thepurpleone | Cyberformed [] Inbox

Donnie was hunched over his worktable, goggles down, soldering iron in hand as he carefully applied it to some circuitry. True, he could probably just make things be just by touching things, but he'd rather stick to more mundane methods when it came to piecing things together. It had taken days after Iskwiyac before he'd finally felt like doing anything more than just staying burrowed under blankets, and ever since, he'd thrown himself back into work like nothing had happened.

"What?" he asked, not looking up from his work as he soldered the small, delicate components into place.

Mikey stepped just a few steps inside, peering around himself. He'd peeked in before, but this was Donnie's private space. He deserved that, specially after everything.

Mikey laughed a little. "Well uh. I- I was thinking..." He looked away, and back. "I was wondering if you wouldn't mind teaching me some of the things you do. I always wanted to know, but... it was always my Donnie's thing and now your thing. My thing was flipping around and stuff."

"So. You don't have to, it'd be fine. Promise. I just..." He shrugged bashfully, and hunched a bit, saying, "I guess I just wanted to spend some time with you..." Without running and screaming, was the obvious follow-up he didn't say.

"...that's pretty vague," Donnie mumbled over the intermittent spark of the metal which each application of the wand. He did a lot of things, techy things, science things, plant things. It was a lot of ground to cover and he doubted that that was really the intent here, but he was only half listening.

But he had learned enough about this Mikey to know that it took a bit for him to get around to actually saying what he wanted to say. He'd accounted it for nervous chatter, so he waited, continuing until that point was finally made.

He wasn't sure he was expecting that, even if it did seem like a very Mikey thing to say. Donnie finished up one more solder before he pushed up his goggles, finally looking over at the other turtle. "You're not just saying that because you think I need to feel better or something, are you? I know our fun camping trip turned out to be anything but, so I can hardly blame you if you'd rather do your own thing for a while."

Mikey hunched a bit more before straightening up deliberately and offering a nervous but definitely present smile. "Um. Well there's stuff like that," he gestured to what Donnie was doing. "I want to learn how to make stuff like you do. Just, I like making things, and. And I think I'd like it, especially cause-"

He trailed off again, then nodded decisively. "Nope! No way. I want to be around you cause you're my brother and it... y'know. Makes me happy to be around you and junk, all that stuff they say on tv about family, but way more it's all the other stuff Leo and Raph and Master Splinter believed about back home, even if Raph never knew how to say it."

Another, even more bashful shrug. "...You're mine and I'm yours, right? That's how family is supposed to work."

Donnie stared at him, still struggling with the whole idea that anyone had any interest in what he was doing. That was one thing, wanting to be taught.... Well, that wasn't exactly something that had ever happened so he was surprised by the mixed thoughts that were prompted by this new request. It had always been his niche, after all, fixing things, creating things. Raph's was being strong and smashing things, and being the leader. Leo was the face guy, and apparently also leader now, which was still weird, even if he'd seen it in action during their trip to Iskwiyac. And Mikey, he was the wildcard and his attention was never in one place for very long. ...was it wrong to mesh all the Mikeys together?

He hadn't too much time to figure out if he'd just felt somehow threatened by this request when Mikey followed up with things that he'd been certain they'd covered before. And it was strange, but relieving to see that he wasn't chewing on himself or worrying at something. This was Mikey who had finally figured out where he was supposed to be. It made Donnie feel guilty about his earlier thoughts, even though they lingered. His smile felt forced, but he hoped it didn't look like it.

"I thought we had that figured out already but, yeah. That's true enough. Glad you came to your senses."

Mikey's eyes crinkled in a bashful smile, and he rubbed at his nose with one thick finger. "Yeah, well. Guess I just needed a reminder, you think? The kind of reminder you don't say words, I guess."

He shrugged, and looked away. "But.. you don't have to say yes. Like I said, everybody's got their thing. But, maybe we can be like Master Splinter would tell us? Be like water. We don't have to think of ourselves as one thing, y'know? Or... I dunno..." Mikey smiled again, smaller and directed down at his feet. "Used to be, I knew who to go to when I needed it. I'm relearning. That's all. Hah, you think that maybe by the time we all go home I'll have learned at least one new thing?"

"Heh. Clearly your Master Splinter says a lot of different things from our Master Splinter." Probably didn't sit in front of the television every day either.

"Way I see it, we're learning new stuff every day, so if you haven't learned anything already since you go there, you haven't been paying attention," Donnie chided, folding his arms, but the smirk was meant to soften the remark. He tried not to think too hard about going home. It was possible, of course. Leo had said he'd gone and come back. Others had vanished without warning. Would it ever be like normal though? He found his attention drifting towards his weirdly coated hands again. No, not just coated, he thought, brow furrowing just a bit before he forcibly ironed out the frown, turning back to his current project.

"If you really want to learn how to make things, you need to start with having a specific idea for what you want to do. I could teach you basics, but it'd stick better with an actual project and end goal," he said as he inspected his wiring, picking up his (repaired) tablet to tap at and check his connections.

