Chapter Text
Zoro is dozing on the deck when he’s woken by a high-pitched squeal.
He frowns, decides to ignore it, and then shifts again to get comfortable.
This turns out to be a mistake.
Zoro registers the rapid steps approaching, and assumes whoever it is will soon pass him by. His hands lace together under his head, the sea breeze is cool and the sun warms him and the deck pleasantly.
Something slams into his gut.
Zoro sits up, spluttering profanities, and then realizes it’s only Lucy.
Lucy, who is currently sitting in his lap.
Shit.
He leans away as best he can, startled, but this doesn’t actually help anything because Lucy, sensing her prey’s escape attempt, just clamps her thighs around his waist.
Zoro may or may not make a sound akin to a whimper.
“Lucy what the hell?!” Zoro screeches (in a manly way. Manly screeches). This is not anything she’s done before—she doesn’t screw with people like this, and although she’s tactile she’s never tried anything even remotely…well she just hasn’t.
Lucy’s face is split in her widest grin. “Look, Zoro! I have a bounty!” Then she shoves a piece of paper in his face.
The vast majority of the poster is filled with the face of his captain. Someone managed to snap a picture of her with her lips pulled back in a perfect D smile, eyes squinting shut and her hat tipped to the wind. It’s a good picture—ridiculous for a wanted poster, but it’s good. She looks cute, sweet, carefree as always, and not at all bloodthirsty.
It’s unfortunate that the picture gives away so many details though. Her scar, for one. The hat. He glances down at the bounty price, and chokes.
“Thi-thirty million?!”
Lucy just grins, her expression matching her picture. “Yep!”
And because she’s Lucy and doesn’t actually know the meaning of the words ‘restraint’ or ‘decorum,’ she starts bouncing.
On his lap.
With her thighs clamped around his waist.
Oh God don’t think about it, he grunts internally. He’s propped up on his elbows so her chest is eye-level and…
He draws on all of Sensei’s mindfulness techniques. He’s thinking about dead children and acid. Dead children and acid. Dead children and—
“Isn’t it great, Zoro?” Lucy asks. She’s so ecstatic Zoro thinks she might spontaneously combust. Zoro might spontaneously combust if she doesn’t stop bouncing.
“Uh. Yes.” It’s really hard to form sentences when his lap is full of squirming girl. “Thirty is a lot though. I think it’s the highest one in East Blue.”
Lucy grins, about to say something, but Nami appears out of nowhere and snatches the poster, scowling.
“This is bad,” Nami moans. Sometimes when she speaks to Lucy she sounds like a long-suffering parent. Or, maybe more accurately, a very patronizing pet owner. “This means people will be after us!”
Lucy’s eyes glint and she shifts to look up, but now more weight is settled on Zoro’s lap, right over his…
Dead children. Dead children, acid, and the love cook.
Huh. That actually helped.
“It’s okay, Nami!” Lucy chirps. “People were going to chase us eventually. I’m going to be the Pirate King!”
Nami’s face shifts from stressed to fond, and then amused as she fully takes in Zoro’s predicament. “I suppose you’re right.” Zoro feels dread wash through him when the sea-witch throws him a wink. “Are you going to help me clean now or are you going to take a nap with Zoro?”
Zoro freezes.
That bitch.
Lucy hums. “I’ll help you clean, Nami!” Then she scrambles off of Zoro, and he’s left lying on the deck, propped up by his elbows and in a bit of a bind.
Lucy is gone five seconds later, and so Zoro swings his gaze to Nami, who is helplessly giggling, either at his expression or predicament or both.
“What was that for?” He growls. He stands to make himself feel less vulnerable.
“Haha, oh your face!” Nami hiccups a laugh, and Zoro is left fuming and humiliated. “I thought you were going to pass out!”
Zoro just stands there, shaking, his original question still in the air. Nami finally gets a hold of herself and grins her sharpest smile at him.
Only an idiot would stand unafraid of that smile.
“It was a win-win situation for me,” Nami explains, finally. “If she got off of you, she’d be making less work for me, and you would owe me a favor. And if she didn’t she’d be quiet for a while and…” her grin grows sly. “you’d still owe me a favor.”
