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afreakingdork · 1 month

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Weak Spot - Chapter 62

RotTMNT Donatello x Reader

Here comes a thought in this week’s chapter art by @mrabubu

Warnings: Aged-up Turtles, Romance, Meet Cute, Villain Donatello, Cussing, Crushes, Xenophobia, Fear, Intimidation, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Hurt/Comfort, Love, AFAB Reader, Vaginal Sex, Sex Rough, Sex, Penis In Vagina Sex, Creampie, Teasing, Scent Kink, Sexual Tension, Breeding Kink, Multiple Orgasms, Cunnilingus, Fellatio, Marathon Sex, Somnophilia, Bondage, Feral Behavior, Feral Donatello, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Public Sex, Dom Donnie, Human/Turtle Relationships, Turtle Noises, Roleplay, Sexual Roleplay

Synopsis: A love story of villainous proportions! Though it hadn’t come easily, as these things rarely do, you found yourself in a whirlwind romance with a handsome and mysterious mutant. His idiosyncrasies had been easy to ignore as attraction grew into something more. However, will love endure when the unknowns about him end up being far darker than you ever considered?

Fem!Reader References/Warnings Below Cut

Also available on Ao3

First 💜 Previous

Fem!Reader References/Warnings: cast removal, crutches, muscle weakness, general injury recovery

Getting your cast off should have made you happy.

It should have come with a sense of relief. The thing had yellowed with age and stunk to high heaven, but you were numb as the many little saws buzzed around you. You only watched listlessly as bits of fiberglass shattered and nicked the doctor’s mask. You should have some anxiety, you thought. You should be worried that their hand might not be as steady as you’d hoped and they might dip and slice your skin.

You felt nothing.

You only stared on as you were helped out and you saw your legs for the first time.

Pruned from trapped moisture, somehow flaking, and a sickly color, they did not look like your own.

Words pelted you next and you heard them vaguely.

There was a new schedule.

New aftercare.

More healing.

You would never be done healing.

Your body would always be different.

These legs were not your own.

You couldn’t stand without an aid.

Donnie was everything.

After the incident with Leo, he went above and beyond where he’d already stepped up. He cut the others out of the support system. They were still there, the backup they needed to be for him, but Donnie decided in seeing your tears that he was the only one made to aid you. He moved around attentively, pampering you and getting everything you needed. He shifted his focus away from himself and helped however he could with your physical therapy.

You hadn’t told him what happened to Leo.

A piece of you had been extinguished in the exchange, not that you completely understood why.

Something was fundamentally wrong with the picture and the only element out of place was you.

Leo was right, you’d come in and changed something about their dynamic. You had tentatively seen it as good, but in practice you weren’t as sure anymore. You’d been reassured from countless sources, but it all seemed for not after being told point blank that you had upset the status quo and nothing could be put back. You had two happy years with the man you loved, but there was irreparable damage.

It manifested in your mate in a very real way.

He could no longer act.

The feelings he once pushed away as unnecessary were now a threat to him and everyone around.

You’d robbed him of his joy.

The one he’d found after such an agonizing journey.

You hated it.

You hated every moment he came near.

You hated every little look he gave you, checking in to see if it had been the right one.

You hated how every time, he’d smother even that reaction.

He was a shell.

He was unsure.

You were the same.

Then, there was Leo.

After the incident, he had taken a five day sabbatical where on rotation you learned from both Raph and Mikey that he only left the gym when it wasn’t open. He worked himself out until his body gave out and the tiny owner had called Raph away on day three to pick up the passed out husk of his brother. They had their own med bay you learned. Leo slept the last two days and drained multiple IV bags.

When he returned, he was a shadow of his former self.

There were no words left to barb and he parted no attention. Lucinda even greeted him and he only looked away. She’d wanted to ask, you saw it in her eyes, but you held the same empty look.

She’d said nothing and for the last week and a half in your cast, the apartment was trapped in haunting silence.

“It’ll be a wheelchair ride to the car.” A nurse told you.

You only nodded.

Donnie was beside you and you leaned against him.

Despite everything, he was still a comfort.

His hand settled on your shoulder and eventually your chariot approached.

Both in the form of Donnie’s car and a mobilized chair, you stared at your legs all the way.

They moved around you as you were helped into the car.

They sat uselessly in front of you.

You didn’t dare touch them in the ride over.

Crutches took your attention and you headed for the elevator.

You could hear Donnie thinking about getting another apartment.

Stairs got in the way.

Raph was somewhere.

You vaguely saw him already on your floor when you exited the metal box.

A coordinated clinking took you to your door.

You entered and made it far enough to the partition between the living and bedroom before you stopped.

Donnie and Raph spoke something paltry to each other.

You needed to wash up.

You still stank.

You assumed that’s why the other two had kept their distance.

Raph exceeded the elevator weight limit.

You knew that.

You didn’t care about facts.

Donnie appeared in what you figured was a creep.

You only passed him a glance before finally heading towards the bathroom.

He wandered after.

Had you snapped at him?

You could barely recall.

You thought you should have.

He was around too much, wasn’t he?

He was always there.

He was your blight like the other turtles were to him.

A hovering avatar of your failings.

You felt a few tears loose down your cheeks.

You didn’t think that.

You were free of your cast.

You should have been happy.

Not bitter.

You quaked to a halt just in the bathroom’s entrance.

Donnie was behind you.

“Stay with me…?” You begged him through a sob.

He said nothing and only appeared nodding in your vision.

A bath.

You were supposed to take a bath.

You needed to ease into these legs.

Muscle loss.

Breakdown.

Physical therapy.

Endless.

A spray turned on and you collapsed onto the seat of the toilet, letting your crutches go. Donnie caught them and shut the door properly before kneeling down in front of you. Words would need to be spared now, you thought, but you could only stare at him with what you could feel were soulless eyes.

He took them in with a glance that might have broken into sadness if this were any other world. In your current reality, his own shifted to a similar empty state as that was what was required. As the water warmed up, you were stripped. Not speaking made it more difficult, but you relied on your memory of how to move together.

The movement of Donnie’s beak said a lot.

Now in an especially enclosed space he was trapped with your wretched scent. You smelled it too, but you’d been locked into it for so long it lingered like the rot of your soul. The sink and wash cloths had only ever done so much.

You wanted to be boiled.

You wanted to scrub until there was nothing left.

You’d swirl and go straight down the drain and out of sight.

Your ass hit the cold porcelain and for the first time in over two months you felt something other than musty gauze there. It knocked you out of your stupor where Donnie was stripping without pretense. You didn’t watch him and instead reached through the curtain to touch the stream. It was sufficiently hot and you made a grab for the sink to pull yourself up. Donnie caught your wrist before you could and you sent the barest form of ire up at him.

He took it with the faintest crack of affection in his gaze.

It was something and your heart clenched.

How long had it been since he let something leak?

Not long, you knew.

A week or so at most.

You’d been downplaying them.

Each time he tried a little harder you’d lumped it into an anomaly pile.

You were in a constant state of twisting what you saw to your own view.

You were the numb one and Donnie was curtailing himself to you.

There was more there, in the way Donnie led you to the curtain. He had your weight, but at the same time you had full control. He was there if you fell, but otherwise you were the dancer that instructed. He, your studious partner, waited as you pulled back the shower curtain and he hopped you up the little step. The warm water splashed your toes and you yearned to bury into the spray. A stepwise process still necessary, you waited for Donnie to follow behind and close the curtain before you moved.

Showers washed away so much.

You felt not just the grime slipping away, but the sludge attached to your soul. It schlepped off in layers and you watched it metaphorically spin out and disappear down the hole that you thought you might too. Looking now, it was too small and nowhere near enough to encapsulate you. You felt your partner’s grip switch.

With one hand firm on your waist, the other ghosted over your arm. A move he’d done dozens of times, it was both your ways of recuperating with your partner. He drew strength from you in swipes and soon the lopsided display rotated you like a boat with one oar. Turned to face him with the spray at your back, you thought this was a sign. You started with flat hands over his wet plastron. A smooth glide, you withheld your features as you drifted up to his shoulders. You found him there, watching you with metered affection that you spied as more cracks. Wary of them, you had enough wherewithal to send him a worried look which he took in kind as a palm cascaded down to your hip.

His veneer split. Stroking along his shoulder blades, you grabbed the bulb of his shoulder just in time for a gooey expression to form on his face. Tinged with longing, it swirled as he opened up and you saw a gleam in his pupil. All looks reserved for his precious mate, you leaned into him though you couldn’t safely arch your back. It meant mostly a tip of your body without joints, but it still drew you closer to him.

“I love you.” He spoke without holding back.

Your entire being squeezed.

“I love you so much.” He cast the spell anew and brushed dripping water from your chin.

“Donnie…” You murmured and wanted to wrap him up.

You had the leverage, but there were so many threats. One slip would spell more injuries, but you wanted to launch yourself at him. You wanted to drape around him and tell him you alone could keep his ninpo from spawning. A theory already proven to be ineffective, you didn’t care. You would try harder. You had further mobility now and your mate needed you. You decided you could find a way; you could always find a way.

“Y/N.” He nosed over your shoulder as he reached behind you.

Washing, you were supposed to be washing up, but you could only choke on a sob. “I missed you so much.”

When he reappeared as a gelatinized version of himself, you could still see the upturned corners of his lips. “Tell me?”

You heard a cap pop and could mentally see him applying soap to a loofa in a silky drove. “Tell you what?”

“How much…?” He stalled with a press of suds to your shoulder and a wet look.

You knew his suffering was equal to yours, only different.

In that moment, in its current presentation, it seemed new.

He looked youthful and lonely.

He looked as though he’d been punished unjustly.

He was sat in a corner for a crime he didn’t commit.

He needed care.

He needed reassurance.

You drifted up his neck and to his jaw. “I miss you constantly. I’ve been miserable. You’re right there, but you’re not. I get pieces of you and that’s never going to be enough. Not when I’ve had the whole thing…”

“Whole thing…” He scolded and his lips warbled as he tried to divert attention into scrubbing your back. “Watching you deepen into your withdrawal has been…”

You shuffled a little closer to him and he slid his steadying hand more securely around you.

“It’s torture.” He rotated you out of the spray so he could reach more of you. “You need so much more of me than I can offer. I attend to all your physicalities, but the emotional aspect…!” He choked and shifted away to wash your arms. “To know that I no longer have the facilities to be a proper partner…”

“You’re wrong.” You pulled his chin so he was forced to look at you. “You’ve done so much. Do you know how many people can’t step up when their significant other gets sick? Truly sick, truly injured!”

He scoffed. “I would attend to you for multiple lifetimes.”

You helped move his hand so he could wash your chest. “Not even want, I can’t imagine being with anyone else.”

Donnie slowed as if that was a revelation and looked at you with tempered hope.

“Silly.” You moved to wipe his eyes and he delicately closed his lids so you could brush over them. “You know that.”

“Time and time again my warning that grievous harm will come to you as long as you stay by my side comes to fruition, you should not-”

You pressed a finger to his lips to quiet him.

He searched you in an attempt to break your resolve.

You brushed your digit side by side until he pressed a slight kiss into it. “Do you think what happened is actually your fault?”

You moved your finger away and he spoke immediately. “No.”

“Not that you allowed us to get drugged and taken?” You squeezed the words for what they were worth to translate your own feelings on the matter.

“I had every precaution in place, but there are gaps that cannot be accounted for-”

“Do you blame yourself for that?”

His pupils slowed and he dove into yours to scrounge up every bit of your meaning. “No…”

“Do you know how much growth that is?” You couldn’t help but smile.

He sneered lightly, but there was an obvious raise to his spirits.

You hugged into him and felt the little bubbles of soap pop between you.

He stood still as if to immortalize your affection before he moved to return it. “Do you hear yourself? You are celebrating that I am not performing self-flagellation over nearly losing you.”

“You see it too though, don’t you?” You turned your head and rested it against his plastron.

He squeezed you tighter instead of responding.

“I’m still here.”

“Don’t go.” He forced out.

“I’m right here.” You pulled away to look at him.

He came right down and his arm dipped, holding you upright around your thighs. “Y/N, please, there cannot be a repeat of this.”

“There won’t.”

“We’ll never go to the Hidden City again.”

“We won’t.”

“You’ll stay.”

“Donnie.”

“Stay with me.” You saw obvious tears prick the corner of his eyes. “Please, please, please… Don’t… Don’t ever…!”

“I won’t go.” It took a little too much movement, but you finally slotted your arms around his head. “You’re stuck with me.”

He tried to squeeze in another ‘please,’ but he interrupted himself as he kissed you.

You returned it, but felt the distinct lack of heat.

It was a reassurance and you poured all of yourself into it.

He broke it out of a smile that burst forth between you.

“L-let’s…”

You pecked across him as an encouragement.

“Get you cleaned up.” He decided and swallowed thickly.

You moved away as much as his hold allowed and he was methodically washing you. Running between foam and rinses, you had enough strength to scrub his plastron, but anything further that required a bend proved to be too difficult. He cared little and openly ate up the attention. You leaned into it, feeling slight guilt over denying him more, but you reminded yourself that this was unavoidable on both your parts. Donnie had to keep his emotions in check and you had to recover which was annoyingly no alive person’s fault.

Finishing your proper shower under Donnie’s steady grip, you then languished in letting the spray run directly over your face when you felt your boyfriend nose your mating mark playfully. You turned slightly, moving out of the shower’s line and he followed with pressed kisses there.

“Donnie…?” As far as you knew, this was part of the unspoken territory that couldn’t be crossed.

“Won’t break skin. No more injuries of any kind.” He let the water rinse the spot before mouthing over. “Still… Want to renew so badly.”

“Please…” You folded an arm around you to reach him.

He slid his fingers into yours with his free hand and the other supporting you shifted so he could give one of your butt cheeks a quick squeeze.

“Donnie!”

“Part of you kept from me.” He gave a testy little growl.

You leaned away in a turn to kiss him.

He ignored you and instead put on a show of opening up his mouth. His teeth gleamed a ferocious row and he angled them with a panting desire to sink them into your shoulder.

“Please…” You repeated much quieter.

“You’re mine.” A heat lingered against him and he lost sharp will as his maw came down.

His sharpened canines pricked the most, but he bit without breaking skin. “All yours.”

His hold shifted to wrap around your belly and he metered different pressures.

While there was a certain sexual edge to the move, it spoke more of a hunger.

Of things he’d been denied.

Things he couldn’t have.

All that he wanted.

He wrapped it in a nibble as his starvation would go on.

He could only have a taste and he released with a few little licks over the reddened skin.

“I love you.” You told him.

“I love you.” He nuzzled into the side of your head and reached past you to shut the water off.

Before the cold could set in, you were hoisted up just like you were and protested with little bubbles of laughter as he swung you up and out of the tub. Landing on a soft mat, he pulled down a towel to wrap you up in and you were soon sat on the toilet again. Both to be dried and while he toweled himself off, he eventually came around with several bottles.

From getting your cast off you were told to moisturize heavily and Donnie started with a cream for that. Knelt in front of your legs like your knight, you saw he took pleasure in rubbing the lotion into your skin. Taking particular care both for its purpose and because your legs had been locked away for so long, your stems soon took on a shine both from the cream and from the worked up blood flow.

You twisted your toes through the shaking weakness from having been upright for so long, but for the first time since the cast removal, your lower body felt like your own.

Donnie procured another bottle, a new formulation of his muscle cream and added that on next. He’d concocted a slew of new products with computer screens alone and sent them off to be formulated and tested. All done with rush orders, you were soon inundated with all sorts of medicinal ointments. From salves to heal scars to potent oils that stimulated cell regeneration, you noticed there was some labeling that had Old Lady Nagami’s flare, but you didn’t bring attention to it.

You had mostly applied them yourself, but now you wished you’d deferred to Donnie. This could have been stolen moments of intimacy you both craved all along and you berated yourself for not allowing him that much. You only felt you’d taken enough so any little thing you could do yourself felt like a load off of him. He’d also stepped aside whenever possible to not subvert your independence. You adored him and as he finished up with a smile saying he had a job well done, he turned that up to you and all of that must have been plastered on your face.

From his knees he rose up to kiss you reassurances.

You lingered in them before mumbling against his lips. “Let me.”

“What? Anything.” He nosed you slightly.

You giggled at how quickly he complied. “You must be sore too.”

He came away with a furrowed brow ridge.

“Switch with me in your lap.”

He gave the idea a once over before a quick nod and lifted you right up. He then dutifully switched, sitting on the toilet lid and dropping you onto his thighs where he then fetched his cream from a drawer. He passed it over and you scooped a good handful out before pulling one of his arms close to work it into his aged scars.

Within a few strokes he immediately wilted around you like a drapery. You staved off laughing by chewing your lip and the faintest little churr cropped up that startled both of you.

Having both shot away, you shared a surprise stare before you were both tentatively slow moving back into place for fear you wouldn’t be able to replicate it. Taking much longer than the first as awareness was difficult to offset, the tiny vibration eventually picked up as you trended down to his forearms. Music to your ears, you languished in it and rubbed his wrist even though the cream was soaked into his muscles.

He was the one who grew tired of the imbalance and eventually broke to turn you around to reach his other arm. You cuddled close to him, repeating the process and eventually the churr he met you with was one you considered his norm. Overjoyed with his comfort, you felt lulled and your rub lost cohesion as he slid down to his hands.

“Sleep…” He managed around the rumble.

“You too?” You teased lightly.

“Who’s on duty…?”

You had to think about it. “Raph.”

“Yes.” It almost sounded like a cheer and he nuzzled into your neck.

“Why’s it okay with him?” Though you knew Raph distanced himself as best he could, he and Donnie interacted so little that you weren’t sure what their dynamic was like, even with all the weeks of him being around.

“He hesitates.” Donnie reluctantly lifted his head. “Avoids. If I had to take my pick…”

You nodded, not wanting to push the subject when you were both so comfortable.

Lifted back on jittery legs, your towel was adjusted and the door opened with a shift in humidity. Chilled by it, Donnie quickly wiped your crutches down and passed them off before you thunked over to get some pajamas in a perilous game of not letting your covers fall in the process.

“Raphael.” Donnie peered around the partition.

“I didn’t hear nothing!” Raph called from somewhere distant.

Grabbing comfy clothes, you thought you could place him squished right by the door. Of the three, he was the one that seemed the most out of place in your apartment. He tried to minimize himself as best he could and you often had to tell him to sit on the couch even though he long should have known it was available to him.

“Guilt over nothing.” Donnie let a certain disdain fill his voice. “Y/N is going to nap.”

There was a beat of silence as Raph parsed the meaning there. “Understood.”

“And sit down.” Donnie gave an annoyed command and then followed after where you waved a pair of sweats for him.

He took them with a kiss to your cheek and you could tell he was just fatigued enough to not put on his emotional block.

You sat on the bed to get dressed and once you were clad you fell back into the covers letting the many balms on your body swallow you up until Donnie’s voice broke through. “Get under.”

“Throw a blanket on top of me.” You groaned, not wanting to move.

He clicked his tongue, scolding, at you before hoisting you up to pull you under the blankets with him.

You wiggled as much as you could on weary hips to get close.

He tucked you both in and you watched each other until lids grew heavy enough to fall.

You weren’t totally sure, but it seemed like Donnie was trying to meditate. It was never particularly obvious, but he would clearly drift when his attention wasn’t on you. Different from his usual trains of thought, it left his features empty in a way that you thought illustrated his thoughts. When he was on the path of mental conquest, that fortitude showed up with a furrowed brow and narrowed gaze. Now, however, you often found him with loose features and a slightly unfocused gaze.

You’d meant to ask, but the first time you roused him from the state, he’d surfaced with a knife-sharp gaze that said it was not to be discussed in company.

Such company was thankfully Mikey at the time who hadn’t even noticed anything was off.

You imagined that was probably why Donnie chanced it. You were left to mull things over which meant you ran various simulations the best you could. It helped you place a few things in perspective since it wasn’t something up for debate. The first of which regarded the level of vulnerability. Donnie never chanced the lowered guard that came with meditating around Leo. He also rarely breached his emotional moat which made you think this had to do with his ninpo. All of which made sense when you thought of Raph.

The eldest had told you point blank that he honed in on ninpo frequencies by meditating and you had filled Donnie in on everything that had happened on your last unwilling trip to the lair. You might have been surprised your genius hadn’t thought of it sooner, but you imagined it had a lot to do with you. Meditation took time, as far as you understood, and a certain level of calm that you bet Donnie wasn’t capable of considering the circumstances you were both currently stuck with.

From your healing to the brothers constant vigil, Donnie had to hold tight to his sanity by any means. Now that the entire set of turtles had settled into this new sort of treaty they were forced into and you were out of your cast and nearing the end of your obvious healing, that meant Donnie could practice more sensitive exercises to get his ninpo under control. He didn’t chance it often, but you had seen him trying to drift in every way except for folding his legs up and assuming a Siddhasana.

The logistics were something you were ruminating when Leo stood up from where he was pretending not to monitor your sitting leg exercises.

The tenuous relationship between the two of you had stretched on, but in the last few weeks you could at least manage being in the same room together.

Donnie hovered closer regardless and it pained you that you still hadn’t been able to tell your boyfriend what had transpired.

Glancing first at Leo and then at a clock, it was two minutes until the hour which meant it was time for a change over. Leo passed Donnie a single nod to translate this before stepping away to make space for a portal behind the couch. The schedule dictated Mikey was next, so Leo sliced through and you expected the orange brother to pop out with his usual buoyant energy.

Instead Leo walked out only for Mikey to emerge with an angry figure that stomped all the way around to you.

With his hands folded on his hips, he held a height over you and a face that begged you to ask.

“You… okay?” You set your weight down and tried not to laugh at how silly he was being.

“No!” Mikey took his opening and was only careful in dropping down into the couch beside you so as not to jostle you. “I’m mad!”

“I can see that.” Your smile was only dimmed by a minor wince as you pulled your legs up onto the couch so you could turn to him. “Want to rant?”

“Finally! Yes!” Mikey threw his limbs out before he turned toward you to tuck into the details. “So I’m trying to do my daily meditation, right?”

You blinked to attention.

That was almost too apropos.

It was clear it struck your partner similarly as Donnie was still nearby and had lifted his head where he was once casually looking through something on his phone.

“What?” Mikey noticed your distraction with a crouch of his brow ridge. “Don’t tell me I don’t look like I meditate because that stereotype’s been beaten to death!”

“No, no… I was…” You waffled and tried not to look around the room. “Meditation helps… healing. You caught me off guard because I was thinking about it, but wasn’t sure if that was real or not.”

All of Mikey’s suspicions evaporated. “Oh-me-gosh! Yes! I’m not going to lie to you, there’s a bunch of misconceptions and finding actual thought out studies is both impossible and annoying, but there is good evidence for it, I swear!”

“Thought out… studies…?” You mouthed, feeling a sense of déjà vu.

“Yes! You can prove anything with a survey as long as you control who you ask! I immediately dump a study if I can’t find out-” He held up both hands ready to count. “-who ran it, what’s the goal, the poll, how many people were involved, and a breakdown of the demographics!”

You pressed your lip to a thin line and did everything in your power not to look at Donnie.

“Trust me, it’s a whole thing.” Mikey dropped his hands and shook his head.

“I guess… I didn’t realize you’d be so thorough.” You admitted, feeling a little embarrassed.

“Yeah, well…” Mikey shrugged. “I’m on my own healing journey. You’re on yours and I’ve been long trying to stop pushing my beliefs on others if I can help it, but I am here if you have any questions.”

“Yeah… Maybe, but you were mad about something, weren’t you?”

“Yes!” Mikey threw his head up as if he could spout fire. “No matter what I did there was something! First, there was a gnat that kept trying to go up my nose, then Raph had this fuzzy thing stuck to his shell, but he was being such a pain about holding still because it tickled, then Dad thought, I don’t know, freaking 3pm smoothies during the same time I always meditate is a thing now!”

You watched Mikey’s rant fondly.

“Like that’s when his show is! He hasn’t drinken a smoothie in months and I’m supposed to believe that’s not a personal attack!?” Mikey looked at you as if you could sympathize.

Your life had been pretty planned out as of late and you didn’t.

“Doesn’t matter.” Mikey sighed deeply. “I never got to and now we’re here. What are you doing there?”

“Strengthening the legs.” You glanced down to the weights on the ground.

“I know a version of those bad boys all too well. They’re so small.” He nodded with a weight of knowledge.

“Yeah…” There were so many things you hadn’t been able to discuss and it seemed silly you’d never tried. “Leo said you did physical therapy?”

“Still do.” Mikey stretched out his arms for you to see. “Though they call it occupational therapy after a certain point. Don’t know the difference, but it feels pretty much the same.”

He did nothing to cover the golden cracks that split his skin and you chanced following a fissure with a finger.

Along the line there was no texture to it, almost as if the glow was an illusion.

“It’s mystic scarring.” Mikey explained.

“Ah…” He’d offered so you thought you shouldn’t feel bad, but part of you wanted to apologize.

“Got it saving Leo.” He thought for a moment. “Not Donatello related.” He looked over his shoulder at Donnie. “No offense.”

Donnie barely bobbed with a shrug. “I’ll take only my appropriate credit.”

Mikey rolled his eyes back to you. “Almost got ripped to stardust, but Raph helped stabilize me. He’s got some scars too, but he never shows ‘em. I think he thinks I’ll think…” He had to stop and go over what he’d said and punctuated counting with wags of his fingers. “He doesn’t want me to feel guilty!”

You nodded lightly.

“Everyone lived.” Mikey nodded. “That’s what was important. Then it was all healing, kinda like you, but it’s always a thing which is its own thing and then the other injuries…” This time Mikey pointedly looked at Donnie. “Full offense.”

Donnie gave a malicious sweeping bow with an arm.

Mikey sneered his cut lip before returning to you. “So my healing’s always ongoing.”

You tapped your leg.

“Ask.” He urged you with a knowing cock of his brow ridge.

“What?” You hadn’t thought of anything in particular.

“You were on the receiving end. Someone-!” Mikey didn’t look this time, but it was obvious he was again directing his attention toward Donnie. “-is in a less hateful mood so I think we’re safe to touch on more sensitive stuff: don’t you want to ask about the healing spell?”

You watched him before the nebulous thoughts converged for you. “Why… haven’t you healed yourself?”

Mikey gave a single sharp nod that said that was what he was looking for before he sank back into the couch. “I’m not schooled like Lee. He’s got human medical training where mine is mystic, but let’s say that was schooling and I got heavy into self teaching after having my face split open.”

You saw Donnie move slightly out of the corner of your eye, but this time Mikey let him be.

“It’s called Anosmia: the whole no taste, no smell thing. The attack severed not only my brain nerves attached to the old nose bulb, but also different nerves in my brain for other stuff. I’m not big on getting into it because it’s all kind of boring.” He flapped a dismissive hand. “Leo mentioned he explained the healing I did to you?”

You gave a single nod, not wanting to interrupt.

Mikey passed you an appreciative smile for it. “The smaller the parts, the harder they are to connect and you can imagine how small neurons are. That meant trying to reconnect the brain bits was not only the toughest, but also had the highest chance of something going wrong. You miss a connection or hook up the wrong parts? You might not be able to wiggle your toes ever again or forget you even had them to begin with!” He grew quiet and narrowed his gaze. “Thing is, I’d already been there, done that with the whole life changing injury so when I had to do it a second time around…”

You waited.

“I knew more.” Mikey tipped with an anticlimactic lean to his body. “I knew there was a lot that medicine or mysticism couldn’t obviously do and I’d already gone down the rabbit hole of self improvement. If it exists, I’ve tried it. If it can help, you can bet I’m into it. I’ve got opinions on everything!”

You always admired how steadfast Mikey was, even if it came as a detriment to him and those around.

Mikey leaned in even though you knew it wouldn’t offset Donnie’s hearing. “Wanna know my goal?”

“Of course.”

“I think I can fix it.” He bobbed his brow ridge before tossing himself back into the couch.

“Fix…?”

“Regain my sense of smell and taste.” Mikey gestured lazily to his face.

“Is that… possible?”

Mikey smiled out to the living room. “Weirder things have happened and you can train neurons. Everyone else in my family has written it off, but I don’t know… I’ll keep trying. I’ll take the health nut whacko label and own it and one day I’ll be able to smell freshly baked cookies again.”

He was so staunch you believed he could do it and shared that with a smile.

Mikey returned it. “Wanna meditate? It’s pretty quiet here. You can see how it makes you feel and I can give you tips if you wanna keep going.”

That was almost too easy.

For a moment, you felt like Mikey did know about Donnie.

He’d noticed and all this was a farce.

Except, Mikey was still looking at you with nothing but patient eyes.

You also felt as though those eyes held a nefarious purpose.

“Yeah…” He spoke a little too knowingly.

You bristled ever so slightly.

“It’s boring so I get if not. I kinda just wanted to get my dang session in though!” He chuckled with obvious guilt. “Plus it’ll help me with being bugged out and all.”

He had the terrible power of disarming those around him too quickly. “You seem alright now.”

“I’m chill, but that doesn’t mean I’m cool, you know?”

You stared for a moment. “I really don’t.”

“Huh…” His pupils darted as he thought back over what he said. “Yeah, I have no idea what I meant.”

You shook your head.

Between the similarities to S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. to this evil edge every single turtle man had, your perception of all of them was always warped and compared to Donnie.

“Fuck it.” You came away needing very much to stop judging this lot and treat them like the new individuals they really were to you. “Let’s meditate.”

“Yeah!” Mikey held out a high five that you took.

You wiggled in preparation of sitting cross legged.

“No, no, no.” Mikey laughed and held out a hand to stop you. “None of that… Or I mean, unless you want to.”

“I don’t think I can…” You admitted.

“Right, beginner…” He obviously put himself into a new mindset as if swapping clothes. “Okay, here’s the deal: forget everything you know about meditation. There’s no talking; I’m not into guided meditation because the voices get so annoying when I’m trying to chill. There’s no real pose to get into it; just vibe however you want. It’s boring; it’s so freaking boring. When I started, way, way back when dad taught us as kids, I felt like I would explode. Meditation and ADHD are a nightmare combo, but I’ve learned to make it work, but what works for me isn’t necessarily going to work for you, make sense?”

You took a moment to sift through everything he’d said. “Not… really…?”

“Yeah…” Mikey had a look that said he agreed.

You gave him a more abysmal stare.

“Never was good at explaining!!” Mikey tittered before he thought hard. “I guess what I’m trying to say is: use this first session to just… relax.”

You watched as he looked at you with mirth.

“Your biggest goal is to not fall asleep at first, but basically don’t punish yourself. This is all about calming down and getting in touch with your body. For me, my mind always wanders so I have to focus. I do a whole thing where I check in with myself. I start with the top of my head and “feel” down each part of my body slowly to help keep myself focused. You might think of things you need to do or… anything, and that’s fine, but it can stress some people out. You mostly just want to be… okay with being with yourself. The calm comes with that.”

Again taking a moment to think, this time you were slow to nod your head. “Okay.”

“Yeah?” He perked up a bit.

“How do you sit?”

“Up!” Mikey shifted until his posture was straight and he relaxed. “I also do eyes closed, but some people start eyes open and then drift close.”

“There’s no wrong way I’m hearing.” You jeered lightly, getting into a similar position as him.

He started to close his eyes, but craned one open to watch you. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

You giggled.

“I’ll count us down and then just… float.”

You settled and took a deep breath before a thought caught you. “Do you ever…float away? For real?”

“Yes.” In his profile you saw his grin split his face. “I’ve come to many times having left the ground.”

“ Sounds like enlightenment.” You pretended to be in awe.

A laugh caught him and he had to sigh back into position. “Not a chance. I also sometimes wake up from just sleeping flying which is such a pain.”

You wanted to ask more about that, but you resigned yourself to the exercise.

