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“You have to go,” Ace states staring at Luffy as he holds the orange hat that his older brother had shoved onto his head the night before with a grin. “Before Gramps shows up and tries to make you a marine, it’s almost your eighteenth birthday, you stayed too long.”

Luffy grins, ruffling Ace’s hair, “But you would have been lonely without me!”

“I would be lonelier if you were a marine!” Ace snaps, turning his face to the side to hide it. “You would be miserable as a marine, you wanna be the pirate king one day.”

“Don’t you want to be the King too?” Luffy asks.

“You’re not going to take the title before I set sail. I’ll be right on your heels,” Ace says trying to look like he was certain of what he was going to do even though Luffy knew that Ace was worried. “I’m gonna be on your heels!”

“I know you will be,” Luffy pats his head. “Behave for Makino and I’ll see you when you set sail. Maybe I’ll try and meet you after you get your first bounty.”

Ace sniffs, looking like he was trying not cry, “It’s a promise.”

“A promise,” Luffy agrees smiling. He had failed his little brothers once, he had failed Sabo, let Sabo be killed and let Ace be hurt, he wouldn’t let that happen again. He would never fail them again. Not when he only had the one left. “Take care of yourself, Ace. I’ll see at the top.”

“I’ll see you at the top!”

Ace counts the steps up to the execution platform, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, buying time for his crew to run as Marshal D Teach, hell bent on taking down Luffy had taken him in to the Marines. Marines who were more than willing to tell the world exactly who his father was.

Marineford is filled with fewer marines than Ace would expect, but more than needed. Ace didn’t have much by way of allies, certainly none that would risk the biggest marine stronghold to save him.

He had promised Luffy to see him at the top. He had promised and he had failed to keep it, he can’t believe he had failed so badly to keep a promise.

“Gramps,” Ace whispers as Garp pauses beside him. “Did you make sure that he wasn’t coming?”

“The brat slipped his guard. He’s in the wind, we don’t know where he is, I’m sorry,” Grap whispers back before walking away and Ace feels his heart break as he takes the final steps to the platform and is forced to kneel.

Staring at the endless blue sea, at the people who wanted him dead for just existing, Ace forces himself to keep his back straight as Sengoku speaks. As he tells the world about who his father is and why this execution is so big when his bounty is so small.

“I would rather have him for a father than have to suffer under your delusions of how children must be as evil as their parents,” Ace spits when Sengoku tries to make him say something, because he would. He’s learned so much about Roger in his short voyage that he would rather claim his father than pretend to claim a baby was evil. “At least I wouldn’t have killed a baby!”

Ace’s head is forced down and he grits his teeth against the pain, “I haven’t killed a fucking kid in my life. I saved more people than I’ve ever killed and I won’t fucking let you call me that while I’m here. I already know what stories you’re going to tell about me when I’m dead, what you will do when I’m dead, but I’ve never killed anyone that didn’t deserve it.”

“Ace!”

Oh.

Oh, Ace knows that voice. He knows it and he had been hoping that he wouldn’t hear it. He had been praying to any gods that might hear him that he might be lucky enough to not hear that voice. 

“Luffy?”

Luffy grins brightly, “Ace, don’t worry, I’m gonna save you!”

The grave was carefully hidden, flowers everywhere and decorated in a way that Sabo knew would make it recognizable to anyone that knew him. That had met the man that was buried here.

“I saw your picture in the paper,” He says softly sitting down before the grave. “It was after the battle. After everything went down and the you were already dead,” He wipes his eyes as his shoulders shake. “I haven’t gone to see him yet. I don’t know what to say. What, what am I suppose to tell him? I left you both?”

Sabo reaches out and traces the name on his brother’s grave, “They, the Revolutionaries got the full story of the battle at Marineford. They, they said that you were ahead of him, that you, you were and you,” Sabo can feel his heart break again. “Fire is weaker than lava, Ace, you were smarter than this. You were always smarter than this. Luffy thinks he got us both killed now, he thinks-”

“I’m gonna go find him, I- I meant to do it sooner, but I couldn’t leave the revolutionaries sooner, I’m their Chief of Staff,” Sabo sniffs feeling tired and like he wants to start crying because if he had been there, if he had been there maybe-

“I’m sorry Ace, I’m sorry,” He sobs. “I should have seen Luffy sooner. I-”

"Alright, you're about to step into the big bad's chambers," Sabo says calmly, pretending that his notes said something more than fight in all caps, underlined three times. "The two of you have a few minutes to plan. What will you do?"

"I summon several of the powerful allies we made along the way," Ace answers, grinning when Sabo looks over at him. "Should I roll for success?"

"Roll."

"Seventeen with my magic multiplier is twenty five."

Sabo hates the magic multiplier, it's given Ace too many helpful moments. Which while great for Ace means that Sabo has to figure out what he's going to do story wise.

"You summon every person that promised to help you in a fight and has a level high enough to be of help. Luffy?"

"I reach into my bag of holding for a weapon."

"Roll for weapon."

"Six!"

