It's quiet in the woodland of Mist Haven.
As Robin treks through the forest, weaving between looming trees, under a the shadow of a grey sky, he can't help but hear every miniscule noise as if it is thunderous in volume; every snap of a twig beneath his boot, each flap of a bird's wing as it flies overhead, and all the crickets and critters littering the forest floor with their chirps and scuttles.
It's certainly serene enough for him to hear his skin burning.
His arm feels heavy, unbearably so. Something he was carried with honor and dignity, the crest of his family, his father bearing the same image, on the same patch of skin, now scorching his blood, wanting to pull his arm down, down, farther into a pit of despair where his heart shall permanently lay, until (and, most likely, after- when he has blood on his hands and death on his conscience) his task is completed.
His tattoo.
A lion, a mighty symbol of strength and courage, reduced to a weapon, a warning, now a symbol of his inability to save those in need, to be good, righteous, and true, virtues he always swore he would uphold.
The Queen had enchanted it with her wretched dark magic, had cursed it to where Robin would feel a sharp, searing pain (much worse than the stininging coursing through him now), an example of the pain she would put every citizen of Sherwood through, until he delivered a helpless - and helplessly in love - Regina to Her Majesty within four fortnights. If his task is not completed by then, if he were to tip his fellow bandit off, or, hell, even allow the sweet relief of death to take him, every man, woman, child, and creature in his home land, as well as Regina, will all be joining him in the grave.
There is no winning in this scenario.
But the most Robin can do now is reduce the casualities and, for that, he must find Regina. And seduce her.
Of course Snow White and her bloody magic couldn't have just informed him of Regina's location, so here he is, wandering aimlessly through the woods, his bow slung on his shoulder, the air becoming crisper around him, and his blasted arm bluntly throbbing.
He's been traveling for two days, pausing momentarily to rest. Not sleep, no, that's an impossible feat with Regina's face, her expression focused, her features radiant, swimming through his mind each time he closes his eyes. The one instance when he was able to push that picture from the recesses of his brain, falling into a light slumber, he had been awoken by the phantom sounds of the children the Queen had shown him, innocent ihabitants of his childhood home.
He exhales heavily, his breath ghosting in front of him as the temperature declines steadily, wind wafting up fallen leaves around him, a sure sign of a storm approaching. He hears the rustle of the branches blowing, the scampering of woodland animals off to find shelter.
Robin detects one more sound.
The unmistakable, familiar noise of a bow string being retracted back.
Performing on instinct, Robin, in one fluid motion, swings his own bow out in front of him, grasping and nocking an arrow with quick precision, as he side steps out of the line of fire, while simultaneously aiming his body (and his weapon!) in the direction of his opposite archer.
"Who are you? What do you want?"
Regina.
For considering himself an experienced bowman, a shrewd thief, and an all around unflappable man, it is alarming how disarmed Robin feels as he stares into the dark chocolate depths of this woman's eyes.
Her glare, inky orbs narrowed in suspicion, in concentration, is settled on him, her weapon, mirroring his own, is raised, trained on him, her body is rigid, but Robin can tell that beneath her stoic stance, her blood is racing, her pulse is thumping, because he can feel the same sensations under his own skin.
He understands her, but he finds himself craving to know her, to peek beyond this resilient exterior, because he knows far, better than most, that it is just that- a facade. But, damn, is it one he wants to see through. He wants to know why she uses dragonfly wings, as opposed to fowl feathers, for her fletching, wants to know how she, someone short in statue, all alone, and on the run from Snow White, no less, has survived so well, so beautiful (bugger all, is she the most naturally stunning woman he's laid eyes upon), and what she possibly could have done to incur the wrath of an evil sorceress to the point where she, in the Queen's opinion, deserves what he is to inflict upon her.
How can he do what he is to do?
"I won't ask you a third time: Who. Are. You?" She speaks slowly, deliberately, her voice a rich, crackling timbre that tickles his ear with each word.
