A/N: This one almost got cut, it's not really necessary after all, but I'm really happy with how it's shaped up. Robin is a fun pov to work with! I hope you all enjoy it to.

To the guest who asked about the next major injury in the series, yeah! It's a little strange but even though the base plot is about wound treatment, it's always really been about the Straw Hats caring for Luffy. I assume you're talking about Aokiji, and the next chapter is actually one of the first ones I imagined and outlined because I loved how the moment went and I wanted to dwell in it more. It's a little shorter than usual, but I think you'll find that canon covering the subject better than usual doesn't mean the Straw Hats are done looking out for their captain : )

But No One's Laughing

In a lot of ways, it feels like a joke.

Foxy is the kind of man that their captain eats for breakfast, (not literally, though she wouldn't put it past him were he particularly hungry) and comes across more as a parody of an enemy than a real one. Robin watched her captain coat his fists in his own blood so that he might tear down a warlord, and charge into a storm, weighed down and wounded, to (ostensibly) dethrone a god. Truly he wanted to help a friend, and later to ring a bell, but she doesn't think the distinction matters much since both goals were accomplished.

In the face of that, Foxy is nothing. In the face of that, Robin has nothing to fear.

And yet she holds Chopper close in her lap, tries not to lurch into offense on her captain's behalf, and watches Luffy begin to lose.

There's a barrage of punches, a flurry of explosions, and a volley of arrows- one thing after another that Luffy is struggling to manage, because being resilient doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. It hurts watching too, and a glance down at the rest of the crew, settled lower in the stands, shows that they aren't handling it well either.

A pyrrhic victory is not the sort of trophy she likes her captain to hold. He could crush this enemy captain as easily as he crushes steel between his teeth and yet he is thrown across the deck, from port to starboard and fore to aft, and Robin feels like watching this is a new kind of punishment that the world has decided to try against her. She hadn't realized how much she'd started to care. Usually, somehow, Luffy runs off on his own, corners his chosen enemy into the fight, and either collapses where they can find him or crawls back so they can skip worrying where he is and go straight to worrying about his health. At the end of the day Luffy will come back to them, bruised and bleeding and drained, but so rarely do they watch him fall into that state. They only deal with the aftermath.

Now they watch in slow motion.

Chopper whimpers by her side as another spiked punch thuds into his captain's face and then yells again as Luffy, once free of Foxy's powers, darts below deck to follow the trickster clown impersonating an enemy.

Robin debates the merits of tuning into the fight with her powers, maybe even discretely ending it herself since Luffy is having trouble, but eventually decides against it. She has no pirate pride to speak of, but her captain does, and she refuses to waste his efforts. If he's going to throw himself onto swords for them they'll just have to be extremely diligent about treating his stab wounds.

"Do you like getting burned? Is that what this is?"

Luffy wheezes out a laugh and tries to lay still as Chopper seethes, slopping poultice onto the new injuries.

"I don't!" He insists even as Nami scolds him and Usopp reaches out from where he kneels to touch his less injured shoulder. "I'm not trying to get hurt at all! Just…" he closes his eyes as Chopper prods at a particularly deep gouge from Foxy's gloves. "Just that getting hurt is worth it."

"That is the wrong attitude." Nami hisses. "We care about you Luffy- don't you get it? It hurts us to see you hurting. This isn't worth anything- except a whole lot of medical supplies!"

"Finishing a fight is one thing, letting a fight nearly finish you is another." Zoro says. He doesn't usually have much to say to these things, Robin has noticed, but he's even less pleased about these circumstances than they all usually are. "Just cause you can deal with the consequences doesn't mean you should. Start blocking things Luffy, or dodging. Our enemies are hitting harder the further along we go."

"Yeah, if Foxy can do this to you imagine what a real combatant could do!" Usopp yelps and starts chattering about the stories he's heard.

