Chapter Text
“I just want to talk for today.”
And yet he wasn’t alone. Through the open door CJ could see the two dark vans on the road, and he adjusted his grip on the pile of cookies as Bishop gestured outside. The agent was smiling politely.
CJ wasn’t. Flatly, he said, “You’ve been stalking my friend, just to find me.”
The smile faltered for a moment. And CJ registered that Bishop hadn’t expected them to know. He hadn’t been told the stalker had been made.
Interesting.
“Not just to find you,” Bishop said finally, pushing his sunglasses up. “Your friend also has connections with a group who’s shown their hand in several terrorist operations, is that not so? But it’s a fascinating similarity. Cassandra Jones. Similar looks. Also has her own hockey mask and is a friend of one April O’Neil. A little too much of a coincidence to pass up, don’t you think?”
He knew. Or he guessed, at least. CJ narrowed his eyes. “If you wanted to speak to me, you could have just asked.” And he stepped through the door, thudding down the concrete stairs in his boots. “I already offered you information freely, remember?”
Whether he was inclined to give it now, though—
“I do remember.” Bishop let the door swing shut, following behind him more sedately. One of the back doors to the closest van slid open, and CJ ignored it. “Pray tell, how would I have found you? I don’t know where you’re living. I’m quite sure I’ve worn out any welcome I have coming anywhere near the O’Neil residence, though believe me, my patience there would have ended eventually. And my agent flatly refused to go near that restaurant.”
There was a lot to unpack there. Leo had said Big Mama was the one following Casey. Bishop had hired Big Mama? He should have asked more about this version of her, but she’d not come up at all before a week ago. He wouldn’t have thought she was the type to work for a human government either way, but the fact her operative had limits was interesting.
More importantly, he was leaving the O’Neils alone. Which meant Bishop was invested in keeping the turtles on side, and that meant this was nothing more than an obnoxious but ultimately survivable tactic.
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to push to see where the boundaries were.
“So you’re asking me now, is that right?”
“In a sense.” Bishop had drawn up alongside him, hands in his pockets and expression smug. “You are what I would term a person of interest. You’ve done nothing wrong, and you aren’t under arrest, but you nevertheless have vital information that’s key to the protection of humankind. My life’s mission, if you will.”
“Vital information that’s useless to you now,” CJ pointed out. “The Krang are gone. We killed the survivors ourselves.”
“These Krang are gone,” Bishop corrected. “I have reason to believe there could be more, and I’m not willing to take that chance. Nor am I willing to have this conversation in the middle of the street. I’d like you to come back to my office. A chat, nothing more.”
Now, CJ smiled: a cheery, lopsided one he’d stolen from both Leos, ignoring the way his heart skipped. “And if today doesn’t work for me?”
Bishop stared at him a long moment; cold and probably meant to be intimidating. CJ stared right back. He’d been more of a threat when infected by the Krang—a fact that he probably needed reminding of. There was a creak from the van as someone made to get out, but Bishop put out a hand to forestall him as CJ tensed. Sure, a friendly chat.
Which is why Bishop had come armed, of course.
“Very well,” Bishop said finally, and smiled back. “You’re free to go.”
It was unexpected enough that for a moment CJ just stared back at him, blinking as Bishop offered him a tiny, mocking bow—
--then turned away from the vans, walking toward the apartment building, and CJ froze. “Wait. Where are you going?”
“I already told you.” Bishop didn’t turn back, his voice bored as he ascended the steps. “You aren’t the only reason I’ve been watching Ms Jones. I don’t want today to be a complete waste of my time. If you’re insistent on leaving, it’s high time we had a talk about her own role in recent events—”
Fury lit him, hot and visceral, and CJ flung the ginger snaps hard at the back of his head before he even registered he was doing it. Bishop didn’t care about Casey, that much was obvious. They’d have picked her up long before this if they did. Using her to get under his skin...?
It didn’t surprise him that Bishop caught the packet with barely a glance back, grip tight enough the cookies must have crumbled underneath the plastic, but the agent did stop on the stairs, sounding amused. “Who knew you’d be so easy to rile.”
