Chapter Text
His head full of analyzing data from multiple cases, completing legal forms, and other mind-numbing paperwork, Connor’s processors had redirected resources from his visual input and external recognition processes.
Meaning: he didn’t know Detective Gavin Reed was in the DPD’s breakroom. He didn’t see the man, head down, perusing his phone’s screen and leaning with his back to the counter that housed the coffee machine.
Connor didn’t see Reed look up at the sound of dress shoe soles kissing the freshly mopped floor still sticky with residue cleaner.
Or the scowl that twisted the man’s formerly blank features.
Or the empty stare change to a glare.
“The ph—
Preoccupied, Connor brushed aside the startled human and swung open the cabinet door located just level with Reed’s head.
Gavin had no time and no chance to avoid the hard plastic door. It clipped him in the side of his head. The double assault—and probably the blow to the head—staggered him back half a pace, hand to head, the other on the counter for balance as he recovered from the explosion of stars in his vision and the ringing in his ears.
“The hell is your problem?!”
Connor’s features regained alertness and he realized the circumstances immediately.
Apologies were required. “Sorry, detective I didn’t see—
“Oh, yeah, sure! What y’forget to turn on yer eyes?”
“No!”
Across the bullpen, Hank rubbed his greying temples with his thumbs and tried to ignore the pointless argument rising into a crescendo from the breakroom.
Reed and Connor had been encouraged by more than one warning lecture from Captain Fowler to co-exist—or in their case, to pretend the other did not exist—while on duty.
They were fairly adept at policing themselves.
But sometimes the stars aligned and the two found themselves unexpectedly in close proximity and forced to acknowledge that, yes, they did inhabit the same temporal and physical space.
Hence the fireworks.
Reed was by far the loudest human in the building when he got himself worked up into a frenzy, but Connor had proven on more than one occasion that he could hold his own in a verbal sparring match.
Hank wasn’t sure if he ought to be proud or concerned about this development of his partner’s character. It only manifested in response to Reed’s antagonism, so Hank was willing to accept it as a mode of self-defense.
And as long as Reed didn’t become physically aggressive and as long as he didn’t jeopardize the professional integrity of the DPD—or Connor’s safety, Hank was willing to overlook the conflict.
The bickering hit another level of raucousness. And the tension headache increased in strength.
“Ben, make him stop,” Hank pleaded with the older officer who seemed unaware of the escalating argument as he picked through his desk clutter for a new stylus—the one he’d left out on his desk had disappeared in the fifteen minutes it’d been left unattended.
“Help, police, murder,” Ben recited in a perfect monotone as he reached into the depths of his desk drawer and pulled out a wad of old receipts, which he then tossed into the wastebasket and resumed his desk-fishing.
Hank rolled his eyes. He should have known better. For years now, Ben had maintained a policy of noninterference when it came to Reed. Hank turned to his next possible ally and waved to Jeffrey who had looked up in time to catch the gesture.
Hank, silently asking for backup, pointed at the breakroom.
Jeffrey returned to his computer with the complacency of a majestic whale with better things to do than separate squabbling small fry.
The uproar in the breakroom descended into a low rumble and then silence—probably the silence of a stare down before—
“D—mmit Reed!”
Hank texted Chris who had the best view of the breakroom.
[What’s the score?]
Chris checked his phone and then a second later sent a picture of the breakroom.
Hank chuckled. Even the lick of hair that fell over Connor’s forehead look frazzled as the android confronted the human spread over the coffee machine like a melted crayon.
“Don’t phckin’ touch me.” The words were uttered in a low growl that ended in a snap.
“You already have your coffee.” The sound of a stamping foot signaled Connor’s rising impatience. “This is pointless! Move!”
“Make me.”
A loud crash punctuated the dare.
Silence weighed down the room’s already shattered tranquility.
Hank thrust his chair back with enough force to make the clattering wheels a herald of his approach.
Chris chose the wisest course and spun around in his chair to face his computer terminal with a deadpan expression of a grown adult intently focused on important responsibilities.
“What’s going on?!” A cacophony of blame provided the soundtrack to his arrival in the breakroom’s entrance.
Reed pointed emphatically at Connor who looked as contrite as a rebellious delinquent brought in for skateboarding on city property.
“He was,” Connor started—
Reed interrupted, “He hit me in the head!” The red welt on the side of his head provided evidence to his claim.
