#softspotfic

[afreakingdork]

A Villain's Mark Universe CJ courtesy of the amazing r3sting_trejoface

It's really important to me that older CJ gets "strong fat" in a good timeline. The fella deserves it after all the rats he's eaten 😤😤😤

[afreakingdork]

Soft Spot - Chapter 64

RotTMNT Donatello x Reader

A delightful father and son scene in this week's chapter art by @shardkn1ight

Rated: Explicit

Warnings/Tags: Romance, Established Relationship, Married Couple, Married Life, Aged-Up Mutant Ninja Turtles, Villain Donatello (TMNT), Love, POV Second Person, Babies, Pregnancy, AFAB reader, Vaginal Sex, Rough Sex, Penis In Vagina Sex, Creampie, Breeding Kink, Multiple Orgasms, Angst, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Fertility Issues, Pregnant Sex, Pregnancy Kink, Reader-Insert, Cunnilingus, Fellatio, Cum Eating, Turtle Noises (TMNT), I have a Biology Degree and I’m Using it, Menstruation, There WILL NOT be any Miscarriages, Depression, Postpartum Depression, Anal Sex, Intimacy Near Child (No Child Harm)

Synopsis: First comes love. Then comes marriage. Then comes the next step about as smooth as the others arrived. The baby-oriented sequel to Weak Spot.

Also available on Ao3

First 💜 Previous

“Okay.”

Leo rambled through your phone and into your ear.

“That’s great.”

You could tell he was beaming.

“Do you know when?”

He spoke thoughtful, but unsure.

“Alright. Keep me posted.”

He chirped an ecstatic goodbye and you offered a passive response.

The call ended and you nodded as you pulled your phone from your ear.

You were glad for him.

Hunting down CJ had been an apparent chore. While her name was still kept from your mate’s presence, April was an active part of the search. She had called getting CJ back to New York ‘bullying’ when you spoke on the phone at work. A non-negotiable she had bargained with the man after one too many disappearances to foreign lands. He was to carry a mystic-imbued satellite phone, but even that had limitations. It was spoiled for connection, but ate up power. April had tried to explain to you something about energy crystals, but most of her info dump had gone over your head. 

Apparently, CJ could easily replace the crystals as the batteries they seemed to facsimile if he just went to a Hidden City. Unfortunately for the group, he didn’t have the best relationship with the mystic lands. That meant restocking at some mystical Radio Shack wasn’t something he pursued, if he could help it. From the stories you collected about him while he was being tracked, it wasn’t as though he was trying to disappear. From what April would tell you, the Hidden Cities around the world were all gone by the time he was born. That was about where her story ended so you weren’t sure exactly why their reemergence bothered him. 

You got the classic line about how he would tell you himself.

It made meeting him feel all the more imminent. 

Half the Hamato were focused on trying to locate the man. 

It had already been over a week. 

You felt a little helpless during that time, but Leo insisted on calling you regularly to keep you updated. 

He wasn’t necessarily a changed man after your discussion, but a goal gave him focus. He mostly played up CJ’s accolades in a way that read like a proud parent to you. In his excitement, you could tell Leo had been hoping for this sort of exchange for a long time. He had seemingly convinced himself it wasn’t possible and you scoffed whenever he sentimentally thanked you for giving it to him. You assured him you had done little more than listen and demand he do something. If you were the crux for that sort of interaction, it was only as a bystander tired of a family who seemed to prefer death over actually talking to each other.

Yet, in spite of that, Leo loved to talk.

You were only a little miffed that his focus switched so easily from Othello to CJ.

You guessed he had always been a sort of substitute, but a small part of you prickled as your son was so easily cast aside. You let the tingling be as you knew that wasn’t really the case. It was one of those nonsense emotions that flared from injustice of those you held dear. The reality was Leo was happy and the depths of it went far beyond you and yours. 

You were glad.

Donnie felt differently. 

You turned to look where he was laying flat on his carapace and holding Othello up high above him not unlike a burger.

“Which floor, sir?” Your mate cooed.

Othello’s hands flapped on dangling arms.

“Ground floor, very good.” With a click, Donnie brought him down at an even pace.

Othello squeaked and squealed his excitement.

As soon as he was close enough, Donnie blew a raspberry into your son’s plastron.

Othello giggled up a storm.

“I’m sorry, sir, another patron requests penthouse access!”

Back up the pretend route your son went.

The action gave him just as much joy as he soared.

It was hard to tell now, as it had been for days, but Donnie was in a bad mood.

He had been since the night Leo phoned you.

You understood the obvious whys.

He hated Leo.

You would have to amend.

You guessed there was really just the one. 

There was pretty much only one.

Anything else fell under an umbrella beneath the singular reason.

He didn’t like when you spent time with him because of it.

He didn’t like when his son did for the same reason.

That part was simple.

What hadn’t was the complexity of Donnie’s reaction to Leo’s persistent existence.

Before you agreed to facilitate a meeting for Leo and CJ, you had spoken to Leonardo maybe once every few months at most. In just the last week, you had spoken to him more than the prior year combined. Donnie could overlook a once in a while interaction, but now that Leo was some kind of constant, it bothered him in subtle ways.

You didn’t feel as if he was withholding anything from you. He was ever the loving husband and dutiful father. His emotions flowed normally through your ring. He didn’t seem to be holding them back to any particular degree. You were held with similar affections as before and kissed without fault. Your son was passed between you as a unit, but still there was a disgruntled nature percolating just below the surface that had yet to be given real voice.

It manifested in small flickers of his pupil as a lit spark whenever your phone would ring out of turn. It lingered after a call with a burning fuse of tight muscles. The bomb refused to actually go off and instead Donnie moved with hints of his displeasure, making frown lines where he was usually calmly set and twitches in his brow that hindered relaxation.

Leo was disrupting his peace. 

You didn’t know what to do.

You weren’t getting some silent treatment.

There was nothing to complain about. 

On a surface level, Donnie seemed normal. 

Except, you knew he was stuck with something he didn’t like.

You wondered if he was just waiting for normality to return which you presumed it might as soon as this meeting with CJ finally occurred. Leo’s call just a few minutes ago said they had an idea of what country he last landed in. From there they could convene with locals as soon as they could get the necessary translator. More mysticism was involved there and a certain level of trust had to be built for anyone to give out such information. That took time and Leo only had approximates, but even that was just for directions and not CJ himself. 

You walked over to your mate while you tapped your phone to your lips.

He saw you beyond his raised baby. “What’s this?”

Othello was too focused on what was below him to look above.

“The building has undergone renovations. There’s a new floor.”

Othello’s legs kicked.

You put your phone away and moved for a smooth exchange. “Straight…!”

Your son strained as he felt another set of hands.

“… to the top!” You lifted him up high.

He screamed with happiness.

“You like being up high now, huh?” You adjusted your hold on him.

He reached for you.

You brought him down to your chest. “Is this your floor?”

He grabbed at your shirt.

“What do you have there?”

He pulled a fistful.

“I’m not sure that’s yours…?”

Donnie sat up in your periphery and moved to stand.

“It must seem like you own everything though, huh?”

Othello squeaked one agreeable time.

“Well!”

“Quite the mogul.” Donnie pecked your cheek. “I’d like to continue his play. Legs are next.”

“He takes after someone.”

A soft churr was pressed into your head.

“Can’t remember who.” You bounced Othello to try to get him to let go. “Did you know? The head of Genius Built is a mystery.”

Othello looked at you with a roving head.

“The magazines say a lot about him. ‘Who is that devilish entrepreneur whose products occupy all our homes?’”

Othello saw a clip of his dad and shuffled towards him.

“I’m sorry. He figured it out all on his own.” You offered up your son, who released you with a need for his other parent.

“Need I remind you of his genius?” Donnie caught him and you helped him turn your baby around. Othello frowned deeply as he faced you again even though he had made his intentions clear. You kissed away his concerns until he was bubbling with little complaints over other affections. Donnie got a secure grip around his shoulders and his other hand went straight under the plump on his diaper. With a crane grip, he then lowered your son to the ground until his feet touched down with his body upright in a bipedal fashion. “Step, step.”

Donnie tipped him side to side and moved him slightly forward.

Othello slapped his feet awkwardly each time as he tried to figure out how this sort of locomotion worked.

“One foot.”

Donnie helped demonstrate.

“The other.”

Your baby dawdled along.

It was like that.

By all accounts your husband was perfectly normal.

A check to your ring said the same.

Yet you couldn’t shake that he wasn’t.

He was upset.

At least, you thought so.

You went to get a few toys and specifically a little fire engine that was that red Othello liked to chase. Donnie hobbled on his knees in a hunch as he walked Othello along at your son’s pace. You moved to sit a ways in front and rolled the toy over. Othello heard the clicking before he identified the object and puffed with air as excitement overwhelmed his small body. He writhed to get closer, but Donnie was set in making him try to move.

With peeps of a tiny tongue, Othello kicked weakly until he got some form of traction. It wasn’t the drag of his eight toes that moved him forward, but Donnie following the movement, bit by bit. The success was felt solely in your son and sounds poured out of him in both strife and pride. By the time he reached the truck, he smacked it away to begin fetch again.

You watched Donnie’s eyes.

He was focused on the task at hand.

Care for your son.

Teach him well.

He was a regular stay-at-home dad.

It was a transformation you know you had watched happen, but the reality of it only seemed to hit now.

“I’ll remind you of our discussion on onomatopoeia.” Donnie began and it took you a moment to realize he wasn’t talking to you. “Do you recall the sound this sort of siren makes?”

Othello was too busy acting as a nightcrawler. 

Though he hadn’t had much success in the second part of that pseudonym.

He preferred to yank himself upright and fall towards his destinations before repeating the action again.

You thought he might roll over on his own accord soon, but he seemed more focused on his stepwise locomotion.

“There’s the wail, slow wee-ooo, the yelp, fast wee-ooo, and the phaser, wah-wah. Which would this particular vehicle be at?”

Othello stubbed his toe against the truck.

Donnie didn’t seem to notice anything other than his son go silent. “Do you know which?”

Othello screeched and Donnie reared with visible confusion.

“That’s… a wail, but not…” Your husband blinked through the fog and brought Othello in.

You crawled over.

“I’m not sure…”

“He kicked it.” You reached for Othello’s foot.

Donnie decompressed with a measure of guilt.

You didn’t see a single mark.

Othello was weepy as he felt your touch.

You squeezed over his toes. “Does the pressure help?”

Your baby sniveled.

“Yeah… It’s hard. I can picture your daddy tripping over this in the middle of the night.”

“Not putting toys away?” Donnie nearly gasped. “That will be routine! Nightly!”

“You think that’ll work?” You gave him a look.

“But of course!” His beak turned up. “It is an exercise in responsibility. His possessions will be cared for.”

“He thinks you’ll never fight back. All kids hate putting toys away.” You got Othello’s other foot since he seemed calmed and pumped them in tandem.

He saw the utility in a new game and tried to kick in time with you.

“All children.” Donnie remarked.

“Mhm.” You pushed one lever, then the other.

You heard a soft hum.

“Left. Right. Left, right, left.” You moved each leg in time.

Othello smiled wide.

“Dearest, wait…!”

You looked.

“Inverse. His directions come first so as not to confuse him before time.”

“Before what?” You chuckled.

“His own will come easier if we enforce early.”

“Ah, I see. Then it’s: Right. Left. Right, left, right.” You playful swapped the words, but didn’t mirror them on Othello’s feet.

Othello didn’t seem to care either way.

Donnie absolutely did. “Darling, please.”

“Right, right.” You tried not to eye him. “This is left.”

You showed your son with his own feet.

“Then right. Left, right, left.” You marched him in his direction.

He cared little for the words and liked the action.

Donnie had an imperceptible exhale as things were as they should be.

You snuck glances at him. “Your turn.”

You released Othello’s feet.

Donnie talked softly. “Left.”

Othello couldn’t organize his limbs and tried to step with both.

“Left this way. Right the other.” He was shown.

Othello continued to struggle with basic motor skills and neglected their higher direction.

He soon fussed about the continued strain and Donnie let up.

The moment he set Othello down, your son sprawled out, deeply satisfied with his little boot camp.

You sat beside Donnie.

Your husband was clearly thinking.

Before you could ask, he spoke. “Curriculum.”

You leaned against him.

You weren’t rebuffed, but you swore you felt some hesitation. “I keep meaning to update you on its status, but I’ve been trying to organically engage him. Teach by example.”

“He just turned seven months old.”

“There is no start or end to education.”

“True, but…”

There was a tense flash to your husband’s person that you could almost talk yourself out of had you not been hyper aware of him.

“Don.”

“Yes?” The question was patently innocent.

“You okay?” You had asked before, but you figured he might know why you were asking now.

“Yes.” There was a leading to the single word.

You gave him more of your attention through a shift of your body.

“I am.” He insisted, but there was still something there.

You listened.

“We’ll agree and disagree.”

You studied his face.

“As we have. As we will.”

“On Othello…”

“Everything.” There was a bob to him as he spoke. “Everything.”

The repeated word’s intention differed.

It was about Leo.

You opened your mouth.

“I rely on you.”

You paused.

“You. The books. His instruction.” He gestured to Othello, who now seemed interested in rotating his whole person instead of rolling over. “Recommendations of those around me.”

“Raph.”

“Just him really.” He almost smiled.

You gave a single nod.

“We took years to align. Ideals. Values. I never made space for another being. That was new and this is new still.”

“Right…” It had been a long time since you thought about your dating days.

“Despite such, I had experience with others. Negative, but familiar.”

“You can put on a good business face.”

He appreciated the compliment. “I enjoyed those dealings to an extent. Not the falsities, but the game. A mental battle.”

You brushed your arm against his.

He glanced toward, but not at you. “A child, however…”

“You have nothing to go off of.”

“None. I barely encountered urchins in passing.”

“Or…” You weren’t sure how to say it.

He did. “Or even my own. I didn’t have a childhood.”

You guessed he wasn’t thinking of Leo and felt a wave of shame. “When I said all children…”

“I’ll start reading further along. Beyond baby books to child behavior. I’d like to close these gaps in my knowledge.” He turned so he could touch your arm in a meaningful way.

You shook your head.

“I see a pattern emerging. The Hamato appear inevitable. Thus, I must increase my proficiency. I did not like… I…”

You searched your mate.

“Why him?” Donnie bled.

The stock of anguish in his voice paralyzed you.

“We… the two of us, me and you, struggled so… and Leonardo…” Donnie soured around the name alone. “You speak of your disdain and it appears mutual, but at the same time he is drawn to you and that too-!”

“No. No, no, no.” You rose on your knees as you turned to your mate. “Donnie, it’s not-!”

“I’ve been understanding!” He flinched away.

The gesture shook you.

“Given space because if I push back the result is always insistence on your part.”

“Donnie, Leo-!”

“You switched to his nickname so quickly.”

“It’s how he introduced himself!”

“And yet I never-!”

“I know how much you value names!”

“It speaks of familiarity!”

“You told me early on that I wasn’t allowed to shorten yours. I didn’t until you let me!”

“There are levels. You must work up to that sort of closeness!”

“I didn’t jump them on purpose. Not everyone has the same limitations as you.”

“That is far more disturbing.”

You turned as thoughts flew past you.

You could see Donnie scrub his face in your periphery. “This is not how I wanted to discuss this.”

“I knew you were upset, but I didn’t realize-!”

“Please, my heart, you must understand. I would never keep you from the world. I value you too much.”

“No, I know that…”

“Your company is yours to keep.”

“I know.”

“But him…” He hissed with a dying will like a pot taken off the heat. “You know what he’s done to me. You’ve touched it.”

His gnarled shell appeared in your mind.

“Felt it.”

The terror and vitriol bubbled up.

“You help him as though he is your calling.”

“He is not.”

“Not as destined. You know I do not believe such.”

“Then as what?”

“As if one takes to an occupation. You have an inherent ability.”

“To tame Leo? I hope not! What a useless skill.”

“I would say so.”

“Donnie this-!”

“A moot point. I am aware.”

“No, that’s not-” You stopped yourself.

He only looked at you.

Clearly.

Without further insinuation.

Upset.

Without recourse.

“It doesn’t sound like jealousy…”

Donnie’s face contorted. “Of course not.”

“On paper…”

“Unless…” His aura flared so large and wrathful, Othello, who had turned a quarter of a clock, looked over pointedly.

“On paper, it sounds like it would be! There is nothing there!” You pushed into the darkness.

It abated against you. “Our bond assures as much.”

“Obviously!”

“I meant him. I do not know what runs through that dunce cap calls a head of his. He fell for a prank thinking he had somehow enticed you so easily. That we all knew such a scenario was impossible…!”

“Yeah, no. I may have taken a liking to one moody turtle right off the bat, but Leo has the exact type of mental problems that are not compatible with mine. Think of someone with low esteem paired with someone you can never tell is serious ever. Your heart was open. Despite everything, you were willing to try and, yeah, it was tough, but you wanted to make it work. Leo… I can’t see Leo with anyone as he is. He isn’t willing to give himself an inch, why the hell would he give anyone else?”

“That isn’t family.” Donnie clicked his tongue on the amendment.

“Exactly!”

Your mate inhaled in almost a sniffle.

You watched him.

“Diaper.” Donnie moved.

You went with him.

Together, you changed Othello without speaking.

Exchanged wipes and legs in time.

Used your synchronicity.

The one you built for years.

Until your son was newly changed and recharged for more play.

He got some tummy time, which he used to continue his battle with gravity.

You both watched him work to get upright.

“It does feel like I have to.”

Donnie glanced at you.

“Help Leo.”

He nodded.

“You said it got him off your back.”

“Not in those words.”

“Of course not. If it’s colloquial, you’ll find some smart brain way to say it instead.” You adjusted Othello’s little top where it was bunching up from movement.

Your baby stilled for a moment at the sense of comfort clothing him before he went right back to kicking his legs.

“But that’s not enough.”

“No.”

“I don’t quite get it either…”

“Pattern. Inevitable.”

“Them.”

“Their ninpo.”

“You got stuck with a family despite not having one.”

He chuffed.

“Family is like that.”

“The only one I wish.” He smoothed over his son’s head.

Othello looked at his dad, then you.

You smiled.

Your baby huffed a few sounds before pushing against the ground.

Donnie hadn’t started the conversation like this.

He had talked about how you had built your relationship.

The gaps in his childcare knowledge.

Then, brought up Leo.

Meaning, it was all connected.

You were faced with another obvious why, but another complexity kept you from true understanding.

Leo took up your time, which Donnie had to account for.

He had beautifully picked up slack for you time and time again.

He was an incredible father.

He had insecurities about it, despite his effort.

You saw those born from his upbringing.

You heard an echo of his vow to surpass Splinter deep in your cortex.

He had drive.

He had results in your son’s growing aptitude.

Another memory stirred.

One of how things would change and his inability to compensate.

The fun house nest he had built.

As if each memory slid through your bond, Donnie breathed in and spoke.

“If… we are not a unified force, then what are we?”

You blinked toward him.

“Married.”

He showed his ring.

“Parents.”

He waved over your son.

“Bonded.”

You felt a zip of his energy.

“You… can so easily make these connections with others. See past your contempt. I have no such will or way. I am steadfast. Without luxury, time, nor faith to allow such. I must build slowly. For myself and others. I don’t know if I will ever be able to shorten Raphael. The damage runs too deep, but you… My miraculous mate. You can do both. You can yell at that blue glutton and he sucks up the damage as he always has. Bottom feeds on it. While you are deterred and disgusted, you continue forth with the hand extended while I…”

His head lolled back to view the ceiling.

“I will not open up. You are my tether to this world. You gave me length to explore and find my place, but it is one I returned to you in. Carved out in all efforts and bodily fluids to be one with you in mind, but you are not so easily captured. I have taken you in all ways known, but there are times we will not see as one and it is with those I am chilled. I can fill those moments with as much knowledge as possible, but what happens when I’m the oddity amongst my own safety?”

You struggled with his wording until the letters seemed to part.

In the train car, he was the odd man out.

Not unlike Leo being monkey in the middle between Raph and S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N.

Donnie didn’t want to do the prank, but was outvoted.

Donnie wanted you to leave with him, but the same thing happened.

Donnie hoped you wouldn’t keep helping Leonardo, but your own say in the matter trumped his opinion.

Your husband was trying to heal his existence and move on.

Yet the haunting reality said that he would never truly fit in remained.

You lurched forward, minding your baby, and hugged him.

Donnie awkwardly held you up.

“I’m sorry!”

“Y/N…” He shushed you.

“I should have realized. How could I say ‘all children’ as if you would know?”

In a quick lift, he cleared you over your son and pulled you into his lap. “Darling.”

You only hugged him more with the proximity. “I’m going to work on that.”

“That is not what I meant.”

You shook your head into him with a scrub.

He liked the contact as a little churr warbled, but he was insistent to speak.

You guessed you would let him as you quieted in a tight squeeze.

“There is no fault. On your part or mine.”

It reminded you of that bitter feeling that you had about Leo not having actual interest in Othello.

“Frustration lies in its existence. It is without aid.”

“Can’t be helped.” You spoke against him.

