Chapter Text
Dragon is missing. Dragon was at God Valley and he’s missing. How could this have happened? Garp rubs the bridge of his nose before glaring back at the newspaper as if it has personally offended him.
“Garp the Fist beats the Rocks’ pirates immediately after a battle with Gold Roger!” (Idiots didn’t even write Roger’s name correctly) “Hero of the Marines” yeah right. What a sham. He didn’t even beat the guy alone, he doesn’t know why he’s getting all the credit. Lives were still lost, marines were still killed, Dragon- he wipes his forehead again and clenches his jaw.
Dragon was in God Valley. “Who will protect the rank and file?” Garp had said to Roger when the pirate offered him a place in his crew. What a goddamn hypocrite he is to say that and not even be able to notice that his son was on that hellhole of an island. He knew he felt something off when he was chasing LinLin and Eddie around. If he wasn’t busy running around and looking for a fight, maybe he would’ve noticed him. Helped him out, kept him safe.
Garp looks at the newspaper again. After his squabble with Sengoku, the admiral handed over a report with a grim look on his face.
When Garp saw his son’s face on the paper he thought the worst had happened. That Dragon was killed or wounded, but it was a report that accused him of insubordination, questioning orders, disobedience towards a Celestial Dragon and a God Knight, and essentially, desertion.
All acts together are punishable by life in prison or execution. It is the worst that can happen. He can’t even bear the thought of losing his child, the concept grates at his lungs and makes his already sore bones ache even more.
Life in prison is not a choice either, because Garp knows his son. He knows that the boy is free in his own way, and would rather die than live the rest of his life in a prison cell. And he knows damn well about his stubborn boy’s sense of justice, how he would feel and what he would do after seeing what happened in God Valley.
He feels sick even thinking about it. According to the report, Dragon went missing from his platoon even before the “Native Hunt” had started, later being spotted alone when the Rocks pirates attacked the place and then going missing shortly after that. Dragon was on that island, probably fighting for his life while Garp was running around pirates and looking for a fight with Roger.
This is such a mess. He huffs out an exhale and pinches the bridge of his nose. Dragon could still be on that island. He sure as hell won’t keel over and die, Garp knows that for sure because he raised the kid for goodness sake.
Maybe his son still got on a marine ship. Maybe the report is wrong and he didn’t desert them. He doubts it.
Garp knows his boy, and he knows damn well that Dragon got a glimpse of what was happening and definitely did something about it. Maybe he’s still on that god forsaken island. Maybe he’s still stuck there, maybe hunting any wild animals. Maybe he went to wherever the other island natives went, the ones who weren’t killed in the hunt.
Garp still has to make sure. He can’t go now since Tsuru and Sengoku tackled him and held him down for trying to leave. He did get to punch Dragon’s platoon captain, which at least helped a bit with his temper. Garp overheard the dumbass talking about Dragon and how he was a deserter to another marine captain. The vice admiral punched the man hard enough to go through a wall. And four more. He doesn’t regret it.
Bogard also visited him and they talked a little bit. He was a bit gloomy too, which made sense considering he and Dragon hung out a little and he was the kid’s senior by two years. Bogard was being deployed to some stupid kingdom for a few weeks, something about training a few rookies since he was Garp’s student and Garp himself couldn’t come along since he was still injured.
The vice admiral thought that was also a load of bullshit, but at least he can just run off to God Valley to look for his son instead of visiting some dumb kingdom when he heals up a bit more. He can try retracing Dragon’s steps on the island and use some of his resources in the marines for that. His vacation was cut short for God Valley, he can just pretend to go through with it and search for his son the entire time.
The man sighs and buries his face in his bandaged hand.
What a disaster this is.
.⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆.
Roger’s a little worried. Maybe a lot worried. He was just talking to the kid on what they were gonna get in Ilisia Kingdom when Dragon looked zoned out and Roger put a hand on the boy’s good shoulder to make sure he was alright. What he expected was a small side eye or even a glare, knowing teenagers (or assuming he does (which he absolutely does not)), but he didn’t expect the kid to lurch forward and cover his mouth like he was about to throw up.
Roger, of course, panicked and grabbed the kid’s shoulders to make sure he didn’t smash his forehead into the crib’s edge and accidentally brain himself in front of a baby, which turned out to be a bad thing to do since Dragon froze and his eyes widened slightly as he choked.
Roger’s eyes widened themselves before the man was quickly rushing to grab a bucket when Dragon started to retch. The boy heaved into the bucket a few times and then threw up in it while Roger attempted in patting his back for comfort, although it was super awkward.
