Hey FFNet, I'm back again. I'll always come back to this fandom. Anyone who's looked at my tumblr knows I'm in a really hardcore Motorcity phase right now. This is one of two fics right now, and there might be more coming. Also, so you know, I am officially on AO3 now and will be double-posting works there as well! Same username, feel free to look me up if you like that platform better.

I had a lot of fun with this! It occurred to me when I noticed Mike's Look myself over the course of a rewatch. Enjoy.

Mike smiled a goofy smile from his seat in the booth as he watched Dutch and Tennie on the dance floor at Antonio's. Julie glanced at his face and laughed, catching Claire's attention as well.

"Okay, I'll admit… they're pretty cute," Claire said, glancing at the couple. She gave a dreamy sigh, propping her chin up on her hands. "They're lucky."

Under the table, Mike kicked Chuck's leg. Chuck gave a shout, then looked at Mike's face and realized what the point was. Red-faced, Chuck turned to Claire and opened his mouth, but all that came out was a few stammered syllables of nonsense. Claire rolled her eyes and looked over at Julie, cracking a knowing smile. "What about you? Anyone you'd like to dance with, Jules?" she asked, her implications more than clear.

Julie tossed her best friend a dirty look. "Excuse you," she said, irritated. "Do you have to do that?"

Claire grinned. Chuck, recovering from his embarrassment, turned his attention to his friend instead. "Oh really? Who is it?" he asked with a smile, relieved to have something else to focus on.

"Oh my god," Julie muttered, frowning. Grabbing Claire's arm, she got to her feet and marched to the bar to order another drink.

Chuck watched her go, getting sidetracked when she walked past Texas, who was trying to flirt with one of the Amazons – Lizzie. She blew him off and walked away, making Chuck laugh. He turned to see if Mike had been watching, but his laughter died as he looked at Mike's face.

"Hang on," he said. "You didn't do the thing."

"What thing?" Mike asked distractedly, watching Julie's back where she leaned on the bar and talking to Claire. Julie looked annoyed, but Claire was still laughing.

"The Look," Chuck said. "You didn't get the Look." He realized that Mike still wasn't really paying attention. "Normally when you find out that one of your friends likes someone, you get this look on your face and then you become the champion wingman… though less sneaky than you think."

"Oh?" Mike asked, still distracted.

"Yeah. You did it to me and you did it to Dutch. But you just heard Julie might like someone and you didn't get the Look at all, you didn't even seem curious. You actually seem kinda… worried."

"Oh," Mike answered.

Chuck regarded his best friend thoughtfully for a moment before raising his eyebrows. "Oh wow, Mikey, you have a thing for Julie."

"What?" Mike answered, finally tearing his eyes off of Julie's back and turning to Chuck. "Nah, that's crazy, what? You're reading way too much into this," he said, but it wasn't convincing.

"If you're going to deny everything, totally phoning in it like that probably isn't your best bet," Chuck said, giving Mike a pointed look.

"I… never thought about Julie liking someone before," Mike said slowly.

"Did you ever think about you liking someone before?" Chuck asked.

"Honestly, Claire, I don't know what you were trying to achieve by that," Julie complained, rubbing her forehead and taking another sip of her drink.

"Girl, you badly need an outlet," Claire told her matter-of-factly. "You're way too stressed."

"Driving, the Burners… This is my outlet!" Julie cried.

"Noooo it's not," Claire challenged her. "It may let you get stuff out of your system, but it also creates more stress in itself. If you weren't doing this crazy double-life thing, you'd be fine. A relationship would do you a lot of good."

"Who made this your job?" Julie asked crankily.

"Excuse me!" was the incensed reply. "I'm your best friend, of course it's my job! I know how you feel about him and you need to make a move. He's the hottest thing down here, he can't stay single forever." Claire gestured around the room and then straight at Julie, emphasizing her point.

Julie shot her friend a glare. "Can we please just dance? Wasn't that the whole idea behind you coming down here tonight?"

Claire narrowed her eyes. "You know what? Yeah. Let's dance." Then, plastering on a big chipper smile, she marched back to the booth where Mike and Chuck were still talking quietly. "What are you guys still doing sitting around? We came here to dance, didn't we?"

The two of them exchanged glances, and then Mike smiled. "Yeah, we did." Leaving his jacket behind on the bench, he got up and strode out to the floor. Chuck got up as well, but was a little reluctant to follow – he wasn't much of a dancer.

