#and Raph is only seventeen

[turtleblogatlast]

Sometimes I think about how the turtles are just kids, y’know? Just kids and yet it’s up to them to save people, save New York, save the world.

It’s honestly really sad. They were created to be soldiers and while they chose to protect rather than destroy, they remain soldiers all the same.

#rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #it’s morbidly funny how the movie tries to push the whole idea of responsibility and heroism on Leo and the audience but uh #that’s a sixteen year old #and Raph is only seventeen #these kids became vigilantes for FUN and now it’s a responsibility all of a sudden like bro #it’s very heartbreaking to witness a childhood cut short #the boys are GOOD at heroism and being ninjas and saving people #but it leaves a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth when a kid acting like a kid instead of a Hero is presented as a bad thing #it’s why I was so happy to see Raph get to join in on the pizza stack competition at the end of the movie #but at the end we already see Leo much more mature in comparison and #I can’t help but feel sad about it

[sagesskies]

ʏᴀɴᴅᴇʀᴇ ꜱᴘɪʀɪᴛ

✒ ɴᴏᴛ ᴇᴠᴇɴ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴄᴀɴ ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴘᴀʀᴛ

☏ - ᴠᴏɪᴄᴇᴍᴀɪʟ: ᴍʀ. ꜱᴀɢᴇ ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛᴏ ꜱɪɴᴄᴇʀᴇʟʏ ᴀᴘᴏʟᴏɢɪᴢᴇ ꜰᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇʟᴀʏ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘᴀʀᴛ 2 ᴏꜰ ʏᴀɴᴅᴇʀᴇ ᴠɪᴄᴛᴏʀʏ ɢᴏᴅ, ʜᴇ ᴀꜱꜱᴜʀᴇꜱ ʏᴏᴜ ɪᴛ ɪꜱ ɴᴇᴀʀʟʏ ꜰɪɴɪꜱʜᴇᴅ. ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴇᴀɴ ᴛɪᴍᴇ, ᴇɴᴊᴏʏ.

ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ ɪɴᴄʟᴜᴅᴇꜱ: ᴍᴇɴᴛɪᴏɴꜱ ᴏꜰ ʜᴏᴍᴏᴘʜᴏʙɪᴀ, ᴄʜᴇᴀᴛɪɴɢ [ᴛʜᴇ ɢɪʀʟ ɪꜱ ʜɪꜱ ʙᴇᴀʀᴅ], ꜱᴡᴇᴀʀɪɴɢ, ᴠɪᴏʟᴇɴᴄᴇ, ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ, ꜱᴍᴏᴋɪɴɢ, ɢʜᴏꜱᴛ ꜱʜᴇɴᴀɴɪɢᴀɴꜱ, ᴠᴇʀʏ ᴍɪʟᴅ ꜱᴇxᴜᴀʟ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ, ᴅᴜʙᴄᴏɴ, ᴛᴇʟʟ ᴍᴇ ɪꜰ ɪ ᴍɪꜱꜱᴇᴅ ᴀɴʏᴛʜɪɴɢ ᴇʟꜱᴇ!

Yandere Spirit who was your secret boyfriend in high school. A forbidden romance between two youths, who often got to keep their secret because it’d always be excused as just ‘Boys being boys’. He was the most popular boy in school, his older brother was just as popular, but he was even more so. 

Yandere Spirit who was good looking, kind hearted, intelligent, and athletically talented as well. You never knew how you were able to get with a guy like him, you were simply another guy on the track team, and he was not only the team’s star but also the captain. 

Yandere Spirit who was possessive of you, even in life. He’d always claim you as his partner for group projects, even if there were smarter kids in class, and whenever there was an opportunity he'd always insist you wear his track jacket that had his last name on the back. 

Yandere Spirit who still dated other girls, and you tried not to mind so much. They were just a cover, he told you that and you knew it to be true, both of you were aware of what happened to gay boys in this town. He understood more than you, because his older brother Tommy was one of them, and he ran away when he was seventeen. 

Yandere Spirit who remains oblivious to how much his behavior with his girlfriends bother you. You never liked how he was always so physically intimate with them. Yeah, it'd be expected of a couple but did he have to do it so much? God, you can't bear to watch this.

Yandere Spirit who always notices how you distance yourself from him whenever he has a new girlfriend, and one day confronts you about it.

“Cmoon, [Name], why won't you just tell me!” Raphael practically whines, he refused to let go of your hand. You were both part of the track and field team but with his strength you'd argue he could be a football player. 

When you still didn't reply, he huffs, looks around to see if anybody else was around, then pulls you in close, perching his head on top of yours despite your protests. 

“Please babe?” God you never liked it when he called you babe, but you let him anyway, “Tell me what's bothering you…” He sounds like he's near to tears but you keep your lips shut.

“Raph, seriously I'm fine,” You insist, even though you're really not. 

The whole day, you had to hang around Raphael and his new girlfriend. It wasn't so bad, Raph made sure that you were included in the conversation and his girl, Cheryl you think her name was, was actually very nice. 

Your problem with the situation was seeing your boyfriend being all sweet and cuddly with his new beard the same way he always was with you. Well, there was the fact that he was technically cheating on you- But that's not the big issue here! 

Unfortunately for you, you shared a good quarter of your classes with the two lovebirds, and eventually you just distanced yourself from them till you were able to handle the sight of the two of them together. 

Even more unfortunately, was Raph's clinginess to you. When he saw you start to drift away, he immediately pulled you back in and when you decided to just ignore them as best as possible without looking rude, he caught on to that too. 

“Ugh, I know you're lying [Name],” Raphael pouted, “Come on, remember how we promised each other no secrets between us? Don't tell me you forgot!” 

You rolled your eyes, “Anybody would forget Raph, you made me say it in the 2nd grade.” 

“Still!” He protested, “Just tell me already [Name].” You could feel his grip get tighter around you, he was getting impatient. 

“Was it something I did?” Yes. 

“Does it have to do with Cheryl?” Yes. 

“Oh come on, don't tell me you're jealous of her!” It was Raph’s turn to roll his eyes, “Babe you know I'm only using her as a cover.” 

You glared at him, “Doesn't mean you have to be so touchy with her.” 

“She's my new girlfriend,” He used air quotes when he said the word girlfriend, “Gonna have to act like I’m head over heels for her to sell the act.” 

You knew he was right, he was saying the exact same things you told yourself whenever you tried to stop the ugly green monster that was envy from rearing its head. 

“Besides, don’t you think you kinda deserve it?” 

Your eyes widen, and you frown, “What? What do you mean?” Raphael shrugged, “I mean, you’re always tusslin’ and getting all up close with the other guys in the team,” His voice had a bitter edge to it, “I’m your boyfriend,” His hold on you strengthened, “It’s like I’m forced to watch you feel up all these other guys when the only ass you should be groping is mine.” 

“Do you hear how silly you sound right now?” You deadpanned, “It’s just guys being guys, most of us have been wrestling each other since we were kids.” 

He groans, “Ugh, but that doesn’t change that they still get to touch you so much!” 

You sigh, perhaps you and him weren’t so different after all. Not when both of you were so petty as to get jealous because of just, a really plain stupid reason. 

So you pat him on the back, and comfort him like you would a child throwing a tantrum. Till he stops whining, and you apologize to each other, then you continue to pretend that it doesn’t bother you when he presses a kiss to a girl’s lips, when he holds her hand, or even plays with her hair. 

And you pretend like he’s not playing with your heart. 

Yandere Spirit who you watch as he competes with his brother Gabriel over your younger sister, a popular junior who was vice-captain of the cheerleading team. Sometimes when he kisses you, you can’t help but think that this is the same tongue that flirts with your sister. 

Yandere Spirit who you accompany when his brother tells him to meet in the woods near Varenway cliff. Sure he was told to go alone, but you never trusted Gabe, he was always too intense for your liking. It was why he’d never be as popular as his brother. 

Yandere Spirit who you can only watch as he gets into a fight with his brother, held back by the stronger arms of Gabe’s football teammates who tease and mock you all while assuring Gabe won’t hurt Raphael too badly.

You thrash in their grip like a wild animal refusing to be caged, you kick at their feet, try to slam your head back into their stupid faces, but regardless of your attempts you are still stuck. 

“Let go of me, you assholes!” You practically spit. 

One of them, your classmate Sam Moss, sneers at you, then turns to his friend, who you recognize as Luke Herring, “Should we let [Name] go Luke?” 

Luke lets out a dumb laugh, “Huhuhu, naahh,” His tone is calm like an afternoon breeze, but his eyes are filled with only malice, “I don’t think we should Sam.” 

You click your tongue and tune out the rest of their words, they think they’re so intimidating just because they hang around Gabe, who nobody dares to pick a fight with, but they’re nothing more but tiny little pups who think the wolf’s shadow is their own. 

Instead you focus your gaze onto Raphael, who moves quicker than Gabe, but whenever a hit is able to land, it lands hard. Your heart clenches when you see the newly forming bruise above Raph’s brow, his busted lip, but you force yourself to remain silent. Raph can handle himself, and you hated to admit to it but Sam and Luke were right, Gabe may be dumb but he wasn’t that dumb to let Raph get seriously hurt. 

But still, for every hit that Raph gets in, Gabe lands another solid punch. Raph’s blood stains Gabe’s fists, and his beautiful face is marred. Gabe himself does not even need to catch his breath, the only evidence of exhaustion is a light sheen of sweat. 

You feel a sharp tug on your head, and you wince, Luke grabs your hair and has a look of anger on his face. 

“Little shit, fuckin’ pay attention to us damnit!” His spit flies in your face, and you grimace, “Should fuckin’ teach you a lesson for such disrespect.” 

Sam cackles like a hyena, “Ha! I don’t think Gabe would mind us roughin’ this arrogant prick up a bit,” In his eyes there is a hunger for violence, and you suppress the urge to shiver, you get what your mother means now when she says that men are like animals. You’ve never felt more like prey before now. 

You try to ignore them, and the fear that slowly builds in your chest, to get one last glimpse at Raph. But all you see is his head hanging low, and being grabbed by Gabe, whose bruised hands are curled tightly around his collar, before you are thrown down into the floor, and Luke gets on top of you. 

His sleeves are pulled back, and he draws back his fist for a punch, but before he can Sam who is still watching the fight, gasps, and Luke turns to see what has happened. Their eyes widen, but all you can hear that tells you of what just happened is a distant sickening crunch. 

Luke gets off of you and both he and Sam run to Gabe, who is looking down the cliff. Where is Raph? 

You get up, legs shaky for a bit before you steel your resolve and steady, you voice your thoughts, “Where's Raph?” 

When you get no response, the fear that was building from the fear of Luke getting his meaty hands on you is now growing from the possibility that Gabe let his anger get the best of him. At the thought of it, it is not only fear budding within you, but also anger. 

You march over to Gabe, and with strength you didn’t have before you grab him by the back of his collar and turn him around so you and him were now eye-to-eye, “Did you push him off, Gabriel?” Your voice is shaky, from fury, from anxiety, from both, you do not know. When you receive no response, you grit your teeth, and shake him violently, “Answer me, you bastard!” 

Gabriel’s eyes go wide, and his mouth parts but there are no words that leave his lips. But then he nods, and your sudden burst of strength fizzles away, and your hands let go of him. You walk, one step backward, another, and then another, and you fall on your own bottom, and your hands go to your head. Raph loved to do the same thing, hand going to the top of your head and holding it gently, sometimes just laying there together, his hand on your head and both of you quiet together.

You cannot let them see your tears, you cannot. But the dam breaks, and you start to sob. 

You hear them speak, Gabe, Sam, and Luke. However, you don’t want to listen to them. They killed him. Sam and Luke had less blood on their hands, but they were the ones who restrained you. If they didn’t then- Then maybe you could- You could… You don’t know. You don’t know, you don’t know. 

Gabe is standing in front of you, arms crossed, “Get up, [L/N],” His voice was gruff, nothing like Raph’s who always sounded like he was singing or speaking poetry, “Unless you want to end up like Raph did, you’ll do as I say.” Gabe was cruel too, nothing like Raph. 

Hesitantly, you get up, and wipe away the tears on your face. Sam and Luke who were looking at you like you were no better than the dirt on their shoe, now look at you with slight pity. It was no secret in school that you and Raphael were the best of friends, but they wouldn’t be looking at you so if they knew what you two were really like. 

You go down the cliff with them, traversing through the steep and rocky terrain. Till you arrived at the bottom, where Raph’s body lay. The blood had stopped flowing by then, or perhaps there was simply too much to look like there was more accumulating. Luke covers the bottom half of his face, Sam turns his head away, and only you and Gabe can look at the corpse. 

You glance at him, his face is like stone. You wonder if he regrets what he’s done tonight over your sister, but you can’t bring yourself to ask him without feeling like bile was going to start creeping up your throat. 

You help them carry the body deeper into the woods, Luke and Sam go to get the shovel Sam’s dad always kept in the back of his truck, and you are left with the boy who killed your lover. 

Both of you are silent, and your eyes go to look at his bruised knuckles stained with Raph’s blood. You must’ve been staring because he glares at you, “What? You wanna join Raph in his grave?” 

You know you should stay silent, but you’ve had enough of that. 

“It’d be better than having to bury him, that’s for sure,” You snarl out, you want to sock him across the face, but you’d have less impact than Raphael did, “You’re a monster.” 

“He got what was coming to him,” Gabriel clenched his fists, “If it wouldn’t be me, it may have been you.” 

You flinch, “The hell are you talking about Gabe?” You? Kill Raph? If that was meant to be a joke it wasn’t very funny. But Gabe had the same amount of charm as a donkey’s ass so it probably shouldn’t have surprised you.

“You think I’m blind, [L/N]?” A smirk forms on his face, it looks like Raphael's but at the same time it couldn’t be more different, “Everybody’s seen how you look at him and his girlfriends.” 

Your heart raced, did- Did he know? Did everybody know? If so, why weren’t you getting picked on? Raphael may have been the most popular guy in school, but even he would get harassed by some jerk. 

“You don’t get to chastise me for shit like this when you’re jealous of all the girls he gets,” At first you’re surprised he knows the word chastise, but when he accuses you of that, you laugh. You laugh like you would at a joke Raphael made, and when you realize that you start to cry. 

Gabe looks like he’s going to make fun of you, but thinks better of it when he sees the tears racing down your face and makes an expression of discomfort. 

Sam and Luke return, and by that time you’ve dried your tears. Gabe and Luke, the stronger ones, start to dig the grave, and Sam lights a cigarette. He hesitates, and then offers you one, a peace offering of sorts. 

You take it, even if you’ve never smoked before, and you cough as the smoke fills your lungs. 

“Sorry about Raphael,” He says, there is no cruelty, there is no mockery, only remorse for the blood that has been spilled, “Didn’t know him much, but I knew you two were close.” 

You take another puff, and you cough less this time, “It shouldn’t be you who’s apologizing,” You glare at Gabriel, who is digging his own twin brother’s grave. Sam follows your gaze, and he purses his lips, but then he nods.

