Ace
He watched her as she headed home and waited until the door closed before turning back inside himself, meeting two grinning faces, "Making sure your girlfriend got home okay yoi?"
"Aww, ain't he just adorable," he glares at his two older brothers, "surprised he didn't walk her right to the door,"
"Will you just cut it out," he huffs and pushes past them, "and for the last time she isn't my girlfriend,"
"Yet," they both practically sing bringing a small annoyed blush to the freckled face,
"Though you might as well be with all the flirting going on between you both," Thatch points out,
"When you gonna tell her yoi?" both older brothers follow the raven-haired boy as he storms towards the stairs, Sabo carrying a dozing Luffy on his back pauses in the hallway as Ace passes him,
"Tell who what?" the blonde enquires,
"Tell (Y/N) that he's in loooove," Thatch teases then quickly dodges a flaming fist as Ace comes flying back to them, "Hey! Not in the house!" a small fight breaks out between them until Marco manages to pin Ace,
"Enough yoi! Before Pops hears," and then they all tense as the clearing of someone's throat alerts them all to the intimidating presence accompanying them in the hallway, slowly they all turn to find their 'Pops' standing with his arms folded and looking disapprovingly at the brothers, a chuckling Shanks is stood a couple steps behind him,
"What's going on here?"
"Nothing," the four brothers all say together, Luffy makes a sleepy grunt and mumbles something about meat, effectively breaking the tension because it sets Shanks off laughing loudly and eventually everyone's laughing,
"W..What's going on? Why's everyone laughing?" Luffy mumbles sleepily rubbing at his eye, this makes everyone laugh more. Ace feels his phone vibrate in his pocket, pulling it out his grin widens when (Y/N)'s name flashes up. He moves into one of the rooms where its quieter before answering,
"Hey, did you forget something?"
"Help..." her voice stutters out quietly, Ace tenses up, the clear fear in her voice sent a chill down his spine. Throwing his phone to the side not caring where it lands, he runs out of the room, shoving past his brothers and out the front door in a rush,
"Ace!" one of them calls after him but he doesn't listen, he jumps the fence between the houses just about barely hearing his brothers rushing after him. He launches up the steps and pauses at the front door of her house, it's been broken open, he clenches his fist sparks flickering over his skin. Thatch reaches his side and takes in the scene of the doors broken window; he grips Ace's shoulder and whispers, "calmly and quietly," he then looks to Marco who's behind him and points up to the roof, Marco nods. Ace pulls out of Thatch's grip and steps over the broken glass and into the hallway, flames now licking up his arm, sounds from the kitchen catch the pairs attention, Thatch indicates silently that he will check that out and nods Ace towards the stairs. Quietly they creep along as Ace also tries to tame his flames. A creek as he hits the halfway point sounds loudly throughout the house, Ace cringes and Thatch pauses at the kitchen door, a hissed out 'mate is that you?' from upstairs has Ace charging up the rest,
"Shit! Mate leg it!" Ace hits the top of the stairs coming face to face with some guy decked out all in black and wearing a mask, the flames are now over both his clenched fists, "fuck..." Ace launches himself at the guy, ramming his shoulder into his gut. They both crash to the ground where he shoves Ace off him and over his head before pushing up off the floor and back to his feet, Ace rolls to his feet spinning around to grab the guy again but he's already running, finding the stairs now blocked by Sabo who has also come to assist he keeps running, and continues he does, right out the window at the end of the upstairs hallway shocking the brothers. Both teens run to the window and look down to see the intruder legging it, he doesn't get very far when Luffy's stretched out arms wrap around him soon followed by the energetic boy's body sending them to the dirt, a moment later Thatch was running towards them to help pin the thrashing trespasser down. The two of them look at one another,
"Let's check the rooms, there could be more," Sabo suggests, they check each room quickly, finding no one else. Ace frowns, Thatch comes up the stairs,
"Pops has called the cops, Marco is looking for the other guy who ran before I could grab him," he looks between Ace and Sabo, "where's (Y/N)?"
