Chapter Text
One in the morning.
The perimeter sensors beeping passively dragged Donnie’s eyelids back open. East gate to the airport following the road that used to lead into the parking lot. Donnie paid it little attention. The few survivors that thought about checking out this old airport usually went to the front door. Where the old brick wall and cement placard still stood. This assured Donnie that they had no reason to believe the place was occupied.
They weren’t being sneaky.
Ignore that the fencing was a perfectly maintained reinforced chain link. Or that normal airports would never have another fence with a trench of barbed wire stretched between a thirty foot gap. Whoever was here at one in the morning was looking for shelter and if they were desperate enough to cut through two fences and wrangle all that barbed wire then Donnie might let them stay the night and lick their wounds. The stripped airport upstairs just barely offered a roof above their heads. All the glass windows were broken long ago by storms. Donnie would one day replace them with blast doors.
For now they were just at the gates. A few other sensors chimed as they snooped around. Prodding at the area around the gate looking for signs of cameras no doubt. The exact reason there wasn't any installed. No one installed cameras on an unimportant fence. His computer painted light across the dark room with each one.
Donnie rose from his bed. It was a hammock he tied himself and padded with a custom mattress. Stuffed with the filling from business class seating. He got dressed and pulled on his goggles fitted with night vision to sit over his head. Irritated wasn’t the right word, there were times in his life where he wished for this type of inconvenience. Getting out of his sleepwear and monitoring his front door was a luxury he should be thankful for. If this place was still just his home alone he might have gone back to bed knowing he had alarms and plenty of time if anyone started to snoop around his hidden doors to the basement and bunker.
This wasn’t just his home now. The office across from the large one he took as his bedroom and refuge belonged to April and Sunita (and Mayhem.) They may be temporarily gone now but they would be back in a few days. They would be back. He almost wrote it on a piece of paper and taped it to their door. Mrs. O’Neil had already put a cryptic message on her door next to the couple’s room about always being available if Donnie wanted to talk. She put them on the coffee maker, and on the fridge, then in the fridge on all the things he liked to eat when he was hungry enough. Days later Donnie still had no idea what those notes were in reference to.
The pressing issue was April and Sunita would return in a few days by a loaned out helicopter. If this group of survivors didn’t pass by the airport they might see an incoming helicopter in a few days and realize this is a base of operation for a group of (now) four people. That was no good as the base was still in beta.
He had to figure out who these survivors were and what they were doing this far out.
Begrudgingly Donnie sat himself in front of his computer. Old office chair creaking under his weight. The infrared on the outdoor cameras was shoddy and too far away from the fence. Nothing useful could be gathered about the group. A warning flashed that another sensor had picked up motion just outside the physical building.
Fear jolted Donnie upright in his seat. Wheels of his chair jerking over thin office carpet found in private waiting rooms and cubicle farms.
Not only was the airport surrounded by a fence, barbed wire fields, and a second fence. There were also rings upon rings of invisible sensors in the ground. They read vibrations and picked out footfalls of bipedal animals. After the sensors outside the first chain link fence pinged Donnie had expected a series of notifications following the group's trek over the grassy field to the building. Instead their approach was… impossibly instant.
He had just swiveled a camera on the wall to face the location the sensors said the group was currently at when the camera was flooded with light.
Lasers were the first thing that came to mind. Donnie used his fair share in the day to destroy the lens of cameras- mostly cellphones capturing him and his brothers crime fighting when they were teenagers. The image returned without signs of permanent lens damage at the same time a loud buzz echoed through Donnie’s quarters.
“Interior Breach Detected.” The robotic voice crackled through the old intercom system. Her voice was grating, a default voice option used by phone menus. Bootleg Siri. The same voice that would drone, “The number you are trying to reach is no longer available. Please try again.” Or for the context of an airport Donnie imagined eight years ago this voice announced delays and what gates were boarding. It echoed down the hallway and throughout the bunker.
Donnie switched to the cameras in the airport and found the group. All the pieces snapped together into a picture he didn’t want to think was true. The thought that this group was teleporting around was never allowed to surface because more of his family appearing in Nebraska after all these years wasn’t possible. Yet the towering figure walking past the airport's baggage claim with a spiked tail trailing behind them could only be one person. One mutant. One turtle. The camera didn’t need to show colors for Donnie to know the constructs of light around those huge arms were red with Raphael’s mystic abilities.
Without much thought Donnie yanked his tablet from his desk and made his way to the elevator. The charger fell off it somewhere in the hall. Heart beating into his ears too loud to notice the tumble. He was more awake than he had been in days.
“Donnie-?” Mrs. O’Neil asked, popping her head out of her room (once a file room) behind him.
“Stay in your room, lock the door.” Donnie thumbed the elevator panel hard enough to break his brittle nails. “Unknown what is snooping around upstairs. I will contact you in a few minutes.”
“Promise?” Mrs. O’Neil asked, standing in the hall in her robe. Hair covered in curlers, but a crowbar in her hand at her side. Kept by the door in her room.
His remade battle shell skittered on six metal legs around her and into the elevator. Donnie’s eyes snapped up from his tablet as he turned in the elevator towards the closing door. “Promise.”
The second Mrs. O’Neil could no longer see him; he sucked in a deep breath that refused to fully expand his lungs. Sharp and painful like a gas bubble under his sternum. With an easy motion he grabbed his battle shell and equipped it.
Leo had portaled himself and Raph past all of his sensors. Everything made sense now and he could see they had a third shorter companion with them. As the elevator rose up into the basement of the airport Donnie wrestled with the decision to turn on the lights in the baggage claim. He was heading towards the next elevator and feared that the panel above the doors powering on out of nowhere might cause Leo to portal them all away in a panic. He hovered over the button to give them light, aware that it would be blinding.
