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Weak winter sunlight filters into the bedchamber of the incumbent Exalt—stubbornly, Chrom has chosen to remain a king rather than take up his sister’s vacated halo crown—and drives Robin to squirm awake. She stirs, but there’s a heavy arm thrown over her waist and warm weight pressed against her back that arrest her movements.
Deep, even breaths gust against her ear, ticklish and warm. Chrom sleepily murmurs behind her, a deep hum that makes her shiver despite how cozily they are snuggled together beneath their blankets.
Robin mentally congratulates herself for instinctually thinking of it as their blankets; it’s taken time to adjust to the thought that everything that is Chrom’s is hers now, too.
Perhaps the next step is to remember the bedchamber is mine as well and to take it piece by piece, she thinks wryly.
Considering how she started, with nothing to her name but what she had been carrying on her person when Chrom and Lissa had stumbled across her in that field, it’s been a little difficult to adjust to owning anything, but here she is—somehow, Robin is the Queen Consort of Ylisse and she now lays claim to much more than the blankets. But it’s a start.
Chrom’s arm tightens around her waist, tucking her more firmly against him, and Robin is abruptly reminded of one more thing she now has a claim upon. The most precious of all, really.
Chrom has gifted himself to her. Robin may never fully believe her good luck on this front.
Perhaps it’s newlywed silliness taking over her senses, but she’s rather glad of that. Underneath the practical tactician, Chrom has unearthed in her something of a hopeless romantic. Robin wants to cling to this shining bit of happiness with all her strength and never let go of that little sense of wonder that shoots through her when she remembers that Chrom loves her—her specifically, and no other.
With some difficulty Robin manages to turn herself around in his hold, though he lets out a small noise in protest. She nearly wakes him up anyway and spoils it—asleep Chrom seems extremely reluctant to loosen his arms enough for her to maneuver. He grumbles a little more and shifts around but he doesn’t wake just yet.
This is a rare opportunity that Robin can’t afford to waste. She so rarely wakes up before Chrom—he is a disgustingly cheerful morning person while Robin always finds herself burning the midnight oil, unable to leave her tomes on whatever new interest has trapped her insatiable curiosity in an iron grip. She probably wouldn’t have woken before him this morning either, except that he had coaxed her away from her books and into bed with sweet kisses and tender touches from his big, warm hands that fit so well at her waist and always made her go soft and pliant and—well. A hot flush runs through her at the memory of the…exertions that had followed.
At any rate, her objective remains: Robin rarely wakes before her husband and she means to take full advantage of the situation.
Sleeping Chrom is a wonderful sight indeed. He is rumpled, his hair sticking out wildly and his face creased from the pillow. His unfairly long, thick lashes curve gently against cheeks that are stained a light pink with a healthy flush; he is bedwarm and lax and so beautiful. Robin’s heart clenches in her chest at the boyishness in his handsome face that comes to the fore when he rests.
It’s not until her fingers cup his cheek, her palm curving to fit along his jaw that the spell is broken. Robin delights in watching his devastatingly blue eyes blink slowly and focus, especially when she sees the same wonder that burns in her own breast alight in his eyes.
Chrom looks at Robin like he too cannot believe his good luck and that makes her heart give another sweet squeeze. His hand slips up to cover hers and hold it in place.
“Good morning, my love,” he breathes, turning his face into her hand to kiss her palm. His voice is roughened from sleep.
“Good morning,” Robin says, savoring the slight dampness of his soft lips and the rush of his hot breath against her palm. “You’re cute when you sleep,” she adds, watching as his cheeks turn a little pinker in response. He plants a kiss against her fingertips rather than answer her directly.
Robin thinks fondly that no matter how passionate he gets, Chrom will always be dogged by this bit of shyness. It’s ridiculously endearing how easy it is to make him blush.
Chrom clears his throat then, shifting topics with his usual bullish lack of delicacy.
“How about a bath to start the day?” His eyes dance, clearly hoping that she reads this as an invitation.
Some devilish part of Robin wants to tease him a little more, though, and she deliberately steps around the thought of them in a bath together to affect an exaggerated glower.
“Trying to peek in on my bath again, hmm?” Robin asks archly, quirking her brow at him in challenge.
Chrom sputters, but he recovers so quickly that it’s a little disappointing.
“I wouldn’t dream of it. I don’t think my ear has recovered from the first time.”
Said ear belies the steadiness of his voice, his blush spreading gloriously and making the redness of the shell of his ear stand out in stark contrast to the navy of his hair. Robin brushes her fingers along the reddened skin, savoring her ability to fluster him.
“As mortified as I was at the time, I’ve always wondered if that was what made you rethink your stance on my prettiness,” Robin says, waggling her eyebrows. It’s meant to be a playful jest, but a bit of old hurt slips through in her tone and she nearly winces as soon as the words leave her lips. Chrom’s face puckers with confusion and Robin curses her inability to stuff words back into her mouth. Or to button up her need to tease him.
A quick withdrawal is in order. Robin slips her hand from Chrom’s before he gathers himself enough to draw her back and beats a hasty retreat, rolling herself away to slide out of the bed. Our bed, she thinks firmly.
“I—I—Robin—wha—?” Chrom tries and fails to fumble his way through a sentence. Valiantly, he keeps pushing on, managing to add, “You’re so…you’re the most…Robin…!”
Adept as she has grown at interpreting Chrom’s thought patterns, Robin is more or less able to piece together what he wants to say. With a sigh she quietly accepts that she isn’t going to escape an explanation and twists back around to look at him, her mouth bent into a sheepish smile.
