Sorry this is so late up I've been sleeping constantly as I'm unwell thanks to wisdom teeth/ wisdom tooth infection, I'm getting antibiotics today so the next chapter should be up within a week as usual! Also after 4months of not going outside at all (as I'm highly vulnerable and immunocompromised, I can finally go outside!)
Robin was touched to see his oldest and youngest children getting along so well, he was, however, wishing that they weren't getting along quite so well. Not because he was jealous that David seemed to have connected with Margot but it was always hit and miss with him, or because he didn't want Margot getting close in case David wasn't sticking around (there was no way he was going to be letting his son go ever); but because his son and his daughter were currently both singing a song which Robin could only guess was entitled 'I know a song that will get on your nerves', considering that was the only lyric.
There had been no more arguments between him and David for two days, the day and a half since Robin watched David cautiously allowing himself to feel settled again, it was hard to watch David behaving like a spooked animal again, it was hard to see him acting less spooked around others, he understood, he really did, but it was hard knowing that he didn't have the bond with David he wanted, not yet at least.
He turned up the volume to the Thin Lizzy CD playing in the car to try and drown out his kids' purposely (or he hoped purposely) off pitch singing. He caught a look of David's face out the corner of his eyes, David was glancing at him with a mischievous glint in his eyes and a similarly mischievous smile on his face, he sang louder, Margot in the back joining in. Robin let out a low chuckle and shook his head looking, allowing himself to look fully at David, the teenager seemed like a completely different kid from the other day, there was a new mischievous streak in him which Robin hadn't seen before, it reminded him of how Mal had once been, before they had all passed the bar, before Mal had gotten pregnant, and for once the similarities didn't sting.
Robin pulled into a parking space at the front the the big supermarket on the edge of town, it was surrounded by the forest which boarded three quarters of the town, purposely hidden so not to be an eyesore in the picturesque Maine town, after a petition by the disgruntled older residence moaning that it might look a little ugly. Robin climbed out of the car, helping Margot out and to the sidewalk by the time that David made it to the pavement.
Robin gave both of them a smile, but David was too busy looking around. Robin supposed it was the furthest out of town David had been since he had gotten here two and a half weeks ago, that surprised Robin too; it felt like David had been here at least three months rather than not even three weeks, it had been three and half weeks since he had found out about David, since the crash, since he had been sure that David would be moved in with some distant relative of Mal and Ruth, he felt shame as he remembered that, how could he ever have thought about giving up his kid?
Robin reached out and gently squeezed David's arm to get his attention before smiling at him and Margot again. He put on a fake serious look to make them both smile like they had been in the car and it worked. "Okay, no more singing that god awful song while we shop, both of you." His eyes lingered on David who still had that mischievous glint in them, he watched his son turn to his little sister and share a look, agreeing not to sing in the store, before David sent that charming smile his way, deliberately trying to make him think that they would continue to sing, or at least that's what Robin thought it meant. He wouldn't mind them singing all the way through the store if it meant David kept that smile on his face.
Robin collected a bright orange cart and walked into the store with his kids at his side, as soon as they were out of the doorway and past the anti-theft detectors Robin crouched down taking Margot's hands in his own and looking into her green eyes. "If you start getting tired let me know and you can have a ride in the cart, okay?"
"I'm better daddy." She told him with a slight whine and a small cough tagged the end of her statement.
"You're nearly better, you've still got to take it easy though, munch, okay?" He pushed a stray strand of her strawberry blonde hair behind her ear, he watched her bite her lip then nod. He smiled automatically but with love. He pressed a kiss to her forehead making her smile.
He stood back up and looked to his son who had been leaning on his crutch and watching them with an expression Robin couldn't quite place. He leveled the teenager with a look. "That goes for you too." He told him seriously, knowing if he didn't press the issue David just wouldn't listen to him.
David raised one eyebrow, trying to suppress the smile which was teasing on his lips, he forced an innocent naivety onto his face. "I get a ride in the cart too?"
Robin rolled his eyes but smiled. "We can take a break, smart arse."
"I don't get a ride?..." David injected a hurt and dejected tone into his voice and his face. "That's not fair…. Favouritism." He shook his head, continuing to look hurt.
It took Robin a few seconds to realise that David was joking, the spark still in his eyes, and he was trying not to smile. Robin let out a breath of surprised laughter. It was unusual to see David in such high spirits, but it was not an unwelcome surprise. David had dropped the feigned hurt and was now outright smiling. He reached out to clap him on the back, but instead his hand cupped the back of his neck, he squeezed it gently, running his hand through the back of his ever so slightly curled hair.
