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In retrospect it almost confused Nami that it had taken so long for them to find out. After all they were the straw-hats and one of the things – beside being batshit crazy – that they all had in common, was that a part of their attention was always focused on their captain.
~
“You’ve ever seen Luffy take off his shirt?”, Robin asked leaning slightly forward so that her mouth was on the same height as Nami’s ear.
They were laying on the deck of the Thousand Sunny and it was freaking hot. And not the normal kind of hot that being on the open sea on a ship that was nearly completely devoid of shadows entailed, but the it’s-a-wonder-that-there-aren’t-dead-fish-all-around-us -as-the-water-should-be-boiling kind of hot.
The whole straw hat crew laid on deck looking more dead than alive. The only two who were unaffected were Brook, as he was literally physical unable to feel the heat, and Robin. But Nami was convinced that the other woman was more of a goddess than a human so she wasn’t exactly surprised by that. Everybody wore as little as possible and not even Sanji made a comment on Robin’s and Nami’s bikinis, which was proof of how out off it he was because of the sun.
The only one that was still wearing a top was Luffy. He still wore his frilly red shirt that Nami had come to love even though she sometimes missed the sleeveless shirt he’d worn at the beginning of their journey.
Nami frowned: “No. I don’t think I have.”
“Huh. Weird.”
Come to think of it, it really was weird, after all Luffy wasn’t really someone to worry about his appearance or decency. Nami was pretty sure that the boy wasn’t able to feel ashamed. Especially in front of them.
“Yeah. Weird.”
Maybe on another day Nami would have said something to Luffy about it but not on this day. It was way too hot to grasp more than two coherent thoughts in a row. So, she only watched her captain who was laying in Zoro’s lap babbling about that, sure, other cool hats existed but none as cool as his. The first mate smiled down at the boy, never contributing to the one-sided conversation but nodding from time to time as to show that he was still listening. Not that Nami thought, Luffy would mind if Zoro didn’t listen.
Even from a few feet away Nami could see the sweat on Luffy’s forehead. Yeah, it really was weird that he didn’t take off his shirt.
~
Another incident that should’ve probably tipped her off was when they collided with a slave trader ship. The encounter was horrible, and Name had nightmares about the horrifying things she saw on the ship for weeks after.
All the bound and branded too skinny men and women that looked as if they were one missed meal away from certain death… Nami had the urge to lock Chopper and Luffy away, as they were too innocent to see something like this. Except. Except Luffy really wasn’t. She always forgot that her captain had probably seen more horrible things in his life than she. It was just so easy to forget if you lived with him and saw him goofing around with Usopp all day, making dumb jokes that weren’t even remotely funny. Or at least not funny to Nami.
But running into those slave traders reminded the redhead how terrifying Luffy could be. Single-handedly he brought down every sorry excuse for a human being that made money with human lives and had the misfortune to sail with this specific traders ship. Which wasn’t exactly impressive as Nami knew he could defeat whole armies with minimum effort by just using a bit of haki but this fight was different. It was brutal and Luffy wasn’t the brutal type. Sure, he had fun while fighting, no one could deny that, but he didn’t take pleasure in hurting other people. But this time…
Nami was sure not all traders survived Luffy’s attack. Not that she was particularly sad about that.
The weirdest thing was the instant switch in Luffy’s demeanor after he’d taken down every trader.
Luffy normally wasn’t the most empathetic person. And Nami didn’t mean that in a bad way. She was completely convinced that her captain was a good person and sometimes even something akin to a hero, although she knew he didn’t want to be seen as one. But he just wasn’t the type to be good at comforting people. Which made it so alien to see him talk to the slaves in a soft voice while freeing them from their shackles.
“The captain’s pretty good with them, huh”, Brook said. The skeleton stood beside Nami and was also watching Luffy. The boy was talking to a little girl who was crying into his shoulder. She was so skinny that even beside Luffy’s thin frame she looked breakable as if she he could shatter if Luffy hugged her a little too tight. The bitemarks and scratches that covered the whole girl’s body made Nami want to puke.
“Yeah, I suppose he is…”
After Chopper made sure that all the newly freed slaves were as healthy as they could be, they had a banquet. But even though they were four times as many people as they normally were, less food was eaten than on any other day.
The timid and shaky men and women they’d rescue didn’t eat a lot. They probably couldn’t after not getting enough to eat for who knows how long. They all together didn’t eat as much as Luffy normally did. And Luffy wasn’t eating. Namie watched him for the whole meal, and he didn’t even eat a slice of bread. When Sanji asked if he was okay, he only said he wasn’t hungry. Luffy. Wasn’t hungry. Chopper nearly flipped. He didn’t let Luffy leave the infirmary for two hours and only after he’d tested him on multiple diseases.
