Flames. Blood. Pain. Portgas D. Ace died on the battlefield, saving the life of his younger brother. It was preferable to being executed, he supposed, though he couldn't speak for his comfort. Blocking a magma fist with his body was the most painful thing Ace had ever done. He was made of fire, yet he could still feel the heat, burning a dripping hole in his chest. In front of him, Luffy's eyes were filled with fear and confusion. They morphed slowly to mirror the pain both brothers felt as Ace struggled to voice his last words. Yes, Portgas D. Ace died on the battlefield.

He was six months old when he remembered.

-xXx-

A scream filled the nursery. Or at least, Ace thought it was a nursery. He couldn't see well enough in the dark to tell. But what he was lying in sure looked like a crib, and a baby's mobile dangled above his head, so he would assume this was a nursery.

Chubby fists waved uselessly in the air as Ace tried to figure out what was going on. He remembered dying as if it had just happened, or as if he'd just woken from a dream of it. His body didn't feel like his own, nor would it respond to any but his most broad and clumsy of whims. Even attempting to sit up merely resulted in him flopping back against his blanket.

A door opened, allowing a beam of light to enter. Along with the light came a man. He seemed huge, ten or more times Ace's size. The confused pirate found himself picked up gently and held against a broad chest. He screamed again; it seemed the only thing he was capable of doing.

"There, there." The man's voice was awkward, as if he'd never tried to comfort anyone before. Shaggy black and grey hair waved in and out of reach as the man rocked Ace back and forth. "It's okay little one, you're safe. Grandpa's here."

Well, that made Ace shut up. The only person to ever refer to himself as Ace's grandfather was crazy old Garp, who this was certainly not. There was something familiar about that voice though. Ace looked closer at the face above him. It was blockish and rather harsh, with narrow eyes and prickly stubble. A series of geometric tattoos crept up the man's left. Ace was sure he'd seen this man before, but he couldn't remember where.

The man sighed, obviously pleased that Ace had stopped screaming. He continued to hold the confused little pirate though, still rocking as he started to speak. "Honestly, I don't know what your father was thinking, leaving you with me. He knows from experience I'm not the nurturing type. And even if I was, a Revolutionary base is no place for a baby."

Ace grumbled and, lacking motor skills for anything finer, smacked his hands together before waving them around. Unlike his body, his mind was moving a mile a minute. He wasn't known for being the smartest of pirates, but nor was he the dumbest. It didn't take him long to figure out what was going on.

He'd been reincarnated. He was a bloody baby.

The man who was holding him put Ace back down in the crib with a wry smile. "I suppose a pirate ship would be an even worse place for you though. Well, little Ace, it looks like we'll have to make the best of this. Now go to sleep, okay?"

Well, Ace thought, at least my name's the same.

-xXx-

No one ever bothered to tell Ace who his father was, who'd apparently left him for the Revolutionaries to look after. Then again, as far as they knew, Ace was a baby and couldn't understand them. So all he knew about his family was that his father was a pirate (Again!) and his grandfather was a tattooed old man. He never even got to hear his primary caretaker's name, due to how often he seemed to spend sleeping. Either babies slept more than Ace had always though, or his new body had narcolepsy just like his old.

Ace worked hard as the months passed to regain mobility. He sat, wiggled, crawled, and walked at earlier ages than he probably should have, often through sheer force of will. This seemed to amuse Grandpa to no end. It became even more amusing to the old man when Ace managed to toddle into a meeting of Revolutionary officers, only to run screaming from the attentions of what at first appeared to be a giant face. Hiding behind his grandfather's leg, Ace soon recognized the okama who'd been with Luffy at Marineford. This did not make the giant face any less scary.

He took more time with words. Ace wanted to shock the old man with his "first" word, purely for his own amusement. He had nothing against this grandfather, at least not yet. The man was as awkwardly doting as Garp had been violent.

It took several weeks of practicing when he was alone to get his pronunciation right. Like his limbs, his childish tongue and vocal chords just didn't want to cooperate at first. But eventually Ace got the muscles under control, not just for his chosen word, but enough to actually talk a little.

He waited for the right time to speak. It had to be done when it would have the maximum impact; in other words, early in the morning, when Grandpa had just had his coffee. The old man would be awake enough to understand, but still groggy enough to react. Grandpa had an annoying habit of being on guard at all other times. Speaking in the afternoon would yield merely a proud smirk, even if Ace started singing opera.