“You can at least be honest!” CJ shot back. “If you don’t want me leaving, just say so! Don’t bring her into this!”
“Who?” he asked politely. “Your mother?” And he opened the apartment door, turning to give CJ a self-satisfied smile. “Does she know, by the way?”
It was a smug smile.
It was, in fact, a smile so self-absorbed that Bishop failed to clock the figure hurtling through the open door until Casey’s boot had slammed into the side of his head.
---------
>>chck armm
Donnie’s lab was locked. Par for the course when his brother was in super nerdy mode, but Leo took his message as invitation enough—as red flag enough, given the typos—that he didn’t bother knocking, opening a portal directly to the other side.
“Sup, Dee!” He danced through as obnoxiously as always, tapping his sword on one shoulder as he sang out, but his eyes were sharp as he looked around. “You been awake for three days again or did you just accidentally drown your phone in coffee—”
Donnie was not in evidence. But his chair was knocked aside, and there was a container on the desk that made him squint in vague recognition before Leo clocked that his twin’s super secret vault was standing open.
And then the sound.
After a moment of silence, Leo hummed mindlessly as he sheathed his katana and stretched, linking his fingers behind his head, crossing the floor. He knew where Donnie was already—with the door open, there wasn’t anything to mask the harsh, shuddering gasps his brother was making, and he kept up the humming as he approached. I’m here, I’m here. The light was on inside, which helped to take away a little of the horror movie vibe he was getting.
A little of it.
“Donnie…?”
His toes caught on something at the vault entry. Leo glanced down to see a familiar bandage, and he nudged it aside with his foot. There was a spattering of blood on one side—not much, but enough that his hackles rose, because if that was the bandage he thought it was—
Donnie was wedged into the back corner, under the lower shelves like he was storing himself away, and Leo shook away the unwelcome thought and pushed the door open wider, taking a couple of careful steps inside to gauge the reaction. Donnie didn’t look up, arms wrapped over his head, and Leo inhaled sharply.
Shit.
“Donnie.” He dropped carefully down to one knee. “Hey. You wanna come out? I mean, I can crawl under there with you but if you get wiggy about it you’re gonna smack your head—heyyy, there you are.”
It felt awful to be relieved that it only took him the one wisecrack for Donnie’s gaze to snap up, fixing on him above the crook of his arm like some furious angel painting or whatever, but honestly he’d take it over another seventeen second blackout. This had to be Krang related, and he hadn’t talked to Raph yet, so… winging it. Okay. He swallowed back his worry, keeping things casual. “C’mon, I’m getting all cramped just looking at you. You want me to check your arm, right? It’ll be easier if you’re, you know, out here.”
“Arm,” Donnie said vacantly, and blinked, looking marginally more alert. “I—yes. Arm.”
“With two ‘M’s, even,” Leo said, helpful, and his heart sank when he didn’t get an eyeroll. Instead, Donnie started shaking, and Leo edged forward, all his careful playfulness vanishing as his fingers stabbed a message into his own phone.
>>dees lab rn
“I saw the bandage. Come out, sit in your comfy chair, I’ll take a closer look, okay?” He could already see a streak of blood on Donnie’s arm; a small one, nothing medically serious, but it shouldn’t exist at this point. Was the wound not healing…? He didn’t want to think about that too hard just yet. One moment at a time. “Can you open the lab door for me, buddy? Raph’s on his way.”
“I’m okay,” Donnie said into the crook of his arm, and Leo raised an eye ridge in doubt. But his brother’s fingers moved, ghosting over the gauntlet to disengage the locks. Behind them, the lab door slid open. “I’m not—I’m not panicking! I mean I am definitely panicking but I’m here and—and I remember and that’s the important part—”
“Okay, sure,” Leo soothed. “You remember. Great. What do you remember?”
“That I—” Donnie froze for a moment, and his voice cracked. “That I asked you to come? That there’s—there’s s-something wrong. Oh Turing—Leo, I messed up.”
