This story is my contribution for the MarcoAce Week 2016. Instead of filling each prompt with an individual one-shot, I came up with a chaptered story, and each of the chapters fits (some kind of loosely) a prompt. The story will be completed by the end of the week if it kills me. It isn't completed, now, because that's what happens when you come up with a plot half a week before the posting date (that's my brain for you, I guess). I'm working on it, though. I can't guarantee there will be a chapter for every day, though (right now it's very unlikely Day 6 will have one, for example).

The plot starts from a very simple premise: what if Ace had never met Sabo at Grey Terminal? Well, things go very differently.

This chapter is Day 1: Freedom.

We start out with Ace's story, but we'll get to see Marco in the chapter, so don't worry about that :)

Also, just a little warning: this story is un-beta-read and not very well revised due to the rush, so I apologize for any mistakes you may find. I'd be grateful if you pointed out anything off you might notice.

Chapter 1

Portgas D. Ace ran away from the place he had never quite called home when he was nine years old.

He had grown tired of being reminded that his mere existence was a sin, of asking random people about the possibility of Gol D. Roger having had a kid and always receiving the same answer (laughter; he should die; he didn't deserve to live); Ace was tired of the bandits' reminders that he had to earn his keep to live with them; he was tired of Gramps' visits to beat him up and check that he was still hidden; tired of hearing about Gramps' real grandson, who could live in the village and be with people who liked him, who was allowed to live by a world that didn't want Ace; tired of hearing Dadan grumble about how Gramps had saddled them with Ace (sometimes Ace thought Dadan wasn't serious, others he was certain she hated him). So, after a particularly harsh fight with Dadan, Ace stormed out of the bandits' hideout and didn't look back.

He stole as much money as he could from various criminals at Grey Terminal and went into Goa Kingdom to buy food and water, a fishing rod, some navigation tools, and maps. He snuck into the port, hid, and waited for night to fall to steal a boat and leave the island.

Ace knew how to survive on his own. He had been doing it for years. He knew how to hunt, fish, cook, steal, and move through the worst parts of any city without drawing attention to himself.

And that was what Ace did.

He would reach an island, explore it a little, maybe catch some of the local animals for a large meal, resupply, and leave. Sometimes, Ace would ask a drunken random stranger, someone who wouldn't remember the conversation come morning, what they thought of the idea of Roger having had a kid. He always received the same response. Laughter. He should die. He didn't deserve to live. Ace would beat them up then. He got into a fair deal of fights, grew stronger.

Ace was twelve years old when his boat broke beyond repair, and he barely made it to the next island.

Instead of looking for a new boat to steal, he joined the crew of a merchant ship. It was an odd experience. Nobody told him he had to hide (to them, he was just Ace, who had introduced himself as a street kid looking for a better life and who had some pretty neat skills; no Gol, no D) and some of the sailors seemed to actually like him. They said Ace was too grumpy for a kid and tried to get him to loosen up. They taught Ace card games, they joked without mockery, introduced Ace to what they called "the fine art of drinking" and then patted him on the back sympathetically when he was hungover and let him sleep off the worst of it, they gave him unwanted advice about girls and laughed good-naturedly when it flustered Ace.

With them, Ace learned how honest business worked, how to gauge the real values of objects against the prices asked for them, how to haggle without threats and violence involved. They insisted that Ace needed better clothes than the ratty, patched-up ones he was used to keep until they were far beyond serviceable. And they paid him for his work.

At one point, Ace was asked when his birthday was, and when the day came he was surprised to find a large cake with his name and on it a wrapped package waiting for him. A gun and a good knife.

"You're strong, but you never know when these may come in handy in our line of work," the captain told him.

They were attacked by pirates once in a while, and Ace always made sure to fight at his best. Sometime while he was on the ship, East Blue pirates became too weak for him.

The guys liked to joke that one day Ace would leave them to go join the marines. Ace always held back a shudder and laughed the comments off, saying that marine life wasn't for him.

Ace never got around to asking them about what they thought of the possibility of Roger having a son. He didn't want to know.

Ace was fourteen years old when the ship ventured into the Grand Line.

Entering the Grand Line was a risky trip to make, but Grand Line goods sold for a lot of money in East Blue. The Grand Line was an odd place, with erratic weather, weird sea monsters, dangerous islands, and stronger pirates. It was an exhilarating sea to sail.

When the guys decided to return to East Blue once their storage rooms were full, Ace chose to stay in the Grand Line. They gave him a log pose and a map as a parting gift and told him to take care of himself ("as much as you can, at least"). Ace wished them a safe trip back and stood on the dock, all of his belongings in a backpack, until the ship that had been his home for over two years had disappeared from sight.

Home. What an odd concept. Ace had felt more at home with a bunch of strangers who didn't know who he really was than he had ever felt with the people that had raised him from birth.

Ace spent the following months hopping ships as he traveled from island to island. Sometimes he would exchange a trip for work on board and his promise to fight in case they were attacked, and sometimes he would actually pay for the trip with the money he had saved during his merchant days.

He was fifteen years old when he set foot on Mock Town. He had come as ship security here, because this place had a horrible reputation. This island hadn't been his original destination, it was outside the route he had been following, but the ship's captain had offered to pay Ace one hundred thousand belis in advance after he saw him singlehandedly take out a pirate crew in a bar brawl. So here Ace was, a hundred thousand belis in his pocket and playing bodyguard to a scared bunch of merchants who had come to resupply Mock Town's bars of their necessary booze.

