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mighty-ant · 2 years

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future boy, part two

part one/ao3

Casey was the first one aboard the Turtle Tank.

Abandoned beneath Metro Tower, it was able to maneuver itself out on autopilot now that the Krang vines ensnaring it had their connection to the hive mind permanently severed. Casey was closest, so he was its first stop.

He took both his chainsaw staff and Leo’s katana in hand—he had no way of knowing where its twin was, but one katana was better than nothing. And Leo was alive to want it back, something Casey couldn’t fully believe until he saw him in the flesh. Saw all of them.

The construction site where he had left the young Commander O’Neil and Master Splinter wasn’t far to travel, especially by Turtle Tank on the dead silent streets of Manhattan. Casey had to remind himself that the humans were all in hiding, not wiped out by the Krang, not like before. Not like in the future.

Around him, the walls of the tank groaned as it trundled along at a moderate pace, nothing like the breakneck speed the turtles demonstrated when he first boarded. According to the computer that spoke in Donatello’s voice, the hull was still compromised, though significantly less than before thanks to the self-repair systems.

In any event, avoiding the tank’s controls altogether seemed the best course of action (gasoline had been so scarce, and working vehicles just as rare, that Casey’d only driven a handful of times and only when anyone older was indisposed). Instead, he made himself useful by seeking out medical supplies. The turtles had been vague about their injuries when Casey asked them to report in. Mikey said they were “gonna need lots of kitty-cat bandaids,” but Raphael ominously informed him that Donatello had already remotely prepped their medbay back at the lair.

Leo, reassuringly, was Leo. “And can you hurry the pick-up, please? We’re catching Staten Island germs over here.”

Staten Island, Casey thought to himself as he cautiously poked around in search of a medkit. An Old New York name. He was pretty sure that was where the Krang foundries were in his time. Last he’d seen it, the land had long since been razed and the skies were permanently set aflame by the bellowing forges. What seawater remained in the bay was boiling and noxious.

It probably didn’t look like that now. Probably.

Casey discovered a big red button with a white cross on it. Hoping it wouldn’t launch him to the moon or trigger some automatic self-destruct sequence, he pressed it. To his relief, neither of the two happened.

It seemed that this Donatello was as obsessively overprepared as his own had been. Casey could only imagine that the mobile med unit springing out of the wall was state of the art. A gurney unfolded with adjustable sides to fit any one of the brothers, as well as cases of bandages, syringes, IV bags, and more, all carefully organized. He even found blood transfusion bags, each labeled by blood type and the names of those who could safely accept it—for the turtles as well as April and Splinter.

It was an overwhelming supply. Casey and Sensei had raided the ruins of countless hospitals, lost good soldiers in the process, all to bring back what few expired pill bottles and sterile water they could find, only for infection and illness to still claim so many of their numbers. Their resources had been stretched to the point of breaking even before they lost Master Donatello, and after…

Well, the Resistance failed, after all.

Casey willed himself to refocus. It wasn’t a unit in need of triage, but four turtles, injuries unknown, but presumably none of them life threatening. Leo would likely be priority; no one had given Casey reason to believe otherwise.

He’d just set aside sterile cloths, bandages, and antiseptic solution to be the first on hand when the Tank made its first stop.

The ramp opened with a heavy groan, admitting both Commander O’Neil and Master Splinter. Exhaustion visibly weighed the former down in her shoulders and gait, but she moved with alacrity anyway. Dry tear tracks cut through the grime on her cheeks and her eyes were red-rimmed beneath her glasses, but she still smiled warmly when she saw him.

“Good to see you in one piece, future boy.”

Scanning them for injuries and finding nothing life threatening, a little bit of the tension wrapped around Casey’s lungs loosened. “You too, Commander.”

She slumped bonelessly into one of the passenger seats, but not before snagging his wrist and dragging him to stand next to her. “Hey, cool it with the ‘commander’ stuff okay? It’s just April.” She smirked, tired but triumphant. “Except when the guys need a reminder about who’s boss.”

Casey looked down at her, his peer now, young and frayed at the edges but round-cheeked instead of gaunt, free of the sorrows carved into her face like grooves in stone. Commander O’Neil had always looked at him with a sort of sad expectation in her eyes, cordial but distant with everyone but the turtles. The only times he ever saw her cry was when they lost Raphael and Master Donatello.

April watched him expectantly, patient and wry, and, most importantly, victorious. Her world was saved. Her family survived. She had her whole life ahead of her. A foreign concept.

After all that, it was actually pretty easy not to see his Commander in her place anymore.

Casey managed a crooked smile, tentatively squeezing her hand. “Sure thing. April.”

Splinter bustled between them, on a beeline for the driver’s seat.

“Chop chop,” he said, his tone jovial but his eyes hard. “We will be slammed on I-95 if we don’t put the pedal to the metal.”

Casey glanced back over at April. “How far exactly is ‘Staten Island’?”

He didn’t have an accurate map of old New York in his head, but if his hunch was right, then Staten Island was far . Too far when the turtles were wounded, their conditions unknown. Too far to make it there and back to the lair with the Turtle Tank in the state that it was, rattling apart around them.

The way April looked away, scrubbing the heels of her palms against her eyes, cemented the futility of it.

Then, Casey remembered the katana strapped to his back.

“Wait, Master Splinter! Can you use this?”

Splinter glanced over at him blandly, and immediately did a double-take. “Leonardo’s katana? How did you…nevermind!”

In a blink, the katana had vanished from Casey’s hand, as well as Master Splinter. The ramp, which had just begun to close, was kicked back open with such force that a dent was left behind in the metal.

Casey hurried to follow, and April threw herself back to her feet, rushing right out after him.

“If you had his katana, how did Leo get free from the prison dimension?” she asked as they climbed down the ramp, now hanging a little lopsided.

Casey couldn’t look away from where Splinter swung Leo’s katana in a sharp, downward arc, slicing a tear in reality that blossomed outward in a glowing blue mandala. “Maybe he still has the other one?” he mumbled as they started for the portal. Casey forced himself to keep pace with April; she had a limp he hadn’t noticed before. Once they were secure, she’d need to get that checked out. “Or-or maybe he didn’t get trapped in the prison dimension at all?”

