#Marco has a crush and he cannot say anything he knows about Sabo

[xamaxenta]

The pain and suffering never ends

POV: you’re a newly enlisted PPDC Cadet assigned to the SEA Shatterdome to further your training as an upcoming pilot, your first class is physical and combat training with the Fightmaster, LTC. Portgas, you’ve heard many things about this man, that he’s lost someone special to him, that he solo drifted his own jaeger, that he doesn’t fuck around when it comes to his duties, they say LTC Portgas barely smiles and when he does it never really reaches his eyes.

[authenticaussie]

Hmm... 18 (soul eater au), 52 (roommate), 42 (marvel), 98 (leverage), and or 14 (lantern lights)

babe……….you’re my Favourite™

also, under a readmore because this got LONG as SHIT

8. Soul Eater au

the soul eater au is really scattered because my wifi sucked on that particular day and I was posting it in the mas chat (sunshinepunks) BUT the basis is weapons ace & sabo and meister Marco. It’s a lot of “dumbasses refuse to accept New Friends (because TraumaTM)” and Ace/Sabo being dicks to Marco because he refuses to give up on them. (ahhh my favourite dynamic //swoons)

Part of the plot - my favourite part of the plot - is that Sabo spends a lot of time spying on Marco to try and catch him out as Secretly A Dick and Manipulating Them, and ends up finding out that Marco really really cares about him and Ace? And the way to Sabo’s heart is thrrrroooough his besssstieeeee lmao. So Sabo ends up crushin’ hard first, but then SPYING BACKFIRES and paranoia kicks his butt and he Feels Bad because he was ONLY MEANT TO TRUST ACE and Marco HURT HIS FEELINGS (sabo you moron it’s your own fault). Anyway Ace and Marco pair up to try and make Sabo feel better and it drives Sabo even Nuttier until there is battle couple stuff and a mid-fight Feelings Fight and then a confession and then they become the DMCA power couple. Ta-da!

Ace was a pipe and Sabo was a knife! Or…..you know, something in that realm pft. Basically hitty-stick and stabby-stabby, because you could make a) an argument for their personalities Being Like That (ace is blunt and strong and easy to just hit with but if you’re clever about it he’s awesome, and has the reach to be a longer weapon, sabo is more…well a knife can be used for a lot but also it’s very….vicious. There is very little you can do to Incapacitate with a knife that is not Wow Stabbed. Which I feel is very Sabo, he’s kinda…harsh??? in his way of handling battle, I think.) and b) because in canon, Sabo’s weapon is a pipe and Ace has that knife, and I thought it’d be cool to match that.

42. New Roommate Wanted

an OC-based commission!! James moves in with a shape-shifting thief and her GF and accidentally Falls In Love snickers

It is………..I wrote it a while ago so you can definitely see the self-projection of “I want cute rich gfs to love and adore me so I don’t have to stress about a job”

52. 5+1 Marvel AU

in the actual word document the title is “If you’re broken I will mend you” (Or 5 Times Sabo was There for his Team (and one time histeam was there for him). Sabo is Coulson and Marco is Hawkeye and Ace is a Black Widow (codename: Redback). It fluctuates between sorta implying MAS (but with a definite focus on Marco/Ace) and Coby/Sabo mainly because I made Coby Captain America (YOU CAN’T!!! ARGUE!!! WITH ME!!! HE IS!!!! PERFECT!!! AS CAP!!!) and I love fics that have the lowkey “Coulson has a fanboy crush on Cap.” lol. 

(also coby/sabo is. fun? crackship but So Fun.) 

Here’s the shortest one haha

It takes about five minutes after the comms. go silent forSabo to know that something is wrong, and two minutes afterwards to gear up.

It takes him approximately four seconds to tear through the people trying to keep him from helping Ace and Marco.

(It takes two weeks for them to heal, no matter how fastSabo was, and a month for Sabo to get off desk duty, but Ace and Marco refuseto do missions when he’s not their handler. They refuse to do anything thatinvolves leaving his side until after he assures them he’s fine, and that hewasn’t just a S.H.I.E.L.D agent because he had a pretty face - though that hadprompted an argument about Sabo’s ‘pretty face’ that he’d had to steadfastlyignore.)