He smirks, intrigued, as he ever had been when she had managed to outmanuever him and his Merry Men for a particular heist, when she was just a myth, a yarn of an opponent, as opposed to facing him, threatening him now, "I should be asking you that, I should think. I've lived in these forests for many a year."
"And yet I've never once seen you. I don't believe in coincidences," Regina spats, tugging her bow string harsher.
Robin matches her movements, adds a playful wink that evokes the desired reaction, her nose scrunching up, adorably in annoyance, as he offers, "Perhaps you should open your eyes to the possibility, milady."
"'Perhaps'," She imitates, cocking an eyebrow in his direction, "You should open your eyes to see me about to send this arrow through your thick skull."
"Thick? Well, I take umbrage with that statement. Strong, for certain, but thick?" He shrugs, feels amusement dancing within him, finds her a worthy adversary, physically and verbally, but he sobers himself, "Even if you shoot, my arrow will still leave this bow and trust me, I never miss."
They stand at an impasse, both their arrows nocked, ready for flight.
A crack of lightning lances the sky above them, but neither of the archers avert their eyes. In fact, the sudden streak just highlights Regina for Robin; he can see the true definition of her sharp cheekbones, the freckles of brighter strands of hair amongst her ebony locks, a faint scar indented in her smooth, olive skin, just above her upper lip.
He idly wonders if the Queen was responsible for that blemish as she is for the aching in his forearm.
"Milady-" He begins, but she abruptly interrupts him with an aggrivated sigh.
"Quit calling me that."
"My apologies, are you not, in fact, a girl?" He counters, is perplexed by her aversion to the moniker he has addressed her by, as he has every other person of the opposite sex since he was a wee lad.
Regina rolls her eyes and Robin feels the corners of his mouth twitch upwards because, even for a millisecond, she has surrendered her stare, has must've recovered her misplaced trust in others, in him, for her to assume he would not seize the opportunity and fire off his shaft at her. The realization unexpectedly warms him.
And also makes his stomach bottom out.
How will he be able to deceive her, to draw down her guard in order to lead her off, heartbroken and distressed, to her death at the hands of Snow White, if he can't even manage to cope with the nauseum of a mere roll of her eyes?
How will he be able to exist, though, to look into the eyes of his Merry Men, his followers, brothers, some of whom still have family back in Sherwood, knowing he sanctioned the entire community's death over a bandit, who even after Sherwood's demise, would still be hunted and, if captured, executed, by the Queen?
"Woman", Regina corrects his previous question, suspending his guilt-ridden train of thought in the process, "And my gender has nothing to do with it. I'm no lady." She snorts, derisively, as if the notion that she should be respected as every one of her peers would be, and it drags a frown to Robin's lips- one that she notices. "I don't want your pity."
A clap of thunder reverberates off the trees, the power of the blaring sound making the ground under Robin's feet vibrate.
"What I want, milady," He growls, emphasizing the label that she may reject, but that she, nevertheless, is more than worthy of, "Is to quit mucking about and find shelter before we're drowned out by this storm." He lowers his bow, he can't shoot her (the Queen would have his head) and he's confident that his safety will remain intact, despite his fellow outlaw's weapon still being perched in his direction.
Regina scoffs, but does finally retract her nock, sliding the unreleased arrow back into the quiver strapped to her back, "I'm not going anywhere with you, thief."
"Thief?" He furrows his brow, now focused entirely on her and the name she just bestowed upon him, rather than the increasing winds and the darkening of the clouds like he probably should.
She seems to dismiss his inquiry, seems to wholly dismiss him as she spins on her heel and begins to walk away from him.
Skilled? Yes. Attractive? Absolutely. Stubborn? Incredibly so. Regina Mills is handful, that is for damn sure.
Robin starts off, quick on her heels, neither he, nor Regina, having any difficulty maintaining a swift pace. A frustrated groan emits from her and she doesn't come to a halt, but she does whirl her head to look at him as she barks, "Why are you following me?"
