Chapter Text
“My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
"Max!” Alec shouts to his son from the kitchen in the small New York apartment. “Don’t make me come back down there! School!”
The sound of little feet hurrying down the hall let Alec know it’s okay to return to concentrating on his case reports. He takes a sip from his coffee and contemplates what kind of person would use a movie sword replica as a murder weapon as Max runs into the kitchen. He passes his own seat, walking over to Alec to give him his morning hug.
“Morning daddy,” Max says with a smile, midnight blue eyes blinking up at him. Alec smiles back, focus completely shifted to his son, as he wraps an arm around him in a half-hug.
“Morning, honey. Sleep well?” he asks, dropping a kiss on Max’s forehead. Max nods.
“Mhm! I dreamed that me and my friend Rafe were Power Rangers. I was the red one and he was the blue one, and we fought so many bad guys. It was so cool!” Alec laughs, running a hand through Max’s dark hair fondly. He's always so overwhelmed by how creative his son is, by the smile that is always on his face despite their somewhat difficult situation. He’s insanely proud of his little blueberry and knows no way of expressing it.
“That sounds great. Are you going to tell your friend Rafe about it?”`he asks, taking his arm from around Max and gently pushing him towards his breakfast. Max skips to his chair on the other side of the table while responding.
“Yeah! I’ll tell him after school today!”
Alec looks at him with confusion. “After school?"
Max nods enthusiastically. “Yeah, at the play auditions!” he says through a mouthful of eggs on toast. Alec continues looking confused.
“Did you tell me about this?” he asks. Max looks at him with a pout.
“I told you when you came home from work yesterday.” Alec places a hand over his face. He was exhausted from a long day of scouring details of a crime scene and doing door-to-door interrogations for potential suspects. Being a detective in New York City is hard work, and sometimes when he gets home he doesn’t have room in his head for much else. He loves spending time with Max and cares about everything he has to tell him because they are all each other have in their small family of two. It's just that being a single dad isn’t easy. Balancing work and finding time for things that are important to Max is something Alec is still working on.
He looks back up at Max with a tight smile. “What time will the auditions be over?”
“Rafe said his papa said we finish at three-thirty,” Max says, finishing up his breakfast and standing up to walk over to his school bag by the doorway. “He’s the director. He’s really sparkly.” Alec nods pensively, rubbing absently at his stubble. Usually, since he and his sister Izzy work in the same precinct (he as a detective and Izzy as a pathologist) and Izzy takes her lunch break around the time Max finishes school, she picks him up and drops him over at Simon's, Alec's neighbour who works at home as a comic book creator. He’ll have to rearrange that with them later, though.
He stands up from his seat and walks over to Max, taking his small hand in his own.
“Alright, well, have fun okay? I’ll make sure someone picks you up after school.” Max nods up at his dad with a smile.
“Okay daddy,” he says and tugs Alec forwards, toward the front door. “Let’s go, we’ll be late!”
Alec smiles. What would he do without this boy?
After dropping off Max with a wave goodbye and an ‘I love you’, Alec arrives at the precinct early, as usual. He makes sure to send his sister a quick text before heading inside.
“Morning, Alec,” Lydia Branwell, his partner, says from behind her desk as he walks into the crowded office room filled with desks and ringing phones. He gives her a small smile as he takes a seat at his desk across from hers. He met Lydia in college when studying to become a detective, and they had found companionship in their hardworking nature and have been best friends ever since they worked together on their first project case and had realized how well they worked together. On their first day at the precinct, Captain Garroway had immediately paired them up as partners.
“Hey Lydia,” he says. She holds out an arm across their desks to hand Alec the daily coffee they take turns getting. He takes a sip as she flips through some papers on her desk.
“Did you get a chance to look at the newest case files I emailed you?”
He sighs tiredly, running a hand through his hair. “Yes, looked over the details this morning. It's a strange one.”
“Sure is…” she replies slowly, scanning his face with a scrutinizing look. “Is everything alright, Alec? You're usually more excited about a new case.”
Alec gulps down some more coffee before giving her a worn look.
“Yeah, it's just...it's been really hectic lately and...it’d be nice to have some more time with Max, y'know? I mean, I love this job, but Max is my life and it's just hard to balance sometimes, especially when he wants to do more than just stay at home all day every day.”
“I'm sure Max is okay with how much you work, even if you do work too hard,” she sighs. “You know Garroway wouldn't mind you taking a few days off to relax -”
“I just think he needs to get laid,” a voice from behind him interrupts their conversation. Lydia scoffs and Alec just rolls his eyes as he turns in his chair.
