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There’s more than one part of Leonardo that rebels against raising his hand and knocking on April O’Neil’s window. There will be questions, oh so many questions, and he knows he can only handle so many of those right now.
It’s late too. It would be impolite. He says this to himself like it’s an actual argument, but the sun has really only just set and April is a New Yorker, she too never really sleeps.
And she’s the only one who would understand. He hopes.
So he reigns in the rebelling parts of himself and raps his bulky hand against the glass. There’s a bit of shuffling and then sure enough, she answers. She’s clearly in an outfit that is more comfort than style, but she doesn’t look tired. Less so when she sees Leo’s face. Her eyes widen as they’re filled with sparks of surprise, and for a moment she just stares.
“Leonardo?” She blinks, then squints, like she’s sure she must have the wrong turtle. “Aren’t you supposed to be in a different dimension right now?”
Leo supposes that’s a fair question, but it isn’t one he’s entirely sure how to answer. He waves a hand back and forth and makes a sort of ’ehhhh’ sound. Then when her face starts to turn stern and disapproving, he jumps into his explanation.
“I’m feeling better! I think. I mean, I am. It’s just…” How does he explain this? Does he tell her all of it? He can barely even look at her right now, preferring instead to stare at his scaly, twiddling fingers.
Apparently, something about that is enough. When Leonardo looks up again, she doesn’t look confused or disappointed, instead her face has fallen into a melancholic kind of concern. She opens the window the slightest bit wider and steps back before gesturing Leo inside.
He double checks to make sure no one sees him, that he’s not been tailed. After several months away from New York, he’s glad to see so many of his instincts are still holding up. That, at least, is one small island of reassurance in the racing current of his mind. He doesn’t see or sense any watching eyes or mysterious shadows, so he steps into April’s apartment and out of the early spring chill.
“You can sit wherever. I was just making—“ A kettle whistles from around the corner. She gestures toward the sound, then slips into her too small kitchen to silence it.
Leo doesn’t sit. He’s too amped for that right now and is busy taking in all the little things he missed while in Usagi Miyamoto’s world. Central electric heating. He hadn’t worried about that in a long time, hadn’t thought about it. Not since they’d turned… eight? He remembered worrying about all the wiring work Don was doing around that age, so that was probably right. Maybe nine. Definitely not ten. Only a decade couldn’t be long enough ago, right?
Second Earth had quickly reacquainted him with sturdy iron stoves and the frigid nights without them.
The blazing electric lights in April’s apartment have almost become a wonder too, after being away for so long. Not their ease of use. He had prepared to miss that. In period pieces candles had always seemed… so much brighter, but actually trying to work or write or anything by candlelight was a hellish exercise in absolute frustration. How Usagi managed it without the eye strain headaches he would never understand.
“Is lavender still your favorite?” April calls from the kitchen and warmth radiates from Leo’s chest all the way up to his smile.
“You remembered,” he calls back.
She comes back around the corner with a teapot and two cups in hand almost too quickly. Too quickly for her to have been waiting for an answer on flavor anyway. She has a wry smile on her face. “Of course I remembered, you doof. You’re all so distinct about these sorts of things it’s kind of hard to forget.” As she sets down the pot, she gestures to the couch, insisting that he sit down now.
He finally does, saying very matter-of-factly in his best imitations of Mikey’s ‘I’m choosing to be obnoxious right now’ voice, “I’ll have you know that I have been turned into a jasmine turtle as of late. The flavor profile isn’t as light as I usually prefer but the deeper notes are—“
She throws a pillow at him. He laughs, and gods is it good to talk to her again. Actually talk to her, casually, without everything feeling like a deadly threat or without the world actually about to end. Whether or not she can help him, he’s glad he went to her first. His family— no, his brothers and father— would have been all somberly proud about a recovery he isn’t even sure he’s completed yet.
She still sees it though, still smiles at him with an ease he doesn’t remember from the months before he went to go frolicking across second earth. He even smiles at that thought. That’s how he thought of it before leaving, but his time on Second Earth has been anything but easy.
“You really are doing better, huh? I haven’t seen you this relaxed in…” she takes a deep breath, “I mean. It’s been a while. We all hoped Usagi might be able to help but—“
Leo winces inadvertently at hearing Usagi’s name outside his own mind.