"Why did you call me a thief? Do you recognize me?" He doesn't know how she would, without, perhaps, the exception of his Wanted posters, but surely those caricatures do not do him justice enough to easily identify him.
"Should I?" She huffs, "Listen, you're out here, tattered clothes, full pack, and readily able to defend yourself- not exactly royalty. And, unlike you, I don't sugarcoat anything, 'sir'." She sneers the moniker mockingly, a parody of his employment of the word 'milady', but playfully expressed of not, Robin can't deny the shiver it sends shooting down his spine- and towards lower portions of his body.
"So you're a thief?"
"Something like that."
"Does 'something like thieves' have a name or shall I keep referring to you as your favorite title, milady?" Robin smirks, boldly brushes his shoulder with her own, plannoyancesurprised when she doesn't haul off and wallop him for the brief bodily contact.
"Wilma," Regina answers, glances out the corner of her eye, a sly grin sliding over her lips, "A simple peasant girl."
"I doubt there's anything simple about you, milady." It's a truthful statement on Robin's part, the woman beside him honestly remarkable to him, even knowing her in a short span of time.
She stops, nearly has Robin tripping over his own two feet as he forces himself to pause his steps suddenly. She pivots on her heel, positioning them face-to-face again, thankfully without their defensive tools in hand, and narrows her eyes, suspicion clouding her expression once more, "Who are you?"
"A friend?" He grins, trying to interject levity, as another zap of lightning pierces overhead.
Regina purses her lips (and, oh, is it a test in self-control to not allow his eyes to roam down to that plump, pink mouth of hers), as an indescribable emotion crosses her features, has her muttering, "I don't have friends."
"Then allow me to be your first."
It's a simple proposal, one that spills easily from Robin, but it seems to impact Regina, he can see the uncertainty weighing on her, his words, from a reason unknown to him, causing an upheaval to her judgement. But before she can answer, there's another big boom of thunder descending on the forest and out of the corner of his eye, Robin spies something dark, something towering in size- flying straight towards the pair of bandits.
"Get down!" He instructs firmly, throwing his body on top of Regina, sending them piling down onto the dirt and leaf covered terrain of Mist Haven's timberland.
He pinches his eyes shut, keeps his determination on protecting Regina, his body covering her own as she squirms against him, but as he senses the presence, whatever the hell it may be, swoop over them, he rises on his knees, proficiently extracting his bow and sending a series of arrows flying after, from what he could decipher of a brief glance, a winged beast, as it disappears into the tree tops.
He takes a few deep breaths, the adrenaline riding itself out of his system as instaneously as it appeared, watching after the invisible trail the airborne creature followed through, as well as keeping an observant eye open in case it were to return.
"What the hell was that thing?" Regina snaps, then he feels her hands, clenched into fists, driving at his chest, and warns with a venemous tone, "Get off me, thief, before you have a broken nose on that thick skull of yours."
Robin heaves out a sigh, looking down at her struggling against him as he remains on his knees, straddling her tiny figure, "A simple 'thank you' would suffice, milady."
"You expect me to thank you? For what?" She howls, a bitter laughter erupting from her as she stops her wriggling and thrashing to stare at him incredulously, "You tackled me to the ground! You could've crushed my arm!"
Robin rolls his eyes, a flame of irritation flaring in him, "And that thing, as you so eloquently put it, could've crushed you. How about you try some gratitude for me saving your life, hmm?"
"I owe you nothing," Regina snarls, with a tad more intensity than the scene warrants, Robin notes, wonders if she has owed someone something in the past, her ever mysertious, already baffling past. She shoves him again, "So how about you try following your 'milady' and chivalry garbage and get off of me?"
"And if that thing comes back? Gods forbid I 'tackle' you again, you might just snap in two."
She knows he's teasing her now, he can see how her jaw clenches in further annoyance before she says, "If it comes back, I'm more than capable of kicking it's sorry ass myself. I don't need a walking pine tree pinning me to the ground."
"Pine tree?" He chortles as he repeats her words.
"You reek of the forest."
