Hi guys! It's been a while. So I'm back with another fic. This one is dedicated to lunarshores because it's her birthday today (I didn't get the date wrong, did I?). I actually put in the extra effort to give it a happy ending :P I'm not sure how this one turned out, because I kind of wrote it in a rush. In hindsight, I should have started writing it sooner. But hey, who doesn't love procrastinating?

Beta read by Akage987

Oh, and Ace is almost 17 in this fic. Just FYI.

Ace kept running, pushing his legs to go even faster. They had to get away. They couldn't be caught, not now! He felt a tug on his hand as Luffy started slowing down because of the exhaustion. Ace glanced back at him. Luffy's breaths were shallow and quick. Ace knew he wouldn't be able to go on for much longer. No 7-year-old would. He looked past Luffy to see how far away their pursuers were.

The shouts he heard told him that they weren't all that far away.

Ace looked back at Luffy. He was in a terrible state. His clothes were all torn up from having to run through the forest, and his legs seemed as though they would give out any second. There was no way Luffy could keep on running. Slowing down slightly, Ace grabbed Luffy and lifted him up. Luffy looked up at him in surprise, but didn't say anything, instead opting to cling to Ace like he was his lifeline. In a way, he was.

The shouts were getting closer by the minute, and Ace was finding it harder to ignore the burning in his legs and chest. But he couldn't stop, not now - they'd be caught. And then they'd be killed. There was no way in the world he was going to allow the Marines to take Luffy's life! He had promised to protect him at all costs, and he wasn't going to go back on that promise, not even if it cost him his own life. He would figure something out, and they'd get away safely, like they always did. He wouldn't allow them to take away the person most precious to him.

He still had no idea how the World Government had found out about their fathers, nor how they'd actually managed to track them down. His grandfather had assured him on more than one occasion that it was impossible to find them, that he was doing everything in his power to keep the Marines from learning about his and Luffy's existence. He seriously doubted that Garp would willingly give them up, which made Ace worry about him. He didn't doubt that the Marines would resort to torture if they had to, and despite him not expressing it often, he really did love Garp. The man had taken him in and treated Ace as though he was his own grandson, and Ace owed him a lot. Without him, he would likely be dead.

Without me, they probably would never had found out about Luffy.

After all, it was far easier to find the whereabouts of two people than one. If Luffy had been alone, maybe this never would have happened.

Ace shook his head. He couldn't have thoughts like this now, not when they were so busy running for their lives. He dashed through the trees-

-and came to an abrupt stop. There was nowhere else to go. They were stuck on a cliff. There was a river far, far below, and he instinctively knew that if he tried jumping in he wouldn't survive. Neither would Luffy, not with his Devil Fruit. He couldn't jump over the the cliff on the other side either; it was too far away. He'd never make it.

But maybe there was still a chance to get Luffy to safety.

Ace put his brother down on the ground, frowning when Luffy almost collapsed from the exhaustion, and knelt down before him.

"Ace…?" he asked, and Ace forced his frown to turn into a smile. He knew it must have looked insincere, but it was honestly the best he could do at the moment, and didn't want Luffy's last memory of him to be one of him looking distraught.

"Luffy, listen to me. You'll have to rocket yourself over to the other side. We practiced this, rememb-?" Luffy interrupted him before he could finish.

"But what about you?" Luffy asked, looking to be on the verge of tears. Of course Luffy would be worrying about his life more than his own. It was just so like him.

"I'll be fine," Ace lied smoothly. It was a little white lie. He knew he had no chance of escaping this, but if he told Luffy Ace doubted he would ever leave him. And saving Luffy's life was currently highest on his priority list.

"Promise?" Luffy asked. Ace smothered the guilt gnawing at him and smiled again.

"Promise. Now go." Luffy gave him one last frightened look before darting toward two nearby trees. Ace followed after him, ready to help if such a need arose. Luffy grabbed one branch with each hand. Ace just hoped that they wouldn't break with the force. He watched as Luffy started backing away, making sure not to let go of either branch. As his arms stretched more and more, Ace couldn't help but to recall all of their previous attempts at this. They more often than not failed, usually ending with something being broken (not bones, thankfully). If this wasn't the only way to get Luffy to safety, he would never allow him to do it. The risk of it not working was just too high, and even if it did work there were no guarantees that Luffy would actually launch himself in the right direction. He could land himself in the river!

Ace whirled around when he heard the rustle of dry leaves. A Marine with a gun was standing in between the trees. And he was aiming straight at the back of Luffy's head. Blood pounding in his ears, Ace rushed forward to put himself between Luffy and the danger. There was a loud bang. For a split second, Ace thought that he hadn't made it. At first, there was nothing but the feeling of being hit by something. Then, the searing pain came at him all at once and he fell to his knees. His lungs refused to cooperate and he coughed up blood. But no, he couldn't worry about that now, he had to check to see if Luffy was safe. Ace turned around, hoping that Luffy was on the other side of the river by now, that he had gotten away safely because they had run out of time but no, Luffy was still there. He'd let go of the trees and was standing over Ace, pupils blown with fear and hands trembling.

