Chapter Text
He doesn’t remember how long it’s been.
As he sits there, his shell pressed into something hard, smooth, and cold – probably a rock – he feels his legs straighten and fall on the ground with exhaustion. Something warm is running down his forehead, chin, and neck, dripping onto his plastron. It prevents him from opening his eyes. Makes him remain in the dark.
He knows what it is. It can’t be anything else.
There is nothing warmer than blood in the apocalypse.
He moves a little, and now the liquid is slowly filling his nostrils and half-open mouth. Fortunately, he can’t taste any of it. He is so used to the metallic flavor that he doesn’t even notice it anymore. Just as he does not notice the absence of his arm.
Suddenly, he hears a familiar voice calling him from afar. This makes him realize that his communication device is probably broken. God, judging by the pain he himself is probably broken! But still, it doesn’t stop him from trying to wipe the blood from his eyes. What does, though, is the fact that he just… can’t. He is wiping and wiping, but there is more and more and more… Is he bleeding out to death? Is there a way to control it? Is he going… Is it the end…? Is it all finally going to end?
He feels guilty about such thoughts. Ashamed for feeling relieved because of them. But he cannot hide it anymore – even from himself. The idea of all of it – the pain, the blood, the loss – finally being over is incredible. Astonishing. Breathtaking. Awe-inspiring...
“Nardo!” he hears Donnie’s voice in his head yell at him before he thinks of the last word:
Rad.
“Nardo, damn it!”
Leonardo squirms, trying to keep the blood from entering his eyes. They are shut, but he feels the liquid slide on his skin easily, and… Wait. Where is his mask?! No, no, there is no way he… He is not going to die without it. He can’t. He promised his brothers… He promised Donnie and Raph that he’ll bring them to the afterworld, how can he- no. No, no, no. His sword. Where is his sword? Where…?!
“That’s it, I’m breaking in!” he yells.
Stop. What? It isn’t him. His mouth is still shut and filled with warm, flavorless blood. He couldn’t-
“FBI, open up!”
A beam of bright blue light blinds him even with his eyelids closed, and the next thing he knows, he is being smacked in the head with one of his old swords.
Everything falls into place when he realizes that he lies in the lair’s bathroom, not on the battlefield and that the liquid washing him over is simple water.
His sword is leaning on the wall next to the sink, and so is his mask.
He isn’t hurt.
He isn’t in pain.
He isn’t going to die.
“Vacate the throne, thou foul thief!” he hears Donnie’s voice from the other side of the portal.
“It’s been three hours, grandpops!” yells his younger self. “You wouldn’t be able to wash off all these wrinkles, even If you tried!”
Leonardo takes a big breath. He is alive. He is home. It was only him having an episode.
These… episodes, are a burden. Something that makes him somewhat uglier. Scarier. More disturbing to look at.
That’s why he never lets anyone see them.
Especially not the kids.
And it’s easy, really. Too easy, even. At the end of the day, he is the best actor out of the four of them, and the scars that are the hardest to cover are emotional. Mental. And thus, completely nonexistent – at least, to him. At least, until it reaches 4AM and he starts staring into the darkness of the living room – one he has been familiar with for more than three decades now – and, instead of the familiar shadowy shapes, sees sights he will be praying to forget for his entire life.
Before, the darkness had been his accomplice. But since the invasion, he feels betrayed by it. As if it is, somehow, responsible for what has happened to him.
It isn’t, though. He knows that.
Just as well as he knows that it isn’t about him. Not the end of the world. Nor it’s healing. Nothing is, really. Not even the pain from the cracks in his bones and shell. It is about saving his family. About saving his friends. Saving New York, the lair...
He takes a sharp breath.
Not because he is hurt.
Not because he is upset.
Even though both these things are true and happening right now. He just forgot to breathe for a minute or two. It is normal. Donnie does- did that too, all the time. Leo liked to joke it was because they were twins. Donnie hated that joke. Or, at least, tried to convince Leo that he did. He never succeeded, though. Leo was- is, glad about that. Now, he is glad for his family as a whole.
Even Draxum.
It is actually incredibly hard for him to imagine just how many issues he had with him before. After the Krang, it all disappeared. Even his grudge about being thrown from a roof by his creator went straight (ha) into the dark abyss. And like, it seriously had to be very dark, for a thing like this to be forgotten in such a short amount of time. Maybe even as dark as the-
“Nardo!”
Oh, shit.
“What, a grown man is no longer allowed to take a dip in the bathroom without being judged by the puny?” he asks, loudly.
