Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Donnie found the pamphlet early Tuesday morning and they’d like to think that it was a feat of extreme restraint that it only took him until 20 minutes later to sign up.

He’d had his reservations, of course. He was never the most… emotionally available out of the people they knew, but by all means did they all need the money. Who would have thought that a near brush with the apocalypse would leave you worse off financially than before? Sarcasm intended.

Donnie tended to be the provider for their little family in the traditional sense. Him and Mikey would peruse Repo Mantis’ scrap yard, take whatever they deemed half-salvageable, Donnie would fix it (with minimal lethal upgrades), Mikey would give it a fresh coat of paint, and then they’d sell it to the highest bidder on e-bay. That had worked for a while, but between the lair getting destroyed twice and the multitude of injuries they had all sustained their budget was becoming less and less about groceries and pizza takeout and more about rebuilding their lives. So, if their funds were currently in the red they couldn’t blame themselves. Maybe they could suit the Krang for damages?

Donnie briefly considered asking Draxum to finally pay all of that child support he’d been skimping out on, but decided that it was too much hassle.

Another option was of course stealing to get by but Raph had put his foot down on that one quick, citing that “that’s not what heroes (cue pizza slice) do.” Even though Donnie had insisted that big chain stores wouldn’t even care about a few veggies going missing, Raph’s moral compass was going haywire and Donnie didn’t want the lair to be filled with his going-against-my-core-ethics stink so that option was thrown out of the proverbial window. Even then, after the world nearly ended New-Yorkers were even more suspicious of anything that looked even remotely non-human, so robbing stores would be far more difficult these days, even with their enhanced ninja prowess. Still, the question remained: how are they going to get money now?

Donnie didn’t believe in fate- the universe was a well of entropy, of course- but if they did he’d say it was shining down on him the day he saw that pamphlet. It had been 23 days and 8 hours since the world had nearly ended and their little corner of the world was still healing. Leo had just started to get back on his feet, Mikey’s hands shook slightly less, Raph was able to let them out of his sight for more than two seconds, and Donnie- well, his feelings on the matter were completely irrelevant.

They had just been coming back from their daily patrol around the sewers when a piece of brightly-coloured paper called out to him from the endless green and grey. Curious- because he was always curious, suit him- they knelt down and pulled the paper out of the green sludge it had become stuck in. Embossed on the top was a cheery “Alien Invasion Got You Down?” that elicited a weary ‘scoff.’

The pamphlet seemed to be an advertisement for some sort of mental health chat line- something that Donnie agreed was desperately needed. While his family had managed to get through the Krang invasion with no fatalities (no matter how close they had come to that) they knew that others had not been so lucky.

The paper sported general information about the chat site plus links for where to get help, however that particular section wasn’t of interest to Donnie. He was completely fine thank you very much. And, even if he wasn’t, he didn’t plan on spilling his guts to some anonymous rando behind a screen. They flipped the paper over and the reverse side, however, proved to be far more lucrative.

“WANT TO HELP?

That’s great! We’re looking for empathetic, like-minded people to provide support to the residents of New York City in this trying time.

Great pay and an even greater opportunity to support your local community!

Make a difference, lend an ear, sign up today.”

Donnie automatically scanned the QR code below the plea for sign-ups and it took him to a recruitment page. Basic stuff, no past experience necessary, training provided, yadda yadda yadda. But then he saw the pay and woah boy- they must really need people. It was far more that was probably warranted for a job of this calibre, but they were also a mutated turtle who lived in a sewer and had never worked a day in his life so what did he know? Speaking of payment, that would probably pose a problem since they didn’t exactly have a social security number, but that was nothing that his super-awesome hacking skills couldn’t fix. It was like the answer to all of their his financial problems were handed to him on a sewer-water-covered platter. The only issue that remained was…

Ew, emotions. He’d have to actually talk to people who weren’t his immediate inner circle (barf) and pretend to care about their feelings (double barf). It’s not that he doesn’t emphasise with them, the invasion hit everyone hard and logically they knows that most wouldn’t walk away from that mentally unscathed, but it was another thing having to… discuss all of that with people. Talking about emotions always left him feeling like there was a glass wall between him and the other person that only he could feel. Like everyone else had the ability to reach out easily but he… couldn’t. Ugh, he felt drained just thinking about it.

However, he thought about the number of zeros that would be on their pay check and holy truffle mac and cheese was it worth it. Easily double what he was making off of his refurbished junk with half the hours. It was a dream nearly come true, the only thing stopping him was that their skill set wasn’t exactly tailored to this kind of career.

He briefly thought about passing the baton over to Mikey, letting his nights of Wikipedia deep-dives into psychology and his totally-real doctorate(s) take the lead. But then he remembered his younger brother’s shaking grip as he tried desperately to make them breakfast, erasing a message for the 5^th time after his fingers hit the wrong buttons. No, they couldn’t put that on him.

Besides, he was Hamato Donatello, he was capable of anything! He was the youngest A.I. expert in the world, he was the first being other than the Krang to connect with the Technodrome, he had the highest score on Dance Dance Revolution 6 years in a row. Who was he to turn down a challenge?

Yes, he could do this one thing for his family. It was a chance to make himself useful- it would be a cold day in hell before, they let Leo do all the work and get all the glory, after all.

So Donnie saved the sign-up tab to his browser and discarded the pamphlet to the sewer floor (because really, who even used paper these days?) and resolved to fill out the form when they got back.

After all, he had a patrol to finish.

╚═══━━━─── • ───━━━═══╝

Donnie, Raph, Mikey, Splinter, April, and Casey had planned out a rota for patrols almost immediately after the Krang invasion had been thwarted. After they'd gotten through the "OK no one's in active danger of dying" phase they set about working on the next step: ensuring that none of that ever happened again.

After Donnie used a complex geolocation algorithm (see: Google Maps) they had figured out a route that left no stone unturned and no weak link unguarded. The route itself changed per shift at random (ok Donnie had used an actual algorithm for that one) so it would be virtually impossible for anyone to predict their location at any point of the loop. It had taken Donnie a full day to perfect and it was safe to say that they weren't taking any chances.

It took 2 days for April's parents to finally drag her home, so that took her off the rota pretty quickly. She’d run off with a promise of “if any of you die while I’m gone I’ll kill you myself” which everyone had taken with the utmost seriousness. She still visited on weekends but a freshly-established curfew restricted when she was able to come over. Casey had courageously made it to day 4 before Mikey all but shoved him out of the lair. Not by any fault of his own, of course. Ever since they’d come back covered in ash and a whole medical journal’s worth of injuries Casey had been restless. After checking everyone’s wounds and ensuring that they were all relatively stable he was anxious to get out there, eager to help survivors and rebuild New York. Donnie hadn’t spent a lot of time with the kid, but they could tell that whatever he had gone through in the future was bad, like really bad. Bad enough to instil that sort of survivor help-everyone-before-you-help-yourself-attitude. Donnie had a sneaking suspicion of where he got it from. The grief-stricken looks he kept giving Leo as he lay unconscious in the med bay when Donnie had come to relieve him of his watch were enough of a give-away.

So for his sanity Casey was out, which left Raph, Mikey, Donnie, and Splinter to pick up the slack.

That was, of course, until Leo had woken up.

Donnie wasn’t the medic, as most might assume. Yes, he’s got the intellect for it, he would never in a million years deny that, but biology was- for lack of a better phrase- super duper gross. Plus everything was so… anomalous. One person could die of a heart attack if you inject the right stuff, others could take twice the dose and keep on kicking. At least with machines you’ve got some sort of certainty. Medicine? Too much margin for error, too much risk.

Luckily for them Leo didn’t shy away from risk.

…that was also what led to this whole situation. That and the screaming match he was currently having with Raph. And… Mikey?

Ouch, this was going to be a bad one.

Donnie finished their appointed patrol route and entered the lair, following the sounds of elevated voices coming from dad’s TV room. He considered popping two advil to prevent the certain headache he was about to be inflicted with.

“-nope, uh uh you can’t keep bringing that up like it’s even the same thing-“

“Uh, yeah, I definitely can,” Leo said from somewhere on the floor, “If you’re allowed to wander around on your own Mr. I-No-Longer-Have-Depth-Perception then I should also be allowed to go out on the town!”

Dramatic sigh. Since Leo had woken up they had had this argument (Donnie checked his calendar) 4 times, although one could barely be considered an argument because Leo was so hopped up on drugs that he was jumping through hoops just to make a semi-coherent comeback. He still somehow managed though, the miracles of sass that middle children could accomplish was astounding.

Donnie made their way around Raph where he stood near the doorway, years of instinct allowing him to weave around his brother’s frantically flailing hands.

“You’re literally 50% casts right now, Leo!” Their older brother gestured wildly at a lump on the floor- oh, that’s where Leo had gone.

His younger brother twin was wrapped up in a frankly excessive amount of blankets, flanked by an army of pillows and- was that? Donnie dodged a particularly violent hand gesture from Raph to get a better look. Yep those were all of Raph’s favourite plushies. The cuteness of the scene, however, did nothing to dampen Leo’s righteous sarcasm.

“Well I consider myself an optimist, so I’d say that’s about 50% of completely undamaged skin that is ready to get back out there and kick some villain ass.”

“Language.” Raph growls.

Donnie had a feeling that if Leo wasn’t trapped under 20 layers of blankets he’d be flailing dramatically by now.

“While I also consider myself an optimist, this is not the way to go about things Leon,” Mikey chides from his position on Pillow Mountain (copyright pending), “You need to be honest with yourself about your capabilities right now.”

Mikey leaned in close, whispering just loud enough for Donnie to hear, “Plus, you promised me that you’d beat the final boss of the new Lou Jitsu game for me and you can’t practice while you’re out patrolling now can you? Remember our deal? Think about what’s at stake, consider your options…”

A bead of sweat trickled down Leo’s forehead.

Mikey swooped in to give Leo a hug, “Get well soon, big bro!”

Who knew so much manipulation could fit inside such a small turtle? Ugh, youngest children.

Raph pinched the bridge of his nose, “Look, I’m tryna be responsible and look out for ya. We’re goin’ out on patrol because we’re ready to be back out there! Even Mikey waited 2 weeks for his hands to heal up enough.”

“But Mikey’s hands still aren’t at 100%- no offense (“None taken”)- and he’s still going strong!” Leo spoke from inside his blanket cocoon, his voice turned into something more melancholy. The fight left him.

“I don’t understand- why won’t you let me do this?”

They all knew the answer to that question. It hung heavy in the air, unspoken.

Donnie anxiously got out their phone and started scrolling. Might as well make a start on that sign-up form and ignore any emotional revelations that might come his way.

Raph sighed, putting his face in his hands and sliding down onto the floor next to Leo. He placed a hand on his younger brother’s head.

“Raph knows that he doesn’t need to protect you. I’m not the leader anymore, and it’s not up to me to make that decision.” Raph’s voice was watery.

“Soooo”, Leo starts, hopefully, “that means that I can-?”

Raph interrupted him.

“Nope. Luckily for me, oldest brother status trumps being the leader,” Raph said smugly while Leo gasped, “So what I says, goes.”

Leo wrangled his way out of the mess of blankets indignantly, a lighter tone taking back over the room. He flopped on the ground just in time for Raph to grab him in a chokehold.

“Assault!” Leo tried (and failed miserably) to extract himself from under Raph’s arm, “Excuse you, good sir! I’ll have you know that none of that is in the leader rule book-“

“Yeah-uh, yes it is, you obviously didn’t read it closely enough. I had more time to read it than you!”

Donnie eyed Leo’s leg and arm casts, both tastefully covered in Mikey’s doodles and stickers.

“Please don’t wrestle the patient, he’s very fragile at the moment,” Donnie leaned against the wall, eyes still on his phone, “His body as well, not just his ego.”

“He’s right, his ego can’t take another hit,” Mikey said wistfully, “Thoughts and prayers.”

“Oops.” Raph let go and Leo immediately rag-dolled to the floor. And here Donnie thought that they were the theatre kid of the family. Leo rolled around on the floor as much as his bandages allowed him to.

“Ouch! I’ve been hit! I’m grievously wounded, someone call the medic!” He threw a hand over his forehead.

…

“What, too soon?”

Something unreadable flashed in Raph’s eyes and he let out his patented I’m-done-with-your-middle-child-nonsense groan. Leave it to Leo to turn some light-hearted joking right back around to a serious chewing out.

“Look, Leo, Raph gets it, ok? But you can’t keep… rushing off into things expecting them to work out.”

Leo went to make what was probably another sarcastic retort when Mikey grasped Leo’s hand in his.

“I’ll support you no matter what, but do you really think that this is the best decision?”

Leo looked down at their interlocking hands, the scars on Mikey’s a criss-cross of white against his green skin. Donnie was proud of the way they only tremble a little.

“I do.” Leo said, with the determination that a teenager definitely shouldn’t possess.

Raph sighed- he’d been doing a lot more of that lately, “Ok, but just to be safe- Donnie?”

