Another chapter today because why not. Hope y'all like it and please review!
The next morning, Clary was walking down the street with sunglasses on to shield her eyes from the treacherous rays of the sun. Her head hurt too but the ibuprofen she'd taken was starting to do its job and helped a little. The worst thing about having woken up this morning wasn't the pounding headache she had though. No, the worst thing about waking up was remembering that the night before she had tried to kiss Jace. And then everything he told her afterward.
She was confused, to say the least. He had basically said that nothing could ever happen between them (which was her own rule so why was she so upset about it?) but then he had claimed that he was going to kiss her. Maybe he meant he would after Black Angel was dead. That made sense. But she didn't want to wait that long.
Clary groaned and continued walking down to Java Jones for her shift. She was almost there when someone shouted her name and then a hoard of people were suddenly surrounding her taking pictures and asking questions. She winced at the camera flashes and the loud shouting as she attempted to keep walking. This wasn't actually new. Since her kidnap and the interview, people had been swarming her constantly.
"Clary Fairchild! Is it true that you and Badger are just friends?" One of the people asked.
Someone else partnered that with: "Where did you guys meet? How do you know each other?"
And that was continued by, "Why aren't you two dating? Is it because of Blindeye?"
And there were more questions all about Clary's relationship to Badger and her apparent rivalry with Blindeye (what?) and if Badger claimed to be dating neither of them because really he was dating both of them or something weird like that. Clary kept pushing past everyone until she reached the doors to Java Jones. Then, she twisted around to face the crowd and pulled off her sunglasses. That second thing was a mistake.
"Listen!" Clary shouted and the group went quiet. "I do not have a rivalry with Blindeye. My relationship with Badger is-"
"What do you mean by relationship?" Someone cut her off and there were a few mumbles after that.
"Friendship! By relationship I mean friendship. Badger and I are really just friends." But she stuttered a little when admitting that and thus the crowd did not believe her in any way, shape or form. Clary groaned but, seeing that there was nothing more she could do, turned back to Java Jones and entered. Thankfully, the crowd didn't follow her in.
"What was that all about?" Clary practically jumped out of her skin when Jace questioned her. She scowled at him as she walked around the counter and grabbed her apron to start her shift.
"Why are you everywhere?" She hissed as she clumsily tied her apron around her waist.
"I'm here because of this." Jace raised his phone to Clary and she looked at the headline that he was showing her.
Black Angel clones are being spotted all over New York today. Witnesses claim that they haven't moved or harmed anyone yet. Everyone is confused and we're all just hoping that Blindeye and Badger can figure this one out before it goes too far...
"I-" Clary sighed, her head was still pounding. "Should we go and check that out now? Or do you think it's some sort of trap?"
Jace shrugged. "I don't know, but it doesn't seem like anything good. My guess would be that Black Angel is preparing for something."
"And once he sets his plans in motion, all those copies will start to attack," Clary finished the thought. She closed her eyes tight feeling stressed. Drinking the night before had been a horrible idea. She had wanted to drown her sorrows but all those sorrows were back today and they were hitting her ten times worse.
"Are you okay?" Jace asked. At that, Clary opened her eyes to meet his. She gave him a tired look that she hoped answered the question.
"My head hurts," she said and he didn't react.
"Remember anything from last night?"
Clary opened her mouth but stuttered. She turned away from him to start working. "I... don't know."
"Clare..."
"It's fine, Jace." She spun back to him and shrugged. "We're fine."
Jace cocked his head at her. Then, he started to leave.
"Wait!" Clary shouted before she could stop herself. She ran a hand down her face as Jace returned to her. "What did you mean... when you said 'when' you kiss me?" She didn't meet his eye as she asked the question but she could feel his gaze locked on her.
To her surprise, the next thing she felt was Jace pressing a kiss to her cheek. She turned to him startled. His expression was impossible to read and he didn't answer the damn question before saying, "Bye, Clary," and leaving.
She stood there with her mouth half open and her eyes bugging out of her head. Once he was out the door, Clary turned only to see Magnus standing in the doorway of the employee's only room with his jaw hanging open. She quickly turned away from him and started trying to act busy.
"Umm, Clarissa." Magnus approached Clary but she kept on ignoring him. "Clarissa. Clarissa Adele Fairchild!"
"What?" Clary finally turned to him and, after a few seconds of that look of disbelief, he smiled.
"Wanna go on a double date?"
Clary huffed and turned away from him again. "We are not dating."
"Then what did I just witness?"
"Nothing. A friendly peck on the cheek that was friendly between friends being friendly."
"It really didn't look all that friendly."
"Well, I don't know what to tell you, Magnus, because we're just friends." When Magnus didn't say anything in response, Clary turned to face him. He was on the phone. She furrowed her eyebrows and then he spoke.
"Hey, Jace-"
"MAGNUS!" Clary leaped at him attempting to pry the phone from his hands.
"Hey, so this might sound like an odd and random question," Magnus continued by pressing Clary's head down and swatting away her outstretched arms. Lord, why did she have to be so short? "But would you be willing to come to Java Jones real fast? I just need to see something."
Clary was practically whimpering at this point. She gave up in her attempt to stop Magnus and just sulked.
