Chapter Text
There was a child in the infirmary.
Marco blinked slowly and wondered if Thatch had been right for once about putting off the paperwork and getting some sleep.
Because there was a child in the infirmary. And there couldn’t be a child in the infirmary. They didn’t have any kids on the damn ship. Hadn’t since Oden’s Momonosuke. Any kids they rescued out at sea, they took to one of their territories and found a safe harbor for them. It wasn’t exactly a bright idea to have a brat out and about in the New World’s general craziness.
(Even if he’d been twelve himself when Pops adopted him – somewhat against his will, but technically, there had definitely been some extenuating circumstances.)
He rubbed his tired eyes with a small sigh, then let his hands fall.
Nope. Still there.
Draped across their resident troublemaker who, despite only being on board for not quite two weeks, had already tried to kill Pops twenty times. Even with the injuries he’d taken fighting first Jinbei and then Pops back at the island.
Which was why he was quickly becoming a permanent resident down here in the infirmary.
The kid though… that was new.
Marco squinted. The brat was passed out across his bandaged patient, doing a pretty impressive impersonation of an octopus, even with his monstrous snoring. His face was half buried into the firecracker’s chest, leaving just a peek of an old scar beneath his eye.
A knife wound? wondered the doctor part of his brain, the part he could never quite turn off.
It took him another moment to realize he wasn’t the only one staring.
The body beneath the strange kid was tense, drawn tight, like its owner was waiting for a fight. (No, an attack.)
Marco’s eyes slid up to meet glaring silver. He wasn’t getting the firecracker’s usual rage off him, though. Maybe an imitation of it, sure, but that right there was fear. The only other time he’d seen even a glimpse of fear from the young captain was when his crew had tried to intervene against Pops – right before Ace threw up a wall of fire to separate them.
But this was a hell of a lot more primal than that.
Marco nodded toward the kid. “Guessing this one’s yours, yoi?”
The question, of course, was how.
They’d decided to split the Spade pirates across three ships until everyone was settled in. Only three had stayed on the Moby Dick. Ace was a given; Pops knew he’d be the hardest to crack but worth it in the end. Keeping his masked first mate close had made sense, too. Better to keep the leadership together than let one of them spearhead a dumbass rescue attempt. (Besides, the first mate seemed like the most reasonable one out of the bunch. He might actually realize they were offering them a real chance here.) Then they’d divided up the rest and kept the purple-haired claw fighter aboard as well.
Even if there had been a kid among the Spades they’d somehow missed, how would he have made it onto the Moby Dick? He couldn’t have come aboard with any of the three here.
“He’s none of your concern.” Despite the growl in his voice, Ace kept it quiet. Marco was mildly impressed; he was clearly trying not to wake the boy.
Marco raised an eyebrow. “There’s a kid here who wasn’t here before. Pretty sure that makes him my concern, yoi. Unless he just poofed into existence in the last twenty four hours.”
Ace’s arm tightened around the small body. “Maybe he did. Weirder things have happened on the Grand Line.”
“Not this close to Paradise.” Marco grabbed a chair from against the wall, slid it closer to the bed, and sat down. If there was anything he’d learned these last two weeks, it was that you had to approach Ace like a particularly finicky stray cat. And that meant with a large dose of patience and making yourself look as nonthreatening as possible. Otherwise, he’d go straight for the jugular.
Literally.
“So, want to explain our little guest here?”
The look on the younger man’s face pretty clearly said no, but there was also a resignation in it too. He wasn’t exactly in the best condition for a fight. Not that it had stopped him so far, but Marco had a feeling the addition of precious cargo might make Ace at least hesitate.
Finally, Ace huffed before jutting up his chin, his rebellious attitude back in full effect. Or was that a mask? Marco wondered now. “He’s been here the whole time. It’s not my fault you all suck at paying attention to your prisoners.”
Prisoners. Thick-headed dumbasses. Marco was surrounded by them. (And maybe he’d been one of them for letting this go on for so long.)