You crush the cigarette under your shoe, and go to Raphael’s cold corpse. Your eyes scan over him, his eyes are open, the once vibrant green now hollow and empty. You close his eyes. Before you stand back up, you see a familiar glint of steel. The necklace he told you was gifted by his mother.

You take it off his neck, the cross dangling at the end gleaming even in the dark, then place it in your pocket.

Eventually Gabriel and Luke finish up, and you and Sam pick up Raphael’s body and then settle him gently into the grave. 

You take one last look at his face, burning it into your mind. He is beautiful even when his face is bloody and bruised. You want to weep again, your tears would wash away the filth from his face, but they would not bring him back. 

Yandere Spirit who invades your dreams every single night. He holds you close and what was once a warm embrace, is now a cold and stiff cage. Even if it is a dream you can smell the iron from the blood on his skin, and the earthy odor of the soil he was buried in. 

Yandere Spirit whose search you volunteer for. Even if it is only to avoid suspicion. You’re paired with Gabe and his younger brother Amos Jr., and the silence is filled with Junior’s ceaseless chatter. You pity the young boy, who shouldn’t have to search for his brother who he doesn’t even know is dead. 

When you go near the spot you buried Raph, your gaze immediately meets Gabe’s and a silent agreement goes between you two. Do not let Junior find the grave. 

But despite your best efforts, the boy does, and you can only watch while Gabe threatens him to keep his mouth shut. You're sick, and you haven’t eaten anything all day. You tell Gabe and Junior to go ahead, and then puke your guts out near Raph’s grave. 

You hold on to a tree, and sob. The taste of vomit, still on your tongue. The wind blows through your hair, it feels like Raph’s gentle caress. You swear you even hear his voice, whispering to you that it's all going to be okay, that he’ll make things better, that Gabe would pay for what he’s done. 

Time passes by. You attend Raphael’s funeral. You study, and go to your classes. You run, run faster than you’ve ever ran. You run faster than even Raph, who you’ve replaced as the track team captain. You wear his necklace every day, and you’d never take it off if you could help it. 

Sometimes you swear you hear him, whispering into your ear. Every night you feel like he’s holding you as well, but his touch is cold, yet it still brings you comfort after every nightmare where his bloody corpse stares at you from the shallow grave Gabe made for him. 

You start to isolate yourself, especially when the comforting touches become rough and possessive when you spend too much time with anybody else. You make small talk with your classmate? Ghostly fingers dig their nails into your skin. You roughhouse with your friends? Cold arms wrap themselves around your waist so tight you feel like it’s getting crushed. You get hit on by a girl? Suddenly she’s got a cold look in her eyes and leaves mid sentence. 

When you graduate, you don’t attend any parties, and you’re not invited to many other than the ones hosted by your track teammates. Gabe invites you to one, surprisingly, but when Raph wraps himself possessively around you, you know you’re not leaving the house tonight.

You don’t sleep that night either, not when Raph’s hands grope your bare flesh, sensitive against his cool touch. You swear you can see him, blood still staining his skin, his eyes are vacant but at the same time hazy with lust. He whimpers, and whines, panting into your ear.

  “Feels good.”

  “Nngh, sooo warm.” 

 “Need you, need you, need you.”

 “Love you, love you ‘s much.”

 “Never letting you go, n- ha.. not even death can separate us.” 

You feel dirty, like you’re being used. But you let him continue, you deserve this. Don’t you? You didn’t help him. You were too weak to help him. If only you were stronger, maybe it wouldn’t be his ghost on top of you right now but it’d be him in the flesh. Body just as warm as yours, a beautiful red flush on his sun kissed skin. You’d trace over every freckle, every small childhood scar, and hold him close to you till the sun rose.

But instead, your only company is the freezing form of Raph’s specter as he desperately clings to the comfort of your warmth, to feel alive again. And he’s never leaving you. 

“...You’re mine, mine, [Name],” His frigid whispers send a shiver down your spine, “You are mine even in death.”

☏ - ᴠᴏɪᴄᴇᴍᴀɪʟ: ᴍʀ. ꜱᴀɢᴇ ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴍɪɴᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ᴀʟʟ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʀᴇQᴜᴇꜱᴛꜱ ᴀʀᴇ ᴏᴘᴇɴ, ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ'ᴅ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛᴏ ꜱᴇᴇ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛʜɪꜱ.

#yandere male x reader #yandere x you #yandere x reader #yandere oc #yandere male #yandere imagines #male yandere #male reader #x reader #yandere #Raphael Shepherd

[creative-frequency]

Peel me an orange trend with

Raphael/ his favorite client 👀

Would you peel the devil an orange? 🍊👀 I wouldn't lol

Raphael x GN!Reader: Oranges

You woke up with a jolt and a raspy breath. Snugly covered in silken sheets, you made an effort to move your sore limbs. The bed carried the easily recognizable scent of palmarosa and pepper, but there was something else too. Something citrusy, maybe oranges?

As per usual, when your memories of the events leading up to your current disposition were hazy at best, you found yourself in the House of Hope. It was probably the eighteenth time. Or the twentieth. You weren’t exactly counting anymore.

“Still drawing breath, I see. How fortunate.”

It hurt to direct your eyes to the devil sitting in an armchair by the bed. No horns or wings today. His fingertips were pressed together and – well, fuck – did he look pissed.

“H-hey,” you greeted him in a hoarse voice. How long had you been out this time? Hours? Days? A week? You felt as if you had been wrestling with a pit fiend and lost.

Raphael’s frown deepened and his brows knitted together. He leaned forward in his seat and you could feel the aura of strong… displeasure radiating from him. It might not take many more times like this for him to finish you off himself, any contract be damned.

“Consider this the first and last time I will dig you from under a pile of bodies,” Raphael said in a tone as smooth as the sheets wrapped around your undeniably naked body.

This tone was worse than the times you had seen him lose his composure; it implied you had really been within an inch of your life – and so had his existence, by extension. You swallowed. Some pieces of distressing and gory memories surfaced and you felt sick. You had to pull at every bit of your willpower to not puke. What in the sweet Hells had happened?

Raphael stood up promptly, no doubt having only waited to see your eyes open and declare you alive. It was a habit he had formed during the previous seventeen times you had woken up in his house.

“Here, eat. You’ll need your strength to recover,” he said, motioning to the side table.

You turned to see pieces of a colourful fruit, neatly laid on a silver plate. That was why you had smelled oranges. The sweet scent was mouth-watering.

You cleared your throat and said: “Um, hey Raph?”

The devil stopped in his tracks, glaring at you over his shoulder. He absolutely hated the nickname, but it had never stopped you from using it. Annoying him was the greatest pastime House of Hope could offer.

“Thanks. I’ll pay you back for this one,” you continued, voice still a bit shaky and hoarse.

One side of Raphael’s mouth curled up and he nodded. “Rest now.”

And rest you did. And ate oranges. For three days you barely left the bed after initially going for a hunt for clothes. Raphael showed up only once a day to check that you were recovering. Haarlep kept you company and you accelerated the Archivist’s descent into madness by making him fetch you books from the library at least fifteen times a day. Raphael didn’t want you to socialise with his indebted souls, so besides the devil, you only talked to the incubus and the unlucky tiefling.

On the fifth day, Haarlep had trusted you with a knife and you were just digging into the second orange when Raphael walked in.

Once again in his human guise, his head tilted at the sight of you sitting up on the bed, a book splayed open across your lap and a knife and an orange in hand. Disapproval settled onto his features. You didn’t really care if you made a mess. He could always undo it with a snap of his fingers.

“Peel one for me?” Raphael asked and paced closer.

“I most certainly will not,” you replied instantly and plopped a piece of the juicy fruit into your mouth.

He sat down in the armchair and hummed. “A pity.”

“Can I leave today? I’m feeling fine now,” you said casually and chewed the fruit without any regard for table manners. Though, technically you were eating in bed.

“If you so insist,” Raphael nodded, “Although, there is one more matter I would raise.”

“What’s that?” you asked and munched on the last piece. Before leaving, you would have to ask Haarlep where Raphael got the fruits. They were delicious.

“As this was not a transaction, you’re not obliged to ‘pay me back’ as you so aptly put it, but I would request a small favour,” Raphael said and rested his ankle on his knee, fingertips once more pressed together as if he was negotiating a contract.

You groaned. Of course he wanted something. “And that would be?”

Raphael’s lips curled into a foreboding smile and he said:

“Peel me an orange.”

Any hint of amusement died from your face. “You’re truly the pettiest person I’ve ever met.”

#bg3 raphael #raphael bg3 #raphael x reader #raphael x you #baldur's gate 3 fanfiction #bg3 fanfiction #fanfiction #asks #requests #oranges 🍊

[tangledinink]

Chapter Seventeen of I'm Sorry, Teenage Mutant What Now? is up! The gang puts it all on the line for their family and makes their grand debut in the Battle Nexus ring. Read it on ao3 or below the cut.

[ prev ]

Raph had never heard thunder before.

Well, he had. At least, he thought he had, way off in the distance, far above them. He had thought thunder was quiet. Quiet and far away, all the way up in the sky, so far above them that you could barely even hear it.

He hadn’t known it could be so loud. 

Another crash cracked up from up above, and their bedroom window lit up white for just a second, making him jump and go scrambling under his covers. What was that!? Why did the sky light up!? Was something happening!? What if this was a really bad storm and that’s why it was so loud?! Was the sky gonna fall down?! Were aliens invading?!

“Raph,”

He resisted the urge to gasp at the noise, jumping slightly, whipping around to the source of the noise-- only to spot his babiest brother huddled up in his door frame, tears dripping down his cheeks.

Oh. 

He must be scared, too.

“Was’ wrong, Mikey?” He asked anyway, crawling out from under the covers and padding over to his brother’s side, immediately grabbing his hand. Mikey sobbed softly in response, clinging to Raph like a lifeline.

“The sky is yelling!” He whimpered.

“Yeah. I know,” Raph said, wrapping his arms around the other to keep him close, to protect him. “It’s scary.”

“Yeah…” Mikey sniffled loudly, grabbing fistfuls of his brother’s pajamas. “I don’ like it!”

“Me neither,” Raph admitted. “... Do you wanna come sleep with me?”

Mikey sniffled loudly, nodding a bit, and Raph slowly guided him back into his bed, covering them both up with blankets and handing his favorite teddy bear over to Mikey to hold, which he immediately wrapped himself around, hiding in its fur. That made Raph smile a bit, and he sighed softly, slowly settling down. Some more thunder rumbled off in the distance, and Mikey whimpered and jumped, but Raph scooped him up and held him tight and Mikey seemed a bit less scared, and in turn, Raph felt a bit less scared, too. 

As soon as they had settled down properly and snuggled up, however, Raph paused.

“Hey. Mikey?”

“Yeah?”

“Where’s Leo and Donnie?”

“Uhm,” Mikey blinked slowly, and then shrugged. “I’unno.”

“Do you think they’re scared, too?”

“I’unno. Maybe.”

That was good enough for Raph. 

Though they had just gotten settled, he wasted no time in scrambling back out of bed, grabbing Mikey’s hand and tugging gently at him.

“Come on. Let’s go find them.”

With blankets and teddy bears in tow, the two marched down the hall and to the stairs, beginning to journey upwards to Leo and Donnie’s rooms. Every now and again, sound would shake the house, and Mikey would whine, but Raph would find his hand and squeeze it tight each time, and they would keep going.

They approached Donnie’s room first. Raph poked his head inside, quiet and hesitant, wondering if he would find a sleeping brother or not--

Instead, he found two. Neither of which were sleeping, but rather, were huddled together beneath the covers of Donnie’s bed to hide.

Leo’s eyes widened.

“Raph--!” He exclaimed, only to get cut off by another crash from the storm outside. Both twins gasped loudly in response, flinching back and squirming even closer together, clinging to one another. 

See? His big brother senses were never wrong. Taking Mikey along with him, Raph made his way quickly over to Donnie’s bed, reaching up so he could grab at his other two siblings, tugging at the blankets they were huddled beneath slightly.

“Come on,” he bade. “I know where we can hide.”

It took a bit of coaxing, but eventually, he got Leo and Donnie out of bed, too, though they were both wrapped up in a blanket together, draped over their bodies like a shared cape. Once he had a chain of little brothers trailing behind him, all connected by held hands, they set off on their journey, back into the hallway and down the stairs. Lightning flashed brightly outside, and Leo whined, but Raphael led them onwards.

“It’s okay,” he assured. “I don’t think it can get inside. And we’re almost there.”

They all four made their way down the second flight of stairs as well, down to the first floor, around the corner, and down the hall, and to a door, cracked halfway open. As quietly as he could, Raph led the group in. And, one by one, he helped hoist each of them up into their sleeping father’s bed before he followed suit, curling up under the covers and settling in, so that his three younger siblings were sandwiched between himself and their dad.

“We’ll be safe here,” he whispered, watching as the others curled up, settling in, Mikey snuggled up beneath his dad’s arms and Donnie and Leo tangled together in a confusing puzzle of stubby five-year-old limbs. “I promise. Dad won’t let anything get us.”

---

The entire group flinched at the roars of the stadium around them, looking up wildly at the thousands of screaming yokai on every side of them. Donnie hissed softly, his hands flying up to the headphones to adjust. He knew it was going to be loud, but-- christ.

“Uhm, and daughter of Lou Jitsu! Excuse you!” April yelled up at the announcement, still echoing through the stadium, as if it might be able to hear her.

“Look!” Mikey gasped, pointing upwards. “I think I can see Dad!”

---

He actually had tried to throw himself over the balcony this time. 

Not that it worked. Stupid witch ex-girlfriend and her stupid witch spells.

He had to get out of this goddamn Luxury Box.

Those were his children down there. He should be with them.

He tried everything. Every option he possibly had, he tried it. Pleading, threatening, physically attacking the guards-- thus far, none of it had worked. Of course it hadn’t. Part of him had known it wouldn’t, because Big Mama already knew this song-and-dance and she had never lost before. This was an old game to her. She had over a decade of experience in keeping him where he did not want to be.

If it were that simple to wriggle his way out of her trap, his life would be very different today.

He tried anyway.

All it had gotten him so far was this fuzzy spin to his head and a painful tingle in his nerves that was quite nearly nostalgic.

“Let me down,” he snarled, for the millionth time, clinging to the railings of the balcony so hard that his knuckles were white, absolutely bristling. “I should-- I should get to fight with them. Since when have you ever denied Lou Jitsu a performance? Let me--”

“Noodles, dearheart, that would make it too easy!” She scoffed, tsking a bit, having long since lost interest in anything he had to say. “It’s no fun if it’s not a challenge. But don’t fret, huggypoo. You can still watch. Come on-- sit with me.”

---

Leo’s head jerked around when the voice over the loudspeaker continued, a low rumble overtaking the Nexus.

