Outsider Malec fic – EAD 2024

Title: Outsider Malec fic
Author: Claire Watson
Fandom: Shadowhunters
Genre: Outsider Perspective
Relationship(s): Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood (future)
Content Rating: Gen
Warnings: None
Author Notes: When I started this, I intended it to be a short outside perspective on Alec and Magnus, but then I found myself spending too much time introducing the character with the perspective. Since it had morphed from my original intention, I’ve set it aside for now. Although, I may use Naomi as an OC in later works.
Word Count: 4,541
Summary: Naomi Glenbrook had always wanted to be a shadowhunter.

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Naomi Glenbrook had always wanted to be a shadowhunter.

Her father, Mark Glenbrook, had died before she was born. A standard patrol had gone wrong and, as one of the lower ranked shadowhunters, he’d sacrificed his life in order to save his team captain, Jayla Cartwright.

Naomi’s mother, Maria Glenbrook nee Norton, used to tell her bedtime stories about his bravery and courage. She spoke of the service the Clave had held where he was honoured, and the kind words Jayla had spoken about his dedication and skill.

Maria Norton had been orphaned young, then fostered by a mining family that helped supply the Iron Sisters with raw adamas. Maria had begun training as a shadowhunter, but had quickly discovered that the life of a warrior wasn’t for her. Before long, she was regulated to a support role in the kitchens. She had risen over the years to become head cook in the London Institute, a position not without status and prestige, just not the kind her daughter Naomi had yearned for.

Perhaps as a result of the bedtime stories Maria told her, the child Naomi Glenbrook had dreamed of becoming one of the great shadowhunters of legend, of her name being taught to generations following her. She imagined destroying ranks of demons with a flick of her fingers or a twitch of her glowing seraph blade, of saving other shadowhunters. She would be sought after by the noblest of families as a marriage partner, have the sons of the great houses throwing flowers for her to walk on.

Reality didn’t quite live up to those lofty goals.

Naomi entered shadowhunter training, only to find that she would never be a warrior of renown. She didn’t have the instincts of a natural fighter, the flair that the great ones tended to show. As hard as she worked—and she worked harder than any of her classmates—she would never be more than technically proficient.

By then, Naomi knew better than to wish for that kind of life. She’d met several ‘heroes’ and none of them struck her as happier than the non-heroes. She still wanted to be a shadowhunter, still wanted to defend the helpless against demons and do the Angel’s work, but being in the forefront meant constantly fighting. While she didn’t hate it, it wasn’t where her passion and skill lay.

At about the same time Naomi had learned that fighting wasn’t really up her street, she’d discovered that runes were. She couldn’t get enough of that side of training, found herself diving deeply into rune placement and the ways in which the order of activation could change the results.

Rune placement was especially interesting. All shadowhunters knew the basics, that the closer they were to your heart, the stronger the expression of the effect. That an iratze drawn by someone who had a close relationship to the person being runed would do more than that of a stranger, and that parabatai running each other made the runes even stronger.

There were some—not superstitions, really, more assumptions—about what rune placement revealed about the shadowhunter in question. About what defensive and offensive rune sets should look like, and why. Basic study taught that using a fearless rune was considered the sign of a coward, when deeper investigation revealed that fearless was never supposed to be used on its own, it was designed to amplify a specific subset of runes in certain situations, not as a prop to reduce fear of combat.

The truth was that there were too many runes for most shadowhunters to fully explore any but the most common. There was an accepted library of about twenty runes that were considered enough, and for most, once they’d gained field status that was enough. They felt secure in their rune knowledge and proficiency, and concentrated on honing their bodies, rather than their minds.

In Naomi’s opinion that was a mistake. Not that physical skills didn’t need to be continually honed, Angel knew she spent at least an hour a day just to remain competent, but the variation of uses that runes could be put to was almost limitless, and a given that the use of runes was what gave shadowhunters their edge, she thought ignoring them was unwise.

Of course, she was biased and recognised she might be saying that because she found them so fascinating.

As a competent but not outstanding shadowhunter, Naomi had a middling chance of placement at an Institute, depending on where she applied. The waiting period fluctuated, some Institutes were more popular than others, but it averaged out to about a year.

New York was one of those with a mixed reputation. On the one hand, it was one of the more combative zones where demons were concerned. Like any other skill, shadowhunting got better the more you used it. Practice was all well and good, but nothing beat an actual fight to teach you where you needed improvement.

