Chapter Text
Robin never quite understood why Zeff saved her.
One moment, she was getting her hands kicked in by the latest bounty hunter after her. The next, the bounty hunter is long gone in a puff of dust, and a man in the tallest chef’s hat she’s ever seen is hauling her to her feet.
Blinking dirt and tears out of her eyes, she sucks in a harsh breath. It’s too loud, too nervous. She needs to assess the new threat as much as she can in case she needs to run. Peering through tears, she can see that the chef’s hat is matched with a matching white coat and slacks; the peg leg is a surprise, but not uncommon in these waters.
The only oddity that sets this man apart from being a regular pirate cook are a pair of fancy golden bracelets on both his wrists.
“Oi, brat,” he interrupts her, and she looks up at his face. His eyebrows are pinched in likely confusion. “Why the hell’s a bounty hunter after a kid like you?”
She stiffens, and showing her cards too early, tries to pull her hand away. The man’s grip is firm around her wrist. She needs to get out of here, now, maybe he wants her bounty too–
“Let me go, you old geezer,” she spits. Blood’s soaking her fingertips now, dripping onto the ground.
For some reason, the man sucks in a heavy breath at that. Robin meets his gaze, and his eyes look haunted. She can’t look that bad, but no one’s looked at her with such an abject expression of both concern and terror.
“You… alright?” The chef’s eyes follow the trail of blood. He still doesn’t let go of her wrist.
Robin pulls away more, but all that earns her is a pointed look. Oh, he’s waiting for a response. “S’not so bad,” she says. She blinks more dirt out of her eyes, and looks down to her own hands. “I’ve been through worse,” she adds, much too honestly.
The haunted look is back. “You have a name?” he asks.
She can lie, she thinks. She can lie, and skirt around this man to the next ship and the next island. However his grip feels warm on her wrist, tight but not bruising. The lie stutters in her throat.
“Robin,” she admits honestly, meeting his eyes like a challenge.
He doesn’t rise to the bait. “Zeff,” he says. He looks to the bloodied bounty hunters across the field, nodding to some other cooks along the way. “Rest of em can deal with this mess, you need to… I’ll patch you up, brat.”
Soon enough, Zeff accosts her of the whats, wheres, and whys of her situation. She reveals enough to get sympathy but not enough to get caught, and soon enough he’s hauling her back to a dingy, then a baffling looking ship, then up to a tiny room on the upper floors.
He patches her up, and with another look she doesn’t have the context to understand, he’s out of the room.
She runs her fingers over her bandaged hand. The bandaging is tight, but it didn't hurt when the chef wrapped it. Instead, it’s the job of someone careful and practiced. Gentle enough to not injure her, but assured enough to make sure she didn’t bleed out. It’s kind, she thinks, heart aching. It’s unmistakably an act of kindness.
Still, she’s sure once Zeff finds out the details, he’ll be out for her too. Maybe she shouldn’t have told him her name.
This is going to fall apart, she thinks, just like the last place. Whatever ounce of kindness Robin gets is always met back with an equal and opposite cruelty in due time. It’s been the lesson of her life, drilled into her when every hope she has is crushed under the weight of her own history.
Something catches in her throat at the thought. Tears well in her eyes, but she refuses to let them fall. She’d really like, just for once, to stay. She’s clinging on to that hope more than anything, but… Robin sucks in a breath for reassurance to herself. Maybe she can.
She can at least try.
She just needs to figure out how. She needs a plan.
So, she looks around the room Zeff’s put her in. Dust settles everywhere, like a room that’s been out of use and untouched in years. It settles heaviest over the lined wall of bookshelves with an assortment of titles– primarily cookbooks from a glance, with a couple of old folktale books as well.
The closet is similarly untouched, the same layer of dust coating a mix of chef’s uniforms and suits. She frowns, finnicking with her bandages again. It doesn’t take much to put the pieces together– someone lived here once, a long time ago.
No one lives here now.
Robin pages through the bookshelf until she finds solid evidence of her theory. There’s an old photobook of newspaper clippings of the ship’s opening, and in it, a photo of a young boy with a curled eyebrow, blonde hair, and a wide smile. She’s sure this was his room.
It’s a well preserved room kept in a state of stasis even she can recognize as grief. It’s cruel, but maybe if she reminded Zeff just enough of the boy who used to live here, maybe he’d show the same care for her. She just has to rise to that role, she thinks.
It’s not a kind plan. She knows this. But…
With a tight expression, Robin digs in the closet until she pulls out a pair of old, worn loafers that fit her feet. They’re not too tight, and while they’re well taken care of on the outside, the shoes are worn in exactly like a good leather shoe should be.
It doesn’t fit quite right, she thinks. She moves her toes around, and they hit the toe box uncomfortably. But she’s worked with worse.
Waiters and chefs bustle around the deck of the Baratie, noise and smell prevalent in equal measure. It’s a cacophony of the senses, an organized chaos that Robin’s sure looks like absolute madness to an outsider.
With no small amount of pride, and only a tinge of paranoia, Robin’s integrated herself into the madness.
“That’s for table three,” barks Patty, setting down a platter of two bowls of soup and a bottle of wine. “Minestrone. Be nice about it, it’s some Marine snob.”
Robin’s sure to be as nice as her company deserves. “And the wine?”
