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Mihawk doesn’t quite understand how the situation turned out like this.
Following Shanks’ advice (a mistake, he knows that now), he’d gone to Buggy to dump the one kid that had been following him around and, not only had he failed to do that, but he had been saddled with a second one. And the worst part is that it had been his idea, somehow, when talking to Buggy, it had seemed sensible .
It’s baffling.
It’s also not ideal.
His boat is very practical when he’s traveling alone but it had already been a bit cramped when he was sharing it with only Perona. Now, he can barely stretch his legs for fear of kicking Roronoa, who’s decided to commandeer the bow and is napping there without a care in the world. Mihawk will need to train some danger awareness into him, that kid had gone from attacking him to trusting him alarmingly fast.
Still, at least he’s quiet.
“Are we there yet?”
Mihawk sighs.
“No, Perona, we left the Baratie a day ago,” he patiently explains for the fifth time this hour. “It’s going to take us at least a couple of weeks before we reach Kuraigana.”
Perona pouts and Mihawk very deliberately does not find it cute (the girl had already weaponized her badgering in order to claim far more than her allotted part of the rations, he cannot afford to give her a second weapon).
“But it was a lot quicker on the way here!” she protests and she starts repeatedly poking at his side with her index finger. “Can’t we go quicker? Can we? Can we? Can I have more cake?”
Perona’s already had four slices of cake today.
But she does quiet down while eating. And it will give her something to do with her hands that is not attacking him.
Mihawk hands her what’s left of the cake and wonders what he will do now that his main way of appeasing her is gone.
“We used the Calm Belt on the way there,” he, once again, explains. “Since we are going through Reverse Mountain it will take longer.”
Perona hums, way too into her treat to really pay attention to him and Mihawk sighs in relief (though he has the nagging suspicion that he’s just got played).
Going through Reverse Mountain is a pain and Mihawk considers reversing course and ignoring Buggy’s ‘request’ that he not endanger the kids by subjecting them to Sea Kings and the like.
In Mihawk's opinion, it would do the kids good to experience a bit of fear. Maybe they’d even be grateful that he, the greatest swordsman in the world, is there to get them out of trouble. Dare he hope that they’d finally realise what an honor it is that he’s deigning to oversee their development?
But no, Mihawk does not intend to make an enemy of Shanks’ paramour again, he barely survived the first time (five months without wine, five months! Even his own harvest suffered a mysterious plague and his cellar had suddenly collapsed smashing all his prized collection).
Buggy’s not an easy enemy. He’s sneaky, cunning and you never know how he’ll attack you. Half the time you don’t even know if he’s attacked you or you are suddenly experiencing the worst luck of your life. Which is annoying in and of itself because it makes it very difficult to justify why you are suddenly attacking him with a sword.
Not to mention that the man’s particularly well suited to counter his attacks. Mihawk has only attempted to slice him once but he does not relish the memory. Usually when he cuts a man in half, the man in question does not keep on taunting him.
And Shanks had given him hell for even attempting to hurt his beloved. Not that he’d used that word of course, their courtship is far too intricate for it to allow such clear labels.
The point is that Mihawk had ended up with no wine, no retaliation and a lot of bruises so he’d developed some healthy wariness towards the Clown Prince of East Blue.
And Buggy had made his feelings on children's safety clear enough that Mihawk has no choice but to acquiesce to his request (especially since he foresees that there may arise the need to contact him for aid or counsel in the near future. He’s pretty sure he should not be allowing Perona to eat half a cake a day and he’s not certain if Roronoa’s sleep schedule is appropriate for a child his age, it seems a bit excessive to him).
“Do you want to play a game?” Perona asks and Mihawk sighs again which the girl seems to take as a yes. “Okay! Let’s play I spy.”
Mihawk looks around, there’s only sea as far as the eye can see.
“Water?” he ventures.
Perona frowns at him. “You are supposed to wait until I tell you which colour it is!”
He blinks, “So it wasn’t water?”
Perona groans in frustration and turns around, crossing her arms. “You are impossible!”
Mihawk is not sure what he did wrong but he doesn’t have the time to ponder it before the girl literally kicks Roronoa awake.
“What?” he asks groggily, earning him another kick for his trouble which does finally wake him up. “Are you crazy? Stop hitting me!”
“Na-ah,” Perona answers, trying a third kick which Roronoa dodges. “Don’t wanna.”
Mihawk frowns consideringly, perhaps it will be good for Roronoa to share his living space with Perona, it should teach him to always be aware of possible dangers around.
The kids are finally entertaining one another so Mihawk pays them no mind. They are noisy but he’s been to enough Warlord meetings to learn how to tune out inane chatter.
That works for about three minutes which is the time it takes the two boisterous kids roughhousing in the very small boat to fall overboard.
Mihawk hums contemplative, perhaps the Calm Belt would not have been such a good idea after all.
He fishes them out calmly and frowns when Roronoa shakes himself dry, sending drops of water everywhere on the boat (and on Mihawk and Perona too).
“You are an animal,” Perona informs him, which Mihawk thinks is a bit harsh if deserved. He’ll have to help her refine her language and repertoire of insults. She looks a bit shaken but, since she’s trying her hardest to hide it, Mihawk is tactful enough not to mention it.
“You started it!” Roronoa answers and the two kids square up again, seemingly having not learned their lesson about bouts of violence in very small boats.
“Sit down,” Mihawk orders them.
He is ignored.
That usually doesn’t happen to him.
Should he use Haki?
Roronoa has his hand fisted on Perona’s hair and he’s pulling it savagely which Mihawk would consider poor manners if the girl wasn’t trying to bite him.
“Enough,” he tries again.
His words have the same effect as before.
It’s confounding.
In the end, he has to resort to grabbing them both by the scruff of their neck and forcefully separating them.
“I think we need to establish some ground rules,” he says, deciding to deal with the situation as he would the creation of a new crew.
“Why should we listen to you?” Perona asks him and for once her and Roronoa seem on the same page.
Mihawk ponders the question for a second. He will not inflict violence on them, of course, but, “This is my boat, these are my provisions, and that’s my home we are heading towards. I could share all this with you, or I can leave you on the next island we come across.”
The kids make a sound that he chooses to interpret as a ‘fair enough’.
He carefully lowers them to the ground and is inordinately pleased when they don’t immediately resume fighting.
“Okay, rules,” he says but doesn’t proceed.
Usually crew’s have rules like ‘don’t kill any of your crewmates’ (counterproductive to his plan to raise Roronoa into a worthy rival), ‘obey the Captain’ (not a title he’d claim for himself and the kids are already reluctant enough to follow his lead), ‘don’t steal other’s share of the spoils’ (Perona will never agree to that and Mihawk thinks facing her attempts will help Roronoa built character) and the like.
The kids are looking at him expectantly and Perona raises a very disrespectful eyebrow.
“Don’t fight when in the boat?” he tries. He is met with two reluctant nods which emboldens him. “If we have limited rations, ask before you eat them.” Perona doesn’t seem pleased but agrees, Roronoa just shrugs. “Also don’t kill one another.”
“But she/he’s annoying!” both protest at the same time.
“Yes,” Mihawk nods. “You are both annoying but I’m not killing you for it, am I? Just, put up with it till the next island and there you can fight as much as you want.”
“Can I yell at him at least?” Perona requests.
“Sure,” Mihawk nods. “But if the two of you get too loud I will dunk you into the sea, understood?”
The kids shrug and Mihawk allows himself a small smile, he thinks he is really starting to get the hang of this.