He was the only one with an accent. A real one, that was. Mikey talked like some California surfer-stoner, but it was only a learned-from-TV accent, and it would drop away at times. No, his accent was real, learned from the streets he so desperately wanted to walk.
It was no real secret that he had been visiting the world topside since he was young. His brothers probably denied it, denied that he every had broken the rules, though they did notice (and at times mocked) his growing heavy accent. Master Splinter knew- there was no real way he couldn't- but there was that father-son trust that they shared. Splinter would trust Raphael enough not to call him out on his activities, and Raph, for his part, would work to not void that trust. It wasn't that hard to stay hidden anyway- he was a ninja after all.
So he stalked in shadows, moved without being touched by the moonlight, listened from rooftops and allys, and traipsed almost-openly on Halloween. He moved most in Brooklyn, drawn to it initially as a child and held in it's sway well into his teens. And so his accent began. And grew. Grew until the pizza delivery kids were confused when he didn't want the pizza delivered to a Brooklyn address.
When the four hit their teens and everyone knew-but-pretended-not-to was when things got difficult. It was then that Donny became less of a leader and more of a follower, when Mikey became too lazy to care who the leader was and lost his will to be it. It was when Leo decided he was going to be the best, that he was going to be the leader, and started studying ninjitsu in earnest. And Raph, too head-strong to let Leo win, too proud to be a follower, began to turn inward on himself. It was when they hit their teens that the anger started, the simmering resentment. The emotions that stuck and blurred, until they no longer had a focus and simply were.
It was when they hit their teens, when his accent was seen not as an act like Mikey's but as something earned by surface time and experience, that Leo put his foot down. "It is too dangerous up there." "Master Splinter says that we can't risk exposing ourselves." "We have been banned from the surface world." And he was the leader, after all.
It was when they hit their teens that his visits to the surface became a treat, like a piece to cake eaten after everyone else has gone to bed. Something stolen.
But then, only a handful of years later, life changed. Their home was destroyed. And suddenly it was his surface experience that became so necessary. Sure, his brother's had gone up before, but never to a populated area. Rooftops were the safest. But it was him who knew what corners to hide in, knew where the humans would not look. He was the one that crossed that busy street first and showed his brother's how.
After April O'Neil things changed more. Her intrusion into their life brought then a safe place top side. No longer were they four completely barred from moving above the sewers. While his brother's exuberance was matched by his own, to him the lifting of the ban was like a homecoming, not some new shiny present. He already knew all the corners, the workings. He didn't need to explore every corner to know where he wanted most to go.
He would go back to Brooklyn and re-learn his accent.
I've always wondered why Raphael was the only one with a greatly noticeable accent. Of course, I'm from California so Mikey's accent/way of speaking didn't hit me until recently.
This is really just a ramble that I wrote during class. I'm trying to write more, and this has been in my head for three days now.
