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chenziee · 2 years ago

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Drastic measures

@lawluevents - Day 7: Free day @onepiece-bingo: Fake/Pretend relationship (+ free space because free day so it checks out okay)

Alternate summary: long time no outsider POV

[ Read on AO3 | series ]

—————

When Yamato took a step off of Onigashima’s soil for the first time in twenty years, his heart was beating a mile per second. He was just so excited! Excited for adventure, friendship, and seeing the world. He didn’t even care about the disdain the people of Wano might treat him with considering his lineage—after all, he had Oden’s spirit within him, as well as the help from Luffy and his crew, Momonosuke and the Akazaya samurai, Hiyori, Tama, and all the samurai from the allied forces. People who knew him and accepted him.

He had all this support and connections already, he was prepared for the threats, fearful eyes, and distrustful body language. That was all within expectation and nothing Yamato couldn’t deal with.

What he wasn’t prepared for, however, was the heart-eyes, awkward propositions, and weird stares.

To be perfectly honest, he didn’t notice any of it himself at first but once Robin teased him about all his apparent ‘suitors’, it became impossible not to recognise the strange vibes his observation haki was sending him. And soon, it became pretty damn annoying.

At first, Yamato tried to ignore it, then he tried turning people down, he even tried running away! But unfortunately, his height made it impossible to hide even in the crowds of the celebratory, post-battle festival.

Drastic measures had to be taken.

“Someone, please, pretend to be my boyfriend or girlfriend!!” Yamato begged, going so far as to bow to the group of pirates he now called his friends.

A beat of silence passed, only interrupted by Luffy slurping up his soba noodles.

“Sure why not?” Nami agreed then and a wide, happy smile pulled on Yamato’s face as he looked up—only to freeze at the cold, calculating stare Nami was giving him. “I charge by the hour. I do accept payment in treasure but you are the one paying the exchange fee.”

“Stop that!” Usopp snapped, slapping Nami’s shoulder lightly… only to get hit right back.

Yamato made a mental note to never ask Nami for any favours unless he had substantial monetary back up. It didn’t seem like she offered a friends-and-family discounts…

“Sorry, Yamato,” Sanji said, not even looking up from where he was chopping up vegetables inside his Special Soba stall. “I’d do it but my hands are full.”

“You just want to fawn over the girls that flock around here. Seconds.” Zoro snorted before he held out his empty soba bowl expectantly.

“What did you say, Marimo?!” Sanji snapped, baring his teeth—yet he still grabbed Zoro’s bowl immediately, refilling it up carefully.

Giving up on that front as the two continued to bicker, Yamato’s eyes turned pleadingly to the remaining two of the group. However, before he could so much as open his mouth, Trafalgar Law interrupted him.

“You couldn’t pay me enough,” he declared flatly; asshole looked Yamato dead in the eyes when he said it too.

“Torao, are you gonna finish that?” Luffy asked, leaning over Law’s shoulder with a hungry look in his eyes as he stared at the bowl in Law’s lap, to which Law wordlessly handed his soba over with something of a small smile on his lips.

Yamato clicked his tongue, an unhappy frown making its way to his face. Why did none of these people even bother thinking about it for a second? Hell, half of them didn’t even seem like they heard him begging. But he was desperate here! Maybe he should go ask Robin—no wait, she was on a date with Franky. Jinbe? He would probably feel like he was being put on the spot…

It wasn’t like he could go ask Hiyori when she was performing either!

Argh, where was Kiku when you needed her?! He was sure she would agree to help him…

With a sigh, Yamato threw his hands up in the air before he turned around, ready to leave and beg someone else—or come up with another plan. It couldn’t be so hard to pretend he’s a child or something right?

“Yamao! Wait, I’m coming with you!”

Yamato perked up at Luffy’s call, a gasp escaping him as a wide smile spread on his lips and he whipped his head around, looking at Luffy with hope.

“Just give me a second!” Luffy added, quickly raising Law’s bowl to his lips and gulping down what broth remained inside before handing it back to its owner with a bright grin and thanks.

Law only rolled his eyes but Yamato couldn’t help but notice the small smile was still there when he responded with a simple, “Yeah, yeah.”.

Somehow… Yamato felt like that was an expression that he had only ever seen Law wear when looking at Luffy. But what did he know? Maybe it was just a coincidence—after all, Yamato barely knew the man; he spent way more time with the Straw Hats and the Kozuki clan while waiting for Luffy and Zoro to wake up than any of the other pirates.

Deciding not to dwell on it, Yamato simply grinned when Luffy jumped up from his chair, taking off before Luffy could get ahead.

“Let’s go!!”

