ice skater/ice hockey player au for portada (maybe)?
HELL YESSS I love the way your mind works, anon!
Hockey Player!Ace x Figure Skater!Yara
They both got into their sport because of their fathers. Gol D. Roger is an absolutely legendary hockey player and Mihawk is a multiple-award-winning world champion figure skater, who has won both in the men’s singles category and the ice dancing category alongside his partner Shimotsuki Akiko (Akiko herself was also a great figure skater but her career never gained the kind of international acclaim Mihawk’s did)
Ace uses his mother’s surname Portgas because he wants to make his own career without being tied to his father’s legacy. Rouge in this AU is alive and owns a nice little flower shop. Roger, now retired, helps her run it. (He gets a lot of “Hey, aren’t you--” to which he quickly cuts in “Ahaha I have no idea what you’re talking about :) I am just a humble flower merchant!”)
Ace started out on the same team as his sworn brothers Sabo and Luffy, but was drafted onto the Whitebeards, coached by Edward Newgate, a legendary player and old rival of Roger’s who had his eye on Ace ever since Ace’s rookie years coming up through the junior leagues. Marco is the current captain.
Mihawk is now retired and is dedicated to training Yara. He and Akiko were married for a very brief period of time, but are now divorced. Despite this, they are on friendly terms and still make a good team when it comes to raising their daughter.
Yara (who still uses her birthname Dracule Yara in this AU) is quite popular, especially with people eager to see her continue her father’s legacy. She tends to receive a lot of gifts thrown onto the ice during every competition, and one of the things she always gets is a bouquet of hibiscus flowers. There is never any name attached to them but they’ve clearly been professionally-arranged and often come with a nice little typed-out note giving her really sweet compliments. They always make her heart melt a little bit every time she reads them and she really, really wants to know who is responsible (especially since hibiscus flowers are her favourite, which she vaguely recalls mentioning in an interview once at the start of her career before she gained any real fame).
Now for the Portada. Yara and Ace train at the same rink, but rarely interact at first. Ace often watches her work through her routines before his own practice. His brothers and teammates like to tease him about the massive crush he obviously has on her and have tried to goad him into approaching her, but he chickens out every time because he just gets so flustered. He can be so smooth and cool when it comes to talking to women at a meet-and-greet or publicity event but when it comes to Yara, he totally falls apart. He’s a world-famous super rookie, but his crush turns him into an awkward teenage boy again.
One day during training, Yara pushes herself a little too hard and over-rotates while trying to do a triple axel. She twists her ankle badly and has to go to the hospital. While there, she receives plenty of gifts and well-wishes from fans, as well as more hibiscus bouquets.
After the doctors clear her to return to the ice, Yara gets a little frustrated with herself as she is a bit out of practice and struggling to complete routines that once came to her so easily. Ace comes in early and sees her sitting in the middle of the rink, fighting back tears. All his shyness falls away as he skates over to her, offering her a hand and a shoulder to cry on as she admits that she feels like she’ll never skate like she used to again. Ace does his best to reassure her that she’ll be back to her old self in no time, and guides her through doing some basic warmups before he has to leave to attend his own practice, but not before promising her that he’ll come early every single day until she’s skating like she once did.
He makes good on his word and slowly helps her build her confidence back, skating with her and encouraging her when she starts to doubt herself. The two develop a friendship and bond over their time on the ice together, and occasionally even spend time together outside of the rink, too. (As friends do, when they want to be around each other while simultaneously fighting off their feelings for one another). When Yara wins her first competition since her injury, Ace congratulates her in person while Yara also receives another hibiscus bouquet with the most heartfelt, sweet note attached.
A month or so later, Yara decides to get Akiko some flowers for her birthday. She remembers Ace mentioning that his mom is a florist so she makes it a point to stop by Rouge’s shop. While there, she begins to notice something odd: there are hibiscus flowers everywhere, much like the ones in the anonymous bouquets she has been receiving for years now. She quickly puts two and two together and decides to confront Ace about it the next time she sees him at the rink.
Ace confesses that he’s been in love with Yara since the first moment he ever saw her skate, but he was too nervous to talk to her, hence why he felt he could only express his feelings through anonymous bouquets (when he wasn’t available, he would get Luffy or Sabo or even Rouge to throw them onto the ice on his behalf). Yara is stunned to know that this hotshot young rookie had been admiring her from afar all this time. She always thought Ace was cute, too, but his public persona was just so flirty and silly that she had no idea he was this serious about anyone, least of all her. Sheepishly, Ace asks her out, which Yara accepts. As one date turns into two, three, four, etc. they decide to keep their relationship private. Only their close friends and family know.
The Stanley Cup playoffs start for this year, and the Whitebeards make it all the way through to the final round. They are tied three games to three with their rival team, and the score has sat at 2-2 throughout the game when Ace scores the winning goal. He celebrates with his teammates for a second before skating over to Yara, dropping his helmet on the ice as he leans over the door to the ice and kisses her while the crowd goes wild. (Their moment of passion doesn’t end there, but continues in Ace’s hotel room all night long).
Word quickly spreads through social media that hockey star Portgas D. Ace is dating figure skating legend Dracule Yara. Two years later, when the Whitebeads win the Stanley Cup for the third year in a row, Ace ends the game by scoring the winning goal yet again, then skates over to Yara and gets down on one knee. A very shocked, but very delighted Yara says yes.
Ten years later, Ace and Yara are both retired, and proudly watch from the stands with the rest of their kids as their son Shiro wins his very first figure skating competition.
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