Suits Fic: all the right moves (PG, Gen)
Title: all the right moves
Fandom: Suits
Character(s): Mike and Harvey-centric, with appearances from Donna, Louis, and Jessica
Rating: PG
Genre: Friendship, drama
Pairing: Gen
Spoilers: Up to and including 1x11 (Rules of the Game)
Disclaimer: Suits doesn't belong to me, this is solely for fun. No copyright infringement is intended.
Word Count: ~5000
Summary: There's one box of files on the desk, another on the floor at his feet, and the couch is a lost cause. They've multiplied since Mike was last here, but then again, they would have to have in order to cover the roughly one hundred and fifty trials Harvey was involved in over the course of his two year stint as ADA. And Harvey's going to go over every single one of them. [Tag to 1x11.]
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AN: I was stalled out on a few half-finished fics when that episode happened, and I got it into my head that I needed to write something for this fandom before I move into university tomorrow and my spare time dwindles away.
Title is from OneRepublic's "All The Right Moves."
ETA: I'm sincerly hoping I don't find any more typos on a final skim, because every time I edit LJ seems to bork the cut.
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all the right moves
-
Harvey's waiting in her office when she gets in that morning.
Harvey doesn't wait for anyone.
While Jessica likes to think that years of slowly cultivating both his trust and his respect have made her an exception, she doesn't make a habit of confusing his loyalty with his image. Not even for her should he change himself. She taught him that.
She wishes she'd taught him better. Wishes she'd taught him everything he needed to know herself. Wishes that she'd never entrusted Cameron Dennis with something so valuable as Harvey's loyalty.
He stands when she enters, on formality and unease both. She desires neither.
"I need you to take Mike today."
Jessica doesn't handle associates anymore. She has her hands full attracting new business for the firm and charming high profile clients; if she's in the mood to try her hand at professional development, she has a grade school of partners to attend to. She is beginning to suspect that distilling her lessons down to that mindset might be more effective, in fact. Play nice. Learn to share. An eye for an eye is not a workable tactic; it leaves both parties blind. Either pick your battles or aim to knock your opponent out of the running.
If Harvey is unavailable for Mike to report to, the job falls to Louis. He knows this as well as she does, which is why he's standing in her office at a quarter past seven. If there is one thing he has learned this week, it is that mentors must be chosen with care.
Working cases together, Louis would not screw Mike over as Dennis had screwed Harvey over. He would throw the younger man under the bus to protect himself, but Louis is a better lawyer than his rivalry with Harvey suggests. The animosity present in that relationship is something she has often considered stepping in to mitigate, but she chooses to limit herself to careful outside manipulation instead.
Louis' charms lie not in the wattage of his smile or the smoothness of his delivery, so he presents himself as a shark with one eye on the prize and the other on his wallet to maximize the assets he does possess. He hasn't yet learned to outwit charm, so she lets him practice on her closer and forces upon Harvey an exercise in patience. If he is ever to follow in her footsteps and take on a leadership position, he needs to learn how to deal with people more gracefully. Preferably without the low class 'your wife' jokes.
This isn't Harvey asking her as his boss, though; this is Harvey asking her as his mentor. He doesn't trust Mike with anyone else, himself included. He can't pass on the lessons he learned from the people who taught him if he doesn't trust in the lessons themselves anymore.
If Jessica taught Harvey anything that has not been thrown into question by the unfavourable light Cameron Dennis casts over Harvey's formative stages, it is to know yourself before you attempt to know your adversary. Harvey knows exactly how much of his hand he has revealed by asking this of her this morning, and that is the most worrying of the recent developments so far.
"Send him in when he arrives this morning," she says to him.
Her tacit agreement grants her some information in return, but she no longer trusts that she knows the right questions. She will hold them in trust until she does, because Harvey deserves nothing less than her very best.
"Thank you."
She hasn't done anything to earn his thanks yet, but by the time this is said and done, she will have.
-
Ross shows up just past eight, looking confused and vaguely defiant. Interesting.
He hovers on the other side of her desk until she motions for him to sit down. Even then, he perches gingerly on the edge of the chair, sporting a poker face so easily read she hasn't seen the like since she took the last lawyer ready to dismiss her because she isn't a white male to the cleaners.
Harvey seems to think there's more to the kid, though, and she trusts Harvey's instincts even when he does not.
"I have a client coming in at ten to discuss possible legal proceedings regarding a custody battle his ex-wife has forced him into," she says, nodding at the case file on her desk. "She is arguing for sole custody on the grounds that he is an unfit father, and we need leverage to use against her."
Ross blinks, relaxing like he was expecting something else entirely, which further cements her belief that he is hiding something with Harvey. Unfortunately, she cannot know what that is, not while still disavowing responsibility for whatever mess the two of them have gotten themselves entangled in. She will need that plausible deniability to mitigate the damage and salvage what she can of either the firm's reputation of her protégé's career, depending on how the chips fall.
"I'm working with you today?" he blurts out. She quirks an eyebrow and he hastily adds, "Not that that's a problem. Ma'am."
Oh, but she'll have fun with this kid.
"Harvey didn't tell you?"
"Not in those words," he mutters. She was prepared for the kicked puppy look based on her observations of Ross' interactions with Harvey so far; he seems to hold Harvey's opinion in high regard, and getting passed off to someone else reads as less than a vote of confidence. As the kid's expression shifts into one of understanding rather than hurt, she reconsiders the facts at hand.
If Mike Ross was as predictable as he seems on the surface, Harvey would never have taken such an interest in him. His success in spite of his naiveté for the profession speaks to his underlying potential. Harvey Specter has dropped another diamond in the rough like himself on her doorstep and quietly asked her to refine the ore. She buffed out the rough edges once to reveal the underlying shine, and now he's asking her to do it again.
"I'll, er, get a start on that," Ross says, beating a hasty retreat.
