Work Text:
Maria was very cross. It was bad enough that the day had turned into a dreadful downpour and therefore ruined her trip to London, but it was made significantly worse by the fact that she'd only brought one umbrella, and was now forced to stand beneath it with Robin De Noir, the arrogant so-and-so himself.
This was an unsavory turn of events for three reasons:
One, she was angry with him. It was only that morning that he'd managed to invite himself along on this journey, only to spend the whole day saying how much he despised the city. Why on earth he'd strong-armed his way to London with her, Loveday, and Benjamin, just to complain about it, was beyond her.
Two, Robin apparently wasn't satisfied with where they were standing. He'd spewed some nonsense about the alley behind them, but Maria was too cold, too wet, too miserable, and too ill-tempered to bother listening to him and had quite determinedly planted her feet and refused to move.
And three, he was extremely good-looking today. He was nearly always so, but for some reason today she found it hard to take her eyes off him. This made her very, very angry. Irrationally so. One might assume this was because of some sort of repressed attraction to him, but Maria would insist that it was nothing of the sort. It was merely because he was...irritating. Irrationally so.
"You look displeased," Robin remarked beside her. Their arms were pressed together, and yet she could still feel the rain soaking into her other shoulder. "Afraid you'll melt?"
"Shut up." She frowned even harder, so that it turned into a scowl for the ages, and folded her arms over her chest. If Miss Heliotrope could have seen her, the poor governess would probably have fainted, or some such ridiculousness, because proper young ladies weren't supposed to look like they were contemplating murder and wrinkling their bodices at the same time. "Why did you come today, anyway? You hate London."
As he'd made abundantly clear.
She felt him shrug. "I needed to do some shopping."
Maria scoffed. "What on earth could you possibly need to shop for, Robin?"
"You'd be surprised, princess."
She rolled her eyes—another action that would've sent Miss Heliotrope into cardiac arrest—and squinted down the street, hoping to catch sight of her uncle's carriage returning.
Loveday and her uncle were taking quite a while with whatever mission they were on, and had left Maria and Robin to their own shopping. Now that that was done, and the shop owners kept giving Robin less-than-kind glares in the stores, the pair had been forced to stand out in the rain and wait to be collected. Like miserable parcels.
Something clanked in the alley behind them. Robin turned to see what had caused it, and brought the umbrella with him, leaving Maria to be drenched.
She shrieked, grabbing his arm and yanking it back into place. She wrenched the umbrella from his hand and glared up at him.
"What are you doing?" She snapped. "Trying to make me catch my death?"
"Don't be ridiculous," he replied, and she was glad to see he looked a bit irritated himself. "I heard something."
"Of course you did. I still don't see how that makes it necessary to abandon all chivalry."
"I thought you said I wasn't capable of chivalry?"
"That's—that's—well, you've just proven my point!"
"Fine. Will you let me under the umbrella again? You're not the only one who's cold, you know."
"Go and find your own umbrella."
"I'm not supposed to leave you—"
"I'm not a helpless baby, you know! Go and find an umbrella, I'll be perfectly all right."
Robin just stood there, rain dripping off the brim of his stupid (stupidly flattering) bowler hat, his tawny curls drenched to the point of laying flat against his stupid (stupidly broad) shoulders.
"Go!" Maria ordered, gesturing for him to run along. "Or don't blame me if you catch a cold."
He rolled his eyes and let out the sort of sigh that only Maria could really manage to draw out of people, and stalked back toward a stall up the street that had been selling umbrellas. They'd probably jacked the prices up, since the rain had started, but Maria really didn't care. She knew she was probably over-reacting or being plain out mean, but she just needed a moment, without Robin, to collect herself.
"He's absolutely ridiculous," she muttered to herself—another thing that would have set Miss Heliotrope off, because proper young ladies didn't mutter, especially not to themselves. "Came to London to do some shopping, my foot. I never heard such a stupid—"
Maria stopped talking. Not because she wanted to, or because she had suddenly realized she was standing on the street, alone, talking to herself.
No.
It was because of the rough hand that gripped her arm, the unmistakable pressure of a knife against her back.
Fear ratcheted up her spine and her heart leapt into her throat.
"I don't want any trouble," her assailant growled, close enough to her ear that she could feel his warm breath.
She shuddered, and not from the cold rain.
"Just give me what's in the bag."
"Oh please," Maria managed to sound annoyed, despite being terrified. She clutched her purse. "Do you really think you're going to get away with this?"
"Well yeah," said the thief.
And that was the last thing he said, because before he could wrack his stupid little petty criminal mind to conjure up a suitable reason as to why—and Maria doubted he could—a dark-ish blur of De Noir vengeance slammed into him.
Maria gasped and tripped forward as Robin crashed into the villain, sending them both down onto the cobblestone. The knife fell from the miscreant's hand.