88. LEVERAGE AU MOTHERFUCKER

THIEVES! CON ARTISTS! So this one is actually three different aus in one file - there’s a “MAS but as Leverage” and it starts out as “Ace and Sabo who fill in Every Job They Can (but their specialties are Ace = grifter/hacker and Sabo = hitter/thief and I have reasons, okay) and then they try and run a con on Marco but he’s like Um Excuse Me? And then he gets dragged into their Bullshit snickers. Oh ALSO they ONE THOUSAND PERCENT do not realise they are Madly In Love With Him (but he does. And he’s trying to be patient. But also. Dying. Because wow it’s kinda awkward being in love with. two daredevil thieves)

The second one in the doc is the Leverage trio in the OP world, ‘cause duh, and Parker starts off like…trying to steal kids from being SMILE experiments? and hires Eliot and Hardison to help her. Um I think I wanted to give Hardison a DF?? But I had a whole list: there was altering people’s sight/perceptions, being able to edit vision/specifics of reality in lines of like, code?? (aka he could do Little Changes but they could affect Big Things, a butterfly effect sort of DF). A lot of them were trying to give him a way to…manipulate stuff in a world where tech wasn’t as big a thing.  

And the third one is ASL leverage! Marco still gets dragged into the disaster but it’s more found family stuff. 

14. Lantern Lights

Lantern Lights is technically posted [here] under “all the light we cannot hold” BUT I have MORE. I wanted to make it longer when I originally posted it - mainly because Lea asked for angst - but I ended up running out of time (I am………so bad at deadlines, jfc). Plus, with all the things I wanted to include it honestly would’ve turned into something RIDICULOUSLY long and I was already pushing 5k when gifts were a minimum of 1k.

This was the original start / end bracketing.

START:

HiAce.

Hispencil hesitated above the empty page, only a single lead smudge marring theotherwise blank paper, and Sabo sighed softly. Eraser nub ticking against thedesk, he bit his lower lip and tried to think of what else to write. He had somuch to say – about Marco, and the Whitebeards, and about the new friends he’dslowly been making, like Koala and Hack and even the standoffish, arrogant Law,but it’d been so long since he sat down to write Ace a letter that the wordsseemed to have vanished.

Hi Ace, heread, as though the greeting would organise what he wanted to say intoneat lines for him to write. He heaved another sigh, resting his chin in hispalm. Casting his eyes up to the window above his desk he watched as theburning dusk faded into twilight blue and the stars began to shine, silverglints of light that were mirrored by the compound’s lanterns flaring to life.The gleamed against the darkness and Sabo couldn’t help but be reminded ofAce’s fire. How it glowed beneath his skin, lighting him bright red in fury orembarrassment or glorious gold in his joy. Sometimes Sabo couldn’t help butwish – but hope – that Ace was still burning, somewhere out there. In the sky,with the stars-

Hecouldn’t help but selfishly hope that Ace had given part of his fire to Sabo’sheart, to burn within him.

Sabogrowled, burying his face in his hands to try and stop the subtle sting formingin his eyes. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that so many simple things couldremind him of Ace, that undeniable frustration at his uselessness still restedheavy in his every thought, that the feelings he wanted to put to paper wereimpossible to articulate.

Thesharp tip of his pencil cracked as he pressed it into the paper, and the threewords he wrote turned from his usual neat cursive into a jagged scrawl.

I miss you.

END:

-Marco thinks that ouranniversary is the battle, but I don’t like it there. Besides, having ouranniversary on your birthday? You’d expect double gifts, and we can’t havethat.

Sabo’slips quirked into a bitter smile, his eyes drawn up to the small gift stillwrapped on his desk, bow deflated from his constant touches but nonethelessstill stubbornly holding onto the silver wrapping. He’d never had a chance togive Ace his birthday gift, and was sure that Ace wouldn’t have expected it.Would he have even been given gifts, when he’d been kept on the candle wick? Orwould the gift have been an extra moment of freedom, so painfully perfect in its rarity?

