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Wrestling has always been Raph’s thing, but it’s not like Donnie doesn’t enjoy it.
The pageantry and drama certainly appeal to him, and he likes the fights, even if the outcomes are decided beforehand. And the Liberty League always brings an assortment of history related puns and references with them, which he appreciates.
And while he wouldn’t admit it even under pain of death, Donnie likes wrestling because Raph does. He likes when his brothers include him in their interests and hobbies, in the same way he likes showing off his newest inventions to them.
So it’s not that Donnie doesn’t want to be here, perched in their normal spot atop the stadium’s jumbotron, looking down on the ring below.
It’s just that his head is about to split open.
He should have known it would come to this. There’s a storm front moving in, and while the rain isn’t supposed to start until after tonight’s matches are over, the change in pressure is already messing with him. He’d been hoping that some painkillers would do the trick, but it’s clear that they’re wearing off already and this isn’t going to be a headache, it’s going to be a full blown migraine.
The colors, the sounds, the shake and shudder of the metal whenever one of the others moves, the dizzying angle from here to the ring… none of that is helping. His vision is doing funny loops and he’s pretty sure he’s on the verge of blacking out; when he presses his fingers to his eyes he sees fireworks.
Something happens below - he’s long since lost track of who is wrestling - and Raph whoops, smacking the platform. It sways, and Donnie feels himself wobble, and for a moment he’s worried he’s about to tumble right down the way Leo once had, and get mixed up in a misadventure he does not have the energy for. He grips the edge of the jumbotron until his knuckles turn white.
Leo leans past him, saying something to Mikey that Donnie doesn’t catch, then leans back. A kernel of popcorn goes sailing by, and the smell as it passes his nostrils makes his stomach flip.
It’s time to go.
The issue is that if he says he has a migraine, Raph will absolutely make a big deal about it - they’ll all leave, and he’ll hover around and be generally overbearing. Donnie doesn’t need that; all he needs are some quiet, painkillers, and sleep.
But he doesn’t have a way to get home alone; he can’t leave them without the tank, and he’s fairly sure if he tries to drive a shell hog he’ll wreck it. All these considerations leave only one solution.
He waits until Leo is finished catching popcorn from Mikey’s tosses, then subtly touches his forearm.
Three quick taps. Then three slower. Then three quick again.
It’s a simple code, but it means something specific to the two of them: that Donnie needs out of here, and it’s on Leo to make that happen.
He feels Leo look at him, but keeps his eyes locked on what’s happening below. He feels more than sees him stand up.
“Shoot - I forgot Splinter asked me to pick up something from the pharmacy and they close in, like, twenty minutes.”
“What?” Raph looks away from the ring. “He didn’t say anything to me about needing something.”
“I guess he just thinks I’m the most responsible!” says Leo cheerily. When that gets no reaction, he tries again. “Or he’s trying to make me more responsible.”
“Okay, that, I believe. You comin’ back after?”
“Nah, wrestling’s lame anyway.” Ignoring Raph’s affronted noise, he gives Donnie’s battleshell a light nudge with his foot. “Come on, Donnie, time’s a-wastin’!”
Donnie makes a big show of looking annoyed. “Papá did not ask me to retrieve anything.”
“Buddy system, Dee, come on.”
“Sigh,” says Donnie, and he gets up. He stumbles as soon as he’s on his feet, but Leo is so quick to right him that he’s pretty sure the other two don’t notice anything.
“Tell us how it goes,” says Leo, and then he’s opening a portal. Donnie is only mildly apprehensive as they go through.
They step out at their intended destination, a tunnel just a minute’s walk from the lair entrance, and Donnie takes a moment to lean against the concrete wall, groaning as he lays his head against its cool surface. He closes his eyes and sees blobs of color behind his lids, but at least it’s quiet and still.
“Migraine, huh?” That’s Leo, his voice uncharacteristically soft. “Bummer.”
Donnie gives a hum of acknowledgement.
“Is it the weather? My head’s not a fan, either.”
Donnie gives another affirmative, not hazarding a look. His mask is pushed up and back, then a cool hand is touching his forehead.
“No fever, but… geez, Donnie, why didn’t you tap out before it got this bad?”
He grumbles and swats away Leo’s hand, yanking his mask back down. He can tell it’s not properly positioned, but he also doesn’t care.
“Can you walk?” Leo moves on, sounding unconcerned by Donnie’s dismissal. “Or do I need to portal you into your room?”
Leo’s gotten good with his portals (another thing Donnie will never admit), but he still doesn’t entirely trust that he won’t end up bisected by a piece of furniture. So he forces his eyes open and peels himself from the wall.
“I can walk.”
“Alright, then let’s go.”
It’s a minute walk, but Donnie shuffles and drags his feet and ends up taking twice that. His arms are folded and pressed tight to his plastron, afraid he’ll lose them if he drops them.
They get inside, and are greeted by the sound of one of their dad’s shows playing over the projector. He’s asleep in his chair, but he startles awake when they come in.
“Blue? Purple? I thought you boys were out watching… boxing.”
“Wrestling, Dad,” Donnie corrects automatically, then winces at the sound of his own voice. He’s glad, in some ways, that their dad is taking a more tangible interest in their comings and goings, but he could do without it right now.
Splinter must have noticed, because he crawls up on the back of his chair to get a better look at them. “Purple? Are you sick?”
Donnie sags. No, he can’t deal with this.
There’s a light nudge at his back, and Leo says, “You go get comfy; let Leon take care of everything.”
Donnie takes him up on that, shuffling away toward his room as fast as he can. He can hear Leo talking to Splinter behind him, and both of them keep their voices blessedly low.
Once he’s made it into his subway car, he takes off his battleshell and sets it aside. He’s too tired to put it away properly, and his mask and goggles are similarly pulled off and left on his desk. He climbs up into his bunk and flops on his front, burying his face in his soft pillow and breathing the scent of fabric softener.
His head’s throbbing in a steady rhythm now, and he knows the pressure is only going to mount. Hopefully he can fall asleep before he hits the worst of it.
He’s not sure how much later it is before he hears the door to his room being pushed open, and feet padding across the floor. Then there’s a light poke on his arm, and Donnie grumbles and cracks one eye open.
“Stay awake for me a little longer,” says Leo. He’s got a sports drink in one hand and a bottle of pills in the other. “Are you nauseous, or can you get some medicine down?”
In lieu of answering, Donnie pushes himself up on one elbow and holds his hand out. Leo passes him the drink and two pills, which he takes before gulping down enough of the liquid to make Leo satisfied. The moment they’re returned to Leo’s hands he flops back onto his mattress.
After a moment, something warm and weighted is placed on his neck: a heated pillow, fresh from the microwave. The muscles in his shoulders relax, and he feels less like he’s about to pop like a champagne bottle.
“Weighted blanket or no?” Leo asks, and Donnie nods his head. “Headphones?” That gets a shake; he doesn’t want the pressure on his head, and it’s quiet enough in the lair without them now.
The blanket is pulled over his shell, and Donnie sighs, letting himself become a puddle underneath it. His head is still pounding and his stomach feels unsteady, but the aches are working themselves out of his body.
He can’t properly raise his head, can’t talk either, so he lifts one hand and flaps it forward, which he hopes Leo interprets appropriately as thanks.
Apparently he does, because he chuckles softly.
“I’ll check on you later. Feel better, bro.”
There’s a light touch on his arm, and then Leo is gone.
“Alright, guys, what’re we ridin’ next?”
“Oo, oo, we gotta hit the coaster!”
“I like that hang gliding thing.”
“No, Raph’s too big - the coaster it is!”
“Yeah baby!”
Donnie trails behind April, Mikey, and Leo, in step with Raph, who is digging through a funnel cake like there’s no tomorrow. He’s taking more sedate bites of his own, and steering clear of Leo, who insisted he didn’t want one, which means he will try to steal Donnie’s if he enters grabbing range.
It’s already after dark but the amusement park is still lit up, and they’re taking advantage of the freedom that gives, in appropriate clothes so they blend in. It’s the first time they’ve gone out together like this, since their three day fight against Draxum and then the Shredder, and they couldn’t have picked a nicer night.