On the other, the Lightwoods were in control of that Institute, and everyone knew that Robert and Maryse had been part of the Circle. Everyone also knew that the Clave kept a close watch on everything that went on there. In New York, every report was scrutinised, and the Clave oversaw all the documentation. Put a step wrong in most Institutes and you’d be given a little leeway, provided it wasn’t habitual. Screw up in New York, it was on your permanent file.

On the other hand, that kind of scrutiny meant that if you had a clean record after a couple of years in New York, you were welcome in most Institutes in the world. Naomi wanted that, wanted to be able to travel easily between Institutes and pick the minds of whoever she wanted, so with only a slightly heavy heart, sent in her application.

She wasn’t accepted straight away, but that wasn’t surprising. Only the top five percent of graduates got preferred placing; everyone else had to wait for positions to become available. New York, owing to its high combat rating, had a relatively quick turnover. While she waited, Naomi divided her time between weapons training and her rune research.

Six months later, the day before her sixteenth birthday, her application was approved and she was sent an instruction packet. It included such details as what she could bring with her, what she couldn’t bring with her, what she had to bring with her, how she should arrange for transport of her belongings, and when she should present herself at the portal site. Naomi followed all the instructions to the letter, walking through the portal to New York with her chin up and her shoulders squared.

She was met on the other side by a man who didn’t look all that much older than she was.

“Welcome, you must be Naomi,” he greeted her, stepping forward. “My name is Alec Lightwood; I’m the acting Head of the New York Institute. I’ll be giving you a short tour and a quick introduction to our department heads; then I’ll show you to your room. You’ll have the rest of the day to settle in and orient yourself, and tomorrow you’ll start your assessment. Once that’s complete, you’ll receive your patrol assignment and other duties. Any questions?”

Naomi blinked. There were several things she wanted to know more about. Firstly, Alec couldn’t be older than early twenties, at the most. What was he doing running the Institute? Where were Robert and Maryse? How was he related to them? Secondly, why was the acting head doing the welcome tour for new arrivals? She’d expected to be greeted by one of the security officers, or someone even lower on the totem pole. Being introduced by the Head, even only an acting one…she hadn’t psyched herself up for this at all. What on earth could she say?

Luckily, Alec didn’t appear concerned by her silence. “This way. We might as well start with the op’s centre; this is where we do all mission planning.”

Naomi hustled to keep up. Alec wasn’t walking quickly, but with his height, even an unhurried stride could cover a lot of ground. Thankfully, he walked slowly enough that a fast walk was all that was required from her. It wouldn’t have been dignified to meet the department heads while jogging to keep up.

Alec did exactly as he said he would. He showed her the op’s centre, the infirmary, the offices—his parent’s empty official one and his own repurposed storage room which looked distinctly in use—the armoury, the labs, the morgue and the various training rooms. The tour concluded with the residential area.

“All shadowhunters assigned to this Institute have their own room,” Alec finished. “None of our official rules about fraternisation differ from the Clave standard, but we operate under the rule of thumb that so long as you keep your private life separate from your professional one, we don’t see any reason to intervene. That being said, if someone is behaving towards you in a way that makes you uncomfortable, please notify your direct report. If that person is your direct report, or you feel that they won’t take your complaint seriously, then go above them. We put our lives on the line every day; we need to be able to trust the men and women around us.”

Naomi might have fallen a little in love with him after that speech. Not that it was difficult; he was one of the most good-looking men she’d ever spent more than five minutes with. Even if that wasn’t her usual jam, who could look at those big eyes and expressive lips and not feel a little bit curious? He also talked to her like a person, didn’t make a single double entendre about her worth as a baby factory or flirt with her even once.

Then he left her to get settled, and she didn’t see him again until her sector’s weekly meeting.

When she went for lunch, she was welcomed amicably enough by other shadowhunters near her age, and it was from them that she learned that Alec was Robert and Maryse’s eldest child. He was twenty-two, and he’d been Acting Head for over three years now, with Maryse and Robert dropping in every now and again.

Which was crazy. Institutes were run by couples for a reason. That poor guy must be worked off his feet. No wonder he wasn’t interested in hanging around to chat; it was a wonder he’d made the time to greet her at all.

The day after her arrival was the assessment that Alec had told her about. She arrived, kitted out in her patrol gear as she’d been instructed, only to have it taken apart, critiqued, adjusted, added to, and then given back.

Naomi was mortified. Her only hands-on experience with patrolling was what the academy taught them, which included the week she’d spent in Oslo as part of her final year. She’d followed those instructions to the letter when preparing for this posting. To have so many failures in preparation pointed out made her wonder if she was ready for patrol at all.