As soon as Claire was certain that Julie was on the floor, having fun and not changing her mind, she went back towards the booth and grabbed Chuck's wrists, dragging him onto the floor.

"H-h-hi!" he managed in a high pitch as she kept dancing, not letting him go.

"Don't get any ideas, nerd," Claire told him, though not without just a trace of good humour. "This is about those two." She jerked her head, and Chuck looked over to where Mike and Julie were.

"How so?" he asked.

"As long as Dutch is with Tennie, I'm with you, and Texas is busy being a total moron, they have no one to dance with but each other." She smiled, a little smug with her plan, and let go of his wrists as he began to catch on and dance along. She hadn't wanted him running off.

"Ohh," he answered, realizing. "So you mean she likes-?"

Claire laughed slightly. "You guys are oblivious."

"I'm not completely oblivious," Chuck defended himself. He didn't realize it, but he was a lot better at talking to Claire when there was something else to concentrate on and talk about. "When you said something about her liking someone, Mike didn't get the Look."

"The Look?" Claire asked, never breaking from the rhythm. Chuck's awkward lack of dancing ability was painfully obvious in contrast to her, but it was bearable for the sake of her plan.

Twisting back and forth a little bit lamely, Chuck nodded. "There's this thing he does… when he finds out one of his friends is into someone, he gets this goofy look on his face, and then he goes into wingman mode. He's not as subtle as he thinks he is, but he never stops trying."

"And he didn't do that this time…" Claire grinned.

"Nope. He got real distracted and worried-looking."

"Ooh, this had so better work," Claire said. "I could just about kill those two."

Mike and Julie were watching Claire and Chuck dancing and talking with apparent ease. They were close enough to see the pair clearly but their conversation couldn't be heard over the music.

"Now there's a sight," Mike commented, grinning. They were dancing themselves, but not too hard to have a conversation. The party was really just getting started.

Julie watched them carefully for a moment. "Can't help wondering what they're talking about," she answered. She was suspicious, but she didn't want to tell Mike that.

"Poor Chuckles," Mike laughed. "Claire's not easy to impress. Or even convince to like you."

"Never claimed she was," Julie admitted. "Sometimes I don't even know if she'd give me the time of day at this point if we hadn't grown up together."

"Give yourself some credit," Mike teased. "It seems to me that you must be a model citizen up there in Deluxe, or you would've been caught by now. At least had a few close shaves. I'm sure Deluxe Julie is totally the kind of person that Claire would hang out with."

Julie laughed, though there was an edge of bitterness to it. "Deluxe Julie is so boring, though. Not the kind of person Mike Chilton likes to be friends with."

"No?" he asked. "Well, good thing I only know Motorcity Julie."

"She's a lot closer to the real thing," Julie assured him.

"But not all the way there?" he asked.

Still dancing, Julie shrugged casually. "I think leading two lives makes it pretty hard to be completely yourself in either one."

"I guess that's fair." Mike regarded her sideways for a moment. "You know, Jules… all the intel you get and inside work you do for us is invaluable, and I'm beyond grateful for it," he said. "But, you know… if the two lives thing ever got to be too much, you could stay here. If you wanted. No one would blame you, we all know how much you're risking all the time. The things you can do down here are just as valuable."

She looked down, smiling a tiny smile. "I appreciate that, Mike, I really do. I wish it were that simple."

"Well, if you ever decide you want to, or need to… we'll do what we can to make it simple."

"Thanks, Mike," she said. He smiled warmly at her.

At that point the door to Antonio's burst open and about a dozen of the Weekend Warriors poured in, followed by the Dude Bros, all shouting. Someone pumped up the music, finding something with a heavier beat, and that seemed to be a signal to stop talking and dance harder. Julie was still suspicious that Claire had left her alone with Mike on purpose, but she let it go. It was just dancing.

More people trickled in over time as the party amped up. Mike and Julie both put their earlier concerns away and enjoyed themselves, dancing close to each other as the diner grew more crowded. Julie's skin tingled where Mike's enormous hands touched her arms, shoulders, back – but everything was a little tingly with the thundering music vibrating through her, so she pretended not to notice. It felt good to disappear into the fun she was having, spend a while not worrying about anything – not her dad, not her busy life, not the fate of Motorcity – just letting her instincts carry her away on the pounding music.

