Witch hunt

by Snowivy

Summary:

When Robin meets Regina, he knows she's the woman who had his wife killed. The reason his family has been torn apart. Yet, he finds himself inexplicably unable to exact his revenge on her.

 

>October challenge day 4

Notes:

OutlawQueen was a mood for a little while there. So, let's add a little *spice*, a little *toxicity*, to this ship, shall we?

(Also, in my head canon, Robin and Snow already knew each other when they met in the EF)

Chapter 1

---

Robin stares at the woman on the ground. He knows who she is, of course he does. 

The Queen. 

The woman who killed Marian. The woman who tore his family apart. 

He's just saved her life. 

His hand twitches towards the knife he keeps sheathed at his side, for emergencies. He could do it. None of his men would blame him. In fact, they'd probably praise him for it. 

The moment is gone when the figure next to the Queen rises, it takes Robin a second to place her, but when he does, all thoughts of revenge are forgotten.

“Snow!’ he says, and the woman stares at him openly. 

“Robin?” she ventures.

Behind her, the Queen rises and brushes dust and dirt off her black dress. 

Why is Snow White traveling with her? 

Snow breaks out into a grin and pulls him into a hug. Forgetting the Queen, he embraces her fondly. 

It has been a long time since he's seen his friend, and he won't let that woman spoil the moment. 

He is curious though, and so as they walk, having decided to head to the castle together, he asks her about it.

Snow smiles at his questions, 

“Things have…changed,” she says, “Regina, she’s different now, she sacrificed a lot, for us.”

Robin's eyebrows draw together, his gaze falling on the woman, whose name is Regina, he now knows. 

“you’ve forgiven her?” he asks, “after everything she's done?”

Snow shrugs, “she's family.”

Robin's jaw clenches, family or not, the woman is a murderer. A tyrant. 

Roland runs ahead of them, and Robin can't help the thought of Marian. He tries not to think of her often, tries to forget the reason she's no longer with him.

It's his fault, in a way. But it's hers, too. 

Regina. 

The name circles his mind like a shark, over and over again, as they journey together. 

When she saves Roland's life, he's temporarily taken aback. 

A large creature had lunged at him, and the Queen had pulled him out of harm's way. 

The creature had been aiming for her, however, and Robin's heart hardens again. She may have saved him, but it was her fault he'd been in harm's way. 

It's later that day, when he and his men have set up camp just outside the castle,protected by an impenetrable magical shield, that he sees her.

She walks with ease through the undergrowth, heading somewhere behind the castle walls. 

Without thinking, he rises and follows her. Halfway through camp, Little John stops him with a look. 

His best friend raises an eyebrow, Robin stops, standing up straight. 

“You know I have to,” he says, quiet enough that no one can hear. John knows. He has to avenge Marian. 

Little John thinks on this for a moment, his lips pressed together, then he gives a curt nod.

“Be careful, she's dangerous.”

As if he doesn't know that.

She stops before a gigantic stone, covered in moss. He squats behind a nearby bush. With a flick of her wrist, the stone rises high in the air. She sends it flying somewhere behind her. Under it, is a trapdoor.

Robin bites his lower lip. He hates magic. 

He climbs down into the darkness behind her. 

His footsteps are as quiet as a mouse, he's a thief and knows exactly how to become invisible. She can't possibly hear him, or know he's there. He's five or six steps behind her, his way lit only by the fire she holds in her open palm. Magic, again. 

She stops and looks up at the ceiling. He follows her gaze, but there's nothing there. His eyebrows furrowing in confusion, his gaze falls back to her. She's turned towards him, one eyebrow raised. 

“Can I help you?” she asks, her voice biting. 

This is the third time they've talked, and the first he's been so close to her. Her eyes glow a warm brown, as if lit from within. Her dark hair is tied back in a tight ponytail. She's nothing if not intimidating. 

Robin hardens his eyes and juts his jaw. 

“I thought you might like some company,” he says, keeping his voice light, “it might be dangerous down here.”

It's the wrong thing to say and he knows it. Her eyes flicker with annoyance. She turns, walking away.

“I don't need company, or help,” she says, “but if you're going to follow me anyway, do me a favor and don't get yourself killed.”

His fingers tighten around his bow. 

They're deep in the belly of the earth now, walking beside one another in the dark tunnel. It would be the perfect time to strike. She's distracted, her palm open, holding the ball of magical fire. 

He lets himself fall back, his hand tightening around the hilt of his dagger. If he can just…

She stops his movement with one arm. There are tiles on the floor ahead of them, on either side, spikes threaten to lacerate anyone stupid enough to walk through. 

“Step between them,” she orders.

He does, copying her footsteps exactly. 

“I hope you didn't let me come with you just to have me killed,” he says, the possibility of that dawning on him. She knows this place, he doesn't.

“Roland's already lost his mother, I'd hate for him to lose his father, too.”

She turns to him, a humorless smile on her lips, “then you should have stayed with the others.”

He swallows, falling into step beside her. He was stupid to come here with her. She's dangerous, just like Little John said. And she's ruthless.

Is his revenge worth his life? 

Marian wouldn't want this, wouldn't want him to leave Roland alone just to avenge her. He closes his eyes for a moment, the memory of her still painful. 

Regina's words bring him back to the present, to the dark, damp tunnel. To the woman he's planning to kill.

“Roland's mother, what happened to her?” she asks. 

It takes him a moment to answer, he can't reveal the truth, can't let her suspicions be aroused.

“She was arrested,” he says slowly, “and executed, for crimes I committed.”

That was all true. 

“For crimes you committed?” she asks.

He breathes out, “she had no part in them,” his voice comes out bitter, “it's my fault she's dead.”

That's true, too. And he'd never forgive himself for it.

Regina looks at him from the corner of her eye, studies his expression.

“Where are we going?” he asks, to change the subject. 

“My mother's crypt,” she says, her voice betrays no emotion, “it's a secret entrance to the castle.”

Her hands clench, and the fire goes out for a moment. Now is the time to strike. He feels for his dagger. He'd prefer to shoot her, but in close quarters, a slash to the throat is preferable. 

It almost scares him, the ease with which he's fallen into an assassin's mind. 

“I ordered her death,” Regina says, the fire lighting in her palm again, she's ahead of him, two steps, maybe three.

Her words register in his mind and his eyebrows draw together.

“You–”

“I have lost people, too. More than I care to admit, and more often than not, it was my fault.”

He swallows, his dagger is halfway out of its sheath now.

“Including a child?” He asks, to keep her talking. 

“Yes,” she says, simply, “my son, he's not dead. Just lost to me forever.”

He's a step behind her now, his dagger unsheathed, at chest height. 

She turns, stepping into him, so that they're inches apart.

“If you're going to kill me,” she says, “make it quick.”

He stares down at her. There is no fear in her eyes, though she can see the knife in his hand, and knows what he wants. There's no fight in her features.

His hand stops halfway through the air. 

It would be so simple to kill her now. He could drive the dagger into her throat, and she'd be dead within seconds. 

He slips the knife back into its sheath.

“What happened to your son?” He asks.

She raises a brow, then turns, walking away from him. She begins to tell him of her son.  

---

Later, he tells John he didn't get a chance to hurt her. Next time, he tells his friend, next time I'll get her. 

He's sure it's true.

It was to be expected, he thinks as he lies in his tent, his son's small body sleeping next to him. He's never killed before, it's normal to be unsure. She'd reacted unexpectedly, too. He'd been ready for her to fight him, to attack him. Her resignation had stopped him in his tracks. 

Next time, he thinks.

Over the next few days, the company settles into the newly reclaimed castle. 

Robin and his merry men are given one of the old servant's quarters, at their request. It's a squat, long room. Hay mattresses line the sides, and the men take them gratefully. They're more comfortable than a tent. 

Robin doesn't see her again, not for days. He and his men take their meals in the big dining hall, they spend their time hunting and drinking. With the occasional petty theft. 

Robin spends his nights thinking of how he let revenge slip through his fingers.

Regina could be dead now. His heart could be at peace, knowing he'd killed the woman who'd executed Marian. Knowing he'd avenged his wife.

Instead, he let compassion win. 

Next time, he thinks. 

The worst of it is, she’s in the castle. Sleeping somewhere above him, in one of the many luxurious chambers. 

Robin could simply look for her. 

He doesn't, but his opportunity does come. 

He’d decided to explore the castle, having grown a little tired of his men's constant presence, as he does sometimes. Roland is with them, raised more by the village than by him. 

A pang of guilt goes through Robin at the thought, but it doesn't stop his feet from taking him somewhere behind the old kitchens.

There's a door, giving out into a courtyard or garden of some kind. He walks out into the afternoon sun. It's cold and snow crunches under his boots as he walks. 

The garden is stunning, trees and bushes of every kind have been planted in perfect symmetry. He follows the gravel path which winds around a long fountain. 

It's then that he sees her. Sitting on a bench, turned away from him, her dark hair gives her away. 

Regina. 

The name that's been haunting him since before he's known it. 

His heart stops along with his feet. 

Another opportunity.

Swallowing, he walks to her, sitting down on the bench. 

She's wearing a black dress again, but simpler in style, and her hair looks softer somehow.

“Hello,” he says. 

She inclines her head to one side, not looking at him.

“What are you doing here?” He asks.

She looks cold. 

“Just…thinking.”

“About?”

“I had these planted when I first married,” she says, apparently ignoring his question. 

He follows her gaze, noting for the first time the dozens of apple trees that grow in this corner of the garden. It's winter, and logically the trees should be bare. They are heavy with fruit. 

“When you married Snow's father?” He asks, curious despite himself.

“The King, yes.”

“Did you love him?”

The question makes her laugh, and he doesn't press it further when she doesn't answer. 

She gets up, and he's sure he's lost another chance. But all she does is walk to one of the trees and take an apple. 

She offers it to him. 

The fruit is deep red, almost burgundy.

Without thinking, he recoils from her offer.

She laughs again, her dark eyes sparkling.

“I can't say I blame you,” she says, sitting back down next to him. 

He can smell the scent of her hair now, and feel the warmth of her body through his clothes. 

“Pick one yourself,” she says, biting into the apple, “they're delicious.”

He gets up and takes one out of the tree, he takes a bite. 

She's right, the apple is the best he's ever tried. The crispy fruit explodes with flavor in his mouth, and he sits back down to eat it. 

When she's done, she throws the core somewhere in the grove, and then pulls her knees to her chest. She looks like a child, her legs pulled up onto the bench, her chin on her knees.

“Why didn't you kill me when you had the chance?” she asks.

He swallows the last morsel of fruit then throws the core away. 

“I assume you have a reason you want me dead,” she continues, her eyes meeting his, “I'm sure it's a good reason.”

It is a good reason. She killed Marian. She doesn't even remember it. 

“I…” he trails off, “I've never killed before.”

She sits on her knees next to him, her head inclined to one side. 

“Well then,” she says, bending over him she grabs the dagger from his side. He leans back, away from the unexpected closeness. She sits back on her legs, his dagger in hand. Fear courses through his veins. 

He should've killed her when he had the chance. Now he's going to die for his mercy. 

She takes the dagger by the blade and offers him the hilt. 

Blinking back confusion, he takes it.

“I have killed many, many times,” she says, taking his wrist, “so let me show you,” she guides his wrist down, so that the point of the dagger pushes into her belly, “here, it would be a slow, painful death,” she pulls his hand up, the dagger now at her sternum, “here it's quick, but you need to push it in with force,” again, she pulls his hand up, the dagger at her throat, the sharp blade digs into her skin, blood welling up under it, “a quick death,” she says, “but lots of blood.” 

He stares at her, her gaze still on his. There isn't a hint of fear in her. 

He draws the dagger back as a thin rivulet of blood runs down her neck. 

He can't do it. 

He has to do it. 

She watches him expectantly. 

He'll hate himself forever if he doesn't do it. 

The dagger sits limply in his lap. With his free hand he reaches up and cups her jaw. Pulling her close, he presses his lips to hers. 

For a moment she blinks at him, but when she tries to pull away he holds onto her, and her eyes flutter shut. 

His tongue sneaks out of its own accord, running along her lips, sliding into her mouth. 

She tastes like apples. 

When he pulls away, his heart is beating like a thunderstorm in his chest. Her cheeks are flushed pink, and he's satisfied to note her breathing is fast and shallow.

He gets up and walks away. All but running back to the quarters he shares with his men. 

His mind spins in empty circles as he sits down for dinner that night. 

He was supposed to kill her. 

Supposed to avenge Marian's death. 

Instead he…he can't even think it. 

That night he lies awake on his mattress. The sounds of his men, his brothers in arms, snoring all around him. It's a sound he's used to, and should ease him into sleep. 

Sleep, however, doesn't come for him tonight. He stares up at the ceiling and thinks of her. Of her lips, of the way she'd looked at him. Of how he should have killed her when he had the chance. 

His son sleeps at his feet, or at John's head, depending on one's perspective. 

Marian's son. The boy created from their love. 

And he had loved her, more than anything. 

He sighs in the dark. 

Robin gets up, making his way through the men sleeping on the ground. 

Can't sleep, going for a walk. 

He practices the words in his head, in case one of his men wakes up and questions him.

Can't sleep, going for a walk. 

It's not a lie. 

Except he finds his feet take him in the direction of the chambers he knows are occupied by the royals. Snow has told him where they're sleeping, and he's certain she's there too.

He wanders the halls aimlessly for a long time, he doesn't want to look for her, but wants to find her. 

He's almost given up, when he sees light shining from under one of the doors. Thick mahogany, beautifully engraved. This room belongs to a noble. 

He stops. There's no sound from within, but under the door, firelight dances red and yellow. 

It's her room, he's sure. 

He stands there for longer than he cares to admit. His mind feels split in two. If his men knew they'd question his sanity. He's questioning his sanity. 

Robin has made his fair share of mistakes in the realm of women. Had been drawn in by a pretty face and a quick tongue, much to his detriment. But never would he have thought he could sink so low. 

He walks away slowly. The desire coursing through his veins is expected, he supposes, he's just a man after all. And she's a beautiful woman, he's not going to deny that. What distresses him is the ache in his chest.

He slips into the kitchens, a glass of something warm, and maybe alcoholic, will help him sleep. He's warming up some wine when a voice startles him.

“Hello,” she says. 

He spins around, his back to the wide kitchen stove. 

She's years younger, without her heavy makeup and dramatic garments. Her hair falls in soft waves down her shoulders, over a simple white nightgown. She looks smaller, too. 

He blinks, swallowing back a cry of surprise, 

“How did you get here?” he asks, he's sure he would’ve heard the door open.

She shrugs, “were you looking for me?” 

He presses his lips together, nothing good can come of admitting the truth. But he's also not a liar. 

Regina smirks, “you’re conflicted,” she says, stepping closer to him. He doesn't budge, that would mean defeat. 

“You're not sure if you want me, or you want to kill me,” she continues, she might be smiling, she might just be showing her teeth. 

This woman, who wouldn't know good if it struck her in the face, is laughing at him. Is challenging him.

He clenches his jaw, hard, and steps into her space. He's much bigger than her, and uses his height to stare her down. 

Regina looks up at him, a sardonic smile on her lips. 

“You're enjoying this,” he says. 

Her eyes glimmer in the semidarkness, “I am,” she admits, “it's rather fun, watching you fight your own conscience.”

His hands ball into fists by his side, “I'm not fighting anything,” he lies, “I want to kill you.”

“Yet, I've given you two opportunities, and I'm still here.”

He doesn't know what to say to that, she's right. 

“What would your men think,” she muses, “if they knew where you were right now?” 

Robin closes his eyes, his heart burns, war wages in his chest.

“They'd think I was losing my mind,” he admits, “and, frankly, I agree with them.”

“But if you killed me, you'd be a hero.”

“Yes,” he would be, the man who destroyed the Evil Queen. 

When he opens his eyes, her head is inclined to one side and she studies him carefully. 

“Then why don't you?” she asks. 

Yes, why doesn't he?

Slowly, carefully, he wraps his fingers around her throat. His hand covers her neck. She doesn't step away, but her lips fall open. It could be desire, it could be fear. 

Robin tightens his hold, cutting off her air. Her gaze stays on his, even as her breathing comes in short gasps. 

She whimpers, and the sound goes straight to his groin. His mind blanks and he relaxes his hold on her. 

She takes gulping breaths, but doesn't pull away from his touch.

He wants her. 

There's no denying the ache that's settled between his legs, or the way his breeches strain to contain him. 

Robin is an honorable man, an honorable thief. And this woman is the very opposite of that. Yet…

He leans down and captures her lips in his, she responds to the kiss fiercely, her fingers sliding in his hair. 

It's nothing like before, on the bench. This kiss is passionate, full of lust and desire. Her fingernails scratch the back of his head, as she pulls him down to her. 

Still holding her throat, he spins her around, pushing her up against the kitchen. She moans quietly as he presses against her, his erection against her stomach. 

The sound makes him angry, reminds him he shouldn't be doing this. Reminds him he should be killing her. Tightening his grip around her neck, he growls as she leans her head back, struggling for air. He watches her eyes widen as her body fights to breathe, inches away from her, her breath quick on his skin. She squirms against him, whining quietly. Swallowing his desire, he let's go of her. 

Once she can breathe again, she smiles at him. He wants to push her away, to tell her this was a mistake. 

It is a mistake. 

Stroking her bottom lip with his thumb, he studies her face. Her tongue darts out to lick him, her eyes on his, pupils blown wide. 

His other hand slides down her body, over her breasts. Her nipples grow hard under his touch, and she gasps softly in pleasure. 

He's gone. 

He knows, perhaps knew from the moment he rose from his bed, he can't stop himself. 

His honor be damned.

He spins her around, pushing her down onto the counter with one hand. His other runs along the back of her thigh, under her nightgown. Placing one foot between her legs, he forces them open, and slides his hand further up. 

He groans softly as his hand skims over her, she's wet and ready. She whimpers under his touch, his fingers thrusting shallowly into her. 

His cock strains against his breeches, he needs her, now. Undoing the fastenings keeping him bound, he lets his trousers fall to the ground, and lines himself up against her. He wants to take her as quickly as he can, every fiber of his body screaming at him, but he forces himself to slow down. He pushes the tip in, and revels in her squirming between his hands. 

She gasps under him, moving back over him. As he slides in deeper, pleasure overtakes his mind.

It has been much too long, since he's been with a woman. Her tight wetness threatens to push him over the edge in seconds. 

He presses his fingernails into his palms and concentrates. 

Her moan as he enters her fully doesn't help.

Holding on to her hips, he sets a hard pace. He's normally a generous lover. But not with her. 

He takes her hard, letting instinct take over. She doesn't seem to mind, as her whimpers grow louder, her muscles clenching around him faster, more erratically. Stars dance behind his closed lids. 

She feels incredible around him, and he knows he won't last much longer. Pleasure builds inside him, and he can't think of anything but her. How she feels around him, the sounds of her pleasure. He holds back a groan.

With another thrust, he pulls out, spilling his seed over her thighs. 

Regina stills in his hands. Her breathing ragged. Holding on to the counter for stability, he moves away from her, his vision has gone temporarily black. 

With some difficulty he pulls his breeches back up, keeping his eyes shut. 

When he opens his eyes, she's looking at him, her pupils still blown wide. 

Before he can think, before he can talk himself out of it, he moves to her, kneeling before her. 

Holding her nightgown out of the way, he runs his tongue over her. He almost groans, of course she tastes like heaven. And why not? He's already lost. 

She whines and lets her legs fall open again, her fingers slipping in his hair. Robin runs his tongue lazily over her, enjoying the sounds she's making above him. 

When she can't take it anymore, she moans his name. That's when he knows he's truly ruined. 

He speeds up, grazing his teeth over her before licking in just the right spot. He may be a good man, but he knows what he's doing. Soon, her moans are coming in one after the other, and she's swearing under her breath. 

Robin slides one finger into her, just as she goes over the edge, her muscles clamp down on him hard, and he resolves to be inside her next time. 

When he stands, she's unstable on her feet, so he wraps one arm around her, holding her up. 

She holds on to him, her fingers on his arms, her head on his chest. 

If only she weren't who she was. If only. 

He presses a kiss to the crown of her head. She smells like apples and cinnamon. Sweet and wonderful. 

She pulls away first, sliding away from him, putting space between them.

He watches her fingers tap silently on the counter, she doesn't look at him now. All her earlier boldness gone.

When she finally meets his eyes, there's something like defiance there. 

“I guess you've decided, then,” she says.

“Decided what?”

“What you wanted from me.”

He inclines his head, “I guess I have.”

She looks thoughtful for a moment, then she nods. 

“Goodnight,” she says. She doesn't wait for his response before turning and leaving.

Robin takes a goblet and pours himself his now boiling hot wine. 

---

 

Chapter 2

Notes:

Hello, I'm backkkk with chapter 2. Thanks to the people who asked me about this story and who commented on it and made me want to keep writing it!!! I have also already thought of a chapter 3, however I have no idea when I'll write it. I wrote chapter 1 in in one day and chapter 2 in two months so I suppose between one day and two months is the approximate timeline. Anywho. Hope you enjoy it!! Hearts hearts kisses kisses 🥰🥰🥰

 

---

Robin awakes in a clearing. His head throbs, around him, the merry men groan. Above him, the sky is a flat white. 

When he stands, he's no longer home.

Where the hell are they? 

He takes John to explore, the others are left in the forest, that isn't their forest.

Soon, they find their way to a road. It's strange, hard and gray. A long yellow line painted on the ground.

“What is this place?” John asks. 

Robin grips his bow tighter. 

Following the road, they find their way into a town. The houses are strange, too. There are carriages with no horses, and lamp lights with no fire. 

They must have reached the town center, because suddenly the street is full. People make way for them, looking warily at Robin's bow, and John's sword.

He can feel panic begin to burn in his belly, and fights hard to keep it down. John is scared enough for both of them. The big man breathes hard behind Robin as they walk.

“Hey!” A voice calls out,“Robin?” 

He turns, Snow White stands a few paces from him. 

Relief floods him. Someone he knows. Someone he trusts.

“Snow!” He walks to her, pulling her into an embrace. 

She's very round, very pregnant.

“Wow, you're..”

She grins sheepishly, “apparently, yes.”

There's a man beside her, dark blue eyes asses Robin carefully. Her husband, he surmises. 

Stepping away from the princess, he holds out his hand.

“Robin Hood.” 

The man takes it, “David.”

“Robin Hood?” A woman asks from beside him. She's blonde, and wearing a sheriff's star on her gray trousers.

He inclines his head, “and this is my companion, little John.”

“Companion?” The woman chokes.

“As in; friend,” Snow says to her, “this is my daughter, Emma,” she introduces the sheriff. 

Robin's eyebrows rise as he takes her hand, the woman, Emma, is no younger than Snow.

“It's complicated,” Snow says.

“I see,” he wants to ask, but there seem to be more pressing matters at hand.

“Where are we?” He asks, beside him John still holds his sword unsheathed by his side. 

Snow sighs, “Storybrooke, the land without magic.”

Snow takes them to an inn, it says Granny's diner in big pink lettering over the door. Inside, she takes them up the stairs and into a room.

Robin stands by the hearth, his eyebrows drawn together.

“Hey, could you not wave that thing around?” The sheriff asks him, she points to his bow. 

He never likes sheriffs, funnily enough.

Emma gives him an apologetic smile, “you see, my son doesn't know about the curse, or the enchanted forest, it would freak him out to see someone carrying a bow and arrow.”

Robin inclines his head to one side.

“You can carry a gun,” Emma tells him, pulling out a metal object from her waistband. She gives it to him.

A gun.

He stares down at it as Emma explains how it works. 

Take the safety off, point, shoot. 

Seems simple enough. 

Robin stands with his back to the big chimney, he turns the gun in his hand. The sheriff has told him he can keep it.

The sky outside is white, promising snow, and Robin is grateful for the fire roaring in the hearth as the others tell him of Storybrooke, its history and downfall. 

It had been the Queen, who created it in the first place. The woman had cast a curse, and now had found her way back into Snow's good graces, by sacrificing her happy ending to save everyone's lives.

Robin doesn't comment.

The others tell him and John everything.

“So, someone's cursed us to this land, made us forget a whole year of our lives, and we don't know who that someone is?” John summarizes once they're done, he sits on the plush armchair. Snow and David take up the loveseat. 

At the window, the sheriff looks out, her eyebrows drawn together. They've been joined by another man, a pirate who'd introduced himself as Killian Jones. 

Robin had heard of him. Not good things. He keeps that to himself. 

“Exactly,” Snow says, “and we can't seem to figure out how to get our memories back.”

“Well–” the sheriff starts, turning towards them.

She's interrupted by the door opening, and someone walking in.

“I'm working on it,” the woman says, as she enters the room.

Robin's heart stops beating in his chest. 

She looks different, in this realm. Her hair is short, to the chin. Her clothes are simpler, a button down shirt and pants. There's very little makeup on her face. Yet, he recognizes her. How could he not? He's spent the better part of thirty years thinking of her. Thinking of the day he'd kill her. 

The memory comes unbidden, of making his way through the crowd. Towards the gallows. One by one prisoners are taken out, the Queen watches in silence. The sentences are read out, then she gives the order. The stage opens, the rope falls. the criminal dies. 

Robin is practically under the stage, among hundreds of others, when she's brought out.

Marian. 

He swallows back bile, her dark hair is a mess. She falls to her knees as her sentence is read out.

Armed robbery. Looting. Banditry.

They apply to him, not to her. 

“Please, Your Majesty, mercy ” Marian begs, “I have a child, he's only a year old.”

Somewhere behind Robin, Roland cries in John's arms. 

The Queen looks at her, her dark eyes sharp. A jolt of hope goes through Robin. 

A servant hurries to the Queen, he speaks in low tones, and she looks over the stage. There, among the nobles, stands Robin's king. He's here to work out trade agreements with this kingdom.

“What's your name?” The Queen asks. 

“Marian,” she sobs, tears running down her cheeks.

“I'm sorry, Marian,” the Queen says slowly, “these are not crimes that can be forgiven.”

Robin's heart drops into his stomach. The crowd around him disappears as he screams her name. It's a losing battle, as he shoves his way through people, his eyes on Marian. 

The executioner holds her up, a cloth bag is put over her head. 

Robin screams, the crowd around him roars, the sound of his voice lost. 

Marian stops struggling as they take her to the rope, the noose is lowered over her head, around her neck.

The Queen gives the signal with one hand. 

Robin isn't proud of himself, but he closes his eyes, tears running down his cheeks, into his shirt. 

He doesn't hear it, he can't, but his mind supplies the sound of her falling. Of her neck cracking and her last breath.

The memory feels like fire in his veins. 

The Queen is speaking now, in this new realm. Robin can't hear her over the sound of his own hatred. 

He's tried to kill her before. He'd climbed to the very top of a tree that gave onto his King's courtyard. The Queen had been invited to a ball. His bow had been ready, arrow strung. But he'd hesitated, just a second too long. 

He regrets that now. 

The gun feels heavy in his hand. Cool metal biting into his palm.

He catches John's eyes, and his friend gives him a tiny nod.

Before he can hesitate again, Robin steps forward, towards her. The gun rises, pointing straight at her chest. 

Silence falls over the room, the sheriff steps away from the Queen.

She, to her credit, does not look afraid. Her dark eyes meet his, and her hands fall to her side. 

“Robin, don't!” Snow speaks, rising from the sofa and taking his free arm. 

He doesn't turn towards her, gaze fixed on the woman who ruined his life. Who took Roland's mother from him.

“Point and shoot, is that right, sheriff?” He asks. 

Emma doesn't respond, but the Queen moves. She steps towards him until the gun is digging into her chest. Her eyes are hard.

“Just pull the trigger, thief,” she says, “what are you waiting for?”

“Robin, don't,” Snow says again, “revenge won't take your pain away.”

“Do it, Robin,” John says. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see he's gotten up, “she killed Marian,” he says.

His wife's face flashes before his eyes. His finger brushes the trigger. It would be so simple.

“Who's Marian?” the Queen asks. 

“Don't,” he growls, almost involuntarily, “don't say her name.”

She raises her hands, “sorry.”

He swallows. He could do it. Right now, he could kill. He's never done that before. 

He lets his arm fall, the gun hitting his thigh. 

The Queen's dark eyes still bore into his, still challenging him to do it. To take her life. But he won't let this woman control his actions. 

“Let's go, John,” Robin says, he steps around her, catching a whiff of her scent, and walks out. 

Robin's anger burns a hole through his heart. He should've killed her, he thinks, even as he lets the diner door close behind him. He should've been strong enough. But he isn't. 

