The Name of This Era

Newgate's heading for the shore, toward the Marine battleships still docked at the pier, when a flash of gold catches his eye.

Being first and foremost a pirate, he veers toward the treasure which he quickly realizes is attached to the bullet-riddled corpse of a child.

Notes:

there are a few mentions of celestial dragons, so prepare for all of what that entails. warnings include but are not limited to implications, allusions to & descriptions of: child abuse (what kind of abuse? assume every), enslavement, gun violence, murder, corpse desecration.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter Text

God Valley, Newgate decides as he moves in a methodical, calm, and fast-paced fashion away from the epicenter of the fight between Rocks, Roger and Garp, is a shitshow. The Rocks Pirates were underprepared, uncoordinated, uncooperative-- really, any word that begins with un- could probably describe the state of Rocks D. Xebec's crew, if a crew were a bunch of power-hungry backstabbers who largely couldn't stand each other.

Newgate's on decently good terms with most of them-- he rarely instigates fights and doesn't mind taking a smaller share of treasure when it's split up amongst the crew, regardless of his contribution. Shiki and Gloriosa are decent company, John knows his liquor, and Stussy seems to like him well enough. It had taken a few years, but the worst of the group had long killed each other off and what was left was a group of pirates ambitious enough to turn their aggression outward, at least until they arrived at God Valley and two devil fruits were on the line. That sure turned them against each other fast.

He had engaged Garp and Roger with Xebec, as a crewmate does, but having been flung halfway across the island by Garp the first clash, and upon his return having to dodge a wild swing from Xebec's own blade, Newgate had come to the conclusion that he may not be wanted in that particular brawl. Then Roger had tackled him away from the fight as if they were about to have a skirmish of their own, but he just turned away to rejoin Garp and Xebec with a cheeky wave before Newgate could clash with him in earnest.

Audacious bastard. Newgate definitely won't thank him for it.

He turns left down an alley, right into the main street of an abandoned, burned-out town. The place had cleared when the Celestial Dragons' hunt began, most of its former residents fleeing into the wilderness if they weren't mowed down on the spot. The Dragons fled shortly after, as soon as outlaws on the scale of the Rocks and Roger Pirates pulled up and Marines flooded the island. The place reeks of gunpowder and smoke, dead locals and slaves alike littering the ground. Newgate's heading for the shore, toward the Marine battleships still docked at the pier, when a flash of gold catches his eye.

Being first and foremost a pirate, he veers toward the treasure which he quickly realizes is attached to the bullet-riddled corpse of a child. Always a sorry sight to see, but not uncommon in his chosen career especially when it brings him in close proximity to the world nobles.

He crouches, reaching for the jewel-studded gold shackle around the corpse's neck, and flinches back at the weakness in his body as soon as he gets his fingers around it. It's not debilitating, but losing access to the latent power of his devil fruit is certainly unnerving and unpleasant which, hey, two other words that describe the Rocks Pirates.

So, Newgate considers, still sat on his haunches, the kid was a slave and a fruit user at that-- he's heard of Celestial Dragons feeding their slaves devil fruits just for entertainment, and he can't imagine the locals having enough gold and seastone on hand just to slap it on some kid for fun. He usually plunders much older graves, preferably in the form of treasure-filled caverns with dessicated skeletons, but Newgate's never robbed a corpse that could complain about it. "Hey," he says, tapping the collar, "how about this? I give you a proper burial, and I'll take this thing as payment."

The body doesn't respond, which Whitebeard takes as a 'Yes'. He picks it up by its torso, and makes his way into the trees to find a quiet spot to lay the poor thing to rest.

There's a nice little clearing not far away, and although Newgate doesn't expect the village to exist for much longer, it's distant enough that its residents probably won't go digging. He regards the body next-- it's pretty small, and light even for its size though that doesn't necessarily come as a surprise with what he knows of how Celestial Dragons feed their slaves and how much it's probably already bled out after being shot. He pokes at the shackle next, but the seastone lining its inside is practically indestructible even for a skilled haki user, and there's no weak point on the rest of it to exploit. If he were a lockpick, he could make short work of it but ever since he was a child he was strong enough to simply break most of the restraints he encountered.

Grimacing, Newgate hefts Murakumogiri in his hands. The corpse's head detaches from its neck in one smooth swing, and the gold shackle comes free. He pushes the collar aside, preserving the position of the head to the body as well as he can, then turns to clear the leaves and twigs from the spot he'd chosen. He's in the process of internally apologizing to Murakumogiri for using it as a glorified shovel when a crackling sound makes him turn his head. Having set many things on fire in his life, Newgate knows the sound of flames, though he doesn't expect to see the body he'd dragged along to have spontaneously burst into them. Blue ones, even.

There's no heat coming off the blue fire, and no familiar smell of burning flesh coming off the body. Newgate decides to wait it out, and in the meantime he drops the shackle into an outer pocket. It is, as far as he can tell, just about pure gold, cool and weighty. Seastone is rare no matter where you are, and combined with the gold it might fetch a decent price if he doesn't find some actual use for it.

The blaze dies down after several minutes and in its place lies a sleeping child in, as far Newgate can tell, perfect health. He's got a round face and a little tuft of blond hair at his crown, ragged clothes no longer crusted with blood, just badly torn and peppered with holes. Newgate loses count of the number, which he chooses not to think too hard about, so instead he scoops the kid up and heads for the docks again. He's small enough to lift with one hand, and heftier now that there's presumably blood back in his body. Newgate tucks him into his other pocket, still asleep, and takes care not to jostle him when he boards a sturdy little sloop bearing the Marines logo.

"IF YOU WANT TO LIVE," he bellows as the marines on deck are thrown into disarray, "JUMP OVERBOARD NOW."

The smart ones dive over the gunwale without delay. The dumb ones charge Newgate and are summarily flipped into the water while he commandeers the ship. He doesn't actually kill them, being a fan of reckless idiots regardless of their affiliation, but they do need to be off his ship. Most of the crew has been dispatched onto land to get in the way of some other monstrously powerful pirates and the ship itself is a support vessel rather than its own gunship, so when a quick scan with his Observation yields an empty sloop, he takes his leisurely time stealing it. Newgate cuts the mooring line and raises the mainsail, letting out the sheet until it catches the wind and sweeps them out to open water.

The rest of the fleet doesn't open fire, already short-handed as they are and wisely choosing to let one ship go in favor of rescuing the overboard sailors. Once God Valley is a speck in the distance, Newgate sets the sails for Fullalead and heads below deck, an area with enough space to accommodate even his height (there are, after all, some pretty big marines out there), though he still has to stoop down to pass through doors. He locates the crew berth first with its half-dozen bunk beds in orderly rows, all neatly made, and squeezes gingerly into the room as he fishes the kid out of his pocket.

He doesn't stir at all, a limp dead weight in Newgate's massive hand. Newgate would wonder if the boy's actually dead, but he's breathing and warm, so he sets him in the top bunk of a corner bed and leaves, closing the door behind him.

First-- to the hold to check on provisions, treasure, weapons and other assets. It's going to be a long afternoon.

Marco recognizes the gentle swell and dip of waves even before he opens his eyes, a familiar swoop and drop though it's stronger than he's used to. It's nighttime when he opens his eyes, sky dark beyond the porthole of the cabin he's found himself in and the ship creaking gently with each toss. Contrary to his usual conditions, the bed he's found himself in is padded and he's got a clean white pillow, too. His body feels suspiciously light, and a hand to his neck confirms that the seastone shackle is gone. A stupid move for whoever has taken him, but he's not going to complain about it.

Clambering out of the bed and lowering himself to the floor, Marco pauses when he glimpses a tray of food on the bottom bunk. It's loaded with a comically oversized portion of hardtack stew, an entire loaf of bread the size of his torso, four apples and a tankard of water, which is more food at a time than Marco remembers ever seeing unattended. He snatches up an apple first, idly crunching into it as he makes a round through the empty cabin, checking under beds and testing a few of the locked chests before he returns to the food.

While he eats, he shrugs out of his shirt-- at this point more strips of tattered cloth than clothing. He regards the closed door, shoveling mouthful after mouthful of the lukewarm stew into his mouth. Others might be concerned about poisoning, but the moment Marco realized that the seastone collar around his neck was gone, any concern about that had disappeared. He eats until he's so full he feels like if he takes one more bite he'll literally explode, and then ventures cautiously to the door.

It opens without any resistance, the rest of the ship dark and quiet as he slips into the corridor. A fully-manned vessel usually has at least a few sailors up even at ridiculous hours of the night, but this one bearing a Marines crest on every other surface seems awfully dead. Maybe world noble ships are just different, but Marco doubts it.

He wanders down the hall, trying each door and peeking in. Storage rooms, another crew berth, an office or two, the navigation room with its abundance of eternal poses and ocean charts. Marco heads into that one, dragging a chair along behind him to the table in the center of the room and climbing atop it to check the map spread out on its surface. He reaches up on his tip-toes to absently to light the oil lamp above the table, and thoughtfully regards the map as it's illuminated. There's a pin on God Valley, one in Marineford. Three eternal poses sit in designated grooves, easily changed out should the need arise. This ship must have been designed for the Grand Line; out on that sea, no compasses can function and a navigator can trust neither the sun nor stars to guide them.

He sprawls across the table to reach the furthest eternal pose, the one labeled 'Marineford', and he shuffles it close to the 'God Valley' marker on the map. He places the next pose, labeled 'G-1' near it, and then the one with 'Mary Geoise' carved into the stand. Marco turns the map and shuffles the poses around until all three needles of the poses are pointing at their marked destinations relative to the position of God Valley, and that lets him triangulate his approximate location: headed northeast from God Valley into the New World. Marine ships can usually self-propel through the Calm Belt, but it doesn't solve the problem of the Neptunians.

Marco's so absorbed with the conundrum of passing through the Calm Belt that he nearly jumps out of his skin at the deep, tectonic rumble of a voice asking, "You can read?"

He doesn't quite manage to make it out of his own skin but he does tip the chair he'd been standing on backwards in his rush to turn around. That would normally come with a painful tumble to the floor, but he lands on something soft instead-- a hand big enough to nearly envelop him as it sets him carefully back on his feet, on the floor this time.

Marco looks up.

And up.

"Uh," he says, gaping at the massive stranger standing before him. "Yeah. I can read."

"The Celestial Dragons taught you?"

Marco ponders the manner by which he learned to read.

It was considered a rare privilege to be a Celestial Dragon's favorite plaything, staying half-transformed in a gilded cage to be shown off for guests, and let out to clean otherwise. That cage used to hang in the living room where the nobles' children had their classes, and it was listening to those lessons that taught him how to read, how to do math, the history of the world. The lessons rarely stuck for their intended audience who were a few years older than Marco, but their tutor often caught his eye, recognized curiosity and understanding, and would throw her voice just that bit further. She had been bought or abducted from the West Blue, a kind lady who looked at Marco with such pity in her gaze.

Her tutees would often take their frustration out on him, as they were forbidden from beating their teacher during class, and Marco could always heal from whatever damage they inflicted. It had scared her the first time, so badly that she (luckily!) couldn't even move for fear of drawing attention to herself, and he'd made sure to recover quickly and give her a smile afterwards. Marco had to convince her not to let wrong answers slide after that. Wrong answers meant the tutor got punished instead, and she definitely didn't have infinitely regenerating bird powers.

They rarely had opportunities to speak to each other but the children often demanded his help with their work and so he learned that way, too. She was gone a few years later-- tutor to another family or dead if she was lucky.

"I guess they did," Marco says, tone dry.

The man squints at him. "How old are you?"

"Fourteen."

"Bullshit."

"Twelve?"

The stranger cocks his brow. "Try again."

Marco screws up his face. "I don't have to tell you anything."

"Alright," big guy snorts, turning on his heel to leave. "Do whatever you like."

Before he steps through the door, he glances over his shoulder, almost nervously regarding Marco.

"Can I help you?" Marco challenges, scowling back.

"Did you eat?"

Marco blinks many times, shocked out of his kneejerk hostility. So all that food was for him, after all. More than he could ever hope to finish in a day or even a few days. "Yeah," he says, hating the quiet wonder in his own voice, "it was good. Thank you."

"Polite little brat," the stranger says, shutting the door behind him and leaving Marco alone in the map room.

He takes some time to explore the shelves, pulling down charts and logs and poses to investigate them, but he can't seem to concentrate. Normally he'd be ecstatic for the opportunity to devour this information.

He gives up trying to read the charts after a while, still too preoccupied with that massive stranger who is clearly not any kind of marine. Marco finds him on the main deck, basking in the cool night air, a big white greatcoat spread beneath him while he lounges against the wall of the cabin.

"Sorry kid," Newgate says without looking at the new arrival, "I had to leave God Valley. You can get off at the next island, if you want."

"Okay," the brat says. "Thanks."

Suddenly remembering something, Newgate sits up and reaches into a pocket for the gold shackle he'd taken earlier. The kid takes two quick steps back at the sight of it, well out of reach of Newgate's arm. It doesn't actually make a difference; he can move much, much faster than a child, but if the distance makes him feel safer Newgate won't begrudge it. "You want this back?" he asks, dangling it by the chain. He had, after all, offered to take it in exchange for a burial and the boy is obviously unburied. "Might be able to trade it for something nice to get you started when we make it to land."

The brat-- he really can't be more than ten-- tilts his head back, and blinks slowly. Incredulity and disdain mix on his face with such precision that Newgate can hear Are you an idiot? without a single word passing through his lips. "No," he says, "thank you."

Newgate throws his head back and laughs. Obnoxious little shit. Does he go around with that expression everywhere, telling adults 'thank you'?

It's significantly less funny when Newgate abruptly remembers why a kid whose first thought is What the fuck? might say Thank you instead. Then he just feels nauseous.

"What's your name?" he asks before he can get too deep into wondering how someone this young ended up looking like a piece of cheese, all covered in holes.

"Marco."

"I'm Edward Newgate."

Marco nods at him. "Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Edward."

It's an uncommon gesture from slaves, who would normally be forced to prostrate themselves in front of their slavers or risk being shot. Children especially tend to have a hard time adjusting to their new situation when they're finally freed, but this kid is a pretty uncommon slave, just reviving himself like that. Most of them have a kind of fear and resignation in their eyes that's completely absent from this one. Of course, most don't have devil fruit powers.

"Just call me Newgate," he insists, pocketing the shackle again.

"Mr. Newgate," Marco half-concedes. "Where are we going?"

"Fullalead." Newgate winces as soon as he says it. He's not the most sensitive of men, but even he knows that saying they're headed for Fullalead Island to someone who was very recently full'a lead might qualify as 'in bad taste'. "But we don't have to," he adds quickly. "If you'd rather get off somewhere else."

"It's probably fine," Marco answers. He moves for the railing next, having confirmed that Newgate won't be a threat, and pulls himself up to sit on the gunwale with his feet dangling over the water.

"Hey," Newgate warns, "if you fall in, I can't do anything for you."

Half-turning, Marco straddles the rail and regards him with a questioning stare.

"Devil fruit user." Newgate barks out a laugh at the look that crosses the kid's face. So no one on board this stupid ship can swim? it says with perfect clarity. For all that shrewd, cautious intelligence in his eyes, he's extraordinarily expressive. "You've got one too, right?"

Marco takes a while to answer, his face taking a leisurely stroll from dismay, through confusion, then finally to acceptance. Maybe the knowledge that Newgate had seen his powers at work, had him unconscious for hours, yet never put the shackle back on him was a convincing enough argument for his relative harmlessness. "Yeah," he says at last.

"What is it? It just let you come back to life?"

"It's a zoan-type. The phoenix."

"That makes sense," Newgate muses out loud. It would probably take a mythical zoan to revive someone from the dead. "How'd you get stuck with the Celestial Dragons?"

"I don't remember. They called me a family heirloom a few times, though." A shrug. Marco watches his face carefully, the dark stormclouds gathering on Newgate's brow, and he quickly puts on a smile. "It wasn't so bad," he says lightly, "I can heal." After another beat, Marco flexes his skinny little arms, laughing. "And I'm pretty strong."

Newgate's throat closes up. The kid is trying to comfort him? Not even two days ago, he was a cold, bullet-riddled body on a street full of corpses. Although, he considers again, maybe that had affected Newgate worse than it did Marco, on a scale of who had to be conscious while that all happened.

"When I get a big cut," Marco adds cheerfully, a little desperately, "it's better before it even starts to hurt. Um, getting hit kinda hurts, but it goes away fast, so I don't mind."

Newgate's been cut plenty of times. It does usually take some time for a serious wound to start hurting, but he had always figured that it's not something children should just know, his own childhood notwithstanding. He turns Marco's words over in his head, and declines to point out that he'd been found with a seastone shackle around his neck. How quickly is he ever actually allowed to heal? "You ever try to escape?" he asks.

Marco looks like a resourceful kid, however old he is, more clever and observant than plenty of adults Newgate has met. Audacious and cheeky, too, he can't imagine that this one had ever succumbed to hopelessness. But that question makes his face fall, his eyes guarded again. "I got out once," he says carefully, neutrally. "They called St. Garling and he started killing the others, so I went back."

Newgate's eyes really do start to sting then. Marco had said it as if it were the easiest trade in the world to make: his freedom for the lives of others. There's something in his expression that makes him look centuries old, a simple, quiet conviction that no human alive should have at so young an age. He solemnly watches Newgate drag a palm down his face, then pushes himself to his feet. Marco balances easily on the rail, arms stretched out to the side as the ship plunges into another wave.

"I think it'll be better this time," he says decisively, with a wild, joyous grin. After all, the Celestial Dragons were the ones who left him behind. "Thanks, Mr. Newgate."

"No problem," he chokes out, no longer trying to hide his tears for a child who won't cry for himself.

"Hey," Marco says after a minute of watching him gather himself, pointing to the cross-tree of the mainmast, "can you show me how to sail? I wanna get up there."

He's a kid after all-- no desire to spend time with weepy adults when he can climb something high and dangerous instead. Dashing away his snot, Newgate heaves himself to his feet. "Of course," he says. "You know what a jib is, brat?"

"Nope!" Marco scrambles up the arm Newgate extends to him, settling himself on his new companion's massive shoulder. "Teach me?"

Chapter 2 Chapter Text

Newgate watches the sun rise from the main yard, the highest one that he's confident can bear his weight. Marco hangs off a ratline around the topgallant, right by his head, eyes glued to the horizon as gentle pink slowly eats up the night's purple.

"Look at that," Marco whispers to himself, free hand propped on his hip like a tiny old man.

"If you hop down to the deck," Newgate tells him, "you can see it again."

Marco scurries across the ratlines and ladders like he was born to it, grabby little hands making quick work of ropes and cables as he swings himself down. Once his feet are firmly on deck, Newgate joins him at the bow where the horizon is dark again, leaning on the rail to await another sunrise. The boy climbs up next to him, half-sitting on the base of the bowsprit and kicking his feet in anticipation.

He regards Newgate carefully while the sky brightens, wasting no effort in trying to hide his scrutiny. "Are you a pirate?" he asks, when he finally manages to catch his eye.

"Well," Newgate says, "I'm not a marine."

"You don't act like a pirate," Marco tells him, squinting.

Newgate takes some offense to this. "And how's a pirate supposed to act?"

"Greedy'n mean."

He's not wrong. Most pirates are those things, and having that reputation enables Newgate to do plenty of things he otherwise couldn't if pirates hadn't made that reputation for themselves. "I can be greedy and mean," he protests.

Then Marco laughs at him.

Newgate isn't a stranger to being laughed at, and it's usually harmless enough-- most of the time it happens when someone hears his dream and it doesn't bother him enough to pick a fight over it. It always stings, an efficient signal that whomever he's shared it to is not interested in the same thing, but no one has ever doubted his capacity for greed or meanness. His size alone... but Marco grins up at him, an uncomplicated trust in his expression that turns Newgate's heart to mush.

He's forgotten multiple times over the several hours they've been speaking that Marco is still a little kid. Everyone looks tiny to Newgate, after all, and the boy is astonishingly quick to memorize the names and functions of all the parts of the ship. Probably related to his devil fruit, he had said, where sometimes he'll learn something new and it feels more like remembering. Sailing must be one of those things because he takes to it with such ease that he might as well have been raised on a ship.

But nothing marks him more clearly as a child than after barely any time together and nothing to assure him of Newgate's intentions other than generosity with food and sailing lessons, Marco is already convinced of his inherent kindness.

"It's dangerous," Newgate says quietly, reluctant to tear down that innocence, "to laugh at a pirate."

"Is it dangerous," Marco counters, folding his arms across Newgate's elbow and resting his chin on them, "to laugh at you?"

Shit! Clocked as a soft-hearted fool within hours of meeting. "To laugh, no," Newgate answers, chagrined at the catlike smirk on that rotten little punk's face. He'd be lying if he said he didn't like that audacity though, the kind of nerve only someone who doesn't really fear pain or death has in them. Sure, the phoenix fruit is cheating, but Newgate won't begrudge him that after everything he's been though. "You want some breakfast, kid?"

Marco hops off the rail, leading the way below deck. "I still have food," he says. "You gave me too much."

"It was barely anything."

Marco gives him a pointed look when he brings out the tray, with only a portion of the stew eaten, the bread and most of the apples still left. "If you help me finish it," he offers, "I'll make more."

Newgate takes an apple and finishes it in two bites while Marco looks on incredulously. He takes the whole tray next, and heads for the galley. "You cook?"

"I used to help out around the kitchen." Marco practically has to run to keep up, but he's light on his feet and fast enough not to have any trouble with it. "And when the family went traveling," he says cheerfully, "they'd take me with them as a poison tester! So I got to try lots of amazing food."

Newgate hasn't ever seen a Celestial Dragon eating in the same establishment as a regular person, but there's probably a good reason for that. "You got poisoned a lot?" he asks.

"People really hate the Celestial Dragons," Marco tells him.

Sitting at a table just large enough to accommodate him, Newgate waits for Marco to join him (on the table, as he'd be too small to reach the food if he had taken a seat) before breaking off half a loaf of bread and handing it to him. Marco breaks that in half again and keeps just the quarter, using it to scoop up and eat their cold, half-congealed stew.

"Does poisoning hurt?" Newgate asks, once Marco falls back from the food, patting his belly.

"For a few hours."

"So it doesn't clear out all at once."

"I think the flames only work when my organs start to fail," he says, so nonchalantly that it takes a few seconds for Newgate to process the words. Marco moves on before he can properly respond, sounding very put upon. "I used to think about pretending something really tasty was poisoned so I could have it all for myself," he says, "but they'd just kill the chef, so I only ever had enough to try."

Newgate frowns. That's something he probably would've tried as a kid had he ever ended up in Marco's position, and he definitely wouldn't have had the foresight to predict the depravity of the Celestial Dragons. "What if it takes some time to kick in?" he asks. If Marco isn't going to be having a breakdown about all this, Newgate certainly won't object to learning more. "They just let the food get cold until your body starts shutting down?"

"I know the taste of most poisons now, and I can tell when something's off." Marco sticks out his tongue and scrunches up his nose. "I knew the family's tastes, too, so they trusted me when I said they wouldn't like the flavor of a dish and sent it back."

He says it with some wistfulness, but Newgate supposes it's better than letting someone get killed for trying to do the right thing (the right thing being murdering Celestial Dragons). The kid in front of him is one who's aware of the power he holds, even in such a limited capacity, and who's very, very good at leveraging it. Maybe too good.

"You think they figured out you were saying it about the poisoned stuff, too?"

"Probably." A shrug. "But the family had a bunch of Holy Knights. They're more practical."

Marco's education, his bearing, the amount that he seems to know-- everything slots into place. Most Celestial Dragons are weak, sniveling cowards. The Holy Knights are trained soldiers who wield weapons and people with the same efficiency; they'd expect subordination, but not appeasement. If Marco had been expected to keep up with that crowd, his confidence isn't a fluke.

The average Celestial Dragon would have no idea what they had on their hands, would destroy their leverage by killing whoever they pleased whenever they pleased and showed the kid that his submission couldn't save anyone. Breaking his spirit would be worse than a liability for them, when Marco's this capable. He would've escaped in an instant. He had the bad luck instead to wind up with people who knew exactly how to wring cooperation out of him, and to keep doing it for generations.

Newgate hands him an apple. "How'd you end up at God Valley?"

"Target practice before the competition."

Every other thing out of Marco's mouth hits Newgate in the chest like one of Garp's punches.

The kid just picks up the tankard and chugs down what's left of the water, looking mildly amused as if he didn't just say one of the most horrifying things Newgate has ever heard in his life. "I wasn't with the Knights," Marco clarifies, "they wouldn't've forgotten about me. And they don't need target practice."

Newgate spoons another mouthful of stew into his mouth as Marco chomps into the apple.

"Sorry," he says after a bit, turning the apple's core in his hands before he bites into the bottom half of it.

Before Newgate can tell him not to eat that, he pops the rest into his mouth stem and all, so he opts instead to address what Marco said. "For what, kid?"

"You're cryin'," he says. "Again."

Newgate's just a little misty-eyed, is all, but he's shocked Marco caught it. He had barely looked up. "That's not something you apologize for, brat."

Marco flashes him a crooked smile, eyes narrowed and brows raised in an expression Newgate's come to recognize as Marco's signal that he's about to be a smartass. "So pirates don't have to apologize for making people cry?" he drawls.

Brazen little asshole. Newgate makes sure that Marco can't fall into anything dangerous before he pushes him over with the nudge of a finger. It's a testament to Marco's trust in him that he goes down easily, with a laugh. "That's not what I meant," grumbles Newgate, "and you know it."

