Under Pressure

Tempting

Now that I'd thrown something, I was starting to feel a bit better, but that wasn't going to do much. I noticed that there were a lot of things around that didn't matter, they were going to be destroyed anyways. I grabbed a broken pipe and swung it at a car, breaking the glass and denting the metal. I continued beating the car with the pipe while venting my frustrations into the isolated scrapyard until I'd worn myself out. I let out a tired laugh, feeling better now that I had no energy to be angry. "I feel so much better now." I sat down on the ground, not risking sitting in a car and almost getting crushed yet again. I realized I still needed to search for parts, so I started looking again. I found a few more, taking an hour or so, before I got a call. I looked and, of course, it was from April. I answered it.

"Donnie, where are you?!" She had an urgent tone. "You've been gone way longer than you usually are when you go out!"

"Don't worry, April, I just decided that I was going to keep looking." I reassured her. "I need to get this done quickly so I can take a break, just like you want me to."

"I want you to take a break now!" She was very frustrated with me. "Not in a few days, now! You've been working for way too long and you're gonna end up crashing if you don't take care of yourself!"

"I'm going to work as long as I need to, I'm sorry." I sighed, I already sounded exhausted. "I'm just looking for things right now, it's fine. It's easy to find stuff."

"I'm so sick of you Donnie, fine." April hung up, leaving me to process that. She went from being sweet and concerned to aggressive and hating me so quickly. That was what I deserved for trying to do something right, I guessed. 

"Bye, April." I said goodbye even though she'd hung up, just to not feel so awkward, then continued searching. I grabbed what I could, taking another 30 minutes, then went back to empty the bag I found and organize things where they belonged. I then researched how to make tetanus shots, holding my head in my hands while reading. "Every time I think I'm making progress, something else stops me and puts me 10 steps backwards."

"Why?" Mikey's voice was right behind me, making me jump.

"What'd I say about being in my lab, Mikey?!" I whipped around to look at him.

"I know, I know, you said-" He looked at the cuts on my arms. "Donnie! Why are there cuts on your arms?!" Leo and Raph, hearing that, immediately ran in. They probably thought I did it to myself based on their reactions, they both grabbed my arms and started looking at them.

"Donnie! Why?!" Leo asked anxiously. "Why would you do this?!"

"I went to the scrapyard and a piece of rusty metal scratched me." I explained. "Now I'm researching how to make a tetanus shot so I don't get tetanus and die."

"Why are you so calm about this?!" Raph was way too loud, I winced at his volume. 

"Because I'm the scientist and I'm going to work on my own cure." I pushed Leo and Raph away from me so I could continue my research. It was still extremely difficult to read, so I enlarged the font and took mental notes on everything. "We can't go to doctors and I don't feel like stealing anything right now, but I'm smart so I can handle everything on my own."

"You could die!" Mikey hugged me tightly. "I don't want you to die!"

"I'm not going to die." I finished reading the answer I found online, then moved Mikey off of me and went to my chemicals. "This is an easy fix as long as I get myself the tetanus shot before symptoms show up. They haven't shown up yet and take a while to do so, I'll be fine." 

"Why are you working on experiments right now instead of getting yourself a tetanus shot?" Leo went over to me. 

"This is going to be the tetanus shot." I started mixing the correct chemicals together, pulling over a syringe to put it in once it was done. "If you paid attention to me and what I said, you'd have known that already."