Just Robin Oneshots pt 4

She's lovely (Medieval Royalty AU)

I kinda wanna turn this into it's own book but that sounds like a lotta work so I'm gonna do like the main beats of the first few chapters if I'm feeling it then who knows?

It wasn't fair, Dick decided. He was promised that he would be able to marry for love and nothing more but he'd been betrayed. Like most of Bruce's promises, they fell short of what they were supposed to bring and he should've known that this one would also never come into fruition. He wasn't even involved in the process. 

One morning he was sparring with his knights only to be called away by a servant telling him the king needed to see him urgently. He thought they were going to talk about an up-and-coming war or perhaps a quest but no. Bruce told him that he was to be married to the princess of Tamaran within the week and there was no way out of it. Not one that wouldn't cast shame on his family and the poor girl he was set to marry. Although he hadn't met someone that caught his affection just yet, it still made him feel dirty as though he was cheating. 

"What?" he had whispered. Although his voice was soft, the servants knew to quickly leave them by the look in his eye.

"You're to marry Princess Koriand'r as part of the treaty. You will live with her."

"Live with her? Even in the case of this forced marriage, I'm supposed to remain in Gotham. I'm next in line for the throne!" A throne he didn't want but it was that throne that would keep him with his siblings and allow them to marry for love also. 

"They do things differently there. You're to remain with her. Robin-"

"Don't you dare use the name you stole from me now," he snarled back. "Not now."

"This is the only way the treaty will be honoured. I understand my promise to you but that was years ago when I was a young king." Bruce was caught between a rock and a hard place, that the prince was sure of but it wasn't fair nevertheless. 

"You and your impossible promises. I don't know why I keep falling for them when you so clearly despise to keep them," he replied bitterly.

"For what it's worth, I apologize for misleading you."

"Not just misleading me. You never once said to me that I would be your pawn in a treaty."

"You would have never agreed."

"I would have!" Dick all but screamed. "I would have for my people, for my siblings, for you! Yet you took that choice away just as you broke your promise and for both I will never forgive you."

"You will in time, when you take the burdens I have."

"When am I to leave?"

"By the end of the week." He nodded solemnly like a man standing trial for a crime that would lose him his head. "You haven't met her," Bruce argued, trying for a soft parental tone but coming across as disparaging.