As rewarding an experience as it was bearing witness to Harvey's slow, careful evolution over the years, she does not intend to do it again. She will pass on the tricks of the trade, but Mike is Harvey's puppy to teach and it's time for him to take on the role of mentor to Mike as she had for him.
Harvey Specter has never backed down from a challenge before, and the only reason he's doing it now is because Cameron goddamn Dennis has him running scared.
Jessica almost calls the Attorney General's office, just for that. It is a near thing.
-
Mike comes through for her at quarter to ten, a stack of files balanced precariously on a cup of coffee as he knocks on the door. Not only has he done the requisite research, he's developed the lion's share of their argument; Harvey's been teaching him well.
Colour-coded are the relevant precedents; a comparison of both the wife's and their client's financials; and a detailed log of their client's work schedule versus the amount of time spent with his daughter, to show that he is devoting his life outside work to his child. It's an impressive amount of work for just under two hours' time, and Jessica can see the appeal of Mike's ability to skim through large amounts of information quickly and pinpoint anything useful.
For that, she lets him sit in on the client meeting.
"My ex-wife is bitter about the affair, but she's a good mother. I don't want to disparage her character in court, I don't want sole custody, I just want to be able to see my kids."
Ross is almost painfully receptive to the sentiment. He waits for a nod from her to speak, but doesn't hesitate when he receives permission. "You're not going to lose your kids, we'll make sure of that. She can't take custody away from you just because you cheated." There's a distinct line between reassuring the client and getting personally invested in the case, and Mike isn't even pretending to straddle it, projecting parental issues of his own for miles around. Jessica would step in if she weren't busy cataloguing the client's reaction to the dangerous element of caring infused in the associate's every word.
"Thank you Jessica, Mike," their client says, shaking both their hands before leaving.
Mike looks vaguely guilty as he turns to face her, her opinion of him letting his emotions dictate the way he proceeds as a lawyer already on file. She reserves judgement for the meantime, waiting to see how this plays out. It's possible to be a lawyer without sacrificing one's heart so long as one is smart about it. Harvey hasn't yet passed this lesson on, but that is because Harvey hasn't yet admitted it's something he's learned. In the case of Specter vs. Nial, the court found for the defendant under the argument that denial isn't just a river in Egypt.
It is one thing for Mike to be like Harvey. That is expected. It is another entirely for Harvey to be like Mike, and there is more evidence mounting up there than either of them particularly cares to admit.
When Mike remains seated long after the client has scheduled an appointment with Jessica's secretary for two weeks today, it is obvious that he intends to discuss the situation.
Jessica won't betray Harvey's trust by revealing information she has no right to, but she is an old hand at influencing people's actions in her favour - once upon a time, she taught Harvey almost everything she knew on the topic, and she wouldn't want those skills to get rusty with disuse. She suspects Mike can do Harvey more good at this point than she is able to.
"I don't know what happened with Cameron Dennis," he says, "But I know it's why he sent me away today. Is there something I should know about? Is he being charged?"
She lets that sit for a minute to see if Ross stands his ground. If he can't justify getting involved to her, he sure as hell isn't going to make it past Donna, and if Donna doesn't want Mike involved he won't see so much as a lid of one of the boxes currently cluttering up Harvey's office.
"Look, I don't care if he's being charged with something he actually did, I can help," Mike argues, and she holds up a hand to forestall further declarations of caring.
"Slow down. He isn't being charged with anything now, and we don't expect him to in the future either."
The law is a precise endeavour, and Jessica is a damn good lawyer who just left one of Mike's questions unanswered.
It's a start.
-
She heads straight for Harvey's office to see Donna once Mike has made his exit, because the rookie had better have enough subtlety to do a little research of his own before he starts poking around fresh wounds. He should note that she has not given him anything further to do, as that suggests how much time she expects him to put in before he cuts in at the end of a very long history between Harvey and Cameron, Harvey and Donna, Harvey in general.
Harvey wanted her to give the rookie a chance. This is Mike's shot.
-
Louis is waiting by Mike's desk when he returns, playing with the stress ball that changes colours when squeezed for different lengths of time. Last Mike checked, it still had a vaguely green tint to it from the realization that Louis is not only in charge of him for nine more days, he intends to farm Mike out to anyone who requests his services.
"I'm working directly for Jessica today," Mike points out, holding out a hand for his stress ball. Louis plays with it a second or two longer before depositing it in his palm. "I'm sorry, but I can't help you today."
"Oh, I know that already," Louis waves him off. "Jessica told me this morning. I don't care. Come with me."
"Uh."
Louis is already walking away, expecting him to follow, and Mike is entirely sure he doesn't want to cause a scene. It will only get back to Harvey in the end, and Mike is trying to make his life easier. He jogs to catch up with Louis, who keeps walking without further acknowledgement. "I'm sure Harvey has told you all about our little rivalry. It's just a little fun we like to have with each other."
Actually, Harvey sees it as beneath his attention- especially given the circumstances; while Harvey condescends to Louis more than can be professionally justified, this is the first time Mike hasn't seen him engage - but Mike will be reporting to Louis until Harvey sees fit to reverse it (nine days or not.) He's not about to cut off his nose to spite his face.
"Yes, of course."
He watches as Louis preens a little, turning a corner and leading them down yet another hallway, this one leading towards the research library. "Where are we going?"
Louis ignores him. "As such, we have done battle on a number of occasions, vying for the glory of victory." Mike thinks that's a little dramatic considering their profession, but whatever keeps Mike out of the spotlight is fine with him. "There's nothing quite as satisfying as a good win."
Louis stops suddenly in front of one of the records room, whirling on his heel. "That was not a win," he says.
"No," Mike agrees out of habit. "Wait, what?"
Louis rolls his eyes, pushes open the door, and walks off. Mike peers into the room nervously, unable to shake the feeling that somebody's going to jump out and surprise him like he's the researcher killed off at the beginning of the spy flick. Karmic retribution for making such a dashing Bond.
