Two days later, Germa 66 was panned. The company was closed as the leaders were locked up for colluding with villains. That was the major win for the heroes. The base was not the main one, Big Mom's people and Kaido's men weren't there. Hell, most of the villains weren't there. But they got one spoil: the one who could steal quirks and put them in fruits. He was locked in Tartarus so he couldn't be utilized again.
School was still closed as the world assessed the information they had. And the fruits were also being sorted, which was difficult and annoying. They were labeled terribly, so it would be hard finding the right owners. And it seemed many were already missing. Law said that Killer's fruit was gone.
The Three Jis were no doubt furious with Luffy and Law. They didn't seem to know about what was going on, but their father, the leader of Germa 66 was in prison. It seemed their technology, which the heroes had used, had been what took the dorms. Portals. They lied, as well. Giving the hero schools crappy versions and saying they were the most advanced. The whole company was corrupt, and now out of business.
Luffy hadn't seen Law since the hospital. He didn't know if he was ready to. He'd googled a lot. A lot, a lot. He didn't feel what everyone said how love felt. But he was different. He wasn't a happy, expressive person. He wouldn't even know how to express what he felt. He felt warm when he thought about Law. Felt safe with him, and like he did care for him. He took care of Luffy patiently when he had flashbacks or panic attacks.
But… he still wasn't sure. And he didn't want to get Law's hopes up. He would just think about it for a while. See how he felt now that he knew what he was supposed to feel. Maybe Law could just wait for him. For him to get better. But he didn't want to waste his time. Who knows how long it would take?
After he was saved from Doflamingo the first time, he had felt empty and cold. He hadn't felt anything for his family for the first week. He was just empty. Hugs were scary, kisses were loud. But he got better and he could confidently say he loved his family and best friends. But those were different types, the internet told him. They didn't feel the same.
So, Luffy asked Sabo what love felt like. "Wha- where did this come from?" Sabo asked, though he probably knew already. Everybody but Luffy had known. Law loves me and I don't know if I feel that way. I want to know what it feels like. You liked Koala. Sabo blushed, but didn't deny it. Probably recognizing that this topic was troubling Luffy. He just wanted to know.
"You could ask mom and dad. They're in love." I asked mom. It confused me, she got all sappy about flowers and smelling good. It was confusing. Plus, they're really in love, you had a crush, Law has a crush. "That's a good point. I assume it feels different for everybody. I was in Law's position, though. Koala didn't like me back like that."
Luffy sighed in disappointment. Another dead end. He sat on the couch and moped. Zoro and Sanji were gone right then. They wanted to go home after months of being away. Even Zoro wanted to go home, which was really saying something.
He had nobody else to ask about the feelings. He had to figure it out himself. He wouldn't be comfortable asking anybody else about it, even though the girls from class knew. That was the look they kept giving, that kept making Law awkward or angry. Luffy really was clueless, wasn't he? He was surprised people put up with him. No, don't.
He was useless and a burden. Stop it. A waste of space. No.
Shut up, I am, I always will be.
There was no other objection in his mind. He knew what he was, and would never understand why people cared for him like they did.
-x-
He was desperate, annoyed, tired. So he finally addressed the source of it all.
Law? What does like-like feel like? Luffy asked over text. There was no response for a bit before it was seen, and it showed him typing for a long time. Continuously typing and erasing, clearly trying to get the response right. Luffy waited nervously, really not knowing what to expect. Finally he got a response, ten minutes after it was seen. That wouldn't be too long except that he was typing the entire time.
Warm. Being with you feels warm and fun. Even if you don't do fun-fun all the time, I still enjoy your company. I like making you feel better. Helping you through flashbacks and panic attacks. Before, my heart used to beat uncomfortably fast, and I was always afraid you'd find out. But it got easier after I told you. It's hard to explain. Why do you ask..?
I googled it but it didn't help and I've been asking everybody and nobody is helping. It was after what he sent when he really went back over the message. His face turned red. He didn't know why Law liked helping him. It was a chore, wasn't it? He never smiled, never laughed, never talked.
It might feel different for everybody? You especially. I'm sure it's different for me than other people. Maybe. I don't know what I'm talking about.
Luffy laughed internally, still not breaking the surface. I don't either. That's why I messaged you.
Good point.
-x-
Luffy, what happened?
Yeah, we want to know if you're okay.
Did your quirk get taken away, too?
We were worried about you.
Did their dad really take part in getting rid of our quirks? Why would he take away his own sons?
C'mon, it's been five days since you got back. What's happening?
