After a fight with the Purple Dragons leaves Donatello temporarily blinded and with a stab wound (right before a major snowstorm is about to hit the city, no less), the turtle is kidnapped by a mysterious vigilante known as the Nightwatcher.
Snow Blind
, written by Sanru, is a short (five chapters) TMNT fic on Fanfiction.com. It is completed as of May 2013.
Tropes in this fic:
- After-Action Healing Drama: While Donatello's injuries (temporary blindness, a stab wound that barely missed anything vital, and general bruising from the fight) are severe, most of the fic's drama comes from a) Donnie being kidnapped, and b) he and Raphael finally talking about their problems.
- Agonizing Side Wound: Donnie's worst injury (other than his being blinded) is the stab wound he received in his side. It's deep and painful, with Donnie losing blood and eventually passing out (it isn't established if he passed out from pain or blood loss). Even after the Nightwatcher stitches his side closed, Donnie can't move too much or too fast, and runs the risk of infection.
- Anger Born of Worry: The main reason Raphael has been arguing with Donatello so much is because he's upset that Leo's been gone so long and he's worried about Donnie having too many responsibilities and stressing himself out too much.
- Badass in Distress: Donatello is a mutant ninja with genius level intellect. He's temporarily blinded and stabbed in the first chapter, and spends most of the rest of the work recovering from said injuries.
- Big Brother Instinct: Despite how much he and Donnie have been getting on each other's nerves since Leo left, Raph (as the Nightwatcher) immediately jumps into a fight to help Don, and spends most of the fic taking care of his injured brother.
- Call-Back: In Picking Up The Pieces, Donnie has a naginata that he's been keeping a secret from his family. This story reveals why he got it.
- Cry into Chest: After the two finally talk about the problems they've been having, Raph admits that he wants Donnie to go back to how he was before Leo left. Don confesses that he hates being in charge, that the stress is eating him alive, but that he can't stop until Leo gets back. He breaks down and cries into Raph's shoulder while his brother hugs him.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Zig-zagged. First, Donatello is holding his own against the Purple Dragons until they use their new blinding weapon. Once Don's blinded, the Dragons gain the upper hand. Then the Nightwatcher steps in, and the Purple Dragons are toast... but they don't leave without one of them stabbing Donnie in the side.
- Declaration of Protection: When Raphael "arrives" at the Nightwatcher's apartment and finds Donnie alive but injured, he goes into the doorway and "tells" the Nightwatcher that if he comes anywhere near the room Donatello's in, he'll beat him up. Don hears Raph laugh for a second, likely because, since he is the Nightwatcher, Raph just threatened to beat himself up.
- Defiant Captive: Due to his injuries, Don can't easily escape from the Nightwatcher after he's abducted. But he does everything he can to try and get away until it becomes clear that the vigilante isn't going to hurt him.
- Dramatic Irony: While he has no reason to believe that the Nightwatcher will hurt him (since he saved him and treated his stab wound), Donnie doesn't dare let his guard down and notes to himself that he'd feel more at ease if one of is brothers was there. He doesn't realize that the Nightwatcher is Raphael.
- Dynamic Entry: In Chapter 4, Raphael enters the Nightwatcher's apartment by breaking several objects and shouting "WHERE THE F--- IS HE?!?
- Furry Reminder: The fact that Donnie and Raph are cold-blooded plays an important part of the story, as Don knows the blizzard poses a higher risk to them than it does to humans. Raph uses their cold-bloodedness to his advantage, as he stays outside for a few minutes and chills down his skin to make it easier for Donnie to believe he was out in the storm looking for him.
- Hollywood Healing: Defied; Donatello is left bedridden even after the Nightwatcher patches him up, as he's still blinded, lost some blood and was given medication to ease his pain that leaves him somewhat disoriented. Even when he gets back to the lair with Raph, he notes that it'll take roughly a week for him to fully recover.
- It's All My Fault: Raph feels this way about Donnie getting injured and blinded. In his mind, if he hadn't stormed out of the lair after an argument and spent the next three days away, Don wouldn't have come looking for him and been ambushed. Likewise, Donnie blames himself for the incident because he didn't do a better job of keeping the peace in Leo's absence.
- The Kindnapper: The Nightwatcher tries to get the blinded and injured Donatello to come with him willingly (saying with honesty that he just wants to help the turtle). When Donnie continues to refuse, the vigilante is forced to kidnap him.
- Major Injury Underreaction: It's noted by Raphael and Splinter that Donnie tends to pull this whenever he's hurt, no matter how bad (such as when he tried to keep it a secret from Raphael that he fell off of a building and into a dumpster).
- Playing Possum: Donatello manages to catch the Nightwatcher off guard and try to escape by pulling this. It doesn't work, seeing as how he's chained up and the severity of his injury means he can't move too much without hurting himself worse.
- Small Role, Big Impact: The Purple Dragons only appear in the first half of the first chapter, but they're the reason why Donatello is injured and blinded (and thus the ones who set the story's plot in motion).
- Soup Is Medicine: The Nightwatcher and Raphael, once he "appears" give Donatello soup after he's injured. Justified because soup is hot, there's a blizzard going on for most of the story, and Don (being a turtle) is sensitive to cold.
- Spotting the Thread: By the end of the story, Donatello has realized that Raphael is the Nightwatcher. He puts the clues together fairly quickly:
- The two have similar ways of speaking
- The vigilante had access to medication that had been modified for the turtles (as Don notes that normal human medicine, while safe for them to take, usually gives them side effects due to their mutant DNA).
- The Nightwatcher was able to use Donnie's shell cell (which the turtle had specifically designed so that no one outside their family knew how to operate it).
- The Nightwatcher saw a fight between a mutant turtle and several humans... and stepped in to help the turtle.
- Suddenly Shouting: Mikey goes from talking normally to practically shrieking when Raph walks into the lair with a severely injured (though slightly recovered) Donnie.
- Talking in Your Sleep: When the Nightwatcher mentions knowing about Donatello's family and someone named Raph, he explains that he knows these things because someone called Donnie's phone while he was unconscious and he was calling for Raph in his sleep. The Nightwatcher, aka Raphael, is lying through his teeth.
- The Unseen: Leonardo is mentioned several times, but it's stated that, at this point in the series, he's still in Japan.