—————

Yamato didn’t remember the last time he had this much fun. Honestly… probably never.

He had amazing fun with Ace four years ago, but drinking and sharing stories by a bonfire was a much different kind of fun to watching Luffy break three fish scoops in a row before giving up and trying to grab the fish with his bare hands. Which didn’t even work, by the way, not to mention the both of them got a life-time ban on goldfish scooping for ‘traumatising the goldfish’, whatever that meant.

Yamato didn’t remember the last time he ate this much food either; after years and years and years of surviving on leftovers and stolen scraps, it was almost overwhelming having this much of a choice! But with Luffy next to him, well… he didn’t have time to think about that. Not unless he wanted there to be nothing left for him.

“What’s up with your body?!” Yamato asked with a laugh, watching Luffy’s giant stomach deflate at an unbelievable pace as his body digested the insane amount of food he had eaten in the past hour.

The two of them were taking a break on the sidelines along with Chopper, whom they met twenty minutes before at the cotton candy stand. The festival was still going strong, laughter and music present in all corners of the Flower Capital while people celebrated—celebrated the freedom that came with the fall of Orochi’s long rule, celebrated the first dawn in twenty years.

Yamato understood; he shared their feelings, their happiness, relief, and excitement.

He almost felt like he was bursting with it. And with the food in his stomach.

“Why does everyone always say that? Everyone eats and then digests,” Luffy said with a pout. “Torao even said he’ll experiment on me one of these days!”

“Your metabolism is not normal, Luffy! I told you this! Multiple times!” Chopper snapped, before he sighed, his head dropping back to the ground where it was before. “Ah, I can’t even get mad. I’m so full.”

Easy laughter bubbled out of Yamato’s chest. “I love you guys!” Yamato announced, earning himself two blank, perfectly confused looks.

“Eh?” Chopper barely let out.

“Yeah, what brought that on?” Luffy asked with a frown on his face.

Yamato grinned at them, shaking his head. “Nothing, I just wanted to say it. I’ve been having so much fun. Thanks.”

“You—you saying that won’t make me happy!” Chopped cried, waving his hands in front of himself awkwardly as if he could physically push Yamato’s words away.

Luffy, on the other hand, only laughed back. “No problem. Man, I didn’t know dates were so much fun! I need to take Torao on one.”

Yamato blinked. “Wait what?”

Now it was Luffy’s turn to blink. He turned his head to the side, staring up at Yamato with those big, innocent eyes that clearly said that he had absolutely no clue what the fuck Yamato was confused about. “Huh?” he only hummed questioningly.

“Luffy, are you dating Trafalgar Law?!” Yamato asked accusingly.

“Well yeah!” Luffy snorted, soon laughing outright and Yamato wasn’t sure whether he was laughing at him for not realising, or if he was laughing just because he was happy. “He is my soulmate, you know.”

“He’s your what?!”

Tilting their heads to the side, Luffy and Chopper exchanged a glance before they simultaneously looked back at Yamato. “You didn’t know?” they asked at the same time.

“No! I—” Yamato started talking but then he stopped.

Suddenly, he remembered the strange, soft look of Law’s that seemed to only be reserved for Luffy. He remembered the way Luffy would wordlessly steal all Law’s bread off his plate without the other pirate even blinking or protesting. He remembered the way Law let Luffy hang onto him or do things that only his bear seemed to be able to get away with.

And he remembered the two of them shared a room in the Shogun’s castle during their stay.

…no, Yamato wasn’t suddenly feeling incredibly slow and stupid. Nope. Not at all.

Never.

“Wait, you agreed to go on a date with me while your soulmate was right there?!” Yamato cried in alarm, looking around in panic as if a jealous lover might appear right behind him with sword unsheathed and ready to take his head like some vengeful spirit.

Luffy, however, only laughed. “Eh, if Torao minded, he would have said so.”

Yamato wasn’t convinced… but he decided that was a problem for later.

Now, Luffy was already getting to his feet, offering Yamato a hand to help him stand up as well, and a grin spread on Yamato’s lips.

What festival game would they get banned from next?

He couldn’t wait to find out.

—————

“Torao, you sure you’re okay with this?” Usopp asked uncertainly, watching as the two menaces ran past them with Chopper in tow, all three of them laughing like idiots while they ran away from some poor stall owner who was shouting profanities at them.

Usopp wasn’t sure he wanted to know what that was about.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Torao asked back, raising an eyebrow.

“Because,” Usopp said slowly, gesturing vaguely with his hands, “your soulmate agreed to be someone else’s boyfriend.”