Patty snorts. “Bastard special ordered it with his meal, the Seafret shit we got on sale.”
“What interesting taste,” she says in condolence.
If Patty hears, he doesn’t seem to care. Instead, he’s back to the kitchen, yelling orders about fish not frying themself.
Before she leaves the kitchen, Robin picks up a second bottle of wine on her way out. If table three special ordered a wine for the occasion, they should’ve picked a better pairing.
She’s gotten comfortable, perhaps too comfortable, with testing the limits of her customers’ patience. Sir Chef’s patience, too, but she’s long since determined what wins and loses points in his favor, and somehow he’s fond of her antics.
Plus, it’s funny. There’s only so much to do on a floating restaurant after all.
Sure enough, table three is about as she expected. A white-clad pretentious little man of a Marine introduces himself as Fullbody, and fails to introduce the lovely woman across from him as anything other than his date. He prattles on about the meal and wine he’s chosen, and oh she’s going to enjoy this one.
She pours him his drink with a serene smile.
“And the wine’s from Seafret, right?” says Fullbody after a sip, smiling pridefully at his date. “It’s a lovely wine, isn’t it?”
“Oh, no not at all. Seafret makes a good wine, but it doesn’t pair well with your meal,” she says with a smile. “So I’ve found a better match. But if you’d still like the Seafret Ilse wine, I’d be happy to provide meal suggestions for your second course.”
The tension crawling up Fullbody’s shoulders is delightful. Like prey caught in the field of view of a hunter, this muscled military man is suddenly caught off guard. He tightens his grip on his glass and meets Robin with a frustrated glare.
“The wine you requested is from the West Blue, a bit unusual. It’s considered to be an acquired taste, and it should be paired with the equally acquired taste of seared tongue.” Robin looks to the man’s date, a woman suddenly eyeing her exits.
Fullbody, however, keeps his glare fixed at her. Good. “Tongue,” he repeats. “You expect me to drink the wine I special ordered with seared tongue?!”
“Preferably human tongue,” she pauses only to enjoy Fullbody’s full body shudder. “Of course, we don’t keep that in stock, so I suppose we’ll just have to make due with your foul mouth.”
“Oi, what the h-”
As the man opens his mouth, Robin arches her leg in the air, only pausing for effect. Faster than the man can react, she slams her foot down in his face, hitting tongue directly. It meets with a satisfying smack, tossing him across the room.
“Sir Chef, I’ve found some fresh meat,” she calls to the kitchen. “Pre-tenderized.”
“Quit threatening to cook our customers, girl,” Zeff shouts from the kitchen. “Do you want to be back on dish duty?!”
It’s an empty threat. “Do you want me back on dish duty?” Absolutely no one wants her on dish duty.
“Absolutely not,” Zeff yells back. “Handle table four if you know what’s good for you!”
Fullbody lays dormant on the floor, hand occasionally twitching. Waiters dodge around him, and the dining room returns to its typical chaos. He’s sure to get up soon enough, maybe after Robin handles table four.
It’s only then she notices how young everyone at table four is. The gawking crew, four of them, watch her with a shockingly varied array of emotions, from the balking fear of the longnosed boy to the eager smirk of the swordsman.
What shocks her most, though, is the boy with the straw hat, his eyes watching her with a shocking, child-like fascination. It’s off putting, and she can’t look away.
“Blackleg Robin,” she says with a mock bow. “I’ll have the misfortune of serving you today.”
Something crashes from behind her, and then someone yells; Fullbody’s gotten up, surely. Robin taps her toe on the ground, stretching out her legs.
“Now, if you don’t mind,” she says, “I believe our livestock is trying to escape.”
Somehow, the straw hat boy manages to earn the unfortunate title of chore boy, and Robin’s left to socialize with the rest of his crew.
She thinks Zeff’s putting her up to this. He’s always been funny about getting her to socialize with customers, especially any close to her in age. It’s not like she’s against this– treacherously, her heart aches for it– but it’s dangerous in a way she can’t afford to risk.
He hasn’t picked up a thing in all these years, but Robin knows him like the back of her hand. She can navigate her conversations around Zeff to avoid anything that’s likely to get her caught, but come close enough to honesty to satiate her own desire for closeness. This group is an unknown variable, and she can’t afford to let that factor go awry.
So, Robin keeps her distance. She just doesn’t expect someone else to try and close the gap.
“So, are all the drinks going on Luffy’s tab?” asks the red haired pirate girl. There’s a glint to her eyes that tells Robin she shouldn’t say yes.
Robin laughs, and looks back out to sea. “Of course,” she says. “If you want him to stay here permanently, drink as much as you like.”
Nami scrunches her expression and groans, leaning back against the railing. “Maybe he should stay here! Why should I care,” she says.
From the crashes and clanging in the kitchen earlier, even if Nami drank them dry, Luffy likely would not be employed for long.
“Should I get you another drink then?”
Nursing her initial drink, Nami twirls the straw around the glass. “No, no, this one’s fine for now,” she says. Then, she gives Robin a long, imperceptible look, and Robin has the urge to flee.
As initially frivolous as the girl comes off, there’s a calculation in her gaze that was easy to miss before Robin got caught in it. She has a weight of experience that at least her captain does not; it was a mistake to write off this crew as a group of rebellious teens.
Nami sets her drink down on the floor of the deck, scrutinizing Robin. “No offense, but what’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?”
