A/N: This is set shortly after 2x01, Jessica finds out that Mike is a fraud and Harvey and Mike are working on Myra Harrison's suits against Drecker publishing.
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It starts off innocuously enough, as these things tend to do.
Thanks, Karl!"
Harvey doesn't think anything of it at the time. Mike is a friendly guy; of course he'll be going out of his way to get along with the other attorneys, of course they'll be helping him out. People like to help Mike out; he has that sort of aura about him, the "lost puppy" feeling. Harvey's certainly familiar. Anyway, Karl is still new to the firm, it only makes sense that Mike wants to make him feel welcome. Included, and all that crap.
It occurs to him, a bit later, that Mike is awfully familiar with this guy awfully quickly. How long has Karl been here, a week? Maybe two? Not only is he a junior partner, but he's what, ten years older than Mike, and they're already on a first name basis. Karl clearly has no sense of how to handle his prestige; Harvey makes a note to ding him on his next performance review, or at least point it out to Jessica.
Not that he's going to let himself get caught up on petty little things like that.
"Mike," Harvey says, swaggering up to his cubicle in the middle of the afternoon with just enough arrogance about him to make it clear that he's too good for this filthy bullpen.
For his part, Mike looks up with a start, resting one hand atop the pile of papers he was just scribbling across and the other on his keyboard, as though Harvey might buy that he's somehow capable of writing and typing at the same time.
"I've got the report on Drecker's publishing records," he blurts out. "I've only been able to get my hands on the last five years so far, but I think they've got more in their in-house records, I'm gonna call and ask them tomorrow."
Leaning against Mike's cubicle wall, Harvey looks down at the paperwork sprawled across his desk, the hectic mess of annotations and yellow highlighter scribbles. Either he's being ridiculously productive, or he's doing a damn fine imitation; either way, it ought to keep the rest of the associates off his back, and the longer they can pull that off, the better.
"And then what?" he asks. Mike looks at him perplexedly, and Harvey sighs.
"After you get your hands on the last thirty years of Drecker's catalogs," he says, "do you have a plan for that, or are you planning to skip straight ahead to the paper mâché dinosaur herd?"
"Oh!" Mike turns to his computer screen and skims whatever's printed there at roughly the speed of light, looking up again with a slight smile tilting his lips. "I'm gonna find some publications to counter Myra's claims that she was plagiarized."
Harvey arches his eyebrows when Mike elects not to elaborate.
"That's it?"
Mike arches his eyebrows right back.
"Yes," he says, just a little snidely. "Have you ever actually read anything these guys have published? They're not exactly pushing the envelope here; they have a base and they pander to it, I don't think they've put out anything based on a legitimately original idea in years."
Not bad, not bad. It's not too surprising that Harvey never came to that conclusion himself; Drecker doesn't put out the kind of material he keeps stocked on his shelves at home, and he hardly has time to comb through their backlog when he can just as easily swindle them into accepting the terms Swinton has laid out for their proposed merger.
But still.
"You came up with that awfully quick," he says. "Considering the fact that just this morning, you were whining at me that all you had to go on was Myra's word against Drecker's."
"Okay first of all, I was not 'whining,'" Mike says, quirking his fingers in the air as Harvey rolls his eyes. "And, I talked it over a little with Karl, he gave me some ideas."
Harvey lowers his brow, hiking his shoulders up toward his ears. Karl, again? What is this guy, some kind of viral infection?
Mike frowns, mistaking Harvey's irritation for confusion. "Karl Matheson," he says, "the new junior partner?"
"I'm on the hiring team, I know who he is," Harvey says, righting his posture as he steps away from Mike's desk. "I just didn't know the two of you had gotten quite so...chummy."
"'Chummy'?" Mike teases. "I'm just trying to do my job. Besides, I'd think you'd be happy I'm getting help from someone else, I don't have to bother you all the time."
That...makes sense. Doesn't it? Yeah, sure it does. Harvey is a senior partner, he's a busy guy; just because Mike is his associate doesn't mean he has to babysit him every minute of every day, but that's certainly not going to stop Mike from having questions he needs answered. It's good that he has someone else he can go to. Someone to keep him from barging into Harvey's office without warning for every damn thing, to keep him from taking up all of Harvey's time. This is all for the best.
"Whatever you say," Harvey says, turning back toward the door. "Just be careful."
"Aren't I always?"
Harvey glances over his shoulder. "Sure," he says, "say that to me with a straight face the next time one of your drug pusher buddies comes around here to spill your life story to Jessica."
Mike winces, biting down on the pen in his hand.
