"Anyone comes at you with any threat at all you come to me. I don't care if it's the Queen of England. You come to me. You tell me. You tell me everything. That's what goddamn loyalty is." Harvey Specter

"Harvey is not Superman anymore. He's Batman. Batman needs Robin." Louis Litt

.***.

He really meant to go to Harvey, but he passed out first.

Mike Ross's last two week had been truly horrible. First he'd been plagued by those awful nightmares of Rachel exposing him, Rachel leaving him, Rachel wanting nothing to do with him now that she knew he'd cheated a corner on the way to the job she so desperately wanted. And the second week—oh the second week had been dreams of Harvey. Dreams where Harvey had done as he promised and forgotten all about Mike, forgotten that he'd once cared for a stupid genius drug-addict.

Louis told him that he'd made Harvey into Batman. Mike had spent much of his childhood in Trevor's room, reading the dime Batman comics they could get from the drugstore. Trevor's favorite multiverse had been The Dark Night, about the loner who looked out for Gotham and toed the line between doing what was right and doing what was necessary. But Mike had been a sucker for the Batman and Robin universe, and would plead with Trevor every week to watch the cartoon with him. And Trevor would grudgingly admit that this Batman was okay, he guessed. Mike would shrug. He wasn't looking at Batman. He was looking at Robin. And maybe he identified too much with the orphan who melted the heart of stone. Maybe he'd never really forgotten about those Saturday mornings where he would have given anything in the world for someone to swoop in and adopt him away from his problems. Show him a way to a more fulfilling life.

It was Batman he was thinking of, a Batman who looked so much like Harvey it hurt, when he passed out.

It was a hot, hot day in a New York summer. He was in a part of Brooklyn that very closely resembled Gotham minus the useful Batman. And he had been beaten up for the fourth time in a week. No one cared. Eventually he came to, when the sun was peeking over the tops of the buildings, and dragged himself home.

They'd taken his wallet, but after the first three times he'd stopped keeping more than a few dollars on him. Mostly they'd just beaten him.

He should tell Harvey. But Harvey didn't want anything to do with him, not yet, not until he could get him a win. So he took a shower instead and tried not to look at his bruised torso in the mirror. The worst part was that he would not be able to go over Rachel's house looking like this. She would be concerned, overly concerned, and he didn't want her smothering sympathy. He wanted Harvey.

Before he'd passed out, he'd really thought he would tell Harvey, just march into the office and tell the older man about the South Brooklyn Boys and their nightly prowl. But in the light of day that seemed whiny and childish. It seemed like he was begging for attention. Look at poor little Mike. Can't stick up for himself to Jessica. Can't stick up for himself anywhere. So Harvey wouldn't know. He could stand Harvey ignoring him. He couldn't stand it if Harvey knew how bad his neighborhood had gotten, and with that knowledge he turned his back. In this case, for both of them, ignorance was bliss.

Pearson Darby was a surprisingly cordial place to work. They had not been invaded by an excessive amount of English people and those that had invaded were ridiculously polite. He didn't know if this was because they were in a new space or this was the usual temperament of Britons. Mike had never been outside the country.

A cordial place to work did not mean a necessarily observant once. Mike combed his hair over his black eye, was grateful when Rachel texted him that she would be at another large law firm using their library for most of the day, and entered the associate pen at eight o'clock to no unusual stares.

His head throbbed, but he took it to be mostly sleep deprivation. Unconsciousness was not the same as sleep.

Mostly he held a hand to his side, because it hurt, burned, and tried to work past it. He was finishing a brief for Louis, something very simple that was probably a gesture of please don't leave, you make Harvey bearable. Sometimes Louis was inscrutable. Mostly, Mike was trying to surreptitiously help Harvey.

"Where do you think you're going with that?"

"Donna, please," Mike tried to keep the sigh out of his voice. He ached everywhere and he was hungry. He couldn't remember the last time he ate. Also, being at odds with the secretary was almost as bad as being at odds with Harvey.

Donna snatched the folder out of his hand, not looking at his face. Thank god. She'd have a witty remark about the black eye for sure. "You know Harvey can do his own paperwork."

"I found something about Darby and-"

"He already knows."

"Well, I also found-"

Donna snapped the folder shut. "How can I say this so you believe me? Harvey doesn't need you anymore. We don't need you."

Mike swallowed at the cold look in Donna's eyes. "I'm just trying to…I don't know how to fix this."

