Impact
Marco arrived back on the Moby Dick in a singularly good mood despite having the faint impression of having forgotten something. Oh well, it would come to him eventually. In the mean time he had to tell his Pops about the island full of phoenixes he'd found in the Calm Belt –though he had not the slightest intention of mentioning the hot blonde– and see if his captain would be willing to let him visit again next year.
As it happened it turned out today was one of Pops' better days, and he was sitting out on deck with the nurses bustling around him and monitoring all the various machines he was hooked up to rather than in his cabin. February had been a bit rough this year and Marco was relieved to see that the Old Man was recovering from the cough he'd caught when half the crew came down with colds and winter fevers and one brother in ten had been bedridden for days at a time.
"Well, my son?" Pops asked as most of the other Division Commanders gravitated to the main deck to listen and the rest of the crew within earshot pretended to get on with their chores.
Marco grinned. "I found a whole island's worth of phoenixes, Pops!" he said brightly, propping his knuckles on his hips. "Turns out my Devil Fruit's not so mythical after all."
"Gurararara!" Whitebeard chuckled. "You seem much better for your little jaunt, Marco. You're always so twitchy in March." He smiled. "Not that most people would notice that."
"Eh," Marco scratched his head sheepishly, "seems that March is the time of year phoenixes congregate. They were starting to leave when I set out back home." The Moby Dick would always be his home, no matter how special that island was. "It's in the Calm Belt though and the cliffs are pretty steep. I don't think anyone could get onto that island unless they could fly or were prepared to scramble up vertical rock surfaces and around overhangs. I mean, the cliffs are higher than the Moby Dick's mainmast!"
Pops snorted. "Not really worth visiting then," he concluded, "except for you of course, my boy. We'll see about passing this way again next year."
Marco beamed. "Thanks Pops!"
The phoenix zoan wandered over to chat with his fellow Division Commanders to catch up with what had happened in his absence and was being ribbed by Vista about his uncharacteristic cheerfulness when his Kenbunshoku Haki screamed a warning. Marco tried to dodge the unexpected attack but it came too quickly: a Seastone pole slammed into his ribcage with a painful crunch of snapping bones and threw him into the wall of the poop at a speed that would have shattered his spine had he not called up Busoshoku Haki and his blue flames; as it was it hurt like the very devil and his head slammed into the boards hard enough to make him see stars.
Marco was blinking the flashing lights away and scrambling to his feet when a wave of Haoshoku Haki crashed down on him, blasting out from whoever had just attacked him and felling his brothers like saplings caught in a tsunami. The overwhelming force wasn't just Will, but filled with black, crushing fury so dense Marco gasped under the weight of it. He'd never felt haki like that directed at him before; he doubted anyone other than Pops and the other Division Commanders were still standing. It did clear his head though and his eyes focused on his attacker.
It was Spadille.
Thatch felt his blood chill as he perched on the rail he'd retreated to, his twin swords gripped loosely in his hands. Spadille was very obviously right there in the middle of the deck but the ginger couldn't feel anything at all from the man; he might as well have been a ghost for all Thatch could sense him. The part of his brain that processed his Observation Haki was insisting his eight-foot-tall brother wasn't there at all and it was terrifying to realise that it was possible for a person to hide their existence so thoroughly that no amount of haki training would let you hear them. Spadille could have killed Marco rather than just launch him into the side of the poop with a swing of the butt of his spear; one swing of the Seastone blade at the other end of the yari and the First Division Commander's head would have parted company with the rest of his body and no amount of Flames of Regeneration could have fixed that.
Spadille looked utterly terrifying and it wasn't just the heavy, treacle-thick Conqueror's Haki radiating from him that was intimidating. The blue-haired man wasn't smiling and the granite stillness of his blank, impassive features was made more unnerving by the inhuman red gleam of his eyes. Whitebeard's son usually had eyes in a rather warm shade of amber but it seemed that homicidal fury changed their colour to the dull crimson of drying blood. The way the ten-foot spear spun idly in Spadille's gloved right hand suggested that the fight had barely started, though why the usually cheerful flirt would suddenly decide to attack Marco of all people was a mystery. What the hell was going on?! There were only twelve people still conscious within sight and Thatch rather doubted anybody belowdecks had been spared. Several of his brothers had already fallen from the rigging to tumble bonelessly across the boards and anyone still aloft was only up there because they'd been lucky enough to get tangled in the rigging rather than dropping like rocks. No-one had fallen into the sea –a small mercy– but that didn't mean no-one would. What the hell was Spadille doing?!
Spadille whirled the spear, planted it blade-down in the deck and calmly advanced on Marco, gloved fingers flexing and the frighteningly blank expression still on his face. Thatch had fought people who raged and spat, people who laughed madly and people who were completely focussed on what they were doing but he'd never seen anyone who could shut down their face and body language so thoroughly that it was impossible to read their emotions. If it wasn't for the steady level of killing intent and Conqueror's Haki radiating from the tall man he wouldn't have had a clue what was going on in Spadille's head.
Marco clearly recognised he was under attack, though he didn't seem to have any more idea why than Thatch did.
"Spadille?" the blond zoan said warily, "What-"
Spadille moved in a blur: one minute he was ten feet away from Marco, the next the First Division Commander was screaming as his arms were bent and twisted behind his back in ways arms really weren't supposed to. The crunch and crack of shattered bones echoed across the deck as Spadille leapt out of the Pops' reach, Marco still dangling limply from his hands.
"Put your brother down, son," Whitebeard said firmly, frowning at his blue-haired child.
Spadille's next words sent ice down Thatch's spine:
"Sorry Pops," the tall man said flatly, letting go of one arm to catch Marco's ankle and dislocate a knee with a sharp yank and a pop, "but no can do. Don't worry; I won't kill him;" Spadille went on, the cruel, thin smirk twisting his lips terrifying the Fourth Division Commander beyond reason, "dead men can't apologise, after all."