There's a lone box sitting on the table. He flicks on the lights and approaches it carefully. It looks innocent enough; six sided figure, rectangular prism, approximately 16" x 8" x 12". 832 inches squares in surface area (with the lid on), 1536 inches cubed in volume, and okay, maybe Mike is a little nervous.
The first document he picks out of the stack tells him everything he needs to know about the box's contents; with that in mind, he closes the door behind him, wedges a door jamb into place, and sits down to read.
-
It's three hours before Mike gets up again. Jessica has given him permission and Louis has given him - isn't that an odd sentiment, Louis giving him things that are actually helpful - a starting place, the pages he'd left for Mike containing the printout on public record of the cases Dennis had closed as DA, Harvey as ADA, and the ones they worked together.
The volume of them is astounding, their untouchable record more so, and Mike is getting the sinking feeling he's about to take a run at a brick wall. The amount of convictions open to appeal should Dennis go down for his actions has long since passed the border into 'frightening', and Mike knows full well that it doesn't matter how little personal culpability Harvey has, undoing that much good work would undoubtedly weigh on his conscience.
The clock has just ticked over to one when someone knocks at the door. Mike startles, shoving the papers back in the box haphazardly.
"Hey, who blocked this door?"
Oh crap. It's Rachel. As if Mike's day wasn't going badly enough. "I need in here," she yells. "You don't have exclusive rights to the room! Open up or I'm calling security."
Mike yanks it open hastily before she can follow through on the threat - he doesn't doubt she would call it in, and he can't afford that kind of exposure right now. "Hi."
"Sorry," she mutters, flushing suddenly. The blush goes all the way down to her collar, and she averts her eyes suddenly.
"No, yeah, sorry I was hogging the room," Mike says with approximately the same clarity, stepping back to let her pass. He goes back to his table, drumming his fingers on the desk while she gets what she needs.
"I was looking for you earlier." She keeps her back to him while she speaks, hands skimming the racks as she looks for a specific reference volume.
"I've been busy."
"I wanted to… apologize. You were right about me sending mixed signals, and I'm sorry. I reacted badly…if you need my help as a paralegal, you should absolutely come to me."
This is the point where he's supposed to say 'it's fine', but Mike can't bring himself to do it. There are things he could've done as well - backed off, worked the late nights at his desk rather than in the library - but she had said no and then kissed him, and now his relationship with Jenny is on the rocks and he doesn't know how to fix it.
"I've only ever had two relationships, and they ended badly. Dating isn't something I have a whole lot of experience with, so I tend to avoid it," she continues.
"High school sweetheart?"
"Up until he dumped me on prom night."
"Could've been worse; he could have dumped blood on your head," Mike points out, and she grins.
"Do you think we could try the friend thing again?" She's only half-turned towards him, standing on an angle so her face is partially obscured from his view, providing an easy escape should he say no.
Mike appreciates the value of a good second chance more than anyone. "Hi, I'm Mike Ross, first-year associate. I used to take the bar for other people, but I don't do that anymore."
She takes the hand offered. "Rachel Zane, paralegal. It gets me an office, but I'd consider taking the bar if I could get over my inability to test well."
"Nice to meet you, Rachel."
"You too, Mike."
-
Mike looks vaguely shell-shocked when he emerges from the depths of the building with a box tucked securely underneath one arm. He locks it in the bottom drawer of his desk, because the skeletons Harvey didn't even know he had in his past deserve at least as much security as Mike's briefcase full of weed once did.
He returns with a tray of drinks piled high just as the sprinkling of rain outside is turning into the full-fledged downpour of a summer thunderstorm. There's one cup in each of the four slots and a fifth wedged in the center. Louis' (extra-large, decaf, no seriously, what is the point?) gets dropped off on his desk first with a nod of acknowledgement from both parties. He leaves Jessica's (black coffee, medium because she doesn't stray any larger past lunch) with her assistant lest the associates accuse him of sucking up to the boss any more than they already do.
And then there were three.
Donna's large mint iced cappuccino (she varies based on day of the week, Mike has finally been around long enough to nail down the Friday order) gets handed to her directly, the key to his desk drawer resting on top. "Everything I found is in there. I figured you'd know what to do with it."
He's given her ample opportunity to voice any objections she may have, so when nothing further is forthcoming, he moves to enter Harvey's office. She stops him with a gentle hand on his forearm. "He won't thank you," she warns.
"I figured as much."
"But I will," she says, quirking half a smile at him. It means more to him than the dimpled beam she uses to charm people when she needs to.
"I distinctly remember assigning you to work with Jessica today," Harvey says when he walks in. He doesn't look up.
There's one box of files on the desk, another on the floor at his feet, and the couch is a lost cause. They've multiplied since Mike was last here, when Harvey said 'I've been asked to testify against my old boss or face charges myself' and Mike said 'some dickhead once told me that when they put a gun to your head it's not just give in or be killed.' Made like bunnies. But then again, they would have to have in order to cover the roughly one hundred and fifty trials Harvey was involved in over the course of his two year stint as ADA.
And Harvey's going to go over every single one of them.
Mike snags the apple cinnamon tea out of the tray to claim as his own, leaving only the orange juice.
Harvey looks down at it, then up at Mike. "Seriously?"
"You were looking low on vitamin C," Mike defends himself.
Harvey runs his tongue along the top of his gum line as he considers the relative merits of that statement, but twists the top off the bottle nonetheless.
"I can help."
"You don't even know what you're looking for."
"Then show me." Mike gestures around the office at the amount of boxes littering every available surface. "You know what I can do, I'm here, put me to work. Just tell me what I'm looking for."
Harvey leans back in his chair, turning to survey the darkening New York skyline beyond the glass walls of his office. The more obvious of his tells were trained out of him long ago, but it doesn't prevent him from looking rough around the edges, old and tired in a way that Mike has never seen.
"I don't want you involved in this," he says after a minute. "Cameron doesn't pull his punches. I admired that once upon a time."
