Chapter Text
“Just because they found the One Piece, doesn’t mean they’re unbeatable!” Captain Stabs Gilligan shouted out to his loyal crew. “We made it this far into the Grand Line by being great! Sure, we got our start after them, but we’ve still held our own! Our intel is good! We know who our targets are! We have our plan! And with it: we will take out Monkey D. Luffy and I will become King of the Pirates myself!”
The crew cheered. Heron Smith the loudest and proudest of them all. It was through his great Devil Fruit power that the wind beneath the Wings of the Pirate King would be extinguished.
Steel clanged. Lightning and ice flew through the air. The odor of cola and ozone assaulted the noses of the Gerano Gang, but Heron pressed on. Everyone knew that if you looked for bright blond hair in a battle with the Straw Hats, green would be nearby. He just had to get close to them both and seem non-threatening enough not to ping their Observation Haki. With the way he preferred to dress, that should be easy.
He picked through the battlefield, trying not to think of his fallen comrades when he heard a barking voice to his left.
“Oi! Mosshead! You bored too?” Black Leg Sanji swung a leg around without even looking and kicked in the head of the gang’s gunner.
“Yeah, Cook, what’s for lunch?” Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro called back to his crewmate while lazily slashing an oncoming fighter.
“I dunno. I’m kinda in the mood for paella, but that’ll take a little while. Thoughts? And don’t say onigiri.”
“Well, then I’m out of ideas.”
That’s odd. They seem to be… getting along? Our intel said they were at each other’s throats as often as an enemy’s… to be fair, that actually could be a good thing… they might be more likely to keep their new gifts rather than outright abandoning them… Heron thought to himself with a flash of relief. For as ruthless as Captain Stabs Gilligan was, his “secret weapon” really didn’t care for child abuse or neglect. Maybe instead of causing the Straw Hats to break apart due to stress, they’ll just retire.
Heron saw a lull in the fighting as Black Leg and the Pirate Hunter chatted, surveying the battlefield. Now was his moment. Putting on his most winning and charming grin, he sauntered over and called out, “Yoo-hoo! Boys! I couldn’t help but overhear your predicament. Perhaps I can help make things a bit more interesting?”
Heron needed to make skin-to-skin contact for his power to work. The Pirate Hunter would be easy, with his robe tied around his waist, leaving his chest and arms exposed. Black Leg was going to be trickier with his three-piece suit and pocketed hands—and he was fast as hell. But Heron would succeed and Stabs Gilligan would become King of the Pirates.
“How do you mean ‘interesting?’”
“Well, I thought we’d play a little game. You see, I have such an interesting Devil Fruit power and I’m just dying to push it to its limit. Care to indulge me?”
The Wings smirked at each other and shrugged.
“Sure, Feathers, how do you wanna do this?”
Heron paused and tried to look thoughtful. Then smiled and said, “Like this,” as he leapt into a high flip over the two men, who luckily, were standing within arms length of each other. He tapped each man on the back of the neck three times, then yelled “Stork-Stork Shussen!” and clapped his hands together three more times.
“Have fun, boys, don’t drop your precious bundles of joy,” he chuckled with a wink and sprinted away.
🦋🐸🐥
“What the actual fuck,” Sanji said, taking a drag from his cigarette, grimacing and rubbing the back of his neck as he watched the weirdo run off, too confused to follow and fight.
A piercing cry cut through the sounds of the battlefield, nearer than anything expected. Followed by a second. And then a third.
“Uh… Cook… those weren’t there a second ago, right?” Zoro asked, sounding uncharacteristically uncertain as he stared, horrified, at Sanji's feet.
Sanji looked where Zoro was staring; to where the screams were coming from. “Holy fucking shit.”
On the ground, bare to the world, were three infant girls, screaming louder than Luffy at a barbecue. Zoro came to his senses a little faster than Sanji, quickly sheathing his swords and scooping up the babies. “Cook. You know how to hold a baby, right?”