If at all possible, Law’s eyebrows shot up even higher. He stared at Usopp blankly for so long that Usopp was starting to feel kind of uncomfortable until he finally turned away, only to then stare pointedly at where Luffy and Yamato were now physically fighting over the last candied apple at the next stall—the very apple that Chopper happily got for himself while the two of them were busy literally biting each other.

“Is that really something I should be worried about?” There was something between disgust, resignation, and amusement in his voice as he said that and Usopp honestly couldn’t say anything to antagonise him.

Because Torao was right; that was the least date-like date that he ever had the misfortune to witness.

But, if nothing else, Usopp was sure it worked for the purpose Yamato had intended at least; it definitely didn’t convince anyone that he was taken, but it was sure as hell working on making even Usopp not want to come anywhere close to where Straw Hat Luffy and Son of Kaido were hard at work at destroying public and private property alike.

If this was what sailing with Yamato was going to be like…

Usopp really worried for the Sunny’s safety.

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trianglegoddess · 7 months ago

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Feral McGee™

It starts with the Joker.

His goons picked up Tim Drake. Not specifically because it was Tim Drake, he just so happened to be in the Joker’s neighborhood, and we'll, he can't pass up that opportunity now can he?

Except Tim Drake is watching, along with the rest of Gotham, at the Batcomputer. He’s nursing a broken foot and has been put on monitor duty until he's cleared for field work again.

The guy looks enough like him, though. Black hair, blue eyes, and bags under his eyes for days. He's also got the same lean sort of build like he does.

It happens like this.

The Joker is doing his monologue thing where he explains whatever twisted game he's come up with this time. He takes up the majority of the screen, so nobody can see Not-Tim behind him, not until the big reveal. Then he covers the screen again, getting up close and personal, before stepping back. In those quick few seconds, Not-Tim is no longer sitting there tied to the chair.

Someone off camera lets the Joker know, and he whirls around, confused as the rest of Gotham.

And then Not-Tim comes in with the steel chair.

Or, well, a crowbar, but the reference holds up.

He takes out one of Joker’s knees before punching him in the face. The Joker drops like a bag of stones, out cold.

Then he looks towards the camera.

“Hey there. I'm not really sure where I am, but also if he was after Tim Drake, he got the wrong guy. I'm not him, I'm just some dude. Anyway, I'll just-yep-” he carefully steps over the unconscious Joker, gives the camera a little wave, and then leaves.

Batman and Nightwing enter shortly after, with the Joker and his goons out cold and tied up. The knots were complicated enough where, in the end, the police resorted to cutting the ties off of them so they could be properly cuffed and taken to Arkham.

“A constrictor knot,” Batman tells Nightwing as they watch the villain be taken away. “Often used by sailors to temporarily tie things together to keep something in a bag, or to hold something to glue it back together.”

“Huh,” Nightwing says, scratching the back of his head. “Go figure.”

—

The next time it happens, it’s the Riddler.

He’s laughing, giving his riddles to the Bats and recording himself to all of Gotham while his victim, one of the Wayne brats, hangs over a vat of something. From a distance, he looks like Tim Drake, or maybe a lankier Dick Grayson. And he’s not the only victim, they’re all scattered across the city, but he thought an important figure such as a Wayne should be under the Riddler’s direct supervision while he enacts his schemes.

While the Riddler cackles and plots and waves his cane around, in the background all of Gotham can see the figure escape. Several Gothamites recognize him as the kid from before, who clocked the Joker. They all watch with bated breath as he sort of wiggles his way out of the ropes holding him up. Once he’s free, he climbs the rope and gets himself down safely.

Gotham holds their breath as the kid casually walks up to the Riddler, who’s mid-rant. He politely taps him on the shoulder, and as the Riddler is turning around, the kid clocks him just as brutally as he had the Joker. He’s down with one punch.

They think he’s going to say another sort of awkward goodbye, but instead he pats the Riddler down until he finds a piece of paper tucked into the inside pocket of his jacket.

“Right,” the kid says, looking at the list. There’s a lot more static overlay now, and several wonder if it’s damage to the cameras. “Uh, the Clocktower, the Docks, and-” he squints at the page for a moment-”Mama Nacaroni’s? What the fuck is that? Anyway, uh. See you later, I guess. Oh! And we’re at the Gotham Arena. Have fun with him, I guess.”

The kid tosses the paper off to the side before the camera cuts to black.

Just like last time, everyone is out cold and tied up. The Riddler himself is sporting a pretty bad shiner, but well deserved nonetheless.

“Stop it,” Red Hood tells him. Batman just looks at him, and though Hood can’t see the top half of his face, he can tell that his eyebrow is raised. “You know exactly what I mean, B. Put the adoption papers away.”

“Hn.”

