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Marco was almost 100% certain his soulmate was a girl. Marco also knew that he was very, very gay. So there was a slight problem. I mean, soulmates are your forevers. Soulmates were almost always compatible. Was he really that unlucky that he got an incompatible soulmate. Maybe he was. He had accepted that he was never going to have a lover. Like how many guys have you met named Ann? Zero? Yeah, Same.
So there was no hope. He was a very gay guy in his end thirties that hadn't met his soulmate. Perhaps Ann recognized his name from the news and wanted posters and knew that he was a pirate and didn't want to meet him. It would save her the heartbreak.
He thought he would never meet her or to even get the chance, until a wanted poster came out of a pirate named Portgas D. Ace. Portgas D. Just like his soulmate. What if Ann was his sister or mother? It was even said that this Ace was seeking Whitebeard to take his head. Did it have something to do that he was his family's soulmate? Was Ace seeking him out to tell him to stay away from his family? He really didn't want to hurt the brother or son of his soulmate and Ace seemed like a good kid if you looked past the anger issues.
He didn't dare say it out loud, but Ace was hot. Like, if Ace had been his soulmate than it would have been a party. Ace was exactly his type, ripped as hell, good personality, humor and freckles (fuck, he was a sucker for those). It hadn't taken much for him to fall for the fire user.
How much of an asshole would he be to date the brother or son of his soulmate?
Of course he wasn't the only one who had noticed Aces last name and that it matched his.
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Ace found it strange. These stupid Whitebeards were way to friendly and were overly interested in his family, especially the females.
Of course he wasn't going to answer their stupid questions. He wasn't going to give away information to the enemy for them to use against him. But that didn't mean that the Whitebeards asking about his non existent biological female family wasn't irritating. Why the hell were they even assuming that he has a sister or mom anyway?
"Hey Ace, tell us about yourself and you family?"
"Ace! How's your sister?"
"Yo Ace, do you look much like the rest of your family? Perhaps like your mother?"
They weren't subtle at all. It was absolutely infuriating.
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Izo was here. Ace knows him good enough by now that he isn't here to make small talk. Why can this guy see that he is busy planning on how to kill Whitebeard? Instead this guy was asking questions about his life, maybe to open him up, before asking about the female side of his family.
"So, do you have a sister?" Ah yes, there it was. Ace had to bite his tongue to keep him from lashing out.
He breathed in and out, trying to calm himself. "No, I don't. And even if I had one it would be none of your fucking business."
Ace knew that look. Izo didn't believe him. "Look Ace, I know you have someone. I can see that femininity in you. I know it's there, deep within you. You can't deceive me."
Izos words had just left his mouth before he and the rest of the ship was hit with a blast of conquers Haki that was emitted from Ace.
Izo had a feeling he had said something wrong. Something very, very wrong. Ace was absolutely seething. He had never seen the fire user so mad before, not even when facing or trying to kill Oyaji.
That wasn't the only thing. Ace looked hurt. Underneath all that anger he looked incredibly hurt. Izo felt like he had just killed his dog. He had prodded somewhere completely off limits. Tears of angers, frustration and sadness formed in
Aces eyes. He held them back for appearances sake, but that one sentence had hurt more than most other things that were once said to him.
Ace didn't know what to say. He was speechless. His emotions were completely flooding him. They had crashed into him like a tsunami. He opened his mouth and closed it again. He attempted to say something, to yell or huff or he didn't know, do something. So instead he pushed Izo out of the way and got the hell out of that room. Running to his nearest hiding spot.
Nobody could find him for two days. There were no assassination attempts, no yelling, no Haki presence to sense, no walking, nothing. They only knew that Ace was still there because Thatch had left plates of food on random places on the ground. And some of them were empty. Signaling that Ace had eaten from it. At least they hoped.
Izo felt guilty. He didn't mean to hurt Ace's feelings. He remembered the last things he had said to Ace and tried to find what he could have possibly said to make his future new brother sad. The only thing he could come up with was the 'femininity'. Why would that be a sour topic? Maybe...no...Marco would have said something if his soulmate Ann had died. So that wasn't it. Maybe Ace had a bad relation with Marco's soulmate?
Izo didn't find out what was so wrong about the word femininity until the day Marco officially found his soulmate.
