Chapter Text
“Guys, can you focus please? We have a job to do.”
“No we don’t.”
She rolled her eyes, a flash of annoyance striking through her at Raph’s blunt dismissal of her words. Tilting her head towards her brother, she watched through eyes dropped down to half-mast, already bored of the argument she knew was coming.
“We’re not getting paid for this Princess.” Snout scrunching she couldn’t keep the distaste off her lips as she glared at him. “If this was a job, we’d be getting paid.”
She let out a huff of a sigh, pushing him back from invading her space before brushing past him entirely. “Whether we get paid or not, it’s still our job to keep the people of our city safe.”
“Our city?” Donnie chimed in from where he stood on the ledge, looking back at Lea as she moved to join him. “I don’t remember being given a key.”
“Yeah!” Mikey shouted, Lea spinning around so fast she could hear her mask tails snapping in the air as she tried to shush him. “If we owned this city, I’d put a skatepark on every corner! And call it Mikeyopolis yo!”
“Mikey!” She hissed, shoving a finger to her lips to emphasize her shushing. “Quiet!”
“Oh, chill out Le-lame-dra.” Raph scoffed, “No ones gonna hear us all the way up here anyways.”
She clenched her teeth to keep from falling into the trap of snapping back at him.
Of course none of them had to worry about being overheard. If they were found out or filmed or had their photos taken- if they somehow in someway ended up on the news, it was always her fault. Their father wouldn’t scowl at her brothers, he would turn his disappointment to her. After all, she was their leader. She was the one who was supposed to keep them in line and make sure that they stayed out of trouble.
Which was something that was always easier said then done…
“We’re still ninjas-,”
“Well, some of us are,”
She glared at the smirk Raph gave her in turn.
Technically, she knew she was a kunoichi. Just another thing that separated her from her brothers, and although Splinter had said it was simply a different title for the same thing, her brother never let her forget that there was still that separation.
“Whatever,” She huffed, “it’s the same thing.”
“Sure Lee.”
Biting her tongue she took a calming breath.
Ignoring her brother, she turned to Don and Mikey instead, always finding them less aggravating to talk to. “I want to check on the East side of Chinatown and then wrap it up by checking the docks again. I heard that…”
She trailed off when she noticed that they weren’t looking at her, but over her. When Mikey slapped his hands over his mouth, his eyes darting over to check Don’s reaction as he tried to hide his own growing grin behind his fist, her lips pressed into a firm line.
With no warning she whipped her head over her shoulder, catching Raph in the act of mockingly miming her from behind her back.
“Seriously?”
There was a slight pause, his reaction slowed from the shock of being caught so swiftly. It didn’t last long though before his hands came up in a shrug and than moved into a high cross of his arms over his chest. “What? Is fun now illegal too?”
“Can’t you take anything seriously?”
She knew it wouldn’t help, but she snapped at him, turning to face him fully as she shoved a finger hard against his plastron.
“I’m trying to lead this team and you’re-,”
“We didn’t ask you to play leader.” Raph snapped back, smacking her hand away with a frown. “We run around, find bad guys and beat ‘em up. What do we even need a leader for?”
She froze, the question hitting her harder than most punches she received in training.
Worse yet, it threw her off. It hit to close to home to the never ending spiral of voices in her head that hissed the same thing. Leaving her unable to scrambled enough of a thought together to defend herself as Raph snarled at her.
“We don’t need someone snapping at us every two seconds and being a controlling little goody two shoes all because Daddy handed you the leader position.”
Shut up.
That wasn’t true.
It- It couldn’t be.
It wasn’t.
Gritting her teeth she got herself together, standing her ground when Raph tried to crowd in on her, her fists clenching so hard she could feel them shaking. “He didn’t hand me the position.”
Raph’s glare didn’t ease up any, only narrowing further as his eyes seemed to be trying to slice through her with his stare alone. He took a moment, Lea hearing Mikey letting out a sigh from behind them while Don gave a lifeless ‘guys…’ in a half-hearted attempt to get them to back down from the fight they all knew was coming.