Chrom’s hand lays on the covers, outstretched towards her, and she pats the back of it as she gathers her words.
“I’m not doubting your feelings for me now, Chrom,” she chides him gently. “I know you think I’m, I don’t know, some sort of genius tactical madonna who floated down to you on a cloud and who you are very attracted to, but you have to admit there was a time where your thoughts about me were decidedly less…clouded by affection with regards to my appearance…and you did at that time very directly tell me that I am not pretty.”
Robin looks down at their hands resting together instead of his face, unable to quite look him in the eye as she reminds him of the incident. He probably didn’t even remember his specific words—Chrom was like that, always in the moment, always stuffing his big foot into his bigger mouth and then rushing off before he necessarily registered what he had said wrong—but it had stung her at the time. She’d immediately turned to jokingly threatening him with violence to cover the smaller, real flinch underneath it.
“It was a little devastating to hear that from the guy I was nursing such a terrible crush on,” Robin says, forcing out a laugh that doesn’t turn out as light as she wants it to be. Damn her insecurities and her voice’s refusal to play along today.
Chrom’s hand flips over to trap hers in his grasp. He tugs then, reeling her back in towards him on the bed, and Robin follows because she has ever been weak to Chrom’s whims. She curls up on her side and draws together enough courage to look him in the eye.
“You had a crush on me?” he asks, his face looking rather poleaxed but pleased.
Robin scoffs. “That’s what you got out of what I said?” She tries to disentangle their fingers so that she can flick his forehead, but his stubborn grip refuses to loosen.
“No—Robin, I’m sorry—wait—” The fumbling is back, but his nervousness makes her own feelings a little easier to bear. There is a small pocket of her heart that is glad to see him writhe and worry about the impact of his words like this. Robin idly wonders if it’s mean of her, and perhaps it is a little, but probably not moreso than he deserves when she considers that she’s had ‘my image of a lady is someone so prim and proper...perfumed, and pretty...nothing like you at all!’ rattling around in her skull for over a year.
She knew Chrom was a man with a good heart who was simply too blunt for his own good well before she married him, but she’s not above making him squirm over his careless words here and there.
Chrom drags his unoccupied hand down his face, scrubbing at it mercilessly. When he emerges, his steely blue eyes glint at her with what looks like every ounce of earnestness he can muster. Which, being Chrom, is quite a lot.
“Robin,” he starts, “first of all, I’m an idiot. And I’m sorry. And what I meant wasn’t what came out at all. I can’t believe I said that. And—and I’m an idiot.”
His thumb sweeps over her palm rhythmically and she’s not sure if it’s meant to comfort him or her. Maybe both of them.
It’s annoying how easily he makes her melt.
“I told you before when I proposed that I think I loved you from the start,” Chrom says. His eyes bore into her, pleading and intent, and as hard as it is to look at him it’s impossible to look away. “I was just…stupid. I didn’t see what was in front of me, because you were so much my friend that I didn’t even think to think about if I saw you in…other ways. And when I tried to say that you made me feel comfortable and happy and myself, which was not anything I felt around the women at court, who comprised my idea of lady…ness…it came out…er, well, you know. But the ‘pretty’ part was especially stupid and not how I feel and I really am sorry.
“Because, Robin…you really are the most beautiful woman in the world, and I think you should feel that every single day or I’m not doing my job right.”
Chrom punctuates his painfully sweet speech by lifting their joined hands and pressing a searing kiss right between the eyes that glare up from the back of hers. He peers up at her then, his eyes piercing and brighter than the rising sun behind him.
The thrill that ran through Robin earlier pales in comparison to this, a full body jolt that hits her like a Thunder spell. It pulses through her, leaving her dizzy with want.
It’s really annoying how easily he makes her melt. Truly aggravating.
“Chrom, I…” Robin trails off, unsure of how to convey all the warm affection that’s currently bubbling over in her heart. The happiness, and the fond exasperation, and the forgiveness. It’s rare that she is the one who is struck speechless between them. As rare as waking up before him and getting to bask in the glory of Chrom’s sleeping face.
As rare as having the misfortune to fall unconscious, memoryless in a field without a friend in the world only to wake up to Chrom, the best friend and lover and advocate she could have ever asked for, lifting her up into her new life. Robin smiles at him then, bright and true, and thanks her lucky stars once again that this was the man who found her in that moment. She truly must be the most fortunate person in the world.
“Thank you,” she whispers, trying to imbue all her happiness into her voice. “You make me happier than I ever thought possible, you wonderful, aggravating, beautiful man.”
Chrom grins then, assured that he’s regained ground. He kisses her hand again, firm and insistent, the warmth bleeding through the back of her hand and making her heart thump in her chest. “I’ll see about running that bath, then,” he says, dashing off in his usual way, because Chrom never does anything at a normal speed.
Robin tucks herself down into the bed until he returns and pries her out from where she’s curled into the covers, the cold winter air nipping at her skin around her thin nightgown. He slips his arms around her then, under her knees and behind her back and drags her across the bed until she’s cradled securely against his chest, those big hands of his bleeding tempting warmth through the linen that covers her thighs and back. He always holds her like she’s the most precious treasure in the world.
Chrom picks Robin up and carries her to the bath—their bath—and Robin slips her hands around his neck to play with the long, silky strands of hair at his nape, because she really never can resist trying to tease him just a little.