Chapter Text
Donnie turned his hand over and over again like he was cooking it over a fire pit. The effect was about the same. His skin stretched tight over his protruding wrist bone.
After a moment of contemplation, Donnie picked at his nails. They’d felt sore since last night, and he didn’t hold back the gasp when he scratched one off.
He concentrated on breathing steadily through his nostrils. In. Out. One. Two.
He peeled off the second nail. Then the third. They came off as easily as dried scabs, and he couldn’t tell if the black was dried blood or the Technodrome’s residue.
He wrapped his arm in bandages, fingers to shoulder. He did the same on the other side. No need to be asymmetrical. Then he pulled on his preferred hoodie, though he didn’t check in the mirror to see how it looked.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
“You better be doing actual bathroom stuff in there!” Leo yelled.
Donnie gathered his discarded fingernails and flushed them down the toilet.
He didn’t so much as walk out of the bathroom as sidle, half-hoping that Leo would ignore him. The distinct curl of his lip, pulling back just enough to expose his bared teeth, told him otherwise.
Leo did not look good. His skin was swallow with a greyish undertone, and he had dark, sunken eye sockets.
“Go to bed,” said Donnie.
“Why, so you can run away when I’m not looking?” Leo snapped back.
He tried to trip Donnie with his crutches when he hobbled inside.
“For the record, you were always my least favourite brother,” said Leo. He slammed the bathroom door shut.
Donnie released the breath he’d been holding. He’d never felt so uncomfortable in his own skin, though part of that was the Technodrome crawling through his nervous system and another part was viewing the world through Cassandra’s eyes. She was posted up in the tunnel leading into the old lair. The sound of rushing sewer water filled his head like a swarm of locusts. Heavy rain descended over the city, the forecast called for snow, and all the cold air in New York was funnelling through the tunnel.
He pulled himself out of Cassandra’s head. It felt good to escape into another person for a while, but at the end of the day, he was always Donnie.
Since he’d come home, the reception around the lair was cold from everyone except Casey. Splinter, being the fair-weather parent he typically was, dealt with the situation by avoiding it, and his brothers gave him the stink eye whenever he walked into a room. Under normal circumstances, Donnie was happy to hide in his room, but the markings on the wall were a stark reminder, and when it was quiet, he could hear the steady hum of the Technodrome and the rapid, panicked thoughts of Cassandra and, worst of all, his own heart beart.
It didn’t matter how deep he hid under his sheets. It didn’t matter if he tried to distract himself. The Technodrome was always louder.
It was always the same mantra. The integration wasn’t complete yet. They could fix everything. They could fix the world. Only they could do it. They could put everything in its rightful place. Again. They could fix everything. Repeat it. Anything broken, could be fixed. Only Donnie could do it. Repeat. They could fi everything. Everything in its rightful place. Anything broken, could be fixed.
The pain in his arm, in his body, in his mind, was temporary. It was a growing pain, a step to ascension.
A necessary transformation.
Donnie longed for the certainty of being a spaceship. The city, the world, looked so small from above. He could do anything from up there. All the problems in the world seemed so fixable. So small.
In time, his family would understand that.
“What are you doing?”
Donnie came back to himself. He took a moment to assess where he was: behind the subway cars where he could get a little privacy. Casey stood on top of one, staring down at him with a confused look. He was in his full gear and no thrift store t-shirt was in sight.
“Can I do anything in his lair without being interrogated?” Donnie demanded.
“Sorry.” Casey jumped from the subway car and landed beside him. “I’m gonna go…I mean, I’m gonna go looking for my mom. Want to come?”
It was a deliberate question. All questions were deliberate. Donnie wanted to fold into the ground and pretend he hadn’t heard it.
He felt like they were in a Mexican standoff, and one wrong move would cause trigger gunfire. Donnie waited to see if Casey would shoot first and put him out of his misery, and when death didn’t come, he realized he needed to give a response.
It was so easy. He could tell him where Cassandra was. He could tell him about Krang Two. And he could tell him about how he’d almost gotten Cassandra killed—no, that Krang Two had almost killed her, and maybe that he was tangentially responsible for that.
“No, you go ahead,” said Donnie.
Casey looked disappointed. He adjusted his hockey mask on his head. “If you’re sure.”
