//this is one of my favorite exchanges so I’m keeping these all together!!
We get this cute things with Raph finally shining through with his concern for Leo, like he’s just needed his brothers there for him so he could care about them! Raph trusts them all so blindly and passionately that even if he DID see Karai and Sadao he wouldn’t have thought anything of it.
AND THEN I love that Mikey’s so perceptive this whole freaking time but before now he just didn’t act on any feelings, especially if they would havebrought him closer ro anyone other than the Jones. Now he actually pulls Renoir aside to check on him, and to remind him to not be so pessimistic as he calls Mikey’s personality out on being so noticeably different. I even love the ‘you gotta smile for yourself’ thing because it’s a great spin on that awful thing that people say oh you should smile so other people are happy. He’s just like, it’s a physical thing that actually triggers good memories so do it for you man, remember what it feels like. It’s such a parallel between the two of them! He opens up, allows that bond to really start to form and apologizes, acknowledging that what he did was a dick move and takes that responsibility back, and from now on he also starts to watch out for him. Sometimes it’s like they are the only two of the group that really understand and see what’s going on.
That being said, it always struck me as SUPER weird that Mikey catches ALL this stuff and even straight up calls Leo out on his bullshit later, but he apparently has unwavering faith in Don. He HAS to know he’s seriously off. Yet so far he just...is blind to it (or choosing not to antagonize him??) Leo sees it immediately but Mikey just immediately defends him. We know they haven’t interacted much over the past 17 years yet he’s just...yup he’s fine.