Chapter Text
“For the last time,” Bogard bit out, voice barely a whisper and hoarse from disuse. Impatience practically oozed from his pores. “I don’t know where he is.” The new fleet admiral really wasn’t all that sharp was he? Afterall, anyone with a pinch of sense knew where Bogards loyalties lied.
And it sure as hell wasn’t with Kizaru or whatever the lazy ex-admiral chose to call himself these days.
A vein pulsed in Kizaru’s forehead though the rest of his expression remained the same bored kind of calm. Pursing his lips the logia uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. Bogard resisted the urge to lean away from the man, and stared Kizaru down from under the brim of his wide hat.
They stayed like that for a while each waiting for the other to crack. Eventually Kizaru sighed, releasing a puff of breath into Bogard’s face before he sat back in his chair, crossing his arms to form a pillow behind his head.
“You may leave, but know this is not over.” Bogard almost laughed in Kizaru’s face, so they were graduating to official threats now? As if he didn’t notice the multitude of armed tails that followed him whenever he left one of these wretched meetings.
It had been a year and a half since his captain had run off with prisoner Gol D. Ace in tow. No one had heard hide nor hair of Garp since.
The Gol brat had shown his face once or twice since along with the rest of the Whitebeards, appearing and disappearing in just enough time to take out another one of the remaining Blackbeard pirates. Then he wouldn’t be spotted again until the next crew member fell.
That was none of Bogard’s concern though, Garp had never been seen with the kid, so he held no interest in him. It didn’t matter if he was the second coming of the pirate king or whatever the tabloids wrote these days. Portgas or Gol - it truly wasn’t his concern.
Sure, it was Garp’s family, but the kid was doing just fine on his own. He didn’t need to step in.
Bogard just needed to find his captain.
Giving a polite, if a bit condescending, smile to the Fleet Admiral, Bogard left the room ignoring the call of “We will catch him, Bogard. Just wait and see!” behind him.
Ha! Fat chance! Garp was twice the marine and twice the man then those navy fools could ever be.
He might have been loud and brash and just an overall fool sometimes, but the ex-Vice Admiral was Bogard’s loud, brash and foolish Captain.
Bogard would follow him to the ends of the earth, and if Garp for example didn’t want Bogard following him. If he ran off with some other marine hicks to save his grandson behind his back, and didn’t ever bother to inform Bogard of his plan.
(No, it didn’t matter that he was away from the base at the time - Bogard still would have come running.)
Well, Bogard would just have to chase him to the ends of the earth and serve the man whether he wanted it or not.
Such was the duty of a first mate.
Tugging his hat down to cover his eyes, Bogard took a round-about route through the Navy base. Once he had managed to ditch all of the nats that insisted on trying to accompany him, Bogard finally exited the base. He boarded whatever ship was about to depart in the direction he needed and focused on making himself useful.
The only ship, Navy or otherwise, he would ever serve on was Garp’s, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t required to help out in exchange for passage.
That didn’t matter now, Bogard had a plan and a lead. He would find Garp whether the man wanted to be found or not. Soon the two would reunite, Bogard just needed to meet his contact.
So, the man settled into bed that night and many nights after that biding his time until the ship reached its destination.
—-♠—-
When Bogard first met Garp, he wasn’t much of a man or much of a human at all.
CP-9 did that to a person.
He wasn’t Bogard, right hand man of a Vice Admiral or even Bogard, a valuable asset to one of the world’s leading intelligence agencies.
He was just another killing machine for the World Government and the Navy to utilize and then throw out once they were done with him. Bogard had known this, but just never cared.
As long as he was useful - doing something, anything for the greater good - for at least a little while then his life was worth something.
Monkey D. Garp disagreed because of course he did.
One day so long ago on an island that Bogard didn’t even remember the name of anymore, he had spotted the agent out of the corner of his eye, and turned from the conversation he had been having. Took one look at Bogard and smiled, holding out a bag of rice crackers he had offered him a snack.
“Do you want one?” Garp’s voice was distorted through a mouth already filled with food. “Senny always steals mine, so I don’t usually share. But you seem like you need it more.”
It had thrown Bogard off, of course it had. No one gave anything to him without the expectation of something in return. And rice crackers of all things?