"As if you smell like a damn apple orchard?" He demands, a battle of amusement and aggrivation creeping into his voice. Truth is, even a bit musty, she still smells divine, a natural scent akin to vanilla and, yes, maybe even apples, tingling his senses, while he hasn't washed since being captured by the Black Knights days ago.
"I bathe regularly, which I doubt can be said of you," Regina replies as her nose scrunches and she glares at him disparagingly, adding one, two, a third punch to his chest before she reaches to grab his wrist.
No.
It may not be the promised, tortuous pain of slaughted denizens, but his tattoo, binding him to this beautiful woman beneath him, through a heinous plan he must complete, is still sensitive and prickling - and Gods only know what side effects the Queen's bloody magic carries with it.
So he grabs at her wrists, holds him down, beside her alleviated neck, on the ground and she gasps at the action, her eyes snapping down to her restrained extremities, then back up to lock with his own.
Drip.
Robin feels the water drop unceremoniously onto the bridge of his nose and from one bead trickling off the tip of his nose, comes an abrupt deluge, pouring down on them like a basin below a waterfall.
"Phenomenal," He grumbles sarcastically as he winces with the intensity of the rain assaulting his eyes. But as he looks down, "phenomenal" doesn't begin to describe his view.
Regina, her head lolled back, a smile, a pure, unfettered grin, the first he's seen adorning her, her hair drenched, darkening it's hue further, with water trailing over the contours of her face, down her neck, leading Robin's stare, as if he is transfixed beyond realization, down to her chest where it trickles into her minute amount of clevage, to her soaked clothing.
Just as he had thought earlier; bollocks, what he had thought since he caught his first glimpse of Regina in Snow White's illustrious magic two days prior to now...
Stunning.
Before he can continue to admire her, before he can paint this picture offered to him by whatever Gods deemed him worthy enough to witness it into memory, her head is pulled back up, hooking his gaze.
He observes her swallow hard, her breath labored, as if he had caught her by surprise in an intimate moment and he, in a way, had. A vulnerable, openly reveling position, that she must not submit to often judging by the nearly horrified look on her face.
"I like the rain," She mumbles defensively and even through a powerful rainfall Robin can hear her, sharp and clear, and he cannot resist his teeth sinking into his lower lip, his head bobbing.
"I can see that, milady."
There's a silence, a pregnant pause that feels suffocating in the midst of the storm, in the midst of their proximity, and Robin is all too aware that his knees are digging into the ground on either side of her, his thighs against the curves of her hips, the heftiness of the torrent bathing the two of them seemingly wanting to haul him closer to her.
Regina breaks the lull first, no longer attempting to fight him off of her, almost peaceful now that they're enveloped in the storm, as she says, taking Robin by surprise:
"I know somewhere we can go."
(A/N: No I have not forgotten about my beautiful Outlaw Bandit OTP! Yay! LOL. I'm sorry I haven't updated this in quite some time, my AUs had my rapt attention for a bit, but I shall try my best to evenly juggle all my WIP fics in the future, especially this one because I do truly love writing this world within OUAT, and, esp. through Robin.
Thank you SO much for amazing support you've given this fic, from favorites to follows to reviews and, especially, just reading it. It means more than you know and I hope y'all continue to enjoy it.
Let me just give a brief explanation as to why I had Snow enchant Robin's tattoo as opposed to the typical taking-his-heart method: It's exactly that - typical. For me, when I watched H&V, what I LOVED was nothing was as expected. Yes, Snow was the "Evil Queen", but she wasn't a parody of Regina. I think Adam, Eddy, and Ginny went to great lengths to show that this was a completely new character and, for me, it certainly showed. I think where Regina was very ruthless and passionate, Snow was very cold and calculating, at least, that's the impression I got, so I wanted to run with it. Also, remember, we're in keeping with the H&V style, it was all about having things flipped. So, like the OQ history we're used to, the lion tattoo is, indeed, a symbol of the beginning of OQ, but in an opposite way ;).)