Work Text:
There is a man, and there is a boy.
“I fight for justice,” the man explains to the boy, who looks up to him with wide eyes. “I fight to keep the peace.”
“Keep the peace.” the boy repeats, quiet, as if muling the words over. The man laughs and takes the boy in his arms. The white uniform of the man almost shines in the sun, and the boy squints before turning his head away.
“You’ll do the same, son.” the man says, and he is right.
Once, a young man came back to his room and spent hours trying to clean his hands. No matter how hard he scrubbed, they never seemed clean enough.
The cries of innocents echoed in his ears – damning him, the uniform he wore and the lie on his back.
I fight for justice, the man had said an eternity ago, and the young man who was once a boy laughed and laughed and cried.
One day, the young man came back. He had lost his smile.
Soon after, he left his uniform behind.
Let’s go back a little. On an island abandoned and forgotten by all, where justice ceased to exist and where people stopped being worthy of living – or so the government says.
“My children,” whispers a woman, a mother, holding two crying infants. She is young and dying, beautiful and betrayed. Some would call her naive, perhaps, but who can blame her for loving someone? “Save my children.”
Dragon is still a boy, not matter the uniform he wears. The weight of a baby in his arms is unfamiliar, alien, let alone the weight of two.
“Please.” the mother begs, her long red hair blending with the blood on her chest. Dragon hasn’t been a soldier for long, but he knows she won’t survive this wound. Yet, she doesn't seem to care, only focusing on her children's survival.
Dragon has never known his mother, has never been close to his father. He doesn’t understand how someone can love another so much, so fiercely, that nothing else matters even on the brink of death.
(Well, of course he doesn’t. He’s a child, a teenager. But he will one day.)
He takes the babies.
It is the first time Dragon holds life in his hands. Those two boys, hair as red as their mother’s, feel heavier than anything he has ever carried.
“I will.” he whispers, because for all he feels like the lowest of scum, he is still good, he wants the best for the people and the world – it’s not his fault the world lied to him.
“I’ll make sure they both escape.” he promises, holding the infants close.
He fails.
“You are no son of mine!” screams a man who once called himself father. He is strong and self-righteous, the one who is called Hero by people, fighting for justice as best as he can yet unwilling to shake the rotten foundations of what they call peace.
His son is like him too, craving justice for the innocent.
“You are worse than a blind man.” the son tells his father, voice harsher than it has ever been, smile forgotten amidst blood and cries, “You see the truth and yet does nothing against it!”
Father and son scream and rage against each other, torn by what they call justice, until there is nothing but hate and resentment between them.
(Garp refers to Dragon as Luffy’s father, but never as his son. It is a bridge that can never be mended.)
Let me tell you a story.
There is a little boy, who has always wanted justice and peace. He is raised by someone who speaks of justice and how he works for it, how he fights for peace. That someone is his father, and so the little boy follows in his footsteps.
There is a young man, no longer a boy. That boy grew up and saw through his father’s false justice, he heard the cries of those sacrificed in the name of the world’s order. The young man saw the lies and suffering hidden behind the word “peace” and decided to make his own justice, his own world.
There is a criminal, hated by all those who wear the word justice on their backs, who fights for peace while the world spits on his name.
There is a person, so full of love and sorrow, who left his greatest treasure behind.
Can you guess what it is?
There is no one in this world who loves Luffy more than his father.
Perhaps you don’t agree with this. You have good reason not to – after all, how could someone who never bothered to be there for his child claim to love him more than anyone? It’s absurd.
You’re right – of course it’s absurd. Dragon does not know his son, and Luffy does not know his father.
But picture this:
There is a criminal. He wants to change the world, to make it a better place – one where slaves don’t exist, where people aren’t being hunted and feared because they are different, where mothers don’t have to beg a stranger to protect their children. This is his dream, and so many follow his lead. Years and years he fights for this, turns his back on the world, on his own father, all in the name of peace and equality. The Government declares him scum, the worst of the worst, no better than the pirates who kill and rape innocent villagers.
And then comes a boy, a baby, and suddenly the criminal is terrified – because here it is, the world, his world, it’s in his hands, and its name is Luffy.
Dragon looks at him and realizes that he would tear his dream apart if his son asked him to. And how could you not call that love?
You know, the first time Dragon saw that wanted poster for a young pirate with hair as red as blood, he heard the voice of a dying mother echo in his head. He did not sleep that night – but again, sleep had long left Dragon.
Years later, he would hear from spies situated in his home that the boy, now a pirate, that he managed to save protected his treasure, and Dragon will laugh and laugh and cry. He’ll feel guilt – that old friend of his – swell in his chest, wondering what would have happened had he managed to save both twins.
Guilt and regret are close friends, following Dragon wherever he goes, but so is hope. After all, who can carry them better than the one trying to save the world?
Imagine this.
You are a criminal. You want to change the world, and so the world – rather, the ones in command – seek your death. They would destroy anyone and anything, if only to see you and your ideals end.
You have seen it before: islands ravaged, innocents killed, women and babies slaughtered to end something that didn’t even have the chance to begin. In their eyes, innocence means nothing if the blood in your veins damns you at birth.
You hate the one you once called father. He has hurt you in a way few have – in a way only family can hurt.
But he who once called you son will protect the innocent, he will keep your son safe and away from those who would hurt your treasure so they can hurt you.
It is not the best solution. God, it’s not even a good one – the idea of letting anyone but you hold your baby makes you want to scream, to tear yourself apart – but it’s the only one that could work.
The revolution is strong, but it’s not enough – not when spies from the government linger in their hallways, not when they have still so much work to do before they can truly call themselves an army.
It is one thing to allow children who have already seen the worst of the world, who are already considered criminals, to stay. It is another to condemn a baby to that life.
Dragon defends peace, defends justice, defends freedom. He cannot take his son’s choices away.
Luffy will choose his own path. Dragon refuses to force one on him.
(For that, he is already a better father than Garp ever was.)
Here is something we can all agree on: Monkey D. Luffy doesn’t care about his father.
How could he, when he has never once met him, when he ignored his very existence until his grandfather let it slip? The notion of “father” is a nebulous one, and it is not something Luffy is interested in. Who cares about blood, when his brothers and crew exist?
So many people are hurt by those who call them family, by those who share their blood. Luffy is very much aware of this, and so he hears of his father and can’t bring himself to care. Who can blame him? He is right to do so – Dragon is a stranger to him. He owes him nothing.
No, Monkey D. Luffy doesn’t love his father. But he doesn’t hate him either.
He simply doesn’t care. Somehow, that is worse.
“You are a gentle soul.” someone once said to Dragon, back when he was nothing but a disowned son seeking a way toward justice. “You were born in the wrong time.”
Dragon had blinked, taken aback, before frowning.
“This time is one of slavery and blood,” he had answered, voice harsh and unwavering, “It is wrong for everyone.”
The truth is: Dragon was born in the right time. After all, the world already has dreamers sailing the world to achieve their goals, but so few willing to stand up and fight for the right thing, for the people.
There are many pirates, many who would fight for themselves and those they love, but there is only one person who stood up for the entire world.
He would throw it all away if his son asked him to, but he never will. Their dreams may not be the same, but Luffy is a dreamer too.
Dragon abandoned his son – yes. He watched over him from afar, sure, but he never came close, afraid that his blood-soaked hands would attract his enemies. Luffy grew up without a father. It is not something that can be undone.
But please – never say that he doesn’t love him. Dragon would give up his own life, his own dream, for his child. The army he took years and years to build means nothing next to his son’s life.
And if that isn’t love, then what is?