The Perfect Apprentice

Rise!Donnie X Fem!Reader

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Things started out innocently.

April volunteered to be a tutor to high school student (Y/N) in order to obtain more credits. Soon, the young women learned that they had a lot more in common than they thought. Even after they completed their tutoring, the two would hang out frequently; (Y/N) eventually becoming an aid to April in exposing corrupt and unethical organizations.

Soon enough, though, the four-eyed teen revealed one of her biggest secrets to her partner in crime: April’s “foreign exchange student” friends. If someone had told (Y/N) that she was going to meet a bunch of walking, talking crime-fighting ninja turtles, she’d laugh in their face before questioning their sanity.

But now that she knew it was real, the girl couldn’t stop herself from asking the mutants question after question:

Who created you? What’s your diet like? Do you even need food? Why choose Martial Arts over another fighting style? (Y/N) wanted to know everything about each and every one of them.

Raphael, Leonardo, and Michelangelo didn’t really know how to answer most of her questions, but the purple clad turtle, Donatello, was very helpful.

The two of them became fast friends. (Y/N) would often help him in his lab, spending hours sometimes days tinkering away at whatever Donnie had been working on. During their downtime, the two would play video games or think about other inventions that would better society over a cup of coffee.

Eventually, something other than admiration began to consume their minds. And neither knew how to process it.

~~~

(Y/N) threw herself on her bed and sighed exasperatedly. Donnie was on her mind and she couldn’t shake him. He hadn’t even texted her and he still ran rampant in her head, consuming all the thoughts she had throughout the school day, the walk home, and now while she tried to rest.

It had been happening for the last two weeks. She noticed when she would practically sprint to her phone whenever a notification sounded off, hoping it was the mutant turtle genius asking her to come into the lair to help with another invention. Or (Y/N) would be making dinner and wonder if Donnie was hungry; maybe she could bring some food down to him.

Honestly, the teen questioned her sanity. Donnie was someone she almost idolized. He was extremely intelligent, always having a new plausible idea that (Y/N)’s peers just didn’t—no couldn’t—come up with. Not only that, but he enjoyed talking to her. She almost never had to ask him to work on a project. The turtle would text her nearly every day requesting her presence.

Donnie made (Y/N) feel wanted, and that’s what she liked the most about him.

So why did she feel so guilty about liking him? In general, it was because she didn’t want to ruin the friendship she cherished more than life itself. She felt like Donnie would have no problem cutting her —a human—out of his life.

(Y/N) could’ve have been more wrong.

~~~

Donnie was ten times the mess you were. The turtle caught himself pacing around his lab, fantasizing about his lab partner. Not dirty fantasies, but ones were he confessed to her and she received it well. But who was he kidding? Although he knew he was brilliant and probably one of the best scientists/engineers to every exist, he had to face the music:

(Y/N) was a human girl and he was a giant talking, bipedal turtle. A mutant. A freak of nature. What he was wasn’t natural; not even from Earth. There was no way (Y/N) would like someone like himself. On top of that, he wasn’t very physical and kind of emotionally inept. The purple turtle was also too caught up in his projects and experiments, and there were times where he would barely speak to (Y/N) when she was in the lab. Maybe the occasional “coffee?” or “did I leave the wrench over here?”, but besides that, no words were exchanged.

It made him almost angry. He knew he had to stop these feelings; tell that little voice in his head to pipe down and appreciate the girl as just a lab partner and no more. But every time he would shut the voice up, it would come back louder and louder, practically screaming at him to pursue his desires.

So Donnie conducted an experiment.

He knew April was the only one he could trust with this information, so the turtle recruited her. At first, she adamantly refused to do it, feeling like it was a set up.

“Look, I get you’re nervous and all, but don’t you think it’s a little weird to hook me up to a microphone so you can listen in?” April cocked an eyebrow at him. “Why can’t you just talk to her?”

Donnie gave the college student a pleading look. “It’s not that easy. It’s different for you, for humans.”

