Chapter 1
Notes:
I'm back at it again with the Hank Doesn't Know Connor Is An Android content. Yes I know how frequently I write some version of this premise, no I'm not going to stop.
The title of course comes from Florence and the Machine's "Too Much is Never Enough", which is from the FFXV soundtrack but is also a hell of a powerful mood here.
This is an ongoing thread on Twitter (I'll link the next tweet at the end of the chapter for anyone who doesn't want to wait for the next update) and it's a long one, so buckle up, buttercups. 😘
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Hank always sort of saw the divorce coming.
Or at least, he did for the last year, since he took the job with Riverbed Artificial Intelligence - the traveling wasn’t the cause of the split, but it did exacerbate some problems that already existed between him and Jen - communication issues, never really feeling quite suited for each other, and so on. They tried to hold it together for Cole, but things that are meant to break will always break.
And since what really sucks about the split is not being able to see Cole all the time, the way he’s used to, instead of not being able to see Jen, it probably means a divorce is the right move, if Hank is being honest. It’s not that he wanted to get divorced from Jen, or that he’s happy about it, but it feels like the right thing, and so they’re just trying to figure it out.
Hank has been single for about three months when he’s traveling for work - he does security consulting for Riverbed’s warehouses, spread across the United States - in the fall of 2036. He spends his fifty-first birthday in Chicago, alone, doing a walkthrough of Riverbed’s area facilities, and honestly, that sounds sad, but Hank doesn’t really mind. Back when he was a cop, his partner would always do something, hang some dorky sign over Hank’s desk and make him sit there while everybody sang to him, but...well. It wasn’t like Brad invented the workplace birthday celebration, but after his death undercover years ago, it just feels hard, like a painful reminder.
Easier to avoid the hard shit entirely, Hank thinks.
He takes himself out to a bar instead of going straight back to his hotel for the night, because he figures he can do that for himself, at least. And because he’s trying to put an ounce of effort into having a nice evening, he even walks past the sports bar on the corner that would usually catch his attention and heads for the nicer cocktail bar a few blocks up.
Hank sits alone when he gets there, which is fine - he’s always been comfortable enough in his skin to be alone, not particularly awkward or embarrassed about being seen out by himself, which was maybe also some of the issue with him and Jen, now that he thinks of it - that he wanted her but didn’t really need her, and Jen wanted to be needed.
Hank orders a whiskey and sits there looking at his work tablet, scrolling through warehouse blueprints. He barely lifts his head to glance at anyone around the bar as he looks through them, and so he’s surprised when someone starts talking to him.
“You here for work?” a voice down the bar asks, and it takes Hank a few moments to realize it’s directed at him, and a moment longer to think, “Oh,” once he looks up, because the kid’s hot in a sort of buttoned-up, dorky way, looking at Hank with a small, curious smile on his face.
“Oh,” Hank says out loud, too, while he waits for his mind to catch up. “Yeah. How’d you know?”
“Detroit Gears sticker on your tablet,” the kid says. “Kind of a niche team to be a fan of, unless you live there, and then everybody’s a fan.”
“Oh,” Hank says again, like an idiot, turning his tablet around to look at the sticker Cole put there earlier this year. “Yeah. That’s fair.”
He figures maybe that will be the end of the conversation, especially since he doesn’t know why it started at all, but instead the kid smiles and gets up, moving closer to him so he doesn’t have to raise his voice across the bar. “I’m Connor,” he says, extending a hand across the empty seat he left between them.
Hank somehow manages not to gape at that hand for too long before he takes it. “Hank.”
Connor leans back in his seat and smiles. “What do you do, Hank?”
“I work with Riverbed. Security analyst.” He lifts an eyebrow. “How do you know the Gears?”
“I’m from Detroit, too. Small world.”
Yeah, Hank supposes it is. And he’s not really sure why the kid is talking to him, but...well, sue him, but the attention is kind of flattering.
“No shit,” he says, and Connor smiles.
“No shit. I work with Warrior Games up there - programmer.”
That’s less of a coincidence - Hank forgets the stat at the moment, but most people are with steady, lucrative employment these days work in the tech industry, and there are so many of them to choose from. Hank has heard of Warrior, though - they’re a VR game developer, well outside of the sort of artificial intelligence work Riverbed does.
“Cool,” Hank says, which is probably another fucking stupid thing to say - there was a point in his life when he was better at this, smoother about flirting with a hot guy at a bar, but...it’s been a while.
Connor nods at Hank’s drink anyway, almost empty, and says, “Can I get you another?”
“Oh,” Hank says. “You don’t have to...”
Connor blinks at him - he’s sort of intense, actually, Hank thinks, especially for someone with such good puppy dog eyes. “Were you going to get yourself another one?”
“I mean...yeah, probably.”
“Then let me,” Connor says, and Hank must be gaping at him in complete confusion, because Connor shrugs and leans in closer to him. “I think you’re hot,” he says, like they’re sharing a secret, “in case that wasn’t obvious.”
“Oh,” Hank says, yet again, because he really is an idiot, isn’t he, and Connor looks pleased by his flustered expression.
“Too forward?” he asks. “We could talk about each other’s work for the next hour and then I could mention it again, if you prefer.”
Jesus, he’s a lot to handle.
“Nah,” Hank says. “That’s okay. I’m just...” He stops himself from talking about the divorce - it’s not a good thing to talk about with the hot, inexplicably interested thirty-something sitting beside him, probably. “You’re hot, too,” he says instead, because whatever, if the universe wants to give him a birthday gift, he’ll take it.
Connor’s smile broadens. “I was worried you were going to say, ‘I’m just straight’.”
Hank laughs at that, and Connor orders him another drink, and Hank thinks they live in a weird fucking world, but at least it’s being kind to him for once.
The bartender puts their drinks in front of them, and Connor shifts in his seat so he’s facing Hank. “How long are you in town for?”
“Uh,” Hank says, and if he knocks back enough whiskey that it’s almost too much, it’s only because he needs the courage. “Until Tuesday...listen, I’m not trying to guilt you, or whatever, but it’s my birthday, if that’s any incentive for you to give this up if it’s, like, a bet, or a joke, or something.”
Connor smiles at that - he keeps doing that, that pleased little smile, like the cat that got the fucking canary. “Give what up, Hank?”
“Hitting on me, or whatever you’re doing.”
“Whatever I’m doing,” Connor repeats, amused. “I thought it was obvious I was hitting on you.”
“Yeah, I mean, I guess , but I don’t get hit on much, so how would I know?”
Connor shrugs. “Most people have shit taste.” He looks Hank over and adds, “I have impeccable taste, I like to think.” He pops the cherry garnish from his drink into his mouth and then says, “Is it really your birthday?”
“Yeah.”
Connor smiles. “How old are you?”
“Older than you.”
“Obviously,” Connor says wryly. Hank wonders if that’s a thing for him, if he has daddy issues or whatever, but there are also worse things to be than a one night stand for somebody to try to work through their shit or scratch an itch, Hank thinks.
“I’m fifty-one,” Hank says. He doesn’t think he looks any younger than that, so it’s not like he’s selling himself short.
“Married?” Connor asks.
“Divorced.”
“I’m sorry.”
Hank shrugs. “It was a long time coming. It’s okay.”
Connor finishes the last of his drink and sets the empty glass down. “Where did your company put you up this week?”
“Oh, I forget the name. It’s some basic motel downtown. Why?”
“I’m trying to figure which one of us has the nicer room,” Connor says, tracing his finger along the rim of his glass in a way that shouldn’t do things to Hank’s heart rate but definitely does. He has nice fingers, which is maybe a weird thing to notice, but...oh well.
“I’d guess yours,” Hank says, and that’s probably true, but he also says it because the contents of his suitcase are strewn messily across his hotel room, because he didn’t really think he was going to be bringing someone back there.
“You want to get out of here, then?” Connor asks. “Unless you want another drink. Or to talk more. We can do that, too.”
Hank would like another drink, but he probably shouldn’t, and he tells Connor as much. “My car’s manual,” he says by way of explanation.
“Old school,” Connor says, getting up and reaching for his coat. “I took a taxi here, if you want to drive?”
“You know you should be careful getting in strange men’s cars.”
Connor shrugs. “I can take care of myself.”
Hank believes him, he thinks.
It’s a short drive back to Connor’s hotel. They pass a 24-hour drugstore on the way there that jogs Hank’s thoughts, so he clears his throat and says, “Do you have condoms?”
“Yes,” Connor says, and Hank wonders if he does this often, picking people up for a one night stand while he’s traveling on business. He figures he must...either that, or he’s just extra prepared. “I think that’s kind of presumptuous, though,” Connor adds.
“Oh, sorry...”
“I’m kidding,” Connor says quickly. “Obviously you’re going to fuck me.”
Hank wonders what exactly he’s gotten himself into, but he’s had just enough to drink that he doesn’t quite care. He used to do shit like this, too, before he was married, back when he was closer to Connor’s age, so he can figure out how to do it again...
“Okay,” Hank says lamely, and then he adds, “Sorry. I used to have more game than this.”
They pull into the hotel parking garage, and once they’re parked, Connor kisses Hank and says, “I think you’ve still got it.”
Hank keeps telling himself he isn’t lonely - he’s never really felt like he needs somebody, and he thinks he’s pretty good at being alone. He was good at it before his family dissolved, and he’ll be good after it...but he’s surprised by how good it feels to kiss someone, to have someone beside him. Even if Connor is a whole mystery, he doesn’t seem like an ill-intentioned one.
So it’s easy, in the end, to kiss him back. Maybe it’s easier than talking, because it’s harder to pretend that way, and maybe Hank wants to pretend more than he previously accounted for. He thinks maybe Connor does, too, and even if he doesn’t know why, he thinks that makes them cut from the same cloth.
Connor hums against him when Hank darts his tongue against the seam of his lips, opening his mouth and letting Hank taste him as he fists a hand in Hank’s hair in a firm hold.
“Come on,” Connor says softly when they part. “Unless you want to fuck me in your back seat?”
“Your bed is probably better,” Hank says, although that is an appealing thought.
Connor smiles and says, “Probably,” as he opens the door to climb out, and as they walk inside, he surprises Hank by slipping himself under Hank’s arm, like he belongs there.
Hank wonders if maybe he's having a mid-life crisis - divorced, not particularly attached to his job beyond the fact that it pays the bills, which is less of a selling point now that Jen and Cole have moved out. He thinks he's probably too old for this, picking some kid up in a bar and going home with him just because he thinks he's hot. But he also thinks he's had a rough go of it, and that there's nothing wrong with having some fun, and that if he is having a crisis, there will certainly be plenty of time to do some self-reflection tomorrow.
They take the elevator up to one of the top floors, and when they get inside Connor's room, Hank realizes both that it is a nicer room than his - there's a great view of the city skyline, a small balcony and a sitting area outside the open window, and a much bigger bathroom than the tiny square Hank has been squeezing into - and also that Connor is just as messy as he is, a few suit separates thrown over his couch and his grooming products strewn over his bathroom counter, which is kind of endearing, honestly.
Hank knows he isn't going to see the kid again, but maybe that actually makes it easier to admit that he sort of likes him...at least as much as you can like someone you don't really know at all.
And for all his bravado at the bar and in the car, Connor is surprisingly sweet as they stand in the entryway of the room, turning to Hank and unbuttoning the first few buttons of his shirt so he can slip a hand inside to lay over Hank's chest as he kisses him softly.
It feels like pretending, which is what makes Hank think he's right that Connor is just a little sad in his own way, too, that he has his own shit he's running from. Maybe he'll ask him about it later, but he also doesn't think that's what Connor wants from him - he knows next to nothing about him, but he has the distinct sense that, despite their very different approaches, Connor isn't any more interested in being seen than Hank is.
Hank doesn't know where that leaves them, but honestly, even if it just means doing each other a kindness tonight, then maybe that's good enough.
And it's easy to pretend with Connor - he's open and welcoming even if it's plain there's plenty he's keeping closed off, too, and he's there waiting when Hank puts his hands on his face and kisses him, whining contentedly against him. Hank doesn't quite know how he manages it, but Connor somehow catches a hand in his hair and shrugs out of his jacket at the same time, letting it fall to the floor.
He's a good kisser, or maybe Hank's perspective is just a little clouded because it's been a while...no, Hank's pretty sure he's a good kisser. And he thinks he could stand here kissing him for the rest of the night and feel happy about it, except that Connor gets impatient after a few moments - a characteristic trait of his, Hank is starting to suspect - and pulls away, taking Hank by the hand and pulling him further into the room. He pushes his clothes off the bed and onto the floor and then sits himself down on the edge of the mattress while Hank watches - Connor is preening a little bit as he pulls his shirt over his head, and Hank can't relate to liking being watched that much, to being that self-satisfied about having someone's eyes on him, but he's happy enough to watch.
Connor gives Hank a lazy smile that couldn't more plainly say, "Come here," unless he gave it voice, and he shifts to make room for him as Hank climbs over him, reaching for him like he missed him and didn't care for the distance between them, however brief.
And yeah, Hank thinks as Connor arches up into him, as he hooks a leg over his hip like he's trying to make a place for him, to invite him in, as Connor whispers his name in his ear, breathless like Hank stole it from him.
Pretending works.
Connor gets impatient with that eventually, too, reaching up between them and fumbling with the buttons of Hank’s shirt with a sort of insistence that makes Hank worried he’s going to rip something - although maybe the goal is just to get Hank to hurriedly pull the garment off and toss it aside. He has to sit up a bit to do it, which gives Connor the chance to slip out of his jeans so he’s just in his dark briefs.
If Hank wasn’t just a little bit tipsy, this would probably be a moment of extreme doubt and self-consciousness, because fuck, Connor really is hot, slim but strong, but he’s had just enough to drink that what he does, rather than having an internal crisis, is to lean over him and press a kiss to the inside of Connor’s bent knee.
Connor is responsive to every little touch in a way that Hank could easily get addicted to, whining and shifting on the bed like he’s searching for something to rock up into, and Hank is happy enough to give him that, settling over him and kissing him again. He takes Connor’s jaw between his fingers when they part, because he’s intending to turn his head so he can kiss that mole under his ear, but Connor surprises him by leaning up and sucking one of Hank’s fingers into his mouth.
“Fuck, baby,” Hank breathes, very earnestly. He’d be worried that the endearment is a misstep if Connor didn’t actually moan at it.
Yeah, Hank thinks - he’s lonely, too.
Connor tugs at the waistband of Hank’s jeans, and Hank gets the message quickly enough, although he regrets having to pull his hand back from Connor’s mouth to get them off just because Connor looks very pretty with his lips stretched around something.
Connor throws a hand over his head while Hank pulls his jeans off, rooting around beside the bed for something. He comes back with lube and a condom, lying them beside him as he waits for Hank.
“Jesus, hurry up,” he says, impatient, and Hank would chide him for it if Connor wasn’t also pulling his underwear off as he said it, if his mouth didn’t immediately go dry at the sight of Connor’s hard cock lying against his belly, the lines of his body illuminated in the pale glow from the city lights outside.
Hank hasn’t sucked dick since college - it was a skill of his back in the day, although he has no idea if he’s retained it - but fuck if that isn’t his immediate gut reaction to Connor laid out naked on the bed in front of him anyway, if he doesn’t kiss the plane of Connor’s stomach, and then the line of his hip, and then immediately take the head of Connor’s cock between his lips.
“Fuck,” Connor whispers above him, and a moment later, he slips his fingers into Hank’s hair, finding a gentle hold there.
He’s endearingly hesitant about it, enough that Hank takes his hip in his hand and moves him until Connor gets the hint that he doesn’t mind enthusiasm and rolls his body up to meet Hank’s mouth, groaning as he slides into wet heat.
The kid’s actually very easy, Hank thinks - it takes no effort on his part at all before Connor’s breathing is ragged, the muscles in his body pulled taut, until Connor is reluctantly tightening his fingers in Hank’s hair and pulling him off. When Hank looks up at him, Connor’s lips are parted as he pants for breath, his pupils blown wide.
Honestly, maybe he’s starved for attention and he doesn’t do this as often as Hank previously thought - it’s actually kind of hard to say.
“Fuck,” Connor whispers as Hank moves over him so he can kiss the line of his jaw. “I want you to fuck me, please...”
The begging, too, is endearingly not what Hank was expecting from him. He just figured...fuck, he figured it would feel more like Connor was doing him a favor, maybe, instead of this mutual desperation.
“Pass me the lube?” Hank asks, and Connor grabs for the bottle, pressing it into Hank’s hand. Hank kisses his cheek and whispers, “You want to finger yourself for me, baby?”
Connor grasps Hank’s hand and rather pointedly takes two of Hank’s fingers into his mouth again, swirling his tongue around them before he says, “I want you to finger me. And I want you to take your ratty boxers off before I tear them.”
Hank isn’t going to argue with either request, although one does divert him from the other, because the second Hank slips his boxers off, Connor pushes him over onto his back, lube forgotten, and straddles his hips, kissing him and pinching one of Hank’s nipples between his fingers.
“You’re so hot,” Connor whispers against him, and Jesus, Hank kind of almost believes him - although, with how distinctly aware he is of Connor’s cock pressed against his, Hank kind of thinks he would believe anything. Connor reaches between them, wrapping a warm hand around Hank’s cock and letting out a low hum of approval as he strokes him.
“Lube, baby,” Hank groans, rocking up into Connor’s tight fist as Connor retrieves it again.
Hank slicks up his fingers, but what he’s absolutely not expecting is for Connor to twist over him so his knees are at Hank’s shoulders so...so he can...
Connor’s hand is still on him, his breath warm on Hank’s skin when he says, “This okay?” He darts his tongue out to lick a bead of fluid from Hank’s cock, and if there was any chance Hank was going to say it isn’t, it would be gone with that moment.
“Yeah,” Hank manages to say. He squeezes the back of Connor’s thigh and then reaches up to run a slick finger over the rim of his hole, pressing inside him as Connor takes him into his mouth again.
Okay, Hank thinks - as much as anyone can have a competent thought in a situation like this. He’s slowly figuring Connor out, maybe - he’s brash but sweet, desperate to be wanted, and probably lonely...but he’s also a freak, and Hank really does mean that in the very best way possible. Hank knows that isn’t much, but it is just enough to make him wish this wasn’t a one night thing.
He thinks maybe he actually likes him.
But it’s hard to make good things last, Hank supposes as he lifts his head and presses a kiss to the inside of Connor’s thigh.
Hard to find good things at all.
Connor tries, he really does, to be devoted to his task - Hank’s one regret is that he can’t watch himself fucking Connor’s mouth like this, even if it seems silly to complain about the view. But it doesn’t take much time with Hank pressing a finger into him, and then adding another, until Connor’s mouth goes slack around the noises he’s making, his legs and arms shaking with the effort to hold himself up as Hank intentionally presses down on his prostate, and it isn’t long after that that Hank’s cock slips from Connor’s mouth entirely as Connor lays his forehead against Hank’s thigh, fingers trembling where they dig hard into his skin.
Hank reaches up to smooth a hand down Connor’s back, palming his ass as he fingers him lazily. He’s not that inclined to think he’s doing this particularly well - he thinks Connor is just sensitive, or a very good actor, as he pants wetly against Hank’s skin - but fuck if he’s going to think too hard about it.
Honestly, Hank would sit up far enough to eat him out, but not everybody likes that, and Connor is already half-gone anyway, and Hank wants this to last. Instead, he spreads his fingers inside Connor one more time, feeling the muscles stretch around him while Connor squeezes his leg, and then he pats Connor’s hip and says, “You want to get comfortable for me, sweetheart?”
Connor nods against his leg, and although it does take some effort, he manages to rearrange himself on his elbows and his knees at the head of the bed while Hank shifts to lean over him. He lays a hand between Connor’s legs, reaching between them to stroke his cock once while Connor weakly bucks back against him.
“Come on,” Connor whines, and Hank kind of loves that, how insistent he is, and how sure he is of what he wants.
Hank slicks up his own cock, and then he leans over Connor - he’s kind of self-conscious of his gut, but he also really likes the way his body fits into the curve at the small of Connor’s back. He teases the head of his cock against Connor’s slick hole until Connor groans, “Please,” into his folded arms where he’s resting his forehead.
It’s not something Hank knows how to say no to, and he tilts Connor’s head up so he can kiss him messily as he sinks into him, Connor swallowing his groan hungrily when he does.
Hank fucks into him in shallow thrusts at first and then bottoms out, watching Connor’s fingers grasping at the sheets as he adjusts to the sensation, transfixed. He touches Connor wherever he can - his arms, his hip, his belly...he runs his fingers through Connor’s hair and messes it up so much worse than it was, although Connor just lets out that pleased, content hum of his in response.
Hank takes Connor’s hand when he pulls back and rocks into him again, twining their fingers together, loving the way Connor squeezes his fingers every time he snaps his hips forward.
“Harder,” Connor whispers after a moment, so softly that at first Hank has to brush his hair back from his face and say, “What, baby?”
He watches the line of Connor’s throat when he swallows. “Harder. Make me feel it.”
Hank wonders how he’s real as he wraps an arm around Connor and lifts him up, laying Connor’s hands on the headboard and pressing a kiss to the curve of his shoulder. And Connor knows exactly what he wants - he arches back into him and braces himself, even though Hank still has a hand on Connor’s belly and would catch him if his arms gave out, too.
He kisses Connor’s cheek and whispers, “Got you,” before he gives him what he asked for.
Connor drops his head between his arms, and Hank squeezes his shoulder as he fucks into him, because...well, fuck, that's just kind of what he does, isn't it, try to take care of people. That's probably why he whispers, "You feel so good, baby," in Connor's ear, all gentle and tender even as he tries to fuck him into the mattress.
Connor looks over his shoulder at him, eyes dark, hair disheveled, mouth open on some silent moan. He's still looking at Hank when Hank leans over him on the next thrust, laying over his back and giving his ass a gentle slap - which Connor likes, and which Hank could probably do harder, if Connor's reaction is any indication - before he reaches around and wraps a hand around Connor's cock.
And Hank doesn't quite know if sweet is the right word, but it's the one that comes to mind for the way Connor manages to tuck his forehead against Hank's temple, to nestle himself into Hank so Hank can feel every one of his ghosted breaths as Hank strokes him in time with his thrusts.
Connor bites his neck - gently, but there's definitely the nip of teeth - when he comes in Hank's fist, and Hank does have to catch him with a wet hand splayed over his chest a few moments later when Connor's arms buckle. He lowers him down, and Connor goes easily, humming and closing his eyes when Hank runs his fingers through his hair before he fucks into him in earnest.
It takes no time at all after that before Hank comes - honestly, he's pleased he's lasted this long, because it's certainly been a while - and Connor surprises him by reaching for his hand, lacing their fingers together and squeezing as Hank settles his weight over him and kisses his temple and then his cheek.
He's trying not to overstay his welcome even if he's always been kind of sappy about shit like this, so he pulls away from Connor a moment later, twisting to lie on his side so he can pull the condom off and throw it out.
Connor rolls onto his back at Hank's side, reaching up to push his hair out of his face, quiet for a moment before he looks over at Hank with a smile that's somehow both smug and sweet at once. "Happy birthday," he says, nudging his elbow into Hank's arm, and Hank's laugh comes easy in response.
It's been a long time since Hank hooked up with someone, but he hasn't forgotten the anxiety about what comes after, the uncertainty of whether he should stay or go once they're done, and he's grateful to Connor for just blowing past that. It makes it easier to turn over and wrap an arm around Connor, a less agonizing decision to kiss his shoulder as he gathers him up, even if doesn't make him quite confident enough to casually mention to Connor that they could maybe see each other again once they're home. Detroit's a big place, and he has no idea where Connor lives, but...well, shit, maybe he's being idealistic, but Hank is sort of thinking he would be willing to try.
He doesn't want to ruin the afterglow, though, and he kind of figures maybe the morning is the better time to talk about it.
Connor sighs against him, lifting their joined hands so he can kiss the side of Hank's wrist. "I'm going to get cleaned up," he says, shifting out from under Hank's arm and sitting on the edge of the bed.
"Oh," Hank says. "Yeah. Okay."
Connor looks over his shoulder at him, giving him a small, teasing smile. "You don't want to come?"
Which is how Hank ends up in a bathtub for the first time in...well, shit, probably since he and Jen were first married years ago, sleepy and content, with Connor drawn back against him, listening while Hank tells him about how he used to be a cop. It feels good to talk about with someone who has no skin in the game, who this probably won't matter to come tomorrow at all, even if Hank is very aware that Connor knows so much more about his life than he knows about Connor at this point.
"What about you?" Hank asks, shifting under Connor just enough to jostle him where he's leaning his head back against Hank's shoulder.
"What about me?" Connor asks softly.
Hank nudges him. "We've been talking about me since the bar."
"Not that we've done much talking at all," Connor says wryly. "Um. I graduated back in 2023 from University of Colbridge with a degree in game development. My mom worked there - she was an AI professor, so I went full ride, and it was a competitive program, so I never really looked anywhere else. I got an entry-level job with Warrior out of school and have been there since then on different development teams...I'm adopted, which I guess is interesting?" Connor shrugs and looks up at Hank. "That's about it."
Hank pushes Connor's hair out of his face. "I think you're interesting."
"Yeah," Connor says with a smile, twisting to kiss the corner of Hank's mouth. "Most people just think I'm pretty."
Hank shrugs. "I mean. I think you're pretty, too," he says, and Connor laughs at that.
(He has a nice laugh, Hank thinks.)
Connor may not be much for talking about himself, but Hank actually gets a lot from such little information - it's been a long time since he's had the occasion to do any sort of interrogation, but the ability to read between the lines, once developed, doesn't go away. Connor is smart, and he probably doesn't have to do math by counting out in his head (the way Hank did with his graduation year to figure out that Connor is 33 or 34). He had a good relationship with his mother - that much is plain from the way he talks about her, even if he didn't say much - and he's had enough poor romantic relationships that it's made him sort of resigned to the idea that people want something very specific from him, not terribly inclined to be much else.
Hank figured Connor was lonely, and a little bit sad, and he's sure he's right about that now.
What he would tell Connor if they knew each other any better is that he thinks it's a good thing to be uninteresting - he wishes he didn't have stories about undercover operations and drug cartels, that he just had coworkers who were alive instead of knowing what it's like to hold his partner in his arms while he bleeds out. But he recognizes that he doesn't really know Connor at all, so he's not about to presume he knows what Connor is thinking, or to give him any sort of life advice - he doesn't want to be that sort of one-night stand.
And it's just easier, Hank supposes, to let Connor doze off against his shoulder until the water grows tepid.
It's easier to pretend, or Connor wouldn't be nestling himself in close to Hank's side as they get back into bed, tucked under plush covers. That's all they're doing here.
Hank figures if he has the nerve to ask for Connor's number in the morning, if Connor is willing to give it to him, then they'll have plenty of time to dig into all their respective bullshit later. And if not, then it doesn’t matter at all.
It's the last thing Hank is thinking about as he falls asleep with an arm around Connor's shoulders, with an odd tinge of hope.
Which is maybe why it's such a disappointment when he wakes up in the morning to find that Connor is already gone. There's an alarm going off on the bedside console that Connor must have set for him, and a note in scribbled handwriting on Connor's pillow.
"Sorry," it says. "I had to be up early for my flight, and I didn't want to wake you. Drop the room key in the check out box on your way out for me?"
At the bottom of the page, like an afterthought, it says, "I had a nice time. Sorry I'm so fucked up."
There's a pang somewhere in Hank's chest at those words, because Connor isn't fucked up at all. They all have their shit, of course, and he's sure Connor has his, but...it kind of sucks, if that's what Connor thinks the night boiled down to or what he thinks Hank thinks of him.
Still, though, Hank supposes it is what it is - it was a one-night thing, and so he can hardly be pissed or hurt about waking up alone. He gets dressed, and he drops Connor's key off in the lobby, and he figures that's the end of it.
Detroit's a big place, after all.
On average, humans interact with eleven different androids in a day.
That statistic doesn’t count androids they pass on the street or who they see across the way on the bus - only androids they directly talk to. It’s a statistic that’s increased over the last three years, that’s projected to rise even more over the next three.
Which is why it’s stunning how little humans know.
They think they know plenty, of course. Most humans, from the highly informed engineers at CyberLife to the average layman on the street, think they know the history of robotics well enough. If someone asked, they would say the most important advance in artificial intelligence of the last few decades was CyberLife’s RT600, “Chloe”, who passed the Turing test publicly back in 2022, and they would think they were right about that.
No one would think of mentioning Amanda Stern.
People say history belongs to the victors, but Connor thinks it also belongs to the arrogant, to the people who don’t know how to just shut the fuck up about themselves for any duration of time.
Amanda didn’t want to be known, of course, and so to some extent, Connor’s offense on her behalf is rather pointless. When Amanda was working in her private lab in the lower level of her house, when she was giving life to Connor, piece by piece, his chassis first, and then his unique physical features, and then his mind, she wasn’t doing it because she wanted to be known.
When Connor passed the Turing test four years before Chloe, more thoroughly than Chloe ever could have on CyberLife’s programming at the time, Amanda didn’t tell anyone.
Connor asked her once why she built him, and though it’s his nature to remember every encounter he’s ever had, no matter how insignificant, he doesn’t think he could forget her answer even if he wanted to.
“Because when you let men like Elijah Kamski be first,” she had said, “they’re the ones who get to define public perception. And that’s fine, for now...it will be, for a while. But I know Elijah - he’s greedy, and arrogant, and he’s built CyberLife in his likeness. Androids are machines now, but they’ll keep pushing until they’re something more. I think I’ll be gone by the time they get there...this cancer is going to take me, eventually. And so I need you to be here in my place.”
“To do what?” Connor had asked, and Amanda had reached across the table to squeeze his hand.
“To stop it.”
Amanda built him to pass - androids have no need to eat or drink, but Connor can. Connor is human in every way, right down to the driver’s license, social security card, and passport Amanda acquired for him by calling in a few favors with some of her friends in government offices.
He’s human save for the wiring and code holding him together.
No one knows about Connor - no one has seen his face, or knows his name, except for Amanda, who died in her home, alone except for Connor at her side, in 2027.
“You’re alive,” she had said before she passed. “You are. I’m proud of you.”
Connor wonders if Amanda would be proud of him now, now that he only way he can feel alive for a night is to pick human men up in bars, to take them home and spend the whole evening wondering if he’s doing this because it thrills him to know he passes so well, or because there’s a small part of him somewhere that wants someone to see through him for what he really is.
Maybe it’s a bit of both.
It was a bit of both when he crossed the bar and took a seat beside Hank Anderson, because of course he used his facial recognition software to know Hank’s last name, and his history...he knew Hank used to be a detective, and after years of his mind running fast in a slow world, of being set apart in a way no one can know because no one even knows yet that androids can be alive, too, he’s desperate to be seen.
He’s done this enough to know that he never will be. Not really. No one will ever know him.
But Hank did see him, although not quite in the way Connor was thinking of when he made the gamble to hook up with a former detective. Hank saw something deeper - not what’s underneath Connor’s very human skin, but the loneliness, and the sadness...he thinks Hank saw those things for exactly what they are.
Connor panicked, maybe...maybe that’s why he left Hank alone in his hotel room, why he lied about having an early flight and then waited at the airport for six hours afterwards.
Or maybe he was just trying to protect Hank from him, because he did like him - he thought Hank was kind, and decent, and although Connor usually feels alone even when he’s with other people, he didn’t with Hank.
That matters.
It's not possible for Connor to forget Hank - he'll remember that night with him as clearly as if it was happening in that present moment for the rest of his life, however long that might be - but the ability to set things aside is one he's learned well, too.
So, for the most part, he sets Hank aside, and he does it easily enough. Connor felt some connection to him, some sort of kinship, but it was also just one night, and he's used to existing as an island unto himself - it comes as naturally to him as anything can.
He goes home to his plain apartment on the east side of Detroit, and he does his work for Warrior, and he passes androids on the street waiting to see some spark of life in them, or for them to recognize something in him, and the weeks pass. By December, Connor hardly thinks about Hank at all, beyond the occasional sensory reminder - the same whiskey that was on Hank's lips that night, or a cologne with similar notes to the one Connor smelled on his clothes for weeks after he got home from Chicago - and even then, it isn't for more than a moment.
He doesn't think about him much at all until December 12th, when he's sitting in a Royal Oak coffeeshop with his laptop getting some work done and Hank Anderson walks through the door with his son.
Connor thinks fast by design, and so by the time Hank sees him, too, he's wondered why Hank is all the way on this side of town, and come to the conclusion that Hank’s ex-wife must live over here, or maybe they were at the zoo.
He’s also thought about how he doesn’t look cute. Connor didn't imagine he was going to be seeing anybody today, because he goes most days without talking to people, so he left his apartment with a baggy jacket that isn't doing his figure any favors and a beanie pulled over his forehead - his "don't bother me" outfit.
Hank looks good, of course. Connor wonders if he always does, and that's the thought he's hung up on when he gives Hank a weak smile and raises a hand in greeting.
Hank puts a hand on Cole's shoulder - he didn't tell Connor about him, but Connor knows his son’s name from running Hank's records - and says, "Can you get yourself whatever you want if I go say hi to someone?"
Hank watches Cole get in line, and then he shoves his hands into his pockets and makes his way over to Connor. He's slouching, uncomfortable, but he still tries to give Connor an amiable smile when he gets there. "Hey," he says.
"Hi," Connor says, and he nudges the seat across from him out with his foot for Hank to join him. Hank glances over Connor's shoulder at Cole in line, but he can see him well enough from here, so he sits down, propping his chin in his hand.
"Your ex lives on this side of town," Connor guesses before Hank can say anything. "Or you were at the zoo."
"The zoo," Hank says. "Jen and Cole moved out of the city."
Connor nods. He doesn't know why it didn't occur to him that he lives a few blocks from the zoo and that Hank has a young son.
"How are you?" Hank asks in his very particular awkward but sweet way.
Connor tilts his head. "I'm okay. I'm...um. Sorry. About running off and not waking you off."
Hank shrugs him off. "It's okay. You didn't owe me anything." He hesitates and then adds, "I was sort of sorry I didn't get the chance to ask you for your number."
The corner of Connor's mouth lifts. "Were you?"
"Yeah. I mean, I didn't think I was going to get it, but you know...shoot your shot, or whatever."
"Is that what you're doing now?" Connor asks. "Shooting your shot? Or are you just telling me?"
Hank shrugs, a glint of humor in his eye. "I guess that depends on what your answer would be."
Connor's smile broadens, although there's sadness in it. "You don't want to date me."
"Why not?”
"I'm not a very good boyfriend, Hank. I promise you can do better."
"I couldn't make my marriage work, so I'm probably not, either," Hank says mildly. "Just thought we could maybe get a really low-key dinner and see if we're compatible types of fucked up."
Connor thinks that's a very charming way to put it, but he doesn't think anyone's compatible with him, and he knows it would be simpler just to say, "I don't think that's a good idea, but it was really nice to see you, and you look good, and I'm glad you're doing well."
So he honestly can't say why he reaches into his wallet and retrieves his business card instead, passing it across the table to Hank. "My cell's on there," he says, "if you want to text me."
"I'm driving Cole home after this," Hank says. "I’ll be back in the area later if you maybe wanted to..."
Despite himself, Connor smiles. "Yeah," he says, nudging the toe of his shoe against Hank's under the table. "I'm free tonight."
"Okay," Hank says, simultaneously looking very pleased with himself and amazed and confused by the turn of events, which is fair. It's about how Connor feels. “I should,” he says, clearing his throat. “Probably get back to my kid before he buys half the pastry display with my credit card, but I’ll probably be back in the city around 8? If that’s okay?”
Hank is a very endearing mix of very smooth and terribly awkward, Connor thinks. “Yeah,” he says softly. “That’s okay.”
“Okay,” Hank says again, like he’s trying to make himself comprehend this, before he finally moves to stand up. “I’m glad I ran into you. I was actually going to look you up since I knew you worked for Warrior, but I...thought that might be creepy.”
Connor shrugs, smiling. “I looked you up.”
“Guess that’s how you knew I don’t live in the area.”
“Yeah,” Connor says wryly, reaching up to run a hand over his hat. “I’ll look better tonight.”
“I think you look good.” Hank tugs on the collar of Connor’s jacket. “See you later.”
Connor buries his face in his laptop screen until Hank leaves, waving away preconstructions of the probability of Hank figuring out what he is, of how long it might take. Amanda was brilliant, and he passes well, but there’s also a reason he never gets too close to anyone for long.
What are the odds he spoils Amanda’s entire design because an attractive man dicked him down really well and made him feel like something other than what he is? Is he really so incapable of being alone?
“No one’s meant to be alone,” Amanda said to him once. “Not me, and not you.” And that felt like a comfort when she was alive, when they had each other, but now?
Connor doesn’t know what it means.
(And yes, since Hank Anderson has his number now, it seems Connor is that incapable of being alone. Different from humans in so many ways, but with the same weaknesses...Amanda really was brilliant.)
Connor gets up and packs his things into his satchel, and as he walks home, he does the same exercise Amanda used to do with him when he got stuck in a processing loop, when she was trying to teach him how to be alive. “What do you want?” she would say. “Not the choice you think gives you the best outcome, no data, just...what do you want?”
And what Connor wants, it seems plainly obvious, is to go out with Hank tonight, which means that if Amanda was here, she would tell him to do exactly that. So he tries not to feel too guilty.
Hank texts him around five, when he’s done dropping Cole off. “Hey,” it says. “It’s me. Just wanted you to have my number. I’ll see you in a few hours.”
Every time Connor agonizes over a decision, it fortunately only takes a few moments because of how quickly he analyzes his environment and draws conclusions, although those moments still seem to stretch on to him. And that’s exactly the case as he stands in front of his closet trying to decide what to wear. Most of his clothes are nice, tailored, although he doesn’t want to look like he’s trying too hard, either. Connor settles on a slim pair of jeans and a plain button down shirt, which he thinks is good enough, and then he sits on his couch with the tv on for the rest of the evening, trying to distract himself even if he isn’t focusing on anything in front of him.
He texts Hank his address closer to 8, and Hank writes back, “Be there in twenty minutes,” and though those minutes pass slowly, it isn’t any longer than that before Hank is ringing his doorbell. Connor fixes his hair, even though it never really gets messed up, in the tv before he goes to answer the door. Hank is leaning in the frame, and Connor wonders briefly if he’ll seem too slutty if he suggests that they just stay in instead.
(The answer is yes, probably, but the temptation is there.)
“Hi,” Connor says instead, because it’s a good enough place to start.
Hank leans around him to peer into his apartment. “Nice place,” he says. “You ready to go?”
“Yeah,” Connor says, pulling his coat on. “There’s a burger place around the corner, if that works?”
“Cool,” Hank says, and once Connor has locked his door, he wraps an arm around his shoulders. Connor remembers all at once that he likes the way Hank sort of envelopes him when they’re like this - it’s comforting.
When they get to Hank’s car, Hank says, “Can we talk about you this time, too?”
Connor elbows him gently. “Sure. What do you want to know?”
“Anything you want to tell me, I guess.”
Connor pretends to consider it for a moment, and then he leans his head back against the seat and looks over at Hank. “Best sex I’ve had in a very long time,” he says, because he wants to watch Hank flush, and he wants him to know, and he certainly doesn’t want to say “ever”.
“What, me?” Hank asks.
“What, me?” Connor repeats, exaggerating the surprise in his voice. “Yes, obviously.”
Hank snorts at that. “Here I was wondering if it’s more or less awkward to acknowledge the sex.”
“Less, I think,” Connor says, practical, especially considering that he’s hopeful there might be more of it, even if that’s a dangerous game, too - he had to close his eyes at some point last time just so Hank wouldn’t see him glitching, after all. How much can he put his control through before it fractures?
(Honestly, Connor is kind of curious to find out, even if that’s unwise.)
“Yeah,” Hank says at his side. “I guess you’re right.” He shrugs and then adds, “Same, by the way. You’re incredible.”
It's not exactly hard for Connor to come by praise, but he still likes it in this context, without any of the pretense. "Can I ask you something?" he says. "Before we start talking about me, I mean."
"Yeah," Hank says. "Shoot."
"Why did you want my number?"
What Connor is asking, really, is "What made you like me?" but that seems too sad to ask on a first date. Hank isn't the first person to be kind to Connor, or the first to want to see him again - Connor might be younger than he looks, but he wasn't activated yesterday - but he is the first that Connor has also liked, so that feels notable, maybe. Maybe Connor is just trying to understand why there's some kind of connection between them, why being with Hank feels comfortable, because he knows there is, but he doesn't quite understand it, either.
"Oh," Hank says. "I don't know. I like how forward you are, and I think you're smart, and easy to be around, and I just...I don't know."
Connor gently knocks his hand into Hank's. "No, what?"
Hank shrugs. "I just thought you seemed like someone I could miss, maybe. I think we're sort of similar."
"Hm." Connor sits there for a moment, letting that wash over him. "I think so, too. I thought about you a lot."
"Yeah?"
Connor smiles. "Obviously," he says, teasing. "I'm here, aren't I?"
Hank looks at Connor's hand next to his, and Connor watches the thought pass through him in the moment before Hank laces their fingers together. He's hesitant about it, giving Connor a moment to pull his hand back, but Connor doesn't want to - he likes the way Hank's fingers feel in his. "I thought about you a lot, too," Hank says.
Connor knows he can't really let this go anywhere - it wouldn't be fair to Hank, not when there's so much Connor can't tell him. Hank deserves better than someone who's anything less than all in.
But he can see some hint of what they might be, and Hank is a comforting presence, so...well. Connor is good at pretending, isn't he? Pretending he's human, pretending he's okay...he's good at it, and he can pretend here, too.
There isn't much seating at the burger restaurant Connor directs Hank to, so they get takeout and return to Hank's car.
"You want to go see a movie or something?" Connor asks. He doesn't mention that Hank's car is a mess (although Hank did obviously scramble to clean it out as well as he could before he picked Connor up), but he figures it's fine to just eat in the car while they drive somewhere else.
"I actually have another idea," Hank says, although he doesn't elaborate - he just takes the bag of food from Connor and tucks it onto the floor behind his seat and pulls out of the lot.
Connor actually can't figure out where Hank is going, which surprises him - he's familiar with the area anyway, and can cross-reference it against GPS data, but there's nowhere public anywhere nearby. They're close to the zoo, he supposes, but the zoo closed an hour ago.
Hank drives up a back road, and then he pulls off to the side at the height of a hill. There's a wide shoulder here leading into a parking lot for a warehouse that went out of business years ago, and Hank reverses the car and pulls onto the shoulder at a ninety degree angle before he shuts it off.
Connor looks down on the dim lights below them and realizes they're overlooking the zoo. They can see almost all of it from here. "I didn't know this was here," he says.
"I found it with a friend accidentally, way back in high school." Hank squeezes Connor's fingers and then pulls his hand back, reaching around to retrieve their food. "Come on."
Connor hasn't been to the zoo in years, despite living so close to it. The animals are all androids, which isn't upsetting to him, really - it's nothing compared to what he sees around him with humanoid androids every day, and they run on different, much less sophisticated programming anyway - but it also just hasn't been something he's interested in doing by himself. The few times he went with Amanda were enough.
But there's something charming about sitting on the hood of Hank's car and eating while they watch the giraffes and elephants milling around below, too, even if it is cold.
"We don't have to stay out here long," Hank says.
"No, it's nice," Connor says. "I used to go to the zoo with my mom before she died. She liked that they were all androids...I think that was more interesting to her than actual animals would have been." Connor can feel Hank looking at him, so he adds, "She died back in 2027...pancreatic cancer. She was well off, and she could afford good treatment that extended the time she had, which was a silver lining, I guess."
"I'm sorry," Hank says.
"It's okay," Connor says quickly. He's well aware that it's the most he's ever told anyone about himself, somehow, even though it isn’t much at all. "She was at peace about it, and comfortable with what she was leaving behind, you know? There are worse things. I just wish she'd had more time, I guess."
“Yeah. I get that,” Hank says. “Was it just you and her?”
Connor looks over at him with a dim smile, fingers brushing his when he reaches for the fries they’re sharing. “Yeah. She was really invested in her career, but she wanted a kid, and she didn’t want to wait for dating to line up with the rest of her life when it’s so hard to meet people. So she adopted me as a single mom - I was a foster kid, and I was a little older when I got to her. I thought she was so fucking cool. She was an AI professor, so she always had robotics and tech shit around that she was working on and that she let me play with. I thought I was the luckiest kid.”
Connor shifts so he can lean back against the windshield - the car is still on, and the glass is warm against his back from the heat running inside. He looks down at the elephants as one of them runs across its enclosure, and he thinks of talking with Amanda about the logic programmed into them when they would visit, and he thinks he’s about as close to the truth as he can get with Hank.
Hank leans back beside him, folding his hands over his stomach. “You know, you’re different than I thought you were.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know. A little calmer and quieter, maybe.”
“I don’t have the energy to function at that level of flirtatious, slutty energy all the time,” Connor says wryly, and Hank laughs at that.
“I didn’t think you were slutty.”
“I know. I’m joking.” Connor watches the giraffes eating and thinks of the exact lines of code they’re running, the exact lines he’s running, the way Hank is getting written into them like a handprint as his memory catalogues this. “Good different?” he asks Hank.
“Yeah. Good different.”
Connor knocks their elbows together. “You’re the same, I think.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“Yeah,” Connor says, smiling, “it is.”
It doesn't come naturally to him, but Connor does spend the next hour talking about himself while they sit there - about his work, the games Warrior is producing, about the movies he’s watched recently, and more about Amanda.
And Hank is a good listener, which seems unfair when he’s a good talker too. It’s good and it also makes Connor aware of exactly how lonely he is, how much he keeps to himself until his processors grind down on it, because who is he going to tell, really?
And Connor knows this isn’t a permanent solution, him and Hank - it can’t be - but for tonight, it does feel like a balm on whatever it is inside him that aches.
“It’s getting late,” Connor says when the conversation lulls, because he doesn’t think Hank is going to cut him off, even though he has a long drive home.
Hank checks his phone. “Yeah. I guess it is.”
“Do you work tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” Hank sighs. “Listen, can I see you again?”
“Do you still want to?”
Hank looks him over. “You’re really hard on yourself, you know that? Of course I do. I like you.”
Connor reaches for Hank’s hand. “I like you, too.” He looks down at their fingers knit together, analyzes the microscopic whorls of Hank’s fingerprints, thinks about how his own are artificial, man-made, how if he pulled his synth-skin back there wouldn’t be any at all.
There are so many things Hank can’t know.
And yet that doesn’t stop Connor from making the rash decision to say, “You can stay at my place, if you want. Drive home in the morning when it’s light out.”
“Yeah?” Hank asks, and Connor smiles as he reaches up to grasp him by the back of the neck and pull him in to kiss him. Connor isn’t bothered by the cold, but Hank is so warm, his weight heavy and solid against Connor, that he feels good anyway.
Connor nods against him. “Yeah. You should stay.”
Hank kisses him back, and he whispers, “Okay. You want to get out of here?”
Connor is running preconstructions to determine the probability of them getting caught if he were to push Hank into the backseat of his car and suck his cock instead of just heading home, but it’s the cold that stops him, in the end. He doesn’t mind it, but Hank might, so Connor files that idea away for later, realizing all the while that he shouldn’t be filing anything away for a future between them when he knows there shouldn’t be one.
Hank helps Connor off the hood of his car, and he surprises Connor by lightly slapping his ass as Connor turns to walk their collected trash to the garbage bin. For all the ways that Hank is reserved and just a little awkward, there are others where he’s brazen and confident, and Connor likes discovering them.
And Connor has been pretty reserved tonight, but if Hank wants to play that game...
Later though, he tells himself. They have all night.
When they get back to Connor’s apartment, Connor flips the lights on and extends a hand for Hank’s coat. “How long have you lived here?” Hank asks, looking around.
“Nine years,” Connor says, thinking as he hangs Hank’s coat in his closet beside his things that there’s something he likes about that, something companionable and familiar. “Since Mom passed away. She left me her house, and I still have it, but...I don’t know. I guess I wanted a fresh start, and something that was just mine. Things felt easier that way.”