Marco pushes himself up on his elbows, otherwise still sprawled languidly across the tabletop. He almost looks like any other happy child like that, carefree and open. "I know it."

"Then I don't want to hear any apologies!" Newgate catches the bluster in his own voice and dials it back, trying to cover up how much talking to this kid makes him want to cry. "As long as you live the way you want from here on out," he says firmly, "I'm satisfied."

"Thank you, then." Marco says it seriously as he pushes himself to his feet, no hint of that usual easy-going humor. He doesn't seem like one for gravitas even when it's called for, so there's a weight to his words, to the way he looks at Newgate. "No one's ever cried for me before."

Standing on the table, Marco's nearly at eye level. Newgate puts his chin on the heel of his hand and asks again, "How old're you, kid?"

Marco answers honestly this time. "Seven."

"You don't talk or act like a seven-year-old," Newgate points out.

"Do you know a lot of seven-year-olds?"

"Enough of 'em."

A shrug. "Must be the phoenix powers."

"You can't use phoenix powers to explain everything," Newgate argues, exasperated.

"Well," Marco says, giving him the kind of shit-eating grin that only appears on the best pirates of this generation, "I'm going to."

Marco heads into the galley as Newgate finishes eating their leftovers, opening cupboards and walking around in the refrigerator, climbing up and down the shelves and opening containers. He makes a round through the pantry too, excitedly emerging with a tin of some sort of brown powder.

"They have the ingredients for marine curry!" he says when Newgate joins him, watching Marco run around the galley pulling things off shelves and bringing them to the counter. He drags a chair over last, standing on top of it to comfortably reach the work surface next to the stove.

"Marine curry?"

"We traveled with the Navy sometimes," Marco explains, "so I'd get to eat with the crew. They always let me have a ton."

A happy memory, then. Most marines aren't heartless monsters like the majority of Celestial Dragons, Newgate supposes, willing enough to feed a hungry child. And maybe he shouldn't be surprised that Marco trusted him so easily. He's clearly met the gamut of men in the world, from kind to depraved and everything in between. Even if Newgate wouldn't consider himself a particularly good man, he would certainly not consider himself a cruel one, and that's probably enough for Marco.

"Can I help?" Newgate asks, peering over his shoulder.

Marco looks down at the potato he's peeling, fist-sized for him but small enough for Newgate to just barely pinch between two fingers. That expressive little face telegraphs mild skepticism at his ability to help in the kitchen before Marco puts down his potato and hauls a massive pot almost bigger than himself onto the stove.

"In a little bit," he says pointedly, going back to peeling carrots and potatoes with an efficiency that speaks to plenty of time spent in a kitchen. He chops onions, cubes up a steak, dumps a whole pound of butter and a big cup of flour into the pot and instructs Newgate to stir it.

Being a very experienced pirate, Newgate knows how to sail, knows more or less how to navigate, how to put something on a fire and make it edible-- but cooking, that's something he'd always left to someone with more expertise. Doesn't feel quite right to let a kid take over making sure they're fed, but Marco doesn't seem to mind it, and warily watches out of the corner of his eye to make sure Newgate properly stirs the roux.

He tosses the beef with yogurt and spices, then into the pot to brown with the onions, along with a big scoop of that brown powder. The carrots and potatoes go in next, a grated apple, enough water to cover. Newgate keeps stirring while Marco washes a pot of rice and gets that on the stove as well.

The food is all cooked in about an hour. Marco had made enough for at least two meals between them, and Newgate enthusiastically fills up a huge bowl with rice and curry while Marco clings to his shoulder, watching.

"You're not eating?" Newgate asks, poking the kid on the forehead.

"Later. I'm never hungry after I cook."

"Huh? How?"

"'Cause I've been tasting'n touching'n smelling everything the whole time. It's like I already ate."

Newgate has never had that problem, but then again he doesn't do much tasting or smelling or touching when he's making food. He just throws things over a fire or into a pot, and it takes care of itself. But Marco is already too light, even for a seven-year-old. "Kid," he says, "stop cooking. Let me handle it from now on."

"No way." Marco's refusal is immediate and brooks no room for argument. "I'm a better cook."

It doesn't even seem to occur to him that he's in the presence of a pirate who's probably twenty times his size, like the idea that that pirate would hurt him for his insubordination isn't even an afterthought. He's right, but Newgate's the adult in the situation so he can't just let his young charge go without food. "Then you gotta eat," he argues.

"I'm not hungry!"

"One bite." Newgate hands him a spoon and pushes his bowl close. "There we go. Still not hungry?"

Shaking his head, Marco swallows the one mandatory bite and escapes to the mess, leaving Newgate's shoulder feeling empty. "I told you," he says, legs swinging off the edge of the table, "I'll eat later."

"Fine, fine."

"So?" Marco asks, staring up at Newgate as he sits down and starts shoveling the food into his mouth. "How is it? Do you like it?"

The curry is hot, rich and savory. The taste of it is somehow warm and deep at the same time, and a little bit sweet. He's had plenty of good food since his childhood, when a piece of stale bread dug out of the trash would've qualified as tasty, but this is different. Newgate probably shouldn't be surprised about it; Marco's eaten food the Celestial Dragons eat and helped prepare it besides, but the dish he chose to make is one the Navy serves to its soldiers, something to comfort men who are far from home and expected to die for their cause. "It's delicious," he says.

"Hehe, I know."

"What I gave you," Newgate murmurs, remembering the ship's biscuits he'd crushed up and tossed into some water with a scoop of lard and some salt, "wasn't good at all, was it? You liar."

"You made it for me," Marco answers, beaming up at him, "so it was the best thing I ever had."

Newgate must be going soft because his heart clenches in his chest, a tender ache he's never felt before in a space that he'd thought was empty.

Marco, alarmed at his expression, is on his feet in seconds. "Don't cry!" he says. "You won't be able to taste anything if you cry! And you'll get snot in the food."

He hasn't shed a tear in decades before today, whether out of pain or loneliness or grief, yet this kid he met two days ago already has Newgate pegged as an emotional wreck. It should be an insult, but it just makes him want to laugh. "I wasn't going to!"

Later, all the dishes washed and dried and the leftover curry stored in the refrigerator, Newgate walks Marco back to the crew berth. He's been yawning for a while now, blinking sleepily and scrubbing at his eyes, and he didn't protest when Newgate suggested they drop anchor for the day and get some rest.

"So if you're a phoenix," Newgate asks while Marco jogs to keep up beside him, "does that mean you can fly?"

"Um... no."

"No?" Newgate follows him into the cabin, and obligingly wrenches open the chests that Marco indicates as they move through it. "You need practice or something?"

"No," Marco mutters, digging up a pair of cadet's pants and tearing the legs off just above the knee to make a pair of shorts for himself, to replace his tattered pair. He grabs a shirt next, way too large for him, but he shrugs it on and lets it billow out around him like a cape. "I can transform fine."

"Can I see it?" Newgate asks, giving him a boost to the top bunk that Marco's decided to claim for his own. It's different from the one Newgate had put him in, closer to the back of the cabin in a corner where he can keep his back to the wall and his eyes on the door.

Diving under the covers, Marco sticks his tongue out at Newgate and then pulls the blanket over his head. "Nope!"

"Please?"

Peeking out: "Maybe."

"Maybe?"

"I can show you," Marco says at last, expression pinched, as if he were sucking on a lemon. "But you can't laugh at me!"

"Is it funny?" Newgate asks.

"No!"

He chuckles at the thought of what could be so embarrassing about a zoan form.

Marco wails, "I said you can't laugh!"

"You haven't even shown it to me yet."

Marco huffs, but he goes still and closes his eyes as he lets his blanket slip off his shoulders. It only takes a few seconds for him to shift, shrinking down, and down, feet turning to skinny talons as segmented tail-feathers sprout from his back. There's a little flame crest at the crown of his oversized bird head on that twiggy neck, markings around his bugged-out eyes like a pair of glasses, and the rest of him is just soft down and spiky pinfeathers, semi-transparent, on fire, and blue.

Marco is, to Newgate's eternal amusement, the ugliest little bird he's ever seen and he has to slap a hand over his mouth to keep his promise not to laugh, shoulders shaking from the effort of it.

"I've tried flying," Marco says dejectedly, flapping his stubby nestling wings, "but it doesn't work at all. I think I have to get bigger first." He looks up, trying to gauge Newgate's expression, and the indignation that he somehow manages to pull off in this form is even goofier. "You're laughing!" he says accusingly.

"I'm not laughing," Newgate says, schooling himself as Marco shifts back to full human. Impossibly, the sight is even funnier now; Marco's so offended, consternation writ large on that tiny face. For a kid who had up until now been remarkably independent and cool-headed, the aggravation is awfully cute, and about something so silly too. "You're still just a little chick," Newgate marvels. "I didn't know zoan transformations match the age of the user."

"What if I'm stuck like that forever?"

"Guess we'll have to wait and see," Newgate answers with a shrug. He's never claimed to be good with kids. Grabbing a few more pillows off nearby bunks, he throws them to Marco, letting him stack them up however he likes. "Get some rest, brat. You'll need lots of sleep if you want to get big and strong."

He must really be tired, because Marco doesn't come back at him with a cheeky comment. Just another yawn and a quiet, "Mm. Okay."

Newgate throws in one last parting shot. "And you gotta eat, too!"

Marco laughs, and he calls out his answer as the cabin door closes. "I will!"

Newgate heads to the showers, internally wishing that he'd remembered to collect his belongings off Xebec's ship before leaving God Valley. Luckily, Navy ships usually have a stockpile of uniforms in a multitude of sizes, including his. He digs up a pair of pants but can't bring himself to wear a marine-emblazoned anything, so he goes without a shirt and tosses his dirty clothing into a bucket of soapy water. Not like there's a dress code to enforce.

Cleaned up, he heads to the map room. He's not a navigator, but Newgate more or less knows how to point the ship in the direction he wants and after his 'Fullalead' comment he's re-evaluating the idea of taking an unkillable child with a mythical zoan devil fruit power to the New World, which is full of pirates. Much less to the pirate island, which is also full of pirates. Even a smart and capable kid like Marco would be caught, killed, or sold in record time on Fullalead, by people who could give Newgate a serious fight if they were ever inclined to.

He did say that he'd let Marco disembark at whichever island he wants, and the kid had seemed fine with that. Neither of them have mentioned staying together because-- frankly, that would be crazy. A pirate ship is no place for a child, and Newgate has no frame of reference for parenting from either side of the equation.

There are a number of islands in the West Blue which are considered safe by World Government standards (namely, tributary islands), all labeled on the central map. Still, devil fruits are uncommon outside the Grand Line and that could be an issue for the kid if he were left alone in some backwater village.

He sets a pin in the closest unaffiliated island and memorizes the heading. It'll be a good place to stock up on supplies, sell anything they don't need, and strip Navy colors off the sloop. If Marco chooses to disembark it'll certainly be an option, and if Marco chooses to travel with him a bit longer-- well, Newgate won't complain about sheltering him for a while until he figures out where he really wants to go.

Chapter 3 Chapter Text

By the end of their second week together, Newgate's figured out a bit of Marco's routine. It's hard to miss with his Observation extended, the near-daily surge of pure distress from the crew berth when the kid wakes up at dawn.

The first time Newgate had picked up on it, he burst into the room with Murakumogiri thinking some undetectable enemy had attacked, only to find Marco sitting sleepily in his bed, confused at the intrusion. It's happened nearly every morning since and Newgate goes to see him each time, but Marco's always quick to smile and clamber out of his bunk to join him on his morning rounds so he doesn't press the subject. It's become a decent alarm clock, though; the boy has an astonishingly regular rhythm, the cause of which Newgate chooses not to think too deeply about.

He figures that up until the third or fourth day on board Marco had been too busy, tired, or overwhelmed to be having any nightmares but now that he's more or less settled in-- well. If he doesn't bring it up, Newgate has no intention of inviting that conversation on himself.

They're about to make landfall anyway, and he chooses a secluded little bay a distance away from town to drop anchor. He picks up the dinghy, Marco and a few days' worth of supplies piled on it, and clears the distance to shore in one jump. Camping on the beach is always a fun time, and he sets up a quick lean-to using a massive tarp and the trees on the edge of the beach. He sends Marco into the trees to collect firewood for their bonfire (a necessity!) while he sorts through the food he'd brought ashore.

"I'm headed into town," Newgate tells Marco when the boy returns, adding another bundle of logs onto the huge pile he's already accumulated. Marco had claimed to be strong, but Newgate hadn't expected that statement to be true-- the kid is downright scrawny compared to his own size at that age, but he throws around logs the size of Newgate's forearm with ease. He'd probably just credit the mythical zoan powers again, though.

In any case, Marco insists on accompanying Newgate, scrambling up the back of his coat to sit on his shoulder. It's become his favorite perch as of late, a spot that he retreats to when he's bored so they can chat without the kid needing to shout up at him.

Marco points out nearly every damn tree and vine on the way into town, a walk Newgate is taking at a leisurely pace. He had recently gotten his hands on a botany text, dug out of some cadet's belongings, that he hauls with him everywhere he goes on the ship and reads in every spare moment. It is, as always, behavior completely out of line with what Newgate has seen of former slaves, as if Marco had been treated with as much indulgence as brutality in his time with the Celestial Dragons. It wouldn't surprise him, but he also doesn't ask.

Newgate makes sounds of acknowledgment at each tidbit of information Marco shares with him, the standard uh huhs, and reallys?s and wow!s while he walks.

In town, he tracks down a fence first, a stern-looking woman who agrees to offload a stash of Navy uniforms, weapons and ammunition for a hefty cut. She pays him for the initial samples he'd brought with him, and arranges for transportation of the rest of the promised goods later in the day.

They pick up some clothes and sandals for Marco so he'll finally have a shirt that fits (which he'll outgrow sooner rather than later, the shopkeeper warns them) and some fresh fruits and vegetables at the grocer. On their way back to the beach, Marco tugs on a lock of Newgate's hair as they pass a bookstore to pull him up short, shuffling up close to his ear to ask, "Mr. Newgate, do you keep logs?"

"No," Newgate answers, and he side-eyes the boy as he lets out a thoughtful little 'hm'. Judgmental brat. "Why?"

"Why not?"

Newgate holds his hand up in front of Marco, an appendage big enough to engulf the kid's entire torso, and opens and closes his fist a few times. "Boy," he says, "if you find me a quill that I can use, I'll start."

That's not the only reason he doesn't keep logs, but it's a big one; rather, it's the reason Newgate never learned to write. By the time he had the time and freedom to devote to it, he'd outgrown just about any quill and notebook he could get, and as a pirate it was never really expected of him. Hell, it's pretty impressive by normal standards that he can even read.

Marco tugs on his hair again, gently, like he can feel the tension in Newgate's shoulders.

He asks, "Can I keep a log for us?"

Newgate hands him a fistful of berry. He barely gets out his, "Do what you like," before the kid's launched himself off his shoulder and ducked into the store.

They arrive back on the beach with Marco holding the spoils of his shopping trip tight to his chest-- a leather-bound logbook. While waiting for the broker's transport ship to arrive, Newgate hauls crate after crate of Navy uniforms up to the main deck. He brings up most of the weapons and ammunition as well, while Marco digs up an inkwell and a handful of quills from the navigation room.

A sleek, unmarked cutter arrives late in the afternoon, pulling up alongside as three men board the sloop and begin taking inventory. The woman from earlier hands over a stack of bills once they're done, and Marco diligently logs the terms of the exchange as the cutter sails off into the distance.

Newgate peers over his shoulder while Marco jots down the date, the weather, and their current location in a blocky, decisive hand. "You kept logs before?" he asks.

"I read them all the time," Marco answers, taking care to write neatly and legibly. He holds the inkwell in his off hand, the log balanced in his lap. "The Knights keep really good records. What are you planning for tomorrow?"

"Thinking about taking the ship around to the dockyards and having the Navy colors taken off."

The tip of Marco's tongue pokes out of his mouth as he writes that down too, in a little 'to-do' section in the margins of the page. "Will it take a long time?"

"Few days." Newgate waits for Marco to shut his logbook and return it to the crew berth, where he's claimed a chest for himself and set up a makeshift desk. Back on deck, he gives the boy a hand up to his shoulder. "Now hold on tight, we're camping out on the beach."

Newgate builds a roaring bonfire as the sun dips below the horizon. Marco has thankfully exhausted his store of botanical knowledge and moved on to bombarding Newgate with his plans for logging their journey. He chatters all through dinner-- a giant fish roasted on a stick. Newgate had sliced it apart in the water with one well-placed blow from Murakumogiri, scaled, gutted and cleaned it, and allowed Marco to stuff some potatoes and lemons and herbs inside.

The fish is nearly triple Marco's size. If it had found the boy in the water it probably would've swallowed him whole, a fact which Marco marvels at for nearly five minutes before Newgate makes him change the subject, unwilling to think for much longer about his little friend getting eaten. Marco, who is by now convinced that Newgate's delicate sensibilities must be treated with care, graciously obliges and stops going on and on about how that thing could just bite him in half if it wanted to.

When they finally dig into their dinner, Newgate admits to a big, smug grin that it tastes much better than just throwing a fish onto a fire by itself and hoping it cooks through as he'd initially intended until Marco kicked up such a fuss that he gave in to the additions. The potatoes are tasty, having absorbed the flavor of the lemons and herbs they were cooked with, steamed in the fish's own juice. The meat is flaky and tender, the skin crispy, and Newgate finishes off the entire thing by himself once Marco's had his fill.

Newgate spends the rest of the evening teaching him old shanties-- the ones that are appropriate for children anyway. He won't be held responsible for a seven-year-old singing in that sweet little voice about how many pretty young girls he rolled last night, even if it would be hysterically funny.

Like every pirate, Marco gravitates to Binks's Brew and like every kid who's found a new obsession, does not stop singing it until Newgate's ready to leap back in time and throttle its original songwright. Newgate extends his Observation all around them, ensuring that no threats are within earshot while Marco sits on his shoulder and belts the chorus over and over into his ear. He picks up the song with startling ease and while staying in tune isn't a concern for the vast majority of its singers, he's remarkably in-tune about it even though Newgate's sure that he himself wasn't when he taught it. How many lives ago did he sing that shanty, that it comes so naturally?

"A memory?" Newgate asks, when Marco finally tires himself out and crawls into the sleeve of the greatcoat Newgate had laid out on the sand to sleep.

"Maybe," the boy mumbles back, settling in. He'd rolled part of the cuff to use as a pillow, and curled up in a little lump inside the sleeve, like Newgate's seen kittens do. The pirate stays up for a while longer sprawled out on the main part of his coat, arms folded behind his head as he stares up at the moon.

The town on this island is well-off for an unaffiliated territory, with a busy port, plenty of trade, ample farmland on its outskirts. The people are rough around the edges but friendly enough and more or less honest in their business dealings. Clever, diligent Marco could easily make a life here; Newgate saw shopping families while they ran their errands, and healthy-looking children running around. But he hadn't mentioned staying in town, and given that he's decided to start logging their ship's journey Newgate figures the boy will want to stick around at least until the next island. Wouldn't hurt to remember this place, though.

He's just about to drift off himself when Marco lets out a soft cry and starts thrashing in his sleep. Newgate's first instinct, before anything else, is to extend his leg between the kid and the bonfire so he can't fling himself right into the embers. He reaches for him next, but the moment Newgate touches him Marco's feet transform into talons, shredding through the sleeve and also scoring a gash into his palm. Marco's flailing gets even worse so Newgate keeps his distance after that, helpless to do anything but watch the kid sob quietly as he tries to work himself free of the fabric he's tangled up in.

It goes on for ten excruciating minutes before he wears himself out, and by the time Marco finally settles down Newgate's broken out into a cold sweat and there's no way in hell he's going to sleep anytime soon.

Having been an orphan in a generation of orphans, he's not new to night terrors and had in fact known plenty of kids who'd regularly wake everyone up screaming in the middle of the night, but seeing Marco in such clear panic is downright unnerving when the boy is usually so calm. The other thing about night terrors, though, is that Marco won't remember a thing about it so there's no point waking him up to ask. Newgate carefully disentangles the strips of his sleeve from Marco's arms and legs instead, digs up a blanket from the pile of supplies they'd brought ashore and bundles him up in that.

Then he settles in to keep watch.

Newgate starts watching the kid again just before dawn, having dozed lightly throughout the night. He could probably have done this on the ship, but the kid's got his own room in the crew berth now, and he's not going to just elbow in there for no good reason.

In any case, Marco stirs at dawn as usual. Close up, Newgate can sense the confusion in that initial panic, the disorientation as Marco's posture shifts from that of a peacefully sleeping child to a huddled mass of nerves underneath his covers. It usually takes a while for him to calm down, but Newgate lays one hand over Marco and presses down gently into the full-body flinch it elicits.

"Marco," he says softly, and the speed with which that panic disperses shocks even him. "It's me."

From underneath the covers, Marco lets out a muffled, "Mr. Newgate?" and immediately kicks his feet against Newgate's palm, prompting him to withdraw. He sits up, expression still hazy from sleep, but he throws back the blanket and happily tucks his face into Newgate's hand to greet him. "Good morning!"

"You do that every day," Newgate comments, patting him on top of his head. "What's got you so scared?"

Marco turns in place to press his back into Newgate's palm instead, leaning in as those massive fingers cup protectively around him. He keeps his eyes downturned, shoulders pulled up around his ears. "I thought everything was a dream," he says slowly, "and I finally woke up."

The implications of that statement are, as always, staggering. He'd never claim to be particularly educated but Newgate's not an idiot. How many times has the kid dreamed of freedom only to wake up in chains? Not just in his short seven years of memory but, if the rumors about phoenixes are true, for multiple lives before that.

"Oh," Newgate breathes, "Marco."

"I can heal from anything," he explains, shaking himself out of whatever gloomy mood he was about to sink into, "so I just get a little mixed up sometimes. I'm okay."

"That's why you want to keep logs."

"Yeah. I think it'll help."

Newgate huffs, looking around briefly until his eyes land on the torn-up sleeve of his greatcoat. Marco pushes himself to his feet when Newgate's hand moves away from him, and waits patiently by his boot as he tears off a strip of the coat's inner lining. He comes away with a sliver of the red patterned silk, and gestures for Marco to extend his arm; the boy watches while Newgate ties the cloth around his wrist, and then turns a questioning look on him.

"So you'll remember," Newgate says, "when you wake up. As long as you've got that, you'll know where you are."

"It's kinda early," Marco says, sounding a little skeptical for how quickly he holds his wrist and the red banner around it close to his chest. "What if I lose it?"

"I've got a pretty big coat," Newgate points out.

The boy glances worriedly at the scratched-up sleeve Newgate had claimed the material from, at the cut on his palm. "Did I do that?" he asks, looking ready to apologize. He moves forward, reaching for the wound, but pauses when Newgate catches him around the ribs and holds him in place.

"Just felt like a change," he says.

"Really?"

Clever brat. Marco doesn't buy it for a second, his gaze calculating, but he lets Newgate have it.

"Really."

They're just finishing up lunch on the deck of the ship when Newgate glances out onto the water, a familiar silhouette rounding the cliff on the northern shore and coming straight at them. Anchored as they have been for a night, all the sails declaring the sloop a Marine vessel are rolled up but it doesn't erase the markings on its hull or the distinctive paint job. "Oh," says Newgate, tossing the gnawed-clean bone he'd been working on overboard into the water and picking up Murakumogiri, "shit."

Marco scrambles to his feet as well, his own meal long finished. "What's wrong?"

"The Oro Jackson just pulled up." At the very least, Roger isn't one to just open fire on an anchored ship, Navy or not. He is a crazy bastard, though. "Get inside the cabin, and don't come out until I say so."

Marco ducks inside, but turns to peek out of a crack in the door. "Who's on that ship, Mr. Newgate?"

"A real pain in the ass."

As soon as the Oro Jackson draws near enough, Roger leaps across the gap between ships to land on the deck of the sloop without so much as a by-your-leave. Newgate has his weapon drawn and ready, but Roger keeps his sword sheathed at his side, a big grin on his face as he approaches. "Hey, hold on, Newgate! Before we fight, we've gotta talk."

Newgate lowers his bisento, but doesn't put it down. Silvers Rayleigh, unlike his boor of a captain, waits for a gesture of assent from Newgate before he steps aboard with Scopper Gaban. Rayleigh's got something in his arms, but he can't look more closely without taking his eyes off Roger.

"Go on," says Newgate.

"I've got a kid now, see," Roger explains, eyeing the tip of Murakumogiri as it swings in front of his chest to stop him from getting any closer and follows him as he shifts around, "so the terms of our fights are gonna have to change a little."

Newgate's brow wrinkles in dismay. He gaze swings around to Rayleigh, who lifts the bundle in his arms up and pulls back the blanket around its face to reveal a chubby-cheeked infant. "Someone let you reproduce?"

Gaban collapses against Rayleigh's shoulder, roaring with laughter. Roger shakes his head so hard the straw hat slips off his head and he has to catch it by the crown and push it back down before it goes flying. "What? No! We just found this baby in a treasure chest while we were going through the loot from God Valley."

"You found a kid at God Valley," Newgate repeats, disbelieving. That makes him put his weapon down, staring at Roger and his crew in confusion. They're all covered in bandages to some extent, with God Valley not so far behind them. Newgate might've been the only one to leave that shitshow intact.

"Yeah, it was a real shock."