“Uh… yeah… but…”
“Good. Toss that cigarette, because you’re gonna need to take two of them, so I can have a hand free. We gotta get back to Sunny.”
“Uh… right… but…” Sanji trailed off, stubbing out his cigarette underfoot as Zoro pressed two of the little girls into his arms. The screams didn’t stop, but they did dial down in intensity as soon as the soft baby skin touched warm wool instead of cold dirt. He gently maneuvered his arms so that the delicate things were supported properly.
“Let’s go. Today just got interesting.” Wado in hand, Zoro started to jog off—in the opposite direction of the ship.
That was enough to shake Sanji out of his stupor. “Goddammit, Mosshead, you’re going the wrong way. Watch my back, I’ll lead us.”
Screaming infants in their arms, the pair ran through the battlefield. Sanji’s Observation Haki pushed to its limits as he kept on alert for attackers, wayward marimos, that stork freak, and anyone who could possibly help, like Chopper.
They were almost to the Sunny when Sanji thought he saw an angel; though a second glance told him it was actually Robin using her Mil Fleur Wings power. Screaming as loud as he could over the babies, he tried to get her attention. “ROOOOOBIIIIIIIIIIIN!!!! HELP!!! WE NEED YOU!!!”
She glided over and kept pace next to them. “Oh my, where did your companions come from, boys?”
“Some freak touched us and these babies appeared. Can you find Chopper and meet us on the ship?”
A small smile graced her lips as she nodded her assent. Sanji’s heart would have leapt for joy to have that beauty directed at him, were it not for the many other stressors surrounding him at that moment. Robin gracefully extended her wings once more, soaring above the battlefield to search for their tiny doctor. About two hundred years from the ship, Sanji put on a burst of speed and skywalked the rest of the way. A few moments later, a thud signaled Zoro’s arrival behind him on the deck.
“Let’s get to the infirmary, Curly. Chopper will know to find us there,” Zoro said, his voice weirdly calm as he re-sheathed Wado Ichimonji with one hand.
Sanji couldn't believe Zoro was taking this so well. Fucking asshole's never rattled by anything.
They ran up the stairs into the infirmary and gently laid the infants on the bed inside, softly placing the blanket from the end of the bed over the babies’ legs. The closed door muffled the sound of the dying battle and allowed them to gather their thoughts and take in what just happened.
In front of them laid three baby girls, still crying their lungs out. The baby on the left had golden blonde wispy hair, a scrunched up face, and thin eyebrows. The baby in the middle had a dusting of green hair and eyebrows that very well could have been spiraling upward. The baby on the right had just a couple tufts of blonde and green hair, along with a single curled brow.
“What the actual fuck,” Sanji repeated his words from the battlefield.
“Uh, Cook, do those babies have curly eyebrows or am I seeing things?”
“Better question: do two of those babies have green hair? What the fuck. Even better question: how the fuck?!” Sanji attempted to control his breathing. It wouldn’t do to panic—yet…
Zoro stepped forward and began to try to soothe the babies. “Cook, I only have two hands, help me try to calm them down while we wait for Chopper. The screaming is giving me a headache.”
Still in shock, Sanji picked up the blonde baby without curly eyebrows and began to bounce her gently, completely at a loss of what else to do.
Within moments, the babies Zoro was soothing began to quiet down, while the one Sanji held continued to wail. Thankfully, it wasn’t much longer before Chopper and Robin entered the infirmary, though the influx of new noise set the babies right back off.
“Zoro, Sanji, where did you get these babies?” Chopper asked, trepidation clear in his voice.
“Battlefield. Some freak with a Devil Fruit must have done it—said he wanted to push his power to the limit, flipped around, touched us, then the babies appeared,” Zoro summarized flatly as he bounced one of the babies in his arms.
