Chapter Text
“I’m setting you up.”
Alec Lightwood’s fingers paused mid-word on his keyboard, not sure if he should be more confused or surprised. He cut his gaze up to the red-haired woman who had decided she was allowed to sit on his desk without moving his head an inch. His sister insisted that this look of his was “salty” and that he needed to dial it back. But Alec didn’t really have a dial. Especially not when it came to Clary Fairchild.
“How long is the jail time?” he drawled, life coming back into his fingers. He decided to focus on typing the B&E report he was filling out instead of on her annoyingly eager expression. Seriously, if he had to be around her near-constant sunniness all the time, he would stab a fork into his eye. Clarissa “Clary” Fairchild was a rookie detective in the NYPD, and she’d been assigned to partner with Alec’s adopted brother, Jace Wayland. Within a month, Clary had caused the whole department a lot more trouble than she was worth, had at least a dozen people reassigned to different precincts, good cops who had been working at the precinct for years no less and was currently fucking her partner right under the Captain’s nose. The captain who happened to be her stepfather, who therefore looked the other way so long as it didn’t affect their work. Alec sighed internally, having to admit that Jace had been more focused, more attentive to protocol, and a better overall person since working with Clary. So actually, their relationship made them work better together. That didn’t mean that Alec approved of it. Or her.
He smirked at her scowl.
“On a date , Lightwood.”
“Is there a difference?” he grumbled under his breath, backspacing over the last sentence to correct his word choice. His personal opinion of the victim really wasn’t supposed to color his report. But seriously that guy had been a dick and Alec would have tried to set his apartment on fire too, given half the chance. His partner, Lydia, agreed with him wholeheartedly. Clary kicked at him.
“Hey! It’s an olive branch, all right? Jace told me you’re not going to dinner on Sunday.” Alec let out a put-upon sigh, leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and glared at her. Which was as much of an invitation for her to talk as he would ever give her. She shrugged. “They say the best way to get over something is to get under someone?”
Alec arched a brow, “I’m pretty sure that’s for breakups. Are you trying to tell me that I’m breaking up with my parents?”
“Alec,” she whined, childishly bouncing her shoulders to emphasize the begging. In all fairness, it was a nice gesture. Ever since Alec had publicly come out, not only to the department but his family as well, things had been...awkward between him and his parents. His mother was furious that the “relationship” she’d always assumed he had with Lydia was a farce and his father...His father couldn’t seem to wrap his head around it even a little. Alec knew all too well how Robert Lightwood handled things he disapproved of: he made them go away . Mr. Lightwood was a former cop, who now worked in the Police Commissioner's office as a civilian. But when he was an officer, he’d been partnered with a man who was rumored to be gay. Back then, guys in the department didn’t really “come out,” so much as it was understood that they were “funny.” Alec’s father made sure the guy was kicked off the force and stuck in some dead-end security job at a mall somewhere in New Jersey. The Lightwood family name did have its perks. It was just that his parents believed he was tarnishing it. As such, he hadn’t exactly been “welcome” at Sunday Family dinners for the past few months. He’d decided recently to just stop going. It resulted in a pretty nasty voicemail from his mother. There really was no winning.
Alec deflated a little and gestured for her to continue.
She squirmed, clapping her hands together quickly. “Awesome. So the guy, Magnus--”
“What kind of name is Magnus?”
“Latin,” she snapped. “Don’t interrupt!” He lifted his hands in defeat, and she continued without prompting. “He’s amazing. Owns several businesses including that club where that murder happened a few months ago?” Alec blinked at her slowly, not entirely sure if she thought this was a plus or a minus on the guy’s spreadsheet. “Pandemonium,” she supplied, “Jace and I go there all the time. I take Izzy, too.” She waved her hands, “Anyway. He’s brilliant and interesting, not to mention independently wealthy and hilarious and,” she sighed, “stunning, really. He’s a bit...well, you’ll just have to meet him.”
“I have not said yes to this, Fairchild.”
She smiled, shrugging her shoulders playfully, “Too bad, he already has your info."
“Clary--”
“and will be at Mario’s on Saturday at 6.”
He frowned, “Isn’t Mario’s that really expensive, fancy place in that renovated warehouse?”
“I know you’ll be on time, but Magnus is always late, so I told him to meet you at the bar first.” Obviously, the answer was yes. Alec knew the place fairly well because it was in his neighborhood. Apparently, rich people got off on dining out in bad neighborhoods. What made her think Alec would be comfortable in a place like that?
“Clary,” he said again, trying to stop her. His repetition went ignored.
“I thought it best not to tell Jace or Izzy, but I told Lydia you had some stuff going on Saturday night, so she’ll text me if anything comes in.”
While a surprisingly thoughtful gesture, he was not at all happy with the direction of the conversation.
