Chapter One: Hey Zoro
"Hey Zoro, what's that ring you have tied to your sheath?"
"Why do you want to know?"
"Can't a girl just take an interest in a crew mate's life?"
"It's not worth anything if you're gonna try to steal it."
"That's not it, okay?! Geez. It's like talking to a brick wall."
"It's my wedding ring."
"…"
Nami had only asked the dumb question because she thought it would unlock a few answers about her enigmatic crewmate. If she had known it would open another, much larger can of mystery worms… Well, she would have just never asked.
Now she has a throbbing headache from all the new questions swirling in her startled mind. At the time she'd been too shocked to follow up the confession. Not that the smug bastard would have answered her, anyway. He always acted like talking about himself would open a hole in the bottom of the ocean and swallow him up. The navigator didn't know where the first mate got off. He knew all about her childhood in Arlong Park, why couldn't he open up a little? It was only quid pro quo after all.
She also didn't see why his face had to draw up in that dumb shit-eating smirk he always got when he knew something he refused to tell her. It really irked her, and in fact, she was feeling up to raising that debt of his by a few hundred thousand bellis in retaliation.
~One Piece!~
Sanji thought his brain short-circuited. He must have misheard the information Nami's beautiful lips had revealed to him. When her face didn't light up in a beautiful laugh at his expense, he was floored. He didn't know the moss head had even been interested in anything other than his swords, then he was pissed that the shitty swordsman had ruined his mood in the presence of his Angel, Nami. But lastly, the chef felt an involuntary warmth fall over his heart. If Zoro wasn't with his supposedly beautiful matron, was she no longer alive?
Then a fire ignited in his gentleman's heart. Had he abandoned her for the sea? Was she off somewhere alone? The idea had his blood boiling, and before the precious fingers the beautiful Orangette could reach out to stop the rampage brewing inside him, he was flipping his way to the front of the ship. Where he knew he would find the son of a bitch and could teach him a lesson.
"ZORO! HOW DARE YOU MARRY A BEAUTIFUL MAIDEN AND THEN ABANDON HER?!" His leg was caught by the hilt of a very annoyed swordsman. He knew he should've lied to Nami about the damn ring.
"Stupid Love Cook, I didn't abandon her… And she is not a beautiful maiden." He didn't want to open his eyes; he felt the repercussions of his actions all staring him down silently. All because he wanted to get back at the navigator for ruining his nap. Not worth it.
"Then pray-tell, Swordsman. If not a beautiful maiden, what is she?" He heard from the door to the lower deck as it opened. It was the mature and sultry drawl of the ship's Archaeologist. The slight chuckle in her words wasn't lost on the cornered man.
Robin had ears and eyes covering the ship at all times. Information was her game. She would never be caught letting her lapse in knowledge start at home. That's why this, honestly, left her a bit astonished. There had been no mention of a partner from his bounty hunting days. His childhood rival was female, but she'd done her research about the girl and knew she was long since passed. His time during their years apart had been spent training extensively with Hawk Eye's Mihawk and she didn't see him as the maiden-harboring type. She was truly captivated.
"A manipulative harlot." He managed to say under his breath before ignoring the question completely. His hand found its way to his throbbing vein as Robin laughed again. The rapid-fire questions the rest of the crew threw at him all tried to shove their way into the tiny holes in his ears. Threatening to rip them apart with every syllable.
"What's going on guys?" Luffy felt the excitement growing on deck and threw himself from the great figurehead with ease.
"Zoro just informed us that he is married."
"To a woman?! Where is she? Is she going to join our crew?" Luffy wasn't sure what his first mate had been doing while they were apart. He'd hoped he was getting stronger but other than that he didn't really care. It would be awesome to have another tough member on his crew to help him reach his goal, but to be honest, the pirate captain wasn't even quite sure what 'married' meant. Makino and none of the mountain bandits had been married, and if shitty Gramps ever had a wife, he never met her. Though he had wondered briefly what having a grandma would be like. He heard they made delicious cookies.
"Why do you people keep asking that!? Of course, she's a woman! And I don't know where she is right now. She has her goal and I have mine. That's it." He stood then, uncomfortable under the gazes of his flabbergasted crewmates. He sheathed the blade he'd used to deflect Sanji's attack and pushed passed the bothersome cook. But a hand came up to stop him.