John jogs behind him, to keep up.

“Robin,” he calls after some time, they've followed the paved road out of the city, and forest surrounds them.

Robin stops in his tracks, “I know,” he tells his friend, his oldest friend. John had stood by him when they'd given him Marian's body back, dark purple bruise around her neck, her skin cold. John had taken care of Roland when Robin couldn't. He'd taken over as leader of the Merry men when Robin couldn't be. 

“I should've pulled the trigger,” Robin says, without looking at his friend, “I just…”

“You're not a killer,” John says, “you're not like her.”

Is that it? 

Robin thinks back to her, to her dark eyes. The way she'd looked at him, she hadn't been afraid, she'd been…defiant. 

He clenches his jaw.

“Let's find a way home, John.”

It's easier said than done. And Robin and his men have no clue where to start looking for a way home. Robin hates magic, and he is far out of his depth. As they sit around the makeshift camp, he wonders if it was a mistake, walking out on Snow and the Queen. 

He gets up abruptly, pushing the thought out. He needs a walk.

John follows him. John always follows him. 

This time, John walks past him as they talk. He walks past a large tree, and suddenly, he screams.

Robin stops dead, his hand on his bow. His friend stares at him wide eyed as his body twists and cracks. Suddenly, he's not John anymore, but an enormous monkey, grey wings spread behind him. 

Flattening himself to the ground, Robin watches what was moments ago his best friend take flight, heading deeper into the forest.

His heart beats fast in his chest, blood rushing in his ears as he heads to the only people who may know what to do. 

He finds them on the paved road, there's another yellow line painted across the grey stone, horizontally. A group of dwarves are speaking animatedly with Snow, while the Queen stands to the side, her arms crossed over her chest.

Robin reaches them at a run. 

“Robin?” Snow asks, her eyebrows furrow at the sight of him, “what happened?”

“It's John, he’s–”

“Been turned into a giant flying monkey?” The Queen interrupts, her tone flat. 

He clenches his jaw and turns to her, “indeed.”

She nods, “apparently that's what happens to those who try to leave town.”

“We lost Sneezy!” One of the dwarves tells him. 

Robin holds his bow tighter and glances between Snow and the Queen. There are others now, people he doesn't know. But he knows they call the shots. 

The sheriff arrives in a yellow carriage with no horses, and Robin doesn't question it, too busy talking to the dwarves about their friend's transformation.

It's cold, and he's worried. He pulls his jacket closer as the sheriff and the Queen near. Gritting his teeth.

“John was turned?” Emma asks him. 

“An hour ago,” he tells her, and points his chin in the direction of the forest, “we were just walking and…” he stops, remembering his friend's body being ripped apart from the inside.

“Did you see in which direction he flew?” The sheriff prods.

“That way,” Robin points over to the forest, the sun is hidden behind a thick layer of white, so he isn't as sure as he could be, “I think.”

“Alright,” the Queen says with a sigh, “I'll go after them, I'll take Pongo with me, maybe he can smell them.”

“You want to go alone?” Emma asks, there is concern in her eyes and voice.

“You need to make sure everyone stays calm, and stay with Henry.”

“I'll come with you,” Robin says, despite his qualms. Perhaps he can kill two birds with one stone, find John and end the Queen.

“So you can try to murder me again?” she asks, unimpressed, “I don't think so,” her eyes narrow.

“Are you afraid?” It's his turn to challenge, and he steps towards her. He doesn't know her well, but sees the flash of defiance across her eyes. He's got her.

“Of you?” she scoffs, “come along if you like. Just don't get yourself killed.”

Emma protests, but the Queen ignores her and goes to get their third companion. Who, it turns out, is a dog. A black and white dalmatian that the Queen calls Pongo. 

Robin follows them, the Queen holding on to the leash. She walks fast, despite the high heels she's wearing, over the frozen ground. 

Pongo keeps his nose to the ground and seems to be following a trail. Robin isn't sure, he keeps his eyes on the sky, which is darkening by the second, and looks out for flying creatures.

“What are we looking for?” Robin asks, after a while.

She looks at him. Her dark eyes scan him, before she responds.

“I’m not sure,” she says, “but more than one person has been turned, they have to be somewhere. And, where they are, is also where we'll find whoever cursed us.”

He hums and she throws him a sharp look.

“What?” she asks.

“We'll find whoever cursed us?” he asks, one eyebrow rising. 

Her lips twist and she stops walking, “what are you implying?” 

He shrugs and walks past her, “I'm not implying anything, I'm saying that maybe you cursed us.”

“And why would I do that?” 

He stops, turning towards her, “I do not pretend to know the mind of the Evil Queen.”

She swallows, and he can see he's offended her, and finds he doesn't much care.

They walk in silence for some time, and it begins to snow. Robin pulls his jacket closer and shivers, but says nothing. 

It's only when Pongo stops, to sniff at the bottom of a tree, that she turns to him again. 

“I didn't cast this curse,” she says, quietly, evenly.

He raises an eyebrow and says nothing. Why should he believe her? She's the Evil Queen. It strikes him as odd, however, that she would defend herself to him. 

Her jaw sets at his expression and she steps towards him, “the curse requires the heart of the one the caster loves most,” she tells him, “and my son is alive and well, so it can't have been me.”

He meets her eyes then, and looks away. There is a pain there that cuts him to his core. He wishes he hadn't said anything, the last thing he needs is to start feeling empathy for this woman. 

He follows as Pongo pulls her ahead, the snow beginning to stick to the already frozen ground. 

“But you cast the first curse,” he says, slowly, coming to the obvious realization as the words leave his lips. 

He walks next to her, and studies her profile as she swallows and bows her head. 

“My father,” she says, after some time, “I used his heart.”

A chill goes through Robin, and it has nothing to do with the snow falling heavily all around him. 

He doesn't know what to say, so he stays quiet. Thankfully, he sees something among the trees, up ahead of them. A hut. 

“Hey, look,” he points to it, and the Queen’s eyes follow.

Her eyebrows furrow and she hurries her step. Her heels sink almost fully in the snow, and Robin holds his bow close. There's too much snow, and the sky is beginning to darken to a bruised blue. 

Nevertheless, he follows her and the dog up to the little house. It's little more than a shack, but has a dignified air about it. Three steps lead up to the wooden door, two square windows flanking it.

The Queen walks up to the door without hesitation, but Robin hangs back, bow raised and arrow knocked. 

It doesn't escape him that, with her back turned to him and his bow strung, he could shoot her.

He doesn't, instead he calls out.

“Careful.” 

She turns back, her red lips turning up in a small smile. She eyes his arrow, pointed at her, then opens the door and walks in.

Inside, the cabin is small, but well furnished. A cot is pushed up against the far wall, in the very center a large fireplace. Logs are neatly stacked next to it, and another door gives way to what Robin supposes are the facilities. A plush red armchair sits by the hearth, and a thick bear rug. 

The Queen looks around with eyebrows raised, as Pongo keeps his nose close to the ground, following some trail only he can see.

Kneeling next to the hearth, Robin places his hand over the ashes, not quite touching. It's still warm.

“Someone's been here. Recently.”

The Queen nods and turns away from him, by the front door is a library, full of old books. She glances over them, running one finger over their tops, then pulling it away to look at it. 

“Clean,” she says, “they've been moved here, or read.”

Robin isn't listening anymore, he's staring out the window. In their preoccupation to find John and the others, they haven't noticed just how bad the weather has gotten. It's snowing heavily and the wind whistles harshly through the trees. It's almost night time,too. 

How long had it taken them to get here? At least two hours. 

“Thief?” The Queen inquires, he's staring blankly past her. 

He points out the window, “I think we'll need to spend the night here,” he tells her. 

Glancing out, she scoffs. 

“If you think I'm staying here with you , you're sorely mistaken,” her shoulders stiffen as she speaks, and she stands straighter.

He resists the urge to roll his eyes and rises from where he's kneeling by the fireplace, “Your Majesty,” he says with as much venom as he can muster, “trying to get back now is a death sentence.” 

She looks out the window again, the snow is at least up to mid calf now, and her jaw tightens.

“For you, maybe,” she says.

This time, he does roll his eyes. 

“You'll lose your way in the snow,” he says, “not to mention, it's about to be dark, and you have no light.”

The Queen shrugs and opens her hands, palm up. Fire lights in them in the blink of an eye and Robin steps back involuntarily.

He hates magic, and he particularly hates her magic.

She smirks at his reaction and it's his turn to shrug.

“Do as you wish,” he says, turning away, “I'll stay here.”

He doesn't wish her well as she takes the dog and heads out the door. He doesn't wish her ill, either. Though he thinks it. 

Pongo struggles against his leash for a moment, even he knows being out in such weather is a bad idea, but the Queen is stubborn, and he finally complies. 

Robin watches them go, the fire roaring behind him in the hearth, his arms crossed over his chest. 

He watches from the window until the Queen is nothing but a small black pinprick in the white landscape, and then he turns away.

Perhaps this is her end. Perhaps he's finally gotten rid of her, once and for all. Though the notion doesn't sit right in his stomach. He'd rather have slit her throat, or plunged his knife into her belly. 

Well, dead is dead, he thinks. 

He sits himself in the armchair, jacket off and forgotten on the floor behind him, and stares into the fire. 

He thinks of Marian. He thinks of her smile and her laugh and the way she spoke to him with all the softness in the world.

You've a good heart, Robin of Locksley.

She'd said it so many times, it was engraved on his skin. Marian had believed he was good, through and through, and that had oftentimes been the only thing getting him through the night. 

Robin stands and paces. Restlessness makes its way up his legs, and in his arms. He shakes them and breathes out. Despite the fire, the cabin is cool, and walking is warming him up. 

Something claws at the door, whining. Robin spins around and wrenches it open. 

Pongo, wet and miserable, jumps him. The dog whines and paws at his legs.

“Hey, boy,” Robin rubs his head, drenched and frozen, and looks out through the open door. No sign of the Queen.

He sighs, “where is she? Hey, boy, where is she?” 

Pongo understands, he turns and heads back out, into the frozen storm. Robin runs back in for his jacket, throwing it over his head, and follows him into the darkness.

He can barely see a step ahead, and his legs sink to the knee in the snow, but he keeps waking, the dog occasionally rounding back just when he's about to lose him.

It's owing to the dark that he almost stumbles over her. 

He kneels by her prone body, her arms curled up against her chest. Gingerly, he touches her skin. It's frozen cold. 

There's a trail that leads up to her, she'd turned back. Admitted defeat and walked back to the cabin. 

His fingers find her pulse point, as the wind whips at his head. Her heart beats. Slow and sluggish, but it beats. 

Pongo circles her and whines. 

Robin stands and looks down at her. 

He knows what he could do. What, perhaps, he should do. What's the harm, after all, in killing a killer? He wouldn't have to lift a finger. It wouldn't even be killing, really. She's brought it upon herself. 

He kneels and slides one arm under her knees and the other under her neck. He lifts her easily enough, though her clothes are wet and heavy. 

Trudging back to the hut, he swears under his breath at every step. Despite her lightness, the snow makes it hard to walk. Soon, it'll be up to the door. 

It feels as if his breath only comes when he finally steps through the door, and lets the woman in his arms down onto the bear rug. 

He pulls his drenched jacket off and throws it to the side, then kneels down next to her. Pongo whines, crying at her side. The dog licks her nose, and Robin pushes him away. Somehow he thinks the Queen wouldn't appreciate being warmed up by the dalmatian.

Carefully, he swipes her wet hair out of her face. Tapping her skin lightly, he notices how pale she is. Too pale.

He presses his hands to her neck, warming her as much as he can, and, after a moment,her eyes flutter open. Her pupils are blown wide and she blinks in confusion.

Panic rises in his chest, she's no longer the Queen, just a woman, whose heart is beating much too slowly. 

Uncertain, he pulls back and assesses the situation. Her clothes are drenched through, and almost frozen. How long was she out there? 

He pulls her into a sitting position, feeling her wool jacket wet his shirt, and pulls it off of her. She's wearing a cashmere sweater underneath, and he pulls that off, too. There's another layer on her skin, wet as well. A white camisole. He pulls it off. 

She's left almost bare, only a thin undergarment over her chest, but she's more alert. Her hands move, unsteadily and uncoordinated, towards him. 

“Can you stand?” he asks. 

She turns to him, her hands on his chest. Even through the fabric of his shirt, her fingers are freezing. 

He helps her to her feet, but not before taking her shoes off. The high heels are a death trap waiting to happen.

Once she's standing, he undoes the button on her slacks and pushes them down her legs. Her skin is pale and dotted with red. Holding her steady, he pushes her closer to the fire, and she begins to shake. 

That's a good sign, feeling is coming back to her. It also means her eyes widen, fear spelled out clear in them.

“It's alright,” he says, pulling her close, “you're going to be alright.”

He hugs her to his chest, and her wet hair drenches his arms and his chest. So, he unbuttons the shirt and pulls her close again. Skin to skin is the most effective way of warming someone up, he's had to do it before.

The thin strip of material over her chest is wet, too, and Robin knows he should take it off. Propriety, perhaps, stops him. 

Her arms encircle him, under his open shirt, and she presses herself to him, craving his warmth. The material of her bra freezes to his chest. He finds the back of it and pulls it off of her, coaxing her away from him just long enough to take it off over her head. 

As long as he doesn't look, he'll be fine. 

She sighs when he pulls her in again, and her soft breasts press against his chest. He closes his eyes and swallows. 

She's still shivering against him, but he's beginning to feel his own cold, rising up from his soaked pants. He needs to take them off, he knows. But that would mean standing almost completely bare, with the Queen naked in his arms. He grits his teeth as she shakes, almost uncontrollably. 

In the end, it's the cold that does it. It rises up his legs and he himself begins to shake, despite the small woman flush to him, who is only just beginning to warm up. He undoes his breeches with one hand, never letting the other fall from her shoulders, and steps out of his pants. 

He pulls her towards the bed, there's a wool blanket there, and he somehow gets her under it before pulling away. She makes a tiny noise at the back of her throat, her eyes screwed shut, and reaches for him. 

He sighs, she has stopped shivering but that doesn't make him feel better, in fact, it scares him. Slipping under the cover next to her, she immediately clutches him, practically climbing onto him in her haste to be close to his warmth. Letting out a small breath, he relaxes into her embrace, trying to ignore how her leg is thrown over his middle, and the warmth of her core against the thin fabric of his underwear.

Closing his eyes, he concentrates on his breathing. If he can just concentrate, he won't feel the softness of her skin on his, or smell the sweet scent of her hair in his nose. He grips her hard. Trying to remember who she is. The woman who killed Marian. The woman who killed thousands. A woman he hates. He wants her dead. 

He listens to her breathing, it's become slower, more shallow. She's falling asleep. He shakes her. 

“Hey,” he says, panic rising in his throat, sleep is bad. Sleep is very bad. “Hey,” he says again, “come on, say something.” 

She stirs against his chest, her cold nose rubbing on his skin, “let me sleep,” she murmurs.

“No,” he says, “it’ll kill you,” he shakes her again, and this time she pulls away from him to look up into his eyes. 

“Why do you care?” she manages to ask, then her strength fails her and she falls back down on him, but she continues to speak. “Why did you save me? Why didn't you just leave me to die out there?” 

It's a good question, and Robin has no good answer. He doesn't know. It would've been easy, the easiest thing in the world, to let her die. There would've been no blood on his hands. 

“Because I'm an idiot,” he replies.

He expects her to deny it, perhaps. He knows how John would answer. You're not a killer, Robin. 

She laughs, pulling a little away from him, only enough to fall off his chest and bury her face between his arm and his side. 

“Yes,” she says, the sound muffled by his skin, “most people would leave the person they want dead to, you know, die. Especially when they've brought it upon themselves.”

At least she's honest. 

“Maybe I wanted the pleasure of killing you myself,” he growls. 

She laughs again. “Oh?” she says, “then why am I still alive?”

You've a good heart, Robin of Locksley. The words echo through his mind, and he wonders if Marian would still believe them, if she knew what he wanted to do to the woman in his arms. To her executioner. 

“Tell me something…” he trails off. He doesn't know her name, and somehow calling her Your Majesty feels wrong, when she's naked in his arms.

“Regina,” she says.

“What?” he asks sharply. 

“My name,” she murmurs, “it's Regina.”

“Oh,” he exhales, now he knows her name. He blinks, “uh, Robin.” 

She laughs, “I know, Robin Hood.” She pulls back, her head resting on his arm, to look at him, “Your reputation precedes you,” she smiles as she says it. 

He doesn't smile back, “as does yours, Your Majesty.”

She looks away, pain flashing only briefly across her features, and buries herself against him again.

She whimpers softly, and his eyebrows draw together.

“What's wrong?” 

She shakes her head, “it's nothing.”

He doesn't press the issue, letting his head relax back against the pillow and closing his eyes. 

How long has he dreamed of her death? Thirty years. Thirty long years since Marian had been taken from him. Thirty years of living without his person, without his wife. Of raising his son alone. And, thanks to Regina's curse, their son is still a boy, his mother's death still raw and fresh.

“Regina,” he says, experimentally. He wishes he hadn't. 

She mutters something against his chest, and shifts her weight. The new position presses her core even closer to him, and he suppresses a groan. His cock twitches in his shorts, and he breathes. In and out. He sinks his nails into his palm.

He doesn't have time to loathe himself because Regina makes a strangled sound next to him.

He pushes her down by the shoulder, into the mattress, so he's towering over her, 

“What is it?” he asks, aware of how aggressive he's being, but what does he care? She's the Evil Queen. She can take it. 

She stares up at him, eyes wide. 

“It's nothing,” she tries again.

He practically growls, “tell me,” he orders, “if something hurts it could be a sign it's damaged. You need to warm it up before you lose it.”

She looks away and anger flashes through him. He's risked his honor to save her, and now she's shy? 

“Is it your fingers?”

She shakes her head.

“Toes?” his eyebrows draw together.

“No,” she swallows and closes her eyes, “it's…oh, God.” She looks down and his eyes follow hers. 

“Oh,” he says. 

Her nipples are white, hard and erect. 

“They hurt?”  he asks, trying to keep a clinical eye, and failing miserably. 

She nods and covers her breasts with her hands. As she touches herself, pain flashes clearly across her face, and she takes her hands away.

He looks down. It isn't right that a woman like her should look like– he stops the thoughts in their tracks, but they still send blood rushing into his cock.

“How–how do I warm them up?” she asks, and her voice is uncharacteristically uncertain, “I don't, don't really want to lose them.”

He lets out a soft laugh. He can no longer deny the images of what he could do to her, burned into his brain. 

“Warm water,” he says, “like, uh, saliva.”

“Oh,” she replies. 

Her eyes stay on his as he thinks. Really, he's not thinking. He's fighting the demon inside him telling him to take what he wants and damn the consequences. 

He leans down and takes one taut nipple in his mouth. She gasps softly against him, and the sound goes straight to his loins. He bites down on her, which draws a whimper from her, and he's sure it's not of pain. 

He growls, “stop that,” he murmurs, his tongue flicking out to roll over her nipple.

“Then don't bite me,” she mutters in response, but her voice is breathy, her chest rising and falling fast. 

He bites her again, and enjoys the way her back arches into him. 

Suddenly, he's so very aware that the only thing dividing them is a thin strip of lace between her legs, and his own shorts. 

Her breathing is heavy, rough, and he cups her other breast, feeling its weight in his hand, and circles her cold nipple with his thumb. 

Gasping in pain, she pushes his hand away and he chuckles.

“Sorry,” he murmurs against her skin, then he takes the afflicted nipple in his mouth and swirls his tongue around it. 

Her fingers find his hair, tangling in it and pulling him closer to her. 

The battle inside of him is a losing one. He hates her, profoundly, with every fiber of his being, yet, her skin is soft under his touch. And the noises she's making above him feel like fire, running down his chest and up his legs and making him lose his mind. 

He knows, then, that he'll take her before the night is through. 

He wants to stop himself, wants to deny the desire rushing through his veins, but he cannot. He's just a man, after all. 

When he pulls away from her, she looks down at him with wide eyes. Her pupils are blown, making them look even darker. Her hair is a mess around her head, almost dry by now, but unkempt from having lain in the snow. 

She looks nothing like the Evil Queen. And maybe that helps. 

“Robin,” she murmurs.

“Regina,” his voice is a low growl.

“We should–” she stops, his hand is still on her breasts, his other holding him up over her, “we should try to sleep,” she finishes. 

She's giving him an out, and he doesn't want it. He wants to fuck her into the bed, to hurt her as he does it, and to hear her cry his name again and again. 

These feelings, these thoughts, are foreign to him. He's had many women, but he's always been a generous, soft lover. But with her…it almost scares him, the monster she's pulling out of him.

He lies back against the bed next to her and folds one arm behind his head. 

“Yeah,” he agrees, “we should.”

She doesn't ask for permission, she scoots closer to him and her fingers slide over his chest. For a moment, he's afraid. He's heard the stories. She takes hearts, and crushes them in the palm of her hand.

“Thank you,” she whispers, and he lets out a breath. “For saving me, for…not letting me die.”

He nods. Once again, he isn't sure he did the right thing. Another foreign feeling. She makes things so…complicated. 

Her leg swings over his waist again, and he feels the exact moment she notices his erection, that now strains against the inside of her hip. She goes still and freezes. 

“Uh, sorry,” she says, “I didn't–” 

She begins to move off of him but he stops her. His hand on her thigh.

“Don't,” he says, “don't.”

“Robin…” she's breathless again, “you hate me. You want me dead.”

Yes. It's true. 

And yet. 

It takes every inch of willpower in his body not to buck his hips against her, to make her feel how hard he is. 

He hums his agreement with her, then turns, so that his cock pushes against her core, and she gasps. Buckling against him just a little. Pleasure shoots through him, and he grips her thigh harder.

“How do you feel?” he asks, his voice is low, breathy.

“Better,” she tells him, her lips brush against his chest, sending goosebumps down his skin.

“Good,” he says, and then she's on her back, her legs around his waist, and his cock pressed up against her.

She whines and runs her hands up his biceps, raking her nails on his skin. 

He grinds against her, watching her lose the little control she has left, and wrap her legs tighter around him. Her hips rise to meet his, and he needs her. His mind has gone blank of anything except the way she feels under him, the way she gasps and her back arches for him.

He kisses her, then. Rough and hard, his lips on hers, his tongue in her mouth. She answers just as roughly, her fingernails raking his skull. 

His hand slides between them, to her sex, and he pushes the thin material over her out of the way. She's wet and it makes him gasp against her mouth. 

Thrusting his fingers shallowly into her, he pries her open, slowly, deliberately. She moans against his lips, and he pushes his shorts down his legs. 

With no preamble, she takes his cock in her hand, squeezing lightly. Growling, he pulls away from her. He towers over her, and anger floods his veins. She's beautiful and pale, red lips and black eyes. And he hates her. He hates her. 

Her hand strokes him and he's a man possessed, pleasure shooting into him, and making him see stars. 

With one movement her own undergarment is off, and he's lined up against her. He slides himself over her, he likes the way she whimpers and jerks her hips, but he likes it even more when her eyes go wide as he pushes into her. In one movement, he's inside, her walls tight and wet around him. She gasps, her fingers finding his neck, raking up into his hair.

It takes all the self control in his body not to fuck her as hard and fast as he can. Instead, he sets a torturously slow pace. Long, slow thrusts that make her feel every single ridge and vein.

She takes it without complaint, but soon her breathless moans grow louder and her hand slips between them, going to her pleasure. He takes her wrist and pins it above her head. 

“Not until I say so,” he growls against her ear, his thrusts still excruciatingly slow.

Whimpering, she bucks her hips against him, but he doesn't hurry. He's got all the time in the world.

Each thrust is sending shocks of pleasure into him, and he needs to savor the way she's convulsing around him.

“Fuck,” she groans, “fuck, please,” her eyes close, her back arching against him and her breasts brushing against his chest.

“Hmm, what?” he asks. And where is this self control coming from? He wonders. He hasn't been with a woman in years, and she feels like pure ecstasy under him. Yet, he could fuck her all night.

He doesn't question it too long, he has better things to do.

“Robin,” she moans, and his name is mesmerizing on her lips. He wants to hear it again and again.

“Harder,” she whines.

And God, she's so close. He can feel it in the way her muscles clench erratically around him, and see it in the way her eyebrows furrow, her eyes screwed shut.

“Harder what?” he asks. And, alright, perhaps he spoke too soon. He's just about ready to snap and take her as hard as he can.

She opens her eyes and meets his gaze, there's defiance there. The same she threw at him when he almost killed her. It turns him on more than he thought possible.

“Please,” she spits, and he laughs.

His laughter dies quickly, however, as he gives in to her request and speeds up. The pleasure he's pulling from her is obvious in all the little sounds she's making, and the way her hands hook behind his neck and pull him to her. 

She's so close, and he thinks she might be the end of him.

“Oh God,” she moans, “I need–I need–” 

He knows exactly what she needs and is no longer in the mood to deny her. His hand slides between their bodies, his fingers finding her clit with practiced ease. Two circles, then another, and she cries out. She arches into him and her muscles clench so hard his vision goes black. Somehow, he keeps pace inside her, but as she comes down, her hips moving slower against him, he knows he's close. 

As he moves to pull out of her, she stops him. Her eyes are still wide and dark with desire, her hand goes to his side and holds him inside her.

“Don't,” she murmurs. 

And he's gone.

With one last thrust, he comes undone inside her, the force of his orgasm surprising even him.

It takes him a full two minutes to recover, during which time she holds onto his shoulders, steadying him above her. 

He collapses next to her, and pulls her close. It's an involuntary reflex, he'll tell himself later, to press a kiss to her hair when she curls up against him. As is to wrap his arms around her waist and crush her to his chest. 

He's not sure how long they sleep for, but when he wakes, it's still dark outside, and the fire has died down to a few glowing embers in the hearth. On the bear rug, Pongo sleeps peacefully. 

It takes Robin a second to place the woman in his arms. When he does, bile rises in his throat. 

She's still asleep. Now would be a very good time to kill her. To take revenge and finish what she'd started so long ago, when, with one movement of her hand, she'd sent Marian to her death.

His hand rises as he thinks, curls around her throat, but he doesn't press down. He feels her fragility under his fingers. He's bigger and stronger, and she's asleep. She'd have no time to reach for her magic. 

He closes his eyes, her scent fills him and her body pressed to him. He's hard again, can feel his erection straining against her. Why does she have this effect on him? He hates himself for it.

He releases the weak hold he had on her throat and lets his hand wander down. Over her breasts, her nipples are soft now, a good sign. They harden at his touch, and she makes a sound in her sleep. His cock twitches. 

His hand wanders lower, between her legs. Her knees are together on the side, but he easily slips between her thighs. Inhaling sharply, he pushes one digit between her lips. She's still fucking wet. 

He touches her slowly, dipping his fingers into her and then up, circling her clit with featherlight touch. He isn't sure he wants her to wake, but the noises she's making in her sleep are going straight to his cock. Soon he's rocking against her, sliding between her legs and breathing in her scent, his nose buried in her hair. 

She wakes as two of his fingers circle her clit harder, and her hand finds his between her legs. Her breathing is already rough, soft pants that turn into moans as she slides two fingers into herself.

He's mesmerized, watching her fuck herself as he touches her, her skin flushed with a thin sheen of sweat. 

She turns her head and buries her face into the pillow, muffling her moans. Without thinking, his free hand slides into her hair and pulls her head back against his shoulder. He wants to hear her come undone. A little gasp slips past her lips as he bites her neck lightly.

Her fingers pull out of herself and find his cock between her legs. They're wet as she touches him, stroking him softly. He realizes he's moaning as she guides him to her, and he thrusts into her shallowly. 

And, God, she feels so good. Their bodies move together like they were made for one another. Her whimpered moans against his ear, the rise and fall of her chest under him. The way her fingers tangle in his hair.

He hates himself and he hates her and he's losing control. 

Perhaps he has already lost control.

Lost himself in this woman he's supposed to kill. Who everyone he cares about wants him to kill. 

He takes her nonetheless, pressing her onto her stomach on the bed, and holding her down as she comes for him. Around him.

He follows her over the edge a moment later, spilling his desire and his pleasure inside her.

When he pulls out, he's the worst person alive. 

Robin throws the thin wool cover off of himself, still careful not to take it off her, and goes to the fireplace.

The last few embers have died in the hearth, and Robin restarts the fire with practiced ease. Soon, it's roaring again, and the cabin is flooded with orange light. 

