It’s a bit of a rant so it’s a lot.
Okay I’ll start with Makino
She knows about ace and Sabo. Garp would often stop by for food and alcohol before heading up the mountain to visit Ace. When ace was just about to turn 6 he asked for he help in finding a present for him. Makino inquired a bit more and learned that Garp left a child with mountain bandits. Worried about the boy she decided to tag along to help bring the supplies.
Ace of course was wary of the unfamiliar woman yelling at her to go away but Makino was patient ( lord knows she is if she raised luffy in the original canon) and a few more visits she managed to gain the boys trust.
After that Makino frequently visits , Dadan is more than happy with it as it brings food and booze but the brat seems to like her too. She also meets Sabo , Ace had forgotten something and managed to fallow ace to where they met up.
Eventually they start coming to the party bar , Makino had told them that if they want food they were more than welcome at her bar. They even bring her fresh meat already skinned and cut as thanks and sometimes some money and jewelry they stole. She can’t stop them from going to grey terminal but she can give them a place to come when they’re hurt or hungry.
Of course this also how the old marine finds out about Sabo earlier and claims the blond as his grandson on the spot.Something Sabo is both terrified ( because of what ace has told him)and happy ( because someone actually wants him)with.
It doesn’t take long after that to start referring to the boys as brothers / they do decide to make it official with sake later but that’s with Luffy/they live, play , train and steal together . Though they call each other friends they definitely feel it’s more than that.
So when Ace and Sabo are ten , Garp calls asking for him to meet him at makino’s bar in few days. Dadan is with them because garp never calls ahead when visits nor does he ask them to meet anywhere outside the moutain.( she’s not the best foster mother in the world but she knows somethings up).
While waiting the boys are nervous, did someone find out about ace? Or was it Sabo’s father? They don’t know because Garp isn’t answering when they call, so they can only wait and grow more nervous.
So everyone is surprised when Garp arrives with an infant. Who introduced as his biological grandson luffy, Ace and Sabo’s new little brother.
Makino instantly takes the baby, no offense to Dadan ( the two women have become good friends over the years) but bandits aren’t ment for raising children. Dandan immediately refused to take the kid after Garp said he was his grandson, she’s already dealt with enough sleepless nights and dirty diapers so no thank you!
Ace notices the way Makino looks at the baby , love and care , thinking that the person who was kind to him won’t care about him anymore storms off. To many emotions to deal with so he needs so punch / kill something.
Sabo fallowing after him- mainly to make sure Ace doesn’t do anything extra stupid when he’s pissed but he’s also torn about the baby. When his brother / yes I know he’s adopted in canon but this isn’t canon it’s an au so he’s biological brother/ sterry was born everyone focused more on him especially when Sabo started going against being a noble. Back then it was fine since if his parents were more focused on Sterry he was able to get away . But know with people he actually cares about it’s different.
Makino wants to go after them but dadan tells her to let them go , but she does go to check on them.
( it’s while they’re gone that Garp asks Makino to stay and explains a bit more about Luffys mother)
The next few days / weeks the boys avoids Makino and the baby. Even when the woman makes the trip up the mountain , bringing luffy with her, they storms off. This of course upsets Makino and dadan has had enough of the boys making the young women upset.
It’s probably the few times( if not the first time) Dadan actually gets serious with Ace even going as far as to ground both boys Sabo tries to argue but the woman isn’t having it. Makino has enough to handle with luffy , she doesn’t need to deal with the two brats throwing a tantrum. So in a rare display of parental authority she tells them to go foosha apologize and that they’re not allowed to hunt go off to the woods , or grey terminal for 2 weeks. And does she get a rowdy angry strong brats to listen ? Easy she says she’ll Garp as a threat- ace knows she’s not bluffing last time she did that he was 7 causing all kinds of trouble until the Marine put him through training hell. The man takes any excuse to put them through marine training—. The other bandits keep a close eye on them so they can’t sneak off either.
So with guilty conscience they decided to head to foosha village for the majority of their punishment.
Makino is happy to see them, even if they only came because they were grounded.( she’s proud of Dadan , who called to inform her she might be seeing the brats in a day or two).
They apologize, sabo having the idea to bring flowers they picked along then way, ( this is also before ace starts learning manners so his his apology isn’t exactly proper but Makino understands him enough to know he’s genuinely sorry). She accepts the apology and makes them breakfast.
However before she can start someone comes in saying there’s a situation at the dock’s about her usual supply delivery.
Makino expected this , Garp had arranged something for her as compensation for taking luffy, so she would get better supplies, however that meant some one new would be there and the people on the docks were wary of new comers. If she didn’t sort it out soon a fight was going to start.
However she can’t leave luffy alone , she just put him down in the basket on the bar( the baby hated being alone and cried when ever she tried to leave him in another room.)
The only other people in the bar were ace and Sabo.
Noticing her dilemma Sabo offers that they can watch luffy for her. Ace is obviously not okay with that asking why he would offer that, Sabo says that they use it to help apologize.
Ace gets that but they don’t know anything about caring for a baby.
Sabo responds that he read a few books on taking care of babies, and rereading them after luffy arrived out of curiosity. So he can watch luffy even if ace is useless. Which ace takes offense to and the boys start arguing
While they’re arguing Makino thinks it over . She knows leaving two ten year olds in charge of an infant wasn’t the most responsible but she didn’t have much other options. She’s already had several complaints about Luffys crying( she felt awful knowing he was in distress) and she can’t bring him to the docks ; that would risk someone outside the village finding out about his heritage. The boy would try to get in the water — he’d given her a few heart attacks when he did it the first few times; the situation could get out of hand and she didn’t want him getting hurt.( or anyone else in his mother’s protective wrath)
So She accepts the offer She explains that it shouldn’t be long , 30 minutes at most.