"That's it?! What kind of idiot gets married to a beautiful lady and doesn't even know how marriage works?! You're letting her run around out there alone and unprotected?" He had to admit, he was a little more heated than he should have been. It wasn't like Sanji was the marrying type, he loved all women too much to settle down to just one, but his chivalrous heart burned. How could this shitty marimo hold the love of a woman and throw it away?
"Shut up, dumbass. You don't know anything about it. I'm not letting her do anything. She has her own shit to do and she doesn't need me to protect her."
"What's her name? Roronoa, I presume? Surely you have some idea of her whereabouts." Robin saw the altercation between the chef and swordsman and stepped in to satisfy a bit more of her own curiosity and to dissolve a bit of the growing tension.
Zoro stilled and let out a deep sigh, his shoulders stretching before falling slightly. It had been a nice run of keeping this to himself; His own little bit of civilian life that he could escape to. Their paths had crossed more than once in recent history, and he successfully kept them apart under the guise of having a God-awful sense of direction. She'll understand, he thought wearily. It wasn't the worst idea that he come clean, even if she always told him it was.
"Takahashi Aiya."
"The Silk Bridge of the Underworld?" Robin cut in; her heart practically fluttered with this new thread in her ever-growing web of truth. She wasn't sure how much Zoro knew about his own wife and the name she had made for herself among the less than savory news trade. But Aiya did well to keep rumors about herself to a minimum. A darker side of Robin wondered what she could extort by threatening to expose this newfound secret, but those days were behind her. She knew she could bridge an alliance with much less work, her conservative smirk growing at her own internal pun.
"Yeah. Last I saw her she was joining the heart pirates." Sanji's hand finally fell from Zoro's chest at this confession. He didn't know the heart pirates explicitly well, but he'd met the surgeon of death at the Archipelago two years prior and didn't get the best feeling about him.
"She's with Trafalgar Law?" Now that was a name Robin had unwrapped multiple times to her own pleasure. It was no mystery to her why the Silk Bridge would build that connection. All this new information had her skin practically buzzing.
"Yeah."
"And you're okay with that, Shit Marimo?"
"It's none of my business what she does to reach her goal and it's none of her business what I do to reach mine. I'm going to train." And there he left a few still stunned crewmates to enter the crow's nest for his normal training regime.
"Sanji, can we have cookies for lunch?" The Captain deadpanned, lazily a finger found its way up his nose. He didn't like it when his Nakama was at odds with each other, they were supposed to be happy and fight other people.
~One Piece!~
Zoro stared at a large, sleeping mushi with red hair and gold hoop earrings. His skin crawled as he compared its likeness to that of Aiya, distaste filling his mouth at the practically unnatural idea of how these things even worked. Another Mushi sat connected to its mate, completely white and devoid of human resemblance. It wasn't like he wouldn't have called her if his crewmates hadn't put the idea in his head, it's just that she told him to keep communication to a minimum for her safety and the safety of his crew.
But he had to admit, Sanji was right about Trafalgar Law. He hadn't gotten the best feeling off him either and while Aiya had convinced him in Sabaody that she had it under control, he was having second thoughts.
Now if only he could figure out how to make a call with these damned things.
~ One Piece! ~
"Captain, rumors that the Strawhat pirates have entered the New World have been confirmed. They're on course from Fish-Man island."
"Didn't you spread those rumors?" DEATH knitted between pen strokes as he wrote in his notes, seemingly unaffected. It had been a few months since he'd left his crew to sail for Punk Hazard to work with Caesar the Clown. Finding out a childhood friend was still alive and recruiting her for her contacts with the Underworld had been an unexpected victory. It hadn't taken long to piece together that she had made some kind of connection to the aforementioned crew in their years apart. Maybe it was obvious, but Law liked to give himself more credit than that. He was a child prodigy after all.
"Yes. I did." She nodded, as if not even considering the decision to elaborate her association with him. He briefly considered if she was in an alliance with Nico Robin but knew the woman would never spare information about her crew. He'd tried a number of… convincing techniques himself.
