A Gift Of Flowers - Rise!Leonardo x Reader
FEM
Pairings: Leonardo x Reader
Characters included: Leonardo
Warnings: n/a
Series: No, A Request
Summary: Y/N is really shy and frankly Leo had been struggling to find proper common ground with the flower loving woman unlike the rest of his family. Luckily for him he found a flower field in the Hidden City which he definitely wanted to show to her.
Word count: 2997
Authors Note: I'm sorry for being mia for so long. I'm rn getting into my finals and I am busy preparing for getting into uni and so on so time has been limited! Hope this means I can write more consitently again! Love you!
Leo was a mutated turtle stuck in the sewers hiding away from humans, hearing that you would correctly assume that he wouldn’t be too interested in flowers. Frankly he had better things to be doing than trying to scrounge up some plants and try to find a way to keep them alive in a place with almost to none natural sunlight. Sure, Donnie definitely had some sort of special lamps that basically did the same as the sun for plants since he did have an interest in agriculture and botany but that was Donnie. Leo didn’t particularly care about these things.
Leo loved video games, movies and don’t tell the others but he did actually enjoy training and honing his skills. He just didn’t particularly liked to get up for training but he did immensely enjoy the results of it.
So, why was it that he was currently looking through an old geology book where he stored his pressed flowers? Leo? Pressing flowers? This was definitely not a very Leo hobby if you asked others. Not for the teleporting Ninja Master that managed to send big alien gum looking monsters back to a prison dimension with the help of his equally skilled family years ago.
And Leo would agree. Normally he’d admit immediately that this was not his cup of tea, so to speak. Flowers were pretty but that’s about it.
Then how did he manage to accumulate a small collecting of a colorful array of flowers?
That answers was Y/N.
Y/N was quiet and introverted. The brothers met her when they were running away from the villain of the week only find a very scared human hunkering down in an alleyway, hugging a thick book against her chest.
Humans in New York? Normal. A human in the Hidden City? Not so much. Not impossible but not normal.
When the villain of the week inevitably caught up with the brothers, they had no choice but string along this obviously out of place human. After some smart thinking on Leo’s part, Mikey would argue with him about this because he was the one who apparently gave him the idea to lead the monstrous yokai towards the pirate bay for the pirates to deal with it in their anger when he destroyed their ship mast, they dealt with the villain and could deal with the human.
No surprise there Y/N wound up in the Hidden City accidentally and was immensely overwhelmed when they were suddenly surrounded by a myriad of mythical and magical beings. Obviously the brothers explained to her what was going on and that she was actually kind of safe as long as she just left most yokai in peace. They then helped her back to New York and since it was already daytime Raph called April to ask her if she could walk the very rattled Y/N back to her apartment.
Honestly Leo should have predicted that April took the chance to befriend the human since Y/N now knew that mutants, yokais and a hidden city beneath New York existed. He knew April had no qualms about having mostly non-human friends, but it must be still nice to have a friend with whom she can go out for food and doesn’t need to worry about their disguise, and should she get a call that one of the Hamatos needed her help with something, she didn’t need to come up with a lie. Most of the time anyways. Sometimes the brothers did stupid stuff she just didn’t want to bombard the timid Y/N with.
It didn’t take long for Y/N to come visit the Hamato household together with April now and again. It took some time and even convincing but she even begun visiting them all on her own. Her shyness usually stopped her from doing so.
This shyness was also the reason why Leo had basically a full bouquet of flowers hidden inside this old and forgotten geology book.
As they soon learned Y/N was shy but loved flowers. Whenever the brothers or April did something nice for her for example, she gifted them a flower. It took Donnie a moment but he soon realized that she gave them these flowers depending on their meaning. This way she could express things like trust and happiness and even her support while her voice failed due to her nerves.
Mikey immediately rolled with this using his culinary talents to do the same for her. When she felt down, he made food to soothe and calm her down. Often cooking her favorite dishes especially when she fought through her shyness and managed to do things like call the bank since there was a problem or something and needed her to call back.
Raph used his knitting abilities to make her things like mittens, hats and even sweaters for her to cuddle into. Combine this with his certified Big Brother Hugs™ that had the ability to melt any worries away he and Y/N could sometimes be found in the projector room watching a movie together while Raph silently taught Y/N how to knit while she sat securely against his chest.
Donnie was probably the person who could relate to her problems with other people the most. He immediately noticed when she was overwhelmed, dragged her to his lab, placed her in a corner that usually his brothers occupied hence why there was a beanbag, blankets and pillows and handed her one of his certified Genius Tech™ headphones while he returned to work on one of his projects. They might not actively interact with each other, but they still built a bond of trust. Both kind of became each other person they could just retreat to when people and socializing was too much, but they also didn’t want to be necessarily alone.