"You pull out a plain knife, almost a dagger. It's almost entirely normal with an enchantment to make sure that it doesn't shatter. It's only a four inch blade, however."

Luffy nods seriously, scribbling something down in his notes as Sabo glance over at Ace, waiting for him to finish.

"Do either of you have anything else that you'll need to do?"

"No."

"Nope!"

"You enter the chamber with your allies, weapons at the ready. The Big Bad steps out of the shadows across the room, looking almost like Dragon does before a business deal. So you come to my home, hoping to defeat me? With so little?"

"Never underestimate the power of friendship," Ace says looking far to serious to truly mean it. He's doing it on purpose to see who laughs and Sabo hates that he has to bite his tongue to keep quiet.

"And a knife!" Luffy adds brightly.

“Are we lost,” Luffy demands, tugging on Ace’s hand. “Cause I don’t see Gramps and he was just here!”

“We’re not lost, Gramps is,” Ace answers shoving Luffy’s hat into his face because the last time Luffy realized they were lost he had started crying so badly that a cop had dragged them home to get in trouble. Even though dad was the one who forgot he had them at the store.

“Oh,” Luffy nods in understanding, looking less like he’s about to start sobbing. “How do we find him?”

Ace frowns, looking past the Elephant exhibit to where he can see a sea of chairs, “We’ll talk to someone. Come on, there’s gotta be a guard around.”

“Will they think we’re lost?”

“Nah, I’ll tell them gramps’ got big legs and we fell behind when he got lost. Don’t let go of my hand, okay?”

“Uh-huh!”

The crowd doesn’t ease up. If anything, Ace thinks it getting worse. Which is why gramps had insisted they come during the week, to avoid all the crowds. Ace can see six different schools, each one color coordinated. 

“Are you with another school?”

“Gramps brought us!” Luffy answers the other boy excitedly. 

“Luffy, you’re not supposed to talk to strangers, your dad told you not to,” Ace sighs, watching the other kid who has to be from a seventh school based on his uniform. “Who are you?”

“Sabo Outlook. I’m here with Dawn Academy. You?”

“Ace Portgas and Luffy Monkey, his gramps brought us here. I think his gramps is my uncle or something,” Ace answers before Luffy can shout about being Pirate King. Which wasn’t even a real thing, just a job for a character in one of his dad’s books. “He’s lost.”

Sabo looks like he’s going to correct Ace for a moment before nodding slowly, “Are you looking for him?”

“Ace says we need to find a guard,” Luffy says brightly. “Are you looking for someone lost too?”

Sabo grins, “I suppose that I am. May I join you?”

Ace doesn’t say anything, but he does make a face when Sabo looks at him again, nodding to the group of kids wearing the same uniform just a few feet away. Sabo’s eyes go wide, the same way Luffy’s do when he’s pretending to be innocent.

“Ace,” Luffy whines, tugging on his hand. “We have to find gramps and I’m hungry.”

“Alright, alright. Let’s go. Coming Sabo?”

“Does he ever just run off on you,” Koala asks slowly because this is Sabo’s brother and she doesn’t actually know what to say that won’t be offensive. “Just you turn around and he’s gone?”

Ace snorts, “Right? Or when he refuses to go to sleep? Like you have to drag him to bed and sit on him to keep him there? And if he has a book?”

“Or there’s something interesting being said?”

“Yes! He’s the worst about that! He just doesn’t seem to understand that he has to sleep. And then he’ll pass out on his paperwork and leave it unreadable and have to redo all of it.”

“I can’t say much,” Ace shrugs. “Narcolepsy.”

“Your’s is medical. Sabo just wants to be a brat and not sleep.”

“He’s always been like that. We stole so many candles because he would fall asleep reading something and they would burn all night.”

“Our candle budget is horrifying,” Koala shivers. “I think Dragon wants to murder him sometimes. Sabo could bankrupt us on candles alone.”

Ace laughs, “We had someone rig up a system with glass lights so that we didn’t have to spend a fortune on candles. The Moby’s got the lights everywhere and if something happens to them, I’m my own light show.”

“We may have to talk to your people,” Koala mutters tiredly. “Dragon would probably show emotion if we could get rid of candles. Well, emotion for something that wasn’t revolution.”

“Does Sabo still do that stupid pose when he talks about freedom?”

Koala cackles, “You mean the ‘And we will be free from the traitorous World Nobles” pose?” she shifts into a facsimile of it.

“That one, I thought he would have grown out of that, but I think it’s gotten more over the top if you’ve seen it too.”

“Are you eavesdropping?” Hack asks watching Sabo peer over the roof of the building to where Ace and Koala had taken a table at a cafe across the street. “You know you never hear good things when you do that.”

“They’re making fun of me,” Sabo says frowning at them. “They’re laughing at me, Hack.”

“I would be too, I’m sure, sir. But I do think we have other things to do. Please stop watching them talk.” Hack ignores the burst of laughter and the way Koala’s standing with one foot on the table, likely a horrible caricature of the first time they met Sabo then. “We have work.”

It starts with Shanks, who shows up forty-six days into Ace’s repeated attempts to murder Oyaji, stepping onto the deck and easily putting over half the crew to sleep without a thought and looking around like he’s searching for something.