April flinches too, face quickly flickering into a deep frown. “Uh-oh. I don’t like that look. Did something happen? Are you two fighting?”
He laughs at that too, but this is a laugh from before any of the darkness had started lifting. Cold and bitter and absolutely devoid of the warm joy he was feeling earlier. Because really, if only it were that simple. If they were both at fault, then they could just talk things over, could just make amends, but the situation Leo’s in is all his own doing. Or… he tries to reframe it. The fault of someone else who hurt him maybe? Usagi told him the self-blame came from scars unhealed. Maybe that’s the issue. He wants to think so, but when the wrongness is inside him, his body, his feelings, his hurt, he can’t really think of who else could be blamed.
“Leo, c’mon. What’s up? I know you came here for a reason.” She reaches toward him with one hand across the antique coffee table. His eyes dart past her manicured nails to the teapot and cups. The earthenware is immediately recognizable. It’s a gift from Donnie and him, from about three Christmases ago.
“Is it still steeping?” He’s starting to smell the gentle aroma of lavender now. He’s surprised by how much he missed it. Usagi loves jasmine tea and Leo enjoys it enough that he doesn’t argue. He feels a little like he can’t, what with everything Usagi has done for him. With everything he keeps doing.
“You know it is,” April says through a scowl. “What’s wrong, Leonardo? You’re—“
He picks up one of the onyx black yunomi. “Is the set still holding together well?” She’s using his full name and he just— he can’t handle that right now. Not yet. So instead, he traces the veins of gold kintsugi that wind and skitter against the black with a finger.
April sighs and mercifully relents. “Yeah. I only use the cups when I have company, but the teapot is… I mean I don’t have a lot of them. I didn’t drink a lot of tea before I met you four, but it’s still my favorite. I use it all the time and there’s never been any cracks or issues with the bonding.”
“I’m glad,” he replies, and even without the tea the warmth is back in his chest as he continues to trace the golden cracks.
Donnie had been the one to find the set in the landfill. Three cups and the pot, though they’re pretty sure there were originally four. There had been minuscule bits of sharp earthenware scattered all around where Donnie had found it, like a pile of dangerous black sand. None of those tiny pieces matched any of the existing cups or the pot, and there hadn’t been enough to make a full other cup, so they couldn’t know for sure, but really, what else could it be?
The mystery didn’t matter much anyway. Something so quality so intact was always a great find, and Donnie didn’t hesitate to gather it all up into his duffel. He’d planned to repair it as he usually did. Glue and paint to hide any cracks, but Leo had taken one look and demanded it become a joint project
They practiced for weeks, following YouTube tutorials, public library books, on any dish they could get their hands on. They weren’t perfect. Leo can see the little bumps and blips in the gold even now, but they’re still beautiful, stunning really. Gold against black is always such a brilliant contrast.
“Leonardo?” His eyes lift and sees that April’s slight frown is accompanied by a furrowed brow now. “The tea still has a minute left, but if you don’t start talking, I’m going to start pouring.” Her tone is mostly worry, but there’s also the smallest bite of annoyed anger there too.
He sets the cup down, taking in the table as he does. Then he puts as much apology as he can into his smile. “Sugar?”
“Leo!”
“Okay that one isn’t a stall. I really—“
“Ugh! Yeah, I remember that too. Fine then. I’m grabbing it, but only ‘cause it’s still steeping.” She gets up, all forceful and irate, then stomps off to the kitchen, calling over her shoulder as she does, ”I swear to god Leo, if I come back and you’ve done the ninja disappearing thing I am going to be so mad.”
He considers it. He even stares out the window. He still isn’t sure if he’s ready to do this, but then he thinks about the look on Usagi’s face and how fiercely he tried to hide the dejected shadows there. He really does need… no, more important than that, he wants April’s help. He wants to understand exactly what went wrong. He wants to know how to make the clunky weirdness go away. He wants Usagi to smile at him like that again, like all his cracks and flaws and scars have been filled with brilliant, beautiful gold, like he did before Leo’s… everything ruined it all.
So he stays. April comes back with the sugar and a relieved kind of sigh. “Thank you.”
He smiles again, still all shrinking apologies.