"And how were those rumors verified? And please, if you have any secrets, you'd do best to confess them before vivisection is required. We had a deal, Miss Takahashi." He didn't look up from the paper in front of him, but he felt the eye roll come from her place on the other side of his desk.
"Put your dick away, Law. I'm sure it's still very adequate. Torture isn't an effective method of gaining accurate information and you know that." She paused, bracing for immediate retaliation. Her body relaxed when he left her intact and a small smirk lightened the features of his face.
"Oh, I assure you. It's more than adequate and I can always show you how effective I can be at getting what I want." The shit-eating grin that stretched his face was too much. He looked much too pleased with himself for her liking.
"That's a relief, I was worried you'd peaked the last time I saw it." It had been over 10 years since they had last been together under Doflamingo's tyranny, but never a day went by that she didn't remember the abuse. Torture, brainwashing, slavery. She had been a trained mercenary with a focus in intelligence reconnaissance.
"Miss Takahashi." When she finally found him again, it'd been a rocky reunion. Law's emancipation had been big news in the family, but she hadn't had anyone to sacrifice their life for her freedom. Aiya, Ruby at the time, hadn't faked her death. That had been real, and by the time the silk of her devil fruit knitted together her ripped muscles and resuscitated her heart, they had already thrown her out with the trash. No one comes looking for dead slaves, no matter how much work you put into them.
Aiya hadn't revealed herself to anyone from the Donquixote family until she'd intercepted Law's vessel as he disembarked. Intel had placed the newly appointed Shichibukai in the New World, closing in on the Animal island. When she finally spotted the surprisingly hard to track bright yellow submarine, he was leaving for Punk Hazard.
Currently, they were deep in the belly of their enemy, infiltrating Ceasar the Clown's operation. Revealing anything that could be overheard and used against them would just be stupid, and the Silk Bridge of the Underworld didn't do stupid. "Can I borrow your pen?"
Silk appeared from the palm of her hand; a deep, dusty rose color. Aiya quickly scribbled across the front of the shiny swatch.
Actually, Mrs… And just so you know, Swordsmen make horrible husbands.
Law nearly dropped the pen as she handed it back to him. "Excuse me?"
With her own grin at his ill-hidden surprise, she pulled at a gold chain. One he'd, to his credit, noticed immediately at their reunion from its place between her breasts. A small golden hoop followed at the end, and she held it out as if its very existence explained everything he needed to know. The gears in his head turned the expression on his face as he drew the correct lines.
"I didn't realize he was actually human." She laughed at his comment as she tucked the treasure back into her shirt.
"He barely is. Just an animal in bed, trust me." She lifted the silk and willed it to reabsorb into her body.
He'd understand.
~Immediately before~
Peru peru peru…
Peru peru peru…
"This is T.A.'s Florist, where we bridge the distance between passed loved ones with our beautiful funerary silk flowers. How may I help you today?"
"…" The moss headed snail looked at her with a loathing she'd recognize anywhere. "Do I have to do this?"
"No, the blocker Mushi is properly connected. I just love making your life harder."
"My crew knows about you."
"How did that happen?"
"…"
"They just asked, huh? Like a steel trap." He watched the Mushi roll its eyes and wanted nothing more than to wipe the expression from its face. "Where are you?"
"We just left Fish-Man island. Where are you?"
"The same place I told you I would be in Sabaody. You've never taken an interest in where I am before. What's happened?"
He wanted to die, why was talking to this woman so hard. "And you're still with that Trafal-guy?"
"Why are you asking?"
"I don't trust him."
"I respect your gut, I do. We'll revisit the issue when I finish here and we can talk more freely. We can meet up soon. It's been way too long…" He cringed as the Mushi purred and attempted to give him the look he could only assume his Mushi was receiving on the other end.
"Fine. Whatever. Be careful."
Ka-chaa.
.
"How did you the two of you become acquainted?" Aiya brought Law his dinner in the research lab when he hadn't bothered to come to the dining hall.
"Thank you SO much, Aiya, for my dinner and being my mistress with great tits." She said in retribution for his blunt regard, as she pushed the tray of pot roast over to her temporary Captain. He established a room around the two of them to ensure their privacy. "But to answer your rude question, it was a common bounty about four years ago."
