A/N: Finally found my muse for this story, and have tied it to the floor to prevent it going missing again.

Reviews! Excellent!

Moonlight: Is it amazing? Well, it can only get better, right?

Velgamidragon: Really? This is your favourite time period? Why?

Psychic soul: I called him Red Robin because I wanted to make him a fusion of Red X and Robin, but then I figured I might throw Red X in as a Redcoat. I will actually finish this before I start something else big (hint hint) so yeah.

ChaosMaster: Eh? I don't see it. (that is probably because I've never read The Great Gatsby)

IceQueen: Good work keeped up. If this is good. Which is debatable.

Xaphrin: Sorry to let you down, but this one has ABSOLUTELY NO SETTING DESCRIPTION AT ALL. 100% action, baby! Also romance.

Enjoy, and mention my references to make me happy. Oh, and I think I referenced Arrow accidentally.

Red Ribbon: IV

Red Robin flew across the rooftops. He saw every tiny detail of the night: the tarnished silver buckles on the jackets of the Redcoats vainly patrolling for him; a stray thread on the hats of the men who trudged from the pub to their homes in the driving rain; the unlocked window on the fine house across the street.

He grinned. Too easy.

Robin leapt across the street, coat flying in the wind. He landed with barely a sound on the balcony and slid up to the window, opened it, and silently dropped inside and onto the landing.

He looked left and right. Downstairs, a maid was trying to lock the main door, waving off a persistent red-haired suitor, evidently a Greenjacket missing his jacket. Upstairs, a girl with odd pink eyes (wearing the green jacket in question) sat in front of a mirror, stroking her softly purring black cat which sat on a desk.

Robin's eyes instantly locked onto the fine ruby pendant she wore; in the shape of a bolt of lightning, it was likely a gift from the red-haired man.

Past her shoulder, Red Robin saw his target: a locked safe.

The maid had finished locking the door, and she was about to turn up the hall to clean somewhere when a dart flew through the air into her neck. She suddenly felt very faint, and fell to the ground.

She was caught by a man clad all in black, with a hood and a mask over his eyes.

"What was that? A tiny dose of water hemlock, miss. You'll wake up tomorrow, and think this was all a dream..." he said, lowering her onto the floor as her world darkened.

Red Robin left the maid on the floor and crept up the stairs. He slunk up past the pink-eyed girl, taking care to stay out of the mirror's field of view, and was almost to the safe behind her when she suddenly span around with a levelled pistol.

"Don't move, scum."

It was not a very large or indeed dangerous pistol; merely one of the tiny pearl-gripped ones that fashionable ladies in London or some of the other cities would carry for minimal protection, but it was still a pistol, and Red Robin didn't move.

His right hand twitched towards his belt where his own pistol was.

The girl seemed to notice his tiny movement, and shot him through the chest.

Shock filled Robin as he fell over into what he dimly recognised as his own blood. The cat yowled and the girl kicked him in the stomach.

Inwardly screaming in pain, Red Robin picked himself up, smashed the girl's head off the desk, knocking her out; then leapt out of the closest window.

He fell hard on the ground, rolling and sprinting off as Redcoats mustered from all sides, levelling muskets and yelling. Robin ran up some badly stacked crates by the side of the butcher's, swung off a pole meant to hold an awning and hit the roof running as musket balls pinged off the slates with a man with a red sash and an eyepatch climbed up after him.

Red Robin pulled his pistol out of his right holster, leapt from the roof and, mid leap, span and fired his pistol; hitting his pursuer in the right leg, who toppled off the roof and fell into a swarm of his comrades. Red Robin landed on the ground and disappeared at a ragged run towards the only place he knew to go.

Rachel was woken by the sounds of gunfire, and hurried downstairs with her blue cloak wrapped around her. She opened the door to her store cupboard (not that she was worried about Richard, she told herself) saw the bloodied figure and opened her mouth to scream.

A black-gloved hand clapped itself over her mouth.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Rachel." Red Robin whispered hoarsely. "Just, please, don't scream."

He released his hand.

"How do you know my name?" Rachel whispered back, voice shaking.

"Because you know mine." Red Robin replied, in that same pained whisper, and pulled back his hood to reveal messy black hair tied in a blood-red ribbon.

"R..Richard?" Rachel breathed.

"Yes, it was me. It was always me."

Every moment she had ever spent in Richard's company flashed though Rachel's mind. The dark horse, "stumbling" into the man in the street and suddenly becoming rich, the strange appearance of money the maids talked about, the odd wound on his cheek, the two pistols, everything.

Everything fitted.

"Tell me why I shouldn't call for Lieutenant Wilson right now." she said, taking a step towards the door.

"Because he's a liar, and I'm too handsome to die at the hands of Jack Ketch."

And he smiled that sparkling smile, and all Rachel's fear and anger melted away.

"Who shot you?" Rachel asked, as she bandaged Richard's blood-stained chest being extraordinarily careful not to look anywhere besides his wound. He had been incredibly lucky, and the bullet had bounced off a rib and missed his left lung by a whisker.

"The girl with the pink eyes."

"Jennifer Inxley? The mill owner's daughter?"

"Definitely the mill owner's daughter. The man cheats his workers out of all their wages. I wanted to rob his safe to give them their due payment, but, as you can see..."

"You're lying. You wanted the money for yourself." Rachel said, binding the last bandage a little more tightly than was necessary. Richard winced.

"Who told you that? Our fine Lieutenant Wilson? Did he also tell you I drink the blood of children, or that I break into convents and kidnap the nuns?" Richard (not Red Robin – the two were inherently separate beings in Rachel's mind) said scornfully. "I don't rob people for my own good. I only rob the rich, corrupt landowners to give to the people who need it."

"You're no Robin Hood." Rachel said darkly.

"Robin Hood had a band of men with bows and a beautiful woman. I don't have anything but my sword and my guns. And I look better in a hood."

"Are you seriously making jokes when you've just been shot?"

"I've been shot before. With an actual pistol, instead of a toy popgun."

"Can we discuss something other than you being shot?" Rachel asked, hurriedly moving the image of Richard lying in his own blood with a smoking pistol out of her thoughts.

"How about you not telling Mister Wilson about me being, you know, a modern-day not-Robin Hood when he comes to visit?"

"Since you are both a dangerous highwayman and living in my store cupboard, I don't quite think I have much choice in the matter."

"Do you think I'd shoot you? Or even threaten you at all?" Richard said with a serious tone. "Rachel, look at me. What do you honestly think of me?"

Rachel looked up at his questioning face.

"I don't know anymore. Part of me wants to shoot you with your own pistol here and now for lying to me, and stealing, and killing. The other part...isn't sure."

"I would never hurt you. I...I just couldn't. I'd rather shoot myself."

Richard got up with difficulty, and staggered off towards the cupboard, then suddenly his legs gave out and he fell to his knees.

Rachel gasped involuntarily and went over to him.

"Well, I think you have some consolation regarding this event." Richard said wryly.

"What would that be?" Rachel said, helping him to his feet.

"I don't think I'll be doing much stealing, killing and housebreaking for a while with a hole in my chest."