She smiles back, and even if the grin is a tight one, it’s clear enough that she’s only this upset because she cares. “Now,” she says as she picks up the pot, “I am going to pour tea and you are going to talk.”
“Is that—“
“Leonardo.” She starts pouring. Her voice brooks no argument. Leo nods.
“Right um… where to start. Well. Usagi— he. I mean, I was sort of—” Leo realizes only now that he’s unsure if he ever actually officially came out to April. She knows. She has to. His brothers tease too much about celebrity and cartoon crushes for her not to. He’s pretty sure she’s even gotten in on it once or twice, but he still can’t quite recall if he ever said the words ‘I’m gay’ to her specifically.
There’s nothing for it now though, and he knows that of all of his family, she isn’t about to judge. Still, he waits for her to finish pouring the steaming hot tea. “We… we kissed.”
Her expression doesn’t even change.
“And?”
“And? And! We kissed! I mean, I— wasn’t even. Really expecting it? Usagi is a good, great friend, but we were gazing at the stars and— why aren’t you more freaked out by this! I kissed someone! My first kiss! With another guy!”
She raises a slim, perfect eyebrow. “Leo, I know you’re gay. You really think I’d have a problem with it?”
“Well! No but… I mean. Usagi and I are really good friends but— I mean that’s kind of all we are and… and I thought this would be a bigger deal!”
She blows on her cup of tea, then begins dropping little teaspoons of sugar into it, responding as she does. “Leo, you’ve had a very obvious crush on Usagi ever since you met him at the battle nexus. I’m pretty sure Raph and Casey had started taking bets on when you’d make your move.” She pauses, another little pile of sugar poised above her cup. “Or was it who would make the first move?”
“Bets…?” Leo murmurs.
“Anyway, you kissed! That’s— well isn’t that a good thing?”
“Wait, what was that about bets?”
“Ask Raph or Casey. Or maybe Donnie. I think he might have been facilitating formal odds or something.” She waves off the idea of a gambling ring based on his romantic status with a flick of her fingers. “Why isn’t this a good thing? You looked downright devastated.”
He opens his mouth to ask about the gambling again. Then shuts it. Later. He’ll be having words with all of them. Later.
“It was a good thing. Or I think it was a good thing. It just didn’t… didn’t feel right.”
She smiles like she understands, which means that she doesn’t. Not yet anyway. “Look, I hate to break it to you, but first kisses are never like the movies. My first kiss was messy. I’m sure Casey’s was too. Noses bump, teeth crack together, heck my sister ended up getting her braces tangled up and locked together with another set! She and the guy were both mortified. I don’t think I’ve seen her face that red since.”
Leo’s nose scrunches up. “Really?”
“Yep. They had to make an emergency orthodontist appointment. But hey! She laughs about it now. Whatever happened, I’m sure in a couple years it’ll probably just seem funny.” Her smile is still all sympathetic understanding, which is sweet, but if this were just about awkward mistakes, he wouldn't have come to her. He probably wouldn’t have gone to anyone. He knows what he wants to ask, but he also knows once the question leaves his lips there’s no stuffing it back in. There’s no pretending like he didn’t know what he meant.
He bites his lip and tiptoes toward the line anyway, hoping he can get the answers he wants without tripping over it, knowing that’s probably impossible. “It wasn’t that. Not really. I mean… it was kinda perfect at first, y’know? He was really gentle with me and…” he goes back to inspecting the teapot. He just can’t look April in the eye when he says, “I mean, he’s soft. He’s a rabbit so that only makes sense. And that was nice. But…”
“Did he push you too far?” April asks.
Leo can’t see her expression. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to. Especially when he shakes his head and responds. “No. I pushed. I shifted and it was all—“ how can he express it without the reality crashing down? If he says the words, if April figures it out, it all becomes real and the barriers, the obstacles, every single potential ‘you can’t’ becomes possible.
Something clogs in his throat. That’s why he came here. Because April would understand, would help him mourn all the impossibilities. He swallows. “He’s older than me. By almost three years. He has more experience, more training. He’s wise and clever and I really admire him. Most of the time it’s like he’s larger than life, y’know? This sword master samurai who for some reason thinks I’m worth being around.”
