Alrighty, so here's an update. It's a short one 'cause I'm in a hurry. That is also the reason why there's nothing happening here. Count this as a filler albeit a needed one. I'm in a hurry because I'll be on vacation for two weeks and I'm leaving tonight XD

Beta'ed by aqua-empress at the speed of light. Thanks a lot, hon.

Song of the chapter: Ongaku by Kalafina.

Disclaimer: I promise that everyone will know once I own the OP.

It was weird, but Marco started suspecting that he was somehow related to Zoro. He didn't have much trouble finding Ace's house when it was dark (if you didn't count the stupid street, that is), but he couldn't do that in broad daylight. He took the bus to Foosha Village, he got off the bus, he found the very same place he stood in the morning waiting for Ace's brother, but. Firstly, there were no bushes in the end of the road. Secondly, he could have sworn that the house he saw this morning was coloured green, not beige. And, finally, he sure as hell didn't see any public swimming pools anywhere.

Lucky for Marco there was a man mowing his lawn close by, so he could ask for direction. As it turned out, he was almost right, he just went too far and now he was behind Ace's house. The friendly neighbour explained him exactly which way he should go to get to the elusive house, laughing all the time that everyone who was new to the neighbourhood had the same problem as Marco. Marco thanked him and went in the said direction, happy that this was a common problem and not a sign that he was related to Zoro.

After following the directions to the letter, Marco finally found Ace's home, thinking that if someone ever wanted to rob them, they'd get lost and call for the police just to get out of the maze called Foosha Village. Now, during the day, he could take a better look of the house Ace lived in. It looked cosy, like most of the houses here, made of bricks and with a black roof. The windows and the door were painted white with occasional plant on the windowsills.

Marco walked up to the door and knocked, since he didn't find the doorbell. Maybe it was like the house – present, but hidden very well. He just raised his hand to knock again when the door opened and he was met by a pretty woman in her early thirties, her black hair covered by a yellow with orange dots bandana and she wore a dark blouse and a light blue skirt. Marco, who did not expect that, took a step back and looked at the number on the house, but it was still an eight.

"Ah, you must be Ace-chan's friend," the woman said, at least confirming that this was the right house.

"Yes, my name is Marco," Marco introduced himself politely.

"Please, come in," the woman moved, freeing the way into the house. "I'm Makino, I own a bar a couple blocks that way," she pointed to Marco's right, "plus I come here several times a week as a favour to Garp-san."

Marco nodded – he recalled Ace mentioning her this morning. He walked inside and took off his shoes, turning to Makino for any directions to Ace's whereabouts.

"Ace-chan is upstairs in his room, either he's doing his homework or he's sleeping," she said with a smile. "Or both," Makino added after a pause. "Do you know where his room is?"

"Yes, thank you," Marco nodded and moved to the stairs. Somehow, he expected them to be half-destroyed since Ace's brother moved with a grace of a mammoth in a china shop, but it looked fine.

He didn't notice it in the morning, but the wall on the stairs had pictures of Ace and his brother as they were growing up with occasional appearances from Garp and a blond kid. Thankfully, they looked nothing like the pictures he saw on the internet; they were mostly pictures of them as children. The oldest picture of Ace seemed to be taken during his entrance ceremony to the Enies Lobby High and Marco was surprised to find himself in far background talking to Robin and her mother since Pops was at another entrance ceremony that day.

The door to Ace's room was open, so Marco entered without knocking. Ace sat at his table with his feet propped on the corner of the table and eyed a book in his hands as if it personally brutally murdered every single person Ace knew. He was dressed in a faded red t-shirt and light blue jeans that were way too torn even for a fashion statement. When he heard Marco come in, Ace looked up from the book and glared at him, clearly unhappy, however that expression changed the moment he saw who was at the door. Marco even looked behind him to see if there was someone behind him – he did not expect to be the cause of such happiness.

"Finally!" Ace exclaimed, putting his feet down and literally throwing the book on the table. "A moment later and I would have burned it in my back yard," he gestured to the book.

"What was it?" Marco asked, entering the room.

"Social studies," Ace answered and then his expression changed again when he saw what Marco was wearing. "Sempai, what are those clothes?"

Marco looked at his black leather jacket, blue t-shirt and dark jeans sceptically. He chose those clothes because they weren't new, but they weren't too shabby either. He figured that he'd have to wash them in the worst-case scenario.

"What's wrong with them?" he asked, confused.

"There's nothing wrong with them!" Ace replied and Marco got a feeling that he was the one who was supposed to say that.

"I don't understand," he said.

"There's absolutely nothing wrong with them," his kouhai said as if it made all the sense in the world.

"You've lost me."

"They are way too nice."

"And that is a problem because?"

"Because I know better!" Ace went to his wardrobe, opened it and pulled out a big transparent plastic box. He opened the box and started going through clothes in it. He kept taking up one thing, look at it sceptically and then put it back into the box. After a couple of minutes it seemed like Ace finally decided on a faded yellow t-shirt with big printed number 21 and a pair of faded black jeans that, unlike Ace's, at least looked whole. "Take off your clothes," Ace said in a voice that left no room for argument.

