Chapter Text
“Why are you at my desk?”
Simon stares at him blankly, holding a steaming cup of coffee—something like his third of the day, along with everyone else in the office who, predictably, had descended on the new machine like a plague of locusts.
Magnus shifts in his chair, the one from his desk that he wheeled over to the Photography department first thing this morning. Friday had been awkward enough, and the weekend did nothing to alleviate that feeling.
“I’m not. I’m on the side of your desk.” With his laptop, and his smoothie, and without the judgemental eyes of his coworkers.
“Being pedantic is my thing.” Simon sits down and tucks himself under the desk. “Who are you hiding from? Luke or Clary?”
Magnus tries to come across affronted at the accusation, but his reaction is too over-the-top for even someone as sweet and naïve as Simon to believe. “Luke,” he lies instead, doing a better job at pretending to admit defeat, “I’m still working on that Insurance article.”
“The one you submitted for editing last week?” Simon sips his coffee with a stupid, all-knowing eyebrow.
“How do you know that?”
“Clary told me.”
“How does she know that!?”
“I just assume she knows everything,” he shrugs. “She also told me that you are still keeping tabs on”—Simon makes air quotes either side of his head—“Superman.”
Magnus wills his cheeks to not change hue just at the mention of Alec, but he’s become a like his teenage self again. It’s very embarrassing. And Clary’s big mouth isn’t helping either.
“I’ll have you know that I got definitive proof that I was right.”
Simon smiles, shakes his head, and begins typing away on his keyboard. Magnus pretends to do the same. What should it matter if Simon or anyone else believes him anyway? But really that was quite a big bombshell he just dropped, and Simon doesn’t want to know? Really?
“Don’t you want to know—”
“Just a moment,” Simon interrupts. Magnus isn’t enjoying feeling like the crazy, conspiracy theorist between the two of them. After all, this is a man who things Batman is some reclusive billionaire for fucks sake.
Magnus taps his foot impatiently. “It’s really big—”
“One more moment.”
And after one more moment passes, Magnus regrets opening his mouth at all.
“Oh, why are you here,” he grunts.
“Good morning to you too, Magnus,” Clary smiles. She perches on the edge of Simon’s desk, arms crossed and eyes interrogating. “Now, tell me about this proof you have?”
“I’m starting to think you two are telepathic.” He doesn’t have to fake how defeated he feels this time. The answering look between the Simon and Clary gives him a new conspiracy theory to pursue. Regular theory, even. Normal theory. Correct theory. Fact! “On Friday, I discovered that Alec, has super strength.”
Clary doesn’t even say anything, and Simon just laughs, both of which are insulting responses.
“Hear me out,” Magnus continues, “he picked me up like I weighed nothing. I’m not light! I work out, I’ve got a lot of muscle mass, and he didn’t even break a sweat. Felt like I was floating, honestly.”
Now, Clary looks scandalised. “He lifted you?”
Magnus falters for a moment. He forgot the context of his proof. Damn. “Well, uh, we were sort of, you know, kissing at the time.”
Clary gasps sharply, and Simon groans.
“Damn it, Magnus,” he says, “You couldn’t have waited a week more? I’m out twenty bucks!”
“Did you and Clary bet on when Alexander and I would kiss?”
“Calling him Alexander is adorable,” Clary says. “And it was actually Ragnor who started the pool.”
“I—the pool!?”
“Yeah, the office pool,” she shrugs. “It’s been what, a year now?”
“A YEAR!?” Magnus clamps a hand over his mouth as his voice reaches the pinnacle of its crescendo, drawing eyes from across the office. He clears his throat, and whispers angrily, “Is the whole office in on this?”
“And Luke. And Kenny the mail guy.”
Magnus rubs a hand over his face. This is painful. He is in pain. He also feels murderous. And slightly violated.
“We’ve had a lot of false starts,” Simon laments as Magnus repeatedly bangs his head against the desk. “It was difficult to tell if you guys were hiding your relationship or you were just…like that. But Luke was pretty adamant you weren’t together, and I guess he would know.”
Magnus stops banging his head. “Well, you can keep your money because we aren’t together now!”
“What do you mean?” Clary asks. “You kissed! You must have told him how you felt?”
“How am I supposed to know how I feel? That’s absurd!” Magnus grouses. “No, we kissed and then I left and that was Friday and now it’s Monday and I’m pretty sure that Simon and I will be sharing a desk until I can change my name and flee to Mexico.”
“This is ridiculous.” Clary springs up, rounds the desk in three strides and grabs Magnus by his shirt. She yanks him to his feet and begins to march him in the direction of the main office. “You are a grown man, you are going to go to Alec, you are going to tell him how you feel!”
