I got stung in the face today (by a wasp) and I kind of freaked, my face is still a little swollen. The funniest thing was my mom, I'd never been stung by anything before and she thought I might be allergic, my grandpa's got a serious allergy to anything that bites/stings and has more than four legs, and so I was thinking it's never said why Raph hates bugs so much so hears this random little one-shot that should clear that up.


Third Person POV

"AHH I HATE BUGS! WHY DOES EVERY GODDAMN COCKROACH IN TOWN HAVE TO LIVE UNDER MY BED!"

None of the others really looked around, they were to used to this kind of commentary. After all it was the middle of the summer, the time where the fly's grow wild and the wasps nest a plenty.

Raph came storming out of his room with a look to kill, but for once it wasn't directed at Mikey, he stomped over to the kitchen and started rummaging around under the sink grumbling loudly for all to hear, "damn wasps, stupid cockroaches, spiders at every corner, got to get this stupid bug spray just to keep from an invasion."

When he stayed down there for five whole minutes and still couldn't find his desired object he bellowed not quite as loud but for the whole house to hear, "Hey you guys, where the hell is the bug spray?"

He kind of expected Don to answer, he liked to take the stuff and see how long it took to blew up certain objects, but it was Leo who hollered from his room, "you used it all last Tuesday remember? You found those mosquitoes in the bathroom and spent the day getting rid of the lot."

Raph had to think for a second, but now that it was mentioned he did remember that, and he'd meant to pick up some more but hadn't gotten to it yet.

As an added note Leo had to tack on, "maybe if you stopped leaving all that trash and leftover food in your room bugs would stop treating it like a nesting ground."

Raph glared off in the general direction of Leo's voice but as the turtle wasn't visible and he had no real comeback he let it go for now.

Instead he decided that, "alright fine, since no one else here seems to care enough I'll go out and get the goddamn bug spray."

Mikey glanced around at him from the stove and said, "alright, but be back in an hour. I'm making dinner, your favorite meat loaf, and Master Splinter wants us to learn a new kata tonight since we mastered that other one so quickly."

Raph grumbled something inaudible and tried to leave the lair but Don called out after him, "since you're going out will you pick me up some-"

"No!" the quick snappy reply came back.

Don glanced up from his workstation in annoyance but said nothing as they watched their brother leave.

Mikey too was watching his brother go with a kind of curious expression, but he waited until Raph was long out of earshot before asking, "Hey Don, why does Raph hate bugs so much? I mean he stomps on everyone he sees and freaks out when we don't have that nasty bug spray in the house."

Don seemed just as mystified as his brother as he answered, "I don't know, I guess I never really thought about it, he's just always been that way even when we were little."

As they were talking Leo came out of his room and glanced down at the others with a surprised look on his face, "don't you two remember?"

Both of his younger siblings gave him the same blank look before Mikey asked, "um, remember what?"

Leo walked over and lounged in a chair then flipped on the TV before saying, "when we were little. Raph snuck out that one time and came back with Sensei all swollen and shaking?"

Mikey couldn't seem to pull up the memory, but Don's face lightened as he said, "oh yeah, I got it now. He was all hot and scratching for days. Master Splinter kept him in the room with him for most of the time though."

Mikey's face was still kind of screwed up like he couldn't remember, but Leo kept going anyway, "yeah, and ever since then Raph's just been a big bug hater, I suppose he might be mildly allergic but nothing's happened since then."

At this point everybody seemed ready to let it go, and nobody thought much more of it until three hours later and there was still no sign of Raphael.

Master Splinter ordered the boys to go out and find their brother, and when they did find him to call him immediately.

"Boy is he in trouble," Mikey said in a happy sing-song voice as he skipped ahead of his brothers.

Donnie didn't seem particularly concerned, following behind with a kind of bored expression like he was thinking of something else, but Leo said, "I don't know guys, you don't think he got in trouble do you?"

Mikey was still in too good a mode at the sudden outing to be brought down by this, he was still half singing as he answered, "come on Leo, how much trouble could he get into? He only went to the store and decided to stay out later. He's probably at Casey's losing track of time, or he found some Purple Dragons to beat up, how bad could it be?"

Don chose that moment to chime in,"Mikey you are talking about Raphael, when doesn't he get into trouble?"

To this no one had an answer, so they continued on in silence following the shell cell signal on Don's phone.

Raph's POV

Stupid hornets!

Why was the sewers so full of these nasty things?

All I'd done was turn a corner and there sitting right underneath a gutter was a huge freaking nest of that ugly yellow color, and as I passed it that buzzing sound that always gave me the creeps was right in front of me.

I turned around and before I could finish blinking there was a nasty bug with wings right in my face. I raised my hand to try and swat it away, and it hit my palm instead. I got mad then, who did these nasty little suckers think they were stinging me? So I bent down and picked up a tin can by my foot and chucked it right towards the stupid thing which was still hovering around my head, and it hit the bug, but it also landed right on top of the nest.

If you ain't ever seen a load of hornets coming out of their nest all at once and aiming straight towards you, then you are one lucky turtle, but sadly I didn't have that kind of luck.

I remember Don once saying something about if these things chase you that you can jump in the water or run real fast and they won't chase you for long, so I tried that. Cutting around fast corners and finally I made it to the thicker part of the sewers where the water runoff was deepest, but for some reason even as the water came into view, I started stumbling along feeling dizzy and hyper sensitive all over at the same time.

It suddenly occurred to me that I should call the others if I was feeling drugged, but then they'd get here and find me freaking over a bug bite.

Leo would complain about false alarms, Don would go off and tell me what I should have done to avoid the situation, and I don't even want to know what Mikey would start going on about.

