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In Marco’s defense, if he’d known this would be an issue, he would have stepped in sooner.
Actually, in Marco’s defense, if he’d known his newest little brother was this goddamn stupid, this wouldn’t have been an issue in the first place, because he would have already had this apparently very needed conversation with Ace months ago.
Really, though, how the hell would Marco have known that his idiot baby brother genuinely believed that babies were born from fucking seeds?
____
Ace often felt relieved that his crew had never met him as a child. He can’t imagine that many people would look at who Ace once was— that spiteful, snarling thing that didn’t know the difference between smiling and baring its teeth. He would bite at the hand that fed him, and then go for the throat too. Ace doubts anyone would think he belonged anywhere except with the other creatures on Mt. Colubo. Most people knew better than to look a monster in the eye and call it family.
He hadn’t thought anyone other than his brothers would. Sabo, even now, was still the craziest person Ace had ever met. Sabo, who chose the Grey Terminal, chose the jungle, as if looking the jungle in the eye and calling it home, Ace home, was sane. Luffy was—well, he was Luffy. Reckless, crazy, so selfish he was selfless. Luffy, who knew who Ace was, knew the way that Ace’s hands were so stained in blood that it seeped into everything he was, and then looked at him and called him his big brother. Luffy with his too wide smile, big doe-eyes, and that childish naivety that shouldn’t have survived their childhood, that hadn’t in actuality because it could flip on a dime into sharpness, sagacity, and then bleed back out just as fast.
Ace was glad that only the craziest motherfuckers out there had known him as a child, because it would take a crazy motherfucker to love him.
When Ace was a kid, his anger was clear on display, the hatred and despair he felt for the world so evident in him. Ace knew how to hide it now, though, and could mask his emotions with a stunning smile, a quick joke. Luffy’s smile lit up rooms, made your heart feel light and free. Ace couldn’t smile like that, couldn’t make people helpless to smile too, but he’d grown up with Luffy and his smiles. Ace could pretend that those were his smiles, too.
Ace knew how to pretend that he was human now.
It had taken Ace a while to learn how to pretend to human, since he’d never bothered to learn until he’d met Sabo; hadn’t had anyone to learn from, other than the bandits and gramps. Even then, Sabo hadn’t needed him to pretend, because he’d always known that Ace wasn’t human. He hadn’t had to put any effort towards it, really, until after Sabo died and he needed to know how to be kind for Luffy. The creatures of Mt. Colubo rarely taught him how to be kind to family instead of just the violent protection.
Even still, Ace had never been human enough to fit in naturally with others, had only ever fit in with his brothers because they weren’t human enough for others either.
It couldn’t be helped, really, since Ace hadn’t learned to live from the bandits, for all that they kept an eye out for him. Ace had learned to survive from the other creatures of Mt. Colubo, the predators and the prey.
He had watched as the Tiger King would hunt his prey so terrifyingly large and deadly and yet able to so quickly and quietly blend into the jungle, his dinner never realizing he was there until it was too late. The Tiger would lay high in the branches of the trees, always torn between napping in the sun and striking the animals below. The alligators hid in the water, knowing that everything in the Jungle needed to drink to survive, always ready to drown their prey. The monkeys rarely tried to eat him, the way the other animals did, but Ace had seen them work together to kill those that were not their own, including several of the villagers that had wandered too close to the edges of the jungle. Ace watched as the deer would run at the first hit of danger, at the snapping of the branch or rustling of a bush, because those that froze instead were killed quickly.
He learned how to survive, how to fight, how to run and hide, from watching. He knew how people moved when they were ready to attack, the difference between those who were predators and prey. The bandits taught him how to speak, how to tell how much they could get for a necklace they nicked, how to make blankets and clothes from his kills. Sabo taught him how to write his name, how to count more than cards.
When Ace was a child, he had asked Gramps where he had come from. He’d seen the way the cubs and hatchlings were protected fiercely by their mothers, always kept fed, and wondered why there had been no one there for him— other than Dadan, for whatever she counted for on a given day.
