Chapter Text
If someone asks Smoker how Monkey D. Luffy convinced him to leave a post Smoker had held on to for years, for which he had rejected several promotions to keep and then abandoned in a day to go to the Grand Line… he'd answer that it's no one's business but his own.
If that someone was to be a person he respected or appreciated, he might say that it's not something one cannot put into words unless they've met the stupid idiot themselves.
The truth is that Smoker always knew –from the moment that he set eyes on him– that Monkey D. Luffy was going to be a pirate.
Despite Luffy’s lineage, his spotless record, his many accomplishments, his fame and his fierce sense of Justice… Smoker knew that man wasn't meant to follow the rules, much less enforce them. The thought hits Smoker without base or reason, but it's from a well-cultivated understanding of piracy born from years in service, and Smoker has never been wrong. He was there when the Great Age of Piracy began and he thinks it left him an impression, a sliver of understanding that his fellow marines of the Absolute Justice regimen cannot see.
So, when he sees this not-yet pirate dressed in a marine officer's coat, Smoker knows that wherever he goes, mayhem would follow. Smoker's sense of justice doesn't allow for a pirate to play marine. Monkey D. Luffy would slip eventually and Smoker would be there to catch him. He would never admit his suspicions or conclusions to anyone, not even after the Paramount War –but to himself, he's always felt a little bitter about just how right his gut was.
Smoker first hears about Monkey D. Luffy when his subordinates notify him about a disturbance on the center plaza as he's patrolling the streets of Loguetown. Smoker is purposely going at half his usual speed because he knows there are HQ marines visiting, the less time he needs to put on a nice face, the better. He's been the Captain of Loguetown a long time, and he's not appreciative of the way HQ marines tend to turn their noses up at him. Contrary to cocky pirates, Smoker's not allowed to beat the crap out of them.
His den-den mushi narrates that there is a man on the execution scaffold and when Smoker takes a couple of back alley shortcuts and sees it for himself, the officer coat the young man wears is the first thing to catch his eye. The man has one hand raised, fingers barely grazing a head full of unruly black hair. He looks out over the concerned citizens with a presence that Smoker has only seen once before. He's sure he must have it wrong, but the man's not... admiring the view, is he? From atop the platform, the unknown officer (?) grins, and the more Smoker studies him, the younger he seems.
Despite that, the resemblance to all those years ago that strikes Smoker is uncanny. He gets closer. Looking up to the scaffold.
"What do you think you're doing… officer?" Smoker adds the title just in case, curving his belligerent tone; it burns in his mouth all the same. It'll be a cold day in hell when Smoker's marines are breaking the law so openly, but… if this man really is a marine, then he's clearly from the HQ ship that's returning to the Grand Line. The younger man startles out of his reverie, and takes a moment to turn down to look at Smoker, his grin intensifies.
"Hi!" he yells and then, he's next to Smoker, having jumped 20 feet effortlessly and without consequence. Smoker keeps the surprise off his face as best as he can. Examining the youth’s blue shorts and red shirt, matching his coat’s sleeves, unruffled in his descent. "My name is Monkey D. Luffy. Who are you?" No rank? Smoker thinks. Unusual, but from up close there's definitely no mistake that the man is a marine officer.
"I'm Captain Smoker, in charge of the marine base here in Loguetown," he introduces himself gruffly, a little off balance by the man's friendliness. "Climbing the scaffold is against the law, what were you doing?"
"Ehhh? Against the law? Really? Pfft. I had noooo idea." The man pursues his lips and looks to the side in the worst attempt at lying Smoker's ever seen. Now he is sure this is one of those weirdos who can only be a marine in the Grand Line, where rampant ridiculousness is not only accepted but expected.
"You're a terrible liar," he deadpans. The other marine only pouts in response.
"Okay, okay. I'm sorry," Luffy immediately confesses.
Did he just...?
"Are you stupid?" It’s a sincere question, coming from deep within Smoker’s irritated heart.
"Hey! No, I was just…" At this the man's eyes sober a little, a hand coming up to graze against a tattoo of a circlet around his neck, the ink is a non-reflective obsidian black. It catches Smoker’s attention, but he knows it'd be rude to stare. Luffy meets his eyes with solemnity. "I wanted to see what the last thing the King of Pirates saw was." Then his expression turns sheepish. "Could you, eh, not… tell my Gramps? Please?" This request throws Smoker for a loop.
"Your 'gramps'?" The other man's nodding quickly.
"Yeah, he's going to be at the base, and well… he's not really fond of the Pirate King, y'know?" Smoker thinks that a certain level of disdain for Gol D. Roger is basically a requirement to be a marine but he just goes along with it. He doesn't even know this idiot's –Luffy's– grandfather and who cares?
"Right."
"Hey Smokey–"
"It's Captain Smoker."
"–are you going towards the base?" The man steamrolls right through the correction.
"After I finish my patrol." He eyes the other as he shuffles, smiling brightly.
"That's great 'cause I'm totally lost, shishishishi!" Smoker has the sudden urge to facepalm. "Don't worry, I'll go with you so that you can finish your thing."
His thing?
No one has ever made his job sound so much like a hobby, are patrols nonexistent in Marine HQ? Somehow, Smoker's sure it's got more to do with this individual than his precedence. He wants to say no, but fails to come up with a valid reason. What's the other marine supposed to do, anyway? Wander around until he finds the base? Smoker sighs.
"Come with me."
