Raphael stormed into the lair.
His head was spinning, heart was racing, breathing was shallow, he was fuming and panicking at the same time. Oh, this was all his fault. He could still hear his other brothers running down the tunnels behind him. Splinter. He needed to be finding Splinter. He was supposed to be telling their father how he'd gotten into an argument with Leo again, and flipped their mission flop-side again, because it had caused them to be distracted from danger again, and it had ended badly, again. He prayed thanks that the extent of the damage had only been a cut into Donnie's leg, but it was still bleeding and Donnie was starting to see spots, and Leo was piggy-backing him back to the lair as quickly as he could, Mikey right behind him.
Raph saw Splinter, exiting the dojo with a surprised, anxious expression at seeing Raph stumbling in, scrambling for words. He was, still, scrambling for words. Though, it was already evident what the situation was as his brother's voices had nearly approached the lair. Splinter's expression darkened somewhat, either in anger or frustration or anxiety, understanding Raph's state and evidently, had already guessed who was behind this, too. Still fumbling, Raph felt himself go a little paler and his stomach drop as he realized his words weren't needed, or probably even welcome. It had only been a few seconds and his brothers were already rushing inside. All his fault.
"Come on, Don, let's get you to the lab." Leo was saying, rushing in that direction, Mikey on his tail like a worried child, peering around at Donnie. Splinter and Raph quickly followed them in, where Leo set his brother down on the cot and immediately went for the gauze.
"Mikey, go bring me some bottles of water, please." He instructed, throwing open a cabinet to pull down some pill bottles at the same time that Mikey had run off. Feeling especially useless, Raph elected to stay out of the way until he was needed for something, watching worriedly, while Splinter hurried over to his son, doing a calm, quick check of vitals.
"Donatello, how are you feeling?"
Donnie didn't answer back immediately, swaying and still apparently trying to process they'd gotten into the lab already, but when he finally focused in on Splinter he gave him a weak smile. "Uh, k-kind of nauseous, Sensei."
"Yes. You will be fine, my son."
Leo kneeled down to where Donnie's leg dangled, putting pressure on the injury behind and just above his knee. "He lost some blood, but I don't think enough to be seriously threatening, Sensei. The blood flow is beginning to lighten now – I don't think his femoral artery got damaged; maybe something else close." He supplied, getting a nod from his sensei while he turned to Donnie, trying to get him to focus while he held down the absorbent padding. "Um, Don, remind me what the process is for a blood transfusion? I don't want to do it wrong..."
"Blood tr...uh...oh, yeah. You know where our supply is..." Donnie groggily started, rambling off the exact process to his older brother as coherently as he could while Mikey came running back with the water bottles. Leo gave him a smile of thanks, wiping the excess off Donnie's leg. Splinter sighed, straightening and turning to leave, giving his oldest son space to attend to Donnie's wound. Pausing at the doorway, however, he gave Raph a long, sharp look before continuing out, clearly indicating he wanted to talk outside. A sharp pang of dread and anxiety went through Raph then, unable to stop a slight tremor from entering his hands. Great. He didn't particularly want to talk to Sensei, of course – he would really rather stay and make sure Donnie was ok first – but he knew he had to. Donnie didn't seem to be in any kind of especially life-threatening peril, and he knew Leo would take care of him – and besides, they could call him if they needed him. Begrudgingly, nervously, he quietly slipped out the door after Sensei while the other two focused on Donnie.
Splinter was standing several paces away from the lab, out of earshot. Swallowing dryly, Raph approached Splinter, trying to appear steady but unable to make eye contact. He desperately wanted to cross his arms over his middle in anxiety, but he knew he might get chewed out for acting so timid in such a situation – and besides, a part of him wanted to tell Splinter exactly how badly he'd screwed up tonight, as guilt and worry for Donnie still churned his insides. He settled for the respectful stance their master had taught them, arms tucked against his sides, head down.
This was all his fault.
There was an awfully tense moment of silence before anyone spoke.
"Raphael," Splinter finally said, his name sounding booming in the quiet. "Do you have a report of tonight's events for me?"
He wasn't going to outright accuse him or deliver punishment, Raph noted. More so, Splinter demanded to know what happened, and might as well be him that he drag it out of. Raph's tremors were gone but he felt the blood drain to his toes and his whole body felt rigid, and he tried to find his voice. "Yes – h-hai, Sensei. While we were on patrol, Leo noticed some Foot soldiers in an old warehouse near the docks. While we were investigating, we realized there were lots of them, carrying out what looked like some kind of operation. Leo told us to get closer to listen and I said we needed to stop them because it looked bad, and I...w-we got into an argument. We were noticed and had to retreat, but – Donnie got pierced with one of their weapons from behind."