"Well, if kids changes things, I--"

"You found a kid in a treasure chest too?!"

"No, my life is nowhere near as crazy as yours." Newgate reaches behind him to open the cabin door, waiting for the tiny presence inside to come through, duck under the hem of his coat and step out into the light. "Marco."

"Yeah?"

"This is Roger." Newgate gestures at Roger. "He's our enemy."

Marco looks between them, deeply confused. "Hi," he says. "Nice to meet you?"

"Wow," Rayleigh comments, "that kid is polite."

"We've gotta set up a neutral zone," Roger insists. "I don't want children getting caught up in our fight. The ships, maybe?"

"Fine with me!" Newgate would have acquiesced to not fighting, just this once since Roger and his crew are injured, but the thought of putting off a brawl doesn't even seem to occur to the other man. "And since you all just got done fighting Xebec, I'll take your whole crew on to make it fair."

"I'll sit this one out," Rayleigh says. "Keep an eye on the kids, too."

Roger slaps his vice captain on the back. "Thanks, Rayleigh!"

Newgate catches Marco's eye, and resolutely doesn't take any time to feel something about the way he's clutching the tie around his wrist, rubbing the material absently between his fingers. "Marco, stay with Rayleigh. Help him watch the baby."

The kid wrinkles his nose while Roger's crew indulgently waits for them to finish their conversation. "I thought we were enemies."

"Exactly. Don't let 'em get up to any funny business."

The expression Marco gives him is incredulous. What am I supposed to do if these people three times my size get up to funny business? it says. "Okay," is what comes out of his mouth instead.

Scopper Gaban shoulders his way past his captain before he and Newgate can take off. "Wait!" he shouts, pulling Roger back by the collar of his coat and turning to Newgate. "We sacked Rocks's ship and picked up some of your stuff. You want it back?"

Good news all around, then. Newgate perks up at the thought of not having to commission a new wardrobe. "Sure," he says, "let me see."

Gaban and Roger lead him into the Oro Jackson's hold, where a simple but very large wooden chest sits in one corner. There's a name hewn into the lid, Edward N., and in the chest lies just about the entirety of Newgate's earthly belongings. A few sets of clothing, sharpening stones and polish for Murakumogiri, and a pouch containing a modest amount of berry. Everything's been left untouched.

"That's everything," he says, relief and gratitude in his voice. "I owe you, Roger."

"Nonsense! It was yours to begin with." Roger slaps him a few times on the small of his back. "Besides, it's not nearly as interesting as what I found in Linlin's chest."

Newgate eyeballs him. "You better not be talking about anything perverted," he growls. Even if they hadn't been the best of friends, Charlotte Linlin is a former crewmate, and a woman, which warrants a certain level of courtesy as far as he's concerned.

"Nah," Roger says dismissively, "but there's this rubbing of some sort of glyph. Think it might lead to a treasure, or an adventure! I've gotta find someone to decipher it."

"Speaking of treasure," Newgate says, passing over Roger's excitement as he regards his old chest, "here." He reaches into his pocket and grasps a familiar, heavy chain between two fingers, then he hands the gold shackle he'd dropped in there a few weeks ago over to the other pirate. The amount of berries it'd fetch will probably be enough to buy everything in that chest thrice over, but he'd much rather have his things back and he's got no attachment to anything that used to belong to the Celestial Dragons. "Take this thing as thanks."

Not being a devil fruit user, Roger is completely unbothered by the material but he hefts it in his hands and inspects it in the shaft of light coming through a porthole. "Seastone?" he asks.

"Among other things."

Contrary to the ecstatic grin Newgate had expected from the other pirate for coming into possession of some free gold and seastone, Roger frowns as if he can sense where the thing had come from, and what it had been used for. Newgate wouldn't put it past him. "Where'd you get something like this?" Roger asks.

"It's a long story."

"Something to do with Marco?"

"Aye."

Roger gives him a sly, sidelong look. "Seastone, huh?"

Newgate glares back. "It's up to the kid to tell you what he's got."

"Alright, alright!" Whatever horrifying voices Roger hears from the shackle, they seem to quiet now that he knows its primary victim is in Newgate's care. He pockets it with a grin. "Thanks, then. I know just where to offload this."

Chapter 4 Chapter Text

Roger speaks briefly to Gaban once they're back on deck. "My crew'll take the Navy colors off for you," he says to Newgate after he's done conversing with his officer, "since you paid us so handsomely and all."

"That'll save me the trouble of having to go into town for it." Hefting his chest in his hands, Newgate and Roger hop back across the gap between their ships, a much smaller distance to cover as Roger's crew had moved the Oro Jackson closer and dropped anchor while they were in the hold. He leaves the chest on deck. "Thanks again."

"Don't mention it!"

"I'll check on Marco, then we can head out. Bring anyone on your crew who wants to fight me!"

Roger laughs, sending him off with a cheerful clap on the shoulder. "I've got some guys who're interested."

Marco and Rayleigh are eyeing each other when Newgate finds them on the aft deck, Rayleigh with the baby and Marco sitting on the ship's railing with his arms crossed. "No funny business yet," Marco reports with the air of a kid who knows he's being kept out of the way, but is determined to see his task through. "You can do whatever you need to, Mr. Newgate. I'll watch the ship."

"Shanks and I are on our best behavior," Rayleigh says meekly, indicating the infant in his arms with a tilt of his chin.

"He's got permission to move around the ship," Newgate tells Marco, though he's really telling Rayleigh. He's pretty sure the boy is smart enough not to get in Rayleigh's way if he really wanted to do something, and Newgate has always known Rayleigh to be a deeply patient man. He'd have to be, with a captain like Roger.

"Marco's got permission to check out the Jackson too," says Roger as he joins them, "if he wants a tour."

Marco hops off the rail with an excited grin, and looks to Newgate for permission. As far as Newgate's concerned, the boy is free to do whatever he wants, so he gives him a nod. "Do what you like, kid."

"Can I see your navigation room?" Marco asks, turning the full force of his wide-eyed stare on Roger.

"Sure," says Roger, pointing to Rayleigh to direct the kid's attention to his first mate.

Rayleigh smiles at him. "You like navigation, Marco?"

"Yeah!"

Rayleigh winks at Newgate over his shoulder, extending his hand for Marco to grab and tossing the kid over to the Oro Jackson. Marco lands on the gunwale as if placed there, looking confused; he's an athletic, fearless boy but he's never attempted a jump of that distance before, much less been thrown so softly. The look of suspicion, awe and curiosity he fixes on Rayleigh makes all three pirates laugh.

"I'll be back later!" Newgate calls across, and Marco raises the hand with the red cloth wrapped around its wrist, waving it a few times before he takes off.

Roger turns to address Rayleigh as Marco makes a round across the deck, ducking between crewmembers as he takes in the ship's layout. Roger gives his first mate a summary of his discussion with Newgate, then tosses him the seastone shackle. "Payment for services to be rendered," he quips.

Rayleigh doesn't need hallucinatory voices to tell him where it came from, and he gives Newgate a sly grin at the sight, his gaze flicking meaningfully toward Marco. "Robbed a Celestial Dragon," he says, "did you?"

"Found some treasure lying around," answers Newgate, "is all."

Rayleigh inspects the chain more closely. "This thing come with a key?"

Observant bastard. Newgate meets the calculating look Rayleigh turns on him with a quirk of his brow. Let him try to puzzle it out for himself. "No key."

"Get Erio to pick it," Roger tells him impatiently.

"Aye, captain." Rayleigh pockets the gold, giving his captain a pat on the shoulder as he returns to the Oro Jackson.

Newgate watches him call Marco to him with a gesture, the two of them conversing briefly on deck before Marco enthusiastically takes Rayleigh's hand and follows him below deck. The red-headed baby cradled in Rayleigh's other arm is sound asleep.

Newgate wipes out all seven of Roger's volunteer crewmembers in about three minutes. Out of respect for the enemy, he shows no mercy in the fight and it's barely enough for a warm-up. None of them are seriously hurt, just a little bruised, wind knocked out of them; Roger gets them on their feet and sends them back to the ship.

"You got stronger," Roger says appreciatively, once he and Newgate are alone in the roomy clearing again. He hasn't been slouching either, and they've always been just about evenly matched. The three years Roger has on him matter very little, when it comes to sailing the New World.

"Hard not to," Newgate answers, "on that ship. Had to watch my back every damn day."

"Sure you don't want to join my crew, now you're a free agent?"

"I'm not cut out for following orders." Hefting Murakumogiri in his hands, Newgate brandishes it point-first at Roger. "Too many guys like us on a ship, that's bad news."

The other pirate draws Ace, spinning it at his side to loosen his wrist. "I hear that," he says. Then, without warning, Ace's leisurely windmill sharpens into a brutal swing as Roger lunges forward, the edge of his cutlass clashing against Murakumogiri's blade. "How is everyone, anyway?" he asks conversationally as Newgate pushes him back.

"After God Valley? Who knows." Newgate closes in this time, thrusting his bisento forward. Roger parries, allowing the momentum to carry his spin and gain some distance. "Before then," Newgate says, "they were the same as always!"

Digging his heels into loamy mulch, Roger swings his sword up to block a diagonal slash from above, and he fixes his stance as his boots are driven deeper into the dirt with each subsequent blow. "Rayleigh was a bit worried about Stussy and Gloriosa," he says with a leer.

Newgate aims lower, a body blow from the side that Roger uses to propel himself backwards and out of range. "Not Linlin?" he asks with a meaningful raise of his brow. That rake.

"No," Roger guffaws, "he's scared of Linlin."

"Your first mate is smarter than you," Newgate says. "She's a force to be reckoned with!"

"Well," Roger says, "we all knew that!"

The next few exchanges are quick, meant less to overpower than to test their reactions against each other. They engage, retreat, advance; a familiar, intricate dance where a wrong move will leave one dead.

"Hey," Newgate says after a while, on the defensive this time, "what're you planning to do with that baby you picked up? Where're you gonna leave it?"

"Leave?" Roger bats Murakumogiri's tip aside and drives in close, only to be met with the handle aiming to catch him on the chin. He manages to dodge the elbow Newgate swings at him next, backing up to put distance between them again. "We're just gonna raise him."

Newgate doesn't re-engage, Murakumogiri dropping lax to his side. "On a pirate ship?" he asks.

"Why not?" Roger hangs back too, regarding the other pirate with interest. Newgate's always been easy to pull out of a fight; it can be frustrating when it cuts into their brawl time, but Roger won't begrudge the man this conversation. Something is definitely bothering him. "We're a strong enough crew to handle it," he points out. "What about you? Were you gonna ditch Marco somewhere?"

"Well, I said he can get off wherever he likes."

Roger doesn't need Observation to understand the way Marco looked at Newgate, back on that commandeered Marine ship. That wide-eyed adoration, shoulders squaring with confidence every time he laid eyes on the man. When the kid called his guardian Mr. Newgate instead of Captain, Roger had been more confused than anything. "He's pretty attached to you, Newgate." Roger's not one for giving (or getting) advice, but part of him feels like he owes it to the kid to try. "And you're a strong guy, he'll be safer with you than on any island."

"You think so?"

"Didn't you always say you wanted a family?"

Newgate frowns. "Well sure," he says, "but you've got your whole crew to help take care of a baby. I didn't even have parents." He considers that for a few seconds more, planting his bisento's pommel into the ground. "Hey now, there's an idea. How about you take him in? I don't know what the hell I'm doing."

"I don't know about that," Roger says with a shrug. "Neither do we."

"He's a good kid." Contrary to his words, Newgate's expression grows more and more dour at the thought of being separated from the boy. He doesn't even seem aware of it, himself. "Learns fast, works hard, smart as hell. Practically takes care of himself."

Roger sheathes his cutlass with a sigh, and approaches when Newgate returns Murakumogiri to its place on his back. "Listen," he says, "we'd take him on even if he was completely useless, but does Marco want to go with us? If he does, we'll make sure he's looked after."

"I'll think about it."

"We'll be around for three days," Roger tells him. "You can make up your mind before then."

Rayleigh knows next to nothing about navigation beyond the basics, which turns out to be even less than Marco, who nonetheless has a great time getting his little hands on all of the Oro Jackson's poses and maps.

Rayleigh can answer all the boy's questions about maintenance, logistics and supplies requisition at least, and Marco eats up the information, draped over his arm in the navigation room as he shows him his logs, how he calculates rations between ports, how long supplies are meant to last and how to set contingencies so an unexpected spoilage, illness or accident won't leave the crew starved on the high seas. All things Newgate understands already, being a veteran seadog himself, but translating instinct and experience to protocol is something Rayleigh knows well that visionary captains of their age aren't usually equipped to do.

Marco's got his nose buried in Rayleigh's Paradise logs when Shanks stirs and immediately begins to fuss. He's an easy kid to raise for the most part, not picky about food and almost effortless to put to sleep. He's sensitive to changes to routine, but quick to calm as long as he's with Rayleigh. It's only for about half an hour after waking up that he's always agitated and restless.

"Ah, geez," Rayleigh mutters, hoisting Shanks up to his shoulder and patting him gently on the back as the baby begins to to cry, "not again."

Marco looks up from his log with interest, watching them for a second before returning the book to its place on the shelf and extending his arms for Shanks. "Can I hold him, Mr. Silvers?"

"Are you sure? He's always fussy when he wakes up."

Marco takes Shanks into his arms, sits on the floor and immediately coos at him, bouncing him gently and brushing his little fingers over the baby's cheeks, his forehead, combing them through his hair until Shanks blinks quietly up at him. Marco stares intently for a while longer, allowing Shanks to grab his thumb and shove it into his mouth. "He's hungry," Marco says decisively as he pulls his hand away from Shanks's two half-grown baby teeth. Shanks shrieks for it back, so Marco unties the red cloth from around his wrist with his teeth and hands that over instead. "What're you givin' him to eat?"

"He's hungry?"

"He doesn't need a change," Marco says, turning Shanks over in his lap to check his diaper, "and he doesn't need a nap 'cause he just woke up. He's hungry."

"None of us know what babies eat," Rayleigh says, watching him curiously, "so mostly bread soaked in water, or broth from any soups we make. We were gonna pick up some milk in town and stick to a route with lots of ports to stay stocked up. Maybe buy a cow."

Marco gives him a look, halfway between pitying and hopeless. "Can I use your kitchen?" he asks, sounding very tired.

The kid sets Shanks on the floor as soon as they reach the galley, and he makes a round through it like he owns the place. Marco digs through their refrigerator and pantry and comes up with a carrot, the leg of a roasted seabird, a handful of rice and dried peas. Gets two pots of water on the stove, and a chair to stand on so he can reach the worktop next to it. "He can have meat'n vegetables too," Marco says, dicing up half the carrot and splitting the rest of it into matchsticks. "You don't need to give him milk if you can't get any."

"Really?" With a fork, Rayleigh peels the meat off the seabird leg as directed, which Marco also cuts into tiny pieces. The meat and the bones go into one pot of water along with the peas, rice and diced carrots, while the matchsticked carrots go into the other pot. "You're sure we can feed him that stuff?"

"Yeah! I've helped out with babies before." Marco grins at him, playing with the paring knife in his hand. "He's already got teeth, so it means he can start eating regular food. You just gotta make sure it's soft enough so he can't choke on it."

Rayleigh regards the boy as he moves the chair he'd been standing on to the sink, to start washing the cutting board and utensils he'd used. 'Before' is pulling a lot of weight here. Marco doesn't act like any ex-slave Rayleigh's ever met, assertive and confident. He looks like a completely normal kid in size and weight too, with no scrapes or cuts or bruises to speak of, much less the brand of a dragon's hoof on his back. He passes the cleaned utensils and plates to Rayleigh to dry, which the older man does without even thinking about it.

"Hey Marco," Rayleigh murmurs, "when you say 'before', you mean when you were with the Celestial Dragons?"

The boy gives him a cautious look. Rayleigh doesn't back off but he doesn't push him for an answer, either. "Yeah," he says after a few seconds, evidently deciding that Rayleigh's already drawn his own conclusions and there's no point in deflecting or obfuscating. "Before I ended up with Mr. Newgate, I was with them."

"But you're not one of them."

"No."

And he'd ended up in Newgate's care with a jewel-studded, seastone-inlaid gilded collar without a key. "You've got a devil fruit ability, right?" Rayleigh asks. "Can you tell me what it is?"

That gets him a mischievous little smile. "Sure."

Then, before Rayleigh can respond, Marco picks up the newly-cleaned paring knife and scores the point of it down the length of his forearm. Blue flames immediately erupt along the wound as he pulls the knife away, more fire eating away at the blood that had clung to the blade as the gash closes up. He extends his arm when Rayleigh makes a panicked grab for it, showing unblemished skin.

"Bird fruit," Marco says matter-of-factly. "Phoenix model."

Rayleigh frantically examines his arm, turning it back and forth. He's relieved that he won't have to explain to Newgate why his charge had received a serious injury after only an hour in Rayleigh's care, but he gives the smirking child a stink-eye anyway. "You did that on purpose," he complains, returning Marco's arm to him with his pulse pounding in his ears, "you cheeky little brat."

"Easier than explaining," Marco quips, and rinses off the knife. Hopping off the chair, he scoops up Shanks and reclaims his wrist tie, stuffing the soggy chewed-up cloth into his pocket and immediately making a funny face to distract him from losing his new toy. He gives over his hand, too, lighting his fingers up with those translucent blue flames to keep him entertained. "You don't have a doctor on board," he asks, looking up, "Mr. Silvers?"

Shanks happily tries to eat the flames, so Rayleigh doesn't worry about whether or not they'll burn the infant. He also wonders if Marco ever sounds this disapproving with Newgate.

"We've got some guys who can sew us up if we get hurt," he answers, "but if you mean someone with actual medical training, that's a no." As for anyone who might know anything about childcare, anyone who's fathered a child has certainly never stuck around to care for it, and somehow no one on board has ever helped to raise younger siblings. It had not been a problem, until the crew picked up Shanks and Roger decided to keep the child. "We don't have any women on board, either."

Marco heaves a deep sigh. "You can just boil whatever you're eating really well," he explains, "and mash it all together with a fork or spoon or something, and Shanks should be able to eat it." He squints at Rayleigh for a few seconds. Then, in what he hopes is an unnecessary addendum: "When it cools down."

"And the boiled carrots?"

"Teaches him to start eating solid food." Speaking of the boiled carrots, Marco hands Shanks back over to Rayleigh, shushing the child's immediate complaint with another flash of cool blue fire before he returns to the stove to turn off one burner and retrieve the carrot sticks. He douses them in cold water to cool them down, and returns to Rayleigh with a handful of them to give Shanks a piece. "You can give him anything that's soft enough, as long as you cut it up. Meat's okay, you can give 'im peas, and mango and banana too."

Rayleigh watches Shanks gnaw on the softened carrot, mostly gumming at it and making a mess. It does do an excellent job of distracting and calming him, though. "You're doing a lot for us, Marco. We wouldn't have known what to do."

"It's an exchange! For the maps'n logs." Marco grins up at him. He might know the value of reading those logs; few pirates on the Grand Line have as tight a grasp on logistics as Rayleigh does. "You could probably have asked anyone in town how to take care of a baby, though."

"Already sounding like a pirate," Rayleigh says with a laugh. He checks on the other pot, now at a rolling boil, and covers it with a lid he takes off the rack above the stove. "Hey," he says, turning the fire down to its smallest flame, "what do you think of Newgate?"

Marco considers the question for a few seconds, that thoughtful, cautious expression on his young face melting into open warmth. "He's very kind," Marco says. "I'm glad I met him."

It's not that Rayleigh expects Edward Newgate to harm children, but kind isn't the first word anyone has ever used to describe him. That gruff, mighty giant of a man has been coming up in the world of pirates at breakneck speed, recruited to the Rocks Pirates almost the moment he made a name for himself. He gained a fearsome reputation under Xebec, though Roger had always maintained that Newgate didn't particularly enjoy his time with that crew nor the way they operated.

Marco hands Shanks another stick of carrot, then turns off the last burner to let the porridge finish cooking on residual heat. "Can I watch," he says, turning that sharp, hungry gaze on Rayleigh, "how your crew takes off the Navy colors?"

Newgate and Roger limp back to the beach and board the Oro Jackson again at dusk. The two captains watch Rayleigh and Marco converse excitedly with each other for a while, Marco perched on the gunwale with Shanks snoozing peacefully in his lap, and Rayleigh with his arms crossed over the rail. Across the gap between ships Roger's crew is packing up their equipment, all the tools they'd used to strip the Navy paint off the hull and the paint they'd used to cover the logos on the sails.

Marco and Rayleigh turn at the same time when they feel eyes on their backs, both of them wincing in sympathy at the sight of Newgate and Roger, bruised and scraped up and listing to one side in their exhaustion. Both grinning.

Newgate goes to his brat first, waiting for Marco to hand Shanks back to Rayleigh before giving him a hand down from the rail. "Hey," he says quietly, "Marco. Let's talk for a second."

Marco nods, watching in confusion as Newgate sits down right there on the deck. He hops up onto Newgate's knee, and folds his legs under himself to sit, watching him intently. "Is everything okay, Mr. Newgate?"

"You guys," Roger says to Rayleigh and Gaban as they both approach him, "are in for a treat."

They're all still within earshot of the duo nearby, Newgate listening to Marco as he gives him a briefing of what had transpired on the ships while he was gone. Newgate's indulgent with the boy, patient and gentle in ways that Roger never expected to see from him.

"What's going on?" Gaban asks.

"Newgate asked me to take his brat with us," Roger says, like it's the funniest joke he's heard all year.

Before Gaban has a chance to express his surprise, Rayleigh grabs Roger by the shoulder and physically turns him in place. "Say yes," he hisses, dragging his captain in close. "Tell Newgate we'll take him."

"Huh?"

Pitching his voice lower, "Marco's got the phoenix fruit."

"You're joking," Gaban says.

"No joke. He's got experience with babies, too. I want him."

"I told Newgate it's gotta be the kid's choice," Roger tells him, sounding way too amused for how thoroughly he'd dashed Rayleigh's hopes on the rocks, "so he said he'd ask."

Rayleigh inhales sharply through his nose. "Well," he says after a few seconds, sounding pained, "that's the right thing to do, I suppose."

"Hey, don't look so upset about it." Roger claps him on the shoulder. "I didn't know about the fruit."

"It's a bit of a long shot anyway," Gaban points out, gesturing with a tilt of his head toward Marco. "You see how he looks at Newgate?"

"Aye," Roger laughs, "he's not going anywhere."

When Marco's finally done describing his day, he looks up at Newgate, wide-eyed and expectant, doubtlessly waiting for more things to write in his log. Newgate curls his hand around Marco's back, waiting for the boy to relax into his palm before he braces himself. "Remember when I said you're free to get off at any island you want?" he asks.

"Yeah." A nod. "But I don't want to stay on this one."

No, Newgate didn't think he would. What he's seen of this crafty, audacious boy with his greedy curiosity tells him that more than anything he's an impudent little pirate, and pirates belong on the sea. "What do you think about joining Roger's crew?"

"Really?" Marco asks.

Newgate has never been so disappointed to see the boy happy. "He said he'd be glad to take you on, if that's what you want."

Marco looks at the Oro Jackson, her beautiful red sails and golden trim. He processes Newgate's words a second later and turns to him, looking concerned. "Are you coming too?"

"No, I won't be coming too."

Frowning, Marco pushes himself to his feet. "What am I supposed to do on their crew? Do you want me to go?"

"They've got more guys to look out for you," Newgate tells him, "make sure you're eating right."

Marco looks directly at Roger and Rayleigh, skeptical of their ability to make sure anyone is eating right when they don't even know how to feed their baby. He turns back to Newgate and puts his hands on his wrist with a much more earnest expression on his face, eyes wide and worried. "But you can't even cook," he points out. More plaintively: "Who's gonna make sure you're eating right, Mr. Newgate?"

Newgate, having thus far been unable to shake Marco's belief that he's a hopelessly sentimental crybaby, resolutely does not blink and so the moisture that wells up in his eyes doesn't fall.

Gaban clutches his chest, expression pained. 'Are you kidding me,' he whispers. 'Is Shanks ever gonna be this cute? I hope he's this cute when he's bigger.'

'That little shit is playing Newgate like a fiddle,' Roger comments, delighted. 'Maybe I do want him.'

"I'll get by, Marco." Newgate doesn't seem to notice that the tension in the boy has ramped up, too busy trying to get the words out evenly while Roger's crew spectates. He doesn't, after all, want Marco to stay just to do ship's chores when he could spend so much more of his time learning all the things he'd want to from a complete, expert crew. "Been fine for this long, right?"

"I know you don't need me," Marco pleads, his voice starting to shake, "but-- but I can help."

Rayleigh watches them talk right past each other with a curious mix of amusement and sympathy. He wants the kid, sure, and having a trustworthy babysitter for Shanks would be a great boon for a crew of bumbling men who are barely any good at taking care of themselves, much less an infant, and that's even before he considers Marco's devil fruit powers. But seeing Newgate's attempt to offload the kid, he decides it would be downright inhumane to split them up.

"You don't have to do that," Newgate insists while Roger buries his face against Rayleigh's shoulder to stifle his hysterical laughter. "You can just be a normal kid with them."

The boy's expression twists. What will it take to get through to this big lug? it seems to say, and that sets Gaban off. Rayleigh holds out until Marco's expression crumbles completely at the thought that Newgate really is just dense enough to send him off with the Roger Pirates.

