Chapter Text
The secret chest of hundreds of thousands of berris aside, they don't really have much, Ace thinks. Just the clothes Makino supplies to them and their beds in the house. No toys, no books, no trinkets. Not that they really care. If they want toys and books and trinkets, Grey Terminal has an endless supply of those, cast-offs though they may be.
Everything important they keep on themselves; their pipes, Sabo's hat and googles and Ace's brace - purchased in celebration with their first ill-gotten gains. Now Luffy's hat and those dull metal pendants on a cord that he wears everywhere have been added to that collection. The last thing makes Ace curious. He gets the hat, even though it's ragtag and more than a little too big for him, it seems almost a part of Luffy. That mismatched necklace though, it's out of place on him. Not at all like something he'd pick out and stick to wearing. Plus, it's pretty damn ugly, and Luffy likes shiny things.
It's not really important though, not with everything else going on, so Ace forgets about it for a while.
He remembers out of the blue one day, it's been a slow day and all the game they've hunted have put up particularly wimpy fights, so Dadan and her cronies have been fed early and are sleeping on full bellies, which means and he and Sabo and Luffy have snuck out into the forest for midnight snack.
The snack caught and cooked, there's nothing much to do but sit and eat and watch each other eat. That's how Ace gets to trying to figure out just what that necklace is, since it's the first time Ace has gotten a good look at it. Luffy usually keeps it in his shirt, but he'd taken a fall into the river during the hunt and most of his clothes are cooking alongside the meat.
"What are those?" Ace asks. He's been squinting at the pendants through their fire for about five minutes now, and still can't quite place them. They look like a tiny metal plates, from what he can see.
Luffy blinks at him. "Was' what?" he parrots through a gigantic mouthful of river caiman. Ace winces. He's gonna choke.
"Your necklace," Sabo pipes up from the other side of the fire, gesturing with a bone he's just cleaned. Unlike Luffy, he doesn't talk with his mouth full. "Are they good luck charms or something?"
Luffy casts a look down over his bulging cheeks at what's hanging around his neck. "'S not a necklace. It's Gramps'."
That takes Ace aback for a moment. "...The old man gave it to you?"
Luffy nods, his neck warps and distends as he swallows down his mouthful. "He gave it to me 'fore I came here. Told me not to take it off or he'd beat my head in. Why?"
"Just curious," Ace grunts, and lifts a spit off of the fire, now more than curious. Gramps', huh? What the hell could it possibly be?
Sabo looks intrigued, but Luffy rips another mouthful from his bone and talking through that is impossible, even for him. By the morning, Ace has forgotten again.
Then the old man himself comes. He's already come once and terrorized the shit out of Sabo , so Ace is none too happy when they tramp into the clearing one day, dragging the dead weight of a wild boar behind them to find Garp sitting on the porch, Dadan puffing like a smokestack beside him.
"Hey boys!" The old fucker roars jovially from his perch. "What have you got there, eh? Oh, boar? Bring it on over here and I'll show you how to do a real barbecue!"
"Shit." Sabo mutters indecoreusly through griitted teeth.
"Shit!" Luffy agrees brightly.
Ace glowers.
They barbecue and eat dinner outside in the vaguely smoky air. Ace sulks in the corner and watches Luffy methodically drown himself in pork grease side by side with their grandfather. Sabo keeps out of sight except when he sneaks up for second, third and fourth helpings, Ace doesn't blame him. He'd be doing the same if he didn't need to keep an eye on Luffy.
"Good, eh?" Garp says as he twists open a bottle he'd brought with him. Luffy, still doggedly working on an enormous rack of ribs, grins stickily at him, all apprehension of the man forgotten in the moment.
"Really good!"
Ace shakes his head. Luffy is hopeless - feed him and he goes belly up for you.
Garp grins back, puts his free hand down to aggressively ruffle Luffy's hair.
"Well, eat up then!" he urges. "Eat! You're a shrimp, boy."
Not at all offended, Luffy tosses his rib bones aside and leans over the hastily constructed barbecue pit for another portion. He leans a bit too far before he gets what he wants, and his necklace slips out of the collar of his shirt.
Garp's eyes narrow.
"Hey, you still got those?" he says, and he sounds surprised.
Luffy takes a bite, nods, forgets to stuff the necklace back into his shirt. "Yesh!" he says, words garbled by chunks of pork. "I didsn't lose 'em. Wannem back?"
Garp shakes his head and gives Luffy's hair another rough scrub.
"Nah. You're gonna get some of your own one day, so get used to wearing 'em."
"...What are they?"
It's Dadan. Ace can tell by her voice that she's drunk, or getting there, she's been at Garp's bottles all evening. She gets drunk off of them faster then her own stuff, Ace has noticed.
Garp pulls his hand away from Luffy's head and points out Luffy's necklace to her.
Dadan eyes it a moment suspiciously, then her face relaxes, taking on a sort of lopsided smirk. "Dog tags?" She slurs. "Yours, Garp?"
Dog tags?
"Old pair," Garp says. His grin has faded a little. He leans back against the kindling pile, watching Luffy wolf his meat down. Ace doesn't know what to make of his expression; it's intense but unfamiliar, and seeing it makes Ace feel odd in a way.
"That so?" Dadan grunts. There's a clink and a crash as she disposes of her recently emptied bottle into a pile of his brethren. "Should a kid be havin' shit like that?"
Shit like what? What is that necklace?
