Work Text:
The morning started that same way it started most mornings on the Moby Dick, half the crew was sleeping off what they had drank the night before, the other half were trying to get a jump on whatever tasks were assigned to them before the daily chaos on the ship started threatened to interfere with the tasks.
It was precisely then that two of the lookouts in the top crowsnest spotted something on the horizon.
“Oh shit, what’s the Navy doing just sprouting up now?” the first watchman said, spotting the familiar outline of one of their ships on the horizon.
“You got to be joking,” the other guy on watch said, sitting next to him. “We just fought off three of their ships last week. Again so soon?”
The first guy let out a tired sigh. “That’s what I’m saying, usually they wait another month before trying to take us again.”
“Maybe they’ll decide to just move on when they see its us?” the second guy said.
“You talking like that is why you’ve been up here for the last month,” the first guy said as he brought his binoculars back up to his face and got another look at the Navy ship, now not exactly on the horizon anymore. “But based on the way they are pointed, I’d say that ship is coming directly at us.”
“Ah, fuck,” the second guy cursed as he turned around and leant over the side of the crow’s nest. He yelled down to the men on the deck below them, notifying all of them of the ship coming up.
Marco picked his head up at hearing that there was a Marine ship on the horizon, letting out a small curse as he spread his flames out into wings and flew up to the top of the main mast.
“What do we have?” he asked the two watchmen.
The first guy pointed at the Marine ship now quickly approaching them. Marco took the binoculars from him and held them up to his face, trying to see which Marines exactly were coming to them.
It only took a couple more minutes before the Haki signature came across loud and clear.
Monkey D. Garp. That man had a very distinct Haki signature. Marco didn’t even need to catch a visual sighting of the Marine to know that it was him.
Damn.
What was Garp doing coming to them like this? It had been nearly a year since they had had any sort of run in with the vice admiral, yet it appeared that today he was seeking them out.
Why?
The Main Moby hadn’t even been to any ports in months, not since they took Ace on board.
Marco had a sudden sinking feeling in his gut that this was something to do with Ace. From all of the little stories Ace has told so far though, he hadn’t mentioned anything about the Vice Admiral though, had he?
Even though the Navy warship was still a ways away from the Moby, it didn’t stop Garp from jumping over and landing on the top deck of the Moby Dick. Instantly, everyone on board was on guard, drawing weapons and getting into fighting positions. Marco jumped down from the crow’s nest, coming to stand in front of the Marine.
“I’m only here for one person,” Garp said as he looked up at Marco and gave the pirate a glare. There was a silent fire in the Vice Admiral’s eyes. Marco squared his shoulders and returned the glare. “Where is my grandson?”
🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥
Ace shook himself awake with a start. He took a deep breath as he sat up suddenly in the small bed he had taken up residence in since accepting Whitebeard’s offer to join his crew.
Something had woken him up, something vaguely familiar, something his still half asleep mind couldn’t immediately name. In the distance, from the top deck of the shift he heard a voice yell something out. Then he froze. That voice was familiar, painfully familiar.
Oh no, oh fuck.
Fuck fucking shit.
Before he could gather his thoughts or put forth anything resembling a plan of action, he was out of bed. He quickly pulled on his shorts and his shoes, not bothering to tie them right now before he was running out of the door.
He would know that voice and presence from anywhere, how could he fucking forget it? Hell, it was a wonder that that old man hadn’t come to this ship until now. He had been onboard the Moby Dick for at least four months at this point.
As he ran through the lower hallways of the large ship, he was just about to go through the door leading to the main deck when someone had stuck their arm out to stop him.
“Woah there, slow your horses kid,” Thatch’s voice said from the side. “Just give the others a second, some really powerful people just showed up.”
Ace cocked his head to the side in confusion. Since when would that stop him from going out to join the fight? Especially when it’s Garp who’s most likely looking for him?
From beyond the door, Ace could hear Garp’s voice yell out, “Where is my grandson?!”
