Chapter Text
Donnie is well past fed up with his brothers. Leo and Mikey are being way more bothersome then usual and he can't stand it! Leo trying to take some kind of 'high ground' and Mikey of all people is upset at Donnie! It's been driving Donnie insane. All week he's been dealing with those two and he just does not have the patience to put up with it much longer.
Plus, it's starting to affect their performance on missions. So something must be done, and like always it's up to Donnie.
"sigh," Donnie sighs. He didn't want to resort to this, but he knows what he must do.
The problem is that all of this is so frustrating, it makes him feel like he's drowning in some thick, goopy syrup. The disgusting, sticky grossness clings to poor attempts to swim and it leaves him feeling slow and stupid, fighting uselessly against viscous ew. He's caught between a rock (his angry little brother with big sad eyes) and a hard place (the devious backstabber in blue who he, sadly, must call family) and while he generally prefers to solve his problems himself, he clearly isn't the problem here and someone needs to talk sense into his idiot-brothers.
He drags his hands down his face, dragging his mask over his eyes. "ugh!" Allowing himself one slow, frustrated breath before he plunges himself into his solution.
Donnie puts his current project away, it was going to be a magnificent and thoughtful gift for the traitor he once called family. He's working on some last minute adjustments to it. That'll show Leo to go behind Donnie's back-
No. He mustn't get distracted. Payback can wait.
Donnie stomps out of his lab, the common areas of the lair are noticeably empty. His brothers are probably holed up in their rooms in a similar fashion to Donnie. Donnie is better at brooding then them.
Normally, Donnie remembers to announce his entry like a polite younger brother, but he's frustrated so he can be forgiven if such things slip his mind as he throws open the red curtain in Raph's doorway.
Raph was sat on the floor beneath his bed, scissors in his hand surrounded by scarps fabric. Beside him sits a pile of clothes, likely the source of the fabric littering the floor. Music is quietly playing from his phone, when he sees Donnie he drops the scissors, snatching up his phone to turn the music off.
"What are you doing?" Donnie asks from the doorway.
"Raph's cutting the sleeves off of these old sweatshirts he found!" Raph holds up his current victim, a red shirt with one sleeve and one jagged armhole where a sleeve used to be.
"Okay…" Donnie steps into his room, shutting the curtain behind him.
Donnie stomps past Raph to the weight bench the meat head keeps in his room for some reason. Donnie steps onto that and jumps onto Raph's bed. None of them really have beds in the technical sense, Raph just has a mattress on top of a plank of wood, hanging off the wall. It's nowhere near as comfortable as Donnie's makeshift bed, but it serves it's purpose well enough.
Donnie flops onto it with a huff. The extra steps it took to get their put a damper on his dramatic entrance.
"groan, I have a problem," he announces once he is comfortably above Raph. He can hear Raph's scissors snipping away at some poor shirt beneath him. "and Leo's a backstabbing hypocrite and Mikey is mad at me, so I can't go to them."
"Is your problem Leo being a backstabbing hypocrite and Mikey being mad at you?" Raph asks from the floor.
"Yes! Exactly that!" Donnie confirms Raph's accurate guess. Truly, it's a wonder that Raph has managed to stay out of it as much as he has, he probably thinks he's above little brother squabbles. "You get it! So you understand that they're in the wrong and I am in no way responsible for any of this."
"Uh… what exactly happened?" Raph asks, hesitant to agree with Donnie.
Perfectly understandable, it's bad practice to pick sides without all the information. Donnie can respect that.
"I told Leo something completely mundane and unimportant and he went to Mikey and made a big deal out of it!" Donnie explains, waving his arms around above him for emphasis.
Beneath him he can hear Raph shift, the snipping of his scissors pausing briefly. "And Mikey's mad at you now?"
"Yes! He's completely furious!"
"Why is he mad?" Raph's back to cutting up shirts from what Donnie can hear.
Donnie huffs, flopping back down on the bed. "Because Leo is a backstabbing traitor."
"So you told Leo something he wasn't supposed to tell Mikey?" Raph asks to which Donnie confirms. "A secret, so it must've been a bad secret, right?"