She’s more perceptive than she lets on. Really, what’s with the sudden scrutiny? “I’m a chef,” Robin answers slowly.
“Sure, sure, but– you’re the only girl here,” Nami continues. If Robin didn’t know any better, she would have taken the softer tone as concern and not prying. “Isn’t that kind of…” she pauses. “Weird?”
It’s not like Robin hasn’t considered that. Zeff has his own ridiculous code of chivalry in place and Robin’s just had to navigate around it. Zeff’s kindness is why she’s still here, and she tests the limits every day by goading the man into training or cooking or anything else.
“Not any weirder than your little crew,” Robin counters.
Besides, Robin can handle the boundaries here. There’s not more for her out there. She’s proven that enough already, for years, so this is just where she’ll stay.
Something crashes behind them, and they both look to find the swordsman, Zoro, and the longnose boy, Usopp, shaken at a dropped glass on the floor. Patty yells at them both, and while Usopp looks properly cowered, Zoro’s red in the face and arguing back.
“Besides, I could ask the same of you, Miss Pirate,” Robin says evenly.
The nickname shocks something out of Nami, who bristles and turns away in a huff. “You’re good at avoiding questions,” she mutters, voice affronted.
Robin resists a huff in return; Nami’s equally inclined to avoid questions. Instead of calling her out, she lets the air hang uncomfortably between them. She’ll let that linger until one of them breaks, and she’s sure it’ll be Nami.
Instead, something crashes from behind, again. Usopp and Zoro are back to arguing their innocence, and Robin catches a glimpse of the actual culprit, a long stretchy hand knocking into waiters and dragging back as many plates of food back to the kitchen as it can.
“I’d better get back to that, Miss Pirate,” she says, trying to hold in a laugh as Nami bristles at the nickname again.
“Hey, I’m not a pirate, you-”
The protest is cut off as by the noise of the kitchen, and the impending fight inside its doors.
“Idiots,” Nami says, pushing herself off the deck, yelling at the pirate crew she’s so eager to deny being a part of.
Gin knows who she is.
At least, there’s a chance he knows who she is. As soon as the bloodied man enters the Baratie, the crew is a mess of opinions on what exactly to do with him. Patty is, of course, miserably persistent to send the man back out to sea. Robin knows at the end of the day, Zeff won’t.
Robin is, however, paralyzed by her own over-analysis. Every look her way is calculated against the odds of being recognized, like one second longer will mean something different than if Gin looked away slightly faster.
In the end, she needs more information than what she’s given. Forging up a decent meal from the kitchen, she sets it in front of Gin, just out of reach. When the man starts forward, she grabs him quickly by the wrist.
“Ugh— ow— what the hell is this restaurant?!” he curses at her. He’s starved enough that he shakes under a light grip. “You here just to taunt a dying man?! Bastard woman, you—“
“I’m here to ask you some questions,” Robin says. She lets go of Gin’s hands, and watches as he slides against the railing. “If you answer them correctly, you’ll get your dinner, don’t you worry.”
Gin heaves against the railing, and nods once.
“Do you know who I am?”
His eyes widen, just a fraction. He opens his mouth, tongue on the top of roof mouth as he starts to say her name. So he did know.
“Answer the question correctly,” Robin repeats.
His mouth clenches shut. He looks between Robin, the food, and Robin again.
“No,” he says slowly. “I’ve got no idea who you are.”
Robin nudges the food closer to him with her shoe, watching as the man salivates as the food gets closer. “That’s what I thought,” she says.
Then, she leans into the railing of the balcony, and nods her head. “Well, eat up, sir,” she says. “It’s getting cold.”
He wolfs down the food like a starved animal. She doesn’t miss the suspicious looks sent her way as she watches, but suspicion is better than the earlier recognition. She can handle this situation now.
“Thank you,” he pleads, really, through bites of food. “Thought I was a goner.”
Robin smiles, tapping idly on the Baratie railing. The sea breeze whistles around them both, and were it not for context it’d be a perfect summer day. “Of course,” she says.
In the end, it only buys her time. While Gin doesn’t confirm who she is, Don Krieg certainly has no qualms with revealing her identity. It takes a bloody, messy battle on the top of the Baratie, and as Robin desperately fights to keep him quiet the ship cracks and shatters around them.
Don Krieg doesn’t tell her secret, but it comes at the heavy cost of the Baratie. Blackened wooden paneling hangs in the water around them, and the old ship creaks as wooden floorboards test their limits against the waves.
After she’s sure the fight’s finished, Robin hides herself away in the crow’s nest. The mast is just big enough to be a good hiding place, where she can lick her wounds for just a moment as she decides what the hell to do.
She can’t stay here. The ship’s rudder is cut in half; with where they’re situated in the East Blue, it’ll take weeks, if not months, to repair it. She’s scraping away at the patience of the chefs, she’s sure, and even if she got away with this now how many more times can she play this game?
Forcing herself to laugh, bright and loud like Saul taught her, Robin knocks her head into the mast and looks up to the sky above. Her life here’s a castle built on sand, a neat set of precise half-truths designed to provide enough of a foundation. But how many storms can it take before she’s left unmoored?
Even worse, what happens to the Baratie crew when she is found? None of them died today; how long can that last?
Robin closes her eyes. She can’t live with that. She can live with many things, but after the kindness she’s been shown, she can’t have that.
