Chapter Text
Chapter 7
That same night Luffy snuck into the sick bay, frightened from nightmares of losing Ace for real.
“Ace?” he whispered as he cracked the door open.
“I’m awake, what is it, Lu?” he asked quietly, motioning for the smaller boy to come into the room. Luffy complied and entered the room, closing the door silently behind himself.
“Bad dream,” was all he said as he walked forward and climbed onto the bed with Ace. “Can I sleep in here with you?”
“Of course you can,” he said while rubbing his brothers back comfortingly. He had been more tolerant of Luffy’s cry baby attitude since waking up. He knew that Luffy must have been traumatized at the though of losing him.
“Hey Ace, promise you wont die,” Luffy said suddenly in a too quiet voice that bordered on sniffling. Ace was surprised before a smile graced his lips.
“Of course I wont die baka,” he said. “I can’t die when I have such a weak little brother like you.”
“G-good,” Luffy said, the sniffling was full on now.
“We have to live life with no regrets, Luffy,” he said. “We’ll grow up and become pirates and we’ll live free, freer then anyone, you’ll see.”
Luffy smiled and nodded his head and with those comforting words in mind he was finally able to fall asleep without worry of nightmares.
***
The next few days were anything but quiet. Life on the Moby Dick had turned much more lively just over night. Ace was still recovering from his injuries but Sabo and Luffy were more them making up for Ace’s lack of participation and Whitebeard was more then happy to entertain the freckled boy with stories of his younger days. Luffy’s attention was too short for many stories though he did enjoy listening to the more exciting tales. However most of the time he was running all over the deck, Sabo right behind him, trying to keep him out of trouble. Thatch along with Marco and the other’s really felt that the older blonde his had work cut out for him. Luffy was a handful for sure but he always seemed ready to sit still if meat was promised.
It wasn’t till the second day however that the crew got the shock of their lives. The commanders has been discussing weather or not they should chance going to into the village incase Garp was on the island. Thatch had never seen Marco speechless until that moment.
“Garp’s not one the island,” Ace had told them nonchalantly before turning back to their captain who was entertaining the boy with stories like he usually did.
“What do you mean, yoi,” Marco had asked.
“If Ji-chan was on the island we’d be the first to know,” Luffy had said, pausing in his running around causing Sabo to run into his back.
“J-Ji-chan?” Thatch asked, his eyes wide.
“Yeah, that crazy old man would have come to find us by now if he was here,” Ace said, not turning back to them while he casually picked his nose, it seemed to be a trait of boys with a D in their name they had all noticed. Whitebeard looked pensive. He realized now why Luffy’s name had sounded familiar. Monkey D. Luffy, obviously the grandson of the Marine hero Monkey D. Garp.
Sabo shivered at the thought of enduring anymore of Garp’s “training” sessions. Luffy was just laughing like a mad man at their faces. Marco wasn’t sure what to stay, Thatch was tripping over his words and the rest of them were wide eyed.
“So if you need to go to Foosha,” Ace said before pointing at Luffy. “He can show you the way.”
“Luffy?” Thatch said, surprised that Ace would suggest the youngest to take them. “Why him?”
“Shishishi, I grew up there,” he said cheerfully with a wide smile. “The villages are a little nervous when it comes to pirates but I know everyone and I can show you to Makino’s bar.”
***
They had gotten the supplies and ended up getting pulled into a party at the bar. Makino had been very kind and helpful. Now with all their supplies and Ace healed they had no more reasons to stick around the island. Whitebeard had decided against asking the boys to join them, knowing that Grap would be right behind them if he took the boys with him. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t put his sons in that kind of danger.
***
“You have to go already?” Luffy asked, clearly disappointed and upset.
“Yeah,” Thatch said reluctantly, having been the one voted to tell the boys. “If we don’t get back to the Grand Line soon, other pirates will try to take over our territories.”
Ace scowled but he could understand that they needed to go. It was do to his injuries after all that they had been stalled. Sabo had just nodded his head passively though he too would miss them. What they didn’t expect was broken sob that came from Luffy. Ace looked at his little brother with concern. He knew Luffy was a cry baby but this shouldn’t have bothered him. He had parted ways with Shanks not even a year ago so he should understand the most that they needed to get back out to sea.
“Luffy…” Thatch tried to say but small seven year old shook his head fiercely before running off, not wanting to watch more people leave him.
“He’ll be fine,” Sabo assured the guilty looking crew.
“I’ll go make sure he doesn’t hurt himself,” Ace said with a sigh. “Maybe we’ll see you on the sea some day.”
“I’m sure you will, yoi,” Marco said with a smile. Ace nodded before running off after Luffy.
***
Earlier that morning a Marine shipped docked just outside of Foosha. Smoker ordered the men aside from Tashigi to stay on the ship and wait for him. He still wasn’t feeling right about this mission, he wasn’t just some dog of the government who had no problems with torturing children over something like parentage. He knew that if need be he could thing up some other plan and Tashigi with her strong sense of justice would likely help him.
It only took him a minute to realize they weren’t alone however. Another marine ship was docked near by and he wondered if it was perhaps Garp. However he knew he wasn’t so lucky when he saw vice-admiral Kizaru (a/n: Since this is set years before we see him I’m making him a vice-admiral rather then an admiral) standing there waiting for him.
