Fingers flex beneath finely crafted gloves as a brightly clothed man clutches the newspaper in his hand with the depiction of a city, a city his 'mother in all but blood' is depicted in a black and white photograph showing the burning inferno of what used to be a bustling town.
A whole island condemned for the simple act of holding a baby on its land.
Feeling his stomach growl he detaches his hand from his wrist, gray eyes between his legs peer up at the fascinating thing happening before his infant mind. He wiggles his fingers playfully, enticing a giggle from the baby.
Buggy lets his hand float listlessly for the babe's enjoyment before he sends it spearing down into the sea where his haki picked up a presence. A second later his hand springs back up with a couple of fish skewered onto his knives.
"Hah!" Buggy exclaims with an exaggerated pose, looking down at the little tike, "Told you, Ace, that my flashy powers are no match for a mere trout!" He says, while letting his hand reattach, and proceeds to take Ace and the fish inside the dingy cabin the boat had. It was one of his crew's more subtle crafts for less obvious endeavors.
For you can't always be flashy when stealing treasure, no matter how much that grate in his damned flashy nerves.
Buggy uses one of his knives to filet the fish, managing to do so without spilling any blood on the floorboards.
Using the little fuel he has he ignites the single stove top and sets a skillet on top before putting the flakes of fish on it to cook. After the fish is done he grinds a little bit of the fish into mush and then adds a little bit of fresh water from their drinking supply to soften it up, buggy then finds a spoon before attempting to feed the ace.
Later the night sky would find buggy washing the evidence of Ace's feeding off while muttering about a monster brat who is just like his father. The sea gently nudged her favored children while tittering as their waves could hear his reluctant fondness.
Five days later, Buggy finally sees a patch of land that has civilization.
It's only his luck that he ends up getting chased by no good goons, if he didn't have Ace in his arms he'd have destroyed them, but he is smart enough to know when to choose his battles.
Unlike some people, he knows.
However, the crate of gold tucked under his other arm says otherwise.
It's not his fault that those foolish fools don't know how to appreciate the beauty of treasure like he does, and left the whole thing easy pickings.
Plus the coin will do good for settling little Ace in.
"Gah!" The excited gargle from Ace makes him look down for a second with a smile, feeling the giddiness coming from his voice.
"You're right! Little flash, this is fun, yah!" He says, splitting off his feet before he can stumble and letting his body float as his feet run fluidly along the ground with a swiftness only feet with no body could produce.
With a grin, he ducks under a branch letting his flashy laugh resonate throughout the forest at the sound of a goon slamming into the very tree.
Only to let out a shout as his body slammed into another the sound of their bodies crashing into each other and he only had a second to redirect his body so Ace didn't get injured. He lets his arm detach and wrap around the treasure chest like a snake while keeping it levitated as he and the new person tuck into a roll.
Buggy curls his other arm around Ace as he reinforces his arm with haki as they crash into the ground.
Mihawk stares up at the sky with a deadpan expression that belies his annoyance.
He shifts under the weight of whoever crashed into him, something he is miffed about as he has excellent observation. he shifts his gaze from the sky to meet equally blue hair, a kind of color that is striking. One that teases his mind as it plays with the edge of his memories.
This weirdo seems familiar.
"Oh, ow! fucking Flash- Ace!" Blue hair shouts scrambling off of him, much to Mihawk's appreciation, and flutters like a bird as he checks on this 'Ace' .
Slowly sitting up he looks over to Yoru picking up the blade that left his person on its own, most likely to prevent an injury on the other, and with a raised brow he questions the reason, only to get a reply of pure amusement coming from his faithful companion.
"Ya' ah!" The sound of a child giggling and cooing at a blue-haired teen explains why his sword was so keen on falling off. even he has morals.
"Oh, good, good, you're okay," the other teen says with relief.
The profile of the other boy unwittingly catches his attention as he takes in the way the blue hair seems to meld into the sky and then, is that a clown nose?
He can't help but think it's kinda cute.
Still, the little shit crashed into him, so…
"Hey, the fuck was that?" He snarks, enjoying the way the other jolts with surprise and turns to him with big wide eyes, though much to his pleasure the other doesn't flinch as he meets Mihawk's eyes like most others would.
'Oh'
"Eh! What the fuck was what? And who the fuck are-" the other is interrupted as those who were chasing him spring from the forest with a blade swinging across the other's neck. He closes his eyes instinctively to avoid the splash of blood getting into his eyes only to hear a terrified scream from someone.
" What the fuck, y-you're a monster !" A weakling screams.
Opening his, he balks at the scene before him.
Trying to take in the situation, for blue hairs' head is floating, in the air, with an unamused glare instead of being dead on the ground.