He got message after message, hating being in a group chat with his whole class. It was a good question, why the Three Jis had their quirks taken away when they were the heirs of the Germa 66 company. But he didn't want to talk to anybody. Not when they ignored him. Just because he got the quirks back, which they didn't even know were theirs, now they want to talk.
He didn't reply. Just turned it on vibrate and then silent when the buzzes continued. He took a nap. It was a bad day. He was having flashbacks and insecure moments. A lot of them. It really was a bad day. No matter what anybody said, he was still sad, and embarrassed. Luffy was glad that nobody else had seen the state he was in.
The mute teen didn't even know if he was going back to UA. He clearly couldn't handle a stressful situation. As a hero, he'd need to. His family kept telling him that it was his first year, not even close to the end yet. He didn't want to be a drop out, so he'd probably transfer to another school.
But there was a huge problem with that. He wouldn't have Zoro or Sanji, or Law. And he couldn't make new friends halfway through the year. So, he was stuck. He'd considered asking his mom about homeschooling, but she enjoyed her job and it contributed to the monthly budget. He couldn't ask her that, couldn't be so selfish. So he didn't know what to do, what to think.
After the nap, he saw the light on his phone blinking, showing he had more messages. He sighed and rubbed his hands down his face before checking what the messages were. It was only a little after he turned it on silent that his best friends had come to the chat.
NOW you care? Zoro challenged.
After days of being angry that he didn't save you, now that he suffered and ALSO brought back the quirks, now you talk to him? Sanji asked, surprising Luffy with how he was saying that to the girls as well. Not just the guys. There were more girls in the chat than guys.
Don't pretend to be worried about him now that he's helped you out, Law messaged. There were tons of protests, about how they were "just stressed". Luffy could understand them not messaging him directly or anything. But when the four had gotten their phones back, his friends had received messages, but not him. It had hurt. And the three knew that very well.
Just leave him alone, Zoro messaged. Nobody argued anymore. And Luffy was glad the messages stopped. Each one felt like a spike. A spike of confusion and doubt. Were they his friends? Were they really? Did they actually care? Or did they just feel guilt now that he did something they liked.
He bet they'd go back to hating him and probably Law if their quirks weren't retrieved. Law said he saw somebody else using Killer's quirk, so it was possible that not all of them, if any, would get their quirks back. He didn't want to deal with that. He just wanted to be alone. He put on a random movie.
It ended up being a romance movie, and he just laid on his side and watched it with blank eyes. If that was what romance was, he didn't want it. All they did was fight and argue and then have sex. That didn't sound pleasant at all. But, he was smart enough to be able to know movies were not reality. So, the movie sucked.
He got a buzz on his phone and looked at it. The constant buzzing or comments and arguments had ended an hour ago. It was Law. How are you?
Fine.
Really?
...No. I don't know if I want to be a hero anymore. I'm not mentally fit for it. I could have gotten both of us killed from freezing up like that. I get that I have PTSD, and it was natural I freaked out. But it doesn't make it okay to be a hero when I'm so unstable.
He didn't get a response, and he wondered if he'd angered Law. But then he was sent an article. He opened it, wondering what he had sent him after that depressing message. It was an article that interviewed disabled heroes. Ones with mental illnesses or brain damage. They all had hero jobs, even if they never put themselves in danger. But it just felt like fluff. Fake, until he got to the excerpt from somebody with PTSD. He hesitated for just a moment before he clicked on it and read it.
When I was ten, I was in a car accident that killed my family and destroyed one of my eyes. I remembered the flashing lights around us, cars swerving around the wreck. When a hero arrived and pulled me out of the wreckage and comforted me, I decided I wanted to be a hero. But then, at eleven, I was diagnosed with PTSD. I had flashbacks with blinking lights, or things going past me too fast. Even being around cars was hard. Hearing them zoom past, even when I was safe on the sidewalk, gave me intense and debilitating anxiety.
I was told I wasn't fit for it. But I went to hero school anyway. They were not understanding, and I ended up dropping out for a year before returning, late in my class at another school. They knew about my problems, and worked to help me. I still had the flashbacks and panic attacks, and I still felt doubt about any possible future.
I could never chase after villains, could never be in desperate situations. But that's the good thing about modern heroism. There are plenty of things you can do when you have plenty you can't. I don't fight villains, I don't dig people out of rubble. I use my quirk to do intel. I use my quirk to scope out situations and let better-fitted heroes for the job do theirs.
