revivalproject | Anomaly

Entry tags:

Anomaly

WHO: Brothers
WHERE: Turtlehouse
WHAT: Trying not to implode
WHEN: Shortly after the Murder Boys strike again
WARNINGS: N/A

Everything worked just like he'd coded it to. He'd had no doubts when it came to that sort of thing, but always, always there could be improvements. Unfortunately when it comes to matters like people committing murders, you needed to refine everything as quickly as possible, to stop things before they could get worse. There's no room for mistakes, no trial by error.

But this? This was all wrong.

Donnie had abruptly abandoned his soldering work at the notification going off on his tablet. "Ha-ha! I've got you now, fiend!" he'd cackled gleefully to himself, bringing up the windows he'd preset to identify code changes to anything connected to the network.

"All right, now let's see who's... Huh?"

But that couldn't be. "What the- No, that's not right." Except how could it be wrong? He'd coded it and gone over the coding how many times? And that was exactly why it was so concerning. The string of numbers identifying the original user before the network name change was too deeply familiar to him, but he could only stare, stunned at the change log, uncomprehendingly.

"It's...me?"

He'd spent much too long going over things again, looking for anything he must have somehow missed, because surely the error must be on his end, but how could it? You checked! Too bogged down with one task, completely stuck that he'd been unable to refocus on the real issue. That realization comes slamming in with Tae's report, and it's all at once too much information trying to be processed.

He could have said something. He should have said something. Could have should have but did you why didn't you you were too busy trying to work out your own stupid problems that probably weren't even a problem to begin with why didn't you do anything because of you– Robin...!

Overthinking things is hardly new but this is like being in the Agrii ship at the moment of an emergency, all over again, bringing Donnie to a standstill.

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Leo's not home when Tae's post goes out, out getting them food from the Diner because Pizza Supreme knows Donnie won't go get food for himself. He's waylaid a bit by the announcement, as he spends time arguing with Tae over the network and wonders why it seems like no one is doing anything-

But he and Donnie are doing something about it. He hurries back as fast as he can once he hangs up on Tae, not wanting to be out here alone anymore. Not that he'd ever admit that.

"Hey!" he calls out as he opens the door to the warehouse. "You are not gonna believe the talk I just had with these stupid-"

He trails off when he realizes Donnie is not, as Leo expected him to be, bent over his work table, hard at work with his inventions, or hunched over the computer, hands flying over the keyboard. Donnie is sitting with his tablet, for sure, but he's frozen, staring at the screen like someone hit the pause button.

Leo shuts the door, setting the food on one of the only clear spaces they have before stepping closer. "Dee...?"

Distantly he'd become aware that his brother had returned. None of his brothers are exactly very subtle about these sorts of things, but Leo could have still been miles away.

His eyes are fixed on some point beyond the screen in front of him, past all the windows and data, pointless, useless data that's done absolutely nothing-

Donnie jolts slightly at Leo's voice once he's come closer, breath catching in his throat like he's just remembered to inhale. Swallowing a lump in his throat, he slowly turns his head towards his brother, his expression still mostly one of shock, but that look of someone utterly lost seems a foreign thing on his face.

Edited 2024-09-12 22:24 (UTC)

Something has happened.

Leo might not know what it is yet, but he knows it was bad. Leo's seen Donnie in all manner of distress over the years, from furious that someone broke one of his inventions to panicked when one of them didn't work as intended to genuine sadness he tried to hide from the world, but this stunned silence is a newer one, and Leo doesn't have a playbook to follow.

(Well, besides the little voice in his head that whispers, Get Raph, because there's no Raph here to get.)

Leo comes the rest of the way over to Donnie now that Donnie's looking at him. He smiles in a way he hopes is reassuring, crouching so he's not standing over Donnie.

"Heeey, Don-ton," he says, coaxing. "Let's just hang here and take a few more breaths together, huh? Sound fun?"

Breathe, right. He...he knows how to that. Why's he so bad at this?

Donnie doesn't buy that smile for even a second, there's no reason for smiles, not after everything, Not after you screwed up so bad!

Fun might not be the term he'd use, but it gives Donnie some direction, something to push himself out of that blank space he'd fallen into. He gives a hesitant nod, drawing in another breath.

Leo watches as Donnie sucks in another breath, then waits while he does a few more, breathing himself so, what, Donnie has something to follow? He thinks he's seen something like this on TV, anyway...

He'll wait until Donnie seems to be breathing a little more regularly and then ask, "What happened?" Wondering, more importantly, who hurt him. Because whoever it was, Leo will hurt them back.

