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Ever since he was little, Ace could always tell when someone was like him. He also knew from a very little age that he was not, in fact, a ‘she’. The bandits honestly didn’t care whether he was a boy of a girl, so it worked out for everyone.
Garp was a bit more difficult. Not because he didn’t accept it, but because getting him to understand what the fuck Ace was talking about was like trying to lift the Tiger Lord. In the end, everything worked out after Ace kicked his grandpa yelling ‘just call me grandson, okay?!’
Apparently he should have started with this simple version, as Garp understood it finally.
Ace realized his ability of recognizing others like him when he met Luffy. The first time he saw Luffy and Gramps introduced the child as his ‘grandson’, Ace was really fucking confused, couldn’t Gramps see that the annoying shit was a girl?
The little shit did seem a bit happy when Ace called her an ‘annoying little girl’, but Ace didn’t really pay much attention to it.
Surprisingly enough, the next day, the annoying being seemed to be a boy, despite definitely not having been one the night before. Ace just shrugged and went to the forest to meet Sabo. For some reason the shitty small child decided to follow him. Ace was able to get rid of the annoyance, but it was still hella annoying.
This continued for quite some time: The annoying child would try to follow Ace and Ace would find more and more ways to make the little shit get lost. But for some reason it was never enough to discourage the child from following him.
Only after he and Sabo saved Luffy from Porchemy after the fool didn’t tell the pirate where the treasure was, Ace allowed himself to ask if Luffy was a girl or a boy, since it seemed to be impossible to come to a conclusion. The younger one didn’t have a fixed answer and said to the older one that it changed a lot. Ace just sighed and accepted it as an answer.
Sabo was a bit more curious about everything. He wasn’t able to simply tell what Luffy was at the moment, not like Ace was, so whenever Luffy corrected him, he tried to ask a lot of questions to his little brother, sadly Luffy didn’t have many answers.
‘Maybe Luffy will figure things out as he grows older’ Sabo had said to Ace once ‘Then I’ll be able to find some answers’
But Sabo was never able to get those. Not even two months after this, Luffy and Ace would receive the news of their brother’s death. As much as Ace or Luffy may try to deny it, nothing was going to bring Sabo back. They’d never listen to his infinite questions again. They’d never be lectured by him after doing something reckless again. His voice, face and dreams would forever remain in the past.
That’s why Ace got his tattoo done as soon as he was able to after he left Dawn. People may think that he’d misspelled his own name, but he knew why that crossed ‘S’ was there, and that’s all that mattered.
And then he met Yamato. Yamato, who was like him. A boy in a body that most people would deem as female. A son of a monster, chained by his legacy (though Yamato’s situation was a bit more literal than Ace’s). A free spirit hoping for adventure.
Ace, of course, already knew Yamato was a boy at first sight, despite his appearance remembering that of a girl. He thought Yamato also knew about him, so when asked about his scars he was taken by surprise. “It’s my surgery scars” he’d answered “from when I got rid of my boobs”.
“YOU CAN DO THAT?” Yamato yelled, his eyes shining like the sun before confusion filled his face “Wait, you had boobs?”
“Yeah” Ace answered “Thought you already knew I was like you”
Considering the shocked expression on Yamato’s face, Ace’s assumption was the furthest from the correct. Ace just laughed and resumed to their previous conversation before randomly falling asleep. Damn, narcolepsy really did suck.
His time with Yamato wasn’t that long, but it felt like they both knew each other since forever. When the time came for them to depart, Ace left Yamato with his Vivre Card and a promise to meet again someday. As much as he would like to free the boy, there was little Ace could do other than give him hope of a better future.
The last thing he did before finally leaving with his crew was kissing Yamato. A tender sweet kiss on the lips, not much as none of them knew when they would meet again, but enough for none of them to regret never doing this.
His time with Yamato wasn’t that long, but damn if it wasn’t great. He’d never liked someone like that and it never pained him so much to leave someone behind.
When he’d first come abroad to Moby Dick, he didn’t pay much attention to the other people there. His only objective was to kill the captain, after all. But, after he joined them as a brother, he came across a lot of people like him.
But then something new happened when he interacted with Haruta: His gender radar failed him for the first time. Haruta had helped him with moving a few things on the deck and, when he went to thank Haruta, he said:
“Thanks man”
Haruta’s face blossomed into a bright red. The 12th division commander was paralysed for a few moments before yelling: “I’m a girl!”