“Alright.” Mikey’s voice took on a calm. “There’s no time limit so just whenever you’re feeling over it, we can stop. I think like ten to fifteen is good, but hey, do you.” He inhaled long and slow. “Return to yourself.”

You unconsciously breathed in time.

“And be.” He exhaled slowly and you followed suit.

For a moment, you waited for something to happen even though you knew nothing would.

Then something about having to sit in silence struck you. You wondered if there was space for music or if the guided meditation was something you’d prefer. Currently, you felt like you were in a sort of limbo and wished he had started a timer.

Then you thought about what Mikey did.

Starting from the top of your head, you focused all your energy there and something about it reminded you of Donnie’s battle shell. Finding purpose in that idea, you slid down your head, shifting through your brows and eyes and thought of the shell’s arms gently tapping each zone. The metallic arms whirled in your ears as a memory and you let them drift along your lobes and through to your neck. There the pair split apart and cascaded down each shoulder.

One gave a little extra squeeze to where the tissue had healed on your left side. It was slightly numb to the touch, but always felt dense when you tried to lift the limb. Now, instead, the arms locked around your arms and gently rolled their grip down. Testing your flesh in little squeezes, it got to your fingertips and switched to your legs.

Those appendages were ones that you had been in a steady process of getting back under your control. It translated to your imaginary mech caressing you gently in a way that reminded you of Donnie’s massages. You were on a nightly rotation of receiving them and if you could manage, you returned the favor. It was exactly the little buoyancy you had thought the two of you needed and could easily be done in the privacy of the bathroom with only the faintest judgment from whatever turtle on duty.

Donnie.

Reaching your toes, you realized you’d forgotten about him.

Having momentarily gotten lost in your imagination, you cracked your eyes to find your vision blurry.

Something like coming out of sleep, you felt subdued and lingered in focus returning.

It came like a gentle current and with it you remembered that part of you had meant to use this time to siphon information so Donnie could get help in his meditation. If that were what he was doing, you also realized that he could just listen along meaning you had already done your part. Blinking off the last vestiges of peace, you turned your head slowly to first glimpse Mikey’s calm face. The picture of zen, you no longer saw the flecks of irritation that were now obviously gone from the man’s expression. Happy he’d gotten his, you looked past him and felt awe wash over you as you saw Donnie over by his computer.

Standing, but just seated on the edge of his computer desk, Donnie’s eyes were closed. His posture was closed off, but there was an air to him that was accentuated by the sleepy monitor glow behind him. With his arms folded in a loose hold, the tip of his body said one of his legs was kicked over the other which made him reclined. There were then his features, a similar slack to how you’d been catching them except there was a honed edge to it. Nothing that wrinkled the muscles in his face, you instead watched his pupils dart under his closed lids as if he was watching something get typed out. Staring in order to catch the exact movement, you found it wasn’t a side to side, but instead an indistinct roll as if many parts were being put in place.

Building.

You weren’t sure why, but you had the distinct thought that he was building something in there.

One little piece at a time, you imagined he’d taken care in laying out even the smallest screw before beginning the construction process.

This could work.

Another patently intrusive thought, you were sure that if Donnie kept this up then he’d find some relief from his ninpo.

You were flooded with pride.

Almost as soothing as the meditation itself, you took another dreamy stance, but this time in watching your partner. Curling up against the back of the sofa, you stared as he continued to run through his schematics. They detailed out like your feelings for him and all you could think of was how lucky you were to have him in your life. No matter how much strife it had come with, every moment with him was a precious one and it was in that headspace that Mikey came to.

His tongue darted in a roll of his jaw as if he too had awoken from a nap. Sucking saliva and rinsing with a swallow, Mikey stayed mostly silent as he adjusted his vision for your apartment. He looked straight in front of him, remembering where he was before he took great care in sneaking a look at you, an obvious case of not wanting to disturb you if you were still meditating.

He found you awake, but you held a finger to your lips.

The wrinkling of his gaze said he knew exactly what you were referring to and you pursed your lips with accusation.

He fluttered his lashes, similarly tucking his cheek against the couch while facing your direction.

You narrowed your gaze to translate your displeasure.

Mikey looked up roguishly before shooting you a wink.

You gave him one last sneer before you exhaled sharply to say you accepted that he was being sneaky since it helped Donnie.

Donnie’s prosthetic hit the floor a little heavy as he seemed jarred out of his meditation.

“So…?” Mikey led for you, even though there was a double entendre for your boyfriend.

“It was… interesting…” You spoke honestly. “I’m not sure I’d do it all the time, but I can see the use.”

“What’d you do?�� Mikey wondered.

You thought of the best way to phrase it. “Thought about moving something with my mind.”

“Oh!” Mikey crooned. “That’s a cool way to start!”

“Well!” You pretended to take praise. “How was your body?”

“I’m all here.” He grinned brightly. “I did have a revelation!”

“I thought you weren’t going to reach enlightenment.” You teased, still curious.

Mikey held an impish hand to his chest before dropping it and the act. “I want to cook.”

You snorted. “Is that new?”

“Kinda…” He took on some level of nerves. “A potluck for one.”

“Huh?”

“I want to celebrate you.”

You stared at him. “What?”

Mikey smiled, his cheek squished against the couch. “No rotation. All of us at once. We break bread to say ‘you made it.’”

Your eyes widened.

He wanted to throw what was essentially a family meal, but fold you and Donnie in.

He wanted an excuse.

“Next week is three months since the day you were taken in.”

Had it been that long already?

“There’s been huge progress all around.” Mikey was getting a little too close to naming Donnie.

You had a complaint on your lips.

In fact, you had thousands of them.

Of all the ways this could go badly.

Then you saw breakfast.

You saw four uncomfortable men under one roof.

And you.

Unintentionally.

And yet again.

You’d brought them together.

Wasn’t that what you were trying to avoid?

It all came back to Leo.

Was he the only one?

You weren’t sure.

“We’ve all been busting our butts, you most of all. I think we all could use a meal that’s way too big that says we’re moving to the next step.”

“Which is…?”

“Us heading back out.” Mikey’s crow’s feet looked particularly joyous. “We keep going.”

Your new normal.

“I’m thinking I’ll whip up a bunch of stuff, cook and finish some here. The place will smell so good.”

That did sound nice.

Your gaze lowered and you tried to picture all four together.

It had been so long and everything so tenuous it was hard to imagine.

You mostly saw Leo.

Distant Leo, doing his best to not fall apart again.

Your chest tightened.

Mikey lightly touched your leg. “No pressure.”

“That’s not…” You sent him a half sure grin before you looked at Donnie.

You weren’t going to sway him this time.

This decision was his alone.

You translated this to your partner where he seemed to be waiting.

He took you in with a tilted chin that had many reservations.

You softened your gaze saying you knew them all too well.

He looked one step away from chuffing before his body loosened with a relaxation you also felt.

The meditation had worked.

Donnie gave a slow singular nod and you bowed your head slightly to show you deferred to him.

He took a seat in his chair as if it was a great effort and slumped with his own sigh.

Returning to Mikey found the younger man watching with an interested twinkle in his eye.

“Okay.” You gave a tentative grin. “Let’s do it.”

“Yes!” Mikey hopped up and right back down so he was plopped closer to you with his phone manifesting in his hand. “Now tell me all your favorite foods, don’t hold back, go!”

You giggled and spent the rest of Mikey’s shift going on and on about food. From planning the menu to simply ranting about nearby restaurants, the time flew by. You soon had a menu laid out along with a detailed grocery list that Donnie had stepped in to say he would purchase. Even though you knew the action had an edge of fear to it, you took his participation as a good sign and Mikey offered to send you over the recipe list so you could send it to Donnie. You agreed and after lobbing way too many messages around your phone, Mikey soon shot upright. “Alrighty!”

You looked at him in confusion before going to check the time.

“Don’t wanna keep Raph waiting!” Mikey took a big step in front of you before rounding to where Leo’s portals usually appeared. “Oh, one more thing…”

“Yeah?” You did your best to look over the back of the couch.

You found Mikey staring at Donnie.

Your mate returned the gaze with growing concern.

“Think of this as thanks for your shitty bow!” Mikey split a manic grin.

Both you and Donnie tensed.

Mikey’s head snapped in your direction with a sickly tilt. “This bastard relapsed when you were in your coma.”

Donnie reared with the first bits of a snarl.

A blue portal appeared the second he tried and Mikey gave double peace signs while biting his tongue for a crazed expression as he fell backward through it.

You stared after.

Donnie made it several steps forward and you could feel the fumes coming off of him.

Raph then hurtled through the portal. “W-what happened?!”

You watched purple flicker and sputter in Donnie’s eye.

Raph’s own caught fire. “H-hey now…!”

“Relapsed…” You spoke fearfully.

“Y/N…” Donnie didn’t look at you and was instead locked onto the center of Raph’s plastron to where Mikey had been.

“Like… the drugs?” Against your leg’s weakness, you rose to better look over the couch. “You did drugs again…?”

“Ah…” Raph didn’t drop his attention, but what was happening fell into place for him. “Yeah… You shot up a few times, didn’t you?”

Raph knew.

Mikey knew.

You didn’t know.

“I needed to stay awake!” Donnie roared, taking another step forward.

You saw a ghost of Raph in red slip from his form.

“Awake and numb!!!” Spittle flecked as Donnie panted through his teeth.

Flickers of purple shimmered in the air.

Raph’s projection grew the slightest amount. “Donatello…”

Donnie’s heavy breathing filled the space.

Diffuse.

It would be better to diffuse the situation.

You weren’t even mad.

You were more haunted by the knowledge.

Donnie had been candid about making and taking drugs, but it had also seemed like he left them behind in the mania of his 20s.

You weren’t sure how to feel about them now.

They made sense to an extent, which placed you with a single question.

“Ha… have you since…?”

Donnie didn’t seem to be able to move, but his lips momentarily closed. “No…”

“Are you…?” He clearly wasn’t alright.

Not now.

Not in all the time since the attack.

There was something more.

Though there was glitter in the air and Donnie seemed to be close to hyperventilating, nothing had actually manifested.

No artillery.

No guns.

“Okay.” You finally spoke, a single note drop in the bucket.

It plopped and did nothing to change the amount held in the receptacle.

Things were different.

The lack of weaponry was a sign of that.

As Mikey had said: It was time to keep going.

“Okay.” You repeated, this time enforcing the syllables.

It wasn’t an immediate disengagement, but Donnie garnered enough strength from the sound to look at you.

His gaze pained with a broken blinker of purple and he continued to strain with his body.

The purple in the air flittered away and Raph’s projection slowly melded back with his body until Donnie slumped a certain amount.

A collective breath was released and only when Donnie collapsed back into his chair did Raph throw his hands up to claw them down his face. “Mikey! He’s such a little shit, I swear!”

You gave a puff of what wasn’t laughter and sank down into the couch.

“I did not want to get shot again!” Raph complained and had to take a step to anchor himself to the couch. “Not a way to start my shift.”

You sympathetically patted Raph’s hand where you could reach it. “Good news.”

“What’s that?” Raph’s face said he wanted more than the obvious.

You would exalt Donnie for successfully disengaging his ninpo for the first time later.

For now, there was something else to pass along.

“We’re having a dinner party.” You told him, feeling exhausted. “We’re what?” Raph deadpanned.

💜NEXT💜

I'm so sleepy, but i love my betas @tmntxthings and @thepinkpanther83

#weakspotfic #rottmnt #rottmnt donnie x reader #rise of the tmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt x reader #donatello hamato #donnie x reader #rise donnie #rise donnie x reader #rottmnt donatello #rottmnt donnie #me #fanfiction #my fanfiction

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purplish-hue · 9 months

Text

Weakspot Don!

So @afreakingdork 's Weakspot fic has been in my constant brain rot for so long and I really wanted to do art after the lore chapter so HERE'S THE BOY!!

Himbs here!

#aged up donnie #rottmnt #rottmnt donnie #donatello #weakspotfic #my art

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thepinkpanther83 · 7 months

Text

Weak Spot: Chapter 38

Leo and Raph arguing at the Farmer’s Market.

I love drawing these guys! This ones for @afreakingdork cause I love her and her big brain, awesome book! Go read it now!

#leonardo #raphael #rottmnt #leonardo rottmnt #raphael rottmnt #raphael hamato #leonardo hamato #tmnt #weak spot #afreakingdork #art by me #farmers market #weakspotfic

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samanthastarss · 6 months

Text

@afreakingdork chapter 40 has me in shambles!! /pos

I roughed out a stupidly quick sketch, the proportions and size difference are super janky, and not what i had in mind (i wanted to make donnie much bigger whilst still having him all 'small', vulnerable & wrapped around Darling </3 but i kinda forgot when I was drawing until it was too late🧍‍♀️), I was just too excited and wanted to post it so i didnt fix those tid-bits in my hurry!!! :,) ahfsgugjd!!

Also, I think I accidentally took some creative liberty with the pose they're in... The audhd hyperfixation brain totally took over, I was on excitement autopilot when drawing, sorry...🙇‍♀️🧎‍♀️

That aside, I think I'll have another chance to make smth better because im still riding that emotional & creative high after reading the chapter!! So much happened!! I rambled on and on about it all on Ao3 like a freakazoid, so my apologies for the essay, Miss Dork 🙇‍♀️🙏🏻

Ok, i think that's all?? I shall return with more sketches... probably!!??

Kisses! Xx

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afreakingdork · 1 month

Note

If I had known it was the anniversary, I would've been able to draw something better, but for now, have this!!

Happy 1 year anniversary to Weak Spot and congrats on all the feats! It's well deserved!! 💖💖💖

AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!! EXCUSE ME WHILE I CRY OVER THE CUTEST THING EVER!!!!! IM HONORED BEYOND COMPREHENSION!!! WAHHH!!!!! 😭💞😭💞😭💞😭💞😭💞😭💞😭💞

THEY'RE SO CUTE WAHHH!!!!

also GAH I DIDNT EVEN KNOW IT WAS THE ANNIVERSARY SO PLEASE!!!!

#stares for i milion years #make desktop backgound #ask #fanart for me #weakspotfic #moots

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afreakingdork · 24 days

Text

Weak Spot - Chapter 63

RotTMNT Donatello x Reader

This week's stunning chapter art is by @mrabubu

Fem!Reader References/Warnings Below Cut

Also available on Ao3

First 💜 Previous

Fem!Reader References/Warnings: crutches, muscle weakness, talk of abuse, mental breakdown

“So that’s the menu.” Mikey rose up and dusted his hands.

You leaned against a counter getting some time upright and nodded over the messy handwritten note cards Mikey had brought over. Coated in loving use and old ingredients, Mikey had clearly been fine tuning these recipes for years. They felt to you like precious artifacts with their ancient evolving notes. Moving them around affectionately and wondering how many total of these cards there were, you tipped your head towards the turtle. “How are you going to bring all this over?”

“So, we got ingredients purchased and being delivered to an agreed upon location first thing tomorrow.” Mikey paused to give a raised hand to Donnie for his participation.

Donnie, who had been writing some code on his computer, scarcely looked over.

“I’ll take everything down, start placing my mise and then head over here for my regular shift around noon to cook it up.” Mikey fanned out the cards once before sliding them back into a fold. “If I did my math right then everything will be ready for dinner at 6:30pm sharp and our guests will arrive.”

You nodded, thinking over the process.

“I’ll have my assistant in spurts.” Mikey winked at you.

You rolled your eyes. “I’m sworn to rest when I need to. I get it, but I’m not letting you do everything.”

“Everyone has different kitchen dynamics.” Mikey chirped happily. “I love seeing how they all mix and our cooking chemistry though, like 90% of the time, I default to get out of my way!”

You laughed along with him. “I get that.”

“Having someone you can deal with in your space in that kind of heated situation is a big deal.” Mikey wiggled his brow ridge around his pun.

You hummed affectionately and remembered one particular time with Donnie. “Is that so?”

“Oh yeah, gotta be a marker of true love.” Mikey picked his cards and was slow to take on a forlorn look. “This is it…”

“Yeah…” You straightened a little yourself.

The family dinner marked the end of the Hamato watch. Though it hadn’t been officially discussed, you knew Mikey had passed on the information about Donnie meditating and Raph had obviously reported Donnie’s first time disengaging his powers. It had been a good sign and just about every person who’d entered the apartment since had seen some form of Donnie’s practice. The little purple particles that would percolate at a certain focused step were unmistakable. Whether Donnie was testing his emotions to manifest them or simply working on their creation, you had yet to know, but since he’d gone weeks without a single mishap, he was deemed safe enough to be left to his own devices.

Leo was just a portal away if anything went wrong.

You dampened more thinking about the blue brother. You guessed this was how it was now. You weren’t going to repair things with Leo and, after tomorrow, you never would have another chance to. You wouldn’t see him again and he would be an emergency contact at most. It stung. You knew it was probably for the best, but leaving whatever your relationship was with him in such disrepair deeply bothered you. You guessed you had others like this, people from your past that you were doomed to only have a negative memory of, but it ached regardless.

“Michelangelo.”

That was Donnie’s voice and you raised your head where your back was to him.

“Yup?”

Leo would be next and then Raph before Mikey returned for his final watch.

“I want to meet with him.”

You almost didn’t want Mikey to leave.

“…”

Maybe you could ask Raph to switch so you could sleep through most of Leo’s shift.

“Well?”

“Why?”

You blinked.

“Obvious.” You turned to find Donnie with narrowed eyes, but little heat as if he found the exchange tenuous.

“If it was, I wouldn’t have asked.” Mikey bit back with a similar lack of heat, but faint irritation.

You didn’t interject, but sent confusion toward your mate who didn’t look.

“I need to… speak with… him.” Donnie swallowed bile.

“About what? Why now?” Mikey folded his arms.

Now on one crutch, you moved from where you were leaning your weight on the counter and hooked it with learned ease to your body to go over to Donnie.

The movement caught his eye and he watched you with his closed off affection.

“If I could discuss the matter with any of you, I would have.” Donnie told you, though he spoke to Mikey.

You heard Mikey unfurl with a huff.

You tilted your head in question.

Donnie’s eyes had little response.

Mikey made an upset sound.

Donnie’s lip moved a centimeter which was the most smile you could get under these circumstances.

“He can come to dinner.”

Donnie’s head flew to Mikey in fury. “A joke!”

“Nope.” Mikey’s brow ridge bobbed, smug. “Not a question either. That’s the only way I’ll pass the message along.”

“This conversation is not for any of you!” Donnie’s lip curled back, but it was obviously out of tender fear as opposed to actual anger.

“I’ll head out when it's time.” Mikey’s shoulders bounced. “Give you space.”

“Not for…” Donnie trailed off and looked at you in a similarly anxious way.

You weren’t meant to listen either.

You frowned.

Donnie’s gaze shot away in a pained way.

“We’ll.” Mikey was quick to add. “Step out.”

You looked to Mikey.

He nodded to you for encouragement.

“You need to talk to Splinter that badly?” You asked quietly.

Donnie flinched at the name and his wounded gaze stayed glued to the floor.

Mikey bent his elbows to the counter and waited.

“Yes.” Donnie spoke as small as he could.

Your chest tightened.

You knew you’d been keeping things from Donnie, but to hear the inkling that he was doing the same felt like a new wound.

It wasn’t on purpose, you wanted to scream.

You were going to unload on him as soon as you were alone.

That meant he probably would too.

The realization sobering, you leaned heavily into your crutch.

One more day.

“Dinner. The whole dinner. You don’t get to kick dad out after just because you feel like it.” Mikey laid down his ground rules.

This time Donnie surfaced slowly and with actual anger. “You expect me to entertain that-” He bit his tongue to keep a derogatory word out of his mouth. “-in my own home?!”

“You’re doing that with us, aren’t you?” Mikey spoke without malice.

The younger turtle even seemed oddly stoic.

He almost looked like Donnie when slipped all of himself under that emotionless mask.

Donnie’s eyes only narrowed.

“It’s either that or you try Leo, which, good fucking luck. Then there’s Raph and we both know how that’s going to go.” Mikey’s head cricked with the slightest tip.

Donnie inhaled slowly.

“You asked me for a reason.” Mikey spoke knowingly.

Donnie juggled something mentally before looking back to Mikey. “I did.”

“My terms or nothing.” Mikey lifted up and out of the conversation.

He walked over to where Leo’s portal would appear.

You saw that, as soon as Mikey’s back was turned, Donnie let a whole litany of emotions pass over his face.

There was outright fury.

You could see how much he wanted to strangle the other turtle.

There was bargaining.

He tried to work out a thousand ways he could get out of this.

There was anxiety.

The chance to speak to Splinter was slipping through his fingers and you could see just how much your boyfriend needed to do this.

You touched Donnie’s arm lightly.

He jarred from his swirling mind and you saw the whirlpool settle at the sight of you.

Another tap was more of a nudge.

You had his back.

You could take the verbal heat off if need be.

You could be Splinter’s chaperone.

Donnie’s expression welled with gratitude before he looked back to where Mikey still had his carapace to you both.

“Done. Do ask-” Donnie’s voice was gravel.

“For him to be on his best behavior?” Mikey cut Donnie off with a turn of his head that just barely showed his face’s silhouette. “I’ll ask him. I’ll do what I can, but he’s my dad.”

Leo’s portal appeared and the blue light reflected off Mikey’s eyes for a malevolent gaze.

“Our dad. The three of us.” Mikey spoke venom. “Don’t you forget.” He stepped through the portal.

The rest of the time until Mikey’s return was done in a preparatory wait. Leo had appeared casual with a levity that said he was ready to get this last shift over with. You imagined that he might even enjoy the dinner since it was a final blemish for him to endure. Skirting away from him to keep the mood light, you had very little to do. You mostly stuck close to Donnie who was trapped with the weight of what was coming.

Your mate stood in various parts of your apartment with nothing to keep his hands busy and eventually you coaxed him out of sight where you lingered in his space. Sneaking behind a partition felt juvenile in your own home, but you signed to each other regardless.

‘Why now?’ You started.

‘Can’t explain like this.’

‘Later? Alone?’

‘Both of us.’

‘I’ve been planning to.’

‘Good. You’ve been avoiding Blue.’

‘Yeah. Long story.’

Donnie made the motion for ‘kill’ and raised his brow with delighted question.

You shook your head and placed both your hands over his.

He brought them up to his lips.

You mouthed, ‘I can’t wait to be alone with you.’

“Me too.” He murmured warmth and came down to press the side of his head to yours.

You lingered like that as long as you could.

You did your best, but the closer it got to Mikey’s and subsequently all the turtle’s final appearance in your home, Donnie’s stress was transferring to you. With each second hand tick of the clock, Donnie got more on edge. You meant to be strong for him. You wanted to show him that this was alright; that even though you didn’t know what big thing he wanted to discuss with Splinter was, you would be unflappable.

The only problem was, you were painfully in tune with your partner and him being upset was then permeating you through your bond.

You hated to see him uncomfortable and, though Raph recognized the dense air in the room, you could tell the older turtle was mislabeling it. All four men hadn’t been in the same room since the hospital discharge. You imagined Raph, rightfully, imagined the entire bale together bothered Donnie, especially in his own home. If there wasn’t some big talk added on top, you were sure that would have upset Donnie too, but you found it hard to believe that would have driven him to his current state.

You guessed Raph might have also thought Donnie was concerned to then be alone with his ninpo.

You hadn’t gotten to talk to the older turtle and now still wasn’t the best time because he was just as distracted as you in watching Donnie move about like a stubborn plant searching for a crack of sunlight. In slow rotations, Donnie swayed, barely perceptible and feeling out his space blindly. He couldn’t do an activity because he was too emotionally confined to the pot, but he was deprived of something vital which had him wriggling with all his remaining strength.

You could hardly breathe by the time Leo’s portal appeared.

Raph was up and prattling on about lending a hand just to have an excuse to leave.

In a file, you watched as Mikey and Raph carted a bunch of food, pots, pans, utensils, and other kitchen gadgets in until your home was overflowing. Donnie made space on his desk and helped arrange the spill before Raph turned with his hands on his hips.

“Alright. I got class and then me and Leo will come by right on time?”

“6:30.” Mikey swung a spoon to cement his point.

Raph threw his own finger up genially and spun on one leg to leave through the portal.

“Ah!” Mikey suddenly fussed and passed the spoon off to you. “Hold it! I have something else to grab! Forgot something! You know me!”

Donnie’s head shot up where he was clearly cataloging as everything had been accounted for thus far.

“Don’t spike the food!” Raph complained but pressed a hand up to the top half of the portal like he was holding a door.

“I’m not! In this house?!” Mikey shot you a wink out of Raph’s eye line before ducking through the blue light.

“Yeah, yeah.” Raph shook his head after Mikey. “See y’all.” He gave a parting nod and disappeared as well.

“There shouldn’t be-!” Donnie furiously searched for what was misplaced.

You were about to help when Mikey returned with two stumbling leaps and a bottle of soda in hand.

Donnie gave an irritated face.

Mikey shook his head. “This was just cause I saw it. I actually forgot…”

It brought Donnie’s brow up before there was a blur and the portal shut.

For a moment, you didn’t register a change.

Then Donnie inhaled sharply and went ramrod straight.

You looked to find Splinter standing where the portal was holding a baking dish wrapped in foil. With his eyes downcast and wearing a little cardigan, he looked the picture of trying to do his best.

Your heart squeezed and you were in motion with a clunk of your crutch. “Splinter.”

“Y/N!” He walked up with his dish and found it occupying his hands. “I was worried! The boys kept me updated. I’m glad to hear that you…” He breathed a bit unsteady. “I am sorry this happened to you.”

“Yeah…” You’d heard that more times then you could count. “It is what it is…”

“Still! Those police are an absolute joke! Useless! A waste! Morons!” Splinter huffed.

You couldn’t help but smile.

“Big Mama has been on a rampage.” Splinter told you casually before heading towards Mikey.

“Huh!? What?!” The younger turtle lowered himself to take the dish from his dad. “She what now!?”

“She was disrespected!” Splinter spoke as if this should be obvious news. “She has been methodically tearing down and restructuring the entire city center in her fury! So very her!”

“She’s…” You shook slightly in a rotation.

You looked to Donnie and couldn’t tell whether he knew that or not.

“Doing it for you!” Splinter threw a gesturing hand to you as soon as he was freed from his dish. “Oh, this is my very special green bean casserole, by the way! Also for you!”

“For…?” You took a few steps. “Wait, Big Mama can’t be doing that for me.”

“You, you.” Splinter waved a hand and looked around the packaged kitchen. “This place is too small!”

Mikey tapped his dad’s head with a spatula. “Don’t complain.”

“Hmph!” Splinter rotated. “You were her guest. Her new hotel’s poster couple! I’m surprised she hasn’t killed off and replaced the entire police department. Morons!”

He’d repeated himself, but the words didn’t seem real. “It didn’t seem like she liked me.”

“She likes you plenty! She wouldn’t do that for anyone!” Splinter turned, remembering something. “Put that in the fridge, orange!”

“I’m gonna be doing fridge Jenga, dad.” Mikey rolled his eyes. “Y/N, wanna help?”

“Uh, yeah!” You moved to set your crutch on a nearby counter.

Splinter saw he was in the way and scrambled a few nervous steps out of the kitchen.

As you passed him, you saw him keep his head down as if he wasn’t allowed to look around the living room proper.

Concern stuck to your features as Mikey held the fridge open for you.

Stepping around it, he used the door as a barrier for a private conversation.

You moved a few items in the icebox and gave a skeptical look as it would hide nothing.

He frowned and gave up trying to translate to instead focus on the task at hand. “How about I pass you perishables? That good?”

“Yeah. Standing in one place is easy. I’m just wobbly if I move too much.” You settled as a wedge in the fridge door as Mikey moved to pass things.

“It didn’t take too long to prep. I mean I’ve got a good few hours here so I wasn’t sweating.” He passed a few things over.

You methodically organized them.

“You’ll have to return my dear Tupperware.”

You paused in show of holding an old butter container that had something chopped inside.

“A family heirloom.” Mikey told you haughtily.

“Clearly.” You joked back and slipped it in.

Mikey walked you through the upcoming steps as you stuffed the fridge then freezer. When you came up with a semi-cleaned work surface, you glimpsed Splinter sitting on the couch near the closest arm and Donnie standing at a side angle near his desk. You imagined it would take some time for them to be able to approach each other and dove into the normalcy with Mikey. He ended up being a better teacher at cooking than meditation and walked you slowly through what you could best help with. In contrast, his own tasks disappeared in a flurry where he chatted casually as he moved around a full stove’s worth of burners and an active oven. You weren’t sure how he kept track of all the different cook times, but he seemed to know just when to move or extract something.

It had been at least an hour and you were casually washing some utensils for their third or fourth use when you heard Splinter’s voice. “You’ve made… quite the home.”

You didn’t hear Donnie respond and instead turned to Mikey who knowingly held up more dirty dishes.

With those soon cleaned, you moved on to oven Tetris for the many dishes that needed to be baked when you heard Donnie say something.

“You are still in contact with Big Mama.”

“Y/N!” Mikey blurred through your vision, moving faster than your eye to put the last pans in and slam the oven door shut for you. “You gotta look at this sunset!”

“Sun… set?” You blinked.

“Yeah!” Mikey slipped around you and opened the kitchen window.

“The sun doesn’t set for another-”

“It’s beautiful, you have to see!” As if it were a door, Mikey stepped right through the opening.

You stumbled a few steps after him in confusion and bit your lip on a noise when his arms shot out to grab you. In one perfect tipping lift, you were hoisted up and angled right through the window before you were set on the fire escape. “Wha-!?”

Mikey held a finger up to his lips and put great care in slowly closing the window.

When it was noiselessly shut he let out a big sigh.

“It’s time.” Mikey told you and then fell back to sit on a metal step.

“They’re talking?” You perked up.

“Yep. Not about to be a part of all that.” Mikey twirled a lazy finger and took a deep breath of city air. “Sky’s mostly blue.”

You leaned against the brick to look up. “Yeah…”

“It’s pretty.” Mikey murmured.

“Yeah.” You agreed.

For a long time you sat in the moment and let the bustle buzz as a dull hum until you made it over to Mikey. He moved aside to give you room and you both occupied the same step.

“Can you hear them?” You asked softly so as not to disrupt the moment.

“Nope.” Mikey tipped his head towards you. “Donnie’s got super glass or whatever he does.”

You snorted. “You’re going to slip up calling him that.”

“He can get me then.” Mikey threw up lazy fisticuffs.

“Thank you.”

“For saying I’ll fight him?” Mikey still had his arm’s akimbo and looked at you.

You bumped him with your shoulder, but left your body pressed to his. “For helping save me. For shortening my healing time. For teaching Donnie meditation. For making all this food. For getting Splinter...” You shook your head at the list. “For texting me about Donnie cooking.”

Mikey lightly chuffed and leaned a metered amount of his weight back. “I should thank you.”

“For what?” You looked at him.

You got to see up close how gooey his expression was when he turned to you. “For saving him.”

“I didn’t.” You shook your head. “He saved himself. I just got to watch.”

Mikey thought for a moment and returned. “Let me rephrase.”

“Go ahead.” You chuckled.

“Thank you for making him happy.”

Your heart jumped and you smiled brightly.

“Cute.” Mikey teased and leaned his carapace back on the steps.

You nudged him lightly where you couldn’t do the same and stared out at the darkening city until you felt a familiar pressure in your stomach. “Oh no…”

“What?” Mikey’s voice was sleepy.

“I have to pee.” You groaned and remembered how you’d been so on edge with Donnie many hours before Mikey had even arrived. That added to the current till, meant you hadn’t visited the bathroom since early that morning.

“Hold it!” Mikey sat up. “Do you know how rare this is!?”

“You think I don’t want to!? This was dropped on me the same time as you!”