There’s another option here.
She doesn’t want to leave and doom another pirate crew. But maybe she can divert attention from Zeff’s ship, if only until she’s sure there’s no more threats lurking around the East Blue.
The Strawhat crew is easy to find, being both loud and distinctive. Nami is gone, and so is their ship, and the remaining three pirates lay on deck with half a battle one and a war on the horizon.
“Future Pirate King Luffy,” she catches Luffy’s attention quite easily. “I’ve decided that I’m joining your pirate crew.”
Luffy tilts his head to the side like a dog. Big eyes see right through her, and the man picks his nose and flips the excavated booger on the ground.
“Huh? Why do you want to?” Luffy asks.
“Luffy! Don’t question it, if you don’t find a cook we will literally die out at sea. I’ll get scurvy. I’ll die green and haunt your ship for the rest of time—“
Robin mulls the question over, and can’t find an answer that isn’t incredibly suspicious.
“At least take me to find your navigator,” Robin keeps her voice even to avoid sounding pleading. She looks at the swordsman and his patched-up wounds. “You could use another fighter.”
The swordsman reluctantly nods. “We don’t know what we’re getting into, Luffy,” he agrees.
It’s enough for Luffy, who gives her another long look then smiles. “Tell me why you’re joining after!” he says brightly, “Okay?”
She’ll just need to think of an excuse in the meantime. As their little ship leaves the dock, she watches the dot of the Baratie get smaller and smaller on the horizon, until it’s faded completely into the distance.
It’s the last serious conversation she has with Luffy before she’s off with the Strawhat Pirates to a tiny little village on Cocoyasi Island.
There’s something curious about this crew. They’re chasing after someone they don’t even really know, and even as the situation escalates and escalates and escalates they still try to save Nami with all they’re worth.
So many of Nami’s own questions make sense with the context of her history. Of course Nami would be suspicious of Robin’s position on the Baratie, being the lone girl in a den of thieves. It’s what she’s lived under, for years of her life. It’s not hard to see someone in a similar position and assume the worst.
And so Robin finds herself fighting a fishman, for a girl with secrets she only just uncovered. And, remarkably, the rest of the crew is on the exact same page.
Fighting’s not unusual for her, she’s cut her teeth on worse threats and practiced her kicks on rowdy disruptive guests and irritable little snobs alike.
But it’s not long until she’s backed into a corner. She can fight, she can stomp her opponents to dust, but she can’t swim.
And yet Luffy’s on the bottom of the ocean floor, and she needs to save him, but as much as she wants to, that’s a fight she can’t win. Not with the devil fruit power she’s oh so tried to keep under wraps.
For a brief moment, she considers abandoning ship. She can’t let them know. She can’t let them in, not like this, but everyone’s already here.
She grabs Zoro’s wrist.
“I can’t swim,” she repeats, eyes boring into the swordsman’s. “You need to save him, Swordsman-san.”
His eyes widen, suddenly gripping Robin with an understanding she hoped to avoid. Blood trickles from his forehead into his eyes. “You can’t-” he starts, then just as fast as his eyes widened, they narrowed like a shark for blood. “You’re a devil fruit user.”
There’s only time for directness, obfuscation be damned. “I’ll deal with the fishmen,” she says harshly. “You make sure he stays alive.”
She squeezes Zoro’s wrist once, then pulls away. Thankfully, the swordsman seems to get the memo, because as she turns around she hears a splash in the water behind her.
Then, she taps her shoe on the ground, hitting the toe box with each tap.
“Huh? I thought– I thought I was fighting the swordsman,” says Hatchan. “Not a… waitress?”
“Oh, I can promise you, I’m much worse,” she grins.
Before Hatchan can respond, Robin dodges to the left and arcs a wide kick to his side. She’s fast enough that she strikes before he can lift any one of his six swords. Her shoe digs into his side, and she knocks him hard into the rock barrier behind them.
She doesn’t have her advantage for long, though. As soon as Hatchan re-evaluates the threat in front of him, he spins his six swords around in a kaleidoscope of whirling blades, and it’s not long until Robin’s losing ground again.
Her back is slowly inching toward the water, her footing unstable. She can’t fight six swords with her own two feet, but–
She sucks in a breath.
“Pierna Fleur,” she says, and suddenly they’re back on even stakes. Six legs sprout from Hathan’s own arms, feet smashing into his swords. She can control the power of her kicks like this easily, and it would be so easy to just overpower him here, but all she needs to do is disarm him.
“Wait, what?!”
Hatchan’s six swords have nothing on her. Her extra limbs disappear in a flurry of petals, and before Hatchan can make sense of it she knocks him with one steady kick in the center of the chest.
He’s out cold on the ground, Robin’s heel digging into his chest.
Winning is exhilarating, she thinks. It’s a cocktail of emotions, all equally treacherously hopeful. It’s enough of an adrenaline rush she forgets herself, just for the moment, and lets herself imagine being part of this crew.
Hatchan makes an aborted move to pick himself up, and Robin thwacks him in the side of the head with one heavy kick.
Robin’s nerves never quite settle after the battle. At first, she’s a rabbit prey to her own history. Her heart rackets in her chest, and it doesn’t calm even as the adrenaline of a fight settles down. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever let herself rest.