All they have to do is watch him , she just changed his diaper and if he wakes up and starts to cry she’s has a bottle prepped and instructions in the kitchen if he’s hungry.
So she leaves leaving them and luffy,
For several minutes it’s quite , and the boys think it’ll be fine and that Makino was worried for nothing.
But them luffy wakes up a few minutes later and starts crying they start panicking. Ace covering his ears yelling at Sabo to do something, the blonde tries to rock the baby back to sleep but that does work. Then he remembers the bottle and the instructions Makino left. So he tells ace to watch him while he makes a bottle or two , leaving ace to watch him.
Ace is of course not happy about being left with the crying baby but Sabo is already gone so he’s stuck babysitting.
Eventually he can’t take the noise anymore so Ace goes over to the basket and glares at the baby telling it to shut up. The baby stops for a moment opening his eyes to look at the new person talking to him.
Ace is surprised by how bright and warm the infants eyes are. Looking at him He fully expects the baby to start crying again.( after all he’s monster)
But instead the baby smiling, a bright and happy one ,giggling. The boys laughter is a wonderous warm sound that makes ace heart swell.
Ace is taken aback by that. Why was the baby so happy to see him? He’d never seen anyone, other than Sabo, to genuinely happy to see him . (Even Makino was kind but she was a bit hesitant to approach him when Ace yelled at her go away; he’s glad she didn’t).
He realized he never actually got a good look at the baby before. He looked so small and fragile , vulnerable. Ace could easily crush him, he’d crushed many animals and adults. Yet the baby , luffy , wasn’t afraid of him. Instead he was eagerly reaching for him.
Ace reached out his hand to touch him , tiny soft hands wrapping around his finger in surprisingly strong grip.
Sabo came rushing back with the bottle surprised to see his best friend staring at the baby with fascination. ( a warm look he’d never thought he’d see on his friends face)
He doesn’t even pull away when luffy starts putting his finger in his mouth. Though he takes that as sighn that he’s definitely hungry.
Seeing Ace’s new interest in the baby Sabo tells ace to pick him up so he can feed him. Ace panics because he doesn’t know how to and why does he have to?
He likes you so you get to feed him!
Knowing he can’t win an argument with Sabo he carfully picks luffy up , realizing that he’s even smaller and breakable in his hands.
Sabo instructs ace on how to hold and feed luffy - the blonde while ace is internally nervous because while his strength allows him to securely hold luffy he could also easily crush him. Sabo actually finds it a little funny watching ace , who brave and confident, panic internally as he holds the baby like it’s a bomb.
But seeing luffy comfortable in his arms Ace relaxes and takes the bottle from Sabo.
Luffy ends up going through 3 bottles ( the note said more than one : Luffys still a D and a Monkey ) before he’s full.
Once he’s done with the bottle he starts whining. Ace panics thinking he did something wrong, Sabo takes him from ace , after taking his cravat off and using it as a rag putting it over his shoulder- mimicking what he’s seen Makino and nanny’s do after a feeding a baby, pats him on the back . The baby burps , surprisingly load and earns a chuckle from boys , Sabo moves to hand him back over to ace.
Except the baby doesn’t want to leave the blonde hold gripping tightly to his shirt. Readjusting to get a better hold on the baby , luffy pats Sabo’s face with tiny hands giggling. Just like with Ace ; Sabo is surprised by how bright luffy is , all from being in Sabo’s arms.
I guess he likes you too. Ace teased,
By the time Makino gets back the boys are completely smitten by the baby. They don’t even leave at night because luffy started to cry when they started to head back.
They spend the next few day’s learning how to take care of luffy , diapers duty is not fun but they still do it, they don’t even go back to the moutain for a few days.
However they’ve noticed something odd , Makino takes luffy out before bedtime and comes back with a sound alseep luffy and her skirt wet. She tells them that walking on the beach helps put the baby to sleep.
Still something is right about that explaination so the boys fallow her one evening.
Makino goes to a more isolated part of the shore, far away from any villagers. She takes her shoes off and walks into the water until it’s at her calves.
To their shock she puts luffy , the vunrable tiny infant, in waves.
They rush over yelling , but it’s to late a wave had pulled luffy under.
Some how Makino is able to calm them down and points just a bit farther in.
Luffy is fine, floating safely , giggling as the waves gently rock him back and forth.
When they ask, Makino tells them Luffys mother would never hurt him.
Before they can ask what she’s talking about A wave of water comes over , unnatural I’m its movements , holding luffy out to Makino son’s asleep and yet completely dry. Makino takes him the water retreating back, but not before gently caressing boys check. The young women doesn’t give the boys any room to ask anything else’s before ushering them back to the bar, it’s already late and it’s bed time.
Once they’re back and luffy is tucked in for the night she answers what she can of they’re questions.
She explains to them that Luffys mother is ocean, that’s why she brings him here so she can rock luffy to sleep. She also explains how it could be dangerous if anyone found about it.
The boys promise to keep it a secret. After all luffy was they’re little brother after all.
And wow thats a lot, if any of this sounds familiar it’s inspired from multiple fics about baby luffy and mother ocean fanfics
That’s it for now though I’ll post later