He doesn't turn to look at her. He pulls his pants on over his nakedness and sits on the armchair. His button up is still on, buttoned only at the wrists, it lays open over his chest, exposing him. 

He watches the flames eat the logs. Such a violent thing, fire. Destroying everything in its path. 

Just like magic. Her magic.

His gaze flickers to her, on the bed. She's sitting up, looking at him, the cover pulled up over her chest. 

“Feeling guilty?” she asks.

He doesn't deign her with an answer. 

She gets up and wanders towards him. He looks away from her bare form.

Sinking down onto the rug beside Pongo, she leans towards the fire, sighing as she stretches her hands out and feels the warmth of it.

“I won't bother saying I told you so,” she murmurs, she stares into the flames as she speaks. 

He grits his teeth.

“Do you have a way of dealing with…uh..” he changes the topic, suddenly frozen by the thought of having put a child in the Evil Queen. 

She glances up at him, a shadow of a smile on her face. 

“That's…not a problem,” she swallows and pets Pongo, who is now fully awake, and attempts to lick her hand.

“What does that mean?” he asks sharply.

“That I can't have children.”

“Oh,” he says. He'd been gripping his dagger, always on his belt, and his grip slackens. “But, you have a son,” he says. 

She looks away, “yes, well, he's not…mine, exactly. I adopted him.”

The subject is painful, and her fingers never leave Pongo's head as she speaks. But, in the firelight, Robin can see the tears forming in her eyes.

So, the Evil Queen does have feelings. His jaw tightens. Everything he's doing is taking him further away from his revenge, but he finds he can't stop.

“He’s Emma's,” she turns to him, “the sheriff,” she clarifies.

His eyebrows rise, “you adopted Snow White's grandson?”

She scoffs, “ironic, isn't it? But yes, I did. And now I can't imagine my life without him.”

Robin leans forward, forgetting his dagger. 

“But he has forgotten you.”

Now the tears fall. She turns away from him, but he can still see them glittering on her cheeks. 

“That's why I have to break the curse,” she says, “so he'll remember me.”

He nods, though some small, cruel part of him wants to ask whether it's wise, to remind a boy that his mother is the Evil Queen.

“Did you try,” he swallows, “did you try for children, before adopting?” 

She glances at him again, wiping her cheeks. Her eyebrows draw together, like no one has asked her that before. He supposes it's a strange question, but she'd been married before, and had given the king no heirs. 

“No,” she tells him, “I took a…a potion, that would make sure that could never happen.”

He wants to ask, but he's pried enough, and her shoulders are shaking gently. He cannot be so cruel, even to her.

“It was to get back at my mother,” she tells him without prompting, “she tried to trick me into marrying a man and having his children. She thought it would bring me happiness. Of course, she was right. But not with him.” She makes a face, and his curiosity is piqued. 

“She tried to trick you?”

Regina looks at him as if only then realizing he is there. She blinks and nods, “yes, uh,” her cheeks flush, “I don't know why I'm telling you this,” she laughs a little, her hands twist into each other. He says nothing, waiting. 

“When I was a girl, well, a woman really, I was engaged to be married to the King,” she looks up at him, as if checking if he's listening. He nods, he knows that. Knows her story, a lady of little note, married to the King. With aspirations above her stations,they'd said. Power hungry. 

“My mother arranged it,” she continues, “she wanted to be Queen. I didn't want it. I didn’t–” she stops, her voice full of emotion. It takes her a moment to pull herself together. 

“The night before my wedding, I met a fairy. She used her fairy dust to point me to a man. This man, she said, was my soulmate. I…I could've met him that night, but I was afraid. So, I went back to the castle and married the King.”

Her story stops as she stares down at her hands, thinking. There is great pain that she's not sharing, he can see it in her face, but he doesn't press her for it.

“My mother found out. After the King died she believed I was miserable, and I needed a husband. So, she found a man and told me it was him,” she shook her head, “after one conversation I knew it couldn't be him, he was a pig.”

Robin's eyes widen as he remembers the rumors. 

“The sheriff of Nottingham?” he asks.

Looking up at him sharply she nods, “how did you know?”

He shakes his head, laughing, “I'd heard rumors…” 

“Rumors? What rumors?” 

He bites his lip, not wanting to tell her what the sheriff had said they'd done together. Robin had never quite believed the man, nor the rumors, but he was glad to be given confirmation.

She makes a disgusted noise at the back of her throat, “as if I'd ever touch that…” she gags and shivers and he laughs.

Smiling, she continues, “after that, I knew I had to do something drastic to stop my mother, or she'd find a way to put a child in me,” she furrows her brows, “sorry if that sounds…”

He laughs, “fucked up?”

“No, that it is,” she grimaces, “and I took the potion, making sure I'd never have a child of my own blood,” she hesitates, “not that it matters anymore.”

“How did she trick you?” he asks, taking the subject away from its most painful notes.

“Oh,” she says, meeting his gaze, “he has, or had, a tattoo on his wrist,” she holds her hand up and shows him where, “of a lion on a black shield.”

For a moment, his mind goes blank.

He sits back against the armchair and stares at her. She doesn't seem to notice anything amiss, going back to petting the dalmatian by her side.

Breathing feels difficult. His heart hammers in his chest. His wrist, under his shirt, itches. He'd been nineteen when he'd gotten that tattoo. A tribute to his father.

How many men have a tattoo of a lion on a black shield, on their wrist, and would've been in the enchanted forest on the eve of the King's wedding?

Robin thinks back, he remembers that night. He'd been drinking in a tavern, right by the castle walls. The tattoo had been fresh, and he'd been showing it off all night. He'd gone to supply the city for the upcoming wedding, and stayed for the festivities. Had he thought, even for a moment, of the young woman trapped behind the castle walls? A woman younger than him. 

Of course not. She was about to become Queen, about to be elevated high above her station. If he, or anyone else, had thought of her, it was with envy. 

“Robin?” she asks. 

He blinks down at her.

“Are you alright?”

“Fine,” he replies, “fine.”

“Okay,” she says, “you know, I'm an expert at guilt, if you need to get anything off your chest.”

Her words yank his mind in a completely different direction. Back to his revenge. Back to Marian and his men. 

Yes, perhaps she's his soulmate. According to a fairy, and fairy dust. Robin doesn't even trust magic. And, anyway, it doesn't change what she'd done. Or who she is. 

It certainly doesn't change what his men would say if they knew. Knew that he'd lain with the enemy, with his wife's killer. With their friend's killer.

He swallows hard, the dagger still digs into his side. He could still kill her. But he knows he won't. Not now, not after what she's told him.

“I…” he sighs, pressing his hands into his eye sockets, “if anyone knew, about this, about us–”

“They'd be horrified?”

“Yeah,” he agrees, “and disgusted.”

If the words cut her, she doesn't show it. 

“So, don't tell them.”

She makes it sound easy.

“But I'll know,” he points out.

“Robin…” she sighs, “you didn't do anything wrong, you didn't hurt anyone.”

“I had sex with you,” he says.

She raises her eyebrows, “what a terrible crime.”

“And it was good, too.”

“Just good?”

“Incredible,” he murmurs, and she was joking, but he isn't. Her eyes widen and she blushes.

“Anyway,” she says, hiding her embarrassment, “so what? I'm not contagious,” she laughs, but he doesn't. 

“You killed Marian.”

Her face grows serious and she looks away. She doesn't remember her, he knows. Just another face, just another life. 

“She was my wife,” he tells her, “Roland's mother.”

Regina hugs herself close and looks up at him, the question is on her lips, he can see it, but she doesn't pose it.

“She was arrested for banditry. And other made up crimes.”

No. They weren't made up. 

“My crimes,” he adjusts, “and you had her hanged.”

“Hanged,” she repeats, her eyes searching, “I don't–”

“She told you she had a son, and you hesitated.”

Recognition flashes over her face, “oh,” she says, “Marian.”

He glowers at her.

“They told me…your King, Richard, he told me she had to hang. Had to die. As an example. To you,” she swallows.

He closes his eyes, tears threaten to spill over his lashes. Of course, he's always known that was why she died. But now, exposed to the raw truth of it, his heart breaks in his chest.

“It should've been me,” he murmurs. 

Regina reaches up to him, her hand on his thigh. He doesn't pull away, but doesn't meet her gaze.

“It couldn't be you,” she says, softly, “because you would've been a martyr, not an example. Take it from me.”

This time, he does look at her. Her eyes are so full of pain and understanding that he reaches forward and pulls her into his embrace, onto his lap. 

Burying his face in her hair, he lets the tears fall, silent. She holds him close and says nothing, her arms around his shoulders.

After a while, they fall asleep like that. Her curled up on his legs, and his arms around her waist.

---

 

Notes:

Thanks for reading! Leave a comment if you enjoyed it <3<3

Chapter 3: Chapter 3, part 1

Notes:

So, this is part 1 of chapter 3. Initially I had planned to write a single chapter 3 (obviously) but when it started getting into 10k words territory and still not done, I decided to cut it in half. So this fic will be 5 chapters and not 4 as originally planned (originally originally it was a one shot!)

Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Robin wakes with the taste of her on his lips.

It really shouldn't be there, considering the copious amounts of wine he had after she'd left. The drink has left him with a throbbing headache, and hasn't washed away the memory of her whimpering under him. Of her coming undone for him.

Sighing, he looks around. The long, low hall is empty, his men have already risen and gone to breakfast. The sunlight streaming in from the high windows tells him it's late.

He groans as he rises from the straw mattress and heads into the mess hall. Indeed, the merry men are sat at the long tables that line the room horizontally, and are breaking their fast. 

The room is full, not just his men, but all the others too. The citizens of Storybrooke, exiled here when their curse broke. Robin still hasn't quite understood the full story. 

He makes his way through the crowded hall, inclining his head in greeting those he's already met, and offering smiles to everyone. 

He's a good man. He's a people's man. He always has been. 

Robin finds the words ring hollow in his mind this morning, considering what he'd been up to the night before. Certainly no champion of the people should be lying with a Queen. 

He sits himself between John and Will, and the two men greet him warmly, handing over a bowl of hot oats. Cooked in milk.

Roland sits in John's lap, and raises his arms when he sees his father. Robin pulls into his own lap and peppers his head with kisses. 

“You're a sleepy head, daddy,” Roland tells him, “we waited hours for you to wake up.”

John laughs, and Will snickers. The other men hide their laughs behind their hands. 

“I think your daddy was busy last night,” Friar Tuck says from across the table. He waggles his eyebrows at Robin and this time the laughter rings out over the table. 

Robin feels the blush rise into his cheeks, and his embarrassment makes his men laugh harder. He's used to it, being mocked and ribbed, and he does it just as well in return, to each of them. But there's something else stirring in his stomach. The acid knowledge that, if they knew who he'd been busy with, they would not be laughing. 

As if on cue, the door to the hall opens, and a hush falls over the many tables. 

Snow White, Prince Charming and the Queen don't seem to notice the effect their arrival has on those sitting in the mess, they continue to speak in low voices. Regina's head is bent towards Snow's, her eyebrows drawn together. The man that walks in behind them, however, notices. The pirate's eyes scan the room, and he scowls, before pressing his hand onto Regina's back and pushing her towards the dias at the end of the hall. 

Jealousy curdles in Robin's stomach and he shovels a spoonful of oats into his mouth, shoving it away. 

As the royals and the pirate take their seat at the raised table, the conversations around Robin begin anew. The volume in the hall rises once more, as people settle back into their meal. 

“So,” John says, leaning towards Robin conspiratorially, “where did you end up last night?” 

Robin swallows the mouthful of porridge and shrugs, “oh, nowhere really.”

Will snickers again, “nowhere really,” he mocks in a high pitched voice, “that's a strange name. Is she pretty?”

Glaring at him, Robin presses his hands to Roland's ears, “it's not what you think,” he mutters. 

John shakes his head, “alright,” he says, “keep your secrets,” he gives him a grin, “but you know secrets have short lives between us.”

Robin bites his tongue. He does know that. He has never kept a secret from his men, has never lied to them. They are brothers in all but blood, and just as he knows everything about them, they know everything about him. 

It makes him sick to think of his betrayal of them.

And then she rises. 

Her dark hair is put up in another complex style, her dress as tight and black as ever. It's imposing, domineering and terrifying. It's supposed to be. 

Snow White stops her with a hand on her arm, and Regina leans down to listen to her speak. Then she laughs, and pulls away from the other woman, who watches her go with eyebrows drawn.

The Queen makes her way through the tables, if she notices the complete silence that follows her, and the terror struck looks, she doesn't let on. 

Robin watches her, too, but it is not terror that stirs inside him. 

After a moment the realization dawns on him. She's walking to him. 

He swallows hard and picks Roland up, placing him on the bench, between himself and John. 

As the Queen nears, his men grow even quieter. Their breaths seem to stop. Each and every man reaches for a weapon.

Regina makes her way around the table towards him, ignoring the others. Her eyes are on him now, like a predator stalking its prey. He holds her gaze defiantly, more afraid of what his men will think, than of what she will do to him.

She doesn't scare him anymore, he realizes as she nears, despite her heavy makeup, and the fearsome clothes she dons, he isn't afraid. How can he be? After he's heard her moan his name, watched her whimper and gasp and come. 

His thoughts are stopped in their tracks as Will rises, unsheathing his sword and placing himself between Robin and Regina. 

“Sit down, man,” Robin snaps. How foolish is he? To think he could stop the Queen with a meager sword.

Foolish and brave. 

Will glances at him, then sheaths his sword. But he doesn't sit. 

“May I speak to your leader?” Regina asks. Her tone is light, polite, and her eyes are soft as she looks at Will.

The man, his brother in arms, turns to him for permission. Robin gives him a curt nod, and Will moves out of the way. 

Regina sits with her back to the table, leaning against it, next to him. She stretches her legs out a little and leans back, exposing her neck and chest. It's not very ladylike, but it has Robin's breath catching in his throat. 

Before he can make a fool of himself, and his men can guess who exactly he was with last night, he looks away from her.

“How can I help you,” he says, “Your Majesty?”

She clears her throat, but he doesn't look at her. 

“Snow and I will be holding a meeting, regarding our future here and…” she looks around and lowers her voice marginally, “what to do about the possible threat…”

She's talking about the witch who had taken the castle before Regina and Robin had taken it back. 

“As leader of the Merry Men,” the Queen continues, “we thought you might want a seat at the table,” her eyes meet his, and she gives him a small smirk. 

He turns away. 

They need him. He has fighting men, and they don't. They have a hodgepodge of individuals, many of whom have never seen a weapon.

Then again, they're living in the castle now. At the Queen and Snow's expense. Safe from the strange flying beasts that scour the skies above the forest. Whatever was decided at this meeting would certainly have its repercussions on them. Better to have a seat at the table, than refuse it out of misplaced pride and suffer the consequences. 

“John and I will be there,” he says. 

Regina raises an eyebrow, and John shuffles in his seat next to him. 

“Good,” the Queen says, getting up, “after breakfast, in the war room.” 

She turns, her dress swishing through the air and wafting her scent at him. Robin looks away, forcing himself not to watch her retreating form. 

A breath is released as his men relax in their seats. 

“What a scary bitch,” Friar Tuck murmurs, hunching back over his breakfast and serving himself another ladle of porridge. 

Robin finds he's not hungry anymore, and pushes his own bowl away. Surreptitiously, he glances at his men. None seem suspicious of Regina's behaviour, and he lets out a small breath. He'd worried her actions would tip them off to their…relationship.

Relationship? What is he thinking? Anger boils in his stomach. He has no relationship with the woman who killed his wife. Yes, alright, he fucked her. But that's it. A weakness of the flesh. Nothing more. And it's certainly not going to happen again. 

“I can't believe she had the gall to talk to you,” John says by his elbow, he's still eating and speaks between mouthfuls.

Robin swallows and hums his agreement.

“She probably doesn't even remember,” Arthur says darky from next to Friar Tuck. The others murmur their agreement. 

“She's killed so many…” Friar Tuck crosses himself as he speaks, “unspeakable crimes.”

Robin gets up, his heart is in his throat. His men are right, of course. Just like them, he's heard the stories. What happened to Marian was only the tip of the iceberg of what she'd done. The horrors and atrocities she'd committed. All hidden behind the power of the crown.

“John,” he says, “let's go, we don't want to be late.” He'd seen the Royals stand and walk out moments before, and he'd eat his own heart before being late to their meeting.

He leaves Roland with the others, kissing his nose and promising that they'd play together later. Guilt gnaws at him as he walks away. 

He stalks through the hall and bursts through the large wooden doors into the hallway, John a step behind him. Robin is well aware his footsteps are too loud, his face scrunched up in anger, but he finds he can't help it. 

John jogs to keep up with him.

“Do you know where we're going?”

“The war room,” Robin growls. 

“Yes, but do you know where that is?”

He stops walking suddenly, almost causing John to crash into him.

“No,” he admits.

His friend looks him over with eyebrows drawn, “Robin, are you alright?” 

Swallowing hard, he looks away. John is his best friend, Robin has never had to keep a secret from him. If there's one person he can speak to, it's him. 

Yet, even John wouldn't understand. Not after having gone into the pit below the hangman's platform to retrieve Marian's body. After having had to take care of Robin for months as he grieved her death. 

Still, Robin wants to unburden himself. To tell his friend everything, and receive absolution. Or face the consequences of his actions. He opens his mouth to speak. 

Prince Charming walks by them. He's a jovial fellow and sports his usual smile. Robin finds himself smiling back when he stops by them, despite the interruption.

“Are you looking for the war room?” The Prince asks.

“We are,” John tells him.

A moment later they're following him down one of the many side halls that all look the same to Robin. The man can talk, and he does, finding John an eager listener. He tells them of their lives in this other land, one without magic. How they're all stories there, and most don't know they exist.

Robin is only half listening, his heart beats too loud in his ears. He doesn't like keeping secrets, it's just not him. He's always prided himself on being an honest, honourable man. Always! 

Finally, the prince, who insists they call him David, stops in front of double doors. Pushing them open, he inclines his head, indicating they should enter.

Inside, a round table sits in the middle of the room. It's enormous and Robin is almost distracted by it. 

Except she's there, too. 

She stands with her arms crossed, a stance which only emphasizes her chest, and makes Robin slightly dizzy. He stops, his eyes meeting hers, and curses the small smirk she sends his way.

David pats him on the shoulder and says something about sitting. The others are already seated around the table. The Pirate and Snow White. David takes his seat to his wife's left. 

Robin considers his position, as John waits patiently by his side. 

The Pirate looks back and grins at him, 

“You can sit here, mate,” he says, indicating the chair next to his. 

Robin doesn't smile back, but takes the offer and sits. 

The Pirate, who only has one hand and a metal hook where the other should be, holds up a flask. 

“Drink?” he asks.

Robin glowers at him, “I don't break bread with pirates.”

Perhaps it's hypocritical of him, he's a thief, after all. But an honorable one. He steals from the rich to give to the poor. The only poor pirates are helping, is themselves. 

The other man raises an eyebrow, “your loss,” he shrugs and pours into his own cup. 

The smell of alcohol is nauseating, and Robin leans back, feeling his headache return and his stomach turn.

“Regina?” The Pirate says, raising the flask.

She grins at him and takes one of the cups on the table, “don't mind if I do,” she leans forward to offer him the chalice, and Robin looks away. Her dress covers very little, and the way she leans leaves even less to the imagination. 

Not that he needs to imagine. 

Hours ago his hands had been on that body. He'd felt the softness of her breasts under his palm, and heard her breath hitch at his touch. As his traitorous mind replays the way she'd moaned his name, and how tight and wet she'd felt around him, his cock stirs in his breeches. Curling his fingers into his palms, he concentrates on the pain, pushing away the memories. 

“I won't bother offering you any,” the pirate says, referring to Snow and David. The two smile kindly at him, and shake their heads.

“Well,” Regina says, sitting down herself, “let's begin, shall we?” 

---

Robin has gotten up. He stares out the window while he listens to the others fight behind him. The forest in the distance is a dark green shadow that stretches as far as the eye can see. Somewhere in there, is the Wicked witch, and she's planning to kill them.

They've been in this meeting for three hours, and have reached no conclusions. The Pirate insists they look for a way to get back to the land without magic. Robin has the strong feeling there's someone waiting there for him. Regina thinks they should deal with the Wicked Witch first, preferably by killing her. 

Snow and David think they should meet with her, figure out what she wants and see if an agreement can be reached. 

What they all have in common is that they want to get back to the land without magic. 

When they speak of this land, their voices drop, and longing shines from their eyes. The only one who does not comment is Regina. Her gaze stays cold, and she makes no mention of this far away land. 

Robin finds it strange. Supposedly she is the one who sent them there in the first place, and she has a son waiting for her there. 

“Perhaps we should send scouts,” John speaks for the first time in hours, and Robin turns. “Maybe she's gone,” John continues, “she may have left, after losing the castle.”

Regina scoffs, “I doubt it,” she inclines her head towards John, “but you're right, we should find out what the situation is, before making any rash decisions. It's possible we're in here under self imposed siege.”

There's a general hum of agreement, the first in many hours. Robin's shoulders relax, and he stretches his fingers. Yes, scouts are a good idea. They need to figure out what the Witch’s forces are, and what she's planning.

“I'll go,” Regina says.

Robin turns to her, eyes wide. 

“You?” he asks, and it's harsher than he'd meant it, but he doesn't step down when she turns her black eyes on him.

“Why not?” 

He scoffs, “why should we trust you?”

Her lips part. He goes on.

“I'm sorry, Your Majesty,” the words drip with scorn, “but I wouldn't trust you if you suddenly sprouted a halo,” he swallows guilt as her eyes darken at his words, “for all we know, you're in league with this witch. After all, you're not that different.”

She stares at him with jaw clenched, “she tried to kill me.”

He shrugs, that means very little to him. He'd tried to kill her, too. 

Swallowing, she leans over the table towards him, her hands splayed out on the wood.

“Listen, thief,” she spits, “you may not trust me, but I gave up everything to save the people in this castle. I gave up my life. I gave up–” her voice breaks and she stops, there are tears brimming in her eyes, “I am going to find this witch, I'm going to kill her, and then I'm going to find a way home. Do you understand?” 

He holds her gaze for a long moment, part of him is overjoyed at having finally broken through her shell, the other part's heart is breaking for her. 

He nods once. 

“Good,” she says, and turns away. 

“But I'm coming with you,” he adds, before he can think his decision through. 

She spins back around, visibly pulling herself together, and raises an eyebrow. 

“I don't need a babysitter,” she says, her voice is venom, but he stands his ground. 

“You could use another set of eyes,” David says, backing Robin up, “he's a good archer, and we've seen the…monkeys, attack from the sky. You can't go alone, Regina.”

Robin is grateful for the backup, though he bristles at being called a good archer. 

She gives him a once over, then shrugs one elegant shoulder. “Fine,” she says, “worst case I'll be rid of you once and for all.”

His eyes narrow at the casual way in which she speaks of his death, but he inclines his head nonetheless. He will go out there, and he'll figure out a way for his men and his son to be free again. He owes it to them.

---

The horse is skittish as Robin saddles him. He's gotten to the stables before the Queen, and is readying his horse when she walks in. 

She's donned more appropriate apparel for the journey. A dark overcoat that splits open at the waist and reveals tight black riding pants. Her hair is up in a simpler style. 

He's staring, but she's watching him right back. Her gaze doesn't fall as he moves around his stallion and greets her with a nod of his head. 

She eyes him for a long time, he can feel her gaze on him as he finishes up, tightening the stirrups. 

“You might want to ready your mare,” he says, pointing to the white horse in the stable opposite, “we're to leave in a few minutes, if we don't want it to get dark too soon.”

She seems to snap out of her trance and pushes away from the stable wall she was leaning on.

“Of course,” she says, and it's the first time he's heard her speak normally since that morning. 

Even then, as she'd sat next to him at the breakfast table, she'd been playing with him. That's what she's been doing since she's met him, playing him, toying with him. 

Her horse is ready surprisingly fast, and soon they're riding out into the forest. The sun is still high up in the sky, and they have plenty of daylight left. 

As they ride, Robin relaxes in his seat. The horse's movement under him is familiar, and the forest more familiar still. The cold air is bracing, but the sky is a clear blue above them, and the birds chirp happily in the treetops. It's his forest. The one he's known all his life, and the thought that, perhaps the witch has really left, crosses his mind.

He barely has time to acknowledge it when something swoops down from high above. Despite its size, It's so fast he almost doesn't see it. 

The creature is horse sized, but in the semblance of a monkey with giant bat wings, the force of their flapping almost knocks Robin off his horse. 

The monkey, however, isn't going for him. It's going for Regina. It swoops down between them, and then rises again, amidst the trees. 

“What the hell–” Regina's words are cut off as the creature lunges again, this time hitting her with the side of his wing. She teeters on the saddle, then straightens. 

Robin has frantically pulled his bow, his arrow knocked and searching for the monster. But it's nowhere to be seen. He scans the treetops with narrowed eyes. 

He realizes too late that the monkey had perched somewhere lower, as he hears Regina scream, and the mare she's riding breaks out into a gallop. The monkey is hot on her trail, flying with surprising dexterity between the trees. 

Robin's own horse begins to gallop, and it's all he can do to stay upright. He lets go of the reins and stands on the stirrups, his arrow drawn. The horse's movement makes it hard to aim, and the creature is flying too fast, quickly gaining on Regina, who is fruitlessly throwing fireballs at it. They whistle past Robin, and he feels the heat of trees catching fire behind him.

He wants to yell at her to stop, but he needs to control his breathing, if he's to manage his shot.

The creature swipes at the Queen, its long talons catching her shoulder and throwing her off balance. She screams, and he shoots. 

He's too far, it's a futile try.

Somehow, his arrow connects with the monster's side. It makes an unholy noise and rises again, above them. 

Regina has been thrown off her horse, and the mare, in panic, has run off. In the distance, he sees the monkey swoop down and grab the white animal by its neck, bringing it up into the trees with it. 

He stops by the fallen queen, her hair is a mess around her head, and her clothes are torn. Holding out a hand, he helps her up onto his horse. She's surprisingly nimble, despite the fall, and she finds her seat behind him with ease.

“Ah,” she sighs, letting her head fall against his shoulder, her arms around his waist, “my horse,” she laments, “you could've shot it sooner!” 

He lets out a huffed laugh, as he turns the stallion around, “a simple thank you would suffice, my lady.”

His words are met with silence. 

He rides slowly down the path, not wanting to overstrain the poor horse having to carry both of them. The shadows begin to lengthen around them, and he's glad they're heading back. The forest is no longer the familiar place it was half an hour before. 

“Thank you,” she murmurs, once he's already given up on an answer. 

Her hands are sitting at his hips now, her fingers on his legs. The position is intimate. Too intimate. But then again, they've been more intimate than this.

“And here I was thinking you wanted me dead,” she says after another pause, “instead you save me.”

Truth be told, his action had been all instinct. 

“Yes, well…” he has no answer, really, except the truth. That he's no longer sure he wants to see her dead. But he can't say that. Can't even admit it to himself. 

“I think the wicked witch wants me dead,” Regina says, changing the subject, “that's the second time her animals have attacked me.”

Robin nods, “what did you do to her?” 

It's her turn to scoff, and he feels her chest press against his back as she does. 

“Why do you think I did something to her?” 

He rolls his eyes, fully aware she can't see him.

“Oh, I wonder,” he says. 

She buries her face against his shoulder and laughs, and his heart tightens in his chest. She's so very different, to the woman he has heard of. The fearsome queen. 

To be sure, she can be fearsome. Intimidating. Terrifying. But that's not who he sees now, as they reach the stables and he helps her down. She accepts his hand and practically falls into his arms, as she dismounts. He catches her, and dark eyes shine up at him, as the scent of apples invades his nose. 

Her full red lips smile at him, and he pulls away before he does something else he'll regret. Still, he doesn't move from there, standing before her in the darkening barn. 

Reaching out, he brushes a stray leaf from her hair. She steps towards him. Suddenly, they're a hair's breadth apart. He can feel her warm breath on his lips, can see the flecks of gold around her pupils, and hear her heartbeat against his chest.

He wants to kiss her. Wants to bury his fingers in her hair and pull her close. Feel her lips on his and her skin on his own. 

The thought terrifies him.

He pulls away, turning without a word and heading into the castle. 

His long strides take him back to their sleeping quarters, where he is alone. He supposes he should meet with the others, tell them of what happened in the forest, but his heart is beating out of his chest and his mind is spinning. 

He clenches his fists and sits on the straw mattress, his head in his hands. 

He shouldn't feel this way about her. Anyone else, anyone else. Why her? Why? 

