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Patrols weren’t like they used to be. They were quiet, and tense. Awkward at best, painful at worst. Nearly five months of arguing will do that, apparently. Today fell closer toward the ‘worst’ end of the spectrum.
Leo and Raph couldn’t agree on a plan. Whatever small part of a plan Leo made, the snapper picked apart without mercy. It started as almost constructive criticism, and quickly fell into nitpicking and flat out ‘I wouldn’t do that’s. Leo wasn’t being much better, shooting back with digs of his own that Donnie didn’t bother to listen to, much less keep track of.
They were dealing with the remnants of the Foot clan, having followed some recruits down to a paper store because apparently they were doing that again. Consequently, they’d wound up fighting them in the alleyway beside it.
It wasn’t often that they saw the Foot clan these days, a couple months after the second attack from the Shredder. They’d already gone pretty quiet after they’re failed attempt with Shredder, but they’d been even quieter after the second attempt. Or maybe the turtles just hadn’t been running into them. It’s hard to tell.
Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that Raph yells, “This is not how I would’ve handled this Leo!”
Donnie takes a deep breath, suppressing the urge to roll his eyes and shoving down his rising annoyance as he takes a swing at an origami soldier. It dodges, jerking to the side before rushing forward straight into Donnie's next attack—a swing with the chainsaw attachment for his tech bō. Its something Donnie reverted back to using shortly after the arguments started, returning to something he knew. He’d argue it was for practicality over comfort, better to use something he’s familiar with when they’re fighting just about as bad as they had been when they first started. Mikey wouldn’t say anything, but his expression always read like he knew better when he brought it up.
The saw cleaves the Foot’s creation in two, the soldier bursting into shreds of paper dramatically. Immediately, there’s a second one on him.
“Well that would’ve been nice to know before we came in here!” Leo shouts back, and Donnie’s face twists, the volume of it painful with Leo standing less than a foot away. But that’s Donnie’s fault for unintentionally pairing off with Leo.
Mikey’d been smarter, the second Raph had shot a very disapproving look at the slider before they’d engaged with the enemy, he’d put himself a good distance away. Not so far he was out of reach, just far enough that it was easier to ignore the two arguing. With a huff, Donnie raises his bō to block a hit straight to the head and shove the origami soldier. The soldier stumbles a few feet back and Donnie immediately closes the distance, using it to put space between himself and Leo.
“We should stick close together!” Raph calls out and this time, Donnie does roll his eyes. Instead, he suppresses the urge to retort back that he will when they stop yelling.
He takes a sharp swing at the origami’s side, only to have it knocked back with a kick. He uses that momentum to twirl the bō back around, cutting through its leg and hip. He doesn’t have time to celebrate as another origami soldier takes its place.
“No! We’ve dealt with these guys a bazillion times!” Leo calls back, and this time it doesn’t hurt Donnie’s ears. It just irks him a little more. He takes a deep breath, though, slamming his bō into the soldier’s arm as it swings for him. He immediately has to raise it to block again, though, as a second soldier joins the first. “There’s nothing to worry about, Raph!”
Donnie takes another deep breath, jaw clenching as he tries to tune out the arguing. Raph yells something back but he pointedly ignores it, focusing on not getting punched in the face only to have his legs swept out from under him. He takes it in stride, landing hard on his shell in a way that has the straps biting painfully into his shoulder, but rolling with it into a backward somersault. He barely dodges a heel to the face and pops up in time to slam his bō into the attacker.
Maybe the origami soldiers have some form of actual intelligence to them, maybe it’s sheer luck on their part, but the explosion of paper obscures his vision enough that he doesn’t see the attack from the second soldier until it’s too late. One moment, he’s staring at a cloud of fluttering black and red scraps, the next, he’s met with a ninja star coming straight to his face, he spins his bō, knocking it off course as he jerks to the right. There’s movement out of the corner of his vision, and his eyes dart to it in time to see a fist through the scraps as well. He clenches his jaw, holding his breath and internally already dreading how much this is probably going to hurt. Except there’s a flash of orange, and then the fist explodes into paper as well.
He releases the breath, calling out, “Thanks, Mikey!”
Mikey, for his part, smiles, shooting him a thumbs up and a, “No probs Bob!”
“Please don’t call me Bob!” Donnie hears him snort slightly, even above the sound of shredding paper and arguing.
