Chapter Text
Mocktown was unbearable.
Jaya was only supposed to be a quick stop. One more day and their log pose would be fully stored and they could move on to a less insufferable island. If they hadn’t needed supplies so badly, Law may have avoided the town entirely. It was known to be a hotbed for pirates, which could cause problems.
Or maybe he would have just found some other excuse to come. It wasn’t like he was one to shy away from dangerous situations. He hadn’t been looking for anything in particular though, not here, at least.
He had been hoping for something a little more interesting, or at least less irritating than Doflamingo’s trash, though.
He’d been sitting in a corner of the bar for the past three hours, watching to see if this was something he should give a shit about. He’d taken some time each day since he first spotted that jolly roger grinning at the docks to assess if there was anything worthwhile here. The way these assholes spoke, he was leaning further and further towards them being complete wastes of valuable organic material.
Law had been intending to make an unremarkable exit around the time the three loud, bright pirates made their way into the bar.
As mind-numbing as Doflamingo’s trash was to sit and listen to, the people watching in this town had been some of the more bizarre he’d experienced, which made up for it slightly. There was already a large man at the bar when the teen wearing a strawhat sat down and started ordering loudly.
It was certainly more interesting to watch the bar with the newcomers rather than the idiots he’d been trailing through the last few days. The two pirates, starkly contrasted in size, arguing about apple pies left an impression, at least. Law hadn’t seen either on a wanted poster before, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have any. It also didn't mean they couldn't be worth something if they had none.
Like the seas had decided to throw him a freebee, as the large man left another pirate, one Law could recognize easily now after his days on the island, came barging in. It turned out one of those three newcomers did have a wanted poster after all, and the leader of this garbage wanted to see him.
Looking at the poster, it wasn’t what he expected. So, the littlest one was the captain. Despite his size he managed to draw the most attention, enough that Law could believe there was more to the teen than on the surface.
When he heard the name, Law had to fight off the faintest twitch of a grin.
Monkey D. Luffy.
Maybe he stumbled across something a little bit more interesting than trash, after all.
Cora-san called it his passion project. Law thought that was idiotic and insisted that he was only trying to figure out one simple question.
What was the will of D.?
So of course he paid attention every time he stumbled across someone else carrying that initial like a noose around their neck.
Or well, in the case of this guy, more like a smile slapped onto his face.
Law’s casual notice twisted a bit closer to genuine curiosity when the red-haired woman asked about going to a sky island.
As the bar broke into laughter and mockery, Law leaned back in his booth, as if having drunk himself to sleep. His hood was up and effectively shaded his eyes as he watched the scene play out in front of him.
A lot of disgusting and heartless talking points that Law had heard plenty of times, from all kinds of fools that danced for Doflamingo like puppets on his strings. Watching their reactions the woman, who considering the log pose on her wrist and her asking for directions Law assumed to be the Strawhat’s navigator, was clearly getting furious. The swordsman refused to react at all, other than the slightest sharpening of his glare.
Their captain though, he was simply staring impassively, a stark difference from the unbridled emotions he showed when arguing with the large pirate at the bar. Law could not tell for the life of him if the pirate in the strawhat was actually listening to a word Doflamingo’s shithead was spewing.
The curiosity finally solidified into real interest when the captain ordered his swordsman to not fight, no matter what the cackling idiots around them did.
Well, not in those exact words, but Law was fairly sure he got the sentiment close enough.
He would have to explain to Cora-san that he really had intended to leave without doing anything this time. He was perfectly capable of not breaking Doflamingo’s toys at every opportunity. It probably would not save him the lecture, but as captain, it was not as if he was obligated to listen anyway.
So when Bellamy went to slam the captain of the Strawhats into the bar, his chuckling stopped cold when he pulled the bleeding and broken face back to see it was no longer his target, but the idiot with the knife Law assumed passed as his first mate. Sharkquin or something.
“What the-”
“How’d I get here?” Monkey D. Luffy asked as he stood up from the seat the knife asshole had been sitting in. The woman who had been sitting with said asshole before shouted and jumped away from the pirate.
“A devil fruit?” Bellamy asked, snarling as he turned back on Strawhat, dropping his crewmate to the floor, who groaned and clutched his bleeding face.
