Notes: Inspired by the "it's 3 am and I'm still in the library studying for finals and I'm losing my grip on reality and I think I just saw a ghost" OTP college AU prompt, and dedicated with all the love to hotmilkytea.

This is fluffy. Like, really, really fluffy. So it's obviously not a part of the GaVG-continuity :D

It's ten minutes to midnight, and April's last paper – working title Aphra Behn: International Woman of Misery – is stalled out with a page left to write.

"I hate college writing," she says, to the notes and books strewn over her table. "And I hate you," she says to the blinking cursor in Word. "You're an asshole."

The cursor doesn't reply, just keeps blinking. April sighs and grinds the heels of her hands into her eyes. She just needs another cup of coffee, and she can pound out a little more of this bullshit, email the paper to Professor Clingman, and never have to deal with MLA formatting again.

Who the hell still uses MLA formatting, anyways?

Someone who's probably Satan in disguise, she thinks. If she scrapes a C in this class, it'll be a miracle – words don't click for her the way chemistry does, or biology. Even geometry clicked more than this college writing class.

Who the hell cares about Aphra Behn, anyways?

The coffee stand is only open for another five minutes, and it's three floors down. If April sprints, she might make it there before her supply of gritty, over-priced salvation is cut off. And if that happens, this paper is never getting finished.

She yawns as she stands up, all too aware that she hasn't showered or left the library in almost two days, and that she might – just might – smell. But the end is in sight, and twelve sweet weeks of summer break wait for her on the other side of this paper.

"I can do this," she tells herself, then shrieks as a pair of cold, heavy hands land on her shoulders.

"Have you seen it?" someone hisses in her ear. "It was just over there, in the stacks." One of the hands lifts from her shoulder, and a thick, green finger points into the half-dark corridor between the walls of books. "Don't move. Just…wait and see."

April nods, utterly bemused by the hand and the whispering – but then her brain restarts, and she realizes it's one of the Hamato brothers, the rare campus rumor that turns out to be almost entirely accurate.

Mutant brothers. Four mutant brothers, to be precise, who used to be vigilantes and are now just…students. Because that's what mutant vigilantes do when their enemies are gone, right? They get advanced degrees.

"One of them's like, translating Shakespeare into Japanese!"

"Yeah and then there's the one that's always pissed off."

"And the short one who rappelled down the campus hotel!"

"No, the short one's the angry one!"

"Anyways, there's that genius one, he's got like, eighteen patents already."

"I heard it was twenty-seven."

And on and on. Sometimes April's seen them, but only at a distance. Four massive green forms, moving in step with each other, books and backpacks incongruous in their huge hands. They keep to themselves, like most mutants, but the short angry one hangs out with one of the hockey players – or so April's heard. She doesn't get out much, and if not for Irma, she wouldn't get out all, or have heard of the Hamatos to begin with.

Now one of the Hamato brothers is whispering in her ear – which brother, she has no idea, but it's better than freaking out over her paper.

"What am I looking for?" she whispers, still staring straight ahead. "One of your brothers?"

He laughs, stirring the hair by her ear. His breath is rancid, though April's sure hers is even worse. "Maybe, I don't know. I – I've been up a while, and I thought I saw…"

"Saw what?" April prompts, when he's silent for a few seconds.

"A ghost," he says, miserably. "God, I've been awake too long. Mikey's probably screwing with me again."

April can't help herself; she bursts into giggles. "A ghost? Yeah, he's messing with you." He groans behind her, and a sudden merciful impulse makes her keep talking. "But I heard there's one in the student union."

He laughs again, and the sound – warm, pleasant, exhausted – makes her stomach flip-flop pleasantly. "Thanks, but I know I've been an idiot." His hand falls away from her shoulder. "And…thanks for humoring me."

"No problem." April turns around slowly, preparing herself for – for what? Green, pebbled skin, a beak instead of a nose, three fingers instead of five? A shell? It's all there, but so are brown eyes, and a kind smile. And if the eyes are a little bloodshot, and the smile worn-out, that's fine, because he's not so strange, after all. He looks…friendly. Nice.

Cute. He's cute.

He opens his mouth, shuts it, then opens it again, his eyes roving over her features. "Wow," he says, finally. "You've got…really pretty eyes."

"Oh, wow. Uh, thank you," she says awkwardly, flushing hot and red. Dealing with catcalls and being told to smile — because no one's ever heard of resting bitchface — hasn't equipped her to handle with sincere compliments. She brushes her hair out of her face and tries to dredge up a winning smile despite her exhaustion. It must look horrible, because he cringes away, hands held up, palms out.

"I'm sorry," he says, the words rushing out of him. "I'm – that was weird, I'm sorry, I'll just go, and – Mikey! If that's you, you're dead!"

