Work Text:
“Donatello, you’ve been holed up in your lab for days!”
There’s no response from Donatello, at least not one that’s audible from way out here in the hall. Meaning Leonardo’s third attempt today is just as much of a bust as his first two were. No charm for him, here, Raphael thinks, reclining further against the cushions at his shell and waiting to hear what this long-distance show will bring next.
“I know you’re close to a breakthrough,” Leonardo is saying, and bless him, he leaves out the fact that Donatello has been ‘close to a breakthrough’ for about a week straight by now, “but you need to take a break.”
Miracle of miracles, Donatello stops working long enough to talk this time. “I’ll be out in a few minutes, Leonardo – I can’t rush through things. Who knows when I’ll have another chance to work with a piece of technology like this?”
Technology like this would be some high-tech whatchamacallit snagged right from under Shredder’s chump nose when he was on his way to add it to some doomsday device or other that Krang had hooked up to the Channel 6 transmission tower.
(Raphael doesn’t really remember what this specific machine was supposed to do. Mind control? Nah, that was two weeks ago. A laser maybe? Krang does so love his lasers, but he’s run the gamut on bells and whistles over the years and probably doesn’t have many ideas left. Ah, who cares about specifics – you save the planet enough times and it all just starts to blur together…)
“You’ll have another chance after dinner.” Boy does Leonardo sound like a lecturing mother in an after-school special. For once Raphael isn’t annoyed by it. “You haven’t eaten anything since –”
“I told you, I’ll be there in a few minutes!”
Uh-oh. Seems like Donatello’s patience for nagging has worn thin.
A pause, during which Raphael can picture Leonardo frowning his best I-am-disappointed-but-also-deeply-concerned frown. Aimed right at the back of Donatello’s head. Because no way did he turn around at any point in the conversation. Raphael would stake good pizza money on that.
After a minute or so of – what Raphael imagines to be – good old-fashioned frowning, Leonardo speaks up again. With that weird mixed tone that can’t decide if it’s exasperated or caring. “You know I don’t like to throw my weight around like this, but I am the leader.” Silence while the implication sinks in, and then one more push to drive it home. “I could order you to come and join us for dinner, you know.”
Oho, he really went there, huh? Raphael starts to twirl one of his sai around a finger. Props an ankle on the opposite knee. Slips further horizontal, and raises his eyes up to the ceiling. Braces himself, because Donatello won’t like that one bit.
Sure enough:
“Oh come on, Leonardo – this’ll take even longer if you keep distracting me like this. I promise I’ll be out when I’m finished. Just a few more minutes.”
“That’s what you said a few minutes ago!” Sounds like Leonardo’s exasperated care is reaching a pitch.
“Yeah, and now I need a few more minutes.” Donatello’s overzealous work ethic is also reaching a pitch, would you look at that. Unstoppable force, meet immovable object…
There’s another long lull in the conversation. This time, Raphael imagines a stare down of sorts. Or maybe a cold shoulder. Donatello gives an infamously good cold shoulder, by virtue of getting genuinely too distracted to acknowledge anything around him.
“Of quiet,” Donatello tacks on. Probably had enough of the whole standoff thing.
More of that sacred quiet that Donatello holds in such high regard follows, and then comes the inevitable padding of Leonardo’s feet over the lair floor. Then the creak-click of the lab door shutting, some more footsteps, and here he is! Leonardo in all his glory, emerging defeated from Donatello’s room with drooping shoulders and a crooked frown in place.
Raphael clutches his sai in a fist, cutting off its latest spin. “No dice?” he presumes.
“No dice,” Leonardo confirms. He shoots that worrywart expression of his back over his shoulder, aiming like it’ll somehow reach Donatello through the lab’s reinforced door. “He’s really engrossed in that microchip thing…I’m worried about him.”
Ah, right. Microchip, whatchamacallit, same difference. “Yeah, well, I’d say we don’t have a problem until he starts eating scrap metal to avoid meals with us.”
And Leonardo really must be worried, because he doesn’t even berate Raphael for that tasteless (hah!) quip. All he does is sigh, put his hands on his hips, and say, “It’s your turn to try and get him to take a break.”
“No it’s not.” It is. They drew straws of varying lengths. Raphael has since conveniently lost his midsized piece. He settles back in his seat, leaning full force on the cushions and staring at the ceiling to keep from lying to Leonardo’s face. He resumes twirling his sai. “It’s Michelangelo’s turn.”
