WARNINGS: Brief Underage, Mpreg
Luffy had never felt that newborn babies were particularly 'cute'. Their tiny faces were usually still squished from birth, their bodies wrinkled and covered in all of the associated fluids. They had no control over their bodily functions and, perhaps worst of all, they screamed. Nobody should be able to scream that loud. Nobody.
When he first held his own daughter, this did not necessarily change. He did not feel an instant bond with her, as the other moms-to-be in his parenting circles told him he would. He did not feel a swell of maternal instinct well within him as he looked down upon what he and Ace had created. What he did feel was an ever-growing desire for the nurse to return to adjust the medication in his IV and to take an extraordinarily long nap - birth, as it turned out, was exhausting.
The parenting circles had a word for this, too. They called it post-partum depression. Claimed that, with a regular routine of medication and therapy, it would clear right up in a matter of months. Said that it would happen to any omega in his situation. They claimed it was Ace's fault for knocking him up and then leaving him to sail the seas, said that no self-respecting alpha would leave his expectant omega at home to deal with the toils of child-rearing on their own.
They did not realize, or care, how difficult it was for Ace to make that decision; hell, that Luffy had even encouraged it.
That one day soon, Luffy intended to join him on the seas and fuilfill his dream to become the King of the Pirates.
It took him two weeks to settle on a suitable name for the child. Usually, the rite of naming went to the alpha, but clearly that would not be applicable in this case. He did not know when, or if, he would ever see Ace again - he could not rightly allow his child to remain nameless until their paths happened to cross again. And so he called her Rumi, which meant beauty and water. A fitting name for the child of two aspiring pirates.
At one month old, little Rumi began to resemble her father. She had a thick mop of dark curls atop her little head, and eyes, black as coal, that were wide and intelligent. Her tiny body seemed to be covered in freckles - Gramp called them sunspots, before promptly chasting Luffy for leaving her out in the sun while he ran around 'playing pirate'. He, like many others on their little island, held the old world belief that a mated omega belonged in the home, barefoot and pregnant.
The old bastard seemed to have been perpetually pissed at him ever since he came home at fourteen, his brand new mating mark still bleeding sluggishly. He reeked of sex and alpha and satisfaction, and Garp just about lost his shit. Luffy didn't understand it then, but he thought it might be a little bit clearer now.
He wasn't like that old world ideal, where omegas were seen and not heard, meant to be kept inside of the home like some sort of trophy.
He hadn't wanted children. But he also knew what it felt like to be alone, cast aside and unwanted, and once he knew of the new life growing within him, he just let nature take it's course. Thought that maybe, just maybe, once the little baby was born, he'd feel differently.
And now he was here, fifteen-years-old with a baby, and an alpha on the complete other side of the world. This was not like the fairytales where true love wins the day and everybody lives happily ever after. He was fifteen with a baby. Despite the medication that they continued to pump into his system, despite the encouraging smiles from the other moms in his parenting circle, despite the beautiful miracle that he called his own...
Luffy did not love his child. At least, he did not love her like he ought. And he was counting down to the days until he could leave her, and this island, behind forever.