"Apologise?" Jozu growled. None of the other Division Commanders were attacking, partly because Spadille was still holding Marco –who didn't seem to be able to use his devil fruit at all right now for some reason– and if the larger man's display of strength was anything to go by he could probably twist the zoan's head clean off before they could stop him, but mostly because this really seemed to be personal. The Whitebeard Pirates were all brothers and backed each-other up against enemies, but personal disputes within the crew were resolved strictly between the individuals involved. Otherwise the ship would be torn apart by feuds and bickering and that really wouldn't do.
"Oh, Marco?!" Spadille crooned evilly. "Wakey wakey!" he shook his victim sharply, making the blond gasp in pain before letting him fall to the deck with a thump. Marco activated his blue flames even as he fell but the healing fire did nothing for his dislocated knee; clearly his Ability had a few more limits beyond the ones Marco knew about already.
Marco twisted himself around and glared up at Spadille. "What is your problem, bastard?!" he growled through gritted teeth, face tight with pain.
Spadille folded his arms. "You made my wife cry," he said simply, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Not just cry, either: it took me the better part of five hours to get her to stop screaming in pain and tell me who had hurt her in the first place." He raised an eyebrow. "Care to explain yourself?"
Marco seemed about to hotly refute Spadille's outrageous statement, then his eyes widened and he went a shade paler. Thatch frowned, lowering his swords slightly. Marco was an unrepentant player but he respected women and never hurt them unless they attacked him first. What on earth was going on here that Marco wasn't denying having harmed his brother's wife?
"I swear she was fine when I left her, Spadille, I swear!" Marco said urgently, shuffling into a sitting position with his dislocated knee sticking out at an ugly angle.
"Well yes, she probably was," Spadille agreed mildly, tone at odds with the heavy beat of Conqueror's Haki still hammering down around him and making the boards of the deck creak. "But Marco, you left. After promising to stay. Lying to a lady really isn't done you know, especially when that lady can kill you in over a hundred different ways before ever picking up a weapon. Admittedly she's still too traumatised to contemplate murder right now, but give her time and she'll get there. There may even be enough left for Pops to bury afterwards."
Thatch had the distinct impression that whatever Marco had done with Kitsune, as he believed Spadille's wife to be called, had a lot to do with why Marco had been so very relaxed and cheery when he arrived back on the Moby Dick after his four days away. Which suggested it had involved a lot of sex. Spadille didn't seem bothered by that part though, which gave weight to the blue-haired man's earlier statements that he and his wife had an understanding when it came to taking other lovers. It still made his head ache though. Marriage wasn't supposed to work like that.
"I didn't promise anything!" Marco insisted, "Hell, we didn't even talk!"
Thatch was so going to tease Marco about that later, if there was a later. He didn't think he'd be the only one to do so either. Vista's moustache was twitching and Curiel had lowered his guns and was smirking outright.
Spadille opened his mouth, paused and closed it again before sighing explosively and rubbing his temples. "Marco, do you know anything about phoenixes?" he asked wearily, "Lifespan, social behaviour, courtship and breeding strategies, preferred habitats, migration patterns, hell, diet?"
Ooh, burn. The First Division Commander had been looking for information like that for years and he could have just asked Spadille? Talk about unlikely sources of knowledge but it was somehow less surprising than it should be that Spadille knew more about phoenixes than the currently crippled commander did. It might even explain how Spadille managed to consistently find and prod at the chinks in the zoan's mental armour.
Marco flushed scarlet. "I never even saw one until earlier this week," the First Division Commander said shortly. "I didn't realise they actually existed outside of stories."
"Know anything about normal birds?" Spadille inquired tiredly. "Phoenixes look terribly swish but they're still just a fancy type of avian."
"Not that much beyond the obvious and how they fly and navigate," Marco admitted after a short pause, not rising to the obvious bait.
Spadille groaned, dragging his hands down over his face. "Okay, but that doesn't get you out of apologising; ignorance is no excuse and you really hurt her," he said a little bitterly. "I've not seen her fall apart like that since before we married and I never, ever wanted to see it again. She was better, damn it! I can't take her home when she's like this! She can't even look after herself, let alone the kids!" He clenched his fists, sagged then swung himself onto the railing around the top of the poop deck and sat down on it. He didn't let up with the Conqueror's Haki though. Thatch noticed that Marco looked utterly shocked at hearing that he'd reduced a woman to a state in which she couldn't even look after herself. He also looked guilty. Not surprising really, never mind that it was his brother's wife he'd done it to. Thatch was going to get weeks of fun out of this once everything had been resolved to Spadille's satisfaction, which it would be. He refused to contemplate the alternative.
"So, phoenixes," Spadille said conversationally, as though maintaining the oppressive flood of haki keeping most of the crew unconscious was no great effort. "Generally assumed to be made of fire, but are actually made of life: pure vital energy. They only show their true nature when migrating to or are actually on their home island; the rest of the time they stay camouflaged as normal, similarly sized birds. You only know if you've found a phoenix if you try to kill a random bird for your dinner and it uses flames to heal the hole you shot in it. They're also smart enough to avoid that kind of situation, so you're really, really unlikely to realise you've actually seen one. They're also completely ageless, being made of life itself, though they can be killed if you try hard enough. It's generally inadvisable to try though, as they're a telempathic species so killing one will get every other bird in existence pissed off at you and a whole flock of phoenixes can do a lot of damage. Send you completely around the bend for one; psychic attacks are just nasty." The blue-haired man paused, eyes darting around his enthralled audience of the commanders and Pops. "They like forested areas as a rule but you can find them just about anywhere they can catch fish. They like dates too, so if you find a good stand of date trees you can bet there'll be a phoenix in the vicinity."
