Chapter Text
“How was it?”
Donnie sees Raph flinch—fist clenching, arm twitching—when Mikey speaks up from his blind right side, as they enter the room.
“It was fine,” Raph says.
“The lair is—” a wreck— “kind of a mess, but empty of infected, and structurally sound,” Donnie reports with a little more detail.
“That’s good,” Mikey replies with a smile, sitting down on the bed and kicking his feet over the edge. Raph smiles back, only slightly strained. Mikey doesn’t ask why they’ve been gone for nearly five hours, after they said it would only take two, and neither of them volunteer the information. If he isn’t going to ask, then there’s no reason to tell him about the destroyed furniture. The gouges clawed out of the walls. The way it’s been less than six months since their childhood home was destroyed, and already this new lair doesn’t feel safe anymore, if it ever had. There’s no reason to talk about Raph’s panic attack when they first stepped inside the subway station, all his sobbed apologies for something he never could have stopped. There’s no reason to mention Shelldon’s hard drive, crushed and irreparable, and the way Donnie frustratedly scrubbed tears from his eyes and snapped at Raph that he was fine, don’t worry about it, let’s just finish cleaning up—
“As soon as Leo can be comfortably moved, we should all be able to go home,” Donnie continues. The last word feels uncomfortably heavy in his mouth, like the weight of a lie.
He doesn’t mention that, either.
—a sundering, a severing, an awakening and a death and the first shocking breath of oxygen upon breaching water, a rebirth and a lobotomy and the snapping of a spent filament wire when the bulb burns out—
Find me.
“Donnie. Donnie.” Casey’s voice is gentle, his expression worried, when Donnie blinks awake. They’re standing in the hallway.
“How long was I—”
“Only a minute, I think,” Casey says. “I heard you leave the room.”
Donnie turns, looking to see how far he got. Fifteen feet behind him, he sees the enchanted plaque on the door of their suite, displaying Dad’s name in shining gold:
浜戸 喜
So, not far. And too far.
Donnie hates this. He hates not knowing why this is happening, or how to stop it, or whether he’s in danger—whether he is a danger. He’s been examined thrice over in the last two weeks, and declared Kraang-free, just like everyone else, but it doesn’t feel like it. Not when he relives his connection to the Technodrome every time he falls asleep. Not when he feels the echo of it writhing under his skin and inside his skull. Not when the interior of his head feels carved out, like there is something—someone—missing from it.
Not when he feels like a piece of him died in that ship, and he’ll never get it back.
And it’s escalating; at first it was just the dreams. Then, up until a couple of nights ago, he was sitting up in his sleep, staring at nothing. Now he’s going for strolls. He hates it, not least of all because he’s already let the Nexus doctors poke and prod and scan him those three times, and since they didn’t find anything, they’d chalked both the sleepwalking and the blackouts up to a ‘trauma response’. Donnie is not traumatized, fuck you very much.
...Not to that degree, anyway.
“Donnie?”
“Thanks, for stopping me,” Donnie mutters. Jones nods, his hand finally dropping from where it’s been gripping Donnie’s arm.
“Are you—”
“I’m fine.” (It has to become true eventually, doesn’t it?)
Donnie ignores Casey’s comically unconvinced expression. He also ignores the quiet impulse to keep walking, to find out where his sleeping mind wanted to take him.
He turns around, and goes back to bed.
“Grandma!”
All eyes land on Jones, and his grin drops under the sudden scrutiny, a blush spreading across his face. He’s standing, one foot forward as if he’d been about to run up to her. “I mean, uh. Big Mama. Sorry.”
“Have we met?” Big Mama asks, stepping in past the doorway. Casey glances at Splinter, who only flicks an ear.
“No. Sorry. I mistook you for someone else,” Casey says, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. Donnie makes a mental note to add smooth liar to his file on Future Boy.
“Hm.” The spider narrows her eyes, before apparently dismissing him, her attention sliding to Leo. “And how is my most troublesome turtleyboo? Feeling better, I hope?”
“Not at a hundred percent yet, but I’m getting there,” Leo replies with an easy smile. If he’s worried about having Big Mama standing over him while he’s immobilized, he doesn’t show it. Maybe it helps that she’s in human form, or that Raph and Splinter are standing next to him, flanking the bed. Mikey and Jones are on their feet, too, and Donnie’s hand is subtly out at his side, ready to grab his staff off the wall at a moment’s notice. “What do we owe you, by the way? I’m guessing you aren’t willing to bill Draxum’s insurance.” He pauses, turning to Splinter to mutter: “Do yokai have health insurance?”
