A|N: some banditry, some Storybrooke domesticity, some missing year; enjoy!
Space
(Bandit OQ + things you said with no space between us – or, in which Robin and Regina discover they quite like making a mess out of each other)
It hadn't been an easy thing, convincing Regina to work by his side for a change rather than fight him to get that one step ahead. Even now, as she sits at the other end of the carriage they'd borrowed (more or less) for the evening, primly adjusting her elbow-length gloves and tracing the silhouette of a dagger beneath her corset, Robin can tell that attending a ball, on his arm no less, is the furthest idea from pleasant to her.
She likes her space, he's noticed. Her wide, flouncing skirts have occupied most of the carriage, silk and lace spilling over the cushions and crowding Robin at the knees. Regina, in an obvious effort to hold her as far from him as possible, has crammed herself into the opposite corner, pointedly avoiding his gaze in favor of glaring out the window.
It also appears that she likes her silence.
Sighing when his third attempt at needling a few words out of her ("You look stunning in that dress, milady, I hardly recognized you") earns him little more than a scowl, Robin leans back and wonders whether he won't be thoroughly regretting this decision come morning.
He begins fiddling restlessly with his own splendid attire, shifting in his impatience to get this heist over and done with, when she finally speaks.
"Stop messing with that."
"I beg your pardon?"
He eyes her with something resembling apprehension as she slides across what little space there is to drop carelessly down beside him, slapping his hands away from his cravat.
"We won't even make it through the first set of guards if you show up looking like something the cat dragged in," she mutters irritably, and he's too taken aback by her unexpected proximity to protest much when she loosens the brocade with nimble fingers, trying to make him look halfway-respectable again.
"Does this make you the cat in this scenario?" he thinks to tease her, and she almost-smiles in a way that suggests there's more truth to his taunting than he'd intended.
"You'd do well to hold still, you know." Her tone dips low, a knuckle brushing against his throat while she works, and he feels the slightest pressure there as he gives a thick swallow.
Robin is suddenly questioning his own judgment in allowing his sometime-rival to get this close to him, with her hidden daggers and whatever else of her she means to make into a weapon, tying things around his neck, the hint of a smirk beginning to show as she gazes up at him through a curtain of heavy-long lashes.
"There," she says eventually, her hands continuing to linger dangerously at his chest, and her voice sounds rougher than he remembers it. "I suppose you'll have to do." That smirk of hers is full-blown now, a naughty thing that demands to be seen to, and if he just—
The carriage gives a tremendous sideways lurch, tossing Regina into his lap with a startled noise, and Will Scarlet is calling out hasty reassurances from the front ("We've hit a bit of a snag in the road, but not to worry, we'll be off again shortly!") as Robin endeavors to work out what just happened.
The force of the disturbance has knocked a crucial hairpin from Regina's elegant updo, and locks begin to fall in waves around him, some of the strands snagging on his beard, and they're tugged hopelessly wayward when Regina twists around in his arms, searching for some way to escape them.
His hands, Robin realizes, have fallen to places that she'd likely end him for touching under any other circumstances but these, with their cramped little carriage, a stray stone disrupting the path they've taken, and something like fate that's pressed them together in a breathless tangle of limbs.
She stills for a moment, and he brings a cautious finger to her hair, weaving through, lifting it carefully away to find her flushed and wild-eyed, turbulent as any storm as she stares up at him.
He thinks he's truly never seen her so stunning.
Will, from the sound of it, has alighted from his seat, whistling cheerfully while he goes about soothing the horses and inspecting the wheels for any lasting damage.
"Now how are we to make it through the doors, with you looking like this?" Robin muses, gently mocking, and Regina, hand still twisted into his cravat, draws him downward as she pulls herself up, closing that space she no longer seems to find necessary.
"Oh," she smiles with all her teeth, dragging her other hand to curl a finger into the vee of his vest collar. There's a mischievous glow about her—a warning, that perhaps he's not feeling nearly as concerned as he ought to be—and her words are hot at his throat as she whispers next, in the cadence of a vow, "Wait until you see the other guy."