There had been a kid hidden aboard the Moby Dick that nobody had known to look out for. Masked Deuce and the claw fighter had, presumably, spent two weeks keeping him fed without letting him be seen.
Skimping on their own food. Too wary despite the situation being explained to them. Despite their alternative being a hell of a lot more dangerous if they’d encountered a sea king or a band of idiot rookies looking to test themselves against an emperor.
Whatever assurances Marco had thought they’d offered the Spades, that clearly wasn’t how the Spades were living it, if they were willing to risk this much. They wouldn’t have lasted this long, gotten this far, if they were a bunch of idiots.
(Marco still didn’t like the word prisoners. That wasn’t what Pops intended. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t see why Ace might use it.)
“One, none of you are prisoners,” Marco reminded him calmly, “and two, there wasn’t a kid with you on the island, yoi.”
Ace scrunched his nose, looking at Marco like he was an idiot. “You think any of us would let enemy pirates see him?”
Point taken. Not that it really answered anything.
“Smart. But how?”
At that, Ace glanced down at the boy. Not his son – Marco was sure of that much. Portgas D. Ace was young, twenty at most. A brother, maybe?
Silence stretched between them, and Marco didn’t feel the need to fill it. Once again, stray cat. Sure, he was exhausted and hadn’t slept in, oh, thirty hours, which made patience slightly harder to come by, but their newest recruit was finally in a position to sit and talk without fighting, and Marco wasn’t about to risk it.
So he waited, his eyes moving between Ace and the boy.
Finally, Ace muttered, “Cornelia’s devil fruit. She can hide things in plain sight if no one’s looking hard enough.”
Marco wondered at the wording. Some kind of camouflage then? – a sort of incomplete invisibility? Still, he’d have thought someone would have noticed the boy at some point over the last two weeks.
None of them were greenhorns here. Someone should have noticed. Marco should have noticed.
He thought back over his very few interactions with the other two Spades aboard the Moby Dick, but nothing stood out. They’d been understandably standoffish, keeping to themselves. Given how they’d ended up here, he hadn’t thought much of it.
But maybe there was another reason they’d spent so much time in their shared room. A four foot tall reason.
“So he really has been here the whole time, huh?”
“Told you.” Ace’s fingers slid through the boy’s short, dark hair. Marco wasn’t sure Ace even realized he was doing it. Something about the action made it seem habit rather than intentional.
This was a mess. Marco exhaled slowly and leaned back in his chair. “You brought a kid with you to attack Whitebeard.”
Ace bristled. “No. I left him on our ship with two of my crew guarding him. I didn’t bring him to the fucking battle.” He paused. “Pretty sure he could handle at least a few of your guys, though.”
There was the faintest hint of pride in his voice. He genuinely thought this kid could hold his own against hardened New World vets.
Marco wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.
Of course, that was when the kid woke up.
He snapped upright, disoriented, his head swivelling. “Wha–huh?” He yawned widely, then froze when his eyes landed on Marco.
In a flurry of motion, he leapt off Ace. Ace grunted in pain and reached for him. “Luffy, wait–”
Too late. Luffy planted himself between the Spades captain and Marco, fists raised as he dropped into a fighting stance.
“Back away or I’ll beat you up,” the boy ordered. There was a fierce, protective glint in his eyes, in the downward curve of his mouth. He couldn’t even be ten by the looks of him. “My punch is like a pistol!”
Marco raised his hands, still in his chair. “I’m just sitting here.”
That seemed to take the wind out of the boy’s sails, amusingly enough. He blinked at Marco, fists still raised, and frowned.
“Huh.”
Marco’s lips twitched. Then Luffy tilted his head, and Marco’s amused smile faded a little. Because the kid looked him over with an unnerving sort of focus. Not at his hands, or the door, or any of the things someone watching for a fight ought to notice. Just him. For a moment, Marco had the strange feeling that Luffy could see straight through him.
Old eyes, somehow. Eyes that had seen too much. And still unmistakably a child’s, open and trusting in ways Marco couldn’t quite make sense of. Marco had spent most of his forty years at sea, much of that in the New World. He’d stared down pirates who could level islands.