Donnie hummed distractedly and looked up from his phone, “Hyeah?”

“Do you think that Leo’s, er, ready? For going out on patrol? Medically speaking, I mean?”

Donnie considered it for a moment.

“Well, while medicine is not my thing- disgusted shudder- I do believe that some light exercise might be good for his weak old-man bones,” Donnie chimed in, looking back down at his precious LED screen and continuing to fill in boxes.

“Gasp!” Leo said in fake anguish, clutching his heart and once again falling dramatically to the floor, “My poor pathetic bones? It’s actually muscles Don-Ton, but only an advanced medic such as I would know that, so I understand your confusion.”

Donnie’s hands clenched around his phone. They opened a different tab and added another mark to the ever-growing “Number of Time’s Leo’s Allowed to Insult Me Because He Nearly Died” tally. 89/100. So close, yet so far.

“You heard the man- up I go!” Leo dragged himself to his feet, the effort it takes to do so just on the wrong side of concerning. He stretched, bones cracking.

“I’m ready to get out there and let my gorgeous hair down. New York has been deprived of my dashing good looks for far too long. Who’s coming with?”

“Oh, that’s me!” Mikey rushed to his feet, “I’m supposed to be on the next shift after Don.”

“Sounds good to me, mi hermano.” Leo made his way over to Mikey, very obviously wobbling on his feet as he went. He patted Mikey on the shoulder and everyone politely ignored how hard he leaned into it (other than Raph, who had tried very hard not to burst a blood vessel).

"Look at you, you can barely walk straight!"

"Raph-a-la, my dear brother, nothing about me is straight."

Mikey wheezed.

“Look Raph, I’ll be fiiiine,” Leo reached an arm over Mikey’s shoulder and pulled him in tight, “Plus I have a badass mystic warrior to protect me if anything goes wrong.”

Raph opened his mouth.

“Which! It won’t- obviously.”

Raph fiddled with his mask tails, obviously upset about the turn of events- even to Donnie. They wanted to go and comfort him, but before he could even decide if it was needed Raph responded.

“Ok… have fun,” He looked at the both of them like it was the last time he was ever going to see them, which is… ouch, “Stay safe.”

“We will!” Leo’s voice echoed down the tunnel that Donnie had just come from.

“Don’t worry too much while we’re gone ok,” Mikey shouted just as he disappeared around the corner, “Plus we’ll be having words about mother-henning when I get back!”

The sickeningly-sweet tone of Doctor Delicate touch spelled disaster for his eldest brother. Yikes, Donnie would not like to be him.

“…speaking of ‘having words.’”

Sweet Curie save him now.

“Why didn’t you have my back on this? You know how much he’s struggling!”

Ok, he really didn’t feel like being chewed out by Raph right now. He had just gotten to the exciting part of the form- the contact address! He couldn’t wait to flex his hacking skills for that bit. He looked up from his screen to see Raph’s big brother stare locked and loaded. So retreating was not an option.

“I don’t really care what he does-“ Lie, “plus he’s old enough to make his own completely foolish and recklessly bad decisions. Besides, as long as someone is with him he’ll be fine. What else are we going to do, tie him to the bed?”

Wait…

“No Donnie we can’t tie our brother to a bed.”

Damn the Genova conventions, always ruining his plans. Who needed ethical practices when you had science (and a martyr for a brother)? Donnie chuckled nervously.

“Never mind. I also definitely, 100% did not implant another subcutaneous tracker in him… plus a back-up… plus a back-up for the back-up. That totally isn’t something that I would do.”

“Donnie,” Raph puts a hand on his shoulder, “I don’t usually support this kind of serious breach of personal privacy… but can we get some on Mikey too?”

Ah, there was Raph’s going-against-my-core-ethics stink. All of that hard work for nothing.

“Rapharoni, my dearest brother, I am so glad you asked. Now tell me, how do you feel about chloroform-?”

Donnie set off to figure out the best way to implant a tracker into his brother (…again), wandering back to their lab while Raph listened to his tangent. Their back ached after the patrol shift which had aggravated his shell injuries, but that was nothing a little (more) advil couldn’t fix. But before he spent the rest of the day bouncing ideas off of his older brother before his own shift, he opened a tab on their phone once more.

Donnie clicked “send” on the completed application.

Chapter Text

It was safe to say that Donnie got the job.

He hadn't expected anything else of course, he was a model candidate. Most of his application was straight up plagiarism from April's past job applications, but who could blame him? She could land a job a day and they needed that sort of luck. That isn't to say that he didn't add ye olde Donatello Charm into the mix. They're not sure which aspect of their CV sealed the deal, whether it was his apparent valedictorian status in his Psychology bachelors or their 3 year clinical psyc internship he'll never know.

They got the e-mail through 2 days after submitting the form. Donnie had been working on updating the lair's defences when a pop up in the corner of his computer screen alerted him to the news.

"S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N.!” Donnie called, “Activate text-to-voice mode.”

The Sh311d0n widget he'd uploaded popped up in its place. Thank Lovelace that he'd made a back-up of at least his A.I. software before everything went down. Donnie still hadn't gotten around to rebuilding a new and improved mechanical body for him, that was around... point 32 on his to-do list right now.

"You got it, bro:

’Dear Othello,

Thank you for your application. We're pleased to say that it was successful!’

Wait- what did you even apply for?"

Donnie ignored him in favour of tightening a particularly stubborn screw on the turret he was working on.

They got the job. That was a given, but they still felt a bit of pride swell in their chest at having proved himself. Ugh he thought he'd gotten over that particular childish habit. They turned the screwdriver a bit harder than before and gestured for S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. to continue.

"Our company is delighted to have you on board, the next step is to forward your details to our HR team-‘

Blah blah blah, boring stuff, then-

‘Please follow the link below to your training course that will get you up to speed on providing safe, effective help.’

Help? Are you doing tech support or something?"

He would be if the Purple Dragons hadn't beat him to cornering that particular market years ago.

Donnie considered telling S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N., but it was a risky move. Obviously they weren’t genetically related to S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. but if they were he would have inherited Donnie’s inability to lie. If he wanted to keep this venture a secret he couldn’t confide in his robo-son. Leo and Mikey’s ability to lose interest in things that didn’t instantaneously grab their attention had also rubbed off on the A.I. after they messed with his circuitry. Donnie would usually be regretfully rueful of this particular fact, but it served him well in his current situation: S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. hadn’t read the entire e-mail.

“Er… yes, something like that, definitely nothing shady going on that I don’t want the others knowing about.” Nailed it.

“Okee dokie dude, sounds good.”

Donnie thanked Curie that he hadn’t updated S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N.’s lie-detection software.

“Great, thanks S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. Before you go, engage advanced privacy mode on Desktop 2 and start lockdown protocol, level: remember-that-thing-called-personal-space.” They didn’t want to risk S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. realising what he was looking at, or even worse yet one of his brothers barging in. His family had absolutely no concept of boundaries on the best of days, but after their near-miss with the apocalypse the number of times his siblings had barged into his lab unannounced had gone up exponentially.

“One second- and done! Let me know if you need any more help or you just want to hang. I’ll be catching up on some 11010 10011.” S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. said before he disappeared from the screen in a flash of purple light.

Donnie let out a breath that they hadn’t realised they had been holding. That had been close- too close. But too close to what? He had no reason not to tell the tell the others. It was simply an extra way of getting cash, right? Just because it was all about talking through your emotions after a traumatic event didn’t mean that he was the one who needed help. That train of thought was completely logically unfounded.

So why did he still feel like he needed to hide this?

Ugh, that was skirting dangerously close to sorting through their emotions. He loved his younger brother, but “compartmentalising” at the request of Dr Feelings was not what he needed right now. They put down the turret that they were working on and focused his attention back to the e-mail. Hmm… data collection always calmed him down. They might as well put some of this compltetely unfounded nervous energy to good use.

Donnie clicked the link which led to a tastefully made website. It was coated in pleasant greens and beiges, with a table of contents to start off with. Surprisingly there were only five sections:

‘Acknowledge

Clarify

Plan

Identify

and

Heal’

That seemed… simple enough. Almost too simple.

He opened one of his desk draws and cracked open a fresh spiral notebook they had scavenged from the wreckage of Eastlaird middle school (hell if they weren’t going to use it, he would). They rummaged around for their favourite purple gel pen and prepared to take rigorous notes.

At the top of the page there was a section for general guidance. Don’t give out your personal information, don’t diminish the person’s feelings (scoff, like he’d ever done that), etcetera etcetera. However, there was one thing that stuck out to them.

“Refrain from giving advice.” That was stupid, what’s the point of an advice line if you don’t even advise people?

“If you do find yourself in a position to give advice, perhaps suggest they make cup of tea or run themselves a hot bath.”

Ok not only was that contradictory but was also terrible advice. Who wrote these things? It was like putting a band aid over a crumbling dam and expecting everything to be hunky dory. Even he knew this was a waste of time. Hopefully the step-by-step instructions would be more beneficial.

“Step 1: Acknowledge (Donnie turned to a new unblemished page),

Acknowledge the person’s feelings. Help them understand what they are going through and what that means for them.”

Seemed simple enough… Donnie jotted it down in his notebook.

“Step 2: Clarify

Ask the person to elaborate on these feelings. Why might they be feeling them? What triggered this emotional response?”

Again this seemed par for the course. The section also detailed building a rapport with the person but left the specifics of that vague- Donnie marked that more research was probably needed.

“Step 3: Plan

Work with the person to create a plan for what to do if these feelings arise again.”

Again, this was skirting dangerously close to giving out advice that he wasn’t supported to be doing. Do the people who make these even go through the effort to proofread them? They’re surprised this even made it out of beta, if it were him he would have scrapped it ages ago and started from the beginning.

“Step 4: Identify

Aid the person in identifying their feelings before they overwhelm them next time.”

And finally…

“Step 5: Heal

Thank the person for messaging and remind them that their experiences are valid. Encourage them to continue to use the crisis plan they made and reassure them that they can contact you again when needed.”

And that… was it. One single document on how to coach someone through an entire crisis. There wasn’t even a qualifying exam, just a button to confirm that he’d read it all and a tick box to confirm that he wasn’t a robot (he made S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. click it for him out of spite with strict instructions not to look at anything else). They flicked through the embarrassingly sparse notes they had made. The majority of it was convoluted and contradictory. No wonder-

"Don, ya there?"

"Ngk!" Donnie screamed intelligibly. They flinched and the papers that they w currently hunched over went flying, scattering all over his lab floor.

"Um, Don, s’everything alright in there?" Mikey's voice rang out from behind the door.

“Er, yes! Everything is completely fine! Give me one second I’m just-“ Donne glanced around frantically looking for an excuse. Abort! Abort! Just say something science-y, “Electrolysising my neutrons? Give me one- ah, two seconds.”

He quickly gathered up the papers and shoved them in his desk draw while muttering some words under his breath that Raph would not approve of.

"Littlest Brother detected, disengaging lockdown protocols." S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N’s voice buzzed from the overhead speaker.

Damn. They’d forgotten about that.

After a pretty nasty lab accident shortly after their final showdown with the Shredder they’d all made a unanimous (sans Donnie, of course) decision for him to never have the door to their lab truly locked for quote-on-quote ‘safety reasons’. Because of this, any trusted individual was allowed access even in the highest of lockdown modes. Of course, unknowingly to everyone else Donnie was working on updating that particular protocol to take into account… recent events. After all, it’s all well and good for his family to be able to take shelter in the lab when they’re being attacked, but it’s a different thing when his family are the ones doing the attacking. Donnie thought of writhing tentacles and pleading yellow eyes. The Krang invasion had made that abundantly clear.

Before Donnie had a chance to think on that much further, Mikey entered the lab accompanied by the hiss of the electronic doors. Donnie looked up from the floor and tried to keep a neutral expression. From the look on Mikey’s face they hadn’t succeeded.

“Aha, I knew I left my-“ Donnie fumbled around under their desk and found- “my Robertson-head no. 3 non-slip screwdriver under here! Wow, I really need to- uh- tidy up around here. Anyways, how are you this fine morning… evening? Day?” Nailed it again, two-for-two!

Mikey frowned in a way that was edging dangerously close to Dr. Delicate Touch, or maybe even worse: Dr Feelings. Ugh, Donnie wasn’t in the mood for a seminar that wasn’t about military-grade defence systems right now. They slumped back down into their computer chair and awaited the oncoming storm with the resignation of a banana boat captain in a hurricane.

“I know you did not just tell me that you didn’t know what time it is, Donald.”

“Eh, morning, afternoon, evening- time is relative.”

“You’re about to be relative if you don’t start taking proper breaks!”

“That’s word isn’t even close to being in the appropriate context-“ Donnie had been down this road before and quickly switched tactics, “Whatever, I am taking some breaks. It’s just that there’s so much that needs to get done, tech to upgrade, defences to reinforce, contingencies for my contingencies to plan. I’d rather risk not taking a few breaks than risk… never mind. You don’t need to worry about me Michael, I’m fine.”