"I'll be careful."
Harvey nods.
"Yes, you will."
Or what?
Harvey holds his shoulders back and stalks out of the bullpen.
Let's not think about that right now.
---
Harvey only goes downstairs to visit Mike because it's more efficient than having Donna call him and order him up to Harvey's office. Besides, this is just going to be a quick check-in; there's no need to go to all that trouble. Harvey doesn't like dragging his ass down to the bullpen, of course, he doesn't like broadcasting to all the other associates how close their relationship is, but sometimes these sorts of things have to be done, is all. These things happen.
"How much progress have you made on the Triandos suit?"
Mike takes out his earbuds and looks up with a smirk that should probably be making Harvey a lot more confident and a lot less annoyed than it is.
"I figured out where they're getting all the money to fill that slush fund," Mike says, "if that's what you're asking."
"That's exactly what I'm asking and you know it," Harvey says flatly. "What did you find?"
Fishing around in the papers spread across his desk, Mike comes up with a stack of what look to be bank records.
"And that is..."
Mike smirks. "Miss Colson," he says, "who, you may recall, is currently serving as Triandos' CFO, is moonlighting as, brace yourself, a prostitute, and passing the majority of her earnings on to the company."
Harvey blinks. Sure didn't see that one coming.
"How'd you figure that out?"
Waving him closer, Mike hands the bank records over. "I was looking through Triandos' financials," he says, "and I noticed that the slush fund wasn't filled on a schedule, no monthly allocation or anything. So I figured maybe the money was being deposited by someone who couldn't afford to keep it around for some reason, like maybe they didn't want anyone to know that they had it. Or start asking how they'd gotten it."
Skimming through the records, Harvey nods slowly. "What turned you on to Colson?"
"Oh," Mike says, "that was Karl's idea. It had to be someone who could manipulate the financial records without a whole lot of oversight, right, so someone pretty high up the food chain; I put together files on pretty much everyone with a C in front of their title, Colson's social calendar matched up the closest with the slush fund deposit dates, and the rest is history."
Karl, again? God dammit, there's no one else for Mike to go to for help with this kind of shit? Doesn't anyone else in this firm know how to do their goddamn job?
"You put together files?" he asks instead. Mike shrugs.
"Karl's got a guy."
Of course he does.
Harvey smacks the financial records back down on Mike's keyboard.
"I want your report finalized by the end of the day."
Mike nods sharply.
"Aye aye, Captain."
Harvey scowls and turns toward the door.
You're goddamn right I am.
---
Then there are those other times.
Harvey storms back from the bullpen to Donna's desk, knowing that she won't take his fiery mood personally and trusting that she'll have the answer to his question before he even needs to ask it, as she always seems to do in these sorts of situations.
"Donna," he says anyway, in case she somehow missed him thundering down the hall.
She looks up at him uncomfortably, but that can't be right, because Donna always knows what's going on in this office, she always has the answers he wants. She's Donna, that's what she does.
"I don't know what they're talking about," she begins.
Harvey furrows his brow and looks back over his shoulder. Who's talking about what?
"But if you're looking for Mike," she says, as though she doesn't know, as though he might be looking for someone else.
Harvey pauses in his stride, preparing himself to return to the bullpen with a whole new veneer of righteous fury.
"He's in Karl's office," she finishes carefully.
Harvey's mind goes blank for a second.
Karl. Karl goddamn fucking Matheson.
Turning on his heel, Harvey marches down the hall toward Karl's office without even the vaguest hint of what he'll do once he arrives. Break down the door, maybe, or smash through the glass; he's rich, he can field the repair fees. Or he'll blame Karl, get him to pay for it. Or pin it on Louis, somehow.
Whatever, it'll be worth it.
Except that just before he manages to reach the door, Mike opens it and walks out like it's the most normal thing in the world, like he hangs out there all the time. Like he can barge into any old partner's office, any time of day, for any reason at all, and be welcomed with open arms.
Like anyone but Harvey would let him get away with that.
"Mike," Harvey barks.
Mike startles, stopping short on his way to the elevators and turning toward Harvey with an expression on his face teetering somewhere between embarrassment and confusion.
"What the hell were you doing in there?" Harvey demands. "I went down to look for you in the bullpen, we've got the Harlan deposition tomorrow and we need to go over our case."
Strangely enough, the explanation seems to somehow heighten both of Mike's emotional responses simultaneously as his face twists even more dramatically.
"I know we do," he says. "But I have...other cases too, I was just trying to wrap up some loose ends. So I'd have more time to work on Harlan."
