Maybe it was the way you were sat: fingers curled around the pencil, hair framing your face, back hunched over as you got lost in drawing. Donnie couldn't put his finger on it, something about you, everything about you made him swoon.
The slight hum from your throat as you thought about what to draw next, the flutter of your eyelashes as they kissed your cheek each time you blinked. You were beautiful there was no arguing that, but it wasn't what drew Donnie in, at least initially.
No, the tech-savvy turtle was drawn to you by your persistence, by the way you poured yourself into your work, how you understood the need to complete something no matter how long it took.
Maybe that's why Donnie could easily understand you and you to him. Being able to know what the other was thinking without a single bit of communication. It sometimes took years for a couple to be able to do that, years of living with each other. But you and Donnie had only been dating for a few weeks, brand new, yet here you were.
Sat so close to him yet so far, perched on the small couch he kept in his lab for whenever he passed out from exhaustion. Your legs curled under you, knees used as an uneven table of which to draw on.
You hadn't even noticed him staring, so caught in your imagination and determination to finish your chosen craft. He admired you in so many ways, saw you as a wise leader during dark days, an absolute Saint.
His heart soared at the sight of you. He knew from the moment his eyes met your own that you owned his heart, the beating organ inside his chest was yours and yours alone. He felt like he couldn't control it most days when he was around you. Always beating rapidly when you walked by, he sometimes mused that if his heart had legs it would be trailing behind you wherever you went.
He tried his best, his best to please you and be a good boyfriend but also a best friend. He wanted to be right by you if anything went wrong, which seemed to be a regular occurrence in their crazy life. He always made sure you were safe, the residents of New York City could wait, he had to make sure you were safe. His love, his life, his everything. As long as you were safe, he'd die happy.
Maybe it was your wit that caught his attention, you could easily beat Raph in a fight of sarcastic remarks. Or the fact that you could cook the most delicious meals ever known to mankind, fair enough they mainly lived on pizza and anything new was like a whole new world. But there was something sweet and simple knowing you had gone out of your way to cook him and his brothers a homemade meal.
Perhaps it was because you were a nerd like him, always first in line for a new comic book, buying cinema tickets at the latest screening so he could sneak in with relative ease. You'd both sit there and talk about the greater lore of a show, used to drive Leo nuts.
Maybe it was because you didn't care, obviously, he wasn't referring to your feelings of him, no. You didn't care who was watching, didn't care what people thought of you. He's lost track of how many times he's caught you and Mikey dancing like nobodies watching, which in fairness was partly true.
But here you are in his lab, you have the audacity to sit there and look so perfect without even trying, without even realising what you're doing to him. He can't help the sigh that parts through his lips, the longing look he gives you from across the couch, the twitch and inkling of a smile.
His eyes trail your face, takes note of the individual dots on your cheeks, 62 he reminds himself. He studies the fast movements of your pupils darting around the page. The tip of your tongue poking out through your lips, cute he tells himself.
Donnie finds it hard to look away from your lips, like a siren calling a sailor to shore. The ruby-red kiss of the devil is what they should be renamed to he thinks, the glistening of your forming pout doing wonders for his imagination. Before confessing to you and even the idea of dating came to mind, he had dreamt about your lips. Wondering what they felt like, how they tasted, would it be as good as he thought it would be?
He was happy when he finally got to answer those questions, over the moon with joy the first time you touched lips. He wouldn't mind doing it again he muses, eyes still glued to the plump flesh. A groan vibrates through his chest, shakes the foundations of his throat. The sound catches your attention, big eyes gazing at him, nothing but love and curiosity.
"You okay, Donnie?"
Your voice was hush, smooth like butter on a hot knife. He loved the sound of your voice, would replay it in his head on loop late at night when he struggled to sleep. He'd easily be able to find you in a crowd just from your voice alone.
You call him again, your expression was more concerned, worried even. Donnie smiles at you, his hand wraps smoothly around your own, mind wandering to thoughts of how truly lucky he was. Finding you was like finding a needle in a haystack, one of a kind.
He thinks back through the last few minutes, goes over every reason he can think of as to why he was drawn to you. But he can't just pick one. He smiles again at you, putting your nerves at ease and later to rest. He leans over to you and presses his lips against yours like he wanted to do. Felt the warmth of you, the taste of you. He loved everything about you, he was drawn to you because everything just simply pointed to you and he wouldn't have it any other way.
"I love you, (Y/N)."