And that was true, Donnie was fine. There were more pressing things to worry about and it was bad enough that his little brother who was barely 15 felt like he had to be the one to check on him. He was older, and Raph was always going on about being responsible. He might as well learn that lesson for once.

He was fine.

Mikey’s face softened, a glint of something in his eye. They’d both danced this dance before. They were stepping on trodden ground.

“Ok, yeah, I get you.”

It seemed like Mikey had given up, at least for now. Donnie had dodged a bullet this time, thank Curie. But Donnie would be lying if he said that it didn’t hurt to see Mikey so crestfallen. It stung to know that he was at least partially the cause of it. Best to move things towards the positive… what would cheer Mikey up and distract him?

Oh yes, their latest tech!

“Besides, I’ve had a few breakthroughs on stuff that’s been in beta for years!” Donnie gleefully patted the purple casing of the turret they had been working on.

“Oh, nice!” Mikey beamed and Donnie felt a hint of warmth just below his plastron, “Wachya workin on?” Mikey leaned to look over his brother’s shoulder at the desktop monitor.

“Oh, you know, just some…”

It was then that he noticed that he’d left the training website up in full view of his younger brother.

Shit.

“AHEM. AHEM. S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N.switchtabsrightnow. AHEM.” Donnie wheezed, trying desperately to side-eye the A.I. before their brother could catch on.

“Don, are you okay?” Mikey asked, concerned, “Do you need some water? Why are you just saying “ahem” over and over instead of actually coughing?”

Donnie’s computer screen quickly changed to a wall of text and code. S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N winked conspiratorially from in the corner.

“I’m- ahem- I’m ok. Just- I don’t know what happened.”

Mikey narrowed his eyes and just like that Dr Feelings was back. It was a little unnerving to see how quickly his brother could change like that.

“Don, are you sure you’re ok? You’ve barely left your lab in weeks. Raph’s starting to worry-“

“Worry?” Donnie interrupted, they couldn’t have two overly-anxious brothers fretting over him, it would take time out of their schedule, “Why would he be worrying? I wouldn’t worry about that, Raph’s always worrying. Such a worrier is he, that’s just what he’s like.”

Donnie cursed themselves. They always had a tendency to ramble when they were nervous, but particularly when he was lying. Leo had the uncanny ability to pick up on it in a heartbeat (it most definitely was not a twin thing, no matter what Leo said), but luckily with Mikey it was more hit-or-miss.

Mikey “Don you just said worry, like, a bajillion times.”

He shoots, he misses. Sports had never been their thing anyways.

“A bajillion isn’t even a real number, my sweet ‘Angelo, so I wouldn’t worry about that at all.”

Mikey sighed and hopped up on the desk, right on top of the blueprints for the new turrets he was working on. That happened frequently, and as usual Donnie pretended to be mad about it.

“You’re getting your butt over my important schematics.”

“And? I get little brother privileges, so I can sit wherever I want.”

“And why exactly do you get such privileges?”

“Because you wuv meee!” Much to Donnie’s chagrin Mikey started doing kissey faces.

Donnie shoved him away, “Ew, Mikey. Call the medic, he’s delusional.”

Mikey chuckled with a hint of mischievousness.

“Speeeeeaking of medic, I actually came here to ask you something.”

Ah, the catch.

“Woe, you didn’t actually want to spend time with me, your coolest brother,” Donnie feigned  offense, trying desperately to keep hold of the joking tone that the conversation had turned to, “I knew that there had to me an ulterior motive.”

Now it was Mikey’s turn to shove Donnie.

“Shut up, I wanted to ask you to eat dinner with us today.”

Now that was unexpected.

“Well, I want to ask you, Raph wants to order you, but I told him he’s not the leader anymore-“

Mikey continued to ramble about Raph and the new recipe he’d decided to try, but Donnie had already tuned it out.

If someone had asked Donnie to join in on family dinner a few months ago he would have scoffed at the idea. Not because he thought it was a waste of time, quite the opposite. They would have considered it a silly question because it was a complete non-sequitur- of course he would be there. Breakfast was more hit-or-miss, usually. Raph always woke up the earliest, Donne following closely behind, Mikey switched between either 6am or 1am depending and it was impossible to say whether Leo slept enough to constitute ‘waking up’ at all. The same with lunch, usually forgoed in favour of training or missions. But dinner. That was family time, and no one missed that.

Of course, that was until (say it with me) the Krang invasion. Leo got his meals fed to him through a tube for the first few weeks, so a proper dinner was out of the question there. Raph was off doing… something or other, and Donnie was right here, working on fixing their lives. In all the commotion and inherent newness of it all, dinner had just… slipped under their proverbial radar. Donnie realised he couldn’t even recall the last time they’d sat down and had a family meal together. Their hands itched for their calander.

“Don?”

He suddenly snapped back to attention.

“Yes, Mikey?”

"Ya know, it's the first time since everything that Leo's given me the all-clear to start cooking again."

Ah yes, they remembered. Since Mikey opened the portal his hands had been in a less than ideal condition. A spiderweb of cracks had climbed up his brother’s wrists, cementing themselves just below his shoulders. The bright red had dulled to a silvery white by now, but the marks still remained as a reminder that Donnie had nearly lost another brother that day.

As soon as Leo could remain cognizant for longer than a minute he'd induced a pretty strict ban on Mikey using his hands for anything particularly strenuous. To Mikey's absolute delight (read: sarcasm) this included his favourite hobbies: cooking and drawing.

While the wounds had faded, Donnie knew that it still caused the younger turtle issues. He remembered how Mikey's hands shook as he tried to make breakfast the morning after Leo woke up to celebrate. He said that he'd had enough of greasy takeout and sitting around doing nothing was making him stir-crazy. But then his fingers had cramped around the frying pan and he had started sobbing uncontrollably. It took Raph the whole rest of the night to calm him down. And Donnie... well, he hadn't been sure of what to do.

They had left a pair of customised compression gloves outside of his room in the morning.

Mikey fiddled with the cuff of said gloves now. For all of Mikey’s cheerfulness his voice still shook slightly when he spoke.

“And… well, Leo’s going to join us too. It’ll be like it used to be, ya know?”

And there’s the kicker. ‘Just like it used to be.’ Mary Jackson did he wish that things could go back to the way they were before.

“…Ok,” Donnie said resolutely, then more nonchalantly, “I guess I could make some time in my very busy schedule.”

It was like a switch had been flipped.

“Great! See you in 5 minutes, I just need to set the table, dress code is business-casual,” Mikey said enthusiastically, then hugged Donnie quickly before setting off, “Be there or be square, do not keep me waiting Donald! Love you, bro!”

Mikey rushed out the door like he hadn’t just put the fear of God in his older sibling. Donnie was 93% sure that another of Mikey’s latent mystic abilities was weapons-grade guilt-tripping. Or maybe it was him making full use of his little-brother status. Either way it was highly effective.

Just one more thing they had to do.

Before they left they discretely switched tabs back to the training page. There was a large green button centred on the page asking if he’d understood everything and was willing to continue. Oh well, he still had a bit of time. It made no difference whether he pressed it now or later.

The button depressed with a satisfying click and immediately brought him to a new page. A ribbon at the top declared that his ‘Training [was] complete!’ in addition to a gif of confetti alongside a frankly disturbing amount of emojis. As they let the celebration video loop, Donnie once again marvelled in how ridiculously short the whole process was.

Just as Donnie considered leaving for dinner, another alert popped up in the corner of his screen. It wasn’t one of their patterned Donnie Alerts, but instead a small green rectangle with a red bell. Underneath were 4 words written in a white, serif font:

“Vince wants to talk.”

Without any input from Donnie, the confetti page was soon replaced with another:

“Congratulations on completing your training, we have set you up with your first chat!”

So this ‘Vince’ was his first assignment? That was far sooner than he expected. Was he ready? Donnie glanced over his shoulder at their lab door, then back to their Jupiter Jim alarm clock. They still had a few minutes before Mikey’s dinner deadline, and besides the contract that they’d fraudulently signed stated that they’d get paid by the minute so he should probably savour every second.

He should theoretically be fine. He had extensive notes; if by extensive they meant that even his research gaps had holes, but notes nonetheless.

Donnie opened their draw and flicked through his notebook to find a list of recommended greetings that they had prepared earlier (he might as well play by the book, at least for now). He found one that he had determined to be just the right level of professional and helpful- neatly highlighted in purple. Their fingers clacked over the keyboard. It was now or never, they supposed.

“Hello, I appreciate you messaging today, how can I help?”

There was barely a delay before Donnie got his reply.

“Is that a stock greeting lol”

Chapter Text

“Donnie!” Mikey called from the kitchen.

Said turtle glanced back at the screen sporting the grating (yet unfortunately accurate) assumption. They would have to come back to this after dinner, after all they would rather not deal with Mikey being upset (and it being his fault). The message had been marked as ‘non-urgent’ anyways. Besides, hopefully this would be quick. Get in, engage in the usual social pleasantries, get out, and carry on with his ever-growing list of work.

Donnie exited the lab and entered the recently renovated kitchen-slash-dining room-slash-living room. They’d had to downsize after the invasion when most of their rooms had caved in to the point of being unsalvageable. Thus, the kitchen had become an amalgamation for different uses. Mikey had done a good job of redecorating considering the circumstances, making use of the space well. One corner of the room sported beanbags, cushions, and blankets piled together. There was less of them than what they’d started with because of how often they were dragged into the tv room (which had miraculously survived as Splinter was happy to discover). The kitchen had maintained the same set up as before, however the island that used to house the coffee maker (rest in literal pieces, it will be sorely missed) had instead been converted into a seating area. Unsurprisingly when Donnie arrived, Raph, Mikey and Leo were already there.

There was a chair empty.

Other than the obvious change in location, it was clear to see why Mikey had insisted upon this. It was just like it used to be. Mikey was busying himself with dishing up, Raph was looking like he was barely holding himself back from jumping in to do it for him, and Leo was… on his phone. As per usual.

Looking at his brothers, Donnie would almost be touched at the scene of domesticity if it wouldn’t ruin their emotionally-detached bad-boy image. The only thing that was different was Raph, who would usually be seated on the left of Mikey at the end of the table. They had both switched seats, and it took Donnie a few seconds and a glance at Raph’s now blind right eye to realise why. The change wasn’t a welcome one, but it was necessary.

“Yes, yes, I’m here everyone, cool your proverbial jets,” Donnie said as he took the stool next to Leo as usual.

“Good,” Mikey said as he placed a bowl in front of Donnie (some sort of chicken and rice dish, jackpot), “Because if I had to wait 5 more seconds and god forbid my labour of love went cold…”

“Yes, I get it. I would feel your wrath Michael.”

Donnie immediately dug in. They hadn’t realised how hungry they were. Did he have breakfast? He couldn’t recall.

“Leo, get off ya phone, we’re supposed to be spending time as a family.” Raph scolded, but most of the bite had been taken out of it.

Raph was right, Donnie glanced over at Leo next to him who was staring at his screen expectantly. Leo jumped at the sudden attention, and Donnie tried to lean over to see what had his twin so enraptured, but Leo quickly turned it off and slammed it face-down on the table.

“Pfft, okay mom,” Leo said casually, “family bonding time is officially… a-go.”

…

Silence.

Donnie obviously wasn’t going to start the conversation, Raph was sweating bullets, and Mikey seemed so full of things to say that he couldn’t decide on one.

Leo rolled his eyes.

“So… what’s everyone been up to?”

Apparently that’s all it took for the flood gates to open. Mikey gasped excitedly.

“I’ve been cooking obviously, and look!” Mikey held his fork up, his hand only trembling slightly, “I’m barely shaking at all!”

“Nice one bud, I knew you could do it.”

“Thanks Raph!” Mikey beamed, “How’s your eye been?”

Donnie tuned out their conversation, instead focusing on his meal. The chicken wasn’t too seasoned to be overwhelming, but not so devoid of flavour that it was bland. Just the way they liked it. Mikey had outdone himself.

“So, what have you been doing, Donnie?” Leo asked around a mouthful of rice, “Or is it some sort of top-secret nerd stuff that we’re not supposed to know about.”

Of course Donnie couldn’t have escaped this without a few barbs thrown his way from a certain blue turtle. It was foolish of them to assume otherwise, reall.

“First of all Nardo- ew. Talk with your mouth closed, were you raised in a barn?”

“A sewer actually, but tomato tamato.”

“Ignoring that- I have actually been relatively busier than normal. Nothing I can’t handle, of course. I’ve been working on some important defence systems and improving the lair’s structural integrity.”

There was a pause. The kind of silence that usually came after Donnie accidently insulted someone. They scanned their words for anything that could have caused offense but drew a blank. Donne drew their eyebrows together in confusion and faced his brother.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Leo gestured vaguely with his fork, “I was just expecting you to go all ‘speech-mode’ on us.”

“’Speech-mode’? I was under the impression that you disliked it when I did that?”