“Raphael –”
“Yo, dudes, the pizza’s ready!” Saved by the pizza timer – here comes Michelangelo, straight from the kitchen. Favorite apron tied around his waist and oven mitts on his hands and flour marking his cheek and everything. “Did you get Donatello out of his lab?”
There’s a mite of bitterness in Leonardo’s voice when he answers with a simple and effective, “No.”
Michelangelo’s default sunshine dims a few watts. Crease in his brow and a frown that’s a heck of a lot smaller than Leonardo’s – on Michelangelo’s face, it looks more like a pout than anything else. It’s puppyish, and depressing if anyone stares too long, so Raphael tries not to. “But I made his favorite…”
“Well!” In Raphael’s humble opinion, there’s no need to delay the inevitable. He points his previously-spinning sai at Michelangelo. “Why don’t you tell him that? It’s your turn to try and get him.”
“Already?”
Nodding, Raphael lets his sai slip free of his fingers, where it falls into the cushions propping him. “Yep. Good luck!”
Leonardo, thank goodness, lets the little turn-taking snafu go without comment. It speaks to his irritation at Donatello more than anything, maybe, that all he does is step aside with a halfhearted flourish, gesturing through Donatello’s room. “I already tried reasoning with him,” he says.
“Right.” Michelangelo’s expression goes from pouty to steely in the blink of an eye. It doesn’t suit him, either. It’s too serious. So much so that Raphael can’t take it seriously. “That means it’s time for force, then.”
Wait – what? Force, is it? “Oh, this I’ve got to see…” Raphael sits up straighter, boosting himself on the same cushions that he was previously sinking into.
“Hold my apron, compadre,” Michelangelo says, lifting it over his head and tossing it in Raphael’s direction. It lands on his face, and he yanks it down just in time to be hit square on the beak with a pair of oven mitts. “I’m going in.”
Good luck and good riddance to him. Raphael grumbles under his breath as he chucks all the kitchen attire in the vague direction of Michelangelo’s room. Not that Michelangelo notices, already on his way past Leonardo, into Donatello’s room and toward the lab at the back…leaving the door open just like Leonardo had…ideal conditions for eavesdropping, fortunately for Raphael.
“Alright, listen up, Donatello!” Ooh, strong start, not bad. “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.”
Dripping in sheer frustration, Donatello responds. “Michelangelo, I already told Leonardo that –”
An enthusiastic, “Yeehaw!” from Michelangelo is accompanied by a faint whipping at the air that sounds suspiciously grappling-hook-like. Then a crash. Wince from Leonardo and a yelp from Donatello, and then –
“That’s it.”
The next noise from the lab is the squeaking scrape of Donatello pushing his chair back. The angry stomp of his feet across the stone floor.
Raphael tries not to find it funny. Can’t stop grinning. Hopefully Leonardo isn’t looking.
“Dude – pal – I’m sorry –!” Michelangelo is fumbling, his grappler dragging along the floor as there’s a quiet smack of palms-meeting-shell and he is, Raphael surmises, being gracelessly shoved out the door. “I didn’t mean to break anything, honest! I was just trying to rope you into dinner!”
Heh. Rope. He should really leave the jokes to Raphael, but that was a decent pun.
“Next time you try to rope me into anything, remember to call first so I can put all the glass objects away.”
Ah, Donatello always was the second-funniest turtle.
Whoops, Leonardo’s noticed Raphael’s amusement and is now aiming that frown of his over this way. Raphael schools his expression as best he can, bends his elbows and shrugs. It’s not his fault this is all panning out so horribly. Sue him for finding joy in the little things.
“But,” Michelangelo stammers, “I made your favorite!”
That must pierce the project-focused armor that Donatello’s been wrapped in all week. The sound of turtle feet being forced across the floor stops for a second. Almost like Donatello is considering taking a break…
But then the moment passes, and he says, “I promise I’ll have some just as soon as I’m done here.”
The door closes. A dejected Michelangelo slumps slow into the hallway, loosely coiled grappling hook dangling from his fingers. “Nothing doing, dudes,” he mutters toward the floor. “He wouldn’t budge.”
Not that Raphael isn’t impressed by the strategy, but, “Did you really think you could lasso him?”
“Hey, don’t knock it! It would’ve worked if I hadn’t swung wide…” More of that too-sad pouting. Michelangelo’s entire body droops with it, this time. “Besides, it’s the only plan I could think of.”