The camera automatically switched to day mode, but the screen was a white out for a moment. When the picture came back Leo and Raph were back to back. Cassandra Jones perched on Raph’s shoulder with her trusty hockey stick and skull mask over her face. A fabric pouch strapped to her chest that she supported with one arm. The camera resolution offered little about their physical health. Donnie could tell Raph’s prosthetic right arm was too short. He could assume Leo’s arm would also need an upgrade as he had grown.
“Mrs. O’Neil?” Donnie asked, not waiting for a reply from her side of the comm system. “Faulty sensor. I am fixing it and returning.”
“Oh thank goodness.”
Was lying wrong? Yes. However he would obviously be bringing Leo, Raph, and Cassandra down to the bunker below as soon as he made contact. The consequences of his deceit were calculated and accepted. Better to keep Mrs. O’Neil down in the bunker where it was safe instead of her racing up here to meet their new arrivals.
As he climbed into the next elevator he watched his brothers turn to the sound of his approach. There were only two floors to traverse but in that small amount of time Cassandra hid on the other side of the baggage claim. Clutching what Donnie now could see was a balled up blanket to her chest not a pouch or satchel. Raph and Leo ducked behind walls where they could see the elevator door but not be immediately spotted by whoever came out.
With a clunky stop the elevator dinged loudly jolting through Donnie’s heart and rippling to his brothers just outside the doors. The heavy automatic doors with dirt crusted in the tracks stuttered open. It was as Donnie stepped out of the elevator, floor dipping slightly as his weight left the car, that he realized he had no idea what he was going to say. There were bees under his skin. He found it hard to raise his head from where it was looking down at the tablet in his hand now showing a quad split screen. One showing his own statue-like body as it stood frozen in front of the elevator. Fingernails pushing against the peeling edge of the screen protector.
What did one say to brothers he hadn't seen in five years? After the fight they had? After they were right about everything?
“Donnie!” Leo cried, stumbling from behind the curved wall that would naturally funnel a jet lagged crowd to their luggage. His footsteps were loud and off balance. Donnie deployed arms out of his battle shell to brace against the wall behind him just before impact. “I thought this place was abandoned! I thought you weren’t going to be here! I-”
Leo had squished the tablet and Donnie’s frozen hands between their plastrons. Arms locked around and in between the metal extensions in Donnie’s shell. He raised his head up just enough to hook his chin over the cold metal of his brother’s prosthesis. Eyes slammed shut.
He could barely take a full breath.
His head suddenly swam as another form picked him and Leo up, squeezing them tight and letting out the loudest rumble filled laugh. A noise that vibrated Donnie’s teeth until he was almost sick with it.
“Donnie!” Raph laughed, swinging Leo and him gleefully. “I can’t believe Leo was right. You’re here!”
“I’m here,” Donnie croaked. Then he winced, throat erupting with pinpricks of pain. Throat tight like he swallowed a wad of cotton balls.
“I cannot believe the blue one was right about this!” Cass said. “Great, now he will never forget this.”
Leo laughed and Donnie tried to hold himself together as that sound pierced him. “Dude, they complained the whole time. They told me I was nuts but I knew if you survived that shit with Bishop, you would be here.”
‘That shit with Bishop.’ A punch to the snout would have felt better.
Donnie nodded. “I’m here,” he repeated, letting the legs of his battle shell support most of his weight as Raph set them both down on the floor.
He turned his tablet back on, it had gone to sleep while pinned in their hug. Fingernails pressed along the peeling edge of the screen protector letting air bubbles form underneath.
“Donnie?”
Donnie gave a small jerk of his chin towards the tablet. “It’s not safe up here. Cass, Leo, and I can take the elevator to the bunker below. Once down there Leo can make a portal for you Raph, does that sound agreeable?”
As much as he wanted to look anywhere but the tablet he couldn’t. The same fear he had when Sunita, April, and April’s mom arrived a few months ago was back on full swing.
It had taken weeks for Donnie to sit in the same room as them.
He had spoken to them through the intercom for the first three days. They said it was distressing, they begged him to show himself. April took the hinges off a door to get to him. Then spent another sitting outside his mystic bubble talking at him. Donnie didn’t want to do that to his brothers but somehow being unable to look at them seemed worse than screaming at April from behind a purple shield.
“Uh, yeah D, let’s do that,” Raph said, off kilter.
Leo hadn’t let Donnie go completely since their hug. He had a tight grip on Donnie’s right shoulder with his left hand. Following Donnie close as he summoned the elevator and gestured for Cassandra and Leo to step inside before he did.
“Are you okay alone?” Leo asked, peering past a statue-still Donnie.
He still couldn't breathe.
“Raph will be fine,” Raph said, voice deeper than Donnie remembered. He was twenty five now and nearly twelve feet tall. Still scared of being alone.
A part of Donnie felt so guilty for not remembering that. It welled up painfully in his chest, scraping his sternum and boiling his stomach. “You can listen to us through the intercom, it is only one way up here,” Donnie said, tapping the appropriate panels on his tablet. “Testing testing,” his voice came through the speakers in the baggage claim, hollow.
Raph worried his hands on the straps of his many duffel bags. “That helps, yeah. Thanks D.”
Donnie hummed, the doors closed. Raph and Leo did that thing where they tilted as the doors closed to keep eye contact for as long as possible.
“You got tall,” Cassandra said into the silent elevator. “You're taller than Leo now.”
Oh, she was speaking to him.
Leo gasped, squeezing Donnie’s shoulder. “He's not taller than me!” Now he was hugging Donnie’s right bicep.
“He's an entire foot taller than you,” Cass said, laughing and gently bouncing that balled up blanket to her chest.
“Donnie, look straight ahead so we can settle this,” Leo said, dropping the arm hug and standing straight next to Donnie instead. Arms down, chest puffed out.
A blue scarf caught Donnie’s eye. Knitted. Looked like Raph's work. The blanket looked awfully small, and also like Raph’s work.
