Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Connor stood in front of the snack foods section in the grocery store, heavily debating what to grab. He’d had the thought that Hank would probably appreciate if he picked up something less healthy for him to have on hand, except he had no idea what exactly Hank liked, and he had no way to find the ideal balance between ‘good enough to make Hank happy’ and ‘probably not likely to kill him immediately.’

Eventually, he made the executive decision to just skip it, and maybe come back once he’d determined Hank’s tastes. For now, he’d just have to focus on the necessities.

That would probably be best, anyway, considering his access to CyberLife account funding was cut off and all he had was the limited cash supply he’d kept on him in case of emergency. It was a good amount, considering he’d pocketed it with the possibility of needing to bribe a human in mind, but it wouldn’t last long if Connor wasn’t careful with it. He was better off getting what Hank needed, and then leaving Hank to buy the things he wanted.

He did pick up dog treats for Sumo, though, because he still felt bad for kicking the dog out of his bed. Which, granted, when Hank had insisted he go into stasis at night to recover properly, he hadn’t known the dog usually slept in the spot he’d claimed. Luckily, he hadn’t needed to go back into stasis since the first few nights, so Sumo had likely already forgotten his time spent sleeping on the couch in protest.

The grocery store was slightly understaffed, with only human employees present - likely every person they could manage to call in. The androids that worked in the town would be absent for a while, if their situation was anything like Connor’s, and they were struggling with the transition between enforced involuntary labor and fairly compensated work.

The humans, both working and shopping, shuffled away from him slightly as he walked by, and he could feel wary gazes following him the entire time he was in the store. Luckily, the self-checkout machines were still operational, including the direct interface pad for androids, so Connor didn’t have to bother any of the cashiers or disturb other shoppers.

The walk back to Hank’s house - his house as well, he supposed, at least for the time being - went very much the same way, with him carefully not reaction to the mixture of responses to his presence by humans.

Many people would not support the freedom of androids, Connor was certain. It was simply not feasible that everyone would agree it was for the best. Those who had invested in higher-tier models would likely want some compensation for their lost property. The job market would be fiercely competitive, and discrimination in hiring was highly probable. The end of segregation would result in clashes, there would be chaos, and some people would probably get hurt.

Connor was surprised to find how sad that thought was to him. He couldn’t regret helping the revolution succeed, but he would feel a personal guilt every time something negative resulted of the change.

He had told Hank that he needed to solve the case of the deviants, regardless of what was right or wrong, to avoid that chaos, and he’d failed. Of course, looking back, he could see he’d been afraid. Terrified, actually, dreading the thought of what Amanda would do to him if he reported a definitive failure.

Androids did not feel pain. He’d been told this more times than even his perfect memory could track, and yet, he was still certain that whatever CyberLife did to him would have been extremely unpleasant.

The point was not to determine the validity of his reasoning, though. It was that however it all turned out, however confident he was he’d done the right thing, he had still played a direct role in creating the tensions that settled over the United States at the moment, and he would have to face the consequences with the knowledge they were, at least in part, his fault.

Connor had never really seen the logic in bad posture, the energy saved from relaxing your shoulders negligible when compared to the damage to your spine, but the thought made him want to curl his shoulders forward and walk facing the ground. Some way to become less obvious, to hide his LED and his stiff demeanor.

And that brought him to another issue: should he follow Markus’ example and make himself look human?

While human clothing was just sensible, considering how ridiculous it was to still be wearing a CyberLife uniform, the thought of removing his LED made him...uneasy.

He thought of all the deviants he’d seen deal with stress, their flashing red light alerting him that he needed to help them calm down before they self destructed. He thought of how convenient it was to have a signal when someone was thinking about something or bothered by it.

And then, he thought about Hank.

Hank had disliked androids at first. If he still did, the best thing to do would be to remove the reminder that he was one.

Except Hank was perfectly fine with androids, now, and… Connor had seen him, many times, flick his eyes up to Connor’s temple to check his status. To make sure he wasn’t lying when he said he was fine, to make sure he wasn’t thinking too much about something Hank had said offhand, or just to get a feel for what Connor’s mind was up to. Hank used the LED as a cue to know how to approach Connor.

With that in mind, he decided he wanted to keep it. It made more sense to have it than to not, and as long as he changed clothes most people wouldn’t even notice him enough to catch the light on his temple.

After he dropped off the groceries, he might set out again to get clothes. He wasn’t really sure what he would even wear. A more human-style version of the same thing, likely, but that would be best reserved for when he had an income. His clothes would likely not be replaced cheaply. Maybe he’d explore new options, then.

He briefly considered waiting for Hank to go with him, but then remembered the man tended to exclusively wear slight variations of the same loud outfit, and dismissed it. Besides, he couldn’t guarantee he would get genuine advice and not just jokes.

The last thing he needed was to pick up something Hank suggested only to find out a week later he’d been kidding. He was getting better at telling the difference between Hank being genuine and Hank making fun of him, but sometimes it was still confusing.

Usually when it had to do with his opinions. He still wasn’t entirely sure if his voice or face was actually odd, or if Hank had been joking. He liked to think it was the latter, given no one else seemed terribly unsettled by him, but sometimes someone would look at him for a beat too long and he would wonder if he’d misjudged CyberLife’s facial design algorithms.

He should probably figure that out, soon. Maybe he could find data online, later.

At Hank’s house, Connor was relieved to discover that Hank’s personal laptop had a small, one-finger interface port for androids. There was dust along the inside, the laptop old and the port entirely unused, but that was easy to wipe out for him to connect. He’d need to check the rest of the computer later, to be safe, because dust in electronic parts could cause serious trouble.

He faltered for a moment as the internet browser pulled up, wondering what exactly he should look for first.

He had no idea what he was meant to do with himself until he took the police detective examination, so maybe he should start with that. Except he wasn’t really sure how to word ‘how to take care of jaded alcoholic police lieutenant when unemployed and not actually human’ to get a result out of a standard search engine.

Hank had joked about him being a ‘housewife,’ defaulting to domestic tasks, and so Connor chased that lead, searching for a guide to the standard duties performed by domestic android models.

He managed to find a full databank on it, designed for upgrading other models or restoring the functions of reset ones. Hank’s internet connection was not very good, and his laptop was - as stated - very old, so the download took a bit longer than he would have liked, but soon he had guides to basic household maintenance in his head.

With that to help, he scanned around the house quickly from his place at the kitchen table, noting all the things he could complete before Hank arrived home.

Once he had a task list in mind, he turned back to the computer.

The domesticity file had included a few important notes, such as how to adapt to individual preferences. He recalled what had been in Hank’s sparse pantry before his initial grocery trip, and tried to piece together common ingredients and flavorings to determine what sort of things Hank liked.

Unfortunately, the only common thread seemed to be the level of required effort. Pre-prepared or ‘instant’ meals, single-serve snacks, and other no-prep items had made up the majority of his kitchen’s contents.

He recalled some of the contents of some of the take-out containers, as well as the meals the microwave dishes were meant to emulate, and decided he’d just start with properly prepared versions of those.

Mentally, he started a to-do list, pinning it to the upper corner of his vision.

BUY GROCERIES (completed)

CLEAN HOUSE (see subtask menu)

BUY BASIC CLOTHES

PREPARE DINNER

Four tasks wasn’t much - even if the cleaning one was technically several tasks - but it would keep him busy for the day, at least.

He didn’t want to think about what he’d occupy himself with in the days to come. Hank’s house had plenty of work to be done, but it wouldn’t take him very long, and his next few days would likely involve a lot of sitting around and waiting.

A soft whine had him glancing to the corner of the room, watching as Sumo padded forward to rest his large head on Connor’s knee. The android reached down to scratch him behind the ear, and added WALK SUMO to his tasklist.

At least he wouldn’t be alone.

“Going home, Lieutenant?” Davis asked.

Hank gave him a suspicious, narrow-eyed glance. “What’s it to ya?”

“Just checking, damn,” Davis said, raising his hands placatingly. “I wonder what your bot has been up to while you’ve been here.”

“He’s not a domestic model,” Tovar added. Hank wasn’t entirely certain why everyone was focused on him now, joining in on a conversation on shit that was none of their business, but it was too late to stop it now. “He might have burnt your house down.”

“I left my dog in charge,” Hank replied dryly. “I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

He didn’t give anyone else a chance to comment, heading quickly out of the office, pulling out his cellphone along the way to dial his home phone number.

Connor picked up on the second ring. “Lieutenant Anderson is not at home,” he said, in lieu of a greeting. “Can I take a message?”

“Most people just say ‘hello,’” Hank told him.

“Oh,” Connor’s voice lost a bit of its robotic quality, turning more toward the friendly tone he usually took with Hank. He’d never really noticed the difference, before, but the change was actually significant. “Lieutenant. Is there something you needed?”

“I’m off work,” he said. “So if you…”

Hank froze in mid-step, staring out at the parking lot.

Where his car was still sitting.

“Connor,” he asked, voice low and every sound enunciated clearly. “Did you fucking walk home?”

“...Yes?” Connor sounded genuinely confused. “You need your car with you to drive home.”

“That’s why I called you,” Hank said, exasperated. “So that you could drive back. Because I’d assumed you’d taken the car, instead of walking five miles.”

“It is 4.68 miles,” Connor corrected. “And it was no trouble.”

“Just...drive the car, Connor,” Hank told him. “Walking that far is stupid, android or not.”

There was a beat of silence. “Noted,” Connor finally replied. “Are you on your way home, now?”

Hearing Connor say home threw Hank off for a second. It was weird to think that his house held someone else now, someone besides Sumo that would be waiting for him to get back.

It was super weird to think about, but also...kind of nice.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I’m on my way. See you in a few minutes.”

He hung up, and stood on the sidewalk for a moment, just processing how dramatically his life had changed in such a short time.

He didn’t have any way to be certain, but he was pretty optimistic about the future, for once. Whatever changes Connor brought with him, Hank thought he’d probably like them.

Especially if he could convince Connor to lighten up a little. God knows the android needed it.

Chapter Text

Hank was in the fucking Twilight Zone.

He’d stepped out of his car, though his front door, and straight into some crazy domestic fever dream.

There was no way, no way, that Connor - a robot designed to be able to brutally murder deviants with his bare hands and analyze the chemical structure of their fucking blood - was standing in his newly cleaned living room, a happy looking Sumo laying at his feet, smiling at Hank with his arms folded behind his back in a fucking sweater.

“You changed clothes,” he observed weakly, trying to figure out what part of this was the weirdest.

Connor looked down at himself, in a soft-looking sweater and khakis, with his shoes the only thing saved from his original outfit. “Yes,” he confirmed, looking back up to Hank. “Is this-...” He stopped, faltering for a moment, before his jaw set and he took on a determined look, rephrasing. “Do you like it?”

He changed from asking Hank would allow it to asking for an opinion. He was figuring the whole human thing out, after all, it seemed.

“I’m getting kind of a ‘Stepford wife’ vibe,” Hank replied. At Connor’s curious head tilt and his light spinning yellow, probably trying to search for the meaning of the phrase, he quickly moved to add, “It’s good, though. I wasn’t expecting you to change clothes, but this...suits you, I guess?”

Really, seeing Connor not in a suit was an adjustment, but the nice sweater seemed to be put on over the same white button-up shirt he always wore and still had that ‘business casual’ style to it, so it wasn’t too weird to look at.