And shit, Ace had hoped that when he was first awakened by the old man, he had been on board this ship for some other reason, not knowing that Ace was on here. But of course not, this was Garp he was talking about. Garp who had been keeping track of all of his movements since he had left Foosha Village.
Garp had probably heard about the fight Ace had with Jimbe, when Ace was in turn taken by Whitebeard, and started setting out after this ship right afterwards.
It was a miracle the man hadn’t caught up to them before now.
Ace gave Thatch’s arms another shove, pushing past the man and onto the main deck. There, Ace could see Garp standing in the middle of the deck, looking, no glaring at Marco.
As soon as Ace was two steps out onto the deck though, Garp’s eyes snapped directly to him.
“Ace!” he yelled out.
If all of the Whitebeard pirates hadn’t been confused and weary about the Marine showing up on their ship before, they definitely were now. Why was Garp here? And how did Garp apparently know Ace?
“What are you doing here, Old man?!” Ace yelled out as he ran to stand in front of Garp. “Have you been following me again?”
“Oh you idiot grandson of mine!” Garp yelled out as he- as he punched Ace in the head. “Of course I would be keeping tabs on you? Who do you think I am?” Garp said as he gave Ace another punch.
Everyone on deck froze when they saw Garp’s fist make contact with Ace’s head. Izou’s hand wrapped around his sword hilt. Thatch’s wrapped around his. Marco’s body tensed, his fist clenching.
But before anyone could do anything, Ace popped right back up, rubbing the top of his head. “Now why do you still got to hit me like that, old man?” Ace yelled out.
“Because you’re an idiot!” Garp yelled back. “First you run off to be a pirate, and now you’ve gotten yourself kidnapped by Whitebeard? How many times do I have to tell you that no grandson of mine will-”
“Grandson?” Marco said after hearing what Garp had just called Ace. There was no way, right?
“Did we- Did we hear him right?” Thatch said next to Marco as Garp and Ace were continuing to yell back and forth to each other. “In all the papers I’ve seen about him, they never mention him being related to Garp.”
“Well, they obviously know each other,” Marco said as he watched their newest member, who seemed to have no real fear of the vice admiral aboard their ship. “Know each other pretty well.”
Across the deck, a booming laugh sounded out, drawing everyone’s attention to the large pirate captain.
“Gwa ha ha, long time no see, Garp!” Whitebeard said, his voice echoing around. “Now, how do you two know each other?”
Garp turned to face the pirate Captain, looking no less mollified even if he had been able to see that his grandson was unharmed. “Do we know each other?” Garp asked. “Oh! We do more than just know each other! Now how long are you going to hold my grandson hostage here?!”
“He really is the kid’s grandfather,” Thatch said to Marco, both men in disbelief.
Whitebeard chuckled as he made eye contact with Ace.
Ah shit, Garp was going to flip his shit in approximately thirty seconds.
“I- I joined Whitebeard’s crew, Gramps,” Ace said.
Garp was silent for a long moment as he turned to Ace. Ace saw the moment when Garp fully processed what he just said.
“What do you mean, you joined Whitebeard?!” Garp then turned back to Ace and yelled out, louder than he had at any point previously.
Oh yeah, that was right, Garp still had no idea about that little, or well… major, detail. Ace had only decided to join Whitebeard and take his mark barely a week ago, he hadn’t even gotten the tattoo of the Jolly Roger yet.
The news certainly hadn’t had time for word to have gotten around to the Marines or Garp yet.
Ace couldn’t imagine how much angrier Garp would have been when he arrived if it had.
Ace looked down at the wood flooring of the deck, making sure to not have any sort of eye contact with his grandfather as he mumbled out, “I was going to tell you… eventually.”
Garp gave Ace another punch to his head. “No you weren’t!”
🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥
Eventually, after another hour or so of Ace and Garp yelling between each other and Garp making more unfounded threats of forcing Ace to join the Marines, Garp had finally decided to leave.
At least for now, Marco highly suspected that now that it was known Ace was Garp's grandson, they would be seeing the Marine a lot more often.