“Or maybe we should all stop talking!” Master Splinter snipped, hardly waiting until the portal was fully formed before leaping through it. April crossed next, never once hesitating at the threshold of the otherworldly gateway.

Unlike Casey, who did.

The portal rippled, devastating and blue , brilliant as lightning. But it was all too easy to replace it with one blindingly yellow, like a miniature sun floating over the devastation.

Above him, the skies were as red as the ones he had seen every day for the last seventeen years of his life, tainted and toxic. All over again, he watched Master Michelangelo shatter into fragments of light and then nothing at all (for what? for him? ) and Casey was too far away, too useless to stop it from happening. He felt a sense of impending doom as Sensei gripped his shoulder, the grasp of his prosthesis gentle as it was unyielding. And Casey was undone by Master Leonardo’s expression of bittersweet resignation.

Come with me, he’d wanted to beg. Please don’t leave me alone.

But he wasn’t alone. Not really. Not anymore.

Casey took a step back, breathing shallow. His gloved hands found themselves in his hair, yanking hard, the pain grounding him to his present. His new reality.

Everyone he’d known, who’d ever known him, was gone. Dead, dust, ash. But there were people here who needed his help now. They didn’t need him like he needed them, but that was okay. This was more than enough. More than he deserved, certainly. To see his once-family alive, together, in a kinder future than the one Casey had left behind.

That is, he’d see them again if he could just take two steps forward.

He turned back to face the portal, still so alien to him. Master Leonardo had lost the ability to create portals, or harness mystic energy of any sort, decades ago and Master Michaelangelo died creating his first. Since arriving in the past, he’d traveled through only one of Leo’s portals and it was in the midst of battle, when he couldn’t exactly protest.

So yeah, Casey might have a few hangups about mystic portals. He could cop to that.

But all that was left of his family was on the other side, and there was only one way to get to them.

“Screw it,” he muttered, gearing himself up like he would for a twilight plane jump without a parachute. Lowering his mask, and taking a breath, Casey closed his eyes and threw himself forward.

The mystic energy passed over him in a tingling wave, lasting a split second. Even before he opened his eyes he was struck by the sense of displacement, the disconcerting feeling of being in one place and abruptly finding yourself in one completely different.

Casey opened his eyes, and the horizon stretched out before him. Manhattan was in front of him now, her smoking skyscrapers jutting up into the crimson sky. This far away, the damage to the city didn’t look too bad. You would never guess that most of it had been on fire.

There was a breeze here, and the air was different; not cleaner, but richer than that of the closely packed, demolished streets he’d left. He was hit with the strangest combination of smells: brine, gasoline, and smoke wafting off the water, and he wrinkled his nose in distaste.

So this was Staten Island, huh? Gross.

But, time to focus. With his mask’s HUD, he did a quick scan of their surroundings. They were overly exposed wherever they were, and the broad, blood red sky looming over them unimpeded was just inviting an aerial assault. There wasn’t a scant inch of cover on the concrete lot they’d found themselves on, if one didn’t count the massive crater tearing up a third of it, and it sent Casey’s nerves skittering like a disturbed rats’ nest.

Although, at the same time, his HUD also confirmed the presence of 0 hostiles and 6 allies. The Hamato Clan, all in one piece. Together. The clan he’d dared to call his, until a few days ago.

As he approached the group, he examined them one at a time, cataloging injuries, determining which bruises were old and which were new, and confirming for himself with his own eyes that each of them were alive.

April was on the ground with Mikey in her lap, so tightly wrapped around each other it was hard to tell where one started and the other ended, even with one of them sporting green skin. She was rocking him slightly, running her hand up to his head and down his shell in long soothing strokes, as the youngest turtle shuddered and buried himself deeper into her embrace.

The other four were clustered together–or more accurately, Donnie, Master Splinter and Raphael were gathered around Leo, who was lying on the ground but, mercifully, conscious.

Donnie was examining Leo with his own tech, goggles lowered over his eyes and his hands moving nimbly over Leo’s body, prodding in search of hidden wounds or breaks. Master Splinter had Leo’s head cushioned on his lap, one thin hand rubbing gently over his forehead while the other was clutched in Raphael’s massive palm, who overshadowed them all with his protective bulk.

But as Casey got closer, he noticed the way Donnie was favoring his right arm, and the dip in his shoulder that was evident even with the distracting mass of his battle shell. Raphael, who was defying the odds by even being there, alive and whole and free from Krang possession, had a crack in his plastron and a gnarled, poorly healing scar on his shoulder. His right eye, the one that the Krang infection had burst out of like the unfurling petals of some ghoulish flower, was mostly hidden beneath his mask but the tears left behind in the fabric marked where the parasite had been ripped away.

Casey itched to attend both of them properly–Donnie was almost definitely hiding a dislocated arm and Raphael’s eye needed to be treated, flushed out, possibly even bandaged; they wouldn’t know for sure until the mask was off.

But before Casey could start treating either of them, he had to determine Leo’s status. Which meant he would have to actually look at Leo, like he’d been avoiding doing for the last minute, because part of Casey was still terrified that he would find a corpse in his place.

But he’d doomed Leo to the prison dimension in the first place. The least he could do was bear witness to the damage his decision inflicted.

Again, he was struck by the differences between Leo and his Sensei. The ‘cosmetic differences,’ as both of them would say. The first one being how much smaller Leo was. All Casey’s life, he’d had to look up to meet Master Leonardo’s eyes. Now, he and Leo were of a height. They were even similarly lithe, shell included. Leo looked every bit the teenager he was, which made it that much harder to look at him now, lying prone and battered on the ground.

From head to two-toed foot, he was bruised and bleeding sluggishly from dozens of small cuts. His lip was split, and crusted over with dried blood. Splinter had removed his mask (Casey could see one of the blue tails peeking out of his belt), putting Leo’s spectacular black eye on display. It was so badly swollen he wouldn’t be surprised if Leo couldn’t fully see out of it, which was its own set of problems. If Donnie hadn’t already tested him for the mother of all concussions, that was first on Casey’s to-do list.