Big Mama titters, reaching down with one finger to gently tap between Leo’s eyes as he faces her again.
“Don’t you worry your broken little head about that, Blue,” she says, and Donnie sees something cold and angry pass through Leo’s expression, there and gone in an instant. “Your father and I have got things all worked out.”
“Great! I won’t worry, then,” Leo says, like a liar.
“Actually, Cuddlelupagus,” Big Mama addresses Splinter, which, ew, “we could stand to hash out a few final details, if you wouldn’t mind joining me outside.”
“Fine.” Splinter’s ear flicks again, and Donnie... still doesn’t really want to know, what deal Dad made for them, but he’s starting to think maybe he should look into it anyway. Tense, they all watch Splinter leave with Big Mama, and Donnie doesn’t bother to ask Raph or Leo for permission before he sidles up to the door, inching it open just enough to watch Dad and Big Mama walk a ways down the corridor. He can’t read either of their lips as they leave. Shit.
He starts adjusting his headset, trying to maximize the volume only on the side facing the hall. There’s too much background noise for their voices to come through as crisp and clear as he’d prefer, but he catches the tail end of Splinter’s:
“—danger on your word alone. I’ll go alone, if I have to.”
“I wouldn’t advise it.” Big Mama makes a show of examining her nails. “Those three are not yokai to be trifled with; even you would have a hard time pulling this off without help.”
“Please.” Splinter scoffs. “You would love if I got caught. Bailing me out of prison would just put me deeper in your pocket.”
“That’s if they bizzy-bothered making an arrest,” Big Mama replies. “Which is not a guarantee, snuggle muffin.”
Ominous, Donnie thinks.
“I can try and follow them,” Jones offers, in the room behind him. Donnie waves a dismissive hand in his direction.
“Donnie’s got it; you hold up. ‘Grandma’?” Leo asks, incredulous.
“She... I grew up around her,” Casey answers, sounding defensive. Donnie looks back at him in time to see him shrug. “She was part of the Resistance. So was Captain Artemisia.”
“Who?” Leo, Mikey, and Raph all chorus, and Casey’s eyes go wide, before he clams up with a distinct ‘I’ve said too much’ expression. Donnie discreetly notes the name down in his phone to see if he can dig anything up later, before turning his attention back to the hallway—
“—have to wait until the boys have fully recovered,” Splinter is saying.
“Of course!” Big Mama replies. “We wouldn’t want Blue to get himself hurt again so soon, after all. You just let me know when you’re ready, and I’ll make sure every tiddly-little thing is set for you in the meantime.”
Splinter’s response is too faint to hear, as he and Big Mama round a corner, moving out of earshot. Damn it.
Donnie clicks the door shut, and goes back to his seat across the room.
“Anything?” Leo asks.
“...Not much,” Donnie admits.
“You know you can’t trust her, right?” Raph asks Casey, who nods.
“I know. It’s just—” Jones cuts off, lips pursed, chewing the inside of his lip. “It’s weird. I know she was... is, an enemy to you, but she—a lot of your enemies were different, in my time. They’d changed. They babysat me, they went on missions with you guys...” He trails off, clearly lost in memories, before shaking his head. “I know all that stuff hasn’t happened here, but it hurts. It hurts that she looked right at me, and didn’t know me.”
That you don’t know me, he leaves unsaid, but it hangs, heavy and obvious, in the air between all of them. In a mournful split-second of eye contact, in the following flash of pain that crosses Casey’s face as he looks away.
Donnie swallows, unsure if there’s any reply they can make, any comfort to be given that wouldn’t ring hollow.
“I’m sorry,” Leo says quietly.
“We want to get to know you,” Mikey offers. Then, after a pause, he adds: “Again.”
Casey laughs a little.
“Yeah,” he says. And that’s all.
“Donnie, you almost done?”
“Who do you take me for?” Donnie hits enter on his laptop, remote hack complete. “The door should be unlocking... now.”
“We’re in.”
There’s an indistinct shuffling over the comms, as April and her companion sneak inside the university laboratory, door clicking shut behind them. Donnie glances at the cameras he hijacked, making sure no security guards are headed their direction yet. It seems a little suspicious that the lab is still intact and relatively unguarded after April’s previous break-in, but then again, the invasion’s given most people new priorities. April’s new priority, for instance, is making sure that an effective anti-Kraang weapon isn’t left to disappear into the patent files of some shady lumber company with its sights set on a thriving rainforest, and Donnie is more than happy to help her with that.
