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minumi-chan · 1 year

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Everything is Figure-outable - Ch. 1

Read on A03

Rated: G

Summary: Donnie endures the hug, maybe even enjoys it just a smidge. Mikey doesn't hug him like he is taking something. He hugs like he's giving you something, small and warm and precious, and it makes his touch so much more tolerable even when Donnie is feeling at his most skittish.

A/N: okay but.... Did anyone else catch the story Leo told in the heist ep with Hueso and Piel, where he frackin yanked out Donnie’s tooth and it was thewrongone?? Leo, my guy... commit to your actions less please... That's what inspired this chapter. The age in the chaps refers to Donnie, so if he is seven, Mikey is six. CW: for pulling teeth, and minor blood related to said pulling.

This work is part of a series, all stories intersect but can be read separately. This story focuses on Donnie and Mikey. There's a Disaster Twins story, as well as a Raph and Donnie story.

Seven years old...

In the middle of their shared room, Donnie whines quiet pitiful little cries. Such an urgent expression of emotion only ever prompted in the little softshell when under great duress. He gasps for his next breath, feeling the wetness on his chin and wiping absently, but his hands come away sticky. When he looks down at his fingers they are shiny with blood laden spittle, and his eyes widen as his small hands shake.

Leo frets in front of him, looking between his brother’s mouth, his own hands holding a long cord of string and his brother’s crumpling expression as he stares at his bloodied fingers. He blinks at his brother’s mouth and stares a little bewildered seeing the loose tooth he was meant to be extracting still in his gums. Meanwhile in his hands... Oh no...

“D-Donbon? Um... I think, it’s okay, we can... maybe put it back?” Leo folds his hands around the bloodied tooth in his palm and smiles nervously as his twin’s breaths quicken. Donnie inhales deeply, chest puffing up, “No, no, no, no, no, Donnie, wait--”

Donatello wails at the top of his lungs, long piercing and awful around a wide open bleeding mouth.

Leo can only break into a cold sweat as he hears multiple pairs of footsteps rushing towards the twins’ room, questioning shouts barely audible over Donnie’s screams. Panicking as their eldest and youngest brothers burst into the room, Leo chucks the tooth over his shoulder and plants his feet wide in front of his shrieking twin as if he had not just ripped a whole tooth out of his mouth.

“Donnie!! Leo!! What’s wrong? Did you-- punch him in the mouth??” Raph exclaims upon seeing one bleeding little brother and the other very guilty looking twin.

“IT’S N-NOT MY FAULT, DONNIE ASKED ME T-TO DO IT!!” Leonardo squawks over his twin’s howling, face scrunched into something between intense guilt and unconvincing denial.

“He asked you to punch him?!” Raphael draws up to his full height looming over the twins with every ounce of big brother energy, as Leo begins his frantic explanation.

“No!! Both our tooths were loose--”

“T-Teeth,” Donnie can't help but interject between great gulping sobs.

“But teeths doesn’t rhyme, Donnie, we went over this--”

“Leo--” Raphael growls the name slowly in rising irritation.

“They were loose, but mine fell out this morning and we wanted to get our tooth fairy visit at the same time--”

“S’not a f’rie. S’papa who--!” Donnie slurs still crying, alarmed when Raph suddenly steps in front of him signaling to stop frantically. Raph jerks his head towards Mikey blinking innocently at them from the doorway still.

“So Donnie--” Leo takes advantage of the interruption and points accusingly at his twin, “Said we could just get his tooth to come out with a string. So I got it out! And now, he’s being a baby about it--”

Donatello screams in wordless rage and barrels around Raphael to pounce on his twin’s shell. The resulting chaos is loud.

“Donnie-- wait, just--”

“OW!! OW!! Get off!! I’ma bite you--” Leonardo graples against his twin’s fingers reaching vindictively towards his mouth.

“Donnie, quit it-- this isn't helping!” Raph grips the back of Don’s hoodie and pries him off the wriggling slider, holding Donnie aloft while he still kicks and shrieks bloody murder around his sobs. “Let me see Dee, just for a sec-- what the-- Leo!! His loose tooth is still there!!”

“HE ASKED ME TO DO IT!! IT WAS HIS IDEA!!”

“He asked you to pull the WRONG tooth??” Raph sets the soft shell down onto his feet, letting go only when it seems like he will no longer lunge at their brother. He stays firmly between him and Leo to prevent another scuffle.

