo would flirt with her to try and get what he wanted, usually some Jupiter Jim merch or some sort of snack he didn't want to share with his brothers, sometimes even a sparring partner, he thought it would be better for training against fighting other humans. Whenever she retaliated though he tended to get pretty blushy and bashful, suddenly remembering how much he valued 'honor' and humbleness above anything else. It made her giggle and she valued this dorky side of their friendship very much. But today he was sad, and she couldn't imagine how alone he must've felt in all this.

"I'm sorry Donnie took off your bra, I'll talk to him."

"Eh he didn't really take it off, and to be fair he thought I was gonna bleed to death".

Leo made the chokey noise Raph had made earlier and she saw their brotherly similarities so clearly just then, size and scales and colour didn't really matter much when you were family.

"Besides that you don't need to talk to him, I gave him a noogie, not like that's gonna make him learn any boundaries though."

"God he and Mikey-"

"Hey you and Raph are pretty bad too! Remember that time you walked in on me in the bathroom?"

Leo started to splutter and she laughed lovingly, patting gently at one of the red stripes going down the sides of his face. He went quiet, and she saw his bottom lip quiver a bit and his neck flexing as he swallowed heavily. She decided to pull her hand away and tuck it against the bandages on his chest and he furrowed his brow in frustration.

"I'm so so sorry-"

"Stop that, this wasn't your fault."

"But, being the leader-"

"Is not all that you are, you're more than that, you're a big brother and a protector and you did your best tonight, we all did."

He went quiet again, tucking his chin down and letting out a little sigh. Clearly too tired to argue he simply wrapped an arm around her, his fingers gripping the plush purple sweater Donnie had dressed her in while she'd been knocked out.

"Can we come in now?"

April looked over her shoulder to see Mikey loitering in the doorframe, Raph's hulking form hunched behind him and Donnie leaning on a pillar in the back looking in curiously. There was an air mattress blown up and leaning against the other side of the doorframe, plus a bundle of blankets and pillows wrapped up in Raphael's arms. She turned to grin at Leo and he rolled his eyes, softly nodding his head and making her grin happily to turn around and wave a hand invitingly at the other three boys.

"Alright come in ya big goofs."

Mikey squealed with delight and practically launched himself onto her side of the bed, wrapping his arms around her to curl his front against her back as Donnie quickly padded over to the open space in middle of the room with the air mattress in tow.

"Why does Raph get a whole bed to himself?"

"Cause he's the size of a tank Dee, DUH!"

"It's so hard to see in here, we gotta remember to get April new glasses cause this is bullshit."

"Language."

"Watch the candles! WATCH THE CANDLES!"

Donnie rolled his eyes at Leo's nervous shrieking, keeping an eye on his lit bedroom floor candles as he placed the air mattress face down on the bamboo rug and shoved it up against the side of the bedframe so that they were together to form one big mattress. Raph closed the door behind him and threw the pillows and blankets out wide, making them flop softly over the expanse of the other four members of his family. Mikey giggled and wiggled around under his blanket, forming a squishy lump of body heat before poking his head out and continuing to curl up against April.

Donnie had taken to laying down on Leo's other side, pulling his phone out to play a soft rain ASMR video before leaning over and placing it on the old beat-up dresser sitting up against the wall near the head of the mattress. Leo smiled and whispered a quiet thank you, Donnie shrugging at the praise before pulling his own blanket over himself, secretly curling his arm protectively over the back of his brother's shell. Raph of course took up the air mattress, rolling himself up into two blankets before stretching a large protective arm over Mikey until he was touching Donnie's shoulder.

"I never did say thank you."

Raph tensed up as April gently stroked his arm, relaxing as she looked over Mikey's head to smile at him. He gave her a lopsided smirk, reaching up to tussle her hair slight before putting his hand back on the lip of Donnie's shell.

"Don't worry about it, you know I'd do anything for ya babe."

"Oh just go to sleep you big flirt."

April laughed as Donnie launched a teddy bear at Raph's face only for him to catch it and throw it back full force, making DOnnie sqawk in surprise before Leo shushed them both and told them to go to bed.

"You say he's the flirt, but who was it again who undid April's bra with one hand?"

"MIKEY GO TO BED!"

Master Splinter peeked lovingly through the crack he had made in Leonardo's doorway, nodding contently before closing it again and making his way back out to the living room.

"Good night, my children."