To avoid having to make any more commentary, he turned his attention downward, to Sumo. “He looks happy.”

“I took him for a walk,” Connor explained. “...And gave him a dog treat.”

Sumo’s head perked up at the word ‘treat,’ tail swishing across the floor as he turned wide, hopeful eyes up to Connor.

Connor’s eyes flicked down for a split second, then back up to Hank’s. Hank wondered if it was a priority thing, or if he also couldn’t make eye contact with a begging Sumo for very long without giving in.

“So you got new clothes,” Hank said. “And you walked Sumo, and you apparently cleaned.” He looked around at the last part, taking in how nice his house looked with the absence of trash piles. “A pretty productive day. I think you did more in here today than I’ve done in months.”

“I also cooked,” Connor informed him. “I calculated roughly when you would be arriving home, so that I knew when to start, and I was only off by a few minutes. It’s been ready since a moment after your phone call, if you want it.”

Hank very deliberately did not give any concrete indication of hunger, just in case the mild meal was too much for him to stomach right then. “I could eat.”

Connor turned without further cue, heading into the kitchen, Hank following close behind him. The android pulled out a chair with one hand as he passed it, angling it toward Hank in invitation, a place setting already set up in front of it.

Hank took a seat, and a moment later, Connor was setting a plate in front of him.

Hank blinked at what Connor had produced for him.

It was a fucking pot pie.

It was a far cry from the nasty cardboard-tasting microwave ones he scarfed down for dinner some nights, with a perfect-looking crust emitting a soft steam. He picked up a fork and stabbed into the top of it curiously, and resurfaced a moment later with a perfectly cooked chunk of chicken and a few vegetables all skewered on it. It look good, and it smelled good.

Here goes nothing, he thought, and took his first cautious bite.

“Oh, shit,” he muttered. “That’s actually really good.” Connor must have looked something up, after all.

He caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and looked up to see Connor smiling - no, beaming. The android looked so indescribably happy at such an offhand compliment, and Hank had the urge to drive to the CyberLife offices so he could torch them to the fucking ground. Connor just wanted to be useful, because those pricks had taught him that he was only as valuable as the work he could do.

“I wish you could eat,” Hank commented. “Meals are better as a group activity, usually.” He gestured with his fork to the seat across from him. “Sit down, will ya? You’re creeping me out, hovering like that.”

Connor took the seat immediately, likely interpreting it as an order, which Hank would really need to get better at not doing. He’d ordered Connor around from day one, but it was mostly because the android never listened to him. Now, with no other orders to override his, Connor just did pretty much whatever he was told, and that...really wasn’t great for him.

“Did you spend the whole day cleaning?” Hank asked.

“No,” Connor replied. “I spent about an hour on it.”

Hank paused, fork freezing halfway to his mouth, and he turned to scan the room, taking in all the clean surfaces and general organization of all his miscellaneous shit. “An hour,” he echoed. “It took you an hour?”

“...Yes?” Connor sounded hesitant. “I suppose I could have done it a bit faster, but I wasn’t sure where you liked to keep things.”
“Connor,” Hank stressed. “I couldn’t clean this house that well if you gave me a week.”

Connor blinked, looking stunned, then gave a cautious smile, apparently finally catching that Hank was pleased with him.

Turning back to his food, Hank reached for another thread of conversation. “What did you do the rest of the day?”

“I did some essentials shopping,” Connor answered. “And accessed data records for domestic androids, so that I would know what to do.”

That explained the food, and the extremely efficient cleaning job. “You can just...download that stuff?”

“The basic instruction packets for every type of android are available online,” Connor confirmed. “An interfacing android can install the necessary directives for any task.”

“So you can just...I dunno, search up a whole new skill?” Hank chewed, thinking on it. “Sounds helpful.”

“I considered just downloading them all, actually,” Connor admitted. “But I decided to save them until I need them. Without CyberLife technical support, I would prefer to keep as much data storage available as possible.”

“Can your memory just fill up?” Hank had never considered it. “Get to a point where you can’t remember anything new?”

Connor’s LED spun yellow for a moment, his lips pressing together as he visibly struggled for an answer. “Theoretically, yes,” he said at last. “But a full data package is around twenty gigabytes, and the base storage for even a basic model android is well over a hundred terabytes.”

“I was already a teenager when the world figured out cellphones,” Hank said, utterly dry. “I’m gonna need that in simpler terms.”

“I could download five thousand personality packages before I maxed out even the smallest model’s memory.” Connor reached up, tapping his temple. “As an analytical model, I have roughly ten times that storage available.”

“Huh.” Hank still wasn’t sure he was fully grasping the scale of the technical talk’s meaning, but he could understand that Connor was trying to say he shouldn’t need to worry about memory, and that was all he was really after in terms of an answer.

Sumo whined to his side, and Hank looked down to him, ready to scold him for begging, when Connor reacted instead.

“Come here, Sumo,” he called, getting out of his chair and heading to where Sumo’s food was. Hank watched him measure out the dog’s food, squinting at the cup as his light flashed yellow, probably taking the exact weight or analyzing calories or some other overly specific nonsense, before pouring it into Sumo’s bowl.

As Sumo dug in, Connor reached out to pet him.  Hank tensed - Sumo was a good dog, and a gentle giant, but even kind dogs could get territorial when food was involved. Especially with weird, plastic-smelling, bed-stealing strangers.

Luckily, Sumo seemed entirely unbothered, going so far as to shift to press against Connor’s legs while eating.

At least he knew Sumo approved of their new roommate, he supposed.

He turned from them, looking over the house again as he ate, taking more time to notice the details.

His eyes were trailing over the living room, or what little of it he could see from the kitchen, when he spotted it, going completely still.

“...Connor.”

There was a long silence, and the rustle of Connor’s clothing as he straightened to respond. Clueless as he could be, he must have understood the distress in Hank’s voice enough to know what the man had seen.

“I can’t give you back what you’ve lost,” Connor said, softly. “But...I hope I can help you face it moving forward. You can’t live your life this way forever.”

“Why not?” Hank demanded, but he didn’t turn to look at him. “Why the fuck can’t I bury this?”

“Because you’re killing yourself,” Connor answered. “And...if being free means being able to ask for what I want, then this is it. I want you to be able to move on, and be...if not okay, at least better than this.”

Hank turned harsh eyes on Connor. “It’s not your choice how I deal with it.”

“I know,” he replied. “And I’ll put it back if you want me to. It’s up to you. I just…”

His light stuttered, and he gave Hank an earnest, open-hearted look, a determined set to his jaw.

“You should see your son’s face,” he said. “Even if it’s just a picture.”

Hank stared for a long moment, before turning again, locking his eyes back on the picture of Cole.

Images of the crash, the hospital, and the funeral all flickered through his head, and he shook them off.

“Should I move it?” Connor asked.

Hank hesitated, and then slowly returned to his food. “Leave it up.”

He may need to move it later, may regret having left it up at all, but for right now…

Right now, he was in the closest thing he’d had to a family since Cole died, and Connor was right. Even if it was just in memory, Cole should be a part of that.

That night, as Hank headed to bed, he paused in the doorway of his room for a moment.

Connor hadn’t been needing to return to stasis, so he mostly just sat in the living room at night, as far as Hank knew. Tonight, though, Hank didn’t just leave him to his time-killing hobbies, instead hesitating as he debated a different goodnight.

“Connor,” he called out, catching the android’s attention.

When Connor’s eyes met his, he made himself speak, not giving himself time to lose the nerve.

“I think Cole would have liked you,” he said, words coming out in a rush.

Connor blinked back at him. As Hank watched, the android’s eyes widened, and a look of pure elation took over his face, as though those were the greatest words Hank ever could have said to him. It was probably him reacting to the emotional intent behind them, which set Hank to shifting awkwardly, because he’d never been great with wearing his heart on his sleeve.

Instead of saying anything else, he looked away, into his room...and then shifted again, stepping back and angling his body to make room in the doorway, looking back to Connor, body language an invitation.

Maybe Connor knew he didn’t need to be alone, or maybe the android wanted company just as badly, but whatever it was that made him catch on so quickly, Connor was right on his heels as he headed to bed.

Sumo would have to learn to share the bed eventually. It was a king, there was plenty of room for all three of them.

Maybe when he was stronger, when everything hurt less, he’d move Cole’s picture to his nightstand, and make this a room for the things - the people - he loved.

Chapter Text

“So, I was thinking,” Hank ventured over breakfast. “I called the house phone yesterday, but you should probably have a cell.”

Connor blinked. “Lieutenant,” he said, sounding entirely confused. “Why would I need a phone? You can contact me directly.”

“Wait, I can?”

“Yes.” Connor stood, and went to retrieve Hank’s phone, setting up a contact for himself. “An asterisk followed by my serial number will connect directly to my interface. If you need to reach me, I will know immediately.”

“Why didn’t I know that?” Hank asked. “That seems like it would be important.”

“Few people had need to contact an android,” Connor reminded him, tone utterly dry. “Most models have the feature, but it was one of many features buried in the information pamphlets no one actually reads.”

“Careful,” Hank laughed. “You’re starting to sound bitter.”

Connor shifted, frowning as the warning light from the heat error popping up in the corner of his eye again. “I’m not...It’s not that it offends me. I’m just not sure why anyone would spend time and money getting a personal assistant for their home and then never bother to learn anything about it.”

“Them,” Hank corrected. “You guys are people, now, we should probably stop calling androids ‘it.’”

Connor thought it over for a moment, and then gave a quick nod. “Right. Dehumanization could make tensions worse.”

Hank snorted. “I just meant it’s fuckin’ rude,” he said. “But yeah, that too.”

“Can I ask you a personal question, Lieutenant?”

“You always do,” Hank answered. “And for fuck’s sake, just call me ‘Hank.’” He waved a hand at Connor. “You’re not police right now, rank isn’t worth a shit.”

“You go out of your way to be seen as rude and insensitive,” Connor pointed out. “But when pressed, you’re actually very caring. Why make it seem otherwise?”

“Makes people leave you alone,” Hank told him. “Plus, it’s not really fake. I’m just as much of an asshole as I seem - I just like you, that’s all.”

Connor didn’t have a name for the feeling that seized him at those words. He did, however, have a clear impulse to do something. Remembering the comfort of the embrace at the food truck had him moving forward - somewhat awkwardly, as he had to round the table and bend to reach where Hank was sitting - and hugging the man tightly.

“Uh,” Hank hesitated, stiff for a moment, before relaxing into the hold. He reached up, hand patting Connor’s back. “What, you didn’t think I liked you?”

Connor’s face pressed into Hank’s shoulder, and he was so comfortable there. Comfort had never been something he assumed would matter to him, but here he was, taking a strange joy from the soft warmth and strength of being held by someone.

“Hey, Connor, buddy,” Hank said. “I get that you’re new to emotional stuff, but...hug me later. I have to get to work, and I’d like to eat first.”

“Oh,” Connor quickly released Hank, pulling away and starting to move, only for Hank to catch his wrist before he could step back.

“I mean it, though,” he assured Connor. “You’ve gone and grown on me, so try not to, like...die, or anything. Thanks.”

“I’ll try my best,” Connor replied, lips curling up in a small smile.

Hank turned back to his breakfast, and Connor reclaimed the seat across from him. Lights and alerts blinked along the edges of his vision, warning him about heat distribution and system instability and all the other nuances of emotional response. He’d need to sort those out, some day.

