Chapter Text
High school sucked.
You’d think after saving the entirety of New York, high school would be pretty easy. Raph knew otherwise. School was so rough he almost wished he was back fighting Superfly.
…Almost.
At least he was actually good at fighting. He wasn’t very good at school, though he probably should have expected that. Math and science were Donnie’s thing, history and English were Leo’s thing, art and music were Mikey’s thing. Raph’s was supposed to be sports, but that didn’t exactly work out, though he’d never admit why. It wasn’t his fault all the other kids stared at him. And it wasn’t his fault it made him feel like he couldn't breathe.
Raph thought high school meant finding his people. He thought it meant finding friends who didn’t care if he was loud or physical or grumpy. But he felt just as lonely as he did when he only had his brothers, maybe even more.
While Mikey, Donnie, and even Leo had found clubs and groups to be a part of, Raph was stuck sulking in the back of his classes alone. Starting up a conversation felt awkward and tiring. Everyone in his classes sat as far as they could get from him. Even his brothers sat on the opposite sides of the room. And everybody stared.
So he found his own place, up the back stairs and out a door that was probably supposed to be locked. The roof was quiet and empty and isolated. He didn’t mind it, though, it gave him time to work in peace. Being lonely wasn’t all that bad when you had homework to get done.
That’s what he tried to convince himself, anyway.
He couldn't lie to himself forever, though. By the time May rolled around, his loneliness was pretty much set in stone. His brothers were constantly at clubs and sports and hangouts, but Raph went home after school and holed himself up in his bunk. It wasn’t like his brothers wanted to talk to him anyway. Even talkative Mikey seemed too wrapped up in his own life to care. Splinter reached out once or twice, but Raph shut him down. He didn’t want the special attention. He wanted to be left alone.
Besides, he was totally fine. Definitely not crumbling to pieces inside. It was embarrassing that he was so terrible at being normal. He didn’t want them to know he couldn't handle it. He didn’t want them to worry. He was Raphael, he didn’t get sad, he got mad.
High school sucked. And it didn’t matter. Summer was coming in two months anyway. That was it. No big deal.
That was a gross understatement, as he found out.
He couldn't figure out exactly why the chattering of the halls at school ground on his ears so badly, why homework assignments felt so hard to complete, why it felt so much better to just climb up to his spot on the roof or huddle in his bunk at home.
He wanted to be normal.
Then on a rainy morning halfway through May, Raph got his hands on this loud mouthed kid with a mop of black hair and a shit eating grin and punched the living hell out of him.
He didn’t know why he did it. He didn’t know why he did a lot of things lately.
It was harder to pretend after that.
“What the heck was that, Raph?!”
Leo was glaring at him, arms crossed over his blue polo shirt. Beside him, Mikey and Donnie were watching Raph with wide eyes. All three of them had cornered him right after school, before he could make a run for it.
“Nothing,” Raph grumbled, avoiding their eyes. “I only got detention for it.”
“Only got detention?” Leo took a big breath like he was going to start one of his annoying speeches about making peace with the humans and being model citizens.
“Look,” Raph interrupted, “he punched me back. It was mutual.”
“How does that make it any better?” Leo spluttered out.
“Did he deserve it?” Mikey piped up.
“Yeah, who punched who first?” Donnie asked.
“Hey!” Leo protested. “That doesn’t matter. Raph, your actions reflect on all of us. You can’t run around and fight whoever you want. We’ve been over this!”
Raph stared at him.
Leo, quite uncomfortably, looked back.
Mikey took a deep breath. “Hey, maybe—”
“Whatever.” Raph stuffed his hands in his pockets. “You’re all, like, completely different people now. Nothin’ I do is gonna change your precious reputation.”
There was a long moment of silence.
“…What?” Mikey asked.
“Besides, a few days of detention never hurt anybody.” Raph waved a hand as if dismissing them. Of course, they didn’t move. Oh, the irony.
“What are you talking about?” Leo demanded.
Raph rolled his eyes. “Oh my god. Drop. It.”
He hiked his backpack up on his shoulder and pushed past them. The walk home felt longer than normal. He could brush off his brothers for a while, sure, but what about Splinter? Surely his dad would have something to say about his son’s disobedience.
