Chapter Text
Zoro walks into the galley, heavy boots scuffing against the floorboards. Sanji peers at him from over his shoulder, vigilantly watching over the broth for the soup he’s making for lunch.
It’s pouring rain out. Nami says they’re heading to a winter island; the rainy kind, too. Those Sanji can tolerate a little more than the snowy, blizzardy ones. They remind him less of things he’d rather forget.
“Where’s Celia?” Zoro asks, running a hand through his shaggy hair. It’s grown out. These days he’s slicking his hair back, tufts of rebellious green strands falling over his forehead.
Sanji turns back to his broth to hide his infatuated smile.
Not that he has too. They’ve been together for eight months now, after all, and if he wants to ogle openly at his partner he can. It’s just that, all things considered, Sanji’s rather skittish at romantic things.
“Class,” he responds, absentmindedly chewing on his cigarette. Not hard enough to dent and ruin the stick, but enough to distract him a little. “In the library with Robin.”
Zoro hums, sounding far closer than Sanji’d anticipated.
Robin takes care of Celia’s lessons. She teaches her the history of the world (not the forbidden one, not yet at least) and spelling and grammar. Chopper comes in to help with science every so often, both he and Robin getting excited to teach and creating little experiments for Celia to try. Math as well, but Celia tends to cheat on that and comes running to Zoro for help.
Everyone forgets how unnervingly good at math their Mosshead is.
Sanji’s breath hitches when he feels strong arms wrap around his middle from behind. Zoro skims his lips down Sanji’s jaw, nipping at his chin and laughing when Sanji squawks indignantly and aims at him with the ladle in his hand.
“Don’t piss me off,” he sneers, a hot blush on his cheekbones.
“Pissing you off is my favorite hobby,” Zoro says, leaning back against the counter and smirking at him.
“You lout,” Sanji mutters, grabbing the bowl of freshly chopped and sliced veggies. “Make yourself useful: peel the skin off those boiled chicken breasts.”
Zoro groans, walking to the sink to wash his hands and do as he’s told. Stubborn idiot, he may be, but in the kitchen Sanji reigns supreme. They move around each other, like a dance, Sanji kicks Zoro a couple of times for slurping the skin of the chicken breasts he’s peeling and demands he rewash his hands immediately.
It’s always like this when they’re alone.
Around the crew, they’re still the bickering Wings of the Pirate King. Always at each other’s throat, sparring and threatening each other. Alone, Zoro orbits around Sanji like a planet to the sun, wrapping himself around his gravitational pull.
The galley doors swing open just as the soup slows to a simmer, all ingredients added. Sanji turns to look over his shoulder again, his expression brightening from the embarrassed scowl Zoro’d put there.
“Guess what!” Celia skips to the breakfast counter, hopping onto a stool and grinning up at her parents. She’s missing a tooth again, ugh, it’s the cutest thing ever.
“What is it, my love?” he coos.
Celia blinks her mismatched eyes expectantly, curly eyebrows furrowed. Her hair’s short, ends just barely reaching her shoulders. It reminds him a little of Nami, when he first met her.
“S’not fun when you don’t guess, daddy.”
Zoro snorts at this, looking up from what he’s doing and sucking on his fingertip. Sanji winds up a dish towel and swings it so it snaps at his idiot boyfriend’s arm. Zoro is thoroughly unimpressed, glaring as he moves around to sit next to their daughter.
“Did ya lose another tooth, squirt?” he asks, leaning his chin onto his palm.
Celia shakes her head and waves the paper Sanji hadn’t noticed she brought in with her. “I passed my test! Auntie Oni says I did ex… ex… good!”
“Excellent,” Sanji says. “Say it slowly so you can sound it out.”
“Sweet!” Zoro lifts a hand up and he and Celia high five. “Good job, kid.”
Celia looks absolutely pleased for about a second before a devious look appears on her face. Her grin is wide and all teeth, sharp canines glinting. “Does this mean we can twain, baba?”
Zoro strokes his chin, some dark green stubble rests there from his lack of shaving. He looks at Sanji, then at the soup, and then at Celia. Sanji rolls his eyes, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
“Lunch will be ready in twenty.”
“Alright,” Zoro says as he jumps off his stool. “We got twenty minutes, short stuff. Let’s go!”
He playfully runs out the galley door, snickering as Celia yells in surprise and belatedly runs after him. It’s a playful side that Zoro only shows to his child, one that sobers up as quickly as it comes. Grinning, Sanji watches them go. He reaches over the counter and grabs Celia’s test paper.