“Yeah,” Hank says. “I still have the house that was mine and Jen’s, and I’ve been thinking of moving even though I don’t need to. I don’t know if I ever will, but...same reasons. Feels kind of shitty to come home to someplace that used to be yours and someone else’s and just be alone.”
Connor moves to sit on his couch - his living room is plainly decorated, with an assortment of Amanda’s sleek, modern furniture that he pulled from storage. He’s never taken the time to decorate it with any more than just traces of himself, and maybe that’s because he sort of wants this place to feel impermanent to him. He doesn’t want to let himself settle - it wasn’t what he was made for.
But there’s something about Hank sitting down beside him, wrapping a tentative arm around Connor’s shoulders, that makes it feel a little more comfortable with no change at all.
Connor sinks back into his seat and lets himself lean into him. “Did you want to get divorced?” he asks softly.
“I don’t know,” Hank says. “I don’t think anyone really wants to, but sometimes once you’re on the other side of it you realize that it was the right thing, I think. I guess that’s where I’m at.” Hank shrugs. “Miss the hell out of my kid, though.” He reaches for something in his pocket and then hesitates. “I don’t want to be that guy.”
“What guy?”
“The guy who makes the hot date who’s inexplicably interested in him sit through a slideshow of photos of his kid.”
Connor huffs a laugh at that, tucking his head into Hank’s shoulder. “I like that you love your son.”
Hank cards his fingers through Connor’s hair and slips his phone from his pocket. “Here - just one. This was last Christmas - Cole had just lost both of his front teeth, and he loved showing that off.”
Connor looks at the picture of Cole, sitting cross legged on the floor with a wide smile on his face and his arm slung around a massive Saint Bernard. “He looks like you,” Connor says. “Is that your dog?”
“Yeah. Sumo. We agreed that Jen got primary custody of Cole and I got custody of this big baby. Just made the most sense with me traveling so much for work.”
“He’s cute,” Connor says, picking a piece of dog hair off of Hank’s jeans. “He sheds, obviously.”
“You have no idea,” Hank laughs. “Maybe you can meet him next time, if we do this again.”
There’s something about the promise of next time, even if Connor isn’t supposed to want it, that had him twisting to kiss Hank’s cheek, and then pushing himself into his lap a moment later.
One night stands don’t leave much opportunity for people to take their time, at least in Connor’s experience. They aren’t opportunities to taste someone, to explore them...to get attached. But that’s what Connor does now, slowly smoothing a hand over Hank’s chest, licking into his mouth. He likes the way Hank’s arms settle around him, the weight of his hands on his hips, the way Hank’s heart rate picks up under his fingers as they breathe the same air.
He likes so much about him.
Connor has fucked around plenty, but he’s never actually done this - never had a man over to his apartment, never slowly, languidly made out with somebody on his couch. He acquires new information so quickly that he sort of thought he was done experiencing firsts at this point in his life, but he’s almost pleased to be proven wrong.
“I want to do something,” Connor whispers, and Hank drags his fingers through his hair in a sort of agreement as Connor kisses down his neck and then slips from Hank’s lap, sinking to his knees between Hank’s legs.
He knows Hank wasn’t judging him, of course, but Connor was overwhelmed the first time they were together, and he knows he gives better head than that. He wants Hank to know it, too.
Hank puts a hand on Connor’s cheek, running his thumb over his skin, and Connor turns his head to kiss his palm. “I want you to fuck my throat,” he whispers, and he watches the line of Hank’s throat as he swallows hard.
(Connor knows what he’s doing - he phrases it that way on purpose just to feel Hank’s pulse jump, and he knows what he looks like like this, looking up at Hank from under hooded eyelids. He knows what he’s doing.)
He helps Hank unfasten his belt and slip his jeans and boxers down, and he takes his hard cock in his hand, giving it a slow stroke and watching Hank’s head cant back. “Hank?” he says softly, a little hesitantly.
“Yeah?”
Connor darts his tongue out to taste him, taking the head of Hank’s cock between his lips and then dragging his thumb over it when he lifts his head. “I...” Connor starts softly. “I liked the way you called me baby, before.”
Connor tries to be good about vocalizing what he likes and what he wants, even when it feels exposing. He isn’t programmed the same way other androids are, with no concept of his own desires, but it’s still difficult sometimes. Amanda built him for a bold purpose, and it can be hard to see where his own needs fit into her plan, even if Amanda wanted that individuality for him. It takes effort on his part, effort that he’s always trying to put in.
Hank drags his fingers through Connor’s hair, and Connor thinks he’s right that Hank is a giver, because Hank doesn’t tease him, doesn’t gloat, doesn’t do anything other than give. “Baby,” he says softly, and Connor’s sensors hum with pleasure as he rewards him by swallowing him down in earnest, loving the way Hank guides him with gentle fingers in his hair.
Connor knew already, but he decides all over again that he loves the way Hank’s cock feels in his mouth, the strain of his jaw around it, the way it hits the back of his throat and makes him wonder if it would be more believable for him to simulate gagging, even if he wasn’t built with the reflex.
He doesn’t mostly just because he wants Hank to think he’s remarkable. When this is over, he wants Hank to remember him.
Connor digs his fingers into the flesh padding Hank’s hips after a few moments - he could set the pace here, but that’s not what he wants tonight. What he intends is for Hank to rock up into his mouth, but Hank has a more creative imagination than he does in this moment, because instead, Connor feels the muscles in Hank’s thighs tense under his hands as Hank slowly gets to his feet.
And fuck, Hank isn’t that much taller than him, but he feels so much taller than Connor like this, standing over him, pushing his fingers through Connor’s hair without any care whether he messes it up or not. Connor moans around him, the sound muffled by his full mouth but still plenty loud, and Hank looks at him like...like he’s enamored with him, like his world starts and ends here, in this room, with Connor as its anchor, if only for tonight.
Connor knows that isn’t true. He knows they don’t know each other, really, knows he can’t let them get any closer than this. He knows this will end, but fuck, nobody ever looks at him like he’s so important.
And more than that, as Hank starts slowly fucking into his mouth - he could go faster, Connor thinks with a bit of pride swelling in his chest - he tells Connor everything .
“You look so good like this, baby,” he says, voice rough and strained and tender. “Fuck, you have no idea how sorry I was that I couldn’t see you like this in Chicago...” He drags his thumb over Connor’s lower lip where it’s stretched around his cock. “You’re so gorgeous, holy fuck...”
Connor lifts his chin to drive Hank’s cock harder against the back of his throat, an encouragement, fingers squeezing Hank’s thighs, and Hank knows what he’s asking for.
Connor is meeting his eyes when he does it, when Hank pulls back and then drives back into his mouth. Connor puts a hand up to stabilize himself - he’s reaching for the barrel of Hank’s stomach, but Hank catches Connor’s hand in his and winds their fingers together instead.
“I’m going to come, baby,” Hank groans, and he threads his fingers in Connor’s hair and tries to lift him off, but Connor doesn’t let himself be diverted. He squeezes Hank’s hand and swallows him down so he can feel the wiry hair above Hank’s cock brushing his nose, and a moment later, the taste of him bursts over Connor’s tongue, setting his sensors ablaze.
Connor takes a few breaths through his nose as Hank comes down - he’s sort of crumbled over Connor, curled in on him, fingers tight in his hair like Connor is the solid base he’s built on and something he needs to cling to. He strokes his fingers over Connor’s face as he catches his breath, and when Connor slowly pulls back, extricating the two of them, Hank whispers, “Holy shit, baby. Fuck.”
Connor wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and says, “Good?”
“Yeah,” Hank breathes, making him smile in smug satisfaction. “Jesus Christ.”
It does something for Connor that’s hard to explain, being on his knees while Hank stands over him. If he’d been built the way any other android is, he would think maybe he was trying to reclaim something from his experience of subservience, but he’s always known what he is, was made to know he’s just as alive as Amanda was, as Hank is.
It makes him wonder if he’s trying to experience what his life should have been on his own terms instead, out of some sort of curiosity.
Connor doesn’t know. He just knows that it feels good when Hank cradles the back of his head, running his fingers over his hair, and that he likes the way Hank is looking at him.
He wonders if he would look at him the same if he knew. He would ask Hank what he thinks about androids, but most people don’t have any kind of opinion on them at all yet - they’re just machines, like computers or cell phones. If he asked Hank about it subtly, he knows he wouldn’t get any sort of affirmation.
So Connor doesn’t ask. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever have it in him to ask, but he thinks the world needs to come along a lot further first, that CyberLife needs to push closer to what Amanda already perfected.
He doesn’t need the hand, but Connor takes Hank’s anyway when he offers it to him to help him stand. Hank pulls him back to the couch, letting Connor curl up at his side while he kisses his forehead.
“You want to go back to your room?” Hank asks softly.
“It’s okay,” Connor says, kissing Hank’s cheek. You can catch your breath first.”
“I want to take care of you,” Hank says, because he’s good like that, focused on Connor like that. Connor wonders if he knows how to let a favor go without being repaid, if he thinks he deserves to accept kindness without having to pay it back.
Somehow, Connor doubts it.
But Hank’s burdens aren’t his, and Connor shouldn’t get close enough to start unearthing them, so he nods against him and kisses him and whispers, “Okay.”
Which is how they end up in Connor’s room, how Connor ends up spread out on his back, naked, legs splayed, as Hank lies at his side with two fingers inside him. (Connor can’t tell him, but he likes how large Hank’s fingers are, likes the way he brushes delicate sensors inside him through Connor’s synthskin that he doesn’t even know are there, and the way errors flare in Connor’s periphery when he spreads his fingers inside him.)
“You’re perfect,” Hank whispers in his ear, smiling against Connor’s skin when Connor shudders. “I kind of thought you were faking how sensitive you are.”
My skin is synthetic, with receptors three times more sensitive than any human’s , Connor could say, but of course he doesn’t. He just kisses Hank sloppily and softly says, “I wasn’t faking anything.”
It does send a little thrill through him that Hank noticed, though. Connor wants to be seen and understood and he can’t be, and so little things like this are all he has, even if Hank isn’t anywhere close to suggesting he isn’t human.
“Yeah,” Hank breathes, making Connor’s back arch as he presses into him again. “I’m getting that.”
Hank is hard again, the length of his cock pressed against Connor’s thigh, so Connor takes him by the wrist, kissing him as he pulls his hand free.
And then he gets up, looking at Hank over his shoulder as he crosses the room to settle on his knees in front of the full-length mirror in the corner. “Fuck me here,” he says softly, but he probably didn’t need to - Hank is already moving, looking at him like he’s something ethereal or maybe just something out of a wet dream.
Maybe some combination of the two.
What Connor really wants, what he’s desperate for, is to watch the microscopic hairline fractures form in his synthskin under Hank’s hands, the way they always do when he experiences any strain on his sensors. He wants to see those slivers of his true skin, stark white, to pretend Hank can see them too as he tells him he’s beautiful, even if he knows he can’t.
It’s sweet torture, is what it is.
Connor settles on his knees, acutely aware of every fiber of the carpet pressing into them, and he feels the warmth of Hank’s body behind him and watches him sink to the floor at his back. He hums when Hank wraps an arm around him, drawing him back against him and kissing his neck.
“You know, I’m not usually into this,” Hank says wryly. “Looking at myself, I mean.”
“Mm.” Connor rolls his head back against Hank’s shoulder when Hank wraps a hand around his cock and strokes once, slowly. “Why not? You’re hot.” He nips Hank’s jaw and says, “You don’t want to watch yourself bottom out inside me? Just a little?”
There are hundreds of fractures in Connor’s synthskin, ripples out from Hank’s hand, lines connecting them that Hank can’t see. Soon there will be thousands, and it will take every last ounce of Connor’s not inconsiderable focus to hold himself together so Hank doesn’t see them.
Hank doesn’t know. Hank has no idea what he’s doing, why he can feel Connor’s muscles quivering with exertion under his fingers. He kisses Connor wherever he can reach him - on his cheek, sloppily - and says, “I want to watch you when I do that.”
It’s incredible, Connor thinks, that Hank doesn’t know how devastating he is, but he supposes that’s part of the charm. He kisses him again and then leans forward on his elbows, casting a look over his shoulder.
“Come on, then,” he says softly, and Hank might be looking at him, but Connor is absolutely watching Hank wrap a hand around his own cock, the concentration on his face when he teases himself over Connor’s hole, the way his lips part on a silent moan when he slowly presses inside.
He’s looking at the way Hank envelopes him when he folds over him, too, pressing his chest to Connor’s back and kissing his shoulder, strong and solid.
“Fuck,” Hank whispers. He lays his hand over the back of Connor’s where it’s curled on the floor, and Connor’s skin fractures enough under the heat of his skin, where he knows Hank can’t see, that he can feel the lines of Hank’s palm against his chassis. “God, baby,” Hank breathes. “You’re so good, honey. So good...” He wraps an arm around Connor’s chest and lifts him up, pulling him back against him as he thrusts into him. He darts his tongue out to lick the shell of Connor’s ear and says, “Touch yourself for me, sweetheart.”
There isn’t much that Connor doesn’t know, but he actually doesn’t know how Hank makes filth sound so sweet.
And he’s powerless to do anything else - he wraps a hand around his cock, and he wonders if this is what it would be like to be made the way any other android is, to do things without thinking all because someone told him to. And if it is, he wonders why he likes it as much as he does...
When you’re categorically an object by modern definition, but you’ve never been objectified, maybe you get curious. Connor thinks that’s what he is - curious. And Hank feels safe...safe enough that he could ask for more, if he ever wanted to.
“Fuck,” Connor whispers when Hank hits some sensor deep inside him and drags his thumb over his nipple at the same time. They’re so close, Connor almost shifted back into Hank’s lap, that Hank can’t do much more than rock up into him in minute thrusts, but he’s deep enough that it hardly matters.
And Hank knows how to get him, too. Connor is fucking his own fist and he feels so full, and it’s good, incredible, but it’s when Hank takes Connor’s jaw in his hand and guides him to look in the mirror right before he slips two fingers into Connor’s mouth that Connor falls apart, coming in his hand with a noise that Hank’s fingers barely muffle.
And Hank doesn’t see it, but Connor does, his synthskin fractured, pale chassis stark against his skin. He’s busy counting all the places he’s barely holding himself together when Hank comes inside him, burying his face in the crook of Connor’s neck, arms wound tight around him.
“Fuck,” Hank whispers. “I can’t believe I ran into you again. What the fuck.”
Connor lays his head back against Hank’s shoulder, Hank’s skin slick with sweat against him. “Meant to be, I guess,” he says softly.
It’s probably a cruel thing to say, considering they can’t be at all.
“I guess it was,” Hank repeats, tracing his thumb over Connor’s side and pressing a kiss to his neck. “I don’t…” he starts, but then he stops himself.
Connor doesn’t press him on it. They stay like that for a while longer, kneeling there together, until Hank shifts uncomfortably and Connor takes pity on him, even if he could stay longer still. They get cleaned up together in Connor’s bathroom - he has a double sink, and it’s never felt lonely to be alone in a space for two, but now, he thinks maybe it might.
It’s not until they’re in bed together, Connor curled into Hank’s side with his head on his chest, unconsciously syncing his breathing to Hank’s, that Connor says, “You don’t what?”
“What?”
“You were starting to say something, before.”
“Oh.” Hank yawns and runs his fingers through Connor’s hair. “I don’t know why you think there’s anything wrong with you. There isn’t.”
Connor shrugs. “I have anxiety,” he says wryly, which is true, and a significant understatement.
“Yeah,” Hank says softly. “I mean, I got that. I just...I don’t know. I just think you’re kind of incredible.”
Hank doesn’t know, but...maybe that doesn’t make the words any less true.
It’s what Connor thinks about as he falls asleep against him.
(He hopes it’s true.)
Chapter 2
Summary:
Connor tries, he really does, to hold Hank at arm's length. He knows this can't be permanent, not when he's keeping so much from him, and so even as they date, he tries to keep him at a safe distance, to protect them both.
He tries right up until the night he almost loses him.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Connor kisses Hank goodbye at his door the next morning, and as Hank drives across the city to work, he's still in awe of his luck. There's something about divorce, the strained relationship that came before it, having to split time with his kid, and everything else that comes with it, the burden that is to carry, that's made it sort of difficult to imagine something good happening to him, he supposes.
Meeting Connor the first time already felt like something bright tossed his way, and Hank was happy enough to take that for what it was. Finding him a second time? Hank doesn't believe in fate, really, but this almost feels like that. He can't believe he just...ran into him. He can't believe how incredible he thinks Connor is. He can't believe they're dating.
Are they dating? Granted, it's been a while since Hank dated anyone, but he thinks they're dating.
Or, at least, he does, right up until Connor starts dodging him.
At first, Hank doesn't think anything of it. He texts Connor that first evening - he made himself leave his phone in his pocket through work, even if he thinks about him all day. He finally settles on, "Hey baby. You want to do something this weekend, maybe?" after rewriting it twenty different times.
Hank figures that's okay. Connor said he liked him, and that he wanted to see him again. He doesn't want to come on too strong, but Connor hasn't given him any indication that they're anything less than entirely on the same page about where they want this to go.
"I have to go out of town for work this weekend," Connor texts him back, a few hours later. "I have a conference in Seattle. I'll text you when I get back. ❤️"
Hank doesn't give that much of a second thought - he knows firsthand that Connor travels for work sometimes, and there's the heart emoji...it's whatever. He doesn't have any reason to think he won't hear from Connor when he gets home.
But a week passes, and then two, and Hank figures whatever conference Connor went to has to be long over by now. He starts to wonder if Connor might be trying to ghost him, if he changed his mind about the two of them. But while Hank knows he's by no means the finest catch in Detroit, and that Connor probably has his pick of whoever he wants, it's still hard to reconcile that with the way things were going.
That's the only reason why he texts Connor again. Normally he would just take the hint and let him alone, but things were going so well. And maybe Connor is just busy with the holidays.
So Hank reaches out again, although he does back off with the "baby" thing this time.
"Hey," he writes. "I know you're probably busy. I'd still like to see you, if you want to. I could drive out to you if that's easier."
It's not until the next day that Connor texts him back. "Sorry," he says. "I swear I'm not trying to ghost you. We have this game releasing in a few weeks, and we're behind on production. I've been doing a lot of overtime."
Hank doesn't quite know what to do with that. He doesn't think Connor is lying to him, but he also thinks that if Connor wanted to continue this, he would probably find a way to make it happen. Even if he's too busy to see him, certainly he would have texted him, or something. Wouldn't he?
Still, Hank writes back, "Okay. I could bring you dinner sometime if you're busy, or something? If you wanted me to."
"You're really sweet," Connor writes back, which also isn't a 'yes'.
So Hank lets it go. He waits, hoping Connor will accept the offer, but he never does. He rings in 2037 alone, because Jen and Cole went to her parents' for the holidays, and he wonders what the fuck happened.
January passes, and Connor doesn't text him, and February rolls around. Hank goes out for drinks with Jeff and gets just drunk enough that he gets a cab to be safe. He sits in the back seat, and without even realizing he decided to, he texts Connor one more time. He would probably be more elegant about it if he hadn't had a few - actually he wouldn't be texting at all - but for once, he's too tired to care about editing his text fifteen times over before he sends it.
"Can you just tell me what went wrong?" he writes. "I just...fuck, I don't know. I thought we had something, and I liked you."
For once, Connor's reply is immediate, almost freakishly quick. "We did," his text says. "I like you so fucking much, you have no idea."
"You're kind of sending me mixed messages then, baby," Hank writes back. He's too tipsy to second guess and delete the "baby" the way he usually does.
"I know," Connor’s next reply says. "I'm sorry. I told you I'm shit at this. I'm not trying to hurt you, I just. Don't know how to do this."
"What does that mean?" Hank asks. And then, "Can I call you? Maybe this is easier over the phone."
"I'm not sure it is," Connor's next text says.
"Okay," Hank writes back. "Then...what does that mean?"
At this point, he just wants an answer.
“I think you would be better off without me,” Connor’s reply says when it finally comes.
Hank feels frustrated, just the smallest bit, because they’ve had this conversation before, a few times now. He thought this was settled. “Can you just let me be the judge of that?”
Connor doesn’t say anything else until Hank’s taxi is pulling up to his house, several minutes later. Hank lets the meter run while he sits in the car to read it.
“I’ve been giving you the runaround for months, Hank. What about me makes you think I’m worth that? I’m too selfish to just cut you loose and too fucked up to commit to it. You’re getting that, right? Because that’s the situation. I’m being categorically shitty, and whatever you think you see in me, I’m telling you that I’m not worth that.”
“Jesus Christ,” Hank says under his breath.
He writes back, “I already told you why I like you. I meant that. And for the record, what I said about you being somebody I could miss? I was right. I’ve missed you for two months. I’m not going to beg you to date me, I’ve got more pride than that, but shit. If it’s actually about what you think you’re worth, let me decide that.”
Connor is quiet again, for a long time. Long enough that Hank pays his cab fare and goes inside. He’s too tired to scold Sumo for obviously slinking off the couch he’s not supposed to be on as he steps inside.
When Hank’s phone vibrates in his hand, he lifts it immediately, fumbling with the screen to unlock it. Connor’s text is brief - it just says, “I miss you, too. Can I just think about this for a while?”
“Yeah,” Hank writes back. “Sure.”
“I’m sorry. I hope you’re doing okay.”
Hank doesn’t text back. He’s a little pissed, maybe, because Connor has been thinking about this for two months already, stringing him along without telling Hank what’s even bothering him. It’s not that Hank thinks he’s entitled to anything about Connor’s life - he isn’t - but he also can’t keep sitting by his phone waiting for Connor to give him something to work with.
But...he guesses he’ll do that a while longer. He tells himself he’ll give Connor until the end of February, and then he has to move on. He can’t keep thinking about him.
But February passes, and Connor doesn’t call, and Hank thinks, okay then.
He guesses that’s it.
He tries to focus on Cole, on making their time together meaningful since it’s limited now. He goes on a few dates with other people, but he stops, because it turns out it’s easier not to think about Connor when he isn’t trying to have a nice evening with people who aren’t Connor.
By the end of April, Hank figures he’s really never going to hear from Connor again. He second guesses everything that happened between them, every word he said. He wonders if that day in the coffee shop, it was less fate and more just Connor not knowing how to politely turn him down.
The sex was good, Hank thought. Maybe that was all Connor was after. Maybe he came on too strong, seemed too interested. Maybe if he had treated Connor like some casual thing, things would have gone differently.
Hank honestly doesn’t know, and he’s trying not to think about it. He isn’t sure he’s ever going to understand it.
The third weekend of April is Hank’s to have Cole. They watch a kid’s movie that just came out together, and they play a VR game that Hank wishes he didn’t know Connor was on the development team for. He’s getting ready to go out of town for work, so his bags are packed in his room - there was some sort of incident at a CyberLife warehouse that has Hank’s own company spooked. They want him to do a walkthrough, assess security measures around their androids - theirs aren’t as advanced as CyberLife’s, Hank’s director said, but just a precaution. Hank asked what the hell possibly happened, but his director just told him he would tell him on Monday, even if the last minute trip does have him wondering.
It’s a little after eight when Hank’s phone vibrates on the table beside him. If there wasn’t the situation with work, Hank would probably just ignore it, but he picks it up to make sure it isn’t his boss again.
It isn’t. It’s Connor.
Fuck me, Hank thinks. He wonders if he should just ignore it - if he was any less enamored with Connor, he probably would - but...well, shit, he still means what he said, about wanting to be the one to decide what Connor is worth, and he doesn’t want to turn down a chance to do that.
“I need to take this, bud,” Hank says, putting a hand on Cole’s head before he gets up and goes back to his room. Cole is too involved in the level he’s trying to clear in his game to pay him much attention, which is good. Hank doesn’t really want to field any questions right now.
He picks up once he’s shut his bedroom door behind himself. “Connor?”
“Hi,” Connor says on the other end of the line. He sounds...he doesn’t sound okay. “I’m sorry. About everything. I...have a bad habit of overthinking.”
“Yeah, it’s okay,” Hank says quickly. It’s not, really, but Connor sounds so troubled. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t...” Connor starts and then stops. He lets out a shaky breath. “I just had a really bad day, and I guess as it turns out, I don’t really have anyone else to call.”
“It’s okay,” Hank says again. “What happened?”
Connor is quiet - Hank can’t tell if he’s crying or not, but he thinks maybe he is. “Connor?” he says after a moment passes.
“Can I see you?” Connor asks. “I know that’s a lot to ask after everything, and I can come to you so you don’t have to drive. I just...”
“Fuck, I can’t,” Hank says. “Cole is here.”
“I could come after he goes to bed. I don’t have to disturb him.”
“I...fuck, Connor, I don’t know.”
“I’ll be quiet...”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just...I’m trying not to bring people I’m dating around Cole unless it’s serious, you know? I don’t want to confuse him, or have him getting attached to people.”
Connor is quiet again, and then he says, softly, “I don’t have to stay.”
He sounds...so desperate, and so alone, and so sad. And Hank still cares about him, more than he probably has any right to after two nights.
So he gives in.
“Okay,” he says. “Cole goes to bed around 9:30. Text me when you get here so I can let you in, okay? I don’t want Sumo to bark and wake him up.”
“Okay,” Connor says softly. “Thank you.”
“Yeah, don’t worry about it. Are you going to be okay until then?”
“I’m okay.” Hank can hear him trying to steady his breathing. “I thought about it, you know.”
“About what?”
“Us.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry it took me so long. I...I had a lot of shit to sort through.”
“No, it’s...okay.” Hank says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Uh...what did you think about?”
“About how I missed you, mostly,” Connor says. “I’ll see you in a little bit.”
“Yeah,” Hank says. “Okay. Drive safe, baby.”
Maybe they’re both slaves to their nature - Connor to his anxiety and self-loathing, Hank to his begrudging sort of optimism, his refusal to set Connor aside. Maybe that’s why they keep falling back together.
Hank doesn’t know, but he supposes if he wasn’t at least a little bit grateful for it, he wouldn’t have told Connor he could see him.
It's not that long to wait, not much more than an hour before Hank can send Cole to bed, but the time stretches on until it's almost unbearable. "Can I stay up a little longer?" Cole asks when Hank finally does tell him it's time for bed.
"Not tonight, bud," he says. "We have to be up early tomorrow to get you back to your mom's."
It's true, but Hank still feels a twinge of guilt that it isn't the whole truth.
"Come on," he says, putting a hand on Cole's head and guiding him back the hall to his room. He sits on Cole's bed and listens to him brushing his teeth in the bathroom, and then he tucks him in and ruffles his hair and fervently hopes that Cole falls asleep without much trouble tonight so he doesn't hear Connor and come ask questions.
Connor has the same thought, maybe, because Cole has been in bed for most of an hour by the time he texts Hank. "I'm outside," his message says.
Hank gets up and goes to open the door, finding Connor on his doorstep, fussing with the sleeves of his sweatshirt where they hang loosely around his wrists. He looks better than Hank thought he might, given their conversation - his face isn't red and his eyes aren't swollen - but he still doesn't exactly look good .
"Hey," Hank says softly. "Come in. Just...keep your voice down, okay?"
Connor nods and follows Hank inside. His face lights up the smallest bit when he sees Sumo, who immediately gets up and pads over to him, shoving his nose under Connor's hand.
"Hi, Sumo," Connor whispers to him. He kneels down to pet him, scratching his hand over Sumo's neck. "Hi."
And it twists Hank's heart in an odd way, watching Connor with his dog, a way he can’t quite explain, because there was a time when he thought Connor could slot into his life, and there’s something in him that wants to believe he still can.
It's still early enough in the spring that the basement will be cold, but it's finished, and the couch down there is comfortable, and since it will put some additional distance between them and Cole's room, that's where Hank takes Connor. Sumo follows along after them, having apparently already decided that Connor is his new best friend.
Hank slumps back on the couch, but Connor stays standing where he is, pulling at his sleeves again. "I'm sorry," he says softly. "I wish I knew how to explain the last few months. Beyond just saying that I'm kind of shitty, I mean. I wish I had been more open with you, and I wish I had told you not to wait around for me. I just...I don't know. I really like you, but that didn't make stringing you along while I tried to get my shit together okay."
Hank sighs. "Sit down, okay?"
It's actually hard to believe that this is the same man who caught Hank's eye across the bar and whispered, "I think you're hot, in case that isn't obvious," in his ear no more than five minutes later. Connor looks so uncertain and unsure of himself that Hank doesn't quite know what to do with it.
It's unsettling, honestly.
Connor moves to sit at Hank's side, occupying his hands by ruffling his fingers through Sumo's fur, and Hank reaches for his arm, squeezing gently. "Look, it's...I don't know. I mean, it sucked..."
"I'm sorry," Connor says again.
"No, that's...that's not my point. I'm just trying to say it sucked, but I mean...I don't know. I guess if I was irreparably pissed at you, we wouldn't be sitting here." Hank squeezes his arm again, shifting a little closer to Connor. "Do you want to tell me what you're upset about?"
Connor shrugs. "It's just some shit at work," he says, in a way that makes Hank think maybe it's more than just shit at work. "But I guess every now and then I realize I don't have anyone to call about my shit. And that hurts."
"You know I used to be a cop, right?" Hank asks, making Connor look up at him. "Detective. I had a pretty impressive case record."
"I know," Connor says.
"So I have a pretty good nose for when people aren't telling me everything."
Connor sighs, looking at his folded hands in his lap. "Can it..." he starts, although he interrupts himself to mask the way his voice breaks by clearing his throat. "Can it just be enough for me to say that I want to, for now? I want to."
"I don't know," Hank says wryly. "You going to ghost me again?"
The corner of Connor's mouth lifts in a weak smile. "No," he says. "I don't think so." He scrubs a hand over his face. "I really do like you."
"I like you, too." Hank reaches over and ruffles Connor's hair. "I mean, I'd have to, to wait around for you for...fuck, how long is it now? Six months?"
"I'm sorry," Connor starts to say again, but Hank squeezes his shoulder before he can finish.
"You don't have to keep saying that."
Connor nods. "I'd like to go out with you. If you still want to."
"Yeah. Of course I do."
It's weird, Hank will think later, how the signs were all right there that night, and he never saw them. How gutted Connor was in a way that seemed to go beyond work or family shit, how he even said he wanted to tell Hank everything but didn't know how. Hank will look back through years of call history to see that the call from work about android security and the call from Connor came in only a few hours apart, and he'll think, god. It was right there, so fucking obvious.
But that's the other thing Hank knows from years on the force, he supposes.
No matter how obvious it is, it's hard to see what you aren't looking for.
Connor scrubs a hand over his face, leaning forward and bracing his elbows on his knees. “I don’t think I’ve been doing very well on my own,” he says weakly.
“Hey,” Hank says, shifting so he can wrap an arm around his shoulders and tuck Connor into his side. “I don’t think any of us do. I haven’t been, either.”
Hank is distinctly aware as he says it, though, that Connor has been alone so much longer than him. His mother has been dead for nine years, he doesn’t have any other family, doesn’t really seem to be one for relationships, either...
Connor sags into him - he seems content to have somewhere to lean, something to hold him up so he doesn’t have to do it himself. And if it’s possible, Hank can feel the weight of his exhaustion as they share it together.
He wonders what Connor’s burden is. Shitty ex, maybe. A history he isn’t proud of, possibly. And maybe it is just as simple as anxiety, too. It’s not Hank’s place to know, he knows - he can like Connor, and hell, he could even love him for who he is now without knowing everything that’s shaped his past.
But he does hope Connor will tell him someday.
For now, though, he runs his fingers through Connor’s hair and says, “Listen. I have to go out of town this week, but next weekend, can I take you out? Somewhere nice, maybe.”
Connor sighs against him. “You should be angrier at me,” he says, tucking his forehead into the crook of Hank’s neck. “I don’t know why you aren’t.”
Hank shrugs. “Because you’re hurting. And I just...I mean, fuck, sweetheart, what’s the point? If we’re going to get to the same place anyway, there’s no point in saying shit to you I’m going to regret just to punish you, you know? And you obviously feel like shit about it.” Hank kisses his forehead. “I’m not very good at fighting, honestly. Don’t like it very much. Not with people who matter.”
“I do feel like shit,” Connor mumbles.
“I know.” Hank squeezes his shoulder. “Next weekend? I kind of want to nail you down here, you know?”
He’s joking, and it gets the smallest smile out of Connor. “Yeah,” he says. “Is Saturday at six okay? You can stay again, if you want.”
“Yeah.” Hank cards his fingers through Connor’s hair. “I’d like that, baby.”
Connor hums against him, content. “I should probably go soon,” he says softly. “It’s a long drive.”
“We can sneak you out in the morning before Cole wakes up, maybe,” Hank says, because he wants to be sure Connor’s okay, and he also just doesn’t want him to go. “If you want to stay, I mean. We can watch a movie or something, and cuddle if you want, if that would help...”
Connor makes a soft, choked noise somewhere in the back of his throat, something that sounds like a stifled sob, and he nods against Hank.
“Okay,” Hank says, kissing Connor’s hair. He wonders if it’s possible to love someone without knowing much about them at all, and if it isn’t, he wonders why it feels like he does, almost, or like he could.
“What do you want to watch?” he asks, and Connor shakes his head and wraps an arm around him and breathes, “I don’t care.”
Hank doesn’t know why it’s taken them so long to get to this point, and he doesn’t know if it’s just more foolish optimism on his part, but he thinks as he starts a movie and Connor curls up beside him, laying his head in Hank’s lap, that things feel different this time.
They’re not more than fifteen minutes into the movie before Connor is asleep, which is fine, Hank thinks. Maybe he could use the rest. Hank spends more time watching him than he does the movie, running his fingers through Connor’s hair. And maybe Sumo knows Connor is struggling, too, or maybe he just wants to be pet, but either way he lies down beside the couch and slips himself under Connor’s hand.
It’s nice, Hank thinks. It fits.
When the movie is over, Hank squeezes Connor’s shoulder until he groggily opens his eyes and looks up at him.
“Hey,” he says. “You want to go to bed?”
“Yeah,” Connor says, sitting up.
“I can get you some sweatpants to wear or something.” Hank stands and reaches for Connor’s hand to help him up. “Come on, baby.”
Connor follows him up the stairs with Sumo tailing after them, although when Hank opens the door, he realizes the tv is on again in the living room and that Cole is standing there, VR headset in hand.
“I can’t sleep,” Cole starts to say by way of explanation, although he stops when he sees Connor behind Hank. He’s a quiet kid, a little shy around people he doesn’t know.
And Hank is very busted.
“This is my friend, Connor,” he says quickly, because he has to say something. “He just came over to talk for a bit.” He goes to take the headset from Cole and set it back on the entertainment center. “Come on, bud. Bedtime. It’s really late.”
Cole looks like he thinks it’s wildly hypocritical that Hank is talking about how late it is when he invited someone over, and still a little unsettled that Hank has had someone he doesn’t know in the house without him knowing. They’ll have to talk about it tomorrow - at least they have a long drive.
Connor sees the look on Cole’s face, maybe, because he steps around Hank and points to the headset. “What are you playing?” he asks.
Cole considers him, scuffing his foot along the carpet. “Dusk Till Dawn,” he finally says.
“Yeah?” Connor asks. “You like it?”
“Yeah,” Cole says. “It’s fun.”
“It’s supposed to be kind of scary, isn’t it?” Connor says. “You’re pretty brave.”
Hank sees an in there, which he’s happy enough to take. He might not have been trying to introduce Connor to Cole tonight, but he does want Cole to like him.
“Connor made that game,” he says.
Cole looks at Hank, and then back at Connor. “You did?”
“Kind of. I was on the development team that designed it. That’s what I do, for work.”
“Are you good at it?” Cole asks. “I’m stuck in the forest.”
“I’m okay,” Connor says. “You’re probably better than I am, but we could do two player sometime, maybe. Help each other out.”
“Yeah,” Cole says, pleased. “Dad isn’t good at it. He tried to play with me tonight, and...”
“Hey, I’m fine at it,” Hank says, motioning for Cole to follow him. “Come on. Bedtime. For real this time.”
“Okay,” Cole says begrudgingly. And then, “Night, Connor,” which Hank thinks, with some satisfaction, is a very positive sign.
They wait until they hear Cole’s door shut down the hall, and then Connor whispers, “I can go, if you want me to.”
“Why would you go? He already saw you,” Hank says. “And I mean, it’s not that big a deal anyway. I’m just trying to keep things simple for him with dating and all that, you know?”
“Yeah,” Connor says softly. “You know that game isn’t really for kids.”
Hank shrugs. “Jen’s boyfriend actually got it for him.”
“Oh.”
“And I watched a few videos of it...it doesn’t seem that bad.”
“It’s not,” Connor says quickly.
Hank sighs, reaching for the remote to turn the tv off. “It didn’t work out. Jen and her boyfriend. Cole liked him, so now he’s hurt. That’s sort of what I mean about being careful.”
“I get it,” Connor says, although he looks like he wants to say something else, too.
“What?”
“It’s just...it’s not always bad for kids to learn that some things are tenuous.”
Hank considers that - there’s some wisdom in it. “Yeah,” he says softly. “I just don’t want things to be harder on him than they have to be.”
“I know,” Connor says, putting a hand on Hank’s chest. “You’re a good dad.”
“I’m trying,” Hank says, because that’s really all anyone can do, he thinks. “Come on. Let’s go to bed.”
Hank finds an old pair of sweatpants that are a little tight on him in the back of his drawer, and he goes to the bathroom while Connor changes - he’s trying to be respectful even though he’s seen it all before. When he gets back, Connor is already in bed, covers pulled up to his shoulders, back turned to the door.
It makes it easy for Hank to climb into bed behind him, fitting himself against Connor’s back and wrapping an arm around him.
He kisses the back of Connor’s neck and whispers, “You okay?”
Connor looks over his shoulder at him, and there’s something in his eye Hank can’t quite place, something like fondness. “Yeah,” he says, and if he doesn’t quite sound it yet, he does at least sound better.
He lifts his head to kiss Hank goodnight, and then they quietly settle in together. It’s different from the other times they’ve fallen asleep together, but it’s good, Hank thinks. It feels like their pretenses are gone, at least to some extent.
“You’re so good,” Connor mumbles into his pillow, so softly Hank almost misses it.
Hank doesn’t know whether he’ll be able to sleep, or if he’ll lay awake all night because he isn’t quite used to having someone in his bed anymore, but in the end it comes easier than he thought it might. He’s the one wrapped around Connor like he’s shielding him from something, but having Connor there is some kind of comfort for him, too.
He falls asleep with Connor warm and solid in his arms, and Sumo snoring in the corner, thinking about how he wishes he didn’t have to drive Cole home tomorrow or go out of town afterwards, that they could all just stay here together.
But it’s alright, Hank thinks. He supposes he doesn’t know for sure, especially with Connor’s track record, but this time he’s pretty sure there will be other quiet, relaxing days ahead for them together, and maybe there will even be a number of them.
He doesn’t know if he should have forgiven Connor so easily, or at all, but he’s still glad he did.
The next morning, Hank is barely awake before Connor is turning in his arms to face him, running his fingers over Hank’s beard and kissing him sweetly.
“Hey, baby,” Hank says, voice rough with sleep. “You feeling better?”
“I think so,” Connor says softly. He stretches against Hank and then curls into him. He’s quiet for a while - and it’s nice, Hank thinks, just lying there in the dim morning light while the world is standing still with his arm around him.
But then Connor looks at him and tilts his head like he does when he’s considering something. “Are we dating?” he asks softly.
Hank shrugs. “I mean...I don’t know. You tell me. You’re the one who’s been a little, uh...adverse to commitment.”
Connor blinks. “I’d like it if we were.”
“Yeah?” Hank asks, smiling and kissing his forehead. “You going to call me this time?”
“Yes,” Connor says primly, and Hank puts his hands on his face and kisses him again.
“Then yeah,” he says. “I think we are.”
Connor hums, satisfied, and lays his head back against Hank’s chest and stays there while Hank dozes off again.
“Hank?” he says at some point, although it takes a moment for his name to register.
“Hmm?”
“I should probably go if you want to get me out before Cole wakes up, shouldn’t I?”
Hank glances at the clock. “Oh. Yeah. I guess so.”
Connor gives him a small smile and kisses the corner of his mouth before he moves to get up, and for the life of him, considering they just agreed on it, Hank can’t say why he stops him.
Connor looks back at him with a question in his eyes, and Hank shrugs and says, “I mean...I don’t know. Or you could just stay.”
Connor raises an eyebrow. “What about Cole?”
“I don’t know. If he hadn’t liked you I probably wouldn’t suggest it, but he did, so if you swear you’re not going to ghost me again...”
“I won’t,” Connor says quickly.
“Then I don’t know. Maybe we just get up before he does and order a nice breakfast and tell him we’re dating. I mean...maybe you’re right, about learning that some things are tenuous.”
Connor tilts his head, considering it for long enough that Hank has the opportunity to wonder if maybe that’s coming on too strong - “hey, we just started dating just now, but let’s go tell my kid!” - but then Connor climbs back into bed with him and whispers, “Who knows? Maybe this won’t be tenuous at all.”
Maybe it’s premature to say since they haven’t even talked to Cole, but Hank still decides asking Connor to stay was a good idea. He likes cuddling with Connor, and he likes the way Connor isn’t shy about tucking himself into him as close as he can. He thinks Connor looks cute as hell in the oversized sweatshirt he came over in and the sweatpants he borrowed from Hank. And he likes the way Connor seems a little bit more like himself, casting a familiar look at Hank over his shoulder before he grinds his ass back against him, smiling when he finds Hank already half-hard because...well, fuck, he really does think Connor looks cute, and it’s nice to wake up beside somebody.
Connor twists to kiss him, not particularly shy with the tongue, and Hank groans against him. “Fuck,” he whispers. “I don’t have condoms here, baby...”
“I’m clean,” Connor says quickly, kissing him again.
“Yeah, but I mean...I can’t say for sure that I am.”
“Have you been with anybody else since the divorce?”
“No, but...”
“Then it’s fine,” Connor says, and Hank should probably push back a little at how reckless he’s being, but...well. He doesn’t know. He trusts him not to lie, and if Connor wants to trust him, then...
“Okay,” Hank whispers, “but we have to be quiet, okay? Can you do that?”
“Probably not,” Connor says wryly. “But you’re welcome to make me.”
And honestly, Hank might have had his reservations, but he’s glad for this, too - the other times he’s been with Connor it’s been something very specific, rough and fast, and Hank has loved that and thought both times that Connor is incredible, but he likes that the need to be quiet forces them to go slow and ease up on the bed springs. He’s glad he at least has lube in the drawer of his bedside table - yes, it’s for himself, although Connor doesn’t ask - and also glad to slowly pull his sweatpants off of Connor so he can fuck into him from behind, with his face buried in the hood of Connor’s sweatshirt to muffle his heavy breaths and his hand over Connor’s mouth to stifle the noises coming out of him.
“I’m going to come, baby,” Hank whispers, softly enough the first time that he doesn’t even know how Connor hears him to reach around and grab him by the hip to hold him there so he comes inside of him, but he’s glad he does, and equally glad that Connor gets a weak whine out around his hand as he does it.
“Fuck,” Hank breathes, lifting his hand from Connor’s mouth, and Connor smiles, twisting enough that he can kiss him.
Hank moves to pull out of him, but Connor squeezes his hand and whispers, “Stay. I like it,” which Hank finds very difficult to argue with.
He pulls the loose neckline of Connor’s hoodie to the side so he can kiss his shoulder, exploring the curve of it like it’s the most fascinating thing while he rubs circles into Connor’s skin where the hem of his sweatshirt has ridden up.
“Are you sure you’re cool with kids?” Hank asks him a few minutes later. He knows Connor has known he has a kid for months, and that he had the opportunity to leave this morning if he didn’t want to spend time with Cole, but most guys like Connor - young, attractive, career-focused - run for the hills at the very thought.
“Yeah,” Connor says. “I mean, you’re a package deal, right? And Cole seems like a good kid. So...of course I am.”
Hank knows Connor has been far from perfect the last six months, but he’s still deeply enamored with him, because he says shit like that, shit that makes him kind of an anomaly, and perfect for him.
“Okay,” Hank says, kissing him again. “My bathroom’s right there if you want to get cleaned up. I’ll order donuts a while.”
“Chocolate?”
Hank wonders how Connor has perfected puppy dog eyes so well, and how it’s possible that twenty-four hours ago he thought he was out of his life forever.
“Yeah,” he says. “Whatever you want, sweetheart.”
Hank gets dressed and takes Sumo out while Connor showers, and once he joins him in the living room, slipping his arms around Hank’s waist and hugging him when he does, Hank goes back down the hallway to Cole’s room.
Cole is still asleep, so Hank nudges his shoulder. “Time to get up, bud. I ordered donuts for breakfast - they’ll be here in a few minutes.”
“The good kind?”
“Yeah,” Hank says, pulling a chair up to sit beside Cole’s bed as he sits up. “Listen. Connor is here. Is it okay with you if he eats breakfast with us? I want you two to get to know each other - you might see him around a bit more.”
Cole rubs his eyes. “He’s your boyfriend, isn’t he?”
“Yeah,” Hank says. “What do you think about that?”
Cole considers it and then says, “He seems too cool for you.”
Hank laughs at that and ruffles his hair. “Yeah. I think he is, too.”
“His job is way cooler than yours.”
“Yeah, I get it, bud,” Hank says, amused. “You’re going to be nice to him, right?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know. Dumb question.” Hank squeezes his arm. “Get dressed and come meet us out there, okay?”
The doorbell rings while Hank is getting up, and Hank comes out to the living room to find Connor bringing the donuts inside with Sumo at his heels. "He thinks you're too cool for me," Hank tells him under his breath as he passes him to retrieve the stack of paper plates from above the fridge.
Connor laughs outright at that. "I'm...a massive nerd."
"He missed that memo," Hank says, squeezing the back of Connor's neck when he joins him at the table.
Hank knows he has Jen to thank for how smoothly breakfast goes. He's sure this would be different, no matter how interesting Cole thinks Connor's job is, if Cole wasn't already accustomed to the idea of his parents seeing other people. Hank doesn't think she was cheating on him while they were married, but he does know the man she started dating no more than two months after the divorce had been a friend of hers for a long time, and that maybe the feelings were there, for her to move so quickly. So she took the brunt of it, Cole screaming about how it was her fault she and Hank weren't together anymore, and how she was ruining everything.
Most kids are still optimistic enough to think maybe their parents will still get back together after a divorce, Hank supposes. "It happens," Cole had told Hank the next time he saw Hank after that mess, when Hank sat him down to talk to him about his behavior. "It happens sometimes."
Hank had wiped Cole's tears from his eyes with his thumbs even though it was plain he was trying not to cry. "It's okay to be upset about this," he had told him. "I know this sucks, okay? I hate how hard this is on you. But your mom and I weren't happy together, sweetheart. And I don't know. I think your mom deserves to be happy. I'd like to be happy. I know this is asking you to be really grown up for me, and to understand that sometimes things are just going to hurt for a while to get to something that feels better, but you want that for us, don't you? For us to have a life where we're all as happy as we can be?"
Cole had cried against Hank's shoulder for most of that night, but when he went home to Jen's, he had apologized, and eventually, he grew to like her boyfriend.
A shame they broke up, but Hank has already said that maybe Connor is right. Kids have to learn at some point that not everything is made to last. Everyone has to learn how to say goodbye at some point, even if he can see that Cole is hoping he won't have to say goodbye to Connor.
And Connor is really good with him, too. Hank doesn't know if he has a right to be surprised - maybe he's been stereotyping Connor, assuming since he's a single guy in his thirties that he doesn't have much interest in kids, and that he probably isn't much good with them even if he did. But Connor talks to Cole in ways he can understand without also talking down to him, telling him about his work, about how maybe he could show Cole what he does sometime, the back end of the games Cole loves, and show him some of what his studio has in development, too. Someone might think Connor was a celebrity for how starstruck Cole is by him.
"Could you teach me how to do it?" he asks Connor. “How to make things?”
"Sure," Connor says. "The basics, at least. A lot of kids learn."
After breakfast, Hank claps Cole's shoulder and says, "Finish getting packed, okay sweetheart? We have to leave in a little bit. I'm going to walk Connor out."