Robin straddled the man, one hand pressing down against his chest, the other gripping a very large dagger and holding it against the fiend's throat.
Maria's breath came too quickly. From fear, yes, but also because it was unbelievably attractive just how quickly Robin had disarmed the would-be thief. Irrationally so.
And he'd managed to do it all without even knocking his hat off.
"Touch her again and I'll kill you," Robin growled through his teeth. A remarkably dangerous (attractive) sound.
Maria couldn't see it, but Robin's eyes burned with fury—enough that it frightened the thief beyond his senses—and his knuckles were white around the hilt of his dagger.
His entire body vibrated with a mixture of anger and fear. Anger at the thief, fear that Maria might have been hurt, anger at himself for ever taking his eyes off her.
"P-please," whimpered the criminal, "I-I—please let me go."
"Why?" Robin seethed, bending forward to get in the man's face. "So that you can attack another defenseless woman?"
"Robin, I'm hardly defenseless." Maria appreciated the rescue, but she did have some skills. Like the small knife tucked into the pocket of her skirt. Or the surprisingly sharp heels of her shoes that could've taken out a shin or two.
With something a bit too close to a snarl—Maria wasn't sure how she felt about that—Robin pushed to his feet, dragging his victim up by the collar.
"Remember this the next time you think about robbing someone." He released the thief, who stumbled off down the alley.
Maria stared after him, watching as he stumbled against the wall, his legs looking a bit boneless when he started running again. He disappeared around a corner.
The rain seemed to grow louder against Maria's umbrella. She couldn't believe that had just happened. She could have been killed! Robin might have been killed, if the thief hadn't been so easily vanquished.
And all because she had refused to move away from the alley, refused to share the blasted umbrella. Because she was irritated, and for what? Because Robin had come along on her trip to town and looked good doing it?
She was absolutely ridiculous.
"Maria?"
Robin's voice made her start. He sounded like himself again, not the dangerous, steely, would-be murderer of her would-be plunderer.
She looked at him, and the rain still dropped off his hat, and his dark eyes were searching her face. Raindrops rolled off the shoulders of his leather jacket. He looked worried, all pinched and tense.
"Are you all right?" He asked, cautiously reaching out to touch her arm.
She nodded. "I'm fine."
This was a surprisingly true statement. Maria didn't consider herself a swooning damsel, but she still would have expected to be a bit more affected by what had happened. But all she could really think about was...well, it was dreadfully embarrassing, actually, but all she could think about was kissing Robin.
"Are you?" She asked him.
"Yeah. As long as you are."
She cleared her throat, hoping the flush creeping up her cheeks could be blamed on the recent excitement. But then she thought, why should it? Wasn't it perfectly acceptable for a proper young lady to kiss her savior, as a display of her undying gratitude?
Nevermind that she'd never bothered to worry what was becoming of a proper young lady before. Nevermind that she'd spent more than several nights of her life wondering what it would be like to kiss Robin De Noir, chivalrous vanquishing of thieves or not.
So she took a step forward.
He froze, and she felt his breath brush against her face. She stood on tiptoe and reached up one hand to cup the back of Robin's neck. The umbrella tilted, forgotten in her other hand. The rain poured down on them.
Rom-coms hadn't been properly invented yet, but if they had, Maria would have been more than thrilled to know that she'd managed to set up the perfect rom-com kiss in the rain.
Robin's eyes were wide, watching her. Her own eyes flicked to his lips. She'd never seen them up this close. They didn't disappoint.
Before anyone could appear to remind her about propriety or that the somewhat customary thank-you-for-saving-me kiss that damsels often bestowed upon their heroes was a chaste peck on the cheek—and because he had brought his face even nearer to hers, she brought her own lips to his.
It was a welcome warmth against the cold rain. His hands found her waist, holding her in place as she kept kissing him, and he kissed her.
Her heart pounded, her head swam. There wasn't a lot going on in her head, really, because who has time to think when they're kissing someone they've probably been falling in love with for years?
He shifted to wrap his arms around her completely, to pull her against him. She could feel his heart beating against her own. She couldn't breathe.
Finally he pulled away first, breaths quick and cheeks delightfully pink. His eyes searched her face, a nearly shy smile turning up the corners of his swollen lips.
She smiled while catching her own breath.
It was all so romantic that neither of them registered the fact that they were getting absolutely drenched.
Or that Loveday and Benjamin had pulled up in the carriage and stared at them with a mixture of curiosity and relief. Because they had both been certain that Robin and Maria would manage to kill each other before they ever managed to kiss each other.
Robin reached up to brush a damp strand of hair from Maria's forehead. A sweet, gentle gesture. She wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his chest. Her face was turned toward the street, and that's when she saw the carriage, and Loveday and Benjamin watching, and Loveday grinning.
Maria's cheeks burned and she buried her face in Robin's chest. It was going to be a very long ride home. Not to mention awkward. Irrationally so.