Donnie would be enjoying it more if the battleshell under his hoodie wasn’t rubbing so uncomfortably against the stitches on his actual shell, but he pushes that to the back of his mind. He can deal with it for a few more hours.
They join the line for the rollercoaster, and Leo starts trying to pinch some of April’s funnel cake, an attack she easily fends off. Donnie’s pretty sure Leo enjoys the challenge of stealing it more than he likes the cake itself, and so he is fully prepared to stab him with his fork if he gets any closer.
April ends up doing it for him, and he gives her a high three/five while Leo makes a big show of nursing his hand.
The line for the coaster is long, and by the time they reach the front of it, Donnie’s out of funnel cake and more uncomfortable than ever. He makes a mental note to check the shell’s interior padding for wear when he gets home.
Mikey drags April to the front before Donnie can do it himself, so he joins Leo in the second row. Raph goes to the next row, and there’s some jostling and negotiation as they coordinate to make sure they all ride together.
Leo manages to talk their way into a spot that lines up with the others, then turns his attention back to Donnie. “You okay, hermano?” he asks.
“Yes…?” answers Donnie, unable to keep the questioning lilt out of his tone. He’s not sure what he could have done that would make Leo think he’s not okay.
“You keep rubbing at your shell.”
Oh. That’s what he’s done. Donnie realizes that his arms are indeed wrapped tight around his middle, fingering the seam where his tech meets his skin, and he quickly drops his hands.
“Just thinking about improvements I could make,” he says quickly.
It seems to placate Leo, who grins at him. “Sure you aren’t just scared?”
Donnie rolls his eyes. “Oh please. I think we regularly experience more thrills than anything a safety regulated rollercoaster could ever achieve.”
“Fair enough. Guess you won’t have any problems holding your arms up the whole time, then.”
“And why would I want to?”
“I’ll do it too. When you put your arms down first, you owe me whatever I want from the gift shop.”
“Right, and when you put your arms down first, I don’t get anything because I doubt you have any money.”
Leo gasps in mock offense. “You think I would make a bet I can’t back up?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it’s not like it’ll matter anyway, because I’m going to win.” The gate opens, and Leo smirks, holding out his arms. “After you, brother.”
“Hmph.” Donnie elbow checks him on the way past, grinning when he squawks about it, and takes his seat on the far side of the car. Leo clambers in after him, while Mikey and April turn back and grin at them from the front. Behind them, Raph has taken up an entire row by himself, and an employee straps him in with an extra-large belt.
When both Donnie and Leo lift their hands up, he says, “Hey, you’re supposed to keep your arms in the car!”
“Hush, Raph,” says Leo over his shoulder, “I have a bet to win.”
“He means he has a bet to lose,” says Donnie. “Don’t worry, Raphala, our arms will be fine.”
The coaster jerks forward, and jolts his back in the process. He quickly swallows down a noise of pain, hoping Leo didn’t notice. He doesn’t look to check.
Nothing has really happened yet, but Mikey and April are already screaming from the front, both exuberant. Raph is quiet behind them, no doubt white-knuckling the safety bar; being in a cart not meant for someone his size makes him nervous. Next to him, Leo is all cocky smiles.
“Ready to lose, Donton?”
“Ready to win, Nardo.”
That’s all they say before the ride clacks up its first incline, and they take off.
The first drop is fine, and Donnie has no issues keeping his arms up; he’d meant it when he said rides like this don’t scare him, after all. The first issue comes when the coaster pulls into a spiral - Donnie is abruptly wrenched to the side, the coaster jostling and shaking him, and he feels a sharp pain in his back as he goes.
He didn’t expect the ride to be this jerky.
He pulls himself back to the center of his seat just in time for another incline, and he’s smacked back against the hard plastic. He sees stars when it happens, and it occurs to him that something might actually be seriously wrong.
The coaster dips, then jerks into a hard turn, and all thoughts of bets with Leo go flying out the window as Donnie drops his hands to grip the safety bar in a desperate attempt to keep from being wrenched in his seat. It doesn’t help; his shell is a sheet of fire now, and he can vaguely feel something sticky and wet seeping across his skin.
Next to him Leo whoops, but Donnie barely registers it. He twists his eyes shut and focuses on trying to take deep breaths through the pain - difficult to do when air is rushing past him.
The rest of the ride takes an unbearably long time, but they finally pull back into the station. Leo is chanting his own name as the coaster slows and he finally drops his arms.
“Oh man,” he says, “you gave up way faster than I thought you would! Can’t wait to see what you’re gonna buy me… uh, Donnie?”
Donnie blindly reaches out and grips onto Leo’s forearm.
Three fast, three slow, three fast again.
“...Oh crap,” Leo mutters. He leans in closer, so he can lower his voice. “Can you get up, or…?”
Donnie forces his eyes open, lets go of the bar, unbuckles his seatbelt, and gets to his feet. Forcing himself to act like everything is fine. Even though his shell is screaming at him.
Mikey and April are already waiting, and Donnie stands straight and normal, and tries not to attract attention. He thinks April might have caught on that something is up from the way she watches him, so he pulls his phone out and pretends to be looking at something so he can plausibly avoid eye contact.
Raph finally joins them and they all head down the ramp together. “Let’s hit the teacups next!” says Mikey.
“I’ll meet you guys over there,” says Leo, stepping away from the group. “Bathroom break.”
“Aw, come on, Leo,” Mikey whines. “You just went while we were getting funnel cakes.”
“Hey, I drank an extra large soda!” Leo takes a few more steps. “I’ll be quick, just save my spot.”
“Actually, I’m going to go with him,” says Donnie. He doubts his voice sounds steady, despite his best efforts; he decides to opt for speed over quality. “We’ll catch up!”
Before anyone can say anything more he and Leo are heading in the direction of the nearest restroom, and he’s grateful they don’t follow.
Instead of going in, Leo leads him around the back of the building, a dark alcove with some dumpsters. As soon as they’re sheltered from the crowd he whirls on Donnie.
“What’s wrong?”
“Okay, don’t panic,” he says, taking a slow breath in and out (the walk over had not been fun), “but I think I ripped open my stitches.”
“...Pizza Supreme.” Leo rubs at his eyes a moment, before waving a hand at Donnie. “Turn around and let me see.”
Donnie does not want to do that. He stands still and does not do that.
They engage in a staring contest for a good thirty seconds before he gives up with a groan.
“Fine.” He turns around, hiking up his hoodie as he goes. Of course, all there is to see back there is…
“You’re gonna have to take off the battleshell too, Dee.”
“I know, I know, just…” Donnie grits his teeth and reaches up to hit the release, hissing through his teeth at the feeling of the material peeling off his wounds. Leo must catch it before it falls because he doesn’t hear a thunk.
“...Okay yeah,” says Leo after a moment. “You definitely ripped your stitches.”
“As I already told you, so was any of this even necessary?”
“Why did you go on the rollercoaster?” Leo snaps back. “You should have known this would happen!”
“I thought I was healed enough!” he defends. “You’re the so-called medic, why didn’t you stop me!?”
“...Yeah, you’re right,” says Leo, and his voice sounds tight, and Donnie feels… well, not guilt, definitely not. He just doesn’t like when Leo gives up the fight like that. It throws them both off kilter.
An awkward silence falls over them for a moment, and Donnie takes it on himself to break it.
“Why don’t we mutually agree that this was an unforeseen circumstance, and so neither of us deserve blame?”
Leo laughs, short but Donnie will take it. “Alright. We need to get home and fix this, though.”
He nods, turning around and reaching for the battleshell. Leo keeps it held to his chest.
“I don’t think you should put this back on.”
“And what else am I supposed to do with it? Walk around with an impossibly advanced piece of high-tech armor in my arms?”
Leo grimaces but hands it back. “Fine. It’s your horrible, debilitating pain.”
“Thank you,” Donnie says, then puts the shell back on and does his best to keep from blanching five shades of green lighter.
Leo’s got his phone out, already pulling up his contacts. “Are you okay with me telling the others what’s going on?”
