Chapter Text
Before Splinter sends Leo to Central America, back when the four brothers were still a fractured—but whole—unit under the city. You’re there, woven into the fabric of their strange, hidden lives.
You train with them, spar sometimes (mostly with Mikey, who doesn’t mind losing), patch up scrapes after patrols, and share greasy pizza on movie nights in the lair. Even then, there’s an invisible current pulling you towards two specific points in this constellation of brothers.
Leo. His gaze often finds yours across the room—intense, analytical, yet softened with something unreadable when it lands on you. A shared glance during Splinter’s lessons, a quiet question about your day that feels weightier than it should. Looks that linger just a few beats too long. Not that you minded.
Then there’s Raph. A tumultuous, rough sea of energy. But around you, there’s a specific turbulence—a protective warmth that flares unexpectedly when someone gets too close. Even one of his brothers. He’s the one who walks a little closer when you navigate the darker tunnels, the one whose shoulder bumps feel more deliberate than accidental.
But you’re still friends. Allies. Confidantes. That’s the story you all stick to, the safe label taped over a box of much more complicated feelings.
Then Splinter made the call. Leo must go to a foreign country for a year of leadership training. The thought of his steady presence vanishing left an immediate, aching void. You saw the conflict in Leo’s eyes, duty warring with reluctance. He promised to write, his gaze pausing on you for a fraction longer than on his brothers.
He kept his word, at first. Letters arrived addressed to the lair. You gathered with Donnie and Mikey to read them aloud. Leo’s careful script detailed grueling training regimens, encounters with unfamiliar wildlife, and the strange beauty of the jungle. Donnie and Mikey would talk about the letters, but Raph—he only listened. Jaw tight.
Especially after you started getting letters only for you.
In these, Leo was different. More personal. He shed the leader persona. Asked about your life, your classes, even the most mundane details. Shared doubts, frustration, moments of quiet contemplation he’d never voice to his brothers. He recalled a joke you made months ago, mentioned dreaming of sparring with you, specific conversations you had late at night.
It all sent a confusing jolt through you, making your heart beat faster, chased by a prickle of guilt. You still keep the letters hidden, tucked away in a shoebox under your bed. But you had a feeling Raph already knew about them, even without him having to resort to snooping around.
Then the letters stopped. All of them. Silence stretched from weeks into months. Worry festered, then soured into a shared bitterness, particularly between you and Raph. He often paces, slams his fists into the punching bag harder than necessary, his already short fuse burning down to nothing.
“Guess Fearless Leader’s too good for us now,” he snarled one evening, smacking the bag hard enough to break it. “Suppose he found better things to do than write to his family.”
You nodded, the shared sense of abandonment a bitter taste in your mouth. “He could at least tell us he’s alive,” you murmured, picking at a loose thread on your shirt. “Or that he’s okay, or … something.”
The disappointment became a strange, potent glue. You and Raph gravitated towards each other. You trained together more often, pushing each other, the physical exertion a release for the pent-up anger. For hours, you would talk. Sometimes in the lair, other times huddled on your fire escape, sharing frustrations about Leo, about the team falling apart. Everything.
You see past Raph’s rage, glimpse the aching vulnerability beneath the shell, the deep-seated fear of not being enough. He sees your disappointment, your confusion, your own quiet hurt.
One night, when you were walking home, you heard the unmistakable sounds of a scuffle. Not the usual mugging, but something more brutal. You peeked cautiously around a dumpster—and there he was. A figure clad in armor taking down a group of thugs with terrifying efficiency.
The Nightwatcher.
Your breath caught. But there was something familiar about the way he moved. After he disarmed the last thug, he turned, glimpsing you in the shadows before vaulting onto a nearby roof. And you knew who it was.
Raph had started sleeping all day, becoming distant—almost as if he was hiding something from everyone. But you didn’t confront him immediately. The next time he appeared near your neighborhood, though, you didn’t hesitate and called out his name. He froze on the fire escape opposite yours, silhouetted against the moon.
Then he pulled off his helmet, his eyes locking onto yours, full of defiance and exhaustion.
You simply gestured towards your open window. “Come in. Before someone sees you.”
Your apartment became his haven, his second shelter. A place disconnected from the lair. He crashes on your couch sometimes after rough evenings of vigilantism and you tend to his wounds. Other nights, he just shows up, shedding the armor—but not the weight on his shoulders, needing a place to just be, away from his family’s expectations.
You listen. You don’t judge.
Over time, your bond deepened. You see the way he looks at you when he thinks you’re not watching, a mixture of longing and frustration. A comfortable silence often settles between you now, charged with unspoken desires that flicker in the periphery of your awareness. Becoming stronger by the day.
By the time Leo’s been gone a year, you and Raph are practically inseparable, a constant presence in each other’s lives that has evolved beyond mere companionship.
Tonight, Raph sits on your closed toilet, his armor piled haphazardly in the tub. He still breathes raggedly, the adrenaline from his patrol slowly leaving him. You sit on the edge of the tub, dabbing carefully at a gash above his brow ridge with a cotton pad.
