Ironhearted

The Leg Brace Project

The crisp fall wind calmed Donnie down as he stood in the park, purple hoodie on and all. It's been a few weeks since the invasion, and New York was still recovering greatly. The park was a littered mess still, debris strewn about everywhere. Donnie was getting cramped in the lair, so he asked Mikey and Raph to keep an eye on Leo, who was still recovering in the medbay. He needs to continue on that leg brace, he thinks to himself. Donnie glanced toward the fountain, hoping the nice architecture of the statue that adorned it would help.

Oh.

It was destroyed. Donnie's hopes fell as he saw volunteer workers cleaning up the rocks, tossing the tiny pieces into garbage cans. What a waste, and he's going to miss that statue. He spotted a bench, far away from the others, heading towards it. He takes his phone out, starting to scroll through his daily feed. It amazes him how quickly the city was able to go back to normal, while he and his brothers are still recovering.

Now don't get him wrong, he bets there's still thousands of civilians in the hospital. But... only in a few weeks? Mikey still has violent tremors in his hands, Raph is slowly going blind in his one eye (no matter how much Donnie tries to prevent that from happening), and Leo is in immense mental and physical pain still. And Donnie...

Donnie hasn't worn his battleshells at all since then. Even now, the fabric on the back of his sweatshirt ticked him off in the wrong way, with how the fabric scraped against the scars and dried blood that he can't manage to get off on his shell. He looks up from his phone, eyes darting back and forth. It was getting busier in the park as it turned early in the afternoon. He should head home. He gets up and briskly walks away from the people flooding in, going to the nearest alleyway. He slips the sweatshirt off, grimacing as he sees the flakes of dried blood that came with it. After tying it around his waist, he takes the quickest route from here to the abandoned subway chain.

He finds the abandoned stairwell, overshadowed by piles of junk that nobody uses, a giant gate blocking it off to pedestrians. Donnie easily lifts it up, heading in. He lets his body go on autopilot, knowing its way and what to do now. He instead stews in his own thoughts. Would he ever be able to go on missions again? Without his shell, he's far more perceptible to damage than the others. Whatever, it didn't matter right now. He can figure that out at a later date, he needs to focus on Leo's new brace that he was making instead.

He punches in this password to the lair, a small hiss escaping the door as it opens, Donnie stepping through. Mikey was in the main area, doodling (or at least trying to) in his sketchbook. He looks up at Donnie, a smile on his face. Unfortunately, it was not like the bright and warm one Donnie has seen on him since they were tots; it was a sad one, a tired one, an exhausted smile.

"What are you drawing, Michael?" Donnie goes and sits next to Mikey at a comfortable distance on the couch, looking at the sketchbook as Mikey sets it down. None of the clean and sharp lines that Mikey is known for in this piece of artwork, and Donnie is sad at the fact. He'll have to make something to stabilize Mikey's hands even more.

Mikey packs his crayons away, "Just trying to draw again, yknow? I haven't been able to over the past few weeks and...my hands were healing, at least I thought so, but I guess I was wrong." As he talked, his voice grew more and more tired, then defeated at the end. It broke Donnie's heart, and he doesn't know how to help his baby brother. He knows Mikey is not a child anymore, he's grown up, just like all of them. But to Donnie and the others, he'll forever be known as the youngest and most childlike, but that mature look that's so unlike Mikey shone on his face, his brain couldn't supply any answers to help him.

"I can see that clearly, Mikey," Donnie says slowly, considering his words, "But your hands are healing. Even Leo confirmed it! And I mean, that has to say something, right?"