“No, they’ll just want to come with us. Give them an excuse.” He narrows his eyes at Leo. “Something not embarrassing.”
Leo grins. “Oh, come on, when have I ever embarrassed you?” He raises the phone to his ear before Donnie can give him the short list.
“Hey, Raph, me and Dee decided to bounce. …Oh, one of those DJs he likes is giving a surprise concert and he really wants to go. You know how he is once he’s in the mood to dance- …Yeah, we’re taking a shell hog. …Yes, we’ll text you, geez.”
He hangs up a moment later, eying Donnie. “Ready to go?”
“Yes, let’s.”
They make their way out of the park, back to where they left the tank. Donnie knows that the others are probably disappointed in him and Leo for ditching, and he decides to tell April the truth later, but for now he doesn’t think he can deal with all of them at once. And more than that, he just doesn’t want to ruin their night.
He’s already ruining Leo’s.
Though as always, his brother doesn’t say anything about it. Not as they climb onto the shell hog, not as they get home and slip past their sleeping dad, not as he cleans and restitches Donnie’s wounds.
It’s not until the two of them are in Leo’s room watching stupid videos on his laptop that Leo gives him a light prod with his elbow and says, “Hey, you still owe me whatever I want from the gift shop. I’m not gonna forget.”
After that, Donnie doesn’t feel so bad about ruining his night.
Donnie’s never been to a music festival before, and he’s determined to enjoy his first one.
It’s in the Hidden City, so they don’t have to bother disguising themselves. He’s been diving deep into the yokai EDM/synthwave/techno/dubstep scenes recently, so he knows almost everyone performing. The weather is perfect.
And there’s an awareness that this is something he wanted to do, and so they’re all here for him, the way they go to wrestling for Raph or went to the Magic Townhouse for Leo, and if it sucks then it will be fodder to tease him with for the rest of forever. But if it’s awesome, then he can get them to come with him again in the future.
So he’s determined to make this the best night ever, not just for himself but for his family. For his brothers, April, and Sunita, who had enthusiastically agreed to tag along. Donnie has an itinerary so they hit only the best stages, he has a map with routes planned out for maximum efficiency, and he has a list of all the best food trucks with drones surreptitiously released to watch for when lines are short. He’s prepared for anything.
Or that’s what he was thinking when they arrived.
Now, three hours in and en route to their next stage, he’s starting to think he miscalculated.
His family is having a great time, as planned. Donnie was delighted to learn that Sunita is already familiar with many of the performers he wants to see, and he’d inundated April with so many recs that she is familiar, too. His brothers don’t seem to care so much about the music, but they are enjoying the atmosphere, soaking in the excitement of being out for the day. Everyone is enjoying themselves.
Everyone except Donnie. Donnie is not enjoying himself, because he prepared for anything but he was not prepared for everything.
The music is not the problem. The music is familiar, comforting in its patterns and rhythms, and it’s so, so cool to hear it live, to feel the bass drops vibrate through his plastron and the beats thrum in his bones. It’s all the other sensations that come with it that are the problem: the shouts of other people fighting to be heard, the scents of food and alcohol and trash cans, the glare of the light off metal railings, the weariness of being on his feet this long, the press of so many bodies, bumping into him, brushing past him, jostling him, breathing on him-
He’s felt this kind of pressure before, he knows what it means, and he wants to scream because why is it happening now, this is supposed to be his thing, he was the one who asked for this.
A hand touches his arm and his immediate instinct is to bite it off.
“Dee, look!” He realizes the one touching him is Mikey, and he’s glad he didn’t follow his hindbrain. “Fake tattoos!”
“Fascinating,” he says drily, and hopes no one catches how strained talking is becoming. He eyes the booth, full of temporary tattoos of all kinds and colors, as well as a station where they can be applied after purchase if desired. It looks like some local artists have contributed designs, so it’s no wonder Mikey would be interested.
“Let’s go check ‘em out!” Mikey says, and he sounds so chipper that Donnie feels like he passed the “sounding totally normal and not on the edge of a meltdown” test. He doesn’t have time to celebrate, though.
“Absolutely not. We only have ten minutes to get to the next stage and in this crowd, we can’t afford any stops.”
“Aww, come on,” says Leo, stepping after Mikey. “Can’t you spare a few minutes in that rigid schedule of yours?”
Donnie feels a frustrated burn in his eyes that he pushes away with one forceful blink. No, he is not going to start acting like a baby over this. He’s supposed to be making sure they have a fun time! But by Pythagoras, the producer they’re on their way to see is one of his favorites, and he just wants to get through that much before he inevitably shrivels to dust.
He forces a breath. Realizes that now they’re all looking at him, and no he does not want that.
“Sure, just make it quick,” he says, hoping he sounds, at worst, simply annoyed with Mikey for breaking the schedule. He thinks he succeeds, because Mikey grabs Sunita’s hand (they are already friends, he notes) and starts to pull her away, and Raph hurries after them, yelling at them not to get lost.
Leo has not dashed off like he expected him to; instead, he’s looking right at Donnie. April hasn’t left, either, and he can feel her eyes on him.
“Donnie,” she starts, and he decides no, he isn’t doing this.
He’s not talking to anyone about it. He’s definitely not tapping out.
“Come on, the sooner we help Micheal choose the sooner we can get moving,” he says resolutely, pushing past them both, and he’s relieved when they follow without further comment.
In the end, they leave the booth three minutes late, Mikey sporting a colorful tiger on his bicep. Donnie hopes that he isn’t grinding his teeth too audibly.
The set has already started by the time they make it to the stage, and Donnie feels ever more strung out. He loves this music, he wants to be moving, wants to be dancing, but instead he stands stock still with his hands drawn to his plastron, fighting the urge to itch.
He makes it for twenty minutes. He barely hears any of the music, but he stands and he stares and he stays in one piece.
And then there’s a shout near his ear and someone bumps into him, spilling their drink onto his front, and Donnie hears a noise like steam out of a kettle come from his own mouth.
Leo is next to him. He doesn’t know when Leo moved to be next to him and he doesn’t care, he just snaps his hand out for his brother and latches onto his shoulder.
Three short taps. That’s all he can do.
Leo gets the message anyway.
“Me and Donnie are gonna go get some water,” he hears Leo tell April, and then he’s being hustled out of there, out of the crush by the stage, off to one side, up a grassy hill on the event grounds where some people are sitting around on picnic blankets.
Leo steers him to a clear spot, and as soon as they stop moving Donnie drops.
He pulls up his knees and curls his arms around them, scratching at the scales on his forearms. He squeezes his eyes shut, rocking himself back and forth, wishing all the sensations around him would just fall away and leave him in a pocket of empty space.
“Headphones?” Leo asks, and while he’s being quiet Donnie still twitches. He sends a mechanical arm to fish them out of his battleshell, but he doesn’t have the executive function to actually put them on; thankfully Leo has him covered, and the sounds of the festival are replaced with blissful muted silence.
A moment later, something is pressed against his hand. He cracks open an eye to see one of his old fidget cubes, and he takes it, sliding down his knees enough so he can bring the toy close and play with it. He spends an unknown amount of time letting his thoughts buzz uselessly while he folds and refolds the cube, until everything starts to feel just a little less.
When his senses make it back, he realizes Leo is sitting in front of him, leaving enough space to give him room to breathe. When someone nearly walks between them, Leo shoots them a look so cross that they get the hint and go around.
“Where did you get this?” Donnie signs, then lifts up the cube.
Leo actually looks embarrassed at the question. “I keep it on me,” he signs back. Then he jostles the pouch at his hip. The one Donnie thought only contained medical supplies and ninja tools.
“Because of me?” he signs, and Leo looks away.
“It works on Mikey sometimes too.”
The unsaid part of that statement is that yes, he keeps it for Donnie. He doesn’t know if he should find it irritating or endearing.
No, the last thing he needs to be trying to do right now is identify emotions.
“Do you want to go home?” Leo signs when Donnie doesn’t try to say more.