“Yeah!” Mikey’s head shook with stress. “Stupid secret diner meetings with dad were not on my Donnie bingo card, but this marks the fourth time they’ve spoken ever! So I say again: hold it!”

“We have to go inside eventually!”

“Yeah, when the timers go off!”

Something beeped.

One single clear time.

“Mikey…”

Mikey paled.

“What was that!?”

“The… fifteen minute warning?” Mikey eeked out and went to grab his phone. “It’s 6:15…”

“We need to go inside!”

“We can wait!”

“Let’s just peek!”

“You peek!” Mikey scrambled up a step further from the window. “I’m not chancing nothing!”

You didn’t blame him in the slightest and inched forward slowly where your hips were weary. Nothing you couldn’t handle as you were a base level of sore as of late, you edged forward and carefully placed your fingers to the sill before hoisting yourself up to look inside. A clip of the counter blocked some of your vision, but you could see Donnie sitting with his back toward you and looking down the couch where you imagined Splinter was.

“What do you see?” Mikey was obviously impatient.

“I can only see Donnie, but there’s no signs of a fight. He’s just…” You stared hard at the back of your boyfriend’s head. “… sitting there.”

“That’s probably fine…?” Mikey seemed to be genuinely asking.

“Yeah…” Your crouch put further pressure on your bladder. “I’m opening the window.”

“Y/N!” Mikey clanged against the fire escape as he shied another step away.

“We have to go back in eventually! Everything will burn!” You pressed the jamb lightly before cracking it.

You felt the rush of air and the scent of food waft out, but little more.

Your heart beat fast in your chest and you moved to check with Mikey.

His eyes were a new kind of wide.

‘Bad?’ You mouthed as obviously as you could.

Mikey shook his head furiously.

Your abdomen pulsed.

You pushed the window further up.

Mikey caught your arm.

You wordlessly pulled from him.

His head shook so fast his hair was coming out of its tie.

You yanked to the side and both of you struggled in front of the window.

“Is it really possible to love someone who is evil?”

Both you and Mikey froze at the sound of Donnie’s voice

Then you were nearly beating each other to try to close to the window.

“I once told her I knew there was still good in her.” Splinter’s response came next.

You heard a dull sound.

Something indistinct and electronic.

Mikey’s eyes turned white and he disappeared from you.

Blinking into the empty fire escape, you swore you heard the faint sound of a timer in the distance.

That meant the food was done.

You had to go inside no matter what.

Stunned, you looked toward the window with your heart plummeting and pushed it all the way up so you could climb back inside.

“I was wrong!” Splinter’s voice cracked as your belly pressed against the sill, halfway through. “Still good!? What does that mean!? She never said anything, but she must have known. Why was I so hung up on the distinction? Good. Bad…” He heaved a heavy breath.

You nearly somersaulted over, but you channeled every ounce of your physical therapy and just barely saved yourself with a careful foot to the floor.

“Love does not know such things! I loved her in spite of everything. I loved her after she imprisoned me. I loved her because I loved her. Her alignment or however you would say was not what my heart chose. I chose the woman who understood me. Who sat by me. Who liked going out dancing as much as she appreciated a good movie night on the couch!”

The last of your muscle strength was spent on dropping as silently to the floor as you could.

“I wonder if it was… my fault we drifted apart and… that may be…? Oh, but these things happen... I did not condone her activities. I still don’t, but I’d be lying if I didn’t think I liked that she’s still feisty!”

Donnie gave what was almost a laugh.

It also sounded congested.

You slithered on your belly with only the intention of getting to the bathroom and not interrupting.

“Donatello. None of us chose the life we are born into. I’d say we get to choose after and to a point I did, but a certain destiny caught up with me. Right… Wrong… Who’s to say? I made the decisions I did.”

You were close to the edge of the counter.

“What I can tell you is that when the time comes, for whatever that may be, you get the choice in how you react. When I had my hand in stopping the Shredder or the Krang, I wish I could say I thought of humanity. I didn’t. I thought of my boys. I thought of…” Splinter cut himself off and his voice shook. “I did what I did out of love. I continue to do it for the same. If you are worried that is bad, then you are wrong. Love may be the only right choice any of us can make.”

Your head appeared out from the wood and you saw Splinter first.

He had slid down to the middle of the couch at some point and Donnie now took his old spot at the sofa’s arm.

With his back to you, Donnie was slightly hunched, but that wasn’t what you were looking at.

Down on Donnie’s knee, you saw Splinter’s spindly pink hand settled on top of Donnie’s.

Neither party moved and there were tears in the air.

You meant to run.

You meant to fly.

You were going to lock yourself in the bathroom.

You weren’t going to intrude on this scene.

Instead you rose at the same time a blue light flashed.

Your heart hit the floor.

Donnie and Splinter jolted apart and turned in that direction.

“Y/N!” Mikey hissed as quietly as he could behind you.

Your head tilted toward the sound, but you couldn’t peel your gaze away.

Leo slipped out of the portal with his eyes closed and a carton of cream in his hand. “Yello, dinner party people!”

Raph’s arm appeared next, but Leo froze in his way.

Donnie spun and was heading towards you with his head down.

Staring at where your boyfriend had just been on the couch, Leo was looking at the vision of his father with huge fat tears in his eyes.

“Dad…?” Leo whispered a silent spell.

As if your blood pressure hadn’t fallen enough, it broke through the floor.

Leo didn’t know Splinter was going to be here.

Mikey’s earlier action slapped you in the face.

“What-” Leo’s voice darkened and he moved toward you.

Donnie passed you and Mikey squeaked where he was clearly still in the window based on the way he struggled.

A blue light broke out behind you and you turned to watch Leo’s head appear there, cutting Donnie off. “-did you do!?”

Donnie’s head snapped upright and from this angle all you could see was Leo’s face.

It was broken glass and horrified awe.

Raph whispered something to Splinter.

He was making sure his dad was alright.

“You…” Donnie spoke against the will of his body.

Leo was stuck by only his own accord while Mikey was very literally wedged in the window.

Donnie’s got his sights on the youngest.

“Why was Leonardo not informed?” Ice crystals could have formed on Donnie’s words and you would have believed they were real.

“Th-th-that’s-! U-um!!” Mikey’s hands splat against the wall where he tugged as hard as he could before he popped out of the jamb.

He hit the ground in a flop and shot to his feet, curling around Leo’s portal.

“Th-this looks bad, but I-I told you! There was no way Leo or Raph would have agreed! I couldn’t tell them!” Mikey stopped just shy of passing his disembodied brother.

No one moved.

“They would have stopped me! Or dad!” Mikey pleaded, tears welling up in his eyes. “You know that!”

Donnie inhaled a single time.

“I agreed!”

The scene had not defrosted, but you felt everyone’s attention shift to where Splinter had yelled out.

“When Michelangelo told me you wanted to talk, he shared his concerns about the others!” Splinter’s harsh voice didn’t have a single edge. “I agreed it would be best for me to slip in! They know I am stubborn! As long as I got here, they would not make me leave!”

Smoothly, his words slid and coiled around the group.

“Do they…” Donnie lifted his head and you knew he’d placed his villain persona on. “… control you?”

Splinter made an audible jarred sound.

“Elderly rat at the whims of his more powerful sons?” Donnie was careful in rotating so he stayed out of your view and hit a button to turn off the oven.

“Donatello…” Splinter begged.

“All you do is lie.” Donnie’s malice broke and it dripped to the floor with several hard plops. “Always! All of you!” In a spin, you finally glimpsed your mate and the tears that flung from the velocity of his rage. “You never stop! You compulsive animals!!! HOW?! HOW CAN ANYONE BELIEVE ANYTHING YOU SAY!? WHEN YOU TAKE NOTHING SERIOUSLY?! WHEN YOU NEVER HAVE!? HOW CAN ANY OF THIS BE REAL!? WAS ANY OF THIS-!?!”

“It was!” Splinter stepped up onto the arm of the couch with tears matting his fur. “Donatello, please! You have to understand! I take this matter more seriously than any other!”

“Oh.” The cadence of Donnie’s words bled. “This then? You take this seriously? Now? NOW?!” He bellowed and even you flinched. “OBVIOUSLY NOW IN YOUR OLD AGE! LATER! OF COURSE! I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN! YOU ALWAYS HAD IT IN YOU! YOU JUST HAD TO HAVE ME GROVEL! NOT BEFORE THOUGH! THIS IS THE MATTER OF THE UTMOST IMPORTANCE! NOT WHEN A CHILD GOES MISSING! NOT WHEN A LAB EXPLODES AND YOU SAW, YOU SAW, ONE OF FOUR NOT END UP IN YOUR CLUTCHES?! NOT THEN!? NOT TO EVEN LOOK ONCE!!! NOT WHEN A LITTLE BOY WAS LEFT AND TORTURED FOR YEARS!!!”

Donnie choked.

Splinter welled up.

You looked to the others.

Mikey had brought his hands up to cover his mouth and his tears flowed from grossly large eyes.

Leo still hung, half in, half out, of his portal across the apartment and his face was painted with the bitter weight of the knowledge.

Raph’s lips drew a warped line and his features winced, but he refused to look away.

None of them knew.

Like Leo hadn’t known about the library.

Only you knew Donnie’s past.

“Now…” Donnie threw up his tear stained cheeks and checked around the air. “NOT, NOW HUH!? NOT IN THE ONLY APPLICABLE MOMENT?! NOT A SINGLE GUN!? NOT EVEN A BULLET! WHAT A HANDY FUCKING SCAPEGOAT THAT ALLUDES ME!!! YET ANOTHER BLIGHT BROUGHT UPON BY THE HAMATO NAME!! WHY!? WHY NOW!? WHY DOES MY ACCURSED NINPO NOT MANIFEST NOW!?!”

“It’s because you’re not angry.”

Donnie turned to you with outright betrayal on his features.

You rose with the blow of it and felt your face crumple. “You’re not mad… You’re… You’re sad…”

You watched, up close, how every emotion fell off Donnie’s face.

Left only with featureless surprise, his pupils shook with the empty off-whites in his eye before he turned.

He was going to run.

He needed to leave.

You would field the others.

You only needed to stop four mutant men.

Simple enough on a broken body.

They were already looking at you.

You would give Donnie an opening.

“THAT’S ENOUGH!!!” Raph’s voice cut through at a volume that caused the wall fixtures to shake.

It created a new spell, this one stopping time instead of freezing it.

“NO-!”Raph reached into the portal near him and yanked Leo out of the kitchen and to his side where he threw an enraged finger over top to keep his younger brother in place.

Leo’s eyes took up his entire face and his head shrank down into the top of his plastron in translation that whatever Raph was doing was new.

“MORE-!”Raph stormed into the kitchen where he skirted Donnie long enough to pick up Mikey.

The youngest was thrown clear across the apartment, toward the door, where he barely activated his flight, and staved off colliding with the surface with a burst of orange sparks.

Raph then looked out at his family across the apartment and pointedly put his shell to you and Donnie. “-LIES!!!”

Again, the apartment shook.

He stood there, a shock of muscles quivering with rage before he turned with watery eyes. “You’re right!” Raph told Donnie. “You’ve been right!”

One of Donnie’s hands started to lift.

“All this time!” Raph’s features fragmented and he had to scrub them back into place like a sliding puzzle. “Not how you did it! You fucked that up so bad, but about us! Of course you wouldn’t trust us! How could anyone trust us!?”

Donnie had clear reservations, but didn’t speak.

“We’ve said a thousand times before that we’ll change, we’ll tell the truth, that we’re finally going to quit lying, and not once has it been different! We’re not going to be different until we stop acting like it is! What happened!? Happened! What’s done!? Is done and I’m sick and tiredof pretending it’s anything else!” Raph shook with what was almost a laugh. “I’m out, Lee. As of right now? I quit.” Coming up, he looked the most serene you’d ever seen him. “I quit the team. Hell! As it is? I quit the family.”

You heard Leo scramble.

Raph looked right at Donnie. “I’m going to the roof and I’m going to explain our ninpo. I’m going to tell the damn smoggy sky for all I care. You come or you don’t. Raph is currently a solo act.”

Raph then walked straight over to the window and stared at it for only a second before he grabbed the casing.

Your body pulsed with fear, but Raph barely flexed and pulled the entire frame straight out of the wall and brick outside. “I’ll fix this later.”

Setting the window frame down with far too much care for the destruction he just wrought to your wall, Raph walked out onto the creaking fire escape and climbed up out of view.

Donnie only surveyed some rubble that had landed by his foot before he moved to follow.

You stared as your partner stepped onto the metal.

He paused for a moment, never looked back, and continued after the oldest.

You felt a brush and looked down to find Splinter at your feet.

The old man gave you a single even nod before he too followed out the hole.

Leo made a noise.

As soon as Splinter stepped outside a blaring red wall appeared to block the path.

You heard a knob click.

You spun just in time to see Mikey in your front doorway where he had a similarly empty expression.

Your lips parted to ask.

Mikey drew a tight line with his. “No more lies.”

You wanted to yell that you weren’t.

Of the entire lot of them, you’d lived the most honest.

That wasn’t quite true.

You only had excuses.

Guilt wringing you out, Mikey left and the door closed behind it.

That left you and Leo.

With Mikey manning the front door and Raph blocking what was once a window, you were now trapped with the only turtle who despised you.

You stood in the lingering heat of the oven.

Despite melting down, Donnie still took the time to save the food you and Mikey had worked so hard to prepare.

You loved your mate so much.

Had you hurt him?

Why had you told him that about his ninpo?

Should you have stood up for him more?

You held your hands close to the oven handle.

It seemed then, and still did, that you had said what you needed to.

You needed to be alone with him to deal with everything that had happened.

You’d already agreed to do exactly that.

It would help if you had a few of those categories sorted.

Donnie always did prefer you to have done your homework.

He’d done his both with Splinter and then would come with spades having had a conference with Raph.

That left you now needing to deal with your shit.

So you said what you needed to. “Guess we could start with the easiest stuff.”

Leo grunted lightly in what you imagined was him getting to his feet.

“How you’ve said you wanted me dead twice now.” You threaded your fingers through the oven handle, but only held it.

“Wrong.” You heard Leo try the front door.

Either Mikey or S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. was keeping it closed.

You imagined the automaton was somewhere with popcorn.

“At the gala, one. You wouldn’t remember my name.” You squeezed metal. “And the last time we really spoke. You said I hoped I would be your final straw.”

“I didn’t say hope.”

“But you did say you wanted me dead.”

“This is purgatory.” Leo decided and a thunk sounded that you knew to be his head against the door.

“Welcome to hell.” You gave a sort of smile. “We’re doing this.”

“Raph can’t quit.” Leo spoke distant.

You crossed the apartment.

“We all agreed. No one was coerced. He’s not going to talk about our ninpo. We agreed.”

“It’s over, Leo.”

“I’m their leader.”

You stared.

There was no way to reach him.

He was going to encase himself in as many lies as he needed to protect his fragile heart.

You knew that all too well.

You had your own man doing the same.

You were careful in signaling you were going to touch him before you did.

Leo only gave you a sharp glance, but didn’t move. “Dad’s there. He’ll stop him. Dad knows the threat.”

You took Leo’s wrist and led him to turn.

He came with his head down, locked in on his delusion, and turned toward you in a show that he would not be moved.

“Mikey took a different route. He’s got me. Mikey is always my best back-up. He makes openings with his ninpo. He takes the heat. He’s fire incarnate.”

You released Leo and sized him up.

“Then I slip in. You never got to see us work coordinated. Raph’s too obvious as a bruiser. Mikey’s the real tank. I’m the speed and precision and Raph finishes them off.” His foggy gaze gave way to how happy the memories were.

Your body ached and you used the pain to watch him clearly.

“We head home to dad.” Leo was exactly where he described. “He wouldn’t ask what we did. We wouldn’t ask what he did. We existed in the moment. That’s how it was. ‘Orange, whip something up.’ ‘You got it, daddy-o!’ ‘What’s on the menu tonight?’ ‘Well, we’ve got quite the array of the latest day old delights! Locally sourced from the finest dumpsters.’ ‘I’ll take the chef’s special.’ ‘Coming right up!’ ‘Think we’ll be able to pronounce it this time?’ ‘Not a chance, Rapharoni. Not a chance…’”

You hugged straight into Leo’s center.

He made an audible, “Oof.”

Getting as much of his carapace in your hands as you could, you squeezed him with all your might.

Leo’s arms hung limp over yours.

“’It’s knock-knees.’ ‘What the!? Gnocchi! What’s wrong with you?’ ‘You say it like no-key!’ ‘Of course there’s no key! We live in a subway! Where would we keep a door?’ ‘Leo!’ ‘That’s worse than your bit yesterday with the pho.’ ‘I thought you’d pho-geddaboudit!’ ‘Not again!’ ‘Why do you always do that!?’”

Fat tears knocked on your head one at a time.

You hugged him tighter and his sentences devolved until he was humming the tune of the past.

What had you really learned about this man?

You had no idea.

Leo never said what he meant.

Where Donnie was precise, Leo was ambiguous.

Both calculated, Leo played mental chess thinking of his finishing move while Donnie remapped the board at each step.

While each had their advantages, it was Leo’s methodology that you couldn’t follow.

Retroactive action had once threatened your relationship with Donnie.

It destroyed your knowledge of Leo before you could even place what it was.

He was too sharp.

He knew exactly how to push other’s buttons.

He was a master manipulator.

He’d done exactly what he wanted and kept you at bay.

Not without taking critical damage himself, it just so happened that you had a knack for such a thing.

You’d only inflicted him with wounds because you hadn’t planned at all.

You had time now.

It was with yours, you found Leo, small and trapped in what had to be his teen years.

He clung to memories before the world came crashing down around them.

His family.

He never saw them differently.

That was why he spoke the way he did.

It shaped how he acted.

He created a mold then and there and pressed the rest of him through melted wax.

Only the die was imperfect.

He decided his final move as a child and never looked back.

His family was his entire worth and everything he did was for them.

Only he was so focused on preserving the them of that moment, that he hadn’t seen the field of play had changed.

They no longer needed him in the way he’d decided.

No matter how many times they tried to tell him, he kept stubbornly forcing himself through that old mold.

Each time he extruded a blue shape that was more and more malformed.

It showed every edge where the plates hadn’t been properly set.

Trying relentlessly to make it work, Leo had spent decades refusing to rework the machine.

He only needed to try again.

The wax was wrong.

He was wrong.

He could fix it.

He just needed to try.

He’d sat stubborn.

Long past when the materials ran out and he had begun to crush his skin between boiling metal.

Through each throttle and scar, he continued until he no longer knew when to stop.

When his family acted out of the distorted image he drew, it was an attack of his very being.

He was betrayed again and again and forced more of himself into the mold.

If only he could get it right.

It would be an injustice for you of all people to stop him.

Not you.

Not when he’d worked so hard.

He’d worked himself past flesh and to bone.

Then from the dust, he continued to toil.

He’d been right.

You both were.

You were happenstance over a sandwich.

You’d told him about choice, but his answer sheet was worn down.

How could he make any other, when he wasn’t on your plane?

He was a trapped time traveler and his portals only cut space.

He was also wrong.

Raph’s fed up speech ghosted your ears.

Things happened.

It was done.

You felt the shift.

By speaking those few words into existence and disrupting the flow, Raph had upset the status quo in the same way you had.

Then Splinter followed.

Before Mikey made his own path.

Which left two, one wholly present and the other here in body alone.

You anchored that side of him, having hugged him so long your arms screamed with a force very unlike all the stressors from your crutches.

Leo was sobbing, but he didn’t hold you.

He simply rained his sorrows down.

What could you do?

You couldn’t tell him.

He’d heard a thousand words.

They’d had family meeting after meeting.

They’d spent a lifetime and were still in the same rut.

What about Raph’s simple action had been so different?

What about yours scared Leo so deeply, to his core?

If it was what you said, then you should have reached him.

He’d said you’d dug it out of him.

Eyes damp against his shirt, you saw a mental flurry of Leo’s baring their souls.

It wasn’t you.

It had never been you.

It had been time.

Just like Donnie.

It was time.

“You did good.”

Leo babbled a few more syllables, before he stiffened in your hold.

“You did so good.” Tears threatened your vision so you closed your eyes and put all your strength into the hug. “You were right!”

“That-” You felt his hands ghost up to push you away.

“You were!” You forced your body flush with his and sent a watery grave into his eyes. “You were right to love! You were right to fight! You were right to worry! You were right to try! You were right to do everything you could to protect your family! Leo, you did an amazing job!”

A revelation did not pass over Leo’s features.

He stared down at you, spellbound.

He saw you.

The current you.

He saw now.

“They lived!” You told the parts of him, one foreign and aged mingling with the other who hadn’t properly looked in a mirror in years. “You did it. You got them all here! You protected them!”

“I…?” He believed you.

Your cheeks threatened to swallow your eyes. “Every one of them.”

“But they…”

“But nothing!” You stepped closer into him and he had to widen his stance to stay upright. “You can keep punishing yourself, but that doesn’t do them any good! They’re waiting for you! They don’t care what you did! They care what you do now! So, you didn’t save them the way you wanted? Does that really matter? The end result is the same!”

His own philosophy crashed the pieces of him together and he wobbled.

You squeezed until you thought your shoulders might pop out of their sockets. “And that’s where you are. You’re at the end of the road, Leo. You did it. You’re done. Your job is done.”

The first breath he took gave his new form life.

The second felt the years he’d lost.

The third sipped bittersweet in the many lives the old him had touched.

Then came happiness.

In a wave so large, his teeth lined up for a decade’s wide smile.

The time between flowed like a river down his face in droves.

“You can rest.” You buried your face into him, but saved your mouth. “Your loved ones are here and they’re waiting. They’ve been waiting all this time. They want to thank you. You did everything you could.”

Leo hugged you.

In one giant sweep, all that you had squeezed into him was returned until you were nearly bowled over.

You genuinely had no idea how either of you were still upright.

“He’s in good hands.” You added as soon as you got your oxygen back.

It was crushed right back out of you and together you both cried.

The downpour washed the slate clean.

You weren’t sure if you would etch it anew, but for now you were going to store it.

There was time.

So much so, especially for Leo, that you languished in it. It brought you both stumbling to the couch where neither of you could let go. It was only after being seated side by side did you feel sturdy, but Leo didn’t let go with an arm slung around your shoulders. He grew into a frustrating weight, but there was a certain comedy to it that had you both barbing each other with little spikes for a sense of normalcy. You weren’t sure if that would be your relationship moving forward, but for now it felt like you could traverse it on your own terms.

When Raph came down the fire escape in a series of clangs, Leo only arched out where he still had a hold on you and greeted his brother with a wry smile.

If Leo’s newly current presence was obvious to you, it was plain as day for Raph, who was moving forward. “Leo!”

“Hey, bro. Miss me? Bring that big beautiful mug over here for me to see!” Leo extracted his arm from you and whispered a parting sorrow in your ear. “Sorry, doll.”

For a moment you were on a rooftop until you were back in your apartment looking at Leo.

“What can I say?” He was all smarmy charm. “A fling’s a fling! No hard feelings?”

You had a thousand insults on your tongue, but Donnie’s arms wrapped around your middle and he extracted you with a bitter glower.

Leo didn’t pay him any mind and caught Raph by the cheeks to squeeze them. “Prickly, you forget to shave?”

“What can I say? It’s past five o’clock.” Raph fluttered his lashes.

“Big news: I’m thinking about quitting too.” Leo gave Raph’s face one last squish before he let go.

“Oh?” Raph craned his brow ridge through his mask.

“Yeah, thinking about starting a new team. I’m still workshopping a name. I’m thinking Mayhem’s Mutants. We get ourselves a cute mascot. Everybody loves a cute mascot.” Leo tipped his head, amused.

“He is cute.” Raph caught the joking bug. “Good luck with that, I’ll have to see. I sent out a ton of resumes and have already gotten a few calls back.”

“That right? Well, make sure to suit up for the interviews and when they hit you with that bit at the end asking if you have any questions, you always, always, ask ‘em about parking. They eat that shit up.” Leo threw out his hand in a smoothing sailing motion.

“Thanks. I think I will.” Raph chuckled.

“Also, like remember though, I’m just saying, my thing has dental…! So… you know… keep your options open, alright?” Leo clucked.

Donnie cuddled you close where he’d pulled you clean over the back of the couch.

You leaned back and bumped your head against the underside of his chin.

He rested there.

Little nail clicks were Splinter and you opened your eyes to see him crawl up onto the couch to approach his middle son.

A small fear caught you and you grabbed Donnie to share the load.

He held you tightly.

It hadn’t occurred to you that Leo’s change could be an impermeant one, but faced with this father, a certain manifestation of how he came to be could upset the balance.

You wanted to interfere, but it was out of your hands.

Splinter touched Leo’s arm before moving to cup his son’s cheek.

He then pinched hard and pulled.

“Ow, ow, ow!” Leo squawked.

“Do you know how long we’ve been waiting!?” Splinter complained.

It was the perfect response.

Leo immediately welled up with tears.

“Come on, pops! C-can’t have been that long…” Leo spoke weepy.

“Foolish boy!” Splinter scolded, but his sharp edge was disintegrating by the second.

Raph smiled and you watched his eyes flash red.

Leo’s joined for a flicker of blue and you felt Donnie jolt around you.

Looking up you found him with a shine of purple in his iris and then the front door exploded open.

“Leo!!!” Mikey shrieked and flew straight to tackle Leo off the couch and into Raph.

“Alright, alright! There’s enough of me to go around! Stop acting like I’ll disappear into another dimension or something!” Leo complained.

A beat of silence passed.

“Not funny, Leo!” Raph growled and pulled all the Hamato into a hug.

“What is wrong with you!?” Mikey hissed.

“You dare joke-!” Splinter threw out frustrated balled fists.

Leo laughed brightly and you felt a very specific fracture in the family mend.

You leaned further into Donnie.

He moved to envelope you, but a growl rumbled out from his stomach.

There was a pause that could only be broken by Mikey, “Dinner bell!”

Everything then went into motion. The meal was salvaged in various stages and you found that the cream you had seen Leo with was because Raph wanted to make his own dessert. He apparently had a cobbler recipe he was proud of and wanted to show off to you specifically. Splinter was able to present his green bean casserole which was admittedly delicious and supposedly his tout to where Mikey got his culinary skills. There was talk of jobs and this and that. In moving groups, you got to mostly rest as the men scarfed down comical plate loads and got into arguments over the silliest things.

It eventually broke off where Raph took full advantage of the kitchen and its central food hub as he always baked. Making quick work of repurposing a casserole dish, he eventually had time to take some measurements of a wall and Donnie dismissed him only to point outside. Raph poked his head out to find supplies on the fire escape and a calling card post-it with a caricature of S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. on it that made Leo shudder. Clean up happened with Leo taking heavy point of washing many dishes and Mikey humming alongside him as a mystic dryer with orange tinted air. Raph stacked things up to eventually take with them and Donnie shot off a message to S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. from his computer about what was left for the window repair.

It eventually brought a curious Raph over to the computer as he wasn’t going to let his promise go of being the one to fix it. The eldest tacked on a resume of the work he’d done around the lair where he’d expanded arch ways to better fit his size and architecture slid into Donnie’s special interest category. Both men were soon scouring blueprints and you feared it wouldn’t just be a window put back in place in your kitchen.

Nothing you could really do to stop them, you drifted to the side, where the other pair of turtles were entertained and found Splinter alone with a cup of tea on your couch. He gestured you over and made you one where you only faintly wondered where he’d gotten his supplies. You drank an incredible cup of smooth liquid that had you sending awe at the old man who took your praise in stride. A timer went off and Leo got a little too excited. His hand went up where it had been hand mixing a bowl of cream. The fling brought ire then a laugh from Mikey who seemed relentless in hanging off the blue brother.

All of it brought smiles to Leo’s face where piping hot cobbler was passed out with fresh dollops of cream running off.

Donnie was busy fixing a schematic and didn’t step away to grab a portion.

You’d been resting for long enough and got him one sans cream as you knew the melting whip would only sog the cobbler’s crispy top, a complaint you’d known well of your partner. Bringing the plate and a fork over, you set it down beside him to take at his leisure and he passed you a distracted glance along with an affectionate mating call for your effort.

It brought a plate clanging silence to the room.

Donnie immediately bristled.

Raph was the first to break out his excitement. “Life partners?!”

Fury was abated for repulsion on Donnie’s face. “Is that your descriptor?!”

“Uh, duh.” Leo rolled his eyes. “Kinda bigger deal than boring old English to have a special way of saying ‘I love you.’ What do you call it?”

Donnie turned and tried to bury his beak into his computer.

“Nope! Not letting that go!” Leo jumped the counter with Raph excitedly gushing about romance right behind him.

It caused Donnie to up and run from the pair where they circled the apartment making kissy faces as your boyfriend got more and more flustered.

Mikey appeared by your side with a forkful of cobbler. “I’m not into the whole thing.”

You nodded for the sake of it, watching the display and witnessing Splinter doing the same with an overflowing affection.

“Cretins!” Donnie reared a hand on a turn and with it came a wall of purple that Raph and Leo both slammed into.

Leo blinked a few rapid times before he peeled his face off the projection.

“Woah…” Raph ran his hands over the clear purple swath. “When’d you learn to make less lethal stuff?”

“Was he mad mad?” Mikey asked you. “Like ninpo making mad?”

You shook your head as you honestly didn’t believe so.

That made this Donnie’s first projection seemingly created his will alone.

This was confirmed for you as Donnie came forward to study the barrier with a finger curled to his lips.

“Amazing.” Leo was unenthused. “It’s literally a rectangle. Whoop-dee-doo. Wanna actually impress me, egghead? Make it disappear.”

“Here we go.” Mikey exaggerated an eye roll.

“It’s not magic!” Leo bristled.

“You were one step away from saying abracadabra.” Raph snarked.

Leo mimed the magic word mockingly to the oldest.

Donnie had his brow wrinkled during the exchange in clear effort.

Something then occurred to him and he leaned away with a slow exhale as if giving up.

The wall crumbled with pixels collapsing like a perfectly cleared Tetris screen.

Leo arched his mask. “Huh. Well alright.”

“Let’s try for a pistol.” Donnie flared with a tame malevolence for him.

“I’m blameless! You shoot your sensei!” Leo pointed at Raph as he exited and headed over to Splinter. “Got a cup for me?”

“I’d need to boil more wa-” Splinter yawned.

Mikey’s expression grew gooey. “About time.”

“I can stay up!” Splinter complained.

“He’ll be passed out in ten.” Raph told you.

You giggled.

“I will not! This is a special occasion!” Splinter brushed his eldest off with a wave of his hand.

Leo put the kettle on and Splinter fell asleep before it even hissed.

Burners clicked off, there was a quiet movement of gathering things and dividing leftovers. It struck you that Donnie hadn’t consumed anything, but you had a feeling he might later. All based on chance and how things held up, you did your best in choosing to take dishes he might like and a portal was soon formed to transport the rest. Straight into the lair kitchen, things were filed out with the final retrieval being Raph carrying a snoring Splinter through to put him to bed. The eldest then returned once the apartment was emptied and the three Hamato children stood in front of the portal for their goodbyes.

A less than poignant affair, you mostly got a group hug where they wished you well and there were promises of check-in texts. All in order, Donnie stood politely aside and watched on for a slight nod as his great thank you. It was accepted with a few jeers that he barked at and with that the men exited one at a time and Leo’s portal blinked away for the foreseeable future.

Donnie swept you off your feet within seconds. “What happened?”

“Which part?” You tittered as he was pressed behind you and carried you like a hostage to the bathroom.

“You were close! You smell like orange and blue all over.”

“Mikey pulled me out the window and I finally got through to Leo, for real this time.”

“You will shower and explain.” He decided gruffly and it was so endearingly him that you didn’t mind as you stripped.

