Taken from a prompt in @creativepromptsforwriting Fall AUs
Prompt: My dog yanked on its leash and now I’m lying in a giant pile of leaves and you stand there and laugh and STOP TAKING PICTURES!
AU town in which there is no magic and Regina and Robin are neighbours
Robin Locksley doesn’t embarrass easily.
There was a time, sure—back when he still wore his brother’s hand-me-down trousers to school and hadn’t figured out how to flirt without losing all control of his body and knocking something over. Once, he’d managed to spill an entire tray of cafeteria meatloaf down the front of the girl he fancied. Another time, he tried to impress a rugby scout with a dramatic dive that ended with him concussed and face-first in a mud puddle.
He’d blushed. Hard. But those days were long gone.
These days, Robin knew who he was. Single father. Steady job. A man who could rebuild a fence, make a decent stew, and teach his kid how to tie a reef knot in under five seconds. He had no patience for pride or pretense. Certainly not enough to get flustered by a few stray leaves and a stubborn dog.
So no, Robin Locksley doesn’t embarrass easily.
But now Henry Mills is laughing maniacally, bounding across the park like he’s just witnessed the greatest moment of his young life. And behind him—trailing slowly, smugly, looking like the embodiment of fall in her thigh-high boots, burgundy coat and coffee in hand—is his equally amused (and so very hot) mother.
Phone in hand. Camera pointed.
And Robin—who has just been unceremoniously yanked off his feet by a rogue retriever, faceplanted into the leaf pile he’d so painstakingly raked for the town fair cleanup—is flat on his back, leaves in his hair, and dignity nowhere in sight.
“Delete it,” he groans, shielding his eyes from the midday sun—and from her smirk.
Regina lowers the phone but doesn’t stop smiling. “Oh, I will. Eventually. After I’ve shown Mary Margaret. And Emma. And possibly your son.”
“Traitor,” he mutters. He would sit up if the dog weren’t now sitting on his chest.
“Next time,” she says sweetly, “try letting go of the leash.”
He shakes his head with a grin, their eyes lock for a long moment and it’s times like these when he wonders if she feels what he feels. That spark. That ignition of feeling that blooms across his chest.
They’ve been neighbours now for almost eighteen months.
They hadn’t started off on the best foot. He’d had his nephew, Will, to stay with him for the first few weeks.
He’d left England - much to Robin’s sister’s horror - to pursue music. His band of idiots no more reliable or responsible than Will himself. So she’d begged Robin to look out for him and to help him get on his feet.
But he’d been a bit of a handful at the start.
Sitting on the porch and drinking beers with newfound friends, music a constant feature. Climbing onto the roof from his bedroom window to smoke pot in view of any who dared look up.
Robin had curbed that type of behaviour as quickly as he was able to but not before his eagle-eyed neighbour had bore witness to it.
”I have a twelve year-old son, I will not allow him to live next door to a glorified frat house.”
That had been her opening volley—curt, precise, and spoken through the tightest expression he’d ever seen. She’d crossed her arms like she was preparing to formally evict him from the zip code.
At the time, Robin had thought she was overreacting. A bit uptight. Prissy, even.
She thought he was careless, inconsiderate. Possibly feral.
It wasn’t until much later—when Will had finally found a job that didn’t involve busking for weed money, and Henry had wandered over one Saturday morning to help Robin sand the new shed—that they’d begun to shift toward something else. Not quite friendship, but no longer enemies either. They shared tools now. Coffee, occasionally. Little nods of recognition when they passed each other in the mornings.
And over time, Regina had softened.
Not drastically, not all at once. But enough.
She’d knock on his door when Henry forgot his school project at Robin’s place. Robin would keep an eye out for her recycling bin on windy days. She’d even let Roland walk Pongo with Henry a few times—though not without a lecture about leash safety and a signed permission slip like it was a field trip to the Arctic.
So yes, things were better now.
Which made it all the more disarming that every now and then, like now, she looked at him with that glint in her eye—that spark that made Robin forget, briefly, where he was. That she wasn’t his. That this little back-and-forth wasn’t something more than it was.
Her phone lowers again, and she offers a hand.
He takes it without hesitation, her fingers warm in his. She’s stronger than she looks, and it takes him a second longer than necessary to stand.
Leaves fall from his jacket. The dog finally hops off his chest, tail wagging like he hasn’t just publicly humiliated his owner.
And Robin—embarrassed or not—realises he wouldn’t change a single thing about this ridiculous afternoon.
Robin brushes a few stubborn leaves from his collar, shooting a glare at the dog, who pants up at him like this was all a brilliant game.
“You’re no help at all,” he mutters.
Regina lets out a soft laugh—an actual, genuine one—and Robin nearly misses it. It’s rare, that sound. Less polished than the one she uses at town council meetings. More real.
They start walking, the three of them—well, four if you count the canine menace—toward the cluster of houses that line the far end of the park. Henry bounds ahead, expertly kicking through leaf piles like a kid on a mission, his laughter echoing between the trees.
Regina walks beside Robin, coffee in one hand, the leash in the other now that Pongo’s calmed down.
“He’s got your sense of humour,” Robin says, nodding toward Henry. “Wicked. Merciless.”
Regina sips her coffee. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
She glances at him then, sidelong, just briefly, but enough for him to see the flush of pink at her cheeks—not from the cold.
They fall into an easy silence for a few paces. Leaves crunch underfoot, the kind of sound that fills the quiet without needing to be filled.
“He likes you,” Regina says eventually, eyes on Henry.
Robin hums. “He’s a good kid.”
“He is.” She hesitates. “I wasn’t sure, at first. About you.”
He grins. “You made that quite clear.”
“Well, in my defense, you did have an English hooligan smoking pot on your roof.”
Robin snorts. “That’s fair.”
Another silence. Softer this time. Weighted differently.
Robin slips his hands into his coat pockets, resisting the urge to look at her again. He knows that if he does—if she catches him watching her the way he always seems to—it’ll shift something between them. Something that still feels too dangerous to name.
But she looks at him this time.
And says, almost quietly, “You’re good for this place.”
Not you’re good with the kids or you’re less annoying now—but you’re good for this place.
It lodges somewhere in his chest.
Before he can find the right reply—because there’s a lot he could say—Henry loops back around, breathless and red-cheeked, and grins up at them both.
“Can we get hot chocolate on the way home? The place with the cinnamon sprinkles?”
“Only if you stop weaponising my dignity in public,” Robin deadpans.
Henry flashes a cheeky grin. “No promises.”
Regina hides a smile behind her coffee cup. Robin catches it anyway.
They turn the corner toward their street, the three of them falling into step again.
And as they walk—Robin with leaves still stuck to his jumper, Regina with that smile still tugging at the corner of her mouth, Henry bouncing between them—it feels, for the briefest moment, like something close to hopeful.
But he doesn’t stop smiling, either.