Zoro splutters, incoherently angry. “What?”
Nami rolls her eyes. “I’m not blind, Zoro.” She waves at him as she descends the stairs to the main deck. “And I know you’ll never make the first move, so. I was helping you. Say thank you.”
Zoro does not say thank you. Zoro is considering throwing himself in the ocean. “Fuck off.”
Nami makes a tutting noise. “Just for that, I’ll have to fine you.”
Zoro does not actually decide to drown himself, but it’s a close call.
So to recap:
Zoro replaced his two broken katana with new blades, Lucy was nearly executed three minutes ago, and now he, the love cook and his miraculously-not-dead-captain—he could kill Lucy for smiling—are running for their ship in the middle of the worst storm he has ever seen, and chased by about fifty Marines.
It's been a busy afternoon.
But just as they’re nearing the harbor, a figure appears in the rain.
When Zoro notices that it’s a familiar-looking girl, he immediately frowns. It’s the clumsy chick who knew a lot about katanas from the sword shop.
She doesn’t look so clumsy now.
The love cook, predictably, notices that she is female and loses all sense of dignity.
“She’s cute!” He gushes.
“Roronoa Zoro!” She calls. Zoro quirks an eyebrow. He specifically didn’t mention his name to her earlier because he was worried about being recognized with a Marine base right here in town.
The men chasing the three of them cheer at the sight of her. “Sargent Major Tashigi!”
Wait, so that means—
Shit.
“To think that you were Roronoa Zoro, and a pirate at that!” She yells, indignant. “You were just toying with me all along!”
What? Where did she get that from?
“You bastard!” Sanji snaps. “What did you do to that lady?”
Wait, what? He didn’t do anything.
“Nothing! I didn’t know she was a Marine!”
“Zoro…you were with…?”
Fuck, that was Lucy. Why did she sound upset?
Oh shit, the way Marine girl said that sounded like—
“NO.”
“I will take back that Wado Ichimonji!” The Marine lady yells
Kuina’s katana?
Like hell.
“Just try it.” He challenges, grin fierce.
He doesn’t get the girl’s gall—thinking she can just take someone’s katana like that. What on earth was she smoking? She’s no more deserving of the blade than him or anyone else, but at least in his hands it will achieve a dead girl’s dream.
She leaps at him, her katana in an aggressive offensive position, and Zoro blocks with Wado—he’s not willing to test his new, strangely aware blades on an opponent he doesn’t want to hurt.
And he doesn’t want to hurt her. She seems decent enough, even if she is being ridiculous, and she helped him out earlier.
“You guys go on ahead,” he tells the others. “I’ll catch up.”
He really, really doesn’t want to be separated from Lucy right now considering her recent almost-execution, but Sanji will make sure she gets away. And he’s too curious about the not-Kuina Marine that’s challenging him.
Lucy looks between him and the Marine, and her eyebrows furrow. “Okay…”
“Let’s go, Lucy-san!” Sanji interjects, with a warning look in his direction. Zoro’s not sure what that’s about, but Lucy turns back toward the ship and runs at full speed, Sanji hot on her heels.
The Marine—Tashigi, they said—pushes against his blade, tries to leverage her strength against his.
She’s an okay swordsman, who would probably beat most average opponents. But Zoro is probably the best swordsman in East Blue right now, and even though he’s still in the final stages of recovery from Mihawk’s blow, she’s nowhere near a match for him.
He quickly disarms her—it only takes about three moves and a little footwork—and just to prove his point, he traps her against the wall and sticks the tip of his sword in the soft plaster beside her head, the warning clear.
That could have been you.
“I can’t hand this katana over to anyone, no matter what!” He tells her, and he can’t quite quell the dark glee that victory brings him, even if it was easy. He’s sure the smile on his face is…unwelcoming, to say the least.
