Chapter Text
Leo’s head was pounding. What the heck just hit him?
He blinked up at a dark purple sky, the mass of ominously swirling clouds seemingly centered directly above him. Strange. Wasn’t the Hidden City underground? How did they have weather phenomena like this down here? Maybe it was just a Witch Town thing.
Whatever. He sat up, rubbing his aching head. What happened to him? The last thing he remembered was…
A witch. That’s right, some random witch had approached him, threatening him for showing his face in this place again. But, he’d never been to Witch Town before? As far as he knew, only April and Donnie had been to Witch Town, and although he didn’t know the fine details, he knew the trip landed the pair in a jail cell with himself, their big bro Raph and one Baron Draxum.
Oh. So this had been a case of mistaken identity, huh? He’d have to go rip into Donnie about this as soon as they met up again. Speaking of...
He checked the time on his phone. Shoot, it was already five minutes past their decided meeting time. He quickly stood and reached behind him for one of his swords. He swiped it through the air, creating a blue portal leading to the meetup spot at the Turtle Tank.
“Heeeey, fam! Sorry I’m la—” he paused mid sentence. The tank wasn’t here. It wasn’t even anywhere in sight. No one was.
This was the meetup location, right? He took a moment to study his surroundings, recognizing not only the welcome center before him, the Crying Titan in the distance, and the very specific, very large tire tracks of what was obviously the turtle tank. Did they just… leave him? Did they actually ditch him? Sure, he could just portal back home and probably even beat them there. But! What if he was in trouble? They’d be miles away when he needed them. He’s the leader, for crying out loud! They can’t be making executive decisions like this without him. What if they hit a spot of trouble on the way home and he—again, the leader—wasn’t there to lead them? Talk about rude.
Originally, Donnie was going to be the one to get an earful when he got home, but now? Oho, now they were all in for it. Splinter and April included.
He sliced another portal into existence and stepped through, emerging into his bedroom. He dropped his weapons on his bed, then began unwrapping the tape around his hands and arms. He’d bet the others weren’t home yet, if the silence of the lair was anything to go by.
He fell back on his bed, grabbing the manga he’d been reading off a shelf beside him. He’d found a whole series in a dumpster topside, could you believe it! Who would throw out a perfectly good manga set like this? Absurd! He’d managed to sneak it back to the lair without his brothers noticing. Yes, there was some action in them, but they were more specifically a shoujo manga, and his brothers did not need to hold that blackmail over his head.
It wasn’t much longer after he'd settled in before the sound of chatter entered the lair, signaling his family’s arrival home. He bookmarked his manga before tossing it aside, quickly hopping up to greet (read: scold) his family. Oh boy, were they about to get an earful.
The door to his room slid open, and he stepped out, only for the eyes of everyone to instantly turn on him. It was almost unsettling the way every head turned to him simultaneously, reminiscent of a horror film. Nonetheless, ignoring their weirdness (not too out of the ordinary for the Hamatos, truly), he opted to roll with it.
“Yeah, you jerks forget something?” he snarked, folding his arms as he leaned up against his train car with a smirk.
In an instant, a massive hand grabbed him by the face and had him pressed hard against the wall of the train car in a vice grip. Leo’s hands flew up to pry it off, but there was no give. Raph had always been the strongest of the brothers, but he’d been the gentlest as well.
“Who are you, and how did you get in here?! And why do ya look like us?” Raph demanded, voice low and gravelly. His grip on Leo’s face didn’t lessen even a little.
“R-Raph, what?” he stuttered pathetically, mind still trying to catch up.
“How do you know Raph’s name?” Raph continued, growling out each word.
“This isn’t funny!”
Leo managed to move one of the big guy’s fingers enough to peek between them. Donnie moved forward, looking his twin up and down as if studying him. He had his bo in hand, ready to use it in a moment’s notice. “It’s like us,” Don spoke quietly, as though talking to himself. “A turtle, and a red-eared slider by the looks of it. Another creation of Baron Draxum like us? Or another plot to infiltrate us by Big Mama? It could be wearing a cloaking brooch. Mike, help me find one."
“Donnie, please, what kind of joke is this?” Leo practically begged. “First you guys ditch me in the Hidden City, now this?”
Donnie opts to ignore him, carrying forward in his observations. He dropped his goggles onto his beak and began to study Leo more closely. “A telepathic yokai ability, reading our minds? Or has it been observing us to gain intel?”
“Intel?” Leo scoffed. “Donnie—guys, seriously, just—stop! This is a very elaborate joke, ha-ha or whatever, but I’m over it. I’ve had a really long day, so can you please put me down? And stop calling me an 'it'! I'm your brother.”
“No more talk.” Raph’s steely grip tightened, covering his beak so he couldn’t speak. Leo felt himself beginning to panic as his mind conjured up memories of only a few months ago. His chest heaved just like it did back then, when Raph was being controlled by the Kraang parasite and nearly killed Leo. His breath was caught like it had been as Raph’s slimy Kraang arm wrapped around his neck, lifting him off his feet, and cut off his oxygen.
Leo let his arms fall to his sides like he had back then. Maybe Raph would see he was serious, this prank wasn’t funny and they were taking it way too far. He could feel himself shaking uncontrollably as the panic attack started to set in.
“Wait, guys…” Mikey spoke up uncertainly from somewhere Leo couldn’t see. “Doesn’t this seem weird to you? He’s dressed just like us.”
“Mikey, how can we trust it? Because it’s dressed like us? We can’t just let a stranger—an intruder—into our home,” Donnie said.
S-stranger?
“Raphael, put him down,” came the voice of Splinter, their father. He said the words sternly, and Raph didn’t hesitate to drop the slider.
