Chapter Text
Primrose Hanako could never have imagined the pain one man could have brought her, in fact before said man she resented the whole idea of relationships. From the age of five, she had been shaped to be a marine along with her older sister Sumire, raising the ranks as teens, making their Vice Admiral father proud… until Sumire found a guy in Water 7 and quit the Marines.
Young Hanako had been furious, how could her sister just drop her life's purpose like that? For some guy? Blah, she couldn’t think of it without it making her blood boil and she refused to step foot on Water 7.
That was, until she met a new rookie on the grandline. The boy always seemed just out of reach, always just escaping her grasp, taunting her at every corner. His bounty would go up higher with every grande feat he did, and she was left in a steaming rage and with her superiors screaming down her neck.
Oh how that boy got under her skin, even with his jesting… he always seemed to be the most polite pirate she ever met, always the first to help her up, whispering sweet things too her as he helped brushed her off and left the young Marine flushed in the face and shouting at her men to get after him.
He would just have a goofy grin on his face as his men urged him to get going, though he always waited for one thing. For that flustered marine to scream his name with as much spite as she possibly could.
“Portgus D. Ace!”
He loved hearing his name from her lips, it sounded so sweet to him. Though his crew often laughed at him and shook their heads. “Give it up, lover boy.” was often what they told him, but he was persistent.
Little by little, Hana found herself looking for the Fire Fist with a different intention. Her code of a Marine was thrown out the window when she saw a glimpse of fire, his fire. While her men spent their time chasing his crew, Hana found herself in an alleyway, in the captain’s arms. Such was the case for years, even after he became a pirate under Whitebeard.
He often would purposely run into the pink haired Marine, dumb in love to the point they didn't care they were supposed to be enemies. They knew they could never be together, Ace would never be a Marine and Hanako loved her father too much to become a pirate. No matter how much they begged and fought each other, both were quite the stubborn pair.
Now it was getting rather suspicious, Vice Admiral Primrose watching his daughter stumble home, drunk on love and singing in a way her mother used to around the house. Though no matter how much he would ask, she never gave any hints to who her secret lover was… He couldn't help but worry about his baby girl as she would disappear for weeks at a time, then show up with love bites on her neck that she soon gave up on hiding.
“You’ll meet him when the time is right.” Her tone was gentle and full of tenderness that she would never show towards anyone else. When she did talk about the mystery man she spoke of his kindness and his ways of making her laugh, the way she felt safe with him, and the way she wished she could throw everything away to stay with him forever.
When she finally said the last bit, he became suspicious of her secret lover being a pirate. Though with how she sounded so happy, he didn't have the heart to say anything… She was happy and he seemed like a good guy, for a pirate… that's all that mattered to him.
Hana loved her secret rendezvous with her lover, he’d often take her on some grand adventure, once she even met Whitebeard. The memory of standing in front of the giant man, her fingers intertwined with Ace’s as she stared up at the giant of a man… She still marveled at the thought of how much Ace adored his food, how much he ate in one sitting…she scarcely believed that his younger brother could eat more then him… though with how Ace was, she couldn’t help but wonder….
Sitting on her bed, she thought over the time spent with Ace fondly…only for her thoughts to be interrupted by the sudden urge to hurl. Rushing to the nearest trash can, she grimaced at the sight of her poor breakfast… This had been going on for weeks, it started not long after Ace had dropped by the base that she was temporarily stationed at, when he told her about his hunt for an ex crewmate and wouldn’t be able to visit for a while.
She tried to think of what she could possibly have been eating or if any long term bug had been going around… though a single thought occurred during her rattling her brain that caused her to stand up a little too fast… shaking off the wave of nausea the best she cood, she rummaged through her dresser drawers for a little booklet… flipping through the blank pages until she finally came across what she had been searching for…
Losing her balance as she sat down on her bed, “...oh no.”
She was pregnant… there was no other explanation. Horror washed over her face as she wrapped her arms around her stomach, it was slightly more pronounced…though she thought that she just felt bloated… Immediately going to the family doctor only to have her fears confirmed.
She was pregnant.
She was about four months along.
And there was only one possible father…
Portgas D. Ace
Back at her apartment, she just stared at the wall.. How could she have been so careless? How could she have done this… she didn’t even have a way to contact him… this was bad, so bad… she needed to tell her dad… Her mind was already racing… and her heart dropped when she saw the news paper headlines-
“Fire Fist Ace, captured by Blackbeard, now in Impel Down, awaiting exhaustion.”
Pulling strings to get to Level 6 was not easy, her half baked lie of wanting to see the man she had been trying to put away for the past few years in chains, was somehow enough. She needed to see him, she needed to tell him… though she was powerless to help him.
She kept her composure the best she could, looking at him through the jail cell. Tears in her eyes as she looked up at the war lord then back to his broken body. The shouts of the other prisoners were muffled to her ears as she dug her hands into her pockets, her oversized jacket covering her slightly showing belly well.
“Ace… please, I’m so scared…” Her voice was no more than a whisper as she kneeled down in front of the cell. Oh how she wished she could help him get out… but there was nothing she could do, she was useless. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Don’t worry about it ,firecracker, this was bound to happen sooner or later.” a silly grin on his face that caused Hanako to choke, shaking her head as she gripped the bars of the cell. “It will be fine… Thank you for showing me a love I never knew I would experience.”
“No, no, no, no, please Ace, please, I need you to live…please promise me you'll escape… you don't understand, I need you, I’m-”
“I love you.” His words were soft, barely audible, though enough that made the tears run down her cheeks. Sitting on the other side of the cell, she could only cry…she knew, there was no way out.
The sound of new, heavy footsteps, told her it was time to go. Forcing herself to stand… she thought of something foolish… yet decided not to do it… instead she turned her hand to ink, slipping it through the bars, and touching his face, one last time before turning away.
Ace just watched, smiling at his lover as he hurried past Garp, never taking his eyes off her long pink hair that he wished he could touch one last time. Even after she disappeared, he said nothing and stared blankly into the darkness, his smile gone.
Jinbei spoke up for the first time, barely a whisper as Garp grew closer. “Ace… I believe that girl was trying to tell yo-”
“I know.” Jinbei watched Ace’s jaw clench, banging his shackled fists against the wall behind him, fighting the tears as he looked to the ceiling. “I’m doing the same thing as that damn old man…”