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Harvey stared at the pile of wood like it had personally wronged him.
There were four slats, two long panels, a headboard, a footboard, and roughly forty screws that all looked identical despite what the manual—which he was not reading—claimed were three different sizes. He'd been at this for almost two hours.
Two hours.
He'd closed multimillion dollar mergers in less time. He'd once talked a judge out of a contempt charge in under twenty minutes. And here he was, on his knees on the nursery floor, getting outmaneuvered by particleboard.
"This is a scam," he announced to the room. "This whole industry is a scam. There is no possible way this is supposed to take this long."
From the rocking chair in the corner, Mike didn't even look up from the tiny sock he was folding. "Mm-hm."
"Don't 'mm-hm' me."
"I'm not doing anything. I'm just sitting here. Folding socks that are smaller than my thumb." Mike held one up between two fingers, admiring it, then set it in the neat pile beside him. The pile was growing steadily—onesies, socks, a little yellow hat that Mike had insisted on even though they were team green-and-neutral on the whole gender-reveal thing until she'd actually decided to show up as decidedly, insistently a girl at the twenty-week scan. "You could read the manual, you know. It's right there. It has diagrams."
Harvey shot him a look over his shoulder, screwdriver in hand like a weapon. "I don't need diagrams, Mike. I went to Harvard. I passed the bar without studying for three of the exams."
"Sure. But did Harvard teach you which end the little wooden dowel goes in?"
"The dowel goes in the hole, that's not a mystery, that's basic geometry—"
"Which hole, Harvey."
Harvey paused, dowel in hand, looking between two suspiciously identical-looking predrilled holes in the side panel. He did not say anything for a moment.
"I'm recalibrating," he said finally.
Mike's laugh came out low and delighted, the kind that always made something in Harvey's chest go warm and stupid even after all these years, even now, even covered in sawdust and losing a war against a piece of furniture that was ostensibly meant for someone who currently weighed about three pounds and didn't exist outside of Mike's body yet.
The nursery smelled like fresh paint—sage green, the current shade, after two prior rejected attempts that Harvey privately thought had looked perfectly fine—and underneath that, warm and close and unmistakable, the scent that had settled into Harvey's bones over the past seven months: Mike's, gone rich and honeyed with pregnancy, omega-sweet in a way that made Harvey's every alpha instinct sit up at attention and want to hover, want to nest, want to personally handle every threat in a four-mile radius including, apparently, hardware.
"Laugh it up," Harvey said, turning back to the crib. "I built you an entire kitchen island. From a kit. With no help."
"You supervised a contractor build you a kitchen island and then told people you built it."
"Semantics."
"Harvey—"
"I am not reading the manual, Mike."
Mike opened his mouth to argue further and then stopped short, going very still, one hand flying to the side of his belly, his whole face doing something complicated—surprised, then delighted, then a helpless little wince all at once.
Harvey was up before he'd even consciously decided to move, screwdriver clattering somewhere onto the drop cloth, closing the distance between the mess of a crib and the rocking chair in about a second and a half flat. "What. What is it. Is it—" His hands hovered, not quite touching, alpha instinct roaring somewhere under his sternum, half panic and half something fiercer and more helpless. "Talk to me."
"I'm fine," Mike said, and then laughed again, breathless, one hand pressed flat against the curve of his stomach like he was steadying something. "I'm fine, Harvey, she just kicked. Hard. Like, foot-to-the-ribs hard."
"She kicked." Harvey's voice did something complicated too, going soft in the middle of the sentence in a way it never did in a courtroom, in a way it never did anywhere except in this house, in this room, around this man. "Is she okay? Are you okay? Do you need water, do you need to lie down, do you need—"
"Harvey. She's fine. I'm fine." Mike caught one of his hovering hands and pressed it flat against the side of his belly, right where the kick had landed, and held it there. His eyes were bright, mouth still curved. "I think she just really appreciated the show you're putting on over there. Pretty sure that kick was a critique."
Harvey went still, hand warm against the swell of Mike's stomach, feeling the last little aftershocks of restless movement beneath his palm—his daughter, his and Mike's, currently occupying approximately the size and temperament of a very opinionated pumpkin, according to the app Mike checked obsessively every Sunday. "Wait," he said slowly. "Are you telling me our daughter is laughing at me."
