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It started with a random flash of blue light, a portal, and a really, really old looking turtle man with a scarf and a very cartoonish vibe dropping into the middle of Lea’s Space Heroes marathon.
“Who are you?!” she screeched, pulling out her spare ninja stars, hidden in her leg wraps. The old turtle guy just blinked at her, seemingly disoriented. But! She shouldn’t let her guard down. He just-appeared in the fucking lair! How’d he even do that?
Raphael was beside her side in a second, his own sais out and a feral snarl on his face. “How’d you get in here?” he growled, and Lea saw his anger issues surface again. Dangit, he’d been working with Mr. Kirby for months on controlling them.
This time, Scarf Guy(look, Mikey was the nickname person) raised his hands cautiously. “Hey, I dunno either! I haven’t been able to make portals in yearssss now. Also, where are we? I didn’t think that anybody could build a base in the sewers, I thought they were completely overrun with the Kraang…”
“WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE KRANG?” Mikey shouted, suddenly somersaulting over their siblings’ heads.
“That they’re big and ugly? Look like bubblegum? Think power is the absolute best? What kind of facts do you need?” he smirked, a practiced, relaxed demeanor overlaying the not-so-obvious tension that was all over the….mutant? Lea didn’t know there were any more mutants, except for those weird turtles from the past that kept shouting stupid catchphrases…
“Wait. Krang aren’t big,” Lea said out loud, her eyes narrowing as the realization came to mind.
“What do you mean?? They’re like 7 feet tall!” the turtle protested, the tension becoming slightly more obvious.
“You’re from a different universe,” Donnie gasped, almost getting Raph to stab him in the leg from shock. Oh shit, that made sense. Why did this always happen to them?
The other turtle seemed to have a crisis for a second before quickly composing himself. “What makes you say that?” His suspicion wasn’t easily noticeable, but Lea could just tell , somehow. He looked like he’d been through a lot, especially considering that one arm of his. Wait, the other turtles had had the same color-coding as them, and this turtle’s mask was blue…did that mean…?
“Well, you’re a mutant turtle, you wear a blue mask, you have this weird cartoonish vibe to you that makes you look kind of 2D, and according to the cameras, you came through a blue portal, which is very unlike any portals we have in our world. All of this evidence adds up to the hypothesis that you are from a different universe, and considering that we’ve already met other alternates in other universes, it makes sense that you would be a Leonardo…” Donatello continued infodumping, becoming more excited as he went on.
The other Leo(???) looked like he was going into shock at first, but then he started to look amused. “I’d think that this was a Kraang hallucination, but I don’t think they’re this creative,” he mused to himself. “That’s definitely a Donnie, anyways. Dangit, he was right about the multiverse, I owe him 5 bucks.” The turtle groaned and tilted his head backwards before sighing and looking at the four siblings with a tired smile.
“My ninpo is still repowering, so I hope you don’t mind if I stay here for a bit? I won’t cause problems, promise,” Leonardo joked. Lea’s siblings looked to her, Donnie with his pleading eyes, Raph with his “I will kill you” eyes, and Mikey with plainly curious eyes.
“Yes, that’s no problem. I am Hamato Leah, and these are my siblings, Hamato Donatello, Hamato Raphael, and Hamato Michelangelo.” She hesitated for a second, then volunteered, “I go by she/her, Donnie goes by he/they, Raph goes by he/him, and Mikey goes by they/them.”
Leonardo’s eyes seemed to-soften? He replied, “My name is Hamato Blue Leonardo, he/him. Nice to meet you.”
With a grumble, Raph went off to sulk in his room, clearly unhappy with Lea’s decision to let Leonardo stay. The interaction was done, anyways, and Leonardo was simply looking around at their Lair in curiosity. He still seemed very tense, but somehow-a little less?
Mikey went off to start on making dinner, and Donnie was still vibrating in excitement(it was kind of concerning, honestly), so Lea was left to make sure Leonardo felt at home. He was their guest, after all, and Sensei would have killed her if she wasn’t hospitable.
“I could…give you a tour of the Lair?” Lea offered, and Leonardo nodded gratefully. The two blue turtles walked quietly through the small house in the sewers, the silence only broken by Lea’s introductions of each room and Leo’s scattered jokes. (They were funnier than Lea expected, honestly. Her composure almost broke multiple times.)
“Hey, so…I don’t wanna assume anything, but you seemed nervous, back when you were saying your pronouns. I just wanted to ask, are you, y’know…” Leonardo made a gesture that she vaguely recognized, letting his glove-covered wrist go limp.
Lea stared at him for a second, dread slowly filling her entire being. “Why?” she asked defensively. She was…she hated to admit it, but she was kind of scared. She was terrified, actually, that she was the only trans Leonardo. That she was the only messed up one. The only weak one. The only one who couldn’t keep her family from getting hurt.
Leo’s face became frantic, but he covered it up with practiced ease and said in the most comforting tone Lea had ever heard, “Oh, no, I have nothing against trans folks, or turtles for that matter. I’m one myself, after all.”
Lea looked up at him slowly from her previous glare at the floor. “You’re…trans?” she questioned.
“Yeah, I am. I take it you’re trans, too? I suppose it’s a Leo thing throughout the multiverse then, hah,” he joked, as if he hadn’t just shattered Lea’s world and put it back together.
She blinked carefully. Damnit, she hadn’t made it through an alien apocalypse and Master Splinter’s death just to cry because her alternate was also trans. Do not cry, Lea, do not -
Lea started crying, and Leonardo swept her up in a hug, and she started crying even harder. Oh man, there went the eyeliner she’d put on this morning…
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” the older turtle soothed, and Lea didn’t know why she was still crying . At some point, the two had sat down in the middle of the dojo, the tree still swaying in the background and Master Splinter’s photo carefully positioned on the shelf next to Tang Shen’s. She wiped her face with her wraps, sitting in proper seiza position from habit.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, ashamed of her actions. She hadn’t meant to cry on Leonardo, why did she do that? Her mind slipped into a spiral.
“Nothing to apologize for,” Leonardo dismissed gently.
“...But isn’t there? I-I never even told Master Splinter. He’d have been so disappointed,” Lea mumbled. Why was she sharing this? Even her brothers didn’t know, why did she feel so comfortable talking to a random turtle she’d only met maybe 3 hours ago?
“I don’t know what your Splinter is like,” Leonardo spoke softly, leaning his shell against the wall. “But I doubt that he would have been disappointed. You found yourself. Isn’t that enough?”
“I don’t know,” Lea admitted, clearing her throat. The damn lump in it from her crying hadn’t gone away…
“It is,” Leonardo insisted, grabbing her gaze with his dark brown eyes, meeting her own blue ones. “It’s enough.”
Lea stood up and wiped her eyes. “Thanks,” she mumbled.
“Anytime,” Leonardo swore, and for some reason, she believed him.