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Hank Anderson currently had a problem, and not just any problem—he had an android problem.
That probably sounded bad, but it wasn’t the same kind of android problem he had had several months ago. Back then, his problems had included, in no particular order: whether his Detroit team would bash the other team in their way to advancing to the semi-finals, where he would be getting his next drink from, and fucking androids—and not in the sexual way.
At least in that way, he’d still be getting his rocks off.
No, but Hank had come a long way from the bitter, lonely, discriminating man he’d long since become accustomed to. After losing his son, his flesh and blood and the only good thing Hank had ever had the pleasure of making, he’d fallen into a downward spiral he was unable to crawl out of. And how could he when he had no one there to help him? No one there to keep him from falling?
For years, it was Hank scrambling to find his next outlet from the pain, whether that was in the form of the swishy alcoholic drinks he’d become fond of or his personal collection of homemade anti-android sticky notes he’d hung up around the house and his workplace to make himself feel better, to remind him that there was a reason he was so bitter.
Imagine his fucking surprise when his reckoning came in the form of the very thing he despised, the very thing he blamed for his son’s demise and his own dreary life: an android.
When Connor was first assigned to accompany Hank on the deviancy case, Hank thought the world was funny. By funny, he meant fucking cruel, and that it liked to play tricks with him, liked to remind him of everything wrong in his life. For sure, if there were anybody up there pulling the strings on life, they would have been laughing at him as Connor came to him in Jimmy’s Bar that night.
But they weren’t going to get to Hank. Nope. He was going to do his job, he was going to use this android with their specialization in detective work, and he was going to wrap up the deviancy case as quick as he could so he could get the fuck away from that android and all the fucking androids he had to encounter along the way.
That was the plan, at least, but Hank was a fool to think that anything about this case was going to go his way.
Hank can pinpoint the exact moment his mind began to jumble up and reject all of his negative emotions attached to androids. It was a swift moment, a moment right before he thought death would surely, finally, take him. He thought he’d been ready for the end, had wished for it day in and day out, but when he was hanging over the ledge of that building after that damn pigeon-loving android tossed him over, he suddenly realized that he’d been wrong. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t think he had much to live for, but biting the bullet and giving up, giving himself over to his maker once and for all, terrified him all of a sudden, and he found himself swinging his other arm up to clasp onto the ledge with both hands, not wanting to let go just yet.
He probably could have pulled himself up after he made that life-altering, split second decision, but he was suddenly given no choice as warm hands suddenly grabbed a hold of him and pulled his heavy body up as easily as if they were picking up a child. Hank was pulled over the ledge by his android. No, not his android. His partner. Connor.
Connor saved him.
That damned maniac android had run off because Connor chose to save Hank, and maybe he should have been mad about that. This case had been getting crazier by the second, and he wanted more than anything for it to be done with, but how could he be mad at Connor for choosing to save him over finishing his precious investigation? How could he be mad because Connor had acted so … humanely?
The short answer was he couldn’t.
After that profoundly eye-opening experience, Hank had come to two conclusions.
One: he didn’t really long for death like he thought he did. Life was hard, but there were still some things worth living for.
And two: maybe there was something more to this deviancy case than he’d originally thought. Maybe he’d been missing the point.
Suddenly, when he sat at his desk and read those pessimistic sticky notes calling for the destruction of androids, his stomach twisted with something ugly, a hard clenching that made him feel wrong encompassing him entirely, and he wasn’t going to say it was guilt, but by that evening, those anti-android slogans plastering the cork board at his desk were in the fucking trash.
The case had gone on, and as he and Connor continued to search for answers to all the wrong questions, his mind-set had begun changing. No longer was Connor just the android sent by CyberLife to assist him in tracking down deviants. He was his fucking partner, and they’d saved each other over and over again during this high-stakes case. He hadn’t been expecting that aspect of it, the emotional aspect that sprung up by no will of his own. But it was pretty hard not for Hank to grow almost fond of the android as their relationship flourished.
No, not just an android, but a guy. Connor was just a guy. A guy who didn’t have a clue about himself or what being human meant, but he was definitely on his way to figuring that out.
