Peace
Everything that could possibly go wrong that day does.
"Isn't it bad luck for you to see me right now?" she hums when he has her against the wall, and he turns his attention away from her pulse point to grin crookedly up at her.
"Well, if I recall correctly, the saying only holds if you are wearing your wedding dress."
She arches an eyebrow to rival his own and he shrugs, smiles. (Henry had had rather a lot to say on the matter of weddings and their traditions in this land when he'd first requested permission to marry his mother.)
"And you, my darling," Robin continues, eager to end this discussion so he can get back to ravishing her neck, "are not wearing your wedding dress. In fact…" His palm relinquishes its hold on her breast and travels down her side to cup her bare bottom, giving it a gentle squeeze, and she nestles her hips further into his in retaliation. "I'd venture to say you're quite the opposite of wearing anything at all."
"I wonder how that happened," she mutters, but he's already dragging smiling lips across the skin of her collarbone, and her head lolls back into the wall, any last protest she might have had dying into a quiet moan as he hooks a hand behind her knee and drags her leg up around his waist. His hips roll, pressing his hardness more snugly between her thighs, and his mouth fuses with hers, hot and impatient, because if this day goes anything as planned, they won't be alone again for quite some time and the thought drives him absolutely mad.
The sudden sound of the front door opening ushers in a loud chatter; childish peals of laughter ring out as a voice shouts gleefully, "Henry, no more tickles!", followed by the sweet, calming singsong of Snow as she calls to the boys to stop roughhousing while she goes upstairs to check on the blushing bride to be on her big, big day.
Robin's forehead sinks into the crook of Regina's neck with a groan and she chuckles at his despair, threading fingers through the hair at the back of his neck. She gives a playful tug and a last swift kiss to his mouth before extricating her limbs from his body, and he frowns at the abrupt loss of heat and the feel of her skin beneath his fingertips.
"I won't be alone with you for the rest of the day," he says plaintively. In fact, he'll be alone, period, if the manner in which he'd deposited Charming and Killian on their respective sofas early, too early, that morning was anything to go by. (They'd taken the concept of a 'bachelor's party' much more seriously than he had.)
"A small price to pay for marrying me," Regina teases with a gentle palm to his cheek, but she's already pulling away as he leans into his touch and a huff of exasperation escapes through his lips, so she presses a smile to them, lingering, when there's a frantic rap on the bedroom door.
"Regina," Snow's voice filters through, sounding slightly panicked now that she's out of the boys' earshot, "Regina, there's a problem."
"Of course there is," she sighs, and Robin reluctantly lets her hand slip from his grasp as she turns around, clothing them both with a flick of her wrist, and then she opens the door.
Snow is standing there, eyes wide and agitated, a bundle of lace and ivory gathered into her arms.
Regina lets out a yelp and promptly slams the door back shut.
"Regina," Robin says, startled, though slightly relieved; he's not sure Snow has quite forgiven him yet for the current state of her husband, though he can hardly be held responsible for how sore of a loser the prince had been when Killian challenged him to a drink-off.
Regina whirls around in a panic, grabs his shoulders to shake him. "Did you see it?" she asks frantically, and he knows to bite back the smile creeping out, recognizes that now is not the time to let her see that he is humoring her.
"I hardly saw anything," he says honestly, "and it's a silly superstition. I believe in this situation Henry would the one quick to point out that—"
"I know, I know," she grumbles, grip slackening, "I'm not actually wearing it." She sighs as he bends down to plant a soft kiss on her forehead, and her hand trails down from his shoulder to rest over his chest. "I'm sorry. I just…"
"Expect everything to go wrong?" He smiles into her hairline, then pulls back so she can see it, tucks a brown lock behind her ear. "As long as we're together, everything can only ever be right."
He feels the tension leave her body as she loosens up and returns his smile, when they realize Snow is still talking through the door.
"It's not the dress, Regina," she's insisting now, "the dress is not the problem."
"If not that, then some other thing," Regina sighs as she opens the door again.
"Oh!" says Snow when she notices Robin lurking behind Regina. "Robin." (He cringes.) "Have you seen my husband? He wasn't home when I left to get the boys this morning."
He makes a solid effort not to grimace too visibly, and if Snow is suspicious she doesn't let it show.
"Wasn't he?" Robin asks innocently. "I'd best be off to find him then. I'll leave you two to your…" He's struggling to find the proper word when Regina gives him a playful shove out the door, and he throws her one last smile—the last one they'll share as an unmarried couple—before taking the stairs down two at a time to greet Roland and his future son-in-law.
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.
