Chapter Text
"Okay, we're here."
The words sent a tingle of excitement down her spine. A month of hilariously spastic planning had led to this moment, and both of them were giddy bundles of nerves.
Michelangelo squatted till her toes touched the ground, and she slipped off of his shell. Her hand was folded warmly into his palm, as he guided her to stand before him. "Kay, don't move."
Naomi obeyed that instruction very seriously, seeing as he'd regaled her with horror stories about traps in front of his household, and what they'd done to poor unassuming rats. Mikey tugged off her blindfold and handed her the flashlight. She wrapped herself around his bad arm to generate some more courage for both of them.
He took a deep breath, and reached forward to touch the stone wall ahead of them before freezing in place for a moment. "So," he nervously licked his lips. "Uh, last chance to reconsider your weirdo choice in boyfriend. Aaannny second thoughts, dudette?"
And instead of anything reassuring or epic, she blurted: "In the names of Galilelo, Davinci, and Edison; please let them like me...!"
Michelangelo snickered. His muscles flexed as he lifted up a well-hidden lever. Then, in well-oiled silence, he slid the entire wall out of the way, and led her into a brightly lit interior. The white noise of falling water greeted them, and Naomi twisted about in surprise to look at everything while the door slid shut behind them. She didn't have a big enough catalog of specific vocabulary items or life experiences to describe this decor. The ground was blue stone. There were sheet waterfalls from the second floor. It felt unusually naturalistic, and worthy of being stared at.
Her partner started taking his shoes off, with the intent of placing them beside the door. Of course, when she tried to follow suit, Naomi ended up hopping in place and nearly falling over, and had to grab hold of Mikey to steady herself. He winked at her. Doh. Come on, Naomi! One boot, then the other, you've got this. She blinked, holding her boots vacantly out to Michelangelo as she recognized the structures which took up one wall of the atrium. Is that a kiln? If the anvil was any indication, it was a fully functional forge! Plastic gates spanned the distance from counter top to counter top, perhaps to keep a curious baby away from fire pokers and other potentially dangerous tools.
"Leeeoooo...?" Mikey called, startling her into a jump. "Hyelloooo? Anybody home?"
"In the kitchen, Michelangelo," a dry voice replied. "How did your 'internet run' go?"
Naomi thought that sounded like something between 'resignation' and 'a trick question.' Maybe he already suspected Mikey had been doing something other than bumming Google web searches off Resistance broadcasting towers?
Michelangelo cocked his head, like he'd heard the implied air-quotes, too. Some mental calculations and hyperactive bouncy ball-tossing transpired visibly upon his face. He apparently decided all systems were go, because he eased the stump of his bad arm behind her neck to squeeze her reassuringly to his side. "I brought someone for you to meet, actually!"
Naomi heard the clink of cutlery, the scrape of a chair, and the babble of a nearly one-year-old child, but wow it was not her imagination: Highly trained ninja really did have inaudible footsteps. Leonardo appeared at one of the central chamber's doorways, quiet as a specter. Naomi hadn't had much time to memorize either of the brothers' faces, but Raphael was rather distinctive: Laser green eye color, pirate eye patch, blood red mask, perpetual glower, much higher body mass, menacing aura, etc etc etc.
Brows furrowed and head canted in hesitation, Leo seemed to glance warily between the two of them. "Am I about to learn who you have been texting each and every time Raphael leaves?"
"Eheh," Mikey smiled wide, charmingly, like he'd been caught with his hands caught in a cookie jar. "Woops! You caught that?!"
"You've always been obsessed with that phone, Michelangelo, but rare before this year were times when you tapped at the surface for hours while snortling to yourself. I clandestinely asked Raphael about our internet situation just to be sure you had no data plan here worth getting so excited about. Make no mistake, I've been on the verge of sending him out to tail you."
"Ah, well, that would have been awkward!" Mikey squeaked in a high-pitch. Naomi leaned supportively into him, and was rewarded by hearing his voice level out, so that he could manage to deliver an incredibly smug sounding: "This is my girlfriend."
Both brows shot up; Leonardo leaned back on his heels, like the contents of what had been uttered had hit like a tangible weight, and he needed to reel from it for a moment before future thought could transpire. "You actually...?" He gave a small, sharp shake of his head, and then lifted his hand to quickly beckon them forward. "Come in! Come in, take off your coat, there are chairs in the kitchen. Come in!"
