Chapter Text
Hank has lived in Detroit for his entire life. Has breathed the same air and walked the same streets since he was a child. The oldest cemetery in the city houses most of his mother’s family, along with his own wife and son.
One day it'll house him too.
The thing about living somewhere for so long is that at some point it becomes a part of you. As identifiable as DNA or fingerprints. He knows this city as well as he knows himself and he has never known silence. The frequency of his city was sirens and blues, the barely decipherable hum of digital billboards and automated cars. Silence was unnatural and the stillness of everything was setting him on edge. Even the snow was undisturbed, the only sign of human activity was his own haphazard footprints from where he paced in front of The Chicken Feed.
Hank blows on his hands, rubbing them together to get heat back into them. The sun was crawling out from the horizon and Hank really wishes that the government would lift the curfew so he could get some goddamn coffee.
He twists on his heels and follows his footprints around another lap. Maybe he should go back to the precinct? Connor had said to meet him here but it had been hours and Hank’s phone had been busted in the fight. Connor could be dead in a ditch bleeding blue for all he knew.
“Fuck, where the hell are you?” Hank shoves his hands back into the depths of his coats and stomps his feet.
Silence makes for better acoustics under the overpass, and the crunch of snow under boots is louder than thunder and Connor is suddenly there. Alive with not even a scratch on his synthetically beautiful face.
He approaches, returns Hank’s gaze with a sway of his lips and Connor feels cool to the touch when Hank drags him into a hug that edges on desperate. The android's head thuds dully against Hank’s shoulder and Hank wants to shake the stupid out of his programming.
“Hello, Lieutenant.” Connor murmurs and Hank lets out a snort, breath fogging the air above Connor’s ear, “Hey kid.”
“I’m a deviant.” Connor says, voice empty.
“Yeah you are.” Hank pulls back and thumps Connor heavily on the shoulder, fingertips digging into the fabric of his jacket. The clothing is thin, soaked from the snow and Connor’s face shows no sign of distress, but Hank hisses anyway, “God, you’re freezing.”
“It is 30° Fahrenheit. While not optimal, my biocomponents can function at temperatures as low as -15° Fahrenheit.” Connor informs, but he seems to lean further towards Hank, towards warmth, “Though, Cyberlife did design me with advanced thermo-sensors to align with any possible environments that I may encounter while in the field, thus I am more sensitive to temperature changes than previous models--"
“Connor, just say you’re fucking cold.”
Connor looks up at him, and Hank decides then and there that deviancy for Connor was a goddamn upgrade, especially when Connor says, completely deadpanned, “I’m fucking cold.”
Shock burbles out into a laugh and Hank pulls Connor under his arm and swings him around to his side, “There you go! Not such a boy-scout now, are we?”
Connor ducks his head, the LED at his temple swirling blue, and Hank grins at the craziness of it all.
Time:
Friday; November;
12th;
2038;
9:34; AM ((UTC - 4)).
[Accessing_ Navigation_Protocols]
Start: The_Chicken_Feed:
[[Subset_: Business_Restaurant_: Health_Code_Violation_4_
Imminent_Government_Shut_Down_January_1st_2039]]
Destination: Residence_of_Lieutenant_Hank_Anderson:
ETA: 7:59AM((UTC-4))
0_Hours
25_Minutes
15_Seconds
Status_?:
[Safe]
Mission_?:
[Unknown]
He guides Connor to his car, parked at the corner just beyond a police barricade. It takes him three attempts to get the engine to turnover (the old girl doesn’t like cold weather anymore than he does) but soon they are puttering down the empty streets. Connor doesn’t talk much, his attention focused outward as he watches the buildings shift by.
Hank reaches over, fiddles with the radio for a few seconds before settling on the local Jazz station that never seems to be off the air. It is run by a few college students at the University of Michigan and Hank appreciates their off-kilter hours. Especially now that Connor’s uncharacteristic silence was starting to drive home how strange the entire situation was, and Hank wasn’t quite ready to deal with that can of worms. Besides, Connor was privy to darker secrets than his love of Jazz.
