Disclaimer: I don't own TMNT.
Why We Don't Have Jet Packs
Swinging idly while upside down on the rung of the water tower, Michelangelo gleefully began to rant about the Nightwatcher, much to the irritation and amusement of his brothers. Leonardo immediately regretted mentioning the "vigilante showboat."
"I heard his bike turns into a plane, or like a jet pack!" Mikey explained excitedly. Turning to his brainy brother, he asked, "Hey Don, you're so smart—why don't we have jet packs?"
Rolling his eyes and with a shake of his head, Donatello said, "Yeah, that's good, Mikey. I don't even trust you with a driver's license. Have you seen the way this guy—"
However, before the purple-wearing turtle could finish, he was interrupted by the erupting echoes of growls and grunts across the rooftops. The four brothers sprang into action…
After their strange fight with the creepy monster and the troubling presence of the Foot, Donnie tried to do some research while his brothers ate breakfast, but his thoughts kept floating back to Mikey's wish for jet packs. With a sardonic chuckle to himself, he reflected on the real reason they didn't have jet packs...
It had been some months ago, right after Leonardo had left for Central America for training. Donatello was struggling with finding things to occupy his free time. With Leo gone, they no longer trained as intensely or often. Michelangelo had thrown himself into planning a weird party business, and Raphael had all but disappeared from their lives. He had a few ideas left, but Don was unwilling to resort to those drastic measures. So, he decided to take some risks with experimenting.
Mikey was always going on about having cool gadgets like all of his favorite superheroes. Secret spy gear, lasers, invisible accessories (How would they see them in the first place then? Donnie didn't know…he had a hard enough time following his little brother's train of thought), and other unrealistic nonsense. One of the other things from his sci-fi world that actually fascinated Don was jet packs. He'd seen homemade hover crafts built before, having tried it before himself—only to have it destroyed by…his brothers? No, but close…Casey. He'd been too heavy for the craft. Donnie had only really calculated the weight of one of his brothers and the human had proved too much for the device.
Shaking his head in his work area in front of his many monitors, Donatello began sketching out the unlikely schematics for a jet pack.
Over the next few months, the bo staff-wielding turtle spent his time (in secret so his brothers and father wouldn't find out) working on a jet pack. As far as Don had found in his extensive research, there were no actual jet packs that had ever been successfully built. Heck, if the Mythbusters couldn't do it, how could a turtle? But we're talking about a genius turtle.
After hour upon hour of work over three months, Donnie had constructed a prototype jet pack. It was designed with secure, long straps to reach around his shell, and equipped with enough thrust that, as he predicted, would lift him off the ground. Nervous, but excited with the same goofy look that Mikey got when talking about comics plastered on his face, Donatello flipped the switch of his experiment jet pack for its first test run. The lair was empty—Don made sure no one else would be home for his experiment.
The engine roared to life, and Don felt a slight jerk. The straps strained, and then snapped.
"Uh oh…" Donnie muttered in disbelief.
The jet pack began zipping and zooming every which way across the lair, knocking into everything and anything imaginable. Running around in circles trying to follow the rogue jet pack, Donatello jumped futilely trying to grab and secure the crazy thing. It took another sharp turn and headed straight for a collision with Donnie's computer set-up.
"Nooooo!" Donnie shouted, feeling his heart shatter…just like the thousands of pieces his computer monitors and screens broke into. What's a tech turtle without his CCC (computer command center…duh)?
The confounded jet pack sputtered and coughed before dying completely on top of the tech wreckage. Don trudged over to his former work station and fell to his knees.
"This is the worst day of my life…" Donnie murmured miserably. "Stupid little brothers and their lame ideas…"
He began to pick up the fragmented pieces of his existence.
Once his remaining brothers and Master Splinter returned from, well, wherever they had been during the incident, they asked Donatello what had happened to his work area.
Scratching the back of his head, he laughed nervously, unwilling to reveal his blatant failure to his family, and said, "Uh, I decided I needed to redo some stuff. So I thought I challenge myself by starting over from scratch."
Met with blanks stares and a response of, "Oh"s and a "Don't make such a mess next time," from Splinter, Donnie spent the next month rebuilding his precious computers. Once that was completed, he had nothing to do…again.
Sullenly slumping in his swivel chair, hanging his head in defeat, Donatello whispered, "I guess I have no choice…but to become…a tech support guy."