Disclaimer - I own the keyboard used to type this.
Donnie was just staring at her from across the table. He felt unable to do anything else, as he was stuck trying to figure out how she fell into his lap. Leo managed to find her a ragged t-shirt from their kid days to wear. She hummed to herself, sipping on coffee and being very happy despite the circumstances. Splinter was calmly drinking tea, his brothers were being quiet for once, and the whole situation felt awkward to the point he want to just melt away.
Splinter finished his cup first, handing it off to Leo. He leaned forward, lacing his fingers together on the table. Marian looked over at him, quickly gulping down her coffee and turning to face him.
"Miss Marian, I suppose you already know how... odd this situation is," he said. "We are very concerned how this will play out and how it will effect our lives. We have been relatively secluded until now."
"Not quite," Marian said. "That cute chick, April. She was hurled into your secluded lives too."
"But she did not land in my son's lap."
"Good point. Guess I better talk?" She laughed and rubbed the back of her head. "I've actually known he was a turtle for a while now. You see, I'm sorta kinda telekinetic, but not really. It's a version that allows me to manipulate, access, see through, and as I most recently found out, jump through computers or any other kind of machinery. I didn't even know I could do the portal thing until I tried it."
"What? So you got powers?" Leo interrupted. "How did this happen?"
She leaned back in her chair.
"There was initial ability but it's mostly experiments, practice, and drugs. Lots and lots of drugs," she said, nodding in agreement to herself. "Kinda messed me up. I tend to make really rash decisions, which reminds me - Donnie, we aren't eloping. I want a million dollar wedding instead."
Donnie didn't laugh at her joke. He just kept going through the fact she already knew he was a mutant turtle and was watching him the entire time they had contact through a computer screen.
"That room you saw me in? My prison for the past decade. It's been extremely boring. They stopped their experiments for the most part till technology got better."
"Are there others like you?" Splinter asked.
"Like me? Not anymore. They kept blowing themselves up because they couldn't get past the electronic bomb test. But there are other people that have been mutated and experimented on."
"You're saying there's more of us running around?" Raph asked, a strange hopeful tone in his voice.
"Not quite like you guys. They're 'imperfect' and only recently began mutating due to the labs somehow getting their hands on just enough mutagen to make their own. Some have died because of it and others have been painfully turning into what they were assigned. One girl I knew took five days of her flesh falling off her bones like barbecue in order to rebuild her body structure."
Mikey audibly gagged at the imagery. Donnie rubbed his head, unable to process anymore of this insanity, and got up. He left without another word, ignoring the sad look Marian gave him. He went to the room where his still smoldering computer lay and assessed the damage. The monitor was toast and smoking, the tower was fried and had a gaping hole where electricity burst out. Everything was demolished.
He sighed and began cleaning, pulling apart the machines to try and salvage what he could. A light knock on the door frame caught his attention. He turned to see Leo. He nodded in acknowledgement and turned back around.
"You okay, Don?" He asked.
"I think so? Maybe not," Donnie sighed. "I wasn't really prepared for this... I just only saw what she looked like yesterday. Yesterday, Leo, and now she landed in my lap and says she's known about me from the start. Not to mention all the stuff about how there are other mutants."
"It is a bit... jarring. Do you feel that you'd be comfortable with her again?"
"I don't even think I know her now. I could have named all her favorite things before this, what she wanted to call any future pets she got, heck even how she likes her fried rice! I daydreamed about cooking her freaking fried rice one day, Leo. I feel like an idiot."
"Don, you're not an idiot."
Donnie slumped down into his partially broken chair. Leo walked over, putting a hand on his shoulder.
"I don't know her anymore, Leo. She knows everything about me and I feel as though I know nothing now. It's-"
"Frightening?" Leo asked.
"Yes."
"You're not required to continue whatever you had with her. She did keep an important secret from you, and if you have issues with that, you shouldn't put that aside. All I'm going to ask is for the sake of the other mutants, please play nice. If what she's saying is true, we have to help them and get them out of that place."
Donnie nodded and looked up at Leo. He patted his hand and stood up. He whispered a thank you then resumed to take apart his machines. Leo left him alone and walked back to the table.
Mikey disappeared to who knows where. Raph was having the second plate of breakfast he didn't have a chance to eat. Splinter was finishing up talking with Marian. When she saw he returned, she quickly spoke.
"Is he mad at me? Can I go in there?" She asked.
"I'd leave him alone, Marian," Leo said. "This isn't the easiest thing to swallow for him."
She sighed and slumped in her chair.
"I didn't mean to make him upset."
"What matters is you escaped and now are helping others," Splinter said, then turned to Leo. "I sent Michelangelo to contact Miss April and ask her to provide living quarters and clothing temporarily."
"I thought she had a roommate, Sensei."
"Well, Leo, when you start spouting stuff about mutant ninja turtles, you're bound to chase people out of your life," Raph said with a mouth full of food and a smart-aleck tone. "She has room."
Leo nodded and looked back at Marian.
"Will you need to be escorted there?"
"I don't think they can rally the troops in a day. I wasn't that important," Marian said. "But I'll need one to get back here."
"My sons will retrieve you tomorrow night to discuss how we are to pull off this rescue. Any information you can provide will be helpful." He bowed to her. "A pleasure meeting you, Miss Marian."