After leaving the plaza, it takes no more than 5 minutes for Smoker to witness exactly why Luffy is lost in the first place, and that is because he has the attention span and curiosity of a child. He wants to see everything and try anything and talk to anyone, it's almost like they're playing a game. Smoker's goal is to keep the idiot going in the right direction and Luffy's is to go in literally any other direction possible.
In the commotion of trying to keep a hand on his fellow marine, a small girl bumps into him, and Smoker resists the urge to wince when he feels sticky wetness in his pant leg. Luffy laughs loudly, but Smoker can see the little girl is terrified. Sadly, he's aware of what his face looks like and the effects it has on unsuspecting children. He ignores Luffy and kneels.
"I'm really sorry," she whimpers, and Smoker shakes his head.
"I didn't see where I was going, I'm sorry, " he emphasizes, pulling out some change. "Get yourself another one?" The girl is blooming in happiness and gifts him a gaping smile.
"Thank you, sir marine!" She departs, skipping back towards the ice cream store. When he stands, he feels Luffy's curious gaze on him, it's heavy and approving and Smoker doesn't like the glint in the other man's eye.
"You're a good guy, Smokey, you should come with me to the Grand Line!"
And because Smoker knows a pirate when he sees one, and someone needs to keep this guy in check, Smoker does.
Smoker's commanding officer is an idiot.
Everything since they'd left Loguetown had been in the crazy pole of ridiculous and Smoker's not sure how he's been dragged into the pace of the most unorthodox marines he's ever had the displeasure of meeting. The only upside is that Tashigi –who is definitely crushing over Luffy's squad's swordsman no matter what she said– has decided to come along and therefore, Smoker isn't the only one suffering.
The first surprise turns out to be that Luffy's 'gramps' is marine hero Garp the Fist. Then, it turns out that Luffy isn't only his fellow marine officer but, as a commodore, he is Smoker's superior. 'He got promoted this week,' Garp had explained.
While sailing to the Grand Line, as the small inner crew gathers on deck to meet the two new marines, Tashigi asks how their travels had gone before Loguetown. Smoker hears from Nami that in the few weeks the marine battleship toured the East Blue, Luffy saved a town by arresting former Roger Pirate Buggy the Clown, prevented an invasion to a small town by previously-thought-dead-pirate Kuro of a Thousand Plans, and taken out Arlong's fishman tyranny in some far-off archipelago. Simultaneously, the young commodore and his crew uncovered not one, but two instances of marine corruption.
None of the crew members, except for Luffy and the two unnamed helmsmen –who seem perfectly content to keep their superior's shenanigans as far away from themselves as possible– are originally from the Marine Headquarters. Rather, they'd all been recruited in the East Blue. When Smoker asks what they'd been doing before becoming marines, the answers given are alarmingly vague. Other than Roronoa, who Smoker has heard of, and Sanji, who worked at the Baratie, the other 3 crew members are complete unknowns.
Smoker looks at his commanding officer, who is precariously sitting in the sheep's head of the vessel they were using –another incongruity. While Vice-Admiral Garp and the rest of Luffy's ground crew were entering the Grand Line like reasonable marines via the Calm Belt heading straight for the HQ, Luffy had refused to part with a 'thank-you' present from someone named Kaya. The present in question is a ship, a caravel named the Going Merry. The only issue is that, as a non-standard marine vessel, the caravel cannot cross the Calm Belt. Therefore, they are forced to navigate the Grand Line the old-fashioned way until the ship can be properly outfitted when they reach the HQ, currently halfway across the world.
"Is that allowed?" Tashigi asks, frowning. Smoker doesn't miss that both Nami, Coby and Usopp –the marines present for the conversation, all look away immediately, as if busying themselves with something else.
"…There are no rules against it," Ussop says evasively, idly petting the railings of the ship. Smoker pinches his nose.
"That's a common thing with you guys, isn't it?" Tashigi accuses; but in this, they are right. There are no rules forbidding marines from offering their personal vessels for service, probably because no one thought such a rule was needed. The marines were going to regret not having written down a lot of 'common sense' regulations, Smoker can tell.
My grandson's a bit of a handful, you sure you wanna sail with him, Captain?
A splash is heard and even before Nami's yell of ‘Zoro!’, the swordsman, who'd been previously snoozing somewhere farther off deck, is already soaring over the railing down to sea. It takes Smoker a second to realize that Luffy has indeed fallen into the water. How had this man become a Commodore of the Navy?
"Luffy's just a magnet for really odd trouble that often requires a lot of Justice to get rid off." It's Coby, the smallest, meekest marine Smoker has ever laid eyes on, who answers him. Smoker realizes he'd spouted his thoughts out loud. Coby flinches slightly when Smoker's attention focuses on him. The boy seems to shrink into himself a little, but he smiles at Smoker with some kind of odd wisdom in his eyes. "I used to think he was crazy, too."
"He is crazy," Ussop refutes, watching as Roronoa carries a laughing captain on deck, where he proceeds to shake himself like a wet dog, thank the green-haired man and sit himself in the exact same spot he fell off from before, now dripping wet. At the lack of reaction this irrational behavior causes, Smoker is resigned to the idea that Luffy falling overboard is a recurring event. Roronoa barely gives off a grunt before immediately going back to his nap.
Smoker hadn't believed what Coby said then. Yet, shortly after reverse mountain, when they've been eaten by a whale, he sees the Commodore stop some whale hunters that turn out to be illegal bounty hunters from which one is an undercover princess from a nation subjugated in tyranny by a government-approved pirate... and he starts to see it.