I Just Wanna Feel
Author’s Note: So—sorry for not posting in weeks, but I had a massive writer’s block, and well… I’m back! I was heavily inspired by THAT Robbie Williams song. Yes, I watched his biopic. Yes, I cried. Yes, I recommend it. And… surprise?! There will be a whole chronology with the others, all themed around Robbie’s songs! Yayy <3!! Consider it a gift? from me for taking so long 🥺. Love you all.
Pairing: Bayverse!Donnie x female reader
Tags: Intense fluff, nerd having an emotional crisis, extreme overthinking, unexpected kisses, Donatello’s mental breakdown, romantic panic, “oh no I messed up” but in HD, happy ending.
The sound of the keyboard echoed through the room—a rhythmic, steady tapping that blended with the low hum of the monitors. The bluish glow from the screens cast irregular shadows across his face, reflecting off the lenses of his glasses with every line of code appearing and disappearing on the monitor.
Donatello was there, as always.
The work was easy. Thinking was easy.
It was like a well-structured algorithm: receive information, process it, execute a plan of action. The world had rules, patterns, probabilities—formulas that predicted outcomes with near-absolute precision. No matter how chaotic a situation seemed, there was always a logical solution waiting to be uncovered.
Computers don’t lie.
Data has no biases, no whims. It doesn’t suffer irrational fluctuations. It doesn’t beat faster without reason. It doesn’t have to remind itself to breathe.
But then…
There’s you.
And everything falls apart.
Not immediately. Not like a fatal error shutting down the system in the blink of an eye. It’s more subtle. Like an unexpected variable in an equation that had, until now, been perfect. Something that doesn’t fit into the rigid structure of his world—but something he can’t ignore either.
He thinks about it often. About how his brain operates like a well-calibrated machine, each thought clicking into the next like the teeth of a moving gear. Logic is his native language. Reason, his compass.
And yet, when it comes to you, all that logic becomes blurred.
The gears grind.
The code becomes erratic.
The equation fills with unknowns.
Because when you step into his space, when your voice disrupts the steady rhythm of his keyboard, when you lean over his desk without a second thought for the scattered circuits and switch off his monitor without warning…
His first instinct is to think. Analyze. Quantify.
What does this mean?
Why does his heart react this way?
Why does his skin register the shift in temperature more intensely when you’re near?
But thinking doesn’t give him answers.
Feeling does.
And that is terrifying.
Because feeling isn’t predictable. Feeling has no neatly arranged lines of code, no graphs to chart behavioral patterns, no equations with exact solutions.
Emotions, in themselves, are a chaotic system.
And you…
You are the anomaly he still doesn’t know how to decode.
Nights shouldn’t feel this short when spent alone in front of a screen. And yet, when his mind drifts to the memory of a laugh, the fleeting image of a glance, the echo of an accidental touch… time dissolves in a way not even quantum physics could explain.
When he feels the weight of his name on your tongue. Like an access key to a system he never thought anyone would try to hack.
And he watches you from the corner of his eye as you lean closer, and in that instant, every variable in his mind shifts. Every equation rewrites itself.
A shiver runs down his shell.
Feeling.
He knows because his chest tightens with an undefined pressure, a sensation he can’t attribute to any specific physiological variable. His heart rate isn’t elevated from exertion. He’s not under attack. He’s not in danger.
So why does his body react as if he is?
There’s no equation to explain this.
Because if there were, he would have solved it long ago. He would have identified the problem, broken it down into its components, eliminated any errors. But every time he thinks he’s close to an answer, another unknown appears, shifting all previous solutions out of place.
Music filters through his headphones, slow and melancholic.
“I just wanna feel, real love…”
A shiver runs down his spine.
His body reacts to the sound before his mind does. It’s absurd. It’s ridiculous. There is no logical reason why a progression of chords and a set of words arranged in a certain way should have this effect on him.
And yet, here he is.
Fingers hovering over the keyboard, motionless—caught between the instinct to keep working and the strange, undeniable realization that… he can’t.
Not because he’s tired.
Not because he lacks information.
Not because there’s a problem that requires more processing.
But because, for the first time in a long time, the data isn’t the most important thing.
The screen flickers with information he should be absorbing, but he isn’t. His glasses reflect numbers and graphs that would normally hold his full attention, but his gaze is empty, unfocused.
The room remains unchanged—draped in shadows, illuminated only by the bluish glow of his monitors and the faint blinking of LED lights from his equipment.
The mission had been difficult. The margin of error had been higher than he liked to admit.
It wasn’t often that his calculations failed.
But sometimes, calculations weren’t enough.
Sometimes, reality simply… refused to adhere to logic.
“Feel the home that I live in…”
His jaw tightens.
He doesn’t know how that song ended up on his playlist.
