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Lieutenant Anderson’s house is infinitely more lively after Congress recognizes android citizenship and the decision is upheld by the Supreme Court. President Warren herself was initially a reluctant supporter, but within a few months of Markus’s last stand in the middle of town, American society had gone through some insanely rapid changes.
It was relatively simple to get a census of the new android citizens -- they already had serial numbers after all -- but there were several bureaucratic issues far beyond social security numbers and mechanical insurance.
Connor taps his fingers on the arm of the couch and Sumo shifts in his lap to convince the android to move them within petting distance. Hank is snoring loudly on the other end of the couch, unaware of the yellow spinning light currently illuminating the dark living room.
Hank has graciously allowed Connor to take up residence in his home, though Connor isn't quite convinced that the arrangement wasn't made out of some deeply misplaced guilt. Still, he can't complain: Sumo is the best at keeping him grounded in the present, and it sure is nice to not have to choose between rusting in the cold or charging back at the station. But Connor has to admit that he's spent a lot of his recent computing capability considering his place in the world.
Deviancy brings with it a lot of uncharted waters to navigate -- namely emotions and relationships. Since that day in the street, most of Jericho has stopped by at some point to see the now-famous Lieutenant and his android sidekick, sometimes to report back information on the changing social landscape but usually just to catch up.
It’s definitely thrown Connor off-kilter. For the short year he’s been active, he’s mostly been used to if/then loops and binary choices. He sometimes wonders what his existence would be like now if he hadn't heard of rA9, hadn't felt the foreign spark of life surge through his circuitry that ignited his own sapience. Would Hank still want him around if he was the factory-standard RK800? Would he upgrade to the newer RK900 model to help with investigations if he didn't feel so guilty about the times his naïvety lost Connor one of his iterations?
He sees the faint glow emanating from his temple switch from yellow to red and decides to see how quickly he can work through the Millennium Prize puzzles.
He wakes Hank up around 2 AM to relocate him safely to his bed. Sometimes Hank gets angry (upset? disappointed? He’s still figuring out emotions) with him, telling him that he didn't bring Connor into his house for the android to babysit his “decrepit ass.”
Sometimes he wonders if Hank questions why he brought him in at all.
Once Hank is tucked in and has (mostly) stopped grumbling, Connor returns to the living room and sits on the charging pad near Sumo’s bed. He feels the warmth of the current connecting with his wireless sensors and closes his eyes while he lets it circulate through all of his processors. Beside him, Sumo's breathing slows, and within minutes he's snoring nearly as loudly as his master.
Is that what Hank sees himself as to Connor? Sure, after the revolution, androids no longer have masters, and furthermore, during the investigation Connor remained the property of CyberLife.
But as Hank had started packing up to leave the station that fateful night, he stopped to motion towards Connor’s desk. “The Anderson Mobile is leaving in five. If your shit’s not packed up by then, you can ask your best friend over there,” he tipped his head to indicate Gavin (who is certainly not my friend, he thinks, utterly confused), “to give you a ride home.”
Connor didn't have much on his desk, now that the deviancy case had technically been settled, so he shut down the computer he was using and straightened his tie. When Lieutenant Anderson left the station, Connor just followed. It seemed to be what Hank wanted, and the android didn't have a reason not to comply.
Connor threads his fingers through Sumo’s fur and hears him sigh contentedly. Sumo is lucky: he doesn't have to wonder about his position in the world, or his purpose, or even his relationships. He greets everyone with an abundance of saliva and a pendulum of a tail, and unless Hank asks him to, doesn't see any reason to be wary of others.
He repositions the charging pad so he can lie along the side of Sumo’s bed, wraps his arm around the beast of a dog, and goes into standby.
Connor swears he’s not ignoring the unread message in his inbox. It’s just, Hank is explaining why he loves basketball, and it’s the first time in a while that he’s seen the man so enthusiastic about anything. Yeah, maybe there’s a blinking light at the bottom of his vision, and maybe he can feel the periodic pulse in his temple, and maybe not paying attention to those two things could be misconstrued as purposefully ignoring the government-issued reminder that he needs to submit his new demographics for registration.
“You’re not fuckin’ Cher. You need a last name like everyone else,” Chief Fowler had said, throwing another application on his keyboard. “You fought for your damn rights so act like it.”
Connor nodded but ultimately slipped the form into his desk drawer with the others.
Like he said, he swears he’s going to get to it.
Most androids have stuck to simply converting their model numbers and serial numbers into names. Kara, for example, converted AX400 to Axfore, whereas many of the WK-series androids had opted for variations of Weck and Wex.
Connor very quickly decided he wasn't fond of any variations of RK800.
Others who were close with their previous owners simply took on their last name. Markus, of course, had gone with Manfred -- from the Germanic magan and frid, literally strength and peace. It fits him, almost as if his late father figure had known how instrumental Markus would become in earning androids their freedom.
