I had neglected to answer the very crucial question if Marco got his soufflés in the first chapter. How dare I! WinterRose61, I am hereby officially solving the mystery! 😆

It was dinner time and Marco and Whitebeard were already seated at the commanders table, leisurely talking about the day. When they were rudely interrupted by the other commanders plopping down onto the table with groans.

Marco even had to safe his coffee from falling over when the bigger once decided to headbang the table.

"... So, you guys finished Ace his tasks-yoi?"

"Urgh, how was he so behind on everything! I swear there was even a report of last year..."

"Don't start it, the amount of food hidden in his room, wow, just by trying to find some replacement ink I found like 23 chicken wings, and somehow they were still crispy."

"You ate them?"

"Yea, why not, was like a lil' reward"

"... We haven't had chicken wings in like 3 weeks!?"

"If Jozu's a diamond tomorrow we know why hahahhah"

"...So, finished-yoi?"

"Yes Marco, yes, somehow we were able to finish YOUR boyfriends work."

Marco simply took a sip of his coffee "good-yoi."

By the time Marco had his answer, the chefs were bringing out the food, the tables slowly being filled with their last food of the day.

In the meanwhile, the commanders were still talking to each other about their experiences of the day. "His writing was so bad, wow, I was quicker to remake the report then to try and read it!" - "How are the spades still this crazy without Ace leading them and even split up, I swear something happened to them in those years of sailing together." - "Oh yes, I found a shirt in Ace his room." "A shirt?! The kid barely has fresh pairs of pants, let alone underwear, and there was a shirt?" - "Yea" and the commander smirked while looking at Marco "A purple one, it was sticking out of Ace's pillow" - "Ooooh Birdyyyy, you forgot something throughout the night?"

"No-yoi, Ace just likes to keep one."

"You're not even trying to deny it..."

"Why would I deny, it's cute."

"'It'S CuTe', Stupid bird can't just laugh about something."

Marco shook his head at his brother and sighed –He sure had some weird brothers-yoi.- …-Did my inside voice just copy my speech-tick... Yoi …...-

"Let's eat!" is what interrupted Marco's thoughts, in front of him was Thatch putting down one last plate before sitting down himself.

The talks started coming to an end and everyone started grabbing their meals, Marco got some fruits, mashed potatoes, beans and some meat. As a dessert he got one of his specially made pineapple soufl-….

"... Thatch, are we missing some things from the table?"

"Hmm?" the chef looked over their table and even briefly seemed to compare it to the other nearby ones. "No, no, this is everything."

"No-yoi..."

"?"

"Where's the soufflés?" -The pineapples soufflés, the one thing he has been looking forward to for the whole week, since the very moment that Thatch promised it!-

"Huh, I wasn't able to make them remember? I can't put literal things INTO your boyfriend, like an oven, remember?"

"But... Yoi..." -His soufflés...-

"Why do you suddenly look so sad, like the world has ended? … Don't tell me it's because of the stupid soufflés...?"

Thatch barely caught Marco's whisper "Pineapple..."

-Marco really turns into a baby at these times... Good Thing I am an amazing brother.-

"I can show you a trick if you want, to cheer you up!"

Marco was now poking around in his food... Sculpting a pineapple out of his mashed potato...
Thatch inwardly snorted at the sight. -First division commander in all his glory... It does look pretty realistic though, that's kind of amazing.
…. While this is interesting, I better put a stop to this before he starts crying. And no one wants a crying Phoenix in their lap, even if he is soft to pat.-

"Oi Marco."

"Hm."

"Look at me."

"Why?"

"... Just do it okay, I have something for you." To his reaction, Marco looked up and –Oh boy, were those tears already? Pineapples, and Ace, the only things making him emotional like this- "Hold out your hands for me, together."

Once Marco put his hand over the table, Thatch took a little container out of his pocket and gave it to Marco.