"Well- bad is a strong word. It wasn't exactly bad just…" Donnie sucks on his teeth, trying to find the right word for it. "eh… Harsh?"
Raph was quiet for a moment, "…uh-huh." He doesn't believe Donnie.
"And this 'harsh' secret was about Mikey?" He asks.
"No! Sort of… not really!" Donnie crosses his arms with a huff. It was only technically about Mikey, but the part Leo took issue with had nothing to do with Mikey.
"Yeah, okay, uh-huh. That makes no sense."
Donnie rolls his eyes. "It wasn't really about Mikey! It- Ugh!" Donnie groans, rolling onto his side with a huff. Why must Raph ask so many questions? Is it really so hard to just blindly agree with Donnie on this? "Technically it was about Mikey."
"Okay… are you sure that Leo wasn't just trying to help? Raph asks. Donnie can hear him moving underneath him, a moment later Raph is standing, his height putting him at eye level with Donnie. "Maybe Leo was just trying to fix whatever is up with you in the best way he knew how."
Donnie sits up, arms still crossed. "Scoff! I know Leo and I know that he's just being petty."
"Leo can be pretty petty," Raph agrees.
"Yes! He doesn't care, he's just trying to get back at me! You understand!" Donnie nods, glad that Raph is finally getting it. Donnie isn't the problem here.
"So what'd you do?" Raph narrows his eyes at Donnie.
"Me? I didn't do anything!"
"If Leo's trying to get back at you then you must've done something." Raph crosses his arms, leaning forward to stare right into Donnie's soul. "So what'd you do?"
"Nothing! Nothing- I didn't do anything!" Donnie shimmies backwards in a poor attempt to evade Raph's glare. "Leo is blowing this whole thing way out of proportion! I am innocent and he is cruelly plotting against me!" Donnie exclaims with his typical dramatic flair. It is true though, all of this fuss could've been avoided if Leo didn't decide to be a backstabbing traitor for no reason at all.
"Alright… so, let me get this striaght." Raph takes a step back, holding a hand up as he lists off what Donnie told him. "You told Leo something bad, that may or may not have to do with Mikey, he told Mikey but only because he's being petty, and he's being petty for no reason at all, because you did nothing wrong. Right?" Raph, for some unknown reason, doesn't seem to trust Donnie very much.
Donnie chooses to ignore the sarcasm and answers honestly. "Yes. I'm glad you understand."
"You're lying." Raph drops his arms to his sides, looking unimpressed at Donnie's story.
"I am not!"
"You're leaving stuff out which is close enough for Raph." Raph shrugs. "I can't help ya if I don't even know what happened."
Donnie frowns, he imagined this going differently. He thought of all people, Raph would understand. He's always arguing with Leo, he knows how Leo can be. The only people left are April and Splinter, and Donnie can't see either of them taking his side without an entire interrogation.
"But… things have been pretty tense around here." Raph frowns, looking outward toward the curtain in his doorway. "I'll talk to Mikey and Leo, we can work this out as a team!" He has a dreadful optimism in his voice that Donnie really doesn't like.
"That… doesn't sound like a great plan…" Donnie is starting to doubt his own plan. Instead of the resounding understanding and sympathy he hoped for he fears this will end up causing more problems.
"Of course it's a great plan! Raph's the best at solving little brother squabbles!" Leo and Mikey are going to make Raph think Donnie did something wrong. Donnie already knows it. With their masterful lying skills and big sad eyes they'll get Donnie in trouble instead of the other way around like Donnie had hoped.
"I'll handle this, okay?" Raph's arms fall to his side and he's facing Donnie again. He offers Donnie a hand and Donnie's jumps off of Raph's bed landing nicely on the ground.
"...okay," Donnie agrees hesitantly. He doesn't see this turning out in his favor, but it's hard to argue with Raph when he sounds so confident in himself. Maybe Raph's smarter than Donnie knows, maybe he'll see through Leo's story and understand that Donnie isn't the problem.
Maybe Donnie needs a better plan.