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He’ll regret it for years, the day he accidentally lets slip the date of his birth in Red-Hair’s presence.
“Wait—your birthday is March 9?”
He hears from the inflection alone that he’s made a mistake, and, “No,” he’s saying then, and he doesn’t know if he’s denying it or refuting what is coming, but whatever it is, it’s too late. Because Red-Hair’s grin is too wide for his face, and the laugh that tears from him is so loud Mihawk flinches, even before the words that follow ring out into the once-blessed quiet, sealing his fate as surely as the finishing blow in a sword’s match—
“Birthday buddies!"
—
He tries his best to hide, in the beginning.
One year it almost works—he’s kept a low profile, and given no word of his whereabouts. And he thinks he’s in the clear when he’s cheerfully reacquainted with the fact that, insofar as Red-Hair is concerned, he shouldn’t be so quick to count his blessings.
He’s returning to his vessel when he spots them, and feels a sigh drag loose, the kind that makes him feel older than he is, and which he’ll be celebrating in five minutes, he knows, whether he likes it or not.
Ben Beckman looks amused, and, “One day you’ll learn,” he greets Mihawk on his approach, the words offered around a newly lit cigarette, but Mihawk doesn’t ask him to elaborate, knowing already what he’s referring to.
For his part, Red-Hair sits perched on the railing, seeming entirely too pleased with himself, and, “How,” Mihawk asks simply, coming to a stop.
All he gets for that is a grin. “If I told you that, it’d take half the fun out of it!”
“I will live with the disappointment,” Mihawk deadpans, but it doesn’t deter Red-Hair in the least. In fact, it only makes him laugh.
“Happy birthday, Hawk-Eyes,” he declares, exuding that rare enthusiasm that greets age with open arms, and that will likely do the same, Mihawk suspects, decades down the line.
The thought that he will likely be there to witness it isn’t as surprising as the reluctant acceptance that slinks at its heels, and perhaps there is something to Beckman’s words, after all.
“Now,” Red-Hair says then, grin widening, before he offers the words that Mihawk has come to expect, as surely as the man’s appearance on this day—
“Duel or a drink?”
—
It continues in the same vein for several years, despite his wishes, and his many attempts to escape what he is quickly beginning to realise is, at least in Red-Hair’s mind, a tradition. And he’ll be conspicuously absent from any of his usual haunts several days in advance, but come March 9 he’ll be hunted down as surely as if the Government set loose their best trackers on him.
He learns to live with it, after a while—the only option, really, with anything that concerns Red-Hair. Of course, that doesn’t mean he stops trying to hide. That inches far too close to acquiescence for his liking. Not to mention, Red-Hair would never allow him to forget it.
And, “Duel or a drink?” he’ll ask, year after year, and Mihawk will concede, to the first without much hesitation, and the second with less resistance every year, realising the ‘or’ is just a formality, and that Red-Hair expects nothing less than both.
But one year, things take an unexpected turn—a figurative wrench is thrown into the cogs of a familiar routine (even if he’s loath to admit that it is a routine, even after so many years), and he’s surprised to discover just how much he’s come to depend on things going a certain way, when he finds himself faced with the fact that they no longer will.
It’s the year he turns thirty-two—the wrong side of thirty, as Red-Hair likes to remind him, and he hears word that the Red-Hair Pirates have docked in Loguetown. About to set sail for the Grand Line, or so the rumours say.
And there is another rumour, muttered in the shadow of the first—did you hear? and what a fight it must have been—and it’s quite despite himself that he finds his curiosity piqued, along with something else that sits, a much harder thing. But he withholds his judgement and his irritation until Red-Hair tracks him down on the Loguetown docks.
But his suspicions are confirmed, along with the rumours, as Mihawk takes one look at the rolled-up shirtsleeve on Red-Hair’s left side. And with his brows furrowing sharply, “Who did that?” he asks, before Shanks has the chance to even offer a greeting.
He blinks, before making a show of pretending to notice it for the first time. “What the hell—”
When Mihawk’s expression doesn’t budge, his smile falls a fraction. “Oh come on,” he laughs. “It’s a little funny?”
