Archive of Our Own

Donnie wakes up in a bed that isn’t his.

The bed is strange; part hospital bed, part science fiction set piece. It’s wider than the usual kind of bed and the head of it is at an angle, so there’s no laying down. There’s no blankets either, just a plastic-fabric sort of cover over the mattress that crinkles with every movement. Thick metal rails enclose either side.

Chains disappear into holes in the rails. Chains that are attached to the cuffs cinched tightly around Donnie’s wrists and ankles. Not tight enough to cut off blood flow, but just enough to pinch if he rotates his wrists too far. They are unyielding, stiff metal locked with a black band. Donnie rubs it with the pad of his thumb, frowning, tries to get a read on how they are sealed.

His Ninpō sputters and shrinks away, as if it is afraid. It refuses to come to his call.

There are cuffs on his ankles too. The chains clink softly when he shifts, trying to draw his legs up. He can’t move them very far. There’s maybe a foot of give on the chains, hardly generous but more than he’d have expected.

Donnie glances around the room, looking for something to give him a clue as to where he is, what’s going on.

It’s white, which is already foreboding.

White walls, polished white floor, white ceiling with stark white overhead lights. Machines are against the walls, both familiar and unfamiliar. More alarming is the cluster of mechanical things overhead, all curled up and tucked together so that they simply looked like some kind of abstract metal snowflake. Donnie isn’t sure what it is, but ominous looming machinery is rarely ever a good thing.

He spends a while trying to escape from the cuffs.

The chains clatter and clank, but they refuse to break, no matter how much strength he puts into them. He can’t break the cuffs either. His efforts leave him with bruises that border on becoming cuts, and he accomplishes nothing except tiring himself out.

He has no gear, no mystic powers, and can’t find a way out. He’s not even one hundred percent sure how he got here in the first place.

Donnie is spared from wracking his brain by the sound of a door opening. It comes from behind him, making him startle, and he tries to twist around to see what’s happening. The chains barely let him turn that far and he’s straining his shoulder trying to see. He startles again when someone steps around the side of the bed he’s not trying to look around.

They look human; a tall man with military cropped hair and black tie over a crisp white shirt. The black trench coat does a good job of hiding the shoulder holsters. Donnie watches him warily as the man circles to the foot of the bed and stops. They stare each other down for a moment. Donnie’s heart is beating a nervous rhythm and he’s fighting to keep his breathing even.

“Where am I?” He snaps, because he can’t stand the silence, even if giving ground first means allowing his opponent to get a foothold, “Who are you? Why am I chained up? If this is an arrest then I demand to know the reason for it!”

A slim eyebrow raises above cold, sharp eyes, “I am Agent Bishop and you are in the custody of the Earth Protection Force. The restraints are simply a precautionary measure; you are not under arrest.”

Donnie scowls, “Disbelieving scoff. What do you want with me?”

“Answers, mostly,” Bishop says mildly, hands clasped behind his back, looking perfectly at ease, “The alien invaders, for example; how did you defeat them?”

“The power of friendship,” Donnie snarks. If he can push some buttons, the agent is liable to slip. That’s when Donnie can get the leverage he needs to get out of here.

Bishop doesn’t appear the least bit ruffled by the sarcasm, “How many of you are there?”

“One, obviously,” This is accompanied by a generous eye roll, “There is no one else like me!” It feels like a very Leo thing to say, but it’s still the truth. Donnie knows he’s shit at lying. But he’s quite good at snarky comebacks. It was something you learned when you grew up with idiots like Nardo.

Bishop’s eyes narrow ever so slightly and Donnie allows himself a smug swell of pride for at least pricking at the agent’s skin. He’ll get under it eventually.

“Let me clarify,” Bishop tries again, “How many individuals are in the team or unit that defeated the aliens?”

“Four,” Donnie replies with a shrug, because that’s nothing dangerous to say. It’s not a threatening number in the least and it’s certainly not enough to find them with.