A few of the Dude Bros and the Skylarks starting coming onto her, but Rayon was the only one she entertained at all, since she knew it was only friendly. He could be a flirt but he didn't mean anything by it. When she saw Mike turn towards one of the Amazons, she began to drift back in his direction, reluctant to give him up. Seeing her coming back his way, he turned back and sidled up close, grinning as she played along and let her hips rub up against his.

It was hard to say how long they'd been dancing, but it must have been past one AM at least when Mike leaned down near her ear. "It's getting pretty crowded in here!" he shouted. "You wanna go outside for a breath?"

He looked at her face and she nodded. He danced for another moment, pressing himself playfully against her and laughing before loosely grabbing her hand and leading her through the crowd and out the door. Seeing them go, Claire squealed and smacked Chuck in the shoulder. Even when the place got crowded and Mike and Julie wouldn't have noticed, the two of them hadn't stopped dancing either; if she didn't know any better, Claire might have even guessed that Chuck's sense of rhythm was getting a bit better. He laughed at her smack and, grinning, leaned in to say something to her; she giggled.

Mike led Julie out into the warm night outside Antonio's. A pleasant summer breeze ruffled their sweaty hair and Mike's white t-shirt. The parking lot outside had a few other people lingering in it, probably also just looking for a quick break and breath of fresh air. Mike and Julie wove through the cars in the packed lot and seated themselves on Mutt's hood. With a glance around they saw that Whiptail was gone; Dutch had probably left to take Tennie home. Stronghorn was still there, they noted, though they hadn't seen Texas in a while.

Mike let out a long, slow breath, leaning back on his arms. His normally loose t-shirt stuck to his chest. Julie looked just as tired; at some point she'd ditched her vest. The two of them smiled as they looked out into the tangle of pipes, cables, and distant blinking lights that passed for a night sky in Motorcity.

"I think this is the busiest I've ever seen it here," Mike commented.

Julie nodded. "These party nights were a great idea on Antonio's part. Really good for business, too, as I understand it."

"I would think so," Mike laughed. "There must be a hundred people in there and they are definitely not all sober."

She chuckled softly, looking out into the distance again. Mike, smiling, watched her for a moment. It was late, and he felt good, and the breeze was refreshing on his face. "Hey," he said softly after a quiet minute or two. "Have I ever told you you're really beautiful?"

Julie glanced over at him, covering her mouth as she laughed a little. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but her cheeks might have turned just the tiniest bit red. "Have you been drinking?" she asked.

"Only the one beer," he said with a cheeky grin. "What, I can't tell my friend how pretty she is?"

She laughed again. "It's a little bit out of place when I'm all sweaty and danced out and tired," she told him.

"Well, you're always beautiful, if I'm being honest," he answered. "But nah, I think you're cute this way. Looking like you've been having a great time, not looking as worried as you sometimes do… You're pretty in the nighttime lights, properly relaxed and happy." He plucked at his t-shirt. "And I don't know about you, but to be honest, this breeze is drying me out quite nicely."

She smiled. "Thanks, Mike. It does feel good to let loose a bit more than I usually do." Looking at him for a moment, she added, "You're not half bad yourself."

Mike didn't look away as she turned back to the city and her thoughts. He'd been trying not to think much about what Chuck had said earlier, but it had been percolating somewhere in the back of his mind without his paying attention, and at some point the only conclusion had made itself remarkably clear. The only problem was that he didn't know what to do with the information.

Mike Chilton realized with surprise that for the first time in a long, long time, he was nervous.

There was no one like Julie.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked her softly.

"Some stuff Claire said earlier," she answered, which was true, if vague. "She managed to get me in a soft spot, I guess. It struck a nerve."

"Anything you wanna talk about?" he asked.

Some of it she did, but not all of it. He was at the crux of the whole problem. Just about every girl knew how hard it could be to cope with unrequited feelings, but her situation had rather higher stakes. She smiled to herself, again a little bitterly, as she thought, if only it were anyone but you.

"Just stuff I'm stressed out about, I guess. Nothing I'm quite ready to talk out just yet."

"Okay," he said. "You wanna dance some more instead?"

"I dunno if I can bring myself to go back in there," she laughed, glancing over her shoulder at the diner. It practically pulsed with the bright lights and the volume of the music.

"No need," he answered, hopping off the hood of the car. "Music's plenty loud enough. We can dance right here." He offered a hand.