A chill ran down his spine, and Leo drew back, looking from Donnie and then up to the shelves and their carefully sealed occupants. And back. To his shaking brother in his cramped little space with a bleeding arm, and he swallowed as a dramatic shadow fell over them both.
“What happened!?”
The most comforting dramatic shadow in the world, to be honest. He’d been more relieved in the past to hear Raph’s voice, for sure, but not by much. Leo scrambled back and pressed against the shelves to make room, glancing up at Raph’s alarmed face.
“Hey, bro,” he said steadily. “I’m thinking med bay. Like right now. Get him out of here.”
---------
If nothing else, CJ decided as the handful of agents in the vans spilled out onto the street, guns and all, the sight of Bishop’s sunglasses getting knocked askew by his angry, hockeystick-wielding mother was absolutely going to be committed to memory for the rest of his life. The look on the man’s face was glorious. Then she landed, stumbling on the stairs before she caught her balance with the stick, and reality checked back in again. He ignored the guns—Bishop wouldn’t be so stupid or petty as to open fire on them for a kick, not when he wanted something from them so badly—and sprinted back up to her, sliding in under one arm to help take her weight.
“Are you mad?” he muttered to her. He was so proud. “Leo said—“
“Of course I’m mad!” she yelled, but she was glaring at Bishop when she said it, and CJ suddenly found it hard to juggle his four packets of cookies and an irate Casey Jones Sr. She wrenched away from him with an angry hiss of pain, pointing at Bishop with her free hand. “How dare you try to use me as leverage! And you destroyed my ginger snaps! You owe me six dollars.”
Bishop rubbed his jaw, looking back at them with an expression somewhere between amused and fascinated. But CJ had seen the stunned confusion a few moments ago; this was pure theatre, and he filed that away.
“Cassandra Jones,” he said mildly. “I would think it unwise to pick a strenuous battle with armed men in your condition. I had intended to leave you to heal, but if you wish to involve yourself—”
She stomped down another step. CJ closed rank behind her, eyes shifting between the soldiers and the gauze on Casey’s shoulderblade. It was spotting with blood. “I am not afraid of you or your trained monkeys,” she snapped. “A wound can be restitched! I am outraged that, out of all of your underhanded options, you somehow decided I was the weakest link! I am here to prove otherwise.”
Well. It wasn’t like he was going to convince her to go back upstairs. He put a hand on her shoulder delicately, staring down at Bishop as the man collected his sunglasses, sliding them casually back onto his face. He looked more human without them.
“You sound like you’re intending to shoot a couple of teenagers on the street,” CJ said, voice level. Behind the vans, he could already see passersby peering at them from a relatively safe distance. “This is a bad play to make, Agent Bishop.”
“I am not the one who has escalated, Casey Jones,” Bishop returned serenely, but he made a brief movement with his hand, and the agents eased off, guns tipping down toward the street. “If you’ll recall, all I wanted to do was talk, and perhaps take a look at what you once offered me freely. Wouldn’t you prefer to make sure of the Krang defeat? Unless you are, of course, one hundred percent certain that all traces of them on Earth have been wiped out, and no more will arrive.”
...he wasn’t. Anger over Bishop’s highhanded approach hadn’t stopped the small flutter of dread he’d felt at the suggestion it might not be over, but he was also sure by now of a few other mitigating factors. It wasn’t hard to read the man’s real motivations here.
Unfortunately, he also knew that meant Bishop wasn’t going to back down.
“Maybe next time you want to have a ‘friendly chat’, you should leave all the muscle at home,” he said, voice hard. “It doesn’t exactly sell the friendly part.”
“I make no apology for protocol.” Bishop peered at him over his sunglasses. It helped, a little, to notice the crack that had appeared in one lens. “In a paranoid city population still struggling to recover from an alien invasion and the sightings of other disturbing creatures in the streets—not to mention the presence of entities like the machine that wounded your friend here—it would be sheer foolishness for me not to take precautions.”