“You got it, Robert!” Mikey laughs. Donnie sighs internally, taking a swing at an origami soldier that has more shredded paper filling the air.
“Don’t call me that, either!” It only makes Mikey laugh a little harder, and Donnie can’t really fight the smile off his face, either. There’s a moment of reprieve where another soldier isn’t immediately attacking him after he’s finished off the one he was fighting. He takes the moment to join Mikey, shredding the soldier attacking him.
“Yeah, that one didn’t even really rhyme,” Mikey laments. “Also—Thanks.”
“Of course, Miche—” He’s cut off by the sound of metal clanging, turning his head around to find the Foot Lieutenant fleeing up the fire escape on the three story building opposite the paper store.
“The guy’s getting away!” Raph yells, though it sounds like a pointed dig and Donnie turns to find both of them still held up with their own Foot origami soldiers.
Leo opens his mouth, likely with a retort of some kind, but Mikey beats him to it, shouting, “I got it!”
Immediately, Donnie’s heart drops, whipping around to try and stop Mikey but he’s already darting off toward the fire escape as well.
“Mikey, wait!” He yells out at the same time Raph calls out for Mikey, his arm flying out to grab the youngest turtle. He just barely manages to catch a hold of the box turtle, he turns to give a confused look as the Lieutenant throws more soldiers down. “Don’t, we can get him next time.”
“It’s fine, he’s got it!” Leo assures, and now Donnie’s officially pissed at him specifically. It’s fine if they split apart to fight the origami soldiers, but they shouldn’t be fighting either of the leaders alone if they don’t have to. He has to release Mikey though, shredding a soldier that takes a swing at them.
“It’s fine, Donnie, I got this!” Mikey calls, and then slips between the two remaining soldiers to follow the Lieutenant up the stairs.
“Mikey!” He calls after the box turtle, panic setting in as he tries to follow. It only results in him nearly taking a knee to the face and he has to fall back slightly. He swears he hears the Lieutenant yelling something about ‘stupid turtles’ as he disappears onto the roof.
“See?! He’s got it!” Leo repeats, Donnie shoots him a glare he doesn’t even see. Unfortunately, though, when his eyes return to the fire escape, it’s empty. There’s no Foot Lieutenant or Mikey in sight, and it makes his heart stop for a second.
When it starts again, it’s pounding. A frantic staccato that would have him worrying about a heart attack if he wasn’t already busy panicking about Mikey. He’ll probably be fine, Donnie knows that. But they don’t normally split up like this, without being able to see each other while fighting. They did sometimes before, but not anymore.
He tries to shove the feeling down, focusing back on his own two opponents, shoving one away to take a wide swing at the other. More paper bursts into the air. Immediately he has to duck under a foot flying toward his head, swinging back around to stab the paper soldier in the side. The soldier lurches to the side, only to then reach out and grab Donnie’s weapon. It gives a good yank, nearly ripping the weapon from Donnie’s hands.
He huffs, annoyance warring over adrenaline as he shoves the bō forward, throwing the soldier off balance enough for it to lose its grip on the weapon when he quickly rips it back toward himself. He pulls the tech-bō back, twirling once to swing back around in a short arc when a yell from above has him jerking to a halt, eyes snapping upward to the sound and he swears his heart really does stop this time. Mikey’s shell comes careening over the side of the three story building, a flash of green and orange as the turtle instinctually tucks into his shell. Ice shoots through Donnie’s veins and without a thought, he drops his bō, body already moving for what’s likely to be a very bad idea—catching Mikey from a three-story fall. But a fall like that would crack his shell at best, and his shell can’t be replaced, unlike Donnie’s metal one.
He hears Raph yell out Mikey’s name at the same time Leo swears, and the softshell can see them both start moving to catch the box turtle as well. Leo shoves an enemy away, twirling his sword for a portal and Raph smashing his tonfas together to ready his projection. But Leo’s sword sparks uselessly along with Raph’s weapons, and their unfortunate lack of coordination leaves them unprotected for the origami soldiers they’re still fighting. There is no callout, no ‘I got him’ or ‘on it’ to let the other know they’re free to go help, and it results in Leo taking a fist square to the face and Raph being knocked flat on his tail. Which leaves Donnie, paying little mind to his twin and older brother’s chaos as his eyes remain glued to Mikey’s plummeting shell.