Pullinghis hair away from his face, Sabo gently bit his lip and scanned what he’dalready written, trying to figure out what else to say. His fringe curled infront of his eyes when he took up his pen again, but he barely paid attentionto the soft brush of hair against his scar tissue. Two years of having them hadgotten him used to his limited vision and things in front of his face that hecouldn’t see. 

He’d never seen Ace’sflustered thoughts, nor known what each fleeting touch had meant until it had beenfar too late, and couldn’t help but wonder just how blind he’d been back then.

Did I tell you thatMarco finally stopped being chickenshit and used the word ‘boyfriend’? I feellike that counts more as our anniversary than the battle, especially consideringI wasn’t much better about speaking up about “feelings” after you left. Twomonths of not talking over the topic because one third of the topic up and-

It’s pretty stupid ofus, huh?

I mean, you werepretty fucking stupid when you-

Sabocrossed out the last few words with two strokes of thick black ink, his teethgrit in a way that made his head pound.

Regardless, everythingis going fine, now. I’m sure you’d be happy to know that Marco and I havegotten past awkwardly refusing to admit to holding hands and have nowprogressed to awkwardly kissing each other on the cheek (and then refusing toadmit to it, of course. Got to keep consistency). You’d think that as someoneso attention-starved I’d be better at this, but it always feels…not wrong, persay, but, like something is missing because you’re not here.

You’re a dick forthat, Ace.

Anyway, this will bemy last letter for a while. I’m sorry it’s short, but I’m already running late;Koala and I are set to sail with the afternoon tide, for Flevance, and Marco isgoing troll hunting. Whitebeard heard there was trouble with the gnomes in thefar north mountains, so he’s going to check them out and I want to say goodbyebefore we part ways.

As always;

With love, Sabo.

[authenticaussie]

Ahhhh, so I was told that you like Marvel stuff and that I was supposed to send you my Marvel AU asks. This is the only one that I can actually ever remember sending anyone, but M/S/A Marvel AU where those three are effectively Coulson, Clint and Natasha. Also Lunarshores said you like my stuff and I honestly cannot even cause I'm just like meep. Anyways, I hope you have an awesome rest of your day cause you deserve to! Also have fun with that thought. Also, what are your thoughts on Budapest?

Commissions! || Ko-fi! 

Welcome too: this ask is literally so old that it existed before we Became Friends. 

ANYWAY FUN TIME HEADCANONS BELOW THE CUT BC I CAN’T THINK OF FIC.

Sabo as the Coulson equivalent (SHIELD spy) and Ace as Widow and Marco is Hawkeye

Marco grew up in the Whitebeard circus and they were super close and really good and supported each other and were a b i t out there, just like performing people are wont to be, but they also….lived a good hundred years ago.

And Marco….just kept living. As his family started dying around him, as the years passed and he just stayed-

Marco can get hurt and has the scars to prove it, but he….he can’t die by anything like old age or sickness, and so he just keeps living. Keeps living as the circus starts to wither into obscurity, keeps living as the last traces of his family vanish like pieces of sand, keeps living and gaining skills and getting stronger and smarter but he can’t ever forget the feeling of watching his family die.  

He was a freelance head hunter/bounty hunter before SHIELD picked him up, and was bored and didn’t know what else to do, so just sighed and agreed to join them. They have a better pay rate, at least, and the healthcare is a nice bonus 

Sabo and Ace used to know each other as kids!! 

But Sabo forgot ;n; Sabo vanished and then Ace was found sneaking out of the facility that was training him and kept under better security. But one of Ace’s missions takes him to Luffy and he doesn’t look back. Grabs the kid he used to call brother and runs. 

And Sabo was the one who brought in Marco and got sent to tail Ace and see if they could convince him to join, because they were close in age, and Ace had killed almost everyone else who’d come after him and Luffy, but then this was Sabo, and he-

He hesitates (he’s never hesitated, before, in his line of work you can’t but this was-)

Ace being so cautious and quiet at first bc they bought in him and Luffy and Ace was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, for them to threaten Luffy to make Ace do something, but that just-

it doesn’t happen. 