April sighed and shook her head. “Yeah, I get that. But it’s not like she doesn’t know you already, and she’s comfortable being around you. I don’t think it’s gonna be a bigger deal just because you’re a mutant.”

The purple clad turtle took a few seconds to process what his friend had said. It was somewhat true. When him and (Y/N) first met, she was more fascinated than frightened. She wanted to know more about him and his brothers, not run away from them.

But Donnie also knew he couldn’t risk this. He had to at least know if you were interested or not, then he could decide what face to put on from there. It took a bit of coaxing, but April finally agreed to do it.

~~~

(Y/N) softly hummed to herself as she fiddled with some wires connected the SHELDON when she heard quiet footsteps enter the lab. The girl spun around under the pretense that the purple turtle was to make an appearance, but was soon relaxed when she saw April instead.

“Oh, hey!” (Y/N) smiled. “What’s up?”

The college student shrugs slightly with an awkward laugh. “Nothin’ much. Whatchu workin’ on?”

(Y/N) gestured to the motherboard she was reprogramming on SHELDON. “Just some minor fixes to SHELDON’s programming. His artificial ocular system has been glitching lately.”

Man, maybe they are meant for each other, April thought.

“Aw, cool, cool… but I had a question about something. About Donnie.”

The high school student nearly dropped her soldering iron into the robot when April revealed her true intentions in talking to her. “Uh, what—what about him?”

A smirk creeping on her face nearly gave April away. “It’s just… you guys’ve been hanging out for a few months now and y’all seem really close. I was just wondering if you, like… y’know… liked him?”

(Y/N)’s heart thumped loudly in her chest as she attempted to avoid the older teen’s gaze. Had she been that obvious? There was no way! She always tried her best to stay calm, cool, and collected when hanging out with Donnie. How could she have known about her feelings towards him?

“I-I—well, not like anything crazy—er, it’s not like… well… uhm…” she stuttered beyond belief. “I mean… I just… admire him, I guess? He’s really smart and there aren’t a lot of people like that at my school. It’s—well—almost like my dream to work in a lab and stuff so…”

April tried her best to hide her smug grin once again. This was the best day of her life. “Oh, yeah, I feel you. Well, I was just wondering—”

“Please don’t tell him.” (Y/N) spoke quickly.

Suddenly, the college student broke out in a cold sweat. Shit shit shit…! Hopefully she doesn’t take this “spy business” personally.

“Y’know… I kinda have a feeling you won’t have to.”

~~~

Donnie slowly placed the headset he’d been using to listen to April and (Y/N)‘s conversation with.

“Holy shit… holy shit…!” He whispered to himself.

No one had ever talked about him like that, not even close. She admired him. She thought he was brilliant. Smart. From what he had gathered, (Y/N) liked him in the same way he liked her.