He’s moving far too fast for even the softshell to catch, from the third to the second to the first story in the matter of a second. Without a thought, Donnie activates his battle shell, firing up the thrusters to close the last few feet before it’s too late. He holds his breath, hoping against all odds as he shoves off, relying solely on his battle shell to get him the last few feet in time. Arms out, his hands manage to make contact with Mikey’s shell, and he doesn’t hesitate to grab on. He doesn’t regret it by any means, turning to take the brunt of the impact as the other’s weight and momentum slams into him all at once, but dear Galileo does it feel like a mistake.
Mikey’s shell slamming into Donnie's plastron by itself is enough to knock the air out of his lungs, arm wrapping snuggly around the box turtle’s carapace so he doesn’t drop him now after everything. The thrusters of his shell, unprepared for the sudden shift in velocity or direction don’t do anything to keep Donnie from slamming into the ground shell first. The pain doesn’t immediately register as his skull cracks against the pavement, freehand instinctively moving to catch himself only to succeed in jamming his wrist and shoulder in their respective sockets. Though one moment he’s slamming into the ground, sliding, the next he’s laying still trying to catch his breath.
Mikey’s weight doesn’t help, right now it feels like it’s crushing his lungs but he doesn’t dare move the younger turtle. His skull pounds, badly enough that he doesn’t want to open his eyes for fear of somehow making it worse. His shoulder aches, but his wrist feels like it’s on fire.
Cool. Cool, cool. That’s fine. Great, even.
“Fuuuuuck,” Donnie wheezes, the word dragging out into more of a whine than anything and it makes his head pound worse. He can feel tears pinprick the corner of his eyes as he squeezes them shut, raising his hand to press harshly into his forehead as if that could stave off the pain. It only succeeds in sending lances of white hot pain through his wrist and hand, the other kept firmly on Mikey’s shell, more out of thoughtless instinct than anything.
“Bad word,” he hears Mikey croak from inside his shell, voice reverberating strangely inside his shell before hitting Donnie. It makes his headache twinge slightly, even at the low volume, yet he can’t help but laugh slightly, the sound shaky.
Just barely, he hears Leo’s voice hiss, “Why didn’t you call it?!”
It’s so quiet, the softshell almost wonders if he imagined it, the twinge panic among the anger—but Raph’s answering, “Me?! Raph didn’t hear you sayin’ anythin’ either!”
It’s enough of a giveaway. It’s ground out in a similar matter, angry and rough. Donnie only really hopes Mikey doesn’t hear it from within the confines of his shell.
He’s not going to cry. Not from this—not from the pain, not from Mikey nearly getting hurt, and not from the arguing. Certainly not from the fact that he had to catch Mikey because Leo and Raph refuse to talk to each other unless they’re arguing. Definitely not from the fact that even right now they’re still at each other’s throats.
He’s not. He won’t cry.
But he sniffles, and Mikey’s quiet, hesitant voice asks from within the depths of his shell, “Are you crying?”
And Donnie stops grinding the heel of his palm into his temple, sending deep sparks of pain through his wrist, to scrub the gathering wetness from his eyes. He laughs again, only once this time, as he opens his eyes to stare at the night sky. He can’t see the stars, only the walls of the buildings on either side of them before they abruptly end. What should be sharp edges where the walls stop and roofs begin are blurred lines that seem to drift in a strange, hazy arc before snapping back into place, only to do it all over again. It’s dizzying in the worst way possible.
“No,” He grimaces, and the way his voice gives out at the very tail end of the word betrays him. He’s not crying, but he’s close and he feels completely ridiculous for it. He takes a deep breath, shoving the feeling down as he releases it, asking, “Are you okay, Angelo?”
He has to shut his eyes as the dizziness from swaying buildings turns to vertigo, his stomach rolling in an unhappy warning. He swallows the warm saliva that rises into his mouth, promising himself he is not going to vomit right now. He presses his hand over his mouth, waiting for the feeling to pass before digging his knuckles into his temple.
“Yeah. . .” Comes the quiet reply, followed shortly by Mikey popping his head out. Donnie doesn’t look at him, eyes held firmly shut, but he can feel Mikey’s chin lightly thunk against his plastron. “He got away.”
“That’s okay, Mikey. It. . . it happens,” He replies lamely, patting his brother's shell for added measure. It’s not his fault. On the topic of, he hears two pairs of footsteps rushing over, one heavy and one lighter. Except. . . no. That’s not fair to blame them either.