It was true, as far as Donnie knew. Every time that they had talked at length about their new tech (complete with visuals and presentational flair, of course), Leo was always ready with a snarky comment about how much of a ‘snooze-fest’ it was. His brother had always stuck around anyways, citing that it would probably cure his chronic insomnia, but his distain had been made pretty clear. Hell, they’d nearly done a whole episode pertaining to the fact. So, Donnie had dropped the habit., out of necessity more than anything else. No one liked it when they did it and talking at length about his projects took time away from actually working on said projects. No matter how much he personally enjoyed it.

“No, I just-,” Leo’s trademarked grin dropped, just for a split-second, but then it returned with force, “I just didn’t want your nerdy ramblings to take away from Mikey’s amazing meal.”

Leo gestured to bring Mikey into the conversation, “What is this, oregano?”

As Mikey began happily explaining the apparent complexities of the dish, Donnie pondered his twin’s younger brother’s reaction. Donnie had never been good at identifying expressions, but what he was good at was picking up on patterns of behaviour. It was why he was so good at making gifts and problem-solving. He had an eye for detail that most others lacked, and one detail that he had learned to pick up on was expressions. They’d drawn their eyebrows on for a reason.

While the rest of their family wore their heart on their sleeves, Leo and Donnie kept their feelings under lock and key, set on fire, and sunk to the bottom of the ocean mob-hit-style never to be seen again. Leo was incredible adept at keeping his feelings in check and appropriate for whatever scheme they were concocting- he was the face of the team for a reason. This meant that he had very little tells to clue people into the difference between what he was actually feeling and what he wanted people to think he was feeling. Donnie, however, had lived with Leo their whole life and had learned to pick up on the subtlety of his brother’s facial expressions. He could tell that Leo wasn’t being entirely truthful, however that something in that sentence had stumped him. Could he tell what that something was?

Absolutely not why would you ever assume that.

But the fact remained that something was bothering Leo. So much so that he had let his mask slip for the first time in a long while. Donnie really wished that they had some of Mikey’s near-mystic-level empathy powers right now.

“-but overall, the key ingredient is of course: love,” Mikey finished up, “and a shit-ton of paprika.”

“Language,” Raph scolded, but there was less heat in it than usual, “But sounds great Mikey, it’s nice to see you so happy.”

“Yeah, I’m just glad to be back cooking again. I don’t think I could stomach any more takeout.”

“Blasphemy!” Leo cried dramatically, pointing an accusatory finger towards his younger brother, “We were basically raised by takeout and we turned out fine.”

“Pfft,” Donnie chuckled, “Define ‘fine.’”

Then Leo added.

“I’ll do you one better, define ‘raised.’”

They all look towards the empty chair.

Ouch. Awkward.

“What? It’s true. You complain about me being on my phone, and he can’t even be here.”

The sudden change in tone hit Donnie like whiplash. There was a rising tension in the room, like an elastic band that was about to snap. No one said anything for a second.

Raph was quick to fill the silence.

“That’s not- Leo you know that’s not fair. You know that Dad- that he…”

“I’m not trying to start something,” Leo said in an attempt to keep things light, “it’s just not fair that he gets to just… not be here. Especially with how important Mikey said this was to him. He said that he was going to be better.”

Raph stutters, “And he is, where is this coming from? Mikey made us all a nice meal and we’re going to eat it and enjoy it-“

“So what? We aren’t allowed to talk about it now?”

“Guys, stop!” Mikey’s voice is wet and oh Rutherford he’s crying, “Of course we can talk about it Leo, but dad went through a lot too. He’s just having a bad day.”

Leo moves a clump of rice around his bowl with his fork. His eyebrows furrow, then his gaze softens and he sighs, not meeting his brothers’ gazes.

“You’re right. I don’t want to get into a fight with you over this. Not over dad, not now.”

Raph exales too, and what little fight was in him leaves with it, “Sorry, Leo. Raph didn’t mean ta rag on ya.”

Leo’s glare softens, “No, I’m… I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have snapped. I don’t know where that came from.”

The room reverts to silence again.

“Woo family fun time.” Donnie chimes in.

He gets rewarded with a level 9000 Raph-glare.

“What, I’m just trying to do what Leo does and break the tension with a well-timed joke.”

Leo scoffed, seeing the social lifeline and grabbing it, “The key to that is well-timed. You see, as a master of comedy myself-“

This sparked an argument about whether Leo’s jokes are actually funny or not. Say what you will, but Donnie had actually succeeded in lightening the mood. Raph’s glare softened and he interjected with a few points of his own, Leo fought vehemently for the honour of his comedic genius, and Mikey dried his tears and recalled times where Leo’s jokes had gotten them in more trouble that they were worth. There was something hauntingly domestic about it. Even the sudden argument from before was familiar. Looking around the kitchen, if you ignored Mikey’s trembling hands, Raph’s eyepatch, and Leo’s… well, everything, Donnie could almost imagine that they were back in time before the invasion.

Mikey was right, this dinner did make everything seem normal again.

An alert sounded on his communicator- not a message this time, but an alarm. They’d been slacking off for too long.

“Well, as fun as this has been, I have important business to attend to, so if you’ll excuse me…”

“You’re leaving already?” Mikey looked up from his bowl, his voice sullen.

“Don, what happened to family bonding?” Leo started, looking more upset for Mikey’s sake than his.

“Yes, we have bonded. Love you all. Ecetera. But my work is very pressing so if you’ll excuse me.” Donnie moved to get up from his stool but a hand grabbed his arm and stopped him. He turned, expecting to see Mikey trying to get him to stay, but no- it was Leo.

He cracked his trademark grin.

“Honestly, ol’ Neon Leon’s getting tired too. Too much excitement for one day I think,” Leo made a show of yawning and stretching his arms, “Don-ton, can you help a poor, injured turtle back to bed pretty please.”

Ugh. Donnie shrugged off his brother’s grip.

“You can’t say that you’re well enough to go out on patrol but too injured to make it back to the med bay without me carrying you. Pick a side.”

“I didn’t say anything about you carrying me, just me using you as a mutant crutch.”

Donnie hesitated, this dinner had already put them behind schedule…

“Yeah, great idea Leo!” Mikey chimed in subtly, seemingly forgetting about Donnie’s escape attempt for now, “You two go while Raph and I finish up with dinner.”

There was a fire in his younger brother’s eyes. Dr. Delicate Touch hath spoken.

“Ugh fine… you can lean on me, but if you try anything else I’ll vaporise all of your Lou Jitsu action figures.”

“Deal!” Leo said happily as he hopped off the stool and threw himself dramatically into Donnie’s arms.

“I regret this already.” Donnie said through gritted teeth.

Leaving their other brothers behind, hey made their way back to the med bay, with Leo true to his word as he leaned heavily on Donnie’s shoulder. New York’s near-miss with the apocalypse resulted in a higher number of fractured bones than usual, so demand for actual crutches was high. Unfortunately for them, that also meant that the more in demand they were the harder they were to steal. It figures that they could get hard-core painkillers just fine, but a metal pole with a handle on the end? No chance. Donnie had offered to make him one, but Leo hadn’t thought it was worth it. After all, with the injuries he had sustained, it was unlikely that he would be going further than the fridge in a long time. Unfortunately, this decision resulted in Leo hanging onto Donnie’s shoulder like a sarcastic backpack.

“Do you have to hold on that hard?” Hours of sitting at their desk had made their back ache, and this wasn’t helping. Why could no one be considerate enough to throw out lumbar support backrests for him to scavenge?

“Trust me, if I didn’t have to I wouldn’t.”

And… he was probably right. While he was good at hiding it, Leo was shaking slightly, his shoulders tensed and his breathing heavier. He hadn’t been lying, today had taken it out of him. Donnie sighed.

“Uh huh, sure you wouldn’t.” Donnie countered, but put their arm under Leo’s anyways.

They shambled into the med bay and Donnie deposited him on the bed. Leo immediately fell in a heap on top of the covers like the drama king he is.

“Ouch!” Leo sat up, rubbing his shoulder, “Not exactly the 5 star treatment I was expecting.”

Donnie ignored him as Leo settled in. They opened their communicator and reflexively started to check the security cameras while Leo indignantly ranted about something or other. Camera 6 and 7 were still down, he thought that he’d fixed those already. They really needed to stop relying on their ninpo for serious repairs.

“Are you listening?” Leo asked dryly.

No.

“No.”

Leo puffed up the topmost of his many pillows and laid back on it, folding his arms behind his head.

“I was saying that I’m getting a tad board of infirmary life.”

Donnie closed the screen and folded his arms. Not this again.

“People who get seriously injured go in the med bay. Want to stay out of the med bay? Don’t get seriously injured.”

In true Leo fashion, he sulked.

“So when am I going to be allowed out of here then?”

When it stops being the room the most prepped for medical emergencies.

“When you can stand on your own for more than a minute without crumpling like a pile of wet leaves.”

“Hey, I take offense to that! I can stand for at least 2 minutes now.”

Donnie’s about to respond, but then they hear it. There’s a subtle clanging sound, like metal on concrete. It was faint, but to two trained ninjas it was like a claxon had gone off. Something outside the door had been knocked over.

“What was-“

“What was-“

Leo grinned.

“It’s a twin thing.”

“It is not a twin thing Leo. The chances of us saying the same thing is very high considering the circumstances.”

Before Leo could continue his never-ending teasing, Donnie checked the newly-updated proximity sensors- nothing. Time to do this the old-fashioned way- Donnie’s least favourite of the ways. He creeped towards the door slowly, then tugged the curtain open sharply as he summoned a bo in his other hand using his ninpo.

They glanced along the hall. Left. Right. Left again. Still nothing. Odd…

Donnie ducked their head back in and disassembled his staff, drawing the curtain closed again for good measure.

“See anything?” Leo asked.

“No… must of just been a rat,” Donnie said, then added quickly, “No offense, dad.”

The two brothers looked at each other for a moment. The tension bled out of them after the close call. Donnie’s not sure what else to say. Leo opens his mouth-

“Well, I’d best be off. I’m even more behind than I was before.” Donnie said stiffly as they turned to leave.

“Don?” Leo called.

They hesitated.

“Yes, Leo?”

Donnie moved to face Leo. He looked so small in the large bed. Like he had when they were kids and not quite grown. When he spoke his voice was softer than Donnie had heard it in a long time.

“Can you stay here for a bit? I haven’t been sleeping great and your monologues usually conk me right out.”

Donnie lingered in the doorway, hand gripping the metal pole that acted as a frame. They could, but…

He glanced back at the door to their lab; full of half-fixed equipment, a list that refused to get shorter, and a message waiting to be answered.

“I… can’t, Leo. There should be some melatonin in the draw next to you of you can’t sleep. Otherwise I can check if Mikey’s free?”

“Oh?” There was that flicker again- barely perceptible, “Nah don’t bother him. He’s probably tired after all that cooking today.”

Leo smiled.

Despite everything, Donnie had the nagging feeling that he was making a mistake.

“Goodnight, Leo.” Donnie called back as he left.

╚═══━━━─── • ───━━━═══╝

Back in their lab, Donnie stewed. Something about his conversation with Leo had left him feeling uncomfortable. There was an itch- the one they felt when they had just ran a new line of code and it sprang up with errors. Not for the first time that week Donnie felt like he was missing something.

No matter, all he had to do was get through this chat and then they could move on to more important things. Sweet, sweet data collection was on the horizon, that should calm him down.

He opened the window. The chat was still exactly as Donnie had left it. They crafted their reply.

“Yes, they give us a range of suitable starter sentence to choose from.”

“Now, what can I help you with today?”

The response came a lot quicker than Donnie had anticipated, especially since there was a lot of time between the last message and this one.

“wouldn’t you like to know weather boy :P”

A vine reference? Seriously? Donnie hadn’t heard that in at least 6 years.

“That reference was severely outdated.”

“oh shit

I assumed this was an automated response thign

Your a person?”

Yes, by Newton Donnie was obviously a person. Time to prove it. He saw an opportunity and took it.

“*You’re”

“Asshole.”

“Hey, you’re the only one who’s been acting like an asshole so far.

You won’t even let me help you on a helpline.”

"You know you're pretty bag at this

*bad

What sort of training did they give you?”

Donnie sighed, if only they knew.

"Trust me, it's minimal."

"I can tell. It really shows :/"

Well, that was rude. Donnie wasn't sure why, but his fingers itched to tick a tally of some kind.

"I'm trying to help you, the least you can do is be a bit less sardonic."

"Trust me I would if I knew what that meant

Hold up let me google something”

Then a few second later:

“Bitch"

Despite himself, Donnie snorted.

“So, are you actually going to tell me what your problem is?

Our conversation would at least be a lot more constructive.”

“Nah it’s a lot funnier to let u guess ;)”

Donnie was about to respond with the list of potential problems people may come forward with but Vince responds faster.

“Besides what makes u think tht I’m not just here for a chat”

They backspace their aborted message. That was easier to answer.

“Because this is a crisis line, obviously.”

