Chapter Text
“Got your nose!”
Much to Raph’s irritation, another startled squeal followed the proclamation.
"So what are we supposed to do with him until this wears off and he's big again?" Raph demanded as he side-eyed the small form in Leo's arms.
Donnie examined Mikey’s palm with a scrunched face that revealed his confusion, fruitlessly trying to discover where the assumably stolen piece of his beak had gone.
For the first time in possibly years, Raph’s snide remark was met with utter silence. He turned his attention to their motionless statue of a fearless leader
The previous youngest brother pulled his hand away and made a show of pulling something out of his belt, abruptly booping the tiny olive green face. Both tiny arms jerked out in shock and Leo seemed to flinch with the sudden movement, his hold on the small form tightening.
Donnie threw both hands over his face and, upon finding the smooth bump of his beak, burst into giggles. Mikey was absolutely beaming and Raph only rolled his eyes.
He carefully knocked his fists into the shoulder of the brother who had yet to take his eyes off their current baby-brother. "Hello? Earth to sensei? Hello?"
Leo blinked twice as though dimly aware he was being spoken to. "Huh?"
Raph squinted at him. "You good?"
Leo’s gaze shifted back down to the turt in his arms and Donnie cocked his head, as though equally concerned about Leo's sudden brain death. "Yeah... Yeah, I'm- he's so small!"
Mikey and Raph exchanged an uncertain look.
Mikey spoke slowly and deliberately. "Yeah, dude. Babies are small."
Raph was tempted to backhand him for talking to the leader like he was the infant in the situation, but with how spacey and weird Leo was acting, he decided to let it slide.
"Yeah, I mean, I know, but..." Donnie squirmed in his cradled hold and Leo hurried to adjust him into a new position. "I mean, look at him."
Finally satisfied with this new placement with his head tucked against Leo's chest, Donnie yawned softly, revealing a familiar gap in a smaller mouth. Two fingers slipped in as a makeshift pacifier and he snuggled against the firm plastron, a soft churr filling the air.
All hearts in the room melted, though one of the hearts would never admit anything of the sort.
As if he'd been speaking all that time, Leo turned back towards them with a hesitant expression as he seemed to finish. "....You know?"
"Yeah." Mikey whispered as he patted Donnie's plastron. One of Donnie’s hands reached out to pat his wrist right back. Freckled face brightened again. "But Splinter took care of all of us. We can watch lil’ D until he gets big again. We got this."
To break the tension that followed their father’s name, he smirked over at the resident hothead. "Imagine if it had been Raph."
If Raph heard him, he didn't offer a reply, his absent gaze locked on the tiny form of their genius brother, as though abruptly processing Leo's point. There was a soft worry visible in the normally closed-off gaze, but no one acknowledged it.
Mikey pulled his hand back and Leo began rocking the seemingly fragile form in his arms when another yawn broke through.
Gentle eyes free from the horrors and struggles that they'd all experienced over the years, Donnie was more than happy to allow them to close, drifting off to subconscious safety of the surrounding turtles.
“Leo.”
The leader glanced up.
Raph met his gaze evenly, taking on Mikey’s deliberate tone. “We don’t know how to take care of a baby.”
Leo frowned as if catching on to what they’d been doing. Then he considered the statement. He glanced between them. “April?”
His younger brothers exchanged looks and then nodded in unison. “April.”