"It's possible," Luke agrees. "No, it's likely that it started as that. Michael was our friend, but he was especially close with your father. Their relationship... it was complicated. You know they were parabatai, right?"
It had been so much more than that, at least for Michael, but Luke isn't sure any of this is his information to give Alec. He isn't sure how he might react, knowing how his father responded to finding out Michael Wayland was in love with him, and after everything they've all just been through in that alternate version of Darrow, Luke doesn't want to give Alec any more reasons to think his father might have thought poorly of him. Luke's hope is that Robert has realized what a mistake he made with Michael, that he would never make the same mistake with his own son, but he's also not as charitable with Robert as he is with Maryse and he's not entirely sure he's capable of something like that.
"When your parents found out he'd died, I'm sure your father felt like he owed Michael something," he says. "Their exile had already weakened the parabatai bond, nothing was as it used to be, but none of us had ever really been able to apologize to the others. And with Michael gone, it took that chance away from them. That's likely why they took Jace in at first, but you're right. It turned into much more than that. Jace is part of your family."
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It had been so much more than that, at least for Michael, but Luke isn't sure any of this is his information to give Alec. He isn't sure how he might react, knowing how his father responded to finding out Michael Wayland was in love with him, and after everything they've all just been through in that alternate version of Darrow, Luke doesn't want to give Alec any more reasons to think his father might have thought poorly of him. Luke's hope is that Robert has realized what a mistake he made with Michael, that he would never make the same mistake with his own son, but he's also not as charitable with Robert as he is with Maryse and he's not entirely sure he's capable of something like that.
"When your parents found out he'd died, I'm sure your father felt like he owed Michael something," he says. "Their exile had already weakened the parabatai bond, nothing was as it used to be, but none of us had ever really been able to apologize to the others. And with Michael gone, it took that chance away from them. That's likely why they took Jace in at first, but you're right. It turned into much more than that. Jace is part of your family."