old friends — harvey specter x reader
summary harvey specter hit on her without recognising her. apologised when he did. then found out about the boyfriend and took the apology back.
prompt – childhood friend, harvey hits on her, protective harvey, boyfriend is awful
warnings – emotional manipulation, cheating mention, protective harvey
word count – ~3.5k
note – so sorry for being a little inactive lately, i've been dealing with a lung infection 😭 but i'm back!! Harvey taking back an apology because the man didn't deserve her protection?? yes.
The new associate started on a Monday.
Harvey knew this because Donna had told him, the way Donna told him everything — efficiently, without preamble, while he was still on his first coffee. "New associate. Corporate. Started today. Jessica hired her directly which means she's good."
It didn't register. It should have — he'd have known that name anywhere, once, years ago — but he was already three cases deep and running on the particular autopilot of a man whose mornings moved too fast for anything that wasn't immediately relevant.
He didn't think about it again until the elevator.
She was already in it when the doors opened.
He stepped in. Pressed his floor. The doors closed.
He looked at her the way he looked at everyone — the rapid unconscious assessment, reading the room the way he'd been reading rooms his whole life. Mid-twenties. Sharp. The specific quality of someone who was comfortable in spaces like this, who hadn't needed to earn that comfort recently but had earned it at some point and it had stuck.
She glanced at him. "That obvious?"
"You're holding your badge like you're not sure where to put it."
She looked down at it. Back up at him. "Corporate associate. Started today."
"Harvey Specter," he said.
Something crossed her face. He clocked it — the small movement, the fraction of a second — but the doors opened on his floor before he could place it.
"Good luck," he said, stepping out.
She said something behind him. He was already moving.
He saw her again at the coffee station at three.
"Still holding the badge wrong," he said.
She laughed. Properly — the real one, unguarded, and something in the back of his mind moved. Like recognising a song he couldn't name.
"I'll figure it out," she said.
"The trick is to stop thinking about it." He poured his coffee. "Same as most things."
She looked at him with an expression he couldn't entirely read. "Is that advice you follow yourself?"
"Rarely," he said. "Which is how I know it works."
She smiled. He smiled back.
The back of his mind kept moving.
It was Donna who figured it out.
She appeared in his office doorway that evening with the expression she had when she knew something he didn't and was deciding how to play it.
"The new associate," she said.
"You really don't know who she is."
He looked up. "Should I?"
Donna looked at him for a moment. "She grew up three blocks from you. You spent every summer from age eight to fifteen at each other's houses." A pause. "Her mum used to make you stay for dinner because your dad was working late."
He thought about the elevator. The laugh. The particular way she'd looked at him when he'd said his name — not like a stranger meeting someone new, but like—
"She didn't say anything," he said.
"No," Donna agreed. "She didn't."
He sat with that for a moment. Then he put down his pen and went to find her.
She was at her desk. Late enough that most of the floor had emptied.
He stopped in her doorway.
She looked up. Saw his face. And the expression she'd been managing all day — the composed professional one, the one that had been doing a very good job — slipped slightly.
"You figured it out," she said.
"Donna figured it out. I should have known in the elevator."
"Fifteen years." He stepped into the office. "You didn't say anything."
"You didn't recognise me." She shrugged, not quite casual enough to be casual. "I didn't want to make it weird."
"I spent three days hitting on you in the elevator and coffee station without knowing who you were," he said. "It's already weird."
She laughed despite herself. "You weren't hitting on me."
"I was absolutely hitting on you."
"I was hitting on you," he said, simply. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."
She looked at him for a moment. Something in her face that was complicated and warm at the same time.
"It's not fine. It's—" he stopped. Looked at her properly — not the Pearson Hardman assessment, not the elevator read, but actually looked at her. Fifteen years. The kid from three blocks away who had sat at his kitchen table and told him he was being an idiot about something, probably correctly. "You look good," he said. Simply. "It's good to see you."
Something shifted in her expression. "You too, Harvey."
"I'm actually seeing someone," she said. Quickly. Like she'd been waiting for the right moment and had decided this was it.
