Worthy of Love

Oneshot

Extended Universe of Who We Were Meant To Be

Hi, this little one-shot comes directly from Lily Noirs absolutely gorgeous reviews of Who We Were Meant To Be, a one piece marine!Luffy AU. I don't know how much sense this does by itself, though I did try to make it stand on its own. Naturally, it contains heavy spoilers for WWW and I do not recommend reading it if you have any intention of reading the main storyline, I leave you here the summary so that you can make the call:

Portgas D. Ace is ready to be executed, he's made peace with it... Until a rag-tag band of marines frees him from Impel Down. They come in the name of his traitor of a brother, a man who had carried him into that same cell. Marine!Luffy AU

Having said that, enjoy and let me know if you'd like to keep seeing one-shot's like this one.

Ace knows his Pops number by heart, but his fingers still shake so hard as he trials to dial it that he tries 3 times before the connection starts to ring. Behind the kitchen of the Thousand Sunny, there's a small space before the cellars doors where a single armchair and a coffee table lay, the crew's main den-den mushi rests there. Chopper had called it the 'phone room', though it's hardly a room.

"Hello?" It's Marco's voice and already Ace feels like his throat is closing up, and not enough air goes through. He stares in the air for a couple of seconds, trying to expand his lungs into breathing properly but he takes enough time that Marco asks again. "Hello?"

"Marco," he chokes out.

"…Ace?" His brother sounds wary, but Ace can easily figure out why. "I think you have the wrong number."

"There's never a wrong number for home." Marco takes a sharp intake of breath from the other side of the line as Ace utters the code for safe. If he was making the call under duress, the code phrase would be 'I'm just trying to call home.'

"Ace. How?" His voice is breathless. "Wait there a second, let me get Pops." For a moment the uncharacteristic enthusiasm in Marco's voice is confusing. Then it strikes Ace that his family –most of it at least– thinks he's still locked up at Impel Down. The last 24 hours have been so gut-wrenchingly exhausting his imprisonment feels like it's decades behind him instead of just some pitiful hours.

There's shuffling in the other line and Ace thanks Marco's uncanny ability to read a situation as he hears the first mate shoo people out of Pop's room. The less people Ace has to face for the following conversation the better, the full attention of Marco and Pops has his hands sweating. Ace is still hesitant to ask for something of thid magnitude, but he also has no choice.

"Ace?" Ace grits his teeth and something warms inside of him at Pop's voice.

"Pops." He greets, but cannot muster much more small talk that that. He needs to fill them in on what's happened, but it's difficult to drag his mind away from Luffy.

"…Son, are you okay?"

"Not really…" because lying to Whitebeard never works and Ace is a shitty ass liar anyway. "I'm safe though, I'm out of Impel Down."

"How?" Marco inquires and Ace can say that some former marines rescued him, but the story is much longer than that and he knows he owns it to Luffy to convince these people he's worth saving.

"It's a long story, but I need you to bear with me." He warns, and imagines Marco and Whitebeard eyeing each other in their silent communication over the pause in the line.

"We're listening, son." With Pops encouragement, Ace launches into his tale.

"Luffy and I grew up together with mountain bandits, along with one other boy named Sabo." Ace starts. Marco's mind is still reeling that he's suddenly speaking to his brother who Marco has been preparing to go to war for, just like that. "I'd been there forever and I'd met Sabo for almost a year when Garp suddenly brought Luffy, his biological grandchild, to live with us." Marco often forgets Ace is the ward of the Vice-Admiral who'd fought Gol D. Roger. A shudder goes through him at the thought. "Luffy had been living in town when Red Hair Shanks stopped by, I'm not sure why he was there, if I'm honest, but he ended up losing an arm rescuing Luffy from the Lord of the Coast, that's ehh, a sea king that's outside our village."

"Shanks told us he 'gave up his arm to the new generation', yoi." Marco remembers that particular visit. The story about Ace's little brother is certainly intriguing, but the first mate is absolutely lost as to how this has anything to do with Ace escaping Impel Down and that is still a surreal thought.

"It isn't the only thing he gave up." Ace sighs. Marco pictures him running fingers through his hair, Ace isn't often frustrated but he's a man who wears his feelings on his sleeve. "When Luffy and I met, he had a straw hat." Marco and Whitebeard meet eyes, the older man particularly interested in this part of the story.

"A straw hat? From Red Hair?" Something in his tone must sound off because Ace asks.

"Is that important?"

"Not… really, yoi." Marco can only guess the significance of the straw hat of the pirate king after all.

"Anyways, he was –is– an obnoxious kid, he's impossible and reckless and he was always yelling about how he had promised Shanks to become the Pirate King." Well, there was the significance of the straw hat. Shanks thought the kid could do it.

"How old was your brother?"

"Oh, he was seven." Marco choked back a reply. That's a bit young to decide on career piracy, no? Garp clearly did something wrong if both of his charges wanted to become pirates. "The most annoying ball of chaos you will ever meet." Marco can tell across the line that Ace is grinning, the way only an older brother can at their reckless little brother.

"Sounds like you love him."

