Here is the continuation of "The Meaning of Family" I talked about at the end of that story. I'd like to make something clear because I'm not sure I explained it last time: this story takes place 40+ years after the first one, starting a couple months into Ace's assassin days. As such, there is no struggle INSIDE the crew about Marco being a woman, though some issues on the subject will appear in the story here and there. I'd like to address the years in-between at some point, where there were some more notorious problems, but before I do that I want to have more information on the Whitebeard Pirates' journey (because there are only so many timelines I can make up from scratch on my own).
This story is pretty self-indulgent, really, but there ARE some issues I'm addressing here, only that they are aimed more at the readers than the characters. Have I confused you enough? :) Well, let's see how this goes.
(Note that, while I have a massive amount of plot for the story, I don't promise regular updates.)
And thanks a lot to KohanaTrustMe for checking I didn't mess up horribly and dealing with my whining over this story :) (And the title, let's not forget the title)
Chapter 1
Marco crossed her arms and subjected Thatch to her most unimpressed stare, completely ignoring the tray he had just offered to her.
"Why can't you do it yourself?"
"It's safer if you do it. He can't hurt you, even if he snaps," he said, so eloquent that, given the hesitation with which he had approached her at first, Marco knew it was rehearsed.
She scoffed.
"That kid's half dead, even you could take him on now."
Surprisingly enough, Thatch didn't react to the jab at his fighting skills.
"That's the problem!" he snapped instead, slamming the tray on the kitchen table. The soup sloshed over the edge of the bowl. "The kid won't accept food, and I've tried! He sneaks into the pantry at night, but it's not good enough. He's lost a lot of weight since Pops brought him on board." Thatch threw his hands up in frustration.
Marco sighed. While she hadn't noticed any weight loss, she had realized that Ace's attempts on Pops' life lacked energy lately, but she had attributed it to exhaustion and, hopefully, Ace starting to consider the possibility of giving up. She had known Ace stole food from the pantry, the entire crew did, but it hadn't occurred to her that it might not be enough.
"What makes you think I'll be more successful? And if you say boobs…"
Thatch grinned and gave her one of his fake lewd once overs.
"Maybe if you put on shorts and more cleavage…" Marco raised a meaningful fist and he backtracked, waving both hands in surrender. "But no, it's not that. I don't really expect him to listen to you, but you're the only one who could force-feed him even if he was trying to burn you alive."
Marco blinked.
"You've got to be kidding me."
"Just look at him!" Thatch exclaimed in renewed frustration.
Unfortunately, Thatch had a point. Marco was present for Ace's next assassination attempt, and while everybody laughed and commented on the beautiful way he had flown across the deck until he ended up sprawled against an iron railing (too many wooden ones had been destroyed lately), Marco observed him.
Ace didn't jump to his feet immediately the way he would have the first two months and, while he didn't take long, it gave Marco enough time to realize that, despite his muscles, she could see his ribs.
After Ace stormed off, she sought Thatch out in the crowd and nodded.
She would try.
"You'll kill yourself at this rate."
Ace jumped up and turned around to face the speaker, falling into a fighting stance.
Marco the Phoenix stood in the doorway of the storeroom he had taken over three days ago, a tray laden with delicious-smelling food balanced on her left hand.
"I don't want your pity," Ace snapped, glaring at her. That asshole Thatch had been trying to entice him with food this whole time, and now it seemed he had thought a nicer body would do the trick.
"This isn't pity, it's just us making sure you don't kill yourself."
"I won't. Get that shit away from me."
Marco shook her head, and Ace had the impression she was calling him a few uncomplimentary things in her mind. He readied himself to attack.
"You don't want to do that," she said calmly. "Right now you have two options: you can stop being an idiot and eat this willingly, or I can knock you out, handcuff you with kairoseki, and force-feed you."
Ace scoffed.
"You've got something coming if you think I'd eat that way."
Marco smiled.
"Oh, don't worry, I'm sure I'll find something that works. I'm willing to try even mouth to mouth if that gets you to start eating."
Ace froze and stared at her, unsure if he had really heard that right. His eyes trailed involuntarily down to her cleavage because, damn, it had been months and Marco was hot, even with that weird pineapple hairstyle of hers.
Ace's stomach rumbled and he felt his face heat up.
Marco chuckled.
"So, which will it be?"