"Other cases?" Harvey snaps. "What, Simonelli? Karl doesn't know the first thing about her, what the hell were you talking to him about?"
Mike glances over his shoulder. "Not Simonelli," he says. "Karl asked me to help him out with the Boatman Howell merger, we were going over some last-minute details."
The Boatman Howell merger? The most clear-cut, uncontroversial, uncontested merger agreement Harvey has ever seen in his entire career, the one that Harvey could wrap up in his sleep? That Mike could probably wrap up in his sleep? That Boatman Howell merger?
"Last-minute details," he repeats.
Mike shrugs. "I thought the last contract draft was getting too close to an acquisition, so Karl offered to go over some of the finer points of distinction with me. I would've asked you, but you're so busy with Harlan, I figured you wouldn't want to waste time on something like this."
"I wouldn't want to waste time on something you should've been able to figure out on your own," Harvey corrects. "What's wrong with you, Mike, you can find that shit on the internet."
Mike takes a step toward the elevator bank. "Yeah," he says, "well, I know that now."
Yeah, now. Now that you've talked to fucking Karl.
"Next time around," he says, "let's work on having those second thoughts first."
Mike nods.
"Okay," he says. "Sure."
Harvey glares after him as he slinks off to the elevator bank.
Yeah.
So there.
---
Strangely enough, it's Mike who finally brings things to a head.
Well, okay, maybe not so strangely. And maybe it's not entirely Mike's fault.
"What the hell is this?"
Harvey takes an extra moment to finish dotting the i's and crossing the t's in whatever nonsense it is he's supposed to be working on before he raises his head, a guileless smile on his face as Mike brandishes a spiral bound report, complete with a laminated cover, right in his face.
"I'm afraid I'll need a little more than that."
Mike slaps the file down on his desk, stabbing at the boldface title printed across the center of the front page. "You know Karl asked me to work the Zona case with him, why the fuck would you do something like this?"
Goodness, what a reaction that is. Harvey slides the report out from under Mike's finger and perusing the first few pages as though he doesn't know exactly what it says.
"Well, if I were you, I'd be grateful," he says blithely. "This looks to me like a pretty detailed rundown of all of Zona's business transactions for the past decade, that ought to save you about a week's worth of effort."
"That isn't the point."
Harvey smiles.
"Please," he says. "Enlighten me."
Slapping his hands over his face, Mike rubs his eyes and slides his fingers back into his hair.
"What is your problem with this guy?"
Harvey leans back in his chair, settling his hands on the armrests and crossing his legs.
"Whatever do you mean?"
"Oh, fuck off," Mike says sourly. "You know exactly what I'm talking about. Every time I work with Karl, or I ask him for help, or, or talk to him in the hall, you get this look on your face like you want to beat the shit out of him, and then two days later you suddenly find all this 'proprietary material' in your case files that I just have to work on immediately, and I can't talk to anyone about it except for you."
Fine. Hardball it is, then.
"You want to know what my problem is, Mike?" Harvey uncrosses his legs and leans forward onto his desk, shoving the report aside. "My problem is that you are my associate. Not Louis's, not Jessica's, not Karl's. I hired you, I put my ass on the line to hire you, to protect you when you almost outed yourself at the Harvard club, to save you when Jessica tried to fire you, and the least you could do is show me a little appreciation. I don't think that's too much to ask, do you?"
Mike practically chokes on his incredulous laughter. "What do you think I've been trying to do?" he retorts. "Harvey, I'm not stupid, I know most of the shit I have questions about is way below your pay grade. Being able to rattle off the latest issue of the Law Journal isn't the same skill set as drafting an actual merger agreement. Okay? I know that. I do. I swear to god, all the big stuff, all the important questions, I come straight to you, but do you have any idea how many stupid little details there are that I have to get right?"
"So ask the other associates."
"Like they're not dying to find any excuse to get me thrown out on my ass." Shaking his head, Mike takes a fidgety step backwards and scratches his hair again. "I swear, Harvey, I'm only trying to help, the last thing I wanted to do was make you...jealous, or whatever this is."
Jealous? Where the hell would Mike get an idea like that, that Harvey might be jealous. Bullshit, that's what that is. Complete and utter lunacy.
"I told you," Harvey says instead, "you're my associate. I need to know you're not going to be distracted with someone else's caseload when I need you, I need to know that I'm your top priority."
The stiff little smile on Mike's face doesn't speak well to Harvey's point landing home, but he isn't especially concerned until Mike stops pacing, his hand falling weakly from his forehead as his eyes narrow suddenly.