He sprints off into the stacks, surprisingly fast, and disappears into the dark at the end of the corridor.

April inhales, smelling her own sweat, and papers, and old books, and cold coffee, then reaches behind her and shuts her laptop without looking. Then she follows him – you don't even know his name, April, what the hell are you doing? – into the stacks, her footsteps echoing as she chases him down.

She doesn't catch up with him so much as slam into him when she rounds a corner on the nineteenth floor too quickly. Her face collides with his chest – plastron, her mind supplies helpfully, as her nose aches from the impact – and she nearly falls flat on her ass. The only thing that keeps her standing is his arm, a very well-muscled arm, that slips around her back and holds her up.

"Whoa, you okay? Are you – oh." He lets go of her carefully and steps away. "Sorry, I, uh, didn't know you were following me."

April shakes her head, trying to catch her breath. "No, don't be, I'm sorry – I swear I'm not a creeper, I just…I have this paper, and I don't want to finish, and…"

Shit. He has really nice eyes. She's thankful for the dark, which hides her second blush of the evening.

"What's the paper on?" he asks. Because that's how it's done in college — you can un-awkward any situation by talking about homework. One of life's great placebos.

"Aphra Behn, it's for college writing, and I'm so done with that class. I just." She waves her hands in the air, trying to figure out a non-alarming way to say You're cute and I'm running on no sleep, so chasing you through the library seemed like a good idea at the time, please don't murder me and throw my body in an elevator shaft.

"College writing," he says, in the same tone of voice April normally uses to describe dog shit. "What a waste of time. I mean, not if you're in the humanities, but for science majors?" He makes a disgusted noise and leans against the wall. April watches, fascinated, as the edge of his shell bends ever-so-slightly to accommodate his position. "Sorry. You didn't follow me to get a rant. I can let you get back to work, if you want."

"No!" April yelps. "God, I just ran after you for six stories. Do you really think I'll go back to that paper unless someone makes me?"

He laughs, and oh fuck, he's got a gap in his teeth. And he's only wearing some kind of utilikilt, and a purple bandanna tied over his eyes. Which means his arms – his very well-muscled arms – are on display, along with thick calves and lean thighs, and —

April knows she's ogling him, but he's so interesting to look at, and he's got the best laugh she's heard in months.

"Okay, I won't make you," he says, when he's done laughing. "Only because I've been there. My downfall was Wide Sargasso Sea."

"Ugh," April says, with feeling, which sends him off into another long peal of laughter.

"Sorry, I'm a little punchy," he says, wiping his eyes. "I feel like I've been awake for a week."

"Same." They fall silent, not entirely uncomfortable, but April watches him fidget: bouncing on his toes, rubbing the back of his head. He's getting ready to say goodbye, and melt away back into the stacks, and she knows she won't find him again.

This is a bad idea, April tells herself. True or not, that doesn't stop her from tapping him on the shoulder, and grinning as wide as she can when he looks up.

"You're it," she says, then spins around to run into the stacks. She hears him gasp, and then start to laugh, and she knows he's following her. And he'll catch her, of course he will – but she's going to make him work for it.

He catches her just before she gets to the lobby, in the eastern stairwell. April's more than happy to surrender; her legs are burning and her heart feels like it's trying to beat a hole through her ribs. He doesn't even look winded, and beams when he taps her on the head, flush with victory.

"Yeah, yeah," she grouses, leaning down to catch her breath. "You win. But I let you, so enjoy your victory."

"Of course you did," he says comfortably, and leans against the wall by her side. "Thanks for going easy on me."

"Anytime." April draws in a deep breath, and turns her head to smile back at him. "Thanks for not making me go back to my paper."

He ducks his head. "Well," he says a moment later, "if it had been a chemistry lab write-up, I'd carry you back up there myself."

"I'd never have left it had been a write-up," she says. "That's easy. That makes sense. With literature, you can argue anything. It doesn't matter if it's total bullshit."

"I know!" he says, bouncing off the wall, shyness forgotten. "My older brother, he loves this stuff. Last year, he had to read that poem, the one about the plums? This is just to say —"

"— that I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox," April finishes, laughing. "Yeah, I've read it."

"It's just about fruit," he says, offended dignity in every muscle. "That's it! Fruit! But Leo was all,no, it's about form, and finding beauty in the ordinary, and here's why. Thank god for headphones, seriously."

April covers her mouth to hold in her giggles. "With three brothers, I bet you need them."

"Oh, you have no idea." He throws his hands in the air, shaking his head. "I should buy stock. Leo's always freaking out over some new poem, and Raph's always breaking stuff, and then there's Mikey, who —"

"Who likes to make you think you're seeing ghosts?" she asks, inching a little closer. Her heart is still beating fast, but she can't rationally blame it on running any longer, so she ignores it, and tries to make out the details of his face in the low light. There are deep gouges in his plastron, the longest ones close to where his own heart might be.