So breakfast time it was. Ace swallowed a mouthful of applesauce, pondering how to keep the spoon Grandpa was holding out of his mouth long enough to speak. Eventually he settled for flailing wildly, hitting the spoon so it flew into the air, spattering the ceiling with applesauce. Grandpa chuckled.

"You're a strong brat Ace, just like your father."

Ace grinned as Grandpa retrieved the spoon and cleaned it off. Taking a deep breath, the tiny pirate shouted as loud as he could. "Landlubber!"

Grandpa froze and looked at Ace, nearly dropping the spoon again. "What was that?"

"Landlubber!"

"Well, that's odd. Where'd you even hear that one? I'd have thought your first word would be 'revolution,' what with all the times you've followed me to meetings."

That was... not what he expected. Ace frowned and crossed his arms. "Really Gramps? I pick the most random word I know and you still don't react?"

Clatter. There went the spoon.

"Um, Ace?" The tiny pirate saw his grandfather pale. "How long have you been able to talk, exactly?"

"This long!" Ace stretched his hands as far apart as he could reach.

Okay, maybe he'd taken it a little too far. Watching Grandpa faint wasn't fun at all. And aside from screaming for help, Ace could do nothing. Not only was he too little, he was trapped in his highchair anyway.

He really hoped Grandpa hadn't been hurt as he fell.

-xXx-

Ace's father never seemed to visit- not even for his son's first birthday. The tiny pirate was starting to resent the man, just as he had his first biological parent. Not that it was particularly easy to resent someone when you didn't know their name or face, but it was the thought that counted. And Ace couldn't wait to sail the high seas again, if only to track the man down. One life of absentee pirate parents was bad enough, thank you very much.

A few days after Ace's first birthday, a strange man came to the base to speak with Grandpa. This man was much younger, blond and scarred and well-dressed. Like Grandpa, he gave off a sense of familiarity. Ace was sure he'd seen both of them in his last life. Now that he thought about it, too many years couldn't have passed since he died. After all, Ivankov looked the same as ever.

The tiny pirate ran up to his grandfather and waved his arms, interrupting the men's conversation. It couldn't have been that important though, since Grandpa smiled and picked Ace up instead of scolding him. Ace looked closely at the strange blond man. Chuckling, Grandpa introduced him.

"Ace, this is your uncle, Sabo. He's been on an undercover mission in the North Blue for the last year. Sabo, this is your brother's little boy, Ace."

Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no. Ace looked closer at the wavy blond hair and blue eyes. They looked right- but that was impossible! Forgetting himself (not that he cared), Ace pointed an accusing finger at his "uncle."

"Not possible! You're dead!"

Both Sabo and Grandpa looked at Ace like he was crazy. Sabo waved his hands vaguely. "Um, no, I'm not."

"Yes you are!" Ace couldn't feel his grandfather's arms anymore. Instead, he felt ropes and tree bark and angry grief. Feelings he'd long since gotten over for Luffy's sake came back full force, overwhelming him. "A Tenryuubito sunk your boat! Dogra saw it!"

"A Ten- No. Well, yes, they shot me, but Dragon saved me from the wreckage. But how could you know any of that? And how do you know Dogra?" Sabo looked to Grandpa in confusion.

The old man shook his head. "I never told him."

Both adults looked at Ace with strange expressions. The tiny pirate wanted to run away, wanted to hide and scream and punch something. But Grandpa's hold on him was too strong. He settled instead for burying his face in Grandpa's shoulder, scream muffled by a green cloak.

"Ace." Sabo's voice was gentle. But at the same time it hurt, because he could tell now, it was definitely his Sabo, which was confusing and wrong, no matter how happy it should have made him. "Ace, I'm going to ask you a few questions, and I need you to answer truthfully, okay?"

"O-okay." Ace removed his face from Grandpa's shoulder.

"When's your birthday?"

"January 1st." The same in both lives. Ace didn't mind too much.

"What have you always wanted to be when you grow up?"

"Pirate."

"Who rules the bandits of Mt. Corvo?"

"Dadan."

"Does the name Luffy mean anything to you?"

"Little brother." Ace couldn't stop the fond smile from crossing his face. "Crybaby. Rubber. Reckless idiot. Straw hat. Pirate King."