“Hold still,” you murmur as he flinches from the sting of the antiseptic.
A low grunt escapes him, but he obeys, his gaze fixed somewhere on the linoleum floor. You’re used to caring for his wounds, but something feels different this evening. There are more cuts, deeper bruises blooming on his knuckles. And he’s quieter than usual, the typical simmering anger replaced by a raw exhaustion that seems to seep into the very air around him.
You reach for a butterfly bandage, peeling off the backing. Your fingers brush against his rough, green skin as you position it over the cut on his forehead. He doesn’t pull away. Instead, his head tilts slightly, his gaze lifting from the floor to meet yours.
The proximity is suddenly overwhelming. You can see the flecks of gold in his eyes, the slight tremor in his hands resting on his knees, the way his throat works as he swallows. That look is there again. Your breath hitches.
The silence stretches, filled only by the distant hum of city traffic and the frantic thumping of your own heart. It feels like standing on the edge of a cliff, the ground shifting beneath your feet. Years of friendship, shared grief over Leo’s silence—it all swirls between you, threatening to tip you over the cliffside.
He leans forward almost imperceptibly, his rough knuckles brushing against your knee. The contact sends a jolt, sharp and warm, straight through you. His eyes search yours, questioning, demanding something you aren’t sure you can give. Images flash through your mind: Leo’s steady gaze, the careful script on his hidden letters, the confusing warmth they’d sparked. Guilt pricks at you, sharp and unwelcome.
Raph must see the flicker of conflict in your eyes. The intensity in his gaze wavers, replaced by a familiar frustration, which is quickly masked. He pulls back slightly, breaking the spell. The air rushes back into your lungs, leaving you feeling shaky.
“Thanks,” he mumbles, finally breaking the silence. His voice is rougher than usual.
“Anytime, Raph,” you reply, your voice steadier than you feel. You stand up, gathering the used cotton pads and wrappers. The moment has passed, the fragile connection severed. But the echo of it remains, hanging heavy in the air.
He finishes wiping the lingering grime from his face and arms, avoiding your eyes now. “Donnie’s been askin’ questions,” he says abruptly. “Where I go. Why I’m so beat up all the time.”
You nod, busying yourself with tidying the small bathroom counter. “What have you been telling him?”
“Same old crap. Extra training. Fell down some stairs.” He snorts, a humorless sound. “Mikey just thinks I’m sleepin’ all day ‘cause I’m lazy.” He pauses, then adds, quieter, “Easier that way.”
He stands up, stretching gingerly. The movement pulls the muscles taut across his shoulders and back. He’s still Raph—volatile, protective, a storm contained within a powerful frame. But here, in the relative safety of your apartment, the cracks in his armor show. You see the vulnerability he fights so hard to conceal, the fear of abandonment that fuels his anger.
He goes to collect his stuff. As he passes, his hand brushes yours again, lingering for just a fraction of a second longer than necessary. Then he gathers the rest of his gear, gives you a nod, and slips back out the window, melting into the pre-dawn gloom.
You stand there for a long moment, listening to the fading sounds of his departure, the silence of your apartment feeling both emptier and more complicated than ever before. You go over to the couch, sinking into the cushions. Exhaustion finally begins to claim you. The emotional whiplash of the evening, coupled with the late hour, makes your eyelids feel like lead weights.
You don’t bother changing; you curl up, pulling a throw blanket over yourself. Your thoughts drift, a jumbled mess of green skin and intense eyes—
—then the sudden, shrill ring of your phone jolts you awake. You blink, disoriented; you must have dozed off. Who would be calling at this hour, anyway? You fumble for the phone on the coffee table, checking the caller ID: Donnie. Anxiety spikes. He rarely calls, unless it was urgent.
Had something happened to Raph on his way back?
“Donnie?” you answer, your voice thick with sleep and apprehension. “Is everything okay? Is Raph—”
“He’s back,” Donnie’s voice comes through the line, cutting you off. He sounds breathless, wired, a mixture of disbelief and frantic energy buzzing through his words. “He’s back. Leo’s back!”
The world tilts. You bolt upright, the blanket pooling around your waist. “What? He is?” The words are barely a whisper. Leo. Here? Now?!
“Yeah,” Donnie confirms. “Splinter’s with him now. It’s really him!”
You feel as if someone punched the air out of your lungs. The nearly year of silence, worry, frustration, anger. And the comfort you’d found in his absence with Raph—all of it crashes down at once.
Leo was back.
You grip the phone tighter. “I … okay,” you manage, the words feeling inadequate, hollow. “Okay, Donnie. Thanks for … telling me.”
You hang up, the phone slipping from your suddenly nerveless fingers and falling to the floor. The silence in the apartment roars back, louder than before, saturated with the impossible news.
Leo. Back.
