Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first time April gets a part-time job, she's working at a hardware and appliance store called HardWired. Her excellent grades made up for the awkward interview, and her work ethic was more that some of the full-timers. When school let out she then switched to full-time as she hoped to fund college when she was done with high school. She'd been there long enough with no issue that now she was even allowed to close by herself for time-and-half on the last hour.

"Anything broken just mark it down as damaged and put it in the purple bin next to the door." Her boss told her. "There's a guy that'll come in and pick it up."

"A disposal guy?" April asked.

"No, just… A guy. I don't want him walking around in here stealing so it's just easier let him pick up what we can't sell anyway and be on his way." Her manager explained. "It keeps him from rooting in the garbage." He added with a shrug. "You'll know him when you see him."

April did indeed know when she saw him.

He wore a large purple hoodie, purple jeans, a scarf that looked old and handmade, odd three-fingered mittens. His hood was up but under that he had a purple bandana functioning as an eyemask. The only thing not purple on him was the light blue disposable mask covering the rest of his face. His back was also hunched oddly, like he was wearing a backpack under his jacket. All things April might understand if it was winter or at least raining. But it was late summer.

April watched the stranger root through the bin, also purple she realised. Color coded specifically for this weirdo digging though it, occasionally letting out an excited little 'ooh!' when he found something he particularly liked enough to set aside. April decided to finish her inventory count and let him do his thing. He wasn't causing any trouble, after all, and her boss did say he stopped by almost every night. She moved on to money counting, marking down the total in the register drawer before moving it to the safe. 

Done with that, April looked up and over to him, just in case the boy needed help and was too polite to speak up. He wasn't looking at her in any expectant way, or at all. He was completely focused on cherry-picking the least damaged but still significantly banged up unsellables. She could tell him to get out and lock up since her duties were done, but he didn't take much longer. She watched as he pulled reusable bags from his hoodie pockets and unfolded them, filling them with wires and circuitry and piping. He then pulled a jingly washed-out jam jar of coins from his other pocket and set it on the counter.

Unsure what to do about that since her manager never specified that the strange damaged good collector ever paid via jar bank, April made a note that they were a few dollars over. She tapped her pen on the edge of the counter as she wondered if she should put that note in the computer or on the safe.

Tap-tap-tap

" Tk-tk-tk ." The boy responded, copying the noise by clicking his tongue as if it were a reflex to do so. Then he left, with little bow and a hardly audible, "Thanks."

"You're welcome." April answered, even as the door was closing, but the boy had seemingly vanished. Once he was out April locked up the store, double checking she had everything before hailing a taxi home.

While the boy didn't show up every day and he didn't always have a jar of assorted coins, April just expected it as a possible end to her work day. He seemed to be getting more comfortable with her too, coming out of his shell a bit. He started looking at the rest of the store when he realized April would let him. He didn't even touch anything that wasn't in the bin, and April trusted that he wouldn't steal and bolt if she took the moment to plug the damages she'd written down on paper into the computer's filing system.

When she looked back over to the boy in purple he was quietly bopping in place to the bloopy 80s music on the overhead speaker. He didn't seem to know that anyone was watching, or more likely just didn't care. He was just jamming in his own little world. April smiled, shook her head a little, and tapped the volume up a few notches.

"Woo!" The boy whooped on cue, clearly knowing the song, and just about tangoed with a cracked tube of PVC pipe.

April snickered and tapped the volume up some more. The guy just danced harder, reaching the end of the song with a spin in which he caught his momentum by bracing on the register. "Would you happen to have any electrical tape? I have… almost a full jar of quarters."

"Dude, after that?" April replied, nodding toward where the dancing had started. She took down a roll and tossed it to him. He caught it smoothly. "Just take it. I'll mark it down as torn." 

He hesitated. "Really?" 

"Yeah I get paid the same either way." April shrugged. "What are you making anyway?" 

"Right now I'm just…fixing the VCR…"

April's eyebrows shot to her hairline. This boy had a VCR. 

"What year are we in?" April mumbled.

"Yeah, I know. But getting any kind of computer made is slow going when you're self-taught. So the little repair jobs keep me learning!" He beamed, the turn of his green-shadowed eyes easily reading as a smile. April couldn't help but wonder what the point of make-up was when he had his whole face covered, but that was his business.

"You gonna be an engineer before long I bet." April chuckled. "I'm April. Figure I should get your name if we're finally on a full-sentences basis?"