Garp guffaws, grin returning full force. He waves his hand dismissively. "Aww, it's fine! He loved them when he was a baby! Chewed them the fuck up when he was teething, heh!"
"Right," Dadan says. "'S wonder he hasn't lost them out here, y'know."
"I told him to keep them safe."
Dadan grunts, and the conversation ends there. Between them, Luffy keeps on chewing, oblivious to their exchange.
It's when the moon is high and everyone is snoring that Ace lets his curiosity get the better of him.
He turns over and pokes Luffy in the ribs. And then again and again, until Luffy whines and stirs. On his other side, Sabo sleeps like he's dead.
"Hey," Ace whispers, pushing himself up on an elbow and pitching his voice directly to Luffy's ear. "Let me see it."
Luffy wiggles around over to face him after a moment, blinking up at him in sleepy confusion. " See wha...?"
"Your necklace," Ace hisses.
Luffy's eyes droop shut.
"Go 'head." Luffy mumbles, already falling back asleep. Ace huffs into his face and reaches over to stick his hand down the collar of his shirt, fishing around until he snags the tags. He pulls them out and holds them up to the moonlight, tilting them this way and that until they catch enough of a shine for him to see them properly.
They are indeed thin little plates, and they're tarnished as hell, with raised letters and numbers printed on them. Ace squints, some of the print is heavily worn or scratched, almost unreadable in some places. He rubs over them with his thumb, squints some more.
The letters and numbers mean nothing to him at first, but then he starts to make out a name on one of the tags. A name that's instantly recognizable.
Monkey D.
The rest of the name is almost too scraped over to see, but from the dim impression of the letters that are left, Ace can tell that it is neither Garp or Luffy. It's-
-It's.
Ace painstakingly puzzles it out, letter by mutilated letter, concentrating hard enough to make a dull pain thump between his eyes.
Monkey D. Dragon, he reads at last.
Head throbbing, Ace checks the other tag as painstakingly as the first.
Monkey D. Dragon, it reads.
Monkey D. Dragon.
Ace gently drops the tags back into Luffy's shirt and then jams his fists against his eyes, rubbing away the pain. Then he reaches over and pulls the covers up over Luffy's thin shoulders, frowning at nothing and everything.
Monkey D. Dragon.
Who the hell is that? Who?
Ace gets very little sleep that night.
Like he usually does, Garp leaves early in the morning before anyone else wakes up. Ace is waiting for him this time, tucked behind the cover of the trees that line the path back towards the town.
As Garp passes by Ace's hiding spot, Ace calls out to him.
"Who's Monkey D. Dragon?"
Garp stops in his tracks, and Ace slips out from the trees to face him.
"Where did you hear that name?" Garp says. His expression is unreadable, his eyes are fixed on Ace's face.
Ace jerks his head back towards the house. "I read Luffy's...dog tags." Dog tags. The term feel clumsy on his tongue, like it's something silly to say.
"Huh." Garp says, and something in his face clears up a little. A beat passes. "...He's Luffy's dad."
Ace blinks back the shock. He didn't know what he'd been expecting-
-another brother, he'd thought. Another brother, an older brother, Luffy's real big brother-
-Luffy's dad. He hadn't even considered it.
Head spinning, Ace asks the first question that comes to mind.
"What the hell are those tags?"
Garp sticks a hand in his pocket, pulls something out of it. A ball-chain, on the end, two tiny, shiny metal plates.
"Marines all get them," he says, dangling them in front of Ace's face, an invitation for Ace to look closer. Ace doesn't. Though he can clearly make out the name on them without any effort, a distinctly embossed Monkey D. Garp.
"Name, number, blood type," Garp ticks off, and bounces the tags on their chain. "For identification. Go on, take a look. You're gonna get your own too."
Ace doesn't take them, doesn't look.
"Why are there two of them?
It doesn't really make sense that there are, unless they're easy to lose. But if they are, Luffy would've lost his a long time ago in the depths of the jungle.
"Identification," Garp repeats. "If you die, whoever is rounding you up takes one and leaves the other so they know it's you."
The image comes from nowhere, Luffy, cold and quiet, a single tag on that ratty cord. Ace winces. And then feels sick to his stomach. Painfully sick, the first cramp after eating something rotten.
No. No, dammit, no. NO. He's going to throw those damn things in the river as soon as he gets back-
-or if he tells Luffy, Luffy might do it himself, adamant as he is against being a marine.
"Those tags Luffy has used to be Dragon's," Garp goes on. "He was a marine. He's not anymore."
The image of Luffy is still behind his eyelids, Ace blinks and blinks, and speaks without thinking.
"Yeah? What's he now?"
"A criminal." Garp says, voice suddenly flat. He drops his tags back into his pocket, the metal winks at Ace as it goes. "Don't tell Luffy anything, yeah?"
"I won't." Ace says, shoving aside the idea of telling. Luffy has no idea what the tags are, or who they belong to, and neither does he seem to care. Ace is going to keep it that way. Monkey D. Dragon is not the threat Ace thought he was when he first read his name. Not Luffy's brother. Just his father, which doesn't mean much at all.
Relief flashes across Garp's face as clear as day, more shocking than anything Ace has seen or heard from him so far.
"Good lad." Garp says, and claps Ace on the shoulder, making him stumble and reel and almost lose his balance. Then he's gone, disappearing into the winding of the path, headed for town.
Ace stares after him a while before turning and going the other way.
Dog tags.
If there's one thing Ace knows, it's that Luffy will never have a pair of his own. And neither will Ace.