Want to? As if Donnie would ever want to. Accepting this as part of who he is isn’t really the same as being happy when it gets in the way of something he so wanted to…
“I wanted to like it,” he signs.
There’s that burn again.
When he finally looks at his brother’s face, his mouth is a tight, small line, and his eye ridges are pinched. It’s not an expression he sees on Leo often, but he has always been easier for Donnie to read than anyone else, and so he knows this is sadness. Sadness for him, and Donnie’s gut twists, because this was supposed to be fun and instead he made Leo sad.
“I wanted you to like it too,” he signs back.
Donnie blinks once. Twice. Feels something wet on his mask.
Then he shuffles forward and lets his head fall with a thunk on Leo’s shoulder. Leo, blessedly, does not touch him, just lets him stay like that for a few minutes.
When he pulls back, he also reaches up and takes off the headphones. He can hear the occasional noises of the people around him when they’re loud enough to carry, but the press of bodies is gone and the smell of food isn’t so overwhelming. He can still hear the music, rising up the short hill.
“Do you want to go home?” Leo asks again, out loud this time.
“No,” he says, glad when it actually comes out the way he wants. “But I can’t go back down there.”
“Well, we can still hear the music just fine from here.” Leo grins, spreading out his arms. “And it seems to me like there’s plenty of space up here to dance.”
Donnie mulls what he’s suggesting over. The music would sound better if they were down in front of the stage, but up here isn’t so bad. And Leo isn’t wrong that the spot they’ve found has plenty of room for all of them.
Leo anticipates his next worry before he even fully has it. “They won’t mind being up here. Raph would probably prefer it, actually. I’m pretty sure you and Sunita are the only ones who like your ears being split by this stuff.”
At that, Donnie sniffs derisively. “There’s no accounting for taste, I suppose,” he says, and it gets Leo to laugh.
He pulls out his phone, sends, “Me and Donnie found a primo spot,” and a picture of the stage down below, to their group chat. After a moment, there’s a buzz and Donnie pulls out his own phone to read April’s reply.
“On our way!”
Donnie quickly rubs at his face so he looks presentable - Leo gives him a thumbs up that he doesn’t wholly trust, but he doesn’t have a mirror on him so it can’t be helped. Then he gets to his feet, closing his eyes and letting the music wash over him.
He smiles. Bobs his head. This isn’t what he pictured, but it’s okay. It’s good.
By the time the rest of them get there, he’s feeling better - so much better that he grabs April and pulls her towards him, spinning her in a circle.
“Whoa, okay,” she says with a laugh. “You ready to dance, BootyyyShaker9000?”
“I’m always ready to dance, April O’Neil,” he says, dropping her hand and grooving with his arms.
Sunita and Mikey move to join them, forming an impromptu dance circle. Raph, meanwhile, flops down in the grass next to Leo, proving his prediction that he’s much happier up here correct.
Donnie’s happier up here, too.
They’re playing Heroes and Villains, and Donnie’s the villain this time.
The objective is to steal something from one of their rooms before the “heroes” catch him. He’d wanted to use his new prototype battleshell, so he could get around the atrium more quickly, but his brothers had vetoed mechanical help (unfair!), and so he has to run.
It’s not so bad - Donnie is fast. Only Leo is as fast (he says faster, but Donnie disputes that claim), so outrunning them isn’t really the problem.
But there are more of them than there are of him, and they block off his escape routes as he exits Leo’s room, a comic book clutched in his hands.
“Stop right there, villain!” Leo yells, accompanied with a dramatic flourish.
“You got nowhere to run, Don the Destroyer,” says Raph, taking a step forward like he’s going to tackle him. Mikey peeks around him, ready to pounce.
Donnie sees only one way out of this.
He jumps off the walkway of the atrium onto the skate ramp below, sliding down it on his shell.
He’s watched Mikey and Leo do this a million times - they do it more often than they come down the stairs. But Mikey and Leo have hard shells that glide harmlessly over the ramp. By contrast, Donnie’s t-shirt is hiked up as he goes, and the rough wood scrapes the leathery surface of his carapace, in a way that makes his teeth rattle. When he gets to the bottom he feels raw.
“Donnie!” he hears Raph yell, hero persona dropped in favor of big brother worry. Mikey and Leo, less concerned, whoop and launch themselves off the walkway after him, and he hears their hard shells skidding on the planks. The echoes of all those shouts ping in his ears.
He needs to run but he can’t bring himself to take a step before Mikey is jumping on him, wrapping him in a vice grip, and all Donnie’s muscles seize, and they topple over in a heap.
“My comic!” Leo yells, pushing them both over and wrenching the paper out of Donnie’s grip. He steps back to flip through the pages, making sure none of them are ripped or damaged, while Mikey giggles directly in Donnie’s ear.
It’s a lot, suddenly, and he feels a familiar pressure building in his chest.
“Donnie, are you okay?” Raph has made it down now, and he runs straight to Donnie, jostling him as he tries to get a look at his back. “How’s your shell?”
Often, Donnie likes his big brother’s comfort. Other times, it’s just too much. This is one of those times.
“It’s fine,” he says, voice flat. He wiggles out of Raph’s grasp, pulling on the hem of his shirt, trying to ignore how the fabric rubs against the newly sensitive scrapes and failing.
He’d been having fun playing, but now he just wants to be away from here. Maybe he can go back to his lab; Dad got him a new chemistry set for his and Leo’s ninth birthday, just a week ago, and he’s barely gotten to use it.
“No more stealing my comics! You guys are gonna rip ‘em!” shouts Leo.
“I wanna be villain this time!” yells Mikey.
“Donnie, let me see your shell,” says Raph, coming after him again.
Never mind the chemistry set. He just wants out of here.
“I’m gonna go to my lab,” he says, dodging Raph’s hands again. Unfortunately this puts him in grabbing range of Mikey, who catches his hand before he can move.
“Noooooo!” he whines, giving him a light tug. “You said you would play with us today!”
That’s true, he did say that. He’d been happy to, actually. At least in the moment.
Donnie likes to think that he’s immune to his little brother’s puppy dog eyes, but the truth is that he is not. And if he refuses now then Raph’s worrying will just get worse and he won’t be able to leave, anyway.
He takes a deep breath, and tries to ignore the pressure that’s building under his skin. Mikey’s touch is all fire and the t-shirt on his scrapes is pins and needles but he can make himself push past it.
“Fine. Mikey is villain,” he says, and Mikey cheers and sets his head spinning. Raph finally stops trying to grab for Donnie’s back, looking unsure, but Mikey is already scrambling away towards his bedroom so the game is on.
Mikey is smaller than the rest of them so they give him a head start. As soon as it’s over, Raph is charging forward, yelling, “Leo, block the other side! Donnie, you back him up!”
Donnie tries to move. He does. But he feels rooted to the spot. His body doesn’t want to obey him anymore. He starts scratching his arms, which doesn’t help the anxious energy building inside him.
He doesn’t realize Leo hasn’t moved either until he speaks. “Nah, I’m done with this game. Let’s play hide-and-seek!”
“No!” Mikey’s head pops back over the edge of the walkway, pouting down at Leo. “I wanna be villain!”
“You’re boring as the villain, we always catch you.”
“Not this time! I worked on my skills!”
He’s giving Leo his best puppy dog eyes, but unlike Donnie, Leo is actually immune. “Hide-and-seek!”
“Awwww…”
Leo covers his eyes and starts counting down. “Sixty… fifty nine… fifty eight…”
Raph and Mikey scramble; they may not have agreed to the game, but now that Leo has started counting neither of them want to lose. Donnie watches as Mikey darts into the arcade while Raph peels away into the den, leaving the two of them alone in the atrium.
Donnie doesn’t even try to hide. He just sinks to the ground, on top of the skate ramp, and wraps his arms around his knees.
When Leo gets to the forties, he moves into Donnie’s line of sight. He’s uncovered his eyes and is looking at him. Donnie realizes then that he’s rocking, but he doesn’t stop even though Leo can see him.
Leo’s counting trails off around thirty two, and he kneels down so they’re eye level.
“Can you talk?” he asks.
Donnie winces, then lifts his hands and places them on both sides of his head.