“Hey, Iz.”
“I got your text,” Izzy says, seating herself on the edge of his desk. “You wanted to talk?”
“Yeah, I was wondering if you could take your break a little later than usual today?”
As he talks, he notices his sister shift a little uncomfortably and immediately starts getting uneasy.
“Oh, um, I was actually going to tell you I can't take any breaks today,” she starts. “I'm really busy down in the morgue with three new bodies and two others from unsolved cases I still need to open up or my boss is going to have my ass. Sorry, but I'm swamped today, big bro…”
Alec heaves out a sigh. He's still getting used to having Max in school, so he has yet to set up a backup plan for when Izzy can't pick him up. You'd think that the year of parental leave Garroway gave him when he first adopted Max would have given him the time to think of these things, but his mind had been occupied with happiness of the fact that he had even been allowed to keep Max at all, let alone have a future with him.
“I’ll think of something,” he says. He's already going through a list of possibilities in his head when Izzy sets a hand on his shoulder, catching his absent gaze with a question in her eyes asking what’s wrong. “Max is staying after school for some play he told me about last night that I was too tired to pay attention to when I got home, so now I need someone to go collect him at 3:30.”
Izzy gives him an apologetic look. “You know, Lydia’s right. You work too hard. You need someone to help you relax, and if you’d just let me set you up with someone -” She cuts herself off when she catches the look she’s seen so often on her brother’s face. The look that says ‘you know I have no time for anyone but Max’. She lets out a strained breath. “Fine, well, he wouldn’t stop talking about it when I picked him up yesterday. I can tell you about it if you want.”
Alec lets out a relieved sigh. “Thank God, yes, please fill me in. What play is he doing?”
“Alice in Wonderland. You know the story. He wants to be the Mad Hatter or one of those fat twin things. He said Rafe is his new friend in the 3rd grade and his dad is the director and he’s excited to play with him after school when they practice together. That’s pretty much all he talked about, his new friend Rafael. I think he’s partially why he’s doing the whole thing.” Izzy smiles at Alec with a fondness of her nephew. Izzy had been with Alec every step of the way when adopting Max, convinced their parents what he was doing wasn’t insane, and had acted as Max’s sub-parent whenever Alec was too exhausted to go it alone. He appreciates all she does for him, even now, five years later.
“Thanks, Iz. I’m glad he’s found a friend he wants to spend this much time with. I feel like it just being me and him has impacted how easy it is for him to make friends, but he sounded genuinely excited about the play this morning. Maybe this Rafael kid is a good influence.”
“I’m glad. We can go see him in it together when it comes out. And before you ask, no, Max didn’t say anything about when the play would be shown.”
Alec scoffs at how well his sister knows him. She proceeds to stick her tongue out at him, never too old to do so. He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, well, he’d love that -”
“I’m going too,” Lydia interjects from where she’s tapping away at her laptop. Alec grins over at her.
“Of course, everyone can come marvel at my talented son. But for now, let’s get back to work.”
Throughout the morning and well into the day, Alec tries to find someone who could get Max from school. All he needs is for someone to drop him over at the apartment, from there Simon would take over. But no one is free.
He has no one else to turn to when he steps into Captain Garroway’s office.
“Morning sir.” Luke looks up from his computer to give Alec a nod, signalling for him to take a seat. Alec obliges.
“Morning, Lightwood. What can I do for you today?”
“I need to take a break around 3:30 today to collect my son from school, if that's alright with you?” Luke looks over at him with a quirked brow, mouth in a slight frown for a minute before he lets one of his famous bright smiles show.
“Of course, Alec! You’ve been working hard, long days lately, so you could even take the rest of the day off if you want. It's a particularly dead day and we have more than enough hands to fill your place.”
“Oh, no sir, I -” Alec starts, ready to argue that he needs to work and that he’d be back within an hour of collecting his son, but his argument dies in his throat. A break sounds nice. Maybe he could actually cook Max some dinner for once, could read him the bedtime story about pirates Max loves but is always too tired to get to the end to by the time Alec gets home.
“You’ve locked up enough bad guys this week, Alec,” Luke says understandingly. “Now go spend some time with your kid. We'll call if you're needed.”
Alec nods with a thankful smile. “Alright. Thanks, Captain.”
And so he works hard for a few more hours, keeping an eye on the clock and even leaving a little early to assure he's on time to surprise Max. With a wave at Lydia and another thank you to Luke, Alec walks to his car, a slight bounce in his step as he does so.
