The boat swayed side to side, the black water lazily sloshing against its sides, as if trying to seduce the bleeding teenager into a deep and plentiful sleep. Though, you refused to let it win. Though your scalp had a deep gash that didn't relent in it's bleeding, though your bottom lip was busted, and though your eyes hung heavy, heavy half slits- you would not fall asleep. You were slipping in and out of consciousness, but that was much more different than falling into a deep calming rest that you would never wake up from.

    Your head lolled side to side, a trail of blood flowing freely from your nose, in twin crescent rivers, pooling onto the outline of your lips in some sort of serial killer based lipstick. Your pink tongue flicked out, smoothing itself over the blood, smearing it pink, a metal tang echoing throughout your taste buds. Your eyes peeled open most uncomfortably as of they had been glued shut during your sleep, your lungs laboring in their breathing, as a deep ache stabbed at your bosom. You went to move your hand to rub your eye, which seemed to be more blurry than the other. Your arm was, unfortunately, held back by a coarse rope that dug into your flesh, leaving behind deep indents that had been rubbed raw by the rocking of the boat you were on.

    You blinked hard. Once, twice; realizing that your eye was immersed in blood, your own, blinding you for the time being. Your other eye, that seemed to fare better than its twin, managed to correct itself and take in the scene before you. There was a space between you and the long white bench that was stained with blood in front of you. Of fish or of a human, you couldn't be quite sure. There was the navigation room, with tinged windows that only held a silhouette of a man. He wore a hoodie, only the occasional glint of moonlight, from New York City's light pollution, mirroring off a pair of sunglasses. The boat slapped against the water as it sped forward, a spray of murky water drenching the already soaked clothes that you wore.

    Your ears popped, having been stifled by mass amounts of water and the occasional trickle of blood. Of course, your rattled mind still managed to block noise out of pure spite. The rush of noise attacked your thoughts, scrambling them as effective as ever, coupled with the wailing of ambulances and the police, the screeching of vehicles, and of course, the ambience of the human race. A groan was pushed forth between your clenched, pink stained, teeth as your eyes squeezed shut, squeezing out tears brought on by pain.

Softly though, as gentle as a breeze fluttering through a bundle of trees, a voice drifted towards you, contradicting against the mess of all the noise battering around you. Calm, a trickle of water down a mountain of pebbles, only caressed the injured teenager, effectively bringing you a sense of peace.

     "Bring me down to Brooklyn if I lose my life..." the voice gently sang, powerful in his tone, and yet soft in its message. "Push me down the Hudson and turn on the radio..." The voice was clearer than the water that the boat bounced upon, and almost brought tears of relief to your damaged eyes. It was nice to hear a familiar voice.

     "Long islands own are smiling 'cause my soul is fine—" The lovely vocals from the young man that was simply know as 'Lame-o-nardo', was rudely interrupted by the incompetence of a gang member.

     "'EY!" The amount of Brooklyn accent that ladened the voice was almost comical enough to make you choke on your own blood hysterically in amusement. It was as if the man was a knock of version of Raphael.

     "Didn't I tell ya to shut up about that damn song?!" Swore the man that swaggered around the corner of the navigation room, resembling a burly cliché of a man on steroids, complimented even with a Nazi tattoo smack dab on his monster of a forehead.

     You could feel the mutant tense up against you, seeing as you were both tightly tied together, as he faced the front of the boat, overlooking the river. Ironically enough, the same Hudson River he was singing about. His shell dug into the small of your back, as your hair tickled the back of his neck and broad shoulders.

     Leonardo didn't answer, and why would he? His weapons had been unceremoniously tossed into the navigation room, under lock and key, and they had actually spit on his beloved mask. The leader would have thrown hands with them if it hadn't been for the fact that they had overpowered his beloved, and he was afraid of what they would do if he retaliated. So, Leonardo did what his younger brother always seemed to do best— he annoyed the bejeesus out of the four gang members on deck.

     After a few tense moments, the smooth voice of the mutant rang once more, overflowing with spite. "The sun is nearly gone, the lights are turning on, a silver shine that stretches out to sea—" He paused, a small smile growing over his face as he bowed his head to hide such an expression.