Now, Roger is being scolded by Rayleigh for not calling him over and for letting the kid eat so much during lunch (Rayleigh was also there, so Roger thinks he’s being kind of hypocritical), even though he was sick. The captain sort of forgot about that because the brat seemed fine eating five plates of seafood. Plus, what if he gave him a sad look if Roger stopped him from eating? He can’t deal with sad children!
Which is what he says to Rayleigh, who states that Dragon is a marine, and shouldn’t be treated like a child. Said “marine” is on his back, staring at the ceiling and “sleeping” off an illness, headache and stomach ache, a clean bucket at the foot of his bed in case he needs to throw up again.
Roger throws a hand towards the ill boy’s direction, giving his first mate a flabbergasted look.
“Well not anymore! Plus, you can’t tell me if he gave you some sad puppy eyes you wouldn’t give in and hand over all your food. And then some.” The pirate captain raises his eyebrow at Rayleigh, who puts his hands on his hips.
“I wouldn’t. And he wouldn’t either, he’d most likely eat his own foot before trying to give anyone a puppy eyed look -don’t try branching off into a different subject, I’m still chastising you! He’s been sick for three days, if he wakes up and acts fine it doesn’t mean that he’s still not sick. Especially if he wakes up and eats nearly a third of a massive octopus, then he’ll get even worse. Also, you can’t just sleep off what potentially could be Sepsis, that could take weeks to heal from.” His first mate scolds him and Roger purses his lips.
“I didn’t know he had Sepsis.” The captain frowns and his eyebrows furrow. “Isn’t seafood recommended for patients of Sepsis?” He asks and Rayleigh gives him an exasperated look.
“Yeah, when it’s not eleven pounds. Also, I’m pretty sure salmon and tuna is recommended, not octopus.” Rayleigh rolls his eyes and heads over to Dragon, who has already discarded his blankets and is now glaring at the ceiling with a flushed face like it had killed his entire family and spat in his eye.
The pirate ignores the boy’s glare when it is directed towards him, deciding that there’s a very low chance that the kid will attempt to bite his hand off if he tries checking his temperature. Rayleigh trusts him as far as he can throw him but he knows that Dragon knows that it’s a bad move to take a bite at a pirate’s hand.
The teen looks away and Rayleigh presses the palm of his hand on his forehead, raising an eyebrow at the temperature. It did go down compared to how high it was a day before.
“How’s your shoulder feeling?” The pirate asks in a nonchalant tone while Dragon furrows his eyebrows a bit.
“It’s fine.” He says curtly and Rayleigh dead pans, staring at the teenager. Dragon looks away, eyes moving towards the crib and sighs. “Mostly sore and hurts when I move my arm.”
“Alright. Don’t try saluting anyone anymore and don’t strain your right arm. Burns and penetration wounds should not be taken lightly. It’ll take weeks to stop hurting completely and even longer to fully heal. I’ll be pissed if you rip your stitches, like some other people here.” The man crosses his arms and Dragon hears an accused squawk from Roger.
“I don’t know what you're talking about.” The black haired man says, crossing his arms and looking away.
“Yes you do. You literally ripped one getting up from the infirmary mere hours after the incident. And you also ripped one in your back when you opened a treasure chest.” The blond glares at him.
“Well, if I didn’t open the treasure chest, we wouldn’t have found Dragon or Shanks, now would we?” The captain snarks, giving his first mate a cheeky grin.
“Yes we would’ve. Just a little later.” Rayleigh looks away with a solemn look on his face.
“Yeah right. You guys waited for me to check on the treasure and you probably would’ve waited more.” Roger puts his hands under his head and stares up at the ceiling. “So newsflash, you wouldn’t have opened the chest and wouldn’t’ve found them.” The captain points his thumb at the crib and his pinky at Dragon, to which the teenager looks to the side.
“Yeah yeah, go rub it in our faces that you found them.” Rayleigh throws the ignored blanket back over on Dragon, and the kid surprisingly takes it, curling up to his side and facing away from both pirates.
“I’ll help Max Marx make some soup. Gaban will check up on you in about ten minutes and we’ll feed Shanks in forty-five. Rest. Maybe it’ll encourage some other people to do the same.” The first mate sends a death glare towards his captain, the man giving him an awkward chuckle.
The blond sighs and leaves the infirmary, gently shutting the door behind him. Shanks mumbles and Roger gets up to check on him.
.⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆.
Good news, Dragon doesn’t have Sepsis. Well, he does, but he’s already almost healed. Bad news, he has to rest to get rid of the sickness.