Donnie was barely able to pull in a full breath of air. The idea of the world existing outside of the tablet showing the video feed of Raph was too overwhelming. They smelled bad. Blood. Soil. Body odor. The sweet pungent baked on sweat of days and days of walking. Donnie ground his teeth together not sure this place had even half of the things they needed- he still didn’t have hot water.
“We'll confirm I am taller and more handsome later,” Leo said, deflating and trying to dip into Donnie’s sight-line.
The elevator arriving in the basement gave him a good excuse to charge forward. “One more elevator ride then you can make a portal for Raph,” he told them, voice dead in a way he couldn't fix.
This should be the happiest he had felt in years.
Everything was numb instead.
“Oh.” Donnie cleared his throat. “I should warn Mrs. O’Neil I am bringing you down-”
“APRIL’S MOM IS HERE?!”
Donnie’s tablet jumped out of his hands.
There was a war room. Something straight out of War Games or any disaster film where a government agency needed to have a cubicle farm seated in front of a huge floor to ceiling screen. Maybe Godzilla was attacking and they needed HD footage of black hawks shooting him down. The room came with an upper balcony that was still over Raph's head. Fifteen feet above the main floor. He would struggle to get up the spiral staircase but perhaps Leo could utilize that as his sleeping spot since he seemed attached to the couple.
Thankfully Donnie had plenty to tell them to keep topics away from himself. His brothers were overjoyed to see Sunita, Mayhem, April, and April’s mom had already made it here. They would be back in a few days and Mrs. O’Neil was happy to help Cass calm her crying baby after the yelling in the elevator incident woke them up.
The baby had been a twist Donnie was still trying to wrap his head around. He was still not really processing the fact that his brothers were here.
Raph broke down into tears when Donnie explained that he and Mikey had infrequent communication via mystic ritual. A type of long distance communication spell that was piggybacked off an interrogation spell. True Intention Viewing. Tweaked for their purposes like using your college's printer for free coloring pages at the end of the semester. The bad news was Donnie tried to contact Mikey yesterday at their standing weekly time slot, but Mikey wasn't there. He had fled from Canada with Baron Draxum heading north and had to loop around the Great Basins (once the Great Lakes), stopping to help various pockets of survivors. Mikey didn't always have the ability to draw a new magic circle every Sunday. Donnie had a permanent magic circle with the specific mystic ritual laser engraved in an empty room. Surrounded by candles that were melting into the floor.
When Mikey got here he would love it.
Donnie would never tell his brothers that the magic circle was the first thing he made once clearing the airport. For years he dipped into the mystic plane for several hours hoping Mikey would have the same desperate idea. The day he entered to find Mikey there waiting was a memory with sharp painful edges. They wasted no time setting up a standing appointment to talk every week as Mikey and Baron Draxum made their way to Donnie. Once the pair were in range of Donnie’s helicopters April and Sunita could pick them up.
“I spoke with Mikey two weeks ago,” Donnie said. “He had just passed the Canadian border into Wisconsin.”
“I can portal too and from Wisconsin,” Leo said, but Raph gave him a harsh look. “What? I would need to stay a few days before making the hop back but I could do it. If it’s just me.”
“I don't want to lose you again, Leo.” Raph went back to carefully collapsing cubicle partitions and stacking desks along the walls.
All Leo did was shrink into himself. Raph asked more about the spell and how Mikey was. Donnie recited every detail he had so far. There were holes in Donnie’s retelling, he didn't want to admit to them that the mystic ritual’s original purpose was for interrogations which meant it was a little more complicated than plopping Raph or Leo in the magic circle. It wasn't like passing a cellphone over mid call.
There was also no masking on the mystic plane. Emotions were louder than words. There was no tablet to stare at when he communicated with Mikey. The fear, guilt, sorrow, self-hatred, was all laid out for his baby brother to see and reach into. Weekly communications were five percent updates and ninety-five percent Mikey wrapping around Donnie. Holding their souls together until Donnie could feel his real self under all the layers of wax on his skin. Mikey was adamant that doing that was more important than his story after New York City fell. They would have time for that when they were reunited in the flesh. At the moment, on stage before Raph and Leo, he didn't have a way to explain that. For if Mikey wasn't telling Donnie all about their time apart, what were they doing every time they communicated?
Mrs. O’Neil returned from her room with clothes that Cass could borrow. All three of their new occupants had a bunch of clothes and gear that needed washing and she gathered up everything. She did all the kind welcoming that Donnie was incapable of. Staring at his tablet. Stomach cramping.
Donnie stayed in the shadows of the room while Raph and Leo unpacked their duffels. Cass and Mrs. O’Neil fussed over the baby that Donnie couldn’t get near. Never being comfortable around infants even before the war. Human babies were never cute to him. Most baby animals weren't cute. They looked dumb and delicate and required more patience than Donnie could muster.
Every time he caught a glimpse of black hair and little fingers he wanted to know more. How did his brothers and Cass get a hold of a baby and why were they keeping it? Was it her baby? Body language told Donnie that Raph and Cassandra were now a couple. Could Raph be the father? Could mutants even breed with humans?
Here they were asking all these questions about him but he couldn't dig up any about them. Mrs. O’Neil asked all those questions while showing Cass the bathroom and didn’t repeat them upon returning.
Not that it mattered. All of them needed showers, the baby included. Donnie led his brothers, Cassandra, and the baby to the shower room attached to the old employee gym. Everyone had been shocked that Donnie had functioning plumbing. Toilets that flushed. Showers that ran. Bidets and butt air dryers installed. Donnie stayed in the area (on the other side of the curtain for her privacy) while Cass showered herself and her baby. Donnie’s presence was required so he could manifest a heater around the water pipe with his magic. It only took the bite out of the cold water unfortunately. The baby still shrieked like it was acid. Raph and Leo jokingly complained that they were stuck with ice cold water while Cass had it easy. Or maybe it wasn’t a joke. Had Donnie incorrectly not prioritized hot water? The idea made his stomach hurt more.
