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thelaundrybitch · 4 months ago

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Don't mind me. Just depositing my pile of Raph lovers 😂🫶🏽💖

The Kitchen Window (pt. 1)

(Bayverse! Raphael x F! Reader)

desc- (your peace in a quiet, less than fancy apartment is being disturbed by noises in the late night hours of New York. it's none of your business- until it is.)

warnings - some mild violence

word count - 3.1k

Since you moved into that inexpensive apartment complex in lower Manhattan, you’ve remembered the alley outside of your little kitchen window being shady. Littered with garbage, cold, and dark enough during the day to shade any odd or illegal happenings. And the manhole, set dead centered, right beneath the fire escape. Late every night, like clockwork, you can hear it clatter open, all the way from your bedroom. Loud. Obnoxious. And, up until recently, absolutely none of your business to handle.

You’ve witnessed more than your fair share of crimes in that alleyway, and frankly (not that anyone could blame you), you’d wanted nothing to do with whoever or whatever was responsible for making all that noise. Whoever it was, messing with the manhole cover and clambering up the fire escape ladder, seemed completely uninterested (or unimpressed) with your quaint little home. No break-ins, no uninvited visitors, or robberies. The only thing they disturbed, were your sleeping hours. You had to wake up early for your job, and the scrape of heavy steel against concrete echoing up brick walls at the ripe hour of one in the morning was enough piss you off royally.

But alas, with the fear of interfering with some criminal activities and getting your uninvolved ass kicked, was enough to keep you in your bed and away from the windows, when your tired eyes blink open. So you keep to yourself.

Until you couldn’t.

A Friday is what keeps you up late one night. No work to be expected at 6 on a Saturday, a box of takeout from a locally owned Chinese restaurant, and the newest season of your favorite show playing on the tv in your room to keep you comfortable. You settle in your bed, a comforter pulled up to your waist, and a flimsy box of the best white rice and orange chicken you’ve ever tasted. You snicker at the thought of eating in your bed without anyone telling you it wasn’t allowed. Your mother would kill you. But you indulge anyway. This is what adult freedom is all about, isn’t it?

The show starts, and you shuffle your butt further into the mattress and take the first bite of the Chinese that warms your insides. So good.

The tv hums and you watch intently, taking small uninterested bites as the character reveals an insanely unexpected plot twist, when your phone buzzes somewhere off to your left and it pulls your attention from the tv. As you reach for it, the box of food tumbles and spills out onto the blanket. Fucking great. Just your luck. A dramatic and childish groan spills from you, annoyance apparent. What idiot forgets napkins when they’re eating in their bed? You could just hear your mom’s chastising now. Phone forgotten, you carefully slide from the bed and rush out to the kitchen to grab paper towels to clean up your mess.

The moment your foot hit that first cool, floor tile is when everything became your business.

The kitchen is dark, besides the warm, overhead light above the stove. It’s enough to light up the counters and paper towel rack on the wall, where you reach to pull a few from the roll. You glance at the stove clock.

1:03

The scraping of metal outside the adjacent window to your left pulls your attention away. You don’t know why your heart is racing. It’s always the same noise, at the same time, every night. But you're close now, close enough to let whoever is out there catch a glimpse of you in your window and draw unwanted attention to yourself. So why are you tiptoeing your way over to it, and leaning over the sink to peak outside in the dark?

It’s hard to see 2 floors down, but the room is just dark enough to let your eyes adjust and focus on the manhole, already covered again. There are whispers coming from below the fire escape, deep, masculine. And multiple voices that are fighting to stay quiet, but still harshly exchanging words. A quiet laugh. The words are hard to make out with them being just barely loud enough and overlapping.

“Come on. Quit goofing around.”

The steel balcony begins to tremble. They were climbing. The shadow of the top of one of the strangers' heads barely appears before you duck down quickly to the tile in fear of being seen.

“Hurry up Lee!”

“I’m trying, the metal’s slick!”

You can hear your heart pounding in your ears, almost drowning out their hushed voices and clanking of metal as they scale the ladder. Their shadows in front of the moonlight, huge and quick, are scattered across the floor. You wanted to just keep to yourself, to mind your own business, and avoid any and all unnecessary stress in your simple life, but that didn’t override the urge to turn and try to see what was going on just beyond the window.

Still crouched on the floor, eyes peeking above the counter, you see the silhouette of a foot leave a step and disappear above your window as they continue to scale the metal scaffolding. Their voices continued to quietly trail and climb up the side of the complex until they all but vanished from your earshot. It seemed the strangers were gone, and you were back to whatever comfort you offered yourself. Of course you were wrong. Just a few seconds longer, you could have waited, to bring yourself slowly from the floor, knees popping (curse your family’s poor joints) and a hand on the countertop to keep your balance. You lean forward once again, trying to peek upwards for any sign of the culprits.

A deep grunt and heavy thud on the balcony right in front of your face jolts your eyes directly forward to meet deep green eyes just beyond the glass. Your heart drops to your stomach at the suddenness of it all, a scaly, scarred beak-looking mouth opens in shock.

