Hello again! This fic was written for opscifiandfantasy, and look, I finished it in time, too :D I even have a few hours to spare. Unfortunately, because of my terrible habit of procrastinating, I was left with no time to ask anyone to beta read this, so please forgive any mistakes you might notice.

"This is entirely your fault!" Ace shouted at the man lying on ground next to him.

"Of course, because I'm the one who made you go after Pops's head," came the annoyed reply. Ace decided not to answer. Instead, he pushed himself up off the floor of the spaceship and made off to go brood in solitude.

Oh, but right. He couldn't go anywhere. Not while this giant hulk of metal was floating in space without anything to power it. He couldn't open a single door, contact anyone, he couldn't even turn on the damn lights! Ace leaned against the door and slid down. He brought his knees up to his chest, wrapped his arms around them, and leaned his forehead against them.

"It's your fault," he mumbled to the other man (Marco was his name, Ace's brain supplied after a few seconds). When he didn't get an answer, Ace looked up. From what he could make out in the dim, almost nonexistent, blue light coming from Marco (more specifically, his skin - how, Ace had no idea, but he decided he didn't really care). Marco was leaning against the wall across from him with his head against it. Ace could probably try to take him out now. At least that would be one less problem when he next tried to kill Whitebeard. He quietly moved his arm to rest on the hilt of the dagger he had attached to his belt and unsheathed it. He froze when Marco sighed.

"Don't even think about it, brat." Ace glared at him, but left the knife alone. Instead he pushed himself off the floor and decided to do something (anything) to let off some steam. He turned back to the door, mustered up some energy, and kicked was careful not to make too big a dent, though.

"What are you doing?" Marco asked, but Ace didn't reply. He was not going to fraternize with the enemy. He continued ignoring Marco and kicking the door, until Marco came up to him and put his hand on Ace's shoulder. Ace tore his shoulder out of Marco's grip and glared at him again, trying to convey all the anger and hate he was feeling in the look.

"You're just going to end up hurting yourself, you know." Ace did know. His foot was already starting to hurt, not that he paid it much attention. He gave the door one last kick before he turned around and sank back down to the floor.

"Great. Just fan-fucking- tastic," he spat. "How in the world are we going to get out of here?" Oops, slip of the tongue. He meant to ask how he would be getting out of here, because there was no chance in hell he was going to let Marco leave alive. He'd just have to wait for the right opportunity to get rid of him.

"Doesn't this ship of yours have a backup power source somewhere?" Marco asked. Ace eyed him wearily. While he may have wanted to get off this ship and onto any nearby planet, he was reluctant to let Marco walk around his spaceship. Then, he sighed. Survival came first.

"Yeah, but it's three floors down and at the other end of the ship." Marco nodded. "But it's not like we can get out of here witho-" he was interrupted by a loud crash, and the sound of metal banging against metal. Closer observation revealed that Marco had, in fact, torn the door off its hinges. "What the hell do you think you're doing to my ship?!" he yelled. Marco ignored him and stepped through the doorway. Ace just looked on, not quite believing what he was seeing, as Marco turned back to him and raised his eyebrow. Once again, Ace pushed himself off the floor and stood up.

"You had no qualms when you were the one demolishing your ship." Ace scoffed.

"Yeah, well how does this," Ace gestured towards the door lying in the hallway, "Compare to a bit of kicking?" Marco ignored him. It seemed they were both doing a lot of that today. Nevertheless, Ace followed him into the hall, shooting one last regretful glance at the door. He'd fix it when he got out of this mess. This one, and the plethora of others Marco would probably kick down because they were in their way.

"Lead the way, Captain," Marco drawled. Ace pushed past him and started walking toward the flight of stairs at the end of the hallway. Alright, so maybe them getting stuck in outer space, on an unpowered spaceship was partially his fault.

It was only a few minutes ago that he'd docked on Whitebeard's ship and demanded a one-on-one battle. While Whitebeard had agreed, Marco, the first mate, had not. He'd said something about how Whitebeard needed his rest and had decided to fight Ace instead. While Ace had initially been furious, he'd come to the conclusion that he could take advantage of the situation. He'd agreed to fight Marco, and the moment Marco had turned his back, he'd lunged for Whitebeard, who'd been standing a ways off. In retrospect, it wasn't the smartest thing he'd ever done (he'd go so far as to call it one of the stupidest), as the second Marco had realized what he was going to do, he caught up to Ace and launched him through the wall of his own ship. If Ace wasn't planning on killing him, he'd demand Marco pay for the repairs himself, as most of the damage to Ace's precious ship had been caused by him.

They'd ended up in the control room, where Ace had quickly activated a forcefield that would keep any air from escaping from the ship in (as a precaution). As soon as Marco flew in, their battle started anew. Things happened, and one of them had accidentally pressed the button to teleport the ship somewhere else. Unfortunately, the coordinates were such that they crashed into an asteroid and the ship had proceeded to lose all power.

