#i was gonna writw more but i have exams starting tomorrow so i wont have time :(

[im-gonna-squeet]

The turtle and the rabbit

Donnie gets a pet to help with his anxiety

Maria is inspired/ created by @butterflyscribbles

Donnie has anxiety. This is known. This has been known for a while. And recently, Mikey suggested that he get a pet to help calm him, and as the littlest brother – and the family mental health expert – what Mikey says goes.

So here they were, at the animal shelter wearing baggy jeans and oversized hoodies with the hoods secured over their heads even though they were indoors.

Despite the fact that Donnie did not want a dog, and infact was not all that fond of them, they still went to see them first – if only to satiate Mikeys need to see cute puppies.

As expected, there were none that particularly struck his fancy.

As for cats, whilst Donnie loved cats and found them pleasant to be around, he had far too many dangerous things lying around both his lab and bedroom. So a naturally curious cat would probably only heighten the poor turtle's anxiety.

They skipped out the reptiles entirely as it would feel a little weird to keep something that looked like them as a pet. Especially since they were once regular turtles.

And then they got to the small animals section.

Immediately, Donnie made eye contact with a beautiful white and coffee-brown rabbit.

Her ears stood straight up, with the left one being fully brown and the right having some white patches, like a particularly striking bicolour impatiens petal. Her snout was partially covered in a small triangle of brown with speckles surrounding it. And the markings around her eyes made it look like she was wearing eyeliner.

She was beautiful.

Mikey noticed that Donnie had stopped walking and turned to see what he was looking at. As his eyes landed on the small rabbit his eyes grew wide as he pressee his hands to hos cheeks, "Awwwe! Donnie it's so cute!!" he exclaimed, probably a little to loudly as it seemingly startled the poor thing who darted away to hode in a nearby tunnel.

Mikey took a step back as he realised his mistake, whispering an apology to the rabbit.

Donnie, however, slowly stepped forward, crouching next to rhe hatch and holding his hand out to the caging as he spoke softly, "Hey, it's ok, you're safe." And begun to make soft clicking noises.

Slowly but surely, the rabbit made its way from the safety of the tunnel and cautiously sniffed Dee's hand. After a moment that felt like forever, the rabbit softly licked his finger through the gap in the caging. "releived sigh." they stated, turning to Mikey, and without having to exchange words, they both knew that this is the pet donnie was gerting today.

As Mikey went to get an attendant to speak about adopting the rabbit, Donnie opted to stay behind and build up trust. Or something. "Uhm, hi." He started, unsure as to why he was being so awkward even though it is a rabbit. They sat in semi-awkward silence for a moment more. "I'm Donnie by the way, I forgot to introduce myself earlier, my sincerest apologies."

She blinked her large void-like eyes at him... in acknowledgement? He took it as a sign to continue anyway, "If I am so lucky as to take you home, you will help to soothe my anxiety down to managable levels, does that sound agreeable to you?"

She licked his finger.

"Good."

At rhat moment, Mikey skipped back into the room, attendant in tow. "Donnie, this is Ava, Ava this is Donnie! And right next to him is the bunny we want!" He said, keeping his voice lower than usual as to not disturb the skittish rabbit.

"Oh. huh. Thats odd. She nornally isn't this friendly, most people dont even see her cuz she hides from them."

"What a coincidence, I am the exact same." Donnie joked.

Only Mikey laughed, though Ava did do an awkward almost giggle afterwards, so he counted that as a win.

"Um. Anyways, if you fill out a couple of forms for us, you should be good to go! Right this way!" Donnie gave a small wave to the rabbit as they left the room.

As promised, once rhe paperwork was filed, they were free to take her home. "Dee! Wait! Dont we need like rabbit things for her?!"

"That, my dear Angelo, has already been taken care of. I text april a while ago and she just replied." He held up his phone to show Mikey a selfie of April holding multiple large bags of (mostly purple, she knows her brother well) rabbit things, she had clearly tranferred one of the bags to her mouth as she held a thumbs up to the camera, grinning widely around the handle. They both snorted at this, rolling their eyes fondly at her antics.

It took less time than expected to get her into the carrier. Still quite a while, of course, as much as Donnie's presence seemingly calmed the rabbit, she was still extremely skittish and took some time to trust that it was safe. But after some gentle coaxing from all three (and some treat bribes) they managed to get her into the carrier safely.

Since they drove to the shelter in the tank, they had to drive back, so Donnie was drivinh as Mikey sat in the passenger seat cradling the bunny's carrier in his lap.

"Ooh! What about Lily, or Lita, or August, or Rose, or Venus, or–" Mikey was listing off as many names as he possibly could, with how excited he was, you'd think that she was his rabbit.

"Michael. Michael stop. I have already named her. Her name is Maria, after Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie, a woman I idolize greatly."

Mikey cocked his head. "I thought her name was just Marie Curie?" He enquired.

"Ah! Well, that is what people typically call her, but her Polish heritage was incredibly important to her (infact she named an entire element about it!), so in order to properly honour her I shall call her Maria."

Mikey blinked, taking a second to properly digest the infotmation. "Oh. Okay! Such a pretty name, don't'cha think?" he cooed at the rabbit in his lap.

"Oh! Michael, do you think you could text the groupchat and warn everyone to be careful around her please-and-thankyou."

"You got it, Dee!"

As they pulled up into the garage, Leo and Raph were waiting for them.

When Donnie got out of the tank, he quickly went around to the passenger side to let Mikey out and retreive Maria.

"Greetings Brethren. This is Maria, Maria this is Leo and Raph." He stated, pointing to each of them as he did so.

Raph crouched down to get a closer look at her. "awwwe hello Maria" he greeted, careful as to not startle her. Maria, however, was pressed as far back into the carrier as she could, ears back, wide eyes daering around the room as she practically panted. This made Raph frown and take a step back.

"I shall take her into my room and keep her there for a few days as he gets used to the new environment. I beleive it would be best to leave introductions for later." Donnie stated, beginning to walk past the others.

On the short walk to his room – or rather their room, he supposes – Maria seemed to calm down a lot. Though she stayed at the back of the carrier, Donnie could hear hee breath slow down.

Opening the doors to the room, Donnie was surprised to find April sat on the ground next to a mostly finished play pen. He raised an eyebrow as she looked up.

"Heya Dee! Figured I'd set up her pen before you came back so she didn't have to stay in the carrier for too long." She spoke softly, looking back down to continue her work.

"Oh, um, thank-thank you that's– I really appreciate it." He felt his cheeks get hotter as he rocked slightly. Damn his self sufficiency.

He decided to gently set the carrier down in the centre of the pen. "Decided on a name yet?"

"Yes! Maria."

"After the scientist, right?"

He hummed in approval.

"Right. Well the pen is done! Do you want me to leave you so she can settle?"

He looked at the rabbit, eyeing April warily at the back of her cage. "Affirmative. I doubt she'd be able to relax with anyone else here."

She nodded, accepting the hand Donnie had offered to help her up. "See ya later, Donnie, love you!" she squeezed his hand as she started walking.

"Yeah love you too. Bye" He replied, kneeling down to open Maria's carrier. After the doors shut behind April, he slowly stood back up and grabbed one of his comics, sitting on his bed to read it until Maria got comfortable enough to leave the carrier.

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