Fortunately, for all that he looked beaten to hell and back, Leo’s injuries could’ve been worse considering he probably shouldn’t even be alive, much less conscious and protesting treatment like he was doing right now.

“Donald, I already told you nothing broke through the skin.” Leo’s voice was strident but slurred slightly. Casey couldn’t be sure if it was on account of his split lip and bruised cheek or a head injury. “Quit poking me and take a look at Raph’s eye, he just yanked krang goo out of it!”

“‘M fine, Leo,” Raph rumbled quietly, scooting that much closer to the three of them. His free hand was wrapped so lightly around Leo’s shoulder, it was barely touching the skin. “Let Donnie deal with…your whole situation.”

“‘Fine,’ in this case used to mean ‘in good health and feeling well,’ is an adjective that applies to exactly none of us,” Donnie snapped. “I’m counting no less than eight broken bones between us, with our fearless leader coming out on top.” He faltered then, looking up at Raphael with something apology-adjacent in his eyes.

Raphael met Donnie’s gaze with eyes gentle and tired, and shook his head almost imperceptibly.

Leo, unaware of the exchange going on over his head, dazedly said, “Awesome. What do I win?”

Master Splinter pressed a hand against his forehead. “Hush, Blue,” he murmured, before looking back up at Donnie. “Purple, is it safe to move him?”

As Casey approached, he’d been unsure how to greet them. Even acknowledging the dichotomy between this clan and the one he’d known, their faces and mannerisms were still mostly familiar to him. Time was, he’d be right at Donnie’s side, treating Sensei with the medical knowledge that he taught Casey in the first place. Time was, he wouldn’t hesitate to run to them, embrace them, let them know he was safe.

But the differences were enough to hold him back, make him feel awkward and out of place. They were already a unit, a well-oiled machine, and he was the cog that didn’t fit.

Casey didn’t want to intrude. More than that, he didn’t know how to. Not anymore.

So he stopped behind Donnie, a couple paces away, so that he could still see Leo but wasn’t crowding them. He felt stupid the entire time but embarassment had screwed his jaw shut and he resolved to just drink in the sight of them all, here, alive. He thanked Pizza Supreme in the Sky that he still had his mask lowered over his face, sparing some modicum of his dignity.

Donnie tapped rapidly on his wrist tablet. “Should be. We’ll have to be fast and careful, I wasn’t joking about those broken bones. And his shell, it’s…it’s a bit cracked.”

All of them, save Leo who was maybe still too out of it, looked more green than usual at that dreadful pronouncement. But Casey knew from experience that while a cracked shell might sound really bad, it had always been treatable, even in the subpar conditions of their caves.

Master Michaelangelo had been the most recent culprit, just shy of two years ago, when he took a bad fall off the side of a crumbling skyscraper while escaping some Krang droids. His mystic chains helped slow his fall, but only just, and in a lastditch effort he’d tucked his head and all his limbs into his shell just before he hit the ground. The impact had been tooth-rattling, even as a bystander, and Casey feared finding Master Michaelangelo shattered into pieces, like an egg or shard of glass, fragile things from an old world he knew only through snatches of imagery and word of mouth.

Master Michaelangelo lived of course, though the fractures in his shell had been extensive, keeping him confined to base for an entire month. He would complain in the days and weeks to come, in that merry way of his, of his shell never quite fitting the same way after that.

In the case of Leo’s shell, Casey was positive that at best, they’d only need to keep the wound clean and prevent infection. At worst, resin would seal up any cracks that were too big.

But seeing how worried they all were, facing these sorts of injuries for what he could only assume was the first time, he couldn’t help but speak up.

“We still have Leo’s katana,” Casey began quietly, not wanting to disturb but eager (read: desperate) to get them all out of the open and into their secured lair, where there were medical supplies to be had. “We can open a portal right here, we’d barely have to move him.”

The three of them startled as if he’d shouted–well, Leo blinked a few times with his good eye, which was better than nothing.

“Casey, there you are.” Donnie craned his head around, scanning him up and down through his goggles. “Good. We were about to send out the search parties.”

Casey winced, reluctantly raising his mask. He looked down at his gloved fist, at the readout on Donnie’s tablet, the hazy horizon, anything to avoid looking at Leo or Raphael’s tattered mask. “S-sorry, I was scouting the–”

“Casey!” Mikey cried, cutting his stammered lie short.

Casey's mind dropped into the harsh lines of battle readiness; he whirled around at once, snatching his chainsaw staff off his back. Only, he faltered when instead of a threat all he saw was Mikey launching himself away from April and directly into Casey. And Casey, who wasn’t expecting to catch 100-something pounds of teenage box turtle, fell hard on his backside.

A chorus of worried cries rose up from the family.

“Mikey, careful!”

“Your hands–”

Master Michaelangelo had always been generous with encouragement and good cheer, patting Casey on the back and slinging an arm over his shoulder during their rare victories. Now, Mikey’s arms were wrapped around Casey’s middle, yanking him into a hug without reservation. Casey hadn’t been embraced like this since he was small enough to hide in his mom’s munitions bag, when he still needed the protection of others.

Overwhelmed by the proximity of another person, it took Casey a few seconds to wrap his head around what Mikey was saying–or rather, repeating.

“Casey, Casey, Casey, you were right! I did it!”

With a speed he typically reserved for disarming bombs, Casey carefully laid his hands against Mikey’s shell. It was a glancing touch, light enough that he could barely feel the outline of Mikey’s scutes beneath his gloves, but he wasn’t about to apply more pressure. What if he jostled an injury he hadn’t noticed?

“Did-did what?” Casey managed to stammer out once he regained the ability of speech. “And what was that about your hands?”

“Ooh.” Mikey winced, looking bruised and apologetic as he leaned back. Casey found himself missing the hug, foreign as it was. “Right. I kinda forgot about that. Sorry.”

Casey followed Mikey’s gaze downward. “Forgot about what–”

And oh boy, that was a lot of blood.

“Oh boy, that’s a lot of blood.”