In their bedroom, they have a corkboard with a lot of her good grades. She says she wants to show them to Zeff when they meet. Sanji supposes he should add this one to the pile.
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“Daddy, would ya still love me if I was a fish?”
Sanji snorts, cracking an eye open from where he’s dozing off on a beach chair at the island’s resort. He turns his head where his spawn sits on the edge of her own beach chair, olive-green hair tied into a topknot. She’s swinging her legs back and forth while she spreads sunscreen up and down her tanned, freckled arms. He’s taught her well, Sanji gloats, grinning to himself.
“I’d love you even if you were a seaweed, my love,” he responds and chuckles when she looks up at him with a scrunched nose. “Which, sadly, you already are.”
“So funny, daddy,” she sighs exasperatedly.
She’s only eight but the attitude she packs, holy shit. Sanji extends an arm out in a silent request for the sunscreen so he can get her back. Last time Celia got sunburnt, it was hell and he would hate to have to deal with that again. Blinking her mismatched eyes, she gives him the tub and jumps onto Sanji’s beach chair, back facing him.
She hums and kicks her legs out back and forth while Sanji meticulously rubs the cream across her shoulders and upper back where her one-piece swimsuit dips and shows skin. He knows the shanty she’s singing; it’s one Zeff really likes and she’s aimed to learn it because she wants to surprise him with a serenade when they finally make it back to the Baratie for a visit.
Whenever that’ll be, Sanji isn’t sure yet. He knows that Usopp wants to head back to the East Blue, so maybe he, the Mosshead and Celia can take a little detour then. But who knows.
“There,” Sanji says when he’s satisfied with his work. “Ready to beat the sun.”
“Uncle Luffy’s the sun,” Celia says calmly, still kicking her feet back and forth. “So I can’t win just yet.”
Sanji snorts again. “You want to beat Luffy?”
“Daddy, I’ve noticed thewe’s nevah been a Piwate Queen….”
“Ha!” The World’s Greatest Swordsman decides to make an appearance then, two tankards of beer in one hand and a fruity blended drink with a curly straw in the other. “To think you were worried about her wanting to be like me, Curly.”
“I know,” Sanji bemoans. “It’s actually worse.”
Celia laughs and continues her singing, never minding that her daddies are around to hear her. Celia’s like Zoro in that sense: she’s blunt, incapable of feeling bashful and unabashedly secure in the space she takes up in the world. It’s everything Sanji’s ever wanted for her. He softly hums in tune with her singing, smiling when she breaks off key to gasp in delight at the smoothie Zoro hands her.
“Thank you, baba!” She takes a big slurp, smacking her lips in delight afterwards. “Yummy!”
“Your daughter wants to know if you’d still love her if she was a fish,” Sanji says, accepting the tank of beer, smiling when Zoro dips down to brush his lips to his forehead.
“I love her now, and she’s an urchin,” Zoro comments as he drops onto the beach chair Celia had just unoccupied. Zoro’s hiding his hair under a bucket hat, but the scar bisecting his torso and the one sealing one of his eyes shut will never let him escape his fame.
Celia scoffs and ignores them both, snatching the sunglasses Zoro offers her and slipping them up her nose. She makes it a point to tilt her chin up in an arrogant manner, eyes closed as she starts to hum her song again.
The rest of the Strawhats are loitering around in different locations of the resort, Sanji vaguely hears Chopper and Luffy ooh-ing and ahh-ing about some sweets or other, Robin is entertaining Franky’s excitement over some new gear he’s planning to add to the Sunny, her smile soft and fond. Nami’s sunbathing not too far from where they are, her peace disturbed by Brook requesting to see her panties under her sarong.
All in all, a typical Straw Hat reprieve.
Sanji smiles fondly, his eyes following Celia as she shoots up and leaves them in favor of diving into the pool with Usopp and Jinbe. Zoro’s taken her spot on the edge of his beach chair. He twists his back so he can glimpse at their daughter as she laughs and swims laps around the adults. She’s as at ease in the water as Sanji is; easily becoming the third best swimmer after Sanji himself, with Jinbei in first place.
“You think…” Sanji trails off for a bit. “You ever think about trying to find a more stable home life for her?”
Zoro turns back to face him, his scarred eyebrow raised. “What, like leaving the crew?”