Screwing his eyes shut he pushes away the feelings blooming in his chest. Her dark eyes flash before him, her quick tongue and her smirk. He wants to kill her and he wants to kiss her and he wants to rip his own heart out and stop feeling! 

The sound of the door falling shut jerks him out of his thoughts and he raises his head. 

John walks towards him. His friend's quick smile has turned into a frown at the sight of him.

“Robin?” he nears and sits by him on the straw mattress, “what's wrong?” 

He shakes his head, he isn't sure he can tell him. Not now. Not when his thoughts are all in disarray and his stomach is filled with acid. 

“The Queen came by,” John continues slowly, “I was with Snow and David, she said a creature attacked her and you saved her…” there's a question at the end of his sentence, but he doesn't quite ask it. 

Robin swallows, of course John is confused. Until a month ago, Robin had hated the woman. Sworn up and down that someday he'd find her and have his revenge, like he'd tried once before. And now…he's saved her life. 

“I…” he licks his lips, “I couldn't let her die like that. It would have been suspicious and…” he shrugs, “it just wasn't right.”

John nods solemnly at his words, his face darkening. 

“I understand that, Robin,” he says, “you're too honorable to let someone die at the hands of a monster. Or to shoot them in the back. That's why you're our leader. That's why we, all of us, look to you as our example.”

The words cut through him like razor blades. He doesn't deserve them. If John knew…if John knew they'd be having a very different conversation. 

“But she's here now,” John goes on, oblivious to Robin's turmoil, “and I've found something out.”

Raising an eyebrow, Robin indicates he should continue. He doesn't trust his voice.

“I had Snow tell me where her chambers are, not exactly, but I figure it out,” John grins, like they're sharing a private joke, “I'll show you where she sleeps, and, Robin, you can finally have your revenge,” he takes Robin's hand and squeezes it hard, “Marian will finally be able to rest.”

Another flash of pain goes through him. Is Marian not resting now? Is she spinning in her grave at the knowledge of what he's done? Of what he feels, for the woman who sent her to her end? 

He blinks and looks at John. His friend's eyes are alight, his face animated. He believes in this revenge, as do the others. Even Friar Tuck, though his faith preaches forgiveness, has said some things can only be forgiven with penitence. And sometimes that penitence is death. 

“But…”Robin isn't sure what to say, he wants to protest, but he's been talking about avenging Marian too long, there's nothing he can say.

John misinterprets his silence, “it should be you, Robin,” he says, “she was your…” he stops himself. What was he going to say? Lover, wife, soulmate, mother of his son. Marian.

“Killing her in her sleep isn't very honorable,” he argues lamely. 

Furrowing his brow, John shakes his head, “then don't, wait until she comes in from supper and shoot her,” he bites his lip, “we would all rather you did the dishonorable thing, and kept yourself safe from her magic, but we know you won't. So, do it honorably. But do it, Robin. Justice doesn't come for these people, justice doesn't come for the rich and powerful. We take it.”

He's right, and Robin knows he's right. He clenches his jaw. All his life he's known exactly who was good and who was not. Who to blame and who to help. And now, too, he knows. Yet, the enemy's lips are soft, and her laughter is sweet when it rings in his ears. 

He closes his eyes. 

“You're right,” he says, “tell me where she sleeps.” 

---

 

The room is large, unsurprisingly. It's also very neat. There's very little of hers to be seen, though the vanity sparkles with expensive jewelry and a silver hairbrush. 

The four poster bed is made, heavy curtains cover the sides, draping down from the wooden frame. Robin pulls them aside, scanning over the bedding. 

Her scent clings to everything in here. 

On the other side of the room is a large wardrobe. Robin briefly considers hiding in there, but when he opens it, it is filled to the brim with her clothes, and the thought of nestling amongst them, in her smell, makes him sick.

He settles for the corner, next to the fireplace. From here, he can see the doorway, just past the heavy leather settee at the centre of the room. 

Crouching down, he settles in to wait. 

Robin is used to waiting, his job requires it. He almost enjoys it, sitting amongst the branches, watching the light change, shadows dancing down on the road below. Listening for his men, who are as quiet as cats, in the nearby treetops. What he normally waits for, however, is rich men to filch. Not a woman to kill. 

The thought hangs heavy in his heart. He doesn't want to do it. The only things he's ever killed are animals, and even then, he had found no joy in it. 

His conversation with John replays in his mind. Regina, the Queen. The very symbol of everything he's ever despised. Everything he'd stood against. The opulent chambers he's standing in only confirm what he knows. She is the enemy. 

He knows her story, has heard it a thousand times. The rich daughter of an ambitious woman, her beauty used to her advantage, to marry the King. The death of the King, and her rise to power as sole Queen. And… everything else, after that. The deaths, the wars, the terror. 

She had done some good, he'd heard, but always overshadowed by her bloodlust. She'd ruled with an iron fist, her soldier's swords never clean of blood. 

Good monarchs he can almost swallow. They still have too much, while their people starve, but they try. Snow White, he likes. She is naive but kind. 

The Queen…the Queen is not naive. She is cruel and hard, enjoys power and blood. And she deserves to die. Robin must avenge the countless innocent deaths she'd caused. 

As the minutes tick by, Robin feels himself fill with determination. Everything he's done up to this moment, has led him to this. 

Is he not Robin Hood? Who steals from the rich to give to the poor? 

He weighs his crossbow in his hand. Not his favorite weapon, that would be bow and arrow, but better in close quarters. More precise. Not that he needs it, he's the best archer in the Enchanted Forest. 

The door opens, and Robin stands. 

He raises the crossbow. 

He must shoot fast and shoot true. If he gives her time to realize what's happening, she'll use her magic and that'll be the end of him. 

Swallowing, his finger brushes the trigger.

The door begins to close, and her figure appears behind it. She doesn't see him, her face turned towards the bed, or maybe the window. 

She's dressed differently, a soft cream dressing gown over her white nightgown. She's coming from a bath, her hair is down and damp. It curls on the bottom.

He aims. She's not ten steps from him. He shoots. 

The crossbow clicks loudly, and the arrow whizzes through the air. She turns, eyes wide, lips parted. 

With a heavy thud, the arrow buries itself in the wooden bedframe of the four poster bed. It rips a hole in the drapes.

She stares at him, his crossbow still raised.

“Hello, Robin,” she says. 

He lets the crossbow fall to his side. There's no point trying again. Her magic is too powerful. 

She turns and studies the arrow for a moment, before meeting his gaze again. 

“You missed,” she tells him.

He titles his head to one side.

“I noticed.” 

Nodding, she pushes the door all the way closed and places her hands on the settee dividing them.

“How is it that the best archer in the kingdom misses from ten steps away?” she asks, her eyebrows raise, and he has the distinct feeling she's enjoying this.

“Stop toying with me,” he growls. 

“Me?” she asks, her hands go to her chest, “you're the one who's tried to kill me thrice now. Either get the job done, or give up!”

“Do you want me to kill you?”

“I want you to make up your mind!” 

He lets the crossbow clatter to the ground and looks away, crossing his arms over his chest. Why didn't he kill her? Why? 

Looking back at her he knows why. 

Her lips are soft and pink, bereft of her usual red lipstick. Her wide eyes are dark, darker still in the halflight of the room. She's soft and beautiful and human. So very human. 

Making her way around the settee she goes to him, until she's only a step away. He looks down at her, taking in the line of her jaw, the angle of her nose, the small scar above her lip. 

“You have to die,” he says, “by my hand.”

“Why?” she asks.

He closes his eyes. Where to begin? 

“You are everything I've ever hated. Powerful, bloodthirsty. You're a monster, Regina,” he swallows, opening his eyes and judging her reaction. If she's hurt, she doesn't show it. “You killed my wife, and so many others. My men, they sent me here, they want revenge. And I…I–” 

Her breathing is uneven now, they're standing so close he can see the flecks of gold in her eyes. The shades of amber and nutmeg. 

“You?”

“I want you.” 

She smiles a little, her hands got to his chest, her palms splayed open over his heart. He should be afraid, but he's not. 

“And if I'm a monster, what does that make you?”

Her hands are small, pressed up against him, and he takes them, pulling her closer. His nose brushes hers, and her breath ghosts over his. 

It's all wrong, so very wrong. But her fingers slide into his hair, and her eyes flutter shut. Her body close to his, her heart beating steadily against him. And he doesn't care. 

When he kisses her, she stands on tiptoes, leaning against him to better return the kiss. Her lips are soft and warm, and his arms wrap around her small frame, pulling her into him. 

Is it a weakness of the flesh, or the heart? 

He isn't sure, and isn't sure he wants to know. 

Pushing him back, she nudges him to the settee, her lips never leaving his. He sits back as she clambers onto him, sitting on his lap. Robin's hands run up her thighs, pushing her nightgown out of the way and feeling silky warm skin under his fingertips.

Traitorous as ever, his cock twitches, already hard. He needs her. More than he needs water or air. 

When she rocks against him, a gasp leaves her lips, and his fingers slide in her hair, his other hand on her hip, encouraging her movement over him. Shimmying down he groans as she presses more fully over him. Her own moan mixes with his and his hands find the bottom of her dress, sliding it further up her legs. 

His lips are on her neck, his fingers gripping the naked skin of her thigh, and he wants to see her. To see all of her and take her and have all of her. 

“Take it off,” he growls, ripping at the nightgown. 

Leaning away from him, she meets his gaze. Her pupils are blown with desire; any thought of hurting her has long left him. Now, he wants to hear her cry his name in ecstasy.

“Off,” he says again, when his first command isn't immediately followed.

Grinning, she obeys. And the soft, expensive fabric is on the ground. He's not paying attention. He's watching her. 

The only light in the room is the lit torch in the corner, and the orange firelight dances over her bare skin. 

He's never seen anything quite like her. 

He's staring, taking her in, and she laughs. 

“Still monstrous?” she asks, as her fingers cup his face, pulling him up and kissing him as she slides down his lap. 

“Yes,” he groans. His hips buck up, into her. He's painfully hard now, and she whines at the friction against her core.

When she pulls back, there's a wet spot on his breeches, and he grins. She wants him just as much as he does. 

Finding his belt buckle, she undoes it. She's breathing hard, and her fingers slip over the metal. He helps her, and soon her hand is in his breeches, wrapping around his length, and he's seeing stars. 

Pulling him out, she strokes him. Long and slow. Groaning, his head falls back. The way she's touching him is blasphemous. 

Her lips part, and her tongue runs along the bottom.

Twisting his fingers in the roots of her hair, he pushes her down. 

“Really?” she asks, there's laughter in her voice, but her eyes flash dangerously.

“Really,” he murmurs. 

Her fingers, still around his cock, tighten. Painfully. 

“I'm the Queen,” she says, “I'm not going to debase myself.”

Scrunching his forehead, Robin tries to concentrate. It's difficult considering all his blood seems to be in his cock. But her words make little sense to him. His fingers loosen their hold on her hair, and he pulls her in for a kiss. 

Soft and sweet, he kisses her. Her bare chest against his clothed one. He strokes her face and searches her eyes. 

“Alright,” he murmurs.

Regina's eyes go wide, and her lips part in surprise. 

“But could you stop attempting to castrate me?” he mutters, her fingers still tight around him. 

She lets go, looking down as if she's just noticed what she was doing. 

“Sorry.”

He takes her head in his hands, pulling her close, until they're forehead to forehead. 

“Are you alright?” 

She swallows, and again she's looking at him like he's a foreign being. An alien from another planet.

“Yes,” she replies, and kisses him. 

The kiss quickly turns heated again, and she seems to forget their momentary impasse. 

Sliding his hands down her body, he cups her soft breasts, feeling her suck in air against his lips. His thumbs stroke her nipples. With one hand, he pulls her close again, until her sex is pressed against his. 

Her head falls to his shoulder and she's panting against his neck. He thrusts up, stroking his hard length against her. Her teeth sink into his skin and he chuckles. Bucking his hips, he does it again, his hardness against her clit. She's wet, and he's quickly losing himself in the feeling of her.

“Fuck,” she whimpers, when he does it for a third time, “just fuck me.”

He laughs, pushing her hair away from her neck and face. He wants to watch her as he takes her.

Sitting up on her knees, she takes him and lines him up against her. 

He presses a kiss to her lips then holds her chin, making sure she's looking at him as she sinks down over his length. 

He resists the urge to thrust up into her and lets her take her time. 

She's slow and steady, her breathing even, as she takes him in. He wants to fuck her fast and rough, but he concentrates on her face. On the way her eyes widen and she bites her lip, on the way her eyebrows furrow as her hips touch his. 

His hands steady her on her hips, thumbs digging into the spot under her hip bones. She moves over him, slowly at first, getting used to the size of him inside her, but soon she’s whimpering, her muscles clenching erratically around him as she speeds up. 

“Robin,” she murmurs, her head falling against his chest. 

He takes in her scent, the softness of her hair against his face, and kisses her as he begins to thrust into her. He's no longer in control of his body, pleasure shoots through him with each of her movements, with each of his inside her. 

She's perfect around him, her voice on his skin, small whimpers and rough moans. 

It's like she's made for him, and when he touches her she yelps, making him laugh. It's only for a moment, because as his fingers circle her clit, her muscles start to clench around him, and the laughter dies on his lips. Her hands find his, and she’s guiding him to her pleasure. His fingers grow wet with her desire as he follows her movements, rough, hard touches on her clit. Her whimpered moans tell him he's doing something right, so he keeps going. Capturing her lips in a bruising kiss, he speeds up his thrusts inside her. Her legs shake around his own, and his free hand digs into the soft flesh of her thigh. 

In a moment, she’s crying out, her words a jumbled mess as she comes. With some difficulty he continues to thrust into her, but pleasure is washing over him and he’s close. Robin screws his eyes shut and concentrates on anything but the way she feels around him, he wants to keep taking her, to ride out her orgasm. 

“Robin,” she moans again, her fingers gripping his chin. 

Opening his eyes he looks up into her face, her flushed cheeks and bright, clear eyes. She lifts herself up off of him and he misses her instantly. He wants to complain, but a second later she’s on her knees between his legs, her lips on him. 

He’s never seen anything quite so beautiful. Her dark hair messy around her head, her lips in a perfect O around his cock. She swirls her tongue around him and he groans, pleasure shooting into him. He can’t help himself as his fingers tighten in her hair and his hips buckle against her mouth. She glances up at him, eyes dark and dangerous and he murmurs an apology. 

Forcing himself still, his eyes flutter shut.

Her head bobs up and down as she takes him. The unexpectedness of the act has him on the edge already. The way her tongue runs up his cock, the warmth of her mouth, her fingers on his thighs, digging into his skin. 

When she wraps one hand around his length, he's gone. Any semblance of control leaves him and he thrusts up, into her mouth. She doesn't complain, sitting up on her knees to take him more fully. Pleasure overtakes his senses and he feels himself start to shake, the coil inside him breaking as he sits up and cups the back of her head. His orgasm washes over him, and he spills himself into her mouth. As soon as he does it, in the fog of pleasure that's taken over his brain, panic flashes. Regina, however, doesn't seem to mind. She swallows and sits back on her haunches, licking her lips. 

He pulls her up onto his body, her warm skin on his, and breathes in the scent of her hair. For a moment, he doesn't think. He lets the softness of her skin melt into his, and runs his hard hands over her, feeling her shiver on him. 

Her head is tucked beneath his chin, and her breathing is even and steady on his chest. Robin has the distinct feeling she's trying not to think, too. They're both trying to pretend that what they're doing is alright, that they can keep doing it. That there's a chance for them. 

Robin sighs and let's himself fall to the side, pulling her down next to him.

His shirt has fallen open.Ripped open by her eager hands. Now, her fingers ghost over his chest, tracing nonsensical patterns on his skin. 

“I'm not the best archer in the kingdom,” he says. 

“Oh?” she asks, her head falls back against his shoulder, and she meets his eyes. 

He hums, “I'm the best archer in the enchanted forest.”

She laughs, and he can't help himself, he leans down and presses a soft kiss to her lips. He lingers against her mouth then pulls up and kisses her nose, then her forehead. His kisses are soft, slow, and her fingers stroke his neck and his chest as she leans into them. 

When he pulls away, her lips are swollen and her eyes bright. Something stirs in his chest, followed immediately by guilt. 

“You're beautiful,” he murmurs.

Her skin is flushed, her chest rises and falls evenly. Her hair, a perfect black halo around her head. 

She doesn't answer, looking up at him with dark eyes. 

He looks away, his jaw clenched. 

“But you know that,” he says, “you used your beauty to marry the King, to take his power and become Queen.”

There's anger in his voice, and he wishes he was a stronger man. Robin has never seen himself as weak, but perhaps it's because he's never been confronted with his own weakness. 

She stiffens in his arms. Her muscles going rigid against his side.

Again, she doesn't answer, but after a moment, she gets up. 

She pulls the dressing gown off the floor and puts it on, tightening it at the waist.

“Don't speak about things you know nothing of, thief,” she spits, turning back to him. 

Her anger takes him by surprise, but he's sure it doesn't show, as he sits up and buttons his shirt.

She glares at him for a moment, before turning away. 

“Leave,” she says.

“Regina–”

“Leave.”

He gets up, one hand reaching out to her, but she's already gone. Around the settee, to her bed. She sits on it, pulling her legs up onto the mattress, effectively hiding her from his view behind the drapes. 

He picks his crossbow up from the ground and inclines his head. 

“As you wish,” he says.

She doesn't bother looking back at him as he leaves, slamming the door shut behind him. 

Something akin to anger stirs in his bowels as he stalks across the castle back to the chambers he shares with his men. She infuriates him. 

What had he said, but the truth? 

Everyone knows the stories, knows what happened to the late King Leopold. She'd married him and murdered him. All to become sole Queen. To wield her power. 

He stops walking, through an open doorway, he can see the garden where he’d first kissed her. As she’d instructed him on how to kill her. 

Almost unwillingly, he walks out. The moon is full, and lights the path to the apple orchard. he follows. 

Despite the snow that sticks to the ground, the trees are heavy with fruit. 

Robin sits on the bench. It’s freezing and he’s shivering, but his mind is a mess of whirling thoughts. There’s no point trying to go sleep, and there’s a good chance John is waiting up for him, wanting to know if he’d killed her. 

Robin lets his head hang back. The stars twinkle back at him from the night sky, faint little lights, hidden by the moon. His breath condenses in the air before him and he watches the little puffs form and disappear.

Human. Monster. 

Robin isn’t sure what’s real anymore. He unsheathes his dagger and traces the rivulets in the wood handle. She had been angry at him, for pushing her to take him in her mouth, but she hadn’t hurt him. And when he’d said she’d married the King to murder him, she’d only told him to leave. His heart is still safe in his chest.

He’d heard rumors; that the land without magic had changed her. He’d dismissed them,even if she had changed, was that enough? after everything she’d done?

He’d heard other rumors, before, of villages razed to the ground by her fury. Of piles of corpses without hearts. 

Gripping his dagger tight, Robin gives up. He’s no longer angry, he’s no longer looking for revenge. He should have killed her the very first time he saw her, but he hadn't. And now, he wouldn’t. 

That night, Robin sleeps for a wink. He goes to bed late, and rises early. 

He’s first to the mess hall, and is eating his breakfast with Roland in his lap, enjoying the few moments of alone time with his son, when John comes in. 

The large man lets himself fall to the bench next to Robin, the wood groaning under his weight. 

“So?” he asks, his tone low, conspiratorial, “did you do it?”

Robin barely has time to swallow a mouthful of porridge when the main doors open again, and she walks in. 

Somehow, she looks softer. There are dark circles under her eyes, her skin so pale blue veins show on her chest. She looks fragile and his heart squeezes in his chest. 

He offers no explanation, even as the other men walk in, each glancing between her and him as they sit down. 

Robin finishes up quickly and rises. He has every intention of spending the day alone, shooting arrows at nothing, but John’s hand on his arm stops him. 

His friend’s eyebrows are knit together, eyes narrowed, “Robin, what’s going on?”

Turning, Robin meets her eyes. She looks away.

---

 

Notes:

Let me know what you thought!

Love, Ivy 💕

Chapter 4: Chapter 3 part 2

Notes:

SOOO I actually did know how to play poker once, but I have since forgotten. Let's just say that this is the Enchanted Forest's version of poker which just boils down to "poker the way SnowIvy remembers it + what makes the most dramatic symbolism."

Enjoy!

The winter passes slowly, as Robin does his best to avoid her. Rarely, he’s forced to speak to her, in meetings he now attends with John, and occasionally Friar Tuck. Other than those fleeting moments, they ignore each other. Regina seems just as hell bent as him on not speaking. It makes things easier. 

John never mentions her again. Though Robin catches him looking suspicious on occasion, he offers no explanation. There’s nothing to say anymore. Whatever had happened was in the past, and Robin does his best to forget it. 

Robin has to admit that being forced inside isn’t as bad as he thought it might be. He finally has time to spend with his son, to teach him to ride and shoot in the small castle courtyard. 

Not to mention, his men needed the rest. 

It’s thanks to Roland that his friendship with Snow rekindles, he had known the princess was a good shot, and they spend many afternoons practicing.  

He discovers a good friend in David, as the man teaches Roland sword fighting, something Robin had never excelled in. His men like the prince, too, and soon he’s spending most of his evenings with them. 

Life in the castle is simple, food never seems to run out (though by mid spring Robin begins to suspect it’s magic that keeps them fed,) and the people of Storybrooke have taken easily to the Merry men, and vice versa. Robin has spied more than one romance among the young women and his youngest members. 

They are mocked relentlessly. 

There is one notable exception to the general good spirit in the castle. When she appears, his men go quiet and rigid. And so does Robin. 

David and Snow, however, like her. And Snow spends almost as much time with the Queen as she does with Robin and the Merry Men. 

The night before midsummer’s day, Robin finds himself with John and Friar Tuck, playing cards in David’s chambers. They play for coin, and the other Merry men have retired to bed after losing most of their hard earned (well, stolen,) change. 

Robin holds his cards close to his chest and studies the other three. He’s quite certain he’s about to win this round, holding two queens and a jack. But David’s expression worries him. The prince is always smiling, except when his cards are good, at which point his eyebrows draw together and he frowns. 

He’s frowning now. 

Robin taps his fingers on the table, somewhere the prince had found a green tablecloth, and it’s all very professional. 

He turns to John. 

“Are we waiting for the sun to come up so you can see your cards?”
The big man frowns. 

“Fold,” he says, and puts his hand down. 

Robin nods, pressure always works on John. 

He’s about to turn to Tuck when the chamber doors open. He expects Snow to walk in, bringing news of the planned midsummer’s celebration, but it is Regina who enters. 

Snow walks in behind her, her fingers intertwined at her front. The two are deep in conversation, and evidently surprised to see the men there. 

Snow startles a little and then smiles, rounding the table to press a kiss to her husband’s forehead. 

Robin should have been looking at her face, to catch her expression as she glances at David’s cards, but the presence of the Queen is distracting, and he stares down at his own cards. 

Two queens and a jack. 

“Hi,” David is saying, speaking to his wife, “I was just being cleaned out by these fine gentlemen, would you like to join us?”

Snow laughs, “I think I’ll watch. Try not to gamble away our kingdom.”

David grins, “I make no promises. Regina?”

The Queen has gone to stand by the fireplace, her hands stretched out towards the flickering flames. It may be midsummers’ eve, but the sun has long set and there’s a chill in the air. 

She glances up at David’s words, and gives the prince a small smile. She avoids Robin’s gaze like it might burn her. 

“I don’t have any cash on me,” she says. 

“We can play for your earrings,” Robin says, before he can stop the words from leaving his mouth. 

He isn’t sure what possessed him to speak, perhaps it was the way she’d looked away from him, or perhaps it was just his thief’s eye, that had caught the sparkle on her ear as soon as she’d walked in. 

She rounds the table, her eyes now on him. 

John and Tuck are looking, too, but Robin ignores them. He holds her gaze. 

She raises an eyebrow and sweeps her hair away from her neck, revealing the black pearls he’d seen. 

“Oh?” she asks, she takes one off and hands it to him, “are they worth enough?”

He takes the small jewel and turns it in his fingers. She must be joking. One of these black pearls is worth more than his life. Quite literally; the bounty on his head is lower. 

“If they’re real–”
She scoffs, “of course they’re real.”

Taking in a sharp breath, he puts the earring down and gestures to the seat next to him. 

Snow and Regina tell them of the activities planned for the next day as they play, and slowly even John and Tuck warm up to the conversation. 

Regina has just lost the little pile of coins she’d won to him, so Robin is surprised when their eyes meet and she smiles. 

“There’s also going to be a tournament,” she tells them as she deals the cards, “and an archery match.” 

Robin scoffs as he picks up his own cards, and carefully blanks his face.

Three Queens.

“Archery?” he says, “well, worry not, I won’t join.”

“Why not?” Snow’s voice catches him off guard from behind him. The princess is standing with her back to the fireplace. 

“It wouldn’t be fair,” he replies, putting his cards face down on the table. 

Regina shrugs, “Snow will play.”

Robin says nothing. She’s goading him and he can feel himself falling for it. He’s a better archer than the princess, and he knows it. 

“There’s a prize,” Regina says, she studies her cards intently, “a cash prize.”

John shifts next to him, and Robin glances over. 

“Fold,” the man says, and Tuck is next. 

“Of course,” Regina continues, pushing the earring to the center of the table, “you wouldn’t want to lose to Snow in front of your men.”
John chuckles, “Robin doesn’t lose.” 

Regina raises an eyebrow and David puts his cards down. 

“Fold,” the prince says, and glances between them. 

Robin sighs, pretending to think on it. He adds a small pile of coins to the center. 

Regina smirks. Biting her lip she studies her cards. Her dark eyes are sharp. She raises a hand and for a moment he’s sure she’ll fold. Instead, she undoes the clasp of her earring and puts it down. 

It’s his turn now. He has one more chance not to lose everything. He can fold now and take no loss. 

He studies her face. It’s blank of anything but the small smile playing on her lips. 

She’s bluffing. 

Grinning, he pushes his entire pile of coins to the center of the table. All in. 

Something flashes across her eyes, and he’s sure he’s won. 

“Your cards,” he says. 

She hesitates, jaw clenched.

A king and two tens. 

Robin smiles. 

“I’m afraid I’ve won, Your Majesty.”

Putting his cards down, he quirks an eyebrow at her. 

“Three queens,” she says, “ironic.”

---

 

The next day Robin wakes to Roland’s excited squeals and the castle in full celebration. Colorful streamers hang from the ceiling, and everyone they pass through the halls is dressed in their Sunday best. 

Roland drags Robin by the hand through the castle, the windows and doors are all thrown open,  music and light streaming in from the courtyard. 

Robin can almost pretend they’re here by choice, and not forced inside by the Wicked Witch’s incessant attacks. 

Almost. 

Outside, in the courtyard, stands have been set up. The wooden tables are pushed up against the castle’s thick stone walls. There is food and drink aplenty, and a few of his men are already getting drunk by the stables. A few young women in pretty flowing dresses hang around them, their giggles carrying over the open space. 

Smiling a little, Robin lets his son’s hand go and watches him run towards Little John, the bigger man turning and pulling the tiny boy into his arms. 

His lips twist of their own accord as he notices the two figures in the far corner. Snow and Regina stand side by side, watching as a few men finish setting up the archery range. Regina’s hair is loose down her back, she’s been wearing it this way more and more recently, and Robin can’t help noticing the way the raven black catches the sunlight. The memory of his fingers twisting in that hair assaults him, and he’s grateful when the sound of Tuck approaching jolts him out of his thoughts. 

“So,” Tuck stops next to him, adjusting the thick white rope that holds his friar’s robes closed, “will you join the contest?”

Robin scoffs, “it wouldn’t be fair,” he glances at Snow White. The younger woman is a good shot, but he knows his own skills. 

Tuck laughs, his jowls shaking with mirth, “you’re overconfident, Robin. And you finally have competition.”

Robin sighs, the air of joviality around him suddenly feels heavy, the music too loud and too close. They’ve been in this castle, her castle, for half a year. Too long. The Merry Men are supposed to be free, to roam the woods and to help those in need (while unburdening the rich of their coin, naturally.) Instead, they’re stuck in an endless siege. 

“Lighten up,” Tuck says, seemingly noticing the dark cloud over his head, “it’s not forever.”

Robin glances up at his friend, he has spoken to no one of his guilt. Part of it is her , of course, but part of it is that it’s his fault they’re stuck here. He should have never brought his men to this castle. Why had he? He has the terrible feeling it has to do with a certain dark haired woman that he can’t seem to keep out of his head. 

