Summary: Ace and Sabo were the best thing that happened to Luffy when he was a kid, besides Shanks. His brothers gave him a family, a home, a place where he belongs. They played and trained and took care of each other. He was sure that nothing would ever break their bond.
But lately Luffy's starting to think that he doesn't deserve to be with them anymore.
(Or, hero AU in which a villain uses his powers to control Ace and Sabo and decides to mess with Luffy when no one's looking).
A/N: This is an One Piece fic set in a superhero AU. It's similar to the worldbuilding in Boku no Hero Academia, in which being a hero is a job and there are agencies and schools and media about them. I believe it's general enough that you don't need to know anything about BNHA, but if you don't understand anything, feel free to ask! I'll gladly explain/edit to make it easier to get.
Also, Sabo and Ace both have fire powers.
Trigger warning for sibling abuse.
Luffy wasn't sure of when it started. Everything happened so gradually, so slowly - he couldn't tell when it started getting out of hand.
One day he and Ace were fine, joking and playing video games and eating, when Luffy accidentally dropped his glass of soda. Being the disaster that he is, he also dropped the bag of popcorn in his attempt to prevent the glass from falling. He looked at Ace, ready to apologize, but his brother beat him to it.
"Jesus, you can't do anything right, huh?" the older one said. Luffy laughed and scratched his head.
"My bad, Ace," he replied, ignoring the disappointment in his brother's voice. That wasn't the first time Luffy had done something like that, Ace surely was used to it by now. Besides, it was just a stupid glass, who cared about it?
Except that situations like that kept happening. Luffy would accidentally wash white clothes with colorful ones or would accidentally forget something in the oven, and his brothers would get pissed. Sabo too started making similar comments - 'fuck, Luffy, how many times do I have to tell you to be careful!' and 'these cost money, you know!' and 'god damn it, not again!"
Luffy was sure that his brothers were just having a difficult week or were stressed from fighting villains. He wasn't so weak to cry from dumb comments like that, he got over that when he was a kid, and he knew the useless part wasn't true anyway.
But after a while he started to question himself.
"Sabo! Check out my new attack!" shouted Luffy, from across the camp. They were at a training facility at Luffy's school. Since Ace and Sabo used to study there, they had permission to use the gym and camp to practice.
Luffy stretched his arms behind him, preparing himself to launch his arms towards the sky. His limbs extended several meters before returning to their natural state.
"What do you think? Cool, right? It's like a bazooka!"
His brother didn't say anything for a while. Then, he sighed. "It's okay to admit your power isn't cool, Luffy. I would be embarassed too if I were you."
"What?"
"Nothing, nothing. You wouldn't understand anyway."
Luffy noticed Ace seemed on edge lately. He kept playing with his necklace and furrowing his brow while he read something on his laptop.
"Hey, Ace," Luffy said, catching his attention, "can we go to the mall? I feel like eating some junk food."
"No."
"Please?" Luffy pouted, making his best adorable face.
His brother seemed displeased at that. "God, here I am thinking about how we're going to pay the bills this month, and you can only think about food. I can't believe how selfish you are."
The younger boy didn't know how to reply to that. "Uh, sorry? I didn't know we were short on cash."
"Of course you don't. You don't even know how much rent costs."
"You don't have to be an ass about it. I already apologized."
"Yeah, yeah. If you want money you better get a job. It's time for you to stop being so dependent on us. Though considering you break everything you touch, I doubt someone would hire you."
Sabo was pissed. Luffy could notice that by the way he was sitting, all rigid and tense, looking at important papers from his hero agency. His eye twitched every few seconds and he often mumbled something in frustration.
Luffy thought that was the perfect moment to play a prank. It never failed to piss off Sabo even more, but after a while he would laugh like it was the most hilarious thing he had ever seen. It always helped them relax a bit.