Gramps explained to him, then, what he’d always known in a way. He was an abomination, the parasite that killed his mother, the son of a demon. The seed that grew inside her that had eaten her alive.
Ace had not understood, at first, admittedly. Gramps had told him that his mother had kept him in her stomach longer, that it had eaten her lifespan. His mother hadn’t survived him, Ace had killed her himself, in the end. It was his own fault that he was alone.
It was unfortunate, also, that Gramps’s wording had left much to be desired. Ace, not even being ten yet, had understood this explanation as being not just that he had killed his own mother, but that he’d had to eat his way out of her.
See, Gramps was many things, good intentioned with a bad execution being Ace’s general feelings on the man. Ace thought that Gramps had always been very fond of the idea of family but not quite as taken with the people that made up one. Still, Gramps had tried to explain.
When people are at least 18 and married—that’s important, you hear?—they can have kids. It’s—” Gramps had looked at Ace very carefully, as if deciding exactly what he should say, could say to him. “Aah, damn it. Who else is gonna tell him, huh? When people are eighteen and married, the father puts… his seed in the mother and she grows the baby inside her. It’s very hard and dangerous for mothers to grow a baby, because the baby needs to eat a lot of food too. Then the kid has to come out and well…. If its our family, they probably just hand the kid of to me. Because that’s my life.”
Ace had asked where they got the seeds from, because he needed to avoid them at any and all cost obviously, and gramps had only stared at him for a long moment, and told him that it was a pretty easy thing to find for married 18 year olds.
It was not a great explanation, as much as Gramps probably thought it was. Ace had not interpreted it the way Gramps had meant him to, for certain; as Ace had understood it, babies were made when mothers ate seeds and grew the baby inside her; the baby, needing food, would need to eat its way out. The seeds only work if you’re 18 and married, so Ace didn’t need to worry about what he ate on Goa, at least, since he would leave when he was 17. And then, the baby goes to Gramps—that part, honestly, raised the most questions for Ace.
Kids coming from a seed—sure, makes sense; kids have eat their way out—Ace has lived in the jungle his whole life, he’s some messed up animal kingdom shit, that checks out; but giving the kids to gramps? How does that even work? If nothing else, it would explain why anyone thought that would be a good idea, at least.
No really though, if handing over kids to Gramps of all people was standard practice, then did the man just have random kids stashed everywhere? Were they all on Goa, was this some kind of grandkid-island?
Luffy answered that question, at least a little. Gramps did have at least one other kid stashed away on Goa, so that was an unfortunate confirmation. Look, Ace didn’t want to kids, never had and never would. But if Ace did have a kid, he definitely wouldn’t want the thing handed off to Gramps. He has witnessed how bad the man is at being in charge of kids, and Ace was going to haunt the hell out of the man if he handed off little Ace 2.0 to fucking Dandand.
Anyway, people have got to stop handing Gramps kids, whether or not its part of the whole process of whatever. Luffy was pretty solid proof that Ace was part of a pattern and not an exception.
Despite Luffy getting to live in town for a while, actually meeting other people‚ (including his Shanks who, along with giving up his arm to save his brothers life, had also given Luffy both a crash course in mortality and a dream of toeing the line of morality as a viable career path. The woes of letting a pirate be the one and only father figure in a kids life—no, really, great job Gramps. Maybe if you’d like less criminal kids, let less criminals be in their lives. Just a thought) Ace had felt there was very, very little to be jealous of.
His kid brother was a weak crybaby who traded away swimming for being stretchy; he was lucky Ace loved him, because he would totally have gotten eaten or drowned without him FYI.
But, there was one thing that Ace couldn’t help but be a little envious of.
Sabo, when he’d been alive, had asked gramps once about Luffy’s parents. Ace would never have asked, because who actually cares, but it was an understandable curiosity.
Ace had killed his mom, Sabo said he had two parents but they adopted so many children and cheated so often that he doubted he was actually carried by either of them, but who knows about Luffy.