Hank wasn’t dumb. He hadn’t become Detroit’s youngest lieutenant by skimming below the radar and doing the bare minimum. He was smart and incredibly attentive to detail, and when Connor had begun acting like a regular damn person with emotions and feelings, it wasn’t lost on him. Whenever the boy made a split-second decision and always ended up on the human side of things, Hank encouraged it. He praised him for it, even.
It was the right thing to do, and Connor clearly needed some guiding. The poor boy was sticking everything in his damn mouth just for kicks and looking so confused when he couldn’t understand why he was feeling a certain type of way. Every confused furrow of Connor’s eyebrows just brought out the softest feelings within Hank, and he thought it was pretty inevitable when he started actually caring for the boy.
Maybe it was because Hank was a dad that he felt this sort of protectiveness of Connor. Cole was gone, that was true, but just because his son was gone didn’t mean Hank was gone; not anymore. Connor’s innocence and childlike curiosity was stirring up long dormant feelings within him, and Hank realized that he was still a dad, even if he didn’t have his son with him anymore.
Whatever it was, by the time he and Connor wrapped up their investigation, he wasn’t so lonely anymore. He didn’t go home begging for death anymore, he didn’t drink himself to the point of being blackout drunk—as much—and he’d even begun to smile a bit more. There were still things in this world worth smiling about, he’d found.
Hank was a new man these days, and he had to give fucking credit where it was due—it was all because of Connor.
That kid had gotten under Hank’s skin by disobeying orders and showing Hank that he wasn’t one to be bossed around, he came to Hank’s rescue when nobody asked him to, and he’d gone through his own life-altering experience by breaking free from the top brass at CyberLife and fighting for his people, for himself.
Hank wouldn’t ever tell anyone how proud he felt of Connor in the end, but anyone worth knowing this fact didn’t need to be told: Connor just knew, he was sure of it.
After the android rebellion had come to a tense head right on the streets of Detroit, Hank had met up with Connor at only the finest dining establishment this side of Detroit had to offer. But Hank wasn’t there for the food, not this time. He only picked that spot because it was a comfort zone for him, a place he went to unwind and enjoy all the greasy, unhealthy shit he probably shouldn’t be eating, but who gave a damn? Not Hank, that was for damn sure. Connor might have cared, but could he really understand when he’d never had the pleasure of eating a fat, meaty hamburger from Chicken Feed? He didn’t think so.
Seeing Connor come back to him that morning was a sight Hank would remember with every last fiber of his being. It had been snowing, and the snow had been sprinkling around them in the early morning hours. It was kind of like sending your kid off to college and having them come back home for the summer.
Connor had done his business, he’d done his part in helping to free his people, and the first person he’d wanted to see when it was all over was Hank. It was unbelievable to him, honestly. He’d been a bit worried that Connor would have found people, people like him, people that could show him a good time and be happy and friendly all the time.
Hank couldn’t do that for Connor, not really. He was blunt and harbored too much sarcasm and dark humor for Connor to fully understand, and he couldn’t tell Connor all the things he was feeling. How he was proud of him for coming into his own person, how he cared about him a hell of a lot, how Connor always had a place at his home because he’d begun to see Connor as something more than a friend. Something a bit like family.
He couldn’t tell Connor any of this because he didn’t know how. He’d never been one for words, always finding that actions spoke louder, so that’s what he did. Instead of inviting Connor to come and live with him and having to explain why he was propositioning this, he’d simply came up with some bum excuse to get him in the door, something about wanting to see Sumo because that damn dog missed Connor.
All of these events, starting from when Connor first tore him away from Jimmy’s Bar with a free drink, all the way to meeting up outside Chicken Feed—this all led to his current problem.
His android problem.
Hank was a betting man, and if someone had bet him a year ago all his money that he’d ever end up sharing a space with a fucking android, Hank would be flat out broke right now—because that’s exactly what he was doing.
Who would have known that his problem wasn’t figuring out how to get an android away from him, but how to keep one around?