He nodded once.

“I promised myself I would do this with you. Be with you as you get to see a good family life. Our family life.”

He adjusted his hold to a more comforting one.

“Everything got so crazy… I still want that for you.”

He seemed to almost want to respond, but didn’t.

You lingered before you chanced your own. “Let’s do some family bonding-!”

You felt his eyes look out and back at you.

“And…! That’s exactly what you’ve been asking me. You’ve been very obviously asking me not to talk to Leo because you wanted me to spend time with you and Oats…”

You knew there was a certain level of smug on his face.

“But I keep leaving you. My post-partum. Reclaiming myself. Then tackling other people’s problems.”

“Which, itself is-”

“Not wrong, but…!”

“Frustrating fact.”

You grumbled.

He pet you and obviously checked on your son.

You did the same and found Othello tuckered out, but fighting his lids.

You both watched him.

“We won’t always be perfect, but we are a force.”

He looked at you.

You met his eye and pecked the tip of his beak.

He smiled.

“As parents.”

“Partners.”

“Everything.”

“Everything.”

There was a beat of silence.

You both leaned into each other.

“So… we wanna sign up for those swim classes?”

He smirked. “The weather is warm and our membership is secured. If we want to take a class proper, one starts next week.”

“Someone’s ready.”

“Is that not the norm?” He teased.

“Oh, you’re going to put that back on me now?”

He thought for a moment. “A pachyderm operates with a non-volatile memory system.”

He was far too proud for that.

You pinched him.

He dipped you and your giggle stirred your baby with wiry complaints.

You were not matching his rhythm either.

As far as he was concerned.

💜 NEXT 💜

New year and same great team! All the new year love to my betas @tmntxthings and @unrestrainedhotsoup 🥂

[afreakingdork]

Soft Spot - Chapter 66

RotTMNT Donatello x Reader

Hey, wow! Donnie looks how I feel! I don't know how @shardkn1ight predicted the future, but they did!

Rated: Explicit

Warnings/Tags: Romance, Established Relationship, Married Couple, Married Life, Aged-Up Mutant Ninja Turtles, Villain Donatello (TMNT), Love, POV Second Person, Babies, Pregnancy, AFAB reader, Vaginal Sex, Rough Sex, Penis In Vagina Sex, Creampie, Breeding Kink, Multiple Orgasms, Angst, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Fertility Issues, Pregnant Sex, Pregnancy Kink, Reader-Insert, Cunnilingus, Fellatio, Cum Eating, Turtle Noises (TMNT), I have a Biology Degree and I’m Using it, Menstruation, There WILL NOT be any Miscarriages, Depression, Postpartum Depression, Anal Sex, Intimacy Near Child (No Child Harm)

Synopsis: First comes love. Then comes marriage. Then comes the next step about as smooth as the others arrived. The baby-oriented sequel to Weak Spot.

Also available on Ao3

ATTENTION: You all might be wondering about that late chapter posting and it's because I won some trip tickets! I will be going on vacation and there will no chapter posted next weekend, February 6-8. To get ready, I had to go really ham on my jobs which sucked me into a dry husk who was barely able to write, let alone edit. Thankfully, I caught up on everything this last Friday so I am free to tie up loose ends on Monday and head out after that for sweet, sweet vacation time! Thank you all for understanding!

First 💜 Previous

Othello was being a menace.

You loved your son. 

You truly did. 

Nothing would change that. 

That didn’t stop him from doing his damndest to at least make you second guess your sanity. 

He had chosen violence from the moment he had awoken. 

You had planned for a lazy Saturday, but, when you went to wake him, you found him sitting up in his crib and clutching the bars like a wronged prisoner. He would have banged a cup if he had one and, since he didn’t, he settled on trying to shake the structure. His crib was sturdy enough that nothing would mechanically move and the strain made him frustrated. He pitched ear-splitting noises in an attempt to splinter the wood, so you picked him up thinking he wanted attention. 

Your mistake. 

What he wanted was freedom. 

It wasn’t exactly feasible since you had him a good few feet off the ground and he writhed so much you couldn’t do anything more than keep him from falling. 

“H-help!” 

Your feeble call immediately summoned your husband just as Othello inverted in your arms. 

He kicked you in the jaw as Donnie added a pair of hands. “Ack!” 

“Bit!” Donnie scolded. 

Your son paused only to inhale before he screamed. 

Not cry. 

He expressed only his rage. 

Donnie was woozy as he lowered him to the floor. 

The moment Othello touched down he tried to ambulate, but he still hadn’t quite figured out crawling. He crouched, prone on his elbows with his rounded bottom sky high as he tried his best to take off. He mostly just fisted his frustration in his squat and you could see the furrow in his brow from above him. 

“That kind of day…” You murmured. 

“His diaper needs to be changed…” Donnie commiserated. 

Your head fell. 

Getting Othello onto the changing table was a regular cage match. He was a tiny MMA fighter without pads. He struck wildly and without control. It made his punches all the more potent in comparison with his tiny size. You were sure to have localized bruises and Donnie fared no better. Your husband acted as a smothering net that Othello tangled himself in. He contorted through Donnie’s large fingers and took advantage of their fewer number. Your mate had many gaps that your son jumped for five total times before you all but strapped him down. 

The brawl broke the diaper’s seal and its contents were spread about. 

A bath was also not high on Othello’s wish list. 

Clothes and cleanliness were more facets in his way. 

He wanted to be rid of all of them. 

Only he was covered in shit and his fight was smearing it. 

Your husband was taken out by stench and texture and you gave up on your shirt to rush him into the shower. 

It was another mistake on your part. 

A burst of shower water did wonders for one effort and completely smashed another. Othello had grown cocky over the course of a few swim classes. He believed he garnered speed. The moment he was rinsed, he did his best impression of a seal and flung himself for wet freedom. You screamed as he slipped through your hands. You caught him in a full body hug which smothered him into your wet top and his latent excretion. 

Donnie tripped into the room just in time to be torn down by another full bodied infant scream. 

You couldn’t believe lungs that small could produce such a volume. 

You sank to your knees and Othello lunged for the lip of the tub. 

“Enough!” Donnie caught him in a firm lock right around his midsection. 

This was where your husband’s large hands came in handy. 

In this position, your son was firmly captured and the overlap prevented any escape. 

The glare he seemingly threw as he strained against the hold was palpable. 

It struck Donnie directly through the psyche. 

His son appeared to hate him and he was feeble as he trended toward the kitchen. “Proper… washing…” 

“Soap!” You yelled after them and reviewed your soggy state. 

You stripped and took advantage of the long heated water. A flash decision of a shirt not being worth it sent your sopping clothes into the bathroom trash can. You emerged for fresh dungarees as today was now apparently all about hard labor. You entered the living room to find Othello in his determined head down, butt up position and completely nude, but thankfully clean. Donnie was collapsed and wore a dark soak mark down the front of his clothes as if he had been knocked out by a bucket of water. 

You held out your hand to your husband. 

He tagged it in a slap that caused him to fold over himself. 

You pet over his head as he shakily stood and went to wash up or change. 

You weren’t sure, but in that less than a minute exchange, Othello had moved. 

You scoured the floor and found him several feet away near the couch, “Did you crawl?!” 

You heard a bang that was distinctively the sink. “Y/N!??!” 

“I don’t know! He moved!” You chased after your son. 

As soon as you got close, you watched your baby tip to one side. 

He rolled like a log several times and then stopped in dizzy confusion. 

You heard a fumble of steps. 

“He’s rolling.” You told Donnie without a millimeter of excitement. 

“He’s…?” Donnie started and stopped before Othello repeated the maneuver straight into a wall. 

He barely bumped it. 

There was hardly a thud. 

To your son it must have felt like another being encroaching on his existence because he immediately spasmed. 

He punched and kicked and squealed and finally gave into big, fat tears. 

Too many things had gotten in his way. 

Walls were meant to be torn down in his current state. 

“Go… go get dressed… I got this…” You put a hand on Donnie’s bare arm and didn’t bring any more attention to the fact that he was just as naked as your baby. 

You weren’t sure if he followed your command as you approached Othello. Your son caught glimpses of you and flipped onto his back so you could see the brunt of his tantrum. You lowered to your knees and reached for him only to be smacked away. He clearly didn’t want to be soothed so you ended up laying down beside him. You watched the wrath of his emotions wrack his tiny body. He shook and fought the invisible foe of his emotions. It streaked tears through trenches and peeled back his skin to accommodate the wailing of a large mouth. He was chapped from his frustrations. His little lips and cheeks rashy from salty tears. 

He boiled over and the froth clung to his skin. 

He eventually wore himself out and gave little ‘weh’ noises on hiccuped repeat as he still wasn’t satisfied. 

You attempted contact a second time. 

He let you rest a few fingers on his plastron before his face pinched in stubborn silence. 

You relaxed with him right up until his features softened. 

Warm liquid lapped your elbow. 

“And you peed.” You clunked your head against the floor before you pushed to sit up. “You haven’t even had breakfast yet… Were you holding that in on purpose?” 

He made a chuff sound that seemed to indicate he was. 

You picked him up because you had to. 

He didn’t have the strength to fight, but he pulled from you as much as he could. 

You could at least easily transport him now. 

You passed Donnie on the way back to the changing table. 

He was clearly nursing a headache, but still looked between the rooms at you. 

You got Othello onto the table and only minorly struggled to get his diaper secure amongst his wiggles. 

“Piddle pad, aisle-” Your joke halted as you couldn’t conjure anything witty. “Near the door. He peed near the door. Whatever. Food time.” 

Othello disliked the idea and pushed at your chest. 

You hadn’t pumped yet and the firmness from the night caused it to sting. “Can you-!?” 

You turned him around and he batted at your arms in protest. 

He did so straight into the kitchen where you tried to fetch milk from the fridge. 

Othello snagged a mustard bottle from a shelf and flung it. 

You didn’t hear it as much as felt how the cap snapped open when it hit the floor and ejected its separated contents. 

“Ha!” You hoisted your baby up against your shoulder. “I put on grubby clothes just for that! I don’t even care if these stain!” 

He cared. 

A lot.

Enough to knock over a stand of silicone utensils while you tried to warm him a bottle. 

Enough to yank at your collar and pop a few stitches. 

Enough that you considered trapping him in a basket to get a few solitary seconds without his menace. 

Donnie sensed the length of your rope and took over for the actual feeding. During his tenure, Othello somehow gnawed and twisted at the nipple enough that he was able to get the top off of his bottle. Both boys were soaked in precisely the liquid you sucked from your body. You watched Donnie mourn the loss of either his second or third pair of pants for the day and he went to get a cloth from the kitchen. You didn’t open your mouth until it was too late and you watched your mate catch and slip on the forgotten mustard. 

Your husband went airborne in a sort of split where he put all his effort into prioritizing Othello. 

You saw the triumphant smirk of your son held high as your husband crashed into the floor. 

“Donnie!?” Your pump hung off your chest as you shot upright. 

The seal broke and you were splashed. 

You smashed the off button to stop the loud protestive thumping of the machine and fumbled over. 

Donnie was wheezing on the ground. 

You took Othello from his perch and your son pouted the whole way. 

“There’s…!” Donnie sucked in harshly. 

He rocked to one side and you found he had landed on a whisk. 

The rubber molds over the metal tines had snapped and a single lead impaled him. 

“O-Oh!” You waffled. 

“Pull it out…?” He tried. 

You caught it and it popped out. 

“How…?” 

“Small puncture…” You studied the spot closely. “I don’t see any blood…” 

He groaned and flopped onto his side. 

You sank to your knees beside him. 

There was a damp spot on your shirt where the milk had spurted out. 

Othello was a little sticky. 

You located the rag Donnie had been trying to reach and wet a pinch of it. 

Your son squawked as he was dabbed. 

“No food. No rest. Just anger. What do you want?” You begged of him. 

His hands worked against your collar. 

You set him down perpendicular to the kitchen entrance. 

He struggled to get into his crouch. You watched as that extreme focus passed over his face. It looked as if he was trying to harness liminal brain power. He sent all his efforts into his limbs, but they failed him. All that taut nature then teetered and he eventually tipped. You watched as that was his methodology to mobility and he rolled sideways as much as momentum took him. He then waddled to assume the position and begin again. 

He at least had his diaper on now. 

There would hopefully be no more slippery accidents. 

You reviewed your mate.

He achingly pushed up onto one elbow and reached around his body. 

He came up with the mustard bottle, which had also been crushed beneath him, causing a not so bloody splotch over his top half. Yellow darkened gross blotches against the back of his mask and you helped untie it as he reviewed where the mustard spray had gone. You signalled you had this and cleaned up. You wiped down the kitchen, seemingly finding another fleck of mustard each time you thought you had gotten it all. 

It was a chore as you had to stop every few seconds to track your baby. He wasn’t very good at aiming and kept bumping furniture, much to his own chagrin. His irritation was thankfully kept to himself as he no longer pitched a fit when he struck something. He instead pounded it furiously with his little limbs before he was turned enough to roll another way. This went on until you had finally put the kitchen back into some semblance of normality and chased Othello down. 

He was clearly exhausted, but refused to stop his plight. 

You picked him up and bounced him in a wobbly circle. 

He was not to be soothed. 

Donnie took his turn with rocking. 

It did little. 

You both eventually emerged from your apartment as zombies and did a last ditch effort to put your son to sleep via the car. 

The city wasn’t particularly known for its stretches of driving and the stop and start put Othello into an agitated fit. 

You tried for only a few blocks before you emerged to stroller him back. 

That worked. 

Finally. 

The click clack of the sidewalk cracks was just an even enough of a bump. 

Your son lulled with heavy eyes that soon sank. 

Donnie tried to stop, but little testy whimpers said no REM was reached. 

You kept walking. 

Long lines up and around the block. 

Square circles of monotony. 

Donnie was a husk. 

You were a shell. 

Both meant to be tossed. 

It took over an hour before your husband chanced slowing again. 

Othello slept on and you finally returned to your apartment. Your time away made the scents of piss and shit hit you anew even though they had long been cleaned. Donnie’s beak wrinkled at the acrid air and you put Othello down in his crib. Some kind of air cleaner system was activated and you felt fresher oxygen flow in. You and your husband bumped into each other and used the couch as a plopping levee to finally rest. 

Donnie was spread out and you were a curdled heap beside him. 

You used one another to keep upright, but sleep didn’t come. 

You sensed your husband in a similar state. 

Catatonic. 

In the quiet and with focus, you swore you felt the motion of his weary blinks. You turned the slightest amount into him. His scent wafted up mixed with the astringent vinegar in the mustard. It clung to some part of him, even with his last mask tossed to the laundry heap. His clean one had some semblance of that clean quality that came from Lady Nagami’s work. She washed his things with an odorless solution, but even that had a quality that other fresh clothes did not. It added to the distinct quality that was Donatello. 

Your gaze moved to a clock. 

It had barely been a few hours where it had felt like an eternity. Logically, you knew stress zapped your energy. A baby was a job on its own and a fussy one was twice as much. You had been so caught up in Othello’s mood that you hadn’t considered if his tantrum could be health related. You guessed Donnie hadn’t either, but for as much fight as he put up, you doubted your baby was sick in any way. His stool, which you had gotten way too personal with, seemed usual and healthy. He hadn’t been too literally hot under the collar despite piping in personality. He must have eaten something since Donnie hadn’t stressed about him eating any more. 

Bad moods happened. 

You dispelled any more imaginary ailments. 

You were tired. 

Probably more tired than your sleeping babe. 

It seemed odd. 

The illogical reared its head. 

If it wasn’t your baby, it was you. 

You had known a sick Othello a few odd times now. 

You were tired then, but this seemed especially egregious. 

You pondered curiosities like turning rocks in a garden. 

You found all sorts of little creepy crawlies. 

Leo was a prodding pill bug that either stretched out to trot around or curled up to hide away. He had lately chosen the former in droves and traipsed around your life. His armor was one he had built up along the way. It segmented in parts that all shielded him, but he chanced, by stubbornly forcing your solicitation, unfurling his tender belly on the trek for better things. 

Under another was the fleeting beetle of your baby. He scurried about at the fastest rate of development. He moved in a way that said he would never return from where he had come from. Each moment of his was a milestone achieved without looking back. Today it was rolling and tomorrow it was going to be something else. As much as you tried to track his shiny shell, he hopped along out of view and left you chasing him. 

The final stone you moved had in it a sort of worm of your relationship. It wriggled lively from being prodded then continued to burrow. It was the depths of which you had reached with your spouse. Soil was churned and aerated as you worked through and processed your problems. An indicator of good health and also great bait, it had a million uses. It was also fitting that it was currently the lowest on the food chain you had set up because it had been something you set aside while focusing on other things. 

Your sex life was an extension of that. 

Wiggly, squiggly, and hard to properly hold without squashing. 

You sort of dawned back to your living room. 

There had been far more pressing matters to attend to. Even before that it had been a rocky affair. It was hard to connect intimately amongst everything else. It seemed like an obvious barometer of stress and why you had succumbed so easily today. You fumbled with the double edged sword nature. You guessed the activity would be calming, but it also felt daunting. Even without accounting for your lack of energy, your drive to do it felt low. 

“We haven’t had sex in awhile.” You shared the shorthand of your findings. 

Donnie took your comment in quietly before giving an affirmative noise. 

Your tired gaze narrowed. 

His reaction was too casual. 

It was as if he was aware. 

You thought back to the last time. 

Bubbles, water, and a decree to not do it again with your baby around emerged from the fog of your mind. 

You almost smiled. 

That was like your spouse. 

He always had taken your words to heart. 

You turned further into him. “Let’s make some time this week. Wanna go out then hook up?” 

“No.” 

He hadn’t taken a single second before responding. 

“Huh?” 

“A date would be nice.” 

Your brow came down. 

“Fine dining.” He found your hand to hold. 

“Are you… vetoing just the sex part?”

“Yes.” 

Again, there was zero hesitation. “Why…?” 

He frowned so deeply you felt it in your bond. 

You pulled away to see his face. 

He was petulant and you saw the similarity with your son.

“Tell me what you’re thinking.” 

He exhaled softly. “The deficit occurred to me. With consideration, I determined our coupling should not take place within a schedule.” 

You thought over his wording. “So…?” 

He seemed satisfied and adjusted your palm against his. 

“We just… won’t ever have sex again unless it is spontaneous?” 

His head tipped slightly as his way of confirming. 

“Donnie, nights out are a thing. Parents take their breaks. It’s why babysitters exist.” 

“For entertainment. For parents.” 

“I think we’re very entertaining.” 

“When not on a timetable. Unless you have a proposition of your own?” 

You chuffed a little. “I don’t… My whole idea was going on a date. Friday is a typical date night, I guess.” 

“Then you wish to have relations this Friday.” 

“Sure.” 

“I do not. There are too many variables. Who will interrupt next. The expectations of which. Availability of the sitter. Othello’s state. Yours.” 

“This isn’t… You aren’t getting back at me for saying we’re not doing it in front of Othello?” 

“No.” He gave his similarly quick response. “The decision hardly took your decision into account. Your observation was sound. There had been an escalation. I might have realized the same given more time.” 

“Then… what?” 

He looked at you openly. 

“We just… don’t have sex until he’s old enough to be on his own or go out with his friends…? And also we happen to want to do it when that happens…? Isn’t that way more complicated? I don’t know...” 

“The imagined scenario more involved our temperament.” 

“Meaning?” 

“If the chance arises, we act on it.” 

“And… who will watch him?” 

“S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. He was keen.” 

“No…” You pushed into him. “We can’t just call him up to drop everything and watch Oats. He’s a grown man. He’s got stuff to do.” 

“He is not a man.” 

“It’s an expression. He’s independent.” 

“True.” 

“He doesn’t like falling into his old butler role.” 

He thought. “Raphael’s schedule is difficult...” 

“Donnie, we’re not calling people to suddenly watch Oats so we can fuck.” 

“Crass.”

“You want to do date nights!” 

“Partially true.” 

“Okay, right. You do want to go out, just not make love after! You know…! Most romantic nights out lead to-”

He turned his beak up. 

“Oh, come on!” 

“Principle.” 

“Don, we’re not free to do whatever we want anymore. We have a kid. This is part of it.” 

“I will not schedule our lovemaking.” He seemed to punctuate finality. 

“What if it comes up organically on the date?” 

“I will indulge you.” 

“But not participate, I’m hearing.” 

“The mood will not allow.” 

You stared at him. 

He met your eyes once before his brows came down. “I will not be seduced otherwise.” 

“I mean, that seems like an obvious challenge.” You sneered at him as you stood. 

Othello made a few wispy waking sounds. 

Your lids closed as you mentally prepared for round two. 

“It’s not.” Donnie said simply. 

“A little interest and boom. I’ll barely have to try. You drop at the sight of me.” 

“Fair…” He nearly hummed. “But I’ve abstained in the past.” 

You gestured for him to follow. “And how did that go?” 

“Upsettingly.” 

“Right.” 

You saw Othello’s eyes open through his crib bars. 

“Neither of us want to repeat that.” 

“Correct, though it is our current best impasse, my heart.” 

