Crocodile hefted the lifeless body into the air, the old man bent double over his massive, blood-stained hook. The small crowd looked on in horror as the criminal slammed the spent body down onto the bar, before flicking his wrist and sending him flying through the various bottles of alcohol and tonic. A nasty streak of blood stained the counter in his wake, and he fell listlessly, landing amidst broken shards and wasted drink.
Crocodile cackled, admiring the mess that he'd made. "Anyone else brave enough to try their luck?" He cleaned the blood from his blade with a handkerchief, before callously tossing it over the old man's body. "Nobody?" He almost looked disappointed. "Pity."
A young woman rushed over to the body, messy tears streaking down her pretty face. She couldn't have been much more than sixteen or so. As soon as she was at his side, she began attempting to revive him. It wasn't long before her hands were slick with blood, the front of her white lace dress utterly ruined. Between her sobs, the few decipherable words she spat out revealed that the man was her grandfather.
Crocodile's grin grew impossibly wide. Reaching down, he grabbed her under the arm with his hook, effortlessly lifting her lithe body into the air. "You looking to join him, sweetheart?"
"Rot in hell, you sick bastard." And then she spat on him. There was a moment of tense silence as Crocodile's grin slowly fell.
Crocodile's eyes glazed over, his mouth pulling into a tense, thin line. "I'm going to take great pleasure in killing you."
He threw her body across the room with incredible ease, and she hit the wall with enough force to cause ash and bits of plaster to kick up into the air. The crowd screamed as her body fell to the floor, motionless. But nobody dared move to check on her. That easy grin returned to Crocodile's face - he didn't mind getting his hands dirty, if it meant reminding a few rowdy citizens exactly where their place was: beneath him.
His work done, he turned to leave... before pausing. He'd expected the little leech to have attached herself to his side by now, hiding herself in the enormity of his coat. She'd never much liked violence (it was any wonder that she was his child at all), and the sight of blood terrified her. He gave his hook a cursory glance, before rolling his eyes when the little girl continued to hide from him. He sighed - didn't she realize they had better places to be?
"Merci!" He bit down on his cigar, trying to keep a lid on his anger. Getting upset with her wouldn't get him anywhere. "Come out, come out, wherever you are, little bird. Daddy's not in the mood to play games."
At the sound of her name, a tiny head poked around the side of one of the fallen tables. "D-Daddy...?"
It was amazing how quickly a simple run for ice cream could go horribly, horribly wrong. He didn't have the temperament to be a halfway decent father and he knew it. Had told Robin that it was a bad idea as soon as she said she was pregnant. Robin had simply snapped and told him that it would be a hell of a lot easier if he acted like he gave two shits about her. Because, for some unfathomable reason, the little leech didn't think he loved her.
Seeing that she wasn't about to move, Crocodile sighed, before beginning to approach her. She let out a high-pitched squeal, before skittering away from him. "N-No! You're a... You're a monster! D-Don't hurt me, please! Just stay away!"
Those words hurt him in a way he didn't remember he could be hurt. It was like a knife through the heart he sometimes forgot was still beating. He forced himself to ignore it, "It's not worth my time to hurt you, kid." He used his hook to scoop her up by the back of her dress, starting toward the door to the tavern.
But she was still thrashing wildly in his grip, her movements so violent he almost dropped her. "No! I... I hate you! Put me down!"
Crocodile scowled. Her behavior at a time like this could put unwanted ideas in the citizens minds... after all, how could he incite fear in thousands when he couldn't even handle one six-year-old girl? And so he put her down, turning his back on her. "Fine. You won't last three minutes on your own, anyhow. What a bother."
He would've thought that that would've been enough to get her going, but no. She scampered away from him, hiding behind the overturned table and curling into a ball, her sobs piercing the uncomfortable silence that had fallen. He'd never seen the little leech break down like that before, and reasoned that all the commotion must've really scared her. And then he corrected himself - he must've really scared her. The ache in his chest increased tenfold.