These things are bound to happen, Donnie should’ve been paying better attention. He should’ve taken care of the origami soldiers sooner, then he could’ve followed after Mikey.
But that doesn’t change the fact that he winces as Leo shouts his name, or Raph loudly asks, “Are you guys alright?!”
Gently, Mikey’s extricated from the softshell’s arms as Raph takes him, and a wave of relief washes over Donnie as the weight disappears. He sucks in a deep breath, one that hurts his lungs and sputters back out as an odd cough. That doesn’t stop him from taking another deep breath, though, this one hurting considerably less. He holds it for a second, slowly blowing it back out.
“I’m okay,” Mikey’s voice says, the slight reverb a dead giveaway that he’s tucked back into his shell again. A hand lands on Donnie’s shoulder, the one that’s slightly ache-y and he tenses. Not because it makes it hurt worse, but because the touch makes his skin itch.
“Don?” Raph prompts, and the softshell in question huffs a breath, peeling his eyes back open to see Leo hovering over him. The slider’s swaying, slightly blurred form takes up a good seventy-percent of his vision and he scowls, automatically reaching up to shove Leo’s face out of his own. He makes this offended grunt as he’s shoved back.
“I am also fine, thank you,” He grunts, shoving himself up despite the way it makes his head pound worse and his stomach turn again. He feels the slider shove his hand away, and he uses his newly freed hand to start dusting his shoulders off. Little scraps of dirty, crumpled paper stick to his skin, and he aggressively wipes them off.
“Are you sure?” Leo presses, and Donnie grits his teeth against the wave of fresh pain it sends through his skull. He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, leaning forward to slap paper off his knee. “It looked like you hit your hea—”
“I’m fine,” Donnie grits out, huffing when his efforts of paper removal don’t do much. He clenches his jaw harder, trying to shove down the growing frustration and anger, instead focusing his efforts on getting off the dirty, paper covered ground of the alley. “Now if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I will be returning to the lair for the night.”
He takes that moment to shove himself up to his feet, grunting slightly and having to squeeze his eyes shut once more against the wave of nausea that rolls over him. He stumbles slightly, and a hand lands on his shoulder to help stabilize him. A hand that he shrugs off, opening his eyes a crack to shoot Leo’s wavy silhouette a half-hearted glare. Donatello doesn’t need help standing, he can do that much at least.
But he blinks once to clear his vision of the spots, gathering around the edges, turning his attention to finding the manhole cover that he knows has to be here. He spots it near the front of the alley, perfect. Except Leo makes this odd, almost wounded noise in the back of his throat that has Donnie glancing back at him.
“Donnie, your head,” He breathes, expression unreadable with the way it keeps sliding across his face. Donnie blinks, squinting slightly, and helps a little. But not enough to see anything other than wide-eyes and knit brows, Leo’s mouth moving as he elaborates, “It’s—Your bleeding.”
Sure enough, when Donnie lifts his hand to press to the back of his head, it comes away red. Great. He frowns, wiping the blood off on the back of his glove, deciding it’s an issue for when he returns to the lair. His first concern is still Mikey. So he turns to Raph, who’s holding Mikey in one arm and his kusari-fundō in the other hand.
Without a single word, Donnie takes the weapon, shoving it in his battle shell, and then he takes Mikey from the snapper. Leo and Raph can argue to their hearts content for all the softshell cares, but he’s done putting up with it for the evening and he’s far past done letting Mikey be subjected to it. He’s not upset Mikey fell off a building from a bad call, it happens. It’s happened before, even. He’s pissed they’re refusal to properly communicate with each other stopped either of them from actually helping.
More so than that, he’s pissed that they still took a dig at each other immediately afterward. He’s also not naive enough to believe they won’t fight about this on the way home. That kind of thinking would be far too optimistic.
Neither turtle calls after them as he crouches to lift up the manhole cover, slipping through into the sewer, and he’s honestly not sure if he expected them to. Not that he really cares as he awkwardly descends the later one handed, each rung sending a fresh wave of pain through the wrist he’d landed on as the other arm remains firmly wrapped around Mikey. Neither of them speak for the first few minutes of their journey back to the lair, Donnie focusing more on where he’s going—and more importantly, on not tripping—than anything. The dizziness he’d first felt fades slowly, almost disappearing entirely after a minute or two. But every now and then, a small wave seems to roll over him, and he has to redirect his gaze toward the grated walkway as opposed to in front of him.
