Title: Mightier than the Sword
Pairing(s): None
Warning(s): Spoilers for Marineford, severe angst on the part of Marco.
Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece.
Additional notes: This is a little more depressing than my usual work and I do apologize. A stream of nightmares prompted the general mood.

"You wouldn't understand. You've never had to bury your Captain." Marco regretted the words as they left his mouth, his eyes going wide with fear as he watched Red-Haired Shanks for any sign of a reaction.

He had never seen the man truly angry, but the stories from those who had were enough to strike fear into the heart of many stout men, Marine and pirate alike.

Perhaps, if Marco were lucky, Shanks would have mercy on his soul. But Marco was never a particularly lucky man and after ending a war, burying his biggest rival beside his former Captain's son, and spending a good portion of his days after trying to pull said late rival's first mate out of an irate depression, there was no compassion, no mercy, left within the heart of the infamous red-head.

"No," Shanks told Marco in a soft voice, "I never had the chance."

Most pirates would, if asked, say that Red-Haired's sword was his most dangerous weapon. Or maybe his haki? That he could knock a hundred men unconscious with a thought had to count for something. (And if the rumors were exaggerations, they were assumed to be slight exaggerations.)

The Marines, on the other hand, often cursed Red-Haired and his winning personality; the man had connections on every major island in both halves of the Grand Line and many of the smaller ones as well.

Sengoku privately (and publicly, when drunk and livid) abhorred Shanks' incredulous luck. No matter how many men were sent to capture or engage the Red-Haired Pirates somehow the man always escaped in some hilariously, ridiculously, should-be-impossible fashion. He suspected the vagabond did it on purpose to embarrass the World Government. The Fleet Admiral had finally had issued an order that the Red-Haired Pirate and his crew were to be avoided at all costs, unless Sengoku's superiors themselves ordered otherwise. Really, there was only so much humiliation that one organization could withstand, official government military or not.

But on this day, Marco the Phoenix learned the truth about Red-Haired Shanks. It wasn't his sword, his haki, his smile, or his luck that were to be feared, for the ultimate weapon that Shanks held in his one arm was much worse; his love.

In that moment, Marco understood what it was that drove Edward Teach to insanity, hoping in vain to prove himself worthy of Shanks' acknowledgement. Marco himself felt that he would do anything to turn back time and erase what he had said that made him so far gone in Shanks' eyes that he was unworthy of notice and nothing he did would ever be adequate again.

The tears that Marco thought had disappeared after his Captain and little brother's burial were suddenly streaming down his face. No longer was Marco in the void he had been in. The black hole that had been sucking him in no longer held any power over him.

The former first mate blinked to clear his eyes and opened his mouth to apologize to Shanks, even though no words would make right the wound his carelessness had reopened, but found the man already gone from his sight. He knew without looking to the sea that the Red Force, Shanks' mighty and loyal ship, full of some of the best pirates in the New World, would be setting sail.

Perhaps that was for the best. Shanks had done everything for Marco after Whitebeard's…last stand, and now it was time for the blond to stand on his own feet, test his broken wings, so to speak. It was time to prove that his father was right to believe in him as a pirate, and as a man. Someday, although it may not be anytime soon, Marco would win back the right to be acknowledged by Red-Haired Shanks. He would uphold Whitebeard's name and, unlike the errant Teach, he, his father's son, would be a man worthy of notice.