I know canonically Darry and Sodapop only called Ponyboy “honey/baby” in private, but I also don’t think the gang would make fun of them or be weird about terms of endearment like one might expect. I mean for one thing Darry and Soda would obviously start breaking jaws if they had anything smart to say about it, but also the gang all remembers how often Mrs. Curtis called them stuff like sweetie, baby, and honey too.
Steve still thinks about the first time he and his dad got into it bad enough that he got thrown out of the house, and when he showed up at the Curtis’s, she asked him “Oh Steve honey what’s wrong?” and he’s sure he hasn’t cried that hard in anyone’s arms before or since.
Or when Twobit’s dad left, Mrs. Curtis dropped off some food to help his mom out, and she squeezed his shoulders and told him “Don’t worry sweetheart, you still have us!”
And of course if Ponyboy was “baby,” so was Johnny. He’d never even heard his own mother say half the terms of endearment Mrs. Curtis called him so freely and easily.
Dally pretends that he didn’t ever notice her using pet names with them, though he still silently clings to the way she would call him “son” when they’d have their little chats on the back step.
So whenever they overhear Darry asking Pony “you want anything from the store, baby?” or Soda calling “c’mere for a sec honey, you missed a belt loop” down the hall, the memory of her overrides any urge to tease the kid about it.
(They’ve also just been around since Pony was an actual baby, so it’s not that odd or surprising to them that his bros would still call him stuff like that bc they also still kinda see him as a baby no matter how grown-up and tuff he gets)