“Versus…”

A door, identical to the one they had just passed through, opened up on the other side of the ring. A pair of glowing yellow eyes shone through the darkness across the way.

“Eugh boi…” Leo muttered. 

“Representing the Battle Nexus-- The Ikuchi!”

Their jaw was the first thing to emerge into the ring, their lips curled back to show off long, curved fangs like a snake. Their snout was long and pointed, with two horns erupting from their head just above their eyes. At first, Leo thought that it was some kind of a creature with a long neck-- but then they just kept coming and coming and coming and coming, and Leo realized two things.

One-- that this didn’t just have fangs like a snake, rather, it was a snake. Or something snake-like, anyway, with a long, winding body, decorated with gleaming scales and dripping with a thick, oily substance of some kind, (he could already hear Donnie gagging.) 

Two-- this thing was fucking huge. It was like they were battling a fucking subway. The creature reared back slightly, its head and neck arching back so it could look down at them-- far down at them, and it snorted, a spray of fine mist that smelled like the ocean and felt like ice water raining down on them.

“Gross!” Mikey hissed, holding his hands up to shield himself from the impromptu shower.

“Fight!” The announcer howled up above.

Every muscle in the Ikuchi’s body coiled, and Leo’s eyes widened.

“Run!” Raph howled, and Leo didn’t need to be told twice. He threw himself off to the side, rolling out of the way, and felt the very ground tremble just barely a second later, nearly throwing him off his feet as the yokai slammed its tail down in the space where they just were, leaving a crater in its wake. For a second, Leo panicked, his eyes frantically darting about for his siblings-- relief flooded him as he spotted them running in the opposite direction, having gone right where he went left, but all intact and accounted for. Thank god.

The Ikuchi reeled back, snarling loudly, turning its attention towards the larger group. Leo bristled, his trajectory immediately changing.

“HEY! Back off!” He yelled, throwing himself at the creature, twisting his body to slam the side of his foot into their side. It was a good blow-- a solid blow. And Leo was sure that if they were fighting anything else, it would have sent them reeling from the contact.

But, as it were, he all but bounced off of the creature, his foot sliding across the oily surface of their hide and sending him sprawling, just barely able to avoid falling flat on his back as he swore. And quite frankly, the creature barely even seemed to feel it. There was no flinch, no cry of pain, and Leo thought dimly that that made sense. He was barely the size of this thing’s damn eyeball. Of course it didn’t care.

At least he got its attention. It whipped its head around to face him, hissing lowly and splitting open its jaws. Leo just barely had the time to think, ‘oh, shit,’ before a blast of icy cold seawater enveloped him.

Is this what getting sprayed with a pressure washer feels like? He wondered dimly as he was swept from his feet, his entire body going rigid with the cold. The tidal wave of ocean water sent him tumbling, his arms flailing for a moment as he struggled to right himself, to find the surface to swim to-- before he had a chance, however, he found himself sloshing up against the stone, his head spinning with the motion. He looked around dizzily, realizing after a moment that the blast of water that the Ikuchi had shot from its mouth had swept him down into the divot it had left in the ground from its tail, gravity coaxing the liquid into the lowest possible space, leaving Leo laid out on his back in a shallow pool of saltwater. He was still reeling, coughing and spitting weakly as he sat up, shaking the stars from his eyes. Oh, great. He was totally soaked now…

“Leo!” He heard Raph screaming from across the way, and his eyes jerked open, only to shrink back when he saw the Ikuchi looming over him like a dark shadow, its body pulled taunt like a spring, ready to strike.

Oop. That’s no good. Come on, mystic teleportation, don’t fail me now. We gotta move-- fast. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go-- Move!

He realized that he wasn’t dead a lot sooner than he realized that that had actually worked, stumbling slightly as he found his feet beneath him. He nearly fell forward, biting out a wry laugh as he flailed his arms to find his balance again. He glanced over at his gaping siblings, now just a few feet from him-- all five of them halfway across the ring from the Ikuchi, who still hadn’t realized that its prey had escaped from it. Oh shit! It actually worked! He actually teleported-- like-- when he wanted to! The way he wanted to!

Damn, maybe there was something to that meditation thing their dad was always touting after all!

“Leo! How did-- are you okay?!” Raph bit out wildly, rushing over to his side, and Leo couldn’t help himself from grinning.

“I think I might have a plan.”

---

“Too slow!” Mikey crowed, darting just out of reach of another walloping blow, continuously just one step ahead of the Ikuchi’s reach. He heard the yokai roar in response, and he grinned, sticking out his tongue-- touching the ground again just long enough to launch into another tumbling flip, rocketing out of the way. And, just as he was hoping, the yokai’s tail slammed down in the space where he had just been, leaving a dent of crumbled rock in its wake.

Perfect. Just like they planned it.

“Nice, Mikey!” He heard Raph yell from across the ring, sprinting along the outer edges, playing cover for him and Leo, along with April and Donnie. They were all fast, but he and Leo were the fastest-- and he was the dodgiest, and the best suited for pulling this off, goading the Ikuchi into striking, but keeping just out of its reach. Even now, his chest swelled up with a bit of pride at the thought.

His family was counting on him. 

Another duck and dodge resulted in yet another pit in the surface of the ring, and better yet, Mikey dipped out of the way of a pump of seawater shot from the Ikuchi’s mouth. He felt the spray of water tickling his cheeks as he went, and he grinned, watching the water splash to the ground, rushing in to fill the unoccupied space, turning the pits into shallow pools.

“Alright! Keep it up!” Leo encouraged, just a step behind him, getting the Ikuchi’s attention with a well-aimed strike just so that he could dance out of the way of their attack, darting swiftly to the side. The Ikuchi chased him with a furious shriek, mist spraying through the air, but from the other side of the ring, Raph bodily threw himself into its massive side, throwing off its balance just enough to cause it to falter-- too slow to snatch Leo up. 

“HEY! Pick on someone your own size!” Raph hollered, backing up as the massive eel turned on him instead, curling its lips back in a snarl and howling with fury.

“Raph, you’re nowhere near its size!” Donnie called, pulling a similar move on another section of the Ikuchi’s training body-- darting forward to jump on it, leaping up and over, purposefully landing hard on its spine as he went and then dashing away.

“Well, he’s the closest one!” April laughed, winding up her infamous softball pitch and letting a hunk of rock go shooting through the air, smacking into the side of the Ikuchi’s face. April gave a whoop of victory, grinning widely, only to stumble a bit when the Ikuchi immediately went streaking towards her, a furious hiss winding from its mouth as it went. “Ooh, snap--”

“Tag! You’re it!” Mikey laughed, taking advantage of the creature being a bit lower to the ground in order to bounce over top of it, landing on its head with a firm thud before he went spinning away, flipping off to the side and leaving the dazed creature to chase after him once more. Mikey thought to himself, this is actually working. This might actually work.

If they weren’t strong enough to do any damage, they just had to call on a greater force-- gravity. 

“I’m pretty sure I can teleport them up high enough to knock them out, or at least daze ‘em long enough for us to nab ‘em. I just need someplace to land, and the Ikuchi’s already got all the ingredients we need! We just gotta get ‘em to do the work for us!” Leo had explained in a rush, not ten minutes earlier.

“Are you sure you can get that high?” April had questioned, her brows knit with worry.

“I can do it! Seriously! I’ve got this! I don’t even have to aim or anything. I just gotta go up! And I know I can take it with me if I’ve got a good grip. I’ve been practicing!”

“Leo, are you sure this is safe?” Raph had pressed. “Can’t you teleport yourself back down?”

“Okay, well, I might be getting the hang of this teleporting thing, but not… that much,” he admitted, holding up his hands with a nervous laugh. “Getting up is gonna be a… a task. But I think I can do it! Really. I just… I dunno if I’ll have enough juice to get back down. But that’s fine! We just need a safety net. Trust me. It’ll be just like the high dive, remember?”

Raph had hesitated, but he had nodded. “Alright. Okay. I trust you, Leo,” 

“Perfect,” Leo had said, grinning wide and turning to grin at Mikey. “Okay, Angie. You’re gonna be the best at this, for sure, so we’ll follow your lead. Think you can razzmatazz this place?”

Could he razzmatazz? What kind of a question was that?

Mikey laughed as he twirled effortlessly just out of reach of yet another attack, adrenaline banging excitedly in his chest as he darted away. Right now, in this moment, he swore he could fly. Gravity couldn’t even touch him. Leo had a plan, and Mikey was gonna make it work. They were already halfway there--

A short yelp was wrenched from him when something caught his ankle.

---

Ice raked its way up Leo’s body when he watched his brother fall, tripping over an oil-slick rock, the uneven, rocky terrain yanking him down to earth for just a moment. And Leo knew that he would get back up-- Mikey was tough, he was a bouncer, he bounced back , always did, and he was quick, he would be pulling himself back up to his feet in seconds. 

But the Ikuchi didn’t need more than seconds. Every muscle in its body coiled as it rounded on his baby brother, held tight as it prepared to strike, its lips twisted back to show off pointed fangs longer than his arm.

Fuck.

Guess we gotta move the timeline on this one up a smidge.

In the half a second he had left, Leo dove forward, digging his fingers beneath the yokai’s scales and holding on tight.

---

When Leo and the Ikuchi disappeared, crackling, ghostly blue light left in their wake, it took Donnie a moment to figure out where they went, even though he already knew the plan-- even though he already knew where they were heading. 

He didn’t want to look up.

Still, he wrenched his head back, staring up in horror as the snake creature re-materialized hundreds of feet above the Nexus. And, presumably, his twin brother as well.

Calculations began.

No, no, no, no--

The pools weren’t done. They weren’t deep enough. And they were too high, way too high, even if they did have enough water to break Leo’s fall, he was still going to be injured, but they didn’t have enough water. There was hardly a foot or two worth of it in even the deepest pools.

It wasn’t-- it wasn’t enough.

“LEO!”

---

Leo had never been up so tall before. 

No walls or windows separating him and the rest of the world. Just him, the Ikuchi, and the open air, way up above the Battle Nexus. His family looked tiny, way down beneath him.

He felt the Ikuchi thrash, roaring as it flailed in the air before it began its descent downward, flinging him away like an insect with a flick of its tail. He wished he had the presence of mind to react and correct his trajectory, or at least be annoyed, but the whole world felt fuzzy, like everything had been torn right out of him. Like he had left all his energy and will back down on his ground when he teleported, forgetting it way down below. His muscles ached and pulsed and he went tumbling through the air, flopping about like a ragdoll. He could feel his head spinning in the exact opposite direction of his body. He felt unconsciousness tapping at his shoulder.

You have to get back down, remember?-- he thought blearily to himself. But the blissful promise of sleep just kept on tapping and his vision blurred a bit near the edges.

He realized, distantly, that he had never fallen so far before.

All his organs, seemingly, didn’t get the memo that they were heading down to the ground now, because Leo swore that they were yanked up through his chest by gravity, his stomach ending up in his throat and his heart ending up at the top of his head as he fell.

--- 

His son-- his child was falling. He was falling. Panic gripped every part of Yoshi’s body, nearly throwing himself over the balcony for a second time as he watched his son’s body plummeting through the air, buffeted about by gravity and being thrown in wild somersaults. 

“BLUE!” He wailed. His heart was in his throat. He had to-- but he would never get there in time!-- but that was his child. That was his son! Frantically, he whipped around to face the only other occupant of the Luxury Box, his eyes blown wide and his face pinched with horror. He wouldn’t be quick enough. He wouldn’t make it. But she--

“Gumo! Gumo, please!” He begged.

She shifted a bit. Her face twitched, ever so slightly, and her muscles bunched. But she didn’t quite move.

---

“Raph! Raph!”

Raph’s head immediately bobbed up at the call of his name, looking up from the elaborate city he and Donnie were building in the sandbox. Donnie was the head architect, and he was in charge of all the little people, so it was basically a utopia so far-- but the call of his baby brother easily dragged him from the game, looking over to see Mikey on the ground, pointing… And spotting Leo in the branches of a nearby tree. His eyes widened.

“Leo’s stuck!” Mikey cried, flapping his arms a bit. Raph was on his feet in a second, despite Donnie’s grumble of annoyance, rushing his way over to his two littlest brothers.

“What happened!? Leo! How the heck did you get up there!?” Raph demanded as he approached.

“I climbed!” Leo reported proudly from up above. The tree he was in wasn’t even a part of schoolyard-- the branches just overhung them, and Raph quickly came to the conclusion that Leo must have climbed the chain link fence surrounding the elementary school play area, clambering up into the branches of the tree from there and scaling up, now nearly five feet over Raph’s head.

“Why!?”

“Mikey said I couldn’t!” Leo defended.

“And now he can’t get back down!” Mikey reported, in true youngest-child fashion, pointing accusingly up at the other. Leo looked offended by the other’s claim, but didn’t make any moves to refute them, either, and Raph sighed deeply. 

“Mikey, grab Donnie and go get Miss Farmer,” he instructed quickly, and Mikey gave a sharp little nod, happy to have a task to do, scampering off to go and collect Donnie and find the teacher. Raph focused on the problem at hand, frowning deeply and putting his hands on his hips.

“Are you sure you can’t climb down? Even a little bit?”

“Uh…” Leo seemed to look around, seeming thoughtful. “I dunno. I can try.”

“Well, try then!”

“I could go further up.”

“Do not go further up!”

“But it’d be easier!”

“Leo, that’s the opposite of solvin’ the problem! You gotta come down!”

“Okay! Okay, I’m trying. Hang on.” 

Raph waited patiently as he heard his brother shuffle above him, the leaves ruffling in reply, a few stray buds and twigs occasionally raining down on him and making him splutter in quiet annoyance. It had seemed like Leo was making progress, slowly but surely picking his way downward, though Raph couldn’t see very well between all the branches. He thought, for a minute there, that Leo might be able to get back down on his own-- until he heard the telltale sound of a branch snapping, followed by a surprised yelp and scrabble.

“Leo?”

“Raph! I’m gonna fall!”

Raph huffed loudly, his hands on his hips.

“No you won’t.”

“Yes, I will!”

“Well if you didn’t wanna fall, you shouldn’t a’ climbed up in the first place!”

“RAPH!” Leo cried again, and there was a pinch of panic to his voice this time that made Raph sigh deeply, his annoyance giving way.

“Okay, well, then, jump down, and Raph’ll catch you.”

“What!?”

“You heard me!”

“You will not!”

“I will too!”

“That’s what you said last time! You’re just gonna let me fall!”

“That was different!” Raph defended, scowling. It had been funny that time!

“Nu-uh! It’s too tall, Raph!”

“Leo, I’ll for real catch you this time!” He insisted, but his brother didn’t respond. Raph sighed deeply, glancing over his shoulder. Donnie, Mikey, and the teacher were nowhere in sight so far. He scowled to himself, weighing the options in his head for a moment, hemming and hawwing. But… 

He couldn’t just leave Leo up there.