Starting at Mikey’s fingers and trailing halfway up his forearm were precise lines cut into his skin, jagged and thin as cracks in glass. They wept blood, not profusely, but in a steady stream that smeared over Mikey’s hands and arms and probably stained the back of Casey’s armor as well.

A glance over Mikey’s shoulder revealed April, watching him with her expression pinched in worry. There was blood staining her filthy hoodie where Mikey had embraced her, and Casey was relieved he’d recognized the source before he saw her and drew the worst conclusion. He’d lost too many friends to invisible gut wounds that revealed themselves too late.

Mikey’s injuries, while alarming, could be bandaged and treated. Better with actual bandages, but what Casey had on hand would do for now.

“This is just temporary,” he stressed as he detached his cape and swung it off his shoulders. Movement behind him had him glancing back, and he was relieved to see Raphael lifting Leo into his arms with utmost care and the help of Donnie and Master Splinter. Focusing back on the task at hand, Casey tore his cape into two long strips.

Mikey cried out in dismay. “But, Casey! Your rugged cyberpunk survivor look!”

“I don’t know what that means.”

He bundled Mikey’s hands in short order–the tattered remnants of his cape made for poor bandages, but at least Mikey wasn’t bleeding all over the place anymore. Gently gripping Mikey by the elbows, Casey guided him back up to his feet.

“How’d this even happen?” Casey asked quietly. There was something about those wounds, something familiar, that shot a frisson of dread down the back of his neck, trailing like the touch of cold fingers.

Mikey brightened at once. “I told you! You were right about me, about my mystic hands! I-I saved Leo! I opened a portal right to him.”

Casey had started moving away to help April up too–he hadn’t forgotten about that ankle of hers–but at Mikey’s words his stomach took a sharp, downward plunge and terror choked him like rising bile.

“You did what? Are you okay?” He grabbed Mikey by the shoulder, harder than he meant to, but all he could hear was Master Michaelangelo’s roar of mingled pain and determination, all he could see were Master Michaelangelo’s hands breaking into fractals, the reassuring wink he tossed over his shoulder before his body shattered into light and then nothing at all.

Raphael knocked Casey out of his spiral with a question, his voice laced with sharp accusation. “Is there a reason he shouldn’t be?”

Again, as he had in the Turtle Tank on their way to Metro Tower, Casey floundered. What was there to say? In my time, I watched your little brother harness the same mystic energy, sacrificing himself to send me here. I don’t know how he survived this time.

How do you tell someone that you know how they’ll die? Or would have died, now that the world would never know the full, unleashed, endless terror of the Krang. It wasn’t Casey who made Master Donatello sacrifice his last battle shell for Michelangelo, or Raphael take the blade intended for Master Leonardo. If it were up to Casey, Master Michaelangelo wouldn’t have welcomed death with a smile on his face, and Sensei would’ve leapt through the time gateway in Casey’s place instead of facing the blazing incineration of a Krang deathray alone.

But Casey was the messenger, the harbinger of doom, and so it felt like he was to blame for every word of death and calamity that spilled out of his mouth.

They die. Everybody dies fighting the Krang.

Leo was the only one who knew. Because Casey was angry enough, disappointed enough, to throw the truth down at his feet, accusation and warning both. He regretted some of his harshness now, having seen where it led: Leo bloody and broken, cheating death that he’d accepted willingly. But damn it, they used to be his family too, and he wasn’t going to let anyone put them at risk, not even Sensei, young and untried as he was.

And besides, the future was being rewritten with every passing moment. The future that Casey knew, the world he’d been born into, would never come to pass, and only he was alive to remember it all.

But how to explain all of that to Raphael, who managed to loom from ten feet away and never had the chance to consider Casey anything but a stranger?

The voice that rose to his defense was maybe the last one he expected.

“C’mon, big bro, Mikey’s fine. I’m fine, you’re fine, even Donnie’s fine. Let’s go home before I get up and open a portal myself.” Leo’s voice was weak, and he joked with a shadow of his usual flippancy, but it was a relief to hear anyway.

“Yeah, right.” Raphael rolled his eyes, not trying too hard to hide the relief that bowed his shoulders. And without further complaint, he listened, hefting Leo just a bit higher in his arms. His heavy, scarred gaze moving off of Casey felt more like a boulder being lifted from his chest, and he breathed more easily once freed of the weight of it.

Casey patted a concerned looking Mikey on the shoulder and moved to finally help April to her feet. Behind him, he heard the now-familiar crackle of another portal opening.

“Here, lean on me,” he said softly. It was strange giving her instructions, having known her his entire life as his commander, someone he could turn to in times of need, but never the other way around. But while this April was clearly battle-tested, she’d never been in a war or suffered its injuries. She accepted his help without complaint, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and wincing around a smile.

“How’re you still standing after all that?” she asked.

Casey dropped his mask over his eyes, doing one last perfunctory scan of the area as he waited for the turtles to all step through the portal first. He knew logically that the Krang hive mind had been severed, Krang Prime and Subprime were imprisoned or dead, and the Sister was still crushed beneath the weight of a wrecking ball. Casey knew all this, but experience had taught him that you could never be too careful.

He flipped up his mask and gave April what he hoped was a comforting smile. “Lots and lots of practice.”

Crossing a portal was easier the second go-around, especially with April’s slight weight hanging off his shoulders reminding him of his responsibility, and why a second freakout was unacceptable. A slight tingle and then the air was still rather than smoky, the muted lights of the Lair and sturdy concrete ceiling a greater relief than he would’ve expected.

That relief turned to icy dread when an alarm started going off.

Again, Casey dropped into battle readiness without a thought. He pushed April behind him and stepped out in front of Raphael, who still carried Leo, in the same motion. His hockey stick was in hand and whirring to life before he realized Donnie had laid a quelling hand on his shoulder.

“Sorry, sorry, that’s me!” April cried. She let go of him and hopped forward on her good leg, lunging for a slim, white communication device on a nearby cluttered table. “My bad. It’s my parents, I’ve got…ooh nelly. 65 missed calls. I told them to get out of the city as soon as someone dropped the news about the end of the world on us.” She sent Casey a pointed look, and he hesitated again, wondering if he should apologize. Not for the warning of course, but for disrupting their lives, safe and whole as he’d never known.

