The morning had proved to be not in the least bit entertaining for Donatello (just Donatello as far as this ship would ever know).
It wasn’t so much the shiny new job that he’d been offered and practically coerced into accepting; that, at least, was tolerable whenever he was able to do the things he wanted and the large paycheck didn’t hurt either. It was more the aliens that he had to put up with during his time spent on the vessel. Back on his home planet, a smaller place that merely consisted of various criminal organizations fueled by trading with ships that docked down, he’d known every face that crossed his path and every unsavory secret that came with it. Blackmail was, after all, one of the primary tools of the trade that everyone had to master if they wanted to be successful.
And sure, all he’d run was a humble car shop (less tastefully called “chop shop” by those who were in dire need of an attitude adjustment), but that didn’t mean he allowed himself to be pushed around. So, placed in an unknown environment with dozens of unknown Federation lackeys no less, he was suffering from the equivalent of being thrown into the deep end of a stormy sea without any prior knowledge of how to swim and commanded to float.
Donatello made sure he stuck to himself mostly.
The only companionship he tolerated were his cacti (they were stowed away safely in his room under a specialized lamp) and the head of security, Raphael (if only because the turtle actually seemed to vaguely sympathize with his plight). As far as he was concerned the rest of this train wreck of a ship could get sucked into a black hole. Other engineers were wise to stay out of his way, immediately put off by his haughty attitude and penchant for swift, cutting insults. He didn’t mind in the slightest–the rest of these so called intellects were of average cognitive ability at best and would only drag him down.
He had never been in the business of being held back by other individuals and didn’t intend on starting now, whether that individual happened to be, for instance, the Head of Engineering. (Who was absent, of course, having scurried off after Donnie had chewed him out for questioning whether or not he was avoiding assigned work to continue personal projects.)
Perhaps this was working against him since Raphael was standing there with the resident infamous criminal in tow, but Donnie disliked ever believing he was wrong. With practiced ease he clipped a wire inside Metalhead’s abdomen to the side so that he could access the robot’s joint microcontroller. If he didn’t start touching up the mechanics here first, Metalhead would have an irrevocably fucked up visual range resulting in a practically nonexistent sense of balance. Tedious work, but important.
He barely spared the duo a second of his time, warily eyeing them just long enough to ensure the criminal didn’t have a weapon on him or something of that nature, before turning back to his project. Honestly Donatello didn’t even feel like committing to help out Raphael as that would result in the Head coming back into the room and being a general pain in his ass, so he opted for grunting unintelligibly in response to the hulking turtle’s question.
In retrospect that had been the less smarter of the two routes he could have chosen, but he hadn’t expected the pirate to suddenly lean into his space with an unsettling smile. Donnie’s grasp on the metal clip and wire he’d secured to the inside of the robot fumbled just enough for the clamp to slip out from between his gloved fingers and plummet to the floor with a sad tinkling noise.
Splendid. Absolutely perfect.
Donatello took a moment to exhale lowly and then shoved his glasses back up the bridge of his nose as he reluctantly turned to face the other turtle. Prolonged sight of the criminal brought back flashes of memories, of opening a door and finding Leonardo in the room on the other side with a dead body and blood splattered on his weapon of choice and clothes. Barely, he managed to repress a shudder from the image firmly bleached into his mind, and summoned a disgusted look in its place. This was fairly easy considering he had, as his old workers had called it, a resting bitch face.
“Convict it is.” He coolly replied, not breaking eye contact while he marginally reached down and plucked the clip off the floor with the sort of unhurriedness that one was able to develop after years of dealing with egotistical criminals, “Aren’t you supposed to be rotting away in some jail cell? Preferably away from this room?”
The final question was punctuated with a vicious side eye towards Raphael, gaze sharp and not in the least happy with the situation. Other engineers around the room were looking at the situation with unbridled curiosity, already whispering among themselves. The security guard, for his part, did nothing save for shrug quite unapologetically and appear as though he were seconds away from leaving the pirate with Donnie. (Which he sure as shit better not.)