—

After that, it sorta becomes a game. The rogues of Gotham are no longer after a Wayne, or after anybody who holds any kind of social status like usual. They’re all going after this one kid, all determined to be the one to hold him. And each one is televised.

Mr. Freeze freezes him in a block of ice, but due to the cameras glitching out, nobody can really see how he got free. They do, however, see the kid suplex Mr. Freeze. It should seem impossible, given his lanky figure, but he evidently has more muscle than he’s originally let on.

Two-Face gets a hold of him, using chains and some power-dampening cuffs just on the off-chance that he’s a meta. They all watch as the kid leans down, pulls a bobby pin out of his hair, and picks the locks on his cuffs. One punch, and Two-Face is down.

Gothamites are going wild for the kid. They’ve dubbed him Feral McGee™ (an online poll, of course), because every time he goes in for the punch he gets this feral look in his eyes. Also, just the fact that he casually goes up to these rogues and takes them out with all the casualness of doing something incredibly mundane? Incredible. The Gothamites are eating it up. However, despite the video evidence, nobody has been able to properly identify the kid. They know he has black hair and bright eyes, but any time he gets near a camera, it’s like there’s this weird, sort of warped quality the camera takes on. It doesn’t usually calm down until the fight is done-as one sided as they usually are-before he awkwardly skedaddles away.

He gets kidnapped by the Penguin, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy (though that was more just a friendly chat than anything), Mad Hatter, and the Riddler again.

And then the Joker escapes.

It’s no surprise as to who he’s going to go after.

Due to one too many careless goons, they manage to find their way to the Joker’s hideout pretty quickly. This time, it’s all Bats on deck, and they all hide away in the rafters as Feral McGee™ is hung over a vat of acid. His whole body is tied up, hardly a single inch of exposed skin to be seen except for the neck up.

They watch the goons, they watch the Joker, and they watch Feral McGee™.

The Joker is monologuing, practically begging the bats to come find him before the timer runs out. When it does, the kid gets dumped into the vat of acid.

Despite these stakes, the kid seems to be only mildly annoyed.

“Fuck this, I have homework I still need to finish,” they hear him say.

They all watch, amazed and confused, as the kid starts gnawing through the ropes. Human teeth shouldn’t be able to do that so easily, but one bit after the other, and soon enough the kid’s got himself freed enough to just climb up the rest of the rope. When he’s at the top of the crane holding him up, Batman lets down a rope and pulls the kid up and out of danger.

“Oh, cool, you’re all here,” the kid says casually, as if meeting the entire Bat Clan is just a normal Tuesday. And then he pulls out a notepad and pen and hands it to Red Hood.

“Can I get an autograph? You’re dope as fuck, dude.”

Red Hood has to look away and hide his face in his arms for a few moments to not give away their location with his laughter before signing. And then, one by one, the others do as well. They pass along the kid’s notebook with shit-eating grins and barely contained snickers despite the fact that the Joker is still right below them. Even Batman signs it, after his children don’t stop hounding him about it.

In their distraction, they didn’t see the kid sneak away. He’s far away from them now, nearly right over the Joker. Danny waits, though, until the Joker has turned around as the timer almost runs out. They watch as he snickers at Joker’s flabbergasted look. The Joker comically looks back and forth and under objects the kid obviously isn’t under. However, before he can do or say anything else, the kid drops from the rafters and right on top of the Joker. He crumples to the ground, unconscious. The kid, however, just brushes the dust off of himself. Despite the fall he took, there isn’t a scratch on him.

When the bats join him, they give his notepad back to him, barely able to contain their laughter at the absurdity of it all. The kid, too, joins in the camaraderie, laughing and joking along with them as Batman secures the Joker.

“Okay, okay, but I gotta ask, dude,” Red Hood says at one point, looking at the kid. “How do you keep getting kidnapped?”

The kid just shrugs. “I get distracted easily. And I’m sleep deprived, so you know. Social awareness is kind of at an all time low right now.”

“Why are you sleep deprived?” Nightwing asks, barely hidden concern in his voice.

“Finals are kinda kicking my ass right now. Especially this dumb English homework I have. You guys wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

“Oh, lucky for you,” Red Hood says, wrapping an arm around the kid’s shoulders as he walks them out of the warehouse, “I happen to know a lot about English. So, it is Shakespeare?”

“Yeah, Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

As they walk off, Batman calmly watches, though the rest of the bats can see his jaw twitching. Nightwing comes up behind him, clapping a hand on his shoulder.

“If you don’t adopt him, I will.”

“Hn.”

#danny phantom #danny fenton #batman #bruce wayne #dc #batclan #batfam #joker #danny is a feral human #dp x dc #dc x dp

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