Finally, Mikey pipes up with, “You can put me down now, I’m okay.”
“Oh, right,” Donnie blurts, stopping and holding Mikey out so he can pop out of his shell without issue. The second his feet are under him, Donnie releases him. He keeps his hands out for a moment longer just to make sure the box turtle is alright before dropping them to his side.
Donnie waits a few seconds before he starts walking again, but when he does, Mikey moves to walk beside him. Once more, they walk in silence again. Occasionally, Mikey will drift close enough to bump shoulders with the softshell. He can’t tell if it’s intentional or not, but he doesn’t comment on it.
He wonders if Mikey knows why the softshell took him with him. Donnie knows the box turtle has to at least have an idea of it, or at least has to know that Leo and Raph were just going to start arguing again. But whether he knows that’s why Donnie essentially kidnapped him is up for debate. Not that it really matters, anyway. He’s pretty sure Mikey had wanted to leave patrol even before they’d come across the Foot clan.
He’d spent the whole day at Baron Draxum’s up until patrol and he’d been quiet the entire time they’d been out, especially toward the end. He was practically glued to Donnie’s side the whole time, and he wishes he could’ve offered the box turtle some kind of comfort. But he wasn’t sure what to say or do about it. Maybe he should’ve just brought up going home earlier, offering that they just keep an ear out for Donnie’s police scanner to go off. But it’s too late for that now.
It’s when the entrance to the lair comes into view that Mikey quietly blurts, “I’m sorry. . .”
“For what?” Donnie asks without really thinking.
“For earlier, with the whole. . . falling off the building thing,” Mikey explains. Donnie pauses for a second, turning to look at Mikey only to realize he’s fallen behind a few paces.
When did that happen?
To say he looks guilty would be an understatement. He looks like he’s apologizing for some heinous crime he’s committed, not accidentally falling over the side of a building during a fight. It’s not even the first time he’s done something like that, and he’s not the only one who has done it, either.
“You don’t have to be sorry about that, Angelo,” Donatello frowns, brows furrowing.
“I know. . . but still,” the box turtle mutters. “I feel bad. Because I panicked, that Foot guy got the drop on me and now your battle shell is all scuffed up.”
So his battle shell really did take some damage then. It’s not surprising, but he’s definitely not elated about the information.
But he takes a deep breath, debating his next words carefully, before finally deciding, “It’s okay, Mikey. Really. My battle shell can be replaced. You’re very much real shell, however, cannot be.”
“But you got hurt.” Donnie just shrugs, which makes his shoulder twinge a tiny bit, but enough to be anything other than minor nuisance.
“That’s bound to happen when we fight villains,” Donatello replies easily. Mikey just sighs, and Donnie motions for him to start walking again. Hesitantly, he does. “It’s really not a big deal, Mikey. We took care of the Foot clan and neither of us were seriously injured.”
“Yeah, but he got away,” Mikey mutters forlornly. Absently, Donnie almost wonders if the box turtle is mostly upset about that part.
With a shrug, he replies, “They usually do.”
Mikey’s only response to that is a quiet, kind of angry hum. There’s probably something more Donnie could have said, but he’s not really sure what, so he drops it instead. Mikey stops in the doorway when they enter the kitchen before clearing his throat. Donnie pauses again, too. Mikey stands quietly, wringing his hands and Donnie waits for him.
“I’m gonna go to bed,” the box turtle announces, to which Donnie nods.
“Alright, Angelo,” He replies, turning back to keep heading toward the med bay, “Have a goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” Mikey calls back as Donnie steps through into the living room. There’s this odd guilt that gnaws at Donnie’s mind, one that he can’t quite place.
Maybe it’s from not trying harder to follow Mikey up the fire escape, maybe it’s from not knowing what else to say, or maybe it’s even from coming out tonight at all. For entertaining patrols that seem to end badly more often than not nowadays. Either way, he ignores it, trudging to the med bay. The headache’s faded to a persistent ache, and it’s more than likely that he has at least a mild concussion. He also might have sprained his wrist a little bit.
But that’s all fine, it’s better than a fractured shell. With a sigh, he pauses in front of the med bay doors, waiting for them to slide open before stepping through. The area is small, hastily thrown together with tool boxes full of supplies and cupboards sloppily nailed into the wall. They’re all labeled, though he already knows where to go. He’d memorized the location of everything in the last med bay, and he memorized the location of everything in this one when he threw it together.