Your son’s vengeance sparked as he was back in jail and fury reignited as he wriggled to get upright. 

You hoisted him up to his confusion and put him right down on the ground. 

The immediate release gave him pause and he seemed to gauge his surroundings. 

“Though I must admit this conversation is effortless because I could not imagine intimacy of any kind with the state of things.” He openly shuddered. “I haven’t washed enough times to rid the fluids I’ve been subjected to.” 

“Oh, same. You still smell like mustard.” 

“Ah.” Realization seemed to dawn on him. “There are competing scents.” 

Othello animated and sort of rocked back and forth in place. 

He didn’t seem like he knew if he was coming or going. 

“I guess, in that way, we will see.” 

“As I’ve said.” Donnie swooped from above and kissed the back of your head. 

“Friday night date then?” The prospect did sound nice even if it might not have a happy ending.

“I will ask if S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. is available.” 

-

Othello didn’t let up for the rest of the week. 

Tantrums were his new favorite activity and he exercised them ad hoc. 

No longer did he cry from the usual perturbations. 

It wasn’t even about getting his way. 

He would just scream and thrash because it was what he wanted to do. 

It meant you came home from work all week to an overstimulated husband. Donnie was fried beyond comprehension. A vacant version of him would either pass off or gesture to where your son was. He usually spent most of his evening unable to speak. Long gone were the seemingly easy days of Othello’s complaints being easy to rectify. There was now only amorphous anger which took away Donnie’s ability to fix. Your mate was utterly cut off from his preferred mentality. He curled into himself until exhaustion took your baby to dreamland. The same would then be exercised on Donnie, who could barely reach out by the time his head hit a nearby pillow. 

By Friday, there were worries about whether you could go on your date. 

Othello hadn’t let up. 

You weren’t sure if S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. could handle it. 

S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. didn’t know if he would make the problem worse. 

He ended up heading to your house several hours before you got off work to check. 

Othello apparently flipped his entire mentality when his brother arrived. 

When you got home, you found Othello in S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N.’s arms blathering away as if he had a whole week he needed to catch his sibling up on. Your mate was sat, head in hands, on the couch. Not only had he suffered four five days, but it was an assault to his very core that his baby apparently rejected both his parents. Your husband was in need of TLC, but you needed to prepare. You thought of ways to soothe him as you greeted both your sons before going to change. 

You were the escort leading Donnie out of the house. 

He had, at some point, clearly changed for your nice date. You felt an extra soft tweed blend of his jacket as his arm fell loosely into yours. You held him tight as you led him to the elevator and swayed with him in the box. You didn’t bother asking where he made reservations and instead the car awaited with the instructions already programmed in. You went so far as to buckle Donnie in after grabbing the door and played soft background music you knew he had once told you he liked. 

Little melodies drove you along. 

The sky dribbled outside, just enough to wet the windows. 

It reflected stop lights, red and green, but never gave way to rain. 

That heavy atmosphere reminded you of the dark clouds crowding your baby. 

You got a text with a picture of S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. making a mess with Othello and some colored semi-solid foods. Your baby grinned wide as if his mush was a masterpiece made by assaulting the canvas of his high chair. You thought of showing it to Donnie, but decided not to. He would probably be plagued by the thought of a mess where you knew S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. was more than capable of cleaning up. You had no doubts you would return to your relatively spotless home and eventually closed your phone in favor of watching the streets. 

You arrived at the establishment with little flair. 

A valet took the car. 

The meal was nice. 

Donnie didn’t complain, but he was addled. 

With sadness. 

Frustration. 

Woe. 

You didn’t bring attention to it, but you also didn’t ignore him. You gave little suggestions and enjoyed the ambiance. It was nice seeing a line of pleasant faces even if they were paid to take care of you. Waiters capped your drinks with perfect pours and your plates were cleared only when appropriate. The chatter of the restaurant was such that people were clearly in a similar space to you. There was enough conversation that it wasn’t quiet, but no one was gorging. You were surrounded by an exact amount and not a drop more, just like your glass. 

You elongated your stay and Donnie emerged with a cappuccino after dessert. 

He lingered on the warm ceramic cup that was brought out. 

It was plain white, with little to do. 

A vessel that brought brown and white foam to lips. 

A little fern was sprouting from the pour. 

Your mate admired it before he sipped. 

It must have been good. 

He breathed it in. 

Kept his eyes shut. 

Tasted. 

He was fully cognizant when there was residual mud left behind. 

The check was taken care of and it was him who led you this time. You clicked your heels to fall in step with him and earned a smile. It clung loosely to him out to the car where you expected to head back home. You observed him, but he hid away in the lasting dew making spots on the windshield. You watched as the streets turned over to a hotel with a golden lit façade. Another suit took your car and exchanged keys for a slip of both notoriety and cash.

You walked through an almost gaudy lobby of reds and golds. You found yourself looking out at those who passed. This was the sort of hotel where people took their drinks communally. A quaint bar sat at one end and several men were gathered up with clinking glasses. A man and woman flanked them in chairs where their legs were oppositely crossed. They lined up across from two women chatting near some ferns as if sharing their heart’s most secret tales. 

You had to scan a hotel card to operate the elevator. 

That spoke to something, but Donnie was clearly prepared. 

He produced a card without needing to go to one of the desks and activated the elevator.  

The floor he pushed indicated you weren’t in for some penthouse, which seemed fine to you. You had an idea now of what kind of décor this hotel thought was chic and it seemed like it would be too much. You imagined stone horses and lame approximations of paintings against a myriad of textiles. They drew both too much and too little attention away from the cheaper woods used in the faux desk and supplemental entertainment systems. You imagined gilded frames flanking tacky flat screens hung to fit those amenities that were to be expected of a short stay. 

On your floor, it was as if you were in any number of hotels. 

A simple wallpaper. 

Tiled floor design. 

Wooden doors with placards. 

Donnie approached one and swiped through. 

You entered to clean tiles. 

They laid out a patchwork that met beige carpet. 

In fact, taupe was a bit of a theme. 

Warm tones coated the floor, bed coverings, nearby chair, and huge lines of curtains. 

Donnie hit a button somewhere and you heard an electric whirl. 

The curtains parted for far longer than you expected. 

New York City appeared. 

You had a corner room and walked out closer.

The overhead lights dimmed behind you and two lamps glowed a pleasing auburn that didn’t reflect in the glass. 

Droplets flickered here too and the city sparkled down below. 

You felt a shift along your hairline and a kiss to your neck. 

“No.” 

You hadn’t taken a single second in responding. 

You could feel his curious air poke at your bond. 

You turned slowly into him. 

He pressed against your back. 

You were methodical in leading him to the bed. 

He joined you cautiously. 

You laid on your side and didn’t bother taking your shoes off. 

He mirrored you amongst a search. 

You reached out across the soft bedding and laid your hand there. 

A question you used to extend when you weren’t as sure as you were now. 

He placed his hand in yours and for a moment it overwhelmed him. 

Contact lately for him had been far too much. 

He was overwrought. 

His fingers tented yours before they desperately squeezed. 

He wanted and needed this sort of connection. 

You brought his hand to your lips for a chaste kiss. 

He chirped softly, but didn’t churr. 

A small vulnerable sound of an overtaxed individual still trying to give more of himself. 

“Just this. Is that okay?” 

“More than.” He breathed relief. 

You huddled a little closer. 

Bumped knees were about as much more as he could offer. 

You felt adorable. 

In your finer clothes, your oldest son putting your youngest to bed, in some nameless hotel, and giddy as you held hands with your spouse. 

It almost felt like renewing a vow. 

“This is ours.” 

You almost hadn’t realized he had spoken. “What?” 

A tilt of his head said the hotel room. 

“I mean… you have a key.” 

“Long standing reservation. You have one as well.” 

“Oh.” Realization finally struck. “Like we can come here…?” 

“Whenever.” 

“Gotcha… Our getaway spot.” 

“Do you like it?” 

“I love it.” 

His lids were heavy. 

You removed your knees from his to bargain a kiss to his forehead. 

He slipped from you the moment your lips met his mask. 

He was asleep when you put your head back in place. You watched him for a long stretch in the sweet silence of your room. 

💜 NEXT 💜

I want to thank my betas @tmntxthings and @unrestrainedhotsoup for their endless patience with my hectic schedule and, well, mental state

[afreakingdork]

Soft Spot - Chapter 62

RotTMNT Donatello x Reader

It feels like poor @shardkn1ight drew this one million moons ago, but finally everyone can see the glory that is Raphael!

Rated: Explicit

Warnings/Tags: Romance, Established Relationship, Married Couple, Married Life, Aged-Up Mutant Ninja Turtles, Villain Donatello (TMNT), Love, POV Second Person, Babies, Pregnancy, AFAB reader, Vaginal Sex, Rough Sex, Penis In Vagina Sex, Creampie, Breeding Kink, Multiple Orgasms, Angst, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Fertility Issues, Pregnant Sex, Pregnancy Kink, Reader-Insert, Cunnilingus, Fellatio, Cum Eating, Turtle Noises (TMNT), I have a Biology Degree and I’m Using it, Menstruation, There WILL NOT be any Miscarriages, Depression, Postpartum Depression, Anal Sex, Intimacy Near Child (No Child Harm)

Synopsis: First comes love. Then comes marriage. Then comes the next step about as smooth as the others arrived. The baby-oriented sequel to Weak Spot.

Also available on Ao3

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Othello toed the blanket he was lying on. With heavy thought, one of his legs kicked into an outstretched position and he held it there. With a small squish of his brows, he considered his next action very carefully. He silently churned until the odd weight distribution caused him to rotate. His shell prevented him from rolling off his front side and caught him much like a shrimp. With that half moon, he used the angle to look down at his body. He watched his own legs kick and he strained until his toes parted. Hobbling on one elbow, his little legs reached until he fell straight back onto his tummy, where he continued to think.

Donnie was squatting behind him and you shot your husband a glare.

Your mate tented his hands over his beak.

“Psst, psst.” You called.

Othello looked at you.

His mouth opened and closed in a rounded shape.

He smiled and wiggled with his hands slapping the ground.

You chuckled, then gestured for him where you were sitting on the couch.

Attention returned heavily to his brow.

It scrunched as he planted his arms. His forearms sank into the fabric and his fingers twitched as he forgot to control them. His feet kicked up, but this time he had a bend to his knees. They helped him better hook the fabric so he could rock. He swayed forward and back like a tossed ship. His carapace made the motion a little too steady as a result and he sprung with an all too tight-woundedness until his limbs spread and his expression fell.

Having collapsed, he stared into the blanket for several seconds until he looked at you again.

You smiled for him.

He saw it and his gaze drifted downward.

In a determined curl of little fingers, he slapped his other hand down. With the momentum, he rocked again. In a whoosh of his flat plastron rubbing both his onesie and the blanket, he scuffed the ground until his knees bent. With a sway, his torso lifted up off the ground and you schooled yourself with every fiber of your being. Othello continued his unsteady movement as he held himself up suspended by his hands and knees. His head rose from where he was staring down at the new distance to gawk at you.

You tried not to give him much more than that same even grin.

His eyes sat large and he momentarily stopped.

He held his body still.

Donnie’s emotions exploded in your bond and you could tell he was fighting his own battle based on the creased tears staining his mask.

Othello’s bottom lip dropped.

His mouth opened.

He pumped hard between his arms and legs.

He went forward and backward on a bevel. His arms acted as a straight angle and his shell made his body a similarly smooth shape. His legs were the biggest problem as they refused to coordinate. Though his knees were propped, the rest of his limbs twisted. His feet fell inward and he appeared to recognize the error because he looked over his shoulder the best he could.

One of his feet kicked into the other and his toes pinched.

He felt his own skin in too many sensations.

He shook and slowed.

“Psst…” You urged as unobtrusively as possible.

He swung back to look at you.

This time you gave a nod.

A happy noise bubbled in his throat and he kicked off.

He tipped to one side, but his shell prevented him from rolling over yet again.

He dropped right back down onto his plastron and smacked the ground.

You reached out.

He immediately did the same.

His opposite arm came up and his body turned the other direction. Once again the hinge of his shell prevented him from naturally turning over, but this time he used it to his advantage. His lips fought for dominance and he pouted as he palmed the ground. With those straightened arms, he writhed in a bounce that caused a crinkle in his diaper. In a contrastingly slow move, Othello put all his focus into straightening his legs and controlling his fall.

He thumped onto the ground with a gentle rush of air from the blanket.

He had also moved nearly an entire foot forward in the process.

As he had been scooting steadily for the last twenty or so minutes.

Not quite crawling, this method of locomotion had taken him from where he was once playing with your husband to get to where you were resting on the couch.

It realistically wasn’t very far, but in terms of his tiny size, it was a monumental distance.

He reset and rested.

His fingers felt along the blanket edge he could now reach. Instead of tugging it up like you thought he might, he simply palmed the stitches. He seemed to think hard about their make before he lifted his head back up to attention. He gave you a stern look that came with a pitchy whine before he banged a fist.

It was the gavel sound-off of his final verdict and he finally did pull the blanket. It hoisted him further forward and his legs spasmed. He kicked repeatedly, but they never seemed to go in the direction he wanted. The first strike wiped uselessly at soft cotton. The second got him to his knees, but one leg gave out. The third had him on his feet with his diapered butt in the air, but the weight was too much. His feet wobbled until they turned and he was on his knees again. A few sputtering twitches had him a few more inches forward, off the blanket before he froze.

He let his plastron lay flat while his legs sat akimbo behind him. He put his hands down, but slid them further out. With the precision of someone going for a presidential test, he placed his palms down and pushed up. His torso rose and he kicked one deadly time. Like a jackrabbit, he pistoned the moment his knees touched down.

This time when he bounced, he put no effort in his arms.

He held them firm.

Momentum took the heaviest part of him, his bottom, down.

He dropped into a sitting position that was supported by one arm.

He teetered back where his shell now acted as a brace instead of a hindrance.

He sat upright and blinked.

He swayed, still unsteady, but it was a tick.

He would tip slightly and force his body back into an upright position.

He grabbed his feet, as he had easy access.

That gave him more stability and he finally looked up from where he had landed, close enough that you could reach him.

You watched him sway.

Tilt.

Looking at you with chubby cheeks.

Your lip warbled.

He held a long uniform note and pulled at his legs.

It tipped him forward where he landed on one elbow to his knees.

It made him a tiny thinker and all his thought was how to get to you.

He twisted on a bouncy waist and reached.

You held your hand out in time.

His grin blew up his expression.

His arm flailed.

Too high.

Tipped him.

Over onto his back where he was still outstretched.

He blinked at the ceiling before he giggled up a storm.

You and Donnie moved in sync.

Hoisted him up off the ground simultaneously and flooded him with affection.

“He sat up!”

“Genius!”

“That was at least ten solid seconds!”

“That moment of coordination!”

“It’s like he just got it! Exactly how to do it! All on his own!”

“Let us mark the occasion!”

“How exactly should-!?”

Your phone rang.

Your wrathful aura eclipsed your husband’s.

Othello chirped at the sound.

“Who-!?!” You threatened as you spun around to find it, right where you left it, neglected on the couch cushions.

Leo’s name ran across your screen.

You saw it with an inhale that matched in time with your husband’s eyes. He read the name with a similar speed, but far more ire was conjured from his glance. The attention then chased yours which followed after as you moved toward the device. It probably only had a few more rings in its cycle and you used that presumption to guess. Adjusting for the late hour and taking into account the inverse of the Hamato schedule, you put Leo at some approximation of a mid-morning slump.

He both was and wasn’t the type for dalliance.

It was a two-handed matter where one held his lackadaisical attitude. That had a bifurcation of its own between whether he put it on or the one that came naturally to him, but you set each aside to evaluate what was in your other palm. It was the severity in which Leo treated everything as of late. From how he avoided your baby to the breakthrough he had in holding him, in the matter of Othello, he was staunch.

Which meant he knew very well when your baby’s bedtime was and had chanced exactly that to make this phone call.

It was enough that you answered the phone.

“There we go!” His voice sounded before you could muster any sort of verbal greeting.

You steadied the phone against your cheek.

“Twenty-first time’s the charm they say!”

“Do they?” You listened to the thin line of background buzz that cropped up only when he wasn’t speaking.

“Oh, yeah, sure! They totally do! Third time is old hat.”

“Twenty one is a pretty big jump for whoever these people are.” You turned to Donnie.

Your husband pouted with your son held close.

“Old hat. You ever think about that?”

Your gaze narrowed. “Do I ever think about old hats?”

“Yeah. They got Stetsons, trilbies, and top hats if you got pizzazz.”

“You need to have the head for it, I guess?”

“Pizz-azz. Pizzazz. Man, that is just like pizza, huh? Pizza-anz-then-some, amiright?!”

You mentally retread the breadth you had given this man and his supposed severity. “Alright, Leo, well this has been something-!”

“You ever been in a band?”

“Really taking some Mikey cues right now, aren’t you?”

“Or… hear me out! I’m stalling for time.”

“You didn’t let me agree to ‘hear you out.’”

“Shoot, you got me. That’s biding time just like Miranda’s rights.”

“Miranda rights.”

“No, Miranda’s right. She’s been right. I mean she’s the prototype of the career-driven woman and a cynical lawyer. She was shouting from the TV sets about how single women her age are treated like old maids and spinsters while men get to be bachelors and playboys. She was always right!”

You couldn’t help but chuckle.

Leo groaned long and loud.

There was a thunk that you knew well when it came to plastrons clunking surfaces.

Then you heard a voice.

Soft from a distance, but irate in nature, “Watch it!”

Another chased it in a similar fashion. “What did I tell you?”

You recognized that one and placed Leo instantly.

“Come on, my good bar-snake! Can’t a guy do an honest collapse these days? I’m drinking away my troubles here!” 

“Check it at the door. Status might not matter, but size does. You bump another customer and you are gone from thisss bar.” Adi hissed with a shaky rattle.

“Like gone-gone or literally gone…” You could sense Leo pointing.

“Like you take your call near the shitters like a decent mutant!”

“I know you killed someone to get this job, Add-ster. Who’s cutting who slack?”

“There might not be no statue of limitations, but I’d like to see you prove a thing. Where’s your evidence? Get your cop shit out of my bar. You wanna drink with the pigs then go to the trough!”

“Geez. Alright, alright! Can’t people see I’m on the phone?” There was a squeak of what you knew was Leo’s bar stool. “The nerve, huh, Y/N? I think he’s mad about my joke. You got it though, right? I’m pretty sure his name’s Adi, which is like, yeah, that’s a snake. Adder. The adder. That’s a snake, right? Tell me, no, like, seriously. That is a type of snake, isn’t it?”

“Sure…?”

Donnie nodded as if he had to.

“It is.” You amended your tone.

“Nice. Nailed it.”

“So, Leo…”

“Yup.”

“I’m just going to ask: what did you need twenty-one times for? I’m assuming that’s why you called?”

You felt seconds tick in bar language.

Indistinct forms of sound morphed on the line.

Created a backdrop that you liked more than any hold music.

One that if you honed your ears, came out with the thin hum of wires and telecommunications that you didn’t quite understand, but like that you lived in the times of.

“Right.” Leo deflated.

You continued to listen.

“Twenty-first time’s the charm.” He repeated more for himself.

“Is that… important?”

“Yes.” You heard relief. “It is.”

“Okay. Can you… give me a second?”

“Yeah…” He hesitated and pocketed it in between breaths. “Yeah, sure.”

You dropped your phone to muffle it to your chest. “Leo’s up to something.”

“A detail not only superfluous, but futile.”

“That is such a complicated way to say ‘tell me something I don’t know.’” You scolded Donnie with a smile.

He gave a small one in return.

“I think I need to hear him out.”

“A waste of your time. What if another milestone occurs?” Donnie brought Othello up and bobbed him as an adorable lure to keep you.   

“Not fair…” You approached and pecked your son’s head with your mate’s help.

“The show of a lifetime occurs for a handful of hours daily. One of actual continuous growth and an absence of deceit. There are no circles spoken as that stage has not yet been reached. You would miss it in favor of…” He pulled Othello close and turned up his beak.

“That’s seriously not fair.” You took leading steps toward the bedroom and felt him drift after. “He said it was important.”

“No, I distinctly heard him agree to your query that it was.”

Your eyes shot to the ceiling. “Which, yes, could be a lie, or I can think about how weird Leo has been for months and this is him finally trying to tell me why. He’s been trying. The appointment. Holding Othello.”

“I spoke on redundancy, but I know when you are unmoved.”

“Are you mad?”

Donnie clearly thought. “No.”

“Disappointed? You reach that dad stage already?”

He fought a grin. “While I liken the thought, no.”

“What’s the truth?”

“I want to continue to spend our communal family time.”

“And it’s worse that it’s him I’m leaving it for?”

“Quite.”

Your lower lip pulled between your teeth.

Donnie stepped right up to your side and seemed put out as he said, “Take it.”

You looked.

“The call. Do not consider it permission. Instead, preference.”

“Why…?”

“He…” His eyes almost rolled, but he fought them. “Leonardo has grown… in a single way. He acts far more tolerable with your guidance.”