Which is pretty hard to focus on when you’re infirmary roommates with your dad’s biggest rival. Him and Rayleigh argue worse than Dragon and Dadan, which is kind of impressive.
Dragon huffs a bit when Roger starts another one of his rambles, telling him the story about that time he got swallowed by a Sea King which then got eaten by another Sea King and how Rayleigh had to gut both of them to get him out. There was a grand feast afterward and the pirates had food for days.
That story is pretty funny. What wasn’t funny was having to remind the man that he’s holding Shanks wrong, which happened three times in the last sixteen minutes.
His savior comes in the form of Gaban calling his captain over to discuss what their plans are after Ilisia Kingdom. The man puts the giggly baby back down in his crib and walks off to join his navigator, giving Dragon the chance to check up on the infant without Roger worrying about him jostling his shoulder.
Dragon finds that statement and worry extremely hypocritical, due to the fact that the man himself isn’t even worrying about his own injuries and goes off to frolic with his crewmates. The teen rolls his eyes and looks back down at Shanks, who has his thumb and pointer finger in his mouth, a dumb smiley look on his face. The teen smiles at the little boy, running a hand through the baby's red hair.
They’ve been on the ship for four days, Dragon being asleep for more than half of that, and still pretty ill for all of that. At least Sepsis isn’t contagious, so he doesn’t need to be quarantined. Or stay away from Shanks, which is not an idea he agrees with.
Speaking of Shanks, the baby became a fan favourite with the crew and even the Empress lady (both Gloriossa and Shakky, but he’s not sure which one’s the actual Empress so he just assumed it was Shakky) took a slight liking to the infant. Which Dragon finds a little confusing, since he was told by some of his old comrades that the empress kicked puppies and kitties.
Maybe it was a different empress. Or just a rumor. Dragon does hope it isn’t true because if he were from Amazon Lily he wouldn’t want to be ruled by a person who kicks puppies.
Well, rumors and never-gonna-happen future scenarios aside, at least he knows of the crew's plans and what islands they’re going to visit in the next few weeks.
So good news, that gives Dragon enough time to plan out the future for the next few months or so and be able to find a new objective in what he wants to do when he gets off this ship. Bad news, Dragon is most likely wanted by the marines so most (21 out of 24 to be exact) of his plans go down the drain.
It’s not like he really plans on going back to the Navy, he’d rather bite his tongue off and choke on it. One plan that doesn’t involve him potentially getting caught is that he hides away for the rest of his life and lives on an uninhabited island, but that most likely won’t work out since he needs to also take care of Shanks or leave him someplace else. He doesn’t really like that option much, since Shanks’ mother entrusted him into finding a good person to raise the baby.
Dragon could leave Shanks with his own dad, but that could also bring loads of problems both his way and Garp’s. He could let the Roger pirates take care of the infant, they’ve shown that they’re good with the baby and they’ve been trustworthy so far, but…
Dragon groans and throws his hands over his face, leaning his head back. Thinking too much about it is gonna give him a headache. He groans again and leans his chair back. Unfortunately, the chair leans too close to the ground and falls, Dragon going down with it. The teenager hits his head on the floor with a yelp and hisses, bringing his left hand up to rub the bump.
Shanks, the traitorous (adorable) little baby that he is, bursts into high pitched giggles of delight, making Dragon’s face burn a bit in embarrassment while the corners of his mouth twitch up slightly at hearing the happy squeals.
The seventeen year old snorts, still rubbing his sore head. That’s gonna leave a bump. “Yeah yeah, laugh at my expense.” His eye twitches and he snorts when Shanks lets out a shriek of absolute delight.
His amusement gets cut off when the door slams open loudly, causing the windows to shudder. Dragon startles and straightens up, cautiously looking at the door to see Roger (a bit out of breath due to his *still* healing injuries and from him most likely rushing to the infirmary) glancing around the room in a slight panic.
The pirate captain glances at the crib and then at Dragon, taking a few steps forward with a worried look on his face.
“Is everything okay? I heard a crash, did something happen?” Roger waves his hands around Dragon a bit, checking over the teen. Is he fussing over him?
“…I leaned too far on the chair and fell on the ground.” Dragon looks down, rubbing his head some more. The pirate stays silent and Dragon stares at the floor for a bit before looking back up at Roger.
The captain is covering his mouth, his shoulders shuddering. Dragon’s eyes widen before narrowing down and giving the older man a slight glare. Shanks’ shrieking giggles fill the room and Roger snorts, wiping his face to lock in, before rubbing the back of his neck.