So, trusting that the concussion he may or may not have hasn’t ruined his memory, he moves to the last cabinet and opens it, scanning the contents before grabbing some gauze. He walks over to the toolbox on the ground, opening it to grab out a can of saline spray. He doesn’t bother glancing at the expiration date, he has alerts set for everything in the med bay. The last thing they need is to discover all of their stuff has expired during some kind of emergency. Grabbing the small desk mirror off the counter, and then opening the drawer below to grab a handheld mirror, he rolls over the workshop stool he’d donated from his lab and plops down.
Carefully, he unties his mask, wincing when it sticks to the apparent wound on the back of his head. A large blotch of brownish-red outlines a small hole scraped through the fabric and he grimaces, knowing it’s probably not salvageable. Well, at least it’s not his only mask, he supposes. He peels his gloves off next, examining the small stain from the blood he’d wiped off on it earlier. Not his brightest moment, but he can at least wash this out. Probably.
With a quiet sigh, he drops them on the counter, reaching under it to throw his mask in the garbage below. He doesn’t even want to attempt to fix it, he can already tell it’ll be a waste of time anyway. He grabs a wad of the gauze, popping the cap off the saline and spraying it down until he’s satisfied with how damp it is. Angling the desk mirror so he can see himself, he picks up the handheld mirror, holding it behind himself to see how bad the damage is. It takes a bit of adjustment before he can actually see the wound, and while it’s not as bad as it could be, it’s still not ideal.
It’s just a small split, blood blotted around it from where it’d spread under the mask. It’s a bit of an awkward angle, holding the mirror with one hand while trying to wipe the blood away with the wet gauze. It doesn’t help that it's all pretty much dried and the wound has started bleeding again, slowly welling with blood. Carefully, he wipes at the blood around it before just pressing it directly to the wound. It stings in an odd way, aching slightly. The sound of the med bay door whooshing open, snaps his gaze to the door.
A part of him expects to see Mikey, the other part isn’t surprised to see Leo instead. He stands there awkwardly for a moment, looking kind of like a kicked puppy, before quietly stepping inside. Raising an eyebrow—which is a mistake because it sends a sharp pang through Donnie’s skull, though he keeps his eyebrow raised anyway—he turns face to the slider fully. He lowers the handheld mirror, but he keeps the gauze pressed to the cut on the back of his head.
“You, um. . . you left this,” Leo mutters, holding out Donnie’s tech bō. He blinks, setting the mirror on the countertop. He’d completely forgotten about dropping it when he’d gone to catch Mikey. Stiltedly, the slider tacks on as almost an afterthought for clarification, “In the alley, I mean.”
He hesitates before accepting it, murmuring a simple, “Oh. Thanks.”
But Leo doesn’t leave after handing off the weapon. Instead, he hovers awkwardly, looking entirely unsure of himself, and an unpleasant mix of guilty and uncertain. He also looks just a little bit uncomfortable. With a quiet huff, Donnie plops the tech bō onto the counter. Shooting the slider an unimpressed look, he picks the hand mirror back up and tries to find the right angel to see the back of his head again.
“Did you need something else, Leo?” He prompts flatly. Leo actually flinches a little, snapping to attention almost. It actually makes Donnie feel a little guilty for it.
It’s not that he’s upset with his brother, or at least he doesn’t want to be, but he's not in the mood for guessing games and Leo standing there doing nothing is actually Donatello’s nerves a little bit. He doesn’t need an audience for this. So he’d rather if Leo left as opposed to standing there awkwardly.
“Right! Um. . . do you need, like,” Leo starts, tapering off when Donnie glances at him before directing his attention back to his reflection. He peels the gauze away, trying not to let his irritation show when the wound starts beading up with blood again. “Do you need help? Or anything?”
“It’s fine, Nardo,” Donnie mutters, more focused on what he’s doing than the slider. “I’ve got it covered.”
Immediately, Leo starts talking before Donnie’s even fully finished, hurriedly pressing, “Are you sure? I can—I can help with that, or check you for a concussion, or if you have other injur—!”
