By all rights, the scars shouldn't have existed in the first place. Ace x Marco

Ace first noticed the mark before he was Whitebeard's son. Or, more accurately, before he knew he was one of his sons. Back when everyone who was not named Portgas D. Ace had already accepted that he was a part of the family, and was just being difficult at this point.

Ace had a lot of hiding places on the ship. He'd found at least a dozen in the week he'd been their captive, small slates that could be safely removed and revealed enough space for a young man to squeeze in, storage rooms that were barely used, and one particular closet that housed the spare sails. He could hide away all day, until his stomach demanded that he steal food or he had a new plan to try and take the old man's head.

Frustratingly, no matter where he went, Marco could always find him. Was he a phoenix or a freaking bloodhound?

Ace had hoped that his latest hiding place would remedy that.

After all, who would look in their own window seat for a captive?

Ace muffled a snicker at his own cleverness and settled against the wood, safe behind the curtains that Marco kept drawn. Ace wasn't sure why Marco had the box with the window in it, which gave the best view of the seas. The window's even had a latch, unlike anything Ace had seen on a ship before. Most rooms only had a porthole, if that, and they definitely didn't open.

The young man was very smug, settled in and waiting. Let Marco find him now!

Ace woke up from that thought sometimes around sunset, the narcoleptic attack ending as quick as it came. He looked out, watching the sun burn across the horizon as it sank into the waves. Orange melted down in the water, molten fire. Ace breathed in the dying warmth, drawing it into his veins.

The door opened with a soft clock, so minute Ace almost missed it. He stiffened, barely daring breath. Had Marco found him?

Even if he had, it wasn't like Ace had gone snooping through his things. He'd just sat himself in the window and taken an unwilling nap. He hadn't gone through the carefully stacked manilla folders, or pulled open the drawers in the desk. He hadn't gone riffling through the closet, or even touched his sheets.

Ace waited a few minutes before he carefully parted the curtains, just enough to peak out.

Marco was facing away from him, dropping his lilac shirt into a hamper. He reached for the blue one he had already laid out, stretching the scar on his back.

It was bad, ugly, stretching from beneath the sash at his hips up to his shoulder blades and back. The cut that had made it was too jagged for it to have been done cleanly, or with any skill, and it was clearly done with the intent to hurt, mock.

Ace pulled his face back, suddenly sick with the feeling of intruding. He waited until Marco had left the room to sneak out, running off to hide somewhere else. He didn't go back to the window box. He had already seen more than he was meant to.

The second time Ace saw it was at an onsen on a winter island that was under their protection. They had gone to celebrate Ace finally becoming Whitebeard's son. It was a lavish affair, and after the party wound down everyone parted ways. Some went back to the ship, some went to see what the local girls thought of pirate boys. Ace decided to try the water out.

Now, he may not have always been the most strategic of thinkers, but Ace was, by no means, stupid. Impulsive, reckless, bullheaded even, but not stupid. So when he decided he wanted to soak in the hot water, he grabbed the nearest person to him, who happened to be Marco, and declared,

"Take a bath with me."

To which he received a slightly more open eyed stare than usual. Marco went back to his sleepy expression a second later.

"No," he said blandly. Ace frowned, about to argue, when he remembered the macabre decoration carved into his new brother's back.

"Then watch me take one," he countered instead. Marco stared at him again, until Ace realized his mistake. Face heating, he smacked the bird. "Not like that! If I fall asleep in the water, I'll drown."

"Then stay out of the water, yoi," Marco reasoned. He hadn't even flinched for Ace's blow.

Ace made a face at the older pirate, face scrunched up like a bulldog trying to get a biscuit.

Marco snorted at him and the lines of his face eased into a softness that made Ace's stomach curl delightfully around itself. He swallowed back a lump trying to form in his throat, eyes wider.

"Alright, alright," Marco waved his hand. "I'll make sure you don't drown."

Ace positively beamed at him. He threw an arm around his brother, dragging the taller man into him. To his credit Marco didn't stumble, just leaned down at little to make up for the different in their height.

"You're the best!" he told the phoenix, handing him the praise a few inches from his face. Marco, lackadaisy as ever, poked Ace's hat a few inches higher.

"Just start walking, yoi."

Ace did, his arm migrating from being looped around Marco's neck to his arm. If Marco thought anything about how childish Ace was, he didn't mention it.

Both of them had a room to themselves, but Ace went to his for the sake of actually knowing where that was. The rooms were already impressive enough, especially to someone who'd grown up the way Ace had, but more than the wide space or the fine paintings on the wall, more than the well stuffed cushions around the small table or the silk sheets over the mats, the baths were grand.

