Chapter Text
No one tells you that falling for betrayal hurts worse, when every conceivable part of you knew that you were going to be betrayed sooner rather than later, no matter what choices you could have made down the line. That even though you might have seen it coming from a mile away, that everyone around you knew it was inevitably going to happen, you still thought that maybe they wouldn't. Not if you really tried hard enough, not if you gave a shot at believing enough. Not if it was you who helped them.
The signs were obvious, neon and unmistakable and right in your face, but you ignored them and fell for your own idealistic visions anyway, because you wanted to do something good and right for once. This was your chance, it could have been something great, but that ‘something great’ was just a delusional dream of grandeur and a fantastical mockery of the reality before you.
You knew how their mind worked once you got to know them, and you're smart enough to use that to your advantage. You could see past their incredibly infuriating flaws that made you want to grab them by the shoulders and rattle them for hours, past their stupid actions that made you question their sanity, their insufferable and idiotic personality and darkness—
To someone with a kindred spirit, flickering and dim and well hidden as it was.
Someone on your level of the universe, who had a mind like yours. Interests and dreams and experiences like yours.
——✧——
Maybe he could have shielded himself from the emotional daggers they left in his gut, after they'd thoroughly twisted them for good measure. When they left and proved everyone else right and proved him wrong. Maybe it would hurt less than it does now if he didn't get his hopes up in the first place, if he snuffed out those tentative whispers that he might have finally found someone who could truly understand him. Finally found a friend.
It was all for nothing, Donnie thought grimly. He couldn't fix them, he tried to help, he really did. But in the end it felt like all of his efforts were for naught.
The accusatory snarl on her face when he first found her had never actually left, he realised, remembering the way he had stared her down time after time. It was always there, present in the way she narrowed her eyes whenever she looked at him. The way the bridge of her nose crinkled as she endured the harsh realities of her new life, one that he had a pivotal influence in. How her ears constantly pinned backwards against her skull, the mane of fur that bristled down her neck and raised the feathers along her spine. How her entire demeanor seemed to ooze contempt and hatred, directed solely at him.
It was a constant that he had chosen to ignore, a clear message that he had been in denial of receiving until now.
Donnie had thought that she was finally coming to terms with her new circumstances, her new body and new course in life. That maybe it wasn't all so bad, that with every failed test he conducted to reverse her mutation, every hypothetical formula that resulted in something you would expect to find in area 51, she might see it wasn't what she truly needed him to fix, that Kendra didn't see the the full scope of benefits and possibilities that she had been given.
He coaxed her sanity and consciousness out from the depths of her feral mind, taught her how to use her new and foreign vocal cords, how to properly walk with four legs instead of two, and how to use and control her new draconic abilities. Donnie had shown her how her body was stronger now, more efficient, better than a human's ever could be.
Or maybe, maybe despite everything he could fix for her, Donnie was just selfish and unable to admit the truth to anyone but himself. In his superior wealth of knowledge in a vast variety of subjects, understanding a mystical ooze and pretending to be a facsimile of god as he tried to manipulate DNA was something he was simply not capable of doing, yet.
But he kept trying, his brothers wanted him to try, he owed Kendra to keep trying. It was his fault she was like this, now included in their lives and trapped in a foreign and otherworldly situation. Donnie was the one who let a human sneak up on him, the one who bit her, the one who failed to catch her before the oozesquitoes he was trying to capture at the time found her first.
But despite everything that had happened in the past few months, he had come to learn that Kendra was a lot like himself, in more than just appearances. Their forced proximity and Donnie's newly found obligation to look after someone who was now his responsibility, meant that it was inevitable to learn more about her.
He knew that she was exceptional at coding, that her favourite color was turquoise, that she preferred iced coffee over anything else. She despised her father for marrying her stepmother, she didn't like her new stepbrother, he had learned over the few weeks they shared how much she hated things in her human life and wanted them to change. She had a laugh that left him chasing brand new feelings, a ferocious passion that drove her through any obstacles she faced. A sharp wit that put Leo in his place, an attitude that would soften when faced against Mikey's weaponised puppy eyes, and a slowly growing respect in her eyes for Raph.
She had gained enough of his trust that he had started freely explaining his latest projects and his proudest inventions to her. He had started showing her around his lab, around his home, and had reveled in the fact that she not only understood the intricacies behind it all, but actually showed an inkling of interest.
