#repellomuggletum15

Regina blamed her dress for the thief’s staring, installing herself by the buffet table with her back turned for all the good it would do either of them. She occupied her hands as best as she could with plates of fruit she left untouched, managing a tight little smile or two whenever Snow and Charming made their stubborn attempts to be friendly with her.

She was more than exposed, here in this room full of too many memories (of kings, and parties, and other reasons for feeling unwelcome), trying to breathe through an absurdly well-fitting gown while everyone laughed so easily around her. In retrospect, she should have expected the thief to come to her at her most vulnerable, shamelessly using his son to disarm her further so that he might secure a dance for himself.

Twirling around with the boy had proven simple enough, and Regina let her steps fall innocently out of time with the music – as far as she could tell, anyway – while Roland spun them madly about to the tune of his very own song, as only a child could get away with doing. She even caught herself smiling at one point when Roland tried to dip her (something “Papa taught me,” as he proudly declared), though, as always, it was a short-lived thing.

Clearly not wishing to hog her all night (who knew a thief could have raised such a gentleman, Regina thought with a bracing sigh), Roland marched her right up to his father once the music began to slow down, demanding an even exchange for the plate of snacks Robin held in his hand.

Wishing desperately that Snow weren’t just within earshot, Regina did her best not to glower while the intolerable man badly feigned his surprise, as if this hadn’t been his plan all along. Relinquishing his cheese with a highly apologetic expression, the thief reached for her hand while she stood there, glaring, painfully unable to move away from him quickly enough.

“I don’t dance,” she said, stiff, in a last ditch attempt to deter him, very aware of Snow’s head tilting conspicuously sideways at her. Of course, it would not have occurred to the Princess until now that, no, her stepmother never had been one to dance at the balls Father threw growing up. Perhaps the Queen had seen such activities as beneath her.

Perhaps she’d never been asked.

Perhaps she’d never been in a place to learn how.

It burned her that the truth might come out this way, in front of these people she’d spent half a life tearing down, and she felt herself turning to stone when Charming bent to murmur something into Snow’s ear, the two of them sharing a knowing look in that insufferable way they so liked to do.

But Robin seemed to have willfully misinterpreted Regina’s meaning, sighing in a reluctant manner – as if this had been every bit her ridiculous idea and not his – before saying to her, “I can’t say I’m fond of dancing myself, Your Majesty, but my boy has fairly insisted, so…” He shrugged, as though to add, What can you do? while his eyes crinkled at her, and she did not resist this time when he took her hand into his.

Turning his back to the crowd, he led her to a remote-looking edge of the dance floor, somehow untouched by all the whirling fervor around them, and then he carefully placed himself between her and the Charmings as if to shield Regina from view.

“That being said,” he continued, leaning into her with a tone of conspiracy, “it would be in everyone’s best interest if we did not stray from this corner. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not subject anyone else to the hazards of my dancing.”

He’d set himself up perfectly for her ridicule, but Regina was too taken aback to mock him as he might have expected. She did not miss the ease with which he positioned their bodies together, one palm sliding to rest at the small of her back, the other closing gentle fingers around her own and lifting their arms at purposeful, well-practiced angles.

Unsure what it was she was supposed to be doing with her other hand, she let it hang to the side of her gown until Robin caught on to her helplessness, setting it gingerly onto his shoulder before placing his arm back around her waist.

Regina watched him, unblinking, as he inclined his head to her in a makeshift bow.

“On the count of three,” he told her cheerfully, but then he stepped forward on two, their knees colliding with such force that it startled an oh! out of her.

“I thought you’d agreed not to get in my way?” she broke in with more exasperation than she felt, trying hard not to notice whether Snow was still watching them or not.

“Apologies,” said Robin, his hand already bracing her back with a deliberate sort of anticipation that she was sure she hadn’t imagined. “It’s been some time since I’ve done this properly.” As if to further prove his point, he tread over her hemline then, and she nearly tripped into him with another sound of protest. “Dancing was never a strong suit of mine, I’m afraid, and it appears very little has changed in that regard.”

He looked at her meaningfully, as though waiting for her to agree, but she found she could do no more than stare at him, scrutinizing. Who, exactly, was he trying fool here? Outlawed though he may be, here in this ballroom he was no longer Robin Hood but this Robin of Locksley, bred as a noble from his manners down to the way that he moved, despite his attempts to mask it with clumsiness.