“Leo—“ he hears the consoling tone in her voice and holds up a hand.
“That isn’t— I’m not done.” He takes a breath. He can guess what she sees, what she’s thinking, and she isn’t entirely wrong. It’s why he doesn’t think his recovery is over. He still hates himself. The reasons have just shifted a bit to the left. “Usagi… he’s also shorter than me. If you count the ears it isn’t by much but even with all that training he’s compact and small. And I’m.” He stares at his bulky, three fingered hand. “I just don’t usually notice it. With the presence he has, with the extra experience and maturity. But I pushed, just a little, and he let me. I had a hand on his cheek and I leaned in and he just folded. Then all I could feel, all I could think about was how— all the ways I’m bigger and clunkier and—“ he clenches his fingers into a heavy wrecking ball. His throat is stuck again, even when he swallows. He knows he wants to cry, but it’s all just lodged and immovable. Another weighty part of him.
April is silent for several long beats, but when she finally does speak, it’s with the horrendous, crushing kind of understanding he’s been so desperate to avoid. “Oh. Oh, Leo…”
He rushes ahead before she can offer anything. Before she can say it either. “How did you know? You know, for sure? That you wanted…” He can’t say it. He can’t speak it into existence. He isn’t strong enough to crush such a fragile, delicate wish. One he’s been holding in his heart longer than he realized. April does it for him.
“That I wanted to be a girl?”
He winces. Then nods. The fear is so horrifically real, but when he opens his wet eyes, he sees that miraculously, the world hasn’t crumbled around him.
April is even smiling at him. She’s reaching out a hand. Now she knows, now she sees, and to Leo’s surprise she doesn’t look consoling or sad like he expected. Her smile is joy and excitement more than anything, genuine and bright. “I think you might already know the answer to that question.”
He swallows. He nods. He brushes away the tears in his eyes before they can finally fall, staining his wrist wraps with salt and despair. “Don’t tell anyone.” He whispers through the heavy thickness in his throat.
April looks confused for a moment, but she nods. “Your secret’s safe with me, but… do you really think your family will care?” Then she pauses, and seems to realize something else. “Will Usagi care? Is that what this is about? Cause if he won’t accept you as a woman, take it from me, he isn’t worth it.”
Leonardo blinks for several moments. He honestly had never even thought about it. Usagi comes from an entirely different culture, one that’s missing over five hundred years of cultural baggage and interaction with western traditions and beliefs. Clearly if he kissed Leo, he doesn’t entirely consider himself straight, but the modern cultural connotations of that word are probably lost on him anyway. Leo hasn’t exactly taken the time to explain the Stonewall Riots to his extra-dimensional, early-Edo-period crush.
“Uh— I don’t. I mean, It might surprise him, but I don’t think… I mean I’m not even sure how odd that would be to him, y’know? He lives in an entirely different dimension that I’ve only experienced for a little over six months. He’s— I’d like to think I know him well enough to know that he wouldn’t— he’d accept— he would be—“ how did he word this?
“He wouldn’t lose any respect for you?” April offers and Leo nods once, sharp and sure.
“Then are you just— I mean if you aren’t ready that’s fine. I shouldn’t judge. I just— I want to understand why you feel that way so maybe I can help.”
The puffing wheeze of air escapes Leo’s lungs before he can help it. It’s not a laugh, not a cough, it’s more pathetic and painful than either of those. “There’s— you can’t help. That’s the problem.”
“I—“ April’s mouth presses into a flat line. Now she looks really confused. “Look I don’t mean to toot my own horn or whatever, but I have kind of done all this before. If you have questions about— about any of it really! Hormones, blockers, make-up. You don’t have to change your name legally so that’s nice, but if you want ideas I already have some rattling around! I don’t know every little thing, but I’m here and I know a lot. I could even like— if you need me for moral support when you tell the fam, or heck even Usagi. I’ve gone to a different dimension before. I can do it again.”
It’s all so sweet and supportive that it makes a couple more tears fall. An inane detail floats up to the top. Something he’s thought about longer than he wants to admit. “I already had a name in mind actually…” Mikey had given him the idea inadvertently while babbling about some comic when they were… eleven? Twelve? Something like that.