Chopper stared in disbelief, while Robin looked thoughtful. “Well, that’s certainly interesting. You wouldn’t happen to remember anything more specific about how the man’s powers worked, would you?” Robin asked.
“Not really, no. He ran off after he touched us and clapped his hands three times. Then boom: babies.”
“Fascinating,” Robin murmured,
“Regardless,” Sanji snapped, internally cringing at his uncharacteristic shortness toward Robin, “what the fuck are we going to do with them? We’re pirates… there’s barely space on the ship for the ten of us normally… I don't know how to feed a baby… how the fuck do you even take care of a baby in general? What the fuck… What the fuck? What the FUCK?!”
As Sanji panic overtook him, two arms blossomed from the wall behind him to support the infant slipping from his grip before disaster could strike.
Holy fuck… Sanji stared in horror as he backed out of the room.
"I— I gotta get outta here."
He ran below deck to put as much distance between himself and the infirmary, choosing to chain smoke in the Mini Merry instead.
🦋🐸🐥
Roronoa Zoro was in love.
In his arms, he held two-thirds of his heart, and he was trying to calculate how to get the remaining third from Robin. He felt love every day for his captain, his crew, his cook, but never with this fierce fire that was now burning in his chest as he looked at the three infants.
These girls were his.
In the past couple years, especially since the crew reunited in Wano, he had found himself dreaming of tea parties and child-sized swords. In these dreams, a gaggle of little children run around, occasionally tackling him and dragging him over to a too-small table to sip tea with them while eating snacks prepared by the best chef in the world. In these dreams, he always felt an immense sense of calm and contentment, far different from what he’d ever been able to achieve through meditation.
He stared in awe at the babies in his arms, holding them close to his warm chest and humming, hoping the vibrations might soothe them.
After a few minutes of gentle humming and bouncing, the babies quieted down enough that, while they were still awake, they were no longer crying.
“Umm, Zoro, I know they just quieted down, but do you think I could take a blood sample from each baby?” Chopper meekly asked. “I want to get started on making sure they’re healthy.”
Zoro looked a little stunned but nodded in concession.
“Why don’t you sit on the bed and we can arrange the girls in your lap?" Robin asked calmly. "I can go check the ship for blankets and rags we can repurpose into diapers.” She paused a moment to think, before continuing, “I’ll go check on Sanji and the status of the crew as well.”
Between the three of them, they got Zoro situated with a baby in each arm and the third in his lap. Once settled, Robin left to go find supplies and the cook, and Chopper began taking measurements of each baby. While Chopper did his thing, Zoro mindlessly hummed and rocked the babies to keep them calm. It was amazing how much the girls resembled him and Sanji without being cloned. The green haired one had Sanji’s blue eyes and was holding his haramaki with a shockingly strong grip.
“You’re gonna be a fighter when you get older, aren’t you, little one?” Zoro murmured to her, scrunching his nose and sticking out his tongue, causing her to giggle.
“I’d be more surprised if a child of Sanji or you wasn’t a fighter, knowing you guys,” Chopper said as he soothed the baby with one curly brow after taking a tiny blood sample. “Okay, that’s all of them. So far they all seem completely healthy, but I’m going to have to do some more testing to confirm that they really are biologically related to you and Sanji, just so we can rule out any issues from the gaps in your medical histories.”
“Even if they somehow aren’t related to us… I wanna raise them. Even if he doesn’t, even with all the dangers we still face…” Zoro trailed off, his mind starting to swirl with the things that could go wrong.
Chopper placed a gentle hoof on his knee. "Zoro? What's wrong? You know you can tell me anything, and we can even say this is all under doctor-patient confidentiality, if you want.”
Zoro let out a heavy sigh, pulling the babies in his arms close to his heart. "I dunno, Chop. This is like…" Fuck, this is embarrassing to admit out loud. "It feels like a dream, but one I've already had. I haven't even beaten Mihawk yet, but this is the 'after' that I'd started literally dreaming about a couple years ago. Almost exactly."
