Chapter Text
It's only when they're on the way back from the weird mutant pizza place that Raph pieces it together.
“I got no mystic mojo, I'm useless!”
He hadn't put much thought into it at the time, too focused on, y’know, not dying. But now that they're out, safe, and – most importantly – full of the best pizza Raph has had in his life… it comes back, circling round and round in his head.
The whole day, Leo'd been having trouble getting his sword to work. Which, whatever, not the end of the world. They'd gone their whole lives up til now without magic powers, and Donnie didn't have any either. It was funny to tease Leo about his tiny portals, but at the end of the day, if he couldn't get ‘em working properly, it’d be fine.
But he's starting to think that maybe Leo had seen it differently.
It’s – weird to think about. Really really weird, actually, because it definitely doesn’t fit with his perception of Leo. He’s, if anything, overconfident. Full of himself. The works.
Raph has never once worried about Leo’s self esteem. Not in that direction, at least.
And yet.
He doesn’t know what it is, exactly. Maybe something about the way Leo had fixated on being called a champion. Or maybe the fact that the whole way home, Leo’s laughing just a bit too loud, smiling a bit too wide, like he’s got something he doesn’t want them to see behind it all.
Whatever it is, it drives him to pull Leo aside once they get home, once Donnie has retreated to his lab and Mikey has run off to paint.
“What’s up? You here to congratulate me on the a-maze-ing job I did today?” Leo asks with an easy grin, folding his hands behind his head and leaning against the wall. It’s incredibly convincing, and for a second Raph thinks maybe he was just imagining things.
But –
“I’m useless!”
It sticks with him.
“Well, Raph’s still not happy you didn’t fill us in beforehand,” he starts off, because he’s not. “You could have gotten us killed!”
Leo’s smile turns brittle around the edges, just for a second. If Raph hadn’t been looking, if he’d so much as blinked, he would’ve missed it.
With a dawning sort of horror, Raph wonders: how many times has this happened? How many times has Leo put on an act like this and successfully fooled them? If it’s that unnoticeable when it slips, if it’s that easy to adjust it back into place… how long has Leo been doing this for?
“Okayyyyy, but I didn’t,” Leo says, grin entirely back to normal. Nothing out of place. “And we got the World’s Greatest Pizza, you’re welcome by the way, so I’d say it was worth a teeny bit of danger.”
“No, it –” Raph cuts himself off. Shakes his head. Starts over. “That wasn’t what I wanted to talk about! I – you’re not useless, Leo. With or without your powers.”
Leo goes completely still. Again, only for a second, but more noticeable this time. And Raph can’t help but think, for it to be that obvious compared to before, how much it must have affected him.
“I – what?” Leo laughs, just a touch too high to be believable. “I mean – no, duh, of course I’m not, I’m basically irreplaceable! I dunno where you got the impression I needed to be, like, reassured about that, but I super don’t.”
And see, normally Raph would just brush that off. Take Leo’s word at face value and move on to a different topic, because his ego certainly doesn’t need any more inflating. But still…
“I’m useless!”
It plays over and over again in his mind. He can’t stop thinking about it.
“You are, though,” he says slowly, testing something out. “Irreplaceable.”
In order: Leo’s eyes go wide. His brow knots, like he’s confused. Like he doesn’t understand what Raph said (and Raph tries very hard not to think about the implications of that). He blinks rapidly, eyes darting away, and his stance shifts to something almost defensive.
“Well,” Leo says, unsteady. “I mean. Y-yeah. Duh. That’s – that’s what I just said, c’mon, you – need your hearing checked-?”
Something in Raph’s chest aches. Slowly, one at a time, just about every conversation he’s ever had with Leo shifts around into a new light.
He tries to think back. Remember an instance, throughout the many, many, many times of Leo talking himself up, when he had genuinely complimented Leo.
And try as he might, he can’t think of a single one.
Not in recent memory, at least. Maybe when they were younger, before Leo started being so egotistical and Raph started thinking he didn’t need the boost.
Again, he thinks: how long has this been going on?
“Just saying Raph agrees,” he says, pushing it even further. Like an experiment, kinda. Donnie would be proud. “I mean, even if you did get us into trouble in the first place, you also talked us out of it. Raph definitely couldn’t have done that.”
“Oh,” Leo says, soft and vulnerable, before he seems to realize something and the mask snaps back into place. And Raph is nearly certain now – it is a mask. “Well, yeah, of course! I’m the faceman, it’s what I do!”
“And you’re good at it,” Raph says, because he is. For all that they tease him and make fun of his bad jokes, when Leo really sets his mind to it, he is good at getting what he wants. It’s not always to all of their benefit (one particular instance comes to mind where Leo had somehow talked the rest of them into letting him have three last slices of pizza in a row), but in this case it definitely was. He’d, well… “You basically saved our lives today, Leo.”
Leo’s smile twitches, but doesn’t fall. “Soooo what you’re saying is, I’m your champion? ‘Cause that’s what I’m hearing right now.”
Raph will only admit to himself that his kneejerk reaction is to deny it, the irritation from earlier flaring up again for a moment. But he actually thinks about it. Thinks about the expression on Leo’s face when Raph had complimented him. Thinks about how uncertain Leo had been. Thinks about –
“I’m useless!”
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I guess that is what I’m saying.”
And Leo –
If Raph had thought the mask had slipped before, that was nothing compared to this.
Leo shuts down entirely. He’s frozen, mouth hanging half-open, staring at Raph like he can’t possibly have heard right. It would almost be funny if it wasn’t actually, literally heartbreaking.
“Um,” Leo says. “What?”
“You heard Raph. You’re…” Raph sighs. Despite himself, it’s not easy to actually say. He still can’t help but feel that Leo will turn around and gloat about it, that he’ll be his usual egotistical self and Raph will regret ever saying anything.
He pushes past it. “You’re our champion.”
Leo blinks. Once, twice. Slowly, tears well up in his eyes. Raph doesn’t think he even realizes until the first one falls, leaving a damp trail down his face. Then, his eyes widen again – this time in panic – and before Raph can say a word or reach out a hand to stop him, Leo runs.
Raph stands there for a while, trying to process what just happened, before coming to a decision. Instead of going after Leo, he turns towards Donnie’s lab, and starts thinking about where Mikey could have run off to. If he hadn’t realized, he doubts they have, either. And this is something they need to know.
If Leo’s ego really is just a facade, if he doesn’t think as highly of himself as he lets on, well… they’ll just have to fix it.