“Okay, start grabbing as much of that blue gunk as you can,” April instructs her new partner in crime. “Just be careful not to break any, I dunno if it’s dangerous to humans.”
“Is this what you two have always been doing when you say you’re playing video games? Breaking and entering?!”
“Not... usually,” April answers, and even through the security footage, Donnie can see her wince.
“April, honey, I’m trusting you here, but we’re gonna have a talk about this, later.”
“I know, Dad.”
(Mr. O’Neil wasn’t actually invited on this mission, but as it turns out, sneaking out of an antique store, where your whole family is sleeping on the same section of floor, is much more difficult than climbing out of a private bedroom window. Once April reluctantly explained what she was trying to do, her parents refused to let her go alone.)
A pop-up on Donnie’s screen informs him that April’s plugged one of his USBs into a new device, and it’s only a moment’s work to hack into the lab’s computer. However...
“Hm.” He frowns. “There’s no digital records of the herbicide.” No locked files, no experimental data or records, no communications, nothing. “Maybe they did start clearing out.” He hears a filing cabinet open over comms, and then the sound of folders being rifled through. “Anything on paper?”
“Just one file, with a lot of redactions and... oh, that’s gotta be a bomb,” April mutters. He hears the camera on her phone click, then a moment later she texts a photo of the page to him. Hm. Yep, that sure does seem to be a blueprint for some kind of bomb or dispersal system, which the herbicide vials would fit into perfectly.
“What’s that logo on top?”
“I dunno,” April answers. “I feel like I’ve seen it before, though. It’s on every page.” Another click, and a clearer photo. A stylized eagle, perched over a triangle with a rose blossom in the middle. An extremely specific combination of extremely unspecific symbols. Donnie files that away to look into later.
He glances at the cameras again. Clear, for now. Still, best not to press their luck.
“Well, we at least have more samples to work with. Get out of there, I’ll lock the door behind you.”
He watches April and her father slip back out of the lab, April’s backpack visibly heavier than when they went in.
“Where am I bringin’ this stuff, Dee?” April asks.
“Where are we bringing this stuff,” Mr. O’Neil corrects, holding the door for April to exit the building.
“Dad—”
“What? I’m not letting you wander Manhattan alone with a stolen bioweapon in your backpack!”
“Shh!”
Once they’re clear, Donnie unloops the building’s cameras, and relaxes slightly, glad their mission has so far gone off without a hitch. He switches from the interior cameras to the sparser ones spread out across the campus grounds, watching the O’Neils head for the street, and making sure any security feed that would get a clear view of either of their faces... doesn’t.
“...Donnie?” April asks. “Do you have a dead drop set, or do you wanna meet my dad?”
Donnie pauses, surprised.
“Is this how you want me to meet your dad?” he asks.
April makes an indecisive “ehh” noise, and her father speaks over her:
“Yes, yes it is; Donnie, I would love to finally meet you in person.”
“Are you sure? My dad has this whole ‘family dinner party’ plan, I’m supposed to wear a sweater—”
“Donnie,” April interrupts, “just tell us where to go.”
She’s leaving the choice open for him, which he appreciates. If he gives her the location for a dead drop, she won’t be mad. Still... maybe it is a better idea to ease Dr. and Mr. O’Neil into the whole mutant situation in stages, rather than all at once.
“There’s an alley just outside the subway station by your shop; I’ll send you a pin.”
He hangs up the call as soon as April confirms.
Donnie knows he shouldn’t have gone out alone without word; he’s sure to get an earful about it from the whole family (plus Future Boy) if they catch him coming back, but he didn’t... he just needed the normalcy. He needed to get out of the hotel.
Need.
He shivers, suddenly chilly.
He keeps an eye on the O’Neils through his camera network. By the time they step off the Q line, he’s loitering in the alley just a little ways from the stairwell, leaning rigidly against a wall and tapping out a nervous rhythm against his leg.
April casually scans the area, and smiles when she sees him, running over. She’s followed closely by her father. April’s dad isn’t much taller than she is, and it’s not that Donnie isn’t used to being taller than parental figures—his own dad is under four feet, after all—but it’s awkward, suddenly, making eye contact with Mr. O’Neil for the first time and realizing that the man has to crane his neck a little.
