Chapter Text
The meaning of gifts given
Chapter 1
For the last few days Donnie had been made aware that Nardo was avoiding him. At first honestly I hadn’t noticed. Sure I had kind of noticed a small boost in productivity due to fewer interruptions. There had also been less time spent arguing that what I do is important and not just “boring nerd stuff”. But I didn’t necessarily find such things concerning. It was kind of nice even, although some meals and sleep had been forgotten due to being caught in a good work flow. But this seemed a small price to pay for taking a sizable chunk out of my to do list.
On the 3rd day of constant work, Ralph caught me getting coffee and asked when was the last time I ate something. I couldn’t remember and under the influence of 70 hours with no sleep. I forgot that saying exactly that to my overprotective, mother hen of a big brother was unwise. Needless to say I was forcefully removed and exiled from the lab. I was also made to eat in the kitchen where he could make sure I ate plenty. After that I was roped into some “family bonding” activities of playing some games and watching a movie with all of my brothers. It was actually kind of nice although being as tired as I was it was all a bit of a blur. After falling asleep 10 minutes into the movie, apparently Ralph forbid anyone from waking me up. Thus I ended up sleeping for 12 hours and feeling thoroughly refreshed.
2 days after this mandatory break, Mikey came by to chat a bit and silently watch me work. This in it’s self was not too unusual as he sometimes does this if I haven’t come out of the lab in a while. However, I had been out of the lab lately, to avoid a repeat of last time I had been taking more breaks. Not even just to eat and sleep either I would check in on my brothers and see what they were doing. I had helped Ralph reorganize his stuffed animal collection and discussed art with Mikey while he worked on his latest drawing. I had taken a break just earlier today to skateboard with all of them. Yet here he was checking in randomly and seemed to have some sort of agenda. He was overly interested in discussing the gifts I had given to all of them not too long ago. More specifically if I had spoken with Ralph or Nardo about their thoughts on the gifts. I failed to see the need to talk about it nor did I see why he was so interested in the topic. It seemed clear that they disliked them given how they chose to use them and that they broke them so quickly and unremorsfully. But the more we discussed it the more complex his facial expressions became.
Eventually we lapsed into silence long enough for me to almost forget he was there. “Why… did you make those gifts, Don?” He asked softly, half startling me after the long silence. I glanced back to see an odd look on his face that I couldn’t understand but that I felt was negative in nature. “To give to you guys… in an attempt to keep each of you safe… while allowing you each to learn and improve on your skills…” It felt like a question with the way I said it but I knew it was a statement so I found myself confused with my choice of vocal fluctuations. “I made them to keep you all safe and help each of you grow your individual skills.” There much better, that’s how it should sound! I turned back to my work satisfied I had expressed myself well.
Silence again. This time I turned to Mikey again, curious about the silence, given the strange importance he had seemed to place on the question. What I saw made my body feel cold and heavy. Mikey had tears running down his face and his expression was shifting semi frequently. His eyes darted around like he was thinking something through. I moved stiffly to face my entire body toward him and reached out from where I sat. “Angelo? Are you okay? Do you need… anything… I could get you… something… or I could… I’ll get Ralph! That’s a good idea. He is good at this.” I stood and started to quickly make my way toward the door of the lab. But I froze as I felt a hand limply hold my wrist. I looked down to see Angelo looking at me and shaking his head slightly. I don’t know what to do. What does that mean! Does he not want anything? But then why is he crying? Does he not want Ralph? That’s fine I will get Leon! “Why not Ralph… never mind that’s not important. I will get Leon then, he sometimes knows what to do.” I move to leave again only to find arms softly wrapping around my torso. I freeze again and look to Angelo but he has his face pressed into my side. WHAT DO I DO?!
I shift a bit on my feet and feel his weight pulling on me slightly. Hoping to follow his lead a bit I awkwardly sit on the floor next to the pile of pillows Mikey had been sitting on while watching me work. I soon find myself being cuddled by Mikey and leaning against the pile of pillows while rubbing the back of his shell. This is a thing people do to comfort others right? And this feels like the behavior of someone needing comfort right? After a few minutes of this, and me rethinking everything I have ever said or done in my life, I hear Mikey’s voice. “I am going to be honest Angelo, I think you said something but I didn’t hear it. Could you repeat that please?” Mikey sits up barely pulling away so that he is very close to my face. “Why didn’t you say that when you gave them to us!? But also how were those gifts supposed to “help each of us improve our skills”?! Ralph’s helmet was just making him feel dumb. My suit kept blowing up and throwing me off! But worst of all! In what world would shocking your brother make him better at anything!?” He still looks upset, but he was no longer actively crying, but now he is yelling at me. It takes me a while to digest what he just said and even longer to make sense of it. “What are you talking about? Wait, no, hold on, I’m going to try and answer each of your questions first and see if this starts making any sense after that.” I take a deep breath and try to recall each thing he said in order and which ones were questions.
