Work Text:
It was still pretty early in Seattle, Mike was sitting on the bed of their hotel room waiting for Harvey to finish up in the shower. They had a busy day ahead; a meeting with the sister branch of one of their clients to discuss an upcoming board reshuffle and then a late lunch with a prospective client who was opening an office in New York and looking for new representation. The rest of the day would hopefully be spent celebrating, it was their six year wedding anniversary and so Mike was determined not to spend the whole time thinking about work. The firm could survive without them for one day.
His attention was pulled away from the book that he was reading by the soft buzz of his phone on the nightstand. He was confused for a second when he saw Rachel’s name pop up on the screen until he remembered that she was in New York and therefore it was almost 11am, not first thing in the morning. Still, it was odd that she was calling on a Saturday.
“Hey Rachel” he said, swiping to answer the call.
“Hi Mike, how’s Seattle?” Mike could tell there was something wrong immediately, no matter how hard she tried to disguise it.
“Rachel what’s wrong?” he asked, a million things going through his head about the firm, about William, about…
“Mike,” she said firmly. “Now please don’t panic”
Ok no good sentence in the history of ever has started with ‘please don't panic’.
"But Donna and I are at the hospital with William and-”
“What? Why?” Mike cut her off, definitely panicking.
“Mike”
“What happened? Is he ok?
“Mike”
“Are you o-”
“Mike!” Rachel shouted, finally getting him to stop talking. “Please just listen to me. William is at the hospital but he’s going to be fine,” her voice softened and Mike felt like he could breathe again.
“He fell off his bike at the park and hurt his arm. The paramedics thought it might be broken so they took him there to get checked out. Donna is with him just now but they’d only let one of us go in the ambulance with him so I’m on my way there now in a cab with Toby.”
Ok broken arm, that didn’t sound too bad.
Mike took a moment to get his head around what Rachel had just told him. He’d broken his arm before, a few times actually, the first time when he was about the same age as William and it wasn’t so bad in the end. His mum had brought him ice-cream on the way home from the hospital and then Grammy had baked him her special cookies. He remembers thinking that maybe he should fall off his bike more often if that was how he was going to be treated.
“Is Toby ok?” he asked, feeling guilty that he hadn’t thought to check before. He was only a few months older than William and the two of them were thick as thieves.
“Yeah he’s fine,” Rachel replied. “He was a bit shaken when he saw William fall and we had a few tears but he's ok now, just worried about his friend, aren’t you sweetie?”
Mike heard a small voice replied from the other side of the line as Toby answered his mom.
“Ok that’s good.” he said, the worry beginning to dissipate from his voice.
“Look Mike, we’re almost at the hospital,” Rachel continued. “I’m not sure if they’re going to let us in to see William yet but I’ll get Donna to call you with an update when she can.”
“Thanks Rachel.” Mike looked round when he heard the click of the bathroom door before Harvey came into the room. “Make sure you get Toby a treat from the gift shop, sounds like he deserves it.”
“I will,” Rachel laughed. “I’ll speak to you soon Mike.”
“Thanks Rachel. Bye.”
The call clicked off and Mike lowered it from his ear slowly, still trying to digest everything. William was seemingly ok, well as ok as someone with a broken arm can be, but Rachel hadn’t seemed too worried. He turned to look at Harvey who was now sitting on the end of the bed in nothing more than a towel looking puzzled.
“What did Rachel want?” he asked. “Everything ok?”
“Er…no…yeah…not exactly” Mike wasn’t sure how to say it because he knew Harvey, and he knew his first reaction would be to panic (no matter how much he tried to argue that ‘Harvey Specter doesn’t panic’). “Before I say anything, just know that William is going to be fine.”
Oops .
He could tell immediately that that had been the worst possible approach.
“Why wouldn’t William be fine?!” Harvey asked, the alarm clear in his voice.
“Sorry, bad choice of words” Mike sat down next to Harvey and placed a hand on his arm, hoping it would be reassuring. “He might have broken his arm.”
Harvey's eyes widened.
“He fell off his bike.” Mike answered Harvey’s next question before had a chance to ask. “Donna is at the hospital with him now and she’s going to call once they’ve spoken to the doctors.”
It took Harvey a second to respond and Mike watched as his face went through the same range of emotions that he had felt less than five minutes ago on the phone to Rachel.