What. The fuck.

You want to shout, but nothing except a pearl-clutching gasp comes out when you stumble backwards and your ass makes contact with the hard flooring. You just wanted some napkins.

And now there’s a towering, impossible looking thing outside your window. A giant, dark, mountain of pure muscle, is staring back at you, looking twice as horrified as you feel. When you blink, whoever it is is gone, already clambering up the fire escape.

You scramble up onto your feet once again and reach to yank the window upwards all the way and stick your head out. They’re gone, all of them. Above you, there’s shouts echoing on the rooftop. You can’t bring yourself to come out. It’s not supposed to be your business. So then, why is it that when you look down and see some sort of steel, three pronged weapon on the balcony, glinting in the moonlight, that you decide to climb out and bring it through your window.

Now it's your business, as you hold it in your shaking hand in the quiet of your little kitchenette and wonder what the hell just happened.

•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•

The next week is quiet. You haven’t heard that all too familiar echo in the alley as you sleep. Not that you’d really been sleeping anyway. Or going to your locked kitchen window. You just sit in your bed, scrolling on your phone through countless news articles of strange noises in the midnight hours of New York. And the weapon rests on your bedside table for you to stare at as you recall the near traumatic experience a few night’s prior. A token of your bravery. Or whatever you want to call it. You’ve run your fingers over its sleek metal prongs many-a-time. A sai, you figured out, after an easy google search. They typically come in pairs, which meant that it was probably the twin to an identical one the stranger had. You’ve concluded it was an accident in their scurrying away out of terror. Ironic. Typically a strange, massive alienistic creature thing wouldn’t scurry from a defenseless person. They probably didn’t want to be seen. Also ironic, since that was also your goal. And here you sit on your couch remembering those strikingly human eyes. The more you sink in thought, the more curious you become, the more questions you ask yourself. And the more you want to see it again.

Your mother would advise against it of course, ever the worrier. And her voice is nagging in the back of your head telling you to just keep to yourself.

“New York is not as safe as it is here,” she warned you, “It’s best to just be careful. Keep your nose out of things you’re not involved in. You’ll be better off that way.”

Now you can’t.

You wonder if the other strangers looked like the one you’d seen up close. Were they as huge and mysterious as it? Did they have their own weapons? Were their eyes as strong in color and captivity? That was the kicker. Because as mortified as you had been, they seemed to just take hold of your every waking moment and painted onto the back of your eyelids every time you blinked.

You wanted to see them again, out of what you could only describe as morbid curiosity.

What else seemed to be so shocking was the fact that as large, and almost dangerous, as they looked, they wanted nothing to do with you. Or anybody for that matter. They were sneaky. And they’d been using your alley, since you moved in, and likely long before then, to get access to your rooftop and go along their merry way. You had nobody to talk to about this. Not that you had many friends to begin with anyhow. Besides your surface-level coworkers, and pleasant enough neighbors, you really had no one. Maybe your brother. But Vern was always busy with his own stuff. Off lollygagging in ego-land. It was funny enough you moved to New York to be closer to him, and yet you kept your distances with such different jobs and responsibilities. Big town, big dreams Vern, and little old, simple, you.

You know he would think you're something shy of insane if you told him something like this. Whatever. You were fine on your own.

And so you’d figure this one out on your own.

It took a full shift at your job to try and pull together some sort of idea, and what you had in mind didn’t seem too crazy. Though it seemed to drag on forever, another weekend came to you, a late night where this time you’d feel prepared enough to see this stranger again. It was a great idea in theory. Leaving the window just slightly open, and setting the sai on its sill. You realize, to an outsider it would look like a mousetrap. Like bait. But maybe a peace treaty could be taken from its exterior appearance. Maybe. You, at the very least, could just let it sit and allow the weapon’s owner to be reunited with it. And you did.

Waiting in your room seemed like such a trek from the kitchen, for such a quick shadow that kept to themselves in the night. You’d hoped to at least catch another glimpse of them in the moonlight. So you take to the hiding spot from the night prior, crouched close to the floor right under the sink, leaning against a cabinet and watching the oven tick its way to one. You waited. Time slugged its way along.

1:07

1:20

1:34

Disappointment sunk in your gut as you watch the clock roll and no sign of the sai’s owner. Until you hear the unmistakable sound of footsteps on the fire escape. Your heart races like it did the first time, as they climb higher up and land gently on the main footing. You peek your head just slightly to hear a quiet huff, and a hand reaches through the window and settles on the weapon.

You stand quickly, to try and stop the silhouette, and catch those eyes again. It’s not anyone you’re expecting. It’s a man, in a black baseball cap and dark clothes, and a wild look in his eyes.

“What are you doing?!” You don’t mean to shout but it startles him and he lets go of the sai, leaving it to clatter loudly into the sink. He stares at you, long, hard, and without a muscle in his face twitching, he’s moving towards the open window, and reaching for you.