And yet, somehow, this big-eyed little kid was making him uneasy.
Whatever Luffy found, it seemed to satisfy him. His fists dropped, and he rocked back on his heels.
Ace, on the other hand, lurched out of bed with a stifled groan and snagged Luffy by the back of his shirt. He hauled him up and gave him a sharp shake. “You little moron! You don’t put yourself between me and a threat. Did you forget that?”
Luffy whined. “But Ace–” He squirmed, kicking his legs out as he tried (and failed) to get away.
“Don’t but me,” Ace retorted. “I have the situation handled.”
“But–”
“No buts!”
“...you said butts.” Luffy snickered, covering his sudden grin with both hands.
Marco stared at him at that, dumbfounded.
Ace let out a heavy, aggrieved sigh and dragged his free hand down his face. “You’re lucky it was Marco who caught you and not someone else. You shouldn’t even be out of the room.”
Marco wasn’t sure what he’d done to earn even that meager bit of trust. Part of him was relieved Ace didn’t think he’d hurt the kid; another part was disappointed Ace couldn’t say the same for the rest of the crew. Then again, Thatch was about the only other person aboard Ace had said more than two words to so far.
Unless the string of curses he’d spew at anyone getting between him and Pops counted. Thatch would probably say they did. Marco wasn’t as convinced.
Luffy crossed his arms and turned his head away, pouting. Ace still had him dangling by the back of his shirt. “I haven’t seen you in days. Had to make sure you were okay. Needed to see you were still here.”
Ace went still. For a moment, he looked like he wanted to stay angry, but his brows drew together and his grip on Luffy’s shirt eased. “Lu…”
“We look out for each other,” Luffy said stubbornly. “That’s what you said. So you can’t yell at me, okay? Or I’mma mutiny. Could too. Blue Doc and Punch-Punch will back me up.”
Ace sighed. “I did say that, yeah.” The way he ignored the threat of mutiny told Marco all he needed to know about how often that threat came around. From his own experiences as a first mate, Marco would guess at least half of the threats came from Masked Deuce. Ace’s wary gaze flicked back to Marco. “... Any chance you can keep this quiet?” Marco raised an eyebrow. Ace looked away. “Yeah, thought not.”
Ace’s defeated expression had Marco grimacing. The look didn’t fit the short-tempered, brash brat he’d grown sorta fond of amidst his disastrous attempts at taking out Pops. Asshole didn’t know how to give up. The fact that Ace looked so resigned now said plenty about what kind of leash the smaller one could be for him.
Marco hated the thought as soon as he had it. Luffy wasn’t a leash. He was a kid who’d come looking for his brother. But Marco had seen the way Ace’s fight drained out of him the moment Luffy might be at risk, and he couldn’t unsee it.
It left him feeling sick enough to change the subject.
He looked from Ace to the kid still dangling from his fist. “Put him down before you tear your stitches, yoi. Again.”
Ace glanced at his bandaged side, then set Luffy on his feet. Luffy immediately pressed against his leg, which earned him another wince, though Ace’s hand still settled on top of the kid’s head, lightly ruffling his hair before remaining as a source of comfort.
“I’m fine.”
“You say that every time. Hasn’t made it true yet.”
Luffy tipped his head back to study Ace, eyes bright with concern. “You’re hurt?” As if the bandages could’ve been an aesthetic choice.
As if he hadn’t found his brother in the infirmary of all places.
Ace glared at Marco even as he kept his voice light and easy. “Nope. Tip top shape.”
Luffy puffed out his cheeks. “You made the hurt noise.”
“I make lots of noises,” Ace said blithely. The hand slid back to grasp onto a straw hat Marco hadn’t noticed before, hanging down Luffy’s back by a string. Just as quickly, the too large hat was shoved down over the kid’s eyes. “Now be quiet. The adults are talking.”
“ACE!”
Marco snorted. “He’ll be alright if he stays in bed long enough to heal, yoi.”
The boy managed to shove his hat back up into place before giving him a firm look, chest pushed out. Marco’s eyes lingered on the straw hat for a moment. He couldn’t place where he’d seen it before. Luffy narrowed his eyes. “You sure?”