.
"It's not…Häagen-Dazs, is it?" Snow starts hesitantly.
"Is that supposed to be a euphemism for something?" Regina asks irritably, squirming as Snow grasps the fabric together with one hand and attempts to coax the zipper up with the other. "Because eating something that will go straight to my thighs right before my wedding day is the last thing I'd—" Oh. Häagen-Dazs.
"This doesn't make any sense," Snow is muttering to herself. "It's been a couple weeks since Granny made the alterations. How can it not fit?"
"It can't be Häagen-Dazs," Regina says, feeling out of breath, tells herself it's because of how tightly the dress cinches around her ribcage, like one of her Enchanted Forest corsets. "Can it?"
Her eyes lift to meet Snow's in the mirror of her vanity.
"How would you feel about that, if it were?" Snow asks nonchalantly, gaze dropping back down to give Regina some space and the zipper one last halfhearted tug.
Regina swallows, runs a palm across her belly. "You know what," she says finally, and she curses her voice for cracking, "it's probably from last night. Ruby and Tinker Bell really outdid themselves. I must have eaten my weight in penis cookies." She clears her throat to indicate an end to the discussion. It's the stupidest excuse, she knows it, and Snow knows it, but she allows it all the same.
"So what's the problem?" Regina asks abruptly then. "If it wasn't the dress." She waves a hand and the fabric gives a little, just enough for the zipper to finally make its way up to the low dip of the V the dress forms along her back, exposing her shoulder blades.
Snow straightens up with a sigh. "There's been an accident."
Regina's head whips around. "Henry? Roland?" But they're fine; she can still hear them creating a ruckus downstairs with the TV on, already acting like the brothers they never had.
"Friar Tuck," answers Snow, and Regina's face falls into her hand with a groan.
"He's all right," Snow says hastily, "but he split his lip open, and cut his tongue. Talking is…a challenge for him right now."
Regina is beside herself. This is absurd. Absolutely absurd. "What kind of accident was this?"
Snow coughs discreetly. "He was riding a moped down the driveway of the convent and veered into a bush."
"And who thought it was a good idea to give Friar Tuck a moped?" Regina asks, scandalized, but she cuts Snow off before she can answer. "Never mind. That's…beside the point. Oh my God. Why is this day falling apart already?" At least her dress fits again. But as for why it hadn't fit earlier…her heart stutters.
"You can have someone else officiate," Snow is offering. "Archie, maybe? Belle said he was wonderful—"
"No," Regina sighs, shaking her head as though to rid it of all unwelcome thoughts. "No, this is important to Robin. It means a lot to him, for Friar Tuck to do this. We'll just have to work with what we have." She shrugs out of her wedding dress, too distracted to care for modesty. It's the maid of honor's duty to roll with the punches without so much as blinking anyway, right?
Snow does not disappoint in that regard. "Speaking of Belle," she says calmly, hanging the dress up as Regina slips her clothes back on, "she and Ruby will be here soon and then we can get started on—Regina, where are you going?"
She's already slung her purse over her shoulder, is grabbing her keys off the dresser.
"I'll be right back," she says shortly.
She has an errand to run at the pharmacy before this day can possibly get any worse.
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.
.
"Wait," says Roland with an unprecedented amount of alarm. "Where's my monkey?"
"What?" Snow asks absentmindedly as she scans the living room, takes a mental inventory. Bouquets, check. Bridesmaids, check. Bride…currently holed up in her bedroom and has been noticeably distant and preoccupied ever since she got back from the store ("It was like playing dress up with a life-size Barbie doll," Ruby whispered to Snow and Belle in the kitchen, as they arranged the flowers, "must be wedding jitters or something"), but check all the same. Ring-bearer—
"Where's my monkey?" Roland asks again, unrelenting.
"I don't know, honey," Snow tries to soothe him with a hand in his curls, wincing as she notices Henry on his hands and knees searching every spot the monkey could possibly be hiding, his suit pants looking more and more wrinkled by the second, "but it's time to go, we have to get to the church—"
"No," Roland insists, "this is important!"
"Here," says Henry suddenly, fishing it out from under the couch. "Sorry, Roland. I must have kicked it under there during Mario Brawl."
"Thanks, brudder," Roland says, looking happy and relieved. The monkey dwarfs his small frame as he holds onto it for dear life. Snow is amused to see that he's crammed a bowtie over the monkey's thick, plush head to encircle its equally wide neck.
"Mom," Henry calls up the stairs. "Mommmmmm!"
"Hold your horses, kid," a voice calls from the second floor landing. "We're coming."
