Marco gave Ace a withering look and brushed the hands off his shirt. He want to leak outrage too, just lose it on something, about how damn unfair it was to lose half of his world so quickly and to just have it twisted like this. "Let go Ace," Marco stared him down coolly. "Because apparently you don't know me. You don't remember me even though I've spent years with you. I know about your Mom, your Grandfather, and--" No, damn it. Ace was already freaked out.

"And the last thing I meant to do was hurt you." Marco grit his teeth and lit a cigarette with a blue flicker of flame off his forearms. "Look kid, I can tell you all about how I know you and why, and I doubt you'll even start to believe it all. If you want to call a momentary... truce..." he frowned around the words. Ace wasn't just a best friend, he was a nakama, he was someone Marco would die for, he shouldn't even need to ask for a truce. "We can talk. This whole... Time Compression thing, right? Maybe I'm from the wrong world. Or time. Or something. In mine? I knew you. You were a friend. And I guess to you, I'm just a pirate, right?" Just a pirate? Since when was Marco just anything? This was worse than if Ace was 17. It was confusing and frustrating and Marco took a deep breath. First things first, he needed to find a way to stop scaring Ace without giving up on him either.