“Ooooh good morning Smoker-san,” the yellow suite wearing man greeted him. “It seems the higher ups thought you might need some help incase Vice-Admiral Garp returned early for his mission,” he explained, not that Smoker cared why he was there in the first place it just put a hindrance in his plans. He a feeling that he knew the real reason the Vice-Admiral had been sent. Sengoku must have realized that sending Smoker for something like this wasn’t the best idea. He would have to improvise and hope for a distraction of some sort.
“Whatever,” he scuffed as he inhaled the smoke from his two cigars. “Let’s just get this over with.”
“Oh? Impatient are we?” he asked. Smoker had all he could do to resister the urge to wipe the smug look off the man’s face.
He took another drag of his cigars letting the smoke fill his lungs before walking off the docks into the village, Tashigi just behind him looking more nervous about the situation by the second. He walked up to the nearest village, a short elderly man.
“Hey, where can I find Portgas D. Ace?” he asked, looking every bit as intimidating as usual.
***
Luffy ran. He didn’t care if he was being a cry baby. He couldn’t stand the thought of being left alone. He liked Marco and Thatch and giant ossan, even the guy who dressed like a lady. He didn’t want them to leave. He knew they were pirates and that their place was on the sea but it didn’t hurt any less. It hurt more then when Shanks left. At least he had Shanks’ hat and a promise but this time he had nothing.
“Luffy! Stop running!” he could hear Ace yelling behind him. He didn’t stop, he couldn’t, his legs just wanted to keep going. They were well into the Gray Terminal when Luffy had no choice but to stop as he it’s a solid wall.
“Ahh!” he cried as he fell back on his butt. It didn’t hurt but he was still surprised. Since when were there a huge solid wall there?
“Luffy!” Ace yelled running to his brother’s aid. Unlike Luffy, Ace knew exactly what Luffy had ran into. A Marine. He glared at the man. Marines never came to Dawn Island since it was already under the protection of the old man. If they were hear it’s probably because they heard about the pirates. If that was the case then Ace would stall them as long as he needed to until they were far away from Dawn Island.
“Ace~” Luffy whined, tears still in his eyes, not yet noticing the marines presents.
“Portgas D. Ace I presume,” the man said while inhaling smoke from the two cigars in his mouth.
“Those are bad for you,” Ace said, his only acknowledgement that he had heard the marine. He wondered why the man knew his name and why he was there. Garp told him that none of the other marines knew of his existence on Dawn Island. The man just gruffed as he exhaled.
***
Smoker had lost Tashigi and Kizaru when they split up to search the island for the boy. The villagers had been no help, pretending to have never heard of the boy. Garp had really ensured the boys safety. He wondered how Sengoku had even found out about him. Smoker had been wondering around an area that looked more like a junk yard then anything else for the boy. He almost through it was a deserted place until he saw that people lived there. He assumed that it was the slums of Dawn Island. No one there knew Ace either or were willing to give up any information on him. Smoker was sorta glad of that. Maybe they could just say that it was a lie and that no such person existed. That was until something ran into his legs and fell back with a cry.
“Luffy!” another boy who seemed older yelled running to the smaller boy’s aid. He looked surprised when he saw Smoker, like he knew what he was but had never seen a marine before. Smoker was pulled out of his thoughts when he heard that boy’s name.
“Ace~” the one called Luffy whined, tears still in his eyes, not yet noticing the marines presents.
“Portgas D. Ace I presume,” Smoker said while inhaling smoke from the two cigars in his mouth. Here he was, the boy that the marine had been hoping never to find.
“Those are bad for you,” was his only acknowledgment as he glared up at Smoker.
He looked down at the crying boy and the one he was suppose to take care of. He didn’t look dangerous, despite his best attempts to glare. He couldn’t understand Sengoku’s logic at all.
“You should get off this island kid,” he told him. He didn’t want to explain why. How do you tell a child the government wants them dead because of a father he never meet, possibly didn’t even know about.
However by the look on Ace’s face Smoker knew. He knew this boy knew exactly why he was here now, knew what he meant and he certainly knew about the father who sin’s he was being condemned for. Perhaps he even knew what people would do if they ever found out his true identity.
***
“So the secret out huh?” Ace said in a dangerously low voice, his eyes over shadowed by his hair. “They sent you here to kill me didn’t they?”
“N-nani!?” Luffy yelped looking between his brother and the marine. He didn’t understand all of what was going on but he knew it had something to do with Ace’s secret. The one only Ji-chan, Dadan, Sabo and himself knew about.
“That right-” the marine didn’t get to finish his sentence before he was jumping to his feet putting his small rubber body in between Ace and that man.
“NO!” he shouted as loud as he could, surprising Ace as well as the marine.
“Luffy…” Ace said quietly as he tried to pull his little brother back. Luffy wouldn’t budge however.
“What was that,” the white haired man gruffed as he pinned Luffy with a stare. Just then a girl, likely another marine came running up to them.
“Captain Smoker!” she yelled, out of breath. “Is that him?”
“You’re not going to hurt Ace!” Luffy yelled again, not even letting the marine, Smoker answer his subordinate. “He’s mine and Sabo’s big brother and I wont let you take him away from me! I wont! I don’t want to be alone again!”
“Calm down Lu-”
“No! You promised! You promised you wouldn’t die, you said that we would live out lives without regrets and we would be free, freer then anybody! I wont let anyone make you break that promise!” the smaller D finished, panting for breath.
“Ooooooh, such a nice sentiment,” came a voice from behind. “But I’m afraid that the government has already decided that boy’s fate and sent us to carry out his sentence.”