When Sabo had asked, Ace had been expecting a re-explanation of the seed thing—which would be ideal, since he didn’t explain it very well to Sabo—maybe an answer of who Luffy had eaten ( which was a fair question, in general, somedays).
Instead, Gramps had just looked weirdly nervous, before telling them that Luffy, apparently, had been born from a seed planted in Gramps's very own backyard. The lucky bastard, no mother to murder, just dirt. Though, knowing his brother was born already eating dirt was something, at least.
Ace had blood on his hands but the moment he was born. How sickening that this was so commonplace that the reason people thought he should be dead wasn’t because he'd killed his mom, but because he was the son of Roger. People cared far too much about bloodlines and not enough about dead mothers, in Ace’s opinion.
Gramps had been the only one who cared about the real reason Ace shouldn't have been born. Gramps told him that keeping him inside her had eaten away at his mother, that she hadn’t survived him.
___
It was somewhat of an open secret among his brothers that Ace’s education was spotty at best and downright terrible at worst. Ace was a sweetheart, but so riddled with very wrong, very incorrect beliefs that you had to wonder sometimes if it was just his spotty education or just being a little too ditzy for one's own good.
Harmless, very stupid beliefs aside, no one could argue that Ace wasn’t a brilliant, incredibly competent person. He wouldn’t have been made the second commander if he couldn’t hold his own. Ace had barely had his devil fruit by the time he joined the Whitebeards, but he had adapted and embraced it quicker than most could—it was common for logias and paramecias to struggle to keep themselves together at first at all, Marco had heard. Shanks had told him when they were younger and shooting the shit once that Buggy was still struggling to keep himself in one piece the moment something startled him, and he knew Crocodile had spent a fair amount of time learning how to have a human form again, instead of just sand. Marco himself had struggled a lot when he’d first eaten the Tori Tori no Mi, because the phoenix had a lot of instincts that he was not familiar with tamping down yet.
So Ace being able to master his fruit so quickly was impressive, and he was a very capable fighter and haki user to boot. It was unfortunate that while being far too deadly for his age, he was also twice as reckless as he was capable.
Still, when it came to practical matters, Ace was actually fairly brilliant. In less practical matters? Well…
Ace had no real understanding of social cues or faux pas, which had gotten him in hot water with their brothers many times—although, the others did tend to give Ace the benefit of the doubt if he was willing to listen to the lecture on ‘why the fuck did you say that, and just so you know if you say that again, I’m going to shoot you dead with my gun and then have to leave the crew and be sad’ (Izou, specifically, was a very enjoyed subtext man, and Ace was a very subtext avoidant one). But while he struggled to understand the way conversations went over his head, the same couldn’t be said of his understanding of body language.
It was like just by looking at you, the slightest tilt of your head, shift of your shoulders, tightening in your jaw, that he could tell everything about you. It was especially brutal in a fight, as if the slightest move broadcast your intentions to the man like you were screaming them into a megaphone.
Ace had needed to be dragged into the infirmary for a checkup when he’d finally agreed to join, and had apparently never heard of a vaccine before (Ace had told him a little too seriously that he’d only been shot once, and was not looking to repeat the experience, even medicinally). Marco would wonder how the little idiot made it to 18, but he’d seen the way Ace was able to identify safe foods on islands he’d never visited before, could hunt and then break down an animal four times his size quicker than Thatch could, and then would take the pelts home for his Marco-shouldn’t-judge-but-he-did nest situation of a room, which was filled with as many pillows and blankets as the man could unreasonably fit on a single mattress.
Pretty significantly, and something Marco only found out when he’d asked him if there was any chance he could just give his reports verbally, was that he didn’t know how to read more than a menu—clearly learning the words for food was prioritized—but as the second division commander, he led their navigation, and had quickly proved himself to be wicked at math, plotting routes in the new world like it was an was an easy feat instead of a near impossibility.