“Did you hurt yourself or anything? With the fall, like maybe bumping your head or jostling your shoulder?” He worries, checking over Dragon without touching him.
“I’m fine. Just bumped my head a little. Nothing to worry ab-“ his reassurances get cut off when Rayleigh slams the already open door against the wall, huffing slightly and looking around the room with narrow eyes.
“What happened? I heard a crash and a scream.” His eyes fall onto Dragon, who gulps a bit and looks away. He didn’t scream, it was just a yelp. Of surprise.
Dragon looks away, lowering his hand to scratch the back of his neck. The captain clicks his tongue and Shanks cooes, finished with his fit of giggles. Rayleigh crosses his arms and Roger itches his cheek. After a few more seconds of silence, Dragon looks up at the ceiling, lips forming into a thin line and eyes narrowing.
“Well? You just gonna stand around in silence or tell me what happened?” Rayleigh throws his hands up in exasperation. Roger rubs the back of his neck and glances at Dragon, who slowly blinks up at the ceiling.
The captain points at himself and Dragon glances at him before looking back up, wiping his hand over his face. He lowers his head and looks at Rayleigh, blinking a few times.
“The chair I was on fell over. One of the legs is not level.” Dragon curtly says, Roger giving him a slightly confused look and Rayleigh giving him an unimpressed one.
“That’s all? You both stood around like two complete idiots just for that?” The man groans, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and pointer finger. Shanks starts fussing and Dragon distracts himself with the baby, choosing to ignore the captain and first mate.
.
“Anyways, newspaper came in. Thought you’d find it interesting.” Rayleigh tosses it to Roger, who huffs out a laugh at the headline.
“‘The hero of the marines crushes the Rocks Pirates? Less than a week ago, Marine hero Garp ‘the Fist’ beats Rocks Pirates, immediately after a battle with Gold Roger— aw, come on man! They spelt my name wrong again.” The captain lets out an annoyed huff and he continues reading.
“The marine hero was surrounded by enemies but he didn’t give up, fighting tooth and nail for justice. Marine propaganda, blah blah blah, destroyed the island, blah blah blah, some more random crap— oh that’s kinda true.” Roger rolls his eyes a bit after reading the news article and tosses the newspaper back, crossing his arms.
“No wonder he blew a gasket at Marineford. Probably got pissed at the newspaper giving him all the credit.” Rayleigh crosses his own arms and glances at Dragon, who’s looking over the crib with a tight-lipped expression on his face.
His eyes are blank and his knuckles are white from holding onto the crib. The wood creaks from the pressure, beginning to splinter a bit from where his fingers tighten against it.
Rayleigh looks away, giving Roger a slight look at seeing the man’s worried expression.
“Probably also got pissed for everything else that happened on the island.” The blond walks over to his captain, stomping on his foot to prevent the man from speaking. “MARX wants to talk to us about rations, let’s go.”
Rayleigh grabs Roger’s elbow and drags him out the door, his captain throwing a look of worry towards Dragon, whose eyes seem vacant. Rayleigh frowns and closes the door after them.
.⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆.
After they leave, Dragon waits a few minutes, leaning over the crib while his vision blurs, probably from staring too hard at nothing.
He pushes himself off of the position he’s in, slowly making his way to the discarded newspaper and picking it up.
“The hero of the marines crushes the Rock Pirates!” Dragon reads the title. Rereads it three times before reading the article itself. It proves to be complete bullshit. His jaw sets and fists clench, threatening to rip the news article.
Nothing about the Native Hunt. Nothing about the Celestial Dragons nor the God Knights. Nothing that even hints towards the slaughter that happened in God Valley.
Dragon seethes. There has to be something else. Something about it. Maybe after the article or— or maybe on a different page. He flips through the newspaper, looking for any mentions of God Valley aside from praising his dad in beating the Rocks Pirates.
He flips through the pages again, eyes scanning through sentences and paragraphs, some talking about kingdoms making deals, a new stupid fashion trend, but nothing, absolutely nothing about God Valley.
He puts the newspaper down and buries his face into his palms. Did this sort of thing happen before? Where injustices caused by the marines went unwritten and unpunished? Dragon thinks of how stupid that train of thought is. Of course it has happened.
He stays like that for a few minutes, contemplating everything before hearing a quiet whine from Shanks. After a few seconds, Dragon forces himself to get up and check on the infant.
Shanks looks up at him with wide eyes and a slightly fussy face. Dragon sighs and picks him up, checking the baby over. Shanks doesn’t deserve to be in this crappy place with a sad atmosphere.