Donnie was used to cold showers. Maybe they were a bigger deal to everyone else.
He wondered how hard it would be to make a small tub that would keep water warm specifically for bathing something baby-sized. Ideas for that filled his mind until he returned to the war room. Mrs. O’Neil apologized for desperately needing to go back to bed. She wasn’t as spry as them and it was approaching three in the morning.
“Why does the upstairs look so deserted?” Leo asked, with only a bath towel around his waist. Pilfered from a nearby hotel long ago. Donnie was a packrat when supply gathering. “You ripped out all the furniture?”
With every question Leo drew closer and Donnie found a new spot in the room to linger. Heart still beating painfully hard in his chest. Screen protector missing from his tablet, lost when speaking about April, Sunita, and Mrs. O’Neil. How they arrived. Where were they before? What was their story? Donnie hadn’t asked.
He barely spoke with anyone. Words were hard. Internally he was a nonstop string of them. Externally speaking without purpose drained him.
“Keeps looters away,” Donnie said, walking across the room to plug his tablet into a dead monitor on the wall. His hands shook and missed the port several times. “Upstairs will be the last thing I fortify. For now recordings of Kraang noise playing at night keeps most would-be fortifiers from staying more than a few days. I've only had to release rats twice.”
Silence followed. Leo was doing that thing where he casually hung around an emotionally vulnerable brother until his very presence made them open up. Only this time Donnie wasn't fifteen hiding in his lab. He was twenty-four and everything had changed between them.
“Go on man, keep talking, I've missed you.” Raph cleared his throat quietly. “Don't you want to tell us about it? Where’s the famous Donnie Speech Mode we’ve been dying to hear?”
Ah. The old Donnie would have been harder to shut up. He understood now why everyone was acting so weird. He should have seen it coming, April commented the same thing claiming that she had to pull information from him bit by bit. The old Donnie would have excitedly shown her every part of his airport. There was a wall between him and his work now. He hadn't done a single noteworthy thing here, had he? When he stared at his tablet he couldn’t even remember what he did yesterday. Something, he was always doing something on the forever growing to do list. Blacking out boxes and carrying on.
That didn't mean he couldn't talk about the allure of the location itself.
“Lincoln Airport, located here in Lincoln Nebraska, was more than an airport. It houses the bunker we are currently in meant to shelter a team of scientists during a nuclear war.” Donnie unplugged his tablet and paced the room before the monitors. Leo remained leaning against the wall below them with his bath towel sliding dangerously down his hips. The floor was not clean, his towel would get dirty. “I found out about it when I was nine or ten. Hard to be exact. I used to hack into government servers for money, a way to supplement the income our father received in royalties from his many movies and shows. One day some rich conspiracy theorist paid me to confirm this place was real. I have no clue what they did with that information, I assume coming forward with it would get a person on the CIA’s bad side. Ever since seeing this place I thought… if there was a Zombie Apocalypse I would make this my base. On whim I began drafting that base as a sort of hobby project. Something to occupy my mind.”
On habit he looked up. A reflex from addressing auditoriums full of the nation's brightest scientists. All eager to hear from him at one time.
As if burned he dropped his gaze back to his tablet. Head swimming. The phantom feeling of hot stage lights on his skin.
“You just casually had a plan for the apocalypse?” Cassandra asked, the baby was under her shirt nursing when Donnie accidentally looked up. It explained the lack of noise from it.
Her question made him pause. No, he hadn't predicted the apocalypse. “It was-” a coping mechanism. He forgot how much time he spent daydreaming about this place as a way to escape Splinter's absence in their earlier childhood. “I used to have this big notebook but-”
Suddenly Leo was on the other side of the room, completely nude as the towel hung in the air for a split second behind him. Donnie flicked his eyes from the tablet to Leo while his brother upturned his duffel bag.
“This?”
Donnie let one of his metal arms take the tablet so he could reach out and take the familiar book Leo was thrusting towards him. Bound by his own hand. Two inches thick. Pages all different sizes. A smorgasbord of colored tabs from several different tables of contents. The evolution of his handwriting was clear as day through ages ten to sixteen.
He backed up until his calves hit one of the chairs pushed to the side of the room and collapsed.
“We had the opportunity to grab some stuff from the lair before New York City was-” Leo sucked in a sharp breath and waved his hand dismissively. “Anyway I saved what I could. Then we moved a few more times… this was the only thing of yours I was able to hang onto for so long. I think someone came across the lair between it being destroyed and us going back. Your lab was pretty picked through. Your room wasn't.”
He picked through his lab. Sentimental possessions were in his subway car, but he had assumed being gone for so long his brothers would have taken what they wanted already. He hadn’t entered his own bedroom. It felt like it belonged to someone that wasn't around anymore. The fact that Leo pulled this from his room after the fact meant a lot.
“What's mine is yours of course. I have not gotten around to labeling rooms or halls. When I arrived I took anything of value underground with me. Including anything that would make this place habitable from the outside looking in,” Donnie said, half opening the old book before closing it again. “There is a room full of abandoned luggage from 2020, feel free to scavenge through it you might find baby clothes, or at least some children's clothes.”
Not to mention the old Amazon Warehouse not far from the airport. Bezos paid for armed security all the way into 2024. By then most humans were in walled government cities, work camps, mass displacement occurred with executive orders to increase manufacturing. The warehouse had been a target for Donnie for all the tech. Computer chips, hard drives. The warehouse was picked through but maybe Leo and Raph could find useful supplies for the baby and themselves that Donnie overlooked.
“Raphael, when was the last time you had meat?” Donnie asked, pivoting to another topic.
“Oh Donnie, I'm okay.” Raph rubbed his hands together, hovering close to Cass and the baby while she nursed.
