Chapter Text
Mike has not slept a consecutive night for four and a half years.
Ordinarily, the morning would be another rushed routine. Breakfast, get Josie to school, pick up coffee on the way, forget about the morning an hour later. Today, Mike gets to sit in on a big client meeting with Harvey. His first time ever. Of course he's going to make eggs, wash strawberries and cut them up in to even halves, and... burn the toast.
"Daddy, daddy, daddy!"
“I know, I know,” Mike groans, waving a dish towel frantically beneath the smoke detector. “The toast is dead. We mourn and move on.”
Josie kicks her feet ruthlessly. "You're bad at cooking."
"Eat your strawberries," Mike snaps, head half in the toaster trying to pick out whatever crumbs kept making it smoke. "Ouch-" he hisses, pulling his finger off of the hot metal.
Josie laughed from her chair at the table. "It's school time," she enunciates.
"What? No, it's not. Just--" Mike recoils again, the toaster's metal seriously trying to break his good mood. "-just finish your food."
"I finished my food a year ago," she complains. Mike is up now, looking at her empty plate; in his periphery, the digital clock above the oven that reads 7:30. Shit. He quickly scoops Josie up and carries her toward the bathroom, already checking the apartment in stations as they move—backpack by the door, water bottle inside, stove off, keys on the counter. He sets her on the counter, keeping a steady hand hovering behind her back and looks toward the hallway, making sure everything is ready for them to bolt out the door.
Fuck. Harvey will put belt to ass if he's not on time.
Mike stands in the bathroom in a half-buttoned dress shirt, tie hanging loose as he brushes his teeth fast in the mirror beside Josie, who is barely reaching the sink and scrubbing with far too much enthusiasm, toothpaste foaming at the corners of her mouth. He reaches his hand out and wipes the blue paste off of the corner of her jaw; as he does, her light curls get caught in the toothpaste mess. Mike adjusts himself, standing in between Josie and the mirror, scrunchie ready in his hand.
"Want it up?" Mike asks, mumbling through his toothbrush.
Josie nods her head emphatically.
Mike works fast, gathering her curls in his hand while concurrently trying to brush his teeth with no hands. Josie keeps jerking her head forward, twitching and rocking. "Sit still, I can't-" he's cut off by his toothbrush. Their morning is what Josie's elementary teacher, Mrs. Chyse, would call 'the struggle bus.
What Harvey would do if he could see Mike right now.
7:41.
"Shit, when did it get that late?" Mike mutters through the toothpaste and his full hands, momentarily forgetting about the kid in front of him.
"Dad!" Josie gasps.
"Sorry, sorry, sorry," Mike hurries, lifting her up off the counter and onto the bathroom tile. He spits out the toothpaste and rinses his mouth, trying to be as speedy as possible. All he can think about is Harvey's disapproving face when he barges into the meeting ten minutes late.
"You said shi--" she starts.
"Josie! Let's go!" Mike hurries her into the kitchen, briefcase in one hand, a sparkly unicorn backpack in the other.
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Mike pulls into a parking spot in front of the preschool, and there's no traffic, which is a bad time. Everyone else is already here. Everyone else is already here and it's 7:50. How is it that no other parent in the city has a rough morning and is five minutes late like him? Mike feels imperfect.
He hustles to the crosswalk, grabbing a steady hold of Josie's hands and begins the awkward half-run speed-walk across the road and into the front doors.
"Hi, this is Josie, we had a..."
"Morning," the front desk lady says, eyeing them up and down. Why does Mike feel like everyone is paying him double the attention today? Is she inspecting the bumps in Josie's hair, or Mike's loose tie? Which one is it, front desk lady? Just say it to his face already! "You're five minutes late."
"Yeah, I'm sorry. Like I said-- rough morning." Mike thinks of a way to seem like a spiffy city soccer mom that could possibly get an ounce of empathy from the cold-stone woman. "Struggle bus."
"We start at 7:45," she deadpans.
"Understood." Mike isn't even trying anymore. His meeting starts at 8:00, and he doesn't need to pull out his phone to know that his ETA will be far past 8:15.
"Maegan, can you take Josie to..." she starts, waiting for Mike's turn to finish her sentence.
"Mrs. Chyse."
"Of course," the other woman says, holding out a kinder hand and guiding Josie into the hall. Mike returns to uncomfortable eye contact with the woman at the front desk, waiting for her to say, you're free to go, or, have a good day, or...
"You need to fill out this form before you go."
Fuck.
It's the constant wrenches in the gears that are throwing Mike's morning completely off balance and testing his patience. He was in a bubbly mood, his first sit-in today, but nothing else has been working right. He pushes it out of the front of his mind, or tries to, to focus on filling out this form as fast as humanly possible.
"Uh- what's this for?" Mike asks, trying to find a way to get out of it.
"It's a check-in form field."
Great, that helps.
Child name, Josephine Ross.
Parent name, Michael Ross.
Date, April 16th.
Arrival time, 7:50p.m.
Reason for late arrival, traffic. Seriously?
I acknowledge that my child is being dropped off after the scheduled start time
☐ acknowledged
Obviously.
Signed, Michael Ross.
Done.
"Here," Mike mutters, scribbling out a quick and messy signature. "Am I good to go?"
"The signature needs to be neat and legible," the woman monotones. It takes everything in Mike to not moan and groan and walk out anyway. He scribbles over his first signature, signing slow and enunciated over the scribble. MICHAEL ROSS. "Have a good morning," she flats.
Finally, Mike turns on his heels and hustles back to his car.