Emma thunders down the stairs as she speaks, remarkably fast for a woman in heels, with the cranberry silk train of her bridesmaid's dress tucked safely under an arm to keep it out from under her feet.
"You look beautiful, Mom," Henry beams, and both she and Snow smile. Then he's yelling again, more insistently this time, "Mom! What's taking so long? Robin's waiting!"
There's a rustle of chiffon as Regina emerges at the top of the staircase. She's a vision of ivory flowing in a sweetheart cut from cream-colored skin, chestnut hair an intricacy of wreath-like twists and soft tendrils falling around her face (Robin will like that, Snow thinks with satisfaction; his fixation with Regina's hair is hardly a secret by now). Her lips are full, red and curved into a shy smile.
When Henry finally finds his voice, she's made her way delicately to the foot of the stairs, and he's grinning so hard it looks like his face hurts. "Shall we go get you married?" he asks her, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet as he offers an arm, and she takes it.
"Yes, my little prince, we shall."
Snow blinks rapidly in her best effort not to cry. Ruby would kill her for ruining her mascara.
.
.
.
Regina has no one to walk her down the aisle.
Henry had offered, early on in the wedding planning stages, but it had seemed more appropriate to her at the time for him to accompany Roland instead ("Mom," he'd groaned, "I'm not a flower girl," and the hilarious despair on his face had only made her all the more convinced it was a good idea).
Now, though, the thought of making that trek alone with all eyes of the town on her has her pausing with a heel across the threshold; but Robin's waiting for her at the end of it and she longs for him to hold her again like he had that morning—he was right, the day had been absolute torture without the other there—wishes he could just be the one by her side right now, but Snow and her obsession with tradition would surely have a fit. She stalls further, daydreaming about their original plan of signing a simple slip of paper down at the courthouse with no one but Henry and Roland to witness it, until Mrs. Charming had absolutely insisted on making a ridiculous spectacle out of the thing instead.
Regina feels someone slip an arm through hers at the elbow and she looks up into Archie's eyes, crinkled at the corners, and she blinks back sudden tears in her own, thinking it won't do to ruin the eyeliner that Ruby had so meticulously applied there hours before. Words fail so she squeezes his forearm in thanks, and he brings his other hand around to pat hers in response, smiling warmly all the while.
Then she can't breathe as they finally step through the open doorway leading down the aisle to where Robin stands, and this time she knows it's not the dress, but the way he turns as the music starts (Grumpy is pounding away enthusiastically at the organ), the way their eyes meet and his jaw slackens at the sight of her.
His gaze is like a magnet as she glides toward him across the velvet floor, starting only once when she notices out of the corner of her eye that Roland is holding hands with his stuffed monkey, that Charming and Hook are both rather dapper in their suits but maybe the pirate's eyes are looking a little bloodshot and David sways a little on his feet until his companion places a stabilizing hook over his shoulder, and this day has been so absurd, without a single moment of peace, but Regina smiles, because she wouldn't have it any other way.
Friar Tuck beams as Archie leaves her to stand in front of Robin, and she is almost knocked off her feet by the love shining so openly from his bright blue eyes, eyes she will happily drown in for the rest of their lives together.
I love you, he mouths to her as he takes her hands into his—is this allowed? Are they supposed to be touching yet? She decides she couldn't care less—and draws circles into her wrist with the pad of his thumb. His touch alone fills her lungs with air once more, and it takes every ounce of effort not to pull him to her.
Friar Tuck clears his throat.
"Mawwiage," he starts, and Regina's eyes widen before she can help it. She'd completely forgotten about his moped accident, about the speech impediment Snow had alluded to on account of his getting a mouthful of leaves and twigs when he fell.
Robin is obviously struggling to look anywhere but her now, and she is grateful for it, knows she will very well lose it if he fails.
"Mawwiage is what bwings us togevuh today." Friar Tuck pauses. "This bwessed awwangement—"
Regina snorts out loud, then stills in mortification. Friar Tuck pauses to look reproachfully at her, and then it's too much; her shoulders begin to shake in silent laughter, and Robin applies pressure to her hands as his mouth tightens in an effort to contain his own amusement.
"Wuv," continues Friar Tuck determinedly, "twue wuv—"
And then Robin's biting his lip, his telltale sign of holding back a smile, the crowd assembled in the pews before them stares in disbelief, that has him struggling twice as hard, and finally a deep chuckle resounds, he nearly doubles over as the mirth spills forth and he gives in to the same urge that had plagued Regina, pulling her close at last.