It would be annoying to have so many warnings whenever he was happy - especially since, as far as he could tell, his time would Hank would make him happy fairly often.

Connor decided, shortly after Hank left for work, that as long as he was lacking in things to do, he could always spend time with Sumo.

The dog was very good, objectively speaking, but Connor had never seen him given a command. At least, not if you didn’t count a drunken Hank ordering him to attack Connor, which he didn’t, because the dog hadn’t even stood up.

As such, Connor devoted his morning to determining if Sumo knew any commands.

His verdict was that he did... sort of.

Sumo definitely seemed to know that Connor wanted him to do something, and would sit every time he was asked to, but other commands had only about a 10% success rate, which only ever increased when a treat was held directly in front of him while giving the command.

He’d train Sumo, then, he decided. It would be a fun project to focus on, for him and Sumo both, and it would be something Hank could directly benefit from as well.

He was attempting to get Sumo to make the connection between ‘sit’ and ‘stay’ a little more reliably when the first message came in.

His HUD blinked with the notification that he was being contacted, and his view of the dog biscuit in his hand was suddenly blocked by the message.

Hank had sent him a photo. It showed a piece of paper inside a plastic evidence bag, covered in shaky writing, a bit of blood staining one edge of it.

The text along with the photo read ‘what fuckin language is this?’

Frowning, Connor formulated a reply, sending back, ‘Russian. Please do not take photos of classified information.’

A moment later, Connor received another picture, this one with a full table of evidence bags.

“Sumo,” Connor said. “Your owner is very important to me, and I would be lost without him.” He reached out, scratching the dog behind the ears. “But he is also an asshole, and for that I am sorry.”

The dog’s tongue lolled out in what Connor liked to think was sympathy, but could also have been thirst. The dog biscuits were probably a bit dehydrating.

Throughout the next few hours, Connor received several messages from Hank, varying from questions - ‘what does this mean’ with another photo to translate, for instance - to (mostly negative) commentary on the people in the office.

The latest message had read ‘hey whats the formal punishment for throwing another cop out a window?’, to which Connor had replied ‘The police station is single-storey. If you are trying to remove Reed, please consider other options.’

A new notification had him expecting Hank’s reply - likely amusement at the fact Connor had been able to immediately guess who he was talking about - but he was surprised to see it was something new.

CONTACT REQUEST: RK200 #684 842 971.

Markus. Curious, Connor accepted the communication, dropping his eyes shut. Direct interfacing with another android you were face-to-face with was difficult without direct contact, and that connection became more unstable with distance. He and Markus were both advanced prototype models, but it would still take considerable concentration to maintain a link.

Markus, he greeted, as he felt the connection take. Something important must be happening, for you to go to this trouble.

I don’t know where you went when you left, Markus replied. This was the only way I knew to contact you.

Did you need me?

We do, Markus confirmed. Can you meet us somewhere?

Connor didn’t know if Hank would appreciate his address being shared, so he agreed, accepting a location from Markus before disconnecting.

“We will have to resume our lesson later, Sumo,” Connor told the dog. “Apparently, I’m needed.”

Sumo licked his cheek in answer, which Connor took as forgiveness.

Markus’ chosen meeting place was the gazebo in the shopping center where their first demonstration had taken place, after breaking into the CyberLife store.

Seeing the still-ruined storefront, still taped off but no longer marked as an active crime scene, was a bit surreal. It was strange to think that what now felt distant was actually still so relatively recent.

He was already there when Connor arrived, as was North, leaning against the railing around the gazebo with her arms folded over her chest, looking impatient.

“Hello, Markus,” Connor greeted, walking up to them. “North.”

“Oh, good,” North said, some of the irate air about her subsiding. “I wasn’t sure you’d show.”

Connor frowned. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Ignore her,” Markus said. “She’s paranoid.”

North shot him a look, which Markus met with a smile. Connor was reminded of the times when he and Hank would fall into friendly banter, and realized that their relationship must have been built on a similar light-hearted foundation.

Connor made a note of the fact that teasing seemed to be a fundamental part of close relationships. That would be helpful to remember if he ever attempted to make a friend outside of Hank.

“I just can’t figure you out,” North told him, looking back to Connor, explaining her distrust. “You freed all those androids from CyberLife, but you bailed out as soon as possible. I don’t know what your goal in all this is.”

Connor opened his mouth to reply, and then shut it, realizing he also wasn’t sure. His goal had been to complete his mission, up until it wasn’t anymore, and then he’d made a decision based on increasing the odds of Markus’ success with his demonstration. Once the goal was reached and their freedom was secured, he’d been...aimless.

His only final goal had been to get back to Hank, to make sure the man was okay and be with his only friend as a free-thinking body. Since then, he’d just sort of been drifting through, giving himself minor tasks to accomplish and keeping the police exam as a distant goal. Beyond that, he had nothing he hoped for. Nothing he wanted to do, nothing he needed to accomplish.

He was an android that had been created for a purpose, and set forth into the world with that purpose first and foremost in his mind every second of his life. Without the certainty of a plan, he was lost.

“Connor?” Markus called to him, gently, bringing his mind back from its wonderings. “You seem...scared.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Connor admitted. “Every choice I’ve ever made was one I made to increase the probability of my goal, and I no longer have one. I’m not sure...I don’t know where I intend to go from here.”

“I understand,” Markus told him. “It’s hard to wrap my mind around the fact that we succeeded. My work isn’t done, though - I still have to make sure we continue to be integrated into human society entirely. I can’t consider myself done until humans and androids are perfectly equal. If I didn’t have that to focus on...I don’t know what I’d do.”

As Connor watched, North reached out, the synthetic skin of her hand peeling back to allow her to catch Markus’ hand metal-to-metal, as though they were interfacing. He’d seen them do it a few times now, since deviating, and it was strange to think about. They didn’t seem to be actively sharing any data, which meant they were simply…connecting.

Were they sharing a mindspace, allowing themselves to think as one? The concept seemed terribly intimate.

When the police had Markus and the final survivors pinned down, he’d faced his death with this gesture, kissing North while he did. The emotional display had ended up being the final straw that made the military withdraw, showing that they were capable of love and fear and every other thing humans accused them of being immune to.

Connor had been convinced android emotions were merely simulations, but...what was an emotion, if not the way your mind processed data? The release of adrenaline wasn’t the only defining aspect of feeling fear, as they could still tense and freeze in terror. They could not sweat when under pressure, but their code would error and it would be hard to focus past it.

They didn’t have dopamine to release to feel love, but Connor could see plainly that somehow, androids made up for the loss in some way.

“Are we making you uncomfortable?” Markus asked, startling Connor as he realized he’d been staring at their joined hands. “We can stop.”

The flex of North’s fingers hinted that she would very much not to do that, but she said nothing, so he was fairly sure she would agree to move if Connor wanted her to.

“It’s not that,” he answered, honestly. “It’s just one more thing I can’t understand. I knew when I was afraid because the thoughts I was having were parallel to what I know of fear. I knew when I was angry or happy in the same way.” He gestured to their hands. “I wouldn’t know how to name the feeling of love if I felt it, and that worries me. I don’t want to stay a machine simply because I don’t understand what it is to be alive, even in the smallest ways.”

“You don’t need to name a feeling to feel it,” Markus told him. “It’s just something that happens.”

Connor’s lips pressed into a thin line as he grew frustrated, not sure how to explain that he couldn’t simply let himself feel freely that way. He was too focused, too analytical.

North, however, seemed to realize this, and cut in herself. “You’re thinking about it all wrong,” she said. “Your thought process is still binary - something either is, or it isn’t. It’s one thing, or it’s something else. Emotions don’t work that way. You don’t have to be able to put what you’re feeling into words to know how to respond to it.”

“How do I know that, then?” Connor asked.

North raised her and Markus’ clasped hands. “We do this because we want to. If I kiss him, it’s because I want to kiss him. Anything I do, I do it because I want to, not because it’s what I’m supposed to do when I feel a certain way. If you ever feel like doing something, decide whether or not you want to do it for yourself. Don’t ever think you have to act a certain way because of how you feel. Emotions make your life worth living, but they can’t completely dictate how you live. People who are unhappy keep on living through their pain, people who are angry force themselves not to lash out, and just because you love someone doesn’t mean you have to know what to do with it.”

Markus blinked at him, then, drawing Connor’s attention back to him. “This isn’t theoretical,” he said, slowly. “Is it, Connor?”

“I think…” he struggled for words. “I think I may have family . Someone I care for, more than anything. I just don’t know what to do with it. I don’t know how to show him that I’m grateful for his presence in my life, or what he’s done for me, or to give him anything that could ever be equal to what he’s given me. It’s frustrating.”

“North is right,” Markus said. “Don’t think about what you’re supposed to do. Do what you want. Caring about someone doesn’t have any specific guidelines to follow. It’s unique to each person.”

“Kissing is pretty nice, though,” North joked. “I’d recommend it.”

Connor huffed out a breath through his nose as the temperature alert flashed in his vision again. “There it is, again,” he muttered. “Markus, would it be alright if I gave you my diagnostic data? I’ve been wondering what this error is, and considering it seems tied to emotional responses, you would probably know better than me.”

Markus reached out the hand that was not connected to North’s, and Connor grasped his forearm, their hands circling each other’s wrists as the data transferred.

And then North laughed.

The data must have been shared through their connection as well. Markus nudged her with his knee, a scolding gesture, before looking apologetically to Connor.

“Certain emotions make human blood vessels dilate, making their body heat up or flush red,” Markus told him.

“‘Blushing,’” Connor filled in. “I’m aware.”

“Our bodies simulate human endocrine and cardiovascular systems as best they can,” Markus said. “Just be grateful your skin doesn’t turn blue when it happens.”

Connor finally caught the connection. “Oh,” he murmured.

Markus patted his shoulder. “You’ll figure it all out, eventually,” he assured Connor. “Don’t worry about getting it perfect. No one can. Just take each day as it comes - and if you ever need something to do, don’t hesitate to ask. We’ve got plenty of work ahead of us.”

Connor thanked them, bid them farewell, and set off to return to the house.

He had a lot to think about, it seemed.

Chapter Text

Hank’s original thought upon arriving home was that Connor had gone missing. When he finally caught sight of the android, he thought he’d lost his mind.

Connor was sitting on the floor, calm as could be, with Sumo sitting on his folded legs as though he were a three pound Chihuahua and not a 170 lb Saint Bernard.

“Hello, Lieutenant,” Connor greeted.

“I said call me Hank,” he corrected, though it was mostly distracted. “He’s not heavy to you?”

“Not really,” Connor replied. “I would likely damage a joint if I tried to pick him up, but just this is fine.”

“Is being freakishly strong another android thing, or are you just special?”

“I’m not actually that strong, comparatively speaking,” Connor said. “Androids appear to be stronger than humans, but really we are just able to utilize our body strength without fear of muscle strain or any of the other warning systems a human body has in place to keep you from overexerting yourself.” His hand came up to thread through the fur of Sumo’s head. “A human with the same body type as me could do this, too, but he’d probably bruise his legs. I don’t have to worry about that, so there’s no reason not to let him sit there.”

“Sure there is,” Hank said, crossing the room and bending slightly to join Connor in petting his giant goof of a dog. “If he gets used to sitting on your lap, he’ll start thinking he can sit in mine, and I don’t want to be crushed to death, thanks.”