But Leo was struggling to really connect with Y/N. Don’t get him wrong the two were friends and hung out a lot but there wasn’t something the two did together. Not like his brothers and April with Y/N.
That was until he took a day to wander through the Hidden City alone to see what else there was to discover and he managed to find hidden inside a scary looking forest a beautiful patch of grass covered in all sorts of colorful and no doubt magical flowers. His mind immediately jumped to Y/N and how she no doubt would love this place.
He closed the book carefully, not wanting to destroy the carefully pressed gifts to place said book back on his shelf.
He didn’t know why he was so anxious to ask Y/N if she wanted to go into Hidden City with him. He was the face man! He once managed to fool a human chef even while poisoned and probably talking gibberish without a disguise! That’s how good he is!
Besides it’s flowers! Flowers she probably has never seen! He was sure she would love it!
Using this bout of confidence, that was definitely there since forever and actually he didn’t need to take advantage of a ‘bout of confidence’, that’s stupid, he grabbed his phone and clicked on her contact to text her.
“Chello~ Got some time? Wanna show you something cool!”
Should he add emojis? Like some flowers? Would that spoil the surprise? Would that be cheesy? A simple smirking emoji would be the correct choice. Wait, no, that kinda looks weird together with the message. Screw it. Send it as is.
It took a bit but Y/N responded, calming down his anxiety immediately.
The text immediately started with a happy emoji
“Yeah, I have time! Just finished studying! Need me to come down?”
Oh, right! She was studying for an upcoming exam since she was in university for botany.
“Nice!” This time a thumbs up seemed appropriate.
“Mind if I just teleport to you since it’s in the Hidden City and I want to teleport us there anyways. No need to walk all the way if I can just use my awesome skillz”
The answer this time was immediate from Y/N.
“Sure. You can portal here!”
That’s all he needed to grab one of his sword and slice through the air. A familiar blue circle appearing in front of him. Head empty, he walked in to come out inside Y/N’s bedroom. She was still sitting at her desk, hunched over phone. A pen in her mouth.
“On the phone while studying? Is that a good idea?” Leo joked, mostly to try to get her attention so she wouldn’t be spooked to suddenly see him.
She still tensed up with wide eyes, the pen falling on the floor as she turned around to spot the turtle in her room. The shock immediately was replaced with a fond smile.
“H-hi! Already here!”
Leo nodded, walking over to lean on her chair. Looking over her shoulder to scrutinize whatever she was working on. Okay there were a lot of words on a paper and hastily drawn graphs or something. Yeah, no, he checked out.
He still hummed approvingly as if he was looking over work and found it was all correct.
Y/N raised one of her eyebrows at this and huffed out an amused breath “Well, what did you want to show me?”
Leo pushed himself away from the chair and look Y/N over. Clothes? Check. Shoes? Nope. He frowned.
“We can’t go if you don’t wear shoes, Petal. Socks won’t do.”
Her face immediately burned up. He sometimes used that nickname solely to tease het with it since somehow this name seemed to break Y/N.exe every time. This has earned him a handful of times some pulls by his bandana tail by her. Almost if she wanted to pull on his ear or hair if he had any.
She grumbled embarrassed and wandered out the room only to reappear a minute later with her shoes on.
Leo clapped his hands together “Perfect! Let’s go!”
Once again he sliced through the air and opened another pulled. This time he didn’t mindlessly walk through the portal. No, this time he made sure to grab Y/N’s hand before mindlessly walking through the blue swirl. At this point he was really confident that his portals delivered him to the place he wants.
Bigger stretches of space could be a bit tricky if he couldn’t directly see the goal but he has been working on it.
Luckily, he didn’t embarrass himself this time by teleporting him and her to Spain or something.
With a soft thud he and Y/N arrived at the flower field. His portal hasn’t even fully disappeared into thin air he already heard Y/N excitedly gasp.
“Oh my god! Look at these flowers! They are so pretty! Oh my god!”
She was happily flapping her hands, turning around to Leo with huge glistening eyes and a faint blush across her cheeks. Her smile reached her eyes, crinkling the corners of her eyes. Leo hoped he wouldn’t forget that expression of her since it was so full of pure joy it elevated his own heart and made a happy grin appear on his face as well.
He nervously scratched the back of his neck “Yeah, I was kind of just walking around and found this. Thought you might enjoy this place.”
Y/N was clearly fighting to let proper words fumble through her joy but also shyness until she finally nodded “Enjoy? I love!”
She said it surprisingly softly with a slight wobble to her voice which somehow conveyed her happiness even more if she would have yelled it out.