He also had a weird talent for appraising the value of things, something the man had brushed off by saying ‘children love trash heaps, you know how it is’. ( Marco doesn’t know that, actually. Because it’s wrong).
So, maybe this isn’t fully surprising. Ace wasn’t exactly a reliable source for most things, let alone things he definitely should have been taught by a trusted adult (or any adult, at this point). With Ace’s general lack of world knowledge, him not getting any form of sex education made sense.
Also though? Ace had also been a pirate for several years—and pirates, as a bunch, were so vulgar you’d think they were paid by the word to be nasty— and to Marco’s knowledge, had been having sex with Kaido’s son (who, apparently existed, and also sent sappy letters to Ace. which Marco usually tried not to think about because he was already trying to tame one feral kid, and he knew in his heart that the minute Kaido’s son stood in front of pops too long he’d get stuck with another troublesome brother who’d probably be hell bent on stealing Marco’s food and interrupting every single attempt at napping he made). So, if Ace had been having sex, had been on the seas longer then the hour and half it tended to take before someone said something risque, then what the hell was with this baby seed thing?
____
Ace had thought he could trust these people, these brothers, this family.
Ace likes having family, something he wouldn’t have ever expected to have again, outside of Luffy.
Ace has only ever had his Gramps and Dadandan, who were well, Gramps and Dadandan (enough said), and his brothers, one of which he’d given a bites-him-in-the-ass-promise to that had left him alive far longer than Ace would have preferred.
Having a family that made keeping himself alive more than just a chore, a reason to live that wasn’t a 16 year old, reckless ball of chaos currently punching tigers in a jungle, was nice.
Ace likes having a father that wasn’t literally the bane of his actual existence.
His new family had even been pretty chill about him attempting to murder their father for three months, actively treated him kindly as if he wasn’t actively biting the hand that feeds him (Thatch still shows off the scar, the fucker).
Sure, in part it was because they knew in no world was Ace going to succeed in patricide, but they were certainly more receptive to the idea of new brothers than Ace had been when Luffy had been dropped in his lap.
After he’d joined, Ace had actually thought he could trust them, and wouldn't have joined if he hadn’t thought he could.
But then nurse Cherri got pregnant, and not only can he not figure out who slipped her a seed, but everyone seems excited, no one even fucking mourning for her. Even Pops is excited for a grandkid, as if the parasite wasn’t going to have to eat Cherri.
Ace has never, ever wanted to get pregnant.Ace barely wanted to be alive himself, and any child that Ace had would be the child of a monster too, and all alone too. The idea that it would be Ace’s fault that another kid would grow up knowing it killed his mother and had cursed blood made him feel ill.
Ever since he’d learned about his cursed blood, the legacy he unwillingly carries, he’d known that even if he wanted kids—having to raise Luffy had been enough for him—that it would only doom them too. A devil child, a monster who should be put down before it could grow up to be its father, a parasite that killed the wrong parent—how could Ace bring another child into this world, knowing that it would share the same fate as him?
So, obviously, during those first three months on the Moby Dick, Ace had been exceedingly careful about what he ate. He had turned 18 mid assassination-recruitment-pitch-situation, so he knew he was now at high risk.
Ace was lucky that he’d found out the needing to be married first thing was just something shitty thing Gramps was lying about before he fucked up and ate a baby seed.
‘You have to be 18 and married before you can have kids, Ace’—his fucking ass, gramps. Here Ace had been eating anything and everything without a care in the world, his devil fruit included, only to meet a single mom, super unmarried and super was-clearly-able-to-get-pregnant.
In those three months of back-to-back failed murder attempts (if he had to hear one more ‘You’ll get him next time, Champ!’ from Thatch back then he would have had to throw himself overboard.), he had the pretty reasonable fear of being slipped a baby seed.
Back when he’d first started out, he and the Spades had gone out to a bar once.
Ace had ended up chatting with the barmaid, who was five foot nothing and all spite and good advice. She’d told him, like some sort of divine prophet, about babytrapping.