Casey pat Donnie’s shoulder as he passed. When he was gone, Donnie scratched at his fingernail-less arm. His skin didn’t feel like his own anymore, but the backwash of emotions from the Technodrome suggested satisfaction, maybe even pride. It felt nice.
Donnie spent some time calming down a little, but he couldn’t hide in the dark forever. Sooner or later someone else would come looking for him.
He’d told Cassandra that he would make his way back to the old lair, and it felt like a good enough excuse to get out for a bit. Donnie trekked back to his room to pick up his bō, only to find it absent from his usual spot. He pulled up the corner of his sheets and was rummaging underneath his bed when Raph come up behind him. He only knew it was Raph because his footsteps were heavy enough, and he wasn’t trying to hide. Donnie felt sure that if he’d wanted to, Raph would’ve snuck up on him.
“Lookin’ for something?”
Donnie rolled his eyes. Raph twirled his bō casually.
“Give it back,” said Donnie.
“Raph says you’re not going anywhere,” said Raph.
“Who says I was going anywhere?”
“Says the guilty look in your eyes. This is getting confiscated until you learn your lesson.”
“You know I have back-ups, right?”
“Ah—but this one’s your favourite. It’s the right height, balance, and weight.”
“How did you know—”
“Cuz I’m Raph, that’s how. Now get up, we got stuff to do.”
“I’m busy.”
“What, trying to sneak out? Not happening. Now it’s time for consequences. I got a bunch of stuff that you can fix up, and we’re gonna start cleaning this damn mess off your walls.”
“You’re punishing me?!”
“You’re grounded. Get up.”
It was Raph’s serious tone. Donnie’s fingers curled towards his palm and he wanted to close in on himself, to never let Raph see the vulnerable parts of him ever again. However, Raph’s brow was low over his eyes, and the door was a little too far, and even if he made it, it would be like Indiana Jones running from a boulder.
Raph didn’t let him out of his sight. He herded him to the arcade where a few of the machines had massive holes punched in them from a very clearly Raph-sized fist.
“Uh, I got a little mad when you left,” Raph admitted, looking sheepish.
Donnie could’ve thrown a witty remark Raph’s way, but his temper still felt too stretched thin to think of anything coherent beyond angry screaming. He relied, instead, on the familiar ebb and flow of fixing things, a familiar, safe activity that felt like the rhythm of a much-loved song. Donnie could fix arcade machines in his sleep.
Raph followed him the whole afternoon as he meandered through the arcade, fixing one machine after the next. Only two were badly damaged enough to require extensive repairs. The rest just had scuffs and marks, but all of it told a story, though Donnie couldn’t tell it in chronological order. The cameras were gone, but the evidence remained.
Raph had punched his fist through two of Donnie’s favourite games: CyberQuest and Pirate Plunder. A Jupiter Jim themed arcade game had been the next victim. Raph had thrown it across the room and left a hole in the wall. Others were tipped over. The games Donnie didn’t frequent were unscathed. He felt grateful that Raph took out his anger on something he could fix rather than his already fragile skull.
He was a prisoner on work duty, told that his prison sentence would be one day shorter if he worked one in return. Raph hovered around him like an overzealous guard, busying himself by flipping through magazines or bench pressing one of the fallen arcade machines. They didn’t speak. They were both waiting for something. Donnie wished he had the courage to pull out a shank and make a break for it.
Donnie worked his way up and down the arcade, cycling through machine after machine, erasing the signs of the outburst. Soon there’d be no evidence. Nothing except a faint memory of hey-remember-that-time-Donnie-ran-away. A faint, cringy memory they all recalled twenty years down the line.
If they all lived that long.
Donnie’s bad arm gave a painful twist. Painful enough that the pliers in his hand slipped from his fingers and clattered on the floor.
It was an inane reaction that Raph didn’t immediately respond to, not until Donnie realized he couldn’t move.
“Don?” Raph said. “You stuck?”
Donnie forced himself to take a breath. The pain lanced into his side, but he centred himself again. “Yes, Raph. I am stuck. I am stuck in this lair with you breathing down my neck.”
“Wow, there’s the attitude! I was wondering where it went.”
“Install a ball and chain on me if you’re gonna keep me prisoner here.”
“Is that what you think this is? Donnie, you ran away.”
“And I clarified I was working, not ‘running away.’”
“So as a result, you couldn’t call or text.”
“It was really important. I was really busy.”