Magnus tries to wriggle free, but her grip is freakishly strong. She drags him all the way back, before pushing him, making him stumble into Alec’s desk. Alec starts at the intrusion, and Magnus his best to play it off like he meant to do that. He curses Clary in his mind as the clicking of her heels retreats and musters up a casual smile. “Hey!”
“Hi?” Alec regards him cautiously.
Torn between not wanting Clary to be right, and really wanting to kiss Alec again, Magnus finally decides it’s time get everything out in the open, once and for all.
“Can we talk?”
*
Having this conversation in the supply closet is rather ironic, but Magnus isn’t on his A-game today. Alec’s lips are pressed together, looking everywhere except him, which is difficult in a space as small as this.
“So, what did you want to talk about?” Alec says, wringing his hands.
“I’ve not been very honest with you, Alexander,” Magnus begins. He tries to summon his professional bull-shitting skills, but he finds that particular reserve empty. He’s started this sentence not knowing where it is going to end, but there are some things in this world that are worth saying, even when you’re terrified to say them. “I have been watching you, for a while now, and sort of mentally filing away all this information about you. And it made me realise something, something huge, and I didn’t know how to talk to you about it. Originally I wasn’t planning on talking to you about it at all, actually, just revealing it in a big, dramatic fashion.”
Alec quirks a smile. “That certainly sounds like you.”
“I decided against it though, and I wasn’t sure why I was still watching you at all, and then I made the stupid mistake of getting Clary involved.”
“That is stupid,” Alec winces. “Did I ever tell you she once tracked down my sister and had her berate me about y—stuff.”
“Stuff?”
“Doesn’t matter, what were you saying?”
Magnus’ journalist gut tells him to push, but he’s a little preoccupied with his own racing thoughts to worry about what dirt Alec’s sister and Clary have on him. He’ll find that out later. “Yes, anyway, as annoying as she is, she helped me to realise something about you and me. I should send her a card if this works out,” he muses.
“You and me?” Alec says, wide, hazel eyes sparkling with intrigue and something underneath that Magnus sincerely hopes he is reading correctly.
“Mostly me. My revelations about you are all my own work.”
“Do I get to know what these revelations are?”
There is a note of something hopeful in Alec’s voice, that makes what he has to say next a little bit easier. “I realised, that somewhere along the way, working in this office all these years, that I had fallen in love with Superman.”
The effect is immediate. It’s like someone unplugged Alec, the light in him going dark like a snuffed-out flame. His face falls, and those bright eyes go dull. “Oh.”
Magnus loses the confidence he had just a moment ago. “Oh?”
Alec shrugs. “Yeah I just—” he sighs and shrugs again. “Never mind. Why are you telling me this?”
Magnus is not going to cry, he is not. “Why am I…? I thought…I thought that you might be interested in that information.”
Alec purses his lips and shakes his head. His hands are in his pockets now, and it’s clear his walls have gone up. “Not really.”
“Oh.” Magnus tries to steady his voice, and curses Clary and Simon and the whole damn office for getting his hopes up. “It’s just that, what happened on Friday…?”
“That was a mistake,” Alec grits out, not meeting his eye again.
Magnus nods wordlessly. He’s never known Alec to be this cold, but maybe this is better. Pity can hurt just as much as apathy.
“Okay then, um...good talk, I guess.”
When, and only when he’s alone in the closet, does Magnus allow a tear to fall.
And then another.
And then so many that he can’t possibly hope to stop them, and he’s wiping his cheeks with printer paper that comes away smeared with eye makeup in a way that would give Rorschach a run for his money.
That is exactly how Gretel finds him, a minute later, sobbing in a supply closet, blowing his nose into the communal stationary supplies.
“Really Magnus?”
“Fuck off, Gretel. Can’t you ever knock?”
“I shouldn’t have to knock on a fucking cupboard!”
She slams the door closed.
Point taken.
*
It’s been a long week.
Magnus watches the clock tick slowly around and tries to will it to be five o’clock already. He wants to go home, make a steak and an extra, extra dry martini, and have them both in a piping hot, lavender bubble filled bath.
Clary cornered him again after he manged to avoid her for a day or two and leaned on him until he admitted that Alec had not felt the same way. At that, she seemed surprised and confused, and despite her insistence that he should talk to Alec again and make sure they were on the same page, Magnus can’t bear the humiliation a second time.
And if that first confession had damaged their relationship this much, another would make it unrecoverable.
Alec won’t even look at him. He leaves a room as soon as Magnus walks in it and never turns his chair around to take part in their workplace banter anymore. Magnus would like to keep his job and he’s sure Alec would too; what other newspaper in the city is going to let him interview himself and pass it off as ethical journalism? None, is the answer. So Alec needs to stay. And Magnus wants to stay. They’re both going to have to get over this eventually.