If they want you to stay real bad and they know you don’t want to, she’d told him, they get you pregnant so you have to stay for the kids, and then next thing you know you’ve been married to some loser for 15 years, wondering why you didn’t listen to your friends when they told you this was a terrible, bad idea.
Ace hadn’t known people could just survive that shit, on account of the baby having to eat its way out, but if that woman had told him that the sky was green and the grass was blue he’d have believed her, to be fair.
And the Whitebeards had made it clear from the get go that they really wanted him to join them, and he’d made it very clear, from the get go, that he wasn’t interested.
Ace didn’t want to marry a loser for 15 years (be on an emperor’s crew) wondering why he didn’t listen to his friends when they told it was a terrible, bad idea (Deuce, who said he was a reckless idiot and being dead wouldn’t save stop Deuce from kicking his ass).
So Ace had been very, very careful. At first he’d only steal food from the pantry, and never the same thing twice, just in case they caught on to what he was enjoying the most so they could put a seed in it. When he started reluctantly liking them, he’d eat with them occasionally between murder attempts, and just pick someone’s plate at random to steal. Usually Marco, because the man always just seemed confused and conflicted, somewhere between annoyed as hell that his plate had just been stolen, weirdly happy that Ace trusted him enough to steal from him, and resignedly endeared. The poor bastard. Obviously, though, he couldn’t just steal Marco’s every time, because then they would expect that.
Once he joined them, he figured that since he had stayed trapped willingly, no baby was needed. Problem solved, right? He’d thought so, but then nurse Cherri, his very nice crew sister, was suddenly very, super unmistakably pregnant.
_____
Marco had liked Ace from the start, even if at said start he had first needed to reframe how annoying and bratty the kid was as an endearing little brother thing.
The kid was a bit wild, maybe even straight up feral if Marco was being honest.
It had felt like Pops found a stray cat in an alley, soaking wet in cold rain, and when it bit hard enough to draw blood he just cooed at it and brought it inside anyway. And then locked the doors so the cat couldn’t leave. And then laughed as the kitchen left bite marks and scratches on anyone who got too close to it.
In Pop's defense, even when the cat was drawing blood and leaving claw marks on the door, it was pretty cute.
Ace was pretty cute, and once he settled down a bit, he had become rather sweet too. Sweeter than Marco had expected honestly, but still goddamn menace.
Cat metaphors that Ace would try to fry him for aside, Marco had always thought the kid was a little more creature than human, if he had to be honest. It was something that had made the phoenix perk up a bit, preening a little every time the kid stole his food (which Marco thought was annoying, for the record) or pieces of his clothes for his nests (Marco also thought this was annoying, for the record, because he was aware that the kid was doing it to annoy Marco not because he trusted him)—for every instinct Marco could explain away, in the end, like calls to like.
It wasn’t unheard of for devil fruit users to come off less than human, as other.
A deal with the devil came with more than a little humanity lost, alongside the ability to swim. Have you ever met a well adjusted devil fruit user? Not possible—if you think you have, then you haven’t; anything that can keep itself masked so convincingly, is more dangerous than those who can’t, in Marco’s opinion.
Zonans became more animal than human, paramenias became more concept than concrete, and logias became more of an element than a living, breathing man. So, it wasn’t out of the ordinary for Ace to read as not human, Marco had thought.
But Ace had also just felt strange. Not in the way a Logia felt- thought he felt like that too- but like he had been a strange human before he became a strange logia.
For someone so bright, loud, and constantly participating in recreational arson (different, if Ace was to be believed, then work-arson—what work-arson meant to Ace, Marco didn’t know and didn’t want to), Ace was a little too good at hiding. If he didn’t want to be seen he wouldn’t, even if he was in the same room as you. He liked to hang out from high up, lounging in the rigging, the rafters. He ate enough for 10 men— a literal statement since Ace would literally steal the plates of 10 men at meal times, Marco usually included because Ace was a jerk like that. He’d stare him straight in the eye as he took his plate, ate it, and then left the empty plate back in front of him, leaving Marco to see if there were leftovers.