Turns out, it was easier than he thought.
“How was school, Raphael?”
“Fine.”
“Did anything… exciting happen today?”
“Not really.”
“Ah.”
“I’m gonna go do homework.”
“Yes, of course.”
He hesitated at the door, though, and from the main room he could hear his dad’s voice paired with the blubbering of Scumbag.
“The school says he will have detention for two weeks starting tomorrow.”
A hiss, a chirp. Raph was getting better at understanding Scumbag now, but she was speaking too low for him to comprehend anything other than her concerned tone.
He heard Splinter sigh. “I know. But I worry… should I be doing more?”
Scumbag made a low, garbled sound.
“No, never. I do not understand it. How can we fix it without ever—”
Raph shut the bedroom door before he could hear anything else.
The word “fix” echoed in his head. He didn’t need to be fixed. Did he?
He knew he was the problem child, that had been obvious for his whole life. He broke his brothers’ toys when they were toddlers. He hit them a little too hard when they started training at seven years old. He had stabbed Donnie that night they first met April. Being the “angry one” was a stain he couldn't rinse off.
He was a problem.
But he was supposed to be their problem.
The anger was a part of him, it came along with the whole Raphael package. It didn’t need to be fixed. He thought they knew that.
Maybe not.
Leo tried to berate him again the next morning, but Raph walked away before he could really get going. He wasn’t dealing with that today, especially with detention after school weighing on his shoulders. He left his older brother spluttering as he stalked off, and only felt a little bit bad about it.
None of his brothers tried to corner him again. He was half grateful, half feeling something he couldn't really figure out. But he was used to not understanding himself lately, so he rolled with it. The first half of the school day blurred past like he was watching the world at four times speed. When lunch came around, he beelined for the stairs to the roof.
Sitting up here, Raph could finally relax. There was nobody to watch him— and, yes, he had checked for security cameras. He had found exactly zero. No eyes to see his peaceful moment, absolute silence besides the cars passing by below and the occasional bite of conversation from people passing in and out of the school, and nobody demanding anything out of him.
Just the way Raph liked it.
Then the door he was sitting right beside flew open, and his hideaway shattered into pieces.
“Who the hell—” Raph started, but stopped as soon as he recognized the person. Black hair, dark eyes, and a blooming bruise on the right side of their jaw where Raph had punched them yesterday.
“Hey,” said the kid, as if this was in any way a normal conversation.
“What are you doing here…?” It wasn’t exactly a question. More like an accusation.
“I followed you. How come this door is unlocked?”
Raph stared at them.
The kid suddenly seemed to realize how awkward this was. “Oh, uh, I’m sorry about yesterday. I think it was just a big misunderstanding. I’m Casey.”
He stuck out his hand like Raph was supposed to shake it. Raph, still sitting on the ground while this kid— Casey, apparently— towered over him, did not shake it.
“Why’d you follow me?” he asked instead.
Casey let his hand drop to his side. “Well, to apologize. And introduce myself. And hopefully be friends with you. So… I’m two for three right now.”
Raph kept staring. Be friends?
“You can turn me down if you want.” Casey gave the same grin he had on before Raph had hit him, but with the brightness turned down to one. “No pressure.”
“Why?” Raph blurted.
“You seem cool.” Casey seemed to take Raph’s non-answer as an invitation and sat down beside him. “And not just ‘cuz you’re a turtle.”
“Thanks,” Raph replied dryly. He could have done without the turtle comment.
“So?”
Raph rolled his eyes and turned back to his lunch. For a few minutes, they sat in silence. Raph kept expecting Casey to get up and leave, maybe call him weird, and never speak to him again. But he didn’t.
Raph didn’t know what to think about that.
“How come you don’t eat in the cafeteria?” Casey asked out of the blue.
“I don’t want to.” Raph eyed Casey, then continued, “How come I’ve never seen you before?”
“I’m new,” Casey replied simply. “It’s much better up here than in the cafeteria. No crowd or anything.”
“…Exactly.”
Casey grinned at him again.