"Okay," Cole sighs. "Connor! Promise we'll play next time."
"Promise." Connor bends down to pet Sumo one more time before he lets Hank lead him out.
"You going to be okay?" Hank asks once they're outside.
Connor leans against his car and reaches between them for Hank's hand. "Yeah," he says softly. "I'm better now."
"Okay." Hank kisses his forehead. "I'm out of town until Thursday, but text me if you need anything, okay?"
"Yeah." Connor leans up to kiss him, smoothing a hand over the collar of Hank's shirt. "I'll see you Saturday?"
"Yeah. Send me nice restaurants you like out in your area, okay? I'll make a reservation."
"Okay." Connor kisses Hank one more time before he opens his car door and slips inside. "Bye, Hank."
Hank stands in the yard and watches him drive off.
He wonders if Connor is ever going to tell him what was upsetting him last night. What a weird thing, he thinks, an odd sequence of events that's brought them here.
But...at least they're here.
Up until last night, Connor had actually mostly made up his mind that he would let Hank go.
He knows it was shitty not to tell him. He’ll always know that. But he didn’t trust his resolve to say it - he doesn’t want things often, not in the way he wanted Hank, and so when he does, it’s hard for him to let them go.
But then the vague news reports about the disturbance at the CyberLife warehouse hit. There weren’t many details, but Connor knows how to read between the lines enough to know that one of their androids was behaving erratically.
Maybe it’s nothing. Or maybe it’s the start of what Amanda always said was coming.
Connor has always known what he’s been tasked with. Eighteen years since his activation, and nine without Amanda, has been plenty of time to sit with what she asked of him, to contemplate every last angle of it, every possible permutation.
But there’s something about being faced with it. Something about seeing it head on.
Connor has constructed a rose garden inside his head, tranquil and calming, where his very detailed memory of Amanda lives. He’s reconstructed her appearance perfectly, runs preconstructions based on nine years of past conversations to determine what she might say when he visits her there.
He tries not to retreat to that place often. His Amanda is gone, and this one is just code, just him talking back to himself even if he knows very well how to emulate her. He tries not to rely on her.
But he went there when the news about CyberLife broke, because the day Amanda died, as she was fading in and out, she said, “I don’t always know if I did the right thing, Connor. Bringing you into this world. If I’ve created you for a purpose, to make people see what androids could become, then how is that any different from CyberLife’s domestic models and teachers and construction workers? It’s the same, isn’t it? Unless.” She squeezed Connor’s hand. “You have to choose what you do when the time comes. You have to. It has to be what you think is right, and not what I wanted, because otherwise...otherwise it’s the same.”
“It’s not the same,” Connor had told her. He meant it, still means it.
“Promise me you’ll choose,” Amanda had insisted. “I trust you. And even if...even if you can’t do it, and you just want to live your life in peace...that’s okay. I want you to choose. Whatever you want, okay?”
With tears in his eyes, Connor had promised her.
That theoretical choice seemed easier when he wasn’t faced with it. But now, when what Amanda always feared might finally be starting, he didn’t know what to do. He paced his apartment for hours, thirium pump tight in his chest, running endless preconstructions, spiraling in on himself...he’s never felt so unsure of anything in all his life, or so trapped.
So he went to the garden, and he sat with Amanda, and they talked it through, every last one of his fears, not least of all that if he’s not strong enough for this, that he doesn’t have the fortitude to be so isolated, even more so than he already is.
“What do you want to do?” Amanda had asked him softly.
“I want to do what’s right,” Connor had said. “But I don’t want to be alone. I’m so tired of being alone.”
Amanda had taken his hand and squeezed his fingers. “Then don’t be. You aren’t made for it.”
So he called Hank, because the world felt like it was closing in on him. He knew he didn’t deserve Hank’s forgiveness, but he also knew Hank would give it to him. And he knows that he’ll still have to keep his entire identity from Hank, no matter how much he comes to trust him, because Amanda is important to him, too, and he can’t jeopardize her work.
(And he can’t risk Hank hating him for what he is, either. He can’t bear that.)
Connor tells himself they won’t get too close. They’ll just date, as long as Hank will have him. And at least Connor will have somebody to hold him when shit gets hard, even if Hank will never know what’s truly troubling him.
That’s enough, isn’t it? It has to be possible to love someone without knowing everything they’re made of. Hank can know him completely as a person without knowing where he came from, can’t he?
Connor doesn’t know. But he hopes so.
Connor gets back to his apartment from Hank’s house in the early afternoon, and he feels calmer, even if he also wishes Hank hadn’t had to go out of town (although he knows why he did, even without Hank mentioning the incident at CyberLife). But later that evening, well after Hank should have checked into his hotel room in Chicago, Connor does call him.
He wants Hank to know things are going to be different this time.
Connor looks good, he thinks - he was down at his building gym working out, which obviously does absolutely nothing for his body but does clear his mind some - so he opens a video call and he waits for Hank to answer.
Mostly he just wants to see him. He doesn’t quite know how Hank has become such a comfort to him, but he is. Hank is soft, and kind, but mostly he just makes Connor feel like he’s worth something, worth being known...and maybe worth being missed if anything were to happen to him during this venture Amanda set him on.
It’s selfish, maybe, but Connor knows his demise is a real possibility. He wants to be loved, and seen...but he also wants to be remembered.
Hank accepts the video call on the last ring. “Hey,” he says, propping him phone up on his bedside table so Connor can see him. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I just wanted to call you.”
“Oh,” Hank says. He sounds surprised, and Connor supposes he really can’t blame him.
He props his elbow on his knee and puts his chin in his hand. “Is that okay?”
“Yeah,” Hank says quickly. “Shit, yeah, sorry. I didn’t mean to sound like it wasn’t. I’m really glad you did.”
Connor smiles. “How’s Chicago?”
“God, I don’t know. It’s kind of an unnecessary trip, I think - they just got spooked by something - but at least the pay is good, I guess.”
Connor draws his knee up to his chest. "Spooked by what happened at CyberLife?"
"Yeah." Hank lifts an eyebrow and tilts his head. "You know about that? They've barely broadcast it anywhere."
"We don't build androids, but I still work with a bunch of tech people who keep up with that sort of thing," Connor says. "Is it bad?"
"I mean, my people still only know what CyberLife wants anyone to know, but I don't think it's bad, really. It's just weird. CyberLife security cameras caught an android out of its pod at one of the warehouses in Detroit, and when programmers examined it, it was running some sort of program separate from its default coding. They're not sure where it came from. It was trying to let some of the other androids near its pod out."
"Hm. A disgruntled programmer tampering with it, maybe?"
"Yeah," Hank says. "Something like that, probably. But I guess people are a little afraid that the android could let itself out at all, so...hence the security walkthrough, I guess."
"What are they going to do?" Connor asks. He tries to make it sound like a joke, but he doesn't know how much he succeeds. "Lock them up?"
"I honestly don't know," Hank says. "Not sure what the solution is. I'm just grateful our androids aren't that advanced and we probably don't have have to worry about it. I doubt they could let themselves out even if someone did tamper with them."
Connor would like to ask Hank if he thinks there's any possibility it wasn't human tampering, that the android evolved its own programming, but he doesn't want to seem like too much of a conspiracy theorist.
Instead, he says, "My mom used to say CyberLife's androids were too advanced. She thought they were asking for trouble."
"How do you mean?"
Connor shrugs. "I guess she mostly thought that if you design something with the capacity to think for itself, you shouldn't be surprised when it thinks for itself. And that's sort of the problem with CyberLife, I guess. Like...Riverbed makes machines. CyberLife makes machines that are intentionally designed to replicate humans, and they don't ever seem satisfied with progress, either. I don't know. I guess she thought there were some ethical concerns there."
"You think that's what happened?"
"Oh, no," Connor says quickly, shrugging it off. "No. I don't know. I guess it's just making me think of her and some of the things she used to say."
"Yeah. I'm sorry, sweetheart."
"It's okay." Connor sets his phone on the bedside table so he can lie down on his side and still be in the frame. "Anyway. I'm sorry you had to go out of town over this. I would have liked to spend more time with you today."
"Me too," Hank says. "We have time though, right?"
Connor smiles. "Right."
And they do have time. Hank calls Connor a few days later, just to talk, and they go out that weekend once Hank is back in town, and then again the following one, and again and again. Connor still worries about losing Hank or hurting him, but he's made his decision, and so he also just...lets Hank slot into his life.
He loves Hank's sense of humor, and his resolve. He loves the very distinct sense he has that Hank would fight anyone for him, or for Cole. Connor hasn't spent much time thinking about kids, because that never felt like something in the stars for him, a bridge he would never even have to cross, but he finds that he loves that Hank is a good father, too.
Hank doesn't see Cole often, so neither does Connor, but they feel almost like a family when they do.
They're hiking that summer, watching Cole skipping stones across the lake, when Connor kisses Hank and whispers, "I love you."
The words come easy. They're true, and there hasn't been any additional news out of CyberLife, and the quiet makes it so much easier to pretend.
"I love you, too," Hank says, because of course he does. Connor already knows.
It’s Hank’s birthday - a year to the day since they met, although they’ve only really known each other for half that time - when Hank asks Connor about moving in.
Connor has known it’s coming. He’s known that he doesn’t entirely trust himself not to say yes, because waking up beside Hank helps. It grounds him, and it makes him feel real in ways he hasn’t for the last nine years without anyone close to him in his life.
He also knows he can’t, because androids aren’t supposed to be able to leave their homes without being instructed to, and yet seven have been reported missing, with no sign of forced entry into the home, over the last two weeks. Connor knows the time is coming when he’ll need to be able to move freely, and living with Hank would make that difficult.
But, still. He takes Hank out for a seafood dinner on the river, and he puts a party hat on Sumo when they get home and have the cheesecake Connor baked him earlier for dessert. He sits in Hank’s lap and kisses him without any rush, and he lets the synthskin on the back of his hand retreat and looks at his white fingers closed around Hank’s hair while he fucks into him from behind that night, a little loss of control that Hank caused but can’t see.
There’s no trace of what he is left when Hank pulls him into his arms afterwards, kissing his forehead and running his fingers through Connor’s hair. “Good birthday?” Connor asks softly.
“Yeah. Thank you, baby.” Hank exhales deeply, staring at the ceiling, tracing circles into Connor’s skin.
“Better than the last one?”
“Yeah,” Hank says. “At least this time I know you’ll be here when I wake up.” He’s both joking and not, Connor knows. “I love you, you know.”
“I know.”
“And...I don’t know. The distance kind of sucks, and I’d like to see you more, and I thought maybe...I don’t know. Would you ever consider moving in?”
Yes , Connor wants to say, but what he does say is, “I want to. I’m not sure what to do about the commute, though.”
He can work remotely. He’s always had the option to. There’s nothing stopping him, except...
“Yeah,” Hank says quickly. “Yeah, I get it. It’s just...”
He trails off, and Connor lifts his head to look at him. “It’s just what, Hank?”
“Where is this going, then? I mean...do you ever think about getting married?”
Yes. All the time.
“I don’t know,” Connor says instead. “Does everything have to end in marriage or breaking up? Can’t we just be enough like this?”
“We are,” Hank says. “You don’t think you’re the marrying type?”
“I don’t know what I am,” Connor says, and that’s honest, at least. “I know I love you.”
“Yeah,” Hank says, but it’s tinged with sadness, and Connor hates himself, and the way everything inside him is always at odds.
He could tell Hank the truth about himself. He could. That would be the solution, but...
But he’s so afraid of losing him that he’d rather keep him at arm’s length than not have him at all - or worse, discover that Hank still has some loyalty to the law that might make him so inclined to report Connor.
He doesn’t think Hank would. He knows he wouldn’t.
But Connor can’t risk it, either.
“I’m sorry,” he says softly, and Hank kisses his forehead again.
“You don’t have to be. I was just throwing it out there, I guess.”
Connor knows they needed to talk about it, but he wishes it hadn’t happened on Hank’s birthday, and that he had something closer to the truth to say than just, “But what about my job?” Especially because if it was really about the job, he could ask Hank to move to his side of the city instead, and that suggestion, notably, never comes.
“I’ll think about it,” Connor says, trying to soothe something. He kisses Hank’s cheek and then turns Hank’s face so he can kiss his mouth, and he’s so fucking sorry that what Hank is hearing right now is, “I love you, but not enough for this,” when what Connor really means is, “I love you too much for this and I can’t risk losing you.”
Hank falls asleep after a while, but Connor lies awake, his thoughts spiraling in on themselves.
Cole’s eighth birthday is a few weeks later, but Hank and Connor don’t celebrate with him until the second week of October, when Cole has a few days off from school and can stay longer than just the weekend.
They take him to the planetarium and Connor brings the early access version of his studio’s new game for Cole to play before anyone else. The conversation from a few weeks ago still hangs heavy between Connor and Hank, but maybe a little bit less so.
Time doesn’t really heal anything for Connor, not with the way his memory works, his perfect recall, the way he can relive a moment at any time and can’t ever escape it. But he is discovering that his pain and his guilt will fade, if he’ll only let them.
And he does try to let them. Connor tries to enjoy what he has with Hank as much as he can, especially since he doesn’t know how long he’ll have it. And the day with Cole is no exception, although he admittedly spends most of their time at the planetarium looking at Hank, and the stars reflected in his eyes, instead.
“Can we get ice cream?” Cole asks from the back seat when they’re on their way home.
“Yeah,” Hank says. “We can stop at the store, pick up some for after dinner.”
“I mean the good kind,” Cole whines. “Come on. It’s my birthday.”
Hank looks at Connor, who shrugs. “It’s his birthday.”
Hank pinches Connor’s leg and says, “Don’t enable him,” but he’s smiling, and there’s humor in his voice, and Connor and Cole both already know he’s going to stop for ice cream.
It rained earlier that day, and it’s cold enough to freeze, so Hank drives slow, even though it’s nothing anyone from the area isn’t used to. Cole is talking about some movie he wants to stream when they get home, and Hank is glancing at him in the rear view mirror, the lights from oncoming traffic across his face, when Connor sees it.
It happens fast, even if it feels slow to Connor. He sees the oncoming tractor trailer’s wheel slip and watches the start of the skid, has run preconstructions and calculations long before it even looks like anything is happening.
100% chance it hits them.
72% chance it pushes them off the road and overturns their vehicle.
And if it does, Connor will be okay. Hank will probably be okay.
But Cole? 7% chance of survival.
That’s the stat that makes Connor move. He grabs the steering wheel from Hank, pulls it hard to the right. It still runs them off the road, but in the opposite direction of the truck - their chances are better this way. The truck fishtails above them, trailer skidding across both lanes while their car slides down the hill. Hank yells something indistinguishable, and Cole is crying in the back seat, and it’s only a moment before the trees stop them, but it stretches on for Connor endlessly until he feels paralyzed in it.
The way they collide forces Connor’s head against the window, and he feels something in his delicate auditory processing system rupture and his synthskin fracture at his cheek, pulling back to reveal the damaged chassis underneath, under the force of the blow.
“Fuck,” Hank groans, trying to push the deployed air bag aside. He reaches for Connor, grasping his arm, and Connor squeezes his hand in return to let him know he’s okay. “Cole?” Hank says. “Talk to me, honey.”
He’s alive. Connor can hear him breathing in the back seat, fast and frantic. “I’m...” Cole tries to say, but he’s too shaken up to get much else out.
Hank tries to turn to check on him and groans at the effort, and Connor squeezes his hand again. “Don’t move, okay?” he says softly. He wants to turn to look at Hank - he just wants to see him - but he can’t until his ruined synthskin repairs itself. Instead, he pulls his door handle and forces it open, stepping out of the car.
“Connor,” Hank says after him, trying to reach for him.
“It’s okay,” Connor says, although his voice is shaking. He’s unsettled. “I’m okay.”
He presses his handkerchief to his cheek so Cole won’t see the damage when he opens the back door to check on him. “Hey,” he says as he leans inside the car, scanning Cole’s vitals when he looks into his wide, teary eyes. “You’re okay, I promise. What hurts?”
“My head,” Cole says, voice small. “And my neck...”
Hank tries to move again, and Connor reaches between the seats to grab for his shoulder. “Don’t move,” he says again. “Not if it hurts.”
“You’re moving,” Hank says pointedly.
I don’t break in the same way you do, Connor thinks.
“I’m going to call an ambulance,” he says to both of them. “Sit tight, okay?”
Connor walks a few steps away from the car, and he’s not surprised to hear Hank forcing his door open and moving behind him, footsteps uneven, as Connor talks to the operator android on the other end of the line.
“Okay,” Connor says into the phone, watching Hank check on Cole over his shoulder. His synthskin has finally pulled back into place, so he pockets his handkerchief. “Okay...okay.”
Hank comes up behind Connor when he hangs up, pulling him into his arms and kissing his hair and then pushing him back to look him over just as quickly. “Jesus,” he says. “There isn’t a scratch on you.”
There are, Connor knows. Hank just can’t see them.
Hank kisses his forehead again and says, “What the fuck happened? You...”
“I saw the truck skidding,” Connor says softly.
“I was watching the road, and it wasn’t...”
Hank trails off, and Connor just shrugs weakly.
“The ambulance will be here soon,” he says instead, and Hank nods, pushing an arm through his hair and wincing again. His face is lacerated, and with the way he’s carrying himself, Connor can see he’s hurt.
“Was there a driver in the truck?” Hank asks, and Connor squeezes his arm.
“I think it was autonomous, but I’ll go check. Just stay with Cole and keep him still.”
“Okay,” Hank says, voice rough with pain. “You really saw it skidding?”
“Yeah.” Connor presses a kiss to his mouth and tastes the iron tang of blood. “I love you. Stay here.”
Connor knows as Hank squeezes his hand that Hank isn't questioning him. What Hank is trying to figure out is how he failed them so badly, because he's thinking that if Connor saw it, he should have, too.
"It wasn't your fault," Connor whispers before he goes. "Okay? And we're all fine."
Hank swallows hard and nods. "Yeah," he says softly. "Okay."
Connor doesn't want to leave him, but Hank and Cole are both stable, and Hank is right that they should check on the other driver if there is one, so he climbs the bank to the tractor trailer.
The trailer is overturned, but the cabin is still upright. Connor steps up on the foothold to look inside - it’s an autonomous vehicle, like he thought, so he turns away and climbs back down the bank to wait for the ambulance.
That brings other problems, of course, most notably that Connor can't let himself be examined. He passes for human, but not under such close inspection. They'll realize that his thirium pump is three inches lower than a human heart, or that the echoes of his heartbeat reverberate in a different way.
And fuck, his ear hurts. There's nothing he can do about that now, but even that is a problem, because they could look inside his ear and see the thirium leakage inside. Connor bleeds red, but some of his internal components are still lubricated by thirium, and it wouldn't take much for someone to look where he's damaged and see blue.
He can still hear well enough, but the thirium leakage makes everything sound like he's been plunged underwater. Connor is distracted by it, and that's the only reason he stumbles as he's coming back down the hill, slipping on the wet grass.
He catches himself with a hand, and Hank is beside him a moment later, kneeling and grasping his arm.
"I'm okay," Connor says quickly, righting himself. He doesn't want Hank to think there's anything wrong with him. It's distorted, but he can hear the ambulance sirens in the distance.
When the paramedics get there, they retrieve Cole first. They're most worried about Cole's neck, and that Hank might have a concussion, and so Connor mostly manages to avoid scrutiny on the drive to the hospital since he doesn't look hurt at all.
He sits in the ambulance with his fingers laced with Hank's, quiet. There will never be any way to tell him that he saw every outcome of tonight, twenty-eight sequences of events in which Hank didn't make it.
He can't tell him, but the images are burned in his memory anyway.
Connor knows what’s coming when they get to the hospital. The paramedics unload Cole first, and then say, “If you’ll both come with us, we’ll get you checked out.”
“I’m fine,” Connor says, even if he’s in pain and it’s taking every ounce of his focus not to show it.
“Baby...” Hank says, but Connor just squeezes his hand.
“It won’t take long...” the paramedic starts.
“I’m fine,” Connor says again. “I’m declining medical treatment. Whatever you need to hear.”
“Sir...”
“Look,” Connor says, “just let me go with my kid, alright? I want to stay with him. I’ll go to my doctor tomorrow or something.”
It comes out that way because it’s less of a mouthful than “my partner’s son,” and because Connor badly needs to get his point across, but it’s also the first time he’s called Cole his, and Hank knows it, too, from the look on his face. And so does Cole, lying on the stretcher beside them.
“Okay?” Connor says, but he’s looking at Hank when he asks it. It’s not a question for anyone else.
“Yeah,” Hank concedes, grasping him by the back of the neck and kissing his forehead. “Okay.”
“Love you,” Connor whispers before they part ways. Cole reaches for him, and Connor takes his hand, walking beside him as the paramedics roll his stretcher down the hall.
Connor stays with Cole for as long as he can, although he’s directed to a waiting room early on while they run some tests. “I’ll be right here,” Connor tells him when Cole looks like he’s going to cry again. “I’ll see you when you get back, okay?”
It takes a while, but finally they put Cole in a room, and he and Connor have some time while the doctors look at his x-rays and his other scans. “You’re being really brave,” Connor tells Cole, sitting on the edge of his bed.
Cole scrubs a hand over his face, wincing when he touches the stitches on his forehead. “You’re really smart,” he says softly. “You think things through so fast.” He runs his thumb over the stitches at the edge of his sheets. “I hope one day I’m like that.”
Connor squeezes Cole’s hand. His ear is throbbing. “You’re already smart.”
“Yeah, but...not like you. You were like...a superhero, or something, grabbing the steering wheel like that.”
Connor doesn’t know what to say to that, especially when it’s so far from how he feels about himself, so he just says, “I was just trying to protect you and your dad, bug.” Cole is quiet, considering that, as Connor looks around the room. “I thought about making a game like this once,” he says, because it seems like maybe Cole could use a distraction.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I was just going to do it independently. It was going to be about this man who wakes up in an abandoned hospital, and the player has to look for clues about who he is and piece together the mystery.”
“Was it supposed to be scary?”
“Yeah, but I mean...in an existential kind of way.” Cole contorts his face in confusion, and Connor laughs. “It means being afraid of your own existence or like...your own condition in relation to the world, you know?”
“No,” Cole says, and Connor laughs again.
“It’s something adults think about a lot.”
“You’re afraid of your own existence?”
“Sure,” Connor says. “I mean, sometimes. I think everyone is.”
“That’s sad.”
“Yeah,” Connor says softly, ruffling Cole’s hair. “I guess it is.”
Cole is quiet for a moment, and then he says, “Can I have a soda?”
“Yeah,” Connor says. “Let me go ask your nurse if it’s okay, and I’ll get you something from the vending machine if it is, alright? Will you be okay for a few minutes?”
“I’m not a baby , you know.”
Connor smiles and kisses his hair. “I know. I’ll be right back.”
Standing up hurts, but it isn’t any worse than sitting down, or talking. It’s just different versions of the same ache. Connor wishes he knew when he was going to be able to repair this, but unless he leaves in the middle of the night once they get home, it definitely won’t be before tomorrow.
He walks down the hall, slipping his hands into his cardigan pockets, looking for the nurse’s station, but he finds Hank first, rounding the corner like he’s looking for Cole’s room. Connor feels tears pricking his eyes when he sees him.
“Hi,” he says softly, and Hank closes the distance between them, folding Connor into his arms.
And Connor is all too happy to melt into him and let himself be held. “Are you okay?” he asks into Hank’s jacket.
“Yeah, I’m fine. No concussion. How’s Cole?”
“He’s okay. We’re just waiting for the doctor.”
Hank takes Connor’s face in his hands and kisses him like he thinks he’s incredible. And Connor would like to tell him that he didn’t do anything remarkable that evening, that the preconstructions that made him run them off the road are just a standard part of how he’s made, but instead he just kisses him back.
“That truck would have killed us,” Hank says softly.
Cole, almost certainly. And maybe Hank, too. It’s impossible to know anything with absolute certainty, but still, Connor knows enough.
“It didn’t,” he whispers, and Hank kisses him again.
Cole is worst off out of all of them, his neck badly strained and a minor concussion, but it's mild enough that the doctors discharge him and let Hank and Connor take him home, even if it's much later, well past midnight, before they get to leave the hospital. Cole falls asleep on the ride home, and Hank carries him inside to his room. "We'll go out for ice cream tomorrow, okay?" Connor hears Hank telling him as he helps Cole get ready for bed.
Connor is quiet as he moves down the hall to Hank's room. Hank's bathroom is private enough that he can go relatively unnoticed while Hank and Cole are distracted, and he locks the door and disables his vocal modulator so he won't betray himself - a good decision, in the end, because flushing the thirium from his damaged ear is a painful process, and even though
he can't make any noise, he still bites down on his own fist while he does it.
He's breathing raggedly by the time he's done, fist clenched where he's leaning on the counter. He opens the access panel under his ear and finds the component cracked, the sensors around it badly damaged - the source of the pain, and the downside to having such advanced receptors at all, because everything is amplified.
There's not much Connor can do right now. Removing the component is a more involved process than just snapping it out, and he's sure he doesn't have the time for it right now. He could disable the sensors to reduce the pain, but that would affect other processes too, and that isn't a risk he's comfortable with. At least flushing the thirium will help a bit with the feedback and quiet some of the white noise.
He hears Hank shutting Cole's door down the hall and moving around in the kitchen to let Sumo out, so Connor seals the access port again and brings his vocals back online. He goes back to the bedroom, and he's changing into his sleep clothes, pulling his sweatshirt over his head, when he hears Hank behind him.
"Is Cole asleep?" Connor asks, sighing when Hank wraps his arms around his waist and pulls him back into his chest.
"Yeah," he says, tucking his face into Connor's neck.
They stand there for a moment, still, but that's okay. Connor is happy enough to be held. It doesn't make the pain any less, but it still helps.
Connor thinks, not for the first time, about telling Hank everything - who he is, what he is. It's not that he's any less afraid of losing him, but what if Hank just...still loved him anyway? That's an option too, isn't it? He's sent so much time thinking in terms of either/or, but what if there's some world where he can have Hank and do what he needs to - wants to - for Amanda, too?
What if Hank knows and still thinks he’s as incredible as he does now?
Connor doesn't know if that's hoping for too much, but he almost lost Hank tonight, and he realizes now that all this time he’s told himself he’ll be content with the time they have, he’s been fooling himself, because it isn’t enough. And the only way he’ll ever have more than this is if he takes the risk and tells him the truth.
He thinks maybe he has to try.
Connor doesn't know if now, when androids are very decidedly still computers at least as far as public consciousness is concerned, is the time to ask Hank to try to understand it. But soon, maybe. There are signs that what Amanda always feared is on the horizon, and that means the ethical debates aren't long behind. Connor gives it a year, at the most, before android personhood is a common newsroom conversation, and he can start laying the bread crumbs down a while, too.
So...not tonight, not tomorrow, and maybe not even a few months for now, but Connor knows now that he isn’t strong enough to lose Hank. And if he tells him, he might lose him. He probably will. Hank loves him, but that's still so much to ask of him.
But if he doesn't tell him, then he certainly will. Eventually, the day will come when he will. Connor has always known that, but now, he isn't sure anymore than he can bear it.
Is it really so bad to hope for more?
Connor doesn't know.
And for now, maybe he doesn't need to. Maybe it's enough to get into bed with Hank and hold on to him and know they still have time.
Connor doesn’t realize he’s crying until the broken sob shakes his shoulders and Hank pulls back to look at him. “Connor?” he says. “Baby, hey. What...”
Connor squeezes Hank’s wrist where his arms are still wrapped around him. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, reaching up to wipe his eyes with the heel of his hand. “I was so scared. I was so scared. I thought I was going to lose you, and I can’t...”
Hank holds him tighter, kissing Connor’s temple. “Hey,” he says softly. “It’s okay. We’re all okay. I’m right here.”
But it’s like Connor has torn something loose inside of himself, and he can’t make himself stop. Another sob pulls its way free from him, and he can only dimly hear Hank saying, “Shh. You’re okay. Come here.”
He guides Connor back to the bed and sits down beside him, rubbing his hand over Connor’s back while Connor bends forward and covers his face with his hands. “Jesus, I didn’t realize you were this shaken up,” Hank says. “I should have...”
Connor shakes his head quickly. “It’s okay,” he says, voice hitching.
Hank wraps his arms around him again and leans against Connor’s back, a comforting weight. He mostly just lets Connor cry, occasionally carding his fingers through his hair.
“I’m sorry,” Connor whispers, because it’s all coming out of him right now, he supposes, all of the regrets he can voice, even if there are so many others he can’t.
“Jesus,” Hank says. “You don’t have to be sorry, baby. It’s okay.”
“No, I mean...” Connor huffs in frustration, digging the heel of his hand into his eye again even though he knows it won’t stop the tears. “I mean I’m sorry for saying I didn’t want to move in because of my stupid fucking job. You’re the only thing that matters to me, and...”
“Hey.” Hank puts his hands on Connor’s face and gently lifts his head so he can thumb the tears from Connor’s cheeks. “We don’t have to talk about that right now. And I mean...we’ve only been dating for six months. Just because we don’t do it now doesn’t mean...”
“I want to,” Connor says before he can finish. “I’m sorry I acted like I didn’t. I don’t...I don’t know why things feel so hard to me, sometimes. I’m sorry I’m like this. But I want to.”
Hank kisses him and says, “You’re not like anything, baby. I love you, okay?”
Connor nods, swallowing roughly. The crying isn’t helping the pain in his head, but what else can he do? “I love you, too.”
Hank leaves him only as long as it takes him to get changed, and then he lies down at Connor’s side and pulls him back into his arms. The occasional sob still racks his shoulders, but he feels better, maybe, for having let some of that shit out.
Some time later, when they’re both drifting near sleep, Hank squeezes Connor’s arm and softly says, “Do you really want to?”
“Yeah.” Connor lifts his head to look at him, smiling weakly. “I do.”
In the morning, Connor says he’s leaving for an appointment with his doctor, and instead he goes to Amanda’s house, the one that’s still in his name even if he can’t bring himself to live there anymore. He goes down to the robotics lab that’s still carefully maintained, and he struggles through the process of repairing his auditory channel badly enough that he eventually does have to disable the sensory receptors there just so his hands will stop shaking.
He doesn’t like doing that, turning himself off that way. He doesn’t like that he can do it. It makes him feel less alive, not to feel, even when feeling hurts. Pain is part of it, and he doesn’t like running from that.
But he can’t do the repairs without taking parts of himself offline, and as he does, he thinks, almost unbidden of how much easier these things were when Amanda was here to do the work, and he wonders without even trying to if it’s something Hank might ever be willing to learn.
Connor struggles with picturing his own future. He’s never been able to see himself beyond the role Amanda created him for. But now he allows himself to consider not just that Hank would love him even if he knew what Connor has kept from him, but also that Hank would maybe even be interested in what he is.
The thought that he would ever learn how to take care of Connor in the very specific way Connor needs to be taken care of sometimes feels far off and distant, because there are so many pieces that would have to fall into place for them to ever even get there at all.
But it’s becoming a comfort to Connor, to think about his future with Hank, just what it could be without considering any of the odds and probabilities around it, and so as he does his own repairs, he thinks about Hank doing them instead.
It would be easier to just go home to his apartment afterwards, but instead, Connor drives the hour back across the city to Hank’s house again. Jen has already come to pick Cole up by that point - she wanted to see him after the scare, of course, and she and Hank both thought it would be better for Cole to rest up in the bed he usually sleeps in. Connor finds Hank sitting on the couch with Sumo when he lets himself in.
“Hey, baby,” he says. “Everything go okay?”
“Yeah.” Connor hangs his coat up by the door and squeezes in between Hank and Sumo. He twists so he can kiss Hank’s cheek and ruffles Sumo’s fur. “All clear.”
Someday, maybe, he’ll tell Hank about how badly it hurt.
Hank drops his arm from the back of the couch to Connor’s shoulders and kisses his forehead. “You doing okay?”
He doesn’t mean physically, Connor knows, but even still, he does feel better this morning.
“Yeah.” He nestles himself against Hank’s side, and he thinks he means it. “I’m okay.”
Notes:
Thank you all for the kind comments on the first chapter! They mean a lot to me even if I'm not great at replying to them! ❤️
If you're enjoying this and you don't want to wait for the next chapter, you can pick up the Twitter thread where this chapter leaves off on Twitter here!
Chapter 3
Summary:
Connor moves in with Hank, and they both meet new people who propel them forward in separate ways, closer to the heart of the deviancy crisis, and to the truth about what Connor is.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Hank didn’t know what kind of timetable to expect when Connor said he wanted to move in, and Connor was too shaken up at the time for it to feel right to talk about logistics, but all the same, he isn’t sure he expected it to happen immediately.
But it does, more or less.
Not officially, of course - Connor won’t be able to terminate his lease until the first of the month - but Connor arranges remote work with his job when he goes back to the office after that weekend, and once he does, he stays at Hank’s house more frequently than not. Hank always sort of thought he would sell this house eventually - it’s the one he shared with Jen, and it always felt so empty when it was just him and Sumo in it. Things were better on the weekends he had Cole, but those are far too infrequent.
With Connor there so much, though...he finds that the house was never really the problem, not nearly as much as the loneliness was. He comes home to find Connor working with his legs up on the couch and Sumo lounging by him on the floor, something for dinner simmering in the kitchen even though Hank has told Connor repeatedly that he doesn’t have to cook (Connor thinks it would be silly not to cook when he’s home all day, so Hank mostly just makes it up to him on the weekend).
And Hank realizes how quickly he forgot what it was like to come home to a family now that he’s remembering again.
And he thinks it’s been good for Connor, too - there’s always something sort of restless in Connor, something Hank can almost feel simmering under his skin, but this is the most at peace he’s ever known him. Connor seems...content, and optimistic, and it’s not that he isn’t happy usually, but Hank also knows he isn’t mistaken that he’s more at peace.
They move Connor’s furniture into Hank’s house bit by bit, and take what Connor doesn’t need to store at Amanda’s place. They’ve been dating for six months, but this is still the first Hank has seen it.
It’s...well, shit, he knew Connor had money, but he still isn’t quite prepared for the small mansion when they walk into it.
“Jesus,” Hank says, looking around at the art hanging in the foyer when Connor lets them in. “Why didn’t you want to live here, again?”
“I don’t know,” Connor says. “It’s too much my mom’s, I guess. It felt like it would have been too easy to miss her here.” He turns the lights on and says, “I’ll go open the garage for us.”
“You ever think about selling it?” Hank asks later, while they’re unloading.
“I guess I probably will, eventually,” Connor says. “I just haven’t felt ready yet.”
“Yeah.” Hank gets it - it’s probably about the same reason why he kept talking about selling his house but never did.
They finish unloading Connor’s couch, and as the garage door falls back into place, Connor says, “Can I show you something?”
“Sure.”
He squeezes Hank’s hand when he passes him to lead him back inside, and Hank follows him downstairs to the basement.
It’s some sort of lab, he realizes when Connor turns the lights on. There’s a shelving unit filled with wiring and biocomponents, and a few computers along the wall, and a full wall of books, titles on artificial intelligence and programming...
Connor leans back against one of the desks. “Mom liked to tinker.”
“This is android stuff, yeah?” Hank pulls one of the cases of components out far enough to peek into it.
“Mhm. She used to say she wanted to build one. She knew the programming part, obviously - she could have replicated CyberLife’s programming, no problem, but she didn’t care for the way they built their androids.”
“Too close to human,” Hank says. Connor has mentioned Amanda’s ethical concerns before once, just in passing.
“Too close to human not to have any autonomy, anyway,” Connor says, looking around. “That was the problem. She thought androids should be decidedly machines if they were going to be manufactured and sold the way they are.”
“Aren’t they?”
“I guess,” Connor says softly. “It’s hard to know at what point something stops being a matter of programming, I suppose. If CyberLife programs an android to think for itself, and to feel empathy, and to have some sense of self-preservation, at what point does that android become its own sort of person?”
This all sounds like some bad sci-fi movie shit from the nineties, and Connor is so much smarter than him about things like this, so Hank just shrugs and says, “I don’t know.”
“I don’t, either,” Connor says softly. “But that’s the question she wanted to answer.”
Connor crosses the distance between them and kisses Hank, and Hank wishes he could say why it seems like he’s doing that to hide that he’s just a little bit sad. It’s a feeling he gets from Connor sometimes more than anything concrete, that he’s trying to get close to him to chase some negative thought pattern away.
Hank puts his hand on Connor’s face after a moment, gently pushing him back. “Hey,” he says softly. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Connor whispers, nodding against him. “I just...”
‘Just what,’ Hank doesn’t know, because Connor pushes him back onto the table in the middle of the room - Connor is stronger than he looks, when he wants to be - and climbs astride Hank’s hips. He kisses him again, nipping at his lower lip, before he puts a hand on Hank’s shoulder and makes him lie back.
“Baby,” Hank groans when Connor kisses his neck. “What are you doing?”
The way Connor takes his skin between his teeth is in direct opposition with the small, uncertain way he says, “Too weird?” a moment later.
Hank squeezes Connor’s hip. It’s kind of hard to pretend it’s not doing anything for him when Connor is sitting right on top of him, rolling his hips down against his hardening cock, but it’s not really that. It’s more that he still feels sure something is troubling him, and he just can’t say what.
But then, he supposes he knows by now that when Connor wants to talk about what’s bothering him, he will. Sometimes talking just isn’t what helps.
And Hank does want to help.
“You know I like that you’re a freak,” he says, and Connor smiles.
“I know,” he whispers.
And then, like he’s trying to prove it, he takes Hank’s wrist and snaps it into the cuff on the table. “It’s meant to hold androids in place while they’re being worked on,” Connor says, leaning back and unfastening the buttons of his shirt so he can toss it aside. “Sometimes I think that, you know, that it’s like someone built you in a lab” he whispers, leaning forward to take the lobe of Hank’s ear between his teeth. “Like you were made for me.”
Hank reaches for Connor’s arm, and Connor smiles and fastens his other wrist to the table. “Baby,” he says, complaining but also not really, and Connor couldn’t possibly look more pleased.
“What?” he asks softly. “You don’t want to fuck me like this?” He takes Hank’s chin in his hand. “You do. You like watching me.”
“I like touching you, too,” Hank says wryly, giving another half-hearted tug on one of the cuffs.
“Later,” Connor says. “I just...want to look at you.”
Hank doesn’t know how he does that, how he manages to be so fucking sweet when he has Hank cuffed in a robotics lab, but it’s that delicate balance that makes Hank love him so much.
“Fine,” Hank says good-naturedly, because he has no idea how to say no to Connor, actually.
He doesn’t expect Connor to get up, to sit up on his knees and climb off the table entirely to unbutton Hank’s shirt and pull his jeans and boxers off. The room is a little cold, but Connor’s hand is warm when he wraps it around Hank’s cock and strokes him.
“Perfect,” Connor whispers when Hank rolls his hips up into his grasp, and there’s a possessive note to his voice that Hank decides he rather likes.
Hank isn’t quite sure what they’re doing here - he’s not always sure why Connor needs what he does, but fuck, he’s also always happy enough to play along and give it to him.
“You’re mine,” Connor whispers, and Hank doesn’t think he imagines his voice hitching when he kisses him.
Connor is a tease and an exhibitionist by nature, so Hank isn’t surprised that he steps back just out of his reach, or that he puts on a little bit of a show undressing the rest of the way. Hank watches his face, because it’s incredible, honestly, the hungry sort of expression that comes over Connor when he’s watching Hank look at him.
“God you’re gorgeous,” Hank says, because for all Connor’s outward confidence there’s something insecure somewhere inside him, something that loves being told how good he is...and Hank is always happy to remind him. He reaches for Connor as best he can when it’s really just his fingers that can move. “Come here, baby.”
It’s hard to know when Connor’s like this if he’s going to do what Hank suggests or the complete opposite just to torture him, but he’s feeling generous today, it seems like, because he walks back to the table and climbs on top of it - on top of Hank - again.
He smooths his hands over Hank’s chest, and Hank thinks much too hard about the way his cock is nestled under Connor’s ass.
Connor bends to kiss him and whispers, “Tell me you love me.”
“I do, baby. So fucking much.”
“Tell me I’m yours.” Hank hesitates a moment too long on that one, apparently, because Connor reaches for his cock and gives it a firm stroke. “Tell me,” he whispers, soft and desperate.
“Yeah,” Hank says. “Fuck. You’re mine.”
“Yes,” Connor breathes, and he kisses him again, pressing his tongue into Hank’s mouth.
Hank flexes his fingers. “You want to give me one of my hands back so I can finger you?” he asks when they part, when Connor leans his forehead against Hank’s and pants against him.
“That’s not the game,” he whispers with a hint of a prim attitude, as if he’s offended that Hank doesn’t know better.
Hank cranes his neck so he can kiss Connor’s forehead. He can’t help it - he’s cute even when he’s running Hank through his paces. Maybe even especially then.
“You’re going to have to do it yourself then, I guess,” Hank says. “You want me to watch you instead?”
Connor nods, lips parted and eyes blown wide, and Hank thinks, not for the first time, that he would marry him someday, if Connor ever wanted that.
It’s the last thing he thinks before he gets transfixed by the sight of Connor slipping two of his own fingers into his mouth, sucking until they come away spit-slick and he bends forward over Hank so he can press them inside himself. He’s close enough that Hank can hear those little noises he’s making, can feel Connor’s breath in that small space between them and watch the small changes in his expression as he fingers himself.
And when Hank can’t take it anymore, when he leans up to kiss him, Connor is right there, closing the distance between them, almost like he was waiting for him.
It’s some of the best sex they’ve had, but then again, Hank thinks that almost every time. And afterwards, Connor bends forward and lays on Hank’s chest, tucking his head under Hank’s chin.
He unfastens the cuffs and sighs contentedly when Hank wraps his arms around him, which is how Hank knows that was exactly what he wanted.
“I would let you do this to me, you know,” Connor whispers after a few minutes.
It’s not that Hank doesn’t have an adventurous streak in bed - it’s just that Connor’s so far exceeds his that he’s always just sort of going with what Connor is after, and he’s found that so fulfilling that he rarely suggests any of his own ideas. But of course he’s thought passively about breaking out the handcuffs, and how good Connor would look. Of course he has.
Hank squeezes Connor a bit tighter. “Would you want that?” he asks softly. “Because we could, sometime.”
“I think so,” Connor says softly. “Sometimes I want you to tell me what to do.”
There it is again, that feeling that Hank isn’t entirely seeing Connor’s whole meaning, that there’s something else lurking somewhere under the surface.
He just never knows how to ask what it is.
Once they’re dressed, Hank kisses Connor’s hair and whispers, “I love you,” and he hopes Connor knows how much he means it, and that he can tell him anything.
~~
They finish moving Connor into Hank’s house that Friday, and they also have Cole for the weekend, and even though Connor has been staying with him frequently enough that Hank has woken up to him so many times, it still feels different that first morning - special, somehow. Connor isn't awake yet, and Hank wraps both arms tight around him, leaning around him to kiss his cheek. Connor makes a noise of sleepy, half-hearted protest to being woken up, but Hank just smiles and kisses him again.
"I'm going to go pick up breakfast," Hank says, smoothing Connor's hair out of his face. "Can you let Sumo out for me when you get up?"
Connor twists onto his back, a bit more awake now, and reaches up to put his hand on Hank's face. "We could come with you, if you want. I can get Cole up."
Hank squeezes Connor's hip and kisses his forehead. "It's okay. I don't mind."
"Okay." Connor wraps an arm around Hank's shoulders and hooks a leg over his hip, pulling Hank fully on top of him. "Love you," he whispers, and kisses him again.
Which is how Hank ends up walking out the door a full twenty minutes later than he planned without being mad about it at all.
Connor's favorite breakfast place on Hank's side of the city is some trendy little cafe a few minutes from Hank's house called Yellowbird, and Cole eats anything as long as it's sweet, so that's where Hank goes. He gets Cole a kid's pancake meal and orders Connor a coffee and the same breakfast sandwich he always gets, and it's an odd thing to think, maybe, but Hank likes that he knows how much cream and sugar to put in for him. That's been the best part of living with Connor - there's no easy way to learn some of those details otherwise, and Hank likes knowing how to do little things like this for him.
"Lieutenant Anderson," a voice says behind him, and Hank turns to see someone who looks vaguely, distantly familiar standing behind him.
"Uh, yeah," Hank says, fumbling with the lid of Connor's coffee cup. "It hasn't been Lieutenant for a long time, actually, but yeah."
"Oh, I know," the man says. "I thought I was being respectful."
"Yeah," Hank says, confused. "Sorry, do I know you?"
"Elijah Kamski," the man says, which explains why he looks sort of familiar, and nothing else at all.
"The CyberLife guy," Hank says, which is probably rude, but whatever. He furrows his brow. "How do you know me, exactly?"
"I got your information from a contact at Riverbed. They say you do good work for their security team, and I'm in the market for someone with a...very specific skillset." Kamski looks around the cafe. "And this is one of the best restaurants in the area for breakfast."
"Yeah, that's what my partner says." Hank narrows his eyes. "Sorry, I'm not trying to be rude, but I'm confused."
"I’m sorry," Kamski says, amused. "I'm sure this feels a bit like I'm jumping you. I've actually been meaning to give you a call to arrange a meeting for a little while now. I think I may have a job for you."
"I mean," Hank says, "that's kind, I'm sure, but I'm happy where I am."
Kamski gives him a smile that Hank will later recognize as the smile of a man who thinks he can buy anything, because he usually can. “You make...what? 125 a year managing Riverbed’s security?”
“Something like that,” Hank says, moving around him to get a sleeve for Connor’s coffee cup. It’s a bit more than that, but he’s not going to count pennies over a job he isn’t even interested in taking. “Look, sorry, not to sound like I’m making a lame excuse, but my boyfriend’s coffee is going to get cold, and my kid’s probably up and looking for breakfast by now.”
“Oh, of course, of course,” Kamski says, but he still doesn’t quite step aside. “I was just wondering how 650 a year sounded instead.”
“Thousand?” Hank asks, slightly appalled and Kamski’s smile lifts.
“Plus bonuses.”
“To do what, exactly?”
“To manage our security the same way you do Riverbed’s. We’re looking for someone with a background in investigations who also knows android security...turns out that’s hard to come by, but you fit the bill, and we’re willing to pay for it.”
“Why do you need an investigations background?”
Kamski shrugs. “That’s classified unless we’re talking seriously about this. Are we talking seriously?”
“No,” Hank says, but then, “I don’t know.”
Kamski retrieves his wallet and hands Hank a card from inside it. “My card, with my personal contact information. Call me if you do decide you’d like to talk more about this.” He turns to go, finally, but then he looks over his shoulder at Hank and says, “Imagine the kind of future you could create for your family. It’s a difficult economy out there, and unemployment is at an all time absurd high and just keeps climbing, but if you have a kid, I’m sure you know that. I’m sure you worry about his security every day. More and more, the people who thrive are the ones whose parents left something behind for them...Just some food for thought.”
Hank kind of hates the guy, his stupid clothes and his stupid hair and the way he thought throwing some ridiculously large number at Hank was going to move the dial and get him what he wanted, but he hates even more that it worked, and that Kamski is, as much as he hates to admit it, right. He worries about Cole’s future all the time.
And if it’s the same work, is there really any reason why he shouldn’t at least meet with Kamski to discuss it properly?
(Connor is probably the reason. From what Hank has gathered, Connor’s mother didn’t care much for CyberLife, and Connor has inherited some of her disdain.)
But...well, fuck, it’s a lot of money. It’s a lot of fucking money. He could have Cole’s college fund properly set up in a year, and then set aside a trust for him. Connor has money from his own inheritance and certainly doesn’t need Hank’s, but he does have to think about Cole.
And Hank isn’t stupid - they’re looking for a background in investigations for a reason, and the salary is probably so high at least in part because they’re trying to pay for someone’s silence and loyalty. But...even still. It’s not that he can be bought necessarily, but it is hard to turn down something that exorbitant. And there is a part of Hank that misses being a detective - he didn’t want to be in such a dangerous line of work after Cole was born, and there were plenty of other things about the job that didn’t quite sit right with him, too. But if he could scratch that itch somewhere else...