“Uh, well, yeah,” the young pirate said, hooking a finger around the corner of his mouth and stretching it much further out than Law expects before letting go and allowing the flesh to snap back into place. “I’m just made of rubber though. I didn’t do that.”
Well, this guy was full of surprises.
“You idiots think you’re funny, don’t you?” the first mate snarled, appearing behind the green haired swordsman, face still a mess even as he raised the large, odd knife over him. Impressively, Law saw the moment the swordsman noticed the threat, and then chose to follow his captain’s order, staying put and not reaching for his blade.
Law wasn’t quite able to fight off the smirk as he heard Bellamy’s choked shout of pain as the blade slashed clean across his back instead.
“Oh, it happened again!” the Strawhat pirate shouted, head whipping over to look at his displaced crewmate.
“Wait, what- captain!” the knife idiot scrambled back in horror as Bellamy just barely managed to keep from dropping to a knee from the injury.
“Is it you, you bitch?!” the lady who’d been hanging off of first mate shouted, grabbing the redhead by her shirt and going in for a punch.
With how bloody and busted his face already was, it wasn’t too surprising when that seemed to be enough to knock the first mate out cold, now.
“Huh- Sarquiss!” the woman wailed as she dropped him to the floor as well. “How dare you!” she spun around on the redhead, who put her hands up pleadingly.
“It’s not us!”
“Then who?” Bellamy snarled, twisting around as he scanned the bar wildly.
Law almost felt bad with how long it took for his eyes to finally lock onto his form in the dim corner.
“You! I’ve seen you here before. Who the hell are you?” he shouted. Looking up fully now, Law didn’t spare a glance towards the idiot yelling at him. Instead, he locked his sights on the boy in the strawhat, who looked quite befuddled and a little perturbed at his intrusion.
“Sorry, you caught my interest, and I didn’t really feel like waiting for these idiots to be done with their nonsense,” Law apologized to Monkey D. Luffy, although he did not imagine the smirk on his face betrayed much remorse. For his part, the other pirate appeared almost unimpressed as he looked Law up and down, and he couldn’t blame him. This town was full of assholes. He wasn’t even wrong to assume Law was just one more.
“Do you wanna fight too?” he asked, his navigator immediately snapping at him about avoiding fights here. Law shook his head though, putting a hand up in a placating motion.
“Not particularly, right now,” he said, and that seemed to be all the convincing the other captain needed. He immediately relaxed, a bright smile back on his face.
“Okay! That power of yours is cool! Maybe later then, somewhere Nami won’t get mad,” he offered with a laugh. The friendly invitation to fight should probably surprise him more than it did.
“Hey jackass! I asked you a question,” Bellamy cut in, and Law finally allowed his eyes to fall on the furious man. He could feel his face twitch into an annoyed frown as he looked him over. It was obvious just how much this idiot was trying to be like Doflamingo. Obvious and pathetic.
“I could kill you right now, and it wouldn’t even be enough to catch his attention,” he told Bellamy. The man looked confused for a moment, and then furious.
“The hell does that mean?” he growled, and Law could tell it was only uncertainty that kept him from trying to attack him outright. This was an idiot who counted people’s danger in their bounties, and he didn’t know his opponent now.
“It means you’re useless even as a taunt. Doflamingo doesn’t care about the trash at the bottom of his landfill.”
That got him to snap.
Law had already seen him flaunting his devil fruit power, so he was prepared when those spring legs sent Bellamy flying at him full force.
He didn’t even bother drawing Kikaku, instead switching him with another of his crewmembers and letting him slam himself hard into a wall. Law didn’t bother looking back as he turned his attention back to the Strawhats, who had been watching with varying degrees of interest.
“If you are heading to the docks, do you mind if I walk with you?” Law asked the other captain.
“Do you know how to get to the sky island?” Strawhat Luffy asked with a delighted hope. Law wasn’t able to answer before the rubble behind him fell away as Bellamy stood, looking nearly mindless in his rage.
“You’re still going on about that?” he snarled, and when he started to go for the smaller pirate, Law’s smirk twisted into a frown.
“Takt,” he said, flicking a finger up and sending Bellamy through the ceiling. Several of the man’s crew immediately started screaming, running outside to attend to their captain, or just to get away from the dangerous pirates. The three Strawhats stayed where they were, and none of them looking away from Law now.