“We should fly back,” Harvey finally concluded. “I’ll call and see if I can rearrange our fights.”
He stood up and reached over to the nightstand for his phone.
“We can call the client and then rearrange the restaurant for tonight, tell them we can’t make our reservation.” The words came out of Harvey’s mouth at a hundred miles an hour.
“Woah woah woah. Harvey, slow down.” Mike said.
He walked round to where Harvey was standing and placed his hands on his shoulders trying to get him to meet his eye, but Harvey was still frantically tapping buttons on his phone.
“Hey, look, it'll be at least six hours before we can get there anyway. By which time, they’ll be in and out of hospital and William will be back home enjoying getting spoiled by Donna and Thomas. Let’s just wait until we get an update. Yeah?”
Harvey took a deep breath and finally brought his eyes up to meet Mike’s. He nodded although Mike could see that he wasn’t completely convinced.
“Besides, the doctors might need to speak to us, and they won’t be able to do that if we’re on a plane.”
That seemed to win Harvey round, nothing like a good bit of flawless Mike Ross logic to get him on side.
“Come on, let’s get some breakfast” Mike leant in and gave Harvey a quick kiss on the forehead. “If the room service menu is anything to go by, we’re in for a treat.”
----
They were seated by the window, the sun was bright in the sky and it looked like a beautiful day outside. Mike was doing his best to keep his mind distracted so had re-read the menu four times before the waiter came to take their order. In the end he settled on a hearty portion of french toast with bacon, and a side of fruit to keep Harvey happy. The absence of comment from his husband solidified Mike’s knowledge that his mind was elsewhere, and like Mike, was probably doing his best not to spiral into worry about their son.
Logically he knew William was fine, having been through almost the exact experience himself, but he hated the idea that he was scared or confused without his Dads there with him. Outside of Mike and Harvey, Donna was the person that William knew best (he didn’t call her Auntie Donna for no reason). She loved nothing more than spoiling him rotten and she loved him like he was her own - although Mike’s pretty sure she also loves being able to hand him back to them when he’s in one of his less accommodating moods. It’s a win win for her.
“He’s gonna be ok Harvey,” Mike reached a hand out to touch Harvey’s arm, bringing his attention back to Mike, he’d been staring blankly out of the window since they sat down.
Harvey sighed. “But we’re his parents, we’re supposed to protect him and we’re not even there.” He was doing that thing he always did, blaming himself for something he had no control over.
“This could have happened whether we were there or not,” Mike said softly, trying to reassure his husband. “Besides it’s kind of a right of passage, falling off your bike, a couple of broken bones. Kids heal fast.”
Harvey’s eyes snapped up in shock.
“What, you’re telling me you never injured yourself as a kid?” Mike scoffed.
“Not falling off a bike,” Harvey replied. “And not until I was older than five.”
“Of course, Mr ‘I can do everything perfectly on my first try’ never fell off his bike.”
Mike could have sworn he saw Harvey twitch at that comment, but before he had time to ask any more questions, the waiter came with their food. Mike dug in as soon as he was in front of him, the smell of bacon too hard to resist. Harvey on the other hand just vaguely prodded at his eggs, barely making an effort to look as though he was eating.
“So remind me how you know this guy again.”
Of course Mike knew exactly how Harvey knew Adam, the CEO of Westfield inc, they’d gone to school together.
For a second Harvey gave Mike his signature ‘how can you possibly need to be reminded’ look before a flicker of realisation came over his feature and he ended up smiling gratefully.
“We played baseball together in high school” he cleared his throat. “I’ve not spoken to him in years though, last thing I knew he was heading out west to go to business school. Clearly that worked out well for him.”
Harvey took a sip of coffee before eating a forkful of food - mission accomplished.
“Anyway, we’re not meeting him until three,” Harvey continued, shoving another bit of toast into his mouth. “Do you have the documents ready for Fisher Industries to sign?”
Before Mike had time to reply, they were interrupted by Harvey’s phone ringing. They both froze for a second before Harvey reached into his pocket to retrieve it. Flicking it round to show Mike the screen quickly, he swiped across the screen and answered it.
“Donna, is everything ok? How’s William? Do you need us to speak to the doctors? Do you need us to come back?” Harvey asked every question before Donna could get a word in and Mike could practically hear her rolling her eyes from 3000 miles away.