Shakily she grabbed Leo’s hand that hung uselessly next to him and pulled him to the middle of the patch only to sit down on the soft ground. Her eyes scanned the whole place until they finally landed on the blue flowers close to her legs. Almost as if she was scared the flowers would break under her touch she soft traced the stem and then the petals.
To be fair they were in the Hidden City Leo wouldn’t be surprised if suddenly one of the flowers tried to eat them. Maybe this was a bad idea after all? But when he looked her happy expression, the small little moments where she couldn’t help herself but flap her hands due to happiness, he couldn’t help but decide that this was a risk worth taking. Besides he was here. He could deal with anything and protect her.
So here he was. Sitting next to Y/N while she inspected the flowers all around them. A, probably magical, sun shining down on them, bathing the two in warmth. It was calm, hell, it was peaceful.
“Hey, Y/N.” Leo tried to get her attention.
Y/N looked over at him and once again his heart seemed to twist at the beautiful expression of hers.
“You know I just realized. I don’t know how you make one of those flower crown things. Never had the chance to really try it out.” It was a random thought that jumped out to him but he couldn’t help to bring it up.
Weirdly enough Y/N looked almost sad for a moment before some determination jumped through “I’ll show you. It’s easier than you might realize.”
With that Leo turned properly towards Y/N. So that his whole body was now facing her and not just his face. She mirrored his behavior only to get up for a second and begin to gather an array of blue and white flowers. The petals of these flowers were big but thin. When Y/N dropped them in his lap he was sure they would have to be pretty heavy but these flowers were actually quite light.
With that Y/N softly begun showing and explaining to Leo how to make a flower crown. How to braid them all together. She often tripped over her own words, a wobble sometimes appearing when she misspoke or felt like she just made a mistake.
Leo made a point of complimenting her work or making some joke to alleviate her worries. It seemed to work as she continued working.
In the end the two had each a blue and white flower crown. Y/N’s looked naturally amazing while Leo was amazed that his seemed to somehow hold together. Hey as long as it’s not immediately falling apart! Seems like a win to him!
Y/N stared at her flower crown. Slowly turning it around. Leo was about to ask what was on her mind but she begun speaking on her own.
“Thank you. Th-Thank you for bringing me to this place.” He could see her tensing for a moment when she fumbled the word. “It really cheered me up. I think I needed it after being stuck at home studying for days. Thank you, L-Leo.”
A soft smile stretched across Leo’s face “Of course. When I saw this place, I immediately had to think of you. Figured you’d love it here.”
This made Y/N finally look up again with a new softness in her eyes he saw very rarely. His breath hitched as he finally saw this look from close up. Whatever this emotion was she was conveying with her eyes and poster, it filled him with a warm feeling.
With an uncertain smile and shaky hands she suddenly moved her flower crown and softly placed it on Leo’s head. She was so carefully moving as if he was a scared wild animal that would sprint off into the woods any second it made his heart squeeze.
He was a ninja that saved the world a couple times by now. Hell, he could probably snap her bones if he really wanted to due to the strength from his mutation. His strength didn’t come close to that of Raph but still, he was positive he still could. And yet, Y/N treated him as if he was fractured glass and she didn’t want to break him.
Heat rose to his neck and face. He couldn’t help but think if he was a human and had ears, would his ears also burn up? Just like Y/N’s right now. It was cute.
And as her hands slowly fell down. She had to stretched up to place the flower crown on his head since he was taller than her even while sitting. Y/N slowly moved back down to sit back down on the ground properly only to stop midway through. Her face right in front of his, determination burning in her eyes, contrasting her burning cheeks.
And with a slight grin she moved forward, placing a soft kiss on his snout only to fall back down on the soft ground.
It happened so fast Leo needed a moment to wrap his head around this action.
“Bwuh”
Eloquent Leonardo Hamato. Nicely said. Less is more as they say.
Y/N was at this point kneading her own hands, a nervous habit, but she was still smiling!
“Seriously. Thank you. Thi-This means a ton to me.”
Leo’s voice failed him. He opened his mouth but nothing came out, only a high pitched whine that he immediately strangled by snapping his mouth shut so fast and strong his teeth clicked together.
Almost as if he was a robot he moved his own shoddy flower crown towards Y/N and robotically placed it on her head. She had to move it a bit around, so it wasn’t tilted on her head.
“Yeah. No problem.” Leo finally managed to whisper. His voice sounded strangled. Almost as if he was talking right after Raph punched him accidentally really hard in his stomach during training.
Y/N’s embarrassed mind must have finally won over since she twirled around and laid down on the ground to look up “Le-Let’s just, uh, Let’s just enjoy the sun?”
He nodded and laid down next to her “Yeah. Let’s chill.”
And as they laid there, he made a point of not showing a strong reaction towards her hand slowly grasping his, scared she’d recoil and take her soft hand back.