Chapter Text
"Hey Leo, are you up yet?" Mikey asked as he peeked into his big brother's room, his tone timidly hopeful.
Leo groggily sat up in bed, before he realized that he was still holding onto the Splinter doll that Raph had given him, currently in plain view of his baby brother. He quickly tried to hide it under his covers before looking at Mikey for a moment to see if he'd react at all to seeing the doll. Mikey just continued to look at him expectantly, giving him a small smile and wave from the slightly open doorframe. Maybe he somehow didn't notice the doll? "I am now, what did you want Mikey?"
"I just thought I'd check if you wanted to eat breakfast with us." Mikey replied, his tone uncharacteristically even, but his eyes were a little pleading. "We haven't done that in a while, you know?"
They'd gone through this many times over the course of the past few months, Mikey approaching Leo and asking him to join meals again and him making some excuse not to or claiming he would 'in a minute' and just...not coming. Leo felt bad when he said he would and didn't go through with it. He'd meant it the first time, but when he was actually getting ready to eat with the others, he lost his nerve and locked himself in his room instead. Then it just became a force of habit so Mikey would leave him alone, which was why he said, almost reflexively, "Give me a minute."
Mikey's face immediately fell into a disappointed frown, before sighing. "Okay dude, see ya." He said before quietly closing the door.
Leo laid back down on his bed, staring at the ceiling and feeling horrible. He needed to stop avoiding his brothers, he knew that. He was doing better health-wise now that his ability to sleep had improved, along with now eating a bit more even if it still wasn't proper meals. Yet he couldn't seem to break the bad habits he'd developed that were damaging his relationships, not just with his brothers but with all their friends too. He couldn't remember the last time he'd actually left the lair; he just knew it was sometime before...
He sighed, laying back down on the bed and hugging the doll. It had become a massive source of comfort for him, it made him think of his father, it was soft and just...made him feel like everything was going to be okay.
Glancing at the clock, he noted that it was his normal time to get up. Instead though, he found himself nodding off again. A few more minutes of sleep couldn't hurt, right?
Leo quickly succumbed to sleep, holding the doll close.
About a half hour passed before the door was opened again, though this time Mikey actually entered the room and gently nudged Leo awake again. "C'mon dude, it's time to get up!" He said cheerfully, though his voice was quiet enough that he didn't startle his brother too badly.
"Wha?" Leo mumbled as Mikey guided him to sit on the bed. He saw his brother gather up his gear and bring it over to the bed. "Mikey, what are you doing?"
"Well, you were taking a while to get ready, so I'm gonna help you!" Mikey explained, a big smile on his face as he handed Leo his blue mask.
Leo hesitantly took the mask and quickly tied it around his head. He realized there was no getting out of this, his brother wasn't going to leave unless they were going together. "So, what are we having today?" He asked, sounding a bit awkward due to the whole situation being unexpected.
"Well, I was thinking of making some pancakes." Mikey said, gently taking one of Leo's hands and beginning to put on the wrappings. "How do you want yours? I've got a lot of stuff for 'em so you can ask for anything!"
Leo stopped to think for a moment. "I'd like blueberries in mine."
"Okay..." Mikey said a little absent mindedly as he looked over Leo's now wrapped wrist. "That's not too tight, is it?"
Leo flexed his wrist to test it. "It feels fine." He confirmed, before a thought occurred to him. "Why are you doing my wraps for me?"
Mikey shrugged. "Like I said, I'm helping you get ready. Do you want anything on your pancakes?" He asked as he started working on the other hand.
Leo blushed when the first thing that came to mind were those pancakes he'd seen where cute or silly faces were put on them. It would be childish to ask Mikey for that though, he wasn't even sure why he'd consider it. "Surprise me." he decided, figuring his brother would probably go ahead and do something fun with it anyway.
After that Mikey started telling him about a crazy dream about having a space adventure with Crognard and a bunch of his toys and other cartoon characters, while continuing to put on the rest of Leo's wrappings. It felt weirdly nice, he hadn't realized how much he missed being close to his brothers. Mikey let him put on his belts along with his knee and elbow pads by himself, and the two of them quickly left for the kitchen.
Raph and Donnie were already seated. Their eyes widened in surprise at Leo before their expressions shifted into relieved smiles. This surprised Leo, he normally wasn't acknowledged when he'd come to eat with them. Then he remembered that it had been a few months since the last time he ate with his family, of course they'd be relieved that he'd finally joined a family meal. He felt a bit bad for that, but he couldn't help but smile back at them due to the small bit of attention.
Then he saw Mikey getting a slightly smaller chair and putting it next to the one where Leo would normally sit before starting on breakfast. Why did he...?