Well, there was no helping it now. He lit another cigar, before drawing his coat in around him and exiting the tavern. He couldn't help but miss the tiny body that would normally be wrapped around his leg like a vice, a tiny hand gripping his cold, golden hook like it was the hand it had once been. But he quickly shook off the feeling, wondering exactly when he'd allowed the little leech to make him so weak.
"I hope that you're proud of yourself." Robin said darkly, cradling their sleeping daughter in her arms. Merci was covered in bruises, and there was a bloody bandage on her left shoulder.
"What the hell happened to her?" Robin gently placed the child on her bed, tucking her soft, blue blanket tightly around her.
"I haven't the slightest. She won't tell me anything." A hand sprouted up at the head of the bed, stroking the girl's violet curls away from her sweaty forehead. "Other than the fact that you killed a helpless old man in front of her."
Crocodile wasn't impressed, "She isn't gonna survive long if she can't handle a little blood."
Robin frowned, "I saw the tavern. That wasn't a little blood. And you just left her there in the middle of a bloodthirsty crowd that was practically screaming for your head." She glared at him, "That must qualify you for Dad of the Year."
"Well, I won't be winning that award any time soon." Robin was about to counter with a roll of the eyes and a snarky 'no shit', when Crocodile continued, "Because Merci has made it quite clear that she hates me."
"She told you that?" Crocodile didn't answer, which was answer enough. "You know she didn't mean it, right?"
Crocodile raised an eyebrow, "Didn't she?"
And Robin actually had the audacity to laugh. "It's really bothering you, isn't it?" She sighed, turning her attention back to the sleeping child. "I know that you love her. What she said... it wouldn't upset you if you didn't care." And then, she added, "And for some reason, she loves you too."
His hand clenched at his side as he silently imagined what must've gone down in the tavern once he'd left. Putting your hands on a child was low, even by his standards. No matter how much the little runt irritated him, he'd never lay a hand (or hook) on her. The fact that someone had dared put their hands on his little girl made him want to head back to that shitty little, piss-ass tavern and burn it to the ground.
Robin watched him, smiling softly to herself. Fatherhood certainly hadn't come natural to Crocodile - in fact, there was a while there when she thought he was going to reject the idea entirely. Children were liabilities. Merci was his weakness, and Crocodile didn't do vulnerability. But he was getting the hang of it, in his own little way. He was a hard, cold, merciless man. She didn't expect him to be any different with their daughter. Being hard didn't mean he didn't love her.
"She'll be fine. She's your daughter, after all." Robin rose slowly, coming to stand in front of her partner. "That little girl looks at you like you hung the moon, Crocodile. She doesn't hate you, she's just scared. And she's even more scared by the idea that you'll be disappointed in her for being afraid."
Crocodile frowned, chewing on the filter of his cigar. "She told you all of this?"
Robin crossed her arms over her chest, before shooting the child a fond glance. "Call it a mother's intuition."
It was at that moment that the child began to stir. She slowly blinked open her big blue eyes, her small bedroom gradually coming into focus. When she saw her mother and father hovering just beside her bed, she thought about pretending that she was still asleep. She knew that her Daddy was mad at her for how she'd behaved earlier in the tavern, and she really wasn't anxious to make it any worse.
Robin smiled at her warmly. "I'll leave the two of you alone, then."
"Mommy..." Merci watched, uncertain, as her mother left the room. She eyed her father out of the corner of her eye, unable to make out his face from behind the cloud of pinkish smoke. "Daddy, I..." she sniffled, desperately trying to keep the tears at bay.
Crocodile looked up to the heavens, taking a deep breath for strength. "For the love of God, don't start crying again."
"I'm sorry." She gripped the blanket tightly in her small fists, trying and failing to obey her father's command.
He sighed. He was supposed to be making her feel better, but instead of doing that, he was snapping like a rubberband stretched out too far. And the sad look in her big blue eyes just made that ache in his chest that much worse. "What the hell happened to you? You look like you got your ass handed to you."