The reality of his own isolation hit him like April’s wrecking ball, and he almost staggered. Thankfully, Donnie stepped forward to herd them all along.

“Isn’t that dandy. And you can give them a little ring to let them know you’re alive from inside our medbay which has excellent cell service, you’re welcome.”

They crossed the Lair quickly, Casey turning back to April to help her make the short trip. He listened for Leo’s breathing, only able to see the crown of his head from within the spiked cradle of Raphael’s arms, relieved to hear it steady, if hitched with pain. Broken ribs were tricky to doctor in patients with plastrons and hard shells, and with any luck Leo’s were only cracked. And all things considered, Leo seemed to have good luck in spades.

When the doors to the medbay slid open, Casey actually faltered at the entryway.

If he thought the Turtle Tank had a well stocked medkit, it had nothing on the real thing. Gleaming surfaces with plenty of lighting, cabinets and sterile refrigeration units lined the walls alongside cots and IV stands and chairs.

He doubted any of them had ever needed to stitch themselves up with only flickering candlelight to see by, or splashed a bottle of rum into an open wound (medicine was hard to come by in his world, but alcohol had been plentiful) in the hopes that it would prevent infection, and now they’d never have to. And Casey was glad.

He guided April to a chair while Raphael deposited Leo on a gurney, lowering his head carefully onto the pillow. Casey risked a glance, and while Leo’s eyes were closed, his expression was pinched and pained. Not unconscious. That was good.

Donnie, Mikey, and Master Splinter followed close behind, gathering around Leo’s bed. Donnie was already issuing orders, calling up various scanners that either emerged from his battle shell or the nearby cabinets.

“Let’s see here…one broken arm, one broken leg, nice and even. Countless abbrassions, bruises, and probable concussion, pending a full evaluation.” Donnie wavered as he delivered Leo’s injury report, trying and failing to maintain his usual veneer of dispassion. His one good arm waved around imperiously, dictating his medical drones like a composer, though no one seemed to have noticed that he kept his right arm pressed close against his side.

Casey frowned, taking quick stock of the others’ injuries and triaging them in his head, as he’d been taught. Pushing aside his fears of interfering, he glanced down at April with an apologetic smile. Her ankle would have to wait.

“Will you be okay for a few minutes?”

She wiggled her communication device, one of many that proliferated this time. A cell phone, maybe?

“Go help them out,” April said kindly. “I’ve got a quick, stressful phone call to make.”

With her support, Casey made a beeline for Leo’s gurney. Donnie had somehow managed to stick Leo with an IV one-handed, hooked up to a bag of saline solution. Dealing with Leo’s fractures, both of bone and shell, would be next–an involved process, but Leo’s injuries could’ve been so much worse.

Donnie would know what to do (just like how Master Donatello seemed to know a lot about every little thing), but Casey knew that doctoring his own brothers had (would’ve?) irrevocably damaged something in him. Sensei had been their medic, but when Master Raphael was lost and most of Master Leonardo’s arm with him, Donatello had been the one to amputate what remained.

Leo’s injuries were nothing like that, nowhere near as catastrophic, but if Casey could keep Donnie from feeling anything resembling that strife, well, he just had to butt in didn’t he?

Donnie was shining a penlight in Leo’s eyes, checking his pupil response, when Casey joined them.

“Any nausea? Dizziness? Do you know where you are?” he was asking.

“You’re stealing my lines, Donald,” Leo muttered. “Respect the fanny pack, man.”

Master Splinter squeezed his uninjured hand. “My son.”

Leo sighed dramatically, only to wince when he probably twinged one of the cracks in his plastron. “M’ head hurts,” he muttered, squinting up at his gathered family. “The lights aren’t helping.”

“Medbay, dim overhead lights to 70%,” Donnie ordered without looking up from where he was now prodding carefully at Leo’s plastron. He didn’t look too worried as he leaned back; the cracks must not be as deep as he feared. “Priority’s gonna be setting these broken bones and getting them in casts.”

“Which you can’t do with a dislocated arm,” Casey said firmly, taking the first opening he could.

Predictably, the rest of the family exploded in dismay.

“What the– Donnie! You got it from that last Krang punch didn’t you?”

“Purple, why didn’t you say anything?”

“Omigosh, look at your arm! Are you okay? Does it hurt?”

“Don, you need to get that fixed,” Leo grunted, and tried to push himself up, like he was in any state to be administering first aid rather than receiving it. Fortunately, Master Splinter kept him flat on his back with a gentle push.

“I’ll get Donnie’s shoulder fixed up,” Casey said, locking down his earlier hesitation. His experience was needed here, and that was all that mattered. “We’re all hurt, but we need to be smart about this and get everyone triaged. April,” he glanced back, and her communication device was back on a nearby counter, having ended the loudly whispered conversation he’d been distantly aware of. “Can you clean up and bandage Mikey’s arms properly?”

She nodded at once, her eyes lightning eagerly at the task. She must’ve known that meant treatment for her ankle was postponed again, but he understood the desire to be useful when an injury left you down for the count.

“You bet. Can you grab me some supplies, Mikey?”

When Mikey hesitated, glancing uncertainly at Leo, Leo tugged him down and bonked their foreheads together affectionately. “You know where the gauze and saline are at,” he said, nodding Mikey along.

Mikey screwed up his face in a determined expression and marched off to gather the necessary supplies. Casey watched him go, pleased that his hands seemed the worst of his injuries.

He turned back to those who remained clustered around Leo’s bed. “I’ve set all kinds of broken bones before, so, Leo, if you don’t mind, I’ll take care of that.” He looked just to the left of Leo’s face, and saw him nod. “Good. Master Splinter, can you clean and bandage the cuts on his face? And Raphael, take a seat so he can look at your eye next.”

Raphael startled when the attention landed on him. “Me? N-no, Raph’s doin’ fine. Focus on helping Leo.”

“Leo’s injuries are priority right now, but recovering from Krang possession is a big deal,” Casey said gently. He’d already scared them enough with his doomsday talk. “Not many rebels were able to resist their parasitic effects and survive.”

