I own no one but my own people
A/N Thanks to Curious Archer on & Enixam1994 on AO3 for betaing. Love you!
Robin groaned as Regina kissed his lips softly, running her fingers through his sandy blonde hair. She was straddling him, her legs on either side, and she was an absolute vision of beauty.
He looked up at her and decided right then, watching his beloved in a silky dark purple bra and matching barely-there panties with her head thrown back in pleasure, grinding against him, that no man on earth would ever have more gorgeous a view then he had right now.
He could almost feel her wetness through the silk underthings he was so incredibly fond of over the top of his jeans.
"Regina," the archer moaned, his hands finding her slim waist and sliding down until he was gripping that phenomenal ass that he could barely keep his eyes or hands off of. "Gods, Regina…"
The Queen merely smirked down at him before she raked her nails over his exposed chest, sending pleasant shudders down his spine before she gripped him in one hand, lightly squeezing just the way she knew he liked.
Wait… where had his jeans gone? And the shorts underneath? Had she taken them off him already?
However, when her small hand began to stroke him while she circled her thumb over his tip, Robin decided he didn't quite care about that that particular question nor the answer at this moment.
He grew thick and hard in her hand while he continued to paw at her lucious ass. Robin reached up and took one of her nipples into his mouth (hang on, wasn't she just wearing a bra?) and began to suck and nip and lick in earnest.
Regina whimpered at his touch but still wouldn't say a word, which wasn't totally unlike her but she also knew how much he adored hearing her beautiful lips cry out his name.
The Queen pushed him back down on the bed, making him release her breast with a soft wet 'pop' of his mouth before she twisted herself around so that she was no longer looking at him. She took his now fully erect cock and guided it inside of her. Regina sank down on him with a loud groan and began to ride him.
No… No this wasn't right… That beautiful silk thong she was wearing had disappeared. He hadn't pulled it off her right? Regina never used magic to undress herself during sex, she knew he liked to take off her intimates by hand or by mouth.
Regina also knew that he loved seeing her eyes when they fucked. Why wouldn't she turn around? Why wouldn't she let him see her face during sex?
"Something the matter, dear?" Regina panted, as if she could hear his thoughts as she continued to ride him.
Since when did Regina call him 'dear'? Since when did she have a British accent?
No. That wasn't the Queens voice. The person on top of him wasn't Regina, it was…
"Zelena?"
Robin watched with wide eyes as silky black hair was now wild red curls. The body on top of him was suddenly much more taller, much more paler… And much more pregnant.
Zelena turned around and smirked over her shoulder at the terrified outlaw, her pale green eyes smug and mischievous, terrible and beautiful.
No. Not beautiful. Just terrible.
"Hello, dear husband," Zelena purred at the frightened man beneath her…
—
Robin gasped as he flew up out of bed, desperate for air and trembling like a leaf in a strong wind. A cold sweat had soaked his entire body as well as the soft silk sheets beneath him.
He flinched and cried out when he felt soft hands clutching his arm, yanking it away from whoever's touch it was, the nightmare still playing fresh in his mind.
"Robin, it's me."
That voice. The voice that he heard in his dreams, his REAL dreams, not his nightmares…
"It was just a nightmare," Regina told him, watching with a heartbroken expression as he fought to control his breathing. "Whatever it was, it wasn't real."
Robin swallowed hard, glancing down at the blanket that covered him and his soulmate. That was the whole problem. It WAS real, it HAD happened…
'Marian' had played on the guilt he felt about him and Regina, she had looked at him with tears in those brown doe eyes he had at one time loved nothing more than gazing into and begged Robin to please just lay with her, make her feel like she used to before Regina showed up. Make her feel wanted and loved and adored, make her feel like she hadn't 'cost her husband his happiness'.
So he had. It was different then what he was used to. Not just different from him and Regina but different from how he and Marian used to make love. She was far more aggressive, far more impatient, far less caring and loving and adoring towards him...
He had thought it was just him forgetting how they used to be but, of course, it hadn't been Marian at all. It had been someone he never would have touched with a ten foot pole if he had the choice, even if she wasn't Regina's sister. She was still someone cruel and heartless and... Wicked.
Regina reached out, meaning to wrap her arms around him for comfort but he just shook his head and lightly pushed her hands away while, at the same time, he still ached for her touch. It was a strange feeling. Wanting to be held by her but also never wanting to feel someone's hands on him ever again.
"I'm sorry," he apologized, still unable to look at her, the guilt and shame overbearing him to degrees he never thought possible. Not just of what happened to him, and for what he had chosen to do but for pushing Regina away when he knew all she wanted to do was help him.