Half an hour creeps by without notice and Hank doesn’t realize that he’s driven most of the way on auto-pilot until he’s cutting the engine in the driveway of his house. He sits back and glances over to his companion. Connor seems distracted, his body fully braced against the car door and his head pressed to the window. Hank would have thought him sleeping if his eyes weren’t open.
A thought enters his brain, “Do androids sleep?”
The question does the job of jarring Connor out of his weird mood, and his eyes shift towards him and he tilts his head in thought, “No. Androids do enter an ‘idle’ mode. During which they can clear caches of unnecessary data and perform small amounts of system checks and optimization tests.”
Hank hums, “So. You sleep.”
Connor opens his mouth, blinks, and then shuts it, “I’m... getting out of the car now.”
Hank laughs, opening the driver’s side door and pulling himself out of his car. Together they trudge through the ocean of new fallen snow to his front door. He fishes around his coat for his keys, digs them out only to pause. Hank takes a step back and holds out the keyring to Connor, “Go ahead. Do the honors.”
Connor takes it from him. He looks between the key and the door and Hank can see how he processes the new information; the LED goes from blue to yellow, and then back to blue. He steps further back as Connor slots the key into the door and twists the knob-
Sumo launches himself out from the darkness of the house and takes Connor down to the ground with two large paws to the chest. Connor hits the floor with a solid thud and his startled cry fills the space, “Ah! Sumo! Down boy! Down!”
Hank spent four weeks at the puppy academy when he first adopted Sumo five years prior. He wasn’t very diligent in his training, but Sumo did come out of it with four abilities: how to walk on the leash without dragging Hank behind him, how to sit on command, wait on command and, best of all, how to lie down on command.
Sumo promptly drops down, draping his entire two-hundred-pound frame across Connor’s chest. Connor sputters as drool from Sumo’s jowls slips down onto his cheek.
“Hank!” Connor calls and Hank steps over their combined mass and enters the house, waving disinterestedly at his dog “No kill, Sumo. No kill.”
He switches on the lights as he shucks off his coat. Pulls his wallet and destroyed cell phone from his pockets and tosses them into the decorative bowl beside the door. He enters the kitchen next, sticks his head inside the fridge and says to the audience of expired milk and random assortment of condiments, “Television. On.”
In the living room he hears the faint click of the TV powering up and he grabs a beer and pops the lid with the can opener on the side of the fridge and makes his way back to the couch, just in time to see Connor walk through the front door, flicking dog slobber off his face with his hand and Sumo trotting at his side, looking happy as a dog could look.
Connor doesn’t quite glare at Hank, but it has the same general affect, “Your dog assaulted me, and you left me. Do I need to cite the term ‘betrayal’ for you, Lieutenant?”
Hank raises his eyebrows, and scratches Sumo behind the ears as he sits down at Hank’s hip, “Look at that, Sumo. Your chew-toy has got jokes now.”
“Betrayal. The act of betraying someone: violation of a person’s trust or confidence, of a moral standard, etcetera. Example: The betrayal of a friend. The betrayal of a partner--”
“Oh, quiet down, Tin Can. Its dog slobber, it washes right off. Here, come with me.”
He guides the android down the hall, “You’ve been here before but bathroom's there if you need it.” He points to the door in front of him, “The guest room, you can use it to ‘idle’ if you want.”
Hank ducks into his room and loots through his dresser drawer, coming away with a pair of old jogging pants and a worn DPD Academy shirt that hasn’t fit him in the better part of twenty years. He holds it out to Connor, ignores the indecipherable expression as Connor looks between the proffered clothes and the spare-room, “Are you aware that I am perfectly capable of self-maintenance?”
“Shut up, Connor.” Hank pushes Connor into the room and throws the clothes into his arms, the android catching it with little grace, “Get out of those clothes and don’t think about it. I’ll be in the living room.”
