Chapter Text
Raph woke up to the cold lights of the lab shining through his eyelids and coloring his vision red. He already knew he would end up here when they went out on patrol, like he almost always did these days. Hell, even the smell had become so familiar that he hardly noticed when he woke up here instead of his room until he opened his eyes, the fresh scent of disinfectant and cleaner somehow comforting instead of harsh.
He was alone, he could tell. It must’ve been late, which meant everyone was asleep in their own rooms, so at least he hadn’t gotten anyone else hurt. Raph sat up and swung his legs over the side of the spare medical cot that had over time become his, personally, and began to take stock of his injuries.
Ok. Play-by-play. How did I end up here?
It had been a normal patrol, not a mission, and they had split up. It was just the four of us, right? Right. April was sick and Casey was at a hockey practice. He went with Donnie and Leo went with Mikey and they agreed to meet back at the same rooftop in an hour and a half. Right. Fuck, his head hurt. Anyway.
Anyway, the first hour went smoothly; everything was quiet, and they filled the time with gossip and stupid conversations. They were on the way back when this fucking horde of footbots decided to fuck up the night by attacking. Then…someone else? Definitely one of the mutants, but which one? Someone appeared, went for his brother, so obviously Raph had to fuck them up. And then…he was here.
Ok, great. The shittiest play-by-play I’ve ever heard. Maybe he could piece together the details with his injuries. For one thing, his head ached with a vengeance, so he was probably concussed, and his left thigh was covered in white gauze, but not splinted. He could also feel a few patches on his shell, and two bigger ones on his side. Jesus fuck, he let one person fuck him up this bad? God.
I should check on everyone tomorrow. See if they’ll say what happened.
For now, though, Raph just wanted to sleep. He silently made his way to his room, gently shutting the door behind him and collapsing into bed.
The next morning, the lair was quiet. Not silent, more like it was anticipating something.
The kitchen was empty, with a few clean dishes and pans on the drying rack, as was the tv pit. And the dojo. And everyone’s rooms. But Raph could tell everyone was home, even if he didn’t know how, so everyone must have been in the lab. Right. He made his way (without limping, thanks) over to the heavy metal doors, only stopping when he heard muffled voices from inside.
Shit, were they talking over a plan? Why didn’t they wake him up? He pulled open the heavy door with a grunt as his side gave a pang, only to be met with sudden silence. All three of his brothers stood looking at him, clearly mid-conversation.
“…Hello? What’s with the secret meeting?” Both of his brothers looked to Leo expectantly.
She sighed. “Oh, great. Sure, yeah, I guess it was my job,” she rolled her eyes. “We’re benching you. Grounding you?” Mikey shrugged at her, which was met with more annoyance. “You’re not going on patrol for another two weeks.”
“What?? Over one loss?? I can handle whatever alley trash we run into!” He glared up at his older sister.
“Clearly you cou—“ she cut herself off with a deep sigh. “It’s not about being able to handle anything Raph, it’s because you were injured. You can’t keep up with us like this, and you definitely can’t fight. You’re staying here, end of story.”
“I’ve gone out with worse.”
“That doesn’t mean you should’ve. If it were one of us, we’d stay home, too.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I’m made of tougher stuff than you guys.”
“No, you’re not. You’re not going with us tonight, and I’m not fighting you on this.” Leo brushed past him and out of the lab, leaving him alone. Mikey followed, for once not making any comments, and Donnie had retreated back to his lab desk, probably tuning out their argument to focus on whatever he was currently building. Raph turned to leave the lab.
“Hold it! I need to check you over again.”
Great.
He sat down in one of Donnie’s desk chairs and crossed his arms as his brother quickly gathered up the extra medical supplies he’d set aside for today.
“So, what’s the damage, Dee?” he asked. His brother sighed.
“Well, let’s see; concussion, six inch claw across the femoral artery, major blunt force to the right side, and a few minor cuts on the shell. So, y’know, a pretty casual, normal night out that wasn’t at all stressful for me!” His eye twitched.
“…So that sounds like…nothing? A cut on my leg and a concussion? What, a few bruised ribs? You don’t need to bench me for two weeks! Just give it a few days, and I’ll be right back out there, just like before.”
Donnie pinched between his eyebrows, then dragged his hand down his face with yet another resigned sigh.
Aw, shit. Wrong move. He’s gonna—
“So you clearly have not been paying attention to my powerpoints because the femoral artery is one of the largest arteries in your leg, and as I stressed in that powerpoint to you all, if you get cut there you will BLEED OUT! And then! Guess what? YOU WILL DIE!”
“I-” He cut him off almost immediately.
“So Imagine, I don’t know, say, me bleeding out, passing out a half hour away from the lair,” Donnie’s voice was slowly rising to a hysterical shriek.
Just had to get him started, huh.
“…While there’s still a deranged dogman who, sure, might be limping or half-blind or whatever, but is still trying to finish the job! WHILE YOU TIE THE SHITTIEST TOURNIQUET YOU’VE EVER SEEN! Does that sound fun?? Y’know, maybe as a once a week thing??? Yeah?? Does it? ‘OooOOoOoOoo, Donnie, it’s just a cut on my leg, noooOooOoooo, I can go out in a few days, OOoOoOOoooO, I’m a big tough guy’, SHUT UP!!! Shut the fuck up! !!!! I’m going to fucking stab you in your sleep I don’t care!!!!!!GOD FORBID you make a single good decision!! This is why I don’t—ugh, why even bother!!”
Donnie’s hands raked down the sides of his face, twitching like he wanted to strangle Raph right then and there.
So, that was exactly what I expected, anyway how the fuck did Rahzar get the jump on me?????