"It alright. You're here now, you're safe," she told him softly, realizing that the nightmare he had endured wasn't just a run of the mill bad dream.
He ignored her comforting words. What right did he have to be comforted by her when he was the one who had slept with the Wicked Witch? Who had dishonored, not only Marian's memory, but himself; sleeping with a woman who he didn't love or care for and getting her with child?
The thief swallowed hard as he got out of bed, unable to look at the heartbroken expression on his Queens face.
"I just need some air," he told her, as gently as he could before he grabbed a simple brown T-shirt and a pair of green flannel pajamas pants. He pulled them on to cover himself, even though he was already wearing his shorts, suddenly very aware of his exposed body.
He turned and headed for the door of her bedroom, making a beeline for the guest room which had more or less become Roland's room now, decorated with forest themed wallpaper to make the small boy feel more at home and all the toys that Henry had long since outgrown. And, as always, he kept his stuffed grey monkey clutched close to his chest at all times.
Robin leaned his head against the doorframe as he watched his son sleep, without any nightmares that might rouse him from his slumber. He couldn't help but relax some when he saw his boy sleeping there so peaceful and happy, without a care in the world.
He'd never be able to thank Regina enough for giving Roland a memory potion that had erased what Zelena had inflicted on them and at the same time he envied his four year old. Robin would give anything to forget these last few weeks. Forget the touch of Zelena's lips on his, forget the feeling of her nails digging into his back as he pushed into her, forget the taste on his tongue when he licked and kissed at the juncture between her legs.
Zelena's wetness has been sweet, almost cloyingly sweet like too much artificial honey, a world of difference between the exotic citrus that Regina had tasted like or, looking back, the soft floral taste of the real Marian. The red head's hands yanked his hair and pulled him closer while she screamed his name to the heavens as he alternated between lightly sucking and flicking his tongue against the sensitive bundle of nerve endings, moaning against her skin as his mouth was flooded with his reward for a job well done.
A fierce wave of nausea hit him like a ten ton bag of cement as that particular memory rushed to the forefront of his mind.
Robin raced to the nearest bathroom and just managed to kneel in front of her guest toilet before he emptied his stomach contents into the sparkling clean white bowl. He heard the faint proof of magic behind him, saw the purple smoke out of the corner of his eye and the next moment he felt her hand rubbing soft comforting circles on his back. Robin flinched away from her gentle touch, hating himself for what he knew would be a look of rejection on the Queens face as he leaned his head against the cool porcelain.
He took a few shaking deep breaths as he reached up and flushed the sickness, wiping his mouth and nose with a bit of toilet paper before throwing it in the small metal bin.
"I'm sorry you had to see that, M'lady," Robin told her as he stood back up. He made his way over to the sink, washing out his mouth first with a bit of water from the sink then with a quick swish of the minty green mouthwash to get, not only the acidic taste of sick from his mouth, but also the taste of her. Even though it had been weeks since they arrived back in Storybrooke he could still feel her, could still taste her...
"Don't worry about it," she assured him. "But… Robin, I need you to talk to me."
Robin shook his head as he walked out of the bathroom with Regina following. "I'm fine," he lied as he made his way downstairs to her lavish kitchen in order to make himself a cup of tea.
A nice spot of tea leads to calm nerves and calm nerves leads to clear thoughts, his father used to say and right now Robin could use all the clear thoughts and calm nerves he could get.
"You're not fine though," Regina argued as she followed him into the kitchen where he dumped out the leftover water from the tea kettle Regina had bought specially for him. Then he quickly filled it with fresh water from the tap.
When he ignored her to put the kettle on the stove top, she reached out and grabbed hold of his hand but letting go just as quickly as he pulled away from her like she had burned him. Robin's breath hastened as he gripped the edge of the counter, trying his best to stay in the moment, to stay here with his Queen in her kitchen and not back in that shabby apartment with the witch who had tricked him and used him.
"I'm sorry," he told her, busying himself with getting down a mug for himself and, even though he had wanted to be alone, one for Regina out of politeness.
"Three."
"Pardon?"
"That's three times you've apologized to me for something that wasn't your fault in the last ten minutes."
Robin opened his mouth but quickly closed it when he felt another 'sorry' on the tip of his tongue. Instead he just grabbed the container of tea bags and put them in the individual mugs
"Robin, you HAVE to talk about this," she told him, not for the first time since they had gotten back.
"I said I'm fine, Regina."
"So having nightmares on an almost constant basis is 'fine'?"
"It'll pass," he said, assuring her as well as himself as he got the milk from the fridge. "It's just a few night terrors is all."