"Oh, you're busy?" Magnus frowned. "But you- what? Uh, yeah okay." Magnus hung up the phone but he was smiling once again. "Well, Jace can't come back here but he did say that he urgently needed to meet with you at 'the spot.'" Magnus wiggled his eyebrows suggestively but Clary's heart dropped. Black Angel was back.
"Shit." Clary whipped off her apron and started rushing out of Java Jones.
As she was leaving she heard Magnus shout, "Make sure to use a condom!"
Arriving at their spot, Clary approached Jace slowly. She felt awkward now and didn't know how she was supposed to act around him. He glanced back, probably having heard her approach, and then motioned to the city before them.
"When I left Java Jones, I saw one of the clones moving. So, I followed it. He's just sitting there. On top of that lamp post, see." Jace pointed to where the clone was and Clary followed his line of vision until she spotted it.
"So, then... what? He was just getting into position?"
Jace shrugged. "I don't know. Whatever the reason was for the clone to move, we need to be keeping a close eye on them. I don't have a good feeling about this."
"Me neither." Clary pursed her lips, studying the clone that was sitting atop the lamp post. There was a strip of dark blue across his mask that the real Black Angel didn't have. "It might be smart of us to keep a constant watch on the copies."
"How? There's only two of us and there's dozens of them spread out all across the state."
"Surveillance cameras." Clary turned to Jace. "We set up cameras to watch as many clones as we can find and we can keep the feed running in my house since Simon knows and would be willing to help."
"That's not a bad plan," said Jace, "but that's going to cost a lot of money. Where are we going to get all that equipment?"
"Well." A smile appeared on Clary's face as the plan hatched in her head. "The Apple store was so grateful that we prevented major damage to most of the place and saved a good chunk of their stuff that the clones had attempted to steal that they told me they'd be willing to help out if ever needed. I'm sure they'd be willing to spare a few cameras for their favorite heroes."
Jace smiled too. "See, things really are looking up." Clary raised her eyebrows at him and he rolled his eyes. "Come on, just be happy that we have this one win."
"Not a win yet, platypus," Clary said as she started to climb down from the building and head off to the Apple store.
All she heard Jace say was, "Really? Platypus? I thought we'd moved past that one!"
"Are they all working?"
Simon glanced from monitor to monitor. "I don't know, how many cameras did you guys install?"
"Eighty-three," both Clary and Jace answered at once. They were their civilian selves now so that if anyone walked into the apartment they wouldn't have to explain why Blindeye and Badger were there.
"Then yes," said Simon, "they are all working." He turned to the duo and held a remote out to them. "This is how you can change the screens to go from 1 to 2 and 2 to 20 or whatever. You can click up and down or type in a specific number. If I were you guys, I would go through each video and make a list of what number watches where."
"Thank you for all the help, Si," Clary said taking the remote from him.
"It's no problem. I have to be going though, so if you have any questions just text me. But try not to have any questions."
"Why?" Jace asked, the smirk prevalent in his voice. "Where are you going?"
Simon hesitated, then, "Isabelle's..."
"Aww," Clary teased and he rolled his eyes.
Once Simon was gone, Clary walked over to where the monitors were set up. They had four screens all split into four sections so they could see sixteen areas at once. Clary sat down in one of the chairs that was pulled up and Jace then took the other.
"This is going to be tedious, but I do think Simon's idea would be smart," Clary said.
Jace grabbed a nearby notebook and flipped it open. "Fine, then let's start with one. What are we looking at?"
A few hours went by and Clary was finding it difficult to keep her eyes open. At one point when Jace got up to go to the bathroom, Clary decided to move to the couch. She could still see the monitors from here and now she was more comfortable. She grabbed her sketchbook that had been sitting on the coffee table and flipped it open to a blank page. Starting a new sketch, Clary let herself relax a little.
"Whatcha doing?" Jace wondered over her shoulder. She hadn't even heard him come back from the bathroom.
"Oh, uh, I'm drawing." Clary showed him the city street she had started to draw. He walked around the couch and sat down beside her. The night had been long and the bags under his eyes let her know that he was just as tired as she was.
"I don't think I've ever seen anything you've drawn before."
"Yeah, I haven't had much time for drawing in the past year..." Clary stared at the tip of the pencil and where it should go on the page. She just didn't have the will to put it there right now.
"I'm sorry," Jace murmured.
Clary shook her head. "Not your fault. I'm sure you had to give up a lot of hobbies this past year too."
"Not like I had many to begin with." Jace kicked off his shoes and brought his feet up beneath him.
Closing her sketchbook, Clary set it back down on the coffee table. "We don't really know much about each other, do we?"
"Sure we do," Jace said not looking at her, "half the time you talk, I already know what you're going to say next."
"That's just because we've had very routine interactions in the time we've known each other." Clary shook her head. "What's my favorite color?"
"Red," Jace answered and Clary was surprised he got it right. "I just-" He ran a hand through his hair. "We have the same favorite color. I think I commented something about your costume in the first month we had our powers and... I don't know, I remembered."
"Hmm." Clary was staring at Jace but he was looking down at his hands. When she couldn't help but yawn, she decided to rest her head on his shoulders and close her eyes. He stiffened immediately. Then, after a moment, relaxed and clasped an arm around her waist. He was comfortable to lean on and he smelled good. So, Clary didn't necessarily mean to, but within minutes she was out like a light.