Chapter Text
Harvey had done many difficult things in life. Objectively difficult things, like rising to the top of the pool of youth baseball players to pitch on the best Little League team in the state, leading his team to two championships. Or turning his life around in his twenties and graduating fifth in his class from Harvard Law. Or becoming Pearson Hardman’s youngest senior partner.
And yet, he was convinced that nothing — nothing — was more difficult than dealing with teenagers.
“Uh-oh,” Donna remarked within half a second of clocking his presence in the building. “What’s wrong?”
“Not now, Donna,” he told her gruffly, striding toward his office and cursing mentally when he heard the familiar click of her heels following him.
“Your tie is navy — that’s what you wear when you want to feel in control,” Donna mused. “What trouble did Mike get into now?”
“Donna,” he cautioned her sternly, “don’t say his name in the office.”
She shut the door behind herself to give them more privacy.
“So…worse than getting drunk after his grandma’s funeral?” She asked innocently.
Harvey let out a huff, blindly pulling a file toward himself under the guise of having very urgent tasks preventing him from continuing this conversation. Donna’s omniscience, while incredibly helpful when wielded against his adversaries, was extremely aggravating when it involved Harvey himself.
Donna cocked her head to the side, then winced at her own deduction. “Trevor?”
Harvey had already resolved that he wouldn’t talk about the situation with her, but he caved at the knowing, empathetic look on her face. Truthfully, he was out of his depth here.
“Aren’t they supposed to be relatively independent and rational past a certain age?” He grumbled, rubbing his temple. It was barely 9 a.m. on a Monday morning, and he could already feel a headache brewing. And he hadn’t even given any thought to the week’s workload or the problem of Hardman’s takeover yet. No, this headache was completely attributed to the seventeen-year-old menace who was hopefully behaving himself at school right now. A particular problem that Harvey had thought he’d left behind for good when Marcus turned 18 and moved out a dozen-odd years ago.
Donna let out a laugh that let him know how naive his rhetorical question was. “Oh, Harvey. The problems only grow with age. Instead of touching a hot stove at 7, they’re trying hard drugs or joyriding in stolen cars at 17.”
“He wasn’t doing any of that stuff when he worked here,” Harvey reasoned, “and he was only 16 for some of that time.”
“Yeah, but he was bullshitting to keep this job so he could pay his bills back then. And if you want to know where he learned to bullshit from, go take a good look in the mirror.”
Harvey stared unseeingly at a contract on his desk before realizing that he wasn’t going to get any work done until they could move past the topic at hand.
“He wasn’t at the condo when I got home from the meeting in Atlantic City on Friday,” he admitted. “I found him with Trevor and his girlfriend Jenny, high and buzzed, at 2 in the morning.”
Donna’s face darkened. “I’m sorry, Harvey. I can’t say it’s entirely surprising, though.”
Harvey wasn’t surprised, either — more so alarmed. Sometimes it seemed like Mike was coping remarkably well with everything that had happened to him in the past few months. Other times the mask slipped, and it became frighteningly clear that Mike was walking along a narrow precipice, and Harvey could never be quite sure how long the drop was going to be if he stumbled and slipped off the edge.
He’d asked Vanessa to look into Trevor’s background over the weekend, and the results had been grim.
“He was Mike’s what?”
Vanessa looked amused by Harvey’s incredulous expression. “He was Mike’s big brother,” she repeated, perusing through the Sunday paper at the magazine stand where they met to exchange information. “Mike’s grandmother signed him up for the Big Brother/Big Sister program a few years ago, and he got assigned to Trevor. Trevor was participating in the program as part of his community service for drug-related offenses.”
Harvey pinched the bridge of his nose. He’d always done his best to stay away from representing people like Trevor. He recognized the type from his days at the DA’s office: highly likely to re-offend, and highly likely to drag the people around him down with him.
Case in point: the teenager who’d burst into a job interview last year carrying a briefcase of pot.