His gaze shifted to Casey. “Especially around former terrorists. No matter how reformed they seem to be of late.”
Casey narrowed her eyes and hissed. “Coward.”
“Realist,” he retorted. “Or did I imagine the fact that your first reaction was committing assault on a federal officer?”
“For using me as leverage against my son!” she yelled, and yanked the thin mints out of CJ’s suddenly frozen grip to pelt them at Bishop’s face.
He twitched aside from them. “Really, now—”
The second packet cracked right into the bridge of his glasses, and CJ found his voice. “Um.”
“Silence, inferior Casey! I’m not done!”
She flung the third, and CJ hugged the last packet protectively. He was reeling, caught between panic and giddiness—and stunned laughter as Bishop knocked the attack aside with a snarl, and at least his smarmy smile had finally dropped. “Enough!”
“Never!”
“Casey—” Now unburdened by a full load of cookies, he caught her arm as she made to leap down the stairs. The gauze on her shoulder blade was soaked now, and alarm won out. Much as he’d love to see her kicking the guy’s ass, she wasn’t at her best, and Bishop knew that. “Casey, stop!”
“Yes, Cassandra.” Bishop was advancing up the stairs. “I highly suggest you listen to your son.”
“Hah!” Casey snorted, but her attempt to throw Casey off was half-hearted. He couldn’t work out if she was actually having second thoughts or she was just in too much pain. He hoped it was the former. Instead, she shook her other fist at Bishop. “I haven’t listened to a single person in my life and I am not about to start now!”
He took a breath. “Mom.”
And Casey froze.
He hadn’t said that in years.
“Mom,” he said again, a little experimentally, and she lowered her fist. “Just… ease off, okay? It’s not worth it.”
“What’s not worth it?” Casey blinked at him—and then drew back. “I mean—who’s Mom? I’m Casey Jones, I don’t know any Moms!”
CJ gawked at her. The urge to laugh was starting to win out despite this whole mess, because seriously? “You—you literally called me your son not two minutes ago, you can’t—”
“That was a trick of the light!”
He threw up his hands. “That’s not how that works!”
“But it was a secret!” She turned and stabbed a finger at his chest. “Pretend you never heard it. That is an order from your mother.”
“You—you can’t—that isn’t—” He laughed after all, a little breathless and a little overwhelmed, but this was so much like his mother it bordered on painful. “It’s not exactly a secret.”
“But you didn’t tell me! I had to guess!”
“I didn’t want to spook you!”
“Do I look spooked to you!?” she yelled. And no, not really. She looked more like she was going to bite someone, face blotchy, shoulders hunched, and he sobered, because she was angry but there was also pain etched tightly in the lines of her face.
And then he remembered exactly where they were as Bishop loomed over them, irritated. “Are you done?”
They both whirled. Bishop caught Casey’s fist as she swung, offering her a tight, humourless smile. Then he yanked her forward off the stairs and twisted her arm straight up behind her, forcing her to crash down to her knees with a yelp, hockey stick clattering beside her. “Because I am,” he said flatly. “This was meant to be a calm request for communication, not a clown—”
CJ’s fist crashed into his face and nearly knocked him off the stairs himself. He wasn’t Raph; he knew it wouldn’t do much more than that, but putting Bishop off balance for long enough that he swept his own weapon down from its holster and struck, no longer caring that this wasn’t smart.
Bishop caught the brunt of the strike with his other arm “Desist.”
“Let go!” he snapped.
“Gladly, if Cassandra behaves.” And he twisted her arm higher, lifting a black-shoed foot—to plant it directly across the blood-stained gauze, shoving down.
This time her yelp was more of a scream, and CJ’s knuckles turned white on the chain stick. “Don’t you have any morals?”
Bishop’s smile was cold. “Would you prefer I start shooting? I am choosing the fastest path to stopping this childish outburst. She’ll live. I had no intention to harm either of you, but if you insist on meeting my request for a mutually beneficial discussion with violence—”
“There is nothing mutually beneficial about your offer,” CJ retorted, but he lowered his weapon, gaze flicking down to Casey. Her other hand was braced on the pavement and she was staring back at him, face livid. Even angrier now.