Sanji hides his grimace behind the rim of his tankard of beer. It sounds weird out loud. He knows Celia absolutely loves her life at sea, her life as a pirate. But as a parent, sometimes Sanji can’t help thinking about the other side of the coin.
What about finding a place? On some island – new or old, or maybe back home in the Baratie? Maybe Zoro’s village? One of the places where they’ve left friends behind?
“Dunno,” he confesses. “Sometimes I just wonder.”
Zoro looks at him, his gray eye studying every little bit of him. “Do you want to?”
“Sometimes I think so,” Sanji says. “Most times, I like our life now. But Celia…”
“Celia loves being on Sunny,” Zoro says, turning around to look at their daughter again. She’s wrapped herself around Usopp, looking every bit like a seaweed with her drenched hair. “She likes being a Straw Hat.”
“Yeah…” Sanji doesn’t add anything else, doesn’t know how to.
Zoro understands what his stilted words meant, though. That, he knows for sure.
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Zoro jumps down from the crow’s nest with a hard thud.
They’re surrounded by about eight marine ships. He’s moving around the deck, catching the nervous yet determined look in Nami’s amber eyes as she grabs her clima-tact. He’s looking for Celia. He has to instruct her to hide in her usual hiding place.
This has happened enough times since she’s grown from a baby. She isn’t afraid anymore, but Zoro doesn’t want her in the middle of the battle, either. He knows his kid’s strength; he’s training her, after all, and the Cook trains her in his fighting style as well.
It’s just that Zoro is every bit an overprotective father and wants to avoid losing it if even a scratch appears on her.
He feels that familiar rubbery rope wrap around him like a snake. He hisses, his eye growing wide as he turns to look at Luffy who’s grabbed Sanji with his other arm.
“Luffy wait—”
“Yahoo!”
Briefly, Zoro feels something latch onto Luffy’s loopy arm as he’s shot across the waters and onto enemy territory.
“Goddamn it,” he mutters as he lands onto the marine ship’s deck. He shakes his head and stands back to his full height, turning to look towards the Sunny in hope he can catch Celia's green hair.
“Who’s the kid—”
“Two Roronoas at the same time? Captain’s gonna be excited.”
This makes Zoro turn to his left; his blind side. He shifts so that his disability isn’t as obvious as his lack of an eye there makes it and catches his fucking daughter standing next to him, mismatched eyes alight, wakizashi unsheathed.
“Otay,” she chirps. “Weady, baba?”
“We are going to have words when we get back to the ship,” Zoro says as he unsheathes Kitetsu and Enma. “Stay close to me.”
Celia looks at him from the corner of her eyes, curly eyebrows furrowed. “No can do, baba!”
And then she runs into the fray.
Zoro wonders if this is what a heart attack feels like. He stands very still, mouth agape as he watches Celia swing her blade. He knows he shouldn’t be worried; he’s trained her and she’s an excellent student, a fast learner. But that’s the chaotic Demon of the East side of him. The more rational side of him that’s only started to come out upon becoming a father feels like he’s going to go into cardiac arrest.
Sucking in air through his teeth, he starts to move as well.
It’s a little hard to focus on his fights while also keeping an eye on Celia. She uses her small stature to her advantage, sliding between the legs of the marines with a laugh, swinging her sword and cutting them in places that will immobilize them.
He sees a lot of the moves they train on, the easy way she swings on one foot so she can swing a leg and kick someone with an ice-guarded leg. The way she slices a second later, guards the next.
Zoro’s all crazy borderline-demonic aura and strength, Sanji’s all fire and stealth.
Celia is ice and speed.
She’s smiling as she blocks a marine’s blade, her brow furrowing at the strain she’s forced to put into pushing him back. Annoyed, she summons ice to her foot and kicks him in the gut, sending him flying into a couple of comrades.
At some point, Zoro takes the gamble and focuses on himself and the marines swarming him. He moves like he’s a blade himself, ripping his enemies to shreds. He’s a windmill, moving around Celia and she quickly picks up on it, syncing herself to her father and moving as one.
An enormous blast is heard and Zoro groans softly to himself.
The Cook has probably realized that Celia is not in her designated hiding spot.
“MARIMO!”
Yup.
“Uh-oh,” Celia sings as she hits a marine in the temple with the hilt of her wakizashi.
She has a couple of cuts and a bruise is forming on her forearm where she’d blocked a punch. Sanji is going to kill them both, Zoro bemoans as he jumps and lands in front of the captain.