Ace was currently leaning against the bar of the third local they visited, scanning the large room with an indifferent expression to see if there would be trouble while the merchants and the bartender haggled, when he caught sight of a strangely vacant circle of tables. Empty except for one person sitting right in the middle of the empty tables. Ace stared, eyes wide open.

No wonder this place is so subdued. Bet most of these guys didn't run to avoid looking like cowards.

There, with an amused expression, sat Marco the Phoenix. If Ace didn't know his face was plastered on a wanted poster above an outrageously high sum of money, he would think Marco looked utterly unthreatening, eating calmly with a drink by his side.

Marco met Ace's eyes and smirked, amusement pouring from every inch of his face, and Ace took a split second decision.

"There won't be any trouble here," Ace muttered to his employers, and didn't wait for a reply before resolutely walking up to Marco. He didn't ask for permission to pull out the chair opposite of Marco, he just did, then dropped his backpack on the floor next to it, and sat down.

Marco raised his eyebrows, and the amusement in his eyes seemed to shift.

"May I help you?" he asked politely.

"Yeah. I got a question for you."

Marco gestured for him to go ahead. Ace glanced around the bar, aware that most people had their attention on them even if they carried on with their own conversations. Ace leaned forward and pitched his voice low enough that it wouldn't carry past this table. Ace hadn't asked this question in years, but he had never encountered anyone other than Gramps who had met him.

"Tell me, what would you think if Gol D. Roger had ever had a kid before he died?" Most people thought this question was hypothetical, but Marco's eyes sharpened and he seemed to take Ace in with more attention.

Ace resisted the urge to stiffen. He had never thought that anyone would take him seriously. Nobody ever had.

"I'd be curious to meet the kid," Marco replied in a calm voice that didn't carry any more than Ace's had. "That's bound to be an interesting guy."

'Guy', not person.

Damn.

"Interesting? That's all you'd say?" Ace asked with forced calm.

"Yeah. Roger was an interesting guy, even if he had no idea what common sense meant," Marco said and smiled. Not mocking, not disdainful or disgusted. A fond smile.

What the fuck?

"What's someone like you doing here?" Ace blurted out, suddenly desperate for a topic of conversation that made sense.

Marco accepted the change.

"I'm tracking a merchant ship from one of our territories that went missing."

"They send you for something like that?" Ace asked in skepticism. That sounded far too trivial for the First Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates.

"I volunteered. It's been a while since I left the New World."

"Oh."

"What about you?" Marco asked, resting an elbow on the table and leaning forward. "What's someone who asks such interesting questions doing in a lifeless place like Mock Town?"

"Bodyguard job," Ace said, pointing over his shoulder in the direction of the merchants.

Marco glanced above Ace's shoulder and raised his eyebrows again. Curious, Ace turned around. His employers were staring at him as if he had grown a second head or something.

"I doubt they'll have much trouble here today," Marco said mildly. Ace snorted.

"Yeah, well, I doubt they expected someone like you to be here scaring the crap out of the pirates around."

"They do seem scared of me," Marco said with some amusement. "But you don't."

"Should I be?"

"Not at all. Do you have any plans for after your bodyguard job?"

Ace shrugged.

"Probably tag along with them to the next island and be on my way."

Marco hummed and reached for his glass.

"Would you like to join me instead?"

Ace stared. There was no other way to describe it, no other reaction he could have. Marco the Phoenix had just offered him to accompany him on a trip barely five minutes into knowing each other.

"Why?" Ace asked, his brain to mouth filter too shot for him to consider that questioning such a powerful pirate wasn't the smartest of moves.

"I told you, I'm curious."

Because of Roger, Ace's mind supplied. He almost refused right away, but stopped himself and reconsidered. He had been running from Roger's shadow his whole life, trying to prove that being Roger's son didn't determine who he was. Maybe this was his chance. Here, with a person who had actually known Roger in life, Ace could prove to himself that he wasn't like him, that he was just Ace. If he could get someone who had known Roger to tell him as much, instead of telling him to stay hidden like Gramps had…

"I got paid to keep those guys safe while they're on this island."

"It's fine," Marco said with a shrug. "I still have to buy supplies. Would I be wrong in assuming you have a large appetite?"

Well, damn. He had at least one common trait with Roger, it seemed.

"…No," Ace admitted reluctantly. He bent down to look for his wallet.

"Don't worry about that. I'm paying," Marco told him.

Ace eyed him dubiously, but eventually shrugged and nodded. If Marco wanted to pay for his food, Ace wouldn't be the one to refuse. It was money saved for something else.

"They should be done today," Ace said. "Where should I meet you?"

"Here. I'll come back when I'm done."

Ace nodded. He stood up, slung his back over his shoulder, and headed for his stunned employers.

Ace wondered how much of that conversation the bar had heard. He hadn't bothered to keep it hushed once the part about Roger was over, and neither had Marco.

To be continued

I'd like to point out that Ace's thoughts in regards to Garp, Dadan, and the bandits are framed by the perceptions of the child he was at the time and what he thought of himself. But, still, it's unarguable that Ace's upbringing was extremely unhealthy and emotionally neglectful. Without Sabo there, Ace had no one to hold onto, so he didn't.

I'm assuming that log poses can be followed in both directions of the Grand Line. Marco started out at Fishman Island and has been going back towards the start. Getting out is trickier, though, because you can't cross Reverse Mountain back.