Nobody had put up too much of a fuss, thinking maybe the kid had been poisoned once, or something. Ace was the kind of guy who that would happen to.
Ace tended to show affection by bumping his head against others, rubbing his face along someone’s necks and wrists, nipping at them slightly, blinking at them all slowly. Sometimes he would barrel over you, laying his entire dead weight on top of you until you felt properly crushed and uncomfortable, and then give you the saddest eyes and pout if you tried to move.
A little creature; something the phoenix appreciated joining their family.
So Marco knew Ace was strange. Marco also knew Ace had not gotten an education. He knew the skills needed for survival, grew up somewhere where no one cared that he learned only these skills. Little feral, menace Ace thinking babies came from seeds and then ate their way out was perhaps not something Marco should be surprised by, and yet he hadn’t realized the true depths of dumbass-little brother bullshit.
Truly, stupidity knows no bounds when it comes to younger siblings.
So, Marco, in his defense, did not know Ace was this stupid; to be accusatory, though, he did stand there while Ace tried to handCherri a knife to apparently cut the baby out in some strange jungle child idea of a c-section, and then, with actually tears in his eyes, asked Marco why he was so okay with her getting eaten alive.
____
Dirt brother, murdered brother, and soon to be eaten crew sister. The fuck was Ace’s life?
Ace liked nurse Cherri, he couldn’t understand why his family were so okay with her being eaten alive. Why is Ace the only one who doesn’t seem okay with that? Even if people were excited for a baby—which sure, they’re cute sometimes, he guesses—should that not at least come with some level of grief?
If no one else on this fucking ship would care—not even Marco, who was the ship’s head doctor and, more importantly, the first mate, making him by definition the biggest brother on board— then Ace would have to care enough for everyone else.
So Ace has been trying to figure out how to save Cherri for close to a month now, and time is pretty of the essence here. The issue, aside from having to steal food again for fear of randomly encountered baby seeds—something that was getting him an upsetting amount of sad looks, as if they weren’t all under suspicion here— was that Ace had never actually met someone who was happy about being the idea of children like this before. Which made it more complicated—if Cherri wanted the baby alive, that meant Ace had to be pretty thoughtful about how to go about how he could help her with this.
(Also, as a side note here , Ace was getting pretty sick of the random plates left in his hides in the ship. Even if people know where they are, which was unfortunate, then it was very rude to not at least pretend that they didn’t, and it was extra rude to then leave potentially-has-a-baby-seed-in-it food in them. Ace was decently sure it was just Thatch being a mother hen, but he wasn’t taking his chances.)
Finding a solution would have been easier if he could read a bit better, but he hadn’t had that long with Sabo, and though it was obvious to him that his fellow commanders, who were strangely fond of him, were trying to teach him (mostly Izou and Haruta, who were ceaseless in explaining things to him, constantly), he didn’t know enough to get through any of the medical journals.
He had asked Deuce,, who had looked very concerned, and then told him that ‘Ace could always come to him for anything’ and ‘I’m glad you feel comfortable telling me, but it has been months since Wano, are you sure you’re not just sick?’ which had been sweet? But not helpful.
He had tried to fish around, subtly to Pops, even, but the man seemed to take Ace feeling upset again about his own family line. The pep talk was appreciated, but the ‘and if you ever had children, they would be loved as family too’ had actually had him hiding in the rafters again for days, like he had when he’d first come on board.
Ace had wanted to ask Marco, but he’d heard Marco tell Cherri he was excited to have a niece or nephew, so clearly he was no help here.
So, Ace, after much consideration, had decided that novel solutions be damned, knife solutions were a classic for a reason.
___
Marco had walked into the infirmary at an ideal time for solving this whole ‘giving their pregnant sister a knife straight out of a horror story, while having a conversation also, straight out of a horror story” situation. It was a horrible time to walk in considering Marco would have rather avoided it, though.