     A collective groan rang out from the cluster of gang members on the small boat, though you managed to crack a lopsided grin, keeping your head low to keep yourself from revealing your state of consciousness.

      "Boss— he's singing La La Land again..." Grumbled another gang member. From taking note of his shoes, as you glanced over, you guessed that he loved to dance the occasional Irish jig in the blood of his enemies.

     "Hey— La La Land is a good movie!" Retorted a gang member that wore white socks with black shoes- a despicable being by your standards.

     "Shut up Eric. La La Land is a bland and overrated movie. It deserved to lose that Academy Award, Moonlight deserved it. You should be ashamed of yourself-" The bloodied gang member growled in defiance, before being cut off by a clean left hook by Eric, the gang member with a horrible sense of fashion.

      You took this moment to respond back to Leonardo's singing, because why not? Seeing as he was not having a great time belting out the lyrics of a movie that had forced him to cry inside his closet in private rage when they watched it together on their eleventh date- but because he wanted desperately to know if you had regained consciousness. If you were okay.

     "I did everything for New York..." You sighed softly, trailing off as injured as you were, your own voice being foreign even to yourself, unnerving you with the exhaustion that you did not yet feel at that moment. Pain yes, but that heavy stone of fatigue, no.

     You felt Leonardo straighten against your back abruptly as if he were a soldier being called to action, the ropes groaning with the movement, stretching against his strong sculpted shoulders, though the gang members didn't seem to notice. The knock off version of Raphael was trying to peel Eric away from the bloodied gang member, who was being strangled by a shoelace.

    The memories of the events that had only taken place an hour ago were blurred in your shaken mind. What you could manage to gather though, from pieces and snippets, was that something went wrong and now they were on a boat filled with a team of inept gang members, plus the driver. (Alright, that was an obvious stupid observation— but you were pretty beaten up! You leave yourself alone!) A driver who seemed to be chewing on a piece of licorice and humming a ditty as his comrades tumbled around on the slippery floors of the boat. For some reason, you couldn't help but admire the guy for his complete and utter indifference to what was happening around him.

     Your musing thoughts were interrupted by a series of taps of scarred bandaged knuckles against a plastic moist bench. You glared at your pair of sopping sneakers as you concentrated on the pattern. Donnie was gonna scold you when they came back home to the lair, and probably blast them with fire to dry them the 'scientific way'. The water of the Hudson was straight up nasty, who knew what kind of bacteria was growing in the cotton of your socks.

     'Okay?'

      Granted, the question mark was improvised in your mind, to convince yourself that Leonardo was not trying to act out that one scene in 'The Fault in Our Stars', though he had done it before. He had, most definitely, been traumatized by that movie. It was close on the list to La La Land. Ruined their sixteenth date as well. Leonardo has banned sappy depressing movies after that. If only he knew that you planned to gift him the book as an anniversary present.

     You spent a few moments trying to remember the lessons of Morse code that Donnie had drilled into your mind, but the stress of the water that pounded against the boat, the swearing from the gang members, the wailing of the city, Leonardo's presence, and the blood drenched shoe that flew past your point of view, all got to you. So you simply twisted your hand around as best you could, and wiggled your freezing water wrinkled fingers into his clenched fist to hold his hand. It was your own way of saying that you were okay as could be in this situation.

    His hand fell limp as your slicked hand squirmed into his, the two intertwining their digits as they leaned their backs against the other. It was the most peace they could get considering the mess they were in. You decided that even though you didn't know the exact reason behind the series of events that led to their kidnapping, you were going to pin the blame on the fact that you both hadn't read the newest chapter of their Space Heroes fanfic together. And from that one blunder, of not following tradition, this series of events had befallen them. It was the only logical conclusion, though Donnie would probably pinch his brow and sigh loudly if he heard such a reasoning. You made a mental note to read that cringey wattpad fanfic when they got back home. If they ever got back home.

     'Plan.'

    The sudden rapid taps on the back of your hand startled the simple human. But the word certainly did not confuse you. Of course he already had a plan, ever the dorky solider, the hardened leader, the wannabe space captain.