“Community service? They assigned someone who broke the law to be a mentor to vulnerable teens?” He complained.
Harvey had never cared about the kinds of community service assignments handed out to New York’s petty criminals, but he suddenly found himself with the strong urge to look up the judge who’d handled Trevor’s case and request a meeting with them.
Unfortunately, Vanessa’s revelations made a lot of things make sense. The way that Mike, at age thirteen or fourteen, had been able to stand up a successful underground test-taking business. The briefcase of drugs. The way that Mike seemed to drift back toward Trevor like entropy, no matter what happened in his life.
“Have you given any further thought to my suggestion?” Donna asked, her tone carefully neutral, dragging him back to the present.
Donna had maintained from the beginning that he needed to sit Mike down for a heart-to-heart, an idea that Harvey had dismissed with derision. He and Mike didn’t do that, and it was his belief that Mike needed normalcy — stability, time, and space to grieve and process. Not Harvey upsetting the status quo by prying into his feelings.
“Donna,” he sighed. “We’ve been over this. I’m taking my cues from Mike, and he’s not showing any signs of wanting to talk.”
It was something that most people didn’t necessarily understand about Mike — that he held his cards close to his chest. Before his grandmother’s death plunged him into an understandable state of grief, he’d always been bright and eager, which gave people the impression that he was an open book. But even back then, Mike had a surprising talent for speaking about himself without actually revealing anything. He hid in plain sight, which was probably how he’d lasted so long at the firm as an underaged fraud.
It was Donna’s turn to sigh as she reiterated her previous argument. “I’m just saying, Harvey, Mike’s been through so much. He would probably appreciate you explicitly offering him support and a listening ear, even if he didn’t admit it. He needs to know that you care.”
But Harvey shook his head. He and Mike had never needed to talk about emotions before because they’d never had trouble reading each other. This was how they had always operated — supporting each other when the occasion called for it without requiring acknowledgment. Like when Mike had stepped up to help him review all his old case files from the D.A. after he discovered Cameron Dennis’ treachery was discovered. Like when he stepped in and paid for Mike’s rookie dinner when it became clear that the kid could never foot the bill. They didn’t discuss things; they did things. And Harvey felt like he’d made his position abundantly clear when he stepped up and took the kid in and offered to adopt him.
How much clearer could he get?
Plus, he’d been taking the kid to his boxing gym and giving him an outlet of punching and kicking stuff. Surely that was sufficient. It was how Harvey processed all of his own difficult emotions, and…well, maybe he wasn’t the most well-adjusted person, but he was getting along just fine in life.
“Okay, but don’t come groveling to me when his behavior escalates and you’re out of ideas for how to get through to him,” Donna told him, pointing a finger in his direction as she headed for the door.
Harvey resisted the urge to bury his head in his hands and groan. He had a 9:30 meeting to prepare for; he couldn’t afford to be off his game. Not with Hardman sniffing around like a bloodhound, desperate to scent any sign of weakness. Instead, he did what Harvey Specter did best: shrugged on his closer persona and set aside his personal life.
“Send Moser to me, will you?” He requested, his voice back to his usual composed, confident cadence.
Donna nodded as she left, and he pulled the contract toward himself, determined not to think about Mike for the next several hours. Still, he noticed that his mind drifted in that direction several times throughout the day — when his new associate, Jakob Moser, who was brilliant in his own right, misquoted a statute, something that Mike never would’ve done. When he saw Mike’s favorite bagel cart parked outside of the courthouse. When it was 3:30 and he knew the school bell was ringing for dismissal.
Harvey had kept his head on straight through life’s many curveballs — his mom’s infidelity, his dad’s death, Marcus’ many exploits over the years. He was confident that he and Mike would reach some kind of equilibrium eventually. It would just take time for the dust to settle.
It will all get better with time, he told himself, pulling his next file toward himself to begin working. Just wait.