“Don’t make fun, Raphael,” Leonardo chides, inevitably. He doesn’t look high and mighty enough to be saying that, though. Just genuinely overtired of trying to get one overtired genius to take a quick and simple five-minute break. Which is such a relatable mood that Raphael can’t muster up too much irritation at being ordered around when Leonardo reminds him that, “You’re next.”
Oh goody.
“Can’t we send ol’ Lone Ranger over here in again?”
An exasperated, “Raphael,” from Leonardo accompanied by an actually-not-half-bad glare from Michelangelo, and Raphael feels compelled to get to his feet.
Leaving the comfort of his cushioned sprawl at last, he stands up. Makes a show of dusting himself off. “Alright already, I’ll go – but if I don’t make it back because you two yahoos put him in a bad mood, neither of you gets my share of the pizza…”
“Good,” Leonardo says. Appeased by the compliance and ignoring the threat upon Raphael’s life. It figures. “Michelangelo and I will set the table – four places.”
And then Leonardo stalks off toward the kitchen, leaving Raphael to call after him, pathetically, “I’m guessing that fourth seat isn’t for Master Splinter, who will be miraculously and inexplicably home early from his most recent sabbatical?”
“No such luck, amigo.” Michelangelo does Raphael the useless favor of a few sympathetic pats on the shoulder before following Leonardo into the kitchen.
Now it’s up to Raphael to face the music.
“Sure,” he grumbles, sloughing through Donatello’s room, “give me the easy job…”
(Ignoring, of course, that his brothers already tried their hands at the easy job – that renders Raphael’s point moot, here, and he can’t have that. What would he stew over then?)
Still. Going last is fortuitous in its own way. Raphael will admit that, now that all hopes of his turn being forgotten have been dashed. At least like this, he can glean invaluable inspiration from those who came before him. Inspiration that gives him an idea…
Donatello won’t like it. But when does he ever like being yanked away from work to relax? (Answer: always, after the fact, but first you must get past the initial dragging, and therein lies the stubborn problem.)
Step one to Raphael’s intricate plot is opening the door to the lab. Honestly, it’s a wonder Donatello hasn’t locked the thing by now – unless the lock is still broken from some previous incident or other. That has been known to happen. Once or twice. Some kind of experiment with corrosives. Or was it explosives…?
Whatever. The door isn’t locked now, is the point, and Raphael waltzes right on in as if he’s welcome. Leaves it open for a quick escape route.
Donatello is right where Raphael expected him to be: sitting in an uncomfortable chair that has to be killing him by now, hunched over his workbench and what might be a weirdly wide microscope. He’s fully immersed in whatever’s on the slide, to the point that it’s impossible to tell whether he’s noticed Raphael’s presence or not.
Better fix that.
“Coming to dinner, Donatello?”
There’s a longsuffering sigh from Donatello, his posture deflating as it leaves him, but he doesn’t turn around or look up from his work. “Raphael, I already told the others that I’ll just be a few more minutes – you guys are making it impossible to focus.”
Raphael feels compelled to point out that, “We’d leave you alone if you’d come eat with us.”
“In a –”
“No no, wait, let me guess: in a few minutes.”
This earns Raphael the honor of a glower sent over one of Donatello’s drooping shoulders. Thoroughly unimpressed. “This is an important project,” he says, pointedly. “Dinner can wait.”
“All week?”
Donatello just blinks at that, his brow creasing, and Raphael takes this chance to get a better look at him. Those shoulders that can’t quite hold themselves up. The tense line of his mouth. Fingers that twitch toward his microscope even now.
He’s just the wrong side of gaunt and pale. And his mask might do a great job at hiding the bags under his eyes, but it does nothing to disguise that weary exhaustion clinging to him. That spark in his eyes – the kind that usually comes from working with machines, especially new technology – is absent, leaving behind something dull that makes a weird sort of pit open up in Raphael’s stomach.
Not the kind of pit that can be filled with pizza, either. This is the kind of pit that knows it’s long past time Donatello took a break, and is determined to see that he gets some real actual rest. Sooner rather than later.
“It hasn’t been…” Donatello’s eyes drag over to his tear-off calendar. Pages litter the floor beneath it, dropped there by Michelangelo every morning when he’d come to pointedly rip yesterday’s date away.
For all the good that did. Seems like Donatello hasn’t even glanced at his clock over the past week, let alone his calendar.
(He’s lucky Leonardo went to such great lengths to keep him hydrated, running in here twice a day, foisting countless glasses of water to stave off the coffee. Snacks can’t boast as great of a track record, rejected or barely-nibbled as they were.)