Her mortification receded somewhat when she was given an eight out of ten for preparedness. The assessor was Isabelle Lightwood, Robert and Maryse’s second child and only daughter.

Isabelle noticed her confusion and kindly explained. “Your kit would have received top marks almost anywhere else; it’s just that what would be considered perfectly acceptable at other Institutes just doesn’t cut it here. My brothers and I have done a lot of testing, and we’ve come up with a basic kit that we think everyone should have. It’s not standard throughout the Institute—some of the older shadowhunters are resistant to change, and Alec doesn’t have enough authority to make it an order yet—but we’re providing instruction for all newcomers. Hopefully, we can get everyone on the same page.”

Considering that many of the adjustments had been things that seemed obvious now that they’d been pointed out to her, Naomi couldn’t see why anyone would complain. There were a couple of things that seemed overkill—why did she need three steles?—but surely it was better to be over-prepared than under-prepared. There were lives on the line here. She said as much to Isabelle.

“You know, I think I’m going to like you,” Isabelle said. “Alec said you seemed the sensible sort, and he’s usually good at picking out the ones we want to keep. Now, your forms said that your preferred weapon is a seraph blade?” Her tone was inquisitive, but her gaze was piercing.

Naomi blushed. “I’m not the best fighter,” she acknowledged. “It took a lot of effort to gain the proficiency I have, and I haven’t had time to focus on finding something else.”

Isabelle nodded slowly, lips pursed. “Competence with a seraph blade is a pre-requisite to an Institute posting, so I can see why you’ve made that decision. Did you do any testing with the goal of finding a personal weapon, something that resonated with you?”

“My instructor advised me not to bother,” Naomi admitted. “He warned me that if I tried to cross-train, I’d probably lose what little edge I’d already acquired with the standard blade.”

Isabelle’s brow creased in irritation. “That was Longford, wasn’t it? Ugh. Why they still allow that man to teach…come with me.” She stalked out of the room, muttering to herself. Naomi followed, wondering if she was in trouble. Isabelle snagged the attention of someone Naomi hadn’t been introduced to yet. “Carstairs, find Jace and tell him to meet me in the armoury ASAP.”

Carstairs nodded, appearing neither surprised nor upset to be interrupted to take care of such a menial task. “Sure.”

“We all train with standard blades because that way, the Institute will always have something on hand that every shadowhunter has skill with,” Isabelle said, walking into the weapons sector of the armoury as if she owned the place. Given that her family had been running the Institute for nearly two decades, perhaps she did. “A personal weapon…it’s not the same. I can use every single weapon in this room, but the one I’ve mastered, the one that touches my heart?” With a flick of her wrist, her beautiful bracelet had become a long, gleaming whip.

“Wow. That’s amazing.”

Isabelle did a couple of showy moves that were obviously meant to impress. It worked; Naomi was very impressed. Then, between one breath and the next, the whip straightened, locking into a single shape. Isabelle was now holding a staff that she twirled expertly. She moved like she was dancing, her lustrous black hair flowing around her like it was almost alive, the staff extending and then retracting with swift flicks in all directions before Isabelle brought it smoothly into a stationary defensive stance.

It was a breathtaking performance. Naomi clapped, the same way her class would have done for a demonstration. A single person clapping sounded ridiculous, but Isabelle only laughed, her dark eyes bright and happy. “Nothing suits you so well as your preferred weapon,” Isabelle said, like it was an unalterable truth. “Your own weapon will sing to you, in a way that a seraph blade never could.”

Looking at Isabelle, the epitome of the glorious warrior woman Naomi had once wanted to be, she could believe it. But then Isabelle was a fighter to her core, and Naomi probably wasn’t going to become an Amazonian just by finding a weapon she liked more than seraph blades. “But how do you discover that?”

Isabelle shrugged. Her staff lost its rigidity and then shrank, coiling itself back onto her wrist. “Sometimes it’s something you’ve always thought would be great. I’ve wanted a whip since I read about one in a history book. Alec’s wanted a bow for as long as I can remember; he doesn’t really talk about why though. Jace—”

A blond man that Naomi hadn’t met yet threw open the door with a crash. “Speak my name, and I appear!”

Isabelle rolled her eyes, but her smile was genuine. “Naomi, this is my brother, Jace. He takes care of most of the weapon’s proficiency certifications, and he likes to make a point of sparring with all the newcomers at least once. Don’t mind his arrogance; he’s like that with everyone.”