“Well, I thought it was a little weird it was so hard to pull-- but hey, now we’ll have three tooths for the fairy!!”

“Teeth!!” Donnie cries, crouching into a little ball of misery and just covering his ears.

“Leo-- Are you serious right now!! What were you thinking!!”

“I told you!! Donnie was the one doing the thinking, that’s why this plan didn’t work!!”

“Cut it out! You hurt your brother, now apologize!”

“What!”

“You heard me!”

“No way!!”

“Leo--”

“I didn’t do anything wrong!!”

As their back and forth shouting only gets louder, Donnie just wants to crawl into a hole and make everything quiet. He jaw throbs where the gap in his gums bleeds and his skin feels like it’s prickling all over between the pain and the noise and the--

A small hand takes hold of one of his own, and Donnie startles with a hitching breath, looking up at the concerned face of his littlest brother. Mikey puts a single finger to his smiling lips and tugs at Donnie’s hand for him to follow. He doesn’t fight it as his little brother leads them out of the room and down the hall, leaving their elder brothers to their argument.

Almost immediately Donnie’s skin stops feeling three sizes too small for his body. The prickly sensation is still present, but much less nauseating. The little box turtle pushes him into one of the bean chairs in the living room and motions for him to wait. Michelangelo’s paints and artwork are strewn about the tv room, papers upon papers of unfinished or still wet artwork are arranged by color family across a good portion of the floor. Several tubes of paints are in various stages of use, some unopened and spilling onto the floor, where Mikey has mixed them into a makeshift palette. Papa is not going to be too happy when he gets back and sees that part...

The patter of feet returning distracts Donnie from analyzing the messy work of his little brother. Fat tears running down his cheeks and bloody spittle drips down his chin, reigniting his discomfort. But Mikey is there with a ready smile on his round little face as he hands over a clean towel, a bag of ice, and the first aid kit their father has taught them all to use. While he is still too upset to smile back, Don accepts the towel with a sigh of relief. The ice is uncomfortable but feels soothing against the throbbing in his mouth. Donnie does a quick mental checklist of what would make the most sense to use for this kind of injury. Sniffling, he riffles through the contents of the box set on his lap, finding a small tube of numbing tooth gel. It isn’t really something they have often have use for, but it theoretically should stop the pain... if only it weren’t so disgusting.

With a shaky breath he uncaps the tube, squeezing the slightly sticky gel onto a finger and reaching for his mouth. As soon as he feels the squishy emptiness of the now toothless gap in his gums, Donatello dry heaves, pulling his hand away from his mouth immediately to spit bile around a whimper.

“Dee?” Mikey’s voice is a barely above whisper, he leans into Don’s side and offers, “Want me to do it?”

Donnie wipes his chin with the towel again, blinking around watery eyes and looking at Mikey for a long minute before nodding. He relinquishes the tube to his younger brother and tries to even his breaths again as Mikey’s hands draw nearer to his face.

“Say aaahh--” Mikey teases, pinching his tongue between his own gapped teeth.

His fingers are covered in dried paint that Don worries will now be in his mouth as Mikey slathers a little too much gel on. Donnie pulls back with another gag, but thankfully doesn’t heave this time. Relief slowly suffuses his mouth, but the taste and the sensation of tingling leave his mouth salivating so much he starts to drool uncomfortably. Was there ever even a comfortable amount of drool??

“Oh! Wait, I know what’ll help!!” Mikey whirls away, running straight across the palette of paints on the floor and spreading colors everywhere he steps. Oh Papa is so going to make them scrub the floor later....

The hum of the fan gives him something to focus on other than the slow steady throb in his mouth. He sup sups his next few breaths and chirps out a pained little whine to himself. Readjusting his cheek on the bag of ice his little brother had prepped for him, he whimpers softly at the odd tingle of numbness in half of his mouth as he tries to wipe the spit away with the now damp towel. Pink tinged saliva drips down his chin no matter how much he wipes, and Donnie huffs an uncomfortable sob at the sensation.

“Dun cry, Dee... S’okay, here--” Mikey’s at his side again, pressing a paint stained cup to his mouth and motioning for Donnie to spit in it. His small clumsy hands press a little too hard, but Donnie spits obediently, removing some of the excess gel from his mouth in the process.

Before he can express his gratitude to his little brother, Leo’s sheepish face pops around the corner of the couch, “Donnie? You need any help?”