"A-Ace?" he whispered softly, uncaring of the Marines currently surrounding them, guns pointed straight at them. Ace struggled to get to his feet when he heard heavier footsteps. He lunged at Luffy, hoping his body would act as a shield from the shower of bullets that would inevitably fall upon them. Ace wrapped his arms around Luffy, not wanting there to be even a slight chance of a bullet getting through and hurting him. Luffy would be fine. He'd get away from this somehow - he had to! It didn't matter what happened to him as long as Luffy was safe.

"Fire!" came the command, and all of the guns seemed to go off simultaneously. Ace shut his eyes tightly and tensed his muscles in preparation for the pain that was about to assault him from all sides. There was a part of him that hoped they would kill him instantly, so that he wouldn't have to go through it. So that he wouldn't have to see Luffy's face as he realized that his brother was dying a painful death and there was nothing that could be done to save his life.

But there was nothing. No new additions to the pain he was currently experiencing, no more blood coming from his body other than what he kept coughing up. Maybe he got what he had hoped for and was already dead? He opened his eyes in curiosity, only to see Luffy looking past him at something. What surprised Ace the most was how most of the fear he'd seen had suddenly been replaced with wonder. He had no idea what could have caused something like this.

Hesitantly, Ace turned around, only to have to narrow his eyes as they were met with an assault of bright colors. Blue was the most noticeable, but he could have sworn there were flashes of yellow here and there. Ace blinked rapidly, trying to get his eyes accustomed to the light, but it proved unnecessary as they easily died down. He barely registered the Marines' screams as the figure that had miraculously come out of the light rushed to them. A few seconds later and they were all dead, even the one Ace was mostly sure had been a Vice Admiral.

Ace didn't know how he was supposed to feel. On the one hand, he should probably be scared, because this man had just taken care of an entire squad of Marines without even breaking a sweat and was much, much stronger than all of them combined. On the other, he had just saved their lives.

Now that the effects of the adrenaline were starting to fade he was starting to feel really tired. The bullet that had most likely made a hole in his lung probably wasn't helping his state. And he still couldn't catch his breath. He collapsed to his knees once again, unable to keep himself up anymore. Luffy tried rushing to his side, but Ace pushed him behind him.

You know, just in case the man (who was slowly coming up to them) turned out to be worse than the Marines.

He was blond. And tall. He had half-lidded blue eyes that were almost the same color as the sky and gave him a laid-back air. Ace let his eyes fall lower. There was a tattoo on his chest. Ace felt as though he should recognize the symbol, but his mind was drawing a blank. He blamed it all on the exhaustion. The man came closer to them and kneeled before him. He seemed to be saying something, but because of the buzzing in his ears, Ace couldn't figure out what. He coughed again. Damn, he really needed to do something about that. The man, apparently realizing that Ace wasn't going to answer him anytime soon, turned to Luffy. Ace growled and pushed Luffy further away from him. Luffy paid no attention to him and instead replied. After about half a minute of conversation, Ace's hearing started coming back to him.

"-Luffy?" That was the man's voice. It was deep and smooth. Ace begrudgingly admitted that he liked the sound.

"Yeah. And this is Ace," Luffy said, pointing to him. If Ace was feeling better, he would probably have told Luffy off for introducing them to a complete stranger, but having a bullet tear through your body tended to make people feel very, very bad.

Was it just him, or was his hearing starting to fade again? It seemed to be taking his eyesight along for the ride this time. And his strength. Damn it. He needed to get patched up as soon as possible.

"I'm Marco," was the last thing Ace heard before he blacked out.

"I understand that you had to get them out of danger, but was it really necessary to take out all of the Marines by yourself? I mean, you could have left a few for us! I haven't had a chance to fight anyone in months! This would have been great! But no, Marco the Phoenix is the only one who gets to have any fun anymore," someone whined. It was a grown up's voice, but Ace could have sworn the man was pouting, judging by the tone of his voice. The expression probably looked comical. It almost made him want to open his eyes. Almost. He was still tired. Even for him, this was weird. He always got tired before his narcolepsy attacks, but this was on a whole other level. There was this one time when he'd fallen off a tree and if Lu-

No, no. Now he was getting off topic. Fuck, was he high? And where the hell was he? He didn't know that voice. Fear flooded his veins as he started remembering bits and pieces of what had happened.

Where the hell was Luffy?!