He sat off to the side, peeking through the curtain as you did a quick wash of your body while regaling him with all that had occurred that night. For Mikey, Donnie cared little, but he ran a gambit of fury at the audacity of the middle Hamato for slighting you. He was still mad, but quieted as you exited the shower damp and nude. It distracted him and he only held a huff as he did his washing up at the sink where you eventually brushed your teeth. Whisked to bed in a none too romantic sense, Donnie instead ate up physical affection in a very literal sense. Mouthing over whatever skin wasn’t coated in pajamas, he obviously scented you before cuddling close where you finally asked him about how he watched your physical therapy.

He began by impressing upon you how proud he was to have you as his mate. He explained that even when he struggled to watch or help, you fought mercilessly and he couldn’t have been more enamored. He even went so far back to remark on your handling of the kidnapping, a lost time that he still applauded you for because however long it was, you’d survived. You’d eventually kissed into him, sweetly at first, in a way that reminded you of tasting a rare bottle of wine. The complexity came with airing and outpoured details.

You found out Donnie had in fact been doing mental constructions during his meditation. While Leo had stopped him from implementing new security cameras, Sinai Hospital had their own footage which Donnie had pilfered and gone through. When he played the tape back and examined it, he’d found that his ninpo didn’t just appear out of thin air, it was constructed there, piece by piece just as he had learned as a child. Hearing Mikey say meditation came with a variety techniques helped him pair the ideas and he found the schematic process to be a soothing one regardless of the lethal creation it was trying to curb. He was pleased with the progress and, as you had seen, had recently start to tap into his ninpo as a pool of energy.

Until tonight he hadn’t been able to conjure anything, but in his increased meditation, he no longer found the raging purple flame inside him. It was now an organ like any other, only it extended far beyond his body’s reach. He could now imagine himself approaching the well as if it were a materials cache. He imagined with practice not only could he manifest anything he could imagine, but there were probably other uses for the purple ooze beyond that.

You added what you knew about the other turtle’s power and Donnie revealed to you the conversation had on the roof. Just as Raph had said, he only explained the history and knowledge of the ninpo and nothing more. It was apparently a combined manifestation of the Hamato clan’s essence. A generational pool of power passed down, it was an exclusive art that was thought to only be tapped by wholly connecting and trusting one’s family. It manifested uniquely to each user, but seemed as unlimited and wild as all mystic arts. There was no discussion after the presensation and the trio on the roof had spent a time in silence, allowing the knowledge to permeate.

You tucked in close to Donnie at the thought of him wholly connecting to save you, his family, and he confirmed that, in that moment, he forgot all else, but a drive to save you. Overridden yourself, you felt compelled to open up about your healing humiliations. From stink to lashing out, Donnie took his time dismantling your concerns while also rubbing those exhausted muscles of yours.

Exhaustion and eventual mutual caressing coaxed loose lips where revealed he’d asked Splinter over because he needed a firsthand account of how love worked between a supposed hero and villain. Now that the forewarned grave harm had finally come to you, Donnie found it difficult to imagine you could have any sort of safe life together so he had to turn to the only pair he knew that had chanced and survived such a feat, successful or not. You admitted what you’d overhead and Donnie didn’t fault you. He only plied affections on how you’d snuck in without his knowledge.

Beofre he diverted back to you, there was something about the way Donnie spoke of his conversation with Splinter.

He had a finality to him.

Not as an ends, but a means to, something about his tone made you think this was the final barrier that had kept him from actually proposing.

You had to ask if that was the case as your lids grew heavy.

It was drawing close to dawn.

You’d spent hours catching up.

“Yes..” He breathed warmth at your intuitiveness. “I had reservations. Unrelated to the grotesque concept of asking a father’s permission, however.”

You were both gazing at each other from your pillows. “That last bit hadn’t crossed my mind. I swear.”

“He… did help...” He admitted. “He apparently proposed to Big Mama.”

You startled as much as your tired body could.

“Her response was to reveal her plans and imprison him to fight as a slave in her arena.”

“Oh…”

“He… still has the ring.”

You reached for Donnie.

He met you with careful fingers.

You wondered if Splinter had been any sort of stuck like Leo. There was the many names the old man had and he’d been open about his regrets. A frustrating like father, like son, you supposed it made sense and felt optimistic for the Hamato going forward.

Their familial bonds were apparently transcendent.

“His didn’t work out, but you think ours will?” You murmured.

“He was happenstance, to be clear. An example, if anything.”

You made a curious trill.

Donnie wormed closer. “Sleep, my love.”

“What was it, Don… exactly?”

Donnie’s beak lightly brushed the tip of your nose. “I was reassured that I am unlike them. Their cycle does not apply to me. I am something new. I am me and am immune to their failure.”

You brushed his cheek with a sloppy swipe. “Only one of you.”

“And you.” He pressed closer to seal the comment, before giving you space to sleep.

💜NEXT💜

Can you believe these two have been around since chapter 21? Hard to imagine a time before my betas @tmntxthings and @thepinkpanther83

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afreakingdork · 27 days

Note

Finally finished this scene from Sore Spot!

Love your work! The highlight of my week every time a chapter comes out!

HOLY CANNOLIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT'S INCREDIBLE!!!! AHHH THAT MOVEMENT THE FEAR AHHHHHHH THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU A MILLION TIMES MY GOSH!!!!!

I'm super interested in how you stylized the Hamato crest! Why three slices? Why one dot missing??

WHATEVER THANK YOU OMIGOSH!!! ILOVEIT!!!

#ask #weakspotfic #fanart for me #tw knife #tw blood #tw knives

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afreakingdork · 2 months

Note

I found this pic while scrolling through Pinterest and instantly thought of the reader doing something like this just becaus Why not ... or at least I would try to do it HAH Not sure if this really fits and Donnie's reactions would be like this so I apologize in advance for this and for a little self insert xd You can ignore it if you want xdd

STOP WAIT THIS IS AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MISTER IM CACKLING!!!!

WHEN I FIRST OPENED THIS IT TOOK MY BRAIN A FULL MINUTE TO PROCESS WHAT I WAS STARING AT BECAUSE I WAS LIKE HUR DUR OF COURSE WE WOULD STOMP DONNIE THEN IT HIT ME THAT WAS A LEG

LET'S GET A LEG UP ON THAT SUCKER!!!

I think his expression fits especially if you whipped that out on him to be possessive. Crack a joke like 'leg up on the competition' and he'd say that was terrible, but he'd love it! He's always amused when he gets hit on by you because he does not see the point so it's like a cute mating display when you've already got him~ 💞💞💞

THANK YOU A MILLION YEARS GRATITUDE SHOWERED UPON YOU!!!!

#ask #fanart for me #weakspotfic

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afreakingdork · 2 months

Text

Weak Spot - Chapter 60

RotTMNT Donatello x Reader

This week's chapter art by @garbagemilkshake lights up the night

STOP! BEFORE YOU READ:

If you can stomach excessive violence, please remember that this chapter technically falls chronologically after the Sore Spot one-shot. However, it is not required reading and you will not miss out if you could not read it for whatever reason.

Fem!Reader References/Warnings Below Cut

Also available on Ao3

First 💜 Previous

Fem!Reader References/Warnings: Hospital, egregious injury, coma, intubation, needles, IV, coma, drugs, bleeding, broke bones, medical descriptions, medical tests, guns, gunshots, ect

“You’re late.”

“Sir.”

“47 minutes this time.”

Heavy sigh.

“27 the last and an hour and a half prior to that. You have two assigned patients total, one of which is no longer in critical condition and yet, here you are, late for the last round of your shift.”

“If you think-!”

“133 Pitt St, Apartment 3B, New York, NY 10002.”

Sharp inhale.

“Contain your personal life. You shouldn’t have moved in with your boyfriend so fast. Of course, he’s cheating on you. If your sloppy time management skills are any indication, you were never meant to be a suitable partner.”

“THAT’S ENOUGH!!! I’M THROWING YOU OUT! I DON’T CARE THAT-!”

“Again!?”

“NO! NO MORE! I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU SAY! I REFUSE TO-!”

“Please, ma’am! I’m begging you! I know! I know what he’s like and he’s a million percent at fault, but if you could-!”

“He just said my home address.”

“Eugh boy…”

“He’s cruel. He’s mean! He never stops! He’s-”

“Ma’am…”

“No! Don’t you ma’am me again! Do you know how many nurses have refused to serve this room! You are down to less than a handful and mark that down as one less because there’s no way in hell I’m coming back here. I’m filing a fucking police report. I’ve had enough of this shit. He threatens us. He lies. He antagonizes. He hovers! He’s a stalker! He’s a bastard! He should have been kicked out the moment he pulled that stunt in intake! I bet he was the one who did this to-!”

Slam.

“H-He-!”

“Donatello!”

Slam.

“Get out of my way, Leonardo.”

“Do you want to be cut off!? That’s what you’re fucking doing! We’ve been busting our fucking butts to keep you in here, but that’s enough!! Don’t you get it?! Do you want to be here when Y/N wakes up or do you want to be miserable and alone!?”

Snivel.

“She… insinuated… that I…”

“I know.”

Rustle.

“I know.”

“I didn’t…”

“I know…”

Sigh.

“I’m taking charge.”

Sharp inhale.

“That’s the only way this is going to work. You threatened her, idiot. What the fuck did you think was going to happen?”

Hmph.

“Ma’am…”

“You think I was gonna be moved by that?”

“Look, I get it. This is… There isn’t a way to explain this. All I can promise you is that if you can… find it in your heart to let this incident slide, there won’t be another.”

…

“I’m taking full blame, full responsibility. If he acts out of turn again, he’s banned. I’ll make sure of it.”

…

“Please.”

Heavy sigh.

Clink.

“You saved… my sister two years ago from a monster… er-“

“Monster. I’m not sure it was a mutant.”

“Right.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s… I’m only doing this because of that. Not for him. Fuck him. Hey! Yeah, I’m talking to you. Fuck you.”

…

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet.”

Squeak.

“And one cup of absolutely burnt coffee for the-!”

…

“I knew it!!!”

Clatter.

“Donatello!”

“Don’t.”

“I knew you were hiding something, but this-!”

“Get back.”

“What did you inject yourself with!?”

“That doesn’t concern you.”

“The hell it does! You think you can-!?”

“Don’t you dare touch me.”

“I didn’t mean-!”

“You know why, now leave it.”

Bang.

“I heard yelling! What’s going on? Donatello!”

“It’s alright, Lee.”

“Don’t you pull that shit! What happened!?”

“It’s fine.”

“Knock it off! No, it’s not! You’re going to let him talk to you like that?! What was that?! I was gone for five seconds!”

“Leo.”

“Don’t ‘Leo’ me, Mikey! Everything that happens is on me. Don’t you get that? You need to tell me what just happened!”

…

“Well!?”

“I got too friendly, Leo. Nothing else. I swear it.”

…

“Damnit…”

“It’s been 2 weeks.”

…

“Donatello.”

…

“Say something.”

“I keep time. Down to the second.”

“Then you’ll know that you haven’t slept. Not once.”

…

“Donatello.”

“I fatigue of hearing my name come from your mouths.”

Heavy sigh.

Creak.

Squeak.

Wane.

“I… I know what this is like.”

…

“I know you know why I know.”

…

“It’s not going to get easier.”

…

“I know you don’t want to hear this.”

“You presume too much.”

“Donatello!”

“What? Why do you insist on pleading your case? Why do any of you? You think of yourselves so highly. You are wretches. You are sheep parading yourselves as saviors. You flock if only because you are too feeble to attempt anything alone! You think I need you? I never have! I never will! You have hitched yourselves to a technicality at best! That I let you live and occupy the same vicinity as Y/N is happenstance at best! Yet you press! You always press. Always. You never stop! You never have!!! You will plague me for my lifetime and I will never be rid of you so, please, pray tell, Raphael, what wisdom on this dimension or any other could you possibly think to disturb me with this time!?!”

…

“Ya done?”

“I should have-!”

Scrape.

Crash.

…

“You need to eat and drink. Actual food. Actual water. Y/N will need you when they wake up. All I was gonna say. I’m taking my turn outside. Try considering that we might care about something other than you once in a while.”

Step.

Click

Fuzz.

Someone left an ancient video set on.

It was plugged in for the sake of it.

Or it was being checked.

To see if it was still operational.

Something was beeping.

Not overly loud, but enough that it made a thrum in the room.

It smelled clinical.

Dry, but with a must of synthetic polish, it spoke of industrially cleaned linens and hospital corridors.

There was an actual hum.

The kind that came from fluorescents when they painted everyone a sickly hue.

Something was in your mouth.

A twitch found a tube in your nose.

You were cold.

Every breath came with an ache and numbness.

It all channeled down your throat.

You were layered up with blankets.

Three parts of you were free as far as you could tell.

Your left arm.

Stiff, folded, and holding emphasis.

Your head.

Lying on a papery substance concealing more than one pillow.

Your right hand.

Only emerged enough for something stuck to the back of it and large digits cupped between your loose fingers.

Two digits.

Two long, thick fingers.

You squeezed with as much force as you could manage.

You heard a little grunt.

You shifted to dig your nails.

“Woah there.”

Not Donnie.

That wasn’t Donnie.

It wasn’t Donnie.

You made a weary noise and tossed lightly against your pillow in dismay.

The thing in your mouth shifted.

You choked.

“Shh. You’re okay. Breathing tube. I know, I know. I also know I’m not the one you want, but I can get him. Can you hang tight for me, kay?”

The fingers returned the hold.

Eyes.

You wanted your vision.

You cracked a lid and winced it back shut at the light.

“You’re in the hospital. I’ve got you.” Another hand came to touch your leg in a neutral, but reassuring way. “You with me?”

Knowing there was too much white, you opened your eyes slower this time and glimpsed Leo leaning over you.

“Hey, Y/N.”

You croaked.

“That’s all the confirmation I need.” He gave your hand a final squeeze before walking to the end of your bed. “Any more false starts and he’d lose it. The roving eye thing has been a nightmare.”

Gaze adjusting by the second, you watched him slice open a portal and Donnie clamber through with a rush of sound. “You had seven more minutes before you were meant toI-! Does that mean-!?”

Leo stepped out of the way and held out an arm.

Donnie rounded his head and was at your side before you could blink.

Function was difficult.

He cradled your hand close and you saw the wire attached to it.

Tracing it drearily, you found several bags sitting above you dripping liquid directly into your veins.

Coming back down, Donnie had tears in his eyes and a watercolor smile on his lips. “Y/N.”

You creaked, rusty on your intubation.

“Yes! We’ll get that right out if possible! Of course!” He brought his beak down and kissed the tips of your fingers. “Procedure says you should first explain whereabouts as a patient may be confused.” Donnie gave a sharp nod. “Y/N. There has been a travesty. We were in the Hidden City when we were ambushed. We-I-No-We were drugged… and you… you were…” Tears threatened to fall and he choked with a swollen throat.

You squinted at him.

None of that made sense.

You didn’t remember anything like that.

You remembered.

You remembered a beach.

You remembered a love potion.

You remembered rolling in the sheets with your mate.

You remembered.

You made a fearful noise and pulled at your body.

None of it came as it should.

Your arm wasn’t just folded, it was taped down to your chest.

In fact, most of your body was constricted.

The pull clanged along muscle groups and you felt a pulse trained inwards on your abdomen.

Shooting sparks of pain straight into your gut, you gave a soft pained cry and tried to kick.

Only one leg responded.

The other was lead and weighed down.

You were choking.

“Y/N, w-wait! P-please!” Donnie refused to touch any more of you.

“Donatello.” Leo appeared just behind him.

“Don’t. It won’t. Not now.” Donnie went to snap at the blue turtle.

Leo stared back, stoic.

“Don’t…” Donnie managed, gaze falling.

“Y/N.” Leo took to the other side of the bed and reached in to adjust a strap of bandage on your shoulder. “Listen. You’re at the Mount Sinai on Madison. You were in emergency, then the ICU, then you got assigned a room. Saying you were banged up is an understatement. You almost died. You might have, if we hadn’t…”

Relegating to pupil movement, you first stared at Leo, then checked with Donnie.

Your boyfriend gave a sharp nod where he’d taken Leo’s seat at your side and your hand.

You rasped.

“They had to medically induce a coma so we could figure out what substance you were injected with. You were considered an overdose patient until then. S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. cracked it and passed the info along so they could treat you. Then you… didn’t wake up. They considered it a regular coma after that. You were stabbed in your shoulder, miracle it missed any of the three arteries there. You’ll have a hell of a time with physical therapy for the muscle though. Your left femur is broken, but that… We’ll get into that later. You were cut along the ribs and stabbed in the right upper torso, into the liver. You were in surgery for hours. Internal bleeding… concussion… broken bones, you name it.”

You made a flighty grunt.

Donnie squeezed you.

You sent him a weak flick of your eye.

Leo sighed softly. “Button time?”

“I hit it a moment ago.” Donnie answered, not looking away from you.

Leo nodded and put his hands on his hips. “Ready, Y/N?”

Leo.

Donnie.

Together in the same room.

It only occurred to you now that there was an issue with that.

There was so much happening.

All of it was wrong.

You shifted your pupil between the two and translated what you hoped was a question.

“I’m assuming you’re wondering about this?” Leo pointed between him and Donnie. “Another explanation for later because you’re going to want to sleep after what’s about to happen… I sure as hell did.”

He walked to a corner and you wanted to know what he meant, but a nurse walked in. “Oh…! How are you feeling!?”

What followed was torturous. Over and over your sanity was questioned and examined as they checked your faculties. Tests were done in abundance and you were poked and prodded by what you assumed was every metal device known to man. A legion of doctors, nurses, and contracted medical personnel filed through to tell you similar and yet all new information about your wounds. Tubes were inserted, removed, and shifted around in what you could only imagine was a cruel cosmic game of hokey pokey. You picked up little details where you could under the barrage. There had been something about mysticism, both bad and good. You’d healed nicely. You had more healing to do.

It had been three total weeks since the attack.

You held onto that lost time with an iron claw until you were forced upright. Both for physical examination and because a wheelchair arrived for some test that couldn’t be done in this room, you saw Donnie keep a wounded strength up and Leo keep his distance. Both men had been similarly cycled, in and out of your vicinity, for the sake of decorum. You alternatively had none as you were carted around for more scans where doctors both talked to and around you. By the time you were uncomfortably back in bed and finally left alone, you could barely keep your eyes open.

“Sleep.” Donnie kissed your temple.

“Donnie…” You fought your lids.

You hadn’t gotten to talk to him at all.

His name was probably the first thing you’d said to him.

You wanted to say so much more.

How could you be tired?

You’d been asleep for nearly a month.

Donnie hushed your mind and a glimpse of him was the last thing you saw.

You woke up sometime in the night to a nurse fiddling with your IV.

“I have to get used to seeing you.” She teased lightly, checking the cord and coming away with a syringe.

You grunted out a sound.

“Don’t mind me.” She told you before giving your good leg a pat and disappearing around the bed. “Just something to ease the pain.”

You stared after her shape and caught a dull hue of Leo on the far side of the room.

Squinting, you found him watching after the nurse before he turned with a tired expression.

Following his gaze led to Donnie who was waiting with a patient expression.

“Hey.” You told him still groggy.

“Hi…” He pet your arm. “No need to get up.”

“No… I… I’m… can I…?” You stirred, trying to remember if sitting up was a chore.

“What do you need? Feel free to sign an approximate.” Donnie watched on with tepid affection.

In the corner of your eye you saw Leo turn his head in a way to give you privacy. You eyed him openly before returning to Donnie. Your first real look at him, you saw how the last few weeks had taken their toll. An odd midpoint in comparison to your last separation where he’d headed to the Hidden City alone, he looked a little on the mend. Eyes sallow, but skin perked with some vestige of hydration, he mostly looked exhausted.

“Water…” You decided, your throat dry and still cracked from the tube.

“You might have trouble swallowing, go slow.” He retrieved a pitcher and cup from a side table before filling it carefully to offer it with a straw.

Knowing he would hold it, you wrangled the lead with your lips and sucked in the life giving liquid.

He lowered it when you’d had enough.

“Sore…” You mumbled, leaning back and feeling the cool drink travel downward in your body.

Donnie nodded.

You took your time reaching up to cup his cheek with a spin of your wrist to coax him in. “Not clean. Sorry.”

“I’ve done my best.” Donnie whispered, coming in only enough to barely rest his forehead against the side of your head.

“Why-?” A cough caught you and each wheeze thudded through your wounds.

Donnie disappeared to monitor you closely.

Hand falling away, you winced against the aggravating loose, but tight nature of your esophagus.

You heaved a sigh as you caught your breath with the ragged little pinpricks that still held on.

Taking additional time to simply breathe, you eventually calmed enough to look out at Leo. “Explain this.”

Leo perked up in the moonlight seeping through a window and approached.

“Now?” Donnie asked without pressure.

You gave a single nod.

“Consider it a bedtime story.” Leo refused an actual smile, but there was a jovial edge to his tone as he came around to the opposite side of the bed. “We make it boring enough and we can put Y/N right to sleep.”

Donnie barely rolled his eyes.

“What got you here or this situation?” Leo asked with minor disdain, ignoring Donnie while also referencing him.

“Both… from the… beginning?”

Leo gave a knowing nod. “When I got the call, you were…”

Donnie bristled and had to hold himself.

“Bad.” Leo decided with a tight eye over your boyfriend. “It was bad.”

Donnie closed his eyes.

You reached for him.

He caught your hand and held it delicately to save the IV.

“We were together so we moved together.” Leo went on.

“Toget…?” You struggled on the syllables.

“Me, Mikey, and Raph.” Leo confirmed.

You bobbed slightly.

“Skipping over our entrance onto the scene, Mikey sort of…” Leo juggled his phrasing.

Donnie was up and away from you.

You stared after him and noticed he’d taken the time to set your hand down before fleeing.

“Mike’s got all sorts of mystic mojo.” Leo tried anew. “I knew you were going straight to surgery and Mikey sort of… snuck into prep.”

“Wha…?” Your lips parted dry and you wished Donnie would come back with the water.

“I wasn’t there, to be clear, I’m going off what Mike told me, but basically he zapped you with magic before the staff caught him.”

“I don’t…” You wanted to shake your head, but you settled for a failed swallow.

“In addition to flying, Mikey can kinda sort of teleport like me, but it’s different… he can…” Leo struggled.

“Leonardo trained with an artifact to hone tears through space. Michangelo can rip through space and time with his bare hands.” Donnie spoke, his back half turned to you. “To his detriment. You’ve seen his scarring.”

Leo seemed unperturbed by this knowledge. “He’s banned from it, but I can’t control him in an emergency or last resort sort of thing. It’s… a whole thing, but he can manage very short distances without it… without…”

“Leo…” You murmured, sensing there was something painful there.

Leo took your acknowledgement as a cue he could skip over details. “He took one look at a hospital map, teleported into the OR, dumped as much mystic healing into you as he could, teleported out when he was found, and then promptly passed out for an entire week.”

You heard Donnie inhale to speak and both you and Leo waited for him to, but he didn’t.

Something was off here.

You felt like you hadn’t woken up.

Pangs said otherwise, but you still wanted to pinch yourself.

Leo and Donnie were being as civil as you’d ever seen them and only a few weeks didn’t seem like enough time for that.

Something else was happening, but you were struggling to keep up as it was.

“What… did he…?” You hoped that was enough.

Leo lightly touched a blanket crease on the edge of your bed. “He mostly reassembled bone fragments. From what I understand, flesh, with all its blood vessels and such is a harder patch, but he did get some in. Mostly that gash along your ribs. Overall, it’s more of a general spell. If it had been me-” Leo’s teeth caught the light.

“You…?”

“Medic training.” Leo held the first bitter edge you’d seen to him. “I’m a trained medic.”

Donnie rotated further away.

Why were you losing him?

“Mikey took you from a femoral break to a fracture.” Leo kept a sharp gaze. “Your bone was shattered.”

“Oh…” You gazed down at your body.

“T-tricky with the casting.” Leo stepped up to point and shift the topic. “It’s called a spica. A groovy kind of asymmetrical bottoms, half shorts, half pants, which you have, but they should have cast it up your whole torso, only they couldn’t because of the… stab wounds…” He drifted, his acrid edge returning.

“What’s… going… on?” You got out, the many odd signs too much for you.

“I’m sure you don’t want some medical textbook info on the arteries… But I think I can simplify it-”

“Leo.” You pressed down on his name.

Donnie was nearly curled into the wall.

“Donnie.”

Your partner's head barely rotated at the sound of your voice.

“What… happened?” You wheezed.

You’d asked Leo to start from the top.

Instead, he’d skipped around.

Now there was an ever changing air as if something enormous was being avoided.

You had to know. “Tell me.”

Leo tugged your sheet until it was smooth. “Intake.”

The word oppressive, you felt the other two suffer under it where it held no connotation to you. “What… about it?”

“You still don’t remember what happened during the attack?” Leo asked, edging closer to you with an odd timber.

You shook your head slowly.

“A… Hidden City police officer… abducted you both.” Leo began, a clear wary of Donnie even though he didn’t look. “The guy disobeyed the temporary pardon. We know next to nothing about his goal.”

Your hand flexed and you felt the bite of your IV needle.

“Without you, there’s no account of what happened. The perp left no evidence of planning or anything so we have to assume it was spontaneous, but… we don’t know. We won’t know. Donatello regained consciousness right before the guy tried to…”

Your gaze flew to Donnie where he’d wedged in a corner.

He didn’t know what happened?

No one did.

Was he guilty?

You wished you could go to him.

Leo gave a shaky exhale. “I can only say what I saw for sure.”

You were slow to trek back to Leo.

“Donatello called me and… asked-”

“Begged.” Donnie spoke venom. “Say it.”

Leo’s eyes flashed a warning that Donnie didn’t catch. “I guess he… beggedfor my help. I portaled over and saw you… you were… you…”

Soothe them.

You wanted to hold Donnie.

You wanted to pat Leo.

If your arm closest to him wasn’t bandaged down you might have managed the latter.

Leo seemed to notice your intention and gave a tired smile of his own.

This was the closest he’d been to you yet.

His eyes looked like Donnie’s.

“I scooped you up with the others trailing behind and portaled us straight to triage.” Leo cut through the silence. “I had to leave you bleeding out on the nurse’s station because…”

“Y/N.” Donnie spoke around shattered glass.

“You won’t tell it.” Leo ground out just shy of a bark.

“I should…” Donnie tried to turn, but there was an odd glint to his eye.

“Donatello…” Leo had that warning to him again.

“I can talk about it!” Donnie’s voice held a rising bile. “I am not some child!”

“Donatello!” Leo took a few steps over.

“I lost control!” Donnie turned to plead his case with you.

Trapped in your bed, you felt strapped down.

You couldn’t help.

You were helpless.

“I didn’t see the yokai, you know.” Donnie crept forward slowly. “Your-our-your attacker.”

He looked a vision similar to a sleep paralysis demon.

Your heart clutched and it reflected in the ever constant beep of the heart monitor.

Leo neared the edge of the bed, his body readying.

Donnie saw nor heard neither. “I saw a knife. I saw you. I saw you speak your last words to me. Then I saw purple.”

Leo’s arms went up.

“They were trying…. They tried… They-!!!” In a single blink, Donnie’s eyes lit up a bright fuchsia. “They weren’t going to touch you.”

“Stop!” Leo’s eyes spun a blue similar to his portals.

Dancing lights filled the room.

For every flash of purple there was an equal blue swallowing it up.

It cast horrifying shadows across Donnie’s face. “I couldn’t control it. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t stop the bleeding. I couldn’t-!”

Leo caught Donnie’s shoulders in a swift move.

You flinched away as the dueling lights picked up to a blinding luminance.

There was a sharp choke.

You forced your lids up to see the glow gone and Leo’s leg lifted where he’d kneed Donnie straight through his plastron and into his stomach.

Donnie hunched with drool dripping from his mouth and had just caught himself from vomiting at the force.

Leo let go just as fast and held up innocent hands as he backed away. “Well? How’d that work out for you?!”

Donnie winced, clutching himself for a moment before he raised his own hand as a signal.

“What… was that…?” You looked at them both, feeling a ghost amongst them.

“Donatello unlocked his ninpo.” Leo turned to you looking haggard.

Now a moment away from tears, Donnie scrambled to his side of your bed on his knees. “I’m sorry. Are you okay? I’m sorry. I didn’t-!”

Your hand immediately went to his cheek and though your body raged and you were only allowed a few inches, you turned toward him as much as you could.

“Don’t do that…” He scolded and your action alone was enough to ground him minutely.

You shushed him with affection and pet down his jaw.

It took two strokes before he went a calculated limp against you.

“Has this…?” You swallowed hard and the cup appeared in front of you.

Hating how much maintenance you needed, you took a quick sip before shaking your head to force the swallow down.

“This has been… happening the whole time… since I got…?”

“Put in the hospital.” Leo nodded and staggered a few steps before he caught the bottom of your bed.

“What… power? Why… now?”

Leo rubbed an eye and mocked. “What power?” He clicked his tongue. “We… as in my family, believed it was only possible for clan members. You unlock your ninpo through acceptance. You have to have faith or trust or believe in the Hamato clan, in us, in family, and poof! It’s the only way you should be able to…” A form of irritation brought Leo upright. “Mikey and I unlocked ours to save Raph. It should be for family. Our family. That fierce protection. That-”

“He unlocked it…” You looked at Donnie.

He was curled into your palm with his eyes screwed shut, looking especially young.

“…saving me?”

Leo clicked his tongue.

Donnie gave a nod that was more of a nuzzle.

“It was wrong.” Leo spoke sharply.

A purple gun appeared in his face long enough for you to watch it cock before Leo realized and a tiny blue portal swallowed it up.

“Enough already! We just did that! You already flipped out so chill!” Leo growled, his eyes still entrenched in a glow.

“Don’t you tell me that saving them was a mistake in any way.” Donnie pulled from you to bare his fangs.

Several cycles of purple and blue cascaded a waterfall around Leo’s features. It painted him haunted before his face broke into true dismay. “I would never.”

The flickering stopped and you didn’t dare look at Donnie.

“How you activated it…” Leo shook his head trying to bury the raw emotion. “Your faith is misplaced. You get granted Hamato rights because you’re a Hamato. Because you believe in one another and how we’re stronger together… You are supposed to believe that you are a part of something larger and that they have you, everything about you. Every single bit. They will do anything for you! You don’t…! You don’t believe any of that!” His eyes rose with tears caught by the pale lights in the room. “That’s why you’re wrong. You tore into a power you shouldn’t have. That’s why you don’t have control. It will never be okay. It will never be yours! It shouldn’t.”

Donnie finally turned inward toward you and there were broken flickers of purple in his gaze like a match trying to light.

You had very little movement, but used what you could to grab his mask and tug.

He came limp and loose into your good shoulder and wilted there, shutting off the light.

Leo grunted about his weakness and did a small pace to recompose himself.

“Leo…” You murmured, petting Donnie with a heavy weight that he accepted.

“Yeah…?” He rounded the edge of the bed.

“That was… What Donnie made was…?”

“Weaponry.” Leo spat. “His power manifested in the same shit he started with. Destruction as always.”

There was a humming vibration of a phone.

Donnie flinched into you.

Leo pulled his device out.

“What’s wrong?” You whispered to Donnie, knowing you couldn’t go low enough to not reach Leo’s tympanum.

“The others…” Donnie rooted closer to you. “… they’ll come now.”

“Why?” You wished you could hold him.

“The flare of ninpo.” Leo answered, tacking something out. “They’re worried. I’ll tell ‘em it’s okay for now. You… I’ll give you this.”

Donnie couldn’t thank him, but he chuffed a sound of acknowledgement.

That seemed enough for Leo.

You felt a depth of what they’d been through without you.