Ace’s smile fell and he quickly apologized to Haruta. That had never happened before! What even… he was so sure Haruta was a guy, had been for months! Was he getting rusty? Oh shit, had he done this to someone else on Moby Dick?
After Ace and Haruta went their separate ways, he fell into a deep-thinking stage, trying to remember if he’d done that to anyone else. He sighed after having spent over a whole afternoon on that, deciding to just try to pay more attention. What was done was done, he should just keep going.
Nothing like that happened again in the next few days, so Ace’s guard went down a little bit, maybe it had been just a one time thing. But then Haruta approached him, looking extremely anxious (a sight heavily uncommon for the commander).
“Did you… did you really think I was a boy all this time?” Haruta asked in a small voice.
“I’m so sorry!” Ace exclaimed “I should have confirmed or…”
“Still… did you really?” Haruta repeated the question.
“Yeah… kinda” Ace mumbled.
Haruta’s face became the same shade of red from the first time, but now there was a small smile on the commander's face. Haruta sighed and then blurted out:
“What if I was a guy?”
“I… don’t think I understand?” Ace grumbled confused.
“Like, I can’t stop thinking about it! So I did research! All the facts appoint to me that I am a guy! The testimonies of our siblings and of people in similar situations and with similar feelings as me all tell me I’m a guy!”
Well, leave it for Haruta to turn something about feelings and identity into something logical and exact.
“Well, what do you think? I can’t tell you if you’re a guy or not” Ace pointed out.
“But… but you know you are one! And you thought, knew, whatever, about me too!” Haruta exclaimed exasperated.
“Well, do you like the idea of being a guy?”
“Of course I do! Who doesn’t?” Haruta shrugged.
“Well, Whiskey seems pretty happy with staying a woman” Ace told Haruta. The head-nurse was pretty feminine and seemed completely comfortable in her own skin.
“She’s Whiskey”
“Okay, okay. Now, do you like being a woman? Being referred to as a woman? Do you see yourself in any kind of woman identity? Do you see yourself in a manly identity?” Ace asked. Haruta fell into silence.
The commander stayed in deep thoughts for a long while. Ace briefly wondered to himself if he’s broken Haruta.
“I… I need to do more research” Haruta mumbled quietly before running away.
When a few days later, Haruta came out as a man, Ace discovered that his ability to pinpoint people like him and their genders also applied to people who hadn’t even discovered themselves yet.
It happened a few more times in the next few years. It was almost funny to see someone go into an identity crisis everytime Ace outed them to themselves.
When he met his little brother in Alabasta, it was like a small mercy in a sea of darkness and nightmare that had been the last few months. Luffy was so big now! And the dress he’d been using was so adorable! Ace was truly the luckiest older brother ever!
Luffy’s crew was also a joy to meet. They were all so different and unique. There was even a talking reindeer! However, the one that caught Ace’s attention the most was the cook. Yeah, that small beard was not going to trick Ace, the cook was a woman. He wondered if Sanji, as Luffy had introduced the cook, already knew.
Ace was also extremely impressed by the cook’s almost ridiculous worship of the girls. Even Luffy was treated as a goddess as soon as she told them she was a girl at the moment. It was actually very endearing and funny to see. Sanji wasn’t the creepy insistent flirt, the cook seemed to be more like the kind that just loved women so much that could actually cry at the simple sight of one.
When they were alone in the kitchen before dinner as Sanji cooked, he decided to say something.
“I can sense it” Ace said with a cocky grin on his face.
“Uh?” Sanji asked confused and turned to face Ace.
“The transgenderism in you” Ace continued, the cocky expression getting even more mocking (in a playful way, of course, he didn’t want to be the bad kind of asshole) “I sense it”
Sanji’s expression was so deeply confused and concerned, as well as terrified, that it took all of his mental strength to not laugh his ass off. At that moment, Luffy called Ace from down the corridor and Ace got up to leave. Before leaving, he waved to Sanji, still with a cocky grin, and said: “‘Till later miss cook”
The lack of sound coming from the kitchen probably meant that Sanji was still paralysed and trying to understand what the fuck had just happened there.
Ace couldn’t help the small laughs that came to him during the rest of his stay with Luffy and his crew whenever Sanji tried to avoid his gaze and avoided getting into conversations alone with Ace.
Everyone of the strawhats was so interesting that Ace almost considered staying for a bit long. But he needed to find Teach.
Maybe after dealing with the traitor and going back to the Moby, Ace could ask Pops to stay sometime with Luffy and the rest of the strawhat crew?