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Passion Makes You Dangerous

Summary:

Max has constantly been going between back and fourth between Idris and wherever his parents are needed. The constant moving has made Max more observant than other Shadowhunters.
This comes in handy a lot
One fateful day while in New York he meets Magnus Bane, High Warlock of Brooklyn, and sees how the Warlock and his eldest brother, Alec, look at each other. One day Max tries to get brother to tell Magnus how he feels, when he doesn't Max takes it upon himself to take care of Magnus. Little did he know. . . .
Well, being a Lightwood is never easy.

Another prompt by prix-darkheart

Chapter Text

Max Lightwood is an observant twelve-year-old, well more observant than a Shadowhunter twelve-year-old. He figures that he’s this way because he’s always being moved around from Idris to New York to Mumbai to wherever else the Clave wants to send him or his parents. Most people tell him that it’s a blessing, that when he’s old enough like his brother and sister, Alec and Izzy, he’ll be able to see more demons coming his and his squad’s way and will be able to take them down quicker.

He finds it to be a curse. Especially at night in the Lightwood mansion in Idris when his parents put him to best and wait until he’s asleep to start talking, and the talking turning into hushed yells and shouts. He doesn’t know what they argue about but he has a feeling it has to do with his eldest brother, Alec.

Alec is insanely tall for any Shadowhunter, even for someone of Lightwood heritage. None has shown up to be as tall as Alec in years. Max likes his brother’s height because it always means when he goes back to New York he just has to look for the tallest person there; and wherever Alec is so are Izzy and Jace. Alec also happens be the one that runs the Institute in New York. Max knows it technically belongs to his parents, but he and his parents are in Idris more than not that Max often wonders why his parents don’t just hand the Institute over to his brother. His big brother seems ready enough and Max knows that his brother would rather deal with paper work and Clave officials all day than going on a hunt.

Max doesn’t remember much from when Alec was a teen, specifically when Alec and Jace started to train together in and out of field so they can be prepared to become Parabatai. Max knows that his two older brothers make good Parabatai but he also wonders why Alec and Izzy aren’t Parabatai, or Izzy and Jace. Particularly the last one. From what he sees and hears Izzy and Jace have no issue putting themselves in danger and doing what they can to get what they need for a mission; Alec, on the other hand, is always in the background, watching over them before does any actual killing or information grabbing.

Currently Max is waiting at the fountain in the center of Idris, a country that’s hidden away in Europe that’s the Shadowhunters homeland, waiting for his Mom and Dad to arrive. They’re going to New York for his parents to check-in at the Institute for his parents to get whatever work done that Alec hasn’t completed.

Looking around Max sees the Blackthorn family. The eldest two are Mark and Helen, they’re Shadowhunters and part Seelies, then there’s their brother Julian, followed by the twins, Ty and Livvia. While Mark and Helen’s Faerie half have given them blonde-hair, Ty is the only one with black-hair and the others have brown. He’s also a year behind the twins in birthing order. Behind them he sees Dru. Dru is a year younger than him and, unlike other Shadowhunters, isn’t skinny. Every time he sees Dru he hears what some of her own relatives (an Aunt) and other older Shadowhunters say about Dru.

They say that Dru needs to eat less, train more, otherwise when it becomes time for her to get her first rune and start getting gear hers won’t fit. That it will also make it impossible for her to not be spotted by demons and nearly taken out. About the first day the Blackthorn’s came to Idris Max asked his parents if he could hang out with them; all four parents agreed. During the whole day he spent with them Dru barely ate her food. Only making it a third or half-way through before stopping. She only drank water and ate food that’s considered healthy. Max didn’t like it.

While it was just him and Dru he talked to her about her eating patterns. She told him that she agreed with what the others were saying. How she does need to lose weight otherwise her gear won’t fit when she gets it or it will make her more of demon food.

Max is brought out of his thoughts when he hears a loud cry. Looking back at the Blackthorn’s he sees Mrs. Blackthorn hushing and patting the back of the youngest and newest Blackthorn, Octavin, or Tavvy.

