Title: Eagle Eye

Series: One Piece

Summary: "I'm afraid we've been a tad careless," are the first words out of the woman at his doorstep, and somewhere in the process of voicing his indignant annoyance, Dracule Mihawk abruptly learns the meaning of gobsmacked. Inspired by that two-shot what-if thing I wrote.

Eagle Eye

A One Piece Fanfiction

by The Devil Wears Ariadoney

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"I'm afraid we've been a tad careless," are the first words out of the black-robed woman standing at his threshold one misty morning. Somewhere in the process of voicing his indignant annoyance, Dracule Mihawk is sidetracked by a different matter and in that moment that he abruptly learns the meaning of gobsmacked. Several possible questions come to the forefront of his mind; they do not include the more reasonable ones such as 'what are you doing here,' or 'how did you find this place'— in the minuscule pool of those likely to have mastered the art of finding him even in the most remote places, such as the out-of-the-way manor he was currently inhabiting, it would certainly include Monkey D. Dragon— but can't seem to manage anything better to address the matter at hand.

"What," he says in monotone, "is that?"

'That' being the wriggling, squirming infant in Dragon's arms. The look he receives is wry.

"Our son," she says as if such a statement is the most natural thing to say in the world, "I'm coming in. He's hungry, and we've been on the move all day."

The woman then proceeds to brush past him as if she owns the place, and Mihawk lets her, still very much in shock. By the time Dragon has made herself at home and produced a bottle for the fussy baby does he finally look at thing— infant— boy? as it— he— quiets enough to suckle happily at the food source provided.

"How did this happen," Mihawk says flatly, and Dragon does roll her eyes at that.

"Well, when a man and a woman—" she begins in a voice dripping with sarcasm; he quickly rescinds the question with a wave of his hand. He's usually not anywhere as… tongue tied as this, but. It's a baby. And, sadly, it is not lost on him that his last encounter with Dragon had been just a little under a year ago. By now he'd experienced hundreds of battles and life-threatening situations, but absolutely nothing has prepared him for anything remotely like this, and it's an odd feeling, being so utterly bewildered.

So Mihawk takes a deep, calming breath to order some of the very conflicting emotions he's struggling with right now.

"My… apologies, I suppose," he says carefully. Dragon throws her head back and laughs so hard that the bottle jostles out of the baby's mouth and he whines in complaint.

"We're equally to blame," she smirks, "This is really only a courtesy call. I thought you at least had the right to know, seeing as he's fifty percent your handy work."

"Be as it may, I'd can't say I appreciate the thought," Mihawk grumbles despite himself. He has kept a wary eye on her composure, but it seems that Dragon has not come bearing any ill will. No, she's oddly at ease, sitting there and feeding the tiny child in her arms as if it's the most natural thing in the world, but nonplussed at his lack of enthusiasm. It's… strange, goes against most of what he knows of the stern, brooding woman so deeply entrenched in her ideals he simply can't imagine her taking to the position of motherhood, and yet—

"I admit I wasn't too pleased when I first found out, but," she shrugs. "Things change. I won't be keeping him though."

That catches his attention.

"Oh?"

"Not forever. A little too dangerous in my current line of work, and right now I cannot afford any… distractions." The tone shift is faint, and gone in seconds, but Mihawk's keen eye also catches the flicker of muted emotion in her normally poised face. He says nothing. Dragon shakes her head minutely to the side, hand clenching around the bottle, but soon these small signs pass and she is now seemingly unruffled.

"He'll go to my father, most likely," she says. The statement sounds equally aimed at herself as it does to Mihawk,"Unless…" An eyebrow arches as she looks to him, now. "You had any particular desire for custody?"

"Absolutely not," Mihawk says instantly, and she chuckles.

"Fair enough. It's just that, well, blood connections to a feared Revolutionary such as I will do him no good."

"And such connections to a Warlord are any better?"

"Maybe so." Dragon hesitates; she's in some thought. "Ah… another partial reason for this visit was to warn you, in a way."

"…Warn me?" he says warily, just as the baby finishes his bottle and begins to kick and complain, drawing Dragon's attention so that the reply is absent in her divided attention.

"Mostly that he's inherited some of your defining features. They're a bit hard to miss. Thought you should know."

What. He's unwillingly drawn to the baby again and this time Mihawk actually looks, though what she means isn't readily apparent. He's pale, which doesn't necessarily mean anything. His hair is dark, but so is his mother's, and he really doesn't see until he sees the eyes. Cross-eyed and unfocused as they are, they're also a very piercing shade of gold. The very same shade he's seen before, in mirrors, and reflected in the frightened eyes of terrified foes just moments from being vanquished.

...That is distinctive. Too distinctive.

"Sorry," Dragon shrugs as Mihawk stiffens, because to those who would know there is no questioning this child's heritage, not when he shares the same fearsome eyes that had given him his moniker, known throughout the oceans.

"So I'm to be saddled to this no matter what my say is," he groans, again with the highly conflicting feelings that included some amount of helpless frustration. The woman across from him frowns.

"Again, we had equal parts in this, and I'm not expecting anything in particular from you," Dragon says, though this time a little reproachfully. She sighs, deflates. "This is also much to take in all at once. Perhaps I've taken all the necessary time I've needed."

And just like that, she arranges the child in her arms and stands, and the meeting is over. She'd come to speak her piece, and had done so, and breezes to the door without so much as a word from him otherwise. She does pause, though, turning back briefly as she raises her hood.

"His name is Luffy," she says. "If you choose to keep this as your only interaction with him, I will not blame you." A pause. "Garp may be in an idiot, but I can't guarantee he won't catch on once he sees his grandson's features, so prepare yourself." Another pause. Then, one last quieter statement. "This… will be the last time you see me like this. We have grown… too close, I think."

…He does not bade her farewell, only inclines his head, and then Dragon is gone. Her last words play themselves back, several times over, echoing with everything else he's just seen and heard and Mihawk finds that he needs either a good fight or a very strong drink, or both most preferably both in order to process this entire morning. Shanks was somewhere in paradise the last he'd heard, not that he planned to breath a word of this to his rival.

Somehow he can't shake the tiny golden eyes from memory, and there they stay in the corner of his mind despite every effort otherwise.

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"Lol what if Mihawk were Luffy's dad" aka Garp has a daughter instead of a son, she runs into a future warlord on the day of Roger's execution, and they have an on-and-off thing for some years. Yeah, I don't know either, but I wanna write it.

I also don't have a real actual plot for this though, so what I'm probably going to do is a bunch of non-linear short entries on interactions and the changes this causes in certain situations while ignoring the deeper, more complicated implications this technically would bring to the main story lmaoooo.