Despite starting to come back to her worries, Julie hadn't quite come down from the adrenaline high the party had given her, so it didn't take too much convincing. She took his hand and slipped off Mutt's hood. He kept her hand, playfully swinging her around and swaying her back and forth in time with the music. She laughed and followed along, pretending to ignore how good it felt to hold his hand. She had no idea he was doing the same thing.

There was no crowd out in the parking lot to press them close together, but over the course of a few songs they found themselves drawn near to one another anyway. The friction between them just about burned, both of them hyperaware and hoping it wasn't obvious to the other. Her tiny hands were hot against his sides, just below his rib cage; his own hands were pressed against her back and keeping her chest against his own. The tension between them was palpable as they moved in time with one another, a heavy static charge hanging in the air.

So when he leaned in and kissed her, not quite roughly but certainly not gently, it was almost a relief. Her fingers dug into his t-shirt, the cotton bunching between them. He pressed her into himself as, for a few seconds, they sank into the thick tension and indulged. Breaking for breath, there was a fraction of a second's hesitation, and then their grips loosened and Julie suddenly jumped back against Mutt's hood.

"Um," she started.

"Uh-" he reached toward her, faltering.

"Listen," she said quickly. "It's not a big deal, you know? It was a really long day, and it's pretty late, and we're both tired, and we were dancing all night, and there was the drinking, and sometimes this stuff just—just happens, right? But like, I mean, we both know it doesn't mean anything, right, and I won't tell anyone if you won't-" she cut herself off, glancing at 9Lives, not meeting his gaze. "Maybe I should be getting home, actually. Um, Claire-" she turned back towards the diner, navigating around his car, but Mike reached out after her.

"Julie, wait," he said, sounding uncharacteristically worried, almost breathless. She turned back, looking at his outstretched arm, then finally up at his face. She hadn't seen an expression like that on him before.

"It's my fault, right? I'm- I'm sorry," he said anxiously. She'd never seen him look scared quite like that before. She had rarely ever seen him look genuinely scared at all, but this was something else.

"Look, um, I get that, from what Claire said, maybe you're kind of into someone, so I know it's not my place to say anything," he said, fumbling a bit. Clearly he was trying to arrange his thoughts even as he verbalized them. "But, uh, and I'm kind of only just figuring this out right now, but I don't want you to think that I was taking advantage," he continued.

"Mike, I know you would never-"

"And I don't want you to think that I'm the kind of guy who would just, like, kiss you for no reason, or just because things got intense for a bit, because, I mean, that wouldn't really- that would make things-" He faltered. "But, uh, I dunno, something about Claire implying you liked someone hit a button somewhere, and then Chuck said something about my behaviour and it's all just kind of been rolling around in my head," he carried on.

Julie knitted her brow, confused and worried. "Mike, you don't have to explain, I know it wasn't…"

"No, but," he tried again, frowning in concentration, running a hand through his hair. "Listen, I hadn't ever really given it any thought because, I dunno, it's so easy to get lost in the fight against Kane and everything that I don't think that much about my own life, and because it's something I've never really… dealt with before… But Julie, you're, uh…" he fished for words, and she watched him uncertainly, rubbing her arm.

Mike closed his eyes briefly and took a deep breath. "Jules, you're the person I can talk to when I have doubts, and you're the person whose faith in me will never shake no matter how many mistakes I make, and you're the person who steers me back in the right direction when I start to stray…" He sighed. "You're my number two, my infallible right-hand girl. And you're smart, and strong, and brave, and fun, and every day you remind me why I fight so hard. And you're so beautiful…"

"Um, Mike?" Julie asked quietly when he hesitated.

"I don't want to put any pressure on you," he said suddenly, softly. He gulped.

She looked at his face, nervous, knowing where logically this must be going but not really believing it.

"I really, really care about you, Julie," he said, his voice strangled.

"Like you care about all the Burners?" she asked, very quietly.

"No," he answered. "No, not like that at all. I mean, yeah, like that, but also, uh… I think, probably, I'm in love with you, a little bit," he said. He sounded uncertain in his nervousness, but in reality he didn't have a single doubt. In the last few hours, in retrospect, it had become incredibly obvious to him that that was the truth of the matter. All the care and softness he felt for Julie was something quite different from his feelings for everyone else, and he desperately wanted her to know that, but he didn't want to scare her or make things between them uncomfortable.