Heroes are not only those that take villains head on. There are plenty of hero jobs that accommodate mental illnesses such as PTSD. Even unmedicated and untreated PTSD victims can live freely, but you should always try to seek treatment for help in living a full life. Whether it's heroism or anything else.
Luffy felt something wrong on his face, and touched it, wanting to know what shouldn't be there suddenly. He found he was smiling. That was the first reaction he had to this article. One that Law picked out perfectly. It probably only took ten seconds to find online, but it was still a good one. Luffy couldn't believe he'd never actually learned about disabilities while being a hero.
After all, there had to be people with issues who are still heroes. This person was like him. Maybe not as deeply traumatized as Luffy in certain ways, but they still had debilitating PTSD. And they didn't fight villains because they recognized it was not good for their health or the people they were sworn to protect by becoming any type of hero. They did what they could do best, and this person sounded happy. Luffy didn't know who it was, but really wished he did.
He spent the next three hours online, looking for anything having to do with "ptsd" and "hero". He did find groups and communities, but he didn't feel right to join. He looked at his burns on his body, the patchwork of shiny pink scars on the other side. Whe he read some of the bios, they were mostly accidents or domestic or child abuse.
He didn't read a single bio about torture. It made him feel lonely. Maybe his PTSD origin was too much. Maybe he would be seen as too out there, too intense, too far fetched. And he wasn't brave. He didn't want to feel rejection. So he didn't join these groups. He was too scared. That "his own people" would not welcome him.
When he searched "torture victims" and "hero", all he got were grusome articles about people who were found tortured and saved by heroes. He didn't look too deep into those ones. They were triggering, and he couldn't see any of their thumbnails, so he got out of that part of the internet.
He went back to the article Law had sent him (and Luffy had thanked him for it) and tried to find out who it was that wrote that part. The part that spoke to Luffy deeply. He searched and searched until he finally messaged the author over social media. He made an account just to reach them. He put a fake last name so nobody would find him if they searched his name, and begged in his message to them to know who had written it.
Luffy was surprised when he got a reply. But it said it would be entering confidentiality issues and that they couldn't help him. He promptly deleted that account, no reason for it to exist anymore.
Everything ended up a dead end. Burn victims were different. Assault victims were different. PTSD was different. He knew there had to be people out there like him. Somewhere. Somewhere there were people like him. More severe than Law. People who maybe felt the way he did. Deeply hateful of himself and terrified inside of the big scary world. But he wanted to be part of that big scary world. Even if it was very scary, he wanted to help people.
It was hard. Conflicting thoughts ran rampant through his mind, tormenting him that he'd never find anybody who was in his situation. He felt so alone and abnormal and wrong. While he had felt happy at first, now he felt sad and disillusioned. He'd smiled too soon.
-x-
"Luffy, I'm going to have a hero guard both you and Law. As added protection," Roger said early one morning. Why? Roger usually did not lie to Luffy, or sugar coat things. He was honest with tact and kindness. "Some people are very angry with both of you." Luffy stiffened. Roger put his hand on his shoulder. What about Ace and Sabo? "They aren't strong enough for this."
He grew very worried. "This is only until I'm sure you're safe. A revised school is resuming soon, and I want someone to guard you specifically. Marco guards the whole class. I want someone to specialize on you." Luffy nodded. Who is it? "Her name is Makino. She's very kind but also very strong. I know you'll be in great hands."
Luffy had never heard of Makino before, and wondered who she was. Roger called Law, since Luffy couldn't speak to him. The pro hero explained to Law and his parents his wish. The dorms were no longer open. They would be there, empty. There was no need for them anymore, plus they'd lead to disastrous consequences. Over two weeks later, the fruits were still being sorted, and it was a mess.
Roger said they couldn't get the villain to explain what quirk was in what fruit, or how to return them. The guy was terrified of the bosses. Doflamingo was not one of the bosses, he was just high in the food chain. Very high. The bosses were Big Mom and Kaido. Who had not shown their faces still.
Luffy tried not to get scared. But it was hard. Law texted him after the call and asked if he was okay. I'm scared.
Yeah. Law was scared, too, he just might not say it. Luffy was glad none of his other friends or family got dragged into that. Did it make both of them wanted criminals in the eyes of the alliance? They'd ruined their plans. Luffy especially. He got rid of all of the quirks they had, and then got rid of their engineer, Germa 66, and Doflamingo. All of those things seemed to have been necessary to continue their plan to harvest quirks for themselves. Luffy also knew they'd helped a lot of helpless kids get their quirks back, or at least attempt to.