    Painstakingly, he attempted to explain his plan in the least amount of letters that he could force into words. It was a stupid plan, but stupid was just a more accurate word for risky. All you could do was trace irrelevant swirls and designs into his skin and nod as discreetly as you could.

    The first was to attract the gang members close enough, so as to thrust such plan into motion.

     Leonardo did so by humming out the verses of a song that he knew well from his passage of time on the Internet. "I'm a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world—" he cooed most dramatically, wiggling in his seat as you half died in embarrassment while muttering the addictive lyrics under your breath.

    The three gang members that had paused from their murderous strangling and wrestling to catch their breaths fell silent as they looked upon the couple, and then at each other in wonder.

    "Yup," chuckled the Nazi bearing, clean shaven man, dragging his pierced tongue across his busted lip. "The frog 'ere just lost his little peanut brain." You wanted to pipe up to correct the way off reasoning of such a man, but then thought better of it. There was no arguing with stupidity. Though, if Raphael had heard that here was another trash human being insulting his species, he would have ripped through the ropes as they were made out of paper, shrieking like a banshee. Ah, how Raphael's crude anger could come in handy at a time like this.

      A voice rang out, a voice that demanded complete silence whenever it was sounded. If only he held that sort of power over his brothers. "Hey," began Leonardo, because who else could it be? "C'mere skin head." Leo almost winced but kept his face stoic, though his right eye twitched at his grammar. C'mere? Captain Ryan would not be caught dead uttering such foul language. Most un-leader like. Raph would have been proud.

    The nostrils of the rightly labeled skin head flared up as he straightened to his full terrifying height of six feet and two inches, about an entire foot taller than Leonardo Hamato. He lumbered over, and you found it difficult to not loudly gag in distaste at the reek of body order mixed with cigarette smoke and the scent of misogyny.

    The man bent down, eyes in slits, as Leonardo delightfully noted swear words tattooed right on his eye lids. He was sure that the mans mother must be indubitably proud.

   "What did ya just call me?" Sneered the gang member, as his two other comrades stood on either side of their coworker, identical sneers twisting their features. Though Leonardo was sure that he saw one too many pairs of hands shaking. He almost smiled at the fact. There was only one brute that needed to be taken care of. The rest would probably just lay down on the floor instead of fighting back.

     Leonardo decided to dabble a bit in that famous Raphael Hamato insubordination that always made the elder contemplate why he was gifted with the curse of life. He sucked air through his pearl white perfect teeth, knowing that if you could actually face him you would roll your eyes at his overacting.

     "Well," the leader jutted out his bottom lip, tilting his head to the side as he made his eyes wide and innocent like. A expression that could only be attributed to Michelangelo. "I didn't call you an American," he shrugged, a grin spreading across his features.

     "Why ya piece of s—" Began the tattooed man, pulling his arm back, cocking his shoulder, as he swung his fist right towards the perfect features of the mutant.

     He never got to finish his curse word, as Leonardo had firmly grasped the fist of the skin head, the words 'MOMY' hastily tattooed onto his knuckles. The leader boredly thumbed at the bandages on his right hand, raising an imaginary eyebrow as he looked up the gang member.

     The skin head spluttered, most unlike the terrifying mountain of a man, trying to yank his fist from the grasp of the 'frog', his face one of pure shock as he met the hardened eyes of Leonardo. Last time he had checked, this ninja had been tightly tied up along with the other chick.

     Leo winked at the gang member. It wasn't playful at all. "Time to go night-night." He grinned.

     The skin head looked up to see a flash of red as you slammed a fire extinguisher into the base of the mans forehead, right over the tattooed swatiska. You couldn't help but feel a giddy sense of retribution for inflicting such damage. Oh, how proud Raphael would be for such a sudden act of violence in the name of justice.

    "Really?" You panted as your arms shook with the extortion you had just put in, as the mountainous like man dropped to the ground, causing the boats tip to dip inward at the sudden added weight, adding to the gallons of murky water sliding about on the already slippery floor. "Time to go night-night?' Shame on you Leonardo." You cracked a grin, your right eye painfully squeezed shut, a ripple of blood streaming down your cheek, an aesthetic against your skin.