Ace made a point of glaring at her before plopping down on the floor. He was fully aware that he had about the same chances to beat her than he did Whitebeard.
With a smile that was just this side of being smug enough to make Ace say "fuck it" and attack anyway, Marco bent down to place the tray before him.
Ace's eyes slid to her cleavage again. It really had been too long.
Marco gave him a knowing smile (Ace did not blush) and sat down in front of him.
"What? You gonna make sure I eat it?"
"Yes. And next time Thatch tries to feed you, accept it or we'll have a talk."
Ace didn't think of her handcuffs threat. She hadn't meant it that way.
Fucking hormones.
Ace was now accepting Thatch's offers of food, which was good. The bad side of the incident, though saying it was annoying would be more accurate, was that now everybody had decided recurring to Marco was the best way to get past Ace's stubbornness.
"Seriously, Marco, just take it to him. The kid's been sleeping on hard wood for months, that can't be helping his condition," Jozu insisted, offering her the mattress, blankets, and pillows —which were easy for him to handle, but were larger than Marco. Looking at him, nobody would guess that Jozu was actually a softy when he wasn't facing an enemy.
Marco rolled her eyes.
"Jozu," she stressed, simply to make sure he understood just how ridiculous she found the request, "I grew up sleeping on hard wood. Trust me, he'll be fine."
"Yeah, but you weren't having the crap beaten out of you every day while you did… were you?" Jozu suddenly asked with suspicion. Marco rolled her eyes again; while it was true she rarely spoke of the time before she met Pops, that was quite a stretch for Jozu to think it.
"No, I wasn't."
"See? He is. That can't be good." And with that, Jozu dropped everything next to her and hurried away before she could get past her shock long enough to tell him she wasn't doing it.
Marco looked down to the pile of bedding and shook her head.
Ace was startled awake by a loud knock on the door of his newly occupied room in one of the lower decks of the ship.
"Ace? I heard you move."
He had no problem recognizing that voice as Marco's and cursed under his breath.
How did she—? He cut himself off. Of course she had found him, she must be a haki user. There went Ace's efforts of finding a new hideout. How many haki users were on this ship, anyway?
"What do you want?" he snapped, sounding as awake as he could manage. He hadn't refused any of the food Thatch had brought him since her visit last week (and he had to admit, if only to himself, that the food was good, and he felt with more energy now, not that he would tell anyone), so there was no reason for her to pay him another visit.
"Open the door and you'll know."
"And if I don't?"
"Then I'll kick it in and you will repair it," Marco said calmly, and Ace had no doubt that she would do it. By now he had heard enough about Marco to know she followed through with her threats.
Ace stood up with a growl and made sure to put on his best snarl before opening the door. Something slammed into him the moment he did, and he fell on his back. Before he could set anything on fire, which he almost did, he realized he had been attacked by a mattress. Two pillows fell by his side, and there were a couple blankets, too.
"…The hell?" was the most eloquent question he could come up with.
"Jozu hunted those down for you."
Ace pushed the mattress to one side and sat up, glaring at Marco.
"I don't need this."
Marco smiled in amusement and crouched down before him, her arms crossed over her bare knees (who the hell wore a fucking miniskirt on a pirate ship?).
"Do I have to stay to make sure you use them?" she asked softly, far softer than she had ever spoken to him before, and Ace's face burned at the mental image.
"NO!"
She chuckled.
"Like I would. Jozu worries too much, but this isn't like food: sleeping on the floor won't kill you." She stood up and smoothed her hands over her skirt. Ace followed her movements. "Whatever you do with that is up to you. But don't set it on fire."
And she left. If Ace leaned past the doorframe to watch her go, well, he blamed hormones. She was hot, and Ace was sure she knew he did it: if it bothered her, he was sure she would kick him out of the ship. Literally.
Marco waved at him over her shoulder before disappearing around the corner.
Ace looked around at the scattered bedding, remembered her words, and covered his face with a newly acquired pillow to drown a groan.
Fucking hormones.
He needed to take over an empty bathroom.
It was approaching the time they started to serve dinner in the mess hall and Ace still hadn't shown his face today. Ace's average murder attempts per day were two, and the first one always occurred in the early hours of the morning.
The crew was understandably worried.