"I don't wanna go," Marco says at last, big, fat tears rolling down his cheeks as he takes a shaky breath. "I don't wanna get off at any island, either. I never did."

That finally shocks Newgate back to attention, this normally stoic brat weeping at the thought that they might be separated. Newgate's never had anyone shed tears on his behalf, either, and the thought of it makes him want to laugh; Two pathetic orphans for whom no one has ever cried except each other.

He scoops his hand around Marco and lifts him up to eye level. "You wanted to stay with me from the start?" he says, quiet and solemn. He's pretty sure it's the most important question he'll ever ask. "Do you want to join my crew?"

Marco dashes his sleeve across his face, glaring at Newgate as if he'd just posed the stupidest, most obvious question in the world. Annoyed, frustrated, relieved. "Obviously!!"

"Well," Roger says, watching the two calm themselves down after that conversation, clinging to each other like a pair of bonded kittens, "that's that."

"We could've had a phoenix," Rayleigh sighs.

Gaban grabs him by the shoulder and shakes. "Don't take it too hard, Rayleigh. That kid would've been emotionally manipulating us in no time. At least this way, his only victim is Newgate."

Rayleigh had very quickly come to the conclusion that it doesn't take much to jerk Edward Newgate around by his emotions, especially by a cheeky, sweet-faced little punk. It is, he decides after a while, probably for the best. Marco will learn much faster sailing with Newgate, and grow in every direction with so many roles that need to be filled.

"Hey!" Roger calls out, walking up to Newgate and Marco without a single thought of sparing them any embarrassment. "Let's have a party," he cheers, "to celebrate your first crewmate."

"You'd take any excuse to party," Newgate huffs, and when he stands up Marco's draped loosely over his shoulder, right where he belongs. "As long as you're bringing the booze, alright."

Chapter 5 Chapter Text

About an hour into the party, Marco's changed his position from lording over the other pirates from Newgate's shoulder to sat in the crook of his elbow, half obscured behind the lapel of his greatcoat and face buried in Newgate's shirt. He had gorged himself on the food but after a while all the noisy singing, belching and general rowdiness of drunken pirates had overwhelmed the poor kid. Newgate's not surprised that he's tired; no matter how clever he is, Marco's still a seven-year-old who'd had a very long, stressful day. He's clearly not enjoying the party.

Newgate retreats to sit in a quiet corner of the deck after a while, gently trying to coax Marco out from inside his coat to no avail. The kid just keeps trying to burrow deeper.

"You want to wait on the ship?" Newgate asks, and heaves a sigh when Marco just shakes his head, refusing to look up. He's never enforced a curfew, but it is well past the time the boy usually returns to his room and goes to bed.

Rayleigh finally takes pity on them, approaching Newgate with Shanks asleep in his arms. "Marco," he says gently, "can you watch Shanks for me? My quarters are real quiet, and I've got a bunch of books you can look through."

That gets Marco to glance at him, then up at Newgate, who gives him an encouraging nod. Might be that he just doesn't like the idea of being on a different vessel from his captain or that he trusts Rayleigh, but Marco loosens his grip enough for Newgate to let him down gently. Rayleigh scoops him up with his free arm as he brings the kids into the cabin, chuckling as Marco clings to his neck.

"Don't you start," Newgate grumbles when Roger plops down on the deck beside him with two tankards of beer.

"I mean," Roger says, grinning as he hands one over, "it all worked out, right? Even though you made him cry first."

Newgate scowls. He's still a little shaken from their conversation, at how badly he had missed all of Marco's unsubtle nudging and poking. It had not, up to this point, been particularly difficult to figure out what the kid wanted out of him because Marco would usually just say so. "He's been good at asking for things," Newgate says, brows furrowed. "I thought if he wanted to be part of the crew, he would've said so ages ago."

Roger gives him an amused look. "You think?"

"You saw him ask to see your map room." That confidence doesn't come easily to anyone, much less children from Marco's background. Newgate casts his Observation toward the vice captain's quarters, where Marco's presence has made itself comfortable. "Kids like him don't ask for things like that. He's different."

Roger shrugs.

"I mean," Newgate insists, "he wanted to buy a logbook. And he throws his weight around all the time when it comes to food. Gets the last word a solid half the time."

Roger doesn't bother fighting back a laugh at the thought of Edward Newgate, a seasoned pirate with strength on par with the greatest pirates of their generation, losing an argument with a seven-year-old. "Yeah?"

"What aren't you saying, you cryptic bastard?"

"Y'know," says Roger, still laughing and now actively slapping his knee, "that's the first time anyone's ever called me cryptic."

"What he means to say," Rayleigh cuts in as he rejoins them, using Roger's shoulder for support as he folds his legs under himself, "is that Marco's great at asking for stuff only if he thinks it'll help you."

That... can't be right. Newgate racks his brains for every one of Marco's requests that he can remember. It feels like he's made many over the last few weeks, more demand than request sometimes: learning to sail, spices and aromatics from the grocer, a logbook, the chance to plunder Roger's map room. Everything else he'd received from Newgate was all but forced on him, despite Marco's assertion that he didn't need shoes, or a few extra sets of clothing, or that book of adventure stories from the West Blue Newgate saw him eyeing in the store.

I know you don't need me, Marco had said. When he had finally been pushed to admit that what he truly wanted was to join Newgate's crew, he'd done it crying.

Newgate puts his face in his hands.

"Poor kid," Roger chortles, and he meets Rayleigh's wry expression with a fond look of his own. "What's he gonna do with such a dense captain?"

"This what Silvers puts up with from you?" Newgate growls, looking sideways at the other pirate.

Roger seizes Rayleigh by the shoulder and roughly, affectionately, shakes his first mate. A man who has more than earned the title of 'Dark King', whose reputation as a master of psychological warfare precedes him in every interaction, tolerates the rough treatment with a smile.

"Rayleigh," says Roger, "puts up with much worse from me."

Newgate checks on Marco sometime in the middle of the night, poking his head into Rayleigh's quarters and grinning at the sight of the boy curled up on an armchair with his nose buried in a heavy book. Shanks is asleep in what passes for a crib on board the Oro Jackson-- a small high-sided wooden box suspended from the ceiling with a chain at each corner.

"Hey," Newgate says, "you alright, Marco?"

Marco looks up at him. The book open in his lap is thick, 'History of the North Blue Vol. 1: Lvneel' printed on what Newgate can see of its spine, and Marco's already about halfway through it. "All good," he answers promptly.

"Do you want to head back to the ship?" Newgate asks.

"Is it time to go?"

"I'm asking," he says firmly, "what you want, Marco."

There's a careful blankness to Marco's expression that Newgate hadn't noticed before. He had always taken that distant smile to mean I am generally agreeable to whatever you prefer, but now considers that it might translate more accurately to I don't know what you want me to say and I'm terrified my answer won't be to your liking.

"I can go whenever you're ready," the boy answers with no particular inflection.

Not one for subtlety or mind games, Newgate huffs in annoyance. He could probably wheedle out what exactly has Marco so reluctant to say what he actually wants, but he's pretty sure there's no point to digging deeper because the answer would just boil down to 'Celestial Dragons' and the more Newgate thinks about that, the more he feels the deeply unwise impulse to shake the Red Line until it crumbles into the depths of the ocean and Mary Geoise with it.

"I just need to know if you want to stay here a little longer or get back into your own bed," he explains. "I don't care one way or another. Roger and his crew are sticking around for a few more days, and I want you to be comfortable."

At that, Marco seems reassured that the man doesn't intend to punish him regardless of his answer. Then he peers suspiciously at him over the top of his book, now afflicted with a different set of anxieties. "You're not trying to get rid of me again," he says, "are you?"

"I wasn't trying t--" At Marco's accusing glare, Newgate cedes the point without a fight and internally adds another mark to the tally of 'arguments lost against a seven-year-old' he keeps in his head. "Of course not," he says, and shoulders his way into the room to sit in front of Marco's seat. The boy unfurls himself, sitting upright, and he still has to look all the way up to meet his eyes. Newgate raises one massive hand and presses his thumb into Marco's chest over his shirt to feel that fluttery pulse beneath his sternum. "Marco, I need to ask you something."

Marco gives him a wary look, his shoulders drawn up, but eventually nods.

"You know you can ask for things that you want, right? When I give you berries, that's yours to spend."

That blank smile comes back to Marco's face. Newgate has never hated anything more. "I do ask for things that I want," Marco answers cautiously.

Despite not being the kind of person to dwell on the past, Newgate kicks himself now for his decision to just let things play out. Marco had always taken care to show him any purchases, explaining cheerfully what he intended to use them for. When he said 'we' and 'our' instead of 'I' and 'my', Newgate had assumed that he just liked to share.

"Things that don't do anything for me, too." He resists the urge to pick the boy up and squeeze him until he understands. It really is one of the drawbacks of being so large; nearly everyone is small-animal-sized to him. "You can have stuff that's just yours."

"Oh," says Marco. He glances down at the massive thumb Newgate holds against his heart like a silent promise, and the tension leaks out of him. "I understand," he says solemnly.

Newgate withdraws his hand. "Do you want to go back to the ship?" he asks again.

Marco considers the question seriously, steam practically billowing out of his ears as he crosses his arms and lowers his chin, brows furrowed in thought.

Newgate had been a go-with-the-flow kind of child who didn't think too hard about where he was going or the consequences of his actions. Three decades of piracy behind him and he likes to think that he'd gained enough wisdom to know what takes thoughtfulness and what can be left up to chance. It's downright charming to see Marco, who is his opposite in so many ways, approach his choices with such careful deliberation.

"Can I finish this book first?" Marco settles on at last.

"Sure you can." It's a small thing, but Newgate can feel the shift. Marco's so clever that Newgate forgets sometimes that he has a remarkable intuition as well, showing every indication that he'll be a first-rate user of Observation someday. The kid's seen more than enough of people to know instinctively which ones he can trust, and Newgate's sincerely flattered to be one of them. "I'll be on deck," he says. "Come find me when you're done."

"Aye cap'n," Marco answers with a face-splitting grin.

Newgate sees himself out before he melts into a puddle right there on the floor.

By the time Marco emerges back on deck, it's littered with unconscious pirates. He hefts Shanks in his arms, picking his way around all the passed-out bodies in search of an adult to change the smelly baby. Rayleigh intercepts him before he can wander too far, and leads him below deck to the officers' bathroom.

"I have never," Rayleigh says as he wrestles Shanks into a clean diaper and then hands him back to Marco, "seen Shanks take to someone like that."

He rinses off the dirty cloth with a hose attached to the toilet, a relatively new addition by the look of the haphazard collection of valves and adapters connecting it to the Oro Jackson's tubing. The diaper goes into a bucket of soapy water to soak, and Shanks babbles, clinging happily to Marco's shirt as the boy bounces him in his arms. He's a bright, cheerful baby for the most part but it usually takes him much longer to warm up to a stranger.

"You found him in a treasure chest?" Marco asks, following closely on Rayleigh's heels as he heads for the galley. There's food left over from the party, and individually packaged containers of porridge for Shanks in the refrigerator.

Rayleigh takes one of those to reheat while Marco helps himself to a plate of fruit. "Aye," he says from the stove, "in a pile of loot from God Valley."

"He's a Celestial Dragon," Marco says.

"We definitely considered the possibility," Rayleigh tells him, looking over his shoulder to see Marco handing Shanks a slice of papaya.

"I know him," Marco says decisively. He pulls Shanks into his lap to sit, and brushes up the fluffy hair at the nape of his neck to point out a dark spot the crew had assumed was a mole. "Shanks is the Figarland baby. That's the I.D. chip."

"Have you-- how do you know that?"

"All the world nobles have one," explains Marco. "They get it implanted when they're born so they can identify themselves. It's got some kinda tracker in it, so you should take it out."

Marco speaks with too much confidence and familiarity to be talking out of his ass, but the Oro Jackson's closest equivalent to a ship's doctor is passed out facedown on deck, and really only holds that title because he isn't squeamish about sewing up or cutting into his crewmates. "How long do we have?" Rayleigh asks, suddenly on high alert. He's never heard of any chip or tracker, but then again it would hardly be of much use to the Celestial Dragons if everyone knew about them.

"They're probably still kickin' up a fuss about God Valley," Marco concludes after thinking on it. "I dunno how long it'll take before they remember to start tracking."

Rayleigh doesn't expect those inbred freaks to care much about people other than themselves, but he'd expected a modicum of concern for their own children. He's not all that surprised, though. "They're not gonna prioritize a missing baby?" he asks.

"Nah. As soon as the pirates got there all the nobles ran away, and they left him." Marco brushes Shanks's hair back from his forehead, smiling sympathetically down at the toddler. "Someone put him in a chest when things started getting crazy, so he wouldn't get trampled or shot."

"Someone?" Rayleigh asks pointedly.

Marco shrugs. "Someone," he says.

Rayleigh decides not to pry. "How do you know him?"

Marco shakes his head. "I watched him a few times. Maybe he remembers me a little."

Shanks remembers him more than a little, if the way he pulls on Marco's cheeks and keeps trying to eat his fingers is any indication. "You should've said so earlier," Rayleigh says, not bothering to hide his aggravation. Asking Marco to watch a strange kid he's never met is one thing; having him watch a kid he'd been forced to care for under the Dragons is... at best, insensitive? Potentially traumatic all over again?

But the kid just blinks up at him. "Why would I?"

"If I'd known they made you watch him, I wouldn't have put that on you."

"Well," Marco says matter-of-factly around a mouthful of crispy rose-apple, leaning away from Shanks's grasping hands, "I don't blame him or anything. He's just a baby."

Rayleigh internally curses Roger for not accepting Newgate's offer on the spot. It's no wonder the other pirate is so protective of Marco; there's a kind of thoughtfulness in him that's rare to find even in most of the adults Rayleigh knows. "How old're you, kid? Five?"

"Seven!"

"Right, right." He extends his arms for Shanks and snickers as Marco hands the toddler back. "My apologies."

"It's fine, Mr. Silvers."

"Since you're a proper pirate now," Rayleigh tells him, "it's 'Rayleigh'."

"Mr. Rayleigh," Marco says.

Stubborn brat. "We'll get you there."

It always takes the crew many hours to wake up after a party like that, and Rayleigh spends a good chunk of that time all but interrogating Marco. The boy has no problem answering questions about the Celestial Dragons' lifestyle, organizational structure or technological capabilities, but clams up whenever the topic gets too deep into their treatment of him in particular. Not in the way children do when they're thrown back into horrific memories, but in the way of a precocious kid without the words to articulate himself.

Considering Marco's accomplished vocabulary and analytical temperament, Rayleigh decides not to poke too hard. Newgate might be willing to overlook a lot of things, but he won't respond kindly to someone driving his young charge to a mental breakdown.

"Do you think," Rayleigh says with Shanks fed, back in his lap and gnawing on his glasses, "we can get that chip out without a doctor?"

They run the risk of someone recognizing a chip for what it is without a trusted doctor on hand so he has no intention of bringing Shanks to any hospital, and Rayleigh is about as competent as their medic in basic first aid. There's a kit on board with the essentials for basic surgery, at least.

"I think so," Marco answers. "It's not very deep."

Rayleigh regards the dark spot on the back of Shanks's neck for a while longer, pressing into it with his thumb and feeling the hard edges of the chip under the toddler's skin. It doesn't seem to bother him, but it's clearly a foreign body. "And if I destroy it," he says thoughtfully, "does anything happen?"

"I dunno. Never saw it happen while I was around."

It's probably safe to assume that something might happen, a dead man's switch or an alarm on the other end. "The most important thing is probably to separate it from Shanks," Rayleigh concludes. "I'll ask Newgate if he can take it with him to throw in the sea somewhere once we split up."

"Are you gonna take it out?"

"Yeah." Rayleigh retrieves his glasses, wipes them clean on the hem of his shirt, and slips them back on. "You wanna help keep him distracted?"

"Sure!"

Rayleigh laughs quietly to himself as they troop into what's used as an infirmary on the Oro Jackson, a slapdash cabin below deck with the bare essentials for first aid. Marco trots behind him to keep pace with Rayleigh's long stride, and sits in the chair the older pirate indicates. He happily accepts Shanks back, props one ankle up on his opposite knee and settles the toddler facing him securely in the crook of his leg.

Watching Rayleigh dig out a scalpel and sanitize it with a splash of rubbing alcohol, Marco catches Shanks by his grabby little hands and waves them a few times. He reaches for Shanks's cheeks next, gently squashing and pulling them until he's watching Marco with rapt attention, Rayleigh all but forgotten behind him.

"Ready?"

Marco keeps his eyes fixed on Shanks, but he nods and lifts a hand in front of the toddler, the other bracing him upright by the small of his back. He ignites the tip of one finger with blue flames, and extinguishes it when Shanks grabs it. Then another, putting it out as if he's teasing a cat when Shanks lunges for the offending digit. Over and over until Shanks is practically in a frenzy, completely transfixed on the unpredictable, elusive blue flames.

So Marco's not just a mythical zoan fruit user, Rayleigh considers, but one with exceptional control over his transformation. Once again, he finds himself cursing his captain for his instinctively good nature. Roger can be eerily prescient sometimes, but he's also generous to the point of foolishness when it comes to his friends. They should've snapped Marco up when they had the chance, Newgate's attachment to the boy be damned.

Rayleigh moves behind the toddler silently, swipes a ball of alcohol-soaked cotton across the skin above the chip, and sets the edge of the scalpel up against the back of Shanks's neck. He presses down until the blade's edge bites through the delicate skin and scrapes against the tiny metal chip implanted just about a millimeter inside. Marco takes that precise moment to let Shanks grasp the fire, catching the baby's hand in return and squeezing hard enough to distract him from the sting on his nape. Rayleigh goes in with the tweezers immediately, pinching the chip between its tines and plucking it out.

"Are you sure," Rayleigh sighs, holding a square of gauze to the tiny wound while Marco makes funny faces at Shanks, who's too enthralled with the other boy to feel any pain, "you don't want to join the crew?"

"I'm sure," Marco answers, wincing as the toddler's sticky hand smacks him on the cheek. "I can't leave my captain all by himself."

When Rayleigh pulls back the gauze to change it for a fresh one, Marco shifts his hand from Shanks's back to his neck, his palm coated in the blue flames as he presses it to the wound. After a few seconds, he pulls away to reveal a fresh scab smaller than Marco's pinky fingernail.

"You can heal others?" Rayleigh asks incredulously. Mentally, he is kicking Roger in the head. "That's something you can do?"

"It's not as good as healing myself," Marco explains nonchalantly, "but it works for little stuff."

"Looks like you've put it to the test," Rayleigh observes. It doesn't make sense to him why the Celestial Dragons would feed such a powerful fruit to a slave when one of them could simply eat it for themselves and become functionally unkillable, and Marco didn't have an answer for him on that front, either. The best either of them could come up with was that Celestial Dragons balked at the thought of taking any action to help others, even one of their own.

"I wish it could do more," Marco says quietly. He shifts Shanks around to check the scab, poking at it a few times while the toddler voices his protest with an ear-splitting shriek. He calms down instantly once he's facing Marco again. "Babies heal really fast, don't they?"

"Kids're all growing as hard as they can," Rayleigh says, packing the chip into a clean square of gauze and putting away the other used supplies, "so their injuries get better much faster than adults'."

Then Rayleigh walks Marco up to the main deck and watches the kid make a beeline to Newgate's sprawling bulk, Roger's shoulders propped up on the younger captain's side as both of them snore away. Marco walks slowly around them, a contemplative look in his eyes, before he tucks himself into the crook of Newgate's shoulder where he'll fit handily on the massive collar of that big white greatcoat, hidden behind a veritable curtain of Newgate's glorious blond locks.

"Hey," Rayleigh calls in warning, "if he rolls over, you'll die."

A hand sticks out through a little partition in Newgate's hair, and gives him a thumbs-up. Cheeky little shit.

Rayleigh carries Shanks, sleepy again, back into the cabin to put him down for a nap. The accelerated healing on his incision had tired him out even though he'd woken up not that long ago, and Shanks knocks out almost as soon as he's back in the comfort of his crib.

"You know how to use a snail?" Rayleigh asks Marco the next afternoon, once Newgate's all prepared to sail out. He and Roger are the last two of the crew to linger on Newgate's ship, to properly say their farewells. "This is the number to my personal transponder," he explains, handing over a folded slip of paper while Newgate looks on indulgently.

"I know how to use them," Marco confirms.

"Then," Rayleigh says, loud enough for both captains to hear, "if Newgate gets to be too much for you, and you wanna take me up on that offer--"

Newgate growls, "Watch it, Silvers."

"You know how to reach us," Rayleigh says, ruffling Marco's hair as the boy smiles up at him. Some things can remain unspoken between the two captains with all their history, but for a kid who's so new to piracy Rayleigh has to be a bit more explicit. Newgate sure isn't likely to explain how things work to the boy.

"And make sure to call us if Newgate gets in over his head," Roger adds, playfully elbowing the younger man in the ribs. "I'm the only one who's allowed to take him down."

"'Cause you're enemies," Marco agrees, nodding sagely. When Roger lets out a bark of laughter and turns away to find Gaban on the deck of the Jackson, Marco gives Rayleigh a perplexed look.

"It'll make sense when you're older," Rayleigh tells him.

"Thanks for keepin' an eye on him," Newgate says to Rayleigh.

"Marco's been real helpful," Rayleigh answers with a meaningful look at them both. "I should be thanking you, for taking care of that problem for me."

He had explained the chip situation to Roger and Newgate when they woke up, and both agreed to Rayleigh's suggestion. He had also given a brief summary of what he'd learned from Marco, though the only thing that seemed to surprise Newgate was that Marco could heal others, and he also didn't seem too bothered by it.

Marco's already running along the fore main yard when Roger and Rayleigh return to their ship, letting down the sails as Newgate takes the helm. Newgate steers them smoothly out of the bay and back out to sea, his first and only crewmember hanging off a ratline to watch the Oro Jackson disappear over the horizon.

Chapter 6 Chapter Text

Marco watches his captain's expression grow stormier as they draw closer to the next island. Newgate looks unhappy about making land there, even though they're only a few days out from meeting the Roger Pirates and the hold is still stocked to bursting with provisions. There's no reason they have to stop if he doesn't want to, and he clearly doesn't want to.

Newgate grumbles under his breath as he pulls them into the port beside a huge warship and waits on deck for Marco to secure the mooring lines. "That's the Queen Mama Chanter," he explains at Marco's inquisitive stare as he disembarks. "Didn't expect to see it here, but I'll catch up with Linlin before we set sail again."

The Chanter looks more like dessert than a seafaring vessel, with deep red sails that smell of fruit jerky and railings carved to look like dripping pink cream, the aroma of gingerbread and peppermint and frosting and chocolate wafting off it in thick waves. Marco's never had much of a sweet tooth and from the way Newgate's nose wrinkles, he doesn't either, but it's an impressive ship all the same. It dwarfs even the Oro Jackson, which Marco had already thought to be an impressive size compared to their little sloop.

He climbs up the back of Newgate's coat to sit on his shoulder and smiles at the breeze that whips his hair back, his captain's massive strides taking them through the town so quickly they might as well be back on the water. Newgate turns his head to look at him, the tip of his moustache just barely clearing Marco's ear, and grins at the look on his face.

"What're you so excited about?" he asks.

Marco throws his arms out, blue sparks flickering off his fingers as he just barely manages to hold back his transformation. The scrap of red cloth, back on his wrist after it'd disappeared for a day to be cleaned of baby spit, flutters in the wind. "You're going so fast!"

Lately, he's been climbing up to the crow's nest and turning his arms into wings, testing the way they catch the wind. Most boys Marco's age would probably throw themselves off the top yard well before they're ready but he's cautious and deliberate. Newgate would never characterize Marco as timid, but there's an awareness of his own limitations that speaks to that odd maturity he displays so often.

Newgate slows his stride. "Huh," he says. "Guess I am a little antsy."

"Are we meetin' someone?"

"You'll see soon."

He tilts his head as if listening for something before making his way purposefully through the town, as if it isn't the first time he's ever been there. He stops in front of a modestly-sized building with a big red 'H' hung over the door, the universal symbol for hospitals and clinics.

Newgate pushes in through the front entrance into a waiting room and raises his arm to block the hand that would have otherwise crushed his neck.

"Did you come looking for me?" a woman, pink-haired and taller even than Newgate, asks as she pulls back her arm and gives him a wild, fearless grin. "I felt you pull up in the harbor, you bastard."

A boy not much older than Marco emerges from the back room, peering around the door. He's wrapped to his ears behind a scarf, extra material piled up on his shoulders, sharp eyes darting to Newgate as he comes out to stand beside the woman. "Mama?" he asks.

"Katakuri," she says, dropping a hand to the top of his head and absently running her fingers through his short hair. "You remember Newgate. We sailed together until, oh, a few weeks ago?"

Katakuri squares his shoulders and gives Newgate a slow, polite nod. It's acknowledged with a brief dip of Newgate's chin in return, the much older man regarding him with the solemnity warranted by any meeting between pirates.

Then he lets the boy on his shoulder down to the floor. "This is Charlotte Linlin," Newgate says to Marco with a scowl. "A friend."

Marco gives him an exasperated look. But then he turns to Linlin and acknowledges her with a respectful nod, the same gesture Katakuri had given to Newgate. "Nice to meet you," he chirps. "I'm Marco."

"A polite one," Linlin comments, eyes gleaming. "You didn't tell me you knocked someone up, you old prude."