But, as the dust settles, and as the sheer sense of relief washes over the entire village, Robin lets herself get caught up in it.
She’s never really experienced a party like this, not since Ohara. Even then, parties were mostly late-night get-togethers of harried researchers celebrating a finalized publication. There was food she can only slightly remember the taste of and even less the smell, and alcohol she never got to try, but not– well, in retrospect, those weren’t really parties. Celebrations, sure, but…
Cocoyasi definitely throws a party.
The immense weight lifted off of the village is remarkable. Despite the damage to the town and their people, the village comes back alive. Everyone’s pulling together a feast of foods and drinks and music, like a tap that’s been clogged for years finally turning on.
House porches become makeshift food stalls, the scent of savory meats and tangy tangerines wafting through the streets. Some villagers bring out what’s sure to be their secret stocks of decent liquor, sharing with their neighbors without even a hint of regret. The town lookout tower becomes Usopp’s storytelling perch, the crowd awed by his tall-tales and all too willing to believe them.
Robin leans back into the alleyway, listening as well as she can to Usopp. She’s not sure how to partake in this kind of party, if she’s honest. It’s something Usopp’s taken aplomb to, but suddenly Robin feels ever out of her element. She wants to enjoy it, like Usopp’s taken to, but… maybe she’ll just let the energy wash over her.
Just as Robin’s able to let her guard down, though, Zoro comes by and her guard’s back up.
“Aren’t you still on death’s door?” she says, eyeing the bandages up Zoro’s front.
Zoro scoffs, his eyes unreadable. She’s expecting questions, and she’s so intently searching Zoro’s face for any signal to his intent that she misses the two mugs in his hand until one’s shoved into hers. Liquid sloshes over the edge of the mug’s rim, the cold shocking her fingers.
“I don’t like you,” Zoro states. He eyes her like he’s waiting for something.
Robin smiles pleasantly. “You don’t have to.”
Both irritation and confusion flash over Zoro’s face, and he groans. “Nothing gets a damn rise out of you,” he grumbles, and leans on the back of the wall opposite her. “I don’t like you but you made the right call.”
And while Robin could expect Zoro to not like her, or to try and pick a fight, that admission is a shock. “Oh?” she enunciates after a pause. The liquid on her hands feels sticky, but she holds the handle of the mug like a lifeline.
“Can’t say I’m a fan of you having secret devil fruit powers or whatever, but we won,” he says. “Won pretty quickly too.”
Maybe the threat is going down, she thinks. “You’re right. Honestly, I’m surprised it took you so long to rescue our captain,” she says. “It didn’t take me long at all to deal with your opponent.”
Zoro growls; he’s so easy to bait. “Tch, because I wore him down,” Zoro takes a long drawl of his own drink. “So you gonna tell me how you did it?”
Ah, maybe the threat hadn’t gone away. Not yet. Robin stiffens, and her elbows knock into the wall behind her.
“Whatever,” Zoro mutters. He holds out his own glass of beer, and when Robin only cocks an eyebrow at him, he motions forward. “Well, cheers,” he says as an invitation.
Mutely, Robin knocks her glass into his, her smile tight.
He takes a long drink, and she takes a short one.
It’s a truce, she thinks. A shaky one, but the tension she holds through her entire core seeps out of her.
“You think they need another cook out there? With the way our captain’s eating his way through the town…”
“What, you want to join the party now?” Why, he almost looks put out.
What Zoro’s given her is a truce, nothing more. But even then, she thinks, maybe she can let herself join the party, just this once. With the weight of tension off her shoulders, just for a moment, she can understand how this little village is able to let loose.
She pats Zoro’s shoulder. “I’m sure you can entertain yourself.”
For now, she’ll let herself have this. She can feel welcome somewhere, just for this moment, just to savor their victory. It’ll be gone soon, she’s building a house on sand with this sentimentality, but for now she can let herself linger.
They trek back from Cocoyasi to the Baratie, dawn just reaching their ship as the dock to the Baratie’s port.
Patty spots them from the balcony, and he stomps back to the kitchen with what’s sure to be an expletive-laden announcement of their return. Eventually, Zeff drags himself out of the kitchen, eyes widening slightly when he sees the crew on deck.
To his credit, Zeff evens out any surprise to look as grumpy as ever. “Took you long enough,” Zeff says. “Wondering when you’d make it back here. Never even packed a proper bag.”
“What? Can the place not run without me?”
Zeff snorts. “Place runs better without you breaking all our dishes or scaring our customers off, brat.”
Then, oddly enough, he looks over Robin’s shoulder to Zoro. He eyes the swords on Zoro’s hips, then cocks his head to the side. “You. Idiot who got bisected on my deck. You’re still injured, aren’t you?”
Startling like a cat, Zoro barks back, “I’m fine old man!”
“Then let me take a look!”
“Why do you even care!?” For once, Zoro asks the right questions. Why does Zeff even care?
“I’ll feed you some of the disinfectant,” Zeff says. “I have a favor to ask anyway. You’d better not turn it down.”
Odd. Robin can’t imagine what Zeff needs from Zoro, but she’s not going to question it. Not when she’s barely keeping together her own emotions, anyway.
“Rest of you, go find an empty table, dinner’s on the house,” Zeff orders, then turns to Robin. “You, start packing, I’ll meet you in your room after I’m through with this idiot.”