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Thatch knew what he was doing. He knew that he should probably just wait until fate binds Marco and Ann together, but no. At this tempo Marco would be eighty or something. He was absolutely not waiting for that. Thatch was going to take action now.
He had invited a few people from here and there and kidnapped Ace to play too. They were going to play truth or dare. Ace didn't really want to play. He didn't even know how to play, but they eventually got him into the game spirit.
Exactly as Thatch planned. So when Ace had said truth to his truth or dare, he just had to shoot his shot. "Truth." Thatch pretended to think. "I got one. I want you to name every person in your family."Ace's eyes narrowed at that one.
Why couldn't they just stop asking about his family. He really wasn't in the mood for it after the accident that happened with Izo a few days ago. "Or are u too scared?" Thatch added.
Oh hell no. He wasn't scared. "You want to know about my family, well here's my fucking family. My mom's name is Rouge, my foster mom is named Dadan, my little brother is named Luffy, my grandpa is named Garp and my cousin, sister, friend person is Makino. You happy?"
They all looked silently at Ace. No Ann had come up...and did he say Garp? Like Garp the fist? Garp could come later though. Thatch didn't understand why Ace hadn't said Ann. He was going to make Ace spill the beans one way or another. He was going to make Ace confess that he knew Portgas D. Ann. "That's not true. You're missing one. Don't lie to us. You choose truth, so you've got to answer with the truth."
Ace turned to glare at him. Had they done a background check on him? Of course they did. "You want to know the whole truth. Well I've also got an other brother." Everyone, I mean everyone was looking expectantly at Ace. This was the moment. They were going to hear about Ann. They'll finally discover the truth about Marco's soulmate. "His name is Sabo. And guess what? HE'S FUCKING DEAD."
Ace once again turned tail and stormed out of the room. Stupid Izo, talking about his femininity, and stupid Thatch, who brought up his dead brother. On the way to his destination he accidentally bumped into Marco, making him even more angrier. He saw Marco open his mouth, but Ace snapped before he could say anything. "WHAT! You want to fucking know about my family too?! You can go stick it up your fucking ass with the rest of your family." Ace stormed passed Marco.
Ace sat down in his little space that he had claimed for himself. Don't get him wrong. He wouldn't have blown up this badly if it had been these two events only, but no, these were the cherry on the cake. Every Whitebeard seemed to have it out for his family and his so called sister or mom he didn't have. Haruta tried to get him drunk, Atmos had tried to bargain, Vista tried to get him high or something on flowers and even Whitebeard himself had asked about it.
Did they want to rub it in that his mother was dead? That he didn’t even know what she looked like or sounded like? That he didn’t want to know how it would have felt if she hugged him? He punished the wall a few times to let out all his frustration.
He had to call Makino and Dadan. He had called them every time someone had ask about them. He wanted to make sure that they were safe. He did it again and again. He wanted to prevent the situation where they would be held hostage for some nonsense thing the Whitebeards wanted to do.
He was going to attack the old man. He was going to fry that old fuck and let out all his anger.
Whitebeard sat on his chair on the deck of the Moby. Ace didn't even try making a plan. He'd just attack head on, full power. Of course Whitebeard noticed and of course he flung Ace away as if it was nothing. Just as usual right? Yeah, no.
Ace's shirt got stuck on something and it got ripped in half. Only the front side was left on his body when he landed on the ground, but without something to hold the two ends of the front of the shirt together it also quickly fell to the ground.
Everyone thought that they'd be confronted with a shirtless Ace...not an Ace with a binder around his torso. On his right shoulder, that was always covered, was a little scribble. It was Marco's impossible to read handwriting and it said Marco the Phoenix.
The Whitebeards didn't know what to address first. That Ace was probably the Ann that they had been looking for all along or the fact that Ace was wearing a binder.
It was Thatch who decided for them. "Holy shit, you're are girl?!" He yelled. This was immediately met with a stern and sour gaze from Izo. "I mean you were a girl." Thatch tried to fix. Izo threw his fan at Thatch, which hit him in the face.
"I'm sorry. What this idiot means is 'are u transgender?" Izo corrected. Ace looked more on guard than he had ever been before. He looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here. He slowly looked at Izo and have a little nod.
He looked even more ready to run. If someone on deck made on wrong move than Ace would be gone. Izo needed to get Ace away from here. To a secure place with nobody around. "Hey Ace. You want to go to my quarters. I'm sure I have a shirt of your size somewhere around there." Ace nodded again.