He then realized he was holding the Splinter doll.
His face turned red from embarrassment. He hadn't meant to grab the doll, hadn't even realized he'd done it. He looked at his brothers for a long moment, not sure what he should do.
"Are you just gonna stand there all day? C'mon." Raph said, gesturing toward Leo's usual chair. There wasn't any annoyance in his tone like Leo would normally expect, there was actually some amusement and humor.
Leo looked at Mikey and Donnie. Mikey seemed engrossed in the task of making breakfast, already stirring up the batter for the pancakes. Donnie was just giving him a slightly pleading look. No one was acknowledging the doll at all. Would it be more embarrassing to turn around and have them ask why than it would be to just sit with them? He knew that they'd definitely be extremely disappointed in him if he went back to his room now. That was the last thing he wanted.
So he walked over and sat in the chair, sitting the doll on the smaller one next to him.
"So, Leo," Donnie started, trying to sound casual but a bit of nervousness still seeped into the tone, "me and the guys wanted to talk to you about something."
Leo felt anxious at that, he really didn't want to be stuck in another intervention, but he said nothing. Instead, he looked down at his hands and grasped them together tightly.
"Hey, you're not in trouble or anything." Raph reassured. "We just noticed that you've been training a lot lately and we don't get to see you much anymore, so we thought you could use a break and all of us can just hang out today."
Leo found some of the tension leaving his body at that. A break? He thought about it for a bit, letting himself feel his muscles that still ached even after he'd slept the whole night, looking back on all the times he'd wanted to collapse even after he started eating and sleeping better, how much he missed his brothers...a break sounded nice.
"Okay, what are we doing?" he asked, curious if his brothers had anything planned.
Donnie's expression brightened up at that. "Well, I've been working on something for the past few weeks and recently finished all the tests. How about we go to the lab after we eat so I can show it to you?" He asked, excitement clear in his voice.
Leo found himself feeling excited too, Donnie could make some really crazy and cool things. "That sounds great!" He then looked at Raph. "Do you and Mikey want to do something too?"
His brother shrugged. "We'll figure something out while you and Donnie check out whatever he's got in his lab."
Leo nodded, feeling like he'd be happy with doing whatever, even if it was something small like just watching movies. The next several minutes were spent chatting with his brothers about some of the things he'd missed out on over the last few months. It was really nice, like things were normal again. Why had he been avoiding everyone so much?
Then he heard the sound of whipped cream being sprayed and glanced over to where Mikey was seemingly putting the finishing touches on breakfast. It smelled really good and the realization that they'd get to eat soon got him very excited. He started to flap his hands against the table before he caught himself, blushing as he quickly hid his hands under the table. He was normally better at controlling himself than this...
Mikey beamed as he placed down everyone's plates. "Bone Apple Tea, messy ear!" He said with an exaggerated French accent that almost made Leo giggle.
"It's 'bon appétit, messieurs' Mikey." Donnie corrected before he started eating.
Leo looked down at his food and was happy, perhaps a bit too much so, to see that his pancakes were decorated to look like a lion's face. The mane and nose were made out of strawberry slices, banana slices for the ears, chocolate chip eyes and a mouth made out of whipped cream. Along with the pancakes, Mikey had made bacon and sunny side up eggs. He was quick to start gobbling it down, actually feeling eager to see how the day was going to go for the first time in a long while.
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He initially felt embarrassed when he almost instinctively grabbed Donnie's hand as they walked to the lab, clutching the doll close to his chest with the other arm. He would've pulled it away if his brother hadn't held on and gave the hand a gentle squeeze, silently reassuring him that it was okay. He relaxed, if Donnie wasn't bothered, then there was no harm in enjoying the closeness, right?
"It's over on my desk." Donnie said as the two of them entered the lab.
His big brother led him over to the desk, and Leo's eyes widened in fascination at what looked like a toy-sized robot that was standing on it. The robot wasn't quite as...clunky looking as Metalhead, instead its build heavily resembled Leo's own, and it had a really shiny and bright blue and white color scheme. Next to it was what looked like a big game controller, but with a lot more buttons with words on them.
There were so, so many buttons.
"Is it some kind of remote-controlled robot?" Leo asked.
"It is!" Donnie confirmed as he unplugged something from the back of the robot's shell. "This little guy is kind of an update on a mini-Metalhead project I had before. He's got a much longer battery life, and he has the most fluid movements out of all my robot-based projects so far."
The little robot then started moving as its previously pure black eyes suddenly lit up with a circle of blue lights that gave the illusion of irises. It stretched as if it was waking up before looking up at the two of them eagerly, hands on its hips. Leo couldn't help but think it was adorable.