“Okay, hang on! I’ll come get you!”

Raph wasn’t nearly as good of a climber as Leo was, but scaling the fence wasn’t terribly difficult, and it wasn’t much trouble at all for Raph to pull himself up into the branches, heading his way up the tree until he could catch sight of his brother, clinging to one of the tree’s many limbs, his arms hanging onto one branch and his feet awkwardly resting on another, sagging branch, a jagged break running through the middle of it.

And, okay, now that he was up here, he could… kind of understand Leo’s position. It’d be hard to get down from here, and jumping would probably be… unpleasant, given how many other tree branches were jutting through the path between Leo and the ground.

“Okay, hang on. Raph’s comin’,” Raph said, sticking his tongue out slightly as he tried to devise a plan. He kept close to the trunk of the tree-- he was heavier than Leo was, and he didn’t wanna break any more branches. Once he was above the other, he very slowly scooted his way out, wrapping his legs around the branch he was resting on and stretching out his hand.

“Here. Grab on, I’ll pull you up.”

“Raph, if you drop me, I’ll--”

“I’m not gonna drop you! Just grab on already!” 

Leo whined, and he wiggled for a second, testing each movement before he committed to it, wiggling and readjusting his feet slightly to see how much he could get away with before the branch gave way below him. 

Raph wrinkled up his nose, stretching his arm out even further.

Leo bunched down slightly before he jumped, letting go of the branch so he could grab onto Raph’s hand instead. Raph huffed, bending for just a moment, straining under the weight-- jeez, had Leo always been this heavy!? Before he heaved him upwards, hissing softly with the effort. 

For just a second, he was worried that he really was gonna drop Leo. Then he’d never hear the end of it.

But he got him up. Leo grabbed onto the branch up above, scrambling up, and Raph immediately scooted backward, back to the relative safety of the tree trunk, careful not to put too much weight in one spot.

… And now they were both stuck in a tree.

“Thanks,” Leo said.

“I told you,” Raph replied.

“Now what?” Leo asked, and Raph sighed, leaning back against the bark of the tree, glancing up at the cove of leaves that surrounded them, the glow of the sun up above casting a gentle green hue over the two of them.

It was kind of nice being this high up, actually. It was peaceful.

“I dunno. I guess we wait.”

---

Raph had never turned away when his brothers needed him before.

He wasn’t about to start now.

He had no idea what he was gonna do. He didn’t have a plan. He didn’t see any path forward, there was no ‘a-ha!’ moment or answer popping up in his brain; that had never been his thing, anyway. He had no idea how he was going to fix this, or if he even could.

None of that mattered. Not even a little bit. All he knew was that Leo was falling, and that he needed help. And if he had to move the ground itself out of the way to make sure he didn’t get hurt, then so fucking be it.

Every fiber of him buzzed with absolute resolve. No backing down. No running away. So long as he was still here on this earth, he knew, with every single piece of himself, that he was gonna be there to protect his family. 

He would stand his ground. 

He would stay.

A brilliant red glow came spiraling through reality.

And just as the Ikuchi came crashing to the ground with a howl, the entire stadium shaking with the impact, a hand that was not quite his own but belonged to him nonetheless, stitched together with vermillion light, reached out and plucked his little brother out of the air.

[ next ]

#sorrywhatnowau #sorrywhatnowau fanfic #rottmnt #rottmnt human au #rottmnt au #tmnt #rottmnt fanfic #rottmnt fanfiction #fanfic #writing #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rise of the tmnt #tmnt human au #rise raph #rottmnt raph #hamato raphael #fighting #blood and injury #risk of death #themes of self-sacrifice

[bluepeachstudios]

I just had a realization that I had to share.

03 Splinter is supposed to be this wise, aged, highly skilled and experienced ninja master who is the father/mentor to pretty much all the other main characters in the show...

He's only a couple years older than his sons.

He was a normal rat before getting mutated, and rats live a max of three years, give or take. So he would've only been Master Yoshi's pet for a year, maybe a year and a half. By the start of the series, he's probably only seventeen at the oldest. 03 Splinter is a teenage father. He's younger than 03's April and Casey. Rise Splinter is likely somewhere in his fifties/early sixties. That means 03 Splinter is literally less than half Rise Splinter's age. 03 SPLINTER IS POTENTIALLY THE SAME AGE AS RISE RAPH/APRIL🤯🤯🤯

He's VERY wise for a 17 year old !! Lived a good ol' rat life!

I imagine his biological age is closer to 60/70 hehe

#asks

[artzzyb00-27]

Can you do a Bay!TMNT X reader that doesn't have an accent normally but when they get upset that shit just appears outta thin air and they can barely understand them? Thank you!!

{🩷Firecracker🩷}

Anonymous on Tumblr asked for, "Can you do a Bay!TMNT X reader that doesn't have an accent normally but when they get upset that shit just appears outta thin air and they can barely understand them? Thank you!!" It's short but here you go anyway 😭?

The turtles met reader when they were younger. Around seventeen turning eighteen. Now being twenty-six, they're more open and casual around the turtles.

When they first met, reader wanted the boys to feel comfortable seeing as they didn't have many human friends to begin with. So when their accent came up, the turtles couldn't tell. Reader spoke English well enough so they couldn't pick up on it.

Especially when they had practically spent years around them. However, when Vincent offers reader a job at the station she notices that if a cop or office person is dumb, and reader got mad at it, they would mumble in their native language and have an after-accent longer in their English.

Vincent wasn't one to judge, her wife's best friend was Venezuelan and had an accent in moments. It only made her curious about the alliance ship between them and the turtle brothers.

"Where is reader from?" When Vincent asked them that, it threw the boys through loops. They hadn't thought about you not being from a different origin. Yeah, you were raised in the U.S. but you could've spent the majority of it speaking your native tongue, or you had moved to the United States before meeting them in the late teenage years.

Naturally, they tried paying more attention to how you spoke. How your grammar would come out. The possibility of your tone being off without trying to sound sarcastic or overzealous. Donnie had been close to plucking a hair of you and finding your ancestry but Leo guilt-tripped him.

"You didn't like it when they asked for a shell scute for science purposes." He made a good point sadly.

Two weeks later, however, reader had cussed out the TV that had a baseball game on. It was kinda funny watching them get pissed at the TV in their native language.

"What did you say?" Leo asked through his shit-eating grin. Even though Donnie was secretly recording and translating it into English.

"They said, 'Fucking idiot, you need glasses. You dumb bastards.'" Reader whipped their head to Donnie so fast it made Raph and Mikey crack up.

"You know (insert language)?" Donnie raised his translator and gained an understanding look from reader. "How come you don't translate everything I say?"

"Then there's no point in trying to learn about it." With that, reader gained a softer expression, before getting sucked back into the game and got annoyed again.

#bay tmnt #tmnt 2016 #bayverse tmnt #bayverse turtles #teenage mutant ninja turtles 2014 #teenage mutant ninja turtles 2016 #bayverse tmnt fanfic #tmnt bayverse #tmnt #tmnt oots #tmnt 2014 #tmnt fanfic #tmnt 2k14 #tmnt 2k16 #tmnt out of the shadows #rebecca vincent

[taizi]

If you're okay with another fic prompt, maybe Mikey hiding his tears in the rain? And one or all of his brothers (or friends) figuring it out and comforting him.

Can I also request it be in the 2003 verse?

x

Usually it’s Raph who puts his foot in his mouth in a major way, but this time it’s Leo. 

It doesn’t happen often. Donnie thinks he could probably count on both hands the number of times Leo has said something intentionally hurtful to one of his brothers and still have some fingers leftover. Since returning from Japan, that frightening temper that turned their warm-hearted leader into a brooding stranger has been discarded for good, but it left a few scars. And Leo is as much a teenager as the rest of them are, even if he wasn’t always free to act like it. It’s not fair to expect him to regulate his emotions all the time. It wouldn’t be fair to expect that of a non-traumatized seventeen year old, let alone a kid with PTSD and anxiety and god only knows what else.

So really it shouldn’t be as surprising as it is when the words come bulleting out of Leo’s mouth, sharp and seething, “Some ninja you are.”

It shouldn’t be, but Raph whips around like someone struck him upside the head, and Donnie’s hands on Mikey’s shoulders clench tight involuntarily. He’s still kneeling in front of Mikey, still mopping up the blood on his head with a shirt Raph unapologetically ripped off a clothes line, still halfway through mentally cataloging the fatalistic difference another inch to the left would have made, so he has a front-row seat to the hurt that parades across the smallest turtle’s expression. 

That hurt hadn’t even existed when the Purple Dragon threw the knife at Mikey’s head in the first place. He’d been laughing a second ago, shaking off the jitters from the very close-call. Leo’s bitter condemnation stole that away in an instant. Their eldest brother is special and important to each of them, but he’s Mikey’s hero. 

Rain is drumming all around them, cascading off the boarded-up storefront overhang they’ve sheltered under. It’s early May and the recent days have gotten warmer, but abruptly Donnie feels very cold. 

“He don’t got eyes in the back of his head, Fearless,” Raph snaps back, like clockwork. His hackles are up, because as far as he’s concerned, only one person on this planet is allowed to give Mikey any semblance of a hard time, and that person is decidedly not Leonardo. 

“Then how about a little spacial awareness?” Leo bites out, squaring his shoulders when Raph faces him, as if they’ve never managed to mature past thirteen years old. “We’re running drills in the dojo starting tomorrow.”

It’s on the tip of Donnie’s tongue to say the hell we are, but he doesn’t bother. Raph and Leo are starting their unstoppable-force-meets-immovable-object routine and they’ll be at it for a good five minutes at least. Instead he reminds himself that his big brothers are keyed up and agitated out of worry and care, that the fighting only started after Donnie gave the all-clear, because it really won’t do anyone any good if all three of them lose their tempers. 

A second later Mikey is leaning out of Donnie’s hands and pushing himself to his feet. He’s looking right at Leo with all that hurt packed away into a neat little box, impossible to find. His orange mask is stained a stomach-turning rust color. The balled-up shirt is still in Donnie’s hand and Mikey is just letting himself bleed. 

“Mike,” Donnie says helplessly. 

“I’ll text you later,” he replies and ducks away quickly, out from under the overhang into the alley. Donnie sometimes wonders at the things his family has normalized over the years. His only little brother, the only person Donatello has always been directly responsible for, is all plastered with rain and walking off with a head wound, and it’s not even in the top ten worst things that’s happened so far this year. And it’s May. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” Leo says suddenly. He storms after Mikey, reaching out like he’s going to grab him by the arm, and Donnie has just a second to think yeah that’s not good before Mikey whirls around. 

“Back off!” 

It stops Leo in his tracks so completely that it probably would have been funny in another time and place. He blinks dumbly, like the computer in his brain is rebooting. Donnie knows that this sudden temper of his was triggered by fear—that the sight of a knife flying towards his littlest brother’s head woke up something ugly in his brain that sprang to the defense in the quickest, easiest manner it could, clouding rational thought—but that doesn’t mean his words hurt any less. 

Mikey wipes roughly at his face with the heel of his hand. It’s impossible to tell through the rain, but he might be crying. Then, with an economy of motion that all his brothers have envied since they were clumsy little toddlers, the orange-banded turtle scales the side of the adjacent building and disappears over the roof into the dark. 

“Well done, asshole,” Raph says, but it’s half-hearted at best. “At this rate, I’ll be out of a job.”

Leo’s brow is furrowed beneath his mask. His hand is still slightly raised, like Mikey is still right there within reach. He’s never been here before, Donnie knows. Even when Leo was at his most hateful, those painful weeks after the showdown with the Shredder, Raph and Donnie—and even April, Casey and Splinter—were careful to keep him the fuck away from Mikey on his darker days. There are some things that can’t be walked back. 

This isn’t that. To be frank, they’ve said much worse to each other over much smaller fish. But sometimes hurt can spring up where it’s least expected. And sometimes when you get a knife thrown at your head, you want sympathy from the person you’ve spent your whole life idolizing, not scorn. 

“Why did I say that,” Leo mutters. It doesn’t sound like a question. 

Donnie answers anyway. “Because you’ve refused every single one of my attempts to get you into therapy. Telehealth exists, Nardo. We’re on a very good insurance plan.”

“Since when do we have insurance?” Raph says. He’s peering out from under the overhang into the rain, like maybe Mikey’s going to make a surprise reappearance. “Are you frauding some sleezy millionaire again?”

“Just doing my part,” Donnie says mildly. He touches Leo’s shoulder and says, “You owe him an apology. But he’ll be okay.”

It’ll be a cold day in hell when just that would be enough to make Leo stop worrying, especially in this case, but Donnie still had to try. Sure enough, Leo nods once, mechanically, and then says, “Can you track his phone?”

“Slow down, Mamanardo,” Raph says. “Let the kid have a minute to himself.”

“He’s hurt,” Leo replies like it’s making him sick to think about. Donnie has a comment locked and loaded that sounds something along the lines of “how convenient of you to remember that now and not when you and Raph were ripping each other’s heads off” but he chooses to be the bigger turtle. 

“He’ll be okay,” Donnie reiterates. He tosses the ruined shirt into a nearby bin and then sticks his hands out into the rain, washing the sticky, tacky red away. “Besides, tracking his phone is unnecessary. There’s only one place he would have gone.”

Even Raph raises an eyeridge at that, and Leo is equally clueless, but that’s okay. Donnie has been Mikey’s co-conspirator and secret-keeper since before they could talk in full sentences, and it’s only fair, because Mikey has been all of those things for him, too. Being on the B Team doesn’t have a lot of perks, but this is one of them. 

A couple of hours later, Donnie successfully shakes his brothers off at the lair. Splinter caught Donnie’s eye and helpfully ushered the elder two turtles into the dojo for a convenient meditation session, so Donnie didn’t have to worry about a pair of red and blue mother hens trailing after him. 

He crawls up the side of an apartment building in East Village and sits on the railing of the fire escape to peer into a warmly-lit window on the seventh floor. Inside his little brother and his little brother’s best friend, a human with piles and piles of curly blond hair and dimples when he smiles, are probably minutes away from getting a noise complaint, dancing around a cramped shoebox living room and singing at the top of their lungs. 

“Girl, put your records on,” they bellow, sharing the TV remote as if it’s a microphone. “Tell me your favorite song! You go ahead, let your hair down!”

There’s a big pink bandaid plastered to the side of Mikey’s head, and evidence of Thai takeout on the coffee table that’s been shoved to the side of the room, and he’s in a sunflower yellow hoodie that’s at least two sizes too big. Any trace of the hurt from earlier is long-gone. 

They’ll need to get home eventually. It isn’t safe to stay out in the early morning hours, as the city that never sleeps begins to pick up speed. And Leo is almost certainly going to be waiting up for them, restless until he sees for himself that his baby brother hasn’t been driven away by him completely. They really do need to get that boy some therapy. Donnie makes a mental note to get April on his team for that. 

For now, there’s still some time. Until the end of this song, at least. It’s catchy. 

