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There's not much Garp can do, with Ace firmly in marine custody and being processed into Impel Down right at that very moment.
He's always known it'd end like this; With the kids insisting so damn hard against becoming proper marines like Garp's been trying to train them to be, it was only a matter of time until one of them got caught.
When Ace joined the Whitebeard crew, Garp really thought he'd only have Lufy to worry about. After all, to get to Ace, one would need to get through one of the Emperors of the sea, and that's not something many were willing to do on a whim.
And then the kid got turned in by his own crewmate. A traitor? On Whitebeard's crew? absolute rotten luck.
So. No, there wasn't much Garp could do at this point.
But..... There was one thing he could try. One strategy he owed Ace to attempt.
Garp crashed into the Fleet Admiral's office the same way as he always did - through the same patch of wall no one bothered fixing properly anymore.
"Garp, I swear to god-"
"Senny!" Garp interrupted as cheerfully as he could, stretching his lips into a smile he knew Sengoku hated the most. "What's this I hear about my grandson in prison?"
Sengoku scoffed, his head not rising from above his paperwork. "He's a pirate; Both of them are. As delusional as you always were about your progeny following your footsteps, you can't tell me you're actually surprised?"
"Surprised he's caught? Certainly not," he stuffed his finger in his nose, desperate for something to do with his hands. "But I am surprised about those rumours of an expedited execution coming up; Boy's barely been on the seas for three years now! Surely he hadn't scrapped enough to warrant a show like that? His bounty's certainly not high enough for that."
That, finally, got Sengoku to look up.
"The hell are you on about?" He asked. "You better than anyone should know exactly why I'm rushing to have him dead."
Garp blinked, tilting his head as he played up his cluelessness.
"His family connection?" Sengoku stressed.
"Last I checked, being related to me wasn't a crime," Garp said, deliberately obtuse.
"It should be," Sengoku muttered. "I meant the part where he's the son of Gold Roger! "
Garp started laughing. And then, once he started losing steam, he remembered that one time all three of the brats got trapped between the branches of the same tree, firmly stuck one above another like yakitori, and kept laughing.
"Have you finally gone senile?" Sengoku asked, some ten minutes in.
"I should be asking you that!" Garp gasped between breaths. "Do you even know how old Ace is? He's 20, his birthday's on January 1st- Unless you're suggesting now that a man half a year past his own execution is capable of fathering children?"
Sengoku's face went dark. "I don't know what you're playing at-"
"I'm not playing at anything!" Now came the moment of truth. Garp had always been aware that lying wasn't his strong suit, just as it wasn't Luffy's. He's always skirted by omission, but this required explicity- "If he's gotta die then it'll be for his own crimes - as my grandson, not the supposed son of a random pirate! You think I wouldn't know my own family?"
...oh. He wasn't lying.
Well, he did have the brat since infancy.
Sengoku was now rubbing at his temples, the expression his usual "Garp's bullshit" one.
"He is the son of Gold Roger ," he repeated.
Garp sighed, as if he couldn't believe that Sengoku was being this dumb. "No he ain't."
"He's going around calling himself Portgas D. Ace-"
"Yeah, kid really wanted to separate himself from me. I'm glad I never knew who Luffy's mother was so at least he-"
"Portgas D. Rouge was a known associate of Gold Roger! " Sengoku yelled, a vein pulsing on his forehead. "His only romantic interest-"
"Besides old Rayleigh, you mean?" Garp scratched his head. "But yeah, she was. Took his death real hard, she did. Why do you think she rebounded with Dragon of all people?"
"....what"
"Like, I love my kid and all, but pretty he ain't. Nor particularly smooth. I thought Ace, as much of a surprise as he was, would be my only grankid-"
"WHAT," Sengoku repeated, more forcefully. "But..."
"Besides, why the fuck would I take in the Pirate King's brat? We were enemies. I only agreed to take in Dragon's kids because I didn't want them growing in the Revolutionary Army; Though fat lot of good that did-"
"You've got to be fucking with me."
And now, for the piece de resistance - "Senny, you gotta be really going senile if you think me capable of lying."
Sengoku just sat there at his desk for a while, frozen. Thinking. Ruminating.
Garp left him to it, walking over to look for any new knickknacks on the shelves.
"...fuck," he eventually heard Sengoku mutter quietly. "You and your fucking family always fuck everything up for me."
Garp just laughed, moving over to slap Sengoku on the back, far harder than was necessary. "I live to serve!"
"Your own gain, maybe," Sengoku muttered again before raising his voice. "Go on, get out now, I have calls to make."
Garp didn't move an inch.
Sengoku sighed. "No execution, even if his own crimes would have warranted it. Killing the son of a symbol long dead was fine, but..."
"Dragon's being an active pain in your butt, huh?"
Sengoku sent him a truly impressive stink eye. "He might be the least aggravating Monkey D. to me, personally, but I'm sure the government would love to finally have some leverage against him in hand."
"That's the spirit!" Garp said, clasping Sengoku on the back one last time before leaving through the wall on the other side of the doors.
No one really bothered fixing that hole anymore either.
"AND STOP CRASHING THROUGH MY WALLS ALREADY!" Sengoku yelled after him, as if that was going to break a 50-years-long habit.
Garp ignored him; He had a call of his own to make, to ensure his brat would know why it was in his best interest to act like Ace was his own blood.
And if any retribution Garp could offer wasn't enough encouragement, hinting at the shit Luffy could wreck - based on the last few months of activity since he took to the sea - was sure to do the trick.
