I'm Luffy, the man who will become the King of Pirates. Wanna be my friend?
After running from marines, and their ship escaping by flying through the air. After a night of watching and waiting, staying tuned in to the radio... (wanted people can't really sleep). The rescue team is on its way to Sabaondy Archipielago, sailing peacefully through Paradise.
Sabaondy is our territory, the navigator explained. No one knows the place better than us, and it's so obvious, it will not be the first place to look, specially with Whitebeard in the New World.
While their future plans are definitely interesting, it is't the escape that has Ace completely out of breath. He keeps trying to breathe, but it's as if someone had sucker punched him. His little brother, Luffy... Luffy had... Tears are falling desperately from his eyes. Ace had stood up abruptly from the dining table after the navigator -Nami- told him about his brother, asking for his help. Brows furrowed as if he might say no.
As if he might say no.
Ace had needed to be alone, exiting the room desperately towards the opposite direction of the ship. He hadn't even let his vision get accostumed to the first rays of sunshine before diving back into the vessels' bowels again, crossing the grassy deck. His solitude doesn't do anything for his shame, Ace feels like his entire chest is caving in on him. Ribs ripping him apart from the inside.
I don't associate with pirates. Leave.
How did Ace believed him? Howhowhowhow...! He should've fucking known better, that was his fucking little brother! Ace drags a finger to his mouth, biting down hard on his knuckle, vainly trying to keep his misery inside. The little brother that had looked up to Ace as if Ace had hanged the moon just for him and who made the sun rise every morning. The little borther that begged to take him with him, who had accepted Ace's cursed blood without a second thought. A boy that had protected Ace's secrets long before Ace had deserved that loyalty...
And it'd taken what? A couple of snotty sentences and a white coat and that's it?
Ace had been been resigned to dying, he'd been okay with, it'd even make a kind of twisted sense. Now? Now, Ace wanted to die. He is so angry, so goddman angry... at Luffy, at himself, at their shitty gramps, because how the fuck had he let Luffy throw himself to the wolves for Ace? Ace who had a target on his back from the moment he was born. Luffy could've... another sob wracked him, tearing him open in the soft, rug-covered floor of the aquarium.
(There's a special place of utter hatred for the World Government reserved somewhere inside him, but Ace cannot even look at that darkness inside him right now... his anger too weak, too abstract in the face of the utter shame in himself, in his inconceivable failure as an older brother.)
His lasts words to Luffy had been 'fuck you' and Luffy had smiled at him, Ace was sure he had now. A knock at the door pulls at his senses, a part of him notes that the person has probably being banging on the door for a while. An oddly hollow sand. Ace bites his lip, he has been locked here for hours but there is no abating his guilt. He keeps replaying the short interactions he had with Luffy and there were so many small things that hadn't added up. The tattoo, the missing straw hat... fuck, joining the marines, Luffy hadn't listen to anyone ever since Ace had known him... in what world does he suddenly decide to listen to Garp?
Ace knows though, that he's always thought people will eventually realize he isn't worth it and leave. His brother's damning words has just been a puzzle pieces shifting into place, of course... Ace knows no one can truly love the cursed blood in his veins, right? It'd always been just him against the world... right? Ace cannot stop the sob ripping out his throat. But... but this was Luffy, for fuck's sake... How could Ace even think...?
The knocking is getting more insistent now.
Ace sighs and tries to pull himself together. He rubs at his swollen eyes, cleaning disgusting snot of his face witht he back of his hand and it strikes him suddenly just how uncomfortable he feels in his borrowed clothes. There's no mirror but he catches a glimpse of himself in the aquarium. He looks more dead than alive... The knocking does not stop.
"Fire First... Ace, open the door, please!" There's no choice there. Nami greets him at the door, but it's Chopper, clinging to her legs that was probably knocking based on the sound. The navigator is pale and she looks more scared than she did when she was smuggling Ace out of prison. Her eyes are wide and glassy, but there's steel in her spine. They contemplate each other raw for a moment. Chopper hiccups after a minute breaking the spell. Nami coughs and swallows, and looks him dead in the eye when she says. "Ace, they are not moving the execution." Ace heart freezes in his chest.
"Who are they going to execute?" Ace asks. He asks, but he already knows.
"Someone with a father as notorious as yours." Nami breaks the eye contact, a hand reaching to clear out a tear on the corner of her eye in a very discreet maneuver, as if she's hidden her tears countless times. Ace clenches hard on his teeth, but refuses to keep crying. He can tell himself what a piece of shit brother he is later... Right now he needs to start paying Luffy back, if such a thing is even possible.
"I need a den-den mushi."
Retelling the story to Whitebeard and Marco, who had rejoiced immediately after Ace had uttered the identification password, is taxing in ways Ace hadn't known talking could be. He has not felt so burdened since the time he told Whitebeard he is the former Pirate King's son. "I cannot ask you to put everything on the line for my little brother."
"But you will, yoi." Marco intones, and Ace has known this man for years but for the life of him cannot decipher the tone. "Won't you, firecracker?"
"Luffy… He's given up everything for me." Ace chokes, and he thinks of Nami's tale and thinks about Luffy, at seven, straw hat on his head and dreams bigger than the sea he hailed from. I don't have bonds with pirates. Leave. "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…" He wishes this wasn't so goddamn hard. He wishes he was stronger and better and freer and less selfish. "I am the son of Gol D. Roger." Ace feels Marco's sharp intake of breath and doesn't dare look for the den-den mushi's expression "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."
"Ace, that's–" But Whitebeard must interrupt him because Ace continues unhindered.
"I had made peace with my death." It was still surreal to him. "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." He places the speaker against his forehead, bites his lip in an effort to stop his sobbing (nothing to do for his tears), and he begs. Ace begs because this is the most important thing he has ever wished for and he cannot hold it against his Pops is he says no but…
"Any little brother of my kids is family of mine." Ace sobs.
"Thank you... Thank you..." He stays there, thanking Whitebeard again and again; blown away once again by how far people are willing to go for him.