"That's what I'm worried about, we haven't seen anyone else," Ace frowns deeper,
"She could be hiding," Sabo pulls out his phone, "maybe if I ring her, she will know it's safe to come out," he tries and furrows his brow, "it says it's busy,"
"She must still be connected to my phone," Ace face palms, he just had to throw his phone before racing over,
"Let's just keep looking, she has to be somewhere," Thatch says calmly. And so, they split up, Ace checks the bathroom before moving onto her room. He looks around, her costume is thrown on the end of the bed, he looks back to the doorway, the bathroom mirror had been semi steamed up so she must have had a shower. His gaze snaps to the floor and a relieved smile crosses his face noting the wet foot prints, they go towards the dresser and then towards the closet. Moving quickly over there he opens the doors to find her curled up, knees pulled tightly against her chest, face pressed against the top of her knees. She's still just in a towel, he crouches down and reaches out a hand slowly only to pause briefly. Eyes gazing over a healing scar, still red it was the size of the tip of his pinkie finger. To him, it reminded him somewhat of a gunshot scar. Shaking off the thought he places a hand gently on her shoulder,
"(Y/N) ..." he says softly, she flinches back, her head snapping up, teary (e/c) eyes staring at him in panic and fear, "It's okay..." he holds his hands up, "it's me, you're okay, they're g..." he grunts as he's knocked backwards as she throws her arms around his neck and lets out a sob. He quickly wraps his arms around her cold trembling form and holds her tightly against him, "it's okay, you're okay," he whispers to her,
"A..ace... I... I was..." she presses her face into the crook of his neck, sirens could be heard now, "I was so scared," he just holds her tighter, Sabo appears at the doorway, when he spots them both he sighs with relief,
"Smoker's here," he says quietly, Ace nods and waits for Sabo to leave again while keeping most of (Y/N)'s body hidden. He then stands bringing her with him easily. Glancing around he spots his jacket on the back of her desk chair and grabs it, wrapping it around her shoulders,
"Pops called the police, they'll most likely want to ask you some questions, do you feel up to it?" she just shakes her head, "okay, since it's Smoker we shouldn't have too much trouble getting him to back off for now," a few moments later Sabo returns,
"Smoker wants to see us all," he informs, "he's downstairs," he then disappears again, Ace looks down at (Y/N),
"Why don't you put some clothes on, I'll wait just outside the door okay?" he hesitantly leaves her and leans against the wall outside. He only has to wait a few minutes before she shuffles out wearing grey sweats and a white tee, his jacket also around her, she timidly touches his arm, he quickly wraps it around her since she's still trembling, "come on, let's get this done with as quickly as we can," together they head downstairs. Smoker is waiting in the living room with Ace's brothers,
"Right," Smoker nods towards the sofa, "let's get this done quickly as its late for us all," Ace and (Y/N) sit down, Luffy who was already sitting there pulls the girl into a hug. Once she's released, she grabs Ace's hand, he gives hers a little squeeze. Smoker only asks a few questions, mainly to the boys asking them to describe the intruders and how many there were before looking at (Y/N) and frowning, "Miss (L/N), I took the curtesy of reading your file, I don't want to push you to answering anything right now after your ordeal, but do you think this may be connected to that past event?" she completely tenses up, "You don't have to..."
"Yes," she mutters out quietly, her grip on Ace's hand tightening. Everyone looks to her, "they were involved with it," Ace watches as she subconsciously grips her right shoulder with her free hand and frowns deeply. He rubs his thumb over her knuckles and she looks to him, giving her a small encouraging smile, she seems to relax,
"Right," Smoker makes a note with a deep frown, "thank you Miss (L/N). Your guardians have been informed, and we are going to post an officer outside to keep an eye on things,"
"Thank you," she responds timidly then jumps as Newgate places his hand on top of her head,
"She'll be staying the night over at ours, Rayleigh is on his way back but won't be home until late morning. Shakky is handling a situation that occurred at the bar and will be home as soon as she can," he gives the girl a fatherly smile, "So I suggested you come stay with us, so that they both don't need to worry and rush things."
Soon after the boys and (Y/N) were sitting in the Newgate's games room, Luffy was playing some random game with Sabo. (Y/N) slumps against Ace's side having fallen asleep, Thatch opens his mouth only to get a glare from Ace, "If you so much as utter a word..." Ace whispers out in warning, Thatch just snickers, "and don't think I don't see you Marco," he turns the glare on his other brother who was attempting to pull out his phone to take a sneaky pic,
"What'cha gonna do about it yoi? Don't wanna be waking up your girlfriend now do you?" Marco chuckles quietly, Luffy frowns at this,
"But I thought..." Sabo covers the boy's mouth and shushes him,
"Luffy you're so loud, you will wake up (Y/N)," he admonishes, Luffy huffs and grumbles turning back to their game,
"I just wanna know if she is his girlfriend or not, because that would mean she's like our sister," the boy is pouting now, Sabo shakes his head and Ace groans. The two elder ones shared a look before snickering together,
"You two just shut up," Ace sighs while wrapping his arm around you gently. Sadly, they don't, they torment him until finally, all of them doze off in their positions around the room.