It didn’t sound convincing in his head, and he thought it would sound even less so if he said it out loud, so he didn’t.
***
“Okay,” Harvey conceded a few weeks later, after receiving a phone call from the principal about Mike participating in an honest-to-god fist fight at school, “you may have had a point.”
“I always have a point,” Donna said with mild offense. He could hear the sound of generic music in the background of the dentist’s office lobby, where she was taking his call. “But which of my many excellent points are we talking about today?”
At least they were having this conversation on the phone and he didn’t have to see Donna’s smug expression when he mumbled, “Mike.”
He’d expected Donna to crow victoriously, but she kept her response surprisingly mild. “What happened at the school? Is he okay?”
“He’ll be alright — no major injuries. He’s showering right now. You’ll be here in about an hour, right? Because I have to leave now.”
“Yes, I’m just finishing my appointment; then I’ll pick up food and come babysit.”
“Don’t use that word in front of the kid unless you want him to throw a tantrum,” Harvey warned.
“Right…that only proves my point that babysitting is definitely the most accurate word, though,” she commented dryly.
He knew she was trying to lighten the mood, but it wasn’t working against the complicated tangle of thoughts and worries spinning around in his head. “Thanks, Donna. I owe you one,” he said, his voice sounding more grave than he intended.
Donna was quiet for a minute. In the background, he could hear the sound of her unlocking her car and getting in.
“You want to talk about it, Harvey?”
Harvey stole a glance down the hall and toward the guest bathroom where he could hear the shower running. He needed to get going to meet a client, and it would be best to have this conversation far away from Mike’s earshot.
“I asked the principal to show me the security footage of the fight. Mike…he goaded that kid into punching him,” Harvey reported grimly as he slipped out the front door, locking it behind himself. “Was grinning when it happened.”
“Gee, wonder where he learned that from,” Donna said, and he could perfectly picture the judgmental raise of her brows.
“This is serious, Donna — he could’ve gotten hurt badly. Or suspended or expelled.”
“It’s sweet that you care, Harvey,” she said in a sing-song voice that was designed to annoy him.
“Whether I care or not is irrelevant,” Harvey snapped. “He’s falling apart, Donna. I’m not going to be able to adopt him if he ends up in juvie or prison.”
Donna sighed. “I’ll see if I can get him to talk, but I make no promises, Harvey. I still think it needs to come directly from you, not me.”
“It might work coming from you,” Harvey argued, although whether he was being realistic or wishful, he chose not to examine too closely. “He trusts you, and he’s used to you talking with him about…feelings and whatnot.”
“Feelings and whatnot,” Donna snorted. “Good lord, the two of you combined have roughly the same level of emotional intelligence that I possessed in my pinky finger when I was eleven.”
“Which is precisely why I’ve kept you around this long,” Harvey muttered, taking the stairs downward toward the parking garage. He could’ve easily chosen the elevator, but he needed to burn off the restless, pent-up energy and anger that had been building ever since the principal’s office before he took it out on the client he was meeting — or on Mike when he returned.
“I’ll see what I can do, Harvey,” Donna replied loyally, but she sounded skeptical.
It’ll work, he thought to himself optimistically, recalling how Mike had melted into Donna’s arms at his grandma’s funeral — thinking back on all the instances where he’d looked over at Donna’s desk and found Mike there, grinning and exchanging some sordid gossip with his secretary.
There was almost nothing Donna couldn’t accomplish if she set her mind to it. Hopefully she’d have more luck that he had. Or if she failed miserably, at least she’d see the futility of trying to pressure Harvey into having emotional conversations with Mike that went absolutely nowhere.
***
The thing that Harvey hadn’t told Donna was that he had tried.
Fumblingly, awkwardly, in his own way, he had tried.
The night that he’d dragged Mike out of Jenny’s apartment, reeking of cheap beer and weed, he’d kept an iron-fisted grip on his own temper. He’d phrased things gently, gone way out of his comfort zone to encourage Mike to come clean to him if he was struggling with a drug problem.