   Leonardo huffed loudly as moved swiftly forward, stretching out his arms out to curl his digits into the collars of the shocked gang members shirts. "I don't need your mouth now, Y/n." He retorted as he hefted them over the side of the boat as they loudly thanked the 'ninja frog' for showing mercy. The two loud splashes were overpowered by the sounds of two very girly shrieks as the hardened gang members came in contact with the freezing water of the Hudson River.

    "Maybe later." You grinned widely as you tossed the fire extinguisher to the side. Though the stretching of your lips hurt your bruised bloodied face, you found it worth it as his green face darkened to a shade similar to Raphael's mask. And though Leonardo had fought aliens, humans void of any compassion, and rage filled mutants, he still crossed his arms over his chest, bowed his head, and scuffed the heel of his foot against the plastic of the ground.

    "Oh Lee." You chortled as you bent down to pick up one of the discarded guns of the gang members, the weapon feeling foreign in the palm of your hand. "I'm just teasing." You paused for a moment as you turned the gun over and over in your hands, getting used to the weight, a smirk still tugging the corner of your lips. "Maybe."

   Leonardo decided to change the uncomfortable subject before his ravenous hormones and animal instinct took over. He decided to do what he did best. Scold and reprimand. "No guns." His voice came out clipped as he looked down at the beast of a man unconscious on the floor next to him, his limbs all up and twisted due to the uncomfortable position he had fallen.

    "Leo." You began gently seeing as they had no weapons, and who knew where this boat was even heading to?

    "No." His voice was stern, no more of a playful tone to it. He was in his natural leader state, or that wall he put up to pretend that he wasn't a scared kid that was making everything up along the way. He took a few steps forward, easily stepping over the bench that only moments before, they had both been confined to. He held out a calloused hand for the gun, his lips slightly tugged down. Guns were not used by ninjas, it wasn't their way. It was a dirty, brutal, form of murder and any untrained person could get their hands on one. Leonardo couldn't count the times that he saw the life leaves the eyes of innocents as a spray of bullets attacked them.

     You recalled all those nights when Leonardo sat on the edge of their bed, hunched over, cradling his head in his hands. The amount of times he wondered out loud if he could have done better, if he should  have done better. So yes, you did hand off the gun to him, but only because you understood.

    His voice was soft, a tone that he only used for his beloved as he took the gun in one hand, grasping yours with his other. "Thank you," He mumbled, pressing his lips to the base of your knuckles, a wrinkle between his brow as his eyes narrowed. His head snapped up sharply, eyes turning wide as his mouth opened to say something- but all too late.

     You heard the click of the gun before she saw it. Your head turned as you stared down the weapon trained to the base of your head. You could practically feel Leonardo's anxiety spilling off of his skin in sheets, though he kept himself surprisingly composed. He did not let go of your hand.

     The driver of the boat stood in front of the couple, one hand fingering the chewed to a pulp licorice in his mouth, his sunglasses glinting to the reflected moonlight, a cocky grin on his lips. "Now there," He drawled as you decided at that moment that, contrary to what you had said before, you did not like this man. "Who do I have to kill to avenge my bosses murder?"

     You closed your eyes for a moment, composing yourself, before they fluttered open, a determination set in them. A part of you believed that you had not killed that skinhead, while the other, more logical side of you that sounded, annoyingly enough like Donnie, knew better. Then there was that Raph like voice, grunting that a nazi like that deserved it. Nothing from Mikey's side, he was probably exploring the depths of your mind and trying to find some embarrassing memory, or something that could be snacked upon.

     "He's gone," Leo's voice rang out, being whisked away by the wind and the sound of rushing water as the boat kept on pushing forward. "You can go back and claim his title." He attempted to convince the gang member, tugging on your hand as you slowly took small steps backward. His padded arm snaked around your waist, pulling you into his side as he attempted to put space between them and the deranged gang member. The driver stepped forward as the couple shuffled backward, as if they were in a trashy form of line dancing.