#tmnt 2003 #tmnt 2k3 #hamato donatello #hamato leonardo #hamato michelangelo #hamato raphael #woody dirkins #my writing #tmnt fic #prompt #anonymous #woodyangelo #b team #hero bros #im a simple creature. i get a tmnt prompt i write woody into it somehow #also this song is stuck in my head now thanks a lot boys

[moonchildlix]

Figured that now would be a good time to go over a fun little about the Punks turtles that was actually one of the first things my best friend and I came up with after deciding they would be punks in this iteration ⚡️Their music taste⚡️

Leo

His music taste is most electric/dance. He doesn’t particularly enjoy dancing, and isn’t very good at it (At least he doesn’t think so) but he likes music that he can move around to, and by move around too, he means running along rooftops or beating up goons who ‘learned to fight’ by watching Shonen anime and nothing more. He doesn’t listen to any particular bands or artists as in his words he ‘Doesn’t care about celebrities, only the music they put out’. He used to listen to nightcore as a kid. He also really likes glam rock and punk rock.

Raph

Possibly to no one’s surprise at all, Raph’s music taste is metal. He likes Metallica, Megadeath, Pantera, Black Sabbath, Slayer, Sabbaton, Anthrax, Motörhead etc. He also listens to a lot of punk rock and even a bit of k-rock. He also listens to a lot of indie.

Mikey

Mikey will listen to pretty much any genre of rock, but his favourite is classic rock, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, AC/DC etc. as well as just anything from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, Queen, Guns n’ Roses, Madonna, Bowie, Nirvanna etc. he also listens to a lot of punk rock with his brothers and glam rock when he’s hanging out with Leo.

Donnie

Donnie’s music taste is mostly just Kpop. His favourite groups are Stray Kids, TOMORROW X TOGETHER, and BTS, but he also really likes Enhypen, Ateez, Seventeen, Twice, ITZY, Red Velvet, IU, etc. and he of course listens to a lot of punk rock with his brothers. (His brothers think there’s a connection between his lab being sound proof and his noticeable hypersensitivity to sound sensory, especially if that sound happens to not be his favourite music)

#teenage mutant ninja turtles #teenage mutant ninja turtles fan iteration #teenage mutant ninja turtles punks in action #tmnt #tmnt fan iteration #tmnt pia #tmnt leonardo #tmnt michelangelo #tmnt donatello #tmnt raphael

[teetlestansecond]

hear me out here, mayhaps rise!TMNT make a playlist that automatically puts their most listened to songs with their s/o or bestie but all the songs that the reader ends up adding from them is either depressing or "i slammed my penith in the car door" (btw really hopes this actually send tumblr mobile is sus sometimes jfjf)

this encouraged me to look at my spotify mixes with a few of my friends and the funniest thing is that my friend and i both have been playing edge of seventeen AND georgy porgy by toto so it’s safe to say we’re going through it out here rip

i used the wildest songs on my blended playlists for this do NOT ask me about my music taste

rise!turtles x emotionally unstable reader

gn!reader, no warnings just shenanigans courtesy of ya babe

Raph! ❤️

Raph listens to your blended playlist at least once a week, usually while he’s cleaning his room

because everyone knows the benefits of listening to music while cleaning. it’s the only way to push through cleaning a room

it’s a pretty chill playlist normally, but this week while Raph’s folding clothes he hears the waitress song “she used to be mine” for the first time and he has to take a second

he cries a little bit because everyone cries a little bit hearing that song, but after he gets over his own emotions he will be at your door and he won't be going away until you let him in so he can check on your wellbeing.

"heeyyyy y/n. i brought tissues. are you okay? are you sure? do you wanna talk about it i think we should talk about it -"

don't try and lie to him about it. if this song made it on the blend then you're simply not okay spare him the denial.

Leo! 💙

I fully believe that Leo listens to music all day every day. to hold the brain goblins at bay you know how it is.

he listens to the blend at least once a day and pays attention for any changes on your end because he's nosy like that. he's the friend that likes to see what his friends are listening to so he can make fun of them.

mostly he just leaves it at teasing but one time he does have to sit you down because your blended playlist has been adding more and more elton john songs but only the sad and nostalgic ones and it's all on your end and he's concerned.

he's especially concerned about elton john's hit song "Saturday Night's Alright (for Fighting)".

"y/n. are you fighting people on the weekends? without me? maybe i wanna fight people too i can't believe you're not including me in your fights-"

you have to convince him that, no, you aren't fighting people on saturday nights. does he believe you? no. are you telling the truth? you tell me bestie.

Donnie! 💜

Donnie mostly listens to his own music but he does periodically check your blended playlist just to get a glimpse into your mind.

he calls it a vibe check and you hate it but that's not going to stop him.

he checks up on your blend and finds all the sad hits like "Don't Fear the Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult, "I keep Forgettin'" by Michael MacDonald, and "Somebody You Loved" by Lewis Capaldi

naturally he calls you up to discuss the results of your vibe check and you hate it

"hello y/n I'm just calling to let you know that you have failed your latest vibe check and so I will be inviting myself over. do you want pizza or ice cream?"

you would find it touching if you weren't so annoyed by it. besides it's not like you're the only one failing the vibe check - Donnie's had cbat on your blend for weeks and you are mad about it

Mikey! 🧡

like Leo, Mikey also listens to your blend every day, he enjoys the mix of genres and songs.

but his favorite thing is when you listen to meme songs so much that they end up in your blend. he'll play the meme songs on repeat and sing them around you to tease you.

like that one time you had "here comes the hurricane legendary katrina" on the blend for a solid couple of weeks. Mikey still hasn't let that go.

anytime it gets cloudy out he gives you this mischievous grin and you beg him not to but he doesn't listen.

"you know what that looks like, y/n? the hurricane.... KATRINA!!!"

you smack his shoulder every time and he laughs like it's the funniest thing on earth.

#zennie answers! #these are short but that's because all of these were pulled from my own blends with people #looking @ my girlfriend babe please stop listening to cbat #rottmnt x reader #rottmnt headcanons #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt #rise of the tmnt #save rottmnt

[halogalopaghost]

The Height of Comedy

Read on AO3

During a weekend getaway at the Jones family farm, the turtles (and Casey) get into a friendly spat around the kitchen table, that makes Leo feel a little self-conscious.

Cheering erupted around the table as Donnie bravely stuffed one more marshmallow into his mouth. He threw his hands over his head with a choked sort of mouth-full-of-mallow cry of victory.

April walked into the kitchen at that very moment and stopped dead in the doorway to stare.

The cheering, from both Donnie’s brothers and Casey, stopped as all heads turned to April. Don tried to close his mouth and found that he actually could not, so he grinned guiltily instead.

“Donatello,” she said with the full force of her big-sister voice, “spit those out before you choke.

He brought his hand up to his mouth and turned out the sticky mess.

“Into the trash!” she cried. They had never seen her move so fast as she dove for the bin and brought it to Donnie’s side.

The laughter started anew as Donnie, face purple with flushed embarrassment, was dragged over to the kitchen sink to wash his hands. Mikey and Raph clung to each other, tears gathering in their eyes while their stomachs ached with the sheer force of their laughter.

The group was spending a week at the farm to get away from it all for a while. Raph and Mike, resident sweet tooth committee, came prepared with multiple bags of marshmallows and chocolate. Maybe tooprepared. Three days in, they had yet to be able to consume any s’mores. They were drowning in cold autumn rain.

Donnie was returned to the table with freshly de-stickied hands. April paused in the doorway to give them all a narrow, calculating look, then snatched the open bag of marshmallows off the table. It went with her to the living room, where she and Splinter were marathoning ‘I Love Lucy’.

They dutifully groaned and complained as she walked away with the bag. As soon as she was out of earshot, Mikey reached into a tote bag under the table and withdrew a brand-new package.

“I wiped the floor with your measly fourteen marshmallows!” Donnie declared to Mikey. “I had seventeen.”

Mikey turned his snout up, eyes closed. “You forget, dear brother, that if you cannot close your mouth, it doesn’t count.”

The chaos began anew.

“You never closed your mouth!” Don cried.

“To be fair,” Raph muttered, “I don’t think he ever can.”

“But I coulda!”

Leo sat back with a smile, watching it all unfold like one of Sensei’s television stories. Raph met his eyes briefly, and they both suppressed a smirk.

What Mike, Casey, and Don didn’t know is that over the summer, Leo and Raph had a wild hair in the middle of the night and ended up in the kitchen, roasting marshmallows over the open flame of the propane stovetop. They'd laughed as they burned their fingers getting too close or touching the scorching hot fork after pulling it away from the flame, and before long they were goofing off more than making a snack. He couldn't even remember how or why it happened, but he crammed 20 uncooked marshmallows in his mouth before he had to stop, only because Raphael was laughing so hard he almost passed out, and waking the household became a real concern. Raph knew what he was doing when he looked at Mikey and said, 'bet you can't fit ten in your mouth'.

The squabbling around the table died down as Don explained his theories about the turtles' disproportionately large mouths. Casey, who had only managed to fit a mere six mallows in his average-size human mouth, nodded along.

"—honestly, I'm just glad we ended up with teeth," he finished.

Casey nodded. "Mhm, mhm, 'n that's also why I should be declared winner. You all cheated!"

Raph preempted the following shouts from Mike and Don. "Ya got it all wrong," he said, propping a foot on the leg of the table and tipping his chair back. "Leo's the winner."

All eyes turned to Leo, then back to Raph.

"For being most boring?" Mikey asked. Leo stuck his tongue out at him, and the younger brother happily returned the favor.

“Fer getting’ twenty marshmallows in that smug little face ‘a his.”

Mikey and Don’s jaws dropped right away. Casey just threw up his hands in defeat—seemed like that big mouth of his was strictly metaphorical.

Mike whirled on Raph. “You’re fibbing!”

“I swear to turtle-god!”

He slammed his hand down on the table. “Swear on our mother’s grave!”

“We don’t have a mother,” Donnie deadpanned.

Mike whirled again to face Don, mask tails trailing behind him. He gasped theatrically and pressed a hand to his plastron like he was clutching his pearls or something. “We did too! She’s probably in turtle-heaven now, turtle-god rest her turtle-soul.” He turned on Raph again. “Swear on Chuck E. Cheesus!”

Raph slapped a hand on the table and raised the other one as if he were swearing on an invisible bible. Turtle-bible? “I swear! Guy’s got a black hole in there or somethin’.”

“Ooh, so that’s where it all went. Instead of getting taller, Leo just got a big mouth,” Donnie teased.

Leo felt his face get hot and ducked his head instinctively to hide it. “It’s not like I’m gonna be this height forever.” He purposefully avoided the s-word. “I’ve got time for another growth spurt.”

The table went silent.

He looked up to find everyone else already staring at him.

“What!?” he demanded.

“Oh you sweet summer child,” Mike muttered, shaking his head.

“Human males tend to stop growing height-wise around sixteen or seventeen,” Don said matter-of-factly.

Mikey broke the silence, leaping out of his chair to throw his arms around Leo’s neck. “Aww! It’s Leo’s turn to be the littlest brother!”

He tried (with no success) to shove Mikey off. “I’m still taller than you!”

“Pff, that ship sailed a long time ago, baby bro.”

“Does this mean I’m in charge now?” Don asked.

No one acknowledged him except Raphael, who flatly said, “No.” And added for good measure, “Beanpole.”

“Butt face,” he fired back.

“You are not taller than me!” Leo insisted again. Mikey continued to hang off his neck, cooing at him.

“Fellas, fellas,” Casey said, standing into a stretch. He placed a hand on Mike and Leo’s shoulders and leaned down. “Yer both short.”

Casey was promptly boo’d out of the room, getting jeers even from 5’10 Donatello, but he left with a laugh.

“You’re not taller,” Leo grumbled again.

“There’s a way to prove that y’know,” Mikey said, singsong.

Donnie grabbed his staff from where it leaned against the table and used it to hook the strap on his ever-present duffle bag and drag it over. From within its depths, he withdrew a tape measure and grinned.

Mikey shoved away from Leo to bolt upright. “Me first!” He smacked his shell against the drywall beside the kitchen door.

Leo groaned.

Raph clapped him on the shoulder as he passed, getting closer to properly spectate. “What’sa matter, Fearless? Scared you’re wrong?”

Leo only gave him a withering glare and, knowing that meant Leo knew he was wrong, Raphael let out one of his deep-chested laughs.

Donnie marked the wall with a pencil and Mikey stepped out of the way so he could measure. “Looks like the height to beat is five-five.”

Despite knowing that it ultimately didn’t matter at all, Leo’s stomach twisted. He was the leader—the appointed oldest son! He didn’t want to be the short one. But his brothers started jeering at him, with Raph making scarily accurate chicken sounds, so he sighed with the weight of nineteen years spent as the eldest of four brothers and shuffled over to bonk his shell against the wall.

Don rested the pencil against the crown of his head and made the mark behind him. He drew his mouth into a thin, grim line.

“What? Am I taller or not?”

Donnie handed the pencil to Raph and stepped aside. “Corroborate my findings, please.”

Raph grinned. Mikey bounced on his toes impatiently.

“No cheatin’,” Raph mumbled, making a show of bending over to make sure the pencil was level. Suddenly, he barked a laugh right in Leo’s face.

Leo jumped away and shoved him, still cackling, backward into Mike.

Donnie measured the mark while Mike and Raph quickly devolved into wrestling on the kitchen floor. They paused as Donnie drew back with the results.

He sighed. “Sorry Leo—”

He didn’t get out any more than that before Mikey exploded with excitement. He attacked Leo from the side, wrapping his arms around his chest and shoulders and squeezing tight, damn near lifting him off the ground. “Yeah BOY! Who’s the baby now, huh?” He pinched Leo’s cheek. “Who’s your daddy? Who’s the tall one? M—!”

Leo’s elbow dashed away from his side and right into Mikey’s solar plexus, just hard enough to make him release a breathless oof. He doubled over with a hand on his leathery plastron. Raph grabbed Donnie for support as he started laughing.

Leo looked down at him and shrugged. “Looks like I am.”

Mikey coughed. “Okay,” he croaked out, despite his apparent lack of oxygen, “I had that coming.”

Donnie put his hand on Leo’s shoulder. “My condolences, heightless leader.”

Raph wheezed.                                          

----------------------

Later that evening, Leo found himself without much of anything to do. He was too wired to sleep, but he had been coerced into meditating and training only once a day on their little vacation. He tried reading in bed and letting the sound of the rain on the tin roof coax him to sleep, but he couldn’t focus on the words. For once, the philosophy and war tactics weren’t interesting to him. He stood and stretched, then went down the stairs and straight out the front door.

The stars, usually so brilliant and comforting out here, were buried deep beneath a blanket of dark clouds. Leo watched the horizon anyway, hoping to catch sight of a star through the rain.