"I do now." Ace replies. "Back then? I hated him on sight. Spat right on his face when he came to introduce himself, all smiles and no common sense." That… definitely sounds like Ace's temper yes, Marco thinks fondly of his brother.

"Such a charmer, yoi." Pops and Ace laugh at the comment.

"Yeah, well, dealing with Luffy is hassle." Ace continues. "At that point in time, Sabo and I had been stealing money from the towns and other thieves. We wanted to be pirates and were saving money for a ship. Somehow, despite carefully losing him in the jungle every morning, Luffy found us. We planned to… silence him." Silence him? It hits him like a ton of bricks.

"Were you going to murder him?!" Marco yells appalled, next to him Pop rumbles in laughter.

"Gurarara!"

"Shut up! I was ten okay and grew up around criminals, it seemed like the logical step to take." Ace grumbles, but Marco can tell from his tone that the younger man is embarrassed.

"That's supposed to make it better?" Marco mocks, laughing, trying to picture a tiny Ace with the short temper he carried into adulthood.

"Sabo was on it too!" He defends, and if anything Whitebeard laughs harder.

"Then, what happened, son?"

"Luffy got kidnapped by some pirates that Sabo and I stole from." Ace said, tone somber. Marco knows his brother is alive, but he doesn't think what's coming is going to be particularly pleasant. "Sabo and I figured that the pirates would wrestle the location of our stash from him and spent all afternoon moving our things, then we waited for the pirates to come looking but…"

"They never came, did they?"

Ace's tone says it all.

"No, they didn't. Because Luffy never talked. We found him strung up from their ceiling. They figured out that blunt force wasn't much use quickly –Luffy's made out of rubber– and had been punching him with spiked gloves."

He was seven.

"We got him back. After that, Sabo and I adopted him into our little group and ran around saving his ass from stupid trouble."

"It's hard to picture you being the responsible one, yoi."

"I'm not, but Luffy's a complete magnet for trouble, I had to cut him out from an alligator's stomach once, everything looks sensible next to him."

"It sounds like you boys had a lot of fun together." Pops mentions, and of course that's what he takes away from that particular story. Ace's voice is particularly soft when he speaks again.

"…We did." Marco has the sudden urge to meet this little brother. "One day, I'd heard that if you toast with sake with someone you become their brother, and Sabo, Luffy and I did." No one speaks about how they're not biological siblings, to this crew it doesn't matter. "Sabo died a couple of months later. Killed by a Celestial Dragon." From what Marco gathers this must've been at least ten yeas ago, but Ace sounds raw and bitter. "Luffy and I vowed we would set sail when we were 17. I left the island 6 years ago, Luffy was supposed to follow me 3 years late. He would never set out to be a pirate at all, but I didn't know that then." Ace seems to get lost in his thoughts, as the snail looks far away from them, expression wide open.

"What happened, son?" Whitebeard prompts kindly.

"My… father, was a dangerous criminal; Luffy is Dragon's kid." Marco doesn't miss that Ace keeps the name of his father to himself, but from Whitebeard's unsurprised gaze he figures Pops already knows. If Pops is okay with it then so is Marco.

"Dragon from the Revolutionary Army?" Pops asks, musing.

"Yeah. Gramps had been raising us in secret, or something like that, and it seemed to be going well… until my first bounty came out. The Navy stopped believing Garp was a fit guardian for such dangerous children. Luffy was taken to Marineford where they had the intention to enlist him in the marines. He struck a deal there. He would enlist in the marines, if the marines held back on arresting me." The idea seems a little ridiculous now, some kid having to make a deal for the freedom of Whitebeard Commander, Fire Fist Ace. Though, it was 6 years ago, everyone had been a rookie once and making it to the top is a lot more dangerous with too many eyes on your back.

"They…" Ace swallows. "They keep a bomb on him, a slave collar." The statement brings absolute silence. Whitebeard's eyes go wide and then they narrow. It's faint, but Marco can feel the air in the room get thinner. "I ran into him looking for Teach in Alabasta a couple of months ago, which is where I found out that he's a marine. I'd heard from Gramps that he was okay, though I thought him not having a bounty was strange." Ace sounds angry again, and Marco can tell Ace feels responsible for not checking in on his little brother. "When I saw him... he wouldn't even look at me. Said something or other about filthy pirates and I just… I lost it, called him a traitor and all kinds of things, I never thought that…" Marco watches the den-den mushi's eyes fill with tears as Ace's voice breaks, and his own heartstring are pulled. The little brother he loved working for the people that killed his other brother. "I told him he was betraying Sabo's memory." Ouch.

"It's okay, Ace, there was no way for you to–"

"I should've know!" Ace explodes, and Marco's almost taken aback by the vehemence in the tone when he repeats quietly, in a voice permeated by misery, "I'm his older brother, I should've known." Marco, who has been wrestling with Teach's betrayal, and who has already tried to have a very similar conversation feels a little sick. Marco knows how his brother feels, but he's also concerned that Ace insists on blaming himself for everything.

"You believed what your brother wanted you to believe." Pops cuts in, but it doesn't seem to smooth over the shimmering guilt. After a minute, Ace pieces himself together and continues.