The two words echo in your skull, bouncing off the walls of your mind. Back from the jungle, back from the silence. Back from the place he’d occupied in your memory, like a photograph tinged with resentment and a persistent ache. He was supposed to be a ghost, a problem deferred, a complication locked away with those hidden letters.
Not anymore.
Your heart hammers against your ribs, a frantic rhythm completely at odds with the numbness spreading through your limbs. You stare at the opposite wall, unseeing, the pattern swimming before your eyes. Just minutes ago, the world had felt compressed, focused down to the charged space between you and Raph in your bathroom.
That moment now feels like a scene from someone else’s life, blurred and distant.
Raph.
A wave of something akin to panic washes over you. Raph, who had just slipped out your window. Raph, who had listened to you rail against Leo’s abandonment. Who had shared his vulnerability with you. Whose frustration and longing had been so palpable. How would he react?
Donnie’s call meant the news was already spreading through the lair. Would Raph feel blindsided? Betrayed, even, by the universe suddenly dropping his long-lost brother back into the mix just as something fragile and tentative was solidifying between you?
Guilt twists in your gut. Not just for the hidden letters anymore, but for the intimacy you’d shared with Raph, forged in the crucible of Leo’s absence. Did you build it all on a foundation of shared resentment? Was the comfort you found in his presence just a reaction, a way to fill the void Leo left? Or was it something real, something separate, something that now felt impossibly complicated?
You push yourself off the couch, pacing the confines of your living room. Your thoughts race, colliding like billiard balls. Leo’s return changes everything.
You wonder what Leo is like now; a year is a long time. Would he still be the same thoughtful leader? Or would the jungle have changed him, hardened him? Why come back now, without a word? So many questions, and the thought of facing him, of navigating the tangled web of unspoken feelings, makes your head spin.
Two brothers. Two intense, complicated connections.
Before, the choice felt hypothetical, distant. Leo was gone, a memory wrapped in unanswered questions. Raph was here, solid, intense, a growing certainty in the chaos. But now, Leo is back—and the choice is suddenly very real. You close your eyes, taking a deep, shaky breath. You have to choose your next move.
And you have no idea which way to turn.
Just like that, the fragile bubble bursts.
The reunion in the lair is strained, fraught with tension. The arguments start almost immediately, old wounds ripped open, new ones inflicted. Leo tries to step back into his role as leader. But Raph bristles under his command, the resentment now fueled by more than just brotherly rivalry.
Those old wounds aren’t just reopened; they’re ripped wider, doused in the salt of the past year’s bitterness. And you? You’re caught squarely in the middle.
Leo seeks you out, his gaze earnest, apologetic. He tries to explain the silence, the overwhelming nature of his training, the isolation. “I messed up,” he admits, “not writing. And not writing to you, especially, is unforgivable. Being away, being alone … it made me realize things. What I’d left behind. Who I’d left behind.”
His eyes plead for understanding, for a return to the tentative connection forged through those hidden letters. He’s the prodigal son, the steady leader trying to find his footing, reminding you of the intellectual spark, the shared ideals you once admired.
Simultaneously, Raph’s presence becomes fiercely territorial. His jealousy is no longer a subtle undercurrent; it’s a tangible force field. A possessive hand landing on the small of your back when Leo approaches. Standing deliberately between you and his brother. His voice drops to a low growl when Leo addresses you directly. His glares are daggers.
He reminds you, wordlessly and sometimes explicitly, that he stayed. He endured the silence with you. And more than ever, he seeks refuge in your apartment; being in the lair is physically unbearable for him now. “Can’t breathe down there with him acting like nothing happened,” he mutters, collapsing onto your couch.
The arguments between the brothers escalate, and you know, with a sickening certainty, that you are part of the fuel for their fire.
You hear snippets: “Stay away from her, Leo!” “You think I didn’t notice how close you two got while I was gone?” It tears you apart, watching them fight, knowing your feelings are a wedge driving them further apart. The pressure builds, an unbearable weight on your chest.
They both corner you at different times, the words tumbling out.
Leo finds you on the rooftop, the city spread out below. “I know this is complicated. But what I felt then, what I tried to tell you in those letters—it wasn’t just about missing a friend. It was more. It is more. Coming back, seeing you … it confirmed everything the jungle taught me about what truly matters. I want a chance to prove I can be the man you deserve, the partner I should have been all along. I messed up big time, and I’m so, so sorry.” His eyes search yours, full of hope and regret.
Raph confronts you in your apartment after another explosive fight with Leo. He paces your small living room like a caged tiger before stopping right in front of you, his eyes blazing.
“I can’t do this anymore. Watching him look at you, talk to you and pretend like he didn’t just abandon everyone, abandon you. You know me. All of me.” He takes a ragged breath, the vulnerability stark on his face. “Is this real? What’s been growing between us? Tell me. I need to know if I have a shot, or if I’ve just been fooling myself.”
Your heart feels like it’s being ripped in two different directions. But you must choose. Closing your eyes, you take a deep breath …
Do you invite Leo over?
Or Raph?