The rest of the day wasn’t so bad after that. There was a weird, warm feeling in his chest that dimmed all the noise around him. He even managed to avoid Leo in his last class before heading off to detention.
Low and behold, when he walked in, there sat Casey Jones. He had a pair of chunky headphones on and was nodding along to whatever was playing while he scribbled in a worn looking notebook. He only looked up when Raph sat right next to him, but Raph didn’t meet his eyes. He could feel Casey watching him as he retrieved his math homework from his bag.
“Am I going to have to separate you two?” The detention monitor was suddenly standing right in front of them. Surely she knew they were the kids who fought yesterday.
Casey pulled his headphones down around his neck. “No.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
Raph couldn't help but smile a little.
Casey Jones turned out to be the kind of human Leo would hate. That only made Raph like him more.
He was loud, brash, sometimes even violent, though he never actually hit Raph after their first encounter. He never told anybody about Raph’s hiding spot, but he came up to the roof for lunch every day. He cussed out the teachers behind their backs and students to their faces. He insisted he had Raph’s phone number, then texted him constantly. During detention, he sat quietly beside Raph and knocked their knees together when he wanted Raph’s attention.
Raph found he didn’t mind the company. In fact, he started to enjoy it.
He’d never tell a soul how he actually started to look up in the hallways to see if he could spot the boy. But Casey always seemed to be looking for him, too. They talked, and watched movies on Casey’s phone, and struggled with homework, and Raph started to actually look forward to school, simply because he knew he’d see Casey there.
“Who’re you texting?” Mikey asked when Raph was too engrossed in his phone to watch Donnie destroy Leo in Mario Kart.
“None of your business,” Raph answered.
Mikey pouted. “Rude.”
Raph shrugged. It wasn’t like he was ashamed of Casey, or his brothers, for that matter… but he didn’t want them to know each other. Casey was his friend, and his friend only. He finally had something his brothers didn’t, and he wasn’t going to let it go that easy.
The point of no return was when Casey invited Raph to his hockey game.
Raph had only ever seen hockey on TV, but it was interesting enough. The issue was if he wanted to go, he’d have to tell his dad why. That meant either lying or introducing Casey, and if he told his dad about Casey, surely his brothers would find out too. No thanks. But if he lied about Casey, he’d look like he was going alone, which meant Splinter would send a brother with him, most likely Leo. Again, no thanks.
His solution was far from a good idea, but lately Raph didn’t really care all that much if he got in trouble. Leo would probably have a heart attack if he knew Raph snuck out.
Raph didn’t give a shit what Leo thought, though.
It was loud in the hockey arena, maybe a bit too loud for Raph. The big, bright lights made his eyes burn, and the people on either side of him were pressing a bit too close, but Casey gave him a huge smile and a wave when he saw Raph in the stands. It made it all worth it.
Now Casey was on the ice, a blur of black hair and a big jersey. Despite having never played himself, Raph knew Casey was good. With speed and agility like that, he would make a good ninja. A great one, even. Raph could barely keep his eyes on him.
The crowd roared as someone made a shot into the goal, and the announcer's voice over the speaker system blended with it until all Raph heard was a colossal noise like a freight train, only more human. He took a sharp breath, head suddenly filled with visions of monsters towering hundreds of feet above him, giant eyes locked on his tiny body, the squeeze and pressure of a hand around him, crushing, suffocating. His plastron ached with pain. The people on either side of him seemed to press closer until they weren’t people anymore, just a mass of bodies all melded together and enveloping him. Crushing. Suffocating.
There was a slam right in front of him, and he looked up to see Casey with his face pressed against the plexiglass. Are you okay? he mouthed, and Raph nodded minutely, eyes locking on Casey’s face, which was creased with worry but also sweaty from exertion.
He was here, he was at Casey’s game, safe and sound, and Casey was only a few feet away from him.
The only thing between them was glass.
Raph put a fist up to the glass and Casey put his own up as well, a mock fist bump despite the barrier between them. Then, with a smile reserved just for Raph, Casey skated away.
They didn’t talk about that moment of vulnerability, at least, not in the way Leo would have made Raph talk. Raph helped carry Casey’s gear back to his dad’s apartment and ignored the fact that the dad himself was nowhere to be found.