It was huge and weighty and both of them were overtaxed by it.

All because of you.

“Raph said you each had… specialties or something…” You murmured.

Leo stared dully at the blue light from his phone illuminating his face. “Donatello has built guns a million times over. Now he can assemble them without anything, but his mind. Makes sense. A stupid fucked up sense.”

You read the faintest emotion of him.

Fear.

“Leo-”

“I don’t agree, but Mikey has a different theory.” Leo pocketed his phone and his angle entrenched him in darkness. “He doesn’t see a problem with the unlocking because it was done to protect. He thinks the malfunction is tied to Donatello holding back. Something about him not being able to embrace the power because he’s forcing it away like everything else.”

Donnie exhaled revulsion.

“Agreed.” Leo puffed his own.

He did hold back.

You stroked down, tracing towards his concealed mating mark.

Did Donnie disagree because Mikey was on the right track?

He’d come a long way, but he still believed that the person he was with you wasn’t the authentic one.

He’d also said he could never live as himself.

That meant he’d never harness this power.

It loomed overhead, something even more dangerous than his enemies.

“It does… seem connected to your anger.”

You felt both men look at you, but you only watched Donnie.

“From… the little I’ve seen…” You tried to sound sheepish.

Donnie leaned in to rest his beak against your cheek. “You’re correct.”

Leo broke away and walked toward the window.

“And you two have just been…?” You glanced between them. “Together… this whole time?”

The palpable disdain swept through the room.

For a long moment neither spoke.

Donnie seemed the more sturdy of the two for now, sighed to retreat lightly, and adjusted your covers. “Not at first.”

Leo scrubbed his face.

“The initial chain of events went as such: I was…” The moment weighed on Donnie and took his voice.

“Not again…” Leo turned, looking twice as exhausted.

“I can do it.” Donnie pressed, harsh. “Look away.”

Leo bristled with obvious concern.

All you could think was how strange it was.

In such a short amount of time they’d seemingly come so far.

The Leo you knew would have taken every opportunity to barb Donnie.

Your Donnie would never allow the amount of supposed weakness he was currently displaying.

“I can.” Donnie tried again, his voice more even.

Leo said nothing and turned to tuck his head against the wall.

Donnie was slow in taking your face.

A familiar cascade of affection, it coaxed a smile from you and he nosed you lightly before drinking you into a kiss.

“My breath…” You murmured against the chaste press.

“Brushed earlier once the tube was removed and you were up to it.” Donnie caught your lips again and you realized the light brushes were to keep any errant smacks at bay.

“I’ve slept…” You teased him with the lightest nosing though the reach with your neck disturbed the muscles in your shoulder.

“You will learn to lie still.” He spoke with light heat and stole what was an obvious final kiss with a heavier press.

You relented into the pillow and failed to catch a soft sigh.

“That day… After disposing of that miscreant, I was beside myself. You needed more immediate attention then I could possibly… I found your phone. I called… When Leo appeared… I… I passed you off. My inadequacies were…”

“Too much…” You found his hand near yours and squeezed it.

He nodded and nuzzled close. “I let him take you, not more than a step behind, but Michelangelo…”

You tilted your head the slightest amount.

“You were deemed an obvious emergency and taken immediately. That I stood for, but Michelangelo he only…” Donnie paused and took a deep settling breath. “He had been nearby, suddenly saying he could help. Then he disappeared. I… It was an unknown variable. Him alone with you. With his mysticism… I… He hurt you before…”

You studied his eyes closely.

He leaned in to give you a better view, illustrating his gaze was free from purple, before nudging you with his beak. “I was irate to say the least. The staff would not let me warn them. Everyone kept telling me to calm down and then…” He caught himself and with several false starts to give a heady exhale. “Raphael subdued me after I manifested an entire arsenal and nearly leveled the waiting room.”

Leo shook his head against the wall, but you read it less as a disagreement and more of distress at the memory.

“His projections aren’t sturdy enough to dispel mine however. He temporarily knocked me out as the drug was still in my system.” Donnie continued. “When I woke, moments later, I was propped in the waiting room, informed Michelangelo had been returned to the sewer, Raphael was having a few superficial bullet wounds treated, and Leonardo was sat beside me.”

Leo flittered with a faint movement that you found to be his fist nervously tapping near his hip.

“For a while…” Donnie wrangled himself in and pulled away minutely to check your IV. “We sat as such for several hours until Leonardo spoke in regards to our predicament. A repeat of my display would put you at risk. The blue bast-ahem-Leonardo was meant to only be utilized as emergency transport. It was a temporary necessity. However… I was forced to acknowledge there was now more at play.”

Leo’s head tipped up and he looked toward a darkened ceiling corner.

“The staff had no choice but to accept my staying by your side once I was able.” Donnie had a faint smirk to him. “In situations such as those, I am unbothered. What power do they have? Police?” His teeth gleamed around a laugh, but he subdued it. “It was… your ongoing treatment that proved difficult. Not up to my standards. We’d failed to get S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. inside. You required the facilities and providers available here, but…”

Your lips parted and Donnie offered more water for you to sip.

“My threats along with my volatile ninpo made a dangerous combination. Not that they could have kept me away, but I was threatened with several premise bans.”

He let the cup sit comfortably against your side.

“You see, upon our arrival here, each of us displayed our powers meaning the uninitiated were confused. Sure, there is an irritatingly obvious color coding, but what was less evident was the effects. Raphael had smothered my attack so only sick, delusional waiting room patients saw a hallucination at best. No one of importance saw what my ninpo created. This was for the best, but to keep it that way, as the lethality of my manifestations happens to be off putting to some-'' Donnie flicked a quick glance toward Leo in gesture. “-I had to be monitored…” His lip curled. “The others sat with me in rotation. I was unfortunately in need of their attendance in case my ninpo activated. The three traded off, but Leonardo’s ninpo is most suited to safely disarming mine.”

Donnie came close enough that you could lean on him.

“Waiting at your side gave me only time. Slowly, I achieved enough emotional control so as not to create weapons at the slightest provocation, but I am still me. I acted my usual and voiced my overall displeasure with your ongoing unconscious state. These… comments were not appreciated and compounded as I had worn my welcome. On supposed ‘thin ice,’ there was a particular incident where I slipped and allowed a nurse to see one of my manifestations. Thus a final deal was struck.”

Leo felt comfortable enough to turn and watch with a worn expression.

“Leonardo…” Donnie took on a strange expression that bordered appreciation. “… stepped in. He used his connections, status, and manipulation to garner you a better care rotation. In exchange, he was charged with being my full time handler. I was to defer to him in exchange and he put his entire public reputation on the line if only to keep me from actually being kicked out. If only… to allow us...” Donnie carefully cradled your hand. “... to stay together.”

You were overwhelmed.

Suddenly awash, your chest tightened lethally and you sent water works in Leo’s direction.

The blue turtle startled at the emotion and gave a single sharp nod as if it was a normal duty as any other.

“Shh, don’t waste your limited energy on him. Again, not that it would have mattered. Nothing would have kept me from you.” There was a fragility to Donnie’s usual bravado.

You pinched his fingers to translate that you noticed.

He looked away with the faintest noise of frustration.

“That was a week ago.” Donnie murmured.

“Back up some.” You let go of him to point.

Donnie studied you before adjusting his stool with a rolling slide.

It put him more easily in your reach and you tugged his mask up from his beak.

He grunted, annoyed, but allowed it and you revealed the deeper dark bags barely concealed by it.

Trying to betray little, you delicately put Donnie’s mask back in place before gesturing for Leo to come over. “You next.”

Leo walked to his spot on the opposite side where he yanked his mask up, unprompted, for you to see his equally swollen lids with an amused fluttering of his lashes.

“Him-” You threw a thumb back to Donnie as you spoke to Leo. “I expect to not sleep, but you?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time I lost sleep over the jackass.” Leo smirked.

Donnie rolled his eyes.

“He’s up, I’m up.” Leo shrugged and used both hands to get his mask right.

“I would never allow myself disarmed around you.” Donnie growled lightly.

“And you see why neither of us have slept.” Leo’s hands fell away and he cracked you a manic expression like it were an ice cold drink.

“Where was…?” The memory seemed so vague. “Donnie was portalled in… when I woke up.”

“Ah.” Leo nodded, thoughtfully, before sending a smarmy look at Donnie. “Now where were you at, hm?”

Donnie bristled.

Leo pulled his expression slightly, but waited with a cocked ridge of his mask.

Donnie let a canine peek as he turned an acidic expression to you. “I have… scheduled meal breaks.”

Leo wiped a hand over the lower half of his face, no doubt covering a smile.

“A bargain to make you eat…?” You looked over Donnie with knowing affection.

For a split second you saw a swipe of guilt flash over your boyfriend’s face before he settled to a neutral expression. “My choice. An accepted one around. The only agreement was travel.”

“My moment of freedom tainted!” Leo held up a dramatic hand. “Basically, the jam jackass will only go to the cafeteria if I portal him there.” Leo shook his head free of his hand to show his disdain. “Mike or Raph take it from there, but still.”

“My retribution and instantaneous returns.” Donnie sent a lowered lidful of affection toward you.

“I’m not a damn taxi.” Leo grumbled.

You took them both in before you exaggerated a pout.

You then sank deep into your pillow though it made your body ache.

Donnie switched to worry and touched your arm anxiously.

“Leo.”

Donnie twitched with faint annoyance over you ignoring him.

You held out your hand to soothe him.

“Hm?” Leo leaned back, folding his arms.

Donnie took your hand and sulked.

“I get your stupid banter comment now.”

For a beat nothing happened.

Then Leo popped a single snicker before he burst out laughing.

You clucked along with him until the bubbles of comedy clung and irritated your liver.

Donnie pressed your arm to urge you to stop.

You tossed him a smile.

Leo came away, wiping his eye. “Oh man, I’ve lost my mind… That was good. What a call back…!”

“I’m mad I didn’t see you two get close.” You pursed your lips.

“We aren’t.”

There was a certain amount of horror passed between them which Donnie dispelled with a puckered focus on his face.

“Knock it off, bozo!” Leo’s lip curled.

“What are you doing…?” You touched Donnie.

“Trying...” Donnie’s eyes narrowed, willing something with all his might. “… to shoot him between the eyes.”

“You can’t do it on purpose yet and hopefully ever.” Leo sneered.

“If you keep that up he will.” You stared at him dully.

“Pfft.” Leo blew a raspberry. “I’ll just do a little abracadabra and poof, it’s disappeared right before your eyes.” He did a flourish with his hands.

“Hypno would be insulted.” You tilted your head away from the poser.

“Hypno’s a hack!” Leo threw up a hand. “I’ve studied the greats!”

“Since when do you-?” You reared your head. “No… I’m… I’m too injured for this.”

Donnie puffed with a single bubble of laughter and then painted a stoic face as if nothing happened.

“We’re literally right here. This room is dead silent.” Leo shook his head.

“Donnie…” You chewed your lip.

Donnie turned his beak up.

“Seven straight days of this.” Leo threw a hand out to Donnie.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to say!” You tapped your sheet. “I missed it! Donnie, pull up the recordings!”

Donnie’s hackles went up.

Leo put extra shine on a snarky smile.

“You…” You looked between the pair before settling on Leo in awe. “How the hell did you get him to agree to not tape this?”

“You’re on the line. You’re literally the best bargaining chip anyone could ask for!” Leo turned a smile on you that was eerily similar to Donnie’s malevolent one.

They’d spent too much time together.

“Weak spot…” You whispered in spite of yourself.

“Come again?” Leo held up a hand to his tympanum.

“Nothing.” You crooned.

Leo cocked his brow through his mask.

“You have to fill me in on everything.” You demanded from both of them.

Leo opened his mouth with a retort, but a nurse appeared in the doorway with a tapping foot. “Ahem.”

“Maria! If it isn’t the most lovely night nurse this side of Queens!” Leo spun to her in a flourish and seemed to almost manifest sparkles.

She seemed largely unbothered, but you caught the slightest ghosting of pink to her cheeks from the fluorescence in the hall.

“Give ‘em a break. The lovebirds are making up for lost time…” Leo cooed.

She huffed loudly and renewed the fold of her arms. “They and everyone else in the corridor also need sleep.”

“Done.” Donnie spoke.

Leo polished his grin.

She glared openly at Donnie before sending Leo a pointed look. “I’ll check back in fifteen.”

“I’ll be waiting.” Leo gave a little amorous growl and you gagged to Donnie.

His lip wrinkled with a smile that he buried as soon as Leo walked back over.

“Think that’s a pretty good demonstration of how this arrangements been going.” Leo tossed a thumb back to where he’d come from and reverted to what you assumed was his neutral setting.

Donnie stood and fluffed your pillow.

You looked him over affectionately and felt that ever present exhaustion tug at you again.

It was there.

It had been there.

Speaking of it felt like a command and now it threatened to engulf you.

You hated the helpless feeling of it all.

“Just like that.” Leo hummed, cocky.

“Shut up.” You grumbled.

“Finally, someone else can tell him.” Donnie took his seat and assumed what must have been his usual waiting posture.

“Ugh, almost forgot you let him ruin your morality.” Leo made a big show of rolling his eyes.

You had more complaints, but your lids were heavy.

“Get some rest.” Leo blessedly dropped the complaint and took a seat in a far chair.

“We’ll get you home soon.” Donnie took your hand and pressed a careful kiss to it. You made a little sweet sound for him, but your vision of him skewed as you dozed off.

💜NEXT💜

Through every crazy little idea I have, my darling betas are right there with me and I could be more honored to know @tmntxthings and @thepinkpanther83

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afreakingdork · 2 months

Text

Weak Spot - Chapter 58

RotTMNT Donatello x Reader

A rough night captured perfectly in this week's chapter art by @mermmarie

Welp! I've done it again! This chapter was too bodacious for Tumblr so it's only available on Ao3! Sorry, folks~

First 💜 Previous

Read it Now on Ao3

I'm forever thanking my dear betas @tmntxthings and @thepinkpanther83

76 notes · View notes

afreakingdork · 1 month

Text

Weak Spot - Chapter 61

RotTMNT Donatello x Reader

We're hanging on by a thread in this week's chapter art by @mrabubu

Fem!Reader References/Warnings Below Cut

Also available on Ao3

First 💜 Previous

Fem!Reader References/Warnings: hospital stay, vomiting, healing, mental breakdown

You were exhausted by every definition of the word. As long as you were awake there was something there vying for your attention and it left you drained. From healing to tests to visitors, occurrences were all around you. Sleep came in inevitable spurts and felt like your only respite. Consciousness was a thing to be dealt with as much as you wanted otherwise.

Your friends came in pairs.

Your ex-roommate, Coral, had apparently shown up more than once while you were unconscious, but upon seeing you, eyes open for the first time, she burst into her first actual tears. It left the two turtles always in your presence a noticeable speechless as she rushed over, but kept from collapsing onto you. In time though, she was in your bed and regaling you in how she attacked Leo assuming he was the cause. Leo corroborated the story citing how alike the two of you were which then led to Coral finding out about the S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. suit debacle.

She reigned hell down on the blue turtle for even thinking to touch the automaton.

As amused as Donnie was about Leo’s beat down, his own bitterness dictated he bring up how Coral still had beef with his son.

Coral said that was all in the past and Leo was left sputtering on what appeal S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. had to have charmed so many.

All the while, your nervous friend Nelson, who now lived with Coral, was fluffing a bouquet they had brought.

You heard Donnie throw him a comment about foliage and the two talked a quiet distraction as Leo sulked in a corner.

“So… Magic underground city.” Coral said, pushing your cuticles back even though you’d told her multiple times how much you hated it.

“It’s maybe another dimension?” You wanted to yank your hand free, but it would be too much effort.

She slowed, studying your nails. “You’re not going back, right?”

“No, I was already over it, but now…?” You sighed.

“Never.” Donnie cut through both conversations with bitterness.

“Good call.” Coral pointed to him without looking. “Sucks about your library though.”

“Library…?” Leo didn’t glance over as his phone was now in hand.

Donnie’s gaze pointedly narrowed where Nelson could see it.

Your nervous friend tilted his head with concern.

Leo heard the silence and it pulled his gaze. “The mystic library?”

“Leo…” You warned.

“If there’s a detail left out that can help the investigation…” Leo pressed back, sitting upright.

“It’s not related.” You decided.

“How would you know?” Leo bristled.

“Can you not bitch about Y/N’s memory loss? I’d suppress the thing too, damn!” Coral hissed.

“Sorry, I’m trying to cover my bases and make sure there isn’t a larger plot to kill them.” Leo mimicked her tone.

She glowered.

Donnie exhaled quietly.

Nelson gave him a sad smile.

Donnie took it with a slight nod.

You knew Nelson knew as much as Leo, but even he could sense the line.

“Them.” Coral spoke around her tongue. “Going soft, blueberry? Don’t you and grapes over here have mega beef?”

Leo was on his feet with furious eyes, but he stayed rooted in place.

Coral only cocked a waiting brow at him.

Leo’s gaze narrowed.

Her smile grew.

“Why don’t you talk motive then, detective sea rocks?” Leo walked over, gearing up for a challenge on the way.

“Omigosh, I’ve never heard that one before.” Coral feigned a gasp behind a hand before tucking an arm around you to appear more casual. “I’ll bite.”

“Please.” Leo pulled up a stool and took the position of the Thinker.

“We got vacation gone wrong and a jealous ex.” Coral shrugged as if that were obvious.

Donnie reared.

Nelson held up anxious hands.

Leo bit down on a bark of laughter. “Ex, huh?”

“Oh yeah, this has crime of passion written all over it.” Coral pointed at your bandages. “Don’t you think?” She lolled her head toward you.

You weighed your response before looking at your boyfriend. “Donnie’s never mentioned one.”

Donnie shot Coral specifically, an embittered look. “At best, the yokai in question was marked in my database simply because they were part of the police department. I have no greater notes and no further ties.”

“Knew you read turbo virgin.” Coral lowered her lids as if Donnie had walked right into her trap.

He only stared back.

Leo lasted one entire second before he began to cackle so hard it spun his chair.

It stung, but you knocked your head against Coral’s.

“Hey!” She squawked, more for your sake.

“Leave him alone.” You switched your grip as fast as you could and dug your nail into her nail bed.

“Ouch!! What the fuck!?”

“Yeah, it hurts!” You sent her your disdain.

She sent her own.

“Y/N’s injured…” Nelson felt the need to remind the room.

Coral ignored him and left her hand in yours. “It has to be something like that though. To drug ‘em both, but only hurt Y/N. From what you described, it sounds like they wanted Donnie to watch.”

“Not my name.” Donnie grumbled.

“I got you multiple birthday presents, I’ll call you whatever I want.” Coral smoothed out her fingertips to yours.

You could feel Leo picking up the tidbits of closeness and how it rendered him further confused.

“Evidence schmevidence.” Coral continued. “They had a hard on for purple.”

Leo tapped his stool. “Nothing we don’t already know.”

“How long was he on the force?” Coral was far more careful in examining the hand on your injured arm.

“Twenty three years.” Donnie replied.

“Yeah, that doesn’t mean anything to me.” She skimmed your digits. “How’s that fall into your timeline?”

“Coral, Leo’s here.” You sighed.

“So? Hey, blue balls, do you not know Plankton's backstory or what?” She didn’t look up.

Leo made a confused face at the nickname.

“You don’t know the back story.” You reminded her with a dull stare.

“I know some!” She huffed, proud. “Apparently more than pepper face.”

“I have two brothers. You aren’t coming up with an insult I haven’t already heard.” Leo seemed both amused and not.

Coral shined him an all too wide grin.

Donnie was caught in thought. “Records indicate he became a beat cop around the time I became official.”

You leaned your head on Coral’s shoulder.

She laid hers on top. “Official how? He must have met you then.”

Donnie either felt lonely or sensitive because he crept up to your side. “I have no such memory.”

You held out a hand for him and he took it.

“How old are you?” Leo looked at Donnie, tepidly.

“Vivisection placed me at approximately 35.” Donnie responded, keeping his gaze to your hold.

Leo made a disgruntled noise.

“Vivi…” Coral mouthed before the word sank in. “Who cut you open?!”

Donnie didn’t budge.

Coral checked with you, but you tucked your head away.

“He cut himself open.” Leo spoke with knowing disdain.

“How would you know!?” Coral glanced at him.

“I don’t, but I do. Look at how they just reacted.” Leo threw a hand up to gesture to you. “Besides, he used to always do fucked up shit to his body. I’m surprised he isn’t the one bed ridden.”

“Shame you’re so imprecise with that blade you supposedly trained your life with.” Donnie turned up hatred.

Leo’s body rose with a current of surprise and rage.

Nelson wandered into the line of fire. “U-uh w-we were talking about the common enemy!”

“You’re gonna get yourself killed. You have no sense of self perseveration, I swear. Nels, come here, stupid.” Coral removed herself from you and held out a hand.

Nelson resisted and stayed firmly in place between Donnie and Leo.

“Nels!” Coral growled.

The man in question shook his head.

Donnie stepped in closer behind him. “As good a time as ever for you to finally admit why you spared me that day.”

Leo didn’t break eye contact, but there was something unstable about him.

You didn’t know what Donnie was talking about.

“Y/N…” Coral pleaded with you.

You could barely hear her. “Donnie?”

Donnie laid a hand on Nelson’s shoulder.

You took it as an indication that he’d be safe.

Coral went to move.

Leo blocked her with a raised hand.

Her shoulders hunched, ready to strike if need be.

“You were eleven or twelve when you became an official villain.” Leo finally spoke and the entire moment disengaged.

No collective sigh had, the humans in the room wilted.

“Same as me.” Leo mumbled out the side of his mouth.

“Approximately.” Donnie steered Nelson back towards the bouquet.

“The yokai was six times your age.” Leo spoke his thoughts.

“Gross.” Coral chanced, still shaken.

You nudged her lightly and she spared you a downtrodden look.

Leo nodded. “Surprised a newbie cop survived… Especially one that failed to get on the force three times.”

You felt a pinch in your head and looked toward your water cup.

Nelson was closer and got it before Donnie could.

You thanked him quietly and drank.

“Why’s that?” Coral ventured.

“Someone almost single handedly wiped out the force.” Leo bobbed his head toward Donnie without looking.

“At twelve…?” Coral looked at Donnie then you.

You had no defense.

You kept your eyes down.

“Not so fun galavanting with a murderer.” Leo barely kept a sneer in line. “Who doesn’t know enough now?”

“Leo, shut the fuck up.” You spat bile.

Leo only snorted and folded his arms.

He closed himself off.

For a long moment there was quiet.

Then Coral picked at your blanket. “Antelope lived…”

You were the only one to look.

“The bastard.” Her eye was on your covered body. “Obsessed with becoming a cop means he’s prone to going all in. Who’s to say he didn’t get high off living through an encounter with the demon child?”

Donnie’s eye darted as he connected the dots.

Your head hurt.

This was hitting the limits of your interactions.

You also had physical therapy scheduled soon.

You were about to mention it when Leo piped up. “His family all worked city jobs. If you fold in the mystic library, however it fits, then he’s obsessed with some duty to the city.”

In a sudden slam of your skull you had a vague thought about sacred spaces before your stomach churned.

As if socked, you hunched forward on a gag. “Gonna vomit…!”

Coral was out of the bed and Donnie was around you with a pan. “I’ve got you. Let it out.”

You gagged and spit as he rubbed your back.

“That’s enough.” Leo spoke softly. “Visiting hours are over.”

“Y/N…” Coral mumbled.

“It’s…” You choked.

“Y/N is alright. You’ll come back?” Donnie asked for you.

“Of course… Don’t worry.” Coral headed towards the door. “Nels, seriously this time.”

“Yeah…” Nelson maneuvered around Donnie and shot Leo a vicious warning look as he passed that only you and the receiver seemed to see.

Leo was scorned as the two parted with apologies and goodbyes.

With nothing coming up from the nausea wave, you eventually laid back and cursed to the dead air of the room.

Heading home after a month in the hospital was tainted by what you now thought of as your chaperone. It didn’t matter that you had been in a coma for three of those weeks, but in the hospital it had felt like one thing; Leo was there as an added pair of hands when you were at your worst. He gave Donnie a break when caring for you which you were endlessly thankful for. His mischievous side paired with his convenient powers meant you had all the contraband you could ask for from anywhere in any world. He also had a command over nearly the entire staff and, just as Donnie alluded to, you couldn’t help but notice that your hospital stay had been a positive one because of it.

In your own home though, he felt like a freeloader.

Leo was no longer as useful with no one to manipulate and he had a clear fear of touching anything in your place. His entire being was now closed up and often placed in parts of the apartment that he deemed safe. While he never said it aloud, the dart of his eye and paranoia you had learned of him spoke to how painfully aware he was of the cameras monitoring his every move. This was compounded by S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N., a walking manifestation of a bug in Leo’s eyes, who stopped by routinely to drop off supplies. Your son was an antagonist whether he realized it or not and he pressed Leo whenever he had the chance because he deemed it fun. You loved the automaton dearly, but his rambunctious nature meant his visits were shortened. Donnie couldn’t mediate and you were left missing his smaller form to sleep with as the best sentient heating pad on the market.

S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N.’s human sized form had already been enough of a shock to Leo, so you assumed it had been decided that any more information about your son was to be kept under lock and key.

It was something you had to surmise as several decisions had been made without you. You might have found a way to ask, but guilt was eating away at Donnie for his failings already. He had to bury enough in front of his foe, because of his ninpo, and on top of being your caregiver, which meant he looked ready to keel over. You wanted to support him, but you yourself were still casted for at least another month. The spica had been your nightmare and even though you could technically walk with crutches, the threat of the plaster breaking at your hips, as you had been warned, hovered over you like a blight.

You had been assigned an in-home physical therapy.

Another invader in your home, she was kind, but she was yet another thing to think about and another barrier for Donnie to mentally navigate.

There were also the other turtles. Leo had been forced to essentially move in, which meant Mikey and Raph made excuses to drop by. It was clear their nerves were frayed over their brother’s new housing situation as it was, to them, in a lion’s den. Though each man was independent, there was a clear separation anxiety if only because of trauma. It just so happened that the source of all that was themselves and your boyfriend. It showed on all four turtles faces that this situation was progressing for too long and you were the cause.

You didn’t feel at fault.

You wished your body would heal faster and Mikey had offered to hit you with more mysticism, but having talked to the youngest had revealed the many side effects that could have taken place which put Donnie’s waiting room arsenal into perspective.

You’d told him no, that you would do this the old fashioned way, and in classic Mikey fashion, he had already moved onto the next thing.

You wished you could too.

While your assailant was no longer alive, it had been upsetting to find that the investigation had been one closed for lack of evidence. They Hidden City considered it open and shut without further motive. You weren’t sure if you were afraid of another attack stemming or in general, but anxiety took up the very little left of your sanity. You were back to near chase level concerns and it was the only way you were glad the apartment was never empty. You avoided windows and doors, but being in your own bed helped to an extent.

Heal.

You just needed to heal.

Then process.

There was a mountain of feelings to process.

If it wasn’t you, it was Donnie.

If it wasn’t Donnie, it was Leo.

If it wasn’t Leo, it was the other turtles.

Then your friends.

Then your job.

Then, everything.

One total week of your new homebound hell and you’d hobbled over to the kitchen by request of your therapist. You tried not to cry as you looked up at the cabinet that held cups. There were so many things you needed to do in order to free up a hand to reach them. It had already been an aggravating stepwise process just to get over here and having to wrangle your crutches away and back once again zapped the rest of your energy. A psychic collapsing, you were on the verge of tears for nothing and you wilted right there against your own counter.

The barest sound, not even a snivel, summoned the two men.

“Y/N?”

“Hey, you good?”

There was no escape.

No where you could even cry in peace.

Not here.

Not in the bathroom.

You could yell.

You had yelled.

You’d snapped at Donnie more than once.

The ugly side of healing, your frustrations with yourself leaked out and leeched up at those around you.

For Donnie, he took everything in a careful stride. He knew you didn’t mean it and gave you space while he was still just within reach. It still affected him, however. He’d paper mached himself into a pasted shell, but the cracks were evident. No matter how many layers he put on to hide it, pieces like that weren’t meant to be jostled. If you could have kept it in, then he wouldn’t be cracked.

You also couldn’t discuss this as there were prying tympanum.

For those reasons, Leo became your target.

You hated that.

He accepted it all too easily.It felt wrong in how calmly he’d take the barrage.He wasn’t like Donnie where he understood why you were lashing out. With Leo, it almost felt like he’d been waiting his whole life for the punishment. It spoke of many things, all too haunting and not yours to deal with. As much as he’d stomped into your life, you couldn’t help, but grow a certain fond of him. He’d helped you, he helped your mate, and he did it all after he and the ones he loved most had been terrorized for almost two decades.

Tears ran currents down your cheeks and you huffed feeling the pain of crying.

The scar tissue around your liver sat like a rock in your abdomen.

Your shoulder muscles ached near constantly.

The healed line along your ribs was taunt skin that tugged if you bent at any angle.

The damn cast sat unrelenting around your hips and deadened everything.

You choked a sob and you sensed both men flanking you.

“What’s wrong?”

“Does something hurt?”

You only shook your head.

Irrational.

Was that the right word?

No, you had justification.

It still sucked.

“Leo!” You quacked out against the barrage.

You could tell the men apart without looking and turned to your right where he was standing with a certain amount of surprise. “Yeah?”

“I need… I need time with Donnie. Can you… go do something, I don’t know… Just for a while?” You hadn’t meant for the water works to sway him, but you felt how messed up your face was when you sent your plea.

It snapped Leo’s expression shut, but there was a haunted quality to his eyes.

You knew that.

You knew your messy emotions were a threat to Donnie’s ninpo.

You just wanted some damn time to grieve with your partner.

You hadn’t had a single real moment alone with him.

All of this thankfully seemed to translate because Leo eventually gave a curt nod. “Sure. I’ll go… out, I guess. Just for a bit, but you message me if anything, anything, happens.”

You agreed and watched him go.

You waited until the door clicked shut before turning on Donnie.

He wrapped you up in his arms the best he could and brought you close.

Was this the first real hug you’d gotten from him since leaving the hospital?

You despised that.

“It’s too much!” You were forced to give the emotions voice.

Donnie nodded into your head.

“I miss you! I hate this. I can’t…!” You rooted into his sweater.

He continued to rhythmically concur.

“And you…!” You pulled back and he loosened to give you space to.

Your hands sat useless against his plastron.

Having to keep your crutches to your body meant you could reach even less of him.

You were too addled to press him and he wouldn’t allow his emotional veneer to fall.

It was a new one that you loathed.

It was different from the one he used in public for safety.

This one clung to him sickly and all the time.

It was the one that kept his powers at bay.

Shut and locked away, your watery eyes morphed his expression.

It was selfish to think he’d cry along with you, but you wanted him to so badly.

You wanted him to be able to express his own anguish.

You knew it was there.

Trapped along with everything else.

“You…” You wilted against him.

He held your pieces together.

“I miss you…”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t-!” You banged his plastron.

He did nothing.

“Don’t… do that.”

He was at a loss.

“You had to. I wouldn’t be here otherwise…” You pressed your forehead just above his pectoral scutes. “You saved me. Full stop, no cost.”

“Leonard-”

“Leo nothing!” You came up glaring. “You saved me! I’m talking about you!”

His face sat neutral.

Throwing your weight against him to steady yourself, you released both your crutches to grab at his head, unencumbered. He caught your waist for balance and you used his distraction to pinch and pull his cheeks as far apart as you could. His teeth appeared stretched and he made the faintest noise of discomfort.

“You can’t even churr…” You let go and did nothing to soothe what you knew stung.

You watched his lip move as he tried to conjure something, but nothing came so he sent a metered sad gaze down at you.