When he still says nothing, Red-Hair’s expression changes, good humour chased away, leaving something curiously stark, and, “Happy birthday, Hawk-Eyes,” he says, almost warily, as though he’s sensed that something is off. But still—as though it’s just another year, just another day—“Duel or a drink?” he asks, the offering familiar, but the rolled-up shirtsleeve holds his gaze, and there is nothing familiar about this, Mihawk thinks.
He welcomes the irritation now, unkind as it is, but he doesn’t linger to explain it, or to offer any kind of answer, other than turning on his heel and striding away. And he’s almost inclined to believe that Red-Hair knows him as well as he claims to, when he makes no move to stop him.
It’s the first year is almost a decade that he spends his birthday alone.
—
The following year Red-Hair shows up early—tracks him down to a remote island in Paradise, and there is a part of Mihawk that wishes he was surprised.
“So,” Red-Hair says, expression unusually serious, given what he’s come to expect, and on this day in particular. “Let’s hear it.”
He doesn’t have to feign his confusion, but he’s not about to demonstrate it either, at least no further than to say, “I do not follow.”
“You’re pissed about the arm,” Red-Hair declares, without missing a beat. “Now, if I didn’t know any better, I’d chalk it up to friendly concern. But since I actually do know you—”
“A debatable claim.”
“—I have to ask, are you angry because you didn’t get the honour of lopping it off yourself, or is it something else that I’m missing?”
Mihawk observes him; takes in the challenge that sits in the slight raise of his brows, and knows from that look that there’s no escaping this conversation before he’s yielded the truth.
“We were tied,” he says at length. “We would not be, if I fought you now.”
“Ye-eah,” Red-Hair agrees. “Given that I’m missing my sword arm, that’s a pretty fair assumption. You’ll have to give me a few years to get back into shape.”
“Exactly,” Mihawk says, and Red-Hair blinks.
Then, “Wait a minute,” he says, something like a disbelieving laugh escaping with the words. “You’re mad because you’re now the best by default?”
Mihawk says nothing, but Red-Hair is gaping. Then, “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Coming from you, that is a significant statement,” Mihawk deadpans.
“Oh shut your trap, Hawk-Eyes. Are you serious?”
He says nothing to that, and Red-Hair watches him, still with that half-disbelieving expression, as though he’d expected better and found himself proven wrong.
Curiously, that realisation rankles more than he’d thought it would.
A sigh falls then, and his expression softens into something a little more disparaging—and a little more familiar. “So, are you going to turn down a drink this year, too? Because one arm or not, I’m pretty sure I can still drink you under the table. No winning by default there.”
And it’s not a question that expects, Mihawk realises. Instead it’s a question that asks, and if it expects anything at all, it’s to be turned down.
Strangely, that rankles, too.
And so, “A drink would be acceptable,” he says at length, and tells himself he’s not bothered by the fact that what greets his acceptance isn’t a grin.
Of course, that thought only lasts for about five seconds, before Red-Hair announces, “And he yields! Man, here I thought I would have to pester you for at least another year. Are you getting soft on me, Hawk-Eyes?”
“I’ve changed my mind. I decline the invitation.”
“Sure, sure.” When he passes him by, Red-Hair claps him on the shoulder, although it’s with more force than strictly necessary. “Come on, there’s wine on the ship. Happy birthday, you melodramatic old cheese,” he laughs. “And to think you almost got rid of me! What a prospect, huh?”
“Unimaginable,” Mihawk drawls, but his companion only laughs, forgiveness offered without being asked for, and with it there is a shift, the pieces of an old routine falling back together, as quickly as they’d come loose.
He realises a little too late that he’s forgotten to feel regret at the fact.
—
Some years are kinder than others, although as Red-Hair likes to remind him, and everyone in his immediate vicinity, he’s never needed a reason to throw a party.