For now, he is keeping his head down and distracting himself with busy work.
“Magnus,” Luke’s baritone voice booms across of the office. “Good work on the Insurance article.”
It was cookie cutter, uninspired drivel, but for once Magnus let the editors do their thing instead of trying to make it perfect the first time around. Won’t be his name on the byline anyway, so in a caffeine and misery induced haze, he churned it out and handed it over.
Magnus offers him a tight-lipped smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. Luke, mother hen that he is, notices.
“Are you alright?” he asks in a low voice. “Something on your mind?” Luke’s eyes dart to Alec and back again, and Magnus imagines putting Luke through a paper shredder. There must be some kind committee he can anonymously report their weird relationship to. Maybe he is going to have to quit his job after all. Maybe a transfer…the offices in Gotham can’t be that bad, right?
“I’m peachy,” Magnus says, which roughly translates to Fuck you, I know you know, stop meddling in my love life. Luke is fluent in passive-aggression, so hopefully he’ll understand.
“If that changes let me know.” Luke leans against his desk and crosses one ankle over the other. “I have an assignment, if you’re up for it?”
Anything to get me out of this office. “Whatcha got?”
“Every insurance company in the city has raised their premiums in reaction to all the recent property damage. All except one: Alicante Insurance.”
“That’s not right,” Magnus says, “Alicante Insurance did raise their premiums. It’s in the research I gave you.”
“They did raise them, yes, but not reactively. Proactively. Theirs were the first to increase, and there was a massive hike right before that first robot attacked.”
“Destructo.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Nothing. You think Morgenstern knew the attack was coming somehow?” How did Magnus miss that? Because you were distracted, duh.
“I didn’t say that” Luke says. “The quote you got from Mr Morgenstern is a bit too factual. It might be good to get something more…emotional, out of him.”
“He’s so awful to be around,” Magnus complains, but he’s already shutting off his computer and gathering his things.
“I don’t doubt that. Why don’t you take Alec with you this time? Two-on-one might make him more likely to slip up.”
He glares at Luke. Don’t push. “No, I can do it.” He spares glance in Alec’s direction. He has his head down, but the rigidity of his spine tells Magnus he’s tuned in.
Luke’s face splits into a grin. “Two heads are better than one. Alec!” The man in question turns around nonchalantly like he wasn’t eavesdropping. “You and Magnus are going to go interview Valentine Morgenstern again. I’ll call his office and let them know you’re coming.”
Alec stammers, but no words come out before Luke is giving them both a thumbs up and heading back to the safety of his office.
Magnus rocks on the balls of his feet. “So…”
“I’ll drive,” Alec says, snatching up his things and tossing them haphazardly into his briefcase. He walks off without so much as a peek in Magnus’ direction.
Guess they’re meeting at the car, then.
*
The drive was tense and silent.
Almost silent. Magnus had nervously shoved approximately eight Starbursts into his mouth, and it took the majority of the journey for him to chew them down enough to swallow. So there was that noise.
The offices of Alicante Insurance are on the top floors of one of the tallest buildings in the city. It is a very long elevator ride up to the 70th floor, and neither he nor Alec used the time to discuss any type of strategy. Winging it is kind of Magnus’ whole thing at this point, but it certainly isn’t Alec’s. The fact that he hasn’t even tried to start a dialogue speaks to how damaged their relationship must be.
And really, he understands that Alec doesn’t feel the same way, that’s fine, but why is he acting like Magnus wounded him so greatly by being honest? If anyone should be huffing angrily in elevators and ignoring people, it should be Magnus. Alec broke his heart, not the other way around.
The elevator dings, and as the doors slide open, there’s a man—boy, really; he can’t be much older than 20. He’s got a clipboard, a headset, and the kind of wide smile that practically screams unpaid intern. It’s the same expression everyone in corporate America wears: tense, forced, and about as real as a ‘We’re All Family Here’ speech that precedes a round of layoffs.
The intern greets them, ticks something on his clipboard, and then leads them deeper into hell.
Morgenstern’s office sits at the far side of the room, positioned in such a way that he must walk past all his workers in their cubicles to get to his suite. It makes sense, Magnus thinks. Valentine is exactly the kind of person who has to witness how many people he holds power over on the daily to feel like he’s worth something.
Magnus hadn’t come here last time he spoke to Valentine. Instead, the CEO had insisted on taking him to dinner. Magnus had negotiated down to coffee, because he doesn’t hate himself nearly enough to willingly subject himself to an evening with that man. Coffee wasn’t pleasant, but it was quick.