“Can... can you send people to the sky island with your devil fruit?”
Law blinked, not understanding the question for a moment. Then he saw where the captain of the Strawhats attention had shifted up at the new hole in the ceiling, and Law actually snorted.
Funny.
“No, and unfortunately I can’t say I know any other way, either,” he admitted. The rubber boy frowned at his answer, his annoyance back once again. “I would like to hear about this sky island though,” he added.
Honestly, he was a little surprised by how immediately Strawhat Luffy’s attitude changed, a bright smile flashing over his face.
“Sure! You’re neat!” he declared, like that settled everything. “I’m Luffy, this is Nami and Zoro,” he added, introducing the two crew members. It was obvious that Nami was much more hesitant about this than the other two, and Law wondered if caution was a common trait for navigators.
“Trafalgar D. Law,” he said, not surprised when one of the few members of Bellamy’s crew who were watching as they started out of the bar gasped.
“You-” one of them had the nerve to shout. “Doflamingo wants you dead!”
Law could see the man cower as he shot him a look, lifting one unamused eyebrow.
“Well, he’s taking his sweet time on that,” he said, before following after the Strawhats.
“So, we don’t know much about the sky island!” Mugiwara-ya started as they began down the street, not seeming to care much about who may or may not want Law dead. It didn’t seem like it occurred to him to even ask about the whole situation in the bar, although that didn’t seem to be the same for his crewmates, with the way they were keeping an eye on him. “But the log pose is pointing up, so that’s where we’re going! Do you wanna come with us, Torao?”
There were two things about that which made Law pause.
“Trafalgar. It’s Trafalgar D. Law, Monkey D. Luffy,” he corrected, calling the other pirate by his full name as emphasis.
“I like Torao,” Mugiwara-ya said bluntly.
“You won’t win,” the navigator cut in with a sigh. “Trust us. It’s not worth it.”
Law wanted to argue with that, but the woman had such a resigned air about her, it didn’t give him much hope.
“You could just say Law,” he still tried, because that was much simpler to pronounce.
“You didn’t say if you wanted to come, Torao,” Mugiwara-ya said, which seemed to shut that attempt down rather thoroughly. Why had he decided to talk to this guy again?
Right. His ‘passion project.’
“Luffy, you can’t just invite random strangers along with us! We know nothing about this guy,” Nami-ya chastised, which didn’t seem to bother either the captain or the swordsman. If Law had to guess, it seemed like a relatively common occurrence.
“We know he has a D. in his name, like Luffy and his brother,” said swordsman finally spoke up. It was hard to tell what he was thinking, but Law could at least tell that he was being carefully watched. He didn’t blame the man, with how carefree his captain seemed to be.
So, Mugiwara-ya wasn’t the only D. they knew.
Even more promising.
“Are you a pirate too?” the captain asked.
“Yes, I am. That initial does seem to pop up quite a bit with our profession, doesn’t it?” he said, not planning on pressing much further than that. At least, not right now. “Captain of the Heart Pirates. As for your other question, as much as I appreciate the offer, I don’t think my ship would be especially suited for the voyage,” he added. He wasn’t expecting the disappointment on the younger captain’s face at his rejection.
“But we don’t even know what it’ll be like yet!” he argued, which was a somewhat fair point. Law could see the docks up ahead, scanning along the jolly rogers until he caught sight of the polar tang.
“Tang is a bit too specialized to manage up, whatever way you end up going,” he said, a little relieved when he saw that the deck was empty as they walked up. He’d asked Bepo to keep everyone in the ship while he had been out, and then he’d asked Cora-san to make sure Bepo stayed in the ship as well.
“Is this your ship? Cool! It’s almost totally under water,” Mugiwara-ya said, obviously interested in the submarine.
“You have a submarine? I’ve never seen one before!” the navigator asked, looking almost as excited as her captain.
“Its very… yellow,” the swordsman added, and Law decided to ignore that comment.
Before he could respond to any of them, the door to below deck opened and Cora-san came rushing out, immediately slamming it shut behind him, most likely to keep too many of the rest of the crew from following.
“Law, you’re back!” he declared, his smile somehow widening when he caught sight of the pirates with him. “Oh, and who are these fine folks?”