She stood up and bowed back. He shuffled away, leaving the two turtles and the human by themselves. Marian sat back down.
"Hey, Leo right? If he doesn't want to see me, at least let him know I'm sorry," she asked. "Please tell him."
"I'll let him know," he said. "Marian, there's something that's been bugging me. Why did you have a computer in your room if they knew about what you could do."
"To be fair, they didn't know I could jump through cyberspace. Hell, I didn't even know," she said. "But I can see your point. I got the computer by showing good behavior. My only guess is that they somehow kept me locked out of the rest of the system so I wouldn't try to cause a jailbreak from the inside, so they were comfortable with me having it."
"Then how did you figure out to try and jump from your computer to Don's?" Raph asked.
Marian shrugged and crossed her arms over her chest.
"I can't remember, honestly. I just knew at some point I was going to hop over."
Leo and Raph exchanged looks of uncertainty. Leo resolved to keep a close eye on her just in case and Raph made a promise to himself to bash her head in if she even thought about betraying them. Whatever their solution, they grew comfortable enough to continue speaking with her until April arrived to take her back to her place.
Her clothing choice was interesting. Out of all the things she could find in a quick thrift store purchase, Marian managed to grab the most punk-looking items and created a semi-decent outfit. April had to admit Marian was not what she was expecting. She didn't fit the computer hacker type she pinned her for, especially when she was dressed in black, blue, and buckles. There were buckles all over her; on her pants, her boots, and her jacket. She would get stuck to a giant magnet if it was close enough.
Since she didn't have a bed to give Marian, April borrowed a cot from one of her friends and stuck it in the empty second room. Marian didn't seem to mind, too busy off in her own little world. April gathered what pillows and blankets she had and set them on the bed.
"This should work out okay, though it might not be the most comfy. If we need to get you anything, let me know," she said.
"Thanks, April," Marian said. "You don't happen to have a spare laptop, do you?"
"I have one that's broken."
"Can I see it?"
She nodded and went to fetch it. When she found the laptop, she handed it to Marian. The woman took it, looking it over.
"Hardware or software problem?"
"It kinda just died. Donnie said he'd look at it for me eventually, but I just got another one in the mean time."
Marian closed her eyes, setting the laptop on her knees. She held her hands over it, allowing a blue glow to spread from her palms across the laptop. Once it was engulfed, her eyes opened. The laptop lifted in the air. Marian shifted her fingers, the laptop coming apart swiftly. She looked at the motherboard and the rest of the components.
Her fingers curled and one piece April wasn't familiar with glowed brighter than the rest. April watched as Marian then used her ability to put the computer back together. She pulled it from the air, the blue glow dissipating. She opened it up and started it up.
"Good as new!" Marian said happily. "It was just a few broken pieces. Also fixed the overheating problem."
"Wow! Thank you!"
April didn't know what else to say. Not every day one meets someone who can magically fix machines in the air. She sat next to her, watching as she fiddled around on the laptop.
"What exactly are you doing?"
"I'm playing detective. Mr. Splinter wanted some more info to help so I'm gathering it up."
"Hey, you're eyes are glowing... you're not even typing or using the mouse!" April gasped when she realized everything on screen was moving on its own.
"Handy little trick. Did the same when we were grinding your character to level 20," she said and crossed her arms, not even touching the laptop. "Just controlling it with my mind."
"I was also told you can see without a camera there."
"Yup! It's like my essence encompasses the monitor, and I am aware of the ongoings of both sides. I think they had me develop that for a future as the new James Bond but I'll never know."
April just watched in awe at the computer. The information she was gathering was quickly covering the screen and taking up whatever space there was.
"Marian... About Donnie-"
"He's upset with me," she said sadly. "I kinda figured he would be but I was too shortsighted to see how much it would effect him. I should have told him earlier."
"I think it wouldn't have turned out the same way. He probably would have cut you out had you confessed you knew what he was."
"I didn't mean to hurt him. I do care about him, April. You can't just spend that many hours with someone and not care for them. Even online."
"For you it wasn't online. You saw him and interacted with him even if he didn't realize that's what you were doing," April said then patted her back. "Are you hungry? I'm thinking Thai sounds awesome right now."
"Sounds delicious."
Marian smiled and turned back to her machine, watching the file numbers grow.
"I didn't want to say this in front of Don, but my bullshit meter is going off the charts," Raph said as he was playing Smash Bros. "I don't like her tone, I don't trust her, and she freaks me out."
"She has great boobs, though," Mikey said, trying to have his Link avoid Raph's Kirby. "What freaks you out about her?"
"For one, she has the freakiest eyes I've ever seen. Might as well have invited a serial killer into our lives. Two, her story bugs me. I think it bugs Leo too. It feels like she's making it up as she goes along. I don't know, maybe I'm being paranoid. What do you think?"
"Well, her story seems shaky, but we exist, don't we? Why not pretty girls who can jump through computers? And if she's lying, she won't have any proof to her lab story."
Raph sighed and proceeded to smash Link off screen. Mikey groaned, throwing his controller to the side. He stood up. Heading off to the kitchen, he paused and turned back around.
"I bet ten bucks she turns out to be a flesh-eating monster trying to get Donnie!"
"What? That's stupid."
"Too chicken to bet, I see."
"Fine. You're on."
Mikey grinned, going back on his quest for food.