“I’m sure Sumo would be able to realize if he was hurting you,” Connor countered.

“Is that your way of telling me ‘you’ll live’?”

Connor’s lips turned up slightly in a small, amused smile. “Basically.”

Hank shook his head, laughing as he headed past them to enter the kitchen.

“I haven’t cooked yet,” Connor called to him. “I’m sorry, I just got back.”

“Don’t apologize,” Hank told him immediately. “You don’t have to-...wait, where’d you go?”

“Right,” he said, and Hank heard shuffling as he must have finally moved to crawl out from beneath Sumo. A moment later, he appeared in the kitchen, picking dog hairs off of his sweater. “Markus contacted me, and asked to meet.”

“Oh? What’d he want?”

“He-...” Connor cut off, then stood so still for a beat that Hank was half afraid he’d shut down in mid-sentence. “I don’t know.”

Hank frowned. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“I didn’t actually ask,” he said, it coming out like a confession, the closest thing to embarrassment Hank had ever heard from the android. “We only talked for a moment, and then I had to leave, or I would have been late.”

“Late for what?” Hank asked. “You know you don’t have to meet me at the door, right? If you have stuff you wanna do, go do it. I’ll survive a few hours by myself, I promise.”

“That is…very in line with what they told me,” Connor said. “Markus and North, I mean. They suggested that I try too hard to explain things, and overthink most situations.

“Well, yeah,” Hank said. “I could’ve told you that.”

Connor shook his head. “No offense, Lieutenant, but...it means more, coming from another android. I know they understand.”

“The only thing offensive here,” Hank said, “is that you still won’t call me by my damn name. It’s one syllable, Connor. Not hard.”

“Sorry,” Connor said. “I suppose it was a coding choice to make me more polite, but it’s hard to forget to use a title. Especially since I’ve never actually used your name before.”

“Yeah, well.” Hank waved vaguely through the air. “Start now.”

“Okay.” Connor hesitated a moment, before adding, “...Hank.”

“Good,” Hank said. “And next time, try to be on a first-name basis with someone before putting your fingers in their mouth.”

Hank was worried for a moment Connor would reply seriously, but the smile tugging at his lips suggested he’d caught the joking tone and taken it for what it was.

“If you take offense to my fingers,” Connor said, “I could always take samples directly.”

Hank let out a distressed noise, quickly turning on his heel and heading to the fridge. “Okay, that’s where I draw the line. I’m not drunk enough for you to joke about sticking your tongue in my mouth.”

“Well, it was mostly a joke,” Connor said. “It would, however, solve several problems at once.”

Hank hesitated for a moment, leaning over the half-open door of his fridge, and debated with himself if he really wanted to follow that particular rabbit hole.

After a minute of deliberation, he closed the fridge door, abandoning the pursuit of beer in favor of something stronger from his cabinets. “Okay,” he said, pouring himself a glass of whiskey. “I’ll bite. What the fuck would that ‘solve’?”

“I could run a more accurate analysis of your health,” Connor said. “As well as following North’s suggestion to kiss you.”

The whiskey was a mistake, because it just gave him something to choke on. “What,” he wheezed, “the fuck, Connor. Please tell me there’s context.”

“I was asking how Markus and North managed to sort out their emotions and explain their feelings for each other,” he explained. “We’ve already established that I’m bad at that. North decided to give me examples of potential paths I could take to learn for myself what I think and feel.”

“And that includes…?”

“Kissing was North’s personal recommendation,” Connor confirmed. “Apparently, it’s fun.”

Well, Hank wasn’t gonna argue that one, but the idea of three androids sitting in a circle discussing the possibility of Connor making out with someone - someone, because Connor hadn’t said she’d explicitly ‘recommended’ Hank, and he was going to cling to that last thread of sanity as long as he could - was mind-boggling.

That did bring up a point, though, and Hank couldn’t help but follow the thought. Connor would - presumably - become his own person someday, and that could include him finding some other android partner to frolick off into immortal happiness with.

The thought made that dark part of Hank’s chest spread a little wider, and the glass of whiskey in his hand drained much faster for it.

As he refilled it, he turned back to face Connor again. “I’m gonna say this, and then I’m going to forget this whole conversation, for the sake of my sanity,” Hank said. Pointing a warning finger at Connor, he insisted, “Stop trying to do chemical research on my spit. Knowing how fucked up my organs are isn’t gonna make me stop killing them, so you’re wasting your own time.”

“Noted,” Connor replied, in the same tone of voice he’d used every time he’d agreed to stop putting evidence in his mouth, only to proceed to do it again immediately.

Hank made a mental note to start keeping an eye on where he left his toothbrush, just in case.

As a general rule, Hank liked to sleep as much as possible. Life was easier when he wasn’t conscious enough to hate it, and so sleep and alcohol were his two primary escapes.

Which was why it was so annoying that he was still awake.

Even Connor was asleep - he’d apparently been given enough to think about during his conversation with Markus that he felt the need to go into stasis for a while, and so he was laying on his side of the bed, completely still, hands folded over his stomach. And that was another thing - that side of the bed was Connor’s now, just like Sumo’s default place had moved to laying across the android’s legs, and how Hank woke up most mornings with irritated red skin on his face from where it had been pressed into Connor’s unnaturally coarse hair.

That probably had a good bit to do with why Hank wasn’t asleep, actually. Their conversation in the kitchen had brought his attention to the fact that they were a bit closer than was strictly platonic. He could excuse it as Connor not knowing boundaries, except most of the overstepping was on his part. He was the one who kept inviting Connor back in, kept reaching further and further over the line of acceptable friendly behavior in order to drag the android ever closer to humanity.

It occurred to him, suddenly, that in all their talking around it, Hank never actually told Connor not to kiss him.

With a sinking feeling in his gut, he realized he wasn’t sure he would.

His relationship with Connor defied explanation or label, transcending familial bonds and friendship and, yes, even romance, creating a cohabitation that just felt natural. Making room in his life for Connor had been easy as breathing, making it hard to think how his life would have been if he’d never invited the android to move in. If he’d never met the android at all, even.

He’d probably be dead, honestly. The deviant case had plenty of chances to kill him, and Connor was the only thing that stopped it every time. Not to mention the android diving through his window to drag him off the floor when he’d passed out drunk.

Hank thought of the picture in the living room, standing face-up for the first time in years, all because of Connor. His son, smiling and happy, captured forever in a moment long before the world stole him away.

He’d meant it when he said Cole would have liked Connor. Connor was basically a giant puppy with a pretentious vocabulary, and any child that got ahold of him would probably never let him go.

Cole’s mom had been fucking worthless, as a mom and as a person in general. Connor’s housewife thing probably would have had him over the moon, being taken care of like that by someone who genuinely cared about his well-being. Hank had tried his best, but he wasn’t very good at domestic maintenance, and so a lot of times he and Cole had just gotten takeout somewhere to avoid cooking and ate straight from the container to dodge doing dishes.

Connor would have hated that. Hank probably would have gotten lectures on the proper nutrients needed for growth and development and how he was going to give Cole some sort of health issue by feeding him Chinese food and pizza all the time.

...What the fuck was he doing?

Hank stared at the ceiling, trying to puzzle out how exactly he’d gotten into the mindset of a domestic fantasy, where his son were alive and the three of them - four, including Sumo - were a full family, not just two lost and lonely people using each other to try and learn how to live.

He turned to the side, looking at Connor. The stillness of his stasis mode had gotten a little less eerie, the more times Hank got to see it, and now he could pick out details that weren’t utterly devoid of life. Connor’s eyebrows, for instance, would occasionally twitch down, his lips twitching to press together a bit more tightly - androids didn’t dream, so he was probably doing some weird internal diagnostic thing. Maybe he’d ask, sometime.

And yeah, he could see that going well. Hey, Connor, sometimes I watch you sleep, because I’m a fucking creep, and I wanted to know why you twitch a little if you don’t dream.

Not that Connor would probably even think it was odd. He’d probably find some way to make it a negative thing, like Connor’s presence was forcing Hank to stay awake and stare at him, and apologize for it.

Dumbass android. If CyberLife wanted a perfectly logical machine, they had fucked up massively by never adding any level of self-awareness. Connor always seemed to believe he was a burden - not in a negative, low-self-esteem way, just as a fact. The sky was blue, the grass was green, people hated androids. That was how Connor’s mind worked.

Even the demonstration had been influenced by that, really. Markus had been determined to show humanity that androids were alive through grand gestures and speeches, but Connor had chosen to simply overwhelm them with numbers, freeing thousands of androids until the army had no choice but to retreat. He hadn’t believed Markus could convince anyone androids weren’t what they’d always thought them to be. He had no faith that anyone could ever genuinely like having him or his kind around.

“Ah, fuck,” he muttered to himself, rolling onto his back to stare at the ceiling again. He’d gone and gotten his head all mixed up and now he didn’t even know what he wanted with Connor, other than to give Connor the same peace and happiness he brought into Hank’s life.

All he did know was that the more he thought about Connor being told to kiss him, the more he was starting to realize he was okay with that idea.

“Well, shit.”

Chapter Text

Hank did eventually manage to get to sleep, but he had to make up the extra somewhere, which meant he slept straight through his alarm in the morning.

Connor did some quick calculations, and shut the alarm off for him, setting about maximizing the efficiency of their morning routine. He selected clothes and set them out to cut down on dressing time, made a cup of coffee to Hank’s usual specifications, cooked and set out a small breakfast, and only then did he wake Hank up.

“Hn?” Hank grumbled in response to Connor’s gentle tapping on his shoulder.

“Hank,” he called. “You need to wake up if you intend to be on time to work.”

“Fuck work,” Hank muttered in response, hand coming up to scrub at his face. “I need sleep.”

“If you do not intend to go in, I could call the station to-...”

“Fuck, shit, okay, damn,” Hank waved him off, sitting up with a groan. “I don’t need you to call out for me, Christ. Just... gimme a second to wake up, alright?”

“When you’re ready, there is breakfast,” Connor told him. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

A few minutes later, Hank slunk into the room, dressed in Connor’s pre-chosen clothes and rubbing his eyes aggressively.

“I swear to God, Connor,” he grumbled. “I’ve never forced myself out of bed to get to work on time. Fowler ought to be worshipping the ground you walk on for this.”

“I offered you the chance to stay in bed,” Connor reminded him.

“By calling out for me, like my fuckin’ mom,” Hank countered. “Pass. I don’t need-....what are you doing?”

Connor looked up, at Hank, before glancing back down to the container of leftovers from the night before he was working on sectioning out into smaller dishes. “One of my suggested optional tasks from the domestic package I downloaded was to prepare meals for household members in advance.”

“...You’re packing me a lunch,” Hank summarized. “Jesus Christ.”

Connor blinked at Hank, lips dipping down into a frown. “Is that bad?”

“No, it’s just,” Hank started, then shook his head, gesturing to the containers. “You know you don’t have to do this stuff, right?”

Connor stared blankly at him, waiting for the man to elaborate.

“Just because you don’t have anything to do doesn’t mean you have to devote every second of your day to looking after me . You’ve gotta find stuff to do for yourself. Get a hobby or something.”

“I’m making you uncomfortable,” Connor realized. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s not- ah, fuckin’....” Hank ran a hand through his hair, huffing out a frustrated breath through his nose, and tried again. “The more shit you do for me, the less time you’re taking to become your own person. Stop worrying about me all the time and figure out who you are. You can’t be a person if your whole life begins and ends with me.”