Julie looked down at the ground, still rubbing her arm as she processed. Then, "It's you," she blurted.

"What?"

"It's you," she repeated. "Claire's been bugging me to make a move on you for ages, because she insists you're the most eligible guy in Motorcity and you can't possibly stay single forever, but I didn't want to make things more complicated, everything is already so complicated so much of the time, and it just seemed like there was too much at stake…"

"So," he said haltingly, "by 'it's me,' you mean, I'm…"

"I really like you, Mike," she confirmed, the knots in her stomach twisting hard. She knew she wanted this, but she was conflicted and scared nonetheless. "I, um, maybe might kind of be in love with you, as well." Like him, she was understating her certainty.

"So- do you- want-" he looked into her eyes, not finishing his question.

She knew where it was going. "More than almost anything," she confessed, letting out a deep breath.

At that something in him flipped, and in a single smooth stride he closed the space between them, clasping her face between his hands and kissing her earnestly. She reached up and put her hands on his, feeling her stomach unknot itself and burst into the grandest flutter of butterflies she had ever felt in her life. Now that they were there he seemed completely unwilling to separate from her, pulling his lips away only the minimum distance to draw in a breath and keep kissing her. His hands slid back to her neck, rubbing trapped hair across her cheeks; then he moved downward, wrapping his arms around her back and pulling her into him like he couldn't bear any space between them. He wanted to hold her as close, to touch as much of her as possible. She tossed her arms around his neck and tangled her fingers in his hair as he pushed her against the side of his car.

Finally he pulled his face away from hers, no more than a centimetre or two. "Julie," he breathed.

"Mike," she answered, biting down a smile. All his anxiety had melted away; for a few minutes he was overtaken by passion and adrenaline, and now she could see him returning to his usual confident self. The hooded eyes and growing mischievous grin on his face were revealing a flirtatious side of him that she couldn't wait to know.

"I want to clear the air here," he murmured to her, just loud enough to be audible over the still-thumping music in the background. "There are, in fact, no probablies or little bits about it. I am very definitely in love with you."

"Yeah?" she breathed. "Okay, good. No maybes or kind ofs on my end, either."

She saw another unfamiliar expression on his face, then, for just a second; a sort of elated and dazed disbelief. She giggled. Her own head was spinning from the night's developments. Then he ducked his head against her neck and began to kiss his way down from her jawline to her collarbone, causing new explosions of butterflies in her stomach. She bit back a tiny laugh.

Smiling, he came back up, this time chastely kissing her cheeks, her forehead, her nose. He couldn't seem to settle between sexy and flirtatious, and giddy and sweet. Julie didn't mind. She hugged him close as he kissed her again, gently, lovingly.

It was around then that Chuck and Claire came out the front door of Antonio's, holding Mike's jacket and Julie's vest respectively. Taking only a moment to spot their best friends making out against Mutt's passenger side door, Claire shrieked excitedly and Chuck let out a small whoop of victory, pumping his fist in the air. Mike and Julie broke apart, leaning against one another and laughing. Forcing themselves to pull a few inches away from one another, they looked over at Claire and Chuck approaching.

"You left the two of us alone on purpose, didn't you?" Julie accused her best friend, not really looking upset.

"Chuck totally helped," Claire defended.

"Claire called me 'totes bearable,'" Chuck blurted, grinning broadly. He hadn't meant to say that while she was still around, but he was too excited.

Mike laughed. "Good progress, buddy." Julie, meanwhile, giggled at her friend as Claire crossed her arms and tried to look annoyed.

"Anyway, I'm super partied out and ready to go home," Claire said.

Mike turned back to Julie and bumped his nose against hers. "I guess these guys can't drive themselves, huh?"

"I guess not," she agreed.

"But you'll come back to the garage?" he asked. "I'm not done with you yet."

She smiled at him, trying not to look too excited in front of their friends. "Claire?" she asked.

"Yeah, I know the drill," Claire said tiredly. "If your dad notices you're gone, you stayed over at my place again. Hey, when was the last time we had an actual sleepover?" She didn't think it had happened since they'd started using it as their cover story whenever Julie spent the night in Motorcity.

Julie put her hands on Mike's chest. "Okay. I just have to get Claire home and then I'll be back," she promised.

"I'll be waiting," he answered, still grinning. He kissed her one more time, unable to resist, and finally let her go.