"Excuse me?" Marco raised his eyebrows at Ace.

The raven looked up at him with confusion and Marco counted in his mind 'one, two, three'. At the count of three Ace became the colour of a ripe tomato and Marco realised something. He just found a new favourite thing to do, namely making his kouhai blush. He just couldn't help himself – Ace just looked too damn cute blushing and it was impossible to resist teasing him.

"I… I didn't mean… like that," Ace mumbled, looking anywhere but at Marco. "I meant you should change into these…"

"Is that so?"

Ace didn't answer that, he just bolted from the room, mumbling something about changing clothes. Marco chuckled silently and took a closer look at the offered articles. Both looked old and worn, but clean. He shrugged and started to undress. The clothes were the right size, which surprised Marco a little, but he wasn't much bigger than Ace, so that was almost expected. He folded his own clothes and took them with him as he left the room and went down the stairs. Since he only knew the kitchen in the house, he went there, hoping to find Ace there.

Ace wasn't in the kitchen, instead of him Marco found Makino there. She was chopping something energetically with several pans on the stove. Slightly at loss as to what he should do, Marco walked to the chair he sat on this morning and put his clothes there, standing slightly awkwardly behind the said chair.

Makino glances over her shoulder to see who came into the kitchen. When she saw that it was Marco, she smiled at him.

"This is better," she said.

"You mean the clothes?" Marco asked just in case.

"Of course. Yours were way too nice for where you are going."

"I don't think I understand how they are way too nice. I could always wash them," Marco said, slightly confused.

"It's not about you. It's about people you are going to meet," Makino said with a smile, putting vegetables she was chopping in one of the pans. "You'll have to wait about twenty minutes, you came earlier than I expected."

"I'm not hungry, I ate at home," Marco said, hoping that he won't have to force down undoubtedly good food.

"Again, it's not about you," Makino laughed. "You'll be taking the food up to Dadan. I think it's nice that Ace-chan is still visiting her from time to time. Plus I can send food with him, unlike Lu-chan, who wouldn't be able to resist it."

"You know Dadan?" Marco asked since he wanted to know who he was going to visit. For unknown reason he didn't want to ask Ace about her.

"Of course I do. She may seem angry from the outside, but she really is a very kind woman. Not many people would have taken kids in, especially not where she lives. Although I think that had something to do with Garp-san and not her kindness."

"Did she take Ace in?"

"Of course. Ace and Luffy and even Sabo when he showed up. She wasn't too happy about that at first, but she warmed up to them very quickly."

"Hm…" Marco hummed, showing that he was listening, although, if he understood everything correctly, he had some questions. For example, if they grew up in a poor neighbourhood, how did Sabo end up in Mariejois? Or, a simpler question, where exactly was that poor neighbourhood? He was brought back to earth when Ace entered the kitchen with more clothes in his arms, although this time it was a number of different sweatshirts.

"Here, choose one instead of your jacket," he said, avoiding looking at Marco directly.

"Can I at least keep my shoes?" Marco joked, taking a dark blue sweatshirt with a zipper.

Ace didn't answer; he just gathered the rest of the shirts and went out of the kitchen. In a second he said loudly:

"Yeah, they're fine."

Marco blinked in surprise, unsure if he should laugh. He didn't expect Ace to take that question seriously.

(^_^)

Ace sighed for the nth time in a row, earning another glance from sempai. They were getting closer to the Grey Terminal and he was getting cold feet. Should he really be taking sempai to meet Dadan? Her gang was way too intense for normal people to meet… It didn't help that their way of greeting was dangerous for anyone who didn't know them too well… Plus there were those holes he, Luffy and Sabo dug in the yard many years ago. The gang used them to their advantage and camouflaged them to perfection so that if you didn't know about their placement, you were bound to fall into at least four of them.

They came to the perimeter fence that surrounded the Grey Terminal and Ace sighed again. This was not going to be pretty… He followed the fence to hole he always used to get on the other side. Before crossing he put his backpack and the bag he had on the ground (both with food from Makino) and climbed the tree next to the fence. He could literally feel sempai's questioning eyes on him, but he was not going to go into the Grey Terminal without a weapon and that was what he had up in the tree. Ace figured that one staff was enough and that sempai could easily defend himself in hand to hand combat, so he left Luffy's and Sabo's staves up in the tree and climbed down with his.

"What is that for?" sempai asked the moment Ace jumped down with a staff.

"Safe passage," Ace answered and that was true for the most part – when thugs of the Terminal saw Ace without his staff they sometimes decided that he was defenceless without it and decided to attack. Having his staff with him ensured that nobody will come close to them with fighting in mind. "Do you mind taking the bag, sempai?"

"If you forgot, I happened to suggest that half an hour ago," Marco smiled, taking the bag from the ground.

"Thanks," Ace took his backpack and climbed through the hole at the bottom of the fence.

Somehow he could always feel the difference once he entered the Grey Terminal, even if this area was normally an empty place. He was instantly alert, preferring to trust his instincts instead of his brain. That was something that betrayed his upbringing – sempai, for example, looked relaxed and it seemed like he had his guard down. Ace pushed down the need to scold sempai for such carelessness and started leading the way.