He looked at the babies again. They looked so small and fragile in his arms.
"But how the fuck is this going to work?" He felt his throat tighten, barely able to whisper, "They're so little."
Chopper’s eyes welled up with tears. “Oh, Zoro, this is a completely normal reaction. And I know everyone on the crew will want to help you keep this dream.” Chopper crawled up onto the bed next to Zoro to gently hug him.
They sat together in the infirmary until noises on the deck reached them. A mouth appeared on the wall and softly said, “The crew has returned. Sanji and I are drinking tea in the galley. Chopper, perhaps you can get the crew to calmly join us there? Once everyone’s assembled, I can help Zoro get the girls ready to meet them.”
As was standard operating procedure when Robin sent a mouth with no ears to deliver a message, Chopper immediately hopped down to follow her instructions and greet the crew.
“Well, girls, you ready to meet everyone?” Zoro asked in a whisper. “I bet they’re gonna love you. I hope the cook has calmed down enough to see how perfect you are. Even if he hates me, I can’t imagine him hating you.”
The blonde baby gurgled at that and smacked her sister. “Hey now, uh, Baby One, don’t hit your sister. Shh… shh… it’s okay, uh, Baby Two, Papa’s here.” He offered his finger back to the green-haired baby with Sanji’s eyes, which she promptly started sucking on. He looked at the baby with the mismatched eyes and eyebrows. “I guess that makes you Baby Three. Fuck, I need to come up with better names than that. Who the fuck names their kids after numbers anyway? Maybe the crew can help in a bit.” Sanji should really be involved with the naming, to be fair, he’s probably their father too…
A few moments later, Robin entered the infirmary from the galley, holding what looked like three dishtowels.
“Really? That’s all we had?”
“Unfortunately, yes, this is the best I was able to find under such short notice for the time being. That said, I’m certain Nami and I will be able to go into the village and procure something better before we leave this island. After all, I suspect we have very limited time before these girls get hungry.”
“Shit, you’re right," Zoro said. He took a deep breath, bracing himself for how the crew was going to react. "Okay, let’s get this over with.”
Zoro and Robin quickly got to work wrapping each baby into her own dish towel and carefully arranging them in Zoro’s arms. Robin went through the door from the infirmary to the galley first, with her finger pressed to her lips to remind the crew to stay calm. Zoro walked in behind her, scanning the room.
Nami, Usopp, and Brook gasped. Franky immediately had to hold back tears. Jinbei had Luffy in a headlock.
Sanji was nowhere to be seen.
Chopper spoke up, “So, yeah, as I was saying, Sanji and Zoro found something on the battlefield… and that something was three babies. The babies are developmentally a couple months old, but literally only about an hour old. They said they were touched by a devil fruit user from the other crew… and they appear to be the biological fathers.” A small scoff came from the shadows of the kitchen. Ah, found the cook.
Zoro shrugged as best he could to try and make the whole situation feel calm, casual, and not at all terrifying. “Surprise, I guess. Meet Baby One,” he pointed at the blonde baby with his chin, “Baby Two,” pointed at the green-haired baby, “and Baby Three,” pointed at the last baby.
“Oh, fuck you, NO!” Sanji stepped out from his hiding spot. “Marisol, Sorrel, and Laurel deserve names, not numbers,” he said as he pointed at each baby, naming them in the same order Zoro numbered them. “They’re humans, not experiments.”
An awkward silence settled over the room as Nami and Usopp exchanged a significant look. Zoro cleared his throat, but spoke softly, “Those are beautiful names, Curls, thanks. I hadn’t been able to think of anything yet.”
Sanji huffed and looked away with an awkward, “Yeah, well, you’re welcome," before pacing back toward his kitchen.
Zoro looked after him for a beat longer than was probably necessary, hoping his face wasn’t giving away too much of his disappointment in how Sanji continued to react to the situation. “Anyway, I intend to raise these girls no matter what. I don’t know how I’m gonna do that, but that’s what I’m doing.”
