Chapter Text
He could still see but everything up close was blurry.
He kept rubbing at his right eye, hoping the disbalance he was feeling would go away. Hoping that the partial blindness he knew he had was just temporary.
He had his brothers to think about first and foremost. They were first before his needs.
Like Leo.
Oh God, Leo.. .
It’s been a month since he woke up from his coma and got off life support. It’s been a month since Casey Junior glitched out of their timeline and hopefully was in a better future timeline. It's been a month since Leo’s fighting spirit broke. It’s been a month since Donnie first placed on his knee a brace to help it heal.
...Because the healing part was going so well.
“Leo, come on! I’m here to help you with your therapy. Don’t be stubborn.” Raph said, but there was no malice in his words. He was just tired. He was at the med bay, where Leo had been staying for a whole month.
Leo simply looked down. Raph noticed he did that a lot nowadays.
“What’s the point, Raph? My knee is messed up. Why should I even try?” He quietly asked. He sounded so tired, so devoid of joy... so defeated.
“Leo. Donnie said your knee will heal. Not fully, but you’ll walk normally again! You’re the medic here, Lee! You should understand better than I do.” Raph groaned. “Come on, we’d done the first couple of physical therapy sessions this past week. We’re doing progress! Your knee can bend a bit! That’s good!” He tried to cheer up his brother.
Leo, however, had a vacant look in his eye. He touched his chest, where three large claw marks permanently scarred him. He had a lot of those now. Scars here and there, curtesy of the Krang. The most visible being the ones across his chest and his shattered right knee. However, Raph believed that the emotional wounds were there and were barely healing.
His brother had barely said a word during the past month, only to say something negative of himself. Raph knew his brother was in a bad place right now, emotionally speaking. He simply did not have the strength smile or joke or even to eat. Donnie attempted to force feed him, but that ended in chaos. Raph didn’t need to be a psychologist or have Mikey’s expertise to know his brother had a bad case of PTSD, even if he refused to talk about it.
Even the nightmares every night. Leo wasn’t the only one having them. But heavens, his nightmares woke everyone up almost every night. He woke up crying and screaming for the Krang to leave him alone. Sometimes, if the nightmare was particularly bad, he would wake up screaming for the Krang to have mercy on him and simply kill him. Raph was scared of those in particular. It made him wander what exactly his brother had to go through in the prison dimension.
He didn’t seem to ever smile nowadays.
Raph wasn’t stupid. He may not be academically smart like Donnie or emotionally smart like Mikey, but he was good at noticing the tiny details, the clues, the stuff that no one considered.
He wondered if his iconic smile, his shit-eating grin, being gone had something to do with the Krang. He knew someone as hurt as his brother wouldn’t have a reason to smile but he saw the flinches, the glances, every time someone mentioned his smile. The tremor in his hands as he seemed to be transported back to the prison dimension.
It broke him on the inside to see Leo like this, a shell of his former self.
Raph rubbed his eyes again.
His brother was the most important thing right now.
“How’s your eye?” Leo quietly asked, pulling Raph out of his thoughts.
“My what?”
“Your eye.” Leo repeated, not once raising the low tone of his voice he seemed to prefer since waking up.
“Oh, um, it’s good.”
Leo gave him a glare. “No, it’s not. Come here.”
“Lee...”
Leo grabbed his arms and forced him close to him, despite the pain and great effort it took him. The red-eared slider grabbed a small flashlight next to his bed that Donnie used frequently to check his eyesight. He pointed it at Raph’s eye. He frowned.
“Close your left eye.”
“Leo-”
“Close it.”
Raph sighed and did as told; leaving his left eye open. Leo pointed the flashlight again at the pupil, but this one didn’t react. He frowned. He used a finger and moved it from left to right. “Follow my finger.”
“Um...”
Leo slowly dropped his hand with a quiet gasp. “...How long, Raph?”
Raph opened his good eye and sighed. “Since the invasion.”
“Raph--”
“It’s ok, Leo. Donnie gave me some drops that are helping a bit, but yeah, I am partially blind on that eye.” He chuckled with now real joy behind it. “Permanently. I can use glasses to help with my vision like Dee suggested, but I’m pretty sure I’ll just break them in a fight.” He attempted to light up the mood. “And it’s not like they’ll do much good.”
Leo looked like he was about to cry.
“It’s not your fault, so stop it.” Raph demanded. “I can see from afar, though. Nothing up close, just a bunch of black dots but it’s not--”
“Raph, you’re blind in one eye.”
“ Partially blind, Leo.” Raph corrected. “Not fully blind. I’ll get used to it. I’m ok.”
“No, you’re not.”
Raph simply sighed. “You’re not ok either, Lee.”
They stayed quiet for a long moment.
“It’s not the end of the world for me, Leo. I’ll just... get used to it.”
Leo looked away, tears forming in his eyes. “But you shouldn’t. If I--”
“--Don’t you dare say IF . Leo, we already established that it’s no one’s fault but the Krang’s.”
Leo flinched at the cursed name.
Raph felt awful. “Sorry.”
Leo looked down again. Raph sighed and sat down next to him on a chair.
“If you use glasses, your vision could recover a bit?” Leo quietly asked.
“Donnie said it could a bit, but my eye would never be the same again. It’ll just help me get used to the way I have to see the world now.”
“But it could recover, just a little?”
“Yeah.”
Leo looked at his damaged knee in the brace. It hurt so much, even with the painkillers and the physical therapy. He sighed. “Raph?”
“Ugh?”
“If I agree to the therapy from now on, would you... would you use eyeglasses? Or contacts?” He suggested quietly. “Even a surgery in Hidden City... if they have it for your eye?”
Raph gave him a gentle smile. “Is this a compromise?”
Leo shrugged. “I still think my knee is beyond repair but... if it helps you put something on to help your eye...”
Raph nodded. “I’ll ask Donnie if he can make me some contacts. If not, eyeglasses it is.”
“Nerd...” Leo mumbled. There was no smile in his face, but Raph was surprised he even joked. It was the first time he heard him joke in a month.
“And you’ll do your therapy?”
Leo gave a pointed look at his knee. He still looked defeated, but with a sigh, he nodded. “Ok, let’s go.”
Raph smiled. “Come on, I’ll help you do your exercises and we’ll walk around the med bay.”
Raph still didn’t see a smile on his face but if he had to get some type of help for his eye for Leo to even agree to do his therapy, he’ll gladly do it.