Hello all! So this is just going to be dedicated to one-shots or two-shots that are not related to each other and are just from my own thoughts, or, something new I'm doing, prompts from YOU. You can send me prompts either through reviews, on my Tumblr, or even Instagram under outlawqueenwriter (both for Tumblr and Instagram). I have a few one-shots already written, but I'm going to need and want more once those are posted. The first few are going to from the Enchanted Forest during the Missing Year because I can never get enough of that time. Also, I rated this M just to be on the safe side because some of these border on sensitive topics. I will try to remember to include trigger warnings on each chapter if warranted.

Now, with all of that said, here is the first installment of my OutlawQueen Once-Shots :)

Chapter 1 –Dark Secrets of the Evil Queen

Summary: Robin learns a bit more about the Queen than he bargained for.

TW: Mentions of marital abuse and rape

Robin was aimlessly wandering the halls of the castle. He had been there about a month and he still found something new around every corner. He had only found himself "lost" once –it was him merely getting turned around and then somehow found himself outside the doors to the dining hall.

Now as Robin turns a corner down yet another new corridor, he stops in his tracks, looking around at the seemingly vacated hall. There were no sounds in this area. The emptiness even seemed to absorb the sounds of his boots hitting the stone floor. That or it was just the thick layer of dust coating the floors and walls. Curiosity getting the better of him, Robin continues down the corridor and goes around a slight bend to stop dead in his tracks at the sight before him. There, sitting outside an elaborately carved wooden door, stood the princess, and it looked like she had been crying. Before Robin could gather up his senses and turn around and pretend he hadn't seen anything, the princess turned her head at the slight intake of breath from Robin.

When the two locked eyes, Robin stood there horrified to have interrupted something so personal. But before he could mutter out his apologies, the princess stopped him by speaking.

"This was my father's bedchambers. Today is the anniversary of his death," Snow White explains, sniffling and trying to rid her face of her tears with a handkerchief.

"I'm sorry to hear about that. I heard he was a kind king," Robin says, expressing his condolences, nodding his head, and making to turn around but once again being stopped by the princess speaking to him.

"He was. He was a wonderful father, too. I was doing fine this morning, knowing what day it was. My husband doesn't even know. The only people who do are me and Regina. And possibly some servants that were kept here after he died," Snow explains. "I was doing fine, holding it together, going to breakfast with a good face, half expecting Regina to come in with somewhat of a solemn mood, but instead when she walked into the dining hall, she was the happiest I have ever seen her this past month. Seeing that, I think is what pushed me over the edge." Snow White cries a bit more, but then tries to stop when she remembers the company she is in.

"I'm sure she just forgot, Your Highness," Robin says, defending the Queen's actions. Why the hell was he doing that? Yes they talked and his son and the Queen enjoyed each other's company, but why was he trying to justify her actions?

"I doubt it. It was the day she killed him. Or I guess had the genie kill him," Snow says, scoffing slightly and then walking past Robin. Before she went around the bend in the corridor, she turned around and spoke again. "Maybe that's why she doesn't seem to care. Maybe she never loved him. But I know he cared for her."

And with that, the princess was gone, leaving Robin standing, rooted, to the same spot, staring at the door the princess had been standing in front of. A few seconds later, Robin could hear his son squealing in fits of laughter as he undoubtedly ran down a corridor nearby. It wasn't until he heard his son much closer that he realized he was in the same hall. Then he heard the unmistakable sound of the Queen's voice calling after Roland as she was most likely chasing after him.

Roland crashed into his father's legs as he was rounding the bend and looking behind him for the Queen.

"Papa! Save me! The Queen said she's gonna tickle me," Roland says, hiding behind his father's legs, looking between them to watch for the approach of the Queen.

But the Queen didn't round the corner, and no sounds of approaching footsteps could be heard. Robin picked up his son and started walking back down and around the bend in the corridor to go in search of the Queen, because surely she wouldn't just abandon his son like that, regardless of hers and his relationship –if that was even a good word for their constant back and forth bickering.

When he rounds the bend, he is once again unprepared for what he sees. The Queen is sitting on the ground hugging her legs against her and her head resting on her knees as she stares with a distant and slightly horrified expression towards what lay down the hall from whence he just came.

"Roland, why don't you go run off and find Little John or Friar Tuck and see if they want to play. I have to talk with the Queen for a moment," Robin instructs his son as he sets him down and the boy runs off to find his new playmates for the day.

Robin crouches down in front of the Queen, trying to figure out a way to get her to focus on him instead of whatever horrors are running through her mind to cause her to freeze like she did. It almost looks like she is having a silent panic attack, and Robin really has no idea how to help her. He racks his brain for anything that might help, and he vaguely remembers a time when one of the Merry Men had had a panic attack that was caused by something that triggered a bad memory for them. Friar Tuck sat in front of them and asked them questions to get them to come back to the present. So, Robin does just that.