But he has a reasonable theory.
One that involves Mikey, his blatant disregard for personal privacy, and his insistent need to “help him connect with his emotions.”
(Sure. Right.)
And yet…
The lyrics hit him harder than he’d like to admit.
It’s not the melody itself. It’s not the chords or the rhythm. It’s the way the words seem to slip through the cracks in his mind, seeping into the spaces that logic has never quite managed to seal shut.
“I just wanna feel, real love…”
Donnie exhales slowly, his fingers still hovering over the keyboard, motionless.
He thinks about the battle.
The mistakes.
The risks they took.
Numbers flash through his mind like a simulation running in reverse—impact probability, the margin of error in his calculations, the reaction speed needed to avoid damage. Fractions of a second where the difference between victory and absolute disaster depended on decisions made under pressure.
But more than anything—he thinks about you.
He thinks about the way, at the end of the fight, you rushed to check if he was okay.
About how, without even thinking, your hands—warm, alive—ran along his arm, searching for injuries he had already identified and dismissed milliseconds before with his visor.
He could have told you it wasn’t necessary.
That he was unharmed.
That he had concrete data to prove it.
But he didn’t.
Because logic dictates that worry should be extinguished by facts.
But feeling…
Feeling dictates that your touch lingers, even after you’ve gone.
That the sensation of your skin against his stays beyond his capacity for reasoning.
That the light pressure of your fingers on his forearm still burns in his memory, like an unsolved equation looping endlessly in his mind.
“Come and hold my hand…”
Donnie closes his eyes.
He could turn the song off.
He could erase the anomaly from his system.
He could rewrite the equation, adjust the variables, find a way to rationalize what he feels.
But… he doesn’t want to.
Because for the first time in his life, the result of a problem doesn’t matter as much as the unknown.
He doesn’t just want to think.
He wants to feel.
He wants to understand why being with you feels like the only constant that truly matters.
And then—you arrive.
Without warning, without fanfare, without the slightest idea that the world inside Donatello’s mind is teetering on the edge of a collapse even he can’t explain.
The lab door slides open smoothly—barely a whisper against the silence, thick with static electricity and the faint murmur of music in his headphones.
He notices everything.
The shift in air pressure.
The sound of your footsteps, softened against the floor.
The faint scent of shampoo and fabric laced with the chill of the night.
The way the temperature in the room rises by just a fraction of a degree when you step inside.
But he doesn’t turn around immediately.
Because he doesn’t know what to do with the anomaly that you are in his equation.
He doesn’t know where to place you within the rigid parameters of his logical, structured world.
His operating system slows, his brain—so used to processing information with the precision of a surgeon—stalls in an endless loop, searching for a resolution that refuses to exist.
And then—your voice.
“Donnie?”
Soft. Not because you’re hesitant, but because you know him. Because somehow—through a method he can’t quantify—you can read the tension in his shoulders. You can see the way his fingers have stopped typing, even though the screen is still waiting for input.
He closes his eyes for just a moment, as if that alone might be enough to reboot him, to restore the control that feels like it’s slipping through his fingers.
He knows he should say something.
He knows he should act normal.
But his normal means efficiency, speed, precise answers delivered at the exact right moment.
And right now, every command in his mind is failing.
You watch him with quiet curiosity, tilting just slightly toward him—just enough for the air between you to feel heavier, more tangible.
“Everything okay?” you ask, voice soft in that way that completely disarms him. Then your gaze sharpens slightly, scanning him with quiet scrutiny. “Are you hurt?”
He doesn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he looks at you.
His mind runs an automatic analysis of your expression—eyes slightly narrowed, lips barely pressed together, the faintest crease in your right brow, as if you’re already calculating the probability that he’s lying.
Logic dictates that he should reassure you with data. That he should tell you his visor has already run a full diagnostic scan and that his physical condition is optimal. That there is no rational reason for concern.
But then his gaze drops.
And he sees his own hand, still resting on the desk—still tense.
And for the first time in a long time, he chooses to do something without overthinking it.
He looks at you again.
His throat feels dry. Without realizing it, he wets his lips—a quick flick of his tongue over skin cracked from hours without proper hydration.
Then, in a voice so quiet it barely sounds like his own, he asks:
“Can I… hold your hand?”
It’s not the kind of question anyone would expect from him.
And he knows it.
Because it doesn’t fit his usual patterns. It’s not something that makes sense in any logical context.
But right now, logic is utterly useless to him.
Your lashes flutter in subtle surprise, as if the words take a few extra seconds to fully register.
“What?”
His instincts scream at him to backtrack, to rephrase, to find a way to explain what even he doesn’t fully understand.
But he doesn’t.
“I want to…” He inhales, trying to reorganize his thoughts. “I mean, just—”
He shuts his eyes for a second, frustration flickering across his face. He has never felt this clumsy with words before.