“You can’t…” A few more tears loosed. “You can’t anything…”

“Y/N…”

“I can’t help you. I can’t do anything. This all-!” You nearly bit your lip and huffed to let it quiver.

Donnie nodded, the strain showing in lines on his face. “My research is coming up bare.”

“Yeah?” You leaned in close, having figured he was up to something like that, but you hadn’t had a chance to really talk.

“It seems the rat destroyed the surviving Hamato documents in a fit of letting his sons free the shackles of their destiny.” You could tell saying the sentence alone almost made Donnie vomit.

You couldn’t lean up, but you tilted your head and he came down enough to accept a peck to the cheek.

“The rest are cagey about details.”

You ran your hands along his arms. “I guess that makes sense; if they don’t teach you then you can’t use it against them.”

“But we’re inexplicably tied because of it.” Donnie’s brow furrowed.

“You’re too dangerous to leave alone.” You sighed at the conundrum.

“Contained for so long…” He had a haunted edge to his eye. “It’s as though it aggravated the ninpo’s release. It doesn’t feel as though I can be put back within the tomb of my body. It flows violent and endless… Illustrative of me… I suppose.”

You squeezed him.

“S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. and I are scrounging for records. Ninpo differs heavily from mysticism. It’s far more powerful, but it’s…” Donnie sneered. “Nonsensical. You get it by trusting family? Why? The blue bastard mentioned saving the red rube, but he’d done that dozens of times prior to whenever they unlocked it.”

“Right…” The memory dawned on you. “You saw them before like they were and then they suddenly had powers.”

“They even changed outfits.” Donnie stuck his tongue out the slightest bit.

You felt your spirits raise with how cute the action was.

He noticed and sucked the pink bit back in.

You accentuated the purse of your lip.

He mentally chewed for a moment before darting down and licking your cheek.

You squeaked and giggled into him.

He relented for a few kisses before pulling away.

You hadn’t dared test it and the mood was terrible with Leo around, but you knew Donnie was worried what even the most innocent of romantic thoughts would do to his ninpo. The most touch you’d dared was when you’d have to me moved or stabilized. He relegated the work to his hands so it came as a shock a few days ago, when you’d given up after being unable to change your own shirt due to a muscle spasm. Donnie’s body had pressed yours while he helped you and the heat there felt like something new.

Your mind was pained by the deficit, but your body had forgotten so quickly.

You cuddled close to him and, for a moment, felt those thoughts were unwarranted; he was always here. “Not everyone can nail their suit on the first try.”

“I made a few upgrades over the years, but style wise…?” He let the sentence hang.

“Spooky.” You peeked up at him.

“You think I’m spooky?” He leaned down with a faint leer.

You nodded and kissed the tip of his beak.

“The stalemate stands, but it seems there’s been improvement?” He murmured, hovering close.

“With you, me, or them?” Again, you felt the weight of the many thoughts crushing you, but this time you felt them held mutually with your boyfriend.

“Me…” He had a starting edge. “This…” He tried again. “We haven’t gotten a moment like this.”

“It seems alright…?” You tested him by swiping an all too light finger along the side of his neck.

His eyes shut and he gave the faintest shiver.

Your finger danced at his collar.

His lids lifted and showed his clear gaze. “I would say so.”

You smiled into him.

He took a longing press from your lips before he came away with a chuff. “Your improvement isn’t linear, but is obviously occurring. That’s as to be expected and as for… them, we continue regardless of their existence.”

You felt a similar lightness in him and chased it with a nipping kiss.

He allowed himself to languish in it.

Reassurances.

Hadn’t you both agreed long, long ago that those were necessary?

“How long do we have before I need to finish my homework and walk back across the apartment?” You glanced at your fallen crutches and back to him.

He had the faintest little smirk and curled around you under the guise of gathering your sticks for you.

“Ten more…”

Pulling at the resistance band, you rattled with a whine as you didn’t think you’d make it.

Across from you, your physical therapist was standing close and you despised the thin layer of sweat coating your body. It was so little effort to have taxed you this much. She also could undoubtedly smell the BO. The worst of which had to be the cast which was building odor from the lengthy use. Having been in it for almost two months, it made sense, but it was yet another reason to despise the damn thing. Donnie and Leo had yet to say anything, but you could tell by the way they turned their beaks that the pungent odor was worse for them.

Humiliation on top of misery caused you to rush the last six reps.

“Woah, woah. We gotta go slow to build that muscle…” The physical therapist caught you immediately.

“Just a… second…” You wheezed.

She traded you a bottle of water and held the band as you drank it down greedily.

Nearby Donnie stood with an arm crossed against his torso and a hand covering the bottom half of his face.

As you came away panting from labor and oxygen deprivation from drinking too much water, you knew that to be his PT position. He assumed it in every session you’d had so far as he wasn’t allowed to be present for the ones in the hospital. You wanted to ask why he always appeared the same, but you hadn’t been able to. A literal workout, you only wanted to wash up and then bury the exhaustion afterward. By the time you were back to the barest energy levels, you tabled it because another session was the last thing you wanted to ruminate on. During, however, you’d see him and wonder.

Was he holding himself back?

Was it hard to watch you struggle?

Did he want to help?

He never once interfered or made a noise. He kept his distance unless coaxed, which would sometimes happen if the physical therapist needed to demonstrate how to do your homework-type exercises. She was only scheduled to come by three times a week so you were expected to continue even when she wasn’t around. He took that job with a severity and was a menace about you having exactly the right posture to maximize healing. You knew beside his search to control his ninpo, he’d been studying everything there was to know about your particular injuries, but neither field seemed to be progressing.

Leo, on the other hand, almost always used your sessions to nap. You were sure he was worried in the beginning. He probably thought Donnie would fly off the handle at seeing you taxed, but instead Donnie stood as an intent observer. Seeing that to be the case, Leo took these moments as time off. Never a guest, Leo had fallen into a fixture-like role in your home over the course of two and a half weeks. It never felt like he truly moved in, though he rarely ever left, which made him almost an odd lamp you wished you could toss out. The couch was where he frequented and you assumed he was hidden there where you couldn’t see. His break while you busted your butt stung worse than Donnie’s hovering. It’s not like you wanted him around while you worked out, but him acting like these moments were vacations made you want to snap the resistance band in his face.

Even if it sometimes felt like it, neither man looked down at you.

You could do this and it was the only other thing you thought Donnie might be thinking. As much faith as you had in him, he had equal droves for you. If he was watching to see each sweat droplet marking your progress, it filled your chest with pride. Even when you failed to complete a full set, your physical therapist still congratulated you and marked each time you were able to go even the tiniest bit farther. Donnie knowing and being there to see each time you improved helped your resolve. You’d push past this because you wanted to. He was there to see it and you’d show him exactly what kind of resolve his mate had in the face of adversity.

You really needed to confirm how he felt.

For now, unfortunately, you shared a readied look with your trainer and they nodded, setting you back up to continue. “You’ve got this.”

“Yeah…” You stretched out the phrase and put tension on the band.

A purple light lit up somewhere behind you.

Three occupants of the apartment shot to look with rigid fear as the fourth casually turned.

Donnie’s computer was glowing at maximum strength and S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N.’s little icon was jumping up and down on screen.

“That’s cute…” The physical therapist chuckled. “Did you download that?”

“Ah-ha… yeah…” That wasn’t exactly a lie, but you were still sweating over thinking Donnie had manifested a legion of artillery.

Donnie was in furious motion.

A small smile slipped on your lips as he was sure to scold S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. for scaring everyone even though he’d be careful in his wording to not admit that was the case.

What was curious was Leo scurrying around the corner and into the bedroom.

He had a nervous twitch to his brow and it took you an exhausted second too long to realize it was because he was running from S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. It prompted a new kind of grin that Leo pointedly ignored.

“Hey, Lucinda, what’s shaking?” Leo played it cool and offered a fist bump.

Your physical therapist met it casually. “Oh, you know me now? Finally done ignoring me?”

“Not ignoring…” Leo leaned to one side and snapped a playful gaze right back. “It’s business. I’m on the job. Gotta act all tough and serious, you know!” He tucked his hands into his pockets and bobbed his broad shoulders.

“Uh huh.” She didn’t seem to believe it for a second and gestured for you to keep going.

You did exactly one rep before you had to stop. “Okay… no… You two know each other?”

“Oh yeah.” Lucinda said it like it was some kind of big thing.

“We go way back.” Leo joked the same way.

You stared on, unamused by the show.

Lucinda broke into a smile. “Fine, Leo here once forced his way into my old office to train.”

“Forced is a strong word…” Leo’s eyes rolled in a way that said he was avoiding guilt.

“He pretended to be an injured patient and then pelted us with a thousand questions until my boss got wind and yelled at him.” She clarified.

Leo made a sheepish high pitched noise that whittled down to a nervous chuckle. “I did get hired on though.”

“How’s Mikey?” Lucinda tapped your band.

You took a deep breath and went through your last reps.

“Good. He regained nearly all motor function, but he hasn’t quit the health nut bit.” Leo watched you with a trainer’s eye.

“I haven’t talked to him in a few years, but it was no joke. He was always onto some cutting edge stuff.” She seemed amused.

“You don’t live with him.” Leo huffed.

“You’re too hard on your family.”

“You know us Hamatos.” Leo banged his chest once to accentuate his tough plastron.

She sent him an arched brow that said she didn’t appreciate the joke.

Leo shined her a bright grin.

You drank a bit more from your bottle and let the pieces fall into place. “Mikey’s hands…”

The other two perked up.

“I thought this was a job?” Lucinda sent a suspicious glare towards Leo.

Leo pointedly looked away. “You know Mikey!”

“Cause Mikey gets around, right?” Her sarcasm cut thick and felt like a stark contrast to the concise person she was at work.

Leo laughed nervously before turning a wild gaze to you. “You know Luci here went into PT because she was a bully!?”

“Now, hold on!” She shot to her feet.

That spelt the truth for you and while you still wanted other answers, you were amused by their display.

“Yeah! She has a thing for making people hurt and figured this was the field to go in!” Leo cackled.

She had to jump, but she pinched his cheek and dragged him right down to her eye level. “In front of my patient!? Nu-uh!”

Leo couldn’t help, but laugh and you joined.

“If you know him, then you know he lies through his teeth.” Lucinda released him and dusted her hands.

“He’s always working an angle.” You remarked.

“Yes!” She pointed at you with a grin. “If he wasn’t a hero, he’d be a total grifter!”

“What’s that old bit? Selling stolen VCRs?” You mused.

“Yes!” She reached out and patted your good arm in appreciation.

“How old do you think I am?!” Leo looked between you two.

“Considering I just found out a little more than a month ago…?” You pretended to wonder.

“Month?!” Lucinda rounded on Leo again. “What is the deal here?”

“Yeah, Leo? What’s the deal?” You spread a grin on thick.

Leo held up his hands and his brow came down in irritation. “Come on… You don’t need to gang up on me!”

“Then explain! I’m not trying to assume anything, but it’s hard not to notice my patient’s partner is also green.” Lucinda folded her arms to wait.

You blinked once as the connection hit you.

The news knew Donnie as a masked villain from the turtle’s rogue’s gallery.

The truth was far more complicated.

You wondered if Leo had ever dealt with this before.

“You know what they say about assuming?” Leo had a stark edge.

You knew the joke, but his serious attitude just barely threw Lucinda off as she said, “No…?”

“They make an ass out of you and me.” Leo didn’t let up his serious nature as he clapped a hand to her shoulder.

It took exactly one second for the joke to hit her and she shoved him. “Ugh, I hate you!”

“She’s mad she couldn’t hurt me because I don’t have a poppable spine.” Leo held up a hand as if telling you a secret.

“Would you-!?” She swatted at him and he easily dodged while he continued to laugh.

“You know…” You did your own solemn positing.

Lucinda stiffened.

“You haven’t denied anything he’s said about you…” You marked the end of your sentence with a jeering grin.

Her lips flattened out into a caught line and it was her turn to assuage guilt. “That’s-! I mean-!

You pretended to wait.

“Fine!” She wilted. “I’m not a bad guy though! It’s my dad! He always had me walking on his back or pulling his arms and stuff as a kid! I loved the sound! So I might have bugged my friends and got a reputation for being the resident finger popper! Look how it turned out! All’s good at the end of the day!”

You gave her an affectionate smile. “That’s cute actually.”

“No, it’s not!” Leo bellowed and then openly shivered. “You two can’t hear just how loud those sounds are! There’s a fizz almost like soda between the joints! Eugh!!”

“And my boss wonders why you didn’t stay on…” Lucinda shook her head.

“That’s not why-!” Leo bit with a lighthearted edge.

“Why did you…?” The question leaked out from you even though it meant you interrupted.

The pair looked at you before Lucinda turned with a look that said she knew her story had been shared and thought she deserved to reveal something of her own. “I don’t know how close you are, so he might try to argue, but he hopped on to help his baby bro out at like 18ish. You still had a baby face then.” She turned to coo at Leo.

He sneered.

“He was real cagey about it, I just mentioned his whole fake spiel, but the boss took pity on him and hired him to clean up so he could unofficially work on the job.” Lucinda continued and bumped Leo to show she was doing it in good will.

He took it with a sigh.

“Those cracks on Mikey’s arms?” You asked before another thought hit you. “The tear in space time…”

“The what?” That was news to Lucinda.

“Hup-hup-hup!” Leo’s hands waved viciously between you and during the flurry he sent you a look that said you were right, but you needed to drop it.

“You know!” You quacked. “Because they look like the time rifts in movies!”

Lucinda evaluated both of you evenly before she gave a slow nod. “Yeah, they kinda do… Anyway, Mikey was a rough case. Terrible loss in coordination, muscle tearing, spasms… I really felt for him. The whole office did once Leo finally brought him around.”

Leo turned his head, oddly not liking this spotlight.

You studied him as he usually seemed more like one to preen.

“His recovery was… amazing.” Lucinda moved on. “Mikey was so motivated. He ended up always lifting spirits at the office.”

“He does group therapy now.” You offered.

“Of course he does.” Lucinda gave a smile that said she didn’t know it, but wholeheartedly believed. “Great kid. Both of you.” She slugged Leo affectionately.

“Yeah, yeah…” Leo brushed her off with a sly smile.

“Your turn.” Lucinda pointed at you.

“Next set?” You pulled the band up, ready.

“No, why this is all hush hush?” She gestured around.

Leo shifted, trying to cover how uncomfortable he was.

You kept your eye on him.

You guessed you didn’t blame him for still thinking the worst of you.

You weren’t his biggest fan, but he’d come through for you and Donnie in a major way.

In this instance, you couldn’t imagine throwing him under the bus. “Hero business.” You gestured down your half wrapped body. “He got sucked into dealing with my attack.”

“You were…!” Lucinda trailed off as she caught herself. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t my place…”

“It’s okay. You’ve been amazing. You’re really good at your job.” You meant every word.

She smiled with a tinge or relief.

Leo was looking at you in a similar way.

Donnie made a small noise.

You all turned towards him.

He coolly glanced between the group before landing on Lucinda. “Something urgent has come up. I need to step out for a moment.”

“Sure. We got this. Right, Y/N?” She turned to you.

You were about to respond affirmatively when Leo cut in.

“What.” Leo’s flat tone held accusation instead of question.

Donnie only flicked him a glance.

“Donatello…” Leo spoke weighty, painfully aware of the company.

“I’ll be nearby.” Donnie relented that much before looking at you.

With no indication on his facial features, you saw in his eyes that this was something wholly necessary and had to do with his ninpo research.

You turned to Leo and hoped you betrayed as little as Donnie. “You still remember how to do this, Leo?”

He resisted looking away from Donnie before his eyes fell to you and the resistance band in your hand.

“Sure.” There was a tart quality to his voice before he reached for the rubber. “Sure, yeah. I use these to warm up at the gym.”

Donnie gave you one last look that had a tinge of longing before he departed.

Leo demonstrated stretching the band behind his back and Lucinda pushed you to try the as of yet attempted advanced maneuver. It pinched your shoulder, but she held your arm, ready and testing, to make sure you could execute safely. You manage three tugs before you wilted in pain and she passed you a cloth to dab your sweat.

“Amazing. Seriously. You’re really working hard and I can tell you aren’t skimping when I’m not around.” She soothed you.

You hummed a sort of laugh into the towel. “The walks around the apartment suck the most.”

“Oof when we get you out of the cast and onto the bars?” She sympathized.

You groaned lightly until a chirpy ringtone went off.

You pulled your towel down to find Lucinda making a tight face and looking at a phone in her hand. “I apologize. I don’t normally take calls while working, but…”

Her eyes were glued to her screen and you sensed a problem. “Go ahead.”

“Thanks.” She answered. “Hello?”

You watched her walk into the living room and sank where you were propped at the edge of the bed.

Leo was looking to the side as if he could see through the walls to where Donnie had gone.

“He’ll be right back.” You tried to calm him.

Leo said nothing and slipped his hands into his pockets as he waited.

Lucinda’s voice grew worried and both of you were soon trying your best not to pry as she came over with a fit waging on her features. “Y/N, I’m so sorry. I’m going to have to cut today’s treatment short. Something… I need to-”

“Everything okay?” Leo turned, his eyes examining.

“My mom fell. She’s already at the hospital and they say she’s stable, but I need to go.”

“Go, go.” You urged. “I’ll work through what we’ve done before.”

“Thank you. Hold onto the equipment. We’ll pick up with your session in two days.” She went for her bag nearby. “Actually, Leo can lead. Leo try some passive internal rotations and elbow extensions if possible. Otherwise, cool down.”

“You got it, boss.” Leo snapped his finger into pointing at her. “I’m sure your mom’s tough, she raised a bully after all.”

Lucinda snorted and waved him off with additional goodbyes as she left.

For a moment you both sat in silence.

“So... Passive… what now...?” You tried the air.

Now having his worries double, Leo looked at you with a waning expression before he wadded up the band. “Okay, we’re seriously doing this. Uh… Let’s see…”

“Why’d you say it like that?” You held a confused look and reached for the band.

“Maybe because I haven’t done PT in years?” He mirrored you and slapped your hand away.

“Hey!”

“So passive internal rotations work your supraspinatus…” He circled as if looking for something. “We need something long. Hey, do you have his stupid stick?”

“Are you joking right now?” You gave him a dull stare.

“No. It’ll work really well for this.” Leo approached you with an even temper.

“He keeps his bo on him.” You shook your head lightly.

“Damn.” Leo folded his hands on his hips. “The band is too stretchy. How about a big ruler?”

“Leo.”

“What’s it called? A yard stick?” Leo again did a little turn. “What else would be straight…?”

“Leo.”

“We could skip it for elbow extensions, but those are tougher…” He gave a weighty sigh, his eyes still moving.

“Hey.”

“Maybe we could sneak a curtain rod? There’s enough of them…” He looked past you to glare at the layers behind you on the windows.

He didn’t seem to hear you.

“Or this… thing?” He gestured to the canopy where the drapes were temporarily pinned out of the way.

He apparently also couldn’t remember he could portal to get anything he needed.

“It’s too clean!” Leo took a step that you clocked as nervous. “There’s stuff, but this place is…”

You tilted your head, studying him more carefully.

Like a slow cropping of data, you saw him piece by piece.

The barely there worried crease of his brow.

The way his lips kept parting the slightest amount.

The constant rove of his pupil.

His entire body was one twitch away from spasming.

“Leonardo.”

You watched the jolt happen in real time before he looked at you.

His gaze betrayed him.

It wasn’t that you called to him, it was how.

That was how Donnie said his name.

It made sense and you felt your expression sadden.

There it was again.

Everything was too much and you’d missed something so obvious.

It was like Leo though, you thought, to be the best at bearing the burden. Similar to how he accepted when you lashed out, it was his curse brought upon himself as you’d always seen it. He took his duty as his life and the current of which was basically cohabiting with the person who he considered had ruined it. His paranoia hadn’t evaporated just because he’d seen a new side of Donnie, he’d simply saddled up with his biggest fear so long that he’d grown a certain amount of numb to it.

He was also clearly entrenched in a never ending panic attack and his little naps during your physical therapy took a new light.

Donnie hadn’t been sleeping at night, but he had the dual excuse of fearing for his ninpo slipping in his sleep.

Leo had to keep one eye open from the couch.

“Why’d you…” He had almost a laugh to him though it was soaked in a certain level of misery he couldn’t keep out of his voice. “… say it like that?”

“I’ve been trying to get your attention for a while.” You couldn’t move so you reached for him.

He only looked at your hand and twisted the resistance band up between his own.

It acted as a shield.

He had to keep his barrier.

“Leo… Do you need a sec-?”

“Elbow extensions!” He cut in, his eyes wild and unfocused. “Okay so let’s see how high you can reach!”

At this rate he was going to break.

Something was making this worse.

What was it?

Had he been at his limit?

What had pushed him?

You tried to trace back, but found little.

You reached up lightly in hopes he’d feel compelled by how you hadn’t dropped your gesture.

“How high!” He repeated as if he were the unseen coach on a television set.

You moved to raise your arms and felt the pull in your shoulders. “Leo, I’m not so sure-”

“Push it!”

“Leo!” Your hands just barely surpassed your head, but the muscles in your healing shoulder locked.

“Shit.” In a quake, his gaze honed and he came closer. “Hold still. Try not to drop it.”

“That’s easier said than done…!” Your expression pinched.

He fought against himself before slinging the resistance band over his shoulder and cupping his hands around your rotator cuff. “Slow, we’ll work it down. What was I saying…?”

“What’s going on?” You had unintentionally caught him.

“Don’t.”

“Leo.”

“This isn’t fair.” He pressed lightly into the muscle.

You jumped, but made it did little more than strain your insides.

He gave a soothing shush and rubbed with a lighter touch. “It’s a cramp. Give it a second.”

“In that second, you could tell me-”

“I’m not doing whatever you think I will. Not here. Not ever.” He glared at your arm instead of you.

Not here.

That was an odd specification.

Leo had been holding back.

He had his own emotional mask.

He paraded as a habit.

There was more than he let on.

You wished you had a better read on him.

You felt out of sorts.

Your usual prowess was diminished by the many stressors.

How could you pay attention when there was too much to watch?

You felt like sludge.

A dozen mental monitors were on and all of them vied for your attention.

In a single blink, you were sending a wide gaze to Leo.

His lips flattened out as if caught.

You watched a bead of sweat pock his forehead.

It wasn’t enough to trickle, but it was there.

He still had your arm.

It had yet to loosen.

“Darling Protocol.”

It was enough that Leo stopped.

“Cut all feeds until Donnie returns.”

For you, nothing had changed.

For Leo, he seemed struck as if the command was for him.

Then his gaze rose.

He moved, still holding you and looked around the corners of the room.

“Leo…?” You tested in a tiny voice.

“They’re… off…” He rolled wariness to you.

“It’s just us.”

“That’s worse!” He shouted.

He was too close and you winced. “I thought that’s what you want-!”

“Well you're wrong!” He pressed too hard into rubbing your shoulder.

You squeaked in pain for a moment before your arm suddenly drooped.

Leo shot several feet away and looked at you like he might explode.

“That’s…” You were extremely careful in testing your shoulder in a roll. “… way better. Wow.”

“Turn them back on! What was with that name? What is wrong with you!? It’s always something! Always you!”

“What are you talking about?” You exhaled irritation. “I thought you might want a break from the cameras. I’m trying to help! You’re the one acting like you’re caged up!”

“Yeah, because I’m locked in here with you!”

You stared at him openly.

His eyes sat enormous and trapped.

“With… me?”

He shook and wrapped a hand around his throat. “Fuck. Forget it! Just forget I said anything!”

“Leo.” You looked for your crutches.

“You’re stuck!” He pointed and saw an opening where nothing had changed. “I can go over here and you can’t do a thing about it!” He headed toward the partition.

“You sound like you’re five! You’re really going to run!?” You shouted after him and your helplessness drowned you in droves. “What do you mean me!? Shouldn’t it be Donnie?!”

“Donnie!?” He mocked your voice and came far enough around the wall to send an incensed gaze. “I’m not scared of him! I’m scared of you-!!!”

The slap of his hand against his mouth was so loud it echoed.

You had no idea what was happening.

Each consecutive action he made seemed newer than the last.

Your powers of perception were a joke.

You didn’t know a single thing.

Your lips parted, but he moved first.

“Fuck!!!” He socked the wall so hard that cracks split and crawled around the edges. “Oh, fuck that’s worse…” He stared at his damage and wobbled further out into the open where you could see him. “No, no, no… What am I-?! Fuck! I haven’t been to the gym in months! I’m-!!!”

You could only watch as he fell apart.

Shreds of him unraveled with a spool and he made it a few more steps on a wobbly form. “Keep it together. I can keep it together.”

“You don’t have to…” You whispered as quietly as you could.

“I don’t have…” He mimed it back. “No…” He stabilized in a slouch. “Yeah, I don't. No. I’m fine. I’ve been fine. I’ll be fine.”

The whole of him lost mass like a dropped ball of yarn.

“Cool down. You need to finish your exercises.” He marched over, a snag still caught and he lost more of himself on the way.

You couldn’t believe he was trying to drop this.

“Close your eyes.”

“No.”

“I’m not going to look at that pathetic face. I’m not going to explain.”

“Are you telling me or you?”

“It’s a trick. You're trying to trick me and I’m not playing.”

“Stop answering then.” You sharpened your glare.

“I-!” He breathed hard as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him.

“Are you scared of Mikey too?”

Leo reared. “Why would I be?”

“He’s always trying to get you to go to therapy.”

Leo barked a single acidic laugh. “What? You think you’re helping me?! You have no idea!”

“Then tell me!”

“No!”

“Then stop acting out!”

“I’m not!”

“You cracked a wall because you’re scared of some human!”

“I’m not scared of you!”

“That’s not what you said!”

Leo rose as high as he could without going on the tips of his toes.

Instead of menace, you saw the last strings of his will holding him up.

The slightest press would cause what was left of him to unfurl and he’d be nothing more than a long line of everything he’d ever done.

You had a choice.

You could be his undoing or you could leave it be.

“Leo.”

You spoke.

He listened, his mouth a thin line.

You reached up with your good hand to gesture to your bad shoulder.

On his mirrored body, that’s where the resistance band still hung.

He loosely puppetted as you directed and, as he brushed it, it startled him.

You watched his gaze narrow more and more as he pulled the thing down to cradle in his palm.

A loose and floppy bit of rubber, he looked as though he’d sob over its lifeless body.

Instead he shifted his grip and wound the edges around his fists.

Then he pulled the band across his body and for a blissful moment, he wasn’t here.

He was at his beloved gym and his thoughts were clear.

He spoke.

“I don’t hate you. I’m not… scared scared of you, but damnit, Y/N.” He pulled the band as far apart as it would go and you thought it might snap. “I can’t… keep pretending like being around you is fine and dandy. I knew what to expect from Donatello. I knew…” The edge came again and he yanked so hard you saw a tear form in the middle of the band. “I knew…” Coiling his hands another loop, this time he pulled as if he had the intention to break it. “I knew-!” In a rapid bungee bounce, it split and both sides whipped him. “I knew I would never reach him! I banked on it! I pushed the others back after their attempts! I wouldn’t let them get closer! That left me! Did I think I could do it? Fuck no! I didn’t think I could do a single thing, but that’s what you do when you care! You stick your neck out again and again! You do everything you can! You put your life on the line! You show them-! You show them-!”

His own twine snapped, his entire being drooped.

“You know what I am?”

Your heart beat heavy in your chest.

“I’m…” He had to look away, loose straps of rubber dangling in his hands. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this.”

You fisted the loose sweats that fit over your cast.

“I’m jealous.” He told you, his eyes glazed.

You felt your own well.

“I’m jealous of you.” He doubled the effort and with it came pressure on his lips. “I’d buried it so goddamn deep. That’s where it was supposed to stay, but no! You couldn’t leave it alone! You kept digging! Every time! Every single time! Until you dug it out of me! I’m scared of that! I’m scared of what you keep doing to me! To us! You could have dropped it! I treated you like shit! You were supposed to drop it! You were supposed to leave. You weren’t supposed to make it! You were going to be my excuse! You would have been the final straw! Enough! So that I could finally… make it make sense! We made sense! We’d given up! That’s how we were! It wasn’t happy, but it was what we…!” He dropped the pieces he clung to.

Your throat swallowed your heart.

“I was a hero.” He hunched into himself. “I was the best. I was the leader. I saved everyone. I couldn’t save-!” He choked and sent prayers toward you. “You did it over a fucking sandwich!!!”

Tears loosed and dotted your hands.

“My family is all I have and I couldn’t save him…!” Leo’s knees hit the ground so hard it covered up the raw shout slicing his throat right before he went ghostly quiet. “I’m so tired.”

You pressed your hands to your chest to keep yourself in check.

He didn’t need your tears.

He didn’t need anything more from you.

No matter how, this was your doing.

“I only ever needed my family…” Leo wept.

You couldn’t move.

You couldn’t do anything.

You could only watch.

Leo shook out a few more tears before he held a hand up as if grabbing a pole.

A sword appeared in an etching of blue and from it he sliced into the floor and opened a portal.

He then drew his other limb, heavy as lead, up from his side where his phone was picked from his pocket.

He punched a few numbers in and stared over the abyss he’d created.

“Mike.”

You couldn’t hear the other line.

“Code green. Portals in the strategy room.” Leo pulled his phone away and you watched as his thumb slammed the end call button.

He then moved methodically, as if to sip elixir from the blue pool, and dipped his hand into the portal.

His arm jostled from some movement on the other side and then his muscles went taunt under his sweater as he pulled.

He fell.

Straight down and out of the apartment and, like a swapped mirror, Mikey was thrust up and out.

The younger brother spun around, clearly confused as he floated above the portal until it disappeared.

He then searched around until his eyes landed on you and he soared over.

“Are you okay? What was that? What happened…?” Mikey hovered close and gingerly took your shoulders.

It was the right amount of pressure and sobs broke free from you.

Mikey held you close and asked no more.

You didn’t hear the front door click, but you did hear Donnie’s voice. “I apologize. That call was… of… the…!”

He ran.

“Don-na-tello…” Mikey croaked through snivels.

“What’s…?”

As soon as you sensed Donnie close enough you shot your bad arm out, caught a fistful of his top, and yanked him in.

Mikey moved to one side and you clutched both of them to keep them together. It took Donnie several long minutes until he brought an arm around you.

💜NEXT💜

Through sickness and health, my darling betas have my undying love @tmntxthings and @thepinkpanther83

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samanthastarss · 10 months

Text

RAHHHHHHH!!! I LOVE HIM!!!! Quick sketchy piece I made!! It's like 1am, but I couldn't get @afreakingdork 's Weak Spot Donnie off my mind, and I just HAD to draw the glorious bastard <3

He plagues my thoughts 24/7 🛐 (ur writing is GORGEOUS, btw. I've re-read your fics multiple times because they're just so beautifully written!!! I can't wait for your next update <3)

Ik its messy, but I hope I did him justice despite the tired state, which I drew this in ajgagkakgvjs

(In hindsight, I think his wraps were supposed to be a bit higher on his arms if i remember reading that correctly ㅠㅠ oopsie poopsie! Anywhizzle, can't do much now, lmao)

#wsdonnie #donatello #donnie #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt #rottmnt donatello #rottmnt donnie #save rottmnt #unpause rottmnt #rise donnie #art #weakspotfic #weakspot #donnie x reader #donatello hamato

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afreakingdork · 3 months

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Weak Spot - Chapter 56

RotTMNT Donatello x Reader

It's all about perspective in this week's chapter art by @garbagemilkshake

Also available on Ao3

First 💜 Previous

Donnie was brooding. About what, you weren’t sure, but he was lost in thought. The kind that pinched up his face, he appeared compliant if you asked, but was clearly dodgy if you tried to figure out why. Asking for additional time with each question on his well being, it made you feel a sort of hopelessness. He was clearly feeling guilty about something out of his control. He did his best to make it up to you where he could, but there was something vexing him deeply.

