Chapter Text
Splinter made his way through the darkened lair, passing by his son’s rooms as he made his way down towards the tunnels of the sewers, quietly so as to not wake them.
He knew that outside, the storm raged and rain poured down over the city. His aching joints warning aside, he had been keeping an eye on the reports. Any time heavy rain was anticipated, Splinter found it hard to sleep. While many people found the sound of rain comforting, it was quite the opposite to the old rat. The sewers were prone to flooding, including some parts of the lair if too much water came through.
It always posed a danger to not only their things but potentially their safety if it flooded too high. Not to mention most of the tunnels would be unnavigable until the water levels shrank back.
The rat crossed over the creaking boards to the center of the atrium, looking down at the water below. Squinting his eyes, he could tell the levels had already begun to rise.
“I may have to move the boys up to the second or third level tonight.” Splinter thought to himself. “I’ll wait a few more hours though, see if it can wait until morning. Waking them up when they're all asleep is… an unnecessary nightmare.”
Splinter sighed as he stared up at the dark sky above, rain falling into the center of the lair through the holes in the atrium ceiling, the downpour making the ground slippery and him wet. He made his way quickly across before he got soaked.
“I’m going to watch more TV before the power goes out,” he muttered, shaking himself off. “Sleep well, my sons.”
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“So, we’re doing this why?” Donnie asked skeptically, staring down the flight of stairs. In his hands, he held a rectangular metal tray from the cafeteria. “We could have just gone up and down the stairs normally in the time it took us to go back and get these.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” April asked. The two had already gone through numerous exhibits and made their way up to the second floor when April got a funny look and insisted they go grab the trays.
“We already checked out most of the stuff on the first floor, why are we going back down? I mean, we didn’t check out the Mars room. We could-”
“No. No Mars room. I can tell you plenty about Mars if you need info.” April cut him off, putting the tray down near the top step and sitting down on top of it, gripping the sides.
“This is a terrible idea,” Donatello noted, but put his tray down beside hers, copying her position. He held out his hand to her, gesturing for her to give him something.
“Your bag. I’m putting my glasses in it and we’re leaving it up here if we’re gonna do this dumb…thing, earthling.”
“Oh, yeah, probably smart.” April slid the bag off her shoulders and handed it to the turtle, and he took off his glasses, carefully putting them in the bag. He also took his flashlight out of his pocket and stashed it in the bag before zipping it up and setting it aside.
“Ready now?”
“You’ve done this before?” Donatello asked.
“...Yes,” April said after a moment of hesitation, prompting Donnie to raise an eyebrow but April grabbed the back of his jacket and pushed him back into his tray.
“Trust me on this. It’s gonna be crazy cool. I see it all the time in movies about sleepovers.” the girl insisted.
“You’re not making me feel any more confident about this. But fine, just to get it over with,” the young boy relented, looking down the flight of stairs. It wasn’t excessively large. He could probably fall down it without any tray and be relatively without injury just on his own. Still, he felt nervous. This was a type of activity his brothers would exclude him from because of his shell. Curiously, April had insisted on it and didn’t have any sort of shell. There had to be some merit to that at least. His thoughts were interrupted as April suddenly called out.
“On the count of three- Go!”
Without bothering to count, April pushed off the top seat with the tray under her, sliding down the stairs. Donnie hastily scooted forwards to keep up with her, feeling the tray slant underneath him.
“This is definitely a terrible idea!” he cried out, and then the tray gave way to gravity as it too began to slide as he gripped onto the sides for dear life.
It was a bumpy ride, with each stair causing the tray to bump and hitch, threatening to tip over or toss its rider, and Donnie was just barely able to tilt his body to keep it from doing so, a shriek escaping him that was drowned out by the clattering of the trays and Aprils shouts of excitement. Every time the tray hit the lip of another step, it would pitch and wobble, making it hard to keep hold of the sides. The feeling of exhilaration Donnie felt was joined immediately by fear as the speed of movement picked up.
The ground grew closer and came up to meet them as they slid, and the realization hit him that he had no idea how to stop or even slow down the tray once it hit the floor. Before he could come up with any ideas, April hit the bottom step and then the floor. April’s tray stopped immediately as it impacted the ground, launching the girl and sending her skidding across the floor. A second later, Donnie’s ride spun out of control before flipping over, clanging off further into the museum after leaving him behind in a heap.
After a moment of stunned silence, Donnie lifted his head suddenly, looking over to where April had ended up in a second of panic. Had she gotten hurt when she got thrown off?
To his relief, April started to laugh from where she had fallen, sitting up suddenly. “That was awesome!” she declared, pumping her fist in the air.
Donnie let out a sigh of relief, the ringing in his ears fading from when he had crashed, and he could feel soreness start to set in.
“Let’s go again!”
Donnie groaned, letting his face plant back onto the museum floor.
“No thanks.”