Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26184894-20150813005948/@comment-24674051-20150814142504

Heres some additional thougts on that.

1. Either Rumple was not thinking straight, or he knew that Bae was somewhere where his age, and probably time, was frozen. It's been well over 200 years since Bae left the Enchanted forest by the time of the curse. If Bae was in the LWM all that time, he would have died a long time ago. And since Rumple had the prophecy that he would eventually meet up with Bae again, well, Rumple would have figured that Bae had traveled to a timeless realm. So, for argument's sake, let's assume that he did figure out that Bae was in Neverland.

2. Rumple, even as the Dark One, feared his Father. He knew that if he ever went against Peter Pan, it would cost him his life (or so we've been told, anyway). Rumple, until the Neverland Arc, was always selfish, and chose himself and power even over the things he loved (Bae and Belle). So there was no way that Rumple would choose to face his father, at least not in Neverland, where I would Imagine Pan's powers are the strongest. So again, he would wait it out, since he knew he would be reunited, and that would come after Bae had left Neverland.

3. I don't think that Rumple needed Regina to cast the curse. I think it's more that he knew that she would cast the curse (his seer capability), and just manipulated things within that knowledge to make sure he could use the curse to his advantage.