He couldn’t blame her in the slightest. Bishop was an asshole.
“Well, I hadn’t got around to that part before you decided to disrespect the law in this fashion,” Bishop said mildly. “But I’m still willing to open the table to that particular discussion. I suppose it depends on your next actions. Are you going to try hitting me again?”
He was tempted. So very, very tempted. He didn’t think Bishop would try using Casey as a shield—it didn’t seem his style—but nor would it solve anything. And Bishop wasn’t here alone. His agents were still here, now fanned out in a half-circle around them, and he supposed it was a good sign they weren’t actively threatening them. But that wouldn’t last.
...Casey was going to be so angry with him.
“There were better ways of doing this,” he said, more calm now, and he slid the chain stick back into its place on his back.
“Agreed,” Bishop said, which was surprising until he added, “If you’d just agreed to come to my office for a chat, there would have been far less melodrama.”
“I’ll show you melodrama,” Casey hissed from her place on the ground, and CJ shelved his own outrage at the condescending response immediately. He needed to head this off before she actually bit Bishop.
“I’ll come with you and answer any questions,” he said flatly, “But only me. I’m willing to cooperate only if you leave Casey out of this.”
He winced as Casey’s venomous glare at Bishop snapped immediately to him, and she drew breath to yell at him.
“Granted,” Bishop said. “I’ll have one of my men escort her back to her apartment and treat her injury.”
He could read a lot into that: so that Bishop could still keep an eye on her. So that she couldn’t inform anyone of what happened. So she was still leverage. But CJ shrugged. “Deal.”
Casey went red with outrage, and he offered her an apologetic smile as Bishop waved off the rest of his men. “Just, uh… can I have a moment with her before we go? I kind of want to make sure she’s not gonna… um… disown me? Is that the word?”
Bishop’s eyes narrowed, flicking between the two of them, but he let go of Casey’s arm with a thoughtful hum. She caught herself on the pavement with a wince as he turned away from them.
“One minute.”
So generous. But one minute was all he needed. He waited until Bishop and most of the agents had returned to their vans; until the one agent walked in the opposite direction to take up a position by the door to Casey’s apartment building.
Then he crouched down in front of Casey, whispering, “I’m so sorry.”
“You’re going to be,” Casey muttered, and she sat up against the stairs, glaring at him. “I didn’t need your help!”
“Probably not, no,” he agreed. But they would have fought. At best, Bishop would have called in backup and things might have escalated beyond a point of no return. They were the law. Supposedly. “But I don’t really mind giving Bishop more information about the war, if it means he’s working toward making sure another one won’t happen. I just don’t like his methods. And talking to him is the best way of sounding out his intentions.”
And then, in a lower voice, he added. “Besides. How long will it take you to handle the one guy?”
Casey grinned at him, baring her teeth.
“That’s what I thought.” And he offered the one last pack of cookies he still had, pressing them into her hand. “I’m sorry about the mess. Once you deal with him, call the guys. They can come and get me if I haven’t surfaced after an hour.”
She huffed at that, then winced as she straightened, shooting a glare at the vans. “I am memorising their license plates as we mutter.”
That probably wouldn’t be necessary, knowing Donatello, but that wasn’t a conversation he was having now. Instead, he hesitated.
“Casey…?” He couldn’t quite bring himself to say mom again just yet. Her eyes flicked to him, and he ran a hand through his hair. “How… long have you known?”
Casey snorted. But she gave him a tiny smile, poking him in the shoulder with her free hand, and her response was surprisingly gentle.
“I’m not an idiot, Casey Jones.”
She stomped away from him, up the stairs and through the door the agent held open for her. Casey watched her go with a lump in his throat.
Then he turned on his heel and schooled his expression blank, and disappeared into the darkness of Bishop’s van.
---------
He still hadn’t forgotten.
