It had been a week since the hair color incident had ended. An entire week of normal hair colors had passed, and Marco still panicked when he saw the colors red or neon pink. So of course the entire crew conspired against the stuffy bird. Oyaji had eventually put an end to it once Marco had refused to leave his room. When he finally did come out he refused to talk to either Thatch or Ace, until Ace offered to tell him stories about his brother, Luffy. Marco had found himself really curious about the boy ever since he saw the straw hat that the kid was wearing. So he agreed to talk to them again.
Ace was surprised that so many people had gathered around him when he'd told Marco that he'd tell him. All of the commanders were there to listen, and so was Oyaji. Even some of the regular crew members had gathered around him. So he started from the beginning. He didn't even notice that he didn't talk about Law or Sabo. He only mentioned Luffy.
He could see from his crew mates' expressions that they were very surprised that he had tried to kill Luffy many times before they had become brothers. Of course then Thatch laughed and had asked how he'd messed up with killing a little kid. Ace had punched him in the face and ignored his question.
As he talked, Whitebeard watched his son's face, he could see a lot of love and pride shining in his youngest son's eyes. He could remember seeing the exact same expression on Roger's face. The man had held it the last time Whitebeard had seen him before the execution. He recalled being very confused as to why the man had the expression, but looking at the man's son, he knew why. Roger had been proud that he was going to be a father. He'd been completely in love with the boy's mother, and with the boy himself, even though Ace wasn't born yet.
It made Whitebeard's heart hurt to know that Ace and Roger never got to meet. It hurt to know that Ace never got to know his mother because she had died to protect him. He found himself eternally grateful to the small Monkey boy. With a smile on his lips he turned back to listening to Ace's stories about his younger brother. His favorite was when the young boy had been playing and gotten himself eaten by a crocodile. What an outrageously lucky young boy.
He looked over to where his eldest son was listening with rapt attention, and a grin lit his face. Perhaps this reunion Ace had talked about would be more interesting than the fire user had thought.
Marco listened intently as Ace talked. He was intrigued by how Ace was describing his childhood with his brother. He did, however, find it very odd that Ace didn't talk about the rest of his family, only the briefest mentions of his 'Kuso-jiji'. Marco also found himself amused by the obvious brother complex that Ace had for Luffy. Grinning to himself about this fact he went back to listening.
Thatch really wanted to meet Ace's brother, the kid sounded like a riot! He felt a bit bad for whatever poor bastard got roped into being the kid's cook. Sure Thatch had to deal with Ace's bottomless pit he called a stomach, but Thatch also had a huge team of cooks working with him. He was also coming to realize why Ace ate the way he did, trying to save your food from a brother with stretchy arms had to be incredibly difficult. Either you ate quick and stabbed thieving fingers or you lost most of your food. It also explained why Ace stole from other people's plates. It was probably a habit left over from his childhood.
He grinned when he heard about the time that Luffy got it in his head to see how far he could launch himself with his slingshot move. He found it hilarious that Ace had finally found Luffy hanging from the end of a tree branch at the top of a tree. Seriously, who did that? Yup, he definitely needed to meet this kid.
Izou found himself appalled by Ace's description of him and Luffy digging through a huge dump ground looking for treasure. Sure it was funny when Ace told them about the time Luffy had found a secret tunnel in the trash, and had followed it right into a nest of cannibals, and had gotten mad at Ace for stopping the nice people from giving him a 'bath'. Seriously?! How did the kid find what was probably the only cannibals in East Blue? Izou couldn't believe it, between Ace, and the abnormally dangerous East Blue island they'd grown up on, Izou was really surprised that Luffy had lived to become a pirate. He really hoped that the kids had washed after digging through garbage.
Jozu was silent, not that he usually said much, but this time he really wasn't making any sound. He was having trouble reconciling the image of the Ace he knew, with the young Ace that was being painted for him. Sure he knew that Ace could be violent, and had a terrible temper, but never against family, to the extent of a murder attempt. It felt really weird to him to hear about the violence, and hatred from Ace's youth, even as it was colored with humor thanks to his younger brother. He sighed inaudibly, what a weird family he had.
It was late into the night before Ace finished with a fraction of the stories he had to tell. Everyone groaned when he suddenly had a narcoleptic attack (the reason why he only got out a fraction). Oyaji had decided that it was enough, and told all but the night watchmen to go to sleep. Everyone moved quickly because Oyaji had made it an order. That left Marco to get the sleeping nibantai taicho to his sleeping quarters. Marco just shook his head fondly at his younger brother. Life was never boring in this family, but Ace truly brought the sunshine.