From the looks of the other Marines on the Navy ship, they seemed to be just as happy for this to have not wound up in a brawl between the two crews as the Whitebeards were.
Ace had thought, now that everything had been said and done, he could
“Wait a minute here,” Thatch said as he nearly slammed his hands down on the table from the opposite side of Ace. “Garp- The ‘Hero of the Marines’ Garp is your grandfather?” he asked, his voice sounding like he didn't quite believe Ace. Well, he didn’t believe Ace at all.
Ace nodded around a mouth full of food. “Umph, yep. He is.”
Thatch could only blink in shocked silence. After a moment he shook his head. “But, but how did you end up here? As a pirate of all things with that man as your grandfather?!”
Ace gave him a shrug as he picked up another chicken leg. “You saw his way of showing me love,” Ace said around another bite of chicken. “It didn’t help that he dropped me off to be raised by bandits.”
If it had been possible for what the other whitebeard pirates were hearing to be any more unbelievable, that part had.
“That was showing you love, yoi?” Marco asked. No wonder half of the stuff he heard from Ace’s mouth in the last couple months confused him if that’s the way he was raised.
“Raised by bandits?” Haruta asked, leaning over Thatch’s shoulder to look down at Ace as well. “Why would Garp leave you with people like that?”
Ace gave them all another shrug of his shoulders as he moved onto another chicken leg. “I don’t know, I think they owed him a favor for not arresting them or something. No one ever told me.”
“That makes no sense, yoi,” Marco said.
“It doesn’t?” Ace asked, cocking his head to the side in confusion. That explanation he had come up with one day when he was fourteen had explained things for him for years. How did it not make sense?
Thatch studied Ace for a long moment. “So do you have any other weird family members you haven’t told us about yet?” he asked.
Ace chewed on the chunk of meat for a few seconds longer than he normally did. It was just last week that he had accepted Whitebeard’s offer, it was just last week that he had told the old pirate that he was Gol D. Roger’s son. He hadn’t told anyone else yet, and right now, he still didn’t want to.
Ace swallowed the food in his mouth before whipping his face off. “Just a younger brother,” he said.
Thatch’s eyes widened. “A younger brother?” he asked.
Ace nodded. “Yeah, his name’s Luffy.”
“Luffy?” Thatch repeated the name. He gave Ace a smile. “So, tell me more about this Luffy.”
Ace actually set the meat he was holding down on his plate for a second as he looked up at Thatch. Ace hummed for a moment before saying, “Well, he can be kind of an idiot. But he's a good idiot.”
Thatch hadn’t really been expecting that answer. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“So, there was this one time that he thought it would be a good idea to fight the kind Ape,” Ace started to recount.
As he was watching Ace go off, Marco didn’t miss the way that Ace’s eyes seemed to light up once he started talking about this Luffy. It wasn’t uncommon for Ace to get into it when he was talking about something that interested him. But this was different.
Ace continued, seeming to now be filling them in on some story of this little brother of his almost getting eaten by a tiger and Ace having to save him.
And then Ace mentioned Luffy’s appetite.
“He eats more than you do?!” Thatch said, a sudden feeling of dread over taking him. He couldn’t imagine someone eating more than Ace could.
“Oh yeah,” Ace said. “Between me and him, we could finish three tigers and a swordfish, and still not even be half full. But the bandits always insisted we save some for them, so…”
The more Ace kept talking about his younger brother, the more and more people kept gathering around the table, leaning over and asking questions.
Eventually Thatch asked, “Any chance he’ll want to join us like you did?”
Ace didn’t even consider the question for a second, letting out a laugh as soon as Thatch had finished talking. “Luffy joining another crew, that’s hilarious,” Ace said as he continued to chuckle. “For one thing he doesn’t listen to any orders, even his own. And he wouldn’t want any other position besides Captain.”
Thatch hummed at hearing that. “Really?” he asked.
Ace nodded as he spoke through a mouthful of meat. “Yeah, he wants to be the next King of the Pirates.”