That was the important part. A message stabbed out to Leo as fast as possible just in case, because it was clear he could no longer trust his own perception of events and he’d already sat there for hours while the Technodrome had just carefully edited his memories over and over—but Leo had come and Donnie had remembered, and maybe that meant that as long as he set down clear commands he wouldn’t keep losing time.
It was a computer. A horrible meaty, fleshy, nightmare fuel computer lodged in his nervous system, but a computer nevertheless, designed to run on certain parameters, and he’d made the mistake of thinking if nobody was around to give it commands it would just… what? Go into standby permanently and never bother him again?
Stupid, stupid Donatello.
Now he sat on the medbay cot with a weighted blanket wrapped around his shell while Leo investigated the damage to his arm and asked mild but dangerous questions, and Donnie was vaguely aware that Raph was standing right by him and squeezing his shoulder and answering those questions sheepishly, and he tuned out because he knew they were discussing the lab. Donnie’s whole adventure into becoming a pile of goopy string. It’s not that he didn’t want Leo to know—he had to know at this point, for all their sakes—he just didn’t want to relive it himself, or see the look on Leo’s face.
Instead, he stared down at his arm and thought, with a sense of vague dread, that Leo didn’t sound anywhere near surprised. He hadn’t raised his voice once. But Leo was the one who had noticed his scars were gone, so…
His arm was a mess of shallow cuts, some fresh enough to still have tiny bubbles of blood along them. Some of them, he’d made himself in that dark patch before Leo’s arrival, scrabbling at his arm as if he could dig out the infection. The others, he couldn’t remember at all; like tiny tributaries cracking away from the shallow wound the network tower had sliced into him. The damage wasn’t immense, but it was damning.
Whatever corruption had been present in the pieces of tech brought back to his lab, it had all returned to the main source now.
Leo’s hand waved itself in his field of vision and he blinked, jerking his head back to meet Leo’s easy smile. He wished that meant everything was going to be fine, but most likely Leo either wasn’t taking this seriously enough—doubtful, he had to admit—or he was just trying to put Donnie at ease, which was pointless. He didn’t think he’d ever be at ease again. Woodenly, he said, “Yes, I should have told you. About what happened months ago. But I didn’t know anything about this, and I didn’t do it on—”
“That much is obvious, Dee,” Leo interrupted him, and his smile stayed easy but the tension was back in his expression, eyes sharp, and Donnie tried not to feel even more guilty. He should have sat them down and made it clear what had happened and how he’d changed. At the very least they could have kept an eye on him. “We can shelve all the should-haves and shouldn’t-haves for later. What’s important is what’s happening now. Let’s start with the easiest stuff. Are you in any pain?”
This kind of sharp focus made him shift uncomfortably, especially when it came from Leo. But that was a thought exercise for another time. He hunched under his blanket, flexing his fingers, sounding old and tired to his own hearing. “Superficial. Surface irritation and the itch of healing wounds. Some of these are older than others.”
“But none of them should be there at all, that about right?”
“You’re the medic here, not me.” But that was an evasion. He knew damn well the main injury should have long healed and vanished by now.
“Donnie, just…” Raph sounded even more exhausted, and he winced. “Just answer. We’re tryin’ to help.”
He knew that. But he still couldn’t bring himself to do more than shrug under his blanket.
“We’ll mark that as a yes,” Leo said. “This is gonna sting, FYI.”
And that was all the warning he gave before he slathered antiseptic cream across the mess of scratches, and Donnie stiffened, pulling back with a hiss. “Ow! Be gentle!”
“Oh, hey!” Leo said brightly. “That sounds a little more like you’re home.”
“Where else would I be!?”
“I dunno. Maybe you’re in shock. Or maybe you’re not really there and your inner computer is playing answering machine for you.”
“Leo!” Raph sounded genuinely angry, and Donnie shrank away from both of them. “That isn’t called for!”
“Neither is hiding something this important,” Leo said flatly. “Come on, Raph. You’d kick my ass if I was skipping around the lair with a bunch of broken ribs and pretending I was absolutely fine.”