You studied your husband.

“Quieter.”

“I get him off your back.” You tipped playfully.

“It is you and the others as well.” He bemoaned. “I’m sure if you do not listen, Leonardo will find another unwilling party, which will eventually lead to Raphael’s knowledge. His requirement under their family ego will trickle to my tympanum without stopgap.”

“Always thinking of yourself.” You teased.

“You might think my thoughts too obvious otherwise.” He bent at the waist to enter your airspace and blinked straight into heavy lidded bedroom eyes.

You mumbled words of affection against his lips.

You watched him step away to give you privacy. “Though I still believe your time is best used elsewhere.” 

“Probably…” You waved when he shook Othello’s hand toward yours.

A moment of not quite being alone, but to yourself, was taken in a few breaths before you brought the phone back up. “Still there?”

An obnoxious sound came through the line.

Your brow dropped in confusion.

Leo dropped out of what sounded like a sustained scream. “Cool. Nailed it.”

Someone else muttered something you didn’t catch.

“Y/N!”

“Do I even want to know?” You regretted leaving your husband and baby as you sat on the bed.

“I’m great at harmonies.”

You didn’t know what he meant and shook your head.

“Do you wanna-!?”

“No.”

He made a small affirmative noise.

“So… What’s up?” You tried not to sound too exasperated.

“Twenty-one tries.”

“I’ve heard. Kinda wondering at what?”

“This.”

“This.”

“Calling you.”

“It took you twenty-one tries to call me?”

“Yeah, the whole liquid courage thing is bogus.”

“You don’t say.”

“You know I never got that. They say drunk words are sober truths, but I definitely have a video of me accusing a ficus of being a flower and I know that isn’t true.”

You stalled out.

“Well maybe they flower, but that one wasn’t.”

“Okay…?”

“It’s hard!”

“Sure.”

“To identify plants! Like do it now! Then, do it drunk!”

“Isn’t it crazy how that’s never come up…?”

“It is! It should! You get so scared of pop quizzes from movies, but I don’t think I’ve ever been given one in real life. Now, granted, I did not get a regular public school education, but I like to call it osmosis, not as in Jones, classic. High five, Leon on that one, but that’s a huge period of development for kids. Not just for their brains, but like interacting with other kids. Growing empathy and all that. That’s totally why your husband is like he is because I had at least two brothers, but he had… whatever he had which is why I am not slapping a number on that.”

You felt yourself blink.

“Stunted! Oh, stunted! That’s the word! Him! Me! We’re stunted, I guess. A little.”

You laid back.

“Me less so, clearly, but also like…” You heard him do his own adjustments. “Do you know I’m lazy?”

“No, Leo. Why would I?”

You heard the silence as something he hadn’t considered. “Yeah, well. I am. If I was in a video game, that would be my main stat.”

“I’m assuming-”

“Yes! It’s connected! I’m getting there!”

“Okay.”

“Like sure, I do the great strategist bit; I own that, but without having to, I would just lounge all the time. I’m a real homebody. Maybe go out for food or a show, but after that zilch. Zip. Nadda. I’m tucking in with a stack of comics and loafing in bed for hours.”

You rounded the canopy with your eyes.

“The strategy was something I used to let happen when it happened. Last minute plans. Figure it out. Then-!”

He cut himself off and you felt your gaze shift toward your phone.

“Then…” He tried again with a deep inhale.

You felt a niggling sense of concern.

“Add and subtract!” Leo called out. “Can I-? Yeah, one more of these, por favor, barman! Gracias! Where was I?”

“You’re lazy.”

“Hey, rude!” Leo feigned.

You let him.

He exhaled. “Then the world ended because of me.”

You almost sat up.

His phrasing was wrong.

He talked as if that was something that had already happened. 

You were very much alive to your knowledge and you definitely weren’t living some post-apocalyptic experience.

He was drinking, but he didn’t seem particularly drunk enough to make a mistake like that. 

Adi made a sound.

Leo thanked him.

You heard him down what had to be another drink.

He chuckled.

Clinked the glass loud enough on the bar that you heard it.

He gave a long winded exhale.

“This is so embarrassing…” He whined.

The strung out sound was so childish you snorted on muffling a laugh.

“Exactly!” He commiserated. “The night didn’t start out like this! I was feeling good. Been good. Coming off a certain something. Feeling like me again. Celebrating. A night to myself. Good drinking, not the kind to drown yourself. A little happy juice instead of daddy’s medicine.”

“Don’t ever say that again.”

“No promises.” You could feel him click that note into place with a finger gun. “But then I get down a few glasses and instead it loosens up the memories so I switch to drinking to forget, but all I do is remember more and more. Like I’m drinking liquid humiliation and calling you was the only way to fix it.”

“Me…?” You couldn’t believe it.

“‘Cause I know you know that I’ve got something because you always know and-and-and-!”

“And…?” You tried softly.

“And I had to get ahead of it! I decided! Boom! Right then, that I would get the jump on you for once! Get ahead of it! That’s growth, right? Just like me going out! I’m feeling kinda great, but I’m also like I wanna change. Like… Like I’ve been changing and I’m catching up and I can do that and be me and…”

You listened.

“And… do you wanna do improv?”

“What?!” You quaked.

“No, no! Listen! This is great!”

“Improv?!”

“Yes!”

“Leo!”

“Listen!”

“What?!”

“Like this would be so much easier if we acted this out instead! If you weren’t you, or anyone I knew, then I could totally talk about this because I am so-so good at talking to strangers. I can schmooze all day. Improvisation. That’s what I’m talking about. You, yes, and, and me, yes, go on! This is lazy at its finest. The last minute chess master and no one is eating the pieces.”

“So… wait, who am I?”

“Give me a profession.”

“A…?”

“Go, any!”

“I don’t know… Bar… tender?”

“Change.”

“You said any!”

“I don’t want to talk to Adi. He knows you.”

“I’m still not sure how you got on a first name basis with him.”

“Intel. Not important. You’re not yes, anding.”

You groaned. “Dentist!”

“Ew. Change.”

“Leo!”

“They stick their fingers in your mouth when they ask questions. How am I supposed to talk then?”

“We’re not at a dentist’s office.”

“We could be.”

“Leo, I am going to-!”

“Last change. I swear.”

You were about to sigh, but a vague dalliance caught you. “Office worker.”

Leo heard it too, but didn’t comment. “Good. We met at the bar. We’re drinking away a shitty day at work.”

That sounded familiar. “Wait, where do you work? Do you work at the same place as me?”

“No, I’m me, remember?”

“No. At this point you’ve jumped so many topics, I don’t know anything.”

He sounded like he was smiling. “Force of habit.”

“It’s an annoying one.”

“Gives you the upper hand.”

“Does it, Leonardo?”

The squeeze on his name caught his tongue.

You waited him out.

“Hi. Hello. We’re at the part where I’ve gotten warm enough that my arms are good tingling, booze is flowing, and I’m about to tell you what’s going on in my actual day after talking around the real issue for an hour.”

“I thought we were improving?”

He ignored you. “It’s just been weird, ya know?”

You held.

He did the same.

The scene.

You guessed you had to indulge him. 

Put yourself there. 

You pictured Adi’s bar.

You hadn’t been back since you destroyed the bathroom.  

You were too embarrassed.

Much like Leo.

You channeled that.

Commiseration, he had said.

You did exactly that.

“The times are weird.” You agreed and felt yourself there beside him.

“Can I tell you a story?”

“What’s weirder?” You chuckled.

Leo puffed with some amusement. “Not much!”

“Tell me.”

“So, there’s this teenager…”

“Got it.”

“And he’s a shithead.”

“Most of them are.”

“They sure are…”

“There’s some good ones.”

“There really are.”

“Sorry.”

“No problem.”

“Keep going.”

“Right…” You felt Leo look out towards that back wall behind the bar that was stacked with bottles. “He’s lazy. He doesn’t like to do his…. homework or trainin-school-I meant school, for that matter. He just wants to waste time. Do what he wants. Watch some BMX skating and read comics all day.”

“Sounds like a teenager.”

“Yeah…” Leo was fond. “But responsibility is crawling up on him. He’s got… a driving test. Like here? We’re in New York, pal. He doesn’t need to do that.”

“Not unless he’s leaving.”

“He’s not leaving. Never. This city? Love this city. He loves this city. He grew up here. He’ll die here.”

“Not so weird.”

“But then he… Well, he loses the key. The key to… every car in New York. Like a skeleton key. Like the key has a face and it’s every instructor. Every person. Every single living entity on this whole planet.”

“Some key.”

“Some key… A key that he loses and… Imagine that. Imagine we suddenly have no cars. Imagine… Imagine it’s all gone. All technology. It all just… poof. A teenager loses the key to everything and just like that the world is over.”

“Some… story…”

“It’s not over… Now let’s say the kid doesn’t end with it. He keeps going. He gets real responsible real fast. I mean, it was his fault, right?”

He didn’t wait for an answer.

“But it just keeps getting worse. We made… We’re so reliant on the world and cars and with when they call go, the cars, the cars are gone it gets worse and worse. No cars means no medicine deliveries. People are sick but they can’t drive to the hospital. There’s no restock on bandages for the wounded. No water for the plants. No rain because there’s no water. No food. No…. No….”

You were quiet.

Leo was quieter.

“For a driver’s test?”

“The end is coming up now.”

You saw it.

You weren’t sure how.

A sandy landscape.

The ruins of New York.

In a blink, you saw carnage you couldn’t focus on.

Too much was happening.

Too many creatures.

Robotic, but also organic.

Tearing through the landscape, if it could be called that.

A few people trying to fight.

Leo there, a more worn version of himself.

“There’s only a few people left and our teenager that isn’t a teenager anymore is there and he has a kid of his own. A young man, not a teenager. At least not anymore ‘cause he just barely got past it and our teenager-turned-man can’t do it again. Not let another kid go like he did. Not after all he’s lost. The whole damn world.”

You saw a gangly boy with jet black hair.

“And so… he saves him.”

The boy was thrown through a pool of raging orange light.

You blinked upright in your bed.

Stared at your apartment.

Swallowed into your phone.

“What…?” You whispered.

“It resets. New timeline.”

“What?” You pressed harder.

“The young man, the new one. The next generation. He goes back in time.”

“He…?” You couldn’t recall now.

You remembered seeing a boy so vividly a moment ago, but now you couldn’t conjure him.

“How…?”

“He helps the teen not lose the key. The world is saved.”

“Lee…” You murmured.

You felt fondness. 

“Sort of.”

There was a joking quality to his voice.

“All the normal stuff is back. The driving test. Yadda, yadda.”

You scrambled for threads. “Except-!”

“There’s a young man in the story now.”

“He…!”

“You see, his dad is a teenager now. Younger than him. What’s up with that? It’s weird, right? In this already weird world.”

You suddenly remembered you had heard that before.

A woman named Casey who had a son that was older than her.

None of it made sense, but it had always been that way.

You were an observer of all that occurred here.

With this family and their long family tree of which so much of this world depended on.

“So, it’s tough! I mean think about seeing your parent as a kid! One who is useless to you. You’re not great about it either, except, WRONG! You’re awesome about it. You were raised in the end of the world. You’re like a saint because, somehow, you still have hope after all that. Like it’s your greatest strength, but that’s him, not you or me-uh-the teenager, but eventually everyone is aging and the teen becomes a young man himself and he gets mixed up. The young man, a little older man, has these moments still. Where he knows too much about our growing younger man née teenager. He puts himself in that son position because that’s always going to be what shaped him and it makes our main character younger man so confused…”

“Names would…” You eked out.

“And the teen, except younger man we’ve been following since the beginning already has such a complicated family. There’s this whole lost sibling sub plot that takes up too much time and a bunch of other stuff!”

You puffed air against your still racing heart.

“It makes their relationships that much more complicated. Then his friend has this new baby and there’s this implication that the younger man is the dad there too… Or he was supposed to be, but he isn’t in this timeline. And that’s confusing and another man, the brother… or-er-a brother to the younger man, the younger man’s brother becomes that one’s father figure… but the kid says uncle and really that’s all the younger man ever was and it feels like the cycle is repeating itself, but it’s wrong. Again and again. Broken ego, broken heart, broken familial ties, and none of it makes sense and he sort of, but not really makes up with his lost sibling and then that brother-not-brother has a kid and here he is. The younger man who is very much an older man at this point has another baby in his life that he isn’t quite attached to, but he’s… he’s so much older now.”

You swallowed the beat.

“And we’re at the point now where it’s way too complicated to explain everything that goes into it, but let me just tell you, office worker who I ran into an hour ago, there are a lot of factors at play here complicating this other than bad blood. The younger but now older man made so many mistakes. He was so damn stubborn. He was a total jackass and also he’s embarrassed of all that on top of it. Him and the lost sibling’s partner have the weirdest and most tenuous connection and now there’s this baby. Cutest, most impossible baby this world’s ever seen and… and the younger man older man I’m about to sing Macho Man guy, his other brothers go right back into their uncle roles because they’re cool with that and they know all that, but our guy, our main character. Mr. Village People, he can go around as another… uncle, but he… He… You know, he…!”

You listened to Leo choke up.

“He just finally wants to be the dad.”

Your eyes went wide and you heard something crash in the adjacent room, but you were too paralyzed to look.

“Tee-em! Tee-em, Tee-em, Tee-em! Not dad, like actual dad. Not like DNA daddy, like, ‘Surprise! We need to go do a blood test.’ We’re talking trademark dad and hell no. He does not covet thy neighbor’s anything. Gross. Gah. I’m gagging here. I mean actually I am, but I’m keeping it together so good and if I stop, I will throw up, but let’s keep going so I don’t, but like dad. Like the concept of a dad. Like father figure. Like what he never did, but should have did or already did for the time traveling young man. Like what he should have done when he instead fumbled the second coming daughter. Like he never is thinking about this in any kind of way other than just one. Just once he wants to be looked at like… like dependable. Like how his flippant ass dad never is. Like how his other dad tried to kill him for a while. Like that idealized version. Like the one that raised a boy who ate actual rats just to stay alive, but still smiles and experiences all those new good things again with a joy he shouldn’t be able to have, but he does and the teenager knows that somewhere in him that he can be that person. He has certifiable proof in the boy who leapt through time right fucking there, that despite ending the world, he can do that one thing right. He can do family right. He can do it so good that he makes the most amazing kid in the world, but that wasn’t his world and in his world, he never handled a relationship with that much finesse in his life even though he knows he has the potential and he just wants for once to be a good familial person in someone’s life that isn’t waiting for the other shoe to drop because they know too much of what a fuck up I can be and this, looking at his track record, this really might be his last chance in the whole world unless the month that comes after March unties those tubes.”

You took a shaky breath.

“Which like maybe that train has sailed anyway. You aren’t catching me asking her about her age or menstrual status.”

You tittered an awkward sound.

He was so wrong, but he had no idea. 

That Hamato secrets continued to fester, but there was far more for you to deal with now. 

“Oh and also he was in a breeding season mood, a brood, let’s say, even though that isn’t the correct term either, which I am not going to explain, but clearly makes everything I just said that much more awkward because he gets baby fever when he’s broody which is totally mortifying on top of everything else!!”

“Yeah!” You choked. “I’m… I’m aware!”

“Of course you are.”

He spat before thinking better.

“Change.”

He snorted.

“Any… one would be.”

“And scene…!” Leo clapped somehow and you wondered how he was holding his phone.

“Leo, what-?!”

“Did I do magic?” You heard a heavy thump followed by a dragging sound. “I think… Did I do magic?”

“I saw something...”

“Shit…” You heard a rapid series of thunks that you identified as fumbling steps. “That’s not good.”

You were on your feet before you realized. “Leo, are you okay?”

“I got…” There was a slam of what sounded like a table and clatter of glasses and patrons. “I’ve got the best conduit mysticism of the bunch. I can touch and whoosh. Transport… whatever. It works… It works through phones which is cool. I can transport thoughts, but a spell like that… doing it when I’m this… When my blood is a little less mystic and a little more spirit…. Well that’s… Oh…”

The tenure of that last sound was all too familiar.

He was going to pass out.  

You were in motion.

Donnie met you at the partition. “I called-!”

“Alright!” You heard Raph’s voice a little too clearly through the line against your ear. “I’m here, what’s-!? Lee!?”

“I’m gonna throw up.” You heard Leo’s voice peter out.

There was a storm of steps. “I got you, little bro! Steady now!”

“Not… ‘spposed’ta be here, hermano… It’s my big boy night…”

“Calling your brother when you’re too drunk is as big’you can get.”

“Did I mystic call you too? I don’t remember… sending… Been sending memory waves through the wires… Wait, are there wires? There’s no wires, shit.”

“Alright…” Raph heaved. “He got a tab, Adi?”

For some reason, you got stuck on the fact that Raph also was on a first name basis with the bartender that you sort of thought only you had a special relationship with.

There was some conversation, but you could mostly hear Leo softly going, ‘wee,’ as if on some kind of ride.

“Upsy-daisy!” Raph clearly adjusted a load. “Yeah, I’ll just pay on soul night! Okay, see you! Leo.”

“Fresh as a daisy’ll’do’ya, Rapharino!” Leo burped. 

“If you throw up on my tail, I'm gonna drop you so hard on your head that you’re gonna to go back ta’ the first time and I’m going to make sure your life turns out to be a different genre then your main character ass ever wanted.”

“Nooo!” Leo drew out an increasingly weepy wail. “That was way too specific!”

He sobbed and you heard Raph mumbling closer and closer until, “Where is your-?! There it is! Y/N? You still on?”

“H-hey Raph…” You guessed the larger mutant found Leo’s phone. 

“Hey! I got Leo. Tell Donatello that the package is secure. Wait-!” There was a shuffle. “Adi, take this. Just let Raph… Nice! You get it? Thanks! Alright, Y/N back at ya. I’m delivering the package back to the post office where it will get tucked in, hopefully sans puke, and won’t be darkening his door or whatever he said. Proof included.”

You looked at your husband. “You’ve got to simplify if you’re going to keep using everyday phrases.”

He had a smarmy air and held out his phone. “Idiom, darling.”

You viewed a picture of Raph posing with Leo over his shoulder and couldn’t help an affectionate smile. “Idiot.”

“Idiots.”

You and Raph paused and shared the space for a few glorious moments. “Thanks, Raph.”

“I’m sure when he wakes up, I’ll be thanking you for something.”

“Or putting out another fire.”

There was a hiccup and you listened to the line.

You heard very little as the bar had apparently fallen silent at the spectacle.

A clattering of what you thought was carapace shook the line and Raph shouted, “Leo!”

“Hubba! Wah!? Huh?!” The call had a response. 

“Blacking out isn’t very responsible… Keep those eyes open and what’s the one rule!?”

“Don’t… Oh, boy…” You heard a gurgle.

“Oh no, you don’t! Now I’m definitely doing it! Y/N, I’ll send Donnie what I’m thinking! Fire be damned!”

“Sure…?” You looked toward your mate, but he seemed equally perplexed.

“Bye!” The call ended.

You stared with your phone still to your face for far too long.

Othello was dozing in the crook of Donnie’s arm.

Your husband’s head tilted the slightest degree.

You breathed out what felt like too many emotions and left one building smile in its wake. “So… did I miss any new developments?”

💜 NEXT 💜

Huge shout out to my betas @tmntxthings and @unrestrainedhotsoup for their infinite patience with me while I went off the deep end! Love y'all!

[afreakingdork]

Soft Spot - Chapter 71

RotTMNT Donatello x Reader

April is poised and ready to strike in this week's chapter art by @shardkn1ight

Rated: Explicit

Warnings/Tags: Romance, Established Relationship, Married Couple, Married Life, Aged-Up Mutant Ninja Turtles, Villain Donatello (TMNT), Love, POV Second Person, Babies, Pregnancy, AFAB reader, Vaginal Sex, Rough Sex, Penis In Vagina Sex, Creampie, Breeding Kink, Multiple Orgasms, Angst, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Fertility Issues, Pregnant Sex, Pregnancy Kink, Reader-Insert, Cunnilingus, Fellatio, Cum Eating, Turtle Noises (TMNT), I have a Biology Degree and I’m Using it, Menstruation, There WILL NOT be any Miscarriages, Depression, Postpartum Depression, Anal Sex, Intimacy Near Child (No Child Harm)

Synopsis: First comes love. Then comes marriage. Then comes the next step about as smooth as the others arrived. The baby-oriented sequel to Weak Spot.

Also available on Ao3

First 💜 Previous

The bat struck one of Donnie’s metal arms and the clang percussed through what you now recognized as a barrier.

A green grid trapped your husband inside with this woman.

Donnie was looking at you.

Leo’s hands fell on your shoulders as he steadied your form.

More facts trailed in. 

Such as Leo having jumped between you and the wall.

He cushioned the blow despite his similarly hard body.

You shook on unsteady stems, but refused to break eye contact with your mate.

“You never did notice me…” Gravity pulled April down from where she had leapt to strike Donnie with her entire form. “Just try to look away now!”

