Lost in the Fight

Chapter 4 - Will Work for Food

*Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise.

*Special Note: The super-awesome artwork for this chapter was drawn by my uber-talented friend, DonatelloIsLife. I LOVE it so much!!!

*Author's Notes: Chapter 4 of 'Lost in the Fight' is here. I hope that you like it . . .

Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to read and vote on this story. It really means a lot to me. And a big thank to my followers! :}

As always, please let me know if you are enjoying 'Lost in the Fight.' Thank you for reading. ;) CJ

--------------------------

Chapter 4 - Will Work for Food

It had been two days since Donatello had given new meaning to 'dumpster diving.' After being treated for injuries from his attack and subsequent fall, the genius turtle had been banished to his bedroom and ordered to get some much-needed rest, but it was rather difficult to sleep when one's head was pounding unremittingly to the rhythm of one's heart. Lying down had only seemed to make the throbbing worse, so he had secretly spent the duration of his exile in his room working diligently away on his laptop. Whenever his family would come into his bedroom to check on him, he would quickly tuck his computer out of sight so that they did not see that he was disobeying a direct order. The only one who had seemed a little suspicious about the whole thing had been Raph. He had kept raising an eye ridge and looking at Donnie skeptically every time that he had come into the room. Of course, it could have just been that Raph was grumpy. The second oldest brother's constant cranky demeanor always made it difficult to read any other emotions that he may have been feeling.

On this, the second day after the dumpster incident, Donnie had been given the green light to return to his lab, but not without stipulations. His family had informed him that he was to be on restricted duties until his headache and nausea subsided and his arm started to heal over. He had been instructed not to do anything too strenuous and he was still banned from training and patrol for at least a few more days.

The genius turtle didn't mind being barred from training and patrol too much, as it gave him more time to work on the projects piling up in his lab. It also gave him another day or two to avoid the imminent repercussions of his "reckless" actions. He had no doubt in his mind that his err in judgment would negatively affect his training regimen in some aspect. Master Splinter always seemed to find creative and painful ways of trying to get them to learn from their mistakes.

While Donnie was pleased about getting out of training, patrol, and his impending punishment for a few more days, he was not so pleased about being told not to do anything too strenuous. It was like telling a kid in a toy store not to touch anything. Of course, 'strenuous' was a subjective term. The meaning of the word was all a matter of interpretation. What one person thought of as strenuous, another person might not. In other words, even if his family did accuse him of doing something that they considered overly strenuous, it would certainly be subject to debate. And Donatello rarely lost a debate. Nine times out of ten, when arguing about something with his family, all the genius turtle would have to do is throw out a handful of big, complicated words and start spouting off some kind of scientific reasoning behind his stance. This would get them all confused, bored, or a combination of both, and then, they would eventually yield to his point of view, if only just to shut him up.

Donnie frowned at that thought.

Maybe he really was a hopeless nerd.

A hopeless nerd with a ton of work to do . . .