Bedtime
(Dimples Peanut + things you said when I was crying – or, a baby cries, two boys pick out a story and Robin is forever baffled by Dr. Seuss)
She could get used to this, she thinks.
It's half past the children's bedtime on a quiet Friday night. Their demons of the week have come and gone (some of them vanquished, others sent back to that hell known as Oz), and their home is finally starting to look lived in, after so many months away chasing memories and Dark Ones and ghosts from their past.
Needless to say, Regina is more than ready to enjoy the wine she's just poured, not to mention a very shall we say eager Robin wrapped around the back of her, nosing kisses along her throat at the bottom of the staircase, all warmth and breath and toe-curling stubble.
Maybe it's the cabernet that's melting her insides, or maybe it's something else—that thing Robin is doing with his tongue, for one, or the palm he's dragging past her neckline, and oh—mmmm—
Whatever it is, she'll take it.
All of it.
She wonder if this is how it feels, to have things and (maybe, just maybe) deserve them, this tightness in her chest from filling with something like happiness.
"Your hair is getting long," Robin observes, his voice sounding thick, a finger trailing down one lock to make a careful study of how it's curled at the ends.
"Are you complaining?"
"Hardly," he murmurs into her skin, husky-low and oh so teasing, "more of you to make a mess out of later," and then he's pressing her up the stairs, warm at her back, hard at her rear, with busy hands and a wandering mouth intent on unraveling her before they've even reached the bedroom—
A wailing shriek shatters the calm of their evening, high-pitched and two hours earlier than what Regina had been expecting. She turns with a rueful smile, passing their wine glasses over to Robin and making her way up the stairs while he, sighing, takes a moment to compose himself.
Her boys are bent with wide, guilty eyes over their sister's bassinet when she nudges the doorway open.
"Henry?" frowns Regina. "Roland?"
"Hey, Mom!" says Henry, too brightly, with a not-so-subtle nudge of an elbow into Roland's ribs, and the younger boy instantly goes straight as a lamppost, fumbling awkwardly with something behind his back.
Regina swoops down to gather up the baby, thinking to tease Robin later for having raised a son in his mirror image.
Meanwhile, their poor little two-month-old is practically beside herself with the indignation of one pulled rudely from sleep, crying with such fervor that the hiccups come soon after, startling her into a brief period of silence each time before she starts back up again.
"Explain yourselves, please," Regina says sternly, while she rocks and soothes and leaves kisses on her forehead.
"It wasn't me," Henry is quick to confess, and Roland, knowing when he's been sold out, drops a jaw and looks to Henry with great dismay.
"The kid wanted to practice reading her a bedtime story," divulges Henry sheepishly, jerking a head to the book Roland had done a terrible job of concealing, and a mild, obligatory scolding is on the tip of Regina's tongue when she hears Robin chuckle from the doorway.
"And what bedtime story did you choose for our little one tonight?" he asks, smiling with the full force of his dimples, and Roland, miniature dimples to match beginning to show, relinquishes the book as Robin strides up to join them.
The amusement fades from his expression, turning perplexed as he flips the picture book back and forth in his hands.
"Can someone please explain to me why a fox would want a pair of socks?" Robin inquires finally, with a level of frustration that his question doesn't quite seem to warrant, and Regina arches a silent eyebrow, wondering what Dr. Seuss could have possibly done to offend him so.
"Two pairs of socks, Papa," Roland points out helpfully, tapping a finger to the fox's four feet, and Henry looks seconds away from bursting with laughter.
Yes, Regina decides, as their daughter smacks sleepy lips and Robin begins to rifle through the pages, searching for answers.
She could definitely get used to this.
Sweetness and Starlight
(Dimples Queen + things you said under the stars and in the grass – or, Roland misses home and Robin, with a little help from the Queen, brings the forest to him instead)
He misses the forest. Terribly so.
"Papa, when can we go back?" he's taken to saying, often and well within earshot of the very people who'd so graciously taken them in, putting castle walls and magical shields between them and the Wicked Witch, and Robin is always quick to remind the boy as much.