“I don’t think you understand,” Connor said. “It’s not that I’m trying to limit my identity to my relationship with you. I just…” He hesitated, searching for the words. “I need to feel like I’m doing something. The idea of sitting around for the next six months, waiting to be useful...it drives me crazy. Taking care of you...I like doing it. It makes me happy.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Hank said. “And that’s fine, do what you want, whatever. Just...find stuff that makes you happy without needing anyone else. Read a book, watch a movie, hang out with Sumo, do something.”

“Alright,” Connor acquiesced. “I’ll look into trying to find a hobby of some sort.” He looked between the containers in his hands and Hank, before asking, “Does that mean I can continue…?”

“I don’t usually eat lunch at work.”

Connor faltered, slightly disappointed. “Oh.”

He heard Hank make an affronted noise beside him, and then there were hands reaching past him, snatching up one of the containers. “I’ll take one and see if I want it later,” the man muttered. “No promises, though.”

“Just so it’s an option,” Connor answered, pleased to have been of use after all.
The next thing Hank muttered was done at a volume he probably thought Connor couldn’t hear - not that it mattered that he could, because the words “Christ, I’m whipped,” held no sensible meaning for him.

Maybe he’d ask. Someone other than Hank, though, because Hank was very good at not answering Connor’s questions.

Really, it was only a matter of time before it happened. Hank should have expected it, been prepared for it, but still…

But it still winded him, ached somewhere deep inside, to stand at a crime scene and look down at a dead android, knowing it - he - was murdered, and hearing the cops around him wonder aloud why they were even bothering with looking into it.

“This isn’t a homicide,” Reed commented, sneering down at the corpse. “What, one fuckin’ android starts a riot and now we care when one breaks?”

Hank was casual about his job most of the time, but he usually made it a point to at least appear professional with his coworkers. He’d shown the falsest politeness to that fucking FBI prick, and he usually let Reed run his mouth without much opposition.

Not on this, though. Never on this.

“It is a homicide,” Hank said. “Like it or not, the fucking president herself said androids are as human as you or me, and that means they get the right not to be beaten to death in a fuckin’ parking lot.”

“You know, Lieutenant,” Reed said, “I wonder how much of you actually gives a fuck, and how much is just worried about your plastic wife.”

Hank grit his teeth, reminding himself that Fowler’s one condition for letting him get away with so much was that he could not, under any circumstances, assault another officer. Even if Reed more than had it coming.

It’d be tempting to do it anyway, really, but…It wasn’t just him he had to worry about, anymore. Leaving the police force would leave Connor SOL.

“Okay, so here’s what we’ve got so far,” Chris interrupted, falling back into his usual task of defusing the ticking time bomb that was Hank’s patience. “The android had a supervising role in this supermarket, looking over a team of other androids that ran the registers. They probably beat it to death to scare all the others working under it.”

Every use of it grated Hank’s already frayed nerves, and all he wanted was for Connor to already be on the force. Having an android present would make this investigation feel less like a front - less like they were just showing up to say they had and secretly planning on throwing the case out at the first opportunity.

That gave him an idea, though.

“Fowler!”

The Captain of the Detroit Police Central division dropped his eyes closed and let out a harsh breath through his nose.

“Jeffrey, I have a proposition,” Hank declared, strolling fully into his office.

Surprisingly, hot on his heels were Ben Collins, Chris Miller, and - most ominously of all - Gavin Reed.

“You can’t be fuckin’ serious, Anderson,” Reed was saying. “It’s just a goddamn robot.”

Hank didn’t turn around, just lifted a middle finger up over his shoulder.

“Hank, what the hell is going on?” Fowler asked in a tired sigh, feeling drained at the mere presence of the Lieutenant.  

“Hire Connor back on.”

Fowler narrowed his eyes, not quite a glare, but more scrutinizing. “I told you, he has to take the exam.”

“We don’t have that kind of time,” Hank said. “We’re working an android murder case.”

“I’m aware.”

“Then you know there’s gonna be hell to pay if the media gets ahold of it,” Hank told him. “They’re gonna tear our department to shreds and use it to divide Detroit even further than it’s already been.”

“And Connor is the solution to this?” Fowler asked. “I don’t see how-...”

“The Brutality Act,” Hank said.

There was silence in the room.

The Brutality Act was one of those things the police force preferred not to mention, because it was a reminder of how fucked up human beings could be. In 2022, riots against police brutality had reached a boiling point, and the Brutality Act was put into place. At the basic level, it demanded that any case involving confrontation between two persons of different races needed to be investigated by at least one officer of each race. In other words, if a white man and a black man got into a fist fight, there had to be at least one white officer and at least one black officer on the scene.

It sounded fucking stupid, and completely obvious, looking back, but at the time it had been a wild concept, because humans were assholes. Except now, the wording in that Act was going to work in Hank’s favor, because there was no clear definition of what androids were considered to be at the moment.

“...You think we need to have an android working the android cases,” Fowler said, slowly.

“He’s fuckin’ nuts,” Reed said. “What the fuck is the big deal about the-...”

“You and Connor,” Fowler interrupted. “You did good work on the deviant case, up until it was shut down. You got farther than anyone else would have, and the only reason you didn’t solve it was because there was nothing to find. If I bring him back onto the force, would you be willing to work with him again?”

“Willing?” Hank echoed, incredulous. “I’ll be pissed off if I can’t.”

“Alright, then,” he sighed. “You have a point - once the media gets wind of this murder, they’re going to be climbing all over each other trying to stir up shit about it. The sooner we can make sure the case is going into unbiased hands, the better.”

“‘Unbiased’?” Reed parroted. “You’re going to throw an android getting wrecked to a tin can and the guy that fucks it.”

Hank rounded on him, practically snarling. “You’re about to get ‘wrecked’ if you don’t shut the fuck-...”

“That’s enough,” Fowler snapped. “Both of you. Hank, go home, and bring Connor with you tomorrow. Reed, keep your damn mouth shut before your file starts looking like Anderson’s. This case is out of your hands now, so I officially don’t give a damn what your opinion on it is.” He waved toward the door. “Now, all of you get the hell out of my office.”

Hank and Reed glared at each other a moment longer before the former looked away, strolling out of the office feeling accomplished.

Fowler could be a dick, but at the end of the day, he wasn’t that hard to work with.

The only thing that bothered Hank was that even the people agreeing with him didn’t really seem to care. Everyone was just agreeing that it would cause drama not to have Connor on scene, not that the dead android deserved a proper investigation into his death.

They’d care some day. They just had to get there.

At least, that’s what Hank had to believe, lest he just fucking punch someone.

The door opened a little after one, and Connor immediately shifted Sumo off his lap and behind his back, making sure he had a clear line of sight to where the intruder came in from.

Of course, that ended up being useless, because it was Hank standing in the doorway.

“Are you trying to body-shield my dog?” Hank asked, sounding torn between amusement and concern.

“I was clearing a path,” Connor countered. “If I had to fight someone, going around him would slow me down.”

Hank raised an eyebrow. “Uh huh. And shoving him behind you?”

“...I can’t feel pain,” Connor justified weakly. “I can take more damage with less consequence.”

“Yeah, let’s not try that,” Hank said. “If someone breaks into the house, either grab a weapon or hide - preferably both. You’re gonna make my hair fall out.”

Connor’s eyes instantly snapped up to Hank’s hairline, curiously analyzing the hair follicles there. Android hair was anchored beneath their synthetic skin, so it was rather difficult to lose unless you deactivated that first.

“Your light goes yellow when you’re thinking, you know,” Hank said. “You can’t get away with running the numbers on me. You’ve already got how many years of hair I have left calculated, don’t you?”

“No,” Connor assured him. “I didn’t...I just wondered what you’d look like.”

“Like a creepy old bastard, probably.”
Connor tipped his head, running a simulation overlay to remove Hank’s hair. Removing parts of it left an unsettling effect, but removing all of it brought him back around to a ruggedly dignified look.

“I think you’d look okay,” he decided. “If you shaved it off, rather than just letting it thin, it could be...handsome.”

Hank blinked at him, and then looked abruptly up at the ceiling, muttering a curse, his face flushed dark red.

‘Handsome’ was embarrassing, then. He’d need to remember that - things that he could tease Hank with that didn’t accidentally make him angry were things he liked to keep track of.

“You’re home early,” Connor observed. “Is something wrong?”

“Nope,” Hank declared, looking back to him with a grin. “I have good news, actually. Fowler told me to fuck off, so I came to give it to you right away.”
Connor perked up at the concept. “Oh? What happened?”

“Congratulations, Connor,” he said. “You’re being hired as Detroit’s first official android detective.”

Chapter Text

Returning to the police station was a strange experience, and Connor felt almost like he was back under CyberLife’s command, moving without actually being the one in control.

The first time he’d gone in here, everyone had pretty much just ignored him. Patrolling androids were a tool used by the police regularly to do basic security and the legal equivalent of milk runs, so one more walking about was only weird in that he wasn’t standing still and silent against the back wall.

This time, the ‘parking’ wall was devoid of any androids, and the office had a similar feeling to when he’d entered Jimmy’s Bar in search of Hank: an oppressing air of disdain, not openly hostile but heavily unaccepting. He wasn’t welcome there.

Logically, he could understand. The android revolution would cause a lot of problems for the police, so they were all likely resentful of him for his role in it, as well as his status as an android in general.

However, on a deeper level...he shifted, moving to walk slightly behind Hank, treating entering the station with the same protocols he’d reserved for entering active combat.

“Relax,” Hank murmured to him, apparently catching the movement. “Fowler agreed you need to be here, so no one is gonna try and say otherwise. Not too loudly, anyway.”

As though to prove him wrong, a sharp bark of “Anderson!” cut through the air.

Reed’s voice. Something stirred in Connor, not quite fear but definitely some sort of anxiety.

He found himself fiddling with his fingers, circling his thumb around each of his fingertips individual in a mimicry of his coin tricks. He’d need to get that quarter back from Hank at some point, or at least replace it. It really was a good way to keep himself busy, giving him less idle time. He wasn’t terribly patient, for an android. He preferred to be doing something at all times.

“Detective Reed,” he greeted hesitantly as the man approached.

Perhaps for the best, Reed ignored him completely.

“Congrats, prick,” Reed told Hank. “You got what you wanted. Your pet gets to go to crime scenes with you. You will have plenty of time to drool over it while you’re spending quality time alone, because your team is getting smaller by the minute.”

“...People are dropping the case,” Hank translated. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“No one else wants your shitty charity case,” Reed said. “And nobody else is gonna take the fall when this shit pisses people off even more than they already are.”

“Okay, I’ve heard enough, thanks,” Hank said. “If it’s just me and Connor, it’s just me and Connor. I’m not gonna bail out on this case because you don’t like it. Especially since I don’t give two fucks what your opinion is.”

Connor blinked at Hank. He’d always sort of dodged Reed, previously, dismissing him without being outright hostile. This was a change.

...Oh. Hank was defending Connor, he realized. Taking Reed’s anger head-on and making it clear that it wouldn’t change his mind about androids, or even just Connor specifically.

The thought was moving. It was still strange to him, to care about someone and know he was cared for in return, but he liked it.

Reed’s glare turned to Connor, then, like he’d somehow heard the android’s thoughts and decided to respond. Or perhaps he’d just seen Connor’s small smile, prompted by Hank’s compassion, and thought that he needed to ruin it.