Donnie glares at his brother, even as his eyes water again, but the numbing gel makes his tongue too thick to form words properly, “Oh aweh!!”

"Aww, c’mon Don--"

“Leo.”

Michelangelo is a head shorter than them on a good day, but he draws up his tiny body in front of Donnie like a tank.

“Donnie’s not talking to you right now."

Leonardo blinks down at their little brother.

“W-Why are you being so creepy?? I was just tryna help!” Leo squeaks, head ducking into his shell in dejection when Mikey crosses his arms.

“Not today!!” The uncharacteristic aggression in Mikey’s voice has both twins staring in shock. “Expect his space!”

“Ruh-spak--” Donnie tries to correct automatically, but his tongue will not cooperate.

“That’s right, respect Don’s space, Leo. Out,” Mikey points towards the doorway.

Leo hesitates, “But--”

“OUT!!” He stomps his little foot with a determined glare and Leo wilts, looking at Donnie one last time before slinking away.

Donnie knows he’ll be back, and maybe he’ll even feel like listening to his inevitably poor apology when he returns. But right now, he’s glad to have his little defender keeping his most annoying brother at bay until he feels better. Mikey waits until Leo is out of sight before sitting on the floor in front of Don and pulling a blank paper near. He neglects all of the many brushes at his fingertips in favor of dipping his fingers straight into some paint to begin a new piece of art.

The sound of Michael’s fingers drifting across the paper and the hum of the fan is the only thing that breaks the comfortable silence between them. Normally, Mikey would be talking his ear off excitedly about whatever idea he was putting to paper, but his little brother has become surprisingly adept at knowing when Donnie needed quiet time to center himself again. Squishing further into the bean bag, Donnie rests his cheek on the back of ice and lets his eyes close against the dull throb in his mouth, quietly sniffling to himself.

He’s nearly dozed off when a warm hand on his cheek startles him into sitting up again. His littlest brother pouts, hand outstretched, now waiting for his permission. Donnie sup sups again, but he nods. Purple paint stains streaks his cheek as Mikey wipes away a stray tear. With an annoyed huff, he wipes his other cheek before Mikey can stain that one too.

“Oops,” Michelangelo grins and Donnie knows it was on purpose, but he can’t truly get mad at that gap toothed smile. Frowning for show, he looks down at the paper in his little brother’s hands.

He struggles around the numbness in his mouth, tonguing at the gap of the missing tooth and shivering in disgust at the squishy feeling. Mikey frowns at him in concern, but he just shakes his head to reassure he’s mostly fine now. Wiggling his snout towards the paper, he tilts his head in question and waits.

Bouncing with enthusiasm, Michael turns it around for him to see, careful to only handle the corners where the paint is driest.

“It’s ta make ya feel better! Lookit-- This is me and this is you! We gots matching tooth gaps!!”

Donnie studies the drawing presented to him. Michelangelo must have picked up his brushes at some point while he was dozing to fill in the details, because his depiction of the pair of them is impressively accurate. He looks over the details in their faces, the wide grins prominently displaying their gapped teeth. Mikey even got their unique scale markings correct. Squinting at his own face, he studies the thick elegant brows Michael drew over his mask and glasses, eyes widening in delight and rubbing over his own browless forehead as he stares at the drawing contemplating several possibilities for adopting the trait in the near future. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Mikey start to rock side to side with a satisfied grin.

His fingers are careful not to smudge as he traces the phrase Michael wrote crooked across the top of the work.

Wǝ go togǝttǝᴙ likǝ pǝaᴎut aᴎd jǝlly buttǝᴙ, bay-bǝǝ!! 🐝~💜🧡

Some of his letters are backwards, there’s an extra T in together, and no H at all. He has placed the word ‘butter’ after the wrong condiment entirely and Donnie is sure he hasn’t even noticed it. It’s a struggle to keep his eye from twitching as he looks at the mistakes, the corrections waiting on the tip of his tongue even as he holds them back. But his silence makes Mikey's face start to fall a bit, looking at the drawing worried and then back at Donnie.

"Did I spell something wrong again?"

Donnie looks up from the page to his only little brother. Slowly he grins wide just like in the drawing, tilting his face to emphasize his new tooth gap.

"No. S'perfect," he tickles under Mikey's chin and is rewarded with a peel of giggles and a flailing hand that slaps unfortunately at the achy side of his face, "O-Ow..."

“Sowwie!!”