"I can take it."
"Your fake law degree can't."
"Lola fixed that."
Harvey's gaze flicks over to him, amused at the outside with a hard edge underneath that Mike has yet to see turned in his direction. "Two weeks ago, you stood in exactly that spot and asked me what we were going to do when our dirty little secret came out. You didn't seem to think that Lola had fixed it then."
"That was different. I didn't have something worth fighting for then." Harvey's expression softens minutely, eyes impossibly fond in a way that just cements Mike's resolve to help him whether Harvey wants him here or not.
"You should no more throw your life away for me than you did Trevor."
Mike closes the distance to the desk in two quick steps, flattening his palms on the glass between the two baseballs that bookend a document covered in the blue ink of Harvey's distinctive script. It looks to be a case list. Mike doesn't avert his gaze until he is completely positive he could recreate it from scratch if Harvey continues to keep him out. Idly, he notes that side notes have been made with a green pen. Mike's colour-coding habits are rubbing off on his boss.
"That's my problem, and I'll handle it."
Harvey is quiet for a long moment, fingers tapping along the layer of condensation forming on the orange juice bottle in his hand. He watches the lights of the city go up as the daylight is obscured beneath the thick, grey clouds above. In the distance, thunder booms.
"You can start with the couch. Might as well clear somewhere for you to sit. We're doing this chronologically. Bring a box over."
-
Clifford Danner. Eighteen when Harvey put him away, now thirty. Innocent of all charges.
Mike runs the numbers. 18,362 cases over the course of two years. Roughly 25 cases per day, 36 accounting for weekends and holidays. 147 trials. 147 victories. At least one of them undeserved.
If Dennis buried evidence once that put an innocent person in jail, the odds are he did it again. Harvey is looking for more; more cases like Danner's, more names to weigh on his conscience, more convictions to get overturned, more people to free.
They lose the overhead lighting around four, dropping down to the more limited scope of the lamps. Mike's right arm is warm where the light hits it as it rests on the arm of the couch. One of his shoes is under the couch, the other overturned on the shag carpet. They lay where they landed when Mike kicked them off after starting in on box three.
The partners have all bailed by five, the associates by six. Harvey doesn't show signs of getting restless, so Mike presses onwards. He treats each case with care, painstakingly going over the files with particular attention to Harvey's notes at the time. He keeps an eye out for the signs Harvey had told him to watch for, the names Harvey mutters under his breath as he reads. Mike doesn't think he even knows he's doing it.
Jessica appears in the doorway just as Mike has finished up with case 99-1-00153-7 and is watching the first lightning strikes carve jagged bolts through the night sky, a build up of electrons searching for the path of least resistance to ground. He is the first to notice her presence, Harvey still drowning in the paperwork for an assault case from April of 1998. She jerks her head at the door and Mike jumps to his feet, taking his leave. He pads out of the room still in sock feet after mumbling something about getting them dinner, which is slightly less of an excuse than it appears on the surface and much more of a biological imperative making itself known.
Donna is nowhere to be found, but when Mike returns to his desk he finds that the box from earlier has found another place to be, the key sitting at the bottom of the unlocked drawer.
Not all of the secrets between those two are his to know, and he is okay with that. They were Harvey-and-Donna before they were Harvey-and-Donna-and-oh-hey-Mike. It was the two of them in the beginning, it's the two of them now, and Mike will slot in where they allow him to be.
He raids the fridge in the break room and comes to the conclusion that his co-workers either have horrible taste in food or somebody else has gotten there first, as the most he can come up with is a rock hard Salisbury steak and some green cheese he is pretty sure did not begin that colour. Take out it is.
It's only fifteen seconds of waffling over whether or not he should ask Harvey what he wants before he settles on stuffed crust pizza. If Harvey remembers, it's sure to get a reaction out of him.
Harvey shows up just as Mike is placing the order. The suit jacket was worryingly absent this morning, and the tie is gone now too. It's an odd world where Mike is more formally dressed than Harvey, and Mike is entirely sure that he doesn't like it. Jessica is nowhere in sight, so Mike figures they've had whatever discussion they needed to have.
"Get green olives on half."
Mike doesn't ask how Harvey knew he was ordering pizza from among the dozen menus littering his desk.
"Olives are disgusting."
"Then don't get them on your half of the pizza."
"I don't want my pizza to smell like olives!"
"Fine, get the olives on the whole pizza, and order something else for yourself."
Mike makes a face, but orders a half pepperoni, half pepperoni and green olive pizza. Stuffed crust, which earns him a snort from Harvey. Donna would be so proud. Two cans of pop, because they won't deliver beer. Harvey's been nursing the same two fingers of scotch since Mike showed up this afternoon. A side of garlic bread, because Mike's had a burrito and a sandwich since six thirty this morning and his half of the pizza won't be chewed so much as inhaled.
"Your tact is lacking in subtlety," Harvey points out, picking up the very stress ball Louis had been playing with this morning. It doesn't bother Mike nearly as much to have Harvey playing with his Grandmother's gift, but he isn't about to touch the thought process there with a ten foot pole.
They can only deal with one person's issues at a time, and tonight is Harvey's.
-
The pizza's gone by the early hours of the morning, the thunderstorm as well; Mike misses them both equally, settling in to fill the void with his iPod as they work in comfortable silence.
He finds their second case just past two.
Gabrielle Vasquez. Twenty-five when Harvey put her away, now thirty-seven. Innocent of all charges.
Cameron may never know exactly what he has done to Harvey, but Mike is certain he will never forget.
"What are you going to do?"
He gives Mike the answer he gave Jessica, and it is halfway between an apology and a promise. "I'm going to get them out. Clifford, Gabrielle, and anybody else I put in jail because Cameron --." He cuts himself off, Mike's stress ball clenched in one hand. Mike hadn't even realized he'd taken it.
It glows purple, the intensity of the colour a slow-fuse burn as Harvey makes a promise to the night.
