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Sometimes Cole felt like a fantastic dream that lasted no longer than a blink of an eye. For one brief moment, Hank had him. For one brief moment he was happy on a level he never believed he deserved.
Fuck, his job as a detective gave him a steady purpose, but Cole gave meaning to everything, the pieces had fit together perfectly at one point in his life when Cole was in the picture.
Six years is just a fraction of a lifetime. It wasn't enough; it was never going to be enough because you aren't supposed to outlive your own child. It wasn't natural having to learn how to be a grieving father for the rest of your days.
So…he simply refused to be one. It was more manageable to drown in a liquid wasteland of booze in some tiny time-forgotten bar in Detroit, rather than live in the reality out there.
Frankly, Hank didn't expect to live for many more years. Certainly no more than six. Cole's age. He couldn't stomach the thought of ten, fifteen, twenty years passing, and Cole having been just a short, fleeting episode in his life, when he was actually the most important part. What had given him humanity, a path, a reason to keep going.
But life is cruel, and fate loved to laugh at humans and their misery. He was sure of it.
So they ripped him away. As if Hank didn’t actually deserve that level of happiness. As if the title of "father" was too big for him to wear.
So he accepted it.
Didn't deserve to be happy?
Fine, then he wouldn't be happy.
Hell, he’d even play along the same level of twisted game that life had wanted to play with him. Russian roulette, every single week. He’d already been playing that sick game for three years, and he was sure he wouldn't manage to win for another three.
He stopped grocery shopping because it was too painful to see families with their kids running errands. Work cushioned his self-destructive thoughts, just a little, and the alcohol helped numb his feelings.
That was all he had left: navigating life completely numb, walled off from other people. Partly because he couldn't survive another loss, and partly because he didn't want to face the fact that he had absolutely no one left.
No family, zero friends.
Just Sumo. And even with Sumo by his side... he kept playing that fucked up game.
Russian roulette.
It’s not like he planned on having more kids anyway. After his divorce he knew nothing remained of the man he used to be. He was fine with that idea though; fewer obstacles, fewer reasons to cling to life.
But then, he showed up. That fucking android with his goofy ass face and stupid ass voice.
"My name is Connor. I am the android sent by CyberLife."
Like fuck he was. He didn't give a flying shit. He wanted that thing nowhere near him. He didn't need a partner. It was going to be a nuisance at work, and especially in his personal life, if the freaking android intended to follow him like a stray dog to every bar every time a new case popped up.
Good grief, the thing even followed him home.
Some machine it was for being CyberLife’s latest prototype. They didn't even program it with a shred of respect for personal boundaries.
But it did it anyway... time and time again, it dragged him out of the booze, pulled him up off the floor, even picked out his fucking clothes. It would hold out the outfit with that stupid ass goofy face, and it would smile when it saw Hank actually wearing what it chose.
It was hard for Hank to understand that… bizarre duality in him. As a detective, the kid was clearly state-of-the-art; Hank could practically start praying the machine wouldn't take his job. It knew how to interrogate, how to de-escalate situations, Hank even heard it managed to get a deviant in the middle of a massive stress episode to let go of a little girl it was holding hostage, even though that deviant was clearly going to die the second it let her go...
But Connor pulled it off.
He hunted other androids, and if he ever failed, it honestly was only because Hank had gotten in the way trying to help.
It didn't take Hank long to understand Connor's capabilities as a detective. He started to actually ask Connor what he thought happened.
But other times... the poor kid was more lost than a stray puppy left out in the pouring rain. He’d give Hank those fucking ass puppy eyes, begging with his gaze for just five more minutes, and asking for insight or Hank's opinion when everyday human interactions, social stuff around the office, became too... normal for his android-detective capacity.
And it made Hank laugh to think about how the kid could squeeze a confession out of a completely shut-down android, but had absolutely no idea what to say to Tina when she asked what his favorite season of the year was without giving a robotic answer. He just didn't know how to state... what he actually liked.
Hank started to notice fractures in Connor’s system; gestures that made zero sense for an android to make in a certain situation, or moments that clearly required human empathy rather than clinical rationality. He saw him flicking when yanked a curtain open and a broom clattered to the floor.