" Wha -?" He murmurs reeling as he takes in the severed arm floating with a crate balanced on the palm like a waiter would with a tray of food.
Now he isn't naive to the otherworldly aspects of the world, but to see a severed head and a detached arm floating is eerie to anyone.
"That's not very nice of you." The tone of blue hair's voice makes him shiver, but not in fear as a wave of irritation hits him, that is not his own.
"F-Freak!" One of the other men shouts as they all seem to let their fear take over and aimlessly charge forward.
He doesn't know why but it's only a split second before he is off, sidestepping an incoming swing, his fingers tightening along the hilt of Yoru as his blade syncs with him in the familiar battlelust he gets when fighting. Before he knows it a grin is stretching across his face as he deflects another nameless adversary's attack.
If anything he can think of the blue-haired cutie for giving him this snack of a brawl.
'Blue-haired cutie?' He thinks again, taking a moment to look at the other who evades blades like he's never seen before.
Their blades don't even touch the guy, no matter how many of them try to stab or slice at the blue-haired boy it's met with a body part detaching, or the way their blades glide through him. Morbidly he watches the way the slits seal as if nothing carved through it. The way he always makes sure to keep the baby in his possession out of trouble with careful tugs using a couple of detached fingers latched on to the strap of the baby's swaddle, using the lack of need to avoid their blades to take them out easier.
'It's beautiful' , he thinks, idly dodging the sloppy attacks, not even having to exert himself to keep his attention on the way the blue-haired boy dances around his opponents.
He sneers at the fool trying to sneak up on blue hair, with a simple step he cuts his opponents down with a disinterested swing while stalking the soon-to-be-dead scum.
He swings his blade at the same time Blue Hair kicks his foot back letting his foot fly towards the man, a small blade slips out of the tip of his boot just as it connects stabbing the man between the eyes just as Yoru makes it through the other end of his neck.
"Eh, oh flashy fuc-!, Ew!!" Blue hair screams as the head flies back with his foot making him look ridiculous as he hops and tries to kick the man's head off.
"Thank you," Buggy says begrudgingly while sliding a sack of belli towards the other man with an obnoxiously big sword as they both stopped at the bar to enjoy a bottle of the heaviest, with some warm milk for the tot, "and sorry for dragging you into that I don't normally pull a Shan- I don't normally do stuff that reckless, but.." he trails off feeling a flush of multitude of emotions when it comes to shanks.
He wonders what he and Benn are up to, the first mate being someone he tolerates simply because he has common sense, unlike most of the fuckers who abandoned him.
"No problem," the other man says, not reaching for the pouch, the yellow of his eyes glowing in the dim bar, they stare at each other for a second, buggy withholding the urge to squirm.
Thankfully Ace saves his ass by making a fuse and he is just about to reach over and tend to the brat when slim fingers reach the napkin before he can, he watches as the other man wipes the milk from Ace's cheek while picking up the bottle and wiping the tip off and silently placing it in front of Ace.
"Though, I do have one demand in return for you running into me," the other says with no indication of what he intends to ask for.
"Eh! I mean, uh it depends." He stumbles, feeling like an idiot.
"Train with me." The other says it's nothing.
" What !" He yells, did the guy not see him? He barely survived by the skin of his teeth, the only reason he made it was because D's have absurd luck and he's currently holding on, or well was but semantics.
This guy is on a whole nother level, like Shanks' level.
"You are my natural adversary," the other continues like a buggy didn't just scream and cause the bar to go silent.
"Your ability is intriguing and I wish to see its merits to the fullest potential-" Buggy interrupts before this can go any further.
"I don't even know your name." He screeches, ignoring the laughing child who takes the Scene before him in amusement, or the way the other man raises a brow, and Buggy's oversensitive observation haki can pick up the slight traces of amusement coming from him.
"My name? It's Dracule Mihawk, and I'm the greatest swordsman who will ever live." This Dracule Mihawk says like it's a fact and not something he has to achieve.
'not another one.' He despairs, while resigning to the questionable foreseeable future because he knows the other won't take no for an answer, and if Buggy is being honest the prospect of finding out his limits is enticing.
A/n:
So, I got inspired by the buggy raises ASL fics and I adore Buggy; sad there aren't more buggy-centric stories.
Plus I love the aspect of him raising the boy's.
Also, the entertainment of having two powerful men fawn over their quirky oblivious clown.
Mihawk, I am of the mind that he finds Buggy very intriguing, if purely on the anti blade aspect. (Which btw buggy is so masterful of his fruit that at 'silly comedic relief 'canon' power level' he can dodge Haki induced attacks)
What do you all think? Did I characterize them well? Mihawk is hard and Buggy is so intricate T-T