“Pretty sure. I’m a doctor.”
“Oh.” Luffy considered this, head tilting. Then he twisted to point an accusing finger at Ace. “Then you gotta listen to him. That’s what ‘Kino always says.”
Ace looked personally betrayed.
Marco bit back a smile. “See? Sensible kid.”
“He tried to punch you thirty seconds ago.”
“I said sensible, not predictable, yoi.”
Luffy grinned at that, wide and sudden.
Then his stomach growled loudly enough to fill the pause that followed. Ace’s expression shifted at once. Marco wasn’t surprised. Sounded like some beast from the New World, not a kid’s stomach.
“You eat today?” Ace asked.
Luffy seemed to think about it. Marco didn’t know what all there was to think about, but he didn’t rush the kid. Did feel like tossing him overboard a little when all that thinking led to a simple, “Yeah.”
“How much?” Ace sounded far more patient than Marco would’ve thought him capable of. Like he was used to this song and dance – which he obviously was if the kid came in with him.
“Blue Doc gave me some breakfast. Not a ton of meat because he’s dumb. Wants me to be a rabbit.” Luffy huffed. Blue Doc? That nickname again. Marco glanced at Ace. Deuce, presumably. Apparently the masked first mate had been doing more than keeping to his room. “But I got hungry again, and he said to wait until lunch ‘cause he couldn’t sneak more until then, and then I came here.”
Marco admittedly had no idea how long ago lunch had been. Judging by the way Ace’s expression soured at a glance towards the clock, he was guessing it’d been a while.
Luffy bounced on his feet once. Then grabbed Ace’s hands, trying to make him bounce with him, forgetting already about his brother’s injuries. “Oh! Let’s get meat!” His head tipped far back, almost unnaturally so, as something caught his attention on the ceiling. “A vent! It’s gotta go through the whole ship – kitchen too! Meat, meat, meat~”
Granted, it wasn’t a guarantee this kid was a D like Ace, pretty much everyone on this ship lived by the stance that blood had nothing to do with family, but the boy’s wide grin was a little too familiar to those used to D antics.
That look always spelled trouble.
Better to get ahead of it while he could.
Marco rubbed the back of his neck with a tired sigh. “I can get him something, yoi.”
Ace’s arm moved around Luffy’s shoulders, though his weighty gaze was focused entirely on the first commander. “That all you’re doing?”
“No.” Marco met his eyes. “Pops needs to know there’s a kid aboard. So did I. So does Tate. Or really any of us responsible for treating anyone who gets hurt on this ship. Doesn’t matter how long or short you think your stay here’s gonna be, yoi.”
Ace’s jaw tightened.
“But I can speak to him myself,” Marco continued. “We don’t need to announce it over dinner.” Yet. They both knew there was a time limit on that. “I’ll tell him there’s a kid here. I won’t tell him where you hide Luffy on the ship as long as you keep me updated in case something happens.” His eyes flicked to Luffy for a brief second before meeting Ace’s, his own expression harder, more serious now as he continued: “We’re in the New World. Shit is going to happen, yoi. Better to make sure someone can get to him in time when it does.” He let the words linger, made sure Ace understood how serious the issue was.
“...and that’s that?”
Marco nodded solemnly and repeated, “Luffy stays as hidden as he lets himself be,” which wouldn’t last long anyway, “and I won’t let Pops drag you both up on deck for an introduction.”
Ace scoffed. “You expect me to believe that?”
“No,” Marco said. Ace blinked. “I expect you to watch what I do. Who I talk to. It’s what I’d do in your place.”
Ace watched him for a long moment. “And Deuce?”
“What about him?” Marco might know what the actual question was, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to force Ace to articulate it.
Ace glanced back down at the squirming boy against his side. “He’ll be looking for Lu. Might bash some heads in if he can’t find him.” There was absolute trust there in his first mate’s willingness to launch a lopsided battle just for Luffy. That kind of loyalty between the Spades was exactly what’d drawn Pops to them.
