Chapter Text
Raph loved New York. Specifically, Raph loved the surface - the wind against his face, the feeling of it in his hair, and the smells it brought with it (totally different to subway smells!). He cherished the goosebumps under his skin, his brother by his side.
Leo howled as they leapt from roof to roof, tucking for some landings, and rolling for others. He laughed when Raph slid on the wet concrete, nearly crashing into an empty rooftop bar. Raph knew he loved the surface too.
“Careful, grandpa,” Leo taunted. “You’ll put your back out!”
“Hey!” He was only a year older!
Leo was smaller than Raph, leaner and more agile. His brother was air-o-dynamic, faster, and flew through the air with ease. Raph, on the other hand, landed heavily on the roof with each jump.
Leo beat him to the edge of the roof, where they both came to a stop. Below them, the man they’d been tailing skid around the corner of the alley. Too fast for such a tight turn, he smashed directly into one of New York’s finest: a dumpster, overfilled with greasy leftovers. The man let out a prolonged, pitiful groan.
God, Raph loved New York.
“Dibs,” Leo sang as he dropped to the street, and Raph rolled his eyes. One petty thug, easy prey. He could handle it.
Leo landed soundlessly in the shadows of the dark alleyway. Flawless Hamato ninpo, immediately ruined when he cried out, “Seriously, a warehouse heist? A little trashy don’t you think? Ha! Cuz you crashed into a dumpster!”
Raph sighed. Whatever, the thug was only small-fry. Let the kid have his fun.
The thug straightened up against the dumpster, guarding a shoulder that was definitely bruised. Over his other shoulder hung a bulging burlap sack – the goods.
From the shadows, he continued: “Wow, tough crowd. Let me guess, not from here? But seriously,” he said as stepped from the shadows, making sure his silhouette was visible, “I’mma need that sack back.”
A gust of wind picked up the tails of Leo’s mask, causing them to flutter intimidatingly to his side. Raph had to admit, it did look badass.
Also carried by the wind was the thick, dark cloud that obscured the moon. Its light was dim, but in the absolute darkness of the inner city’s alleyways, it shone like a star - only for a moment, until another cloud came to consume it. In the moon’s brief glance, however, Raph’s stomach sank.
The thug wore black Keikogi - the sleeves torn off to reveal his biceps, which would have been impressive had he actually had any. The Keikogi itself was too large for his bony frame and had gone pale from generational use. On his feet were surprisingly modern, well-cared-for sneakers.
Over his face, however, sagged a black sack that matched the Keikogi in both colour and wear, marked with a symbol that made Raph’s blood run cold.
An ominous, red footprint.
“Ninja?” The thug asked, his gruff voice cracked with surprise. The idiot had let the thug see him.
Leo smiled, unperturbed. “You betcha," he said, and brandished his Odachi for a fight. A tense moment hung in the air, where the wind held still and Raph forgot how to breathe, as neither fighter moved.
Then, the thug vanished - only a small puff of dust in his wake as he fled the alley. Leo, stunned, stood there stupidly until a heavy thud jolted him awake. Raph had landed next to him.
Animatedly, like a dumbass cartoon character, Leo pointed to where the thug had vanished. “I think that guy had Yeezys! Why’d he steal all those laptops if he can afford Yeezys? Do you think he stole those too?”
Raph ignored him and investigated the alley for anything out of ordinary. “Leo,” he asked upon finding nothing, “did you see his face?”
“Face? Did he have a face? I only saw sack.” Leo thought for a moment. “Ew, why did I say sack?”
“No,” Raph grunted, annoyed. “I meant the symbol. You saw the symbol?”
“Yeah, no, I totally missed the giant red foot on his face. Silly me,” he tapped his forehead, “no attention to detail here.”
The haunted expression on Raph’s face shut Leo up. “Bro, what’s wrong? Do you know that foot?”
Raph's stomach rolled uneasily the more he thought about it. “I think…” he paused for a moment and took a deep, calming breath. Toughened up, he spat, “Raph thinks he's seen it. Before.”
Leo knew what before meant.
“You mean–”
Leo was too young to remember before. But Raph was a year older.
Leo turned to run after foot-guy, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him. He knew what that look on Raph’s face meant.