As soon as he’d walked through the doorway, Marco had noticed how pin quiet the half-full infirmary was, a disconcerting feat.
Well, it was quiet aside from Ace’s voice, pleading and desperate in a way that Marco’s big brother hackles, raising severely.
“Cherri- please, I really think I’ve got it figured out. If we just cut it out, it’ll probably still live right? And then we can just sew you shut. I know that would probably hurt, but it can’t hurt as much as it eating you, right?”
Marco couldn’t control his gut reaction of— “Ace, what the fuck?”
“What the fuck? You’re asking me what the fuck?” Ace turned around from looking at Cherri, holding a way too threatening knife for an infirmary, to glare at Marco in accusation, “No, fuck that—Marco, what the fuck? You know, I’d never anything eat my little brother, but you’re so okay with Cherri getting eaten? Aren’t you our big brother—how come you don’t care at all, huh? What, you don’t love Cherri? Is that it?!”
Marco has, genuinely, no fucking idea what’s going on. Marco tried to take in the scene, hoping for some type of context cues. None, none context cues, really. The infirmary was half-filled with brothers and sisters all wide-eyed, following the conversation like it was a soap opera. Cherri looked incredibly concerned, had one hand on her stomach protectively, and the other hand brushing against Ace’s arm, clearly trying to comfort him. She looked very pale, and Marco was going to make her sit down and have some water and a snack as soon as he got this figured out.
Ace looked not good, to say the least. There was a wild look in his eyes, a glint that made Marco bristle a little. His hand was shaking slightly, which Marco was really not loving with the holding a huge knife situation. His hair was even messier than usual, like he’d decided this was the best post-nap activity he could think of, and combing out bedhead first was not needed. He was, literally, barring his teeth at Marco.
Marco, unfortunately, did think it was kind of cute. The phoenix was a pretty top-dog predator, and it was very fond of the people Marco considered family. Marco couldn’t help but find Ace’s attempt to be threatening a little adorable. Still—
“Firecracker, calm down kid. There is no one being eaten right now, I promise. What’s going on? Come on, what’s the situation, yoi?”
Cherri, who had seemed a bit frozen still in shock, shook herself out slightly to tell Marco, “ Our little brother is… worried about me. He’s been trying very hard to help me since he found out one of you apparently got me pregnant. And that solution is a knife.” Cherri glared at Marco as if any of this was his fault, clearly trying to use her face to communicate to him that he was going to have to fix this, even though it was increasingly the last thing he wanted to do right now. “The knife, Marco, is because the baby is going to eat its way out.”
What. What the fuck. Marco turned to Ace disbelievingly, because there’s no way Ace can actually think that right? Ace just held eye contact with him unflinchingly (work-eye contact, Marco’s asshole of a brain said. Ace doesn’t enjoy recreational-eye contact, but look at him, practicing his work-eye contact to go along with his work-arson).
“ Ace, is that true, yoi?”
“ Fucking, of course it is! Why don’t you care, I thought you’d care!”
To Marco’s horror, he saw a glassy sheen over Ace’s eyes, and sudden frantic blinks that only just managed to keep the tears from falling. Marco felt himself jolt at the sight- he couldn’t help it. You couldn’t be a big brother for as long as he had and for as many brothers as he had without the oh-shit-my-brother-is-crying instincts (an instinct that must be indulged before the stronger, more important instinct of mocking them relentlessly for crying afterwards can fully take over). Marco pulled Ace in for a hug, tucking his head into the crook of his neck. Marco waited for the very token protests to try to get away from the hug to be over, before Ace fully slumped into it, to talk.
“Ace, I have bad news, professionally, as a doctor. It looks like you have being a dumbass disease, and the only cure is proving to me you aren’t a dumbass by explaining what the hell is going on.”
