"And then Shanks saved me from the stupid dog!" Luffy concludes. "But he got bitten, and he still wouldn't let me go on a road trip with him. I told him I was gonna surpass him some day, and he gave me his hat. That's why I'm going to have the most successful gang of all time, got it?" He beams at Robin, who thinks to herself that that explained absolutely nothing. She doesn't voice the thought, though, because by now she knows not to attempt to parse out her charge's logic.
Luffy, over the course of the last week, has told her many intriguing but convoluted stories. He's quiet the little chatterbox, in fact. Robin certainly isn't complaining, having always been more of an observer, and plenty of what he's said she's filed away as possible blackmail material. Not that she thinks she'll need it, but she's learned to take leverage when she can.
So far, she's been able to piece together a good amount of the boy's history. Luffy'd been born in Brazil, when, for reasons unknown, his mother had vanished. He was three at the time and according to what he'd told Robin, he had no firm memory of her, and seemed unbothered by the whole ordeal. He'd then been picked up by his grandfather, who he sounds frightened of, and taken to Colorado, where he'd lived in a small town, with only the supervision of a petty criminal named Dadan. Apparently he had made friends with a man named "Shanks," and two older boys who he insisted are his brothers. The brothers of his sound like little scoundrels, at least as far as the law is concerned, and apparently Shanks is the head of a mafia family. After Luffy had been caught trying (and failing) to hijack a truck load of meat, his grandfather had decided the people he'd left Luffy with were a bad influence on him. In response, he'd sent him to live with an ex-assassin. Robin feels as though his brain should be dissected for science.
All of this Robin had garnered from the garbled vignettes Luffy had regaled her with during meals or moments they caught together when she wasn't working. And work she does - she is still working at the library, but the day after she'd officially become Luffy's guardian, she'd gone out in search of a second job. If she is to be a surrogate mother, surely she will be financially responsible enough to provide for more than herself. She used her old fake credentials to become a curator at Prinville's small history museum. Neither of her jobs pay superbly, but it should be enough for her and Luffy to live off. If the boy doesn't eat her out of house and home, that is.
When she goes off to work at the library by day, she first drops him off at a local daycare, run by a stern man known as Jinbei. That's another cost, along with medical care, clothes, toys and books, that Robin has to take into consideration. Then after working an eight hour shift, she picks him up, usually with a few exasperated yet fond comments on Luffy's behavior. Jinbei is a long-suffering fellow, who grew to like her charge quickly, despite his chaotic nature. She still thinks he'll be relieved when Luffy begins first grade in the fall. (From Garp, Robin learned that Luffy, although old enough to be in second grade, had no previous education. The knowledge had made her want to slap the man for irresponsibility - even a child as simple as Luffy ought to be in school.)
Once she's taken Luffy home, she attempts to provide him with the bonding and nurturing that the parenting books she's checked out from the library and the articles she's found online have said are important to any child's development. It's not difficult - Luffy is a cheerful and entertaining child, and Robin has made it a goal of hers to give him the best childhood possible. Besides, it has led to much amusement for her, even excluding the stories he's shared in regards to his life. For instance, when she'd divulged to him that she is Russian, he'd later raided her kitchen for all the vodka she was sure to own. It had taken him a whole two days to get her name right, previously calling her "Miss Nicky," before finally settling on "Robin" because he likes it better.
One of the only areas in which Luffy is easy to control is his sleeping, as he routinely passes out by eight, or at the latest, nine. He uses her old guest room, which has been transformed inexorably into Luffy's play-den. Robin works nights at the museums, her shift running from ten o'clock through four. When Luffy starts school, she imagines, she'll get less sleep, but for now, she gets to rest until around eight-thirty, before having to start all over again. It's lucky her old life has conditioned her for such a taxing routine.
While it's a fine way of living, the weekends are what Robin loves the best, as she truly is allowed to relax and spend time with the child. She's only known Luffy for a few short weeks, but it feels like a lifetime. Who she was before is now an alien entity - that Robin who had gone through her days alone, thinking only of herself. Everything is different now.
She can't explain why this transformation has occurred. Luffy, on the surface, is not so complicated. Even a child does not escape from Robin's analytical eye, and she has spent spare time wondering what is so special about him. He is amusing, of course, but Robin can name any number of individuals who he shares that in common with. From what she has divined, he is nothing more than a silly eight year old boy, whose smiles are as bright as the sun, yes, but whose nature is immature as one would expect.
