Chapter Text
When Splinter gently and pathetically sneezes, despite this new lair not being able to carry sound half as well as their former home, Donnie knows by the way an excited whoop of preemptive victory down the hall that his brothers hear it too. Unable to stop his own grin, he grabs the newest version of the hazmat suits, body-conforming and virtually indestructible, running out in time to catch up with Leo. He’s not as fast as his brother, not as swift, but he seemingly manages to keep up, the pair grinning broadly at each other as they move to meet their family.
Mikey’s already corralling him into the med bay, careful to stay more than six feet back like they had been practicing, convincing Splinter that he doesn’t look as horrible as he does while Raph locks up the breaker box. Raph’s got a crazed look on his face, and Donnie is sure that the memory of the last case of Rat Flu apparently still on his mind as he’s quick to grab the hazmat suit from Donnie before he can say as so much of a greeting.
“It’s heated this time,” Donnie says before he can ask, watching Raph struggle into his suit from adrenaline more than lack of fit, and this makes Leo somehow even more excited as he sprints off, most likely to the kitchen. They save their best hot cocoa for when Splinter gets Rat Flu. It’s a nice treat before they all inevitably end up bedridden and miserable.
Mikey comes to the main room with a face-splitting smile of his own, teeth already beginning to chatter, and he barely remembers to thank Donnie as he snatches his own orange suit from his grip. They’re all shaking, trembling. It’s not even that cold yet, and Donnie can already feel the temperature drop more. He’s not sure when Leo took his own suit, but it just frees him up to put on his own.
“Now that’s the stuff,” Raph sighs as the heating system kicks in.
The suit is reactive to outside temperature, but set not to get too warm in order to avoid luring them into sleep. Donnie had thought of everything and more in the year since Dad’s last bout of the flu, and he’s just as determined as his brothers to get what they want this year. It’s no longer a want, but a need for some couple tons of uranium. He’s had himself quite a year, and all he’d gotten for his birthday from Dad this year were some bright orange socks. Just like the year before. Dad’s in collections now.
“The lab is locked and coded, the vents have traps,” he informs his brother as he zips up, ignoring Mikey’s coos of happiness with the fleece lining of his own suit (extra cuddly, just as was requested), “He’s not getting the drop on us so easily.”
Leo returns almost too quickly with the hot cocoas, which tells Donnie that he’d heated up the milk in the microwave rather than the stove as traditionalists such as them do, but he makes an exception for the once for the sake of expediency. Despite the heating of the suit, he feels the temperature drop yet another degree, and the sip of hot cocoa warms him from the inside. Mikey trembles with joy as he takes a sip, and Raph nearly groans with comfort.
“This is gonna be our year, boys,” Leo says confidently, a hot chocolate mustache on his upper lip, “We’re doing this. We’re getting to the end.”
Mikey grins. “Are we agreed on what to ask for?”
“Uranium,” Donnie says without hesitation, and his brothers groan in reaction at the choice. He can’t help but scowl.
“This is why I wanted a planning meeting. We’re never on the same page about this. It would’ve taken fifteen minutes.”
“Ugh, planning?” Leo complains with a sneer, “I’m allergic.”
“You’re supposed to be our leader,” Donnie can’t help but remind him, “It is literally your job to plan.”
“And despite my allergy, I did plan to ask for something really good this year,” Leo says, shooting him a grin, “And with me, boys, we’re getting to Must Say Yes this year.”
They all pause for a moment, waiting for Leo to spill, but when he doesn’t, Donnie can only sigh. Of course he’d want to be dramatic.
“Oh please, oh fearless leader who we so adore and admire, would you please deign us worthy of your knowledge?” Donnie says with a roll of his eyes.
Raph shoots him a look. “Donnie, I swear, I’ll make it up to you for sayin’ that for us.”
“I accept payment in cash or in uranium,” Donnie replies before looking back at Leo, who looks very punchable, if Donnie can say so himself, and with a narrowed eye, he continues, “Which Leo is asking for, because Donatello very much deserves uranium.”
“Who needs that? Not you, you’re a genius, you can get by without it,” Leo says, brushing him off, “No. What I’m asking for is even better. And when I make it to the end, you’ll all be so happy I made it happen for you.”
Nope. Not again. Not this year. Donnie’s been asking for uranium for the past five years. He wants his uranium. He loves his brothers, but he’s tired of letting them get in the way of him and his favorite kind of yellow cake.