"Your Majesty? Are you alright?" Robin starts, knowing full-well that she isn't and hoping to get a snide and snapping remark about how she clearly wasn't. Instead he gets nothing. Well almost nothing. He notices a small, almost imperceptible twitch of her lips as if she wanted to make a sarcastic remark.

Well at least I'm getting somewhere, Robin thinks.

"Milady, perhaps if you told me what was troubling you, I could be of some assistance?" Robin prompts, but still no answer, but he did get her to snap her eyes to his face, so that was good.

She still had that horrified look in her eyes though, and now that Robin could see them clearly –them looking right at him –his heart almost broke at the vulnerability she was showing in the amount of fear they held.

"Milady, if there is anything I can do to placate your worries, you must tell me what to do. And since you have shown yourself to be capable of just that, I imagine it will be quite easy for you to do now," Robin quips, hoping to draw some semblance of her sass out. But that's not what he gets. Instead, he gets an honest, unbridled response from the Queen about what has caused her to respond like this.

"I hadn't realized where Roland had been running to. I haven't been down this way in decades. I hadn't ever planned to be down this way, especially on this day in particular," the Queen utters in a voice nearing a whisper.

Robin almost smacks himself on the forehead for not seeing it sooner. It was the anniversary of her husband's death, regardless of whether she killed him or not. Her act this morning at breakfast was probably just that: an act to keep her mind preoccupied from what today really was. Not a blatant disrespect of her former husband.

He is about to voice his condolences when she speaks again, only this time, what he hears, makes his blood run cold and makes his anger boil.

"His room is just down there. I haven't been in that room since the last time he called me there so he could have his way with me. When he was so rough with me that I had bled from the trauma he was putting me through. When he raped me," the Queen recounts, revealing a very personal and private memory at what that bastard had done to her.

Wait… what? Now the once benevolent King is now a bastard? No, yes, of course he is because no husband should ever do that to his wife, regardless on his status and social class. Robin's temper is bordering on overflowing for the Queen, whom, until this moment, he had pushed down any protective instincts toward, knowing full-well that she could take care of herself. That much was abundantly clear. And again, before Robin can say anything, the Queen blinks and her eyes become more focused and then she straightens her spine and looks at him with a horrified expression. Not the same horrified as when she was looking down the hall, horrified as in she realized what she just said and whom she just said it to.

"Your Majesty?" Robin asks tentatively, reaching out a hand slowly so as not to scare her off like she is some kind of caged animal. It isn't until he finishes that thought that that is exactly what she was here. This was a glorified prison for her, just like his home was for his own mother.

"Don't touch me, Thief," She snaps, as she jerks away from him and stands upright again.

Robin quickly stands to be eye level with her, not wanting her to literally look down at him while she tears into him, which is inevitable with this woman.

"You are never to repeat anything you just heard, do you understand," the Queen demands.

"Milady, I am sorry I overheard a private memory, and do not wish, nor is it my place, to voice what I heard to anybody," Robin affirms, nodding his head trying to make sure she knows he means every word.

"Good, because if you so much as utter a single word of what transpired here to anyone –and I mean anyone –I will not hesitate to roast your ass with a few of my fireballs. Do we understand each other?" the Queen threatens, raising one perfectly sculpted eyebrow, daring him to defy her.

"Yes, milady," Robin answers, hoping that she understands he means what he says.

The Queen nods her head in acceptance and then turns on her heel and walks down the hall from whence she came.

Robin watches as she walks away, thinking how quickly this morning's events changed so drastically and quickly. It all started with a curious walk around the castle then turned into him consoling a grieving princess to him witnessing a very haunting admission of part of the Queen's past.

It's no wonder she went down the path she did. With no means of escape and a temper like that with the influences she had, it's amazing she didn't turn Evil sooner. Robin thinks as he walks down the corridor away from the King's bedchambers and off to find his son.

He finds his son outside among the gardens, playing knights and dragons with Little John and Friar Tuck. He watches his son for a moment, absorbing every moment and reminiscing on how his son and his wife had steered him down a better path when he could feel himself slipping. That's when he realizes why the Queen became Evil. She had no one to help her. No one that she trusted to save her from the darkness that was consuming her like it almost had him. In that moment, the thief feels for the queen and what she went through, better understanding the decisions she made, not justifying them, but understanding them.

From then on, Robin makes it his mission to make sure everyone can see the person behind the mask of the Queen. Not jumping to conclusions and not judging her for who she was, instead seeing her for who she is: a woman who faced incredible odds, who loves with all her heart, and who just wants to be free from the cage she is in. Because not only is she a caged animal, but one that is looked at every day by people who are wondering when she is going to snap and revert to her old ways. Everyone sees her as having always been evil, but Robin –and the princess as he soon finds out –sees her as having been good before she was manipulated, deceived, confined, and abused.

Because after all: Evil isn't born, it's made.