Bogard couldn’t tell you how long he had stared at Garp, typically stoic expression replaced with incredulous eyes and slightly parted mouth. It had felt like hours they stood there, Garp with his bag of rice crackers outstretched and Bogard looking at him like he’d grown a second head.
Which had allowed for the man Garp was conversing with- his son the Revolutionary, Monkey D. Dragon and the man Bogard was sent to kill - to flee. Because no one ever offered Bogard anything without the expectation of something in return. Unless it was a trick.
Emotions were not something Bogard had experience with, sure he knew how to tell when someone was lying or how to poke around and find someone’s biggest weakness.
But real emotions, his own emotions, weren’t something that he’d been taught to master. Bogard had only really felt two feelings Pre-Garp: anger and fear. And he had stomped out the latter long before he’d ever met the marine.
So, naturally, Bogard had gotten angry. Much to Garp’s annoyance, he’d slapped the bag from his hand and took off after Dragon.
But the leader of the revolutionaries was nowhere to be found and neither was Garp when Bogard returned to give the marine a piece of his mind.
That day Bogard would have been happy - not happy- happy but content enough - to never see Garp again. He would have grown up like he should have and joined CP-0 with the rest of his colleagues when the time was right.
Fate wasn’t that kind.
(Or perhaps she was.)
Garp continued to appear wherever he had a mission. Mission files were supposed to be confidential and to this day, Bogard had no idea how Garp continued to find him over and over again.
When Bogard was trailing a suspect, Garp would be trailing him. When he was in the middle of a fight, the marine would show up to block an attack that Bogard easily could have blocked himself. When the agent loitered around bars collecting information, Garp would disrupt by being the life of the party.
Everywhere Bogard was, Garp was too.
At first, the agent suspected that Garp thought he was weak, that he couldn’t handle his missions himself. But if that were true where did the rice crackers come in?
After every blocked attack and foiled assassination Garp would hold out a bag of rice crackers and offer him one. It wasn’t until a year and a half into this arrangement did Bogard take a snack from Garp.
Bogard wasn’t sure why he finally caved, maybe he had thought that Garp would finally leave him alone if he took one. Needless to say, that wasn’t the case. If anything it only encouraged the marine.
Bogard quickly learned that Garp loved to share stories. The man talked incessantly about everything that came to mind. Most of them featured his best friend ‘Senny’ or his grandsons Ace, Sabo, and Luffy. Occasionally he talked of big names like Roger or Whitebeard - who he affectionately called Eddie, much to Bogard’s amusement.
The agent had no stories to share of his own, at least not whimsical ones like Garp shared. Not that he would have told them anyway. Bogard didn’t like to talk, he could but there had never been any point to it - no one listened.
Still, he couldn’t help but want to share, so one night he planned out a story. It wasn’t an angry one, it was fearful; the story of one of his first training lessons with CP-9.
He had it all written out and everything, and read it to Garp at their next meeting. His voice was shaky and quiet from lack of use. The marine hadn’t laughed at his pitiful attempt, he had listened quietly the whole time. It was a nice feeling, being listened to.
But Bogard still didn’t love talking. The two came up with other ways of communication, they learned to read each other's expressions and memorized their quirks. Hand signals - not sign language (though they learned that too), but something akin and just for the two of them - and haki signatures worked just as well as any words could.
They’d stayed that way for many years meeting up during missions to share a laugh then going their separate ways.
Times changed; Roger died, the little boy Sabo stopped showing up in Garp’s stories, and eventually ‘Eddie’ did too.
Still, the friends - if Bogard could even call them that. How did friendship work anyway? Did he have to ask Garp to be friends or did it just happen? - stayed together.
Until Garp came to him with news and a smile on his face that shone like the sun. “Guess what?”
Bogard raised an eyebrow and offered a small, indulgent smile of his own. He shrugged, easily communicating ‘I don’t know, why don’t you just tell me?’
Garp pouted and whined as if he wasn’t a fully grown man. “You’re no fun…”
The amount of ‘fun’ Bogard was or wasn’t didn’t hinder Garp’s ability to tell his news, and soon the marine had recovered.
