All I wanted was a sweet distraction for an hour or two.
Had no intention to do the things we've done.
Funny how it always goes with love, when you don't look, you find.
But then we're two of a kind, we move as one."
- All Time High, Rita Coolidge, Octopussy

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I swear I am an adult, a certified genius, and a professional!

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They're catching a late lunch together, Mike having stopped by to meet Harvey outside of Pearson Hardman, having business this way and the time to allow for a few minutes of a rest stop to refuel. They're sitting down on a bench while carefully trying to avoid spilling the condiments from their hot dogs on either Harvey's suit or Mike's dress, talking idly. As they finish eating and are wrapping things up, Harvey inquires about her plans next Friday, and as Mike reaches into her bag to fish out her day planner it occurs to her that before this, they've made their plans mostly over the phone. She realizes this because Harvey is giving her a weird Look, before gesturing to her little book.

"Seriously?" he says, incredulous, to which she frowns and looks down at her planner with the Black Widow logo on it. "What are you, five?"

"I think it's awesome, shut up," she grumbles, making a mental note to not use her Avengers notebook around him until she's given him her unused and still unopened Star Trek one.

Harvey laughs, chucking her under her chin with a knuckle. "Sure thing, Spitfire."

"Hey!" she scolds, or attempts and fails to, because she's grinning and leaning in easily when his offending hand wraps around the back of her neck instead, pulling her close. He kisses her quickly, and it's over before it really begins. They're outside his place of employment, and although she's found that Harvey's a person to show off his things, what they've started building between them isn't on par with signed baseballs or one-upping others with a prettier model on his arm each time at functions he detests.

"Mm, I sometimes forget you come with your own brand of weird," Harvey comments, but the way his eyes crinkle and his lips twitch take any sting out of his words. "Why you're still using a day planner in this day and age instead of getting yourself a real phone is beyond me. I'm sure Donna will be suitably offended when I tell her."

Mike blanches, because she may or may not have a giant girl crush on Donna Paulsen, Goddess Extraordinaire, and no matter how silly she knows it is she suddenly doesn't want Donna to know she's got a Black Widow day planner and a phone which doesn't even have a display in color. Donna is the love child of Pepper Potts and Natasha Romanov, with a dash of Pamela Isley because she isn't afraid to cross the Universes when it comes to Donna, and she tells Harvey as much.

"If I didn't know Donna is straight and thinks you're an adorable puppy to housetrain, I would be worried," Harvey notes, deadpan. Mike rolls her eyes, punching his shoulder, because while she owns up to being a certified pansexual with all the blows and whistles, her crush on Harvey's secretary is completely platonic and mostly hero worship with a dash of wow get a hold of THAT. Harmless, if completely mortifying. Harvey loves it.

"You dick," she grumbles good naturedly, cracking open her day planner to get back on track and pencil in whatever it is Harvey had planned for them on Friday (she already knows she's free, remembers everything she writes down, but she likes the order it lends her when the sheer amount of information she has to keep track of gets a bit muddled). "So, Friday?"

"Mm, yes," Harvey slings an arm over the back on the bench, leaning back. "There's a private exhibition at an Upper East Side art gallery Friday night, curtsey of a client I recently closed. Jessica insists I go, and I am in dire need of a plus one that won't bore me to tears when I'm already going to be struggling to comprehend how, a bunch of framed paintings with different colored dots, are somehow representing the deep struggle of a lonely soul in purgatory, in any other way than me simply projecting my misery onto them."

Mike snorts, momentarily distracted from the shock of what's being implied. Shaking her head, Mike clears her throat and fidgets, nervous. "Is it, uh, a work function thing?"

Tilting his head, Harvey regards her calmly. "Would it matter if it were?"

Swallowing, Mike tries to tell her heart to calm its tits (she almost glances down to check if her heart's beating so hard her left boob is moving to its rhythm, but restrains herself). "Well, I just…would you want them to...know?"

He raises a brow, seemingly amused, before he leans in closer. "Would I want them to know my plus one is a beautiful, intelligent, and smart mouthed weirdo?"