Not wanting to rehash an argument about the definition of 'prude', Newgate simply huffs. He didn't talk much about his life to the Rocks Pirates as a whole, nor did any of the others who lasted on the crew. "That's 'cause I didn't," he answers.

"Oh?"

"I found him at God Valley. He's my first crewmate."

"You decided your first subordinate's gonna be a little kid?"

"You're traveling with your brats," he points out as Marco takes his place beside his boot. "How'd you get the Chanter down here so fast, anyway?"

"It was close 'cause I had Mont d'Or a few weeks ago." Linlin has never been shy about sharing information with Newgate, who was one of the few officers of the Rocks Pirates to be generally well-liked and considered trustworthy. "Just called up my seventh husband and had him bring it around after the God Valley shitshow."

She'd asked Newgate to take over her ship duties while she was off giving birth, knowing he's weak to requests from women and in possession of a powerful enough Observation to have noticed the pregnancy. Gloriosa and Stussy, as much as they were constantly at each other's throats, were happy to cover for her as well. As far as the rest of the crew was concerned, she'd just disappeared for a few days and popped back up.

"Which one are you on again?" Newgate asks.

"Fourteen?" Linlin answers, not sounding sure of herself at all.

"And the kids?"

"Thirty... I think."

Newgate whistles under his breath. "Goddamn, Linlin."

"Like I always said," she laughs, hands on her hips and head tossed back, "I want a country of people from every race!"

If he were inclined to give advice to other pirates, Newgate would have said that there are easier ways to do that than fucking her way through every race on the planet and birthing that nation herself, but he's not, and it seems to be working out fantastically for her. It's certainly an efficient way to start a family. "What's got you in this clinic," he asks, looking around, "anyway?"

"Brûlée's sick, and we don't have a doctor."

Marco looks sharply at Newgate, and tugs on his pant leg. Newgate asks for him, "What happened?"

Pressing her lips into a thin line, Linlin gives him a calculating look. "We're handling it," she says. Then turning to her son, "Katakuri, go check on your sister."

"Yes, Mama."

Marco glances after Katakuri as the other boy ducks into the back room, and then turns his gaze back up to Newgate when a big hand lands gently on his shoulders. "Marco," Newgate tells him, "you don't have to stick around here. Do whatever you like."

Marco pats his thumb before slipping out from under his hand and taking off after Katakuri, excited to have another kid to play with.

"Newgate," says Linlin, striding right up to him and throwing her arm over his shoulders, "I thought for sure you went down with Rocks like the loyal idiot you are."

"I tried to help but he took a swing at me, so I left him to Roger and Garp."

"He's dead," she tells him.

"I know." It had come up in conversation with Roger when they were partying together. Newgate can't quite bring himself to feel sadness about the dissolution of the Rocks Pirates; Xebec had been a cruel, thoughtless captain who killed multiple of his own subordinates, several for trying to leave. Newgate had stayed for over a decade, hating every second of it because the thought of leaving some of his less detestable shipmates to Xebec's whims made him sick to his stomach. He was strong enough to leave, but that also meant he was one of the few strong enough to oppose their captain and rein him in. "Are you alright?"

Linlin, however, has always been strong enough to do as she pleased. Rocks had no control over her, nor did anyone else. "Just great," she says cheerfully, looking completely ambivalent about being free of that crew. "Kaidou got his hands on an interesting fruit. You were gone before things got exciting!"

"And Stussy and Gloriosa?"

She laughs his question off. "You're chivalrous as always, Newgate. Sure you don't want to be lucky number fifteen?" A pause. "Or whichever husband I'm on."

"Pass," he grunts, knowing full well what happens to Charlotte Linlin's husbands when she's done with them.

He's made it a personal policy not to mess around with shipmates anyway, but it'd been a hard rule to follow at times, like when they all got drunk and Stussy would plant herself in his lap and cuddle up against his chest. 'The only worthwhile man on this godforsaken ship,' she liked to call him.

'Prissy do-gooder,' Linlin would say, with equal parts disdain and affection. Gloriosa never commented on his behavior, but he had been the only man on board she ever agreed to scout islands alone with, though it might be more accurate to say he was the only man who ever came back alive from a two-person scouting trip with the Kuja pirate. They'd had a perfectly cordial, grand old time together, so Newgate doesn't doubt that everyone she's killed deserved it.

"In any case," Linlin sighs, "what have you been up to since then?"

"I ran into Roger!"

"That bastard! He ransacked my chest and took this rubbing I had of a poneglyph."

"He did that?" Newgate asks innocently, feigning ignorance.

"Yeah! I collected a red one a few years ago, I'm still looking for someone who can read it." She puffs out her cheeks in annoyance. "It's too big to travel around with, but the important part is the symbols on it."

"Well, good luck to you."

Brûlée sleeps fitfully under a thin blanket in the hospital bed at the far side of the room. She's weak, shivering, her face twisted in discomfort even as her skin strains against the stitches that run across her forehead and down her cheek. Marco gravitates toward her while Katakuri returns to the medicine chest he had been inspecting before Newgate arrived. The jars and bottles are labeled neatly with the names of reagents and chemicals, but not with their purposes.

"What happened?" Marco asks, loud enough to be heard by Katakuri but not to wake Brûlée.

"I beat up some guys for making fun of me," he admits, defiant, daring Marco to do the same, "so they hurt her."

Marco makes a sympathetic sound. News about God Valley had been completely suppressed by the World Government, and even his captain had to find out what happened secondhand from other pirates who had stuck around on the island longer than he had. If a bunch of small-time goons thought Charlotte Linlin was dead, her children must have looked like soft targets.

"She's got a fever," he says.

Katakuri makes a derisive sound. Obviously.

Marco's brow wrinkles in frustration as looks around the exam room. "Where's the doctor?"

"He ran away when we came in," Katakuri answers, "so Mama said we should just take his whole medicine chest instead. I dunno which ones can help her, though."

"Huh," says Marco.

Katakuri looks up at a flash of blue in his periphery, in time to see Marco's hand on fire, and that burning hand being lowered to Brûlée's face.

He moves without thinking, launching himself at the other boy and slamming his fist into the side of his head, sending Marco careening across the room and into the opposite wall with a muffled crunch. The blue flames on Brûlée's face don't go out when he tries to gently smother them without also smothering his sister or worsening her injury, and by the time he realizes that the fire isn't hot, they've already begun to concentrate in the jagged line of stitches down her face, sinking into the wound and then disappearing altogether.

The door behind him slams open, Newgate shouldering into the room with Linlin on his heels. "Hey," he barks, ferocious glare snapping across the room to Marco in a crumpled heap on the floor, then landing on Katakuri, "what happened in here?"

Few adults have the ability to intimidate him, but Katakuri's words turn to lead in his mouth as the sheer weight of the older pirate's attention descends on him. "I-- he--"

"Sorry!" Marco pipes up, staggering to his feet with blue flames erupting all over his body, and he throws out a hand to steady himself against the wall, expression dazed. "I should've warned him. It's my fault."

Abruptly, the weight lifts.

"Warned him?" Linlin asks, peering curiously over Newgate's shoulder.

"Brother," a little voice asks, "what's happening?"

Katakuri instantly forgets the mess going on around him to turn back to his sister. She's pushing herself upright, expression held still so as to not to tug on her stitches, but she seems alert. "Brûlée!" he hisses. "Are you alright?"

"Mhm." A careful smile. Katakuri inspects her wound. The angry, inflamed edges of it have returned to a mildly irritated but healthy pink, and when he gently presses his palm to her forehead there's no sign of the blistering fever that had been ravaging her not five minutes ago. "I feel a lot better," she says.

Linlin asks, "You found the medicine after all, Katakuri?"

"No, Mama. Marco did something. He helped her." Katakuri turns to Marco, meeting the other boy's eyes across the room. He's unnerved; Marco had taken a hit powerful enough to kill most adults and simply popped back up, but he had helped Brûlée so Katakuri doesn't dwell on it. "I'm sorry," he says sincerely, "I shouldn't have hit you."

"It's okay," Marco tells him. His eyes are wide, fingers tugging absently at his wrist tie. "I'm just glad she's feeling better."

Newgate extends his hand, curls his fingers around Marco when he throws himself into it. Normally the kid would run up his arm and perch on his shoulder, but the blow from Katakuri must have shaken him and now he wants to be caught and held. If Newgate were honest with himself, feeling Marco's voice flicker out at the edge of his subconscious had scared the shit out of him, too.

"He's got a devil fruit," Newgate explains, giving Linlin a look that warns her not to spread the information around. She's smart enough not to burn that bridge, unlike most of the other Rocks Pirates. "He can heal a bit, but we're not sure the extent."

"Y'know," Linlin says, her eyes locked on the boy making himself comfortable in the crook of Newgate's arm, "he and Brûlée might make a handsome pair, if you don't mind a little scarring."

Newgate holds Marco closer, curls his other arm protectively around as if to shield him from the three intent stares fixed on him. One the gaze of a pirate with treasure in arm's reach; the other two, hungry in a very different way. "That'll be for them to decide when they're older," he says evenly.

"Well, I've got other daughters." Linlin cocks a brow at him, ignoring the wary looks her children fix on her. "Or sons."

That's a conversation Newgate doesn't want to think about having anytime soon. "His choice," he says firmly, "not mine." Marco gives him a grateful little tug on his sleeve.

"I'm just thinking about alliances," Linlin says with a roll of her eyes. "Get back to me if you ever change your mind."

"That's not gonna happen." Just to emphasize his point, Newgate gestures at Marco, where the boy's peeking around the lapel of his coat. "Listen," he says, "a man's gotta make his own decision about who he wants to spend his life with. I'm not taking that away from him."

"Well then what are you doing here, Newgate?"

"I'm not allowed to catch up with a shipmate?"

"Ex-shipmate."

Newgate sighs. "Just happy to see you doing well, Linlin."

Marco sleeps for about an hour while Newgate and Linlin talk, both of them moving the conversation to the waiting area while Katakuri stays with his sister in the exam room. When Marco finally stirs, fully recovered, he hops out of Newgate's arms and excuses himself to rejoin the other kids.

"My flames can only help a little bit," Marco announces as he ducks back into the room and kicks the door shut behind him, "so I wanted to make sure Brûlée's still holding up."

Katakuri watches him carefully as he bounds up to Brûlée, who's back in bed and curled up with the picture book Katakuri'd brought for her. "You're the one who cured me?" she asks.

"It's not a cure," he explains, "it just helps your body heal itself." Marco extends his arm to her in full view of Katakuri's watchful eyes and collects a handful of phoenix fire in his palm. Brûlée stretches her hand out as well, passing her fingers through the blue flames. "But it's not dangerous or anything, see?"

"It's warm," she sighs, "and so pretty."

Katakuri hangs back, looking anxiously between them until Marco shakes his hand to dissipate the flames and pats her gently on the head. He turns and faces Katakuri next. "If the fever comes back," he says, "she'll still need to take medicine to treat the infection."

Katakuri glares at him. "Which one?" he challenges as the other boy approaches, gesturing at the medicine chest so Marco can take a look for himself. "I don't know any of those words."

Marco crouches in front of the chest and pulls up a handful of little glass bottles, full of pills and powders and liquids. "Me neither," he says cheerfully, squinting at their labels, "but we're in a clinic, right?"

He slips out of the exam room and comes back a few minutes later with a thick leather-bound volume in his arms, claimed from the doctor's office.

"You can read that?" Katakuri asks as the other boy sits down right on the floor in a puddle of lamplight and flips the book open in his lap.

"Not completely," Marco says, peering down at the index, "but you don't have to understand everything to look up which medicine to use."

Katakuri sits down beside him, reading over Marco's shoulder to make sure that what he says is true, and not an attempt to poison his little sister. He can't parse most of the words on the page, but Marco's understanding about it in a way that both soothes his nerves and grates on them.

"This chapter is about fevers," Marco explains, tapping the title, then turning the page to a section labeled 'Wound Infection'. "Her fever broke," Marco murmurs as if he weren't the one who had broken it, "but you'll need to keep the stitches clean to keep it from coming back."

He runs his finger down a list of words that mean absolutely nothing to Katakuri, but drags the medicine chest over to start pulling out ointment bottles to compare their labels to the names. He finally finds a match, and tosses the bottle to Katakuri. "Here! Open this for me."

While Katakuri carefully pries open the bottle labeled 'bacitracin', Marco digs up a cotton ball and a pair of tweezers. They bring the goods over to Brûlée, who smiles sweetly at them. Marco returns it with a sunny grin of his own, before he brandishes the tweezers. "It's gonna sting a little bit," he tells her, "but it'll help you heal faster."

Katakuri tries to give her a smile too, and even hidden behind his scarf it seems to set her at ease. "Be brave," he says, extending his hand for her to hold. She grasps it tightly, and closes her eyes as Marco dabs the ointment over her stitches.

"Is that man your father?" Katakuri asks as Marco re-packs the medicine chest, Brûlée fast asleep behind them. He's taking the time to organize it too, even though he must know that Linlin intends to take the whole thing with them when they leave. Katakuri sits across from him, watching the other boy move with a kind of assurance that he's never seen in children who aren't his siblings.

"He's my captain," Marco says simply.

"Mama's our captain too."

"I think you're a special case," he says with a smile. Then, looking over his shoulder at Brûlée, "Did she say there's thirty of you?"

"Something like that."

"Wow. Must be hard on your Mama's body."

"Is it?"

"Having babies?" Marco wrinkles his nose. "Yeah. She's makin' whole new people in there." Shutting the lid, Marco places the book of medicines on top of the chest and pushes the whole thing toward Katakuri. "Here. You should keep the book, in case you gotta look something else up."

"Why do you know so much about medicine?"

"I've met a few doctors," Marco says lightly, deciding not to argue about the definition of 'so much'.

Really, living with Celestial Dragons and having known healing abilities meant being dragged out for everything from stubbed toes to post-surgical suture care, even before he knew what any of those words meant. Mary Geoise housed some of the best doctors in the world, but even they sometimes had to throw up their hands and count on a human body's natural ability to recover. The doctors, at least, were usually happy to guide Marco when he was called on to use his abilities.

"Doesn't your crew have one?" Marco asks. "You should have one. I don't know why no one seems to have a doctor."

"We used to," Katakuri tells him, "but Mama took his soul when he said she should stop having kids for a while."

Marco blinks at him. "She took his soul?"

"Yeah."

"Scary," he comments.

Katakuri doesn't dispute it. He looks at Marco instead, who's leaning back on his hands, legs outstretched, and rolling his shoulders to loosen them now that they've secured treatment for Brûlée. "Are you hungry?" he asks. "I'll ask Mama if we can get something to eat."

"I saw some kebab stands on the way in," Marco suggests.

"I wanna bring something back for Brûlée, too," says Katakuri.

The two scramble to their feet. Katakuri picks up the medicine chest, hefts it up to his shoulder and they move in lockstep to the waiting area where their captains have managed to locate a stockpile of liquor and are laughing raucously over their cups.

Marco goes to Newgate immediately, climbing up the back of his coat. "We're gonna get something to eat," he reports. "Should I bring anything for you, cap'n?"

"Have it sent here," Newgate says, handing him a small stack of bills. Marco's far too small to carry back an amount of food that'll actually fill him up. "Whatever's cheap."

"Aye!"

"Mama," Katakuri says, indicating the chest on his shoulder, "I'm taking this back to the ship."

"Bring something sweet back for me while you're there," she tells him, with a look at Newgate who pointedly doesn't offer to treat her to a meal. He had always taken a smaller cut of treasure to keep the peace, but had also never stepped up to pay for anyone else's drinks or food. Newgate fended off all questions about where he sent his share of treasure, sometimes with a mighty swing from Murakumogiri, so after a while everyone had stopped asking.

"Yes, Mama."

Linlin watches the boys troop out the door with a big grin on her face. "Kids, eh?"

"I don't know how you do it," Newgate sighs. "Marco runs circles around me most days."

"A little wise-ass?"

He huffs. "Yeah. Smart as a whip."

"Children are resilient, Newgate. They'll be fine."

Newgate thinks back to Katakuri's solemn, attentive little face. His genuine remorse for hitting Marco, who'd only been trying to help, and honesty in the face of Newgate's power despite what it could've cost him. "You've got a good kid, Linlin."

"Katakuri?" She nods absently. "He's strong. Takes care of his siblings, too."

"Those boys," Newgate says, lifting his cup for a toast, "they'll be great pirates someday."

Linlin laughs, raising hers to clink against his. "Cheers to that!"

Chapter 7 Chapter Text

Katakuri watches Marco trot along beside him, confident and light on his feet. He's tiny, even smaller than Brûlée; the kid only comes up to Katakuri's belly button and he has to take two steps for every one of Katakuri's. No wonder he likes to sit on his captain's shoulder, there's no way he can keep up with that man's stride.

Marco stops them in front of a cart halfway down the street, inspects the display, sniffs the steam wafting off the grill and places an order that has the vendor's eyes widening to the size of dinner plates. A stack of flatbread, at least two full skewers of roasted vegetables, an obscene amount of spiced, grilled meat. He pays half the cost of the order immediately, and promises the rest when it's ready to be picked up.

"You probably shut him down for the day," Katakuri observes as they proceed to the dock. It's easy enough to locate; his Observation is acute, and Oven and Daifuku's Voices are always in his ear.

"He seemed happy about it," Marco says, grinning as he takes in the town around them. "So you're going back to the Queen Mama Chanter?"

"Aye," Katakuri answers. He hefts the medicine chest on his shoulder, and leads the way. "You can come aboard for a few minutes," he offers. The other boy had helped Brûlée after all, and although Katakuri loves his family he doesn't trust them to leave Marco alone if they find a kid just standing around on the docks.

The first obstacle appears when they climb the gangplank and arrive on deck. Perospero, arms crossed, intercepts Katakuri at the top. "Does Mama know you're bringing a stranger on board?" he demands, pointing one long finger at Marco. His tongue pokes out from between his teeth, like it's too big for his mouth.

"I'm bringing this medicine chest back," Katakuri replies, not interested in a fight. "He's just gonna help me carry something sweet back for Mama."

"This puny brat?"

Katakuri suppresses the impulse to roll his eyes. Just because he's in his growth spurt. "He's fine. He helped Brûlée."

"So?" Perospero sneers.

"I'm gonna give him a donut."

That makes Perospero take a second look at the younger boy, eyes narrowed in suspicion. He's Mama's eldest son, and so he had taken it upon himself to guard the ship in her absence.

Marco puts both his hands on his hips, looking back impassively. Whatever is going on in this conversation it's flying over his head, but at least he isn't easily intimidated. He brushes by Perospero on Katakuri's heels, following him into the belly of the ship to drop off the chest and the book in the doctor's office.

"Was that your brother?" Marco asks, making a round through the sick bay. He waits for Katakuri to stow everything, and then falls back into step behind him as he leaves for the galley.

"He's the oldest. Perospero."

"Sorry I'm making trouble for you."

"He's just a jerk," Katakuri reassures him. He lets them both into the kitchen and the sweet scent of baking pastries washes over them. "Streusen?"

The squat little chef at the counter turns on his step-stool, smiling mildly. "What do you need, Katakuri?"

"Mama wants something to eat."

"Sure," he says, going straight into the walk-in refrigerator for a backpack of pastries taller and wider than Katakuri himself. He passes it to Katakuri, who slings the pack over his shoulders, and asks, "What about you, kid? The usual?"

"Yes please."

Marco looks on as Streusen ducks behind the counter and pulls out a huge tray of freshly glazed donuts. Katakuri takes one and hands it to Marco, then swipes the rest up in one precariously balanced tower as he leads the way out of the kitchen. Streusen's curious gaze follows them, and Marco bites into the donut as they troop through the Queen Mama Chanter.

It's sweet. Cloyingly sweet, almost more frosting than dough. Marco has eaten much worse things in his life and his expression doesn't change as he takes another bite, but Katakuri watches him carefully and says, "You don't like it."

He doesn't seem offended about it at least, so Marco offers it back to him. "It's good," he reassures him, "it's just too sweet for me."

"That's the best part," Katakuri says, accepting it.

"More for you," Marco tells him cheerfully, something Katakuri recognizes as the response of someone who's also an expert at de-escalation.

Katakuri stops them before they emerge back on deck— he pulls down his scarf to pop the leftover donut into his mouth, and another one just for good measure. He glares at Marco while he chews, as if daring the other boy to make fun of him, but Marco doesn't comment on it, just peers out the door and scans the deck for other Charlotte siblings who might try to accost them.

"Coast's clear," he reports, grinning up at Katakuri. Then, not waiting for his prompt, darts to the gangway to disembark. He runs down the narrow plank, balancing easily and timing his steps to each bow and bounce of the wood. "I bet the food I ordered for my captain is ready now, too!"

Katakuri joins him on the dock once Marco reaches it, his donuts held securely in the mass of mochi that he'd turned his arm into. He hides his proud grin behind the scarf as Marco immediately shouts his surprise, then his delight. Marco's a nice kid, unabashedly excited for Katakuri and eager to find out how his powers work.

He's also very seven-years-old, bombarding Katakuri with questions as they make their way back to the clinic.

Katakuri mostly answers that he doesn't know the extent of his powers (true) and he hasn't experimented much (a lie), but Mama's impressed on all her children the value of information. Knowledge about their abilities can be leveraged against the family, after all.

"I told you to have the food delivered," Newgate says, exasperated as Marco and Katakuri squeeze through the clinic doors with their loot. Marco's balancing a stack of hot food taller and wider than himself in his arms, and Katakuri's dwarfed by the enormous backpack on his shoulders.

Newgate stands up from the table, immediately taking Marco's cargo out of his hands and hooking a finger into the top strap of Katakuri's pack to lift it off his back and lob it over to Linlin. She catches it and digs in, immediately liberating an éclair from the depths of the pack and popping it whole into her mouth as she watches him.

Before the boys can run off to the back room again, Newgate insists that Marco take his portion of food first, which the boy does with a fond roll of his eyes. He snatches up two of the soft flatbreads, two servings of spiced meat, and pulls the skewers out with his teeth while he maneuvers the the meat to stay on the bread, somehow without getting grease on his hands. Then he adds a handful of fresh vegetables to each, and globs of two different kinds of sauce. He hands one directly to Katakuri.

And then he gives Newgate a pointed look, as if to say You have to eat it this way! because he knows Newgate would otherwise just work through it eating all of one thing at a time. Newgate can't promise that he'll make those pretty little wraps like Marco did, but at least he's aware now that they're all ingredients that are meant to be combined. He shoos Marco away so he won't have to deal with the kid's judgmental little eyes, and settles back at the table with Linlin.

"They're so cute at that age," she sighs. "Hey, Newgate, if that brat is too much for you—"

"No." Scowling, Newgate heaps a pile of meat onto a few of the flatbreads, then vegetables and sauce just as Marco had done. He scoops the whole thing into his mouth, chewing irritably while Linlin keeps looking covetously at the door to the exam room. "He's with me," he says, too annoyed to even enjoy the savory, fragrant meal, "until he says to my face out of his own mouth that he doesn't want to be."

Frankly, Newgate's sick of people suggesting that he might not want the kid, or that Marco might not want to stick around. Pirates don't just offer to take in abandoned children out of kindness, especially pirates like Linlin, and even an idiot can see that a capable, clever kid like Marco with a mythical zoan power will be an asset on any ship he sails on. He bristles at the sly smile she shoots him, but she doesn't push her luck.

"Where're you headed next?" Linlin asks as she chomps into a cream-filled pastry, moving onto safer topics. There are plenty of pirates she'll happily start a fight with, but Newgate isn't one of them. Of the Rocks Pirates, he was easily the hardest to provoke but he didn't just tolerate disrespect. If a quick, painful correction wasn't enough to bring some of their more unruly rookies in line he had no problem removing them from the ship, or from the world of the living. A warning was more than most of the other veterans of that ship ever gave.

"Fullalead," Newgate answers, "to put together a crew."

"Oh, I heard it's a mess there right now, with Rocks gone." She licks powdered sugar off her fingers, then reaches for another pastry. "I'd stay away for a couple weeks until all the noise from God Valley dies down."

She was the most well-connected of the Rocks Pirates. Somehow or another, Charlotte Linlin always had an ear to the ground regarding what was happening in the world, and she was the Rocks Pirates' liaison to the underworld trade network. Newgate has many friends across numerous islands who are happy to keep him up to date, but news like that is usually beyond their reach. "That so?" he asks.

"Wang Zhi's making a play for the island, so I'm going back to Tottoland." Linlin slurps down a fruit tart of some kind, popping the whole thing out of its tin and into her mouth whole. "About time I settled down," she says, "don't you think?"

Newgate grins at the joke. "You've got plenty of good years ahead of you, Linlin."

"Newgate," she gasps, pretending to be scandalized, "I'm a married woman!" Then with a mischievous grin, "But if you'd like to change that—"

"Pass!"

"Can you eat the mochi you make?" Marco asks as he pushes through the door into the exam room where Brûlée is still napping. "And you can make it softer or harder? What happens if you grill it?"

Katakuri takes a bite out of the wrap Marco had handed him in lieu of answering, and immediately makes a face. "It's spicy," he complains. Katakuri pulls down his scarf, opens his mouth wide and pants to dissipate the heat on his tongue.

"It's spiced," the younger boy says with a laugh as he goes to the doctor's desk and sits in the wheeled leather chair to eat his own, "but it's okay if you don't like it. I can finish it for you."

Katakuri gives him a wary look. Oddly enough, Marco seems to mean it. He's amused but not in the way some of his siblings are when they glimpse weakness; the younger boy has no need to jostle for Mama's favor, after all.