“Look, kid, I know grief is hard. No one would blame you if you were struggling to cope,” he’d said, fighting against every fiber of his being that wanted to recoil at using such soft, coddling language.
And look where his efforts had gotten him — Mike, combative as hell, rebuffing all of Harvey’s attempts to keep the conversation reasonable. Greeting Harvey’s careful inquiries into the missing money and Mike’s reasons for seeking out his good-for-nothing friend with all the friendliness of a battering ram.
And that wasn’t even mentioning the bomb that Mike dropped at the end of the confrontation — something that Harvey was afraid to even think about in the same postal code as Donna, lest she somehow detect the thought and latch onto it.
He threw some money at the cab driver and grunted his thanks, hurrying into the restaurant.
“Harvey!” Moser waved him down, his smile the perfect mixture of professional and casual. His punctuality was a good look — Harvey could get away with being fashionably late to such a meeting, but a first-year associate couldn’t. Moser understood the rules of the game, and he was happy to play by them.
Harvey did his best to put any thoughts of Mike out of his head, but as they chatted over drinks with their client — a middle-aged man named Howard Tate, who wanted to prattle for hours about an incredibly tedious amendment to his company’s bylaws — the image came to him now.
The thing he was trying not to remember. Mike, his eyes blazing, his hands knotted into fists by his side.
You’re not my dad!
The slam of a door, followed by stunned silence on Harvey’s side of the doorframe.
Was that what this was all about — did Mike feel like Harvey was overstepping? Trying to take the place of James Ross? Not for the first time, Harvey found himself wondering about Mike’s parents. A pointless line of inquiry, because he would never be able to meet them.
Your kid is incredibly smart, but also a dumbass sometimes, he imagined complaining to them.
As usual, thinking about Mike’s parents reminded him of the depths of Mike’s many losses. Reminded him of that tightrope Mike was walking — a path that bore too much resemblance to Marcus’ path for comfort.
“I think that you need to spend some time seriously thinking about whether or not you want to go through with this adoption,” he heard himself saying to Mike just an hour earlier.
Because he didn’t know what else to say anymore. Because Mike seemed to be showing through his actions, over and over again, that something serious was wrong with this situation. He clearly didn’t know how to say it, so he was acting out to express it — sneaking out, stealing money, starting fights…there was a river of conflict that he sensed flowing within Mike that seemed to go run far deeper than simple grief for his grandmother. And Harvey’s gut told him that it was something to do with the adoption.
He didn’t know what to think about it, other than to assume that Mike desperately wanted an out from their plan but didn’t want to come out and say it to Harvey’s face. And the thing was, Harvey couldn’t blame him for it. It wasn’t like Harvey was exactly cut out to be…that to anyone.
God. He could barely even think the word.
Well, Mike could rest easy — Harvey had no intentions of overstepping. He had no desire to be a…a father or a parent, or whatever anyone wanted to call it. In fact, the very idea filled him with righteous indignation — he hadn’t asked for this situation any more than Mike had. He had hired Mike knowing that he was a fraud, yes, but not an underaged fraud. Edith Ross had added him to her will as her preferred choice of guardian without consulting him first. He was just making the best of a bad situation — trying to do whatever he could to keep both of them safe. To keep Pearson Hardman safe.
It was the familiar refrain that he’d been repeating to himself ever since that terrible night in October when he’d first suggested the adoption plan to Mike. Only it was starting to sound thinner and thinner to his own ears. Something was keeping Mike from getting fully on board with the plan, and if he continued to rebel and act out, the whole thing was going to go to shambles.
“Harvey? What do you think of that approach? Think the board will go for it?”
Harvey forced himself to tune back into the conversation and Howard’s anxious expression.
“I think we’ll have to consider a slightly different strategy for convincing Adams and Crowley to sign on,” he said smoothly, forcing himself to tune back into the topic at hand, grateful for a distraction — even a boring one.