Donnie pokes at Mikey’s snout in answer, pushing him away with a single finger as he bursts into laughter again. It distracts him from the hurt in his face, and makes somewhere in his chest fill with something heavy and warm. Putting his ice bag in his hoodie pocket, he takes hold of the painting carefully, and offers Michelangelo his free hand without a word. Mikey bounces with excitement and folds both his little hands around his older brother’s, following him without question as he leads them out of the tv room and towards the area designated recently as his “lab.”

It’s a work in progress and he only has a workbench for when he’s pulling apart electronics, and a separate desk area for the PC he is building. He stops in front of the mess of casing and wires, stretching onto his tiptoes to reach the corkboard Papa helped him mount to the wall behind the monitor. There he pins the artwork in a place of honor, where anyone walking into the lab can see.

He watches his little brother radiate with joyful pride to see his work displayed so prominently, little hands squishing his cheeks as he laughs to himself and rocks on his heels with excess energy. Donnie knows what he wants, and knows Mikey is trying really hard to avoid further discomforting him while he’s having a sensitive time. Still, Don lifts one arm up, opening up his side to his little brother.

“C’mere, Peanut,” he says aloud, and Michael’s eyes get impossibly bigger as he squeaks with joy and wraps himself around Donnie without further hesitation, rubbing his face into his hoodie with a delighted hum.

Donnie settles for patting his head lightly, and endures the hug, maybe even enjoys it just a smidge. Mikey doesn't hug him like he is taking something. He hugs like he's giving you something, small and warm and precious, and it makes his touch so much more tolerable even when Donnie is feeling at his most skittish. When Mikey looks up at him and beams, Donnie wonders if his face has the same silly look that Raphie gets whenever Donatello chooses to hug him.

He doesn’t pull away, or push Mikey back, not even when determined footsteps approach the entrance of his lab. His hand remains on Mikey’s head, keeping his little brother close even as he turns them towards the intruder.

“Okay ‘Tello-- hear me out!!” Leo says striding into the lab uninvited with hands up in a sign of pre-emptive surrender, “You can pull one a my tooths that’s not loose and we’ll call it even. Whatta ya say, Dontron?”

Teeth-- Donnie stares at his twin and valiantly keeps his correction a mental one, then tilts his face down to look Mikey in the eye, catching the subtle glint of chaotic fervor shining in it. Without answering, Donatello finally separates to turn and dig into the toolbox on his workbench. Pulling out what he needs, he throws the bag of ice freezing his hoodie pocket onto the bench where it lands with an ominous rattle.

“Deal,” he says low with his back still to Leo, before glancing at Michelangelo again. “Angelo, hold him down, please.”

“Can do!” Mikey cracks his little knuckles with a smile, pouncing on their elder brother before he can change his mind.

“Mikey, what--”

Donatello turns around and clicks his pliers together several times as he slowly approaches his twin, his manic gap toothed grin matching Michelangelo’s.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The echoes of Leonardo’s muffled screams make Raph race into the darkened interior of Donnie’s Lab and skid to a halt to stare in shock for the second time that day at the scene before him.

Mikey is octopus wrapped around Leo’s head and shoulders, patting his forehead aggressively while saying ‘there, there’ in a decidedly uncomforting way. Donnie is kneeling beside them, a bloodied tooth pinched in the nose of the pliers he has in hand, while he smushes a slightly melted bag of ice over Leo’s mouth. Leo stares at him tearily, pleading for his aid as he whimpers between the two youngest gremlins of the family.

“WHY ARE YOU GUYS THE WAY THAT YOU ARE?!?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: This is why Raphael has a chasm at 16 years young. x’DD

This story originally began its life as a chapter for my other story ‘A Twin Thing’ which is why it has so much Disaster Twins energy, but as it became more about Mikey and Donnie than the twins in the end, I decided to go in a different direction with it and make it a part of its own story featuring more Donnie and Mikey moments. I cover so many headcanons here, but one I want to point out is Donnie’s personal nickname for Mikey being ‘Peanut’ from the mistake he makes in his drawing. This nickname is referenced in the Bad!Future timeline chapter in ‘A Twin Thing,’ since this was initially meant to be a part of that storyline.

#rottmnt #rottmnt fic #tmnt fic #rise donnie #rise mikey #PB&J bros #brotherly bonding #family feels #disaster twins #being themselves #hurt/comfort #autistic donnie #series: wish we had just a little more time...#fanfic #sticky

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