Robin glances behind them at the milling crew of the Sexy Foxy. Their own captain couldn't possibly be supported by all five hundred something members of their crew, not like Luffy can be cradled in Nami's lap, touched tenderly by Chopper's purposeful hooves, and guarded by Zoro and Sanji. As soon as the fight was officially over (Foxy surely sunk and Luffy the undeniable winner) he'd dropped to his knees and Sanji had dove into the water to climb aboard and collect him.

None of them had wanted to wait long enough to go back to the ship and so they'd set him down in the softest patch of grass they could find and made a shelter with their bodies to keep the other crew from interfering in any way. Luffy hadn't lasted long after they'd gotten ahold of him. Supported by Sanji as he was led over and listing onto Usopp's shoulder as they helped him sit down. Robin could see the fight go out of him, each muscle relaxing and his laughter shaking loose of his chest when Nami leant in to scold him.

And usually, by the time they can hold him, the battle fire in his eyes is well gone, but here she could watch it fade like someone turning down the fire of an oil lamp. Coaxed from something ravenous and burning back into something that was at its core a source of light.

The others do not dim so quickly. There's a hard edge in Sanji's eyes and a sharpness to Usopp's movements. Zoro stands with more obvious tension than the snoozing swordsman habitually displays.

Robin does not know their past so well, but she imagines that unlike herself most of them are not so privy to the lengths their captain will go. Where she watched three out of three battles against a warlord she's always gathered that they're used to seeing Luffy win. And not just eventually. She's thought before that Luffy needed to do better than learn from his mistakes. It's just that at the time that thought was an idle observation of a then doomed endeavor. Now it rises behind her breastbone like a deep breath that she can't release; it insists on having her attention.

"You can't keep doing this to yourself Cap'n." Sanji sighs and Luffy chuckles softly again, hiding a wince as Chopper pulls some sort of debris from a cut. "I'm serious Luffy." The cook frowns. "It's worked so far but it won't last. Being able to take a punch is important but that's not what's gonna win the fights."

"But Sanjiii," Robin spawns an arm and braces her palm against his shoulder when he goes to sit up. He scowls at her but it melts into a smile in seconds. Despite what he went through to get here he's in a good mood. "It's the only thing I can do." He sobers, relaxing back against the grass. "You're all way smarter than I am and I'd be nowhere without you! But this is what I can do." His smile springs back, dauntless. "I'm lucky."

"That's one way to put it." Nami mutters and casts an acid glare over her shoulder at a few Foxy pirates that have wandered a bit too close. They scowl back and melt into the crowd again. "Mostly you're just too stupid to kill. Don't know that you're supposed to be dead."

"I can't die until I'm the pirate king!" He riles instantly. "Of course I'm not supposed to be dead."

"What Miss Navigator means, Captain, is that you are capable of remaining conscious and performing extreme physical activity under significantly more duress than the typical human being." Robin explains. "A statement with which I agree." Luffy laughs, and while it's reserved compared to some of his usual guffaws there's no sadness or hesitation to it. It's sincere. All of Luffy is sincere.

It makes sense. Her whole life Robin has received falsehoods. Lies about her being wanted. Lies about her being safe. People tried to trick her into believing things that weren't true. They set up elaborate schemes that seemed built from paper maché with how easily they fell to pieces. People like Foxy have created countless mazes for her to run, in hopes of trapping her at a dead end. And she's dealt back everything she's been served. A better lie and a trickier maze. She catches people in their own traps.

There are no traps on the Merry except the ones Luffy doesn't even know that he's set. No tricks except the catch for following him which seems at first so free of attachments.

For once she doesn't want to lie.

"You should be more careful, Captain." She cautions. Luffy blinks his eyes back open from where he'd been drifting into sleep. "We'd all hate to see you bleeding out any more than is strictly necessary."

"Robin!" Usopp and Nami hiss while Chopper appears to suffer a minor heart attack. But Luffy smiles at her and she knows that he knows.

Perhaps not that she hasn't been able to say that to anyone in over twenty years, but at least that she means it.

A/N: Am I a little more off-topic from Luffy than usual? Perhaps. But Robin has thoughts and I am here to write them out and I'm rather pleased, ngl. Hopefully it meets your tastes as well. Let me know what you thought!