She had eventually learned about his tech wings, and in hindsight, he can see now that she was only interested in him explaining their inner workings and controls to complete the next step in her desperate plan.
Sneaking into his lab and stealing his prosthetic wings as she escaped was only the beginning of her betrayal.
——✧——
Donnie had woken up in the early hours of the morning to a silent alarm going off. Leaping out of bed and launching himself across the lair, he had skidded into the middle of his lab and immediately stumbled to the side as Kendra's jaw snapped shut centimeters from the end of his tail, he’d ignored the pinching pain of hairs being pulled from the tufted end. Kendra spat them at his feet with pure vitriol, then whipped her snout around to face him.
Heart racing and blood pounding in his ears, he’d met her eyes, words tumbling from his mouth in a shocked yell. “Kendra?! What are you doing??”
It felt like the hatred in Kendra's eyes had hardened into a smoldering and self righteous anger as she charged at him in response, his polished purple tech firmly affixed around her shoulders and midsection, and he realised she had hacked into his systems and figured out the passcode for his wings.
They had spread like a titanium mockery of a halo from her back as her sharpened talons lunged for the vulnerable and unprotected flesh beneath his short coat of fur. Donnie had grabbed her arms with his own claws before they could slice ribbons into his skin, the impact of his catch sending a buzzing shock through his bones that almost made his grip falter.
“I’m finally getting out of this dump!” she snarled, thrashing her tail behind her and knocking stray tools and half formed projects off the benches. With a roar she had leaned all of her weight against him. "I've looked at your work, you're not smart enough to fix your screw up! I'm done with you and your little color coded family keeping me trapped and caged here.”
He remembers how his ears drooped, a twinge of hurt sneaking through the barrier around his feelings. Kendra had held onto anger, her anger towards him because he’s the one who indirectly mutated her into a dragon, one just like him. But even now, he doesn't think that that's what she is truly angry about.
Donnie had leant forward and growled beside her head, voice cold and quiet to his own ears in a way that prickled and raised the fur down his spine. "Your anger is bringing you to the wrong conclusions, and you know it! You're somebody else now, but it isn't on the surface.”
He felt Kendra's pulse speed up through the wrists he was struggling to keep away from his own neck. Her talons dug into the fur over his trembling forearms as she kept trying to overpower him.
A humorless bark of laughter was her response.
“You turned me into this and you can't even fix it!” She hissed, flapping the stolen wings and lifting both of them off the ground. He felt her grip tighten a moment before she stopped their ascent and slammed him back down and into the ground. The flat spikes that ran down his back made a sharp cracking sound on contact before the horns on his head connected with the floor. The sickening sound that had made caused his stomach to lurch halfway up his throat, he severely doubted he would ever be able to forget it.
All of the air was stolen from his lungs and he had wheezed for breath, sprawled on the cold floor of his lab with a paw over his chest, hearing his heartbeat roar through the ringing of his ears. When he looked up, it was to see the dark pink fur on the end of Kendra's tail whisk out of sight through the lab doors.
Two of his brothers had woken up and came running when they heard the fight, Leo had seen Kendra heading for the exit and immediately went after her. He was the fastest out of them all and the only one who could possibly catch her once she started flying. Raph had checked Donnie for any serious injuries, and once Donnie reassured him that he was fine, he took off shortly after Leo.
He had sat there in the middle of his lab, switching between absentmindedly rubbing his forearms and fiddling with the end of his tail. The stinging sensation from the shallow cuts made themselves known, so he left for the spare room where they kept most of their medical supplies.
It felt like a cold and empty sense of realisation, as he later saw Raph's rain soaked scales return an hour later to carry home the limp, feathery blue-green form of his immediate younger brother. And Donnie thought to himself: Leo was only out there because he had to chase after Kendra.
Raph told him what he saw happen, Leo had been struck by lightning, Kendra had watched. Simply watched and kept flying.
Donnie couldn't tell if he wanted to shred Kendra with tooth and claw the moment he located her because she flew into the middle of a storm, or because she willingly and knowingly left Leo behind to fall to his death. They were lucky Raph had followed him when he saw what was happening.
Leo was so, so lucky that Raph was there to catch him.