Throwing herself to physics, she twisted to one side and took the bat with her. It struck toward his bare side and a second arm snaked out. She deflected it through a swing that kicked out sparks and with little lost effort, swung into his opposite side. The third arm streaked out to catch that strike. As the tips of her toes touched the ground, she kept herself light and slid her hand down her weapon. With an open palm she forced the knob out directly into Donnie’s knee. The last mechanical arm slung around to protect him but the effort she inflicted caused a chain reaction of connections that made contact with Donnie’s thigh.

It was as if momentum couldn’t catch up because you swore he was still for several seconds before wind rushed around him.

He skated several feet backward and dug his heels in.

“Gang’s all here!” April roared as she lunged forward.

“APRIL!! STOP!!!” Raph snarled and went to bang on an outer wall.

Just before his fists made contact they blew up into enormous red boxing gloves which exploded the moment they made contact with the barrier.

“What?!” Raph touched the construct with a bare hand and felt no effects that way.

He shook it off and pounded the barrier with bare knuckles.

“April! Listen!! He’s fine! Donatello isn’t like that anymore!!!” Raph tried.

April struck and Donnie blocked in a rapid exchange of blows before she kicked off his plastron in two steps that connected her foot with his face.

Her boots were steel and it created a spit take of contact.

She landed all the way on the other side of the barrier with ease. “Wow! You really bought all that?!”

“Bought what-!? April!!” Raph seethed.

“You okay?” Leo appeared in your vision.

You shoved him out of the way.

Donnie reset his jaw with a click and immediately sought you out again.

“You need to tell me!” Leo pulled your arm. “He’s distracted by you!”

“He’s-! What?!” You allowed only a glance away.

“I barely caught you! He needs to know you’re okay or he can’t focus on the fight! Look at him!”

You were.

His eyes were wild.

Trained on you, but in throes.

He was confused.

Attacked.

His adrenaline was high, but your safety superseded instinct.

If he were to focus, what would happen to April?

You argued that Leo must have thought the same thing.

You broke your gaze away and assessed.

You were sore.

You moved the muscle groups in your back.

There was a sting, but they obeyed.

“I’m okay.” You told Leo. “I’m okay!!” You told Donnie.

“See!?” April pointed her bat. “All good.”

Your mate finally addressed her.

It was frozen fire.

Icy steel and red hot rage.

His head clicked ever so slightly to one side and it was clear to you that his glasses were doing an analysis. “April.”

She was full of offense, but also haughty airs. “Confused?”

He saw her through whatever was being projected.

“Nothing’s coming up, huh?”

His gaze narrowed an almost imperceptible amount.

“Funny how that is!” She flung herself forward and careened around one semi-circle of the barrier.

It sent her right past Raph, who was trying desperately to find a grip so he could tear a hole in the construct. “April! Damnit!! No!!!”

She threw her body into a horizontal swivel and struck Donnie again and again.

He deflected every single blow.

“Y/N is squared away, which means…” Leo leaned forward in a study of his own.

His pupils ping ponged around his sclera.

He waited for an exact moment that April’s onslaught sent her out of the way and cut a portal then.

He ran straight through it, but he only stormed a few steps away from you.

The blue ring didn’t go anywhere.

“Leo!!” Raph turned.

“I’m-I’m-!” Leo sliced through the air again and again, but none of the portals formed fully.

“It’s this!!” Raph smacked the green wall. “It’s negating our ninpo!”

“Then why isn’t it stopping hers!” Leo pointed.

Donnie took the information in and finally made his own move.

The claws broke out their violently violet tips in a flexing of fingers and they all hurled towards April.

She spun the bat into a windmill and knocked them all back. “Nu-uh! You’re never touching me with those again!”

She punctured the gust of wind to send a knee directly into Donnie’s center.

He clipped her hair with his claws and she elbowed him in the face.

April cackled as she threw herself straight up into the air. “You wanna know who I am!?”

He spread his stance and all his arms twitched at the ready.

“APRIL-!!!”

Mikey and Splinter exploded out from an upper stairwell.

“O’NEIL!!!” She came down at him just as she had done from the start.

Donnie’s arms crossed into an X.

Both real and mechanical.

April grinned boiling fury as she let her bat explode on contact.

Green ninpo roiled outward as if it had volume.

An ectoplasm sort of texture that glooped onto Donnie’s mechanical arms.

They sizzled.

Smoked.

Burnt the metal in a corrosive way and she was right there.

She shoved her forearm into his.

He caught her wrist.

She yanked him to one side, opening him up.

With a downward cut, she switched so she had a hold of him and pinned both his arms to his plastron.

She then socked him directly in the beak.

The strike rippled his clothes.

She kicked off just as his two remaining mechanical arms tried to grab her.

Splinter and Mikey reached Raph and Leo.

“What is happening!?” Splinter took in the scene.

“April attacked Donnie!” Raph spoke the obvious.

“This thing she set up is breaking mystics!” Leo added.

“Nothing.” Mikey flawlessly moved into a martial arts stance. “Not time or space-!”

“Mikey, don’t-!” Leo bit the air.

“Stop-!” Raph jumped at him.

“Son, you can’t-!” Splinter went for one of his arms.

Mikey’s eyes opened and sheer orange energy pooled in them.

A whip of his mystical output shoved all the others back.

“-can KEEP ME OUT!!!” His voice pitched as he dug his hands into the grid.

Orange electricity sparked.

Crackled.

Leo covered Splinter.

Raph shielded himself with an arm.

Wanton energy was deflected as Mikey screamed.

The scars along his arms glowed and seemed to breathe. 

He used all his force to tear even a minute hole in the barrier.

He hit a pitch and the grid warbled.

April glanced as she landed with some space.

In a snap, the green renewed and Mikey disappeared.

You realized he was  hucked like a bullet the moment a crater formed on the wall behind him.

Mikey made a dizzy noise as rubble crumbled around him.

“Mikey!” Raph ran towards him.

“Michelangelo!” Splinter caught Leo’s arm to pull himself above it.

“Or maybe… Sum’thin can… T’Not…” Mikey’s shape warbled.

Raph was right there.

The moment he fell, it was into Raph’s arms. “Break…”

“I got ya…!” Raph eased him to the ground.

“It’s not ‘break’…!” Mikey clawed at him. “It’s not breaking mystics!”

“Then…?!” Leo looked behind him and made eye contact with April.

She smirked.

“Repel!” Mikey pushed out of Raph’s arms and stumbled to one side. “It’s repelling. It’s made of the same stuff as her security systems!”

Donnie took the information in and immediately went to scan the grid.

April only seemed to lean forward before she appeared right below him, swinging up.

He had to tip all the way back to dodge another strike to the face.

Nubs of his broken top mechanical arms caught him.

She swept out the others with her feet.

Steel to titanium, the sound caused Splinter’s ears to droop.

Donnie landed on his shell and she came down on top of him. “Tiger claw!!”

Your husband made his first sound of pain as she shredded his glasses and shrapnel studded his eyes.

A purple wall flickered then caught and pancaked April straight into the top of the dome.

Donnie pawed his face and you saw agony around the clips that tried to clear his vision.

“That means in and out.” Leo assessed. “No mystic gets in or out, but what’s in there, works! 

“Why is she doing this!?” Raph walked Mikey over.

“It doesn’t matter. She’s doing it.” Leo took a few outward steps.

“Can we get in from below?” Splinter recognized what he was doing.

“If it doesn’t already have that covered. It’s mystic-for-mystic. Her stuff doesn’t usually care about material walls.” Leo stabbed into the ground at one of the barrier’s walls and cracked out a small chunk of the floor to reveal the barrier dipped down into it. “No dice! Can't go over it, can't go under it, and can't get through it. ”

“Portals?!” Splinter tried.

“Mystics’ not getting through!” Leo shook his head.

“We gotta reason with her then! April!!” Raph stormed the wall. “Listen!”

Her face was smashed flat between two planes, but she appeared to glare down from where she was being held.

“I know you were all in on the pursuit of Donatello in the past, but that was then! You stopped too! We all did!”

Donnie’s hands dripped towards the sides of his face as he listened.

“You ever…” She slurred before she yanked her shoulder in.

The sound of it coming out of its joint caused everyone but your spouse and CJ to flinch.

The gap it created allowed space where Donnie’s ninpo came in contact with the barrier.

It shattered it on contact just as Raph’s had

“Wonder why!?” She shoved her arm back into its socket as she dropped.

Donnie threw a hand out and more ninpo panels formed.

She navigated them like a platformer.

Jumped and weaved as they all tried to pin her again.

With a curl of her hands her bat appeared, but its form wobbled for a second time.

She whipped it up like cream on her hands.

It billowed like smoke and she used it to catch one of Donnie’s ninpo walls.

Manipulating his construct like it had normal tangibility, she tore it in half and held the pieces.

Donnie lurched up into a sitting position.

The purple in his eyes seemed to scorch the bloodshot sclera.

“Hurts?” She squeezed and the ninpo quaked under her grip.

Donnie’s jaw clenched.

“Don’t it?” Her knuckles cracked and the constructs shattered. “You know what else hurt…?”

He had to wince.

He momentarily lost sight of her.

She chuffed instead of taking advantage of the moment. “Gear up.”

His eyes barely cracked open.

“GEAR UP!!!” She screeched.

He watched.

“I WANNA SEE YOU TRY!!!”

One of his hands slowly spread on the ground.

“Or else.” There was a green glint as she raised her head.

She moved slowly into a learned position.

A rip of terror went through the room.  

April’s weight went onto her back leg.

Her knees slightly bent.

Her leg in front gracefully stretched out to a point.

Her hands came down.

One bent inward protecting her core with her fingers all extended similarly to her foot.

The other from up above, another ward, in a similar narrowed fashion.

In an instant, Splinter, Leo, Mikey, and Raph all collided with the wall and started screaming.

You made out something about a number and snakes, but not much else.

When April didn’t move they fractured.

Started yelling at Donnie.

If he listened, you weren’t sure.

He dug his fingers into the ground before standing.

He checked April.

She held firm.

“How formal?” He asked.

“Consider this your challenge.” She responded immediately.

“Your desired end?”

She didn’t respond.

The men were still screaming.

Begging Donnie to hear.

All of them.

Even Leo.

It was bad.

It had to be.

Whatever April was about to do seemed like some finishing move.

What could you do?

The barrier wasn’t something you could take down.

It beat mystic energy and Raph’s level of natural strength.

It was huge. 

It took up most of this enormous subterranean room.

Even Donnie hadn’t found a weakness yet.

Your own shook you down to your knees.

You felt like you might fall.

You didn’t.

You held firm.

Watched.

“Raphael.” Donnie spoke and dusted himself off.

The others rabbled to a form of silence so Raph’s voice could break free. “Donnie!! You don’t get it!! The Seven Deadly Vipers Move-!”

“A technique derived from Shaolin boxing.” Donnie acknowledged April’s stance.

Raph’s forearms slid down from where he had been banging on the grid.

He looked at Splinter.

Splinter nodded that that was correct.

“It’s a secret-secret technique.” Raph muttered.

“This person.” Donnie continued.

April’s left eye twitched.

“Do you value her life-?”

Raph shot to attention. “Obviously! Look! I really think we could talk this out if-!”

Donnie wasn’t done. “-more than my own?”

Raph flinched into silence.

Donnie took him in before he listlessly looked at April. “A choice will need to be made. She seeks my end. Look at all she prepared. She has been waiting for this moment.”

April hadn’t moved a muscle.

“Who will you pick?” He addressed the room.

Raph’s mouth opened to protest.

Leo looked away; he chose April.

Splinter helplessly watched and softly banged his fist against the grid.

Mikey wept at being forced to decide.

You took a step forward and Donnie’s eyes flashed with warning.

He reached you in your bond.

This matter wasn’t meant for you.

His intangible form switched to soothe.

It almost felt like he was trying to tell you that he would be with you soon.

He just had a matter to attend with.

He didn’t know.

Not that you knew who April was and what he had done to her.

Your guilt found him and there was clear confusion through your ring.

None of it faced outward.

To everyone else, Donnie looked at April.

“‘This person.’” She spat.

He appraised her.

“This person is about to end your life.”

“April!” Raph yelled.

“Mikey!” Leo descended on his little brother. “This barrier thing-security thing-whatever! It reacted to you! It pushed you back! It didn’t do that to me or Raph! What do you think-?”

“I think if she uses that Seven Deadly Vipers Move then we’re going to have more than just some hole in the wall.” He addressed the damage he caused.

“You got the most mystic mojo out of all of us…” Leo led.

Mikey caught on with brightening attention. “But we all got some! If we all attack it at the same time-!”

“Who’s stronger together?!” Leo held up an arm.

“We are! Yeah, baby!” Mikey slammed his own against Leo’s.

“What are you thinking?” Raph resisted turning away.

“Pops, you too! CJ!” Leo called as he backed up. “We need everyone! We’re going to hit this thing with everything we got! At one single point!” 

Splinter and Raph followed him and Mikey.

CJ didn’t move.

CJ had been standing stoic the whole time.

You started to look at him, but purple caught your eye.

Donnie’s head rose with a decision of his own. “You caught me off guard.”

There was that twitch again.

“Relish in that fact alone.” Donnie’s ninpo sparkled in the air as his battle shell rippled beneath his sweater.

It burbled beneath his clothes and crawled down his sleeves. The ichor you associated it with was still just as poisonous. It dripped down in its infection across his arms and down his hands. Without his suit, you watched as it peeled the fibers of his top as it formed his gloves. The shine on them took the green hue and warped it in a crow’s feather-like sheen. He stepped back some as the weight of his shell took larger form and broke out from beneath his top. Edges of fabric frayed as the belt locked in place to better hold the mechanical arms. Instead of repairing the two top broken limbs, he shortened the gouged edges and sent the excess nanotech downward. It armorized his lower limbs, thickened into sturdier, studded boots, and the match of his ninpo struck.

It first caught on the new, softened edges of those broken mechanical arms. Bits of ninpo picked up the severed pieces and filled in the gap to reattach them. The energy wove into the electronics and formed wires. It created vessels and artificial nerve endings that made up the tissue until the claws of the reformed mechanical arms could flex. Satisfied that they were properly acclimated, the ninpo thinned out into circuits. In a flash, they mapped his entire being before settling on seams. A soft glow of fuschia surrounded your husband in a clear mimic of his villain suit. The accents of which were thicker cords of ninpo and it all curled up around his head where he forewent the hood.

A mask closed around his expression and it was the last you saw of him as he turned the lamps on through the would-be goggles of his eyes.

“Your mistake.” Donnie rose as his mechanical arms lifted him into the air. “Whenever you think we met prior, I have people to live for now.”

April’s head bowed ever so slightly. “Oh, I know all about your kid.”

The beams from Donnie’s mask brightened in purple-born wrath.

The Hamato men you knew coordinated by the crater Mikey had created. 

“I worried a bit. Killing his dad and all.” April continued.

“We gotta do this now!!” Leo ordered and pointed a sword.

Donnie’s knuckles cracked.

“But you know I was raised by a single parent. Future boy in here was too. Hell, every guy in this room was and look how we turned out!” April grinned.

You felt Donnie recede from your ring.

You tried to catch him.

“ON MY MARK!!!” Leo shouted and everyone fell in beside him.

“Don’t you worry…” April twisted one wrist.

“ONE!” Leo charged.

“TWO!” Mikey and Raph were in lock step.

“I’ll keep watching over Y/N, m’kay?” She tilted her head cutely.

“THREE!!!” Splinter exploded with white energy.

Donnie shot forward.

You heard steps.

Not from the mutants who rushed the javelin of Leos’ sword at the barrier.

Not from April who breathed in with a perfect readied curl of her body.

Not from Donnie whose mechanical arms sent him headfirst into her.

CJ appeared in your periphery and a green grid-like bubble of his own appeared around you just as he caught you in his arms.

A perfectly transportable copy of the dome you knew was immediately sent flying as the entire room exploded.

It was as if a typhoon went off in a single pointed direction.

Walls were torn through.

The upper layers of the lair came down.

A rain of concrete and debris collided with and rolled over your sphere.

You sort of registered what Leo had said about material objects, but your thoughts stalled as the ground shook.

It cracked.

Any support that had been blown away by the burst struggled in a chain reaction.

With part of the support structure gone, the rest collapsed.

The floor gave out.

You dropped.

“Hold on!” You heard a muffled voice through CJ’s mask.

You clung to him as your stomach surged into your throat.

You dropped like a ball with no visible end until you struck the floor below and ricocheted.

You lost all orientation.

You clattered against CJ’s body.

He grunted at the force.

The ball rolled.

More rubble came down.

Your ears were filled with the crash.

You sought anything.

The air was dark through a layer of green.

The sphere settled.

CJ held it up and immediately released you.

For a moment, you thought it was the usual check of your wellbeing.

It wasn’t.

His posture read terrified.

You searched him in your close quarters, but a clash pulled both your attentions.

Through inky swirls of brown, flashes of pale green struck purple.

Again and again.

Donnie was alive.

You held your left hand.

A wave of crackling orange energy surged through the dust cloud.

In a rush of air that you felt lash your face, all the dirty air was blown away.

It hit the walls in tangible splatter.

Mikey was floating and yanked up on some chains.

Raph had bubbled his family in a red ball of his own form and he dropped the construct to hiss in pain.

Leo and Splinter tended to him and helped him up.

Mikey wove a hand around a thicket of glowing orange rings and yanked.

The chainmail kept at least some of the lair protected.

What he had wrapped up was bundles of rebar.

He set them down as gently as a mass that size could be before he drifted to the ground and stumbled.

“Mikey!” Splinter went to him now that Raph was stable.

“Weren’t…” Mikey tried to siphon oxygen. “… you saying you wanted to remodel?”

“Oh!” Splinter slapped him in worried jest.

Leo broke away from Raph. “APRIL!! CAN’T YOU SEE!? YOU DESTROYED OUR HOME! THIS CAN’T BE WORTH IT!!!”

He addressed the barrier whose inside was still murky.

“I’ve been where you are!! It’s not!! I know it seems like it, but it’s not!!!” Leo pleaded.

“No.” Her voice was too clear.

In an instant, the dust within the barrier flattened to the ground.

Donnie looked different.

Your limbs loosened and CJ’s barrier popped with a similar startle.

“You haven’t.” April’s voice was a ghost, but you couldn’t look at her.

Not at the way dark fluid dripped off her.

Or that her coat was completely gone.

Her scars on display.

The Hamato you knew broiled.

“What’s that?”

“April… your stomach-!”

“When did-?”

“Donatello?”

“Oh, shoot-!”

“He-!”

“She-!”

“He looks-!”

Sharp.

It was the instant, only, and all encompassing descriptor you could come up with.

If you didn’t know it was just April and Donnie within the barrier, then you would have thought he had been switched out.

A spiky animal had replaced your husband.

He was on all fours and lunged at April with the swipe of a bear.

Claws coated him.

He was barbed.

Poisoned as she screamed through blocking his massive attack.

She launched one of her own.

His shrapnel sliced through her ninpo bat.

It cut her each time she threw herself forward.

Like impaling herself on a pike.

Again and again.

She scalped him on a back flip.

You gasped in horror.

You saw green, red, and then amorphous black and purple.

The feather-like sheen was one unit.

There was no distinguishing Donnie’s ninpo from his battle shell.

They had fully fused.

They covered the bald spot and fractured into more spikes.

Each time she took a chunk of him.

What grew back was more barbarous.

It reduced him further.

You sought your bond.

He wasn’t there.

Flickers of him wavered in and out.

You crawled forward.

You heard a shaky breath.

One that seemed small.

Like a terrified child.

You felt yourself turn and the voices of the Hamato you knew battled with each other over what to do.

You saw CJ.

He was on his bottom and staring at the scene, despite his mask.

All of him read horror.

He was scared on a palpable level.

You didn’t know what this was.

None of the Hamato recognized it either.

But CJ-

He knew exactly what was happening to Donnie.

You slowly turned on him and he twitched in full body fear.

You ushered him with your posture.

“Who…?” He reached quaking hands up to his mask.

There was a hiss as it disengaged.

You were startled as soulful eyes appeared.

Ones that seemed infinitely young compared to his bulk and age.

He was war torn.

Savagely carved and wore all his hard moments on his skin.

But his eyes-

They read of a man who had been infinitely loved.

“Who are you to that-that that thing…?” He asked you blatantly.

Clangs of the fight metronomed behind you.

“They’re going to kill each other.” CJ told you.

Like he knew.

Like he had seen it before.

“What can we do…?” You felt yourself whisper.

He looked down and touched his left hand to his right.

You watched the maneuver.

“What… are you two?” He asked again.

“He’s my husband. My mate. The father… of our child.”

CJ couldn’t hide the revulsion that passed over his features.

You openly searched him.

“I’m sorry…” He winced, plainly knew he was being rude, and regretted it immensely. “It… That… it just doesn’t seem possible…”

There was a percussive slam.

“APRIL!!!” Four voices chorused.

There wasn’t time.

Not to analyze this.

To care about niceties.

To ask about the future.

Or why April had told you she didn’t care about Donnie any longer when one look had made her do so very, very much.

“Please…” You put your hand over CJ’s right as he had.

