revivalproject | Connect This Space Between

Entry tags:

Connect This Space Between

WHO: Donnie and you..?!
WHERE: The Warrens
WHAT: Taking things one step at a time...
WHEN: Post volcano eruption
WARNINGS: N/A
NOTES: Will match tag format.

i. hanging in there
The trip down had more or less been a mechanical process. Just follow everyone down, one foot in front of the other. For all that he's observed, the whole matter of a volcanic explosion happening somewhere overhead was still a difficult thing to process, or perhaps it was just everything else with that just topping it all off. He'd traveled in uncharacteristic silence, just waiting for that last straw that would possibly make him snap.

Thankfully he's been able to hold it together. Fresh water helps, and having other things to mind has kept his thoughts from spiraling completely out of control. It might be an odd sight to see a humanoid turtle carrying a makeshift tank with some kind of local alien turtleish creature in it, but Donnie's clung to it like a lifeline. And then there's DATA, Tony's strange little robot-spy-camera who's apparently been demoted to a cantaloupe as Donnie's chosen method of carrying him along is by a net-like bag. But now there's space and they can rest, so they're set down while the teenage turtle tries to get some feeling back in his fingers as he slowly allows himself to start assessing their new surroundings. Data collection usually helps him relax.

ii. like mapping out dungeons
Being underground isn't really a problem for him. He's more or less lived underground all his life, and compared to the sewers of New York, this is far less complicated to navigate.

Donnie takes to mapping things out, wandering the strange tunnels. He hasn't yet managed to cobble together a replacement computer for the one he sorely misses wearing on his arm, so he's doing things the old-fashioned way, with pencil and paper. He's tackling things in sections, intent on working out every possible direction down one way before he'll commit to the next. Which will explain his absence from the main area at given times. This may not be some technical project to work on, but he's approaching it the same way, completely caught up in his findings.

Someone might want to make sure he remembers to eat or you know, sleep.

iii. no time for idle hands
If he'd been completely without some sort of access to tech he might have lost it by now. At least here the atmosphere is much more inviting than Calibrations. But it also means there's no doors he can close when he wants to keep to himself and work on things. Not that he's finding himself too bothered by people.

His main concern is potential fire hazards, and what with moss and mats everywhere, at times Donnie gathers up some of his things and relocates himself down some tunnel or another where there's less of a risk of burning anything when he tries to do some circuitry work or welding.

iv. aces wild
Choose your own adventure! Throw me a starter or whatever.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Not that Tony meant to deny how difficult life must have been for someone with obvious physical mutations, but he had to counter, "I know someone bigger'n'greener than you who managed regular physicals." Even accounting for a reasonable lack of trust in the medical system, though, that did leave a pretty wide gap in where exactly Donnie had come from, if they were managing to teach their mutated child soldiers karate but not following up on any broken bones. 'Dad' was not making a very good impression. "Is that...who made you...?" Tony tried to posit lightly, despite the tense way he held out a flat hand to figure out just how insane Donnie might actually be before he let the trained professionals make that call.

Donnie absently leaned against the invisible wall; look, if it was going to be an obstruction then he was going to use it.

"What? No- well. No." He frowned, pulling his thoughts together. He could explain that, at least. "Dad was a human- an amazing martial artist and actor, by the way, but it seems no one's heard of Lou Jitsu so far as people from Earth that I've spoken to here go." He sighed.

"Anyway. Did I mention that we have yōkai living under New York City? I am losing track of who all I talk to about this. But there's this...warrior scientist by name of Baron Draxum who had some beef with humans or something and wanted to make an army of unstoppable mutants to protect yōkai kind against them. So he figured, by using the DNA of a great warrior and combining it with creatures that already had built in protective capabilities, he could accomplish this. Sooo that's where my brothers and I come in. But dad, he saved us so we wouldn't have to become soldiers for this guy. Unfortunately he got exposed to the ooze that made us and was mutated into a rat man but...yeah. Basically, that's our story."