Which is how they had ended up in their present situation.

A few destroyed doors later, and Ace and Marco were finally on the bottom floor of the spaceship and nearing the backup generator. Just one more hallway, one more destroyed door (he'd never forgive Marco for doing what he did to them) and they'd be able to power up the ship, if only a little. Maybe enough to send an emergency signal of some sort.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw some flashing lights through the porthole they were passing by. Ace stopped and moved closer, hoping to find the source of the illumination, but he was forced to narrow his eyes as the brightness assaulted them.

"Fuck," Marco breathed behind him. As Ace's eyes grew accustomed to the light, he finally understood just what had elicited such a response.

They were surrounded by Marine ships.

"Fuck," Ace repeated after Marco. He knew that becoming a space pirate was just asking to be chased around by the law, but what he wouldn't give for the Marines not to have found them for at least a few more minutes.

Speaking of which, how did they find them? He looked at Marco in suspicion, because maybe, just maybe he had had something to do with this, but the second Marco noticed his gaze he raised his arms in surrender.

"It wasn't me. They must have bugged your ship beforehand," Marco defended. Ace snorted. He was rather inclined to believe Marco, but, then again, Ace didn't really know him. He didn't know what Marco was capable of. Besides, as Luffy always said, nothing was impossible.

"No one says 'bugged' anymore. Just how old are you?" Ace smirked when Marco glared at him. It would appear age was a sensitive topic. Maybe he could have at least a bit of fun in this situation.

"Careful, brat," Marco snapped, the light coming from his skin becoming more vibrant with annoyance. Ace's smirk turned into a full-blown grin. Maybe antagonizing his enemy (whom he had a temporary truce with, but enemy nonetheless) wasn't the smartest course of action, but as he'd already proven, he wasn't up to doing smart things today. On a side note, he had to wonder just what species Marco was. He didn't recall ever hearing about a humanoid that glowed blue, and he'd been to a lot of different planets and had done some reading on the topic of alien species.

Ahh, yes. He was getting off topic.

"Or what, old man?" Ace taunted. In the blink of an eye, Marco was standing in front of him, a bit too close for comfort, his warm breath blowing Ace's hair away from his face. For a second there, Ace had the overwhelming urge to lean into him, but he got ahold of himself in time to stop his body from moving further than a few millimeters. This was certainly weird. He didn't usually find himself wanting to get closer to complete strangers. Maybe it was one of Marco's weird alien powers or something.

Yep, definitely that. There was no other explanation.

"Or I'll launch you right through that wall and leave you floating out there," Marco threatened. He had a really deep voice when he spoke that way, Ace noticed. Not that he should have been paying attention to things like that. He should be more preoccupied with thinking about how they should deal with the Marines outside. But he couldn't help it, Marco's voice sounded - dare he say it - sexy. Ace shook his head to rid it of those thoughts. He also had to will his skin not to turn orange (yes, when he was embarrassed, he turned orange). This man was his enemy. Well, he had been a little while ago and the partnership thing was necessary, but it was only temporary. He could not be having thoughts like this right now!

Ace took a step away from Marco and looked out the porthole again. Marines were a very, very big pain in the ass. They called themselves "Upholders of Justice" or some shit and went after other aliens. Not necessarily criminals, either. Luffy had once told him that one of his dreams was to raid the planet the Marines were situated on, and Ace had spent well over a week trying to get that idea out of his head. It wasn't worth it. Luffy would just end up dead.

"What are we gonna do about those guys out there?" Ace asked Marco as he watched the spacesuit-clad forms drift closer. An alarm sounded as they got through the forcefield.

Which, in turn, got Ace thinking that maybe not all the power was gone. After all, the force field was still intact, and something had to be powering the alarm. Not that that information was of much use, since nothing in the control room was working anyway.

"I can take care of them while you go send out an S.O.S signal to my crew." Ace snorted, but refrained from commenting. S.O.S. Seriously. Just how old was Marco? Not that he cared; he was just curious. As he watched the first Marine drift closer to the ship and take out a laser to cut the metal hull, Ace sighed. More repairs, it would seem. He wasn't exactly the richest space pirate alive, and fixing the damage would require a lot money. Money he didn't necessarily have.

Maybe he could raid a few merchant ships or something later. He usually avoided it, but it would seem that this was a crisis. Or he could go back to his original plan of charging Marco for this.

"Fine. Just don't let any of them get anywhere near me, because I can't make any promises that I won't accidentally destroy the backup generator." And that would be very bad indeed. They'd probably end up dying here, because he doubted anyone would find them.

If he survived, he'd need to remember to get rid of that tracking device Marco said was probably there on the ship. It wouldn't do to have more Marines coming after him, not with his ship in this state and his crew still on Whitebeard's ship, He wondered how they were doing. They were most likely being held prisoner. He refused to accept that they may have been killed.