He looked at you with the million yard depth his gaze had.

One of love.

Tender hope.

“If you can stop them…”

His lip quivered.

“Please do it.”

He inhaled.

“Save them.”

He nodded once.

He stood.

You followed suit.

He held his right hand tight as he started to walk.

“We have one chance. This is one and done. The person who invented this… They’re…” Heartache painted him.

He really wore his heart on his sleeve.

“It doesn’t matter now. I won’t let that happen again. Not to that monster.” With a few precise taps and a twist, he pulled his right hand clean off.

You lagged as you hadn’t realized it was a prosthetic.

“CJ…?” Leo mouthed as you reached them.

“YOUR HAND!!!” Mikey screeched.

“Are you okay!? I don’t see any blood!!” Raph ran towards him.

CJ pushed past and Splinter approached him carefully.

CJ barely looked at him as he peeled the glove off a mechanical looking appendage.

You touched Raph’s arm. “It’s not real. I think… I think he lost it… before.”

“Before?” Leo echoed.

Sliding down a fate line in the prosthetic’s palm, the hand glowed a faint green.

“This will… I’m sorry… This will knock all of you out.”

“What?!” Leo rose.

CJ disappeared from sight.

“What is he doing!?”

“What did he mean!?”

“Y/N!” Splinter caught your leg and looked up at you in question.

“I don’t-!” You choked.

“Get ready!!” CJ appeared on top of the green grid.

April glimpsed him before she was struck down.

The Hamato men screamed.

Uselessly beat the barrier.

Donatello brought an arm up that was no longer an arm.

He had shaved it down to a barbed spear.

His head rolled as he raised it.

CJ turned the hand over and punched what looked like keys on the back of it.

The spear came down.

You screamed until it shredded your throat.

For him-

For it-

To stop.

CJ slammed the hand down onto the barrier and leapt away.

There were no obvious ticks.

Just a flicker then a glow.

The moment CJ landed, something happened.

Sound was sucked out of the room.

There was then a faint pop and you felt every mutant around you drop like a stone.

They all collapsed on contact.

You looked between them and then up.

The barrier was gone.

Donnie’s spear had embedded in the ground.

It had barely missed April.

Both were unconscious from how deadly still they were.

You stumbled forward.

Tripped but kept moving.

You heard a tinkling.

Like the shake of fine china.

There were barely audible shards before an outright fracturing.

You watched Donnie’s suit break into pieces.

Flake off in delicate ceramics.

The sheen to it was gone.

Lifeless black chunks fell off of him.

You reached him just as the spear snapped.

He was a rag doll that fell on top of April.

“Donnie!!!” Your voice hurt as you poured over him.

Over his form.

It was like dusting off a fallen kitchen cabinet to reach his skin.

Little bits of metal cut you.

Tacky blood reached for your hand in gooey strings. 

You found he had a pulse.

Your gaze flew to CJ.

“It was made for exactly this.” He was nearby with his stump held in one hand. “It’s the only one like it. The last resort, the Arcane Nullifier. It was made to take down one Krang beast in particular, but to do that it needed to stop everything. Technology, ninpo, everything… Everything except… well… a heartbeat… It had to… There was nothing else that could stop that thing. The worst one outside of… maybe… only Prime... The Amaranthine Aberration.”

💜 NEXT 💜

I haunted both my betas @tmntxthings and @unrestrainedhotsoup with this chapter so know you are all in the same boat!

[afreakingdork]

Your latest chapter beamed a vision directly into my brain ( ･᷄ㅂლ )

SCREAMING!!!!!!!!!! 💞💞💞💞💞💞

ITS SO GOOD OMGGGGG THAN YOU SO MUCH!!!!!! YOUR VISION IS PERFECTION AND YOU DRAW SHELLDON AMAZING IM CRYNG SO GOOODDDDD AKJDFHDSF 💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞

[afreakingdork]

Soft Spot - Chapter 73

RotTMNT Donatello x Reader

I can't stop looking at this Renaissance quality chapter art by @shardkn1ight

Rated: Explicit

Warnings/Tags: Romance, Established Relationship, Married Couple, Married Life, Aged-Up Mutant Ninja Turtles, Villain Donatello (TMNT), Love, POV Second Person, Babies, Pregnancy, AFAB reader, Vaginal Sex, Rough Sex, Penis In Vagina Sex, Creampie, Breeding Kink, Multiple Orgasms, Angst, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Fertility Issues, Pregnant Sex, Pregnancy Kink, Reader-Insert, Cunnilingus, Fellatio, Cum Eating, Turtle Noises (TMNT), I have a Biology Degree and I’m Using it, Menstruation, There WILL NOT be any Miscarriages, Depression, Postpartum Depression, Anal Sex, Intimacy Near Child (No Child Harm)

Synopsis: First comes love. Then comes marriage. Then comes the next step about as smooth as the others arrived. The baby-oriented sequel to Weak Spot.

Also available on Ao3

First 💜 Previous

“CJ!” You squeaked.

He had just gotten ahold of April’s shoulders, but his gaze immediately shot to you. “What’s wrong?!”

“Tag out!” You wrenched your foot from Donnie’s hand. “He-! His eyes-!”

“You got her?!” He rose some and April tried to dive for freedom, but he caught her.

You kicked up CJ’s hockey stick and stormed over with it at the ready. “I do.”

He waited until you were right above him to let go.

You used the stick as leverage to pin her down without exaggerating her injuries. “April, you gotta stop!!”

CJ jogged over to Donnie.

She fought against you and, for a moment, you were lifted off the ground.

The action aggravated those ribs you heard about and she dropped down like a gasping stone. “Can you breathe?!”

“Yeah!” She wheezed. “Just… feels like fire!!”

“Wow!” CJ sounded horrified behind you. “That is some kind of corneal abrasion! You need-! I need to-!”

April’s head turned so fast there was a chain reaction in her shoulder that caused her to further seethe. “Fuck!!”

“April, please!” CJ’s voice got closer.

You chanced looking at your husband and saw him laying still and staring upward probably trying to make sense of the damage above him.

“Please, can you just promise me to not fight for like…. fifteen minutes? Give me fifteen! He really needs his eyes flushed.” CJ appeared to block your gaze.

“I-!” The modicum of movement went through April in a clear zap of pain and she relented to collapse. “Fuck it. Fine. Fifteen. Y/N, can you start a counter?”   

“No!” You shouted.

“Thank you! Hold tight!” CJ ran back toward the med bay with a string of utterances following him.

April laid still as if counting. “Why not?”

“There’s no tech! We had to use an EMP to stop you!”

Donnie didn’t react to the information.

She sat with your explanation before she tipped her head the slightest amount. “Have you seen my coat?”

“Your coat…” You parroted absently.

“Yellow. Hard to miss.” She eyed you. “You can ease off. I promised.”

“You also once told me you didn’t want to kill my husband!!”

She took you in clearly in spite of the pain and then guilt caught the edges of her sclera.

She winced.

Her gaze dodged.

Her lids closed.

You loosened where you had pressed the hockey stick.

“How about my glasses and we can talk about it?”

“For fifteen minutes.” You glanced around not expecting to find anything and were stunned to see the glimmer of her glasses chain. “There… They’re right…”

You stumbled upwards and checked with her.

She watched you in a pained, but still way.

You held tight to the hockey stick as you jogged a few feet over to where a rock was comically on top of the glasses themselves.

Only the chain was visible.

“That’s not good…” You set the stick on the ground and were able to lift the fist sized rock.

“What is it…?” Her voice was weak to project.

“They kinda…” You picked up the dirty pair, but didn’t see any specific cracks in the lenses. “How is that possiblle…?”

“The suspense is killing me.” 

“That or your lungs are finally filling up from being punctured.” You wandered back as you wiped dirt away as best as you could.

“If that was true then Junior would have treated my injuries differently.” She chided.

You used one of the water jugs to rinse the glasses off and the edge of an extra blanket to wipe them.

The pair came away looking nearly unscathed except for some lingering soot in the crevices. 

“What are these made of?” You brought them back to her.

“Oh, you know…” She eyed you as you knelt down beside her. “Surgical steel, titanium composite, poly carbonate enchanted lenses. The usual co-pay stuff. Can you believe they don’t cover anti-glare?”

You realized she couldn’t put them on herself and took great care in unfolding them.

Her nose tipped up in preparation and you heard CJ jogging back by the sound of his sneakers.

She bowed into you placing them on her head and you curled the temples carefully around her ears.

“Better.” She saw you.

CJ made his way to Donnie. “Alright, let me just set up here and-!”

You sort of looked and, to your eye, it didn’t look like your mate had moved an inch.

“Have you blinked…? Since, uh…”

Donnie stared at him.

“No… You haven’t. Okay. That works… Helps with the damage to… not do that actually…” CJ dropped to his knees and began to prep an entirely new container of equipment.

“My jacket?” April murmured as if not wanting to disturb you.

“It was blown off. Last I saw it, we were both up a floor.” You addressed her with a quiet rage.

She accepted it along with a growing knowledge of the damage she had caused.

You moved out of the way so she could see more of it above her.

“Alright. There’s a bunch of treatment stuff for your eyes because of Raph. I can take care of you. Are you okay with that?”

Donnie evaluated him without moving.

“He doesn’t know who you are, CJ.” You gave April more space to watch the other pair. “He just has a vague idea.” 

“Oh!” CJ remembered himself. “Hi, I’m CJ. I’m…”

He inhaled one deep time.

“My credentials are in accordance with international law. I have Core Humanitarian Certification. I’ve completed all available FEMA response courses. I have experience in PSS, HEAT, WASH, IHL, and AAETS, but you’re probably more interested in my first aid expertise. I have up to date certifications in CPR, AED, EMR, EMT, not to be confused with AEMT, along with Stop the Bleed trauma training, and straight up CERT. I’ve been acknowledged for my care via the AHA, local and international EMS agencies, BLS, PALS, ACLS, and all their pediatric counterparts where applicable.”

He had spoken it all in one breath.

He gulped quietly.

Donnie stared for a moment before he gave a curt nod.

“Okay, I’ll start by giving you anesthetic drops. Then, I’d like to remove some of the larger debris before we do a thorough flush. Does that sound alright?”

He earned another short affirmative.

“Perfect. Keep your eyes open, just like you have…” CJ reached over Donnie with a tiny bottle.

“Dang… It took me so long to weave in all those protection spells…” April grumbled.

You appraised her.

That must have been why she wasn’t as hurt as CJ said.

“It’s just a coat.”

“Are you saying, better it than me?” 

“April…”

“Fifteen is probably up.” She made no move.

You didn’t bother to do the same. “Why…?”

“You think you’re all good. One minute you’re hanging out with an old pal and the next…”

“You were doing good.”

“I didn’t have a chance like that.”

“You said Othello would get along fine without him!”

“He was right there.” She begged you to understand. “And, for once, I was ready.”

You completely refused.

She wilted a little.

“I know the drops are numbing, but…” CJ’s voice drifted in. “It’s really impressive how you haven’t blinked at all!” 

You glanced over to see that CJ had his mask down, was holding what was now a third pair of tweezers in hand, and was using them to pluck metal bits out of one of your husband’s eyes while Donnie stared at him.

You shook your head.

“I had to.” April told you.

“No. You didn’t.”

“When was I going to get another chance?”

“You didn’t need one.”

“Y/N.”

“April. Fuck.” You overlooked her. “Wasn’t it enough? You won. Not this, but before that. You did what you set out to do. You protected all those people. You tried to protect me. I’m not saying you have to forgive him, but look.”

You threw your hands up.

“You remember the time I was in the lair and you got looped in?”

She squinted some.

“When S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. tried to hack you.”

“Your other son.” She hissed.

“You left then!”

“That’s how you actually stop a hacking. You shut down the system.”

“You left the guys, who were terrified of having to lose their homes! I talked to Raph. They had all resigned themselves.”

“’Cause it was Leo’s dumb idea to-”

“This isn’t about Leo!”

“What do you want it to be about? You want to make me feel bad? I left them alone and it could have been bad? They are grown ass men, Y/N. You lose a house sometimes. How about your life? How about any of the lives he took?!”

“I’m not asking you how long Donnie has to pay for what he’s done.”

“’Cause he’ll never pay it back.”

“I’m saying this time it was you who left them homeless. Not him.”

April hitched on a response.

“I’m saying they’re all unconscious because of you. I’m saying you did not have to do this to get even. This was not your chance. It was supposed to be about making amends! Leo wanted to talk to CJ!”

April blinked.

That was the registration for the surprise party they were supposed to throw.

It turned over into reality.

“He’s moving on. Leo is moving on.”

“That…” Her pupils darted.

“How do you think it would have gone if you had succeeded?”

She snapped attention to your face.

“You kill Donnie and then what? I’m in the room. Everyone’s here. You think that was going to be the end of it? Would you feel better? What would they know? You didn’t tell them. They have no idea what happened to you! It would have looked like nothing but the same kind of cruel violence he attacked you with!”

Her lips twitched.

“You have every right to be upset about it! I can’t argue that, but what the fuck?”

“Still will.”

You exhaled as you studied her.

“It’ll still look like that.”

“No, you’re going to tell them. You’ll explain what happened.”

That scared her.

“You’re both listening.” You directed your speech behind you. “What do you think, CJ?”

“I don’t…” He shifted his mask’s light across Donnie’s face and extracted shrapnel which he wiped away on some gauze. “I really don’t know.”

“Donnie?” 

He was quiet.

You read it as him still not knowing what to do with the information.

You rubbed your hand.

“You know what?”

April was still looking at you.

“You’re all going to tell them all. All of us are going to have a chat. Then one after that. And again and again until that’s it. No more lies. I’m sick of this.”

“You can’t-!”

“What are you going to do?” You stood and went to pick up the hockey stick.

You got hold of it and slung it against your shoulder.

“Leave?”

You watched her fists ball.

“For once…” You walked back over. “I’m not the helpless one.”

You pointed the blade at her.

“You did this. All of you. No more.”

She perked up as if she would speak.

“Donnie.”

She inhaled sharply.

Your husband was idling as his eyes were worked on.

“Years ago you ran someone through with one of your mechanical arms.”

April’s lower lip quaked.

“Her name was April O’Neil.”

Donnie said nothing.

“You killed her that day.”

You knew it was a low blow.

Maybe a little tacky.

To have taken that from her.

You didn’t care.

You simply waited.

“And… done. We need to flush.” CJ whispered with brittle breath. “I’m going to help you sit up.”

Donnie looked dull.

CJ balled up the surgical drapes along with the dirty gauze and tweezers. 

Your mate watched him closely. 

CJ lifted his mask for a moment as he changed out his gloves. “We’re almost done. We need to do that final flush, alright?” 

Donnie nodded silently. 

“Good. So, to do that, let’s get you upright…” CJ lowered his mask and went to help Donnie get into position. 

Your husband seemingly knew just what to do. 

“Just like that. Head to the side. Perfect. Thank you.”

You heard a rummaging of bottles.

A spray of liquid.

Kind words from CJ.

You and April locked into a staring contest.

She willed some sort of reaction.

You backing down.

Her success rate was plummeting.

You had beaten her once.

You were doing so again.

“The other side…” CJ ushered.

The process repeated.

Neither you nor April looked away.

Your eyes burned.

You refused to stop.

She did the same.

A wet sound trickled between you.

That breath of relief.

It was void of you.

“Look at me.” CJ instructed.

There was a moment of quiet examination.

“Looks clear. I have these bandage contacts. Do you know about them?” There was a rummage as CJ retrieved them. 

“Bandage contacts.” Donnie finally spoke and it was to repeat something. 

April looked.

“Exactly. So these-” CJ continued on. 

She looked away.

You exhaled from holding your breath and let your lids fall closed.

There was a sound of CJ adjusting himself and his mask into an upright position. “I noticed some other abrasions. Way less serious, but there were some recent scratches. How are your eyes?” 

“New born and corrective surgery.” Donnie supplied. “The latter, topography-guided femtosecond laser. Self-programmed.”

CJ made a thin noise.

“It’s damaged.”

Another noise emerged from the man out of time. “That kind of procedure usually ends up having some kind of degradation… When did you have it?”

Donnie heaved. “The contacts.”

“Right. Did you know how to apply them?”

You knew Donnie was going to want to put them in himself.

You also knew he wouldn’t be able to with that break in his arm.

He was hindered almost immediately. 

“I can help…” CJ grew more anxious.

You didn’t hear him give in, but a shift in CJ’s stance said his aid was approved.

Your husband’s breath hitched as he presumably blinked the contacts into place.

CJ wondered how they were and Donnie didn’t speak.

You checked on April who was staring or had presumably gotten stuck with her head turned due to pain.

“I want to sit up.” She spoke in a way that seemed sudden.

CJ was in warning motion. “April!”

“Help me.” She told him.

“You shouldn’t…”

“You want me to talk, don’t’cha?” She looked squarely at you with her eyes, but not her head. “If I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna be on the same level as him.”

Donnie was sitting up.

He looked over in a murky glance.

CJ sat down beside April and supported her as she got into an incline.

She wheezed and they had to stop several times.

Eventually she was propped up in a way where she was mostly stable.

CJ had an arm around her to keep her that way.

You sought Donnie with your eyes. 

He appeared the faintest bit curious. 

You assured him this was important by giving an encouraging nod and he took a breath before he said, “Explanation?”

“I hate how you fucking talk.” April spat.

He watched her for a long moment before his gaze flicked momentarily to you. 

You weren’t sure what to say. 

His eyes returned to her. 

She clicked her tongue. “Like I’m going to spell it out for your dumb ass.”

He appeared, probably just to your eye, frustrated.

“I already knew you didn’t remember, fuck face. Pretty sure I’m the one with the concussion, but I’m also pretty sure I already mentioned what you wanna know!”

“Does your language aid our conversing?”

“Does your lack of full sentences fill the empty void where you’re supposed to have a soul?”

Donnie shifted his pupils to you.

“Can’t face me?” She hissed.

CJ squeezed her, but she ignored it.

You saw something there you weren’t sure of. 

“You are a self-absorbed jackass. You haven’t seen me when I’ve been right in front of you for years. I wrecked all your shops. I made your life up here impossible.”

His head did a slow rotation back to her.

“Yeah.” Her brow bobbed. “That get your attention, huh? Your precious empire. Your supply lines. I fucked ‘em all up! For years! Tough, huh?”

Something clicked for him. “The blight…”

“Just like corn.” She grinned large.

You were struck by her username.

She sussed out his enterprises and then systematically took them down.

SHERLOCK_CORN took on ridiculous meaning and you had to hang your head.

Donnie spoke. “You...”

She hummed sweetly.

His voice iced as he went on. “Some human.”

She didn’t respond and, when you looked up, you saw CJ barely restraining her. 

“How?”

“Which part?!” She growled. “How did I do it? You made it so easy! You were so busy trying to upgrade yourself. All that bravado bullshit. You were so focused on dealing with them, you never even considered who else could be after you. At least… Someone from this realm.”

Her head jerked.

“You’re a fool. A stubborn, stupid bastard. I was your real enemy. All those drops that went sideways? I set them up. Every time the guys were there when you carefully planned for them not to be? Me, bestie. Every backstab. Every betrayal. Every information leak. Every single fucking time you got the fucking rat flu, who the fuck do you think sent the virus your way?!”

Donnie’s breath was imperceptible, but his gaze snapped to you in what was to the world tepid, but to you was bewilderment. 

You stilled.

He pressed you without a single motion. 

Your mouth opened, but nothing came out.

Donnie begged you for some kind of explanation.

From across the room to you.

Your fingers twitched.

You sought a reason.

Why had you kept all this from him?

It had once been because you thought it was worth keeping her safe.

That Donnie always had to live with the choices he had made and things he had done.

That April’s anger was just.

She wanted to keep away from Donnie and you felt like you owed her that much.

In his stead, or whatever you had done to justify it.

Did it matter?

What would have changed?

Would knowing about April have kept this moment from occurring?

What could Donnie have done to stop this?

You couldn’t imagine there was a way, but that wasn’t any better of a justification.

“I don’t understand.”

It was CJ’s voice and you and April looked at him.

Donnie trailed the same direction after lingering on you. 

CJ appeared to wait for the full spotlight and it wasn’t one that deterred him. “April, when…?”

April searched him lightly. “Yeah?”

“When did you… die?”

She took the question in evenly. “2025.” 

“It-he killed you in this timeline, in that year?” CJ pointed his with a pseudo-boney finger to Donnie.

Donnie’s attention flared.

“I... mean, it sounds like we’re using die in a literal sense, CJ, but obviously I didn’t die-die. I’m not undead. There was a little mystic-magic, but it was mostly the magic of science and medicine. He killed me and I was-”

“No, I get that.” His prosthetic fell. “Logically, I can put it all together. You must have been gravely injured, getting run through like that. I’m assuming they declared you medically dead. You used that prognosis so you could fake your actual death. You made me all my papers, the ones that let me seem like I was supposed to be in this timeline. I know, because of that, how easy it is to create an identity so it also reasons that you could make one disappear.”

April listened and turned more towards him.

