Chapter Text
-A couple months ago-
"Stop babying me!" The whole rooms falls into silence, they were in middle of a commanders meeting with pops so everyone was surprised with the sudden outburst.
"What do you mean-yoi?" asked a clearly confused Marco, 1st division commander.
"This is getting ridiculous guys" with a exasperated sigh Ace continued. "I get we all are a family and pops here, is our pops obviously" said Ace while everyone watched Ace waiting for him to continue. "But the fawnig over, the baby talk, the baby proofing the whole moby dick, you don't think I didn't notice Marco, you don't even let me join in the partying booze, I can't even be by myself for a fucking minute in this goddamn ship without you freaking out!"
"Now, that isn't a language our baby brother should u-"started Thatch, 4th division commander "THAT IS WHAT I MEAN!" shouted Ace, interruping Thatch's statement "I can curse if I want to, I'm not fucking toddler!"
"Don't be like that, Ace." started saying Vista, 5th division commander. "Is just- Is been a while since we have a new member as young as you Ace when you joined." remarked with a defeating tone. "We can't help ourselves, you are our baby brother of course we can get a little bit overprotective at times."
"You know as well as me that is just not 'a little bit overprotective' has you said!" refuted Ace. "The other day I was going to give to some rookies a lesson for messing up with pops' territory, when you appered out of nowhere and beat them up saying, and I quote 'Don't bully, my little brother! Don't you see he is just a baby?'" redness started to over take Ace face, not even knowing himself if it was from anger or embarrassment at the story.
Ace could feel he was getting angrier when he hear the collective cooing the whole room was doing. "Awww his freckles pop up when he gets red-faced-yoi" "Do you see his frowny face? Adorable" "Should I get a picture, pops?" the moment ended when Ace abruptly got up and left the room yelling "I can't take it anymore!"with a final bang of a door.
The room stood in an uncomfortable silence for a couple of minutes.
"Maybe we are overbearing" said Izou, 16th division commander. "He is the second-division commander after all, that is a merit and one well earned I say so myself" declared with proud. "Yeah, but I can't help myself" said Thatch with hums of agrement from the rest of the commanders. "Is like Vista said, is being so long since we had a new member as young as Ace when he first joined" said Namur, 8th division commander. "He was 17 years old, we can't not just babying him" stated Namur.
"Agree, I know I look young but I'm almost thirty-eight and I am one of the young-ish of the crew" commented Haruta, 12th division commander.
"Yes, but if Ace is briging it up we can not just ignore him." voiced Jozu, 3rd division commander.
"I know-yoi" sighed with defeat Marco. "Ace doesn't really talk about his past, but for I've seen it must be pretty rough-yoi" stateds. "If we just ignore him, he could do something reckless to prove us something he doesn't need to prove to us-yoi"
Everyone let out a heavy sigh at Marco's stament. They had worked really hard post-murder attemps days to make Ace feel safe and appreciated, every single crew member with two eyes (and even without those) could see that Ace has very obvious issues. What issues may you ask? Every single one for the looks of it.
Even when he finally accepted Pops he still had been very distrusting of several of the crew members. But everyone, and they mean EVERYONE, worked their asses off so their newly acquiered little brother could finally relax in the moby dick. They aren't breaking that trust anytime soon.
"What do you think we should do, Pops?"
The whole room turned their heads to see the biggest and most prominet figure in the room who surprisingly hasn't said anything yet. Their dear Capitan, but also know as pops, oyaji, dad, the Capitan of the Whitebeard-Pirates, Edward Newgate himself.
After a couple moments of silence, where Whitebeard let a little hum while thinking, he finally announce "We should get Ace a little brother of his own."
The silence continued afterwards.
"A what?!" Everyone shouted at the same time, it was quite amussing to see.
"Oyaji, you can be serious-yoi" "Pops, think about it-" "Yeah! We can bearly keep up with Ace" "Ah, good bye to the peaceful era" chaos errupted in the room, and everyone started talking over each other with different staments, most of them disaproving Whitebeard's idea.
"Calm down, my children." announced Whitebeard. When everyone finally calmed down, Marco asked the question everyone was having for themselves. "What do you think that is a good idea, pops?" Thatch was the sacrificial lamb this occasion.
"Ace must be feeling a little bit cooped up with all his older siblings fawning over him" started his argumment Whitebeard. "He has always been an independent person, he likes taking of others and gets uncomfortable when someone takes care of him" nods and sounds of aggrement accompanied this statement.
"Since Ace is the newest and youngest of my sons, the rest of my children want to take care of him but there is no one that Ace can fawn over himself" at this finishing sentence you could almost see the realization going over everyones eyes.
"So what you are saying-yoi" started Marco. "Is that if we get Ace a little brother, we can care for and spoil Ace at our hearts content without him noticing or refusing because he would be to busy spoiling his new baby brother for him to notice?" said Marco with utter disbelief.
"Guarararara! You are getting it, son!" confirmed Whitebeard while continuing laughing.
"I could finally give Ace new clothes without him refusing!" "And those gifts I've been acumulating for him" "We could get him to eat more, I know he is been holding back" "This is the greatest idea you ever had, pops!" everyone remarked in unanimous.
"But we can just get a random stranger to be Ace's little brother" mentioned Rakuyo, 7th division commander. "This guy needs to be someone extraordinary" he continued. "Someone Ace would care for!"
"Obviously!" Everyone responded. "Just the best for our dearest baby brother." Said Thatch. " But we have to search every see and corner, Ace's new baby brother could be everywhere" suggested Fossa, 15th division commander. "I will get the rookies' list-yoi" said Marco while getting up to search for the list, while everyone keep saying the requirements needed to be the perfect little brother to Ace.
During this whole interaction, Whitebeard kept laughing "Guarara!" he laugh joyfully. "Is decided! We will search for a new son, and a new little brother for Ace!" somehow, everybody felt that Whitebeard was also winning in this situation.