Chapter Text
Thank you for loving me
It’s the last thing he says. The last thought he holds onto, as the pain and the light and everything else fades. As he sinks, drifts, moving but not, somewhere but not, disconnected and unable to care one bit.
At least-
Until Ace feels something.
Until he feels hands, cupping his face, thumbs stroking underneath his closed eyes.
Until he hears a voice, faint, growing louder, rushing forward until he can fully understand: “Baby. Ace, sweetheart, you need to get up.”
Huh?
He shouldn’t need to. He’s dead, isn’t he? But his eyelids peel open, squinting into the hazy fog, peering up at- freckles. Brown eyes. A long curtain of blond hair, hanging around him and the woman kneeling in front of his face. “...hh?”
“I know it’s a shock, baby,” the woman says, she’s smiling, but there are tears spilling from her eyes too, and her hands let go of his face to go under his shoulders and start lifting him up. “But if you don’t hurry, and he gets too far away, we’re really going to be in trouble.”
“If- who?”
“Luffy, sweetheart. We need to follow Luffy.”
That does it. Ace jolts, pushes at the ground below, gets himself up far enough to kneel and see-
-he sees.
It’s.
Himself.
Him, still laying on the cracked ground, hollow where Akainu’s fist punched clear through. Ace feels his stomach lurch. He grabs at his own chest.
He’s got a hole too.
But it doesn’t- hurt?
“-not working, Roger, help!”
Another jolt. Ace jerks his head up, startled. The woman with freckles like his own has looked away, over his shoulder, and she said- what did she say?
A shadow looms. A broad arm suddenly appears, curling around Ace from behind, and he yelps when he’s picked up and hoisted over a tall shoulder. “Got him, let’s go!”
Bewildered, all Ace can think to do is grab at the long red coat flapping below him, flaring wide as the person carrying him races away at top speed. His fingers catch against a spot where the bright fabric is torn; where there’s a stain, where it feels cold, just like the spot where Ace is missing a section of his body.
“There, they’re headed to that- what is that?”
“Huh! Submarine!”
“A what?”
“It’s a kind of ship that can travel underwater, even without a bubble coating! That’s pretty handy, should make getting out of here easier!” The shouted words pass his ears, make a vague sort of sense, but Ace still has no idea what’s going on. He can spot shapes in the haze of fog as they race past, some that even seem like they should be familiar, but it isn’t until the deeper voice abruptly shouts, “JUMP!” that Ace realizes- they’re leaving Marineford.
‘We need to follow Luffy’, she said.
Ace holds onto that, as tightly as he holds onto the red coat.
Rouge remembers how disorienting it was, at first. To close her eyes for just a moment, so she could finally rest before holding her baby again, only to wake up unable to touch him.
Roger’s embrace was the only thing to keep her sane, that first day.
It’s the only thing that’s kept her going for the past twenty years since.
As soon as her family is aboard the odd yellow ship and safely below deck, Rouge moves to where she’s walking behind Roger, so she can see her baby. His eyes are still foggy, still caught in that in-between state at the border of life and death. It’s hardly fair, to have yanked him so quickly, demanded he get up and start moving right away - it hurts, when so very little has been fair in her child’s life, to immediately continue the same trend following his death.
His death.
He died.
Only twenty years old, and now her baby is dead.
She hates that, hates that it came too soon, even as she marvels over finally being able to reach and touch and stroke his hair. Ace turns his head, when Rouge does that. Looks at her. And his bright eyes might be full of spectral fog right now, but she knows that he can see her, really truly, for the first time.
“This looks like a good spot,” Roger announces, stepping through a hatch. “Alright, kiddo, down you- ah?”
It shouldn’t be funny, but Ace has a tight grip on his father’s coat, and Rouge can’t help but giggle at the baffled sound her husband makes, trying to lift the boy off his shoulder and failing. “Here, dearheart, let me. Ace, baby, can you grab my fingers instead? Come on, please?”
It takes a bit of coaxing, some rubbing at his stiff knuckles, but after a few minutes her baby shifts his grasp, and Rouge almost bursts into tears. It’s a staple of the stories she read growing up, the moment tiny digits first wrap around a parent’s thumb, something that’s supposed to be magical and earth-moving.
Twenty years.
Too long and too soon all at once.
With his coat released, Roger very slowly lowers Ace, letting their son keep holding onto Rouge’s hands. The room he’s found has a long, rather battered sofa pushed against one wall, plenty large enough for the three of them to comfortably settle. Or- it should be the three of them. But as soon as Rouge has Ace tucked into her embrace, Roger steps back. “I’ll do a quick check of the ship to see if any Nightmares followed us aboard, and then see how Luffy’s holding out.” The man keeps his gaze on Ace as he speaks.