“I’m Luffy! This is Nami and Zoro!” he repeated happily. Cora-san gave a bow once he was next to Law.
“Cora, and what has he done this time?” he asked with clear amusement, and Law clenched his teeth in annoyance at the question.
“Your captain took down a bunch of jerks without even touching them, it was cool!” Mugiwara-ya answered before he could.
“Law,” Cora-san sighed, not exactly sounding surprised. “I thought you said you weren’t going to start anything this time.”
“I wasn’t,” Law insisted. “And I didn’t, they started it. It’s not like he’ll even notice a bunch of hacks like them, anyway” he added, although Cora-san didn’t look very convinced. Law turned towards the rubber man, and even though he’d already introduced himself, it wasn’t particularly specific. “This is the captain of the Strawhat Pirates, Monkey D. Luffy,” he might have been changing the subject, but he did want Cora to know why he’d intervened for some random pirates.
“Monkey?” Cora-san asked, which honestly wasn’t the reaction he expected. His benefactor and first mate was looking over the young pirate closely now, a frown of concentration on his face. “You wouldn’t happen to be related to a man named Garp, would you?” he asked.
“You know my grandpa?” Mugiwara-ya asked back, which effectively answered the question as well.
“Oh! That makes sense. Yes, although I haven’t seen him in years,” Cora-san said, and Law was trying not to be on edge. Cora wasn’t, so even if this was someone from the past, it might not be a danger. Cora-san had about as many pasts as Law did, maybe more, and it was possible that not all of them actively wanted to kill him. “Wait, you said you’re a pirate?”
“Yeah!”
“I can’t imagine old Garp was very happy with that,” Cora-san laughed, and the young pirate laughed right alongside with him.
“He would get so mad every time I told him! But I did tell him, a bunch! So it’s his fault if he didn’t listen,” Mugiwara-ya said with a nod of finality.
“You’ve never mentioned your grandpa before Luffy. He doesn’t approve of you being a pirate?” Nami asked, her captain shaking his head.
“No, he wanted me to be a marine.”
There was a beat, and then both the navigator and the swordsman burst out laughing.
“A mar- can you imagine?” Nami-ya asked as she was practically doubled over at the idea. “Luffy?” The swordsman had been relatively stoic and quiet so far, but even he had broken completely, having to wipe away a tear after laughing with his head thrown back.
“Your granddad must be even more delusional than you!” he told his captain, who seemed mostly to be laughing at his friends delighted amusement. “That or he doesn’t care about what happens to any idiot that tries giving you an order,” Zoro-ya continued, still snickering at the idea.
“You Monkeys have always been quite stubborn,” Cora-san said, a fond smile on his face.
“Was grandpa trying to capture you, Corar-san?” Mugiwara-ya asked. Law opened his mouth to correct him on the name, before remembering Nami-ya's objection before.
It was closer than Torao at least.
“Oh no, this was long before I was a pirate,” Cora-san said, which was what Law had suspected. “I suppose the Vice Admiral would not be very happy to see either of us, now!” he laughed. It was so casually said that Law almost didn’t notice it. It seemed his crew did at around the same time, the two suddenly startling.
“Vice- Luffy!” Nami-ya shouted.
“What?” her captain asked back, looking genuinely baffled about why the two were upset.
“Your grandpa is a vice admiral? What do we do if he comes after us?” she demanded, and Mugiwara-ya put a hand to his chin, seeming to think this over for the first time.
“I guess we would run, for now. I don’t think I can beat Gramps yet,” he said, as if that was all the plan that was needed. Law actually snorted at the absolute mindless recklessness, which seemed to catch the other captain’s attention again. “Oh, Torao! Did you want something?”
Law wasn’t sure why the question caught him off guard. Had he mentioned wanting something, yet?
“I was interested in your name, and you asked an impossible question. I’ll give an honest attempt at answering it, if you tell me anything you know about one I have,” he offered the other pirate plainly. He could see the Strawhat captain thought the offer over for barely a flash of a moment before smiling brightly.
“Sure!”
“Luffy, can we really trust this guy?” his navigator asked immediately. “He’s kinda creepy,” she added in a whisper, which Law could still very much hear.