Blenheim snorted quietly; Thatch's lips twitched. He knew Marco was crazy about dates. Not obviously, but he'd buy them if he could get them and was always reluctant to share.
"They're also highly social birds," Spadille went on, eyes fixed on the middle distance as though quoting something he'd heard from someone else. "Even though you're highly unlikely to find more than a single phoenix on any island or archipelago that phoenix will likely be in the midst of the largest flock of local birds. Find a massive flock of birds and you can bet there'll be a phoenix in there somewhere. They also have the most phenomenal facial recognition skills in the animal kingdom: most animals and birds can recognise distinct individuals within their own species, but phoenixes can pick up on the details and differences between individuals of every single bird species on the planet, a good number of animal species and are pretty hot on human facial recognition. They have an incredible memory for faces too, which is why you don't want to piss them off because they'll remember you and you'll have to be on the lookout for vengeful birds for the rest of your life." Spadille looked down at Marco, "Which you are going to be finding out about if you don't apologise. Phoenixes really like my wife and they know you were the one to hurt her. They also understand the how, which you obviously don't and is probably why they haven't descended en masse yet. Well, other than the distance issue."
Marco looked profoundly disturbed. Thatch didn't like the sound of that either and Pops looked rather concerned as well. Immortal birds capable of psychic attacks were not something Thatch ever wanted to deal with.
"Which gets me onto breeding and courtship," Spadille said with a sigh, "and I can't believe you don't know this stuff. You're a zoan so it should be instinctive. Unless you're suppressing or ignoring your instincts, which is stupid." He shook his head. "Whatever. Okay, breeding behaviour. Phoenixes don't have fixed mating systems: they can be socially monogamous or engage in polygyny, polyandry, promiscuity and any variation thereof depending on the circumstances. Note that social monogamy is not the same as actual monogamy: it just means that the male and female will raise all the chicks hatched between them regardless of actual parentage. No bird species is completely monogamous no matter how much they may appear to be; pair-bonding is all about raising young, not devotion. A pair of phoenixes will generally last a single breeding cycle, from courtship through egg-laying and hatching until the chicks are fully fledged and independent. The adults will then part ways. They might meet up again a few more years down the line, but then they'll go through the whole courtship process again before raising a new brood. Phoenixes don't always raise their chicks in pairs though; trios aren't all that unusual and sometimes a mixed group of four or five will raise their chicks together. It depends on which individuals are interested in breeding in any specific year, the environmental conditions and the gender ratio."
Thatch privately thought that explained a lot about Marco. Yes, he was only really interested in women but he had no problem with sleeping with two or more at a time and had a particular weakness for mermaids, who weren't adverse to threesomes or more if they happened to be interested in human men.
"And finally, courtship," Spadille sighed, giving Marco the evil eye. "Phoenixes have two kinds of courtship, possibly due to being immortal: social courtship and breeding courtship. Social courtship is casual. Male meets female, male shows off, female is impressed, they coo, preen, bill, feed each-other and have a lot of sex then part ways at the end of the month. A few years of social courtship may lead up to proper breeding courtship, but then again it may not." Spadille paused. "Breeding courtship is different. For one, it takes a decade to raise a brood of chicks to maturity so it's a serious commitment even for a bird that doesn't age. So in addition to all the behaviour that goes on in a social courtship there's also a courtship flight to determine strength and fitness and to test devotion."
Thatch noticed that Marco was starting to look rather nervous.
"Initiating a courtship flight indicates devoted intent; the phoenix version of proposing even though the relationship has a relatively limited duration," Spadille went on ruthlessly as Marco shifted uncomfortably, "so the whole point of it is for the phoenix who initiated it to test the resolve of their chosen partner. A successful courtship flight results in a whole lot of sex spread over days and weeks until the female starts to lay, at which point things settle down a bit and the nesting proceeds as for normal birds, though the process of raising the chicks takes considerably longer. The pair however will stay together until the chicks are fully mature and have left the nest." He eyeballed Marco. "Worked it out yet?"
Marco looked extremely uncomfortable and it wasn't just due to his knee; Thatch had never seen the First Division Commander squirm before.
"A phoenix will never leave their chosen partner after going through with a courtship flight," Spadille continued as Marco cringed, "as it goes against their nature. After all, why abandon a committed relationship you deliberately initiated in the first place?"
"Okay, okay! I get it!" Marco blurted out, agitated fingers running through his hair. "I'm sorry, okay? I'm an ignorant idiot and I shouldn't have done it!"
Spadille raised an eyebrow. "What are you apologising to me for? I'm not the one you deceived and left in the lurch. She's behind you, by the way."
Marco froze, eyes wide and panicked. Thatch quickly looked over behind where Marco was sitting, towards the spear planted blade-down in the deck. Nothing. But he still couldn't sense Spadille properly, so that wasn't really much of a guarantee that there wasn't anybody there. She was an assassin, as his brain oh-so-helpfully reminded him. One that was retired despite his brother's claims of his wife being better in combat than he was. Today was the first time Thatch had seen Spadille fight seriously even for an instant and if his wife was significantly more capable then they really were all screwed if she decided to hold a grudge.
Marco turned around, tried to get to his feet and stumbled, gasping in pain as his dislocated knee crumpled. Spadille slid off the poop deck railing to the main deck in time to catch him, then lifted the blond right off his feet and set his knee with a swift yank and a click. Marco hissed, but a flash of blue flame later he was standing as though he hadn't been crippled seconds previously. Spadille stopped projecting Conqueror's Haki and strode past Marco to pull his yari out of the deck.
