Chapter Text
Donnie had been dreaming about going to college, (a reoccurring dream since meeting April and Casey). And as they woke up rubbing the tired from their eyes and the -definitely not- drool from his chin.
They immediately and somewhat defiantly started looking over and altering the chicken scratch that is his notes from the night prior.
Other than a few obvious mistakes there wasn't much problem with the work of 'two weeks bare minimum sleep' Donatello.
And as soon as they fixed the unsolved variable- that was it. They had done it...
The turtle tied their mask around their face and grabbed Sunita's borrowed brooch, he plugged the brooch into his new machine and allowed the machine to fabricate the new replicate.
That's right. Donatello Hamato had indeed not only replicated a brooch that could make you appear human but he made the replicator that with the right inputs creates a perfect duplicate of an object.
Donnie walked out of his room / laboratory. And basically strutted into the main room of their home. The activities room(the room with the skateboard ramps and basketball hoops). His eldest brother were the first to notice his appearance.
"Donnie! Up already? It's only like 9 and we don't have anything to do today."
Raph was correct, he didn't get up much before 1 on slow crime days. But the fact of the matter was he had been up all night working on the brooches.His accidental nap counted as sleep though and he wasn't about to correct raph so he could mother hen him back to bed for 'actual rest' as raph calls it.
"I actually have something to show you all" Donnie mentioned noting that he now had all three siblings attention.
Donnie was wearing his purple hoodie with the brooch on the front.He then quickly tapped the brooch as soon as the brothers noticed it's existence.
Donnie looked down at himself as the brooches illusion set in. He was wearing baggy black corderoy pants with a black shiny tank top underneath a purple button up with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of purple converse shoes. He himself was a tall, slightly lanky, African American male with visible Japanese features. He had a good bit of muscle mass but it wasn't exactly visible. It might've been more so in his legs but his pants made that pretty much up to imagination.
He then looked up to his brothers and in a rush of adrenaline and cockiness he flicks Sunita's original brooch towards them. Leo catching it out of reflex.
They were understandably stunned, the first question was surprisingly out of Mikey. "Where'd you get another brooch?" Donnie then let his smile set in and simply stated " I made it"
The others then quickly snapped out of their stupor and very quickly made their way over to Donnie. "Holy shit bro you can do that?! Why didn't you do that sooner? Can you make us one? " Was the gist of the flurry of questions that he got from his siblings who were basically hovering around him. Leo was checking out his sturdy build.
"Donnieeeeeee how come you get a cooler looking human illusion than i do?" Leo asked whining "Maybe because when you tried yours for the first time you were in a full Jupiter Jim costume."Donnie stated trying to get back to the topic at hand. That was a completely different story for a different time.
"And I just finished my machine that can duplicate magical objects. We are really lucky that the brooches spell has such a simple layout. If it were any more complicated it would've easily taken weeks to complete."
Raph was the first to speak. "Don you know I love your inventions and i am so psyched to try these out and possibly get one." Raph stated not very good at masking his excitement or for some reason, the worry that Donnie could see in the bigger turtles eyes. "-As i was saying that seems to be a pretty big project... And you do that thing where when you work on big projects you don't sleep or eat."
Raph wasn't even trying to mask the worry he obviously was portraying. He has been doing this since for the week after the invasion.Donnie had locked himself in his new lab trying desperately to fix S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N.. He hadn't been seen till he slunk out and collapsed on the floor in front of the couch they managed to salvage from the old lair. He knew raph wasn't wrong but he didn't really want to deal with all his siblings being mother hen raph was enough.
But as Donnie turned his attention from raph to his siblings to make a quick quip he noticed that Mikey was putting his orange glasses on. Oh no... Mikey was going doctor feelings mode. Or.. not he didn't seem to be overbearing and shoving Donnie to his bed where he would lay there till he eventually took a nap.
"Nah I slept don't worry" was all he got out. His brothers didn't look convinced but Leo jumped grabbing the pin off of his brothers chest. He put it on his own by the jacket Donnie hadn't even noticed he slipped on.
"It's fine Bros. I personally vote to believe don-tron this once and have two of us actually go and get pizza from the restaurant. It'll be fun! Trust me." Leo then made eye contact with Donnie and gave him 'the you're welcome but you owe me look' The others didn't notice the look because it was a thing only those two understood.
It was a twin thing.
Mikey and raph headed out to get the pizzas wearing the brooches out of sight and Leo and Donnie opted to stay in the lair.
"Well now that we know the copy works I should get on making three more." Donnie said attempting to slip away to the lab from the awkward silence that set down over the twins.
Splinter always called them the disaster twins because they always got into trouble with how well they worked together. But that was before the war with the kraang. They hadn't been able to connect as easily as before Leo got pulled through the portal. Donnie just wished everything would go back to normal between them.
It was easy before. When did it get so hard?
"-ie to them" Leo asked
"What'd you say? Sorry I zoned out" Donnie said with no malice but at the comment Leo seemed to watch Donnie's movements closer.
"I asked why you lied to Mikey and Raph" Leo said it with the same voice he uses when he knows he has to be less of a leader and more of a brother.
Donnie didn't want to have to explain it to him but he found this was one of the moments that it would do him more harm to lie. But he didn't want to open up completely so he settled for a half truth.
"Because you know how raph is, any time i stay up for longer than 12 he freaks out and goes all protective." Leo seemed to soften at the comment "It's because you we care about you. And you scared us all when you passed out, I know you can take care of yourself but you can't blame us for being worried"
Donnie slumped into the chair finally letting himself relax
" I know and I'm sorry for worrying you all, but I really need to get back to my lab to check on the progress of the brooches"
Donnie said standing and slowly walking backwards towards the doorway
"Alright... and donnie?"
"Yes?"
"We love you, you know that right?"
"...Of course"