But the year after Roger’s boy dies there is a subdued weight about him, although Mihawk has expected something of the sort. The battle at Marineford is still a fresh memory, but he finds he’s surprised at the surety he feels, that Red-Hair will still show up, this year as surely as any other.
Roronoa is somewhere on the island training when Red Force drops anchor just beyond the shores of Kuraigana on March 9, and Mihawk only spares him a passing thought. The boy’s laughable sense of direction taken into consideration, he doubts he will be present to cause trouble. Although there is a decidedly dry thought following the first—that here is another person in his life who is not likely to let him live down the unfortunate fact that is his shared date of birth, if he knew.
Thankfully, he still retains some semblance of privacy, despite his current living arrangements, although he spares a passing lament to a quieter existence as Red-Hair strides off the gangway, entirely at ease with inviting himself, as always.
But, “Drink?” he asks, before Mihawk has had the chance to open his mouth, and he is surprised to find that it’s offered as an invitation this time. But then, war tends to make one remember that nothing is set in stone, and so perhaps it isn’t such a surprise after all, that Red-Hair does not infringe on his privacy with all his usual expectations, this year of all years.
And so Mihawk is the one who pours the drinks this time, but Red-Hair doesn’t mention it, thoughts elsewhere—a few seas away, Mihawk suspects. But, “Happy birthday, Hawk-Eyes,” he says, knocking back his glass. “Looks like we made it another year, huh?”
“A fact that is vastly more surprising where you are concerned,” Mihawk counters, and Red-Hair’s mouth lifts.
But the smile doesn’t sit with the same ease as usual, and, “Tell me about it,” he sighs. And there are numerous unspoken things in that one, self-deprecating remark, falling with far too much weight for a man whose optimism usually knows no bounds. But the war changed things, Mihawk knows. They are neither of them boys anymore, and there are more things at stake now, than when they were.
And for Red-Hair, having a child on the way shortly after witnessing what the world made of his old captain’s son…
“I am surprised you are not celebrating with your wife,” Mihawk says, after a lull.
That prompts a genuine smile, and he dreads what will follow even before Red-Hair says, sliding him a look that hints at a private joke, “I offered, but she thought you sounded like you might use the company more than she did.”
“How considerate.”
But Red-Hair only grins, an entirely ridiculous thing now, and, “Yeah,” he laughs, the sound far too soft for what he’s known for. “She is that.”
Whatever sharp remark he’d planned leaves him at the entirely honest admiration in that statement. And he hasn’t met the woman in question, but he has a thought now, that perhaps he should reserve his judgement for such an encounter.
Of course, on the subject now, Red-Hair spares no details in painting a picture, keeping up his side of the conversation and Mihawk’s, as per the usual. And it takes a little while, but with each story the shadows left by the war retreat, bit by bit, until the events of the last year seem to have lifted off his shoulders.
“Well,” Red-Hair declares then, when the bottle is as empty as their glasses. “It’s getting late—or I think it is, anyway. It’s so dark here it’s impossible to tell. But I should probably get back to the ship before Ben comes looking. Or I get lost. One usually leads to the other, and I don’t think he’s forgiven me for the last time.” Then, under his breath, “Although I still maintain that I had no idea there was a bear hiding in that cave.”
Mihawk nods, but at the mention, spares a glance towards the forest. There’s been no sign of Roronoa for several hours.
“You expecting something to come out of that forest? And please don’t say bears.”
The question drags him back, only to find Red-Hair watching him, brow raised and his expression one of open curiosity. But there’s good humour there as well, and the war doesn’t seem as close as it had, when he’d walked off the gangway some hours earlier.
And he doesn’t know what it is that prompts him to say it. He could just as easily have brushed him off, but instead what he says is, “Not unless I collect him.”
Shanks blinks, before his expression shifts, realisation dawning. “Oh, yeah—your protege, right?” Then, brows furrowing as he casts a glance across the grounds, “Where is he, anyway?”
Mihawk slides a look towards the forest in the distance. “I have stopped asking myself that question.”
“Kid would rather be left alone, too? Sheesh, is it anti-social city over here or what?”
“He has no sense of direction.”