"This isn't you playing with another kid at recess," Donna said, putting the folder in the trash can. "This is you betraying the person who had your back for two years when he could have had you thrown in jail."

"I—right. Okay." He felt sick. His side burned, and pressing a hand against it wasn't helping anymore. Still, he tried to have the last word, "I'm not going to stop trying. I'll do anything."

Donna laughed. It wasn't a pleasant sound. "Always the puppy. So eager to please." She pointed a finger at Mike, "We've outgrown you."

Knowing this to be absolutely true, Mike walked away before she could catch sight of his black eye and report that to Harvey, too. His desk was close. He could get work done and sit and lose himself in files and legalese and briefs. But somehow, through all the pain, his stomach was growling incessantly.

This would be a nice time to have a girlfriend. If Rachel were in the building he could just ask her to get him a sandwich. This would be a nice time to have friends. The realization that he was alone wasn't a new one, but that didn't make it sting any less.

By the time he got down to the street he realized blood was seeping through his shirt. Which was probably why his side was hurting anew. Great. Riding back home to get a new shirt had not been something he wanted to do in the middle of the day heat. But at least he could make himself some lunch while he was there.

It was only the thought of the apples Rachel had brought over last week that kept him peddling around the pedestrians, made slow and lethargic by the heat. And he was still thinking about the apples when he was knocked off his bike by the same group of people who'd beat him up last night, and the morning before, and the morning before that.

"Ya just won't take the hint, huh stronzo?"

"I'm stubborn like that," Mike said, levering himself off the ground.

"Well that stubbornness is gonna make you bleed," one of the group cackled, eyes narrowing. "Stubbornness makes you dead."

They would have killed him, too. They would have killed them and it might have taken all night for Rachel to care, a day before she worried. And then Mike Ross would have passed from the world disgraced, leaving almost no one behind to mourn him. And in five years, ten, everyone would forget he'd even been there at all.

The gang would have killed him if a cop who'd drawn the short straw and had to patrol in the heat hadn't come around the corner and shouted at the group until they dispersed. He would have just died there on the dirty sidewalk if the cop hadn't held his head off the ground and said I'm calling an ambulance. It'll be here any minute. You'll—you'll be fine, man. You'll be golden.

Mike wanted to tell him not to bother.

.***.

When Mike opened his eyes the first thing he saw was a suit jacket draped carefully over the back of a chair. This was a suit jacket unlike any he could afford, yet he knew it very well. Oh god.

"Apparently you haven't put Rachel Zane down as your emergency contact yet."

There was a tube in Mike's throat, and so the I'm sorry came out garbled. He could barely even open his eyes enough to look at Harvey towering over him.

"So I took the liberty of calling her. I wasn't supposed to be here when you woke up." There was movement, and every fiber of Mike's being was screaming for Harvey not to leave him but there was that tube and there was pain everywhere. "She'll be here in a half hour."

Mike finally found the strength to sit up, and then the pain got so intense that he screamed pas the tube, he screamed so loudly that if the hurt didn't rip him apart the sound of the scream would.

He was starting to lose track of how many times he'd passed out this week. Every time he was getting dizzier, less there. Obviously this time was the worst, because no way would Harvey's hand me on his shoulder, in his hair, not in real life. No way would Harvey's voice sound like that, rough and scared. No way would he be saying, "Don't you dare, Mike! Don't you dare!"

Obviously it was a kind of mirage, a vision brought on by the mind-numbing pain. Because Harvey had never looked more like Batman than he did just before Mike slipped back into the darkness.

.***.

The tube was gone when Mike woke up again, and there was light coming in through the window. Donna was sitting in the chair, working on a crossword puzzle.

The pain was more like an ache now, a reminder all over his body that a gang of pissed off Italian boys had tried to kill him. Mostly he was thirsty. "Donna?" His voice was strange, a croak, an old-man voice.

She flashed a smile before she remembered she was supposed to be mad at Mike. Then her expression darkened again. "Nearly dying is a really underhanded way to make Harvey talk to you again."

"Harvey's not here," Mike pointed out. He wasn't entirely sure Donna was here. He wasn't entirely sure this wasn't a dream. "He doesn't care."

Donna slammed the crossword puzzle on the bed, on Mike's leg, and he groaned. Obviously something in the vicinity of his leg was broken. He should probably be more concerned about it than he was. "He doesn't care? I told him not to care. I reminded him that you are nothing but a back-stabbing puppy. But who do you think spent the last week in here, sweating through all your surgeries? Where do you think he is now?"

