Title: Cards on the Table

Author: Bladed Darkness

Category: Glee

Summary: He'd always been there, but she'd never really noticed him. Until the one day she did.

Pairings: Mike/Quinn (Fabang); bro(nerd)mance with a hint of more. Mike is also the unintentional mastermind behind Brittana. Part of the Glee Rare Pairs exchange. Written for mallardeer on LJ.

Length: 1000+

Rating: PG-13

They were seven the first time she has an inkling Mike Chang exists.

She remembers the wonder she felt when she received her birthday present, a sleek, brand-new Game Boy Advance. Part of her can't believe that her parents even bought it for her. She hadn't asked for one, of course, but she had been eying the commercials. It's a weird pinkish color that she doesn't exactly like, but she keeps her thoughts to herself.

It's when they take her to the store, to let her pick out two games, that she first sees him. He's at the end of the aisle, studying the cases behind the glass with an eye that seems too appraising for someone their age. He straightens up when he notices her watching him, observing her in return.

Whatever Mike does next is lost on Quinn as her parents encourage her to make her choices. She points to one after much deliberation, which they accept. The second, however, requires no hesitation on her part. She listens to their protests about how such a game did not instill good or proper morals in a child, much less a girl, her age and how it encourages recklessness and violence. Head hanging, she quietly accepts their choice, barely noticing the thoughtful gleam in his eye as they head to the check-out.

She finds the Poke'mon Gold in her cubby a week later. When she looks over at him during free time, he flashes her an easy grin and lifts his own slightly-battered Game Boy Color up in response, Silver proudly in the slot.

They spend free time with him teaching her the mechanics of the game. In a week, they're battling and he's letting her win until she calls him on it. She ends up pulverizing him on her own, her team stomping his with neither holding back.

She trades him her shiny Rattata two months later. When they're twelve, she complains that she didn't know how rare they were, that she thought it was a normal one, and demands that he trade it back. He just smiles and, without telling her, trades her one that he bred using the Shiny Ditto trick, chuckling quietly when she doesn't even notice the difference between the two shinies.

He opens the door late at night when they're fourteen and Quinn is bawling, heartbroken, having clearly snuck-out and a mess. He barely makes out the words 'broken' and 'won't save' before he accepts the cartridge from her and leads her to the basement. She watches in awe as he wordlessly removes the internal battery and replaces it with another before piecing it back together and handing it to her, good-as-new.

Quinn rebuffs his offers to help her start a new team and heads home. He waits until she calls to let him know she's home safely before he allows himself to move away from the phone.

That doesn't mean he didn't spend the time trying to breed her another Rattata, though.

–

They're thirteen and so far, both of them have been really good about not bringing boy-girl time and talks into their time, however meager it is. Quinn claims she's out training with Brittany and Santana to apply for the Junior Cheerios next year, but really she's sitting next to him in the basement either mashing the buttons on their relatively new DS Lites duking it out over Advance Wars: Dual Strike or they're trying to knock each other off the stage in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Quinn usually viciously pounds on his character with either Jigglypuff, or, if she's feeling particularly smug and untouchable, Zelda. Much like Mike, his character Link has a trouble throwing it back at her. There's a bowl of popcorn placed between the two of them that Quinn will occasionally grab a handful of to throw at him when he accidentally leaves her behind to die.

He can imagine the dudes at school mocking him for having game time with a girl, even if it is a nicely-filling out Quinn Fabray. Whatever. He's seen their scores on the games they play, and compared to his own, and Quinn's... well they kinda sucked. It takes some goading sometimes to get Quinn to let him bring out the heavier stuff, but she takes it seriously enough when he does that he wants to sign them up in a tournament that summer.

It doesn't happen, as she does try out for the Junior Cheerios and spends all summer busting her butt trying to get noticed by Sue Sylvester.

There's this one week, though, where Quinn just cannot stop bringing up Puck and how he asked her if she knew any 'tongue tricks'. He's not really paying attention when he tells her that she should just 'practice if she's really worried about it'. In retrospect, he should've clarified that he meant with a pillow or something, but when he finally brings it back up at their next get-together, she just blushes and refuses to meet his eyes.

The Fabrays don't let Brittany and Santana back into the house for another three months though. He's not sure Mr. Fabray was ever aware they came back around, to be honest.

–

Mike doesn't see her very much during the summer between fourteen and fifteen. There's this weird Asian Camp his mother signed him up for, and Quinn is putting her all into securing the head spot on the Cheerios for their freshman year.

He spends most of the summer waiting for his dance classes to subtly get updates on Quinn out of Brittany.

Mike's always kinda liked Rachel. He's talked to her a few times, and, honestly? She's got this awesome apocalypse plan all laid out. He thinks that if he didn't already have Quinn as a bro-nerd, Rachel would be a pretty sweet gamer, if a little intense and borderline obsessed with perfecting their scores.

He never brings it up to either Rachel or Quinn though. Or even Finn and Matt. He suspects that Puck has an arrangement with Rachel that is similar to the one he has with Quinn.

When she asks him for his slushie on the first day of their freshman year, he has no idea what she's going to do with it. Rachel and Quinn have already have this weird animosity that bordered on... something. He's not sure what, but he thinks it's akin to to finding the one person you want to hate but just can't and it irritates you. Not that Mike has ever felt that way.

It shocks him when she throws his lime slushie at Rachel Berry, but at the same time, it's not that surprising.

He never gives her another of his slushies though. No matter how much she silently asks. Quinn accepts it after a while.

–

It's only a split second, but as she cries into Finn's arms, Mike's eyes meet Quinn's. And when he passes them as he walks down the hallway, he subtly reaches out and squeezes her shoulder, sad, comforting smile in place.

A week later she finds a book of Asian proverbs and advice on pregnancy in her locker. He never brings it up. Beyond a nod later that day in Glee, neither does she.

–

It isn't until her wedding that all he's done for her really sinks in.

When she sees him standing there, smiling softly, with a grin that seems to brighten when he spots her, somehow she realizes it's the first time she's ever truly noticed him for the traits that make him who he is, not just who he isn't. She'd known of them before, of course. But it isn't until this moment as she watches him shyly glancing around, covertly hoping that no attention is on him, that a true appreciation for him really strikes her all over again.

She watches how his eyes are on her the whole time she says her vows, how the corner of his mouth turns up just a little as she stutters over the second line, how he presses his thumbs against the narrow hipbones that were under her hands as he taught her how to dance when they were younger. Mike tilts his head a little to the side, completely focused on her, as she finishes her vows and takes a breath.

And as she leans up and her mouth meets his, she can't think of a more perfect moment to realize that she can take care of him just as much as he tried to take care of her when they were little.