An angry squawking sound overlapped the end of Zoro's statement as Sanji interjected, “Oh no you don’t, Mosshead, they’re my daughters too. If we’re gonna raise them, we’re doing this together. I won’t have you poisoning them with your moss brains.”
Zoro growled at that. “Fine, whatever, Shit-cook. I was just assuming you didn’t want anything to do with us based on how you’ve been hiding since we got back to the ship!”
“Just because I was having a very reasonable and rational response to the sudden appearance of three infants on a battlefield in a crew without baby formula or breast milk doesn’t mean I’m going to abandon them! Fuck!" Sanji's volume dropped. "Do you really think that lowly of me?!”
Zoro glared. He'd never thought Sanji liked kids, if their interactions with children were anything to go by. But truly, deep down, he knew Sanji would never abandon his kids, even their kids…
He sighed, looking down at the bundles in his arms. No, he didn't think the cook would abandon them, but everything he’d done in the past hour reeked of rejection, and his actions thus far did not inspire confidence, especially not in regard to co-parenting with his rival.
As the silence grew, the babies began to fuss, apparently already sensitive to his emotional state. Zoro tried soothing them as best he could without losing his hold on the three girls.
Nami broke the tension. “Alright, well, now that we know what’s going on, how are we going to deal with this? We don’t have any baby stuff on board.”
“I've been thinking about that,” Robin answered. “Nami, I think you and I should go back to the village and see if we can’t find anywhere to purchase or procure some baby supplies just to get us to the next island.”
“Yeah that sounds like a good plan,” Nami nodded.
“Oh, Nami-sis, while you two are doing that, could you see if they can direct us to the closest island with a shipyard? Seems like I’m gonna need to do some remodeling of Sunny, so we can have some sort of super nursery on board.”
The crew began to babble about various logistics, allowing Zoro to fade into the background, bouncing his girls in his arms. Suddenly, he realized a rubbery arm had reached around and was helping support the precarious balance of the three babies. As Luffy came closer, slowly following his arm so it didn’t snap and scare the babies, Zoro took a steadying breath.
“Well, Captain, whaddya say? It’s ultimately up to you what we do, but I think I’d have to set out on my own journey if I can’t keep the girls on Sunny.”
Luffy stroked the hair of each baby with a far gentler touch than Zoro had ever seen him use before.
“Would being a dad make you happy?” Luffy asked, still gazing at the babies. “Will it stop you from reaching your dream?” Luffy looked Zoro dead in the eye at that. Zoro matched him with an equally serious look.
“If anything, this has become my new dream. It’s giving me something to strive for once I beat Mihawk. And I am going to beat Mihawk when we find him again.”
Luffy smiled. “Then why would I ever stop you from reaching your dream? No matter what form it takes?" He paused, looking thoughtfully as he traced Sorrel's eyebrows before shifting his gaze back to Zoro. "Besides, you’re my swordsman and Sanji's my cook,” he booped Laurel on the nose. "They were part of my crew as soon as they existed.”
Zoro felt a presence by his side. He turned toward Sanji, his eye searching his face for any lingering panic and just seeing slight apprehension. “Curls, do you want to hold one of them?”
Sanji nodded and took the golden-haired baby, Marisol, from Zoro. She giggled and gazed up at him with absolute adoration in her serious gray eyes. Zoro melted, and thought he saw Sanji doing the same.
“Look, Curls, this doesn’t have to mean anything,” Zoro muttered. “We can just…" He trailed off, watching as Sanji just nodded and hummed, clearly lost in his own little world with Marisol.
Zoro tried to keep his face calm, refusing to let his reaction to seeing the cook look like a damn domestic dream as he gazed at their child show on his face. It was a struggle though, since he'd been all but haunted by these imaginings since Kuraigana. At the time, he thought they were stress-induced hallucinations, but when they got even stronger on the trip from Zou to Wano, they became harder to dismiss.