"What's my top priority?"
Harvey frowns.
"My priorities are your priorities," he says. "You put my work over anyone else's, anything I give you goes to the top of the docket."
Mike's awkward smile slips so easily into a smirk that Harvey hardly notices.
"No," he says, "you said you. You said that you are my top priority."
"I'm your boss," Harvey says, feeling his leverage begin to weaken. "I should be."
"Yeah," Mike says, "your caseload, sure. Your work. All the crap you give me to do."
"You know just as well as I do that this job has to be your life if you want to do it right."
Mike isn't even trying to hide his considerably amusement anymore. "Yeah," he says, "okay, whatever. That's why you're giving me so much shit about working with Karl, though, isn't it? I'm not paying enough attention to you. You think I'm trying to replace you."
Harvey tents his fingers against the glass surface of his desk.
"Absolutely not."
"Yeah, you do!" Mike raises his finger admonishingly, that obnoxious little shit. "You're afraid I'm trying to replace you!"
Shaking his head to cover for any ungainly fumbling, Harvey leans back and crosses his legs again, clenching his teeth and taking particular care to even out his breathing. This is stupid, this is so stupid. He's irreplaceable in Mike's life, he knows that much, if for no other reason than all the secrets shared between them; he has nothing to be worried about, this is all being blown completely out of proportion. Karl is just annoying, that's all, moving in so quickly. He's dangerous, that's what it is, and it's dangerous for Mike, kind and vulnerable and trusting Mike, to attach himself to someone so unfamiliar so fast.
"When you find someone else crazy enough to hire you at a law firm even though you don't have your law license," he says, "maybe then I'll be worried about you replacing me."
Mike laughs sharply, opening his mouth to throw out some other taunt until the words seem to die on his tongue, sound tripping out of his mouth unformed and falling flat before he can shape it into anything with meaning. Harvey watches him suspiciously, but Mike only settles his posture back as his eyes begin to soften a bit around the edges.
"Harvey," he says, "do you... Do you think that's the only thing keeping me around?"
Uncrossing his legs again, Harvey rests his elbows on his desk and shifts his weight forward.
"I know you're smart enough not to let an opportunity like this slip through your fingers," he says.
Mike smiles.
"You gotta know that's not an answer."
Harvey does, but he was sort of hoping Mike wouldn't notice.
"Harvey," Mike says, moving forward so slowly it might well be an afterthought. "Harvey, I like you. Okay? I like you a lot. I wouldn't stand for half the shit you put me through if I didn't. I'm trying to fit in here, okay, I'm-" Stopping himself short, he opens his hands and drops them almost immediately, landing heavily against his thighs. "Everything I'm doing," he says, "it's for... It's all for you. To thank you for giving me this."
To thank him. Everything, all of this, was supposed to be some kind of gift. A great kindness, an act of mercy.
How could they have gotten it all so incredibly, ridiculously wrong?
Harvey drops his head to his chest to hide his little smile.
Shine a light on something wasted and suddenly it's all brand new.
"You can thank me," he says, "by coming to me when you have questions that need answering. You can thank me," he stands from his chair and picks his head up to look Mike in the eye, "by trusting me to have your back, to give you help when you need it and be honest with you when you don't."
Mike laughs, breathy and small. "I can thank you by not spending all my time with Karl Matheson?"
"I think that goes without saying."
"You're one possessive bastard, you know that?"
"You're goddamn right I am."
Mike laughs a little louder this time, scratching his nails through the hair behind his ear and lowering his gaze to the floor. Stepping around to the front of his desk, Harvey leans back against it and folds his arms across his chest, his flaring temper calming in waves, the soothing resolution of a shared misunderstanding, an overlong arc bringing itself to close.
"Mike," he says. "You're my guy. I don't ever want you to think otherwise."
Turning in a half circle, Mike shakes his head, tilting it back to look up in the general direction of the ceiling.
"Sure, you say that now..."
"I said it then," Harvey cuts him off, "and I'll say it again tomorrow. And the day after that."
You know it, too. Even if you don't think you can believe it, you know it's true.
Mike glances at Harvey out of the corner of his eye as Harvey purses his lips.
"All right," Mike says. "i guess I'll take your word for it this time."
Harvey nods firmly. Gotta start somewhere.
"And next time you want to talk to Karl Matheson about something," Harvey says forebodingly as Mike waves him off.
"Yeah, yeah," he says, "you're my guy, too."
Harvey nods again, a smug grin plastered across his face.
Now we're getting somewhere.
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Prompt by- Artemis_phoneutria