He sees Mr. O’Neil look him up and down, taking in Donnie’s worn sweatpants and too-big hoodie, the disposable surgical mask he grabbed from the Nexus, and the way none of those can really hide subtly-inhuman proportions and green-scaled skin. He sees Mr. O’Neil’s eyes widen in—surprise? Fear? Donnie can’t tell, but it makes him feel worse. He shrinks his posture a little, trying to look nonthreatening, the way he’s always seen Raph do: head down, shoulders in, and knees bent just slightly to minimize height, hands in front, tail curled around his leg—
“Hello, Mister O’Neil,” he greets, looking at the ground, hands flapping anxiously before he hastily twists his fingers together to stop them. “It’s nice to meet you in person, finally. I wish it could’ve been under better circumstances—I mean, it still could’ve, but April asked so I thought—”
“It’s nice to meet you too, Donnie,” Mr. O’Neil interrupts, not unkindly, and Donnie looks up again to see him smiling. A familiar smile, warm and gentle and open. So that’s where she got it. “And how many times have I told you boys to just call me August?”
Donnie takes a moment to pull up the relevant tally on his bracer, started approximately seven years ago, after the tenth time the man asked that exact question.
“Two hundred and four,” he relays.
Mr. O’Neil, still smiling, raises his eyebrows at April, who grins back.
“Here, Dee. I want my bag back in one piece.” She hands the backpack over, but unzips it briefly to pull out three vials of herbicide before she lets him take it. “Just in case.” She tucks the vials into her jacket pocket.
“Have you seen any more zombies?” Donnie asks. He’s pretty sure, from the news and his own totally rational, not paranoid or obsessive monitoring of New York’s many cameras, that they’ve all been handled by now. He hasn’t heard any more reports, hasn’t flagged any photos on social media, hasn’t caught those too-fast pink flashes of movement in the corners of security feeds and had to forward the locations anonymously to emergency services or the military.
But you never know.
“Not for about a week now,” April shrugs, “but you never know.”
And that is why they’re best friends.
Donnie nods, and accepts the hug she offers and a warm handshake from Mr. O’Neil, before they part ways. Following from the rooftops, he walks them home to the antique shop, only fully relaxing once April locks the door behind them, waving up at him through the glass.
Find. Connect.
Sticking his hands deep in his hoodie pocket, he turns back toward the Nexus.
“All titanium exterior, of course, and an LED light to avoid overheating,” Donnie points out, tilting his tablet screen so Raph can see the flashlight-eye he’s spent the better part of the week designing. “I could even program it with different brightness and color options, if you want.”
“Donnie.”
“Camera optional; I think it could come in handy on missions, but I know we had that talk about ‘privacy’ and ‘appropriate forms of surveillance’,” Donnie puts these in finger quotes, “which I would still argue is a safety risk, but it’s your eye, so that’s ultimately up to you.”
“Donnie.”
“This might just be a stopgap, anyway. I haven’t cracked working optical bionics, of course, but given a few more years and some research, I bet I could put something together, especially incorporating mystic techniques. Although the level of sophistication necessary for—”
“Donnie!” Raph interrupts, shoving the tablet down and away from himself, and making Donnie startle. “I don’t... I don’t want that. Any of it.”
“What?” Donnie pushes down the immediate hurt he feels at that, holding his tablet close to his plastron. “It’d be perfectly safe, Raph, trust me—”
“Raph does trust you. Of course I do. I just can’t...” Raph trails off, snaggletooth worrying at his lip as he stares at the ground. Donnie waits, letting Raph get his thoughts together. “...Even if it’s somethin’ you built... I don’t think I could handle havin’ anything else in my head that isn’t me.”
“Oh.”
Home.
Tendrils crawling, spreading, growing...
“Even this plasticky thing—”
“Conformer,” Donnie provides.
“—freaks me out sometimes.”
Understanding, Donnie takes a breath, and closes his schematics. He’ll save them for if Raph ever changes his mind. And in the meantime:
“In that case, what is your opinion on kevlar eye patches?”
Raph huffs, amused.
“Thanks, Donnie,” he says.
“Of course.”
Jones is staring. He’d just been grabbing a snack out of the hotel minifridge, and then he paused, turning slowly, and now he’s staring at Donnie like he’s never seen him before.
“What?” Donnie demands, starting to get weirded out. He resists the urge to duck behind his open laptop.
“...Why are you wearing glasses?”
