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The battle at Marineford leaves them all exhausted, but Luffy is still bounding around excitedly, grinning ear-to-ear. Whitebeard and Marco observe the boy aggressively hugging CP9 as he speaks with Ace about his adventures. And, they sweat drop when they spot Ace’s right hand turning into flames as his baby brother narrates about his confrontation with the assassins at Enies Lobby — he gives a particularly heated glare at Lucci. The man in question rolls his eyes, and Hattori twitters.
Luffy then whispers something in Lucci’s ears, the man giving him a slight nod in response, and the boy gets up from his spot and walks up to the older men quietly speaking to one another. He grins up at them, jumps high into the air, and gently places flower crowns on both of their heads. He eyes the accessories with a small frown before the smile replaces it.
“Oh! They look nice on you!” Luffy chirps happily.
Whitebeard guffaws loudly. “Gurarara! You’re an odd one, brat!”
Luffy whines, collapsing dramatically on the floor. “I’m not a child — what’s up with everyone saying that?”
“No, you’re definitely a child,” Jabura snarks, no real heat in his voice. “Don’t you remember that time when you begged us to go kite-flying with you? When you wanted us to go to the aquarium with you? Or when you-”
“OKAY! THAT'S ENOUGH!” Luffy uncharacteristically flushes. “And, that was a while ago!”
“It was less than a year ago, Luffy,” Lucci deadpans.
Luffy huffs and rolls his eyes, and turns back to Whitebeard and his First Division Commander. He’s left grumbling as he delicately shifts the angle of the flower crowns to fit the aesthetic of the men in front of him. He blinks and clicks his tongue as he takes a step back and nods in appreciation. “They have magic attached to them. They don’t burn, get wet, or wilt, or anything like that!” Luffy states, as he casually sits himself back down next to Lucci.
Marco snickers in amusement and he takes off the accessory to look at the flowers on his. “Hm… Edelweiss and Arborvitae…” He whispers to himself, although Whitebeard picks up on it.
“You know about flowers?”
Marco surprises and looks up with a small smile at Whitebeard. “Just a little bit, yoi,” He squints up at Whitebeard’s crown of flowers. “Yours is made from Yarrow and Rue… how fitting. I wonder how the kid managed to choose these, yoi.”
Marco walks out of his room and onto the deck the next evening, not even being discreet about the flaunting of his flower crown. He just grins, ignoring the others' twitch, some of them even responding with incredulous shouts and protests.
The blond wheezes and taunts the crew. He laughs in their faces and takes sadistic joy in seeing the looks of betrayal and fury in the others’ eyes as he hovers in the sky, flapping his wings and sending bouts of winds in their direction.
“I guess the kid just likes me the best! ” He turns to stare at Ace. “I’m coming for your spot as Number 1 Brother, Ace-yoi.”
Ace twitches. “LIKE HELL YOU ARE! LU IS MY BROTHER AND I’LL DIE BEFORE YOU TAKE THAT SPOT!” He screeches. Luffy watches, giggling at the sight, ignoring the resounding yells of outrage from his brother.
“I can make more for the rest of you if you want! But it might take a bit,” Luffy proclaims, shrugging casually. “Just tell me who’s first!”
A loud burst of shouting and yelling resounds throughout the Moby Dick as the pirates argue which of them deserved to get the honor of being crowned the accessory of Flora, by Luffy. The raven just smiles innocently at them, while striking up a conversation with the Phoenix and his Captain.
“Are they always like this?” Luffy giggles, finding their antics incredibly funny — reminds him of Zoro and Sanji.
“Loud? Yes. Not for this reason, usually, though,” Marco snorts. “They all think you’re adorable and to be fair, you helped save Ace and gave flower crowns to all sorts of people.”
Luffy gives him an odd look. “I was just doing my duty as his younger brother, though?” He utters unsurely. Marco smiles and ruffles his hair. “Like I said, yoi, you’re adorable. ”
The boy makes an expression of disdain, although there’s no true anger in it. Whitebeard chuckles and lifts the boy onto his shoulders. “Where are you heading next, brat?”
Luffy sticks his tongue out at the man. “I’m not a brat,” He mutters irritably. “But, Rayleigh-ossan said me and the others need to train for the New World, so I’m probably gonna do that — two years, I think he said? I’m going to go back to Marineford and probably get the message out to my crew.” He beams up at the other captain.
Whitebeard raises his eyebrows. “How are you going to do that?”
Luffy just gives him a disarming smile and lightly giggles. “It’s a secret!”
It sure is interesting to accompany the boy back to Marineford — the ground on which Ace was almost executed. Marco observes the state of the Marine HQ and a small feeling of pride bubbles in him — serves them right for trying to take away one of theirs. It’s also quite amusing to see the interesting crowd of rebels and pirates following Luffy to the crevice, the boy paying his respects and tossing a bouquet into the depths of the earth.
Pictures are taken, whispers are spread, theories are produced. ‘Fire Fist Ace succumbed to his wounds. Luffy lost his brother. Straw Hat Luffy is going to create more chaos, they say.
Marco smirks at the last one — his personal favorite. The kid is going to go far. He oversaw his training with Rayleigh and dear god, the New World is going to have a lot to deal with Luffy slowly approaching it. He hopes that they’re ready to deal with a chaotic, sunny ball of energy with a stubborn streak arguably larger than Ace’s. (And isn’t that saying something, huh?)
Marco and Whitebeard practically die of laughter when they see the news about Luffy and Trafalgar Law allying, only to take down Doflamingo; Ace can be heard screaming in the distance, the others trying to calm him down.
“FUCKIN SABO WAS ALIVE THIS WHOLE TIME? I’M GOING TO STRANGLE THAT IDIOT.”
Marco reels in laughter and Ace hisses at him to shut his trap.
He absolutely doesn’t.