Chapter Text
Ace didn’t really know where and when it had all started to go to shit.
To be completely honest , chimed a voice in his head, it’s really not that bad . Well, fuck that. He had only wanted to prove the world that he wasn’t like his disgraced father. All on his own. To do good, be good, and live a quiet life.
In his very humble opinion, it had all started with the Monkeys taking him in, not that he had wanted them to at the time, mind you. It had been a good thing in the long run, and he wasn’t the least bit ungrateful, but if he had to guess and pinpoint the start of this , that was probably it.
He looked at Marco’s wide, wide eyes, the shaky smile on the older man’s lips too small for him to really notice it. And he definitely, definitely didn’t squawk.
Ace was a soft, kind soul. Ask anybody. Unless provoked, he was gentleness incarnate. Those who had known his mother all said he took after her, all but in the colour of his dark hair, where hers had been golden blonde. Those persons were rare nowadays, and Ace was glad he’d known that much, even if it was very little. It made him feel slightly better to know that he wasn’t close to his father.
He had hated that when he was younger, being gentle at the core. He wanted to be the toughest of them all, to grow a hardened skin against the glares and the whispers - but then it meant that he wasn’t so much like his mother, as he learnt later on. Of course he found Sabo, and Sabo had shown him it was okay to let his guard down and be kind to himself and to others. Not everyone of course, but those he saw worthy of his trust. Sabo had been the first one.
He distinctly remembered the day Luffy had tumbled through their cabin in the woods, their only haven, and wrecked it all into pieces. They had taken so much time to build it, to be safe and warm at night and it had been destroyed in mere seconds. In what he would soon learn was pure Luffy fashion, the tiny seven-year-old had laughed . Sabo and himself had been livid even without the laughter part, and it had been nothing short of truly enraging to have Luffy cling to them every day after that disastrous first encounter. The kid had been annoying, snotty, and pretty stupid. And weirdly, yet completely on their own accord, they started considering him a brother too. Luffy was awfully endearing, for being such a brat. The part where old geezer Garp discovered where his grandson was actually going to everyday instead of school was not his fondest childhood memory. It included a chase around a farmer’s market, several punches named Fist of Love , tripping over discarded fruit and lots of skinned joints and bruises.
After that, things had started to look up. Garp had gruffly agreed to take them in - what on Earth was Luffy doing playing with the homeless kids when his grandfather was one of the most important and powerful men in the capital, only God could possibly know. Ace wasn’t sure that even God, if he existed -which he was dubious about-, could answer for anything that Luffy did. He probably got that from his father, from what Ace had understood about the mysterious man. Whom had never shown up, actually, and only sent his only son a letter every year for his birthday. Sorry excuse for a father, if you asked Ace.
(As for Luffy’s weirdness, the kid was dating Trafalgar. That in itself was enough to prove Luffy’s dodgy tastes and sanity because, ew .)
Ace, who had begrudgingly agreed to learn to read from Sabo, had been given a real education on a whim, and while it hadn’t really been his jam like it had always been Sabo’s, he had been glad to find out he was smart. Really smart, if he put any kind of effort into it, actually. The first few years were boring, until they got to the real good stuff. He loved biology. He kept at it, worked at all the science subjects like crazy.
Now, after years of hard work, he was beginning his fourth year of med school. At 22, he was ready to work half-time in MarieJoie’s General hospital, in the surgery department, as a nurse. “It’s an honor, Mr. Portgas, I hope you know that. However your excellent results deserve due recognition,” had said Director Newgate, and a sense of pride had filled his whole being with warmth.
The only cloud in the picture was that he was in the same department as Trafalgar Law, and if him being a true chirurgical genius and having a place as head heart surgeon at the young age of 27 wasn't enough to elicit resentment in Ace, then the part where the man casually snogged his little brother on a daily basis definitely was.
Man, he hated Trafalgar. What exactly did Luffy see in the weirdo was beyond his comprehension. He could give the man one thing and one thing only in that he did soften and brighten when Luffy entered his line of sight. It never failed: without missing a beat, he just straightened and stopped looking like such a zombie. It had been going on for two years now, since Luffy had turned 18. Well, on the Monkey side, it actually had started when Luffy had followed Ace to the med school orientation four years ago and glimpsed Law making a speech through the crowd. He had been gone, not that he had known right away. It had been a constant, one-voice chorus of Law this and Law that at home (and also school, if his friends were to be believed). And it had been so tiring , even Sabo had thought so -still thought so. And Sabo wasn't the single one of the three brothers.
Yeah, embarrassing. He was the single one. Ace. The sexiest of the three was the single one, oh the irony. But whatever, it's not like he had the time to date anyway, unlike someone named after a fucking concept (Law, that’s Law, how can someone name their own child LAW ), he had to sleep at some point.
(“You, sexy? You have freckles all over like a child in summer. It’s cute , Ace.” “Shut up, Sabo! At least I have abs!”)
