Chapter Text
Dadan had always known letting Garp save her ass on God's Valley would come to bite her in said ass one day, but she had never quite expected it to happen in the form of the madman bringing her a week-old baby. Roger's baby at that.
"Why'd you bring him to me?"
The babe looked stupidly small. Smaller than even Rocks' brat had been and Dadan had been one of the few who had been allowed to see him when he was a few months old. To this day she was unsure why Rocks had let her know of his existence. Sometimes she found herself wondering where he was, how he was doing. If his ma' was still alive or not.
And now Garp brought this on her head.
"You still owe me for God's Valley," the Marine grumbled, stealing her sake bottle and taking a deep swing. Funny, she had never seen Garp drinking before. Baterilla must have affected him more than any other battle ever had. More than watching Roger walk to his death.
"Never asked for your help. Coulda just left me there."
With her crew scattered to the winds, her Captain turned into a demon and dead and something that she had seen and even now was trying to forget. Death would have been a mercy at that point. And yet, the stubborn asshole decided to intervene.
"Don't be an idiot," Garp snapped and as always refused to elaborate. It wasn't like he cared about Rocks or her crew. Whatever situationship he had with Roger did not extend to any other pirate. And yet, he had saved her. Dragged her bleeding ass to his ship even as the other members of her crew abandoned her behind. John had seen her bleeding and turned his back on her. Shiki had laughed and taken the treasure chest abandoned next to her. Linlin had been too busy arguing with Kaido.
And out of all people Garp had dragged her to safety. It boggled her mind to this day.
"Rayleigh and them went to ground. Can't find any of them. Seas know they'd be better off taking care of the tyke than you or I."
In the small crib she had cobbled out of a box and some old blankets the baby fussed in his sleep. She didn't know how to soothe him, wasn't sure she wanted to learn how to, but it wasn't like she had a choice. Like it or not, Ace was hers now.
"You can barely take care of a rock," she sighed, finally moving away from the table and picking up the fussy infant. "Dragon grew up half-way decent only thanks to that wife of yours. Roger was a fool to ask you to care for his kid."
Garp didn't bother contradicting her. They both knew it was the truth. Out of all the lots in the world, Ace probably drew one of the worst. Didn't even have the luck to take more after his ma'. One look at his hair and eyes and suspicions would start.
"Huh. Typhoon Dadan looking good with a babe in her arms," Garp added, stealing her bottle as he went. "Who woulda thought?"
"Not me. Now scram. Can't keep the charade of being afraid of you up if Mogra finds me being all chummy with you over sake."
She would have enough explanations to give once her men returned from hunting and found her with a baby in her arms. Knowing Dagra he'd just assume she stole him from somewhere.
"You're gonna be a pest, aren't ya kid?" she asked Ace, smiling slightly as the baby blinked at her with large grey eyes. "Hope you'd grow up to learn to make better plans than your da'."
Ace was five the first time he came running to her crying that he was a monster - years before he'd end up coming to her angry about it. Without stopping to think about it, she cuffed him over the head. She'd never been gentle, never known how so her boy grew up to understand harshness better than anything else.
"What the hell kind of nonsense is running around in your head now?"
He was much too young to think about shit like this. To understand being a monster was nothing bad. It just meant the world was trying to chew you up, but you were strong enough to spit in its face and survive. At his age Ace thought monsters were the things with wings and fangs that Dagra told him about at night, not the survivors that not even the World Government managed to fully erase from history.
Like Rocks. Like Roger. Like herself.
"Gramps told me who my dad is. And everyone says he's a monster. So that means I'm one too."
And here she had thought there was a limit to Garp's stupidity.
"Knew your old man. He was a buffoon, but not a monster," Ace kept looking at her in doubt, stuck between crying and glaring so she just picked him up by his collar and dropped him in her lap. She had never talked about her past before, never had a reason to. Ace had known her simply as Dadan the bandit and not the retired pirate. Perhaps it was time to change that if Garp did not know how to keep his mouth shut.
"Monsters are just people the world couldn't hold down, brat. Your da's one cuz he did something no one thought was possible. So was my captain. I'll tell ya about him another day." She stopped for a moment, taking a deep breath. Even years later, God's Valley still haunted her.
The kid squirmed in her lap so she turned her attention back to him and started barking out. "Now what did I tell ya about going alone to the bars in the Grey Terminal?"
"But Dadaaaaan-"
"No Dadan me. Go help Mogra peel potatoes if you can't stand still and obey orders."
She'd have to sit him down and talk to him. About Rocks and her crew and her past. About Roger and his lot. About the boy's mother that Garp had told her about before the idiot put his foot in his mouth again.
But for now, she would just watch him complain and whine about peeling potatoes, before she headed to the Grey Terminal to bash some more heads in.
Dadan had never expected to be a mother. Never quite wanted to either. But then Garp had dumped Ace on her and a debt was a debt whether she liked it or not. The kid had grown up with her and the other bandits and like it or not, she was his mother in all the ways that counted.
But that was it. One was more than enough and she didn't want any other kids on her doorstep.
And then the blonde brat happened. Because her kid kept running away from home and spending more and more time in the woods and less where she could actually see that he was in one piece, which meant that she started following him. And came across him and the blonde brat bashing in the kneecaps of some thug in the Grey Terminal and stealing his loot.
Now, part of her was proud of her hellion. The other part was perplexed why the hell was another five year old in the Grey Terminal alone. Her kid was half-feral on a good day, raised by bandits to know how to defend himself and with the D in his name more than a challenge for any asshole who thought to raise a hand to him. Sabo, on the other hand, as she had come to learn the other boy's name was, did not seem to have been raised in the dumps. His clothes were too nice for one, even dirty as they wore and he fought with desperation rather than knowledge.
Which meant the kid had either ran away or been abandoned. And her kid imprinted on him.
Well, where she had raised one, she could also raise two. Even if going by the squirming and the indignation on both boys' faces when she picked them up by the collars of their shirts, neither of them was too happy about it.
Dadan was going to strangle Garp. One brat she had accepted, even if slightly coerced. A second one, she did not sign up for, especially one that was related to Garp and stretchy at that. Who the hell even gave a seven year old a devil fruit?
"No."
No way. She had her hands full with Ace and Sabo.
"He can't stay in Foosha anymore," Garp groused. "The red haired brat filled his head with nonsense about becoming Pirate King and I can't get him to stop talking about it. He was supposed to become a marine, damn it."
Dragon's blood? A marine. It was as likely as Ace becoming a marine, an idea that Dadan had nipped in the bud as soon as Garp had come up with it. She would not risk her kid being killed simply for being related to the wrong person, just because Garp was delusional enough to think the marines would make an exception for him.
"And you brought him to me, to do what exactly? I'm a pirate in case you forgot."
"Bah. You're a bandit."
Dadan's grip on her bat tightened, the desire to swing it at his head burning in her veins. Garp had never understood the call of the Sea, the way pirates were all beholden to her and Davy Jones. No matter how far they went, what fate forced them to become landlocked, their blood was still made of seawater and foam.
"I know I can't force you," Garp said in a more contrite voice and her grip on the bat loosened. "But Luffy is alone and in danger back there. One call from the wrong person and they'll come after him, child or not. Besides, Ace and Sabo might want to have a little brother."
Going by the kids' first interaction, Dadan very much doubted Ace wanted a little brother. And Sabo often followed his lead.
"Fine," she sighed. "But I ain't convincing the brat not to be a pirate. He wants to be one, I'm gonna train him like the other two brats."
"Bahahaha, no worries. He'll forget about that nonsense soon enough."
Well, it wasn't surprising Garp continued to be delusional.