A hot spring, each expensive suite accompanied by one, bubble up from the ground with water that bordered on scalding. Rich minerals rolled through the stone with the water that filled the bath, big enough to hold five men, let alone two. A tree swung it's low branches down near the water, causing ripples where it brushed. The whole thing was bordered with a powdery snow fall that hadn't quite melted yet.

Ace stripped, shameless in front of another man, and tossed his clothes carelessly into the corner before he slipped into the water.

On anyone else it would have been too hot to simply jump into. For a man made out of fire, it was just warm enough to sink into his skin and feel pleasantly warm.

A soft, contented sigh escaped him. He hadn't realized until then the kind of pressure he'd been under, constantly anxious, waiting for someone to get sick of him and attack. Constantly weary of where he was, who was around and what was in his food. Always truing to come up with a way to kill Whitebeard, even surrounded by a ship of people who kill and die for him.

Ace's head lolled back. His chest caved in with the built up stress finally being released.

Long fingers slid into his hair, drawing dark eyes open to look up at Marco's droopy eyed stare. A small tug and a soft 'thump' sounded behind his head.

"You still have your hat on," he explained. Ace hummed and leaned into the fingers. It felt nice, being touched like that. Luffy had been all about physical contact, but there was something different between his little brother clinging to him at every opportunity and Marco taking the time to make sure he didn't hurt his most valuable possession, some foreign in the gentle way his fingertips touched Ace's scalp.

"Thanks," he remembered his manners, at least. When Marco's touched wandered from his head to his shoulders, to one of the arms Ace had stretched out on either side of him, he did nothing to stop it. Not even when his fingers found the familiar crossbones over the extra letter in his name.

Ace looked at Marco's face, waiting for the inevitable question. A question that never came.

Marco pulled his hand back to himself, to Ace's disappointment. On impulse, Ace grabbed it before it was out of reach.

Marco glanced at him.

"Yes? He prompted.

Ace paused. He hadn't thought that far ahead.

"Are you sure you don't want in?" he asked again, fully expecting denial.

When Marco sighed and pulled his hand back to take off his shirt, Ace was stunned. He hadn't actually expected for Marco to join him, but here he was, stripping down. Ace would be lying of he said he didn't watch him, letting his eyes wander down the man's legs, up over his chest, and higher until he met a smug smile and dark eyes.

Ace's face heated quickly and he looked away, sinking down in the water. Shit.

"Like what you see?" Marco teased, easing himself in across from Ace. The younger man didn't miss the way he kept his back to him.

"Eat me," Ace replied, eloquence personified.

Marco snorted and sunk in to his shoulders, tilting his head back and letting out a groan that had to be intentional. Ace decided then that Marco was a dick.

"I didn't say it before, yoi," Marco said some minute later, "But welcome home, brother. We're glad you found us."

Ace flushed warmly, a goofy smile spreading across his face. That same warmth curled in his stomach once more, Marco met his smile with a half one of his own.

"I'm glad I didn't get a lucky shot in and kill the old- and kill Pops," he tested the word, rolling it around in his mouth. His father. Ace hadn't known how much he needed one until he had one, and now he didn't think he could ever let go of the feeling of being someone's son. Someone other that him.

Marco laughed, long and hard. Ace's face only got hotter.

"You were never going to kill him, you know," he said, without the mocking bite that Ace expected for trying to murder the strongest man in the world, on at least twenty seven different occasions. He sighed heavily.

"I do now!" Ace tilted his head back against the stone, slightly cooler than the water, and closed his eyes.

He woke up when he found himself being jostled, picked up out of the water and slung over Marco's shoulder like he weighed nothing at all.

Dark eyes blinked a few times before they focussed on his butt, then quickly migrated to the scars mutilating his back. Ace swallowed a sudden wave of nausea and anger. They were even worse close up, horribly detailed in their depiction. It made his stomach roil with the desire to burn whoever had done it to ashes.

He pressed his face into Marco's back, so he wouldn't have to see, and wrapped his arms around his chest and an awkward hug. It drew a soft laugh from the man carrying him.

"Go back to sleep," he advised for the first time, "I won't let you drown."

Ace had no doubt about that. He obeyed and closed his eyes.

Ace saw it again weeks later, though he didn't ask about it.

When he ran his hands down Marco's ribs and lay his lips across his chest, Marco let him push the shirt off. The fire in his veins roared to life and he tumbled into the bed, letting Marco roll them until he was hovering above Ace, kissing his hard. Ace thought he could drown like that, kissing Marco, grasping at his shoulders, sinking his nails into his arms.

They tumbled, pressed against each other, kicking up a ruckus that settled more than a few bets.