“He’s probably out,” was Casey’s only explanation. Then, “Do you wanna stay for a bit?”
“Yeah, why not?”
Casey fell asleep on his shoulder halfway through their movie. Raph took his sweet time easing the boy off him and into a more comfortable position. Somehow Casey managed to stay completely passed out the entire time. Raph left him with a blanket pulled up to his chin and the TV playing quiet nonsense in the background.
All the way home he felt like his heart was beating a million miles a minute… but it wasn’t an unwelcome feeling. It didn’t feel like the hockey arena, it felt like when he fought and won, it felt like watching an action movie or riding his bike down the steepest tunnel in the sewers.
It felt good.
He knew he could never tell his brothers.
“Sorry for falling asleep on you,” were the first words out of Casey’s mouth the next day at lunch. “That’s kind of awkward, huh?”
He was fiddling with the hem of his shirt, twisting it in his fingers and letting go, repeat, repeat, repeat. Raph peered at him for a moment before looking back down at his lunch.
“It’s fine,” he replied. “Don’t worry about it.”
Casey let go of his shirt and sat down, his usual smile returning to his face. “If you say so. Hey, do you wanna go on a bike ride tomorrow? We could go to a park or, like, I don’t know, a cafe?”
“Sure,” Raph said before Casey could ramble on in an attempt to convince him. Tomorrow was Saturday, and it wasn’t like he had any plans to begin with.
Casey stared at him with comically wide eyes. “Really?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t even have to convince you, huh?” Casey elbowed him, grinning.
Raph rolled his eyes. “Shut up.”
Saturday afternoon couldn’t have come fast enough. Raph’s body woke him up early and wouldn’t let him fall back asleep. Bored, he ended up doing katas in their makeshift dojo until Donnie came to find him.
“Can you help me move something?” Donnie shook his hands out. “My skinny little arms are struggling.”
Raph snorted. “Sure.”
Donnie led him to the kitchen where a large computer monitor sat on the counter, clearly just opened based on the wrapping and cardboard boxes scattered around it.
“You can’t carry this yourself?” Raph asked.
Donnie shrugged. “I can’t get a good grip on it.”
“And why didn’t you open this in our room?” Raph picked up the monitor with ease and Donnie ushered him to their bedroom.
“I didn’t have scissors to open the box,” Donnie replied easily, but Raph had a feeling he knew where this was going. He stopped in his tracks only a few feet from the bedroom.
“Are you about to corner me and ask me about my feelings?”
Donnie blinked innocently at him. “No! Why would I ever do that?”
“You’re overplaying it, Dee,” Raph deadpanned.
Donnie sighed. “Just bring the stupid monitor in. Please?”
“You have to promise Leo and Mikey aren’t waiting in there.”
Donnie crossed his arms. “It’s their room, too.”
“It’s my business.”
“That’s my monitor.”
“Then take it.” Raph offered it to him.
Donnie glared at him.
“C’mon, Donnie. I know they’re in there. Take your monitor and tell them to leave me alone.”
Donnie’s glare didn’t budge. “As your brothers, I think it’s within our jurisdiction to worry about you.”
Raph groaned. “I beat up one person and suddenly you think my life is falling apart?”
“It’s more than that, Raph. You know that. We all know that.”
“You don’t know anything,” Raph growled. “Take your damn monitor and leave me the hell alone.”
He unceremoniously shoved it into Donnie’s arms and turned on his heel. Better to leave now than never, right?
“Wait, Raph—” Donnie called from behind him, but Raph was already ducking into the sewers, leaving his brother far, far behind.
It was only once he had dragged his bike all the way out of the sewers that he realized he’d left his phone at home.
Oh, well. That’d just make it harder for Donnie to track him, right?
He and Casey had already set up a meeting time and place, so he biked to the park they agreed on and waited, ignoring the stares from passersby and watching the clouds inch slowly across the sky.
“Hey.”
Raph looked up. “Hi.”
Casey was leaning on his bike, dressed in baggy black jeans and a white tank top. His smile was practically blinding.
Suddenly Raph felt a lot better.