It ends up making him Really Jumpy and Fidgety all the time until Marco starts Super Casually refusing orders and giving Ace outs and the ability to choose without any sort of punishments threatening him and letting Ace adjust to SHIELD at his own rate. 

Sabo has retrograde amnesia, and everything close to the explosion the red room (Ace’s institute) organised to kill him is basically gone, but he does have a few scattered memories of Luffy and some bits of Ace that are super blurred. They come back a bit, but that’s mainly because Luffy + Ace fill in the parts he’s missing

Sabo talks Ace through a lot of missions and Marco gets jealous (and denies it ofc, he doesn’t get jealous he’s an adult)

And he ends up casually bringing it up in conversation with Sabo and Sabo gets really startled because he didn’t think anyone had noticed, and then goes really quiet

“Ace- never had anyone on the comms. When he did- missions, before- no-one was there, helping him. I dunno, I guess I just- I just want him to know I’m there. That I won’t leave him to do it alone.”

And everyone thinks sabo will do a bad job because he’s so young, right? But he’s so tactical, he fights so hard to learn because he won’t ever let anyone else die under his command, he won’t let them get hurt, he’s lost people before because he was overconfident and arrogant and rude and he just wants to prove himself!!!

ALSO LOOK I KNOW IT’S A WEIRD SHIP BUT COBY IS CAPTAIN AMERICA AND I WAS THINKING ABOUT SABO AS COULSON WITH HIS Big Gay Crush AND IT’S KIND OF SUPER FUCKING ADORABLE WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT BECAUSE COBY IS JUST SO NOBLE AND HEROIC AND KIND AND SABO’S IN THE BACKGROUND LIKE DYING AND ALSO LIKE “ACE, MARCO, IF YOU TRY AND SET ME UP WITH HIM ONE MORE TIME I AM GOING TO KILL YOU BOTH. I DON’T CARE HOW HIGHLY TRAINED YOU ARE, I’M GOING TO SLAUGHTER YOU.”

But Sab!!!!!!!! Also gets SUPER FUCKING FLUSTERED around Coby, because Coby was basically the original fucking revolutionary 

Basically it’s a Good Fucking Time okay ;u;

(P.S everyone Totally Flirts With Coby because he gets flustered super easily and is like 100% the stereotypes of Dorky Captain America ;u;)

Ace Totally huffs about it and fidgets a lot and is baaaaaaaasically a little envious of all the attention Sabo gives Coby by accident, but they eventually get over that when they’re dealing w/ Ace’s issues w/ self-confidence and it basically turns into the biggest running joke, and !!! Ace befriends Coby because COBY IS SO USELESS AROUND LUFFY!!!! AND ACE THINKS IT’S HILARIOUS!!! BECAUSE LUFFY IS OBLIVIOUS AS FUCK!!! 

MARCO GETS CONTROLLED BY LOKI

and his one rule, his one stipend to working with SHIELD is that he will never ever shoot someone with his bow and he requests missions where killing is avoided at all costs or if unavoidable than only against those of the worst calibre/situations of extreme danger, and Loki makes him break that

Robin (Director Fury) questions Marco’s loyalty for a moment when Marco turns on them and Sabo grabs the table so hard that it almost breaks in his hands and Ace doesn’t even say a word, just leaves. Koala has to quietly explain to her about Marco’s code, and how he’d never do this unless influenced by something else. 

Ace who loves the fact that Marco chose that. Marco chose to never kill, and SHIELD respects that, and Ace knows he doesn’t ever have to be forced to kill - to hurt - ever again. 

Ace talking to Loki to try and find out his plan / where Marco is and Loki only smiles and promises that Ace will find out where Marco is when Marco shoots him through the throat-

And Ace can’t help the fraction of a second where fear almost overwhelms him, because that-

That’s one of his greatest fears. 

That Marco is going to realise how awful Ace is, and  get rid of him. Clear out the mistake he made. 