Naomi glanced excitedly to Mikey, who grinned back. They hurriedly followed Leonardo into the kitchen, where he pulled out a straight-backed and manila-cushioned chair which would have been at home at a fancy Disney World restaurant, sitting out upon an outdoor deck, maybe overlooking some luxurious pool. Naomi slowly took the seat, delighted to see the turtles had managed to find such things to cultivate their home with. They'd suffered so much; the network of scars across Leo's face and Michelangelo's only remaining arm were proof it had been a very long time since they'd last been able to treat or pamper each other.
And then of course there was Baby Donatta, the Lady of the House, sitting snug in a high chair branded with Muppet faces, her bottle in one hand and a Hotwheels car in the other. She appeared to be wearing a bright green tutu with tights and a leotard, and her hair had been combed back and fixed in place with a bow to make a topknot that curled open like a flower. Goodness only knew who had dressed her such, but she had the most beautiful hair, all dark chocolate and neat spirals crowning her olive and dusky complexion. She looked as presentable and photogenic as a child who'd been groomed for hours ahead of time to appear in a baby shampoo commercial.
Kids always left Naomi feeling pleasantly agitated, and it wasn't often she got to see any. She'd watch their wide, innocent eyes, raw emotions, and perplexed facial expressions, and wonder about all the formative things they were thinking about.
"Ai!" Donatta greeted fearlessly, waving her bottle.
"H-hi!" Naomi realized she could actually talk to this child without anyone giving her strange looks. Leonardo had gone over to the stove top and picked up a towel that he might pick up a heated kettle and pour two beverages. He returned just as swiftly, feeding a cup of—Naomi peeked—jasmine tea into her hands. "O-oh! Thank you. Thanks!"
"It's hot," the eldest turtle warned just before she'd have taken a sip.
Mikey hadn't been putting her on about Leonardo's blindness. So close to him, Naomi could see both corneas were thoroughly speckled with milky white scar tissue, and some underlying problem seemed to have even affected the actual iris color. Maybe an infection? Maybe the injury itself? According to Michelangelo, the blindness had occurred instantly, and cataracts usually took awhile to form.
His skin was the same glossy keratin texture as Michelangelo's, with the same protoscales, but the two brothers had very different skin colors and facial structures. She wondered how closely they were all related and if they were indeed biological brothers. They were a breakthrough anomaly among mutants; four distinct, independent organisms who'd all mutated identically and simultaneously. Oh! Five. They'd had a father once (who'd been not remotely related to them at all, but who'd also been affected in a very similar way!)
And, oh, Leo had none of Michelangelo's smile lines, but the shy yet welcoming smile he wore right now was so sweet, it really deserved the chance to make some. Maybe Donatta would help with that!
Maybe the end of the geurilla war against Shredder would help...
Naomi blew across the surface of her tea.
Leonardo seemed to forgive her interest; he seemed just as interested in her, and though he couldn't see her, his hearing clearly compensated for a lot. "Michelangelo," he instructed, "introduce this young woman."
"Her name's Naomi!" Mikey beamed, leaning over the back of her chair and mussing her hair. "If thing go well and Raph, like, doesn't freak out, she could toooottallly help us clean the lab."
"I am not certain that conscripted housekeeping services are the most genuine of reasons for starting a relationship," Leo quipped, and Naomi nearly lost her first sip of hot tea through her nose. She coughed and waved a hand as she composed herself, while Michelangelo broke out laughing.
"I'm a trained lab tech," Naomi explained, face heated.
"She's a one-hundred-percent genius, and she's like one of the only ones left," Mikey gushed. "Don't let her sell herself short, she nearly had a braingasm when I suggested it! All that science, yo!"
"I did not!" she sputtered in protest. Mikey raised a brow at her. "Okay, yes, I did," Naomi slapped a hand over her face to hide. "I don't get out much."
"Lies!" Mikey teased at a delighted growl. "I drag you out with me all the time!"
She started laughing, because it was true. He'd bought most of her wardrobe! Mikey must have read she felt frightened, because he pet up and down her back and shoulder, reassuring her that the conversation hadn't just spiraled out of control and that everything was going good. She lifted a hand to grasp his elbow, because she felt light as air and wanted that steel corded arm around herself. He stepped around the side of the chair and got his bad arm around her too, and hugged her.
"Someone's shy," Mikey hummed in explanation to Leonardo, protecting her reaction from scrutiny. Mikey was just incredibly sweet like that.
"How did the two of you meet?" Leonardo asked after courteously waiting a few minutes for Naomi to steady herself with gulps of tea (with Mikey's hand resting on her cheek and the side of her head).
As it turned out though, it was Mikey who answered him: "At the Resistance HQ, yo, April had her working on 'Tank Teen's' case! You met her once, like, briefly."