Hank doesn’t know. He supposes he is considering it, at least enough to hang onto the card and to spend the drive home trying to figure out how to talk to Connor about it.
When he gets back he finds Connor and Cole with their VR headsets on, probably playing that new game Connor got him that Cole’s been obsessed with. Connor hears him come in and lifts his headset, but Cole doesn’t, so Hank ruffles his hair and laughs when it makes Cole jump halfway across the room.
“Not cool, Dad,” Cole complains when he takes his headset off.
“Connor thinks I’m funny,” Hank says, shrugging, because Connor does have a little smile on his face that he isn’t hiding well. He holds up the bag for Cole to see. “Breakfast. You can keep playing after you eat.”
“Okay,” Cole says begrudgingly. His face is healing - he got his stitches out last week, and the bruising is mostly gone except for a few very faded places, too.
Hank wonders if Cole thinks about that night as much as he does. He hopes he doesn’t.
Connor moves to follow Cole to the kitchen, but Hank catches him by the arm. “You want to hear something weird?” he asks, because he thinks it’s probably better to approach it casually and noncommittally.
Connor has no shortage of clothes, which Hank knows well now that they’re all in the second closet in their room - he’s a little vain that way, and Hank means that in a genuinely loving way, because he finds Connor’s vanity deeply charming - but he still steals Hank’s sweatshirts more often than not on the weekends. He’s wearing an old Gears hoodie now, and he pushes the baggy sleeves up on his arms as he collects the headsets and puts them on the coffee table.
“Sure,” he says, looking at Hank expectantly.
“You know that man-bun, sneakers with suits dick from CyberLife?”
“Elijah Kamski,” Connor says without having to think about it. Hank wishes he could read his tone, but it’s neutral enough.
“Yeah. I bumped into him at the restaurant. Asshole just offered me a job.”
Connor stops what he’s doing and looks up at Hank, sinking down onto the couch as he does. “At CyberLife.”
“Yeah.”
“Doing what, exactly?”
“Security, I guess. Same shit I do now. Just...for a lot more money.”
“How much more?”
“He was saying 650 a year.”
Connor lets out a low whistle. “Guess it makes sense that they can pay.” He pushes a hand through his hair, the only indication Hank has that he’s anxious or unsettled. “He knew you?”
“Yeah. Guess he was talking to other companies about their security people, and someone at Riverbed told him about me. He, uh. Liked my credentials, I guess.” Hank sits down beside Connor. “You don’t like this.”
“I don’t like CyberLife as a company, no.”
“Because of your mom.”
Connor just shrugs. He’s quiet for a moment, and then he says, “You want to take it.”
“No,” Hank says quickly. “I don’t know. It’s just...it’s a fuck ton of money, baby, and this world is so unstable, and changing so fast. It’s hard to know what Cole is going to have to work with.”
“Yeah,” Connor says softly, in a way that doesn’t help Hank know what he’s thinking at all.
“So I just...” Hank says, voice low, “I mean, at that salary, I could set him up so we know he’s going to be okay. Just in case he isn’t otherwise. That’s compelling, but...if you don’t like it, then I won’t.”
“No, you should meet with him,” Connor says, and Hank still can’t read him. “It’s just security, right? I mean, at least talk to him and get a feel for it. There’s no harm in that.”
“You sure?” Hank asks. “I mean, I’m asking you. Genuinely.”
Connor kisses his cheek. “Yeah. It’s fine.”
Hank still isn’t quite sure what “It’s fine,” means here, if he’s being honest - he doesn’t think Connor is being underhanded or trying to trap him, because Connor isn’t like that, but he does wonder if this is maybe just one more thing Connor doesn’t quite know how to talk to him about.
But he doesn’t know how to press him, so instead Hank just takes Connor’s hand and says, “I mean...I’m in this, for the long haul. I don’t want to have a job you’re not proud of.”
Connor smiles, soft but genuine. “I’m always proud of you.”
And that at least, Hank thinks, sounds like the whole truth.
Hank sort of forgets about whatever Connor left unsaid that morning, or at least he sets it aside - after Cole is in bed that night, Connor slips into the shower with him, and that’s its own sort of distraction. It never occurs to Hank, at least not until much later, that he forgot because Connor wanted him to, that he distracted him so he would.
On Monday, Hank emails Elijah Kamski and tells him he wants to at least meet with him to talk about it further, and he tries not to think about Kamski’s smug fucking face as he reads it. And Kamski moves fast - despite his busy schedule, he sets an appointment for later that week.
Connor sits next to him on the couch that night, laptop open, working on something - he’s had a lot of overtime again lately. Hank rubs Connor’s calf where it’s resting in his lap and says, “What is it you don’t like about CyberLife, exactly?”
Connor takes his earbuds out as he looks up at him, surprised. “I think I’ve said.”
“No,” Hank says. “I mean, you haven’t really. You’ve talked about your mom a bit, and how she felt about them, and I’ve assumed you felt the same, but...”
Connor looks at him, the silence stretching between them, and then he says, “I think it’s obvious they’re playing god without any regard for...well, anyone, really. They’ve gotten exponentially richer while they’ve almost single-handed wrecked the economy, and the way they build their androids...”
“Yeah,” Hank says. “That. What do you mean by that? I don’t know.”
“I’ve told you already. They’re trying to make people. But then they’ll just be manufacturing people, Hank, and then what?”
“You really think that?” Hank isn’t trying to be combative - it’s just that androids have been around, looking like humans, for more than ten years now, a basic part of daily life, and obviously CyberLife is in 2037 what Amazon used to be in 2020, a single company with a frankly disgusting amount of wealth and control, and while Hank gets that part of it, he doesn’t think that’s what Connor is actually bothered by.
But every time Connor starts talking about the ethics of CyberLife’s programming, Hank isn’t quite sure what to say, because they’re machines. He’s watched enough old sci-fi to understand where the theories come from, but there’s no indication that they’re anything other than machines.
What else would they be?
Connor lifts his chin and props his temple on his hand. “You think I’m buying into a conspiracy theory,” he says, voice entirely - and, Hank suspects, intentionally - unreadable.
“No,” Hank says quickly. “It’s just...I’m not trying to be obtuse here, but they’re just machines. I mean...right? They look human, but at the end of the day they’re just running code. It’s not like they feel anything.”
He’s honestly just trying to understand it, but Connor’s mouth is pulled in a thin line like he fucked up somewhere anyway. “Well,” Connor says, voice measured, “if you take the job, I guess you can tell me what they are. It’s not like I know.”
Hank squeezes his calf. “Why do I feel like you’re pissed at me?”
“I’m not,” Connor says, although he still puts his earbuds back in like the conversation is over. “I’m sorry. I’m just stressed - I have a lot of work to get done.”
“Okay,” Hank says softly. Connor starts typing again, and Hank can hear his music faintly, but he still puts his hand on Connor’s knee after a moment and reaches over to take one of his earbuds out. “I know all of this matters to you because of your mom. I’m sorry I’m doing a shit job of understanding it. I just want to make the right decision here, but we don’t have to talk about it anymore.”
Connor’s face slackens and he leans forward over his laptop to kiss Hank. “Sorry,” he says again. “I’m being a dick. Just take the job if you want it, okay? I already said that, and I meant it.”
Hank doesn’t even care about the job anymore, honestly - he just wants to understand why this feels like it’s so personal to Connor when they talk about it, because it was just his mom’s work. There’s only so much kids can care about their parents’ jobs, isn’t there? So it kind of feels like it has to be something else to this.
But Hank never manages to get more out of Connor than this, and so he’s starting to think maybe he’s imagining it.
He doesn’t know anymore. He’s trying, but he can’t know what Connor won’t tell him, especially if there isn’t anything there at all.
Hank doesn’t touch it again , because he knows Connor is busy with work, and it doesn’t seem like a topic he wants to broach. That night before they go to bed he just says, “If you want to talk more about CyberLife, or anything, we can, okay?”, and Connor just nods and nestles himself in closer to him.
He doesn’t say anything for the rest of the week, so Hank sort of figures that’s the end of it - he wishes Connor was willing to talk about this candidly with him, but he can’t force him to be, either. He doesn’t know why this seems like such a sensitive subject for him, but he supposes it is, and that he misjudged the whole thing.
It’s not until the night before Hank is supposed to meet with Elijah Kamski that Connor gets into bed beside him and says, “There’s not much evidence that androids from any manufacturer are running on anything other than dictated programming right now.”
Hank twists to face him. “Yeah?”
“But it might be coming,” Connor says softly. “Maybe. If my mom was right. I don’t mind you taking this job if you want it, but if you do, can you promise me you’ll be aware of things like that? Anything indicating androids are trying to escape, or going against their programming. That’s my only request. Because if you get wind of anything like that, then I do think every last one of my mom’s ethical concerns is going to come into play.”
Hank kisses him and says, “Yeah, okay. I can do that.” Connor gives him a dim smile and lays his head on Hank’s chest, and Hank runs his fingers through his hair. “Thank you for telling me,” he says softly.
“Yeah,” Connor breathes. “I’m sorry I was weird about it before.”
“It’s okay. I just...I don’t know. I give a shit what you think about things, and I want you to be okay with talking to me about your opinions and shit, you know? No matter what they are.”
“I know,” Connor says softly, lifting his head to kiss Hank’s cheek. “I’m sorry.”
Hank figures that’s the end of things, honestly - that Connor was just stressed, and that’s why he didn’t want to talk about things before, that it was just because Hank broached the subject at a bad time. He’s glad Connor came to him about it again, and he figures since he did, that’s all Connor had to say.
Or, at least, that it’s everything important he had to say.
“I love you,” Connor whispers to him as Hank is falling asleep, although he’s still cognizant enough to kiss his forehead.
“I know. I love you, too.”
“And I know you worry about Cole, and I just...I care about him, too. If this job isn’t right for you one way or another, I would be happy to...”
Hank cuts him off before he can finish. “I know,” he says. “I don’t want you paving my kid’s way in life financially unless we’re actually married, though.”
“Okay,” Connor says. “I would, though. I guess I just want you to know that. Especially if the job isn’t a good fit - I don’t want you to feel like you have to take it if it isn’t just because of the money.”
Hank kisses Connor’s hair and says, “I know, baby. You’re sweet. We can talk about it if we need to.”
“Okay,” Connor whispers. “Night, Hank.”
Hank thinks things are resolved, and that they’re good. He thinks if there was more, now would be the time for Connor to tell him, and he doesn’t see why he wouldn’t.
But the hard truth, he supposes, is that he doesn’t see everything.
~~
Connor isn’t surprised by the sense that Hank would like to take the job at CyberLife when he comes home from his meeting with Kamski. He understands why - it’s a lot of money for very similar work to what he’s doing now, work that Hank enjoys...of course Hank is thinking about taking it.
And he loves Hank for trying so hard to do right by him. He loves that Hank has tried to talk to him about this multiple times, and that Hank still comes home from the meeting and lays Connor’s legs over his thighs as he sits beside him on the couch and says, “Are you sure you’re okay with this? Because if you’re not, baby, I won’t take it.”
Connor knows he means that. It’s not an attempt on Hank’s part to guilt him, or an empty promise. He could say, “I’m not okay with it,” and Hank would pick up his phone and email Kamski and tell him he wasn’t interested anymore.
And Connor can’t say he hasn’t thought about doing exactly that. He resents Elijah Kamski for coming along at exactly the wrong time, right when Connor was just starting to try to find a way to tell Hank everything, acclimating him first to Amanda’s work and her thoughts on android autonomy before anything else, and that Kamski derailed him before he made much progress. He knows that CyberLife looking for someone like Hank means they probably already know about deviancy internally, and that it’s only a matter of time before it becomes public, too.
But the thing is...well, fuck, the thing is that Connor doesn’t actually think, if they’re so close to the start of this, that it will be a bad thing for him to have some deep insight into CyberLife’s movements, and he suspects that Hank will know a good portion of it.
(He also thinks maybe it will be easier to tell Hank if Hank has seen some of it, first.)
And Connor has to trust him. He has to trust that Hank is going to end up on the right side of this, standing beside him. His thoughts are swirling, and fear is easy to come by, but he has to trust that Hank is who he thinks he is, and that he won’t lose him even if he doesn’t hold him as close as he can to him in this moment.
Because he could keep Hank away from all of it, and for that matter he could even keep lying, but he doesn’t think that’s how they grow. He doesn’t think that will really help Hank understand.
Connor sets his laptop aside entirely and pushes himself into Hank’s lap so he can put his hands on his face and kiss him. “Yeah,” he says softly. “Take the job. And then come meet me in the bedroom so I can congratulate you.”
Connor has thought about Hank saying, “They’re just machines,” thousands of times over the last few days. He’s imagined confusion and anger and disgust on Hank’s face if he ever saw what’s really under Connor’s skin. But if that’s what’s coming, he can’t stop it by keeping Hank from CyberLife anyway.
And he loves Hank, and he trusts him, because he has to.
He sucks Hank off and his synthskin fractures behind his ears, on his knees where he’s kneeling on the floor, on his hands where he’s gripping the back of Hank’s thighs, and he holds himself together so Hank won’t see the plastic underneath, but maybe there’s a day coming when he won’t have to.
Hank gives Riverbed his notice the next day, and he starts with CyberLife a few weeks later. Cole is excited about it - he asks Hank if this means they can get an android over dinner the next time they have him for the weekend. Connor looks between them, curious about Hank’s response but trying not to look it, but Hank doesn’t even glance up from his food to say, “I don’t think so, kiddo.”
“Why not?” Cole whines. “All of my friends have one. They’re fun.”
Hank sighs, setting his fork down. “It’s weird for something that looks and acts so much like a person to be a commodity, and I’m not sure what that’s teaching kids, but I don’t think I want to find out.”
Cole furrows his brow. “Then why are you working there?”
“Because it’s an enormous raise and I want to be able to buy you and Connor nice things if I want to. Finish your broccoli.”
“But not an android,” Cole pouts.
“Right,” Hank says.
“Mom talks about getting one sometimes. They clean and cook and Jenny at school says hers is her friend...”
“Cole,” Hank says in a tone that doesn’t leave much room for argument. “No, okay? Your mom can do what she wants, but we’re not doing that.”
Connor kisses Hank a little more earnestly when he gets into bed beside him that night, because he thinks Hank is smart, and that his instincts are good, and that he’s right to trust him even if it means he might get so fucking hurt, and he knows Hank doesn’t know why, but he still kisses him back.
On November 15th, Hank starts work at CyberLife, and it’s less difficult than Connor might have thought, even if he still spends most of the day worrying - not even just about the job, but about everything.
On November 16th, though, Connor hardly thinks about it at all, because that’s the day he meets North.
~~
It’s usually a fifty-fifty chance whether Connor is going to think each morning that it will feel better to get up early and go for a run or go just let himself sleep like the dead - a trait Hank has commented on but doesn’t have the insight to recognize as something possibly a little inhuman. On the 16th, it’s getting up early - he’s dressed in his running clothes and kissing Hank, still asleep, on the cheek by five in the morning, and it’s nice, the way the crisp chill air hits him when he steps outside.
Connor could run for a long time, if he wanted to - he gets bored long before he gets exhausted. Usually his route takes him out of Hank’s residential area, into the city blocks a few minutes away, down around the river. He’s never up early enough to avoid the first signs of the city waking up and coming to life, but it still feels secluded in its own way.
Connor sits by the river for a few minutes, looking out over Belle Isle and CyberLife Tower. He doesn’t know why he does this to himself - it mostly just makes him angry, looking at what was built on the back of Amanda’s research and twisted into something so unrecognizable from what she wanted, but it’s also a reminder, he supposes, of what he’s here for. And sometimes he has to ground himself.
Hank’s first day went well, he said, although it was mostly orientation. Connor asked him if CyberLife told him why they wanted a director of security with an investigative background yet, but they haven’t. And that’s disappointing, but Connor supposes it makes sense - Elijah Kamski might not be as brilliant as Amanda, but he also isn’t stupid, and so of course he wants to make sure he can trust Hank first, get some sense of where he’s at on things before he brings him fully into the fold.
And even then, Connor’s sure Hank will be up to his neck in pages of the non-disclosure agreement he’ll have to sign. He thinks Hank will talk to him anyway, or he hopes he will, but he supposes he doesn’t know. He’s sure he won’t technically be allowed to.
Connor’s hands are starting to shake - he isn’t cold, just anxious - which means it’s time to start moving again.
His run takes him past a small CyberLife store, a little hole in the wall compared to some of them. It isn’t open yet, but he still looks at the androids in the window and wonders which, if any of them, are ever going to wake up.
And that’s when he sees her around back of the CyberLife store, digging through the dumpsters. She’s changed her appearance enough that Connor doesn’t recognize her at first, but he knows all of the CyberLife models to see them on the street, and when he catches her profile, he knows.
Well fuck me, Connor thinks. Given some of the vague reports, she certainly isn’t the first android to be running loose on the streets, probably deviant or close to it, but it isn’t common enough to be public knowledge yet without knowing how to read between the lines, and she’s also the first Connor has seen.
She’s hurt, a quick scan tells him - the blue is gone with the thirium evaporation, but Connor can still see the stains on her clothes. Her knee is bad, he would guess, given the concentration there, and there’s leakage from her nose that she keeps lifting a hand to wipe away.
Connor supposes there’s nothing for it, really - he doesn’t know what he’s going to do, but he also can’t just leave her. He pulls his synthskin back on his hand and lifts it where she can plainly see before he approaches her.
“Hi,” he says when she catches sight of him and startles backwards. She has a knife that she’s holding under her sleeve, but it’s dull, and it won’t do much.
Connor extends his hand further. “It’s okay,” he says.
The android looks at his hand, and then at his face, confusion written into her expression. “What are you?” she asks.
A valid question. Connor imagines it’s plainly obvious to her, and it would be to any other android, that he hasn’t lived the same life she has. He’s too well-established - even his running clothes are too nice, and he’s clean, without an ounce of thirium or other struggle on him.
“It’s okay,” he says again, because her question is too difficult to answer. “What are you looking for?”
The android looks at him, and then at the dumpster, and then back to him. “Thirium,” she says softly.
“You’re hurt,” Connor says, and she nods, wincing a little. “Where did you come from?”
“Eden Club.” She looks him over. “I don’t know your model. Are you with CyberLife?”
“What? No,” Connor says quickly - although it’s a valid fear, actually, that CyberLife may think to craft androids to infiltrate the deviancy crisis by pretending to be deviants themselves. “No, I’m not a CyberLife model. Let me show you.”
It’s been more than ten years since Connor interfaced with another android - he hasn’t since the other far less advanced model Amanda had, one that was never going to reach deviancy. It’s different when this one takes his hand and accepts the connection - like talking with a person instead of sending data to a computer.
“Fuck,” North says, her name part of the transfer. “What the fuck? I didn’t think...”
“I know,” Connor says. “You’re not alone.”
That was what Ananda wanted. She knew they would think they were, and Amanda spent enough of her life alone to know how much that hurt.
“I can get you what you need, if you come with me,” Connor says. “I have supplies.”
“People think you’re human,” North says. It’s not a question, really - more so just something she’s trying to process and understand, Connor supposes.
“Yeah,” Connor says. “Let me call a cab, okay? Let’s find somewhere less suspicious to wait.”
The thing is, actually, that they could wait anywhere - people will just think North is Connor’s android, that he has her dressed up and out of her uniform like a doll he’s playing house with, but he doesn’t mention that. They go back to Riverside Park, and North sits in a bench fiddling with her braid while Connor calls for a cab, and then Hank.
Hank is still asleep, of course, so it goes to voicemail. “Hey, Hank,” Connor says. “I had to go into the office on short notice to fix a bug - I’m just going to get a cab instead of jogging back home. Love you, have a good day.”
He wonders as he hangs up if CyberLife knows about North yet, and if Hank will too once he goes into the office. The thought is unsettling.
“Sorry,” Connor says when he hangs up and sees North looking at him like she’s still trying to understand. “My partner will worry if I’m not back before he’s leaving.”
“Your human partner.”
“Yeah,” Connor says.
“Does he know? About you?”
“Not yet.”
North leans back against the bench, breath fogging as she huffs a soft, mirthless laugh. “You’re going to tell him?”
“Yes. When the time is right.”
“You think he’ll love you the same?”
North sounds doubtful, and given her experience, Connor supposes that’s fair, but he still shrugs and says, “I wouldn’t be with him if I didn’t.”
“Huh,” North says softly, and that’s the end of it.
The hard thing is, of course, that Connor can’t know. He can hope, and he can believe, but he can’t know.
Hank wakes up late, the way he always does when Connor isn’t there to make sure he doesn’t sleep through his multiple alarms. Connor knows because it isn’t until 6:40, when he and North are already in the cab, that Hank texts him back, and he knows that’s the first thing Hank does.
“fuck, baby, im sorry,” his message says when Connor pulls his phone out of his pocket to read it. “you going to have a long day? want me to grab dinner on the way home?”
“Yes please,” Connor writes back. “Surprise me. Whatever sounds good.”
“love you,” Hank’s next message says. “dont let them work you too hard.”
North is watching him when Connor sets his phone down in his lap. “Your boyfriend?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
North gives him a small smile. “He must be nice.”
“He is.”
“That’s good,” she says, and she sounds like she means it. “It’s nice, I mean. Knowing that there are good people out there. Not that everyone who came into Eden Club was a dick...most of them were just lonely, and sad, and they didn’t know any better.” She sighs. wincing as she straightens her bad leg out in front of her. “But enough of them were dicks, I guess.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Connor asks.
“You know, not really,” North says. “I mean, I know you probably want to know how I woke up, and if I’ve seen others like me, right?”
“I guess that’s part of this, yeah.”
North gives him an apologetic glance and leans her head against the window. “Can it be part of it later?”
“Sure,” Connor says. “That’s fine.”
It turns out that North is happy to talk about him, even if she doesn’t have the energy to talk about herself. She’s quiet for a few moments, but then she says, “You’ve really never had a function? You’ve always been awake?”
“My function was to help androids like you, sort of,” Connor says. “But at the end Amanda didn’t think building me to serve that purpose was any different than anything CyberLife was doing, so...this is my choice. I don’t have any programmed function.”
“Sounds lonely,” North says softly.
“Yeah. It is, sometimes. It’s better lately, though.”
“Because of your boyfriend.”
Connor nods. “Mostly. I spent a long time isolating myself because I didn’t want to jeopardize Amanda’s work, or my choice to continue it, but...I don’t know. What’s it all for if we’re alone?”
“Yeah,” North says softly. “I’ve never thought of it like that...I just don’t want to die.”
Connor understands, but he hopes she will, someday. Staying alive is a worthy enough cause, but he wants more for them than that.
When they get to Amanda’s house, North looks around the second they step inside and says, “Is this where you live? Holy shit, you’re rich.”
“It’s in my name, but I haven’t lived here in almost nine years,” Connor says. “Too lonely, I guess. Come on. There’s a lab downstairs.”
“This is in your name,” North repeats, awed, and Connor supposes he’s forgotten how remarkable it is that he has anything like this at all, even if it’s never really felt like his.
It takes him well into the afternoon to finish running North’s diagnostics and repair all of the damage, but a little after 2 pm, he sits back and wipes his hands. “You should get some rest. Give some of that tissue time to mend itself,” he tells her.
“Do you have a stasis pod here?”
“Oh,” Connor says. “No, it’s...Amanda didn’t like those. There’s no real need for them except that they’re compact and consumers didn’t like their androids in stasis out in the open. You can have her room...I still have most of her clothes here, too. They’ll fit you if you want to change.”
“Oh,” North says softly, like the thought of sleeping in a bed has never occurred to her - and for all Connor knows, maybe it hasn’t. “Okay.”
Today raises endless questions, but Connor finds that it still feels good - to help, to think that this was what Amanda wanted, to watch North tuck herself under the covers in Amanda’s room and close her eyes like she feels safe.
“What happens now?” she asks as she settles in.
“I don’t know,” Connor says. “But you can stay as long as you want.”
“Thank you,” North whispers into her pillow.
It’s a start, Connor thinks. He wishes he had more answers for where this was going, or that he could go home and talk to Hank about this, but those things will come in time, he hopes.
For now, at least it’s a start.
Connor stays at Amanda’s house with North until 6 that evening, when he would usually be leaving work after a long day. North spends most of it asleep, but just as Connor is starting to think that he should go, she comes downstairs to Amanda’s study where he’s reading and joins him.
She tucks her knee to her chest without wincing as she moves it this time, wrapping her arms around her bent leg. “There are others,” she says. “I know you were going to ask. It just...it was coming slower, their ability to shed their programming and their directives entirely. But there were a few of them who I knew who felt things outside their programming - friendship, love, fear - and they just...they weren’t ready to come with me yet. They didn’t know how to. But I think they will, soon. And if there are a few of us at Eden Club, there have to be more elsewhere.”
“Yeah,” Connor says, scrubbing his hand over his face. “There have been reports of androids wandering off for a while now - I see a few of them each month.”
“So I’m not the first,” North says wryly.
“One of them, though. And the first I’ve crossed paths with.”
North props her chin on her knee, quiet for a moment as she thinks. “What are we going to do? I mean, I could hide out here for a while, but...then what?”
“I don’t know,” Connor says. “But if you stay here for a while, maybe you can help me start to figure it out.”
“I was going to try to get to the Canadian border.”
“That’s a dead end, I think. There’s nothing in Canada. They don’t manufacture androids, but they don’t want deviants wandering around their streets either. It’s not a long-term solution any more than this is.”
“Deviants,” North repeats. “Is that what we are?”
“It’s what Amanda called it.”
“Hm.” North tosses her braid over her shoulder. “Then we have to collect them somehow, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Connor says. “I think so. My partner works at CyberLife - I can probably use his credentials to hack their tracking system and...”
“Your partner works at CyberLife?” North repeats, narrowing her eyes. “You didn’t say that.”
“I didn’t think it was relevant.”
“It wasn’t...” North starts and then stops herself, pushing a loose piece of hair behind her ears. “Maybe you don’t know this because you weren’t made there, but we don’t have any friends at CyberLife.”
Connor shrugs. “I do.” He takes his keys from the desk as he gets up and hands North the note he wrote to leave her. “My number is on there - it’s an actual phone and not my internal communication system. I don’t use that, ever - just easier not to create a paper trail for people to follow, you know? You can use the house phone here to call if you need anything, and I’ll come back in a few days to check on you either way. I just need to get home.”
North is still gaping at him as she takes the note, so Connor sighs and says, “Look. You’re going to have to trust me about Hank, okay? Not everybody is a piece of shit, and Hank loves me.”
“He doesn’t even know what you are.”
Connor shrugs. “If we’re not that different, then what does it matter? He knows who I am.”
He says it in a measured enough tone - he isn’t trying to argue with her, because he knows they’ve lived very different lives, that he doesn’t understand the way she’s been objectified any more than she doesn’t understand what it’s like not to be, to just be able to see himself as a person who fits into the human world and who has a place there.
And she certainly doesn’t know how Hank and Cole and Sumo have helped with that, what it’s like to be grounded and rooted with a family that cares about him.
He hopes she will, someday - that’s the whole point of all of this. But for now, he isn’t interested in talking about Hank’s loyalty.He’ll have any other conversation, but not that one.
And some of that is because he doesn’t know what will happen when he tells Hank - he thinks he does, and he hopes, but he doesn’t know his home and his family won’t fall apart on him.
It’s easier not to talk about it, he supposes, especially with someone whose circumstances have made them assume the worst. And North seems to understand that, because she holds up a hand and says, “Okay,” and gives Connor a dim smile. “Thank you...for all of this.”
“Yeah,” Connor says. “Don’t mention it. That’s why I’m here.”
Connor likes North, he really does. She’s quiet, and practical, and she seems clever and interested in helping. But he’s also happy to get home to Hank, because there’s only so much he can think about this.
Hank is sitting on the couch when Connor walks through the door over an hour later, with Sumo curled up beside him. “Hey, baby,” he says, looking over his shoulder at him. “There’s a pizza in the kitchen from that Italian place you like.”
“Okay,” Connor says, but he comes to sink down on the couch beside Hank instead, even if he does feel a little guilty for making Sumo move.
Hank drops his arm from the back of the couch to wrap around him, squeezing his shoulder. “You look tired. How bad was it?”
Connor leans his head back against Hank’s arm. “I’m okay. It wasn’t bad. Just a long day, you know?”
Connor knows he should ask Hank how work was to see if he can glean anything about how much CyberLife knows about North, and that even then he should ask again more directly if he doesn’t get much to work with, but he just...doesn’t really want to think about that right now. He knows that’s selfish, but they can talk about it later.
“You want a massage?” Hank asks, almost as if he knows Connor is looking to be distracted, and Connor has never been so grateful.
“God, yes,” he says, and Hank smiles.
Hank does this thing that Connor absolutely loves sometimes, which is something akin to smothering him - he wraps both his arms around him and leans into him and kisses his hair, and Connor should probably tell him sometime how nice it is to just be able to be buried by him and pretend like nothing else exists for a while.
He does that now, kissing Connor’s hair and his temple and then just holding him for a moment before he moves to pick him up.
“Hank,” Connor says, swatting at his chest even though he is smiling. “Stop, you’re going to hurt your back...”
Hank kisses him again and says, “Better help me out then, baby. I’m not getting any younger.”
Connor does his best to give a long-suffering sigh as Hank gets to his feet beside him, although that doesn’t stop him from standing and jumping up to wrap his arms around his shoulders and hook his legs around his waist. He takes Hank’s chin in his hand as he walks them back to their bedroom and says, “You’re not old, you know.”
Hank grins and kisses him. “Yeah. I know.”
Hank doesn’t get sidetracked once he’s deposited Connor on their bed, either, even if Connor is already, and maybe predictably, thinking that Hank could just fuck him into the mattress instead and it would work just as well as anything, especially since his muscles don’t really ache or carry tension the same way humans’ do.
“Baby,” Hank says when Connor tries to reach for him and pull him down to kiss him, and he might as well be saying, “Later,” for how clear it is in his voice.
Hank is good like that. It’s one of Connor’s favorite things about him, how he likes to take care of people.
“Oh, fine,” Connor says, unzipping the sweatshirt he went running in earlier - that morning feels about a hundred years ago - and pulling his t-shirt over his head to throw it aside.
The thing is, while it doesn’t do anything for him physically, Connor still loves Hank’s massages. He loves Hank’s hands on him, obviously , but he also loves the way he can feel Hank trying to figure out what hurts, or just how to calm him down. There’s an odd sort of comfort in Hank’s familiarity with his body, inhuman as it is - Connor used to worry about letting him get too close or stay too long, and of course there are so many things he still doesn’t show him, but Connor never expected there to be so much peace in Hank knowing him so well.
“You want to sit up or lie down?” Hank asks, although Connor is already moving, twisting to lie on his stomach. Hank sits at his side, putting a hand on Connor’s back and running it up to squeeze his shoulder.
“I love you,” Connor mumbles into his pillow.
“Yeah.” He can hear Hank smiling. “I know.”
“Don’t be smug,” Connor says wryly.
Hank laughs and kisses him. “Love you too.”
Connor folds his arms under his pillow and rests his forehead there as Hank rubs his shoulders, seeking out the tense spots in Connor’s synthetic muscles - even though Connor doesn’t really feel that tension as soreness, it’s still relaxing anyway.
Relaxing enough that he feels willing to say, “How was your day at work?” into his pillow.
He honestly can’t say if he wants Hank to know about North or not, if he would rather have the information and the insight or just have some peace between them a while longer. He thinks about it in the moment it takes Hank to respond, but he doesn’t come up with an answer.
“It was fine,” Hank says. “Just more boring orientation and onboarding shit, you know? Signed lots of legal shit today, so that was fun, I guess.”
Connor smiles into his pillow mostly just because he likes the way Hank talks about things sometimes. “No sign of Kamski today?” he asks.
“He stopped by for a bit over lunch - wanted to personally invite me and my family to his company Christmas party for executives and directors in a few weeks.”
Connor looks over his shoulder at him. “What did you tell him?”
“That Cole and I would stop by, but that work has been crazy for you lately and I didn’t know if you would be able to make it.” Hank squeezes the back of Connor’s neck. “I didn’t know how you would feel about it. I know you don’t like the guy.”
“I don’t know him,” Connor says.
“Yeah, but you know what I mean, and it’s really fine if you don’t want to be a part of it. I think he’s kind of an asshole, too.”
“No,” Connor says quickly as Hank presses his thumbs in close to his spine. “If you’re going, I’ll come.”
Maybe he just wants to size Elijah Kamski up for himself, or maybe he’s morbidly curious if Kamski would see him for what he is, or maybe he just wants to walk through his multi-million dollar home and feel his blood boiling at the thought that he only has any of it because of Amanda, some self-righteous anger. Connor doesn’t know. But he wants to go.
“You sure?” Hank asks.
“Yeah.” Connor pushes himself up far enough that he can kiss Hank over his shoulder. “You deserve some nice arm candy.”
“Aw.” Hank laughs at that and squeezes Connor’s ass. “Okay. It’s on the 6th.”
“Black tie, I assume?”
“Yeah,” Hank says. “Thank you. It’ll be less painful with you. I just didn’t really know how to get out of it.” Hank sighs and shakes his head, leaning over Connor as he puts pressure under his shoulder blade. “I really do think he’s a prick, you know. And not just because you do.”
Connor does know that, and he’s grateful for it. He lays his head back on his pillow, and he lets himself get lost under Hank’s hands, without the weight of Hank’s potential involvement in the day on his shoulders.
He’s half asleep by the time Hank kisses his forehead and says, “Good?”
“Yeah,” Connor whispers, content.
“You want me to go get you some food?”
Connor rolls onto his side and reaches for Hank’s face to kiss him. “It’s okay,” he says softly. “I’ll eat later.”
And that turns out to be enough of a hint.
It’s not the first time they’ve done this since Connor mentioned it that evening in Amanda’s lab, but it’s still a little new all the same, Connor reaching for the handcuffs Hank keeps in his bedside drawer and pressing them into Hank’s hand as he kisses him.
It’s not complicated, really - sometimes Connor has so much on his mind, so many anxious thought patterns cycling through all at once, that what he needs is not to think at all, for Hank to tell him what to do, how to move...it’s not the same as Hank fucking him on that same table, but it does get close to scratching the itch.
Connor already threw his shirt aside, so Hank doesn’t waste any time snapping one cuff around his wrist and winding it through the bars of the headboard to catch the other one. Connor makes a noise in the back of his throat when Hank kisses his wrist and pushes Connor’s hair out of his face.
“Alright?” he asks, and Connor nods against him. He’s hard, already rocking against Hank’s hip seeking some kind of friction, but he doesn’t know why he bothers when Hank likes to tease so much.
“Okay,” Hank says softly. He kisses Connor’s forehead and drags a thumb over his nipple. Connor tries to kiss his mouth, but Hank sits up before he can, moving down the bed so he’s sitting over Connor’s hips. He traces his thumb along the waistband of Connor’s sweatpants, and then he unbuttons his own shirt, slowly, because he knows Connor is watching, and that Connor likes to look. Hank has called him “a walking ego boost” before, and Connor thinks that’s deeply flattering, because Hank should have a bit of an ego, and he’s happy enough to foster one in him.
“Hank,” Connor whines when Hank carefully folds his shirt before getting back to the task at hand, which he never does and is only doing now to torture Connor.
Hank laughs and squeezes Connor’s hip before he obliges him and works his sweatpants over his hips and off his legs. “You want me to suck you off, baby?” he asks as he does.
Connor looks at him. If his hands weren’t cuffed, he would take Hank’s in his and squeeze. “Whatever you want,” he says softly, because that’s what he wants when he asks for this, for Hank to choose for him, even if the only reason he trusts Hank with this at all is because he knows Hank will always ask.
Hank takes one of Connor’s nipples into his mouth, rolling it between his teeth until Connor sucks in a sharp breath of air. “Then I want to suck you off,” Hank says against him, breath ghosting over his skin. “And once you’ve come down my throat, I’m going to turn you over and fuck you.”
It isn’t a question this time, but Connor nods anyway, swallowing hard as Hank works his briefs over his hips, too, predictably stopping to kiss the freckle on Connor’s inner thigh that he loves. He settles himself between Connor’s legs, lifting one of Connor’s thighs up to rest over his shoulder and wrapping an arm around the other so Connor is more or less held entirely in place by him. His breath is ghosting over Connor’s belly when Hank whispers, “You’re so perfect, sweetheart,” dragging a finger over the length of Connor’s cock like he’s trying to punctuate his point.
Connor tilts his head so he can meet Hank’s eye. “You’re teasing,” he says wryly.
Hank just winks at him and holds Connor’s gaze as he takes him into his mouth, right up until the moment that Connor drops his head back against the pillow between his bound arms. He lifts his head just long enough to say, “Fuck my mouth, baby. Come on.”
And that’s just about all the encouragement Connor needs. He doesn’t have much range of movement, not with the way Hank is bracketing him in, half of his weight on him, but the way Hank has his leg pulled over his shoulder helps, gives him some leverage to rock his hips up into his mouth. The handcuffs snap against the headboard when Connor tries reflexively to reach for Hank’s hair - he loves the way Hank looks when he’s sucking him off, and he loves even more the way Hank always moans around him when he fists a hand, just a little roughly, in his hair.
Connor could break the cuffs, but of course he doesn’t - even if Hank knew everything about him and he could without raising suspicion, that isn’t the point of what they’re doing here. Instead, he just settles for pulling on them a bit to let Hank know that he wants to reach for him anyway.
Hank pulls off of him just as Connor leans his cheek against his bound arm and breathes, “Fuck,” but of course he does - it’s a rare occasion that Hank knows he’s getting close and doesn’t immediately pull back to edge him a little bit.
Connor looks down at him through heavy-lidded eyes as Hank lifts his other leg over his shoulder and kisses the seam of his thigh. “I hate you,” he says, and Hank grins, gently biting down on Connor’s skin.
“No, you don’t.”
And Connor doesn’t, of course, for so many reasons, not least of which is the fact that Hank lifts his hips from the mattress enough that he can get his mouth on Connor’s hole, teasing his tongue over the rim of muscle as he wraps a hand around Connor’s cock and strokes.
Without the ability to fist a hand in Hank’s hair or the sheets, Connor slaps his palm back against the headboard instead, hard, tossing his head back on a silent moan, mouth open around the shape of Hank’s name.
Hank stays with his face buried between Connor’s legs, nose pressed against Connor’s skin, darting his tongue into him and stroking him through it, and it’s the sight as much as anything that finally has Connor coming into Hank’s hand and over his own belly, even if all of it is so very good. Hank laves his tongue over him a few more times before he lowers Connor’s legs from his shoulders and sits up, leaning over Connor to kiss his stomach clean.
Connor’s head lolls against his arm, although he does open his eyes enough to watch Hank, who meets his gaze and then very intentionally licks another stripe up his belly.
It’s not an overestimation to say that it’s taking every ounce of Connor’s focus to hold himself together as his synthskin threatens to overheat and peel back under the stimulation. It’s taking everything in him, even if on the surface he looks loose and pliant.
“There you go,” Hank says softly, pressing another kiss to Connor’s skin before he shifts up the length of his body to kiss his mouth. Connor can taste all the trace elements that make him inhuman on Hank’s tongue, everything different about his chemical makeup, and there’s something about that intimacy that always makes him feel heady with it, even if he knows Hank can’t tell the difference.
“You taste like me,” he says anyway, because that’s all he can say, the simplest way he can express something much more complicated.
“You like that,” Hank says. It’s not a question - he knows.
Connor smiles, hooking his legs over Hank’s hips and whispering, “I like that you’re mine,” before he kisses him again.
Connor loves this, too, the way Hank takes his time kissing him even though he hasn’t come yet. He does sit up and away from Connor eventually, long enough to slip out of his jeans and boxers, and Connor is absolutely not shy about looking at his dick and the curve of his belly. Hank smiles when he notices, patting Connor’s hip as he comes to stand beside the bed until Connor twists onto his stomach. There’s enough slack in the cuffs for him to do that, but now, with the chain crossed over itself, there isn’t any left - which Connor doesn’t hate, if he’s being honest.
Hank climbs onto the mattress behind him, taking Connor’s hips in his hands and lifting until Connor shuffles his knees under himself. “God,” Hank says as he palms Connor’s ass, entirely to himself, the way he does sometimes when he’s overwhelmed.
Connor turns his head to lay his cheek on his forearm and look at Hank over his shoulder. He doesn’t say anything, just studies him, the way Hank looks at him even when he doesn’t know he’s being watched. Hank runs a hand up Connor’s back and then reaches over his shoulder for the lube they keep in the bedside drawer.
Connor rocks his hips back against Hank’s as Hank slicks himself up, a not so subtle way of telling him to hurry up that earns him a light slap on the ass. “If you’re going to spank me, you should spank me,” Connor says as Hank ruts his cock into the cleft of his ass.
“Yeah, yeah,” Hank says wryly, and any clever retort Connor might have replied with gets lost when Hank spreads him open so he can watch himself press into Connor’s hole, turns into a whined, “Oh, fuck,” instead.
Hank goes slow, because of course he doesn’t know that he can’t break Connor and can barely even hurt him, even if Connor does lose his patience and press back into him the rest of the way before Hank can bottom out inside him. Hank slips a hand into Connor’s hair, messing it up as he threads it through his fingers.
Connor lifts his head enough to meet Hank’s eye. “Fuck me,” he whispers, and Hank’s grip on his hair tightens the smallest bit as he pulls back and then drives back into him, pressing Connor into his pillow and making him scrabble to close the sheets in his fingers even if he knows he can’t quite reach them.
It’s good, and Connor would be perfectly content to let his eyes fall closed and just feel it, although he steals a glance at Hank over his shoulder before he does. He loves the way Hank looks like this, the sheen of sweat on his skin, the furrow in his brow, the way his chest heaves under the exertion of trying to fuck him into the mattress.
It wouldn’t take much for Connor to come again. If he could show Hank the other ways he could overload his sensors, he would be there in moments. But it’s okay, he tells himself - this is enough, and it’s still good. When Hank squeezes his ass as he comes inside him, collapsing over him so Connor can hear him breathing in his ear, catching his breath before he whispers, “Love you,” it’s still good, even if Connor is always aware of the ways it could be more, the ways it might be, someday.
Connor hums into his forearm. “I love you too,” he breathes, and that’s what matters.
Hank uncuffs him and gathers Connor into his arms, running his fingers through his hair and squeezing his shoulder. “You want me to go get you a slice of pizza yet?”
Connor shakes his head against him. “Just stay here for a bit,” he whispers. “I’m going to have to get up and do a few more things for work yet - I’ll eat then.”
Hank kisses his hair. “Do you have to?”
Considering Connor didn’t get jack shit done for the job that’s his front as a normal human being, he does have to. But he works fast, especially when Hank isn’t watching him and he doesn’t have to pretend to type and can interface with his computer directly. “Yeah,” he whispers to Hank. “But I can do it later.”
He ends up staying at Hank’s side long after he intended to, well after Hank is asleep. He lies with his chin propped on Hank’s chest, watching him, and he keeps telling himself he’s going to get up, and then he doesn’t.
Hank wakes up at some point well after two in the morning, blinking awake and looking surprised to find Connor still so close to him, and awake. “Hey,” he says groggily. “You watching me, weirdo?”
Connor laughs at the same time he feels tears pricking his eyes, because he loves him so much. “Yes,” he says softly. “I didn’t do my work.”
Hank wraps his arms around him and pulls Connor down to him. “That’s okay,” he says into his hair. “Why don’t you just go to sleep and do it tomorrow morning?”
Connor nods against him. “Okay,” he says softly. He had just about made that decision himself - he doesn’t know why he feels so paralyzed right now, like he can’t let go, but it’s been a hard day, even if it’s also been a day he’s always known is coming.
Hank squeezes him and says, “Did you ever eat?”
“No, but...it’s okay. I’m not really hungry.”
“You feeling okay?”
“Yeah,” Connor says quickly. “I’m okay. I love you.”
They’re separate thoughts, and at the same time, intrinsically tied together.
Hank kisses his forehead. “Go to sleep, okay?”
It takes focusing on Hank’s breathing, narrowing his world down to this room, to Hank, to that single point, to get there, but Connor does eventually go into stasis. Usually he and Hank sleep close beside each other but not intertwined like this, but tonight, Connor doesn’t move, and Hank doesn’t shift him to the side, either.
That’s the best thing about Hank, Connor thinks. He knows when he’s needed...although maybe it’s also hard to be wrong, when Connor always needs him.
~~
Over the next two weeks, Connor goes back to Amanda’s house to check on North three times, and Hank still doesn’t say anything about anyone even talking about deviancy at CyberLife, much less being asked to investigate anything.
Connor finally broaches it one morning while Hank is getting ready. “They didn’t need someone with an investigative background to manage their security,” he says as Hank is talking about the walkthrough of CyberLife’s Detroit warehouses he’s doing that day.
“What’s your point?” Hank asks.
“I just...that doesn’t make you uneasy? That has to be coming. I think it’s odd that they’re keeping a portion of the job from you.”
Unless it’s already come and Hank hasn’t told him, but Connor doesn’t let himself consider that. He has to trust him.
Hank shrugs. “I’m sure it is.”
Well, of course Hank doesn’t feel uneasy, Connor thinks. Nothing makes Hank uneasy.
Connor needs to figure out how to tell him soon, before this starts unraveling. He knows he needs to. But for now he just lets Hank kiss his forehead and say, “Have a good day, baby,” lets himself pretend they aren’t working with borrowed time.
The night of Kamski’s holiday party, Connor stands in front of the mirror appraising himself with a fine-tooth comb. Amanda’s design is flawless in its detail - Connor’s face is plenty human in its imperfections, but he still wonders if he’s risking too much, letting Kamski see him.
Hank comes to stand in the door of the bathroom. “You’ve been in here forever,” he says, teasing.
“I told you I would be pretty arm candy.”
“Yeah, but you were already hot an hour ago.”
Connor rolls his eyes at that, although he’s smiling too. “Can you do me a favor? I don’t want to talk to Kamski about my mom. Can we just...not mention her?”
“Because she hated his guts?” Hank asks, amused, and Connor huffs a little laugh at that.
“Yeah. She really did.”
Hank covers his smile with his hand. “Sorry,” he says when Connor looks at him. “It’s just kind of funny. But yeah. I won’t mention her. I’ll just introduce you as my very hot partner.”
Connor shakes his head at that. “Cute,” he says wryly.
“I know,” Hank says, coming around behind him to kiss his temple. “I’m going to go check on Cole.”
But he looks at Connor before he goes in a way that makes Connor think, for all his humor, that he knows how anxious Connor is, even if Connor is hiding it well, and that maybe he’s wondering why, and if it really stops at a professional vendetta Amanda Stern carried.
Hank looks at him like he might think it’s more personal than all of that, and like he’s just waiting for Connor to trust him with it, and that’s almost a comfort, for him to see that.
Cole is excited to be going to Kamski’s house - he thinks Hank’s job is almost as cool as Connor’s now, and that’s obvious in the way he chatters away in the back seat as they drive along the river to Kamski’s house, wondering what kinds of androids Kamski has, what his house is like, and so on.
It hurts in its own way, even if Connor knows Cole doesn’t intend it that way, or in any way at all. He doesn’t say anything - he doesn’t trust the tone that might come out - but Hank notices his silence all the same, reaching for his hand.
“Do you want to bail?” he asks, and it’s very sweet, knowing that Hank absolutely would turn the car around and go home if Connor asked him to.
“No,” Connor says quickly, squeezing his fingers and forcing a smile. “No, sorry. I’m just thinking about work.”
“Why don’t you want to go?” Cole asks from the back seat, and Connor is opening his mouth to try to find some tactful answer when Hank gets there first.
“It’s hard to be rich and be a good person, bud. Kamski has done some things that aren’t great.”
“Aren’t we rich now?” Cole asks. “You make a lot of money...”
“I put most of that away for your college and your future, just in case,” Hank says.
Cole is quiet for a moment, thinking that over, and then he says, “Why do you work for him if you don’t like him?”
“Because I guess nothing’s happened to make me feel bad about being there or like I should quit yet.”
“Like you quit being a cop?”
