By the end of the day Steve had found himself in a private room several floors above the ER, guarded by a duo of unis kept there to ensure his safety.
While a huge part of him discounted the idea that the teenagers would try to seek them out here to finish the job they started, the other part had to admit that he and Mike had read them wrong before when it came to the level of violence they were capable of.
Worse yet, word about another one of them dying on the table might make it past the walls of the hospital, causing a strong desire for revenge.
Steve had spent much of his time stoically accepting the nurses and doctors going about their business, asking for his name, birth date and occupation to make sure his scrambled brains were once again returning to normal.
The same went on about additional x-rays and a therapist who had started to take a look at his leg and slowly worked the muscles to reduce the swelling somewhat. It was his hope that good behavior might in return allow him some leeway when it came to seeing Mike, whose condition he still wasn't entirely sure about.
As if he'd been hoping that the cloak of half-truths would somehow keep him subdued, Devitt had done a fine job providing him with just enough information to get a general idea, intentionally leaving out the details Steve was craving to hear by now.
Even though every last muscle and sinew in his body had been aching to lash out at the lieutenant, he once again had remained quiet and cooperative, foregoing the passionate spiel about how much he needed to see his partner for himself.
When word reached him that Mike had been transferred to ICU, Steve finally saw his chance in a nurse called Eileen Warren. It wasn't so much that he knew her, but he most certainly knew her daughter.
Brenda and yours truly had gone out a few times, their friendship never turning into more than mutual amicability. And while he only heard from her once a year when Christmas came around, their shared past had turned into a useful benefactor when it came to his passionate plea to see his partner.
Eileen had been able to pull a few strings, eventually allowing him to get wheel-chaired to ICU while Devitt had stepped out for a phone call.
And now Steve could see why Roy had wanted to spare him some of the details.
With his face a swollen mess, Mike was barely recognizable. The left side along his jawline was an angry shade of purple and blue, the bruising running all the way from his cheek to his temple. His left arm was in a cast, his middle and index finger on the right splinted in place.
He couldn't see much below the white sheet that reached up to his waist, but his chest was taped with tight gauze, almost hiding the electrodes attached to the nearby monitors.
Steve sucked in a sharp breath, almost choking on it, his eyes drifting back and forth over his partner who lied there so motionlessly as though he was dead.
Of course the monitors said otherwise, he reminded himself, but the continuous beeping and flashing lights didn't erase the poor shape his best friend was in.
Feeling a new bout of rage fill his thoughts, Steve carefully reached forward, completely ignoring Eileen behind him who excused herself for a brief moment.
"Michael…?", he whispered when his fingers touched the lieutenant's shoulder gingerly, barely using any pressure as though he was holding a priceless artifact.
How many people working here would understand this man's importance, Steve wondered. How many of them would fail to even realize just how many lives Mike had changed for the better, how many nights he'd worked through, tirelessly fighting for justice? Did they not realize just who was in their care, solely relying on them to do everything they could to care for him? After all, that was his best friend lying in that hospital bed; unconscious, beaten…hurt.
When he felt his bottom lip begin to quiver, Steve bit the inside of his cheek, hashing out what few memories he had left from the night of the attack, cursing himself for not doing a better job at stopping the teenagers while the gun was still in his hand.
He'd waited too long, that much was clear. Knowing their back story, he should have opened fire the moment they started to go after Mike. But no, he stood there wide-eyed, shell-shocked, hesitating when he shouldn't have. It cost him valuable time that could have decreased some of Mike's injuries.
"Michel…I am…", he began again, choking this time and taking several breaths to gather his bearings.
What was there to say anyway?
Feeling the heat rise on either side of his neck, Steve clenched the thin fabric of Mike's hospital gown with a death grip, pleading for something to happen to make his best friend wake back up.
Instead, it was a set of warm hands on his shoulders that slowly pulled him back into the wheelchair, the gentle pressure never leaving even when he yielded it.
"I hope you are happy now. "
Roy's voice was stripped of any emotion, as though he'd been sitting by the door frame for the past few minutes, quietly watching on. It was the sound of a man who had seen anything and everything there was to see on the streets and who had learned to use the power of quietness to do his business when emotions ran high.
"I step out for a minute to call Jeannie and you decide to play favorites."
"He's my partner, Roy. You of all people should-", he began, only to be cut off when the hands on this shoulders squeezed tighter.
"And now you are going to give me the old guilt trip runaround, won't you?", the lieutenant replied sourly, "How we're supposed to sit by his bedside every waking minute, hm? That's not how it goes, Stephen, not in the real world. Mike's roughed up bad…I told you that already. He's unconscious but the doctors are keeping a close eye on him. Every hour that he stabilizes, his chances of making it through this will improve. That's all that matters at the moment, not how long you or I hold vigil by his bedside, not how much you want to beat yourself up over what happened, none of that."
At the truthful notion that Roy had so carelessly thrown out there, Steve fell completely still, wondering if those hands on his shoulders had some clairvoyant effect. He just hoped that the lieutenant's telepathic ways would sense his need to stay here just a few more minutes, if nothing else to convince his mind that his partner wasn't dead.
"I gotta head back to put a call into the lab and see if the prints have come back. Stay here as long as you must, but remember that it won't do Mike or you any good if you run yourself down fretting. I need you to get better soon, both of you. That's the only way this is going to work in my department."