Chapter Text
March 20th imposed itself on the New World with crushing heaviness. In the intimacy of his Second Commander's cabin, Portgas D. Ace opened his eyes even before the sun deigned to appear on the horizon. The date pulsed in his mind, painful and familiar. A single treacherous tear slid down his cheek to die on the pillow. He remained silent. No sound crossed the barrier of his tightly pressed lips.
His right hand rose mechanically to search for his left shoulder. His fingers brushed over the raised skin, tracing the contours of the black ink and that "S" crossed out with an X. He pressed the palm of his hand firmly against the mark, almost seeking to feel physical pain to mask the one devouring his chest.
He appreciated his new cabin. This private space offered him an invaluable sanctuary during these cursed days when the mere sight of another human being made him nauseous. Yet this morning, the solitude of the four wooden walls seemed immense and icy. He hoped for Deuce's imminent return. Deuce understood. He didn't know the sordid details or the full story, but he knew that on this exact day, Ace was mourning a part of himself.
Ace violently threw off his covers and walked with heavy steps toward the small adjacent bathroom. He turned on the taps and splashed his face with icy water, hoping to dispel the sticky fog of his thoughts. As he lifted his head, his gaze met his own reflection in the chipped mirror. His dark eyes looked tired, haunted. His gaze slid once again toward his shoulder.
Some days, he almost regretted that tattoo. Forgetting would have been so much simpler. To erase the memories, to wipe away the atrocious pain of that loss that occurred ten years earlier. But forgetting Sabo was impossible. It would be an intolerable betrayal toward his brother. This constant void in his chest was an integral part of him.
On the Moby Dick, he called the crew members "his brothers." He loved them with a sincere and fierce love. But the bond that united him with Sabo belonged to another dimension. They were soul twins. Sabo had been the first person in the world to discover the truth about Ace's heritage, about the cursed blood of Gol D. Roger that flowed in his veins. And Sabo couldn't have cared less. He had never let go of Ace's hand.
If soul brothers existed in this vast world, Sabo and Luffy were undeniably his. Ace often doubted that he deserved such devotion, such light in his demon's life. He prayed silently that his brothers felt the same way about him.
He prayed that Sabo had felt it, just before dying.
His thoughts suddenly darkened. Without realizing it, he had tightened his grip on his own arm. His nails dug into his skin with brutal force. A drop of blood beaded along his biceps, bright red on his tanned skin. He released the pressure with an exasperated sigh, passed a damp washcloth over the scratch, and slipped on a light shirt, buttoned crookedly, to hide the mark.
His reflection showed him the image of a boy who was far too vulnerable. He shook his head, stiffened his neck, and let his features freeze into his sullen expression for bad days. A deep crease marked his forehead. An aggressive pout stretched his lips.
He left his cabin and headed toward the crew's mess. His steps echoed on the deserted deck, rhythmically accompanying the uninterrupted flow of his memories.
A stifling heat. A pestilential smell of rot and smoke. Grey Terminal Dump.
A incredibly skinny blond kid, dressed in rags covered with soot, was rummaging through a pile of scrap metal. He was one of those street kids, abandoned to their fate, far less lucky than Ace who at least had Dadan's battered roof.
The blond boy lifted his head and a brilliant smile split his dirty face.
"Ace!!! You're back!"
The young Ace, at the age of seven, crossed his arms over his chest with a disdainful pout.
"Pff. I just wanted to see if I could steal some stuff from your treasure in case you were dead."
The blond burst into a crystalline, frank and loud laugh. Ace quickly turned his head toward him, staring with wide eyes, intimately convinced that this child had lost his mind.
"That's why I like you, Ace!" Sabo exclaimed while wiping a tear of laughter from the corner of his eye. "At least I'm sure that if you decide to kill me, you'll have the decency to do it face to face."
Ace remained frozen. Sabo's words hit him full force. He frowned angrily, trying to hide his trouble behind a facade of violence.
"Speaking of which, I planned to fight you today."
Sabo let out a small amused laugh as he watched Ace pull a broken glass bottle neck from his pocket, the sharpened edges reflecting the weak sun of the dump. Without losing his smile, Sabo picked up a heavy rusty lead pipe from the ground.
"Bring it on!" Sabo shouted as he threw himself at him.
Sabo had completely crushed him that day. Ace remembered it with painful precision. But that defeat had marked the beginning of a ritual. Ace had returned every day, tirelessly, to confront him. To exist alongside someone who looked at him without seeing a monster.
His feet had led him to the mess without him even paying attention. The vast dining hall was almost empty at this early hour. The comforting smell of hot coffee floated in the air, mixed with the buttery scent of pastries browning in the huge ovens.