"Precious, let Marco see you so he can apologise for being an idiot and you can hash out some kind of compromise," the blue-haired man said in a tone of firm command. Thatch blinked and suddenly there was a woman standing between Marco and Spadille. A very attractive woman, Thatch had to admit. Red-rimmed eyes notwithstanding.
There was a flash of azure fire, a subdued cheep and Marco was abruptly replaced by a large, fiery blue bird with an extremely sheepish posture. Thatch saw Vista's jaw drop and Jozu blink; had Marco just lost control of his Ability? The ginger hadn't known embarrassment could make you do that!
Marco was feeling battered. First Spadille had mangled him physically –what kind of person wore gloves with Seastone studs on the palms?! That was just wrong! – and chewed him out while lecturing him about phoenixes as if knowledge about them was common or obvious, then he found himself facing the woman he'd accidentally mislead who turned out to be his brother's wife. On seeing her, his phoenix instincts and human mind had gone in two different directions resulting in him involuntarily shifting into his zoan form. He didn't have a clue what to say, what to do or how she was going to react –that she was an assassin and all that entailed weighed rather heavily on his mind– and that she honestly had reason to do him in. If she did decide to kill him there probably wasn't anything his brothers or Pops could do about it even if Spadille even let them get close enough to try. Spadille's assault today proved rather conclusively that, if he ever had to choose between his wife and Pops, he'd back his wife every time. A wife that Marco's ignorance had hurt severely.
So Marco stayed phoenix-shaped, kept his eyes on the woman he'd spent over half the past week having sex with and waited for the axe to fall.
She was no less lovely than she had been in the morning when he had left, but it was a completely different beauty. That morning she'd been stark naked, her skin adorned with the marks of passion and her face soft and relaxed in sleep. She'd looked sweet, sensual and enticing. Now her eyes were red-rimmed and her cheeks tear-streaked, but she stood ramrod straight and otherwise composed, her expression calm and neutral and her impossibly long hair pulled back and styled in a large knot with numerous thin braided loops hanging down on either side of her head. Her clothing added to the impression of quiet composure: she was wearing as many layers of kimono as a Wano court-lady, all in shades of green, pink and gold, a large furled fan grasped in the barely-visible fingers of one hand. All in all she looked magnificent, dignified and graceful for all her sorrow. It hurt. Marco recognised defences when he saw them and the elaborate layered clothing and fiddly hairstyle were all barriers erected against the world and her pale skin even lacked the inner fire it had held when he first encountered her. To have her go from uninhibited nudity to this… he'd fucked up big-time.
Phoenixes didn't have a world for 'sorry'; they didn't need one. But there was no way he was going to turn himself human again and have this conversation in front of his brothers: she deserved better than that. So he tried to find a way to express himself with the vocabulary at his disposal. He warbled softly, projecting concern and sorrow.
You hurt. Acknowledgement was about all he could articulate. Can I do anything?
Golden eyes stopped staring into the middle distance and focused on him as another tear trickled down her face. There was a moment of silence then Marco was blasted by a wave of pain/incomprehension as she threw her head back and keened, the meaning making Marco feeling even lower than scum:
Abandoned!
Spadille had said that phoenixes were social birds and Marco knew he didn't like being stuck by himself at all, but the vocalisation for the concept of being alone carried heavy connotations of isolation and death. He abruptly realised that to a phoenix being alone was a kind of death and leaving someone by themselves –for whatever reason– was completely alien. His brother's wife was apparently sufficiently phoenix-like to subscribe to that mindset, which was pretty strange for an assassin. Or possibly not, all things considered: she was supposedly a retired assassin, which suggested whoever she had worked for was no longer around. Maybe they'd tried to take out her support structure and she'd gone rogue.
He cautiously stepped closer on clawed feet, nudged the fingers of her free hand with his beak and crooned.
Not alone. I'm here. The next concept he intended to express was a tricky one that didn't quite translate to human properly, but it covered the kind of impulsive behaviour that prompted fuzzy chicks to climb out of nests and fledglings to attempt difficult stunts before their wings were fully developed and seemed pretty apt for his recent screw-up.
I have feathers for brains.
She hiccupped at him, eyes wide. Marco crouched slightly, projecting embarrassed recognition and a plea for patience as he glanced up at her face sideways and cheeped his confession again. When it came to apologising to women it was always best to grovel abjectly.
Featherbrain, she agreed, her lips twitching. Marco peeped a subdued acknowledgement and daringly nibbled her fingers again.
The beautiful woman he'd wronged so carelessly closed her eyes, huffed then abruptly stooped and picked him up in her arms. Marco's wings flared at the unexpected move, balancing him as she wrapped an arm under the backs of his legs and hefted him up so their shoulders were on about the same level. Of course being phoenix-shaped meant his head was slightly higher than hers, so he had to bend his neck a bit to meet her eyes properly. He chirped an inquiry, not entirely sure why she was doing this.
My featherbrain, she scolded him firmly, looking him in the eye as her tears finally stopped falling.
Marco melted in relief; she wasn't going to kill him. She'd even forgiven him! He half-mantled his wings to rest against her shoulders and started preening her hair, trilling softly. He knew his brothers were going to tease him mercilessly about this later but right now he didn't care. He'd been stupidly thoughtless and created a major misunderstanding that he still needed to clear up properly, but at least she wasn't upset with him anymore. She still hurt, he could tell, but he'd apologised and she'd accepted it. Well, sort-of apologised. He fully intended to do it again properly as soon as they had a bit of privacy.
"Does this mean I have to stop thinking of ways to hide the body?" Spadille asked lightly from far too close. Marco twitched; he really did not like the way his blue-haired brother could conceal himself from Observation Haki. Spadille was bad enough even without the element of surprise on his side. The blonde woman raised an eyebrow at her husband.