Raph let go of Donnie to cross his arms. “Pretty sure Raph did, in fact, do exactly that—”
“Exactly.” Leo sounded bizarrely proud, and Donnie couldn’t help it; he gave a faint snort. “This is the same thing. And look, proof of life established! He’s mad at me.”
“No more than usual,” he managed, and Leo’s answering smile was a touch brighter. And Donnie… well, he didn’t relax, but this felt more on solid ground. Swallowing, he added, “I’m still me. As—as far as I know. Unfortunately, I have to add that disclaimer on the grounds that I’m missing time and I apparently did things I was unaware of during that time.”
“That’s good enough. So listen carefully.” Leo smoothed the last of the cream down and began wrapping fresh gauze around Donnie’s arm, more gentle now. “You’re still you. Like this isn’t really any different from a couple months ago when you shut down your own security, right? Back when the Krang got in—hey no, don’t, nobody’s mad about that at all and it wasn’t your fault—” This as Donnie flinched outright at the reminder. “You did that, but you also made sure April was okay, you got the infection out of Raph, and then you came back and saved all our asses with your magic sound thingy. And this computer bit was stuck in you then, wasn’t it? It didn’t stop you and you went on to commit Krang murder with no hesitation. Right?”
“...right, but I don’t know what that has to do with—”
“You’re still you,” Leo repeated. “I’m not gonna pretend any of us aren’t terrified at this thing making you lose time or inviting in more creeptech without your permission, but it sure didn’t stop you from raising the alarm. We can work this out!” He paused, and then amended sheepishly, “Well, okay. You can work this out, you’re the tech nerd. But we’re here and we’ve got your back. Tell us what you need us to do.”
Creeptech was a good word for it. Donnie shuddered, more relieved than he’d admit as the mess of scratches vanished from view under swathes of white. Even more so when Raph’s hand came back to squeeze his shoulder; he leaned into the touch, gaze finding the floor.
Leo had a good point. Once he was onto what was happening, he’d been able to put a stop to it. That didn’t mean that some balance wasn’t upset by the introduction of more corruption to his system, so would it hold?
His mutter was low. “What if I need you to stop me?”
Predictably, Raph stiffened at that. “That ain’t gonna—”
“Done,” Leo said tranquilly, and Donnie sagged.
“Leo!”
“Okay, before Raph has a stroke: done, but we’ll do it our way.” Leo clipped the bandage shut. “I’m gonna check on this daily, okay? We’ll know if it happens again even if you miss it.”
Donnie frowned. “What does your way mean?”
“We’ll tell you once we’ve worked it out.”
“That isn’t—”
“Good enough?” Leo was quiet, turning away to pack the first aid kit back into its alcove. “We only just heard about it, Dee. Give us a little time to strategise. We’re trusting you, you gotta trust us. Okay?”
“Would a…” Raph trailed off, glancing between them, and Donnie eyed him suspiciously, because Raph already looked pre-apologetic, and that meant he was going to hate whatever he was about to suggest. Especially when he balked and patted at Donnie’s shoulder like he was five. “No, never mind.”
An awkward silence descended across the medbay. Which was odd, given Leo was in the room. His twin still had his back to them, though he seemed as laid back as ever.
Donnie had learned not to trust that after the invasion.
He huffed. If they believed he was still himself, he was going to act it in spades. “Okay, first: I will trust you if I must. Reluctant sneering and capitulation. Better?”
“Better,” Leo said, darting him a small smile over his shoulder.
“Second, Raphala, you sound about five seconds away from breaking out your hey-buddy-hey routine.” He scowled up at Raph and was rewarded with a sudden abashed look. “I, for one, will not stand for it. If you have an idea, you should at least tell us so I have a chance to yell at you and shut it down.”
Leo snorted. “Well, he has a point. C’mon, let’s hear it.”
Raph drew in a breath. Let it out. Tapped his fingers together like a sheepish kindergartener. But his expression settled into one of resolve, and his voice was firm. “Mind meld.”