“What, you want me to write you a text template to use in the future? Not that I want you running away again—”
“For the last time, I wasn’t running. I had every intention of returning.”
“Four days, Donnie. Four. Fucking. Days.”
Mikey poked his head into the arcade. “We fightin’?”
“Yes,” Donnie answered, at the same time Raph said, “No!”
“We’re not fighting, we’re having a mature discussion,” said Raph. “You’re too little, Mikey!”
“I’m not that much younger than you,” Mikey pointed out.
“We are fighting,” said Donnie.
“We’re not fighting!” Raph reiterated.
“It sure sounds like fighting,” said Mikey. “We’re talking loud enough.”
“I’m just explaining to Donnie that running away is a big no-no in this family,” said Raph.
“And I’m trying to clarify that I did not run away,” said Donnie.
“Then where were you?”
“What does it even matter now?”
“We’re going around in circles. Either answer my questions or I’ll pry it out of your hard drives.”
“You won’t find the answers on there. Also, I’m not telling you the password.”
“Donnie, I get you like your space, but we’re past that now. I need to keep you safe.”
“I don’t need protection.”
“And to keep you safe, I need to know where you’ve been. What you’ve been doing. What’s changed.”
There was a voice in his ear. Raph was saying something, then Mikey, but the whispering was chanting, over and over and over again, “Imperfect. So flawed. So useless. We can fix them.”
It was too loud. He couldn’t hear what his brothers were saying, and he had to focus on tuning out the drone of the Technodome. He was thinking of things he wanted to orchestrate, of the sensation of flying over the city, an unstoppable force of biomatter and thousands of years of Krang history. Something that didn’t have to contend with stupid arguments and tense stares.
It occurred to Donnie how pointless it all was. He was making things better. To make things better, there had to be sacrifices along the way, like the millions of minds floating around in the Technodrome had given up their bodies, both willingly and not. He saw the patch where Raph’s eye used to exist and imagined not only replacing it, but making it better. Not just giving him basic vision back, but enhancing it. Helping Raph see what Donnie could see. If he concentrated, he could see into their bodies, feel Mikey’s nervous heartbeat, Raph’s heavy breathing.
“Everything’s changed,” said Donnie.
“Yeah, it fucking has, Donnie,” said Raph. “I don’t want you gallivanting off into the night and just disappearing like it’s no big deal. Maybe before the invasion I would’ve let it slide. No more. No. More.”
“So I get special considerations and Leo and Mikey don’t?”
“Of course not! I just know that they’d be sensible enough not to go wandering off.”
“Also, Leo can’t walk very far,” said Mikey.
Donnie didn’t know what to say. He was on the verge of freezing. Something moved underneath the flesh of his arm and had to bite the inside of his cheek to suppress it.
Whatever expression he was wearing on his face—maybe something that could be interpreted as defiance or anger—Raph didn’t like it. His lips pulled back to bare his teeth and he slammed his fist right through one of the arcade machines he’d just fixed.
Mikey startled back. Donnie didn’t flinch.
There was a reason Raph had been the perfect choice as a foot soldier for the Krang.
Raph pulled his fist out of the arcade machine with some difficulty and marched out.
“Where are you going?” Mikey called.
“I’m getting some fresh air before I do something to Donnie’s stupid, smug face,” said Raph. He jabbed a finger in Donnie direction. The distance between them felt profound. “Keep your secrets, but don’t expect me or anyone else to want to bail you out when things go to shit!”
Raph stormed out. Donnie felt his angry footsteps through the floor and didn’t dare move until he was sure he was out of reach.
“Jesus, Donnie,” said Mikey. “Why you always acting out?”
“I don’t ‘act out,’” Donnie denied.
“We’re worried about you.”
“I don’t need to be worried about.” Donnie reached for his bō, and— “Fuck, he took my bō with him!”
“Shocking.”
“Why am I being treated like some kind of prisoner?”
“You’re not a prisoner. You did something dumb.”
But he was a prisoner. Donnie was chained to his imperfect, fragile body.
He must’ve zoned out for longer than he thought, because when he came to, Mikey was holding him by his arms. His touch burnt. Donnie startled back.
“We are not having a physical contact initiative at this time,” said Donnie.
“Donnie, you’re freaking me out here,” said Mikey. “You really didn’t look right for a minute there. Are you sick?”