"We start in the morning."
-
fin
Fandom: Suits
Character(s): Mike and Harvey-centric, with appearances from Donna, Louis, and Jessica
Rating: PG
Genre: Friendship, drama
Pairing: Gen
Spoilers: Up to and including 1x11 (Rules of the Game)
Disclaimer: Suits doesn't belong to me, this is solely for fun. No copyright infringement is intended.
Word Count: ~5000
Summary: There's one box of files on the desk, another on the floor at his feet, and the couch is a lost cause. They've multiplied since Mike was last here, but then again, they would have to have in order to cover the roughly one hundred and fifty trials Harvey was involved in over the course of his two year stint as ADA. And Harvey's going to go over every single one of them. [Tag to 1x11.]
-
AN: I was stalled out on a few half-finished fics when that episode happened, and I got it into my head that I needed to write something for this fandom before I move into university tomorrow and my spare time dwindles away.
Title is from OneRepublic's "All The Right Moves."
ETA: I'm sincerly hoping I don't find any more typos on a final skim, because every time I edit LJ seems to bork the cut.
-
all the right moves
-
Harvey's waiting in her office when she gets in that morning.
Harvey doesn't wait for anyone.
While Jessica likes to think that years of slowly cultivating both his trust and his respect have made her an exception, she doesn't make a habit of confusing his loyalty with his image. Not even for her should he change himself. She taught him that.
She wishes she'd taught him better. Wishes she'd taught him everything he needed to know herself. Wishes that she'd never entrusted Cameron Dennis with something so valuable as Harvey's loyalty.
He stands when she enters, on formality and unease both. She desires neither.
"I need you to take Mike today."
Jessica doesn't handle associates anymore. She has her hands full attracting new business for the firm and charming high profile clients; if she's in the mood to try her hand at professional development, she has a grade school of partners to attend to. She is beginning to suspect that distilling her lessons down to that mindset might be more effective, in fact. Play nice. Learn to share. An eye for an eye is not a workable tactic; it leaves both parties blind. Either pick your battles or aim to knock your opponent out of the running.
If Harvey is unavailable for Mike to report to, the job falls to Louis. He knows this as well as she does, which is why he's standing in her office at a quarter past seven. If there is one thing he has learned this week, it is that mentors must be chosen with care.
Working cases together, Louis would not screw Mike over as Dennis had screwed Harvey over. He would throw the younger man under the bus to protect himself, but Louis is a better lawyer than his rivalry with Harvey suggests. The animosity present in that relationship is something she has often considered stepping in to mitigate, but she chooses to limit herself to careful outside manipulation instead.
Louis' charms lie not in the wattage of his smile or the smoothness of his delivery, so he presents himself as a shark with one eye on the prize and the other on his wallet to maximize the assets he does possess. He hasn't yet learned to outwit charm, so she lets him practice on her closer and forces upon Harvey an exercise in patience. If he is ever to follow in her footsteps and take on a leadership position, he needs to learn how to deal with people more gracefully. Preferably without the low class 'your wife' jokes.
This isn't Harvey asking her as his boss, though; this is Harvey asking her as his mentor. He doesn't trust Mike with anyone else, himself included. He can't pass on the lessons he learned from the people who taught him if he doesn't trust in the lessons themselves anymore.
If Jessica taught Harvey anything that has not been thrown into question by the unfavourable light Cameron Dennis casts over Harvey's formative stages, it is to know yourself before you attempt to know your adversary. Harvey knows exactly how much of his hand he has revealed by asking this of her this morning, and that is the most worrying of the recent developments so far.
"Send him in when he arrives this morning," she says to him.
Her tacit agreement grants her some information in return, but she no longer trusts that she knows the right questions. She will hold them in trust until she does, because Harvey deserves nothing less than her very best.
"Thank you."
She hasn't done anything to earn his thanks yet, but by the time this is said and done, she will have.
-
Ross shows up just past eight, looking confused and vaguely defiant. Interesting.
He hovers on the other side of her desk until she motions for him to sit down. Even then, he perches gingerly on the edge of the chair, sporting a poker face so easily read she hasn't seen the like since she took the last lawyer ready to dismiss her because she isn't a white male to the cleaners.
Harvey seems to think there's more to the kid, though, and she trusts Harvey's instincts even when he does not.
"I have a client coming in at ten to discuss possible legal proceedings regarding a custody battle his ex-wife has forced him into," she says, nodding at the case file on her desk. "She is arguing for sole custody on the grounds that he is an unfit father, and we need leverage to use against her."
Ross blinks, relaxing like he was expecting something else entirely, which further cements her belief that he is hiding something with Harvey. Unfortunately, she cannot know what that is, not while still disavowing responsibility for whatever mess the two of them have gotten themselves entangled in. She will need that plausible deniability to mitigate the damage and salvage what she can of either the firm's reputation of her protégé's career, depending on how the chips fall.
"I'm working with you today?" he blurts out. She quirks an eyebrow and he hastily adds, "Not that that's a problem. Ma'am."
Oh, but she'll have fun with this kid.
"Harvey didn't tell you?"
"Not in those words," he mutters. She was prepared for the kicked puppy look based on her observations of Ross' interactions with Harvey so far; he seems to hold Harvey's opinion in high regard, and getting passed off to someone else reads as less than a vote of confidence. As the kid's expression shifts into one of understanding rather than hurt, she reconsiders the facts at hand.
If Mike Ross was as predictable as he seems on the surface, Harvey would never have taken such an interest in him. His success in spite of his naiveté for the profession speaks to his underlying potential. Harvey Specter has dropped another diamond in the rough like himself on her doorstep and quietly asked her to refine the ore. She buffed out the rough edges once to reveal the underlying shine, and now he's asking her to do it again.
"I'll, er, get a start on that," Ross says, beating a hasty retreat.
