(Note: I have no idea where this came from. I started writing it from a slip of a thought, and in less than an hour, this whole thing happened. It takes place sometime during the "Water And Oxygen" story. It's more B-Team fluff. I keep getting anonymous reviews and messages about "Don being somewhere on the autism spectrum" which makes me groan because that is not the wording anymore, it's technically not a spectrum, it's like a curvy shape, a Mobius strip, an Infinity knot, an Ouroborous. Spectrums mean a high and a low, and that's not what autistics do. So I think I unconsciously wanted to prove that "Look, you're trying to stereotype a character, is it because he's into science? There are plenty of reasons why he's autistic, but stop shoving him into these holes. For science's sake, I'm autistic, here, read this." And then I make little mention of the stereotype. We...we are difficult to pin down, okay? And I'd rather readers come at me with "but why" rather than "because this". PS, we don't suffer. Autism isn't a disease. It is a neurodevelopmental disability with a communication disorder at its core. It houses dozens of syndromes that affect attentiveness, sensory perception, executive function, physical balance, communication, understanding, socialization, interaction with stimuli, and essentially the entire body-mind. But it's not awful, we are never ever to be pitied for it, it's not scary, we're not trapped, it can be worked around with the proper accessible tools, and the next person who tells me it must suck is getting a salty, fire-tongued lecture. Anyway, these two kids are what I am in this series from the start for reasons and they're amazing, go B-Team.)
Earth And Oxygen: The Brain's Heart
It's been a few months since Donatello realized that both he and Michelangelo were Autistic, sliding along different paths and traits along what Mikey calls "the infinity knot of autistic neurodivergence!" with a grin and sharpness that stuns Raph, who has always teased him for his lesser intellect. Mikey isn't a master prankster for nothing. Hiding in plain sight, planting traps in obvious places...including his own brain. April clapped in glee when she helped Donnie to the tests. Dr. Rockwell just smiled enigmatically, and Donnie thought the monkey man would bring up Mikey's obvious ADHD Inattentive Type but he didn't; they already knew, and it was an associated disorder anyway.
But now that Donnie thinks, really really thinks, he understands. He is grateful. It means that he and Mikey can communicate with each other in ways no one else can, and it's okay that Mikey doesn't understand all the bigger words, he wants to learn them anyway, and Donnie can't suppress the glee so he doesn't, and when Mikey bounces into the lab now ("Hey, Donnie, whatcha doin!") no matter if it's a bad time, Donnie just tells him to sit down in one of the spinny chairs and wait, and he does, he waits, he stims on his own, and Donnie put out colorful things, rubber objects and strings, pipe cleaners figurines, and Mikey is busy playing reverently and then Donnie is finished, and Mikey jumps up and dances over to him with that prize-winning grin that radiates mischief and sunlight. Sometimes in one hand he brandishes a textbook, usually something to do with psychology or neuroscience, he likes the social sciences best, learning about people and society and culture, what and why and how.
They never bothered with gender roles or gendered toys, there was no point in the underground where any toy was treasure and any scrap was enough. Mikey still loves tiaras. Donnie makes sure that if he can he gets some of his chemistry experiments to shine and shimmer, glittery like blinking stars in the distant night, enough to make Mikey's eyes light up like lamps in the dimness of the lab.
Raph stopped mocking Mikey, specifically, with certain things, and Leo stopped scolding Donnie about trying harder. It took some work with those two. They were always stubborn, Mikey called them emotionally stunted after he got through that first psychology book. Leo didn't like that. He made training sessons slightly harder. And then Mikey dropped all pretense and beat his ass by performing some new, very difficult katas with perfect ease and grace, and Leo's face never blushed so hard. Donnie did not hide his smug giggle, and he got a smack on the head from Raph. It didn't hurt, though.
They went on a meditation retreat to the farmhouse for a week. Donnie watched as Mikey, let off every leash, took death-defying leaps into the pond from the highest trees, rolled in the tallest grasses with Chompy and Ice Cream Kitty, scaled the barn three times and did flips off the roof. Once he got distracted by a sudden movement and landed wrong, spraining his wrist hard, but didn't even cry, not until Donnie hit a sore spot while bandaging him, and after carefully following doctor's orders, Mikey threw away the sling and sang to his left arm, sang to it, and somehow it healed even better.
Mikey was different, his masks had all fallen off but he made new masks, and after nightmares he would curl up into Raph, who welcomed him with grumbles and nuzzles, and his cooking became a little less utterly weird and a little more inclusive.
Donnie notices now that his own time spent holed up in his lab was always something different and he strives to try and stop, to remember what time it is, to come out and socialize and now there's Mikey who's pretty much in his head when he lets him. Mikey and April made a fascinating discovery about Dimension X physics and did a lot of research and a lot of wheedling at Agent Bishop. Mikey is now like April but not quite; Bishop calls them psionic siblings. Donnie has files now, some of them untranslatable sent from the Utrom Queen, about Mikey specifically, his brain's connection to things beyond the world. Mikey just laughs when he makes his skateboard into a hoverboard and takes April on a ride.
Mikey promised not to touch the minds of his other brothers unless they were very loud or very focused, but it is useful in battle. The pranks have gotten sophisticated. They involve things floating. Mikey usually won't stop until something hits him in the head, or from the inside; he's having migraines now and they're vicious, and if he overexerts his powers they will turn into seizures. Donnie carries a particular injectible in his medical bag all the time, lorepam, from Rockwell's supply. Leo brews up bacopa tea. Raph teaches Mikey to channel his pain into action. Ice Cream Kitty makes a perfect cold compress.
There's one battle in which Donnie is knocked unconscious, and immediately he falls into a colorful darkness of patterned numbers, spiderwebs of math and science equations, quantum mechanics darting like schools of fish across the back of his brain. When he comes to, a day later, his sight is full of summer blue eyes and orange cloth, and the voice in his head is like a feather, Donnie, Donnie, don't talk yet, just say you can hear me okay?
And Mikey's mind is always two hundred miles an hour but Donnie picks out the fear and worry and thinks at him, I can hear you, little brother, I'm okay.
And the relief is tangible, like a warm weight in his arms, and the face disappears, and then he hears "Guys! Dee's awake! He says he's okay!" And Donnie can push through the pain to smile brightly at his brothers and Splinter and April and Casey, and Mikey touches his mind again, but this time it's to soothe the pain, somehow, Donnie's not sure how, and he means to ask later, but Leo is helping him drink water, and then he's falling asleep again.
Sensei starts training Mikey to improve and control his psionic abilities and April joins in. Leo makes the two freckled blue-eyed teens promise to not prank anyone. They pretend to promise.
Mikey is talking constantly about interconnections between the heart and the mind, and Raph sometimes gets fed up and covers his ears and goes to his room and plays his music. Leo just slips quietly into meditation. Donnie merely listens, and lets his brain calculate, seek patterns, make jumps.
Donnie makes notes constantly and sees the pattern as clear as anything. And the next time Mikey has a nightmare, Donnie senses it and comes to his room, holds him tightly, reminds him that he is here and loved. They don't need words to say anything. They never did.
"It's in the heart," Mikey whispers, and touches the center of Donnie's forehead, and Donnie grins and pulls him close. It's in the heart.