If you haven't read Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy or you don't know what occurs in them, then you shouldn't read this story! This spoiler alert also applies to all of the TMI series (if you haven't finished it, don't read this!)
"You got your son a what for his birthday?" Alec tried to hide his smile as he listened to Jace's voice raise a few octaves. "I thought you were a good dad, Alec!" Jace's eyes were ridiculously wide, and Alec couldn't find it in himself to be anything other than amused.
"He asked for it, Jace." He tried to keep his voice even, attempting to keep himself from bursting into laughter. At the rate Jace was going, it seemed more like he and Magnus had gotten their seven-year-old son a set of sex toys for his birthday than anything else. "Aren't good fathers supposed to get their children what they want for their birthdays?"
Jace let out a sharp laugh. "Not when their children ask for monsters for their birthdays." At that, it was Alec's turn to laugh, his laugh a bit heartier than Jace's had been.
"It's a baby duck, Jonathan. What is it going to do? Kill Max with its cuteness?" Jace rolled his eyes as if to say that Alec was being ridiculous, only working to further amuse Alec.
"Ducks are bloodthirsty, Alexander. Mark my words, that creature will be out for blood in no time at all." Alec was about to respond, mostly with a snort, when Max burst into the room. The soft yellow of the baby duck he held in his arms was a stark contrast to the deep blue of his skin.
"Uncle Jace! Look at what my daddies got me!" He rushed over to Jace, who only continued to grow more and more mortified with each second. Alec couldn't help but begin to laugh as Magnus entered the room behind their son, a knowing smile plastered across his face as well.
As he laughed, he gave Jace a glance that he knew said that Jace had better say nothing terrible to his son. "I see that, Max," Jace began, his tone clearly a forced sort of happiness. "It's almost as cute as you."
Alec watched as Magnus's smile widened in such a genuine way that it only caused his to widen as well. No matter how irrationally terrified Jace was of the duck, he would still be gentle and loving with Max, a kind of gentleness that anyone only ever saw when he was around Max.
"Remember what you were going to ask Uncle Jace?" Magnus said from behind Alec, every syllable dripping with amusement. Max giggled, a sound that filled Alec with love and joy, and looked up at his uncle with enormous eyes, obviously wanting something.
"I wanted to see if I could stay here tonight. You promised me a movie night soon." Alec watched as Jace started to say yes immediately, then laid eyes on the duck before him once more. He swallowed visibly, weighing his options, Alec knowing the entire time that Jace would never dream of breaking a promise to the little boy in his arms.
"Duck included?" was all he asked, and Alec felt Magnus's hand squeeze his shoulder, knowing he was trying to keep from laughing as well.
"Of course, Uncle Jace!" Max's voice was light and happy in a way that Alec had only ever heard in children. "Will is my responsibility so I have to take him with me!" Jace immediately looked up at them, more specifically at Magnus, a glare splattered across his face.
"Will?" he asked, his voice colder than it should have been. If he had looked mortified before, it seemed like he had just heard that he was dying now. Alec felt Magnus's silent laughs and wondered how Jace automatically knew that Magnus was the one at fault there.
Max, however, was the one to answer him. "Daddy suggested the name, and I love it! Is there something wrong with it, Uncle Jace?" his voice hinged dangerously on becoming sad, and Jace looked down at him while placing the smile on his face again.
"Of course not, Max. Will is a wonderful name for a duck."
At first, when the phone rang in the middle of the night, Alec was immediately terrified that something had happened to Max. He and Magnus were in the middle of their "alone time" as they had begun to call it when Max was around, and as he pulled away from Magnus to grab his phone, he had to force himself to ignore Magnus's noises of protestation.
"I'm sure he's fine, Alexander. Jace is probably butt dialing us." Magnus's voice was ragged, and Alec found his hands shaking as he reached for the phone, but this was more out of fear than anything else.
"Jace?" he could tell his voice was not even in any way, but he kept speaking through it. "Jace, what's wrong? It's two in the morning; has something happened to Max?"
He had to signal for Magnus to be as quiet as possible in order to hear Jace at all. "Shhh, Alec, not so loud please." Jace's voice was barely above a whisper, and Alec's mind immediately went to the thought that they were hiding from demons. But demons couldn't enter the Institute, so there had to be some other explanation for Jace's low tone of voice.
"What is going on?" he asked again, humoring Jace and keeping his own voice low as well. At that, Magnus sat up, worry filling his own eyes as well.
"Will," Jace whispered back. "It's Will, the duck. He's in my bedroom." Alec dropped his head in the hand that wasn't holding the phone, trying his hardest not to laugh while simultaneously becoming very angry.
Beside of him, Magnus seemed to take this as a bad signal. "What is it? What's happened, Alec?" he asked, his words running together out of fear. Alec waved a hand and shook his head, trying to show that there was actually nothing going on other than Jace's insanity.
"Jonathan, you interrupted my night alone with Magnus for what again?" Alec knew he had succeeded at keeping any trace of amusement out of his voice, but he knew he hadn't kept the creeping anger out of it.
"This duck is going to kill me, that's what I interrupted your ungodly acts for." At that point, Alec couldn't help but snort, to which he heard another "shhhh" from the other end of the line. Magnus must have begun to listen in because he plopped back down on the bed with an indignant snort of his own, placing his arm over his eyes in annoyance.
"It's a duck, Jace. And a baby one at that." Alec tried to keep his voice steady, forced himself to keep from hanging up on Jace, knowing that he would only call back. "You're a Shadowhunter. You've won two world-wide wars. Pick the duck up and take it back to Max's room."
"But what if it bites me?" Alec rolled back around, lying back in Magnus's arms, feeling as though he was trying to calm down a child, not a man who had been slaying demons for the majority of his life.
"If it bites you, it probably won't even break the skin," he responded with a sigh. "And even if it does, you do have a stele, you know. Just heal it. You've died before, Jace. A bite from a baby duck is not going to be worse than that."
As Magnus wrapped his arms around Alec and began slowly kissing his neck, Alec forced himself to take a deep breath, wishing that he could hang up the phone and resume what he and Magnus had been doing before. "They're murderers, Alexander," he heard Jace say, mixed with sounds that seemed like Jace was actually getting out of bed. "If this duck kills me, my blood is on your hands, just remember that."
"Yeah, yeah, Jace. I'll remember that for sure." Alec didn't wait for Jace to respond, he simply flipped over once more, immediately covering Magnus's lips with his own, hanging up the phone and tossing it on the nightstand as he did so.
"So?" Alec could hear the teasing in Magnus's voice as they entered the Institute the next day. "How was your night Jace?" Jace shot him a look that said his night included several words he didn't want to say around Max.
"It was wonderful, thanks for asking," he responded in a tone that said he wasn't actually thankful. Alec smiled as Max ran toward them, Will curled up in his arms. He bent down to pick Max up, duck and all, hiding his amusement behind his son's head.
"Daddy, I really love Will." Max looked at him with a tenderness Alec had always associated with their son only. For a moment, Max looked down at the duck in his arms, petting it in a way that made it seem more like a dog than a duck. "Maybe we'll have to start a little duck family."
At that, Alec couldn't hold in his laughter. Looking at Jace, he decided to take the jab before Magnus could this time. "I think we might have to do that Max. Maybe you can get a girl duck next time and name her Tessa." Alec smiled as he reached to kiss Max's forehead, watching the face Jace made behind Max's head.
Let me know what you thought of this story! I know I said I would post them most likely on Fridays and Tuesdays, but I decided that would take too long, so I'm just going to write as quickly as possible and post them whenever I get the chance to!
Let me know your suggestions for the E chapter!