Mike laughed as Harvey abruptly stopped talking, and although he couldn’t really hear what she was saying, the way that Harvey’s shoulders seemed to relax told him that it was good news. Harvey nodded a few times, giving the odd one word reply as Donna spoke and then his tone shifted as Mike heard another familiar voice on the other end of the line.
“Hey Champ, how’re you holding up?” Harvey looked up and smiled at Mike as he spoke to their son.
“Ohh that’s good,” he laughed. “I know…yeah…yeah… you tell them that.”
Mike had no idea what William was saying but he sounded happy so that was enough.
“Do you want to speak to your Dad?” Harvey squeezed Mike’s hand with his own. “Ok, I’ll pass you over to him now. I love you.”
“Someone special of the line for you Mr Ross,” Harvey smiled as he handed the phone over to Mike who took it eagerly.
“Hi Buddy! I hear you and your bike had a bit of an accident.”
“Yeah” William replied, only a small hint of sadness in his voice. “I wanted to see what would happen if I took both hands off.”
Mike wasn’t sure what his face looked like but based on the questioning look Harvey gave him he assumed it was somewhere between shock, concern and maybe a small hint of pride for his son’s intrepidity.
“Wow, that is very difficult, maybe something we can work on when you’ve got me to help you?” He would definitely not be telling Harvey that he had shown that particular skill off to William only a few weeks before.
“The doctor said I can’t ride my bike again today,” he sounded so dejected and Mike could just imagine the look on his little face.
“Aww Buddy I’m sorry. I’m sure there’s lots of other things you can do for fun though.”
The line went quiet for a second but he could hear Donna speaking to another woman, presumably the doctor, or one of the nurses.
“Daddy, Auntie Donna wants to speak to you again.”
And with that he was gone, replaced quickly by Donna. Mike laughed as he imagined William shoving the phone back at her.
“Mike?”
“Hey Donna,” Mike replied. “Thanks for looking after him.”
“Oh Mike, I am so sorry” she sighed.
“Donna he is a kid of Mike Ross, sooner or later he was going to fall off his bike, it's in his genes. Well not literally, but you get what I mean,” he laughed in an attempt to cheer her up, this really wasn’t anyone's fault.
“Thanks Mike, I just hope he isn’t too shaken by it,” she her tone lightning a little. “The doctors need some information from you and Harvey.”
“No problem.”
Mike was passed over to a friendly sounding doctor who asked him all the usual questions about William’s medical notes, family history, insurance etc etc which he answered from memory before passing the phone back to Harvey to finish up with Donna.
Eventually Harvey put the phone down with a sigh.
“She’s adamant we don’t need to fly home early.”
“That’s a good thing, Harvey,” Mike tried to reassure him. “William sounded cheerful, his arm is broken but the doctor says he doesn’t need surgery. Give it a few weeks and he’ll be back to running around like it never happened.”
Harvey seemed to soften at that, he squeezed Mike’s hand again and he smiled.
“Come on” Mike said “let’s get finished here and we can head out. By the time we’re done with the clients he’ll be ready to show off his new cast.”
He took another bite of his now slightly cold breakfast. “What colour do you think he’ll go for?”
“Orange” they both said in unison. As if Mike even had to ask.
----
Their meetings seemed to drag on interminably, and Harvey was getting more and more irritable. He was beginning to fidget and that’s when Mike knew they might need to make an escape.
“Look gentlemen, we’ve been at this for hours” Mike began in an attempt to diffuse the rising tension in the room. “We still have a bit of time before our next appointment, why don’t we take a quick recess and then we can all come back and make a final decision.”
The older of the two men sat across the table from them looked at Mike as if he had suggested they jump out of a window. To be honest Mike thought that might actually be the preferable option at this stage. They weren’t supposed to be taking sides in this battle but if they were, Mike would not be on this guys.
“I don’t know how Douglas puts up with the two of you,” he said harshly. “Best lawyers in the country? You’re not even the best lawyers in this room!”
“Mr Porter, I would appreciate it if you could lower your tone. We are all just trying to do what is best for the business.”
Mike looked over at Harvey who was wearing a look Mike had seen so many times before, he was not gonna let that slide.