Little Leo gasps. “Donnie, cover my eyes! I’m going to dip my sword so far up-”
“I want to see you do it without a portal!” Nardo laughs and waves his hand.
The portal disappears, but he can still hear his young voice – now from the direction of the locked door.
“I’m home,” Nardo mutters. “I’m safe. I’m home. I’m safe.”
He has a particular rhythm he says these words at. If he makes a mistake and says something wrong, too fast or too slow, he starts from the beginning. If everything is good, he picks up the pace, until he makes another mistake. Just like that dinosaur game that appears on Google when there is no internet connection.
Oh, how he missed Google.
“I’m safe,” he repeats, before finally feeling satisfied with the affirmations, and standing up in the bath.
His hand shakes. His head hurts from the hot temperature around him. His heart pounds from the nightmare. But he is calm about it. Or convinces himself that he is. It is easy. Too easy, even.
He hates being the best actor.
He quickly dismisses this thought, burying his face in the soft towel.
Climbing out of the bath, he flicks his fingers against his knee. Then breathes on them.
Thud. Woosh.
Why was he here, again? Oh, right. Leo told him to wash his wounds. How could he forget?
Ah! Yes!
He heard a sound from the corridor and got in the zone listening to the silence that followed it, just like he did as a kid, sneaking out of his bed in the middle of the night. That checks out. Although, unlike his kid self, who probably would’ve just giggled at the thought of being a horrible criminal who dared to not obey the curfew, he just got lost in thought. As he often did since-
Thud. Woosh.
He picks the new bandages, left for him in the cabinet, up. His shaking hand does not help him wrap them around his torso, but he is used to it at this point. He catches the end of the cloth with his teeth and starts wrapping. Then he squirms. The stitches sting and his skin feels slippery. He feels the need to flick his fingers again, but if he will let go now, he will have to go through this process all over again. So, he opens his eyes and lightly kicks his foot on the toilet.
Thud.
The bandages escape his grasp.
Woosh.
He picks them up, finishes the wrapping, and reaches out to the small box next to him, which is filled with clips.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
They scatter across the sink as he tries to bring them to his wound with a trembling hand.
But he doesn’t get angry. Doesn’t feel or act frustrated at all. He is patient. As patient as he can be with a guy who hurt his family. Who killed his brothers. As patient, as he is with his past self, who injured Mikey, turned Raph into a half-alien puppet, and made Donnie expose his softshell several times in the span of a couple of hours, but still saved the day. As patient as a medic can be with a kid who made a dumb mistake that hurt himself and his loved ones.
Thud.
He feels his hand steadying as it closes on his sword.
Woosh.
The bathroom door is opened and Nardo steps out.
He yawns, looking at Leo. “Sup?”
The kid scratches his nose. “When I told you to go wash your wounds, I didn't mean go soak all the stitches.”
“They're made of magic plastic, aren't they?” asks Nardo, throwing a towel over his head. “So, they can't get soaked.”
“Well-”
“Excuse me?!” Donnie says, dramatically, shoving his phone into his pocket. “Magic plastic?! Magic?!”
Nardo immediately regrets his words and casts Leo a pleading look. In response, a shit-eating smirk appears on the boy's face, and he steps back, giving his twin brother the stage.
Leonardo regrets not killing him the first time they met.
Although, he doesn’t really know if he would be able to, considering the whole grandfather paradox thingy. A time traveler journeying back in time and killing their own biological grandfather before they can sire children, thus making sure the time traveler never comes to exist and, as a consequence, can't travel back in time and kill their own grandfather…
It makes his brain hurt, especially considering that he, in a certain sense, is the said time traveler.
He really misses the times when he and his Donnie could talk about these things as theories alone. Or… just, simply when he and Donnie could talk. When it wasn’t just him, talking to an empty room, imagining, and hallucinating his brother’s responses.
Nardo’s lips stretch out with a tense grin. “Sorry, Don. But even a functional toilet seems like magic after… you know what.”
Donnie breathes out, making a calming movement, and then nods because he knows.
Of course, he knows.
For a month now, everything in these kids’ lives is an aftermath of you know what, and they all deal with that. Thankfully, they are there for each other, helping and sharing their problems – a bit reluctantly, yes, but they still do it. He, on the other hand, is faking it ‘till he’s finally making it. The only time of day he isn’t making it is in the middle of the night. Mostly on weekends. It is then that the magic is finally beginning to fade – as if he is Cinderella, and the facade he wears is his magic dress.
No wonder he always hated this fairy tale.
“Merida is the best,” kid Leo said about a week ago, in the kitchen, mid-fist fight with Raph, confirming this thought.
