Chapter Text
“Fire fist, Ace.”
“Red Hair, Shanks.”
It's the same, but completely different from how they greeted each other almost an hour ago. Or what he assumes was an hour ago, there is no clock where he woke up.
Ace isn't sure what to do in this situation.
Shanks stares at him from the other side of iron bars, he is sitting on a barrel, hand slack on his leg, close enough he could grab his sword if needed, but it's clear he isn't expecting a battle. He already won after all.
Ace stares back, hands bound together with seastone cuffs, sitting cross legged on the wooden floor, he glares, fighting to keep the small amount of dignity he still has.
He woke up in a cell, his arms- both of them- are wrapped in bandages where he knows he was shot. A bullet was stuck on his bone and now it isn't.
Someone removed it, patched him up while he was unconscious, doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.
He doesn't look Shanks in the eyes, he couldn't even if he wanted- his attention stolen by something more important. He glares at the brim of the straw hat sitting on the Yonko’s head, it's his brother’s hat, Luffy’s hat. His scalp itches and he feels nauseated with the image of someone else wearing it. He keeps staring.
“Your sniper missed.” It's thrown with the tone of an insult, but his lips curl knowing how nonsensical the statement is.
Shanks falters a bit, clearly not expecting that, he isn't looking at Ace with the same level of hatred he was when he first inserted himself on the Red Force’s rail, but it's still cautious, treating him like the threat he fights so hard to be.
“You have bullet holes in both your arms.” The Yonko points out, head tilting to the side, like a child spouting the obvious. “Be grateful Hongo owns a pair of tweezers.”
Ace shrugs, wincing when it pulls at both his injuries. He glares at the brim of the straw hat, ignoring the hot pain on his arms, ignoring how the seastone cuffs make him feel so cold.
“He still missed, though.” I am still alive. He leaves unsaid. Eyes tracking the hat’s movement as Shanks moves his head, as if trying to look at his prisoner from another angle.
“And you are missing some crewmates, Ace of Spades.”
Ace shivers, the cold wrecking his body taking control for a half of a second, before Ace shapes his fear into familiar, hot, anger.
“They have nothing to do with it.” He snarls, teeth and spit, finally meeting Shanks' eyes for the first time since this interrogation– because that's what it is –started.
“A captain's actions speak for their entire crew.” It's a truth, that both Shanks and Ace as captains of their own crew know pretty well. It's a threat, cold and clear.
Ace lunges, hands still stuck together against his back, but there is nothing else holding him still. He jumps, slamming the shoulder which had an entire bullet removed from it against an iron bar, he barely registers the pain, more focused on glaring, showing his teeth to Shanks, who is just staring back, cold and certain when all Ace can feel is fear and anger.
“Don't touch them.” If he sounds like a cornered animal, it's because he is. The spades were never supposed to be involved with this.
“Tell me why.” Shanks is clearly not impressed, not affected in the slightest by Ace’s outburst. “You made your bed, invaded my ship, attacked my crewmates, and stole something very precious to me-” The straw hat shadows his eyes, and Ace feels nauseated with how natural it sits on his head ”-explain me why do you think you have the right to demand anything from me in this situation.”
And he is right, Ace did all of that. His crewmates have nothing to do with it, though.
Ace clenches his fists, taking a singular step back, it takes everything from him to not start shouting.
“The Ace pirates are disbanded.” He says it through gritted teeth, voice leveled, back to looking at the brim of his– Luffy’s straw hat. “I knew you were tailing us, I couldn't let them take the brunt from the actions I did when I was not their captain.”
“How noble.” Shanks is mocking him, sarcasm rolls from his tongue. “So you came here for what? Because what you said back on the deck didn't match the tone you used.”
Ah, he got caught.
Part of him wishes that Shanks was still as angry at Ace as he had been during that fight. The pirate isn't happy, but he isn't blinded by anger anymore and that's a problem. For Ace at least.
He takes a step back, still standing, his shoulders sag, tired. “Did anyone tell you?”
Shanks raises an eyebrow, it's clear the older pirate noticed he is changing subjects, and he isn't sure if he is glad or not he isn't being immediately called out on it.
“Luffy-” His eyes meet Shanks again, for a second he forgets the fear, he forgets the anger, he just feels hollow. “-did anyone tell you?”