He heard fluctuations in his voice, full of confusion and regret not knowing what the hell to do when he couldn't bring himself to shoot a deviant, choosing to obey Hank rather than his own system. He looked so conflicted a couple of times that Hank was certain Connor was about to cry.
And, damn it... every single day he looked more human, and as a result, Hank felt himself becoming more... more protective of this freaking android. He wasn't even sure it was just a machine anymore.
He questioned him more than once about whether he was a deviant because at some point during their entire investigation, Hank was sure Connor was lying to everyone and he really was a deviant. That would explain all his fucking strange reactions, his hesitation to pull the trigger, his damn goofy ass puppy-looking eyes when he begged Hank to let him stay at a crime scene to investigate just a little longer, just a little more.
Hank knew Connor was designed for that, to manipulate, to persuade. He had even told him so himself; everything about him was designed to fit in, work, and function perfectly with the police force. But Hank was absolutely certain that whatever made Connor decide not to shoot Chloe back at Kamski’s place, it wasn't his programming. No way.
That was free will soaked in empathy. Hank recognized that humanity instantly.
And that meant being a deviant, right?
But the kid always denied it, over and over, And, yeah, sometimes blurting out these phrases that were so... out of place, so unhuman, and he would remember what Connor actually was.
Yet, despite that, that damn android had already managed to break through his walls. He’d earned Hank’s empathy.
And then he started copying his habits.
Hank noticed it, little by little.
Hank would look to the side scanning for details, and Connor would immediately follow to do the exact same thing. He would apply an interrogation technique, and in the very next one, he’d see Connor use that technique to absolute perfection, even if he’d never used it before.
Then one day, Tina approached him after leaving the breakroom, looking confused, almost spooked.
"Lieutenant... Connor smiled at me."
"Damn, what the hell kind of smile did he give you to make you look like that?" Hank laughed, amused by the thought of whatever weird crap Connor had done now to leave Tina so rattled.
"No, Lieutenant, you don't get it. He smiled at me like... like you do."
"...What the fuck does that even mean?"
"Your smile." She pointed to a single corner of her own mouth, trying to mimic the expression. "You smile only on one side... that's how Connor smiled at me. He smiles just like you. Exactly like you. At this point I am sure he is just copying you."
Hank stared at her, dumbfounded. He thought she was exaggerating, but he started paying closer attention, and a couple days after that, he saw it too. He saw Connor give him that exact same one-sided smirk, briefly.
What he was starting to feel... Hank finally figured it out after a while.
It happened after the revolution, after managing to keep Connor working with the DPD even if he wasn't officially on the payroll yet, after throwing himself into three… well, maybe four rounds of shouting matches with Fowler so they could fight for Connor’s full-time official integration with them.
It happened even after having the kid live at his house while his legal situation got sorted out and he could maybe find a place of his own.
A certain... fatherly feeling toward Connor.
He kept an eye on him the exact same way he remembered watching over Cole every time they went to the park, making sure he wouldn't get hurt. Just like he remembered taking Cole out for ice cream, Hank felt that identical sensation when he took Connor to a museum and the aquarium for the first time, because the kid told him he wanted to experience life a bit more, to figure out what he actually liked, outside of his programming, now that he was actually a deviant himself.
Like a child discovering the world for the very first time.
Like Cole discovering how much he loved playing with toy fire trucks.
Hank remembered the times he’d told Cole, in the middle of his most fucked up drunken episodes and his own crushing guilt... that he couldn't do this without him, that they’d be reunited soon.
And he didn't know why, but he had the strangest thought one day when he woke up, walked into the living room, and saw Connor petting Sumo with the exact same level of devotion Cole used to show back when Sumo was practically a puppy.
Hank thought that maybe Cole had heard him, and had given him something to slowly heal. And yes, he knew that sounded so stupid, but maybe…
Maybe he had a second chance to mend his grieving father's heart.
And by the time these thoughts lingered in his mind more often than not, he realized it had been three months since he last played Russian roulette.