Shanks snorts. “What?”
“He has no sense of direction.”
“Yeah I heard you, I just don’t know what to do with that information.”
“He has not had dinner,” Mihawk says, acutely aware of how ridiculous the words sound, coming from his mouth. “If I leave him to his own devices, he will likely perish.”
There is a moment where Red-Hair only looks at him, before his smile quirks, just a little at first, before stretching into a full-blown grin, and the guffaw that follows is so loud it bounces off the quiet, starting a group of crows from a nearby tree.
He keeps it up for several seconds, until he’s bent over, wheezing for breath, and Mihawk waits, half-expecting Roronoa to come running, before reminding himself of the likelihood of that actually happening.
“I can’t believe you adopted a kid,” Shanks says then, when he’s gathered himself. “What a present. Happy birthday to me.”
“Are you finished?”
He grins. “Not even close. God, I have to get a hold of this brat—coordinate our schedules. Throw you a huge party next year.”
“An unlikely prospect,” Mihawk says dryly, “If he follows a schedule with any of the same skill he does a map.”
That remark prompts another uproarious laugh, and, “Listen to you!” Shanks sighs. “A weird middle-aged dad already. I can’t believe you beat me to it, and by a few months!”
“I was not aware we were having a competition.”
“Then why do you look so pleased?”
The look he gets for that remark is entirely unimpressed, but then that’s never stopped him, Mihawk knows.
“You should be setting sail,” he says then. “It’s a long voyage to East Blue.”
“No voyage is ever long if there’s something good at the end of it,” Shanks counters, grin widening, no doubt at the prospect. And the shadows he’d walked onto Kuraigana with are gone in truth, Mihawk notes, but refuses to give any indication that he’s pleased at the fact.
Then, throwing his hand in the air, a parting salute, “See you next year, old man,” Shanks tosses the words over his shoulder. “Maybe I’ll bring my own kid. We’ll see who’s the cutest.”
And he’s far too old, and far too wise to be indulging him, Mihawk knows, but for some reason, doesn’t stop himself from saying, “I doubt Roronoa would appreciate the comparison.”
Red-Hair’s laughter trails behind him all the way back to the ship.
—
He likes the wife.
He’s surprised to find that he does. Or rather, he is surprised that she is who she is. Somehow, he’d imagined Red-Hair would find someone just as loud, and just as insufferable.
“Wine?”
He doesn’t offer a verbal response, but she fills the glass, and doesn’t seem to find anything amiss with his silence—or with him, but it’s not irritation he finds in response to the fact. And her ease isn’t born from groundless presumptions, but something else—something that might be understanding, he’s surprised to discover.
“You humour him,” she says then, lifting her gaze to his with a curiously knowing smile. And there are many in his acquaintance, enemies and otherwise, who have failed to meet his eyes without dropping theirs, but she doesn’t. “You don’t make an effort to hide anymore.”
Mihawk doesn’t answer, but, “I won’t tell,” Makino says, her smile clever now. And she doesn’t say anything else, doesn’t try to engage him in needless conversation as she sets about polishing the glass in her hand, a quiet hum rising from her throat to fill the silence, but it’s not an unpleasant sound.
And there is understanding there, Mihawk decides then. Sitting in the space between them, it’s one that belongs to two quiet souls who have shaped themselves around another, in their separate ways, hers no doubt with far less resistance than his. But he doesn’t wonder any more what might have inspired this particular union, which, like so many other things, is now invariably a part of his life.
Red-Hair’s laughter rises from across the room, and Mihawk watches as the sound draws her eyes, curving at the corners. But her affection is a silent sort, and when she shares a look with him next it’s a kindred thing, followed by a wordless offer of a refill that he quietly accepts.
Yes, he decides, and isn’t surprised now when a smile threatens. He likes the wife.
—
One certain truth about getting older is the ever-increasing awareness of what legacies one is leaving behind.
When it comes to his son, Red-Hair wears his pride like all his other feelings—a too-bright thing that delights in everything from first smiles to first steps, as though anything he has ever seen or done pales in comparison. And Mihawk looks at the pictures and listens to the stories, enduring both with far less strain than he would have expected to feel once.