“I got a promotion! You are looking at the Navy’s newest Vice Admiral.” Garp’s puffed chest was a clear indicator of his glee at his new position. Bogard couldn’t help being a little apprehensive. Vice Admirals had a lot of extra duties - what if Garp didn’t have enough time to visit him?
Years ago it wouldn’t have mattered, but Bogard couldn’t help but feel that CP-9 would chip away the best parts of himself if Garp wasn’t there to keep him in check.
Garp knocked his shoulder against Bogard’s, “You okay? You spaced out there for a second.” Receiving a nod from his friend, the new Vice Admiral hummed to himself.
“Every great captain has a first mate…” Garp said, smile widening even further, he tilted his head towards Bogard in a silent offer.
What was Bogard supposed to say but yes?
—-♠—-
It was pouring the day that Bogard finally arrived at his destination. The island was renowned for its lovely flora and fauna, and all the buildings were sweet little cottages painted in lively colors to match the flowers - the type of place that authors modeled fairy tales after.
Today the flowers hung limp, flattened by the sheer amount of rain that pelted their petals. Bogard, much to his annoyance, was in a similar waterlogged state.
The marines - and sailors of any kind really - were a superstitious lot. So, of course, Bogard hadn’t been allowed to open his umbrella inside.
And a single step out of the hull was enough to soak him to the bone. The umbrella was useless now, but Bogard kept it for pretenses.
No one sane walked through a downpour without an umbrella, and Bogard needed to appear to be the most normal, sane person if this transaction was going to work.
Slushing his way through the slowly flooding streets, Bogard finally arrived at the disgustingly pink building that his contact had insisted on meeting him in.
Through the water that still dripped from the brim of his hat, Bogard could just make out the name: “The Cheery Rose.”
A stupid name for a bar or for any sort of business, but beggars can’t be choosers. Not that Bogard had needed to beg his contact for the meeting. Bogard had the man securely under his thumb for a number of years.
What can he say? It paid to be a former agent.
With a squeak that drew too much attention Bogard pushed the bar’s door open. Inside was just as pink and cheery as the outside - so maybe it was a fitting name afterall.
That didn’t mean Bogard liked it.
Curious but friendly eyes watched him as he stalked towards the bar counter leaving a slug trail of water behind him. Several groups of people call out to him, drunk enough to blatantly ask the wet stranger to join them.
Bogard felt thankful that not every bar on every island was as friendly as this. Else his old days of information gathering would have been much harder.
He offered a wave to the bartender, signaling him to come over, and sat down on the leather stool closest to the leftmost corner of the room.
The bartender didn’t come to greet him right away as per his training, and finished helping a few other customers. Never draw too much attention, and never acknowledge that you personally know an undercover agent.
Eventually, the bartender loitered over to Bogard - his hair still done in that ridiculous bull-horns style.
Unlike Bogard, Blueno hadn’t changed at all since the day they first met.
Bogard supposed he had a fancier title now. It wasn’t everyday that someone became the newest member of CP-0. Still, all he saw was the same mindless agent that Blueno had always been.
Part of him used to wish that the rest of his old colleagues had gotten out like he had. That they had their own Garp.
These sentiments ended the day that Garp came to him beaming with pride and shouting to the hills that his grandson had defeated Rob Lucci, the forefront of Bogard’s old CP-9 division.
If they thought it was okay to mess with Garp’s family then Bogard held no lost love for them.
His hands itched to sign an order to Blueno, but that wouldn’t do. To the uneducated or willfully ignorant eye sign language looked like some sort of code, and the whole point of meeting in this very pink bar was to avoid suspicion.
Scanning the menu Bogard ordered something random, croaking out his order. Blueno nodded like he had understood, but it was a 50-50 shot that Bogard’s quiet words had reached him. It didn’t matter either way, the drink itself wasn’t important.
Shortly Blueno returned some sort of fizzy cider in hand, decidedly not what he ordered, but a smart idea to conceal its nature. Slivers of an unrecognizable fruit bobbed up and down inside the glass.
He smiled at Blueno in thanks and a silent warning. This better be correct or there would be hell to pay.
If anyone knew the full extent of Bogard’s network - and what he had done (mostly in his Pre-Garp era) to get it - they would be horrified.