"Fine, fine," Spadille said with a whisper of a smile, raising his hands in surrender. "Are you taking him home with you or do you need some privacy so you can negotiate terms?"
Taking him home with her? While part of Marco rather liked the idea of that, the rest of him couldn't bear to leave the Moby Dick and his brothers. Never mind his responsibilities as First Division Commander and that the bounty on his head would likely bring the Marines down on Spadille's children like a ton of bricks if he was spotted in their vicinity.
"Privacy; right," Spadille nodded, making Marco wonder with a chill if he could read minds. "Go take over the poop deck, Precious." He stooped to kiss the blonde woman on the cheek. "I should probably go make nice with Pops and apologise for knocking everybody senseless." The tall, broad-shouldered man ambled off, his yari slung over his shoulder once more. Spadille's wife placed her free hand in the middle of Marco's back between his wings and walked slowly towards the steps leading to the poop deck, the layered kimonos barely rustling as they swept the boards around her. Marco shifted his weight to lean more heavily against her chest and enjoyed the ride, wrapping his neck around hers and rubbing his forehead and beak against the nape of her neck. While the layered kimonos made her bust practically invisible to the eye, he could feel her breasts pressing against his own chest in spite of the thick silk and it was a very nice sensation.
He cracked opened one eye as she started up the stairs and noticed his fellow Division Commanders and several dozen of his other brothers who had woken up first all staring at him and whispering amongst themselves. Marco closed his eye again; he was going to hear for months about how he'd seduced Spadille's wife and there'd be jokes about threesomes with a female Spadille, speculation about whether he'd sexed the blonde mystery up while in hybrid form and whatever else his siblings' dirty minds could come up with. Thatch for one had definitely picked up on the fact that he'd pretty much confessed to having accidentally proposed to his brother's wife and that she'd accepted, which might get acutely embarrassing for him. Getting married by accident had happened to quite a few of the Whitebeard Pirates over the years, what with the occasionally confusing local customs of some of the Grand Line's more isolated tribes, but Spadille had long since admitted to having both a wife and a husband and Marco wasn't really interested in a foursome with just one woman in it. Spadille did not count as a woman no matter what he had looked like after Ivankov's 'makeover'.
Which reminded him, he really needed to ask the gorgeous blonde her name. It was rather embarrassing that he'd spent the better part of four days having truly fantastic sex with her and didn't even know what she was called. Spadille had never actually mentioned a name, interestingly, though he'd shared that his husband was called Zoro. Had that silence where his wife was concerned been by accident or design?
Spadille relaxed as the terrible pain in Fox's mind and heart eased and she bent down to pick up the idiot blue bird whose apology had apparently been sufficiently abject for her to forgive him. Fox was a terrible softie when it came to her loved ones; Marco had no idea how fortunate he was that Spadille's delightful assassin of a wife loved the phoenix zoan to distraction. It didn't even matter to her that this Marco wasn't her Marco: he was Marco, he felt right and that was it. It was the same with Shanks and Beckman, though the latter relationship had definitely changed in a number of interesting ways, the most obvious of which was from mentor to friends with benefits. Which reminded him, he needed to take a trip back to the shitty old man on Mecha and see how the rifle he'd commissioned was coming on. Fox took a lot of looking after so it was only appropriate that Spadille express his thanks to the people who helped him out. The rifle was going to be one-of-a-kind and probably become an heirloom that would withstand centuries of use and abuse.
While he was there he could see how Kid was doing and maybe hunt down Killer, or whatever his name really was. Spadille rather doubted the blond's mother had named him that, but he could be wrong. He had met, fought and had people on his crew who had some truly terrible or just plain crazy names. Hell, the name he'd been going by ever since his 'death' at Marineford was unusual.
Actually, he couldn't blame Fox's abrupt manner of attaching herself to people on just the alternate world problem: she'd initially attached herself to him with similarly startling abruptness as he had one day woken up with her in his bed despite him having tried to kill her half a year previously and having been mugged by her rather more recently than that. She had apparently been almost as bad with Marco and seeing Zoro's memories of their first meeting had been a hoot. She'd literally fallen asleep on him within three minutes of introducing herself!
As Marco settled into Fox's arms, rested his wings against her shoulders and started preening her hair Spadille wandered over to get a verbal check on his wife's wellbeing. He didn't need to really, but it was more for his Pops' and brothers' benefit. Now he wasn't hammering the Moby Dick a few inches lower in the water with his Conqueror's Haki his less powerful brothers were starting to wake up and people were starting to stream up from belowdecks to find out what was going on.
"Does this mean I have to stop thinking of ways to hide the body?" he joked, which got him a raised eyebrow and a teasing mental reminder that even if she had decided to kill Marco, she had far more experience hiding bodies than he did and so wouldn't need his assistance in that particular area.
"Fine, fine," the Flame logia said with a smile, raising his hands in mock-surrender, "are you taking him home with you or do you need some privacy so you can negotiate terms?"
Privacy please, Kajin, Fox immediately whispered in his mind. Her wistful longing at the idea of Marco on Dawn Island was ruthlessly crushed by cool practicality and unflinching acceptance of the phoenix' strong attachment to his family. Marco was a wanted pirate, one of Whitebeard's sons and a phoenix; he would never be happy stuck on a small, sparsely populated and peaceful island in East Blue for more than a few weeks at the very most.
"Privacy; right," Spadille confirmed with a nod, thinking quickly where the best place for her and Marco to go that she could easily cover with her Concealment Haki. "Go take over the poop deck, Precious," he kissed her on the cheek, sending his reassurance and encouragement down the bond. "I should probably go make nice with Pops and apologise for knocking everybody senseless." Fox' amusement at the irreverent understatement in his words cheered him greatly, reassuring him that she was recovering properly. He sent her a half-serious request not to do anything he wouldn't do, which elicited a mental giggle as that didn't leave much out, then turned around and ambled over towards his Pops and the rest of the Division Commanders.