Then.

“And there’s much better people to be engaging in small talk with than me.”

[read 10:23pm]

[Vince is now offline]

Huh. That was abrupt. Well, at least Vince had taken his advice?

“Smashiest brother detected, disengaging lockdown protocols.” S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N.’s voice crackled through the speakers.

Seriously did no one in this household care about privacy?

Donnie quickly switched tabs just as the door slid open to reveal Raph.

“Oh, er, knock knock?”

Donnie huffed, “Too late now Raph, might a well come in.”

Raph chuckled nervously as he stepped inside, “Heh, thanks.”

The two siblings stared at each other.

“…sooo did you need something or?”

“Ah yes! I just checked on Leo. Dinner must have taken it outta him because he was out like a light.”

Donnie turned back to his screen and started debugging the code that they had left there.

“Good for him. Did you slip melatonin in his drink?”

“No!” Raph said quickly, then rubbed the back of his neck, “Not this time.”

“Good, because I can’t be implicated in that again. That would be a serious invasion of privacy, and while usually I’d be all in for that, Mikey has informed me that I’ve reached my ethically-ambiguous limit for the month. Come back to me in June and then we’ll talk.”

“Noted. Although… Mikey does have a point about letting him make his own decisions.”

“That’s not what you said last week when you were fine with injecting trackers into him without his knowledge.”

“That’s not the- I know what I said but…”

Raph trailed off. He sighed and took a seat next to Donnie’s desk. He squared his shoulders and Donnie could practically see him switching to big brother mode. Then he says, quietly.

“Donnie, listen. I… think Leo’s right.”

Now that would be a cold day in hell.

“About what?”

“Moving outta the med bay and back into his room.”

So that sound they had heard…

“You were eavesdropping on us?”

“No! Raph was just… exercising his right to move around the lair as he pleases and he just so happened to be standing outside the door as you were talking.”

Donnie stared up at him, unimpressed. Raph sweated.

“Okay, okay, Raph may have been eavesdropping, but he didn’t mean to!” Raph grabs his mask tails and twists them in his hands, “I wanted to apologize to Leo… for dinner. But I bailed. He’s had enough of me mother-henning him for a lifetime. And that’s exactly my point. I can’t keep making him go along with what’s best for me, or best for you.”

“So- just to make sure that ‘m hearing you correctly- you still think that Leo, our very injured brother, should be let back into his room?”

Raph sighs, a familiar sound.

“It’s been a while, Don, and he’s obviously not happy there. Raph doesn’t want to push him to do something that he doesn’t want to do.”

Raph fidgeted under his sibling’s gaze. Out of all of Donnie’s brothers, Raph was the worst at hiding his intentions, especially when it came to protecting all of them. Sticking to Leo’s wishes, (even if it was against Donnie’s better judgement) was obviously important to him for some reason, and he was clearly having a hard time covering it up. Wow, Donnie was two-for-two at guessing his brother’s feelings today. Score. They patted their brother on the arm empathetically.

“Raphala, you know that I fully support Leo’s… feelings on the matter. But we both know that it’s the best place for him. It has all of the necessary equipment in it.“

“But he doesn’t really need it anymore, Don. It’s been a month, and we’ve fixed him up as much as we can.”

“He needs that equipment, Raph,” Donnie clenches their fists, he’s not quite sure where this defensiveness is coming from, “He needs to be there in case…”

In case of what? Logically, Raph was right. Leo hadn’t been hooked up to any of the machines in there for at least 2 weeks. Realistically the only thing that Leo was using in there was the bed. Gauze and medical tape could be easily moved, there wasn’t anything keeping him there. So the question remains: in case of what?

Raph put a gentle hand on Donnie’s shoulder. They looked up at him and saw Raph’s eyes looking all watery and soft. Ugh, he’d said something wrong hadn’t he?

“What if… we move the equipment to his room? Just for the time being? That way if anything happens-“

“Which it won’t.”

“Which it won’t,” Raph corrected, “he’ll be safe and happy. It’s not fair to keep telling him the best way to do thing. We’ve got to let him do what he wants even if… if we don’t think it’s the best for him.”

Donnie was smart enough to realise that Raph wasn’t referring to this particular issue, but he was also smart enough not to mention it. Raph made a good point, but should Donnie go along with it?

Logically it was the best course of action, but emotionally… A ball of anxiety that he didn’t have the strength or emotional knowledge to untangle settled on his chest when he thought about Leo outside the safety of the med bay. But the feeling wasn’t concrete, it had too many unknown variables.

Logic won out.

“Scoff. Okay, okay, fine. You’ve pulled my leg. He can move back to his room in the morning.”

“Great!” Raph gave Donnie a pat on the back which only dislodged his goggles a little, “I knew that you’d come around Don. I can do all the heavy lifting, but Raph’s hands are build for smashing, not for plugging and wires. Do ya think you can handle that for me?”

Donnie repositioned his goggles and fiddled with his wrist communicator summoning his calendar. According to the meticulous chart he was fully-booked in the morning with upgrading the security alert systems and rewiring the proximity alarm, but… this was important to Raph.

“I… should be able to make some time for it.” Donnie adds it to the list.

“Thanks Don,” Raph squeezes Donnie’s shoulder and lets go, “Go get some sleep- at a reasonable hour this time.”

“My reasonable and your reasonable are two separate things.”

“You know what I mean Donnie. Get some rest, you need it.”

Raph exited the lab with a swish of the hydraulic doors, leaving Donnie on his own again. Raph was right, their sleep schedule had been a bit skewed after the invasion- which is saying something because it was royally messed up before. He really should get some sleep.

But then he sees the list still lit up, hovering above his wrist and painting the dim room in a luminescent purple glow. There was still so much to do…

Sleep could wait, Donnie decided. This was far more important.

Chapter Text

As Raph had requested, Donnie was there bright and early to help move Leo out of the med bay. Well, maybe not bright, but definitely early. After their chat with Raph they had gotten sucked into their work and had accidently pulled an all-nighter. And it was an accident, no matter what Mikey or Raph may have thought if they knew. So he wasn't exactly top of his game that particular morning. Not to worry, though, Donnie had yet to find a problem that copious amounts of sweet sweet coffee couldn't fix.

So, with 3 cups of caffeine in their system, Donnie was ready to get to work. Raph had already done the heavy lifting, both physically and socially. He'd been the one to break the joyous news to Leo and deal with the brunt of him being an incredibly poor winner as per usual. However, Donnie wasn't entirely spared.

"And who was it who said that I definitely couldn't move back into my room again?" Leo asked, his voice sickly-sweet.

Just because Raph took most of it didn't mean that Leo didn't have any arrogance left over for Donnie.

"Scoff, this was logically the best course of action,” He busied himself with wiring up the heartrate monitor to the extension cord that was slowly but surely becoming more of a fire hazard, avoiding his brother’s smug gaze, “It would have happened sooner rather than later, your whining didn’t speed up the process.”

“Why did you have to go through all the trouble of moving this all in here?” Leo asked, “Couldn’t you just… I don’t know… mystic something up when you need to use it?”

Donnie hesitated slightly before saying, “There’s nothing like good, old-fashioned, highly-futuristic physical tech. Now be quite I’m trying to concentrate.”

He flicked the switch, but nothing happened. Typical. Donnie inspected the back of the machine only to find that he had incorrectly plugged the red and blue wires into the wrong sockets. His genius really wasn’t up to standard today, was it? They repressed a groan.

Usually under similar circumstances Donnie would retire to his room for the day, lower the lights, completely envelop himself in a weighted blanket and do whatever it took to not experience the world until his senses stopped betraying him. But of course unluckiness must run in the Hamato gene. They had promised Raph that they would do this, and so they would. Tiredness and… well, everything else be dammed.

As Donnie fixed his botched wiring, they thought back to their conversation with Vince that morning. Donnie had received a message at 4:32 am, which was decidedly not a good time for someone to be awake- Donnie not included. If he's honest, the message was the only thing that had alerted to him how long he had been up for. He was deep into rewiring the proximity alarm system, busy soldering two wires to the motherboard. He lifted the iron from the molten metal and pushed his goggles up to inspect the screen.

The time wasn’t a complete shock, but it was an unwelcome surprise.

Raph expected Donnie in a few hours, not enough time to get any sleep now. Might as well carry on. Donnie opened the chat window on his desktop.

"Wuu2? :P"

Donnie rolled their eyes. It seemed like Vince still hadn't gotten the memo about the intended purpose of their chat.

"Nothing.

What you should be 'u2' is asleep.

Sleep in an important part of your health and plays an integral role in memory consolidation."

And who said that Donnie couldn't give great emotional advice?

"So why are you awake now too?"

Donnie decided to ignore him.

"Do you have a problem you would like me to help with or is it just 'to chat'?"

“Nah I’m bored

Can’t seep

*seep

*seep

*sleep

Autocorrect can throw itself off a roof”

Donnie failed in his effort not to laugh at that. They really were sleep-deprived.

“So you don’t have anything serious that you’d like to discuss with me?”

“like what??”

“As you would say ‘idk :/’”

At this point Donnie was used to the replies being immediate. It was clear that whoever this 'Vince' was he was close to Donnie's age, if his typing speed was anything to go by (and the copious amounts of memes he sends). However, his next message took a bit longer to come through. Donnie flipped down their goggles and carried on soldering.

"Where were you when the invasion happened?"

Now this had taken Donnie aback. This was the first time that Vince had said something that wasn't a Donnie-directed barb or a bad joke. Hell, even the grammar and punctuation was correct. They thought carefully about their reply.

"What makes you think that it was an invasion?"

Humans technically weren't supposed to know about the Krang. At least not to the extent that they knew about any alien involvement. Shortly after everything went down the government had swooped in and started damage control. All videos of the event had been deleted, pieces of the Technodrome were squirreled away to Rutherford-knows-where, even Donnie's access to New York's security footage had been blocked for a day or two. Donnie would have been impressed at their technical prowess if he wasn't concerned about the startling implications of the kind of power that took, both digitally and systematically. They'd rewritten the story by noon.

A gas leak.

A gas leak.

It was the oldest trick in the book, like something out of a Z-Documents episode, but it had worked. It explained the explosion, and the 'hallucinations' that the citizens of New York had suffered from. Seen an exosuit slam through a building faster than a speeding train? You must have been really lightheaded. You were pretty close to the source of the leak. And you’re still sure you saw something? Yes I agree, that sounds like more than what a gas leak would cause. Surely your boss might like to know about your little drug habit? After all, what other explanation could there possibly be?

So yeah if Donnie didn't trust the government before he definitely didn't now.

However, their work had also kept certain mutant teenage turtle ninjas out of the spotlight. Which is why it was in his best interest to just go with what bullshit the men in black were peddling, no matter how much he disapproved with their exact methods. Donnie doubled down.

"Do you mean the gas leak?"

The response was quicker this time.

"Yeah, 'gas leak'

whatever u say :/"

OK so maybe this human wasn't as unperceptive as he'd hoped. Donnie typed with their dominant left hand as he focused on a particularly difficult wire with the other, but before they had a chance to reply, another message came through.

"So where were you when the 'gas leak' happened?"

"I was in the area."

Not technically a lie.

"I was there

Saw the whole thing"

Now this got Donnie's full attention. Vince obviously hadn’t believed the lies the government told. How close had he been? Enough to see the fight go down? Enough to see his brothers? Enough to see Leo-?

"What did you see?"

Donnie typed quickly.

"Not much

Lots of smoke and fire though"

"Anything else?"

Donnie's fingers ran across the keyboard frantically. If someone had seen them and believed their own eyes-

"No…?"

Donnie let out a breath that they hadn't realised that they'd been holding.

"Nothing else

There was too much going on"

Fuck. Logically they knew that people must have seen them, but it was different to hear someone talk like they knew. Maybe he shouldn't have relied on the government's second-hand protection as much as he had been...

But something about Vince's reply rubbed Donnie the wrong way. He was holding back on them. After all, why say that he had seen ‘the whole thing’ then backtrack to fire and smoke?

Maybe his family wasn't as safe as he's thought.

"Shit!"

Donnie yelped as the soldering iron cut into his finger. His flesh sizzled slightly as the metal made contact and he immediately pulled away. He'd gotten too distracted.

Donnie inspected the wound and frowned. It was minor, so minor that it probably didn't need a bandage. The skin was red, surrounded by a charred ring of black from the electricity. He’d deal with it later.

Donnie must have taken too long to reply because Vince beat them to it.

“Wild or what?”

Donnie switched hands and typed back.

“Yes, ‘wild’ indeed.”

Vince didn’t know the half of it.

“Where you ok?

After the stuf happened?

*stuff”

“*Were

And yes.

I was fine.

Were you?”

“Of course B)”

Donnie huffed. There’s no way this guy was as fine as he claimed. Even though Vince hadn’t given much away yet, that in itself was a testament to something.

“I find that very hard to believe.”

“Y?”

“…

Do you mean that as ‘yes’ or ‘why?’”