“I think I may know just the thing,” Moser chimed in, leaning forward eagerly. “I was researching the history of your board members, you see, and Mariah Caldwell used to work for…”
Jakob seemed to have things well in hand, and Harvey allowed his concentration to lapse slightly again. It was almost comical, the contrast between Jakob’s performance as his associate and Mike’s.
Jakob was certainly no slouch, but Mike definitely had the upper hand when it came to legal knowledge, recall, and brainstorming out-of-the-box solutions. Still, when it came to comportment…the difference was night and day. Jakob had been raised in this world — in the upper echelons of business and society — and he’d never needed Harvey to elbow him sharply to indicate which utensil he should use first at dinner. He’d never choked or winced at the taste of alcohol in front of a client because the taste was too strong for his unrefined palette. He’d never shown up to a meeting or event with his bowtie undone or his suit wrinkled. He was a master at making charming, polite small talk with everyone he met, and Harvey had never seen him lose his temper or get too passionate about a case. He held his own against the other associates, but he wasn’t annoyingly smug or conceited.
And best of all, he was absolutely, unmistakably in his late twenties and a Harvard Law graduate. Harvey had requested a copy of his passport, transcripts, and past records that confirmed, without a doubt, his age. Out of an abundance of caution, he’d asked Vanessa to do some digging of her own and she had confirmed every detail that Pearson Hardman’s HR department had found.
In short, Jakob Moser was a perfect associate. And he was a genuinely good guy, not batting an eye when Harvey tossed him pro bono work or assigned him grunt research or kept him late at the office.
Harvey was lucky to have him — lord knew that Louis was eager to get his grubby hands on him — and he was finally getting to experience what it was like to be a senior partner with a typical personal associate — an efficient, satisfying, drama-free experience. He didn’t have to look over his shoulder and worry constantly about being arrested. It was exactly as it should’ve been all along.
And yet…he could admit, in the privacy of his own mind, that he sometimes missed the days of Mike’s tenure. Maybe it was the simple thrill of knowing that they were breaking the rules. Maybe it was the fact that Mike’s incredible brain had helped him win several cases that would’ve been tricky to conquer single-handedly. Maybe it was just that some part of him had appreciated Mike’s obvious humanity in a world that was scrubbed free of any sort of individuality.
Or maybe it was just that the lines of his relationship with Mike had been clean and untarnished back then. They’d worked together, and then they’d gone home to their separate lives. There had been none of this…messiness.
Case in point: The drinks wrapped up.
“I’ll go back to the office to start working on the paperwork,” Moser announced, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in a way that someone could only be in their first few years as a lawyer before the job burned it out of them.
And Harvey made his way back to his condo to find Mike sleeping on the couch, dark bruises blossoming on his face, and Donna looking uncharacteristically troubled, having made no progress at prying out whatever was disturbing Mike’s psyche.
Very messy.
***
Scottie was in town for a deposition, and they met for drinks at the Harvard Club a few evenings later.
“Good timing,” she said, greeting him with a smile. “I’m only here for one night, then I’m heading down to D.C. to see my parents before I return to England. I won’t get to see them over the holidays otherwise.”
He couldn’t help but notice that her ring finger was conspicuously empty — she’d called off her engagement, and he wondered if he had anything to do with that decision. Under normal circumstances, this would be his cue to respond with a flirty comment about all they could accomplish with just one night together.
“Whiskey neat,” he said instead to the bartender, sliding wearily into the booth across from her.
Her eyebrows shot up. “Well, hello to you, too.”
“Sorry,” he said, managing to crack a smile. “It’s been a long…” Day? Week? Month? Year?
“You’d better make his a double,” Scottie instructed the bartender, but Harvey held up a hand to call off the order change. He couldn’t even get properly drunk to drown his sorrows, not with a seventeen-year-old with possible substance abuse issues waiting for him at home.
Well. Hopefully he was at home where he belonged. Harvey could never be too sure nowadays.