As rewarding an experience as it was bearing witness to Harvey's slow, careful evolution over the years, she does not intend to do it again. She will pass on the tricks of the trade, but Mike is Harvey's puppy to teach and it's time for him to take on the role of mentor to Mike as she had for him.
Harvey Specter has never backed down from a challenge before, and the only reason he's doing it now is because Cameron goddamn Dennis has him running scared.
Jessica almost calls the Attorney General's office, just for that. It is a near thing.
-
Mike comes through for her at quarter to ten, a stack of files balanced precariously on a cup of coffee as he knocks on the door. Not only has he done the requisite research, he's developed the lion's share of their argument; Harvey's been teaching him well.
Colour-coded are the relevant precedents; a comparison of both the wife's and their client's financials; and a detailed log of their client's work schedule versus the amount of time spent with his daughter, to show that he is devoting his life outside work to his child. It's an impressive amount of work for just under two hours' time, and Jessica can see the appeal of Mike's ability to skim through large amounts of information quickly and pinpoint anything useful.
For that, she lets him sit in on the client meeting.
"My ex-wife is bitter about the affair, but she's a good mother. I don't want to disparage her character in court, I don't want sole custody, I just want to be able to see my kids."
Ross is almost painfully receptive to the sentiment. He waits for a nod from her to speak, but doesn't hesitate when he receives permission. "You're not going to lose your kids, we'll make sure of that. She can't take custody away from you just because you cheated." There's a distinct line between reassuring the client and getting personally invested in the case, and Mike isn't even pretending to straddle it, projecting parental issues of his own for miles around. Jessica would step in if she weren't busy cataloguing the client's reaction to the dangerous element of caring infused in the associate's every word.
"Thank you Jessica, Mike," their client says, shaking both their hands before leaving.
Mike looks vaguely guilty as he turns to face her, her opinion of him letting his emotions dictate the way he proceeds as a lawyer already on file. She reserves judgement for the meantime, waiting to see how this plays out. It's possible to be a lawyer without sacrificing one's heart so long as one is smart about it. Harvey hasn't yet passed this lesson on, but that is because Harvey hasn't yet admitted it's something he's learned. In the case of Specter vs. Nial, the court found for the defendant under the argument that denial isn't just a river in Egypt.
It is one thing for Mike to be like Harvey. That is expected. It is another entirely for Harvey to be like Mike, and there is more evidence mounting up there than either of them particularly cares to admit.
When Mike remains seated long after the client has scheduled an appointment with Jessica's secretary for two weeks today, it is obvious that he intends to discuss the situation.
Jessica won't betray Harvey's trust by revealing information she has no right to, but she is an old hand at influencing people's actions in her favour - once upon a time, she taught Harvey almost everything she knew on the topic, and she wouldn't want those skills to get rusty with disuse. She suspects Mike can do Harvey more good at this point than she is able to.
"I don't know what happened with Cameron Dennis," he says, "But I know it's why he sent me away today. Is there something I should know about? Is he being charged?"
She lets that sit for a minute to see if Ross stands his ground. If he can't justify getting involved to her, he sure as hell isn't going to make it past Donna, and if Donna doesn't want Mike involved he won't see so much as a lid of one of the boxes currently cluttering up Harvey's office.
"Look, I don't care if he's being charged with something he actually did, I can help," Mike argues, and she holds up a hand to forestall further declarations of caring.
"Slow down. He isn't being charged with anything now, and we don't expect him to in the future either."
The law is a precise endeavour, and Jessica is a damn good lawyer who just left one of Mike's questions unanswered.
It's a start.
-
She heads straight for Harvey's office to see Donna once Mike has made his exit, because the rookie had better have enough subtlety to do a little research of his own before he starts poking around fresh wounds. He should note that she has not given him anything further to do, as that suggests how much time she expects him to put in before he cuts in at the end of a very long history between Harvey and Cameron, Harvey and Donna, Harvey in general.
Harvey wanted her to give the rookie a chance. This is Mike's shot.
-
Louis is waiting by Mike's desk when he returns, playing with the stress ball that changes colours when squeezed for different lengths of time. Last Mike checked, it still had a vaguely green tint to it from the realization that Louis is not only in charge of him for nine more days, he intends to farm Mike out to anyone who requests his services.
"I'm working directly for Jessica today," Mike points out, holding out a hand for his stress ball. Louis plays with it a second or two longer before depositing it in his palm. "I'm sorry, but I can't help you today."
"Oh, I know that already," Louis waves him off. "Jessica told me this morning. I don't care. Come with me."
"Uh."
Louis is already walking away, expecting him to follow, and Mike is entirely sure he doesn't want to cause a scene. It will only get back to Harvey in the end, and Mike is trying to make his life easier. He jogs to catch up with Louis, who keeps walking without further acknowledgement. "I'm sure Harvey has told you all about our little rivalry. It's just a little fun we like to have with each other."
Actually, Harvey sees it as beneath his attention- especially given the circumstances; while Harvey condescends to Louis more than can be professionally justified, this is the first time Mike hasn't seen him engage - but Mike will be reporting to Louis until Harvey sees fit to reverse it (nine days or not.) He's not about to cut off his nose to spite his face.
"Yes, of course."
He watches as Louis preens a little, turning a corner and leading them down yet another hallway, this one leading towards the research library. "Where are we going?"
Louis ignores him. "As such, we have done battle on a number of occasions, vying for the glory of victory." Mike thinks that's a little dramatic considering their profession, but whatever keeps Mike out of the spotlight is fine with him. "There's nothing quite as satisfying as a good win."
Louis stops suddenly in front of one of the records room, whirling on his heel. "That was not a win," he says.
"No," Mike agrees out of habit. "Wait, what?"
Louis rolls his eyes, pushes open the door, and walks off. Mike peers into the room nervously, unable to shake the feeling that somebody's going to jump out and surprise him like he's the researcher killed off at the beginning of the spy flick. Karmic retribution for making such a dashing Bond.