“…Oh,” Donatello finishes. Blinks back down at that whatchamacallit that he’s got so painstakingly situated under his microscope. “Maybe it has been.”
Raphael singsongs a, “Ye-es,” while slipping in closer to Donatello, until he can lean against that workbench and frown at the in-progress project distraction. “Aren’t you getting hungry?”
“It’ll have to wait.” That’s decidedly not a no, but Raphael doesn’t get the chance to point that little detail out before Donatello is off again. Pressing his face into the microscope – that Raphael now realizes is actually two microscopes, side-by-side.
Next to them is an array of tools laid out neat on the desk, Raphael is in danger of upsetting them with his lean. Donatello reaches blindly for a pair of tweezers and some needle-nosed pliers.
A construction project, eh?
Hopefully not an explosive one, this time. Or corrosive. Or anything-else-ive dangerous.
“I’m close to a breakthrough, here,” Donatello is saying. Both hands gripping delicate tools to maneuver delicate parts. Hand-drawn blueprints spread out to his left that he glances at before digging back in. They’re stained with something wet at one corner, surrounded by pieces of glass from a broken beaker.
Michelangelo’s doing, no doubt.
“A breakthrough in what, exactly?” Because Raphael can’t make heads or tails of that whatchamacallit microchip thing, and said knowledge will help him in his plan. A little. Get Donatello’s guard down, too…
There’s another sigh from Donatello, less longsuffering than the last and more tired, in Raphael’s professional opinion. “This,” he says, poking at the teeny tiny black square with all kinds of miniscule red-green-yellow-blue technology and delicate silver wiring all over it, “is the world’s smallest motherboard.”
Huh. It doesn’t look like much to Raphael. If he handled it wrong it’d be toast.
“It was broken during our fight with Shredder,” Donatello continues, confirming the toast theory. “I tried fixing it, and when that didn’t work I thought I’d reverse engineer it. Specify it to our needs a little better, make it more durable. The usual waterproofing…”
Here, he prods at the thing under the second microscope. A copy of the first micro-motherboard, only a bit bigger, parts less-streamlined and more slipshod. Still a modern marvel as far as Raphael can tell, even in its half-built state. The rest of the world would probably agree.
Something Donatello said sticks in Raphael’s brain, though, and he looks away from the twin motherboards to narrow his eyes at Donatello. “‘Our needs’?”
Donatello dips his head in a nod. “Yes.” He’s rubbing out what must be a cramp between his thumb and forefinger – it’s probably been there for at least an hour. “If I can figure this technology out, the possible applications are endless. A new weapons system for the turtle van, a serious upgrade for my personal computer, even the portal generator! With this, I could make my own fully portable version.”
Oh no – not that thing. It’s better off staying powered down under that sheet in the corner, well out of trouble. But that’s not the main issue right now, Raphael is getting off track…
“You’re telling me none of that can wait until after dinner?”
A grimace pulls at Donatello’s face, and he swaps to shaking out that sore right hand of his. “Well, no – but the first thing I want to do with it is upgrade our early warning system.” Now he’s fiddling with his tweezers. Shoulders slumping further. Eyes downcast.
That pit in Raphael’s stomach is yawning wider.
“We could use an earlier early warning system…” Donatello elaborates, and ah, jeez. This stupid stubborn yawning pit just won’t shut up, not even when Raphael folds his arms across his stomach.
It’s that tone in Donatello’s voice that does it. A sort of self-deprecating lilt that should never be there but pops up now and then when he feels like he’s somehow failed. Especially in some crucial way, though Raphael’s heard it come with even small mistakes when Donatello is rundown enough.
As he is right now. A state that Raphael is trying to fix.
“Are you sure about that? The one we have now is loud and obnoxious enough.” And Raphael feels a little bit guilty for saying that, seeing as it’s saved their shells so many times, but he stands by his opinion. (Being yanked from sleep by blaring sirens is hard to forgive. Especially after the seventh time, give or take.)
Donatello shrugs one defeated shoulder. “Maybe, but with this motherboard I could expand its radius and sensitivity exponentially. We’d know there was trouble before trouble even happened!”
“Uh-huh…” Boy, would that many false alarms get old quick. “Doesn’t that seem excessive to you?”
“Not at all,” Donatello says, dead serious, and Raphael hates it. It goes terribly with Donatello’s frayed edges, the worn lines of his body as he droops even more under some invisible weight. “If you haven’t noticed, our lives have been getting more and more dangerous lately.”