He sat in the old wooden porch swing, realizing with a little bit of a grumble to himself that his feet didn’t touch the ground. He pointed his toes to reach out and push off the ground every so often, gently swinging himself. The rhythmic creaking of the chains above was relaxing to him—this place was one of the few things in his life that brought back only happy memories.

He was fully relaxed into the swing, just starting to get chilly in the humid autumn air, when the front door opened. He made eye contact with Don as he stuck his head out, then retreated and closed the door behind him.

Leo blinked after him, confused, but not confused enough to leave his comfy seat. He didn’t have to wonder long anyway; the door opened again and his brother returned with a quilt bundled in his arms. He sat in the space Leo made for him and spread the blanket across their legs. Leo scooted just a little closer—Donnie was nice and warm from being inside.

“Am I bothering you?” Don whispered.

Leo breathed out a laugh. “No.”

He turned back to the horizon to keep his star-vigil. Lightning flashed in the distance. Nearly a minute passed before the rumble of thunder reached them.

“Aristotle popularized the myth that cloud collisions cause thunder and lightning,” Donnie said in a hushed tone. “Thunder is actually a sort of sonic boom that occurs when the air around the lightning is superheated suddenly." He fell silent for a moment, watching lightning play in the distance. "Lightning is roughly five times hotter than the surface of the sun.”

Leo nodded along. He thought cloud collisions caused thunder too, maybe he read it in a book somewhere once.

“What’re you thinking about?” Don continued to keep his voice low, and Leo appreciated it.

A smile curved his mouth without reaching his eyes. He considered lying to spare his empathetic brother the angsty nature of his idle thoughts, but Donnie would know if he did, then set Raph on him.

He took a deep breath as lightning flashed again. “Do you think I’d have been taller if it weren’t for…” he touched the place where his shell was still split at the shoulder. The utrom had been able to save more of his shell than Donnie would have been, with their scant supplies, but they still had their limitations. The broken and damaged scutes were only just starting to grow back, misshapen though they were. “If it weren’t for the Foot?”

He felt Don turn to look at him. He deliberately stayed focused on the creak of the swing and the patter of rain in the mud.

“Probably,” Don said finally. His voice came out hoarse. “You and Mikey did suffer the brunt of the injuries that could have damaged your growth plates. Your shell, Mike’s knees…”

Suffered. Hm.

“Stress, lack of sleep, improper nutrition, it all contributes to growth in human children. I imagine we aren’t much different.”

Leo’s mouth felt dry. “Well, on that list, I’m four out of four.”

He wanted to laugh about it. It was all over anyway—they had a warm, safe, above-ground home; all their enemies were dead, in hiding, or turned to allies. They were well-fed on marshmallows straight from the factory-sealed bag, rather than from a container of gooey marshmallow fluff that hadn’t been scraped entirely clean before being discarded. His height didn’t matter in comparison to those things, not even a little. But it still bothered him.

Growing up. Another key part of childhood that was taken right out from under him.

He realized he’d been silent too long when Donnie began shifting uncomfortably. They both drew a breath to speak at the same time, then laughed. Leo waved for him to go ahead.

“I was just thinking…maybe you would have been short anyway. Raph and I grew up in the same conditions and—” He gestured broadly at himself. “I’m five-ten. Raph’s five-eight.”

Suddenly Leo’s ten years old again, casually declaring he was stuffed before handing off most of his portion to whichever brother was hungriest—usually Raphael as he rapidly put on weight and muscle, or Donnie as he constantly shot upward. He smiled and decided to keep that one to himself.

The door creaked open and Mikey, much like Donnie had earlier, stuck his head out to look for his missing brothers. On seeing them, he started toward the swing with a grin.

“Still nursing your wounds, baby brother?”

Donnie glared as Mike lifted the quilt and inserted himself between the two of them. “Actually, we were talking about how you were probably destined to be short, but Leo’s growth might have been stunted by carrying your sorry shell around for years.”

“Donnie,” Leo laughed out.

Mikey snuggled against Leo’s chest and closed his eyes. “It's okay, I get to be big brother now. I’m gonna protect youuu, and lecture you about honooor, and wake you up early in the morniiing…” He tilted his face up, eyes suddenly serious. “If it bothers you, I’ll stop.”

Leo wrapped an arm around his neck to trap him in for a noogie. “No more than you usually bother me, shell-for-brains. Besides, you need something new to brag about after how hard you lost the Battle Nexus last year.”

Mike smacked his plastron. “Hey! Sensitive topic!”

The front door of the farmhouse swung open suddenly, the outer screen door thrown open with so much force that it bounced off the wall. Raphael came barreling out and stopped just short of them, threw his head back, and opened his mouth.

“RHENNTY-RHU AYEEY!” he shouted. The mass of marshmallows in his mouth moved as he tried so very hard to speak intelligibly.

“That was Raphael-With-His-Mouth-Full for ‘twenty-two, baby’,” Mikey helpfully noted.

Leo managed to shake off the stunned silence first, laughing a little before he said, “Congrats, Raph. You got the biggest mouth of us all.”

Raph spit marshmallows at him.

#turtleposting #the ghost writes #tmnt #tmnt 03 #tmnt 2003 #fanfic #crosspost

[midnightcreator12]

And We'll Keep Marching On Chapter 3 - Raven and Scrap

AO3 Link

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Mikey watched as Raph and Donnie tucked Leo into bed.

They’d put him in the room closest to the stairs, Raph arguing in favor of it because it was one of the biggest and someone had to keep an eye on Leo so they should put him in a room big enough for two. Donnie hadn’t fought him much on the argument. Mikey was pretty sure Donnie wanted that room because he could get to it quicker if something happened.

April had fitted clean, if a little dusty, sheets on the bed and now Leo was resting comfortably under those and a quilt…at least Mikey hoped he was comfy, it was hard to tell since Leo’s face was still lax and blank.

But Mikey was trying to not think about that.

Raph had left and come back with a stool, plopping himself down without a word. And Donnie was checking Leo over again, prodding at bandaged wounds and muttering about what they needed to do while Leo was recovering.

There wasn’t much for Mikey to do now.

He slowly turned away from the bedroom, attention sliding to a door that was slightly cracked, just enough for him to see one shiny robot eye peering out at him.

He knew Raph and Donnie wanted him to stay away from the strangers in the bathroom…but Mikey’s curiosity was getting the better of him.

Plus, a small distraction would be…really, really great for a few minutes.

But he couldn’t just bust into the bathroom with his normal enthusiasm. For one, he didn’t have the energy for it, and for another, the robot had attacked Donnie with a taser. And the little camera lens was very clearly giving Mikey the stink eye.

So no dashing into the bathroom. He had to proceed with caution.

He approached the door, stopping to crouch down and peer back at the robot. There was a soft whirr as it spun away from view. Mikey heard a low, mechanical worble and the sound of little feet clanking across tiled floor. He pressed his palm to the old wood, letting it swing open as he took in the teenager huddled in the corner.

She looked up from the little robot in her lap, eyes going wide for a moment before her face relaxed into a neutral expression.

He should probably be more worried about that, or exercise more caution on his approach. But his plan to be all cool and calm vanished when he saw her eye. Because there was a tattoo around her eye socket, a small, simplified image of a wing.

“Whoaaaa,” Mikey moved closer before dropping into a crouch, staring at the little inky picture. “Where’d you get that tattoo? Actually, did that hurt? It’s suuuuper close to your eye.”

And, like Mikey’s plan, the girls resolve to keep her face unreadable also vanished. Her brow scrunched in confusion and one hand started moving to the tattoo in question, “...my brother did it for me.”

Oh, ho! Another fun fact about this new friend! “You have a brother too? Are they here? They don’t gotta hide, you know, we’re cool.”

“No…no, they were the one’s…Donatello says I can’t send a signal yet.”

“Oh…,” that sucks. Mikey gets why Donnie told her not to call anyone but that still sucks. “Can you just text them? I’m sure Donnie’ll be cool with it as long as you don’t tell them where you are.”

“....what’s a text?”

Now it was Mikey’s turn to frown in confusion, “Dude, even I know what texting is. You’re like, what, seventeen? All seventeen-year-olds know about texting!”

“I’m…fifteen, actually.”

“Seriously?” Now Mikey is very, very interested. “Dude, you’re younger than us! We’re sixteen, well, almost sixteen! In about a month or two. And April and Casey are seventeen. Whoa, wait a minute….does that mean I’m not the youngest anymore?” Mikey let the feeling sit, mulling over how he felt about not being the baby. “...weird.”

“...technically, Scrap is the youngest,” Raven murmured.

The little bot let out a series of shrill beeps, spinning its head around to look up at Raven.

She looked at him, “You’re only five years old.”

Scrap beeped louder, clearly offended.

Hearing so much indignity from a thing that could only make robot sound was pretty funny to watch. 

It was even better when he shimmied up Raven's legs to stomp angrily on top of her knees. Mikey couldn't help the burst of giggling that came out of him.

Maybe it made him a bad brother, to be giggling while Leo was still so hurt, but it felt nice. To have just a little moment of joy after all the mess they’d just gone through.

But his spine tensed again when Raven's head snapped up and her expression blanked.

He twisted, tipping his head back to see April was standing in the doorway. She was staring at Raven, lips tight and eyes slightly narrowed, meaning she was trying to use her powers. She probably would have had a hand outstretched as well if she was holding a bundle of fabric.

But whatever she was trying to use them for must not have worked, because her focused face was slowly turning into a frustrated one.

Mikey needed to snap the tension building in the room.

He went to speak, crack a joke, tell April about his new friends and reassure her that they were cool.

Except Scrap beat him to it, standing up straighter, little antenna 'ears’ fully upright as he let out a quick series of beeps.

Mikey didn't know what they meant and he knew April didn't know what they meant.

But based on the sudden horror on Raven's face and her scrabbling to drag Scrap down onto her lap and behind her legs, she knew what he’d said and it wasn’t something nice. 

She hissed under her breath, “Where did you learn that? Who taught you that? I did not teach you to say things like that-” She hissed again, but this time it was a puff of air through her teeth and accompanied by one hand going to her leg.

Mikey gasped, scooting closer to look, “Dude, are you hurt? Why didn’t you say something?”

“No, it’s fine, I’m fine, it’s just a plasma burn.”

“Well, in that case, you could use these,” April finally approached, holding the bundle out to Raven. “I dug out some old clothing and Donnie gave up some bandages.”

Raven cleared her throat, shifting Scrap to take the offering, “Thank you. Truly.”

“Yeah, no problem,” April retreated, tapping Mikey’s shoulder as she went. “Hey, help me unload the van? Raph wants all our stuff in the house before we lose daylight.”

“Uh, okay,” Mikey stood, waving over his shoulder as he followed April. “We’ll talk more later dude! I can introduce you to Ice Cream Kitty!”

“Um, sure, that’d be…fun,” Raven said.

Mikey chose to ignore her confused tone because it wasn’t an uncommon reaction when his cat was mentioned.

He trudged down the stairs behind April, only mildly miffed that she’d interrupted his attempts to bond with the new human. If they were going to make her stay here he might as well make the most of it and add another human to his list of friends. It would at least be something nice that came out of…their entire situation.

Except when they got outside, April paused, crossing her arms as she turned to Mikey and leaned against the van, “Look, I know telling you to not get too friendly is pointless so….just try to be careful?”

Mikey blinked, face scrunching in confusion, “Whaaat are you talking about?”

“Raven,” April explained. “Be careful around her. Something is…off about her.”

“What?” Mikey shook his head. “No there isn't. She seems really cool if you ask me. And I am great at reading people's vibes.”

April raised an eyebrow, “Well I can actually read people's minds and hers….somethings off with it.”

“Whadda mean?”

“It's like there's a wall around her brain. I can't get anything past surface level feelings. You ask me, that's pretty weird.”

“Or you’re just tired?” Mikey countered. “Seriously, why do you all gotta judge any new friends I make?”

“Firstly, she broke into my family’s farmhouse. She has an attack robot that I’m pretty sure swore at me a few minutes ago. And she had a Kraang laser gun.”

“I thought you said that she said she was a prisoner?”

“And we should take her word on that?”

“I mean…we could check her stomach for any brain aliens?”

April sighed, “Casey tried but the robot kept headbutting him….and apparently it hits hard.”

Mikey shrugged, “Did you try asking?”

“Look, it doesn’t matter if she isn’t a Kraang. If she had contact with them at some point her being here could be a really elaborate setup. Or the ‘signal’ she was planning to send was to call up a ship from Dimension X.”

“.....so why are we still here?”

“Because we can’t really go anywhere else. We need somewhere we can all heal up. Especially…” she trailed off.

And Mikey felt the little spark of joy from making a new friend sputter out when she did.  Because they both knew exactly the person that needed to heal the most.

…he really didn’t want to be stuck in the van for hours again.

He forced a smile at April, “Don’t worry about Raven. She’s cool, ninja’s honor.”

April raised an eyebrow at that but she didn’t continue the argument. Instead, she turned to the van and started dragging out the random assortment of supplies they’d snagged, “Help me get all this put away.”

“Sure thing boss,” Mikey jumped on the distraction, pushing into the van to get as big of an armload as he could. He heard a few things fall to the ground as he hobbled back into the house but he could go get those later.

Between the pair, he and April had cleaned out the van within minutes. Putting things in a place was…taking a little longer. Mostly because every time April opened a cabinet, bugs would skitter out or a cloud of dust would puff into their faces.

“Good thing you didn’t ask Raph to help with this,” Mikey commented lightly as he tried to slap another roach skittering past him.

April let out a frustrated groan, “These all need to be cleaned before we put food in here.”

“Bummer,” Mikey said solemnly.

April probably would have said more but a creak of old wood flooring had both of them looking up.

Raven was standing in the doorway, now wearing faded jeans with ripped knees and a red shirt over a white undershirt. She had the sleeves rolled up, showing a series of stripes tattooed up her left arm that disappeared under the shirt. The bottom part of the shirt had also been torn off, probably to make the cloth headband that was suspiciously the same color and holding curly hair out of her face. Scrap was perched on her shoulder, head swiveling around as he took in the new space.

“Am I allowed to leave the house?” she asked.

Mikey blinked, turning to April, “Dude, we aren’t locking her in the house, are we? That seems cruel.”

April frowned, looking between Mikey and Raven, “....why do you want to go outside?”

“Having open fires indoors is dangerous,” Raven replied, prompt and blunt.

April jerked at that, sitting up ramrod straight, “Why do you need fire!?”

Scrap warbled, scurrying down Raven’s arm and tapping a foot to the bundle of stained white fabric bunched up in her hands.

Oooooh, Mikey got it.

“I’ll go out with her!” Mikey jumped up, bounding over to Raven and hooking an arm around her. “And a campfire sounds fun! We could all go out and just hang out like in those teen drama movies that Casey likes.”

“I do not like them!” Casey’s voice rang from the top of the stairs. “I only watch them cause April likes them…and we shouldn’t let that chick play with fire!”