"You speak in the past tense." Leo frowned. "Did something happen?" His concern was understandable. Come to think of it, poor Mrs. Jones was probably freaked out Naomi was frolicking out somewhere in the world, consorting with Foot members, armed with extremely sensitive intel.
"I resigned. Some close relatives were afoot." Naomi peeked meekly up at Leo. "I didn't figure our Rebel Leader would, um, see past it." Also I slightly-betrayed her trust.
He wrinkled his nose. "Beg pardon. Did you just inform me your family has Foot Clan affiliations by punning?"
Naomi nodded bleakly.
Leo's grave expression was belied by how he blinked languidly at her like he found this very funny but had long ago made it a matter of course to school his expression to neutrality. "I see," he said. "On your father or mother's side?"
"My father's been dead six years this past March, but my mother's still alive and kicking. At least, I hope so." Naomi did worry about her. "She... she does her best."
"Both of them." Leonardo seemed to find this the strangest part. "Foot Clan membership tends to run down family trees. How is it you did not end up indoctrinated?"
"Oh, I am not a ninja. I'm probably the opposite, some kind of borderline klutz."
"She's a klutz!" Mikey hooted. "The pillar! Ha!"
"I walked into a brick pillar two weeks ago and he hasn't stopped laughing," Naomi moaned, lifting a hand to trace some scrapes on her forehead and nose. "He was watching from above."
"Just la-da-da-da-THUD!" Mikey cackled. "Aw come on, Mimi, that wasn’t entirely your fault, you were distracted! You were on the phone to coordinate me, and digging in your purse, and trying to hold on to your map, and I should have warned you, and-!"
"Annnyyway," Naomi looked back to Leo and cleared her throat. "My 'father' ran a lab. I wouldn't have called him an ardent patriot to the cause. He, um, he enjoyed having infinite funding and freedom from moral scruples."
Someone appreciated her ability to stay on topic. "Ah. Then he trained you as his assistant?"
She nodded. "From an early age."
"Was he working in robotics or mutagentics?" Leonardo sounded both genuinely curious and well-informed, and his voice was so smooth to listen to that Naomi had no idea she was talking herself into a trap.
"Mutagen research."
"Knowing from firsthand experience what went on inside Shredder's labs, I surmise you would have been experimenting on live subjects. Mutants. Like us."
And she had.
"I-I..." She hadn't previously needed to admit to those terrible memories. Mikey hadn't pressed her for 'stories' so much as he'd told her thousands of his own. "I snuck one of them ice cream," she answered robotically, forcing the experience out in the open because airing it might do someone some good. "My progenitor wasn't angry with me, but he made sure all my future work was just with tissue cultures in a separate division of the lab." Naomi looked at her tea. "I conjectured he instinctually avoided sensations of guilt. I’d caused him to feel some, so the easiest way to get rid of that was by sweeping it under a rug and pretending it hadn't happened."
Leo wore a thoughtful frown instead of a critical one. "And you were... relieved by this outcome?"
That was another trap, Naomi now realized, but she and Mikey hadn't gotten through telling enough background material for her to explain she'd still been a juvenile at the time, and had looked to Dr. Chaplin for guidance; finding none, she'd put it out of mind the same as he had. He'd been her role model and only example.
Needing very little sleep had kept the nightmares from chasing her much.
"I didn't know what to do," she admitted at last, wiping her face to keep it dry so nobody misunderstood her or thought her manipulative. "I wouldn't make a very good hero. It was a nice change in karma working for Our Rebel Leader, I got to help basically the same subset of people, mutants. A-and Mikey's right about one thing, I'm electric when it comes to mutagen research, I was a tesla coil at that job."
"Hey, Mimi," Mikey ruffled her hair. "S'okay. We know. We've been there, sitting on our hands on the sidelines, not able to do much. Not even heroes can be heroes all the time..."
That must have been true because Leo seemed unexpectedly satisfied with the results of his inquiry. She wondered how close she'd come to pouring her heart out, or whether she'd held on to reticence. She did not want this even-tempered and sweetly spoken 'Blue Turtle' to hate her. He was lovely.
"When did you two start interacting again?" Leonardo asked Michelangelo, and his tone was curious. "Or have you been texting since December?"
"Basically yeah," Mikey affirmed. "She resigned in early January and I think she hit me up while she was deleting her entire contact list and pigging out on ice cream or something."
"I didn't have any ice cream because I wasn't grocery shopping for myself at the time," Naomi sniffed. "But yeah, basically that."
"And then I think we started 'dating' in March... first kiss counts, right?"