Thatch was busy behind the stoves, a steaming cup balanced precariously on the edge of the work surface. Marco, faithful to his night owl habits, was sharing this early morning moment with the cook. Those two got along like cats and dogs, throwing barbs at each other all day long, but they constantly sought out each other's presence.
Ace stopped in the doorway. Marco's eye twitched dangerously following a remark from Thatch — probably yet another dubious joke about roasted chickens and phoenixes. Thatch let out a great booming laugh that made the pots hanging from the ceiling vibrate.
A pang of jealousy stung Ace's heart. Marco and Thatch shared that obvious complicity, that unbreakable bond of brothers in arms. It was exactly the same dynamic he had with Sabo. Watching their friendship this morning felt like a blade driven between his ribs. He clenched his fists, took a deep breath to lock down his emotions, and stepped into the light of the room.
"Ace! Already up?" Thatch exclaimed, brandishing a spatula full of pancake batter.
Marco turned his head, looking at him with his usual falsely blasé expression.
"Good morning," Ace simply said as he sat down heavily on a wooden bench facing them.
Thatch leaned on the serving counter, a mocking smile on his lips.
"Ooh... You don't look happy today. Did Haruta hide all your underwear again?"
"No," Ace growled, avoiding their gaze.
He stood up abruptly and went to the buffet to serve himself. His movements were mechanical. He grabbed slices of meat, bread, piling the food on his plate with his usual voracity. Yet his stomach was horribly knotted. The mere sight of food gave him cold sweats.
He came back and sat down. Marco lowered his eyes to the overflowing plate, then fixed Ace's tense face. The phoenix's brow furrowed slightly. He remained silent, scrupulously attentive to the slightest detail.
"What's going on, my little match?" Thatch continued, his voice tinged with genuine concern. "Did you receive bad news? Is it about your island in East Blue? Or your brother?"
Ace's body tensed violently. Marco distinctly heard a slight crack from the young man's neck vertebrae. Ace's face lost all its color, suddenly turning as pale as a corpse. His right hand instinctively pressed against his left arm, brushing the fabric of his shirt.
Marco's eyebrows drew together. A shirt. Ace never wore a shirt in the morning. Especially not buttoned all the way up.
"What's it got to do with my brother?" Ace spat, his voice vibrating with sudden and uncontrollable rage.
Thatch recoiled at this sudden aggressiveness. He blinked, surprised, before recovering his reassuring smile.
"Luffy, your little brother! Did he call you? Did you argue?" Thatch turned to Marco with a small amused laugh. "When I think we spent months taming our Ace, just for him to bare his fangs at the slightest family quarrel... Good thing we like you, you and your pig-headed personality!"
Ace tensed up even more. The mention of Luffy, juxtaposed with the pain of Sabo's memory, created an unbearable emotional cocktail. He lowered his face toward his plate, staring at a piece of meat without seeing it. His jaws were clenched hard enough to break his teeth.
Silence settled, heavy and oppressive, for two long minutes. The crackling of Thatch's pans suddenly seemed deafening.
Ace finally raised his head and planted his gaze into the first commander's.
"When is Deuce coming back?"
Marco took a second to process the request, surprised by the sudden change of subject.
"Normally tomorrow evening," he replied in a calm voice, weighing each of his words. "Do you need to talk to him urgently?"
Concern was evident in the blond's voice. Ace looked on the verge of breaking. If he needed his former second, Marco was ready to make an exception to the crew's rules. He could use the main Den Den Mushi and pass the call as a simple navigation route check.
Ace's shoulders suddenly slumped. The aggressive energy he had been giving off a few seconds earlier evaporated, leaving him empty and exhausted.
"No. Never mind."
He stood up from the table in a single movement, abandoning his untouched plate, and turned on his heels without adding another word.
As Ace pivoted, Marco widened his eyes. For a fraction of a second, the light from the kitchen lamps had caught the young commander's gaze. His eyes were shining with repressed moisture. The moment was so fleeting that Marco first thought it was an illusion caused by fatigue.
The first commander remained silent, listening distractedly to Thatch's lamentations about the wasted food. Marco's brain was running at full speed, trying to piece together the puzzle, attempting to understand what could have caused such a crack in their flamboyant little brother's armor.
A child's laugh echoed in the dense forest of Mount Colubo.
"Pff... Ace, you really do have a pig-headed personality!" Sabo exclaimed while shaking his head. "The little guy just wanted to be your friend. Did you really need to throw an entire tree trunk at his face? Imagine if old Garp catches you, we're dead!"
Ace, arms crossed and sulking, kicked the ground with the tip of his boot.
"He was weird."
"Everyone is weird, Ace! Especially you, you idiot! Did you at least say hello to him?"