April sighed out her nose, long-suffering and tired as she went back to the dusty cabinets, “Just keep the fire in the fire pit, okay Mikey?”

“Yes ma’am!” Mikey started moving the moment April looked away, very aware of Casey glowering from the top of the stairs. “We’ll be fiiiiine, it’s just a lil campfire. Shame we don’t have marshmallows though.”

April just hummed in reply.

Mikey herded Raven out the door, still jabbering about the missed opportunity for s’mores. He heard Casey thumping his way after them, shoes loud on the old wooden floors and somehow even on the grass and dirt but Mikey chose to ignore him.

Scrap jumped off of Raven when they got close to a bald patch of dirt surrounded by a broken circle of rocks. He circled the old firepit, trilling and stomping on the few remnants of ash left in it.

Mikey paused to watch as Raven dumped her old clothes in the pit and started pacing the area, collating sticks and moss. Casey sidled up next to him, eyes narrowed as he watched her like a sour-faced hawk, “We’re actually gonna let her start a fire?”

“I mean, I don’t see why not?” Mikey shrugged. “We’re watching….and she not gonna do anything!”

“Suuure she ain’t,” Casey wrinkled his nose. “‘Cause our track record with anything Kraang related has been great.”

“Dude, she said she was a prisoner.”

“And I don’t buy it. It’s really convenient that she just happened to be here right before we got here. And she’s being real cooperative for someone who just escaped alien brain jail.”

“Dude, you need to chill out,” Mikey groaned. “They’re cool, trust me.”

Scrap gave a loud shriek and Mikey looked over just in time to see a taser prong emerge from his leg and jab down into the pile of moss Raven had collected.

Apparently, it was dry enough to ignite within seconds and burst into a massive flame. Scrap let out a series of warbles that almost sounded like an evil laugh.

The light of the fire cast Raven’s face in sharp shadows, dancing along her skin as she stared at the white scrabs that were slowly burning away.

…okay, Mikey could admit her staring and the absolute chihuahua energy coming from the bot was a little creepy.

But they were still cool. He totally got good vibes from them.

Casey and everyone else would come around eventually.

Buuuut in the meantime, he could be a mediator. So he trotted over to Raven, standing next to her and pointing to the tattoo on her arm, “Do you like tigers?”

Raven startled, like she hadn’t noticed when Mikey approached, “What?”

“Your tat,” Mikey explained. “I mean, the bird wing on your eye is cool but the stripes are even cooler! Does it go all the way up your arm?”

Raven blinked again like she wasn’t fully comprehending the question, “...It goes to my shoulder.” She pulled one side of her shirt open, showing that the striped pattern was indeed inked up to her shoulder.

“Whooooa,” Mikey beamed. “Soooo….tigers?”

“Not…exactly,” Raven paused.

Mikey waited for her to continue, keeping his smile in place.

It fell when Raven suddenly burst into tears, “Whoa, dude, are you okay?”

Raven startled again, raising a hand to her cheek, “I…I don’t…why am I-”

Scrap started to beep and trill, hopping around Raven’s feet in a very panicked manner. Mikey still didn’t have a clue what all the sounds meant or even if they were supposed to be words but Raven was looking at the little droid as she slowly sat down, “I-I’m sitting, I’m sitting….what…what’s happening-” a harsh sob wrenched out of her.

And Mikey…was at a complete loss for what to do.

“Yo, Mike, what’d you do to her?” Casey asked, finally losing that suspicion that had been tinging his voice and substituting it with confusion.

“I didn’t do anything!” Mikey protested. “...right? I didn’t do anything, right? Um…I’m sorry for asking about your tattoo?”

“No, I don’t….Scrap, what the shab-” her breath shuddered as she curled more into herself. “I’m a….shabbing ARC, why am I-” she choked on another sob.

Scrap let out a long, sad beep as he wiggled his way into her lap, resting his head on her shoulder like a dog comforting its owner.

Mikey shuffled awkwardly as Raven hugged the bot and started crying in earnest. It wasn’t loud, ugly crying. It was a soft, almost hiccupy cry that sounded more like she was just having a hard time breathing if it weren’t for the sobs that sounded like they were forcing themselves out of her throat and the steady stream of tears reflecting the firelight.

He really had…no idea what to do but….it looked like Scrap had it under control so he just…slowly stepped back until he was next to Casey again, “Still think she’s a spy?”

“Man, shut up,” Casey hissed. “She could be faking it.”

Mikey hummed in disagreement and shook his head. He was very confident that Raven was not, in fact, faking anything. He just had to convince everyone else.

…but maybe he could put it off until tomorrow because the fatigue was suddenly hitting him again as he let out a very long, wide yawn.

—---------------------

He ended up crashing on the floor in Leo’s room, taking comfort in the sound of his steady, if slow, breathing and the gruff grunts and grumbles from Raph.

He didn’t wake up until the sun managed to aim a beam right into his face. And it was mostly because he wasn’t used to that sensation that he startled awake all at once rather than the slow drag from being asleep to awake that was his normal style.

He blinked, looking around the room. His body was not at all happy about his decision to sleep on the floor but someone had put an old blanket on him and wedged a pillow under his head.

Raph was still next to Leo. He’d slumped over at some point, upper body on the bed next to Leo, one hand resting on his chest. Whoever had tucked Mikey in had done the same for Raph, draping a faded duvet over his shoulders.

Mikey slowly stood up, rubbing crusty gunk from his eyes and straightening his mask.

Donnie had also joined them at some point. He’d pulled another chair in and around to the other side of the bed. He was also asleep, limbs hanging limp in a very uncomfortable-looking slumped starfish pose as soft snores whistled through the gap in his teeth.

He was also the only one with no blanket, which answered the question of who had tucked in Mikey and Raph.

Ninja silent, Mikey dragged his blanket, a thick, wooly thing that looked like it was handmade, over to Donnie. He pulled out every skill he had to successfully drape it over Donnie’s prone form without waking him, even managing to tuck the corners under him to make sure the cover didn’t slip down.

That done, he took a look at Leo. He hadn’t moved all night and his breathing was pretty much the same as before. Mikey frowned, leaning over to put a hand on Leo’s arm.

The scales were cool to the touch, despite the blankets they’d piled on him. It made Mikey frown harder because he should have warmed up by now.

He pulled the quilt higher up Leo’s chest before finally making his way out of the room.

First order of business, he was going to check on Ick. And after that, he was going to find Raven.

He knew that Donnie and Raph wanted someone watching her at all times so, why not him? They could hang out, he could get to know her and then he could tell his bros how cool she was.

Because she was definitely cool and not secretly a Kraang spy or a mutant villain or an alien super soldier of some kind.

He trotted down the stairs, making his way into the kitchen.

And almost stepped on a little, two-legged robot.

Scrap beeped, skittering away nosily as his little metal feel clanged across the floor before he climbed up Raven’s back.

Raven was stood over a trash can, hair down and…a good chunk of it gone. And she had a very large pair of scissors in one hand and a fistful of hair in the other.

Mikey tipped his head, smiling, “Good morning! What’cha doing?”

Raven paused, scissors poised and open around her hair, and looked towards Mikey, “....cutting my hair.”

“But why? Hair is cool, and yours is all bouncy.”

“It’s tangled,” Raven looked down again, closing the scissors and letting the cut hair fall into the trash. “And it's too long.”

Scrap beeped in agreement, jumping off Raven and onto the countertop.

Mikey shrugged, bypassing Raven and opening the freezer.

Ick mewed as soon as the door was open, sticking her head out to rub her tiny nose against Mikey’s beak. He giggled at the cold sensation, scratching under her chin before drawing away to lick the bits of strawberry ice cream off his fingers.

There was a beep from the top of the fridge.

Mikey looked up to find Scrap, who was shuffling along the top of the freezer, antenna ears up and alert. The moment Mikey had shifted back enough, he scurried onto the open door and the blue scanner swept over the cat. Ick mewed, trying to bat at the lights as they moved from the tips of her ears to the bottom of the freezer.

“Whoa, cool, what’s Scrap doing?”

“He’s a BD unit,” Raven explained. “They were made to accompany explorers and help document flora and fauna. It’s proven to be very helpful in many regards.” Raven looked up, then paused again. “Um…what is that, exactly?”

Mikey beamed, proudly puffing out his chest, “You haven’t met Ice Cream Kitty yet, have you?”

“Nooooo,” Raven narrowing her eyes at the freezer.

“Well! This Ice Cream Kitty! Also known as Ick!” Mikey jumped to the side so he could present his pet in her full, frosty glory. Ick preened, sitting herself up as much as she could and squinting her little chocolate chip eyes in a smile.

Scrap let out a few beeps, jumping down and going back to Raven before projecting a tiny, blue-tinted version of Ick onto the counter next to a small square of funny-looking symbols.

Raven looked between Scrap and Ick for a few seconds before replying, “Is she for food?”

“Whaaaaat?” Mikey gasped. “Why would you think that?”

“You…you just pulled off a chunk of her chin and ate it.”

Mikey lifted a finger to protest…

…but she kinda had him there.

“Okay, she’s really drippy and sometimes I get ice cream on my hand. And what am I supposed to do when that happens?”

“Wash your hands?”

Scrap beeped in agreement.

Mikey stuck out his tongue, “Whatever dude. She likes it so it’s cool.”

Ick mreowed loudly and nodded. And, like the stars had aligned, a blob of ice cream fell off her head on one nod, sailing right at Raven.

And Mikey nearly jumped out of his shell when her arm snapped up, lightning-fast, and deflected the gooey mess to the floor.

The kitchen went dead silent.

And then Mikey’s face burst into a wide grin, “Whoa, sick moves! Where’d you learn that?”

Raven blinked, slowly swapping the scissors for a dishtowel that had been draped over the sink, “Training.”

“Ooh, same. We should swap moves!” He smacked the freezer door shut again. “I was gonna go explore today! We should do that together. And Scrap can scan stuff.”

Raven nodded as she picked the scissors back up, hacking away the last longer sections of her hair while Mikey talked.

Hair now much shorter, stopping just under her shoulders, she tired her improvised headband on before holding an arm out for Scrap to climb up and turning to face Mikey, straight-backed and chin head high. 

The scarily good posture remained Mikey of Master Splinter, always having his spine straight and eyes forward, and swallowed hard, not letting his grin waver.

“You’re my guard then?” Raven asked.

That got Mikey’s smile to fall into a confused frown, “Huh?”

“My guard? Everyone has been very clear that I’m not to go anywhere alone.”

“But ‘guard’ makes it sound...so…negative-” Okay, they were technically keeping her prisoner. “Buddy system! We’re doing a buddy system!”

Raven, finally, broke her relatively flat expressions with a raised brow and a side look to Scrap. And, somehow, the bot managed to give her an utterly unimpressed sideways look back.

But she also nodded, moving to the side and clearing a path to the doorway.

Mikey trotted ahead, grabbing her wrist as he passed and pulling her along, “Bet this place has all kinda cool stuff! Plenty to explore, and you still gotta tell me about your those sick tatas, dude!.”

“Yessir,” Raven replied.

“Sir? No, I’m not ‘sir’. I’m Mikey.”

Raven was quiet as Mikey led them down the porch steps and into the yard, “Okay, Mikey.”

#tmnt #tmnt 2012 #lone hunter and turtle #hunter and turtles au #tmnt au #fanfic #oc

[percyaugod]

Beware my Raph AU: It's just a baby!

I just realized, I made Raph the youngest here. He's just a baby. A large, metal baby.

Wait. If Donnie is nine when he makes Raph. Then wouldn't that make Raph five during the show?

Now I'm just imagining Donnie introducing people to his younger brother. Only five years old. No one expects Raph.

Random thought. Mystic energy makes Raph warm. Very helpful for winter.

Horrible in the summer though. Especially since it's already so hot and Donnie can't say no to that dum dum. They practically live in the cold rivers and ponds so Donnie doesn't get heat stroke.

Over time Donnie would, of course, refine Raph's design. He's lighter, faster, more advanced AI so he can think for himself. This becomes its own problem when Raph wants to be repainted to look more like a real turtle so he matches Donnie.

It takes forever to make the money to buy enough green paint and a gas mask for the fumes. Raph won't stop fidgeting. Donnie threatens to turn him into a toaster no less than seventeen times. But in the end, It looks pretty good and Raph is practically beaming.

Raph getting less and less intimidating over time with their friendly nature, love for anything cute, and big red bows around their neck and tail. Where did he even get those!? We have a reputation Raph!

Donnie trying to build a guard dog, got an overgrown puppy. He blames the mystic energy. Definitely not his fault, nope.

Raph's top priority by design still being protection at least, even if he is a bit overprotective and it has others questioning who's really the big brother. The rampages if separated from his brother/assignment are a very much unintended side effect.

Luckily Raph's programming recognizes Donnie as someone not to be harmed so he's never in any real danger. Hiding from the authorities after is such a pain though.

#rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rise of the tmnt #rottmnt #rottmnt au #rise donnie #rise raph #separated au #rottmnt separated au #robot raph #Beware My Raph AU

[cathey-winchester-666]

I READ CHAPTER 23 OF LFLS BY @eternalglitch (again) AND MY BRAIN IS GOING A MILLION MILES AN HOUR AND I HAVE A THEORY THAT I HAVEN'T SEEN ANYONE ELSE POST ABOUT YET AND IDK WHY PEOPLE AREN'T TALKING ABOUT IT.

FIRST OF ALL, THE ANGST IS BEAUTIFUL ANOTHER PAINFULLY CRAFTED MASTERPIECE I LOVE IT SO MUCH THANK YOU FOR SHARING WITH THE CLASS WE ALL LOVE (and loathe a little, but we’re kinda also to blame for indulging in the pain lmao) YOUR WORK.

I just want you to know it’s got my brain worms tossing and turning in their little graves. I am seriously considering properly analysing your fic (threat).

Now on to the theory (below the cut to avoid spoilers) :)

WHAT THE HELL ARE THE NOTIFICATIONS THAT DONNIE KEEPS GETTING????

Well, here’s my theory: Muninn and Huginn (I refuse to believe he’s dead)….

Just think about it for a second. With the whole scuffle that was going down, Muninn had time to escape, or at least find a place to hide and carry Huginn off with him to (or drag or whatever).

There’s no way that Muninn would return to Draxum after the betrayal and the showing of Draxum’s true colours and all that juicy angsty stuff. And the pair have also canonically not had a previous master (at least none that they’ve stuck with for a substantial length of time) that they would go to in a crisis. And he wouldn’t return to the Gargoyle Sanctum thingamabob we saw them come from in the series. So that leaves only one conclusion: Muninn is somewhere out there fending for himself and a very injured Huginn.

