A/N: A test to try 2nd person POV, from the perspective of Splinter. 2k12 'verse, after the end of season 3, so spoilers!
Your sons return home with you after the battle, eyes roaming around the small space with a delight and hunger you noticed during the strange incident with the other dimensional turtles. This time isn't quite like last time, however. Where before the brothers piled into a hug, this time they only send you sidelong glances and watch as you go about your day.
You ask about their adventures in space, and they tell you as much as they can without giving too many details. You can tell there's more to the tale, but you don't press them, knowing that they're only trying to save you from needless worry. You let them continue to keep their details, for a time, but then you begin to notice things.
For days your sons watch your every move, and during training you are impressed with the cohesion they seem to have found during their time in space. But there is a distance between you and them that was not there before. It is a subtle thing, because they still talk and laugh with you, but physical contact is almost nonexistent.
During meals, if you ask for the salt, it is slid over instead of passed. During their sparring matches, they keep a larger bubble of safety around you than they used to. Leonardo will still ask for advice, Raphael will still demonstrate the katas he learned, Donatello will still show you his inventions, and Michelangelo will still share with you his prank ideas, but... Leonardo and Raphael will no longer spar with you, Donatello doesn't let you try the inventions for yourself, and Michelangelo hasn't given you a hug in days.
You try to reason with yourself, after all your sons are teenagers now, perhaps they are just getting too old to hug their father when they say goodnight. Television is a huge influence in their lives, and at a certain point showing affection to parents becomes "uncool", he understands. Still, it would have been nice to have the change be a gradual one, instead of wthis sudden cut off. But, you reason, perhaps that is just part of them growing up.
Your hopes prove false some days later.
It is time for training, and it is your turn to go against them all. Usually this challenge is one that they all enjoy, a way to test their skills against a master without fear or responsibility, but today they hesitate.
"That's ok, Sensei," Leonardo tries.
"Maybe we could try something else?" Donatello suggests.
You insist, and they reluctantly gather around you. However when you call out for them to start, nothing happens. So instead you move to them, sending out an attack to Donatello who dances out of the way with a look of pure panic in his eyes. You chalk it up to a fear of failure, but that is proven wrong when the same thing happens again, and again, and again with your other three sons. All of them are pushing themselves to the limit, not to fight or defend as they usually do, but only to evade. As if the barest touch from you, from their father, would break them.
It is after this that you cannot allow them to hide behind half truths and omissions any longer. You must know everything, if only to get your sons to look at you with something more than just a fear you don't understand.
A/N: I think there was a lot of time between transdimensional turtles and earths last stand, therefore there would be a lot of time for the boys to miss their father. But, too much time in the holo room taught them to not touch Splinter or it would shatter the illusion. This is the byproduct of that, now that the boys are home, they almost can't believe it's real. And just in case, they don't want to shatter the illusion.