“We shouldn’t be here,” he tells Tuck, “this Wicked Witch, she has nothing against us. It isn’t our fight.” 

“Since when have we only fought our own wars?” Tuck replies. 

Robin blinks, almost automatically he turns to look at her. To his surprise, she’s looking right back. He meets her dark gaze and she doesn’t look away. But neither does she smile. 

“Ah, yes,” Tuck murmurs, “it’s her the witch wants dead, isn’t it?” 

Pulling himself together, Robin nods. 

“Who’s side are we on, Tuck?” he asks, “she’s…” the Evil Queen. Even the pious friar had agreed she should die. 

“We protect those who need protecting,” Tuck says, “did you ever stop to think about whether the villager you were helping was a murderer? Or a wife beater?”

“This is different. She…she’s…” Robin still has no words. 

“Yes, she is.” Tuck speaks matter-of-factly, “and don’t you forget it, Robin. She is who she is. That does not mean we abandon those in need of help.”

His serious face breaks into a grin, and he pats Robin on the shoulder. “But now, forget all this. Enjoy yourself, Robin. You deserve it. Decisions can be made tomorrow.” 

---

 

The last round of the tournament is set for sunset. As the light turns orange and sky tinges pink, Robin heads to the range. The targets are simple painted wood. Besides them stands a raised dais, two high backed chairs where the judges sit, shaded by heavy red drapes. A wooden balustrade protects them from stray arrows. 

Regina sits comfortably on one, one leg crossed over the other and a chalice filled with red wine between her fingers. 

David sits on the other chair, he lounges back and waves at Robin as he nears. 

Surprising no one, Robin and Snow have won every round. Now, the two of them stand next to each other, waiting for Regina to give the signal to begin.

“Whatever happens,” Snow says to him, turning and smiling, “it was a good game.”

He hums, “losing words, princess,” he grins down at her, softening the bite of his words. 

She laughs but doesn’t reply as Regina sits forward and raises her hand. A spark of fire bursts from her open palm and Snow grins. 

She’s a good archer and all three of her arrows hit the bright red mark in the perfect center of the target, the only thing Robin can do to win is impress the judges. Which isn’t going to be easy, considering who they are. Still, he’s not worried at all. 

At Regina’s signal, he raises his bow, the arrow nocked and ready. He takes a breath, focusing on his stance, he shifts, then looses the arrow. 

It hits bull’s eye with ease. 

There’s a general ruckus of his men behind him, but Robin takes no notice, he’s already pulling the next arrow from the quiver. 

He waits, his gaze shifting to Regina, waiting for the second signal. 

She’s wearing a simple dress, dark, almost midnight blue, but of a lighter fabric than those she’d worn in the winter. The long sleeves flare at her wrists, and the neckline catches his eye. It’s a corset style, white ribbons criss cross over her chest and tie the dress closed at the top. 

Catching his eye, she raises an eyebrow, but her signal comes a moment later, and he focuses on the target.

His arrow flies straight and true, and cuts through the first arrow, splitting it in half. Behind him there's a moment of complete silence, then the crowd bursts into applause. 

Robin holds back a grin, there's one more arrow, and if he misses this one, he loses. 

Still, his focus is taken by the woman on the dais. Yes, he's waiting for her signal, but he's also getting drunk off the admiration in her eyes. Her dark eyebrows are raised, her surprise at his shot evident on her features. 

She raises her free hand and fire shoots from her palm. 

His third arrow is ready. Exhaling slowly, Robin turns his focus back on the game. He's almost ready to shoot when movement in the corner of his eye catches his attention. He glances at the dais. 

Regina is leaning forward, against the balustrade, her wine glass carefully balanced on the wooden beam. Her free hand is playing with the strings that hold her dress closed. Robin swallows, his eyes darting down to her chest, and then back up to her face. She smiles and pulls her lower lip between her teeth. 

It's a fraction of a moment, but Robin's breathing has become uneven, and his heart is doing strange things in his chest.

He tries to focus back on the target, but he knows it's useless. He can still see Regina moving at the edge of his vision. 

He looses the arrow. It goes flying far too far left, and hits on the thin line between the red bull's eye and the painted white line around it. 

Robin swears under his breath and lets the bow fall to the ground. Around him, the crowd sounds disappointed. 

He stalks away, pausing only to congratulate Snow White, and heads to the closest wine stand. 

The sky has gone from pink and orange to a deep blue, and fires have been lit all around the courtyard.

Robin turns his men's words away with a look as they approach, and they know him well enough not to offer up excuses for his loss. While losing the tournament does sting, Robin is more worried someone will have noticed why he lost. No one comments, however, and as the evening becomes night, he relaxes. Not in small part thanks to the large quantities of wine he's imbuing. His chalice never seems to be empty for long, and soon he's all but forgotten the loss, and is merrily watching the dancers around the fire. The music has become more lively as the sky darkens, and the musicians become drunker, and several of his men are clumsily dancing amongst the others.

Robin laughs as John trips over his own feet, and his son stops running circles around him to check on John's well being. 

“You just seem…unhappy,” Snow’s voice catches Robin's attention, and he perks his ears to hear her conversation somewhere behind him. 

“I'm not sure what there is to celebrate, Snow,” Regina's voice is almost unexpected, but Robin doesn't turn, still listening surreptitiously to the conversation.

“Oh, Regina, don't be like that. We have plenty to celebrate, we're alive, aren't we? And where there's life, there's–” 

“Hope? Spare me. Please,” Regina sounds truly annoyed, and Robin turns. 

They're only a few steps away, Regina leaning against the castle wall, and Snow next to her, her white dress now muddy and dirty. 

Robin approaches slowly, he hadn't properly congratulated Snow on winning the tournament, too sour at the time. Now the wine has mollified him.

“Your Majesties,” he says as he reaches them, he sees the surprise flash across Regina's eyes, before she covers it with carefully constructed nothingness. He turns to Snow, “I must congratulate you again. You truly bested me.”

Snow inclines her head to one side and smiles, “I have to say I was surprised,” she says, “you are the better archer, of that there's no doubt. How did you miss that last shot?” 

Robin swallows and glances at the other woman, whose face is still a mask, “I was distracted,” he says.

“Pity,” Regina says.

“That second shot,” Snow tells him, “that was something!” she sounds enthusiastic, and Robin can't help but smile at her, his annoyance at losing almost dissipated. 

“Oh,” Snow says, looking somewhere behind him, “excuse me, my husband is looking for me.”

Suddenly, they're alone. 

Robin glances at her, and it feels like the crowd melts away, and it is only them. He's taken by the sudden urge to press her back into the wall and kiss her until neither can breathe anymore. 

The winter has passed, and so has the spring, and yet the urge to touch her and have her hasn't dissipated, like he'd hoped it would. 

“The best archer in the forest, huh?” she looks down at her wine glass, hiding a smirk. 

He can't be angry, he laughs and looks away from her. 

“As I said; I was…distracted.”

She hums, her gaze meeting his. 

“Sounds like something the second best archer would say.”

He steps towards her and electricity crackles between them. He can see the desire in her dark eyes, the way her chest rises and falls quickly. The wine is lowering his inhibitions, but he's still only too aware of the crowd around him, how anyone could glance their way, and see him standing much too close to her, their gazes locked. 

She's the first to look away.

“It's too crowded here,” she says. 

“It is.”

She slips out from between him and the wall and walks away, towards the castle. He watches her go, until she turns back, a few steps from him. There's a table at her side, and she places the glass carefully on it. 

“Coming?” she asks. 

He follows her eagerly towards the imposing building. 

She slips through a half open door, and they find themselves in a side hall. She's merely a silhouette in the dark, the only light that which filters in through the door from the fires lit out in the courtyard. 

He doesn't think, there's no time and no point. He pushes her against the stone wall and presses his lips to hers. 

He'd missed her, he realizes as she answers his kiss. Her warm body pressed between him and the cold wall, her fingers in his hair, and her breath on his skin. 

They don't speak, their panting breaths all they need to know. His hands run up her body, over her waist and her hips, then up over her breasts. He pulls at the thin white ribbon holding the fabric over her chest, and it comes undone, exposing her to the cool night air. 

She gasps softly, and her nipples turn hard  under his fingers and in the cold. 

“Fuck,” he murmurs, “I've wanted to this all evening,” he runs his hands over her breasts, soft and pliable under his calloused fingers. 

She breathes out a soft laugh, “I know.”

Growling, he hikes her skirt up. She's not wearing anything underneath, and his free hand runs over silky smooth skin. 

His cock is already hard, and he's lost all capacity for rational thought. 

“I can't believe,” he murmurs against the skin of her neck, “you made me lose.” 

She lets her head fall back, giving him better access to her throat, “I didn't,” she says, “you were distracted.”

He kisses her, pulling her hips close and grinding against her. She whines in response. 

“You distracted me.”

He presses his erection to her core harder, and her back arches into him. Pleasure shoots through him, and her hands tighten on his shoulders. 

“Your fault,” she gasps, and he undoes the buckle of his belt, freeing his cock from its restraints. 

Her fingers find his length and she strokes him slowly. There's no time for slow and gentle however, his blood is boiling and he needs to have her. 

Shoving her dress aside, he lines himself up against her. He wants to fuck her as quickly as he can, but finds just enough self restraint to run his fingers over her first. She's not quite wet enough, so he slides a finger into her, finding just how wet she is inside. Her moan spurs him on, and he slides another digit in. With gentle strokes he rubs her slickness all over her, in and out, up and down. He slows down as her hips grind against his hand. She's moaning, low and rough, and growing more aroused by the second; it's making him see stars. 

He gasps as he pushes his cock into her, she's tight and wet around him. Perfect. 

He growls the word against her throat as her leg hitches around his waist. She lets her head fall back against the stone, giving him better access to her chest and neck.

He's well aware of just how public this place is. Anyone could walk in from the door behind him, and he can hear the festivities still taking place outside. But he doesn't care. 

He thrusts into her like a man starved. He hadn't realized just how much he'd missed her, in these six months. 

Somewhere inside him, there's still a battle raging, between the man he wants to be, the man he thought he was, and the man that's fucking the woman in his arms. 

At the moment, he couldn't care less. 

She whines his name, and he pulls her other leg up around his waist. She's light enough, and he has no difficulty holding her up against the wall, his cock sliding into her at a new angle and making her moan in pleasure. 

The door creaks behind him, and Robin stops moving inside her. Her breath hitches against his ear, and she goes still. 

The sound of the door opening all the way has Robin pulling out of her and doing his breeches up, his fingers slipping over the buckle as he scrambles to close it. 

A light shines in his eyes when he turns towards the sound of footsteps, and it takes him a moment of squinting to see the figure behind it. 

Friar Tuck, with a lantern swinging from his hand. He stares at them for a long moment, his eyes flicking between them. Robin doesn't glance back, to check if Regina's chest is still exposed. He hopes not.

“We were…um–” he hesitates, what can he possibly say? 

Tuck seems in no hurry to help him out, the initial shock in his face has been replaced by drawn eyebrows and a frown.

“I should go,” Regina murmurs, she slips out from between Robin and the wall, and he watches her figure disappear into the darkened hall. 

---

 

Regina is practically running down the hall, her heart beats an insane rhythm in her chest, and her fingers tremble. She stops when she's certain the two men can't see her any longer and leans against the stone wall, catching her breath.

There's an undeniable ache between her legs. As the initial shock of being caught fades, the frustration settles in. She bites her lower lip and crosses her legs at the ankle, leaning forward over herself. 

She's never been with anyone quite like him, and she can't seem to get enough of him. No matter how many times he calls her a monster, how many times he tries to kill her, she can't stay away from him. Perhaps it's because, deep down, she knows he's right. She is a monster. 

She's fairly certain it also has to do with just how incredible he feels inside her. And how soft his lips are when he kisses her. How, despite the way his eyes narrow at the sight of her, his hands are always soft.

Regina swallows and stands, dusting her dress. From the end of the hallway, she can hear voices. Two men arguing. 

It's not her problem, really. He knew what his men thought of her, what everyone thinks of her, before he kissed her that very first time. 

Still, her stomach turns at the thought of what they're saying to each other. 

Regina makes her way slowly through the halls, there's no light and she doesn't bother with fire. She could trace every stone in this castle from memory. 

Her feet carry her back out into the castle courtyard, where the celebrations are ongoing. Lively music wafts over from where the musicians stand, their faces lit by the glow of the fire. 

Regina lets out a small breath and steadies herself. Ignoring the persistent ache between her legs, she makes her way over to Snow and David, who sit up on the dais from where she'd judged the archery tournament.

The two speak in low voices, Snow's brows furrowed, her eyes dark. As Regina approaches, they stop speaking, and she has the distinct feeling she's interrupted something important. 

“Regina,” Snow says with a smile, “where did you end up?” 

She shrugs, “I needed some air,” taking the small step up onto the raised platform she leans against the balustrade. She wants to ask what they were confabulating about, but Snow speaks before she can.

“Are you feeling better?” Snow asks. 

Regina rolls her eyes, looking away. As if she could feel better. Stuck here in this godforsaken castle, while Henry is in the land without magic. While Henry doesn't even remember her existence. 

To add insult to injury, what was supposed to be her distraction from the loss of her son, from the overwhelming grief of knowing she'd never see him again, has turned into something…well, something. 

Regina sighs and digs her fingers into the hard wood of the balustrade behind her. From the courtyard, the smell of wood smoke and the sound of people singing seeps into the dais, though it's covered by thick drapes on either side. 

“Better?” she asks, “I will never feel better, Snow.” There's more she wants to say. More pain she wants to take out on the younger woman. But it wouldn't be fair. It's not her fault she'd had to give her son up. And even if she'll never see her son again, he's changed her too much for her to go back to what she once was. 

“You don't have to grieve forever,” David says, softly, “you can be happy sometimes, you can forget. It doesn't make your pain less real.”

Tears well in her eyes, and she blinks them back. 

Robin's lips on hers, his hands on her hips, his gasps as she touched him and kissed him and fucked him. 

She's distracted herself enough, hasn't she? Guilt eats at the edges of her chest. The man has taken up far too much space in her thoughts. He's infuriating. Yet, she keeps allowing him into her space, into her bed. 

Metaphorically. 

They'd never actually done it in a bed. 

The thought has her body aching for him again, and she almost groans in frustration. The things he does to her are indescribable. 

“Perhaps you're right,” she tells David, “I need,uh, distractions.”

The man who keeps trying to kill her and then gives her the best orgasms of her life should prove distraction enough. 

David smiles kindly and pats her hand, before rising and stretching out his back. 

“Well,” he says, drawing out the word, “I'll leave you two to it.” 

Regina doesn't fail to notice the look he and Snow share, before he disappears in the crowd. Her eyes, however, are drawn by the small band of Merry men by the fire. She searches the figures for a moment, but he's nowhere to be seen. Are he and the friar still arguing? 

Snow clears her throat, and Regina focuses back on her once stepdaughter. Snow's fingers intertwine in her lap, and her lips twist.  

“What is it?” the slightest hint of panic makes its way into Regina's chest. 

Snow swallows and her fingers twist into each other so hard they turn white. 

“It's…you see, I…I wasn't expecting it. I…we. Weren't trying–”

“Snow White,” Regina growls, “if you don't stop beating around the bush–”

“I'm pregnant.”

Silence. 

It invades her like a cold shower. Rushing over her skin and seeping into her bones. It freezes her to her core. 

Regina swallows and blinks. She's aware she should say something, but isn't sure what. Her heart has turned to stone in her chest. 

“Regina…”

Her name snaps her out of her stupor and her lips fall open. 

“Congratulations,” she manages to choke. It's almost believable, she's sure. 

Snow looks at her with something akin to pity, and Regina wants to throttle her. For the first time in a long time, she wants to kill her. 

“I'm…I'm really happy for you,” she says instead. Surely, someday it'll be true. 

“Thank you,” Snow says. 

Silence stretches out between them, broken only by the ruckus wafting in from the celebrations. 

“You always do have amazing timing, don't you?” Regina asks, and she's aware it's cruel, but she can't help herself.

If her words cut her, Snow doesn't show it. Her blue eyes are focused somewhere far away, and her hands are pressed up against her belly. 

“I'm going to be a mom,” Snow whispers, and there are tears forming in her eyes when she meets Regina's gaze, “I'm going to be a real mom.”

These words are almost worse. Worse than finding out she's pregnant. They cut into her like knives, skewering her heart. Guilt washes over her like a wave, threatening to choke her.

“You are a mom,” Regina tells her, “a real mom.”

“Oh, I know,” Snow hugs herself close, “but you know…” 

She doesn't need to finish her thought. Regina knows. She's the one who'd taken away Snow's chance at being a mother. She's the one who'd caused her separation from her daughter. And now she sits next to the woman who's motherhood she'd taken away and grieves for her own son. 

The guilt is overwhelming. 

She rises, “I should…I should go,” she says. 

Snow grabs her hand, “wait, Regina,” she gets up, so they're standing a step apart, “don't go.”

“Why?” Truly, she doesn't understand. Snow should hate her. With every fiber of her being, she should want her dead. And certainly nowhere near her unborn baby. 

“I'm scared,” Snow tells her, her voice thin and small, “I don't know if I'll be a good mother. I don't know what I'm doing. I…I don't know if I'm doing the right thing, keeping this baby now. After what happened to Emma…”

Her name feels like a slap to the face. Regina doesn't let it show, though acid is burning through her stomach. 

“You're going to be an amazing mother,” she says, “just like you already are.”

Snow smiles a little and takes her hand, patting it between both of hers, “I'll have you by my side, right?” 

There's a lump stuck in her throat. Regina swallows hard, willing it away. 

“Of course,” she says, and it is true. No matter how much she'd hated Snow once, now she can't imagine life without the other woman. 

Right now, however, there's a deadly cocktail of guilt and jealousy eating at her insides, and she needs to get away before she does something she'll regret. 

After excusing herself again, she all but runs back through the crowd and into the castle. Once inside, any semblance of regal demeanor leaves her. Jogging through the empty halls she heads blindly towards her chambers. She's panting, her footsteps echoing in the darkness, hot tears running down her face. It's unladylike and unrefined and she doesn't care.

Turning the corner she slams straight into someone's large body, going the opposite direction. His scent is immediately familiar and she curses all the gods whose names she knows. 

“Robin,” she wipes her tears, grateful for the darkness hiding the worst of them.

“Regina,” he says, as surprised as she is. 

Her name on his lips makes her head spin. He rarely uses it, preferring her title. It's because he doesn't want to feel close to her, like they're anything more than enemies. It assuages his guilt. She knows this. And yet. 

More tears spring to her eyes but she doesn't let them fall. Her moment of weakness is over, and she pulls herself together, slipping on that mask that her mother had taught her to always wear. 

“What's wrong?” he asks, and his voice is so soft. Like he cares. 

Regina closes her eyes. 

“I'm fine,” she snaps. 

She moves to step around him, a torch has been left on at the end of the hall, but it's so dark she can barely make out his silhouette.

A hand on her arm stops her.

“Regina,” he says again. 

Her breathing feels laboured. She clenches her jaw and turns her head to meet his gaze. Blue eyes bore into hers. They're familiar by now. She's watched the war battling inside him through those eyes. Watched him lose to his desire over and over again, and hate himself for it afterwards. As much as she tells herself she doesn't care, she finds she's leaning towards him. 

“We need to talk,” he murmurs, and his lips are inches from hers. 

“Yes,” she agrees. Now isn't the time, but they've put it off too long. 

She shows him back to her chambers, though he doesn't need an introduction. 

Inside, the fire is lit and orange light floods the room. His eyes flick briefly to the black leather settee and then back to her. But not this time. No. They're going to talk. 

Regina ignores the desire that's already pooling low in her belly again, and goes to sit at her vanity. 

There's an armchair by the settee and he turns it to face her, before sitting. 

Her breath catches as their eyes meet again. The effect he has on her is criminal. 

“Has something happened?” he asks. His eyes search her face, eyebrows furrowing. 

What's he seeing there? Her makeup smudged from crying. Her eyes rimmed with red, lips raw and bare. 

Looking away from his penetrating stare, she wipes at her eyes, hoping to hide the evidence of her weakness. 

“No,” she says. They may have shared moments of intimacy, but she's certainly not going to share her deepest regrets and rawest wounds with this man. Frankly, she doesn't understand why he would care. It's clear what he thinks of her. 

His words echo back in her head. You used your beauty to marry the King, to take his power and become Queen.

“You wanted to talk.” Her words are clipped, short. 

His lips part and he blinks at her sudden change of demeanor, then he sits back, fingers steepling together.

“Yes,” he says, “I…I don't think what has been happening between us can…can happen again.” 

She shrugs, nonchalant. 

“You've been pursuing me, thief,” she says, though her words aren't sharp, they still hit their mark. His eyes darken and his hands ball into fists. 

“That's not–”

“You have,” she interrupts, “and I've been letting you. God knows why, when all you see in me is a monster. I don't even know what you want from me anymore.” She sits forward, leaning towards him, eyes narrowed, “do you enjoy torturing yourself? Enjoy acting like a martyr? Oh, the poor Robin Hood, seduced by the Evil Queen?”

“You don't know the first thing about me,” he growls in response, he sits forward too, his eyes glinting dangerously.

Her heart is beating a frenzied rhythm in her chest, and adrenaline courses through her veins. 

“No?” she grins, but there's nothing friendly about it, “I know I killed your wife.”

He inhales sharply, “you remember her?” 

“No,” she says, “I overheard your men talking. Marian, was it?” 

His fingers are tightening around her neck before she finishes her question, and he's pushing her back against her vanity. 

“Don't,” he breathes in her ear, “don't ever say her name.”

Regina takes in a gulping breath. He's choking her hard, but she's not afraid. She knows him too well by now. He's the boy who cried wolf one too many times. 

Anyway, even if he does kill her, what does she have to lose?

“Why?” she chokes out, “feeling guilty?” 

Surprisingly, he lets go of her. Though he stays pressed up against her, his knee next to her lap on the wide stool. 

Something claws at her insides. 

“Do you feel guilty, Robin?” she asks again, “how do you think your wife would feel, if she knew what you'd done?” she licks her lips as his jaw clenches, “what about your son? How do you think he'll react, when he's old enough to understand?” 

“Be quiet,” he growls.

“Is that what your friend was telling you? That fucking a monster makes you just as much of a monster? That Marian is rolling in her grave, knowing what you did?”

He pulls away. As he stands before her, there's nothing but sadness in his eyes. 

Regina's eyebrows furrow. Her fingers wrap around nothing, once, twice. She settles for biting her nails into her palms. 

“Who did this to you?” he asks, softly, “who made you like this?”

Letting out a breath, Regina glares at him. Who does he think he is? This upshot thief? 

“Go to hell,” she growls. 

He stares down at her, unmoving. 

She wishes he were still afraid of her. That, with one movement of her hand or her head, she could have him scurrying away like a little mouse. But he's never really been afraid. Perhaps that's what drew her to him in the first place. 

“Tuck said I should think long and hard about who you are. He said I'm letting my worldly desires overshadow what's in my heart.” Robin swallows and pauses.

Regina scoffs. “He means you're thinking with your cock,” she says, straightening her back as she speaks. Her hair feels like a mess, so she runs her fingers through it, hoping to give it some sort of sense. 

Robin doesn't reply, though his eyes stay on her. “He said that if I continue on the path I'm on, I'll lose everything I've built.”

Of course the friar thinks Robin is paving his own personal road to hell. 

Her eyebrows arch, but she says nothing. 

“He means that if I…if I see you again. Touch you again, he'll tell the others. They won't forgive me. They look up to me…” his voice trails off.

Regina fails to see why he's telling her all of this. 

“Then why are you still here?” 

He shakes his head, but still he stays. He studies her, like he's looking for something. 

“I don't know,” he admits. 

She shrugs again, leaning back comfortably against the vanity. 

His shoulders slump and he looks at her like he expected something from her. But what could he expect? She's the Evil Queen after all. 

When he leaves, she attributes the feeling in her chest to sexual frustration. He was a good lover. Possibly the best she's ever had. That's why her heart feels like it's being cleaved in half. 

And the tears. Well, she's been through a lot. 

Regina presses her face into the down pillow and swallows her sobs.

---

 

Snow's belly grows as the summer leaves turn brown and begin to fall. Cool wind blows in from the north and the first snows cover the castle in a mantle of white. And still, Snow's belly grows.

She’s positively glowing by mid-November, and her pregnancy is the talk of the castle. The new royal baby has brought fresh hope to the ex-citizens of Storybrooke. 

Even Regina has managed to make her peace with the situation. In fact, she's spending more and more time with Snow and David as the winter approaches. The two's incessant positivity grates on her nerves, but beneath the veneer of optimism, she can feel their doubts simmering.

So, she brews potions that do nothing but calm Snow's nerves, and tells her they're for the baby. She casts protection spells around their chambers, and humors David when he wants to go over their defense plans. Again. 

It's strange, being on their side of the story this time, and Snow never mentions her first pregnancy, seemingly avoiding the topic. Regina's grateful, for that and for the distraction. The memory of Henry is still just as painful as it was the very first day they landed back in this place.

Robin's presence is distracting, too. If only because she has to work quite hard to avoid him, though he seems to be doing the same. The castle is only so big, however, and David and Snow are good friends with the Merry Men. So, occasionally, she finds herself breaking bread with the thief and his companions. His companions who hate her, and he, who watches her with an unreadable expression when he thinks she's not looking. 

The forced proximity has thawed their relations, and Regina finds she doesn't mind too much when she walks into Snow's dining room on Christmas Eve and finds him there. 

The room has been decorated in red and gold, a large Christmas tree stands in one corner, bedecked in shimmering tinsel and crystal ornaments.

Regina has barely stepped in, barely registered Robin, John and Tuck’s presence, standing by David with wine cups in hand, when a small body barrels into her legs. 

Taken a little aback, Regina freezes. Robin's son, Roland, stares up at her with round blue eyes. His father's eyes. 

“Hi,” she says. She's rarely talked to the boy, keeping her distance from him, for Robin's sake and her own.

“Hi,” he says, grinning so wide it takes over his face, “Santa brought me an early Christmas present, do you want to see it?” 

And so, Regina lets the little boy guide her to the fireplace, his hand firmly squeezing her own. 

On the thick rug before the hearth, Roland drops to his knees, and indicates she should do the same. Regina sinks to the ground, her stomach flutters as Roland starts to pull out his new toys. 

Tears prickle at her eyes as she watches him, his thin fingers working fast over the wooden building set. This would be her first Christmas without Henry. And his, too. He wouldn't even know. She'd given Emma the memories of all of their Christmases. 

Roland is five or six, and this will be one of the first Christmases he'll remember.

“Why did Santa bring you a present so early?” she asks, her voice light and sweet. 

“Daddy says because I've been such a good boy, and never complained,” he shoots her another huge grin, and holds up a wooden brick, “you can build houses with these,” he tells her, before rooting through the big pile of wood next to him and pulling out a doll. He holds it up for her to see, it's cloth and twine, but clearly supposed to be a man. “He's the village smith,” Roland tells her, before putting the smith down and picking up more wooden bricks. Seconds later, he's fully focused on his building, having placed what are clearly the foundations on the stone floor just beyond the carpet. 

Regina watches him for a moment, wishing she could run her fingers through his hair and pull him close. She'd gotten Henry a model train set, when he was around Roland's age. He'd loved it. 

“What are you building?” she asks, swallowing back emotion.

“A castle!” he tells her without looking over, “just like this one.”

“That's nice,” she says softly, “do you like it here?”

He doesn't glance towards her, much too focused on his game, “yes,” he says, as he balances two walls against one another, “I wish there were more children to play with,” he stops, glancing at her, “Snow’s going to have a baby,” he tells her this like he's handing out a solemn sentence, “but it'll be too small to play with me, daddy says.”

“Your daddy's right,” Regina tells him, “when babies are born they can't do anything themselves, they can't even sit up.”

He nods thoughtfully, “do you have a baby?” 

The question cuts through her like ice, and Regina pulls her fur shawl tighter around herself. 

“I did,” she says, “but he's not a baby anymore.”

Roland's eyes light up and he looks at her with renewed interest. 

“Like me?” he asks.

She shakes her head, “he's a little older than you.”

“That's alright,” he says, “can he play?” 

Regina laughs, though it sounds more like a sob, “he can, but he's not here, Roland. I'm sorry.”

His small eyebrows furrow, and he puts down the wooden block in his hand, “where is he, then? Is he gone like my mama?”