“This is interesting,” Scottie remarked with the same delight that Donna displayed when sussing out office gossip. “A brooding, troubled Harvey Specter. Have you met someone? What’s she like?”
Harvey grimaced. “I assure you that it’s absolutely not romantic in nature.”
Scottie’s face grew serious. “Your brother?” She asked. “Is he okay?”
The bartender delivered their drinks, and Harvey took a deep swig of his, enjoying the burn before replying.
“Marcus is fine.”
It was decent of her to ask, given all the grief Marcus had caused their relationship. But then again, that was years ago — well over a decade — and it probably didn’t mean anything to Scottie anymore.
“Hardman? I know he’s back.”
“Hardman’s a pain in my ass,” Harvey agreed. “But…no. My troubles have to do with…a friend who’s going through something difficult,” he continued, not wanting her to continue guessing, lest she stumble too close to the truth.
Still, a friend was hardly an adequate way to describe Mike.
Scottie hummed thoughtfully. “You must really care about this person. I can count on one hand the number of people I know that would have you stressed out like this on their behalf.”
There was that word that people loved to throw around — caring.
“Anyway, enough about me,” Harvey said, determined to steer the conversation in another direction. “How’s life as Darby’s right hand?”
Scottie gave him a knowing look but fortunately went along with it, dutifully supplying entertaining anecdotes about her latest cases. This was just one of the many problems with the whole caring thing — he and Scottie had known each other for nearly half their lives, and he couldn’t hide things from her like he could from other people, because she’d known him when he was young — before he’d built up all his walls.
“Where’s your little associate?” Scottie asked during a break in the conversation. “I haven’t heard you mention him once.”
Harvey was thankful for his years of practice at concealment. “Got a new job and moved away after a death in the family,” he remarked casually. “I have a new associate, actually.”
Scottie studied him carefully. “Pity,” she said. “I thought he was good for you. And it was cute how he followed you around like a little duckling.”
Harvey scoffed, throwing back the rest of his drink and fishing some cash out of his wallet to cover the tab.
“I need to get going — I’m still working out a way to get rid of Hardman, and it’s taking up all my free time and attention.”
“Burning the midnight oil, eh?” Scottie replied, putting on her jacket.
"Literally. Jessica has been breathing down my neck about it. She showed up at my condo at midnight just a few days ago to talk strategy."
He didn't mention the fact that he also had significant personal motivation to get rid of Hardman. Motivation that went beyond simply keeping power in his mentor's hands and keeping his former associate out of the crosshairs and out of jail.
“Well, I wish you success. And…I hope everything works out for your friend.”
He gave a curt nod of acknowledgment, holding the door open for her as they left the club together. Best not to give her any more information than she had already gleaned.
Still, he mulled it all over as he stood in his office an hour later, surveying the cityscape below — all the blinking lights in distant cars and windows, each representing a unique life going about their business.
Did he care about Mike? Did it even matter?
Donna seemed to think it did.
But he was Harvey Specter; he didn’t do feelings. He had emotions, yes; he wasn’t stubborn enough to deny that fact. But his emotions were merely tools in his extensive toolbelt, like all of his painstakingly built social connections and his thorough knowledge of the law. They were meant to be bent and shaped according to the situation at hand. Honed like a blade in his hand, informing him when to press harder, when to back off, when to offer a charming smile, when to crack a joke to ease tensions.
He’d always been driven to want great things. It was something innate to him — the striving, the thrill of the competition and the sweet taste of victory. It had started with youth baseball and somehow led him to the glittering world of Pearson Hardman. From a young age, Harvey had wanted to be somebody. He’d seen his dad struggle to make ends meet through his passion for music. He’d seen how that same passion had driven a wedge between his parents and led his mom to break apart their family. And at some point, he’d decided that he was going to carve out an identity for himself that nobody could take away. He would do it on his own and he wouldn’t rely on anyone else — emotionally, that was.