His brother had bounced in his seat at the dinner table, telling them all about the superheroine who channeled the sun’s immense power to defeat her enemies. Going from how her supernatural abilities worked, to her armored outfit, to her secret identity and normal human job. He’d asked Mikey to repeat that last one, and then smiled at how something so similar to his own name could be so beautiful and elegant.
Back in the present, April beams at him with the same solar power Leona uses to fight villainy. “Really? That’s awesome! What were you thinking?”
Leonardo’s brain communicates to his body that a dire mistake has been made and he feels every single one of his muscles tense. From the outside it probably looks like a flinch, and he watches as the bright sun of April’s smile dims and then flickers out. She’s faster to recover this time though.
She takes a breath and holds out both hands in surrender. “Sorry, sorry. I know this is a lot. I’m being a lot and changing your whole life around is already scary. I just— I dealt with the beginning scary bits when I was like thirteen and… well to be honest I thought the whole mutant turtle thing would take the bite out of the whole gender thing.” She waves her hands in a way that hints at sculpting something amorphous.
“But you’ve had your whole life to get used to the shell and scales and weird glowing mutagenic mystery substances whereas this— this is all new. And new is always gonna take some adjustment time. So, take as long as you need, okay? But when you wanna lay it all out, I’ll be here.” She reaches out again, only this time, she bends herself forward, not offering a hand but setting her small delicate fingers on Leo’s own clunky, twiddling digits.
This time, he really does flinch. Away from her.
As April responds with her own flinch back, Leo stands up, shoving himself out of the chair, almost spilling his tea.
“Leo I—“
“I shouldn’t have said anything.” He thought, he oh so foolishly believed she would get it, but her ideas are grandiose, bright hope like Michelangelo might be. Like, Usagi might have been if he’d shared?
His friend had spent the last six months trying to get him to see all the little spots of shining joy in the world. Usagi hadn’t babied him, hadn’t told Leo it would all work out or be okay in the end. He’d acknowledged that fear and failure were simple inevitabilities. But then he’d turned Leo’s eyes to all he’d been missing. The little beautiful sights, sounds, tastes and feelings of the world. He’d urged Leo onward with those, telling Leo that’s how he’d avoided giving into despair years ago, when his lord was killed.
There had always been something out of reach though. A chain around Leo’s heart that he hadn’t fully felt until the other crushing weights had started to lighten in Usagi’s company. He knew Michelangelo wouldn’t see the truth of it, suspected Usagi wouldn’t, but April was a scientist and knew so much more than the little bits Leo had hunted down through the private browsing tabs on Don’s computer at seventeen.
Raph and Master Splinter probably wouldn’t have understood at all, which was fine but not useful. And Donnie would know. For certain, irrevocably. Donnie could, would shatter every fragile hope and dream without even trying to. And that was so painful Leo tried his damndest to not ever think about it.
He’d gambled on April O’Neil gentle tact not hurting as much as Don’s assured decree and made the wrong bet. Now he had to leave. Right now.
Only his chest is soaking in surprise and what he knows is wrongfully placed betrayal. He stumbles toward the window, but April is already there, hands held out again. Not a surrender this time but a barrier.
“Leo, wait! Please. What— I didn’t mean to rush you or… or try to force things. I’m just trying to help. I promise.”
He swallows. “Move.” She doesn’t get it. He has to leave.
“Leo. Please. Just talk to me.”
Something boils over. He wants the frustration, anger, despair, horror, pain to come out as tears. He wishes it could. Instead, it comes out as words, loud and unwieldy and too deep and too honest. “ Talk to you? What, so you can not listen to me again?”
“What?” April can only manage that one word, quiet and hollow.
“You can’t help April! There is nothing you can do that will magically fix this. I’m not—“ he growls. Doesn’t she see the obvious? It’s right in front of her after all.
“Leo, what are you talking about? There’s all sorts of treatments and exercises and—“
“April, I’m a mutant turtle! I’m an— an anomaly! A fluke! Our bodies don’t work the same as a normal human’s. We have no idea how prescribed estrogen and hormone blockers would affect me. If— if they even would.” He clenches his fists. “Where would I even get it? Am I just going to start stealing it from someone else? In the same dose? Every single month? Like that wouldn’t get suspicious!” Then he splays out his fingers much like she is. “Even if it did work, there isn’t some magical fix for these! For— for who I am. For all the ways I’m too—“
April takes his hands. Grabs them, squeezes them tight for multiple beats before responding, “Leonardo. Is the talking turtle who just came back from another dimension about to tell me her becoming the woman she wants to be is impossible?”