Was this all really real? Did (Y/N) actually like him? Thoughts bounced around in the turtle’s head. Although it had seemed to like him, she never said it verbatim. But despite this, Donnie enacted his plan.

~~~

“(Y/N).” The scientist greeted the girl as he took a seat next to her in his lab, noticing she was still tinkering away on SHELDON.

“O-oh, hey, Dee!” She stumbled over her words. “You missed April. She was here not too long ago.”

Donnie hummed in response before gently taking the soldering iron out of her hands and attempted to do what (Y/N) had been struggling on for the last two hours or so. SHELDON soon booted back up with a “sup dudes!” before flying off deeper into the lab.

(Y/N) giggled, hovering a hand over his shoulder in gratitude. “Thanks!”

After another hum, Donnie slightly opened his mouth getting ready to say something. But when the girl gazed up at him with a curious expression on her face, his words were caught in the back of his throat. The two stayed a few seconds like this until the purple turtle sighed.

“I won’t beat around the bush: I knew April was here earlier.” He admitted. “I… I was listening.”

The high school student suddenly groaned before covering her face with her hands. “Oh my god, I knew it…! I knew she said that for a reason.”

“I’m sorry.” Donnie quickly apologized. “I just wanted to know if you… felt the same.”

Bugged eyes protruded out of her head when he revealed his true feelings. There was absolutely no way he really felt the same way she did. This must be a prank.

But the almost pleading look on Donnie’s face told (Y/N) otherwise. “I… I mean—I do, but… no, no, I do. I really do. You’re amazing,Dee. And I like spending time with you.”

The giant turtle’s shoulders finally relaxed as he exhaled. Without much warning, (Y/N) leaned forward and pressed a kiss against his cheek. Before Donnie could react, the girl quickly stood to her feet and speed walked out of the lab.

Donnie couldn’t help but smile at her flustered form as he yelled after her, promising to text her soon.

彡★Rise!Bros X Reader Headcannons★彡

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• It wasn’t that Leo thought you didn’t like him as he was. He was just trying to relate to you since you had so many human friends.

• When you two were hanging out, you’d often get a message on your phone from one of your friends asking if you can hang out. More often than not, you would leave the lair to meet them, leaving Leo to think about solutions to make you more comfortable.

• Okay, maybe he was a little insecure about being a mutant rather than a human.

• When you saw him in the cloaking brooch, your first reaction was to laugh out loud.

• “Aw, Lee…!” You said in between laughs. “You look so weird.”

• Leo felt a pang of annoyance as he jumped through hoops to get a cloaking brooch and may have the Hidden City police after him.

• “C’mon, don’t this rugged good looks translate well in my human form?”

• You giggled as you neared him and gently took the brooch off of his chest, Leo turning back to the lovable turtle he was.

• “I like you just the way you are, babe. Green skin, bald head and all.”

• Leo scoffed but hugged you tightly, lifting you off your feet and twirling around.

~~~~~~~~~~

• We all know that the red clad turtle is big. Like, really big. And spiky.

• You’d cut yourself on his spikes before and he always profusely apologized even though you were never mad at him.

• So one day, he thought to try out a cloaking brooch to see if he could reduce his spikes and size.

• It definitely reduced his spikes, but not his size.

• When you saw him, you loved it before he told you why he’d done it.

• “Raph, you don’t have to do that.”

• “But I keep hurting you and—”

• You grabbed his face and pulled him down to your own visage, taking the cloaking brooch off.

• “I love every part of you. Spikes and all.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

• When Mikey put on the cloaking brooch, you loved the way his human form looked. Like, you’d obsessively ask him if he could put it on.

• After a while, Mikey grew to assume that you only liked him with the brooch on.

• He started to wear it more and more before you would even ask him.

• Eventually, you grew suspicious. It seemed like he would rush to get the brooch whenever you’d come into the lair.

• “Mike, you know you don’t have to wear the brooch every time I’m here, right?”

• Mikey was slightly embarrassed. “I know…! I just thought you liked it more than… my other form.”

• “No, Mikey,” you took the brooch off of his chest, turning him back into a mutant, “I love your human form. But I love your mutant form even more.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

• Donnie was always insecure about your relationship. When he’d first met you, he had a cloaking brooch on, so he appeared human.

• It was only after the first date he revealed that he was a mutant.

• You didn’t care about his appearance and he was still hot anyways, but he would often put the brooch on when you two would hang out.

• One day, you thought it was a good idea to remind him again. When you arrived in his lab, he was working on another great invention. When he saw you, he quickly reached for the brooch, but you approached even faster.

• You placed a hand on the brooch and gazed up at him. “Y’know you don’t need to wear that, right?”

• He somewhat avoided your stare. “I know. I just…”

• “Donnie,” your hand went up from his hand to his bicep and you gave it a gentle squeeze, “I’ve told you already that I love you just as much as I love your human form.”

• “I know, but… you’re human. You’re used to humans. So why not look like one to make you more comfortable?”

• You sighed as you cupped his cheek. “You already make me feel comfortable, Dee.”