“Yeah, Torao’s good! I can tell,” Mugiwara-ya said with a frankly startling amount of confidence. Nami-ya still didn’t look entirely convinced, but for some reason the swordsman was almost smirking.
“He was right with Vivi,” Zoro-ya said, which meant nothing to Law, but seemed to shake Nami-ya slightly, who then started pouting.
“That was different.”
“Right, she tried to kill us first,” the swordsman said. It didn’t sound like he begrudged whoever they were talking about for it at all, no he said it as if he was simply stating a fact. However he meant it though, it clearly pissed Nami-ya off.
It was at that moment that the door to the Polar Tang shot open, and the yelling was immediate as his crewmembers ran out of range of the zone of silence Cora-san must have had up inside of the ship.
“Captain!”
“Captain you’re an asshole!”
“Beni you dick we’ve been yelling for like ten minutes!”
“Captain it’s hot!”
Law didn’t realize he was smiling at his crew until he heard Mugiwara-ya laughing.
“See! They’re good!” he declared confidently.
There was every possibility that this would lead nowhere.
But why leave a stone unturned?
-
The first time he had introduced himself as Trafalgar D. Law was right after he had rid himself of the last of the white lead stubbornly hiding away inside of him. Cora-san had laughed in a way that sounded strained both from being faked, as well as him still healing from the patchwork operations Law had managed still healing. They weren’t even done yet, really. Law simply did not have the medical knowledge or experience with his devil’s fruit to fix him entirely, yet. Even weakened, the hand clutching his shoulder was slightly painful as Cora-san excused them from the innkeeper and dragged him to their room.
“What was that?” the older man whirled on him, and Law could tell they were being protected by the calm-calm fruits effects the moment he started speaking.
“What?” he asked back, his own voice still sounding a bit rough for a multitude of reasons.
“What did I tell you about your name?” Cora-san sounded like he couldn’t believe he had to have this conversation.
“That is has something to do with the Will of D. and means I’m an enemy of the gods,” Law answered without hesitation, because he had planned for this. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it, once he managed to start thinking again after counting bloody bullets through silenced sobs as he frantically attempted to fix a dying man with a devil fruit he could barely comprehend.
“Exactly! So you shouldn’t say it so openly,” he tried to warn, but Law could feel the frown starting to form on his face.
“But it’s my name.”
“I know, but it’s not safe.”
“But it’s my name,” Law snarled, no longer able to suppress the fury and outrage he’d been feeling for so long now. “And I want to know why! Who’s will is it that everything has to be like this?” he questioned.
There was still a part of him that wanted to blame it all on Doflamingo. It would at least fit poetically with this Will of D. nonsense.
Except Cora-san had told him the truth, delirious with fever as he clung to life with Law’s desperate attempts. It was clear once true consciousness returned that he never would have mentioned his place as a fallen celestial dragon had he been in his right mind. Law was fairly sure he had no idea who he had been talking to at points, and that at others he wasn’t seeing Law at all, but his brother when they were children, or his father, or Sengoku.
So it wasn’t Doflamingo. This misery had started long before him. He wasn’t even a D. himself. Instead just a tossed away pawn for the gods Law was destined to be opposed against all because of a name that had lost its true meaning ages ago.
“You shouldn’t be asking those questions,” Cora-san insisted, and somewhere in the back of his mind he was grateful that the older man had known to wrap them in silence, because Law was shouting now.
“You said I was free!”
“What?” Cora-san immediately startled back, barely missing a beat as he tripped and fell on his ass. “Law, of course you’re free,” he said, face and voice much softer now.
“Then I want to know!” Law snapped. “I want to know the Will of D. and I’m going to find out.”
There was a moment where all he did was glare at a stunned looking Cora-san. At least since he fell he didn’t have to look up at him. He didn’t have to look down either, because even sprawled on the ground the tall asshole could meet his eyes.
And then suddenly, that shocked expression twisted into a downright sappy smile.
“Well, how am I supposed to say no to that face?”
“Shut up!” Law shouted, immediately furious. “I wasn’t asking your permission!” he insisted. “I’m going to figure it out with or without your help!”
“Of course you are,” Cora-san said, and Law felt himself freeze up as he was pulled into a hug. “You’re free. You can do whatever you want.”
If Law had started crying at that point, at least he knew Cora-san could keep a secret.