The beeping, which he hadn't really noticed before, sped up. There was movement over to the side, and it had Ace forcing his eyes open, unmindful of the bright light shining into them. He pushed himself up to his elbows, but the pain that assaulted him with the movement had him back down on the soft mattress in less than a second. Fuck, his chest hurt. And fuck, he was swearing a lot. At least he had sufficient reason.

He was torn from his thoughts when someone appeared in his field of vision. He dimly recognized the person as the blond man from yesterday. Marco or something, right?

"Are you alright?" He was right next to Ace's bed, looking him over. Ace glared at him.

"Where the fuck am I?" It came out a bit more raspy than he had hoped. He'd wanted to at least sound a little bit threatening. Didn't really turn out that way. Marco seemed to think so too, because he smirked. That smirk pissed Ace off to no end. He hadn't even (consciously) spent five minutes with the guy and he already hated him. "And where's my brother?" he demanded. He swallowed, mouth twisting into a scowl at the metallic tang of his saliva. Right, he'd been coughing up blood recently, hadn't he?

"You're on our ship. Both of you are safe. Luffy's gone to get something to eat; he'll be back soon." The mention of Luffy had Ace trying to sit up again, but Marco just pushed him back down onto the bed. "My name is Marco, and this is my brother, Thatch," Marco said, gesturing off to the side somewhere. Ace turned his head to see the other person. He had hair styled in a pompadour and was wearing white clothes. Probably new, too, because just looking at their brightness was giving Ace a migraine.

"What ship? I want to see my brother." He wouldn't say anything else until he made sure that Luffy was really safe. Not that Marco and Thatch had asked any questions so far, but Ace was pretty sure they'd get to that eventually, probably sooner rather than later. "And who the fuck are you?"

"We're the Whitebeard pirates," came the answer. Oh, fuck him. Of all the people he could have stumbled across… Why them? His luck sucked. It just had to have been his lame excuse for a father's archenemy he stumbled across.

Then again, they were still alive, so maybe not all was bad.

"And what the fuck do you want with us?" On second thought, it was probably good that Luffy wasn't here. At least he wouldn't learn to swear at such a young age.

Marco narrowed his eyes with annoyance and Thatch laughed.

"We saved your life. The least you could do is say thank you," Marco berated. Ace took his eyes off Marco's face to look around the room. He seemed to be in an infirmary of some sort. It was in much better condition than any other he'd been to over the years. Not that he'd been to too many. You know, being a delinquent and all meant that people would rather call the authorities or something rather than let him into a clinic in fear that he'd just cause them trouble. Ah, but he was getting off topic again.

He was high, there was no doubt about it. Ace groaned.

"What did you give me?" he asked, trying to look Marco in the eyes, but somehow his gaze ended up on Marco's hair instead. It had a very, very weird shape…

"Morphine," Marco replied. So he was high. On painkillers. Great… Now that he was more awake than he'd been before, he also noticed something sticking out of his chest. He raised his hand to poke at the object, but Marco quickly slapped it away. "Don't touch that."

Ace glared at him. He would do whatever he damn well pleased. He raised his hand to touch the thing again, only to have Marco take his arm and pin it to the bed.

"It's a chest tube. It's helping you breathe. A bullet tore through your lung, remember?" Ace rolled his eyes but his curiosity had been satisfied. For now.

"Can you let go of my hand now?" he asked. Seeing Marco's narrowed eyes, he added, "I promise I won't touch it again." If Marco was puzzled by Ace's sudden good behavior, then he didn't say anything. Seriously, these painkillers were doing weird things to him.

"Why did you save us, anyway. Aren't you guys pirates?" Ace narrowed his eyes in suspicion as a sudden thought struck him. "Why were you there in the first place?" Ace saw Thatch turn to Marco, obviously reluctant to talk. Marco, in turn, sighed.

"We were in the area." Ace wasn't sure whether he should believe that explanation, but gave up. The next thing he knew, he was overcome by a sudden wave of exhaustion. Must be his narcolepsy finally kicking in. He tried to keep his eyes open, but they seemed to be closing on their own. Eventually, knowing there was nothing else he could do, Ace succumbed to sleep.

When he woke up, someone was talking. No, not talking. Reading a book? He was pretty sure it was Marco, but why would he be reading aloud? Ace opened one eye and turned to look at Marco.

Except he didn't see Marco. Someone laying down next to him on his bed was obscuring his view.

"Luffy?" Ace rasped. The figure before him turned toward him so fast that it should have been impossible. No later than a second later Ace saw Luffy smiling down at him.

"Ace! You're awake! Marco told me you would be awake soon but I didn't believe him. Do you know I have a bounty now? It's so high, too," Luffy stated. Ace's muscles tensed and he narrowed his eyes.