By that, Raphael assumes Donatello means the new reddish tint that the sky takes on at night, and the overall sense of foreboding it brings with it. Like life is about to take a turn for the darker. Or something.
They’ve all noticed it. It’s no surprise that Donatello is trying to do something about it.
But at the expense of his health and sanity…it’s not a very fair tradeoff, in Raphael’s most humble and oh-so-correct opinion.
“This is exactly the kind of thing we need – if only I could finish it.”
That, Raphael doesn’t buy. But he can’t very well tell Donatello to give up on useless endeavors that aren’t actually useless. If anyone could manage to create a device to detect trouble before trouble even starts, Donatello would be the one to do it, after all. It’s just that their early warning system is more than enough already. Donatello is – and does! – more than enough already.
But Raphael can’t say that, either. No matter how downtrodden Donatello sounded just now. No matter how he sags with exhaustion, frowning at his own hands. They’ve started to tremble. Overworked.
“Okay,” is what Raphael can say, in as lighthearted a tone as he can muster, “but please don’t mess with the portal generator until you’re sure you know what you’re doing. The last thing we need is more interdimensional hijinks.”
He’s close to having Donatello distracted enough. Just needs a little bit more time. A little less melancholy. To uncross his arms and lay his hands on the desk, pretending they’re there to prop him up…
Something in Donatello’s expression twitches, his gaze dragging toward Raphael. His dull eyes spark with fire, just for a second. Offense on behalf of his beloved portal generator, maybe. “I’ll have you know that I’ve got several new theories about the usefulness of that technology, and what could be out there across dimensions! All I need is to –”
“Eat dinner? Get a good night’s sleep?”
“Finish this motherboard. Once I do, I’ll bet I could set the portal to zero in on other ninja turtles.” He pauses for half a heartbeat. “And I’ve been sleeping, by the way.”
“Oh no, not more turtles,” Raphael whines as he sinks down to his elbows, feet skidding across the floor and shell scraping the edge of the desk. He’s got more reach now. “That never ends well for us!” Also, he does not at all believe this so-called ‘sleep’ that Donatello’s been getting is decent, but he’ll save that lecture for Leonardo to carry out after dinner.
Donatello waves this turtle-related concern away with the rest of them. “Don’t be so negative. Our alternate universe selves might be able to offer invaluable insight into…”
He keeps talking, but Raphael is only half paying attention. Now is the perfect moment. His question of whether or not Donatello thinks the other Donatellos eat dinner on the regular will have to wait, because right now he’s too busy making sure his Donatello eats dinner.
Hand darting between the genius and his work, fingers slipping into the microscope, Raphael yanks that teeny tiny original motherboard – slide and all – right out from under Donatello’s beak.
While being careful not to crush it, of course. Master Splinter would be proud of his reflexes and control.
“Hey!” comes the inevitable protest from Donatello.
But Raphael is already up and running out the door. Behind him is the clatter of Donatello knocking over his chair in a hasty pursuit, followed by hurried footsteps that Raphael pours on the speed to avoid.
“Raphael! Give that back!”
“Nothing doing, boy genius!” Jumping the two steps that lead down from Donatello’s room, Raphael books it through the hallway, making a beeline for the kitchen. “You’ll have to come get it!”
Coming to get it, Donatello is. Which means Raphael’s plan is working perfectly.
Skidding into the kitchen, Raphael barely avoids slamming into the table. Donatello is right on his heels, grabbing for him – but Leonardo and Michelangelo are here, too. Startled by Raphael’s sudden fanfare, they’re nonetheless about to get in on the scheme. Setting out napkins and fetching soda can wait, guys, Raphael has a much more important job in mind!
“Michelangelo, catch!”
“Woah –!”
By a poor miscalculation on Raphael’s part, the cans of soda in Michelangelo’s arms are dropped to skitter and roll over the kitchen floor. One of them bursts and sprays sticky cola everywhere –
But Michelangelo does indeed catch the miniature motherboard. Claps it between his palms with a, “Got it, dude!” and dances away from soda and Donatello’s reaching hands alike, gracefully dodging around to the other side of the table with his hands folded together above his head.
Raphael holds Donatello at bay, ignoring the elbow to his face. He’ll repay it during sparring tomorrow. For now: “Hide that, Michelangelo! Don’t let him have it!”