Vigilantes, April thinks, and shivers.

"Mikey just likes to mess with me," he replies, darkly. "I mean, I love my brothers," he adds immediately. "But we spent all our lives together. Sometimes, things get a little claustrophobic. I think we were glad when…things changed. It's nice to come here. Sometimes I go up to the roof and stargaze." He ducks his head again, wringing his hands, his cheeks flushed dark. "I'm sorry. I'm rambling. You don't want to hear about my family."

Ignoring her heartbeat doesn't change the fact that April could reach out and hold his hand, if she wanted to.

"If you want to tell me, I'm happy to listen," she says. "And stargazing sounds great. You must have an awesome view once you get above the streetlights."

He nods, still not looking at her, and murmurs something.

"What'd you say?" she asks.

He murmurs again, sinking a little further into his shell.

"What?"

"I said, I could show you?" He looks up, eyes wide in his mask. "But it's okay if you don't want to, I understand. You don't have to."

April spends most of her time alone, except for when she's in class, or for her Friday night dinners with Irma. It's by choice; she doesn't like most people, or even try to like them, but she likes him, and that's why she grabs his hand and squeezes. Well, she manages to get her fingers around one of his, but judging by the stunned, warm look he gives her, it's enough.

"I'd love to," she says, her heart skipping when he smiles.

"It's a long way to climb," he says. "Forty-eight flights of stairs. It'd be easier if…" He swallows, Adam's apple bobbing, and gestures at his shell with his free hand. "If I carried you?"

He's got even less game than I do, April thinks, forcing down her giggles. "This isn't some Twilightrole-play, is it?" she asks, trying to keep a straight face. "Because if you call me spider-monkey, I'm out."

He snorts and rolls his eyes, the worry in his eyes disappearing. "So you've read Twilight, huh? Maybe you should've written your paper on that."

"It's a pop culture phenomenon!" April yelps. "It's — it's crack! You try and stop reading once you've started."

"I'll have to take your word for it." He turns around, and grins, wide and cocky, over his shoulder. "Hop on." He has a dimple.

I'm screwed, April thinks as she jumps onto his back. His shell scrapes her legs a little as she adjusts her arms around his neck, but it's nothing to complain about.

"Okay, you're gonna have to hold on tight," he says. "I'll need both arms."

"Both arms? But we're just going up the stairs?"

He laughs. "I don't need the stairs." Then, before April can process his dimple or how he smells like leather and ink, he's leapt to the next flight of stairs, and the next, climbing up the center of the stairwell with nothing but his arms keeping them both from falling.

April closes her eyes and rests her head against his shoulder. Her heart keeps pounding, but she's not scared. Not one bit.

"You're cheating," April says. When he squawks, she smirks to herself. It's only been a few hours, but she already knows just how to get a rise out of him.

"I don't cheat," he retorts. "And maybe you'd have an easier time in Clingman's class if you admitted when you don't know something, rather than accusing everyone of cheating."

"There is no way you know that many constellations. You made half of them up." She nudges his shoulder with hers. "Come on, come clean. You made them up."

He grins and nudges her back. "Like you'd know if I did."

For lack of a better reply – and to avoid admitting he's right – April sticks out her tongue.

"Wow, very mature." But he's still smiling, soft and shy, and when their hands touch, he doesn't pull away. They've spent the last hour inching closer together as they counted stars, and April hasn't minded one bit.

He smiles when he looks at her.

April doesn't even know his name.

"Sun's rising," he says. "A couple years ago, we'd just be heading home now. Then a shower, bed, and up for training by noon." He sighs, staring out over the city. "It's nice to actually see a sunrise."

"How'd you guys…" April says, then shakes her head. "Sorry. I don't want to pry."

"How'd we end up here?" he says. "It's a long story. Not interesting." His posture closes up, and he ducks his head. "We just…"

"Hey." April lays her hand on top of his. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to. That was rude of me."

"It's okay," he says. "It's just…everyone wants to know. They're not really interested in us, just an idea. Superhero mutants in college! I don't blame them. It sounds great when you put it like that."

It does, but not the way that April cares about. What she cares about is how the last few weeks of stress have fallen off her shoulders, how she doesn't feel tired at all, how she's actually happy. She feels safe.

"It definitely gives you an advantage in tag," she says, hoping for a laugh, and only getting a wry smile in reply. "I'll get you next time."

"I'll believe it when I see it," he says. "You up for round two?"

April leans against the ventilation shaft behind them and sighs. "Maybe after my legs stop feeling like jello. Seriously, I'm still wiped out from earlier, and I didn't Tarzan up a billion steps. How are you ready to go?"

