Warnings: Dark themes, lots of mentions of death, strong language, human experimentation, experimenting on children, child abduction, graphic descriptions of experimenting, lots of needles, lots of violence, poor descriptions of panic attacks, descriptions of blood, rated M for safety.
*If I need to add anymore warnings please tell me in the reviews or a PM and I'll be sure to add it!*
Chapter 83: The Offer
Finally, Ace was 17 again. He had his memories, he had his body back, and he didn't need to ask what was going on for another day in a row. Everything still felt fuzzy, and the facility was still fresh in his mind, but he remembered being with the Whitebeards, he remembered taking the attack, and he remembered- even if they were distant memories- how he had slowly, or rather, quickly, been growing all over again.
Sabo and Luffy were happy he was 17 again, almost more then he was. It was getting a bit repetitive for Sabo, the one who had to continue explaining to Ace everything he didn't remember, and while Ace was still Ace, he hadn't been their Ace.
It was weird, but it was true.
Now, though, everything was back in working order. Their brother was back, memories, body, and all, and they could move on from the attack.
At breakfast, the commanders and Captain were happy to see Ace back to normal, and Kyle, the one Ace had taken the devil fruit attack for, had even come over and thanked Ace for saving him.
All in all, the day was starting off great for the three.
After breakfast, the brothers had another session with Whiskey which they went to without hesitation. With every session they did, it got easier and easier to go and speak with the nurse. The session went as well as expected, Whiskey helping Ace especially with his suddenly very fresh memories of the facility, and once it was over, they were back sitting at the railing. The three had spent the past few days here with Ace as he slowly aged back to his 17-year-old self, so it was almost habitual to return to the spot even after everything was back to normal.
The spot at the railing was almost like a safe haven for the three. It was safe, familiar, peaceful, something they could always rely on. The railing would always be there, and when they sat there they would always have a good view of the ocean, the sun, the sky, the freedom. It was something in their lives that would never change.
The brothers remained there for the rest of the morning, occasionally talking with a passing crewmember or commander as they did. They made no move to leave the railing, not until the lunch bell was ringing, and even then they stayed as long as they could, all three of them gazing out into the seemingly endless ocean before forcing themselves to leave and get food.
Lunch was as normal as breakfast was, nothing out of the ordinary happening, no surprise attacks, and no fights breaking out. It was almost unsettling for the brothers to have such a normal, anticlimactic day after the weird few days they'd just had.
When they left the galley, that normal, unordinary day changed. No one was out yet, only Curiel and Kingdew who were near Whitebeards chair, but other than that the deck was void of anyone else. As they left the galley, Sabo could hear the booming footsteps of Whitebeard as the Captain walked out behind them, confusing him. Normally the Captain was one of the last to leave the galley, not the first. As he appeared behind them, the brothers turned to greet him, all wondering what he was doing.
"Ace, would you mind if we talk for a minute?" Whitebeard asked, his usual warm, comforting smile on his face. Ace looked to the Captain in confusion for a moment before turning to glance at his brothers. They both shrugged, not knowing anymore then he did as to what the Captain wanted to talk about.
"Uh, sure." Ace agreed, seeing no reason as to why he shouldn't accept. Whitebeard had yet to show them that he was a bad person, and frankly, they didn't expect him to. There was nothing that they'd seen or heard from the man that would cause them to believe the giant could ever turn on them like they had once used to think.
"I'll meet you in my room then." The captain said before walking off, most likely to the aforementioned room. Ace raised an eyebrow, both he and his brothers watching the Captain for a minute before turning their attention to each other.
"You want me to listen in?" Sabo asked, wondering if Ace wanted his privacy or not. On one hand, they didn't think that Whitebeard would ever turn on them, but Sabo wasn't sure if Ace wanted to give up the safety net of having Sabo listen to make sure everything was alright.
"Nah, it's fine. If anything goes wrong I'll just say Kangaroo." Ace said with a nonchalant shrug as he mentioned their safe word. Luffy could feel the nervousness in his brother contradicting his attempt at looking calm but didn't call him out on it.
"Alright. Luffy and I will wait at the railing." Sabo said, patting Ace reassuringly on the back before heading off towards said section of the deck. Luffy gave Ace a hug before following the blonde, leaving Ace alone to walk to the Captain's quarters.
He remembered from when they first got here, were first out of the infirmary, when Marco gave them a brief tour of the Moby, showing them the most important places that they would need to know. One of those places had been the Captain's room, and he remembered it being at the end of the hall where he and his brothers' room was, so he headed straight there.