"Bounty? What for?" he asked. There was no way a 7-year-old would get a bounty. Surprisingly enough, it was Marco who answered him.

"Apparently your brother has committed numerous acts of terror." Ace's eyebrows rose on his forehead. There was no way people would just buy something like that. Luffy was a little kid, for heaven's sake! How did the World Government even come up with this bullshit?

"Your bounty is higher than mine, though," Luffy said, pouting. "It's not fair, Ace! Why do you get a higher bounty than me?" Ace shook his head in exasperation.

"That's not a good thing, Luffy. Bounty hunters will be all over us." Ace tried explaining, but Luffy was having none of it. He shoved two slightly wrinkled posters into Ace's face. Ace took them from him and looked. He whistled when he saw how much Luffy's head was worth. The World Goverment sure wasn't taking any chances. Lots of people would be after Luffy for money like that. He doubted anyone would actually pay much attention to the fact that he was just a little kid. Ace gave Luffy his wanted poster back and instead looked at the other one. How they'd managed to photograph him, he'd never know, but there he was, running away with the Marines hot on his trail. His eyes scanned over the numerous offences listed on his poster and froze when he saw his name.

Fuck.

Gol D Ace.

He hesitantly looked up at Marco, who was watching him with an unreadable expression on his face.

"Are you going to kill me now?" he asked, looking away and ignoring Luffy's angry protests to the words. Roger was Marco's enemy; Ace doubted Marco would want to keep him around.

"Do you want me to?" Marco retorted, surprising Ace. Ace shook his head slowly, looking at Luffy, who had sat up and was now glaring at him with all the ferocity a little kid could muster.

"No," he replied, still avoiding eye contact, and Marco smiled. "But I don't see why you'd allow me to live, either." The smile fell off Marco's face and was replaced with a blank expression.

"You're not your father, Ace." That was the first time Marco had actually said his name. "You bear no sin." Ace snorted, but didn't comment any further. What did Marco know? "Besides, we knew about that before we saved you. It's actually why we saved you. Word got out that Roger's kid was living on that island, and we knew it was only a matter of time before the Marines came after you. No one deserves to be killed only on the account of their lineage. I guess we arrived in the nick of time."

"They're nice, Ace! They fed me and saved us and fed me and took care of you and fed me some more… I like them!" Luffy interrupted. "Did you know that Whitebeard is huge? Like, this big," Luffy exclaimed, holding out his arms in an attempt to show exactly how large Whitebeard is. "And he's really fun, too!" Ace listened to Luffy talking about what had happened while he'd been unconscious. Apparently, he got along well with Thatch, who had proceeded to 'instruct him in the art of pranking' as he'd apparently put it. Luffy went on and on about all the pranks they'd already played. Ace had no idea how they'd found enough time to do so much over the two or so days he'd been out, but he didn't question it. He'd long since learned that it was better not to ask about such things where Luffy was concerned.

He was so immersed in the stories that he almost missed it when Marco left the room with a smile on his face. Maybe this crew wasn't so bad, after all.

It made him wonder how long they were going to stay here.

Ace grinned when he felt someone throw an arm over his waist.

"Why are you still awake?" Marco asked sleepily. Ace turned over onto his other side. He raised a hand to run his fingers through Marco's sleep-mussed hair.

"Just thinking," he replied, leaning forward to plant a kiss on Marco's lips.

"What could you possibly be thinking about at this hour?" Marco asked, more awake by the second. It was around three in the morning, and honestly, Ace had no idea why he'd woken up, but he couldn't seem to fall back asleep.

"About how we met," he whispered. Marco's grip on him tightened, probably remembering how Ace had almost died. It had been years ago, but neither of them had forgotten what had happened. "And the moment I think I fell in love with you." Marco snuggled into his neck, breathing in deeply. "You know, I never actually thought I'd ever join the crew. I didn't think you guys would accept me that easily."

"It may have had something to do with the fact that Luffy promised to kick our asses if we didn't," Marco teased. Ace snorted.

"Oh, I'm sure a brat like that could beat up anyone of you guys easily," Ace replied sarcastically. He felt Marco smile into his neck.

"Well, I recall that one time when he- " Ace interrupted him by lifting his head and planting another kiss on his lips.

"I know, I know. But to be fair, Thatch was drunk at the time." Marco chuckled.

"It was still Luffy's win, though. Now that I think about it, there was also this one time when he beat you in a fight, wasn't there?" Marco asked, smirking. Ace stuck his tongue out at him.

"Shut up and go back to sleep," he said. Marco saluted playfully.

"I'll get right to it." A few minutes later, the room was filled with the sound of soft snores and Ace found himself smiling once again.

There's no place like home.

I probably should have added another scene or two, but I kinda ran out of time. But thanks for reading!