Ace hiding the fear he feels because he’s been trained and he knows how to do this, he has to figure out what Loki’s plan (he has to save Marco. He has to prove that he was worth it)

ACE LOVING MARCO SO MUCH BUT REFUSING TO SAY IT????? NOT EVEN REALLY REALISING WHAT HE FEELS IS LOVE BUT KNOWING HE’D LAY DOWN EVERYTHING FOR MARCO, IF MARCO NEEDED IT. IF MARCO ASKED IT OF HIM.

When they’re fighting, when Marco’s still under Loki’s control, Marco just whispers so carefully, so pleadingly, for Ace to stop and he almost does because this is Marco-

And then the to-vibrant blue of Marco’s usually dark eyes gives him away and Ace knocks him out and has to swallow the nausea that caused him

(And least Marco will be okay, he thinks, but can’t drive away the thought of Marco’s pleading expression, Marco begging him to stop)

Ace refusing to say that he loves either Sabo or Marco because he’s just- 

He doesn’t think he is in love with them, Love is bright and vibrant and fluttery, messy, nervous feelings, he just feels-

Comfortable. Around them he just feels comfortable 

(That’s not love, right? That’s not-)

and look okay you know what isn’t a good time???

Sabo dying

(or, at least, mar+ace thinking he’s dead ala Coulson)

Ace regretting that he’d never told Sabo how important he was, never telling Sabo how much he meant, and when they get a spare moment he pulls Marco aside and tells Marco that he loves the fuck out of him and Marco’s his best friend and he’d basically do anything??? for Marco???

And it helps Marco as well because he’s suffering some serious trauma from being forced to fucking kill people when he didn’t want to, from being forced to kill innocent men and women who were trying to protect others, from having to fight and manipulate Ace……

whispers marco and ace not. doing anything abt ace’s confession, tho. it’s there, and they both know it, but Marco wants to get better first, and Ace wants time to mourn the fact that for the second time in his life he’s lost his best friend.

And theyre toooootally not dating

even though they move all of marco’s stuff into ace’s room. and have date nights. and marco presses kisses to ace’s forehead whenever ace leans on him (which is often). and ace curls up into marco’s side when they’re sitting on the couch. and they defs don’t hold hands, or press quick kisses to each other’s cheeks just before one of them has to leave on a mission without the other

Totally not dating.

Totally

Not

Dating

And then just when they think everything is going back to normal, when there’s been two years of dealing with grief and pain and growing closer and supporting each other even more intimately than before-

Ace thinks he sees Sabo. For a fraction of a second, on one of their missions, and he barely believes that it is him-

But there’s a moment of surprise and regret on the stranger’s face, and Ace knows it’s him.

SHIELD fixed Sabo with some of Captain America/Coby’s blood and he’s alive but he’s different now. He’s stronger and faster and he just-

notices things. 

Notices how Marco’s fingertips linger on Ace’s hand but Ace doesn’t act like anything is out of the ordinary. Notices how Marco looks like he’s about to kiss Ace before a mission but aborts it at the last second and hides his promise to return in the crook of Ace’s neck. 

Sabo who goes on solo missions because no-one thinks he’s alive and he’s highly-trained and now he’s got super soldier serum in his veins…But he’s there the moment they need him but he’s unable to look at marco and ace 

Looking at how close they are and just realising what he’s missed. Quietly letting them he supported them and cared about them and was sorry in as many ways as he could - through cards, through care, through always having their backs, through trying constantly to protect them, because he could now, in real life instead of just directing them while he sat behind a computer screen. 

(#tfw you can’t figure out who is who in a marvel au bc all the charas are assholes/morally grey)

Carrot is Thor!!!! and Detective Fury is Robin and Maria Hill is Koala

Ace gets confused by language metaphors sometimes!!! But he won’t say it because he hates being seen as weak, or that anything needs to be explained to him. He has to be perfect and in control and mysterious all the time, no-one can know that puns confuse him. 

(Sabo+Marco totally figure it out and always casually explain the joke/idiom so that Ace isn’t left out of the loop, and even when he figures out they’re doing it he can’t ask them to stop.)

They both know how much he hates feeling/looking weak or stupid, and they do!!! everything they can to make sure he doesn’t feel like that,,,,,,,,,,