Chapter Text
Donnie lost count at 53 hours.
He’d lost count at 53 hours because after that, time blended together in a mushy grey pile of brain matter that oozed out of his ears. After that, the blur of the last however-many-days turned into a fever dream where he waded waist-deep in Krang gunk, corrupted human bodies, and stormy skies, where Leo died somewhere in an alternate dimension and everything else broke apart. Where Casey was a nightmare from another timeline and he and his brothers were the helpless arbiters that decided the fate of Earth.
53 hours. All he knew was that he hadn’t slept in something over 53 hours, probably more. He didn’t know what day it was.
Donnie scavenged through their medical supplies with the ferocity of a rabid animal. They were short on everything. The Krang hadn’t been kind to their lair and benign Krang biomatter overtook the cupboards where they’d kept excess emergency supplies. He needed were painkillers and sterile bandages, and all they had was aspirin and colourful bandaids with rainbows on them.
He was going to need opioids for this.
Deep breath, Donnie. He sucked in his anxiety. Leo screamed from the medbay and, despite being desperate for the quiet solitude of the medical storage, Donnie couldn’t waste time in here any longer.
April was in the common room as he passed through, pacing while on the phone.
“April, I need your help,” said Donnie.
“Yeah, in a minute,” said April. “Mom? I have to go, I’ll be home—no. Mom, I’m fine, I hid out with friends the whole time and couldn’t get a signal—”
“April!”
“I just need a second.”
Donnie plucked the phone out of her hand and shouted into the receiver, “She’ll call you back!” He chucked it across the lair.
“Donnie!” April shouted. “I haven’t spoken to my parents in two days. You couldn’t give me a minute?”
“I need you to go grab all the masks that you can find in our rooms.”
“You made me get off the phone for that?! Donnie, your mask looks fine.”
“We need them for bandages.”
He didn’t elaborate further, didn’t give her a moment to question him. Donnie turned back to the medbay where Leo was screaming.
Donnie walked in on chaos. Raph was holding Leo down, who was thrashing uncontrollably. The medbay had already been a mess when they’d come in. Krang biomatter dripped down the walls and the ceiling, with the occasional eyeball or partially formed limb curling out of the mass, and it rather resembled a set for a horror movie, one where the serial killer chopped up his victims and left nothing of them behind larger than a toe. Leo was spread out on one examination table, and Mikey watched, sitting cross-legged, on the other, his burnt arms curled uselessly in his lap. Casey poked at the medical scanner looking stressed, and Splinter held Leo’s hand.
“We do not, in fact, have morphine or more clean bandages,” said Donnie.
“I thought we just got a bunch of that stuff,” said Raph.
“Yes, and then the Krang biomatter devoured it all, so unless you want to go tell those eyeballs to spit it up, we’re out of luck.”
“It’s a pretty serious bleed, Master Donatello,” said Casey. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea to do this without anesthetic.”
Donnie wasn’t listening. He pulled out a drawer containing surgical equipment, never used. The five-fingered gloves were not made for a mutant turtle’s hands.
“Purple, are you sure about this?” Splinter asked.
“No, Dad, I’m not sure,” said Donnie. “If we don’t relieve the pressure in Leo’s thigh now, he could either die of shock or lose the leg, and I don’t want to be the one to explain to Leo why he’s missing a limb.”
“You don’t have to explain it, I’m still awake,” said Leo.
“More’s the pity. My life is significantly improved whenever you’re not conscious.”
“Hey, give me a butter knife and some aspirin. I bet I could do it myself!”
“Leo, you can’t even play Operation properly,” Raph pointed out.
“Yeah, you cheat every time,” said Mikey.
“Only a boring pleb plays by the rules, and I’m a talented hotshot doctor who makes his own!” said Leo. “Now hand me a scalpel!”
“Oh, no, you are not doing this,” said Donnie. “You don’t even know what you’re doing, you’re only good for putting bandaids on skin lacerations.”
“As if you know any better.”
“I have the power of science on my side. In the time I was gone, I programmed an AI in my goggles to show me the exact steps to stop you from dying. You are welcome.”
April came back in with an armful of their masks, an array of orange and blue and red and purple, not especially absorbent but better than nothing.
Donnie did his best to prepare for what was coming, focusing entirely on the task rather than the potential results. He could do this. An overlay lit up in his goggles when he flipped them down, directing him to the worst of the damage. Leo had swelling in his upper left thigh, putting pressure on delicate veins and nerves.
That, on top of a break in the tibia, and the concussion, and the broken ribs, and a thin hairline crack in his shell—well, it was a lot. But he could handle it. Donnie could handle difficult tasks, problem-solving was what he was good at.
He reached for—shit. No gloves. He settled for washing his hands thoroughly. Donnie glanced over at Mikey, but April had him covered, lathering cream over his burns and then wrapping up his arms in the masks, speaking in low whispers. It wasn’t long before April looked at him, and Donnie guided her eyes out to the common room. He didn’t know how April picked up on what he was thinking, but she coaxed Mikey out of the bed and took him out, the door safely swishing shut behind them.
“Maybe…Maybe we should risk taking him to the hospital,” said Raph.
“Brilliant idea, Raph, why not call the government while we’re at it to tell them to come arrest us for not looking human enough?” Donnie drawled.
“Purple,” Splinter hissed. “We cannot risk it, Red.”
“This just seems like a really bad idea,” said Raph.
“Relax, Raph, I’ll be fine,” said Leo. “I mean, I’d like to do it myself, but Donnie’s my second pick. Hey, Donnie, make a scar that looks like a lightning bolt, m’kay?”