What could be so bad that it allowed him to hold a key member of Aigis Zero in his palm? The answer was fortunately for both Bogard and the daily person, not something that was easily available.
Bogard trusted that he still carried the same weight with Blueno, the man wouldn’t cross him.
So, he took a small sip of the drink. Its sweet flavor was quickly lost as Bogard bit and swallowed a sliver of fruit.
Only thanks to his years of discipline training in CP-9 did he resist the urge to gag as the taste of rot and decay flooded his mouth.
Huh, so devil fruits truly do taste as bad as they say. At least he knew that Bluneo hadn’t tricked him - unless of course he had put actual rotten fruit in his drink.
Bogard stood grabbing his drink, his business was done, but that didn’t mean he could leave. No one came to a bar to take only one sip of a drink after all.
So, Bogard mingled - pretending to find the various anecdotes his ‘fellow patrons’ told interesting. He lounged around a table laughing breathily at all the right times or scowling in mock offense when it was appropriate.
He was still silent, but he did pretend to be good company. Bogard didn’t care for idle chatter, at least not with them.
Biding his time he would wait, not for closing because he wasn’t nearly drunk enough or talkative enough to plausibly stay that long, but he would stay put for now. Smooshed around a table full of tipsy strangers until he had stayed long enough to justify his arrival. To blend in with the other patrons all taking a break from their adult lives.
And maybe Bogard did deserve a break from searching for his runaway captain, but he never wanted one.
Garp was his family, his friend, his home, and Bogard wouldn’t rest until he was by his side again.
—-♠—-
The shrike was a small bird, approximately the size of a robin. Its back was gray in color with a fluffy white stomach. Black markings around the wings, tail, and eyes painted the picture of a masked assailant - striking quickly at their prey then disappearing into the night. Though shrikes were not nocturnal.
Perhaps the most famous - or rather infamous - thing about the small, dare he say cute bird was its hunting method. The shrike dive-bombed its prey, picking the unfortunate animal up off the ground with its razor sharp beak.
Then the shrike would take its prey that was most often much bigger than itself to the nearest spiky object. Be it a fence or cactus the shrike proceeded to impale its prey, and then pick them apart - eating what they like over the course of a few days. The rest of the carcass is left on the spike, a silent warning for all those animals that dare to think themselves safe from the little menace of a bird.
In other words, it was perfect. The perfect zoan type for Bogard’s journey.
Sure, it was a bit small and Bogard would have to take more pit stops that he anticipated.
But it was exactly what he requested from Blueno: a flying zoan type that would allow Bogard to travel under the radar. He couldn’t risk giving his captain's - possible - location away.
Hauled up in a cozy motel room, Bogard the shrike hopped about on the window sill watching for the storm to clear. Upon arriving from his time in the bar, Bogard immediately tried out his new found powers.
It was an odd sensation to say the least.
He could feel his bones crunching and shifting as they shrunk in on themselves. He even felt it when each of his wing feathers grew from his arm bones and broke through what was left of his human skin, but it didn’t hurt.
It was simply strange. Strange and terribly time consuming, so Bogard practiced all through the night until his transformation took less time than blinking. He was nothing if not diligent.
In the hours he practiced, Bogard even learned to carry his belongings with him as he transformed. Who in their right mind would want to be naked and without any sort of supplies every time they transformed back and forth?
Plus, Bogard was quite fond of his sword. It was a gift from Garp from when he first started working for him. Sure, he would rather have the man himself, but that didn’t mean he wanted to ditch the weapon that had been with him for so long.
Continuing his little jumpy dance on the window sill, Bogard the shrike smiled as much as any bird or former-secret agent can smile when he saw the sun poking through the clouds.
Shifting back to human, the soon to be ex-marine adjusted his slightly crooked hat, and gathered his limited belongings. Food and water for the journey, and his sword took up the most space but space was of little importance when he took on his bird form.
With expertly quiet steps Bogard paid for his stay and departed, faking a leisurely pace away from the motel until he reached a mostly clear street. Ducking between a sky blue and a lemon yellow house, he took a breath in.
And when he breathed out Bogard was no-longer human, hovering in the air the shrike turned himself around checking his surroundings.
No one noticed the little gray shrike flit away from that same alley seconds later. Why would they?
It's just a bird.