Chapter Text
“You must be mistaken.” Marco drops a heavy hand on the noble’s shoulder. “Those are my little brothers.” Marco taps his chest, drawing the eyes of the pirates holding guns to the two dark haired boys to the tattoo on his chest. Their faces go very pale very fast.
“Have my little brothers been causing trouble? Terribly sorry. They like to run around.” He smiles but his eyes are on the pirates, cold and unblinking as he stares the pirates down. The noble sputters and snips. Marco tightens his grip on his shoulder until he squeaks and writhes to try and escape. Marco doesn’t let him, forcing him slowly to his knees. He keeps his eyes on the pirates, face as smooth and impassive as ever.
“So sorry. I can take them from here.” His eyes slowly slide to the guns still held to the heads of little boys. The pirates whip them away, hands rising and guns landing on the ground with clatters. Idiots. Thankfully, none of them go off.
“Sorry. We’re so sorry, we didn’t know. We— they’re not hurt. Uh, badly. We can leave. We’ll leave.” The pirate that Marco can only assume is the captain is quite literally shaking in his boots. He stumbles a step back and his men are quick to copy him. Marco looks to the boys and checks them over. The freckled one bristles and shifts in front of the smallest one so only a little corner of his scarred face shows as he peaks around his brother at Marco. The blonde scrambles over, eyeing Marco and shifting to briefly grip his brothers’ hands. What good brothers, he thinks. What the fuck were these assholes thinking, trying to separate them?
They’re a little scuffed up but nothing serious. Pops would probably take their heads off on principal but… eh. Pops can be over protective. They’re kids, getting scuffed up is basically their job. They could’ve gotten those bruises from being feral trash heap children. He draws his eyes back to the shaking pirates. He stares, letting them sweat a little longer, and then gives a tiny nod.
The pirates trip over themselves to run away. The noble squawks and shrieks for them to come back and do the job he paid them for. Marco leans down.
“And what job would that be?” he says into the man’s ear. The man jolts. “Th— that blonde brat is my son and it’s time for him to quit this rebellious nonsense and come home to do the job he was made for!”
The freckled boy snarls and shoves the blonde behind him. The smallest boy flings himself over the blonde’s shoulders, hanging off him and sticking his tongue out.
“Oh, I do not like you,” Marco mutters. “Hey, blondie, your opinion?”
The blond boy’s hands fist and he pushes to the front of the puppy huddle. “I won’t go back. I left that life behind years ago and they never once looked for me. I don’t care why they’re looking now. I have brothers now. I won’t leave them!”
Marco nods. “Alright.” He looks down at the noble “Fuck off then.” Marco stands straight, releasing the noble’s shoulder and sending him into the dirt. His top hat tumbles off and lands in something unidentifiable but certainly sticky.
“What? You can’t stop me from taking my son! He’s mine!” The noble scrambles upright, trying to fix his wreaked hair and slamming his hat back down on top of it. Marco doesn’t point out the unidentified something oozing down his hat.
“No.” Marco puts his hands in his pockets, idly watching the man work himself up into a proper snit.
“You have no right! Do you know who I am?”
“Don’t care. He doesn’t want to go with you. Besides, you don’t look a thing like him. Am I just supposed to take your word that he’s your son? Are you going to pinkie promise me he’s really your son?”
The man’s face goes a fun shade of red. “He takes after his mother!”
Marco makes a show of looking around. “Nah, don’t see her anywhere. Besides, didn’t you hear me? He’s my baby brother. And I look more like him so I think my claim stands more.” Marco reaches up to flick a blonde lock.
The man scoffs, his face beginning to turn purple with rage. “Oh? And the others? I seem to recall you calling them your brothers too!”
Marco smirks. “They take after their mother.”
The noble looks like he’s going to pop. “Enough of this nonsense! Sabo, get over here!” He has the gal to point at his feet like he’s calling a dog over. The blonde, presumably Sabo, spits at the noble and flips him off. His brothers copy him only the freckled one has better aim and a fat glop of spit lands on the noble’s coat. The noble starts forward. Before he can pass him Marco clamps his hand back down on his shoulder, digging his fingers in.
“I told you no.” He turns his face just enough to catch the noble’s eyes. The noble flinches but still he hasn’t learned his lesson.
“Get out of my way!”
Marco drops his lazy smile. “Are you going to fight me?”
“Wh—what?”
“Your status means nothing to me. You want him you’ll have to fight me. Do you think you’ll win?” Marco squeezes harder. The man trembles under his grip. “You think those pirates ran because they thought you could take me on your own?” He forces the man back a step. “You can’t. You’ll embarrass yourself trying, East Blue. Ask yourself if it’s really worth it.” Marco lets loose a thin thread of haki. Overkill for sure but, man, he really doesn’t like this guy. If this man is any real kind of father he’ll still fight Marco. But somehow Marco knows he’s not going to step up.