These are all newbies, looking for a way to climb up the ranks by trying to bring in the infamous Straw Hat crew. Zoro hasn’t even worked up a sweat. There’s another loud blast as Sanji skywalks his way closer, kicking marines to oblivion and then blowing the ship up.
He can hear the echo of Luffy’s maniacal laughter and Jinbei’s shouts as he does his Fishman Karate. On the Sunny, the others hold their own against those that have managed to make it onto their ship.
“Time to end this, Celia,” Zoro says as he skewers the captain and flings him overboard.
“Otay!”
She does the funniest thing: she taps the heel of her boot to the ground in a move that is very familiar to Zoro, but on another person. Ice begins to crackle and rise up her leg. She kicks the mast once, twice and on the third the mast falls over, frozen, the ice spreading like a disease in a circular radius but still not overtaking the whole ship.
“Hmm,” she groans in annoyance. “Not stwong enough yet.”
Zoro could laugh.
“C’mon, you menace,” Zoro sighs, to hide his laugh. He picks her up and she easily wraps her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist. “Hold on tight.”
She does so and Zoro lets Armament Haki cover his arm so he can swing Enma and slice the ship in half. Celia ooh’s as she watches the destruction, her hair whipping around them as the explosion rumbles around them.
Robin’s arms appear on the side of the sliced ship and Zoro takes it for what it is. He holds Celia to him as he runs along the rope of arms across the sea and back to their ship. Sanji appears, skywalking next to them and looking like he’s ready to rip them both a new one.
“Not my fault,” Zoro shouts just as Celia laughs and says, “Baba is so stwong, daddy!”
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Zoro opens the door to his and Sanji’s room after a long night on watch.
He kicks his boots off and strips off his coat and haramaki. There’s no windows in his room, so he’s in total darkness as he moves around, pausing only when he picks up a second person’s breathing aside from the Cook’s.
Celia must have fallen asleep here, he notes as he walks to his side of the bed. He can vaguely make out his kid sleeping in the middle of the bed, a leg and an arm carelessly thrown over Sanji.
Zoro turns on the lamp on the nightstand for a moment, the light illuminating everything in a soft orange glow. Celia’s hair fans out around her, a lighter shade of green than his own. She has her mouth open in silent snores, her arm thrown over Sanji’s chest, her leg over his thigh.
Sanji seems unbothered. He is, Zoro knows, already used to their daughter’s weird sleeping positions. Zoro shakes his head, turning the light off and climbing into bed. No sooner is he under the covers that Celia shifts again, smacking Zoro’s cheek with her hand as she seeks Zoro’s warmer form.
“Baba?” she sleepily whispers.
“Mhm,” he hums, closing his eye.
“Can I do watch by m’self soon?”
Celia has always wanted to grow up so fast, Zoro notes with a twinge of sadness. He grabs her hand off his cheek and squeezes it. “Not so soon, squirt. Sleep now.”
“Otay,” she breathes and she’s snoring again.
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Sanji isn’t proud of the scream that he lets out when a beetle lands on his arm. He freezes up, mouth hanging open and cigarette falling onto the forest ground.
The rest of the crew sans Brook turn to him and Sanji has no time to be embarrassed. The beetle climbs up and down his arm, he can feel his little legs as it walks. It is the most disgusting thing ever and Sanji wants to claw his skin off. Nami chokes on a scream of her own, wide amber eyes on him and the bug that’s decided to attack him.
They’re in the middle of a massive rainforest, following a map they stole from a rookie crew. Chances are there isn’t any treasure where x marks the spot, but to Nami chances cannot be lost. And to Luffy, any adventure is worth having.
“Hehehe,” Celia giggles as she runs to him, grabbing the beetle without a problem and scurrying back to the front where Luffy is.
She climbs up his back and perches herself on his shoulder. “I don’t think we gots this one, Uncle Luffy.”
“Lemme see, lemme see,” Luffy hops up and down as he walks, completely unbothered by the extra added weight. Celia lowers her hand from his straw-hat and shows him the beetle. “Oooh, you’re right, Celia! Usopp check this out!”
Usopp moves closer, grabbing an open jar from his pack and holding it open for Celia to put the beetle in. “Excellent job, Celia. This little guy’s gonna fit perfectly with the others.”
“W-what others?!” Nami shrieks.
Luffy and Celia blink at her, heads tilted to the side, innocence clear in their eyes.