“Okay seriously overstepping here-!” his outburst was cut off when Clary leaned down and clapped her hands against his face roughly, squishing his cheeks forcing him to look at her.
“Listen to me, Alec,” she said quietly, with a ferocity he’d witnessed often enough in the interrogation room. “Jace adores you. So I will do triple back handsprings to get on your good side, even if that means bribing you for the rest of my life. And I will do it, too. Because gay, straight, or ace, people like me. So just accept your fate.” Alec rolled his eyes as best he could in that position and pointedly ignored the odd looks being shot their way. God, she was so fucking dramatic. “So trust me when I say that you and Magnus will hit it off because I would never even consider doing anything to make you hate me more than you already do.”
He shoved her hands off his face and rubbed his cheek, “Point taken.”
Her bright green eyes gleamed, “So you’ll go?”
“Fine.”
She straightened up to clap her hands and jump in place excitedly, “Yay! Saturday, six o’clock, Mario’s!” she barked as she skipped off to wherever she was supposed to be.
“Fine,” he grumbled back, returning his attention to his report. He stared at the screen for a long moment, trying to remember what he was going to say next.
What the fuck had he just agreed to?
*
Magnus Bane sat at his desk in his apartment office, staring out the window and idly tapping his fingers on his phone. He was very seriously considering picking it up and making the call to cancel Saturday night’s plans. Very seriously. Because he didn’t do things like this.
Okay, he did , but not like this. Magnus got offers all of the time. It was pretty much standard for someone to offer up a friend, acquaintance, or “employee” as entertainment for a weekend. It would be strange if business associates or acquaintances didn’t make the offer at some point in time. He supposed they were doing it to get on his good side, to get favors or leverage, or whatever else they thought they could get. Pitfalls of operating so many lucrative businesses in the toughest city in the world. And Magnus would know, he’d lived in some of the toughest. Chicago, L.A., London, Hong Kong, Dubai, Cairo, Abidjan, Jeddah. He’d been born in Bekasi and was sent to an orphanage in Jakarta after his mother committed suicide when he was 6. He ran away when he was 10 and had been running ever since. He completed a bachelor’s degree at Melbourne and went to Harvard for his MBA, where he’d applied for US citizenship. It was a much easier process when you spoke 8 languages and had international income. Somehow, he’d landed in New York, and thrived. He blamed his CFO, Raphael, for the final move, and his best friend Catarina Loss, for his decision to stay. It wasn’t fair that she’d decided to get herself knocked up and use his goddaughter against him.
At any rate, business in New York was good. He’d broken things off with Camille in Melbourne and had remained unattached since. So, yes, he did accept most of those lovely offers of flings and whirlwind affairs, because he could keep them light and casual, and disappear from that relationship at his leisure.
Clary was different. She was a cop, of course, but she was different. She was one of the few real friends he had that wasn’t attached to his business or his past, and she wasn’t looking to get favors from Magnus no matter what anyone thought. She genuinely enjoyed his company, and always made that blond boyfriend of hers pay for drinks at Pandemonium, no matter how often he insisted that it was on the house. They’d met when she was a doe-eyed rookie officer doing her job, and now she was a doe-eyed rookie detective insisting that he just had to meet Blondie’s very hot and very gay cop brother. Magnus had interacted with Jace Wayland enough to know that he’d never want to even touch that gene pool.
“He’s adopted , Magnus. Alec is Jace’s adoptive brother. I don’t think I’ve ever met two people who were more different.”
Because of that and because it was Clary, he’d said yes. But it was Friday afternoon and Clary had texted to confirm he was still interested. That was ten minutes ago.
“Just cancel,” Raphael groaned from across the desk, tossing a heavy file onto it. “You’ll have a replacement body in your bed within an hour.”
Magnus scowled so hard it hurt, “Don’t say it like that!”
“Like what?”
“Like...like they’re pieces of meat.”
“Aren’t they?” Raphael scoffed, arching a perfectly plucked brow. His CFO wasn’t just a snarky asexual, he was an impeccably groomed asexual with keen fashion sense. Magnus supposed he’d adopted those habits in order to avoid confrontations with Magnus over his appearance.
“ No ,” he snapped back. “Just because they’re short-lived, doesn’t mean they’re without feeling.”
Raphael shrugged. “I suppose lust qualifies as a feeling.”
“You’re a cruel man, Raphael Santiago,” Magnus said with a pout. “And I don’t want to cancel. I don’t want to disappoint, biscuit.” At that Raphael nodded, unable to argue. He and Clary had a...complex relationship. Their dynamic was founded on one of Raphael’s not so great qualities.
“Then text her back and go. Enjoy yourself.” He got up to leave, supposedly to return to his actual office. “And maybe try not to jump into bed with him five minutes in?”
“That was one time! Why do I tell you things?”
“I don’t know, but I wish you’d stop.”