Work Text:
The first snow was starting to fall since the invasion.
The Kraang really messed up the atmosphere, so it was a cold dark February before any sign of seasons began. Donnie said that it might take a couple months, maybe years, to reset the atmosphere without intervention, which is what he was doing in his spare time when he wasn’t nursing Leo.
That morning, Raph woke up and hauled himself into the kitchen, plopping down in a chair and watched Mikey speed around the kitchen. His hands were still bandaged, but the anti-tremor gloves over them gave him more than enough mobility to turn their kitchen into a sandwich-making circus. Piles upon piles of sandwiches, each carefully labeled with ingredients, sat in a red wagon lined with food-safe cellophane, and Mikey kept adding more and more to the pile.
“‘Mornin’ Raph,” Mikey barely breathed out before plopping an egg salad sandwich in front of him and turning back to his work, “Need you out of the kitchen, so eat this please. Be done around lunch,”
“Thanks, Mike.”
“No problem, love you.”
And he was right back at it… Feeding the homeless of New York was an honorable goal, so Raph quietly ate his sandwich and made to leave…
“Ah!” Mikey stopped him, “I almost forgot-!”
Raph blinked and tilted his head. No… He couldn’t have remembered, could he?
“Can you bring these to Donnie and Leo?” Mikey dumped two more sandwiches in plastic baggies in his hands, “I don’t trust Donnie to eat on his own, and Leo…”
“Right. I’m on it.”
…Of course he wouldn’t have remembered. It had been too hectic, too crazy, too insane.
That’s alright, though. In the end he was just happy he had his family still.
“ Food! ” Leo croaked as Raph came in and handed him his sandwich.
“Ah-ah-ah-!” Donnie leapt out of his seat and gently pushed Leo back down into the pillows, “You are not allowed to sit up!”
“ Then how am I supposed to eat?! ”
“By saying ‘Hey Donnie, can you prop me up?’ and not just lifting up your broken body and risking injuring yourself further?! ”
“Hey Donnie, can you prop me up?” Leo recited dully, and Donnie very gently tucked the pillows underneath his back so he could hold his head up and eat.
“Mike says this is for you,” Raph handed Donnie his sandwich.
“Oh, excellent, fuel,” Donnie mumbled, setting it aside on his workbench, “According to my calculations I’d need more in exactly 37 minutes so your timing is good. And it’s egg, which is sustainable protein along with the carbs from the whole wheat bread. Significant improvement from the protein shakes I’ve been chugging.”
“Don, maybe you should stop and prep some food-”
“Nope! No time for that!” Donnie shook his head, rubbing his temples, “New York’s ozone layer is completely borked out of all high-hell, and it’s not going to get better at a sustainable rate without interference. Not only that, but without someone on Leo duty, he’d probably end up neglected… or he’d get up and hurt himself.”
“I love you, too,” Leo said through a mouthful of sandwich.
“So I just need to-to figure out how to get this drone to both go high enough, expel the correct amount of chemicals, and then bind them to the atmosphere and keep things from falling apart… and then I need to make more that aren’t faulty…” Donnie tapped his stylus to his chin before going back to his schematics…
“Raphie?” Leo called out, “Can I have you?”
“Oh?”
Raph carefully sat down on the edge of the bed and took the baggie from Leo, crumpling it up and putting it in the trash. Leo grabbed his hand and pulled it towards him. Raph found himself gently caressing Leo’s cheek as he leaned into his palm, his arms wrapped around his wrist like it was a plush toy.
“Just need some comfort?”
“Mhm. Donnie’s not very touchy,” Leo mumbled, “And I-I haven’t really seen you… Where have you been?”
“I’ve been out and about. Lots of criminals trying to take advantage of the chaos. Been busting heads and dropping them off at either police stations or shelters, depending on what they need.”
“Because you take responsibility,” Leo nodded, “Because you’re a hero.”
“More like I need to fix the damage that was done while I was Kraang-ified.”
“…We nearly lost you, y’know…” Leo’s lip quivered, “And I nearly never saw you again… Raphie, I’m so sorry-”
“No. No no no, no apologizing,” Raph hushed him, “You can apologize later once you’re healed. For now, your job is to rest.”
…
“Raph? …Are you okay?”
Raph blinked and shook his head, “Huh?”
“You have that look in your eye, like something’s bothering you.”
“What do you mean? It’s kinda a messed up situation, Leo, why wouldn’t I-?”
“No-no, I mean… something else is bothering you. Is… did something happen?”
…Oh no.
Oh no no no. Had it been anyone else he would’ve said it. Had it been Mikey, Donnie, Dad, Drax, Cassandra or Casey, even April…
But Leo? Who was currently bandaged up more tightly than a mummy, leaning up against pillows that made him seem so small as tears brimmed at the corners of his eyes as he coped with pain and agony?
No. He wasn’t saying a thing.
“Really, Leo, it’s fine,” Raph tried to smile, “It’s not important, I promise.”
“Not important to anyone else or not important to you? ”
“Yes,” Raph blurted out.
Leo gave him a look. Now, he was no Doctor Delicate Touch or Doctor Feelings or whatever moniker Mikey took on when playing therapist, but Leo was surprisingly sharp at figuring out emotions when he wasn’t letting his own ego consume him. And he definitely wasn’t in that mindset right now.
“…I should go check on Dad,” Raph sighed, gently hugging Leo one last time and pressing a kiss to his brow, “You know how he gets at times like these.”
“Please come back when you’re done,” Leo whispered, “I-I’m lonely.”
(Donnie glanced back furtively at that last sentence, but Raph pretended not to notice.)
“I will, I promise.”
Raph carefully left the room, sneaking a glance back to see Donnie tearing himself away from his workstation to sit with Leo instead; still glued to his tablet but using his mechanical arms to hold the tablet, one hand to touch the screen, and the other hand to hold Leo’s.
Raph didn’t check on Dad. Well, not really. It’s more like he glanced into his room, found him bent over a book on helping someone cope with severe PTSD that he checked out from the library, and with a nod he let him be.
He was handling this much better than he thought he would.
Instead he climbed up and out of the lair, perched himself on top of a roof, and watched the sky.
And that’s when he saw the first snowfall.
He was still there, now, letting snow build up on his shoulders as he watched the hustle and bustle below.
He watched Mikey’s orange hoodie bob through the crowd with his wagon behind him, the sandwiches covered by a tarp until he got to his alleyway where his ‘customers’ were waiting for some food.
He watched April slip through the crowd to make a grocery run, coming out of the corner store laden with food before she slipped down to their subway to leave half of the groceries on their countertops.
He watched as people continued to pass by, each of them struggling with their own weight, their own worries, their own woes…
And he hummed to himself.
He hummed to himself a happy birthday as he watched the snow fall.