"Luffy, Chopper and I are gonna take a bath, do you want to join us?"

"Sorry, can't!" Luffy answered, apology seeping into his tone. "I don't take baths with other people."

Usopp frowned and shrugged.

Ace shrieked when he saw Luffy naked for the first time. He and Sabo had stripped down a long time ago and were climbing into the bath.

"What?" Luffy asked. "What's wrong?" Ace was silent, Sabo frozen. "Is it because I don't have that weird thing in between my legs?"

Sabo glanced at Ace before he spoke. "Nothing's wrong, Luffy," he replied kindly. "Come on and get yourself clean, okay, little brother?"

Luffy grinned and ran over to the two.

Crocodile's hook pierced Luffy's chest. He looked down suspiciously when the point didn't pierce the skin as well as he'd expected it would, like the boy was wearing more clothing than he appeared. Coupled with his face...

"Are you...?" He trailed off, staring at the boy's now bleeding wound. The little pirate's hand reached up shakily and grabbed the golden hook.

"No. Whatever you think I am, I'm not."

"Makino!" Ace yelled, tearing through town. "Maakinoooo!"

"What?" she asked, startled, when the fourteen year old slammed open the doors of the bar. "Luffy's bleeding!"

Makino was taken aback. "Ace, surely you know how to treat a wound?"

Ace grimaced. "I... I don't know what he did, to be honest, please just come up and help."

So she agreed, because Ace was clearly worried, and Luffy was injured. The trek began, with Ace explaining what had happened to the best of his ability. When she arrived however, she came upon a sight stranger than anything she'd seen that day, and possibly that week. Luffy sat on the ground in only boxer shorts, holding his regular blue shorts in his hands, staring at a bloodstain in between the legs.

"Oh" was all Makino could manage.

A stream of magma pierced Jinbe, and he yelled out in pain, but pressed forward. He had to save Luffy had to saveluffyhADTOSAVELUFFY but the magma man's power reached the pirate anyway.

The unconscious Luffy didn't move when his chest was hit, sans a recoil and something of a gasp, but Jinbe pressed on. A doctor was waiting for Luffy. A doctor was there to save Luffy. Save Luffy saveluffYsaveluFFYSAVELUFFY

He glanced down briefly at his ward, and was shocked to find that half of the youth's shirt had practically burned off, and this included the apparent undershirt beneath it. Jinbe was shocked- was Luffy really...?- but he shook his head and kept moving, because he had to save Luffy, had to.

"Ace," Luffy said worriedly, eyes trained downward, "I think I'm sick."

"What makes you say that?" Ace replied dubiously.

"My chest. It's puffy." Luffy poked absentmindedly at his chest. Ace blinked. "Puffiness is something that happens when you're sick, right?"

"Luffy, I think it's time we talk."

"Wait- are you a...?"

Luffy frowned. "No."

"Do you even know what I was going to say, Luffy?" Nami asked, hands on her hips.

"No, but I have a feeling it's something I've heard before and I don't really want to answer that kind of question."

"Okay, how about this: how should I refer to you?"

"As a man."

"Okay."

"Okay."

"So what you're saying is," Luffy said slowly, "I'm a boy, but not the same kind as you are?"

Ace looked away nervously. "Yeah, that's about it."

"Would Sabo have cared I wasn't the same kind of boy?"

"Nah."

The eleven-year-old smiled.

"Luffy, could you join me in my room for a moment?" Robin called out across the deck.

Luffy blinked, but dropped the gadget of Usopp's he was fiddling with and bounded over. Robin ducked back into the girls' rooms, and Luffy skipped in after her.

"What's up?" he asked, as Robin shut the door. Robin turned away from Luffy and strode on a few steps. "Robin?"

Robin said nothing, but removed her shirt, and turned to face her captain. Luffy was surprised, but couldn't help but stare at his archaeologist's chest, and he slowly removed his shirt as well, and underneath it, his binder. For a few moments, all was quiet and the two couldn't tear their eyes away from the other's torso.

Slowly, they burst out into laughter. Luffy's high-pitched giggles and Robin's deep barks filled the room. They laughed, but they wanted to cry, as they stared at the chest they wanted. The chuckles died down slowly until they stood in silence, wiping tears from their eyes. Luffy redressed and left the room without a word.

Luffy was fifteen and alone and he missed Ace but this was his chance to catch up and be stronger. These were his years to prepare to sail away. He looked at the stars and thought about the crew he'd pull together.

He wondered what might happen if his crew found out he wasn't the usual idea of a "boy". He wondered if they'd leave the crew. If they'd hate him. If they said he was disgusting. Luffy frowned.

Of course he has a better judgement of character than that? And his crew wouldn't be that type of person. His crew would be loud and bold and bright, he decided, a few people that he could hold close and protect and love and they'd accept him even if he wasn't the same kind of "boy" that some of them might be.

A thought crossed his mind then: there wasn't different kinds of boy and girl, there was just boy and girl, and maybe even other things, and it didn't matter what his body said. Luffy smiled at that.

"Yeah, I'm short, so what?" Luffy asked when the other pirates in the bar continued their loud guffaws.

"He sounds like a woman!" some man in the back yelled between hoots, and a new wave of laughter broke upon the crowd. Luffy frowned.

"He looks like one too," a dark-skinned man with many tattoos added, and someone snorted.

"You know," a third, with hair that fell down his back like a mane, said, as if something was dawning on him, "he really does." This prompted the rest of the criminals to look closer at Luffy. The captain moved backward, scowling.

"I'm not a woman," he insisted stubbornly.

"With an attitude like that I won't believe you," the tattooed man retorted, and Luffy huffed.

"I don't want to fight you," Luffy said. "I just want some food."

"We never said a thing about fighting anyone," the long-haired man crooned, with an almost devious smile. Luffy looked down, said no word, and walked out.

"Oh, and by the way," Ace said, swinging his way out of the Marine base, the terrified commander trembling under his desk, "Monkey D. Luffy is not a woman."

transman luffy and transwoman robin give me life