"Mike? What are you doing here so late?" Louis was standing behind him, dressed in his fall coat and holding his briefcase. Apparently he was just leaving.

"Oh, I was just finishing something up. What are you doing here?" Mike barely paid notice to the man behind him as he looked over the papers he'd just pulled out of the photocopier.

"Came to grab some files... Whose work is this?" He nodded his head towards the papers in Mike's hand.

"Yours." He offers offhandedly.

"You know I'd let you finish in the morning. It's almost closing; you'll be stuck here all night."

"Yeah, but Harvey wants me out so I was hoping I could get this all done now and then take home anything else you might have for me to do." He shrugged, not making eye contact.

Louis nodded, leaning back against a table and holding his briefcase against him. "What happened?"

"All that matters," Mike started with a sigh, "is that I can't fix it." He shrugged again, leaning back on the photocopy machine.

Louis pursed his lips for a second. "You know, for as long as I've known Harvey, he's been alone. Back when we were associates, there was this really big case, and Hardman was throwing piles of paperwork on him, trying to push him out I guess. I thought, maybe that was my chance to be friends with him, give him a hand when there was nothing in it for me."

"But Harvey has too much pride." Mike filled in, crossing his arms, waiting for the rest of the story.

"He gave me this look – when I asked him if I could help – like it was the most disgusting thing he'd ever heard."

Mike nodded, knowing the feeling all too well. "'Cause Harvey's Superman. He doesn't need help."

Louis smiled softly. "He's not Superman anymore. No, he's Batman." He tipped his head up then down, affirming silently. "And Batman needs Robin."

Something inside of Mike gave a squeeze. Could Harvey ever need him? For anything? Experience told him no. "But what if I'm not Robin anymore?"

"I've never seen him be... well... when he's with you, Mike..."

"We have a history."

The lawyer paused, trying to deduct what he could from that statement. There wasn't much he could find. "What?"

"Yeah. Back when I was in Law School... Harvey and I had a thing."

"Oh."

"It felt like we were together all the time." He began. "If I had too much homework, he'd come help me. If he was stuck at the office, he always called and told me he'd see me when he could." His smile was wistful as he played the memories in his head. "But in the end, no matter how much I told him he meant to me, and how much I needed him," he looked down. "Harvey never needed me. Harvey's never needed anyone in his life and it was naive of me to think I could change that."

"Mike-"

"I was really serious about him," He wasn't going to let the older man speak until he was done. For some reason, the words that had been hanging in the back of his throat, safely choking him in privacy, were pouring out of him now and he couldn't stop them. "But we'd never discussed us. What we were, how he felt – if he felt... I guess I didn't really have any reason to be mad when Pearson Hardman had that gala and he took that girl, Scottie. When I confronted him about it he said something about presentation and relations, keeping up appearances or something, I don't remember," Louis knew that with Mike's eidetic memory, there was no way he could have forgotten – especially something that seemed to have so much importance in his life – but he didn't object. He just sat patiently and listened. "But I did. I got mad. And after that, we were just never the same. He got more and more involved with work, and whatever us there was barely existed. And he was... it wasn't so much of a thing anymore... you know?"

"Yeah, I know." The man looked sympathetic for his associate. Harvey really could be an ass, and if it hurt when they weren't even really friends, it must seriously suck to be in love with the guy and get his cold treatment.

"So I ended it. But I mean, it ended bad. Like shouting at each other for hours, throwing things, the whole shebang. And then I never heard from him again."

"Until now."

"Until now." He confirmed with little of the regret he felt influencing the calm of his voice.

Louis seemed to consider this for a moment. "I obviously don'tknow everything about you two and what's going on, but I think you should talk to him. He really does care about you, Mike. I can tell. Hell, everyone can tell. Half the associates gossip about you two every day." They shared a laugh, knowing what exactly they were probably saying. "Go home, Mike. Get some sleep. Take tomorrow off if you want, but after that... I really think you should talk to him."

"Thank you, Louis." Mike clapped him on the shoulder. "You're a good friend."

Louis' responding smile was genuine, and together they made their way to the elevators.

That night, Mike had trouble sleeping. He didn't keep sleeping pills in the house, so instead, he opted for a glass of scotch – the one that Harvey had bought him for Christmas – and chugged it down quickly. It felt like he was staring at the ceiling for hours, trying not to think, before finally he let his memories be played across the white drywall like a movie.

"But what if I subpoena him?"

"You can't subpoena him, it's an essay."

"But then how am I supposed to know if he's guilty?"

"You have to deduce that from the information you're given."

"But I can't."

"Then you're not a very good lawyer."

"Do you think he's guilty?"

Harvey looked at him with a twinkle in his eye and an amused smile playing across his lips. Oh, how Mike wanted to kiss those lips... "I don't know if he's guilty or not, Mike. But your essay doesn't need to know that."

"What do you mean?" He knew he was staring, but that mouth just looked so welcoming...

"I mean," his voice was lower now, husky even, and Mike could swear they had somehow moved closer together. "As the prosecutor, it's my job to prove that he's guilty whether he's guilty or not."

"Well that hardly seems fair." Did he say that? He wasn't sure he'd heard himself – or maybe he heart was just beating too loud. He must have though, because Harvey had heard him loud and clear.

"It's not fair at all." His breath was doing an erotic tango across his lips, filling his senses and giving him a heady sort of vertigo. His peripherals closed in, and suddenly he had tunnel vision that showed only Harvey.

"I'm going to make a terrible lawyer."

"You're going to make an amazing lawyer, Mike. And I'm going to pull you right up to the top beside me." Had their lips just brushed? Mike could swear their lips had just brushed. His heart was thrumming so hard it felt like his chest was going to explode. He felt hot. Really hot. Like the air around him was trying to cook him alive. He pleaded with himself to breathe normally, but he just couldn't. But suddenly, he wasn't breathing at all. The sudden soft touch of lips knocked the wind right out of him, and whether the touch was intentional or not, Mike lost all control of his body.

With no real grace, he flung himself towards the older man, knocking him over backward into the couch and throwing the papers he was holding in the process, not caring if they got scrunched and crumpled wherever they landed.

It was their first kiss. It wasn't sensual or romantic by any means, it was messy and desperate and needy, but it left him with butterflies all those years later. He replayed the scene a thousand time before he fell asleep, dreaming of warm feelings and the good kind of nervous.