"Luffy is the Vice-Admiral who escorted me to Impel Down." He admits, almost reluctant to continue, a light goes on in Marco's brain.

"Ace... if your brother's deal is supposed to keep you free… why did the marines detain you at all? And if your brother is the one who escorted you, why didn't he just let you go?"

"They're saying that because I was apprehended by a third party the deal is null and…" Teach, shit.

"And because of the collar he cannot refuse, shit."

"That Sengoku is as shrewd as they come." Pop says neutrally, but Marco has known this man for more than 2 decades, he can tell with a glance, Whitebeard is furious.

"He has a… crew? Of sorts?" Ace says. "His nakama are actually the ones who got me out. I'm on their ship sailing towards Sabaondy."

"How did they break you out?"

"Here this out, they walked me right out the front door in a marine uniform."

"Gurarara! Those brats sure are something!"

"Of course," Marco thinks out loud, something like wonder settles over him, "they're marines, yoi. That is absolutely brilliant." He's smiling from ear to ear, in this conversation Marco has almost forgotten the cold dread that has made home of him since news from Ace's imprisonment broke out. His brother is safe.

"Yeah, except…" Ace is back to being hesitant, and Marco has the suddent, ill-tasting realization that the hard part of this conversation isn't over. Ace didn't open up to them just because, something else is wrong. "Except they arrested Luffy for my break out. They're going to execute him in 6 days."

"Exchanging one 'criminal's' legacy for another." Pops muses, and Marco can just imagine Ace's flinch mirroring his own. Things like this are the reason Marco's a pirate.

"I cannot ask you to put everything on the line for my little brother." Marco hates it. He hates everything in that sentence, because his brother has never sounded defeated before.

"But you will, yoi," Marco prompts, stoking the flames, assured that the fire that makes up Ace's will allows for nothing less. "Won't you, firecracker?"

"Luffy… He's given up everything for me." Ace chokes. "You were ready to go to battle for me, I'm just saying that, I'm still going to be in that battle… and I… I cannot…" Ace is taking big breathes, and Marco's really worried about his mental state right then because if Ace breaks down neither of the older man can help him. "I am the son of Gol D. Roger." Marco feels like the revelation comes out of nowhere, but it makes a twisted sort of sense, doesn't it? Ace's dislike for the Pirate King has never been shy and his rejection of a father figure is legendary, even on a crew made up of ill-fated individuals who had only found family in a band of pirates. "I would've never expected anybody to come get me because for the longest of time, ever since I knew whose blood ran through my veins, the world did not miss an opportunity to remind me that no one wanted me to be born." Marco hears something break, something in his heart, he thinks or in his patience.

"Ace, that's–" Pop's hand touches on his back, and he shakes his head minutely. Marco has to bite his lip to not yell at Ace and to get the names of whoever dared even think something like that. He takes a deep breath because he can do that later and right now, he needs to listen.

"I had made peace with my death. I'm sorry I'm so selfish. I'm sorry I'm even asking this when I know what it means and the consequences it could bring but all this time, I've been out with you… happy, fully happy since the days of Luffy and me as children and all I can think about is that my happiness cost my little brother his dream and it's about to cost him his life, too. I cannot do it alone. We won't make it. So, please, if you could do for him… what you would've done for him… I keep thinking that my brother deserves it much more than I ever will." Then, Marco looks at Whitebeard in desperation beacause Ace sobs.

"I'm begging you, please, don't let my little brother die for me." Those words -this moment- are going to haunt Marco forever.

Marco cannot believe Ace is so far away from them when he clearly needs to be home. His mouth is open, but no words are coming out, what can he possible say to relieve some of his brother's burden? Marco will fight for him, there's no doubt about that but is that really enough? The issue isn't looking so cut and dry to him. He looks at Whitebeard, who is looking at the den-den mushi looking stricken.

"Any little brother of my kids is family of mine." He says seriously, the weight of promise in every word.

"Thank you... Thank you..." Ace sobs and thanks them, and Marco cannot remember the last time he felt so impotent to help someone he loved. Ace has always been so cocky and cheerful and strong. Marco knows every single one of his brothers is a human and that they all have vulnerabilities, but somehow seeing Ace's first-hand like this has Marco feeling dread like he has never known.

Eventually, his brother hangs up after Marco promises to meet with him in Sabaondy. A silence settles in the room as captain and first mate try to process all the new information and clear out the fog of suffering and anger suffocating the room.

"I got the distinct impression that Ace thinks that it would've been fine if he was the one being executed, because he –for some reason– deserves it." He says it out loud, hoping Pops is going to contradict him, but his captain only lets out one long, heavy sigh.

It'll stay in the forefront of Marco's mind now, there's no doubt. Ace will have to recognize just how much he is worth, to his crew and his brothers and Pops. He is worthy of living, og love. First order of business is saving his little brother's life. Marco's chest still feels like he's been squeezed, but at least he knows where he's going.

"Take a piece of Ace's vivre card, I'll update the commanders." Whitebeard orders, and their bond has only grown through the years were entire plans can be summarized in a couple of sentences.

"I'll call when I make it Sabaondy, yoi." He pushes his speed more than usual, but his brother needs him and Marco needs to be there.