Shanks takes a sharp breath, he looks serious, somber, he looks older, tired.
“So that wasn't a cruel joke.”
Ace wishes it was. He awakes every morning wishing his entire existence wasn't a cruel joke, wishing he wasn't the only one to survive, wishing that of all the people spared by fate again and again, he wasn't the one.
“I thought-” He bit his lips. “Makino, Garp, anyone, no one told you?”
It's cruel, did Shanks spend all these years checking the news for a bounty that would never come? Ace was so sure that he had to know, surely he was hunting Ace because that was the hat of the dead kid that idolized him, not because– did Shanks have hope? Before that, going after the Spades, did Shanks have hope that Luffy was well, or at least alive? He doesn't like delving into these thoughts.
Shanks just shakes his head, he says Makino’s name, words it with his mouth, tastes it on his lips but no sound comes by, before a dry, broken laugh escapes his lips. “I never left a way to contact.”
It's not loud, but the admission is said with so much grief, it may as well be a shout.
“Dawn was safe, Makino had a life to keep living, I had an ocean to devote myself to, Luffy was safe.” He raises his hand, touching the hat as if it was the last line in between himself and a precipice. “I never thought–” His eyes snap, looking at Ace.
God, he wishes he wasn't the one to break the news, he isn't sure if it's good or bad that the conversation isn't captain to captain anymore, it's now an older brother to the closest thing his younger brother ever had to a father. And it's terrifying talking with someone who clearly cherished Luffy as much as him, after so long sulking alone.
“Your posters have been going around for at least a year and a half.” Shanks' face does that thing, where someone does math trying to gauge when something happened, but does not really want to know the answer. “I don't think there was a single one of them that didn't had my hat on it, how long-”
“I was ten.” Ace cuts him before Shanks can actually ask his question outloud.
He now sits on the floor, back leaning against the wall, not really looking at Shanks. He really doesn't want to be the one to tell, but if he doesn't Gramps– or worse, Makino will have to.
“Luffy was seven, Sabo– our brother, was nine, I was some months older than him.” Sabo never got to turn ten, he doesn't like to think about that, he doesn't like to think about a lot of stuff involving their deaths. “There was a celestial dragon– I think, he was coming and the nobles wanted to clean the kingdom before he got there.” Ace smiles, it's familiar in his face in a twisted way, probably what Dulce used to call his ‘arsonist face’ but lacking all the joy in it. “They put fire on everything, got rid of all the trash and people there.”
He knows that if it wasn't for the seastone cuffs on his wrists he would be on fire by now, he shivers, it's cold, his scalp itches with the lack of a familiar weight there. He hates talking about that day.
“We never found Sabo’s body.” And that still haunts him, for years he dreamed that by some miracle his brother would just walk back into his life, just to yell at him for not protecting Luffy in his absence. “Luffy burned, I dragged him out but-” He bites his lips, taking a deep breath.
“He was seven.” He isn't sure what he is pleading for, putting it like that. “And that barrel exploded and his body was all burned, and he wouldn't stop coughing, and somehow that stupid straw hat wasn't on fire because my stupid kind hearted little brother used his own body to shield another man’s biggest treasure.” He looks at Shanks now, his eyes are watery but he refuses to cry. “I was just bruised-” It feels like a failure, the entire world burning and he got a bandaid on his knees. “-Sabo was missing and Luffy’s skin wasn't staying where it should.” He hugs his knees looking at the floor, wishing he had his brother’s hat back, so he could hide the shame and guilt carved into his face. “He was so tiny.” He looks at Shanks. “I am the older brother, I was supposed to protect him.” but I didn't.
Can Shanks see it? Does he understand? Ace failed. Sabo and Luffy are dead, and it is his fault. If he was stronger, if he was faster, if he was half of the demon his father was, perhaps they would still be alive. But that's not his reality.
Shanks doesn't say anything. He stays quiet, eyes for once not looking at Ace, glaring at something far away. Ace had ten long years to become acquaintances to what grief looks like, and Shanks face is the book cover of it.
“Why–?” Shanks isn't crying, but his voice is broken, he sounds hollow and Ace can relate to the feeling of suddenly losing part of your own soul. “You acted like you killed him yourself–” Ace flinches, Shanks doesn't look him in the eyes. “–insulted him, talked like he didn't matter, why?”
