#I think it's canon-level first aid post-battle kinda stuff

[deadlyflan]

TMNT Micro Fic #2

Leonardo limped back from kitchen and sighed one of those sighs. The kind of sigh that set Raphael’s teeth on edge. The kind of sigh that started Michelangelo preparing excuses. The kind of sigh that Donatello steeled himself not to take personally.

Picking his way through the paper wrappers, loose bottles, and cotton balls, Leonardo very carefully moved a handful of bandage wraps off the the sofa. He draped his ice pack over his elevated knee. Leo selected an unused and unspooled bandage and started to wind it. Pointedly. Silently. Very loudly judgmentally silently.

His brothers sagged over various other furniture and just as pointedly obviously ignored Leonardo’s accusatory tidying. They knew how it was. He was tired and injured post-battle. His base level of passive aggressive got aggressively passive aggressive when he was run down. His brothers, also battered and exhausted, simply did not have any more ‘team spirit’ left for cleaning.

He finished winding the bandages he could reach from the sofa. The silence stretched, and his brothers held their breath. Maybe Leo was satisfied? Maybe the ‘lead by example’ cleaning martyr routine was over? He had taken some serious hits this time. Maybe he was actually relaxing?

Leo stood up.

Dammit.

Maybe he just needed something to drink.

Crinkling sounds. Wrappers from bandaids and sterile gauze.

Raph’s eyes opened. He stared at the ceiling, counting down from 20. He could still feel his bloody nose draining into the back of his throat and his face felt like roadkill and here was his injured, idiot, neurotic brother limping around the freaking living room like a shell-backed Cinderella, gathering up loose bottles of disinfectant and trash while his very-necessary ice pack melted on the sofa—

Michelangelo called out lazily from the beanbag, “I read this funny thing on the internet the other day.” The smile in his pause was audible. A pretty good trick for a guy with fresh stitches. “Every corpse on Mt. Everest was once a Very Motivated(tm) person.”

Mikey applied ‘trademark’ to all the dead people on Everest and knocked Raph right out of his anger. He barked a laugh and snorted painfully before clutching his head. Chuckling and changing out the wad of gauze up his nose, Raph flashed a loose-toothed smile at Mikey. “Yeah. Mountaineer Leo, come back to base camp.”

Donatello giggled from the recliner, but didn’t sit up. Bruised ribs. He moaned. Shouldn’t have laughed.

“Oh for—I'm not asking you to climb mountains! Just clean up after yourselves!” Leonardo finally spoke! Even without looking, Donatello knew Leo’s hands were on his hips.

Raphael groaned, “We'll do it in the morning!”

“Yeah, Leo. We just saved the city.” Michelangelo wadded the paper from his gauze pads into a ball and threw it at Leo’s head.

He batted it away and glared at Mikey as if Michelangelo had just smacked trash into the hallway by himself! Such injustice! 

Since they were all registering complaints, Donatello added his. “Just let us bleed into our bandages for a second.” He was probably going to sleep in the recliner tonight. Soon. Now? Maybe now.

“We’ve all been hurt far worse! And the first aid kit is all over the room!”

“Your teeth are gonna be all over the ro—“

Michelangelo saved Leonardo’s teeth with a terrible betrayal. “Weren't you supposed to be icing your knee, Leo?”

“Gottfried Leibniz! Did he get up?” The recliner creaked ominously. “Leo. If you make me sit up to glare at you, I will zip tie you to a table.”

Leonardo made a tactical assessment. “Donnie, you couldn’t—“

“Okay. He couldn't." Michelangelo groped around for more trash to throw at Leo. "But Raph and I could.”

“Yeah. I’m in.” Raphael wiggled his nose. Had it stopped bleeding yet?

Leonardo limped back to his seat with poor grace. “Fine.” He repositioned his ice pack with the air of a sulky general in retreat. Sun Tzu’s Art of War had been silent on the topic of clutter but crystal clear on avoiding a fight with a superior force. Two against one put Leo back on the sofa.

Raphael rolled his watery eyes. “We'll get the mess later. Geez.”