Raph doesn’t realize his feelings at first, writing off his sudden protectiveness as just “looking out for you.” Though you’re just a civilian caught in their world, the more you’re around, the more his tough-guy guard flinches.

You make him laugh in short, surprised bursts. He normally tries to hide it behind a smirk or a snort, but around you, he forgets to hold it back.

He shows his interest through protective rage. If someone gives you a hard time, he doesn’t offer comfort; he clenches his fists and snarls, “Give me their name.” You constantly have to talk him down from retaliation, though you know it’s his way of saying, “No one is allowed to make you unhappy.”

He’s sometimes gruff with you. Not out of anger, but because he’s scared by how much he’s starting to care. Raph isn’t used to wanting someone so much it physically aches.

He watches you with feigned indifference until someone flirts with you, then the tension is palpable. He’ll ask casually, “Who was that guy?” When you reply, “Just someone I met,” he’ll scoff, “Yeah. Whatever.” His sharp tone can’t hide the jealousy in his eyes.

The confession is an accident, bursting out when you confront him about his hot-and-cold behavior. Cornered, his defenses crumble into a frustrated yell: “BECAUSE I LIKE YOU, ALRIGHT?! HAPPY NOW?!” He immediately looks horrified, turning away to hide his sudden vulnerability, and the silence that follows is the most terrifying thing he’s ever faced.

He shares his interests by challenging you. He’ll shove a controller in your hand and say, “Bet you can’t even last one round,” but he doesn’t actually care if you win. It’s just an excuse to be near you. After you lose, his smug grin is immediately followed by, “Alright, two outta three,” just to keep you by his side.

He gives you a gift, and it’s the most Raph-like gift imaginable. It’s not flowers or jewelry. It’s something practical and protective. Maybe it’s a can of pepper spray, a portable flashlight for your keychain, or an enforced lock for your door. He presses it into your hand, muttering, “Here. Don’t be an idiot and actually use it.” It’s his way of trying to keep you safe when he can’t be there.

Raph’s idea of romance is adrenaline-fueled. His idea of a perfect date isn’t a candlelit dinner but speeding through empty city streets on his motorcycle or sitting on a ledge of a rooftop. He loves sharing the thrill of being alive and being on the edge with you.

He insists on teaching you self-defense. “Harder,” he’ll grunt as you practice, not because he’s a harsh teacher, but because his worst nightmare is you being unable to defend yourself. Seeing you grow stronger under his guidance makes him incredibly proud.

He doesn’t call you “babe” or “sweetheart.” He calls you by your name, or some gruff nickname like “trouble” or “smartass” with surprising affection. But when he slips out a quiet, “Hey, baby,” it melts you.

You roast him constantly, and he lives for it. Call him a meathead and he grins. Call him a softie and he rolls his eyes—then pulls you into his lap and purrs, “I dare you to say it again.”

Physical touch is his love language. He is always seeking contact: a hand on your waist or pulling you into his lap. He’ll let you trace his scars, a history of his life that he only trusts you to touch. Your hand in his is his anchor.

He picks you up just because he can. It’s playful. You could be walking through the lair, and suddenly you’re over his shoulder. “Put me down!” you say. His reply, with a teasing smirk: “Say please.”

He introduces you to his version of a “spa day.” It involves the two of you working on the Shell Cycle. He’ll hand you a wrench and give you simple tasks, explaining what each part does. There’s grease, the smell of oil, and classic rock blasting from a speaker. It’s loud and messy, but it’s his happy place, and he’s letting you in.

Raph hates feeling jealous. When someone flirts with you, he goes quiet and broody. Then he pulls you closer, glaring daggers, making it crystal clear you’re taken. He doesn’t admit it right away, but it’s fear—because he’s scared someone else will come along, someone “normal.” Someone who doesn’t live in a sewer or fight Foot ninjas. You have to remind him: He’s it for you.

Seeing you hurt unleashes his worst fears. “What the hell happened?” he’ll demand, his voice all panic. He’ll hover over you, his hands trembling as he scolds you through a cracked voice, “I told you to stay behind me.” Even when you say, “I’m okay, Raph,” his fear remains: “You could’ve not been.” That night, he barely lets you leave his side. He sleeps on the floor next to the couch just to be near you. When you wake up, you find his hand still wrapped loosely around yours.

You are the only person he is truly soft with. He lets his guard down for you, sharing fears and thoughts that he even hides from his brothers, especially after a tough night.

He hides his pain by shutting down or relentlessly punching the training dummy, but you know the signs. You approach gently, promising, “You don’t have to talk, but I’m not going anywhere.” That’s all it takes for his shoulders to drop. He’ll sit beside you and finally admit, “I hate how much I feel sometimes. But you make it better.”