He did wonder, at the time why Valentine would assist on playing away from home, and that thought is only confounded as they are let through the towering oak doors into an office which might be bigger than Magnus’ whole apartment. It’s definitely bigger than Alec’s. This is the kind of room which injects confidence into whomever sits in the large leather chair behind a sleek, brutalist desk. The walls are adorned with accolades, awards and photos of Morgenstern shaking hands with similar looking white men. With all of his personality on these walls, it explains why there is none left in the man himself.
Morgenstern doesn’t stand as they enter. He doesn’t even look up from whatever it is he is typing, and he makes them wait in silence until he is done. A power play, and an obvious one at that.
Eventually though, he clears his throat. “That will be all, Daniel.”
The intern—Daniel—nods and scurries away, dragging those large doors closed behind him.
“What can I do you two gentlemen for?” Morgenstern says. “When Mr Garroway called, I did inform him that I have a very busy schedule, but he was rather insistent that you were already on your way, and that this wouldn’t take long.”
Alec doesn’t move a muscle. Magnus assumes that means he is taking the lead on this.
“I was hoping to get another quote from you for my article.”
Morgenstern sighs and reclines. He gestures to the chairs in front of him, and Magnus takes a seat. Alec continues to stand, and in fact wanders slightly to take in the decor, a fact that very obviously irritates the CEO. He fixes his face quickly though and turns to Magnus. “What was wrong with what I provided before?”
“Nothing, Sir.” Calling this man sir makes his insides twist, but you catch more flies with honey. “I am just doing my due diligence.”
“Right.” Morgenstern’s gaze slides uneasily over to Alec as he continues to circumnavigate the room, and then back again. “Get on with it then. Some of us have real jobs to do.”
Magnus imagines pushing him off a bridge, which allows the answering smile on his face to be at least 50% real. “Of course. You’re on track to have another record year, is that correct?”
“My company is doing well.”
“More than well, I’d say. When I first started my research, I noted that your stock prices had tripled since last year, but they’ve now quadrupled.”
“Is there a question in there?”
“What would you say the cause is?”
“Good management.”
Christ this man is insufferable. “No outside factors?”
Morgenstern keeps his face passive, but his eyes keep shifting over to Alec. He lifts his hands from his lap to the desk and begins drumming his fingers. He inclines his head at Magnus, his words too valuable to waste.
“Like your stock prices,” Magnus says, “your premiums have also quadrupled, and whilst there has been an increase in people making claims, there has been no subsequent increase in the quantity of approved claims.”
“Insurance is a delicate balance. Economic measures, risk modelling…I wouldn’t expect someone as civic-minded as yourself to understand.”
Sensing a dead end, Magnus pivots. “People are understandably upset—”
“Are they.”
“Do you think they are right to blame insurance companies? Or do you think the blame lays at someone else’s feet?”
He hopes that by giving Morgenstern a chance throw a certain someone under the bus, that he will open up, and forget that words like ‘blame’ imply that a mistake has been made. He feels a little bad, doing this with Superman himself in the room, but he doesn’t actually believe that he’s to blame. Hopefully Alec realises that (not that he could like Magnus any less right now).
Morgenstern shifts in his seat. Alec is reading some certificate on the wall, hands clasped tightly behind his back. “Well, when you look at the pattern of these... unfortunate events, it's only natural that premiums would adjust. Our models anticipated this kind of behaviour,” he bites out.
“Anticipated? You expected something like this to happen?”
Alec finally wanders close enough for Magnus to see him in his periphery, instead of gauging his whereabouts by the direction of Morgenstern’s glare. He closely examines a very tall, shiny, nice-looking China vase. standing a foot forward from the bay windows that catch the morning sun, on a plinth identical and equidistant from the others that form a line down the edge of the room.
Morgenstern watches Alec even as he answers Magnus. “I—not specifically, but in high-risk areas—statistically—incidents like that are bound to happen eventually."
“These areas only became hight risk after you raised premiums. How could your models predict that?”
“Could you not touch that please?
Alec and Morgenstern are locked in a staring match following the latter’s warning, yet Alec’s finger still hovers close to the vase.
For the first time since they left the office, Alec talks. “It looks expensive.”
“That’s because it is,” Morgenstern answers.
“How much?”
“More than you can afford.”
Alec whistles. “Are you insured?”
“Excuse me? Hey—”
Alec presses his finger to the vase, just enough to nudge it slightly.
Magnus gets to his feet at the same time as Morgenstern and cuts the shit. “Mr Morgenstern, did you have advanced knowledge of the robot attacks, and did you raise premiums knowing that more people would be forced to take out policies, or renew existing ones?”
“Answer the question, Mr Morgenstern,” Alec says, icily calm.
“That is a one-of-a-kind antique,” Morgenstern spits. But when Alec raises a challenging eyebrow, his hands go up in surrender, juxtaposed to his anger. “You don’t know who you are messing with.”
