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“Donnie, come in.”
Donnie remained silent, frozen still on the rooftop as he stared at the billboard on the building across the street. It used to be one for pest control, now…
“Donnie, answer or I’m setting Mikey loose in your lab.”
He jolted, broken from his stupor to hastily raise his hand to his headset and reply, “I-I’m here! Sorry, April, I just, I’m coming back now!”
“Alright,” she chuckled. “See you soon. Love you.”
He looked back at the billboard. The woman in the picture smiled brightly with her hand resting on her cheek. Silver and gleaming, the ring on her finger was made to be the focus, with the word “Finally” written boldly beside it. Some company’s name took up the rest of the billboard with a “call today!” right next to their number.
“I love you, too,” Donnie said.
“What?” Raph paused reading and lifted his head from his comic with a look that said what he really meant was, “Are you crazy?”
“Haven’t you ever thought about it?”
They were in his room, where Raph had been reading and Donnie had been pretending to until he blurted out the question that was spinning through his mind ever since the night he saw the billboard.
“We’re mutant ninja turtles,” he deadpanned. “I think I speak for all of us when I say I consider it a miracle we have partners at all. But proposing to one of them? Marrying one of them? That’s got way more obstacles than just being together.”
“We’ve been together since we were sixteen! 38% of couples get engaged in eighteen months or less. Of the Meeting-to-Marriage milestones, falling in love, meeting the family, cohabitation, and marriage, the only thing we haven’t done is get married! But another 29% of people date for five or more years–”
“Stop, man. Just stop,” Raph said. “Humans get married, Donnie. Humans. They get the knot tied so they’re recognized in the eyes of the law, but guess what? We don’t exist. And, if we did, they wouldn’t be letting us in a courthouse anytime soon to sign some paper that says forever. It’s not in the cards for us.”
“But what if she wants it to be?” Donnie stressed.
Raph scoffed. “I had this conversation with Casey before we even got together. Neither of us needs a ring or a state to make us promise to do right by each other. You should be talking about this to April, not me.”
Donnie put his head in his hands and sighed.
He found Mikey next, making some abomination in the kitchen, and asked him the same question. Mikey laughed at first, but became progressively more perplexed as his brain worked through it.
“Dude, it never even occurred to me! Do you think it’s still the same in the future? 'Cuz they totally do a lot of stuff super different. And she’s so focused on her work, you know? She’s got all these time-y things to keep track of and we’re long-distance, and it’s been pretty chill, so…”
“But April and I aren’t ‘chill’, Mikey. She loves looking at her parents’ wedding album and they have a tape of the vows being said that she can recite by memory. They even still have her mom’s wedding dress. It’s in a clear garment bag in the back of Kirby’s closet. What if she’s waiting for me to propose so we can have our own memories like that?”
“Hey, man, if you want to get everybody in a room, proclaim your love, and throw a party; we can do that. Just give me a day or two.”
“Thanks, but I’ll pass,” Donnie sighed. “Where’s Leo?”
Leo was in the dojo, tending to the tree. It was different from the one they grew up in. They had to practically rebuild the whole thing after the second invasion and even more changes were made after Splinter disappeared. It still held the same traditional vibe, but it was more colorful. More welcoming. Donnie liked it.
When Donnie asked Leo if he ever thought about marriage, he gave him a dubious glance.
“I guess? Keno and I don’t have any hard labels, though, and I don’t think we want any. Are you asking because you think April wants those labels or because you want those labels?”
“I don’t know. Me maybe?” Donnie groaned. "I saw a billboard a few days ago and now I can’t stop thinking about if I should propose to April. She’s it for me, and I love her, and usually that means we’d take the next step, except…”
“We’re all mutants who are systematically wiped from any record we ever appear on by our alien ally in the government?”
Donnie nodded, his frown feeling etched onto his face as he turned the situation over in his head again and again.
“Look, I can’t tell you what April wants, but you’re overthinking this. Haven’t we all learned not to put stock in what’s ‘normal’? Your next steps are whatever you want them to be and if that happens to involve wedding bells, then you guys’ll figure it out. You just have to talk to April. You guys have a date tonight, don’t you?”
Donnie winced. “Yeah, I might need to tone it down. I have the holo set up with… a lot.”
Leo snorted as Donnie left, muttering about what amount of balloons and roses were appropriate on his way out.
“I just had the most amusing conversation with Leo,” Karai said as she came up to Venus and Leatherhead’s corner of the warehouse. “Donatello was apparently contemplating proposing to O'Neil. He had a whole crisis about it before talking to her.”
“He wants to get married? Even with the whole…” Venus gestured to her very un-human self. She shared a perplexed glance with Leatherhead.
“Well, as I’m told, they decided not to make any immediate decisions.” She chortled, mostly to herself. “Shini and I made a blood pact within days of meeting each other, but to each their own.”
“Not everyone falls in love with a witch,” Venus chuckled.
Karai winked. “Not everyone can.”
“Would you want to get married?” Venus quietly asked as they lay in their nest. It was dark in the warehouse with all light being shut out for the day while they slept, but not silent since the city was going about its day. Both of them were awake, simply holding each other to ward off all the things that kept their eyes open.
“Our lives are already so intrinsically entwined. I feel the depth of our relationship every time I look into your eyes.” Leatherhead propped himself up so they could look at each other. “I was never awaiting a proposal, if that is what you were wondering and, in many ways, we have already made our vows.”
“It’s not necessary,” she agreed, “but would you want to?”
“With you, I wish to do everything,” he stated. “Admittedly, I do not know much about weddings, but the notion of tying myself to you in another way does not scare me. Not for normalcy or documentation, but because we want to. A celebration and declaration of us sounds most welcome.”
Venus smiled. “I bet it’d also get people to stop asking if we’re actually together, too. I think their betting pool is still open.”
“Introductions would be simplified,” Leatherhead added, a teasing edge in his voice. “No more ‘he is my- he is mine’.”
“As if you didn’t love me saying that,” Venus scoffed playfully.
“I believe I would enjoy being introduced as your husband far more,” he rumbled, leaning in to nuzzle their faces. “There will be no possible confusion.”
“It sounds like we have a wedding to plan,” Venus mumbled against his scales.
He nipped at her cheek, squinting at her. “I have not heard a proposal.”
Venus blinked, then smiled, wide and bright.
“Leatherhead, will you marry me?”
He didn’t even pretend to think about it.
“Yes,” he said immediately. A joyous rumble rolled through him as he murmured it again and again. “Yes.”