“I’m not. Just let me do things my way.”
“So you can blow everything up again?”
“Can’t have creation without destruction.”
“Donnie, where are you going? You’re not allowed to leave the lair!”
“I’m not vacating the premises, geez!” Donnie snapped back. “I’m sorry that my specific brand of post-traumatic stress disorder doesn’t align with everyone else’s! I will handle everything the way I want to handle them, I don’t need to ‘hug it out’ or ‘talk it out,’ and just for once, I wish you would all trust me!”
Mikey looked crushed.
On his way out, Donnie shouted over his shoulder, “And my looks are impeccable!”
Donnie was breathless with adrenal emotion by the time he got back to the safety of his room, although the writing on the walls, floors, and ceiling gave it a feeling of being unsafe. The nausea in his stomach kicked upwards, but he kept it down. Without the pain, he wouldn’t make any progress.
The integration had to complete.
Donnie needed space. Space to think and ruminate and pretend that he wasn’t bothered by anything that was going on, space that wasn’t near his brothers, space that wasn’t the lair.
Luckily, he had just the space in mind.
April’s apartment was a favourite hangout whenever her parents weren’t around. They were often busy running the antique store, and the building where they lived was old, with walls with just enough wiggle room for a soft-shell turtle. The place Donnie had in mind, though, was under her bed. He used to sneak off there when he was younger and he didn’t share his mind with the Technodrome. Donnie made it to April’s bedroom window, waited until she was in the bathroom, and slipped in and underneath, finally safe.
Donnie lay staring at the underside of April’s bed, reviewing all the graffiti he’d left during previous visits. Most of it were diagrams and calculations and diagrams. One long list was her mom and dad’s schedules, favourite snacks, and disgusting nicknames for each other. All of it inane, trivial, useless. He could’ve absorbed all of it through the Technodrome and gotten better results.
April turned a few pages and let out a long sigh. Donnie closed his eyes to rest for a while, but was interrupted by a sudden bang and April screaming.
“Casey!” April shouted. She threw open the window. “Can you guys use the front door like normal people?!”
“This is the front door,” said Casey.
“This is my window!”
“But it’s on the front of the building.”
“It’s a window! Not a point of entry!”
Casey’s feet appeared, shoes caked in mud and moisture.
“What are you doing?!” April demanded. “Take off your shoes while you’re in my room!”
“Sorry, Commander,” said Casey. He kicked his shoes off.
“April?” Elizabeth called from the kitchen. “What’s going on in there?”
“Nothing!” April yelled.
“Nothing indeed…” Elizabeth appeared in the doorway. “…April, there’s a strange boy standing in your room.”
“Yeah, I noticed.”
“Um, hi, I’m Casey,” said Casey.
“Casey?” Elizabeth repeated. She squinted at April. “Don’t you already have a friend named Casey?”
“Yeah, she’s my mom.”
“Your mom?!”
“Uh—”
“What he means to say is that she’s, uh, like his mom!” said April. “She’s his sister! His big sister! Who moms him!”
“…Casey is your sister,” said Elizabeth.
“Um…yeah,” said Casey.
“And your name is also Casey.”
“Yes.”
“And your parents named both of you Casey.”
“Yes. That’s correct.”
Elizabeth was quiet. Her voice was dry and flat, she said, “Baby, I don’t mind you having weird friends who you refuse to let me meet, but you can’t sneak them in through the fire escape. I’d rather know if there’s potential axe murderers in my house.”
“I didn’t sneak him in,” said April. “He dropped by without asking.”
“Sorry, I should’ve texted first,” said Casey.
“Just stop making a habit of it,” said Elizabeth. “Would you like something to drink, Casey?”
“Oh, that’d be nice, thank you.”
“At least you’re polite. April’s other friends always leave a mess.”
Elizabeth left, and Casey and April trailed out of the room. Although no longer able to see what they were doing, Donnie could still hear their voices with perfect clarity.
“I’m heading out to pick up dinner, April,” said Elizabeth.
“Okay, I’ll see you soon,” said April.
“Remember what I told you.”
“I will!”
The front door shut. April let out another long sigh.
“Y’know, I’ve been scrambling for excuses for my parents for six years. The least y’all can do is try not to arouse suspicions and—what are you doing? Get out of my fridge!”
“Sorry, I still can’t believe all the different food you guys got,” said Casey. “What’s this?”