"Without the kindness of the Queen, we wouldn't have a real bed to sleep in, nor would we have a stuffed monkey to watch over us every night," he tells his son sternly, and Roland, looking abashed, will nod his head and rush to Her Majesty's side, worried that he'll have hurt her feelings with his thoughtless questioning.
(If he has, she doesn't let it show; Regina may be painfully transparent in her disdain for Robin's men, but she's only ever shown warmth to his son, warmth and affection and even the occasional smile, and for that alone Robin's already hopelessly immune to the scowl she seems to have reserved solely for him.)
Robin has long since learned the necessity of adapting to his surroundings, of leaving little room for sentimentality when there are far more practical things to concern himself with, the poor to feed and nobles to rob, a son who deserves the best that life has to give him.
Still, this is the first that the boy has truly known of loss, and Robin can't fault him for wondering. Roland had once been inseparable from the forest: no puddle too wide for him to cross, no pinecone so large that it couldn't be hefted and thrown at imaginary trolls and ogres to protect his father and twenty-some uncles from harm.
But there are real dangers lurking in the forest now, dangers with claws and wings and magic that they can't see, and thus it becomes strictly forbidden, this place they'd once called home.
Though he and Regina agree on very little, they've never failed seeing eye to eye on the matter of Roland's safety. The boy has already proven himself too easy a target, too prone to slipping into the overlooked spaces, and so in the castle he shall remain, where the greatest danger he faces is losing out on the last of the sausage every time Will Scarlet beats him to the buffet.
Still, Robin's not without ways of bringing the forest to them, however he can.
When the first showers of spring have rinsed away the lingering cold of winter, coaxing the lands back into bloom, he and his boy begin to take their supper outdoors, with the stars and the fireflies and the apple tree overseeing their meal in the Queen's private courtyard.
She'd given her permission easily enough, but caving to their solicitation for her company had been another matter entirely, and Robin doesn't think he'd ever seen her sneer with such force when he requested it, as though the very prospect of joining them for a twilight dinner made her physically ill.
He hadn't pressed the issue, simply uttering an "As you wish, milady" at her reminder not to let Roland stray into the wild, overgrown gardens along her courtyard's southmost wall, where mischievous nymphs have been known to lurk in the ivy looking for trouble.
Roland, on his part, is immensely pleased with the balcony view, woods for days in every direction and the sun nearly ducked all the way behind mountaintops ("It has a bedtime too, Papa," he says sagely, and Robin smiles into his stew).
He is, in fact, so captivated by their home as he's never seen it before ("Is it all ours?", and Robin cannot help his harmless white lie: "Of course, my boy, everything the light touches"), that he seems to have put down roots right by Regina's apple tree, and Robin soon gives up altogether on wrangling him back to the banquet hall in time for dessert.
Granny had promised them something sweet called "ice cream"—two things Robin would never have dreamt of putting together when ice itself was always a luxury they could never afford, unless it came from the sky or the lakes froze over at wintertime. He'd explained as much aloud, patiently anticipating Regina's scornful commentary on their ill-mannered forest ways, but she'd only looked thoughtfully to Roland and said not a word.
As Robin sits here with his son, scraping out their leftover stew with a hunk of bread and feeling pleasantly full in a way he hasn't for a long while, he finds there's nothing sweeter than this. The stars as they wink into sight for the evening ("Where do they come from, Papa?"), the chirping of crickets that have joined them beneath the tree.
And then, the giddy sounds of Roland's delight at the unmistakable tap-tap-tap of heels on stone behind them.
Careful to contain his smile before he turns, Robin wonders if perhaps there is room yet to make the night even sweeter.
Regina is making her way over to them, bearing two full portions of something gooey-thick and rich with the scents of apple and cinnamon, wrapped in a thin golden crust with a cream-colored dollop of something fast-melting beside it.
"Here," she smiles to Roland, who is all thumbs and speechless excitement when she passes him a plate. "Careful," she's admonishing gently then, blowing on the forkful he'd been about to cram in his mouth, "it's still very warm."
Robin had assumed the second plate meant for her, and so he's pleasantly taken aback when she wordlessly presses it into his hands before seating herself on the marble bench at Roland's other side.