"It's Donatello!" He answered quickly, but just as fast the happy demeanor quickly dissipated to make way for anxiety. "I'm not supposed to talk to people this much… I gotta go. But thank you!" 

A wave, a bow, and she lost sight of him practically as soon as he stepped onto the sidewalk. Even though the storefront was glass. It was a common enough occurrence now that April stopped questioning that part. Now she had new questions burning her brain, particularly the not supposed to talk to people bit.

Chapter Text

"Hey Donatello!" April greeted the next time he came in. "Been a minute."

She hadn't seen him in a full week, and had worried he'd been prevented from coming in by whoever told him that he wasn't supposed to talk to people. That had lingered in her head the whole time and she wasn't sure how to ask or even if she should.

He flinched a little, not used to the attention. Usually his full name was reserved to be used by his father, maybe Raph, when he was taking apart something he shouldn't. Or picking a fight with Leo just to create a temporary cure for boredom. Or explaining an inconsistency in a film at length and proposing ways to solve the plothole. Mainly just any time he was in some form of harmless trouble. Oh no, she's frowning. He was supposed to say hello back, right?

"Hey April." He said after a bit of a pause, opting to use the same type of greeting she had used. 

He grips his bo, simple and wooden for the moment, tapping a mittened finger against it to the beat of the song playing through the overhead speakers. Donnie had no experience in making friends. He knew what friends were in theory. He watched plenty of movies and read plenty of books. All main characters had friends, but as part of a set of four and no major conflict of his own, Donnie didn't feel like he was a main character. Besides that, he knew he was a mutant. He knew he looked like a monster to regular human people. He never felt a need to learn to socialize outside of family because really he wasn't supposed to. 

But he wanted to.

He just didn't know how, so he counted it lucky that April had opted to reach out first. Unfortunately there was another person in the store that took up April's attention a moment later. Unwilling to interrupt, and feeling avoidant of the stranger, Donatello busied himself with inspecting the wall of spray paint on the opposite side of the store. Maybe if he scrounged up some proper money he could get Michelangelo something for Mutation Day? His little brother had been making due with the paint pails they 'borrowed' from construction sites but those were all so dull. The bright metallic orange practically had Mikey's name on it!

"Sir, please don't be inappropriate. We're near closing. Buy something or leave." He heard April say in a strained tone that caught his attention.

Splinter said not to interfere with people and never draw attention to himself when he went to the surface. Splinter also said that ninja protect their own. He had meant their family specifically but…

April was Donnie's friend now, right? So she was definitely included in that protection. Also it was only the decent thing to do to intervene if he could. Donnie assessed, then made a decision. He casually meandered behind the man, pretending to look at something on the shelf nearby, then jabbed the man's achilles with the end of his bo. 

"Ack!" The man grunted, before turning to shout something that Donnie didn't care enough to retain. The man had moved enough to be a sight barrier, a perfect blind spot so both the corner ceiling cameras and April wouldn't see his face when he pulled down his medical mask and did his best impression of Raph's sneeze-snarl. Drooly jaw-snap and all, giving a good show of the rows of serrated hindteeth behind his human set.

The man immediately retreated a few steps, stunned into speechlessness. Donatello pulled up his mask as the man fled, feeling a bit smug. It should have felt like an insult for someone to run screaming from your face, but since it was Donnie's intention to get the guy to leave and there was an air of rebellious glee to be showing his face at all after his father kept telling him not to, he would count it as two wins. 

"Damn, Don. What was that?" April asked, and he honestly couldn't read her tone.

"My older brother sneezes violently." He replied and since his personal policy was to get answers to any question that crossed his mind he had to ask, "Clarify; Upset or impressed?" 

"Impressed and grateful." April answered. "He's been coming in the past few days. He tried following me home yesterday but I walked the wrong way for two blocks and then called a cab." She elaborated, and Donnie had a very clear example of the feeling of rage crawling under his plastron. 

"Do you want me to come in more often?" Donnie asked awkwardly. "Just in case?"

"If you can? You don't have to." Said April, and then processed what he'd said before he had made the offer. "You have a brother?"

"Three." Donnie corrected, and held up a mittened hand. Then as if realizing he's sharing too much he starts to wither a bit. 

"Lucky! I don't have any." April huffs, hoping to keep up the conversation instead of letting him close off.

"I can't imagine how lonely that is." Donnie said. He was going for sympathetic but it must have ended up sounding like sarcasm or a dry joke when it got to his mouth because April laughed.

"Yeah, kinda." She agreed, not actually seeming too bothered. "I have my mom and dad, but dad's away for work a lot."