And it’s nothing he’s ever considered for himself, a progeny of his own, someone to spark that same, boundless pride that lights up Red-Hair’s entire countenance at the mere mention. A part of himself that will survive, long after he is gone.
And yet, curiously, it’s pride that he feels, the day Roronoa finally turns up, a grinning Pirate King at his back and a challenge offered in truth.
He’s anticipated it for some time, but the date is a surprise—March 8, and there’s a second’s worth of thought, fingers gripping Yoru’s hilt and feeling an old, long-forgotten thrill shoot through his veins, that Mihawk offers to Red-Hair, and whether or not he will be celebrating his next birthday alone. And it’s by no means a new thought, because as the years have passed and the sea turned more turbulent with every new tide, he’s often wondered if Red-Hair will be the one who stops coming, or if there will be no one for him to track down.
But Red-Hair has retired, his own promise fulfilled, standing with a winning smile now at his first mate’s back, and it’s with a calm acceptance that Mihawk faces his opponent—and what might await, after the battle is over.
But it’s not the worst way to go, he thinks, as Roronoa unsheathes his swords, his own grin stretching, a wicked blade’s edge of mirth.
A legacy, Mihawk thinks, looking at Roronoa now, and finds it both in the skill he’s helped nurture, and the surety that’s had years to thrive, under a captain who is the embodiment of confidence and far-fetched dreams.
No, it’s not the worst way to go, on a sea like this. The choice to die by a worthy blade, and there are only two in his acquaintance that he has ever considered as such.
Somehow, though—out of those two, he finds that he’s glad it’s this one, and this duel, that will be his last.
—
As it turns out, death will not greet him quite so easily.
“Welcome back from the beyond. Had a nice nap?”
The cheerful question greets him, along with the headache pressing against his skull. And for an entirely disorienting moment he doesn’t know where he is or what is happening, before he recognises the arching stone ceiling, and the familiar shadows thrown by the flickering torchlight. Kuraigana then, although—
“What,” Mihawk rasps, and finds it difficult connecting the voice that escapes with his own, sounding like a dying man’s croak, and the pain that shoots through his midsection when he tries to move kills the question before he can speak it.
There’s a hand on his shoulder, pushing him back down. “Not a chance, buddy. If you don’t take it easy your spleen will fall out. Or something like that. I’m not a doctor.”
“Who let you in?” Mihawk asks, having regained some control over his own faculties, at least enough to form a coherent sentence. His head feels like its clearing a bit, although it doesn’t provide him with any answers, only what feels like another headache, on top of the first. “What happened?”
Materialising before him now, wide grin a flash of teeth in the torchlight, Red-Hair gives a nod towards the mattress laid out beside his, where Roronoa lies, snoring loudly and with a familiar straw hat perched on his heavily bandaged chest.
And it comes back to him—the fight, bits and pieces of it, scattered and incoherent at first, and when he tries to focus the pressure against his brow makes him dizzy, but he remembers enough.
His defeat, most keenly.
“Have you caught up?” Shanks asks then. “Well, at least we know your brains weren’t completely scrambled. But to answer your other questions—Luffy let me in. Yeah, you have a whole crew squatting in your castle, and your pantry is probably empty. The date is March 10, which means my being here should be pretty self-explanatory—oh, and your wine cellar is probably empty by now as well, although I might have had a hand in that. Just one hand, obviously. And congratulations, by the way, you slept through your own birthday party. Which, given how loud these kids are, is pretty impressive. But then maybe it’s just your hearing giving out. You’re not getting any younger.”
The talking isn’t helping either of his headaches, but he’s long since learned how to tune most of it out. But he looks towards the other mattress, and he doesn’t know if he means to ask anything at all, when Shanks says, “Kid’s doing okay. Well, better than you, anyway. But he’s young, so he’s got that going for him.”
Mihawk doesn’t answer—finds it surprisingly difficult to string his words together, but that’s never really been a hindrance, with a man fully capable of keeping up two sides of a conversation at once.