Leo was quick to jump in front of him, still completely nude. “He actually… is not,” he said, face darkening. “Mikey and I can go without meat but you and Raph need animal protein. I also will be giving you a physical D, you look a little skinny my dear genius twin. Do you have a scale here-”
“No need for a physical.” His heart thrummed painfully in his chest. “I have goats. For milk and for meat.”
“You have goats? I thought you hated livestock?” Cassandra asked.
Donnie nodded, fingers finding the tabs of his childhood plans. “I have automated their care which limits how much I interact with them. They eat the sturdier vegetation that has survived recent climate changes. Again, they cannot be outside as it would draw attention. They are in a movabled building. I move it around on the field outside over new areas of weeds and plants from time to time, there are skylights,” he added, before claims of animal cruelty could be made. “We could have one… this morning for dinner. What is this, no, I cannot-”
Cassandra Jones stood before him with the baby held out. Its chubby legs pedaling in the air, eyes wide with curiosity. A gurgling noise came from its throat. Donnie pressed back further in his chair, almost pulling up his old notebook as a shield.
“He has to meet his Uncle Donnie,” Cass said, handing Donnie the baby and grabbing his notebook off his lap. She put it on another chair nearby.
So.
Donnie was holding a baby by the armpits.
First impression was that it was lighter than he thought it would be. Nineteen pounds by his guesstimation. Donnie’s hands were huge in comparison to the baby. He was so fascinated by how small the kid was that when the baby’s hands grabbed his thumbs he couldn’t be upset about the wet saliva feel. He was wearing a jade green onesie with a tyrannosaurus rex on it.
“Where did you even get this?” Donnie asked, turning the baby to look at its small ears. The baby had black hair that kind of stuck up in all directions. Bed head from Cassandra’s shirt. “Just curious.”
From across the room next to Leo, Raph leaned down and asked, “Why is he rotating Junior?” To which Leo shrugged, nudely.
“He came out of me, you weirdo!” Cass snapped.
The baby laughed, legs kicking in the air at the sounds of Cassandra’s raising voice.
“Can confirm I was the catcher,” Leo said, stepping up next to Cass and throwing his left arm around her shoulders, too short metal right one resting on his hip. She immediately shoved him away. “I was down there,” he said, staring off somewhere behind Donnie, “She was screaming, I was screaming. Raph was screaming.”
Raph nodded sagely.
“We were all screaming. It was great and my blood pressure was very normal then and it has been that normal ever since.” Leo laughed uneasily. “No one check it though.”
Leo spoke like Donnie shouldn’t have believed he would be capable of delivering a baby. As if Donnie hadn’t seen first hand how invested in the field of medicine his younger brother could be. Of course Cass and her baby came out just fine.
“Why are you holding him like he's a live grenade- here,” Leo said, adjusting the baby so he was sitting on Donnie’s thighs. “Put your arms like this-,” Donnie had to hold the kid’s chest and back to keep him from tilting too far forward or back as he craned his neck up to look at all the people staring down at him. “He's like eleven months old and he can hold his head up.”
The baby focused on Donnie. Mouth agape, a single tooth stuck out in the same way Raph’s snaggletooth drew one’s eye.
“Who's the father?” Donnie asked, completely transfixed by the way this baby was looking at him. He had heard the baby say small words as they made the war room into their quarters. Momma. Dadda.
When Raph leaned too much against a stack of tables causing a sudden noise the baby looked in that direction, his mouth made a small o-shape. “Ah, uh, probably not me,” Raph said, rubbing the back of his neck. He started restacking the tables. “Cass and I hooked up casually before... catching feelings?”
Cass turned her head away from them. “Oh shut up,” she hissed out, embarrassed.
Leo lightly smacked Donnie’s shoulder a few times while snickering. Silently Donnie agreed Cass and Raph were a cute couple. In his lap Donnie allowed the baby to pull his hand away from his chest and move it around. Following the push and pull while listening to Raph.
“Heh. There were other guys between those times,” Raph coughed. “Guess we were both a little- shy.”
“You were shy,” Cass said, hiding behind one hand. “I was not.”
Donnie frowned, looking down at the child holding his hand out by thumb and second finger. “And getting pregnant during the apocalypse was a smart decision?” he asked blankly.
Raph knew better than to not use protection. Raph never wanted children. Raph was being kind by saying there was a possibility that the baby was his. Maybe he believed a DNA connection would help them bring the baby into their family.
Reproducing while the world was becoming less inhibitable every day was selfish and inconsiderate. This was not anywhere near the level of people having children when climate change was still slowly leading to their demise. Or when microplastic was found in every living species everywhere- Society was collapsing. The United States was currently broken apart and under martial law. Citizens lived in closed cities under strict rule. Why would Cassandra think having unprotected sex was ever a good idea with what was currently going on?
This child was absolutely fucked.
Donnie had run the projections- Kraang would win the war easily by 2040. This baby would be lucky to see its thirteenth birthday, and if it did those would be a hard thirteen years.
“Fuck you.”
Cassandra’s voice was dead quiet and full of hurt as she took the baby out of Donnie’s hands. The lingering sensation of little hands squeezing his fingers quickly fading.
Donnie blinked a few times, confused.
“Cass-” Raph tried, but she shook her head quickly and disappeared into the bathroom. “Donnie, come on man,” Raph sighed, full of disappointment. “Come on.”
Ah. He had fumbled that. Raph's exasperated tone reminded him of when he bluntly told April why she kept getting fired. People know when they make mistakes and it wasn’t Donnie’s job to inform them unless explicitly asked.
Cassandra hadn’t asked his opinion on her mistake to have a kid.
“Welp,” Leo said, doing an exaggerated goose step around the room. Chin to his chest. Still nude. Weirdly the too short metal arm was still on even though Raph had had his off since the shower. “This place have blankets?” he asked cheerfully. “Pads for sleeping? Pillows? April’s mom was on to something, it is late,” he said, with emphasis in Raph’s direction. “We're running on empty. I think we could all use some sleep.”