Mikey nodded seriously, crossing his arms and tapping a foot as he thought. He'd like it best if he could make something that could help the others... Maybe...

"...Do you think I could make something that would help me do things like you guys do?" He asked after a long moment of thought, dropping his arms with a decisive nod. This was it, he'd decided. This was the perfect idea. "Your ninpo stuff, I mean? I wanna be able to help more. Not like your battle shell or anything cause that's yours but maybe like... I dunno, I heard some of the big guys talk about hard light stuff, maybe I could do something with that and make pictures to be a distraction?"

Donnie grimaced a bit at that. "I still don't feel like I've properly used mine. But if it's anything like what I was able to do on Maho'Show-J0, then I guess I at least know what it entails." Creating tech out of mystic energy, basically hardlight in itself, to some degree. Even Raphael's ninpō form used something similar. Unfortunately it wasn't something Donnie could measure so simply, nor pick apart to figure out what made it up. But he knew it was his as much as it was his brothers'.

"While making hardlight distractions sounds like it would be useful, that would require some kind of programming, and it'd either have to be something vague but attention-grabbing enough to work for a broad range of reception, or it'd be very complicated because you'd essentially be putting together something on the fly, which will also mean valuable time taken to do it." He nodded to himself as everything looked good so far, so he set his tablet down to start fitting cover panels into place. "Not impossible, but if that's the route you want to go with, the idea's going to have to be refined before we start designing anything."

"Not that way then, I guess..." He muttered, crossing his arms. This was an intimidating decision, really! He had to narrow things down to something that made sense and wasn't just him being an excitable little kid, even when they were all supposed to be from the same clutch.

"Maybe, uh, oh! Science ventriloquism! Remember when- oh, I guess not," he said more to himself than Donnie, hunching a bit before he shook it off and grinned, bouncing up on his toes again before stopping down again, his smile faltering a bit. "That would work out great, unless we're in space or underwater, uh. Uh... no wonder the planning phase is always where my Don would rip his hair out, if he had any..."

"'Science ventriloquism'," Donnie echoed, and while he didn't voice the 'really?' it was pretty clear on his face. "Pretty sure ventriloquism is ventriloquism."

He looked over the circuitry again, picking it up to set into its new housing, easing it carefully into place. "Planning's usually where my brothers tap out too. Or at least they used to. Leo and Raph seem to be a little better about thinking things through to some degree now."

"You know, it's not like you need any sort of upgrades or anything. You were trained to be a ninja, right? Technically that should be more than enough. And then whatever you as Mikey bring to the table. You've seen Michael in action, he has his own crazy style and this habit of launching himself headfirst into things and off of things. And that's without ninpo."

Mikey rubbed at his arm self-consciously. "I know," he half laughed, trailing off into a mumble. "I just- I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, about how I've been treating all of you like the brothers I knew back home, but you aren't. You're you guys, and that shouldn't be just- I don't know."

"The point is, I'm not the Mikey from back then, either. I thought... maybe, if I learn new things like you are, I can do more. That's all."

It wasn't all, but close enough, right?

Mikeys and thinking weren't usually synonymous, but then there was a lot of time to think about stuff when you were on a ship like this. Donnie frowned as he listened.

"...no, I get it. I'm... I'm not even the same Donnie I should be," he admitted, his eyes straying towards his hands. He reached over to pick up his welding tool again, pulling his goggles down.

"Trying to do better, improve yourself, I understand. So tell me Mikey, what is it that you do the best back home?"

"...I don't even know anymore, gotta say. I would've said sweet flippy stuff, but were ninjas. Like you said. We all do that. I-"

He fidgeted, and stared down at the tangle of his fingers. "I guess that's really why this has all been bugging me so much. I don't know what I'm supposed to be back home, either. Everybody else are all really good at other things, and I'm just... I dunno."

He looked back up. "I just want my time here to mean something, you know? One of master Splinter's favorite people to quote always had things to say about uh, what was it... Remaining stagnant? I don't want that."

"That's...pretty natural to think about, especially when you're around brothers that have their own specialties," Donnie nodded. "Leo's good with people, Mikey's practically a boundless ball of energy, and Raph's big and strong. I'm... well, of course I had my tech. And everyone was fine with that because no one else handled any of that sort of thing, or knew how to fix stuff when things broke down." He paused, nudging his goggles up again just so.

"...but then they found magic weapons and started doing amazing things with it, and I had no idea how any of it worked, it made no sense. Still makes no sense, really. But...for a while I thought maybe they won't need me anymore, because magic could do so much, maybe even more."

He fingered his welding tool thoughtfully. "When the rest of my brothers arrived here, I felt so behind. I still do sometimes, because there's so much that's happened, and they're all aware of things except for me. Maybe that's why it was so hard for me to connect with them until things got really serious on Iskwiyac. I didn't want to be stagnant either, but wanting is different than doing, and I needed a really big push, I guess."

Donnie rested his chin in his hand, deciding he was too distracted to continue working. He looked over at Mikey again. "So let's approach this from a different angle. What do you like to do?"

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