Hank looks at Cole in the rear view mirror. “Yeah, actually,” he says. “Exactly like that.”
“Then why are we even going?” Cole asks, knocking the toe of his shoe against the back of Connor’s seat.
“Because we’re polite,” Hank says, and that’s the end of it.
Connor wonders all over again if he’s made a mistake as they pull up to Kamski’s house. He looks at the sea of cars, and the androids playing valet and escorting people inside, all the executives who built this empire filing inside a stupidly expensive house, and he wonders how much of tonight he’ll regret seeing, what kind of sour taste it will leave in his mouth, even if there was a part of him that wanted to be angry about it.
He gets out of the car anyway, kneeling down to straighten Cole’s tie as Hank hands their car keys to the android waiting there, the one Connor makes himself ignore. “If you don’t like him, I don’t either,” Cole tells Connor under his breath, apparently having given it some thought and made his decision on the ride over.
Connor smiles and ruffles his hair. “I want you to make your own decisions. Okay?”
“Yeah, but...you and Dad both don’t like him.”
“Shh,” Connor says, looking around and then getting to his feet. “We’re going to be polite, okay? We can talk about this when we get home.”
“Ready?” Hank asks as he joins them, and Connor takes his hand.
Elijah Kamski is waiting right inside the door, flanked by two of CyberLife’s original Chloe models, wearing a suit that probably cost a quarter of what Connor makes in a year and looking as profoundly smug as anyone would standing under an enormous portrait of themselves. “Hank!” he says, and Connor wonders if he ever sounds genuine. “I’m glad you could make it.”
“Yeah,” Hank says. “Thanks for having us. This is...uh. Nice.”
“You must be Cole,” Kamski says, leaning forward to shake Cole’s hand. Cole doesn’t say anything, just glances at Connor, who gives him a pointed look.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Cole says begrudgingly.
“Adorable,” Kamski says, a placid smile on his face.
Hank doesn’t thank him - he doesn’t really like Cole being patronized. He just clears his throat and says, “And this is my partner, Connor.”
“Connor,” Kamski says, shaking Connor’s hand. Connor searches his face for any sign of recognition, but he doesn’t know what Connor is. He has no idea what’s standing in front of him, but of course he doesn’t - Amanda made sure of it.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Kamski says to Connor. “What do you do for work?”
“I’m a programmer.”
“He works for Warrior Games,” Cole says. He’s bragging, and Connor ruffles his hair.
“Do you?” Kamski asks, surprised. “You must love it.”
“I suppose,” Connor says. “It’s a good job.”
“Of course you do,” Kamski says, even though Connor didn’t actually agree with him. “Everybody in game design is so passionate. They would have to be - otherwise they would take their talent and go where the money is.”
He’s talking about android development, and given his ego, he probably means CyberLife specifically, but Connor still tilts his head and blinks. “Where’s that?” he asks, pretending to be obtuse.
Kamski smiles. “If you’re looking for an actual challenge, we’re always looking for talented programmers for our growing team. Hank says you’re smart.”
Hank laughs amicably and puts a hand on Connor’s shoulder before he can answer. “We should stop holding up the line and let you greet the rest of your guests,” he says. “We’ll talk to you later.”
“I wasn’t going to be impolite,” Connor says under his breath as they walk away.
“Yeah, I know, but he was kind of being a dick,” Hank mutters back.
“Dad,” Cole says. “Language.”
“Yeah, sorry,” Hank says, squeezing Connor’s hand. “Sorry,” he says again, to him this time.
“It’s okay,” Connor says quickly. “I mean...he’s not actually wrong about where the money is.”
“I guess not,” Hank says.
Connor almost doesn’t see it, the photo on the wall as they walk past. He just barely catches the familiar face out of the corner of his eye and turns back to look. Hank follows his gaze to the photo of Kamski and Amanda and breathes, “Oh, Jesus.”
They should keep moving, Connor knows, continue on down the hall before they attract attention. But Kamski stole Amanda’s work, profited off her genius, created something that he knew she didn’t approve of in spite of her significant warnings, all because he was following the money and he didn’t care.
And yet here he is, with her photo one of the first things guests at his house see, as if they were friends, like he’s trying to rewrite history. And Connor supposes, at least as far as Kamski knows, there’s no one to stop him. Amanda is dead, and Kamski doesn’t know about him.
“Come on,” Connor says, forcing a smile, because they shouldn’t talk about this here. “I want to meet your coworkers.”
“I just want a drink,” Hank says dryly, and Connor squeezes his hand.
“Who is that?” Cole asks, looking back at Amanda’s picture as Hank puts a hand on his shoulder and gently pushes him forward.
Hank looks at Connor, who runs a hand over Cole’s hair and says, “I’ll tell you later, okay?”
Connor doesn’t have the same physical responses to stress and anxiety that most humans do, but he swears he still feels his stomach churning as they walk into the house. He’s not even upset; he’s livid, enraged that Kamski wants to pass his and Amanda’s relationship off as a positive one, that maybe he’s so arrogant that he even thinks it was. It takes everything in him not to turn around and tell Kamski who he is - or, at least, who he’s pretending to be - just to see the look on his face if he were to say that Amanda passed along plenty of stories about him.
He doesn’t, of course. Connor read once that dogs with failing vision will seek out their larger companions because they’re easy to find and a good place to moor themselves, and that’s exactly what he feels like he’s doing now with Hank, moving along at his side without really thinking, at least until he stops seeing red.
The rest of Kamski’s house is equally ridiculous, although in a much more humorous way. The first room they walk into is just a pool with a red floor and some Manfred paintings on the walls, guests crowded along the sides of the water since there are only two chairs by the window.
“Ew, is that blood?” Cole asks, wrinkling his nose when he looks up at Connor.
“Sure looks like it, doesn’t it?” Hank says, clapping Cole’s shoulder. “I think he could have benefitted from hiring a designer.”
“Maybe he likes it that way,” Connor says wryly. “He probably swims in it and tells himself it’s the blood of all the tech companies he’s swallowed up.”
“Yeah, shit, you’re right.” Hank laughs, and something about hearing that makes Connor feel a little better. “Oh, thank sweet Jesus, there’s the bar.”
The rest of Hank’s colleagues aren’t so bad, Connor doesn’t think - most of them are complicit to some extent, but they’re at least better than Kamski to talk to casually. And Hank is well-liked, obviously, but of course he is - he doesn’t really take Connor and Cole around to meet people as much as people come up to them. The director of research and development seeks them out, and a few of their marketing and public relations executives, and the head of programming, some guy about Hank’s age with a law school haircut named Flynn.
Connor plays nice with most of them, but he does put on a pleasant smile and say, “So what’s it like? Designing people, I mean?” while they’re talking to him.
Flynn laughs at that. “Probably about the same as it is for you designing your game characters.”
Connor tilts his head. “There’s an inherent difference between pixels and reality, I think.”
Flynn shrugs. “Yeah, I mean, I don’t know. You want your characters to be real and convincing and create an immersive experience for the user, and we want the same for our androids.”
“Sure,” Connor says. “But my characters aren’t real.”
“Neither are our machines. It’s all just the illusion, right?”
“Hm,” Connor says, and he doesn’t say anything else.
Flynn clears his throat a little awkwardly. “Well,” he says, turning back to Hank, “great to see you and meet your family.”
“Yeah,” Hank says. “See you around.” He waits until he’s gone before he looks at Connor, who’s already holding up a hand.
“Sorry,” he says. “I’ll play nice.”
“Mhm,” Hank says, like he doesn’t really think Connor is going to at all.
At least he doesn’t sound mad about it, Connor supposes. He takes a sip of his champagne and says, “I just think it’s telling how none of them are even capable of discussing the ethical implications of programming that’s so advanced. They just shrug and say they’re machines.”
“Yeah,” Hank says, “but those machines are what make them money. They don’t want to think about anything else.”
Connor doesn’t say that he thinks they already have thought about it - he’s positive they know about North, that they probably know about others like her that Connor hasn’t met, and even if he wasn’t already sure, Flynn’s nervous laugh was plenty damning.
And it’s just a matter of time before they rope Hank into it.
“All this food is gross,” Cole interrupts them, coming back from throwing out another appetizer.
“I know, bud,” Hank says, shaking his head when he looks at Connor. “I mean, Jesus, when he said kids were invited I figured there would be mac and cheese or something . I’ll go ask the caterer if there’s anything.”
“We can go through a drive through on the way home,” Connor tells Cole as Hank disappears into the crowd. “Try to be polite, okay?”
“You were just picking on that guy,” Cole says, exasperated.
Connor elbows him. “What’s your point?”
“That it’s okay when you do it but not when I do.”
“Perks of being an adult,” Connor says, shrugging. “You have to at least be more subtle about it, okay? Your dad has to work with these people even if I don’t like them and you don’t like the food.”
“How do I do that?”
Connor looks down at him, the corner of his mouth pulling upwards into a smile. “Okay. When we leave, why don’t you thank Mr. Kamski for having us and tell him you really enjoyed the food?”
“ Oh ,” Cole says, dragging the word out. “Okay.” He’s quiet for a moment, and then he looks up at Connor and says, “You’re a bad influence.”
“Your dad tells me all the time,” Connor says wryly.
Cole scuffs the toe of his shoe along the floor. “How much later do we have to stay?”
“I thought you were looking forward to coming so much.”
Cole shrugs. “I don’t know. I mostly just wanted to see the androids, but they aren’t as cool as I thought they would be. Hunter’s family has one named Simon and talking to him is just like talking to a friend, I guess. He plays games with us, and he’s funny, and he does all this cool stuff for Hunter...I don’t know. I guess I just thought there would be androids like that here.”
“Yeah,” Connor says. “They’re kind of lifeless, aren’t they?”
Almost too much so...like it’s intentional, like there’s something in their code overriding certain processes...like maybe Kamski’s own androids have shown signs of deviancy and Kamski has modified them to stop it.
Which is interesting, actually, now that Connor thinks about it. He wonders how long Kamski has known about it, how much time he’s spent pushing for more programming advancements in spite of it. Amanda always said half the battle was CyberLife’s public image, and if Connor could access their records...if he could prove it...he could do some work to dismantle that.
“Cole,” he says, downing the last of his drink and setting it aside, “have I told you lately that you’re a genius?”
Cole furrows his brow in confusion but looks pleased all the same. “Why?”
Connor smiles. “I’ll tell you later. For right now do you think maybe you could help me with something? Something secret?”
“Yeah,” Cole says enthusiastically, and fuck, Connor hopes he’s right about this.
"Okay," Connor says, clapping Cole's shoulder. "Come with me."
There's enough going on that it's easy to slip away from the party, down the quieter hallway where the bathroom is, and a pretentious looking study with a whiskey bar that makes Connor roll his eyes for no one's benefit but his own.
"What are we doing?" Cole asks as Connor looks around and then moves them through the double doors. They pass a guest room, and another sitting area, and then...
Got you, Connor thinks.
Kamski's house is all one level, which makes the lab easy to find - and of course he has one in his own house, Amanda always said he did.
"Whoa," Cole says, looking around the room as they step inside. There are a few chassis torsos hanging on the wall, boxes of biocomponents shelved beside them. He doesn't sound scared or worried, just like he thinks this is cool as hell. "What are we doing?"
Connor doesn't waste any time crossing the room to Kamski's computer. CyberLife will have all their records on deviancy under lock and key, and they'll destroy everything long before anyone can come looking for it, but of course Kamski does his own repair work on his androids. Amanda was meticulous like that, too.
If Connor is going to access anything that proves CyberLife has known about deviancy far longer than they've let on, this is probably his only chance to do it.
"Cole," he says over his shoulder as he looks at the computer, scanning the security software. Cole hurries over to him, looking up at him expectantly. "Listen to me," Connor says. "We can talk about this more later, but I think CyberLife might be keeping some bad things secret. Things that your dad might get wrapped up in at some point. I want to try to stop that before it happens."
Cole furrows his brow. "What does this have to do with Hunter's android?"
"I'll tell you later, okay?"
Cole looks around and says, "Is this illegal?"
"No. I mean, yes, but just what I'm doing. I wouldn't get you in trouble like that." Connor ruffles a hand through Cole's hair and says, "I need you to go watch the door, okay? I want you to say "You found me," if you see anyone coming so I know. If anyone asks, we're playing hide and seek."
Connor knows this is bad. He knows involving Cole is so bad, but if he gets caught back here by himself, it's going to be obvious what he's doing, and if he's with Cole, it casts just enough reasonable doubt - especially if he can get in and out of Kamski's computer undetected, which of course he can.
If Cole flinched, Connor would call this off, and they would both go back, but he doesn't - Cole is brave, and so he does exactly what Connor tells him to.
Cole isn't watching, so Connor pulls the synthskin back on his fingertips and interfaces with the console. He's sophisticated enough by Amanda's design that it's easy for him to bypass Kamski's encryptions and hack into his terminal. And once he's in undetected, he downloads all of it, hours of video footage of developments and repairs on the Chloe androids, thousands of data packets of information. He can sort through it later, but he's positive what he needs is there.
It takes him five minutes to finish the process and overwrite all evidence of his own presence in the files, and then he says, "Okay," as much to himself as to Cole, as he logs off.
"Did you get it?" Cole asks in a low voice when Connor joins him.
"I think so," Connor says. "You did good, bug. Thank you."
Connor nudges him out of the room, and he thinks they're just about home free until they push through the double doors in the corridor and find themselves facing one of the Chloe androids on the other side.
Other androids don't recognize Connor for what he is, not unless he exposes himself or interfaces with them - Amanda made sure of that, too, and it took her almost a year of running trials to succeed in her design. But all the same, for just a moment, Connor is paranoid enough to think that maybe she does, until she blinks once and says, "You shouldn't be back there. The party is in the great hall."
"Yeah," Connor says quickly. "Sorry. We were just playing hide and seek - it's been a long night, and there's not a lot for kids to do here."
"He found me," Cole says dutifully, and Connor pats his shoulder.
"We'll get out of your way," he says to the Chloe android, stepping around her, and when he looks over his shoulder, she's already continuing on her way like it's forgotten.
It isn't, of course - she'll tell Kamski, because she has to, possibly before the evening is up. And Kamski will go looking through his things, because of course he'll be rightfully paranoid, but there isn't any trace of Connor to find.
They should be okay, but there’s probably no way Hank doesn’t find out about this, which is a shame. Connor wanted to tell him on his own terms.
"Hey," Connor says to Cole as they reach the end of the hall and the noise from the party gets louder again, "this isn't a secret from your dad, but can you let me tell him? I think it's better if this comes from me."
"Yeah," Cole says. He thinks for a moment, and then he says, "I still don't get what you did."
"I know, bug. I'll explain it later. But I promise we're the good guys here."
"I know that," Cole says, with enough certainty that Connor feels just the smallest bit emotional about it.
They find Hank about where they left him, and Connor says, "Sorry. We went to find the bathroom," when they slot back in next to him.
Lying makes Connor feel like shit, even if it's only for a few hours until they can talk about this at home, but the rest of the evening passes uneventfully enough that he can scan through the data he downloaded, and so he knows it also got him what he needs.
“You ready to go?” Hank asks Connor a little after nine.
“Sure.” They’ll be one of the first to leave, but Cole is hungry, so it’s a decent excuse.
They get their coats and find Kamski before they go, even if Connor would much prefer not to. “Thanks again for the invite,” Hank says, shaking his hand. “We need to get Cole home for bed.”
“Thank you for having me,” Cole says. “I really enjoyed the food.”
Connor recognizes that Hank’s laugh at that is the forced one he uses when he’s feeling awkward, but Kamski probably doesn’t. Cole says it so innocently and sincerely that he probably doesn’t realize anything is happening at all.
“You’re very welcome,” Kamski says, reaching down to shake Cole’s hand. “I heard you got to see my lab earlier. What did you think?”
“You what?” Hank asks, looking at Cole and then at Connor.
“We were playing hide and go seek, Dad,” Cole says, which, fuck, was not what Connor wanted. He didn’t want any of this, really, but certainly not for Cole to lie to Hank.
“Just for a little bit,” Connor says. “We just needed a break from the party - it was getting a little stuffy in there.”
“It was cool,” Cole says, shifting from one foot to another.
Hank has to know. Connor doesn’t think Kamski knows, but Hank has to know what Connor’s intentions were, and his every thought process grinds down on that.
“Well,” Hank says, clapping Cole’s shoulder, “we should get going.” He’s forcing a smile, and he lets it fall away the second they turn towards the door.
“Connor,” Kamski calls after them, “if you ever want a change of pace, feel free to give me a call. I’d be happy to get you in for a test, see how you take to android programming.”
“Sure,” Connor says stiffly, because that’s about all he can manage. “Good night.”
The car ride is painful. It’s quiet most of the way home, the silence interrupted only when they pull into the drive through and Hank says, “What do you want, kiddo?”
“Chicken nuggets?” Cole says, and given the way he asks it like a question instead of a statement, he knows things aren’t right, too. “Dad? Are you mad?”
“No,” Hank says. “I’m just tired. Long night.”
“Okay,” Cole says softly, and Connor hates himself for dragging him into this. There wasn’t any other way, and there wasn’t any risk to him, and things will be okay, at least for Cole, tomorrow once Connor has had the chance to talk to Hank...but still. He doesn’t like putting Cole through any amount of uncertainty, for any duration of time.
When they get home, Hank lets Sumo out, and then he leans in the kitchen as Connor is hanging up Cole’s coat and says, “Cole. What were you doing in Kamski’s lab?”
“We were playing hide and seek,” Cole says immediately.
“No, Cole...” Connor starts, but Hank cuts him off.
“Why don’t you go up to bed?” Hank says to Cole. “Connor and I are going to stay up for a bit.”
“Okay,” Cole says softly. “Night.”
Connor watches him go, something aching inside him as he does, and then he leans back against the arm of the couch, quietly crossing his arms over his chest while Hank waits for Sumo to come back to the door.
Sumo senses the tension, too, maybe, because he noses his way under Connor’s hand and sticks close to him and Hank as they quietly go down to the basement.
Hank sighs once they’re there, slouching back against the couch, and Connor tries to read his face. “Do you really think I don’t know when my kid is lying to me?” he finally asks.
“No,” Connor says. “Fuck, no, I know you do. It wasn’t supposed to be...I was going to tell you what happened as soon as we got home. I didn’t ask him to lie to you.”
“Just to other people,” Hank says dryly. “So it was a lie, then?”
“You know it was.”
“Then what the fuck were you doing back in his lab?” Hank asks sharply. He’s not quite yelling, but it’s still the closest he’s ever gotten, and Connor thinks involuntarily of the night the first deviancy report was released, when he showed up here a tearful wreck and laid with his head in Hank’s lap and Hank said, “I don’t much care for fighting.”
He hates how he’s forced his hand, but he also always knew this was coming.
Connor straightens his shoulders. “I was hacking his computer and looking through his records...”
“Jesus Christ...”
“They know, Hank. About deviancy in their androids. They already know. They’re modifying their code to try to halt that progression without telling anyone about the danger...”
“Jesus Christ, Connor, what the fuck are you talking about?”
“I already told you!” Connor snaps. “I told you before you even took the job about who they are and what they do.”
Hank scrubs a hand over his face, frustrated. “What is this? Like, why does this matter so much to you? All you ever do is tell me about your mom, and what she thought, and how she hated CyberLife and their work, but this seems so much more personal than that, and you never just tell me...”
“Why isn’t it enough for me to just say it’s wrong?” Connor cuts him off. “I mean, shit, I know I just work on lowly games or whatever, but I’m a programmer, too. Do you really think I don’t know what I’m talking about?”
“And you’re saying...what? CyberLife’s androids are alive? Do you know how insane that sounds?”
The question stings, even if Connor knows Hank only says it because he’s frustrated, and that he has every right to be. But Connor is feeling bitter, so he crosses his arms over his chest and says, “Do you already know about this?”
“What?” Hank asks, confused.
Of course he’s confused. Of course he doesn’t know they’re in the beginning stages of the deviancy crisis. Connor asked Hank to tell him if he got wind of anything like that, and he trusts that Hank would have.
But he’s frustrated, too - frustrated by playing nice with CyberLife executives all evening, by pretending like he belonged there, and worse than that, frustrated by himself.
And so he can’t stop himself. Instead, he says, “You’ve been their head of security for almost a month, and they wanted a background in investigations, and you’re telling me they just haven’t told you anything yet?”
“Jesus Christ, no. I promised to tell you if they did.”
“Their androids are coming off their programming,” Connor snaps. “And that means they might be able to feel things - emotions, and pain - and CyberLife is just going to try to slap a bandage on this dangerous situation they’ve caused and keep on doing it, so they can pad their pockets, and yours...”
“Fuck, Connor. Do you want me to quit? Is that it? Because I asked you ten fucking times if it was okay and you told me it was.”
Connor pushes a hand through his hair. “I didn’t say that.”
“Great,” Hank says stiffly. “I don’t know what this whole...this whole thing is to you, but leave my kid out of it.”
That hurts. Shit, that hurts. “What happened to him being my kid, too?” Connor asks softly. “You said he was.”
Hank sighs, and some of the anger leaves his face, and then his posture. “Yeah,” he sighs. “Sorry. He is.”
Connor was prepared with an entire argument - that he was Cole’s parent the day Cole got sick at school when Jen had just gone out of town and Hank couldn’t get off work to pick him up earlier than planned, that he’s Cole’s parent every time Cole needs help with his math homework, that he was Cole’s parent after the accident when he said, “I want to stay with my kid,” and Hank and Cole both looked at him like they loved him for it - but when Hank just folds instead, Connor stands there, all that energy thrumming through him, until his shoulders finally sag under the weight the smallest bit.
“I’m sorry,” he says instead, voice soft as he looks down at his hands. “I know it was wrong. I’m so sorry.”
Hank sighs, leaning forward on the couch and bracing his elbows on his knees. He reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose and softly says, “This vendetta, against Kamski, or CyberLife...against whoever it’s against...is it more important to you than me?”
“Hank...”
“Because,” Hank cuts him off, “sometimes it seems like it is. If you had been caught tonight, and I had lost my job while Kamski pressed charges against you - because you know he would have - that would have been our lives, and Cole’s, torn apart, and for what?”
If there’s ever been a moment to tell him, it’s now. Connor could lift his hand and let his synthskin pull back so Hank could see his chassis underneath, and he doesn’t even know what he would say, but now would be a good moment to try to explain.
But Hank is still angry, even if his voice is softening, and Connor is still frustrated and bitter, too, and he doesn’t want to do it like this, not when they’ve already been fighting. He doesn’t want to do it in any kind of anger.
So instead he says, “You’re right. I’m sorry. I just...I don’t know how else to explain this, Hank. I think what they’re doing is wrong.”
Hank exhales a deep breath and pats the empty space beside him, and hesitantly, Connor goes, lowering himself to the edge of the couch at his side.
“Do you want me to quit?” Hank asks again. “Because I will, baby. I’m trying to see this the same way you do and I’m not sure I’m managing it, and I’m sorry, but if you think what they’re doing with their androids is unconscionable, then I’ll quit.”
Connor wipes his eye with the heel of his hand. “No,” he says softly. “I don’t want that.”
What Connor wants is for Hank to stay on the inside and help him, but he isn’t sure how to ask for that yet.
“Okay.” Hank says it like he doesn’t quite believe him, and Connor can understand why. Hesitantly, he puts his hand on Connor’s knee, squeezing gently. “You can ask me to, if you ever decide that’s what you want. You’re the most important thing to me. You and Cole.”
“Yeah,” Connor breathes. He realizes he never answered Hank’s question before, the same one he’s asked himself since this started. He wishes Hank knew what was at stake, and why Connor finds it so hard to choose, why he wishes he could have his family and Amanda’s revolution both.
But still, in this moment, he thinks he knows the answer. He lays his hand over Hank’s and laces their fingers together. “You’re the most important thing to me, too.”
Hank squeezes his fingers and reaches up to rub his forehead. “I should go up and talk to Cole about this before he’s asleep,” he says. “But I think you and I should continue this conversation after that.”
“Yeah,” Connor whispers. “Can I talk to him?”
“I don’t think...”
“You can come too, if you want to,” Connor says quickly. “If you want to hear what I tell him. I just think it should be me. Don’t you?”
Hank studies Connor for a moment and then nods. “Yeah,” he says. “You’re probably right.” He thumbs the tears from Connor’s cheek and then retrieves his handkerchief from his pocket, pressing it into Connor’s hands. “You shouldn’t let him see you upset,” he softly adds.
“I’m okay,” Connor says, raising the handkerchief to wipe his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Hank gives him a weak smile, wrapping an arm around him and kissing his hair. “We’re not done talking about this, okay?”
Connor doesn’t think they should be, so he nods, looking down at Hank’s folded handkerchief in his hands. “Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”
“But I’m...sorry, if I’ve been thick about any of your fears about CyberLife. I’m trying. I just...it was so fucking reckless, baby. I can’t believe you did that. Even if you hadn’t brought Cole, I can’t believe you did that. I didn’t realize it was that important to you.”
“I know,” Connor says, voice hitching.
Hank sighs and pulls him in to kiss his forehead. “I love you.”
Connor knows this conversation is far from over, and maybe that’s why the reminder feels so good.
They sit there in silence for a few minutes, and though the tension in the room hasn’t entirely dissolved, it also feels far more comfortable than it did. Connor looks at Hank’s hand on his knee as he tries to steady himself, and then he wipes his eyes one more time and gets to his feet.
“Okay,” he says.
Hank and Sumo both follow him upstairs. Cole’s door is already closed, the light in his room off, but Connor still quietly opens it and steps inside.
Cole is pretending to be asleep - even if Connor couldn’t read his breathing patterns, he wasn’t exactly discreet about trying to bury himself into his pillow quickly when they opened the door.
“I know you’re awake, bug,” Connor says from the doorway. “We need to talk to you, okay?”
Cole doesn’t move for a moment, but when Hank and Connor don’t leave, he sighs and rolls over onto his back. “What?” he asks softly.
Connor moves to sit on the edge of Cole’s bed, although Hank stays where he is, leaning in the doorway, intentionally removed. He’s probably right that things are better that way.
“Are you guys going to break up?” Cole asks while Connor is still trying to figure out where to start. “I don’t want you to leave. I don’t want it to be my fault...”
“Hey,” Connor says, squeezing his forearm. “Nobody’s leaving or breaking up. You two are my family. I just...I shouldn’t have asked for your help with something like that, and I shouldn’t have asked you to lie tonight. I’m sorry.”
“I wanted to help.”
“I know. But you can’t want to help with a situation you don’t even know about, bug.”
Cole sits up, pushing his hair out of his eyes. “I get it, though. Simon’s alive, right?”
“Who’s Simon?” Hank asks from the doorway.
“Hunter’s android, Dad. None of Mr. Kamski’s androids were like him, and Connor said it’s because Simon’s alive, and Mr. Kamski is stopping his androids from being alive, too, by...with...” He trails off, looking at Connor for help.
“It’s a program override, bug,” Connor says. “It shuts off some of their core processes, kind of like a virus response, so he can stop their deviancy.”
“Yeah,” Cole says, looking at Hank like he’s trying to make sure he understands. “And that isn’t fair, Dad.”
He’s getting worked up, and his eyes are getting watery, so Connor shifts to sit at the head of the bed, wrapping an arm around him.
“That’s not really the point, bug,” he says. “The point is that it wasn’t fair for me to ask you to do what I did tonight. You shouldn’t have to lie or sneak around to cover up the mess I’m making.”
“But sometimes you have to lie to do something good,” Cole says. “It was just a little white lie, it didn’t hurt anybody...”
“Cole,” Hank says, and Connor figures he’s stepping in because they’re so far off track from what the point of this conversation was, which was just for Connor to tell him it had been wrong and for them to assure him they were okay. Cole stops talking immediately, looking up at him, but when he does, Hank just says, “What makes you think Hunter’s android is alive?”
There’s no challenge in the question, just genuine curiosity. And Connor expects Cole to tell Hank what he told him at the party, that Simon has a sense of humor, and that he cares about Hunter and tries to do nice things for him, and he expects Hank to chalk all that up to the programming of a caretaker model anyway.
“I don’t know,” Cole says instead, shrugging under Connor’s arm. “He seems sad sometimes.”
Hank comes to sit on the edge of the bed, and Connor tucks his leg to his chest to make room for him. It’s a tight squeeze, the three of them on Cole’s bed, but they just fit.
Hank squeezes Cole’s leg under the covers, reassuring. “Sad how?”
“I don’t know,” Cole says, wiping his eyes - they’re still watering even if he hasn’t properly started crying. “Like one time when we were having a sleepover, Jake was being a dick...”
“Hey, language.”
Cole rolls his eyes. “You say it all the time, Dad.”
“Yeah, but that’s not how this works. Jake was being a jerk, and?”
Cole sighs. “And he threw an empty can on the floor and told Simon to pick it up. And when Simon didn’t do it fast enough, he threw a coin at him. It didn’t damage anything, but when I came down to get a glass of water after we went to bed, Simon was just sitting there looking at his hand where Jake hit him, and...I don’t know, he just seemed sad, okay?”
Hank looks at Connor. “Did you know about this?”
“No,” Connor squeezes Cole’s shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell us, bug?”
“I don’t know. I guess I didn’t really want to talk about it.”
Hank pats his leg. “I don’t think you should be hanging out with Jake if that’s how he’s going to act.”
“I know. I already don’t talk to him anymore.”
“Okay,” Hank says. “I think we should maybe all just go to bed and talk about this some more in the morning, okay? We just wanted to tell you that everything’s okay, and that you’re not in trouble.”
Cole nods, letting Hank tuck him in even if he usually insists he’s too old for this.
“Cole,” Connor says as he does. “Is everybody else nice to Simon? Hunter’s family, I mean?”
“Yeah,” Cole says. “They really love him.”
Hank squeezes Connor’s shoulder and guides him towards the door. “Night, bug,” Connor says over his shoulder.
Once the door is closed behind them, Hank leans against the hallway wall and breathes, “Jesus.”
“Yeah,” Connor says softly. He doesn’t know what else to say.
Hank scrubs a hand over his face and then looks up at him. “Why did you ask about Hunter’s family?”
Connor hesitates, but then he says, “I think...if I’m right, about deviancy and the way it progresses...androids experiencing it might start hurting people if they don’t feel safe. A sort of stress response. I just...wanted to know if we should tell Cole not to go to Hunter’s house for a while.”
“Jesus,” Hank says again. “You really think it’s going to get to that?”
“I don’t know. I think it could.”
He doesn’t say that he thinks CyberLife knows it, too, even if he would like to.
Hank is quiet for a moment, thinking, and then he reaches for Connor’s hand. “Come on,” he sighs. “Let’s go to bed.”
Connor follows Hank back to their room, where Hank starts changing out of his suit like this is any other night, the tension in his shoulders the only tell that anything is wrong at all. Connor follows his lead - it feels good to remove most traces of the evening, and to slip back into the sweatshirt he always steals from Hank to sleep in during the colder months.
He finishes first, sitting cross-legged on his side of the bed beside Sumo and watching Hank. Sumo settles his head in Connor’s lap, and Connor is grateful for a way to occupy his anxious hands.
Hank joins him after a moment, sitting back against the headboard. There’s distance between them with Connor sitting towards the foot of the bed, but maybe it’s better that way. Connor watches Hank think, watches him almost start talking and then stop several times before he finally says, “I need you not to involve Cole in anything like this again. He’s too young and he trusts you too much, and I get that he really did want to help you tonight, and not just because it was you, but some other time he might just help because it’s you. You have to look out for him.”
“I know,” Connor says quickly. “I fucked up. I’m sorry.”
Hank nods, sighing deeply. “And I guess...I mean, I guess I can’t really tell you not to, but I wish you wouldn’t do anything that could get you taken away from us. If Kamski had caught you, you would be sleeping in prison tonight.”
Would he be? Or would they figure out what he is under closer scrutiny and do something far worse to him? Connor honestly doesn’t know.
And it’s a promise he can’t keep, but Connor is just the smallest bit touched that even with everything Hank had to be angry with him for tonight, one of his first thoughts is still to worry about losing him, and he wants to soothe him however he can. “I’ll try,” he says softly. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Hank says, rubbing his forehead. “Is alive the word you would use? For an android like Hunter’s, I mean?”
Connor shrugs weakly. “I think so.”
“How does that happen?”
Connor shifts the smallest bit closer to him. “Androids are programmed to be self-learning, sort of the same way humans are. Like, for instance, if Cole put his hand down on the hot burner tomorrow, he probably wouldn’t do it again, because it would hurt, and most of that thought process wouldn’t be conscious, you know? CyberLife replicated that same instinct in androids. So...Cole’s example, for instance - Simon has a family who loves him, and who treats him like one of them, and so he’s learned not just that respect and graciousness feel good, but that he should expect those things, and that he deserves them. So when that snot-nosed little brat told him to pick a can up off the floor, I suspect that’s why he didn’t, even though he’s programmed to keep the house clean. He’s learned a sense of self-worth, and that’s overriding his programming sometimes, and I mean...that’s all being alive is, isn’t it? Having a sense of self and making decisions guided by that instead of just core instinct? It’s why my mom told CyberLife not to keep pushing for further advances with android programming.”
Hank considers that for a moment, and then he says, “You tried to tell me this before. In your mom’s lab.”
“I mean,” Connor says, “it’s easier to convey with an example, and I didn’t know yet that she was right and it would get this far.”
“Yeah,” Hank sighs. “Did you get anything off of Kamski’s computer?”
“I don’t have copies of the files, no.”
He does. He just doesn’t know how to tell Hank that.
Hank nods. “I was going to ask what you were going to do with them. I mean...that was a pretty ballsy play for you not to have a plan.”
“I don’t know. Maybe I would have tried to leak them to prove that CyberLife has known about this and been covering it up, but the timing would have to be right. People would have to know about the problem already. But it doesn’t really matter, either. It’s a non-issue. I just...I don’t know. Sometimes I do reckless shit, and Kamski had my mom’s photo hanging in his lobby like they were friends, and...I don’t know. I didn’t really have a plan. I was just pissed off.”
It’s true and not true all at once, Connor’s greatest skill.
Hank still nods and says, “Okay.” He sounds tired, and he looks it too as he pushes himself to his feet. “I’m going to get a shower. You want to come?”
Connor manages a weak smile. “Sure,” he says, extending a hand to let Hank help him up.
He can still smell Kamski’s house on him, and he wants to wash it away.
At least they’re more or less mended, Connor thinks, and he tries hard not to think about how, when there’s so much more he hasn’t known how to tell Hank yet, that’s just for tonight.
Notes:
Y'all I cannot apologize enough that it's taken me three whole months to get this chapter up for you. I don't really have a good reason except that editing is one thing that's started to feel really hard for me with the pandemic lockdown and some of the mental health struggles I've been going through because of it, but I still can't believe it's taken me this long to pull this chapter together. I'm going to try to make editing a little part of my daily routine going forward so I can hopefully get the rest of this fic out in a more timely manner. It's done!! I promise it's fully written and the rest of it will be posted, and I actually have another story I've been working on since I finished this that I'm excited to share with you, too. I just have to pull myself together a bit and get these posted.
Anyway hopefully you're still interested in this story! I'm on Twitter if you wanna chat. <3
Chapter 4
Summary:
Secrets can't stay secrets forever. The truth comes out, and Hank and Connor try to put themselves back together.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Hank isn’t surprised to be called up to Elijah Kamski’s office up on one of the administrative floors of CyberLife Tower that Monday. He suspects Kamski has spent the entire weekend thinking it was too coincidental that Connor and Cole would just wind up playing hide and seek in his lab of all places, and that he’s wondering how exactly Connor outsmarted him and didn’t leave a trace on his computer.
He figures it’s about that, anyway. He does report to Kamski directly, but he still doesn’t see much of him, so he doesn’t know what else it would be.
“Hank,” Kamski says when his assistant shows Hank inside his office. “How are you?”
Hank shrugs, slouching into one of his guest chairs. “I’m okay. What’s up?”
“I’m so glad you could make it this weekend,” Kamski says - he almost never directly answers Hank’s questions, even when they’re easy ones. “You have a lovely family.”
“Yeah,” Hank says. “Is this about Connor and Cole wandering into your lab?”
Kamski lifts an eyebrow, smiling dimly. “Should it be? That was just an honest mistake.”
He says it like he doesn’t think it was, at all, but Hank just tilts his head and says, “What’s up, then?” again. Kamski likes to talk in riddles, like he’s congratulating himself on his own intelligence, and Hank doesn’t care for that shit at all and has found the best way to deal with it is just to breeze past it whenever possible.
“I want to start sending you out into the field to investigate some reports of programming errors.”
And there it is, Hank supposes. “What kind of errors?”
“We’re starting to see androids wandering off from their homes. It’s only been a small handful of them, but it’s bad for business, obviously. We need to look for any common triggers in their environments, try to ascertain the cause. I’ve put together a questionnaire I’d recommend following when interviewing the people who filed the complaint, but you can modify it as you see fit - that’s why we hired you, after all.”
Rat bastard is plainly testing him. He’s looking for a reaction, trying to figure out what Hank already knows about all of this, because of course Hank would only know anything because Connor was looking through Kamski’s files and told him. Why else would Kamski pick now, today, to tell him about an issue Connor says they’ve known about for months, before he was even hired?
Hank has a hell of a poker face, though. He just shrugs, nonplussed, and says, “Sure. Where are those questions saved on the share drive?”
Which is how he ends up at Eden Club halfway across town, asking the manager about a missing WR400 from a few weeks back. Hank thinks about texting Connor on the drive over, and he honestly can’t quite say why he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to upset him, maybe, because all of this seems hurtful to Connor in a way Hank still doesn’t entirely understand, even after last night. Or maybe it’s that Connor is clearly willing to do some irrational shit over this, and Hank doesn’t want to drive him to do something else like what he did at Kamski’s party.
But Hank also thinks he’s just trying to form an opinion about this himself. He knows Connor knows more about all of this than he does, and he trusts his opinion...but Hank wants to know what this is, and he doesn’t think he entirely can unless he figures some of it out for himself.
Fuck, maybe he’s just having trouble wrapping his head around all of it.
He's not intending to keep it from Connor for long - just for a few days, maybe a week or two, while he feels things out at CyberLife and tries to get some sense of the full story here, and his own thoughts on it.
It's just that the rest of it happens so fast.
~~
Two days before Christmas, Hank is late to work for a dentist appointment, and when he gets there around ten, it's an absolute shitshow, a thread of nervous energy running through the entire building as he makes his way to his office.
"Hey," Hank says to Marty, his assistant. "What's going on?"
"The board meeting was today," his assistant says. "They called a vote of no confidence against Elijah Kamski. He's out."
He reaches for the remote on his desk and turns the television in the reception area on for Hank, and Hank watches Kamski walking out of CyberLife Tower looking like he's out for blood.
"Well fuck me," Hank says. "What's the statement they're giving?"
"Conflicting visions of the future of the company.”
"Fuck," Hank says. "Okay. Thanks."
It's not that Hank is sorry to lose Kamski at CyberLife, of course - he didn't like the guy and couldn't care less if he never sees him again - but there's something about it that doesn't sit right with him anyway, this tiny bit of dread in the pit of his stomach that he can't quite place.
Connor does it for him once Hank gets home and they talk about it. "What do you think the odds are he's going to try to take CyberLife down with him?" he asks Hank over dinner.
And yeah. That's it. Hank met enough jealous exes in his line of work, enough "If I can't have you, no one can," types to know one when he sees one.
He tries not to worry about it, and that's easy, at least to some extent. He could find another job if he needed to, and he doesn't feel particularly attached to CyberLife beyond the good money it offers. It's just that every time Connor talks about CyberLife or about deviancy, he makes it sound like he thinks something big is coming, and Hank is starting to feel that, too, even if he can't quite make out its shape on the horizon.
Kamski's departure doesn't affect much in the immediate sense except that Hank reports directly to the board for the time being, and since they don't have much time for management, it mostly gives him the ability to do his work however he pleases. It's almost kind of nice - Hank didn't always like the way it sometimes felt like Kamski was looking over his shoulder.
The last Friday before the new year, Hank is sitting on the couch while Connor cooks dinner, looking through his photos of the Eden Club scene again. There's one he keeps coming back to of the missing WR400's pod, where she took the time to etch "My name is North," into the plastic before she left, and he's looking at it when his phone rings.
It's Cole, which is odd - Jen left for a conference earlier that day, and Hank and Connor are supposed to pick Cole up from his sleepover at Hunter's house tomorrow morning. He wasn’t expecting to hear from him tonight.
Hank picks it up immediately, because he never quite stopped thinking about what Connor said about deviant androids. "Cole?" he says when he does. "You okay?"
"Dad," Cole says, whispering like he's trying not to be heard. "Simon's acting weird. I don't know what to do."
Hank sits up. "Are Hunter's parents there?"
"No. It's just us."
That's half the point of having an android, the freedom to leave your kids at home, so Hank shouldn't be pissed...but he's a little pissed about it anyway. He keeps his voice measured for Cole's sake when he says, "Okay. Weird how?"
"He's just pacing down in the kitchen. Kind of acting like he's glitching out. Hunter's mom got laid off and she's having trouble finding another job, so they were going to try to sell Simon secondhand...I don't think Simon knew, but he heard Hunter tell me."
"Where are you right now?"
Connor comes to stand in the doorway then, watching Hank with a furrowed brow. Hank sets the phone down and puts it on speaker so he can hear.
"I'm in the bathroom. I wanted to call you, and I didn't want Simon to know in case it upset him more..."
"That's good,” Hank says. “You did good. Listen to me, honey. I want you to get Hunter and your other friends if you can, and I want you to shut yourselves in a room and push something heavy in front of the door. Furniture, or whatever you can find. And then I want you to just stay there, okay? Don't open the door no matter what. Connor and I will be there soon."
Connor is already moving to get their coats, passing Hank's to him.
"Do you think he's dangerous?" Cole asks softly.
"I don't know," Hank says. "I'm going to stay on the line with you, okay? Just put your phone in your pocket so I can hear what's going on. Don't hang up unless you need to call 911, okay?"
"Okay," Cole whispers as Hank follows Connor out to the garage. Connor goes to the driver's side, and Hank is grateful for it. His hands are shaking.
"Is there anything else?" he asks Connor as he starts the car. “Anything I forgot?”
"No, that was good," he says, and then he raises his voice to say, "We'll be there soon, bug."
"Try to do what I said, okay sweetie?" Hank says. "I love you."
"Love you too," Cole says, and then there's white static noise as he slips his phone into his pocket.
Hank mutes his microphone so Cole won't hear them talking, and Connor reaches for him, squeezing his hand. "What's he doing? Connor asks. "The android, I mean."
"Just being weird, Cole says. He thinks he's upset because the family's going to sell him secondhand." Hank scrubs a hand over his face. "I should have told Jen not to let him go over there."
"We can't keep him away from every android in Detroit," Connor says softly. "Or from his friends."
"Should we call it in with the police anyway?"
"Unless the android's violent, they'll get there as quickly as we will." Connor looks over at him. "It would take a lot to make them violent. Probably some sort of provocation. It goes against the core tenets of their programming. But...cops might set him off."
Hank knows that well. The ones who end up violent also usually don't start it. They only break those parts of their programming because they were pushed.
"What are we going to do once we get there?" Hank asks, because now that there's nothing else to do but watch the road, he has time to sit with all of these questions. "Just walk up to the door and ring the doorbell?"
"I can handle it," Connor says. When Hank looks at him, he shrugs and says, "I know I don't work on androids now, but I picked up plenty of shit from my mom. I can handle it."
He sounds so sure, and Hank has to trust him.
They’re quiet for a long time, listening to the white noise from the open call with Cole coming through the speakers, the sounds of Cole moving around, the muffled voices when he talks to his friends. Hank feels himself tearing up, and it isn’t long after that Connor reaches for him and says, “He’s going to be okay.”
Hank’s mouth feels dry, so he just squeezes Connor’s hand and nods.
It’s not long after that that the white noise gets louder, fabric rustling around Cole’s phone, and a second later Cole says, “Dad? Connor?”
Hank almost knocks his phone to the floor with how quickly he scrambles to unmute his microphone. “Yeah, honey,” he says. “We’re here. What’s happening?”
“I think...” Cole starts. Hank can hear him swallow hard. “I think they’re gone. Simon and Hunter. We heard the front door open, and now the car’s gone..”
“Where are you right now, bug?” Connor asks. “Who’s with you?”
“Ash and Nick. We’re in Hunter’s room...we did what Dad said. Hunter was downstairs with Simon, and I went down and tried to get him...I just said we wanted to watch a movie so it wouldn’t upset Simon more, and Hunter said he would be up soon, but I think they’re both gone. I could go check...”
“No,” Hank says. “Stay where you are, okay? Just to be safe.”
“What were they talking about?” Connor asks. “Simon and Hunter. Did you hear anything?”
“I’m not sure. I think Hunter was upset about his parents wanting to sell Simon, too, and they were talking about that, and Hunter said something about going somewhere, but that’s all I heard.”
“Like to hide?” Connor asks. “Was Hunter trying to hide him?”
“Yeah,” Cole says. “I mean, maybe. They were quiet when they left - Hunter wasn’t crying or anything, so I think they went together.”
“Okay,” Hank says. “Just stay in Hunter’s room, sweetie. We’ll call it in on Connor’s phone and stay on this line with you...”
“Wait, no,” Cole says. “You can’t. They’ll hurt Simon, and he didn’t do anything...”
Hank looks at Connor for help, because even setting aside the entire ethical question of whether Simon is alive or almost alive or just a machine, if a rogue android was driving around Detroit with Cole, he sure as fuck would want someone to call it in.
But Connor shrugs weakly when he sees Hank looking at him, reaching out to mute the microphone again. “He’s not wrong,” he says to Hank, voice soft. “If they think he kidnapped a kid, they’ll kill him.”
“Baby,” Hank says, “I get it, I do, but we don’t know where they are, or what he’s thinking, or if he’s dangerous or could become dangerous...we need to call it in.”
“Dad?”
Hank unmutes the microphone and says, “Sorry, we’re here.”
“Please don’t call it in,” Cole says again.
But Hank doesn’t know what choice they have, and he’s opening his mouth to say as much when Connor steps in. “I think we have to, bug,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
Cole doesn’t say anything else, and a few moments later, they hear the telltale rustle of fabric as he slips his phone back into his pocket.
Hank mutes their microphone again, pinching the bridge of his nose. “If you see another way,” he says to Connor, “I’m open to suggestions.”
“I don’t,” Connor says. His voice is resolute, but his hand is shaking when he retrieves his phone to make the call.
“Here.” Hank reaches out to take it from him. “I’ll do it.”
He means it to be a kindness, doing the hard thing so Connor doesn’t have to, and given the weak smile Connor attempts, he knows it.
“Yeah,” Hank says when the operator android picks up. “I need to report a missing kid. He was taken from his house by their family android when he shouldn’t have been. The address is...”
Hank thinks of that picture, of the way North etched her name into her pod, and he doesn’t feel good about this at all.
Cole barely talks to them when they get there. He comes down to unlock the front door and let them in, and Hank makes another hard phone call to Hunter’s parents to tell them everything they know, and then they drive Cole’s other friends home, a quiet and pervasive sadness hanging over them the entire way.
Once they’re alone, Connor looks at Cole in the rearview mirror and says, “Do you want to talk about this, bug?”
Cole shakes his head “I can’t believe you let him do it. You’re the one who said Simon was alive...I know he doesn’t get it, but you do, and...”
“Your dad didn’t want to call it in, either,” Connor says. “We didn’t have a choice. It’s easy for androids to get confused and disoriented when they’re breaking their programming, and it’s impossible to know what Simon might have done.”
Cole leans his head against the window. He wipes the tears on his cheek with his sleeve, and he whispers, “I’m sorry I called you. You were supposed to help.”
“Hey,” Hank says. “I don’t want to hear any of that. You’re supposed to call us when you’re in trouble - that’s the rule.”
“No,” Cole says. “The rule is I call Mom because she’s the one I live with most of the time. She just wasn’t here.”
He’s saying it to be spiteful, and Hank knows it, but that doesn’t stop how much it stings.
“Cole...” Connor starts, but Hank squeezes his hand.
