Chapter Text
In the coming weeks, Raph would come back to that night more times than he could count.
Not because anything went wrong, but because nothing did.
No fighting. No unresolved tension. No moment that stood out as something he should’ve stopped and paid attention to. If you’d asked him the next day, he would’ve said it was just a normal dinner. One of the easier ones, actually. No interruptions, no emergencies, no one getting called away halfway through, and no dishes afterwards.
It was just the six of them, like usual. A pile of pizza, a TV show on for background noise that no one was watching, and a calm night in New York.
Normal.
Well- as normal as they could get, anyway.
Several boxes were already open when he sat down, stacked and spread out across the table in no real order. Different toppings, different sizes, all blending together into one big, shared mess, with everyone's favorite topping present at least once. Someone had meant to keep track of what was what. Someone always tried their best, thinking this time it'd be different and it'd stick.
It never lasted, and that night was no different.
Raph didn’t bother checking what he grabbed. He just took the nearest slice, dropped into his seat, and took a bite before the conversation even fully registered.
Mikey was talking. He always talked at dinner.
Again, normal.
"I’m telling you, it just works better if you fold it,” he said, demonstrating with the kind of confidence that suggested he’d learned about this ten seconds ago and decided it was law.
“That's not how eating works,” Leo said.
“It's how eating pizza works.”
“That’s not- that isn't a separate category, Mikes.”
“Well, I say it is! I'm the only one here who understands baking science, so you have to listen to me.”
Casey leaned over, peering into one of the boxes like he was expecting to find evidence inside. “I don’t think you can apply science to eating food.”
“You can apply science to anything if you try hard enough. Right, Dee?”
All Mikey got was a distracted hum.
April snorted. “Please don’t encourage him. You know he'll run with whatever you give him."
Raph tuned it out after that. Not because he didn't care. It was just a familiar enough "discussion" that he didn’t have to follow along to know everyone's thoughts on the matter. The rhythm of it, the way they talked over each other, the way it never really mattered who won the argument, it all repeated like clockwork when they had pizza.
He reached for another slice.
Didn’t look at what he grabbed. Didn’t need to.
Grab, eat, repeat. That was the system. Whatever box was closest, whatever slice was there. It all tasted like pizza to Raph.
Across the table, Donnie was only half there.
Tablet in front of him, stylus tapping in quick, precise motions. Focused, but not completely shut out from the world. He glanced up every now and then, tracking the conversation just enough to technically be part of it.
“I’ll eat in a minute,” he said at one point, like it was a response to something Mikey had just said.
“Uh-huh,” Leo said. “You said that already, Donathan.”
“And I’ll say it again, many times.”
“Then you're gonna forget to actually eat many times, too?”
“I do not forget.”
“You absolutely forget. I had to drag you out of your lab for dinner just last week!”
“I prioritize. It's different.”
“Different doesn't mean better.”
Donnie let out a quiet huff that could have been either amusement or annoyance, and went back to his tablet.
No one pushed it.
This was a normal Donnie problem.
He was right there. They knew he’d get something when he was ready.
Raph grabbed another slice.
Conversation shifted. Something about a mission from earlier in the week involving Hypno, then into something else entirely that included the word "defenestration." It didn’t matter why. It never really did to Raph. The point was the noise, the back-and-forth, the fact that they were all there at the same time and enjoying each other's company.
Raph opened another box when the one in front of him ran out. Took a slice. Didn’t check what was on it.
“It’s all the same anyway,” he said around a bite.
“Utter slander,” Mikey said, with a huge grin on his face.
“You say that now,” Casey added, “but I guarantee there’s at least one topping in there you’d complain about.”
“Raph doubts it.”
“Yeah, because your standards were set in a sewer.”
“Food is food. Pizza is pizza. Raph's hungry.”
April shook her head. “That explains a lot about your food preferences, actually.”
Leo hummed something noncommittal.
It didn’t turn into anything. Just another line in the conversation, picked up and dropped just like all the others.
Time passed the way it always did when nothing important was happening, but he was surrounded by people he loved: fast, but not so fast he could tell the difference.
Boxes emptied. Someone pushed an empty one aside to make room for a new one without really thinking about it. Someone else grabbed the last slice from a box and didn’t realize they’d done it.
Raph was pretty sure he’d had more than anyone else, but that wasn’t new. He's a big guy.
“Alright,” Leo said eventually, pushing his chair back. “I’m out.”
“Same,” Casey said, stretching.
April gathered up a couple of plastic cups to throw out. “I’ll get these.”
Mikey lingered just long enough to finish his crust, then hopped up after them. “Night, guys. Sleep tight!”
“Night,” Raph said, already standing.
He didn’t look around the table. Didn’t count boxes. Didn’t check who had what.
Why would he?
It was just a normal dinner.
He stretched his arms over his head as he headed out, the noise of the room fading behind him, already thinking about something else.
Didn’t notice anything missing.
Didn’t notice anything wrong.
Didn’t notice...
That Donnie stayed at the table a little longer.
Not by much. Not enough that it would’ve stood out if anyone had been watching.
The tablet screen dimmed in front of him, stylus going still in his hand.
His gaze drifted around the empty space, over pizza boxes and half-pushed-in chairs.
He didn’t say anything.
He just looked.
Then, leaned back slightly in his chair, eyes unfocused, like his attention had shifted somewhere else entirely.
If someone had walked in right then, they might’ve said he looked thoughtful.
Maybe a little quieter than usual.
Maybe a little… off.
But nothing you could point to.
Nothing you could name.
Nothing that would’ve made you stop and ask if something was wrong, because that's just how Donnie got sometimes.
And later, much later, that would be the one thing Raph couldn’t get past.
Because, when he tried to think back, to find the moment where things changed, where something broke, where he should’ve noticed something went wrong?
There wasn’t one.
It was just a normal night.
Just dinner.
And Donnie, sitting at the table a little longer than everyone else, just...
Thinking.