My theory is that Donnie’s little notifications are of Muninn resurfacing for supplies - we’ve seen how often the boys have to change bandages for wounds in LFLS, so the logical implementations are that he has to buy a fair amount of bandages for his buddy. Whilst he would have to buy bandages for Huginn, there’s also the additional requirement of food - it doesn’t matter how small they are, the little guys still have to eat - and Muninn is only small and canonically not very strong, which means he can’t carry heavy loads of shopping. Also, without the income (if he even got any) from Draxum and/or the ability to rely on the yokai for a constant supply of food, much like a dog it’s owner (not derogatory, that’s just how they’re represented in the series) that means Muninn had to risk leaving Huginn often to steal food and supplies. Seventeen times in a week may seem a bit excessive, but when you’re building an infirmary from scratch and consider how tiny Muninn’s little arms are, it really isn’t that crazy.

NOW, ON TO WHY DONNIE HASNT SAID/DONE ANYTHING ABOUT THIS YET

This bit’s a little bit flimsy and I’m not too sure how to answer it, but I’m doing my best to fill the 7ft plot-holes in my theory. I believe it is due to a possible combination of three things: (1) He’s worried about how injured his family is and he doesn’t think they can handle another fight; (2) He’s not sure how Leo will react to seeing the Gargoyle pair again (this is the big one); (3) Donnie may not completely trust them yet (HEAR ME OUT!!) and he hasn’t turned off the notifications bc he feels guilty for not doing anything, but he still wants to know that they’re there and alive (also, if Draxum suddenly appears, Don will know about it).

(I also have a theory that Don is going to try and save them himself, but that's a very shaky one because of the trauma of Leo going alone and what that all entailed that glitch has been exploring throughout the fic. He probs has several trackers planted on the whole family by now. I’d honestly be more surprised if he didn’t.)

But I digress. On to theory one: The family is 100% injured and not at all ready for a fight. April is out of commission, Raph's hands are fried (but I feel that he would insist on joining a fight anyway), and we all not Leo's kinda down in the dumps. Plus, everyone is emotionally and mentally destroyed. They are not up for any kind of fight. And Donnie doesn't exactly strike me as the kind of person who intentionally puts his family in more danger than is necessary, especially in this current situation.

Number two: He's not sure how Leo will react to seeing the sidekicks present for the worst trauma he's ever (and hopefully will ever) experience in his lifetime. The pair were there during just about everything that happened to him - including the Battle Nexus, when Draxum wasn't present - and Leo would undoubtedly have made strong links in his mind between the gargoyles and the trauma he experienced. One can pretty confidently assume that having the pair around whilst he is trying to recover and whilst the fear of Draxum's return is still very heavy in the air, is going to cause problems for both Leo and the rest of the family, even if they know that the gargoyles willingly chose to help at the risk of their own lives. And if a dumdum such as myself can make those links, then there's no way that Donnie hasn't made them as well. For the sake of his family (especially Leo), Donnie is choosing to do nothing for the ex-henchgoyles. BUT, with each passing day and as more of the notifications continue, Donnie's guilt may start to eat him up inside and he's likely to just react without thinking (he's very emotionally tense and high-strung, so he's not thinking like his usual, logical self) and try to rescue them. I could go so much further into depth about the repercussions of what the gargoyles being in the lair might do to the fam, especially Leo, but I'm trying to keep this relatively short, lemme know if you wanna know more and I'll theory dump on you :)

Third and final: Donnie doesn't completely trust them. Let's be honest, Donnie's never really struck me as the overly trusting type and this whole situation would have only amplified it and made his trust issues a thousand times worse. This one is probably my flimsiest reasoning and it likely just added on to the others.

Either way, whether I'm right or not, I know glitch won't leave us hanging with that forever. They're a good writer and they don't seem to me to be the kind of author that leaves loose ends just hanging around. Cliffhangers, absolutely without a doubt they leave us hanging off of. But not loose ends (especially with how hard they were hinting at the notifications during the last chapter, it MUST be something important and I am absolutely BURSTING to find out what it is :)

(I'm looking back over and you can tell which one my favourite theory is LOL)

#the hyperfixation is strong with this one #BRUH the adhd do be hitting hard #literally spent AGES on this when i should be doing legal studies #if you squint you can see me waving my education farewell #lfls #rottmnt leo #rottmnt #rottmnt donnatello #rottmnt mikey #save rottmnt #tmnt #lfls theory #rottmnt lfls #lfls leo #lfls spoilers #green lfls #lfls fanart #theory

[fungalittleweirdo]

Villain Rise Mikey Thoughts: Part Two

a continuation of my first villain mikey post ! this is where it gets more m-rated (using archive ratings) so i'm thinking people 17+ can proceed reading, if you're sixteen about to turn seventeen that's fine too but anyone below that, please do not read !!

cw: graphic depictions of violence, drugs, addiction

i left off on fifteen year old mikey discovering a love for baking edibles

it started off small but eventually he started growing his own green and selling in the hidden city

he made connections and they started helping him out– he was a small business owner, keeping his head down, until he crosses paths with a yokai who knows certain recipes for a higher selection of products (if you know my ccc au ocs, prion, a manticore yokai, and carmine, the daughter of boss bruce from the masters of barbarianism, are part of mikey's hidden city inner circle)

mikey agrees to learning the recipes because the money is coming in quickly and he doesn't even have to steal anymore

draxum catches on to what mikey's doing and he's skeptical about it– how will this help with destroying the humans ?

mikey may dislike humans, but he doesn't necessarily want to destroy them.

subduing them sounds more like his style.

draxum's like "oh ! carry on then son !" (he's such a proud dad)

big mama catches on to mikey's operation and how it's taking away from her own criminal empire's revenue, so he's seen as a competitor.

he had picked up on newer recipes, better than with mere mystic weed, he cooks with mystic mushrooms (his mushroom tarts are BOMB) and makes synthetic substances (i.e. acid, mdma, amphetamine) separately.

after big mama tries to sic the hidden city police on mikey, he moves back up to the surface after conferring with his inner circle that they could take care of things without big mama getting in the way

he moves back to brooklyn and does what he always did, tagging buildings, stealing, killing– but that brought media attention.

as much as villain mikey loves to have fun, he goes on to start business topside, stopping his usual criminal activity.

after using his mystic powers sparingly for a while so that he could heal post krang, he makes portals for deliveries from the hidden city, then he starts baking.

he finally kidnaps a few humans to keep as pets, using them to test doses rather than dote on them like they're pets (they're essentially "lab rats", but he doesn't like the fact that donnie would dub them that, so pets it is).

his edibles are considerably smaller for humans, but costly for good reason.

he opens a mutant friendly bakery/cafe establishment as a front, hiring meat sweats as the head chef because he's been a pain in his brother's asses for years.

mikey hires other mutants and a human to work the cafe.

he doesn't really like the thought of them in charge of selling his goods, even if it's just regular food and drink (the mutants and a human employee are also ccc au ocs of mine, ziva, oscar, and miwa kutsuki)

after mikey is done testing all the products on his pets, he goes back to the hidden city with them, giving them to draxum for him to mutate.

he watches the process for the first time, watching how their bones snap and twist, the blood they cough out as they claw and grip at each other in the vat of empyrean they're thrown in.

that's when mikey realises... draxum put his brothers through that. put him through that.

he was a mere hatchling.

he realised his father isn't as good as he thought he was, therefore going mystic on him for a good reason.

draxum can't talk mikey down from it this time, it's only when he accidentally opens a portal in front of raph that the "red angel of preventing harm" busts in with his ninpo and hugs mikey tightly, whispering in his ear that he's safe and he doesn't have to hurt anyone.

mikey suddenly remembers what he did to raph when they were little and stops, the chains burning and choking draxum loosening and fading as he collapses back on the ground of his lab.

"i... i don't want to hurt my family."

after that ordeal, twenty year old mikey leaves the country, making a portal all the way to south america where he finds another hidden city to hide away in.

he loses his boredom motive to wreak havoc, deciding to start honest work there for a while until some yokai approaches him with a plant he's never seen before in new york's hidden city.

he starts growing it with him and they start a business together.

mikey learns how to make flour out of this plant and bakes edibles with hallucinogenic effects, just like his mushroom tarts.

after a while, mikey brings this plant back to the states and starts selling, revenue growing exponentially on the east coast.

he finds out meat sweats completely took over his bakery/cafe, renaming it and stealing millions from him.

meat sweats also fired everyone, since ziva stole food from her job because she couldn't eat and afford her apartment, oscar wasn't focused on his tasks, and miwa turned out to be an undercover agent from japan.

luckily, rupert swaggart only knew the weed recipe, otherwise mikey would have been cooked.

he had been meaning to cut off his weed supply anyway, especially since he found the flower down in south america.

mikey moves out of brooklyn to have an apartment in tribeca, manhattan, closer to where his new business could be.

he opens a new bakery/cafe in the financial district, it attracts all the upper class businessmen with fixed lifestyles.

and for whoever knows the business is a front, it also attracts the substance addicts looking for something better.

mikey gets rich quickly, but he keeps his studio apartment in tribeca, buying out the whole building instead of renting.

he installs his own greenhouse at the top after the city grants him permission, which alerts his brothers of his location.

he dismantles it and decides to rent all around manhattan, an apartment in each district.

mikey housed homeless mutants in his extra apartments, but his hospitality ran very thin.

the only rules were not to trash the place and to cover for him if anyone comes up to the door and asks for him.

villain mikey grows extra paranoid in his twenties, he feels as though everyone is out to get him, even his regular clients.

he bakes as a stress reliever, manages his bakery/café under an alias.

sometimes he works at the till with a cloaking brooch after long periods of isolation, just to interact with people.

after all the years he's been ingesting mystic weed, he hadn't tried anything else, knowing it could affect him as a business owner.

then after a depressive episode, twenty three year old mikey tries his trademarked mdma.

he joins the rave scene and makes connections there, as well as getting a few new willing pets to try his south american mystic baked goods so his demographic expands.

carmine comes up topside, telling mikey she needs him back in the hidden city.

so mikey returns and finds that prion, his right hand yokai, died from an overdose of mystic opioids, which he thought was bullshit because prion swore he would never touch the crap.

he knew that big mama was behind prion's death and decided to set fire to her auction houses, her third biggest revenue source.

he dipped into mania, selling full sized mystic pastries to whoever asked.

it's been years since mikey talked to his dad.

draxum was converted to his brothers' side and no longer resided in the hidden city.

he used to take pride in who his father was, now looking at him made him ill.

it was time boss bruce made his successor the donna of the masters of barbarianism, proving her worth by managing mikey's drug operation well in the hidden city for a decade.

carmine was allowed a few months before her induction, so mikey decided to bring her up topside.

being a tall dragon lady, she's bound to turn heads, so she wore a cloaking brooch whenever she went out with mikey.

mikey started coming down from mania and carmine was there for all of it, helping him get clean and caring for him when he was crashing.

he always really liked carmine, but everything had to be kept professional, right ? right ?

carmine had to return from her surface vacation to follow in her father's footsteps, and mikey was left alone again to manage everything.

he's sober for the most part, mystic weed still keeps him calm so he doesn't get aggressive.

by the time he reaches his late twenties, villain mikey gets bored again.

what – or rather who – will satisfy him ?

#rottmnt writing #rottmnt #rise of the tmnt #rise mikey #rise michelangelo #villain rise mikey au #ramble #jules' thoughts #angst #kinda messy #kinda depressing #oopsie

[mintiicinnamonii]

tmht as this one tiktok audio’s lines

april: they only want you when you’re seventeen

raph: i’m so sick of seventeen

mikey: you were only seventeen

casey: young and sweet only seventeen

leo: can’t we be seventeen

donnie: can’t tell you what happened the day I turned seventeen

TMHT AND FT MINTIS IM SO SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING I SWEAR I’LL FEED YOU ALL NEXT WEEK ;)

#writers on tumblr #tmnt #archive of our own #rottmnt #ao3 fanfic #rise of the tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #teenage mutant hero turtles

[avisisisis]

ROTTMNT sexuality Headcanons!

All of the turtles are LGBTQ+. Leo's gay and asexual, Donnie's aroace and bi, Mikey's aroace and straight (projecting, but I'm a lesbian) and Raph is pan. Also, April is an asexual lesbian.

• Leo was the first one who came to terms with his sexuality. He knew since he was a kid that he didn't like women. He realized because of how he never felt the “butterflies” around them. Before, when he read books or watched stuff and saw the falling in love cliché, he thought that the only reason why he couldn't relate to that was because he never met anyone else besides his fam. Then, he sneaked out and saw a human boy. Poor guy was so in love he almost fell and let the humans discover him. His true gay awakening.

• Mikey at first thought he was pan, because he didn't really care about gender. Then he realized he didn't care at all. He didn't mind it. In fact, he was actually happy to discover his sexuality. The only problem he has is that most of the people who are around his age he meets fall in love with him. I mean, that guy's a sweetheart, who wouldn't love him? He always panics because he doesn't want to hurt their feelings. After a while, he decided to use Doctor Delicate Touch on them (instead of spinning around the love confession, he'd just say “yeah no i'm aro”).

• Raph only figured it out recently. At first he thought he was bi because he was attracted to both genders. Then, after a long talk with April, he came to realize that he wasn't bi, he was pan. April had to explain the term to him because he didn't understand it. Why would you be attracted to pans??? April sometimes laughs at him because of that. With love, of course. He has yet to have a serious relationship with someone because the very few partners he had either left him, or they fell apart. If it was because of the second one, then they definitely stayed friends.

• Like Mikey, Donnie thought for the first seventeen years of his life that he was pan. He only came to realize he was aroace about a year after the movie. He doesn't deal with the “oh no everyone falls in love with me” problem because he scares most people away (he does that on purpose. Whenever he realizes someone is staring at him in a non-platonic way, he scares them off. It's hilarious to watch). He thought he was in love with April when they first met because almost all of the TV shows he saw had a straight relationship as the main cast. Then, he realized that he only thought that because she was the only girl he knew and he didn't know how romantic love felt like. They love eachother like siblings btw.

• April has always known she was a lesbian. It started when she was like five, when all of her friends were crushing on this boy who was like, the hottest guy in kindergarten for the kids (the hottest guy turned out to be the teacher after he came out as trans. Idk why I added that). They would come to her like “omg he talked to me!! Isn't he amazing?” and she would be like “uhh no??”. Anyways, she started crushing on the girl all the boys were in love with. It was complicated. They dated for like a month before she moved out (plot twist: the girl was Sunita, who was trying to experience a human life for a while).

#rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #save rottmnt #rise of the tmnt #tmnt #splinter's bi. definitely bi #big mama too #draxum is on the aroace spectrum (idk how to say it) but he's bi too #similar to donnie #if donnie fell in love with someone #it could be both a girl or a guy #or anything else #he fell in love with two people #only two #<— that was me projecting #the mikey thinking he was pan was me projecting too #turns out i'm an aromantic lesbian lmao #sunita is demisexual!! #i think that was the name of the sexuality i'm talking about #also there's the worm guy (who is he??) and hypno. gay #venus is straight #sorry guys #but she's trans and neurodivergent #leo's trans too but that's basically canon #karai is an aromantic lesbian. just like me #she has a gf tho #avis talks