"I also gave him a base personality to try and add a bit more character to how he follows the commands he's given." Donnie explained. "Mikey's been calling him 'mini-Leo' since I based him off of you."
"You based him off of me?" Leo questioned curiously, while he noticed the similarities, he thought that it may have been unintentional. "Why?"
"I'm hoping to make one for each of us and give them the ability to interact with each other. It'll take some time before I can finish the others though." Donnie answered.
The idea excited Leo a little bit. "So, why did you start making them?" He asked.
"Well, at first I was only planning on building this one as a gift to you. Then Mikey wanted one too, and that led to me wanting to make a whole set. It also gives me an excuse to try and experiment on programming individual personalities and then coding an interactable network between them and see how accurately I can make them simulate ourselves." Donnie rambled before adding, "While it could have a pragmatic purpose for missions or tasks, this is mostly one of the projects that I'm doing for fun."
Before Leo could reply, the two of them heard a tapping noise that prompted both of them to look at mini-Leo again. The robot now had his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes gave the illusion of quirking an eyebrow at them. The noise was caused by him tapping his foot against the desk. Once he knew he got their attention, he gestured towards the controller.
Donnie laughed in amusement at the robot's display of impatience before grabbing the controller and looking at Leo. "Do you want me to show you how he works?"
Leo nodded eagerly.
Donnie placed the robot onto the ground and started to show Leo how to use the controller. There was a small joystick to direct where mini-Leo would go, and a wide variety of buttons to give commands for specific actions.
Only a few buttons were used as examples, mostly so Leo knew what limits the robot had while letting him explore some of the options on his own. One of the buttons that really surprised Leo was the 'climb' one. Donnie pressed it when mini-Leo was facing the desk, and instead of attempting to just climb up the side or something, the little robot instead looked around as if planning out how to best get on the desk. He then got up onto the chair and made a jump for the top of the desk. He almost didn't make it, briefly gripping the edge of the desk before managing to climb on top, pumping both fists in the air in victory.
Leo laughed as the robot shuffled when the 'dance' button was pressed. Then Donnie used a block to show how the 'drop' and 'throw' buttons work. Apparently, the joystick could be used to help the robot figure out how far and at what angle the object should be thrown.
This had to be one of the coolest things Donnie ever made!
"You wanna try it out?" Donnie asked, offering the controller to Leo.
Leo was extremely excited at that and reached for the controller before remembering that he was still holding the Splinter doll. "Give me a sec." He said before placing it on the chair and quickly taking the controller from Donnie.
He played around with just the buttons for a while. He tried out some of the buttons Donnie hadn't shown him yet. One of them made mini-Leo act out ninjutsu moves, another was able to shift the robot's default walk into a full sprint, and he learned that the 'dance' button actually randomly picked one of many dances each time it was pressed instead of just shuffling.
Then him and Donnie started setting up stuff for the robot to do. They made a little obstacle course out of various things they found in the lab and had mini-Leo run through it. Using a small crumpled up ball of paper (Donnie didn't want to use a proper ball since it had a higher chance of breaking something) and a trash can they played a mini version of basketball. Leo also tried to see how high of a stack of objects the robot could make.
Eventually mini-Leo started looking exhausted, body slouching and putting his hands on his knees as if he was out of breath.
"He must be running low on battery." Donnie explained before picking the robot up. "I'm going to need to plug him back in to recharge. How about you go and see what Raph and Mikey are doing?"
"Oh, okay." Leo said as he picked up the Splinter doll again, feeling a little disappointed. "Are you gonna come too?"
"I've got a lot of things to do." Donnie admitted, giving Leo an apologetic look.
Now that made Leo even more disappointed, he'd been enjoying his time with Donnie and the two of them never really hung out like this. He gave his brother a pouty look.
"I promise that I'll hang out with you guys next time, okay?" Donnie offered, but Leo's only response was to give him a pleading look that was close to becoming puppy dog eyes. He sighed. "Alright, I'll try to get the things that absolutely need to be done finished as soon as I can and join you guys after that."
That brightened Leo's mood back up. "I'll see you later then!" He said, waving goodbye to his brother as he walked out of the lab.
Donnie smiled as Leo walked away, looking at mini-Leo and giving the little robot a thumbs up which was returned.
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Leo felt a little bit of embarrassment slowly sink in as he walked. Pouting at Donnie because he was too busy to hang out? What was he, a little kid? He knew Donnie was usually busy and he should've respected that, but...he wanted to spend time with all his big brothers together.
He shook his head. Little brothers, what was up with him today?