"We're never gonna fight over who gets what," Marco reasons with his mouth full. "I'll just give you all my sweets, and you can give me all your spicy stuff."

"But," Katakuri says, "it tastes good."

"Even though it's spicy?"

Katakuri takes another bite and this time he manages not to make any faces about it. "I'm not scared of spice," he says firmly, and swipes the back of his hand under his nose as it starts to run.

Newgate sets sail before the day is out, boarding his ship with Marco after walking with Linlin, Katakuri and Brûlée to the harbor. The Charlottes are casting off as well, now that Brûlée's been treated and they have supplies on board. Linlin tosses around the idea of kidnapping a doctor, which Newgate mildly advises against while emphasizing that he's not her boss. She eventually decides against it, conceding to Newgate's point that a doctor might be inclined to poison her kids if one were pressganged onto a pirate ship.

Katakuri waves to Marco from the deck of the Chanter as Marco lets down the sails of their sloop, both boys looking disappointed to have their time cut short but Marco's eager to be underway. Once the town and the Queen Mama Chanter are out of sight, he runs below deck to retrieve his logbook and then joins Newgate at the helm.

Marco perches on Newgate's shoulder with one foot propped up and the other braced against the divot of his collarbone. He's got his inkwell in his off-hand, quill in the other scratching frantically across the page as Marco writes down what he'd done that day. He narrates softly to himself but right by his captain's ear, Newgate hears every word.

'Made a friend,' Marco mutters, 'question mark?'

He finishes up the entry while Newgate resists the mighty urge to fawn over how damn cute he is, then Marco tugs on a lock of Newgate's hair. "Where are we headed, cap'n?"

Newgate had told Linlin that his destination was Fullalead, and that's not a lie. But given what she's told him, he makes a quick decision. "Have you ever heard of an island called Sphinx?" he asks as he locks the wheel with a length of rope.

Marco shakes his head.

"It's an unaffiliated island in the New World, not too far from Fullalead. I was born there."

"Your home?"

"Aye. It's just got the one port town." Even just five years ago, Newgate would've called it a filthy little shithole just to pre-empt any comments from his companions on Xebec's ship, but lately he's found that to be less true. "People were too poor to pay the tribute to the World Nobles," he explains, "so pirates and slavers used to do whatever they wanted there."

Marco's worried little face turns to him.

"Ever since I started pirating, I've been sending all my treasure to Sphinx," Newgate continues. "It's doing better now. Some of my old friends still live there, so we're gonna go visit them until things calm down on Fullalead."

Marco takes all that in with a pensive nod as he caps the inkwell and shuts his logbook. "Do you have an eternal pose to Sphinx?" he asks, as always concerned with the practicalities.

Wheel secured, Newgate nods and heads below deck with the kid still on his shoulder. "I do."

He pauses in front of the captain's quarters, then shrugs and pushes right in to reach the chest of his belongings. It's got his clothes, a stack of emergency berry, Murakumogiri's maintenance supplies, a log pose for when they return to the Grand Line. Marco watches silently as Newgate unlocks the chest, pulls everything out, and then pushes down on one corner to tilt a thin sheet of wood enough to get his finger around the edge of it. A false bottom.

There are just two things in the hidden space: an eternal pose with its name scratched off and a rolled-up sheet of parchment. "Is that a map?" Marco asks, draped over Newgate's shoulder.

"It's a map. To Sphinx as well."

"Your home means a lot to you, cap'n?"

"It does." Newgate takes the pose and replaces the false bottom, then his clothes and other supplies. He gives the compass to Marco, who turns it idly in his hands, watching the needle stay pointed in the same direction. "Growing up there was hard, but lots of people were kind to me. They're the reason I'm alive today. It's important to pay back debts, y'know?"

Marco hurriedly tucks his inkwell into his pocket, his quill behind his ear, his logbook into his shirt, and uses both hands to hold onto the precious eternal pose that Newgate had gone to so much trouble to hide from the Rocks Pirates. When the door to the captain's quarters shuts behind them, Newgate pauses at the sound of a distant clatter below deck.

"What was that?" Marco asks, shuffling around on his shoulder to peer suspiciously at the floorboards.

"Something probably came loose in the hold," Newgate answers after a second. "We'll take care of it later. Don't want to leave the wheel unattended too long."

They have enough supplies for nearly two months at sea, and Newgate assures Marco that it's significantly more than they need. There are many islands in the New World, and they aren't very far apart; it's just the unpredictable weather of the Grand Line that makes navigation so difficult. But Newgate has had decades of experience navigating that fickle sea, and he's not even the least bit afraid of it.

Still, they can't afford to waste what they have. Newgate stays on deck, regularly checking the wheel and adjusting the sails as Marco wanders below deck to store his ink and his logbook.

Jozu has made a mistake.

He had boarded what was at the time an empty sloop to raid its hold, and had found a wealth of tasty, fresh food. He ate a few apples, drank a bit of grog, tore into a loaf of bread the size of his head and then flopped onto a few sacks of rice to nap, his feet propped on a crate of onions.

He had woken up at the sound of voices and creaking floorboards above him, accidentally kicked a box of carrots off the crate, and breathed a sigh of relief when after a beat of silence, the footsteps overhead simply clomped away, heading above deck.

He had then planned to leave the no-longer-empty sloop, but passing a porthole, found that they were already at sea.

Jozu's a strong enough swimmer after having spent his whole life by the shore, but he's not strong enough to swim to a shore that's already out of sight. He's big for a four-year-old, able to outrun and overpower most adults he's met, but he'd rather not face a pirate in the middle of the ocean. He's not worried yet; there are plenty of places to stow away on a ship, and he's had many close calls throughout his life that have taught him not to panic until there's something to panic about.

Thus: he picks up the carrots and puts them back in their box. He takes one while he's at it, scrubbing it against the front of his shirt until he's rubbed off as much of the dirt on it as he can, and crunches it down in three bites.

First: find a place to stay. Jozu doesn't hear anyone else walking around, and the single confirmed big guy on board can be heard from just about anywhere with that heavy stride of his. With the hold all tidied up, Jozu inches toward the door, still listening intently to anything that could signal an approaching crewmate.

He slips into the corridor, this time paying careful attention to the layout, the doors, the portholes, anything that can be used to make a quick escape if he were discovered. He finds a crew berth, rows upon rows of unused beds stripped of their linens, and wanders deeper inside in search of pillows and blankets and whatever clothes might be left in those chests with their locks shattered. He sleeps fine on wooden floors with only a tattered blanket between himself and the planks, but Jozu isn't going to complain about a bit of comfort, and he'll take the opportunity if it's presented to him.

He's all the way in the back of the compartment when he looks up, a corner of blanket dangling down in front of his eyes, and glimpses a bunch of pillows piled luxuriously around a clearly used top bunk. There's a kid-sized divot in the center of the pillows, the corner of a book tucked under one and a few strips of red silk tied to the guardrail.

So there's definitely pillows on board, but as to where they're stored—

"Huh," someone says.

Jozu spins on his heel, one foot catching on a coil of rope and hand flinging out to steady himself against the post of the bed. He glimpses a flash of yellow, streaking away toward the door, before he regains his balance and charges after.

He's always been fast, unexpectedly so for his size, and makes it to the door before the one who'd found him. It's another kid, probably the occupant of that top bunk Jozu had just been eyeing, and he's tiny. But he faces Jozu without any fear, looking impassively on as Jozu toes the door shut behind him and backs up against it.

"If you're stowing away," the smaller boy says matter-of-factly, "you're not doing a very good job of it."

"Who are you?" Jozu demands.

"I'm Marco. Who're you?"

"I'm not stowing away," Jozu tells him.

Marco, looking unconvinced, folds his arms across his skinny little chest. "Were you the one makin' all that noise earlier in the hold?"

"I was just hungry," Jozu says, eyes boring into Marco's. "I didn't know you would sail so soon."

"This is a pirate ship, you know? It's dangerous."

"You don't look dangerous," Jozu points out. Actually, he looks like Jozu could squish him like a bug.

"Listen," Marco answers with a sigh, "if you talk to the captain I bet he'll turn around and bring you home. We haven't been sailing for that long yet. I can speak to him for you."

"No," Jozu decides.

"No?"

"You can't tell your pirate captain that I'm on board," Jozu insists. "If he knew I was stealing food..."

"So you'll fit right in," Marco says patiently, though his eyes narrow.

Jozu backs up against the door even harder, both arms stretching to the sides to block any access Marco might try to gain, although realistically he's too small to budge him. "I'm not letting you tell him," Jozu insists. "Lemme me stay on board until we reach the next island. I won't make any trouble."

Marco thinks that over for a while, tapping his chin with one finger as his eyes roll toward the ceiling. Whatever calculations he's doing, he eventually comes to a conclusion. "I don't have a problem with that," he answers at last. "You can even take one of these bunks."

Jozu perks up at that. "Really?"

"There's a set of sheets'n pillows in here," Marco says, immediately turning to a chest and prying it open. He gestures to the clean white bedding inside, and then turns to another chest for pillows. Then he takes a book out of where he'd had it tucked inside his shirt, and nonchalantly makes his way to the back of the compartment, to his own bunk. "I gotta put some stuff away and let my captain know everything's okay," he says, "or he'll come check on us."

Inching away from the door, Jozu snatches up a set of bedding and takes them to one of the lower bunks— a bigger one that actually fits him. He tosses all the goods on top of the mattress, and then regards them pensively as Marco slips out.

Jozu has peeked inside enough houses to know that sheets cover a mattress and all the other stuff goes on top, but he'd never seen it done before and so he gives up on that. Marco will probably be able to teach him how to do all that once he's back.

He's rooting around a bunch of the other chests, finding stashed-away snacks that Marco had probably tucked around the space. Crackers, dried fruits and nuts, and he helps himself. He's so busy helping himself, the dry crunch of biscuits in his ears, that he only notices the new arrival when a shadow looms up in the crew berth's doors.

The captain. And he's massive.

Jozu scowls at Marco, who's perched smugly on the big man's shoulder. In response, Marco sticks his tongue out. "You said you weren't gonna tell him!" Jozu accuses him.

Marco retorts, "I said I didn't have a problem with you staying on board."

Jozu scrambles backwards, squeezing himself into the corner of the closest bunk, his arms rising to cover his head as he braces for a blow from the big pirate. It wouldn't be the first hit he's ever taken from an adult, but they're not usually this big.

"I was gonna see how long he could've kept this up," the captain rumbles quietly to Marco, "but you caught him right away."

"We're not going to hurt you," Marco says to Jozu, as if he's the one Jozu was worried about.

"My name's Edward Newgate," the pirate says, and he extends his hand slowly. "What's yours?"

Jozu peeks at him from behind his own thick forearms, eyes the hand, big enough to engulf his whole torso, and doesn't move. "Jozu," he mumbles.

"Nice t'meetcha," Marco chirps.

Jozu squints at the two of them, with their blond curls and creepy light-colored eyes fixed kindly on him. "Is he your dad?" he asks Marco. No wonder the lying little twerp snitched.

"He's my captain," Marco says.

"How old are you?" Newgate asks.

"Four," Jozu answers, and he doesn't like the way they look knowingly at each other at all.

Newgate turns back to him, voice soft. "Where're your parents, kid?"

"I don't have any."

"We can turn around and drop you off at that last island," Newgate offers, "Or I can let you off at the next one. It's a pretty safe place nowadays."

Jozu, without parents or a home, has never been all that attached to his island. The idea of starting anew somewhere else doesn't sound bad at all. "Where is it?" he asks cautiously.

"In the New World."

"The Grand Line?"

"Aye, the Grand Line." Newgate backs up, making space for him and pulling his hand away. Jozu clambers out of the bunk after him, standing nervously before the captain like a chastised crewmate. "If you're booking passage," the man says, "you can earn your keep as a cabin boy."

Jozu squares his shoulders at being addressed like an adult. Booking passage, Newgate said. "Do I get paid like a cabin boy?" Jozu asks.

The big man's lips twitch at their corners. "You get room and board," he chuckles, "and if we come into some treasure, you'll get a share just like everyone else."

This time, Jozu's the one who sticks out his hand. "Deal," he answers.

Chapter 8 Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

As soon as he learns that Jozu's three years younger than him, Marco begins to flex his seniority, saying stuff like It's okay to be a little kid, and Don't worry, I'll teach you, and If there's a problem, just come to me, which would be much more annoying if he weren't right. Jozu is a kid, and he doesn't worry when he doesn't know something because Marco happily shows him the ropes, and Marco's a great problem-solver, especially when it comes to things like getting Jozu untangled from the sails.

Newgate isn't bad either; Jozu's rarely ever been outmatched in strength or speed, but the big captain dwarfs him in both. It should be scary, but he's so easy-going and gentle that Jozu can't find it in himself to be afraid of the old man. He's even more knowledgeable than Marco, telling both of them stories of all the incredible islands he's seen.

Ship's chores are easy and the three of them make quick work of daily tasks. Marco and Jozu cook together in the morning, with help from the captain who provides whatever meat they have for the day, usually some kind of sea creature he pulls up from the water. They all clean together after breakfast, mopping the decks and scrubbing down the heads, belting shanties Newgate learned himself as a cabin boy when he first set sail. Then Jozu and Marco alternate daytime watch shifts while Newgate takes intermittent naps, so he can keep them on course through the night.

"Can you," Jozu asks, one sunny morning out on the quarterdeck while Marco scrawls in his logbook, "teach me how to read?"

Newgate's at the helm as usual, squinting alternately at the horizon and the eternal pose that he keeps strapped around his ring finger instead of his wrist, on account of being just that large of a man. Their sails are full, the sloop plowing cheerfully through the waves. Jozu's stomach is full too, a rare occurrence before he boarded Newgate's ship. That alone is enough to convince him that piracy isn't so bad.

"Sure," Marco says, looking to Newgate for permission, "after I set up the log for today."

He explains as he jots down the date, the weather, the wind speed and heading. After a few seconds, Marco regards Jozu closely and decides that the younger boy needs to learn math, too. Jozu can count just fine, so Marco eases him in with the numbers.

Newgate spreads his greatcoat in a shady spot on deck once he locks the helm and lays down right there to nap, charging Marco with making sure they stay on course and waking him up if something happens. He keeps Murakumogiri close by, within arm's reach, and hands over the eternal pose. Marco also has no problem clambering all over him and Newgate doesn't even stir when the kid burrows into his pocket to retrieve a handful of papers and his telescope, supplies he keeps squirreled away in Newgate's greatcoat.

Then Marco roughly sketches out the ship and labels the various parts of it with different letters. A for 'aft-deck', B for 'boom'. Any parts of the ship he can label he does, and he scratches out crude drawings for everything else. C for 'cargo' and D for 'deck'. All the way through Q for 'quarterdeck' and X for 'xebec'.

"I dunno any ship's terms that start with Z," Marco sighs when he reaches the final letter, "so here's a zucchini." Then he draws a really ugly zucchini.

He leaves Jozu to practice writing the letters, making his way to the crow's nest with his current book, a dry volume about celestial navigation he found in the map room. He checks their heading and scans the horizon every time he finishes a chapter.

It's past noon and Jozu has taken his study supplies below deck to eat lunch when Marco spots a shape in the distance. He whips out the telescope, peers through it and adjusts the focus. The oncoming ship has white sails stamped with the Marines' insignia and doesn't seem to be on an intercept course with them, but the captain had ordered Marco to wake him up if he saw anything. They are after all pirates, and whether it's another pirate ship or a marine vessel, it's ripe for plunder.

Marco tucks all his supplies into his shirt and transforms his arms into wings, his feet to talons. He hops up onto the rim of the crow's nest and pauses there for a second before he extends his wings, catches the wind in them and holds them stiffly out to slow his descent between ropes and yards. By the time he hits the deck, Newgate's already sitting up, one knee pulled up to his chest as he watches Marco approach. "See something?" he asks.

"Marines at ten o'clock!" Marco chirps back.

Newgate extends his hand, letting Marco run up his arm to take his place on his shoulder. "You wanna see what pirates do when we meet Marines on the high seas?" he asks. Marco points in the direction of the ship and hands over his telescope already fully extended. Newgate has to hold the thing very carefully up to his eye, and he sights down it to find the ship Marco alerted him to.

The boy bounces excitedly on his shoulder. "Aye, cap'n!"

"Great. You're gonna get below deck and stay there."

"What?" Marco immediately protests, "No!"

"You're too little," Newgate says. "You'll get hurt."

"I'll just get better," Marco argues. He tugs insistently on Newgate's hair, not hard enough to hurt or pull any out, but with unmistakable force. He says, "What if you get hurt?" as if there's anything he can do about it.

"I won't get hurt," Newgate tells him, resolutely not allowing Marco's sincere concern to sway him. If the brat finds out how much of his resolve that one question had eaten away, he'd be too powerful. He's too smart of a kid not to leverage that against him. "There's two," Newgate continues, "maybe three marines in the world that can hurt me, and they're not gonna be in some backwater like this."

"But you'll be all alone," Marco says anxiously, and it strikes Newgate all over again how different they are. When Newgate was told to stay below deck as a kid, he'd simply agree and then not do it. Marco, that fluttery little presence on his shoulder, adds, "I want to watch your back, cap'n."

He's laying it on a little thick but to Newgate's chagrin, it's still working. "I want you to keep an eye on Jozu," he says instead, to distract the boy with another important task. Newgate wants to say it means that he's building a bit of resistance to Marco's big, earnest eyes, but he'd just be lying to himself.

Marco immediately takes it upon himself to head below deck so he can pass the order along. Newgate adjusts the sails himself and then returns to the helm, undoing the ropes that hold the wheel in place and pulling it to the left to bring them a few degrees port. The Marines seem to have spotted his ship as well, flying a plain black flag over a recognizably former-Navy vessel, and are turning into an intercept course.

They clearly haven't received the news that a commandeered Navy ship is sailing around the West Blue with Edward Newgate on it. But they will.

Newgate drops a wad of bills into Jozu's hand and shares an indulgent look with Marco at the look of awe on the new kid's face. Marco's used to handling money, pocketing his own share with the finesse of a merchant, and the official way he takes out his logbook and records their spoils makes Newgate chuckle to himself as he sorts through everything he'd managed to take off the Navy ship. Half a dozen lifeboats bob in the distance, marines pulling their comrades aboard as the wreckage of their ship sinks beneath the waves.

"There's a lot here," Marco informs him after he tallies up the stacks of cash from a cracked-open safe and fiddles around with an abacus. "Think that was all supposed to be for payday," he says, showing Newgate the amount he'd written in his log.

After his first few hauls with the Rocks Pirates, Newgate was no longer impressed by big numbers. The cost of building up a village and supporting its residents is significant, and he finds it much easier not to keep track of how much he sends away compared to how much he keeps. Every time he returns to Sphinx he sees some way in which that money was put to good use so he doesn't get fussy if someone skims a bit off the top, even though his friends who are responsible for dispersing the funds always try to give him a record of all their spending. He read the first few and only pretends to pay attention to the rest.

Newgate sets aside a few stacks of berries to cover the costs of running a ship and paying crew and packs up the rest to drop off at their destination. Marco doesn't question it, leaving a slip with the totals written on it inside the sack, and Jozu's more than satisfied with the amount that he'd received. Both boys scramble below deck to store their earnings in their respective chests, excitedly discussing what they intend to buy with all that money. Newgate returns to the helm, and sets them back on course to Sphinx.

He locks the wheel again, checks the wind and their heading, then heads below deck in search of Marco and Jozu. They should be calming down, though Newgate remembers his first cut of a plunder and suddenly having enough money to buy whatever he wanted for the first time in his life, so he doesn't begrudge their distraction. Still got ship's chores, though.

He makes his way toward the galley, absorbed in planning the next leg of their voyage. It's tricky to cross the Calm Belt, though the Rocks Pirates were collectively strong enough to do so without being bothered by Neptunians, and they had plenty of ways to sail without wind or currents. One pirate with a large paddle could've propelled them across even if Gloriosa's Yuda weren't there to pull them along.

Newgate, turning a corner without checking around it, nearly falls flat on his face when his boot makes contact with something soft and light that lets out a startled yelp. He barely feels the impact, pulling up short, but there are only two other living things on his ship and both of them are children. He's almost grateful to see that it was Marco who'd run into his path, and the burst of blue flame around his torso is— well, not great but better than seeing Jozu in a heap on the floor with broken ribs. At least Marco can heal. "Shit," he says, hurrying forward to where he'd launched the brat, "Marco!"

He's confident enough in Marco's resilience— taking a blow from Linlin's son is going to hurt worse than an accidental tap from Newgate's boot and he'd popped right up from that, but the worry starts to set in when Marco doesn't bounce back to his feet like every other time he's gotten hurt. He stays huddled on the floor, forehead pressed to the wood, knees bent under him and arms wrapped around his ribs.

"Sorry," Marco says, and his body curls tighter in on itself as Newgate approaches, as if bracing for another kick. "I'm sorry," Marco repeats, voice small.

"It's my fault," Newgate answers immediately, ignoring the panicked refrain of oh shit oh shit that immediately begins in his head. "I'm the one who's sorry."

Marco doesn't seem to hear him, startling when Newgate scoops him up, inspecting the boy's torso with a gentle press of his fingers. The flames had done their job and nothing's shifting around inside there that shouldn't be but when Marco finally looks up at him, it's a kick in the head to see real fear in his eyes, nothing like the sweet trust Newgate's grown accustomed to from the boy.

"Marco," Newgate calls softly as he falls back into his palms, going pliant at his touch. A normal scared kid would recoil, push at him, try to get away— Marco doesn't flinch from the thumb that Newgate presses to the center of his chest, but he does momentarily look like he's ready to die. "I didn't mean to do that," Newgate tells him. "I didn't see you. I'm sorry, I should've watched where I was going."

The words take a few seconds to register. "I'm okay," Marco replies as soon as they do, mustering a half-smile that looks more like a grimace. The speed at which he switched to appeasement is jarring— admirable control, but it makes Newgate sick to think of what forced him to learn it. "I should've been more careful," he adds cautiously, glancing briefly down, where that big finger is still held against his heart. "It won't happen again, cap'n."

There's something about being kicked in the ribs that sets it apart from being whacked across a room. Stussy was the doctor on Xebec's ship, and it's her voice in his head now, lilting, sardonic. That's what we call a trauma response, it says. An observation he hadn't really understood until now, given that the Rocks Pirates were seasoned pros at suppressing all the horrible things that had happened to them as children, and also on that crew.

Newgate won't complain about Marco being more cautious of turning corners, but he's starting to wish he'd tripped over Jozu instead— that quiet, sturdy little urchin was probably always able to fight back. He wants to throw something.

Unfortunately, the only thing he has in his hands is Marco, who apprehensively shuffles forward to crawl into the front of his greatcoat and huddle up against him. His arm instinctively curls up to support the boy's legs from below. Marco's a predictable kid. When he's feeling bold he wants to be up high on Newgate's shoulder where he can take in everything around them and chirp his observations into his captain's ear. When he's tired or afraid he wants to be somewhere quiet, warm and dark.

"Marco," Newgate says, turning back the lapel of his coat, "will you look at me?"

It takes a moment for him to do so, light blue eyes peering up at him out of the shadow. Marco still looks shaken, but he's listening intently.

"I will never," Newgate promises him, "ever hurt you on purpose."

They're both pirates, so it's a bold claim to make. Newgate can't be sure he'll never regret those words, but at the moment it's the only thing he can say with certainty. There's no part of him that can imagine being deliberately cruel to the boy.

Marco's expression— it can only be described as skeptical. Even with that doubt, he clings to Newgate's shirt, tries to stay close to him. Even if you did, the gesture seems to say, what would I be able to do about it?

Newgate doesn't take that personally, even though it stings. He was a scared, hurting kid at one time in his life too, and had met all kinds of adults who promised all sorts of things. Some were kind, most were happy to take advantage of a starving, abnormally strong child who was willing to do a lot of manual labor for a scrap of food. But at least he had size and strength going for him.

"You don't have to believe me," Newgate says as softly as he's capable of, "but I'm your captain. It's my job to keep you safe. If that involves announcing myself as I come around corners— I'll do that."

Marco nods, mouth set in a thoughtful line as he keeps his ear pressed to Newgate's sternum. He seems calmer, at least. Having a task or plan of action to focus on always works remarkably well for Newgate, so it's encouraging to see it work for Marco as well.

"And I want you to do that, too," he says. "If you're comin' around a corner, make a noise so I'll know you're there, alright?"

"Aye, cap'n." Marco lifts his head, pressing his hand to the center of Newgate's chest where he can feel the frantic pounding of his heart. "I'm sorry for scarin' you," he adds sheepishly.

Newgate finally resumes his trip to the galley. He's lost his appetite, but at least Marco's clambering back up past his collarbone to take his place on his shoulder. "I wasn't scared," he lies, and looks resolutely ahead before Marco can call him out on it.

A few days later, they run into a pirate ship fleeing the Grand Line, whose bedraggled crew tries to plunder them. Newgate lets the kids stay on deck for that one, watching several of the enemy crew corner Marco by the rail only to be bowled overboard by a charging Jozu. He's pretty sure that Marco can handle a few half-dead, starving pirates himself, but he does love to see the crafty little punk take stock of the situation on deck and place himself in exactly the right spot to bait a group of idiots into position to be tossed overboard.

As a kid, Newgate would bristle when anyone told him to Work smarter, not harder, and it had taken him a lot of time and wasted effort to finally figure out what that meant. It seems to come easily to Marco.