Izo gently took Ace's hand in his and walked to his room. What he had said wasn't a lie. He knew he had a shirt that was Ace's size. So he began to look around for that shirt, while Ace nervously sat on a chair. He knew Ace wasn't going to break the silence. "You know, nobody is going to think differently of you and nobody is going to hate you for this. I mean, I like to dress as a girl sometimes. I know it isn't the same situation as yours, because you are a man. But still somewhat the same." A moment of silence followed. Izo couldn't help himself.
"I'm sorry to ask, but was your name Ann?" Ace's head shot up and looked Izo dead in the eye.
"How the fuck do you know that? What kind of crazy detailed background check did you do on me?"
"No, we didn't do a background check. I don't know if you knew, but your soulmates name is Marco the Phoenix. And guess what. Marco has the name Portgas D. Ann. The reason why we wanted to know about your family is because we thought this Ann was your sister or mother, not well, your birth name."
Ace dumbly stared at Izo for a few seconds before bursting out. "WHAAAAAAT! No way! My soulmate tattoo says Netho the Rheamix, not Marco the Phoenix. Look at it yourself.”
Izo couldn't believe what he was hearing. He quickly walked over to Ace, with the yellow shirt that he had found, and looked at the name. It was Marco's name. So why...? Izo bursts out laughing. He couldn't help it. "I can't believe you couldn't read your soulmate tattoo because Marco's handwriting is so bad. Holy shit, Marco is never going to live this down." Izo laughed.
Ace's face became beetle red. "No it doesn't! It says Netho the Rheamix!"
Izo couldn't stop laughing. "I can't, I just can't. You can ask every crew member about it and they'll all say the same." This misunderstanding was way too unreal.
First of was that Ace was transgender and that they'd actually found Marco's soulmate all along. Second was that Marco's handwriting was so bad that even his soulmate couldn't read it. A little bit hilarious.
Maybe not for Ace tho.
"How about you put on this shirt and we can go out again." Ace tensed up again as Izo said that. It reminded him that all the Whitebeards knew that he was not born with a man's body.
Izo noticed Ace's nervousness. "Nobody is going to treat you different, you know? There are like 1600 crew mates. What are the chances that everyone of them is 'normal'? And if they do treat you different than I guess that I have some new partners for my sparring practices."
Ace seemed to have relaxed a little and out on the shirt. They walked together out of the room to see Marco standing in the hallway.
Marco's purpose was obvious. He wanted to talk to Ace. Izo shot a quick gaze at Ace, silently asking if he wanted him to stay or not. Ace shook his head. After Izo was gone Ace returned his focus on Marco. If it really was true what Izo had said than that meant that Marco was his soulmate.
He knew it was possible. He himself hadn't been a hundred percent sure his tattoo said Netho the Rheamix, but for it to be Marco. Well, he had to admit that it definitely could be. He may or may not have also thought that the Phoenix was attractive. It wasn't fair that Marco showed his abs for the whole world to see.
"Soooooooo." Ace began awkwardly.
"We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. Just say the word and I will walk away-yoi."
"It fine." A short pause followed. "Can I...see your tattoo?"
"Of course-yoi." Marco took of his purple jacket to reveal the word on his shoulder. It was his birth name written in his very sloppy handwriting.
"Oh-uh-fuck." Ace continued to stumble over his words like an idiot. He knew Marco was going to show it. Why was he so surprised?
"Can I see yours-yoi?" Ace nodded and rolled up his sleeves. Marco let out a sight of relief. Disbelieve actually bubbled up inside him. He had found his soulmate. He had found him after more than thirty year. Marco knew deep within that Ace had it in him to be his forever.
A big happy smiled crossed his lips. He couldn't help it. "I'm glad. You want to go on a date on the next island? It will be three days form now."
Ace didn't know what to do. He had met his soulmate and he was asking him out. On one side he wanted this. He didn't really know how dates really work, but yes. On the other side he still wanted to kill Whitebeard (did he really?). And with Roger's blood flowing through his veins he didn't know how long it would take for Marco to find out and hate him. Could Marco really like someone like him?"
He looked again at Marco. His heart skipped a beat when he saw that smile. Marco looks so happy though. Could he really say no to that? No he absolutely couldn't. "Yeah sure. It's a date than."
Marco nodded. "It's a date-yoi."