Chapter Text
Donatello sighs tiredly, sliding his headphones back onto his head. They’re yelling again. They’re always arguing, and that always devolves into them yelling. They never listen. Not to each other, not to Michelangelo, and certainly not to Donatello. As for Splinter, well, there's nothing to listen to from him.
Ever since he appointed Leonardo as the new leader, Leo’s been butting heads with Raphael at every turn. They get nothing done. They haven’t even gone out to take care of crime together in eighty-one days. Yes, Donnie’s been counting. Not that they’re ever together long enough to have an opportunity to, anyway, anyway.
Mikey spends most of his days with Draxum now. Splinter spends the majority of his time missing, and if he’s not unlocatable, then he’s holed up in his room with the television. Yes, he moved the TV out of the living area to his room.
And Donnie? Well. He’s in his lab. Drowning out the noise and the deafening silence that will follow. Home used to be wherever his brothers were. Now it feels like it's wherever his brothers aren’t.
Donnie idly debates going out to get food, the original reason for removing his headphones. It’s not like they’d really notice him passing by them anyway. It’s been just over seven months since Leo became the new leader, and their arguing has only gotten worse. When they’re not arguing, they’re not talking to each other.
Because they can’t talk to each other without fighting. They used to get along so well. Sure, they've all had their moments, but it was never like this. But the fighting wasn’t like this at first, either.
Raphael used to just make small comments and critiques of Leo’s leadership. Leo would always wave it off or ignore it. Then he started outright breaking down everything Leon did wrong. Leonardo would remind him who was the leader now. The disagreements got bigger and bigger until it inevitably exploded into this.
Donnie decides starvation isn’t worth staying out of the war zone. As he unplugs his headphones from the charging cord to take with him, he briefly wishes Mikey were here. It’s a selfish thought. Mikey was taking all of this the hardest. To the point that Donatello had actually started worrying about his physical health. Not to mention, it was Don’s idea for his younger brother to stay with Draxum for a while.
The headphones barely muffle the yelling as the door to the lab slides open and Donnie steps out. As he walks past the living area, the place where the yelling is coming from, there’s a small part of Donnie that wants to try stepping in again. Even though he knows it’s useless. He even stops for a moment to peer in, just to check on them.
Unfortunately, in doing so, Donnie catches the gist of this argument. Or this current point in the argument.
“You can’t run headfirst into everything!” Raph is in the middle of yelling when Donnie pokes his head in.
“It always worked just fine before, you’re the one who keeps messing it up!” Leonardo spits back.
“It’s different now, you’re the leader, you have to set an example! You have to make a plan!” Raphael’s fists are balled. A year ago, Donnie never would’ve worried about Raph’s anger getting the better of him. Now Donatello’s terrified that he might be handing Leo an ice pack later tonight. It’d be a first, but would it be a surprise? “Your selfishness is putting everyone in danger! This isn’t a game, Leo. Someone could get seriously hurt!”
“You think I don’t know that? I’m doing just fine, Raph, and you’re not the leader anymore!” Leo jabs a finger into Raph’s chest. “It’s not like you were any good, anyway. If you were, you’d still be leading us! But you’re not, and you don’t get to boss us around anymore!”
Donnie decides he’s heard more than enough and steps out of the doorway, turning back toward the kitchen. If this were four months ago, he’d have tried to break it up. But it’s not. So he knows it’s useless.
The arguing slowly fades slightly as Donatello walks into the kitchen. He opens the fridge and then makes a mental note to do a grocery run. When he pulls out the milk, the expiration date tells him it expired over a month ago. When he pours it down the sink, the chunks confirm the expiration. The smell tells him, however, that this may be considered an act of bioterrorism.
He holds his breath.
He crushes the jug and recaps it, throwing it in the trash under the sink. He makes another mental note to take out the trash. Donnie proceeds to pull the magnetic notepad and pen off the fridge. He reopens the fridge and begins writing a list of what they have.
Cheese, ketchup, sandwich meat, and apple juice. Then he writes down what’s in the cupboards. Crackers, a few slices of questionably edible bread, a half-empty cereal box, and a bag of unopened potato chips. Tearing the note off the pad, he sticks the pen and notepad to the fridge. He stuffs the paper in his hoodie pocket.
He’ll make a list of what they need from the store when he gets back to his lab. It’s too loud and suffocating to brainstorm groceries here.
He’d order pizza, but he doesn’t want to take his headphones off or talk over the yelling in the background. He mutely wonders if he should check to see if Splinter’s even alive as he grabs down the box of crackers. Donnie would really like to think he is. He’d really, really (that’s two ‘really’s) to think his dad isn’t dead.
But then again, Donnie hasn’t seen him leave his bedroom in three days. On the other hand, though, Donnie hasn’t spent much time out of his lab to see Splinter leave his bedroom. Donatello decides it’s better to be safe than mourning the loss of his father. As he steps out of the kitchen, the yelling comes to an abrupt end, closely followed by two sets of angry footsteps stomping off.
Maybe he’ll order pizza after all. But only after he makes sure his dad is alright.