“I figured.” Marco glanced at the door. “You want to tell him your kid brother is sticking with you or should I?”
Ace’s brows drew together, as though he’d expected Marco to make that decision for him. “I’ll tell him.”
“Alright. I’ll get the food then and send him your way.” Marco hadn’t expected any thanks, but Ace’s grip loosening a fraction on Luffy’s shoulder was thanks enough.
And that right there was what mattered. If they’d known there was a kid with the bunch, they could’ve approached the last two weeks differently. The Spades – Ace – needed space to see they could trust them. Needed different reassurances than if a kid hadn’t been mixed up in this mess.
For a moment, Ace said nothing. Luffy looked between them, following enough of the conversation to frown but apparently not enough to keep quiet.
“Is Pops the giant banana man Ace keeps trying to fight?”
Whitebeard. The Strongest Man Alive.
Giant banana man.
Marco's lips twitched as Ace covered his face with one hand.
“Manners, Lu.”
Really?
The boy seemed to think about it. “Is Pops the Mr. Giant Banana Man Ace keeps trying to fight?”
“...close enough.” With the way Ace kept going after Pops, Marco didn’t think the teenager knew how to pick his battles. Small miracles, huh?
Luffy beamed.
The Moby Dick wasn’t going to survive this kid. Marco found himself grinning. “Yeah, that’s him.”
“He’s really big.”
“He is.”
Luffy nodded, as if that settled something. “I’m gonna fight him someday.”
“No.”
Oh great. “There’s two of you.” A pause. “Kinda hypocritical to tell him no, yoi.”
“Don’t encourage him!” Ace snapped.
Marco’s grin widened. “Pops would get a kick out of it.” And really, that’s what mattered, right? That and the kid would have fun.
It was also fun to see the firecracker playing at responsibility here.
Ace’s eyes narrowed. “He’s nine. He needs to start at, like, commander level first. Not go straight for an emperor.”
… strike that about responsibility.
Luffy looked offended and pushed away from his brother’s side; this time, Ace was prepared enough to hide any pained reaction. “Nuh uh! I’ll make Mr. Giant Banana Man cry.”
Before Ace could respond, Marco cut in. “After you’ve eaten,” he said, standing up, “you can tell me all about your plan to take on Pops. Until then, you’ve got a very important job.” Because Marco now had a checklist to complete before he could even think about grabbing some shuteye.
“I’m a pirate. I don’t take orders,” the boy countered immediately, crossing his arms. “Duh.”
“You do when you’re not the captain,” Marco said dryly. The boy opened his mouth, so Marco quickly continued, “or when you’re guests on a ship, yoi. It’s good manners,” a sly, teasing glance at Ace, “to listen, at least a little bit, when you’re someone’s guest.”
The boy frowned at that. “Oh.” He glanced sideways at Ace, who looked a little like it was painful not to correct Marco, not when Luffy listening kept him safer while they were here. “I guess that makes sense…”
“Now, do you want to hear about your job?”
Luffy considered it. “Okay.”
“Good.” Marco headed for the door, then looked back. His lips tugged upward into a faint smirk. “Keep Ace in bed. You’re in charge of him.”
Luffy straightened at once. “I can do that!”
Ace stared at Marco. “You can’t be serious.”
“Doctor’s orders, yoi.”
“I wasn’t going anywhere.” Ace took a step toward Marco despite his words. The movement pulled at his stitches; Marco saw it in the sudden hitch of his breath, though Ace managed to keep his face straight. Luffy saw it too.
“Bed,” Luffy ordered, pointing with his newly bestowed authority.
Ace looked down at him, affronted. “You snivelling brat. I don’t have to listen to you.”
“I’m in charge.”
Marco had given Thatch that same aggrieved look often enough that it was deeply satisfying to be on the other side of it for once. “You absolutely are.”
Ace muttered something unkind about Marco’s parentage, not that he blinked an eye about any of it. Most of it was probably true. Still, Luffy’s stern little face did exactly as Marco intended. He closed the door behind him just as Ace reluctantly sat back down.