The medbay went silent, and Casey was flooded with instant regret.

Donatello’s expression was shuttered, Leo looked sick to his stomach, Master Splinter was staring at Raphael like he was afraid his oldest son would disappear right before his eyes. Mikey looked like he would’ve already thrown himself across the room to wrap Raphael in a hug if it weren’t for April’s careful grip around his elbows as she cleaned his cuts. Raphael, for his part, was frozen in place, eyes wide and horrified, looking like he was ready to bolt.

Casey Jones Jr., open mouth, insert foot. So much for not scaring them again.

“But you are okay, Raphael!” he rushed to reassure, already imagining their faith in him as a medic crumbling to ash. “Once you’re cut off from the hive mind, you’re not at risk of repossession. The Krang would have to capture you again.”

This time, Casey wisely didn’t mention how few of those who survived the separation also retained their sanity.

“Over my dead body,” Leo growled, sounding so unlike the confused, whining imposter in the rubble beneath Metro Tower that Casey almost looked over to confirm that they were still one and the same. Although, he couldn’t help but share the sentiment. Casey had watched this family die enough times already.

The tension around Raphael cracked and fell away with an incredulous huff, and he finally took a seat on a nearby gurney. “Too soon, little brother,” he shook his head.

With everyone able to breathe easy again, Casey motioned Donnie toward another empty gurney. Donnie rolled his eyes but laid down without any more complaints; his arm must be even worse off than he’d been letting on.

After Donnie directed him to the drawer where he would find a sling, Casey returned to carefully but firmly grip his wrist and bicep, so as to roll his dislocated arm back into its socket. This sort of battle wound was so common he would usually fix them up in the field with a quick yank and a swig of the nearest flask of rotgut, if there was any to be had. He’d dislocated his own arm enough times that exchanging it for a robotic replacement to save further time and effort became a running joke.

But the war was over and they had the luxury of time to heal the right way.

“Where’d you say you got your medical license?” Donnie squinted up at him in a poor attempt to disguise his nerves and gritted teeth.

“Don’t worry. My sensei taught me everything I know.”

Casey waited for Donnie’s nod before he continued. He wondered if, in some small, cosmic way, by treating Donnie he was paying back Master Donatello for the long hours of teaching, training, and company.

Maybe. Maybe not. Master Donatello would probably tell him you didn’t quantify time with family, then get embarrassed by his own sentimentality and order Casey out of the lab. It was a bittersweet thought.

“All except for Leo, the overachiever, we got off relatively unscathed. If you don’t count all the trauma we’re gonna spend next season unpacking.”

Donnie made this pronouncement standing over the pillows and mattress spread out around the medbay, before dramatically slumping onto the nearest nest of blankets. His theatrics were hindered slightly by the sling and heavily bandaged shell he had to be careful not to land on. Mikey, already asleep, snuggled close.

After a lengthy care process, everyone’s wounds were cleaned, sutured, and bandaged, with rest as the final remedy. The turtles, sans Leo who was restricted to his bed in the medbay where all of Donnie’s tech could keep an eye on him, lumped all of their bedding together in some sort of unspoken decision not to sleep alone in their individual rooms. They didn’t try to hide how shaken they still were, often stopping whatever they were doing to lean on each other for support.

Casey busied himself by checking their defenses, paranoid because he knew that the Krang had breached the lair earlier. Only thanks to years of practice was he able to spot Donnie’s various traps and security cameras, all of them intact. He found the old subway tunnels empty, echoing with an eerie stillness broken only by scurrying rats and leaking pipes. In the wake of the almost end of the world, not even the city’s functioning trains seemed to be running.

He came back to find that April had rolled herself over to the kitchen in a desk chair on wheels–to avoid putting stress on her sprained ankle, now bandaged–and was cooking “grilled cheeses” for everyone.

Casey couldn’t even remember the last time he’d eaten. The last 48 hours had been a nonstop race, running and falling, jump, duck, launch your grappling hook, brace yourself, slingshot the missile before anyone else can get hurt; acting on instinct and adrenaline. Before all that was the final raid that ended with Sensei shoving him out of the way of a drone’s sickle-shaped blade, taking the blow meant for Casey, before they briefly escaped the Krangs’ sight by slipping into the ruins of a sewer tunnel.

And before all of that, he’d broken off a few pieces of charred rat leftover from supper the night before.

These “grilled cheeses” smelled like nothing he’d ever eaten. In his initial mad dash through the city, he’d skirted various street vendors bartering similar foods: hot and steaming, rich with unfamiliar spices and flavors. But there hadn’t been time then, not with FIND THE KEY. STOP THE KRANG pounding through him like a second heartbeat.

Now, April was shoving a plate into his hands with two gold squares on it that smelled so good Casey was half convinced he’d died and gone to heaven. Cheese heaven.

“There you are,” she chided. “I had to beat the guys back with a stick to make them get in line and you just wander over ten minutes later?”

“I, uh.” Casey felt his ears go red and it was hard to tear his eyes away from the food on his plate. He’d never even seen real cheese before. Bread was no less rare. He had to resist the growing urge to stuff it all in his mouth right then and there, manners be damned. “Sorry, I was checking, uh…”

She waved away his apology, already turning to drop another pad of butter on the pan. It gave off a hiss and a concentrated, sweet aroma. “You can relax, Casey. Eat, take off your armor. We’re safe here.”

His grip tightened on the plate, so much so he was almost afraid it would shatter in his hands. Everything in this world was so fragile.

“I…right. Do you…are you gonna want help getting back to the others?”

April shook her head, laying two slices of bread in the butter. Casey struggled to focus on what she was saying and not the food. “No, but thanks. I’ve gotta call my mom and dad for real this time, not just a minute ‘don’t worry, I’m still alive’ check-in.”

Casey nodded, and turned to leave so he could find a corner to quickly devour his meal in. But as she watched him go, April’s smile slipped into a troubled frown, trapping him in the doorway. He saw a question building behind her eyes, more hesitantly than it had for the others, and he hoped she wasn’t about to ask him about her future self too.

Commander O’Neil and Big Mama had stayed behind while he and Sensei forged ahead through the sewers; Casey would never know what happened to them, but he could imagine.