He only lets out his verbal affection at night. When his guard is down, he’ll pull you close and whisper, “I ain’t ever felt like this before. You get that, right?” He’ll wait for your nod before kissing your head and confessing, “Good. ‘Cause I don’t wanna feel it with anyone else.”

He gets into fights for you, but only in secret. If he overhears someone catcall you, he’ll circle back after you’re gone. That person might later find themselves hanging from a fire escape with a gruff warning to be more respectful and to stay away. You just notice that, after a while, creeps on your block give you a wide berth.

You become his reason. On the worst nights, when a mission goes wrong, and he’s beaten and bruised, thinking of you is what gets him back on his feet. He fights harder, pushes himself further, because he has to make it home. You are not his weakness; you are a source of strength. To be loved by Raph is to be the calm center of his personal hurricane, the one person who makes the fight worth it.

Dating Raph feels like standing in a storm with someone who holds lightning in his hands but shields you from every bolt. He’s intense. Protective. Loyal to a fault. And once he’s yours, he’s all in.

The weight of the baby, predictably, has become a topic of contention. Not the actual weight, not really, though that is certainly present. It’s more about the symbolism. Each extra pound is a tangible reminder of the life growing inside you, a constant ticking clock hurtling towards a monumental, life-altering event that can’t be truly prepared for. For you, it’s exciting; a little daunting, but ultimately a joyful anticipation. For Raph, it seems to be morphing into something else.

It’s the constant, subtle reminder in every movement, every ache, every breath; each day, you, both of you, are getting closer to having your lives changed. A change bigger than any he’s ever had to take upon, which, all things considered, is saying something. The troublesome thoughts that come with this expectation only get louder, yet Raphael refuses to acknowledge them. Try as he may, the fact that he has been so riddled with more nerves than thrilled anticipation can’t be hidden. Not from you. You know him too well.

So, then, he compensates by upping the ante with his usual manners of looking after you. Occasional lifts out of bed turn into being carried to and from virtually everywhere and anywhere, provided he’s around to do it. All instances are paired with flirtatious remarks to your objections, only there’s a subtle shift: the playful boasts are edged with something deeper, almost desperate.

“See?” he grunts, his biceps barely straining as he steals you from the kitchen stool. “Said I could still handle ya.” That grin is there as always, but the creases around his eyes suggest a weariness you hadn’t noticed before.

“I’m getting too heavy for this,” you oppose apprehensively.

“Nah, you’re light as a feather.”

You placidly swat his chest, fighting the smile on your face more than actually fighting him. “I’m practically a watermelon, Raph. You don’t have to prove anything.”

“Watermelons are sweet,” he retorts, “and lucky to be held by me.”

The way he smirks at you makes your cheeks tint the same colour as the inside of one, distracting you from how dense his voice is with this forced lightness. Huffing, you just bury your face in his shoulder, missing the fact that he ignores your statement between the hormones and his flustering you. For the time being, that is. The signs recur intermittently, regardless of how frequently he attempts to cosy the wool over your eyes with amorous one-liners and tender-stemmed indulgences.

He isn’t just overcompensating, he’s trying to settle something, whilst, ironically, being unsettled.

Nights, too, experience the backlash of these inheld contemplations. You awake to find him staring pensively at the ceiling, bathed in the faint glow of fairylights you had insisted on when you first started staying here all those years ago. They do little to soften the sharpened bunch of his brows. He has an arm behind his head, the other around you, but he’s miles away as he strokes your shoulder.

"Raph?" you murmur drowsily, trying to pick at his face against your heavy eyelids.

Startled, his gaze snaps down towards you. "Sorry, doll. Didn't mean to wake ya."

"You okay?"

"Yeah.” He hesitates, a flicker of uncertainty crossing his face. “Just thinkin'."

"About?"

His hand moves from your shoulder to your hair. “Don’t worry about it. Go back to sleep for me, okay?”

As his fingers push into the achiest parts of your scalp, your eyes droop, but you know what he’s doing. It’s what he’s been trying to do for a few weeks now, and frankly, you’re growing tired of it. In an act of defiance, you slowly jerk away from his hypnotising ministrations to look him in the eyes, your own blinking out of sync in an attempt to address him adamantly.

“Babe.”

“Please?” He parrots your feathered urgency, spinning it back on you, much to your worry. “You need your rest.”

Stubbornness, it seems, is as intrinsic to his being as his very shell. He cups the back of your head and coaxes you into a more appropriate position, leaving it there for you to try and sleep on, but this wouldn’t be the last of it.