“We have a beetle farm!” Celia chirps, wiggling her legs up and down from where she sits atop Luffy’s shoulders. “It’s so neat, Auntie Nami. We have at least seven five hundred.”
Robin clears her throat, an eyebrow raised at the misspoken number.
Celia only smiles.
“Beetle,” Sanji wheezes, “beetle farm?”
“Mhm!” Celia, Luffy and Usopp say all at once, identical proud smiles on their faces.
Zoro finally steps in, placing a hand on Sanji’s shoulder to get him to unfreeze and relax his body. Which he does so, lowering his hands and unlocking his shoulders. His horrified expression is still in place, looking at Zoro almost pleadingly.
“Relax,” he murmurs as the crew picks up the pace again. “They keep the farm down in Usopp and Franky’s workshops.”
That does actually make him feel a little better. Sanji’s never down there. Then, he pauses, blinking his blue eyes and tucking some of his blond forelocks behind his ear.
“Wait,” he says slowly and turns a suspicious look at his boyfriend. “You knew?”
Zoro’s response is an agonized groan.
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“Daddy,” Celia begins one day. She’s standing on a stool, mixing batter for a cake she wants to make for dessert.
Sanji’s working on dinner but guiding her in her endeavors. He absolutely loves that Celia likes to cook. Perhaps, not as much as he does; not enough to make it a profession. But definitely enough to make it a hobby, coming to join him often and help him with whatever he’s making or deciding she wants to make something of her own on the side. She’s very good at test-tasting too, knowing what is missing even if she’s not good at remembering the name of the spice or seasoning.
“Yes, my love?” Sanji says as he slides the tray of asparagus into the oven. He looks at her as he stands back to his full height, wiping his hands on his apron.
There’s a troubled look on Celia’s usually sunny face.
“Did you mess the batter up? I’m sure we can save it.” He starts to come closer but pauses when Celia shakes her head.
“S’not it,” she mumbles. “I have… My name is Wowonoa Celia…”
Aw shit, Sanji thinks. He almost instantly starts to feel his hands shake with nerves. He’d hoped this conversation never came to happen, that Celia would be fine knowing him and Zoro and Zeff and the Straw Hats as her only family. That she’d be naive enough to believe Sanji sprouted from the ocean’s foam, no real father or family to claim him.
“But what’s daddy’s name?”
“Sanji.”
She wrinkles her nose as she turns to him, her mismatched eyes narrowed. Sanji hides a smile, reaching over to wipe flour from her nose.
“Blackleg Sanji.”
“Daddy, please.” She shakes her head, unimpressed with his evasion tactics.
Sanji sighs, closing his eyes and coming to stand next to her. He watches her pour the batter onto a cake mold, reaching over to help her when her grip starts to wobble.
“Those people,” he starts. “Are not good people. There is a man, who is my biological father. But I don’t claim him. Zeff is my father.”
She nods, using her spatula to even the cake in the mold. “Pappy.”
Sanji grins. “Yes, him. He’s my family.”
“You don’t like you’ weal family?”
“No, little guppie, I don’t. They don’t like me very much either.”
“They?”
“I have a sister and three brothers,” he says. “But I don’t claim them either. They did something horrible to someone precious to me not once, but twice.”
“Me?”
Sanji laughs, running his hand through her forelocks and guiding them behind her ear. “One of them was you, yes.”
“And the otha? Was it baba?”
“No one can harm your father,” Sanji says, a curly eyebrow raised. “You know he’s hard-headed.”
Celia giggles. “Then who?”
“Me,” Sanji confesses. “When I was a small kid. Smaller than you. They hurt me. In… every sense of the word.” He looks at her, leaning against the counter and reaching to catch her chin between his thumb and forefinger so she’d face him. “My love. A family is not just those you are related to. A family is a group of people that you choose. And that chooses you right back.”
“Like the cwew!”
“Yeah,” he smiles. “Like the crew. And like me and you and Zoro.”
She nods, hopping down from the stool and holding the cake mold in both her hands. Sanji walks to the second oven, which he’d preheated at the sous chef’s orders. She’s not allowed to touch the stove or ovens, after all.
“So why don’cha just be Wowonoa Sanji?”
Sanji’s face grows hotter than the oven as he sets the timer for her cake. He takes a moment to gather himself before he turns to face her. He knows his face is still pink, if the mischievous glint in Celia’s eyes is anything to go by. “Why don’t you ask him?”