“Y = why”

Donnie could list the reasons why. In fact he had. They put the soldering iron down and flipped to the necessary page in his notebook.

“Many reasons.

First of all you’re exhibiting signs of deflection.

Whenever I ask you what your problem is you either shut me down or try to turn the conversation back to me.

You also seem incredibly arrogant.”

Half-way through typing Vince sent back:

“Rude :/”

Donnie continued anyways.

“It seems like you’re overcompensating for something.

The problem is I don’t know what  you’re overcompensating for because you won’t let me do my job.

You won’t talk to me like you’re supposed to be doing.

I don’t understand what you want from me.”

And that was the thing, wasn’t it? Donnie flicked back to their notes from the training. Vince didn’t match any of the examples that they had listed. All of the flowcharts and bullet points Donnie had carefully crafted had been thrown out the window. No matter what they tried Vince found a way to stubbornly weave around all of Donnie’s attempts to actually help someone.

So yes, Donnie was frustrated.

It took a while for Vince to reply. Far longer than usual. It left Donnie wondering if they had messed up completely. Listing someone’s issues straight at them then getting frustrated that they won’t open up is definitely considered a social faux pas, if not a complete lack of professionality. If Vince decided to quit, or even worse to complain, Donnie was out of a job. And the pay check that had recently been deposited into his fake bank account was literally keeping the lights on around here. This was the end wasn’t it?

“I think you’re right actually”

Now… that was definitely unexpected.

Not the right part, of course. Donnie was obviously right. He had cross-referenced his copious notes with some of Mikey’s ‘borrowed’ textbooks on psychology. There was also the fact that Donnie was usually correct on any occasion.

What Donnie hadn’t expected was Vince to just accept that.

Huh.

“Maybe that training really has paid off, huh doc?”

“Not a doctor, legally.”

“Ok I’ll gve it a go

Might as well

Honestly didnt think you would go that far tho

U need to work on your bedside manner ur very blunt”

Something that his family would agree on, that’s for sure. Particularly Leo…

“I’ll keep that in mind for our future conversations.”

“Coolio

Although let it be said you wouldn’t be my first choice for a therapist”

Despite everything, Donnie had laughed.

“Then why did you decide to carry on messaging me?”

There was a pause.

“Because I think you need this as much as me.”

[Vince is offline]

So yeah it was safe to say that Donnie wasn’t having the most stable morning of their life.

What had Vince meant by that? The conversation rattled around in their brain, the final sentence cemented there and refusing to budge.

He didn’t need help, whatever had given Vince that idea? He didn’t even know Donnie, they had barely talked. But, despite everything Donnie couldn’t help but feel… comforted, by him? There was something achingly familiar about their increasingly-unprofessional banter that left Donnie feeling hollowed out and exposed.

“…am I allowed to talk again or…?” Leo groaned from the bed.

Donnie sighed, “As long as it’s helpful, considerate, not about my forehead, and lacking an overall smug tone, then yes.”

“What have you been up to?”

Donnie connected two wires together, switching out his favoured left hand for his right as he reached for a screwdriver to hold them in place. Leo’s eyes lingered on him for a tad too long.

“You asked me that same question less than 12 hours ago.”

“And? You obviously did more than sleep in that time, I mean look at you.”

Donnie leaned out from behind the machine to level Leo a well-timed glare.

“If you must know,” Donnie placed the handle of the screwdriver in their mouth pirate-style as he fiddled with the connectors, “I aff een eeiering da oxmiti, pah,” Donnie spat out the screwdriver and returned it to his hand where he worked a screw loose, “ugh, I’ve been rewiring the proximity alarm that was broken in April and Papa’s fight with the Krang. I also upgraded it to have a broader alert radius, so if anyone comes within 500m of the lair I’ll know about it. You’re welcome, please hold your applause.”

“So not much then?” Leo said from somewhere on the other side of the machine.

"Oh sorry, I didn't realise that keeping everyone safe was so unimportant, he says sarcastically."

"Well you're clearly not doing a good job of keeping everyone safe." Leo says in that tone he always uses when he checkmates Donnie in chess without him realising it.

Their blood turns to ice.

"What did you just say?" Donnie says, bitterly.

"Your hand," Leo gestures to the small welt on Donnie's finger, "You've burnt it. Electrical, right?"

Donnie had nearly forgotten about that. They glance down and sure enough the wound unsurprisingly hadn't magically (or mystically) healed over the course of the morning. Now that Leo had mentioned it the familiar sting had returned.

“You’ve been favouring your right hand, and I know you’re a leftie,” Leo patted the space on the bed next to him, "Come on, little bro, let good ol’ medic Leo patch you up."

Donnie sighed, "I am not your little brother. And I don't need your help."

"Uh huh," Leo raised his brow, already unwrapping a fresh roll of gauze from one of the carts Raph had carried on, "So you won't have any issue with me telling Mikey that you injured yourself and decided to not treat such an incredibly serious and obviously life-threatening burn?"

Donnie froze.

"...You wouldn't."

The look Leo gave them was all they needed to know that their brother was deadly serious.

"This is ridiculous. Now I know where he gets it from," Donnie sulked, reluctantly moving to sit next to Leo on the bed, "You're a bad influence on your actual younger brother."

Donnie crossed their arms while Leo prepared some iodine solution.

"I wasn't a bad influence on you was I? Now hand it over."

Donnie bit back a retort at the pun and shoved his hand into Leo's own.

"For the last time, I am older than-" Donnie cut himself off with a hiss as Leo poured iodine over his finger, catching the droplets with some spare gauze.

"Sorry! Sorry!" Leo said, his tone genuinely apologetic, "Let me just..."

Leo busied himself with patting the area dry as Donnie grit his teeth against the pain. Who knew such a tiny wound could sting so much?

"You haven't hissed at me like that since we were like, 8."

Leo was right, it was a habit that he had grown out of, or at least he thought he had.

"You startled me, is all."

Leo hummed in mock agreement as he wrapped a fresh roll of gauze around Donnie's finger, securing it with a neat little bow.

“And hey presto! Good as new,” Then Leo added with a smirk, “Do you want me to kiss it better for you?”

“Ew, no please no.” Donnie snatched his hand back out of Leo’s grip like he had been burned (again) as his brother laughed.

Donnie inspected the bandage. It… didn’t hurt as much as it had.

“I’m fairly certain that the bow isn’t standard procedure.”

“Yes but it sure makes it less boring. Hey, speaking of… you could get Mikey to draw on it like he did with mine!”

Leo gestured to his own bandaged leg, the plaster of which had been lovingly covered in stickers and doodles that were so fundamentally Mikey. Their youngest brother had quickly treated his brother’s casts like a new canvas after the incident. The scribbles were shaky, a testament to Mikey’s own injuries. Leo’s lower arm cast had also succumbed to the same fate before Donnie had removed it the week prior (thank you mutant healing abilities).

“I’ll… see if he has time.”

“Great! Aaaand since you’re obviously in a giving mood today, can you help me with one more thing?”

“Ugh if this is some sort of ploy-“

“Nope, nothing to worry about my sweet Don-Ton. I was just wondering if you could help me remove said cast?”

Donnie frowned. It had been a month since Leo had broken it- quite dramatically, they might add. Usually fractures like the one Leo had endured would take 2 more weeks at least to heal. But… see: mutant healing abilities. Much to Leo and Donnie’s shared chagrin, there were no sections in the rule book for mutant teenage turtle ninjas. So…

“I’ll x-ray it. If it’s healed- and I mean fully healed- I’ll take it off.” Donnie turned to the x-ray machine (condensed to a lair-appropriate size thanks to guess who?) that they had set up moments before. Again, it baffled Donnie as to how April could smuggle out a working x-ray machine but not a pair of crutches. But still, it was handy in a pinch, like now for example.

“And Raph thought I was mad for wanting to bring this in here.” Donnie muttered under their breath.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Donnie said quickly.

“O-kay, well thanks for doing this anyways, mi hermano. It’s been itching like crazy, and I’ve been trying to get it off myself but it’s so hard to-“

Leo cut himself off.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Leo added quickly.

“Good, now stay still,” Donnie flicked the switch on, aiming the aperture towards the bottom of Leo’s left leg.

The machine whirred to life, displaying the contrasted image on the screen after a few seconds. After a quick examination it seemed like the tibia had healed. There was a thin black line that cut starkly through the bone, but other than that it looked almost as good as new.

“So, what’s the diagnosis, doc?”

“Not a doctor, legally.” Donnie replied, automatically.

Leo turned to look at Donnie, confused, “Sorry, what did you just-“

Donnie quickly cut off whatever barb Leo had planned to throw their way and swivelled the display around to show Leo.

“So, in your ‘medical opinion’, has your dum-dum bone healed yet?”

Whatever confusion that had washed over Leo was quickly replaced by curiosity as Donnie handed him the screen.

“Yep, that looks like it’s healed up nicely,” Leo gave his sibling a glance, “And I’m not just saying that to get you to take it off.”

Donnie rolls his eyes, of course they wouldn’t unless they were 100% sure themselves.

“Ok then,” Donnie rummaged around in one of the cart draws until he found a bendy metal ruler, “You know the drill.”

He chucked it at Leo who caught it with ease (why did he have to get all of the athletic skills?). Leo then carefully slotted the length of metal between the plaster and his leg.

“Ready when you are, Don-Ton.” Leo gave them a shaky thumbs up.

"Give me one second."

Donnie pressed a few buttons on his newly-rebuilt tech bo and the end reassembled into whirring saw. He aimed it directly at Leo's leg.

"This should barely hurt at all."

"AH! Donnie, no!" Leo shouted as Donnie edged the blade closer, attempting to scoot away, "You're getting dangerously close to the money-maker there 'Tello, I can't be the face of the team if I don't have a face!"

Donnie huffed and reluctantly put saw away.

"Two seasons and a movie later and he still doesn't let me shine."

"Isn't there something less... slice-and-dice-y that you can use? You know, like one of the actual medical instruments that I considerately stole for you?"

"I suppose..." Donnie sulked, rummaging around in one of the nearby draws. They picked up a smaller and considerably less-deadly saw. Donnie flourished it in front of Leo's face.

"Does this meet your impossible standards?"

Leo pushed his sibling's hand away.

"Yes, yes it does- wait a second," Leo narrowed his eyes, "I don't recognise that one. I didn't steal it. Where did you-"

There's a flash of recognition in his eyes.

"Is that the pizza cutter?"

They stared at each other for a moment.

"...noooooo." Donnie sweated.

"Hamato Von Ryan Donatello I swear to all that is holy that if you destroyed our only gateway to delicious pizza-"

"It isn’t, I swear! I didn't steal our only pizza cutter when Mikey was sleeping and turn it into a motorised medical saw why would you even think that? Ha ha ha hold still."

Donnie grabbed hold of Leo's plastered ankle in one hand and brandished the saw in the other. With a buzz and the flick of a switch the blade whirled to life, cutting through the bandages and plaster. Leo started to push at Donnie's face and screamed incredibly heroically.

"AAAAAAAAAaaaaaaah... ah. That's... not as painful as I thought it would be."

Donnie glared out from between his brother's fingers which had a vice-like grip on his face.

"Trust me, it was more painful than I was expecting it to be."

Leo lifted his hand away as the saw cut through the rest of the plaster. He looked like he was about to apologise, then-

"It's your fault for running at me like a saw-wielding maniac. Besides, it’s not my fault that the size of your forehead makes it an easy target to grab onto."

Donnie moved on to the foot part of the cast.

"S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N., two more tallies please."

Leo sighed, "How many am I down to now?"

"92/100. 8 more to go, so you'd better use them wisely. Or don't. I'd prefer if you don't."

The instrument continued to cut through the plaster, the buzz of the blade filling the room.

“Why did you scream? You’ve already had one of these removed.” Donnie stated as they worked.

“Because this one was way way worse, I mean you saw it. The bone was sti-“

The saw cut through the last of the plaster with a satisfying crack, revealing the fluffy cotton underneath. Donnie put down the saw and replaced it with some completely-ethically-sourced surgical scissors.

"Ah ah ah ah, that's going to be a no from me hermano, step back and let the professional handle this," Leo grabbed the scissors from Donnie's hand and began cutting along the split in the bandages, "I've had enough of Dr Donnie waving sharp objects in my face for a lifetime."

"Once again that doctorate is inaccurate, but deserved. And I wasn't 'waving' them about, I was... gesturing dramatically, there's a difference."

Donnie stood back and watched their brother cut open the last part of the cast.

"Aaaaand there we go. Easy as pie. I told you you should have let me do it."

Donnie was about to come back with a well-time retort when Leo finally removed the cast. The bandages and plaster fell away to reveal Leo's nearly unblemished leg and-

Red.

Leo had suffered a compound fracture during his fight with Krang Prime. His tibia had snapped from the great force of something Donnie tried desperately not to think about, piercing his skin and leaving his lower left leg mangled, nearly beyond repair.

Nearly.