An actor who took it upon himself to rescue underground demon science experiments...wasn't that weird. Maybe Simon knew him. The part that Tony appeared to tap out was right at the end, when a man was mutated into a rat, making him frown in disbelief, sure there were at the very least some big gaps yet to fill in this tale.

"Have you considered that you're more insane than genius?" Tony proposed, as though this whole story had been a fantasy and Donnie wasn't standing before him obviously a karate turtle. At least he wasn't in some profound denial about the sadists who were dunking turtles in ooze.

"...are you trying to make me question my sanity? Because right now we're stuck underground in the aftermath of a volcanic eruption and I don't have my phone or the internet so admittedly I am probably very close to losing it."

Donnie sighed, moving to sit over by an actual wall that wasn't invisible. He had no idea what he should be doing here and it was beyond frustrating. That Tony seemed to only question any of his explanations just made him feel like he was doing something wrong, not giving the right answers somehow, not that it made sense in the context of his or his family's origins because how could he get that wrong.

Even as Tony was saying, "That would be pretty funny," he was aware he had done something wrong, and the square of his shoulders melted a sheepishly as Donnie dropped down, not entirely sure which part was the major misstep. After a beat of restlessly tapping against his chest, he managed to offer, "Sorry," then, "I'll stop asking." He didn't really like to talk about his dad, either. "You wanted to show me something," he tried to encourage, making an aborted movement like he would zip his mouth closed, promising, kind of, not to talk. Too much.

"It's...not that. I love my family. I want to show you their pictures or even dad's movies but my phone's not here so. ...and I know it might sound bizarre but...well truthfully we just learned everything I just told you within this past year. And it's a lot, but it hasn't changed anything. If anything, it's made dad that much more cooler now that we know who he used to be. And we've always been together but now...we're not."

Donnie hugged his arms around his knees. "Anyway, I showed you already. I thought maybe it could be a link, the shielding, the response from my goggles but yeah, guess it doesn't prove much of anything. We're still stuck here and can't go any farther than where someone wants us to."

Missing someone was definitely worse than preferring to think about them as little as possible, and Tony was pretty sure he couldn't really understand the loss that Donnie was feeling. He never really had someone he relied on that much. Hesitantly, he shuffled closer, waiting for any sign that he shouldn't before dropping himself down against the wall as well, arms hooked loosely around his knees.

"Pictures aren't going to show me much more than you already do," he said, tone just a little condescending like Donnie should have known well enough that he was already the best and worst parts of his family. Tony hadn't worked out how to escape that trap, either. "Whenever my friends had kids, you know, that was the best, I'd learn so much more about them than I could have seen otherwise through those little freaks." He drew his knees a little tighter, forgetting he was just supposed to me a facsimile, feeling a sick tug in his chest that he had to quickly talk over, "Besides, you're not going to show me anything better than the giant green rat pulling Iron Fist moves I've already got in my head." He pushed out one hand, palm flat in a strike he was pretty sure he had seen Danny do before.

He could no longer reassure anyone that they would be out of this place soon, they weren't stuck and it only looked like it was worse than ever. It really was worse than ever, and Tony was pretty sure it was his fault.

He didn't much like that tone, but it didn't quite match the words that Tony said then. No, Donnie hadn't thought of it that way. He'd never had to, because there was usually at least one other brother along, and it wasn't like they had much company outside of April.

"I don't know... My brothers are all very different. They're not into any of this tech and science stuff. And dad's not...green." He had to reconsider correcting whatever image Tony had in his head of Splinter, deciding to omit the part of him being only about three feet tall. "-but yeah, he'd probably kick your butt pretty easily." While Donnie wasn't sure who Iron Fist was, that maneuver was standard enough and he'd seen his little ratman father send people twice his size flying with such blows.

It didn't much ease the homesickness but sharing about his family seemed easier than swallowing down any false reassurances about their current situation. Truthfully Donnie felt like it was his fault for not doing enough, not pulling his weight in terms of their objectives. It was why he'd been brought here, right? To fix things? To figure it out? Maybe they were lofty goals for a fourteen-year-old to have but in the end it all circled back to him ultimately just wanting someone's approval.