Once the other crew's been incapacitated, Newgate doesn't bother ransacking their ship; if they had anything of value, they'd have attempted to surrender or trade with it. He hauls up the enemy captain instead, a man called Arthur, and strikes a deal with him as his crew drags themselves back aboard their ship. Supplies to get them to the nearest island in the West Blue in exchange for assistance if he ever needs it. Newgate doesn't have a transponder snail or a number to give and he doesn't think he'll ever actually call in that favor, but he leaves his name.

The West Blue is smooth sailing after that, clear weather and pleasant winds pushing them north.

"I ever tell you what my devil fruit does?" Newgate asks as they approach the Calm Belt. He can see it in the distance where the water is oddly smooth and the sky is dense with unmoving clouds. Marco and Jozu are both hanging out with him on the quarterdeck in the hour after they've finished their daily chores, Marco draped over Jozu's shoulder so he can read along as he practices his letters.

Both boys shake their heads, attention immediately fixed on Newgate. Marco especially looks eager to find out, slapping his hand against Jozu's arm to prompt him to stand up. He's been doing that a lot lately— Jozu's become his second-favorite perch. Newgate has thought about stepping in but Marco's hardly a bully and Jozu doesn't seem to mind it, happy to trundle around on deck with the smaller boy on his shoulder.

Marco's clever, already in the habit of rapping his knuckles against the bulkhead each time he rounds a corner, but Newgate worries that he's too quick sometimes. He's not afraid of getting hurt and his reflexes are lightning-fast; he caught a pan bare-handed off the stove in a storm before it could hit Jozu in the face once and barely flinched as hot metal sizzled against his skin. Jozu wouldn't eat meat for two days after that, and he's been awfully obliging with Marco ever since.

"Is it how we're gonna get through the Calm Belt?" Marco asks, perceptive as always.

Newgate grins at him. "Hold onto something," he warns them, striding to the stern of the ship with the boys on his heels. Jozu grabs his leg, arms wrapping securely around Newgate's knee as Marco scampers up the inside of his coat and digs his talons into the back of Newgate's shirt.

Then Newgate grabs two fistfuls of air, atmosphere cracking around his hands as he sends a series of powerful tremors to the seafloor. He goes back to the helm, Jozu still attached to his leg and both boys looking curiously at him when nothing happens. They can't feel the landslide happening over ten thousand meters beneath the waves, but Newgate's Observation is sensitive enough to tell him exactly where it is and what's coming.

The seaquake hits nearly a minute later, first pulling the sloop into a deep trough and then up a nearly vertical wall of water to the crest. Newgate seizes Jozu by the back of his overalls as he loses his grip, grasps the helm with his other hand and, almost delicately, drops the prow of the ship into the tube of the wave as it breaks. He spins the wheel into the direction of the current, letting water catch along its port side and suspend it along the leading face. The entire ship tilts but Newgate keeps his footing, leaning into the angle. Both boys are silent with shock and quite possibly fear for their lives, but they hold on tight as the ship merrily surfs directly into the Calm Belt.

"My old buddy Neptune taught me that one," Newgate says with a grin once the wave's passed, rolling quietly back into the water as it loses strength. They're already about a quarter of the way through the Calm Belt, and he's hoping to make it all the way before the day is out.

All of them are soaked through from ocean spray, Marco's talons digging bloody holes into the skin of Newgate's back, Newgate's own knee creaking from where Jozu has his arms wrapped so tightly around it.

"Ready to go again?" Newgate asks them.

The nails in his back release themselves and a flare of blue fire billows out from under his greatcoat as Marco heals the divots he'd left. Jozu doesn't move from his leg, giving Newgate an aggrieved look. He shifts to stand on the arch of Newgate's boot instead, so he won't have to let go or be dragged along when the bigger pirate moves around.

"Is this a good idea?" Marco asks in that exasperated way of his. Two devil fruit users and a four-year-old alone on the sea, causing tidal waves to traverse the Calm Belt? He's not wrong. Newgate should probably have hitched his vessel to Linlin's, with that living ship of hers, but he'd really rather spend less time with that crew.

"We're still alive, aren't we?" He chuckles as Marco, with resignation, tangles his claws firmly back into the material of his shirt. The brat heaves a loud sigh.

They clear the Calm Belt by evening, trailed by a swarm of Neptunians. The beasts are cautious, shockwaves driving them back from the ship each time Newgate starts a new tsunami— Marco and Jozu stay uneasy the whole day, sensing something beneath the waves, but fortunately their Observation isn't so refined that they know enough to truly panic about it. Marco, that anxious little bird, would have some strong opinions about it if he knew how close they were to being swallowed whole by island-sized sea creatures.

New World weather isn't any easier on Jozu, who finds the unpredictability nauseating, but Marco loves it. He spends the next few days up in the crow's nest where the dramatic pitch and roll of the sloop is even more exaggerated, sweeping the horizon in all directions with his looking-glass and reporting the different kinds of weather he sees all around. Tornadoes to the east, thunderstorms to the northwest, whirlpools to the south.

He brings his logbook up there every time, only scurrying down the mast to find shelter when it begins to rain. Even then he'll usually end up in Newgate's hair, tightly holding onto his captain when the ship gets tossed in the choppy waves. Marco makes little charts in his logs tracking when the air feels lighter or heavier, how the clouds look before each new weather phenomenon, and bombards Newgate with questions about how he can tell when the weather will change, sighing dramatically each time Newgate tells him that he 'just knows' or he 'feels it in his joints'.

There's no possible way for him to translate two decades of seafaring experience into something the kid will understand, so he doesn't try. Marco will figure it out on his own time.

The familiar peak of Sphinx's single mountain is visible in the distance long before they actually reach it. Weather-wise, it's one of the calmer places in the New World, a stable autumn island, and its port is bustling with activity as Newgate pulls the sloop alongside the dock and hops down to the pier to secure it to a post. Sailors shout their greetings to him as he ties the mooring line, a crowd of merchants and friendly pirates alike gathering around.

He manages to politely disengage from them (yell at them all to screw off and come bother him later once he's gotten a few drinks in him), and returns to the ship to retrieve the sack of berries he'd set aside. Marco and Jozu disembark with him, sticking close to his heels and ignoring the curious looks cast in their direction.

Newgate leads the boys to a house on the outskirts of town, a building just barely big enough to accommodate him, and knocks on the door. The woman who opens it is dwarfed by the doorframe and she beams up at him, the sun-worn skin around her eyes creasing with joy.

"Hey, Ms. Oidee," Newgate says, shoving the sack of berries toward her, "special delivery."

She picks up the sack and backs into the house, opening the door all the way so Newgate can squeeze inside. "It's good to see you doing well!" she tells him. "We were all worried sick about you after news about God Valley reached us, Newgate."

"You know me," he says, "I'll be alright."

She peers around him to beckon Marco and Jozu inside too, and watches them shuffle along with a curious, appraising eye. "And who are these two?"

"I'm Marco," Marco chirps. "It's nice to meet you."

"Jozu." When Marco elbows him in the ribs, Jozu reluctantly adds, "Nice t'meet you."

"Such polite boys," Ms. Oidee comments. "Are they yours?"

"My crew."

"It's wonderful to meet you, Marco and Jozu."

"How have you all been?" Newgate asks. "Any trouble?"

"Not since you wiped out that crew of pirates last year and word got around that you're protecting us." News had spread that Sphinx was now a safe, prosperous town; pirates had thought it an optimal time to ransack it. They didn't expect Newgate to be present and waiting. "It's amazing," she continues, "how strong you've become. But I do have news."

"Oh?"

"I'm a grandmother now!"

Oidee's daughter is a handful of years younger than Newgate and they had never been close, but he still remembers the way that girl used to dash off into the mountainous forests with a duo of the biggest, meanest sphinxes on the island to protect her. "Hard to imagine that wild child as a mother," he comments, smiling widely. "Tell her congrats from me, wouldja? And put some cash away for the baby from every haul."

"I'll do that, dear." She goes to her living room, retrieves a stack of papers and brings it to Newgate. "These are the distributions I've made since the last time," she tells him, huffing as he hands the documents to Marco without even glancing at them, "and your place was cleaned just a few days ago. How long are you staying? I can have someone bring over food."

"Don't bother," he says, waving her off, "we'll eat at the tavern. Proprietor doesn't let me pay for anything."

"Well the place wouldn't have been built without you, so I'd certainly hope not."

"We'll be around for a few weeks," he says. "Gonna need a resupply."

"The usual?"

"Aye."

"Leave it to me," she answers. Then Oidee ushers them out of her house, insisting that they get some rest after their long journey to Sphinx.

Notes:

what if oidee was named after her great grandma 🥺

Chapter 9 Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

A few days after making land at Sphinx, Oidee's daughter finally makes an appearance at her mother's house while Newgate's over for lunch. Terui is just as pushy as he remembers, even with an infant in her arms.

"I just don't understand," she says, bouncing little Mollie on her knee, "why you thought it was a good idea to cross the Calm Belt with two children!"

Newgate heaves an internal sigh. At least the boys are playing outside instead of watching this. "Was I gonna sail to Reverse Mountain and get through Paradise an' half the New World?" he asks. "That sounds safer to you?"

"That's not what I meant," she argues.

"Or left them on that island? I was headed here anyway."

Terui moves to throw her arms up but remembers her baby just in time. "Do you even know how to take care of children?" she challenges him.

"Not gonna lie," Newgate mumbles, "Marco handles things."

"He's seven!"

The annoying part is that she's not even wrong. Newgate also finds it deeply strange that Marco's so good at that stuff. He doesn't even seem to like younger kids all that much, but Newgate remembers well how he was around Shanks and Brûlée, how he adjusts his own behavior around Jozu to match what the younger boy responds best to. Newgate only somewhat recalls being seven years old, but he knows that he was nothing like Marco.

Oidee makes a thoughtful sound, and she's much more diplomatic than her daughter. "I did think it might be better for the boys to stay here, Newgate. We would watch out for them."

"That'd be up to them," he says.

"They don't know what it's like to sail the Grand Line," Terui points out.

"If the kids're old enough to steal food to live," Newgate reasons, "they're old enough to decide where they want to go. Think Jozu likes it here, anyway."

Besides, Newgate's been on his own since he was about Jozu's age and he's managed just fine.

"It is nice to have him around," Oidee says. "He's quite strong, isn't he?"

"Marco's staying with me." Newgate imagines trying to have that conversation with the little phoenix again and pre-emptively feels nauseous about it. "I asked if Roger's crew could take him on a while back and he cried."

Terui's expression shifts. She really looks as if she might kidnap the boy. "You made him cry?"

"That poor child," Ms. Oidee murmurs. "What did you say to him?"

Newgate very pointedly doesn't wither under the sudden judgmental looks turned on him. Marco has an effect on them that Jozu doesn't and Newgate never did— they get protective over him, maybe because he's always jumping in to help with household tasks before it's ever asked of him, where Newgate and Jozu often find themselves standing around like useless statues unless directed somewhere because they've never had to clean the ash out of a stove or anything like that, on account of never having been in possession of a stove to clean out. Or maybe that sweet-faced little brat is just catnip to women.

"I just thought he'd want to sail with a bigger crew," Newgate says. "There would'a been more guys looking out for him, is all."

Terui sighs, leaning down to press a soft kiss to the crown of her daughter's head. "At least you're not still with Rocks."

He's saved from further interrogation when the boys knock on the door and Marco troops inside with Jozu on his heels, the two of them covered in grass stains from where they've been wrestling with Terui's sphinxes in the pasture. The beasts are old now, fierce as ever, but they've always been gentle with children.

"Jozu," Newgate calls out, waiting for the kid to look at him, "you're stayin' on Sphinx, yeah?"

Jozu nods. Sailing through the New World is hard on him, and the deal to begin with was that he'd be able to disembark at this island. He approaches Newgate when the older man crooks a finger at him to beckon him closer.

"You'll live where we've been staying," Newgate tells him, turning in his seat to face Jozu properly and leaning down to address him. Local carpenters had built the sturdy little cabin for him while he was away from Sphinx and couldn't tell them not to waste their time and resources, but now he's grateful for it. "As long as you need it, it'll be there for you. That's my house, so you've gotta take care of it for me."

Jozu looks excited at the prospect of having a solid roof over his head for the foreseeable future. "I will," he promises solemnly.

"You report to Ms. Oidee in the morning and help her out with whatever she needs," Newgate continues. "When you're old enough, you can work at the docks or with the sphinxes, and whenever you're ready to sail with us again, you let me know."

Jozu looks as though he can't believe that he's just being given a place to live, no strings attached, but he's young enough not to question it, either. "Aye, cap'n!"

When Newgate turns to Marco, the latter stares intently at him, as if squaring up for another fight. "Marco," Newgate says, "you wanna stay on Sphinx or keep sailing with me?"

Marco exchanges a look with Jozu, and gives the younger boy an apologetic smile. The children have gotten awfully attached to each other in the last few weeks but Marco knows Jozu's in good hands, even if he'll miss his friend deeply. He looks at Newgate with that calm, clear-eyed conviction and says, "I'm staying with you."

And that's that. The women accept his answer, although Newgate's a little annoyed that they didn't just believe him when he said that Marco wasn't staying. Jozu's invited to sit at the table with the adults while Marco clambers up Newgate's side and settles on his shoulder to listen to them discuss with Jozu what's expected of him on Sphinx. He'll receive an allowance for food and supplies, and Oidee will make sure that he learns whatever skills he'll need to make his way in the world.

Mollie isn't much more active than a wide-eyed potato at this age, but she stares at Marco from Terui's arms like he's the most fascinating thing in the world. Marco stares right back at her, curled up in the crook of his captain's neck while the adults talk.

Newgate grows very accustomed to the sight of Jozu trotting around town at Ms. Oidee's heels. She has him carry her groceries, help care for the sphinxes in their pastures, and assist with chores around her house. Marco prefers to hang out with Newgate at the docks while he negotiates the trade of his sloop for a sturdy brig-sloop without that particular cabin shape that gives it away instantly as a former Marine vessel.

Marco listens to every exchange intently, sticking his little nose into every activity and bombarding Newgate with questions as soon as they're alone. He helps haul their supplies onto the new ship too, cheerfully separating the goods that Newgate intends to trade or sell from the things that they'll need for the next leg of their voyage, and stowing it where he's directed. Newgate can easily work all day without a break and Marco's tireless, running across the gangplank between ships hauling crates back and forth.

They haven't found the limit of the kid's endurance, something he attributes to his devil fruit ability, but even so Marco's always worn out at the end of the day, dozing on Newgate's shoulder or in his pocket as he makes his way back to the house. Jozu's usually already down for the night, sprawled out on the cot Newgate borrowed from Terui, and Newgate will rouse Marco for his bedtime routine before wrapping him in his coat and settling him in at the head of the bed beside his pillow. He'd offered to rustle up another cot, but Marco had politely declined. He likes the coat more than any of those other options, and had told Newgate as much.

Two weeks pass just like that.

Newgate's in the tavern for breakfast, reading the newspaper, when he finally sees the headline he's been waiting for. WANG ZHI IN CONTROL OF PIRATE ISLAND, it says. After several weeks of fighting , Wang Zhi had seized control over Fullalead, deposing the previous ruler. He's been planning it for a long time; even with the Rocks Pirates, he hadn't made a secret of wanting to claim Fullalead for himself. The only reason he'd delayed for so long was because the plunder while sailing with Rocks was just too good to pass up.

"We're casting off soon," Newgate tells Marco, who's reading over his arm while munching on a slice of crusty bread.

"Are we going there?" the boy asks, pointing at the article.

"Aye."

"Is Wang Zhi your friend?"

He's always been perfectly cordial with Newgate, but then again most of the Rocks Pirates were. That was a crew that acknowledged his strength whether or not they liked him. "I wouldn't call him that," Newgate answers.

Marco chews on that while he finishes eating. He's remarkably astute for his age, but most children simply see the world in terms of 'friends', 'enemies' and 'strangers'. By necessity he's got a few more categories, but the complexities of political alliances between pirates are probably still beyond him.

Newgate heads for the docks after their meal and the two of them ensure that their new ship is seaworthy, inspecting rigging and sails, redoing the knots that need attention and patching the sails where they're frayed. It takes half the day, but that leaves plenty of time for them to make one more pass through the town for last-minute supplies. Newgate takes the opportunity to check in with his old friends as well, arranging a huge order of cheap liquor from the proprietor of the inn before he drops by Ms. Oidee's house.

All three generations of women are there, Oidee in the kitchen and Terui sat at a chair while she nurses Mollie. The baby's little hands are clasped around her mother's fingers as she suckles at her breast, and Newgate keeps his eyes politely averted until she's done and Terui pulls her shirt back down.

He helps himself to a big wedge of cheese on the table that Oidee had set out for him, and idly takes in the room. Jozu's stoking the hearth while Oidee cuts vegetables at the counter— Marco had taught him how to do that while they were still in West Blue.

The little phoenix himself is hunched over his logbook at the table. He's paused in his writing, peeking over the curve of his arm towards where Terui is rocking the baby in her arms, cooing softly at her and stroking her cheek as she fusses. Eventually Mollie calms down and Marco goes back to his log, but he still sneaks looks at mother and daughter, gnawing on his bottom lip the whole time even though they'd had a meal not too long ago. Newgate breaks off a piece of his cheese and gently places it in Marco's hand, sitting back and motioning for him to eat when Marco glances at him in confusion.

"I'm not hungry," the boy says quietly, offering the cheese back, and then popping it into his mouth with a sigh when Newgate insists he have it anyway. He doesn't eat enough to begin with.

Jozu's young enough to be happy with food and shelter, being cared for by a kind older lady and given the freedom to disembark on a peaceful island. Newgate supposes that despite not remembering his family, that was par for the course on an unprotected, unaffiliated island. For himself, too. You couldn't throw a rock without hitting an orphan in a place like that. A happy, safe family is a rare sight for people like Newgate and Jozu.

Newgate doesn't think much of Celestial Dragons but he knows they value their own. Marco had been called a family heirloom, so they must have a decent enough idea of his temperament to trust him with their children through each incarnation. Someone who doesn't know the nobles might be inclined to think that they would care for a valuable inheritance like the phoenix fruit-user, but Newgate has seen enough of them to know better. They use whatever they have in their possession until it dies, and then they get a new one. With an undying bird—

Marco steals another glance at Terui.

He's old enough to understand what's been denied to him. Marco must have seen those nobles' children be spoiled and pampered day in and day out, given things he was never allowed to touch and treated with such attentive care that pain and hunger are unimaginable sensations. Newgate wonders if Marco has ever been fussed over, if he's experienced the warmth of being held by his mother. Did he even have a mother? He's never mentioned one. No wonder he looks so hungry.

"Dinner's up," Oidee says, arranging massive portions of food on the table as Marco clears away his log and writing materials. A cauldron-sized bowl of soup lands beside a huge plate of roasted meat, another one of pancakes made with shredded vegetables and cheese. "Since you're setting sail tomorrow," she says to Newgate, "I thought we could have something special."

"Cheers to that," he answers.

After dinner, Newgate picks up twelve barrels of the cheapest taste-bud-stripping moonshine available on Sphinx and hauls them under his arm to the new ship. It's called the Leviathan, named by the retiring merchant who'd traded it to Newgate for their Navy sloop. It's larger than the old vessel, with fewer rooms and more space inside for someone of Newgate's size.

He lays out his coat on the aft deck and settles on top of it with a tankard of the cheap liquor. Marco perches himself on the railing nearby, facing out towards the water and the sliver of crescent moon peeking out from behind the clouds.

"Hey kid," Newgate says, "you got a dream?"

"I don't really remember dreams," Marco answers. "I just wake up'n forget."

"Not those dreams." To be fair, he's probably never even considered any other kind. How often did the slaves on Mary Geoise get to discuss their hopes for the future? "But something you want to do. Some big, impossible thing you want more than anything else."

"No," says Marco, not turning around to look at him. His shoulders hunch a little.

"We can't have that," Newgate muses. "A man should have a dream, you know?"

Marco considers those words, then shuffles around in place to face him. "Is there something you want, cap'n?" He's got that careful, blank smile on. "I'll make it my dream to help you with yours."

Newgate's been laughed at countless times for this answer, but he plows ahead anyway. A part of him is sure that he and Marco want the same thing. "A family," he says.

Marco seems surprised at that. Not treasure? those blue eyes ask. What kind of pirate are you? "That sounds nice," is what comes out of his mouth, barely louder than a whisper.

"Doesn't it?" Newgate grins. "As a kid, I always wanted parents to take care of me and keep me safe, but it's a bit late for that. Now I think I'd wanna do that for someone, who wants to do the same for me."

"You can have kids," Marco says matter-of-factly, already committed to his impromptu dream. He hops off the gunwale straight into the hand that Newgate extends to him. "I bet you can have kids with Ms. Charlotte." He laughs at Newgate's full-body shudder.

"Family doesn't have to be by blood," Newgate tells him. "You can just choose someone, and they can choose you, and you can make a family that way."

Marco looks up at him with all the guileless clarity of a child. He's a cautious, calculating little menace but in this moment there's nothing in his expression but simple hope.

"Can I be your family?" he asks, eyes wide and anxious as if he's expecting to be declined, or worse. "Then both our dreams will come true right now."

If it was possible for heart muscles to liquefy, Newgate's would do just that. He coughs to clear his throat, blinking many times until his vision isn't quite so blurry. "You're a clever brat," he grumbles.

"You already take care of me and keep me safe," Marco reasons, falling sideways to buttress his shoulder against the curve of Newgate's fingers. "One day, I'll be strong enough to do that for you. That'll be my next dream."

In truth, Newgate's been looking at the kid as if he were his own for a while now, but just hadn't figured out how to broach the subject. He didn't know if they were on the same page, and he still doesn't; Marco could just be saying all that to make him happy. But he'll take it. "You got a deal," he says.

"Do I call you 'Father'?" Marco asks.

The way Celestial Dragons do? "Absolutely not."

"Dad?"

Too civilian. That's hardly what a pirate should be calling his captain, although it does make something in Newgate's chest lurch. "I don't think so."

"Papa," Marco tries.

Newgate can't stop grinning. "That one's cute."

Marco frowns. "I don't want to be cute," he says, very cutely. "I'm a pirate."

"We'll figure it out," Newgate assures him. While the boy continues to look very distracted and thoughtful in his hand, Newgate draws his attention with a gentle nudge to his round little cheek. "Hey Marco," he says, "I love you, son."

Marco's head snaps up and he stares at him, eyes and mouth wide open in shock. He rarely looks his age but he does now, before he wraps his arms tightly around himself and bursts into flames. Then he's just a little bird, stomping his skinny legs and flapping his stubby wings as he tries and fails to change himself back. Marco's never had difficulty with his transformation before, and he falls over when Newgate scoops him up in both hands.

"Marco?" he asks gently, trying not to laugh.

Marco shakes himself all over, feathers fluffing up as he rights himself. Instead of standing, he sits in Newgate's palm, feet tucked comfortably under himself and neck pulled all the way in until he looks like a squat little boat. He looks up at his father, sidelong and shy. "I love you too," he chirps, "Pops?" They've spent so much time at the inn, and the owner's sons call him that whenever they're working a shift. Newgate accepts that with a nod, and then he inspects the baby bird in his hands, the way he keeps shaking out his wings, pointed talons poking into the skin of his palm.

Oh, Newgate thinks, he's flustered. He cups one hand over Marco's body and kneads him like a feathery little ball. "I like the sound of that one."

Marco tries unsuccessfully to change back one more time, letting out an irritated trill as he's rolled gently around in Newgate's palm, pecking at his fingers until the older pirate pulls away laughing. Marco starts preening himself in frustration, turning his head to nip the sheathing off the pinfeathers of his back and smoothe the patchy down into some semblance of order. He hardly ever spends time in full bird form, so Newgate has never seen those bird instincts surface like that before.

When the preening slows down, Newgate carefully pinches some of the pinfeathers at the top of Marco's head, where he can't reach with his beak. The waxy sheaths fall away, and it's not feathers that unfurl but tongues of cool blue fire. With that Newgate finally understands why Marco's hair grows the way it does, only that tuft at his crown— it looks just like the phoenix's crest.

"Thank you," Marco says stiffly.

"You're welcome, son."

The little bird puffs up again at that, turning his head away to hide it under his wing.

Newgate's cheeks hurt from smiling. He's going to have too much fun with this.

Notes:

terui and mollie are named after oidee's voice actresses, haruka terui and molly zhang 😂

Chapter 10 Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Marco sits in Newgate's hands until he calms down enough to shift to his usual form, and he only manages that when Newgate stops looking at him. There's a little puff of blue flame and the boy is back, acting like nothing had happened and already chattering about the supplies he'd bought in town with his savings.

Newgate has to act normal too even though he's suddenly, inexplicably lightheaded. He should be elated that his dream of a family is finally beginning to take shape, and he is, but he's never had family before. He lost the only one he might've had before he could even remember them. Just the possibility of losing Marco— at this moment the only living thing in the world that loves him— makes him nauseous.

He's aware that it's a ridiculous thing to fear. Of all the people who would agree to be his family, the little phoenix is the only one he never has to worry about dying on him.

"I'm getting a drink," he murmurs.

Marco bounces on his shoulder, the tiny weight of him lifting and then pressing back down in a movement that Newgate would now recognize in his sleep— he does it so often. "We're celebrating?" he asks excitedly. "Can I have some?"