Luffy kept on acting oddly serious for another three days after they’d send the freed people on their way. After giving them, more than half of their food and water. Luffy insisted that they were more and that the next island wasn’t very far.
This encounter was a little longer on Nami’s mind than the shirt-thought but after Luffy got back to being his normal self it still only took a few weeks to make her forget about it.
~
When Nami was finally able to make sense out of her observations, she wished she’d never pieced together why Luffy had acted so uncharacteristically with the slaves or why she’d never seen him take off his shirt.
They’d docked on an island that looked like a broccoli head according to Usopp. Nami thought it just was green. It was shortly after they’d left Wano Kuni and most of the crew was still wiped out from the end fight against Kaido and Big Mom. Luffy still looked more dead than alive.
The heart pirates were sailing with them, because… Nami actually wasn’t sure what kind of dumb reason Law had made up. Everybody knew they travelled together because of the big fat crush Law had on their captain. Or mostly everyone. Or Frank, Brook, Robin and she knew at least. Maybe Sanji, but Nami wasn’t sure about that.
The broccoli-island was beautiful with a lot of colorful birds and strange looking plants. No people lived on the island, so the nature was completely untouched. Technically this would’ve been the perfect place to take a break and recharge, but they were the straw hats so naturally something had to go wrong.
It was such a little thing that caused everything she knew about her captain to change, just a little push born out of friendly teasing.
In one moment Nami had heard Chopper, Usopp and Luffy laughing and in the next Chopper was screaming hysterically. When she turned around to see why he was screaming she saw that only Usopp and Chopper were still standing at the edge of the cliff, where they'd just been standing together with their captain. But Luffy was gone.
Normally, Luffy wouldn't get hurt from falling down a cliff, normally he wouldn’t even have fallen, normally even if Usopp would’ve somehow gathered up enough strength to make Luffy move against his will the boy would’ve instantly stretched and flew back onto the cliff. Probably maniacally cackling.
And Usopp knew this, that’s why he’d even shoved his best friend at all. But he hadn’t taken into consideration how weak Luffy still was from the fight against Kaido and Big Mom. So Luffy fell down the cliff.
~
Not even ten minutes later they all stood around the stretcher in the Sunny’s infirmary, watching their captain anxiously as Law took off the boy’s shirt to get a better look at his bleeding back.
Time seemed to stop for a moment after Law uncovered Luffy's back so that everybody could see his bare skin that was normally hidden by a shirt.
At first Nami couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing. It was as if her brain was telling her to look again because what she was seeing surely couldn’t be true. But no matter how often she looked away and then back to Luffy’s back it was still there.
And it wasn’t the gaping wound that shattered her world view. It was the hoof of the soaring sun burned into her captain’s skin just below his left shoulder blade.
It was Law’s voice that snapped her out of her trance. “Get out. All of you. Don’t worry I can fix him in no time, but I really don’t need you here.” The stoic pirate captain sounded almost faint.
The redhead was sure she wouldn’t have moved if not for Robin who took her by the hand and pulled her out of the infirmary. Nami heard Zoro say that he wouldn’t leave his captain and Law only sighed as if he knew it was a losing battle to get the man to leave.
When Franky closed the door to the infirmary behind them, Nami instantly sank to the floor. She was convinced her legs wouldn’t hold her even a second longer. Beside her she saw Chopper, Usopp and Franky do the same. Sanji, Brook and Robin kept on standing.
“Did any of you know?”, Nami asked after a few minutes of silence. She knew that everybody had seen what she’d seen. That everybody knew she wasn’t talking about their captain’s wounds.
“I had my suspicions”, Robin said.
Nami snorted: “Of course you had.” Really, if anything ever surprised Robin it’d probably mean that the world was ending.
“I never even considered there was a slight possibility that Luffy had ever been anything but free”, Brook said, “I met a lot of former… slaves in my life and afterlife. The captain never showed any of the traits I saw in their behavior.”
Nami flinched at the word slave. The hiccupping sound beside her told her that either Chopper or Usopp had started to cry. Maybe both.
“Yeah”, Franky said, “but it’s not as if Luffy has ever behaved like anyone else would. He’s always been special.”
Robin looked out onto the sea. “Guess it explains his love for freedom.”
“It doesn’t make sense”, Sanji said, and he really sounded as if he didn’t understand what was going on. “It can’t be. This is Luffy. He just. This can’t be.”
“He must’ve been quite young”, Robin mused, “after Ace left him to become a pirate but before we met him.”
