Don't Make Me Fall For You | Raphael x Reader

21 - He Who Knows will Receive a Broken Nose

The next day, Raph and Mona Lisa went out, like before. You decided to hang out with Donnie.

You weren't entirely sure what to think of Donnie. He was courteous and polite enough, but he hadn't talked as much as the other brothers and wasn't as friendly, seeming more wrapped up in his work than anything, and as a result you hadn't talked to him as much either.  

You were a little surprised to find out why part of why he spent so much time in his room though:

School.

Or well, online courses to be more exact. Free independent study courses online. 

"...really?" you asked, in a little bit of disbelief, staring at the screen. 

"Unlike some of my brothers, I like to remain educated," Donnie replied, typing on his computer. "Mostly I just take science and math courses. Not a huge fan of humanities and arts, and skipping those courses gives me the time to run my own experiments." 

"But...why take courses at all?" 

He paused for a moment, and tilted his head downwards. "Oh...you know. Just...just trying to follow dreams that would be achievable if I were...normal." 

There was a pause. Quietly, you said, "I'm sorry, Donnie. I didn't mean—"

"No no no, it's fine." He closed the laptop. "You know, actually, I can do these courses later. I don't want to bore you, just sitting here watching me to do school—"

"I don't mind, I don't wanna impose—"

"—no, you're welcome here. Why don't you help me come run this experiment? Something a little more interesting, hopefully—" Donnie stood up and started to rush around the lab, gathering pencils and paper and supplies and things. He turned towards you to see you inching out of the room. "No no, you're fine! My brothers usually leave me alone when I do experiments—or anything, really—so it's nice to see someone interested in what I'm doing." 

"Well, if you're sure..." You stepped back into the room. "How can I help?"

"Here, come sit back down...hm, actually..." Donnie muttered something under his breath, opened the laptop back on, and tapped away at it furiously. You sat down in the second chair, watching him.

"This isn't as hands-on as my experiments normally are, I'm afraid, but I thought it would be important to cover some other areas of science I don't normally get to, such as psychological, so I..." He pulled up a screen of what looked like many lines of code, then pulled out his T-Phone and laid it next to it. "Well, maybe I shouldn't explain it much to you now. It might affect the results of the experiment. I'll tell you afterwards." He handed you a sheet of paper on a clipboard and a pencil. "I'm going to ask you a couple of questions, and I want you to write down the answer on a piece of paper. Try to be honest. I won't look at it unless you want me to."

"...okay?" 

"Number one. How do you feel right now?" 

You blinked. "Like, in general, or about this situation specifically, or—"

"Both. All of it. Try to be specific and detailed. Don't worry, I'm not looking." Donnie turned to tap at his computer.

You wrote. "What's the second question?"

"Number two: Would you say you have a good grasp of what your feelings are/do you understand your feelings?"

You bit your lip and scrawled on the paper a shaky Ehh?? in response to the second question.

"Alright. That's it. Now. Put the paper and pencil aside—" 

You did as Donnie instructed.

He handed you his T-Phone. "Touch the screen."

You touched it.

A small beep sounded from Donnie's laptop. He swiveled in his chair.

"What're you doing?" you asked. A new window had popped up on his screen, titled Donnie's T-Phone. The window consisted of one image that looked like abstract art. It was mostly a dark grayish-blue, with some orange bursts on it, and streams of pink running through it. 

"Interesting," Donnie muttered. He glanced quickly at your paper, which was flipped over to the blank side.

"What is that? What does that mean?" 

"This—" he proclaimed, pointing to his screen. "Is a diagram that represents your emotions."

"...what?"

Donnie folded his hands. "My brothers say sometimes I need to work on my social skills, and sometimes I'm too busy with my work to notice, so I developed this...program, I guess you could call it. It's supposed to run on T-Phones, and when someone touches the screen, the T-Phone can get a measure of your feelings. It represents this information in a diagram and sends it to my computer. I plan to install it on my brothers' phones buried inside of another update, and it can get a sense of how they're normally feeling, and when they're feeling unusual emotions, it will send me a message on my laptop and I'll be able to go. Comfort them, or talk to them, or...something." Donnie cleared his throat. "Also so maybe I could measure if I'm too stressed during work or not, though I'm not sure if it would actually be effective." 

"...aw, Donnie, that's so nice of you." You blinked at the turtle. He always seemed absentminded, but wasn't this proof that he was kind? Although, maybe this was a little invasive of him—what if they didn't want to talk? 

"Yeah. Sure. Hehehe." Donnie turned away from you, seeming embarrassed by the compliment. "Anyway, this diagram should represent your emotions, assuming I did my coding right." 

"What do the colors mean?" you asked.

"This shade of blue represents sadness, or being upset." He pointed. "This orange represents confusion. And this pink represents, ah...ahem. Love." 

"What?"

"Or general feelings of attraction!!" he added quickly. "Like, uh, a crush or something!" 

"Dude!" Your face felt hot, and you advanced towards his direction, raising a hand. "What about privacy?"

"I'm not asking! I'm not asking!" he yelped, shielding himself. "I haven't looked at your paper or anything!! Just tell me if it's an accurate representation of what you wrote down!" 

You skimmed through what you'd written in response to the first question, tilting the paper so Donnie couldn't see it. "Yeah."

"Okay, there! My coding works! That's all I wanted to know!" Donnie exited out of the diagram quickly. "Here, you can burn that paper! Throw it out! I'm not asking that you tell me all your incredibly personal and private feelings and I don't wanna know!"

"That's alright," you said, feeling a little embarrassed about your outburst. You crumpled the paper. "Sorry I—"

"It's Raph, isn't it?" Donnie asked, lowering his arms and peeking at you.

"What?" You blinked slowly, red returning to your face.

"The—the—pink. It's for Raph, isn't it?"

"You said you didn't want to know—!"

"I already guessed, it wasn't that hard!" Donnie raised his arms again in defense. "You're upset because Mona showed up and you like Raph and also confused as to whether or not you like Raph, is that it?"

"Donnie you said you weren't—"

"Don't hurt me!"

a/n: hI sorry for being gone for so long but school is being ScHOoL and honestly i did not expect this much work to come with it 

hope you enjoyed the chapter, and happy thanksgiving to those who celebrate it!