“Wh—is that a trick question?” Donnie asks. “I need them to see.”
“...No.”
“‘No’ what,” Donnie echoes, puzzled.
“You didn’t wear glasses in my timeline!” Casey says, suddenly defensive. “Commander—I mean, April did, but not you.”
“What about Leo?”
“Never.”
“Contact lenses?” Donnie asks, since that’s their usual go-to, but Casey shakes his head.
“We definitely didn’t have those.”
“Well, the only other option is that future-me performed laser eye surgery on himself and Leo in the middle of an apocalypse,” Donnie deadpans, but... it sounds plausible, actually, that’s probably exactly what he did. Their healing factor would make the recovery time feasible.
God, I wish that were me, he thinks. Not the apocalypse part, obviously, but a while ago he had been working on all the research and setup such an operation would require. It just hadn’t been a top priority lately, what with moving into the new lair, and everything else they’ve been dealing with since... well. Since.
Maybe he should start looking into it again—Donnie shakes his head.
Later, he thinks. He still has more important things to focus on first. Such as:
“What are you working on, anyway?” Jones asks, coming around to look at Donnie’s computer. “...Oh.”
Donnie’s jaw tics, as he stares at the latest failed design on the screen.
“The level of dexterity needed... There’s just no way to build a lightweight prosthetic that will actually function well without somehow wiring it into Leo’s nervous system. And even if we managed that, it could cause all kinds of new problems,” he sighs, “not to mention pain.”
“Yeah, my... Sensei’s prosthetic always gave him trouble,” Casey says. “It had to be wired in, so it hurt him a lot, some days.”
Donnie silently files all of that information away. The implications of it discomfort him, ideas of fate, free will, time, and paradox all flitting through his mind before he pushes them away.
“Yes, well. I’ll keep working on it,” he says, an implicit dismissal.
Jones hesitates, taking in a breath, but when Donnie keeps his eyes on the screen, Casey leaves, saying nothing.
—hyphae dig through bone to marrow, build traceries in parallel of vascular and nervous systems, learning by copying, and that which is the ship cradles that which is the body—
Come home.
“WAKE UP!”
Donnie jolts, his body falling into some messy semblance of a defensive stance before he’s even woken up fully. He blinks the fog from his eyes, heart beating hard with adrenaline as the sensations of the dream fade, and he takes in his surroundings.
“What was that?!” he demands. Mikey has the grace to at least look a little guilty.
“You’re up again,” he points out, unnecessarily; Donnie’s pretty sure he would remember falling asleep on a stairwell landing.
“How many floors...?” he trails off, locating the number by the door. Six floors down. He made it six floors down. It’s getting worse, he thinks, and doesn’t say aloud, because Mikey’s already looking at him with big, worried eyes.
“Casey woke up me and Raph, but you were already gone, so we split up to look,” Mikey says, raising trembling hands to tap on the comm on his wrist. “I found him, guys! We’ll meet you back at the room!”
“Actually,” Donnie starts, because he feels like he needs air, he needs to be outside, he needs the brisk autumn night to replace the slimy, crushing warmth he can still feel in his chest... but outside is where the dream was trying to take him. “...Nevermind. Let’s go.”
He isn’t about to drag Mikey out into the dark, toward who knows what. He starts walking back up the stairs.
“Are you okay, Donnie?” Mikey asks, falling into step behind him.
NEED.
Donnie’s shell feels, briefly, as if something inside it is moving. Squirming. He shudders. Forces his feet to keep moving, not to pause or miss a step.
“I’m fine,” he insists.
“Dad?”
Donnie remembers being eight years old, and wandering into the den, looking for permission to take some household appliance apart. Splinter didn’t give any acknowledgement of having heard him, at first, eyes staring blankly at the reality show playing on the projector. Donnie had sighed, familiar with this particular routine, and moved in between Splinter and the screen, tapping the back of Dad’s hand with his fingers. It took a few minutes, for Splinter’s eyes to focus and find his.
“Purple? Are you alright?”
How are you okay being like this, Donnie wants to demand, now, as he blinks back to himself. How does it not make you insane, to lose so much time? To not know what’s going on around you? How have you dealt with it for fifteen years, when I’m already cracking?
He grabs his phone off the breakfast table, instead of asking any of that.
“Under three minutes,” he notes aloud, typing out the date and estimated time lost. The latest addition to a fast-growing list.
