#tmnt fic

April is no stranger to disaster. She’s battled ninjas. She’s had close encounters of countless kinds. She’s more or less acclimated to the apprehension.

In this new and violent world she’d been thrust into, she could count on a new threat around every corner. Budding psychic powers aside, it was easy now for her to see a storm brewing.

April had spent the majority of the year running from the facts, which, she discovered, typically only exacerbated them. Maybe that was why she’d lost so much sleep, unable to shake the unease. Confronted left and right with facts she had no idea how to face, and quite honestly, didn’t want to.

Casey could only stand her restlessness for a total of four nights. He’d spent the rest since then sleeping on the couch in the den.

She never thought to apologize about the inner turmoil. Why would she? The inevitable return from the farmhouse loomed in the future, a bleak, sharp-toothed shadow that wedged itself between her and rationality whenever it could. Casey’s wordless descent downstairs every night felt more indignant than any amount of tossing and turning on her end.

Anyway, he snored, and she preferred the quiet.

The insomnia meant she now spent her days sleep-deprived and distant, mulling over the events of late. The particular brand of disaster that, apparently, would accompany her and the rest of this motley crew to the ends of the earth, is… novel, to say the least. April’s used to that too, at this point; she’s almost certain nothing could surprise her, in fact.

The whole ordeal with Dad being mutated (and subsequently retromutated). Surviving invasion. Psychic powers, all on top of this new.. thing with Casey.

For sixteen years old, she’d had her fair share of odd experiences.

…Still. Bigfoot is a new one.

Mikey swings the door open one afternoon, grinning like an idiot, and ushers in his newest rescue, whose forehead sends the chandelier in the foyer swinging.

Donnie follows straight after the newcomer, sheepish and waving a tiny hello at April. Raph mouths a silent apology to her for interrupting whatever bickering had Casey still scrunching his face like he’d swallowed a lemon. And then, before she can say a word, April’s swept up in the brothers’ bustle, while she brings her temper back to a simmer and fetches the first aid kit.

She’s hot under the collar the whole evening, chewing on repressed barbs. Casey’s too busy tossing around banter with Raph to notice her pointed side eye. Leo’s in the middle of reasoning with Mikey that no, Bigfoot will not be crashing in the living room. And Don is already lost in his own deductions, his brain vibrating at that familiar frequency that feels like a comforting buzz at the back of her skull.

April’s not sure whether it’s because of this new Spidey sense. Or because the boys are all too distracted to notice. Maybe feminine intuition - she remembered her mother promising something about that coming around, eventually.

Whatever the reason, she’s the only one to clock it.

But it’s undeniable.

Bigfoot cannot stand Donatello.

The sasquatch is bristling the entire time he’s patching up her gash. Don is describing the entire cleaning process, like any woodland cryptid can understand the ‘necessity for debridement’. By the time he starts blathering about proper wound care Bigfoot looks positively bewildered, scowling at him in disdain and fiddling with the gauze that had been cinched too tight for her liking.

It continues that way as they settle her into the barn. Donnie crowds in to fuss over the bandages one last time, while Bigfoot tries to shake him off so she can enjoy the rest of Mikey’s bedtime story. She gives a warning grumble, enough to make Donnie back off.