#raph bayverse

“This is a bad idea.” Leonardo's low voice warns his hot-headed brother.

Raphael knows he can leap the alleyway easily. He's pretty sure he can perform a triple flip in the process. Sure enough that he's going to give it a go, to prove Leo's doubt in him wrong anyway. Per Mikey's dare, he's only allotted one step to perform the triple flip jump. He places his sais in his hands so they can't fall from their position at his hip, backs up the singular step he's allowed, and goes for it. His body curls in on itself, hard, carrying him through the momentum of the first two flips. For a moment, he isn't sure he'll make the third, and his arms move to aid him in his final rotation as a mild panic sets in.

Maybe Leo was right.

When his sai falls from his grip, clattering loudly to the ground of the alleyway below, Raphael’s gut sinks. Of course. Just after he sticks the landing and proves Leo wrong. He should have known it would fall into the light of the only streetlamp nearby, too. Quickly, he drops into the shadows below and sneaks forward, hoping beyond hope that he could retrieve his weapon and return to the relative safety of the shadowed rooftop with only a mid-length lecture from Leonardo rather than an hours-long scolding.

Of course, he would have no such luck.

The sound of metal clattering against the hard concrete of the alleyway as you and your date for the evening walked past. Pausing, curiosity and concern mixed in your gut as your eyes sought the source of the sound. There, on the ground in the pool of yellow light, was a strange weapon. Stepping forward to the edge of the streetlamp’s light, your hand reaches for the item. A small sound draws your attention as your fingers grap the hilt of the weapon, and your eyes drift upwards towards the source of the sound. What you see there takes a moment to process.

Standing there stock still under your gaze, Raphael mentally chides himself for such a rookie mistake. He expects a scream, expects to see fear or hatred or revulsion when your eyes fall upon him.

The fact that it never comes, that your wide eyes are filled only with curiosity has him stunned. This is uncharted territory.

It's that same surprise that lets your date land one, solid hit to his jaw and send him reeling. Distantly, he hears the insult your date throws at him.

“Get away from her, you monster!” Your date spits at him.

Ah. There it is, Raphael thinks to himself. The familiar sting of rejection.

Your date scoops you up and ushers you away from the alley. Curious eyes stay on Raphael's form until you are out of view, leaving him to process what just happened.

None of that had gone as he had anticipated. Raphael couldn't get the way you'd looked at him out of his head. His hand rises to rub at the sore spot on his jaw as he moves to sit up on the hard concrete. A mixture of shame and awe roiled in his gut - shame that your date had managed to get the upper hand, awe that someone as soft and beautiful as you had looked at him with anything other than revulsion. Disappointment fills his chest as he realizes he'll likely never see you again.

The sound of one of his brother’s quiet footsteps approaching drives the dagger of shame further into his gut. Bracing himself for the impending lecture that is sure to come, he brings back the walls he'd worked so hard to build over the years that you had seemed to crack with one simple glance. Yet again, he had failed to measure up and had let his brothers down. Self-pity and regret swirled around the shame in his gut, making him nauseous. Leonardo's condescending voice as he would surely deliver a thorough scolding was the last thing he needed - or, worse, Mikey looking at him as if he were a disappointment.

Instead of the condescension he was expecting, your quiet voice sounded from the mouth of the alleyway.

“Are you alright?” The softness in your voice as you speak startles him, and he looks up at you with wide eyes.

Yellow light from the streetlamp above frames your silhouette and his eyes grow wider with every step you take towards him. Your voice is quiet and soft when you speak, as if you were scared of frightening him off like some kind of injured animal. Maybe he is some kind of injured animal to you, he thinks with a twinge of bitterness. Then you're there in his space, kneeling in front of him as the streetlamp's yellow light shines like a halo behind your beautiful face. Your eyes are kind, concerned. Raphael struggles to process that the concern in your eyes could even remotely be for him. Tentative hands reach out and wipe the blood from his lip, stroking carefully along the quickly forming bruise on his jaw. Unconsciously, unintentionally, Raphael finds himself leaning ever so slightly into your soft touch. If you had cracked his walls earlier, surely now you were crumbling them to dust.

Finally he responds in a deep, gravely Brooklyn accent. “I’ve had worse.” He says to you, sounding a little like he can't believe any of this is happening.

“I'm sorry.” Your apology sends him reeling all over again. You were apologizing to him for your date defending you against a monster in the dark? Surely, he must have taken a harder hit to the head than he'd thought. Maybe he'd cracked his skull on the pavement when he'd went down and this was all a very pleasant, very not real dream.