Rouge swallows. “You don’t want to be here when...?”
Her husband shakes his head, a direct contrast to the sad expression on his face. “C’mon, Rouge, I’m hardly the face he’s going to want to see. Do what you can, and we’ll figure out the rest as we go. Hey, if nothing else!” Roger flashes her a quick grin. “You, he’s gonna be delighted to meet! May as well give you two as much time to enjoy it as I can, right?”
Sighing, Rouge nonetheless smiles back. “Don’t go too far.”
“Not like this tub is that big.” Straightening up, Roger presses a kiss to the crown of her head, smoothes his broad hand over Ace’s, and then disappears out the door.
Her next sigh is significantly more sad than fond. “Oh, sweetheart,” Rogue whispers, reaching up to once again start stroking her baby’s hair. “I hope I can talk you into giving him a second chance. Every time, every time anyone’s ever said you should die because of Roger, you haven’t gotten to see how desperately he’s wanted to fight them off for being so awful. How badly he and I have both wanted to hold you, after.” A surge of anger makes her hug Ace even tighter, as if she can squeeze away all the hatred and self-loathing. “You have never deserved any of that, baby. We love you. We love you so much, sweetheart.”
“...mom?”
Whatever ghostly version of a heart Rouge still has skips a beat.
Roger wishes, not for the first time, he had any idea how this ghost stuff actually works.
Took him a long while to wander out of the fog around Loguetown, to figure out that he wasn’t quite dead, but also that he wasn’t going to last long if he didn’t chase down one of the gleaming, gold threads still keeping him tethered. So off he went, hitching rides and drifting, able to understand he needed to go but not entirely of what he was going towards.
Not until he got there.
Not until he saw Rouge.
Thin and stiff, walking tall but frowning, and it took half a day of getting his head back in order to realize why - to realize her home island was covered in marines. To realize they were there to hunt down his wife and child.
Used up every foul word he knew cursing out Garp, those first few months.
Felt better than spending every breath apologizing to Rouge for not doing better.
Here and now, he heaves out a sigh, striding down another fully metal corridor, side-stepping the living folks hurrying past without a second thought. If this young crew knows where they’re going next, no one’s mentioned where Roger can catch the echo of their words.
What he does catch is a growing growl.
Around two corners, he finds the source: small spiky Nightmare, probably something that was already aboard the submarine rather than one of those Big monsters he’d been keeping at bay during the battle. It fuzzes out and hisses as Roger charges, but one swing of his current sword is all it takes to disperse the nasty critter. Black smoke and red dust dispersed, he goes back to looping through the halls and decks.
Already been past the surgery room where Luffy and the big fishman who saved him are being operated on; Roger lingered long enough to get the idea it would be touch-and-go for a while, as far as the medical folks are concerned. No doubt in his mind, though. That little Luffy is just as rough and tumble as Ace, as steady in his convictions as Garp. No way he does anything besides pull through, and become all the stronger for it!
That kid’s gonna be the next Pirate King.
Roger would- heh, well. He’d bet his hat on that.
Two more loops through the whole ship, confirming no other Nightmares for the moment, although that would probably change once some of these weird kids in their matching clothes calmed down enough to sleep. One more brief visit to see the surgery is winding to a close, both Luffy and Ace’s fishman friend still alive. And at that point... Well. Time to go see if Rouge has made any headway. If Roger might be able to get a hug from his son, or if he’ll have to settle for a punch instead.
He sidles up the right corridor and peers through the hatch, Gaban laughing at him in the back of his head for acting downright shy about this whole thing. But it’s worth it, being quiet. Means he gets to see Ace, properly awake now with no grey hazy layer over his eyes, looking at Rouge with all the adoration she deserves. Even better, she’s acting silly, in a way Roger struggles to inspire anymore - giggling around her tears as she counts and kisses every single one of the freckles on their son’s face.
It’s exactly the kind of soft, fluffy, domestic nonsense Roger hoped for them, the day Rouge guided his hand to her still-flat belly.
And it’s ruined, the moment Ace catches a glimpse of him.
Right away, the boy is on his feet, flames licking up both arms as he glares and spits out, “What the hell do you want?”
Well.
Guess that answers whether his son would know his face or not.
But in a move that’s obviously more surprising for Ace than Roger, a slender hand suddenly pinches the kid’s ear and twists, dragging him around with a yelp. “Stop that,” Rouge says firmly, releasing her grip in order to cup Ace’s face again. “Sweetheart, we have both been around your whole life, and while Roger and I know perfectly well how you feel about him, I am NOT going to stand for you attacking the man, is that understood.”
Yeesh. Been a while since Roger has seen her this pissed.
Eyes wide enough they’re at risk of falling right out of his face, Ace gives a small, hesitant nod. And just like that Rouge is back to smiling sweetly, pressing a kiss to his forehead before tugging the kid down to join her on the couch. “Alright. Roger, get in here.”