“Stop! STOP!”

Your arm is snatched in an iron tight grip and he’s roughly trying to drag you out onto the fire escape. Pulling away seems fruitless, but the counter serves as a barrier between the two of you. It presses rough into your lower stomach as you struggle.

“Come on babe,” he grunts, low and foul. A hand reaches into the pocket of his hoodie, while the other holds your wrist through the passage of the window.

“Let GO!” You don’t want to see whatever he’s pulling from the sheath of his pocket, and you don’t even get the chance before a blur of pure strength lands on his right and knocks him over, losing his grip on you and sending you flying backwards onto the floor. You can’t see the man anymore from where you sit, gawking at the mountain of a figure that far surpasses the height of your window. They tower over his trembling voice that floats into your kitchen.

“What the hell ARE you?!” You hear him move up to his feet, huffing out shaky breaths.

“Your worst nightmare.” Their voice is a low, brooding, masculine growl that rumbles from their throat, “the fuck do you think you’re doing, breaking into some girls house, huh?”

They reach down and with zero effort, lift the man from his feet by the collar of his jacket, as he squeaks out a pathetic noise. You can’t tear your eyes away. They turn and throw him onto the stairs. He yelps, and you hear a punch make contact with the side of his face. They lean down close to his face, just out of your view. You can’t bring yourself to stand, or bring any attention to yourself. It’s none of your business what they say.

“If I see your face around here again, you’re a dead man.” They say in a hushed voice, “you hear me?”

The man doesn’t say anything, just shudders out a weak breath. You assume he nods

“Get the fuck out of here.”

They grab him again and turn back the other way before you hear him shout like a kicked puppy. He hits the ground with a pained cry, and then it’s quiet after his sobs slink away into the night. And as it stills, your saving grace is staring back at you through your window, eyes shadowed. They lean down just slightly enough so that you can hear.

“You okay in there?”

His voice is softer now, still low in pitch, but, far less fucking mortifying. You catch the lilt of a Brooklyn accent.

“Yeah,” is all that you can breathlessly muster. It’s all he needs to turn and leap up the stairs. You jump before you can process and practically shove your whole upper half out of the window.

“Wait!”

He’s nearly at the top, but when you call out, he stops. You get a good look at the silhouette in front of the early morning moon. Huge, broad shoulders slump with an annoyed, defeated huff, behind an armored shell. A fucking shell. He doesn't reply, waiting for you to say something.

“Is this yours?” you ask. It’s hesitant and gentle, like consoling an injured animal.

Your outreached hand holds the sai out to him. He turns to look, eyes widening at your offer. You’re surprised when he leaps back down to your balcony and you flinch back into the window, arm still outreached but shaking. The clear view of him makes your lungs stagger. A giant turtle. Huge rolling muscles, scales and scattered scars are looming far past your height and staring down at you. You feel infinitely small. Those striking eyes flick undecidedly between you and the outstretched hand, enveloped in a red bandanna that wraps over his head.

“I’ve been looking for this.”

A huge, three fingered hand pulls it from your grip. You can feel the tough scales brush over your soft skin, and you don’t even try to hide the amazed shudder.

“Thanks.”

You can’t think of anything to say, just staring up at them in astonishment as he pulled the other identical weapon from a hilt on his hip. A soft upwards tilt of the mouth indicates a smile. It disappears when those eyes are suddenly locked onto yours again.

“Got something you wanna say?” Suddenly the gruff exterior you witnessed not moments ago was back, as he shoved the sais in their respective hilts, and crossed impossibly huge arms over a broad chest.

“Thank you,” you whispered out. His eyes softened again, but not fully breaking the intimidating show they put on. To you, it seemed like a surprise to this savior that you were thanking him for saving your life.

“Yeah don’t mention it,” he turned, “Look out for yourself,” he was trying to leave, bracing to scale the steps once again.

“Wait.”

You shot your hand out without thinking, touching one of hjs arms, cool textured skin over rolling muscles. His head whipped around in surprise, eyes wide. You immediately yanked your arm back through the window.

“I-I don’t…Sorry,” you squeak out, “Tell me your name.”

The turtle squinted just slightly. A deep green, scanning, gauging, trying to see if you were playing at something. Suspicious. Untrusting.

“Please.” You huff.

“Your worst nightmare.” His grin surprised you.

And with that, he was gone. You watched, an incredulous, idiotic smile crawling it’s way across your features, as he vaulted up the top of the stairs and then pushed off to the adjacent roof of the building with an unbelievable amount of strength, tails of that unforgettable red bandanna flitting behind him, and he took off into the early hours of the morning. You're left hanging, bewildered, out of your kitchen window.

A fucking turtle. Is all you can think.

•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•

EYYYY WHAT DO Y'ALL THINKKKK??? I love how part 1 turned out, and I'm writing another part as we speak but I'm SO excited to see where this goes!!!!!! thank you all for your continued support on this page, and don't forget to PLEASE REBLOG !!

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