Right now, said sexiest brother was not at his best, wearing his comfiest sweater and pristine new scrubs. He made his way through the doors of the hospital's third floor without getting lost, worrying the pen that had come with his uniform with a nervous clic-clic-clic-clic-clic . The pediatric aisle was signaled on the left in bright blocky letters, and the surgical aisle was on the right. The break room was in the middle, the blinds drawn down to hide tired nurses and grumpy doctors away from the patients. Everything was pretty straightforward, like the director, like the line of thought of the establishment. It was all brightly lit and quiet. The unexpected and precipitated sound of someone running had Ace snapping his head just in time to witness a man in a doctor's blouse, with a goddamn head of messy pink curls , run into the break room with a wail of 'aaah, coffee time!’ and slam the door behind him. At the intersection, Ace peered in the corridor at his left, which the man had seemingly shot past. Not a sound from the rooms, at least nothing alarming, even if a few doors were open. He even heard some giggles and saw a little boy wave at him mischievously, half-hidden behind a door. He smiled and waved back, reassured that all seemed in order, swivelled back on his heels and-
“Hey there! You're the new intern nurse for the surgeons?” That was the pink-and-curly-haired doctor. Ace was surprised to see that a man with pink hair could look so handsome up close.
“Yeah,” Ace yelped. “Yeah, I'm huh, Portgas. Ace.” Still a little jumpy, he held out his hand. The starch on his uniform produced an embarrassing scrunchy sound.
“Awh, hey, welcome here, Ace. My name's Marco,” he replied and shook Ace's hand in a firm yet gentle grip. “I'm head pediatrician. We're gonna see each other at coffee break, then! Same floor!”
“Yeah. You seemed really happy about getting coffee, I thought there was a tornado loose in the corridor,” Ace joked to hide his awkwardness away. Or tried to. At least, Dr. Marco laughed.
“Ahah! Ah, yeah, I need it to keep up with my little monsters.”
A chorus of “We're angels!” and “I'm not a monster!” and other enthusiastic cries erupted behind him, and Ace turned to see most of the kids looking at them, some clutching toys and one -his heart squeezed- dragging his IV bags on a rail with him. Ever the people person, especially small persons, Ace grinned and waved again.
“I'm sure he's exaggerating, guys,” he chirped in reassurance. “I have to go though. Angels,” cheers answered him, “Doctor Marco. I'll see you all around?”
He got yelled at for being a few minutes late, but it could have been worse. Way, way worse. If Trafalgar was going to be the cloud in his work life, then the pediatric aisle was more than likely going to be the proverbial ray of sunshine.
It became part of his routine: each time he had a break, he got to the room to get a drink, in the silly hope of seeing Dr. Marco. He usually hung out next to the door, on the pediatric aisle side with his cup of godawful caffeine, chatting with the kids. If Ace didn’t already want to be a surgeon like crazy, he’d want to be a pediatrician.
It’s not too late , sang a little voice in his head this day.
He hummed as he entertained the thought for a little while he played charades with the kids, making them laugh with his grimaces. He sighed a little as he saw that his break time was nearly up, and decided to down the rest of his coffee before Law could start yelling at him. That never ended well for him when he started.
“That’s impressive,” the voice he had been waiting for said, a little breathlessly. “Noice,” Dr. Marco added in an upbeat tone, not exactly childishly. His hair was now cropped short, no hint of curls anymore, and the soft pink had been replaced by a bright blue. The part was shaved on the side of his head in the shape of a lightning bolt.
“Oh,” Ace sputtered, squinting at the design. “Dr. Marco. Hi?”
“Ah, it’s the hair huh? You don’t like it...” Did the man really sound... disappointed? Or was Ace just in shock from that blue hair?
“No, it’s fine! I was just a little taken aback. It’s for the kids, right?”
“Yeah, exactly!” He’d eased back into a smile as soon as Ace had done so himself. “I wanted to ask, why are you with the surgeons? Don’t get me wrong, someone’s gotta parry Trafalgar’s terrible bedside manners, but... You’ve got good enough instincts to work in more social areas.”
“Oh, huh...”
Ace looked up. Most people considered him tall, but Dr. Marco was even taller. The little angels were looking expectantly at them both, as if they’d been watching a cartoon, and he was strangely hyper-aware of their little chubby faces and all the things he really shouldn’t think in the presence of children and their impressionable minds. Suddenly he felt weirdly hot and awkward.
“Well, huh, Dr. Marco...”
“Hey, by the way, call me just Marco. I call you Ace, after all.”
“Sure, huh, well...” He’d been calling a doctor by his first name all along, what the hell, he was so embarrassed now-
“ PORTGAS ,” Trafalgar bellowed somewhere behind him, and if Ace hadn’t already drank his coffee, he’d have drenched himself and his scrubs in sticky-slimy beverage leftovers. “It’s been way more than ten minutes! I’ll have your sorry butt kicked out of this damn hospital if you’re not here in a second instead of wasting time FLIRTING!”
The impressionable minds around him all gasped at the swear words, except for a couple of older kids who smirked at the red that washed rapidly over Ace’s freckled face. Marco’s cheeks were tinted pink as well, but that was probably from the embarrassment of his colleague thinking some kid was flirting with him.
Ace turned back without another word and spent the rest of his day glaring at his superior’s smug grin. Given how long it lasted, Ace was pretty sure it was payback from all the times he had prevented smooching sessions between Law and Luffy. That man was seriously deranged. He didn’t see Sabo being humiliated out of nowhere! Anyway, given his mistake in thinking he could take a few more minutes to himself, he could tell it was going to be a long day.