See, Donnie was already ruining that perfect image Tony had, making him wrinkle his nose in disappointment and from his next best guess that this rat-man was hairless. He definitely preferred the green. "Are you kidding me? I've been handling New York City rats since before you were born. I'd wipe the floor with your dad," he argued, chin raised with pride and not even glancing Donnie's way to make sure he was properly annoyed by that. He'd have to stew in it, too, because Tony was already moving on with a nod toward that infuriating machine that Donnie probably understood better than he did to point out, "They're using all of that tech and science stuff that you taught them to figure out where you went right now. If you haven't been doing the same, you've been leaving valuable assets on the table."

...probably a good thing Tony didn't bring that up verbally, because Donnie couldn't not confirm that his father's new recent pastime was to shave himself and try to pass himself off as a human teenager when he went 'undercover.' Sonic thought it was a riot, but Tony was clearly a man of different tastes and expectations.

Donnie was however quite confident that his father could beat up anyone, and by proxy they could too because they'd learned everything they knew from him and his movies.

The thought of his brothers trying to use any of his tech back home made him cringe. "Oh I hope not, they should know better than to tamper with my tech- do you think they'd do that?" Thanks, now he was horrified at the thought of his stuff getting messed up and him not being there to do anything about it. Maybe if they still had his brain capacity, but he'd since restored their IQs to their dumb-selves after realizing that living with three of him was going to be more than insufferable.

Tony breathed a laugh and rolled his eyes up to the ceiling to relinquish the evidently ineffective point he was trying to make, then gave a nod of understanding with a tick of his own grimace, yeah, he could understand not wanting anyone going through the shop. Maybe that was the more effective path. "Anything else you're glad you don't have to worry about anymore?" he asked. Plenty of things to miss and feel homesick about were never going to be overpowered by the relief from petty grievances, but Tony had convinced himself pretty well that he was better off here and sometimes that helped him sleep. "I don't miss taxes. Accountants, in general."

That...was a tough one, Donnie would have to admit. "Thankfully I've never had to deal with either. Guess that comes with living in a sewer, which I guess I don't miss the smell..." Unfortunately he didn't have much to compare to for the better when it came to living in a sewer and living...here.

At least he'd stopped hugging his knees, instead drumming his fingers against his purple kneepads.

"......"

It was telling when he was coming up short with answers. He'd been pretty content with his life. Go figure it took being dropped on a practically deserted alien planet to realize these things.

Okay, maybe that was worse. It didn't look worse. Was it worse? Tony was still holding his knees so his restless tapping wasn't so obvious as the silence stretched on and it became clear that there really wasn't anything that Donnie could think to dislike that much about life on Earth compared to a weird alien tunnel with sparse food and communal showers.

Abruptly, Tony tried to spur on, "That bodega at 16th and 8th that has the hole in the floor. Pretty sure that's where they get the water for their coffee." Maybe Donnie didn't know anything about those kind of things either. "This gal I knew in grade school who called me a sissy after hitting me in the face with a baseball. She was twice my age, I mean, please. I think I was doing alright."

"There's this one pizza place, claims it's New York pizza but it so isn't, I think they're from out of town, you can tell," Donnie attempted, half-heartedly. "...I'm not sure I follow this chain of events- was it because of whatever reaction you had to getting a baseball thrown in your face that she called you a sissy and why'd she even do something like that?"

"Oh! Things I do not miss- The Purple Dragons. Those guys really get on my nerves but I usually get the upperhand on them for the most part."

Now there was something Tony could get passionate about, hands already up in clawed frustration to commiserate, "There's one of those right at the edge of Little Italy, shameless, always full of tourists, and this wizard I know down there insists on still ordering. I hope it gives him the runs. Wizards."

He had much less passions about the girls who tortured him in his life, and a lot more resignation that took some of that heat out of him to tip his head back against the wall and explain, "She was pitching. Can't even really blame her aim, I was pretty small, she was kind of right. Still don't miss her."

Very slightly, he tilted his head to give Donnie a sidelong look, taking another wild swing in his life and asking, "Do you have a nemesis?"