There's a lone box sitting on the table. He flicks on the lights and approaches it carefully. It looks innocent enough; six sided figure, rectangular prism, approximately 16" x 8" x 12". 832 inches squares in surface area (with the lid on), 1536 inches cubed in volume, and okay, maybe Mike is a little nervous.
The first document he picks out of the stack tells him everything he needs to know about the box's contents; with that in mind, he closes the door behind him, wedges a door jamb into place, and sits down to read.
-
It's three hours before Mike gets up again. Jessica has given him permission and Louis has given him - isn't that an odd sentiment, Louis giving him things that are actually helpful - a starting place, the pages he'd left for Mike containing the printout on public record of the cases Dennis had closed as DA, Harvey as ADA, and the ones they worked together.
The volume of them is astounding, their untouchable record more so, and Mike is getting the sinking feeling he's about to take a run at a brick wall. The amount of convictions open to appeal should Dennis go down for his actions has long since passed the border into 'frightening', and Mike knows full well that it doesn't matter how little personal culpability Harvey has, undoing that much good work would undoubtedly weigh on his conscience.
The clock has just ticked over to one when someone knocks at the door. Mike startles, shoving the papers back in the box haphazardly.
"Hey, who blocked this door?"
Oh crap. It's Rachel. As if Mike's day wasn't going badly enough. "I need in here," she yells. "You don't have exclusive rights to the room! Open up or I'm calling security."
Mike yanks it open hastily before she can follow through on the threat - he doesn't doubt she would call it in, and he can't afford that kind of exposure right now. "Hi."
"Sorry," she mutters, flushing suddenly. The blush goes all the way down to her collar, and she averts her eyes suddenly.
"No, yeah, sorry I was hogging the room," Mike says with approximately the same clarity, stepping back to let her pass. He goes back to his table, drumming his fingers on the desk while she gets what she needs.
"I was looking for you earlier." She keeps her back to him while she speaks, hands skimming the racks as she looks for a specific reference volume.
"I've been busy."
"I wanted to… apologize. You were right about me sending mixed signals, and I'm sorry. I reacted badly…if you need my help as a paralegal, you should absolutely come to me."
This is the point where he's supposed to say 'it's fine', but Mike can't bring himself to do it. There are things he could've done as well - backed off, worked the late nights at his desk rather than in the library - but she had said no and then kissed him, and now his relationship with Jenny is on the rocks and he doesn't know how to fix it.
"I've only ever had two relationships, and they ended badly. Dating isn't something I have a whole lot of experience with, so I tend to avoid it," she continues.
"High school sweetheart?"
"Up until he dumped me on prom night."
"Could've been worse; he could have dumped blood on your head," Mike points out, and she grins.
"Do you think we could try the friend thing again?" She's only half-turned towards him, standing on an angle so her face is partially obscured from his view, providing an easy escape should he say no.
Mike appreciates the value of a good second chance more than anyone. "Hi, I'm Mike Ross, first-year associate. I used to take the bar for other people, but I don't do that anymore."
She takes the hand offered. "Rachel Zane, paralegal. It gets me an office, but I'd consider taking the bar if I could get over my inability to test well."
"Nice to meet you, Rachel."
"You too, Mike."
-
Mike looks vaguely shell-shocked when he emerges from the depths of the building with a box tucked securely underneath one arm. He locks it in the bottom drawer of his desk, because the skeletons Harvey didn't even know he had in his past deserve at least as much security as Mike's briefcase full of weed once did.
He returns with a tray of drinks piled high just as the sprinkling of rain outside is turning into the full-fledged downpour of a summer thunderstorm. There's one cup in each of the four slots and a fifth wedged in the center. Louis' (extra-large, decaf, no seriously, what is the point?) gets dropped off on his desk first with a nod of acknowledgement from both parties. He leaves Jessica's (black coffee, medium because she doesn't stray any larger past lunch) with her assistant lest the associates accuse him of sucking up to the boss any more than they already do.
And then there were three.
Donna's large mint iced cappuccino (she varies based on day of the week, Mike has finally been around long enough to nail down the Friday order) gets handed to her directly, the key to his desk drawer resting on top. "Everything I found is in there. I figured you'd know what to do with it."
He's given her ample opportunity to voice any objections she may have, so when nothing further is forthcoming, he moves to enter Harvey's office. She stops him with a gentle hand on his forearm. "He won't thank you," she warns.
"I figured as much."
"But I will," she says, quirking half a smile at him. It means more to him than the dimpled beam she uses to charm people when she needs to.
"I distinctly remember assigning you to work with Jessica today," Harvey says when he walks in. He doesn't look up.
There's one box of files on the desk, another on the floor at his feet, and the couch is a lost cause. They've multiplied since Mike was last here, when Harvey said 'I've been asked to testify against my old boss or face charges myself' and Mike said 'some dickhead once told me that when they put a gun to your head it's not just give in or be killed.' Made like bunnies. But then again, they would have to have in order to cover the roughly one hundred and fifty trials Harvey was involved in over the course of his two year stint as ADA.
And Harvey's going to go over every single one of them.
Mike snags the apple cinnamon tea out of the tray to claim as his own, leaving only the orange juice.
Harvey looks down at it, then up at Mike. "Seriously?"
"You were looking low on vitamin C," Mike defends himself.
Harvey runs his tongue along the top of his gum line as he considers the relative merits of that statement, but twists the top off the bottle nonetheless.
"I can help."
"You don't even know what you're looking for."
"Then show me." Mike gestures around the office at the amount of boxes littering every available surface. "You know what I can do, I'm here, put me to work. Just tell me what I'm looking for."
Harvey leans back in his chair, turning to survey the darkening New York skyline beyond the glass walls of his office. The more obvious of his tells were trained out of him long ago, but it doesn't prevent him from looking rough around the edges, old and tired in a way that Mike has never seen.
"I don't want you involved in this," he says after a minute. "Cameron doesn't pull his punches. I admired that once upon a time."
"I can take it."