There’s a long pause where Bishop just stares at him, like he’s waiting for Donnie to elaborate. Donnie’s scales prickle and itch beneath the man’s hard gaze and he shifts on the bed, trying to find something to hide behind. He feels so naked and exposed, so vulnerable, keenly aware that he is nearly defenseless like this. And he has no idea what this Agent Bishop could do to him.

“The artificial shell we found you with,” Bishop pivots topics and Donnie has to bite his lip to keep himself from flashing his teeth at the very idea of this clumsy human handling Genius Built tech, “Who built it?”

“That’s for me to know, and you to remain in blissful ignorance about,” Donnie snaps, because he is irritated at being reminded that they took his battleshell. Though it’s hard to forget with his naked shell pressing into the mattress.

“Mm, well, I suppose we can always dismantle it—”

“Don’t you DARE!” The chains rattle as Donnie lurches forward, pulling against the restraints to snarl at Bishop.

Bishop doesn’t even flinch, “So you built it, then? Very impressive work; we’ve never seen anything like it before. How old are you?”

Donnie preens under the praise, sticking his snout in the air, “Eighteen, and at least someone recognizes genius when they see it! I’ll have you know I built my first battleshell when I was five. Rudimentary, perhaps, but functional as protection.”

“You’re an engineer, I take it?”

“Scoff and eye roll! Please, I’m more than just a humble engineer,” Donnie grins at Bishop, flashing his sharp teeth, “I, good sir, am a certified genius. I construct and code everything on my own, by my own hand, with my own tools, with my own blood and sweat in every rivet and function! And if you dare to damage any of my gear, I’ll make sure you all pay for it.”

“I’m sure,” Bishop sounds like he isn’t taking the threat seriously and Donnie bristles at it, indignant and offended at the dismissal, “Do you equip your entire team with your work?”

“As if I would trust those dumb dumbs with my tech,” Donnie snarks, “Besides, they have their own—” The cuffs dig into his wrists when he tries to cross his arms and he is suddenly reminded that he is a captive. This is an interrogation.

Bishop is staring at him, waiting for him to continue.

“I want to make a phone call,” Donnie’s voice is flat, an order, a demand. A right.

“I’m afraid I can’t allow that,” Bishop doesn’t sound like he’s bothered by that at all, not the least bit apologetic, “If your teammates don’t utilize your technology, then what did they use to combat the alien invasion?”

“Give me my phone.”

“Do they build their own weapons?”

“Give. Me. My. Phone.”

“The mystic readings from the day of the invasion were incredibly high. We initially attributed it to the aliens, but perhaps it was something else…?”

Donnie clenches his teeth to stop himself from showing anything on his face, “Give me my phone! You can’t keep me here!”

“And why’s that?” Bishop’s tone dances on the line of sounding amused.

“I’m not under arrest! You can’t detain me for no reason!”

“We have plenty of reason.”

“You said I wasn’t under arrest!”

“Correct,” Bishop has the thinnest of smiles on his face, razor edged and cold, “You have not been arrested or detained. You are, shall we see, captured. To be arrested, you would first need to be a citizen. You are not only a mutant, but an unregistered denizen squatting in New York, stealing from the good, honest humans around you and making their lives more difficult.”

“Making their lives difficult!?” Donnie sputters, indignation rising hot across his face, “I would never! I’ll have you know that while we do tap the power grid, our usage is minimal at best! I’ve built our lair to be as self sustaining and isolated as possible to minimize our footprint—”

He catches the flash in Bishop’s eye far too late and stutters to a stop.

It’s like playing a game of chess against Leo. Donnie’s memorized plenty of moves, studied a few master rank games, played against high level computer opponents. But he has rarely been able to beat Leo at chess. Because Leo is always thinking ten to twenty steps ahead. Leo sees the how the game is going to end before the first turn is over. He also trash talks and distracts, getting under Donnie’s skin and disrupting his thoughts and plans. It’s infuriating how good Leo is as both the game and at manipulating his brothers.

Leo is clever. Leo is smart in his own way; good with people, good with words, good at wrapping a situation around his finger so it suits him best.

Donnie is not Leo.

And he is starting to become a little bit afraid.