Raph dared to glance up at Splinter's expression, but it was so dry and unamused that he immediately looked down again, shame filling him to the brim. He dropped into a stiff bow. "I...I'm so sorry, Sensei. I take all responsibility for what happened. I never meant for Donnie to get hurt, it was all a stupid mistake of mine, it's totally my fault. Uh – please don't blame Leonardo for this. I..." He sighed, defeated. "I wish it would'a been me that took the blow for that, instead."
Splinter looked on at his son for a moment, obviously troubled. Finally, he let out a sigh, too. "Wishing does not take back what has already occurred, Raphael." He said, and Raph stared bitterly at his feet. "Stand by in case your brothers need your assistance. I am going to check on Donatello."
Splinter walked past him, and Raphael maintained the bow even after he was out of sight.
.
.
Later, the second-oldest brother sidled up to the crack in the doorway once again, watching the progress. Leo had completed the blood transfusion and Donnie was comfortably resting on the cot, leg all patched up and a tube to a fluid bag connected to his wrist for good measure. As Second-Doctor-In-Chief, Raph had to admit Leo could do a pretty good job. Mikey had gotten an extra fluffy blanket to throw over their sleeping brother, and Splinter was watching over his son while Leo was sterilizing the medical equipment. Raph sighed in relief; Donnie had gone back to a healthy color, and looked peaceful in his sleep. He really didn't think he would've been very much help if he'd tried to assist in Donnie's first aid – it really wasn't more than a two-person job, and all four of them in there would've been a bit too crowded to work. In fact, Leo had given Mikey all the oddball chores, too, like getting the water and the blanket – that was the most Raph probably could've done. He scoffed lightly, expression falling. He wondered if Leo was going to refuse to acknowledge him for the next couple lifetimes, now.
He scowled a bit. Like the jerk should. Raph wasn't the only one being argumentative and making a commotion, if he recalled correctly. If only...
Raph had just kept his mouth shut and listened to Leo, for once. Then Donnie wouldn't be hurt. Raph's face fell again with a depressed sigh, and he sank away from the door. He might as well go clean the blood trail they'd left through the subway, just in case, so they couldn't be tracked. He was sure it was the next thing Splinter would've told him to do. Grabbing the big scrub mop and a bucket of water from the utility closet, Raph plugged earbuds into his phone and left the lair.
.
.
Scrubbing the tunnel floors of the subways and sewers was, naturally, a pretty humbling task, but none that all of his brothers hadn't had to do before, at some point. It wasn't very hard, really – the floors weren't clean in the first place, he only needed to remove the signs of blood. Their only concern was covering even the slightest track to their home, in the case of the would-be enemy or government employee.
Raph listened to music on his phone while he worked, choosing to ignore the task he was doing and let his mind wander somewhere else. Like that dumb mission. And dumb Leo, and poor Donnie. He scoffed. Maybe Mikey was the only brother he had left who liked him anymore. He couldn't help admitting that he was still mad at Leo though. Of course, the situation had mostly been Raph's own fault – he'd been the one wanting to intervene into the Foot operation where Leo was trying to make it a quiet recon. But the situation had looked so urgent and dangerous, he'd thought they had no time to deliberate. The four of them knew Shredder was up to something at the moment, they just couldn't figure out what, and that's what had them all on edge – so stumbling across a warehouse of enormous containers baring unknown toxin symbols and surrounded by leagues of Foot, who were guarding them with tons of crates of normal long guns and Kraang pistols, while working on several computers that seemed to be running intricate programs, was alarming.
Leo was right to be cautious, of course, and despite himself, Raph was mad at him for that, too.
Finally cleaning up the mess well enough, he took his mop bucket and dumped it out into the runoff water beside him. He was in a familiar part of the sewers still relatively near their home, but not too far away from a lesser-known section that Raphael frequented more often, he mused.
He and his brothers knew the New York sewer system pretty well, in his opinion – at least, within reasonable distance of their home and the parts of the city they often found themselves ninja-ing out to, which was most of it for a good amount of miles. However, there were definitely parts that they had not explored, even knowing their locations. The parts of the sewers around the city that were abandoned, falling apart and unsafe made up a good many miles themselves, and the majority of it they all stayed away from – except one little section closer to their home, a tunnel system underneath the dangerous Theater District part of town. There was a large storm drain structure there that had once been used as a main access point to the larger system it connected to, especially hazardous now because of how long it had been abandoned, combined with the fact that it was enormous and floods of storm water frequently still drained through there – you could slip or be thrown off any number of the broken pipes into the largest drain tunnel and be sucked down to who-knows-where from the many tunnels connected to it.
