thepurpleone | Cyberformed [] Inbox

There's a point where you get tired of being sad and scared and...whatever else there is. And Donnie's never been one to just mope through it, because that doesn't solve anything. Nothing gets done.

He's been back to work at things, carefully applying a laser cutter thin piece of metal when that familiar voice sounds over the intercom.

The turtle stiffens, lifting his head to glance towards the door. He taps at his bracer to activate the audio on his side, sighing.

"What do you want, Rung."

There's a relief lifted from his shoulders to have even that much recognition. A part of him afraid due to discontent and broken trust he'd been forgotten... and even if that meant perhaps an out... Rung is much happier he will have to face this.

He will not repeat the same mistakes so long ago.

"I wanted to apologize to you, I was deeply out of line. I was wrong to say the things I said to you when you were in need of comfort."

"....."

After Rung had seemed so adamant about giving him a barefaced, painful truth, Donnie hasn't much expected anything by way of apology. He shuts off his lasercutter, staring down at the pieces of metal.

Mikey had said he didn't want Donnie to see Rung again, and Donnie couldn't find any reason to disagree. It had still hurt. He'd liked Rung. But that last session had been absolutely no help at all...

But Rung had come to see him. That...has to mean something, doesn't it?

It's a long several minutes without further response, but eventually, the massive doors begin to slide open.

And while it is not the long limbs of metal to enter, the human looking avatar still holds that older then he seems stance and walk. He does not smile, and any idea of what his eyes are doing are even more obscured by glasses... different then when in his true form those eyebrows give too much away.

"Thank you for giving me this chance, Donnie. I wanted to be on your level... as best I could, I think perhaps that is where I went wrong. Not looking at it as you do, not taking your feelings to mind."

The doors had been set to admit someone much larger, so when that doesn't happen, it's a bit of a surprise not hearing the heavier footfalls. The security drone springs to life, roughly 10-feet high and reminiscent of some kind of canine crossed with an insect, tail wagging eagerly as it approaches the visitor.

"Stand down, Sentry," Donnie intones, the drone jerking its head in his direction before turning to wander back to where it had been idling with a chipper, metallic 'Yes master!'

The turtle himself had started to return to his task, lasercutter in hand and active, but he's pushed his goggles up to stare over at the unfamiliar human that's entered. He frowns, turning back to the worktable.

"A little late for that, don't you think," he responds flatly, pulling his goggles back down.

Rung doesn't quite flinch at the approaching mechanimal, but he does go still before it skittles off. Rung turns his head to Donnie and nods.

"No, I do not think its too late to say what needs to be said. You're still here, alive, growing and learning. Its important for you to know when an adult is wrong and will admit it, too." Rung puts his hands in his pockets.

"You deserve so much better then to be left... unanswered. I was wrong, I should of saved my words for another time, I should of thought them through and I should of..." Rung steps forward.

"I was too harsh and distant. I was a therapist, when what you really needed was a friend."

He lets Rung talk. The guy's good at that.

Sparks crackle as he slices through the metal along the fine lines projected down upon it. He could easily just reshape the thing with his stupid Prime magic but doing things by hand just felt more natural.

Adults never say they're in the wrong, or at least, not very often. Donnie can probably count the times he's heard as much on maybe both hands, and that's being generous.

Later is better, but avoiding a mistake in the first place is more preferable to learning the hard way. But Donnie knows better. You don't always get that luxury.

He finishes cutting, powering down his tool again before setting it on the table.

"...guess guys who have lived millions of years can still learn things," he says, nudging his goggles back up as he turns to face Rung. There's no heat in his words though. He just sounds...tired.

In turn Rung takes off his glasses, and smiles up at Donnie. Its still so far away, full of something he fights against. But its sincere, welcoming all the same. He fidgets with the specs over his hands as he looks to the side for a moment.

"You'd be surprised, live this long and you find yourself trapped in stagnant world view where it becomes...much harder to admit to being at fault." He laughs a little.

"Why do you think our wars last so long?" He rotates his glasses again, before setting them back on his face.

"I'm just glad, you have brothers who are willing to put an old man in his place... I was having a difficult time trying to figure out where I went wrong."

Donnie can't help but smile a little. Of course his brothers wouldn't have sat quietly about this. He almost feels bad for Rung, wondering how those talks must have gone. How differently would things have gone without them here? ...already he found himself starting to list things, and it takes him some effort to stop.

He sighs.

"Back home I make sure things work. I make sure we've got working electricity and internet and heat when it gets cold and a working AC when it gets too hot. I try to make sure my family is comfortable and safe. I try to make sure my tech is working so they don't have to worry about me or to help out the team when just 'us' doesn't seem to cut it.