“Ok, so,—”
“No, don’t even—don’t even talk, I don’t wanna hear it. If you weren’t horribly concussed right now I’d give you the teenage equivalent of shaken baby syndrome.” Any trace of shrillness in his voice was gone, and he was back to his normal matter-of-fact tone, his immense concern apparently gone as well as he switched into “doctor mode”.
Donnie promptly began unwrapping the gauze on his thigh, quickly looking it over and putting some unknown salve on the length of the cut where it made a neat crescent around the outside of Raph’s leg. He cringed at the amount of stitches and raw skin, and forced himself to look away until it was re-wrapped, stinging from the ointment under fresh bandages. His brother sighed, again, as he moved on to the patches on his side.
Okayy, so…?
The silence stretched on.
“…I guess I need to read some of your textbooks.” Raph said after the quiet felt a little too long.
“I don’t think you get it.”
“Get what?”
Donnie sighed for what must have been the fourth time.
“This…whatever you’re trying to do. That it’s not helping,” he said after a moment.
“I’m not trying to do anything?”
Donnie narrowed his eyes.
“Sure.”
“I’m serious, I don’t know what you mean!”
“I think you do. Look, I’ll just tell you this and maybe you can ‘figure it out’: I check our supplies daily. I know when things go missing.”
Raph didn’t say anything to that.
Is this what they were talking about?
Again, it was quiet.
Where the fuck do I go from here?
“…Am I cleared to go?” Raph asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence. His brother had stopped checking him over a while ago. Donnie sat with his elbows to his knees, looking at Raph like he could figure him out, like he was some sort of experiment.
He looked frustrated.
He looks tired.
“Try to stay off that leg, and no heavy lifting or strenuous activity.”
“Thanks.”
He left the lab.
Raph spent the rest of the day sitting in the pit pretending he was still going on patrol with the rest of his siblings that coming night. Of course, he wasn’t; he was explicitly forbidden, but it couldn’t hurt to act like he was. Even with Casey standing in for him and keeping the group at four people, he couldn’t help the nasty feeling that had been creeping over him since the moment Leo said he couldn’t go out.
Sitting here doing nothing all night?? How the fuck do I handle that???
Raph had only been sidelined a few times, especially for injuries. He almost always bounced back and recovered within a day or two, so why wasn’t he going with everyone else tonight? He was the muscle, the tank, sometimes the barrier. That was his job, and no one else could do it as well as him. That was why he needed to go, just in case something like what happened last night happened again.
He’d done everything right. No one had gotten a hit on his siblings that night, and they hardly even cared! There was never any kind of wow, thanks for blocking that spear, Raph or you can really take a hit, Raph or even, god forbid an I trust you specifically to cover me while we run through this kraang base, Raph.
Of course, after the first few snarky “you’re welcomes” he kind of forgot why he even really wanted them to say any of that, mostly because after those first few, he realized it made life easier to have it that way.
For every time he lost his temper, or teased too much, or sassed a little bit too far and ended up feeling like a shit brother, he could apologize with a well-timed block or hit taken or right flank covered that no one had to ask for. He could trade in that shitty feeling for a sort of satisfaction, that he had made it right, that he could exchange those two things, and then he felt better. Sure, he wasn’t the best at apologizing or backing down from an argument, but he was strong, strong like a brick wall or a battering ram, and that would make up for all the mistakes.
It didn’t bother him that none of his siblings ever talked about it. Or got weird looks on their faces when he’d skip dinner or movie night to go patch himself up. Or sometimes yell at him after a bad fight, shaking his shoulders, after Donnie had fixed him up yet again, words incomprehensible to him and face scrunched into an expression he couldn’t remember. He never remembered. Because it doesn’t bother me.
It couldn’t, especially now, when he was almost certain they must be aware of it.
“Ok, I think we’re about to leave. Raph, if you do anything at all that fucks up my very careful and precise work, call. If even one stitch comes out—”
”Jesus Donnie, what do you think I’m gonna be doing?” His brother’s expression turned deadpan, but he brushed past what Raph had said.
Shit.
“If anything goes wrong, I added an alert on all of our phones, different from the panic button. It looks like this.” Donnie opened his phone, (How the fuck does he know my password???) and swiped to an app in Raph’s ‘don app’ folder. It was purple with a white exclamation mark in it.
“How the fuck do you have my password???”
“Well, I sorta made the phones, Raph. You’re really into color-sorting your apps, huh?”
“Shut up.”
“Anyway, as I just said, press this if anything goes wrong, and I’ll know.”
“And does it go both ways?”
“Raph, you’re not leaving the lair until you’re better, no matter what.” Leo leveled her gaze on him, furrow between her eyes, and he knew she meant it. And she’s starting to get it.
Shit.
“Donnie, we’re going in five minutes.” Leo breezed past, towards the other side of the room.
“Oh, and you’re looking for that extremely nice knee brace I made you, right? That’s what you’re using the extra time for?” Donnie got up and hurried after her, clearly annoyed.
“Don’t worry about it, Dee!” Leo called from the dojo, voice muffled.
“You bitch! You aren’t wearing it! You aren’t even looking for it! You’re not leaving without it!”
The chatter of his siblings faded to background noise. They knew, or they were going to soon, and what would he do about it? That was his system, the way he carried the weight, not just of his own mistakes, but of everything that had happened to them. As long as he could do his job, keep his siblings safe, he would stay in control, because anything outside of that he couldn’t control.
And even then, he had failed.
They’d all gotten hurt before, badly, and there was nothing he could do about it but try to make sure it wouldn’t happen again. And again. And again.
They were leaving now, the three of them.
“Call if you need anything!”
“Don’t try to pull any stunts.”
“You don’t gotta worry, bro!”
Raph was alone.