"Well, he's not dead. He's still in that room of his," Vista said for the third time that day. That was another reason they were worried, because usually Ace only hid in that room to sleep or to nurse his pride after a failed attempt. And the second had never lasted more than a couple hours. The rest of the time he wandered the ship, probably trying to come up with new murder methods.
"Maybe he's sick?" Haruta suggested. "He just fell to the sea last time, but there were no wounds, so he can't be that hurt."
"Sick?" Izo asked incredulously. "I doubt that brat's body knows how to be sick."
Marco sighed in exasperation when everybody turned to look at her.
"No. You're the ones worried; I just think he's sulking because he failed five attempts yesterday. If you're worried about being roasted, take Jozu to play shield; he's sure adopted him already."
"But he's more likely to tell you if anything's wrong," Thatch pointed out, waggling his eyebrows.
Marco scoffed.
"You're an idiot if you think he'll open up to me just because he has a crush. He's too stubborn, and I'm still 'the enemy'."
A long silence followed her statement.
"Wait," Izo said finally, pointing at her, "you knew Ace has a crush on you?"
Marco ignored the money passing hands around a few places on deck and shrugged.
"I'm not blind, Izo. Subtlety isn't Ace's forte."
Now it was Izo who scoffed, and Marco took it as an acceptance of her point.
"He doesn't have to open up to you. Just check he's fine, okay?" Thatch said, jumping to his feet. "Wait a sec." He rushed into the mess hall.
Marco sighed.
"Well, since apparently you guys have decided I'm Ace's babysitter," she started, and waited until she spotted a few relieved smiles and high-fives before continuing, "you'll have to pay me for the job. So," she stood up, brushing her pants off and ignoring the incredulous stares aimed at her, "until… let's say two months after Ace agrees to join the crew, I don't care how you do it, but you guys have all my guard duty shifts," she said, gesturing to the other commanders (she understood anyone else not wanting to face Ace's temper, but in his current state most commanders could beat him with relative ease). "And, Pops? You're in charge of the supplies for that time period."
Pops laughed.
"I'm the captain: you don't get to order me around, brat."
Marco shrugged.
"Either that or I'm banning booze from the ship."
She left the deck in a riot and headed to the mess hall to collect whatever massive amount of food Thatch had put together for Ace. She couldn't feasibly leave such a large crew without booze, not when it took a group of twenty people to do the shopping and they would all try to sneak it on board, but it wouldn't be the first time she had made sure every single bottle they bought was the right size for her hand. Getting drunk on tiny little bottles was complicated and extremely annoying for Pops, and Marco knew he didn't want to repeat the experience.
This time, the door wasn't locked when Marco reached it. She wasn't sure how she had expected to find Ace (maybe bent over an axe or a makeshift map of the ship), but lying curled into a ball on the mattress wasn't it. He was visibly startled when she pushed the door open, but didn't raise his head or move at all to look at her. He looked surprisingly vulnerable like that.
"What have I done this time?" he asked, lacking the usual bite his voice had when anyone approached him.
"Nothing. That's actually why I'm here," she said, placing Thatch's basket on the floor next to the mattress, "shouldn't you have crashed through a couple walls by now?"
Ace snorted.
"I don't feel like it today."
"Oh? Did it finally get through that thick skull of yours that this is never going to work?"
This time Ace raised his head enough to glare up at her, but Marco didn't pay that look any mind. Instead, she noticed Ace's eyes were bloodshot, as if he hadn't slept tonight… or had been crying.
"Like hell," Ace snapped.
"Are you okay?" Marco asked, ignoring him.
"Yeah, now fuck off," he said, and turned his back to her. "If you want me to kill the old man, I'll do it tomorrow."
Marco went back to the door, closed it, and sat next to Ace's feet on the mattress.
"What happened?"
"Nothing," he said. Said, not snapped, which pretty much was an admission of something being wrong for him.
"Oh, sure. Do you have a habit of curling into a ball and feeling sorry for yourself, then? Because it's not as if any—" She had to stop to block Ace's punch, grabbing Ace's fist with her hand. She met Ace's glare head on.
"I'm not feeling sorry for myself," he hissed. As angry as he looked, it was much closer to what she was used to seeing from him.
"Then?" Marco asked, not letting go of his fist.
"What do you care? You're just here because they sent you."
