TMNT Shell Shots

Promises Broken

*Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise.

*Summary: He had watched his invention selflessly save them all. So why does Donatello still feel as though he failed everyone?

*Author's Notes: I've finally returned with a new 'TMNT Shell Shot' and this one is an epilogue for the episode 'Metalhead Rewired.' Thank you so much to @Moonlight_Animator for the story request. Sorry it took so long...

Special thanks to my creative consultant, Captain Vegeta, and my beta reader, Joanne N. Grey. You girls are the glue that holds me together. I love you both to the moon and back.

I also want to give a heartfelt thank you to everyone who nominated and voted for my stories in the 2017 TMNT Universal Reader's Choice Awards. I consider myself incredibly blessed to have so many wonderful friends and readers. *hugs*

I would like to dedicate this story to my immensely talented friend, Crimson-Eyes26. She has been so very supportive of me from the start and I am eternally grateful for her endless kindness. Thank you so much, my friend.

I sure hope everyone enjoys this one-shot. It's a bit angsty.

Thanks for reading. ;) CJ

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Promises Broken

I can hear the distinct roar of laughter outside my lab. The heavy metal doors separating me from the rest of the world are doing little more than soften the voices I'm desperately trying to escape.

Pffft! Sound-proof, my shell...

The echo of amusement hanging in the air is the equivalent of pouring salt in an open wound. I know that my brothers aren't deliberately trying to hurt me. They're merely recapping the strange events of the night for our father and one can't help but to chuckle whenever my baby brother puts his colorful spin on things, but the sound of their merriment burns nevertheless.

Sinking deeper into my chair, I stare down at the reason for my rather gloomy mood. A pair of trapezoid eyes staring back at me, cold and dead. My fingertips absently trace the contours of his lifeless face and the brief contact makes a lump start to solidify in my throat.

In the back of my mind, I can still see the light flickering out of those now-black eyes and it makes a fresh round of tears start to prick my own.

Despite my best efforts to stifle a sob, a small squeak, not unlike a hiccup, slips past my defenses. As if of its own accord, my right hand flies up to smother what's left of the noise that I gulp back down.

Not that anyone would hear it...

Not them.

Certainly not him.

As if on cue, the laughter on the other side of the doors starts to fade away, but I know my brothers are still talking about what happened. Their suddenly somber tones tell me as much. No doubt they've reached the part of the story that's making it so hard for me to breathe right now.

As I sit here trying in vain to tune them out, I notice one voice in particular seems louder than the rest. Maybe that's because it's the same belittling voice that keeps ringing inside my brain...

"What's wrong with him now?"

Those words cut like the sharpest of blades. Even more so now than when they'd first been uttered by my oldest brother.