“No way. Aurora rules,” Nardo argued, sitting at the counter with a mouth full of pop tarts. “Sleep for a hundred years and get a man?! Wish that would've been me, honestly.”
Leo laughed. “With these looks? You’d be a vegetable, my guy.”
That is another thing Nardo has to get used to. His incredibly weird, and somewhat annoying (is that how others perceived him?!) past self, who is set on making sure his life is a living hell, and never buys his bullshit about being fine.
Every trembling hand, every shake in his voice, every tense laugh… He knows about those things. He is those things. And he always refuses to leave them unnoticed. No matter how hard Nardo tries to hide them. No matter how used the others are to all of that. And it makes him incredibly self-conscious.
Pun intended.
“Dibs!” Comes Mikey’s voice, as he appears out of nowhere, jumping above his brothers.
In a second the little guy is already in the bathroom, closing the door behind him, as Donnie cries out in anger.
“It is not fair!” he says. “You are a dirty cheater, Michael!”
Mikey’s laughter is muffled by the sound of running water. “Says the loser!”
“I’m not a loser! I didn’t lose anything!”
“You did, though,” Leo laughs. “Miguel was supposed to be the third in line, but now that he’s in the bathroom, it means I’m next, and you just lost your turn. Good luck with the water leftovers!”
With these words, he turns his dramatic a-… backside, around, and walks off, towards the living room.
Donnie throws his hands in the air and walks after him, leaving Nardo alone in the corridor.
“That’s not how it works!”
“Pretty sure it is, smart-guy,” Leo shrugs, stretching out his words. He puts his hands behind his head, and waves, turning at the nearest corner.
“When we were ten you were pretty sure you’d grow a beard by now.” Suddenly, Donnie points at Nardo, not even looking at him. “I don’t see a single hair even forty years later!”
“Hey!” Nardo puts his hand on his hip. “I am not that-”
“Well, thankfully, he is not my future anymore,” he hears Leo say smugly and immediately starts walking after them, attempting to catch up enough to hear the conversation. “Which means that I could, potentially, grow a beard.”
“You’re a turtle!” Donnie yells, desperately.
Leo turns around, continuing to walk to his destination with his back first. “I had hair once!”
“Evil hair,” Nardo corrects him, raising his index finger.
“Doesn’t matter,” Leo shushes him.
Nardo snorts. “Uh, yeah it does.”
“Mmm… No. It doesn’t.”
Nardo looks at himself – at this kid before him – and laughs. The way he hadn’t laughed in a while. The way he thought he will never laugh anymore.
The way he had been laughing for a little less than a month now.
Because this absolute dumbass is hilarious in his own naivety. In his childish stupidity. Because he is exactly what Nardo wishes he still was. One out of four. The hero. The brother. The jokester. The face man. He is what Leo faked being, for more than twenty years. He is what he is supposed to be. What he lost, among other things in his life.
That’s why he cares so much now.
When he came here, the only loss he really felt was that of his dad. Of his brothers. Of April. But after some time, he realized that he kind of missed himself, too. And that’s why he decided to make sure Leo never goes through this. That he never becomes him.
“Want to talk about it?” was all he asked one eventful evening, a couple of days after his barging in, leaning against the kitchen counter.
Leo didn’t answer, instead staring at his plate, but Nardo knew he was secretly looking at him. Looking at his absent arm.
He got used to it but still couldn’t bear meeting the kid’s gaze. And every time he did, a wave of shame washed over him.
“Listen, kid. I know you, and your heroic tendencies. So just get it into your thick, dumbass-“
“Hey!”
“-head, that it was me. Not you.”
Leo blinked, clearly confused. Nardo shut his eyes.
“Stop comparing yourself to the worst version.”
“Worst version?” Leo almost laughed. But it sounded like there wasn't enough air in his lungs for him to do so. “There is no way that you’re the worst version of The Leonardo Hamato, while I’m sitting right here.”
Nardo looked at him, eyes wide, not understanding what the kid meant.
Because he knew that Leo is kind. Smart. Open… That he is better than him. Nardo grew up and became an adult in the midst of an apocalypse. Along with loss, death, and cruelty. So now his smile constantly looks bittersweet. His laugh sounds like he is choking. He trembles at every loud noise. He runs away from bright light. He struggles with breathing. He hates himself-
Oh. Shit… That’s the thing, isn’t it?
He immediately understood why it didn’t make sense to him.