As he walked he contemplated what Whitebeard could want to talk to him alone about. There was a possibility that it had to do with the attack he had only just recovered from, but even then, Ace was at a loss as to why they would need to have a private conversation about it. He tried ignoring the churning in his gut telling him that this was going to have something to do with his father or the facility. Even though Whitebeard had all but shrugged away the news that Roger was his father, Ace wasn't so sure that it would be left at that. No one had ever taken the idea of Roger having a child as well as Whitebeard had, so maybe this was the time he was going to bring it up, tell Ace how much of a monster he was, tell him he wasn't worthy enough to live.
Deep breaths.
Ace forced himself to stop thinking about those things, forced himself out of those thinking traps Whiskey had been telling him about. She told him that the mind had a tendency to overreact, and in Aces case, catastrophize things out of proportion. Once Ace's mind got a small, non-threatening thought into its head, he had a tendency to blow it out of proportion and overthink it to the point that he worried himself more than necessary.
Realizing he was outside of the Captain's room now, he hesitated. He knew he should just go in and get this over with, knew that this wasn't going to end nearly as bad as he imagined it would, but there was still that hesitance, that inkling in the back of his mind, telling him he needed to run, get away, never look back.
"Are you going to come in, son?" Whitebeards booming voice asked from behind the door. Ace flushed, realizing he'd been standing there for a few minutes now and remembered Whitebeard had haki. He cleared his throat awkwardly before opening the door and peeking in.
He'd never been in the Captain's room before, and now that he was, he took everything in as quickly and discreetly as possible. His eyes floated from object to object, from the chair, the nightstand and bed, to the shelves, the medical supplies, and the drawing of a dog on the wall.
Ace felt himself questioning the picture. It looked almost like a child had drawn it, not to mention the fact that the dog had a mustache.
"Gurarara, that's Stefan." Whitebeard laughed, noticing how Ace looked at the drawing with curiosity.
"Stefan? Was he your dog or something?" Ace asked, slowly walking over to the chair and sitting down. He could still feel a tension in himself, but he tried to look and act as calm as usual.
"No, Ruta drew him for me a long time ago. He wanted me to have a companion here in my room in case I was ever lonely." Whitebeard said with a fond smile. Ace felt himself smile a bit as well, some of that previous tension slowly ebbing away.
"So, uh, what did you want to talk about?" Ace asked as he shifted. Whitebeard turned to look at Ace, his smile never leaving his face.
"I was wondering if you would like to become the Second Division Commander," Whitebeard said, getting straight to the point. The bluntness of the statement, as well as the unexpectedness of it, threw Ace through a loop. He sat, gaping at the Captain, his eyes wide.
"W-wha-? S-second Division Commander?" Ace questioned, unclear on whether he'd heard the man correctly. Whitebeard laughed before responding, nodding his head.
"That's correct." He replied, smile never faltering. Ace waited a moment, waited for the Captain to tell him he was joking and that there was a different reason completely for calling him here, but as the seconds stretched on, he realized the Captain was either entirely too committed to this joke, or he was serious.
"B-But... what? Why me?" Ace asked. It was a valid question. He had only been with the crew for a few months, and he'd only been apart of the crew for a little under a month. Surely there were a ton of others who were much better qualified for the position than him.
"Why not?" Whitebeard asked with a shrug, leaning back against the headboard of his bed.
"Well... because... I haven't even been here that long, and there are plenty of others who are better fit for the job." Ace said face scrunched, perplexed.
"As true as that may or may not be I've decided to choose you instead," Whitebeard said, voice still calm, never wavering in its conviction.
"Why though?" Ace asked again, still not understanding Whitebeards reasoning behind his choice.
"I'm not exactly the most... stable person, and I've barely gotten to know anyone yet, and there's all the marines after me and my brothers, and my fathers Roger which is just another shitty thing to add to the list, and-" Whitebeard listened patiently as Ace rambled on and on about his inadequacies and, much like how Luffy gets when he starts rambling, wouldn't stop until someone else stops them.
"-and I eat a lot, and I get angry really fast, and I can't really handle the nurses that well, and I don't think I would be all that great a commander." Ace said, his rambling eventually ending once he lost his breath. Whitebeard continued to remain silent as he let Ace catch his breath. Once the teen seemed to have calmed down the giant leaned towards him, grabbing the boy's attention.