Has he brought so much change to her life simply because he is an innocent child, one who has provided her with meaning and companionship? Those things are certainly both true, but she doesn't think those account for the way she wants to protect him, the way her heart swells when he runs to her after a long day of work.
One thing Robin has been able to single out about him: he reminds her of Saul. She prefers not to drudge up those memories, though, so instead she devotes her time to work or play, as Luffy demands it.
"Robin! Come see! I wanna show you! Come quick, come quick!" It's a fair Saturday, and Robin has taken Luffy to the park. While he is clamoring over every available surface, she is reading a book detailing the exploits and psychosis of one of the most infamous serial killer of all time. (She considered narrating it to Luffy as a bedtime story, but concluded that it's above his reading level.)
She stands up and stretches, leisurely looking around. It's not a particularly impressive park, which she supposes makes sense, with Prinville's medium population and lack of community. The day is lovely, however, and while Robin prefers the darkness, she can admit the sun shining through the trees and the wind blowing the scent of flowers past her is very soothing. Luffy's imploring voice calling to her is not, so she picks up her pace, finding the child sitting in a patch of grass, looking intently at moving figures on the ground.
His head turns up to see her, and the corners of his mouth pull apart even farther. "Ah, there you are! Look, look, look!"
So she looks, and her eyes take in two very impressive beetles that Luffy is fearlessly forcing to race. "Hm," Robin says, "Dynastes tityus is the one on the left, I believe, and the other is a Pasimachus depressus."
"Huh? Whazzat?" Luffy scratches his head.
"Their scientific names."
"Whoa." Luffy looks back at the beetles in awe - the Dynastes tityus is winning. "You guys have met scientists, and they gave you fancy names?"
Robin smiles indulgently. "No, those names are what their species is called."
"What's a species? Can I eat it? Is it carne?"
"A species is what specific type of creature a being is. So you're a human, which makes you a Homo sapiens."
"Cool!" Luffy looks down at his hands. "I'm a Homo! I can't wait to tell Sabo."
Oh dear, Robin thinks, and begins to laugh. When Luffy inquires about what's so funny, she shakes him off, redirecting his attention to the race. "Do your beetles have a finish line?"
"Yep," he replies happily, nodding towards some distant trees. "They won't hurry up though." Then he precedes to heckle the insects, poking at them until they move faster. Once they're going at an acceptable rate, he starts to squirm and cheer, rooting for one and then the other, depending on who had the lead. Robin joined in for the fun of it.
It's Pasimachus depressus that crosses under the shadow of the mimosa Luffy choose out first, and Luffy proudly proclaims he's won. Robin tactfully does not point out that he was the only one who was playing.
Perhaps that thought occurred to him none-the-less, because Luffy is quiet on the walk home. When Robin holds out her hand for him to take when crossing the street, he grabs it tightly, and when they are safely on the sidewalk again, he doesn't let go.
"Are you alright, sir?" she asks, using the sort-of pet name she'd given him on their first day of having known each other. It usually makes him giggle, but not this time. He casts his gaze down, the straw hat shading his eyes.
"I used to play that game with Ace and Sabo," he mutters. His voice is thick.
"Now," Robin says awkwardly, not sure how handle the situation, "don't cry."
"I'm not crying!" Luffy says, desperately trying to sound tough. "Ace says crying is for babies."
In other circumstances, she would use this moment to gently bring up that just because Ace said crying was "for babies," it didn't mean that was the view Luffy had to have. But at the moment, she doesn't know what to say at all.
Robin is smart - she knows it, she's always known it. Her intellect, she knows, is, at the end of the day, all she really has to offer herself and others. It's failing her now, though, so what good is it really?
For all her experience with manipulation and understanding of the human psyche, she can't comfort a small child. She is stuck, staring at the top of his head, wanting to reach out but frozen.
And even if she knew how to, she isn't sure she'd be able to face her selfishness. Beyond a few seconds of musing, she hadn't stopped to ponder Luffy's feeling, not since she'd first met him. No, she'd been too caught up in herself, in work or how she felt about the situation, without realizing that she wasn't the one who'd been uprooted from her home and taken from her family, a feeling she should have been able to sympathize with. No, Luffy had made her life better, and she'd naïvely assumed that was true both ways.
How wrong had it been of her, to think that because Luffy seemed simple and content, that he could feel nothing but happiness? With how warmly he spoke of his brothers, how could she, who prided herself in her awareness of those around her, have thought he would not miss them?