“What I don’t understand is what that means…” He looked away. “That means he’s… this… him. He’s been around… the whole time?”

CJ’s head shook.

“When you said you sent the guys after him. Those guys!? Your guys?” He pointed again, this time to the Hamato.

“Oh…” April took on a shock of dread.

Your nose twitched as revulsion hit you. “Wow…!”

You felt eyes on you. 

You took a few steps before whipping around to CJ. “I… It makes sense! You acted like this was the first time you’d ever seen Donnie because it was! They kept him from you!!!”

CJ’s eyes looked wet as that was the confirmation he had been looking for.

“CJ…” April murmured.

“If you didn’t need me to keep you up…” He was as stoic as you had seen him yet.

Donnie listlessly watched the conversation, then shifted his gaze to you.

You knew you had dodged his question, but pleaded for more time.

He appeared to grant it by receding his gaze.

“You didn’t need all that.” April punctured the space. “You were dealing with so much!”

“I didn’t need to know the AA was here!? Walking around!? That you were all actively pursuing and fighting him!? Do you know what a threat like him can actually be like!?”

“I fucking died, CJ! He stabbed one of those disgusting metal arms! I know the threat and I know I hate him as much as physically possible, but what is up with those tongue slips? I’m on the side of acknowledging his humanity because that just goes to show just how bad he is…” 

“A-A.” Donnie spaced out the words.

Your head lolled to the lack of ceiling.

CJ fought himself before he carefully laid April down. “Am I supposed to recount another lifetime?! I didn’t know he existed here, as in the here and now!! This timeline seems like mine, with one huge difference, but what do I know!? He was plastered all over the Hidden City’s underground, in both timelines, but both had old wanted posters! He’s pictured as a child!! I made a pretty reasonable conclusion from that here seeing as he never manifested! I assumed he was gone or he wasn’t bad or something. It was a decision that I trusted I would be told about otherwise, from you all!” 

“Hey! Wait-!”

He groaned in the same direction as you had. “Why did you think I hated going down to the Hidden City? There’s traces of him there!!” 

As soon as April was flat, CJ rose and stormed away from her and over to you.

Donnie went on high alert.

You knew what CJ wanted and gave him his hockey stick.

Instead of taking it, he held part of the shaft between you to make a promise, “No more lies.”

A ghost of Raph overlaid him.

You nodded a single agreement and let go.

He took the stick and went straight to some of the rubble. There, he evaluated the rocks with his mask before he revved up the chainsaw and made another clean cut. This one was to a sizable boulder and it split down a slanted arc. Once it broke, he took his blade and rounded out the edges of the stone. Once his carving was to his liking, he deactivated his weapon. In a click-clack, he shrunk it all the way back to its portable form which pulled a buoy of Donnie’s attention. CJ tucked it into his coat, squared his stance, shook himself ready, squatted, and expertly picked up the rock that was now as big as his torso. His arms flexed as he walked it over to April. She bargained lightly in a nervous babble, but he set it unceremoniously by her side. With a small swivel, he got it placed as he wanted and went through the motions of propping her up against it, where she fit into it like a glove into her pseudo-raised hospital bed.

When he was done, he went to join you. “Donatello.”

Your husband had tracked him and was already looking.

“In my timeline, you became a Krang beast. You were known as the Amaranthine Aberration. You were Krang Prime’s favorite infected. If the Krang weren’t already, you were their ace in the downfall of this world. You were also my personal boogeyman, if I’m using that term correctly. You terrify me.”

Donnie took in each sentence quietly before he disengaged to think.

April gawked from her new seat. “You-he-that-!”

“Consistent rationale.” Donnie spoke soon enough.

April squeaked into silence.

“It has always been a personal point of contention. Electrocution only kept Krang hyphae temporarily at bay. They were adapting. Had the bumbling idiots not found their inane workaround, it reasons that I would have eventually fallen.” Donnie addressed CJ openly. “I understood you disrupted the space-time continuum in some way. You describe your own timeline?”

CJ swallowed. “I’m not sure if anyone knew exactly how or when you were captured... and it didn’t… really matter by the time I was born.”

“Your birth year?”

“Sometime between 2020 and 2022…”

Donnie nodded, only a touch absent. “My… The year of the Amaranthine creature’s inception?”

“Early days…” CJ couldn’t be precise and knew it.

That aligned with Donnie’s hypothesis.

“Electrocution?” CJ chewed the word like rancid cud.

“A current of more than fifty milli-amps caused Krang hyphae to withdraw from epithetical contact.” 

CJ straightened. “You shocked yourself…!?”

“I attempted to strike first. I wasn’t as successful when overwhelmed.”

“But that would have… The damage it would have done to you-! You wouldn’t have been able to breathe, let alone fight off-”

Donnie’s chin rose incrementally and he tapped the bare scar on his throat.  

CJ stared.

His hand trended around, where he skimmed his discolored tympanum, and eventually tapped the back of his head. “You set off a device of some sort.”

You went rigid. 

“The Arcane Nullifier… Um…” CJ’s head shot towards your direction. “He doesn’t have a pacemaker does he!?”

Your mouth opened, but something else fell out. “He has cochlear implants! He’s basically deaf without them!!!” 

CJ blinked one single time. 

Your hands smacked your head. “That means-!” 

You tossed them away as you realized they blocked your mouth. 

They only returned in desperate signing. “You didn’t hear anything I told you about April! Or anything! Like at all! You haven’t heard anything we’ve said!” 

“That…?” CJ was in shock. “How!?” 

“No… Should you recall…” Donnie’s voice was gentle, but insistent. 

“He can read lips, but what about your eyes?! Could you even see!?” You remembered. “Don!” 

You wilted in his direction and the tip of his head said he had clearly gathered what he could.

“Where do I even start?! April O’Neil is someone you killed years ago! I’ve…! I’ve known about her since Othello was born! That day Leo teleported me from the bathroom, when I disappeared, it was to her place! When we talked-!” You weren’t skilled enough to interpret what you needed to through your hands. “I’m so sorry!” 

You tried not to break as you turned some attention to CJ. 

“He also has a neural implant. I don’t-! I don’t even know if it’s related to the cochlear ones. I am terrible! It was all knocked out. How do I not know how they work!? I always thought the neural implant wasn’t for medical reasons, because he uses it-”

“That’s why he can control tech…” CJ put it together on his own.

Donnie’s good hand came down and rubbed lightly at his splint.

“Scary…” CJ started to mumble to himself, but shifted to mouth his words with intent “There’s a high chance the Arcane Nullifier might have fried… all of that. It’s high powered. I can’t say for sure… but if those things are technologically based… You can treat it like an all-purpose EMP. For both tech and ninpo.”

He glanced at April and then back.

“It was made by her in the future to take you down.” CJ supplied. 

“You’re the cause of the false tunnel system around this supposed lair.” Donnie surmised without looking at April.

“What is happening here?!” She grouched. 

There was a moment of quiet, but you and CJ led Donnie to look in her direction. 

“Am I supposed to feel bad!? Is this some kind of sob story?” She swore. “Boohoo! He can’t hear! Poor him!? Future me priorities. Do you all hear that? We all know-well, CJ doesn’t, but CJ, how about I fill in the gaps from now on!?”

CJ didn’t like her tone, but gave her his ear.

“This dope became a child kingpin long before the Foot ever had a game plan for summoning their first lord, the Dark Armor, which, by the way, real good on that ancient organization, lot of loyalty, since they flipped to Krang worship the moment Oroku Saki was purified or whatever, but you know about that last part. You were the one who took the Foot down.”

CJ was more caught on the first half of the sentence than the last.

Donnie’s pupils flicked, giving an imperceptible amount of appreciation for the man out of time.

“Jones core.” April continued. “As a literal child, this shithead killed, tortured, and created a tiny, shitty empire built on weapons, drugs, and mystic trafficking. I’m talking he was aged in the single digits and with only a few of those happening in pre-teen doubles.”

Donnie stared hard to capture the words.

“But the heat got too hot and he ran for the surface world, where he tried to set up shop for a second time, but our beloved family showed him the glass ceiling on his bullshit. We then go 20 odd years putting his ass in his place. He went whacko because he could never keep up! You heard Y/N, right? Implants galore! He couldn’t use his ninpo! Couldn’t tap into it! He had to spend all that time packing himself full of metal upgrades to just stand a semblance of a chance! You see? It wasn’t worth your time. You didn’t need to know about all that. It wasn’t important.”

“That should be up to me to decide.” CJ told her. 

“You said it yourself! He’s your worst nightmare!”

“I also wished on every dying star, with every blown out candle, and on every single eyelash that he and the Krang weren’t there.”

She bit down on her next sentence and held it in her teeth.

“But they were and I faced my reality.”

She puffed right up. “Is that a slight? Boy, I do not care if you are older than me, don’t you fucking dare think-!”

“No one knew why you holed yourself up, April!” He stared her down evenly. “How could I insult you when no one knew? That goes for all of us!”

He held a demonstrative hand out to the rest of the men in the room.

“You know they wondered! They worried it was because of something they did! To know it was him… when I didn’t even know he was here?!” CJ was exasperated. “How am I supposed to feel?”

Her jaw tightened.

“I get it! I ran too…! I ran each time you invited me down to the Hidden City. Even though I never saw him like that. I didn’t know what he was like as a child! Pictures are one thing, but I never really saw him when he wasn’t part of the Krang! That’s a huge disconnect! How is a child supposed to contend with that being the basis of the thing that added to my living nightmare and it hurt to know that even as a kid he was a criminal! Bad?! A child criminal!? When I was just a little kid myself?! You think I wanted to look at that little boy and feel my stomach bottom out each time!? That wasn’t even what I dealt with! I don’t even know if what he’s done here is worse! I had that choice taken from me! I still don’t even know what to do with the fact that he’s in the same room with me, right now!!”

“You didn’t need to know…” April repeated.

“You’re wrong.” CJ sharpened his gaze. “That’s a fact.”

For a moment, no one spoke.

“Not an upgrade.”

Donnie’s voice seemed to stab all conscious inhabitants of the space.

“This.” He gestured to his throat. “My tolerance for electricity."

April’s gaze narrowed.

“Related to disparate torment. Before my reign. I was held captive and tortured. Your child of single digits. Bring that number all the way down. Toddler to child.”

His words had some effect, but she fought showing so. “And that, what? You think that gives you an excuse?”

“I wanted to burn the world that scorned me.” He said simply. “You?”

“What aboutme?”

“Does that not make us alike?” He didn’t move, but clearly gestured to the room at large.

“Don’t you fucking-!”

“Just because you erased your records, does not mean I couldn’t track you. I knew of the lair, but approach was muddled. Yet, you remained unknown. As above, so below. A mirror between worlds still exists a planar dimension to both. You existed in neither. This man confirms. What were you if not harboring your own will? You appear to have made it your life’s mission to handicap mine.”

Her lip quivered.

He watched.

“Fine.”

His focus sharpened.

“Is that what you want? Yeah, I hid from you, but it was because I’m smarter. While you thought you could just keep upgrading yourself. I knew my limits. You made those pretty damn clear. I didn’t want to die again. I hit you where it hurt most. Your mind.”

His head tipped in his way of agreement.

April didn’t understand the gesture. “Who has the success story? Me in my extra-planar home that you couldn’t find or you and your parade of apartments that I would upend and make known every single time you least expected it?”

“Depends…” Donnie’s attention shifted.

Her anger flared, but she didn’t give him the dignity of a question.

He didn’t need it. “Where was your choice, Ms. O’Neil?”

She didn’t move.

“CJ, do you prefer the acronym or was the name thrust upon you as monikers are mine?”

CJ bobbed as he was suddenly questioned beside you.

Donnie waited with his eyes on the man. 

“I… was Casey, in my time. I wanted to be Casey here, but I lost… a bet…” His gaze dropped. “My full name is Cassandra Jones Junior.”

“Donatello. Only Donatello.” He understood. “Casey, I will take my own opportunity to supply you with the facts as I know them. Payment for your own, the medical attention, and protection of my spouse.”

CJ almost told him not to worry about it on reflex, but thought better and nodded.

“You think you can sway him just because-!” April rumbled. 

Donnie’s head, which was now on a constant swivel to tracking moving lips, snapped towards her and all his person asked her to give him this.

She waffled.

He eyed her lightly before he returned to CJ. “My life is such, from the beginning: Mutation. Left in the ruin of Baron Draxum’s lab and larger habitat. Captured. Tortured. I freed myself and took domicile in a library. The source of my speech patterns is autodidactic. I was found, shown capitalist drawl, and took purpose in creation. Its direction was funneled through unsavory means, but I knew no other function until competition arose. I could have chosen otherwise, but instead rose to meet it. This ousted me from yokai-dom and brought me to human civilization. I, fourteen, without means, and did as I knew. Met with my past in the form of three imbeciles and their neglectful father, I repeated such transgressions in a rut. Years’ worth. A clash, defeat, minor victory, mutilation, upgrades, creation, technology, on repeat. The Krang initially took Raphael’s eye. I marred the skin around and added permanency. Michelangelo’s face. Leonardo’s plastron. Those are my wounds. I wear my own.”

Donnie shook as he moved to stand.

CJ warbled, but you held him back despite wanting to run to Donnie as well.

Donnie swallowed bile and his arms tried to encircle himself, but he turned to show CJ, and more importantly April, his bare shell.

CJ gasped to himself.

She stared hard.

Donnie clearly felt stripped, raw, and unstable both in mind and body with his prosthetic leg hobbling as the more sturdy of the pair. “I have no excuse. To mine eye, there was a singular path. It took another to show me an alternative.”

He looked at you while still baring his soul.

You softened. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about April. I don’t have a good excuse.”

“My darling, for all my history you suffered. I can count our equivalencies, but rather not. It is not a set equilibrium. I’m sure it made better sense without dimension. You had her word and my damnation. A choice was made.”

“We’ll make more…” You murmured.

“Quite…” He shielded himself by rotating in a little hop. “Casey, we only reached agreement to abstain from further violence, this includes the four over there and myself, by Y/N’s existence. Our tumultuous accords grew with the birth of our son. I make no remark on my actions. I only tell you for your benefit. Informed, your choice is yours fully.”

He quaked a little, unable to sit and together with CJ you went to help him.

Donnie huffed into a sitting position and was out of breath from that.

“Try to rest…” CJ urged him.

Donnie took him in with a slower blink.

“So… that’s it then?” April’s voice broke.

You were kneeling beside your husband and you signaled him to look.

“Everything I’ve done is just shit then? I go out of my way, but because you had a sadder backstory, I’m in the wrong?”

“Do you want absolution?” Donnie shook his head and seemed like he wanted to lean into you.

“I want to feel like I’m not out of my mind because I’m the only one that sees you for what you are.”

“Then.” He gave her all his attention. “You have your confirmation.”

Her lips barely parted.

“You are not wrong.” He clarified. “Is that the validation you crave? For me to affirm that, no. I don’t believe you’ve done wrong. I would do all that you’ve done and more. I have. I do not fault your actions. I meant what I said. It is unfortunate you had not caught me in another phase of my life. I do not remember you from the one occasion we met, but you’ve achieved your goals. Upon meeting me again, you made good on your stance. I have not been pushed to such lengths since the Krang. I have not once needed to use that version of my suit against these men.”

The last of his strength left him and he tried to pretend he was leaving his explanation at that.

“Casey, elaborate on the damage I incurred today. You’ve scanned me, correct?” Donnie still forced out. 

“Yes. Fractured tibia, forearm fracture, nasal fracture, and facial trauma.” CJ supplied almost on muscle memory.

April looked a little like a mended doll to you as you reviewed her.

“Headache.” Donnie said simply though you sensed it was far more intense than that. “My tolerance threshold. I awoke early. It will be difficult to supply me with necessary pain killers.”

CJ curled a finger to his chin, but kept it from blocking his lips. “Based on what you’ve said… I still might have something… I mean… We can take into account mutant physiology already, so they’re stocked for that, but thank you. That does explain why you got up way before the others.”

You had a feeling the reason April was awake was for a similar one.

They were two scarred individuals. 

She looked miserable across from you.

Emotionally and physically.

“Your prosthetic.” Donnie wondered softly, almost as if he hadn’t meant to speak. 

“This one or the Arcane Nullifier equipped one?” CJ flexed mechanical fingers as he walked backwards toward the original bin you had brought from the med bay.

“Both. Your mask. Your… modified sports equipment…”

“I guess they're based on yours. I just found out.” He returned with a vial, alcohol wipes, a few bandages, the dangle of a blue tourniquet, and the makings of a syringe.

Donnie prepared his own arm with a little more ease than you cared for. “I see.”

CJ seemed to not catch the implication as he cleaned a vein, and gave a dosage without a single hitch. “It’s funny.”

Donnie held a bit of gauze in place as CJ unrolled a wrap.

“In a way, I guess you protected me…”

“Little credit.”

CJ slung the wrap around and sealed it with a press.

“Your recognition lies elsewhere.” Donnie gestured to April with his chin.

CJ was quiet, nodded once, and retreated.

“CJ…” April called to him when he was a few steps away.

“Yeah, April?” He stooped, unmoored, across from her.

“Give me some of that too, yeah?”

“Of course, April.” He repeated with renewed purpose and moved to give her a dose of what you assumed was pain medication as well.

The same amount as Donnie based on how far back the plunger on a new syringe was pulled.

A shot of all their similarities.

The clarity they saw each other in the crystal clear vial.

The leagues of science that went into their creation.

Now supplied, post haste, from a battle with no true victor.

One you had a feeling wouldn’t be waged again.

It felt strange, but you let peace take you.

An awkward, tentative one borne from high anxiety.

You weren’t settled.

You were exhausted.

Everyone was.

That standstill was a stop gap none the less.

“That’s the good stuff. Let me see that.” April flicked her head and her glasses traveled further up her nose.

CJ smiled as he held up the vial for her after extracting a needle from her arm.

“Damn, that’s some good morphine.”

“Only the best.” CJ joked as he held a gauze pad for her.

“Mmm.” She loosened as it hit her blood stream.

Donnie took that moment to bump into you.

“Good?” You asked him with your hands.

He nodded as the dose tackled his pain.

You meant to say more, but you heard a rather glittery sound.

Before your brain could register why it sounded familiar, space warped nearby.

Mayhem appeared with a chitter.

Donnie didn’t hear it. 

He couldn’t. 

April’s lids popped open from their lull. “Mayhem, wait-!!!”

The yokai swept the scene in slow motion.

Took all data in. 

Made his judgement. 

CJ leapt.

It was too late.

Mayhem came at you in a blur of fangs.

The snarl slammed into your ears.

It was only as you dove in front of your mate did he realize something dangerous was occurring. 

A force flickered by and Mayhem disappeared as April screamed out his name in a desperate plea.

(Check out behind the scenes for this fic and more on my Patreon. You can follow me there, here, or the tag #softspotfic for updates)

It's my birthday, but my real gift is my betas @tmntxthings and @unrestrainedhotsoup 🎁

[afreakingdork]

Soft Spot - Chapter 67

RotTMNT Donatello x Reader

I was worried about Othello being covered in the substance™, but @shardkn1ight didn't fuss for a second!

Rated: Explicit

Warnings/Tags: Romance, Established Relationship, Married Couple, Married Life, Aged-Up Mutant Ninja Turtles, Villain Donatello (TMNT), Love, POV Second Person, Babies, Pregnancy, AFAB reader, Vaginal Sex, Rough Sex, Penis In Vagina Sex, Creampie, Breeding Kink, Multiple Orgasms, Angst, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Fertility Issues, Pregnant Sex, Pregnancy Kink, Reader-Insert, Cunnilingus, Fellatio, Cum Eating, Turtle Noises (TMNT), I have a Biology Degree and I’m Using it, Menstruation, There WILL NOT be any Miscarriages, Depression, Postpartum Depression, Anal Sex, Intimacy Near Child (No Child Harm)

Synopsis: First comes love. Then comes marriage. Then comes the next step about as smooth as the others arrived. The baby-oriented sequel to Weak Spot.

Also available on Ao3

No one told me the numbering for the chapters was wrong here on Tumblr! 😭

First 💜 Previous

You and Donnie both observed a large fuchsia colored board with similarly schooled expressions. Unlike the aged qualities of those with dry erase capabilities or the older chalk varieties, this tableau exceeded current technology. It was alive with Donnie’s ninpo and displayed statistics about your son. Charts of all kinds splattered the surface along with fervent notes. Those were then tied to reminders and all of it linked to various periodicals about his growth.

You had followed it all since its inception and, for once, were confident that you understood the data.

You inhaled faith and pointed with assertion. “Food’s next.”

“Indeed.” Your mate beamed at both you and his notes. “On a developmental scale, Othello continues to exceed. His locomotion is curious, but not unheard. Muscles and growth are stable. His caloric intake increases. Thus, diversifying his diet is our next area to expound.”

“You would be so good at D&D…”

He eyed you with obvious, though unsaid, insistence that you had once again referenced something he was not aware of.

“Stat points,” was all you said as you turned to look at your son.