Donnie had set it sometime after, when they had gotten back to the lair and Leo wasn't actively-

There had been so much blood.

"Don? Donnie? Breathe for me, OK?"

Donnie’s head felt full of static. The blood on the inside of the cast was minimal, nowhere near how much it had been that day. It was just whatever had been left over when they’d bandaged it the first time. It was dry, clinging to the sides of the cast like rust. Not pouring out. Not slowly killing him-

"Donnie!"

A sudden hand grabbed his arm.

"Don't touch me!"

Donnie flinched away and Leo drew his hand back like he'd been burned. Donnie couldn't look at their brother, ashamed of what he might see. They couldn’t deal with the pity that they would see.

"No touching, ok. What does Mikey usually say... name five things that you can see-"

"I'm not having a panic attack Leo."

He wasn't.

His breathing was irregular, coming in short, sharp bursts. He fought for a second to get more air in his lungs and barely succeeded.

"I'm fine." Donnie gasped.

"Do I... do you need me to-"

"I said I'm fine!"

The screen of the x-ray machine flickered and died.

The hum of the tech spluttered and faded, starkly highlighting the sound of Donnie’s ragged breaths in the newly present silence. It was too loud, too much-

"Is your leg OK?" Donnie managed to choke out.

"Yeah Don, it is. Are you-?"

"I'll be in my lab if you need me."

Donnie rushed out of the room on shaky legs, dragging the equipment he had just been using onto the floor with a deafening crash.

And for the second time in 24 hours, Donnie left Leo alone.

Chapter Text

It took a whole day for Donnie’s desktop to become usable again.

The thing was glitching so much Donnie was worried that a virus had somehow wormed its way through his multiple iron-clad firewalls. The screensaver became unrecognisable as it jerked and seized, full of bright colours that did wonders (he thinks, sarcastically) for his growing headache. But every time they tried to fix it they just made it worse. It had started after they had returned to the lab after their not-panic-attack, and since then every screen he owned had dissolved into an impenetrable wall of static that flickered in time with his ragged breaths.

So yeah, he knew what was causing it, but that didn’t mean he had to acknowledge it. As frustrating as it might have been. With a roadblock such as this there was no way to complete any of the tasks he needed to. That also meant that any chats with Vincent were also off the table, at least for now. Ugh, his emotions negligence was causing their family to lose money now too. Ridiculous.

And it was just that: ridiculous. While he may have come around to the use of mystic abilities, Donnie still wasn’t incredibly enthused with the entire idea of it just yet. Especially when it had such adverse side effects. He could bond with a machine, bend it to his will with the wave of a hand without the need for an interface to slow him down. But sometimes it caused things like this to happen too. While yes, the synergy of magic and machine combining was enthralling, it was still magic at the end of the day. The ying and yang of technology and mysticism, the line between objective and subjective… that was still incredibly difficult to understand. Especially when magic, at its core, relies so heavily on emotion.

…Aaaaand a secret second thing because there was no way that Donnie was feeling anything strongly enough to brick his computer.

So he decided to do one of the jobs on his list (not that he could even access it at the moment to check) that involved no technology at all: fixing the walls. They had been badly damaged when the Sister Krang attacked, and this had caused the structural integrity to decline a bit. And by a bit Donnie meant whole-ass cave-ins and half of the lair being buried under the rubble.

In the days after the invasion, Donnie and Splinter had gone around saving as much of the space as they could while Raph moved debris and Mikey, April, and Casey sorted through their belongings and rescued as much of their lives as they could. Donnie had produced some supports, moulding rebar and other metals littered around the partially-destroyed New York with his ninpo, bending them into shape and reinforcing them and the sewer walls in the process. His ninpo still lingered on them now, strengthening them.

They needed to be replaced.

So that’s what they had been doing all morning. That and avoiding Leo, but that was a given. They didn’t want to see that look in his brother’s eyes again.

"Heeeeeello up there!"

Donnie let out an undignified squeak in surprise.

They extinguished the blowtorch that they had been holding and rolled over, flipping up their goggles to reveal Mikey waving frantically from the base of scaffolding.

"Michael? What are you doing here?"

Mickey stuck his tongue out, "Let me up there and I'll tell you!"

While Mikey was usually the most welcome company out of his brothers (Raph tended to turn conversations into worry-laced lectures and well… Leo was Leo), Donnie really didn’t feel up to being around anyone at the moment. Even his self-proclaimed favourite brother.

“As you can see I’m ensuring that none of you get mortally crushed by the roof caving in. Please take a number and come back later.”

Done with the conversation, Donnie moved to flip back around, but before he could do so he heard the tell-tale sign of sniffling float up from below.

Oh no.

Reluctantly, Donnie turned back to see Mikey on the ground, eye brimming with tears. He looked so sad but- no! Donnie would not back down!

A couple of extra sniffs and a weapons-grade-level dose of puppy-dog eyes later and Donnie’s will crumpled like a wet paper bag under the assault of a handful of New York pigeons.

"Fine, come on then," Donnie huffed, "we can talk while I work.”

They stared down at their little brother who made absolutely no move to join them on the platform whatsoever.

"...I'm confused. I said you could come up?"

Mikey grinned, "Yeah but I want you to carry me. Make one of those fancy mystic platforms. Or a ladder! Oh! Or a cool reverse slide!"

Mikey wanted him to use his mystic abilities? That was pretty par for the course after he had unlocked them after the Shredder fight. Mikey always needed something or other materialised for him, and Donnie was usually happy to oblige (after a quick pantomime of reluctance). After all, he did get the coolest powers out of all of them, it made sense that his brothers would want to make use of them. However, with everything going on, using his ninpo to create something that would be the only barrier between his littlest brother and a sheer drop?

Yeah, not today.

But Donnie didn't want to articulate all of that, so they settled on:

"I... don't think reverse slides are a thing. I haven’t quite cracked that particular Newtons law but I’m working on it. Can't you just climb up yourself?"

"Yeah, but I'm having a bad arm day and I'm tired. Plus you're my big sib so you've got to- legally."

Mikey seemed one more refusal away from unleashing another round of begging. Donnie sighed, there was no way of getting out of this was there?

"Mmh, fine. But when you go on the next supply run you're keeping an eye out for extra flavourless juice boxes."

Donnie shuffled around until he was on his knees overlooking the edge of the platform. They took a deep breath and concentrated- looking within himself for that familiar hum of energy. It was... wispier, than usual- for lack of a better word. There was less substance to it, like its viscosity had significantly decreased. Brushing his mental fingers through it he found his hold on it slipping through like a fine mist. Although he wasn’t particularly fond of the mystic arts, he had most definitely become more reliant on it over the past two years. Reaching for his ninpo was more of a reflexive action than an active effort by this point, and not being able to connect to it fully felt like missing a step on the stairs from your childhood home.

It took a second, but that flow of mystic energy rose to the surface. Weaker than they’d have liked, but still causing their markings to glow and effervescent neon purple. They raised a hand, and with a flick of a finger a platform (with safety rails- he'd rather be within OSHA regulations than Geneva ones) appeared beneath Mikey with a crackle of static electricity.

The platform rose- slower than usual. The effort of creating and maintaining a construct was far more than he’d experienced before, even in the first few weeks of unlocking his powers. The closest feeling to this had been after a couple of particularly bad meltdowns or after the Krang fight, but even then he hadn’t felt this drained.

The glowing square made it to the top with barely a flicker, depositing Mikey safely on top of the scaffolding next to Donnie. As soon as Mikey was clear of the platform, Donnie released his hold on their mystic energy, letting it dissipate into a mass of rectangles and static. Their arms trembled slightly as they covertly breathed out a sigh of relief. Hopefully Mikey hadn’t picked up on that.

Said turtle sat on the edge of the platform, dangling his legs over the edge as Donnie desperately tried to assess his brother for a motive. Easier said than done, Donnie thought as he watched Mikey sitting there innocently. Perhaps too innocently…

"So, are you going to tell me what you're here for?" Donnie asked as they turned their attention back to the wall, switching out the blowtorch for a power drill to save Mikey's poor unprotected eyes. He’d been trying to get them all to wear matching goggles for years- for both style and protection- but according to Leo they’re a ‘crime against fashion and Donnie should be burned at the stake for even suggesting it.’

"Well, Raph's worried about you so he wanted me to do a quick check up and go all Dr Delicate Touch on you so that you'll sort yourself out," Mikey swung his legs back and forth while he added, "Oh and he also told me not to tell you that I was doing that."

Donnie lifted his finger from the button of the drill, "If Leo were here he’d definitely cuss you out for your narc behaviour and- wait. Raph's... worried? About me?"

"Hyeah! Also so am I, but Raph's suuuuper worried. Like, if he had hair I'm sure it'd be falling out by now between you and Leo."

Donnie sat up, discarding the power drill and twisting around to face Mikey.

"Me and Leo? Leo's the one with- you know what? I don't have time for Dr Delicate Touch right now and- what are you doing?"

With an insufferable grin that rivalled Leo's own, Mikey slowly pulled out a pair of round-rimmed glasses from behind his back.

"No, NO. Anything but him, please-"

“’S too late, bro," Mikey placed the glasses precariously on his snout, "It's already in motion. Dr Feelings is back, baby!"

Donnie dragged a hand down his face, exasperated.

"Ugh I would have preferred beach balls to this."

"Well, I'm glad that my exposure therapy is working. Now, are you ready to begin seminar 1.2: Healthy Coping Mechanisms for Dummies and/or Traumatised Teens?"

The only reply Donnie could come up with was an undignified groan.

"I'll take that as a yes! I can't drag the projector up here so I'm not going to have the slides I prepared, and this platform isn’t big enough for the choreography, but please imagine how great this would be with them."

Donnie huffed in dismay.

"Michael, I love you dearly, but if I have to go through one of your feelings seminars I'll push you off this platform. I’ll deal with whatever repercussions that comes with it."

It was an empty threat. Hiding Mikey's unicorn figurine collection was a much better alternative. He'd never see it coming.

"Yeah yeah, you can push me off after the seminar," Mikey pulled a clipboard and pen from behind him (where was he getting that from?), "Now, how about we communicate openly about how we're feeling right now? I'll go first.”

Mikey cleared his throat, “I feel happy that I'm here with you right now. Your turn!"

Donnie took a deep breath, "OK... I feel like… this is a waste of time."

Mikey scribbled something down on the clipboard, "Great! And why do you feel like this is a waste of time?"

"Because everything is fine, and this is unnecessary."

"Mmh mmh, ok, and why do you feel like this is unnecessary?" Mikey wrote some more. What was on that paper? Donnie attempted to take a peek at the paper on the clipboard but Mikey drew it close to his chest. They continued apprehensively.

"Ugh because I have a lot of work to do (-scribble scribble), the walls are literally collapsing (-scribble)," Donnie eyed the clipboard in his younger brother's hands again, "You and Raph won't get off my case, (-scribble) we're running out of money and I don't know what to do! (-scribble scribble) And what are you writing? Give that here!"

Donnie snatched the clipboard away from Mikey as his younger brother protested, flipping it around to face them. It was... doodles. Of him, of Raph, of Mikey himself. Little flowers dotted the page. Anything but actual notes.

Donnie flipped it back around and pointed accusingly at his brother.

"What's with the note taking, Michael? What is this?"

"I was putting pressure on you to open up about your feelings and it's wor-kinggg," Mikey said in a sing-song voice, "So what's this about your crippling desire to be needed fuelling your tendency to overwork yourself?"

Donnie spluttered, "I- what? I don't know what you're talking about!"

"I've noticed that you've been retreating from us, a lot more than usual,” Mikey fixed him with a knowing stare over the brim of his glasses, “You barely talk to us, even April. Don’t worry, she’s told me all about it. Whenever I see you you’re either working or acting shifty. And every time I talk to you about it you either lie to me or push me away. Hell, if I asked you why your ninpo was acting up just now would you actually tell me?”

A snappy retort died on Donnie’s tongue because no, he realised, he wouldn’t tell Mikey the truth. Even though their lies were abysmal at best it had become a reflex over the past month. A shiver of cold ran through them when they realised that lying had come to him easier than his ninpo had.

This was really not good. That panic from earlier that they had managed to quell to a low buzz had reared its ugly head again. Their chest felt tight with it.

“I… how- how did you know?” The words came out forced, Donnie’s throat seizing around them. Shit now was not the time.

“You haven’t touched your phone in 2 minutes, which if you don’t know is a new record.”

…Touché.

“Look, I’m worried about you. And the best thing to do is to talk about your feelings. Feelings? Feeeeeelings. Wow, I’ve said that word so much it doesn’t even sound real anymore.”

Donnie opened his mouth to speak but… nothing came out. He knew what he wanted to say, the word were there. But trying to drudge up the effort to actually say them felt like swimming through molasses. He switched to sign.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why? I want to help you.” Mikey responded in stilted sign, his movements jerky and hesitant. While Mikey was better than Raph at the adapted ASL they had devised, (Raph had never been one for learning languages, though he had managed to learn as much as necessary), he was no where near Leo and Donnie’s level of fluency. The twins brothers could have long, complex conversations with just their hands, and while Mikey could understand it well enough he struggled with translating his own sentences into signs. Especially now. Donnie glanced down at the cracks that were etched in Mikeys arms. They gently pushed their brother’s hands down, then motioned for him to keep speaking.