Before Regina can unfreeze enough to answer, Robin's voice booms from behind her.

“Roland!” 

The two on the ground turn in unison towards his voice. 

She hadn't noticed how close he'd been standing, just a few steps away, leaning against the wall, watching them. Now, he steps towards them, and crouches down to Roland's level.

“That was a rude question, Roland,” he tells his boy, who looks at him with rounded eyes, “you should apologize to her Majesty.”

Roland glances at her, “sorry,” he murmurs, eyes downcast. 

“No, no,” she says, “it's quite alright.” Her stomach is churning and her heart feels like it's being crushed by a boulder. But she can't be angry at a little boy, especially not when he's fixed her with his wide, open stare. 

“My son,” she says, “Henry. He's not gone like your mother, he’s just very far away, in another realm.”

“Where you came from? The land without magic?”

Robin is still there, watching her like a hawk, but she ignores him.

“That's right,” she says, “when we came here, he had to stay behind.”

“Why couldn't he come with you? Didn't he want to stay with you?” 

“Roland…” Robin sighs, and this time Regina says nothing, his blue eyes are sad as he takes in his son, “people are separated, through no fault of their own. It doesn't mean they don't love each other.”

“Like mama,” he says, again. 

Robin's gaze meets hers, and she's surprised to see no anger there. No accusation. 

“Exactly,” he tells his son. 

The rest of the evening passes slowly. Regina can feel Robin's gaze on her, following her every movement. She does her best to ignore him, though his son's interest in her makes it rather difficult.

The boy seems to have decided she's great company, and frankly she'd rather sit with him, pretending to be a giant dragon attacking his newly built castle, than make small talk with the adults. At least with Roland she doesn't have to feing her smiles. 

At midnight, the boy is inundated with presents, but after wading through most of them, he's clearly too tired to keep going. His small eyelids keep falling shut, and he leans against his father's side heavily. 

Finally, Robin picks him up, cradling him against his chest, and bids them all goodnight. As he turns to leave, he glances at her. She isn't sure what it is that passes between them, but it's certainly not hatred. 

Once the boy is gone, the atmosphere cools. With Roland no longer there to keep spirits up, the adults have to confront the fact that they've been stuck in the castle for nearly a year, with no end in sight. 

David and Snow sit side by side at the table, still decked with the remnants of their Christmas Eve dinner, their hands intertwined on his lap. Snow's belly spills out onto her legs, she has a month, maybe six weeks, before the baby shows. And still, they're stuck in this castle. 

Regina shoves down the guilt, the wicked witch is after her, and they're all just collateral damage. 

Standing, she excuses herself. She's not quite welcome, anyway, judging by the looks Friar Tuck has been throwing her all night, which have only become more pointed now that Robin is gone. 

Her bedchamber is pitch black as she slips into them, the fire having gone out some time in the night. The air is still warm however, and in it, she feels his presence. 

Taking a sharp breath, she walks further in, letting the door close softly behind her. She says nothing, she can't exactly hear him, he's quiet as a mouse, but her magic tells him he's there. 

When she reaches the center of the room, she catches his scent. Pine and earth and leather. Swallowing, Regina turns on herself, narrowing her eyes in the darkness. 

A second later, his hands are on her hips, and she lets out the breath she was holding. 

“Robin,” she murmurs, turning in his hands to face him. She can barely make out the line of his jaw above her, but can feel his chest rising and falling steadily next to her, hear his steady heartbeat when her hand finds the front of his shirt. 

His hands stay on her hips as he leans towards her, his nose in her hair, breathing against her ear. 

They stay like that for a moment, as she takes in his scent, the feeling of his warmth, the heaviness of his hands on her body. Her breathing hitches, warmth flooding her belly and her chest.

“If you want me to leave, just say the word,” he murmurs. At some point, his hands have journeyed further towards her back, and now he's all but enveloping her against his chest. 

With some surprise, she realizes there are tears trickling down her face, and she presses her face to his shoulder, drying her cheeks on his shirt. 

“No. Stay.”

His lips find hers in the darkness, and she's kissing him back like he'll disappear in a moment, rough, desperate, needy. 

Fingers twist in her hair and she's gasping, sliding her own hands over his chest, undoing the buttons of his shirt blindly, pushing it off of him. When his skin meets her fingers, she pushes him back, feeling the muscles of his chest and flex under her as he falls onto the bed. 

They're mostly blind, going by touch alone. Desperately ripping each other's clothes off, needing to feel and taste. 

Regina whines as her heavy dress is ripped off of her, but the annoyance at the damage to the expensive fabric lasts less than a second. Between her legs, he's growing hard, his erection pressed deliciously to her core. She buckles against him, his responding moan like music in her ears, his hands gripping her waist and pulling her down to him again. Pleasure shoots through her, and she's left once more wondering at his effect on her. His breeches are still on, the fabric dividing them, and yet the pleasure he's pulling from her is indescribable.

He leans up and captures one nipple in his mouth, his hand on her back, pushing her down to him. His warm tongue rolls over her, and she's moaning, low and rough. 

With some urgency, her fingers find the buckle of his belt, and she begins to undo it. 

Desire courses through her, and she needs to feel him inside her, to feel his gasps against her skin as he thrusts into her. To forget all of her pain and give herself over to him. 

“Wait, wait,” he murmurs, taking her hands at his waist.

“What?” she breathes, “do you want to stop?” her desperation is evident in her voice, but she doesn't care.

He chuckles in the darkness, and sits up. All she can make out are the whites of his eyes as he looks at her, his hands roaming slowly down her body. 

“No,” he says, “but let's slow down.”

She whines at his words, earning herself another laugh, but allows him to pull her hands away from his belt. 

He flips them over, so that she's on her back on the bed. Running his hands up her thighs, he pries them open slowly. The anticipation builds in her belly like water in a dam, and her back arches as he begins to press soft kisses to the inside of her legs. 

Agonizingly slowly, he makes his way up. There's nothing to focus on except the sound of his breathing, the warmth of his lips, and the ache between her legs. Her fingers twist in his hair, begging him to hurry. In response, his hands push her hips down, holding her against the mattress as his tongue finds her cunt. 

She almost cries out, the anticipation has set every one of her nerves on fire. 

Her hips buck up, looking for more, but he holds her firmly down as he works his tongue in slow circles around her clit. 

And she's moaning, gasping, his name leaving her lips like a prayer. Pleasure blinds her completely, her fingers pushing down in his head, pleading for him to hurry, to take her over the edge. 

He doesn't comply, his movements slow and steady, even as one hand leaves her hip, and he slips one digit into her. 

She's soaking wet already, and he soon adds another finger. He curls them inside her, touching that spot no one else has ever found with practiced movements. 

Her mind has blanked of anything but the feeling of him, and her muscles are rigid with the onslaught of pleasure. She's so close, but he's carefully avoiding letting her go over the edge, pulling away each time she thinks she's nearly there.

When he steps away from the bed, she's shaking, her skin damp with sweat. If she could see him, she's sure he'd be smiling. The arrogant thief. 

She hears him unbuckle his belt, hears the fabric of his breeches slide down his legs and pool on the ground. The bed dips as he climbs onto it, and he's between her legs, his arms on either side of her head. 

Finding his cock, she strokes him slowly between their bodies, delighted to hear his breath hitching at her touch. 

He doesn't allow her very long to torture him like he'd done her, lining himself up against her and pulling her legs around his waist. 

She doesn't hesitate, shifting to give him better access. 

And then he's inside her, and her eyes roll into the back of her head. He feels like he was made for her, sliding into her and filling her.

He gives her a moment. His breathing tells her he's struggling not to thrust hard into her, he's practically shaking with the effort. 

Shifting her hips, she pulls a moan from him, and he starts to thrust into her, slow and steady. 

He leans further against her, their bodies flush. She's completely overwhelmed by his body, his muscular arms on either side of her head, his shoulders and chest pressing her into the bed, his shallow breathing at her ear. Panic flashes through her, memories half buried resurfacing and making her muscles freeze, her fingers curl into the skin of his back. 

He stops immediately, pulling away from her just enough to give her space to breathe.

“What's wrong?” he murmurs. 

She shakes her head, though he can't see her, “Nothing, nothing.”

His lips find her cheek, kissing her softly, up and up to her temple and to her hairline. Slowly, he kisses her until her body relaxes, until her breathing steadies. 

Her hips buckle against him, telling him to keep going. And he does, slowly and steadily, his fingers cupping her face. When he kisses her, his lips move languidly against her, in time with the thrusting of his hips. 

She's lost in the feeling of him, old fears banished by his soft touch. It almost takes her by surprise, when the coil of pleasure in her belly tightens. The feeling of his pelvis against her clit, grinding against her each time he pushes into her, is quickly taking her to the edge.

When he speeds up, fireworks burst behind her closed lids. Her back arches into him, her fingernails scraping down his back. 

“Don't stop,” she gasps, her legs tightening around his waist, “don't stop.”

He hasn't even touched her, and she's coming for him.

His hand slips between them, thumb stroking her taut nipple. Pleasure shoots through her, going straight to her lower belly. She's gone. His name leaves her lips again and again as her muscles clench around him, her body arching into his. Vaguely, she feels him grip her waist with one hand, his breathing becoming heavy pants as he continues to thrust into her, riding out her orgasm. 

She's barely come down, barely had time to find her bearing again, when he pulls out of her. He chokes on a gasp as he spills his cum over her belly. 

He rolls over her, lying by her side. Waving her hand lazily, she cleans herself up with magic. A frivolous use of power that would have gotten her heavily chastised by her master. 

Robin's arms wrap around her, pulling her into him.

“I'm sorry,” he murmurs in the dark. 

“What for?” 

“For what I said, about you and the King.”

She stiffens slightly, the words had been said almost a year earlier, yet they still sting. 

“You don't know anything about my marriage,” she says, “about my past.”

He nods against her, “I know. Maybe someday you'll tell me about it.”

She swallows and turns to face him. It doesn't change much, she still can't see anything, but she can feel his breath on her cheek.

“I'm sorry, too,” she says, though what she's sorry for is harder to forgive. “I've…I've changed, since then. I've tried to change.”

He kisses her temple and then her hair, and says nothing. 

As the silence stretches between them, she half-expects him to rise and leave, but as sleep starts to take her, lulling her into its arms, he stays.

Regina is woken by her door slamming shut. Heart racing, she sits up, not bothering to hide her nakedness. A fireball forms spontaneously in her open palm.

Robin sits up next to her, his blue eyes sharp. 

“Regina!” Snow's voice calms her for a moment, before the other woman throws open the drapes around her bed, and she's still half naked, Robin in a similar state next to her. 

Snow glances at him, shock registering in her eyes, and goes quiet.

“We were–” Robin starts, as Regina pulls the covers up to her neck.

“I think I can figure it out,” Snow cuts him off before he can finish his sentence, and her gaze fixes back on Regina's. “We need your help.” 

She barely has time to register the words when David appears behind his wife, his eyes widen as he takes Robin in. 

“Have either of you ever heard of knocking?” Regina sneers.

Her annoyance is quickly abated by Snow's expression, there's a fear there that she hasn't seen in a long time. Not since she put it there. 

“The Wicked Witch,” Snow says, “she's after my baby.”

Regina stares, Snow presses her hands protectively to her belly. 

“How do you know?”

“There's no time for explanations,” David tells her, “she's after the baby, and she might be after Emma. We need to get back to Storybrooke.”

Rising, Regina covers herself as best as she can, and pulls on her dressing gown. 

“How do you expect to do that? Storybrooke is gone. There's no way to get back–”

“There is,” David interrupts. His eyes are fixed on Snow as he takes her hands, “it's the only way.” 

“No, David,” Snow's eyes fill with tears, “there's always another way.”

“We don't have time, Snow! We need to protect our baby. I will not stand by and watch as another witch…” he stops himself and glances at Regina. 

Shaking her head, she rounds the bed and goes to them. Robin pulls his breeches on under the covers. 

“I won't let anything happen to your child,” she swallows, “not this time.”

David shakes his head again, “we have to get back to Storybrooke. We must protect Emma and Henry. Not to mention, we need Emma's help!”

“David…” Snow shakes her head, and now tears fall, rolling down her cheeks. 

Realization washes over her, “David, how do you plan on going back to Storybrooke?”

“We'll cast another curse,” he says.

“This curse,” Robin interrupts, “doesn't it require–”

“A heart,” Snow says, her eyes fixed on her husband, “the heart of the one the caster loves the most.”

“And who would cast it?” Robin asks, slowly. He's come to the same conclusion Regina has. 

“I would,” Snow whispers. 

“No,” Regina doesn't even need to think about it. She won't let Snow go through what she had. 

“It's the only way,” David tells her, “she's close, and we won't be able to protect our son. I'd rather die than know I've failed him.”

“There are other ways–”

“There aren't!” he practically yells at her, “will you help us or not, Regina? After everything you've done, you owe us this.”

She's taken aback. By his words and by the force of them. 

“If this is what you want…” she shakes her head, “David…”

“It's what I want.” He says it with a finality that bears no disagreement, and turns to leave. 

Snow throws her a desperate glance and goes after him, slamming the door shut behind her. 

Once they're gone, Regina exhales, leaning against the wooden bedpost. 

“What will you do?” Robin asks. 

She'd almost forgotten him, but as her eyes meet his, a warmth spreads in her chest. She blinks and looks away. The thin morning light throws into stark relief their nighttime activities, but there's no time to think them over. 

“What must be done,” she says, if it comes down to Snow and her baby, or David, she knows who she'll choose. It's almost strange, how painful the concept of killing the prince has become. Once, she would have jumped at the chance. 

“I have to go talk to them,” she says, giving him an apologetic glance. They should probably talk, at some point. 

“I understand,” he says, and moves aside as she walks towards her closet. 

As she brushes past him, his hand on her arm stops her. He reaches up and cups her cheek, pulling her in for a kiss. Standing on tiptoes, she kisses him back. Short and sweet.

His hand lingers on her cheek as he pulls away. A flash of color catches her eye and she looks down. He has a tattoo on his wrist. Her heart stops in her chest.

It's a roaring lion on a black shield. 

Swallowing, she swipes her fingers over it. 

“What is this?” 

“A tattoo,” he says, furrowing his brows. 

“Yes but…” she glances up at him, “how long have you had it?”

He shrugs, clearly confused by her questions. 

“I got it at nineteen, it's a tribute to my father.”

She searches his face for signs of deception, but there's no reason for him to lie, none at all. And his face is clear and open. 

She steps away from him. Her blood feels like ice in her veins. 

“Ah,” she says. 

An earsplitting screech sounds over the castle, followed closely by the booming sound of something hitting the walls. The ground shakes under their feet. 

Regina's eyes snap up to his, there's no time to examine everything she's just discovered. The Wicked Witch is attacking. 

“I have to go,” she says, “find your men, organize a defence.” 

He nods once, sharply. 

“Do what must be done,” he tells her, and she nods back. 

She's halfway out the door when she hears his voice again.

“Regina,” she turns back, “I'll see you later, right?”

---

 

Notes:

OH I love comments and do reply to everyone! You just have to gimme a second because...well, life. Sorry 💕💕

Chapter 5: Chapter 4, part 1

Notes:

HELP!! there's plot in my porn😭😭😭

All jokes aside...guys....there's no smut in this chapter. I'm so sorry.so sorry. There was SUPPOSED to be, but then it once again got out of hand and so there's going to be another chapter. Oops.

Robin furrows his brows, the target is the same as always. A red dot. He lets air flow into his lungs. Slowly. Slowly. 

He aims.

Bang! 

The sound makes him flinch. No bow has ever made such a God awful sound. It's one of the many drawbacks of the technology in this land. 

Robin has to admit, however, that the gun has its upsides. Bullets fly much further than arrows, and do far more damage.

He pulls back and shrugs his shoulders, loosening the tightness in them. 

Someone speaks by his ear, and Robin pulls off the ear muffs that protect his hearing.

“Nice shot,” Emma's grinning wide, she leans around the wall separating them, “see? You picked it up in no time.”

Robin turns back to the target. It's in the shape of a man, for some reason. He'd argued with the sheriff about it the first time she'd brought him here. There was no reason he had to pretend to be shooting men in the chest.

Why not make it a deer? He'd asked. 

The sheriff hadn't taken his concerns very seriously. 

Still, she'd told him he could have a gun, so long as he practiced beforehand. 

“So,” he says, narrowing his eyes to see where his bullet had gone through the red target, “may I have my own gun, now?”

Emma chews on her lower lip for a moment, then swings around and leans back against the wall. She takes a deep breath, letting it out all in one go.

Robin puts the gun down and wipes his hands.

“Emma,” they've been coming to this shooting range everyday for a week, “I have proven myself enough. My men are in danger out there. This witch, she's been plucking them off, one by one. Turning them into those monsters.”

They've been losing a man a day. First it was John, then William, then Jones. One after the other, they’ve been turned. 

Robin dares not think how bad it would’ve been if they’d still been camping in the woods. Thankfully, after the heavy snowstorm of the first night, the fairies had offered them refuge in the convent. Still, they’ve lost too many men.

Emma has the good grace to look ashamed, glancing down at the floor. When she meets his eyes again, all good humor is gone. 

“I know,” she says, “she hasn't only been taking your men, she's taking anyone and everyone she can. Soon we'll have a town full of flying monkeys.”

“But you won't give me a gun.”

A gunshot fires from somewhere behind Robin, but his gaze stays on the sheriff's green one. 

She purses her lips and looks away.

“Listen, Robin, it's not that I don't want to–”

“Then why? I'm trying to play by your rules, sheriff Swan, because I admire you. But I need to be able to protect myself, my men and my son.”

“You're right,” she says, walking away. 

He follows.

“That's it? I'm right, and?”

She stops beside a large cupboard and pulls out a key. Disappearing behind it, Robin hears her curse under her breath. When she reappears, there's a gun in her hand. 

She hands it to him, along with a box of bullets.

“Promise me something, Robin,” she says, fingers still curled around the handle.

He raises a brow, waiting.

“Promise me you won't try and kill Regina with this. Or, in general.”

His jaw clenches automatically. At the name, and what's being asked of him.

The queen. He passes a hand over his face and sighs, she’s been avoiding him since that night. That night they’d gotten stuck in that little cabin, and she’d almost died in his arms. She’d done a lot more than that, though. She’d gasped in his arms, her back arching for him as she came and her lips found his–

He's tried not to think of her since then. And has failed miserably, of course. 

He wishes it were thoughts of revenge that kept him up at night, and, as his fingers curl around the cold metal of the gun, he wonders if he could do it.

But, the truth is, he's not thinking of her death when he thinks of her. Far from it. 

The sheriff doesn't know that.

“I won't,” he says. 

She doesn't let go of the gun. 

“I swear it.”

“Yeah? ‘cause last time I gave you a gun, that's the first thing you tried to do.”

Robin struggles not to roll his eyes. 

“But I didn't, did I?” he asks, “In fact, I saved her life.”

“By not shooting her?” Emma quirks an eyebrow.

“No,” he says, but the memory of their night in the little cabin is still too fresh, so he clamps his mouth shut and sighs. “You have no idea how much I want to kill her,” he tells her, picking each word out slowly, “but I haven't, and I won't.”

Emma searches his face, then she lets go.

“I get it,” she says, “Regina’s done things…” her words trail off, but Robin knows what she means. She's done unforgivable things. 

“Yes,” Robin agrees, “yet you protect her.”

Green eyes turn hard, and the sheriff straightens her back, “she’s Henry's mom.” 

He looks away. 

“She's the reason Marian is dead,” he says, “my wife, Roland's mother.”

Shaking his head he tucks the gun away, into his belt. “I can never forgive her that. Not that.”

"I didn’t ask you to forgive her,” Emma tilts her head to one side as she speaks, narrowing her eyes. 

His lips part slightly. No, she hadn’t asked him to forgive Regina. His mind had supplied that for her. He turns his hand by his side, feeling the cuffs of his shirt rub against his wrist. Where his tattoo is. Where the evidence of his link to her is. 

“And I’m saying I won’t,” he says, “I won’t forgive her, even if you and your parents are hellbent on telling me I should. She’s a monster–”

“She gave up everything to save this town. She gave up her son–”

“The Evil Queen will have no pity from me,” Robin growls, leaning towards Emma. 

He likes the Sheriff, she’s shown him integrity and sharpness of mind in the weeks he and his men have been here. He likes her as much as he likes her parents, Snow and David, but his admiration of them cannot stretch to the Queen. 

No matter how often his dreams may drag up the events of that snowed-in cabin. 

He’d been weak. 

His thoughts are dragged back to his wrist. A roaring lion on a black shield. The same tattoo Regina claimed belonged to her soulmate. 

The mere thought makes him shiver. Would fate be so cruel? He doesn’t need to think to know the answer. Fate has always been cruel to men like him. This feels like a particularly ironic joke, to tie him to the woman who’d killed his first love, the woman who represented everything he stood against. It felt like a test, a test he’d failed.

“Fine,” Emma says, ignorant of the battle taking place inside his skull, “you don’t have to forgive her, you don’t even have to be nice to her. She’s not nice to anyone. But you can’t kill her, alright?”

He inclines his head in understanding. Not that he could, now. Twice, he’s been given the chance to do it, and twice he’s shied away. 

And after what has passed between them…Robin clenches his jaw as he walks, on his way to the convent where the fairies have given him and the Merry Men shelter. He wonders what they would think, the guardians of light magic, of his stray to the darkness. 

The day is cold and brisk, and Robin takes the long route. In the few weeks he’s been in this town he’s seen most of it. It’s not very big, and he’s already restless. Not just because of the witch threatening his men, and everyone’s, lives. Yet, he can’t leave. No one can leave, and travelling back to the Enchanted Forest is impossible. 

Not for the first time, he wonders what happened, in the year that’s been wiped from his memories. He knows it passed, sees it in Roland’s stature, in the obvious changes in his small face and the way he speaks. But for the life of him, he can’t remember. 

It has to do with the curse, Regina had explained at a recent town meeting. She’s so very different in this realm. Not that Robin had known her before, but he’d caught sight of her often enough. Seen her sitting at her throne, dripping in jewels and disdain for the common man. She’d sat on the dias like the world belonged to her, and she could do what she wanted with it. Play with men’s lives to her heart’s content. Torture and kill with impunity. 

He’s clenching his fists as he walks, his hands tucked safely inside his coat pockets, his shoulders hunched against the cold wind. He passes the graveyard gates, black metal sentinels in the snow-white landscape, and he stops. 

Speak of the devil, he thinks. 

Inside the cemetery, on the gravel path between the tombstones, Regina is making her way towards him. She hasn’t seen him yet, he could keep moving, avoid her. 

For some reason, he doesn’t. 

When she notices him, her step falters, but it’s for a fraction of a second, then her back straightens and she’s walking to him. 

She’s different here. 

“Madame Mayor,” he says, nodding his head towards her. 

“Mr.Robin Hood,” she replies, when she’s a step away. Her eyebrows rise, black on her pale skin. 

Silence stretches thin between them, and Robin has the feeling they’re at an impasse, though he isn’t sure why. 

“I hear you’re living with the fairies,” she says, and she sounds almost bored, but her dark eyes are inquisitive; betraying her interest. 

He holds back a smile, “we are. Blue was kind enough to offer us shelter from this weather.” 

Regina looks around, as if assessing his words, up at the white clouds above, and then back towards the graveyard, “yes,” she finally says, “it’s quite cold.”

They haven’t spoken a word since that night. The night he’d discovered her name and discovered how sweet his sounded on her lips. Spoken in soft gasps of ecstasy. 

He licks his lips. 

“Any news on the witch?” he asks. 

Regina meets his gaze again, “unfortunately, no. I’m doing my best but–”

“She’s taking my men,” he interrupts.

“She’s taking anyone she can get her hands on,” Regina shoots back, “you’re not being targeted.”

“Maybe not, but she needs to be stopped.”

“I am doing my best,” she spits, “thief,” her eyes have gone dangerously dark, flashing with anger. 

He’s not afraid. 

He should be, more than likely, but it’s not fear that stirs in his stomach. 

He steps towards her, until he’s towering over her, leaning into the space between them. 

She doesn’t step back, not giving him an inch. 

“We don’t know what she wants, if we did–” she begins. 

“How do we know this witch even exists?” he asks, “for all we know, you’ve made her up.”

Regina rolls her eyes, her lips, painted dark red, part in annoyance. 

“She broke into my office, Emma saw her.” 

“Right,” Robin says, “and that absolves you.”

Regina glares at him, “why are you so intent on hating me?”

The question takes him aback. And the earnestness in her eyes even more so. She searches his face, studying his features. 

“Do you really have to ask me that?”

He’s told her, multiple times, what he thinks of her. Nevermind that his actions may have said something different. He hates her. And she should know. 

“Do you want to know what I think, thief?” she asks, stepping closer to him, into his space, tilting her head up to hold his gaze. 

“I think,” she goes on when he doesn’t reply, “you hate me because you can’t stand being in the wrong, for once.”

He scoffs, “in the wrong? Wrong about what?”

The vein in her forehead pulses and the bones in her neck stand out as she speaks again, “you’re so righteous, so virtuous and honest and good. Aren't you, Mr. Robin Hood? Mr. Man of the people? How does it feel, to be the sinner, for once?”

“I’m not you, madame mayor,” he spits, “or should I say Your Majesty?” 

Any warmth that may have settled between them that night in the cabin is definitively gone. 

Regina steps back, her lips pursing, and shakes her head. 

“You keep telling yourself that, Robin.” 

He straightens at the sound of his name. 

“Why do you care what I think?” he asks, feeling his tattoo burn a hole into his flesh. 

“I don’t,” she replies, turning away as she does, “good afternoon.”

She's halfway down the road when he calls out to her. 

“Regina.”

She turns, her black coat swirling through the air. 

“What were you doing in the cemetery?” 

Her eyebrows furrow at his question and she shrugs, “visiting my father.”

He nods.

When he says nothing more, she turns her back and disappears behind the corner. 

---

The convent is nice. Inside, the warm wood furniture, the carpeted floors, the small rooms, each with its own hearth, create a cozy, homely atmosphere.

Robin can't stand it. 

He feels like a caged animal, walking up and down the corridors, his hands joined behind his back. 

The few men who haven't been turned into monkeys watch him in silence. 

Arthur and Tuck, the eldest among them, and some of his oldest friends, look worried. 

Robin doesn't care. 

His conversation with the Queen has left him shaken. It shouldn't have, really. 

She means nothing to him. 

Nothing at all. 

“Robin–” Tuck starts, but he's almost at the door. 

He isn't sure where he's going, he just knows he needs to get away. Away from his men's probing stares. Away from his own swirling thoughts. 

He’s halfway down the snowy path to the main road when he catches sight of them. The sheriff and the Queen. They’re hurrying to Emma’s yellow machine –car, he’s been told– and he lengthens his step, almost slipping on the ice in his haste. 

The two stop, car doors open, when they see him. They’re in a hurry, their faces identical masks of panic and worry. 

“Has something happened?” he asks, almost out of breath.

“Henry,” Regina tells him, “he’s in danger.”

Robin doesn't hesitate, sliding into the backseat. The cabin is small, and his knees are practically in his lap, but he manages to shuffle forward, in between the two front seats. 

“What happened?” he asks, as Emma drives. 

The sheriff stares ahead of her, mouth set. Her fingers turn white around the steering wheel and Robin turns to Regina. 

He ignores the way his stomach tightens when she meets his gaze, or how he catches her scent from her hair, and focuses on the worry in her eyes. 

“Does it have something to do with the witch?” 

Regina twists her hands together in her lap, “maybe,” she says, glancing at Emma before turning back to him, “Hook, the pirate, he took Henry to the harbour. We don’t know why.”

Emma’s lips thin, until they’re almost invisible.

Minutes later, the car skids to a stop beside a large shed. It has started to snow again, and the pier is covered in white. The wooden building sits just on the edge of the cement, and, in the light of the setting sun, sends a shiver up Robin’s spine. Water, almost black under the white sky, sloshes against the quay. 

Snow and David are a step behind them as they rush to the shed. The sound of voices, muffled by the snow, reaches them from the building, and spurs them forward. 

Robin presses his hand to the gun. The cold metal keeps him grounded. He’d have preferred his bow.

Emma and Regina break into the building first, but he’s right behind them, gun raised and cocked. 

Inside, the scene takes his breath away.

The shed is open to one side, giving onto the wintry sea. Snowflakes drift in, and the air is sharp and cold. 

A woman holds the boy, Henry, by the throat. Her arm is slung over his chest, pulling him to her, her other hand holds a wand. It's pointed at the boy's neck. 

