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“This is good,”
Leo nods, taking another bite. Even amid expressions of joy, he is restrained; he can’t help it.
In fact, just now, his stance, his upright posture, and the way he carves out perfectly round spoonfuls of the cake are a timid showcase of his discipline - an unfamiliar and intimidating thing, as is he at times.
“I had it the other day. On my way to the lair, I thought you - you guys might like it, so I picked it up.”
It is a cowardly move, she knows, pulling in his brothers when she had not meant to. But she does not want to scare him off when the distance between her and Leonardo is great as is, she thinks. It grows in the quiet moments they share in this very kitchen, the silence that drapes itself over them being the only thing they are willing to share.
His presence is torment — he is always out of reach — yet every opportunity she gets, she seeks it out. Every glance that lands undisturbed on the soft curves of Leo’s face stretches into a humble lifetime, and then repaints itself across her memory, over and over. The feeling is nothing she can name, yet she has already claimed it.
Leonardo is not too willing to breach the gap either.
Nothing is as temporary, as fragile, as the nexus between human and mutant. He has learned that by now.
And yet he lingers, perpetually stuck in spaces that offer her proximity. He can tell sometimes, too, when he is being studied, though he brushes off the attention as simple curiosity. It's new; that stinging awareness of what makes them different, her so foreign.
“You are a mutant,” The whisper inside his head repeats day in, day out, as if it is a revelation.
That is why his eyes must drift elsewhere, lest they catch hers and reveal too much.
He is wary of standing too close, of brushing past, acquainting skin with skin, because he knows a slippery slope when he sees one.
“That’s really thoughtful of you. Thanks.”
Leonardo offers her a rehearsed smile, one crafted with intent: to maintain civility, boundaries, distance. For his sake.
—--
She has long declared herself a part of a faction of New York society that lives in perfect tandem with citizens of the underworld, parallel to the mundanity of the paranormal.
When not at the Lair, she attends to her usual business: gathering and selling intel on all that goes on during the night. That was how she initially found herself embroiled in one too many of the ninja turtles’ heroic schemes; now she struggles to picture a different way of life for herself.
…
It is Friday night and she is camping out by an abandoned detergent factory, the headspring of the neighborhood’s drug trade, too exhausted to engage with the anxiety that is stirring beneath her skin. She spends the first few hours drifting in and out of sleep inside her car, her dreams a greater bore than the empty lot she is supposed to keep watch of.
But once the sound of wind swirling around pieces of rusted metal is interrupted by hushed, low voices, she forces herself to sit upright and focus. All she needs to do now is confirm the involvement of a particular someone with a photo and her rent is paid for the month; she takes out her camera and zooms in on the two distant figures, but the image that appears on screen is not what she expected to see.
Swift, purposeful, dark - those are not the participants of a lowly gang war she is being paid to investigate - they are members of the foot clan. Dangerous. Deadly.
She is in their territory, and she must leave. Now.
Gasping, she presses the gas pedal and turns the steering wheel as fast as she can, but it is too late; a shuriken shatters the window to her right and she shrieks as shards of glass rain down across the empty passenger seat.
Moments later, she is speeding through narrow streets, each turn that does not result in a collision owed to the merit of a half-finished prayer. But eventually, her lucky streak ends and she crashes into a garbage bin.
The impact is strong, but not strong enough to knock her out.
She reaches for the door handle when the roof of her car suddenly caves in with a boom.
A chilling quiet blooms in the next few seconds as she braces herself for the violence that she is sure will follow, hands shaking.
And yet, nothing happens.
“Yo, are you good–wait, what? Why are you here?”
The youngest of the turtles says as he rips the car door off its hinges.
“Oh My — Mikey! Thank god!”
She leaps towards him, a kind of relief that she had never held before now spilling from her hands.
“Who is it, Mikey?”
A familiar voice asks, exorcising that brief moment of childlike joy; Leonardo is the last person she wants to be seen by in this state.
Mikey gives her a look, concerned, before saying her name.
“Are you sure you are okay? You all of a sudden look like you just saw death.”
“I am fine. Really.”
She scrambles to her feet with an assist from Michelangelo, but not without some stumbling—her head is spinning. She looks around.
“Where are Raph and Doni?”
“They are chasing the two that went after you. That is, unless they have already dealt with them ninja-style,” Mickey says with a smirk as he strikes one of his signature poses. That earns him a chuckle.
“What happened?”
Crisp as snow and flavorless, Leonardo’s voice stabs through their little chat.
Suddenly he is right in front of her; she can not remember the last time she felt the weight of his gaze upon herself, and she is not sure if she will be able to keep her composure.
“It is work. I had to take photos of something over there., I swear I had no idea that the footclan has claimed that lot for themselves. I am not stupid—“
“I am having trouble believing that right now, to be honest, ” he snaps, arms crossed over his chest.
“Wow, Dude, harsh-“
“Not now, Mikey.”
She looks up at him, frowning, to catch the blue of his eyes for the first time. His expression unveils everything; it is grave, concerned, and impossible to read all at once.
“Look, putting myself in dangerous situations is part of the job, whether I like it or not. How is it any different from what you guys do?”
“Well, for one, we are not human. And you are untrained and—and“
“And what?”
He looks her up and down in bewilderment, as if she should know.
“Fragile!”
“You are not invincible either, Leonardo.”
“I am much closer to it than you will ever be, that’s for sure.”
And that is her cue to end this.
She feels ashamed, useless under the scrutiny of the vigilante, and yet something in the way he looks at her steers her toward tenderness.
“Alright. I get it. It was stupid, and dangerous. I am sorry. Won’t happen again,” she mutters, raising her arms in defeat.
“Good. We will take you back to the lair to check for any injuries.”
Leonardo looks over at Mikey, who has been watching them silently, and they exchange a nod.
He is embarrassed, feeling as if he let his younger brother in on a secret, and now it is no longer his to keep.
He knows that the fight was not really about her job; hell, it was not even about what happened tonight. Something inside him was just dying to make it clear, emphasize the difference between them, verbalize the reason why.
“And you should stay over just in case.”
Leonardo turns away and vaults onto the nearest rooftop, letting Mikey carry her all the way to the lair.
bluepaladin (Guest) Thu 28 Aug 2025 02:47AM UTC
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PearlFromTheEast202 Thu 28 Aug 2025 06:07AM UTC
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