The man’s eyes flick between Marco and Sabo. He stumbles back. Marco lets him.
“Fine then!” the noble spits. “Clearly you’re beyond salvaging! Don’t you dare come crawling back when you grow sick of wallowing in the mud with the insects! Remember that you’ve made your choice. You’re no longer any son of mine!”
“I denounced you ages ago! You’re only repeating what I’ve said! I’d rather die drowning in the mud than go back with you!” Sabo stands firm with his brothers. Marco hangs back, staying out of the way. The noble throws his nose in the air and stomps away. Marco watches to make sure he doesn’t pull something stupid but he just keeps going until he vanishes around the corner.
Sighing, Marco turns back to the brothers as he considers the predicament he’s gotten himself into. Pops doesn’t have a lot of hard rules but taking responsibility for that which you have claimed is one of them. The brothers are huddled together, the older ones doing their best to hide the littlest one behind them even as they jostle to be the one in front of each other. Marco watches for a moment. He really hopes he’s not going to have to do this even if they really will fit in so well.
“So, any of you have a decent parent?” Please. Between the three of them there has to be at least one.
The littlest one pops his head over his brothers, scrambling up to flop over their heads. “Whats a parent?”
That… does not sound promising. “Like… a Mom or a Dad.”
“I don’t know what those are either.” His brothers try and fail to shove his head back down behind them.
“What did we say about talking to strangers?” says Sabo.
The little guy frowns. “But I don’t want to call the pineapple man a bitch and kick him in the balls, he’s nice.”
Marco buries his face in his hands and begins mourning his dignity in advance. His brothers are never going to let him live this down. Pops is never going to let him live this down.
Sabo’s head snaps over to the freckled boy.
Freckles scowls. “What? You want him getting snatched by some weirdo?”
Sabo throws his arms in the air “You know his aim is terrible! He’d probably miss!”
“I wouldn’t!” the littlest guy whines. Both his brothers ignore him.
“Well his aim isn’t going to get any better if he doesn’t practice!” Ace rolls his eyes and crosses his arms.
Marco can’t help but laugh a little. The boys startle and Sabo shoves his little brother back firmly behind him as Freckles glares him down. Two seconds later the littlest guy is poking his head back out and trying to wiggle free.
“Okay, okay,” Marco crouches down, bouncing on his heels and resting his hands on his knees. “So, I think I’ve caught one of your names but just to be safe my name is Marco, what’s yours?”
Sabo reaches up and pulls the top hat off his scruffy curls, bowing with perfect politeness. “My name is Sabo, nice to meet you. Thank you for your assistance earlier.”
“Don’t worry about it, kid, I hate assholes like that.” Marco glances over toward the other two. Freckles glares harder at him. The littlest guy successfully escapes his brother’s protective grip and darts forward. The older boys freeze. Marco very carefully doesn’t move a finger.
“My name is Luffy! How did you scare those pirates? I’ve never seen you around what are you doing here?”
Marco smiles, something much softer than anyone else has gotten today. “They saw my tattoo and realized I have a really powerful crew and a protective father so they didn’t want to mess with me. I’m visiting to try and find some plants to make some special medicine. I haven’t been in town for long so you wouldn’t have seen me.”
“You’re a pirate?” Luffy shrieks, bouncing with excitement.“Do you know Shanks? He’s super cool!”
“Uh. Yeah I’ve met him. Why, have you?”
“Yeah! I told him I’m gonna become the Pirate King so he gave me his hat!” Luffy lifts his hat from where it rests against his back and proudly shows off a very familiar straw hat.
…pardon?
“That’s, uh, that’s cool? Any more questions?”
“Why is your hair a pineapple?”
“It...uh… it just grows like that?”
“Cool!”
Freckles shakes his fear off and jumps forward to grab his baby brother and drag him back away from Marco. Or try to anyway. As he wrestles with his baby brother Marco rests his chin in his hand and asks “You got a name too, freckles?”
Freckles turns his attention to glaring at Marco, literally baring his teeth and growling. Marco blinks impassively. Sabo scurries forward to help with Luffy and not so subtly stomp on Freckles’ foot.
Freckles glares at Sabo. Sabo shakes his head a tiny bit, cutting his eyes to Marco and back to Freckles.
“Fine. It’s Ace. Thanks or whatever. Fuck off, please.”
“Nice to meet you, Ace.”
Ace flips him off. Ha. Spicy kid.
“So, do any of you three have some kind of adult that looks after you at home?”
“We live in a tree house in the jungle!” Luffy pipes up from the back, making another break for freedom.
“… Alone?”
Ace locks Luffy in a headlock and Sabo covers his mouth. “There are bandits nearby who look after us. And Gramps visits sometimes. But he usually just trains us and leaves.” Sabo says.
“Why? What are you so interested for?” Ace demands.
Fucking goddammit.
Marco sends a letter ahead with the first news coo he can find. Going to be late back. Not hurt. Shut up in advance.