Robin's blood runs cold.

The witch's lips are blood red, the same color as her hair, and a wicked light shines in her eyes. There's no mistaking the insanity there, the lust for power and hunger for violence. 

Emma and Regina skid to a stop, the latter's hand already open. Fire blooms on her palm.

“Mom!” Henry's eyes are wide as he sees them, trained on the sheriff. 

“Hello, savior,” the witch says, pulling the boy tighter to her chest, “and the Queen. What an honor.” 

“Let him go,” Regina growls. 

Robin's gun is trained on the witch, but there's no way he can shoot without risking the boy’s life. He's struggling against her grip, his eyebrows furrowed. 

“Who are you?” Henry asks the woman. 

She laughs. A sharp cackle that sends a shiver up Robin's spine. 

“You can call me Auntie Zelena.”

They're at an impasse, despite their overwhelming numbers, Zelena has the upper hand. 

“Enough of this,” Regina says, and Robin can't see her face, but somehow he knows her eyes are flashing with anger. She steps forward, towards the other witch, and raises the fireball high above her head.

It all happens in the blink of an eye, one moment Regina is threatening the witch, the next her body is flying backwards, hitting the wall of the shed, and sliding to the ground. 

Robin's breath catches in his throat. His mind has gone blank as he stares at her. Her body prone on the cement. 

Unmoving. 

“Huh, and to think I'd been told she was powerful,” Zelena muses, the hint of a laugh behind her words, “anyway…”

Robin doesn't register what she says next. Vaguely he notices she's let go of Henry, she speaks to Snow. Then, she's gone. 

But it's all in periphery. From far away. 

His eyes are trained on the black hair fanned out on the ground. The trickle of blood on Regina's silent face. The dark lashes closed against her cheeks. 

He can hear his own heartbeat in his ears, but he can't move. Glued to the spot, he stares at her.

The sounds around him rush back in, and suddenly he's only too aware they're being attacked. The horrifying creatures his men have been turned into, the grey-brown monkeys, fly at them from the open face of the shed.  

Robin doesn't think, doesn't stop to consider, he raises his gun and begins to shoot. 

The monkeys scream when he hits them, but they never fall. They fly, in this direction and that, but their attacks come relentless. 

Emma stands by his side, firing her own gun at them, over and over.

He barely registers Henry running behind him, ducking to get away from a monkey’s sharp claws, and sinking to his knees by Regina's side. 

A flicker of surprise goes through him, the boy isn't supposed to remember her, Zelena’s curse still in full effect. 

He isn't given time to think as another creature lunges at him from the side. Snow screams from somewhere, and another gunshot rings in his ears. 

It's chaos. Pandemonium. 

The creatures are attacking from all sides by now, and they're far too few to hold them off for long. Robin is forced back, further towards Regina, who's still unconscious on the ground. 

From the corner of his eye, he notices Henry, leaning forward on his knees, his hands on Regina's shoulders. 

He's distracted by another attack and then—

Silence. 

The monkeys stop screeching and a wave of magic, warm and all encompassing, washes over him.

Robin closes his eyes. The magic is comforting, but the onslaught of memories feels like sharp, cold gusts of wind, rushing into his mind and filling it with images. 

A year. A whole year of forgotten memories. 

And she's there. Over and over again. 

He turns, panic rising in his chest. 

But she's sitting up, awake, blinking slowly and taking her son in. Tears are running down Henry's cheeks, and Robin takes a step towards them.

He's stopped by two arms enveloping him and crushing him to someone's large chest. 

“Robin!” 

He turns, taking Little John by the arms and hugging his friend close. 

Familiar voices surround him, and he's in a whirlwind of hugs and hard slaps on the back. His men are back, turned back into humans by the breaking of the curse.

He's never been more grateful for anything than the sight of the men he'd lost, smiles on their rugged, human faces. 

“What the hell happened?” John asks, as Will stands by his side and slaps his back. 

“You don't remember?” Robin asks, meeting the others’ eyes. All he sees there is confusion.

“We were turned, by that witch,” Will junior tells the others, he'd only been transformed a few hours earlier, “but I don't remember anything else,” he admits.

Robin's eyebrows furrow. That means they don't know anything useful about the witch, despite having been her minions for weeks. 

Snow catches his eye from across the shed, and the reality of the situation settles over Robin. 

Zelena wants her baby. That's what David had said the day they'd abandoned the Enchanted Forest, the day they'd run from the witch. 

David…

Robin stares at the man, alive and well. 

Excusing himself from his men, he goes to them. 

“David,” he says, holding out his hand. The prince takes it, squeezing his upper arm and meeting his gaze. “How are you alive?”

They must have found another way, one that didn't involve Snow casting the curse…

“Regina cut my heart in half,” Snow tells him, one hand on her belly, the other in David's, “we now share a heart, literally.”

Robin shakes his head, between the memories he still hasn't had time to sort through, his men being back and now this. He's more than a little confused. 

“I didn't think it would work,” Regina says. Her voice cuts through him like a knife, and he meets her gaze. 

There's a trickle of dried blood running down her forehead, almost to her eye. Her dark hair is messy, but she's smiling, her hand firmly on her son's shoulder. 

“But their love was strong enough,” she finishes. Her eyes are on his. Deep brown, almost black, boring into him. 

He swallows thickly. He doesn't know what he sees in her gaze. What he does know is that he almost lost her. 

The memory of their earlier fight swims through his mind. 

And he does hate her. 

But he hates himself more. Because that's not all he feels. 

She turns to her son, “Henry, I'll be right with you, okay?”

The boy, no more than fourteen, looks between them. His eyes are sharp, and Robin has the feeling he sees more than many fully grown men would. But Henry doesn't complain, he gives his mother a nod and heads to the sheriff, a few paces away. 

Snow and David pull away, too, and suddenly, they're alone. 

Except they're not. 

His men are behind him, and Robin dares not turn and see the look on their faces. To see him standing there, a step away from the Queen. 

“Hi,” she says. 

Emma glances at them and raises an eyebrow. He ignores her.

“Hi,” he says, and relief overwhelms his system. 

She's alive. 

His fingers cup her jaw like he's done it a million times, he tilts her face up and searches her features. There's surprise there, at his touch surely, but softness, too. A warm, bittersweet, softness. 

“Are you alright?” he asks. 

Her lips curl, just a little, the ghost of a smile. 

“I'm alive,” she says, then her smile becomes a real one, “and Henry remembers.”

His fingers trace the line of her jaw. Heart hammering in his chest he leans down, just enough to press his lips to hers. 

For a moment, she's completely still. Then she rises to her tiptoes, hands steadying her on his chest, and deepens the kiss. 

And nothing matters. His men's eyes on him, their judgement. The knowledge that the woman kissing him has done unspeakable things. None of it matters. The only thing he cares about is the scent of her skin, her breath syncing to his, her fingers curling into his jacket, against his heart.

“Robin,” it's John's voice behind him. His name no longer spoken with relief or affection, but with anger and confusion.

“Robin,” John says again, when he doesn't respond, “what the hell are you doing?” 

His friend's voice is closer now, a few steps behind him. But still, Robin doesn't turn. 

He does pull away from Regina. 

His hand stays on her cheek, almost as if he wants to reassure himself she's there, her skin warm and alive under his touch. And he looks at her, really looks at her. Through her dark eyes he feels he can see her soul, and in turn, she looks deep into his. 

John doesn't speak again, but his presence, and those of the other men, is heavy behind Robin. He owes them an explanation. He owes them an apology. 

They don't understand, they can't. All they see is a woman who's killed thousands, a sworn enemy. And he sees her too. And yet. 

Will calls his name. Impatient. Angry. Unnerved. 

He turns his head a little, enough to show them he's heard them, not enough to see their faces. He isn't ready for that yet. 

He swallows, stroking her cheek, “I have to–”

“I know,” she says, “go.”

He sighs. This will change everything. This has changed everything. Now his men know, everyone knows. His secret, his weakness, out in the open for the world to see and judge and poke and prod. 

His hand falls to his side. They're no longer touching, yet neither moves. 

“Regina,” he says, slowly, savoring her name, “I…”

Her eyebrows furrow and she searches his face. 

“I love you,” the words spill out of him unbidden. Words he'd last spoken to a dead woman. Holding her broken body close. And now he's saying them to the one who killed her. 

“I have to go,” he says, before Regina can react. Before her features register his words, he turns, taking in the angry faces of his men, and goes to them. Like a man walking to the hangman's rope. 

---

Robin hasn't spoken since they left the shed. He doesn’t speak all the way back, from the pier to the convent. 

At some point, the questions stop. The men, realizing he isn't going to answer, fall back. All except for John, who walks by his side in silence, his brows furrowed. 

They've been friends for decades. Since that fateful morning when Robin, barely twenty and still grieving the loss of his father, had stumbled into the fearsome man. They'd brawled and fought for hours, neither able to beat the other, Robin too fast, and John too strong. Finally, both exhausted, they'd shared a drink and a meal. They'd been inseparable since. 

John had stood by his side when he'd married Marian. John had held him up when Robin had almost fainted at the sight of his newborn son. 

John. John. John.

His best friend now walks by his side in silence, his footsteps heavy in the fresh snow. 

When they reach the convent, Robin knows his time is up. 

Inside, Tuck and Arthur sit in the small living room, by the hearth. A few of the others are there, too.

They greet the newly-free men warmly, more hugs and pats on the back all around. 

All but Robin and Tuck. 

He meets the friar’s eyes from across the room, and looks away. He can't stand the judgement in them. The righteous disgust. 

Robin goes to stand by the fire, staring into the flames, his hands clasped behind his back. 

He waits. Waits for the room to quieten, for the questions to start. For the accusations. 

It's John who speaks first. Once the others have grown quiet. 

“How long has it been going on, Robin?” 

There are whispers, from the edges of the room, where those who weren't present are brought up to speed. 

He turns to face them, his hands warming by the fire. 

“A while,” he says, meeting John’s blue eyes, “but that’s not what matters–”

“Isn’t it?” John shoots back, before he can finish, “were you lying all along, Robin? While you swore up and down you wanted revenge? On the woman who killed Marian?”

Marian. He says. Not your wife. Not Roland’s mother. Marian. 

Robin looks away, swallowing thickly. 

“I know who she is, I know what she’s done–”

“And yet you keep falling back into her bed,” Tuck says, he rises from his seat slowly, holding himself up on the mantel, “we’ve had this conversation before–”

“You knew?” it’s Arthur who speaks now, his eyes widening, bugging out of his skull. 

Tuck nods once, sharply. He turns to the others, “I discovered what was happening some time ago, on midsummer’s day. I had hoped that by speaking to Robin he would see this folly for what it is…”

“You told me we help those in need–” Robin starts, feeling his blood begin to boil. 

“You’re not helping her, Robin, you’re fucking her,” Tuck growls back in response. 

Silence follows his words, as Robin tries to pull himself together, tries to mask the pain those words inflict on him. 

He knew what Tuck thought, he’d spelled it out quite clearly for Robin, on that midsummer's day. 

“I understand how you all feel,” Robin starts again, looking away from Tuck, “I understand you feel betrayed. You must know, that wasn’t my intention–”

“What was your intention then, Robin?” someone asks, he can’t even tell who it is, in the cacophony of voices that surround him.

He sighs. 

He’d hoped, against everything he’s ever known, that they’d understand. 

“She’s a killer, a murderer, a tyrant,” John tells him, his voice rising above the others and quieting them, “do you know what she’s done? You’ve seen the death she’d caused. Marian’s death.”

There is it again, that name. Her name. 

Robin stares down at his feet, eyebrows knitting together. He had loved Marian, more than anything. 

“Marian is dead, John,” he says, quietly, “nothing is going to bring her back. Me denying my feelings isn’t going to bring her back. Killing Regina isn’t going to bring her back–”

“Regina?” Tuck asks, “is that what you call her? The Evil Queen?”

Robin bites his tongue before he replies, “that’s her name.”

“How do you sleep at night, Robin?” John’s question feels like a slap to the face. 

When he looks around, all Robin can see is anger. Anger, hate, distrust. In the men he’d, hours earlier, called his brothers. 

He opens his hands, splayed upwards, “I can’t help my feelings.”

“You should have never let them develop,” Arthur says, “there are millions of women, why her?”

“I…” Robin sighs, there’s nothing he can say that will change their minds. He can see that, yet he can’t help but try, “you don’t know her. She has changed, she’s…she’s not the woman you’ve heard of. She’s not the Evil Queen.” Even as he speaks, he knows he’s lying. Regina is the Evil Queen, and she always would be. She cannot deny her past, no matter how much she changes. 

“She ripped her own father’s heart out, and crushed it,” Tuck tells him, “did you know that, Robin? She murdered her own father, for power.”

His fingers curl into his palms. 

It’s news for the others. They stare at one another.

“That was then,” Robin rushes to say, “she’s different, now. If only you knew her–”

Wide eyes follow his words, instantly, all barriers are up. 

She scares them.

And Robin knows, they're right to be afraid, they're right to hate her and to want her dead. 

They're right. She has done all the things they say she has. Hadn’t she ordered the death of her own mother? Of her husband? Of thousands of unnamed men and women?

He closes his eyes, accusations are flying at him. He’s a traitor. 

Turncoat. 

Judas.

A snake. 

And other, less savory, things too. 

“What would you have me do?” he asks the room at large, “shall I step down? Little John, who is so righteous and just, can take my place,” Robin can hear the venom in his voice, but he can’t help it. 

Tuck shakes his head, “we don’t want you to step down,” he says, “as long as you…fraternize with her, we don’t want you among us at all.”

Robin stands a little straighter and faces his sentence head on, “you want me gone?” 

“No,” Tuck says, “we want you back.”

“What does that mean?”

“You have one more chance, Robin,” the friar says, “show us you understand, leave her, and never touch her again. And stay. Stay with the men who call you family. With your brothers. Give up this foolish…” he sighs, looking around for the right word, “infatuation.”

There’s a general agreement from the others, and Robin looks to John. 

His best friend’s face shows nothing but disdain. He may have another chance with the others, but he has lost John. 

Mistaking his silence, Tuck continues, “you were taken in, Robin,” he says, “by the appeal of the darkness. It can be alluring, sin. And it comes in many forms. The devil knows our weaknesses and exploits them–”

Robin holds up a hand, he’s not in the mood to hear Tuck’s sermon. 

“I’ll think about it,” he says, catching the surprise in the friar’s eyes. 

If Tuck expects him to grovel and beg, to thank him for the miserly crumbs of kindness he’s offering, well, he’s mistaken. 

Grabbing his jacket, Robin heads to the door. 

---

Robin sits himself at the bar stool and waves down the bartender. Granny, he supposes. The old woman comes over with one eyebrow raised,

“What can I get ya?”

“Something strong,” he replies. 

“Strong enough to get you to choose between your wife's killer and your men?” she asks.

He looks up sharply, into her eyes.

“News travels fast here,” he says.

She smirks and pours him a glass of whiskey. He doesn't ask how she knows, he takes a long sip.

“I suppose I know where you stand on the issue,” he says. 

She shrugs, “oh, no. Love is complicated. And blind, they say,” she gives him a once over, “but is it blind enough to ignore thousands of dead?”

He grips the glass tighter and stares down into the amber liquid, “she's changed.”

“She has,” Granny agrees, “but is that enough?”

Robin mulls over the words. The sharp tang of whiskey dulling his senses and fogging up his brain. 

The choice he’s left with is an impossible one. 

No.

That’s not true. 

He knows it isn’t true. 

Every rational thought in his brain tells him what he already knows. Tuck is right, his men are right. John is right. There’s no upside to throwing away his life, everything he’s built, for the woman who destroys everything. The woman known for burning down entire villages, for crushing hearts to dust. 

The woman who’d killed her own father for power. 

Yet, when he closes his eyes, all he sees is her brown ones. And there’s no violence in them. There are no burning fields or rivers of blood. There’s just her. Her smile and her laugh and her touch. 

He sighs, throwing back the rest of his whiskey and signalling for another. 

Someone pulls out the stool next to him and sits, dragging Robin out of his thoughts. 

“I’ll have the same thing he’s having,” Emma tells Granny.

Robin sips at his fresh drink. 

“What the hell happened in that cabin?” Emma asks, once her own drink is in front of her. 

Sighing, Robin looks at her sideways. He’s in no mood. 

Emma laughs and shrugs, “alright, you don’t have to tell me.” 

When the last dregs of his drink swirl around in his glass, Robin turns to the sheriff, who hasn’t spoken another word. 

“I told you I can’t forgive her, and it’s true,” he says, “but I can’t not love her, either.” 

Emma meets his gaze evenly and sighs. 

“Shit,” she says. 

Laughter bubbles to his lips, and he’s leaning over, his forehead almost touching the bar, laughing so hard it hurts. 

Emma laughs with him, though it's more restrained. She shakes her head as she does, sipping at her whiskey. 

Granny's door opens, and John walks in, making the smile sour on Robin's lips. His friend glances at him, then head to a table. More Merry Men pour in after him, their spirits seem to have lifted, but no one speaks to Robin.

Emma raises an eyebrow in his direction.

“They weren't too happy?” she asks.

Robin stares ahead of him, over the bar, “no,” he tells her, “it's her or them, they say.”

“What will you do?” 

He shrugs, the alcohol is running through his bloodstream now, his thoughts no loner clearing his head. He'd hoped it would help, instead he feels even more unsure. 

“They're my family,” he says, glancing back he notices his son among them, Roland hasn't even seen him at the bar. “My son's family,” he adds. 

Is he really going to abandon everything for her? Is he going to rip Roland from the only people he knows? 

It would be cruel. It would be selfish. 

The door opens again. Snow and David walk in, Henry and Regina follow. 

She meets his gaze across the crowded diner and gives him a half smile. Then follows her son to a booth. 

Robin chews on his lip. He wishes John would look over now, would see her with Henry, one arm pulling him close by the shoulders, smiling at something the boy has said. 

She looks so human. But John wouldn't see it, none of them would. 

Robin can hope and fantasize and lie to himself, but the truth is, the Merry Men would cast him out. They'd never understand. 

He has a choice to make. And there's no middle ground, no compromises, it's one or the other. 

“You want me to tell her?” Emma asks. 

Robin whips his head around towards her, “I haven't decided.”

Emma gives him a look and tilts her head, “haven't you?”

Roland, sitting next to Arthur, giggles loudly, slapping his hands on the table. The men around him join in, their deep laughter mingling with his high pitched one. 

Robin closes his eyes. 

“Tell her,” he says, “tell her….tell her what I said stands true. But I…”he trails off, what can he say? 

Rising, Emma pats his hand, “you gotta do what you gotta do,” she says, “she'll understand.”

He watches Emma go to her. Watches the sheriff send Henry away. Watches as Emma speaks in soft tones, Regina's face hidden by her hair. When the sheriff is done, Regina turns to him, and her expression is unreadable. He meets her gaze evenly, trying to convey all the pain and regret he feels through his gaze. 

After a moment, she nods. 

And it's done. 

It's over. 

Not that it ever truly started. 

Robin gets up. He orders another drink, then goes to the others. He slides into the booth next to Arthur and smiles at his son. 

Roland lights up at the sight of him. Giving him a strained smile and half his attention, Robin meets John's gaze across the table.

His friend's jaw is set, lips thin, his arms crossed over his large chest. He studies Robin's face for a long moment, then he nods, once, slowly.

Robin looks away. 

---

 

Notes:

I PROMISE THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE UP SOON. like super soon. Pinky promise 😭🩷🩷

Chapter 6: Chapter 4 part 2

Notes:

OKAY! that took longer than expected, but I'm back with the last chapter. Now, once you finish reading this you might think to yourself "hmm last chapter was actually a better ending" and I might be inclined to agree with you, but! I really wanted the little twist (and, of course, more smut) anyway, do let me know if you liked it. (ENDINGS ARE SO HARD GUYS COMMISERATE WITH ME)

TW: Please reread the tags, the new ones do apply to this chapter. If you don't want to read a potential dub-con scene (lightly so, but still) you can skip to the end of the first part (where the line break is) and the rest should be fine.

He's had too much to drink.

Robin stands by the door that leads into Granny's and tries to concentrate. The streetlights swim before his eyes, so he narrows them, but that doesn't help.

Maybe it's him that's swimming.

He leans back, against the wall. The cold is bitter and biting, but the alcohol keeps him warm, and he doesn't shiver.

He barely turns when the door closes by his side.

“Robin,” a hand falls, heavy, on his shoulder. Friar Tuck smiles at him, his black coat covering his robes, “you did the right thing.”

Robin speaks before he can think, “It doesn't feel like it.”

Frowning, Tuck pushes his hands into his pockets, “I understand that,” he says, “you think I was cruel, to make you choose. Someday you'll see I was not, everything I did, everything I said, it was for you, Robin. I care too much about you to let you fall victim to her.”

Too late for that, he thinks.

“She's not the devil,” he says instead.

“Satan takes many forms,” Tuck replies, “evil, if you prefer, takes many forms. It slithers into our lives, by way of our deepest desires, our weaknesses. It corrupts even the strongest man's heart. Even the most honest man, perhaps especially the most honest man, can fall to its siren-song.”

“You think I've been corrupted,” Robin repeats, “because I fell–” he stops himself, he won't say it. He won't.

“You are but a man, Robin,” he sighs, “we, all of us, your brothers, have looked up to you, put you on a pedestal. Perhaps that was our mistake. You thought you could not fall.”

Robin doesn't answer, he's barely listening. He's watching her.

Regina walks on the sidewalk, on the other side of the road. Her steps are sure and quick. Where is she going?

She'd left Granny's several hours earlier, together with the others, with Snow, David and Emma.

It's late now, the sky black as sin, and the street lights orange and flickering.

Where is she going?

He watches her get in her car and drive away.

Home?

“I think I'm going home,” he says, to Tuck. Or he thinks he says. It sounds more like a jumbled mess of words.

Tuck pats him on the back and nods, “we'll take Roland,” he says, “do you want someone with you?”

Robin doesn't look at him, eyes glued to the road, “no,” he says absentmindedly, “the walk will do me good.”

It does.

Robin is almost sober, or at least feels it, by the time he's walking past her home. The lights are off, and her car is nowhere to be seen.

His walk takes him past the graveyard, and still, her car isn't there.
Frozen snow crunches underfoot as he walks. By now, the whiskey has left his bloodstream, and he shivers, hands tucked away in his jacket.

He's almost given up when he spots the light. A single, solitary light on the ground floor of the mayoral building. He stares at it for a long moment.

Minutes later, he's slipping into her office, by way of a window, whose lock was rather faulty. Or, it is now.

She's not there, but he'd known she wouldn't be. Her office looks over Storybrooke park, on the last floor of the building. What's she doing here, at this hour, on the ground floor?

He finds he isn't particularly interested in the answer. He just wants to see her.
Passing the desk, he gives it a light shove, it screeches on the ground as it moves.
It should be enough.

Flattening himself to the wall, he waits. He isn't left waiting for long. Moments later, footsteps resound through the empty building. Up and up the stairs.

The door opens.

She walks in and flips the switch, flooding the office in white light. He's still hidden by shadow, and doesn't move. He watches her step in, eyes narrowed.

She stops in the middle of the room, and spins on herself.

She's looking for him. She knows he's there.

“Robin,” she says.

He steps away from the wall, towards her.

“Regina.”

"What are you doing here?” she asks. She scans him, arms crossed over her chest and eyebrows raised.

He doesn't have an answer for her. There's no good reason for him to be there, to be looking at her and wanting her. But he is and he does.

“I–”

He swallows.

“I needed to see you.”

“Why?” she shakes her head, turning away from him, “Emma told me, the choice you were given. And the one you made.”

His breathing is laboured, pain blooming in his chest where his heart should be. Her shoulders are pinched together, arms around her torso, As if to protect herself.
From him?

“I couldn't–”

“I know, Robin,” she says, “I know it's the only choice you could make. I don't begrudge you that,” she reaches out, holding herself on the desk, “but why are you here?”

Still, he doesn't have an answer. He could tell her it's the alcohol. It isn't entirely a lie. He could tell her his men have got it all wrong. He could tell her he's changed his mind. He'll give up everything, for her.

Right now, it's almost true.

He steps towards her, hand reaching out to touch her shoulder, and opens his mouth to speak.

She spins around, batting his hand away. Suddenly, he sees the fearsome queen everybody's terrified of.Her eyes are narrowed; she's a predator. Dangerous. Powerful.

“You want me,” she stops, the pause heavy with meaning, “to be your dirty little secret.”

“Would you be?” he asks, before he can stop himself. Perhaps he's not as sober as he thought.

Her lips fall open, just a little, and the mask disappears. She's hurt, and it's spelled clearly over her features.

In two steps, she's in his arms, and her lips are on his.

He answers her kiss like he always does. With force and desire. But there's something else, too. Something he's only just admitted to himself, and to her.

To push the thought away he pushes her. Into the table behind her, and hooks his hand under her leg, pulling it around his waist.

His fingers are in her hair, tangling in its roots, pulling her closer, and then away as he begins to kiss down her neck and over her chest.

She moans his name and bucks against him. As always, he's already lost.
She does things to him that he can't explain in words. Things he can't explain to his men.

“Robin,” she says again, and it's not a moan this time, so he looks up.

She closes her eyes, her breathing ragged. From desire or from pain? Perhaps both.

“I love you too,” she says.

And he's kissing her desperately again, like he's a man drowning and she's his air. Like he's about to lose her.

His fingers slide over her thighs, pushing her up onto the desk, prying her legs open and–
And she's pushing him away, holding him at arm's length.

“We can't,” she says, “we can't. You made a choice.”

“A forced choice,” he growls, pushing her hand away and stepping closer to her, between her legs, “they think you're a monster.”

Her eyes soften, and she strokes his hand, gripping the desk by her side, “if I remember right, you think so too.”

He blinks. She's not wrong.

Her scent invades his senses and he needs more. Stepping even closer, he wraps one hand around her hip, burying his nose in her hair.

She leans into him, her head to his face, and sighs. The gesture is soft, warm, and feels like goodbye.

Only he doesn't want to say goodbye. He wants to drown in her, wants to bury himself inside her and give in. Give in to the darkness.

“If you're the devil,” he murmurs, “let me die a heathen.”

She stills against him. Her fingers, which had been stroking his hair, stop. She's quiet for a long moment.

“Robin,” she whispers, “don’t say that.”

He can't see her face, but hears her gasp when he presses his hard cock to her center.
Holding her close, he bucks against her again. She whines. The sound goes straight to his loins, and he groans.

He needs her. More than air, more than water.

“Tuck says you're corrupting me,” he murmurs against her hair, his fingers surely leaving bruises on her hip, as he holds her still for him, “he says I've fallen victim to you.”

Regina chuckles darkly against his hair, it's breathy, and he smiles at the sound.

“Yes,” she murmurs, “this is what I normally do to my victims,” her fingers find his chin and pull him to her, until her lips are on his.

He wants to devour her. To push her back and rip her clothes off, make her his and never let her go.

But her kiss is soft, platonic, and she doesn't let him deepen it. Pulling away and holding him there.

“Robin,” she says, again, “I cannot live with ripping you away from your family,” she swallows, stroking his face, “and I don't think you can, either.”

He frowns and pushes her hand to the side, “you already did,” he says, “you killed my wife.”

Regina's lips part. She leans back and stares at him, but he's not angry. She can't run from her past, and he can't ignore it.
But he's tired of being up on the pedestal. Tired of being everyone's hero. If this is sin, then he is a sinner.

Ignoring the surprise in her face, he pushes her back, leaning over her until her back is on the desk and he's flush against her.
Running his hand up her thigh, he cups her sex. She gasps, her fingers tightening in his hair.

“Robin, what are you–”

“I don't care,” he says, kissing her neck and holding her shoulder down with one hand. She struggles under him, trying to sit up, he doesn't let her. “I don't care what you've done, Regina. I've seen who you are, now. And I…” he can't say it, still.

His fingers curl against her core and she whimpers, her back arching into his touch. It makes him want to ravage her.

“You do care,” she breathes, “if you didn't you wouldn't have told them–”

He stops her with a kiss, her lips are soft and they part for him. Her tongue meets his.

“What you want from me,” she continues when he pulls away, “to be your secret, your…guilty pleasure. I won't. I won't do it.”
He undoes the button of her pants. Then pulls the zip down. He pushes the fabric open and strokes her panties. Against his shoulder, she swallows back a moan.
“Robin, I can't,” she says.

His fingers slip under the material, finding her skin. She's pinned to the desk, his weight and his other hand holding her down.