Donnie stood up, legs rigid. “Yes, follow me.”
Raph’s hard gaze followed them out of the room. Leo turned but seeing as he was following Donnie up and out of the room it was unknown what body language they passed to each other. Getting Donnie out of the room was purposeful on Leo’s part. Donnie wasn’t that oblivious. Some parts of his brain still worked.
“I suppose that question was a little crass on my part,” Donnie admitted in the hall. Storage was in the basement. Leo could make a portal to quickly transport bedding to their new quarters once he saw the area.
They passed by Mrs. O’Neil’s room and Leo hung back to read the note on her door before catching up with Donnie in the elevator.
“D, it was unplanned,” Leo said, rolling his right shoulder. The prosthesis was probably pinching him because it was five years too small. “She used protection. Raph used protection. By the time she showed signs-”
“Terminating wasn’t an option?” Donnie guessed.
Leo gave a half shrug, less phased by Donnie’s lack of filter. “Uh, look, far as I’m concerned, until the fetus is actually born termination is always an option- but by the point we found out Cassandra was pregnant, she was far enough along that would’ve been a surgical abortion, not chemical and that,” Leo hissed through his teeth. They left the elevator as soon as the door opened. “Maybe, in another three decades I’ll be able to do surgery with portals and a lot of things will be possible. Even if we got the supplies for it, a surgical abortion was as risky as her giving birth so… I promised her and Raph that I would prioritize her life during delivery.”
Frankly that should be the way it always is, but Donnie knew Leo didn’t need to hear his own beliefs echoed back to him.
“Cass didn’t die. The kid didn’t die.” Leo shrugged again. “Even with me as the doctor I didn’t somehow fuck it all up. The kid is a miracle.”
“His childhood will be harder than ours was, Leo.” Donnie couldn’t hold it in any longer. “I cannot believe I have to tell you that-”
“Oh, yeah, it will be awful. Aliens are slaughtering us by the millions-,” Leo laughed emotionlessly. “Buuuuuut he’s not the only kid that’s having that childhood and he won’t be the last. It’s a touchy subject, Dontron. Cass and Raph never wanted to drag a child into this war- Our dad never wanted to drag us into his war- but he’s here now, just like we were then. Shit happens. No one exists on purpose.”
That was Splinter’s excuse. Their father had other uncontrolled circumstances leading to him being a parent. He was kidnapped, experimented on, and decided to take the four of them with him instead of leaving them with Draxum. Then he left all of them to take care of themselves. Parentified Raph because it was easy. Said he never wanted them to fight The Shredder, but they did anyway. Then he hid his knowledge on The Kraang until they were invading.
Who knows what information their father died with.
“Now Junior was a surprise. We can excuse his presence,” Leo said, leading to something. “Those overalls you’re wearing are a calculated choice. What’s your excuse for bringing this into the world?” he asked, gesturing to Donnie’s clothes. “I’m all ears.”
“They were here,” Donnie said, not slowing his pace. “I only had to lengthen the pant legs to accommodate my height. The boots I had to make myself.”
“They're cute,” Leo said, hooking a finger around one of the straps and snapping it. “But oh man have I been keeping my mouth shut. You look like a mechanic from one of those porno calendars. You know, just, have one of those straps hang off your shoulder and bite your lip.”
Donnie stumbled, his battle shell arms automatically helped him avoid colliding with a door frame. “Thank you? I prefer the superior functionality of the garment. Note all the pockets.”
“I haven't seen you in five years and this is the first nonsense conversation we have?” Leo asked. “Overalls?”
“This conversation is hardly my fault,” Donnie shot back, just as amused.
They arrived at the large room Donnie had put all the furniture the airport had to offer. Couches. Chairs. Sleeping mats for delays. Rugs that could be rolled up. Weird statues and art pieces from lobbies and fountains. He powered on the lights and showed Leo where the luggage carts were.
“Out of curiosity, how did it go with Bishop?” Leo asked, loading up his flat cart with pillows and cushions while Donnie found blankets that used to be in gift shops and online commerce warehouses. “How did that fairytale he sold you work out?”
“I'm here, aren't I?” Donnie replied, dropping the plastic wrapped blankets onto another cart.
Leo stalled, giving Donnie an unimpressed look. “That's all you're going to say?”
“Would you like to talk in depth about the day you fumbled the key or can we both agree some mistakes aren't made better by looking back?”
“That's not-”
Donnie grabbed his flat cart and yanked it along behind him. “Take whatever you need,” he snapped at Leo. If he didn’t remember the way back he could portal.
“This is going well,” Leo grumbled.
It was cold out for March. Dipping into the low twenties. Even Raph had bundled himself in a heavy cloak. Tomorrow might be even lower in temperature, they could get snow again. Donnie missed weather reports. April and Sunita would be back tonight, their tracking showed them less than fifty miles away. While Donnie was capable of waiting on the roof alone, Raph argued the importance of being there as soon as the helicopter landed. Not wanting April, Sunita, and Mayhem to have to wait an extra second to see him.
“Sorry I implied Cassandra's spawn was a mistake.”
Raph took a deep breath while Donnie focused on the sky to the southwest. “Yeah,” Raph breathed out. “You should be. You didn't even ask what his name is.”
Donnie's mouth twitched. “What's his name?”
“Ask Cass,” Raph bit out.
“She doesn't want to speak to me,” Donnie said lightly.
“I wonder why,” Raph said behind clenched teeth. “I wonder what kind of moronic thing you might have said to cause that.”
“I said I was sorry,” Donnie said.
“Then fucking act like it.”
The air had a certain smell to it. Out this far they shouldn’t be impacted by the mining Kraang was doing. Occasionally they fling a Technodrome west to drill but the government usually damages them enough they crash. The mining can release gas clouds that stay close to the ground, suffocating anything caught in them. Donnie was more worried about the goats than himself. Especially now that he was feeding more people.