But it’s a warning, too. A reminder to the Marine that the world isn’t so black and white as she seems to think it is. There aren’t just pirates and Marines, good men and bad ones. Zoro would never call himself a good man, but he has a job to do, a level his blades must rise to, and the pursuit is a worthy one. Her assumption that all pirates carrying fine blades are unworthy of them is naïve.
He removes the katana from the wall, and replaces Wado to its scabbard. He turns toward the harbor, hoping the others made it. He has to catch up—
“Why…WHY DIDN’T YOU CUT ME DOWN?”
Zoro stops, and turns to look at Tashigi over his shoulder.
“Is it because I’m a woman?” the Marine demands.
You’re so lucky to be born a boy, Zoro.
“You dare go easy on me in a serious duel just because women aren’t as physically powerful as men? How shameful! I didn’t pick up a katana for fun! Of course, I shouldn’t expect someone like you to ever understand what it feels like to wish you were born a man—”
“It’s your existence that bothers me, not your gender!” Zoro snaps, partly because he’s still furious and worried over Lucy’s near-execution, but also because—
How could she have Kuina’s words, too?
The woman stops, clearly startled.
“You look exactly like a friend of mine that died a long time ago, and now you’re even spouting the same crap she did. So stop copying her, rip-off!”
The Marine’s face turns red in anger. “Why, I’ve never heard anything more childish in my life—”
“And another thing—I DIDN’T GO EASY ON YOU BECAUSE YOU’RE A GIRL. IT’S BECAUSE YOU’RE WEAKER THAN ME, AND THERE’S NO REASON TO GO ALL-OUT ON SOMEONE WHEN I DON’T NEED TO. SO CAN IT.”
The woman stops, equal parts flustered and offended. Zoro doesn’t really care.
“Stop blaming your weakness on your gender, Copy-cat. If you want to be stronger, you want to win, train or somethin’, don’t just sit there and complain!” Zoro takes a deep breath, knowing he may be giving decent advice to an enemy and not really caring. This type of thing pissed him off when he was a kid, too, when it was Kuina frustrated with the world. His stance on the subject hasn’t really changed. Copy-cat just looks at him, wide-eyed. “My captain is a woman, and she’s the strongest person I know! She’s going to be Pirate King! So screw you, and your attitude, and stop blaming the world for your own inability to work for what you want!”
And that’s another thing he appreciates about Lucy. She doesn’t care that everyone assumes a man will claim her dream. She refuses to bow to expectation. So what if the world expects men to wield swords and women to clean house? Lucy sees it as a title, not an exclusive club.
He thinks Kuina would have liked her. He thinks Kuina would have been inspired by her.
“What do you know of being a woman?” Tashigi growls bitterly.
Zoro sighs. “Nothin’. And I’m not saying it’s easy, or that women don’t deal with shit men don’t have to, but that’s how it is. You either deal with it and prove them wrong or you don’t. You want me to cut you down? Make me.”
And with that Zoro turns around again, back in the direction of the ship. The storm is getting horrible, and Zoro just knows Nami will be itching to set sail, the demon bitch. Plus, there’s a worried knot of tension in his gut over Lucy—she was nearly executed in front of him today, and he doesn’t want to let her out of his sight right now.
He takes off at a run, and doesn’t look back.
Not a single Marine follows.
It will take another day to get to the Grand Line from Loguetown. The storm outside rages until late afternoon, and clears just in time for the sun to set.
Lucy, of course, immediately bounces up to the figurehead once the rain stops. Now that it’s calmer, and Nami isn’t giving new directions every three seconds, Zoro follows her, because they need to have a talk.
Lucy nearly died today, and was only saved by a truly random bolt of lightning at the exact right time.
“Do you believe in God?” Sanji asked him then, cigarette forgotten on the ground.
Zoro hadn’t before but after this afternoon he might reconsider his position.
He blames himself, in some ways, because if he was stronger, or got to her faster, it wouldn’t have taken divine intervention to save her. And even though he knows it’s completely unfair to blame her for the incident, part of Zoro is mad at Lucy too, because she let herself get caught.