“No,” he said as Raph opened his mouth to speak. “We are not running back to dad.”
“Leo, this is serious. We shouldn’t–”
Leo turned on his brother and shoved his chest. Raph was big, but Leo knew he was soft, and stood up to him unwaveringly. “Exactly! This is serious! And you know that’s why dad should not get involved!”
Their father had done nothing more thoroughly in their childhood than warn them never to leave the subway tunnels - to keep to the sewers, to stay underground. For protection, he’d said – but Raph and Leo both knew it was out of fear. Anything to do with their past was discarded, thrown in the trash and ignored.
“Raph, you know that if we tell dad, the only thing that’ll happen is that we get grounded while that foot-guy’s let off scot-free.” It would be back to passively waiting in the city’s sewers for something to happen, for them to finally be free of whatever it was that their Sensei feared. But how long would that take? They'd already waited fourteen years - what if it took another fourteen years, of sitting around watching dad watch TV?
That foot-guy may have been the solution to this problem, and he'd just been handed to them on a silver platter.
Raph’s gut, even while upset, told him to follow that man. He backed down from Leo and said, "alright, but we’re only doing some recon-a-sonce. No contact. I need you to promise.” Raph was firm on this.
Leo sighed. If he didn’t want to be treated as a child, he shouldn’t act like one, then.
“Promise,” he conceded.
“Do you think you can take us to him?”
Portalling to areas out of Leo’s sight was difficult – anything that required mental concentration was hard for Leo, really. But he had the drive. Eyes closed, Leo shifted through the city’s auras for the man who escaped. New York really was a city that never slept: even in the dead of night, there was laughter in the apartment behind them, shouting a few rooms down, cars honking, glass shattering. There was even the fear in Raph’s gut that had started to waft over - really not helping.
But Leo had seen foot-guy’s sneakers – they were Yeezys. Yeezy 500s, to be exact. Basketball shoes: good for running, but only short distance.
Leo nodded and widened his stance. Breathing deep, he smirked.
“Found him.”
Blue light illuminated the alley as a rooftop opened before them. The portal’s spinning borders tingled Raph’s cheeks as he passed through, like a warm, fuzzy kiss.
They stalked along the rooftop’s edge, silent, as they watched from above. Foot-guy was panting, his back resting against the pole of a lone streetlight. Anxiously, he held his injured arm, limp in his grip – likely dislocated. He spared frequent glances in the direction he came, unaware his pursuers had already found him.
Leo glanced at Raph, a silent C’mon! He’s right there in his eyes, but the stern look Raph sent his way shut him up once more.
In the lone streetlight, the foot-guy looked more like a foot-boy.
The boy relaxed when he realised he hadn’t been chased. He looked around – left and right, but never up – and then vanished, again. Leo gasped. It was quick and easy to miss, but his form was sloppy and amature-ish. In a single movement, the foot-boy had sunken into the shadows and disappeared.
It was ninjitsu.
“Oh,” Leo whispered, “this just got interesting.” And if the footprint on the boy’s face hadn't filled him with so much dread, Raph would have agreed.
In the shadows, Leo and Raph stalked the foot-boy from above. He was clearly out of his depths – he was slow, loud, and didn’t even know he was being followed.
The boy stumbled over some concrete steps and halted in front of the grand bottle-green doors they led to. They belonged to an equally-grand building made of cold, dark brick, with arched windows that, despite the hour, showed light from within the halls. The foot-boy knocked on the door – six knocks, each in rhythmic succession.
They crouched on the roof across the street and watched silently. Even in the dark, Raph could make out the sign that read J. Williams High School. “What’s he doing at a school?”
A moment later, the figure of a large man, probably taller than Raph, appeared in the window. The great doors opened, and from within, the man emerged. For the first time since he started crime-fighting, Raph's heart clutched with fear.
“Oh, Raph!” Leo whispered and respectfully covered his nose. “You’ve seen that guy, too, huh?”
They were too far across the street for Raph to see his face, but he recognised that posture – prideful and domineering, with long hair that fell across his broad back, so elegant it was deceptively delicate.
