#bvtmnt

When Leo stopped talking, Michelangelo put the phone back to his head. "He has what?! Word, that's legit. Well I guess we'll just...wait here?" He paused at length, then glanced down at Donnie again and grimaced. "Yeaaah," he said quietly, "maybe bring something for Donnie, like, pain-wise? He’s lookin’ a little pale, little on the miserable side. His arm didn’t look too good either, kinda...floppy.”

Usually Donnie would have done an offended little scoff and defended himself, but he really did feel pretty puny. The adrenaline from the fight was starting to wear off.

Mikey stuck the phone back in its holster and sat down beside his brother, patting him on the shell. "How's it going down here?"

Donnie pulled his head back into his shell a little, resting his chin on the inner lip of his plastron to sulk. "Arm's stuck."

Mikey dipped his head. "Whassat?"

"Arm's stuck." He sounded absolutely miserable. Poor guy.

"Okay, well...I'll just stick my hand in there and pull it out."

Donnie pulled his head even further into his shell. "Let’s wait until we're back on terra firma. No use in dragging it around."

"Uh-huh. Well, Leo says they're gonna bring the batcopter to come get us, cuz apparently that's a thing."

He snorted. "Of course it is."

Mikey kept his hand on his brother's shell and absently hummed to himself. Donnie remained face-down with his legs sticking out of his shell and nothing else.

The view of the city was prettier from the blimp, high up enough to not see the dirt and ruin below. The skyline was all swooping gothic cathedrals and sleek skyscrapers. Not entire dissimilar to the view back home, but different enough to keep his attention.

It wasn't too long before a chopper appeared on the horizon, and the steady rhythm of the blades grew closer and closer until he could hardly hear himself think.

A ladder unfurled out the side door, and Leo came down with it. He put a headset on each of his brothers, then helped them to their feet.

"Donnie's arm is stuck," Mikey shouted into the mic. Both of his brothers winced. "Oop, volume control, I’m on it."

"I'll help you get it out," Leo said, already reaching toward Donnie.

Donnie jerked away. "Nope! I can get up with one hand. Pulling it out won't help right now."

Leo leveled a look at him. Donnie returned it.

Donnie won the silent argument. Leo sent him up the ladder first and followed close behind while Mikey brought up the rear and found Batman waiting for them in the cabin. With three shells and a muscle-bound superhero, there wasn't a whole lot of wiggle room. He squeezed in alongside Batman so Leo could sit at Donnie's injured side.

"How bad is it?" Batman asked.

"It's—uh, well, it's stuck." Donnie looked down at the empty space where his arm should have been, like he was expecting it to pop out or something.

"I saw it Donnie,” Leo pressed. “He bent your arm at a ninety-degree angle, the wrong way. It has to be dislocated.”

Donnie shook his head. "It's not the elbow—he hit too high up. Some kind of fracture of the humerus is more likely, with damage to the biceps muscle attachments, maybe a dislocation of the shoulder. A sprain, at the very least."

Leo looked up to the Batman, skeptical. "We've got a guy for this back home, but..."

"Alfred can fix him up," he said evenly. "He was a field surgeon. He's kept in practice, he'll take care of your brother."

"Geez," Leo muttered. "Is there anything that guy can't do?"

"I'm afraid I have not mastered the art of fighting crime."

Both Mikey and Donnie startled at the additional voice, following its sound to find Alfred at the stick.

"Dude, you're the coolest," Mikey deadpanned.

  It was a bit of a hike from the batcopter's landing pad to the main cavern of the batcave. They took a batgondala along the canal they swam through just a day earlier, and finally reunited with their fourth brother.

Raph was pacing at the edge of the platform while Batgirl and Robin hovered nearby. He visibly relaxed as they came into view, then he was right there to help Donnie up out of the boat.

The world tilted to the side as Don took his first step on solid ground, and he lurched the other way to account for it. Except the world wasn’t moving at all, and Donnie almost crashed right into the rock floor of the cave. All three of his brothers started toward him, but Raph was closest and caught him by his good arm.

He blinked hard to focus his vision. “Adrenaline’s worn off,” he noted.

Raph scoffed and adjusted his hold on his arm, notably not letting go. “Yeah, I noticed. Come sit down before ya hurt yourself worse.”