“Who tipped you off?” Magnus asks.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Magnus takes a moment to think whilst Alec continues to antagonise the CEO. The robots (D1 and D2, that is), are not extraterrestrial or extra-dimensional. In the official report, it was confirmed that they operated using earthly materials, and some seriously impressive coding. Then there was the fact that the second was an improvement on the first.
Magnus had already concluded that there was a puppet master out there somewhere pulling the strings, but what if there were masters. A conglomerate, even. Who would stand to benefit from a spike in Superman fights, a short-term payout for existing policy holders, and then a flood of new customers and justification for high premiums.
Morgenstern takes a deep breath, seemingly cognisant of his burgeoning temper. He calmly returns to his chair, and fixes Magnus with a glare. “Leave my office now, or I’ll have security escort you out.”
Magnus doesn’t doubt Morgenstern means it, but he’s not leaving here empty handed. He surreptitiously checks his phone to make sure it’s still recording.
“You strike me as a leader,” he says. “The rules with an iron fist type. I wonder, Mr Morgenstern, if I have a chat with some of your buddies, and tell them what I think I know, how quickly they’ll throw you under the bus to save their hides?”
“Leave. Now.”
Alec, who disappeared from view a moment ago, reappears with a framed photograph in his hands. He drops it unceremoniously on the table.
“I recognise these guys you’re golfing with. They’re fellow insurance guys, right?” Alec does not pause to allow Morgenstern to answer. “You look like close friends. Do you think they value that friendship more than staying out of jail?”
Magnus expects Valentine to explode in a fit of range and buzzer for security, and he would be okay with that, because this conversation has been incredibly enlightening, and he now has a dozen new leads to pursue.
He doesn’t expect Valentine to laugh.
It’s fake, like everything else about this man, but it still sends a shiver down his spine.
“You think you’re so clever,” Morgenstern sighs, “coming into my office, playing detective, accusing me off all sorts. But there is one, big mistake you’ve made.”
Magnus humours him. “Well don’t leave us in suspense!”
Morgenstern smiles, all teeth.
And that’s when Magnus notices the gun.
*
“We should have confronted him in public.” Ending up in the closet with Alec twice in one week is an act of the universe so cruel, Magnus could laugh if he didn’t feel so much like crying. “Are you going to let us out of here now?”
Alec looks at him sidelong. “How exactly would I do that?”
He shrugs. “Any number of ways. Kick the door in, rip it off its hinges, melt the lock…I can’t not think of ways you could get us out of here.”
“Did you bang your head when he shoved you in?” Alec aborts an attempt to reach out and touch Magnus’ head, his hand falling back into his lap like a puppet with its strings cut.
“You’re the second person in a very short window who’s accused me having a head injury,” Magnus huffs. “Do you need me to close my eyes for plausible deniability?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Magnus has an argument on the tip of his tongue but thinks better of it a moment later. Plausible deniability. If Valentine is still on the other side of that door, then they can’t leave. Alec would immediately be outed as Superman, and information like that in the hands of Morgenstern is a very bad thing. Alec must still be able to here Valentine shuffling about with his super-hearing. That also must be why Alec didn’t throw himself in front of Magnus and fight for the gun, which up until this very moment, Magnus was intending on holding a grudge about.
“He’s too empowered in his office,” Magnus says instead, unsure and uncaring if Alec is evening listening. He’s anxiously fiddling with his watch, so Magnus assume it’s a no. “Thinks he can get away with murder.”
“We aren’t going to die, Magnus.”
“I meant that figuratively.”
Now that he thinks about it, it’s not not a possibility. Valentine had essentially mugged them at gun point; their phones, wallets, bags, everything they had on them, taken away. Even Magnus’ smart watch was taken. Alec’s clunky old analogue was not deemed a threat. He had assumed Valentine herded them in here and locked them in because he needed time to think or gather funds for a particularly plentiful bribe. He doubts there would be enough money in the world to keep Alec quiet. But murder? He wouldn’t put it past Morgenstern. He wouldn’t put it past any CEO, actually. He’s sure he read an article or something about corporate finance being attractive to psychopaths.
Alec gives up with whatever he was trying to do with his watch. He uncrosses his legs and does his best to stretch them out in front of him, one at a time, before curling up again.
“Luke knows we’re here. He’ll come looking for us.” Magnus says, mostly to temper his rapidly accelerating heart. But when he mentioned that little fact to Valentine as he was frisking him, the CEO didn’t seem all that worried. “That was badass, by the way. How you were in there.”
Alec shakes his head. “It was stupid and reckless, and I could have gotten us both killed.”
“Still badass,” Magnus mumbles. He’s a little bit stuck on Alec’s admittance that their lives were actually in danger. That they still might be.