Even now, there was an element of grace to his bumbling, a carefulness to how he only upset her balance just so, and his arms never wavered, holding her steady as he spun them around in small, cautious circles. He did not let her falter, and whenever she nearly misstepped he was there to swallow the motion with another blunder of his own, begging forgiveness for his dreadful inability to keep time with the music.

And for a moment Regina felt impossibly young again, hatefully wary of any audience their dancing might have welcomed, wondering that they couldn’t see where the Queen ended and the miller’s granddaughter began. But on another twirl (a warm flash of blue as Robin lifted his arm, a sea bluer still as she spun into him), she caught sight of Snow and Charming – their attentions now turned toward Little John, who was bowing theatrically to an amused-looking Ruby – and something like relief shoved Regina’s breath out in a sigh.

True to his word, Robin did not let them wander beyond their edge of the ballroom, swaying her gently from side to side while all the color and commotion of the party flew by. Even the music sounded distant from here, as though a curtain had dropped between them and the rest of the world, and her shoulders gradually lost some of their rigidness, her eyes drifting more and more his way before glancing quickly off to one side.

He was a good several inches taller than she was used to him being – the heels Snow had picked out for her were fairly tame by Regina’s standards – and his lips fell dangerously into focus, his eyes blue and bright and strikingly open when she made the mistake of looking up at him again.

She cleared her throat, angling away until her gaze settled much more comfortably on a spot near his shoulder. He was dressed in his usual huntsman’s attire, greens and browns in every shade of the forest, and she could swear she smelled the stables on him, that heady richness of soft, worn leather, the faint scent of hay and the freedom of being outdoors.

He was close enough now for her to feel the heat of him on her skin, stray wisps of hair stirring by her temple each time that he exhaled. He was close – too close, she told herself firmly – but it was an increasingly difficult thing to care much about, and more than once she caught herself leaning forward, lashes heavy, to breathe it all in another time.

Robin must have sensed her softening, and he began to coax her into a more discernible rhythm, a slow but steady one-two-three, one-two-three that seemed manageable enough as long as he didn’t try anything more ambitious than that with her. It felt almost natural, somehow, taking these steps with this man she only knew how to despise on most days, when all he’d ever wanted was for her to dance with him.

(Perhaps he’d always been the one meant to ask her.)

(And perhaps someday she might learn to admit it.)

“I think we’re making a decent go of it so far, don’t you?” Robin remarked, and before Regina could half-register what he was doing, he had bent her backward in a daring little dip. After one heart-lurching pause, he pulled her up to land flush with his body, her palm pushing into his chest on instinct to prevent the rest of her from falling any further into him. Her breath left her again momentarily, and everything swam, suddenly dizzying, when he reached to brush back a lock of hair that had fallen over her shoulder.

“I’d been wanting to try that,” he murmured, hand lingering by her cheek before dropping away.

“Your son was very enthusiastic about it himself.” Her voice was impressively even, considering how winded she still felt.

“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I suppose.”

She glanced sharply upward to find him smiling at her, nothing but kindness in his gaze as he secured his arm completely around her waist this time, drawing her somehow even closer, his smile growing all the while.

“What?” she scowled, which only seemed to encourage him more.

Robin shrugged a shoulder, his smile tipping sideways now into something distinctly troublesome, and she felt herself bracing for some kind of impact. “I thought you’d be…” He bit into his bottom lip, considering her with those mischievous eyes before settling at last on a teasing, “…pricklier.”

Regina shot him a withering look. “And I thought you’d be dirtier.”

She felt a chuckle resonating throughout his chest.

“I couldn’t very well stand to be shown up by my own son, now could I?” Robin wanted to know, pulling slightly back to regard her in a rather somber manner. “Not when there’s a Queen’s heart to be won.”

She never quite knew how to handle him whenever he was like this with her, and she was grateful for the excuse to look away when the boy in question chose that moment to whoosh past them, laughing delightedly as a half-crouched Leroy grrred and arghed in close pursuit behind him.