"C'mon, pretty boy. If you're both good I'll buy you ice cream." He placed his hand back onto the cart handle, his tone was joking but he wasn't, he smiled as Margot cheered and when he looked at David he saw an identical smile on his face, his own smile got an injection of pride as they began to walk.
David walked on Robin's right side as they walked through the store, it was like many of the big box stores David had spent time in when he was younger, while on the road with Ruth and James, or just James. The layout was clearly identical, David was fairly certain he could go through the place with his eyes closed. Robin led the way towards the fruit and vegetable aisles which David could probably count on one hand the amount of times he had gone to those aisles purposely. He and James had grown up on fast food, microwave meals, and candy, it was probably a miracle that he was mostly healthy. He watched as Robin pulled out a grocery list, and actual one, on paper not on his phone; it was even written on special list paper, it wasn't the cutesy illustrated type David had seen in the windows of the art and stationary stores while they were in Austin; this one had one word 'Grocery' in white, when David squinted he realised that the reason the word seemed to be weirdly high on the list was because someone, presumably Robin, had filled in the word 'Shit' in a dark pen. He wasn't sure whether it was in case Margot saw and repeated it, or to try and discourage David's propensity for swearing. David smiled at it, he had gotten to know Regina enough over the past couple of weeks to be able to picture her buying it, possibly to make Robin laugh, as the two of them were always trying to do.
Robin had told David, before they had even gotten in the car to drive to the store, to simply put anything he fancied into the cart, no matter the price or if anyone else didn't like them; he knew some things David liked but he didn't know him well enough to be able to add things like he did for the rest of his kids. But as they moved through the aisle of vegetables and were halfway through the fruit aisle Robin realised that David wasn't putting anything in. At first he assumed David simply didn't like the vegetables, but when David didn't even reach for the red apples which he had taken to snacking on, instead staying close to the cart, pulling faces at Margot, purposely ignoring all of the food around them.
Robin paused as Margot grabbed a netted bag of small satsumas, David kept his hands in his pocket. "David, do you want to grab some red apples?" Without hesitation David grabbed them.
It didn't take long for Robin to realise that David would only put things he liked in the cart if Robin told him too, it made it a little difficult as he still didn't know everything that David liked, he went for things he was pretty sure David would like, choosing things he had liked when he was a teenager, and things the rest of his kids liked, trying his best not to overindulge him with junk food, if there were things which weren't eaten they could just donate it to the foodbank. He watched Margot as she led the way down the aisles, skipping and hopping as she played games with the tiny markings on the floor, he also kept a close eye on David, making sure to slow his own pace whenever David's seemed to slow down, he would be lying if he said he didn't wish that David was Margot's size so he could just stick him in the cart instead of worrying about him tripping and doing more damage to himself.
"Can you grab a jar of strawberry jam?" He asked gesturing to the ones on the left shelf as he helped Margot grab two jars of peanut butter; one smooth and one crunchy, when he looked up to place them into the cart he noticed the curious and somewhat amused look on David's face. He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times clearly trying to figure out his words, Robin decided to pretend not to notice, letting David to lead with no pressure instead.
"What's Britain like? You said 'jam' not jelly and…" David gave a small shrug. "I forget that you're not, like, from here."
Robin sent him a small smile. "It's…. Rainy." He decided finally, his own smile widening as David gave a small laugh. "I've not been back in a long time, and when I started a family here with Regina and the kids, this place became my home, not london."
They moved down the aisle, Robin chucking some chips and crackers into the cart, he realised that David was quiet as he was actually waiting for a proper answer.
"I liked it there, it was rainy and grey most of the time, but I had family there, we were close."
"You had siblings?"
"Nah," Robin shook his head, giving David a small smile as he scanned the ingredients on the back of a can of spaghetti shapes, "I was an only child. I had cousins though, well they were technically the kids of my mother's cousins, but we were all close. My family lived in a townhouse in the centre of London, but on weekends and holidays my mother and I would visit her parents house in the country, it's a huge place, or at least it seemed huge when I was a kid, it was the best place for playing hide and seek."
David narrowed his eyes slowly as he took in Robin's words. He tilted his head to the side and looked at Robin. "Are you guys rich?"
Robin let out a breath of awkward laughter. "We were…. pretty well off."
David quirked an eyebrow. "Doesn't that just mean rich?"