“Hello Shanks,” Whitebeard states raising an eyebrow when Shanks looks around him and not at him. “Looking for something?”

“Yeah,” Shanks answers grinning and waving when he spots what he’s looking for, “Firecracker, there you are! I was worried when you went missing.”

Ace, who appears from behind a set of barrels with a long sword, scowls, “You gave away my newest attempt!”

“But firecracker,” Shanks whines. “I was worried about you! You didn’t send a note, you didn’t call, how was I suppose to know you were okay?”

“You could have just asked,” Ace mutters dropping the sword into Vista’s outstretched hand and hurrying to hug Shanks. “You’ve ruined my attempt and now I have to try again later.”

Shanks laughs, hugging Ace tightly, “I’m glad you’re alright, rumor says that you were dead. I was worried.”

Ace snorts, “I’m not going to be killed that easy, Shanks.”

“You say that, but I’m still going to worry about you.”

Whitebeard clears his throat, “You know each other?”

“You mean me and Ace?” Shanks asks grinning at Whitebeard like he has a secret, smug and tugging Ace closer. “We go way back.”

“Stop teasing people, Shanks.”

“His little brother is the one that I told you about years ago, Ace is a cutie though and if I adopt one, I might as well adopt both. Jealous?”

Marco bites his tongue, bites back the answer on the tip of his tongue and hurries below deck

“Are you going to come home with me?” Marco hears before he vanishes below deck. “We have space on the Red Force.”

“I”m not done here just yet.”

Marco isn’t sure why he feels relieved by that simple sentence.

Ace has been a member of the crew for three weeks when the Melody appears on the horizon and vanishes. Marco looks everywhere for him, searching for him to drag him back out for the fun, almost celebratory, fight for his agreement to join them.

He doesn’t understand what’s going on until Garp steps on board and frowns at his father, “Where is he?”

“He?” Whitebeard asks raising an eyebrow. “He who?”

“Don’t play the fool, Shanks told me that the brat was here. I’m just here to check up on him. Make sure that you aren’t hurting him. I promised his mom that much.”

“I’M FINE, GO AWAY!”

Garp laughs, “There you are brat! Get out here so that I can see you.”

“NO!”

“Oh?” Garp stalks over to the nearest vent, peering into it, “Found you.”

Ace mutters darkly, scrambling out of the vent and scooting back from Garp instead of towards him, “You can see me.” He shouts when Garp’s fist slams into his head, “What the hell was that for?”

“I raised you to be a marine, not to be a stupid pirate,” Garp musses his hair. “I’m proud of you too.”

“I hate you!”

Garp laughs, “I love you too, brat.”

“Ace, you know Garp?” Marco asks curiously.

“My gramps,” Ace mutters, held tightly in a hug. “Let me go! Pervert!”

“Why I ought’a-”

“ACE!”

Marco is done, he’s done. Ace knows far too many people. He doesn’t understand how this kid, who hated everyone when he had arrived could be so excited to see other people when he had taken forever to warm up to them.

“SABO! Marco, it’s Sabo!” Ace shouts excited. “Sabo!”

Marco grins, because Ace has mentioned this one. his brother, one of the two that Ace talks about all the time.

“Ace!”

Little Ace has stopped fighting and now Nami braids his hair when he reads comics.

Days after marineFord the clean up began and before Luffy came back to ring the Ox bell, A blood sample of where Ace's body laid was taken plus a bonus finding of a DNA sample from Luffy. Both were found and collected and given to Vegapunk. Seraphim of both Ace and Luffy were created. But to the dismay of the gov't and sciencentists Both showed signs of "failures". They would not listen to orders no matter what not even an Elder stars! They would get into trouble if not watched carefully, raid food stores, and get to fights with some of the other seraphim. It than decided it was best to put them in stasis; while debating what to do with them. Both remained in stasis till the Strawhats arrival at egghead; the resulting fights and chaos cracked open their containment pods allowing both of them to awake! And both even finding their way to stowaway on the Sunny or escaping Egghead island without anybody noticing!

Bonus:

So I propose the idea that cloning the Will of D works a little differently. You can't control them. No matter the cyborg, technology, biology whatever. Since the Will of D is passed on through family bloodlines anyone with that blood has it.

This also works with Blackbeard (Yuck). Since Blackbeard and Law were officially warlords and the potential for seraphim is there. But! There's the problematic D.

Ace was asked to be a warlord but never accepted, though it would be a little funny if they took his DNA anyway. Especially since the reigning headcanon was them taking it while he was in Impel Down. But if they took it on a whim sometime before and then realized the whole Roger thing after would be kinda funny.

Anyway, in this AU it leads to a high chance of Buggy being the only additional normal seraphim.

Also, that the government still can't control the Ope-Ope no matter how they try to duplicate it. AND they still can't control Ace even after Garp and the offer of warlord.

Day 2

I’m a huge sucker for seraphim Ace au sometimes when I can’t sleep I think about what Luffy’s reaction to seraphim Ace would be