A/n: Inspired from a headcannon. Turtles are nearly two and a half years old in this one.

Disclaimer: I don't own them.

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First Words

"Weo, what thish?"

"Space Ship!"

"Yay! I dwaw shpaysh chhip!"

"Broom. Broom. Brrrroooooooooom." Little Raphael dragged a toy bike acroos the floor as he made the engine noises.

"You dwaw too, Weo!"

"Okay, Mikey!"

Hearty giggles and clapping sounds came from Michelangelo as he watched his eldest brother draw two green blobby figures with two blue dots on each of them.

"Us!"

"Yup! Look Don-Don!"

"Weo dwaw us!"

The turtle who had been silent all along while observing a toy crane with his tongue slightly out glanced up and gave Mikey a gap-toothed smile before he turned his attention back to his inspection.

Splinter was sitting to the side as he fondly watched his sons playing around and interacting. But he noticed that once again, Donatello hadn't talked at all.

He was concerned about this particular son of his since the boy still hadn't spoken his first words whereas the rest of his brothers were all advancing in their speech.

"Zweeeeeeeeeeeee! Kaboom!"

Even if Raphael mostly made up his own words to play racing scenarios, he also knew a few.

Michelangelo had been the first one to say his first word; 'PWAY!' As the ninja master recalled fondly. The boy was always full of boundless energy and had the brightest smile Yoshi had ever seen.

The eldest two spoke, or rather yelled, their first words together, a few days after the youngest had done, in a sort of their own competition. They had been wrestling around and laughing when they both squealed a version of each other's names; 'Waph!' and ''Eo! ' at the exact same time, then fell back and laughed again before continuing their match.

Donatello, on the other hand, had always been silent, observing everything around him with curious, intelligent eyes as he was currently doing. Hamato Yoshi wondered, not for the first time, when and what his second-youngest son would say.

A high-pitched yell broke the ninja master out of his thoughts and his head snapped up while his gaze darted around to locate the child who had released the stressful noise.

His eyes landed on Raph to see the green-eyed turtle harshly shove his younger brother, who fell on the floor on his bottom.

"Donatello!" Splinter rushed towards his whimpering son and pulled the boy in his lap, checking him to make sure he wasn't injured. Leonardo and Michelangelo halted what they've been doing when they heard their father's worried tone and crawled into their father's lap to comfort their distressed sibling while Raphael looked down with guilt.

"Donatello, are you alright?" The tot gazed up at his father with bright, reddish-brown eyes glistening with tears.

He opened his mouth and Splinter assumed that he was going to wail but before he could discern what was happening, a different sound came out of the tot's mouth.

"Papa, Raphie is hogging all the toys again!"

Splinter's eyes blew wide as saucers as he looked down at his son in shock. He wasn't able to form any coherent words to respond and could only stare down with his mouth hanging open.

Donatello had spoken his first word.

No. Not word. He spoke several words, a whole sentence. Complete. Unbroken. Without any grammatical error. H-How? When-?

"Papa! You're not listening to me!" The high-pitched declaration broke him out of his stupor and he finally registered what his son had said. He quickly masked his shock to look towards Raphael with disapproval.

"Raphael, It is not nice to take your brother's toys without permission."

His reprimanding had the desired effect and Raph looked up at his father with guilt-ridden, green eyes, "Shorry, Daddy..."

"It is not me you must apologise to. It is Donatello. And you should return his toy back to him."

Raph looked down with a frown and moved one hand behind his shell to pick up the toy crane he had been hiding. He removed the vehicle and held it out towards his brother.

"Shorry, Don-Don..."

"It's alright, Raphie." The olive-green turtle forgave his hotheaded brother with a grin, "Just don't snatch my stuff again."

As Raph smiled at being forgiven and chirped an 'Okay!', Leo took the toy crane from Raph's outstretched hand and gave it to his younger brother, "Here, Don-Don."

"Thankyou!"

"Weo, I pway too?"

Leo nodded at Mikey with a smile and the youngest beamed before taking out his own toy ducky to play with.

As Donnie became distracted with the mechanisms of working a crane, Splinter pulled his other three sons to the side and asked them the question that had been lingering on his mind ever since he registered that they weren't surprised after hearing their intelligent brother talk so suddenly.

"Did you boys know about this?"

Raph and Leo chorused 'Yes daddy!' while Mikey looked at his elder brothers in confusion, his chubby hand bringing the duck closer to his mouth. Raph noticed this and gently pulled the hand away before he leaned closer to Mikey to whisper in his ear, "Daddy talking about Don-Don."

"Oooooh! Yesh dada! Don-Don talks."

Splinter held back another wave of surprise from coming over him to ask his next question.

"Since when has your brother been able to speak?"

Leonardo stood up with a little wobble and quickly regained his balance before he spread his arms out wide in a typical gesture for indicating 'huge'.

"LOTS of days and LOTS of nights, daddy!"

Splinter shook his head in amazement as his eyes went wide once again. His thoughts drifted and he barely noticed that the three little turtles had crawled away to sit beside their gap-toothed brother with chirping voices.

Only a few things in life had ever caught the ninja master off guard but his sons never ceased to amaze him.

A hoard of giggles came from his sons and he sat back to watch them play with each other.

And although he saw that everyday, their bonds still never ceased to amaze him.