“Oh, ok. Well, what’s the problem? Why don’t you want to talk about it? Is it because you think I won’t understand?”

Donnie slowly shook his head no. Out of anyone he’d think that Mikey would understand him the most. He was the self-proclaimed therapist of the family, after all. What Donnie was struggling was admitting that there was a problem in the first place. They knew that there was a feeling swirling in his chest, sitting heavy on his ribs. He’d felt it after the invasion, but if he was honest with himself it was there even before then. Not as harsh, not as raging. But still there. Like an ever-present cloud hanging over them- signalling doom. What kind of doom they weren’t sure what. But even if there was a gun to his head or a Krang tentacle wrapped around his throat he still wouldn’t be able to tell you what that feeling was.

“I-,” Donnie started, desperately trying to move their hands into shapes that their mind didn’t have the ability to describe, “I don’t know where to start.”

Mikey thought for a moment before answering resolutely.

"How about we both ask each other questions but we have to pinkie-swear to tell the truth?"

"How do you expect me not to lie?"

"First of all: the sanctity of a pinkie-swear is something that you can never betray, and second we both know that we're shit liars."

Donnie had the good sense to pretend to be righteously offended.

"Scoff. If you don't leave me be I'll tell Raph that you swore."

"And if you do that I'll tell Raph about the time with his prized stuffed bear when you-"

"M-Mikey!” Donnie cried, both the shock and the familiarity of the conversation finally loosening the feeling in his throat enough to speak, albeit scratchily, “That is straight up diabolical, I'm proud.”

Mikey preened at the praise.

“OK... fine. I will... tell you... about my..." After a frankly mortifying amount of time Donnie finally managed to grit out, "Feelings."

They gagged- the word left a bad taste on their tongue.

“Great!” Mikey exclaimed sincerely, holding out one of his digits for a pinkie swear.

Donnie usually liked to have their lawyers present when they entered such an important legal contract, but he resigned to his fate and raised his “pinkie” as well.

“Thanks! Now we’ve got that out of the way, how about you ask me a question first?” Mikey folded his hands in his lap.

Well, Donnie had pinkie-swore…

“Let’s start with something I’ve been getting a lot of recently:” Donnie tried to channel as much middle-child spite into his words as possible (hey, he’d promised to tell the truth, not to make this whole process easy), “How are you feeling?”

Mikey’s expression changed away from the picture definition of pure optimism and back in a split second before answering, “Worried about you, I suppose. And Raph. And Leo. And Casey. And… well everyone. Lots of worrying going on at the moment,” Mikey started to list everything on his fingers, “Oh, and how we don’t see a lot of each other anymore, but you already know that. I’m scared that I won’t be able to draw like I used to. That my arms will be all out of whack forever. Hmm… what else… oh! And I feel happy because we’re talking to each other!”

That was… a lot. Probably too much to address right now. Mikey looked at Donnie with no expectations in his eyes, but he was tense. Their brother’s finger clenched tightly around each other in a way Donnie inferred must have been painful, especially with the barely-healed scars marking his skin. He wanted to reach out but… Donnie thought back to a certain seminar that related to expressing your feelings.

“I’m… sorry? That you feel that way, Michael. I didn’t know that was something you were going through. That must be… tough?” Donne silently scolded himself for the choppiness of their words. Ugh why was this so hard?

Despite the lacklustre (in Donnie’s opinion) words of comfort, it actually seemed to have done the trick- at least partially. While is didn’t relieve all of the tension from Mikey’s shoulders, (which now Donnie was actually looking for it seemed to have not disappeared completely since before the invasion) his digits relaxed, and if Donnie didn’t know any better they would have said that Mikey breathed a sigh of relief.

“Thank you Donald, I really appreciate that,” Mikey gave his sibling a genuine smile, “Now, time for my question, I’ll start with something easy… what are you working on at the moment?”

Donnie’s expertly-pencilled brows furrowed.

“You’ll have to be more specific. Do you mean right this second, or in general?”

Mikey tutted, “Ah ah ah, that counts as a question, D. Just interpret the question how you like.”

“Dramatic sigh. Fine,” Donnie pulled up his to-do list from his wrist, “Here’s everything. It’s ordered both by most pressing and by time the request was received. I’ve been working through them accordingly.”

Mikey’s face fell as he took in the uniformed rows upon rows of tasks, “That’s… a lot, D.”

Donnie laughed, a short thing full of a bit more bite than they intended, “That’s not that half of it my dear sweet Angelo, you haven’t scrolled down.”

Mikey leaned around the glowing projection to look his brother in the eye.

“Is that everything you’ve been trying to fix recently? All by yourself?”

There was something in the expression Mikey had shot his way. Something eerily familiar. But of course Donnie had recognised it, he had seen it just yesterday. But that time it had been from behind a blue mask, not an orange one: Pity.

The screen flickered.

“Now Michael that was 2 questions, and apparently you’re a stickler for the rules now so…” Donnie interrupted quickly.

“…O-kay. In the spirit of the sacred pinkie-promise I won’t push, for now. Your turn.”

Time to direct things towards...

“Raph. Why are you worried about him? I mean, he’s fine,” Donnie quicky corrected themselves, “Not fine-fine. But fine.”

Mikey fidgeted with the edges of his compression gloves, his brow furrowed.

“He’s been working really hard on giving us all space lately and not mother-henning us. I’ve really appreciated it, to be honest. He’s always treated me like the baby, I mean, can you believe him?”

Donnie thought back to the time he’d caught Mikey in the kitchen at 2 in the morning with his head stuck in the peanut butter jar because he’d been trying to desperately lick the last bits from the bottom. That was last week. It had taken them 2 hours, an industrial saw, and 3 blocks of real butter to get him free.

“Nooooo I most certainly can’t I have no clue what he’s talking about. Go on.”

“He’s been trying to let us handle things on our own and not crowd us. Especially Leo. And I completely get that and respect it. But sometimes I just need Raph you know?”

Donnie definitely understood that sentiment. Now that he mentioned it, it had been a long time since Donnie had been on the receiving end of a Raph hug…

“Besides that, I think he’s also struggling too. But he doesn’t want to talk to me about it other than the surface level stuff he’s dealing with, there’s got to be a whole heap o’ things he’s repressing. That’s all our family seems to be, a big ball of repression and self-loathing.”

Donnie gave a low whistle.

“I’m going to be honest, I’m not sure how to unpack all that. I only have one comforting line prepared and I’m not willing to sound like a broken record. That was definitely a lot of unauthorised questions though.”

“Ugh that’s not fair! It’s completely impossible! I mean, can you even have a conversation without asking questions?”

“I don’t know, can you?”

“Umm… no?”

“Are you sure about that?”

“I don’t know what you mean?”

“What? Do you not understand what I’m trying to do?”

Mikey gasped, “Deception! Fooling your own brother! For shame!”

Donnie laughed, a real laugh this time.

Mikey huffed and crossed his arms, pouting, “I should still get to ask my question though. It’s a doozy.”

“I’m scared but continue.”

Mikey’s eyes gained a gleefully menacing look, like a tiger ready to pounce.

“Why have you been acting so shifty all week, hmmm?”

Donnie blanched, “Shifty? I don’t know about shifty. Mysterious? Yes. Totally cool loner bad-boy? Also yes. But shifty-?”

Donnie cut themselves off when Mikey levelled him one of those looks. The kind that says if-you-break-your-pinkie-swear-you’ll-feel-my-wrath. Donnie gulped.

“What I meant to say was…”

Eugh boy they were really doing this weren’t they? Donnie took in a deep breath, then spoke quickly. Best to do this as fast as possible.

"I've been talking to someone online."

"You mean, like a therapist?" Mikey gazed at him, curiously, "I mean, I'm proud for you sib, but as my client I feel a bit betrayed with you talking to another doctor behind my back-"

"No no, it's not like that. The exact opposite," Donnie says, then quickly adds under his breath, "no matter what it feels like sometimes..."

Mikey was quiet for a moment. Too quiet. Then:

“Well shoot, I owe Leo five bucks.”

Donnie spluttered, “What?!”

“Raph, Leo, and I had a betting pool going. Raph had money on a secret partner, and I wagered on you joining an improv comedy troop and that you were too embarrassed to tell us about it for obvious reasons. Leo guessed that it was ‘literally anything else other than that those are both impossible’ so he wins!”

Donnie supposed that if he were more human than turtle they would have been blushing right now.

“I could totally have a secret partner!” Donnie said defensively, “You’re wrong about the improv though I’d never stoop so low. I’m frankly mortified that you’d think that of me.”

Mikey shrugged, “It was the only thing I could think of that you’d be embarrassed enough about not to tell us. Is that why you kept it secret? Because you thought it was embarrassing?”

“No! I mean, kind of. Yes. I’m not the feelings guy. I’m the opposite of the feelings guy. It was the only option I could think of to get us some extra cash. It was necessary, ok? Even if I had to take on a role that I… don’t usually have to fill.”

Donnie looked at the floor in front of him like it was the most interesting thing in the world. Both out of a quite shame and knowing that the look would be there to greet them if they didn’t.

“Is this… is it about the-“

“I don’t want to talk about that,” Donnie said quickly, then added softly, “Please.”

Donnie quickly steered the conversation back.

“I really want to help this guy- Vince. But he’s so- so stubborn! It’s infuriating, every time I try anything he just changes the subject, it feels like we’re getting absolutely no-where! It feels more like a casual conversation on his end than actual therapy, if you can even call it that! He barely even admits he’s got a problem! He’s just so… so…”

“Hard-headed?”

“Yes! That’s it!”

“Emotionally-constipated? Obnoxiously narrow-minded?”

“Obviously!”

“And oblivious?”

“Yeah, how did you know?”

“I had a hunch.”

Donnie sighed, regaining some of their composure.

“We made a bit of a breakthrough. A small one. He promised to try- at least. And I should be happy right? That he actually wants me to help him now. But what’s stopping him from not being honest anymore? Or closing off again? There’s too many variables that are unaccounted for.”

“And? So what if he does?”

Donnie stopped in their tracks, “What?”

“What if Vince goes back to deflecting and turning down your offers to help?”

Donnie thought on that for a moment. What would Mikey do?

“Probably… keep trying? I mean, he’s still messaging me, right?”

“Yeah, exactly. He’s still coming to you. So something you’re doing must be working. You said that it feels more like a chat than anything?”

Donnie nodded.

Mikey readjusted his glasses and stated evenly, with a practiced sageness that he definitely got from Splinter, “Well then just talk to him. Even the playing field, let him feel like he’s also in control. Make it feel more like a conversation and he might be more inclined to open up. Emphasise the chat part of the programme rather than the therapy part.”

“And how do you know that will work?”

Mikey gave him a smug grin that was usually reserved for when he’d just nabbed the last pizza slice and knew it. He placed a hand on Donnie’s arm.

“Because, Donald, it just has.”

And suddenly it was like everything had snapped into place. All of the meagre training, the research, it had meant nothing. Mikey had just managed to get him the closest to spilling his guts than that one Witch Town episode. Donnie hadn’t even stopped to put his guard back up before he’d realised it had been down. He couldn’t believe it. He’d been so caught up in the fixing part that he hadn’t even bothered to stop and listen.

“Boom baby! Dr Feeling strikes again, giving you well-meaning emotional support without you even realising it! I’ve truly outdone myself!”

“Yes, yes! Why hadn’t I thought of this before?!” Donnie squished the sides of Mikey’s face and looked him gleefully in the eye, “Michael you’re a genius!”

“Um… fank ooo?” Mikey said confusedly from between his brother’s hands.

Donnie released Mikey, pulling a notepad and pen from his battle shell and standing up to pace.

“In all of my research I’d never even thought to-! Yes, this should work perfectly! The data’s adding up! Ohohoho I’m going to rub this in Vincent’s face so hard and he won’t even see it coming!”

“Well, maybe ‘rubbing it in his face’ isn’t the most healthy way of going about this-“

Donnie laughed manically as they furiously scribbled on the paper, their hand flying across the page a mile a minute. Donnie stepped off the scaffolding, his feet meeting a glowing platform that had just materialised- solid and strong beneath his feet.

“I’m going to therapize him so good that my boss will have to give me a raise! Whoever that is and whatever that means!”

The platform flew towards the ground, Donnie barely waiting for it to stop before they sprinted off in the direction of their lab, the hiss of static emanating from it having been replaced with a calm, reasonable silence. Mikey watched Donnie retreat back into his lab, hopefully this time without the intensions of locking himself in there and away from the world again.

“Woo hoo! Go get them bro-bro! I believe in you! Another successful job completed by the one, the only, Dr Feelings!”

…

“Wait Donnie how am I supposed to get down?”