Rise!Bros X Reader: Headcannons

I didn’t include Mikey in this one.

Warnings ⚠️: N/A

Relationships: Dating (official)

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• Leo often took advantage of your one and only weakness.

• Whenever he wanted you to do something, that was his default.

• “(Y/N), can you turn the light off?” He whined as the turtle turned over in his bed.

• You groaned as you stared at the light switch on the opposite end of the room. “Why can’t you do it? I’m already comfortable.”

• “Pleaseee?” Leo begged.

• Before you could further protest, he pressed his palms against your cheeks and began to pepper your face with small pecks.

• You couldn’t help but giggle as he did so.

• He soon stopped and stared at you with puppy eyes you hadn’t noticed before.

• “You can’t keep doing this to me.” You slowly sat up and stocked over to the light switch, flipping to downwards with your index finger.

• All he did was smirk at you.

• Raph thought your little quirk was funny.

• It wasn’t often that he did it, but when he did, you couldn’t help the growing blush on your face.

• “Babe, don’t!” You dragged your words as he spread kisses from your forehead to your jaw.

• He laughed as he finally released you, staring at the red tint growing on your cheeks. “I can’t help it. You’re too cute.”

• Donnie was never a touchy-feely person.

• One of the only times he’d kiss you was when you were accidentally smart.

• “I just can’t figure this out.” Donnie spoke, frustrated by his latest invention. One of his brothers had broken it and now some parts weren’t working as effectively as usual. “I have everything and it somewhat works but I’m missing… something.”

• You didn’t like seeing him frustrated, so you offered your advice, but soon shut up when you see a green triangle-shaped piece of plastic.

• “Is this it?” You handed him the piece.

• His eyes lit up when he saw the green triangle. The scientist quickly stood up and began to smother your face with kisses. “(Y/N), you’re a genius! This is the broken piece of the motherboard! It’ll take a bit to repair, but now I don’t have to start over.”

• You didn’t understand a lick of what he was saying, but you could feel the heat growing on your cheeks as he praised you.

Omg I’ve been wanting to write something like this but it made me sad to think abt 😭 but I’ll try my best

It Was Real To Me

Rise!Leo X GN!Reader

Prompt: You realize that your relationship with Leo wasn’t what you were looking for.

Pronouns: Gender Neutral (they/them)

Timeline: pre-movie (season 2)

Warning ⚠️: Angst, reader is kind of a bad person ( ´∀｀)

Requests are open!

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It tore you up inside; how you only invited Leo over to break up with him.

A few months ago, your childhood best friend had come back into town for the remainder of the school year after she left when the two of you were in middle school.

In her absence, you mourned. You weren’t the best at making and keeping friends. She was the only one that never gave up on you. Your friend never called you crazy or weird in a negative way like your past friends did. She always cared about you.

Your friend left a hole. And you decided to fill that hole with Leo.

The two of you weren’t especially close until she left. Once you two began to hang out more, you eventually started to develop feelings for each other and eventually making it official. Or at least, that’s what you’d thought.

Leo was always kind and charismatic like your friend was. He himself was weird—a mutant—so he was the last person to derogatorily call you weird. The turtle always had an excuse to come see you: “I left one of my swords at your place” or “I think I dropped something at your place”. At the time, you loved it.

He made you feel wanted.

But when your friend came back, you lost interest in him.

Leo’s visits became a nuisance. Your late night FaceTimes grew shorter and then reduced into just texting. You’d tell him you were busy when you weren’t or going to go see your friend.

Noticing your distancing from him, Leo tried frantically to get you to hang out with him. He first tried visiting unannounced so you couldn’t preemptively tell him to not come over. Most of the time, you’d ask him to leave. Other times, you’d let him in but act disinterested in what he was talking about.

He then tried texting you. Like, a lot. Constantly updating you about his day. But after only a few days of it, you turned your read receipts off so he wouldn’t know if you’d seen them or not.