“I’m sorry, by the way.” Alec says suddenly.
“For what?”
“For reacting the way I did when you told me how you felt. I was being immature.”
“I’m sorry too.” Magnus isn’t really sorry, but it feels like the thing you say when you’re locked in a megalomaniacs closet with the guy you told I love you, and who hates you for it. “Are you making sure you don’t die with any regrets?” He jokes, and Alec rolls his eyes, but the air is getting thinner in here isn’t it or maybe his lungs are collapsing. Can that happen? Spontaneous lung collapse?
Magnus really wishes he had a sugar hit right about now.
Wait a minute.
“My emergency kit!”
“Your what?”
“My miniature emergency kit,” Magnus says, yanking off his boot. He bought these boots not only because they were stylish and granted him an extra inch of height, but for the fact that the heel itself hollow, and designed for smuggling storing small items.
“Do you have anything to pick locks?” Alec asks.
“Not quite.”
He unscrews the heel and turns it on its head. The contents scatter to the floor.
Three starbursts and a condom.
Magnus wastes no time in unwrapped the sweets and popping them in him mouth one by one.
“This is so on brand for you,” Alec says, watching him in fascinated disbelief.
Magnus tries say, “I have a plan,” but through the wad of candy in his mouth, it comes out more like “I-ha-a-pwan.”
He chews a little faster, and rips open the condom.
Alec scoots away from him. “Um.”
Magnus spits the chewed candy into the condom.
“Um,” Alec repeats, deliberately this time.
“I have a plan,” he reiterates. “I’m going to slide the condom through the gap in the door and then inflate it. I’ll keep going until it pops—this will attract Valentine’s attention. He will walk over to see what is happening, where he will then step on the Starbursts that fell onto the carpet when the condom exploded. Then, because Morgenstern doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who walks around with gum on his shoe, he will leave the office to get a new pair of shoes, at which point, you can safely get us out.”
“I’m starting to get seriously worried about you, Magnus.” Alec holds up a hand and pre-empts Magnus’ response. “There are like, a dozen problems with your plan. Condoms are difficult pop for one, and you have no way of knowing where the Starbursts will land if Valentine will step on them, and even if he did, surely he would just pick it off and put it in the bin, and even if he did then leave the office, we wouldn’t be able to tell, and even if we could, I can’t get us out this closet!”
A beat. “Well, when you put it like that…” Magnus reassembles and puts back on his shoe. “It’s the only plan we have, unless you would like to offer something up?”
Alec crosses his arms. “We are going to sit here and wait for rescue.”
Just how far will Alec go to protect his identity? There must come a point where he has to bite the bullet and start throwing punches in plainclothes to save lives?
Magnus grunts, because he hates that plan, and starts working on his plan, which is great considering what he has in his emergency kit is proving to be ineffective in an actual emergency.
It takes him a couple minute to flatten the Starbursts down enough to be able to poke it under the door with his pinkie. He presses his cheek to the floor, pinches the end of the condom, and presses his lips against it.
After one blow, the door opens.
Magnus has the fleeting thought of Fuck me, my plan worked! before realising that he hadn’t put his plan into motion yet, and there is a figure standing in the doorway, staring down at him.
When Magnus imagined himself on his knees in front of Superman, it wasn’t quite like this.
“What took you so long!?” Alec groans and takes the hand Superman offers him, which is…weird.
“Forgive me, I was saving the city again,” Superman retorts.
Weirder.
“Did you do a victory lap?” Alec accuses like he very much knows the answer.
Superman scuffs the floor with his boot, looking like a guilty child.
Weirdest.
“I might have done a fly by—I earned it! Those robots are tricky, but it’s a lot easier when you just have to beat up a bunch of CEOs until one of them blabs about their evil lair. Golf club.” Superman finally looks at him, kneeling on the floor by his feet, holding spit-soaked sweets wrapped around a deflated condom. “Hey man.”
He's familiar. Why is he familiar?
“Hey.” Magnus’ voice is like water and his legs are like jelly when Superman offers him a hand. He steps out of the closet, back into the office and looks around. “Where’s—” There. Feet poking out from the other side of the desk, Valentine is lying prone, unconscious, and looking very much like someone punched him in the face.
“Is it over now?” Alec asks.
“I think so,” Superman answers. “I didn’t even have to punch the little coding nerd when I found him. Just threatened to and he squealed like a pig. Melted all of his hard-drives for good measure. How did you two get tangled up in all of this?”
“Good old fashion investigative journalism,” Alec supplies, eyes flicking towards Magnus. He gives Superman a play-by-play of how they ended up in the closet, and then waggles his watch in Superman’s face and says something truly astonishing: “Aren’t you glad I made you learn morse code?
What?
