A/N: This oneshot is a piece about Donny's thoughts about his label as 'the smart one' and his role in the family. Enjoy!
Sometimes I feel like I'm not important. Like I'm not even there. Like I'm invisible.
My brothers all have something they love. Leo's got ninjitsu – it really is a way of life for him. Mikey's got his jokes and everyone loves him for it. And Raph? At least he's got the role of 'rebel' – that and the loud, angry music that he loves. All I've got is fixing things.
It's all I do nowadays. Any time something breaks, it gets brought to me and I'm just supposed to drop what I'm doing to repair it. They seem to think I enjoy it. If I tell them that I'm busy all I get is a puzzled look and a comment along the lines of, 'But you've always fixed stuff – it's what you do.'
It's what I do, but that doesn't mean that I enjoy being the resident odd-job guy.
They could just come in to talk to me, but they don't. There's always something they want from me.
If I do try to engage them, I just get dismissed, brushed off or more often than not, told to speak English. It's not my fault that they can't be bothered to take enough of an interest – then they might understand. But I know they never will.
I'm sick of being in the background all the time. Like some vital, yet boring appliance that whenever it's not needed it gets shoved in a cupboard somewhere to gather dust until it's needed again. Used, then shoved out of sight. And out of sight, out of mind.
Sometimes I just want to make dumb jokes like Mikey. Or shout and scream for no apparent reason and then storm off – Like Raph. Maybe if I did, then they'd take some notice. Probably to ask if I was sick or something because I'm the 'smart one'.
What's wrong with me wanting to do something different once in a while? Why did I get stuck with the label of the intellectual? I love knowledge, but just because it's important to me doesn't mean that it's all I am.
It's like I'm not allowed to do anything interesting, I just have to sit in a corner like a good boy until they need something.
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I just left. How long would it take for them to notice that I was gone? Probably not very long. Raph would throw his sai at the tv for the billionth time and they would be barging in, only to find me absent.
On days when it's really bad, I keep myself sane by planning out my escape – what I would do, where I would go. I could even re-invent myself. Start over. Maybe even come back when I was done, to show them the new me.
But I know I'll never leave. They need me. They would probably survive without all the things that I've rigged up for them and the strategies I come up with when we get into a tight spot. But their lives wouldn't be easy.
And Sensei needs me too. He's not getting any younger and without the A/C system, a New York winter underground might be too much for him.
Even though I know that Splinter cares for us all, he's never really understood me. I've never really got into Ninjitsu much, and I hate killing – I hate all violence. That puzzles him, having raised a pacifist; he doesn't know what to do with me.
A knock at the door snaps me out of my reverie.
"Hey bro! You finished fixing the remote yet?" Mikey calls.
"Not yet," I reply as evenly as possible, clenching my fists in order to keep my voice steady.
"Well could'ya speed it up? I'm getting kinda sick of having to get up to change the channel."
I hear him walk away. Slowly, I manage to unclench my hands, running my fingers over the three miniscule red marks in each palm from where my fingernails were digging in.
I hate this, but I know I'll never stop doing just what they expect. I'm perpetuating my own lie of an existence.
Picking up my screwdriver again. "Mister Invisible is back on the case," I mutter under my breath as I get back to the task at hand.