When Sabo got up to go the bathroom, Luffy quickly attached an airhorn to the base of the seat with adhesive tape. After the blond hero returned, he sat down at the chair - and got up fast when the seat made a loud, obnoxious sound. Sabo almost fell down, looking alarmed. Luffy immediately started laughing, and was about to make fun of his brother, when he noticed the blond got up, his eyes shining with rage. The dark haired boy didn't have time to protect himself when Sabo hit his upper arm with his power activated, and Luffy hissed when he felt his skin burn with his brother's fire. Okay, maybe the prank was a bit too much, Sabo was on edge and reacted by instinct, he didn't mean to do that-
Sabo interrupted the dark haired boy's thoughts by slapping his face, hard. Luffy felt back, astonished. It didn't hurt because his body was rubber, but Sabo had never hit him on purpose before. Not like that.
"Are you stupid? Do you think I'm one of your dumb friends? Don't pull that shit on me ever again. Some of us have to work here and get money so we don't starve because you ate all the food," the blond said, his voice dripping with venom. He removed the airhorn with violence and sat again, returning his attention to the paperwork and leaving an astonished Luffy on the floor.
Luffy got home, feeling annoyed. Usually he wouldn't care about failing another subject at school, but lately his brothers had been very impatient with him, and he wasn't in the mood for arguing.
Ace, being his legal guardian, had already received the news from the school and was sitting on the sofa. Luffy gave him his report card, with all his terrible grades, and waited for the mocking to start.
"Huh. I wasn't expecting much from you anyway."
Somehow that hurt more than being called an idiot.
One day, Ace, Sabo and Luffy went to the beach.
It started well enough; both of his brothers seemed in a good mood, pleased with the good weather and happy that they took a break for once. Sabo even bought Luffy some ice cream - Luffy thought that was his way of apologizing, and smiled brightly in reply to show him that everything was okay.
At some point Ace decided to go swimming, and called his brothers cowards for not going with him, so of course Sabo and Luffy felt challenged and went as well. The sea was warm and pleasant, perfect for a swim. The older brothers started trying to drown each other, their laughter loud and joyful. The younger one watched, not really wanting to participate.
But suddenly they attacked Luffy, purposefully drowning him, and the boy kicked and thrashed around in desperation. They knew he didn't know how to swim very well. They knew one of the only things he was terrified of was being underwater for long. Why were they doing this?
When they finally let go, Luffy was really annoyed. "That was mean and unnecessary," he grumbled.
"You're such a crybaby. We're only messing with you," the freckled boy said. Luffy didn't reply.
Luffy often trained with his brothers. They were heroes after all, they had to train a lot to be able to protect civilians.
Therefore he and Ace decided to spar, and the younger boy was pretty confident that this time he'd kick his brother's ass.
Except that Ace was very determined to show his younger brother that he still had much to learn. Ace quickly knocked Luffy down, before he even knew the fight had started, and started hitting him. Luffy didn't know how many times Ace punched and kicked him. In his stomach, in the face, in the leg - it felt like he was there forever, feeling his skin get burned every time the fire touched his body. Not matter how much he dodged and jumped and ran, Ace seemed to always catch him in the end.
"See? This is why we say you're weak. You can't even fight back! You're completely on the defensive," Ace sneered.
"That's not true! I'm just trying to find an opening!" the younger boy replied, frustrated with the smoke and the flames that seemed to taunt him.
"Yeah, right. I feel sorry for Rayleigh, having to train a useless hero like you." The freckled boy kept mocking him, easily avoiding any attacks from his brother.
When they finally took a break, Ace was smiling, saying that it was relaxing to be able to let it go like that. Luffy had never felt more stressed in his life.
"Oi, Luffy, did you fight any villains yesterday?" Usopp asked from across the table. They were on their break and had just picked up their lunch, chatting as usual.
"Hm? Not really, we only did some patrol. Why?" Luffy replied, bitting a piece of his sandwich. During the afternoon Luffy was a intern at Rayleigh's hero agency.
"Oh, I thought you had an exciting fight. You have some bruises on your leg and on your face that look worse than the usual ones you get at training," said Nami, eating her omelette.
The shorter boy felt a stomach tighten at that. He remembered how he and Sabo were sparring like always, the typical training they always did together, when the blond boy had decided to test a new technique. He engulfed Luffy in fire, trapping him in a circle, and started making fireballs that followed the younger boy. Luffy tried, but the flames always found him, and he couldn't stay away. Meanwhile, Sabo only laughed, watching Luffy get burned.
