MarcoAce "Hold my flower"
Marco has known exactly what was going to happen since someone stepped into the bar ranting about Monkey D Luffy and how he's nothing but an upstart that didn't deserve the bounty that he had been given. Not that anyone else who knew Ace expected anything else.
"He's drunk," Marco whispers, knowing that it won't stop Ace. "And you've got a meeting with someone soon."
"Ten minutes tops," Ace mutters, shoving his hat, with the flower crown that one of the children that he had helped earlier today looped around it. "Hold my flowers."
"Kick his ass," Marco sighs, putting the hat on his own head as he watched Ace cross the room and slug the idiot in the face hard enough to launch him into the wall and out onto the street.
He doesn't bother watching to see if anyone else joins in, not even when the bar goes quiet and someone starts yelling, because Ace wanted to pick a fight and he can finish it himself. Ace picks too many fights, honestly. It's making it hard for Marco to pick any.
"Well this takes me back," Shanks grins, sliding into the seat that Ace had gotten up from. "What happened?"
"Someone insulted Luffy where Ace could hear them."
Shanks nods, like he can understand what happened. Marco's pretty sure if Ace didn't have it under control, Shanks would have waded into the crowd to help him. Shanks had bet on Luffy taking Roger's title after all, he wouldn't let his pick be insulted by someone who didn't even have a chance of making it out of this alive.
"Shakky's never going to let him pay this off," Benn whistles as a chair slams into a wall, scorched where it had flown through Ace.
"You'd be surprised."
Shakky had a soft spot for Ace that Marco hadn't been expecting the first time that Ace had dragged him to the bar, insisting that it was the best on Saboady, as long as the shitty old man wasn't in. The fact that Shakky laughed when Ace insulted her husband like that was even more confusing.
"Sorry for the wait," Ace states, wiping his nose with the back of his hand checking for blood when he pulled it back. "Sorry about the wall, Shakky!"
"Try to keep avoid it next time."
"I will," Ace promises, dropping back into his seat. "Shanks!"
"A soft spot, huh?"