Because yes, Nardo hated himself for what he had done, and what he didn’t, but… But he didn’t hate Leo. Even though he was him. Even though he was the one who ruined everything. Even though he was what he was afraid of and at the same time so desperate to become. Looking at him, he couldn’t let himself hate him. He couldn’t allow himself to. He hoped it was a good sign. That one day it all will be over.
The day that he will look in the mirror, see his past self, and finally forgive himself.
“Kid. I killed them,” Nardo said, leaning closer to Leo. “You didn’t. You did everything right. You learned your lesson in time. You fixed your mistakes. You prevented all those that I made. And you saved everyone. By not becoming me.”
The boy avoided his gaze.
“But if you still can’t let go of that,” Nardo continued. “Feel free to burden me with whatever you have on your mind. I am you. The you that you blame and hate. So come on. Take your damn revenge, bury me in your thoughts, and let yourself go.”
Leo sniffled.
“How much did that psychology degree cost you?” he asked a second later. “An arm and-?”
“Oh my god!” Nardo cried out, and throwing his arm in the air, turned around, hiding his smiling face in one of the cabinets.
It was nice, knowing that Leo still had the ability to make people around him roll their eyes at his jokes. Even after all of… that.
Whatever «that» meant.
Later that same night, to his surprise, he found Leo sitting on the living room couch, looking like a lost child in the middle of Alberto-land.
He was fiddling with Nardo's blanket, which had been lying there for a couple of days, and occasionally turned his head in the general direction of his brothers' rooms, as if afraid of being spotted by them.
For some unknown reason, it made Nardo’s heart shatter.
This boy was so afraid of being weak that he was hiding from his own family. How many days had he been bottling up all of which he came to tell him? How many weeks? Months?!
He never received an answer to this question. But he never asked it out loud either. This night, and some of the following – the ones Leo could sneak out of his room unnoticed and undetected by anyone on his way – he barely ever said anything, dedicating himself to listening to the teen in front of him. Hearing out his every thought, every idea, every doubt, and fear.
It began small.
At first, Leo’s understandable distrust of the color pink. Then, his texture issues. Then, the pain in his muscles. And the tightness in his breath. And the way he couldn’t sleep. And slowly, Nardo would have too many reasons to believe that he was too late on his journey to prevent this little kid from turning into what he has become, if it weren’t for the fact that Leo started getting better. He started eating more. Started training with Raph again, without flinching at the very thought of attacking him. Began breathing more easily…
One problem remained: Leo still hasn’t been sleeping well. But, when, after one of their secret therapy-nights, as Leo started calling them, Nardo woke up with the boy snuggled beside him in a fetus position, his head resting on the remaining part of his right arm, he thought that maybe – just maybe – they weren’t far from solving this issue either.
Another thought that arose in his mind at that moment flashed in his head for only a few seconds, but it was enough for him to hold on to it: he didn’t miss the old lair anymore, which was destroyed by Shredder upon the Foot Clan's invasion to kill gram-gram.
After Shredder’s defeat, they moved and built into a new one, close to an old subway station – which is why since then, their rooms were old subway trains. But he never felt quite comfortable in it. It just never felt… right. Until now. Until he held Leo, who was feeling all of this at this very moment, in his arms, and realized that he is where he is supposed to be. Where all of them were supposed to be.
That he is truly, unmistakably, home.
“Blue!”
Nardo shudders at his father’s voice, only now finally regaining his consciousness and body awareness, realizing that he had been disassociating this whole time.
“Yeah, pops?” kid Leo asks, immediately, with no delay, for a full second shifting his attention from his bickering with Donnie.
Splinter’s laughing, almost mocking, voice, is heard from the TV room: “Call the other one and tell him he missed Tristan and Annabelle’s wedding!”
“I what?!” Nardo yells out, perking up. “No way!”
He did miss the wedding. And, somehow, the fact that Tristan has a twin brother. Which is like, wow. Cliché much. But what can you do, right?
Wrong!
Leonardo «Leo», «Nardo» Hamato was not born in the 2000s for nothing. He was forged on the internet. Constructed by his unrestricted access to it. Tempered and hardened by the cringe from the 2010s Instagram and the 2014 Tumblr. Raised on Harry Styles x Y/N stories and hot mafia bosses. He had been there. And he had done that. And most importantly, he was there on March 25, 2015.
So, if there is one single thing Nardo knows how to do, it is writing fanfiction.
Or he tries to convince himself that he does.
Because as he sits there, staring at his open Word document, feeling his fingers tremble, he realizes that there are no words that can describe what he’s feeling, or just simply what he wants to write. It’s upsetting, but he tries to calm down because it’s just a dumb telenovela. He can’t cry because of that. Not after all he’s been through – not after the pain and the loss and the god-damn deaths that he had witnessed firsthand.