Technically, Luffy hasn’t even agreed to let her on the crew. She doesn’t have an answer for him— even through the entire fight at Arlong Park, and the party after, did she figure that out.
She’ll just– she’ll just need to use her time packing to find an answer.
Her room’s packed in as ever, both of her belongings and of the previous owner’s, Blackleg Sanji. Even as the room’s packed full, she can’t quite find it in herself to destroy his belongings. She’s adopted most of his wardrobe, and she remarkably grew into the shoes, but out of respect, or guilt, she’s left some of his books and things alone.
Throwing a bag on the ground, she looks over the bookshelf first. Most of the books she’s read cover to cover so many times she doesn’t bother to pack them. There’s a couple, mostly older tomes she found by chance at the market, she’s eager to pack, along with recipe books she’s sure will find their use in due time.
She pauses, for a moment, over the old newspaper clipping of Zeff and Blackleg as it falls to the floor. What a stroke of luck she found it here in the first place. Gently, she picks it up and places it back in one of the old North Blue fairytale books and sets it back on the bookshelf.
Her wardrobe is considerably easier to pack; plenty of shoes in case she wears hers out, a couple pairs of dark slacks and dress shirts. It’s nothing new to find, and it’s not long before her bag is complete.
Feeling nostalgic, she looks out the little ocean porthole between her bookshelves. Her heart sinks as she looks out and sees the half-broken rudder again, still not fixed from the fight with Don Krieg.
Sitting down on the bed, Robin clenches the sheets between her fingers. It’s been— this has been the best home she’s had. She forces herself to ignore the tears welling in her eyes, keeping them in with one petulant sniffle.
She hears Zeff coming long before he enters, his peg leg loud on the floorboards. He knocks, out of politeness, but opens the door before Robin invites him in.
“Your crew’s a bunch of morons,” Zeff announces.
“My crew? Sir Chef, I haven’t even…”
“Strawhat boy’ll invite you soon enough,” he says. “Don’t worry about him.”
Zeff taps his fingers on the side of Robin’s bed, then sighs. He leans against it so his back is to her, and he’s staring back out the ajar bedroom door.
“Never told me why you were leaving,” he says. She can’t see his face.
Robin fiddles with the bedding between her fingers. It’s soft with years of use, and any tears have been easily patched. “I…” she starts, and embarrassingly can’t find a reason that will satisfy him. “It’s the right time,” she says.
“Why? Don Krieg got you scared shitless?”
That’s exactly it. “That’s not—“
“Do you actually want to go with that crew, or are you just running away from something?”
Shit. She’s underestimated him. After all these years, Zeff never asked her many questions. She just hoped he hadn’t cared.
“Look, brat, I’m not blind. I saved you from damn bounty hunters the first day I met you, I know you have a past.” Robin eyes the exit; Zeff continues staring resolute at the door. “Fuck if I know the details, and don’t tell me because I don’t want to know.”
That shocks a gasp from her. “What?”
“But I know I’ve had to send plenty of bounty hunters and marine types out the door, looking for a different Robin,” he says. “Too bad for them, entire ship voucher for the snot-nosed brat being my own daughter and not some stray I picked up.”
Robin’s never— she’s never heard that. Her heart hammers in her chest, and despite herself the tears are back in her eyes.
Zeff must hear it, because he backtracks quickly. “Wasn’t my idea. No one wanted to see another brat kidnapped from my damn ship,” he says. “And none of us will. Who cares if the ship gets torn up a bit in the process. Needed a new rudder anyway, the color was shit.”
She’s crying now, and she turns back to look out the window. “You’re the one who painted it like that,” she says, hoping to distract him.
“Tch. Brat,” he mutters, not taking the bait. “So if your secret whatever is why you’re leaving, you’re a moron.” Finally, Zeff turns over his shoulder and looks at Robin, then with a huff picks himself off the edge of the bed and sits down right next to her.
“Is there anything else you want?”
Zeff always knew how to peel bits of honesty out of her.
She does want something— but what she wants is dangerous. She’s much safer going from place to place and ignoring her dream, because who she is will turn everyone against her. It always does.
“Maybe,” she concedes. Zeff always knows how to peel honesty out of her.
“Then fight for it,” he says simply. “Can’t do that here, can you?”
No, she can’t.
He claps her on the shoulder. “Put some faith in them, they’re not going to kick you to the curb,” he says. “And if they do, kick their asses for me.”
And Robin laughs, scrubbing the tears from under her eyes. “Would be easier if you didn’t always pull your kicks,” she says.
“Hah, didn’t need to, brat,” is all Zeff says in response, before he’s hauling her pack and kicking it out the door. “Now get the hell out of here."
Sure enough, all Luffy needs for her to say is she might want something, and then he gives her another long look and lets her join. The crew is as exasperated as she is, given his earlier reluctance.
When they leave port, she waves Zeff goodbye this time. The laugh she forces is a bit more genuine than the last, especially as she watches the stubbornly crying but still sniffling faces of the rest of the cooks as she leaves.
It’s only later does she think about the fact that, as Zeff waved goodbye, he was missing the familiar gold bracelets on his wrists.
The rhythm of traveling with the Strawhat Pirates is much easier to figure out after that, and it sparks something in Robin she hasn’t felt in a while. While the Baratie had its own sources of entertainment, with the revolving door of pirates and marines alike visiting the place, something about the mystery of the sea draws her in like nothing else.