What he feels stupid for not expecting in New York City, he realizes halfway to Max’s elementary school, is the bad traffic and idiotic drivers every two meters. It’s 3:45 when he finally gets to the school, and he sprints through the doors in a blind hurry.
He catches sight of his little blueberry sitting on the floor in front of a set of chairs with a boy of about eight years old beside him. The boy has tanned skin and dark brown hair, and Max is laughing at something he drew on the paper in front of them.
“That’s not a cat! This is how you do it…” he goes on to scribble excitedly.
Alec slows down in front of the boys with a small smile, not even realizing that there are two adults accompanying the kids.
“I’m so sorry I’m late, Maxie -” he starts but is cut off by a gasp and a pair of arms wrapping around his legs.
“Daddy! I thought you had work!” Alec smiles with delight, reaching down to take Max in his arms.
“I took the day off to spend with you,” he says. Max looks at him with a happy smile that changes into one of concern.
“What about the bad guys?”
Alec laughs. “They’re all locked up.” Alec then realizes he isn’t alone, and looks over to see a short woman with curly, bright red hair smiling unconsciously at the two, and a man beside her who...wow. That’s all that goes through Alec’s head as he looks a little too long at the man in next to him. He’s gorgeous and glittery and wearing the most beautiful smile as he looks at Alec and his son, as well as some clothes Alec, despite his lack of knowledge about these kinds of things, finds...amazing on him. If that's even close to the right word. He gets his head out of the clouds long enough to form a coherent sentence.
“Oh, hi. Sorry that I made you wait around for me. I assume you’re the play director,” he says, turning towards the glittery man with a polite smile, remembering what Max told him this morning. The man’s smile widens.
“That I am. Magnus Bane. This is my colleague and the set designer, Clary,” he says, gesturing towards the woman beside him, who gives a small wave. Magnus extends a hand to Alec. “And you are?” Alec adjusts Max to one side as he takes the man’s hand and shakes it.
“Alec,” he responds with a dopey smile he knows must make him look ridiculous. Magnus’ eyes flash with endearment.
“And it was no problem,” Magnus continues after the short pause. “Max kept my son Rafael here good company while he waited for me to finish up with a few more auditions. He’s a great kid.”
Alec smiles at that, looking at Max whose cheeks are blushing a little at the compliment. Max turns his head towards Magnus and gives him a big smile.
“Thanks, Mr. Bane! Does that mean I’ll be in the play?” Alec’s mouth falls open a little in shock.
“Max! You can’t -” he’s interrupted by Magnus’ laughter. Alec gives him and the woman a strained, apologetic look.
“I think we’ll be able to find a place for you in the play,” Magnus grins, shifting his gaze back to Alec. “Your son’s a great little actor, you know. Brings a lot of fun to the stage.”
"Thank you," Alec says, and can’t help but smile proudly at Max, who is too busy fidgeting out of his grip to pay any attention to the complement. Alec lets him down, eyes following him to where he sits down next to his friend.
“Rafe, I’m going to be in the play!” Rafe grins at the boy, who then looks down at the drawing on the floor. He picks it up off of the floor and looks at Rafe with a smile before holding it out to his dad.
“Dad, look at what we drew!”
Alec isn’t quite sure what he’s looking at, but from what he overheard earlier, the scribbles in front of him are cats. Only one is really eligible, and he knows it’s not Max’s doing. He’s about to say what a great drawing it is when Rafe speaks up for the first time.
“It’s the Cheshire Cat. From the play.” Magnus son, Max’s best friend, Rafael is looking up at Alec with a shy smile. Alec smiles back and crouches down to the boy’s level.
“It looks great. Did you both draw these?” Rafe looks over at Max, who nods at his dad with a happy grin. Alec sticks his hand out, catching the young boy’s gaze again. “You must be Rafe. Max talks about you all the time.”
At this, Rafael grins, laughing as Max shouts out a ‘daaaad!’. Rafe takes Alec’s hand and shakes it quickly. “Hi, sir,” he says, still shyly. Alec stands back up, catching the gaze of Magnus as he takes Max’s small hand in his own.
“Well, thank you for looking after Max here, Mr. Bane -"
He's interrupted by the glittery man himself. "Magnus." It's a normal request but the sly grin that accompanies this interjection makes Alec's face heat up.
"Okay, well, uh, Magnus, we should be going -” he’s interrupted by a tug on his sleeve. Max is looking up at his with his best puppy dog eyes and a pout that would melt the coldest of hearts. Alec looks at him suspiciously.
“Daddy, come here,” he says, tugging down at his sleeve again, harder this time. Alec crouches down next to Max, who then cups his hands around Alec’s ears.