"Hey dude!" A cheerful voice greeted him as he approached the center of their living room.
Speaking of which. "Hey guys." He greeted, seeing his brothers sitting near the tv. Then he noticed all the things around them.
There was a large variety of cases full of colored pencils, markers, and crayons. He also saw a couple stacks of...coloring books? Yeah, they were coloring books and he realized that both of his brothers had one.
"Are you guys...coloring?" He asked, just to confirm he was seeing things correctly.
"It was Mikey's idea. We found a bunch of left over art stuff in our rooms and he thought we should put it to good use." Raph explained.
Mikey smiled up at Leo. "Yep! Are you okay with that? We can pick something else to do if you don't wanna color." He offered.
Leo sat down with them, sitting the doll on a cushion. "Isn't this kinda...Aren't coloring books for kids?" He asked, his tone uncertain as he picked up one of the boxes of crayons.
"They make adult ones too." Raph said as he showed the cover of the coloring book he was using, which showed the image of a mandala and explicitly said that it was for adults.
"Oh! I-I didn't know that." Leo admitted, now feeling embarrassed for thinking Raph was doing something childish.
Mikey leaned closer to Leo, whispering conspiratorially. "I looked at one of them, and they're really, really boring. It's just a bunch of pictures of stuff like flowers and animals with way too many lines." He showed his own coloring book, which had a cartoonish picture of a superhero beating up a giant squid-monster on the cover. "These are a lot more fun; they've even got little games in them!"
While the cover did catch some of his interest, he instead reached for one of the adult ones from the stack that was closer to Raph. "I think I'll be fine Mikey."
"Suit yourself." Mikey replied, shrugging his shoulders and returning to his own coloring.
Raph grabbed the remote and switched it to a channel showing Space Heroes.
This surprised Leo. "I thought you didn't like Space Heroes?" He teased.
Raph shrugged. "Nothing better is on." He claimed, before quickly changing the topic. "So, what was Donnie showing you?"
Leo perked up at the question. "It was this really cool little robot version of me!" He said before starting to look through the pages of the coloring book. "He had a remote control that Donnie showed me how to use and we did a bunch of stuff with him!"
He went into more detail about the time he spent with Donnie while coloring. He'd picked a picture of a garden with a pond and was initially trying to pick colors that would be accurate to reality. This quickly bored him though, so he tried doing things like coloring parts of the grass red and the trunk of a tree orange with yellow stripes. While that was more fun and he thought it made the picture prettier, he still didn't feel engaged enough to finish it. He flipped through the other pages to see if one of them would catch his eye.
Mikey had been right, most of the pictures were a bit boring. Pretty, but boring.
He found himself eyeballing the stack of coloring books for kids that was next to Mikey. He glanced at Raph and Mikey, who were focused on their coloring. Well, if Mikey was using the coloring books for kids, it couldn't be that big of a deal.
So, he grabbed the one on top of Mikey's stack. The cover had the image of a knight fighting a dragon on it. He picked a picture of a pirate that seemed to be stuck on an island with a mermaid in the water. As he started coloring, he felt his previous reservations fall away and relaxed.
Things went on like that for a bit, the three of them talking and coloring. Leo did several pages, one of a knight riding a horse, a dragon sleeping on its hoard of gold and gems, then he did a picture that asked him to draw what the wizard was levitating, and he decided to draw a vase. His brothers occasionally complimented his pictures, which made him happy.
He was trying to draw a path through a maze when he noticed his last brother walking up to them. "Donnie!" He said cheerfully as he waved at him. His voice was a slightly higher pitch than it normally was, but he didn't really notice.
Both Mikey and Raph were surprised to see their genius brother there. "Dude, I thought you were going to be busy until, like, lunch!?" Mikey said, sounding happy to see Donnie.
"Well, I didn't want to disappoint Leo." Donnie explained, setting down a large stack of papers on the ground before sitting next to Leo, who promptly hugged him. The hug startled Donnie for a second before he, somewhat awkwardly, returned the gesture.
After a few seconds Leo pulled away from the hug slightly, noticing what Donnie had brought. "What's all the paper for?" He asked, looking at the stack. It was mostly white paper, but there was a notable amount of other colors too.
Donnie also pulled away, ending the hug. "I've never really been a big 'coloring' person, so I thought I'd bring some papers to do some drawing instead."
"Let me guess, you're going to be drawing blueprints or something?" Raph questioned, his tone teasing.
Donnie looked a bit flustered at being called out. "Well, maybe, but I also got a lot of paper so you guys can draw too!" He offered, before quickly grabbing a sheet of paper and making a totally not work-related drawing because he is not a workaholic!