“I’m worried about these episodes,” Splinter says, still leaning across the table, though he pulls his arm back, breaking contact. “Perhaps we should ask the doctors to—”
“They’ve checked my head three times, Dad.”
“But—”
“Three!” Donnie repeats, holding up an open hand demonstratively. “Whatever the Techn—” he stops himself, starting over. “Whatever’s wrong with me... I’ll figure it out. But they can’t fix it.”
“Maybe Draxum could help,” Splinter says, and wow, he must be really worried, Donnie thinks, if he’s actually suggesting that they ask the baron for assistance.
Donnie doesn’t want to admit to the fear that no one can fix this. That he, and his brothers, will never get better. That they’ll just... stay broken, forever.
“Yeah,” he replies, unenthusiastic. “Maybe.”
“Have you tried forming a new katana yet?” Donnie asks, over three weeks after the invasion, and the day before they leave the hotel. “Since your other one is still... in...” He trails off, awkwardly clearing his throat, not sure if saying the words will trigger unpleasant memories.
“What?” Leo blinks at him. “No, it’s not.”
“...What?”
“Both my swords fell back through the portal at the same time.”
“Why haven’t you...?” Donnie trails off again, making a leading hand gesture, and Leo just stares at him blankly until Donnie sighs and grits out: “You should have told me, so I could find it.”
Leo gives an amused exhale, and a lopsided smile.
“Why? It’s not like I can use it.” He waves his amputated wrist in the air demonstratively.
“But we—you should—it’s—” Donnie growls, at his own inability to string together the sentence he wants, and Leo’s smile drops, replaced by something Donnie can’t read.
“It’s not important,” he mutters, eyes falling toward the comic in his lap. He doesn’t start to read again, just stares at the pictures with faraway eyes.
“It’s part of you,” Donnie pushes the words out, finally, but Leo only shrugs.
“Not anymore.”
Donnie... fully does not understand what Leo means by that. Their weapons can’t just—they made those weapons, shaped them, poured their ninpo into the transformations. Even when their mystic abilities were suppressed by the Kraang, Donnie’s bō still felt like his, in a way another random wooden staff couldn’t have. It’s the only reason he hadn’t traded it for his old tech-bō at the first opportunity.
Leo always knows where his swords are—because he has to, to do the calculations of where they’ll bring him, in motion, in relation to everything, everyone else in a fight—but also because the katanas are Leo. Pieces of his energy, his signature, his soul, whatever annoyingly unscientific term they prefer to apply.
Such a casual denial of that fact brings Donnie’s train of thought to a screeching halt.
“What?” he asks again.
Leo makes a vague I-don’t-know sound, still not looking up.
“It’s fine. I can learn to fight one-handed. Can we not talk about it right now?” His posture has gotten tenser, more hunched, clearly trying to close himself off from the conversation.
“...Sure. Sorry.”
Leo relaxes instantly, smiling at Donnie before going back to his comic. His eyes actually scan the panels, this time.
“It’s fine, Don,” he says again. “Really.”
Donnie doesn’t like not being able to tell if he’s lying.
Raph and Donnie have been able to apply Draxum’s weird medicinal goop by themselves each morning, but Mikey’s hands are still shakier than theirs, and it’s harder for him to get both arms salved and covered. Raph is doing it for him, today, while Donnie struggles to get his own arm wrap back on.
“Mind lending a hand, Jones?”
Casey spins around with his head craned back—anticipating someone taller—before self-correcting. As always. (It’s actually kind of fun, Donnie thinks, knowing another growth spurt is in the cards for all of them.)
“Sure,” Future Boy says, coming over to assist. “So, what’s the plan today?”
“Today, we go home, and we get to stop carrying this thing around everywhere,” Donnie answers, pulling the Key out of a compartment in his battle shell. The room quiets, as behind him Raph and Mikey’s attentions are drawn to the unassuming little object that almost ended their world. “Draxum’s going to meet us at the lair; he’s got some kind of fancy mystic lockbox to put it in.”
“Will that be... enough?” Casey asks, eyeing the Key warily, before turning his focus back to Donnie’s arm wrapping.
“We’ll make it enough,” Raph says. Promises.
Donnie’s claws tighten around the Key, scraping uselessly against the wood. He glances at his brothers. Mikey’s arms. Raph’s eye. There’s no blood, anymore, but the memories superimpose themselves over reality, and Donnie’s forced to look away. Back down to the curse in his hand.
“We’ll make sure,” he agrees. “No one’s ever getting their hands on this thing again.”