To no great surprise, Donnie was correct: he hated it. He shook his head jerkily, already curling his knees up to his chest, and Raph opened his mouth again—shut it, choosing to wrap an arm back around him instead, and he knew his brother had swallowed back some version of hey buddy hey. Which, you know, he appreciated. Sort of.
“No wait, I don’t get it.” Leo was frowning now, turning to lean against the cabinet. “Why is that a bad idea?”
Technically, it wasn’t. He could admit, logically, that the mind meld with Raph in the lab was instrumental in putting him back together again, but being able to separate that from everything else that had happened in those moments was apparently beyond him. “It’s—complicated.”
“It’s a trauma thing,” Raph said in the worst conspiratorial whisper ever. Donnie contemplated biting him. But it did wipe the frown off Leo’s face, and he looked thoughtful instead.
“Well—”
The door to the med bay slammed open suddenly and Mikey all but skidded through the door as all three of them jumped. He had his phone in hand and a confused look on his face, which Donnie could understand given they were all having some kind of secret meeting in here without him.
Without—
Oh, no.
“Here you all are!” Mikey’s face scrunched up as he looked between them and then he zeroed in on Donnie’s freshly bandaged arm. “What happened?”
“Oh, you know,” Leo said carelessly. “Our local tech nerd just forgot to turn off automatic updates for his own deeply personal computer.”
Mikey’s mouth dropped open. Donnie was torn between throwing something at Leo and being struck by the fact that, actually, that was exactly what happened, but he remembered the conversation from weeks ago and he wasn’t surprised to see Mikey stare from one to the other of them before he straightened, expression shutting down.
“Whatever,” he said flatly, and held his phone up. “Casey’s on the phone. Bishop’s the one that’s been stalking her, and he just invited CJ to his office for a chat the guy literally couldn’t refuse.”
Oh. Was that all. Raph and Leo stiffened, their attention fully on Mikey, which might have been a relief if Mikey hadn’t just told them that.
“Wait, wait,” Raph said, “By ‘invited’ are we talkin’—”
“I doubt it’s hitting up the local mall for some boba.” Leo frowned. “I think we can assume it wasn’t voluntary.”
The mind meld talk would have to be shelved in any case. Donnie slid down from his perch on the table, flexing his bandaged arm. “Stalking, extortion, kidnapping of a minor,” he said expressionlessly. “Or whatever they call it when the government does that kind of thing. It’s the EPF. Bishop probably thinks he’s being amazingly heroic right now.”
“Amazingly,” Leo said, and his eyes flicked over Donnie for a moment before he offered a lazy smile. “Sooo, I guess it’s time to go file a complaint. Dee, you up for this?”
“You won’t be able to do it without me.” All concern over CJ aside, he was more than willing to pretend the events of this afternoon didn’t matter for at least another hour—
“Great,” Mikey muttered. “You guys finish your secret meeting or whatever and I’ll meet you at Casey’s.”
“Mikey—”
The door slammed behind him.
That probably wasn’t a good sign.
“Did Raph miss something?” Raph said finally, sounding even more stressed.
“I think we all did,” Leo said, voice flat, and he swept up the portable first aid kit again with more force than strictly necessary. “That being said, he knows we’re gonna portal over there, right?”
He swept a circle in the air with his sword and vanished through the portal without another word, leaving them to follow in his wake, and Donnie winced. This was shaping up to be a fantastic day.
At the very least, he doubted it could get worse.
---------
Psychoacoustics Variation #4.12
14kHz, scale by 102Hz/30s
Feed direct to group 1, monitor groups 2 and 3
Audio monitoring not viable
fMRI spike #3
Resolve at 1430
Risk factor: low
SIC: SVF
Reactions will be monitored and documented from control. Removing unnecessary staff from floor. Remainder behind safety glass at all times.
Effect unlikely to be conclusive, but all frequencies within human hearing have been tested in previous variations with no result. My recommendation is either to bring in original scientist for collaboration or to terminate subjects if this round of tests provide no leads.
Data as follows.