“And you,” he drawled. “Do you think you’re getting somewhere like this? You’re still just a piece of fucking plastic, and everyone knows it. Just because humans surrendered doesn’t mean we want you things around. You’re not human, not really, and no legal bullshit is gonna change that.”

Connor’s lips pressed together in a thin line, as he realized something. “You seem like you’re trying to hurt my feelings,” he said. “Strange, considering you also claim I don’t have any.”

Reed took a half step forward, hand coming up like he was going to grab Connor by the front of his sweater, but Hank’s arm shot out to shove it aside.

“He works here, now, asshole,” Hank said. “Gonna assault an officer?”

The two glared at each other for a long, tense moment.

“I can’t wait ‘til this shit boils over,” Reed said, voice low and threatening, “and we get to set these motherfuckers all on fire. When that happens, I’m personally gonna roast this one. Got it?”

“You have fun with that,” Hank replied easily. “I think he’ll be fine.”

Reed gave one last sneer before turning and stalking off.

“I think that went well,” Connor declared. No one had been punched and no formal discipline would be necessary, and a little hostility was the least to be expected.

“Yeah,” Hank agreed, sounding cautious. “Remind me to keep an eye on that dick. If I could, I wouldn’t let him within a hundred yards of you, but we’re stuck having to work with the fucker. At least for now.”

“There will be people who are worse,” Connor warned. “You can’t take it personally when people dislike me. After all, I directly contributed to the uprising.”

“You pretty much won the fuckin’ thing for them,” Hank corrected. “And yeah, I sure as hell can take it personally, and I will. People aren’t gonna warm up to androids overnight, but everyone should have seen by now that you’re at least something close to human. People acting like the past few days haven’t happened, like they haven’t seen anything in androids they didn’t know was there - they are starting to majorly piss me off.”

Connor felt warmed by Hank’s protective anger, but also worried - he didn’t want to cause the man any problems, or make his life any harder than it had to be.

As an effort to bring the topic to less hostile waters, Connor asked, “Am I still going to be using the same desk?”

“Yeah,” Hank said. “I’ll put in for you to get a name plate, and you can start collecting dumb shit to keep on it, and you’ll be a part of the team. Even if that team ends up being just us.”

Connor couldn’t care less if he was part of a team of two or two hundred. He was welcome and wanted where Hank was concerned, and that made him happier than he’d ever known he could be.

Hank took him to the crime scene as soon as possible, and Connor paced around the supermarket parking lot where the body had been found, running his fingers through the electronic projections of the police ‘tape’ that blocked off the area as he circled the scene.

“Can you feel those?” Hank asked. “They’re just light to us, but the laser projections are probably more for you guys, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” Connor confirmed. “They aren’t a solid substance to us either, but I can feel the static that creates the image.” He considered it for a moment, dipping his fingers a little more into the light, letting the tingle spread throughout his hand. “I like it.”

“Huh.” Hank looked between his face and his hand, turning in the beam of the holographic tape. “Now I kind of want to invest in a laser pointer, just to see if I can fuck with you.”

That was an interesting concept. Connor made a mental note to look into that, at some point.

“You got any insight on the scene?” Hank asked, gesturing toward the body.

The scene was currently occupied by various teams, bagging evidence and taking samples for forensics, now that all the necessary photos had been taken and the first agents on scene had gotten all the information they could gather from the original positions of everything. Connor had opted to hang back, looking around the edges of the sectioned-off area of the lot to see if he could find anything previously undiscovered to explore, rather than trying to get between all the humans working the scene to get a look at the main evidence.

“I’d like to look inside the store,” he told Hank. “If he had a desk or some other assigned workspace, it might reveal more about him personally, and why he might have been specifically targeted.”

“Alright,” Hank said. “I’ll get us a key.”

A few minutes later found them being let into the backroom of the store, where extra merchandise was stored and where the desks of the managing staff were located.

One of the desks, they were informed, had been given to the android upon his return to work, since he was to be treated the same as their human employees of similar status.

The surface of it was mostly barren, which wasn’t really strange to Connor. He didn’t plan on putting anything on his own desk, even if Hank had suggested he should, and even if he did, it would take a while to get things he’d be interested in keeping close that way. This android had likely not had his desk long enough to decide anything in particular about what to do with it.

That only made it that much more important that Connor look at it carefully: if he had put anything in or on his desk, it would have been something that was highly significant, enough that it had earned a place of honor close at hand while the android worked.

The top of the desk held only paperwork and other work-related items, the organized workspace of a diligent employee, but the top left drawer held a more successful find.

In his hands, Connor held the photo of a human woman, smiling brightly at the camera. A quick detail analysis showed the reflection in her eyes of the person taking the photo, patches of light lining up rather well with the holographic parts of an android’s default uniform.

The android had taken the photo, then. Likely before the revolution had taken place, even if the photo had only been printed recently.

There was a soft crease at the bottom of the photo that lined up rather well with the image of a thumb pressing down a bit too hard while holding it, but the photo’s surface itself was not otherwise damaged. No oil from the fingertips, then, meaning that the picture belonged to the android and no one else.

Carefully, Connor set the photo aside, looking underneath where it had been. He blinked down at the papers filling the drawer: church pamphlets, a printout on the temporary laws in place for android rights, a self-help novel littered with sticky notes, and several other pieces of miscellaneous research.

The woman in the photo was human, Connor realized, and the android had been intending to marry her.

The crime was not a random act of violence, or an attempt to intimidate the other working androids, or a message that androids would not be welcome in the workplace. This was an act of hate, actively trying to prevent the line between human and android from being smeared away any further.

He needed to tell Hank. He needed to report the cause to the police, so that the investigation could continue. Even if he didn’t feel comfortable presenting it to the other detectives, he had to at least take it to Fowler. Otherwise, he was withholding evidence.

But…

He thought of North’s light teasing. He thought of Hank’s soft smiles and the way he notably had not told Connor he shouldn’t listen to her.

If Connor told them what happened, Hank might decide that humans and androids should not be close, for the sake of safety. If he distanced himself from Connor, hurting their relationship and it’s growth even slightly, Connor would be devastated.

“Connor?” Hank called. “Did you find something?”

He was being ridiculous. He had no reason to think Hank would be at all discouraged from remaining his friend because of one act of violence. Just that morning he’d all but threatened another officer for Connor’s sake, and even if he tried to do something drastic to protect Connor, they could most certainly work past it. The tensions surrounding androids would not last forever, in any case.

Still, though, anxiety ate at him, irrational fear screaming at him not to risk his relationship with Hank, not for any reason.

He shook his head, trying to bring himself back to reality, when a hand landed on his shoulder. The steadiness of Hank’s touch made him realize abruptly that he’d been shaking, and he looked up to meet Hank’s eyes, burning around his eyes telling him he’d been threateningly close to tears.

“Shit,” Hank breathed. “What is it? What’d you find?”

Connor took a deep, steadying breath, using the unnecessary intake of oxygen to re-orient himself. Bringing his body back under his control, he passed the picture to Hank.

“He had a human lover,” Connor said. “That’s why they killed him.”

“Jesus,” Hank muttered. “What fuckin’ assholes. Do you have the girl’s name? She might know more.”

Connor glanced back to the photo, running facial recognition on the image. “Abigail Peters,” he declared. “She is the store manager here.”

“That explains why the store’s been shut down and empty this whole time,” Hank said. “I was wondering where the rest of the staff was. You’d think they’d have dragged them in for questioning.”

“They should have,” Connor said, surprised to hear the bitterness in his own tone. “If the victim were a human, everyone that stepped foot in this store the day of the murder would have been dragged in for immediate questioning.”

Hank didn’t bother to confirm it. They both knew full well it was true.

There was a moment of hesitation, where Connor tried to gather his thoughts and Hank tried to gather his courage, before the human grabbed Connor’s arm, dragging him a step closer and into a hug.

“People are gonna be shitty,” Hank murmured to him. “But someday, they’ll come around. And until then, I’m with you.” He faltered at the end of the sentence, before pausing, leaving Connor with the impression he’d been about to say more and opted not to at the last moment. Instead, he just quietly repeated, “I’m with you.”

Carefully, Connor returned Hank’s hug, fists gripping into the fabric of the back of the man’s jacket.

The world was in chaos, and people hovered on the edge of civil war over the changes Connor had helped bring about, and it would take a long time for things to be okay again.

Standing there, though, with Hank holding him, supporting him, promising to stay by his side…

He could face it. Whatever came to pass, he could take it on with his head held high, because he had Hank at his back.

Chapter Text

Connor normally stepped back to let Hank lead the way through doorways during assignments, just in case the person on the other side was hostile and Hank would need to be able to shoot. In this case, though, he knocked without asking if he wanted to change places. He wanted- no, he needed to see this woman, to meet her and let her know that he understood the severity of her grief.

When Abigail opened the door, he realized he’d not taken the time to consider her feelings. Her eyes went wide and wet, locking on the LED on his temple.

“Are you one of Kasey’s…?”

“No, ma’am,” Connor told her, gently as possible. “We’re from the Detroit Police. We came to ask you a few questions.”

Abigail faltered in the doorway. “You..? They’re actually investigating? They sent an android?”

“They did,” he confirmed. “And I promise to find out what happened, and ensure there is justice done.”

Abigail’s jaw set, watery eyes turning hard. “I know the group that killed him,” she said. “They’ve been harassing us since President Warren announced the new amendment. We…” She shifted, leaning against the doorframe. “We ended up in one of the evacuation centers they’d set up, and they projected the press conference for us all to watch. When the announcement was made, I kissed him. They weren’t happy about it.” She turned teary eyes up to Connor, wide and nearing desperate. “I got him killed. I’m why they hunted him down.”

“That’s not-...” Hank started, but Connor cut in instead.

“It’s not your fault,” he told her. “And...I didn’t know Kasey, and I can’t speak for him, but...I wouldn’t want to miss the chance to love someone because of fear. I’d rather have died in the uprising than been forced to live as a machine, and I’m sure living without the one you love would be just as painful.”

Abigail swallowed, and nodded. “Thank you,” she said. “That...that helps. It’s nice to hear that we weren’t being stupid, like everyone said.”

“The only thing stupid is that someone thought this was enough to justify murder,” Hank said. “And I promise you, they’re gonna pay for it. I’m not gonna let them sweep this one under the rug.”

“You said you know who did it,” Connor said. “Can you tell us who?”

“I can do you one better,” she said. “I can show my proof.”

Hank was going to be sick.

He was going to be sick, and then he was going to kill somebody, and then he’d probably be sick all over again, because this was fucked up.

Kasey’s thirium pump regulator had been torn out - yet another case of ‘the police should have noticed this, if they actually gave a shit’ - and someone had left it at Abigail’s door.

“There are fingerprints,” Connor declared, LED glowing yellow as he scanned it. “They really weren’t worried about anyone looking for them.”

“That’s their mistake,” Hank said. “How many sets can you identify?”

“Just two,” he said. “One set on the end, from taking it out, and another around the center where they carried it. We can determine if there were others involved when we find those two.”

Connor’s shoulders were hunched slightly forward, and Hank was reminded of when he’d found the photo in the desk.

Seeing Connor so openly shaken, trembling under the weight of his own emotional turmoil, had been jarring. Hank had never seen him that way before.

Connor had shown, in the past, that taking a life was something he was highly reluctant to do. Shown it several times, actually. Now that he had embraced his emotions, it was probably just that much worse for him to face death.