“Yesterday’s leftovers. I wouldn’t touch it if I were you. Dad tried to make some kind of—Casey, you’re supposed to heat it up.”
“Hey, this tastes pretty good!”
“Just let me heat it up for you if you’re gonna be rummaging in my fridge.”
Donnie heard her shove something in the microwave. He painted the image in his head: of Casey sitting at the table like an old friend, of April directing him about proper and improver behaviour. A jealous pang tap-danced in his stomach and he traced the outline of an old image he’d carved into her bed of him and April holding hands.
“I heard you and Donnie had a long talk last night,” said April.
“Who told you?”
“Mikey said he saw you. Did Donnie tell you anything?”
“Not really, no.”
“Still, at least he’s talking to you now, and not defaulting to the glower he usually does when he’s talking to someone dumber than he is.”
“Trust me, I’m used to the glower.”
“Did he tell you where your mom is?”
“No.”
“Crap. What’s gotten into him lately? I know the invasion was hard on everyone, but Donnie’s handling it in a uniquely shitty way. Did Future Donnie ever do anything like this?”
“There wasn’t time. I’m sure if there’d been a moment of peace, he would’ve handled it badly—everyone would have—but there came a point where it was just constant war, and no one could afford to breakdown. At first, it was about saving the planet, but towards the end, we were fighting for our lives. My masters were careful not to show any signs of cracking, especially around me or the other resistance members, but I’m sure they did it behind closed doors. Master Donatello always threw himself into his work…That’s how I could tell when he was struggling.”
“And they weren’t hormonal teenagers when you knew them. Being a teenager is emotional.”
“Tell me about it.”
“…It’s not like Donnie to hide your mom from us.”
“No, he would, if he thought he had a good enough reason. Master Donatello was good at keeping secrets. This Donatello, not so much. But…But I’m sure she’s okay. No Donnie would ever put my mom in harm’s way.”
“…I don’t know. I have a bad feeling.”
“It’s gonna be okay, April. Master Dona—I mean, Donnie wouldn’t do anything to my mom. He’d never hurt her.”
There it was. The suspicion. The confirmation that they knew, subconsciously if not consciously, that Donnie was, in fact, the kind of mutant who would hurt a friend if he thought he had a good reason.
That was why Raph had grounded him. Not just to keep Donnie safe. Not just to monitor him. It was also to protect others.
From him.
It made Donnie sick. They were supposed to be heroes, the protectors of the city, but he was reduced to this. He wanted to roll over and fold into the earth and never come out. He wanted to tell them that—
The Technodrome twisted around his arm.
Donnie set his teeth, determined not to make a sound. He felt his skin strain, reaching its near-breaking point, and he clawed his free hand up the length of his arm. He did it until the pain let go and he could breathe again.
He must have made some kind of noise, though he wasn’t conscious of doing so, because a pair of hands grabbed his ankles and yanked him out from under the bed.
“DONNIE, WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT HIDING UNDER MY BED?!”
Not too long afterwards, Donnie was sulking in the rear seat of April’s mom’s car while April drove him and Casey back home. Donnie watched the city pass, a disconnected and, more importantly, imperfect collage of lights and sounds and people and warm bodies and information that he could assimilate and put to better use than the fools who tried to use them and—
April was looking at him in the rear-view mirror. She looked disappointed. It made Donnie unbalanced.
“Stop looking at me!” Donnie snapped.
“Raph said you were grounded,” said April.
“I’m too old for him to push me around.”
“Donnie, Raph didn’t ground you because he hates or because he wants to push you around. He did it because he’s worried about you, we’re all worried about you, and because you’re acting weird, and because we want you in a place where we can protect you. Y’know, instead of running away for four days.”
“I can handle—”
“Donnie, if you tell me exactly what it is you’re ‘handling’ and how you’re ‘handling it,’ I’ll leave you the fuck alone. But you’re not gonna do that, are you? Because you think you’re the only one in existence who can handle it and the rest of us are too dumb to keep up with you?”
Donnie folded his arms and sunk low in his seat. “I don’t think that.”
“No, Donnie, you do. And we get it, we’re not as smart as you, but aren’t we just as worthy of respect as you are?”
“If you respected us, you’d let us help. If you respected us, you wouldn’t look down on us.”
“I don’t look down on you! I’m trying to protect you!”