"Here... It's hard to anticipate what we might have to deal with. Everything seems to be more of a reaction, anything I learn or build only gives the slightest edge, if even that. But I'm still trying to make things better, be more prepared..." He looks down. "And the you told me I should just prepare for the worst to happen, like that's the bottom line. I...can't do that. That isn't how I work. If things can be prevented, then that's what I need to do, that's how I prepare."

Edited 2024-12-16 22:29 (UTC)

Rung walks closer moving up to be nearer Donatello and really listen to him. He takes a seat, watching the facial movements and takes in the words he says. Folding his hands in his lap.

"Back during the war, and even the Lost Light. Things could get out of hand at the prickliest impulse." He smiles fondly though. "There was wonderful moments of mundane problems though." He lifts a hand and waves it briefly side to side.

He just has his words to guide and protect, he's forgotten that they can cut to. He smiles softly and for a moment it seems he's starting to see better what he had been missing.

"I don't know if giving advice this moment will help. But perhaps, if anything... I can simply tell you, I've been there and it can feel so helpless." He sighs. He thinks of Whirl briefly and his face deepens in a moment of content, as deranged as he could be... some how Rung was considered a friend...

"I care about you Donatello, and I think that scares me most of all; it lead to me hurting you... because I was selfish and pushed too hard to make you see it my way." His glasses glint a moment as he looks around. "My professional and personal life has always been strange that way." He laughs...

"I will tell you a secret though. I almost ran from this, I almost hoped my ...condition... would make you forget me so that I wouldn't have to face this."

Donnie shakes his head.

"I'm not looking for advice. I'm...not sure I was looking for advice earlier either," he admits, leaning against the edge of the worktable.

His brows pinch as he watches Rung. What the other says makes sense, and Donnie can hardly say he's never tried doing the same. It just seems so much more difficult to understand the other perspective when you seem so set on believing that you're in the right. It hurts even more being on the opposite end, feeling like you're not being heard.

"It...must be hard trying to keep professional and personal separate, huh?"

How can someone who has to work so intimately with others, keep up such walls? But then he's been building those up, mostly in defense, feeling like no one was really trying to understand him and wondering if maybe it was really him who was the problem after all.

"Your condition..?" Donnie tilts his head, lips quirking just slightly. "That would've been the easy way out," he points out, arching a brow. "Also, I record everything- not that that last session is going on my greatest hits any time soon."

There's an actual laugh out of Rung. Covering his mouth as he tries to stifle his smile and joy. But it stays there on his face as he finally catches his words.

"Believe it or not, you're not the first person to secretly record sessions." His face for once is bright, though perhaps it could be the human features that let him seem... so open.

"I suppose if I did run and you saw those, that'd just give some bad misconceptions of me and the parasite lords." His face lessens to his more subtle default.

"I ... do not remain in the memories of others for long. Eventually I fade from it, but the more I'm in the everyday the more I remain." Rung explains. "It sometimes made my work simultaneously easier and difficult. How can I make friends of my patients if I don't register after a time. It's comical at this point, but I am lucky to have three who seem to remember me no matter what."

"Nightbeat, Rodimus... and unfortunately a mech named Froid." He claps his hand. "But that's enough explanation from me, I simply... wished to come to an understanding and I will understand if you are not ready to forgive me."

Technically no one had told him he couldn't record things. Doing so is just habit by now, but one Donnie's not inclined to stop, seeing as how it had come in so handily their last mission. Awful as that all had been.

He does visibly react to the mention of the parasite lords, flinching. There's certainly no love there, not when he'd experienced one personally, and fought the effects so hard.

"That...sounds terrible." Donnie looks visibly disturbed at the notion that someone can just get so easily forgotten. He shakes his head. "You still remember the other people though, right? Doesn't it...hurt?"

He tucks his arms tightly against himself. "...when the Queen caught us and was eating our memories, trying to make us model obedient children-" There's venom in that word if ever there was- "-the others stopped trying to fight it. Anemone forgot us. Forgot me. Maybe it would've been more preferable forgetting everything too, because then I wouldn't have felt like I was going crazy trying to hang on to everything that everyone else already lost."

But the thought of forgetting his brothers and everyone else had been frightening. Aren't memories supposed to be treasured? Donnie values his mind the most, and losing any bit of it is a terrifying thing to him. But losing others because they simply just forgot about him had hurt even more.

"...I don't..really like Dr. Rung. I like hanging out with regular Rung better. He's...more fun, and kind of goofy- he gets a lot of simple things wrong sometimes but he makes amazing models and... I miss...that."