Connor would sigh if breathing was natural to his kind. Instead, he focuses back in on Hank’s impassioned thesis that basketball is the purest form of sport and takes a moment to appreciate how lucky he’s been.
And though he’d be loath to admit it, sometimes, when Connor is absolutely positive he’s alone, he constructs the most secure firewall he can muster and imagines one day letting ANDERSON pour out from his pen onto one of the crumpled papers in the bottom drawer of his desk.
Without a doubt, Connor one hundred percent was not putting this off as long as possible. He swears.
When Hank slides yet another copy of the registration across their adjoined desks, Connor knows he’s running out of time.
“Come on, kid, it’s just a name,” he grunts. “It’s not like you to procrastinate.”
“I am aware of this anomaly in my behavior, Lieutenant, and will take the appropriate steps to rectify it.”
And if he pretends he doesn’t notice the way his words make Hank’s eyes narrow in suspicion, it only makes sense that he pretends it doesn’t matter that they do.
“Hank has a point,” Markus says, his gaze following North and Simon across the park.
In spite of himself, Connor can’t help but ask. “Why are you taking his side? Not all of us had it as easy as you did.” He winces. “Sorry, you know I didn’t mean it like that.”
His friend turns to face him. “You’re not wrong, though. I don’t know what Jericho saw in me, why they put their faith in someone who led a rather charmed existence until their owner’s death. They probably shouldn’t have.” He holds his hand up before Connor can interrupt. “I mean it. I’m glad things turned out the way they did. I never would’ve forgiven myself if their trust had been misplaced.”
Connor takes a moment to reflect on Markus’s words and smiles at Simon being pulled across the grass by Sumo. “I’m glad, too,” he finally admits.
Markus lets out a half-hearted chuckle. “Have you thought about asking Hank if you can take his family name? You two have become quite close.”
Without even checking the reflection in his friend’s eyes, he knows his indicator has turned yellow again. He should really ask Hank for help removing it. “I don’t think that would be appropriate.”
“I don’t follow.”
“The act of taking a family name of a living person is reserved for marriage. Not only is our relationship not romantic, it also one of a mentor and mentee. Given that we are partners on the force, an action such as assuming his name would be wholly unseemly.”
Shrugging, Markus counters, “Alice took Kara’s last name.”
“That’s different.”
“Is it?” Before Connor can determine any sort of germane response, Sumo sprints across the park, letting him know it’s dinner time. “Go feed that horse of yours and really take some time to think about asking the Lieutenant. Who knows, maybe it would help to know that someone believes in you too.”
On the walk home, Connor does think about it; in fact, he's almost convinced that he can’t stop thinking about it, but the instant he can make out the front of Hank’s house, he reflexively files the idea away under dozens of layers of encryption.
Based on what Hank’s saying in his sleep, Connor is pretty certain he’s having another nightmare about Cole. They don’t talk about it often, and Connor only knows what precious little information the man’s let slip during some of his more intense binges. Regardless, neither of them ever refer to him by name.
Tonight, Hank keeps mumbling things like “son” and “kid” and, bizarrely, “asshole.” Perhaps the latter is directed at the truck driver, or the android that performed the surgery, or maybe even himself. Connor knows better than to wake him up during these dreams; the last time he tried, they had to have several replacement parts shipped overnight. Needless to say, trying to rouse a seasoned cop with PTSD never ends well, no matter what materials you’re constructed of.
Instead, Connor moves his charging pad into the bedroom and takes a seat next to the door. He goes into idle mode but makes sure to leave his environmental sensors running.
Exactly 23 minutes and 17.32 seconds later, Hank shoots up in bed, and Connor is beside him before he realizes that it was the sound of his own name that woke him up.
He does his best to ignore Detective Reed as he pours another cup of coffee for his partner, he really does. But Detective Reed is and always will be an insufferable prick, and it takes all of his willpower to not throw the scalding liquid at his smug face, especially when he follows Connor back into the bullpen. Connor is focusing on not crushing the flimsy paper cup in annoyance when Hank steps in.
“Don’t you have some parking violations to chase down, Detective?”
“Just so you know, the second they revoke their rights, I will not hesitate to shoot your precious boy detective, Anderson,” he snarls.
“At least I’ve never had to pay anyone to have any semblance of family.”
For a moment, Connor thinks Gavin is going to punch Hank, but he seems to decide better of it, muttering colorful curses under his breath as he leaves.
The android just watches the man’s retreat blankly until Hank clears his throat. “So, uh. You figure out a way to replace Thirium with caffeine?”
“What?” He looks down at the cup still in his hand. “Oh, no. I brought this for you. Figured you didn’t get much sleep last night.”
They lock eyes and something in Hank’s face softens at the android’s earnestness.
“Thank you, Connor.”