“D, why do you act like we're strangers?” Raph asked, looking out at the horizon with Donnie. Lights from distant cities could be seen much further than in the past. No more light pollution.
“Aren't you?” Donnie asked, tone robotic. “We went our separate ways. I made my choices and you made yours.”
Choices. The most awful thing they would all be capable of.
“What's this cold attitude of yours? No I’m happy you’re all alive? No asking about New York? Just stalking the edge of every room like a bratty introverted teenager?”
It was an attempt to rile him up. Donnie took the notes for what they were. He didn’t need to hover around them. They could find their way around the bunker and basement. Cindy O’Neil could answer their questions. Now that April and Sunita were coming back-
Well, was there a reason to be around Donnie at all?
Raph pivoted from foot to foot. “What happened with Bishop?”
“You're okay raising a child that isn't yours?” Donnie asked icily.
“You're really asking that to avoid my question?” Raph growled.
Donnie shrugged. Always better at poking his older brother than Leo or Mikey. Always capable of hitting the most painful spots. “Dad seemed to like us more when we were confirmed to have a connection to him through DNA. I'm not accusing you. I'm asking a point blank question. Just as you have to me.”
“I love Cass, and that little guy is her baby. It's a little tiny piece of her. Doesn't matter what else is in that kid, I'll love him forever because I'll love her forever.”
It sounded genuine. Not that Donnie was any good at understanding intentions. Bishop had sounded genuine too. From the first to last sentence he ever spoke.
“Are you guys sleeping okay?” Donnie asked as a follow up.
Leo, Cass, and Raph shared a bed. Donnie had a nasty habit of spying on his guests and when he noticed his two brothers sleeping with Cassandra he felt weird about it. Stepping into a bit of spilled water with a soft on weird. Lifting his foot to grimace at a damp sock. Only took a full day to understand that Leo and Raph were much closer now.
He wasn't jealous.
“Yeah. Best sleep in a long time D. In a long time,” Raph said, mentioning nothing about how he was sharing a bed with Leo and Cass. “Not all of us got cushy government job offers.”
Donnie made a small noise in his throat. Something guilty. A sensory flash of his old room at the EPF. Almost too luxurious with a memory foam bed, personal bathroom, kitchen, and entertainment area. All that space for one person. One very important person that needed to feel like they were an equal and knew it from the start.
“Well, the EPF is gone now,” Donnie said, voice emotionless. “I'm in the private sector now. All hard surfaces and zero pension.”
“Don't let Leo hear you say the word private he'll make it into a sex joke. He needs to knock it off before Junior can understand him.”
“Are you prepared to have Leo as your kid's Uncle?” Donnie asked, flipping his goggles down at the distant sound of helicopter blades. They’d be flying dark so as to not draw attention from those distant walled cities.
Raph shook his head in dismay. “No. Oh my god, no. He's gonna put red stripes on him and steal him away. Is that them?” he asked, tilting his head.
“That's them,” Donnie said, using his tablet to activate the glow on the landing pad. Just enough light for April to navigate to.
“I'm glad you haven't been here entirely alone, brother!” Raph yelled over the roaring heartbeat of the helicopter.
“RAPH? RAPH!! NO WAY! OH MY GOD!” April could be barely heard from the cockpit, screaming with joy.
Both April and Sunita were out of the helicopter as soon as they could be. Mayhem bounding out after them, spinning and flipping in the air around Raph but dodging all attempts to be pet. Helicopter blades slowed. The engine died down. Donnie deactivated the glow of the landing pad and slipped inside unnoticed.
As if he was never there at all.
“April! Sunita!” Raph laughed. “It’s been so long! Mayhem! Buddy! You’ve gotten so big!”
The last thing Donnie heard as he went down the stairs was April and Sunita screaming and crying. At least they were able to give Raph the reunion he had expected from Donnie. With a racing heart Donnie escaped into an old coffee shop in the airport, navigating by night vision in his goggles. Then to behind the store down a narrow hall.
This airport was a labyrinth. Most airports were at a high risk of passengers accidentally finding themselves in employee-only areas and auto-locking doors. There were cases of people dying after getting lost in airport employee only areas. One of the first things Donnie did was remove those doors. Now he flew through corridors lined with conduit and electrical boxes. Dipped behind water tanks. His memory was sharp as a knife as he took a long winding path down narrow and tight metal staircases to the bunker below while Raph, Sunita, and April took the only way they knew.
As Donnie navigated through the airport backrooms he flipped through camera feeds to locate the group.
“We had no idea, but communication is always being surveyed out here,” April said, taking the stairs to the basement with Raph. “This place is supposed to be abandoned. Sure looked that way when we first showed up.”
“When did you show up?” Raph asked.
“Four months ago,” April said.
“How long has Donnie been here?” Raph asked, squinting.
Donnie slid down a random wall. Chest rising and falling. He watched Sunita suck in air sharply before sharing a glance with April. This was it. While Cindy O’Neil had been subtle, Sunita and April were mad and had no reason to lie by omission to Donnie’s brothers.
“Yeesh. Since he sabotaged Bishop? Two years ago?” Sunita guessed, lights on the wall in the basement casting weird glares on the camera through her translucent slime body.
Raph paused. “Sabotage? I thought they were found by the Kraang?”
“Yeah, when an entire secret government base goes to war with itself it tends to be found by the Kraang.” April frowned at Raph. “Who do you think started that war?”
Donnie rocked on the floor. Frantic attempts to massage the gas bubble expanding in his chest by pressing, pressing, pressing his fists against his sternum. Seconds turned to minutes. When Donnie found the group on the cameras again they were outside the war room.
“Uh, this is us,” Raph said outside the door. “We’re still settling in and catching up on rest.”
“Wait, you mean...?” Sunita whispered, the only one respecting the fact that Cindy O’Neil was sleeping.
“Oh, Raph didn't arrive alone,” Raph said, grinning.