Sabo snatched Ace out of Grandpa's arms and swung him around before hugging him tight. "Ace! How-? This shouldn't be possible!"

Grandpa looked thoughtful. "It would explain why his language skills are so advanced."

"Just woke up one day and remembered." Ace could feel his face turning red. "So- this is real? Sabo's not dead?"

"No, I'm not dead."

Ace nodded. "And how's Luffy? Last time I saw him was- not so good."

"Lu's fine. He and his crew make almost as much trouble for the Wold Government as we Revolutionaries do; it's beautiful." Then realization hit Sabo like a ton of bricks. It was funny to watch, and would've been funnier still if Ace knew what Sabo was realizing. "Wait... Dragon-sama, you said Ace was my brother's little boy. You mean-?"

Grandpa started to smirk as the realization hit Ace too. Oh no, this couldn't be happening. He was reborn as-

"Yes. Sabo, meet your nephew, Monkey D. Ace."

"Gyaaa!" Ace screamed and clutched his head, emotions warring inside him. "You mean my bastard absentee father who dumped me in a Revolutionary base is my adorable baby brother? How messed up can this get?"

"Pretty messed up," Sabo agreed with a chuckle, "Especially since this is your second time being the son of the Pirate King."

"What?!"

-xXx-

It took years for Ace to wheedle the whole story out of various Revolutionaries. The story was a strange one- somehow, just what he'd expect from his little-brother-cum-father. Apparently Ivankov and Luffy had gotten into a drunken fight at some point that ended with the rubber man becoming a rubber woman for a year. Thanks to Luffy's refusal to put his relationship with his first mate on hold (and the fact that neither Luffy nor Zoro bothered with condoms, ever), Ace had been conceived.

The two knuckleheads were just smart enough to know that neither of them knew anything about taking care of a baby, and that a pirate ship was no place for an infant. So they'd decided to leave Ace with Dragon until he was older. Honestly, it sounded rather like what Dragon himself had done, leaving Luffy with Garp so he wouldn't be in danger as a child of the Revolution. At least Dragon was slightly more sane than the Fist of Love.

According to Sabo, the plan was for Luffy's crew to take Ace with them starting when he was seven. They would train him, and when he was seventeen, he would be free to either join Luffy's crew or set out to start a crew of his own. Ace had shrugged at the news. He wasn't sure if the Straw Hats would be considered better or worse guardians than a bunch of mountain bandits.

So Ace trained. The Revolutionaries already thought he was a weird kid, so his antics teaching this body to wield a staff (pipe) barely made them shrug. He was able to convince Sabo to spar with him right away, but no others. And sparring with Sabo was frustrating. Ace remembered being evenly matched with his brother in his first life. Now, Sabo was an adult with more than twenty years of fighting experience while Ace was tiny and clumsy. He could feel Sabo holding back, yet Ace still couldn't keep up.

He would've loved to blame Luffy for that. Stupid brother-father; it was bad enough Ace didn't have his freckles in this life, Luffy had to pass on his short, weak, crybaby genes too? Except Ace knew Luffy wasn't weak anymore. He'd seen him- been proud of him- at Marineford.

And, of course, there was no chance of getting his powers back in this life. Not unless he wanted to kill his brother-uncle. Ace couldn't decide whether to laugh or punch Sabo when the elder had revealed the fate of the Mera Mera no Mi. So Ace was stuck fruitless, because he sure as Hell wasn't going to pick another unless it was really good. He'd like his fire powers.

-xXx-

On his seventh birthday, Ace woke at the crack of dawn to see a colourful ship floating gracefully towards the base. Its lion-flower figurehead seemed to wish him a happy birthday. That was all it took for Ace to know. He dressed as quickly as he could and raced down to the docks. Sabo was already there, waiting to help bring the ship in.

Ace wasn't sure how he felt about this. Should he be angry at Luffy for leaving him here? Pleased his little brother had developed some semblance of common sense? Should he treat Luffy like a father? Should he tell the rubber-brained idiot about his memories?

Sabo must've seen the questions in Ace's eyes. The blond smiled and ruffled the tiny pirate's hair. "You should tell him. After that, just be yourself. This is Luffy we're talking about, after all. Stranger things have happened to him."

Ace frowned. "But what if-?" He couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence. Luckily Sabo didn't need him to.

"Like I said, this is Luffy. He loves you, both as his son, and as his big brother. What makes you think he won't love the combination?"