“From WHAT?! What DANGER is there?! The Krang are gone, and we’re never going to face anything as terrifying and awful as they were, so what are you protecting us from?!”
Everything.
He was protecting them from everything.
He could say nothing. The Technodrome twisted around his arm, and he clawed at the bandages, forcing himself quiet.
“Donnie!” April’s wet eyes looked through the rear-view mirror at him. “Talk to me!”
Donnie stared out the window.
The car came to a stop at the curb, April got out, and she opened his door for him to usher him out into the night. She reached for his arm, holding it protectively as she marched him to the sewer entrance and all but pushed him inside.
Raph was waiting for them at the bottom. He took Donnie’s arm the moment he was in arm’s reach, as if afraid he would bolt the moment he slipped away. Donnie had expected screaming and anger, but Raph just looked exhausted.
“Thanks for bringing him home, April,” said Raph.
“Keep him on house arrest,” said April, looking sad and disappointed. “I gotta get back home before my parents do.”
“I’ll handle it from here.”
Raph took Donnie back down through the tunnel, and into the common room. He waited for him to yell at him, and nothing came.
“…Well?” Donnie said. “Lay it on me, Oldest Brother. Go ahead, tell me how angry you are.”
Raph sighed. “Donnie, I’m done being angry. It’s a lot of work staying angry. Right now, I’m worried about you.”
Donnie folded his arms.
“But I get that you’re not ready to talk about it. If you change your mind, I’ll always be here for you. You just promise me one thing: is Casey Senior alright?”
“…I promise.”
“Pinky promise?”
Donnie looked at the extended finger, and almost opened his mouth and told Raph the whole story, and then the Technodrome gave a familiar twist, not painful, not yet, but something that would become painful if he didn’t do as he was told.
He looped his pinky finger around Raph’s.
“I promise she’s alright,” said Donnie.
“Okay, that’s all I needed to know.”
Raph clapped Donnie on the back and headed off, and suddenly Donnie felt terribly alone.
“You’re worrying us all, Purple,” said Splinter from his chair.
“I’m in a perfectly adequate state,” Donnie insisted.
“You are proving nothing, not even to yourself, by withholding things from your family. Believe me, I know the burden secrets can create.”
“I’m not burdened by anything. If anything, I am burdened by taking steps to ensure the safety of our family.”
“That is a burden you do not have to take on alone. Come tell your Pops what’s troubling you.”
“Ew, Dad—”
“…I know I have not been a good father. And I know that it is too late to change much of that. But I would like to try.”
Donnie stared at the floor, his body thrumming with an intense energy and nausea. Or maybe that was just his passenger, ever reminding him of their presence.
Without answering, Donnie walked way from Splinter, up the stairs, and into the sanctum of his room.
In the privacy of his room, he could finally let out the pained cry he’d been holding back all day, collapsing to his knees and clutching the wrist on his bad arm. The bandages felt far too tight. He unwound them, and the fingers unfurled, the tips now pointed, the protrusion of his wrist and elbow more pronounced than ever. Shaking, Donnie looked it over back to front.
“We are turning into something beautiful,” the Technodrome told him. “The process is uncomfortable, but you will thank us in the end.”
“Oh, yeah, thank you,” Donnie said. “Thank you for alienating my family from me. Thank you for changing my body without my consent. Thank you for making my liver feel like sixty years of alcoholism. Thanks for all that, I’m so grateful.”
“You are welcome.”
Donnie huffed. “When does this end?”
“The integration must continue. You may become significantly more uncomfortable before it is complete. We recommend isolation.”
“I can’t leave again.”
“They will thank you once we have shown them what we can do for this planet.”
“I don’t want this,” Donnie realized. “This isn’t what I wanted!”
“But you do,” the Technodrome purred. “You had seven chances to reach out for help. You could have told Raphael. You could have told Michelangelo. You could have told your father. You could have told Cassandra or Casey Jones or April O’Neil. You could have told Leonardo. You have had seven chances to tell them and you refused to take any of them. Seven times you could have told them about us, and yet you have not. You want this, Donatello. You want to be greater than what you are. Stop resisting. Let this happen.”
The Technodrome coiled tight around his arm. Donnie watched the black tendrils bulge his veins, tightening throughout his body like a bear hug.
“Let the integration complete, and we will give you the world.”