A/N: Enchanted Forest, missing year. I'm biased. Haha.
"What did you expect to happen?"
He tries not to protest, but it hurts like the dickens, what she's doing to his arm.
"Well," Regina says scathingly, cutting off both his gasp and his blood circulation as her hand tightens around the bandage, gives the ends a vicious tug. "What did you expect to happen?"
"I don't know," he responds, because honestly he hadn't thought it through at all, hadn't the faintest idea what would be in store the moment he did what he's just done.
She gives him a single look—pointed, without words, that tells him exactly what she thinks of his most recent display of untimely chivalry. The injuries he'd sustained, the lengths she'd just gone to repair what her magic couldn't.
Not to mention the way he'd just thanked her for it.
But he's not sorry, he thinks defiantly as she reexamines his wound, silent and seeming quite ill-tempered. Not if his actions have amounted to a bloody slash at his limbs rather than a fatal blow to her heart. A few simple nicks he can manage, and these hadn't even cut through to bone; but the thought of the Queen, lifeless in his arms as he carries her back to the castle, had been unbearable. Had filled him with such insensible panic that pure instinct had flung him forward and into harm's way, so he could shove her out of it.
He'd gotten fairly banged up for his efforts before the dagger he'd managed to unsheathe from his boot had exploded the monkey's jugular in a waterfall of red. So at first Robin couldn't be sure whether it was his blood or the animal's that drenched his clothes and caked his palms, hot and sticky and leaving the taste of metal in the air. Even after he'd registered the tattered remains of his tunic that Regina endeavored to remove (looking more and more livid with every fresh wound she encountered), he'd felt a certain element of pride that he'd acted so quickly on his feet.
Despite the fact that he can't really stand on them at the moment.
And despite the multiple warnings she'd given for him to stay behind, as she'd been quick to remind him the moment the beast's last breath had left his foul, fanged mouth: "How many times have I told you not to get in my way?"
"And how many times have I told you that woman wants you dead?" he'd countered with what he thought was a reasonable amount of indignation. However this personal vendetta between her and the wicked witch had come about, Regina's bold and brazen attitude had escalated to the point that, quite frankly, it frightened him how fearless she was.
(For the sake of her safety and his sanity, he's taken to following her, every time she marches out of the castle with that determined look in her eye. If she plans to embark on yet another deranged mission to lure in their simian foes and take them out one by one, then by the gods she will not do it alone.)
If he didn't know any better, and he likes to think that he does, he'd say she still had a death wish of her own to fulfill.
But of course if he were ever so bold as to even suggest such a thing, she'd simply roll her eyes as she had done then: "If I thought the witch wanted me dead," and she'd sniffed her disdain at having to explain such a basic concept to him, "do you really think I'd be living in my castle right now?"
Actually, yes, he does think that exactly, but he'd be loath to assume she'd also let the likes of Roland—or even the Charmings, though she'd never admit it—stay there if the danger were real. So he'd merely shrugged his shoulder, as much as the growing ache in his arm had allowed, and said, "Well at the very least, you can't deny the fact that she wants you to suffer."
"And you think you're helping right now?" she'd groused with an angry onceover at his fallen form, followed by a flash of white from her palm. The more superficial cuts had vanished, though the deeper gashes and gouges continued to ooze and ooze. She'd then resorted to ripping pieces of her dress apart, strips of rich red velvet winding round to staunch the worst of his wounds—a sizable tear near his bicep, another to match at his waist—and he'd been too distracted by the tantalizing flashes of bare thigh and creamy skin to really consider what she'd meant.
"I'm trying," he'd retorted, thinking that he'd give the whole thing its proper consideration later. When he wasn't feeling quite so out of sorts, lightheaded from both blood loss and the spark to his pulse as his gaze met hers.
"Exactly my point," she'd snarled, words clipped but her touch gentle and warm. "Because helping me? Not your problem."
"And that is exactly my point," he'd argued, even though by that time his arm had been throbbing and blooming scarlet into his sleeve despite her ministrations. "Because as far as I'm concerned, it is my problem."
"I'm your problem?"
She was ridiculous, that woman.
"Believe it or not, your safety is of great concern to me."
(And she does believe it; she must, he thinks, though she may not understand it. He's seen the exasperation coloring her face every time another winged creature is struck down by yet another gold arrow before the fire's even fled her palm. Has witnessed the haunted look shadowing her eyes as they scour the trees to draw him out; but while the castle is her domain, the forest is his, and she never can differentiate figure from foliage for as long as he wishes to stay hidden, until now.)
He'd taken her silence as encouragement to continue, and so he had: "You're needed, Regina."
"Am I?" she'd asked, carefully bored but for the bitterness edging into her tone as she'd gone on, "My son doesn't even remember who I am. Who could possibly need me if he doesn't?"
"Snow White needs you," he'd declared with sudden fury. "Everyone back at the bloody castle needs you." Her trademark sneer had faltered as he'd added then, "My son needs you."
(He's caught her playfully fighting Roland over the last bit of honey to sop up their morning bread. Has been treated to the boy's very enthusiastic nightly retellings of whichever bedtime story Regina had regaled him with earlier that evening—"but shhhh, Papa, you're not supposed to know." Is of the belief that Roland cherishes her as much as he would have his own mother, were she still with them today. But more than anything, Robin is beginning to suspect it's not simply the way she is with his son that affects him so, that has her smile and scowl alike preoccupying his every wayward thought. That has him risking life and limb to protect a queen who had once offered a pretty sum in exchange for his head.)
"Regina, I need you."
And when she'd looked too stunned for words alone to properly convince her, that was when he'd leaned into the space between them and kissed her, full on her luscious red mouth, still slightly parted in shock. And it had been stupid.
Stupid and absolutely bloody fantastic and the best decision he'd ever made in his life, without question.
She'd gone still as a statue in his arms as one wrapped around to her back and the other encased her shoulders, fingers weaving through her satin tresses and getting lost in them. He'd dragged his mouth away, just long enough for him to absorb a rather breathtaking sight: the heaviness in her chest, the half-lidded daze and the dewy crimson flush of her lips that his bruising kiss had left there. His heart had neglected a beat or two when her hands drew near, hovering, and then his shirt collar had creased and crumpled at her touch as she tugged him to her, his answering groan muffled by a heady kiss of her own.
He hadn't wanted to push his luck. But the taste of her, gods it had intoxicated him beyond all rational thought. As had the scent of her cheek to his nose when he pressed deeper into her kiss, utterly mad for the feel of her tongue against his, the little moans she let out into his mouth when he slanted it over hers just right. His hands had roamed, oh how they'd roamed, overcome with an acute wanderlust for her body, cradling her neck, scaling her spine, gripping her hip, and forever, forever transfixed by the silk of her hair.
So he couldn't be blamed for not noticing it at first, the steady increase in pressure at his arm, with his body set pleasantly alight all over as it was, an exquisite ache and burn licking deep within his chest. But then her grip had tightened, tightened, until he'd been gasping for reasons entirely separate from the desire seizing his senses and igniting his nerves.
When he'd parted his lips reluctantly from hers to draw in that first grunt of pain, Regina had looked furious, either with herself or with him she couldn't tell; whichever it was, he was the one she'd evidently decided to punish, fingers digging and digging until he saw stars.
"Well," she'd seethed, and he knew he was in for it now, "what did you expect to happen?"