“Papa, keep Her Majesty safe!” shouted Roland, brandishing a sliced baguette the way one might a sword. “I’ll lead the monster away!” The cravat Regina had fashioned for him earlier was now coming undone, one end poking out of the gold vest she’d borrowed from her father’s collection and magically shrunk to fit Roland’s frame. As Leroy advanced on him with another dramatic growl, the boy reached to tug the silk fabric from around his neck, swinging it up and about as though he intended to lasso Leroy with it.

The tables had clearly turned with this new development, and Leroy, comically wild-eyed, let out a good-natured yell before running off in the other direction, Roland charging after him this time.

“I got the monster! I got it, I got it!” he crowed, triumphant, careening by with his bread and cravat, and Regina was mildly distressed to see that somewhere in the midst of his adventuring the boy had also gotten creative with the spinach puffs, their cheesy green insides smeared all over the front of his tunic and vest like some kind of camouflage.

“Curious,” said Robin into her ear, “who might have trusted a four-year-old not to keep his dinner off those very expensive-looking clothes.”

Regina was too distracted to reply to him at first, her more motherly impulses rearing up and threatening to do a little chasing herself with a washrag in hand, until she noticed how carefully Robin was looking at her.

“You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” he asked, innocent.

She thinned her lips together, denying immediately, “Not in the slightest, no.”

“Well,” he mused, after a beat, “it would seem Roland’s mysterious benefactor is determined that I should be the one to lose in this battle for your affections.”

“To be fair, he did save me from that monster,” Regina pointed out, craning around to monitor his progress. Roland had now doubled back to the buffet table to arm himself, gleefully pelting Leroy with various weapons in the form of blueberries and pomegranate seeds. The grapefruit he selected next was so large he had to lob it into the air with both hands, and when it dropped with a dull thud only halfway to his target, Leroy helpfully bent to nudge it back in Roland’s direction before throwing his arms out to shield himself again.

(Regina thought of other timely rescues made on her behalf – of buried hearts and flying monkeys, and an arrow hitting its mark – and she wondered if Roland hadn’t picked that up from his father, too.)

“Ah,” said Robin, sounding warm as they watched his son sneak a grape before grabbing up handfuls to renew his attack on Leroy. “In that case, I have some grave competition indeed.”

They’d stopped their slow spinning in favor of witnessing the drama unfold, and Regina became acutely aware of how intimately they’d positioned themselves, fingers entwined instead of touching politely together, her other hand curled around the edge of his vest. She could feel each breath he took with every inch of her body, it seemed, pressed into his as though they’d always been meant to fit this way, and it was absurd how much she wanted to look up at him in that moment.

“What do you think?” Robin continued, everything twinkling, his voice full of light. “Would I be half as appealing a dance partner as my son if I knew how to dress the part as well?”

“I’m sure you couldn’t handle it.”

And truthfully, she couldn’t picture Robin that way, in the same apparel that men like Charming considered to be second nature to them, all that brocade and those stiff, gilded lines that reminded Regina too well of her old ballroom days.

Robin might have been of noble birth, but he didn’t belong to this place any more than she did, try though she should have to keep refusing this (his warmth, his heart, his everything so gentle with her), and the knowledge of it made her long to be reckless all of a sudden.

“I think you’re probably right about that,” he sighed, tickling the hair by her forehead again, and she heard the sharpness in her breath when he shifted over her, stubble just grazing her skin.

“Though I suppose Roland must have gotten his charms from somewhere,” Regina allowed, and Robin’s chest rumbled with laughter again, his palm spreading heat along her spine as he tightened his hold, leaving her slightly lightheaded for how weightless he’d made her.

She could practically taste the forest on him this close, and it would be wrong, she thought, to have it – have him – any other way than like this, loose-collared with the lines of his throat bared and unshaven, all of him smelling like sunlight and pine.

“So you do know how to smile,” Robin observed, dimples creasing his features when she stared up at him, caught, and a flush settled over her cheeks that she had not felt in a long, long time.

“I wouldn’t get used to it,” she told him, meant as a warning, though she was having trouble recalling her usual ire with him.

“No, of course not,” he agreed, so easily – so tenderly – it was all she could do not to smile in bafflement again.

They were standing entirely still by now, the music reaching some final crescendo as it probably had several times over already. Regina was wondering just how many dances he’d managed to steal from her when Robin dipped his head downward, biting a lip before his expression turned rueful, almost shy, of all things. “Would you care for another, milady?”