He remembers running around as a kid through the neighborhood streets, always involved in one of those random games where the bad guy was getting away, and the good guy had to go get him.
Thumb up, forefinger out, a makeshift gun that would never really hurt anybody. Bang! I got you!
Harmless games where no one ever got hurt unless someone accused someone else of cheating which usually ended in a scuffle on the sidewalks.
Cuts and bruises, the occasional split lip and the neighborhood moms forever shaking their heads at the latest thing their kids had gotten into.
I'm gonna be a cop when I grow up. What about you?
Years later, he's a cop and he doesn't know what to do with himself.
The 27th Precinct isn't the place he'd thought he'd end up but he's here, and he's grateful for it. His partner is a sergeant, and knows a lot more than he does, but he's somewhat glad for the chance to learn.
The first case Mike works with Max Greevey involves children.
Blood on the sidewalk, shattered glass from a car window falling onto them. Hold on, Mickey, hold on, don't die, please don't die…
It comes before he can stop it. There is so much blood, so much glass, and it was all he could do to hold it in at the beginning, but he can't help it and it all comes up.
Max's voice sounds in his ear, telling him that if he can't handle it, it's fine, they can go once he gets one last bit of information.
Don't leave me, Mikey. Don't leave me.
Max asks him later on if he's all right, and Mike looks at him for a long moment, before shaking his head, but Max doesn't push, which he is grateful for.
Here, give me your hand.
One moment. That was all it took. New York minutes, Mike thinks, wryly, avoiding Max's gaze as he looks across the desk at his new partner.
I'm here, Mickey. I'm here.
There is a big difference between the thumb and forefinger gun and the cold, hard steel of an actual one.
The first time he held a gun in his hands, it was unloaded, and it was his father's. He'd brought it home to clean and Mike had come along to sit and watch.
Careful, now, Mikey. It's unloaded, but if you drop it, could damage something.
Patience, in a nutshell. He'd held the gun for a few seconds, almost frightened by the idea of being able to control something that could kill someone just like that.
One of these days, I'll teach you how to use one of these things, but you gotta learn to steady your hands first.
And now he knows how to use a gun, but instead, hits someone in the face with a garbage can lid, because even though he's a cop, he doesn't really like guns, hasn't liked them since he was a kid, and especially not since that moment.
Shattering glass, the sounds of guns going off, people screaming…and sirens. Never ending sirens…
Mikey…Mikey, I'm hit.
And the thudding sound that always seems to come when someone falls.
The city that never sleeps, Mike thinks. The city that doesn't give a damn, and the city that doesn't teach their kids what can happen if they get too far.
A whispered comment in the dark, sitting in his back yard while they were still somewhat innocent: Mikey, I think I love you.
Mike thinks for a minute that the reason why he's so affected by this case is because of their victim's face, that small, angelic face with the closed eyes and red hair, and if he'd opened her eyes to see what color they were, he bets they'd have been green.
You look like a leprechaun.
Shut up, Mike, you're only saying that 'cause I'm short.
And then the stinging feeling of being punched in the arm, a playful smack he took because he knows she is the only one who never really means it.
Max goes home, but he does not, on the fourth day of nothing. He promised he would, but he can't for the life of him make himself leave.
Take care of yourself, partner, Max had said. You look like hell.
It is midnight on the fifth day when they find something, and Max looks tired but happy that they might just have an answer, and the kid in the interrogation room isn't saying anything, and it's pissing Mike off.
Thumb up, forefinger out, makeshift gun that's never going to hurt anybody; real gun that could kill you, don't go, Mickey, please, don't.
When he walks into the interrogation room, the kid stares at him, dark suit, white shirt, plaid tie he got from one of his friends as a joke because it's damned ugly, but he wears it ever now and then just because he can.
We found them, Mikey. DA's taking 'em to trial, everything matches.
Standing at a gravestone, white marble, because she was her parents' only child and now they have nothing left but this, and he doesn't either, and it's all he can do to talk: It's ok now, Mickey. They got 'em. They got 'em.
The kid confesses.
Mike doesn't know why, and he doesn't know why he bothers going with Max to where the murder weapon is hidden, cold steel, and bullets made out of gold colored metal, and everything he's hated with a passion since he lost her.
Chasing after the bad guy, landing in that huge mud puddle in someone else's back yard, the sounds of laughter, and water running, meeting up when they were clean again…
Lemonade and cookies on a hot summer's day because her mother was one of those that gave a damn even if his wasn't.
There will be a trial. He won't go. There will more than likely be a conviction. He won't be there to hear it.
This case has drained him a lot more than he thought, and Homicide is not where he wants to be, but where he'll stay until he's used to it.
Her grave is in one of those places where the streetlights don't make everything orangey and the moonlight glints off the white marble like it used to glow on pale skin in a darkened area.
Moonlight glinting off the water, because it's dark outside, a splash, because he pushed her in, and when he bent to help her out, she pulled him in and laughed.
Hands, touching, gently, whispers because they have to be quiet unless they want to be found; his head on her shoulder afterwards, when they leave and go back to her place, 'cause no one's there.
I love you.
I love you, too.
He stares at the name on the headstone, her full name, the one she hated because it was too girlie and she'd decked him the first time he'd called her by it: Makenna Rose.
His fingers trace the letters etched into the stone, and he remembers the last time he did this, so many years ago, and he swore he'd never go back because it hurt too much.
But this little girl reminds him of her, even though he only met her after she'd died, and it was impossible to stay away.
He remembers the sorts of games they used to play, chasing each other down the street because she was the bad guy, and he was the good one, and every now and then they'd switch roles, but that was usually it.
And he wonders how things have managed to change so much from those simpler times, and how he's missed it all.
Thumb down, forefinger out, a makeshift gun that isn't going to hurt anyone, because it isn't real.
And then suddenly, the screams, and shattered glass, and blood, so much blood.
Bang. You've got me.