He had to have relationships with other people for some reasons, of course, like his mentorship with Jessica or his love for his dad and his brother, which was immutable. Then there were his friendly rivalries with his Harvard classmates, like Scottie, that made law school bearable and even fun sometimes. For better or for worse, he’d made connections with other mentors, like Cameron Dennis, who taught him the tricks of the trade and opened doors for him. And he knew he wouldn’t have lasted a month without Donna by his side.
But at the end of the day, he didn’t want anyone else to be there for him. He didn’t need anyone to be there for him beyond their assigned, carefully mapped-out uses.
And when he’d tried his best to be there for someone else…well, Marcus had happened.
So no, he didn’t want to care about Mike. There was no need for him to care for Mike in order for him to do what needed to be done. They had both agreed to a plan, and emotion didn’t factor into it. His main goal — the driving force that kept him moving forward — was still to become name partner at Pearson Hardman.
Any other interpersonal connections came second to that and always would.
***
And yet…Harvey somehow found himself awkwardly lurking around the IT department the following week.
It hadn’t escaped his notice that Christmas was mere days away, and he was going to be the sole thing standing between a grieving teenager and the biggest, most family-oriented holiday of the year — Harvey’s own least favorite holiday, due to the association with his dad’s birthday. It was the one time of year when he completely understood Marcus’ destructive urge to go on a bender.
“Did you need something?” Benjamin, the IT guy, asked in that straightforward, unblinking manner of his.
“Yes. But it’s personal, not professional.”
Benjamin’s eyes brightened with curiosity — perhaps he was thinking of the other ‘personal matter’ Harvey had come to him with — forging records to make Mike’s alleged move to Atlanta look real. That request had come with a sizable price tag attached to it.
“Shut the door, please.”
Harvey did as he was bade. “I need recommendations for a gaming laptop. It’s a Christmas gift for my nephew.”
Benjamin’s expression grew flat. “This isn’t Best Buy, you know.”
“I know,” Harvey said disdainfully. He certainly wasn’t about to waste his valuable time heading to department stores with the holiday crowds. “If you just tell me a brand and a model, I can order it and be done with it.”
Benjamin studied him curiously. “What’s in it for me?”
Harvey raised an eyebrow. “Besides keeping in good favor with one of the firm’s senior partners?”
“I could make your life a living hell, you know,” Benjamin reminded him casually. “Any email — any digital file you need — I can make it appear and disappear at will, and I can do it without a trace. No one will believe you if you try to complain.”
“Okay, easy, Rambo. What do you want?”
Benjamin crossed his arms over his chest. “Tell Louis Litt to stop marking every single digital records request as urgent. He’s done it at least a dozen times in the past six months, and guess who has to come into the office at midnight to help him download a PDF? That’s right — me.”
Harvey recoiled. “No. Just tell him to stop.”
“I’ve tried. He won’t listen to me,” Benjamin shrugged. “That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”
He reached for his wallet. “I can’t interest you in a monetary amount for your services?”
Benjamin shook his head, his eyes gleaming. “Trust me, this is worth more than money. Plus, it’s far more entertaining for me.”
Harvey was tempted to turn around and leave. He could make Donna google the best gaming laptops. Although he wasn’t sure if he trusted Donna’s technological prowess, and he didn’t want to hear her gush about how sweet it was for him to buy Mike a Christmas gift.
He was honestly considering scrapping the whole idea, but the idea of Mike appearing in the condo’s living room on Christmas morning, grieving and depressed, and Harvey sitting there empty-handed, was a bit too much, even for him. He was a heartless bastard, but not that heartless.
This isn’t caring, he told himself. It’s what his grandmother would’ve wanted. Plus, the social worker is almost guaranteed to ask about Christmas presents.
“Consider it done,” he grunted, turning without looking behind him. He didn’t want to see Benjamin’s smug smile as he left.