“Need your headphones?” Leo signs this time.
He nods, and Leo gets back up and darts off, headed for his room. The headphones aren’t in there, but Donnie can’t tell him that, so he just waits. Stares at the imperfections in the plywood and hums.
Leo returns more quickly than he expected, carrying both his headphones and his favorite purple hoodie. Maybe he hadn’t gone into his room to look for the headphones then. Somehow he knew where to find both.
He pulls off his shirt in a rush, then grabs for the hoodie. It has a silkier, smoother material on the inside, and it’s like a balm to his shell after the coarse texture of the t-shirt. Then on go the headphones.
Time passes. He doesn’t know how much. When he finally tears his eyes off the wood to look at Leo, he’s halfway through his comic book.
He looks up at the feeling of eyes on him, then smiles and waves. Donnie nods back.
“Feeling better?” his brother signs at him.
He thinks about it. Not knowing the sign to say what he’s thinking, he goes for fingerspelling. “Marginally.”
Leo tilts his head.
Donnie tries again. “A little.”
Leo’s mouth forms an “oh” that Donnie can’t hear. “Want to go to your room?”
He thinks again. “In a minute,” he finally signs.
Leo gives him the OK sign and then just sits. Donnie sits too, eyes falling back to the plywood. He doesn’t know where their brothers are, if they’re still waiting for Leo to come seeking. At least things are still.
When he looks back at Leo, he’s fidgeting a bit, tapping out rhythms on his knees. When that happens, he’s either bored or wants to talk about something. Donnie isn’t sure which applies here.
Sound doesn’t feel so bad now, so he reaches up and pulls off his headphones.
“What?”
Leo blinks. “What what?”
“Why are you tapping? It always means something.”
“It doesn’t!” Leo stills his hands. He’s frowning. “...Okay, there is something.”
He knew it. His lips twitch up in victory, and that seems to give Leo the push to continue.
“Why didn’t you just tell us you needed to stop?”
Donnie’s eyes fall again, because he doesn’t know how to answer that. It would be the logical thing to do, but sometimes he doesn’t do logical things and he doesn’t know why. When he writes programs on the computer, everything is straightforward. If this then do that, else do the other. He doesn’t understand why his body can’t follow instructions the same way.
“...Did you think we’d be mad?” asks Leo softly.
Donnie shakes his head at that. He knows they wouldn’t be mad. Or even if they got mad, they would apologize later. So that can’t be right. It doesn’t fit in the equation.
“Did you not want them to worry?”
That… sounds more right, when Leo says it out loud. Raph takes care of all of them, and Donnie doesn’t want to add to the worries he already has. And Mikey is the little brother; what kind of big brother would he be if he worried him?
“...I didn’t want them to know,” he says, and he hopes Leo understands what he means because he doesn’t know how to better say it. Which is frustrating; why does he learn all those big words if he can’t use them?
“Okay,” says Leo, and Donnie thinks maybe he did get it. “But… you’re okay with me knowing?”
Donnie considers this. Why doesn’t he feel the same way about Leo that he does about Mikey and Raph?
They’re not really twins, he knows that. Dad only gave them the same birthday because he didn’t know which of them was older. Maybe because he didn’t want to remember four different birthdays. But Donnie doesn’t know which of them is older, either. He’s looked into it, but if they were hatched really close together there’s no way to tell for sure.
Maybe that’s why. There’s no big brother or little brother between them. They just are. Leo and Donnie. Donnie and Leo.
“...I guess so,” he says, and immediately a giant smile splits Leo’s face. “What?”
“Nothing. I just feel like I won, somehow.”
Donnie stares at him. “You’re weird,” he says, and is amused when Leo deflates like a popped balloon.
“Aww, come on! You just said I’m your favorite brother!”
“I did not. Those words were never said.”
“You basically said it.” Leo wiggles where he sits, still smiling like a fool. “Go to your room, I’ll go tell the guys that we’re having some twin bonding time.”
“Groan.” Donnie gets to his feet, and feels glad when he doesn’t wobble. “To tell them you’ll have to find them first.”
“Oh please.” Leo hops up and cracks his knuckles. “Raph’s behind Dad’s chair and Mikey’s crammed between Pac-Man and Dig Dug. They’re amatadors.”
“...Do you mean amateurs?”
“Same thing. Now go! I’ll meet you there in a few.”
“You’re coming to my room, too?”
“I gotta if we want to make this believable, bro.” Leo throws him a salute and skips off to the arcade.
Later, they’re both in Donnie’s bed, a book in Donnie’s lap. Donnie reads faster than Leo, so he waits for him to tap the right page before turning it. It’s quiet and rhythmic and it’s calmed Donnie down considerably, though he’s determined not to tell Leo about it.
They’ve been at it for two chapters when Leo taps for a page turn, then keeps tapping. Donnie raises one drawn-on eyebrow before flipping through several pages at once. It makes Leo giggle.
“No, no, sorry.” He turns the pages back to where they were. “I was just thinking.”
“And the tapping was from your brain frying?”
“Ha ha.” Leo bumps their shoulders together, and it doesn’t feel bad. “I was thinking, what if we had a secret code? You could use it when you want out of something but don’t know how to say it.”
He has to admit that it’s… not a bad idea. He hates thinking that Leo is better at anything than him, but Leo is better at lying. And while most of the time Donnie has no trouble turning them down when he doesn’t want to do something, sometimes, like today, it’s just hard. If Leo could come up with excuses for him, he could slip off to take care of whatever problem he has alone, without causing issues for everyone else.
“...You won’t come up with… embarrassing excuses, will you?” he asks, looking at Leo critically.
Leo puts a hand to his heart. “When have I ever embarrassed you?”
Donnie holds his stare.
“...Ugh, fine. I swear on my Jupiter Jim comic collection I will not embarrass you on purpose when you use the secret code!”
“Just remember I know where Dad keeps the matches.”
Leo shudders, then goes for distraction. “Okay, any ideas what the code should be?”
“Hmm…” Donnie thinks. Looks at the book, where Leo would tap for the next page.
Then he reaches out for Leo’s arm, and taps it. Three quick, three slower, then three quick again.
Leo watches him. “What’s that?”
“SOS in Morse code.”
“Ooooh…” Leo repeats the pattern on the book, then nods. “Okay! If you tap that on my arm, I’ll come up with a good excuse to get you out of whatever it is!”
“Any situation?”
“Any!”
“And you won’t be embarrassing?”
“I already said I won’t!”
Donnie considers it. Considers it for a long time just to make Leo sweat a little.
Then he nods and holds out his hand.
“Okay. Deal.”
Leo laughs at the hand, but reaches out to grab it, shaking so hard it rattles Donnie’s bones.
“Deal!”
Donnie has had to endure a lot of horrifying, soul-sucking, and undignified experiences the last sixteen years, but he never expected those experiences to include meetings.
In fact, he had anticipated enjoying meetings. That was back when he thought they brought together intelligent individuals with shared goals, who all collaborated effectively, bringing unique skills to the table, to solve a complex problem.
Since then, he has experienced many meetings, and he has learned what anyone who worked in an office back in the Before Times could have told him: meetings suck, and most of them could have been emails.
He’d tried to ensure this one would be an email. Leo had written up the report and asked him to add some tech specs and projections to it, which he had done before sending it to the relevant parties (in one of the few enclaves of humanity outside their own left) as a text communication. And then had come the dreaded reply: “I think we should meet to discuss this.”
And so now here they are, cramped into what passes for a communications room at their new base, him and Leo at the table bent over a holoscreen with the names and sound frequencies of the humans at the other encampment. They are a group made up of a bunch of rich so-and-sos who thus far had rejected all non-human refugees, but they still made for (begrudging) allies. It’s distasteful to all of them in their own group, who had long ago shed any need for boundaries between human, mutant, and yokai, but in the apocalypse one takes what help one can get.
Even if they are insufferable.