"As true as any of that may be, I chose you for the good qualities you possess. Sure, you may eat a lot, but so do I, and that's alright. Your father may be an infamous criminal, but we're all children of the sea when it truly comes down to it. If you don't know the rest of your brothers as well as others, that's something that can be fixed." Whitebeard began, Ace listening silently.
"I didn't choose you because of any of that, I chose you because I've liked what I see in you. How loyal you are, how brave you can be, and how you persevere. You saved Kyle from that devil fruit attack without any hesitation, and you stick by your brothers no matter the trouble you three are in. Not to mention, everything that's happened with the facility. It may have been difficult and life-changing, but you and your brothers are working hard to turn your lives around. You're working hard to work through the trauma and live lives that you want to have. I think you would be a good commander not because your the strongest, or even the smartest, I chose you because, despite the difficulties you face in life, you still push through. You would make a good commander, son." Whitebeard finished, flooring Ace with his speech.
He'd always had a hard time accepting compliments and praise, and to hear such high praise come from someone like Whitebeard left Ace feeling both flustered and confused. He didn't exactly do anything to deserve the praise, and he wasn't good at properly expressing his emotions, so he could only sit in stunned silence after Whitebeard had finished speaking.
"Becoming a commander would mean taking on more responsibility, but I think you would be able to handle it. Whiskeys told me without going into detail that you've been progressing wonderfully through your sessions, and she thinks that becoming commander could help you as well." Whitebeard added after the silence continued to reign.
"So, uh, if I do become the second commander, what would I have to do?" Ace asked, trying to fight the shock off.
Whitebeard smiled, leaning back again.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
"Well, what did he want?" Sabo asked eagerly once his brother returned. He and Luffy had been waiting patiently on the railing, occasionally talking to some of the passing crewmembers to pass time. Ace and Whitebeard had talked for a while, almost a whole hour before they returned to the deck. Sabo and Luffy could both see the shock on their brothers face despite his best efforts to hide it, and that only made them that much more curious as to what they had talked about.
'Room.' Ace simply tapped out, obviously not wanting to speak about it here. The two nodded and hopped off the railing, following Ace back towards the commander's hall where their room was. They walked silently, but Luffy couldn't help but glance towards Whitebeard, taking in the happy feelings, the pride, the joy, the warmth, the love. He couldn't find anything bad coming from the Captain, nothing out of the ordinary, and that only made him more confused.
His brother, on the other hand, was a mixture of emotions that were hard to define and separate from one another. There was the shock that overtook most of the emotions, but beneath that, there was a feeling of disbelief, a feeling of unworthiness, and the familiar anger his brother felt whenever he didn't know how to deal with his feelings. Hidden beneath all of that, though, there was a warmth, different from Ace's normal warmth. It was stronger, brighter, warmer.
Luffy pulled himself from his brother's feelings, more confused now then he had been before. He couldn't make sense of the different emotions, couldn't figure out what the Captain had said to Ace to make him feel this way.
They reached their room finally, Sabo practically rushing into the room, ready to hear whatever Ace had to say about his talk.
"So? What happened?" He asked impatiently as Luffy entered, and then Ace, the eldest closing the door before he turned to face the blonde with a sigh. Luffy went and sat on the bed, crisscrossing his legs and watching his brothers as they spoke, standing in the middle of their room.
"Well, uh, he asked me if I wanted to be the second division commander." Ace said, not beating around the bush. Sabo took a step back in surprise, eyes widening, while Luffy tilted his head slightly, not quite understanding.
"H-he wanted you to be a commander?" Sabo asked in as much shock as Ace had. The oldest nodded, running his fingers through his hair as he went and sat in their desk chair.
"Yeah, and he kept sayin' I would be good at it and stuff, and that it didn't matter to him that we'd only been here a few months, or that I've got all my... you know, issues." Ace continued. Sabo sat on the bed beside Luffy, eyebrows furrowed in thought. The room went quiet, no one speaking, as they all mulled over Ace's words.
"Did you say yes?" Luffy asked curiously. Sabo looked over to Ace, eager to hear his brother's answer.
"I uh, told him I'd think about it. He said being a commander meant more responsibility and stuff, but he also said Teach was in the second division too. It'd mean I was his supervisor or whatever, but basically he, and everyone else in the second division would answer to me." Ace explained. Even though the brothers had been there for a few months, they didn't quite have a good grasp on how the whole divisions and commanders worked yet. All they knew was that there were separate divisions, and their commanders oversaw their own groups, but they didn't know who was in what division or how those divisions were run.