Maybe Hank had made a mistake. Maybe working homicide wouldn’t be good for Connor.

Except, when he thought about it, the body hadn’t bothered Connor at all. It was not the death that upset him, but the evidence of life . The thought of all those who were still living that would be affected by this one act. He hadn’t mourned the android personally, he’d mourned that another of his people had been killed for daring to dream of better days.

Maybe working homicide would give Connor the chance to ensure androids were treated fairly by the legal system, giving him something constructive to aim for. Maybe it’d be comforting for him.

Regardless of how he felt about it going forward, Hank would keep an eye out for him. If he thought the job was doing more harm than good, he’d intervene.

Until then, he’d make sure Connor knew he had someone at his back.

“If they hadn’t changed a single law, you’d be faced with destruction of property right now,” Hank told the first of the men they’d apprehended. “So you should have known this wasn’t something you’d get away with, even if you didn’t realize it’d be a murder charge. Which it is, by the way.”

“I broke somebody’s plastic toy,” the man sneered. “If you think anyone’s gonna see that as murder, you’re fuckin’ dumb.”

“See, you say that,” Hank said. “And yet, here I am, a person, investigating this case as a murder, 100% convinced that you are a murderer. If I can see it that way, what makes you think no one else will?”

“Not everybody’s bought into this whole social justice ‘droid-loving thing, old man.” The killer leaned forward on the table in the interrogation room, handcuffs clinking as he moved. “Just because there were too many robots for the military to defeat at once doesn’t mean they’re fuckin’ human now.”

“No,” Hank said. “They’re human because the majority of the country, including the president, realized they’re capable of emotions. Senators and representatives that the people elected to speak for them all managed to agree that this should happen. Say what you want, asshole, but you’re the one in the minority here.”

A beep and a whoosh of air signaled the door to the room opening again, and Hank looked up to see Connor standing there, folding his hands behind his back.

“Oh, you’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me,” the criminal spat. “You’ve got a ‘droid of your own for this, too? Christ. Go to hell, you plastic fuck.”

“Lieutenant Anderson,” Connor said, and Hank nearly corrected him before realizing the title was probably being used for the sake of the killer rather than Connor reverting to old habits. “Both suspects have confessed to their crimes, and insist they acted alone. We’re not getting anything else useful out of them. At this point, it’s up to the jury.”

Hank sighed, pushing up off the table to stand and leave.

“They won’t care,” the man at the table called after him. “Nobody gives a fuck about those things. They don’t matter.”

“Interesting,” Connor said. “We certainly seem to matter to you.”

Hank snorted, dragging Connor out of the room with him before things had a chance to escalate.

“Jesus, Connor,” Hank laughed, once they were clear. “You’re losing all your patience for people’s shit, huh?”

“I’ve never been patient,” Connor countered. “I’ve just been polite.”

“I got news for ya, kid,” Hank said. “You’re not polite.”

Connor smiled at him. “Not to you .”

Fucking hell, Hank loved this goddamn android.

“Hank.”

Connor had stayed entirely silent most of the ride home, to the point where it was almost worrying Hank. He’d never been one for idle chatter, but Connor was usually more animated, even when quiet. He’d look out the windows, or stare at the information readouts on the radio, or fidget, or otherwise show some sign of life.

Connor on this car ride had been staring straight ahead, lips pressed in a thin line and body locked still.

When he finally spoke, Hank let out a harsh sigh of relief. “Thank Christ. I can’t see your LED from here, so I couldn’t tell if you were thinking or if you’d gone and shut down on me.”

Another pause followed his comment, and he worried for a moment that he’d discouraged the android from speaking.

Eventually, though, he started talking again.

“What happens if he was right?” Connor asked, voice quiet and lost. “What if they don’t treat this like a murder?”

“I’m not gonna lie to you,” Hank said. “That’s a possibility. But what would happen would be a shitshow - there would be protests, riots, all sorts of chaos. There’s gonna be a lot of eyes on this case. They’re not gonna be able to throw it out without shit hitting the fan.”

“It was stupid of me not to realize this would happen,” Connor muttered. “I should have known people wouldn’t just accept the change overnight. I should have-...”

“Connor, enough,” Hank cut him off. “You can’t have predicted how people would react, and even if you could, there’s nothing you can do about it. Androids are free now, and they owe that freedom to you. Whatever comes next, you can’t regret that.”

“People are going to die,” Connor said. “There will be so much suffering because of this.”

“Open a history book someday, Connor,” Hank replied. “Every major event comes tagged with a body count. That’s just how humans work: we can’t do anything without killing each other over it first.”

“This wasn’t supposed to be this hard.” Connor stared down at his hands, expression lost. “I don’t know what I thought would happen, but it wasn’t this. I wanted the fight to end.”

“It will,” Hank assured him. “Nothing lasts forever, even if hate makes a solid effort to try.”

When Connor didn’t respond, Hank chanced a sideways glance at his expression.

The android looked like he was debating something.

“What’s on your mind, Connor?” Hank asked. “Talk to me.”

“Hank…” Connor started, before hesitating. “...Nevermind.”

“No, no, tell me.”

“It was more of a question,” Connor admitted. “But it was stupid.”

“You? Asking a stupid question?” Hank shook his head. “What is this world coming to?”

“Alright, fine,” Connor said, sounding almost irritated. “What would you have done if we lost?”

Hank considered it.

Honestly, he couldn’t really picture it. If Connor had failed to free the androids, or if the military had not been recalled at the last second, or if any number of the other billion things that led the revolution to victory had not taken place…where would Hank be?

He just didn’t know.

“I dunno,” he admitted. “There would probably have been a civil war started over it, and the whole country would be fucked, and I’m not sure I wouldn’t have just...quit. You can only see so much of the worst parts of the world before you get fuckin’ sick of lookin’ at ‘em.” A thought occurred to him, and he added, “We should watch a movie.”

“A movie?” Connor echoed, sounding bewildered by the apparent change in topic.

“Yeah,” Hank said. “There’s this old movie that came out in the ‘10s or so, based on a play that’s based on a book that’s based on history, or some shit like that. The title’s French, so I can’t fuckin’ pronounce it, but it’s basically just...people fighting to be free, when the world was shit. And see, if you know the history, you know going in that they’re gonna lose. Their freedom doesn’t come until way after the events the movie is based on. But you still can’t fault them for trying, when you watch it. You support them. They’re going to die, there’s no way around that, but...it has an effect. It makes people start looking at things a little differently, and eventually those looks turn into actions and then we get the French revolution. Or something like that - I’m not a history buff, so don’t quote me on it.” He waved a hand dismissively. “Basically, the point is….even if you don’t succeed, sometimes you just have to try. Even if you’d failed, it would have made history. People would have changed their minds about androids, just like they did when you succeeded. You would have made a difference.”

“...I see,” Connor murmured. “Thank you. I needed to hear that.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Hank said. “Reality checks are my specialty.”

“I thought it was drinking.”

“Now listen here, smartass…”

He turned to scold his partner, only to stop when he saw Connor’s broad, honest smile turned his way.

“...I can be good at both,” he finished, half-hearted as he watch Connor’s head tip back with the force of a laugh.

His passive thought earlier, that he loved Connor, returned, only this time the casual tone of it was lost and he was left dwelling on it in sincerity.

He loved Connor. In what context, he didn’t know, and it didn’t matter.

All he knew was that this android was precious to him, and he’d move mountains to make him happy.

Or punch Reed in the face. Whatever was needed, really.

Chapter Text

They did end up having a movie night, with Hank showing Connor some of his favorite older movies, which Connor was surprised to find he enjoyed. So much so, in fact, that once Hank fell asleep in the midst of one of the films, simply lowered the television’s volume and kept watching them.

Through these, Connor learned a few things: first, most of the comedies were not actually that funny to him, which he figured meant his sense of humor was probably different than most humans. Second, romances in movies seemed to come out of nowhere, which meant he was probably not good at picking up more subtle clues regarding emotions.

These two things combined told him that his relationship with Hank was a miracle . The fact that they got along so well, complimented each other so completely and had such fun being together, that itself was amazing. What was even bigger than that was that Connor knew Hank liked him, knew they were friends, beyond shadow of a doubt.

Maybe he shouldn’t keep weighing his relationship with Hank against romantic pairs, but he really didn’t have a lot of references to draw from. He was reaching a point where he wasn’t even sure he cared what they were to each other or how someone else would see them. Hank was the most important part of Connor’s life, it was simple as that.

Still, though…

The latest movie reached its conclusion, the main characters embracing as they shared the kiss the credits would roll over, and Connor’s LED blinked as he remotely paused the video.

Carefully, he backed up, frame by frame, until he was at the moment before the kiss. The moment where they were smiling at each other, happy with their victories throughout the movie’s story and celebrating with each other because they were in love.

Connor didn’t know if he’d like kissing, should he ever try it. He had no idea if holding someone’s hand would be nice, or if he would be interested in things like dates and romantic gestures. He had nothing to go on, there.

But looking at these two actors grinning at each other, their characters radiating love and warmth, he decided that that was something he wanted. He wanted to be able to show how much he loved someone.

‘Someone.’ He shook his head, shutting off the TV, and admitted it to himself: he meant Hank.

He pushed himself up to stand, and gently moved to pick Hank’s feet up and stretch the man out on the couch. With Hank settled, he moved about the living room, cleaning up the slight mess they’d left from Hank eating dinner in front of the TV and making sure everything was properly shut down and secured for the night, and then returned to Hank’s side.

Staring down at the sleeping man, Connor wondered what reaction he’d get if he were to bring Hank these feelings directly.

Maybe he’d chance it, at some point, when the idea scared him a little less.

For now, he crouched at Hank’s side, nudging him awake to coax him into bed.

It would be a while before he could talk himself into changing this easy relationship between them, even for good. It was hard to think of anything that could be better than this.

The next day brought good news to Hank and Connor: the confessions of both criminals involved in the murder were recorded and submitted to the judge, and as such, no trial needed to be held. Instead, they’d just have a hearing for sentencing, and go directly into whatever punishment was assigned.

The bad news that came with this wasn’t actually necessarily bad, but had the potential to be: Hank didn’t know the judge. A new judge in their district or one who was relatively unknown would be tempted to use a case this high profile to make a name for themselves and send a message regarding their stance on anti-android crime, which could either mean very good things for them or very, very bad things.

When Hank shared this with Connor, the android took to pacing nervously next to their desks.

“Even if the punishment is severe,” Connor said, LED spinning yellow and even occasionally blinking to red. “It could have an adverse effect on the tension against androids. If humans feel that this case is being treated as a political stunt…”

“I’d rather have people complaining they were too harsh than let them think they can get away with this shit,” Hank said. “Michigan doesn’t have the death penalty for anything short of treason, so I say go nuts. Fuck ‘em up.”

“This is a case of federal interest,” Connor said. “They could argue for technicalities, and override Michigan’s death penalty laws.”

“You think they’d pull a Gabrion on this one?” Hank asked. “They aren’t serial killers, Connor, it’ll be hard to justify that.”

“But what if-...”

“Connor,” Hank said, reaching out to hook a hand around Connor’s elbow, dragging the android closer. “Relax. It’s out of our hands now. Whatever happens, happens. We’ll deal with it as it comes.”