"Really? Just nightmares?"
"Yes."
Regina pursed her lips for a moment before she walked over to him and wrapped her arms around his waist while she laid soft kisses to his neck.
Robin froze where he stood, begging himself to remember that it was Regina's lips on him, it was her arms wrapped around him…
"What are you doing?" He asked, far more assertive then he had intended.
"I'm not allowed to kiss you?" She asked rather seductively, gently nibbling on his ear while her hands played with the elastic band on his pajama pants.
Robin swallowed hard as he closed his eyes, trying his best to ignore her touch.
Brown eyes turned to green. Black hair turned to red.
"Regina, stop."
He wanted to scoff at his own tone; far more desperate and pleading then he had ever spoken to her with before.
Robin half expected Regina to continue on with her show, proving a point they both already knew but instead the moment that word left his lips she backed off. He turned to face her, expecting a smug 'told you so' grin but instead he saw her looking at him with love in her eyes and an apologetic look on her face for what she had just done.
"I'm sorry," she told him just as honestly as possible. "I truly am, but looking away whenever someone mentions her name or flinching whenever I touch you isn't 'fine'."
He stared down at the gleaming white tile beneath his feet. She was right, as always. He wasn't 'fine'. He wasn't 'fine' in any sense of the world.
Zelena had deceived him in the most vile way possible, had murdered his first love, had pretended to love his son, had tricked him into being intimate with her when he had only been with two other women in his life; Marian and Regina.
He felt disgusted and deceived and violated and meanwhile his own men made jokes about it that he was forced to laugh at. Hook had made a comment along the lines of ''every man deserved at least one round with a red head in his life" that Robin had pretended to find amusing, while the others in this town whispered the rumors he pretended not to hear and called what Zelena and him had 'sex' when it wasn't. Not even close.
Sex was what he and the real Marian had when they were drunk off the excitement of their first successful heist involving royalty. Back when they were young lovers, laughing at the crude comments his men were shouting at them from outside their tent.
Sex was what he had with Regina in her vault, intense and intimate and passionate, both of them eager to have one another again after being apart for far too long.
What he and Zelena had? That wasn't sex. That wasn't love making, that wasn't even fucking.
It was…
Robin shook his head as he retrieved the bowl of sugar from her table and turned off the stovetop just as the water began to boil.
"Robin, you have to talk to someone."
"Who?" He turned to face her, slamming down the kettle a little harder than he meant to. "Who, Regina? John; so he can tell me 'at least I got some more experience'? Hook; so he can tell me that 'you do have to admit mate, the crazy ones are always the most enjoyable'? Or perhaps Archie, so the whole of Storybrooke knows I'm struggling with something? Who should I talk to about this?"
She looked at him as if the answer was obvious and, in hindsight, it probably was.
"Me."
The anger melted away and Robins face fell as he looked at her for a moment; not pitying him or even giving him that goddamned look of condolence like his dog had just died in the same way the Charmings so often did.
She cleared her throat as she smoothed out the nonexistent wrinkles in her silky grey nightgown. "I mean… I do have a bit of lived experience in this field…"
The thief shook his head. No. No, this wasn't the same thing. What had happened to him didn't even start to compare to what Leopold had inflicted on Regina. If Zelena hadn't of shown her face, he wouldn't have even known it was her.
"Don't compare the two," he told her with a gentleness that he always had when she talked to him about her first husband. "What happened to you and me are eons apart. I choose to be with Marian."
"You did. You choose to be with Marian… You didn't choose to be with my sister." She took a step towards him, her hands crossed in front of her to let him know she didn't plan to touch him, not unless he wanted her too. "If Leopold came back from the dead and was magicked to look like you and I slept with him… you wouldn't hesitate for a second to want to comfort me and care for me and you would never say I choose to be with him. You wouldn't say I wasn't ra-."
"Don't say that word," he begged. "Please, Regina, I can't…"
"I won't," the Queen promised. "I won't, Robin, but what happened is hurting you. And I just want you to know that you can talk about this with me. But I'm not going to pressure you, either and just know that I'm here for you if you need me."
She looked as if she was going to lean in and kiss his cheek but thought better of it at the last moment. So with that, Regina turned and started to head out of the kitchen, almost missing the three words he whispered after her.
"Please don't leave."
Regina turned back towards him, her heart crumbling at the sight of the broken man in front of her. He looked so tired, as if everything that had happened this past year was finally catching up to him.