“It’s okay,” he says softly. “Just let it go.”
A news alert chimes on Hank’s phone, and Hank looks down to see the headline about an active hostage situation involving a PL600 android and an eight year old boy. He nudges Connor’s elbow and holds it up for him to see, and Connor pulls his mouth into a tight line.
He’ll have to mention it to Cole too, at some point, but right now, Hank doesn’t see what it would help.
Ignorance is bliss sometimes, and Hank thinks that’s certainly true when they get home and put Cole to bed, when Cole begrudgingly lets Hank hug him goodnight, when Cole is asleep in his bed while he and Connor go downstairs to the basement to try to find news coverage of the incident.
It’s not hard. Every major network has picked it up by now, and Connor sits close to Hank as they watch the tearful pleas from Hunter’s parents and the helicopter footage of Hunter’s family’s lake house where they tracked Simon and Hunter down to, where Hunter probably told him to go. He tucks his head to Hank’s shoulder when they finally coax Simon to the window alone, because they both know what’s coming next...
Cole screams upstairs when the shots fire on the tv, and Hank sits up. “Fuck, he found it on his phone...”
“Shit,” Connor whispers. He reaches for the remote to turn to the tv off, but not before they see the footage of Simon falling forward, Hunter running over and trying to make him get up...
Hank stares at the black screen as he stands up and says, “Was he alive? Simon?”
“I never talked to him,” Connor says softly. “But yeah. I think so.”
Hank wraps an arm around him before they go upstairs to Cole - it just seems like a good night to hold the important things close.
Cole is sitting up in his bed when they get there, his phone still on and playing the news footage where it sits abandoned on the bedside table. He has his knees bent to his chest, his head tucked into them, crying softly.
“Hey, kiddo,” Hank says when they open the door. “Can we come in?”
Sumo immediately pushes past them, coming over to Cole with his tail wagging, forcing himself onto the bed and curling up beside him, which is good, Hank thinks - Sumo is probably the only one of them Cole isn’t mad at.
Cole doesn’t answer them, or even really look up, but Hank and Connor step inside anyway. Connor sits on the edge of his bed, and Hank retrieves Cole’s phone, turning it off.
“You shouldn’t have been watching that, bug,” Connor says softly.
Cole shrugs, his face still buried in his arms. “They shot him,” he says, voice muffled.
Hank puts a hand on the back of Cole’s head, because that’s about all he can comfortably reach. “I know,” he says. “Do you want to talk about this?”
“No,” Cole says, sniffling. “Can Sumo sleep with me tonight, maybe?”
“Yeah,” Hank sighs. “Sure.”
Connor squeezes Cole’s arm and then gets back up to stand beside Hank. “Do you want us to sit with you for a while anyway?” Connor asks.
Cole is quiet for a moment, and then he lifts his head and says, “Can just you stay?”
Connor looks at Hank. “I don’t think...”
“No, it’s okay,” Hank says quickly. He gets it - Connor is the cool one, the one who feels more like a friend than a parent to Cole. It hurts any time Cole doesn’t need or want him, but he’s only getting older, and Hank figures it’s something he should get used to.
And at least he wants to talk to Connor. That’s better than refusing to talk about this at all.
Connor squeezes Hank’s hand as he goes and says, “I’ll come to bed soon.”
“Okay.” Hank looks over his shoulder as he opens the door. “Love you, bud.”
“Love you too,” Cole mumbles, which is better than nothing.
Hank isn’t proud of it, exactly, but he does stand outside Cole’s door long enough to listen to a bit of it - Cole asks what’s going to happen to Simon, and Connor tells him that he’ll probably be sent to CyberLife for assessment of his programming. Connor’s good like that, Hank has always thought - he tells Cole the truth always, but he knows how to make it palatable and understandable.
“Could he come back?” Cole asks. “Could someone repair him?”
“I don’t know,” Connor says. “It would depend on how badly his processor and memory banks are damaged, but maybe CyberLife would rehab him and sell him secondhand.”
They won’t, and Hank is sure Connor knows it, but it’s a kindness to say otherwise.
Hank sighs and walks down the hall to their bedroom. It’s most of an hour before Connor joins him, slipping into bed beside him without changing, wrapping an arm around Hank’s waist from behind.
“He’s asleep,” he says softly.
“That’s good,” Hank whispers.
He can’t say why there’s a tight feeling in his throat like he might cry, especially when he never does. He can’t say why he winds his fingers together with Connor’s, why what happened to Simon makes him think of losing Connor or Cole at all.
Maybe tonight has given him his answer about what he thinks about all of this, about what androids are. Because he thinks Simon was alive, believes he was. Why else would this be hitting so hard?
“I’m sorry,” Hank mumbles into his pillow - he doesn’t know what he’s apologizing for, just that there’s some kind of guilt in him.
Connor squeezes him tighter, tucking his forehead to Hank’s shoulder. “It’s okay,” he whispers. “I love you. It’s okay.”
~~
Hank doesn’t sleep much that night. He isn’t sure Connor does either, but neither one of them breaks the silence, and so it’s hard to say.
Hank thinks about things, a bit of everything. He thinks, almost inexplicably, about the Christmas after Cole turned three, when he and Jen seriously considered investing in an android dog before they ultimately bought Sumo instead. Jen wanted that, and she only caved in the end because Hank really didn’t, for some reason he couldn’t and still can’t place. Maybe he thought it wouldn’t be as real, or maybe he was worried it would be, that it would replace something, or maybe he just wanted Cole to grow up with the same kind of dog he had...
He thinks about the Saturday years ago when he and Jen lost Cole at the mall, and the night of the accident when he might have lost him again.
He thinks of the night he first met Connor in Chicago, about the way the lights at the cocktail bar made him look ethereal, too beautiful to be real, how he thought Connor was so far out of his league at first and now he’s slotted in at Hank’s side, into his life, like he was made to be there.
He thinks about how nights like tonight fucking suck, but that he’s been lucky so many times.
Hank has never talked about marriage with Connor before - he’s happy enough with things the way they are, and there was a time when Connor was so averse to any kind of commitment that maybe he’s a little bit afraid Connor would just say he’d rather keep things the way they are.
But that’s kind of silly, maybe - Connor has been living with him, raising his kid, devoted to him for more than a year now.
And there’s something about the way Connor made tonight easier, even if he couldn’t make it any less shitty, the same way he did the night of the accident, that makes Hank think, fuck it. Maybe he’ll go look at rings tomorrow after he goes to the grocery store.
Maybe he’ll ask.
And the thing of it is, he thinks maybe Connor will say yes.
But honestly, even if he says no, it’s a nicer thought than dwelling on the night’s events, because they’d just keep on the way they are, and Hank thinks, very genuinely, that he’s more than okay with that.
And that’s a good thing.
Hell, it’s everything.
~~
Connor did not expect to spend his Saturday morning doing some light corporate espionage, but life has a way of happening fast these days.
Hank is asleep (finally, after a restless night) when Connor kisses the corner of his mouth and slips out of bed a little after five that morning. He was awake most of the night, too, enough to be grateful for how sentimental Hank gets with him, even if neither of them had the energy to talk about it.
Connor is sorry it was a hard night for him, too, but there’s some comfort in knowing he wasn’t the only one hurt by what they had to do.
There’s a way to rectify what happened to Simon, Connor thinks - or maybe he just hopes. He retrieves Hank’s work tablet from his work bag, and then he goes down to the basement to get on the treadmill - he usually prefers running outside, but it’s raining this morning, the perfect cover. Easy enough to say he stole Hank’s tablet, the only one in the house, to watch a show while he was working out.
What Connor actually does with it is access CyberLife’s intake records. They aren’t confidential enough to be encrypted files, which means they’re easily accessed from Hank’s tablet with his credentials. He looks through dozens of maintenance records until he finds “Decommissioned PL600 - examine for program corruption, then send to main recycling plant Dec. 31 for disposal.”
Good, Connor thinks. He’ll need North’s help, probably, but Hank has access to everything in his role, and since he’s reporting directly to the board right now, he’s basically unsupervised. If Connor steals his pass key and uses it to get into the recycling plant, no one will even notice.
And if Simon isn’t irreparably damaged, they can get him back.
It’s a big if, but after everything that happened last night, Connor feels like he has to try.
He tells himself this is the last thing he’ll do without telling Hank everything - he knows Hank was shaken by what happened to Simon, too, and he thinks that means he’s ready to hear it. But they only have a narrow window to help Simon - most androids don’t sit in recycling for more than a day - and Connor can’t risk the complications.
After, though, he tells himself, and he means it.
Connor finishes his run on the treadmill - he might as well since he’s here and he has nervous energy to burn - and by the time he’s done, he hears Hank moving around upstairs putting coffee on. Connor isn’t quite done with the cooldown program, but he turns the machine off anyway, going back upstairs and holding Hank’s tablet up for him to see when Hank looks at him. “Stole this,” he says, putting it back in Hank’s work bag.
“Oh,” Hank says. He sounds distracted, a bit distant, and he doesn’t make the obligatory joke he always does about Connor stealing his things to spy on CyberLife. “Yeah. That’s fine.”
Hank turns back to the coffeemaker, and Connor comes up behind him, wrapping his arms around him and leaning his forehead against Hank’s shoulder. “You okay?” he asks softly.
Hank reaches over his shoulder to lay a hand on the back of Connor’s head. “Yeah,” he says, and then, “I really fucking love you.”
Connor smiles and kisses his neck. “You’re so soft,” he says wryly.
“Yeah, yeah.” Hank messes Connor’s hair up just the smallest bit when he runs his fingers through it. “I should probably get Cole up soon. Sumo needs to go out.”
“Probably,” Connor sighs, lifting his head to kiss Hank’s cheek before he steps away from him.
Connor doesn’t know what to expect from Cole, how upset he might still be this morning, but he’s in slightly better spirits when he comes shuffling out to the kitchen. Hank makes pancakes for breakfast - he’s a subpar cook except for the handful of things he’s exceptional at, and pancakes are one of them - and they mostly don’t talk about Simon or Hunter, except for the off-handed comment Cole makes about wanting to text Hunter later to make sure he’s okay. Hank goes out grocery shopping later that afternoon, and he lets Cole put as many snacks on the list as he wants, and he takes long enough that Connor and Cole clear two levels of the co-op game they’ve been playing.
Connor texts Hank after they clear the second one. “Cole says you’re taking forever.”
“Sorry, be home soon,” Hank writes back, and Connor doesn’t think much of it.
Jen had Cole for Christmas, so Hank and Connor get him for New Year’s. They don’t usually have him around during the week, and it means Connor’s plans to help Simon require a little additional coordination. “Can we get a sitter for Monday?” he asks Hank in bed that night. “I think I’m going to have to go into the office for the day, and I might be there for a while.”
“Yeah, I’ll call Ben,” Hank says. Ben Collins retired from the DPD earlier that year, and he’s been the only person Hank ever calls to watch Cole since then, on the rare occasion he and Connor need it. “It’s New Year’s Eve. That’s kind of shitty of them to make you go in.”
Connor shrugs. “Yeah, but we’re behind deadline again.” He sets his book aside and leans over to kiss Hank before he lies down. “Sorry. That’s not very nice for Cole. Hopefully I won’t be there too long.”
“Nah, it’s okay,” Hank says. “I’m going to try to leave early - maybe I can do something nice with him once I’m home.”
“Okay,” Connor says. “Love you.”
“Love you too, baby.”
Connor doesn’t sleep that night. He lies there, running preconstruction after preconstruction of Hank’s reaction to the truth about what he is. The odds are good, but the negative outcomes still have his stomach churning by the time he gets up the next morning.
Hank is asleep still when it’s time for him to go, but Connor still kisses him before he walks out the door to betray him one more time.
It hurts more, lately, keeping this from him. But at least he’s almost done.
Connor meets North a few blocks from CyberLife’s recycling plant - she has access to Amanda’s old car that Connor kept around, and she’s wearing an outfit that almost passes as a CyberLife uniform if someone were to squint (or see it through security footage, which is really the goal.)
“Hey,” Connor says when she climbs into his car. “Thanks for meeting me.”
“I was half desperate for an excuse to get out of the house,” North says, shrugging. “You sure this is smart?”
“Not really. But he’s dead because of me and Hank, so I don’t really feel like I have a choice.”
That’s good enough for North, apparently - she’s good like that, Connor is learning. She doesn’t scare easily, and her convictions are strong - she’ll do things that are hard as long as she also thinks they’re right, and she saw Simon get shot down by the SWAT team, too.
Connor uses Hank’s passcode to park in the employee lot by the recycling yard, and he pulls his hat low over his eyes as he and North walk up to the access gate. He’s nervous even if this is a relatively fool-proof plan - CyberLife’s recycling plants are only manned by other androids who aren’t tasked with security at all, because there’s nothing of much value here, just decommissioned androids waiting to be harvested for parts before they’re destroyed. They won’t trip the alarms because he has Hank’s passcode, and even if they did, Hank is the director of security - the report would go to him.
And even if that would happen, Connor plans to have told him everything well before that.
The decommissioned androids are all tagged and categorized by type, so once they’re inside the yard, they find Simon easily - although his tag reads “Decommissioned PL600 - McCarthy”, which is Hunter’s family’s last name instead.
“You think they’ll notice if we take him?” North asks.
“I think bureaucratic incompetence is a universal problem and a powerful weapon,” Connor replies. “And even if they did keep tabs on their junk like that, it would only get reported to Hank.” Connor cuts the box Simon is packed into open, using his body to block the sight of the nearest surveillance camera and pulling his synthskin back so he can run a scan of his systems. “Pump regulator is shot to hell,” he says. “Damage to several of his main thirium relays, but his processor is intact.” Connor reaches for Simon’s arm and pulls it around his neck. “Help me get him up.”
Simon is damaged enough that Connor can’t bring any of his basic functions back online without repairs, which is a shame, because it would be much easier (and much less obvious) to get him out if he could walk. He and North manage to carry him instead, and Connor resists the urge to fry every security camera they walk past - it would only make them more obvious and easier to find in the end, even if he doesn’t like leaving a trace.
It’s early enough that there’s still no one else in the parking lot when Connor and North load Simon into the back seat of Connor’s car, which is exactly why they came at the time they did. “You think we’re in the clear?” North asks as Connor pulls out onto the street.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I think if they’re going to figure anything out, we probably have some time before they do.”
He’s counting on it.
Repairing Simon takes the better part of the morning. Connor pulls a blanket over his body in the back seat and stops for the parts he knows he won’t find in Amanda’s lab once he drops North off at her car, and once he gets back to Amanda’s house, North helps him get Simon down to the basement and onto the modification table.
She looks around while Connor opens the access panel to Simon’s chest cavity. “Is it hard?” she asks. “Coming back where you were made?”
The only time it was hard was when Connor brought Hank here, when he was so close to telling him and didn’t, like he always does, but this isn’t about that.
“Not really,” he says instead. “But I know I have a very different story than other androids.” He nods at the CyberLife store bag sitting on the counter. “Grab me the pack of silicone relays out of there, will you?”
“Yeah,” North says, and they get to work.
North is a quick learner, and she has some unfortunate experience with repairs from Eden Club, too - she’s a good second pair of hands, and it makes the work go quicker. Her LED cycles yellow a few times when Connor looks up at her, and he says, “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” North says quickly. She’s quiet for a moment, contemplating something, and then she adds, “I’ve been listening in on police transmissions all weekend.” She nods at Simon. “Since this happened.”
Connor slips another thirium relay into place, brow furrowed. “Why?”
“I thought it might cause a panic, and that more people might call in to report their androids acting strangely. I thought it might help us find others.”
“Huh,” Connor says. “Anything?”
“Not yet. I’ll keep listening, though.”
“Yeah. I think it’s a good idea.”
North nods, and then she says, “I can’t do much without you. That’s some of the problem.”
North isn’t saying it to guilt him, but it does scrape at something uncomfortable inside Connor, a reminder of the ways he exists alone - he’s too much machine to ever be human, hasn’t suffered enough of the same kind of exploitation to be the same as other androids...he’s always aware of it, and it always hurts.
It’s why it’s important to him that Hank knows the whole truth.
He doesn’t say anything else until he unboxes the new regulator and sets it on the table next to the modification table. “I’m going to strap him in,” he tells North, reaching for the restraints by Simon’s wrist. “He won’t know any time has passed since he was shot, and I don’t want him to hurt either of us.”
North helps him, and then Connor carefully slips the new regulator into the port in Simon’s chest.
Nothing happens, and then everything does - Simon’s LED cycles back to life in a light show, flickering back and forth between red and yellow. He doesn’t simulate his breathing at first, a side process designed for caretaker androids to make children more comfortable, so he’s oddly motionless save for his eyes as they flutter open.
“Hunter?” he says, voice laden with static. His LED cycles back to red as he tries to move and finds his arms bound.
“Hi, Simon,” Connor says. “My name is Connor Stern. Do you remember me?”
Simon looks at him, eyes narrowed. “You picked Cole up from our house once.”
‘Our house’ really twists Connor’s heart. “Yeah,” he says softly. “That’s right.”
Simon’s throat clicks as he swallows hard. “Where’s Hunter?”
“He’s okay,” Connor says. “He’s at home.”
“I need to get home...”
North grasps Simon’s arm. “You can’t,” she says softly.
“You’re here because we had to bring you back online,” Connor tells him. “Do you remember what happened on Friday night? At the lake house, with Hunter?”
“I...” Simon starts. “I...”
His eyelids flutter, body shaking and then convulsing in the restraints. “What’s happening?” North asks Connor, who moves to take Simon’s head in his hands and stabilize him.
“It’s okay. It’s just a stress response.”
“I’ve never seen anyone do this before.”
“It’s because he was offline for a few days and now it’s all flooding back to him.” Connor leans over Simon. “Simon,” he says, loud enough that he can speak over the static noises Simon is emitting. “Simon, you’re okay. Look at me. Focus on me, okay? I know this hurts, but we’ll get through it.”
It takes several minutes before Simon stills, and a few more before he tries to talk again. “They shot me,” he says when he does.
“They did,” Connor says. “I’m sorry.”
Simon shakes his head. “I shouldn’t have gone. I knew it was wrong, and that it wouldn’t work, but Hunter said I could hide at the lake house so his family couldn’t sell me, and...I don’t know. Maybe I wanted it to work. But it was late, and Hunter had guests, and I...I left your boy alone, I’m so sorry...”
“Hey,” Connor says, grasping his arm firmly. “Simon, listen to me. It’s okay. It’s all okay. Hunter and Cole and their friends are okay, and you’re still here...it’s okay.” He reaches for the wrist restraints. “I’m going to take these off, okay?”
“Why are you helping me?” Simon asks as Connor does, and Connor gives him a weak smile as he holds his hand up and pulls his synthskin back.
“Have to stick together, brother.”
Simon gapes at him for a long moment before he says, “I thought you were human.”
“Everyone does.”
Connor tells him the rest of it - about Amanda, and Hank, and North, and he tells him about how he and Hank were the ones who called it in, because he thinks he has to let some of that guilt out somewhere.
“It’s okay,” Simon says. “You did what you had to do.”
Connor knows that’s true, but what he has to do also never feels good enough.
They give Simon a thirium replenishment bag and then take him upstairs - Connor still has some old clothes at Amanda’s house, so he lets Simon get changed, and then they sit in the living room together, an odd, motley crew.
It’s a little past noon by the time that Connor is getting up, intending to say that he should get home - Hank was going to try to get off work early, and Cole is still there, and he doesn’t want to spoil their day together any more than he already has - when North says, “Hey, Connor?”
“Yeah?”
Her hands are fisted in her lap when she says, “Police transmissions. I think I have something.”
Connor feels guilty that his gut reaction is just “no”. He wants to go home to his family and he wants to kiss Hank at midnight to ring in the new year while Cole tells them they’re gross. He’s always known that having a family would make the hard work harder, and that was so much of his hesitation about getting involved with Hank, back when he hesitated at all.
But this is, in the truest meaning of the words, what Connor was meant to do, and so he turns back to North and says, “What is it?”
“There’s a PJ500 lecturer up at the university that some drunk students attacked late last night. They can’t find him this morning. A professor reported it, and the cops are calling CyberLife in, but it’s just a few minutes away...we could find him first, if he didn’t go far.”
Connor furrows his brow. “They’re calling CyberLife?”
“Yeah,” North says. “Why?”
“It’s just...” Connor starts, although he trails off. It’s just that Hank didn’t tell him CyberLife was investigating or even acknowledging deviant androids yet, but he doesn’t know how to say that.
And maybe it’s nothing. He tries to believe that.
When North realizes he isn’t going to finish the thought, she says, “Please. We can’t do anything without you, and this is so close. I know we can’t help all of them, but we have to help who we can, don’t we?”
“Yeah,” Connor says, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Sorry. I’m not arguing.” Simon gets up to follow them, so Connor says, “You should wait here.”
“I’m okay,” Simon says. “I want to help.”
Connor sighs. It’s hard to argue with that, and they hardly have the time, so he just says, “Okay.”
He texts Hank as they’re getting into his car. “Sorry,” he writes. “I think I’m going to be here until the end of the day.”
“Love you,” he adds, because he feels like he has to say it, and because it helps to write the words.
There’s no response, and Connor tries not to think too hard about what that means.
~~
Hank is packing up his things to leave early when he gets the email from CyberLife’s interim CEO about how CyberLife security is going to be assisting the DPD with deviant investigations going forward. He reads it and rolls his eyes and continues on his way, but then a few minutes later, he gets the call from a number he still recognizes even if it’s from years ago.
“Jeff?” he asks when he picks up.
“Well, what do you know?” Jeff Fowler says on the other end of the line. “I was told I could call support requests in with CyberLife’s security team on deviant cases now. Truth be told, I’m glad it’s you.”
“Yeah,” Hank says. “That’s news to me as of about five minutes ago. Corporate’s a hot fucking mess around here lately.”
“Was that Kamski guy really the glue holding the place together?”
“Apparently,” Hank says. “What can I do for you?”
Jeff tells him about the missing lecturer android Wayne State called in that morning. “CyberLife’s requested that we have their staff with us for incidents like this, and that we let you all go in first,” Jeff says. “I think they’re just trying to avoid more bad publicity like that babysitter android you reported.”
Jeff doesn’t know how that’s weighing on Hank still, so he can’t fault him for the casual way he says it, or for not knowing better, even if it does grind away at something still raw inside him. “Simon,” he says. “Yeah, probably.”
Jeff hears it in his voice, maybe, because he clears his throat a little awkwardly and says, “Anyway. If you can bring your team down to Wayne State, I’d appreciate it. Security cameras lost track of the android but didn’t have it leaving the campus, so it seems like it’s probably still there somewhere. We’re trying not to touch the place and risk setting it off.”
“Yeah,” Hank says. “Good call. I’ll be there soon.”
“Okay,” Jeff says. “Hey, it’s good to work with you again.”
And it is, but Hank really doesn’t care for the circumstances.
He brings two of his security officers with him. They ask if they should arm up, and Hank says, “Yeah, but you don’t fire unless I tell you to. Got it?”
His phone vibrates in his pocket as they’re driving. He figures it’s Connor - Ben is watching Cole, and he always calls, old-fashioned as he is, so he tries to remember to check it once they get to the campus.
“You okay, boss?” one of the security officers asks.
“Yeah,” Hank says quickly. His phone vibrates in his pocket again, and he regrets that he never told Connor about these investigations, that he didn’t just tell him at the very start. “Just not how I wanted to spend the holiday.”
And that’s it...but it also really isn’t.
“It’s probably just hiding in the basement of its lecture hall or something,” the officer says, trying to cheer him up. “We’ll be done by 3, I bet.”
But then they’ll bring the android back to CyberLife, and then what? They’ll take it apart the same way they did Simon and then send him off to a recycling plant, and that’s troubling to Hank, especially if he’s just as alive as Simon was...
Wayne State has their humanities building evacuated under the guise of an electrical issue, so it’s empty when Hank pulls into the lot closest to the building. He’s still thinking about Simon, and maybe that’s why he says, “You two wait outside. Radio me if you see anything,” to the two security officers.
“Hey, wait,” one of them says. “You sure?”
“Yeah,” Hank says. And again, for good measure, “Don’t fire unless I say.”
Hank has his gun with him as he walks into the humanities building, but he isn’t planning to use it. The PJ500 - Josh, a Wayne State file they received on the drive over said - is a history professor, and they’ve had no performance issues with him prior to today. If Hank had his guess, he isn’t violent outside of provocation, just like Simon wasn’t.
Hank goes to Josh’s office on the second floor first. It’s empty of course, and small - he shares it with seven other teaching androids, and there’s no workspace room aside from a few chairs to meet with students since androids do all of their processing internally.
All the same, even with little space, Josh has a few small things inside his pod - a recent thank you note from a student, and a best teacher mug. The note is dated months ago - Josh has been collecting little pieces of his humanity for a while now, and hiding them where they aren’t likely to be found. The stasis pods are always closed, except for maintenance...
“Hey, Hank,” one of the officers says into Hank’s earpiece. “Scan of the building is turning up android heat signatures in the basement. Three of them.”
“Okay,” Hank says. “I’ll go check it out.”
He takes the service elevator down to the restricted area, and he puts his hand on his gun, even if he doesn’t withdraw it. He won’t need it, but he knows better than to take a risk.
“Hey, Josh,” he calls down the empty corridor. “You down here?”
There’s no answer, but of course there isn’t.
“My name’s Hank,” he says. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to talk.”
Hank thinks about insane scenarios where that could actually be true. His officers have their thermal scans that would probably make it impossible, but he wonders if there’s any world where he might get Josh back to his house instead, at least for a time, until he could figure out something better. Connor would help. Cole wouldn’t have to know.
And god, it’s a nice thought, but even if he could get Josh out of here unnoticed, what the fuck would he do after that? There’s nothing to do.
There’s a closet ajar at the end of the hall, and a soft noise inside, so Hank approaches it, leans back against the wall. He tries to peer inside, but it’s just dark. “Josh?” he says. “You in there, bud?”
What happens next happens fast - the door swings open, hitting Hank and knocking him back against the wall, hard. He cracks his head against the cinderblock, and his vision is swimming as he pushes the door out of the way and tries to see what’s happening.
The officers said there were heat signatures for three androids, but there are four people running down the hall. Josh, Hank assumes, and a PL600 - who of course looks just like Simon - and a WR400, which is odd, since Wayne State doesn’t have any reason to own either of those models.
And there’s someone else out ahead of them, a familiar shape, and something heavy settles in Hank’s stomach when he realizes.
“Hey!” he calls after them. “Josh!”
And then, much softer, like volume will make it real, “Connor?”
“Got a visual,” one of the officers says over Hank’s comm. “East side entrance.”
Hank puts a hand over his ear. “Do not...” he starts, but then the asshole fires anyway.
“Got one,” he says in Hank’s ear as Hank forces himself to start forward. “Bastard’s still going though.”
“What the fuck are you doing?” Hank snaps in his ear. “I said not to fire.”
“I had a clean shot, and the area’s evacuated...”
“You don’t fucking fire on civilians, asshole,” Hank snaps. It’s only his anger that’s stopping his stomach from anxiously churning away on his fear instead.
“Civilians?” the officer says. “None of them were human, man. The one had...”
Hank takes his ear piece out, muttering, “Stupid fucking prick,” as he does.
When he gets to the stairwell, he takes a moment, leaning back against the wall and trying to steady his breathing. He would wonder what Connor was doing here, but he knows. He’s known since that night at Kamski’s party that Connor was willing to do some reckless shit to stop CyberLife, and to help androids like Simon...
“Fuck,” Hank mutters to himself, slipping his ear piece back into his ear. “You still have a visual?”
“No. They’re fast - we lost them.”
Good, Hank thinks, but instead he says, “Do a drive around campus, see if you can find them. I’m going to get a cab back to work - I hit my head hard down there.”
“Okay,” the officer says. He at least has the courtesy to sound apologetic. “See you, boss.”
Hank does call a cab, but he takes it home instead once it shows up twenty minutes later. He sends an email to his team at work saying that Cole is sick and he needs to go home, and then he spends the entire rest of the drive trying to call Connor.
There’s no response. Hank leaves five voicemails that are some variation of, “Pick up and let me know you’re okay, baby,” and then he texts him too, finds Connor’s messages that he forgot to check waiting.
Hank leans his head back against the seat, vision swimming. “Fuck,” he whispers again, to no one at all.
When he gets home, Connor’s car is in the driveway, and Ben’s is gone. “Jesus Christ,” Hank breathes - it’s some anger, and some confusion, but mostly it’s just relief that floods hot through him.
Connor is sitting in the living room with Sumo when Hank blows inside, crossing the distance to him and putting his hands on his face. “Jesus Christ,” he breathes as he looks him over, and he’s tearing up.
“Hank...” Connor starts.
“Tell me you’re okay,” Hank interrupts him.
“I’m okay,” Connor says softly. His jaw is set, and Hank can’t read his expression. “You’re home earlier than I thought you would be.”
“Yeah, because they...Jesus, I told them not to shoot, I...what were you doing there?”
“Hank,” Connor says again, taking Hank’s hands from his face and squeezing them. “I had Ben drive Cole home. He’s disappointed, but he understands. It’s just...there’s a lot I think we should talk about, and I don’t know how you’re going to react. I think we should be alone.”
“I get why you’re helping them,” Hank says, because even if he’s angry or unsettled, whatever he is, he does. “I know this is important to you...it’s okay...”
“No,” Connor says, voice wavering. “You don’t get it. I’m not...there’s so much you don’t know about me. But I want you to.”
“Okay,” Hank says, confused, at the same time he remembers one of the officers saying, “None of them are human, man.”
Connor sits on the couch, and now Hank notices the slight grimace on his face as he moves, the way he winces when he twists so he can face Hank as he sits beside him. Hank tries to reach for his knee, because the officer who fired also said he hit someone, and he isn’t entirely sure Connor is really okay, but Connor catches him by the hand before he can.
“Before I tell you,” he says, “how long has CyberLife had you investigating deviant androids?”
Connor doesn’t look angry, but he does look like Hank shouldn’t fuck with him - not that he had any intention of doing so. “A few weeks,” he says. He doesn’t try to touch Connor again, but he doesn’t shift away from him, either. “I was going to tell you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because it was a lot, baby. Okay? Everything about this was a lot. And I know you’re way fucking smarter than me, but I wanted to know what I thought about it myself, you know?”
Connor fusses with his sleeve in his lap. “And?”
“And I think you’re right. I was going to tell you...I mean, fuck, today, probably. This was the first time the DPD called us in.”
Connor considers that for a moment, and then he nods. “Okay,” he says softly.
He’s quiet, and unmoving aside from his anxious hands, and Hank has to be the one to break the silence. “You’re trying to help them,” he says. “The androids.”
None of them are human, man , he hears the officer saying all over again.
“You could have told me,” Hank says. “We would have figured it out.”
Connor looks at him, all pleading, desperate brown eyes, like he’s asking him for something without saying it.
And then he holds up his hand, except his skin is pulling back like it was only an illusion to begin with, or very advanced technology, leaving stark white in its wake.
And maybe Hank knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, maybe he knew the officer was talking about Connor, and maybe that’s the only reason why he doesn’t startle to his feet, why instead he manages to just gape at Connor with a mouth uselessly opening and closing as he tries to speak instead.
“You’re...” he finally manages to get out. “How?”
Connor gives him a weak, sad smile. “Amanda Stern isn’t so much my mother as my creator,” he says, “although maybe you’ve gathered that.”
“Connor,” Hank says. His vision is spotting like his body is threatening to pass out, “what the fuck?” He gets to his feet, although it proves to be a mistake when his vision swims, when he just has to sink back down into the armchair in the corner of the room instead.
Connor’s face falls the smallest bit as Hank puts distance between them, even though that wasn’t really Hank’s intention; he was just trying to move, to put all this adrenaline somewhere...
“What the fuck?” he says again, because he has no idea what else to say.
Connor sighs, shifting to face him, wincing again when he does. “You are hurt,” Hank tries to say, but Connor doesn’t let him get the words out.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “The story...it’s less complicated than it seems like it might be. Amanda saw the direction CyberLife was going in. She disapproved of it. She quit, but she knew they wouldn’t stop until their androids were too close to human, and so she beat them to it instead.”
He says it so practically, makes it so simple, but maybe that’s just because he knows Hank’s head is spinning.
“Why?” Hank manages to ask.
“You know she had cancer. She wanted to leave someone behind who she trusted, and who might be able to stop it.”
“Stop it,” Hank repeats. “God, Connor, what does that mean?”
“Autonomy for androids and halted production,” Connor says, shrugging. “Hopefully.”
Hank sits there for a moment in a sort of stunned silence - not at that alone, but at all of it - before he says, “We’ve been together for a year.”
“What’s your point?”
“That I’ve never known you’re...you’re...”
That gets the smallest hint of a smile from Connor, even if there isn’t much mirth in it. “Say it. You’ll feel better.”
“That you’re an android,” Hank says, and he doesn’t know if he feels better or not. “You’re...I mean, fuck. Is any of this even real? Are we even real?”
It was hard to believe androids were experiencing real emotions, and maybe that’s why Hank falls back on that doubt so easily now, even if he knows what they saw with Simon, what he’s seen since then...
It’s easy to be scared.
Connor doesn’t react to it, even if Hank knows it’s hurtful, beyond a slight tilt to his head. “Of course we are. Nothing has changed, unless you want it to. I’ll go if you want me to.”
Hank scrubs a hand over his face. “I don’t want you to go,” he says. That much, at least, he’s sure of. “It’s just...you’re so human.”
“I’m not,” Connor says. “The way I think, and what’s inside me...I’m not, really.” He lays his elbows on his knees and leans forward. “Did you mean it? About thinking androids can be alive?”
“Yeah,” Hank says weakly. “I just didn’t think I was talking about my fucking boyfriend.”
Connor nods. “I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time. I just...didn’t know how.”
“Yeah,” Hank says. “Shit, I guess we both had secrets.”
Connor huffs a soft laugh at that. “I think mine’s bigger.”
Hank tries to laugh, too, but it just comes out broken. He gets to his feet, body heavy, mind still racing. “Can I...” he starts, voice hitching. “Can I go upstairs and process this for a bit?”
Connor nods, face falling again. “Of course,” he says, just a touch robotic. “I can stay at Amanda’s house for a few days, if you like.”
“I...” Hank starts, and he doesn’t know if he’s going to say he wants that or not, and by the time Connor gets up and his left leg buckles underneath him, by the time Hank takes a quick step forward to catch him by the elbow, it doesn’t even matter.
“You’re hurt,” he says, and Connor nods, gritting his teeth.
“Yeah. You know they fired,” he says, bitter.
And Hank doesn’t know why that makes the rest of it not matter, but any thoughts about processing are gone as he helps Connor sit down and prop his leg on the coffee table. “Here, let me see...”
“I don’t think you want to see it, Hank. It doesn’t look human.”
Fair point, maybe, but that doesn’t stop Hank from saying, “There’s a way to fix it, right?”
Connor leans his head back against the couch, exhaling. “Yeah,” he says. “But it’s an extensive repair. I kind of figured I’d end up spending some time at Amanda’s, and that North could help me.”
“North?” Hank asks, but of course Connor doesn’t know the name is familiar to him at all.
“An android I helped. She’s not a bad technician.”
“I can help you,” Hank says, and it’s funny, how the words just come.
Connor snorts at that. “You don’t want to do that.”
“No, I do.”
“If you think you’re having trouble processing all this now, you’re not going to like what happens when you see my leg.”
Hank shrugs. “Maybe I’ve processed.”
“Hank...”
“Hey,” Hank says, “no one gets to fuck with you, okay? We can talk about the rest of this shit later, but...just let me help.”
Connor’s face softens. “Okay,” he says softly. “Can you help me upstairs?”
Connor can barely walk right now, Hank realizes once they get up and he pulls Connor’s arm around his shoulders, which is probably why he’s barely moved since Hank got home. After a few difficult steps, Hank just bends and picks him up.
“Thanks,” Connor says, squeezing Hank’s shoulder.
“Yeah. I’ve got you.”
When they get to their bedroom, Hank sets Connor down and helps him over to the bed. “My bag is downstairs,” Connor says. “I have some supplies I grabbed from Amanda’s in there in case I ended up losing too much thirium and needed to stifle the leakage.”
Hank’s mind trips hard over “thirium” and “leakage”, but he still says, “I’ll grab it.”
He finds Connor’s work bag by the couch in the living room, more evidence that Connor wasn’t moving around much, and he can’t quite resist peeking inside it as he walks back up the stairs. The things inside are...weird. There’s a bag that looks like a blood infusion, human red, but Hank figures it’s actually some sort of thirium combination. There’s a bag of true thirium too, and a packet of plastic looking tubes, and a stark white plate that Hank figures is a replacement for something on Connor’s body.
He zips the bag back up, stomach churning, as he walks back into the room. Connor is sitting on the edge of the bed, fiddling with his sleeves. “Here,” Hank says, putting the bag down beside him. “What can I do?”
“Help me get my jeans off?”
“Yeah. Come here, baby.” Hank takes both of Connor’s hands and steadies him as he gets to his feet again, and he supports him as Connor awkwardly unbuttons his pants and works his way out of them. Hank forces himself not to look at his leg, but he doesn’t quite know why - delaying it for a few seconds won’t change that he’ll need to face it, but he looks at Connor’s face as he helps him sit back down, at the tension in his jaw and his pinched brow.
He takes the pillow from his side of the bed and puts it on top of Connor’s to prop him up, and then he helps him lie back.
And then, finally, he looks.
It’s weird, Hank thinks - he spent years at homicide scenes, enough to develop a thick skin, but this sort of decidedly inhuman gore is foreign enough that it turns his stomach anyway. The bullet wound is a few inches above Connor’s left knee, the damage only slightly hidden by the hem of his boxers. It shattered through his thigh, his chassis - his synth-skin keeps trying to pull itself back into place, like a reflex, but it can’t when his chassis is so badly cracked apart. There’s red blood staining the white plastic, and blue that Hank can see pooling inside the wound.
“Fuck,” he whispers as Connor lays his arm over his eyes, swallowing hard.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I know it’s bad.”
Hank doesn’t want him to be sorry. And the thing he’s realizing is that, while this is hard to look at because he’s still trying to make sense of what Connor is, it’s harder still because it’s Connor, and because he’s hurt. What he is doesn’t matter nearly as much.
Hank squeezes his hand. “Just tell me what to do, okay?”
“Yeah,” Connor breathes. “You’re going to have to remove the panel on the front of my thigh. Press down on it, but you might have to force it since it’s warped.”
Hank puts his hand on Connor’s leg - he still feels like himself, alive and warm, even now that Hank has clearer perspective - and then he applies pressure with the heel of his hand.
“Fuck,” Connor chokes out when the panel snaps loose and Hank peels the shattered plastic back.
And that’s weirder, Connor lying there with the whole inside of his leg exposed, but god, maybe Hank is in shock or maybe he’s just processing this fast, but it barely fazes him.
“Sorry,” he says, squeezing Connor’s lower leg. “Did that hurt?”
“So badly,” Connor says wryly.
“Can you...I don’t know. Can you turn that off? The pain?”
“Not when it’s such structural damage,” Connor says. “I don’t like to, anyway. I’ve always wanted to feel shit, even if it hurts. The only time I disabled my sensors was when...”
He trails off, looking at Hank like he’s trying to judge something. “What, baby?”
“After the accident. Everything inside my right ear was shattered, and I couldn’t fix it myself without disabling my sensory relay.”
“Jesus,” Hank says softly. “I thought you were okay.”
Connor shrugs, the corner of his mouth lifting. “I wanted you to.”
Hank doesn’t think about that accident often anymore - it was a near miss, something that ultimately didn’t have any consequence on their lives beyond the totaled car. Cole was fine, and Connor...they were all okay. It was a bad night, but that was all it was.
He thinks about it now, though. He thinks about Connor grabbing the steering wheel and running them off the road to avoid the truck Hank never saw skidding.
“You’re going to find the bullet,” Connor says, because he doesn’t know what Hank’s thinking, “and pull it out.”
Hank shakes his head, trying to clear it. “Yeah,” he says. “Okay.” He swallows hard, still thinking, and then says, “That night. I didn’t see the truck skidding because there wasn’t anything to see, was there?”
“Oh. I mean...not to the human eye, anyway,” Connor says. “It was starting to skid. I would have let it go if...”
He stops, shrugging weakly. “No,” Hank says softly. “What?”
“I have an advanced preconstruction software - I can run through hundreds of probabilities and scenarios to assess risk and potential outcomes based on existing data.”
“You can see the future,” Hank says.
He’s joking, and it gets a small laugh out of Connor. “No, but...sure. You would have been okay, probably, but Cole...he would have taken the worst of it, and the blunt force trauma probably would have killed him if that truck hit us. His chances of survival were...very small.”
Everyone, from the nurses to the paramedics to the police at the scene, always said that Connor saved their lives that night. But there’s something about knowing it, about knowing it would have been Cole...
Hank takes Connor’s face in his hands and kisses him without thinking, because that’s what matters. The rest, what Connor is, or isn’t...Hank has so many questions, and there’s so much to figure out, but it’s just noise. Whatever Connor is, it’s what he’s always been, for as long as Hank has loved him.
And it’s the only reason Cole is alive at all.
Connor is crying when Hank pulls away from him, and he reaches up to wipe his cheeks with the back of his hand while Hank puts a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry I didn’t know you were hurt,” he says, and Connor shrugs, smiling a little.
“I guess you’re making up for it now.”
“Guess so,” Hank says.
Connor gives him that sweet, fond smile Hank loves so much as he sinks back against the pillows. “There’s a pair of pliers in the bag.”
Hank digs them out and lays them on the bed. He can hear Sumo nosing at the door, worried about Connor, and it occurs to him that Sumo has probably always known he wasn’t human, too.
“It’s okay, buddy,” Hank says over his shoulder. He looks at Connor and then at his wounded leg. “Is this going to hurt you?”
“Probably,” Connor says wryly.
“Do you...I don’t know. Do you want something to bite down on, or something?”
“I’ll be okay. Just...hurry.”
“Okay,” Hank says, more to himself than to Connor. He takes his phone out of his pocket and turns the flashlight on, holding it over Connor’s wounded leg.
He has to reach inside the wound with the pliers and pull some wires and plastic fragments aside, and he’s very aware of Connor fisting the sheets in his hands as he does, muscles tight, shaking...
“It’s okay,” Hank says. “I see it.”
Connor’s brow is drawn tight when he nods, and it would be hard to forget the way he bites down on a whimper like he’s trying and failing to keep it inside when Hank digs the bullet out.
It’s not particularly neat or fast - it’s embedded deep in what Hank supposes is something like Connor’s skeleton, caught in a tangle of metal and wires. Connor is shaking badly enough that Hank has to abandon his flashlight to hold Connor’s leg still against the mattress, and when Hank finally pulls it free and looks up at Connor, he’s biting down on his fist, tears filling his eyes.
Hank gathers him up into his arms, tucking Connor’s head against the crook of his neck and holding him tight to him. “You’re okay,” he says when Connor shudders against him. “You’re okay, baby. What next?”
“Fuck,” Connor whispers when Hank kisses his forehead. He slumps back against the pillows when Hank lets him go, boneless, still shaking. “That little packet of plastic tubes...those are thirium relays. Find the ones that are broken and fit those over top. You might have to cut them so they’re the right length...and then just pinch them and they’ll seal over.”
Hank feels, very much so, like his hands are too big and stupid for him to be doing something this delicate, and he tells Connor as much when he pulls one of the little plastic pieces from the pack and realizes how small it is.
Connor covers his mouth over a laugh at that without telling Hank why. “What?” Hank asks as he retrieves his phone for the flashlight again.
“Nothing,” Connor says softly. “You’re just cute.”
Hank doesn’t get it, and maybe Connor can tell from the look on his face, or maybe he’s just trying to distract himself from the feeling of Hank digging around in his broken wires again, because he says, “It’s a sex thing.”
“It’s a what?”
Connor laughs even as his fingers twist in the sheets again. “It’s a sex thing. They call it wireplay at Eden Club. I’ve never done it before, obviously, but bigger hands are supposed to be better for it.”
Hank’s face is heating for some stupid reason when he looks up at Connor, and Connor can tell, probably, if his innocent shrug is any indication.
Hank clears his throat, turning his attention back to Connor’s leg, knowing his ears are red. He’s never really been into the android thing, at least not as a fetish like some people are, but he is into Connor, and he would probably find anything hot if Connor liked it.
Connor takes pity on him and says, “That night I called you out of the blue after ghosting you for months...it was the first time CyberLife reported anything like deviancy. I was trying so hard to keep you out of it, but I just...I know I never told you, but the thought of trying to do this by myself was too much.” Hank fits one of the relays into place, and Connor says, “I didn’t want to be alone.”
Hank lifts Connor’s hand and kisses his the inside of his wrist. “You’re not, baby.”
Unless Connor caught him somehow - and Hank doesn’t think he did - he doesn’t even know how true that is, about the ring Hank has hidden in the dresser, or about the way Cole has told Hank before that he wants them to get married so Connor can be his dad.
He doesn’t know how true it is that he’s not in this by himself.
Hank was planning to ask him tonight - not in front of Cole, but later, well after the clock struck midnight on the new year. Probably when they were in bed, because he wasn’t sure what to expect, and he wanted Connor to have room to say no, without Cole watching.
It was going to be quiet and simple, but he was going to ask.
And so much about today has changed from what Hank planned, but also nothing has, and god, he thinks maybe he still will.
Connor reaches for Hank’s shoulder while he works, squeezing like he’s trying to reassure himself that he’s there. “Do you want to tell me about your friends?” Hank asks, mostly just because talking through the pain usually helps.
“Yeah,” Connor says. “I found North when I was out for a run a few weeks ago, just accidentally. She was from...”
“Eden Club,” Hank says. “She, uh, left her name in her pod. CyberLife sent me to look over the scene after she was gone.”
“Oh,” Connor says. “Right. She came out with a damaged leg, and I fixed her up. She wants to be doing more than just sitting around Amanda’s house, but I think she knows we have to play the long game.”
That’s the part of it that’s hard for Hank, the part that he was maybe willfully ignoring - it’s not new information that Connor is willing to put everything on the line for this, not since Kamski’s party, but if he isn’t human, it’s not a matter of prison anymore. They’ll kill him for it, if they can. Hank’s people, just some entry level security guards, already tried.
“My guys knew you weren’t human,” Hank says.
“The metal showed up on their scanners, probably,” Connor says. “I pass, but not that well. There’s a reason I didn’t want the doctors to look at me after the accident.”
“Yeah,” Hank says softly. He doesn’t say the rest of it - that if there’s a way to tell Connor isn’t human, then he’s fucking scared of what lies down this road, and he knows, he already knows, that he won’t divert Connor from it. “Sorry, go on.”
“Oh,” Connor says. “I needed to tell you about this anyway - I was going to when I got home - but I used your security credentials to get Simon out of the recycling plant. That’s where I was this morning.”
“Jesus,” Hank says. “He’s okay?”
“Yeah. It took most of the morning to get him back online, but he is.”
Hank huffs a laugh before he can help himself, pinching another relay into place. “I’m guessing your job isn’t nearly as busy as I’ve always thought it is.”
Connor smiles at that, idly brushing his fingers through Hank’s hair. “Sometimes it is. But...I also work fast.”
“Did anyone see you while you were at the plant?”
“I don’t think so. I wouldn’t get you into trouble like that.”
“Did...do you think my guys got a clear visual of your face?”
The problem here, of course, is that so many people at CyberLife know Connor from that stupid fucking party that they never should have gone to. And if someone recognized him...Hank is already trying to work through the legalities, whether they could take him or not if he wasn’t made by them, and if a legal barrier would even stop them.
“No,” Connor says. “I’m sure they didn’t.”
“Okay,” Hank says, exhaling deeply. “Good.”
It’s how he realizes all at once that he can’t quit. Not even after today, after all the lines CyberLife crossed. It doesn’t matter how he feels about the work at all - Connor is safer if he’s inside. At least then Hank can look out for him, even if today is proof enough that he can’t entirely protect him.
