His family... It's a complicated bundle of feelings there, manifesting in a wistful sort of smile. He feels the truth is more that he's lucky to have his family and admitting that makes it more blatantly obvious that they're absent. Donatello leaves it at that, opting to latch onto the warmer reassurance of gratitude instead.

It's still weird to him to be interacting directly with people. They were ninja after all, they tried to make sure they kept out of the public eye. So admittedly they weren't that great at it, and when you tended to drive around a giant tank shaped like a turtle it was pretty difficult to expect to be inconspicuous, but people still never really saw who was inside. And now there are kids clinging to him. He sure hopes they're clean. Still, it's kind of nice being acknowledged for the risks they'd taken to keep these people safe.

Having overly curious and grabby children serve well enough as a distraction from other things, Donnie absently shaking them off as he still keeps an eye on their six. Honestly he'll be glad to get everyone packed away somewhere safe, and while their new route is more winding it's at least apparent that none of the actual chaos has reached this part of the city. He glances ahead to see where Li is, but so far as he can tell, things are relatively clear.