“Robin. Stop”, Sanji whispered. Robin blinked a few times. The cook telling a woman that what she did was anything else than perfect was baffling.
Nami felt tears running down her cheeks as pictures of a thirteen-year-old Luffy being branded and shackled flickered before her eyes. Sanji was right, this couldn’t be true.
~
Dinner was uncomfortable. Which was wrong. Dinner with the straw hats was never uncomfortable. Even when they ate together with people they’d just fought it was never weird. But this evening it was.
Luffy was back on his feet, but he was skittish and tried to not look in anybody’s direction beside Law’s and Zoro’s. The three had obviously talked after Luffy had woken up.
It was the second time Nami saw Luffy not eating at dinner.
No one brought up the topic that everybody was thinking about. There was no singing and nearly no talking. Everything was wrong.
It was already dark when Luffy started talking. Nobody had stood up after dinner, everyone had kept on sitting beside their captain.
“Ace left the island we grew up on when I was thirteen”, Luffy said, his voice so soft Nami nearly didn’t hear him.
“Not even a month later a slave trader ship docked on the island.”
Nami felt unreasonably angry at Ace although she knew it was unfounded. The man had loved Luffy as much as his crew did. He’d’ve never left his little brother alone if he’d thought there’d be even a slightest chance of something like this happening.
“They caught me fighting a mob of crocodiles. I think that’s why they auctioned me off as a combat slave.”
The second time the day Nami could hear Chopper sniffle beside her, unable to do anything else she laid an arm around the little reindeer. In the dark nearly unseeable she recognized Zoro doing the same by Luffy.
The redhead knew what combat slaves were. It were humans that were pitted against each other in an area to fight for the enjoyment of the world nobles.
“The first guy who bought me made me fight against other children my age for nearly two years.”
Children. Hearing him say it made it feel truer somehow. Luffy had been a child. Nami felt sick.
“He gave me away after two years or something. Dunno why. Maybe he was bored of me, or he was annoyed by my constant escape attempts. “
It somehow soothed Nami that Luffy had kept on trying to escape. She’d seen the empty eyes of slaves who’d given up and didn’t even try to fight back anymore. She didn’t want to imagine those eyes on Luffy.
“The second guy who bought me was Zack. The first never told me his name. Just. You know. Master. Zack didn’t want me to call him master. He didn’t want me to fight.”
Luffy’s voice got quieter with every word. Nami had to think of the girl from weeks ago, the one that had hugged Luffy. The one with bitemarks on her neck. She hoped she interpreted Luffy’s silence on what Zack had wanted wrong.
“He... let me go after a year. I don’t know why. I killed him the moment he took the collar off.”
Nami could hear remorse in the last words. She didn’t share the sentiment. She just wished she could kill him again.
She wondered if Zack had let Luffy go because even some heartless world noble who thought that everybody was beneath him couldn’t live seeing Luffy bound down. If even he hadn’t been immune to Luffy.
Nobody spoke up after Luffy’s story. The rushing of the ocean was the only thing breaking the silence.
“And then I met all of you!”, Luffy finally said. Although Nami couldn’t see his face in the dark she was sure he was grinning brightly. “And now everything is good! The past doesn’t matter because I have you and that’s everything that counts!”
And suddenly all the awkwardness vanished. Usopp started to cry, and Chopper jumped onto Luffy’s shoulders. Nami herself stood up and hugged her captain which everyone else took as an invitation to also hug the boy.
Beside Law. But Law was a weird emo-edgelord who was completely gone for Luffy, so Nami didn’t question it.
“We all love you, Captain”, Zoro said, after they’d all come together to build a weird cuddle pile around Luffy. (And honestly why did they have a skeleton and a robot in their crew? Frank und Brook weren’t exactly good cuddle buddies. But at least they had Chopper who nearly made up for Frank and Brook. But only nearly.)
The swordsman hadn’t let go of Luffy once since the boy had started to talk about his past. Nami knew that Luffy was the most important person in Zoro’s life – as he was in all of theirs – still she was caught of guard by the sincereness in his voice. The man wasn’t exactly someone from whom she’d expect heartfelt confessions.
“Yeah, Luffy! He’s right!”, Usopp said, “you’re my brother from another mother!”
“I can only agree, you’re like a little brother to me and I know you want to protect us, but I’d sell the whole world for you without batting an eye”, Robin said.
After that everybody tuned in, Nami couldn’t make out who said what anymore, but she was sure even Law said something like ‘maybe I do not only see you as an ally’, which made her giggle.
“I love you too”, the redhead said and gave Luffy a kiss on the forehead. She smiled as she realized that the boy had already fallen asleep.