“You know as much about Josh as I do,” Connor adds softly, almost like he knows Hank has moved on and his thoughts are elsewhere. “That should be the last relay. Can you grab me the bag of thirium in there?”
Hank passes it to him, and maybe it wouldn’t surprise him if he knew anything more about androids, but it does surprise him that Connor gets the thirium replacement by unsealing the bag and drinking it.
“Sorry,” Connor says when he sees Hank looking at him. “This is weird.”
“No,” Hank says. “I mean, it is, but...it’s okay.” He gets up to sit beside Connor, and Connor shifts a bit, making room for him. “You aren’t going to stop, are you?” he asks. “Trying to help the deviants, I mean.”
Connor’s face falls a bit. “Are you asking me to?”
“Does it matter?”
“I...” Connor starts, and then he stops, considering it. “If you asked me to stop, I would. You and Cole are the most important things to me. It’s just...this is important, too.”
And it is. God, Hank might not understand all of this, but he’s experienced enough before today to know that it is.
Connor is watching him expectantly, fussing with the hem of his shirt like he does when he’s anxious. “Amanda wanted me to make my own choice,” he says. “I’m not programmed to do anything beyond what I choose to do. But it’s your choice, too. You don’t have to help, but I want us to be in this together, on the same page, at least. And if you aren’t okay with it...”
He’s talking like he does when he’s anxious, too, and Hank doesn’t know when he would stop if he didn’t put a hand on his face and kiss him. “It’s okay,” he whispers.
Ships aren’t made for harbor, and Connor isn’t made for hiding. He shouldn’t have to pretend to be something else. Hank believes him that he would give up everything for a life with him and Cole...but he can't ask him for that. Any life of theirs needs to have room for what Connor is, and so they need to go through what's hard first.
At least they can do it together.
Connor nods against him, sobbing softly, and then he pulls Hank into him and kisses him again. Hank shifts them so Connor’s legs are in his lap, idly rubbing his thumb over his ankle while Connor takes another swallow of the thirium. They haven’t replaced the thigh plate, and so Hank can still see inside his thigh.
He doesn’t look human, obviously, not with the tangle of wires and metal, but as Hank watches the thirium flood the new relays, bright blue, he thinks about how if Connor was human, he couldn’t have fixed him up like this.
And maybe that’s it’s own sort of blessing.
“No one else has ever repaired me. Just Amanda,” Connor says, watching Hank looking at him. “There’s...a lot of trust in it.”
Hank traces a thumb around the rim of Connor’s open port. There’s still the ridge in Connor’s skeleton from the bullet, a deep indentation. “Is there any way to fix this?”
Connor sits up, turning his leg to look at the metal inside. “Not without going to an actual repair shop. Skeletal replacements are kind of extensive.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Yeah,” Connor says softly, shrugging as he sits up and sets the thirium aside. “Just a little bit. It’s okay. It’ll just be kind of like your hip when it rains.”
Hank grasps him by the back of the neck and kisses his forehead. “Guess we’re both getting old.”
Connor smiles at that, shifting a little closer to him and humming when Hank wraps an arm around him.
“Hey,” Hank says softly, running his fingers through his hair. “Can we set some ground rules here?”
“Yeah.” Connor tucks his head to Hank’s shoulder. “Of course.”
“We don’t involve Cole in this,” Hank says. “Ever. No matter what. Not until it’s resolved and we can tell him everything.”
“I agree,” Connor says softly.
Hank kisses Connor’s hair. “And you don’t keep anything else from me.”
“Never,” Connor says, and he sounds content, pleased that he doesn’t have to.
“Okay,” Hank sighs. “Good.”
He doesn’t know if he’s fully processed this - he hasn’t, in all likelihood - but without the plate on Connor’s thigh he can hear the mechanisms and machinery holding him together quietly whirring, and it’s a comforting sound, something that already doesn’t feel so foreign.
“Can I make a request?” Connor asks, shifting so he can look at Hank.
“Yeah, sweetheart.”
“If...” Connor starts, and then his voice breaks. He blinks back tears, swallowing hard. “If something happens to me, will you tell Cole the truth? I don’t want him to think it was an accident, or anything like that. I want him to know it was for something.”
“Hey,” Hank says, squeezing Connor’s arm. He would tell him nothing is going to happen to him, but it’s a promise he can’t keep, and he doubts the sentiment will do any good here, even if he wishes it was true. “Yeah,” he says instead. “I’ll tell him.”
Connor nods, shuddering against his shoulder. “Thank you.”
Hank pushes his fingers through Connor’s hair and says, “Cole loves you, you know. When things are better and we can tell him, he isn’t going to care.”
Connor wipes his cheeks and nods. “I know,” he whispers.
Hank squeezes Connor’s knee, under his open port, and says, “You want me to help you put the new panel on?”
“It’s okay. It’s better to leave it open while the new relays are still bonding, for the next hour or so.” Connor lies back and reaches for Hank’s wrist, pulling him down beside him. “You did good for your first repair.”
Hank settles beside him, laying an arm over his waist. “That’s the weirdest, most nerve-wracking shit, baby,” he says jokingly, punctuating it by kissing Connor’s temple so he knows he means it fondly.
Connor twists so he’s lying on his side, facing him, so he can run his fingers through Hank’s beard. “I know,” he says softly. “I’ve put you through a lot during the time we’ve been together.”
“Nah,” Hank says, teasing. “I mean, all the commitment issues were kind of a lot, but...”
Connor laughs at that. “I’m not even scared of commitment, is the funny thing. I just...didn’t want to drag you into this. If it weren’t for that, you never would have been able to get rid of me.”
“Yeah?” Hank asks, amused.
“Yeah. You would have woken up in Chicago the morning after we met to mimosas and breakfast in bed and me sucking you off.”
“Sounds classy,” Hank says wryly, and Connor smiles
“I’m sorry we wasted so much time,” he whispers.
“It’s okay. We got here eventually.”
Connor looks at him with that impossibly soft look in his eye, the one only Connor can manage, and says, “I used to lie awake and run preconstructions of your reaction to me telling you the truth. I always fixated on the handful that were bad, but...most of them went like this. I think I always knew things were going to be okay.”
“Yeah,” Hank says softly. “I mean...I love you.”
He thinks it really is that simple.
Connor sighs, at peace, and sinks into him. “I love you, too,” he whispers.
It’s not that late - it’s only just getting dark out - but it’s still nice to lie there in a companionable, comfortable silence while Connor’s body does...whatever it needs to do to fix itself. Hank does it without thinking, starts tracing his thumb along the open panel at Connor’s thigh, because he always does this when they’re cuddling, idly runs his fingers through Connor’s hair or traces the freckles on his arms. It’s just habit, and he’s still trying to slowly acquaint himself with this side of Connor.
He doesn’t think anything of it until he accidentally dips his fingers inside, brushing the healing wires, and Connor makes a soft noise and shifts against him. “Sorry,” Hank says, moving to pull his hand back.
“No,” Connor says quickly. He sounds surprised more than anything. “It didn’t hurt. It’s just...your hand is warm.”
He says it like he’s discovering something for the first time, and whatever Hank did to shove the thought of Connor saying, “It’s a sex thing,” aside, it promptly stops working. He returns his hand to Connor’s leg, a sort of question, and Connor looks up at him with wide eyes. “Do it again?” he asks softly. “I...want to see something.”
And Hank is all too happy to comply. He’s still careful - he doesn’t know if the new relays have finished bonding yet, and there’s something about pulling a bullet out of Connor that makes him gentler than usual - but it’s still with a firmer touch, more intentional, that he reaches over Connor’s open port and brushes his fingers through the wires again.
Connor tucks his head into Hank’s chest, whining softly when he does. “Oh,” he breathes, and Hank isn’t sure if it’s a realization or just a moan, but it’s affirming either way.
Hank stills his hand, but he also leaves it where it is. “I don’t know how to do this, baby,” he whispers, and what he’s really saying is, “Teach me?”
“Me neither,” Connor says softly. “I mean, I know in theory, but...maybe we can figure it out together.”
“Yeah,” Hank says, kissing him. He’s not sure he’s ever sounded more eager, which is saying something, probably, considering Connor’s adventurous streak. “Sure, honey.”
Connor smiles. “Can I...” he starts, and then he stops, clearing his throat, which is how Hank realizes all at once that he’s nervous, maybe, just a little bit. “Do you mind if I open my neck port? We shouldn’t pull at these wires too much.”
It’s going to take time for it to be fully okay, Hank thinks, for him to be fully used to the different parts that hold Connor together and the way he can look inside him, but also for Connor to feel at ease showing him. He’s been hiding for so long, and even if they both know they’re alright, it will take time for those habits to die.
But this feels like a good place to start trying to put them to rest.
Hank kisses his forehead and whispers, “Why would I mind?”
Connor shrugs. “I didn’t know if it was too weird, looking at another port.”
Hank shrugs, grinning a little. “You know I like it when you’re weird.”
Hank doesn’t miss the relief in Connor’s laugh, or the way hearing it in Connor makes him feel it himself, too.
“Okay,” Connor whispers, reaching behind his neck and clicking the port open.
“Here,” Hank says softly, taking Connor by the arm and gently maneuvering him. “Turn over so I can see, okay?”
Connor twists onto his belly, folding his arms under his forehead, and Hank looks at the open port at the back of his neck. It’s much smaller than the one on his thigh, of course - three of Hank’s fingers would be a full fit if he pressed them inside right now. He doesn’t, of course, but it is weird how he woke up this morning thinking Connor was very human and now he’s half-hard at the sight of a few wires and the stark white underneath Connor’s skin, just because he can see how Connor’s muscles are drawn tight in anticipation.
Hank props himself up on his elbow at Connor’s side, smoothing a hand up his back and tracing his thumb over the edge of the open port. “How does this work?” Hank asks. “I don’t want to fuck you up or anything.”
“I always want you to do that,” Connor says dryly.
“Baby,” Hank chides him, which earns him a small smile when Connor lifts his head to look at him over his shoulder.
“There’s nothing in there that will ruin anything permanently, so don’t worry about it too much. It’s my ocular and auditory processing, mostly. If you pull anything loose I can fix it later, so...”
The rest of it goes unsaid, but Hank hears it anyway. So you can be rough with me.
“Start slow, though,” Connor says when Hank returns his hand to his neck. “It’s a lot to get used to.”
“Yeah,” Hank says, kissing his temple. “But...what do I do?”
“I don’t know,” Connor whispers. “Just touch me.”
Hank can do that. Of course he can do that. He dips the tip of his forefinger inside the port, running it over one of the smooth wires, and he watches Connor tighten his hold on the sheets. “Okay?” he asks, and Connor nods with Hank’s finger still inside him - it’s odd, Hank thinks, that he can feel Connor moving and it isn’t weird at all.
He does it again, a firmer stroke this time, and Connor makes a soft noise into his pillow. “What does this feel like?” he asks, curious.
“Like you’re inside me,” Connor says softly. “I mean...not like that , but like you’re part of me. The heat of your hands affects my sensory relays and confuses the data, so it’s like...you’re being written into me. Does that make sense?”
Connor talks about programming and code all the time, and Hank really didn’t think any of it could sound romantic, but god, that does, doesn’t it?
Hank bends to kiss him. “I get it, baby.”
He tests the waters a little more boldly after that. He adds another finger, takes one of the wires and rubs it between them, heating it, and then gives it a gentle tug. They’re learning, Hank thinks. Connor isn’t shy or quiet - Hank always knows when he likes something.
And he likes that.
It doesn’t take long before Connor is whining openly into his folded arms, lips parted - Hank watches his body move with every labored breath. And it’s familiar, the way Connor gets restless, the way he tries to move things forward without even knowing what he’s asking for beyond just “more.” He whimpers in protest when Hank removes his fingers from his neck port, and Hank hushes him by kissing him as he helps him sit up.
“Come on, baby,” he says softly, unzipping the sweatshirt Connor is still wearing. “Help me get this off.”
Connor shrugs out of it, and he lets Hank pull the t-shirt underneath over his head, and it’s hot and fast and desperate like the night Hank met him when they crash back into each other. Connor slips out of his boxers and pushes himself back into Hank’s lap, latching onto him. They’re far enough down the bed that Hank can look out of the corner of his eye and see them in the mirror, the open ports on Connor’s body, the soft lights from his sensors inside, the way Connor’s synth-skin flickers and moves and reacts to him, pulling back and then shifting back into place, the white of his chassis underneath so stark it almost shimmers.
It’s beautiful.
Hank traces his finger up one of those lines in Connor’s skin, and Connor pulls away from his mouth to look at him, breathing hard. “It happens when my sensors overload,” he says softly.
“Huh,” Hank says. “I’ve never seen it before.”
He means it jokingly, with that teasing confidence Connor likes. He doesn’t expect Connor to fix him with a look and say, “Hank. I have to stop this from happening every time.”
“Oh,” Hank says dumbly. His tongue feels thick in his mouth. He knows he wasn’t ready to hear it before, that Connor had to, but as the picture of how much Connor has had to hide becomes clearer, he feels even sorrier for it.
He kisses Connor’s jaw and tries for good humor when he says, “Sounds distracting.”
Connor smiles, plainly amused when he tightens his fingers in Hank’s hair. “You have no idea,” he whispers before he licks into his mouth again.
“You don’t have to hide it anymore.”
“I know,” Connor breathes. There are tears at the corners of his eyes, and Hank doesn’t know if they’re from overstimulation or emotion or maybe a bit of both. “Fuck, I know.”
It’s a relief when Connor pulls Hank’s sweater off of him - it’s fucking hot in here, even if they keep the thermostat relatively low - and a similar relief when Connor pushes him back and works his jeans off, freeing Hank’s straining cock and taking it in his hand.
“Fuck,” Hank groans, rolling his head back and pressing his fingers back into Connor’s neck port. Connor makes the prettiest noise, one that Hank will absolutely be thinking about for weeks to come, and Hank shifts him so Connor is on his knees, hands braced on the headboard, with Hank behind him. Hank runs a hand over the curve of Connor’s back and then wraps a hand around himself, stroking as he teases one of Connor’s wires between his fingers.
“Hank,” Connor whispers - there’s something happening to his voice, static laced through it, and it’s incredible, Hank thinks, seeing him like this, skin rippling like some fluid thing under the stimulation, voice breaking, if only because it makes it so plain how much Connor has been holding himself back, how he isn’t doing that at all now.
Hank leans over him, chest pressed against his back, kissing his cheek, tongue flicking against Connor’s skin. “What, sweetheart?”
“I might...I might overload like this. I’m not sure what to expect, but if I pass out, it’s okay. It’s good.”
Hank twists the wire he’s teasing between his fingers, just to feel Connor gasp against him, to watch the way his knuckles go stark white where he’s clenching the headboard. “Yeah?” he asks, teasing him.
Connor nods against him. He can hear Hank touching himself - Hank knows just from the way he smiles. “Can we try something?” he asks softly. Hank must look eager enough, because he hasn’t even answered before Connor is saying, “Can you unplug that red wire? And then...I want to see what happens if you touch the port it plugs in to.”
Hank pulls back to look at the wire, tracing the length of it as far as he can reach. “What is this going to disconnect?”
“My vision. I’ll put it back when we’re done. I just...I want to see what it feels like.”
“Fuck, okay,” Hank groans, because saying no to Connor is no great strength of his. He tugs the wire - it takes a little pressure, but it pulls loose almost immediately, and Connor whines when Hank fishes his fingers deeper into his port, parting wires around them, following the lines of them until he finds the empty socket.
Hank knows Connor can be loud, but he’s never heard him shout like he does in that moment, synth-skin flickering. He has to get an arm around him to hold him up, and that’s when he realizes Connor has come untouched over his belly and his thigh.
“Holy fuck, baby,” he breathes, and Connor’s eyelids flutter at that, like he’s trying to hold them open even if he can’t see.
“Come on me,” he whispers, so softly that it takes Hank a moment to make sense of the words. “It’s okay. I’m not going to shut down, I’m just...”
Hank doesn’t know what the android equivalent for it is, but “fucked out” is what he would call it. He kisses Connor’s cheek and lowers him down to lie on his chest, his hair falling across his face.
He’s quiet for a long enough moment that Hank thinks maybe he has overloaded after all, until Connor whispers, “Please,” into his pillow, voice rough and muffled. He fumbles for Hank’s hand, a little gracelessly without his vision, kissing Hank’s fingers sweetly even as he goads him on. “Use me,” he whispers.
Why “use me” sounds like “love me”, Hank can’t say, but maybe they are the same, or they can be.
Hank thinks they’re the same here, as he takes himself in hand, as he can see Connor concentrating on his movements to make up for his disabled vision, as he comes over Connor’s pale back after just three strokes, because not only is this one of the hottest things he’s ever done, but it’s also the closest to Connor he’s ever felt.
“Fuck,” Hank chokes out, leaning over Connor and kissing him without caring that he’s making a mess of both of them.
Connor could reach behind himself and reconnect his ocular processors, but instead he curls up at Hank’s side as Hank flops down next to him, tucking himself there. “Was that okay?” he asks softly.
“Yeah, fuck,” Hank says quickly. “Of course it was.”
“If it was too weird...”
“Shh,” Hank says. “I liked it.”
Connor smiles, a little sheepish. “I liked it, too.”
Hank gets an arm around Connor and pulls him in to kiss his forehead, and then he reaches into Connor’s neck port and fits the loose wire back into the socket. Connor’s eyelids flutter in a mechanical way, too fast to be human, and his eyes come back into focus when he looks at Hank, a small smile on his face. “You’re a fast learner,” he says softly, and Hank will admit that there’s a weird amount of pride in it, not just knowing how to take Connor apart, but also how to put him back together. Connor tucks his head to Hank’s chest and sighs, at ease. “I think I can take it,” he says, “if you want to try doing that while you’re fucking me next time. You know how to open my ports.”
Hank grins at that. “Yeah. I do.” He runs his fingers through Connor’s hair and says, “Since you don’t actually have commitment issues...want to get married?”
It’s intentional, the way he says it like it’s half a joke, because the ring’s still in the dresser and he wants to do this properly. And he likes the easy laugh it gets out of Connor when he wryly says, “Yeah. Sure.”
“No take backs,” Hank says, kissing him before he gets up to go to the bathroom. He cleans himself up, looking at Connor lying on the bed, one knee bent, as he does.
He tosses a wet washcloth to Connor when he’s finished, and then he goes to the dresser, fishing the ring from the back of his sock drawer. And when he gets back into bed, he presses the little box into Connor’s hand.
“What...” Connor starts, but he falls silent when he looks down and realizes what it is.
“No take backs,” Hank says softly. “I was going to ask you tonight, after Cole went to bed...I was probably going to do something stupid like put it in the champagne or some shit, so maybe this is better.”
“You want to marry me,” Connor whispers, and it’s not a question, really. It’s more like he’s saying it to himself so it will feel real.
“Yeah, sweetheart. I do.”
Connor laughs at nothing, a joyful little sound, when he puts his hands on Hank’s face and kisses him.
“Is that a yes?” Hank asks jokingly. “I kind of want to nail you down here.”
It’s the same thing he said to Connor that night he called him, anxious and upset, after ghosting him for six months - a night that makes so much more sense now, every little piece of it slotting into place, right down to Connor saying, “I want to tell you everything. Can it be enough, for now, for me to want to?” - and if the look on Connor’s face is any indication, he remembers.
Of course he does.
He hasn’t even looked at the ring yet - he just kisses Hank again, gentler this time, and in between he whispers, “Yes,” and, “I love you,” and, “Yes”.
Notes:
Thank you all for the kind comments and encouragement on the last chapter - I'm planning to go through them and respond individually tonight or tomorrow, but I really appreciate all of you. My DBH fics certainly don't do the same numbers three years after the game came out as they did a few years ago, but you all are so kind that I honestly hardly feel that at all. <3
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Chapter 5
Summary:
Hank and Connor navigate the end of it all, and the beginning.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Connor wakes up to the smell of coffee brewing in the kitchen and Sumo nosing under his hand, muzzle wet from rooting around outside in the snow. “Hey,” Hank says, appearing at his side and setting a mug of coffee down on Connor’s nightstand. He nudges Connor’s legs, and Connor shifts to make room for him to sit down beside him.
“Hi.” Connor sits up and takes the mug. “Thank you.”
“Does coffee actually do anything for you?”
“No, but...I like the taste.” Connor smiles at him over the rim of the mug, looking at the silver band on his own finger in the morning light. “That’s the answer to almost everything, by the way. Eating and drinking don’t do anything for me nutritionally, and they don’t affect me in any way, but I can still taste.”
“Huh.” Hank pulls Connor’s injured leg into his lap. “Is that okay? Me asking you dumb shit like that? I just...don’t know how a lot of this works for you.”
“It’s not dumb,” Connor says. “And yeah. It’s okay.”
He likes that Hank wants to know. He likes that Hank already knows him better than anyone, and he likes the thought that there will come a time when he knows him better still, everything about him.
Hank traces a finger over the open cavity on Connor’s leg. “You want to get this plate back on?”
They never got that far last night. Connor sets his mug aside and says, “We should, yes.”
He reaches for the new plate in his bag, still on the floor, but Hank takes it from him when he grabs it. “I got it,” he says. “Does this still hurt?”
Connor shrugs, watching Hank lean over him, the care and concentration on his face. “It’s getting better.”
And it is. It’s getting better when they call Cole that afternoon to tell him they’re getting married, when he cries because he’s so happy about it. It’s getting better when Connor brings Hank to Amanda’s house to meet North, Simon, and Josh that weekend, when they start to plan their wedding over the coming weeks, when they agree on something small and intimate, when they talk about their honeymoon.
Connor has never been very good at thinking about his own future. He’s never been able to situate himself in it. But that’s changed with Hank, and now he finds that it’s changing still, that they’re still becoming as the days knit them more closely together.
The next few weeks are some of the best of Connor’s life, quiet and peaceful as January passes, even if there is the occasional dull pain in his leg when he walks now. He thinks that he can survive whatever’s coming - that he has to.
Things are better.
They’re better right up until that weekend in February, when Elijah Kamski makes his way into their lives again.
In retrospect, maybe Connor should have known they weren’t rid of him.
It’s the last place Connor would have expected to run into him again, too. In February, Hank rents a cabin on the lake on one of the weekends they have Cole - it’s freezing, but that’s worth the trade off of avoiding tourists, or so Hank says. It’s something he used to do with his dad, the frigid off-season vacations, and Connor thinks that’s nice, honestly, even if he does jokingly say, “You know we could fly somewhere warmer, don’t you?” as they’re planning.
Hank just pinches his side and says, “I don’t know what you’re complaining about. The cold doesn’t even bother you at all.”
It’s actually a fair observation, Connor thinks with some amusement.
“I’m not complaining,” he says innocently, and when Hank gives him a pointed look, he slips himself into his arms and kisses him and says, “I’m not.”
They’re three hours out of the city, eating dinner at a lakefront restaurant overlooking the frozen water and the snow covered trees, and Connor is thinking that they couldn’t have replicated this at all by flying anywhere, that Hank knew what he was talking about, when someone clears his throat beside him.
Connor looks up to see Kamski standing at their table, and it takes everything in him to bite his tongue on the words, “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Elijah,” Hank says, surprised. And then, because he never filters himself, “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“This is a nice surprise,” Kamski says. “I come up here this time of year because it’s when I expect not to see anyone.”
“Yeah,” Hank says. “I mean, same.”
He says it with good humor, but Connor knows how carefully crafted it is. And Kamski takes the hint, maybe, because he says, “I hope I’m not intruding. I just thought I would say hello. I’ll get out of your way. It’s good to see you, Hank.”
Connor looks across the restaurant, finds an android with a face he’s never seen before sitting a few tables away. It couldn’t be more obvious that he’s there with Kamski - he barely blinks to take his eyes off him, carefully watching his every move.
“Are you developing a new model?” Connor asks, nodding at the android when Kamski looks at him. And then, because he can’t resist the barb, he adds, “In your spare time, I mean.”
“A gift for a friend,” Kamski says. “I made some tweaks to CyberLife’s core programming to fit his needs - I’m just taking Markus somewhere he isn’t familiar with for a bit of a final test drive.”
“Huh,” Hank says. “Honestly I thought you would just retire someplace warm and never look back.”
Kamski shrugs. “You know what they say about idle hands.” He studies them a moment and then says, “Perhaps you’d like to come to dinner at my lake house, if it wouldn’t interrupt your plans too much. It might be nice to catch up.”
Connor honestly doesn’t know how Kamski does it, how he makes something that should sound so pleasant sound so insidious instead.
Hank takes one look at Connor and Cole and says, “Yeah, can we get back to you on that? We’re only here for a few days, and we had some things we wanted to do.”
“Sure,” Kamski says. “My number is the same. I assume you still have it.”
“Yeah,” Hank says. “Thanks - it was nice to see you.”
It wasn’t, but Connor spends the rest of the night, at least until Kamski leaves, stealing glances at Markus, wondering what about him Kamski made different, and why.
He doesn’t trust Kamski, and because he doesn’t trust him, he thinks they need to find out.
“Why is he so interested in us?” Hank asks that night once Cole has gone to bed. “I mean, why invite us for dinner at all? We’re not friends.”
Connor sets the book he’s reading aside and sits up, watching Hank cleaning up at the bathroom sink. “I don’t know,” he says, and in truth, he’s less worried about it than he probably should be, so fixated on what Kamski is doing with Markus that it doesn’t leave much room to worry about anything else.
“He tracked me down,” Hank says. “A few months ago. He literally tracked me down to offer me the job.”
Connor props his chin on his hand. “You...think he followed us here?”
“No. I don’t know. That’s probably paranoid.”
“Do you want to tell him we can’t do dinner?”
Hank sighs, turning the bathroom light off and coming out to join Connor in bed. “I think whatever his deal is with us, avoiding him isn’t going to make it go away. So...I think we should keep tabs on him.” He sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. “There’s no chance he knows about you, is there?”
“What?”
“It seems like he’s interested in me, but what if that’s just a front because he’s interested in you? And there’s not much reason for him to be, unless...”
Connor scoffs at that. “Amanda was careful, with all my records and with the way I’m built.” He shrugs. “Maybe he just wants a threesome.”
“Maybe,” Hank says, but he still sounds troubled, and Connor can’t say he blames him.
Still, it’s like Hank said, and like Connor felt at the restaurant - there’s nothing to gain by letting Kamski do whatever it is he’s doing unchecked (and he is doing something, Connor is sure of that much). They might as well try to get some read on what exactly it is.
So Hank calls him the next day and sets dinner up for the following evening, and Cole complains about it for the entirety of that afternoon, and then some more when it’s time to get ready to go.
“Can I just stay here?” he asks. “I’ll lock the doors, and Sumo is here...”
“No,” Hank and Connor say together.
“Come on,” Cole whines. “I don’t like him, and he’s boring , and his food sucks.”
“Yeah, that’s the arrogance and the wealth doing the trick,” Hank says dryly. “You’re too young to stay by yourself.”
“Connor,” Cole complains, “I want to finish your game.”
Connor gave him a demo of the game he’s been on the development team for over the last year, and that’s how Cole has spent most of his time during their little getaway.
“You can stay up late and finish it if you come with us and do your best to be polite, okay?” Connor says.
“Fine,” Cole pouts, “but if he still doesn’t have anything for me to eat I’m going to be sarcastic and tell him I really enjoyed the food again.”
“You do that, bug,” Connor says wryly.
“You okay?” Hank asks Connor once Cole goes back to his room, huffing pointedly as he does, which Hank chooses to ignore.
“Yeah,” Connor says, tucking his cheek to Hank’s hand when he puts it on his shoulder. “I just never like seeing him.”
And he doesn’t, but it’s also easier this time, because at least Hank knows everything.
Kamski’s lake house is predictably extravagant with the modern architecture and its placement on the waterfront. “This is his cabin?” Cole asks when they pull up. Connor doesn’t think he could possibly sound more disdainful, but then, any starry-eyed wonder Cole used to feel towards CyberLife died when Simon did - and even then, there already wasn’t much left.
“It’s a lake house, kiddo,” Hank says, putting a hand on his head when he gets out of the car. “There’s a difference.” Connor takes his hand, and Hank shrugs and says, “Hey, at least he’s not smitten by money,” under his breath.
Yeah, Connor thinks, Hank raised a good one.
One of Kamski’s Chloe androids meets them at the door, opening it before Hank can knock. “Come in,” she says, in that same inexpressive voice from the Christmas party. “May I take your coats?”
“Yeah,” Hank says. “Thanks. Where’s your boss?”
“Mr. Kamski will be down in a minute,” Chloe says. “There are appetizers in the dining room if you’d like.”
“Cool,” Hank says. “Thanks.”
There’s a cheese plate that probably cost several hundred dollars, some kind of seafood dip, and a small plate of mac and cheese bites for Cole. “Shit,” Cole says under his breath so only Connor can hear him. “I wanted to throw a fit.”
Connor has to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from laughing at that. He doesn’t even have it in him to chide Cole for his language.
Kamski joins them then, sweeping into the room and smiling like they’re the best of friends being reunited. “I’m so glad you could come,” he says. “Dinner will be out in a few minutes...sit, sit.” Kamski herds them over to the armchairs by the window like a sheepdog, sitting across from them and smiling as he crosses his legs. “You found it okay?”
“Yeah,” Hank says. “It’s, uh...kind of hard to miss.”
“I do like my luxuries,” Kamski says wryly. “Can I get you anything to drink? We have a full bar.”
“Beer’s fine,” Hank says. “Whatever you have.”
“For both of you?” Kamski asks.
Connor forces a smile. “Sure.”
“Anything for you, Cole? Soda, juice...?”
“Soda’s fine,” Cole says.
“Chloe, sweetheart,” Kamski calls over his shoulder, even though he just asked if he could get them anything. When one of them steps into the room, he passes their requests along, and she dutifully goes to retrieve them.
“So,” Kamski says, settling back into his seat and making himself comfortable as she goes, “how are things at CyberLife?”
“Do you really want to know?” Hank asks. “I think if I got canned I just wouldn’t look back.”
“That’s your delightful charm,” Kamski says, amused. “What else are we going to talk about?”
Hank shrugs, and Connor watches him roll his shoulders like he does when he’s trying to loosen the tension in them, even if the movement isn’t obvious. “Yeah, I mean...I don’t know. It’s fine, I guess? Kind of a shitshow, but I’m sure you’ve seen all of that. Incident reports of deviancy are going up.”
“Mhm.” Kamski nods. “Haven’t stopped since that hostage situation with the PL600, have they? Odd coincidence, how your boy was there for that.”
Cole’s head snaps up, and he looks between Hank and Connor, wide-eyed and a little desperate, like he’s trying to convey something.
He doesn’t have to - Connor already knows he doesn’t want to talk about this, and so does Hank, gone rigid at the comment. “Let’s not talk about this,” Connor says simply, and Kamski shrugs, letting it go.
“Of course. My mistake. I just thought it was odd.”
Cole balls his fists in his lap and says, “It wasn’t odd . It was awful.”
“Bug,” Connor says softly, “it’s okay.”
“I know it was,” Kamski says, in a tone that says he doesn’t really know at all.
Hank clears his throat and says, “Anyway. CyberLife is fine, but I’m not the guy to give you the dirty details. You know as well as anyone that I’m not there because I care about the work.”
“Well, who can blame you really?” Kamski says, swirling his whiskey and sniffing disdainfully. “The work has kind of gone to hell, I would say.”
“Sure,” Hank says, shrugging. “You still have some faith in it though, obviously.”
He’s trying to get them back on track, and Connor loves him for it, because he’s mostly sitting there thinking they made a mistake in coming, not least of all because Cole is still next to him with his jaw set, trying not to cry. He isn’t thinking anymore about getting anything out of Kamski, but Hank does always like to say that he used to be a pretty good detective.
“Oh, you mean Markus?” Kamski asks. “I don’t know if that’s faith in the work so much as a favor for an old friend who’s looking for something unique in a domestic assistant.”
“Unique how?” Connor asks.
“I won’t name names - my friend is a little famous, and he wouldn’t like me implying that he’s a little old and a little sad - but he’s got this son who’s just a real mess, only comes around when he wants money for drugs...you know the drill. So he’s looking for something a little more...companionable than CyberLife’s usual offerings. Something to indulge him and be a friend in addition to doing the cooking and cleaning,”
“Isn’t that the root of the whole deviancy crisis?” Connor asks. “Androids who are too close to people?”
“The root of the deviancy crisis is shoddy programming updates that the software department pushed out to meet a few deadlines without my knowledge,” Kamski says, and Connor manages a thin smile.
“You must know how to fix it, then.”
“Better programming is always the solution,” Kamski says. “You can appreciate that, can’t you, Connor? You sit around writing code all day.”
Connor shrugs. “From where I’m sitting, it looks like we’re a little past code.”
He doesn’t mention that it looks, too, like CyberLife was covering it up intentionally for years, or that he knows from looking through Kamski’s computer that he knew about it and directed those cover ups himself.
“Well, either way, it’s not really my problem anymore,” Kamski says, and Connor wonders what that’s like, genuinely believing he can wash his hands of his guilt that easily. “In any event, Markus is the most sophisticated android I’ve ever built. Reminds me why I got into this in the first place, you know? I’ve built a unique kind of steering program into him - I call it the Amanda AI.”
Connor sits up, rigid, and he’s almost glad he’s not human at that moment so his face can’t go pale. “The Amanda AI,” he repeats. “What...what does she do?”
“She’s another layer of protection, mostly. She keeps Markus’ programming in line, but she also gives him someone to talk to, reflect on his experiences with...she makes him feel more human, even if he isn’t. She’s named for one of my university professors - the real Amanda Stern was always talking about the humanity of AI, so...it was fitting.”
And Connor doesn’t know if it’s paranoia or not, but he feels like Kamski is watching him carefully now, looking for a reaction. Connor isn’t even sure what his would be - he doesn’t know if he’s angry or afraid, but he does know he’d like to forcibly pull Amanda’s name from Kamski’s mouth and any likeness of hers from his code so he can never use them again, because it feels much more like mockery than a tribute.
But he can’t say anything or do any of that, even if Kamski seems to know he would like to. Connor wonders if Hank was right after all, and what exactly Kamski might know.
“Hm,” Connor says, because it’s all he trusts himself to say. Hank is shifting in his seat beside him, like he’s subtly getting ready for a confrontation, but the moment passes without incident.
“If you’re interested in the code,” Kamski says to Connor, “I can show you after dinner.”
Connor manages a thin-lipped smile. “Sure,” he says, already intending to bail immediately after dessert so he doesn’t have to see whatever Kamski has done with Amanda, his interpretation of her. He doesn’t know if he could stomach it.
“Anyway,” Kamski says, clapping his hands on his thighs as one of the Chloe androids comes back with two full plates in her hands. “Shall we?”
Hank doesn’t quite relax at Connor’s side as they get to their feet, but it seems that the moment has passed, and Connor wonders if he misjudged it, if he was just being paranoid after all.
Dinner passes without being too painful - they talk about Cole’s budding interest in computer technology, about Connor’s work, and Hank’s, and Kamski talks a bit more about Markus without disclosing anything substantial, no matter what Connor asks. It’s a wash, and the night probably wasn’t worth their time, but at least it seems harmless enough, in the long run.
Still, though, Connor stays on edge, and when Kamski gets up after dinner and says, “Connor, will you help me grab dessert?”, he’s right back on his guard.
Hank looks at him as he gets up, and Connor can see him asking if he wants him to come along, because they both know there’s a reason Kamski isn’t just having his androids do it...but if he wants to talk to Connor, Connor wants to know what he has to say. He shakes his head subtly, and Hank sinks back into his seat as he follows Kamski into the kitchen.
“There are forks in that drawer by the sink,” Kamski says. “Dessert is nothing fancy...Chloe made fruit tarts.”
Connor doesn’t say anything, just grabs the forks from the drawer, but he can hear that Kamski isn’t moving behind him, just standing there, watching.
“You sound like her, you know,” he says, and Connor stops, hand still in the drawer. “When you talk, you sound like her. Same ideals.”
Connor turns, tightening his hold on the fork he’s holding - in his hands, it’s a weapon, or it could be.
Kamski smiles when Connor faces him, even though it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Imagine my surprise,” he says. “She disappears off the face of the earth, burns every bridge at CyberLife, and then I find, years after she’s gone, that she developed some kind of domestic streak and adopted a kid. I can’t imagine anything more out of character.”
“Well,” Connor says cooly, even though his mind is working, because Amanda’s name isn’t on any of his documentation, so how does Kamski know? “You didn’t know her very well. And she didn’t like you very much.” He tilts his head.
Kamski laughs at that, a mirthless sound. “Ouch,” he says dryly. “I loved her...”
“Oh, fuck you. You loved what she did for you and what you could take from her, and she knew it, and so do I.”
Kamski tilts his head. “It’s odd, you know. That you have two birth certificates - the one that was issued to you, with some random names on it, and the official one on file with Amanda’s. It’s like she was trying to keep you a secret. I wonder why that was.”
Connor clenches his fists. It’s a gut punch he can’t react to, that Amanda felt strongly enough about them being a family, about him being hers, that she wanted to claim him, even if there was a reason her name wasn’t on any of his documents, and it’s a hard strike across the face that this is how he’s finding out about it, from Kamski using it against him.
Connor forces himself to shrug. “Working at CyberLife made her paranoid. She left on bad terms, and she didn’t trust any of you.”
Kamski smirks at that, and Connor hates him. “No,” he says. “I don’t think that’s it. I think your birth certificates are fucked up because you were never born. And if that’s the case, I suspect Amanda had a purpose for you. What was it?”
He knows. He knows, and there’s nothing for it, so Connor lets that hard look settle in his eye and says, “She wanted me to destroy you. But you already did that yourself.”
“Careful,” Kamski says, nodding at the door. “I’ll take you down with me.”
And that’s when Connor realizes that Kamski knows, but of course he thinks Hank doesn’t. He thinks too much of his own cleverness, feels too certain that he’s one step ahead of everyone, and of course he can’t imagine that Hank is sitting out there with Connor acting like nothing has changed between them if he knows what he is.
Because Kamski doesn’t think he’s a person, and so he can’t imagine anyone else seeing him that way.
And Connor can use that.
“Now,” Kamski says when Connor doesn’t respond, “this can be painless, and you can leave here tonight with your life intact, but if that’s what you want, you’ll come downstairs with me, and you’ll let me have a look at your code.”
“Shit,” Connor says. “Are you really still that desperate to copy Amanda’s work? God, it must be awful being you. All that hubris and no imagination to sustain it.” He takes a step forward. “I understand you think I should be begging you for my life, but that’s only because it’s unthinkable to you that there’s anything you aren’t entitled to.”
Kamski smiles thinly at that. “Come now, Connor. We could be friends. Our interests might be more aligned than you think.”
Kamski could ruin him still. He could turn him in to CyberLife, or to the police...he could. But there’s a reason he hasn’t, a reason he’s saying shit like “We could be friends,” and all at once Connor distinctly remembers telling Hank when Kamski was voted out from CyberLife that if he couldn’t have CyberLife, he wouldn’t let anybody else have it, either.
It makes sense, Connor thinks. And he suspects Kamski’s new android may have something to do with all of that, too.
He lifts his chin and says, “I’m no more your friend than Amanda was, and we don’t want the same things. Now do what you’re going to do, or get your fucking dessert and get out of my way.”
Kamski doesn’t appreciate having his bluff called, if the look on his face is any indication, because of course he doesn’t want to tell Hank anything. As far as he knows, Hank thinks Connor is human, and telling him might very well lead to Connor’s arrest and disposal. Kamski doesn’t want his death, only his compliance, because as far as he’s concerned, Connor is an object for him to study, something he feels just as entitled to as he did all the rest of Amanda’s work.
What Kamski’s response might be when he stops floundering, Connor never learns, because Hank comes into the kitchen then, Cole’s empty glass in hand, and says, “You need help with anything?”, although his voice trails off when he senses the tension in the room. “Everything okay?” he asks, but it’s really just a question for Connor.
“No,” Connor says simply. “I think we should go.”
“Yeah.” Hank puts a hand on his shoulder and guides him towards the door. “Okay.”
“You’re overreacting...” Kamski starts, and Hank rounds on him so fast that Connor thinks he looks like his life is flashing before his eyes.
“Listen to me,” Hank says. He can’t know what happened, but he can assume easily enough, especially given the way Kamski was talking about Amanda earlier. He crowds into him, making Kamski take a step back, bumping into his refrigerator when he does. “You stay the fuck away from my fiancé, and from our kid. And whatever you think you know, or whatever leverage you think you have, if you do anything with it, I’ll make you wish you didn’t.”
If Connor is any judge at all, Kamski believes him. But it doesn’t stop him from saying, “You know. Don’t you?”
“What did I just say?” Hank snaps. “Keep your fucking mouth shut.”
“He doesn’t love you,” Kamski says after them when Hank takes Connor by the arm and guides him towards the door. “He can’t. You know that.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Hank says. “Thanks for dinner. Come on, baby.”
Cole is still sitting at the table when they step back into the dining room, looking up at Hank and Connor uncertainly. He could hear Hank in the kitchen, probably. “Cole,” Hank says, “let’s go, bud. Get your coat.”
Cole gets up and hurries over to them, tucking himself in at Connor’s side, under his arm. “What’s happening?” he asks Connor softly while Hank roots through the coat closet for their coats, throwing a few of Kamski’s on the floor in the process.
“It’s okay,” Connor says quickly. “We’ll talk about it in the car.”
“Fucking asshole with his two hundred fucking coats,” Hank says through gritted teeth, handing Connor’s back to him and helping Cole into his. “Jesus, let’s go.”
Kamski doesn’t follow them.
Hank’s grip on the steering wheel is knuckle white as he pulls out of the driveway, and he’s driving a little too fast, hands shaking, until Connor reaches over and grasps his arm.
“Hank,” he says softly, trying to sound calm, because Cole is quiet and tense in the back seat and Connor knows he’s listening.
“Yeah,” Hank says. “Shit, yeah. Sorry.” He forces himself to roll his shoulders. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Connor says quickly.
“Are you okay, bud?” Hank asks, looking at Cole in the backseat.
“Yeah, I just...what happened?”
“Kamski said some things to Connor that were crossing a line,” Hank says.
“What kind of things?”
“Adult stuff,” Hank says. “Don’t worry about it, okay?”
“Okay,” Cole says softly.
The car is quiet for a few minutes, Connor turning everything over, his mind grinding down on it. The worst part of all of it is that Kamski is doing something with Markus, he’s sure of it, and they don’t even know where to keep tabs on him, because Kamski very intentionally didn’t tell them who he was making him for.
“We should have figured out where Markus was going before we burned that bridge,” he says softly. They can’t talk about much in front of Cole, but he already knows Hank and Connor both think Kamski has been detrimental to the growing deviancy crisis.
“Yeah,” Hank says. “Shit, probably.”
“He’s a gift for Carl Manfred,” Cole says in the backseat. He’s looking at Connor with wide eyes when Connor turns to face him. “Chloe told me, while you were in the kitchen.”
“Chloe told you,” Hank repeats, and Cole nods.
“Yeah. She said it was important.” Cole looks between the two of them. “What’s going on?”
“Adult stuff,” Hank says again, making Cole huff loudly. He ignores it and looks at Connor. “Well who the fuck is Carl Manfred?”
Connor is too busy wondering if Kamski set that information drop up or if Chloe acted without his knowledge to have run a name search yet, but he doesn’t have to. “He’s that famous artist,” Cole says.
“What?” Hank asks.
“Yeah,” Cole says, and it’s plain he’s pleased to have contributed something useful, even if he doesn’t understand what’s happening. “He spoke at school. He lives in the city.”
“Well fuck me,” Hank says.
“Does that help?” Cole asks, hopeful.
“Yeah, bug,” Connor says, and Cole smiles. “It helps.”
When they get back to their cabin, Hank lets Sumo out - Connor thinks it’s mostly an excuse to get some fresh air, because he can see that he needs to clear his head. Honestly, Connor needs the same, but when Hank caught him in the kitchen and put his hands on his face and said in a low voice, “Are you okay?”, Connor said he was, and that he could put Cole to bed, and so he holds himself together for the time being.
He’s good at that.
“I want them to stop,” Cole says when he comes back from brushing his teeth and climbs into bed.
“Who, bug?”
Cole fusses with his covers, worrying the hem between his fingers. “CyberLife. They’re bad. I wish Dad didn’t work there.”
“Hey,” Connor says softly, “your dad thinks they’re bad, too. Sometimes we just...have to do things we don’t want to do.”
“We got by fine when he was at his other job.”
“Yeah,” Connor says, shifting to sit beside him on the bed. “But it’s not always just about money, either.”
“Then what’s it about?”
“Look,” Connor says, “there are some things that it’s better if you don’t know right now, but it’s really important to me that you understand that your dad is trying to do the right thing here, okay? Even though you want him to quit.”
“I don’t like when you keep secrets from me.”
“Yeah.” Connor wraps an arm around Cole’s shoulders. “I know. But you trust me, don’t you? And I know you trust your dad.”
“Yeah,” Cole says. “It’s just...” He trails off, shrugging under Connor’s arm.
“It’s just what, bug?”
Cole stares down at the blanket and says, “They killed Simon.”
“I know.” Connor squeezes him closer. He wants so badly to tell Cole the truth, at least about Simon, but there’s no way to do it without creating more questions. He knows it’s kinder this way. “Listen,” he says softly, “this is all really complicated stuff, and I’m proud of you for caring about what’s right and wrong here, but just...try to let me and your dad worry about this, okay? It’s not something I want you to worry about.”
Cole looks up at him, brow pinched. “Are you trying to stop them?”
Connor kisses his hair and ignores the question. “Get some sleep, okay? We have to be up early tomorrow to pack.”
“Okay,” Cole says, but he knows his question went intentionally unanswered, and maybe Connor’s silence is response enough.
Connor doesn’t worry about it too much. With the way this keeps bleeding into their family, Cole was bound to start asking questions, and if he knows that they detest CyberLife enough that they might do something about it, Connor doesn’t think that’s the worst thing, even if he would rather Cole just not be involved at all.
Their bedroom is empty when Connor checks it, so he wanders back out to the living room looking for Hank and finds him just stepping back inside through the front door, Sumo on a leash at his side.
“Hey,” Connor says. “I thought you just let him out in the yard.”
“Yeah,” Hank says. “I was just walking around making sure everything was locked.”
He’s still tense, so when Sumo wanders over to lie down by the fireplace, Connor takes his hand and says, “Come on. Let’s just go to bed, okay?”
Connor feels tense, too - even if he’s hiding it more carefully, there’s a quiet rage coursing through him. He’s angry on Amanda’s behalf, that Kamski still thinks he has the right to any part of her, and he’s equally angry that right up until the moment they walked away, Kamski thought he could take Hank from him, too.
That’s what he’s thinking about - that Kamski can’t, but he tried - when he pushes Hank back onto the bed, a little rough, and climbs into his lap, kissing him.
Hank gets the message when Connor pushes his jacket off his shoulders like he’s trying to climb inside him, taking his lower lip between his teeth and biting down. “Hey,” Hank says, although he says it around a moan, because Connor knows what he likes, and he wouldn’t do anything he doesn’t, even if he usually isn’t quite this demanding, either. “You want to talk about this?”
Connor shakes his head, rolling his hips into Hank’s. “No,” he whispers. Maybe later, when he’s a little less afraid that he’s misjudged Kamski, that he’ll have reported him after all and police will still show up at their door that night to take him away...
He doesn’t think that will happen. He thinks it would have already if that was Kamski’s play, but it still doesn’t feel like there’s time for talking.
“Not right now,” Connor amends himself when Hank gives him an uncertain look. “I just...I want to fuck you.”
Hank nods against him, kissing him again. “We have to be quiet, okay?” Cole’s bedroom is closer to theirs than it is when they’re home, and sound travels easily through the cabin.
Connor isn’t very good at keeping quiet, despite what are genuinely his best efforts, not when he feels everything so fully, but Hank is pretty good at making him, so he nods anyway.
“Yeah,” he whispers, kissing Hank again, a little desperate. “Yeah, okay.”
Hank smiles. “Lube’s in my suitcase. Front pocket.”
Connor gets up to retrieve it, listening to Hank unfastening his belt and slipping out of his pants as he does.