For the time of year, you acknowledged the two special occasions coming up. One for hearts and the other of sentimentality, it wasn’t like Donnie to think so openly. You doubted he’d sulk over planning anything as important as your anniversary, which meant something else was bothering him.

It had gone on for nearly a week and not once had you gotten used to it. Instead, it was like an ever present weight in your heart each time you saw him thinking over his cause. You found him more often as of late, when you got home from work, still listlessly sitting at his desk. He’d been obviously ruminating and the way his monitors had timed out said how long he’d been at it. You played the dutiful partner and only pressed for hugging reassurances that you would always be there, whenever he was ready.

That day just so happened to be today.

“I… need to go to the Hidden City.”

He’d spoken suddenly after making you both warm drinks and offering one to you.

You had been reaching out to take yours and felt your hands hang there. “Is that…?”

“My status remains ‘wanted’.”

“Do… you need to go back into hiding?”

The cup offered in his hand lowered. “No.”

“I’m guessing the others haven’t broken their promise since you haven’t gone to maim them.”

“The rat’s word still stands.”

“Is something wrong?” You hesitated on the topic you were bordering on.

“I didn’t mean to make you guess.” He renewed his effort to give you your drink.

This time you got proper hold of it. “I’m not going to force you.”

“I’m…” He held out with distress painting him until he exhaled a modicum of it away. “I’m going to withdraw my holdings there.”

Your eyes shot wide. “Wait…”

“I know.” He gestured that he would sit.

You scooted backward into your spot on the couch so he could take his.

“I’ve been… debating. Pros and cons. Gut reactions. Integrated decision maps. I’ve run analysis. I’ve dusted off age-old algorithms. I’ve-!” He caught on more and sank down to stare into his mug. “Recently, you’ve allowed me to dabble further in my old habits and it has… summoned… interesting feelings.”

You folded yourself up close to translate you’d listen for as long as need be and sipped the liquid. Something new, you glanced down at it and found it in line with your tastes.

“I… enjoy my work, but I wonder if I prefer it because it is familiar or if it actually brings me joy.”

“You seemed like you were having fun watching Hypno and Warren destroy the place.”

He smiled a little and took the tiniest sip. “True, but… they made up.”

You nodded, letting the drink warm your body. “You were hoping otherwise.”

“I saw their qualms as advantageous. With Warren out of the way, I could extract more product from Hypno, but… to what end? Why? Why… do I… do this? Why…?”

You waited with curling fingers around hot ceramic.

“My holdings here make more than enough money. I live comfortably. I have what I need. My freedom, my… you. That comment Warren made…”

He’d made many; you took a sip.

“Is that our future?”

“No.” You broke in. “Warren’s an idiot and a jerk.”

He looked right through you. “Are you doomed to be my accomplice? Will you allow me to break and pillage and ruin while looking the other way because you care?”

“Donnie…”

“And the aftermath!” Something about the way he looked at his mug made you think he might pour it over his head. “To keep you separate is to keep you at bay. Allowing you close endangers you. I cannot undo what I’ve done. That is my life!”

You set your mug aside and crossed the space to hold his forearm.

The liquid in his cup vibrated outward.

“Hey.”

This time he saw you. “I don’t want that for you. For us. For our kids.” He gasped on the admittance and choked looking away. “I like it. I do. I enjoy it. I know it. I’m good at it, but-!”

You took his drink and set it aside.

“Do I do all those things because it’s all I know? Like that fucking worm… Like… a wheel. I’m trapped on a wheel and I was supposed to live. How long have I been stuck-!?” He wheezed.

You rose to your knees and wrapped your arms around his neck.

He held you and sank against your form. “I’ve been trying to parse it out, but I no longer know what’s real.”

You squeezed harder and he reached up to claw into your shirt.

“I’m scared.” He admitted with a heave and you felt the droplets seep into your clothes.

You held tight.

He’d never once admitted that.

Even after you’d been kidnapped, he never used those words.

He pulled you into his lap and buried himself down into the safety of you with only the plip plop of his running tears as a signal he was still present.

You refused to let go.

“I can only think to try.” His voice became shredded, warped and raw. “Start with the smallest, most superfluous holding in my portfolio and shut it. Tend the power vacuum and see how I feel. Will I experience loss? Will I care? Will I even notice?”

You stroked his carapace.

“I need to find out. I need to be sure before I do anything else. Before my declaration. Before I marry you. Before we move even a single step further forward. For me, for you.”

“You first.” Your own voice had a broken quality.

“Me first.” He agreed.

“I-” He teetered.

You found his chin and lifted him to eye level. “Not until you’re sure.”

He smiled through a shallow weep and touched the tip of his beak to your nose.

Compared to any other version of Donnie’s planning stages, this was something else entirely. He was under his own microscope and you could tell every move was one carefully scrutinized. It left him operating slowly and deliberately. He was hyper aware of each action and reaction to the point where you were sure something was penning down his existence with millisecond timestamps. He existed only as a written caricature, something without freewill that was only allowed to work within a script.

It was hard to watch.

A journey of self-discovery, he had to go about it alone.

You didn’t even know how to help even if you were allowed.

He was in a liminal space where the not knowing shredded him further. He held himself in such high regard and you had seen, first hand, what unknowns did to him. A whole spectrum of reactions, he’d gone the distance and yet still resided at a mysterious point. You were the sure thing in his life while everything else he’d known fell apart. You knew your part was played, something of a shepherd leading a weary traveler. You’d met while he was already on his journey, following a trail toward a life that was truly his own and he’d appeared on your field. There you had walked beside him to your boundary line and this marked the point where he would have to continue his quest alone.

You never left the fence.

You stared after his form no matter how tiny it got on the horizon.

The fact his path deviated was a far greater choice than any he’d ever been presented with. It was one, in fact, that he had thought was fully removed from him. Damned from an early age, he saw one trajectory of his life possible until that road lost pavement and turned to rubble. Soles cut and rotted flesh from neglect, he’d meant to die of his malady, but carrying on had widened his course.

Only he never looked up.

He stared down at the slog of his feet.

You’d been there when his lids had first cracked and the full sight of his existence was one wider than he could comprehend.

He tried to force it, but it blinded him.

He couldn’t have it all.

A crossroads represented not only his choice in the matter, but that there was a greater existence possible for him.

The layered options overwhelmed him and their potency stripped him of his sense of self.

A vessel repaired, he stumbled forward not knowing which direction would be one that got him to his goals.

He’d wanted peace to work.

He acquired it.

He’d opened himself to love.

It was his.

He sought pleasure, big and small.

They were within his grasp, often and always.

What was left?

He didn’t so much lay out his business structure as he pinpointed what needed to be done. A dark that was meant to keep you safe, he gave you an itinerary. He would leave for the Hidden City on Monday and had projected a week to take care of letting this one business go. It meant laying low and moving under guise so as not to alert the authorities or competitors of his existence there. Somewhere he was wholly unallowed, he still had significant reach in that no one threatened his work even when he couldn’t be present.

That speaking largely to what he’d wanted and achieved, you had a certain awe for your mate.

He was an unstoppable force and though you knew he wasn’t unbreakable, it helped your faith in that he would make it through this.

He’d reach the other side.

He’d get his answer.

He’d return to your field, take your hand, and carry on with you in tow.

Until then, he would approach his business partners and contacts for this particular field and walk them through new procedures. Not expressively telling them he was removing himself, they would instead be under a child-like guise. One where you tell one parent the other said this and the other guardian the opposite, both parties would think responsibility was covered and they’d be none the wiser until they spoke.

Donnie estimated that they wouldn’t realize for at least a month and by that time the new system would be a stabilized one where they would simply accept he wouldn’t need them.

Their big mouths were the only thing left to chance. In the underworld, information reigned as the most important asset. Without that there was nothing to gain. You made no money without knowing its source. You held no power without holding something coveted. You were nothing to fear if you had no back up. The best case scenario were these contacts grew slovenly in their new positions and didn’t pipe up to ruin a good thing when the tyrant Donatello handed you gold on a silver platter.

It was the easiest of the sins while the others dictated the worst roads that could be taken.

Pride and bragging of having supposedly pulled one over.

Gluttony in thinking they could grab more.

Wrath that they were tricked.

Envy of one another and a vie to take full control.

Lust to use their growth as one alluring to conscript more onto their sides.

Greed in selling his weakness out.

Time would tell and Donnie was going to also strengthen certain protective holdings, as he called them, so as the filth would stay in the rotten city he despised.

You believed in him because he believed in you.

One week.

Seven days.

Technically 8 because he was due to arrive back first thing Monday morning.

You turned to your own plans.

You already knew you would need to keep busy. With Donnie out and wearing himself down both in a place that wanted his extermination along with all the danger the job itself entailed, you were ready to be a wreck. Communication wasn’t off the table this time, but it was a dodgy thing. He himself had been the one to wire the Hidden City for surface communication, but only so many Yokai cared to adapt. Usually only the ones that crossed the barrier wanted it, so connection points were relatively scarce and more often than not he wouldn't have service.

He promised you he would try to at least check-in once a day.

That would come in a variety of forms depending on his state, but even that wouldn’t be a guarantee or alarm.

You had to trust him to come back to you.

You did.

He didn’t pack and he bid you farewell clad in one of his convertible villain pieces. Dark layers that concealed both a litany of weapons and armor, there was little to hug that was actually him. You settled for what you could which ended up being slung high around his head and he had kissed you in stages.

Desperation.

Longing.

Love.

The last lingered with promise which he trailed to your ear to whisper not reassurances, but his affections. Everything save the titular confession, you held him in to press foreheads and noses before releasing him. He committed you to memory, brought his scarf up to hide himself, thought enough to lower it so you could see his parting smile, and left.

You were alone.

You had work.

You had also gotten ready for it too soon.

It meant you had little to do and ended up at first pacing the apartment. Looking for even the tiniest spot to maybe put something neglected away, you found little. Your deep cleaning had been done not too long ago. The most you found was one errant piece of mail that only needed to be moved from the kitchen counter to a sorting bin on Donnie’s desk and you were left with nothing more to do. You decided to text Shelly. When you had made your plans with him for tonight, you’d realized all too quickly that you’d only ever reached out to him via your tech gauntlet. You’d felt infuriated having had to ask Donnie for his number, but when you texted to automaton the revelation, he only chuckled and said it hadn’t occurred to him either.

You: You up?

Shelly: File that under the ways to start a booty call

You: Why do you choose violence at all hours?

Shelly: I take after my papa

You: Alright, I see how it is

Shelly: ☹️

You: Just checking in about tonight

Shelly: Ah dad just left I see

You: Please!

Shelly: You only ever text me when you’re lonely 😭

You: I do not! Since I got your number I’ve been sending you all kinds of stuff

Shelly: …

You: ?

Shelly: I GUESS!

You: Gotcha

Shelly: But yeah we’re still good. Want me to sleep over?

You paused and stared down at your phone.

You: That’s sad

You: Sleepover with your mom just cause dad’s on vacation?

You: Makes me sound like some elderly person who’s been with their spouse for like 30 years and is going to die of heartbreak

Shelly: Cause he died and left you all alone with the farm house!

You: Hey!

You: NO

You: SHELLY

Shelly: FUCK

Shelly: I DIDN’T MEAN IT LIKE THAT

Shelly: WAIT STOP GO BACK

You: YOU GO BACK WTF

You: YOU SAID IT!

The next message you got was a video of S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. making a rectangle with his hands before one of the mechanical arms of his came into frame and sliced the box in half.

You: what was that?

Shelly: It wards off bad luck!

You: It better!

Shelly: Sleepover to make up for it? 😀

You: Spoiled brat

A digital sticker appeared of S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. snickering and it distracted you all the way to work as you found out he had an entire set of emotes based on himself. Working in tandem with shotty service on public transit, you got the pack uploaded to your phone.

Work took over next. There was a busy enough load of things to do and they were just interesting enough to be distracting. Your ex-roommate Coral checked in around lunch under the guise of making fun of you and you ended up talking to her on speaker perched somewhere outside while you ate. It was a bit too cold for it, but the conversation kept you warm.

The afternoon tumbled away and eventually you were on your way home. Shooting a message to S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. that you were inbound, you found a shadow figure exuding way too much energy standing right outside your apartment.

“Someone’s going to call the cops on you.” You folded your arms behind him.

S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. turned with a bright glowing smile. “They already did! Mrs. Kaczmarek!”

“Of course it’d be her…” You wilted before something buoyed you concurrently. “You didn’t talk to her did you!?”

“Nah.” He pointed up the building. “She was staring at me through the blinds so I waved.”

You caught his arm through the sleeve of his big jacket. “She cannot see you go into my apartment!”

“Why?” He tilted his head with genuine curiosity.

“She thinks me and Donnie are living in sin! I don’t know what she’ll do with the whole kid thing!”

He snorted. “I’m gonna introduce myself.”

“No! Didn’t you hear me!?” You meant to tug him, but he scooped you up like the bag he had under his other arm.

Hanging your limbs in indignity, you glowered at him as he merrily skipped up the steps with loud percussive metal thumps. “Let’s spin it! Donnie is a single father widower!”

“I can walk!”

“This is more fun!” S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. sang as he ascended the steps two at a time. “Okay anyway, so he had me way too young and it was all a mix up and omigosh what if you guys were high school sweethearts and you had a tryst, but then my fake mom passed me off as yours and also you were conscripted into the mafia and then it’s enemies to lovers!”

“What have you been watching?!” He set you down when you reached your apartment’s floor.

“Telenovelas. Wait, why?” He paused to think.

You yanked the bag out of his hand in a fit of retaliation but immediately wilted under his weight. “Holy shit!”

“Ah!” S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. shouted more for sympathy and caught both you and the bag.

“What is this!?” You stared up at him.

“My pajamas.” He checked you over.

“Pajamas?” You unfolded the top and screeched as S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N.’s lifeless head appeared as the contents.

A metal hand clamped over your mouth. “Okay, I’m gonna own that it’s been pretty funny keeping your heart rate up, but the bag thing wasn’t meant to be part of the joke!”

You hummed ‘what do you mean?’ as loud as you could against his paw.

“It’s just my drone body. I was going to switch to it so I can fit in bed with you. I’m pretty sure I exceed the weight limit like three times over in this body.” He let go slowly. “Pajamas? Get it?”

You pinched his hat and yanked him down to eye level. “Punishment! No scary movies!”

“Mom!!” S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. whined loud and long.

“Mom?” Mrs. Kaczmarek’s distinct voice came from down the hall.

“Fuck.” Your eyes widened and you didn’t have to look to know she was headed your way.

“Language!” Mrs. Kaczmarek huffed and you heard her shuffling footsteps.

“Mafia?” S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N.’s brows wiggled digitally.

You glared mania right into his eyes. “Big brother program and you’re weird. That’s final.”

S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. clucked happily as the old woman cornered you.

After S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. had dragged you out early for breakfast the next day, you bid him farewell on your way to work. He had a multi-day tournament that would be keeping him busy the next few days and Coral was next on your docket. Another working grind smoothed out the edges of your sanity and you ended up meeting her for an impromptu dinner. On her dime, you were relentlessly teased for being codependent which then rolled over into how badly you’d fail at long distance. You did your best to defend yourself, but when you got a ping from Donnie, the speed at which you’d scrambled to your phone only confirmed all her points.

You didn’t even care to defend yourself as the single purple heart in your message chain was one that sent your spirits sky high.

It inadvertently ruined her fun in the process and you were invited back to her place for drinks.

Now onto more genial conversation, you’d entered your old apartment to find your nervous friend Nelson, bent over the oven with the frilliest apron you had ever seen covering his torso.

He lifted up with a tray of cookies and, as you both roasted him, he defended himself saying form didn’t matter as much as utility.

Still cackling, the conversation shifted to a light hearted one as Nelson continued to bake for a donation sale.

Instead of stumbling home, you crashed in Coral’s bed and she kicked you out bright and early as if she hadn’t been there as your rock for the last 12 hours.

Doing a walk of shame that felt particularly comical since it no longer cracked the top ten of your worsts since meeting Donnie, you felt the first bout of truly missing your boyfriend. Something about walking the streets alone and knowing he wasn’t there or home waiting for you stung. Your shower at your apartment was a sullen one and the trip to work moved at an achingly slow pace.

You: Hey

You: Not sure when you’ll get this

You: Looks like the messages are going through though so that’s good

You: I did not want to relive those stupid red errors

You: I just wanted to say I miss you

You: Hang in there and best of luck ❤️

Staring long at the message chain even when no read receipt came, you pocketed your device as you went to work. A clock in and clock out sort of day, you’d had lunch with your gossipy coworker who you felt like you hadn’t seen in ages. He was the same as always and had many dishes to serve up. Trying to focus on consuming what he offered, who’d been kicked from the #random slack sat in your head like an ear worm until the end of the day where tonight marked the resurrection of game night. One where you only knew your chill friend Kaleb, as the host, and his board game obsessed friend, D-Kline, the rest of the attendants were new to you and you hoped keeping up with the crowd would offer a better distraction.

The night had been one of hotly debated conspiracy theories which went well with the game where you had to oust the player who was a secret villain.

The imagery was thankfully one that only nipped at your heels.

Home came especially dark when you clicked on the light and the lived in feel of the space was one that felt synthetic.

Another sleep would fast track you to Thursday which led to Friday. Both days you’d been unable to fill, you’d be on your own and, for that fact alone, you didn’t want to go to bed. You ended up staying up until the wee hours of the morning scrolling and feeling worse for it mentally and physically. It made the next day an absolute slog and a part of you enjoyed the suffering.

It was hard to think about being lonely when your head was pounding relentlessly.

Getting home came with crashing on the couch and waking sometime late. A devastating blow to your sleep schedule, you ate something microwaved for dinner. Consuming it standing in a dark kitchen, you checked your phone as almost an afterthought to find yesterday and today’s messages from Donnie.

Donnie 💜: As busy as I am, I also have time on my hands. It gives me the space necessary to consider what I must. Though manufactured for such purpose, I care little for it. Introspection is not something I’ve ever had the luxury to entertain and going about it alone has been trying.

Donnie 💜: I want to know I am doing this for the right reasons and I can’t help but think of you when I attempt to consider what those are.

Donnie 💜: I miss our bed.

Donnie 💜: I miss your scent.

Donnie 💜: Your smile.

Donnie 💜: My chest aches.

Donnie 💜: I should have taken more photographs.

And.

Donnie 💜: You have not responded and I hope that is because you are busy.

Donnie 💜: Take care of yourself.

You stared long at his messages until you felt weepy.

Squeezing your lids shut in an attempt to turn off the main for waterworks, you typed out a lengthy explanation of all the things you had been doing to keep busy. Veritable walls of text, you hoped that would give him some distracting material so he wouldn’t have to suffer completely alone with his thoughts.

You knew that curse all too well.

You punctuated the whole thing off with something short and liminal.

You: I’ll dream of you tonight, meet me there

You lowered your phone and felt exhausted at the prospect of having to prepare for bed when a little vibration in your hand caught your attention.

Donnie 💜: I will try as hard as I can.

With your phone crushed to your chest you drowned in your love for him.

Washing up, changing, and getting into bed, you lay in the middle with your body turned toward his side. There you conjured a ghost of him, the one you knew long and well. You willed him to your subconscious. Transferring residuals of his essence that must have been left behind, you focused all your thought on bringing his memory with you to the dreaming world.

You woke after a night of empty sleep.

It stung.

With little will, you prepared for the day which felt like sand falling through your fingers. All too fine for you to hold, it trickled between meetings and calls. Through the cracks of your mailbox and debris in the bottom of your water bottle, you refilled it only to disrupt the silt. It manifested tiny pebbles in your shoe that no amount of shaking could rid. It made seats in public transit craggy ones and as you entered your apartment you dropped to the floor with dramatics at the thought of having to repeat that process.

You fell asleep on the couch with a movie blaring all night.

The next morning, Friday, you barely made it through your routine and had started to berate yourself for your theatrics. The voice grew louder as you exited the apartment and you saw, but didn’t respond to a few messages from friends. Donnie’s daily message had been lost to yesterday’s sieve and you soured further. Your aura read one to keep away and that only exaggerated your loneliness.

You ate alone.

You worked alone.

You went home alone.

You were done.

Done with work and done with distractions, you fell into self loathing.

Five days?

There were people who lost their loved ones for lifetimes.

They carried on.

You felt pathetic and small.

A fury misplaced, you couldn’t send it to your partner because he was trying to maneuver something monumental.

That left you the punching bag and with it came takeout.

Far too much and way too expensive, you ate pure grease and turned on trash TV. Soon yelling at those pandering, you fell asleep sitting up and buried amongst blankets and Styrofoam.

When you woke up with a start the next day, it came with wiping fingers and leaving greasy marks on your shirt.

You forewent cleanliness in an attempt to wallow.

A crawling sensation of oil coating you inside and out, your phone was your magical friend that could bring more food without you having to move much.

Counting 23 steps from your spot on the couch to the door, you lapped that on the return trip to devolution with TV and a dripping to-go boxes.

Your frame of mind shifted with your meal.

You would have this.

You would let yourself mourn that which wasn’t even gone.

Why fight it?

You were allowed to be sad your boyfriend had left.

You weren’t supposed to trust your thoughts and feelings from late at night.

Everything was a process.

When was the last time you’d become a vegetable?

The terribly named cheat days were supposed to be a thing.

They kept you even and sane.

There was nothing wrong with indulgence as long as it was done in moderation.

You put yourself on a timeline.

You could live this way through Sunday if you wanted.

Then you were going to boil everything for safety.

You’d welcome Donnie back as if you hadn’t fallen off the wagon momentarily.

You’d tell him what happened.

Maybe later.

Way later.

After you knocked him clean to the floor and hung off him like a koala for say five to six straight hours.

You’d get your fill and then open up.

Donnie 💜: Switch in progress, results tentatively promising

You felt like you weren’t present in this world when you got the message.

A ground ball that you dove for, you came up dusty from it, but satisfied you’d staved off a run.

It felt like a cosmic truth.

You were okay.

Your feelings were valid.

Things would work out.

The Indian food you’d gotten for dinner was lethally delicious.

This time the food coma you put yourself in was a willing one.

No guilt, only decadence, you were cradling a far too large slab of garlicy naan and chewing on one end like a cow with cud. Saturday evening entertainment came in the form of a television show about a burnout trying to make their way. With bigger narratives obviously edging into the plot, you binged through season one and two before you felt yourself losing lengths of dialog. The bread on your chest had gone, but its scent and weight lingered.

A confusing ghost, you fell to the side, kicking napkins and tissues away until your own blanket acted as your pillow and you were the wad of gum stuck inside. Characters kept talking, they were relentless in that way, and your lids fell with the dialog feeding ticker tape into your dreams. Coming out your ears on a steady pump, the click clack of the printer was a metronome that dictated your heartbeat.

There was the distinct click of the door.

You cracked your eyes and saw a TV logo appearing and disappearing on a screen long fallen asleep.

Blue light bathed your form and you sat up to hear something soft like the weight of a bag hitting the floor.

Slow to turn, you found a large silhouette standing in the doorway and eating up darkness like a growing mass.

Without definition and somehow not rim lit by the television, you squinted at the mannequin and how it was half bent in setting a messenger bag down.

“Wrong… apartment…?” You ventured to the apparition.

“Y/N…?” Donnie’s voice came from it.

You stared as the being stood straight.

Silence beat dehydrated percussion in your ears.

“Did you…?” You asked and were interrupted by a wave of nausea.

You felt repulsive.

What a time for him to finally show up in your dreams.

He stepped towards you and you sort of registered one of his hands raising up to his face. “Did I what? Why are you sleeping out here-?”

You blinked one at the rude manifestation of your boyfriend.

Your mind had gone for a portrayal that was a bit too accurate.

You wanted dream Donnie to whisk you away on a white horse.

“What is that smell?” He gagged and finally took on close enough clarity to highlight that he had pulled his scarf down.

You might have been mad if you weren’t trapped by his face.

Lit from below, his hollowed out eyes were cast in a worse light. Pupils thin and lifeless, they sat atop eye bags that were triple the natural ones baked into his body from years of neglect. From around his scarf, his cheeks sunk against his features and there was visible grease blotched and giving his already green complexion an even sicklier hue. “You look like shit.”

“You smell like it.” He stared down at you.

You had to squint one last time before you pulled your arm from your cocoon.

Pinching your shoulder, you winced at the jolt of pain before turning up comprehension to your partner.

He softened a little around his scrunched beak.

In what felt like exactly three moves, you unearthed yourself, climbed straight up the back of the couch, and launched yourself at him.

He caught you with open arms and you both collapsed onto the floor where you wiggled until all of you was wrapped around him.

“What are you doing here?!” You yelled into his tympanum. “It’s Saturday still, right?! Did I miss it!? Did I sleep through Monday!?”

He squeezed you hard around the center until you squawked with pain. Then he went a calculated slack before his digging digits held you close to him with no intention of letting go. “It’s technically Sunday. 1:07am when I unlocked the door. I…”

You rose up and he relented from cupping the back of your head to holding your cheek.

You kissed him.

He returned it in earnest.

“Donnie…” You cooed against his mouth and he sealed the sound back up.

Now drinking each other in, you felt him shudder as he licked into you and you could only imagine the sour taste. You hadn’t properly showered since Wednesday and your teeth had gone unbrushed for at least 24 hours. Breaking every one of his cardinal rules and only seeming to care on some subconscious level, he nipped at you to get your attention back.

You.

He wanted you.

Even in this state.

You kissed him hard enough down into the floor that it clicked his skull against the ground. He cared little and hoisted you up further, trying to keep all of you held as you made out. Taking time and then some, you eventually broke with a gasp where lightheadedness said that you had gone way past some reasonable point and your usual sensors for self-preservation were offline if only to have more of him.

His beak twitched with repugnant scents and you rooted down to tug messily at his scarf. It loosened and revealed musky skin where sweat had been long baked in. It made you remember he’d left in the same outfit he had now returned in and you licked a fat stripe over his pulse to taste the salt and sour of neglect.

“Acting all high and mighty.” You tutted against him and began to work a hickey into the flesh despite knowing it probably wouldn’t work.

He gave his first chirp.

You immediately sank your teeth into his throat without holding back.

His knees kicked up and slammed into your ass as he gave you a honed chirp.

“Fuck!” His limbs went loose.

You removed your fangs and mouthed satisfaction.

“Me?” He grunted, shoving up your dirty pajamas to feel the skin of your back. “You were busy. You were taking care of yourself. What happened?”

“I was.” You broke from his skin with a pop and pressed a wet kiss to the underside of his chin. “Then I got lonely.” You returned to your spot and sucked as hard as you could.

He quaked beneath you. “W-wait…!”

You relented only enough to talk against his skin. “What?”

“Are you alright though?” He pet you with worry.

“Now, I am.” You gave up your mark to kiss his neck tenderly. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you.”

“You say it so easily.” You tempered your voice to speak against his head.

“There’s been a change.”

“Oh?” You lifted up to see him.

Though it pained him, he pleaded with you. “Shower. We must shower. Together. Has to be together and now.”

“Fine, but you talk while we do it.”

“That was implied.” He gave the barest smile before your whole world shifted.

Now bundled in his arms, he carried you with a bouncy step to the bathroom. He deposited you next to the sink and you watched him prepare your toothbrush. Passing yours over and then getting his, you shared coy glances in the mirror. As soon as you were done, but right before you could spit, it had clearly been too long because he dipped down and forced his minty mouth against yours.

The kiss pushed you into the wall and you made a little spindly moan.

He retreated with a dry heave and was forced to scrub his mouth out a second time before he finally rinsed.

You followed soon after and fluttered your lashes at him as you spit.

He looked away with a gag and gave a stubborn grunt.

“I gross you out.” You teased him and he went only far enough to turn the shower tap on.

“The horror…” He said without emotion and caught your waist.

“You still want me though.” You leaned in sweetly.

What you thought was a tender move was immediately subverted because he’d actually caught your shirt and yanked it straight up, muffling you.

“Hey!”

“Feel free to return the favor.” He pulled too hard which snapped your arms up.

Even you could smell your body odor.

It caused him to slow, where his pupils changed sizes and your shirt fall like an afterthought to the ground. “Odd…”

“What?” You caught one end of his scarf and pulled so it choked him.

He snorted, wheezed, and wiggled his fingers up into the threads to loosen it. “Your scent.”

“I stink. I got that much.” You were undoing buttons on his outermost layer which you had never realized was a cardigan.

“Filth should deter your natural scent, meaning it should be repulsive but…” He was clearly trying to follow some line of thought, but you got his top undone and shoved backward.

He shook with a form of whiplash and countered by rocking back to shove your bottoms off.

Now nude, you gazed into his eyes where he’d dropped to your level.

He caught the back of your neck to save it from the force of his kiss.

A wet one, it spoke of salvia and how you’d made his mouth water.

You curled into him and despised the layers he still had on as it separated you.

He found it just as annoying because he released and together you both stripped him in a stumbling mess.

He nearly fell into the shower as you whipped the curtain back and chased his unstable form into the warm spray.

Both instantly lulling at the sensation, you pressed together to enjoy it at the same time. A fire smothering flame, it held a heated tiding that reminded you that you were together and that was the point. It shifted to tender touches, drinking in the moisture on each other’s skin as you both reached for soap. Washing each other without pretext, you would often find yourself simply leaning against him for the sake of it. He churred loud enough to beat the nozzle and, as he mapped out the lengths of your skin, he tapped his beak against nearly all points as if to leave unseen pieces of himself behind.

By the time you exited, you had found there was a limit to what had prior been an endless stream of hot water from Donnie’s systems.

You dried off in fluffy towels and Donnie looked like he’d collapse from satisfaction at the slightest provocation. Wanting only to pamper him further, you showed him his muscle cream. He went to take it, but you pulled back to indicate you wanted to apply it. It pricked his eyes with happy tears that he squeezed away and offered you his arm. Working the solution into his neglected muscles, it was with such great comfort that his churrs broke. Imagining them on some supersonic level, you moved in an overflowing silence to get his other arm, neck, and finally his carapace.

He was without bones as you finished and you had to act as his walker to get him to bed.

He looked like he might say something, but was teetering in and out of consciousness as you sat him on the edge of it.

You gave a soothing hum and got a hold of clean wraps.

This time he was completely malleable in offering his limbs.

With the best approximation of the many times you’d seen him wrap himself, you applied them one slow rounding at a time.

It brought his churrs back and by the time you secured his neck, he kissed you with sweetness.

“Marry me.” He mumbled between brushes to your lips.

You were equally drunk on the moment, you relished the little way your lips tried to cling to each other. “What…?”

He only kissed you more, in a way that spoke of need and pulled you into the bed.

Falling to his side, he turned right into you to give chaste press after chaste press and stroked your cheek for good measure.

You spent what must have been hours like that until exhaustion kept him from reciprocating.

Laying the wrong way in bed, you pulled up the bottom sheets to cover him the best you could.

He gave that honed chirp unprovoked and you kissed him with the desperation it always conjured. “What is that, Donnie? Please…?”

“You’ve… never asked…” He told you as his hand ghosted over your form as if to absorb your energy.

“Tell me now?” You pressed the tip of your nose to his beak.

“Mating call.”

You blinked wide, looking at him up his snout.

“For my mate.” He spoke, almost cheeky and stole another kiss.

Your heartbeat a little too fast and you found yourself cuddling into him.

“Mate.” He confirmed again and this time you found him checking your pulse to feel how your heart skipped a beat.

“You asked me to marry you.” You spit without venom.

He had the audacity to chuff. “There’s no way.”

“You did. Tonight, or… uh, this morning. Not that long ago.”