Donnie long ago tuned out whatever was being discussed, in favor of clicking notes on tech improvements and reminders for maintenance work into his own gauntlet’s interface. Anytime they come back around to something actually relevant to him, Leo helpfully reframes it as a question Donnie can easily answer: things like, “Do we have the materials for anti-air support?” or, “What’s the maximum battery life for our surveillance drones?” He answers those queries in a dry, clipped tone, and they go back to arguing about things that don’t concern him.
Perhaps he would be more willing to listen if they hadn’t chosen the worst day to test his patience.
It’s not like time really means anything at the end of the world, but Donnie’s tech dutifully keeps up with the calendar anyway. Sometimes being able to confidently say, “It’s October third,” is the only thing keeping him grounded to reality.
Today it is the furthest thing from grounding, though. Every time his eyes catch sight of the date on his screen, his train of thought scatters, and he has to reread his notes to get back on track. The arguing of tinny voices does not help keep his concentration, and he feels increasingly overwhelmed.
“Donnie, what’s the max range of our automated turrets?” Leo asks him.
“On ideal terrain, nine hundred and thirty seven meters,” he answers without having to look it up.
“See, there you go,” says Leo to the voices, and Donnie goes back to not listening.
Usually the date doesn’t matter. People have long stopped observing holidays and birthdays. All that’s left in the apocalypse are anniversaries.
His eyes flick to the date again, and he feels uncomfortably cold. It’s summer and there’s no temperature regulation in their shambolic excuse for a headquarters and he’s chilled right down to his damn bones.
He’s completely forgotten what he was taking notes on. His focus is shot.
They’re still talking. He thinks they’re arguing about fair ammo trades. Like they don’t already have the kind of stockpiles that would make Donnie’s mouth water. Like the sky hasn’t been ripped open and the planet isn’t dying. Like they haven’t already lost-
He doesn’t realize he’s doing it until he’s halfway done.
Three quick taps, three slow, three quick.
He rips his hand back from Leo’s arm and shoves it into his lap, wanting to sink into the floor. He can’t remember the last time he tapped out - can’t remember the last time he even thought to tap out. It must have been back Before, because since then he hasn’t had the luxury of tapping out.
At first, Leo does nothing, and Donnie doesn’t expect him to. Because they are both adults, because Leo is the leader of an entire resistance force, because Donnie is ninety percent of that force’s weapons development, maintenance, and transportation divisions, because only a moron would jeopardize their relationship with one of the few allied forces they have left just because Donnie couldn’t listen to this pointless meeting anymore.
And he knows he’s right about that last part because his brother, his ridiculous, insufferable, dumb-dumb brother makes a bzzzt noise with his mouth right into his microphone.
“What, sorry,” he says. “Bzzzzt- You’re breaking- bzzzzt- call you ba- bzzzzt!”
Donnie is going to kill him. He’s going to strangle him. He’s going to rip off his remaining arm and beat him to death with it.
Leo hangs up the call.
Donnie gets up and walks right out.
The comms room is a two minute walk from his lab and he’s determined to clear it in ten seconds. Some poor soul calls out, “Excuse me, Commander Donatello!” and he stalks straight past them without so much as a glance. He doesn’t care. He already has a reputation for being prickly, for being eccentric, for only letting a few select people bother him without biting their hands off, and it serves him well.
This is the worst day anyone could choose to try him.
He gets to his lab and slams the door, then grabs the nearest thing that isn’t breakable or critical (one of his wrenches, he thinks) and chucks it across the room. The clunk it makes when it hits the wall is nowhere near satisfying enough and he sinks to the floor.
“What happened?”
That’s Mikey’s voice outside the door. Donnie hasn’t had the time or resources to soundproof a lab since about three bases ago. Maybe four, depending on how you count.
“Nothing, it’s fine,” says Leo. “He just tapped out.”
“Tapped out…? Oooh, that thing you guys used to do!”
Donnie barks a laugh into his knees. Of course. And they used to think they were so subtle.
“Yep, that thing,” says Leo, his voice far too cheery. “Don’t worry, Angelo, I’ll take care of it. Give us ten minutes.”
Donnie doesn’t want ten minutes. He wants ten years and then some. A moment of peace for every one stolen from him by the krang.
He picks up another wrench and flings it. There’s a crash as it knocks something over.
“Twenty minutes,” Leo amends, and then he’s opening the door.
He comes in and sits down on the floor in front of Donnie. Doesn’t say anything, just looks at him. Donnie peeks back over the top of his knees.
“...I shouldn’t have done that.”
Leo cocks his head. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“It was unprofessional of me to end the meeting early just because I was…” Having a mental breakdown? “...restless.”
“This isn’t a performance review, Dee,” says Leo, his voice way too light, Donnie thinks, given the situation.
“Well, maybe it should be!” He lowers his knees and sits straight. “Because I actually have some points for you. You’re the leader, you can’t just be ending meetings for no reason, no matter how tedious they may be!”
Leo’s expression only slightly falters at the word “leader,” but he picks it back up lightning quick. “It wasn’t for “no reason”. You tapped out!”
“So what? You should have just ignored me!” Leo opens his mouth, but Donnie leans into his personal space before he can speak, jamming a finger into his chest. “And furthermore! Buzzing into the microphone!? The old “I’m going through a tunnel” routine!? Honestly, Leo, I thought you were more creative than that!”
Leo has the audacity to laugh. “Okay, I guess this is a performance review.”
“Damn right it is! I have reviewed your performance and found it to be poor! I thought you promised me you wouldn’t give any embarrassing excuses!”
“You’re right, I did.” Leo catches his hand, gives it a squeeze. He’s probably trying to ground him, but Donnie resists. “And I also told you that if you tap out, I’ll do whatever I can to get you out of there. There’s no expiration date on that. No exceptions.”
“There are exceptions, though,” Donnie hisses. “You can hardly come up with some bullshit excuse to get us out of this.” He waves his hand to indicate the entirety of the base. “I can’t tap out of this war, I can’t tap out of this day, I can’t tap out of this life-”
Donnie wishes he could claw the words back as soon as they leave him. Leo’s smile has finally fallen, and what’s left behind is so dark and desolate that Donnie hates himself, that he ever put that expression there.
“I… I didn’t mean it like that,” he says.
“I know,” says Leo.
“I didn’t,” he insists, more forcefully. “It’s just… it’s this day, Leo, it’s-”
“I know,” Leo says again. He’s still holding Donnie’s hand. “I miss him, too.”
Donnie falls forward, and Leo catches him.
He buries his face in his scarf, and Leo grabs on to him tight, with the mechanical arm - Raph’s arm. The one Donnie built in a desperate attempt to keep his big brother close. It’s this that makes him cry, for the first time in he doesn’t know how long.
Leo isn’t crying; Donnie doesn’t think Leo has cried once since they lost Dad, not in front of anyone, anyway. But he’s shaking as he holds on to Donnie, and Donnie reaches around and grips onto his shoulder and holds him back.
He thinks that they are going to be keeping Mikey waiting longer than twenty minutes.
His emotions must really be rubbed raw by the time his crying jag is over, though, because he remembers what Leo did and he finds himself giggling, giggling and then hiccupping as the last of his tears roll down his face and disappear into the collar of his coat.
“Wha- why are you laughing?” Leo asks him, and his voice is tight but his confusion is evident.
“I just… I just…” He sniffs and pulls back, dismissing his mystic glasses so he can wipe his eyes. “I keep thinking… you, and your idiotic… fucking… bzzzt.”
Leo seems stunned, but then he snorts, and then he’s the one leaning on Donnie as laughs start to bubble through him. “Hey, you can’t improve on a classic!”
“You are just so… so stupid!” Donnie gasps, and is overwhelmed by laughs again. He’s pretty sure he’s officially lost his mind. “Bzzzt! I mean, really? I can’t believe I’m related to you.”
“They’re probably so mad! Heeheehee!”
“Furious! Oh, I wish I could have seen their faces when you hung up on them!”
They dissolve into a laughing fit again, and it’s another several minutes before they regain their composure. It feels good. Donnie takes the bright spots when they come. There’s so few of them, anymore.
“Hey, next time,” says Leo as he sits up, straightening out his scarf where it’s started to slip, “I’m going to tap out, and it’ll be your turn to come up with an excuse.”