"He left me."

"He left you on dry land, where he didn't have to worry about you rolling off the ship and drowning. He left you with the Revolutionaries, the one place the World Government would be least likely to find you. He left you with his own father, and with me. Luffy was just doing what he thought was best."

There was no chance for Ace to reply. A red and gold blur rocketed off the ship to land on the dock- or rather, on Sabo- with a crash. Giggling madly, the colourful missile resolved itself into a familiar shape.

"Heya Sabo!" Luffy was just as Ace remembered him, and yet not. He was still childish, but not as much so, his eyes holding traces of grief and responsibility behind the playfulness. A slight hint of stubble graced the slightly narrowed, matured face. Ace supposed it made sense; according to the timeline he'd been given, Luffy was in his mid-thirties now. But at least that silly straw hat still adorned his head. Ace wasn't sure what he'd have done if he saw Luffy without it.

"Hey Lu. Now get off."

Giggling, Luffy stood, pulling Sabo up after him. The pair made quick work of docking the ship. Ace hung back as they did so, unsure of himself. It felt wrong, being there after he'd missed so much of Luffy's life.

The crew had disembarked (And was that a skeleton?) before Luffy noticed they weren't alone. Ace suddenly found himself scooped effortlessly into the air, flung up and caught again like a stuffed animal. Honestly, Luffy was lucky for the whole crazy reincarnation thing. A normal child would've been freaking out.

"How's my little Ace? You're getting so big!" Ace glared at everyone in the vicinity. Luffy's crew- including the swordsman who'd provided the other half of Ace's genes- chuckled. Sabo cleared his throat.

"Lu, you haven't been here since he was a baby. Introduce yourself properly."

"Right!" Luffy didn't put Ace down, but at least he stopped throwing him. "I'm your dad, Zoro's your other dad, Nami and Robin are your aunts, and Usopp, Sanji, Chopper, Franky, and Brook are your uncles."

It was a horrible introduction. Luffy was so lucky Ace already knew what was going on. The tiny pirate smirked and did his best to bow to Luffy's crew.

"Having a little brother who's a bit on the slow side makes his big brothers worry. Thanks for looking after him."

"Eh?!" The looks on the Straw Hats' faces were priceless. Ace wished he had a denden mushi to record them. He felt Luffy stiffen in confusion.

"Ne, Ace, what do you mean? Did you find a little brother?"

Ace squirmed in his brother-father's hold until he could face Luffy. He managed to get one arm free to punch at the rubber idiot, but since Ace hadn't managed to use Haki in this body yet, it did little good. "You idiot! A big brother's supposed to protect the little brother, not the other way around!" Tears welled up, and Ace couldn't keep them from falling. "Why- What possessed you to come after me? I almost lost you?"

The little pirate buried his face in Luffy's chest, his tears soaking into the old burn scar there. Luffy, for his part, was rigid with confusion. But apparently the gears in his head were more prone to turning these days, as the rubber man slowly turned to Sabo.

"Ne- Is Ace- our Ace, somehow?" Wow, that was fast. Then again, the less logical the situation, the more quickly Luffy tended to grasp it.

"Yeah. You should've seen it the first time he met me; that's when we found out. He started freaking out about Dogra seeing the Tenryuubito kill me."

A dark cast came over Luffy. "That's right, he died before you remembered." Tears dripped down on top of Ace's head. They were accompanied by a sad giggle, as Luffy pulled Ace back to get a better look.

"Shishishi, who's the crybaby now?"

"Shut up!" Ace sniffled loudly. "It's your genes doing this to me anyways! Stupid brother-father!"

Luffy pulled Ace into a tight hug, rubbing his back gently. He bulled forwards with his typical obliviousness, which Ace found far more comforting than the caresses. "So, Ace, you still wanna be a pirate?"

"Of course!" Ace dried his face on the corner of Luffy's shirt. "I'm gonna be the most notorious pirate of all! More famous than you or Roger!"

"Shishishi, good luck with that. You've gotta beat me first!"

"What are you talking about? I always beat you!"

Ace looked up at Luffy, who had a soft smile on his face. That smile was enough to make the tiny pirate deflate. But it was the words that came next that reminded him of how much things had changed.