So he clenches his jaw, hunches his shoulders, and resolves to not speak another word.

“A lair,” Bishop hums, as if he’s turning the thought around in his head, though his sharp eyes never leave Donnie, “And self-sustaining as well. That’s quite the skill set you have, to be able to maintain yourself and your team off the grid for a number of years. Are you involved with the yokai in any way?”

Donnie glares at him.

“The mystic readings were quite different from the typical yokai ones, that’s why we mistook them for alien at first. A failure on our part for not looking deeper,” He’s talking like this is a casual, two-sided conversation, like Donnie has any say in what’s happening, “Where did you find that kind of power? How did it stop the alien invasion?”

The silence that hangs in the air is a blade preparing to drop. It makes the back of Donnie’s neck prickle. Some animal part of his brain is screaming that he’s in danger, that he is facing down a predator many times his size. That’s fine. Donnie’s faced worse odds and come out the other side. He can stand his ground.

Bishop lets the quiet stretch for an uncomfortably long time before he breaks it,

“The silent treatment, is it? Mm, childish. Very well, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way…”

And Donnie has to open his mouth and poke the bear, has to tut and sneer like he’s in any position to act superior. He has to, because he cannot give a single inch,

“I’m not afraid of you.”

This time, Bishop does smile. It’s a thin blade, sharp enough to leave a stinging cut, dangerous and cruel,

“You are a terrible liar.”

Bishop finally moves, reaching into his coat to pull out a small tablet. Donnie immediately tries to fling his Ninpō at it, anything to latch into a network and make contact with his family. But his powers slither away, sand through his fingers puddling uselessly in his core.

It’s not blocked off the way it had been during the invasion; he can still feel it thrumming distantly in his veins, the electric current in the back of his mind. He just can’t seem to grasp it. The power keeps getting disrupted before it can truly gather, like water droplets scattering on the vibrating skin of a drum, never settling, in constant motion.

“I afforded you the chance to answer freely,” Bishop says, tapping the surface of his tablet, “As a courtesy for stopping the Krang invasion. As you’ve declined that generosity, more direct methods will have to be employed.”

“You don’t—” Donnie starts to sneer and then freezes. Has to swallow past the lump of realization in his throat before he can speak again,

“I never told you...I never said what the aliens were called…”

“We learned quite a lot from the one we captured,” Bishop hums and he almost sounds excited. The mechanical arms hanging overhead, the ones Donnie has almost been able to forget about, shudder and flex like something waking up after a long nap, “It was quite resilient and surprisingly well spoken for a brutal, warmongering beast.”

The chains clink and begin withdrawing into the rails of the bed. The cuffs dig into Donnie as they drag his arms and legs apart. They pull his heels to sit awkwardly on top of the rails, disrupting his position on the bed and making him slump down more against the raised head. His hands are pinned in the same manner, the back of his wrists flush against the metal, his forearms exposed to the ceiling and its nest of robotic limbs.

“T-torture is—is proven to be an ineffective method of gaining truth or facts,” Donnie yanks at his bindings, trying to find some give and getting none. He jerks his limbs, tries to twist his body away, straining his shoulders and hips to free himself, “This is pointless! And—and dumb! You’re dumb!”

“This isn’t torture,” Bishop watches with a smug satisfaction as some of the robot arms descend, “The Krang provided us many tools. This one will help loosen your stubborn tongue. You may want to hold still…”

The two mechanical arms coming closer both end in needles, flexible tubing twisted around the limb and into the dark hole in the ceiling. Donnie growls and gives the cuffs another fruitless tug. Those needles are making him nervous—they’re wider than a typical syringe, larger than any normal needle should be. He’s worried about what kind of damage that thing might do if it stabs in a vein.

A pneumatic hiss is the only warning he gets before the arms shoot forward and the needles dig into the middle of his forearms.

Donnie bucks against the bed with a choked cry. They didn’t aim for a vein or artery, they’re digging into the meat of his arms, buried in flesh and muscle. His fingers twitch and curl, nails biting into his palm, gasping at the pain radiating from the insertions. It’s like a knife wound more than a simple jab with a needle.