He let himself be herded to the cot in the center of the yawning cave. Shock was setting in deep—had probably started back on the ‘copter as he zoned out. The room spun again, blurring his brothers’ faces into a muddy rainbow. Next thing he knew, he was laying on his back on the cot, legs propped up on a few towels.

He blinked at Leo, who stood over him. “Hi.”

Leo’s mouth quirked in a not-quite-smile. “Hey. Back with us?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Good. We gotta get your arm out, little brother.” Leo reached for the empty space, and Donnie instinctively jerked away.

He winced at his own sudden movement. “It hurts to move.” He hesitated, eyes roaming over the other faces gathered around him. “A lot,” he added quietly.

“Everybody but Leonardo and Alfred, clear out.” Batman’s monotone voice echoed decisively.

There was quite a bit of shuffling as four teens dejectedly took their leave. Batman shed his cowl and remained hovering nearby.

Alfred drew a chair up alongside the cot, which Leo took gratefully. “Tell me what’s up.”

“I think…I don’t entirely have control over it. Every time I try to move it, it just starts spasming.”

“Okay,” Leo said evenly. “Well you know the drill, I’ll reach in and get it out. Just relax it.”

“First, I’ll administer some pain relievers and a muscle relaxant to make it a bit easier, hm?”

Donnie nodded strongly to that suggestion. “Thank you Alfred,” he murmured.

Alfred took Donatello’s height and weight as well as his vitals before giving him two injections in his left bicep—one painkiller, and one muscle relaxer. It took only a moment for them to kick in, and Donnie’s body began to melt into the cot.

Just in case, Donnie tried one more time to get the arm unstuck by himself. He was able to move his hand and wriggled his forearm a little closer to the exterior of his shell, but the upper arm was still stuck up against his body. It was starting to make his side ache—the delicate skin and muscles lining the pocket inside the shell weren’t made to hold his limbs in very long, it felt like his elbow was poking something real important.

“Still stuck?” Leo guessed.

Donnie nodded and sighed. “Yeah. Wanna give me a hand?”

Leo’s expression went flat. “Uh-huh. Don’t quit your day job, Mikey.”

Leo was very gentle and slow. Putting one’s hand inside another’s shell was a serious violation of personal space, and Donnie especially was very fond of his personal space staying that way. They used to have to do this for each other more often when they were younger and their first instinct at pain was to pull into their shells, then swelling and pain alike made it hard to get the injured limbs back out. Donnie knew better than to pull it in when it was all very-broken and stuff, but the idea of it flopping all brokenly against the firm surface of the blimp was decidedly worse than getting it stuck.

Watching Leo’s hand disappear into his shell made his skin crawl, so he looked away. Leo’s fingers brushed over his shoulder and he almost jumped. Even the skin around the wound was sensitive to the touch.

“Go ahead Leo, it’s okay.”

Leo continued to not move, fingers just barely brushing against him. “Actually, I can’t. My hand’s too big.”

Donnie blinked. “Well…it has been a while, huh?”

Grimacing, Leo withdrew from Donnie’s shell and put his hands on his hips instead. “We need a plan B.”

“May I?” Batman—Bruce stepped forward, already stripping his gauntlets off and placing them alongside the cowl. His voice was still Batman’s low register, but all the threat had bled out of it. The grimace was gone too, replaced by a barely-there reassuring smile.

Donnie drew back on instinct alone, but he didn’t make it very far. Alfred’s firm hand kept him from tumbling off the opposite side of the cot.

“Easy,” the butler murmured.

Bruce knelt beside Leo’s chair at the cot’s edge. “I might not be a world-class surgeon like Alfred here, but I’ve set plenty of broken bones for my kids. I promise not to hurt you more than strictly necessary.”

Donnie watched Bruce’s expression, earnest and patient. He looked up to Leo, who shrugged. The drugs Alfred had given him were clouding his mind, making it even harder to make this decision that he wouldn’t want to make even if he was stone-cold sober and not in mild shock. Inside his shell, his arm continued to throb with heat and molten pain. Every few breaths, the broken bone ends ground against each other and set his teeth on edge.

“Donatello?” Bruce prompted. “I promise to be gentle, and we can stop anytime you say.”

He squinted his eyes shut and, before he could second guess himself, nodded his permission.

There was some shuffling around for a moment, which Donnie chose not to pay attention to behind his closed lids. Leo’s hand slipped into his free one and he held on for dear life. He knew his brother could take it.