"Harvey," she rolls her eyes, blushing, because this is serious and she can't believe he's making them have this conversation outside Pearson Hardman a few feet away from a hotdog stand that sells weed on the side.

Relenting, Harvey reaches over to tuck a stray hair behind her ear and lets his fingers linger, caressing the side of her neck for a moment before he draws back with a lopsided smile. "I've been readily informed that: 'of course exclusively seeing the same person for sex, dinners, and movie nights, while keeping regular contact via phone and going grocery shopping together more than once, and keeping a drawer of clothes of said person at your loft, for about two months, means that you are dating this person, Harvey. Now stop bothering me with your emotionally stunted issues and crisis of self-discovery.' I'm paraphrasing, of course."

Mike can't help gape at the torrent of words coming out of Harvey's mouth. Her cheeks are burning up, and her heart seems to be doing the rumba, and she can't help the utterly hopeless and embarrassingly dopey grin that spreads across her face when she realizes what he's saying. "Oh my God I can't believe you had Donna tell you we are dating and then you tell me when we're five feet away from a weed selling hot dog stand."

She sees him close his eyes and lower his head, pinching the bridge of his nose, but the twitch of his lips and the rose color of his cheeks give him away. "Me neither," he sighs, sounding pained, but she cuts him off by sliding in close and bending over and down to kiss his downturned face. She presses her lips against his, feeling him startle against her, and slips her tongue out to tease his mouth open. He places a hand on the back of her neck, repositioning them so she's no longer contorted, and for a moment she's tempted to slide into his lap before she remembers they're in public, and outside Harvey's place of employment. Opps.

"Does this mean you're going as my plus one?" Harvey asks as she breaks them apart, brow raised and smirking. She's flushed and tingly from their kisses, and feeling awfully lightheaded, because while she hadn't gone into their arrangement expecting anything serious, she has never been good at casual relationships. She gets emotionally attached, wearing her heart on her sleeve and hoping for the best. While she might not have had expectations, it hadn't stop her from feeling, and though she has become accustomed to settling for what she can get over the years it doesn't mean she hasn't wistfully longer for more. That this once, the man she's been falling for, is giving her this leaves her feeling giddy and stupidly hopeful.

"Yeah," she breathes, unable to stop smiling. Harvey rolls his eyes, looking uncomfortable, but kisses her forehead gently while stroking a hand down her arm.

"Good. Wear the red dress, with the boat neck and black lace," Harvey requests her, smirking at her when she blushes and glares, because he knows very well how many red dresses she has. It's exactly one, and he'd bought it for her himself, after they had gone out eating and he realized her nicest dress not suited for the office was a simple black number from J.C. Penny that, while easy to get off, had apparently offended him on every other level.

Standing, he takes a hold of her hands and helps her up. "I think I might even let it slip to Donna that you're in need of some appropriate shoes," he adds absently, as if an afterthought, and she kicks him lightly in the shins for that.

"Don't you dare!" she hisses, pouting when Harvey simply chuckles.

"I'll talk to you later," Harvey interrupts with, leaning down for one last kiss on each of her cheeks, before ending with her lips. "Take care, Mike."

Embarrassingly endeared by him as always, Mike smiles shyly, basking in the warm feeling that settled in her chest after the words 'exclusive', 'dating', and 'plus one' left his lips. "Bye, you dork," she grins, tugging lightly at his tie and setting it straight before she steps back with a wave. After she has watched him walk away, when he's disappeared into the building of his office with a last wave of his own, Mike gives in. She does it.

She does a little victory wiggle.

It's less of a dance, and more of a shake of her butt, clapping of her hands, and slight bounce on her toes. Ignoring the wolf-whistle this earns from some nearby idiot, Mike turns on her heels and is on her way, feeling the world is at her feet and forgetting, for a moment, the stress of work and the daunting reality of being introduced into Harvey's professional life. She's awesome, she can handle anything right now.

(Thought maybe not Donna shoe shopping.)

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End notes: Yeppp...