He’s still trying to get his breathing under control, head pressed back against the bed, when something begins oozing down the tubes hooked into the needles. Donnie doesn’t notice the stuff until it’s nearly at its destination. But he still screams when he sees it.

“NO! DON’T!” His struggles renew, panic overtaking him completely. His wild eyes follow the progress of the pink-ish slurry making its way down the tubes. Even as he stares at it, the disgusting goop seems to be wriggling and pulsing slightly, “No, no, no, noononono! NO! DON’T DO THIS! DON’T! LET ME GO!”

Bishop says nothing, just stands silently with his tablet in his hands, watching. Donnie screams with a furious terror, thrashing in his bindings, gnashing his teeth, throwing himself around on the bed, doing anything he can to escape. He can’t breathe right, gasping with ragged breaths as his chest heaves, his heart pounding so hard it almost hurts.

Donnie feels it the second the substance enters his body.

He seizes, entire body stiffening, muscles locking, back arching off the bed. His mouth is open but there’s no sound coming out. He doesn’t know if his lungs will remember how to work after this.

The Krang are crawling through him. His flesh bulges and wriggles like little worms slithering beneath his skin. It’s a disgusting feeling and his stomach heaves. He can only wheeze between his clenched teeth, mentally clawing against the memories of the Technodrome, gagging on the knowledge that it’s inside of him and he can’t get it out, a nightmare he’s lived over and over and over again.

It shushes him, an aggressive squeeze of his panic, squashing it down until it’s a distant thing. His heart rate slows and his body collapses, sagging limply against the bed. His chest stutters, breathing still harsh as he catches his breath.

The Krang that are not quite Krang pulse languidly through his system. They have coiled around his nerve endings and woven between his blood vessels, purring at his warmth. They seep something sticky into his veins and it tingles with a sickly sweet numbness when it reaches his brain. He tastes sugar and pennies in the back of his mouth.

“That was quite the dramatic reaction,” A voice, almost familiar, sharp against his ears, and Donnie tries to get his eyes to focus, blinking against the brightness, “Let’s see...baseline...what species were you before you were mutated?”

Wouldn’t you like to know, weather boy? Donnie thinks.

But his mouth says, “Apalone spinifera. Spiny softshell. Freshwater species, one of the largest found in North America.”

He hadn’t meant to say that.

The shock of it slams him back to his senses.

The room sharpens into focus and the first thing Donnie sees is Bishop, still at the end of the bed, looking pleased. Rage and hate swell up inside him and he bares his teeth in a snarl, a hiss beginning to rattle out. Before it’s choked off by a tender pulse of syrup and sugar from the not-quite-Krang still embedded into his body.

Donnie gasps and whines, shuddering at the soothing notion to obey obey obey.

Those impulses are not his own. It’s not even a thought, or an order, it’s a feeling, a desire. It’s something inside him that wants and—and he’s not—he’s not supposed to want it, right? But he does. He wants. He wants and wants and—

“What is your full name?”

His tongue is heady with numbing sweetness, “Don—Donatello H—hhhhnnnn! Nh!”

Donnie clenches his jaw against the pliable softness, refuses to expose his clan, to be the reason for any harm to come to them. His throat is thick with that sticky sugar, so sweet it’s almost revolting. His want to obey oozes against his fierce loyalty. Sugar burns and crystallizes into jagged, fragile points, skewering his innards. The pain is relief and ecstasy in equal measure.

“How did you defeat the Krang?”

“Didn’t,” Donnie gasps, spine bowing, plastron arched to the waiting arms of the machine hanging overhead, “We didn’t. They were too strong. We couldn’t stop them. Had too—we h-haaaaaa—ha—nn—”

The not-Krang pulse soothingly in his arms, ripple beneath his skin. Silver spoons skim up memories of

                                                                     “Leo’s still up there.”

                                                                                    Leo on the ship, Leo alone, Leo against a monster, Leo Leo Leo

and dig deeper to find

                                                 “When I get to the other side, you close that door.”

