Chapter Text
The lair was unusually still that night.
The hum of the city above usually seeped through the walls—subway cars rumbling, traffic horns blaring, muffled laughter and life spilling into the underground home—but lately, it all seemed muted. Quieter. As if even New York itself knew not to disturb the Hamato Clan while they tried to piece themselves back together.
Leo leaned against the cool frame of Donnie’s lab door, arms crossed loosely over his plastron. The glow of dozens of screens lit up the dim room, each one alive with schematics, graphs, half-finished code, and mechanical diagrams that only Donatello Hamato could make sense of. The soft whirring of drones filled the silence like a lullaby.
And in the middle of it all, his twin sat hunched over a workbench, goggles in place, tools clicking furiously as his hands danced with restless precision.
“Y’know, Dee,” Leo began lightly, voice carrying the familiar lilt of humor he’d perfected, “normal people would’ve taken a break by now. Maybe joined the rest of the family for movie night, watched a little ‘Jupiter Jim,’ eaten a questionable amount of pizza rolls. Ringing any bells?”
Donnie didn’t look up.
Leo shifted his weight and tried again. “I mean, come on. Even I took a break once upon a time. And you wouldn’t want me beating you at the ‘healthiest twin’ competition, would you?”
Nothing.
The faint smile on Leo’s face flickered.
For weeks, he’d been met with the same silence, the same deflections, the same weight pressing between them. Donnie buried himself in work, as if building more machines could shield them from everything that had already happened. As if fixing things on the outside would erase what was broken on the inside.
Leo pushed off the doorframe and stepped inside. “Okay, seriously. What’s going on with you? You’ve been in here twenty-four-seven, and last I checked, even genius softshells need, like, food. And sleep. And maybe a social life?”
Still no reaction.
Leo sighed, walking past one of the cluttered tables. His hand brushed against a stack of parts, and before he could steady it, a small device at the edge tipped.
“Whoa—!”
The contraption tumbled from the table. It hit the floor with a sharp crack, glass shattering in a spiderweb of fractures.
Leo froze.
The sound snapped Donnie out of his work instantly. His head whipped up, eyes locking on the broken object. “NO!”
Leo bent down quickly, guilt already rising in his chest. “I—I didn’t mean to! Don, I’ll fix it, I swear—”
“That was irreplaceable!” Donnie’s voice cracked like a whip, sharp and raw. He pushed back from his chair, standing so abruptly it nearly toppled over.
Leo flinched at the tone. “I’m sorry! I didn’t realize—”
“It was a gift!” Donnie’s hands clenched at his sides. “From you, Leonardo. Do you even remember? You gave it to me years ago—one of the few things you ever actually thought through—and now it’s ruined because you can’t go five minutes without being careless!”
Leo’s stomach dropped. He remembered. He remembered saving for months to buy Donnie that rare piece of tech, the way his twin’s eyes had lit up at the sight of it.
“I… I didn’t…”
But Donnie wasn’t finished. His voice rose, the dam breaking. “This is what you do, Leo! You rush in, you joke, you act like life is just one big game—and then you wonder why everything falls apart around you! We are constantly cleaning up your messes!”
Leo’s throat closed. He stepped back, chest tightening. “Donnie…”
“And you know what?” Donnie’s voice shook, but the words still came out sharp as knives. “You lost the key, Leo! You lost it—and because of you, the world nearly ended. Because of you, we almost lost everything!”
Silence.
The words hung heavy in the lab, suffocating.
Leo’s heart stopped. He stared at his twin, unable to move, unable to breathe.
They had promised. They had all promised never to throw that back at him. Never to weaponize it. Never to remind him of the single, crushing mistake that haunted his every sleepless night.
And Donnie, his twin, had just broken it.
Leo’s eyes burned. “...You didn’t mean that.”
Donnie’s face faltered instantly, horror dawning as the truth of what he’d said hit him like a blade. “Leo—wait, I—”
But Leo was already gone.
He bolted out of the lab, the sound of his brother’s voice echoing behind him. The tears he’d fought so hard to bury finally slipped free, blurring the hallways as his footsteps carried him further away.
Donnie’s outstretched hand trembled in the empty air, the shattered gift still glittering across the floor like broken promises