Chapter Text
For some odd reason Max thought that after helping save Auradon and Wonderland he’d get a bit more credit.
It was almost as if getting involved with his father again made everything worse. His father had been put securely in the wonderland prison, with The Queen of Hearts vowing to assist in his reformation.
Max wasn’t worried about his father, he knew that the Queen would ensure no harm would come to him. He was more irritated about the fact that nobody in Auradon Prep seemed to think any differently about him. Word about the group's adventure had spread quickly, all his friends silently agreed to leave the part about his and Chloe's betrayals out of any telling of the tale.
So why was it that he was still getting shit from random HK’s?
It had been about two weeks since everything went down and those weeks were just getting worse for Max. Everywhere he went, every class or courtyard and even his locker he ran into someone whispering about him or playing some stupid trick.
The word around the school was that he was going to go mad and attack, like some rabid beast. Out of all the VK’s he didn’t consider himself to be beastly. Scary? Sure, he prided himself on being intimidating when he needed to be. Though charming came much more naturally when he needed to pickpocket some prissy HK.
He vaguely registered a figure walking towards him as he sat on a bench in the courtyard.
Speaking of charming…
“Hey Hatter!” Luis grinned, waving a hand in greeting before he stood in front of Max. His large form practically looming over the VK.
“Have you seen Red recently? We were supposed to meet up to go to our next class.”
Max felt his jaw tighten hearing Luis talk about Red, he wasn’t quite sure why maybe it was just leftover jealousy from her life. He stood up, crumpling up the wrapper of the sandwich he was eating and leaving it on the bench.
“I haven’t.” Max responded, reaching up to adjust his hat before walking past the other man. “Are you going to get lost without her to guide you?” He quipped with a small grin.
“Ha-ha, very funny.” Luis began to walk alongside him, as the two headed back towards the school building. There was a bit of silence between the two before Luis spoke again. “Me and Red aren’t like that. We just understand each other's struggles, it's nice to talk to someone.”
Luis spoke in a softer tone, it was calming to hear. Max couldn’t help but feel fluttering in his chest at the explanation. He wasn’t quite sure what to say back. Was this Luis trying to get Max to talk to him? He’d always known that Hazel could practically read him like a book, had Luis gained that ability too? He sure hoped not.
Max scoffed, watching other students look at them and start their routine gossiping.
“Thats nice, I’m sure after everything there's a lot to talk about.” That was the best response he could muster up. Recently he had been attempting to be less mean to his new companions. Though a part of him loved the banter.
Luis gave him a look before speaking again.
“If you need someone to talk to, I’m here.”
Max felt himself freeze, Luis had spoken so genuinely that he couldn’t convince himself it was a joke. Why was he offering? Was this a trick? Some HK savior complex? He opened his mouth to respond with some retort only to get interrupted by some royal HK student calling Luis over.
“Luis! Luis!” A girl in a frilly dress and her other prissily dressed friends ran over to swarm Luis, keeping their distance from himself. “Luis! What are you doing with that hatter kid! He’s going to rub off on you!”
Pardon? Rub off on him? Max was genuinely in awe of how stupid some people could be.
Luis had put on his signature smile, that puppy dog glimmer in his eye that had all the girls fawning over him. It was embarrassing.
“Calm down. Hatter–Max was just helping me find a friend, that's all.” Luis replied, which in turn had all the girls squealing about Luis being so brave to talk to Max and to check his pockets to see if he’d stolen anything.
By the time Luis got away from the swarm of fans, Max was gone.
—
Max had left the courtyard because he’d started to feel sick. Maybe not sick, perhaps just irritated by the gushing over Luis. He had already decided to skip his last few classes of the day, it's nothing important, just goodness classes and his chemistry lab.
He was honestly just tired, the sandwich he’d half eaten for lunch was twisting in his stomach after hearing the students whisper about him in the hallways. As he walked to his dorm he’d turned a corner to accidentally scare a student, she screamed like he was the jabberwocky itself. He’d instinctively reached down to help pick up her books before her boyfriend shoved him away saying something about him being cursed.
After that he’d taken the back route to the dorms to avoid any students or hall monitors that could send him back to class.
Unlocking his dorm door he was greeted by the smell of old tea from the morning. A lucky part of being the son of the greatest villain in Auradon was that he got his own dorm. It was smaller than the two student dorms but it was amazing for peace and quiet.
Max enjoyed being alone, it meant nobody was whispering or staring. Sometimes he’d had to play music to get the words of others out of his head. He’d be lying if it was said it didn’t make him mad. Mad as in irritated. He was irritated, not mad.
He had a few hours before Hazel or Felix realized he’d skipped again, he was hoping to get some tinkering done with spell books.
