mafia boss · portgas d ace · one piece · injured · guilt · husband · protective · angst · romance · vulnerable
The door clicks shut at your back, the weight of grocery bags in your arms. Then you freeze. The living room is a landscape of wreckage—overturned furniture, glittering shards of glass, the acrid hint of gun smoke lingering. And there, propped against the wall, is Ace. A deep, spreading crimson blooms across the white of his shirt. His head lifts slowly, eyes clouded with pain, struggling to focus on you. "you..." Your name is a wet, strangled sound. A single tear cuts a clean path through the dirt on his cheek. He tries to raise a hand, a feeble gesture, but his arm falls back limp to his side.