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Robin is giddy after they leave Skypeia. Or, well— giddy might not be the right word, but it's as close as Sanju thinks he's ever seen her. She keeps smiling softly to herself as she looks out across the horizon, reading and rereading and writing and crossing out in her journal. If Sanji wasn't horrified at the thought of touching a lady's things without her permission, he'd have looked in it already. But he is, so his curiosity goes unrewarded.
Sanji doesn't have the chance to ask Robin about it for a while, not with everything going to hell in G-8, but once Navarone is a speck on the horizon, Sanji sidles up to Robin. He uses a snack as an excuse: contrary to popular belief (read: the Marimo), he's not entirely clueless when it comes to interpersonal relationships. When he comes over, Robin gives him a knowing look.
...Okay, well, Robin's a clever woman. And it's not like he was actually trying to hide his intentions.
Robin rests her chin on her hand. She'd been reading when Sanji walked up— not her notebook, for once, just some novel. "Hello, Mr. Cook," she says with a smile.
"You don't need to call me that. Just Sanji is fine," he replies automatically. To tell the truth, he's a little miffed she doesn't remember his name, but... whatever. She hasn't been part of the crew very long. Maybe she doesn't remember.
Robin gives Sanji a look he can't quite decipher. She's an interesting woman— not that all women aren't interesting, of course. Every woman is like a rose, unique in their patterns and no less beautiful for it. But Robin is... Sanji struggles to describe her. She has a morbid sense of humor, much like his own, and she seems to get that for all his flirting and fawning, he's not genuinely interested in her that way. Where Nami takes advantage of it (and he knows that's what she's doing, he's not an idiot), Robin accepts Sanji's act with a smile. In fact, she seems to... take it to heart, in a way. It's clear no one has ever gone out of their way to make her feel special. That's a tragedy, in Sanji's book.
Robn is quiet for a moment before saying, "Well, then. Hello, Sanji. What brings you here?"
"J- just bringing a cold drink to a lovely lady," he stutters. Robin looks at him like he's a book; like she's translating every page of him.
She takes the drink in a summoned hand. "Is that so? Well, thank you, Sanji. That's very kind."
He waves her off. "Oh, it's nothing. Just doing my job."
Robin hums. "I've been on a great many ships in my life. This one is different."
That's interesting. Yet another piece to the puzzle that is his newest crewmate. "Oh?"
She takes a pensive sip of her drink. "You have snacks."
There's an awkward silence. Is that... all? Is she going to add on?
She doesn't elaborate, instead turning back to her book.
"Well, I guess that's pretty strange..." Sanji hasn't been on a whole lot of ships besides the Orbit and the Baratie, and those were both based around food, but he's been around pirates long enough to know that they typically don't have enough food for snacks. The Straw Hats are just lucky Sanji has experience in planning out ahead of time, whipping the smallest things into a meal. Who would have guessed the most traumatic three months of his life would give him such a useful skill?
Robin laughs softly. "This crew is very strange. Nothing like any I've ever seen." She turns back to him, expression fond. "But they're wonderful. If a little unorthodox."
"Yeah. Luffy has a way of making things turn out in his favor." Sanji returns her smile with one of his own.
A beat. "You don't smile very much, do you?" Sanji gives the archaeologist a wild look. "You should smile more. It looks nice."
Despite his flirting, Sanji isn't really interested in his female crewmates. Still, he can't help the flush that blooms across his face at the sudden compliment. "Thank you?" he says, voice strangled. Robin just laughs again.
"So, Sanji, what brings you here?" Sanji's still too off guard, he can't think of a lie.
"I was wondering... what did you see in Skypeia?"
She quirks an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
Sanji shrugs, taking a seat across from her. "Just before we left, you went off on your own. You've been real happy ever since."
Robin smiles again. It's a beautiful smile, like sunshine peeking through rainclouds. As loath as Sanji is to tell a lady what to do, he gets the strange urge to tell her she should smile more, too. "I saw something that gave me hope for my dream," she says after a long pause.
"Your dream?" Sanji blinks. He feels bad for not remembering what she said her dream was, but... he'd been a little distracted when she showed up.
Robin sets her drink down with a small thunk, stirring it with the straw absentmindedly. "My dream. To learn the true history and share it with the world."
The joy emanating from Robin is infectious. It's a tired kind of joy, relieved, like coming back home after a grueling shift at work to find dinner already made. Like she's found something she'd given up on. "To do that, I needed to find the poneglyphs," she continues. Upon Sanji's confused look, she adds, "Stone tablets written in a dead language. They're practically indestructible, but very well hidden."
This sounds familiar. "Like the one Crocodile was looking for in Alabasta?"
Robin nods. "That one only had information on a weapon, which wasn't what I wanted. It was my only hope at the time. After the tomb collapsed... I lost hope. I just wanted to die."
Something in Sanji's heart aches. He knows that feeling, that bone-crushing hopelessness when your dream is so close yet so far out of reach. It's how he felt every day on the Baratie, at least until a straw hat-wearing maniac crashed into his life and gave him the chance to chase it. He suspects Robin's story is similar.
"But Luffy saved me, and in that, gave me another chance. I— I found a poneglyph on Skypeia," she says excitedly. "It was fascinating. But that's not even the best part— it had a message carved into the gold on the side, signed by Roger himself!"
Hold up. "Roger made it all the way to Skypeia?"
Robin nods. "And the message was written in the poneglyph's language! Roger could read the poneglyphs!" She laughs, joy palpable. Sanji wants to reach out and hold it in his hands.
That's... "Amazing," he says. He's no history buff, but Gol D. Roger knowing how to read and write poneglyphs is... a huge discovery. If nothing else, Robin is ecstatic about it.
Robin waves her hands excitedly. This is the most animated Sanji thinks he's ever seen her, and it's... endearing. Yeah, that's the right word. "But the best part is that the poneglyph and Roger's message both said something about 'bringing it to the end', which makes me think that the secrets of the true history are on the Rio Poneglyph at the end of the Grand Line! And maybe that—"
She's talking so fast that Sanji can't really keep up, but Robin's face lights up when she talks. He rests his chin on his hand and watches her talk.