“It was an accident!” Connor clenched his fists in front of his chest, restraining himself from a physical retaliation to Reed’s verbal antagonism.
“If it was an accident,” Hank said. “Then—
“Of course you’re takin’ his side!” Reed snarled—and Hank regretted the tinge of real hurt behind the turbulent green eyes.
Connor flung out his arms, unable to restrain himself in the face of Reed’s attack on Hank’s impartiality. “You don’t take sides in an accident,” he said.
“Goes t’show what you know ‘bout anythin’!”
Hank rubbed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. Releasing it, he said, “Connor, what are you trying to do? You don’t drink coffee.”
Brown eyes turned dark with indignation as Connor snapped out his defense in a series of taut phrases, “That’s. No reason. To stop me. From accessing. The machine.”
Hank chuckled internally at Connor’s self-censored civil defense, but the lieutenant kept his face straight for the sake of authority. But he feared it was too late with Reed whose sharp eyes had fixed on Hank’s face the second the officer had stepped into the room.
When Reed concentrated, he could read a person as well as any seasoned detective. And he’d probably just realized that Hank was not about to discipline them with anything other than stern words.
Sh—t.
Reed would use that to his full advantage. And if Hank wasn’t careful, he’d be forced to sterner measures and turn the semi-ridiculous situation into a professional censure in Reed’s records.
Sure enough, a clatter brought Hank out of his thoughts in time to see a piece of the broken coffee machine go skidding across the room and into the bullpen to disappear under a desk.
Connor glared at Reed. “Stop making messes!”
Reed threw a handful of sugar-free sweeteners at the android in direct defiance. “You’re the one who broke the whole d—mn thing.”
“That was you!”
“You pushed me!”
“Alright,” Hank interrupted. “That’s enough. Reed go to your desk. Connor. Desk.”
The two miscreants exchanged glares and refused to budge.
“Well, go,” Reed swept his arm out in mock magnanimity.
“He told you to go too.”
“No, he told you!”
“Both of you go, before I handcuff you together and you can spend the rest of the week learning cooperation.”
Hank found himself staring at an empty breakroom and the mess of machine parts, coffee grounds, and sweetener.
“Reed,” he called.
“I am at m’phckin’ desk!”
It didn’t sound like he was. The bullpen was a second home—if not a primary one—for many of the officers. And many of them, Hank included, could pinpoint by sound the location of anyone. And it sounded like Reed had been heading toward Connor’s desk—probably looking to goad Connor into a further argument.
The squeak of a chair confirmed that Reed had certainly not been at his desk until that second.
“Get the dustpan and broom from the supply closet—
“I’m not some phckin’ janitor. Y’think I know where that sh—t is?”
“You’re a detective. Figure it out,” Hank said as he walked past Reed’s desk. “Connor,” he called to his android partner who looked at him from his desk with residue annoyance. “I want you to help Reed clean up the breakroom. And,” he added loud enough to get Reed’s attention, “you’ll clean it up from top to bottom, spic and span. Understand?”
Connor sat, ramrod straight in his chair, hands folded into steeples on his desk, a small frown curving his lips downward in an expression of dignified displeasure.
Across the room, feet on desk and arms folded across his chest, Reed scowled at his shoes.
“Do I need to repeat myself?” Hank used his lieutenant-is-not-pleased voice.
It only made Reed slouch deeper into his chair. His hood bunched up around his neck adding to his surly appearance.
But Connor stood, as elegant and poised as a Sandhill crane about to strike. “This isn’t fair,” his mutter was deliberately loud as he pulled open a supply closet door that had been hidden from human eyes for most of its life judging by the surprised expressions on everyone’s face.
Unaware of the novelty of the discovery, Connor yanked out an ancient janitorial cart and thrust it across the room at Reed who yelped and blocked it with a chair. It careened into the wall leaving a long scuff along the polished surface.
--
The bickering had yet to cease from the breakroom as Connor tried to direct Reed in the process of cleaning a room.
“It will be most efficient if we start at this wall and work toward the door.”
“You do that. I’m cleaning the ceiling.”
Everyone in the bullpen, except Ben, turned in his or her chair to stare toward the breakroom, intrigued and horrified by the statement.
“You can’t—
Hank set his headphones over his ears and turned up the music, a feeling of contentedness washing over him as the old familiar friends filled his head with their music.
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