“Yes ma’am.” HE isn’t dumb enough to argue when she’s that close to a hair trigger. Been there, suffered through that. Even so, Roger decides to sit down on the floor just inside the doorway, rather than head all the way across the room to join his family.
Rouge shoots him an exasperated glance. He shrugs back. Heaving a totally unnecessary sigh, Rouge returns her attention to Ace, who’s gone from just staring at her to glancing back and forth between the two of them. “Sweetheart. Baby. Listen to me. We don’t need to fix everything in one day, if that were even possible, but the three of us are the only people here, and we need to lay some ground rules that everyone follows, alright?”
“...okay,” the kid mumbles.
“Thank you. First and foremost, no throwing attacks around unless it’s an agreed-upon sparring match, okay?” Her serious expression briefly cracks with a slight smile. “Maybe when things settle down a bit we can set up Fifty Fights a Day like when you were younger.”
Ace blinks. “You know-? Wait, right, you said- yeah, yeah sure.”
Roger almost blurts out I cheered you on all the time, kiddo, but bites his tongue at the last second.
“Second. Please, please, you don’t have to be polite with us all the time, but please don’t be constantly rude to Roger. And- in return-” Roger winces as his wife takes a deep breath, already aware of what’s coming. “We will, respect, your decision to call Whitebeard your father.”
Another blink, as Ace straightens up a bit, and shoots both of them a wide-eyed glance. Roger shrugs when it comes his way. “Hey, I’ve always liked Newgate. Knew he was a decent guy, even when he was sailing around with Rocks and his crew of nutjobs. You could have done a lot worse than him, kiddo.” He should stop there, but- “Could have done better if you stuck with Shanks, but I’ll take Newgate over Linlin or Kaido any day.”
“Why would Shanks have been better?” Ooh! That came out without any snarling hostility! Granted, the kid’s tone is instead total confusion which may tear at Roger’s heart a bit, but he’ll always take the opportunity to talk about one of his favorite subjects.
“He’s your big brother, Ace.” Oh would you look at that, the boy’s jaw literally drops. “Not by blood, but my crew found him when he was just a baby! Raised him and Buggy both on our ship, best little swabbies a crew could ask for!” Hrm. That came out a little more choked up than he intended. But hell, even if it wasn’t more than a brief glimpse, Roger got to see both his boys for just a minute on the battlefield, so maybe that’s why he needs to real quick wipe away some moisture that’s mysteriously appeared in his eyes.
When he lowers his hand again, Rouge is looking at him all soft and mushy. She’s heard all his stories about those brats at least a hundred times over at this point, but they never fail to put a smile on her face.
Ace still just looks baffled.
“Anyway,” Roger coughs, “Other thing is just, uh, listen when we tell you stuff, okay? Or- I guess Rouge can tell you, figure you’ll have an easier time accepting what she says than if it comes for me.”
Right as he says that, a hazy living figure comes shuffling through the hatch, and Ace twitches, hands once again catching on fire in a way Roger will never get tired of seeing, it’s so cool.
“Ah, we should stand up,” Rouge hums, nudging their boy, but even so they aren’t quite quick enough to move before the living person flops down through them to land facefirst on the couch. Rouge, after twenty years, doesn’t so much as bat an eyelash.
Ace, though.
Ace is too new.
He gasps, flames snuffing out in an instant as he shudders all over, tripping over his own feet. Rouge grabs for him, supports his weight - and then Roger leans in to scoop the kid entirely, hugging him close, shuffling back a few steps to sit down in the corner where they’re less likely to be walked through by anyone else.
“Easy, easy, just focus on your breathing, sweetheart, just breathe, baby.” Rouge kneels down with one hand splayed over Ace’s chest, above that awful, gaping hole, the other grabbing one of his to press close and feel the exaggerated motions of her pulling air in and letting it back out. As far as Roger can tell, none of them actually need to breathe anymore, not like this, he can spend an hour underwater no problem, but going through the motions helps with getting re-centered after the shock of living flesh passing through their own.
Eventually, Ace recovers.
It takes him a second to realize he’s curled up in Roger’s arms, at which point the kid hisses like one of those tigers he used to fight. It’s really, really tempting to try one of their moves and scruff the brat, give him a shake or two before pulling him into a proper hug, but-
But.
Instead, Roger eases his tight grip and lets his son scramble away, Rouge smoothly rising to her feet and following, already playing peacemaker like she doesn’t mind not being able to cuddle with them both.
Like this hatred infecting their boy doesn’t stab both their hearts worse than anything else.
Roger tips his head back with a sigh.
He can out-stubborn one brat.
He can.
...he’s just going to ache for however long it takes.