And, “Happy belated birthday, old bird,” Shanks says then, sitting back in the chair he’s pulled up. “Glad you made it, despite what was clearly an attempt at the opposite. Your most creative one yet, although I have to say this is a little extreme, even for you. Trying to escape your own birthday by getting your ass handed to you?” He shakes his head, but the grin is hard to remove.
Mihawk manages a snort, and tries not to flinch at the pain that follows. It’s been a good decade since a fight has left him this incapacitated. But Roronoa didn’t kill him, although—had he ever really thought he would?
“Desperate times,” he offers at length, and Shanks grins.
“Good to see the kid didn’t beat the humour out of you. Mah, figured he’d taken enough, what with the arm.”
In hindsight, he’s not proud of how quickly his head snaps to the side at that, head ringing with the sudden movement and gaze straining in the dim light. And his heart has barely had time to leap into his throat when Red-Hair laughs—
“Hah! Made you look. Oh man, you really are out of it. What kind of drugs did they give you?”
“You will watch yourself,” Mihawk warns, but Shanks only grins.
“I’d believe that threat if you could actually stand up straight,” he quips. “And I hope you don’t mind that I drink for us both this year—I’m pretty sure mixing this stuff with whatever Luffy’s doctor gave you would be a bad idea. Especially at your age.” Then he raises a glass Mihawk hadn’t even seen him pour.
“To live another year,” Shanks declares. “If only to prove that we’re not so old we can’t take a beating from the kids.”
There’s a comment on the tip of his tongue, a speak for yourself that feels at once too young and too old for him to make, but what comes instead is a smirk, and he’s too tired to try and stifle it, or to care that he doesn’t.
And he’s too tired to say anything, but then that’s never stopped Red-Hair from filling up the silence, and it’s with the chatter in the background and Roronoa’s snores that Mihawk closes his eyes, and thinks that perhaps it is a bit too soon to be throwing in the towel, after all.
—
The years pass and the sea changes, bringing new tides and a new generation, and even though there’s a part of him that he feels like he’s the same there is a knowledge to the contrary sitting in his shoulders, and with far more ease than he’ll readily admit to, even now.
Red-Hair still shows up, every year like clockwork, and every year with his hair a little greyer, and the lines at the corners of his eyes etched deep with a mirth the years have done nothing to shake from his bones. And it is a tradition dating back almost thirty years, although it’s not youthful reluctance that makes him loath to name it so now, but something old and wry that knows the truth, but that relishes in defiance, even after so many years.
But the year he turns fifty is the year Red-Hair won’t be coming, and Mihawk knows even before Makino calls. It’s too close to her due date, and he won’t risk a long voyage, but she offers him her regrets, and her hopes that he has someone to spend the day with. And he hears in the words what she’s really asking, and knows she hears the answer he doesn’t give.
He shows up. On March 9, a little before noon, he knocks on the door to the little house, on its little island in its quiet corner of the sea.
The door opens, followed by an expression so earnestly dumbfounded Mihawk is tempted to smile, but curbs it, knowing he’s already pushing the limits of probability with his presence alone.
A fact which is underlined a moment later, when Red-Hair announces, “Am I having a stroke?”
“Mihawk-san,” Makino is saying then, appearing in the doorway beside her still-gaping husband, stomach straining against the skirt of her dress. “Happy birthday.”
Behind her hides a small shape, curious eyes peeking out from behind a fringe of bright red hair, and Mihawk spares the boy a glance, before lifting his gaze back to Makino. “Am I early?”
“Are you dying?” Shanks gets in, before Makino can answer.
“Ignore him,” she says, nudging him out of the way. “Please come in.”
“Seriously,” Shanks says, following them inside. “Are you dying?” The boy stays close, tugging at the leg of his pants, and Shanks gives his hair a fond ruffle. “Is that why you’re here? Some kind of last farewell before you croak?”