Newgate remembers clearly the first time he drank liquor, how it'd burned its way down his throat, and then into his nose and lungs when he coughed it back up. As a pirate, he considers, Marco will be drinking sooner or later and they already cut their water with rum to keep it from stagnating. "Aye," he says, "you can have some. But you'll hate it."

Marco knocks back the shot of moonshine Newgate gives him and makes the most awful scrunched face as the liquor burns its way down his throat. "Tastes like poison," he croaks, setting down the glass, and then he scowls at Newgate when he starts laughing.

"You could just spit it back up," he points out.

"Oh... I forgot."

Newgate definitely doesn't think about why Marco would just thoughtlessly swallow something he thinks tastes like poison. There's no point dredging that up again. "It'll grow on ya," he says instead.

"Yuck."

Newgate chuckles as he takes another swig, now deep into a barrel of the moonshine. The unease that he'd been feeling earlier seeps out of him as he drinks— not because he's getting tipsy but because he's sitting on the deck of his ship drinking under the moonlight with his family. He's a pirate and the future is far away, beyond the horizon. He plucks Marco off his shoulder, cupping the boy in his hands as Marco looks up at him.

"Pops?"

Newgate brings Marco up to his face and plants a loud kiss right on the side of his head. Marco falls over with the force of it, pressed nearly flat into his palm as he flails. When Newgate pulls back, Marco pushes himself to sit upright again, looking up at his father with an expression of confusion on his face and one hand clapped over his ear.

"I think you popped my eardrum," Marco says, but it doesn't sound like a complaint. "Why did you kiss me?"

"'Cause," Newgate bellows, "you're my son!"

He might be a little drunk. Not necessarily on alcohol.

Marco thinks that over, nodding pensively. After a few seconds he's making his way up Newgate's arm back to his shoulder, plonking himself down and leaning over to his father's cheek. He makes the tiniest smacking sound with his lips when he returns the kiss, and smiles shyly when he sees Newgate looking wide-eyed down at him.

"Was that okay?" the boy asks.

"Totally fine," Newgate murmurs.

Marco kisses him again, and nuzzles his face into the apple of his cheek. He keeps one hand on Newgate's moustache to support himself in the awkward position.

Newgate recalls a time many years ago when Terui met the first of her two sphinxes, a cub not more than six weeks old. She'd lifted it in her arms, cradled it close, and when it licked the tip of her nose she had burst into tears. Newgate didn't understand at the time why that had made her cry and leak snot like that, but he's starting to.

"We should set out," Newgate says, tipping his head back along with the barrel of moonshine to shake out the last few drops. Marco hops down to the deck, grinning.

He helps let down the sails, untie the mooring line and maneuver their new ship out to sea. It's got one mast more than the last ship but handles similarly, and before long Marco's back on the ratlines to be eye-level with Newgate.

"You don't wanna say goodbye to Jozu'n Ms. Terui and Ms. Oidee?" he asks as the brig-sloop gallops into open ocean.

"We're pirates," Newgate tells him. "We sneak away in the night."

Marco files that away. He watches Sphinx disappear into the distance from the top yard, then scrambles down to the main deck so he can perch on the rail beside his captain. "Do you have a new dream?" Marco asks, now that they've achieved their joint first one. He's a detail-oriented kid who likes to have a list of objectives to check off. Newgate always glimpses neat little agendas in his logbook when he reads over Marco's shoulder.

"Bigger family," Newgate answers immediately. It's all just icing on the cake from here on out as far as he's concerned, but he likes the idea of it. A single Marco has already slotted so easily into his life and made it better in pretty much every conceivable way, he's almost afraid to imagine what more family will do. There must be a point of diminishing returns, and he intends to find it.

"We could go back and get Jozu," Marco suggests, which makes Newgate chuckle. A pirate's first instinct should absolutely be 'kidnapping'.

"Kid wants to stay on Sphinx," Newgate reminds him. Maybe in a few years, Jozu will be ready to join the crew. "But you'll help me find more family, right?"

Marco puffs out his cheeks. "I'm on my next dream now," he says, turning slightly away. "I need to get stronger."

Little shit. "Don't be jealous," Newgate teases, "I won't love you any less, no matter how big the crew gets."

He can't help laughing out loud when Marco turns into a bird again, dropping grumpily to the deck and shuffling into the cabin with all his feathers fluffed while he mutters to himself about being made fun of.

Over the next few days, Marco doesn't act clingier or anything like Newgate expects (hopes)— he's still remarkably independent, not seeking out his captain for naps unless he's really tired and even then he'll usually just retreat to the crew berth to sleep instead of crawling into Newgate's pocket or his coat like he did on Sphinx. He has a hard time meeting Newgate's eyes lately, looking up and then quickly away, which Newgate attributes to the dopey smiles that stretch both their faces each time they glance at each other. Kids are so self-conscious.

Marco's starts learning to fly in earnest too, with most of his feathers fully developed. He didn't need to be told not to try it while they were docked, but out on the water he's got plenty of time to work on it and no one who'll think about kidnapping him and selling him off. Newgate trusts most of the people who live in his hometown, but with so much new commerce there are too many strangers around to risk it.

The plumage on Marco's phoenix form now shifts between semi-tangible plasma and sleek feathers, and his talons can crush lumber if he really puts his mind to it. He's always been abnormally strong for a kid with that zoan power but properly fed, secure and happy, he's growing like a weed. Marco's got a healthy tan from weeks of playing and working under the sun and he's bolder than ever (which is saying something considering the way he threw his weight around the day they met).

He can spread his wings, catch a breeze and hover on the upper yards, and he's taken to gliding from the mast straight to Newgate's shoulder. Then he'll flutter to the deck from six meters up, change back, and look to his captain for approval with a big smile on his face.

Newgate always tells him, "Nice work, Marco." This morning he's so overwhelmed with pride for the kid that he adds, "Love you, son."

Marco disappears in a plume of flame and reconstitutes as a bird. After a momentary pause he stomps his feet, hopping around in an angry little circle. "I have work, Pops!" he shouts, but Newgate can hear the happiness in his voice and watches him fluff his feathers with a grin.

"All better," Newgate says once Marco shifts and clambers up his back to settle on his shoulder. He knows Marco will get used to it soon enough and stop losing control of his transformation (the time it takes for him to change back shortens with every repetition), and he's honestly looking forward to the day Marco stops being surprised to hear that his father loves him.

"I forgot what I was gonna do," Marco complains, sounding deeply annoyed. Despite that, he doesn't budge from his favorite spot.

He stays there all morning while Newgate inspects the rigging, helping with the task and telling him about the latest book he'd bought himself on Sphinx. It's the first in an anthology about cartography and Marco idly plays with Newgate's hair as he talks, twisting strands into thin ropes and practicing his knots on them, then undoing them and beginning again with another section. He even manages to lasso the tip of Newgate's mustache with one of the 'ropes', and cracks himself up so hard he loses his balance and slips down the back of Newgate's shirt.

Marco has to crawl out of there, thrashing around until he can drag himself out of the mostly-unbuttoned front. Newgate brings his hand close, palm upturned, and Marco immediately flops stomach-down onto it to be lifted to his father's shoulder.

Before Newgate returns to work, Marco catches his thumb and drags it back. He inspects the raw skin on that massive palm, and wordlessly summons his phoenix fire to soothe it. "Other hand," Marco demands when he's done, opening and closing an outstretched fist to prompt Newgate to hurry.

Newgate brings it up, internally marveling at how even the soreness in his joints fades. He's been a sailor for many years and the skin of his hands is practically one large, well-developed callus, but it can still be rubbed raw especially on newer ropes, or when the ropework is especially heavy. On their new, bigger ship with one less crewmate, the work has proportionally increased. "Where'd you learn how to do that?" Newgate asks.

"Before," Marco tells him, then falls quiet. He's always happy to show off his skills, but rarely likes answering questions about how he came by them.

"In Mary Geoise." Obviously.

"Aye." Marco sneaks a glance at Newgate in the awkward silence that ensues, but quickly looks away. He dismisses the flames when he's done, huddling up in the crook of his father's neck. "I can't completely heal serious injuries," he says, "but I can do a bit."

"Most people take years to learn how to use their abilities," Newgate says. "but you picked it up so fast? How?"

Marco scoots over enough to see Newgate's face and squints up at him. His skeptical expression clearly conveys I'm trying to be sensitive to your feelings, here. "Do you promise not to cry?"

Little shit!!

"Who says I'd cry?" Newgate's much better at not being caught off-guard by the things Marco says now. As a captain he has no intention of prying into his crewmates' affairs, but as Marco's father, he doesn't want to let it lie. "I want to know, Marco."

"Well," the boy answers matter-of-factly, "the flames want to heal. Before I could activate them myself, they'd just hold my hand near a bruise or something and cut it." You asked, says Marco's wry expression. "Or smash it, I guess. If they leave the seastone on for a while, the flames come out stronger when they take it off. I didn't really do much."

Newgate resolves again to reduce any Celestial Dragon he ever meets to a fine pulp. "Marco," he says immediately, thinking of each time the kid had accidentally scratched him with his talons, the near-automatic flare of bright blue fire, "you don't have to use that power if you don't want to. Not on me, not on anyone else."

Marco smiles gently at him. "I want to," he insists. "Especially if it's you, Pops, 'cause I love you."

Being a pirate, Newgate's not accustomed to gentleness, nor families, nor love. Even after all this time with Marco, and despite how often Marco likes to say it, the simple declaration hits him like a sledgehammer.

Marco's expression immediately becomes a grimace when Newgate's eyes mist up. "How long have they done that to you?" Newgate asks, taking a deep, calming breath. "When did they start doing that?"

"Since I can remember." Since he was a toddler? An infant? A newborn? Are Celestial Dragons even human? "Actually," Marco adds proudly, lighting up his fingers one digit at a time, "I learned to call the flames by myself a couple years ago, and I'm really good at it now! So they don't have to do that anymore."

Newgate's never met a zoan user who could shift individual parts of their body like that, much less activate their ability with such a fine degree of control. All it cost was an unimaginable amount of pain, and his expression must reflect his exact thoughts on that.

"Pops," Marco says shyly, clambering down Newgate's arm and landing on deck, "I'm glad I can use my abilities to heal people. So you don't have to worry about me." He pats Newgate on his knee, which is about as high as he can reach from down there, and wanders into the cabin to head below deck, brows furrowed in thought as he mumbles about their inventory.

Newgate knows a name for kind, well-meaning people like Marco: dead men walking. Marco already knows how cruel the world can be, probably better than anyone, but just the thought of a kid like him out in the world with guys like Wang Zhi, Shiki or John makes Newgate sick to his stomach. The idea of the brat losing that innocence because the world is cold and unforgiving— that's worse.

Newgate sets their heading and hurries below deck to catch up to Marco in the hold. "We're runnin' a little low on fresh produce," the boy tells him, tucking his quill behind his ear as he regards a (frankly quite large) crate of cabbages, "but it's not an emergency."

He does love his fruits and vegetables, insisting on generous servings of it at every meal for them both whenever they have it. When they run out of that they'll have to start eating beans and although Marco's never picky, he never digs into beans with much enthusiasm.

"Son," Newgate says, sitting right on the floor, "let's talk."

Marco takes that as his cue to hop up to Newgate's knee and sit, idly tapping his heel. "Is everything okay, Pops?" he asks.

"You're a real nice kid." That might be an understatement. Newgate wonders if Marco is so quick to use his healing when he sees a wound because of the phoenix driving his impulses, or if some part of his brain is telling him that if he doesn't hurry up and fix it, he'll be the one who's hurting next. "I know you like to help," Newgate says to him, "but you're a pirate."

Marco's expressive little face says, Where are you going with this?

"You don't have to stick your neck out for anyone," Newgate continues. "People will see you do that, and they won't even think twice about takin' advantage. Some things you gotta keep a little closer to your chest."

Marco looks down at the finger Newgate taps over his heart, brows furrowing in consternation. "But I'm just tryin' to be more like you, Pops."

"Huh?" says Newgate.

"You helped me even when I couldn't do anything for you," Marco points out. "You always make me eat first, even when you're really hungry. You let me stay with you just 'cause I asked. You're a real nice pirate."

Newgate mulls that over. Is he setting a bad example? They've only known each other for a few weeks and he'd lay his life down for the kid, but that's what a father does for his son. He's hardly this generous with other pirates. "You're my family," he counters, "that's a different situation."

"I helped Brûlée 'cause you said Ms. Charlotte's your friend," Marco argues back. "I wouldn't do it just anywhere..."

Subsequently, Linlin had set her sights on Marco and his mythical zoan, only holding back from snatching him up on the spot because she knows Newgate's strength.

"I know lots of people want my fruit," Marco says quietly. "I'll be careful, Pops."

Newgate sighs, leaning back on his hands in defeat. It's true that he doesn't heal just anyone, and Marco's a cautious child in many ways— just not always with his own safety, which he can get away with because of his self-healing ability. "You're used to gettin' a lot of attention, huh?"

Marco nods. "I'm in high demand," he says drily.

Newgate can't decide whether he should find that comment funny or chilling, so he elects not to address it. "Alright," he concedes, "clearly you know what you're doing. But if someone starts lookin' at you funny, you come straight to me."

Marco stares at him with an expression that's difficult to place, like he's experiencing something too big to properly express. In the end he nods, slipping off Newgate's knee to the deck and flitting off into the bowels of the ship.

"We only have beans left," Marco sighs a week later while they're in the galley. He's spooning a mix of red and black stewed beans into his mouth with a dejected look on his face, even though Newgate thinks the beans are pretty damn tasty. Marco had loaded them up with all kinds of spices and seasonings.

"You went through the fresh stuff too fast," Newgate points out, gesturing at the boy with his spoon. "Maybe if ya made me eat less vegetables, there'd be more for you."

"You gotta eat veggies, Pops. Scurvy's no joke."

Did he read that in one of his sailing books? Newgate grins down at him. "We'll be on Fullalead before we're even close to scurvy," he says.

"I can't get scurvy," Marco reminds him, "I just don't like beans..."

"Was it the only thing the Celestial Dragons fed you?" Newgate asks. It makes sense; beans are cheap, filling, easy to grow, and you can survive off them for a long time. Beans were a windfall whenever he could get his hands on them as a child.

"It's what everyone got." Marco eats like he knows he should be grateful to have any food at all, which isn't always a guarantee at sea. "We usually just boiled 'em in water," he says thoughtfully, "with a vitamin pack once a week if you're lucky."

Considering how often he's heard of the Celestial Dragons' slaves keeling over and dying of malnutrition, Newgate supposes that getting the bare minimum of their vitamins can be considered lucky.

He checks his log pose, eyeing the shaky needle pointed at Fullalead (something's always happening there). Another needle swings lazily back and forth like a slow pendulum; it points to a deserted rock churned on all sides by the most vicious whirlpools in the New World. As long as it keeps that unstable momentum you're far away enough, and the moment it locks in, you've gotten too close. The sea floor around that rock is littered with shipwrecks, and bits of them would still cycle to the surface occasionally.

The last needle points to an island only powerful sailors use as a resupply point— uninhabited because of how many large, deadly creatures live on it, but abundant with vegetation and fresh water. Newgate shows Marco the compass, and announces that they'll make a stop for water and food. It'll be cheaper than buying it on Pirate Island at any rate, and Newgate's familiar enough with some of the edible plants that can be found there. Marco's eager to find out if the things he learned from his books are actually going to be of use too.

The detour only takes them a day and a half off their course for Fullalead; Newgate drops anchor just off a sandy, gently sloping beach. He takes his coat, two barrels for water, a big sack for anything they forage, and scoops Marco up to wade to shore.

"Wanna try flying to land?" he asks the child on his shoulder when he's still thigh-deep in the surf.

Marco shifts to his bird form and he manages to lift off Newgate's shoulder, but he turns back before he gets far, flapping back to his outstretched hand. "I don't think I can make it," he says breathlessly, human again, and settles into the crook of his father's elbow until they're out of the water. Newgate's of the opinion that Marco could try a little harder and he'd probably be able to fly that distance, but the idea of giving this kid a chance to grow at his own pace is appealing. Marco will never have to choose between learning to fly or being killed on the spot if his Pops has anything to say about it.

They make it up the beach and into the tree line, Newgate plunging into the dense undergrowth on his way to the freshwater river he knows runs through the center of the island. His presence alone is enough to ward off any creatures that might want to attack them (the only sign of them is the rustle of leaves as they run away) so Marco hops out of his arms and follows in his wake, occasionally pausing to inspect a plant and consult his handbook. He's not interested in hunting down all that meat and Newgate suspects that gentle kid might cry if he butchered a fuzzy animal right in front of him, even if it's a large and violent one.

"Pops," Marco says excitedly at one point when they're close enough to the river to hear it, "wait, there's mushrooms!" He dives into the trees toward a fallen log.

"You gotta be careful with—" Newgate doesn't have a chance to finish his sentence before Marco licks the gills of a harmless-looking white capped mushroom.

"Poisonous," the boy says, sticking his tongue out and tossing it over his shoulder. A little lick of blue flame flares in his mouth. He finds another patch of mushrooms with squat stems and wide, brown caps, picking one and nibbling on it.

Newgate makes a choked sound from the back of his throat. "Could ya stop testing poison on yourself?!"

"Mushrooms can't hurt me, Pops." Marco happily inspects then picks all of the brown-capped mushrooms and takes them to stow away in one of Newgate's pockets. "These are shiitake mushrooms! They're really tasty, and we can dry 'em."

Newgate's never even heard of a shiitake before; he couldn't afford to risk getting sick on mushrooms he found in the wild when he was young, and they don't last long enough in transport to be worth taking up space on a ship. Marco seems especially excited to put them in soup, which he says the Nobles did all the time.

"We can eat that one too," Marco says, pointing at a floral yellow and orange growth coming off of a tree trunk. "The book says they don't have any lookalikes, so they're safe."

Newgate looks between the boy, confident and grinning, and that ostentatious fungus. "Go on then," he says with resignation, "let's bring it along."

Marco adds several armfuls of the orange mushroom to his pocket shiitakes. He trots along behind Newgate as he heads for the river again, humming cheerfully. Once they reach the water, Marco ambles up and down the banks while Newgate fills up their barrels of water. The boy pauses in front of a bush and returns with his fingers stained red from how many blackberries he'd picked. He puts them in his own satchel so they won't bleed into the white fabric of Newgate's coat or get squished under all the other things they find, and offers Newgate everything that won't fit in his bag.

The two pirates stay by that peaceful, sun-dappled river all day fishing from the water, eating berries from the bushes, fruits from the trees, and collecting the greens that flourish along its banks. Neither of them can go swimming, but Marco dips his feet into the shallows and crosses the channel on a few large stones sticking out of the water.

Newgate decides it's time to return to the ship when the burlap sack he'd brought along is full of food. Marco volunteers to carry it even though it's several times his size, but he manages easily while Newgate carries both barrels of water under his arms.

The forest casts long shadows on the beach as they step out of the tree line, late afternoon sun still warming the sand but slowly dipping out of sight. Newgate pauses at the edge of the sand, setting down both barrels of water as Marco runs straight into the back of his leg.

"Pops?" he asks, setting down the sack and stepping around it to see what his captain's looking at. "What happened?"

There's a group of people by the water, most of them dressed in black and standing out sharply against the pristine white sand. Behind them in the distance, a massive gold-trimmed galleon bearing the World Government's logo is anchored in the bay.

"Oh," says Marco, backing up until he bumps into Newgate's boot. He's immediately scooped up and placed in that greatcoat's inner breast pocket. He looks up at his father, worry writ large all across his face. "Pops—"

"Shit," Newgate says. They can't return to the Leviathan without running into this group, and they've caught sight of him already anyway, gesturing toward him and then at a device in their leader's hand. Newgate rummages around in his pocket for a few seconds and pulls out a handkerchief-wrapped bundle pinched between his thumb and index finger. "The chip."

Notes:

with all the new info coming out of god valley i was wondering if i should edit to stay canon-compliant, but i think it's about time to just label this series an au 😆 thanks for your patience, and for sticking with me this whole time!!

Notes:

catch me on bsky for writing notes, wips and updates, or hop into the discord server to yell about op!

Standard notes apply:
1. Surnames first!
2. I'm not using honorifics like -san or -chan, but the closest English equivalents when possible.
3. Not every verbal tic is going to be represented, but they'll be approximated when possible.
4. Blanket permission to translate, podfic, draw, etc. as long as you link back here!

Series this work belongs to:

Part 1 of The Name of This Era Next Work →

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DoodleBlob on Chapter 1 Fri 08 Mar 2024 11:17PM UTC

_unholy screatching_
This is The Best!!
I love it so much and I'm so excited to read where this is going.
(Little happy dance that someone else thinks Marco got freed/picked up at God Valley by WB)

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dragonzair on Chapter 1 Sat 09 Mar 2024 06:36PM UTC

Omfg I'm obsessed with this

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Encanto_fan95 (Guest) on Chapter 1 Sun 10 Mar 2024 09:12AM UTC

I love fanfictions that explore the beginnings of Whitebeard starting his own crew with Marco being a child but being the first one to join🥰.
Great detail that you involved some of the newer details we learned about the God Valley incident. 😁👍
Thank you for sharing. I wish I could leave more than one Kudo.

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LaLemsMK on Chapter 1 Tue 25 Feb 2025 03:20AM UTC

I'm so into this! Yes please!

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pilvenpiirtaja on Chapter 2 Wed 20 Mar 2024 11:41AM UTC

"Shit! Clocked as a soft-hearted fool within hours of meeting." This bit had me cackling
I love them so much 😭😭

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pointvee on Chapter 2 Wed 20 Mar 2024 12:36PM UTC

❤️❤️❤️

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Justasomeone (Guest) on Chapter 2 Wed 20 Mar 2024 04:26PM UTC

Interesting, funny and well written - that's a wonderful addition to still small pool of fiction exploring Whitebeard's crew beginning.
I love relationship between Whitebeard and Marco and here they are both so likeable - bewildered but rolling with it soon to be first time dad and traumatized but incredibly endearing small brat of a first mate.
I am really looking forward to more - in fact whole series is great - but please don't feel pressured. Thank you for the chapters you already wrote dear author🌷🌷🌷

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Frischegefuehl on Chapter 2 Wed 20 Mar 2024 06:13PM UTC

"Newgate must be going soft because his heart clenches in his chest, a tender ache he's never felt before in a space that he'd thought was empty" and that's the origin story of how Whitebeard decided to adopt his crew as sons amd daughters. 😅 Somehow I can imagine this to be cannon.
Great chapter 😁👍🏻. I enjoyed reading a lot.

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LaLemsMK on Chapter 2 Tue 25 Feb 2025 03:38AM UTC

Not me here hanging onto every word! Loving this so much

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wuyumn on Chapter 3 Wed 03 Apr 2024 03:53AM UTC

我太喜欢这个温馨的故事了，作者大人我爱你！

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1. PunkHazard on Chapter 3 Wed 03 Apr 2024 04:00AM UTC
  
  謝謝你!! 我很開心你喜歡 😊 真的抱歉我的中文沒有好得到可以用來寫故事🤣
  
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dragonzair on Chapter 3 Mon 15 Apr 2024 03:23AM UTC

Ahhh! The start of Marco babysitting Shanks :) i love seeing Roger here too!

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sunflowerisbetterthantournesol on Chapter 3 Sun 02 Feb 2025 01:31PM UTC

love seing Newgate and Roger interact

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LaLemsMK on Chapter 3 Tue 25 Feb 2025 04:50PM UTC

Newgate and Roger interacting is peak! Loving how Newgate is so concerned for Marco. Can't wait for more backstory and adventures!

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pointvee on Chapter 4 Tue 23 Apr 2024 03:50AM UTC

sobs i literally had to start fanning myself like a distressed victorian lady when marco asked wb who would make sure he was eating well sobs that was so cute

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1. pointvee on Chapter 4 Tue 23 Apr 2024 03:55AM UTC
  
  also youve opened my eyes to the possibility of big mom x roger and im not sure what to do with this
  
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dragonzair on Chapter 4 Wed 24 Apr 2024 12:31AM UTC

This is prob my favourite chapter so far. Obseeesssed with the Roger pirates' dynamic ahahah

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Omolara on Chapter 4 Wed 24 Apr 2024 10:08PM UTC

How many times have I re-read this? Yes.
I love how clearly defined everyone's voices are in your writing. Like, Marco feels like a little kid and worldly at the same time. And your litte details of Gaban and Rayleigh physically redirecting Roger tell so much about their dynamic. You know exactly who the characters are in your stories and it shows.💜

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CrapeWaffles on Chapter 4 Mon 15 Jul 2024 10:14PM UTC

Damn, crying 😭 Just... this is so cute, I was grinning through the whole chapter 😊😊

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LaLemsMK on Chapter 4 Tue 25 Feb 2025 06:58PM UTC

I love how everyone can see how blatantly obvious it is how Marco and Newgate need one another.
"Two pathetic orphans for whom no one has ever cried except each other." CRYING 😭😭😭

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sunflowerisbetterthantournesol on Chapter 4 Sat 09 Aug 2025 09:33PM UTC

this is the best thing I've ever read, I come back to this series like moth to a flame because it's the best Marco & Whitebeard I've ever read and I'm also a sucker for Marco/Shanks
I love how you wrote Roger & Whitebeard's dynamic, seeing Rayleigh and Marco interact was great and I love how you wrote Gaban

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13shapeshifters on Chapter 5 Sat 08 Jun 2024 07:29AM UTC

you cant just say things like that

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