Chapter Text
After the horrible reveal of Luffy's newest ailment Ace decided to squander himself and his brother away on the Polar Tang in a guest room.
After many days of The Heart and Whitebeards leaving food outside of the door, Ace finally came out of the room. Luffy shuffled behind his brother, looking more subdued than he ever had.
As they walked out onto the beach, everyone held their breaths, waiting for any news.
“I tried, but…he can’t smile or laugh without going straight into a panic attack or just straight up refusing. The best I could do was get a small smile out of him, but that’s it.” Ace sighed, wrapping an arm around his brother's shoulders when the teen started to fidget with his hands because of the silence after Ace’s statement.
Marco looked around at the apprehensive face of his nakama and huffed. He broke away from where he had been standing with Izo and Kingdew to approach his fiance and soon to be brother-in-law. He stuck out a hand to Luffy, who stared at him in shock.
“Nice to meet you Luffy-yoi, your brother has bragged about you to all of us whenever he got the chance,” he gave the young captain a grin when the teen clasped his hand, “You know any embarrassing stories that you could share about your brother-yoi?”
This elicited a small smile from Luffy, even as Ace groaned and pushed at Marco’s chest to ‘stop teasing me!’. Marco had a feeling that one day, the boy would laugh again.
The Whitebeard pirates and Heart pirates stayed for a few more weeks, the latter to make sure Luffy was fully recovered and the former because Ace refused to leave his little brother's side for more than a few hours.
Then Ace woke up one day and Luffy wasn’t there, neither was Rayleigh or the Kuja Pirates ship. The Second Division Commander went into a panic for hours until a news coo dropped a paper with the headline ‘STRAW HAT RETURNS TO BATTLE SITE TO PAY RESPECTS TO THOSE LOST IN THE WAR!!!’
There was Luffy, a hand holding his straw hat to his chest, his face solem and a tattoo of ‘3D2Y’ on his shoulder with the 3D crossed out.
Ace knew that it was time for him to leave, and told Luffy as much when his little brother returned back from Marineford. Luffy only nodded and hugged him tight before waving them off as the Mini Moby sailed away.
Ace would see him again one day, on the sea.
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Luffy walked around Sabaody, trying to locate any of his crew. At the back of his mind lingered the thought that ‘what if they’d heard about what he did at Marineford and decided not to come back?’
(The entire two years Luffy had trained he had not been able to grin or laugh without being thrown into a panic attack. It was only when Rayleigh had told him that it was his body and only he could tell it what to do, that Luffy felt confident enough in himself that he wouldn’t lose control and go Gear 5 unless he wanted to. Even with all of that, he still wasn’t able to grin or laugh.)
Then the Marines had showed up and Luffy spotted Zoro and Sanji running towards him shouting his name with huge grins on their faces. Luffy felt tears rise in his eyes and he flung himself at his wings, wrapping them in a hug. They were caught off guard for only a moment before they were hugging him back, not understanding why he was crying but not asking either.
Later, when he had his crew all together on Sunny Luffy looked around at the happy faces of his crew, all directed at him and for the first time in two years…
Luffy allowed himself to laugh with a beaming grin.
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The Straw hats had heard about something going down at Marineford, that some monster had shown up and almost mutilated Akainu before the man could lay a hand on their captain, but not much more than that. No matter how many times Zoro had asked Mihawk about it, the man would not talk about it more than ‘It came from hell itself.’
So the crew didn’t know that Luffy had struggled to smile for two years, but others they came across did.
The defeat of Hordy Jones had led to a banquet and a party, and the Straw Hats were quick to indulge themselves. Jinbe watched, jaw hanging open as Luffy laughed boisterously at something his swordsman had told him. The last he’d heard, Luffy couldn’t even grin without bursting into tears, and now he was laughing!
“Jinbe-san? Are you alright?” Brook asked, having took a break from playing to check up on the ex-warlord. Jinbe snapped out of his thoughts to nod at the skeleton.
“I’m fine, just…happy that Luffy-kun is able to smile again is all.” With that the fishman went to go sit next to the man in question, leaving Brook to stare after him in confusion.
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The next person to comment on their captain laughing was Trafalgar Law. The man seemed taken aback when Luffy had grinned at the sight of him and laughed his name. The look of shock melted into a small smile, and the man huffed out a “Mugiwara-ya.” in response.
Robin and Franky stood next to the other captain as Nami berated Luffy for trusting too easily, so they heard his mutters while his eyes stayed locked onto their captain's face.
“He doesn’t seem to have a problem with laughing anymore…I should probably check on his mental state after all of this though..just to be sure..” the man muttered under his breath, then walked away towards Luffy to berate him for not paying attention. This left Robin and Franky to wonder just what he was talking about, and left them all the more suspicious of him and his intentions.
(Later on Dressrosa, they would put their suspicions to rest when Law defended their captain against Doflamingo's words.
“Well Straw Hat? Are you gonna go on a rampage again? Gonna tear my limbs off like the monster you are?” His words seemed to strike a nerve in Luffy as the boy flinched where he stood in front of some of his crew. Before any of them could rise to their captains defense, no matter how confused they were, Law beat them to it.
“Shut up you pink feathered freak! You of all people have no right to call Luffy-ya a monster with all the horrid things you’ve done!” the doctor snapped, practically snarling his words from where he laid on Luffy’s shoulder.
They would later tease him about calling their captain by his name, the other man would turn bright red and deny it.)
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They finally got some answers in Wano when they met up with Ace in Oden's castle. The pirate had been hiding out there for two years, waiting for his brother to arrive and wreak havoc. When the little brother in question arrived (with Zoro, O-Tama, and Kiku in tow), a huge smile on his face and laughter spilling from his lips, Ace couldn’t stop himself from swinging Luffy into a bear hug.
(As soon as he heard his little brother’s laughter and saw the bright beam on his face he burst into tears of joy. It had been two years since he had heard his little brother laugh or seen him smile like he was now. There was a point where Ace wondered if Luffy would do either of those things ever again.)
Luffy had just hugged him back, not mentioning the olders tears, and ignoring the looks on his crew's faces as they watched the two brothers reunite. Luffy knew his brother had been worrying about him for a while, so he let Ace hold him.
After Ace pulled away and wiped his face, he pointed to the broken down castle and told Luffy that Law had been waiting for him to arrive. Luffy screeched with joy and rushed into the castle. A few moments later there was a curse of “ Damnit Mugiwara-ya!” something broke and then Luffy started to chatter loudly.
Before the Straw Hats could enter the castle themselves, Ace was on his hands and knees in front of them, head bowed so his forehead was touching the ground. The older pirate was speaking before any of them had the chance to ask what he was doing.
“Thank you! For helping my little brother learn to laugh and smile again! I am in your debt!” His voice was thick with emotion, happiness, relief and worry all wrapped in one. Robin gasped, one of her hands coming up to cover her mouth while the other found one of Franky’s. Chopper hugged Robin’s leg, having pulled away from a shaking Usopp. In the end it was Zoro who spoke for them.
“What kind of crew would we be if we couldn’t do even that?”
Ace’s responding grin was all they needed.
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They got the rest of their answers on Onigashima, when Luffy’s laugh shook the ground and his smile seemed to never leave his face as he took on a different form.
Afterwards he seemed nervous to talk to them, but when Nami bonked him on the head for worrying them, Chopper started screeching about ruptured stitches, and Zoro nodded at him before starting to bicker with Sanji.
Luffy knew he had the best crew in the world.
Laughing never felt so free.