The Queen watched as he sighed, rubbing his temple with his blistered calloused fingers before he took a seat at her table with the two mugs of tea. "I just… I feel like I was betrayed and I feel disgusted at myself and… And violated. But then I feel guilty because I have no right to feel these things. If she hadn't of changed herself back, I wouldn't have believed you," he admitted. "I would have thought this was all a matter of jealousy, I would have protected her and the baby from you if you tried to hurt her."
Regina pursed her lips at that particular admission but, she reminded herself, this wasn't about her. This was about what Robin was feeling.
"How can I feel this much turmoil and guilt over something that - if she had kept up the farce of pretending to be Marian - I wouldn't be feeling the way I feel. I mean I-... I should have known, I knew something wasn't right I just didn't know why."
His voice caught in his throat and he quickly stopped speaking, instead choosing to concentrate on stirring the milk and sugar into his tea. Regina wanted to reach over and grab his hand, but she restrained herself, remembering just how little she liked being touched after a night of 'wifely duties' she had with Leopold.
"It's not your fault," she told him, a realization hitting her that this was the first time she had actually told him that.
Regina spent so much time being angry at Zelena and even Robin for 'moving on', she had yet to truly comfort her soulmate. Even for a week or so after they arrived back in Storybrooke Regina wanted nothing to do with the thief, and kept putting off even talking to him until he came to her home and begged her to, the same as she was doing to him right now.
"You didn't know it was Zelena," Regina offered.
"I should have known something was off," Robin argued. "She didn't act like her, didn't talk to her…" he chuckled sadly as his gaze turned down to his cup of tea. "Back in our realm I taught Marian how to make a cup of tea, a proper cup of tea… She was the only woman I know who could make a pot of tea better than my mum."
Regina couldn't help herself as she smiled at the memory he was sharing with her. Robin had also taught her the same little tricks when it came to making tea but she just used magic as a shortcut.
"But in New York I asked her for a cup and…"
"She didn't make it right," Regina finished for him.
"It was so bitter," Robin admitted. "Hardly any sugar in at all, she didn't let it steep long enough. I just thought she'd just forgotten. And there were so many other little things that I just- that weren't her and I should have known."
Regina had never wanted to just wrap her arms around her thief and comfort him as much as she did right then.
"This wasn't your fault, Robin. You didn't know. None of us knew."
"I should have. What kind of husband am I, that I can't even recognize my own wife?"
"A husband who hasn't seen her in thirty years. A husband who was so happy just to have her back you didn't question anything, and that's perfectly understandable," she added when he cast his gaze down to his untouched tea. "If someone showed up as Daniel and he knew even just a few facts about my life I wouldn't have questioned it either. If someone showed up as me after you not seeing me for years, I'm sure you would have-."
"No."
"...I'm sorry?"
"I would have known it was you, I would have felt that something was wrong, I know I would have. And you would have known it was me."
Robin said it with such conviction that Regina couldn't help the tug of a smile. He was right. Daniel and Marian, their first loves sure. She would side eye a few things as he had done but she would have accepted it as just Daniel either changing or her not quite remembering how he used to be and she would have moved on.
But not Robin. Not Regina.
"I'd know it was you because I know what a soulmate feels like," he added, unknowingly mirroring her own words from years ago. "Anything else wouldn't begin to compare."
Regina smiled softly as he finally reached across the table and grabbed hold of her hand, lightly squeezing and running a thumb over the back of her hand. "I'm sorry for pushing you into talking about this," she told him. "I shouldn't have touched you like that when you weren't ready."
"It's fine. As I said, I shouldn't… If she hadn't of taken the glamor spell off her, I never would have known, I wouldn't be this…"
"Hurt?"
"I was going to say 'huge mess'."
Regina's smile fell at his admission. "You aren't a mess, Robin. You had something traumatic happen to you and I know you don't like hearing that word-."
"Please don't," he begged her again.
"But it DID happen to you. And what did happen wasn't your fault."
Robin just shook his head at her words. Regina was wrong. Perhaps not about it being his fault, he would debate that later, but what she said had happened.
Emma had been the first to use that word to describe what happened to him. That big 'r' word that even now he flinched at.
THAT particular crime didn't happen to people like him. To strong capable men. To, as this realm would have him believe, one of the greatest archers in history. It happened to young beautiful women by drooling fiends lurking on the road, or in Regina's case the kings chambers, while gallant honorable men like Robin would race in, sword drawn or bows at the ready and fend them off or wrap their arms around the women afterwards and comfort them.
He always thought THAT particular crime didn't happen to the brave noble men in the stories. THAT particular crime didn't happen to heroes like Robin...
He was wrong, the thief realized, about all of that. Because it had indeed happened to him.