The dark haired boy didn't react. He had no idea of what happened. He knew his brother was superior in power, but he also never had his ass kicked like that. Worse of all, he felt sick and he couldn't stop shaking when his brother was near him, and he didn't know why.
"Hey, shithead, we're talking to you," Sanji called, waving a hand in front of him, successfully snapping Luffy out of his thoughts.
"Oops, my bad. I was just training with Sabo yesterday, and he got too excited," he mentioned, feeling like the words weren't right. It wasn't exactly training, it was more like his brother using him as a punchbag. The way the older boy seemed to mock him like he was trash kept coming back to his thoughts, but Luffy tried to ignore it. He was sure that the blond was just trying to train him. At least one opponent in his life would do something like that in a fight, and he supposed he better get used to it.
"Really? Sabo seems so good at power management. I can't imagine him losing control," Nami wondered. "Did you do anything to piss him off? I'm sure living with you isn't exactly easy."
The boy felt cold hearing that. He knew he wasn't the best person to deal with. He was still in school and couldn't pay for his food or rent or textbooks. Ace and Sabo had guaranteed that they would help him with money so Luffy wouldn't need to work on top of pursuing a hero career. In other words, they had every right to complain when their younger brother broke something or annoyed them, right? He only had a home because of them. He owed them his life.
But why spend money helping someone that they considered so useless? Someone that they thought had a stupid power and wasn't smart enough and didn't do anything right? Luffy realized he didn't understand Ace and Sabo anymore, and even though he was surrounded by friends, he felt like he was seven years old again, lonely and without any family and sitting alone at home waiting for Gramps to come back from work.
"Hey, I'm joking! Your brothers love you, you know. We can see it in the way they treat you," Nami said smiling, suddenly compassionate.
'They love me, huh?' Luffy thought. For the first time since he was small, he wasn't sure anymore about that.
Luffy started suspecting something was wrong when his friends visited him.
Sanji brought snacks and Franky his Xbox so they could play Just Dance. Robin and Jinbe were sitting in the sofa, watching amused as Brook, Usopp, Chopper and Nami danced to Beyonce's Crazy In Love, while Luffy and Zoro laughed at their poor attempts.
"Are you okay?" Zoro asked the rubber boy.
"Yeah! Why?"
"Nothing. Robin mentioned you looked a bit down."
Luffy was surprised to hear that. The older woman was almost never wrong about things she noticed. But, truthfully, he didn't really know how he felt. The dark haired boy wasn't spending as much time at home as he used to. For some reason he kept feeling anxious whenever he saw his brothers, and he didn't want to annoy them again, so he thought it was best to stay longer at school.
A door opening interrupted his thoughts, and he turned to see Ace and Sabo entering the apartment. The older boys greeted the visitors and immediately offered them chocolate cake, which was received with cheers.
"Your brothers are so nice, Luffy! You're lucky to have them!" Chopper said, eating his piece with glee.
Luffy had to agree. They were nice, weren't them? Luffy should be grateful for everything they've done for him.
So why can't he stop feeling so uneasy around them?
A/N: I've always wondered a lot about Luffy's canon confidence. He's always positive that he will get what he wants and that he's strong. Even when his brothers joke about his power being lame or useless, Luffy knows that's not true and he stands by it. Even when his brothers or crewmates or anybody else, really, say he's an idiot, he still never calls himself that. Even if an enemy is superior than him, he never calls himself not as strong as them. The only time (I think) he did call himself weak was when he failed to save his brother - in other words, he only considers himself weak because of a failed objective, not because people told him so.
As an abuse and bullying victim who was belittled and told to be useless, this was a complete foreign concept to me. Seeing my favourite character being so confident, so positive, was something that made me really emotional. So I wanted to try my hand at a fic where Luffy goes through a similar painful experience like I did, but was still able to overcome it with the help of his family and friends. In other words, some sort of vent fic.
I did some research on sibling abuse and abuse recovery to write this story, and added my own feelings as well. I really wanted to portray the hurt the victim feels when treated so harshly by family, and I hope I was able to transmit that.
Let me know what you think! :)