“Absolutely not.” Donnie folds his arms. “Tapping out goes one way. I never agreed to anything else.”
“Aww, come on. Just do it once, for me? Your favorite brother?” He bats his eyelids.
Donnie puts a hand in his face, shoving him away so he can get to his feet. “I never said you were that, either. Now come on, we’ve kept Mikey waiting long enough.”
That sobers Leo up, and he follows Donnie out of the lab. Mikey isn’t outside eavesdropping like Donnie suspected, but he pops into being right in front of them so quickly that he’s fairly sure he has some way of sensing they were done.
“Hey,” he says, and his tone is tired but still positive, in a way only Mikey can manage. “April and Casey Jr. are already there. Are you guys ready?”
Donnie’s not ready. But he’s not tapping out of this. He would never.
“Yeah, we’re good,” says Leo for both of them. His voice is remarkably strong and steady, given everything. “Let’s go.”
Mikey smiles, and it’s a small, tenuous thing. Donnie reaches out, hooks an arm around his little brother’s shoulders, and Mikey leans into it.
Together, they make their way toward the memorial wall - the only thing in their tiny resistance that keeps getting bigger.
All that’s left in the apocalypse are anniversaries. With his family at his side, Donnie will see this one through.
New York took months to recover from the invasion. His family took even longer.
But like cockroaches and taxes, nerd culture will never die, and so the four of them trooped into the first sci-fi convention post-near-death-experience, dressed as ever as Jupiter Jim turtle aliens, which is to say not particularly dressed up at all.
Somewhat surprisingly, it’s more bustling than ever before. Donnie thinks it’s due to a bunch of people recently learning aliens are, in fact, quite real. The familiar sights and sounds of comic trading, homemade cosplay, and heated arguments over obscure movie lore are a comfort. Normal. Proof that the world was saved and will keep on spinning.
Donnie himself feels pretty good today, actually. He can deal with the crowds, because he was prepared for that. They planned out what panels and signings they wanted to go to beforehand and have mostly stuck to the schedule, enough that when they have gone off book he’s been able to roll with it. He found a rare, mint-condition scale figure of Atomic Lass in the vendor hall and he’s already stored it safely away in the Turtle Tank where no one can ever get their grubby hands on it. And of course they had pizza. Truly an S tier day, in Donnie’s estimation.
Or it would be, except something has felt off since lunch; not with him, but with Leo.
Donnie had always known Leo was good at hiding how he really felt behind a smile and a joke, but he’d never really understood the depths of it until after Everything. Leo suffered from horrific nightmares, intense panic attacks, and, in the early days, auditory hallucinations, to say nothing of the debilitating pain of his injuries, and he’d fought so hard to hide it from them. Tried to handle it himself until the weight of it nearly killed him.
Many tears had been shed, many hugs had, many heartfelt words exchanged. It wasn’t over after that, of course, Donnie isn’t sure it ever will be, but it’s… better now, and as much as he’s about going big or going home, he’ll take the incremental approach to this one.
So when he notices that Leo is ramping up the jokes more than usual, he starts paying close attention. Something’s brewing, and he fully intends to approach him about it once they’re home.
They’re in line for a signing. Mikey is perched up on Raph’s shoulders, excitedly flipping through an art book he bought in the vendor hall. Leo is next to Raph, making appropriate comments every time Mikey shows them a particular page, and Donnie is just behind them, on his phone.
He’s scrolling through one of his many gaming subreddits when he feels a hand grab his arm.
Three quick taps. Three slow. Three quick.
Donnie freezes.
Leo’s already pulled his hand back when he glances up from his phone, making a crack about something Donnie missed the context for. He looks normal. Or, he looks like he’s trying very hard to seem normal.
But he tapped out, and that means nothing is normal at all.
Leo has never done this before. Tapping out has always gone one way - Donnie is terrible at lying and they’ll know right away that something is up if he even tries. If Leo needs an excuse to leave, he’d be better off coming up with one on his own than trying to rely on Donnie.
Except that’s not really the point, is it?
It’s never been about excuses, it’s always been about getting help from the one person who can help the most in that moment. And he doesn’t know how he’s that person for Leo right now, but what he does know is that if he doesn’t do something, Leo will never reach out again, and he refuses to do that to him.
If one of his brothers calls for him, he’ll always answer.
“Actually,” he says, inserting himself into the conversation with all the smoothness and subtlety of a battering ram, “there’s a panel all about practical Foley design happening in five minutes that I would very much like to attend.”
“Huh?” Raph looks at him. “I don’t remember that on the schedule?”
“I did not include it in any of your itineraries because I thought we would have already moved on to get in line for the Jupiter Jim Name That Theme Competition panel, but since this line is moving so slowly I think the sound design talk will be over by the time you’re done here.”
“Oh. I guess.” Raph still looks apprehensive - he’s been reluctant to let any of them out of his sight, especially alone, since everything happened. (Even as he’s been scared to get too close to them, but that’s a separate issue, and one they’ve been working on.) “Are you sure you’re okay going by yourself, though…?”
Donnie decides to use that to his advantage in his current endeavor. “Well, if it makes you feel better…” He taps Leo on the shoulder. “Come on, Leo, let’s go.”
“What? Why me?” Leo does a good show of pouting. “I don’t care about your nerd thing.”
“You heard our dear older brother. Buddy system.” He takes a few steps back, leading him away. “Now we only have three minutes! Come on, I want to get a good seat.”
“I’m sure there will be plenty of seats left,” says Leo, but he comes, as expected.
“We’ll text you later,” Donnie says, as Leo draws level with him and drapes an arm over his shoulder. It could just be an attempt at seeming casual, but now Donnie can feel him shaking, tremors that rock through him at increasingly fast intervals, and he thinks it could also be because Leo isn’t sure how long he can stay on his feet.
He’s proven right when they get out of the convention center and to a conveniently deserted area around the back where Leo collapses against the wall, holding onto the bricks for dear life.
“I think…” He closes his eyes and swallows. “I think this is gonna be a bad one.”
“Okay.” Donnie flutters his hands because he doesn’t know quite what to do with them. “Do you need me to count your breaths?”
“Just…” Leo sinks down the wall, and Donnie goes down with him. “If I say somethin’ weird, just… remind me where I am?”
Donnie’s heart has been in pieces for months, but he finds it can always be shattered further.
“Of course.” He sounds steadier than he feels, finally putting his hands to rest on Leo’s shoulders. Leo curls up tight into a ball, and Donnie doesn’t fight him, but he maintains the touch. “You’re in New York City. We’re outside the convention center. Raph and Mikey are inside and you and I are outside. It’s sunny. Seventy eight degrees.” He swallows down the tightness in his throat. “You’re safe, Leo, you’re here with us and you’re safe.”
He repeats it like a mantra, every time Leo’s shakes get worse, every time he whimpers or gasps. Adds in extra sensory details, like the concrete they’re sitting on or the sound of traffic. Tries to be louder than whatever voices Leo is hearing, the ones that tell him he’s all alone.
He is not alone.
Eventually, Leo looks up. His eyes are red-rimmed and glassy and he looks so tired. Donnie wonders vaguely if he slept at all the night before. It doesn’t seem like he’s fully out of it, but he’s at least aware enough to make eye contact.
“Leo? Can you hear me?” A nod. “Do you know where we are?” It’s more hesitant, but he nods again. “Can you tell me?”
“...Spacecon…?”
“Yes, that’s good. What can you feel?”
“Bricks… concrete…”
“And what can you smell?”
“Garbage…?”
“And what can you hear?”
“Traffic, you.”
“Excellent.”
He actually grins, crooked and small but there. “Did I pass the diagnostics check?”
“With flying colors.” Donnie rocks back on his feet, starts to take his hands away and then thinks better of it. “How are you feeling, physically?”
Leo lets out a long breath. “Still kinda dizzy. Head hurts. Nauseous but I don’t think I’m gonna hurl.”
“Okay.” Donnie notes all of that down on a neat mental checklist. “Are you having trouble breathing? Any tightness in your chest?”