Edited 2024-12-17 00:39 (UTC)

The admittance of preferring the normal Rung startles him for a moment, his glasses slip down his nose before he quickly pushes them back up to help hide his face. He won't cry, besides he doesn't know how the Holomater avator will register that. These things can be kind of fickle.

Instead he puts on another subtle smile.

"I-... My memories mean the world to me. The people I've known over these millions of years; I would hate to lose even one, even those I hate. So of course it hurts to be the one left behind, and yet... that's not why I try to help others." Rung will not cry.

"I feel a deep love for everyone, I want to see them become their best versions of themselves. I want to see you become your best self and thrive..." He shakes his head.

"It must of scared you horrible to have it all ripped away and then given back like that. It's something I..." Rung shakes his head and folds his hands back together.

"I think, if you'd rather have just regular silly ole me. I would be happy to be your friend, and not your doctor." Its what he ends up saying. "And... as a friend... Is it okay to ask if you need a hug, I think that is something friends do and I am hug sized currently?" He puts on a bashful awkward smile. "Of course you don't have to. I just..." Need one too. "Think it's polite to put on the table."

That sounds...like a miserable sort of existence. Helping others and seeing them grow, maybe, only for them to forget you?

That's the opposite of what Donnie ever wants, hungry for acknowledgment, wanting to be remembered for doing amazing things, feeling like he always has to improve, always needs to do better, just to hear someone say that they're proud of him.

Rung isn't trying to impress anyone. Selfless. Maybe it's easier when you've lived so long and seen so much. But that still doesn't seem right for someone who just wants to help others.

The turtle's smile is faint, but he's glad Rung is open to being a friend. He'll fight his hardest for his friends.

Awkwardly, he pushes away from the worktable, loosening his arms from around himself. He's not about to admit he might need a hug too.

"-okay, fine," he says, holding his arms out.

And he stands bridging that gap between them. Engulfing the turtle child into a holographic embrace. Its surprisingly warm as leans over even now towers just a tensey bit more then he thought he would. He lets the hug tighten.

"Thank you, Donatello. I'm happy I didn't run, I'm happy you... care about me too."

Turns out the holomater was the right call... It feels nice to hug. Loosening a moment to give room for Donnie to escape.

Is it weird hugging a holo-figure? Donnie's rather surprised at how...well, maybe not entirely realistic but it could almost be believed, save for the lack of certain textures one might expect of clothing and such.

He tenses at first, but then pushes aside his pride for a moment to hug back, sighing tiredly. Another weight off his figurative shoulders. Another bridge repaired.

"...it's still kind of weird hugging an otherwise strange random human, you know."

Sorry, he can't help himself. He's only glad his brothers aren't around to make it awkward.

Donnie extracts himself once he feels those weird holographic arms loosen. "Thanks for...not running." It wouldn't have felt right, ignoring things.

There's a ruffle of his shoulders in an otherwise quiet laugh.

"You're brothers would probably still try to beat me up either way." He says, leaning back and putting hands on Donnie's shoulders briefly and pats.

"It's rather funny being this small, but it has its benefits. Now, shall I run later though... I don't mind sitting here with you a bit longer to see your work. Perhaps I can learn more things."

Edited 2024-12-17 01:43 (UTC)

"Oh, I wouldn't be surprised. Just be glad Raph's not here," Donnie replies.

"Maybe you should tour your own models this way. Would that be considered cheating, using that form to work on details?" He's not sure if it's more a matter of skill or practicality when it comes to one's mindset in doing such things.

He feels a lot lighter than he has in weeks. There's still lingering problems, but there are also things that he knows he needs to do, and as he'd told Rung, he wants to help prepare to prevent, to counter the worst that might happen.

"If you want. I'm working on some designs that I hope will help in future encounters with Stardroids..."

"Oh, I'm sure cheating for little details is allowed in a hobby. I have no qualms against it, I might take it up... Very smart, thank you for that idea." Then Rung takes another seat up with the work Donnie was producing as he lays his eyes quick glanced over.

"I would like to see, perhaps... I can be a 'rubber duck'. Someone to talk at while you work on it?"

"A different perspective wouldn't hurt for that, I'm sure," Donnie says, grinning a bit.

He turns back to the worktable, picking up his cutter again so he can finish the remaining divisions.

"I guess it couldn't hurt." Usually he's on his own doing things, so having someone to explain the process to sounds more enjoyable. His brothers get bored much too quickly.

"Well, right now it's mostly basic crafting so I can get the casing ready. I figure I'll get that out of the way and make sure the sizing is correct for when I dive into the fun part."

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