“I didn’t even think…” April began haltingly, though he could barely hear her through the roaring in his ears. “Casey, did…did you leave your parents in the future?”

Relief rushed through him, almost intense enough to leave him weak-kneed. An easy question, though the answer still stung. “No, my mom died years ago. And I never knew my biological parents.”

April didn’t look any less disturbed. “Then who were you–”

Something was burning.

Casey jerked his head up to attention, and April noticed a second later.

“Aw crap, the bread!”

April hadn’t added cheese yet so there wasn’t much smoke, and she moved the pan onto another grate before the charred pieces of bread could completely burn down to nothing. Casey only felt a little bit guilty when he used the distraction to slip away and wolf down his grilled cheeses (even a little cold and soggy, they were the best thing he’d ever eaten), trying not to think about what April’s next question would’ve been.

But he did take her advice, and removed his armor. For repairs, though, not relaxation.

The turtles were sleeping in shifts. Leo had to be woken every hour to make sure the symptoms of his concussion weren’t getting worse, and Raphael was on duty now. Technically, he was the only one on duty, as he’d yet to wake up Donnie or Mikey for their turns.

Casey glanced over as he sat down at a low table across from the medbay, where the turtles had eaten their own grilled cheeses judging by the crumbs and stack of empty plates. Raphael was sitting beside Leo’s gurney, his bulk nearly eclipsing him, casts and all. They spoke too quietly to overhear, and Raphael helped keep Leo’s hand steady as he drank from a glass of water.

Casey looked away and focused on removing his armor.

He dropped it all carefully on the table: his purple, geometric pauldron, gloves and grappling hook, knee pads with faces etched into them, and the mask he’d painted with red streaks to match Sensei’s the day he formally joined the Hamato Clan.

The chainsaw staff he kept strapped to his back was last to go on the table, but he left his cuirass strapped to his chest. He was willing to trust the lair was secure, but he wasn’t stupid. Besides, it was helping keep his cracked ribs in place.

He removed the small pouch on the back of his belt where he kept his toolkit, and picked up his grappling hook to inspect first. This routine was a familiar one. Master Donatello had drilled into him the importance of proper maintenance for all his tech, lest a flaw go unnoticed and betray him in the middle of battle. It was almost too easy to replace the soft overhead lights of the lair with the single, flickering lamp of his old work table and imagine the bustle of their latest base at his back, a hundred different voices and faces separated from him by the curtain over his doorway.

For the grappling hook, Casey unspooled the entire length of tensile steel rope, all 30 feet of it, and tested the launching mechanism on the inside with a flashlight between his teeth and a magnifying glass and screwdriver in hand. The rope itself was nearly unbreakable, so he had to make sure that the release was working too. Better to risk losing the rope than find himself permanently and fatally attached to whatever he was fighting.

Once that was done, he wound the rope back into the grappling hook and set it aside for his mask instead. The mask was modeled after one his mom used to wear, only tricked out with Master Donatello’s usual amount of gadgetry. Casey scrolled through his HUD, searching for any errors or damage he might’ve missed in the midst of battle. He was going down his checklist (nightvision, infrared, targeting) when he noticed a shadow had fallen over him.

Casey looked up at Raphael, grateful that his mask hid the widening of his eyes. He didn’t know what it was that made this younger Raphael seem so much bigger than the Master Raphael he’d met at seven years old.

For the first time, the similarities between them overlapped–Raphael’s bandaged right eye and the eyepatch Master Raphael had worn over his. But the moment was short lived. There would be scarring around Raphael’s eye, but his vision was safe. The Krang parasite hadn’t been attached to him long enough to cause permanent damage; survivors under possession for a week or longer had been considered lost causes.

Raphael nodded at the length of bench beside Casey.

“Okay if I sit?”

Casey balked, flipping his mask up. “Yeah, no, of course, I’m sorry.” He started gathering his equipment into a more neatly organized pile, embarrassed by how carelessly he’d made himself at home.

Raphael waved a hand at him as he sat down heavily on the bench. “You’re fine, man.”

For a few minutes, neither of them spoke again. Raphael stared at his sleeping brothers–the two in the blanket nest and Leo in the medbay–rubbing the knuckles of his unbandaged hand. Free of the usual wraps, they were littered with scars, new and old and small and deep. In the silence, Casey busied himself with repairing some loose wires in his mask’s left socket.

“‘M sorry I accused you of knowing Mikey would get hurt,” Raphael said at last, turning fully to face Casey, in light of his bandaged right eye. “If it weren’t for you, me and my brothers might not’ve made it.”

Casey jerked back a little in surprise. One of the last things he needed was an apology, and the last thing he wanted was gratitude ; Raphael’s words were sounding dangerously close to the latter.

“I didn’t do much, really.” Casey shrugged. “I barely got here in time to warn you.”

And even then, his warning still came too late. Casey remembered well the gelatinous, organic chrysalis they found Raphael trapped in, how his brothers had to carve him free, and how he turned against them, writhing in agony as he fought the unnatural metamorphosis warping his body and mind.

Guilt that had been sitting dormant rose up the back of Casey’s throat, fit to choke him, hot and thick as blood. “I didn’t…I didn’t know that would happen to you. You getting captured. That didn’t happen in my time.” He felt Raphael’s eyes ( eye ) on him, and he stared down at his mask, unable to face the penetrating weight of that gaze and any blame it might hold. “I just…I didn’t want you to think I led us there, knowing it would happen.”

A nudge against his shoulder had him looking back up, just in time to see Raphael pull his hand back, big enough to crush Casey’s head if he wanted but gentle in spite of that strength. Or maybe because of it.

“No hard feelings,” Raphael said firmly. “Really. Besides, uh, Leo already told me.”

“Leo told–”

Against his better instincts, Casey whirled around, as if Leo would be there waiting and ready to back up Raphael, that they really didn’t blame him after all. Of course, Leo was still in the medbay, prone and knocked out cold from the painkillers Donnie had given him.