“I did not.” He gave a gentle pressure to your arm to make you look up at him.

You saw a dash of fear swirled into worry and fatigue in his gaze. “You did…”

“No…” His expression grew grave.

“Donnie.”

“That can’t be. Let me take it back.” He gave a faint growl as he rolled you over to hang above your head. “I didn’t!”

“Don.” You couldn’t help but giggle.

“Don’t laugh! Before I’ve said I love you?! Do you know the amount of planning I’ve had in place!? To work up to this?! I refuse to waste it on-on-on being mildly out of sorts at most!” His eyes darted wildly and without source. “Erase it! You will forget that you ever heard-!!”

You stared up at him with a watery expression that you were trying very hard to contain.

“Did…? Did I…?” He hung, mortified, above you.

You could only nod and tried to hide your mouth.

He tipped once, then twice, before his body came down around you in a whine. “I’m a mess!”

You moved deliberately in petting his carapace.

His churrs were weak and sad.

You thought against his head for a moment before summoning your strength. He felt the tide of your body shift and turned to study you curiously. Surely only seeing your face puckered, you breathed in as deep as you could and mustered the sound only he’d been able to produce.

You gave your approximation of the mating call.

Before the sound fully left you, his lips were on yours and his tears met your cheeks to escape.

You held him tight and returned the fervor.

“You-” He broke the lip lock as if to scold. “You-you-!”

You held his head so you could send him a honeyed gaze.

He shook your frame with a deafening mating call and kissed you deeply.

Melting into one, he slowed with reluctance to pull you the right way into bed. There you snuggled down together, giving pecks where possible to soothe the need until you were wound into a singular form.

“We were silent all during the washing. It was supposed to be a given, but I haven’t given my explanation…” He lamented.

“Now or later?” You nuzzled his throat.

He gave a faint hum. “I rushed my return home.”

You pursed your lips and pulled away to view him.

“I couldn’t stand another day without you.”

“Coral says we're codependent.” You told him while stroking his plastron.

“After this showing…?” Donnie’s brow ridge lifted in what had once been his patented look.

“I think… I mean I was in a dark place for a day, but… I don’t know. I think we’re fine. We do live our lives separate, but together. So what if we don’t want to be apart long term? Isn’t that why we’re dating?”

He gave a faint smile and kissed your forehead. “Which day was dark, my heart?”

“Friday…” You tucked your leg further where it was between his.

You felt his tail curl against your skin as if to hold you. “Then four days is too many. Three will be the max from now on.”

You couldn’t help the little jolt of joy that gave you.

It must have felt similarly for him because he gave you a bubbling peck.

You hummed content and he returned it with a similar chirp.

You gave your mating call.

He returned it with his.

You shoved into him and he welcomed you close.

“How were you?” You asked, settling into his scent.

“Let’s say it was all dark.” He spoke into your temple.

“I thought there was a change?”

He gave an affectionate chirp and nuzzled you. “There has.”

You slid a hand up to his neck to feel his pulse.

It beat evenly for you. “It was around the same time as yours. Before I gave my progress note. Days spent in the slums. Breathing the rancid air I once favored… I… I suppose it is at your lowest you receive the best perspective.”

“Donnie-”

“I know…” He kissed an apology for cutting you off. “I must learn the hard way it seems.”

You gave a reluctant nod.

“I don’t like that way of life, experiencing it now. If distilled, I suppose I like controlled chaos. I like knowing an outcome. I like watching the world burn, but… I don’t believe I prefer it by my hand. Call it entertainment as it would need to be a collapse that doesn’t affect you in the slightest.”

You leaned up where you were tucked under his chin.

He stroked your spine. “I did not sleep once the entirety of the time I was gone. Not for lack of trying, but it was as if my body could not rest knowing it was without yours.”

Your eyes closed.

“Hallucinations came at a certain point. I am built for higher tolerance, but that does not mean my mind does not slip.”

You slipped your fingers into the hinge of his shell.

He squeezed you lightly. “Nothing to fear. Can I share with you what I saw?”

You forced yourself to hear the first half of his sentence. “What?”

“I saw you. I saw us. I saw memories. I saw things yet to come…” He trailed off and you could feel him smiling. “I saw happiness that I was worthy of.”

You held him close.

He dipped his lips to press your forehead. “My truest desire was not one of ruin. It was working in my lab, you visiting me with a stroller. A life full.”

“Those loose lips of yours.” You kissed his neck. “You’ve brought up babies a few times now. What happened that being only pillow talk?”

“Would you like kids?”

“With you?”

He gave a single offended grunt. “Who else?”

“We might need to adopt…” You leaned your worries into him.

The blood test.

Negative.

Not for a lack of trying.

There was the catchall of his birth control, but you weren’t sure if that was really the only cause.

He seemed unaffected. “The child would still be ours.”

You snapped your head up to see him.

“It would still be with me.” He spoke reassurance.

You kissed him. “Yes, someday.”

He lingered against it. “I’m withdrawing from the Hidden City completely. I’ll transfer all my holdings. I’ll cherry pick my successors. I will go only legitimate… with more than a few offshore accounts.”

“I thought you weren’t allowed…?”

“I’m not allowed to fully quit. I will forever be a sort of target, but I also know the system better than anyone. I was raised by it. If I restructure everything and leave no one wanting, they will be less inclined to come after me.”

“It sounds easy, but-”

“It will not be. This will be an extremely dangerous, arduous, tedious, and a miserable change. Any other version of me would despise how flagrant I’m being. Needlessly selfish. I’m spitting in my own face.”

You studied him before stroking his jaw and smiling. “You’re morally grey.”

He bobbed with laughter. “I like that.”

“Yeah?” You moved to kiss him.

He took your lips, greedily. “Very much so.”

“You’ll be happy?”

“I am happy.”

You swam in a light blush. “I meant doing this. This is… huge… Donnie, this has been your life.”

He sighed. “Unfortunately, I will kick and scream. I may also have to bend our rules and commit a few vile acts. A show of power even in retreat is a potent one.”

“You’re going to kill?” You stared at him knowingly.

“A few… It is yet to be seen, but I imagine… five…? Or so tops…?” He grimaced.

“Only if necessary.” You leaned into him with a shake of your head.

“Of course.”

“I… I’m not sure how to feel. If this is what you want, you know I support you, but it feels…?”

“Surprising? Sudden? As if this isn’t actually occurring?”

“That and way more.”

“It has been a drawing culmination. I feel as though I am dangling from an invisible thread. I am sure I am held as I haven’t fallen, but it seems improbable that I have not died.”

You tried to picture that.

“I suppose I could have… What an interesting choice of afterlife for someone such as me…” He flicked his gaze and caught your lips.

You kissed back his comedy.

“My concerns are my own. Overall, I have full confidence. You cinched it.”

“Me?”

“Seeing you. I have spent all this time back in my natural habitat unsettled. Miserable. Plagued by insomnia. Taking no pleasure in my favorite game of manipulation.”

You gazed into his eyes.

There was only truth in them. “The moment I stepped into our home, all that ill will evaporated. I was whole again. Immediately soothed. I believe that is why I enjoyed the hacking and the destruction of the double date. I had you by my side.”

“You like being bad with me?” You asked with a light tease.

“I like being anything with you.” He bumped his beak to your nose. “However, I did take that into account. I played out exercises in which you were my cohort.”

“We’ve played that more than once already.” Your lids lowered.

He lapsed into a momentary churr before clearing it with his throat. “In guise, yes. Enjoyed. Relished. Savored. In reality… I wanted to vomit. The thought of you having to deal with any percentage, no matter how small, of what is required to do of what I have done. Of…” His attention dipped, haunted. “More than what you’ve already suffered.”

You kissed him back to the present.

He came and nuzzled into you. “Never.”

You settled comfortably against his lips.

He pulled away the slightest amount and you felt the flicker of worry. “Unless, of course, that is what you desire…?”

You opened your eyes wide to translate how serious you were. “No. Not even. Heroes and villains… the whole thing is… not good. I don’t… I don’t want to do either. I just want to be me and I just want to be with you.”

You watched emotions march through his ragged form. “You are so sure you won’t make mistakes…”

“I’m not.” You pressed your hands into the plastron over his head. “I’m as scared as anyone else.”

“You’re not scared of me…”

“You’re not a mistake.”

All hitting a breaking point, he enveloped you like a tide. You let the warm waters wash you out to sea where you had no worries for the depths supporting you. They were all known, even if they weren’t, and you had full trust that you and your partner would navigate whatever necessary.

Both my betas are getting pummeled with work but they still make time for me! I can't thank @tmntxthings and @thepinkpanther83 enough!!

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afreakingdork · 10 days

Text

Weak Spot - Chapter 65

RotTMNT Donatello x Reader

The fear is only in the scene and not in this week’s chapter art is by @mrabubu

Also available on Ao3

First 💜 Previous

When Donnie had come to around day nine, it had been while you were both resting. He’d breathed deeply upon his returned consciousness and found you lazing by his side. No emergency to attend to, you’d both been slow to catch up. Lounging until the prolonged grime on his skin forced him to the shower, the cock sleeve had been a relative success with only minor discomfort. Adjustments for next year were plotted and you exited, leaving the nest and all else behind for the time being.

Though you didn’t see them, there’d been the sensation of eyes on your way out of the skyscraper that you patently ignored. Leaving in the same clothes you arrived in, Donnie’s car waited for you at the curb and it was once you were settled that he slid an envelope across the seat. Taking it to open at a snail’s pace, you found a spa voucher inside and sent Donnie a wry look.

“The one you never received.” He said simply.

“What about you?” You waved the single pass. “Wasn’t it a couple’s bit?”

“I have the wherewithal, but not the control necessary to deal with a single more touch then I have already.” His expression tipped unhinged.

“Noted.” You couldn’t help, but smile.

“That said…” He looked out the window. “What I feel is difficult to describe.”

You knew it well.

Even with an entire backseat between you, you felt connected.

A being that had melted into one, the hive mind allowed you to sit in separate bodies.

“Settled.” He spoke, trying to name it.

“Meaning you’ll be okay without me.” You hummed.

“’Without’ isn’t the right verbiage…” He struggled and brought his gaze over to you.

“Love you.” You didn’t know either, but that was the closest approximation.

He returned the sentiment with a smile and you drove to the spa. Not even kissing goodbye, you felt no lesser as you entered the building and watched him idle until you were situated. Taken back, you got scrubbed clean, bathed in all matter of creams and oils, and rubbed down until you were actual putty, you barely remembered emerging.

The car was there once again and you rode home to promptly pass out in your own bed.

You awoke, bright and rested for a Wednesday and work. It felt odd going right back after what had transpired, but you couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was right in the world. You hadn’t been overtaxed and you figured it was latent concerns causing you phantom anxiety. The last time had been such a nightmare that your body was ready for a drop even though the ride had concluded.

It took you on an otherwise usual hump day where a few of your coworkers mentioned your glow and asked for a referral to your health retreat. Barely able to keep a joke about assigning out mutant boyfriends, you utilized distraction and got by without ever having to name a place. Your week ran through with easy evenings in the presence of your partner. Space was utilized in a physical sense, but you felt no distance for it. Your hearts beat in time and you held the feeling close like a warm mug. It was in this happy stupor that you approved your weekend with S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N.

You loved S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N.

You really did.

Going over to his apartment had felt exactly like a parent’s trip. You joked about examining his space to make sure he was doing well on his own and he teased right back about how he’d paid his first water bill. You’d taken it in stride until you found that he had spoken the truth since the tap shook and sputtered to life after what had to be years of disuse. It made sense considering his body and it wasn’t until later that you realized that was your foreshadowing.

As much as your son was your own, he also patently wasn’t human and had no need for sleep. It had been fine the first night, you’d ran an hours long conversation simply catching up on everything. Then came the weary early hours of the morning and S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. seemed none the wiser to start a new activity. Starting with a child’s board game, he revealed a stack that would have escalating age ranges and play times you could barely fathom.

You reminded him you needed to sleep and he allowed you several hours before his restlessness woke you up.

He had a list to get through and his child-like excitement prevailed. You moved without an ounce of comparable energy and tried to be there for him. It came with withering mental fortitude and you falling back on ploys from movies. Joking about playing the quiet game, S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. almost fell for it. A quick, instantaneous online search caused him to evade with a simple, “Nice try!”

Foiled, you went from playing catch to giving a driving lesson. The latter of which rattled you not because S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. was bad, but because his judgment time exceeded yours. He operated the vehicle on a higher level, only restrained by traffic laws. Those downloaded to his memory banks, he drove at the top allowable speed while swerving in and out of traffic. He stopped only when necessary and though you were wholly safe, the exchange had occurred with nearly a thousand close calls and almost had you kissing the repulsive New York sidewalk when you parked to get celebratory ice cream.

You bought him extra sprinkles to match the stars in his eyes.

Saturday night gave you another pitifully short stint of sleep. You thought S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. would relent at some point based on your health, but he must have been pulling readings because he was undeterred. It was only when your lids were shutting against your control did he offer you a few hours of respite and only that was, in his words, the most he could do since he’d already had to cut quite a large chunk of activities off his list.

You’d berated him for planning it without taking rest into account, but he simply pouted.

He had guilt down to a science and you stepped up your parenting on Sunday. No matter how short, sleep helped get your mind right and you’d set the automaton down for a stern talking to. He’d taken it all with wide eyes and only when you asked if he understood did he animate with abject joy. He revealed he’d been pushing your buttons to get his first real familial punishment and you’d put him in a corner to think about what he’d done.

His spirit unbreakable, he’d come away from his time-out with an even bigger grin. There was no way to reprimand him, but at the same time his happiness was infectious. Nothing could get him down and, in a way, you were proud of him for that. Something more like awe, you’d hugged him and he accepted it with popping questions as to what you were feeling. All new to him, you told him truthfully that he was sucking the last of your soul out more than a giant feral mutant man and S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. had been concise in his response.

“Yeah, that’s just kids.”

You attempted a useless chokehold that he broke out of with a complaint of how that was for siblings. You asked what he knew about that and his momentary processing gave you enough time to noogie him. He laughed all the while and allowed you a lazy movie marathon for the rest of your time with him. A few films down and you were spent. You put a few plans on the books to see each other soon and then you headed home.

Upon entering your apartment Sunday night, you vaguely registered Donnie startle at your appearance, but you saw little else as you walked straight into the bedroom and collapsed.

Donnie followed after and you felt him appraising the exhaustion so you gave him a reassuring thumbs up.

He chuckled. “You chose this.”

You freed your mouth from your pillow. “You need to spend more time with your son.”

“My son?” He sounded like he’d crossed back into the living room. “After I drafted up adoption paperwork for you both?”

“Oh, I’ll still sign, but I’m new. I’m one set of firsts. He wants you. He’ll always want that approval from you.”

The quiet that followed sounded like one that caught Donnie with something to think about.

You kicked off some excess layers and tucked yourself in. Figuring you were clean enough, you went right to sleep in a desperate attempt to catch up. You vaguely registered when Donnie joined you and sort of believed you’d earned a peck to the forehead, not that you responded. It was in a dark, lifeless place that you went to recover from your parenting crash course and where purple came to retrieve you.

It appeared like a sudden flash and you were bathed in it.

You turned in your submerging, but didn’t feel anything tangible around you.

Your eyes moved beneath your lids to make sense of it when a wet gasp came.

“No.”

The whisper was like a curse, but the purple held you back.

“No, no, no…!”

Horror was outpouring next.

Something was wrong, you screamed against your lax body.

You needed to do something.

Purple refused to let go.

Purple had your limbs.

Purple locked you up.

“Stop!”

It was a desperate plea.

Not yours.

Then the lights turned off.

Silence followed.

Your eyes opened.

They hadn’t been open.

You saw Donnie’s side of the bed.

It was emptier than just the absence of his form.

You reached out with twitching fingers and felt his body heat.

He’d just been there.

Bathroom?

You turned to look and found the door open and dark.

The kitchen was similarly so, but there was also something off about it.

Fighting against exhaustion with every fiber of your being, you sat up and saw what was missing.

Just over the hump of Donnie’s side of the bed was a shape of purple linen.

You crawled across his rapidly cooling space to find his pillow had fallen to the wayside. Picking it up with a stretch, it too was warm and you held it close as you traced the ground. The sheets had been dragged sharply down his side of the bed and a bit of a blanket brushed the floor. Feet hitting the ground, you held the pillow close as you followed where the cotton pointed.

You saw the dresser directly in front of you had been jarred and was sitting off kilter from its usual flush against the wall. From there it was past the partition and Donnie’s desk chair had been shoved across the room. The couch was then sitting at a similar canted angle as the dresser and, with that, you were close enough to see the kitchen.

The window was wide open.

Night sky poured in and the moonlight appeared tangible.

You stepped into the pale white light with Donnie’s pillow held close.

You heard a crash of metal that startled you a few steps back.

Nothing more came.

You saw no debris.

There was no more sound.

It was simply as if something huge had landed on the fire escape.

Raph.

You didn’t know why you thought it, but you were sure as you left the pillow on the counter and climbed out the window.

Landing on the metal with bare feet stung, but you ignored it for an immediate ascension.

Any of the turtles could have made that noise, you reminded yourself.

They could all leap buildings or something to that extent.

That super human ability then extended to all mutants and yokai and you were climbing at a faster rate.

The escape rattled around you like a cage and you heard a frantic shout.

“Get back!!!”

Head shooting upward, you saw a dance of purple lights.

Donnie.

It had been Donnie’s ninpo that had come to you in your sleep.

It had been Donnie who shouted a warning.

Donnie’s ninpo was active now.

Was there an emergency?

Was S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. on his way?

Your gauntlet hadn’t moved.

Nothing had moved.

Was going up to help safe?

What was the protocol?

You had a set of them in place for danger, didn’t you?

You were still taking steps.

One at a monotonous time, you scaled the stories until you were nearing the top.

A blinding flash of red glowed like an omen.

It was Raph.

You were moving faster and the escape fought against you.

It wanted to protect you, you thought.

You had someone else to protect, you responded.

“Woah, woah…” Raph’s voice appeared gentle and soothing.

“I’ll slaughter you!!!” Donnie snarled in reply.

“No, you ain’t. You’re alright…”

“No, I’m not!! They’re coming!! They’re-!!!”

“Who’s coming? Who’s here beside us…?”

“That’s-!!!” You heard fretful steps pace.

You had stopped.

You hadn’t taken a step of your own since you’d heard Raph’s voice.

Donnie and him were on the roof.

Why?

“Donatello-”

“I TOLD YOU TO GET BACK!!!”

“I haven’t moved! Hands up. See? You see me?”

You inched up a step and counted seven more to the top.

You took the first as slow and quietly as you could.

“That doesn’t make sense. I saw. I saw them. They-!”

“It’s just us.” Raph cut through. “I felt your call and came. When I got here, you were already up here and I took a sec to pop my head into your place. Y/N was sleeping. It’s just you and now me.”

“Y/N-!!” Purple shot out like a spotlight.

“Is safe in bed!!” Raph pleaded and more red came to twist a heated mix in the sky. “Donatello, you need to calm down! I think you had a-!”

“CALM DOWN!?” Donnie screamed and you heard a thousand guns cock.

You dropped down and pressed against the building on reflex.

“DON’T YOU DARE SPEAK TO ME THAT WAY!”

“DONATELLO!!!” Raph unleashed one of his sonic roars.

You shrank as small as your body would allow to protect yourself from the fallout.

You counted.

Each second would be a bullet.

Only none were fired.

It was quiet.

You lifted your head and peered up to find the same purple and red curling over the top lip of the building.

“Had what?” Donnie’s voice came dangerously small.

“H-huh?” Raph fumbled.

“You said…” Donnie wheezed. “You said you thought I had… what?”

It took Raph a second and you could envision the light bulb going off for him. “A nightmare… I think you had a nightmare.”

There was another bout of silence and you inched up another step.

Raph went on. “I don’t sense any other mystic energy. There’s no evidence of anyone else. No scent. No trail.”

Even the wind was still to listen in.

“It’s just us.” There was a skip in Raph’s words that made you think he was lowering his arm. “Just us.”

You saw red dim.

“Y/N… is…?”

“In bed. Sleeping, looked like.”

“I had…” Donnie took his own moment and you could see him processing. “I haven’t had one in years… It felt…!”

“Real?” Raph’s voice held weight. “Yeah… I know those.”

“What would you-!?” Donnie cut himself off. “You…!”

You made quick work of the next three steps.

There were two more.

“I get ‘em. Mine are from the Krang possession. They get me again and this time I don’t break free. I do… terrible things.” Raph explained.

Purple tapered off.

“Not just me, there’s Leo. His are the worst. Impossible to pin him down when he’s freaking out cause he’ll portal hop, but even if he doesn't then there’s the swords…”

Raph had a wet laugh.

“Plus trying to calm someone when your color happens to be the same damn one as your greatest enemies’ eyes?”

The roof was darkening to a level you’d expect for a moonlit night.

Raph’s voice moved. “Mike had sleep paralysis, but he also flies in his sleep sometimes… That was-”

Raph cleared his throat and you used the sound as cover to take the last two steps.

“Doesn’t matter.” Raph decided. “Point is, they fucking suck.”

“I did not call you.” Donnie finally spoke.

“Ya did.” Raph had a knowing weight to his voice.

“I refuse to play some verbal game.”

“It’s not a game; it’s a fact. It’s your ninpo. You sent off an alarm bell. You’re in a group chat now whether you like it or not and you called us.”

You’d seen that.

In a memory, you saw each of the turtle’s eyes light up in their respective colors.

“Why you? Why would you come? Why not another? Why would any of you!?”

There was silence and you peered over the lip of the building.

On the far side of the roof, Raph was standing with his spiky shell to you. His shorts dangled almost as baggy as his tail and spoke of lounging. You didn’t see Donnie at first, but a study of the roof found a glimpse of his darker green skin peeking out from between Raph’s limbs.

Raph’s arm came up and he rubbed his eyes.

You felt like you’d ventured upon a cut scene.

Raph took a few tired steps to the side before he spun to sit. It leaned his shell against the roof’s eave and he stretched one leg in front where the other stood at folded attention. He’d picked a calculated distance from Donnie who was now revealed to you. Your mate looked haggard from where he’d been ripped from sleep and he was currently pressed small to the far corner of the roof. With his legs folded up in defense against his body, he eyed Raph as if ready to lash out.

He didn’t have his battle shell.

He had little more than his wraps and sweatpants.

Instinct to protect your boyfriend flared and you were about to jump onto the roof and cover him when Raph spoke small and withered.

“You called.”

It disarmed you and Donnie in two words.

“The others were asleep. The warning’ll wake ya after a minute, but not right away” Raph went on, getting a little of himself back in the process. “I was up. I answered”

Donnie held his legs tight and studied the roof for a moment before looking toward the bigger turtle.

It was a little too far to see, but something must have been on Donnie’s face.

“Nothing bad.” Raph shrugged. “It’s hard to sleep sometimes. Not always a big thing. Sometimes you got a statewide tourney coming up and the kids are ready, but you worry and dad’s sugar’s off and he’s not checking, then you got a brother, back from mental vacation, doing the most to make up for lost time…”

Donnie’s chin landed on his knees.

In contrast, your brow wrinkled.

That last part must be referring to Leo.

That meant Leo was similarly trying to pack in missing years just like S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. was.

You disliked that similarity.

“Fresh air does me good.” Raph nodded before he thought. “Or as close as I can get. City’n all!” He chuckled.

Donnie watched him.

“Your nightmare. It wasn’t…?” Raph struggled with his words and kept his gaze away.

Donnie’s head tilted.

With a chuff, Raph turned to him with an expression that begged understanding.

“Not about any of you.” Donnie spoke matter-of-factly.

Raph bobbed, pleased with the answer, but tried not to show it. “Good. That’s good.”

Donnie’s pupils plummeted.

Raph went a certain amount of slack and looked up at the sky.

Donnie’s gaze narrowed and then he hesitated before speaking. “I… was pursued for many years when I was young.”

Raph’s eyes went wide and his head lolled to Donnie. “Hey… you don’t have to tell me.”

Donnie looked on.

“I’m not trying to repeat history, remember? I’m not against it, let’s start with that. I’m all ears… or not since…” Raph shrugged a little sheepishly in reference to their tympanum. “I’m saying I want to hear if you’re willing, but don’t feel like you gotta.”

Donnie nodded once. “Noted.”

Raph didn’t seem sure what to do with that response. “So… yeah…”

“I’ll continue. My choice.” Donnie spoke with a clinical edge.

Raph nodded, ready.

“The visions were intangible, in a sense. When I was young I was pursued by police and hired hands alike, but they’ve lost distinction with age.”

Raph’s chest lifted with what you saw as pride to be privy to this.

“I dreamed little when I was younger in the Hidden City. No time when one is on constant edge. Threat of capture was omnipresent. When I came topside, there wasn’t time. So much to do. Sleep was a hindrance and drugs both helped and harmed bringing with them side effects I could not control.” Donnie seemed unable to stop the words tumbling out.

You leaned heavily into the brick and debated leaving.

This was their moment.

Not yours.

Everything was alright.

“Paranoia.” Donnie spoke haunted. “Hallucinations.”

“Drugs’ll do that.” Raph murmured.

Donnie’s head was slow to nod. “Why now? I haven’t had a nightmare in years.”

“Anything worrying ya?” Raph chanced.

Donnie jolted a little.

Raph’s lids fell in a knowing way.

Donnie threw his head up, irritated. “I am planning something-“ Thinking better, Donnie flicked his gaze to correct himself. “-something that will not violate your bastardized code, something you will presumably congratulate. Regardless… I suppose… It has been taxing my mind, but not in such a way that should trigger an event such as this.”

Raph openly thought.

“The only outlier I know of.” Donnie cracked his neck.

Raph was still evaluating how he felt about the ambiguity. “Stress is weird. All those worries can connect in the noggin.”

“You refer to immediate memory recall.”

“Huh?”

Donnie huffed. “Over-secretion of stress hormones interferes with long term memory recollection, but can enhance short-term based on relative memory storage areas of the brain.”

Raph blinked at him, obviously not getting it.

“I simplified.” Donnie complained.

Raph shook his head. “Not that… I mean yes that, because yeah sure, that happens, but that seems positive but I was talking more how stress messes with memory.”

Donnie gaped.

“I don’t know the fancy brain labels, but basically PTSD or things like that that deal with stress can cause memories to pop up that aren’t related cause the connections are off.”

“You’re suggesting hippocampus-dependent modulation of extrahippocampal memories?” Donnie stared.

“I guess?” Raph gave a snaggle-toothed grin. “That’s how it was explained to me. It was called… uh… inappropriate response?”

“Inappropriate response scenarios…” Donnie’s gaze darted as if he were filing through academic papers. “Fascinating.”

Raph kept his grin as he watched.

“What else do you know?” Donnie zeroed in on the other as if ready to pick him apart.

Raph gave an awkward chuckle. “Uh… like our personal experience? I just know what we dealt with and how we figured out what to do.”

“With what exactly?” Donnie unfurled.

“Krang.” Raph swallowed hard.

Donnie looked away, feeling the same discomfort.

“Being too young when everything went down with bad guys and… well… you…”

“I did not know you were possessed.” Donnie spoke softly.

You didn’t read it as a deference and neither did Raph. “Yeah… Covered my entire upper body… arms… and half my head… Took the same side as the one you hit me with the acid. Went from damaged to fully blind.” Raph pointed to his bad eye.

For the first time, you saw Donnie show a guilt over what he’d done.

“The injuries were one thing, but losing control of myself…” Raph looked at his hands before he squeezed them into fists. “Been hypnotized and I’ll take that any day.”

You watched Donnie breathe for several seconds. “I was not… possessed, but my battle was a losing one. I nearly succumbed several times. I felt the bodily infiltration.”

“Yeah?” Raph looked over.

Donnie held out his own arms. “I have a high tolerance for electrocution. Born of terrible circumstance, it’s the only thing that kept me alive and unturned. Electroshock ousted them from my system.”

“That’s a way to combat it?” Raph’s brow ridge rose.

“For extremities, it worked. I witnessed the hyphae spasm when shocked. If they were to entwine with the brain then such a contraction would render the host dead if the current already did not do them in.”

“Ah…”

Donnie gave a solemn nod.

“That kind of tolerance, what…?” Raph readied himself.

A gnat shot into your nose and you made the slightest sharpened exhale to keep from gagging.

Both men snapped their gaze to you.

It occurred to you then that you had meant to leave.

You stared in return and shrank the slightest amount.

“Y/N!” Donnie was on his feet and moving.

“Uh… hey…” You rose up on shaky legs from where you’d been squatting too long.

He reached you and pressed his beak into your cheek.

“I’m sorry…” You leaned into him.

“Did I wake up?” He retreated enough to examine you.

“Kind of? I didn’t know what was happening, but I think the light of your ninpo started to. You were gone when I was all the way awake.”

“Apologies. You needed rest.”

“Donnie…”

He dipped down and scooped you up into his arms.

You relaxed against him. “I heard most of what happened. I heard Raph when he landed nearby so I came out here… I was worried… I didn’t mean to snoop… I’m sorry.”

“Saves time.” Donnie said simply as he walked you back over to where Raph was still sitting.

“Wait, what are you…?” You tensed with protest.

Raph gave a wave.

“H-hey…” You were at Donnie’s mercy as he took his same seat with you in his lap.

Raph’s hand fell down onto his folded knee and in an open offer.

You placed your hand where it couldn’t encircle even one of his fingers. “I’m sorry to you too.”

Raph grinned, a fang poking out. “Nah, sounds like I scared you so I’m the sorry one.”

“I heard you checked on me.” You pursed your lips.

“Yeah, I musta caught you before ya got up.” Raph’s thumb came down to squeeze the whole of your hand.

You spread your fingers like your appendaged was squished even though he exerted no pressure.

“As you heard, Raphael and I were discussing the Krang Invasion.” Donnie seemed satisfied and looked to Raph. “You were elaborating on possession.”

“Hey, now. Ever think that could be a sensitive topic? I told you it caused me nightmares.” Raph had the slightest scold to him.

Donnie’s brow creased as that hadn’t occurred to him.

“You guys… aren’t mad for whatever reason, but should I… be here for this?” You move to give Donnie a worried gaze. “You apologized for keeping me up.”

Raph shrugged. “I don’t mind.”

“As I said, I won’t have to explain the occurrence twice.” Donnie rubbed your arm. “Your secondary point holds. The latent cortisol flooding…” Donnie’s lips wrinkled with slight amusement and he shared the joke with Raph. “… interfered with my short-term memory recollection.”

Raph gave a smarmy grin.

“Would you rather return to bed?” Donnie squeezed you with question.

“I want to stay.” You bumped your nose to the underside of his chin.

The start of a churr rolled out of him, but he silenced it with a chuff.

Raph whistled as if he wasn’t paying attention, though it made it more obvious he’d heard.

Donnie gave him a lethal side-eye.

You snuggled closer to your boyfriend. “How long you guys planning to chat?”

Raph shrugged. “Adrenaline’s like coffee.”

“Cortisol.” Donnie corrected.

“For you or me?” Raph was unenthused.

Donnie considered the various chemicals.

“Do you need me?” You murmured.

Both men were quiet and Raph moved to speak first.

“I’m going out on a limb and saying ‘no.’ We may not need you, but we want you here.” Raph checked with Donnie.

You felt the way Donnie took the answer with a form of pride before looking down at the precious parcel of your body. “Quite.”

“Then I’ll stay.” You nuzzled Donnie and squeezed Raph’s digit. Both men allowed the moment of affection before going back to their discussion. Skirting horrors and keeping albeit difficult subject matter as clinical as they could, you listened to them talk about coping mechanisms and psychology that had been picked up both consciously and unconsciously until you drifted from the even keel of the discussion.

💜NEXT💜

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