Her face falls into the lapels of his suit jacket and she cries with uncontrollable laughter, her whole body trembling as every apprehensive thought from earlier that day leaks out, melts away, and when his hand comes up to cradle the back of her head, fingers playing with the ends of her hair, she only laughs and sobs harder.
Now that all pretenses of a traditional wedding have been abandoned entirely, Robin lifts Regina's face to him with a finger under her chin and envelops her lips in a heady kiss. She gasps in surprise as he tips her backward, feels her heel kicking up behind her, mouth opening to the warmth of his tongue, and she can hear Emma shouting encouragement as Ruby lets out a catcall and the entire congregation sounds besides itself in a mixture of shock and utter delight.
"I guess you may kiss the bwide now," Friar Tuck concedes grumpily. "Wings?"
It takes Roland a moment to realize he means rings, not wings, at which point he runs up and throws his arms (and his monkey) around Regina's wedding dress.
His papa is about to leave one more kiss on her lips when Roland pulls insistently at his pant legs.
"I know I'm the ring-bear," he says seriously when he finally has their full attention, "but I didn't have a bear. Only a monkey instead."
Regina and Robin exchange an amused glance as he shakes his monkey's bowtie loose, extracting two rings from within its ribbons.
"Papa, this one's for you," and Robin kneels down so Roland can place a rose gold wedding band into his palm.
"Thank you, my boy," he whispers, pressing a tender kiss to his forehead.
"And this one's for you," Roland says, turning to Regina, and she holds out her left hand. He slips it onto her finger, pauses shyly for a second as she marvels at the way it nestles perfectly against the emerald cut diamond of her engagement ring, and then he launches himself into her arms, throwing his around her neck.
Henry has joined them too, and Robin puts a hand around to pull him close at the shoulder, his other arm snaked around Regina's waist.
"I now pwonounce you man, wife and famwy," Friar Tuck declares, but nobody's listening anymore. He throws resigned hands in the air and relinquishes his post at the pew.
.
.
.
As soon as they're in the limo, and he's ensured that the partition between them and the driver is up and secured, Robin has Regina's back pressed against the leather seat.
"I missed you," he rumbles into her neck, adjusting her lower body with a commanding hand at her hip so he can nestle more firmly into her.
"It hasn't even been twelve hours," she teases, but without any bite, because she's missed him too and he knows it, can feel it in the way she arches into him, and he nips at the swell of her breast as it rises, falls rapidly with each ragged breath. Her fingers fumble with his tie, yank it off and then make quick work of his buttons, dragging the collar down so she can trail open-mouthed kisses across his throat, and his Adam's apple bobs in response. His palm has found its way underneath her dress, dragging across skin and hitching her up at the thigh as his other hand sneaks behind her back to fiddle with the thing that's keeping the rest of her skin from his impatient touch.
"Is this considered untoward?" he asks, somewhat breathless when he finally manages to unzip the back her dress and pull it down, freeing her breasts to the mercy of his tongue. "Perhaps we should wait until after the reception—"
"Don't start something you don't intend to follow through on," she cuts him off, then gasps when his fingers travel further up her inner thigh and discover her to be completely bare beneath her dress, his breath is hot against her nipple as they sample the wetness there, and now he's the one groaning.
"Oh, I have no intention of stopping now, Mrs. Locksley," his voice comes out husky, and she digs a heel into his back.
"I'm glad to hear it, Mr. Mills," she counters, and he smirks. They can argue about this later, forever, even, but right now her hand is slipping into his pants and then his boxer briefs, teasing his erection with a gentle fingertip, and he knows words—at least comprehensible ones—will escape him for some time.
He pulls a condom free from his pocket and is about to open it with his teeth when she raises a hand to his, pulls it gently away from his mouth. His eyebrows furrow in question, and her explanation gets caught beneath a lump in her throat so she gives it to him with her eyes instead, bright and fearful but radiant all the same, and he understands instantly, but he can't believe it.
His mouth opens and closes, eyes searching hers for confirmation, and then his palm comes to rest on her belly and he stares at it in wonder. When his gaze lifts back up, she's smiling, and nodding, and then the tears are moistening her cheeks as his face splits into a heart-stopping grin, he pulls her up to sit and buries his face into the dip of her neck, shoulders shaking, and he can't tell if they're laughing or crying or both. It wouldn't be a first, not on this day, and certainly not the day she gives birth to a beautiful baby boy thirty-six weeks from now; but until then, this is all he wants, this is all she needs, and neither will know a moment of peace unless they are here, in each other's arms.
A/N: Based on a tumblr prompt from SomewhereApart.