Leo gasped as the hand released him, finally able to suck in a big breath. He barely felt himself hit the ground, landing hard on his tail. He pulled his shaking hands close to him, rubbing up and down his arms like he always did when he was alone and on the verge of a panic attack. Usually he had one of his brothers around to do this for him, to help coo him out of his anxiety, but he didn’t get the feeling they were going to be much help right now.
It was his dad who approached him next, kneeling down beside his son. “You’re okay,” Splinter spoke softly to him, but not daring to touch him. “No one is going to hurt you, blue one. Just breathe. In—one, two, three, four… And out—one, two, three, four.”
Leo followed along with his counting for the next couple of minutes, although it could have been longer with how foggy and addled his brain currently felt. He was still shaky, but less so, and he could breathe properly again. He no longer felt on the verge of passing out. He wanted more than anything to hug his father right now, but something in the back of his mind told him it wasn’t a good idea in front of his disbelieving brothers.
“I’m okay,” Leo said breathily once he was comfortable enough to continue. “I-I, uh, don’t understand what's happening.”
“Yeah, seems to be the theme,” Donnie said bitterly. “You want to tell us how you got in here now?”
“Hush, Purple,” Splinter commanded, to which Donnie rolled his eyes. The rat looked into Leo’s eyes, unnerving him, and spoke in as calm a voice as the turtle had ever heard from him. “Tell me, Blue. Do I have a fourth son I don’t remember?”
And that was it, wasn’t it? None of them remembered him. For whatever reason, not one of the people he’d grown up with, spent his entire life with, sacrificed himself for… remembered him.
Leo could only blink up at his father. His throat bobbed as he tried to form words, but none would come. He finally nodded.
“Mm, so it seems. We will figure this out, my son.” Splinter patted him on the knee, the first real form of affectionate touch since this all started.
“Dad,” Raph said, voice low in warning. “You sure we can just… trust him?”
Splinter grunted as he rose to his feet. “No. But, even if this turns out to be a mistake, mistakes are a part of life, they are how we learn. And this is a mistake I am willing to make.”
Leo’s eyes glistened as he looked up at his father. Sometimes he forgot how wise Splinter was, deep down. Like, way deep down. So deep that if you threw a rock in it, it would echo.
“Papá, have you perhaps considered that we, your sons, are not comfortable with this?” Donnie questioned, arms crossed and one of his penciled-on eyebrows raised.
“Do you boys not trust me?”
That made the three straighten up. “No, dad, of course we do,” Raph said, twiddling his thumbs nervously. “It’s just, how could we forget our own brother?”
“Scientifically speaking,” Donnie butted in, rapidly tapping away at his wrist tech, “there is a zero-point-zero-zero-zero-zero-five percent chance we could all four forget our own sibling at the same exact time.”
“I don’t know, guys,” Mikey spoke up, unable to look them in the eyes. He was toeing at a scuff on the cement floor. “I think it might be kind of cool to have a fourth brother.”
Raph sighed. “We can’t just adopt him into the family 'cause he's a turtle like us. Again, this could be a trick by Big Mama or one 'a the many other villains who equally dislike us.”
“You’re not ‘adopting’ me because I’m already your brother,” Leo finally joined in on the conversation, pulling himself up on wobbly legs while using an arm to lean against the train car. He didn’t like being looked down on. “I’ve been a part of this family since we were kids—since we were mutated together by Baron Draxum! I’ve been there with you guys through everything. I helped to defeat the Shredder, and I’m always there to fight Big Mama, and I was there when we fought the Kraang!”
Everyone’s eyes were on him as he panted, still not totally back to one-hundred percent after his panic attack. Leo huffed, hobbling his way past the group towards the kitchen. “‘m making a sandwich.”
“Not so fast, little guy,” Raph said, catching Leo by the arm.
The slider jerked his arm away. “Little guy?” he scoffed. “I’m literally the leader.”
At this, Raph chuckled darkly. “Pipsqueak like you? Leader? Sure.”
Leo finally felt the tears building up that he’d been fighting for so long now. He swallowed down the lump in his throat, then hissed, “What will it take for you to believe me? Is it really that hard to believe? After all the impossible stuff we’ve been through, this is the thing out of the realm of possibility?”
“If this is true," Donnie interjected, "you really are our brother and we’ve all somehow magically forgotten your existence, something must have triggered this phenomenon. Has anything happened recently that could have caused it?”
His mind jumped back to the witch from earlier. He didn’t remember her performing any spells, but he also didn’t remember what happened between her threatening him for showing his face around there and him waking up on the ground with a throbbing headache. If anyone had amnesia, it should have been him, not his family.
He shook his head. “I think I hit my head earlier. I don’t remember what happened, but I vaguely remember a witch yelling at me for something Donnie did in Witch Town." Voice low, he added, "I think I might have a concussion.”
Splinter pursed his lips. “This is a good lead. You boys should look into it.”
“First, Raph wants to ask a few questions and call a family meeting,” Raph interrupted. “There’s no way everyone could have forgotten him, if he really is our brother.”
Leo clenched his fists. Why was it so hard for his brothers to accept? It was starting to feel like they didn’t want to accept it. At least Mikey wasn’t totally against the idea. “Fine. I’ve got a headache, so I’ll just be in my room. Call me when everyone gets here, I guess.”
"His... room?" he heard Donnie mutter in question behind him as the slider turned his back to them.
“Wait!” Mikey called out to him, causing Leo to stop to hear him out. “Um, could we know your name?”
Leo blinked, facing away from them as the waterworks threatened to spill once more. He didn’t know why that hit him so hard. They really couldn’t remember him at all, huh?
“Hamato Leonardo," he answered. And with that, he pulled back the blue curtain to his personal train car and disappeared into his room.