In one of your evening couch sessions, you embrace what has become a ritual: you perched at his front, the press of your back perfectly moulded against his chest, and his strong arms wrapped around just above the swell of your stomach. The rhythmic rub of his hand on your bump is a balm to your aching spine and swollen feet. You always melt, lulled by the warmth, the steady beat of his heart against your shoulder blades, and the low rumble of his voice as he occasionally mutters something unintelligible. It’s heaven personified. At least, it would be if it weren’t for the tension beneath the surface of his affection; moments of silence, even peace, that are unsafe from the belligerent anxieties he refuses to express. Whether it’s the quiet deliberation in his eyes, a hesitant pause in his touch, he was thinking, and when Raphael thought too much, he worried. You’ve all but become privy to just how often he’s gotten like this.

As his thumb runs over the same loosened thread of your shirt - likely loose because of the repetitive action - he ruminates. There are so many questions, too many unknowns, that he isn’t sure he has the strength to challenge. Weirdly, having that conversation with Mikey about it has helped. Leave it to him to come out with the unexpected and profound truths. No family is perfect, least of all theirs, but he wants this to be perfect. It’s the least you deserve, what your kid deserves. He knows he's going to have to talk to you about all of this. He just wishes he knew how to bring it up without sounding like an idiot.

"Something's on your mind,” he suddenly hears you mumble. “I can tell."

You can always tell, he swears, even without trying. He should be thankful for that, genuinely he is, but there’s a lump at the base of his skull, and its main aim is to halt these thoughts from slipping past his tongue. You crane your head back to look at him, awaiting those very thoughts, holding onto the thin piece of thread in the hopes that it’ll snap and allow him the space he needs to speak. For the courage he’s been building up to drop into a moment like this, temptation’s whisper urges him to back out. He knows he can’t, though. You won’t let him, and his head folds back into the headrest as he rallies it all into something tangible.

"What if," he starts, low and treading, "the kid just, I dunno, hates me?"

You chuckle softly, but not with any intention to poke fun at him. "Raph, they're not even born yet. How could they hate you?"

"They could have a sixth sense or somethin’. What if they can already tell I'm not cut out for this?"

His brows furrow, a flash of insecurity jolting the upturned stare behind his mask that so hopelessly tries to hide it. Fatherhood may not come as naturally to him as he would like it to. ‘Natural’ isn’t a word that fits into his entire family and the system they’ve ridden on. He’s more used to patching up wounds, both physical and emotional, not wiping noses and reading bedtime stories.

You bite your lip to suppress a grin, finding his concerns both endearing and amusing. "You think our unborn child is judging you? I doubt they’re sitting in there with a scorecard."

"You know what I mean,” he grumbles, eyes slanting down at you satirically before flicking up again. The tucked groove of his cheeks eases, but not into a calm. It’s more like despondent resignation, and that just breaks your heart, though not nearly as much as the weakness in his throat when he speaks again. “I could mess this up. I know nothin’ about kids. Spinta’ll tell ya’, I was a handful. What if… they’re like me?”

"Then I’d feel lucky,” you answer without missing a beat. “I would be so incredibly lucky knowing that I have two very strong, very passionate, and very loving people in my family.”

You reach down for one of his hands, lacing your fingers through his, but he only hums in response, still unconvinced. The hold that is typically so soft towards you is tough and constrictive, as if any gap left between your skin will let these worries fabricate into the real world. He’s heard those observations before. More than he can count. You have and still always make a point to remind him of his desirable qualities, but they’re not all good. Raphael can’t take them into account without first recognising the bad ones. He can see it so vividly, the grim likelihood of losing his temper with his own kid, and being feared as some monster rather than the father he’s supposed to be. He knows logically that he'll be okay, that he'll figure it out, that he has you to lean on should things get difficult, but logic doesn’t always win against a lifetime of ingrained self-doubt.

You turn, pressing your palms into his plastron for leverage, and he holds his arms out for you with his full attention now, only proving the point you're about to make. "Raph, you're going to be an amazing dad. Maybe not perfect, but great. You care too much not to be." Smiling sweetly, you grab one of his knuckles and bring it up to your lips. "Just look at how you take care of me."

He softens at that, his expression becoming more thoughtful. "You really think so?"

"I know so,” you confirm, pushing your scrunched nose against his. “Don’t forget, we’re in this together. You, me, and this little watermelon.”

The corny joke gets a laugh out of him, finally, and he wraps his arms around you as best as he can with the ‘watermelon’ kicking about. That’s the cherry on top: they’re not even born yet, and already the small miracle growing inside you is demonstrating exactly what you’ve been trying to preach. You know it, they know it, you just hope that Raph comes to realise it, too. He might not be completely convinced, the worry will still linger, but you knew you'd planted a seed of reassurance.

He exhales, and the strain of his body disintegrates beneath you, even just a little. “Thanks, doll.”

“For what?” you ask, grinning.

“Bein’ you,” he mumbles fondly. “Makin’ me a dad.”

A choked snort ripples in the back of your nose. "You really are just goo under all that tough shell, huh?"