The apple is tender and tart and quite possibly the most delicious thing he's ever tasted, and Robin might have politely inquired after whom they ought to thank for such a treat if Regina hadn't looked so determined to ignore him completely.
He's perfectly content to enjoy his dessert in silence, so he sits back and allows Roland to carry the conversation for the three of them, interjecting only to wipe the stickiness from his face and kindly remind him of his table manners even though they're not indoors.
Roland, once he's licked his plate to the point of sparkling, begins pointing out various features of their home to Regina with great enthusiasm, hardly deterred by the fact that relative darkness has made it a challenge to distinguish sky from tree from ground.
His descriptions are remarkably detailed, if not terribly accurate: "That's where I saved Papa from a sea monster—it had snakes for legs" (a small squid Robin had once had the good fortune of procuring for supper), and "One time the bad knights chased me in those trees, but I beated them with my sword" (a stick, and a very startled Little John ambushed upon returning to camp one afternoon).
"Oh!" says Regina with just the right level of exaggerated fear and suspense suited for Roland's storytelling, and Robin realizes, belatedly, that he'd never quite gotten his smile under control.
"And what about the stars?" she's teasing Roland then. "Is there a story behind those too?"
He tilts his head curiously. "Papa says you put them there."
Robin is suddenly discovering the need to clear his throat, having swallowed a bit of ice cream down the wrong way.
"Did he?" asks Regina, tone even, gaze trained carefully up at the stars in question, and he's having a difficult time reading her.
Roland's nodding, looking earnest. "He says you hanged all the stars, and the moon—"
"My boy," Robin interrupts hastily, and he ought to have known all his good-natured fibbing would come back to bite him in the arse.
"For me," finishes Roland. "Because you like the outside too." He leans close to Regina, eyes wide, voice low and conspiratorial. "Papa said it was your secret. But I won't tell anyone. Promise."
Robin is prepared to sink down into the soil in his mortification when her gaze locks with his, searching there for any sign that he means to mock her, but he would never do so with malice, nor use his own child to any such end.
He lets her go on scrutinizing him, wishing to hide nothing from her, and whatever she finds in him seems to soften her ever so slightly.
"In that case, I have another confession to make, Roland," she says without looking away from Robin, her words matching the boy's now for their winking slyness. "I think your father forgot to tell you the other half of the story."
Roland glances aghast at Robin, who's just conveniently spooned some more ice cream into his mouth.
"You see," continues Regina, "I have a boy too. His name is Henry, and he's a lot like you. Brave, with brown hair—" she tidies his to little effect, his curls wild and riotous as ever, refusing to be tamed, "—and he's very, very…ticklish!"
Roland is instantly quailing, shrieking and laughing in equal measure, jamming his limbs into Robin's side and nearly upsetting his plate of dessert.
"Henry also loved—loves—the stars," she says, removing her hands from Roland's tummy, looking to the sky again with something like wistfulness that seems to pull her even further away from them.
Robin is left with the distinct impression that more than his boy and a few feet of marble have settled into the space between them now, a distance that he can't fathom separating this realm from the one where she'd been forced to leave her son.
"Would you mind sharing the stars with him?" she asks with another smile for Roland, fainter this time but no less lovely for it in Robin's eyes, and the boy stares up at her with all the gravitas of one who's just been bestowed with a truly great honor.
"Only if you can have them too," bargains Roland, and they shake on it.
Both of them have lost something of theirs, too precious to be replaceable, and perhaps they'll be returned someday, she to her son and he to a place that he can call home, but the stars will have to do until then.
Regina falls silent, clearly desiring to be alone, so Robin gathers up his boy and their two empty plates before backtracking a step, not wanting to go without at least offering something of himself in exchange for the truths they'd unwittingly brought out of her tonight.
She doesn't shake him off when he touches his free hand to her elbow, thumbing away the dusting of flour on her sleeve, and she looks up at him almost warmly before easing carefully out of his reach.
"Milady," he murmurs, taking his leave, and her gaze shifts back to all the stars she'd hung in the sky as only a mother can do.