                                                         don’t, no, don’t do this, you idiot, you moron, don’t you dare do this don’t you dare leave don’t don’t you can’t you can’t no n o no n on o no ono no onoo o o

                                                                                                                                              “Leo, please don’t do this!”

Door slamming, knife slicing, dug so deep it wrenches something out of place permanently. A hole that will never be filled in right, a gear out of alignment, an eternally weeping wound. A scream that is endless but won’t leave, is stuck in the lungs, pressure tearing itself apart until the hole is so big it swallows up everything else.

Donnie makes a sound that’s supposed to be a sob, but the tears aren’t coming. He can’t feel the anguish he knows is there.

All he can feel is the want, the hunger to obey, to answer, to give.

Give, the throbbing things tangled in his flesh say. Give and give and give because it’s right, because it feels so good, because you want to. Because you need nothing else.

wrong wrong of course it’s wrong he’ll always need them he will always always always need them

is this what Raph felt

“What is the nature of the power you wield? How does it differ from yokai mystics?”

Donnie’s throat works, trying to swallow back the sugary burn that’s making his teeth ache. Or maybe that’s just the way he’s clenching his jaw.

“Nih—” He can’t, he can’t, he won’t, “Nin—nnn—stop! Ssssssoooo m-mmm—much—please!”

Bishop tsks, his smug smile gone. He looks annoyed. Somewhere underneath the dizzying candy rush, Donnie counts that as a victory. The sweet taste is souring. Not good. He’s supposed to obey. He’s supposed to answer. He’s supposed to be good.

“You don’t react to the modified parasite the way others do,” Bishop says aloud and Donnie stares at him, taking short and shallows breaths through his nose, “Our first trials were a disaster; our subjects kept getting absorbed by the matter. This version is much...kinder. I’ve been told it feels quite good to be injected with it. Unfortunately, it’s so weak to the body’s defenses that we usually have to dose someone every hour or so. Although you seem oddly resistant to it. Perhaps we should up the dosage…”

“No!” Donnie has time to cry out, before Bishop does something on his tablet.

The pleasure and yearning surge through him like lightning, leaving him quivering. He sags against the restraints, body limp, unwilling to move, his muscles so lax he feels like they may have melted away. He’s flushed with heat, every breath a rasp, the pool of fire frothing in his belly, burning through his veins.

And still that sweet taste persists.

It’s so sickeningly sweet, so sugary as to be disgusting. But it feels good. And Donnie wants to be afraid of it, but he can’t remember what fear is anymore. It’s buried under that heady thirst and sweet flavor.

He stares at Bishop. He has to. It’s not love that drives him, but something hungry, an itch, a leeching obsession.

He does not love Bishop. But the luscious curl that’s consuming his body and mind wants to be good for him.

“Now, what is your relation to the yokai?”

“Neutral, at best,” Donnie says, except he doesn’t because he didn’t mean to answer. Somewhere beneath a mountain of candy and sweets is a screaming rage that’s trying to claw its way free. He’s too dizzy with a drunken sort of bliss to acknowledge it, “W-we—haa...we don’t really have—have allies in the Hidden City. Mmmmost see us as abominations. I have personally been banned f-from Witch—from Witch Town.”

“Have you now? That’s very interesting; the witches are usually such a helpful group. You must have done them very wrong,” Bishop is smiling again and that...that’s good. That’s good, he’s happy because Donnie is doing what he’s told and it feels so good to do what he’s told,

“Your DNA structure is different from other mutants. Why?”

“We were made,” Donnie’s eyelids stick together when he blinks. Or maybe he’s just blinking very slowly. He has to peel them open against gooey strands of spun sugar, “Specifically tailored to be war—warriors. Crafted. Perfected.”

“By whom?”

Stop.

“Baron Draxum.”

“Hm, the outcast. For what reason were you made?”

Please stop.

“War.”

“War against what?”

Stop it.

“Humans.”

“You were made to destroy humanity?”

No.

“Yes.”