“Is it really arrogance if you’re just that good?” Jace grinned, cocky and sure of himself. “Hi, Naomi. Don’t worry about the spar; I’ll go easy on you. I just like to know what we’re working with.”

Naomi bristled against the implication that she was so terrible that he wouldn’t even have to put any effort in, but she wasn’t stupid enough to say anything. That would just be asking for a public smackdown. “Hi, nice to meet you. Isabelle was explaining the importance of having a personal weapon.” She looked expectantly at Isabelle.

Isabelle’s amusement was obvious. “Jace is one of the exceptions to that rule, actually. It’s annoying, but he’s unfairly good with everything.”

“There’s just too much awesome for one weapon, baby,” Jace agreed, giving Naomi a speculative once over. “I don’t mind sharing it around, know what I mean?”

Naomi grimaced. Was he really coming on to her in front of his sister? “I think I’ll give it a miss, if you don’t mind.”

Jace shrugged. He was surprisingly good-natured about it, considering Naomi’s other experiences with good-looking, skilled male shadowhunters. They tended to get offended if a woman didn’t want to jump on their cock immediately. Jace just murmured, “Your loss. Let me know if you change your mind.”

Isabelle’s amusement had increased. “If you’ve quite finished, Jace? We need to get Naomi here situated with something that resonates. Right now, she’s only certified for standard Institute blades. Longford told her that was all she should bother with.”

Jace blinked, his arrogant demeanour fading. “How many complaints do we have to send before they finally replace him? That old fossil is getting people killed! Don’t worry, Naomi, we’ll get you sorted and trained up in no time.”

Naomi was getting mental whiplash. One minute he was a dick, next he was nice? What the hell?

“He has socialisation problems,” Isabelle said sotto voce.

Jace didn’t bother to deny it. “I’m still miles ahead of Alec.”

Naomi frowned. Was he talking about the same Alec she’d met? She hadn’t seen any signs of socialisation issues. He’d been refreshingly direct and to the point.

Jace’s eyes widened. “You disagree. Izzy, she’s disagreeing. She thinks Alec is perfectly fine. We have to keep her.”

“I know,” Isabelle agreed. “Alec already decided that yesterday. But back to the personal weapon thing, what do you think? Should we start large or small?”

“Large,” Jace decided. “It’s more fun that way. Come on, Naomi. Ever used a greatsword? What about a polearm, or a staff?”

What followed was a whirlwind of weapons being handed to her. Some of them, either Jace or Isabelle plucked away almost immediately; others, they asked her to swing about a bit. The double hand-axes got a more thorough examination, with Jace instigating an impromptu sparring session, but after about a minute or two, Isabelle shook her head and those were put aside too.

The ranged projectile weapons were fine but not outstanding, and Naomi was starting to get discouraged. Isabelle and Jace, on the other hand, looked like they were having fun.

When she picked up the chakrams, Naomi finally knew what they meant. They just fit in her hand in a way that felt natural, and when Jace poked his seraph blade in her direction, it was like her body already knew how to move in deflection.

“I think we have a winner,” Isabelle said, smugness radiating from her whole being. Naomi was too caught up in the wonder of the moment to care. “Luckily, we have a well-trained chakram wielder on site. I’ll make some adjustments and block out time in both of your schedules for training. As soon as you’re certified, you’ll be able to take them with you everywhere, but for now, they can’t leave the Institute.”

Naomi looked up. “You mean I’ll get to keep these? Don’t we have to get authorisation from the Weapons Master?”

“That’s what they’re here for,” Isabelle replied, tapping away at her tablet. “Julian won’t argue with my recommendations, he’ll be glad to be spared the effort. Jace, don’t even think of leaving before all these are put back in their correct spots.”

Jace, who’d been sidling towards the door, sighed but did as instructed. He saw Naomi looking at him and winked. “If I don’t, she’ll probably try and cook for me.”

“I heard that,” Isabelle said, without changing expression. “Jace is going to be your patrol leader for the first month. After that, you’ll be cycled through the rest of the patrol groups. When that’s complete, we’ll look at a permanent assignment.”

“I thought I’d just be put in an open spot,” Naomi said. “Do you seriously go through this with all imports?”

Jace finished racking the large blades and closed the case door gently. “New York has the highest incidence of demon activity in the world, we get more engagement on routine patrol than any two other Institutes combined. Despite that, the Clave has declined to have our detecting systems upgraded to meet the most recent improvements. They also won’t increase the personnel numbers. Alec doesn’t have the authority to argue his proposals directly with the Clave, and Maryse and Robert don’t want to risk their standing by rocking the boat.”