A grin is on his face before he knows it. He can tell from the look on Mikey’s that it’s not the grin he practiced in the mirror as a kid. He can only assume it’s the one Leo affectionately calls his Demon Possession grin, and usually, he’d try his best to wipe it off and provide something more palatable, but he knows this grin has captured even Leo’s attention, based on the way he looks at him. He looks at him the same way he’d looked at the corpse flower mutant.
“How about this year, we make it into a competition, boys?”
All three perk up in interest, and he knows he’s got them hooked.
“Last one standing gets to ask for whatever he wishes,” he says, careful with his emphasis. He’s no good at them, so he’s worried he didn’t place it right until Mikey says,
“But we’re supposed to ask for something that we’d all like,”
And it’s all Donnie can do to hold back the laugh that wells up in his chest.
“Oh, dear sweet Michelangelo. Let’s admit it to ourselves; we practically never want the same thing,” Donnie reminds him, “And maybe, for once, we should be a bit selfish. I am prepared, however, to proverbially sweeten the metaphorical pot if needed.”
“Raph does like some sweets,” Raph mumbles, if only to himself.
Donnie’s grin widens.
“I will make, for the winner, whatever they want, no questions asked.”
The silence is as deafening as he expects; Leo’s mouth dropping as a grin grows on Raph’s face. It’s his ace in the hole. He rarely acquiesces to their requests for creation, saving his abilities for moments like these. Of course, he’s not planning on making a thing for them. It’s for himself. He so badly wishes to make the tank nuclear powered rather than electrically so, and if he makes this promise, he’d have to pencil it in for when he wins. It would be a nice little treat for himself.
“Even… even skate hawks?” Raph asks.
Wordlessly, Donnie nods. He did say no questions.
“Oh, Raph’s gotta win this,” Raph says to himself, grin somehow broadening.
“Then how about an extra challenge?” Leo finally says after being taken aback and quiet for the longest stretch of time Donnie can remember experiencing Leo being quiet for, and when he looks at him, he’s surprised at how serious he is. Leo is razor focused. Out of all of his brothers, Leo’s the most competitive. He should’ve expected how seriously he would take this.
“Name it,” Donnie says.
His mouth quirks upwards to the right. A smirk.
“We all gotta take off our hazmat suits.”
Nearly five hours later, Mikey is the first done in, taken out by Captain Cuddle Cakes. Splinter, in his Wild Rat Man craze, had managed to corner Mikey in the arcade before he’d pounced. Mikey could’ve countered that. It would’ve been easy. But when his father had screamed for his little baby boy, he’d known that there was nothing he could do. He could beat back a wild monster, but he could not wrangle a sweaty, slippery Splinter enough to stop the onslaught of kisses and cuddles.
The boy complains as he sequesters himself—as has been agreed upon, no hazmat suits were allowed, so he needed to quarantine himself, it was only fair—zippering up the partition that blocked him into the living room and hitting his own button they’d set up inside the quarantine bubble, immediately enveloped in a cloud of disinfectant. He sits down with a pout, unable to stop the little sneezes that leave his lips.
This is his nightmare. He has—had—big plans that weekend. There's an anime convention happening at midtown that he’s scrimped and saved for tickets to, and he’s been planning to meet his favorite mangaka and have him sign the first volume of Fighter Punks, his quintessential piece. Currently, it's the only manga in Mikey's fledgling collection. He'd lost his original copy in Shredder's rampage, as he had with everything else, but Leo had tracked down a copy of this hard-to-find manga and given it to him on his birthday.
Stupid Donnie and his stupid bets. He knew he wouldn’t have been able to resist. How could he have? The idea of getting a brand new, Swiss paring knife set from Splinter had been too great, but with the additive bonus of Donnie making him whatever he wanted? Ugh, his wildest dreams were going to come true! He wanted Donnie to make him his own treehouse, complete with a full kitchen, for his own self-care time. He even had a nice plot of real estate that he had been negotiating for purchase from Todd all picked out.
And now, it is all but a dream.
Donnie makes taunting sounds at his brother as he sprints past his plastic partition, Captain Cuddle Cakes none too far behind, crooning for his sweet, sweet little grape, and Mikey suddenly gets an idea. An idea he would, usually, not follow. An idea too devious, too evil, for someone as sweet as Mikey to normally follow through on.
However, for as sweet as Mikey can be, he’s an even worse loser, so with what he hopes is a dastardly grin, he pulls out his phone.
Hey, April, he types, r u free today?
(He would feel bad about it, when he hits send, but then Donnie taunts him again, calling him bubble boy, and the guilt is suddenly so much easier to live with. He's glad Donnie's a sore winner. The downfall will be sweet.)