“It’s ok Mike,” he said, reaching for a hand over and tapping Mike on the arm. “If they don’t want our help then then we don’t need to give it to them. Acting like children is what got them into this mess, I don't know why I was expecting anything different from this meeting.”
Bad move.
“Mr Specter!” the older man shouted. “I don’t know what gave you the idea that you can come into my office and speak to me like that but I will not stand for it.” He stood up to his full height, looking as if he was ready to punch Hervey in the face.
“What gave me the right?” Harvey scoffed, also now standing. “I have been working for Douglas since before you even knew his company existed and I will be working for him long after you have been ousted. Which I hope happens very soon.”
“Okay” Mike tried to intervene again standing up in an attempt to calm the situation. “I think this has gone far enough-”
“Right that’s it,” Porter shouted, practically lunging across the table at Harvey, his younger colleague actually stuck his arm out to stop him from getting any further. “James, call security, I will not be spoken to like that in my own office.”
“No need. We’re leaving.” Harvey buttoned up his jacket and turned towards the door. “I’m not going to waste my time with the likes of you whilst my son is in the hospital. Let’s go Mike.”
“Let me show you to the door,” James said rather sheepishly. Truth be told it was pretty much the first time he’d spoken all morning, his colleague hadn’t given him much opportunity to contribute to the discussion.
The three of them walked out of the office leaving Mr Porter standing fuming behind his desk. Harvey walked out in front heading straight for the elevators, Mike could see him loosening his tie as he went. He hung back with James for a second, hoping he might still be able to salvage some kind of relationship with the firm.
“Is that true, about Mr Specter’s son?” the young man asked.
“Er yes” Mike said, slightly taken aback. “His…erm… our son,” he corrected. “Is in the hospital back in New York, had a bit of an accident on his bike.”
James looked surprised for a second and Mike’s stomach did a little flip, maybe he should have kept out the part where he and Harvey were a couple. Even now it was hard to judge what kind of reaction they were going to get. But his expression softened into one of concern and Mike relaxed a little.
“He'll be ok, just a couple of bumps and bruises, you know kids, they bounce back quickly from these kinds of things.”
James smiled, holding out his hand to shake Mike’s.
“Well give him my best, and please apologise to Harvey on my behalf, he shouldn’t have been spoken to like that.”
“Thank you” Mike reached out his own hand. “Maybe it’s best if we continue these negotiations remotely.”
The two men laughed before Mike gave him one final nod and headed outside to find Harvey.
----
He caught up with him outside the building, he was sitting on a bench doubled over with his elbows on his knees.
Mike walked over to the far side of the bench slowly and sat down next to his husband so that their legs touched but barely, just enough to let him know he was there. They both sat in silence for a couple of minutes, the sound of the Seattle traffic filling the space.
“Do you want to call Donna?” Mike finally spoke, placing his hand on Harvey’s arm to carefully pull his hand away from his face.
“Am I being ridiculous?” Harvey looked up to meet Mike’s eye, the stone cold lawyer of a few minutes ago replaced by a loving husband and concerned father. Mike felt his heart swell, very few people had the privilege of seeing this side of Harvey.
He shook his head.
“You’re worried about our son, how could that ever be ridiculous?”
Mike’s phone buzzed in his pocket so letting go of Harvey's arm, he reached in to fetch it smiling as he saw the name on the screen.
“She’s definitely listening to us” he joked as he turned the phone round to show Harvey that it was Donna calling.
“Hey Donna!” Mike chimed as he held his arm out to make sure both of them were in the frame.
He could tell from the background of Donna’s video that they must be back from the hospital, her kitchen was visible from the position she was in on the couch.
“Hey, how’re my second and third favourite Specter boys?” she replied in her usual bubbly tone. “How was the meeting?”
“First of all, rude…but probably fair enough,” Mike replied. “Secondly we’re fine…the meeting, not so much.”
“But that’s not important now” Harvey exchanged a knowing glance with Mike. “How’s he doing?”
“Well now that you mention it…” Donna’s eyes flicked to the seat on the couch next to her. “I do have someone here who wants to show off his new cast.”
She angled the camera so that William was in the frame. He was sitting snuggled up in a blanket with the remnants of what Mike could only assume was chocolate ice cream on his cheeks.
“Hi Daddy, hi Daddy!” he waved excitedly. “Look what I have!”