He shrugs. The motion makes his mask tails fall over one shoulder, and April feels a wicked impulse to tug it away from his eyes and finally get a good look at him. She keeps her hand where it is, right on top of his. "Training. And it's a side benefit of…" He gestures at his body, not looking at her. "Not a whole ton of those floating around, so I guess I should take what I can get, right?"

"It was awesome." April squeezes his hand. "Seriously awesome. I can't believe you carried me all that way."

He shrugs again. "You're not that heavy," he says, then twitches. "I mean, not that I'm complaining! Or that I'm saying there's anything wrong with you, or your body, and oh, wow, that sun is really something, huh? Can you believe that's one big chemical reaction?" His hand curls into a fist under hers, his muscles rigid.

"Smooth transition," she says, gently. "How about you stop worrying for thirty seconds?"

A humorless little laugh is the only reply she gets for a long time, until his hand relaxes and opens, turning to cradle her fingers in his palm.

"That's kind of my job," he says. "I do the worrying, Leo does the planning, then Raph and Mikey smash stuff until the problem goes away. Or we did."

There's a whole lifetime behind his words, and April wonders, briefly, what it's like to be here, with all the other weirdos, forced into the daylight. She wants to ask, but her curiosity can wait.

One question, though, she should ask, before they have to go back to the rest of their lives and admit the night has ended.

"So you're the worrier," she says. "But you're…?" She lets the question trail off, a space open for his name.

"Me?" He frowns at her, then comprehension dawns. "Oh! Donatello. Mikey calls me D sometimes, but everyone else just goes with —"

"Donnie," April says, sure of herself for no reason. Of course it's an easy name to guess, but his smile is surprised and pleased.

"Yeah, Donnie. But you can call me whatever you want, I don't —"

"I'm April," she says, to forestall the inevitable babbling. Why are you still freaking out? she asks him silently. I'm here. I'm not leaving.

"That's a…" he smiles. "April. That's a pretty name."

"Well," she says, smiling back, "it's actually Aprillette Rosemary Ludwilla Elvira O'Neil, but that's a mouthful, so April works."

Donnie gapes at her, his mouth working, until she bursts out laughing. "Oh my god, I'm kidding. Any parents who named their kid Aprillette should be shot."

He laughs back a moment later, his eyes falling to their linked hands. "Yeah, well, you're talking to a guy whose father named him Donatello, so I think I have you beat."

"I think it's nice," April says. "It's old-fashioned. But I like Donnie too."

"Well, as long as you like it," he says, with a soft, crooked smile.

They fall into another one of the silences that keep cropping up, and the lack of talking still isn't uncomfortable. Anything but, really. This may not have been where April expected her night to go, hours of tag and giggling in the stacks followed by stargazing and holding hands, holy shit, but she doesn't regret a moment of it. She doesn't even regret the way she doomed her grade in college writing on a whim, because this is the first time all year she's actually been able to stop being angry.

For two people who have absolutely no game, she thinks, we're doing okay.

Donnie starts a little when she rests her head on his shoulder, then leans his cheek on the top of his head.

"I'm…I'm really glad I thought I saw a ghost," Donnie says. His thumb rubs the inside of her wrist, then pauses. April can feel him gathering strength to push through the next few words, taking a deep breath before diving in. "If — and it's totally understandable if you don't, but…do you want to —"

The campus clocks rings, drowning out Donnie's question. April jolts upright, the world crashing into place around them, with all her responsibilities bearing down on her again.

"Oh, shit, it's seven." Her anxiety comes flooding back, the taste of old coffee filling her mouth. "I've got a final in an hour, and I have to email in that paper." She meets Donnie's gaze. "I'm – I've got to go, I'm sorry. I don't want to, but…shit."

She means it – she wants to stay here and watch the sun come up, and get real coffee, and hear the rest of what Donnie had to say – but after a moment when his face falls, he just smiles again, sad and resigned, and gives her hand a squeeze.

"It's okay," he says. "I – good luck on your finals. You'll do great."

April squeezes his hand back, unable to speak. She just looks at him, warm brown eyes, sad smile, and memorizes him. It can't be done this quickly. She won't let it.

This isn't a movie, April. You have work to do. Stop wasting time.

"Rain check on round two?" she finally manages. "Meet you back here, when I'm done with my final?"

His smile turns even sadder. "Sure," he says. "Sounds good."

"I'll be back," she promises. "I'm sorry, but —"

Donnie keeps smiling, quiet and sad, and doesn't say another word as he watches her walk away.

"See you soon," she says at the door, looking back and hoping, hoping he believes her.

"Bye," he says, as the door closes behind her.

April makes it to her final with five minutes to spare, and she wonders the whole time she's conjugating Spanish verbs if Donnie's still on the roof.

She runs the whole way back, but he's gone when she gets there, sunlight filling the empty space.