***
“Louis, all I’m saying is that you don’t need to call the IT guy into the office in the middle of the night. If using the computer is below your skill level, get one of the associates or paralegals to help you.”
Louis gave him a beady, suspicious look.
“Harvey, I don’t understand why you are coming to me on behalf of Benjamin. What am I missing?”
He leaned against the doorframe of Louis’ office, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Louis, I’m a senior partner. If a more junior employee comes to me with an issue — like Benjamin did — then it’s part of my job to help smooth things over.”
“No…you consider that beneath you. You have an ulterior motive. Something to do with Hardman?” Louis guessed, tilting his head consideringly.
He had to bite back the way his temper wanted to rise. He knew — he knew — that he and Jessica were walking a tightrope when it came to keeping Louis on their side of the conflict with Hardman. Jessica had urged him to be careful not alienate Louis. But god, Louis made it difficult.
“Sure, if you want to think of it that way,” he forced himself to say calmly. “Jessica had a talk with me about showing leadership and a united front in the face of the recent changes at the firm.”
As if saying his name had summoned him, Daniel Hardman himself suddenly appeared.
“Ah, Harvey. I wasn’t expecting to see you here — I understand you tend to leave the office early now that you’re a senior partner.”
It was said with Daniel’s usual pleasant air, but the subtle dig at Harvey’s work ethic was clear. He straightened, wanting to take full advantage of the height he had on Daniel.
“Yes,” he said, not bothering to disguise the chill in his voice. “Turns out that I’m perfectly capable of bringing files home with me and then bringing them back to the office in the morning. Who knew?”
“Well, I won’t keep you if you have better places to be,” Daniel said, gesturing to the corridor. “Louis, I’ll be in conference room 1B when you’re ready for our meeting.”
“Of course, Daniel. Let me grab my files, and then I’ll be right there,” Louis said with a smarmy eagerness that made Harvey’s skin crawl.
“We’re meeting to discuss the performance of the associates,” Daniel informed him, still in that light manner. “I understand you’ve gone through a few associates yourself in my absence.”
It took every fiber of Harvey’s being — every ounce of training and practice — not to stiffen. He hated the way that his thoughts instantly flew to the image of Mike in an orange jumpsuit, being carted off to prison while Harvey watched from the sidelines, faced with his own charges, disbarred and unable to intervene.
“Two associates is hardly remarkable,” he replied. Better to be up front so that he didn’t give Hardman the impression that he was hiding anything.
“And yet…our retention rates are incredibly high, aren’t they, Louis?”
Louis bobbed his head, already pulling out spreadsheets. “Yes, as you can see from my chart on page seven—”
Hardman spoke over him. “Our associates work for their whole lives to land these roles. Seems odd that yours would leave after only a year.”
“My previous associate had a death in the family and moved away as a result of it. It happens,” Harvey replied in a bland tone, barely resisting the urge to growl the familiar excuse. Something hot and molten was rising within him — anger and another swirling, paralyzing emotion that he didn’t want to examine or put a name to.
“Hm,” Hardman hummed, his gaze piercing. “See you in the conference room, Louis.”
He departed then — thankfully, because Harvey wasn’t sure how much longer he could’ve kept his cool.
“Wonder what that was all about,” Louis mused idiotically.
“Louis…” he started, eager for a target to vent his anger on, before remembering that he needed Louis on his side, both for Jessica’s sake and for the sake of Benjamin’s request. “Just…stop making IT help you in the middle of the night, okay? I’ll…I’ll give you a free pass to borrow Moser for a case at any point in the next three months if you do it.”
Louis’ eyes lit up. “Deal,” he replied instantly, looking incredibly pleased with himself.
Harvey rolled his eyes and fled before he said something he regretted. He didn’t care about loaning Moser out too much — it wasn’t a sticking point the way it had been when Louis attempted to poach Mike. Nonetheless, it was humiliating, having to negotiate with Louis for the sake of a silly Christmas gift.
The things he did for that kid.