Ace found himself laid out of his back, grinning like mad at the ceiling. His head was hazy, his skin was steadily cooling even as Marco ran his palm across Ace's stomach, reaching a small scar that slid between his ribs, barely an inch across.

Ace didn't have to look to know the one his fingers had paused on.

"They took me by surprise, before I ate the fruit," he said without prompting. "Probably the closest I've ever come to dying. And it's tiny!"

"Right into your lung," Marco agreed. His fingers moved on, to a slightly larger mark, much more faded, on his chest. He tapped it, drumming his fingers over the three slashes. "Feline?"

"Giant tiger," Ace confirmed. "I was like, eleven? It looked smaller from in the tree…"

Marco laughed at him and leaned down to look him in the eyes. "How don't you have more scars?"

"Luck? Stubbornness? I don't have your healing factor," he elbowed Marco playfully. Still, Marco had scars of his own. Worse than any of the ones Ace had ever seen before, and he'd seen some shit.

His thoughts must have showed on his face for some of the calm bliss Marco had been exuding dissipated. His smile faded, his sleepy eyes dimmed and he rolled, snatching his shirt off of the floor. Ace watched him, letting the horrible image on Marco's back burn into his retina.

Ace could still picture it even after he'd dressed and walked out the door.

The fourth time, Ace couldn't help it.

Marco had, for once, slept in. Ace had volunteered to go get him. He didn't see anything wrong with it. He even knocked, softly, before he poked his head inside. There wasn't much room for shame on a pirate ship. So Ace walked in, paused at the doorway, and stared.

Marco had fallen face first onto his bed and was out cold, his shoulders moving steadily with each breath. Up, down, up, down. His lilac shirt lay crumpled under his arms, his pants hung uselessly over the edge of the bed, leaving him in nothing save his boxers.

Green, Ace noted idly as he approached on soft feet.

He stood at Marco's side, looking down his long body. As strong as he was, the man was light enough for most of them to lift with one hand. A side effect of being part bird, Ace figured.

The scars stretched across his back, before Ace's eyes. It made him sick. His fingers itched, drawing to lay feather-light across the horrible fresco painted into Marco's skin. He followed the curve that wrapped across his shoulder blades, down his ribs, to his lower back.

"Who hurt you?" he breath the question to the air.

"I haven't always been Whitebeards son, you know."

Ace snatched his hand back like he'd been burned, head snapping down to look at Marco's face. Even though his smile was amused it didn't quite reach his eyes.

"You're awake," he wanted to smack himself for such a stupid statement. Marco just smiled at him, indulgent.

"Hand me my pants," he pointed, "And I'll tell you a story."

Ace grabbed them and handed them over, stomach clenching in a way that nothing to do with the way the ocean rolled under their feet. Marco sat up and pulled his pants on, threading his favorite sash through them when Ace gave it over without needing to be asked.

"You don't have to tell me anything," Ace warned him.

"I know," Marco assured. He didn't reach for his shirt quite yet. Ace watched his face, not his back or his shoulders. Focused on the lines of his face instead of the marring on his back.

Ace waited in silence for Marco to do on. When he did, it was a credit to his skills that he sounded exactly the same way he always did. Unbothered by anything.

"Not all pirate's work the way we do. Not all crews are a family, or even a group of friends. Some of them are cobbled together by desperate people, or bound as one by force and fear," Marco looked at the window, not at Ace. "We were formed before Gol D. Roger started this age of piracy. It was a dark time, for the world and for me. The captain found use for me, for my abilities and my adaptation. I made a good shield in a fight, and I was too young to understand what he was doing to be wrong. What boy wouldn't do anything to protect their 'father'?"

Ace swallowed a lump in his throat. He didn't dare say anything.

"Someone shot through me once, though, and hit him in the leg. He found a fitting punishment. He made sure I couldn't forget my failure. If I didn't know what seastone did before, I certainly did after."

"Marco…" Ace didn't know what to say. So he kissed him, long a slow. Trying to explain what he didn't have the words to say. That his father was a piece of shit. That that wasn't his father, Whitebeard was. That Ace was glad he was here and would fight anyone who tried to hurt him again.

Marco kissed him back, smiling against his lips. Ace wrapped his arms around him, pulling him close. He let his hands slide up, across the mangled skin. A heat burned in his chest, fury at the man who had done that, love for the man it was laid upon.

Ace let Marco push him back onto the bed, fingers ghosting across his back. A fire ignited around them, blue and red warring as the two pirates grasped at each other desperately, feelings burning into skin.

As blue flames wrapped around him, Ace chased away the memory of the wings on Marco's back.

He let himself be consumed by the fire.