“Leo!” Donnie cuts him off sharply, far more harshly than he means to, in fact, and it makes his headache spike. Wincing, he takes a deep breath, before glancing up at Leo again, gaze softening slightly at how upset he looks. The look is quickly wiped away, poorly stuffed under a more neutral, less distraught expression. “I don’t need help, okay? So don’t worry about it.”
“Okay,” Leo whispers, but he still doesn’t move. He shifts his weight around, shuffling his feet a little but he remains glued in place. Sighing, Donnie sets the mirror down. For good measure, he takes another deep breath.
“What do you want?” It comes out annoyed but somehow still doesn’t have any bite to it. The question doesn’t seem to surprise Leo, yet he still hesitates to answer, fidgeting. If Donnie didn’t know any better, he’d think Leo looked like a kid getting yelled at after doing something they weren’t supposed to.
Finally Leo asks, “Can I help? Please? You don’t have to say yes, obviously. But I. . . I want to help.”
Donnie doesn’t answer right away, which is good because his knee jerk response is still no. He doesn’t want Leo hovering over him, even if it is to help. Admittedly, he wants to be alone. Company alone sounds tiring right now, especially Leo’s. But that’s not fair.
Because even Donnie can tell the slider feels guilty over what happened, and this is his weird way of trying to apologize without actually saying sorry. That, or it’s his way of trying to ease that guilt.
But finally, despite not wanting to, he relents, “Fine. But if you annoy me in any way, shape, or form, I’m kicking you out and ignoring you for the next week.”
The reaction is immediate, Leo’s face lighting up just a little bit as he nods quickly. He doesn’t look happy, but he doesn’t look like he’s being crushed under the weight of guilt and whatever else he was feeling, and Donnie supposes that’s enough. So he cooperates when Leo grabs fresh gauze to finish the job he started, tilting his head down to allow for a better angle. The silence feels heavy still, awkward almost. But Donnie doesn’t really have it in him to try and change that right now, and that’s how it usually is anyway these days.
He allows Leo to shine a light in his eyes, checking for his pupils’ reactivity despite the way it feels like he’s being stabbed in the eyes. Mentally, he notes slight light sensitivity for himself. He’ll tell the slider if he asks, obviously, but otherwise Donnie sees no real reason to.
But maybe Leo expects him to freely give up that information, because when he has Donnie stand, he only asks, “Any nausea or dizziness? Pain?”
“Barely, and only at first,” the softshell answers respectively. “I have a headache, but it’s subsided a bit.”
“Alright,” Leo acknowledges, almost sounding absentminded. After a moment of silence, he concludes, “You might have a minor concussion, but I don’t think it’s anything to worry about. Any other injuries?”
Donnie considers it for a moment, flexing his hand to feel his wrist ache. It might be sprained, but if it is, it’s not bad. It’s not swollen. Decidedly, he shakes his head no.
“Are you sure?” Leo presses lightly, to which Donnie glares at him halfheartedly.
“Yes, Leo,” He assures. Leo stares hard at the softshell for a few seconds, like he’s picking Donnie apart. Or he’s hoping the softshell will relent if he just glares hard enough. But Donnie only meets his brother’s gaze with mild irritation.
“Okay,” Leo relents. “If anything else pops up or you start feeling worse, let me know. Please.”
Under normal circumstances, Donnie knows the slider would’ve pressed harder. But these aren’t normal circumstances, and they haven’t been for months now. So maybe it’s wrong to think these aren’t normal circumstances anymore.
“Alright, Leo,” Donnie mutters, moving past him for the door. “Have a good night.”
He barely hears Leo’s quiet, “Night, Dee.”
And that’s it. There’s no ‘take it easy’, or ‘stay out of the lab for the night’, or even ‘take a painkiller’. Just ‘night, Dee’. That’s it.
Donnie wasn’t planning on working in the lab tonight, but—while he wasn’t not planning on working in the lab either—there’s something about that, the lack of following instruction, that has him heading for the lab. It’s stupid, petty even, to be bothered by something like that. It’s not Leo’s job to tell the softshell how to take care of himself, he’s more than old enough to know how. So it’s more than his choice, also, to enter his lab, plop down at his computer, and start working on the security system’s coding.
Normally, he’d enjoy doing this to at least some degree. But tonight, it feels almost like a chore. It’s hard to focus. The numbers and symbols blur together in his mind every single time he stops forcing himself to actively focus. He’s actually about ready to quit—or throw his keyboard, whichever comes first—when there’s a knock on his door, not even a half hour after he’d started working.