The answer to those questions was that Robin was still, after everything, a damned oblivious fool. Her head was in the clouds, despite how many times she'd realized in the past how that vantage point skews a true understand of the world. She'd selfishly clung to the storybook picture of her and Luffy as a family, of her as someone with value, when she should have known better.
Robin's step wobbles as she leads Luffy back to the house in a daze, the sun setting behind them. Luckily, she'd started dinner before they'd left, so she places it gingerly in front of him, before fleeing to her bedroom. She collapses against the wall, closing her eyes tight. She can't face him.
Oh god. What is she going to do?
She can't raise a child. What had ever possessed her to think she could? She's stumbling in the dark, and she's only going to end up lost.
Besides, a voice from deep in her mind whispers, you're not really pure-intentioned and giving, taking care out of the boy out of the goodness of your heart, are you? No - you're using him, like you use everyone, for some sick little game. Trying "to start over" with him, huh? Did you think about what would actually be right for him? Or are you actually so selfish that you thought your pathetic attempts would give him what he needs? You have seen what happens when something is used. It ends up dry and empty.
She knows it's true. She was an assassin, a thief, a liar - she'd acted as though her life was worth the detriment of others. And now she's using another's life - a child's - to make herself feel as though that was all justified.
Robin can't raise Luffy. She'll ruin him. She ruins everything.
She hears her door creak open, and with a start she realizes tears are streaming down her cheeks. She turns her face to the side, not wanting Luffy to worry.
But because he's a better person than she'll ever be, he steps over to where she's slumped on the floor and sits down next to her. "Nah, Robin, why're you crying?" he asks, a little blankly, but his hand has reached out to touch hers, making up for his lack of intonation.
She's such a bad person that her own child is having to comfort her. It should be the other way around.
"My child," Robin whispers, wondering at the way her mind had automatically phrased that. No matter the wrong or right of it, she recognizes Luffy as hers now. She doesn't know if she can bear to let that go.
"Hey," Luffy says, his tiny hand slipping thoroughly into hers. "You're gonna tell me what's the problem now. Okay?"
Robin manages a watery grin, turning her head to glance at him. "Yes sir." She takes a deep breath. "You miss your brothers. I can tell. And I love having you here with me, but I'm just being selfish. I'm also worried about a lot of boring adult stuff." There. She hopes that satisfies him.
Luffy nods thoughtfully. "Well, I do miss my brothers. But you're stupid for being sad." She lets out a quick laugh, and he grins and continues. "See, I don't say goodbye to people, even my brothers, because I'm going to see them again someday. It's not a sad thing to be away from them, even if I miss them sometimes, 'cause I know they're fine. Plus, they promised they'd visit me!"
"Is that so? I don't think Garp would allow that to happen."
"Ah, Ace said something about sneaking on an airplane..." He smiles brightly, but then sobers again. "And the other thing you said - for a smart lady you're really dumb. Being selfish isn't a bad thing when it's to do with family! I don't wanna be away from you either, Robin!"
Luffy's eyes are shining with sincerity. She has to look away. "Oh." She breathes out deeply. "You have a surprising amount of insight, Luffy."
"Shishishishi! Really?" He bounces a little in happiness.
"Yes." She smiles at him softly.
She may not be a perfect person. She knows she isn't the best choice for caring for a kid. But she already loves him, and that has to count for something. All she can do is try. Robin is smart - she'll make her way through this. Right in that moment, she promises that she will be the very best version of herself there is. For Luffy. For her child.
"Come on," Robin says, standing up. "Let's go get you some dessert."
"Yay!"
AN/ This chapter gave me all sorts of trouble, mostly to do with organization. Bleh. I hope it came out alright. Haha, writing Robin's rather screwed up logic was fun! Though I love her rational side too. Like, lady, Garp was the one who took him from his brothers, not you. But hey, that's what years of living the shittiest life possible can do to a person! Screws with the self-image, even for someone as smart as Robin. At least her reaction here didn't involve her running away; no Buster Call to threaten I guess.
We will be seeing more of both Robin's past and the city they're living in at the moment in the future. Ace and Sabo will not be appearing in this fic, but I'm planning on writing a side story one shot in which they come to visit.
Anyway, next chapter will introduce a green-haired friend of Luffy's!
Thanks so so SO much to everyone who faved and followed last chapter! I'm very flattered that you all enjoyed it!