“Max, stop staring.” Hearing his mother’s voice Max looks up to see his Mom and Dad as a portal is opened by an old Warlock with fair skin, greying hair, and horns on his forehead. His Mom grabs his hand and the three of them walk through.


Max knows where he is as soon as his foot hits the floor. The Institute. The New York Institute. His parents navigate him through the halls when they come across a room where his brother and sister are. “ALEC! IZZY!” He says excitedly as her rushes in to the room, hugging his brother.

“What are you doing here?” Izzy asks with joy.

“Mom and Dad----”

“He’s here because he nearly burned down the Mumbai Institute,” their father intervenes.

“I told you I was looking up the Nourishment Rune, I was hungry!” Max defends. Max may have passed his rune exam but there are still some runes that look the same to him, the Fire Rune and Nourishment Rune do look the same, or at least feel the same with all of the drawing and angle turns he has to make.

“Those two runes look nothing alike, Max.” Alec tells him. Max knows that Alec is his brother but more often than not Alec feels like his father than their own. Max knows that Izzy and Alec grew up in the Institute while Jace grew up in Idris until the death of his father, Michael Wayland, before his parents took the blonde in. Besides being Jace’s father all Max knows about Michael Wayland is that he used to be his father’s Parabatai. Max and his siblings don’t know much else as there had been some sort of fight between their father and Michael which caused a strain in their bond so when Michael died Robert didn’t feel it, he didn’t even know his Parabatai Rune had left his body until a Clave official, Inquisitor Herondale,----an old Shadowhunter who hardly changes her mind on a matter when it’s set----and found a piece of paper in Michael’s hand writing that stated he wanted Max’s father, if willing, to take care of Jace.

“They do to me!” Max defends himself.

“Max, go to your room and open the Grey Book and look up the Extinguish Rune.” With a pout forming on his lips Max leaves the room with one final look at his brother and sister. He looks at Alec a little longer. With their parents always in Idris Max knows that Alec practically raised himself, Izzy, and Jace with Hodge watching over them every so often.

Going down the hall to his room in the Institute Max can’t help but wish that his parents left him with his siblings and is being raised in New York instead of just bouncing around.

Later that day Izzy is helping him with his runes by using the flash cards. He’s getting all of them right until she brings up a rune card that Max has seen a hundred times over that he now knows for certain to be the Flame Rune. Good thing Izzy doesn’t know that he knows yet.

“Nourishment.” He says in a joking manner.

“Max,” he hears the lightness in her voice, “you know this is the Flame Rune.” She chuckles and they both break out into giggles. “Come here, you little devil you,” she adds as she tickles him.

Then their Mom comes in. “Max, give me and your sister you a moment.” His mother’s voice isn’t in her usual stern, commanding tone.

“I never get to hear the good stuff.”

When his mother knows that he’s out of the room----but not out of ear shot----he over hears them. His Mom is apologizing for treating Izzy like crap earlier, saying how being a mother and her children’s commander is awful, and how Izzy reminds their Mom so much of her when she was young.

“So passion makes you weak?” Izzy asks rhetorically.

“No,” their mother’s voice is hushed. “Passion makes you dangerous.” She stops, choking on a sob before continuing. “Your father says Jace is out with Clary Fairchild.”

Fairchild? Max knows that name from somewhere but he can’t place it. There are family homes still in use in Idris and other’s that aren’t. The one’s that aren’t are countless. There’s Morgenstern, Wayland (until Jace goes back), Herondale will be on that list when the Inquisitor dies as her son died years ago, Fairchild. . . .

Fairchild. That’s where knows the name from. The list of Shadowhunter Families no longer alive. But how can this Clary girl be a Fairchild? And why do his parents consider her to be trouble? (Actually, she’s out with Jace, and Jace is. . . . yeah, he can see where his parents are coming from.)

As he goes down to another room his mother’s words are a loop in his head. Passion makes you dangerous. Passion makes you dangerous. Passion makes you dangerous. . . .