"Not exactly," she said, keeping her voice light. "While I'm against coddling you, I do care. I wouldn't be here if I didn't. And it's obvious there is something wrong with you." She could admit that she had been wrong in her original assessment of Ace just sulking. By now, she was convinced something bad was going on in that head of his.
Ace's eyes widened —why, Marco had no idea— and he tugged on his fist. After holding on for an extra second, she let him go.
"I'm fine, okay?" Ace insisted, dropping back to lie on his back. He ran a hand over his face. "I just wasn't expecting it to hit me so hard. It'd been getting better over the years. I guess I should've expected between all this bullshit and not having Luffy around it would be worse this time."
"Luffy?" Marco asked, figuring that asking about what sounded like the most innocuous part of that statement was her best bet to get Ace to open up. Had Izo been wrong and Ace was actually sick, after all? They knew about the narcolepsy, it had given them a few scares at first, but still…
"My little brother," Ace said, and a tiny smile pulled at his lips. He removed the hand from his face and looked up at the ceiling. "He's a crazy little shit."
"So, like you."
"Nah," Ace said, and it was the first time Marco saw something approaching a grin on his face; it looked good on him, "Luffy's brand of craziness is different. He would never try to kill someone this way."
"Is he the reasonable brother, then?"
Ace burst out laughing.
Marco took that as a no, but she didn't pay much attention to that because Ace was laughing. Ace had never laughed, it had reached the point where some people had started to joke that his facial expressions only ranged from annoyed frowns to murderous glares. And yet here he was: first a smile, then a grin, and now laughter. It was a beautiful sound.
"Luffy? Reasonable?" Ace managed to get out in between his laughter. "Nah, the reasonable brother was…" he trailed off, any traces of amusement suddenly gone from his face and voice. Ace's eyes had darkened. "It was Sabo. He died. It's been seven years today."
Oh.
Marco's eyes slid to the tattoo on Ace's left upper arm. It was completely visible now that he wasn't wearing a shirt. She had wondered about it, like half the crew, but most people had dismissed the crossed out S as a typo that had gotten the tattoo artist killed or maybe a statement of some sort. It was a statement, it would seem, just a much more serious one than any theory Marco had heard.
Marco placed her hand on the tattoo, and Ace looked up at her, surprised.
"Would you like to talk about it? I hear… that sometimes talking helps."
Ace sighed, and his eyes focused back on the ceiling.
"I don't even know how to begin."
"I'd usually say the beginning, but…" What was the beginning with a brother? At least, what was the beginning with most brothers?
"The beginning? Yeah, I guess that works. I met Sabo when we were both five. I used to live with these mountain bandits Gramps had blackmailed into taking me in…"
Once he started, it was as if Ace couldn't stop talking. Marco sat there throughout the whole story, her hand still on the tattoo, and she pretended she didn't notice it when Ace started to cry and covered his eyes with his right arm in an attempt to hide it.
"He's not sick," she said hours later, once she stepped foot into the mess hall again. Dinner was practically over by then, only a few plates remained accompanied by lots of booze (whenever Marco threatened to take it away, the crew reacted by getting extremely drunk).
"Then?" Izo asked, patting the bench space next to him. There was a full plate waiting for her, but Marco wasn't sure she wanted to eat at all.
"He's promised to go back to his murder attempts tomorrow. Just leave it at that, okay?" She wasn't going to repeat Ace's story. She expected Ace would be mortified about having shared it at all by tomorrow.
Ignoring Izo's invitation, Marco left for her cabin.
To be continued
About the anniversary of Sabo's "death", I've always headcanoned it as happening during Ace's assassin days. Here's the reasoning:
Both Sabo and Ace were 10 by the time they met Luffy, which means the meeting was after March 20th (Sabo's birthday; Ace's is on January 1st). There were a few months in between them meeting and Sabo's near death, because amongst the many scenes of them living together we see snow. So I think it was sometime in November-December. Now, both Ace and Luffy set sail at 17, likely on their birthdays, and it took the Strawhat Pirates some five months to reach Sabaody, but they cut through the first part of Paradise on their quest to Alabasta. Ace would have taken longer, and he wandered the New World for a while before meeting the Whitebeard Pirates, at least enough to locate Shanks first, so let's say the meeting with the Whitebeard Pirates happened sometime on late September-early October. Two months later, the current time on the story, would be late November or early December.