That he caused.
He takes a breath and tries to calm down but instead, he feels his fingers tremble harder. He flicks them on his knee and breathes on them over, and over, and over. He’s praying that the urge will go away soon, so he will be able to at least try to write a single sentence – maybe just the words «Chapter One», but his body doesn’t listen.
So, he flicks again.
And again.
And again.
After a couple of minutes, he feels like he’s out of breath, but he can’t stop.
The worst thing about panic attacks is that he knows when they are coming.
He never said this to anyone, but he is jealous of people who have them unexpectedly. Sure, it would inevitably interfere with his life as a ninja if he was triggered in the middle of a fight - and he is, nearly every fight - but he'd give anything to just get it over with instead of struggling to contain them. To hide from them. To prevent them, despite knowing they are inevitable.
He hates the wait.
He hates feeling the adrenaline slowly make his heart beat faster, his hands tremble, and his breath hitch.
Hates the feeling of the useless, cold ice on his plastron, which he puts there for no actual reason.
“I’m… home,” he tries to mutter, but he can’t take a proper breath that will allow him to say it right. He tries again: “I’m s- safe...” and fails.
After that, he starts feeling like his body hates him. Like he is slowly unbecoming. That soon he will choke, or go insane, and that will be it. Everything will be lost. His brothers, Splinter, Casey, April… Leo. All of them. That he will lose his family again.
He can’t let that happen. He won’t let that happen.
So he clenches his fist and hits the nearest wall.
Fortunately, it's brick, so there's not much sound and no metal creaking at all. He isn’t drawing too much attention to himself by doing so, and after four of three times, his hand starts to feel numb. He bathes in this feeling of relief, ease, and satisfaction.
Is that what it would feel like if he lost both of his arms?
He shakes his head at the thought. Donny is already pretty busy making him a new prosthesis – it’s probably not a good idea to overwork him any more than he already does and have him make another one.
“Nardo?!” comes Raph’s rough (ha) voice.
Leonardo turns around, hides his hurt arm behind his back, and tries to lean on the wall with the other one, but there is one slight problem: he has only one arm.
So, he stumbles.
Hits his head.
Falls on the ground.
And then meets a pair of worried eyes.
He feels guilty, now that he realizes that his older brother’s eyes have always been like this.
“Hey,” Nardo says, awkwardly sitting up.
He isn’t sure he can stand up just yet.
“Are you ok?” Raph asks.
Nardo laughs. “Pfft- Of course! Of course, I am. I- uh… Just lost balance for a second. You know. Happens sometimes because of the- um.”
He moves his right shoulder.
Raph nods. “I lose mine too, sometimes.”
Nardo knows. Raph was always the one who fell the most.
Now that he looks at him closely, he can see that he hasn’t gotten rest in a very long time.
He gulps as Raph’s right eye (it is a bit swallowed. They thought it would go away after a while, but after a couple of weeks, they slowly started wrapping their minds around the idea that this is what it will be like from now on), Donnie’s soft shell, Mikey’s hands, and Leo’s scars all pass before his eyes. These injuries are all far better than what has happened to them in the future, but still, they are too much.
Especially for children.
“You wanted something?” Nardo asks, smiling, but at the same time feeling his chin tremble a bit.
He does that a lot, lately. Ever since the universe, his portals, the spirits, the Hamato clan’s powers, or whomever that was, brought him here. He can’t help it! Seeing all of his family and friends alive and well… It has that effect on him. Of happiness, bottled up nicely together with grief.
“Yeah, uh, Case ‘s here,” Raph said. “Thought I’d let you know.”
Nardo nods.
He wants to say something. He wants to talk. But every time he tries, he feels like he's going to throw up. Every time he opens his mouth to say anything, something shifts inside him. And then there comes the silence. The uncomfortable silence that he wants to break so badly but knows he won’t be able to. Not right now, at least. Not until he heals that part of himself that still blames him for Raph’s death. And maybe not until he helps Leo heal this part of himself too.
So, he doesn’t push it. He smiles and nods and does everything in his might to show that he cares.
But he still doesn’t talk that much.
He knows that it is probably hurtful for Raph to see him talk freely with others, but Nardo also knows Raph. Knows how caring and absolutely perfect he is. He knows that he will understand. Not now – but later. After he finally tells him about what he’s been through. After he tells him how much he loves him. After he tells him everything.
And oh, how much does he have to say.