Chapter 3

The circuit board existed underneath Donatello's fingers. His eyes told him so. His fingers stubbornly refused to communicate the ridges and bumps of circuitry in his hands. His hands didn't recognize metal at all. They were numb, numb like they'd been iced, like he'd forced blocks of ice over them again and again, until they burned and whitened and numbed to sensation. Aware of pressure… but only barely. And nothing more.

But it wasn't just that. Pinpricks, electricity, raging, slipping, rearing it's head and firing the tiniest poison-tipped arrows all across his hands, stealing over his wrists, settling in his forearms.

His gaze shot over to his modified geiger counter and… radiation. Not nuclear, not quite psychic, but familiar, familiar to his lab ever since the equivalent of a human bomb had been set off inside, energy now coming… again… from him.

His eyes squeezed shut and he tried to stay normal, in control…

He could feel alien energy holding him together, stitching his atoms and DNA into a Donatello-shaped mold that burned his fingers, was too thin to hold him together, so micro-sharp it hurt, but too thick for him to feel anything against his shaking hands.

His chest clenched and suddenly breathing was a terror. His arms shook, and he didn't know if he could just put down the machinery in his fingers. He could lower his hands. He did that. He opened them completely, watching the clatter of metal on his desk, hands fumbling clumsily to his ears, striking his face as he did.

The wind was very loud, here in the confines of his lab.

His legs gave out next, dropping him unceremoniously against the floor, and there was floor, there was something to brace against to be against… there was something-

Donnie curled against his desk, knees tucking as close to his chest as he could get.

The buzzing enveloped his head, the buzzing, but… no No NO he wasn't back there it wasn't the same he was just panicking…

Yes. Just a panic attack. Nothing serious. Focus, Donnie. Not there. Not anymore.

The buzzing doesn't matter. Phantom sensations. They aren't real. They mean nothing. Donnie feels something well up, bitter and bottled and explosive… he bites hard into his arm, unable to taste the wrappings around his wrist, and whatever sound he might have made is muffled into the blood on his tongue.

Thank goodness he remembers to lock his doors, now. He can only imagine Mikey's cries at seeing his big brother torn apart in front of him…

No. No this isn't logical it's over he's… he's… it's over…

He closes his eyes because everything is too bright, and pushes his hands over his ears because everything is too loud. He can't move. If he moves things will move over his fingers, his anything, and he can't right now. He just can't.

He squeezes his eyes shut tight, tight as they'll go and tries so hard to breathe. There's no reason not to be able to, it's simple, he's a ninja…

But he chokes on absolutely nothing and looses his breath, the pins and needles that are nothing but the invention of his panicked mind rage in his head, tingling over his brain like his body was falling asleep from the top down and his hands they hurt, they're pulling apart and burning up and this can't just be him it isn't just an attack it happens it keeps happening whyWHY did April do this to him why he loved her wasn't it enough?

Why did April do this? Why did April do this? How could April do this? Donnie yanks at his thoughts, try to pull them away from April it's not her fault stop blaming her yes it is it is her fault we told her to let it go so many times she could've done it them no it can't be it can't be her fault why would she do this to me

And Donnie is lying flat out on the ground and still in his ball but he won't go into his shell he won't he's not an animal he won't lower himself to that he's a person people don't, they wouldn't breathe.

Stop thinking.

Just breathe.

It's not working.

So keep trying. In and out. It's dirty down here, on the floor. Donnie can feel every bit of dirt and loose stone that digs into his face, but he can't feel a single thing from his body down. That's not logical either. It isn't logical to not be able to breathe.

He can. He will. Donnie shoves himself onto his back and forces in a breath, trying to stretch it out for as long as he can, trying to force it through his neck. His pathetic attempt at deep breathing completed, he did his best to swallow the air, forcing it down before exhaling, clamping his mouth shut to force the air out his nostrils. Again. Again. Again. Longer and longer every time. Again. Again. Again. He swallowed the built-up saliva, coughed, and started again.

His breath was his. The horrible tingling energy in his hands was still there, but faded. His body was his own. He should get back to work before anyone knocked. Before anyone came and yelled at him for being so slow. For not taking work seriously enough.

Donatello stood up. Straightened his back. Ignored the trembling in his hands, the razor edge sensitivity that threatened to send him back into relapse at the slightest of provocations. And he went to work.

If he focused, he could feel cold wind whipping around him. If he blocked out everything else, he could feel the icy bullets of rain.