Luffy asked his dad if he could have Zoro and Sanji over. He wanted to do something normal. Normal for them, before everything went crazy. Rouge was at work, and Roger finally took a damn day off. He looked a little sad for a minute and then looked a little awkward. "Can we just spend today just us? I feel like I haven't seen you in months, and for the last couple of weeks it's been stressful. I just never get to see you. Makes me sad."
Roger wasn't the kind of guy that shared his feelings like that. Luffy always felt like the least favorite, though he knew his dad never did anything to convey that. It was Luffy being and feeling useless. He nodded, and they binged scary movies the whole day, Luffy telling his friends he was busy and couldn't talk.
By the end of the day, Roger seemed very relaxed and happy. It was nice. Unusual, and kind of strange, but nice. He had missed everyone at home, and was glad to be back and not have to go to the dorms again. Never again, hopefully. Ace and Sabo were out of the house for a break since Roger was there to watch over Luffy.
Luffy wondered if it was safe for him to be there. He'd already been taken from the garage once, which he was afraid to go in. Did they know where he was by the address, so they could send villains there. What if they burned the house down? What if his family died in it because of him? He started to rock back and forth on the couch.
"You okay?" Roger asked, putting his hand on his youngest son's shoulder. Luffy jerked and nodded. "What's wrong?" What if they come here? They took me from here already? I don't want anyone to get hurt or killed, Luffy signed honestly, eyes wide and worried.
Roger frowned and said, "I think it would be worse for you right now to be away from your family. And you're going back to school soon. I think it would be bad for you to go into hiding." Luffy looked down and then back up, and asked about everyone else getting hurt because of him. "Law would need to go, too. He also made some major blows to them." Luffy didn't want Law to have to leave his family, but he knew that the taller would do anything to protect his little sister. Like Luffy's brothers did.
I don't want anybody to get hurt because of me. "That's how everyone feels. But do you really want to not live at home?" I want to live here. I want to be with everybody, but I don't want you hurt. What if they burned the house? What if they destroyed it? "Even if you did leave, the villains wouldn't know that and could still target the house. If you were here, you could evacuate us to the agency."
Luffy was conflicted. What his dad said was true. It was a good point. But the house would still be targeted because of him. But, he'd saved his friends. There were four of them. Ace, Zoro, Sanji, Law. Four people saved in the blink of an eye. He had four family members. Ace, Sabo, mom and dad. He could save them in an instant, too.
Okay, I'll stay. Roger smiled and rubbed his hair. Then the front door opened and Ace shouted, "I'm home!" It was something they'd started doing lately. In case Luffy started to be afraid somebody else broke in, they'd say who they were immediately. It was helpful and thoughtful.
Rouge came home next and then Sabo, all within 20 minutes or so. Roger got up to kiss his wife on the cheek, and offered to cook dinner that night since Rouge looked tired. She smiled and thanked him before going to the master bedroom to change out of her work clothes. The fancy suits she disliked but had to wear to look professional.
Sabo walked to Luffy and sat down next to him, asking how he was doing. Okay. I'm scared to go back to school. "How come?" Things will be different. "That's very true. Any of them who did get their quirks back will have to relearn how to use them effectively. But hero school would definitely be a good place to learn better. Apparently the longer somebody went without the quirk the harder it is to get better at using it.
"You and Law were lucky to get them back almost immediately." Luffy nodded, thankful for that, as well. Luffy wanted to talk about his research that just made him feel alone, but was unsure. Sabo smiled and said he could say anything he wanted. He knew how to read Luffy just as well as Ace.
Do you think there's anybody like me? That was in my situation? I read articles and stuff about heroes with disabilities and PTSD and stuff. I want somebody to talk to who was in my situation.
Sabo frowned. "Your situation was unique. I think it would be difficult to find someone who fits exactly. Young kids who were abused would be close, but they might not be as severely impacted as you have been." Luffy looked down and frowned. "We can ask dad, and he can ask his hero friends." The youngest nodded, thinking that was the best bet. "How about after dinner?"
Okay.
After dinner came, Luffy and Sabo went over to Roger and asked him Luffy's question. He frowned in sympathy and guilt. "I'm sorry, Luffy. I can't disclose things about people's cases. They're confidential." Luffy's face fell further and he nodded. He signed that he was going to take a bath and then go to bed. "I'm sorry," Roger repeated. Luffy gave one more nod before going to his bathroom to take a bath and a little, lonely pity party.
But he was always stuck in a pity party, wasn't he?