Rise Raph Stan Blog (Because he deserves one)

“Red, it’s alright,” Pops says quickly, laying a hand on his arm. “We can get you a new one.”

But the same thing would just happen again, no matter how many replacements they buy him. 

Raphael is the oldest, and he has to set a good example, and throwing a tantrum or bursting into tears at his birthday party isn’t a good example. So he wrestles for control of his expression and says, “Let me just stick this in my room real quick,” and then vanishes as quickly as he can so the sniffles don’t start until his siblings can’t hear him. 

In his bedroom, he slides the jacket back off, wincing when the torn parts of the sleeves catch against his rough skin. He wants to throw it far away from him, but it's still a gift. He sets it down instead, folded inward so none of the tears show.

When Raph gets back to the atrium, he’s managed to come up with a grin, and he waves away his brothers’ worried glances. April has forced the party back into momentum by sheer force of her substantial willpower, though she does spare Raph a soft, big-sister-look that promises they’ll be talking about it later. 

Years and years down the road, that particular birthday is a crystallized memory, one he thinks back on a lot. It’s the first time Raph remembers hating something about himself. But he also remembers that the feeling only survived until that same evening, a few hours later, when Leo poked his head through Raph’s bedroom door.

“Raph, c’mon, birthday dinner.”

It’s tradition, by now, for each of them to end their birthday with their favorite takeout at their favorite place in the underground, just the four of them. (This has to be negotiated days in advance of the twins’ birthday, because arguing for sport, and sometimes in song, is one of their favorite hobbies.) Raph’s is easy, though—the City Hall loop station, with its massive arched ceilings and the beautiful broken skylights. Donnie even gets the lights on for him, so the whole place is glowing and warm.

He can already smell pepperoni and garlic. He can hear Donnie and Mikey talking further down the hall, a little more subdued than usual. He should go out there since they’re waiting for him. He doesn’t want to disappoint them, but he isn’t sure if he can find a cheerful face to put on. He thinks he wants to just…stay in his room, maybe. 

Then Leo says, “But can I please wear your jacket?? Please please pleaaaaase, Raphie?”

Raph blinks, glancing up at him. The gaping surprise makes his tear-sticky face feel funny. 

“The one I just got? Leon, it’s—” Ruined, he can’t bring himself to say. He can’t even bring himself to look at it.

“The coolest thing ever, I know,” his little brother says enthusiastically, pushing the door open the rest of the way and hurrying inside. He snatches the jacket up off the back of the chair it’s resting on and holds it out at arms’ length, admiring the details. “Honestly—can I be honest with you? I didn’t think much of it at first, like, when I saw it in the magazine. But after your modifications?” He whistles low, something he learned to do specifically to annoy Donatello.

“Modifications?” Raph says uncertainly. 

“Yeah! DIY style is big, you know! And ripped clothes are in.” 

Leo slides the jacket on. It’s comically big on him, and the holes in the arms are mostly hidden by the way the fabric bunches up; the tears along the shoulders are more obvious. It does something unhappy to Raph’s stomach when he sees them. 

But then Leo starts posing in the mirror, and pats himself down for a camera he doesn’t have, and hollers down the hallway for Donnie to come get a picture of him. 

It must be cool if Leo thinks it’s cool. 

“So?” Leo asks with those big puppy-dog eyes he taught Mikey when they were little, to absolutely everyone’s detriment and Leo’s eternal chagrin. “Can I, Raph?”

“It’s Raph’s birthday present, he should wear it,” Donnie scoffs as he comes in, clearly having caught the gist of the conversation. 

But he has his tablet in hand and takes a few agreeable pictures of his twin in more and more outrageous fashion model poses. Raphael is laughing by the time Mikey shows up, and his youngest brother brightens visibly at the sound. 

“Save the photo shoot for the loop station!” Mikey says earnestly. He frames his hands around Raphael like he’s lining up a shot. “Raphie, you’ll look so cool! Those stained glass windows, the lights, that jacket—it’ll be perfect!” 

Raph is looking at the torn jacket in a brand new way. He thinks he can kind of see what they see. Maybe it doesn’t look as bad as he thought. When he comes over to the mirror, Leo slinks out of it immediately and presses it into Raph’s hands. 

Raphael holds it and runs his thumb along one of the rips, but it doesn’t nearly bring him to tears this time. Now he’s recapturing the way he felt when he first saw it in the magazine. It’s changed, not ruined. Modified to fit exactly him and nobody else. 

He puts it back on, and this time his spikes don’t tear through the fabric, because they already have holes to live in. He glances at the mirror, and maybe there’s a second of a gut-punch when he sees the way his skin comes through the sleeves and his shell pokes through the shoulders, but it’s drowned out almost immediately by shy, pleased joy at the way his brothers hoot and cheer and hype him up. 

“Raphieee, you gooootta let me borrow,” Leo moans, draped bonelessly against his arm. 

Raph grins and scoops him up, then Mikey in the name of fairness when Mikey scrambles to be included, and says, “Maybe on the way back, Neon.”

Donnie scoots away before his big brother can get any big ideas about carrying him and leads the way back through the lair to collect the food. They call a goodbye to Pops, who watches them with gentle eyes as they go, and then they run into the deep, dark underground they know so well—the secret sprawling playground that stretches for miles and miles, just for them.