“Jones, wash up, I need you to hand me medical instruments,” said Donnie.
“Okay,” said Casey He was the only one in the room who looked relatively unfazed by Leo lying on the examination table—perhaps troubled, but not unfazed. Like it was something he was used to.
“Raph, why don’t you go help Mikey?” Leo suggested.
“April’s got him,” said Raph.
“April needs to go see her parents before they come storming down here to look for her.”
Raph was quiet.
“Go, it’s okay,” said Leo. “I’m fine.”
Donnie would’ve done anything to be in Raph’s place. He stared at the water running hot over his hands as Raph got up and hurriedly left.
Donnie wasn’t ready. He was calculating how much blood Leo could lose during the procedure. They had him hooked up to donated blood which they kept on hand, but the risks were extreme, and the shock could kill him, and there was no fucking morphine of all times—
No, he had to focus. He was solving a problem. Donatello solved problems, that was what he did.
Splinter used his assured strength to hold Leo down, and gave Leo a cloth to bite on. What Donnie wouldn’t do for a pair of gloves, but they’d never thought about it before. None of them had ever been hurt this badly. He made a mental note to develop a three-fingered glove and desperately wished he was in his workshop rather than working on someone who bled.
Donnie had been avoiding Leo’s face ever since they’d gotten back to the lair. He looked at him then and hated what he saw. Leo’s face was swollen, barely recognizable, black and blue.
“I know, I know…I’m finally ugly enough that you have a shot at being considered the pretty brother,” said Leo. “But you know what? I saved the fucking world.”
Donnie didn’t know what to say. He didn’t remember grabbing a scalpel, but there it was, and there was Leo’s swollen leg in front of him.
“You got this,” said Leo. “I’m ready.”
“This may be…it could—.” Donnie stopped to get control of his vocal chords. “There will be considerable pain.”
“Duh, you’re cutting my leg open. Remember what I said, though. Lightning scar.”
Donnie stared at the incision area. The overlay in his goggles directed him where to cut and what instruments to use, the full cheat code to being a doctor. A lightning scar was not a recommended option.
The atmosphere tensed before he sunk the scalpel into flesh, and Leo’s screamed pitched so high that Donnie fought every instinct to drop everything and run. Nausea punched hard into his stomach.
Leo flailed and squirmed and screamed, screamed, screamed. It barraged Donnie’s senses, he smelt rubbing alcohol and antiseptic, blood bubbled out of the incision which Casey was quick to wipe up, but it ran over his hands anyway, under his nails, down his forearm, dripping on the floor. It was an eternity of torment. Donnie followed the directions on his goggles, trying to concentrate even though the noise made his senses rattle, and it was only the knowledge that this was the only way and this was Leo’s life on the line, in Donnie’s hands, the heart rate monitor went beep-beep-beep in rapid succession, too fast, it was the only way.
Leo kept screaming and no one could talk until finally, finally, after seven of the longest minutes of Donnie’s life, he passed out.
Donnie was through a subcutaneous layer. He didn’t know what he was doing. Leo didn’t mind guts and gore and first aid, but Donnie hated the feeling of blood. The muscles and blood inside Leo felt so hot around his hand. He could feel Leo’s pulse in an adjacent vein resting against his finger.
Mid-incision through a layer of muscle, the tight nausea in his stomach jolted upwards.
“Casey, be useful and grab the garbage can,” said Donnie.
At least Casey was good at following directions. He brought it back.
“Okay, now hold it there.”
Donnie aimed true and threw up into it. Neither Splinter nor Casey seemed surprised, but Splinter’s cold hand settled on the back of his neck anyway, grounding him. He was still arm-deep in Leo’s leg muscles, but he locked all his nerves, all his joints, because any wrong move and he’d slice through something which would leave him paralyzed in that leg, and he would not be responsible for that, he refused.
“You are doing well, Purple,” said Splinter.
Donnie’s breath heaved heavy in his lungs. He set his forehead on the edge of the examination table, hands shaking as he fought to keep them in place. Don’t pass out, don’t pass out. The world was lurching.
“Future Boy, go grab some ice water from the kitchen,” Splinter ordered him.
“The hospital doesn’t seem so bad now,” Donnie said the moment the door closed behind Casey.
“How close are you?” Splinter asked. He wrung a cloth under cold water in the sink and placed it on the back of Donnie’s neck.
“Um…I…I think I’m almost done, I need to—I have to leave the wound open to…to help the swelling…” A wave of dizziness almost made Donnie collapse off the chair. Splinter’s hands steadied him. “Remind me to never become a doctor.”
Casey returned with a glass. Splinter helped feed the water down Donnie’s throat while his hands were occupied holding Leo’s leg open, exposing the nerves and veins and fibres underneath. He shook off some dizziness; the water helped, but getting done as soon as possible was the only thing that would rid him of it entirely.
He severed through connective tissues. At once, his goggles indicated that the pressure went down, but he still had to make several more cuts before the red warnings disappeared.
Donnie was struck just by how much he didn’t know what he was doing. If it hadn’t been for his tech, he would’ve killed his brother right there on the operating table. But it was over. He had to leave the wound open to help relieve the pressure, but he sanitized and wrapped it up as best as he could. He didn’t want to think about how much agony Leo was going to be in when he woke up.
“Well done, my son,” said Splinter.
The praise should’ve felt good. Donnie just felt sick and tired. The blood pooling down his arms ran a deep red.