His thoughts were in disarray, it would seem. Had he hit his head before? Maybe he had a concussion. He lifted his hand to his head, ignoring Marco's confused glance, and felt around for any blood or swelling. He found nothing. Ace sighed again, before moving in the direction of the last door standing in between him and the backup power source. He felt really bad about having to kick it in, but it had to be done. For the greater good, he told himself.

"Try not to ruin my ship much more than it already is," he said to Marco, before lashing out with his leg. The door went flying off its hinges, and, once again, Ace had to listen to the sound of metal slamming against metal. He cringed, but moved into the room.

It didn't take long for the Whitebeard Pirates to find them after that. They arrived in less than a minute after the signal was sent. By then, the spaceship had been overrun by Marines, and Ace could see Marco getting annoyed by their sheer amount. Really, these guys were like some rodents or something, there were so many of them.

Some Whitebeard pirates boarded the ship after that and helped him and Marco take care of the rest of the Marines, but by then, Ace's ship was a complete wreck. It wasn't even worth repairing; he'd just have to get a new one. He groaned. Now he wouldn't even have a way to leave Whitebeard's ship.

He watched as Marco talked to another Whitebeard pirate who had his hair styled in a pompadour. At least, that's what Ace thought they were called. This guy looked human, and that was weird in itself. Humans were hard to come by these days.

Ace sat down with his back against the wall and surveyed the damage to his ship again. He would miss her; he'd had her for as long as he could remember, but it wasn't worth fixing all of these holes. Damn Marines...

He heard footsteps approaching him and turned to glare at whoever it was that dared to disturb him.

Marco. He should have known. Everyone else was watching the two of them with amusement. Why, Ace didn't know. He didn't really care, either. He turned his gaze away from Marco and to the bodies of Marines being dumped into space. He felt a bit sorry for them, but that was the only way to get them off the ship. Besides, they probably had some sort of tracking device in each suit anyway, so they'd be found eventually.

Marco sat down next to him.

"I guess you have no choice but to stay with us for the time being." Ace glared at him again. He was about to reply, but thought better of it and instead went back to sulking. Marco was still glowing with that weird blue light of his, but Ace found he no longer cared about that. He was much more interested in what exactly was going to happen to him and his crew now, because there was no way in the world the man he'd tried to kill a short while ago would allow him to stay aboard his ship for even the shortest amount of time.

"I think I'd sooner end up dead. Whoever heard of pirates willing to find accommodation for their enemies?" Ace retorted. Marco hummed.

"You don't have anywhere to go. Besides, you owe me after this mess," Marco replied, gesturing all around him. "It's your fault we ended up here, and by staying with us for a short amount of time, you could repay me for my troubles." Ace snorted. Why Marco would even want him on Whitebeard's ship was beyond him.

"I'm still convinced that it's yours, actually. And you wrecked my ship!" Marco merely shrugged and smirked.

"And thanks to your lack of observation skills, we got attacked by Marines. Besides, it was my crew who came for us. Just admit it, Ace. You owe us." To Ace, it sounded more as though Marco had meant to say that Ace owes him in particular. "It's not like you have anywhere to go." Ace sighed.

"Why do you want me to stay with you guys so much?" Marco smiled at him bringing his hand up as though to touch him, but stopping short and putting it back down.

"Because I'm sure that Pops has already taken a liking to you. You'd be a welcomed guest." Ace studied Marco for a moment before slumping forwards in resignation.

"Fine," he said. At least it would supply him with time to plan out a few more assassination events. Marco smiled again and pushed himself off the floor. He held out a hand to help out Ace. For a moment, Ace could have sworn he saw blue feathers covering Marco's hand, but they were gone the next second. Great, now he was seeing things. Despite this, he latched onto Marco's hand and allowed himself to be pulled up. Ace was surprised to find that Marco's skin was cool to the touch.

They waited until the remains of Ace's spaceship had been hauled onto Whitebeards. Ace followed Marco off, surprised to see his crew right there, waiting for him.

"What have you done to the ship?!" Someone cried out, but Ace paid them no attention, opting instead to focus on Marco. Marco gestured for Ace to follow him, and Ace did so reluctantly. If he was going to stay on this ship for who knows how long, the least he could do would be to learn how to find his way around it.

"Where are we going?" he asked, glaring at anyone who dared to look at him. Marco didn't bother to turn around as he answered.

"To see Pops and tell him that you're staying."

"Hey, Izo. When's mating season?" Thatch asked, following Marco and the newcomer with his gaze. He turned to look at Izo, not at all surprised to see him smirking.

"Honey, do you even have to ask?"

Not entirely satisfied with how this turned out, but oh well. I have a bit of a case of writer's block, it would seem.