Neither of them paid their little brothers any mind though, Lea getting ready for the next round she knew was coming when Raph’s lips twisted into a snarl.
“Right. I forgot.” He sneered, “you just asked for it, and of course he gave it to you. After all, his perfect little princess just gets everything she wants, doesn’t she?”
“Oh, grow up.” Glaring up at him she dropped her hands to her hips and rolled her shoulders back, her swords shifting slightly with the motion. “I’m the leader because I’m the only one of us who takes this even remotely seriously.”
“Yeah, sure. That’s it.” She fumed at how easily he dismissed her with an eye roll and a shrug. “It’s totally not because you would be completely useless otherwise.”
Once, when she was a little girl, she went to see her father while he’d been meditating.
She couldn’t remember why she went to look for him, if she wanted to show him something or ask him something, she couldn’t be sure. What she did remember however was seeing the candles surrounding his mat. She could remember being entranced by how pretty they were, draw in by their soft light and flickering movements.
She’d thought it was the pretest thing she’d ever seen.
She’d wanted to hold it.
So, she did.
She reached out, hoping to grab the little dancing flame in her tiny hands.
Instead, she had screamed. Pain searing across her palms, fat tears rolling down her cheeks as it shot up her arms, blisters popping along the inside of her hands.
Since then, she’d barely recalled anything in her life hurting worse than the pain she felt that day.
At least until those words were spat at her with such venom she felt like it had poisoned her very soul.
She took in a sharp breath, snapping her mouth shut to keep the sudden trembling in her jaw firm, the sound of her teeth clattering together the loudest noise echoing across the rooftop.
“Uh, whoa dude.” Mikey mumbled, his normally bubbly tone muted and low. “That’s a little-,”
“A little what, Mikey?” Raph snapped, twisting on their baby brother before shoving a hand against Lea’s shoulder, the strength behind it forcing her to stumble back, swallowing down a yelp when her shell smacked into Donnie behind her. “Like we all don’t know it’s true. What do you even do anyways other then yell at us and boss everyone around? Who even needs you anyways?”
Lea’s chest grew tight, her heart throbbing painfully, splintering further and further with each beat.
“Raph!”
She felt a hand on her shoulder, and before she could blink, she found herself behind Donnie, Mikey’s hand grabbing firmly at her own.
“That was completely uncalled for.”
“Lea? You okay?”
Mikey’s voice was soft as he spoke to her... Donnie was standing between her and Raph…
They were defending her, because they didn’t think that she could defend herself, because they were protecting her.
From words.
She really was useless, wasn’t she?
She hated how her lip quivered, and how her vision grew blurry.
Was she really going to cry? How pathetic was that?
“Oh, come on it was-,”
She took in a hard sniffle, rubbing angrily at her eyes with the back of her hand.
Her stomach twisted tight with embarrassment, her face flushing hot with resentment at her lack of ability to control her emotions.
Nothing had happened. Yet here she was, crying like a child in front of her three little brothers, proving to Raph that he was right. That she was useless. Broken down by a few mean words that were nothing more than schoolyard taunts.
A pathetic excuse of a leader.
Raph was right.
What did they need her for when a simple argument with her own family reduced her to tears?
What use really did she have?
She wasn’t Splinter’s real daughter.
She wasn’t the leader of her brothers.
She was nothing.
“Lee?” The malic in Raph’s voice was gone, the old childhood nickname he used to call her back when they’d been close, back before she’d been dubbed leader, making a rare reappearance. “I- I’m- I didn’t-,”
She yanked her hand out of Mikey’s, seething at herself for finding comfort in it like she was some sort of child, twisting in her stance until she was turned away from her brothers.
“Do whatever you want.” She hissed, barely able to speak through the chokehold wrapping around her throat. “I don’t care.”
“Lea, wait-,”
But she didn’t.
Ignoring Don, she sprinted to the edge and jumped off.
She didn’t really know where she was going or what she was going to do, but she guessed it didn’t really matter.
After all, she could be useless and unneeded anywhere.