It seems to be helping, somehow, and while it doesn't really disperse of any of the tension that Donnie's shoulders are locked into, he's at least breathing. They aren't the fullest breaths, each one he takes in like he's afraid it might be too much.

His face twists at Leo's question, an inevitable one but no less easier to have to answer. He's not even quite sure how to answer.

"R...Robin..." he starts, which turns out to be a poor choice as he tries to draw in upon himself, and he presses a knuckle against his mouth as he thinks about what Tae had said, about what had happened to one of his friends.

Oh.

Leo hears the name, but takes the wrong understanding; he reaches out to touch Donnie's arm, trying to comfort him.

"Hey, it's alright; the doc says she's going to make a full recovery! She even said she'd let me know when she can have visitors, so you can go see her."

Not exactly what Tae said, but Leo doesn't get bogged down in specifics. He'll swallow his pride and contact her about Robin if it will get Donnie to stop looking like... this.

"That's not-" Donnie grimaces, shaking his head before finally blurting out, "It's my fault!"

His head sinks lower between his shoulders, his arms however stiff and straight as though they're the only thing holding the rest of him up as he hunches forward, the purple tablet sliding from his lap as his fingers tighten over his ankle instead.

"I didn't- I should have done something, but I didn't and Robin almost died because I didn't. Oh the irony, it was my tablet that was being used at the time, somehow- why? How? Haha, I don't know!" A mirthless chuckle escapes him, teasing out some of the tension, but his head remains bowed.

"But it was, so essentially it's all the same thing, right? My fault, one way or another, even when I wasn't doing it- or no, exactly because of that! I said that, right?"

Leo pulls back a bit at the sudden outburst, having to take in a lot of information at once. That it was Donnie's tablet, somehow, that made the call this time. That Donnie blames himself for what's happened. That Donnie is falling apart in front of him, and Leo feels a rush of panic because sudden emotional upheaval is not his area of expertise.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" he says, really putting his hands on Donnie's shoulders now, if only to keep him from keeling over. "Donnie, whatever happened is not your fault, okay? You don't even know how that clown got your tablet!"

The gesture forces Donnie to look at Leo, actually look at him, temporarily derailing that terrible train of thought before he shakes his head.

"I still could have stopped it! If I hadn't gotten so caught up about that detail then I could have- I should have at least said something on the network- warned everyone, that was the point, that was the whole reason I set up that alert! But no, I got stuck on the fact that someone was using my own tablet- how??" The way he looks at Leo then is imploring, demanding an answer that he doesn't have himself.

"I- it's right here, both of them are-" he says, looking from the one that's on the floor in front of him to the general direction of the one left on the table, the actual one from the Agrii that mostly serves as a signal receiver for all the updates from the ship.

Ah geez. Leo can't give him an answer, either.

He squeezes Donnie's shoulders. "It happened fast, Dee. We don't know if it would have helped. Tae said... Tae said it may not have even been the same person, so..."

But Leo believes it was, so the defense falls flat. But that still doesn't mean he thinks this was Donnie's fault! He's been running himself ragged trying to help everyone here, with this and with other stuff. Leo's seen it every day. Just getting Donnie to sleep is a struggle.

"We'll figure out what happened with the tablets, but let's calm down first, alright?"

The lack of sleep isn't really helping his crushed mood, his mind still running itself exhausted in a whirl of what-if's and why-didn't-you's. Sighing raggedly, Donnie drags his hands down his face.

"I can't." How can he possibly calm down? Everything he'd been trying so hard to make work so they could stop anyone else from getting hurt and it had all fallen apart so easily because the problem boiled down somehow to himself. Donnie had failed somewhere and he couldn't figure out how, and that had cost Robin her safety. Great job looking out for the person who had looked out for him once, only nearly got her killed...

“Sure you can,” says Leo, faking confidence he doesn’t have. “You’re the emotionally unavailable bad boy, remember?”

Is that helping? He has no idea. He doesn’t let go of Donnie, though.

“We’re gonna figure this out, okay? It’s gonna be alright.”

That might have been a laugh or a sob, it's hard to tell when it's muffled behind his hands. Donnie falls silent, but the unspoken question hangs there. Will they be able to figure it out? No one has so far, no one seems to have even been trying aside from maybe one or two people apart from themselves but he really has no idea.

He may not be fully convinced of Leo's reassurances, but his brother sounds like he actually believes it- he's good at that, really, something Donnie might envy him for although he'd never admit it- and right now, Donnie knows he needs to believe it too.