“Yes, yes, watch communication is very effective. But more importantly, I think your friend might be having a stroke.”
Alec looks to Magnus with a guilty expression. “Magnus, this is—”
“Superman.” Superman. Superman is standing in front of him. Whilst Alec is still standing next to him. What kind of illusion is this? Magnus grabs a pen from the desk and throws it at him, just to see if it will pass straight through. It doesn’t. It bounces off his chest and lands on the floor, whilst fucking Superman stares at him like he’s enjoying Magnus’ bewilderment. That stupid smirk unlocks something deep in his brain, and he realises exactly where he knows him from. “You’re him!”
“Why yes I am, thank you.” Superman preens, which is a little arrogant considering that isn’t what Magnus meant and just being Superman isn’t a compliment in itself.
“No, not that, I don’t care about that,” Magnus snaps. “You’re the guy from the Thanksgiving photo…fuck, what’s your name? J-something? Ja…Jack? Jace! You’re Jace. You’re Alec’s brother!” Magnus utter delight at having solved this little conundrum is short lived, because the puzzle piece he had chopped up and forced together in his mind shatter apart and form an entirely new picture. One that paints in him in a much stupider light. “You’re Superman, and you’re Alec’s brother.”
Superman—Jace fucking Lightwood—smirks again. “Older brother.”
“Younger brother.” Alec corrects, with a kind of fond exasperation.
“I was born before you.”
“We have no way of verifying that information.” Alec turns to Magnus then. “What Thanksgiving photo?”
Alec. Alec is here. This doesn’t make any sense. What about all of Magnus’ evidence? That can’t amount to nothing! Alec stares, unblinking as Magnus tries to organise his thoughts. He doesn’t get the chance to do that before his caveman brain is snatching the glasses clean off Alec’s face.
He flinches back but not in time.
Nothing happens. He….still looks like Alec.
Magnus puts the glasses on himself, to try and see if there is some kind of mechanism or magic he has to trigger.
“Fucking hell what is your prescription, negative ten?” Magnus can’t make out any more detail than just blurry shapes and colours directly in front of his face. He can’t even make out the rings on his own hand. In just a few seconds, the dizzying vision starts to make his head hurt. He takes them off.
“Yes, I know. I told you that!” Alec says, eyes squinted nearly shut. Magnus hands them back, and Alec wipes the fingerprints off with his sleeve. “What is going on? You’ve been so weird these past few weeks and I thought…But then you said...”
Alec is not Superman.
This thought, apparently, is hilarious.
He laughs so hard there are tears in his eyes. Alec and Superman, who are two distinct people as it turns out, look at him like he’s just grown horns, or maybe considering having him psychiatrically evaluated. The latter might actually still be worth it, because Magnus really can’t fucking fathom how stupid he’s been.
“I thought you were him.” Magnus jerks his thumb in Jace’s direction with a giggle, half delirious with clarity.
“I—Superman!?” Alec gasps. “You thought I was Superman?”
“Oh yeah, wrote a whole article about it and everything,” he admits.
“Magnus what would possess you to think that!?”
“I wasn’t a million miles away from the truth! I found out about a UFO that was seen in Smallville the same year you were born, and your exclusives violate like, every bit of journalistic standard there is, and Luke didn’t seem to care so I was already suspicious. I realise now that he knows about this and was just covering your ass. Then once I had the hunch there was a bunch of other stuff I noticed.”
Alec’s eyebrows are in his hairline. “What stuff!?”
“Well you ran up to the roof when that first robot attacked. I thought you were going to take off.”
“It’s a good vantage point to check on Jace, make sure he is alright.” Alec looks pained to admit it, and Jace’s resulting cooing is likely the reason why.
“That isn’t everything. You…you faked being sick. Right after the second robot attacked.”
“I had the flu.” Alec says defensively.
“Looked fine to me,” Magnus scoffs.
“I think you were just seeing what you wanted to see. I took a day to check on Jace after he got his ass beat—”
“How dare you!”
“—and I was next to a really sick guy on the train on the way back, and I caught whatever he had.”
“But you’re so strong.” This sounded a lot more convincing in his head. “You picked me up.”
That startles laugh out of Jace, who slaps Alec on the back. “Nice, you finally made a move! Izzy owes me dinner.”
Alec clears his throat pointedly, and Jace takes the hint and moves away slightly to give them some space.
“I don’t know how to respond to that. I lift weights?”
“You stopped typing. Last week, before we…when I got up you stopped typing mid-sentence and tried to leave.”
Alec puffs out his cheeks and blows out a slow breath. “I was just writing a bunch of nonsense so that I could have an excuse to leave at the same time as you.”
“Oh.” Magnus has been so, so stupid. There is one more thing, though: “What about the mind voodoo?”