Zoro finds Lucy near the bow of the ship, her eyes gleefully, irreverently trained on the horizon, her hand pressing her hat to her head. She’s still wearing his old shirt, even though he knows she bought some new clothes in Loguetown, because she hasn’t had time to change yet.
He’s still angry. So much so he burns with it. He wants to grab her and shake her, ask her what the hell she was thinking back there.
She notices, somehow, despite not actually looking at him. She turns to him, the last rays of sunlight warm her, halos her form and blocks portions of her face in shadow. The too-big shirt billows around her shoulders, and the wind tangles its fingers in her hair.
But she is frowning at him, confused, and maybe a little concerned.
“Zoro? What’s wrong?”
Zoro scowls, but isn’t sure what he wants to say, what he can say, and so he turns toward the horizon and grunts. “Nothing.”
She makes a curious sound, and pokes him in the chest. “Nah, something’s bugging you.”
He leans away from her, which is something he can’t recall ever happening before. She seems surprised too, and she blinks.
“Zoro?”
She sounds, maybe, a little hurt.
“I thought you were going to be Pirate King.”
She blinks again, and her frown deepens as she registers his words. “I’m absolutely going to be Pirate King. That’s why we’re going to the Grand Line.”
His eyes narrow. “Back at the town. You were going to let him—” He doesn’t finish, but his hands shake a little with leftover adrenaline.
Lucy’s eyes grow more serious. “Buggy and Alvida got me. I didn’t let them do anything.” Zoro tenses, but doesn’t speak. “I won’t die, I prom—”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Zoro growls. They both care too much about their honor, their oaths, for him to let her say something stupid like that.
“I won’t die,” she repeats, her expression a little angry now. She’s never been mad at him before. “I promise, I won’t.”
“You apologized to us,” he growls, getting to the heart of the issue, “you smiled.”
The curl of Lucy’s scowl deepens. “Well…yeah?”
Sometimes, Zoro wants to throw her overboard and not go after her. “You gave up.” That was about as harsh a critique as he could give her, and they both knew it.
Lucy sucks in a breath. “I did not.” She blows some air out her nostrils, obviously checking her temper. “I’m going to be the Pirate King or die achieving it. I don’t regret that, so of course I smiled.”
He blinks, and the world spins for a minute. He recalls his response to her first offer to join her crew, telling her he’s never done anything he regrets. Still hasn’t, since joining Lucy. He lives for his dream, would only die striving for it or after he accomplished it. If there is one thing perfectly understood between them, it is that one lives for one’s dreams with one’s life on the line, or not at all.
In his worry and fear, he somehow forgot that applies to her as well as himself.
He turns back to her, a little ashamed of himself. “Just…promise you won’t. Give up, I mean.”
Her jaw is tense with the seriousness of the moment. “I won’t. I never have.”
He relaxes fully, and her face softens when she sees. She leans her shoulders back even as her hips sway forward in a satisfied sort of way, thumbs hooked in her waistband. The spark in her dark eyes grows teasing, and she pokes him in the chest. “You’re not going to start worrying like Ace, are you?”
Zoro blinks, confused. “Who’s Ace?”
She grins. “My older brother. He always used to try and make sure I didn’t do anything dangerous. Or unladylike, once he started trying to be polite all the time, the faker.”
Zoro tries to picture his captain younger and in a frilly dress, and snorts at the mental image. He is a little surprised she feels like sharing—he can’t recall her offering information about her past at all since he met her. She has a brother. Huh.
Well, it makes as much sense as anything. “I don’t have any siblings.” Or parents. But he’s never felt too bitter about that, or even curious. Couldn’t miss what he never knew, and a childhood spent at the dojo wasn’t so bad. “What’s he like?”
The grin she gives him is blinding, and it’s only halfway through a story about beating up a tiger that Zoro realizes that he, completely unwittingly and without reservation, revealed information about himself.
He thinks, maybe, Lucy is a bit more dangerous than previously realized.
Her small hand is warm when she grips his forearm, enthusiastically describing something that sounds a lot like a heist. She drags him around the quarterdeck as he listens, acting out her retelling and using him as a prop more often than not.
He still hasn’t made any decisions he regrets.