“I…” Leonardo hadn’t ever really thought of it like that, hadn’t really ever compared this to the other impossibilities of his life. His family had experienced some truly astounding things, but getting thrown through time and space, finding the lost city of Atlantis, overthrowing an alien empire. Those had all been dangers, near deaths. All turtle luck, true to form. There are very few things he or his brothers have stumbled into that feel truly miraculous or fortunate, and most of what comes to mind at the moment involves warm pink-red eyes and blue swirling pools of light. He doesn’t expect, can’t imagine, another stroke of luck like Usagi again. That just isn’t how his life works.
“Leo, you have three tremendously geeky science freaks on your side, one of whom is the world’s preeminent expert on mutated turtle biology.”
Leo holds up a finger, and repeats a favorite line of Donatello’s, “I’m an engineer, not a medical doctor.”
“Yeah and we both know that’s bullshit.” Leo blinks at her owlishly, not quite absorbing the fact she just cursed. April resorting to foul language to refute Donatello of all people almost felt like a crime. “He’s kept all four of you alive for twenty years, he’s stitched you all up more times than even he can count, and sometimes he’ll just, casually mention setting an extreme compound fracture or doing an in-the-field blood transfusion. Just because he prefers machines doesn’t mean he isn’t an expert in biology out of necessity. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a file stashed somewhere with regularly updated blood counts and cholesterol levels for the four of you. And Splinter. Especially Splinter actually.”
Leo can’t argue with that. April is right. They both know that Don has done something stupidly tough or miraculous in every field he‘s touched. They also know he’s overly paranoid and has nearly driven himself insane with sleep deprivation when hunting down answers. They call him a mad genius for a reason. Still. “That doesn’t mean he’s about to become my long term endocrinologist April. He has more important—“
“More important things than his big sister’s happiness?”
“We don’t even know—“
“Uh uh uh. Leo. Stop. Would it make you feel better about yourself? Would it make you happy?” She still has a hand on Leo’s cloth wrapped wrists. She squeezes them now.
“I— the hormones?” Maybe? Probably? That’s what the hope is.
“ All of it Leo. The hormones yeah but… dressing different maybe? The she/her pronouns. I noticed you didn’t correct me on those by the way.”
Leo felt heat rush to their face. They thought April was just being kind. Maybe she was.
“Being the older sister instead of the older brother. Being Splinter’s daughter. Being… I don’t know, Usagi’s girlfriend maybe? You don’t exactly have a normal life so…”
Leo loses track of what April is saying for a moment. They don’t use Donnie’s computer that often, but it’s a cobbled together thing they’ve seen blue screen many times. Leo’s pretty sure that’s what’s happening now. Girlfriend. Girlfriend. Girlfriend.
They blink and reset their motherboard, or hard drive, or whatever is the correct metaphor.
“…no matter what you’ll have a huge network of support right there with you.”
“I— I know. I know that. It’s… that is great, but again. Mutant turtle. There’s no guarantee that any kind of…” a deep breath, “I’ve thought a lot about this April and if I’m doing it, I’m not doing it halfway. I know– I know I’d want the hormones April, I just don’t know if—“
April moves her hands from their wrists to their shoulders. Leo looks up into eyes that are all green warmth and kindness. “Will it make you happy?”
Leo’s hand goes to their mask tails, fidgeting with them. They stop to really think about that question. Immediately girlfriend comes to mind again. They imagine Usagi saying it and have to move on before some other metaphorical machinery bursts into spectacular flames. It isn’t just that anyway. Sister. Daughter. She. Her. Leona. She finds the smile on her face more than she makes it happen.
A disbelieving, unsure chuckle leaves her mouth. “Yeah. Yeah, I think it will.”
“Then that’s all that matters. Whatever it takes, we’ll make it happen. Okay?”
There’s something stuck in her throat again. This time it doesn’t feel as heavy. “Okay. Thanks, April.”