   "Nah." The driver ground his teeth together, rolling the nub of black licorice between his teeth before swallowing loudly. "Maybe I can kill yer girlfriend here," he hummed, his lips perked up into a greasy grin, the long shining black hair that stuck to his shoulders like tar not helping that fact. "And bring back the little alien that our buyers are so interested in..." The man trailed off as he tilted his chin downward, peering at you with hungry eyes.

    "An even better idea," Began the driver, as you stared back with defiance, though the saliva in your throat seemed to become a thick congealed mass, making it difficult for you to even gulp. You were sure that his idea was going to be as perverted as that look in his eyes. "Would be to injure you, and take this little slut here all for myself," he sneered, resembling more of a weasel than a man at the moment.

    "Slut?" You guffawed, your fingers itching to strangle this bastard, or, since you didn't want any of his greasy hair oil on your skin, at least slam that discarded fire extinguisher into his crotch. "That's it." You declared, lifting up your knee to balance awkwardly on one foot, attempting to wrestle your drenched shoe off. "Let me defend my honor against this asshole, Leo." You asserted, murder in your eyes.

   Leonardo's arm only tightened around your cold drenched waist, a warning that did not need any words, your bloodied fingernails digging red crescents into the green skin of his arm. You glanced over at him, noticing for the first time of how battered and beaten your dear darling looked. A large deep cut sliced from his upper jaw, running ragged to his chin. It had mostly clotted, but his neck was drenched in mostly dry blood. The colors contradicted one another. Red against green. How lovely.

   Your eyes naturally dragged down to the white knuckled grip that held onto the gun that you believed that he had gotten rid of. The way he was all tense, as if he was about to pounce into action, and his eyes. They flickered about, flurries of emotion bursting forth as he battled his emotions in his head.

   And then, like a fool, the gangster spoke again.

      "C'mon princess. You need a real man. Sure- you might end up being unconscious—" The gang member that represented all that was wrong, swaggered forward, gun trained on you, as his hand reached greedily out for you. He didn't get to finish his sentence because Leonardo panicked.

    Granted, saying that this leader panicked was much better than revealing that everything that happened afterward was premeditated, because that meant accepting the fact that your boyfriend was a murderer.

    A gun went off and you gasped. In future recollections of that memory, you edited out that one gasp. It reminded you of the crippling fear you had felt in that one moment, and that was not something you wished to relive.

     It took many long seconds for you to attain the courage to open your eyes, making you wonder if you were in the depths of Hell, the labored breathing of both yourself and Leonardo filling your mind. When you finally did peel them open, laying your gaze upon the awkward sprawled body of that gang member, you felt nothing.

    A sort of numbness, similar to a calm, fell over you like a veil. Not a wedding veil, like the one you imagined in your daydreams, but one of death. You watched as strands of greasy hair floated atop of the inch amount of water that covered the floor of the boat, as red blood turned into pink curling tendrils in the murky liquid. You were thankful for the sunglasses the man wore, though you did see a glimmer of his dead black eyes for a moment, before averting your gaze to Leonardo.

    He was taking it as well as you would expect. His protective arm had fallen to his side, his hand still grasping the gun as if it was his lifeline to the simple teenager he had been before. His eyes were glued on the body, and you swore you could see his moral standards shatter before him in the form of a corpse.

    His persian blue eyes peeled from the body to stare blankly at his beloved. "How's that for defending your honor?" The sudden attempt at humor to cover up the atrocity that he had just committed was weak, incredibly fragile. His gaze pleaded for you to play along, for if you didn't, he wasn't sure what he would do with himself.

   A nervous breakdown was right on the horizon of New York City for Leonardo's mind, as the couple stared at one another in silence. The swaying of the boat, the corpse, the spray of cold water, and the gun that he still held was all that could be noticed in that moment.

   You quietly raised up your hand, the tips of your fingers stained red as you gently caressed the skin above the swollen cut on his face. You swallowed harshly as a smile fluttered across his chapped lips.

   "Yeah." Your voice cracked as you both closed their eyes and pressed your foreheads against one another in a desperate attempt to keep your shared sanity intact. "That was pretty good."