"The office?" Mike ventured, looking at the pitcher of water on the bedside table hopefully. He really wanted his voice to stop sounding like this.

"At the courthouse! Prosecuting the gang that jumped you! Who gets jumped by a gang anyway? Are you a greaser? Is this The Outsiders?"

"I moved into their neighborhood. They realized where I worked. They thought I was loaded so they demanded five grand to not beat me up. It didn't seem like a good enough reason to part with five grand."

"So they beat you up. You don't try to call a greaser's bluff. Street boys don't lie."

"Donna? I really am sorry."

Donna, who had been all bluster and banter a second before, suddenly looked at him. Really looked at him. And she smiled, and this smile wasn't cold at all but sad. "You need more friends, Mike Ross."

"I'm working on it."

"No more passing out."

"I'm working on that, too." He was about to ask for water, about to ask where his girlfriend was, but a spike of pain shot through his side and he couldn't help himself. He swooned like an eighteenth century girl.

.***.

"This is very manipulative way to make me talk to you again."

Mike opened his eyes to Harvey. Rachel had to be lurking around here somewhere but he had yet to see her. "Donna's already covered that."

"I think it bears repeating."

"I'm sorry."

Harvey sighed, pouring himself a glass of water and not giving any to Mike. He supposed he deserved that. "I got three of the gangbangers jail sentences of three to five. The others were minors."

"What were you doing prosecuting a criminal case?"

"I used to work in the DA's office," Harvey reminded him, rolling his eyes. "I think I can get Brooklyn kids a couple of years in prison."

"Right," Mike said, "I forgot that you were Harvey Dent before you became Batman."

"Please. I was always Batman."

Mike looked down at his hands. One had a cast from thumb to elbow. The other had splints around two fingers. How would he sneakily help Harvey now? "Louis doesn't think so. He says you were Superman once. He thinks I made you Batman."

"I'm pretty sure the boatloads of money I've made doing this job made me Batman."

"I had nothing to do with it?"

Harvey put the glass of water down. "Do you really want to be Robin?"

"Yes," the whisper escaped Mike's mouth and he didn't have time to regret it. It was too true. Yes, he'd wanted to be Robin since he was twelve and newly orphaned and saw that there was a way for orphans to save the world.

There was silence. Now instead of pain or even an ache Mike realized he itched everywhere. Being beaten up was a lasting punishment.

"Why didn't you tell me about the Brooklyn Boys earlier?" Harvey asked after the silence had stretched on for nearly five minutes. Mike had taken to counting the ceiling tiles. "Didn't I tell you two weeks ago that you need to come to me about any threat?"

"You didn't mean in my personal life," Mike pointed out, "And anyway, I deserved it."

He dared a glance at Harvey and looked away when he saw that the older man looked sad, of all things. "Do you really believe that? Because gang violence is about as senseless as it gets. No one really deserves it."

"I thought—I never got punished for what I did to you. When Donna screwed up she got fired. And I got an office. So when the gang found me that first night I thought maybe if someone hurt me I wouldn't feel so guilty."

"That's pretty unsound logic," Harvey said, his tone clipped and tight. "You screw me over in a case so it's okay to get yourself killed? Why are the stakes so much higher for you?"

Mike snorted at that. Wasn't it obvious? "Robin's life is worth less than Batman's. It's why Jason Todd died. There's always a new one to replace him."

Harvey made a noise that Mike couldn't bring himself to analyze. He was getting tired again. "I always thought you were more of a Dick Grayson. Or a Damian."

"Nightwing? Batman's son?" Mike yawned, "You know Damian died, too."

"Yeah. But they were the ones Batman cared about the most."

If there was ever a time to wrestle against the allure of unconsciousness, it was now. Mike smiled widely and looked at Harvey, hardly daring to believe what he was implying. "I am so sorry, Harvey."

The room was quiet again. It was quiet for so long Mike fell asleep several times, jerking back awake when his head touched the pillow. Then, just one quiet word. "Okay."

This time, when the blackness took Mike, he let himself slip into it, let it heal him, knowing that when he woke up Harvey would let him back into Wayne Manor.

.***.

That was some extended metaphor. Obviously we like comic books too much.

Hope you guys like it. This is just the beginning. There are plenty of things Mike can apologize for.