Othello was currently laying on the floor beneath a baby gym. He had a ring in one hand and the shape of a star in another. With a pinched expression, he seemed to evaluate their differences. He parsed out that something clearly made them feel different beneath his fingers, but exactly what eluded him. His grip tightened as he worked his little noggin.

You approached him.

He saw you and let go of the star for a wriggle that said his conundrum was great.

“Anything specific we’re starting with?”

“Food diary. Minimal introductions with evaluation days between.” Donnie supplied from back at the board.

You nodded and waved at your baby.

Othello smiled and shook the ring in hand.

The glow behind you shrank and your husband approached under the slow distraction of having shrunk the larger board into a clipboard. “Introduction to food allergens as well.”

“Is that okay?” Your head didn’t exactly whip, but it flew to check.

“Frustrating schools of thought, though research appears to indicate no benefit in delay.”

“Break that down for me a little more?” You knelt.

Othello kicked for you.

“You in there? The gym? Working hard or hardly working?”

Your baby leaned toward the latter and tugged at the framework above him.

“Oh my gosh! So tough! You’ll be going to the Olympics for rings soon!”

He squealed.

Your husband finally sorted his thoughts enough to speak. “It was thought that the best solution to avoid allergens was such. Not as inoculation, but instead exacerbating reactions and causing long lasting ones.”

You nodded.

“Immature digestive systems. Studies for triggers. Children often grow out of common allergens.”

“Got it…”

“I would prefer to trend with knowledge. Small enough doses mean we can treat and assess.”

“Sounds risky for you.”

“Food.” He said with finality.

You knew exactly what he meant.

Food had been quite the topic for Donatello. It was as pervasive in his life as in your relationship. You had met over a sandwich, but it had been more than that. Donnie was searching for said meal as a facsimile of emotion. Eating was both everything and nothing to him. He had found hope as a small abused child by eating the first meal he ever caught himself. Devouring life had given him a taste for one. Starvation and hardship then made calories scarce going forward. Both through warped generosity and waste was he able to find what he needed. He then cast lesser bodily requirements aside, which included food. Nourishment was then reduced to function and it wasn’t until he had a healthier relationship with eating that he was able to have the same with life.

He had preferences now.

He had things he liked.

Things he didn’t.

He had the space to explore them.

He continued to do so.

It was very much common knowledge to you at this point and his mentality extended to your baby.

Othello would have nothing but choice.

Before he even truly knew what one was.

“You know the best way to follow up a workout?” You told your son.

Othello seemed to wonder what you had in mind.

“Food! Can you believe it?”

He couldn’t.

“It helps your muscles!” You reached out to pick him up.

He babbled to you.

“Muscle recovery. Glycogen storage. Reduction of muscle protein breakdown…” Donnie chirped bullet points with amusement.

“You’re going all in on getting swole!” You bounced Othello into your arms.

He cheered with the surrounding excitement.

Something occurred to your husband and he scurried off.

“You ever use a blender bottle?” You asked your son.

Othello wasn’t sure.

“It’s a little like a rattle.” You explained to him how it worked with him on your hip as you prepared his highchair.

Donnie had begun cooking at the stove and gestured to some baby cereal.

“In you go!” You brought your baby up high before setting him down in his chair.

He was snapped in by the highchair’s table with tittering language.

“You’re right!” As soon as he was secure, you got the cereal. “Muscles can’t be milked! What even is that?”

Your mate eyed you again with that confused look.

You ignored him with a smile. “Little bit of safe food to tide you over?”

A few plain oat rounds were sprinkled in front of your son.

Othello knew them well and smashed down a fist to get some circles up to his mouth.

Only one succeeded in entering and the others pressed, already sticky, into his cheeks.

“You got something…” You pointed to your face.

Othello gawked at you as he slobbered over his empty fist.

“You got it.” You pretended as if he did.

He made an affirmative noise and slapped down at his table again to get more cereal.

You watched him methodically try again and again to get more than one grain at a time until Donnie came over, blowing delicately on something piled on a tiny plate.

You gave him room and talked up to your baby. “What’s this? What’s papà got?”

Othello gnashed as he looked between his parents.

Donnie did a sweep of his arm where he brushed a small amount of yellow bits onto Othello’s tray. “Eggs.”

Your son slowly lowered his head to look.

Your husband leaned into you as if it was a secret. “Fully emulsified. Fine curd. Less than two tablespoons.”

You nodded that he had done a good job.

He languished in the affirmation.

Othello was slow to pull his fist out of his mouth, but there was still a pop. He stared at the apparent alien matter for a long moment. Associations were made that things usually placed in this space were edible so he eventually reached out. Synapses revved to make further connections and he curled fingers into the egg bits. They spread beneath his fingers and he felt, what you assumed, was the barely there warmth. It probably reminded him of his bottles and he scooped up some eggs, which he brought over in a twitchy palm.

You and Donnie both hovered as he stared at what he had.

Othello promptly face planted into the mixture.

You turned away so as not to laugh.

Donnie stared on as if he expected the reaction.

You heard Othello ‘mlem’ as he clearly got some egg in his mouth. He teetered again on the unknown. You glanced back to find his mouth open and egg particulate mushed around. Some made it across his taste buds and farther back. He swallowed with the best approximation of a gulp he currently had and announced his verdict.

“Ba-ab!”

Donnie perked, his clipboard popped back into existence, and he furiously wrote on it with a similarly semi-translucent pen.

Othello grabbed at more eggs and smushed them into his beak.

“Not bad, huh?” You bent your knees some to come down to your son’s height. “Do you like it?”

He gnawed at bits of food with a glint in his eye that said he did.

-

“Yogurt day! Yogurt day!” You cheered as you circled the living room with Othello on a march.

“Eggs, sans reaction.” Donnie announced.

“It’s like your milk, but cultured!” You gasped at how fancy that must seem.

Othello’s mouth opened up in awe.

“Then you go, ‘nom!’” You mouthed chomping for him.

He didn’t quite understand the close part, so his jaw hung open.

“Nom, nom, nom!” You chewed the air as you finally headed to the high chair.

Othello saw his seat and reached for it.

“In you go!” You sat him down with your trademark call and adjusted his tray table. “Upright positions in first class, mister.”

He made a few agreeable ‘weh’ noises.

“We have a fine yogurt for you today. Plain and chilled to perfection!” You stepped back with a bow and Donnie slipped in to dollop a portioned scoop for your son.

“Very good!” You clucked.

Donnie chuckled and moved beside you to watch.

“Please, sir! Partake in your meal!” You gestured.

Othello stared at you both before looking at the yogurt mound. It seemed to strike him as odd as he stared for longer than you expected. He then tipped to one wobbling side to view the blob from another angle. He appeared cute to your eye, almost like an art connoisseur appraising a statue. You saw a placard beside it that said something about mother’s bounty and the medium used was goat, even though that wasn’t what you had served him. It was all embellishment and Othello sat back to decide if he liked the exaggeration of it all.

“Ah-h!!” He struck with almost a chop and the entire radius was sprayed with yogurt.

You all sat stiff.

Othello seemed most confused and welled up.

His action was seemingly not his own.

He was now wet with yogurt spray.

He cried.

You looked down at your shirt. “Okay…”

Donnie flickered between actions.

“Let him…” You touched your mate’s arm. “Let him work this one out on his own…”

You went to get a towel.

Othello weeped for his lost food. As you wet the towel, you saw him process that some was still on his hand. When you returned to Donnie to wipe off his tank top, you glimpsed your baby smear outwards as he saw he still had some residue. He painted his tray table as the viscosity of the food eluded him. It was far thicker than milk, but not solid like the other foods he’d tried. It didn’t have the obvious color that hummus had, but as he clinked within his tray’s boundary, he seemed to catch that there was enough of a similarity.

His hand came towards his face, but both depth perception and motor skills were not in his favor.

He dotted his beak and lips with yogurt.

“Didn’t think this was going to be a bath one…” You had moved to cleaning yourself off. “Silly me.”

Donnie was silent as he studied his son.

Now that the yogurt was warmed against his skin, Othello wiped the substance over his face and that dropped jaw caught some of the tangy sludge.

He got a taste and his cheeks peeled back.

His limbs sprung free.

He squeaked confused noises and flopped his tongue as he tried to make sense of the taste.

“No?” You walked over and got a relatively safe looking bit from the edge of his table on your finger and popped it into your mouth.

Your son froze as if to see what you thought.

You pulled your finger out clean and opened your mouth to show him. “All gone!”

His jaw flopped open again and he looked a little like a baby bird.

Donnie thrust a spoon into your periphery.

You took it with a dawning hum. “You want it like this?”

Othello stood firm with an open mouth.

You spooned up some yogurt. “Ahh!”

His tongue poked against his lower lip.

“Ahh-yum!” You fed him some with less of a gesture of putting the spoon in his mouth and more of one to spoon the yogurt into his.

He sputtered on the barely there amount and this time you were covered in both yogurt and spit as he rejected it.

“Not… the spoon…” You spoke around a glop that weighed down your eyelash. “Not yogurt…”

Donnie wrote down exactly that.

-

“Do it.”

“No.”

“Come on.”

“No.”

“He’ll love it.”

“This is absurd.”

“Don-!” You strung out his name to beg.

“We’re missing a key ingredient.”

“We can-!”

“One foodstuff tested every three days! Otherwise, my data-!”

“I wasn’t going to say ‘we can get it.’ I was going to say ‘we can just pretend!’”

Donnie made a thinned out sound.

Othello looked between you from his highchair.

“Just once?” You leaned into your mate’s arm that held the jar. “You watched the video like four times.”

“None of which revealed the comedy you spoke of.”

“It’s funny because it doesn’t make sense.”

He shot you a sharp look that was more dismissive in his ignorance.

“Or maybe it hasn’t ever been funny, but it was a thing.”

“Inferring it is no more.”

“I bet if you started, most people would get it.”

“And we impart this to our son?”

“Just one time!” You jumped away and planted yourself behind Othello’s chair. “Look at this face! He will be so much more willing to try it if you do it!”

“He’s inquisitive.”

“But…?”

“It could skew the results.”

“You think he’ll like it more if you do it?”

“Unknown.”

“Or maybe we’re just making meal time fun?”

You watched that comment strike your mate with some truth.

You tried not to smirk as you ducked down a little to the side so Othello could see you. “See papà?”

You pointed.

Othello kind of looked.

“He’s going to do something real funny, okay? Watch him! Watch!”

Donnie prepared himself.

Othello finally gave him his attention.

You clung to the highchair back.

Donnie prepared a scoop of peanut butter.

His beak crinkled with distaste.

He inhaled a hearty breath.

“It’s-!” His voice pitched.

Othello bobbed some.

“It’s…!” Your husband tried again with a lower tone. “… peanut butter…” He grumbled through the ‘jelly’ as it wasn’t present and he couldn’t let that go. “…time…”

Othello blinked.

You shook down out of sight. “I love you!!”

“And… where he at…? Where he at…? Where he at? Where… he at? And there… he go…” Donnie’s monotone droned on and you felt him offer the spoon of peanut butter to your baby.

You nearly fell over trying to withhold your laughter. “T-the-!”

“I will not dance.”

“Come on…!”

“Hush. He’s about to try it.”

You crawled around the highchair. “He is?”

You caught Othello reaching for the spoon.

“What did I say?!” You crooned.

“I don’t believe such antics had any effect-!”

Your son caught the globule of brown and was immediately struck by how it felt. You and Donnie quieted as he flapped his hand and felt more peanut butter stick. Othello flicked his wrist and found he couldn’t get the spread off as easily as he could other substances. It brought his hands up curiously where he tried to share the matter between his palms.

Donnie stepped away. “I did not thin it enough. We shall try again another day.”

“But it’s already on him…”

“Skin reactions can differ.” He grabbed a paper towel.

Othello rubbed over his hands.

“Wait a second…” You urged.

Donnie was already disgruntled and voiced his concern in a tiny click.

You held a waiting hand.

Othello stared at his coated hands for a long moment, but he rubbed them together again.

He had grabbed about a teaspoon at most, but he spread the peanut butter across one arm then onto his beak. Within what seemed like moments, his entire upper body seemed to have some kind of peanut particulate on it. The texture clearly interested him far more than the taste and he continued to swipe over himself again and again with happy pats to his skin. The stick it caused when he pulled away further delighted him and you couldn’t help but smile as he was soon a buttered version of his regular self. “What’s that?”

Othello jarred.

“Peanut sauce! Pad thello? Peanut ‘Thello and fudge? Dan dan Th’oodles? I’m gonna dig in!” You wriggled spread fingers at him.

Your son cheered success in this measure, though you were sure Donnie wrote down otherwise.

-

You watched as Othello almost carefully picked and placed shreds of cheese in his mouth. It was the most care you had seen your baby eat with. He prized the tiny flecks of cheese and treated them as such. Instead of brute forcing his way through eating, he tried his best to get each piece into his mouth. The chewing was a bit of a problem, unfortunately. The innards of his mouth were too puffy by design and with each attempt, he more so sloshed. Spit and cheese sludge gummed up and slipped around his face, but he continued his best to try and eat each and every bit.

You watched with your elbows craned to a counter and your chin supported in your hands. “We never get to do airplane…”

Othello ate to his own tune.

“You don’t really do well with spoon to mouth. Did we forget to teach you at some point? You always try to grab the spoon instead… or the food…”

He made a rumbling noise of satisfaction as his lips smacked.

You mourned. “Open up for the airplane! Vroom! In it goes! In comes the plane!”

Your son sort of looked at you.

“No time for a flight when there’s cheese, huh?”

He burbled in response and kept eating.

“Did we forget?” You urged past your son and to your mate, who was writing on his clipboard.

“Child led feeding.” Donnie spoke absently.

“How’s it going?”

“No reactions.” He mimed riffling through pages though you know he didn’t need to with his ninpo. “Egg and peanut butter were top allergen concerns. No reaction. Stool is adequate. Skin clear. No vomiting. We continued. Other matter cleared thus far: stone fruit, spinach puree, various legumes, variety of yellow and orange vegetables, and chicken. Tofu is our next target in three days.”

“Stool adequate except for the crazy colors.”

“Normal.” His head tipped.

“I noticed we avoided red stuff. No one wants to see that in the diaper…”

He didn’t speak.

You watched him.

Othello found he had no more cheese and tried to push what was on his cheeks to get more of the substance.

“You okay?” You asked. 

“The point was to diversify palate. Increase caloric intake.”

Your lips pushed to one side.

“Nearly 500 calories of breast milk supplemented with a combination of new and approved semi-solids.”

You watched the dart of his pupil.

“He needs to be near 750 to 900 calories total…” Donnie’s lids were a slow curtain drop. “Difficult to quantify.”

“Why?” You tried to meld your voice into the background.

It allowed your words to permeate the buzz of his brain. “He doesn’t eat in such terms.”

You kept the same range. “He seems like he’s doing a lot of it.”

“Bottle.” Donnie folded down light construct pages of his clipboard. “An exact amount. Valued. Exact depletion.”

“Food…?”

“He doesn’t-!” Donnie’s voice pitched.

Othello looked with a press and roll of his head to the back of his highchair.

“What’s consumed versus toyed with…?”

Othello reached for him and there was some cheese on his fingers.

Donnie looked before plucking up the wet bit with a slight shudder.

“Buu-baah.” Your son explained.

Your husband’s lips crinkled, but he waited for Othello to turn away before he furiously wiped his hand off.

He then paused, staring into the napkin he had grabbed with a hard expression.

“He’s well fed. He’s not hungry.” You pushed reassurances through your bond.  

Donnie shook his head.

“He’s not.” You tried. “He doesn’t even really cry for food anymore. I might be pattern matching nothing, but I swear he’s been rolling toward the kitchen when it’s food time.”

“It’s not…” Donnie hesitated in balling the napkin.

You started to move, but you felt a force in your ring finger tell you to stop.

“The…” He struggled on both words and breath.

You tried to soothe him from where you were.

“The…” He inhaled and blew out before he managed, “… calories are representative.”

“Of what?”

“Loss.”

Your vision twitched as a squint flashed across your features.

“There is inevitable loss. Entropy.”

The concept dangled over you from school years.

“Order to disorder. His growth. Calorie loss. Thermodynamics. My mind.”

Each phrase washed over you.

Othello toyed with his tray table.

It had to be related.

Food was the important factor.

“I was meant to descend into chaos.” Donnie said simply and turned away.

You saw him clearly.

His posture wasn’t weighed down.

He didn’t look particularly defensive.

To him, it was a fact.

“I changed course. The repercussions were felt elsewhere. The entropy finds me in other ways.”

“In… not knowing exactly how much Othello eats…?”

Donnie nodded.

“It makes the data not so clear.”

“It will continue as such.”

“Because he’s going to grow.”

“And I’ll lose more control.”

You didn’t add any more.

“Continue to do so.”

Othello brushed over his clean plate, so to speak, and looked at you.

“He’s shown preference.”

You grabbed a nearby rag.

“What else will be rejected?”

You wiped your son’s face.

“Hide food?”

Othello feigned fighting you off.

“Waste.”

He seemed to always like the clean end result.

“I eat the excess. I’ve maintained our home.”

You guessed you knew that, but it had never consciously registered.

“What is thrown out, spoiled by fluid or bacteria, has grown…!”

It wasn’t like Donnie ate peels that weren’t appetizing or tried to down bones.

“I see it. In the trash.”

You just couldn’t recall having thrown away anything half eaten, picked over, or expired.

“When I make his doses, I eat the excess. What he consumes does not constitute a minimum serving to prepare, but he also does not eat even that!”

New food was always brought in, but what you hadn’t eaten, only just now, did you realize had always vanished.

“I understand. I do. This is not persuasion. Though I feel it. I watch how he consumes and I feel…” He held a hand up to his plastron.

It shook.

He fisted it.

It wobbled.

He shoved up, nearly punched himself in the face, but spread his fingers at the last second to shove into his eye sockets. “When I ate, I ate all. Whatever need be. What was edible. What was fuel. It was all. It all was. I had to and when you…!”

You felt a needle quick jab at your person.

“When you do not eat, you can be reasoned with. Your motivation makes sense.”

You squeezed a fist and threaded your thumb over your wedding ring.

“A child’s does not. They will be picky. It is in all the books. He’s shown signs! He cares more for the texture of nut butters than quality of flavor! Do I adjust my caloric intake to his? To account? But what of his actions? He treats them as paints or body creams! I cannot consume-!”

“Okay.” You finally broke in.

He again asked you to stay in place in an intangible way.

“Don…?” You both warned and wondered.

He nodded and took a moment.

He went through an exercise Mikey had once inadvertently coached him through.

He emerged smoothing over the cloth over the top of his head.

His mask was set just so, perfect, from his toes to that point and he was a little more in control.

“Entropy,” was his first word as he returned.

“One. Don’t force yourself to eat what he doesn’t if he’s gotten his hands into it.”

He breathed more than nodded, but the action was a dual one.

“Two. Entropy is not punishment. Chaos is not your destiny. You-!”

He caught your meaning like a lifeline. “I don’t believe in such.”

You stuttered on finishing the sentence and smiled. “Right.”

He exhaled out and relaxed a bit more. “What other name would you give it?”

“What part exactly?”

“My past actions. How they return?”

“Trauma?”

He chuffed slightly and looked to his son.

Othello was fighting the restraint of his highchair.

Donnie approached him.

“It is though…”

You earned a quick frown.

Othello looked up expectantly.

“Food insecurity…?”

“Not now. Not encompassing enough.” Donnie dotted his son’s forehead.

Your baby tried to grab him.

“Insecurity?” You teased.

“No.” Donnie dodged and picked Othello up before he realized what was happening. “Close though, eh, byte?”

You looked closely at the upgrade.

“Anxiety?” Donnie bounced him in a better hold in his arm.

Othello settled in the space and wound his fingers through one of the straps of his dad’s top.

“Anxiety…” You felt the word out.

“Generalized. Without origin and meaning.” He looked at you.

“It didn’t come from nowhere.”

“Semantics upon occurrence. You can trace, to what end? You can fear heights having never experienced them or been subjected thousands of times. Fear is boundless.”

You didn’t like that.

“What will you fear?” Donnie addressed Othello. “Not loneliness. Maybe the dark?”

“Not food insecurity.”

“Surely not. Monsters? Your closet?”

“The toilet.”

Donnie gave you a sardonic raise of his brow.

“It can happen.”

“I will speak thermodynamics again.”

“Dirty talk when we don’t have a sitter?”

“As if such laws arouse you.”

“Have you really tried?”

He paused to think.

Othello laid his head heavy against Donnie’s shoulder and contemplated cotton.

“I don’t know.” You were honest on that front and all else.

“When will these anxieties cease?” Your mate had an air of levity to him.

“They say at eighteen, but that’s a load.”

“Parenthood.”

“Is this what you wanted?” You finally stepped forward.

You were allowed.

You made it over to them.

Donnie turned so Othello could see you.

“You comfy in there…?” You outstretched a finger.

Othello lazily reached for it.

You let him get a hold of you.

“It is.”

The corners of your mouth turned up.

“And so much more.”

💜 NEXT 💜

And Soft Spot is back with much thanks to my betas @tmntxthings and @unrestrainedhotsoup