Your hands retreat from his face, and Raphael struggles not to follow - not to seek out more of your gentle touch. No one had ever touched him that way before, and he thinks for a moment that he may die before anyone else ever touches him like that again. Your eyes drop from his gaze to your hand. Raphael notices now that you have something wrapped there in your pretty scarf, held close to your chest as if it were something precious. Slowly untangling your scarf from where you'd hastily wrapped it up, you reveal his now forgotten sai. He looks up at your face, sure that you would take this moment to drive it into his heart. Too stunned still by your actions, his body was too slow to catch up with this feeling of impending doom. Your eyes raise to meet his, and you extend the sai towards him.

The strike he's expecting never comes, instead feeling a much different kind of pierce to his heart as he realizes that you are handing it back to him. Somewhere in his gut, he knows it - knows that this should not be happening. You should not be here. You should be afraid. Everyone was always afraid. The cries of ‘monster’ ring fresh in his ears as if it were only moments ago he'd heard them. You should be running as far and as fast as you could, not kneeling in front of him as if you were the one liable to spook him away.

You certainly should not be handing him a weapon.

And yet. You had managed to subvert his every expectation so far. Carefully, he reaches to take his sai from your hand. A jolt of something electric runs through the both of you as his fingers brush against your own for the briefest of seconds as he takes back his weapon.

Your eyes never leave his face. After a long moment, you realize you've been staring at him for a little too long. Clearing your throat as a blush creeps across your face, you glance at the cut on his face. It's bleeding again.

“Does it hurt?” You ask him, voice soft with compassion.

It takes a moment for Raphael to process what you mean, having forgotten the ache in his jaw after staring into your beautiful eyes for so long.

“It's fine.” He grunts out, scrambling to hoist his walls back up lest he fall hopelessly in love with a woman he'd only just met.

Raising your hands to his face again, you cup the uninjured side of his jaw and dab gently at the wound in his face with your scarf. Raphael moves to bat you away.

“You're going to get your pretty scarf ruined.” He complains half-heartedly. His body is quick to betray him, though, as he leans subconsciously into the gentle caress of your hand on his jaw.

A small smile graces your lips. “Don't worry about it.” Your voice is a whisper now, and your face is close enough that he can feel your breath on his skin. His eyes widen once more, pupils blowing wide at the casual, gentle intimacy of it all. “Hold this here.” You instruct him, and his hand goes to hold your scarf to his face obediently. Surprisingly, your other hand stays on his jaw. He chides himself for being so easy for you. It was so unlike him. Raphael, who never trusted anyone, falling head over heels for a woman he's barely spoken to - for a woman who was on a date with someone else who had punched him in the face - because she was nicer than average? If he wasn't feeling so disoriented by your kindness, he would have scoffed at the ludicrousness of it.

Raphael's face looks up when he hears the quiet sound of Leo shifting on the fire escape above them, an intentional signal for Raphael to cut this little moment with you short. He shifts away from your hand, and it feels as if he were throwing himself into traffic. All he wants is to lean back into your touch, but he moves to stand nonetheless.

“Uhh. Thanks.” He tells you awkwardly in a new, gruffer tone than he'd used before. Had Leo seen his weakness? Seen how soft you'd made him in such a short time? He couldn't run the risk, had to shut you out before he fell head over heels and let his big brother down again. Raphael was supposed to be the protector, the one who was always suspicious of outsiders and kept everyone at arm's length to keep his family safe. “I gotta get going.” Reaching his hand out, he ungraciously offers your scarf back to you. “Here, you should have this back.”

That soft small returns to your face as you shake your head and curl your fingers over his, closing his hand around the scarf. “It's yours now.” Your blush deepens as you look at him. You know the moment has passed, he's already closed ranks and shut you out again, and you can't help but feel disappointed. There was almost something there between you, you were sure of it. Hiding your disappointment behind your smile, you meet his gaze. “Something to remember me by.”

Just like that, you were backing out of the alleyway. Your eyes stay trained on his massive form as you make your retreat until you can no longer make him out in the darkness. The rest of your walk home is lonely, if not uneventful.

Little do you know, four brothers keep watch over you from the rooftops, making sure you get home safe. Once you enter your apartment and lock the door behind you, Leonardo delivers the order to cut patrol short tonight and head home. Along the way, Raphael manages to mostly tune out the fearless leader’s scolding lecture as he thinks instead about the way you had approached him without fear, compassion in your eyes. The fact that you had left your date in order to return and check on him hadn't been lost on him. Finally, when they return to the lair, he retreats from Leonardo’s condescending monologue and closes himself away in his room to finally be alone and process what had happened. Removing his gear, he collapses on his mattress and lets go of the weight of Leonardo's disappointment and Michelangelo’s teasing comments.

Curled up there in his bed, finally alone, he opens his tightly fisted hand to reveal the pretty scarf he'd hidden there. Raising it nervously to his face, he leans in and inhales your scent deeply as he revels in the memory of your hand on his skin. The way you had touched him with such ease - without reservation.

Maybe dropping that sai was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

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