Chapter Text
“Okaaaaay, I am increasing its strength by 10%”
“Only 10%? I can take way more than that!” Raph said confidently.
Donnie met Raph’s eyes with a flat expression.
“Raphael. I can obviously forgive your lack of understanding when it comes to statistics, and have done so 80% more today than the average already. But trust me. 10% is a lot.”
They were in the Dojo, which looked very different in their new Lair. The ceilings were just a little lower but the floor area was much greater. It was sad to say goodbye to the old spaces but it gave everybody new opportunities to customise it to their needs. (Mikey was especially excited for new walls to spray paint, even putting up a lovely portrait of Karai.) Before, the Dojo was suited more to their childhood interests but now the room was dedicated to sparring first and foremost.
And right now Donnie was testing a new invention which if successful would make training even more efficient. But it was an extremely delicate and tricky process. He had built a beta version of what he’s calling, at least for now, a Donnie-bot. That was the temporary name for at least half of his inventions. It was just a sparring robot but there were a lot of things to take into account. He had to fine tune its strength and speed settings, program it with different fighting styles and then set those into specific skill levels.
Then there was the most intricate part of the process. The artificial intelligence. They needed it to be able to keep up with them and their skills, and be able to analyse weaknesses in order to help them improve in those areas. If he wasn’t very careful with its coding he could make it learn too well and make it basically unstoppable. For now thoug,h it had no significant artificial intelligence to speak of.
“You ready?” Donnie asked.
“I was born ready.” Raph confirmed.
“Technically we were hatched but nevertheless,” Donnie clicked enter on his laptop. “Kick its ass, Raph.” He said and then quickly added, “But not too hard.”
Raph was the perfect person to test it against first. He was the strongest physically and would have the most straightforward fighting style. Mikey’s “razzmatazz” was always impressive to see and very effective, but not the best for testing its basic functions. And the same goes for…. Leo. Donnie grimaced at the thought of his blue clad brother. His stupid selfish egotistical selfish arrogant cocky ignorant dumb-dumb-
“Donnie!”
Donnie snapped back to reality at Raph’s call.
“What. Oh wow you took it out already. Good job. But I didn’t see it so can you do it again?” Donnie was already starting to enter the restart code when Raph was suddenly right next to him, hand on Donnie’s battle-shell.
“Are you okay Donnie?”
Donnie froze for a half-second and considered his options. His instinct was of course to brush it off. He’d already vented about this to both of his brothers plenty and he really didn’t want to derail this testing session. They were collecting useful and necessary data.
But on the other hand his head felt extremely crowded and his emotions were dialled up a bit more than usual. And then there was what he and his therapist were working on. Trying to (ugh) express his emotions instead of pushing them to the side. But that data though…
He looked back at Raph’s face, gentle and knowing. Donnie caved.
“It's just! Augh.” Donnie brought his hands to his face to rub his eyes and forehead.
“Leo?” Raph asked, sitting down on the bench with him.
“Yes! Still! Its so fucking frustrating! You know it wouldn’t have been this big of a deal if I could’ve just had my space to think through it first but he just keeps bothering me about it! And acting like he did nothing wrong.”
“Leo can definitely get lost in his own world.” Raph said, kindly leaving out that Donnie can and does do the same thing from time to time. Like he was doing now…
“Yeah no kidding! And still every time he texts me if it’s not ‘what did i do sad face emoji’ it’s ‘hey come with me to this thing I want to do’ or ‘hey watch this tiktok I like’. I can’t remember the last time he asked me what I was doing or what I’m interested in. Anytime I bring up my own projects or interests he’s barely listening and sometimes just outright interrupts me. Which, yes, I know that that part is just his ADHD because if he's tuning out he won't realise he's interrupting anything but he doesn't even try to listen to me! And then on top of that with all his jokes it just- augh!!”
Donatello’s head felt like it was buzzing. He had hoped to air out some of his tension but talking about it only seemed to rile himself up more.
“That’s really gotta hurt.” Raph said.
“Yes! Exactly! And he’s still doing exactly the same thing! He thinks he did nothing wrong at all! Cause he’s getting everything he wants! It just sucks that what he wants is to be completely uninvolved with my interests.” Donnie closed his laptop and put it aside so he could rest his elbows on his knees and hang his head low.
“So, first off, breathe.” Raph said easing Donnie into sitting up straight again. Donnie took a deep breath and let it go slowly.
“Don’t you think it might be time to tell him all of this? I don’t know if he’s gonna figure it out on his own.”
“It took an alien invasion and near apocalypse for him to be a good leader, of course he won't get it.”
“Donnie-”
“Who knows what it’ll take for him to be a good brother.” Donnie muttered.
“Donnie. That's not fair. He would’ve gotten there regardless of the Krang. But he did need to hear it from me. And he needs to hear it from you now. That's your decision though. You can either tell him to give you some space or you can tell him what's really wrong. Or you can keep letting this happen until… well whatever happens after that.”
“Sigh.” Donnie said, actually sighing with the word. “Okay, I’ll… think about it.”
“Cool,” Raph said and patted Donnie on his shell before standing up and stretching.
“Okay let's rerun that last test.” Donnie said, opening up his laptop again.
“Oh, uhhhh…” Raph trailed off.
“What. What is that tone of voice for- Oh NO, RAPH YOU PUNCHED ITS FACE OFF!”
Donnie bolted to the remains of his poor prototype. He held the head of it in one hand and the ripped apart wires that extended from its midsection in the other hand.
His eyes bounced back and forth between the two pieces trying to process it and assess the damage when he glanced up to see Raph. Raph, who was currently trying to sneak away and sprinted once he saw Donnie looking.
“You are lucky this was just a beta test, Raphael!” Donnie yelled, shaking his fist in the air at him.