So many questions danced in his mind. Was he a bad boyfriend? Did he do something wrong? Why were you acting like this? He would ask you, but you were ignoring him at the moment.

At your home, Leo talked your ear off in an attempt to keep you captivated. In a way, he felt like he knew what was going to happen that night and he wanted to delay it as much as possible.

“—and I spiked Hypno with a swordfish and I was like: ‘like minnow how that heals up’.” He laughed a bit forcibly. “Get it? Minnow?”

You copied his forced laugh, not lifting your eyes from your phone. When Leo peeked at your screen, he saw that you were texting someone with caller ID “Bestie”.

“Bestie”? You were his bestie. No, you were his partner. And he was in person talking to her when this guy was behind a screen. Why weren’t you paying attention to him?

Frustrated, Leo sighed. “If only I had a face to talk to rather than the top of a head.”

You glanced up at him and shrugged. “I’m talking to someone.”

There was no way you’d just said that.

“Well, don’t you think you should be talking to me? The person that’s right in front of you? Your boyfriend?”

The last bit made you cringe. Boyfriend. He just had to remind you, didn’t he? At this point, the word meant nothing to you. Well, that wasn’t entirely true.

That word used to send butterflies swarming in your stomach. Now it just made you feel guilty, angry, and then guilty that you’re angry.

With a sigh, you stood up and ambled towards the window that led to the fire escape. You pulled the window open and stepped outside, the cool night breeze toying with your hair.

After a few seconds, Leo followed but didn’t near you leaning up against the railing. He knew what was going to happen. It was obvious. For months, you didn’t pay any attention to him, you acted annoyed when he would speak to you, and he never really saw you that often.

Leo didn’t want it.

He still had feelings for you regardless of how you had been treating him as of late. He still liked holding your hand and kissing you and going out on dates. It wasn’t fair that he didn’t get a say in this.

The turtle suddenly broke out in a cold sweat as he spoke. “(Y/N)?”

You gazed at him over your shoulder, but other than that, you didn’t validate his words.

“(Y/N)… I’m just assuming,” Leo prefaced, “but I don’t want us to end. I still like you and I wanna be with you. I dunno why you’re over me all-a sudden but—”

Turning towards him and raising a hand, you interrupted him. “It’s not “all-a sudden”, Leo. It’s just… it’s complicated.”

A twinge of anger made the turtle furrow his would-be eyebrows. “‘Complicated’? What—did everything just stop?”

“No, Leo.” You exhaled as you urged him to come closer to you. He obliged, resting his elbows against the railing.

You didn’t look at him.

The two of you stood in silence for a few minutes, staring up at the moon and taking in the musky New York air.

Soon though, the blue clad turtle pipes up. “Is it because of… ‘bestie’?”

You’d assumed that he’d seen your phone from earlier and stretched uncomfortably. There was a good way and a bad way to do this. This felt like the bad way.

With a nod, Leo sadly chuckled to himself.

“Okay… okay. Well… I’m glad you told me, I guess.” He crossed his arms tightly across his plastron.

Tears began to collect in your eyes as you shook your head in disbelief of your actions. “I’m sorry, Leo. I liked you. I really did but… it wasn’t really real. And I realize that now. I’m really sorry.”

“Heh… liked.” Leo squeezed his biceps before grabbing his sword and opening a portal. Before he stepped through, he turned back to face you, his usual cocky smirk contorted into a deep frown. “Y’know… it was real to me the whole time. It’s not fair that you get to decide what is and isn’t real.”

Suddenly, his frown is replaced with a half smile. “But you’ll miss me. Everybody misses Leo eventually. G’night, sleep tight.” He sarcastically saluted you before stepping through the portal and disappeared.

The tears finally began to trickle down your cheeks and collected on your chin. Your bottom lip trembled as you sobbed quietly. Even though you didn’t like Leo the way you used to, you still cared about him. You didn’t want him to be upset.

Being the cause of his pain made you realize why you were so bad at keeping people around.

Maybe you were weird.