It hurts a bit, how Shanks sounds like he genuinely wants to put the pieces together, earnestly in a way that puts worry where worry shouldn't be, asking him why he did the things he did, why he said the things he said. He looks and sounds exactly like the man Makino described in her stories, just older, sadder.
That's a hard question to answer, though. There are a lot of things he could say.
I want to die.
I need to die.
I loved Luffy and Sabo and I killed them.
I killed Luffy and you loved him, so I thought you would do the dirty work for me, finish what the world wasn't strong enough to do.
He doesn't say any of that. It's the truth, but it's too raw, words and wants that live and will die within himself.
“I am angry.” That's also the truth, Ace isn't a good liar, never been. “Have been angry for a long time.”
He looks at Shanks, but he isn't angry anymore, just hollow, anger eats grief like grief eats anger, they eat and eat and eat, until there isn't anything more than a snake eating its own tail.
“Luffy promised he would give the hat back to you, that made me angry.” That made him sick, that's his brother's treasure, and shouldn't be in anyone else’s head, not his, not Shanks. He wants it back, selfishly he always wants what doesn't belong to him. “So I made you angry.” He would point if his hands weren't cuffed on his back. Instead he throws his head back, looking at the ceiling. “Easier that way.”
He hears a chuckle. “You are weird, kid. What did you plan to do after I got my hat back?”
“That's Luffy’s hat, not yours.” He can't help but snap, it's easy to glare at the older pirate, he clenches his teeth. ‘I planned to die’ will never be an acceptable answer, so he doesn't say anything else.
Shanks on his turn, doesn't look angry at the comment, he looks amused, raising his hand in a placate manner.
“I did give it to Anchor, you are not wrong.” He looks at Ace’s face and snorts at whatever he sees there. He smiles, it's the smile Sabo used to do before saying something he knew would make Ace angry, but it was too funny in his opinion not to mention. “Are you sure you two were related? I don't think I ever saw Luffy express any negative feelings that weren't related to lack of food. Did you get all the grumpy and he the joy?”
Ace can't believe his own ears, of all the things, he doesn't understand how Shanks can joke around after all that he told him.
“Fuck you.” He spits, but it lacks the heat he should be putting as someone with two shackles on his hand. This conversation has long turned away from the unbalance of power that comes from Ace’s captivity and became something else. “I clearly got the good looks, Sabo was the smart one, Luffy got all the dumbass between us three.”
He also doesn't believe in himself when he jokes back. At this point what more he has to lose anyway?
Shanks makes a funny face, he looks like he is thinking, and it almost looks painful. Perhaps Luffy got his thinking face from Shanks? It looks similar enough.
“Luffy never mentioned brothers.” Shanks' eyes go through his face, looking at each freckle trying to find any semblance in between him and the overexcited rubber boy, besides the black hair there isn't a lot, if Ace is to be honest. “He didn't have brothers before I left, did he?”
At that Ace snorts, it's amusing in a cruel way, in better times, where his mind wasn't as much of a whirlwind as it has been for what feel like his entire fucking life, he thought about having this talk in a entirely different context. He isn't sure what compels him to say what he says next, but he does.
“If you hadn't saved him he never would.” He doesn't kneel, it doesn't feel right after insulting Red hair and his crew on his own ship again and again, too performative after everything he did was perform and try to bait a kill that never came. But he tips his head, smiling genuinely for the first time since he landed on this ship. “Thank you. You saved my little brother, you gave him more time to enjoy life, I will be forever grateful for that.”
If Shanks hadn't saved Luffy, Ace would never know what was to be loved and needed, he wouldn't know paradise before hell. He wouldn't trade his moments with Luffy and Sabo for anything in the world, even if the pain of knowing and missing is worse than never knowing at all.
“You-” It's clear the yonko is caught by surprise, his hand touches where his stump is under his shirt, and his smile is conflicted, but amused. “-are weird, a really weird guy, Fire Fist, Ace.”
He is still cuffed, still freezing without his fire, still stuck inside a jail cell, sailing on an enemy ship, there are still bullet holes on his arms that pull and hurt when he moves. Aces laughs. “And that hat looks stupid on you, Red Hair Shanks.”