It's hard to get a good breath in when you're curled in like a shrimp but Donnie sucks one in anyway, leaning forward to drop his forehead against Leo, if he can manage. And then finally, very, very quietly:

"...okay."

Oh thank the Pizza Supreme in the Sky, Leo didn’t know what he was going to do if Donnie resisted.

He takes a deep breath to calm himself, pulling himself together. Right now he has to be the strong one, and he is going to do it if it kills him.

He wraps his arms around Donnie, just holding him for a minute. The mystery of the tablets can be solved after this.

He's just making more problems. Something in him tightens when he feels Leo's arms drop around him, but Donnie remains where he is, too tired to do anything more, too numb to really feel completely comforted by the gesture. Knowing that Leo's there helps. His overthink's finally hit a wall, successfully keeping him from distressing over how much worse things would have been without someone familiar there.

Yet despite how tired he feels, his body's still too tense to allow himself to doze, so he just sits there.

That’s okay. Sleeping can come later - hopefully Donnie will be able to wind down, or collapse with exhaustion, after they do what they need to.

He finally pulls back, though doesn’t move his hands, supporting Donnie so he doesn’t fall forward.

“Let’s grab the tablets and look at them. Maybe we can find a clue.” He gives Donnie as wide a smile as he can. “If they hacked us, we can hack ‘em right back, right?”

With Leo pulling back, Donnie forces himself to do the same. At least he looks less lost about everything and just tired. An improvement? Maybe. At least it's a little easier to disconnect from the emotional stuff he purportedly despises when he's too tired to care.

There's still no padding the sting of the suggestion that someone had managed to get the best of him, surfacing in the slightest flinch. "If," Leo had said. There has to be an explanation, although Donnie's not sure if any explanation can possibly salvage his pride. He nods all the same, shifting his legs with a sudden wince as he finds they've fallen asleep. "Owowow..."

Ah… guess that can happen when you lock your whole body up for awhile.

Leo gets up, wincing a little himself after being crouched for so long. At least his legs aren’t pins and needles, though.

“Shake out your hammys and let’s get comfy in the living room,” says Leo, scooping the purple tablet off the floor. The living room in this case being the seating they’ve haphazardly assembled around their screen. It’s something.

Grumbling, perhaps a slightly positive sign in itself, Donnie wiggles before stretching out his legs. While Leo grabs that tablet, he starts crawling over towards the kitchen area where the other one sits on the table, eventually hauling himself to his feet to grab it. He cringes with each step as he makes his way back to where Leo is.

A lot of their furniture may just be stuff thrown together with blankets covering it, but what matters is that it's comfy enough to relax on, especially for watching movies. Besides, dragging actual furniture from the department store is a pain.

"Sigh. All right, let's get this over with," Donnie mutters, sinking down to sit.

Leo sits next to Donnie, not quite touching but just there if he wants. The constant reminder that he isn’t alone.

He sets the tablet in his lap, then looks over at the other in Donnie’s, and its constant pings from the ship.

“Do you know which one the call came from?”

"It had to be from the original," Donnie says after a moment at glaring down at the screen. "Unless they somehow managed to mask that too." Bitter? Just a bit.

Get it together, Donnie.

Unprompted, he takes a few breaths to try keeping his head clear before he swipes the screen active so he could bring up the coding windows.

Dang, he’s mad mad. Of course he is, if he thinks someone managed to get one over on him with tech. But even that feels crazy to Leo, because who is better at computers than Donnie?

Than again, the datapoint weirdness means that Donnie could have missed something just because he couldn’t have all his knowledge all the time. Seems like a glaring issue to Leo…

Anyway, he leans in to watch as Donnie boots up the tablet. The answer must be in here.

He absolutely hates the possibility that he'd missed something, especially when he was sure that he'd gone over everything over a dozen times. Maybe that's why he missed something? Had he taken a break to look at things with a fresh pair of eyes? What's the point of worrying about it now?

Focus on the problem now, yell at yourself later.

Donnie's eyes narrow at the codes, ignoring the pings- ugh, how can he work with those...! He squeezes his eyes shut, frustrated, before bringing up yet another window to temporarily pause the notifications so he could-

His eyes widen.

"Wait, what..?"

Leo might not be a tech guy, but he has, very reluctantly, learned a few things in his time here, particularly as he works on code with Donnie while he has the Comms datapoint. Which is still active, so when Donnie pulls up the screen to pause notifications, he notices it, too.

“Uh… that doesn’t look right.”

Does this mean what Leo thinks it means?

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