Robin let out another sheepish laugh. "Yeah, it does. My mum's side has been rich forever, my father's father started a company, got rich, then tried to act like they always had been." He shook his head, wiping a smile onto his face instead of dwelling on the Locksley part of his DNA. "When we weren't visiting my grandparents my mum would take me to galleries and museums, to theatre shows, the cinema, live shows in Hyde Park in the summer, the Winter Wonderland markets in winter." Robin smiled as he thought about it.
"Do you ever go back and visit your grandparents?" David's voice was quiet, wondering what it would be like to have extended family like Robin had, to have cousins and grandparents, and a history.
"They died not long after we moved to the states, I was a little older than you, they left me some money, I used a lot of it to pay for college and stuff like that, I put a lot of it aside, same with the money I inherited from my mother, theoretically I have a trust fund my father set up but I'm never going to touch it."
"Why?"
Robin smiled softly at David's scrunched up confused face, he forgot that he didn't know much, if anything, about Francis Locksley. "Because I learn, from a young age, that him, and people like him always expect something in return, their motives are never what they might seem right away. My mum made sure that I was always cautious with him, they divorced when I went off to university." He shook his head and gave a sigh, dumping another couple of cans into the cart. Even all these years later he wondered why Grace had decided to stay with Francis, he knew that it was for his sake, everything his mother did was for his sake, but he certainly didn't want them together, and his father had certainly never seemed to care about being part of their family.
His eyes flickering to his daughter who was just staring at the marmalades reading the labels. Knowing that she was okay he looked back at his son.
"Do you miss her?" David asked him softly, his eyes focusing on anything but Robin.
Robin realised that he was frowning and quickly wiped it out, not wanting David to see and think that it was at his question, that he wasn't free to ask all the questions he wanted. "Yeah. Yeah, I do. It hasn't been long, not that long, anway, but I miss her. The longer it goes on the easier it gets, I know it sounds like a stereotype but it's a stereotype for a reason. It's been over six years since she passed; sometimes it feels as painful as though it happened yesterday, sometimes it feels like it's been sixty years, or like it never happened." He hesitated before asking his own question. "Do you miss Ruth?"
He watched David stiff before his shoulders dropped and he actually turned his back to pretend to look at the shelves.
"She lied to me for my whole life. I think… I think Jamie figured it out, about me, I mean… neither of them told me… and Ruth wasn't like your mom, she was…" He trailed off shaking his head and picked up a bottle of barbecue sauce from the shelf.
"She was still your mum, Sunshine, she loved you." He reached over and squeezed David's shoulder until he looked at him, he was a little surprised to see himself defending Ruth, after all David had been through, but this was for David, not for Ruth.
"'S'not enough." David mumbled, repeating the words he had used during the fight with Mallory at the funeral. He felt Robin's hand move from his shoulder to the back of his head, stroking his hair until the soft skinned hand came to rest at the back of his neck, secure and reassuring, David felt safe, it was an unusual but not unwanted feeling. He braved a look at Robin, he must have understood the look in David's eyes as he didn't press him to talk more. Instead he gave him a tight smile before taking the bottle of sauce from his hands and placing it in the cart, he placed his hand on David's back and called to Margot to continue on before leading him down the aisle.
"You remind me of her." Robin told David casually a minute later, he felt David stiffen and come to an abrupt stop, he stopped himself from walking his head snapping to his son, he was about to open his mouth when he realised his mistake and quickly added an explanation. "My mum, I mean, you've mentioned that you liked drawing and stuff, she was the same; she had a masters degree in art history, and I practically grew up in museums and art galleries, she used to draw beautiful portraits, we probably have some back at home, I can try and find them if you want to have a look." To his relief David relaxed again and even smiled and gave a nod. "She tried to get me into art too, drawing, painting, all of that, I was the worst at it," Robin laughed, "not like you."
David gave a small laugh and looked down to avoid the looks of pride Robin was aiming at him. "You don't know that I'm any good." He pointed out.
"I have some of the ones you did when you were younger." He pointed out, thinking back to the ones which were in the envelope Ruth had given to Mal which had eventually ended up in his hands. He was aware that David might be feeling a little uncomfortable, he sent him a smile. His eyes darted to Margot who was not so subtly sneaking a packet of bakery jelly donuts into the cart, he didn't stop her, his eyes returned to David still smiling. "I hope you know that those are all going up on the fridge." He told him only half joking.
"Is that something people really do?" David asked cocking an eyebrow as his mouth twitched up in a smile which was seconds away from a laugh until he saw the way Robin's face fall and he got that sad look in his blue eyes, apparently it was a thing parents did, regular parents, not just something nuclear families did in sitcoms. "If I draw you something new do you promise not to stick the crap ones I did when I was a kid on the fridge."