"Not yet Ace." Luffy suddenly sounded like the adult he was. Ace was pretty sure this was still a rare occurrence. "It's gonna be a while before you're up to tackling the King of the Pirates. But that's okay, because if it's a big brother's job to protect his little brother, then it's a father's job to protect his son. So let me protect you, just for a little while, okay?"

In his mind's eye, Ace saw another figure briefly overlap Luffy's, a large figure with a massive white mustache. The tiny pirate nodded. "Yeah, okay."

-xXx-

Three months after joining the Straw Hat Crew, Ace met what was left of the Whitebeard Pirates. Marco's Yonko status did not protect him against the onslaught of pineapple jokes.

-xXx-

Ace got his first bounty at ten. Like most things any Straw Hat did, it was at least partially an accident. Ace was in denial of the fact that what Sanji called his "marimo genes" had altered his sense of direction and had wandered off. Unfortunately, it turned out that everyone was right; being related to Zoro had tilted his internal compass at a very odd angle.

Lost in a strange town, Ace had stumbled into a small marine base. Specifically, he somehow ended up in an area that was supposedly off-limits and locked at all times due to sensitive military experimentation. Ace couldn't figure out how he'd gotten there, as he'd just been looking for a washroom and hadn't passed through any locked doors.

The marines didn't believe his story and locked him up to await questioning. Apparently their commander was busy. Of course, Ace had places to be- it was almost dinner time. He had to get back to the ship, not wait for some marine commander, otherwise his bottomless pit of a brother-father would eat all the food. So Ace broke out of the base.

Breaking out of the base turned into breaking the base, which somehow turned into a massive, one-sided beatdown of the marines when Luffy and crew appeared. The Straw Hats showed the world on no uncertain terms that messing with little Ace was a very bad thing for anyone who valued their safety, sanity, and limbs.

It was Ace's first time in this life fighting alongside Luffy. Before he'd always been confined to the Sunny when a battle went down. But despite all the time that had passed, and the differences in Ace's form, the pair were in as perfect sync as they'd been at Marineford. True, Luffy had to cover for Ace more often than he would've before, but Ace didn't mind. He couldn't wait to see what it would be like if Sabo joined them.

Three days later, a bounty poster came out offering a reward of 9,000,000 beris for the live capture of "Lost Boy" Ace, son of "Straw Hat" Luffy. The tiny pirate wasn't sure whether to be grateful that Fleet Admiral Coby refused to mark children for death (no matter who their parents were), or angry about the stupid nickname.

-xXx-

By the time he was seventeen, the world had stopped seeing Ace as Luffy's child and started seeing him as his own insane, annoying idiot. This was in part due to the fact that the government had never really figured out what the relationship between the two Ds was, as it alternated between father-son, brotherly, best friends, and rivals often literally at the drop of a hat. Ace's tendency to get lost in and destroy marine bases also helped.

With a bounty of 124,000,000 beris, Ace was considered a supernova. He still had the second-lowest bounty in the Straw Hat Crew (Chopper, at 1,000 beris, was lowest). As his birthday came and went, Ace looked for any sign from Luffy about whether his father-brother wanted him to stay, or to set out on his own adventure. There was nothing. For someone who couldn't lie, Luffy had sure developed a good poker face.

Eventually, Ace was reduced to asking. His question just made Luffy laugh and ruffle his hair.

"I don't want Ace to go anywhere! You're a Straw Hat now! But Ace needs to be free to make his own choices, so as long as you're happy, I'm good. Just don't go getting caught again, ne? I don't think Coby would be happy if I smashed Impel Down again to get you out."

Ace left for the East Blue the next morning. He popped over to Dawn Island for a few days to see Makino and Dadan (both now elderly) before starting to gather a crew. Several months later, a bunch of rookies calling themselves the Spade Pirates slipped past Admiral Smoker at Loguetown and splashed their way into the Grand Line. The Spades proceeded to confuse the world by allying with the Straw Hat, Heart, Whitebeard, and Barto Club crews, except apparently on Thursdays. On Thursdays, "Lost Boy" Ace would attack "Straw Hat" Luffy, claiming that it was time to step out of his shadow and babbling nonsense about stupid brother-fathers with lame rubber powers.

Both pirates came away from such encounters laughing. They also appeared to have some sort of "100 fights per day" rule set up for the occasions. The rest of the world eventually decided that they didn't want to touch the sanity of anyone within six degrees of the Straw Hat or Spade Pirates with a ten foot pole.