It was still weird there being only eleven Division Commanders, though he would only be dealing with ten since Marco was still completely absorbed in untangling the mess he'd got into with Fox and seeing 'Dancer' Zymon never stopped being unsettling. Seeing Alvel had been worse, as he had known the man was going to die relatively soon and finding out it had just happened when he visited in February had been both painful and something of a relief. He'd liked the former Fourth Division Commander and enjoyed getting to know him in what little time they'd spent together but it had been odd to have Alvel as the commander when in his mind he'd always associated 'Fourth Division Commander' with Thatch.
Spadille really didn't like Zymon though. The man was a misogynistic idiot, though he at least had the good sense not to air his opinions in public. Fox had never liked him and had once admitted that she might have found a way of quietly bumping him off if he hadn't gotten himself killed underestimating a woman nearly two years before Spadille had even become a pirate in the first place, back when he had still been Portgas D. Ace, son of the late Pirate King with a massive chip on his shoulder. Considering that she'd been just seventeen at that point and barely assertive enough to defy an authority figure for anything less than a serious threat to her own life and mental health, that said a lot about how the current Second Division Commander was and none of it good. Worse yet was that his brothers back home had at the time set up a betting pool on how this commander would eventually die; that Izo had won it about eighteen months before Ace came on board was irrelevant.
"So," Spadille said nonchalantly as he wandered into earshot of his Pops and the several dozen pirates now clustered around the Division Commanders who were trying to find out what had happened. "Sorry about the mess Pops, but it was kinda urgent. I'd promise not to do it again, but well," he shrugged, "my wife comes first. Always."
Whitebeard pierced him with a keen look. "You aren't sorry at all, are you brat?" he asked calmly.
"Not in the slightest," Spadille admitted promptly. "Well, I'm sorry for not asking you before laying into Marco, since this is your ship and all, and I'm sorry if anyone else got hurt while I was throwing haki around, but not for anything else."
His old man nodded. "Which is as it should be, my son. Very well, you apology is accepted," he frowned slightly but Spadille could see the ruefully amused glint in the older pirate's eyes, "but next time remember your manners."
"Yes Pops," Spadille said meekly, noting absently that Fox was now only detectable through their bond rather than through haki.
"Pops! Marco and the lady just vanished!" a slightly panicked voice called down from the rigging. Everybody tensed.
"There's this thing called privacy," Spadille said carryingly, examining his fingernails studiously, "that women seem to think is important when discussing things they'd rather not make public. You could look into it."
His Pops chuckled and sat down in his seat on the deck as everybody else relaxed visibly. "Well my son, perhaps you could answer a few questions while your wife is busy, hm?" it wasn't a request but Spadille didn't mind, so he sat himself on the boards opposite the old man, swinging his yari around to rest across his lap.
"Sure thing, Pops," he drawled as the remaining Division Commanders and no few of the other pirates settled within earshot. Thankfully Blackbeard wasn't around today; he'd still have done what he did even if the traitor had been here but he certainly wouldn't have lingered afterwards. Small mercies. "So, questions?"
"Where did you learn to use haki like that, my son?" Whitebeard asked.
Spadille scratched his head. "You don't start with the easy questions, do y-" he stilled. What on earth was Fox doi- oh. He groaned and slapped a hand over his face as he tried to erect more of a wall between himself and Fox. Proximity made this kind of thing worse and he couldn't lock her out properly with her still so fragile. He breathed deeply, resettled himself and ignored his brothers' curious glances. "So, haki. I learnt Kenbunshoku and Busoshoku from my wife, who is better than anyone has any right to be, but I learnt Haoshoku from my sister as it was the first one I accessed." Which was true as far as it went, but not entirely accurate as far as the order of events were concerned. "Tempest was badass with Conqueror's haki, mostly 'cause her best friend was determined to domesticate Sea Kings and Temp used to help out. So I got good real quick and picked up all kinds of tricks." He'd actually learnt a lot from Falco which was kinda backwards but hey, all of their kids were brilliant.
His brothers were apparently somewhat sceptical of his claims however. "Domesticate Sea Kings?" Jozu repeated gruffly.
"Was she insane?" Vista asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, she was a D," Spadille conceded, "my sister's friend not my sister, that is. Temp was just loyal and determined not to let her best friend get into anything she couldn't get out of again. I'm not sure any D can ever be a poster child for sanity and I'm including myself in that, just so you know." He smirked, twitching slightly as Fox's emotions hammered his defences. "Edward D. Spadille, remember?"
Pops chuckled and nodded.
"It wasn't like they were small Sea Kings either," Spadille reminisced fondly. "Trudi was smallish, but she coulda sunk the Moby Dick if she ever tried climbing on board and Runt was just massive. As in, 'what do you mean that isn't an island?' massive. He was the biggest, but a few of the others approached his weight-class." He sighed. "I don't think she's around anymore though. I certainly haven't been able to find her and Spitfire was never exactly subtle." He grinned. "When you gotta get good enough with Haoshoku to knock out Sea Kings or else get munched, everything else seems easy afterwards."
"How long have you known about phoenixes?" Vista asked.