In the war room the lights were on. Leo was struggling to build some kind of mesh baby enclosure in the corner. A task he eagerly dropped upon the door opening. Cass was on the floor on a blanket handing the baby various blocks. Toys found in luggage and mail packages that were stalled when air travel was shut down in 2020.
“CASS, LEO!” April shrieked, running down the stairs to leap into Leo’s uneven arms.
Leo laughed and spun April around. “Hey there big sis!” Mayhem trotted over to jump on Leo. Little nails scraping his dark carapace.
“And a baby!” Sunita gushed, falling onto the floor into a puddle before reforming. The baby laughed hard.
“Cass you had a baby?” April asked, giving Leo a shoulder slap to put her down.
“Leo is also here-,” Leo said, putting April back on the floor but stepping back away from the girls to stand proudly next to Raph. “Leo could have given birth, you don’t know.”
Raph smacked him lightly on the back of the head. The two of them smiled at each other with shaking shoulders. The girls gushed over the baby. Cindy O’Neil, cursed to always have people arriving when she was trying to maintain a normal sleep schedule, came to the war room too.
In a dark damp hallway lit by red emergency exit signs, Donnie watched them talk. About their lives. Funny stories. They laughed and hugged and soon Donnie was just watching a screen unable to hear, think, or assign any of it to memory. Limbs tingling with the urge to go dark. To silence his mind and fall away from the world. When the growing static tightened around his throat he went limp. Tablet balanced on his thigh, eyes staring unfocused at part of the ventilation system.
“He's hungry,” Cass said, an hour later. For whatever reason that was what dragged Donnie out of the fog. A basic need. Blinking and picking up the tablet to see Cindy was now back to bed and at some point everyone had gotten something to eat and drink. Tea, water, a dehydrated sludge mass produced for military operations dished out on plates. “My nipples hurt so bad he bites with all his strength,” she said, clutching the baby to her bare chest.
“Then use the nipple cream!” Leo said, shoveling sludge into his mouth. “Geez!”
Donnie hoped they were helping themselves to all the food he was canning. Desperately stock piling tomatoes, okra, green beans, fruits. The many greenhouses were working at maximum capacity. Sometimes the greenhouses were the only places Donnie could exist.
“He clearly likes the way they taste because of the stupid nipple cream!” Cass snapped.
“We’re looking for a pump!” Leo said defensively.
“Awwww of course he’s a biter, he's your baby,” April cooed.
“Humans are so weird, no offense.” Sunita added, then as Casey pulled her shirt down. She settled the baby on her lap Sunita frowned. “Why is his face like that?”
“That's his pooping face! He always poops when he meets new people,” Cassa said, poking the baby that had a very concentrated expression on his face.
April laughed, “But we’ve been here for an hour!”
“Delayed new people stink,” Raph laughed, a churr rumbling under his voice. “Runs in the family.”
April and Sunita whipped their heads towards Raph. “You're his-?” They asked together.
“Possibly! Maybe?” Raph said bashfully. “Doesn't matter really, Cass is my girl, that's my baby.”
April and Sunita squealed in delight, Mayhem cocked his head and made a confused warbled.
“Yeah yeah,” Raph said, hiding his face with one hand while Cass and Leo laughed.
They all acted so comfortable with each other. Donnie tipped over with the tablet in hand. Laying on his side to watch a movie he couldn't be a part of. Leo volunteered to grab their dirty plates. Cass went to change the baby. Sunita and April said their goodnights. Donnie almost closed the feed when he heard out of view from the camera, “Leo can I have a word with you?”
Raph's voice held an urgency that made Donnie sit up straight. Navigating to the hall camera. Following Raph and Leo as they walked together to the kitchen.
“Yeah sure. What's up Big Daddy?” Leo said airily.
Raph grunted. They both glanced at the door to Donnie’s quarters. Something silent passed between them. Donnie feared they were Mind Melding now, speaking in a way he wouldn't be able to hear.
In the kitchen the conversation became verbal again.
“How did Donnie act when you asked about Bishop?” Raph asked, helping Leo with the dishes.
The water and ceramic plates interfered with the audio. Donnie thumbed the volume as high as possible. The back corridor filled with the tinny noise.
“Not well,” Leo said under his breath. “I guess he realized Bishop was full of shit, but he didn’t want to get into it. We all know how Bishop's plan went, his whole network is gone.”
Raph grunted, stacking plates in the drainer as Leo finished washing them. “I'm just glad Donnie got out.”
“That's the thing.” Raph stood with his shell to the camera, blocking Leo from view and hiding both their faces. “April and Sunita said Donnie has been here alone for a long time.”
“What?” Leo asked, voice jumping up an octave.
Raph moved, Donnie could see enough that he was handing Leo a towel to dry his hands.
“No, Donnie said they've been here with him,” Leo said quickly.
“No. He never said that, he implied it, and Leo,” Raph sighed, “Stuff here isn't adding up-”
No this wasn’t happening.
“There's something off about Donnie.” Raph's voice made Donnie’s blood run cold.
Metal gonged through the back hall as Donnie flung the tablet as hard as he could at the air vents. Goggles almost crushed in his hands before he angrily shoved them into the front pocket of his overalls. Too precious to break those when he needed them to see. Kneeling on the ground he conjured his magic to form a forcefield around himself. Just big enough and dense enough to deafen the ear ringing screams that escaped his mouth along with the hard thump thump thump of his fist slamming down on his thighs over and over again. Anything to get the thoughts, the memories, the mistakes away. Screaming out so hard his throat hurt with it. Vomiting up his voice. Forming bruises and crying with relief when his own punches began to hurt enough to make the hits pause and hesitate. Struggling with the part of him that wanted to escape pain and the part that needed it needed it needed it to escape.
And when it was finally over he would collect the pieces of his tablet in the light of his purple markings and add fixing it to the never ending to do list. Always moving forward.
Towards the edge of a cliff, but still forward.