He leaves Connor to the job of changing his clothes and settles down on the couch with a sigh, sinking deep into the cushions. The last two months ram into him suddenly and he feels a throb behind his eyes.
The woman on the news stares at him as she speaks:
[The country is in uproar over the recent designation on President Warren’s part to temporarily halt all recycling plants. The U.S. Army was ordered to retreat last night after they were overwhelmed with android forces. Are we about to enter a new age for Human-Android relations? Correspondents to weigh in, stay tuned-]
Hank must have dozed off because suddenly the news has switched to a police procedural that has been running for far too many seasons and Connor is kneeling over where Sumo is lying on his back in the corner, his belly upturned so that Connor has easy access to rub at it.
He changed, Hank notes with satisfaction. The clothes fit him well enough, a little baggy in areas where Hank carried more fat, but they did the job for now.
“See?” He croaks, shifting up over his knees, “Feel better, right?”
“This outfit is easier to move in, but not very durable. I would not be comfortable leaving the property in these clothes, but they will suffice for now.” Connor responds, and Hank chooses to take that as a yes.
“We’ll take you shopping later. You’re going to need more than just one set of clothes. Also, I’m sick of looking at that dorky outfit of yours day in and day out.”
Hank rises, his spine popping into place as he sets his lukewarm beer on the coffee table, “I’m going to take a shower. Make yourself at home.”
Connor tilts his head in acknowledgement but doesn’t respond. Hank stumbles off towards the hallway. Grabs some fresh clothes from the still open dresser drawer in his room on his way and closes himself into the bathroom.
He’s lathering shampoo in his hair and beard when the thought strikes him that besides Connor, the last person to be in his home since his wife died was an electrician when a storm knocked out his power. Connor’s presence in his home was strange, unobtrusive and quiet. Vastly different from his constant questioning and endless nagging at the station.
Hank wonders what he’s doing bringing an android into his home without any concept of what his next step was going to be.
Outside, a revolution has turned the world upside-down. Years of legislation and laws and prejudice now up for debate, up for change. Hank’s been alive long enough to be able to sense the oncoming shitstorm on the horizon.
Then again, he doesn’t really care about any of that. The world has gone through enough messes for him to realize that he has little sway in the events to come. The only thing he cares about right now is whether Connor will be safe.
'Hank, you salty-dog. You’ve gone soft. Who’ve thunk you would’ve grown fond of a piece of plastic-’ Hank pauses mid-rinse, cracks his neck and stares at the ceiling. He’ll have to adjust that way of thinking. Connor wasn’t just a piece of plastic anymore. He had something else. Humans playing God had created something with a soul. Hank can admit that the notion terrifies him a little bit.
He steps out of the shower, slips on the tile a little as he pulls a towel around his waist. He wipes condensation from the mirror, mindful of his post-it notes. He brushes his teeth, runs a comb through his hair and dries off. Clothes on. His normal, daily routine. Only a bit different. Everything is little different now.
Steam chases him out of the bathroom as he’s running a towel through his hair. He steps down the hallway, finds the living room empty and hears Connor moving around in the kitchen. Hank peers around curiously and finds him sweeping with a broom that Hank keeps around in the losing war against Sumo’s dog hair.
The kitchen is clean. Dishes washed and set to dry. The sink is scrubbed spotless and the counters smelled faintly of bleach. Hank doesn’t remember the last time he disinfected anything in his home. Didn’t even realized he owned bleach.
He leans against the threshold, watches on for a moment before asking, “What are you doing, Connor?”
Connor moves a chair out from under the table, sweeping methodically before setting it back. Adjusts the chair until it's perfectly angled against the rungs of the table, “Cleaning. You seem to not own a vacuum, Lieutenant.”
“Not that I don’t appreciate the thought, but you don’t need to vacuum my house. What’s this about?”