"Your fake law degree can't."
"Lola fixed that."
Harvey's gaze flicks over to him, amused at the outside with a hard edge underneath that Mike has yet to see turned in his direction. "Two weeks ago, you stood in exactly that spot and asked me what we were going to do when our dirty little secret came out. You didn't seem to think that Lola had fixed it then."
"That was different. I didn't have something worth fighting for then." Harvey's expression softens minutely, eyes impossibly fond in a way that just cements Mike's resolve to help him whether Harvey wants him here or not.
"You should no more throw your life away for me than you did Trevor."
Mike closes the distance to the desk in two quick steps, flattening his palms on the glass between the two baseballs that bookend a document covered in the blue ink of Harvey's distinctive script. It looks to be a case list. Mike doesn't avert his gaze until he is completely positive he could recreate it from scratch if Harvey continues to keep him out. Idly, he notes that side notes have been made with a green pen. Mike's colour-coding habits are rubbing off on his boss.
"That's my problem, and I'll handle it."
Harvey is quiet for a long moment, fingers tapping along the layer of condensation forming on the orange juice bottle in his hand. He watches the lights of the city go up as the daylight is obscured beneath the thick, grey clouds above. In the distance, thunder booms.
"You can start with the couch. Might as well clear somewhere for you to sit. We're doing this chronologically. Bring a box over."
-
Clifford Danner. Eighteen when Harvey put him away, now thirty. Innocent of all charges.
Mike runs the numbers. 18,362 cases over the course of two years. Roughly 25 cases per day, 36 accounting for weekends and holidays. 147 trials. 147 victories. At least one of them undeserved.
If Dennis buried evidence once that put an innocent person in jail, the odds are he did it again. Harvey is looking for more; more cases like Danner's, more names to weigh on his conscience, more convictions to get overturned, more people to free.
They lose the overhead lighting around four, dropping down to the more limited scope of the lamps. Mike's right arm is warm where the light hits it as it rests on the arm of the couch. One of his shoes is under the couch, the other overturned on the shag carpet. They lay where they landed when Mike kicked them off after starting in on box three.
The partners have all bailed by five, the associates by six. Harvey doesn't show signs of getting restless, so Mike presses onwards. He treats each case with care, painstakingly going over the files with particular attention to Harvey's notes at the time. He keeps an eye out for the signs Harvey had told him to watch for, the names Harvey mutters under his breath as he reads. Mike doesn't think he even knows he's doing it.
Jessica appears in the doorway just as Mike has finished up with case 99-1-00153-7 and is watching the first lightning strikes carve jagged bolts through the night sky, a build up of electrons searching for the path of least resistance to ground. He is the first to notice her presence, Harvey still drowning in the paperwork for an assault case from April of 1998. She jerks her head at the door and Mike jumps to his feet, taking his leave. He pads out of the room still in sock feet after mumbling something about getting them dinner, which is slightly less of an excuse than it appears on the surface and much more of a biological imperative making itself known.
Donna is nowhere to be found, but when Mike returns to his desk he finds that the box from earlier has found another place to be, the key sitting at the bottom of the unlocked drawer.
Not all of the secrets between those two are his to know, and he is okay with that. They were Harvey-and-Donna before they were Harvey-and-Donna-and-oh-hey-Mike. It was the two of them in the beginning, it's the two of them now, and Mike will slot in where they allow him to be.
He raids the fridge in the break room and comes to the conclusion that his co-workers either have horrible taste in food or somebody else has gotten there first, as the most he can come up with is a rock hard Salisbury steak and some green cheese he is pretty sure did not begin that colour. Take out it is.
It's only fifteen seconds of waffling over whether or not he should ask Harvey what he wants before he settles on stuffed crust pizza. If Harvey remembers, it's sure to get a reaction out of him.
Harvey shows up just as Mike is placing the order. The suit jacket was worryingly absent this morning, and the tie is gone now too. It's an odd world where Mike is more formally dressed than Harvey, and Mike is entirely sure that he doesn't like it. Jessica is nowhere in sight, so Mike figures they've had whatever discussion they needed to have.
"Get green olives on half."
Mike doesn't ask how Harvey knew he was ordering pizza from among the dozen menus littering his desk.
"Olives are disgusting."
"Then don't get them on your half of the pizza."
"I don't want my pizza to smell like olives!"
"Fine, get the olives on the whole pizza, and order something else for yourself."
Mike makes a face, but orders a half pepperoni, half pepperoni and green olive pizza. Stuffed crust, which earns him a snort from Harvey. Donna would be so proud. Two cans of pop, because they won't deliver beer. Harvey's been nursing the same two fingers of scotch since Mike showed up this afternoon. A side of garlic bread, because Mike's had a burrito and a sandwich since six thirty this morning and his half of the pizza won't be chewed so much as inhaled.
"Your tact is lacking in subtlety," Harvey points out, picking up the very stress ball Louis had been playing with this morning. It doesn't bother Mike nearly as much to have Harvey playing with his Grandmother's gift, but he isn't about to touch the thought process there with a ten foot pole.
They can only deal with one person's issues at a time, and tonight is Harvey's.
-
The pizza's gone by the early hours of the morning, the thunderstorm as well; Mike misses them both equally, settling in to fill the void with his iPod as they work in comfortable silence.
He finds their second case just past two.
Gabrielle Vasquez. Twenty-five when Harvey put her away, now thirty-seven. Innocent of all charges.
Cameron may never know exactly what he has done to Harvey, but Mike is certain he will never forget.
"What are you going to do?"
He gives Mike the answer he gave Jessica, and it is halfway between an apology and a promise. "I'm going to get them out. Clifford, Gabrielle, and anybody else I put in jail because Cameron --." He cuts himself off, Mike's stress ball clenched in one hand. Mike hadn't even realized he'd taken it.
It glows purple, the intensity of the colour a slow-fuse burn as Harvey makes a promise to the night.
"We start in the morning."
-
fin