"There you go brother, don't be sad anymore, okay? I promise to make you some pineapple soufflés once the ovens work again."

Marco carefully brought his hands back closer to himself, inspecting what Thatch had given him. It was a small bottle filled with something of a yellow-brownish colour. Moving it around showed that it was a thicker liquid.

"What's this-yoi?"

"Smell it."

"Smell it? Why?"

"You going to question everything I do now?"

"..." Marco carefully pulled the cork out and brought it to his nose, he hadn't even really tried to smell it yet before he perked up and looked at Thatch in surprise. "Pineapple?" He questioned in disbelieve, his voice also was laced with excitement.

"Sweet pineapple sauce to be precise."

Marco was looking between his little bottle and the chef in awe, "You made this for me?"

Thatch rolled his eyes, "No, I made it for myself and only gave it to you as a joke... Of course I made it for you! I know you had been looking forward to these pineapple soufflés and that with the ovens broken, there would be no way for me to make them. I however still had the pineapple paste that I had already prepared yesterday, so I decided to make some sauce with it, just enough for you. At least this way you'll have some kind of pineapple to enjoy with your meal, the sauce goes really well with the meat, don't worry. I'm sorry it's not the soufflés you wished for, I'll -."

Marco interrupted him "It's perfect-yoi." The first division commander cradles the bottle a bit closer before looking up at Thatch, a smile of gratefulness on his face, "Thank you Thatch, I... This is … Thank you."

Seeing his brother even speechless over the small bottle of sauce, he smiled at him while taking his own utensils to start eating. "Don't worry about it Birdy! Just promise to enjoy it okay!"

"I will, I definitely will-yoi."

And so the meal went on, Thatch was happy with his brother displaying the adoration for his sauce. Making sure that others can eat their fill is his job as a chef, and if he can then also make sure it also tastes well and that eating his food brings those who do joy, always makes his day.

With every bite, Marco hummed out of pleasure. He was making sure that there was some pineapple sauce on every bite, no matter if it was the meat or the potatoes or the beans, pineapple on everything! Marco was also happy, even if these weren't the soufflés, this tasted great too, and his brother had made it especially for him. All because he knew he would miss it. He had made an extra item, even if there was already plenty of food enough for everyone, just for him. He couldn't ask for a better family.

"Oi... Where's Ace actually?" Someone spoke up towards the end of the meal.

Some eyes turned to Thatch "Don't tell me you're still using him to cook right now?"

Thatch held his heart, faking as if his brother had deeply hurt him "How could you even think that I would keep someone from eating dinner."

"Then, where is he?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean 'I don't know'? He was with you the whole day?"

"He left the moment I said I was done cooking on him. I saw him going in to the storage unit and leaving with some dried meat and apples. When I asked him about it he just said he doesn't even want to smell the food that's for dinner anymore."

"... How were you able to traumatize that black hole that bad so he didn't even want to come for dinner..."

"Ah, you hurt me my brother, how could u even think that, I, Thatch, the favourite brother of everyone on board, would somehow traumatize my own baby brother?"

"... What did you do... And on that note... I'm surprised he didn't try to steal food."

"Ooooooh he did! After a …... talk... he stopped stealing food though."

"... Does this have anything to do with traumatizing the boy?"

"Nonsense, when I saw him stealing his 5th piece of meat, I simply put down... I mean, I accidentally put down, the next pot on his crotch. And I definitely didn't infuse the bottom of said pot with Haki for a brief second."

"... That's so mean."

"It was all for a good cause."

The next day, Ace came to dinner like usual, not telling anything about his day with Thatch. Everything seemed to be fine, if not for the fact that the fire-user avoided Thatch like the plague between food-breaks. And when he met him somewhere by accident and when they sat at the same table to eat, Ace for some reason always had a hand hovering over his crotch, as if protecting it ….. Only the commanders really knew why, and they all inwardly patted the boy on the back for his courage to even get this close to Thatch.