“Can you asks Rafe’s papa if he can come to our house to play sometime?” Alec sighs as he nods and stands back up, turning to Magnus.
“Max was wondering if maybe Rafe would like to come over sometime?” Magnus looks delighted, looking over at his own son to see him nodding vigorously. He smiles at Alec.
“Of course! Do you want my number?” Magnus asks. Alec feels a light blush on his cheeks as he nods, extending his phone out to the smirking man.
Once they have each other's numbers, and Alec assures Max they’ll set something up, they leave with a wave at Magnus, Rafe, and Clary.
“Your colleague ?” Clary says from where she is seated on top of Magnus' desk, holding a hand to her heart and grinning at him as he gathers the rest of his stuff from his classroom. They left Rafe to continue drawing out in the hallway so they could gather their things to go home from their shared office.
“What?” Magnus asks. “I didn’t want him getting any ideas.” He grins over at her, which makes her roll her eyes.
“So I’m not even graced with the title of 'friend'?”
“Sorry, biscuit, you know I love you, it was just a heat of the moment thing. Honestly, you're lucky I remembered to introduce you at all. He was so pretty,” he says happily, clearing up the last of his things. Clary scoffs, but her teasingly indignant look turns into a soft smile.
“Whatever. I’m just glad you’re taking an interest in someone after so long. It's not fair to yourself if you just quit dating after...you know who...” Clary trails off. Magnus glances away from her as he speaks, smile falling a little.
“Yeah, well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves there, darling. I never said anything about starting to date again. You know how I feel about all that,” he says as he finally gathers all of his stuff into his bag and turns to leave with a half-hearted wave behind him. “See you tomorrow."
“Magnus!” He turns back to her hesitantly. She’s still seated at his desk, looking at him with fond frustration. He looks at her expectantly, hand on his hip.
“Yes?”
“Do yourself a favour and call this guy. You work too hard and haven’t gone on a date in months. Plus, he seemed like he liked you. Well, if the way he barely even noticed I was there and that goofy smile are anything to go by.”
Magnus smiles in remembrance. Still, he is hesitant. Not that he'd let Clary know that...for sure at least. "Maybe. Bye, biscuit.”
He leaves the room, stooping down next to Rafe to gather his son’s things into his school bag and taking his hand in his own gently. As they walk to the staff parking lot, they talk about their school days. Rafe talks about Max a lot.
Alec and Max arrive at their apartment building when Alec realizes he never told Simon that Max wasn’t going to be dropped over at his place. He decides to go apologize in person rather than over text and is soon sorry for it when he enters through the unlocked apartment door across from his own.
“Hey Izzy, you’re late!” Simon’s voice comes from the kitchen in his apartment. “I thought you wanted to hear more about Princess Leia…”
Alec shrivels his nose. “Simon, do you nerd-flirt with my sister when she drops Max over here?” he shouts to his neighbour. He hears Simon drop something, the crash ringing out through the apartment. Max looks up at him with a large, fond grin, like this kind of stuff happens all the time at uncle Simon’s.
“O-Oh, Alec, h-hey! What are you doing here? N-not that I don’t enjoy your company, it’s just I wasn't expecting -” he walks out from his kitchen and stops babbling once spotting Alec’s amused smile. “You know what I mean.”
“I got off work early today so I just thought I’d let you know that Max wouldn’t be coming over.”
“Oh, well you just heard me drop his dinner so..." he shrugs with an apologetic smile. He then crouches down to Max. "No play time today, huh buddy?” Max shakes his head.
“Sorry uncle Simon! Maybe tomorrow. Daddy said he can play with me today and I can pick what we do!” He steals a quick glance over at his dad before continuing in a whisper. “I’m going to make him watch Pirates of the Caribbean with me.”
Simon grins over at Alec, who squints at the two of them suspiciously. “Well,” Simon says to them both. “Have fun, and maybe I’ll show you my new sketches for my comic tomorrow, Maxie.”
Max nods enthusiastically. “Okay! Bye uncle Simon!”
So Alec and Max leave Simon’s apartment and go over to theirs. They spend the rest of the evening in their pajamas, wrapped in blankets on the living room couch with Max’s favourite Thai take-out and Pirates of the Caribbean playing on the TV. Later, Alec carries Max to his bed and reads his favourite story to him and watches Max fall asleep, eyes blinking slowly until they don’t open again and a soft snore fills the room.
Alec smiles to himself and wonders what it might be like to share these kinds of moments with someone else. He mentally scolds himself for being so selfish.