"That would mean we could keep better tabs on him, but that'd also mean you might have to actually interact with him," Sabo muttered, referring to Teach. Ace nodded, sighing heavily.
"That's why Whitebeard mentioned it. He wanted me to know that if I agreed, Teach was going to become someone I'd be running into more and more." Ace said darkly. He appreciated that the Captain had taken these things into account though, had taken the time to explain them all to Ace.
"Was there anything else he said?" Sabo asked.
"Not really, he just explained all the stuff I'd have to do if I said yes. Whiskey apparently told him that she thinks it'd be good for me to have the extra responsibility too." Ace added.
"Do you wanna say yes?" Luffy asked. He hadn't seemed as shocked as Sabo or Ace had been by the idea of Ace becoming Commander, but there was also the possibility he just didn't understand the significance behind it. Sabo looked from Luffy to Ace, finding that his brother was bringing up some very good questions that he hadn't thought of, still too shocked to think properly.
"I-... I don't know."
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
It was a five days later that Ace finally figured out the answer to his question. Five days of talking with his brothers, watching Teach, talking to Whiskey, Marco, Thatch, Izo, and even Jiru at one time. He forced himself to interact more with the crew, tried to at least glance Teachs way from time to time without glaring at the bastard.
All the meanwhile, he debated whether he should agree to become the Commander of the Whitebeards Second Division.
He knew, or at least, he felt, that this was a big deal. There would be an added responsibility if he said yes. He'd have to push himself to at least get to know his division, and one of those people would be Teach. He couldn't avoid the man forever if he was in his division, under his watch, so he'd have to at least be able to tolerate being in the man's presence, but that was one of those easier said then done situations.
He, Sabo and Luffy spent many hours, all times of the day, talking over the decision. Even though the two wouldn't be affected whether Ace said yes or not, it was still a big decision for their brother, and Ace valued their opinion on the subject almost more than his own. If they said not to, he wouldn't hesitate to deny the position, no matter the benefits of it.
So when the three finally seemed to come to a decision by the end of the fifth day, Ace marched his way to Whitebeards room once again, ready to tell the Captain his verdict.
Like the last time though, his determination wavered the second he was outside the man's door. He took a deep breath, raised his hand to knock, lowered it, raised it again, lowered, rais-
"I don't bite you know." Whitebeard's voice said from inside, startling Ace. He flushed, feeling a sense of deja vu before he opened the door, poking his head inside in a similar way as he had the first time he'd been there.
"Hello son, did you want to speak with me?" Whitebeard asked his smile still as gentle and calming as ever. Ace swallowed but nodded as he fully entered the room, shuffling meekly over to the chair he'd sat in last time.
"Yeah, uh, I wanted to talk about the, uh, position you offered." Ace managed to stumble out, his anger flaring within him at his inability to speak properly.
"Did you make a decision?" The Captain asked, expression never shifting, never changing.
"I think so. If you don't mind... I think I will take the position of Second Commander." Ace said, looking up at Whitebeard as he spoke. Whitebeards smile widened, a warmth radiating off him that Ace basked in.
"Gurarara, of course, son." Whitebeard laughed cheerily. Ace smiled, straightening in his seat as he felt the anxiety wash off of him.
"Thanks... Oyaji."
Big things are happening! Ace is the Second Division Commander now, which means he will now be working directly with Teach despite his previous attempts to avoid him at all costs. Not only that, but he also called Whitebeard Oyaji for the first time as well. This chapter was a transitioning into the bigger arc that will be taking place, and I think the next chapter will be as well. However, next chapter will let you all know exactly what the next arc is going to be about so get excited for that!
The brothers have grown so much since I started this story and even though there's still more to come, I'm incredibly proud of their growth. Even if they are fictional characters.
As much as I would love to gush over the brothers some more, I have commitments that I have to take care of, so I'll leave this note off here. Thank you all for the amazing, incredible, fantastic, awesome support that you continue to give me! Not to mention, we're only nine reviews away from 1,000! I'm not sure what I want to do to celebrate so I'll leave it up to you guys! I'll leave a poll on my page for it, but at the moment the options are; Upload a chapter two days in a row, Leave a preview of a future chapter at the end of the chapter, or a Q&A where I answer any questions you guys have about the story, even if it spoils things.
It's up to you guys, so go ahead and vote! The poll will be up when this chapter is up, meaning it's up right at this moment. I'll be leaving the poll up for a week, so next Monday I will announce the results.
As always, thank you all for your support! I'll see you all Friday! Oh, and don't forget to vote!