"Sort of."
Sabo narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
"Ace... Don't tell me you spat on him like you did with me the first time we met."
Ace deliberately turned his back on his friend, nose in the air, refusing to answer.
Sabo burst out laughing and slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand.
"You're really impossible! Next time, bite him while you're at it!"
Ace rolled his eyes, put on a very serious expression and nodded.
"Okay. I'll do it."
Sabo choked on his own saliva.
"What?! No! Ace, you moron, that was sarcasm!"
Sabo's panicked face drew a small genuine chuckle from Ace, a rare and precious sound that echoed between the century-old trees.
The fresh high-altitude air whipped Ace's face. He had climbed up to the crow's nest, the highest point of the Moby Dick, desperately seeking to isolate himself. He had curtly dismissed the pirate on guard duty, claiming he would take over for the morning.
The sun still refused to rise, leaving the ocean plunged in worrying ink-blue tones.
A slight rustle of wings, followed by the dull sound of boots landing on the wooden floor, pulled him from his contemplation. He didn't need to turn around to identify the intruder. Marco's calm and protective aura was recognizable among a thousand.
"Ace. Do you want to talk about what's wrong?" the first commander asked in his drawling voice.
Ace kept his eyes fixed on the dark horizon.
"No. I don't want to."
"Then, can you remove your shirt?"
The request hit like an electric shock. Ace turned around abruptly, eyes wide with surprise, before masking his trouble behind a mocking smile.
"Advances in the morning, Mister First Commander?"
Marco sighed, visibly unimpressed by the provocation.
"Not even in your dreams, you insufferable kid. You greatly underestimate my phoenix's instinct. I can smell fresh blood and injuries on my crew from dozens of meters away. Take off that shirt."
Ace grimaced. His arms fell along his body in defeat. Fighting Marco when his "Doctor Mode" activated was pure stupidity. No one ever won against the ship's doctor.
He let out a deep sigh of resignation and unbuttoned his shirt, letting it slide off his shoulders.
Marco grunted upon discovering the red bloody streaks covering the black tattoo. He approached, his hand wreathed in blue and yellow healing flames, and extended his arm.
Ace jumped back as if bitten by a snake.
"Ace?" Marco asked, surprised, his hand suspended in the air.
Ace's gaze fled frantically. He was fighting with himself.
"I... Sorry. Go ahead."
He extended his left arm forward, jaw clenched once again, and let Marco's comforting flames lick his scraped skin. The gentle warmth immediately soothed the burning of the scratches.
"Your foul mood this morning... Is it linked to that tattoo?" Marco asked softly while erasing the last traces of blood.
Ace closed his eyes, refused to answer, and pulled his shirt back up over his shoulders without bothering to button it.
"It's a tribute, isn't it?" the blond insisted gently.
The silence stretched. The wind blew through the rigging.
"Maybe," Ace finally murmured in a hoarse voice.
Marco took a deep breath, leaned against the crow's nest railing and let his gaze wander over the ocean.
"There's an old custom among pirates of the old days. A tradition to honor someone important, dead or alive. The belief is that you burn an object the person loved or would particularly like, then scatter the ashes in the ocean. The sea takes care of finding that person's soul and bringing them the offering."
He paused, observing Ace's reaction from the corner of his eye. The young man was listening attentively, perfectly still.
"If the person particularly loved solid ground," Marco continued, "then you have to scatter the ashes in the wind, preferably at the top of an island. A legend even says that before the invention of life cards, sailors used this ritual to find each other. It was said that the will infused into the offering while it burned could direct the ashes, and therefore the wind, toward the person being sought. It's an old wives' tale, I don't know if it's true. But... If you want us to stop at the nearest island, I can take you there flying. Pops will accept the delay without asking questions."
Ace lowered his head. His fists finally unclenched. A strange softness filled his gaze.
"No need. The ocean will be enough..."
Marco added nothing. He climbed onto the wooden railing, ready to tip over into the void to transform his body into a firebird.
"Marco?" Ace suddenly called out.
The blond turned his head.
"Thank you."
A benevolent smile stretched the first commander's lips.
"It's normal, between brothers. I'll always be there for you, Ace. Whatever you need."
Marco let himself fall backward. In a flash of blinding light, a majestic blue phoenix took flight, diving toward the ship's main deck.
Left alone, Ace leaned against the mast. The horizon was finally blazing. The first orange rays of the rising sun reflected on the dark waves, announcing the dawn of an endless day.
The doctor's words echoed in his mind, carrying a promise as beautiful as it was tragic. He closed his eyes, his face caressed by the morning light.
"Not if you're dead..." he murmured to the wind.