Title: Validation

Summary: Never the perfect son or student or brother, Raphael does the unthinkable. Away from the lair and into an allegiance with Shredder, honor is replaced by his pronounced desire for validation.

Disclaimer: I have no ownership ties to TMNT. Credit and appreciation to those who do.

SPECIAL THANKS TO! Bella13blue, my own personal Nemesis! (Because everybody needs one.) MY Nemesis has been a good friend; she's a great soundboard and has been kind enough to encourage and offer suggestions on my work for this fic.

Author's Notes:
I don't usually write for the TMNT fandom, so my writing may be a little rusty.
I have no intentions on using OC's.
I'm not writing for any particular verse of turtles, but I have a lot of respect for Mirage-verse and the movie-verse.
My headcanon age order will always be Leo, Don, Raph, then Mike.
Unless I specifically target the 2k12 NICK-verse, Raphael will never have green eyes when I write him. Also, let it be known, I write him with a potty mouth.
Unless otherwise stated, Shredder is human.

Slight Peeve: The CORRECT plural form of the word 'ninja' is NINJA. I tolerate when people add an S, but it needs to be stated at some point.

...

PROLOGUE

Metal hit metal. Katana against sai. Blade for blade. Playing along the rooftops in the dead of night beneath the ethereal glow of the moon, two shelled reptiles traded blows in a manner so swift, so smooth, so precise that it appeared overly rehearsed. Second nature. Like breathing but somehow more vital.

Almost precious.

Those reptiles, turtles, one masked in blue and the other not masked at all; the unmasked one, his usual leather gear and pads, replaced by cold steel counterparts; his traditional wraps exchanged for foreboding spiked gauntlets...

No words were exchanged as the fight erupted into something fluid.

Communication passed through intense unbreakable eye contact and and the hiss of colliding weapons as attacks were delivered, blocked, deflected, countered.

Easy, almost devoid of the malice that should have been.

An almost effortless dance.

As if this was something they did every day.

And maybe at one point in their lives, they had done this every day, but that was so long ago. Back then, their fighting had been little more than practice and play.

Now, the fight held a true purpose.

And, as if in testament to that purpose, the blue-banded turtle blocked another attack and found his voice. "Raph, come home."

"Leonardo-" Raph began, only to be cut off by the other turtle.

"Raph, please," his voice was softer this time, just barely concealing desperation. "You're our brother. You won't come home, and you won't even call me Leo." His face scrunched up as if he'd taken a physical blow. "We need you."

Their weapons became lodged, twin katana braced against the tri-blades of sai. Tension was thick and getting thicker. The air grew stale and palpable.

Raphael's tone changed as he pressed his strength more towards the other turtle, forcing him back an inch or two; their blades remained firmly locked, neither wanting to give in and lose the preamble of their self-righteous causes. His voice thick, Raph's words were simple and direct. "Yeah, Leonardo? You guys need me? Well, too bad. Because I don't need you."

Of course Leo wanted answers, and within reason, he'd sooner ask than stain his blade with his brother's blood. "Then why did you come here? If you didn't want to see us, then why-"

"I'm outta here. Don't follow me. I've gotta report back ta Master Shredda before he gets all pissy. Tell Donatello and Michelangelo that ya couldn't find me. It's better that way."

The attitude was more than expected, but he use of the brothers' full names sounded almost wrong in that gruff voice; the voice with the lower-eastern accent that left out syllables... Such unnecessarily long words were about as normal as a cat that could bark and fly and piss sideways.

"Don't go, Raph. Let's talk this out."

"I'm done talkin'."

Blue bandana tails catching a breeze and whipping back, Leo opened his mouth to speak again, but his voice caught in his throat as he watched more than felt the other turtle roughly disengage before turning away to leap to the next rooftop. Raph was out of earshot by the time their brief and haphazard talk had fully registered and Leo managed to utter, voice soft with a hint of surprise: "Master Shredder? Raph, what are you getting into? Why won't you just come home?"

Just then, two figures emerged from the shadows to stand beside Leo, one masked in purple and the other masked in orange.

"We'll get him back, Leo. No matter the cost," the purple-clad ninja said, voice determined and mouth drawn into a tight line.

"Thanks, Don," Leo said, slipping an arm around his intelligent brother and pulling him in for brief hug. "You okay, Mikey?" he asked, giving his youngest brother a sidelong glance. He'd have offered this other brother the same sentiments of a hug, but in the past eight months or so, he'd learned not to force the courtesy of consolidation.

Mikey, once affectionate, loud and boisterous and unable to focus, simply appeared thoughtful, eyes wide and fingers twitching in a show of restlessness. Whether or not he heard the question didn't matter because he wouldn't have answered anyway. Instead, he narrowed his eyes and spoke with a firm voice. "Something's off. Raph should have known we were here. We were in the shadows, but he should have smelled or sensed us. And he still won't call us anything except our full names..." His tone was etched with something akin to worry, the very same worry that had been eating at him for an immeasurable amount of time.

Donatello, no longer a stranger to the new behavior of his youngest brother, listened curiously, taking in Michelangelo's words and trying to work his brain to see the point of significance. Michelangelo had, more than a few times, stressed the factor that the brief encounters they had with Raphael had endured with their lost brother calling them my their full names. To Don, this fact had seemed irrelevant, but now that both Mikey and Leo had called it forth, he had to consider its importance. Given the thought, sudden realization struck Don before he voiced it. "The use of full names. Mikey, you noticed it first. Raph isn't using endearments; when addressing us, he's being as formal and distant as possible, but the fact that he's willingly making contact anyways...-" his words trailed off, eyes sightlessly darting back and forth as if racing against his thoughts and trying to keep up with his own understandings as they came to light.

At this point, Mikey's own mind was jarring with more thought processing than any of his brothers thought possible for their youngest brother. "Something is off." he restated. "Raph showed up wanting to see us -wanting us to see him, but then he just left. He wants us to follow him." Something cognizant sparked behind his surprisingly perceptive blue eyes, something hopeful. He turned to fully face the other two turtles and repeated: "He wants us to follow him. We need to go, now." He didn't wait for approval or any word from Leo. His mind was made up and his body acted accordingly. He raced to the edge of the roof and jumped, tucked into a flip and landed solidly on the next rooftop before continuing his sprint. His grace went unmatched.

Leo and Don were in hot pursuit, keeping pace with each other while refusing to let the youngest out of sight.

"I never thought I'd say this, but do you think Mikey's onto something?" Don asked, trying not to seem too hopeful and risk the pending consequences.

Leo took in the words with much consideration; he was quiet for several breaths and twice as many leaps before he finally answered. "Maybe. What concerns me is... Raph addressed Shredder as 'Master.' This can't be good. We need to find him and get through to him. He'd do the same for us."

...

[Questions? Comments? In case it isn't clear, one of my favorite plots for the fandom is someone switching sides. (Bad guys becoming good, good guys becoming bad. Gotta love betrayal.) I like reading about any of the Turtles working under Shredder or with the Foot. That plot is surprisingly under-used, in my opinion. I intend to go a similar route with this fic, though... it will be different from the stories I've read. In most of what I've read, there is brainwashing and amnesia-scandals and blackmail that makes the plot work, but I intend to go another route, though it is not a far cry from brainwashing. I won't elaborate on the matter, but my intent is for Raphael to work alongside Shredder willingly.]

Next chapter should be up soon.