“You been waiting long?” Casey asked.
Raph shook his head. “I left pretty early.”
“Overachiever.”
Raph laughed at that.
The bike ride was nice, actually. They talked a little as they rode, but mostly just enjoyed the scenery. It was so much better biking on the surface rather than in the sewers. No giant slippery spots or rodent carcasses or annoying brothers to make him wish he never went.
There were still people, though, and Raph caught Casey giving his death glare to anybody who looked at them funny. When he pointed it out, Casey went red.
“I can stop,” he offered. “I think it’s weird to be stared at and, y’know, I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”
“…Thanks,” Raph said, caught off guard. Then, to break the sudden tension, “My knight in shining armor.”
Casey laughed. “Yeah, right.”
Raph forgot about that entire morning by the time he and Casey parted.
“I’ll see you Monday, right?” Casey asked.
“Duh.” Raph felt a grin creep onto his face. “Can’t get rid of me that easily.”
“Yeah, yeah. Oh, and we’re officially free from detention!”
“Maybe we should beat each other up again and add another two weeks.”
“Ha, ha.” Casey’s hand brushed against his arm, too gentle to be a shove and too obvious to be an accident. “Bye, Raph.”
“Bye,” Raph repeated, feeling not unlike his arm was on fire. His heart was beating like crazy again, as if the bike ride had been a marathon and he’d come in first place.
So, yeah, maybe he had entirely forgotten he had a fight with Donnie. And that he had left his phone back at home. And that he had been gone for hours.
He was cornered the moment he stepped into the lair.
“Where have you been?!” Leo hissed.
“You’re lucky Dad’s been out for an hour already.” Donnie was glaring again. “He thinks you were wandering around in the sewers.”
“Are you okay?” Mikey asked, and when Raph saw his expression he almost, almost cracked.
Almost.
“I’m fine. I was… out.”
All three of them looked skeptical.
“Oh my god.” Raph attempted to push past them but they only followed him. “Seriously?”
“C’mon, Raph,” Mikey pleaded. “You can talk to us! Right, guys?”
“Right.” Leo crossed his arms. “You should talk to us. We’re still a team, and we want to help you.”
Raph threw up his hands. “I don’t need help! How hard is it to understand that?”
“You won’t talk to us, you avoid us at school, you won’t leave your bunk,” Donnie listed, “and half the time you don’t even come to dinner! Not to mention the fact you were just gone for three hours without your phone and without telling anyone where you were going!”
“Maybe if you didn’t try to trick me into talking to you three, I wouldn’t have wanted to get the hell away from you!” Raph tried to push past them again to no avail.
“Raph, please—” Mikey started, but Raph cut him off.
“Stop pretending you care so much, Mikey! You spend so much time away from us, why can’t I?!”
Mikey looked affronted. “Theater takes up a lot of time, you know that!”
“And what about you, Donnie?” Raph pointed an accusatory finger at the brother in question. “You can spend hours alone on your computer but I can’t spend twenty minutes in my bunk without everyone thinking there’s something wrong with me?!”
Donnie spluttered for a moment. “I’m doing homework, and coding, and… and…”
Raph scoffed. “Sure. That’s so much different.”
“Stop it, Raph!” Leo interjected. “This isn’t about what we do, it’s about you!”
“You’re the worst out of the lot, Leo. Don’t try to deny that.”
“I— what?”
“You’re. The. Worst.” Raph took a step forward with each word, getting up in Leo’s face like he used to a million years ago when they actually spent enough time together to fight. “You insist that you’re so perfect, but you’re acting completely stupid. We’re not a team! Since when was the last time we even did anything together?!”
Leo didn’t seem to have an answer to that. His mouth opened and closed soundlessly.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Don’t try to play that card, it won’t work. I wouldn’t want to be a part of your dumb ‘team’ anyway.”
“Raph, please,” Leo finally got out. “We’re trying to fix—”
“I don’t need to be fixed!” Raph shouted.
That shut all of them up.
“Goddamn!” Raph almost laughed, despite the painful squeezing feeling around his plastron. It came out as a choked sound in the back of his throat. “Leave me alone!”
This time, nobody stopped him from running away.