“I didn’t tell you guys that at the time because if you remember. Right when I was about to explain how they worked to each of you. We all got distracted. That was the first time we met Meat Sweats and right after that I was taken hostage and being cooked alive. By the time we were able to talk again all of you were misusing, had broken or lost each of the gifts. Does that make sense?” I look to Mikey who while he does still look, irritated maybe?, has a far away look like he is trying to remember that day. “I do kind of remember that yeah. But that doesn…” I interrupt before he has a chance to say too much. In the hopes of not losing my train of thought as I am still trying to catch up to what he was talking about before. “As for how the gifts were supposed to help each of you. Well I’m glad you asked because I never got to explain it before but I was pretty proud of them.”
As I get ready to explain them I use my wrist controller to pull up a slide show I had made when I originally made the gifts. I point to the presentation, which would look better if we were closer to my computer but whatever, as I explain. “Ralph’s helmet was supposed to be a sounding board for his ideas to help him think of some more elaborate plans. Ralph seems to think he is too dumb to use his brain to come up with a good plans. But that is simply a false perception he has of himself. So to help build his confidence and help him understand the process of troubleshooting a plan. I made a helmet that when presented with a plan would point out the pros and cons as well as help flesh out any half formed ideas. I used data I had gathered from my own plan making experience with Ralph. In the hope to make the interactions as productive and comfortable as possible. I even used my own vocal tones and inflations to make the process familiar. I was trying to make it as user friendly as possible but as I was going to explain to each of you. They were not perfect. So if any of you found one to not function properly or thought it would be better if (insert idea here), I wanted you to come to me for maintenance, updates, or upgrades.” I look at Mikey who at some point during my presentation has slide away from me a bit and is sitting next to me on the pillow pile. He has a wide eyed but still unfamiliar look on his face, though this look doesn’t look as negative as before.
“Did you make this slideshow back when you made those gifts?” What an odd question of course I did when else would I have made it and why? “Of course, I can show you the work log on the program to prove it if…” “show me.” Ooookkk, I didn’t actually think he would want to see it but easy enough. I pulled up the documents work log to show its creation date and the times it had been edited which had stopped after I gave them the gifts. I look over to him between each date I show him but I don’t really notice any difference in his facial features. “So this slideshow goes over each gift?” “Correct, we were about to skip to the section on your suit. As you can…” “What about Leo’s gift?” It’s really getting very rude how often he has been interrupting me but I shall try to be understanding as he was just upset. “Well yes, he would be next in the slideshows order but the order of you questions was Ralph, you, then Leon.” He looks at me with an uncomfortable intensity. “I think we need to go over his gift first.” Well I guess that’s fine, now I won’t have to skip ahead. “Alright, Leon’s gift was a cowl or collar to help improve his rather overused and inconsistent humor as well as curate his volume based on the situation.” “WHAT!” “Yes! I know I complain about his jokes a lot but clearly he enjoys them. So to help freshen up his material and help him not blow his cover just to tell a joke. I gave him a device to help him gauge how “good” the joke was. After each joke the cowl would play a laugh track or a playful boooing track. It would also change the volume of the tracks or give audio prompts if he was speaking too loudly during a stealth missi…” “That’s not true!”
I look over at Mikey, who is again leaning toward me, to see him quite angry. “What” “That’s a bold faced lie! His gift was a shock collar that electrocuted him every time he made a joke! Seriously Don! Don’t just lie about what you did! You didn’t like him joking all the time or his sense of humor! We all already knew that. But to make him such a mean thing and say it was a gift was bad enough. Don’t lie and try to cover it up now! We were there! Me and Ralph saw it happen, he talked to us about it. He has been avoiding you besides when we are on missions ever since because you hurt him physically but also his feelings!” I… don’t know what is going on? I have made it through most of his questions but we still have ended up in a conversation that makes no sense. He did mention something about shocks earlier too but… “I didn’t make a shock collar.” Mikey throws his hands up and starts yelling again “DON! Do not lie to…” “NO, hold on, I seriously do not know what you are talking about!” I get up fast and walk over to one of my storage closets. I start looking through it frantically until I find what I am looking for. “See! This is the prototype” I say as I come back over to Mikey and show him a large, kind of chunky electronic bracelet that has a speaker visible on the outside. “Watch” I put it on. “This whole situation sure has me missing communication.” After a second, the bracelet starts to play a short and kind of soft laugh track but at the end says “eh it could have been better but not bad”.
I look up while gesturing at the bracelet to demonstrate my point to see a very complex look on Mikey’s face. “So you're saying that’s what Leo’s collar was supposed to do?” He says slowly. “YES! That is what it was designed to…” “Little loud dude. Don’t forget ninjas are supposed to be quiet and stealthy.” The bracelet suddenly whispered. I take off the bracelet and throw it across the room, suddenly very jittery and uncertain. “So you're saying that’s not what it did! You're saying that instead it just hurt him! All this time all of you just thought I could, would, and did make something just to hurt him!” I started pacing in a tight circle in front of Mikey. At some point I had also apparently grabbed my head in such a way to block out some of the light and sound in the room. “You are saying none of you thought to let me know about it so that I could check to make sure he was okay after that! It was around his neck, shocking him with who knows how many volts! It could have seriously hurt him! I could have seriously hurt him! What if I had killed him! I would never try to hurt him! Not really right?! Not in a way that could… right?”