It was the way he stood over the young boy with the ease of a mentor and joyously laughed when he raised the burlap sack for him to see, that was familiar. The way he gestured for the boy to come inside, the parental hand on his non-injured shoulder – the warmth of it made Raph’s body shake. It was a man from before – if Raph concentrated hard enough, he could almost remember his face.
“He was there,” Raph said after the man and the foot-boy had disappeared inside the school. Suddenly, he was transported into a memory of blazing heat – hot, as if the sun had descended upon them. He remembered the taste of smoke in his lungs, the strength in his father's arms as he was carried away, both of them choking on dirty air. The floor, strewn with blackened lab coats, from where the smell of burnt meat permeated. He remembered the sound of an infant screaming, his brother crying, and his own hoarse voice as he tried to call out to them. “He was in the fire.”
***
“What the hell was that!” Leo whisper-cried when they entered the subway lair, and Raph shushed him meanly. “You saw that, right? The foot-guy, and the other guy, you knew them both!”
“Leonardo, shush!” Raph snapped. “Look. I don’t know who they are, okay, but if they have anything to do with us, back then – well, then, they’re bad news. We have to tell dad.”
“No, Raph! Don’t you see?” Leo looked around suspiciously. Making sure they were alone, he pulled them both into Raph’s room and shut the curtains. “What if those are the guys dad’s been warning us about?”
“Exactly, Leo! That’s why we need to tell him!”
“No!” he cried. “If we tell dad, you know exactly what'll happen. Nothing!”
“And?” Raph asked. “Dad has his reasons for hiding us, he’s the reason we haven’t been found in all these years! And as your big brother, it’s my duty to keep you safe!”
“Oh, duty this, duty that! Are you seriously happy living underground like this? Sleeping in rags, learning to swim in the sewers? We finally have the chance to change all of this,” Leo said, and gestured to Raph's beaten-up mattress that lay directly on the floor. “And I’m tired of running!”
“Leo!” Raph shouted, temper flaring up. His fists curled, and glowed with eerie light – ready to fight, to smash – but seeing the way it made his brother flinch drained the anger out of him. He plopped onto his ragged mattress and practised his breathing exercises. His gaze fell to the floor beside his bed, where a blanket lay neatly folded. On it lay a half-melted binky and the charred remains of a turtle plush, missing a single eye. When Leo saw what he was looking at, he felt his body deflate too.
Raph struggled to keep his voice steady as he whispered, “Raph’s happy as long as he has you.”
Leo sighed and sat next to him on the bed. He placed a comforting hand on Raph’s shoulder.
They sat like that, stewing in each other’s silence, until–
“Enough!” An older voice shouted as the curtains burst open. From it, an old, frail man stood, round in his stained sleeping robes.
Sensei, father.
“Do you even know what time it is!?" he cried. "I’m trying to get my beauty sleep! Leo - be quiet! And Raph - control your sad stink! You know it wilts my poor little petunias.” He held his favourite petunia out for them to see, hanging limply in its little pink pot.
“Sorry, dad,” Raph said, and watched as he huffed and waddled away.
“Look, Leo.” Raph started again, calmer, quieter. “You don’t remember what happened, but I do. I… I can’t lose another brother.”
“Patty can still smell you, Raph!” Dad shouted from the TV room.
“Don’t you want answers?” Leo asked, solemn. He was rarely ever this serious. “About what happened to us? To dad? Don’t you want closure, for them?” He gestured towards the blanket. To avenge them? He didn’t say – didn’t need to.
Deep down, he knew Leo was right. Raph, too, had become impatient with their father’s complacency, his refusal to let them outside. Of the ninja training they had no use for, that they had to hone behind their Sensei's back, of their wasted potential. He wanted to live on the surface, to enjoy the air of the city he loved so much.
More than anything, he wanted his brothers back. But that could never happen, no matter how much mystic energy they cultivated, no matter how many foot-people they punched. Was vengeance the right thing to do? WWLJD?
He was scared – terrified, really. But Raph thought of how empty the lair was – of how much space was wasted and dead. He imagined the life he could have had with three brothers, as he so often did - of the love he could have given them. Raph thought of the lives that had been taken way too young, of the nights he’d spent alone or in Leo’s arms, haunted by the smoke in his lungs, by an infant’s phantom cries.
“Fine,” he conceded. “Tell me the plan,” because he knew Leo already had one.