Isabelle put her tablet down slightly harder than was necessary. “The Clave has always been stingy, but since Alec took over and started adjusting the training procedures, the patrol algorithms and the field kits, heavy injury and mortality rates have dropped significantly. You’d think that would be a good thing, but it’s just brought more scrutiny.”

Naomi ran her fingers over the curved metal surface of one of her new weapons. “If you need skilled fighters so much, why was my application accepted so quickly?”

Jace snorted. “You think people are lining up for this posting? We’re getting more applications than we used to, but it’s hardly a flood.”

“We’re not just looking for people who can swing a sword,” Isabelle continued. “We want researchers, scientists, crafters. I’ve read your thesis on rune theory, it was brilliant. We want to nurture that; see what new insights you can come to and then implement them.”

Naomi blinked. “That’s a nice change. I’m more used to getting the ‘why bother to fix what isn’t broken’ routine.” She hesitated, then decided to go for broke. “Is it true that Alec has been running this place since he was nineteen?”

Isabelle raised her eyebrows. “For all intents and purposes, yes.”

“How does he find the time?” Naomi asked, baffled. “Aren’t Institutes supposed to be run by couples? Does he get any downtime at all?”

“He doesn’t relax much,” Isabelle admitted. She exchanged a loaded glance with Jace that Naomi couldn’t interpret. “He’s always had an overdeveloped sense of responsibility. Perils of being the firstborn to an old name, you know? He’s always been under a lot of pressure.”

“He can be a bit…hard on people,” Jace explained, looking uncomfortable. “It’s nothing personal, and he’s always much harder on himself than he is on the people around him. He liked you, though, said you listened. He was right.” Jace made a face. “He’s often right. It’s annoying, to be honest.”

“Such troubles you have,” Isabelle mocked. “How will you cope?”

v^v^v

The next few months were hard, both mentally and physically. Much to her initial disappointment, Naomi wasn’t placed on the same patrol group as Isabelle and her brothers. She soon grew to enjoy working with the group she was in. Most of them, anyway. Raj was a self-important prick who liked to walk too close to the edge of the rules for her liking. He never went over them, so there was nothing she could legitimately complain about, so she just did her best to avoid having to interact with him.

The chakram teacher Isabelle paired her with was Hodge Starkweather, a convicted Circle member whose sentence was to be confined to the New York Institute.

At first, Naomi didn’t know how to treat him. All her life, the Circle had been held up as this group of monsters, and Hodge…was very human. It was hard to look at him and realise that he’d done such terrible things. He looked normal, he made jokes, he helped various shadowhunters throughout the Institute hone their skills, and he even advised Alec, Isabelle and Jace on occasion. If it weren’t for the vivid red circle branded onto his throat, she’d have had no inkling as to his history.

It made Naomi look differently at everyone else. If a monster could look so normal, then did that mean that everyone around her could secretly be a monster too? The worst part was that she began to like Hodge.

The whole thing was headache inducing, and Naomi spent far too many hours when she should have been sleeping, lying awake and trying to make sense of it all. She didn’t want to be like Raj, who treated Hodge with barely concealed contempt. In fact, Raj’s reaction to Hodge was one of the first thing that had made her consider him as more than what the mark on his throat represented.

In the end, she did the only thing that her conscience would allow, and asked Hodge directly about his past. Maybe if he told her that he truly regretted his actions, she could come to a place of understanding and acceptance.

But Hodge wasn’t allowed to talk of his days in the Circle, any mention or discussion of it caused him great pain, pain that had been purposefully engineered by the Clave. Naomi couldn’t keep the horror she was feeling from her face.

“Don’t pity me,” Hodge said as the pain receded. “I earned every second of this pain. If the Clave were just, if they believed in the equality laid out in the Accords, I would have been executed. Many others would have been executed. The atrocities—” he broke off again as his mark ignited once more.

“Does that mean that you’ve changed your mind about downworlders,” Naomi asked, fascinated as much as repulsed. None of her studies had suggested that an existing mark could be warped in the fashion that Hodge’s Circle mark had been. Unless this pain had always been a function of the mark? But that would mean that Valentine had used it with the full intention of torturing his own followers! Why would anyone join such a man?

Unfortunately, her best source of information was unable to communicate any of it with her. The whole situation was horrific and counter-productive, too. What was the saying? Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. By suppressing everything but the most basic information surrounding the Circle and its practices, the Clave was almost ensuring a resurgence sooner or later.