A glass of wine is pushed into Mihawk’s hand; a familiar, wordless offer to which he gives an equally wordless acceptance, and, “Don’t be so dramatic, dear,” Makino chides, giving her husband’s beard a playful tug. “You’re getting a little old for that.”
Shanks gapes, and in spite of the kiss she tucks against his cheek, “My own wife,” he laments. “And on my own birthday.”
“Speaking of—you’ll be staying for dinner?” Makino asks, before offering a knowing glance to the boy, who, given his parentage, has been conspicuously silent. “He’s been so excited to meet you.”
Shanks holds up his hand. “Wait a minute, did you two—”
“I don’t see why not,” Mihawk says, gaze holding the one regarding him from behind his father’s legs, with his mother’s quiet assessment.
“Maybe I was wrong. Maybe this how I die,” Shanks sighs. “Betrayed in my own home. On my birthday.” Then reaching out to ruffle his son’s hair, “You still love me, right?”
A call from the kitchen prevents the boy from answering, but the cheeky grin that flashes as he evades his father’s grasp to find his mother is far too familiar, but Mihawk refrains from pointing it out.
“Look at that cheek. I don’t know who he gets it from,” Shanks laughs, shaking his head.
“A true mystery,” Mihawk drawls.
“You know, Ben said the exact same thing the last time he was here. Same inflection, too. Did you two rehearse it or something?”
“As you are the only one of your crew who still insists on harassing me, the answer to that would be ‘no’.”
“Hara—excuse me, but whose home are you currently in?”
When he doesn’t answer, Shanks grins. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He laughs. “Reclusive old bat. I grew on you at last, huh?”
“Like barnacles on a ship.”
“Oh please. I’ve heard worse insults from Ben when he’s not even trying. But I’ll give you that one—some concessions need to be made for the elderly, after all.”
Mihawk only shakes his head, but it doesn’t discourage Red-Hair’s mirth, although nothing has ever really succeeded at doing so, in all the years he’s known him. And there’s a rare sort of peace to be found in the fact that, thirty years later, with all that has changed, seas and eras and governments, some things have stayed the same.
“Hey, Hawk-Eyes,” Shanks says then, and when Mihawk inclines his head it’s a curious expression that greets him, something that, for once, he can’t immediately read. “Did you ever think we’d get this far?”
It’s a question that holds endless possibilities—of duels and wars and lives, all lost. A different, darker Pirate King than the one who rules the sea now, and no peace for wanted men outside of death.
But he spares those possibilities no more than a passing thought, just as he doesn’t think about what the future will hold; that there will be a day when there will be no visit, and no call from a kindly scheming wife. Or maybe he’s the one who will go first, and there’ll be two glasses for Red-Hair to pour, and to drink in remembrance.
But whatever future awaits him in truth, it has little to do with the present. And he’s long since learned to take his years in stride, one at a time, although there will be years yet before he’ll willingly concede just whose influence that is.
“You?” he ask then. “No.”
“No hesitation, huh? Straight for the killing blow.” Shanks shakes his head. “You haven’t changed a bit, have you?”
“Something tells me you will live.”
“Yeah, well now I have to, just to continue proving you wrong.”
There’s a shuffling of small feet before he can offer a response to that, and he looks across the room to find the boy in the kitchen doorway, small muscles strung tight with reluctance and anticipation, and a wooden practice sword hidden behind his back.
“You’re not going to know what his answer will be unless you ask,” his mother says, giving him a gentle push, and there’s a moment where Mihawk doesn’t know whether he expects the boy to bolt back into the kitchen, or fall to his knees—and the latter thought sparks far too much amusement, remembering another boy, in what now feels like another lifetime.
But this boy does neither. Instead, that half-panicked, half-expectant gaze shifts, seeking out his father, the plea for assistance entirely wordless, but loud on his face.
And Mihawk already knows what his own answer will be even before Shanks says, “I know you’re technically not the best anymore, although I’m pretty sure he’s too awestruck to care. And since you’ve had a drink—”
And he knows what’s coming, even before Shanks adds, grin thirty years younger than the rest of him—
“How about a duel?”