At some point I must have sat down because I am now sitting between the wall and the pillow pile squeezing a squishmellow so tight it might never be the same. “How could that have happened? I did the final test on myself, I would have noticed if I got shocked.” I pull my tablet over and start going over the old designs, all of the edits, and all of the data that could be retrieved before it got lost. “These all seem fine, there is no way it was doing that before. But there does appear to be an abnormal reading from when the drill transported them.” I move to my computer to run a simulation on what happens when items are placed in the interior compartment of the drill for transport but suddenly find myself with a hand on each of my shoulders and a face full of Mikey. I flinched at the touch and panicked at the closeness and sudden view. I smack his hands away before it even registers what I am hitting and back up so fast I stumble over the pillows into the wall. What… crap! I look over to see Mikey holding his stinging hands and looking at me scared and unwilling to approach. I hurt Angelo! I would never hurt my brothers! But I just did… but I didn’t mean to… right? I would never mean to…right? But does that mean I do hurt them and I’m just too dumb to realize I am? I am not dumb! But I didn’t notice that Leon has been avoiding me. I don’t know what to do when people are upset. And apparently I don’t know how to make anyone happy.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know how this went so wrong. Maybe I have just always been wrong. That’s probably it. I think I’m so smart but that's just because I ignore everything I’m bad at. No wonder I can’t make my family happy. Who would want such a screw up in their family. A person who can’t even give gifts without upsetting everyone. I feel something cold touch my knee and flinch away but there’s not really anywhere to go since my back is against the wall. It starts to tap out a rhythm. What is that? It feels like fingers? I focus on them and notice the rhythm has a beat of 10 then a pause and another beat of 10. “That’s right, just keep breathing like that. You're doing great, hermano.” Who? I look up to see Leon. When did he get here? I follow the beat of ten for a few breaths. As I start to look around, the lab is fairly dark with only the low glow of some of the machines and the gentle hum of my computer in sleep mode. What happened to Mikey? I am tired but I should really check to make sure he is alright. As I move to get up I feel the fingers on my knee lift to rest on my chest. “Whoa there, you might want to wait before you get up. You were just having a panic attack and your legs have been folded up tight for a while. If you try to get up too quickly you might fall.” I look at Leon and see concern. A panic attack huh. That sucks. No wonder trying to talk is so tough. It takes me a few more steady breaths and a bit more hyping myself up but eventually I am able to ask. “Where Mikey? Is he okay?”
Leon looks at me for a minute. “Yes, he is fine, he wasn’t the one having a panic attack. I told him and Ralph to wait outside so that you wouldn’t feel too crowded.” That’s reasonable, it makes sense. “We all kind of panicked a bit when Mikey came running into the game room yelling saying there was something wrong with you. As the resident medic, I ,of course, came to check what was wrong. But ultimately I had to look up what to do. I didn’t know you had panic attacks or that they could be so bad you wouldn’t be able to hear me.” That makes sense neither did I. As I stretch out my legs and pump my feet, my jaw clicks as I suddenly yawn. Gosh, I am tired. “I was also unaware that panic attacks could affect me in such a way.” Leon stares at me for a while, I would find it slightly uncomfortable but at this point I’m too tired to feel much. “So do you want to talk about what caused this rather severe attack? Or am I just going to have to interrogate it out of you after the nap I foresee coming in your near future?” He jokes before flinching with a pinched expression on his face.
I sighed “I just found out that the gift I gave you malfunctioned and was shocking you. I would never intentionally hurt you, you know. Although I guess that would be hard to believe at this point.” There is Silence. My eyes are closed and I realize as I start to slump over that I am close enough to the pillow pile to lay on top of it. How nice, very convenient, sleep, here I come. I feel a hand tap my battle shell. “If you are going to sleep you should probably take this off. Getting up and going to your actual bed would also be ideal but I would settle for you taking off the large weight that you carry on your back all day every day.” Ugh, rude, I was almost asleep. Although I guess he has a point, I would hate to hurt my back and have to take a break from wearing the battle shell until I recovered. I fumble with the clasp on my shoulders for a bit but eventually am able to undo them to allow the battle shell to return to its charging port. “Great, alright, good night hermano. Sweet dreams and all that jazz.” Ugh again! Rude, sleep is right there, I can practically feel its warm embrace. Wait, that is a warm embrace. What is going on? I open my eyes to see Ralph’s chin. “Hmmnghmmm, what you do here.” I feel Ralph jump as I realize that I am currently being held in my brother’s arms. “Hey buddy, I was just taking you to your bed because Leo said you fell asleep on the floor. And we figure that probably wouldn’t be as comfortable once you woke up.” I think he is saying things that make sense. But I honestly don’t care anymore. Sleep shall be mine! And no sooner do I feel my back touch a soft surface and I am out.