He read her face. The particular quality of how she'd said it — not proud, not the easy warmth of someone mentioning something good.
Harvey's expression didn't change. He was very good at that.
"Right," he said. "I'll let you get back to it."
He found Donna first thing the next morning.
Donna looked up from her computer. Her expression shifted — the specific shift that meant she already knew something.
"What about him," she said.
Donna was quiet for a moment. "I know."
"What do you know about him."
Another pause. Longer this time. "Harvey—"
She looked at him for a moment. Then she told him.
It took four minutes. By the end of it Harvey was very still in the particular way that meant the controlled anger was running at full capacity and finding nowhere to go.
Reid had been with two other women at the firm simultaneously in the past eighteen months. Both had left — one transferred, one quit. Neither had made a formal complaint because Reid had been careful enough about it to make the complaints complicated. He used his position. He used the relationships. He was smart enough to be subtle and that made him considerably more dangerous than if he hadn't been.
"She doesn't know," Harvey said.
"How long has it been going on."
"Three months, maybe four. She started here six months ago so—" Donna stopped. "She was already with him when she arrived."
Harvey stood at Donna's desk and thought about fifteen years and a girl from three blocks away who had sat at his kitchen table and an elevator where she'd looked at him and hadn't said his name.
"I need everything you have on him," he said.
He found Reid in the partners' lounge at noon.
Reid looked up when Harvey walked in. Did the quick read that everyone did — the cut of the suit, the expression, the particular quality of Harvey Specter crossing a room with a specific destination.
"Harvey," Reid said. Cautious. "What can I do for you?"
Harvey sat down across from him. Didn't say anything for a moment. Just looked at him with the focused attention he brought to depositions — the kind that communicated that he knew more than you wanted him to know and was deciding what to do with it.
"You're seeing one of the new corporate associates," Harvey said.
Reid's expression shifted. "That's—"
"Yes," Reid said. Carefully.
"You were also seeing Jennifer Marsh six months ago." Harvey watched his face. "And Claire Donovan before that."
"I know what you're doing," Harvey said. Quiet. Completely even. "I know how you do it. And I know that you've been very careful about it which is the only reason you're still here." He leaned forward slightly. "That changes today."
"I'm not finished." Harvey looked at him. "You're going to end it. Today. Cleanly. You're not going to make it difficult for her and you're not going to make it difficult for yourself in the ways that would make it complicated for her. You're going to do it simply and you're going to leave her alone after."
Harvey looked at him for a long moment.
"Then everything I know," he said quietly, "stops being something I know privately."
"We understand each other?" Harvey said.
She found him at five thirty.
He was in his office, jacket on, almost out the door, when she appeared in the doorway. Her expression was the complicated one — the one that was managing several things at once.
"Reid ended it," she said.
"This afternoon." She looked at him. "Out of nowhere." A pause. "Did you do something?"
He held her gaze. "I had a conversation."
"He wasn't good for you."
"He'd done it before," Harvey said. Simply. "To two other women at this firm. Both of whom are no longer here." He watched her face absorb it. "You deserved to know that. He wasn't going to tell you."
She was quiet for a long moment.
He waited. He was good at waiting.
"You should have told me," she said finally. "Instead of—"
"You would have defended him," he said. "And then had the conversation with him and he would have denied it and made it about you and you would have been in a worse position than you're in now." He held her gaze. "This way it's done. Cleanly."
She looked at him with the expression he remembered from fifteen years ago — the one that was annoyed and knew he was right at the same time and hated the combination.
"I forgot how infuriating you are," she said.
"You used to tell me that regularly."
"I was correct then too."
He almost smiled. "Probably."
She stood in the doorway for a moment. Then she stepped into the office properly, and the complicated expression settled into something simpler.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "Even though you should have told me."
"You're welcome," he said. "Even though I probably should have told you."
She looked at him for a moment. "We should get that drink. Catch up properly."
"No," he agreed. "Not tonight."
She left. He watched her go and thought about elevators and coffee stations and fifteen years and the particular specific way the back of his mind had been trying to tell him something from the very first moment.
He should have listened earlier.
dailybridgerton
romaincrisis
2087
dededos