"Excuse me for thinking your generosity was without strings." He placed his overworked pen onto the desk and removed a beaker from its place above a Bunsen burner to break for dinner. "And how did that work?"
"My generosity is never without strings. Remember that." She looked at him pointedly, "And he tried to save me from my mark, but I ended up rescuing him instead. The guy broke all his swords trying to cut through a cannon. We ended up with a couple bottles of sake for all my trouble and woke up the next morning with a legal ball and chain. We've stayed in touch." She debated whether to include the next part, "It's nice to have someone who knows you exist." Her eyes fell to the yellow Jolly Rodger on his chest. She had never been the Nakama type.
It was one reason she never wanted to meet the rest of the Straw Hats after Zoro had joined them. It was also why he was the only person who could contact her at any given time and even he never knew where she was. I mean, who marries someone they just met one a drunken night and stays married? Someone who doesn't meet a lot of people, she pondered.
"When we complete our goal and re-join my crew, you'll have plenty of people who know and care that you're alive. And one polar bear."
"Right, I meant to ask about that." She looked very thoughtful and Law braced himself for an uncomfortable conversation, "Does Bepo do naps? His fur looks paws-itively luxurious."
"Get out."
"Aye, Captain. I'll go check on the children."
~One Piece~
"Miss? Are you a mom?"
Aiya wanted to cry when Caesar brought them into the Biscuits Room for the first time. Abducted children being experimented on and abused with drugs hit too close to home, but she had to maintain her cover. The colorful room held everything a kid could hope for; toys, video games, cakes, and sweets. Plus, their round the clock serving of Caesar's special candy.
It made her sick.
"No, I don't have any children. Aside from all of you, of course." Her lips felt tight as she fought to maintain her pleasant expression. There wasn't much for her to do on Punk Hazard since, unlike Law, she wasn't a doctor or prodigal genius. In fact, it was her job to focus on blending in as a bumbling assistant to avoid anyone looking too hard at her presence in the secret base.
Ruby had died before hitting puberty which worked to Aiya's advantage. Her ample chest and the curves of her well-toned hips made her almost indistinguishable from the skinny, lanky child she had been. After establishing that her death would be her only way out, she found a devil fruit user who was often employed by criminals to morph her appearance. Donning new red hair and green eyes where there was once blond and blue, she started her new life as a free woman and never looked back.
The children gathered around her as she brushed and pleated the still little heads, manifesting dusty rose ribbons and bows for the girls and talking idly. Her heart thumped against her chest as the innocent questions filled the air and reminded her how far from normal her life had been.
"Are you married?" Polly asked tentatively. The giant blond had been lured from her front yard when her mother went inside to cook dinner about six months ago. She was scared, easily intimidated, and one of the largest children.
The intel broker had memorized every single name and the addresses of the kids knew them. It was an unspoken vow between the two former slaves that each child would be returned home when they finally took down Caesar's base. And no harm would come to them that could be avoided. It meant Aiya spent a lot of time in the biscuit room over the last few months, but the kids only recently began to open up to her.
"Actually, yes. I am." Endangered children were her weakness and they, if anything, would be her undoing. She couldn't bring herself to look into their eyes and lie. Even something simple like this, it was too much.
"Your husband is the man with the silly hat." Peter said from the corner, but it wasn't a question, and it gave her the loophole she needed not to reveal too much about herself.
"He isn't mean per se… He says that he's just too smart to be nice." She laughed at the memory of a very put out man under a leopard hat the first time she told him the children weren't his biggest fans.
"That's not her husband, that's her Captain. Auntie would never marry someone like that. I bet her husband is a handsome prince!" Daisy sang from her perch in the loft, and the underworld assassin turned bimbo maid just let them speculate. They had fun talking about her prince charming and she laughed as they described a blond, white horse-riding man in shining armor that would save them all and take Aunt Aiya away to have one thousand babies since she liked kids so much.
She should've seen this as foreshadowing, but she continued thinking that these lives would never intertwine. What a fool she was then.
~Author's Note~
Forgive me for all the fics I've never finished, I am working on them! Please review!