Chapter Text
Sea prism shackles rattled against cold stone walls with each breath he took. His aching muscles cramped, just trying to keep him sat upright as another bucket of sea water was dumped over his head. His eyes, once filled with hatred, anger and fiery determination, now half lidded and vacant. Fingers threaded into his matted hair yanking his head up as barking laughter echoed off the cell walls. A gloved hand wrapped itself around his neck, thumb pressing against his adam’s apple as he coughed and spluttered. The hand shifts higher, prying his mouth open. Desperately, he tries to protest, but it only results in more metallic clinking and a sharp smack of skin against skin ringing in his ears.
It’s dark.
The familiar swing of the Moby Dick across the ocean sends shooting pains through his battered body and aching bones. Ace can vaguely make out softly spoken words telling him to open his eyes. When he does, his vision spins and he tries to blink it away. There’s a hand on his forehead keeping his head up. Someone else has a hand on his chest, another on his back, narrowly avoiding freshly stitched up wounds. It’s so hot in that room but underneath it, the cold night air sinks its teeth through his flesh and bones. Everything is so fuzzy. As his eyes start to adjust he realises that he’s being held up over a bucket. Splattered with blood and bile and saliva. It smells just like that cell.
No. No. He’s being held up by hands not chains. Right?
Instead of grating laughter or fingers sinking into his flesh, he’s greeted by soft muffled words that he could only assume were ones of reassurance. The realisation that he was sitting up took some mental gymnastics to adjust to. Ace’s internal systems were all over the place. Most notable his digestive system, his shoulders jerking forwards again as more bile splatters into the bucket, leaving him hazier and more confused. He tenses as the hand on his forehead moves and is pleasantly surprised when he isn’t met with a solid or spiky object to the face. Instead, the fingers comb through his hair, mindlessly detangling it. He knows that he’s safe now. That’s what he is being told. He wants to believe it but something is sending a sinking feeling in his stomach. He can’t quite place it in his haze. He can’t remember where—
“Luffy?”, he rasps, his voice barely audible.
“He’s not here right now. Just focus on yourself for a moment, Ace.”
He’s pretty sure it’s Marco who said that, but everything feels so far away as he recollects the pieces before passing out. He remembers Luffy being flung back towards the lava and that shithead marine. He remembers hitting the deck - splinters still embedded in his skin - barely being able to breathe as he begged his crew to save Luffy.
Ace blearily looks up at Marco, “Is he safe? Alive?”.
Marco looks away as he thinks then goes back to examining Ace as he tries to piece together a suitable sentence for his younger crewmate to hear, keeping his physical and mental state in mind. The truth was, he wasn’t sure but that wouldn’t help Ace right now. He didn’t want to lie either, Ace would be able to tell… or maybe he wouldn’t. Not in his current state at least. Meanwhile, Ace was finding it harder to breathe with each second of waiting. The soothing motions of the Moby Dick made his stomach sour.
“If he’s as stubborn as you, then I’m sure he’ll live.”, Marco expected a chuckle or at least a snicker from Ace. They both knew he was stubborn. Marco witnessed it all first hand when Ace joined the crew - or, in reality, adamantly tried everything in his power not to join the crew and kill whitebeard. His expression falls as he notices how vacant Ace’s eyes are but he pushes his concern away for now. He’s a doctor and Ace still needs to be physically stable before his mental health can be assessed. With some help, Marco lays Ace back down on the medical bed. He pushes up his glasses that always seem to slip down his nose with the back of his hand before checking over Ace’s ribs. There wasn’t much reaction from Ace besides involuntary flinching or slight grimaces.
Ace could feel his skin tingling in the dizzying haze of hot and cold. A sharp pain radiated from his chest with a popping sound. His eyes widened as more hands answered muffled words, holding his arms and legs in place. He tries to take a deep breath but it stops abruptly, stuttering and catching in his throat as it causes another flare of pain. Someone is talking to him, trying to get his attention but Ace is too busy trying to break free from the blurred figures holding him down. Each movement making his vision flash white with searing hot shooting pains. A familiar voice cuts through the chaos. Despite not being able to make out the words he knows who it is. Even if he’s hallucinating, like all those times back in Impel Down, he finds himself relaxing. The thrashing slows and the pain starts to decrease as he takes smaller more measured breaths.
“Wait ‘till he’s more lucid before continuing”, A deep voice tries to stay quiet but resonates throughout the room. It’s slightly strained but warm and familiar.
“Pops you shouldn’t be out of bed”, Marco whispers almost dumbfounded by how the man was standing. Then again, Whitebeard wasn’t one to be underestimated. The man sits beside the medical bed, brow furrowed with worry, looking much less like a pirate and more like a concerned father. Marco keeps his movements slow and gentle to not startle his barely lucid crewmate, pressing two fingers to his wrist to take his pulse - thankfully no longer racing or threaded but near stable. He looks for signs of recognition that flicker across Ace’s glazed over eyes as his gaze settles on Whitebeard.
“Can I continue?” Marco asks his captain, awaiting orders. Whitebeard shrugs and puts his warm hand on Ace’s head, “I shouldn’t have intervened in the first place. You’re the doctor.”
Seeing Ace start to calm down Marco tries to get his attention to explain what he was doing before resetting the man’s ribs. Thinking about it now, he realises that it was a bad idea not to have done this earlier. He could’ve avoided a lot of pain and panic. He can tell the words aren’t being absorbed but it’s a good sight that Ace’s eyes loosely tracked his movements after calling his name.