"The fortieth definitely counted," Naomi remarked distantly, "and I think that happened on the same outing. Thirty? We definitely made it to thirty."
Mikey broke out cackling, and wheezed something like 'Why were you counting!?'
Leo raised a brow. "You weren't wasting any time, I see." That appeared to be a mild reproach, but Naomi had special demands on her time which precluded wasting any, so she took it as a compliment. Leo continued sounding disappointed, though. "Michelangelo, you kept us in the dark the better part of the year?"
"Man, yeah, I know," Mikey composed himself and smiled through a hard wince. "I'm sorry, bro. But we basically just told you the first episode of the drama and there's an entire season and a smashing finale to get to, so we're nervous."
Leo frowned and then gestured to Donatta, who was enjoying her bottle with a level of seriousness on her face befitting a professional food critic. "Should I be concerned?"
"Thoth, I hope not," Naomi muttered. "Mikey took a metal detector to me just in case, but I get superstitious about ninjas."
"You're good," Mikey told her. "I mean, much as I don't want to diminish we ninjas' sexy allure," he gestured at his body up and down, "everything has it's limits. Even if your mom had planted a GPS on you, for some cra-a-azy reason seeing as you never go anywhere, you're wayyyy too far underground for it to work. Definitely not passively, and anything else would’ve given off a detectable signal, and even then all transponders would have to go through the kickass old security umbrella our brother Donatello built to give us a signal down here, and that means being registered with our system."
Naomi perked up and thought about this. Robotics and technology had not been her area of expertise, and in fact her father had excluded it from her curriculum to keep her mind focused on biology, but she'd learned quite a bit from working for April and with what few systems she'd scavenged from the remains Bishop's wrecked lab. "My margin of confidence has just skyrocketed," she said, with a cheerful smile Mikey's way. "Thanks."
He snickered and ran his thumb and fingers up and down the lines of her neck and scalp again. Michelangelo could give a fantastic scalp and neck massage, and he never seemed to get enough of touching her head and hair. He was physically affectionate just in general, and without sexual undertones, and spending time with him had caused her to rapidly cultivate a high tolerance and enjoyment for having him in her personal space.
"Worry wort," he teased. "Dork."
The way Mikey said 'dork' and 'nerd' to her always made them sound like 'darling' and 'babe,' like terms of endearment. They usually left her scarlet and silly. Fortunately, Leo was blind.
"What else have you to tell me?" Leo wondered again. "I can only presume you waited until Raphael was gone for a reason."
"Well, can the telling happen in bite-sized chunks with, like, break time and food in between?" Mikey asked as he straightened back up. "She's super cool! I want you to meet her and like her, not just hear her hilariously sad and convoluted life story. Raphie's like the ultimate jaded police detective sometimes, he'd act like I was a moron and Naomi was trying to hide anything." Orange rolled his eyes and gave a dismissive flap of his hand. "We'll tell you everything. Anyway he's back late tonight, right? So s'long as you're chill with her, we'll talk to him next!"
"Hmm." Leo 'glanced' back at where Donatta had finished her bottle and was glaring suspiciously at her jar of baby food. "If you shall seduce Her Grace into eating her peas and carrots for me, I think I can be persuaded to enjoy the novelty of company."
"Mission acquired!" Mikey agreed, darting around the table to come up and loom over the baby.
"Daddy!" Donatta unexpectedly greeted him, and Naomi's heart leapt into her throat because hearing a child refer to Mikey as 'Daddy' felt like the most natural thing in the world. "Kustah!" the baby demanded.
"You want custard?" Mikey affected to be shocked, and Donatta bobbed her head imperiously. "Oh I dunno, these peas are soooo green, I think that means they're the best. Green things often are, you know."
She pouted, but when Mikey popped the jar open one-handed and got a teaspoon of vegetable mash to her mouth, she begrudgingly decided she'd eat some. Peas, of course, weren't half bad. Especially not with Michelangelo making airplane noises and flying the spoon around to keep her attention.
"She's beautiful," Naomi murmured, with a belated look to Leo, who seemed remarkably calm as he sipped his own tea. "She really is."
"You seem to be oblivious to how different we look," Leo remarked with a hint of wryness across his cup. "Can I trust your aesthetic judgement?"
Naomi blinked rapidly. "Oh, I..." she looked at Michelangelo, and then gestured to him with both hands despite the handicap of the person she was speaking to. "Come on, even if he wasn't rakishly handsome, he has far too much personality to be judged on his looks alone!"
Leonardo leaned back with a burst of genuine, honest to god laughter, and Naomi felt like she'd just earned a medal. She likely glowed. Mikey certainly did.