Donnie was quiet for a while at that, so April took the time to do inventory and lock up. She purposely left out the can of spray paint, giving it to him as a 'thank you'. He followed her out since he couldn't just stay in and made good on his offer to walk with her a while so she could feel safer after the rude customer incident. 

"My dad mostly just watches TV. Hooking up japanese satellite to the projector may have been a mistake." Donnie said after a while, ready to continue the conversation far after most people would have assumed the long silence meant the subject had been dropped.

"You did what?" April asked incredulously. 

Clearly she'd asked the right question because while he had been friendly but reserved before, he was suddenly and animatedly talking her through the process he had painstakingly and enthusiastically gone through. She wasn't actually understanding half of it but from what she did understand he had taken the previously mentioned VCR and a high quantity of cell phones he'd liberated from the garbage to connect to satellite television channels from japan. And then he had used the projector, sans physical film, a mirror, and a digital watch to substitute a display monitor. He even included mistakes, understanding them as necessary to learning, but at the mention of small victories in his self-taught engineering he would flap the hand not holding his staff excitedly.

"You gotta have some kind of magic to do all that." April complimented.

"Scoff," Donnie said, instead of just doing it. "It's not magic. Just good old science."

"Yeah, yeah. Okay science guy. Let me know when you level up to making robots. I want to see those." April chuckled, mostly joking.

"I have blueprints in the draft stage for a drone!" Donnie told her, completely serious. "Not on me right now, but I can bring them next time!"

"Sure! I'd love to see it." 

He left her outside of her apartment building, waiting until she had unlocked the outer gate and disappeared into the building proper to turn and make his own trek home. He'd be later than usual but hoped the fact he now had a gift for Mikey would make up for any worry. 

Chapter Text

Summer break ends but April keeps the job. Donnie claims he doesn't have a phone number, so his visits the hardware store is really the only way to keep tabs on him. She worries about him sometimes. And as a bonus, he's really good at math and does her math homework for fun.

"No, Dee. It's gotta be in base ten why do you always default to base six?"

"It's easier!" Donnie insists. "You learned on your fingers!" Then he covers his masked mouth with mittened hand.

That's what makes April worry. She's kept a mental tally board on how many times he's said something weird and then tried to coversince he mentioned the wasn't supposed to talk to people. He always tries to cover it, pretend he said nothing at all, always with a flash of worry in his eyes. That and she's looked for him in school; He doesn't go which is odd because she's pretty sure he's the same age she is. It feels like something to be intervened in but she isn't sure how to do so without potentially putting Donnie in a worse situation when he over all seems okay and she doesn't have all details.

"Fifteen, actually." He answers when she finally just asks.

"Year younger than me then. You're tall..." April huffs out a chuckle and snatches the mechanical fluff-topped pencil from his hand. "Stop doing my homework in base six!"

Donnie snatches it back, lightning quick, and then they're playing keep-away with the writing utensil and laughing like idiots. April's always been a weird kid, and Donnie has only ever had brothers. April-and-Donnie, however, get the privilege of being best friends in their little bubble.

But April is concerned and by nature nosy, and she can't help if she doesn't know what exactly to help with. So after he walks her home, she waits fifteen seconds after closing the door before opening it again.

"You're going back out?"

"I left my mathbook at the shop, Mama, I'll be right back!" April assures and follows back the way she came. 

Donnie hasn't disappeared yet but she's gotten used to his habit of avoiding the direct streetlights. She knows what his silhouette looks like now against the shadow. He's out of sight again an instant later, seemingly just falling right through the ground. April rushes over to where her friend has disappeared and finds a manhole cover to the sewers.

"Aw, come on. Really?" April huffs to no-one in particular.

If Donnie went down so can she, she decides. She commits to her current course of action, and climbs down the surprisingly clean ladder rungs into the city's underground. There's only one way to go from here so she follows the pipes until they branch out. One patch catches her attention with plastic glow in the dark stars and graffiti in an orange she remembers giving Donnie. She smiles at the image, a turtle in sunglasses on a skateboard. Donnie's little brother must have painted it. An hour later April is lost. There's graffiti everywhere and she had hoped there was a clear path to it but she keeps getting turned around. She also feels like she's being watched. There are definitely rats down here and her sock is wet with she doesn't want to even know what. There are clean spaces but she doesn't trust the water. 