“I’m going to reach in and see if I can get a good grip on your wrist. That should be painless enough to touch if your assessment is correct, but the maneuvering part is going to hurt,” Bruce said. His tone was so soft and gentle—it was almost unrecognizable from the cold, demanding tone of Batman even though they were definitely from the same voice.

A warm human hand brushed against his shoulder, then moved down until it reached the mangled knot above his elbow. Don repressed a shudder, unwilling to jostle the injury and make it hurt worse. The hand traveled carefully across the inflamed area and began to come back up the curve of his arm until the fingers closed around his wrist.

“There we go,” Bruce murmured.

Bruce tugged gently on the wrist, and pain shot like a red-hot poker through his arm. Donnie bit down a gasp, and broke out in a sweat at the same moment. Leo squeezed his hand comfortingly.

“Do you need a break?”

Donnie peeked over at Bruce, whose hand was still loosely around his wrist. He could see the tips of his own green fingers, albeit paler than they should be, sticking out of his shell. His toes curled as another stab of pain radiated up and down his arm, into his fingers and shoulder in equal measure.

“Just get it out,” he groaned. His voice was hoarse and thin—it suddenly occurred to him that he hadn’t had anything to drink since before the fight broke out hours ago.

Bruce gave one grim nod, adjusted his grip, and pulled the limb free.

A broken-off scream tore out of Donatello’s throat. The world went hazy around the edges—he couldn’t quite see Bruce beside him or hear the words coming from his mouth. It felt like someone dunked his head underwater and all he could really make out was the muddied sound of his own heartbeat and ragged breaths.

And then he made the mistake of looking. He looked at the arm, laid out beside him in a mangled, green-blue-purple heap, and almost hurled. His skin was pulled taut over the grotesque swelling, and three quarters of the way down his upper arm, the straight line suddenly deviated at a slight, but distinctly unnatural angle. He retched once, then full-body shuddered and managed to get a lid on it.

“—breathe, Donnie, just give it a minute—”

Leo kept murmuring things beside him, trying to instruct him to breathe in a steady rhythm, but he could still see the mangled limb and the pain and pressure was building to a crescendo somehow a thousand times worse than the injury itself, and he just wanted his dad—

Before he knew what was really happening, Donnie was wrapped up in something solid and warm. His arm jolted painfully as his instincts activated and tried to pull him into a defensive stance, but a warm, gentle hand was laid on the wrist of his injured arm and applied just enough pressure to keep him from lifting it. Then another hand came up to cradle his head at the base of his skull. He was being hugged, he realized belatedly. And even more belatedly, he realized he was getting snot and tears all over Batman while he sobbed his guts out.

He wasn’t able to keep it up for long—between dehydration, pain, drugs, and pure exhaustion, Donnie didn’t have much left in the tank. The tears dried up quickly, and he was left an embarrassed, shaking mess in The Batman’s arms.

Bruce had let go of his injured arm at some point, moving it to soothingly caress his shell. The gesture scratched at some deep-seated instinct in the back of Donatello’s mind that made him go limp.

“Alfred’s going to start an I.V. on your good arm,” he murmured. His deep voice vibrated in his chest against Donnie’s cheek. “Is that okay?”

He nodded dumbly. “Sorry.”

“No need,” Bruce said simply. And Donnie believed him.

He felt the cold of an alcohol swab over his hand, then the brief pinch of a needle followed by medical tape. Once the I.V. was set, Bruce began to pull away slowly. He kept one hand on Donatello’s shoulder, steadying him against the cot. When he automatically began to look toward his injured arm again, Bruce caught his chin and made pointed eye contact.

“You did good,” he said sternly. “Alfred will take x-rays. If there are bone fragments, he’ll do surgery to remove them. You don’t need to be awake for any of that. Would you like to be sedated now?”

Donnie thought about it. It wasn’t something he’d have the luxury of at home—usually when one of them had a broken bone, the only option was to tough it out. He looked up to Leo automatically, like he needed permission.

Leo nodded once. “It’s okay. We’ll keep an eye on you.”

Donnie looked back to Bruce. “Yes. Thank you.”

The smallest of smiles flickered across Bruce’s face, like he was pleased with the decision. “Very good. We’ll see you on the other side, Donatello.”

Donnie laid back and Leo took over at his side while Bruce and Alfred got things ready for sedating and x-rays. As the drugs washed over him and took away the pain and exhaustion, Donnie had only one thing on his mind.