So, she finds her place; cooks for the crew, though Luffy petulantly doesn’t call her the crew’s cook, for whatever reason. She’s finding carving herself a role, if slowly and unnaturally, as she figures out what each of her crew likes to eat.
Of all the Strawhat Pirates, though, Usopp’s the one Robin hasn’t quite figured out how to feed.
Luffy’s the easiest, by far, and the most honest about his taste. Nami and Zoro are a bit trickier, but not by much. Robin had first-hand experience with the culture of Cocoyasi with the party, and it doesn’t take much to piece together where Zoro’s from from his boundless stomach for rice and sake. While Luffy wears his heart on his sleeve, the other two’s home islands do it for them.
However, Usopp is considerably trickier.
At first, she tries out food similar to Nami’s preferences; simple but filling foods, made with the staple crops of Syrup Village. But, oddly enough, Usopp doesn’t take to them. Not like Nami did, at least.
The only thing that seems to work is an accident– she adds in one of her spices from the West Blue into the crew’s curry, and Usopp’s the only one who really has a taste for it.
“Oh, of course, I’ve had it before, the Great Captain Usopp’s sailed all four seas,” Usopp starts. “Why, this isn’t even the rarest spice in my palate! I’ve encountered countless spices on my journey like— this, among others—“
She wonders if it’s possible to trick the brain into a lie if it’s repeated enough.
“So that’s where you’ve had this?” She asks, casually pointing her kitchen knife at Usopp. He shudders, and Robin grins; he’s exceptionally easy to tease.
Usopp falters, cold fear obvious on his face. He’s also the most fun of any of them to tease. “O-of course, though we got plenty of out-of-town visitors to Syrup Island because of the shipyard, so I may or may not have had it there. Too.”
That sounds a bit more like it. So, Usopp’s not nostalgic for anything from Syrup Village in itself– just the meager taste he’s had of things beyond it.
It makes sense. Maybe she’ll feed him some of the more experimental dishes she’s only ever researched.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she lowers her knife. “I figured you’d prefer something closer to home, though,” she admits honestly.
Usopp frowns, but stops eyeing the door. “Is that why you’ve been making so many stews lately? Because you’d thought they’d… remind me of home?”
Of any of her crewmates, Usopp surprises her most. “Maybe,” she says cryptically, only a little embarrassed. “Though I shouldn’t have doubted the Great Captain Usopp’s refined palate.”
Usopp preens, but just as fast as the proud look appears it fades from his face. “Oh,” Usopp wrings his hands, then settles them on the table. “You must miss home a lot then, right?”
“Hmm?”
“You keep making food like everyone else is homesick,” he says. When Robin meets him in the eyes, he looks away. “It’s— it’s not a bad thing! It’s really nice. It’s just— a thought.”
Homesick? No, she’d just… as much as she tried to understand the appeal of cooking, it was as much about understanding cultural significance as it was about the food itself.
“So do you? Miss home,” Usopp continues.
Robin falters, then sets her knife on the counter.
Her last memory of Ohara is a brutal one.
The military the World Government sent to destroy her home was as brutal as it was efficient, striking down the whole island in a blaze. She’d only gotten out by the pity of one of the soldiers, a woman with bright pink hair. She’d sent her off in a rickety little boat, attaching her own pair of hovering boots to the back.
She still remembers the smell as her boat pulled away from Ohara. Bright charcoal and oil burning as an entire culture was erased from the map.
After sucking in a breath she gives Usopp a tight smile, hand hovering back over the knife.
“Sometimes,” she says. “I try not to dwell on it.”
Usopp nods, and sensing the mood, doesn’t follow up. Instead, he seems caught between saying anything and not, his mouth opening and closing like a fish.
It takes Robin another few minutes to continue her work, and she desperately yearns to extinguish the tense quiet in the hair.
Leaning forward, she stares at Usopp until he notices the attention.
“Eh? Robin?”
“Hmm, noses have too much cartilage,” she says.
Usopp squeaks, then slams his hands on the counter. “No! No, make more stew, or anything, just don’t cook your crew mates, why are you like this?!”
Robin laughs brightly. “Just a thought,” she says.
She misses home. She’ll always admit to that much. And maybe, now, she’s getting a little too comfortable in this little pirate ship, but she’ll hang on to this as long as she’s able to.
As they pass through Reverse Mountain, they all make a promise on their dreams. Everyone is achingly sincere, admitting their foolish dreams like they’re actually something that’ll become a reality. And, stupidly, Robin thinks at the moment that she’s positive they will.
As they pass through Reverse Mountain, Robin lies to all four of her crew. Well, she lies again, but somehow this time feels worse than any of the others.
“I want to understand…” Robin sucks in a breath, and tries to remember some of the fairytales in Blackleg's old books. “The All Blue,” she course corrects. “I want to understand the All Blue.”
Luffy’s eyes follow her, and for a moment, one she’s not sure anyone else catches, he frowns. She’s sure she’s found out then, and her stomach sinks low in her chest, but soon after the look is gone and Luffy’s smiling, big and bright, yet again.
“I want to be King of the Pirates!” Luffy announces, and despite herself, Robin can’t help but smile.
Hopefully, she thinks, one day she can be honest with these idiots she calls her crew. Not today. Not today, but she can hope for tomorrow.