Connor stills from his sweeping, and he’s staring at the ground with such focus that it could burn holes into the wood. Hank faintly wonders if Connor could actually burn holes into his floor. Do androids have laser-vision? Fuck, he doesn't know.
“Connor?”
“I don’t have a mission.” In the quiet, Hank can hear the whirl of fans emanating from underneath Connor's skin. A hum so unlike the sound of breathing. He’s never stopped to listen to that.
“What?”
“A mission. My mission. It was catching deviants.” Connor’s eyebrows pull together, pinched, “Then it was saving the deviants. Now… I don’t have a mission.” He looks up then and Hank sees the distress. His LED blinks red, “What is my mission?”
Well, fuck. What was his life that an android was having an existential crisis in his kitchen?
Connor watches him expectantly, like Hank has the answers in his back-pocket.
Hank has met the bottom of many a bottle asking himself a similar question. He’s not the best authority on the subject. Hank rubs at his face with an exhausted sweep of his hand. Takes a moment. Counts to ten. Then walks towards Connor, removes the broom from his grasp and sets it against the table, the android’s hands falling limply to his sides.
Hank straightens, gestures to the closet in the corner, “The cleaning supplies are in there. Your mission is not cleaning my house, but since you started my chores we might as well do them right.”
Connor jolts towards the closet and Hank grips him by the forearm. Connor’s LED is still that bright red, blinking softly before calming back to yellow, “Listen to me. Cleaning is not your purpose. You can do it if you want, I won’t stop you. Heck, I’m happy to have someone share the workload but I’m not going to make you do it, do you understand?”
Connor’s expression is confused. Hank isn’t used to the easy shifting of expressions and thoughts on his face. Part of him thinks it fabricated, just a part of Connor’s programming to ensure he succeeds in his environment. Garner sympathy with his human counterparts. The other part of him recognizes that for the first time in Connor’s existence, no one is giving him orders. He has free-will now and if he isn’t careful, he’ll hang himself with it.
“I-” Connor starts, and Hank shakes him a little.
“You’re my partner. You’re a detective. Your purpose is the same as mine. I’ll talk to Fowler on Monday and get you back into the precinct, permanently. He’ll have an aneurysm and you’ll have a mission, everybody wins.”
“They won’t let me in.” Connor says miserably, and Hank is going to go crazy. He barely manages his own emotions and now he must coach his partner through them? Fuck him, what has he gotten himself into?
“We’ll figure that out when the time comes. Just… let’s clean the house. You finish up in here and I’ll start in the living room. I’ve been meaning to get under the couch for months. Sumo is missing like fourteen tennis balls and I’m pretty sure they’re all under there with the dust-bunnies.”
Connor stares at him and Hank refuses to let go until his LED melts into blue. Once it does, he releases Connor and lets him return to his task with renewed vigor.
Hank is exhausted. The only thing he wants to do is fall face first into his mattress and sleep. He observes Connor, sees the focus and desperation in his movements and groans quietly to himself.
Alright, in for a penny, in for a pound. Hank rolls up his sleeves and sets to work.
Friday;November:
12th:
2038:
11:15:AM((UTC - 4)).
Analyzing_Task:
[Assigned_Temporary_Mission]
Start_Task: Clean_House
[Subset: Kitchen_Bathroom_Bedrooms_Laundry_Trash]
Initializing_ Ongoing_Mission:
[Return_to_Detroit_Police_Department]
[Objective: Resume_Detective_Work]
Connor lifts his head, watches for a moment as Hank stubs his toe when moving the couch in the living room. Tennis balls rolling out of the line of fire as Hank curses loudly. Sumo chases lazily after one of them with his mouth, captures it and starts to gnaw gently on it.
The LED blinks green.
Initializing_ Ongoing_Mission:
[Stay_with_Lieutenant_Hank_Anderson]
[Objective: Ensure_Health_&_Wellbeing]]
Status_?:
[Safe]
Mission_?:
[Unknown]