"I'm telling you," Mike said, entirely too pleased with himself, "that the first time she kicked was the exact second you said the word 'geometry' with that much confidence about a completely wrong hole, so. Draw your own conclusions."
"She's thirty weeks old and she's already got your smart mouth."
"She's thirty weeks along, not thirty weeks old, and she has excellent taste, thank you."
Harvey stared down at his hand on Mike's belly, at the faint place where fabric stretched over the curve of him, and felt something in his chest do the thing it always did lately—went soft and cracked open a little, undone by the reality of it, still sometimes unbelievable even this far in. Mike, round and warm and radiant in a way that had nothing to do with the loose sweatpants or the messy hair or the fact he'd clearly been parked in that rocking chair folding baby socks for the better part of an hour. Mike, carrying his kid. Their kid.
"Oh, is that right," he said, mock-wounded, straightening enough to look properly affronted. "Laughing at your own father. In this economy."
"Apparently."
"That's it." Harvey sank down slower this time, deliberately, until he was kneeling in front of the rocking chair, both hands now spread with exaggerated gentleness over the curve of Mike's belly, and he dropped his voice into the low, serious register he usually reserved for closing arguments. "All right. Listen here, young lady."
Mike made a sound like he was trying very hard not to laugh and failing. "Oh my god."
"I'm serious, this is a disciplinary conversation." Harvey kept his eyes fixed on Mike's stomach with total gravity. "Your father is out here, on his knees, trying to build you a crib. A very nice crib. With his own two hands. Well—mostly his own two hands. Some assistance from a Phillips head screwdriver, but the intent is what matters. And you're in there laughing at him."
"She can't even understand you specifically criticizing her yet, you know that, right—"
"Shh, I'm parenting." Harvey pressed his palm flatter, thumb tracing an idle arc, voice dipping even lower, warmer. "You're going to owe me an apology when you get out here. In writing, preferably. Notarized." A pause. "Actually, scratch that, your Uncle Louis is a lawyer, he'll notarize anything, that doesn't count for much."
Mike was laughing outright now, one hand coming to rest over Harvey's on his belly, fingers lacing loosely through his. "You're insane. You're actually insane. You're negotiating a formal apology from a fetus."
"She started it."
"She kicked you. From inside my body. Because you said a wrong word about wood."
"Semantics," Harvey said again, and this time when he looked up, all the mock severity dissolved at once, and there was nothing left but that soft, helpless, thoroughly undone look he only ever wore in this room, with this man. "She's got your sense of humor already. God help me."
"She's got your stubbornness," Mike said, quieter now, thumb stroking absently over Harvey's knuckles. "Which, combined with my sense of humor, is going to be a nightmare for you specifically, so. I'd start preparing now."
"I built a company off stubbornness."
"You built half a courtroom career off stubbornness and the other half off me writing your briefs, but sure, let's go with the flattering version."
Harvey huffed something that was almost a laugh, ducked his head, and pressed a kiss to the curve of Mike's belly before he could think too hard about it, feeling the warmth of him, breathing in that soft golden scent that had become as familiar to him as his own name. He felt more than heard Mike's breath catch above him.
"You're ridiculous," Mike said, but his voice had gone thick, fond, and his fingers carded gently through Harvey's hair. "Completely ridiculous."
"Mm." Harvey turned his face just slightly, cheek resting against Mike's belly, eyes sliding closed for one long, unhurried moment, the crib forgotten entirely, the sawdust and the mystery dowels and the identical screws all forgotten too. "Ridiculous and unbeaten. That crib's going down eventually."
"Read the damn manual, Harvey."
"Absolutely not."
Mike's laugh rumbled warm above him, and beneath his cheek, faint and fluttering, he felt it again—a small foot, or maybe an elbow, pressing out against his palm like she was laughing along too.
He stayed there a moment longer before groaning, pushing back onto his heels, and eyeing the crib parts with fresh, if grudging, determination. "Okay. Fine. Hand me the manual."
"I'm sorry, what was that? I don't think I heard you."
"Don't push it, Ross."
"It's been Specter for two years, but go off."
He was still smiling when he finally reached over, plucked the folded instructions off the floor, and—muttering the entire time about how this changed nothing, he still would've figured it out eventually—began, finally, to read.