Reality forces the truth out of her, much sooner than she’d liked.
Robin’s sure they’re through with all Whiskey Peak has to offer. Their ruse of a party is ruined, Zoro cuts up an entire country of bounty hunters but more chase after them still, and they manage to secure the passage of a literal princess as their next job. There is nothing this tiny island in the Grand Line can do for them.
She should have never underestimated the Grand Line. Everyone’s bone-tired by the time they get back to the Merry, but it’s absolutely no excuse for how quickly they’re taken out.
Somehow, all of them miss an intruder on the Merry until it’s way too late.
Nami notices first, freezing on deck as she looks up to the Merry’s top railing. “Who– who are you?!” she yells, drawing all the Strawhats’ attention up to their intruder.
Their intruder moves way too quickly, and suddenly Nami yells again. “What the-!?” Robin twists her head back around, just in time to see Nami’s arm pinned to the mast by her sleeve and a dagger.
Their eyes meet, Nami’s eyes wide and afraid, and that’s all Robin needs to take action.
Aiming one foot high over their intruder’s head, Robin aims for a quick slam to the skull. Unfortunately for her, he dodges the attack easily, and goes for his own attack to the shin. She’s expecting it to hurt, because she knows that move, but no. Much like Zeff’s own pulled kicks, the move only grazes her.
His foot doesn’t quite connect as hard, but even the tap to the side somehow saps the energy out of her. Her breath traps in her stomach, and before she can see what even hit her the intruder’s off to the next fight.
Robin tries, as much as she’s able, to pick herself up off the deck. Her hands scramble for purchase, and her legs feel like a young fawn’s below her. What the hell, this shouldn’t be that hard– just what are they up against?
Soon enough, Usopp’s taken out with just one warning shot and a flurry of kicks. Zoro is just as easily taken out, his swords soon flung across the deck with one kick and another sending him flying against the wood door of the galley. Nami’s still trapped on the mast and, surprisingly, Vivi remains untouched.
Maybe it’s not so surprising that this man is avoiding any contact with the women of the Strawhat crew. An unmistakable dread sits in Robin’s chest. Why the hell is this man so familiar? It can’t be– it can’t–
Then, somehow, the kicks hit Luffy hard. One second Robin’s sure their captain can take the man out, the next he’s in a heap on the floor. He claws at the deck of the Merry, but one more knock of the man’s boots shrivels him up like paper in water.
Definitely seastone boots, then. That’s not good. She freezes, and tries to find the intruder as soon as she can, but it’s no use. They’re outmatched.
Sunlight blocks her vision. Their intruder has, infuriatingly, sat himself on the upper railing of the Merry like he doesn’t even consider them a threat. It’s hard to make out any details, but the man is tall, clad in deep blacks and somber purples, and wearing a pair of heavy, seastone-toed boots. His belt’s clad with a menagerie of knives and guns, but that’s not what catches her eye.
“I didn’t mean to be rude,” says the man. “I’m Mr. Ash Wednesday. It’s nice to meet you, Straw Hat Monkey D. Luffy,” he says, aiming a gun to Luffy, and then dragging it to Zoro. “Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro.”
In all his appearance, what shocks her most are the two, identical golden bracelets sitting on his wrist. Something freezes in her chest at the familiarity, and her heart catches in her throat.
“Cat Burglar Nami. Miss Sunday, rather, Princess Nefertari Vivi,” Mr. Ash Wednesday continues. The Strawhat pirates– her crew– are beholden to the extended introduction, being sorely outmatched.
The capability to breath returns to her in a shock, and like an undammed river she sucks in air with more force than necessary.
She can’t get a good look at the man with the hat covering his face. All she can stare at are those damn bracelets, the simple, cuff-like design being just like Zeff’s. They’re tight fit, just like Zeff’s, the leather of his gloves only just sliding under the gold metal.
“Usopp,” Mr. Ash Wednesday says.
“Hey! Why don’t I get a title-” Usopp interrupts, then covers his own mouth with his hand.
Nami hits him in the back of the head. “-is that really important right now?!”
Is she being overly paranoid? Surely, more than one pirate at sea can have a set of bracelets. There’s no way. There’s no way it’s him.
“And Blackleg Robin,” says the man, his face still shrouded by his dark, wide-brimmed hat.
With one gloved hand, he uses his gun to lift up his own hat, revealing a shock of bright blonde fringe, one piercing blue eye, and a curled eyebrow. He stares down at Robin, eye calculating and resentful, and for once, she feels uncomfortably seen.
The eyebrow is familiar. She’s seen it, in the photo books and newspaper clips Zeff so carelessly tried to hide from her. It’s his room Zeff had kept so neat before she came, his role she’d taken, his life she’d stepped into in order to shed her own.
“That’s not quite right,” he states. He leans forward, placing his elbows on his knees and his chin in one hand. “Is it?”
Denial starts in her throat. She’d hidden her past, long ago, buried it under the facade of the role she’s playing. The role that earned her the undeserved kindness she oh so yearned for. She’s wearing a dead man’s shoes and claiming a dead man’s title, and now she’s come face to face with the corpse himself.
“Let me correct myself then,” says Mr. Ash Wednesday– rather, says Blackleg Sanji. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Demon Child Nico Robin.”
And Robin’s house built on sand comes crumbling down.