“Mind…voodoo?”
“I get a warm fuzzy feeling in my stomach when you smile at me, or I look at your face for too long.”
Alec ducks his head. “Like butterflies?”
“Yeah like—oh.” Magnus bites his lip to stop from laughing or maybe crying, he’s not sure. “You’re really not Superman?”
Alec smiles, but it’s a little sad. “Just regular-man. Sorry to disappoint.” This fact, that he isn’t who Magnus thought he was seems to weigh on him. It’s not difficult to see why; your adoptive brother is your age—possibly younger—and supernaturally great at everything? Better than all humans in every single way? At least, Magnus thinks, that’s how it must appear to Alec.
But he’s wrong.
Magnus realises now, that to love and be loved by Alec is not a rare thing at all. The evidence is clear for those with eyes to see. Sure, Jace might save the city a couple times a year, and save the world every so often, but none of that means anything without people like Alexander Gideon Lightwood, who make the world something worth saving.
There is a lull, as all the clarity and misunderstandings wash over them both. Magnus does his best to ignore the sounds of Valentine Morgenstern being dragged by his ankles unconscious across the floor. Jace could very easily pick him up and have him sitting in a jail cell on the other side of the city in the blink of an eye, but that would lack the necessary public humiliation that a man like him so deserves.
Magnus watches him go over Alec’s shoulder. Jace winks at him, and he gets a brief glimpse of the dropped jaws and clutched pearls of the office workers who are more than likely overcompensating for their lack of shock at the revelation that their boss is a supervillain, before the doors swing shut.
“Aren’t you going to go with him?” Alec asks gruffly.
Now it’s Magnus’ turn to be confused. “Why would I do that?”
Alec shrugs. He’s doing that thing where he won’t look at him again. “Because of how you feel about him.”
“How I feel about him? Why would I feel any sort of way about Super—oh. Oooooh.”
Their conversation in the supply closet reforms itself in Magnus’ mind, until it is unmistakably, blindingly transparent what world-class miscommunication occurred between them.
Has Alec not cottoned on yet? Is Magnus going to have to summon up the courage all over again?
At least, maybe, they’ll be idiots together.
“Alexander,” Magnus begins with an unnerving degree of hope, “I thought I was telling you that I knew about your alter-ego and telling you how I felt, when we talked before. Turns out I was doing neither.”
Alec nods slowly. “So, when you told me you were in love with Superman…” he squints (adorably) as his mind works through the puzzle. Magnus’ heart hammers away and then skips a beat entirely when Alec’s studious countenance morphs into understanding, and he says: “Tell me again.”
“I love you,” Magnus says without hesitation, and really, it’s the only thing right now that he knows to be true.
“Me Superman or me Alec?”
“I don’t love you anymore.”
“Too bad, you’ve said it already. No takesies-backsies.”
“Can you be normal about this please?”
“No.” Alec shakes his head, his smile reaching ear to ear. He steps into Magnus space, and oh how he’s missed having him there. Alec’s hand reaches up to cup his cheek, and Magnus has to tilt his head back a little to make up for their height difference. “I don’t think I can ever be normal about you, Magnus Bane.”
“Why?” It’s so quiet it’s almost a whisper.
“Because you drive me crazy,” he says, inching closer with every word that slips out those extremely kissable lips. “You’ve driven me insane every day for years. Every day you smiled at me, every day you laughed, every day I caught you very obviously staring at me and hoped that maybe you felt the same way I did.”
“And how is it that you feel, Alexander?”
He doesn’t get past the first two syllables of his answer before Magnus is closing the millimetres of spaces left between them.
It’s world-altering, frankly, and for all the grief and the insanity of the last few months, Magnus would repeat it a thousand times if he got to live this moment again and again. Alec kisses him like he’s something precious, to behold and keep safe. He’s somehow hesitant and insistent all at the same time. Magnus’ own dichotomy. His own conundrum, solved.
They part when the need for oxygen becomes too overwhelming to ignore, but even an inch between them feels like too much right now, so he keeps his fingers where they are, curled into Alec’s shirt, and Alec rests his forehead against Magnus’ own.
“That goes under L, for Life-affirming.”
Alec draws back to look at him. The hazel of his eyes has become thinner around the edges of his dilated pupils. “Huh?”
“Nothing, Alexander.” Magnus breathes out a laugh, that sounds more like a sigh. “Nothing at all.”
His mental filing cabinet is just a flurry of mis-filed papers, strewn about and disorganised, and one day, Magnus might get himself a new system when his brain isn’t a mushy pile of something vaguely Alexander-shaped, but for now, Magnus is happy to live with the chaos.
*
6 CEOs Arrested in Superman Sting
Written by Magnus Bane and Alec Lightwood