Work Text:
Donnie glanced up at the door of his lab. It was firmly shut and quite late, but that wasn't enough to override the paranoia that someone (Mikey) would come barging in and, through a comedy of errors, reveal what he was currently looking at to his entire family.
Not that they'd understand what the list of little questions and bubbles were without him explaining to and then dumbing it down for them.
So far, none of the bubbles had been selected.
He felt embarrassed for how timid he was being. It wasn't going to bite him. Or sound off alarms once he reached the end. It was simply a questionnaire based off the work of psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen and he was taking it for purely scientific reasons.
Of course, he'd read the paper first and had already accepted that he'd take whatever score he got with a grain of salt as many leaps in the psychological and neurological field had been made since 2001. But it was still the most accessible and prominent result during his late night search.
With that, he shoved down his embarrassment and began ticking off bubbles, trying not to think overtly hard on each one. Although some were very hard indeed because as a mutant turtle who lived in the sewers for the first 15 years of his life and the following few beating up aliens and mutants, he hadn't had much practice stretching his social skills.
At the end, he clicked the button to submit, and read over his score, mulling over the result. He then shut the page.
Donnie leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling.
Was this what he had wanted when he took the test? Hurray, a three minute survey created over a decade ago had diagnosed him with a "significant indication" of having a neurological condition, break out the pizza.
The spark of excitement when he'd seen his results faded. It was a flimsy, surface level analysis. Surely some healthcare databases would have the real deal.
He leaned in and began to take his search results in a different direction before quickly losing steam. Why bother? Would he be happy with any score? Donnie let out a quiet giggle at his line of thinking. He wanted a good grade in autism. Something that was normal to want and possible to achieve.
Because that's what he wanted, wasn't it? He wanted something concrete, just so he could put a little label to why he got so enthralled in his computers and beakers, how his mind got stuck in loops around April, why he could never seem to say the right thing.
Donnie sighed. He didn't know why he'd suddenly wanted that so desperately. It wasn't like he'd share the results with anyone. What? Tell his brothers? He loved them, but he didn't want them looking at him any differently. He was still himself.
But maybe some of himself matched with how others experienced the world.
And maybe that was enough. It fit. He knew it did. Because it's not like he was faking it in the privacy of his room. Getting so exited about his inventions that he had to jump and yell and pull at his mask tails. Talking his brothers' heads off when they showed a single iota of interest in his work. So what if he would never have the comfort of a professional diagnosis. He was a professional in his own right, and it was his body, his brain.
Donnie closed his myriad of tabs, mind set. Autistic, huh?
His fingers traced out a small infinity on his desk. He smiled.