It was the perfect hide-out spot for when he really needed some alone time. His family would never wander in there, and he made sure they didn't by disabling his phone's tracker every time he went. Raph had even designated his own dry little tunnel to himself, one especially hard to access and requiring skilled maneuvering around a few broken pipes and pathways. He considered them security traps around his safe haven – he needed it to be secure, after all. He'd stolen a pack of cigarettes one time and left them there for especially hard times, when he was feeling particularly angry and rebellious, or stressed.
He considered going for a visit. It was pretty late by now – almost one in the morning. He was sure Donnie was fine; he wished he'd gone inside the lab to prove it for himself, but hadn't quite thought it would be worth the risk of drama starting with either Fearless or Master Splinter. Donnie needed his rest a lot more than listening to arguments or lectures. Also, Splinter had already had his say with him, and doubted that the long talk he suspected was brewing on top of that couldn't at least wait until tomorrow. He didn't much feel like putting up with Casey's volume at the moment, but he didn't think anybody was particularly expecting him home, either. It wouldn't be any harm. Setting the bucket and scrubber down, he headed off in that direction, deciding to pick them up on the way back.
It was almost five a.m. when he was headed back, sauntering down the abandoned subway tunnels with bucket and scrubber in hand. He had really been tempted to just stay there all night, and it wasn't Leo's text asking where he was an hour ago that was pulling him back. In fact, that made him consider a little harder whether he should stay there for the night or not. But the place was cold, and anyway, he was worried what Sensei would say if he were out all night like that after what happened. Though, he hadn't really meant for Leo to realize he was gone this late, either, and was kind of hoping he'd stayed out long enough for his big brother to be asleep.
Creeping up to the entrance to the lair, Raph peered inside through the darkness. Coast seemed clear. Silently, he headed for the utility closet to finally be rid of these annoying –
"Raph?"
He almost jumped out of his shell. Cursing under his breath, he uncoiled a little. Only Leo.
His older brother was getting up off the couch, briskly rubbing his eyes like he'd been asleep. Had he been waiting for him? Well, Raph hoped Leo would be too tired and disoriented to be angry, deciding to brush off all questions and try to shoo Leo off to his room.
No such luck. Actually, Raph freaked out a little at the hurried pace Leo started walking toward him. He hesitated putting the bucket and scrub mop away, holding the two between himself and oncoming danger.
"Where in the world have you been?" Leo asked, very awake now and very angry, his voice harsh even though he kept it quiet.
Raph looked off to the side, in a show of aggravation. "Nowhere special. About your bedtime, isn't it?"
"Mine, that's funny, Raphael." Leo scowled darkly. "Do you want to tell me why you disappeared from the lair and took almost four hours to–" He sarcastically gestured to the cleaning equipment. "Scrub the floors?"
Raph scowled. "I was cleaning the trail of blood we left behind so Shredder won't use it to find us with nanobots or bloodhounds." He acidly exaggerated, and gestured with the tools himself. "It takes a while."
"Not four hours. You know we didn't even use that many tunnels to get here," Leo retaliated, seething. He seemed to be overreacting to the whole thing, irritating Raph further. "And would you mind explaining to me what reason you have for shutting your tracker down for that, too?"
Oh. Well, that explained part of it. Raph hadn't actually been caught many times before disabling his tracker, and those few other times hadn't been the most pleasant conversations, either. "Maybe to keep certain nosey know-it-alls off my back so I have space to think for a bit! How about that?" Raph shot back, matching Leo's angry scowl with his own. "I ain't allowed to have a second to myself without bein' antagonized?"
"There is no excuse to disable your tracker!" Leo exploded, voice raising slightly. "I don't know how you keep turning it off, but I'm about to kick your sorry butt for it! You're going to end up in a situation where you need help, and we're not going to know where you are! You–" Suddenly pausing, Leo gave a sniff, and a bit of shock settled into the anger. "Why do you smell like cigarettes?"
Oh SHIT. Raph struggled to keep absolute horror from twisting his face. Out of all things he'd done and been caught doing that had pissed off his brother before, or anyone for that matter, that was NOT one of them. It wasn't even that big of a deal, but if Leo knew he'd been smoking, his brother would slaughter him. And then he'd step aside while Splinter slaughtered him again. And then Leo would come back and slaughter what was left. He always tried to make sure that never got found out, and was hoping his brother wouldn't notice now.