Ace’s words were a little muffled on account of his head still being pressed firmly in Marco’s ‘time out hug for brothers whose crime of crying in front of him was immediately punishable by aggressive affection via mild semi-comforting suffocation”( trademark pending). After hearing the jumbled out, truly just dreadful story of the stupid shit his brother has just gone about life believing, Marco was genuinely considering hunting down some bandits in the name of neglectful child care. He wouldn’t have to hunt down Garp at least, since the man would come to him, eventually, at least. Letting your kid be this stupid before setting them out into the world was a choice. A questionable choice. A questionable choice that was bad.
Baby seeds. You eat a baby seed, and that seed becomes a baby in your belly, and then that baby has to eat its way out of you, a process that obviously kills the pregnant parent. Worded as parent and not mother on purpose, because Ace, apparently, fully thought men could get pregnant too. Pregnancy, according to Ace, is an equal opportunities affliction, and one he’s been genuinely very worried about. The seed only works once you’ve turned 18—so he’s only had to be on guard a couple years—but Ace had also only found out recently that you don't actually have to be married for it to work, so he’s been pretty freaked out about that.
Marco had asked where the fuck Ace had gotten such a stupid idea from, and the guy had just elaborated with “I mean, Gramps said I ate my mom and my brother grew in his yard, so it checks out.”
(It did not check out, actually. What was he on about?)
Marco had, of course, wanted to know why Ace hadn’t brought his concerns to Pops. Thinking your sister is going to get eaten alive feels like a Pops concern. Ace, unfortunately, had deemed Pops too excited for his grandson, and along with the crimes of telling Ace that any family of his would be welcomed and having told Ace one too many times- which for Ace probably meant just one singular time- about how cute Ace must have been growing up, not to be trusted to help.
Also, Pops, Marco gets it, honestly. Ace belonged on their crew for a reason, and he’s got very cute pout and big sad eyes. It's no wonder Pops would want to cheer him up when he gets down about family stuff. And it was that doubtless Ace was a cute kid- freckles, shaggy hair, that glare he’s got on someone that comes up to your knees instead of a 6 foot shirtless teenager. Adorable.
But not baby trapping a grandson adorable, because that’s both fucked up and also more importantly, not biologically possible.
Marco looked at Ace, hair a ruffled mess and eyes a little red, tear stains on his cheeks, and that adorable stupid pout. Released from hug-jail on good behavior, but still suffering from being stupid.
Marco put a hand on Ace’s shoulder in hopes he can hear the sincerity in his voice.
“ Thank you for telling me Ace. You’re a dumbass. Now you’re going to put down the knife, take a seat, and know that if you stop paying attention to any part of this, I’m going to make pops tell you instead. Understand, yoi?”
—-
Baby seeds, maybe, probably aren’t real. According to Marco they aren’t real, 100% for sure, but honestly, Ace isn’t sure he fully believes that.
It’s just that the world is weird, Goa is definitely weird, and believing Marco about it and then eating one would really, really suck. But Ace wasn’t born in Goa, so it would make sense that maybe for him it is just sex that does it— but weren’t people always saying some shit about nature v nurture? It’s not out of the realm of possibility that he’d need to worry about both.
But Marco also says to not worry about the seeds. Because the seeds aren’t real and he’s also stupid. Which, obviously, would be nice—the seeds not being real, not the stupid bit.
But look, Ace fully believes Luffy was born eating dirt (as a big brother, he has to)—so some form of the baby seeds have got to exist.
He stands by the fact that as a good big brother he had made sure Luffy knew about the seeds too, and had even remembered to remind him again about them before he’d set sail.
He was sure Sabo would have been proud of him for remembering. Sabo had always been apprehensive about the seeds too, for good reason.
Still, it really was a big relief to know the baby eating its way out isn’t a normal thing at least, really good news for Cherri.
He could have done without all the detail though, admittedly. Who would have thought every time he and Yamato had messed around there had been such a risk?
Baby seeds or not, though, Ace's stance on getting pregnant hasn’t changed.
Talk about dodging a bullet you didn’t see coming, Ace hadn’t realized he’d been risking it this whole time. Who would have thought sex had anything to do with getting pregnant?