Donnie accidentally lead a human down the sewer so now he has to help Splinter keep April from finding the lair. It involves mind games and normally Donnie doesn't care. This isn't the first human to take up urban exploring and needed a gentle guidance out again. April is not letting herself be guided out. She just won't leave.

"Why is this girl so stubborn? Pah! She is looking for something."

Donnie isn't sure he should let slip April is looking for him. So when April gets too close to the right direction, he scratches the wall and lets out rattling hisses. Inherent human paranoia is a powerful tool, but Donnie hates this. He hates scaring his best friend. He cares how she feels, and she is not having a good night. She doesn't feel safe, and rare guilt eats at the edge of Donnie's mind. He hates that he has to be her monster in the dark.

"We're gonna miss TaskMaster..." Donnie sighs, and because he's banking on Splinter caring more about his escapism than a mild security breach; "I wanted to watch that after Soapy Treadmill. Sigh. Groan. Other cues for dissapointment."

"Oh! Twelve thirty already?"

"Twelve-twenty-seven." Donnie corrects, "But very nearly! I have an idea."

"Oh do you? Let's hear it Purple." Splinter asks. 

"Why don't I handle this while you watch your show and you can come get me for mine if I haven't shaken her yet?"

Splinter gives him a long stare, then pats Donnie's hand. "Such a smart boy. That is what we will do." 

"Let Nardo know I declared dibs?"

"You handle your dibs yourself." Splinter chuckles and scampers back toward home. 

Donnie waits a few minutes, checks with the thermal goggles he's still in testing phases for. Once he's fairly certain Splinter hasn't pretended to go home just to linger, Donnie goes from herding April away to following her. He'd dropped his disguise the moment he returned underground, so he stays out of her eyeline. At first he stays quiet, not wanting to scare her, but it backfires as she meets his greeting with a scream.

"Hey-"

"AAAH!-"

Donnie panicks, but his panic is a functional sort. He needs silence, so he silences April. She clearly dislikes this, and Donnie realizes he's made a second mistake; He's not wearing his mittens either. Oh well. Here goes that power of friendship most of his favorite stories mention.

"It's me. Please don't scream again. I can explain but you're going to have to be cool with a few things really quickly."

April doesn't exactly relax, but she seems complacent enough. Donnie lets her go, and she immediately rounds on him to scold him. 

"Oh my gosh, Dee! You can't sneak up..." She trails off a bit, squinting at him through the dark. "On... people?" She continues, uncertainly taking a step forward even as Donnie takes one back. 

"You really shouldn't be down here. People shouldn't be down here."

"You're down here." April points out.

Donnie's going to miss how she makes him feel normal because he knows now that won't last. He holds his bo to his chest nervously, then decides his next action is a fifty-fifty shot of scaring her away like his dad wants, or she'll understand and she'll go home again and he'll be sure she actually stays there this time. Really the important question is; Does he want a friend that can't look at him? And it's personal law that he find the answer for every question to enter his mind. He clicks a hidden button on his staff, and the end illuminates.

April stares, shocked frozen. She doesn't scream, and she doesn't run either. She just looks at him, the fear of the unfamiliar morphing into curiosity.

"Ooooh!" April finally bellows, bending at the knee and putting her whole body into pointing at him. "Not supposed to talk to human people."

"Yes. Human is implied in 'people' isn't it?" 

"Okay first we're gonna unlearn that speciesism." April grins, taking in that her friend probably isn't being abused, just a little over protected. Though with how mutants are treated... She unfortunately gets it.

Donnie smiles, as this is going better than he could have hoped. "First implies a second."

"Yeah second...Can I ask what..." April waves a hand vaguely at him. "Just what?"

"I'm a spiny softshell turtle. Me and my brothers were normal turtles but we got swishes around in some ooze that made us soak up some human DNA." Donnie explains as blunt and clear as he can. "They're other kinds of turtles though, and dad's a rat. We're adopted."

"That's a lot."

"Is it?" Donnie deadpans.

April snorts.

"There's about seventeen minutes before my dad comes back." Donnie then holds his staff low against the wall. There's aged doodles in permanent marker there. "If you follow the fish there's a manhole lid close to your apartment after four turns, then one strait until you see an octopus that kind of looks lie the monopoly guy."

"Oh thats what was with the hat." April nods as she remembers the doodle, then she notices the turtle's bre hands. "You do my homework wrong because you have six fingers?"

"Scoff! Your teacher's wrong for limiting from a perfectly sound problem solving method!" Donnie protests cheerfully, glad to still feel normal. "Get out of my sewer if you don't like my math!"