The administration of the school didn’t let him take any major spellcasting classes or anything magic related. Likely as a precaution to the other students. However they did let him check out books from the school library.
Max’s current project was something to fix his eyesight. His vision had always been a bit hard to focus, it made sense when he’d seen the other timeline that he wore glasses.
Speaking of glasses, Max shuffled some items on his desk around. Looking for the rounded lenses, he could have sworn he set them down somewhere on here.
A clatter on the ground gave them away, he picked them up. Frowning at the small crack in the left lens. His glasses weren’t anything special, he’d just pickpocketed around until a pair actually helped the blur in his vision. He’d customized the frames to be his favorite shade of dark purple and had a beaded chain so they could hang on his neck while working.
He slipped the glasses on and began reading through spells. A lot of the spells he’d found were about changing appearance and eye color, not exactly fixing vision.
Max lost himself in reading through spells and taking notes in the margins of the pages, circling diagrams of inventions and making comments about how he could edit the creations to test something new.
After what must have been a few hours of reading a certain page caught his eye. It was a page of magic jewelry, much like the bracelet he’d made for Chloe.
He looked over to the pile of silversmithing items he’d had on his desk, He’d messed with jewelry making before. It was a pretty self explanatory process. He’d been able to make a few nice pieces, if he didn’t have the reputation he had Max probably could sell them.
Maybe he could even make some for his other friends, Hazel had already gotten a few pieces from him but maybe Luis would care for one. Max could see him wearing a bright shade of gold, maybe a ring.
No. No, that's insane. Luis wouldn’t care for trivial things, he’d probably think it was some curse like the bracelet he’d given to Chloe. Just another maddening trick from a villain.
He could possibly make it and slip it in Luis’s locker, no name attached. The strong man would likely think it was from another secret admirer, he may be more likely to wear it if that was that case.
A knock on his door broke his train of thought.
He glanced over at his window to gauge what time it was, the sun had already set and the sky was a nice shade of gray.
The knocking got louder, and whoever it was jiggled the doorknob like they were going to break in.
With a tired sigh Max got up from his desk and unlocked the door, the door instantly swinging open and almost hitting him.
“Sorry!” A familiar voice said, Max was greeted with the clear sight of perfectly fluffed hair.
“Madrigal?” Max questioned, tilting his head in confusion. “What do you want?”
The question came out harsher than he’d expected, evident by the flash of hurt in Luis’s big brown eyes before they gained their spark back.
“Hazel sent me, she said something about an emergency with the smees and asked, well more like ordered, me to come check up on you.” Luis explained rubbing his neck like he was embarrassed.
Max watched Luis’s eyes flicker over his face, strangely settling around his eyes like he was analyzing them.
“I didn’t know you needed glasses, Hatter.” Luis smirked with a playful tone.
Max felt his face heat up quicker than ever before, his hands shot up and took the glasses off his face and folded them up to shove in his pants pocket before he shoved a finger at Luis’s chest.
“Their–well–I was messing with a–a new invention. It-its to see through things, you know, like x-ray.” Max hated that he stuttered out his usually quick excuse. Hopefully the Madrigal would drop it and just take the lie.
“X-ray?” Luis questioned with curiosity, a slight more bit of color on his checks appearing before he cleared his throat to speak again.
“Neat!” He smiled before his eyes widened like he remembered something. “Oh right! Hazel wanted to know if you’d eaten dinner?”
Max was made aware of the empty feeling in his stomach, he did really lose track of time didn't he? It was none of Luis’s concern though. He adjusted his hat before speaking.
“Yeah, I had some leftovers from last night.” Max lied, putting his hand on the door. “Just tell Hazel she doesn’t need to worry about me.”
Max felt resistance as he started to shut the door to the dorm, Luis’s hand blocking the door from closing. The HK’s strength was irritating.
“Right. Hazel also told me you’d be lying if you said you had leftovers.” Luis grinned, like he’d gotten a checkmate in the figurative chess game the two were having.
Max could feel his expression sour as the other’s expression lit up with a heroic idea.
“Listen Madrigal, I’m fine. There's no need for you to bother me.” Max attempted to shut down the interaction. He’d gone without meals before, so it was common for him to skip lunch to avoid being harassed by rumors and gossip.
“Nope! Hatter considers this your first rescue, rescuing from a night of hunger!” Luis perked up, reaching to swoop his arm around Max and tug him out of the dorm while shutting the door.
“Its really not–” Max started, reaching for his door.
“No backing out! I don’t want Hazel to stab me for failing to check on you.” Luis joked, hopefully, as he led the Hatter down the hallway.
A part of Max was irritated that his alone time got interrupted so abruptly, but another part of Max really enjoyed how warm Luis’s arm was as it led him along.