“Robin,” she whines, his digits slide over her, and down down, to her lips.

And she's wet.

He bows his head to her chest and growls quietly. It's taking every fiber of his self control not to take her right then.

“Don't,” she says, but his middle finger is sliding into her, finding no resistance.
He thrusts into her shallowly, to the knuckle. His palm presses to her clit with each thrust, and her breathing is quickly becoming ragged, uneven.

“Stop,” she moans, and he adds another finger.

“This is wrong,” she whines, her legs open wider, giving him more space.

Grinning, he presses another kiss to her neck, then moves lower. With his free hand, he pushes her pants down her legs, and then her panties.

She's breathing hard, her hands gripping the table like it's a lifeline, her hips come up each time he thrusts into her.
And he's barely getting started.

He laps at her languidly, his fingers still inside her. She tastes like heaven, and he could spend the next hour teasing her slowly, feeling her come undone for him as he brought her to the edge, only to never let her go over.

But his own body is screaming at him, begging him to hurry. His erection strains in his pants, painful in its insistence.
He plunges his fingers deep inside her, hearing her cry out quietly above him, and runs the tip of his tongue sharply over her clit.

"Robin," she's sitting up now, just enough to meet his eyes. Her own are wide and dark, pupils blown under the led lights. "You'll regret this," she murmurs.

He runs his tongue over her again, once. She closes her eyes, letting out a low whine, but doesn't ask him to stop again.

When he stands, he slides his fingers out of her, and presses them to her lips. She stares at him for a long second, then opens.

He breathes in, controlling himself. His entire body is on edge, screaming at him to take her and fuck her until she forgets her own name. But he doesn't. He slips the fingers into her mouth, breathing out as she licks them clean. Her eyes never leave his.

And she's dangerous. Powerful. He's playing with fire and finding he loves it. Loves even the feeling of burning to death.

Stepping away from her, he takes her in. She's perfect. Beautiful. Red lips and dark hair. Legs open for him. Cunt glistening wet.

He undoes the buckle of his belt absentmindedly, and pushes his pants down. His boxers go next. He watches her eyes fall to his erection, and then back up to his eyes.

"Hours ago," she says, "you chose your men over me. You promised you'd never touch me again. They will cast you out, Robin."

He goes to her, his hands hooking under her thighs and pulling them around his waist.

She's right. Of course she is. He's known it the whole time. Ever since he followed her into that apple orchard and kissed her. Since he slipped into her chambers.

Yet, he'd done it all anyway.

"What can I say?" he murmurs into her hair, his cock rubs up against her, and her breath catches, "you've corrupted me."

She gasps when he enters her. And that gasp would've been enough to burn the whole world down for.

Her fingers tighten in his shirt as he thrusts into her, their bodies flush, up against one another, her legs wrapped around him.

Groaning, he tries to control the movement of his hips. She's perfect for him, tight and wet and warm. He's already shaking, his orgasm threatening to overtake him.

"Regina," he moans her name. Savoring it on his lips.

Her hands grip his shoulders and she lets her head fall back, exposing her neck. He kisses her lightly, taking in her scent. Memorizing the way she moans and gasps, the way her muscles clench around him. Tighter and tighter.

"Tell me something," he says.

She meets his gaze, her eyes wide, lips parted in pleasure. Tilting her head, she asks him silently to continue.

His heart beats harsh against his rib cage. The question had popped into his head without warning. And he was just far enough gone to ask it.

"What does it feel like?" he asks, pushing sharply into her, "to take someone's heart and crush it?"

Her eyes widen further, if possible, but she can't pull away. He's still inside her, each thrust making her gasp in pleasure.

"Robin," she says breathlessly, "what—"

"Tell me," he growls, "I want to know."

His hands are on her hips, holding her in place as he fucks her. It must hurt, he realizes, the speed at which he's going. But she doesn't complain, and he doesn't stop.

"Regina," his lets go of her hip and wraps his fingers around her throat instead, "tell me."

She isn't afraid of him, doesn't pull back from his touch. She's too powerful to be afraid. But there's something else in her eyes. Worry?

"It feels like power," she murmurs, "like— oh!"

His other hand slides over the top of her thigh, and his thumb strokes her clit.

"Robin!"

"Keep going," he urges, "tell me."

"It feels like being God," she moans, and then she's coming undone, her muscles clenching erratically, her legs shaking around him. Her features twisting in ecstasy.

He's right behind her, the feeling of her orgasm chasing away any rational thought and leaving behind only pure, white, pleasure.

"You are the devil,” he moans as he comes, spilling himself inside her, holding her close by the waist.

It takes her a moment to catch her breath, then, she pushes him away. Standing and pulling her clothes back on, she keeps her back to him.

Robin dresses himself too, buckling his belt slowly and deliberately. He runs his hands through his hair and waits.

When she turns, it's with eyes as hard and cold as coal.

"What do you want from me?" she spits, "first you tell me…you tell me you love me. Then you have Emma tell me you can never see me again, then you turn up here," she waves her hands around at the office, "and do that? And say that?"

He bites his lip. She's right. He's being cruel, to her and to himself. What the hell is he doing?

Robin rubs his hand over his eyes and goes to sit on the white leather sofa, hearing Regina following a moment later.

She stands, watching him, her arms crossed over her chest, her hair is messy, her lipstick faded to a soft pink.

"What were you doing here, anyway?" he asks.

"That's what you want to talk about?" she snaps. Then takes a breath, "I was hoping to find some information on Zelena."

Her sister. The Wicked witch. It certainly has been a week for Regina, hasn't it? And here he is, adding fuel to the fire.

"Did you find anything?"

She glares at him. He can't help the small smile that elicits. Most people would cower at that glare. Most people would fear for their lives. He's not them.

"I'm tired, Robin," she says, in lieu of an answer.

His fingers curl and uncurl in his lap, he stares at them. He's still fuzzy, from the alcohol and the orgasm. From her scent and her touch and her lips.

"You…" she sighs and sits, her back straight and her legs crossed. "We can't keep doing this." She searches him, and maybe it's a trick of the light, but her shoulders seem to relax as their eyes meet.

"Regina," he starts with no idea where he's going. He stops. Fingers curl and uncurl. He can't promise her anything. Can't promise her a future. Doesn't have a future with her. Just a string of moments, each of which he's tortured himself over. Each of which he regrets and will regret, forever.

"I've betrayed everything I've ever stood for," he says quietly. "My morals, the second I touched you, went out the window." A low chuckle escapes his throat, because he regrets it all and regrets nothing at all. "You're right," he goes on. "We—I can't keep doing this. I made a promise, and I intend to keep it."

Pain, sharp and sudden like a stab to the chest. He watches her look away. Another trick of the light, surely, but he could swear there are tears gathering in her eyes.

"All you've ever seen me as, is a monster," she murmurs, after a moment. "That's all I am to you, and your men. That's all I'll ever be."

He has no answer to that. It's true. He can't separate the woman in front of him with the monster he'd known. Even if his men had given him the go-ahead, would he have forgiven her?

Her own words echo in his mind ; It feels like being God.

Why had he asked? Why had he wanted to know? And why, on God's green earth, had her answer made him want her more?

"Why did you ask?" she breaks the stillness, and pulls him out of his own mind.

"What?" his eyebrows furrow.

"You asked me what it felt like to kill," she says. "Why?"

Briefly, he wonders if she can read minds. But then again, it's a legitimate question.

"I guess you've corrupted me," he replies, knowing it isn't satisfactory, knowing it's not enough.

She waits, saying nothing. Her gaze bores into him. Dark eyes that have seen far more than he can imagine.

"I can't hide from who you are, Regina," he says, under her stare. "And neither can you. You want to change, to be better—"

"I am," she interrupts forcefully. "I have changed—"

He holds up a hand, "I know," he says. "But you've also swept everything you've done away. Like it never happened. As if you can ignore it away."

She shakes her head, more to herself than to him. Her brows furrow, pinching in the middle in a way that makes his heart hurt.

"You did those things, and you liked them." She had felt like God. Dealing out death and life. The thought makes him shiver. Uncontrolled power in the hands of one woman.

"I didn't—" she starts.

"Don't lie to yourself, or me," he says.

"If you think that," she's gotten up, hands straight down by her side, her chest heaving with anger. "Why are you here? Why—"

He gets up too, and steps into her space. Until he has to look down to meet her gaze. She doesn't step away, eyes ablaze as he stares her down.

"Because I love you, Regina," he murmurs, "all of you. The human and the monster."

Her breathing calms. Tears fall, silent, down her cheeks. "But not enough."

Slowly, he undoes the cuff on his wrist and rolls up his shirt. She stares down at the tattoo.

"We're…" he sighs. "According to you, according to your fairy friend, we're soulmates."

He knows it means nothing. Soulmate magic, or whatever it is that binds them together, can't overcome the simple fact that she's a villain. That she's done things that cannot be forgiven. That his men, his family, cannot forgive. That he cannot forgive.

As much as she's changed, she will always be that woman. The one who gave the order for Marian to die. The one who destroyed lives, killed and used her power for her own gain and pleasure. The type of person Robin has always hated.

All his life, he's fought against the very existence of people like her. Now, this cruel fate…he runs a hand through his hair and stares down at his tattoo. Whatever God has given him this fate, to love a woman he hates, is a cruel one.

"Yes," she says. "According to fairy magic, we are."

"But it's not enough," he murmurs.

Even if she were to accept, to continue their….relationship in secret, would he be able to live with himself? To hide the darkest parts of his soul, the ones she'd pulled from him, from everyone. To indulge his darkest, guiltiest, desires. For a moment, he sees it. A future in which he is two men, Robin Hood the thief who steals from the rich to give to the poor, and Robin Hood the man who loves a Queen.

He captures her lips in a soft kiss. And this is goodbye. He cannot fall to his desires again, not if he wants to keep his sanity.

"Goodbye, Robin."

 

---

Robin sleeps the night off, waking the next morning with a pounding headache and a sore heart. But there's no use dwelling on what could've been, he rises and dresses and goes down to the convent kitchens.

His men are there, all narrowed eyes and suspicious glances, but no one says anything. Even John keeps his mouth shut, though he grunts when Robin goes to sit next to him.

The tension in the room is palpable.  Silence draping over the normally raucous band, and settling between them. The faint scrape of Robin's spoon in his plate accompanies his breakfast.

Once he's done, taking his time, he gets up. Looking around, all he sees are men who won't look at him, men who'd called him brother, yesterday. He takes a breath and pushes his hands in his pant pockets.

"So," he says, to no one in particular. "What now?"

John looks up, his features twisted in a sneer, "we defeat the witch and find a way to get home," he pauses, throwing him a long glance. "Unless you have a reason to stay?"

Robin shrugs. He doesn't. "Very well," he says. "I'll go and find a way to make myself useful, to defeat Zelena." And get out of this place, where there's nothing but contempt for him.

In the end, Robin finds himself in the library. He knows Belle, and she's a safe bet. Hates Regina with a passion he wouldn't have expected from the small woman. He doesn't ask why, isn't sure he wants to know.

He'd tried Emma first, but quickly learned that she works closely with the Queen. He cannot let himself near her, not just for his own sanity, but for his image.

Belle gives him books. Stacks of books. She tells him to look for a spell, they're working backwards, from the ingredients Zelena is gathering. Trying to figure out what it is the wicked witch is working on.

The days pass, each one more of the same. Robin has never been much of a reader, but he throws himself in the work like it'll save his life. It's certainly saving him from having to be in the company of the Merry Men.

Most of his men are slowly coming around again, their memories have never been very long, and they seem eager to forget the whole incident and move on. Most, but not all. John, in particular, still isn't talking to him.

Robin's heart feels like it's been hollowed out every time he meets his friend's eyes. John, who'd been with him through everything, who loved him, now could barely stand to look at him. It was understandable, Robin supposed, if the roles had been reversed…well, Robin wasn't sure he'd have been as forgiving as John.

The more he thought about it, the more he hated himself. What he'd done had been betrayal, plain and simple. The Queen, everything he and his men had ever fought against, and he'd…he'd fallen for her.

When the sun was shining, and his head was buried in a book, or when his men surrounded him, Robin could almost fool himself. Could almost tell himself it had been nothing, a crime of passion and lust. Not of love.

He sighs, leaning back against the hard chair. A ray of sunshine filters through the library blinds, and dust dances in the air before his eyes. At night, and when he's alone, he can't hide from the truth.

"Robin!" Belle's voice shakes him from his thoughts. She comes running in from the only other room, face lit up with a wide smile. "I found it!"

He springs to his feet and goes to her. The book is open on the table, and he scans the page. His breath catches as it sinks in.

"Am I reading this right?" he asks, softly. "She wants to—"

"Go back in time," Belle meets his gaze, blue eyes sharp. "We have to tell them."

"But why?" his eyebrows furrow as he read the page again. Whatever Zelena wants with the past, it's not going to be good.

Belle shrugs. She's already halfway out the door.

A short car ride later, they're parking by the mansion. The sight of it makes Robin's breath catch in his throat. But he's only there because he wants to help defeat Zelena. He wants to help Snow and David and Emma. Wants to be free to leave this town and go home.

That's the only reason he's walking into her house now. The only reason his breathing feels difficult as he follows Belle and Emma up the stairs.

They're all there, David, Snow, Hook and—well, her. In her large library, a round oak table at the center. The scent of ash and smoke lingers in the air, and it's so out of place it strikes him. The room is the very definition of luxury. A heavy cream carpet covers the floor, softening any noise. Bookshelves cover the walls, from floor to ceiling.

Regina sits on an armchair, leather of course, by the window. She gives no indication of having noticed their entrance, her head turned away from them. Robin glances at her only for a moment, before pulling his attention back to Belle and the others.

"We're quite certain," Belle is saying. Robin is grateful for her use of the plural, though he hasn't helped much at all.

"What does she want from the past?" Hook asks, as he inclines his head to read the spell again.

Snow, who sits at the table looking quite a bit more pale than her usual self, clear her throat. Her hand rests on her now-enormous belly, and her blue eyes turn to Regina as she speaks.

"She wants to stop my mother from telling a secret," she half-whispers.

Robin furrows his brow and stands up a little straighter. He's not the only one confused, as the others glance at one another. All but Regina, she doesn't turn from her contemplation of the darkening sky.

"We spoke to Cora," Snow continues, "Regina's mother."

Now, he's thoroughly lost. Cora is dead.

"We did a spell," Emma explains, glancing at him and Belle. "To talk to her ghost. But it didn't work." She turns back to her mother.

Snow, still pale as he namesake, shakes her head. She's trembling, he realizes. What did Cora tell them?

"It did work," Snow says. "Cora came when you all left, she possessed me. She wanted to show me something," a small sob escapes her, and her husband is by her side in the blink of an eye. His hand on her shoulder.

"You don't have to—" David starts. He's quickly interrupted by a wave of Snow's hand.

"I do, it's important." She sighs, then pats he belly and continues. "Cora was going to marry my father," she turns again, a little, towards Regina. Still, there's no movement. "But my mother discovered that she was pregnant, with Zelena. She stopped the wedding."

"Zelena thinks she could have been raised a princess," Regina speaks, though she's still turned away from them. "If my—our mother had married Leopold. She would've been royal, and not an orphan. Without me around she could have studied magic with Rumple, and been his only student. His only choice."

"She's jealous of you," Robin noted. "And you," he nodded towards Snow.

Zelena's plan was quickly materializing before their eyes.

"She wants to go back and…" Emma swallows. "Make sure Leopold marries her mother?"

"That would mean Snow would never be born," David says, hand still on his wife's shoulder. She takes it gently.

"And neither would Regina," Belle adds, with a tone that suggests that may not be so terrible after all.

It's these words that rouse her. Regina turns and stands. With two quick steps she's by the table, looking down at the open book. Her eyes scan the page, jaw clenched.

"She needs your baby," she says, after a moment's contemplation. "She has everything but that, and until you give birth, she won't have him. We have time."

Robin considers the swell of Snow's belly. Not much time.

Regina's words open the floodgates. A heated discussion begins, on the best way to protect Snow and her unborn baby. On the best way to foil Zelena. On what would happen if they did not manage to stop the witch.

Robin isn't listening. It's not like he can help, anyway. And he's busy. Watching her. Regina's isn't participating either, she stands to the side, one arm wrapped around her waist, her eyes downcast. He's never seen her quite so vulnerable.

It clicks much too late, and he feels like an idiot. But when it does, his heart breaks into a thousand pieces. And it all makes sense. All the little moments when her eyes had widened, fear flashing in them. When she'd stopped speaking to him, for months, after he'd told her she'd married the King for power.

His stomach turns, and he can't imagine how she's feeling. Knowing the man she'd married had planned to marry her mother. Before she'd even been born.

He wishes he could walk to her and pull her into his arms. Wishes he could bury his face in her hair and kiss her until she forgets everyone who's ever hurt her.

But he can't. And he won't.

Instead, what he does is stay. He listens to the conversation idly, he sits himself on the love-seat and occasionally chimes in. He encourages Snow as she and David leave. He waves goodbye to Emma and Hook, and tells Belle he'll walk home. The three throw him suspicious looks, but no one says anything. He hopes their silence will extend to his men.

Regina ignores him. There's glass on the floor, and she kneels to clean it, head bent over what she's doing. Her skirt hikes up on her calves, and his eyes are drawn to the shimmer of her tights on her skin.

He drags his gaze away and swallows.

He shouldn't be here.

"Are you alright?" he asks, standing and going to her. "Can I help?"

She rises, holding the scoop in one hand and the broom in the other. She turns to him.

"What are you doing here, Robin?"

He sighs, "I just wanted to make sure you're alright. You look—"

"I'm fine," she snaps, walking away from him. He follows her down the stairs and into the kitchen.

"Are you?"

She empties the broken glass into a bin and puts the broom away.

"I said I am."

He leans against the kitchen island, arms crossed over his chest. She's the stubbornest person he knows, and it almost makes him smile when she turns; one hand on her hip, chin raised.

"Your husband was going to marry your mother." A statement of fact, nothing more.

Her lips thin, "yes, well, they're both dead now."

He runs a hand through his hair. God, this woman. "That doesn't mean—"

"I thought," she interrupts, "that we'd decided not to see each other anymore."

"I came with Belle, to warn you about Zelena's—" again, he doesn't get to finish his sentence.

"I've be warned, you can go." She walks away, dismissively. He follows.

It seems she's decided to ignore his presence. She sits on the sofa, white leather again, and sighs.

He should leave. She's specifically asked him to. And he shouldn't have stayed in the first place. His men might be wondering where he is, by now. He glances at the clock on the mantlepiece. Almost dinnertime.

Still, he stays. Something keeps him there, feet planted a few paces from her. Maybe it's the way her skin has gone paler than usual. Or the dark rings under her eyes.

"If you're just going to stand there and stare, make yourself useful and pour me a drink."

He does, making himself one too. She has some very nice vintages, and he picks the most expensive whiskey out of her cabinet.

Her eyes open as she takes the drink, and he sinks down onto the couch next to her.

"Robin," she says, her eyes soften as she takes him in. "What are you doing?"

She asks like one would a child. Or someone losing their battle with insanity. Perhaps that's what's happening to him, after all.

"I…" he shrugs, "I'd like to be friends.We can still be friends, right?"

The answer is very clear. No. They cannot be friends. Not just because he hasn't been able to keep his hands off of her once. But because he knows the Merry Men would see this as yet another betrayal. Still, he stays.

Regina lets out a breath, almost a laugh.

"I don't know," she says, " why don't you ask your council of bumbling thieves?"

He rolls his eyes.

"Apparently they dictate your life—"

"They don't," he interrupts her, this time. "I betrayed them."

She says nothing. They've been over this. Over and over again. There's nothing she can say or do to change his mind. Yet, he stays.

"You asked me once if I loved him," she says.

Robin blinks, the memory of that conversation, under her apple trees, come back to him. He'd asked if she'd loved her husband, the King.

He doesn't reply, her gaze is far away, lost in another time.

"I didn't. Or maybe I did, at some point. I don't know. I know he cared very little for me. I was an accessory, a mother figure for his daughter, a wife for him. To show off to the world."

She closes her eyes and takes a long drink. "And all this time I still thought…" she laughs and shakes her head, "I thought I was special. He didn't love me, but he made me Queen. That must have meant something, right? Except it didn't. I was a replacement, for the woman he hadn't married. For my mother."

He wants to take her hand. Actually, he wants to pull her to him and kiss her until she forgets anyone who's ever hurt her. But he doesn't. He stays quiet.

"And my mother!" Another laugh. "She sold me to him. Because she wanted a perfect life, for me, she said. Hah." Something that sounds very much like a sob. "No. She wanted what she'd lost. What she'd almost had and let slip through her fingers. To be Queen. Through me, of course."

"Regina…"

Silent tears are running down her face. Reaching forward, he wipes them gently away with his thumbs. She takes his wrists, fingers wrapping around his arms.

Dark, tearful eyes meet his. A small smile curls her lips. "I don't think friendship is going to work between us."

He leans forward and kisses her. Damn the consequences.

Her lips are salty with the taste of her tears. She kisses him back, fingers twisting in his hair and pulling him to her.

Suddenly, he's on top of her. Her soft, small body trapped between him and the couch. Through their clothes, he can feel her warmth, the steady beating of her heart, the rise and fall of her chest.

He runs his hands slowly down her sides, gripping her waist and pulling her skirt up to lie more comfortably between her legs. But there's no hurry. The usual overwhelming need for her is still there, pounding at the back of his head — and lower down — but he's not in a hurry.

He pulls away a little when her breath catches. Fear settles in his stomach, the memory of her stilling under him is still fresh. She'd been terrified, frozen in place by the weight of his body. He'd guessed she'd been hurt before, now he thinks he knows who it was that hurt her. He finds himself wishing he could bring the man back to life just to kill him again.

"Are you alright?" he murmurs.

"Yes," she says. A small smile, "are you sure about this?"

"Am I?" he asks. "You're— are you?"

She nods, pulling him back down to her.

His fingers run up her thighs, and hook to the very top of the pantyhose. His own breath catches. But there's not a doubt in his mind. He wants this. He wants her.

Her tights come off, and he's touching her over the thin barrier of her panties. Slowly, carefully. He runs his fingers over her, watching her face, making sure she's alright.

Her lips part, eyes widening. He takes it as a sign to keep going. Under his fingers, the fabric grows damp, letting him feel the contours of her.

She whines, and his breathing is becoming labored. He's already stiff in his pants, and every sound from her lips is painful. Still, he takes his time.

His fingers circle her slowly, until her eyes roll into the back of her head. Until her hips rise to meet his hand, and her lips fall open. She only lets out a small sound, a gasp, as she comes. It drives him insane.

When her breathing returns to normal, her hands find the buckle of his belt. He moves so she can take it off, her fingers trembling slightly as she does. As they find his skin, he groans.

"Regina," he murmurs as she strokes him. "Are you sure about this?"

She laughs, and when he meets her eyes, there's no regret there. No uncertainty. No doubt. He wishes he could bottle the way she's looking at him now.

Her hand tightens around him and his thoughts are brought back down to more earthly concerns. He needs her.

Pushing her hand away, he climbs on top of her. Her panties meet the same fate the tights did. Carefully, he lines himself up against her. The warmth of her is already going to his head, but he breathes and stills, meeting her eyes.

She grabs his hips and drives him forward, into her. The move, and the feeling that follows, is completely unexpected, and Robin thinks he might faint from the pleasure.

"Fuck, Regina," he groans, hearing her laugh behind his closed lids.

Her laughter turns breathy as he hooks his hands under her thighs, setting a steady pace inside her.

He will never have enough of her. Never. He curses himself silently as she shifts, allowing him deeper inside. He can lie to himself all he wants, but she feels like she was made for him. He can never go back to a time when he didn't know. Didn't know the taste of her lips, the sound of her moans, the touch of her skin.

He kisses her again. And they are one. For one moment, he is complete.

Then she's coming under him and around him and his body takes over. Mind blanking, he rides her orgasm and pulls out of her just in time to spill his own all over her skirt.

She gives him a nasty look.

She settles into his side, once they're both clean and their breathing has returned to normal. "What now?" 

Robin swallows and looks away. He wishes there was a way to have his cake and eat it too. He knows it's selfish, knows it's betrayal. Knows he's wrong. A traitor, a snake, Judas personified.

But Regina is warm by his side and Marian is dead. Marian is dead. She's not coming back and no amount of revenge will bring her back. Hadn't he said that to John? The man hadn't been convinced, but it was true.

"I can't stay away from you," he tells her, truthfully.

She sighs, heavy and sad, "me neither, apparently."

He looks at her. She shrugs.

"I won't be your secret. I won't."

"I don't want you to be," his heart beats fast in his throat. "I'll tell them, I'll tell the the truth and accept their judgment. Whatever it is."

---

Since that day, when he'd promised Regina he'd tell his men about them, several weeks have passed.

The snows melt, and the trees begin to sprout tiny, green leaves in the weak early-spring sun.

And still, he hasn't told them.

He and Regina continue to meet, secretly, in her mansion. Robin discovers in her an intelligent, sharp woman, even more so than he'd already known.

She's everything he could have asked for. Except for the murder and tyranny, naturally.

There's no murderous Queen here, and he finds it easier and easier to forget there ever had been.

His men would not.

Their treatment of Robin has grown warmer. They believe he stuck to his pact.

It would've torn Robin to shreds, to lie to them and sneak around behind their backs. But he's discovered a very neat way of not letting it get to him; He doesn't think about it.

It's easy enough, what with the threat of Zelena behind every corner, and him running around with the heroes putting out fires every five minutes. He doesn't have time to think about it.

Except when Regina brings it up, of course. She is, rightfully enough, growing impatient with his apparent inability to simply tell his men the truth. And she's growing tired of having to lie to her family about them.

She's right. So, he makes her a promise. Once Zelena's defeated, he'll tell everyone everything. And damn the consequences.

That was before Zelena was defeated.

Now, Robin stands in Granny's diner, hand shaking slightly from almost having fallen in a time portal, and drinks ale from a tankard.

Zelena is gone. Zelena is dead. He's seen her body himself. The Dark One had done short work of her, a stab to the chest and she was gone.

He meets Regina's eyes in the crowd. She gives him a small smirk and raises one brow.

It's time. That brow says.

She's right.

But first, he wants one more moment of freedom. Of being in love with her without having to feel ashamed. Without being reminded of who he loves, and what it means.

He follows her into the bathroom and pushes her up against the wall. His lips are on hers and she's wrapping her arms around him, pulling him close.

And then she's pushing him away.

"Robin, Zelena's gone," she says. "You know what that means."

He steps back, and leans against the counter. "I know," he says. "And I'll do it."

"That's what you've been saying for a month."

"Regina," he sighs. "You have to understand how they see you. You're a monster to them. The woman who killed my wife, their friend."

She looks contrite, smile slipping off her features. Taking her hands hastily, he continues.

"I love you, and I know revenge is…pointless. Marian is dead." He's said it again. Marian is dead. How long has it taken him to get to this point? Where his heart no longer feels like a black hole in chest when he thinks of his late wife. His love for her is still there, strong as ever, but it is bittersweet and dull compared to what he feels for the woman before him.

"But they don't understand that yet," he continues. "They don't know the amazing person you are. You have become." Despite her past. Despite her pain. Here and now, Regina is the woman he loves.

The past, in this new world, means nothing.

"I will tell them," he says, squeezing her hands tight. "Today."

He walks out of that bathroom on top of the world. He'll face his men's wrath again. Perhaps he'll change their minds, perhaps not. Either way, he'll be free of this secrecy, this burden he's been carrying for almost a year and a half. And he'll be free to love Regina. And perhaps the world will think he is a monster, but it won't matter.

He heads back into the diner with long, confident strides. Then he stops. There's some sort of commotion. The Merry Men are grouped around someone, hiding them from his view. Robin pulls his eyebrows together. He can't make out any words, in the ruckus. Can't make out any voices.

On the very edges of the group are Emma and the Pirate. They're standing together, looking worse for the wear. Emma meets his gaze and her eyes widen.

Robin has no time to interpret that look, because the men notice him, and the waters part. He's left looking right at the person they'd been talking to.

His breath catches in his throat.

It isn't possible.

He saw her body. Saw the dark bruise around her neck. The paleness of her features. The silent chest.

"Robin," Marian says.

---

 

Notes:

Alright thats the end! Thank you everyone who read and commented and liked this story! I love you all <3

(If I didn't reply to your comment I was waiting to finish posting! I try to reply to everyone, although sometimes I miss some comments 🩷)