If this were five months ago, Mikey and Donnie would be taking turns talking to their two brothers. To make sure they were alright. Mikey and Donnie stopped checking in on their brothers three months ago. That was a month after they stopped trying to step in.
Donatello stops in front of Splinter’s door. He takes a small breath, pulls his headphones off, raises his hand, and then knocks quietly. The only answer is the quiet, muffled sound of the TV playing one of Splinter’s shows. He knocks louder.
After a second, the television pauses.
“Yes?” Splinter’s voice calls through the door. Donnie hesitates. Then he opens the door wide enough to see in. “Ah, Purple. Did you need something?”
“Um, I was going to order pizza,” Donatello mutters. “I just wanted to know if you wanted anything.”
Splinter hums, then says, “No, I’ll be going out soon so you don’t have to order anything for me.”
“Right,” Donatello mutters. He takes a glance around the room. The lights are dim, but bright enough to make out the oddly sterile-looking room. It looks unlived in other than the TV and the unmade bed Splinter’s laying in. “Okay.”
Splinter looks like he’s about to say something more, but Donnie closes the door before he can. Donatello counts the seconds before the TV turns back on. He reaches 16 before the muffled noise of the television filters back through the door. He lets out a quiet breath, places his headphones back on, and trudges away. Donatello goes back to his lab.
There’s a small part of him that wants to go check on Raph and Leo. But there’s a larger part of him that knows it’s pointless. Neither of them likes to be bothered anymore. At all.
He pulls out his phone, pulling up the contact for that joined pizza place. The one that came together after all their favorite pizza places were destroyed in sinkholes on pizza week. He clicks the speed dial and listens as the ringing filters through his headphones.
“Lou, Mike Tony, and Tony’s pizza!” A chipper voice greets on the other end. “How can I help you?”
“Hi, I’d like to place an order for delivery,” Donnie responds.
“Alrighty, what can we get for you tonight?”
“Can I get a medium Hawaiian pizza, a medium meat lover’s, and a large pepperoni, please?” The woman hums quietly on the other end. She doesn’t respond for a few seconds, and Donnie assumes she’s writing the order down.
“Alrighty, that’ll come out to $56.28, would you like to pay over the phone or in person?” She says, just as cheerful as before. Donatello pauses for a moment. He should have enough to cover for that.
“Over the phone,” he responds. He recites his card number from memory for her when she asks for it. Then tells her where to leave the pizza, and she’s completely unfazed when he says to leave it by a manhole cover in an alley. He supposes that something like that may not be very odd for her, considering it’s New York. Or maybe she’s just good at the customer service act.
He gives her the manhole location specifically a block down from their lair, not that she knows that. She tells him it’ll arrive in an hour and that’s that. As usual, when he goes to pick up the pizza, he’ll leave the Hawaiian outside Leonardo’s door and the pepperoni outside Raphael’s. But for the next 50 minutes, it’s back to work.
He takes care to check all of the security systems, combing through any alerts that the system’s algorithm may have wrongly deemed not serious enough to notify him of. With the new motion sensors he set up around the surrounding sewer tunnels, he had to create a whole program to tell the difference between a rat and a potential threat. So far, it’s been rather successful. Though there haven't been any actual threats to their safety, it’s pushed a few notifications through to his phone when it detected a threat.
One time, for example, he received a notification for a motion sensor tripped in the south side tunnel. As it turned out, it was just two incredibly large rats. Perhaps a little unnerving, but not a threat.
The motion sensors are equipped to be able to distinguish relative size, so smaller rats and bugs won’t trip them. But he’s had those same rats trip the motion sensors a total of four times so far in the past two weeks. Or at least he’s pretty sure it’s the same rats. Either way, he’d rather be safe than sorry.
Knowing his luck, the day he assumes it’s the rats again and doesn’t bother to check it out is going to be the day it isn’t just rats. Or maybe it will be the rats, but they’ve decided to have a rat uprising. Either way, he won’t be taking his chances. He’ll go out to make sure every time just to be certain it is the rats and they’re not planning an uprising. It’s part of the same reason he combs through all of the motion alerts that aren't detected as threats. To make sure that the algorithm is working right, and that they’re safe.
It feels more important now than it ever has before, too. Neither of his brothers are prepared for a fight. Especially if they’re taken by surprise. So Donnie makes sure they’re prepared. It’s also why he’s already installed the wiring to set up cameras around the perimeter as well. It’ll be more efficient if he can check the cameras when the motion sensor trips.
He might also set up a running program on the cameras to detect motion independently. Maybe he’ll get infrared, too, to detect heat signatures. Definitely night vision, though. The tunnels are often dark. Maybe when he goes out for groceries later, he’ll stop by the junkyard to see if he can find any scrapped cameras.
He’d rather refurbish a broken one than start from scratch. Besides, finding the parts to make a camera is usually harder than finding the parts to fix a broken one. He takes a deep breath, stretches his arms above his head, and then pulls the list of food in the lair out of his hoodie pocket. Donatello might as well write the grocery list while he waits.