Robin stopped himself from pointing out that he still was a kid, instead he gave him a pointed look and tried his best to look serious rather than smiling, which was what he wanted to. "Add in you promising not to swear and we've got a deal." He allowed himself to smile when David sent him a sheepish smile and his cheeks pinked a little. He was so different from that angry kid he had been the other day, Robin would do anything to have him be this happy all the time. "Deal." Robin told him firmly.
David's eyes widened and his smile dropped, his mouth opened instead, he hadn't expected Robin to take him up on it, he was going to protest but instead he shut his mouth, shaking his head ever so slightly. He opened his mouth again but he didn't protest their 'deal', instead he asked "Can we get some chocolate frosted donuts too?"
Now it was Robin's turn to look surprised, he hadn't expected David to have even thought about asking, it was a relief. "Of course." He told him a little too eagerly. He saw David asking him as a good compromise between his order to just add what he wanted to the cart, and David's stubborn outright refusal to do so.
They carried on talking, about nothing and everything, David telling him all about how only onions and peppers out of all other vegetables should be allowed on pizzas, and that the best pizzas were loaded with meat and had as much cheese as possible, Robin filed that away in the new 'David' shaped room in his brain. They talked about other things too, nothing big or important, basically small talk, only a little less awkward.
"Daddy…?"
Robin shut his eyes tight for a second, he knew that tone of voice, Margot was after something she didn't usually get. He opened his eyes again, turning to put the box of Special K cereal into the cart before turning his attention to his daughter, who was hugging a box of Poptarts to her chest. It was one of the few things the kids were rarely allowed, both he and Regina were strong advocates of a good and filling breakfast, Poptarts were so far off the mark that they weren't bought simply due to all of the kids only wanting to eat them at breakfast time.
"Go." He said through a sigh, but there was fondness in his voice.
"Please?"
Robin blinked, looked towards the owner of the voice, which was David, looking equally as hopeful as Margot was. It dawned on him that the pair were wearing identical puppy-dog eyes begging looks, though they didn't seem to realise how much they were looking like siblings right then. He let out a heaving sigh. "They are just for snack times, not for breakfast, and make sure to pick a s'mores one for your brothers." The two of them suddenly sent him beaming smiles and it seemed worth whatever hassle it might cause in the future.
Margot placed a box of betty flavoured ones and David added the s'mores box then stood back, waiting for them to carry on walking. When they didn't move David looked at Robin, the older man gave him a Look, waiting and expecting, it was then that David realised that Robin had cottoned onto his hesitancy to add in what he wanted, he sent him a quick sheepish smile before grabbing a pack of triple chocolate ones to the cart, Robin send him a smile back and David ran his hand through his hair still smiling sheepishly.
The rest of the shop continued in a similar manner, David talked to Robin and Margot and waited for Robin to stare at him until he would add his own choice. They finished and paid up but instead of leaving the store Robin led the way to the small cafe adjoined to the supermarket, the place was empty other than a woman breastfeeding a baby and eating a toasted panini, and a man in work boots and clothes covered in dried paint, reading a newspaper, presumably on a break from work.
Robin pushed the cart to a table before nodding his head towards the counter to tell his kids to follow him.
David couldn't help but laugh, in front of them was a case full of ice cream ready to be scooped, in at least ten flavours. He watched Robin lift Margot into his arms, the two of them smiling widely, and told her she could choose an ice cream and a drink. David felt a pang of jealousy, for the first time, not that he didn't want Margot here with them, but that she got this, Robin, from a young age, that he hadn't had this with his dad. Not that he would ever admit it out loud, or to himself, or god forbid to Robin.
"Strawberry and white chocolate ice cream and strawberry milkshake, please."
It was clear to David that Margot wasn't reading those off the menu but from memory.
Milkshake.
The girl from the other side of the door had told him about milkshakes, how the best ones were from Granny's diner, she was nice, she hadn't judged him for being locked in a janitor's closet having a… well a full on breakdown. He tried to remember her name, M? Em? Ma-... No… all he could remember was the hallucination of James, everything else was a blur which if he looked too closely would probably trigger another panic attack, so instead he chose a glass of ice cold cola and finally decided on the cookies and cream ice cream.
He noted that Robin chose mint chocolate chip, one of the flavour he was trying to decide between, he also noted that he was noticing and remembering more and more similarities between himself and Robin over the past day or so, he tried to force himself to not get attached, as soon as he knew that David was crazy he wouldn't want anything to do with him, he needed to remember that.