The rest of them also grabbed sheets of paper and started drawing. There wasn't as much talking as there had been when they were coloring, except for Mikey since he was basically allergic to silence and was now either asking Donnie random questions or talking to Leo about whatever thought popped into his head.
Leo was the first one to finish his drawing, which had the four of them standing victoriously over an unconscious giant monster. He showed it to his brothers. "What do you think?"
"It's super cool dude!" Mikey complimented. "You wanna see mine?" He asked, showing off his own drawing when Leo nodded. It was a giant cartoony goldfish with huge eyes seemingly flying in the sky, mouth open to eat a plane.
Leo laughed at how silly the goldfish looked before looking at Raph. "What's yours, Raph?" He asked.
Raph seemed to suddenly remember they were there, blushing before holding the paper a little closer to himself. "It's...not done yet." He said, sounding dismissive and embarrassed at the same time.
"Mine's not done either." Mikey pointed out. "I haven't finished coloring in the sky yet!"
"Well, mine's even less done than yours!" Raph claimed, some agitation seeping into his tone.
"C'mon Raph, I really wanna see what you're drawing! Please?" Leo pleaded, not understanding why his brother seemed so against showing them his work.
Raph briefly looked like he was about to yell, but he visibly wilted when he saw the look on Leo's face. He sighed, "It's...dumb."
"I'm not gonna make fun of it or anything, promise!" Leo said sincerely, moving a little closer to try and catch a glimpse of what Raph was working on.
"Yeah, we just wanna see it!" Mikey added, now feeling very curious.
"Okay, fine!" Raph finally caved, making Leo and Mikey briefly cheer as he showed them what was on his paper. Both of them were in awe, it was a very detailed and beautiful drawing of a peacock done in colored pencil. The peacock itself looked like it was already done, its body made up of bright and vivid colors, with the background looking like it was a sketch of a jungle that Raph had started to color in.
"Wha!? Dude, that's really good, what were you hiding it for?" Mikey questioned.
"Yeah! It's really pretty, we gotta hang it up somewhere!" Leo added, still looking at the drawing with admiration.
"It's really not that great." Raph mumbled under his breath.
"It is!" Leo insisted adamantly.
"Maybe we could have Donnie make a frame for it or something?" Mikey brought up, looking at said turtle who was still engrossed in whatever he was drawing.
Upon hearing his name, Donnie looked at the others quizzically. "What?"
"Mikey wanted to know if you could make a frame for Raph's drawing!" Leo explained excitedly.
Donnie quickly looked back at his own drawing. "Yeah, I'll do it sometime later." He said dismissively as he started to work again.
Raph quirked an eyebrow at him, a mischievous smirk on his face. "So, what are you drawing, Donnie?" He asked.
That made Donnie stop for a moment, seemingly embarrassed as all of his brothers were now looking at him expectantly.
He cleared his throat as he tried to think of a way to change the subject. "Hey, um, what are we having for lunch?" He asked awkwardly.
All of his brothers gave him unimpressed looks.
He sighed before turning over the paper. It was less of a drawing and more a set of notes with a small sketch of what looked like a robotic sea turtle, prompting very confused looks from the others.
"What is it?" Leo asked, not sure what to make of the wall of text that accompanied the sketch.
"It's an idea for a miniature version of the turtle sub." Donnie explained. "Something that could be used to investigate abnormal underwater activity without us having to go down there ourselves."
"Oh, that's pretty cool!" Leo said, the sketch wasn't much, and he didn't really get all the notes Donnie had written with it, but he wanted to be supportive, and the idea really did seem like something cool if his brother ever got around to making it.
Mikey had an almost disappointed look on his face before shifting the expression back into a smile as he turned to Leo. "I think I'll probably start making lunch when I'm done with my drawing, so what do you want to eat?"
Leo stopped to think for a moment. "I kinda want ramen."
"Okay, let me just..." Mikey trailed off as he finished coloring in the sky of his drawing. "Done!" He said as he got back on his feet. "I'll let you guys know when the ramen's done!"
They watched as Mikey started walking to the kitchen. Leo started on another drawing while Donnie and Raph gave each other a brief look.
"Hey Leo?" Donnie started, prompting the other turtle to look back at him. "I know this question is probably going to sound a bit weird...but how do you see us?"
Leo gave him a confused look. "You're my big brothers." He said hesitantly, not sure if that was what Donnie was asking about. "And I love you." He added, sounding more confident in that.
Donnie patted him on the head. Raph placed his hand on Leo's shoulder before saying, "We love you too."
The affection made Leo feel warm inside. He smiled at his big brothers before going back to what he was drawing.