Spadille scratched his head. "Since, well, since I first met my wife," he admitted candidly. He had known about Marco for that long after all. "She had a phoenix hanging around her a lot of the time, acting like she was his chick. It was kinda funny really, or at least it was until someone upset her and the damn bird went on the warpath. Lots of screaming and liberal lashings of blood then." He paused. Good times. The number of headaches they'd given Marco in those years had been rather high and he'd had a lot of teasing sent his way too. Not that he'd gotten particularly intimate with her: Fox's father was the overprotective sort in spite of his standoffishness and had at that time been the world's strongest swordsman, so those he wanted dead got there quickly and stayed dead. "Precious adores phoenixes; she found that island about seven years back" –this time around– "and she's visited every spring ever since. She can speak phoenix too, which is how she knows so much about them. I just know what I do from listening to her." His fingers dropped to brush the shaft of his spear. "I thought Marco knew about them too or else I'd have said something."
"What's her name?" Curiel asked abruptly.
The Flame logia blinked. "I haven't told you?" He was sure… no, he hadn't. He'd got out of the habit of referring to her by name decades ago because everybody knew who he was married to. "Her name's Fox."
"Not Kitsune?" Thatch asked.
Spadille grinned. "She's my kitsune," he purred, "my sexy little mistress of disguise with enough power to remake the world in her image and utterly lacking the inclination to do so. She's got a killer sense of humour too. Not to everyone's tastes, but hell is it fabulous to watch in action." He grinned wider, showing teeth. "She showed me how much fun it is to be whimsical and I've never looked back."
There was a definite sense that his brothers would have been happier not knowing that, but it dispelled the brewing tension nicely. Now if only Fox could stop being quite so distracting this would be easier. He could ask her to stop… no. She was enjoying herself and her emotional wounds were less raw now. If this kept up she'd be well enough to take home in two days after all.
"You don't seem bothered that your wife had sex with Marco," Zymon commented dryly. Spadille bristled.
"I don't see that how I run my marriage is your business," he said coolly, fingering the spear in his lap. "Fox is a professional killer and was long before I ever knew her. She's killed more people than I have, is better with haki than I am, can outfight me even when seven months pregnant and is capable of being more ruthless than I can stomach. She's also the gentlest, kindest, most loving and most accepting woman I've ever met. I don't care what you think of her but don't you dare voice that opinion anywhere she might hear you because I won't be held responsible for the consequences." Spadille bared his teeth in a grin that was more of a snarl than anything else. "Consider yourself warned; I really don't like people who upset my wife."
"Marco upset your wife," Vista pointed out.
"Killing him would have upset her more," Spadille said simply, even though that didn't explain why. "I woulda done it if she'd asked me to," it would have hurt to make an enemy of his Pops and brothers but Fox was everything and her wellbeing came first, "but she didn't. In fact, she asked me not to hit him too hard 'cause he was still my brother and family's important." He sighed. "Marco's lucky Zoro's still missing: he would have minced Marco for upsetting her and not bothered to listen to Fox's opinion on the matter because to his eyes Marco would deserve it. Besides, it isn't like he wouldn't have healed. Eventually." Spadille tried not to think about all the blood that would be spilled or how strongly Zoro would have to be willing to channel haki and killing intent into his cursed sword in order to slow Marco's regeneration down. Their Asura was regarded as a demon for a reason.
The logia got to his feet and stretched. He needed to be out of the way of all these observant veteran pirates before they realised why he was twitchy and drew the wrong conclusions. "If that's everything, I'll go wait someplace out-of-the-way for Fox to decide she's done here. It might take a while." He strode off, heading for the figurehead.
Once they were up on the poop deck the blonde wandered over to the rail over the stern and leant one hand on the worn wood. Taking this as his cue Marco changed back, his legs just fitting into the space between her skirts and the rail. His abrupt change in mass and shape meant he was now pressed flush against her front and eye to eye with her.
"So I realise I probably should have asked this first," Marco said, leaning back against the railing as much as he could, "but I don't know your name."
The blonde smiled. "I'm Fox," she told him.
Fox. Not anything he'd expect a lovely lady to be called, but it did sound like something a man would call a child he was training as an assassin.
"I'm sorry, Fox," Marco said next, dropping his eyes to stare at his hands. "I didn't realise what I was offering and I hurt you. I swear I never meant to do that and I certainly didn't mean to mislead you."
Fox nodded and around them the air went strangely still, the sounds coming from on deck as the rest of his brothers woke and dashed up to see what had happened muting slightly. "Privacy," she explained simply; "so that no-one else can hear what we decide or see what we're doing and try to guess."
Privacy; such a simple word but such a rare commodity on board a ship, even one as large as the Moby Dick. Marco guessed they were invisible as Fox had been before Spadille drew their attention to her.
"I'm sorry for offering something I never intended to follow through on," Marco said quietly. "I'm honestly not interested in settling down and having kids; Pops and my brothers are all the family I need."
Fox stilled, then tilted her head on one side and warbled a short descent. The sound hit Marco like a quart of straight absinthe and reality was sucked under by heat, want and primal instinct.
He came back to himself an indeterminate amount of time later to find Fox clutching at his shoulders, stripped to her scarlet kosode and gasping his name. Marco then realised his jacket, sash and belt were strewn across the deck with Fox's kimonos and underwear, his trousers were undone, one of his hands was braced against the small of her back and the fingers of his other hand were buried in the hot, tight wetness between her thighs and pressing against that hard-to-find internal nerve cluster, prolonging her orgasm.
"What. Was. That?!" Marco demanded shakily, reclaiming his hands and trying to think past the pounding of his blood and the almost overwhelming urge to drive his straining erection into her quivering inner passage and fuck her until she screamed. "What. Did. You. Do?!"
Fox collapsed into him, breathing hoarsely. Marco resisted the panic-borne urge to push her away as memories of the past five minutes or so hit him in pieces, making him pant and groan at the sheer intensity of them.
"Didn't do anything," Fox rasped, still shuddering and hanging onto Marco's shoulders like her grip was the only thing keeping her upright, which was probably accurate. It was incredibly difficult to keep his head when he could feel her heart pounding, her nipples pressing through the silk of her kosode and the dampness seeping from between her thighs. "You're such a liar, Marco."