With a frustrated sigh, he turns to the door as it slides open. Looking oddly defeated, Mikey stands there with a pillow in one arm and a blanket in the other. Maybe Donnie shouldn’t be surprised. It was a rough night, for Mikey especially, but he can’t help but feel lost for a moment. Like he’s not sure what to say or do despite this exact scenario happening multiple times in the past month alone.
Perhaps taking pity, Mikey snaps the softshell out of his stupor by softly asking, “Can I sleep with you tonight? If you’re. . . not busy?”
“No! No, I. . .” Donnie trails off, inwardly cringing. Maybe the concussion is worse than he’d thought. And then he cringes harder when he realizes how that sounded as Mikey's face falls, quickly adding on, “I’m not busy, I mean, Angelo. Let me get everything shut down, then we can head to my room.”
Mikey smiles, though it looks hollow, nodding as Donnie turns back to his computer. He goes to save, and then pauses. He hasn’t actually gotten much work done, and the work he has done probably isn’t that good. So with a sigh, silently lamenting the wasted time and effort, he closes the program without saving and powers off his computer, stretching slightly as he stands before allowing Mikey to pretty much lead him out of the lab. Neither says anything, pretty much used to this routine by now.
It’s not a comfortable silence, per se, but it’s not suffocating or awkward at least. Normally, Mikey would crawl into Raph’s bed before either of the twins, but, once again, this isn’t their normal anymore. Or maybe it is now. At first, Donnie hadn’t said or asked about it, at first assuming it was just a couple of instances. Outliers at most.
But after the fourth time he’d started to wonder. It was the sixth time that Donnie had, as gently as he could, asked about it but Mikey had kind of shrugged it off at the time. Now, as Donnie crawls into bed first and Mikey throws his pillow down next to the softshell, he recalls what the box turtle had admitted on the ninth time he climbed into Donatello’s bed. Mikey’d said he kind of felt like he was bothering Raph. Which, to put it lightly, pissed Donnie off.
He’d been assured that the oldest brother hasn’t said or done anything, but he just kind of had that ‘vibe’. It’d helped somewhat, but still. Raph’s been kind of snippy with all of them, not outwardly mean but definitely not happy, either. So, annoyed by the notion, Donnie had assured Mikey that he wasn’t a ‘bother’, much less was he ‘bothering’ the softshell. Oh, and that if Raph did say anything, he was more than happy to ‘deal with it’.
A threat was definitely heavily implied in that phrasing and the tone he used.
The train of thought is interrupted by Mikey partially flopping onto the softshell as he unceremoniously falls onto the bed, haphazardly throwing his own blanket over both of them. It's an unpleasant reminder that it’s not the first time tonight he’s crushed Donnie’s lungs. Though the first was an accident—Mikey did not, by any means, fall off that building on purpose. It doesn’t hurt, but it definitely feels like the air’s been knocked out of Donnie’s lungs again. Luckily, he doesn’t struggle to refill them this time, at least.
“Goodnight, Donnie,” Mikey mutters, before promptly passing out of the soft snores that swiftly follow are anything to go by. How he does it, Donnie will never know. Though he will quietly envy it.
Things go back to their new normal the very next day, like none of it had never even happened. Donnie can’t tell if he’s grateful or irritated about it, but either way, Leo never actually apologizes for what happened, and neither does Raph. Maybe they don’t have to, maybe Donnie really was just overreacting or blaming them for something that wasn’t really their fault. It was an accident, after all, those things happen all the time.
They stopped going out on patrols altogether, no one even brought it up. No one asked about it, nor about any alerts on Donnie’s police scanner. It wouldn’t matter even if they had, he’d muted them only two days after the incident. He sees Raph about as much as usual, which isn’t much at all, but Leo seems to actively start avoiding the softshell. The most he’s seen of Leo is his shell as he leaves a room. But Donnie definitely hears the slider when he argues with Raph.
It’s annoying, overstimulating at the worst of times, and almost humiliating even when he calls April. Mikey starts hanging out at Draxum’s apartment even more than before six days after the patrols stop. He’d already been hanging out with the yokai quite a bit, but he starts spending almost all day every day away from the lair. Which is probably for the best. Donnie’s not fond of the man, but at least there’s no yelling or arguing there.
And Donnie’s fine. He keeps busy.
And he’s fine.
Really.