When he opens them again, you’re still there. You haven’t moved. You haven’t looked away.
And somehow, that alone gives him the courage he’s lacking.
“I just… want to feel it.”
The truth escapes him so easily, so quietly, that it almost embarrasses him.
Your expression shifts.
It’s not amusement.
It’s not rejection.
It’s something softer. More intimate.
And without questioning it—without hesitation or unnecessary words—you let your hand slide over his.
Not hurriedly.
Not hesitantly.
Just with the quiet certainty of someone who understands exactly what he’s asking for.
And when your fingers intertwine with his, Donnie feels every equation, every algorithm, every carefully structured rule in his mind… simply dissolve.
As if they had never really mattered in the first place.
“Well?” you ask, your voice carrying a faint attempt at lightness.
Donnie knows you’re trying to sound casual, that you’re masking your uncertainty behind a relaxed tone. But he notices.
He notices the delicate dusting of pink on your cheeks, the almost imperceptible tremor in your lower lip, the way your thumb brushes against the back of his hand—like you’re adjusting to the contact just as much as he is.
And something inside him… softens.
His lips curve, at first unconsciously—a smile, small and barely formed. Then, from deep in his chest, a quiet laugh escapes, unbidden and genuine, as weightless as the air after a storm.
It’s not mockery. It’s not disbelief.
It’s something purer. Something real.
—Nothing, —he murmurs, his thumb moving awkwardly against your skin— Just… this is nice.
The confession catches him off guard.
Because he hadn’t planned it.
Because he hadn’t filtered it through his logic before speaking.
Because it simply happened.
And then, you look at each other.
Maybe for too long.
Maybe just long enough for the world around you to blur into a distant murmur, as if nothing else exists except the space you occupy together.
He finds himself mesmerized by you.
Fascinated.
But not in the way he is fascinated by a new equation, by an unexpected pattern in the data, by the perfect symmetry of a well-designed structure.
This is different.
This is raw.
This is visceral.
This is feeling.
His other hand, trembling in a way he doesn’t understand, lifts with a slowness that borders on reverence.
And when his fingers brush against your cheek, the touch is so light it feels like an experiment in itself.
He feels.
He feels the warmth of your skin beneath his fingertips, the way it molds so effortlessly to his touch, the way your body leans ever so slightly toward him—responding to an equation he hasn’t yet written but, for the first time, doesn’t feel the need to solve.
He feels the erratic pounding of his own heart, too fast, too unsteady, as if it has forgotten its natural rhythm.
He feels the heat gathering in his chest, expanding outward like a shockwave, defying all logical explanation.
And then, he hears you sigh.
Small.
Soft.
Almost imperceptible.
But he feels it.
He feels the warmth of your breath against his skin, the subtle vibration of your exhale in the nonexistent space between you.
Feels,
feels,
feels.
As if every one of his senses—once so meticulously calibrated to process information—has now been repurposed for a single objective:
You.
Your warmth seeping into his skin.
Your quiet, rhythmic breathing.
The barely-there weight of your gaze resting on him.
The familiar scent of you, imprinting itself onto some hidden corner of his mind he never thought necessary.
Just you.
Only you.
Nothing else exists.
Nothing else matters.
And then—without thinking, without calculating, without rationalizing it into exhaustion like he always does—
he kisses you.
It’s brief. Just a brush of lips.
A moment suspended between doubt and need, between impulse and fear.
A single heartbeat contained in a single point of contact.
And then—
He hears you gasp.
His entire body locks up. Every muscle goes rigid with a tension so sharp it’s almost painful.
His brain—so efficient, so precise, so relentless in its ability to analyze every variable in a situation—enters a total shutdown.
He stares at you, eyes wide, pupils blown.
Oh, no.
No, no, no.
He misread everything.
What the hell was he thinking?
You don’t see him that way.
Why would you?
Why would you ever?
Shame crashes over him like an unstoppable wave. His stomach twists, his skin burns, his heart clenches into an invisible fist that threatens to crush it from the inside out.
He pulls back, his hands loosening, his voice catching in his throat.
—Oh, God, I didn’t mean to— —he stammers, his voice cracking under the weight of his own panic. His thoughts are a mess of unsolved equations, of probabilities collapsing into a singularity of pure dread— I just… I thought it was a good moment, I—
—Yes.
Your voice cuts through his spiral.
His brain short-circuits.
—It was.
…
What?
His breath halts.
The air thickens, pressing in from all sides, as if the entire universe has stopped—right here, right now, in these words, in this reality he never accounted for.
And then—
You close the distance.
You are the one to bring your lips back to his.
And his mind—his brilliant, overanalyzing mind—
for the first time in his life—goes completely silent.
And he simply—feels.