“No, and a little.” He shrugs. “It’s always like that.”
“Right.” One of the arms of his battleshell emerges with a water bottle; Donnie’s glad he packed a few to bring with them. “Here, slow sips.”
Leo takes it and downs half of it in one go, perhaps just to irk him. As long as he doesn’t vomit on him, Donnie will choose to let it go.
He lowers his hands from Leo’s shoulders, slowly in case he reacts negatively. He doesn’t, so Donnie drops them completely and scoots so he’s sitting against the wall. He doesn’t comment when Leo flops his head on his shoulder.
“Do you know what caused this attack?” Donnie asks, which may be a clinical way of going about it, but Leo asked for Donnie’s help and this is how he knows to give it.
“...I don’t always know,” he says slowly, which means he does know this time, but is hesitant to say.
“And it’s not always one thing, right?”
“Heh…” There’s the crinkle of the water bottle. “We could be making a therapist somewhere rich, you know?”
“That would involve giving money to America’s corrupt for-profit health care system,” says Donnie airily, and he feels good when Leo chuckles.
“...Someone had a poster,” he admits, and Donnie stiffens.
“A poster?”
“Yeah.” The crinkling gets louder. “It was… blurry and out of focus but I guess someone got a cell phone shot, and… I don’t know who would sell posters of that, but… Anyway, I saw it while we were eating, and I just… I couldn’t stop thinking about it, then.”
Donnie feels hot fury sweep through him. This is something he can’t understand, that he refuses to understand. That other people could take the event that ruined their lives so thoroughly, that cut them all so deeply, and treat it with such cheap novelty… It triggers something in him. Something that wants to find and destroy.
They don’t even wear disguises to these things. This was a place they felt safe. And the krang had to ruin that, too. The krang had to take another thing from Leo, just when he was starting to feel like part of the world again.
If he ever finds a way, he’ll go to the Prison Dimension and tear Krang Prime apart with his bare hands.
He must be giving off a little too much rage, because he hears the bottle twist hard, and Leo says, “Whoa okay, Dee. Don’t go bite their head off.”
He takes a deep breath, because he doesn’t want to upset him more. He’ll take care of his own feelings later; for now his focus is on Leo.
“Can I at least go semi-lethal?” he asks, and Leo laughs again.
They sit like that until Leo crumples up the empty water bottle and chucks it at a nearby dumpster.
“Do you want to go back in?” He shakes his head. “Do you want to go home?” That gets a nod. “Should I tell Raph and Mikey, or…”
“No.” Leo bops on his knees with his fingers. “I… I’ll tell them later. I will. I just… want a nap first.”
That’s fair, in Donnie’s opinion. He gets up, then offers a hand to Leo, who takes it. He’s still shaking, but it’s not as bad as it was.
He pulls out his phone and opens his texts with Raph. He’s been trying to get in touch with them, telling them that he and Mikey are out of the autograph line now.
He sends back a quick text that Splinter has called him and Leo back; that the microwave has become sentient again and he needs their help. Tells them to have fun and that they’ll leave the tank.
He doesn’t know how much of that is believable, but Raph just tells him to let him know when they get home.
They take a shell hog back; Leo’s portals have been wonky since Everything and Donnie doesn’t ask for one. Splinter is awake when they get there, eating a late lunch in the kitchen.
“You’re home early,” he says.
“Eh, it was lame this year,” says Leo, already on his way to his bedroom. “They couldn’t even get any of the original Jupiter Jim cast to come.”
Splinter watches him leave, then looks at Donnie. “I will make some tea,” he says.
Donnie nods, then follows in Leo’s tracks.
He’s on his bed face down in his pillow, and Donnie lingers in the doorway. Leo’s privacy has been severely diminished since he was brought home half dead, and Donnie understands the value of space. Even if he doesn’t particularly want to give it right now.
“Do you need anything?” he asks.
Leo shrugs.
Donnie backs away, racking his brain for what makes him feel better. Leo is so good at this, but Donnie is determined to be at the very least on par.
He goes to his room, finds his weighted blanket and his tablet. Then he heads to the medbay to grab painkillers for his head. On his way out he smells tea, and beelines for the kitchen, straight to the cabinet for one of Leo’s blue mugs.
Splinter’s tail takes it from his hands and lowers it to the counter. “It’s not quite ready.”
Donnie fidgets, not sure what to do while he waits. He tries to think of anything else that could help, drawing a blank.
“Are you alright, Purple?” his dad asks, and it startles him out of his thoughts.
“Yes.” And then, because he’s pretty sure he already knows about Leo doing this for him, he adds, “It’s for Leo, this time.”
“I thought as much.” Splinter pulls the mug closer and starts to fill it. “Is that why you are troubled?”
Donnie wishes he had something to do with his hands. He drums his fingers on the counter.
“...I’m not sure why he asked me,” he finally says.
“Why not? You two have always been good at calming each other down.” Splinter’s tail reaches past him and rummages for another mug, purple this time. “When he could not sleep as a baby, all I had to do was plop him on your shell and poof! Out like a light.”
Donnie raises an eyebrow. “Really? Me and Leo?”
“Yes!” He chuckles. “The two of you were like two peas in a pod back then. It’s why I gave you the same birthday.”
“...I just assumed that was because you only wanted to remember three instead of four.”
“Ah, well…” Splinter hurriedly pushes the mugs toward him. “All the same. I will be here if you need me,” and Donnie knows those words mean more from him, these days, “but I think you have this well in hand.”
Donnie takes the mugs, letting his mechanical arms grab the pill bottle and the tablet and the blanket. “I’ll do my best.”
His dad gives him a thumbs up. He hurries back to Leo’s room and knocks on the doorframe.
“Can I come in?”
He gets a nod in response.
“Dad made tea.” That gets more movement out of him; Leo sits up and reaches out, taking the mug. He just cradles it in his hands, and Donnie wonders if he feels cold.
“I brought my blanket and tablet… Oh, and here.” He shakes some of the painkillers into the bottle’s lid and holds it out. Leo takes them and swallows them with some tea.
Donnie hesitates, mulling over his options.
“I… was talking with Papá outside, and he mentioned something that used to calm you down, when we were children. And I was thinking… well, if you think it would help, and if you’re comfortable with it, then we could try it, and…”
Donnie takes a breath and gets to the point.
“Would you like to lay on my shell?”
Leo is staring at him over the top of his mug. He looks confused.
“On your… battleshell?”
Oh, right.
Donnie reaches up and presses the release.
“Oh.” Leo takes a sip of tea. “You haven’t let me do that since we were little.”
Donnie was not aware that he remembers. He certainly doesn’t.
“Well, consider this a limited time offer. A comeback special, if you will.” Donnie folds his arms. “Yes or no?”
Leo snorts into his tea, but he sits up. “Yeah, sure. Let’s give it a shot.”
Donnie hands off the tablet and weighted blanket to Leo, then crawls onto the bed and lays out flat. After a moment’s hesitation, Leo curls up on top of him, his head and upper body splayed across his shell, his legs on the bed.
“It doesn’t hurt, right?” asks Leo.
He must be thinking about the mess of scar tissue that is on his shell now, from the Shredder, from the Technodrome. “It doesn’t hurt,” Donnie assures him. It really doesn’t. In fact, it feels comfortable. Almost like the weighted blanket.
Speaking of, Leo pulls that over top of them both. It’s ridiculously cozy. Donnie isn’t really tired, but he could probably go to sleep like this.
He reaches for the tablet and props it up on the pillow where they can both see it.
“Netflix or Youtube?”
“Youtube.”
Donnie clicks the app.
“Your recs are boring,” Leo tells him, and he tuts.
“Mine are perfectly respectable. I’ve seen yours and they’re cursed.” He idly scrolls down the page. “How about this eight hour video essay on a teen sitcom from the early 2010s?”
Leo laughs. “Sure.”
Donnie turns it on. He settles into the pillow and steadies his breathing.
Leo is still shaking, but it slows as they lay still. In a surprisingly short time, he’s asleep, and Donnie takes his empty mug and places it aside.
Maybe tapping out can be a two way thing, after all.