Marco-sempai was looking around with curiosity, while Ace was scanning surroundings for any threats. Since he was ambushed around here on Monday, he didn't trust the empty space. In a couple of minutes they came to something that could be called a street, if it wasn't for the piles of rubbish around it.

There were people walking here, many of them greeting Ace and exchanging a couple lines with him. He happily talked to them, after all he's known most of them since he was a kid and most of them were as kind to him as it was possible in this kind of place. Of course, he had to beat sense into some of them, but that was very long time ago, sometimes even before Luffy showed up. Like he mentioned before – he was an angry kid. To be honest, Ace was surprised himself that he wasn't on any drugs and had never been to jail.

On their way to the forest Ace ran into Pagaya, who was probably the most polite and kind human on earth. They've bumped into each other a lot when Ace lived with Dadan. Pagaya came to the Grey Terminal several times a week and gave food and clothes to people – he had some kind of charity organisation and Ace had to admit that ninety percent of all the clothes he wore while he lived here came from Pagaya.

"It's been a while, Ace-san," Pagaya said, nodding to Ace.

"How are you, Pagaya-san?" Ace replied, bowing a little. "Are you here with Conis?"

"Yes, she's over there," he pointed to Ace's left, "in charge of the kitchen. Are you here for a walk of are you going to Dadan?"

"Yeah. Call me if Bluejam starts causing trouble again," Ace nodded.

"That's very kind of you, thank you," Pagaya replied with a smile. "Still, I don't want to bother you, you must be busy."

"I'm never too busy to come over and kick him in the head, I still don't think I've paid him back for what his flunkies did to Luffy."

"In that case I'll be counting on you, Ace-san. Send my regards to Dadan."

"Say hi to Conis for me," Ace answered, smiling. "I'll be going now."

Once they have walked far enough, Ace felt like he should explain some things since sempai had been weirdly quiet all the time.

"That was Pagaya-san, he and his daughter Conis come here often, fixing food and clothes," he said.

"Who's Bluejam?" Marco asked thoughtfully, somehow Ace felt that sempai ignored what he just said.

"That's a long story… I think we were the ones that started it, but he's a complete d-bag, so I'm happy to teach him a lesson with or without a reason. Plus his gang beat up Luffy really bad one time, so that is personal now," Ace sighed.

"You started it?" sempai asked with raised eyebrows.

"That is… a long story… We, kind of, stole from them… In our defence, we didn't know that we stole from a gang," Ace waved his hands, almost hitting himself on the head with his staff.

"You stole from him?" Marco looked at him sceptically.

"That was seven years ago, it's been forever since I stole anything," he defended himself, waving his hands again and this time he actually hit himself on the head. Ace rubbed his head as sempai chuckled.

"I didn't say anything, I have no right to accuse you for stealing whatsoever."

"No way," Ace looked at sempai with suspicion. "You? Stealing? Stop pulling my leg."

At that Marco laughed loudly.

"Trust me, you don't know a quarter of what I did until I was thirteen. They would have put me into Impel Down had I not been adopted."

Ace stared at sempai with round eyes and open mouth. There was no way in hell that Marco-sempai, the Phoenix Marco, had that kind of past. There was no way.

"Bullshit," Ace said before he could stop himself.

Sempai laughed again.

"I wish. They've actually gave me a tour around that hellhole, not once but eight times. Two more and I would have had permanent residence there."

"You've got to be kidding me. You?"

"Having hard time believing?"

"But you came into Enies Lobby, how did that work? No offence, but that's a huge gap."

"I could say the same thing about you if you grew up here," sempai gestured to the piles of rubbish around them.

"I didn't grow up here," Ace blushed a little. "I've spent a lot of time here, but I didn't grow up here."

"Where did you grow up then?"

"There," Ace pointed to the mountain they were walking towards.

"Wait, isn't that… That's Mount Corvo, isn't it?"

"Mhm," Ace nodded.

"I heard that people shouldn't come there because of the cutthroats and all the thugs…" sempai looked genuinely surprised.

"They're not all that dangerous, there are worse things on that mountain," Ace shrugged casually because the most dangerous thing on that mountain wasn't there yet. One third of it was probably doing his homework now, another third was probably running away from Nami and the last part was about to return on its territory. Even the giant tiger was no problem – Ace could take him on solo and win since he was fifteen. As to poor cutthroats and thugs, he's been terrorizing them as long as he remembered.

"For example?"

Ace scratched his head, having hard time to decide if he should mention himself, but then decided against it.

"For example a giant tiger. Or the bear. Or the wolves. Or the crocs. By the way, crocs are tasty."

"Why do I feel like you're the most dangerous thing here?" Marco laughed, clearly not bothered by the variety of the animal kingdom the mountain had to offer.

"I'm not dangerous! Well, unless they've started it," Ace laughed as well.

"Yeah, we're all white and fluffy until they start to mess with us," sempai said with a smile.

"So very true," Ace sighed in mock sadness.

I swear there will be more happening in the next chappie.

Thanks for all the reviews, favourites and follows. Unless you review today, I will answer the review when I'll get back from vacation.

Cya

~Rhe