"T-those trash scumbags that were hanging around nearby, probably, if you have to know!" He immediately fished. "A guy can't have a nice stroll down the Theater District once in a while?"
Leo's surprise settled back into a frustrated grimace, and Raph internally died with relief. His brother seemed to have bought it. "You were hanging around the Theater District?! This is exactly what I'm talking about! Why the heck were you even down there?! Any one person who might've happened to catch a glimpse of you could've shot you!"
"You're worried about me being shot?!" Raph asked incredulously. "We're ninja, for crying out loud, Leo! I could lay out a whole gang in a few minutes if I wanted to! And besides, Sensei trained us to react to guns!"
"Training won't stop any average thug who manages to get a clear shot, Raph!" Leo practically jumped at him with this exclamation, and for a second Raph especially loathed the several inches of height his older brother had over him. "You might not be worried, but we can't dodge bullets! No matter how quickly or how many people you can take down, you never know who's going to have a gun, no matter where you are! It could happen in an instant, and you could be critically injured and need fast first aid and we'd have no idea where to find you!" Pausing to raise his hands in frustration, he looked like he'd be pulling out hair if he could. "You know Donnie installed those trackers so we'd stay safe, right? There's no point to that if you're going to keep running off to God-knows-where without it functioning!"
"If I need help, that's what calling is for, genius!" Raph fought back, raising his voice to match Leo's. He knew full well they'd been in many situations where that wasn't possible and the trackers had saved their lives, but he loathed to admit that now. "And besides, if I needed help, heaven knows I wouldn't be calling you!"
"Great! That sounds like a great plan, who are you gonna call then, huh?!" Leo waved his arm in a general direction behind him. "Donnie? You'll be waiting for a while, he's still recovering from somebody's decision to sick an army on us!"
There was a sudden, heavy pause. Raph glared at Leo, fighting to find words, furious, indignant, hurt deepest of all. Whether he agreed it was his fault or not, his anger spiked at the hurtful accusation Leo hadn't had trouble wielding against him. Leo, however, fell back a bit as his face suddenly fell with a mixture of horror and shock.
"Raph...No, wait. I didn't mean–"
"Don't matter," Raph cut in, getting his wits about him again quickly enough to mumble a reply. "I don't need to call Donnie, either. I'll just call Mikey – he's the only one that doesn't hate me anymore."
Leo leaned back, complete shock on his face and noticeably whiter than before, but Raph didn't care to stick around any longer. Swiftly turning away, he finally threw the stupid cleaning tools into the utility closet before briskly walking to his room.
"R...Raph, no. Wait...Raph, wait a second!" Leo called after him, but he slammed and locked his door.
He threw himself into his hammock and pulled the covers up over his head, wishing the world would go away for a little while, and vaguely, that he had a bed to hide under.
Hey, y'all, more plot bunnies :D
I'm excited for my sort of Raph-centric-esque fic. There's so much I want to do with it. I have a few headcannons that seem to differ from other turt fics generally, in case anybody seems at all OOC, being part of the reason why I wanted to do my own with Raph. Let me know what you think, I love seeing people's headcannons for the boys.
-I always thought Leo would probably be a much more adept medic than most people make him out to be. As many dangerous situations that he leads them through, as often as they get hurt and as much as he worries, it seems natural to me that Leo would have done plenty of his own medical research and tackled his own fair share of his brothers' more serious injuries. Besides, even if Donnie had a special interest for first-aid and knew more physiology and complicated procedures –which I feel like he does– the idea that they always throw the slightest need for band-aids on Donnie always seemed unusual and unnecessary to me. Also, seeing the way Donnie goes to work on their injuries, it would surprise me if they all didn't learn a thing or two.
-In a lot of Raph-centric fics, I've noticed lots of people try to make him seem super immature and randomly irritable as an excuse to make him yell about something because of his personality. While I do think Raph is definitely the most outspoken and quick to anger and I love his no-bs policy and sense of humor, and DEFINITELY admit he can be childish sometimes, I like it when you can see more clearly where he's coming from, because even if he's being overly emotional, most of the time I think Raph's thought processes can be pretty justified. I love all the brothers for different reasons, but I think as far as reasoning and emotional processing goes I can relate to Raph the most, what with caring too much about things and having a tendancy to be really angry all the time or get really upset because of that. ANGST, in other words, I'm saying me and Raph are angsty little shits, lmao.
I am working on my other fics too, but this has been on my mind for a while and I was really really happy with how the first chapter came out, so I wanted to go ahead and publish this even though it's still kind of short. Hopefully I'll get the next chapter of this out soon. Thanks everybody :D