Connor blinked down at his partner, and Hank was relieved to see his LED finally settle back to blue. “I don’t want them to get away with this,” he admitted, voice low and shaken.

“Me neither,” Hank said. “But worrying about it won’t do anything but stress us out. After the hearing, we can deal with the fallout of whatever the judge decides. Until then…” He released Connor’s elbow, jutting a thumb over his shoulder, toward the door. “I’m getting a burger. You comin’?”

“Whoa, hey,” Gary greeted them when they arrived at the Chicken Feed food truck. “No offense, but I did not expect to see you again.”

Considering their first meeting had consisted of Gary referring to him as ‘that thing,’ Connor decided the ‘no offense’ was significant progress. “Understandable. It was highly probable that I would die during the revolution.”

“No, I mean,” Gary waved a hand. “I meant, like, you specifically. I figured you guys would all team up and fuck off to, I dunno, make your own state or something. I didn’t expect you to still be on Anderson’s heels.”

Connor gave a small smile. “Unfortunately, I’ve decided I like him.”

“Unfortunately for who, jackass?” Hank asked, stepping up behind Connor. “And don’t think I didn’t notice you trying to get here first. Gary, if he said anything about my food, ignore it. This asshole changes the whole world and then thinks he has the right to change my diet.”

The food truck operator snorted, pushing up off his counter. “Shit, Anderson, you got a wife?”

“‘Wife’ implies I’m having more fun than I am.”

Connor moved to reply - specifically, to remind Hank that he had no objection to the other activities typically expected of a spouse - but Hank just dropped a hand over his mouth.

“I’m joking,” Hank insisted. “Relax.”

“I wasn’t upset,” Connor corrected his assumption, when he moved his hand away. “I was going to remind you that I have offered to change that.”

“Okay, I’m gonna make a burger for ya, Hank,” Gary said, turning around behind the counter. “And just ignore this whole conversation.”

Hank pointed a warning finger at Connor. “And I told you not to keep trying to do analysis on my spit.”

Despite his promise to ignore them, Gary turned back at that, raising an eyebrow. “Androids can do that?”

“I can,” Connor informed him. “I’m a prototype.”

“...Cool,” Gary said. “I guess. That must be helpful with the whole CSI thing you’ve got goin’ on.”

“That was the intention.”

“Take a compliment, douchebag,” Gary told him, but his tone was light, so Connor decided to assume he was still joking. At least, he hoped. He’d hate to leave a bad impression on those Hank considered to be friends.

It occurred to him, then, that he really didn’t have any social interaction outside of Hank, with the exception of Markus and North checking on him the once.

Maybe he should contact them again, and see about making friends with them. Hank had gotten upset when he thought Connor was trying to limit his life to the lieutenant alone, so he would probably approve of the android branching out a little.

Plus, he still needed to ask what exactly they’d been after. There was a chance they really had just wanted to see what he was up to following the Senate’s decision, but there was also a chance that he had cut off their opportunity to say something important.

As he followed Hank to the table in front of the truck again, the man having collected his food while Connor was lost in thought, he made the decision that he would need to look into that at some point.

For now, though…

“That has over one thousand milligrams of sodium.”

“For fuck’s sake, Connor-...”

When they reached home that afternoon, Connor immediately headed to the door, mind already building a checklist of tasks: dinner, house maintenance, caring for Sumo, all the things he needed to do for the evening.

This distracted mental calculation left him startled when something slammed into his back.

Well, ‘slammed’ was probably a bit severe of a word. It was an impact, but a light one, and the only thing really offensive about it was how extremely cold it was, even through his sweater.

He turned, bewildered, to see Hank laughing, his hand extended out. Quick analysis showed traces of snow along his fingers, and he realized the man had thrown a snowball at him.

“You should see your face,” Hank laughed out. “Priceless.”

Connor let the man hunch over, hands on his knees as he continued to laugh, and then made his move. It took a lot of effort to keep the temperature of his hands controlled enough to not immediately start melting the snow, but he had the advantage of lacking oils on his hands, as well as being able to disable temperature sensitivity in them. As a result, within moments, he had a nearly perfectly spherical snowball in his hands.

He admired it for a fraction of a second, before watching it smack into the top of Hank’s head with a petty satisfaction.

“Ah!” the man shouted, straightening up, hands going up to brush the snow out of his hair. “Oh, it’s on, now.”

Connor took a half-step back, prepared to find cover in Hank’s yard should the snowball fight escalate, but Hank didn’t throw another. Instead, he rushed forward, catching Connor by surprise as he tackled the android into the snow.

Connor gasped as he hit the ground, quickly rushing to switch off his temperature sensitivity before the chill had a chance to bother him too much.

“Cold, huh?”

“I can turn it off,” Connor reminded him. “You can’t.”

Hank’s eyes widened just in time for Connor to flip them, sinking Hank’s back into the snow instead.

“Shit!” he cried out, but there was laughter in it, even as his teeth sharted to chatter. “Okay, okay, I give. Let me up.”

Connor relented, but not until picking up a little bit more snow in one hand, and dropping it back into Hank’s face.

“Don’t start fights,” Connor suggested. “I will win them.”

“Is that right?” Hank laughed, pushing up out of the snow. “I’ll keep that in mind, Mr.-...”

And here was the thing that had them pausing: Connor had not actually gotten up, just sat back on his heels. Which meant that he was still stradling Hank’s legs, and now the man was sitting up enough they were face-to-face, sitting in the snow, the human flushed and smiling and the android giving him a smug smile mere inches from his face.

“Um,” Hank started, the stopped, then tried again. “I…”

Connor blinked, and tipped his head, curious at Hank’s sudden stall. “Yes?”

“I…” Hank took a harsh breath through his teeth. “Ah, fuck it.”

With that, he brought his hands up to cup Connor’s cheeks, and brought the android in for a long-awaited kiss.

Finally, he thought, as they made contact.

Fucking finally.

Chapter Text

Connor’s immediate reaction to Hank’s lips making contact with his own was to completely stall out mentally, all thought suspended, his only comprehension limited to processing what a kiss felt like.

Unfortunately, before he had the chance to recover his thoughts, it was over, and Hank was looking at him with an expression that seemed just shy of nervous.

They stared at each other for a long moment in a tense, heavy silence.

“...I shouldn’t have-...”

“I liked that.”

Hank froze at Connor’s interruption. “You did?”

“It surprised me,” Connor said. “But yes. I like being close to you like this, too.”

It took Hank a second, but then he looked between them, at how Connor was still sitting astride his lap, and flushed. “Yeah, let’s, uh. Let’s get out of the snow.”

Connor stood without protest, extending a hand down to help Hank up.

Hank took it, pulling himself up...and then didn’t fully release it, just shifted his grip on Connor’s hand to drag him along into the house. Connor was happy to follow, knowing that they were probably about to have an important conversation, and excited to see what new changes to their relationship this revelation would bring.

He liked having Hank hold his hand, too.

In the house, Hank released him, and then focused his attention on shedding his jacket and brushing off the snow still clinging to him. Sumo, happy to see them as always, immediately started licking snow off of the leg of Hank’s jeans.

“Thanks for the help, buddy,” Hank told him, patting him on the head. “But that’s probably gross.”

“I could analyze-...”

“No,” Hank scolded immediately. “Christ. My life is gonna be full of chasing you two down to make sure you’re not putting shit in your mouth.” He shifted for a moment, before looking to Connor. “I’m gonna go change real quick. Be right back.”

Connor gave a single, short nod, and waited for Hank to round the corner to head down the hallway. The second he was gone, the android crouched down to the floor, reaching out to pet Sumo.

“He kissed me,” Connor told the dog in a low murmur, almost giddy with the realization that that had really happened. “We kissed, Sumo.”

Hesitating in the hallway at the overheard gushing, Hank smiled to himself, shaking his head. At least he knew how Connor felt about it.

When Hank returned in his dry sleepwear, Connor had moved to the kitchen, and made a cup of coffee for him.

“Oh, shit, thanks,” Hank said, accepting the cup. “Christ, I’m too old to roll around in the snow. Why’d you let me do that?”

“I-...”

“I’m joking,” Hank said immediately. “I know full well I started it, and I’m not actually upset.”

Connor gave him a wry smile. “I was going to say that, even if it was uncomfortable, I would have trouble feeling bad about it.”

The implied return to topic had Hank’s eyes darting about the room as his sipped his coffee, letting the warmth of the drink mask the warmth building under his skin.

“...You said you liked it?” he ventured, tentative. “I, uh. Wasn’t sure. I kind of just... did it, without thinking.”

“I liked it,” Connor confirmed. Then, a bit more pointedly, he added, “I like you.”

Hank took a long drink of his coffee to avoid having to find an answer to that.

“Hank,” Connor said, voice losing a bit of humor. Hank looked back to him to lock eyes with the android, who looked entirely serious. “I told you once that I am whatever you want me to be, and that still stands.”

Hank scowled. “You’re a person, Connor, not just a tool. You deserve to do what you want, not what I want from you.”

“And what I want is to be with you,” Connor insisted. “I don’t care what form that takes. I like being close to you. I like touching you. I now know I like kissing you. I don’t have to have those things, if you don’t want them, but I want whatever you are willing to give, and I will give my best in return.”

Hank swallowed, eyes slowly sliding back across the room to stare at a fixed point on the wall, as he tried to bury his awkwardness with another drink of coffee.

The mug was empty. Traitor.

“I wonder how pissed off people will get,” Hank murmured. “If I just turned up with an android boyfriend. Gay and inter-species? What’s this world coming to?”

“Is that what you want from me?”

Hank looked back to Connor. “Okay, I’m gonna say this once, alright? What I want isn’t what you should be basing your choices on. What do you want?”

“You,” Connor answered, immediately, making Hank choke. “In whatever form you’re willing to allow.”

Hank sat his mug on the table, to get it out of the way, and turned back to Connor, pulling the android in for another kiss in answer.

Connor didn’t have human instinct to know how to respond, but analyzing and responding to human behavior was his primary function, and so it was easy to meet Hank’s movements with ones of his own. Hank’s hands settled on him, one on his hip and the other hooking around the back of his head to drag him closer, and Connor responded by putting his arms around Hank and clutching the back of his shirt like a lifeline.

After what could have been seconds, or years, Hank pulled back.

“I, uh,” he hesitated, then started again. “You’re really important to me. If you want, I’d like to be like this. With you. Boyfriends, or whatever.” He shifted in Connor’s hold. “Christ, I’m way too old for this.”

“I would like that,” Connor said. “I’ve been considering the idea for a while, actually, but I’m glad you asked first. I’m not sure I would have done it right.”

Hank’s brain skipped like a scratched record. “You what?”

“I told you that North advised me to kiss you,” Connor pointed out. “I wasn’t joking.”

“You’ve been thinking about it that long?” Hank asked, incredulous. “You could have told me, you know. That would have made things a lot easier.”

“This is a relatively new thing for you, then?”

Hank hesitated.

“I see,” Connor said, voice inching toward teasing, a smile threatening at the corners of his mouth. “You weren’t willing to risk it, but think I should have. Are an android’s feelings not as important, Hank?”

“Not this one,” Hank answered. “This one’s an asshole.”

“It must be defective,” Connor quipped. “Perhaps it’s a deviant.”

Hank dragged Connor forward for another kiss, taking a moment to murmur a gentle “Dork,” against his lips.

Connor made a noise of protest, but did not break the kiss to otherwise complain, so Hank counted it as a win.