"Eyew, well there's the problem, clearly, he's a wizard."

Not that Donnie personally knew any wizards outside of the random wizard cosplayers that for whatever reason he saw around the city.

Dismal sports experiences. He nodded solemnly, finding it somewhat relatable, even if he'd never played with anyone outside of his brothers, although that was more than enough. Sports were definitely not his strong-point, but at least he tried!

"Nemesis? Yuck, I wouldn't go that far, but I mean... Well okay, my friend and I may have gotten them house-arrested after foiling their big plan to gain access codes that'd give them free reign across practically every computer using a specific processor so they kind of have some beef with me I guess."

"Once you throw down with someone more than three times, you're kind of in the nemesis bracket," Tony pointed out, because Donnie had said 'usually', somewhat apologetically. There were a few idiots who couldn't seem to help themselves that Tony would find incredibly humiliating to call a nemesis as well. Belatedly, he sat up with attention, hands on his knees to look even more dubious as he acknowledged, "You do have friends." Either here or back on Earth, Donnie hadn't made it sound like he had a flourishing social life.

He was ticking off encounters in his head as Tony spoke. "They're a high school tech club that I may or may not have tried to join on the account of their glorious purple satin jackets but that was before I found out that they were delinquents!"

Huffing, Donnie folded his arms. He was still a little sore about that. The jacket, that is, he absolutely adored that jacket.

"A few, I guess. I can count them on one hand, it's not a huge list. And April's our only human friend but she's basically family by this point."

Tony repeated, "Our friend," under his voice with an exaggerated nod of understanding, which he would have to come back to because Donnie had slipped in another phrase that Tony was led to believe he shouldn't expect. "You're in high school and the worst thing you can think about Earth is bad pizza? I did high school for less than a year and I was lonelier then than when I was homeless. Than I am here."

"What, no, it's April's high school, I just sneak in now and then to help her with homework but ohmygosh I'd love to go to high school! Or any school! How could you not like high school, you get to learn things!!"

Either his belief of how school should be was highly skewed or Tony just had terrible experiences. Then again Donnie wasn't really wanting to go for the social part of it. Well, maybe that factored in too. After all, if you did amazingly in high school then you were bound to be acknowledged for your superb intellect, right?

He promptly deflated as Tony's words sunk in. That was a lot there, even if it was one sentence.

It was possible that Tony could understand how that might sound fun to a very curious person living underground. It might even be possible to manufacture that idealized experience, so after Tony gave another soft laugh, watching Donnie narrowly, he offered gently, "You wanna go to high school?" It wasn't a terrible idea; it seemed like another kid was showing up here every day, and Donnie wasn't the only one who had a particular feeling about it. "I'll even do you one better, if there's someone you want to 'help with their homework'," Tony added, eyebrows raised expectantly.

"High school, maybe college- would high school be too easy? I don't know... I guess I'd technically need high school experience to go to college, is that how it works? Or is that just for jobs..."

Donnie's mood had picked up a bit, although only slightly because school was still a far concept, much more so, here. He blinked before eyeing Tony suspiciously.

"Whaaaat are you getting at exactly."

Tony gave another soft laugh and hoped it would help Donnie catch on as he said, "It can work any way you want it to. You could even teach a class or two, if you don't get too much homework."

He held up his hands innocently at Donnie's pressing, though, not any more forthcoming as he said, "Just an offer."

"I don't know, the me-teaching part kind of defeats the purpose of going to school, doesn't it? ...also is P.E. mandatory?" Sports were not Donnie's forte, as much as he didn't mind playing them.

His lips twisted in uncertainty as he continued to eye Tony. "...are we still having the same conversation?"

"Fine, okay, you can be a an obedient, little pupil, just like everyone else," Tony allowed, waving his hands then to discharge any other suggestions he might have had that would intrude on Donnie's incredibly typical educational experience. "We'll get you uniforms and everything, you'll look very smart, sweetheart."

As for his questions, Tony was still committed, and only said, "It's an important part of the high school experience, you won't be getting the full effect without it."

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