Squawking – probably because he’s not sure which of his brothers to yell at for the commotion – Leonardo throws the napkins in the general direction of the table – most of them even make it, good for him – and stomps on the soda can. That slows the spray to a manageable dribble –
Leonardo tries to walk over it, trips in the process but catches himself on Donatello, who leans heavy on Raphael to compensate – and cripes, Raphael’s balance isn’t that good, his legs aren’t that sturdy – and neither is the chair beside him, it turns out –
One nearly-knocked-over table, two snapped chair legs, and three half-squashed pizzas later, all four mutant turtles are finally settled around the table to eat dinner.
The mood is companionable despite the sticky floor.
Donatello had to be forced into a seat initially, but he’s pliant now. In a much more agreeable mood. Might have something to do with the fact that he’s actually eating for the first time in a week. Sitting in the only chair that’s still got a plush cushion tied onto it, because they all love him that much, and drinking Sprite to save him from more caffeine.
“You can have your project back after dinner,” Leonardo is saying, gathering the napkins into some semblance of a pile with one hand while holding a slice of peanut butter ice cream pizza aloft in the other.
“Where’d you hide it anyway?”
That would be textbook idle curiosity – if it were anyone but Donatello asking.
“Trade secret, dude.” Michelangelo, polite as ever, talks with his mouth full, going for another bite before he’s swallowed his first. “I’m not telling!”
Raphael nudges Donatello with an elbow. “Yeah, if you’re a good boy and eat all your vegetables, you’ll get your whatchamacallit back in no time.”
“Motherboard,” Donatello corrects. Probably on automatic. “And you better not have broken it…”
This time, it’s Raphael’s turn to wave away concerns, almost spilling more soda in the process. “It was already broken – and besides, you’ve got blueprints. Yours’ll be way better than that piece of junk, anyway.” There, a compliment. Chased by Coca-Cola, and licorice-topped pizza, it still counts. He’s trying, here.
“Well, yeah, but I’d like to keep the original on hand for reference.”
Ah, there’s the normal Donatello! Confidence bolstered and all. Another side effect of taking proper care of himself. Raphael won’t even ask to be thanked for all of his hard work this time.
“Don’t worry,” Michelangelo assures, “it was in one piece when I stashed it.”
“Where was that again?”
“Donatello.”
There’s something satisfying about hearing that warning tone Leonardo usually reserves for Raphael aimed at someone else for a change. Raphael takes a moment to revel in it.
“Alright, alright, I’m eating…” Donatello says, doing just that for once.
Things quiet down after that, morphing into what could almost pass for a normal family meal. The only thing stopping it from being completely normal is, of course, the fact that they themselves defy normalcy by merely existing, and therefore everything they do is abnormal by association –
But it’s peaceful. Nice to see Donatello out of his lab, even if the tired lines on his face don’t look any better in the warm kitchen light than they did in the fluorescent laboratory.
When Leonardo starts in on reminding Michelangelo to use the napkins instead of his kneepads, and Michelangelo in turn points out that Leonardo is a huge hypocrite because he’s also been using his kneepads, Raphael capitalizes on the commotion to lean casually over toward Donatello.
“If you stay for dessert and promise to sleep in your actual bed later, we can go nab some sciency stuff to help you with your motherboard,” he says, careful and quiet with one eye on the other half of the table.
Donatello perks up at that, tilts his head in thought and whispers back, “There’s a manufacturing plant downtown that makes –”
“No stealing,” Leonardo interjects, cutting himself off mid-defense while absentmindedly wiping his fingers on his kneepad – an act that does not escape Michelangelo’s notice in the slightest.
“You’re doing it right now, dude!”
As Leonardo scrambles to defend himself anew, Raphael assures, “We wouldn’t dream of stealing!” with a hand clutched to his chest and Donatello promises, “Yeah, you know us, we’ll hit up the junkyard,” before taking a casual sip of his Sprite.
Under the table, though, Donatello’s ankle knocks against Raphael’s. The crossed fingers they’ve both got behind their backs go without saying.
They are absolutely breaking into a factory later tonight to borrow some spare parts.
(And when they do, creeping around in the shadows between heaps of complicated wiring and tiny electronic parts alike, stuffing handfuls of anything useful into Donatello’s bag, Raphael will do his part in sifting through a reject bin. He’ll take a break to lean on the edge of said bin, grin in response to Donatello’s glee over finding a piece that was malformed perfectly for his uses, and say, “See, Donatello? Some things are worth leaving the lab for.”
…Then Raphael will lean too hard, knock the bin over and trip an alarm. They’ll have to high-tail it out of there – but Donatello will still turn to him, smiling wide as they dive into the turtle van to make their getaway.
“Absolutely; remind me to join you guys for dinner more often!”)