He hadn't chosen to be with Zelena, he had chosen to be with Marian. Wasn't THAT what the crime was, at its core? Being with someone you didn't want to be with, either by force or some other means of manipulation?
How many times had Robin been in a tavern and prevented a bar wench so drunk she could barely stand from going home with someone he knew she would have said no to if they were sober? Hadn't he given a standing order to all of his men to be on the lookout for the same thing whenever they went out drinking?
Even while he was in New York, he had stopped something like that from happening while he was out at a bar one night (while 'Marian' rolled her eyes and just muttered that the girl should have been smarter about holding her liquor).
It wouldn't have been by brute force but it still would have happened.
Just like it had to him.
Robin took a deep shaking breath as the realization and the magnitude of just what that witch had done hit him with the force of a truck.
Zelena had raped him.
His soulmate's sister had raped him. All so that she could destroy Regina's happy ending (as his by default as well.)
He hadn't noticed he was crying until he felt a wetness in his eyes that he couldn't blink away. Robin cleared his throat, shaking his head and getting up from the table before he grabbed a paper towel and turned away from her. No matter what happened, he would not let her see him in tears.
He leaned against the sink, pursing his lips before he spoke, flinching at the tremble in his voice.
"I think… I think I need help," Robin finally admitted. "I know I don't deserve it, I know I have no right to it but I do."
Regina got up from her chair and went over to stand beside him, once again keeping her arms crossed so he knew she wouldn't touch him without his permission. "Want me to make you an appointment with Archie?"
There was no judgement in her voice, no snickering, no smugness that she was right… She truly genuinely wanted to help him get over what had happened to him. But nevertheless Robin shook his head at the suggestion. Sitting on a couch crying about his feelings just didn't seem like something he would enjoy that much.
After a moment of consideration, he shook his head and turned towards her. "I think… What I need is to just… Get away from Storybrooke for a bit. At least get away from the town and magic. Everyone knows what happened, those who don't joke about it just have this damned look of pity and I just… It's suffocating. I need to be in the forest for a few days, clear my head."
Regina nodded, trying her best not to let her disappointment show. She had just gotten him back and now he was gonna leave again…
She was so caught up in her disappointment that he was going to leave her again he had missed what he had said after that.
"What was that?" she asked him, forcing the facade that she wasn't too terribly upset at what he wanted.
"I asked if you and Henry had sleeping bags."
Regina blinked once. Twice.
"What does that have to do with you going out to the forest for a bit?"
"I was planning on taking you two and Roland with me."
As much as she wanted that, she knew she shouldn't impose on this. "Robin, after everything you've gone through, you need to rest. You need to just take a moment for yourself to just relax. You should be by yourself for a while."
Robin shook his head. "Being without you and Roland and Henry… Being without my family, my REAL family was torture. And I've tortured myself for long enough. Plus while I'm gone I'll just be thinking about what if she gets out and what if she comes after you or my boy and I can't-... I don't want her to hurt us again. Any of us."
Regina barely heard a word he said. She couldn't help but to smile as he reached out and grabbed hold of her hand again.
"You… consider me your family? Me and Henry?"
For the first time tonight he wore that soft gentle smile that made Regina want to simply melt in his arms. "Of course I do."
She took half a step towards him, wanting to kiss him but he took a step backwards, almost overwhelmed with both embarrassment and shame.
"I'm sorry," he told her again.
"Four times."
Robin was confused for a moment before he remembered her earlier comment of him apologizing unnecessarily.
"I'm sor-... Fine. No more apologizing."
"Well… I mean, feel free to apologize for things like when you trek mud in the house after you come back from your camp."
He chuckled at her comment and nodded. "Understood."
Regina smiled at him before she pushed a piece of hair behind her ear. "You wanna head back to bed?"
Robin bit his lip before he spoke, choosing the words that were least apt to offend. "I… I think that I'm gonna finish up my tea first."
They both knew what it meant. He hadn't wanted to lay in bed with her, didn't want to sleep beside not just Regina but anyone right now, didn't want to feel her clutching to him in her sleep.
He thought she would be upset at the implications but she just smiled understandably at him and he was brutally reminded of the fact she had probably wanted to be just as alone after Leopold hurt her.
"I'll be upstairs when you're ready," she told him, a double edged comment if there ever was one.
He smiled graciously at her before he leaned in and gave her a rather chaste kiss on the cheek.
As Regina made her way up the stairs she couldn't help but put a hand on the spot where he had kissed her and, despite everything else that had transpired that night, she smiled.
She smiled. Because she knew they - and more importantly, Robin - was going to be alright…
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