Marco stiffened. "I don't lie!"
Fox snorted. "If you weren't interested in having kids you wouldn't have jumped me when I made you that offer," she said dryly, meeting his eyes squarely.
Marco flushed scarlet. Now his brain translated the warble that had set him off. Oh, how humiliating. "H-how did you know how to say that?" he mumbled abashedly, still shaken by his incredibly strong reaction to the untranslatable sound that indicated a willingness to bare his children right now. He still wanted to take her up on it, was aching to do it and shamefully keen to see her belly swollen with his child. Why did his brother's wife have to affect him like this? It was wrong!
Fox chuckled. "I was partly raised by a phoenix," she muttered, "so I'm pretty fluent. Now tell me the truth, Marco."
Marco filed that fact away for later and tried to think past his raging lust and rampant fantasising. The truth…
"I want you," he said bluntly, meeting her eyes and wrapping the fingers of his clean hand around the nape of her neck. "I want you screaming my name as I fill you with my seed, want you in my bed every night to keep me warm and want you pregnant with my child. But I can't have that. You're married to my brother and have other children you need to raise. So no matter how much I want you, you are going to go home to your kids and I probably won't see you ever again." It hurt to say it but it was the truth and he'd never felt as naked as he did now. He was such an idiot, giving his heart away for a song.
"What about your promise?" Her golden eyes were wide and reproachful.
Marco wanted to scream. "How am I supposed to keep it?!" he snapped. "Pops needs me! If the Marines spot me within ten miles of you and your kids they'll tear up the countryside looking for me and cause all kinds of chaos! I didn't even know what I was promising!"
Fox snorted. "You knew. Here," she tapped Marco's chest over his heart, "if not here," she tapped his head. "But I recognise the problems that do exist and I too have outstanding obligations." She sighed, sagging slightly. "So, a compromise?"
"What kind of compromise?" Marco asked suspiciously. It had better not involve Spadille… especially not a female Spadille!
Fox bit her lip. "We defer the decision. You promised me commitment through the time it would take us to raise a child, but that doesn't have to be now. I have to stay where I am for a further eleven years but after that I can come to the New World and we can decide what to do next."
"Eleven years?" That was both a long time and not all that long, really. Then the rest of her words caught up with him. "You, you want a child? With me?" No wonder she was married to Spadille: she was as crazy as he was! Crazier, even! Open relationship or not, it was human nature to want fidelity in any long-term partner to ensure that the kids you were raising and investing in carried on your family line.
Fox giggled. "If I didn't want one I wouldn't have said what I did just now; you can't lie in phoenix. I can wait though; you aren't going anywhere, are you?"
"No," Marco agreed. He wasn't and he wouldn't. "Are you sure your husband won't mind?" He couldn't believe he was having this conversation.
Fox' eyes twinkled. "My husbands won't object so long as you do your share of the parenting when the time comes. Now," her pupils dilated, "if this is a goodbye I want it to be memorable. So please take me up on my earlier offer."
Marco stopped fighting himself and in seconds Fox was laid out flat on her back on the deck and screaming his name as he drove himself into her again and again. If this was the last time he was going to see –and touch– this beautiful, sensual, loving woman he wanted it to be memorable for the both of them. Besides, there was a certain wicked thrill to having sex on deck in full sight of everyone, only hidden behind a thin veil of haki which was entirely dependent on his lover's self-control and that thankfully extended far and widely enough to hide their shed clothing. His brothers would certainly react to that. Part of him wanted to find out if he could shake that control but the rest of him recognised it was better not to go there. This was private and would remain private for at least a further decade until they met again and decided what to do next.
After they'd finished having sex Marco gathered up the discarded clothing and helped Fox carry it all down belowdecks to the baths belonging to the Division Commanders, where he also helped her get clean and dressed again. Then they slipped back up to the poop deck, Fox took down the veil of Concealment Haki, hugged Marco and let Spadille pick her up and wrap them both in his own Concealment Haki before she flashed them back to Phoenix Island so she could change and pack up her things in readiness for returning home. The misunderstanding with Marco still hurt, but it was healing now and she knew where she stood with him thanks to the empathetic abilities granted by her Devil Fruit. It was enough.
"Precious?" her husband asked.
"Yes, Kajin?" Fox responded as she packed away the kimonos he'd dressed her in while she was unresponsive. Her Kajin had always been startlingly perceptive regarding the intricacies of her clothing preferences.
"Why didn't you tell Marco he'd already got you pregnant?"
Fox turned. "Because he would have felt obliged to leave with me and it would have made him miserable." It wasn't all of the truth, but her husband could easily pull the rest from her mind.
Spadille shook his head. "You're too loving for your own good, you know that Kitsune? We really don't deserve you."
Fox smiled. "But you have me nonetheless," she said lightly. "Though I warn you, this is definitely a multiple pregnancy. I'm not entirely sure how multiple yet, but give me a week."
Her husband groaned. "You finally end up having twins and they aren't even mine," he complained. The Marco she had grown up around back in their home world had been unknowingly used as a stud over a good many years by a large number of mermaids and so his tendency to sire twins was readily apparent. Her Kajin's plaintive complaint in her mind that, considering he had a bit of mermaid in him and she had rather more, a person would think they'd have had at least one set of twins or triplets by now, made her smile. Mermaids often had multiple children at a time and with how mer-genetics worked, those children could look vastly different or even be startlingly similar.
Fox reached over and flicked his nose. "You'll get your turn. As I told Marco, we have time." She loved having children around and with Zoro not here to bring her strays he'd picked up for her to raise, she felt she had plenty of room for more of them in her life.