"Those people... they called you bad names, Daddy... said that you should die for what you did..." Merci stared at her hands, trying to keep them from shaking. "What they were saying... it wasn't okay. Even after what you did... I don't want you to die..."
Crocodile blinked, her words beginning to sink in. Even after ruthlessly killing that old man and his granddaughter in front of her, even after she'd screamed how much she hated him, she'd defended him against a crowd of people out for his blood. And she'd been severely injured because of it. He was distinctly proud of what she'd done, even if he was going to make damn sure that she never did anything like that ever again.
"I'm not going anywhere." He said flatly. The odds of anyone around here being able to kill him were slim to none, but kids had the weirdest fears.
A week later, and things had yet to be resolved. The little leech had gone back to being the clingy bugger he was used to, but she didn't speak unless spoken to and refused to meet Crocodile's eyes. Normally, he'd be all-for not having to decipher six-year-old blabber. He had better things to do than play dolls or have make believe tea parties - that was more Robin's territory. But the silence was just a constant reminder that, even after all this time, she was still scared of him.
"We're here." He said, noting with disdain that the patrons were already sizing him up through the window. This would not be pleasant.
Merci let out an inhuman-sounding squeak when she looked up and realized that they were at the tavern, "D-Daddy... why're we here?"
"Because I could go for a drink," or twenty, he thought blandly. Reaching down, he scooped the little girl into his arms, pushing through the swinging doors. "And I promised you ice cream. I am nothing if not a man of my word."
Merci got her ice cream - a giant strawberry and vanilla sundae. Chocolate syrup was drizzled over the sugary mounds, with a cherry resting on each of the three peaks. Crocodile had a shot glass full of sake, which he swallowed down in one gulp. He watched the leech gobble down her food, realizing for the first time how big she'd gotten as of late. He didn't really think about it much, considering she'd always been so small and sickly. It was almost as if he blinked his eyes and six years had gone by.
There had been many complications with Robin's pregnancy. They hadn't been trying to get pregnant and running a crime syndicate bent on taking over a kingdom didn't exactly create many allies. The people had been incredibly hostile, and it wasn't until she was almost seven months along that they'd finally found a doctor willing to help them. By then, the umbilical cord had wrapped around Merci's neck and they'd been forced to do an emergency c-section.
"Well, well, well... look what we have here." Crocodile felt the icy cold metal of a rifle barrel butt up against the base of his neck. He didn't so much as flinch, but Merci was keening. "Not so interested in throwing people around when they can defend themselves, huh?"
"Daddy..." she looked about ready to cry. She knew he wouldn't get hurt, understanding his devil fruit on the most basic of levels.
"I'm not going to do anything." Crocodile assured softly. It was perhaps the gentlest thing that he'd ever said to her.
"Not going to do anything? I'll end you, bastard!" The rifle went off, Crocodile's body turning to sand as the bullet passed through harmlessly, embedding itself into the still-bloody bar. The man continued to attack until he exhausted himself, collapsing to the ground in a heap.
Irritation was practically rolling off of him in waves, but still, he didn't move. "You okay, little bird?"
"Y-Yeah." She swallowed hard, before looking up at her father. "Daddy? How come you didn't attack him back?"
Crocodile smirked. One minute she was condemning him for attacking the citizens of the kingdom of Alabasta, the next she was wondering why he was holding back. "Because you are my mercy, and I don't want to scare you."
Merci was grinning from ear to ear. "I'm so proud of you, Daddy!" She threw her body at him, clinging onto him tightly. "I love you!"
And, even if he'd never admit it aloud, the relief that filled him in that moment was amazing. "I'm kinda fond of you too, kid."
A/N: So this is my first Crocodile/Robin fic, and my first One Piece fic, so please be gentle. I tend to think that Crocodile would be a kind of harsh, cold, yet still loving father. So... what did everyone think?