Bishop goes silent, his expression shuttering into a contemplative frown. Donnie languishes. Each breath is a shaky gasp for air. He feels everything but none of it feels like him anymore. Sweat beads his forehead, slicks down the back of his neck, gathers disgustingly between his skin and the inside of his plastron. His soft shell is sticking to the mattress cover. Tremors shiver through him intermittently, muscles spasming and flexing on their own. The heat is unbearable. His mouth is dry.

The delicious joy that comes from giving Bishop what he wants would be disgusting if it wasn’t so good.

Or maybe good, if it wasn’t so disgusting.

he’s scared he’s scared he’s so afraid he’s so vulnerable like this could be asked to do anything could be told to do anything please someone help he’s scared he’s scared he’s scared he’s

“How many of you are there?”

He’s already answered this but it’s absolutely heavenly to answer it again, “Four.”

“Are they also turtles?”

Donnie bites his tongue when he snaps his mouth shut. The taste of blood mixing with the sweetness is nausea inducing. A strained sound comes from between his clenched teeth, an answer that wants to come out.

The parasite serum licks against his synapses and the rush of heat melts Donnie’s joints. Donnie’s mouth falls open in a gush of blood that splatters across his chest.

“Y-yes…”

“Elaborate,” Bishop commands, “What kind of turtles are they?”

A groan shakes out of Donnie and he twists slowly in his bindings. He doesn’t want to answer. The satisfaction to give into Bishop is a dulcet hum, a siren song. For every second he he does not reply, that delicious heat begins to ebb away, sapping the warmth from Donnie’s very core, leaving him to freeze. Even if the fire has been cooking him alive, it still feels so good to obey.

He can’t.

“I…” Donnie wheezes, head lulling, closes his eyes. Feels like his eyeballs are marbles that have been left out in the sun, “Sssssn...sna...n-no...no I…” He’s panting, fighting against the want burning through him. It’s the feeling of his organs twisting in a delightful lurch, the same swoop he gets jumping off a high rise cranked to eleven, shivering electricity into his bones.

“What kind of turtles are they, Donatello?”

“Don’t…!” Donnie begs, pleads with the parasite, with Bishop, with himself, with whatever kind of higher being there might be, “Please, I don’t—b-bh—box! Box turtle!” The rush of satisfaction is enough to make him collapse against the bed, panting, so pleased to be doing as he’s told. So disgusted with himself for being weak enough to break, “S-ss—snapper. Snapping—alligator snapper. Red—red—rrrrrrrrnnno! NO! RED-EARED SLIDER!” Bucks as he shouts, can’t understand why his teeth snap at nothing. He’s spitting blood across his lap.

“What are their names?”

No.

Donnie thrashes, yanking against the restraints as hard as he can, slamming his head back against the bed, throwing himself around as much as he is able to. He’ll rip his own arms off if he has to, he can build replacements, he can build anything. He will not betray his family further.

“Tell me their names, Donatello.”

Bishop saying his name is a gush of something drunken and stupid that nearly makes his head spin. His jaw creaks as he fights against the desire to answer, tongue pressing against the back of his teeth, throat working. The sounds he’s making are foul, awful, needy things. Something squirming and wet and hungry churns in his belly. For a second, Donnie has delusion of one of those alien chest bursters exploding out of his plastron and tearing into Bishop’s throat.

He wants to vomit. He wants to answer. He wants to scream. He wants to give Bishop everything. He wants to rip himself apart. He wants to be useful. He wants to be good. He needs to be good. He…he…

He wants to be good.

Being good

doesn’t have to mean

obeying Bishop.

Donnie goes still.

His body is still quivering, a minute shiver as his muscles twitch. But his gaze is locked on Bishop. He does not move.

“Answer the question.” Bishop demands.

Donnie blinks. His head tilts all the way to the side like a broken down, neck bent taut. The side of his face touches his shoulder.

“No.”

A soothing whisper at the back of his mind sparks something familiar.

The room surges in violet light.

Donnie doesn’t know who gave him the order, but he levels a gun made of light at the government man and pulls the trigger.