By the time I did reach the water, was it that far away when I first spotted it, I was almost out of breath and I tripped over something as I lunged, making me do a face plant right into the nasty unmentionables.

I felt a sting on the back of my thigh and all down my legs, plus that buzzing noise, what the shell? I'd run almost three blocks, why hadn't they quite yet? I rolled over and tried to swat the nasty suckers away but now they had an easier target, my face. I got one on each cheek and two on the forehead before I managed to bat them away, and that just made three more go in my hands.

It suddenly occurred to me that I was panicking, what had Master Splinter said the last time this had happened?

He had gone to get something, but I couldn't for the life of me remember what he'd done to make me feel better after that first time, and as my vision started to blur and the pain became more intense I started to worry that I wasn't going to find out.

Great, my obituary would read 'Killed by bugs' how pathetic.

Third Person POV

"That's odd," Don muttered more to himself then his surrounding brothers, but still he spoke loud enough for them to hear. "Raph's signal hasn't moved in awhile, you don't think he just dropped his phone somewhere do you?"

Leo made a face before muttering, "wouldn't be the first time, he goes out half the time without it, so why wouldn't he lose it to? Where is his signal, are we getting close?"

Donnie nodded, but whether it was to Leo's statement or his question wasn't clear, but he did answer, "not too far, kind of close to the park, I wonder why he would go there? The nearest store where he would get his bug spray would be a couple blocks off."

"Like Leo said," Mikey commented while twirling his nunchuck around for his personal amusement, "he probably just lost it on the way or something."

"Mikey, put that away, if you're that eager to practice we can train some more when we get home. Aren't you two at all worried about this?"

"No," they both said at the same time.

Don was still tinkering with his phone and Mikey still had his weapon out, ignoring Leo's threat as if he hadn't spoken, but he did quip, "acutely, I'm kind of mad at him now. I told him I was fixing his favorite, and I go to all the trouble of making sure it stays warm, and he still hasn't shown up yet. How rude can you get? That's what I get for trying to do something nice."

His words might have been irritable, but the others knew he didn't really mean it, Mikey cooked and left food out to be warmed all the time, he was just sick of walking around for no reason and wanted to go back to the lair, plus the cheesy grin on his face was a big tip off.

As they got closer to the signal for some reason they all went silent, some inborn instinct was telling them something bad was coming up.

Even Mikey, who couldn't even be quiet while sneaking into a top facility, went silent and put away his weapon, his face tense as he glanced around.

Since Donatello was in the lead with the tracking device, he turned the corner first but the other two did not expect to run smack into his shell as they too went around.

"Sheesh Donnie, what's the holdup?" Mikey complained rubbing the bridge of his beak.

Leo stepped around the both of them with a hand on his weapon, cautious of why his brother hadn't answered.

But when he to saw what was on the floor at the end of this tunnel, he didn't freeze, he ran forward and by the time Mikey stepped around to spy the green and red object, Leo was bending over him shaking his shoulder.

"Raph?" Mikey whispered though it was obvious by that point, how many giant green turtles with red bandannas wander around here?

Don whipped into action darting forward and giving his brother a once over trying to determine what the problem was, it didn't take long to figure out, most of his body was swollen and he was coated in red welts with stingers still sticking out of most of them.

Leo was talking to him, trying to arouse some sort of response from him, but was receiving no answers.

Mikey was still edging forward with a wide-eyed look kind of like a lost puppy, so when Don whipped around and shouted something it didn't really seem to sink in at first.

"Michelangelo!" Leo snapped and this time their little brother did respond by jumping slightly and watching what the other two were doing.

Don started talking at top speed and the others had to really concentrate on what he was saying, "go back to the lair now. You have to go back and tell Sensei, ask if he has an epi pen. Come on Mikey don't just stand there."

When Mikey still didn't move Leo snapped, "come on Mikey, don't freeze on us now."

With a little shake of his head Mikey turned into a green and orange blur he took off so fast, and Don directed to Leo, " talk to him. Try and wake him up and get him conscious," and then he turned away and started picking out all of the stingers lodged in their brother.

It took a little while then either of them would have liked, but eventually Raph started to stir and look around groggily.

When he caught sight of his brothers, it was a shock that the first thing out of his mouth was, "Liar."

At first they thought he was trying to say, "Lair," like he wanted to go home but when Raph turned to Don and muttered, "ran far, why didn't they stop?" Don thought he understood.

Don blinked several times to try and get his head back into this world, but he did answer, "that's bee's you shell for brains. Bees won't chase you that far and you can lose them by jumping into the water, but wasps are persistent and will keep at you for miles."

He didn't feel that bad for insulting his brother while he was injured, the swelling was already starting to go down in some places and his coherency was getting better as he said, "stupid bugs."

Just then Mikey came barreling around the corner with some kind of needle in his hand and there Master Splinter in tow, he almost ran over his brothers and shoved the needle into Donnie's hands.

Don seemed much more relaxed now as he inserted the needle into his brother's upper arm and started rubbing it around to kick up circulation.

"It's going to be okay," he assured the others who were watching with wide eyes, "he's going to be fine. Sore for a couple of days, his skin might have some scarring from all of these, but he'll be fine. I suppose that when he was stung when he was younger his body built up an immunity, he might not even be allergic anymore, but still it's best to keep an eye on him."

"And keep plenty of bug spray around," Mikey reminded the others.


I didn't do a whole lot of research for this, so timing might be a little weird, but who says allergies can't go down with time?

I've never tried to do Raph's POV before, I mostly focus on Mikey and Leo seeing as I have a better understanding of how their minds work, so let me know how you thought that went.

R&R