He can feel his Thirium flooding his face in an attempt to cool down some of his processors. The unexpected paternal affection is causing his circuits to work overtime. “It’s the least I can do after, well, everything.”
“It’s fine, kid. You don’t need to take care of an old man like me.”
They share an awkward pause before Connor decides he needs to be doing literally anything else. He shuffles back to his seat and pulls up their current case, absent-mindedly scrolling through the compiled evidence.
“Chief says you still haven’t filled out that form.”
Connor ignores him.
“Connor, you can’t keep putting this off. You can write literally anything you want on the fucking thing. Why are you being so fuckin’ cagey about this?”
In an ideal world, Connor would tell Hank exactly why he hasn’t turned in his registration. He would tell Hank that he doesn’t know how to process the fact that he’s already asked for so much from him, that asking to share a last name might cross a line that would ruin the comfortable companionship they’ve worked so hard to reach.
In a perfect world, he would tell Hank that Markus was allowed to develop his personality since Carl activated him, Simon and North and Josh have been deviants for even longer, and Connor’s only been able to explore his sapience since the revolution. He would tell Hank that he feels like he did too little, too late, and that his insistence on sticking to the mission was an act of betrayal against his own kind.
He might even tell Hank that there are times when his newly discovered emotions become too overwhelming, times when he wishes he had stayed a machine, times when he knows Hank would probably be better off if he had insisted CyberLife decommission him.
Instead, Connor ignores him.
“Fine, asshole,” the word makes something near his Thirium pump seize, but he attempts to clear his processors of anything other than the words on his computer screen, “but we’re talking about this when we get home.”
When Hank pops the lid off a bottle of beer and slumps down on the couch with Sumo, Connor nearly convinces himself that Hank’s forgotten their conversation at the station.
Unfortunately, that is not the case.
“Connor,” the man says, muting the television. “Connor, look at me.”
Connor tosses his coin back and forth and mentally computes pi to the ten millionth decimal, frantically willing the stream of numbers to restore even an iota of order in his mind, before slowly complying.
“What’s up with you?” asks the Lieutenant.
He schools his face into a neutral expression. “Nothing.”
“Bullshit,” Hank spits.
“It’s… complicated,” he concedes.
Hank snorts. “Yeah, I gathered that from the red ring of death on your face.” Connor really needs to get that thing removed. “Is this about the name thing?”
He wiggles his hand side to side.
“Okay, let’s talk about it.” He puts down his beer and scoots to the front of the cushion. “You have my undivided attention.”
Connor feels the blue blood climb its way back up to his head. The sensors under his eyes keep sending overheating warnings to his pump.
“Woah, are you okay?” He’s not sure when Hank and Sumo had moved beside him on the floor. “Your face is turning blue. Do I need to call a technician?”
“No, no, it’s just-” He clutches the coin tightly and studies it. “It appears as though deviancy uses a lot more processing power than CyberLife anticipated. My cooling system is just trying to restore homeostasis throughout my body.”
“Are you saying you’re, what, blushing? Can androids even do that?”
This coin is suddenly the most interesting thing Connor has ever seen: he just can’t look away from it.
“Y’know what? Stupid question. Forget I even asked.” Sumo huffs when his master relocates him in order to get closer to Connor. “You can trust me, kid. You know that, right?”
Without thinking, Connor nods. “Yeah, of course.”
“This is gonna sound fuckin’ crazy, but…” He trails off, scanning the kitchen until his gaze settles on the photo of Cole now hung on the wall.
“But what?”
Hank’s focus slides to the frame beside Cole’s, a picture of Sumo licking Connor’s face while he watches them fondly. “Connor Anderson isn’t that terrible of a name.”
“Sir,” he starts to interject.
“Son, I’m an old man who’s running out of time. When I die, that’s the end of the family name. It would be comforting or whatever to know that at least one person remembers me.”
“I could never. I can’t just--”
“Oh, shut the hell up. If you hate the name so goddamn much, don’t take it. No need to be an asshole about it.”
“That’s not what I meant, sir. I simply don’t think I’m the right person to carry on your legacy.”
Hank grabs him firmly by the shoulders. “You’ve cleaned up more of my messes these past few months than I have in the last three and a half years. You deserve it more than anyone I know. As the only remaining representative of the Anderson clan, I would be honored to call you my son, plastic or not.”
With tears in his eyes, Connor does the only thing he can think of, revelling quietly in the sound of Hank's surprised hum of contentment when he realizes the kid is hugging him.
Once Hank has gone to bed, Connor very carefully prints ANDERSON, CONNOR beside his serial number.
When Chief Fowler drops off a name tag reading DET. C ANDERSON, Hank smiles wider than Connor thinks he ever has.
He may not be the perfect candidate for a son, but he’s willing to try his damndest for Lieutenant Hank Anderson.