He lifted up his left arm to reveal a bright orange cast wrapped around from his wrist to his elbow. It was a strange feeling for Mike, seeing his child injured but quite clearly happy as ever brought on some very mixed emotions.
“Wow buddy! That is very impressive” Mike laughed.
“I see you’ve already gone some ink on there”
Harvey was right, Williams' cast was already littered with a mixture of words and pictures drawn in black ink.
“Yeah!” William moved his arm around to show them what he had.
“Aunty Donna and Aunty Rachel wrote on it here… Toby drew a face” He pointed to a wonky looking smile on the side of his elbow. “This one was the nice lady at the hospital, and then here…” he lifted his arm up so they could see the back of it. “Thomas drew a shark!”
“That is super cool bud. You can get all of your friends at school to sign it too.” Mike encouraged him.
“Yeah! I’m gonna ask Jake and Katie and Eva and Miss Johnson and Mr Peterson and…”
Mike nudged Harvey’s leg with his own, exchanging a comforting smile with him as they listened to their son list off the names of almost everyone at his school.
“Sounds like you're not leaving much space for us?” Harvey chuckled.
William’s eyes widened, horrified that he’d forgotten to include his dads but Donna came to his rescue.
“Your handwriting is terrible anyway,” she chimed in from behind the camera. “It would probably just ruin the vibes.”
“Hey!” Mike and Harvey replied in unison making William burst into laughter.
“Auntie Donna says we can have pizza for dinner!”
“Pizza? Without us?”
Harvey nudged Mike in the ribs in a silent signal to stop teasing but William didn’t seem to care.
“Yep! I’m getting extra cheese” he chimed happily.
“In the crust too?” Mike asked, mainly to see the look on Harvey’s face. His husband had given up on Mikes ‘strange culinary habits’ long ago.
“Well yeah” William replied as if his Dad had just asked him the most stupid question ever.
“And...” he continued excitedly. “ Tomorrow we’re going to see the dinosaurs!”
Dinosaurs were currently one of William's three great loves; riding his bike - that came from Mike, cars - definitely a Harvey special, and dinosaurs, well just because. They’d taken him to the Museum of Natural History when he was only three and a half and they’d practically had to drag him back out the doors he’d been so transfixed with the exhibit.
“Awesome! You’ll need to say hi to them all from us!”
“We will!”
He beamed at them and pulled out Trixie, his favourite soft toy, from where she had been hiding under the blanket. Trixie was an orange triceratops, she had been a gift from Harvey and Mike two Christmases ago and William had adored her ever since.
"I'm going to show Trixie all of her dinosaur friends and we can-"
William stopped mid sentence as his eyes were suddenly pulled away from the screen.
“Ooh pizza’s here!” He beamed with excitement.
“Ok Champ, go enjoy your Pizza.” Harvey laughed as William's attention returned to the screen.
“We’ll see you real soon Buddy”
“Miss you champ” Harvey waved back. “We love you.”
“Love you too!" William nodded and waved at them both.
"Bye!”
And with that the call ended leaving Mike and Harvey sitting slightly stunned but chuckling together on the bench.
“See, I told you he'd be fine” Mike nudged Harvey with his leg. “He’s clearly already forgotten all about us in favour of pizza and dinosaurs.”
“I know you’re right,” Harvey sighed. “Do you think I’ll ever stop worrying about him?”
“Nope” Mike stood up from the bench. “But that’s just what makes you the best dad ever. Well maybe second best…after all, I do exist”
He winked at Harvey who just rolled his eyes lovingly. Or at least as lovingly as it is possible to roll one's eyes.
“Come on” Mike held out his hand. “We have a lunch to get to.”
Harvey took the hand that was offered to him and stood up from the bench. They walked together towards the restaurant, both determined not to let the crazy morning they had experienced cloud the rest of their weekend.
----
Lunch eaten and work well and truly out of the way, they wandered through the city on the way back to the hotel. Mike soaked in the atmosphere around them, it really was a beautiful day. He was walking through the park with the most gorgeous man on the planet, his bold little five year old was just as resilient as ever, and they had a reservation at one of Seattle's best restaurants to look forward to this evening. What more could he possibly ask for?
“You know, Seattle’s not that bad, huh?” Mike said, turning towards Harvey as they walked. “Maybe we should move here.”
Harvey just looked at him like he’d grown a second head.
Okaaay, maybe not.