He spoke down to Sorrel and Laurel, “Let’s find a good spot to nap while we wait for Robin and Nami to sort out the formula and diapers situation.”
He left the crew planning in the galley, headed toward the aquarium bar, two green-haired babies in his arms and a nap on his mind.
🦋🐸🐥
Nami and Robin came back with some good news and some not-bad-but-not-convenient news. The good news: they were able to get enough formula and diapers to last three babies for a couple of days. They were even able to get blankets and clothes, plus some advice from the parents in the village, which was helpful.
The less convenient news was that they were about a week away from the nearest shipyard and there would be at least one other log pose-adjusting island in between.
“Does that mean we’re gonna have to share the bunk room with the babies for a week?” Usopp grumbled to Brook. “N-n-not that I mind, of course! I was just wondering!” He stuttered under twin vicious glares from the new fathers in the room, who were diapering their babies on the galley counter.
“It’s either that or the witches give up their room to us and the girls for a week,” Zoro growled, holding the newly diapered Sorrel and Laurel close to his chest.
Sanji glared and flicked him in the ear as he picked up Marisol. “First of all, there’s no way I’d force Nami and Robin to give up their room for us. Second of all, I thought we were gonna be sleeping in shifts since you usually go to bed around the time I wake up anyway? Why would we bother sharing a room?”
Zoro just shrugged. He didn’t want to explore the assumption he’d made in front of the entire crew.
Nami rolled her eyes. “In any case, the babies probably should have a space that’s separate from the crew where they can nap in relative peace. And not the crow’s nest,” she added, seeing Zoro open his mouth. He closed it with a click. “What if Franky moves your bunks from the bunk room to the aquarium bar? That’s relatively calm most of the time and isn’t where any of us make maps, do research, or tinker with gadgets.”
Zoro and Sanji looked at each other. Zoro raised an eyebrow as if to say, “Well, Curly? Does that work for you?”
Sanji bit down on the filter of his unlit cigarette and huffed out a breath as if to say, “Sure, fine, whatever, Mosshead.”
Zoro grunted in agreement, trying to keep the small smile that was creeping onto his face from becoming visible.
Nami tapped her foot impatiently. “Well, are we converting the aquarium into a temporary nursery or not? The rest of us don’t speak that weird psychic language you two have.”
Sanji sighed and then gave Nami his most glowing smile, “The aquarium would be lovely, Nami-sweet, thank you for your thoughtful suggestion.”
“Okay, Franky, do you think you can get the beds rearranged in the next half hour? I’d like to cast off ASAP. We should be able to get to the next island by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Sure thing, Nami-sis, I’ll get started right away.”
With that, Franky and Usopp ran off to the men's bunk room.
"Sanji, would you like some assistance reorganizing and storing the baby supplies before we cast off?" Robin asked.
Sanji nodded and then looked around, clearly trying to figure out what to do with Marisol.
Nami tsked.
"Just hand her here."
Sanji looked relieved as he handed the golden-haired baby over to Nami, then turned to Robin to look over the baby supplies she and Nami had obtained.
Nami looked at baby Marisol in her arms as if she were made of solid gold. Zoro felt heartened that the crew was so invested in the well-being of the newest crew members.
"Let's take them to Chopper to watch over while we prepare to cast off, alright, Zoro?"
Zoro was reluctant to separate from the babies at all, but he logically knew he was going to have to do so at some point, to train or fight or help with the ship. But right now? Mere hours after getting these amazing girls thrust into his life? That sounded worse than fighting a crew of fishmen with his chest barely stitched together.
"Hey, Zoro, you there?" Nami flicked his ear, making his earring chime, grabbing Sorrel and Laurel's attention.
He sighed.
"Yeah, Chopper can watch over them."
Nami hip-checked him lightly as they left the galley through the connecting door to the infirmary.