Abducted (rottmnt fanfic)

Responsibility

Raph's pov: 

I was really hoping dad would notice and maybe care that Donnie was missing, but he didn't and that hurt me. A lot. I wanted him to at least notice that we were tired, that something was wrong, but he just didn't care. Now I was, yet again, having to act like their dad because he wouldn't step up and do it himself. They never really noticed, but it'd be unfair to expect them to when that's what they grew up with. I carried Mikey while we searched for Donnie, or at least signs of him, even though I was really tired too. It wasn't like I'd say something like "okay, I know I told you I'd carry you so you wouldn't get tired, but I'm not gonna stick to my word and you've gotta walk now." 

But you could though, it's really easy. He's gotta grow up sometime and coddling him is just holding him back. Dark Raph was annoying, always telling me how to older brother. I knew it was still just me, but it didn't make it any less annoying. I just called my intrusive thoughts about being a mean brother Dark Raph to distance myself from it. I wasn't going to listen to him when all he wanted me to do was treat them like dad treated me when I was little, I could never do that to them. They deserved better. No one ever said you deserve better, why make excuses for them? You're the only responsible one in the family, that can't be a coincidence. That wasn't fair to them though, they were just kids and they deserved to have a good childhood, the best I could give them, even if I didn't get the same. Besides, I wasn't coddling him, I was just taking care of him like I was supposed to as his older brother. Besides, they seemed to appreciate it and I was the one that offered it. Mikey was just tired because we hadn't stopped for a break for a while, it wasn't fair to expect someone his size to keep up with someone my size for that long, he was only about the size of my arm technically. 

"Raph, you look stressed out, maybe we should take a break for you." Mikey looked at me with sympathy, it was nice to have my needs being considered. "You keep looking like you're either angry at yourself or worried..."

"Oh, don't worry, Raph's got this." I smiled to him. "Thanks for caring about me, I just make weird faces sometimes, you know that." I needed to convince him somehow that things were fine, that I wasn't having an argument with myself and an imaginary version of myself. We kept going, looking for any clue of him. Any signs of him nearby were old, too old for them to lead anywhere useful. The newest clue we got was from when he left the lair with us to go on the mission and that wasn't going to help us at all. My eye twitched from the anxiety of not being able to find him, I needed to find him before anything worse could happen to him. 

"I really think you should take a break, your eye's twitching and you're really tense." Mikey was starting to resort to using Dr. Feelings on me. "This isn't healthy, you need a break-"

"Mikey, stop it!" Leo shouted at him suddenly. "Get down from Raph and maybe he won't need a break! We can't be focusing on 'Oh I'm tired' 'I'm hungry' 'I wanna go home', boo hoo, woe is you, we get it! Donnie's out there somewhere, we don't know where, and he's hurt! We don't know how bad it is, but we saw blood, Mikey! We saw blood and his broken things, we can't just ignore that! We barely have any time left to look, we can take a break later!"

"Leo, that's enough." I put a hand on his shoulder, Mikey started to cry. "I know you're upset, we all are, but we shouldn't take it out on each other, that's just gonna make things harder for everyone, including you. You know Donnie wouldn't want any of us to fight. Trust me, I'm real angry too, but I don't wanna make things any worse." Leo looked down, he clearly felt bad.

"You're right... sorry about that." Leo took a deep breath, then hugged me and Mikey. "I'm sorry, Mikey, I don't know what came over me. I'm just really upset and scared and I just want Donnie back." he started crying as well.