Casey turned back, embarrassed, then doubly so when he realized he was still holding his mask, repairs clearly forgotten with his tools abandoned on the table. He dropped it (carefully) among the rest of his armor

“How…how is Leo?” he asked, offhanded in a way that made his teeth ache. The rebellion had never called for subterfuge like this. Besides, Casey might’ve been the one to set Leo’s broken bones, but it wasn’t like either of them had been up for conversation at the time; one overwhelmed by pain and the other by guilt.

Raphael sighed deeply, long and slow, like the bellows of some powerful forge. “He’s alive,” he said plainly, scrubbing a hand over his face, mindful of his bandaged eye. “I didn’t think we’d even have that…” his voice shook, and he cleared his throat sharply. “But we’re all together, so we’ll be able to keep Leo from pulling any more hero moves on us.”

“A-agreed,” Casey replied lamely, knowing Raphael couldn’t possibly be including him. After all, he closed the portal. Everyone would’ve heard Leo begging him to and known Casey obeyed .

Raphael seemed content to keep sitting where he was, a brick wall practicing his breathing techniques, and Casey was determined not to disturb him.

Ducking his head, he looked down at his hands trembling in his lap. What he needed to do was keep busy. His hockey stick-shaped chainsaw had a few spokes missing and others chipped, courtesy of his battle with the Sister and every other Krang drone in their way. He could replace the titanium chain, but he only had the one spare, and he couldn’t count on the Donatello of this time to be willing to share his lab space or materials. He’d have to make do with what he had and scavenge the rest, like he always did.

Retrieving his tool kit, Casey set out to do just that.

It was the work of a few minutes. He removed the saw’s current chain and carefully folded it into his weapon’s kit before pulling out a new chain. After a bit of fiddling and tightening with his screwdriver, the new chain was fitted. He wasn’t about to run the chainsaw in the shared space, with half its occupants asleep and all of them injured, but he was confident the replacement would hold. Maybe he’d go back into one of the tunnels to test it out.

Casey was folding his tool kit back up when he felt the weight of curious eyes over his shoulder.

He hesitated only a beat before glancing back at Raphael. But Raphael wasn’t looking at him.

Casey’s armor had caught his attention, gathered in a pile separate from their owner. He wondered how easily Raphael recognized his brothers’ influence in each piece, and if it was strange seeing it all in the hands of a stranger. The hockey stick, designed by Casey but built by Master Donatello. The faces on his knee pads that Master Michelangelo created the stencils for. The markings on his mask, to honor his Sensei. Casey carried his family with him wherever he went, even across space and time.

Raphael chuckled, half-awed, but mostly sounding tentative. “Heh. You really did know us in the future, huh?”

Casey nodded, reattaching his grappling hook to his glove for lack of anything to do with his hands. He could guess what Raphael was really thinking. After all, Casey carried his family with him, but there was one member who wasn’t represented.

“Everyone except you,” he admitted quietly.

“Me?” Raphael leaned back, not looking hurt by the exclusion but he didn’t seem surprised either. More understanding. Unknowingly or otherwise, he had nearly followed in Master Raphael’s footsteps and been the first brother to fall.

Casey shrugged, smiling weakly at the face he’d known from the Hamato family shrine longer than he’d ever known it in person. “I knew you the least. I…didn’t really get a chance to know you, before you were gone.”

“Huh,” Raphael responded thoughtfully. For several long heartbeats, that was all he said. Then he turned to face Casey fully. “Raph,” he said, holding out his hand. “Nice to meetcha.”

It felt like it took Casey a small eternity to get his throat working, and even then his voice came out hoarse. “Casey Jones,” he said, taking Raph’s hand. Once, it had been Casey Jones of the Hamato Clan. In his heart, it always would be. “Right back atcha.”

Raph grinned, his snaggletooth catching the light. Casey thought it might be the first time seeing him smile outside of a photograph. It made the bruise-like shadows under his eyes seem less dark by comparison. Casey wondered if he could somehow convince Raph into joining his brothers in rest. Maybe a word in April’s ear.

“So. Casey Jones,” Raph cajoled, looking much more at ease, though not without that undercurrent of exhaustion none of them could shake. “What’s your plan now that there isn’t an end of the world to stop?”

Casey felt his stomach swoop, like taking that first step into empty air before the plunge and snap of his grappling hook catching him. “Plan?” he repeated dumbly.

Find the key. Stop the Krang bounced unhelpfully through his head. The plan had always been survival. Move, adapt, overcome. There had been no questioning it, because the answer was obvious.

But maybe it wasn’t so obvious anymore.

Before Casey could start to truly question his place in this world, he felt the floor beneath him start to tremble.

His uncertainty shoved aside, he jumped to his feet and ripped his hockey stick off the table. It roared to life in his hands, the new chain working perfectly just like he knew it would.

Raph was on alert beside him, arms already glowing with mystic energy. “Casey, what–”

“Something’s coming,” he snapped, not looking away from the entrance to the lair and the darkness of the subway tunnels beyond. Too open, too much space for a full-scale ambush. “Does anyone else know the location of your base?”

“Base? Uh, not really. Todd, I guess, April, obviously, April’s parents. Oh, and–”

The rumbling had intensified, before finally manifesting as a tide of churning purple tentacles roaring over the subway tracks. But Casey knew Krang, and these weren’t Krang in origin, overly organic and glistening. These tentacles were more regimented. Synthetic. Familiar.

“WHAT is going on here?” a deep, annoyed voice demanded, definitely waking everyone in the lair and probably all the humans in the borough miles above them.

A goat yokai was disgorged from within the tentacles, which peeled back around him before disappearing into the ground. He loomed in front of the turnstiles, over six feet tall and glowering with narrowed, yellow eyes. He wasn’t scarred, wore a white and blue kimono instead of battle armor, and his hair was burgundy instead of gray. But Casey would recognize him anywhere.

“Commander Draxum,” he growled.

#ant writes #rottmnt spoilers #post movie #everyone in the lair needs therapy #and a long nap #rottmnt movie #rottmnt #rottmnt movie spoilers #rottmnt fic #casey jones ii #casey jones #raph #donnie #rise of the tmnt #mikey #leo #april o'neil #recovery #treatment of injuries

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