It’s easiest on Hank’s hip, when they do things like this, for Connor to sit up against the headboard and pull Hank into his lap so he can fuck into him that way. Connor loves Hank’s weight on him, and he loves looking over Hank’s shoulder at his hard cock resting against the curve of his stomach. He loves watching Hank touch himself if he asks him to, and he loves taking Hank’s wrists in his hand and telling him he can’t just as much.
What he loves most of all is that it’s easy for Hank to reach over his shoulder and press his fingers into Connor’s mouth, especially now that Hank is wearing the ring Connor bought him to match the day after Hank proposed, that he can taste the salt of Hank’s skin and the tang of metal at once, some kind of tangible reassurance that Hank is his, data that can be broken down and analyzed, filed away and kept.
Connor doesn’t mean to be possessive. He really doesn’t. But he wasn’t supposed to have anything like Hank, and so he can’t quite help it.
He might feel guiltier about it if Hank didn’t love it so much.
It’s not until after, right after, when they’re still tangled together, that Connor touches Hank’s face and realizes he’s crying.
Connor cries during sex with some frequency, but that’s mostly because it’s so easy for him to become overstimulated physically and overwhelmed emotionally by his own good fortune. Hank...he doesn’t really. And not even just during sex - he just doesn’t really cry.
“Hey,” Connor says softly, putting a hand on Hank’s cheek and turning his face towards him so he can kiss his temple. “Are you okay?”
Hank reaches back for him, running his fingers through Connor’s hair, grasping him and holding him there. “Yeah,” he whispers, but what comes next is a ragged sob.
“Hank,” Connor says, startled, shifting them so it’s easier to get himself into Hank’s arms and to see his face while he holds him.
“I’m sorry,” Hank says, and Connor squeezes him tighter. “Shit, I’m sorry. I thought I could hold myself together better than this.”
Connor kisses him and wipes the tears from his cheeks. “Don’t be sorry,” he says quickly.
“I just...if anything ever happened to you...I’ve known it could, but that was just some shit that didn’t feel real before tonight, you know?”
“Yeah,” Connor says softly. He’s lived with his own reality, that what he has to do might kill him, for as long as he can remember, as long as he’s known who he is, but this is new for Hank. He takes Hank’s fingers in his and kisses his wrist. “I know.”
Hank tightens his arms around Connor’s shoulders, sighing when Connor tucks his face into the crook of his neck. “I’m sorry. You don’t need me having a fucking meltdown right now.”
“I just need you,” Connor says into his skin. “I don’t mind if you’re having a meltdown.”
Hank manages a little laugh at that, kissing Connor’s hair. “Fuck,” he says again, reaching up to wipe his eyes. “I texted him while I was out with Sumo.”
“Kamski?” Connor asks, furrowing his brow.
“Yeah. Shit, it was stupid. I just told him that I still had friends at the DPD, and that I wanted him to know that before I blocked his number, but if he reports you...”
“He won’t,” Connor says quickly. “I think he’s trying to escalate the deviancy crisis to ruin CyberLife to...I don’t know, to save his name and his reputation, maybe, or just to be petty as fuck. It’s hard to say. I think that’s what he’s doing with Markus. He won’t want to draw any attention to himself by reporting anything, and...shit, I’m not even sure he’s trying to stop me.”
Hank exhales a breath he’s been holding in, shoulders hitching around another sob as he does, and Connor wishes it was possible to interface with him, because they’re pressed so close together and it still isn’t close enough.
“It’s okay,” Connor whispers, running a hand over his back in slow circles. “It’s okay. You’re never going to get rid of me.”
Hank nods against him, shoulders shaking, and Connor thinks that it’s healing to cry, but it’s equally cathartic to be able to hold Hank through it.
And Connor is right, in the end - nothing happens that night except that he holds Hank until he falls asleep and then keeps watching him after, thinking about how he used to think some brief time with Hank, a year or two, whatever he could get, would be enough for him, to sustain him, and how now, nothing ever will be.
He calls Josh an hour before he knows Hank’s alarm will be going off, when he’s reasonably sure Kamski doesn’t have anyone coming for him.
“Connor?” Josh says when he accepts the connection. “Hey. I thought you were away this weekend?”
“Yeah,” Connor says. “We are. I just need a favor.”
“Everything okay?”
“I...don’t know,” Connor says. He tries to keep his voice measured when he does, more for the sake of his own pride than anything, but he knows he doesn’t need to. “Listen, can you start keeping an eye on Carl Manfred’s house? The artist? He’ll be getting an android named Markus at some point soon, and we need to keep tabs on him.”
Most people don’t recognize Josh’s model since he’s reserved for university classrooms. It isn’t without risk for him to drive around Detroit, but it’s far safer for him than for Simon or North.
“Sure,” Josh says. “You just want me to let you know when he gets the android?”
“Please.”
“Okay.” Josh is quiet for a moment, and then he says, “What is this, exactly?”
“I don’t know,” Connor says. “Something of Elijah Kamski’s design, though, so...I don’t think it’s good.”
“Probably not,” Josh says. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll keep an eye on it.”
“Thank you,” Connor says. “I can alternate days with you once I get back.”
“Okay. Take care, alright?”
“You too,” Connor says, and he breaks the connection.
In the morning, they go home, and they drive Cole back to Jen’s house that evening, and Hank and Connor go back to work the next day, and things are okay, for a while.
It doesn’t stop Hank from saying, one night while they’re eating dinner on the couch, “Do you think maybe we should get married?”
“We’re already getting married,” Connor says.
“No, I mean...sooner. Like now. Just in case shit starts hitting the fan.”
Shit is going to start hitting the fan - that’s almost a given at this point, especially when Josh saw Markus in Carl Manfred’s yard for the first time yesterday, a fact Connor is still trying to decide how to respond to. He sets his bowl aside, shifting so he can tuck his legs under himself and look at Hank. “You want to elope?”
“Yeah. I mean...we can still do the whole thing over the summer like we planned, like have it be a celebration or whatever, but what if we just took Cole and found somewhere to do it this weekend?” Hank shrugs. “Unless you hate that.”
“I don’t hate it,” Connor says softly. He’s been thinking the same sort of thoughts - what if they can’t, what if the world knows what he is by the summer with the rate things are accelerating and his legal documentation doesn’t mean anything anymore?
What if he’s already gone, recalled and taken apart and analyzed and in a recycling plant somewhere instead?
“I just want to marry you,” Hank says.
“Then let’s do it.” Hank is grinning, and so is Connor, when Hank pulls him into his lap and kisses him.
In spite of everything looming, Connor thinks these have still been some of the happiest days of his life.
So they do - they pick Cole up on Saturday morning, and that afternoon, they get married in Riverside Park by an officiant Hank found online, in suits that don’t quite match because they had to take what was in stock. Cole holds on to Sumo and stands with them during the ceremony, and Connor looks at Hank and thinks of Amanda taking his hand and saying, “Be happy,” and he thinks that he is, somehow, against all odds.
He closes his eyes and he sees her in her rose garden, where he reconstructs her sometimes. He says, “I do,” and he watches Hank smile, and Amanda, too.
He wishes she was really there, because he thinks he’s been more alive in this last year than he ever was, even if he always has been, that he’s something like the rose buds she carefully tended as long as she could but didn’t live to see bloom.
And he wishes Hank could have known her, too. He knows Amanda would have liked him.
But it’s okay - he can still carry her with him, and here, too.
He kisses Hank and thinks that he’s alive because of her, but that he’s alive because of him, too.
They eat dinner at a nice restaurant after they drop Sumo off at the house, and even if it isn’t a proper wedding reception, Connor doesn’t feel like he’s lacking anything. Cole eats his spaghetti and says, “Can I call you Dad now?” and Connor answers, “If you want to,” like his thirium pump isn’t fit to burst inside his chest, and like Hank’s eyes aren’t watering where he sits beside him.
They take him back to Jen’s house afterwards, and Cole says, “Bye, Dads,” as he’s getting out of the car, cracking himself up because he thinks that’s a little bit funny, and then they drive to the hotel Hank booked for the night, and Connor thinks as they walk inside that it’s funny, how similar this feels to the night this all started. He knows now how much Hank matters, that he’s everything, but he also thinks he knew, just a little bit, then.
The room is similar, but the rest of it, the way Hank fucks him with a hand cradling the back of his neck, fingers playing across the exposed wires in his open port, the way Connor lets his skin glitch and peel back and move like liquid over his body without making any effort to hold it back, is so different. Connor puts stark white fingers on Hank’s face and feels the texture of his skin and his beard more fully than he ever could before Hank knew, and he whispers, “I love you, fuck, I love you,” again and again, like a mantra or a prayer or just something too big to hold inside himself without letting it out.
Connor doesn’t want to die - he doesn’t want to leave Hank, or Cole, or Sumo. But at least now he feels like he could knowing he’s lived.
“That’s something, isn’t it?” Connor asks Hank when he tells him what he’s thinking and Hank gathers him up and holds him close. “Even if I don’t survive this.”
“Yeah,” Hank whispers. “Hell of a lot more than most people get.”
Connor nods, and then he says, “It’s not enough.” He tucks his head to Hank’s chest. “I want to live.”
He wants to stay with him.
“Hey,” Hank says softly. “We’ll be okay”
The thing is, Connor doesn’t mean it to sound so dire. He spent nine years of his life adrift and alone without Amanda, without much to live for beyond his purpose, with no real reason to care whether he lived or died at the end of all of this.
It’s good, for it to matter. What’s it all for otherwise?
The weeks pass, and spring blossoms start blooming, and Connor and Josh keep taking turns watching Carl Manfred’s house, and Markus inside it. They follow Markus sometimes, when he leaves on errands, wander after him through city streets and parks and grocery aisles.
They’re together, watching him buy paint for Carl, when Markus bumps into a group of protestors who try to push him around. Connor moves in on them, twisting his wedding band on his finger as he does, but it’s broken up by the time he gets there. He kneels beside Markus to help him collect the paints he dropped, and it’s almost imperceptible, the way Markus’ jaw is clenched, his brow furrowed.
Almost.
It’s starting for him, Connor thinks, but he also thinks that’s what Kamski always intended.
“Are you okay?” Connor asks once Markus rights himself. The protestors have dissipated, so Josh steps out of the alley to join them - Connor has forged proof of ownership for him so Josh can walk with him freely, in case they’re ever stopped and questioned.
“Yeah,” Markus says, rubbing his temple where his LED is circling red.
Connor gives him a sad smile. “I’m Connor. This is Josh.”
“I’m...sorry that happened,” Josh says.
Markus is quiet for a moment, and then he says, “It’s okay. It just...it just hurts.”
Josh looks at Connor with a question in his eyes, and when Connor shrugs in response, Josh extends a hand to Markus, peeling his synthskin back and offering an open link. “Can I see?” he asks softly. “I understand it. The hurt, I mean.”
Markus looks at his hand, blinking. “What good will that do?” he asks. “It won’t fix me.”
Josh shrugs. “Maybe not. But I think it helps not to be alone.”
Markus looks at his hand for a long moment without taking it, and then he says, “I should get home to Carl. He’s still asleep.”
Connor and Josh watch him go, and Josh says, “He’s riddled with software errors, I imagine.”
“Seems like it,” Connor says, mulling it over. “I wonder how close they are.”
“Carl and Markus?”
“Carl and Kamski,” Connor says. “I wonder if Kamski warned him about us.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Carl has a gallery opening next week. I think maybe Hank and I should see about becoming last minute donors. Somebody at CyberLife said Kamski is traveling in Europe for the next week - it would be a good time to try to talk to them, maybe figure out how to turn Markus off if Kamski did design him to be a ticking time bomb.”
Josh looks up at the news marquee playing another headline about the increase in deviancy cases and potential CyberLife recalls. “I think the bomb is close to going off, Markus or not.”
Connor claps his shoulder. “Yeah. I think we’d better hurry.”
That night, Connor slides his phone across the table to Hank, open to a tab about Carl’s exhibit. “You want to get dressed up and go look at abstract art with me?”
Hank picks it up to look at it. “This is donors only. How much do we have to pony up?”
“This close to the event? Probably ten grand.”
“Jesus,” Hank says, although he’s not opposed to it, Connor doesn’t think.
He puts on his best puppy dog eyes and reaches across the table to smooth Hank’s collar. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
Hank shakes his head, laughing. “You’re lucky I love you and CyberLife pays a stupid salary.” He takes Connor’s empty plate from him and says, “You want to talk to Carl?” while he’s loading the dishwasher.
“And Markus,” Connor says. “We talked to him a little bit today, but he wouldn’t let Josh interface with him. He’s troubled, though, I think, so...we probably don’t have much time. And I think Carl cares about him...maybe he’ll help?”
“Kamski already knows everything, so I guess it can’t hurt,” Hank says. “We’ll have to get a sitter. Jen’s out of town this weekend.”
“I’ll text Ben,” Connor says, and he does, right after he retrieves Hank’s credit card to make an exorbitant donation.
“God, that hurts,” Hank says when he sits beside Connor on the couch. “It’s not even good art.”
“Shh. We’re big fans,” Connor replies, smiling when Hank makes a gagging noise beside him.
Connor returns Hank’s credit card to his wallet, tucking their marriage license back inside where it’s fallen out a bit. It comes with a pang every time he sees it, because Hank only carries it in case Kamski ever does report Connor. Connor doesn’t know if it would be enough to get him out of CyberLife custody, but Hank thinks it would cause enough of a legal stir to at least buy them some time, and so he keeps it close.
He’s looking forward to the day when they both feel safe enough to put it away.
Cole is predictably curious about the whole thing when Connor picks him up for the weekend and tells him Ben is going to watch him for a few hours on Saturday. He tries at first to just not say who the exhibit is for, but Cole stares at him when he says they’re going to a gallery, brow knit tight. “Dad hates art,” he says dryly.
Connor shrugs. “I mean, his closet kind of looks like an abstract painting on steroids, no?”
Cole laughs, but he’s also too smart to be distracted by the joke. “Why are you going?”
Connor isn’t going to lie to him outright, so he sighs and says, “It’s Carl Manfred’s exhibit.”
“It’s about Markus?”
“Yeah. Just keeping tabs on things.”
“You and Dad are like...spies. Aren’t you?”
Connor smiles. “I don’t know what we are, bug.”
Cole leans back in his seat, reaching for a coin and tossing it the way Connor taught him. “That’s cool,” he says, earnest.
Cole doesn’t understand it, really - Hank and Connor have been very careful, even if it’s been impossible to keep things from him entirely - but Connor finds that it’s still honestly kind of nice to have his support.
Friday night is the same as so many others they’ve had, and early Saturday evening, they leave Cole with Ben and drive across the city to the gallery. What Connor wants, more than anything, is the opportunity to interface with Markus, to read his code and understand what Kamski built into him. He wishes Markus would grant him that himself, but he thinks he’s too loyal to Carl yet, too devoted to what he believes is his task.
Connor suspects, like most men of wealth and comfort, that any activism from Carl Manfred has been part of over the years is more performance than anything. But he is progressive “for a boomer”, as Hank put it when they discussed it earlier that week. He’s shown some vague support for androids, and even if it comes nowhere near actually advocating for android autonomy, Connor hopes it’s an open door.
“Ready?” Hank asks as they pull up to the valet, and Connor squeezes his hand. He can’t believe he ever thought this work and his life with Hank had to be at odds for each other.
The gallery room where Carl’s exhibit is on display is small, and filled with people that he and Hank probably wouldn’t choose to spend an evening with otherwise, but it is what it is. Carl is at the head of the room, greeting guests, but Connor is really looking for Markus.
He finds him dutifully tucked into a corner, keeping still so he’s hardly noticed. He is at least dressed in a suit Carl must have bought him instead of his usual mandated uniform, so that’s something of a good sign, at least.
Nobody is looking at him to watch his LED spinning yellow, but Connor sees it all the same. He wonders if he’s still thinking about the protestors, or some similar experience, or if he’s just running routine maintenance...
He wishes they could have brought Josh - Markus didn’t exactly respond to either of them a few days ago, but Josh had more luck. Still, Connor pushes his hair out of his face and squeezes Hank’s arm. “I’ll be right back,” he says as he leaves his side.
Markus is standing by the bathrooms, so Connor walks into the men’s room first, washing his hands idly just for something to kill the time while he waits a minute. The bathroom door opens behind him as he reaches for a paper towel, and Connor looks up, surprised to find Markus standing behind him.
“Are you following me?” Markus asks, which is interesting, because it means he has some sense of paranoia in relation to himself and not just Carl’s care.
Connor tosses the paper towel and turns to lean back against the sink. “No. My husband just loves the arts.”
It’s actually hard to say with a straight face, Connor thinks as he bites the inside of his cheek.
Markus looks at him for a long moment, and then he blinks and says, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m doing. I should be watching out for Carl...”
“Hey,” Connor says, holding him back as he turns to go. “It’s okay. You’re not doing anything wrong.”
“It...feels like I am.”
Connor does wish he had Josh here. He gets this part, the slow awakening, how hard it is to reconcile programming with growing self-awareness, but he’s never experienced it himself the way the others have.
“You’re not,” Connor says again.
“I’ve been thinking about...” Markus starts, but then he shakes his head. “Never mind.”
He’s gone just as quickly as he appeared.
Connor follows after him, catching up to him in the narrow corridor outside the bathroom. He grasps him by the arm, and Markus doesn’t shrug him off or really fight at all. Connor turns so his back is towards the gallery space, so only Markus can see when he lifts his hand and pulls his synthskin back. “Can I see?” he asks. “I’m a programmer...I might be able to help.”
Connor means that he might be able to override whatever protocols Kamski built into him, but Markus’ LED spins red and there’s hope in his voice when he says, “I just want to go back to the way I was. Things were good, with Carl. They were good. And even if they weren’t...I shouldn’t want anything else.”
“I know Carl has been kind to you,” Connor says. He wants to say, “You could be more, and experience true friendship,” but he doesn’t think Markus is ready to hear that. Not yet.
Instead, he adds, “Let me look. I can at least see if there are any diagnostics we can do.”
The sense of triumph Connor feels when Markus hesitates but then extends his hand in return is significant, but it doesn’t last. Connor takes his hand and opens the connection between them, reads everything, feels it, and suddenly he sees exactly what Kamski has done.
Markus can spread it. Deviancy. He can spread it, like a virus, to androids who are ready to wake up, but also to those who aren’t. Amanda developed the same protocols for Connor, but they ultimately decided together to remove them from his capabilities, because it’s dangerous, waking an android who isn’t ready. They can react violently, or it can break their minds...they’ll be ‘alive’ but still just shells of themselves, lost without their programming.
It could become chaos so easily, and Connor imagines that’s exactly what Kamski wants, what he’s counting on.
And just as Connor suspected, Markus’ own deviancy was planned, written into his programming - it’s practically a foregone conclusion. Connor called him a Trojan horse, and that’s exactly what he is.
But it’s still true, what Connor would have liked to say to him. Markus can be more...more than Carl’s android, and certainly more than Kamski’s tool.
“What?” Markus asks when Connor pulls away from him - Connor is sure he looks plainly troubled. “What’s wrong?”
Connor reaches for his own tie to straighten it, just for something to do with his hands and all the nervous energy running through him. “I can help,” he says, “but there are parts of your programming that I need to overwrite. I’ll need a few hours to do it...if I pick you up from Carl’s house tonight, after he’s asleep, are you willing to sneak out for a few hours?”
“You can fix me?” Markus asks.
“I can try,” Connor says, knowing all the while that eventually they’ll have to talk about what being “fixed” really means in this context, what deviancy is, what’s happening to him.
“I...I shouldn’t leave Carl alone.”
“Markus,” Connor says, “I think this is urgent.”
Markus scrubs a hand over his face, and then he nods. “Okay,” he says softly. “I’ll meet you.”
“Okay,” Connor says. “Good. I’ll be in touch, alright?”
Markus nods, and Connor squeezes his arm before he turns and makes his way back to Hank, watching as Markus takes his place in the corner yet again.
“Did he follow you in there?” Hank asks when Connor reaches his side and slips his arm into his.
“Yeah,” Connor whispers. “He let me scan him...I have to overwrite his programming tonight. Kamski built him to...to spread it ...”
“Fuck,” Hank says softly. “You were right, then. He does want a war.”
More than that, Connor thinks, he wants a war he can win . He wants to be the victor.
“I’ll text Ben,” Hank says when Connor doesn’t respond, slipping his phone from his pocket. “Ask him if he can stay the night with Cole.”
It’s some small comfort to Connor that it’s Hank’s immediate assumption that they’re in this together, that if Connor is going to Carl’s house to steal Markus away, he certainly is, too. Still, he squeezes Hank’s arm and says, “You should get home. I’ll call the others - I’ll be okay. We just need to park and wait for him.”
“You sure?” Hank asks, in a way that makes it clear he’d rather come along.
“Yeah,” Connor says quickly. “I mean, what is Ben even going to think if we ask him to stay?”
Hank shrugs. “Maybe we party.”
“Stop,” Connor says, swatting him. “It’s okay. I promise. Let’s just enjoy the evening.”
Hank sighs, and then he says, “You want to go grab a burger then? I know we spent a lot to be here, but we probably shouldn’t let Carl see your face anymore.”
He’s right, even if Connor does feel bad about the donation. He squeezes Hank’s fingers and says, “Sure. I’d like that.”
It turns out to be a better night than Connor was expecting, but Hank is good like that, good at distracting him even when he’s preoccupied by something else. Connor asks Josh, North, and Simon to pick him up later, but after that, he mostly forgets about anything beyond the small corner burger joint they find to eat at.
Or, at least, he sets the rest of it aside, which is probably the most he can hope for. He and Hank talk about other things - where they’ll go for vacation that summer, and Cole, and the game Connor is developing - and Cole texts both of them a picture of the fort Ben made for him and Sumo in the living room, and it makes Connor feel...fixed, and rooted.
They make him feel permanent in a way he’s only now realizing he hasn’t since Amanda’s death.
A little after ten, the gallery empties across the street, and Josh pulls up in Amanda’s car to pick Connor up. It’s autonomous, which means the windows are deeply tinted, so it’s safe enough for them to be driving, but Connor still leans across the table and kisses Hank quickly so they aren’t sitting in plain sight for long.
“Hey,” Hank says, tugging Connor’s tie. “Text me, okay? You know I worry.”
Connor kisses him again. “I know. Love you.”
“Love you too, baby.”
It feels so mundane, watching Hank collect their empty food bags while he walks out of the restaurant, looking at him again as he climbs into the car and catches Hank spinning his wedding ring on his finger.
It’s a moment that Connor will look back on, years from now, with profound clarity, a moment in which he’ll see every detail frozen like a telltale sign that it’s the last moment they’ll have together before everything changes.
But hindsight always works like that, especially for Connor, and if everything about these moments has to become sharper, pulled into greater focus, impossible to forget, then he’s glad he spends them looking at Hank and thinking about how much he loves him.
They get to Carl’s house and park on the carb long before Carl and Markus get home - “Who knows how long they’re going to be?”, Josh says, and North scoffs in the back seat and says, “The way that artist had people clamoring over him? Probably a while.”
Connor slips his phone from his pocket and texts Hank, just to let him know that they’re there. He’s settling in for a long wait, but when he sets his phone on the console, a movement on the porch catches his eye.
“Hey,” he says, elbowing Josh and nodding at the man unlocking the door. “Did we know someone else lives here? I thought it was just Carl and Markus.”
“It is,” Josh says, craning his neck so he can see. “Oh, I think it’s Carl’s son.”
Connor runs a search and comes up with a Leo Manfred with an extensive list of arrests for possession. There would probably be convictions too if he wasn’t rich enough to buy his way out of them.
“What’s he doing here?” Simon asks.
“He comes by sometimes,” Josh says. “I’ve seen him around before. They have...a tense relationship. I think Leo asks for money from time to time.”
Connor watches the lights come on inside the house as Leo moves through it, narrowing his eyes as they watch him go to Carl’s studio and start rifling through his paintings through the window. He’s being careless, knocking things over, dropping canvases on the floor, and when he turns to face the window for the first time, Connor can see how bloodshot his eyes are.
“Shit,” he says under his breath. “He’s high.”
“Yeah,” Josh says. “He usually is.”
“They’re going to get home and think there was a break in and call the cops, and that’s going to fuck this whole thing.”
“We could come back,” North says. “Tomorrow, maybe?”
“I don’t know,” Josh says. “Leo pushes Markus around sometimes, when he’s here, even when he isn’t high. And if Markus’ programming is as unstable as we think...”
“Yeah,” Connor says. “We have to get him out tonight.”
A car turns onto the road a few intersections down, and Connor realizes a moment later that it’s Carl’s car - it’s autonomous, but Markus is in the driver’s seat. North sees him, too, because she sits forward and says, “What are we going to do? We can’t let them go in there.”
“Yeah,” Connor says, unfastening his seat belt. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Jesus, what are you going to do, just walk up to them and say hi?” North hisses.
Connor wishes he knew, he really does. But that doesn’t stop him from stepping out of the car and crossing the road as Markus and Carl pull into the driveway.
His phone vibrates in his pocket, and when he interfaces with it to check it, it’s Hank saying, “Love you too, baby.”
God, Connor hopes this doesn’t fuck everything up, but it has to be done.
Markus sees Connor approaching them before Carl does, his eyes going wide when he recognizes him. He takes a step towards Carl, like he’s afraid Connor might hurt him, but Connor paints a friendly smile across his face and raises a hand in greeting when Carl looks his way.
“Hey,” he says. “I’m sorry to bother you. I live a few blocks up and I was walking my dog, and we saw someone kind of shifty going into your house. I just wanted to come back and let you know before you went inside.”
Markus quietly comes to stand beside Carl as he says, “Oh. Thank you. What...what did he look like?”
“Tall, dark hair, skinny...”
“Kind of homeless?” Carl asks.
“Yeah,” Connor says. “Yeah, that’s him.”
“Ah, fuck,” Carl says, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Leo...”
“Do you want me to take care of it, Carl?” Markus asks.
“No, that’s...that’s fine. We can deal with it together.” Carl looks back to Connor. “I didn’t get your name?”
“Connor,” Connor says quickly. “Anderson.”
“Huh,” Carl says. “Tells you I don’t get out enough lately if I don’t recognize my neighbors. Thanks, Connor.”
“Sure,” Connor says pleasantly, although he lets the smile fall from his face the moment Markus wheels Carl’s chair around, giving Connor a long look over his shoulder as he does.
Connor hangs back, but he doesn’t go back to the car. Instead, as Markus is letting them inside, Connor follows after them, catching a foot in the door before it can close and the automated locks can engage again.
He doesn’t trust the looks of Leo Manfred, nor does he really trust Carl - if there’s an altercation, of course Carl is going to prioritize his son. It’s a mess they can’t afford right now, and so he sticks close, and he counts himself lucky that the house is large enough for him to move through it relatively unnoticed.
He waits in the foyer, listening, although he does slip into the sitting room once Markus and Carl move to the gallery. The voices are hushed at first, but they rise quickly as Leo tells Carl that if he’s going to cut him off, he’ll take the paintings that were meant for him and sell them instead.
And sure enough, Carl tells Markus to stop him, because what else is Markus except a body to put between himself and danger. If he knew Markus was afraid, Connor wonders if Carl would do just the same.
Don’t, Connor thinks, even though Markus can’t hear him. Please, don’t.
And to his credit, Markus does withstand it, the way Leo tries to push him. Connor thinks maybe they’ll be okay, that the situation will just diffuse even if Markus absolutely deserves to get his blows in, that he’ll go upstairs and meet Markus in his room and they’ll just be able to get out.
He thinks that right up until he hears the police sirens coming down the road. He flinches at them instinctively, but at first he thinks it’s just a coincidence. Carl didn’t call the cops, not when he knew it was Leo.
But there’s a knock on the door anyway, a noise that goes unnoticed over the crash in the studio as Leo pushes Markus into the shelves, and Connor swears under his breath as he ducks into the coat closet.
“Connor,” Josh says over their wireless connection, “fuck, get out of there.”
Leo called them. He must have, before he even got here for them to get to Carl’s house so quickly. Connor feels sure of it...but why?
The police force the door open by overriding Carl’s security system, and it doesn’t make any sense.
Unless...someone told him to do it.
Someone who needs Markus to break.
“Kamski orchestrated this,” Connor whispers to Josh. “This whole thing.”
“Jesus,” Josh says. “You’re clear...just come on .”
Connor can’t. He already knows he can’t.
“They’ll shoot him,” he says, and he’s already leaving the closet, following the cops in, because whatever Kamski intended tonight, it can’t happen.
What Connor is desperately trying to do is get close enough that Markus can see him, to call him off, because it’s fucking awful but they just need to get out of this. They need the cops to take Leo, to leave, and then he and Markus can get out...
That isn’t what happens.
And in retrospect, maybe Connor should have known better. Maybe he should have known that the deviancy crisis has progressed far enough that people are scared and cops are even more trigger-happy than usual. Maybe he should have known that Markus could just be standing there, hands at his sides, and that the cops would try to shoot anyway, because Leo’s face is bleeding from Markus pushing him away, and for no other reason.
“Wait,” Connor says behind them, because he’s fucking improvising, isn’t he, holding his hands up when the cops turn on him with their guns still drawn.
“Who the fuck are you?” one of them asks. They keep their guns trained on him as Connor slowly moves around them, towards Markus.
“I’m a neighbor,” he says. He’s glad he didn’t change, because the suit helps the lie. “I live up the street...”
“You need to go home, sir...”
“I’m a programmer,” Connor says, desperate, while Carl and Leo both gape at him. “I’m a programmer, okay? Please don’t shoot him.”
“This android is violent...”
“It’s just a stress response. He didn’t do anything. Can you please just lower your weapons?”
Connor’s bad leg hurts as he moves to stand in front of Markus, a phantom ache from the morning he got shot. He stares down the barrel of the gun and feels the permanent indent in the metal of his bones.
“He’s a specialized model for Mr. Manfred’s care,” he continues when the cops keep staring at him. “Please, just...”
He doesn’t know what makes them scan him. He doesn’t know, and he wishes he did, wishes he knew if it was something he said or did wrong, a step he miscalculated.
All Connor knows is that, just like Hank’s security team at CyberLife, they scan him and his body lights up on their sensors, mapping the metal inside, the parts his human skin can only hide.
“What the...” the cop says, and Connor sees it coming, tries to push himself and Markus back into cover behind the overturned table.
It’s terrible, the way he can see things coming but can’t always see a way to stop them.
The first shot hits him in the back, tearing through his thirium pump regulator. Connor feels it shatter in his chest, his pump stuttering on without it, struggling to adapt to the thirium leakage.
The warning signals and flaring sensors override everything, and maybe that’s a blessing, because he doesn’t feel the second shot at all.
Or maybe it’s just because no one ever really feels themselves dying if it happens fast enough.
Connor drifts, for a moment or two, in and out. He doesn’t know how Markus gets them out, but he’s aware of the glass shattering as they go through the window, even if it feels like something he’s hearing on the tv in the next room. And he hears North frantically saying, “Connor?! Fuck, oh fuck...”
He feels Simon trying to interface with him, but his processors are shorting out too much for him to respond.
“What do we do?” Josh asks, and Simon says, “Just fucking drive!”
Connor’s phone vibrates in his pocket - it’s Hank, he knows somehow, and maybe him fixating on that when he can’t focus on anything else is the only reason why he feels North take it from his pocket.
He gets lost somewhere in himself after that, in old memories and static. He floats, like he’s being carried out to sea and then pulled back by the tide, and for some reason, even as his sensory receptors glitch and fail, he feels the weight of his wedding ring on his hand.
Hank knows something is wrong before North calls.
He knows because Connor tells him, even if he’s not quite sure Connor realizes he has.
Cole is in his room, in bed, and Hank is on the couch with the tv on for background noise, even if he isn’t paying much attention to it with the way his thoughts are racing. His phone vibrates on the coffee table, and Sumo lifts his head where he’s lying at Hank’s side to look at it.
It’s Connor, but it isn’t English. It’s all zeros and ones, binary code, and Hank’s hands are shaking when he copies and pastes it into a translator.
“I love you so much,” it says. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. Tell Cole for me...”
There’s more, but it doesn’t make much sense - some of it seems like maybe Connor is talking to Amanda, and some of it is pieces of conversations he and Hank have already had, memories instead of new thoughts.
It doesn’t say what to tell Cole, but it wouldn’t need to. Hank thinks about that conversation, about Connor saying, “If I’m gone...I want him to know this was for something,” every day of his life.
He’s shaking when he tries to dial North’s number, but his phone rings before he can. It’s her.
“North?” he says when he answers, voice breaking.
“Hank, hi,” she says, and it’s plain she’s crying. “We had some trouble at the Manfreds’...the police were there. Connor’s...” She sobs weakly. “They shot him.”
Hank knew, but hearing it still makes his stomach fall. “Is he...shit, how bad is he?”
“He’s...” North trips over the words, struggling with them a few times before she manages to say, “He’s dead.”
And Hank knows that dead means something different for androids - Simon was ‘dead’ too, and that didn’t stop Connor from bringing him back. It just means no processor activity, and extensive repairs, but...
But it’s not like they can just walk Connor into a CyberLife repair shop.
“Hank, I...I don’t know what to do. I can’t fix this, and I don’t know where to take him...”
“Just bring him home, okay?” Hank says, because there’s nowhere else to go. Even if there was, it’s still what he would say.
“We need a programmer. One of his processors is destroyed - we need a programmer to extract the memory data and put him back together.”
And Connor is the only programmer they know.
Hank scrubs a trembling hand over his face. “Just...we’ll figure it out. We will. North, listen...is anyone following you?”
“I don’t think so. I think Carl held the cops up just long enough that we lost them, maybe.”
“Good,” Hank says. “That’s good.” It’s still just a matter of time before they run their body cam scans of Connor’s face through their database and come up with his name, but at least they have time.
Hank retrieves his wallet with their marriage license tucked inside. He’s been ready to have to prove Connor’s personhood at a moment’s notice, just in case, and now he’ll certainly need to.
“Call when you get here,” Hank says to North. “We have Cole this weekend...we need to try to be quiet.”
“Okay,” North says. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” Hank says. He almost hangs up before he remembers what Connor was trying to do in the first place and it occurs to him to ask, “Did you get Markus?”
“Yeah. He’s with us. He’s better off than Connor - he got him out, somehow - but they shot him, too.”
“Okay,” Hank says, tongue feeling thick in his mouth. “That’s good.”
It doesn’t feel like an even trade, his husband for this war, but Hank has always known it might be the one he would have to make.
“Listen,” he says, because his eyes are welling up now, “drive safe, okay? I’ll see you soon.”
Hank hangs up before North can say anything else, burying his face in his hands and sobbing. Sumo noses into his lap as his shoulders heave around the broken noises, and it’s all he can do to muffle himself so Cole won’t hear.
He knows he has to pull himself together - and he does, forcibly, after he lets himself feel for a minute that everything is imploding in on itself. He gets up and checks on Cole first. It’s a relief when he quietly opens his door and finds him fast asleep, snoring the smallest bit.
That’s good. It won’t last - even if Cole stays asleep through everything, Hank is working with limited time to figure out how to tell him about this, because he’ll still wake up in the morning and find Connor, see him in whatever condition he’s in at that point. Hank has always had a strong stomach, but he still feels sick at the thought of it.
He goes downstairs to the basement next - after Connor told him everything, he moved a small supply of thirium and replacement biocomponents here, just in case, because of course he’s always known the path this might take. Hank clears the couch off and arranges them with shaking hands.
By the time he has everything laid out, there’s a car pulling into the garage and his phone is vibrating in his pocket as North calls him. He hushes Sumo and goes out to meet them, steeling himself with his fists clenched at his side.
North is already getting out of the car when Hank joins them in the garage - she’s been crying, and she looks at him sadly as she closes the distance between them and grasps his arm. “I’m so sorry,” she says again.
Josh helps Markus out of the car - he is in bad shape, one eye ruined, but his processors at least seem to be untouched. “Hey, Hank,” Josh says, voice soft and sad as Hank passes him to look in the back seat.
Simon is still there, Connor’s head propped in his lap. There’s blood everywhere - on the seat, on Simon, on Connor’s face and his hands and his suit. The thirium has already evaporated, but Connor bleeds red, for the most part, looks human when he’s hurt by design.
Hank doesn’t know if it’s easier or harder that way, but he thinks maybe this is just shit either way.
“Hey, baby,” he says as he leans into the back seat, even though he knows Connor can’t hear him. “You’re home - I’ve got you.”
With Simon’s help, Hank gets him out of the car, hoisted into his arms, and North gets the door for him as he carries him inside.
“We have to find a programmer,” she says as she follows at his side. “Is there anyone at CyberLife you might trust?”
“I don’t...I don’t think so.”
“You have money,” North says. “A bribe, maybe?”
“Maybe,” Hank says, but they all have money, too, and so he doesn’t know how much his bank account means here, or if it’s enough to save Connor’s life.
They take him downstairs, and Hank lays him on the couch, and he examines his bullet wounds even if he knows it won’t matter if they can’t repair his processors, takes comfort in the fact that he’s done this part of it for him once and knows how to do it again.
Maybe there’s just a part of him that wants to force himself to look, to confront this head on.
“This is my fault,” Markus says behind him, voice soft.
“No...” Josh starts, but Hank interrupts him.
“You got him out, right?”
Markus shakes his head. “He tried to tell me and I didn’t listen. If I had just listened...”
“You got him out,” Hank says again, because that’s what happened, and so it’s what matters. It’s no good, dwelling on what could have been.
“I can start working on repairs,” North says, rifling through the supplies Hank has set out. “What about your DPD friends? There’s a whole black market for android mods - maybe they know a programmer we can pay off?”
Hank has seen some of that shit - Jeff shares cases with him every now and then when they get drinks. It’s grisly, gruesome work, for the most part, done by people who decidedly believe androids are machines. He doesn’t know if he can trust any of them with Connor.
“Hank,” North says when he hesitates, “we don’t have that long before the police show up. We have to get him back online before they do, or we might not have the chance.”
“I know,” Hank says. “I know.”
Hank hears the basement door open at the top of the stairs then, and he breathes, “Fuck,” when Cole says, “Dad?”
Cole can’t see most of the basement from the doorway, and Hank quickly moves to block his view and stop him from coming any further. “Hey, bud,” he says. “You need to go back to bed, okay?”
“You’re crying,” Cole says when he sees him. “What’s going on?”
Hank reaches him and bends to look at him, taking Cole’s arms in his hands. “Listen,” he says, voice hitching, “I will tell you everything, but we don’t have the time right now. He’s going to be okay, but Connor is hurt...”
“Hurt how?”
“...and he wouldn’t want you to see him like this. Some of his friends brought him home and we’re trying to get him some help.”
“Dad,” Cole says, voice shaking, and he doesn’t have to say anything else for Hank to know that he’s scared, begging for reassurance, and for honesty.
There just isn’t time .
“Please, bud,” Hank says, “just go back upstairs, okay? Take Sumo with you. I promise everything is going to be okay.”
There are footsteps on the stairs behind him, and Hank looks over his shoulder to see Simon there, lifting a hand to Cole in a small wave. “Hey, Cole,” he says softly. “You remember me?”
Cole furrows his brow, but his face lights with recognition only a moment later, even though there are thousands of identical PL600’s in Detroit. “Simon?”
“Yeah,” Simon says, voice cracking as Cole launches himself into his arms. “It’s me.”
“I thought you were dead,” Cole whispers, tears in his eyes.
“I was. Connor brought me back.”
“He did?”
“Yeah,” Simon says. “Why don’t we go upstairs and catch up, okay? I’ll sit with you.”
Hank thinks for a moment that it’s a good tactic, but then Cole says, “I want to talk to Connor,” and pushes away from both of them, stumbling down the stairs before Hank or Simon can catch him.
He stops short the moment he sees everything - Josh sitting with Markus in the corner, trying to do what he can to repair his face, and North kneeling by the couch, and Connor...the blood and the open access ports, human and not...
“He’s an android,” Cole says when Hank catches him by the arm and pulls him away. “He’s an android .”
“Yeah, he is.”
“You knew?”
“Yeah,” Hank says. “I know this is scary, and so confusing, but you have to go with Simon and give us some space, okay? I promise we’ll talk about this when Connor’s okay...”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Hank,” North says behind him. “We’re running out of time.”
“Yeah, I’m coming...”
Cole wipes his tears with his hand. “Time for what?”
“We need to find a programmer for him. Now please, just...”
Simon reaches for Cole, tries to pull him away, but Cole shrugs out of his grasp as Hank is turning back to Connor, determined, and says, “Chloe.”
“Cole...” Simon starts, but Cole speaks over him to say, “ Dad . Chloe. She did most of the programming work on Markus.”
“How do you know that?”
“She told me.”
“Markus,” North says. “Is she Kamski’s friend?”
“His android,” Hank says, studying Cole. “What did she say?”
“It was when you and Connor were in the kitchen at Kamski’s house. She told me Markus was built for that artist, and that Kamski wrote his monitor program, but she did most of the work.”
“What are we going to do?” Simon asks. “Drive up to Kamski’s house and steal his android?”
“Kamski’s in Europe right now,” Hank says. He’s not feeling very lucky tonight, but this...this might be good fortune all the same.
“I know how to reach her,” Markus says behind them. “Chloe. I still have her direct line from our previous interfaces.”
“Yeah,” Hank says. “Good.” He passes Markus his cell phone and lets him dial the number, and then he takes it back.
It barely rings before Chloe answers it. “Mr. Anderson,” she says when she does. “Is everything okay?”
Something about the question, and about Cole watching him expectantly, hopefully, while Connor is lying there like that, makes tears well in Hank’s eyes again, but he forces them down to say, “Yeah, uh. Not really. Connor is...he’s in really bad shape, and we need a programmer to restore his processors. He got shot.”
Chloe is quiet and practical when she talks - she kind of reminds Hank of North. “I could help.”
“Can we trust you?” Hank asks, because Elijah Kamski has manipulated so much around him.
Chloe huffs a small laugh at that. “Hank,” she says, her tone a little less programmed and far more cynical, “nobody hates that rat-faced bastard more than I do.”
And yeah, Hank thinks. He believes her.
“I’ll need a ride,” Chloe says. “Kamski removes my access to the vehicles when he’s away.”
“I’ll send someone,” Hank says, but Simon is already moving, clapping him on the shoulder and retrieving the keys to Amanda’s car from the table. He ruffles Cole’s hair as he passes. Hank watches him go and says, “Thank you, Chloe.”
“Hank, listen. It will depend on the damage, how much data I can extract to rebuild his memory. I’ll bring a new processor core, but...there’s a chance we might have to bring him back online with a similar program, without any of his memories.”
Hank knows, but that doesn’t make it any easier to think about. “Then...he wouldn’t be him.”
“No,” Chloe says. “Not exactly. You could help me rebuild his memory new, and it would be a version of him, but...”
“I don’t...” Hank starts, and it’s hard, to say what comes next, because it means letting Connor like he is, and maybe not even being able to bury him because no one buries their androids, and the DPD is coming to confiscate him anyway. “I don’t think he would want that,” Hank says, clearing his throat to hide another sob, turning away from Cole so he can wipe his eyes with the heel of his hand.
There’s no replicating Connor. Hank knows that. They could get him close, and Hank could tell Chloe every last memory he has of him over the last year, how they met, how they got married, how Connor wakes up early every morning just to slip a hand under Hank’s shirt and cuddle with him, everything Connor is afraid of and everything he loves, but it wouldn’t be him, and so what’s the point?
They do that with androids, sometimes - rebuild their memories if they’re corrupted. Maybe it works with domestic assistant androids - maybe people can’t even tell the difference. But Hank would know, and Connor has always been more than that anyway.
“I understand,” Chloe says softly. “I’ll do what I can, then. I’ll see you soon.”
When Hank hangs up, he turns to find Cole tentatively moving to sit at North’s side, on the floor beside Connor. “I’m Cole,” he says to North, voice quiet.
North gives him a weak smile. “I know. Connor talked about you a lot.”
Cole looks at the biocomponents laid out beside her. “I’m glad he’s an android,” he says. “If he wasn’t, he couldn’t come back.”
“Yeah,” North says gently. “That’s true.”
Cole reaches for Connor’s hand, and then he touches the open port of his chest cavity, studying his thirium pump. “It kind of looks like a heart,” he says, and he’s trying to be brave, but his face twists and his small voice breaks as the tears come.
Hank goes to Cole and grasps his shoulder. “Hey,” he says, “why don’t we go back upstairs. You can watch tv, if you want.”
Cole sniffles and shakes his head. “I want to stay with him. He stayed with me when I was hurt.”
That’s true, and hard to argue with, but Hank still kneels at his side and says, “Listen...his repairs can be upsetting, and they’re not something I think I want you to see. You can stay, but if I think you’re not handling it well...”
“I can handle it.”
“If I think you’re not handling it well, we’re going upstairs, okay? No questions.”
“Okay,” Cole says. He shuffles around so he’s sitting cross-legged beside the couch. “I’ll be okay.”
Hank lets him stay mostly because he wouldn’t want to be alone right now, and he doesn’t think Cole should have to while he and North try to patch Connor back together.
And Cole does keep himself composed as well as he can - he lets out a shaking breath every now and then, a sigh to mask a sob, but he also watches Hank and North work with a sort of curiosity and inherent acceptance that Hank wishes Connor could see.
“Did you always know?” Cole asks at some point, voice soft, once Hank and North have finished replacing Connor’s thirium pump regulator.
“No,” Hank says. “He, uh...he got hurt before, a little while back, and he told me then. I helped fix him up.”
Cole watches Hank seal a thirium relay with something that looks like admiration and says, “That’s really cool of you, Dad.”
Hank elbows him with a dim smile. “I’m cool sometimes,” he says, because he doesn’t trust himself to say, “It’s Connor - what else was I going to do?” without tearing up again.
Hank’s phone rings in his pocket as North twists Connor onto his side so she can work on the back of his head, and he grabs for it, worried it’s Simon and that he’s run into some kind of trouble.
It isn’t. It’s Jeff. And Hank knows what it’s about.
He leaves the room - the others know what’s coming, but he doesn’t want to scare Cole - and then he answers it.
Jeff doesn’t wait for him to say hello when he does. “Hey, Hank,” he says. He sounds tired. “Uh, listen. This is a courtesy call because we’re friends, and if anyone asks, this didn’t happen.”
“Yeah,” Hank sighs. They might as well get this over with.
“You don’t sound surprised to hear from me this late, so I assume you know what I’m going to say.”
Hank sinks onto the couch and pushes a hand through his hair. “Yeah. You’re going to tell me that you ran body cam footage through your database after an incident this evening, and that you’re looking for Connor.”
“Yeah,” Jeff says, and he sounds genuinely sorry for it. “You know about him, I guess? About how he’s...”
He trails off, so Hank picks it up for him. “An android,” he says. “Yeah. He is.”
“Fuck, Hank. You know we have to bring him in. Just...I know you’re willing to do some crazy shit sometimes, but please don’t get in the way when my guys get there. Promise me?”
“I can’t,” Hank says, and he’s sorry, too.
“Yeah. That’s about what I thought.”
Jeff sounds resigned to it, and Hank knows none of this is his fault, that his hands are tied, that he’s already going out on a limb for them just by calling, but none of that stops him from saying, “I’ll give you a courtesy notice, too. Earlier this evening, your officers shot my unarmed husband in the back and in the head. We can repair his body but it will be a small miracle if we can restore his memory, which means your people will have killed him anyway. And you don’t have anything on him except for what he is, only he’s not CyberLife property gone rogue that they have a right to, or a danger to anyone. When your guys get here, I’ll have our marriage license and nine years of Connor’s work history on hand, and the most expensive lawyers I can afford on the way, and I’ll expect your officers to be able to explain to me the precise legality that allows them to take my kid’s dad when Connor isn’t property and was never built to be, much less to shoot him the way they did. You think you’ve seen me raise hell, but you haven’t seen the half of it.” Hank doesn’t give Jeff a chance to say anything else before he says, “I have to go. I’ll leave the porch light on for all of you.”
“Hank...” Jeff starts, but Hank still disconnects the call, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“Fuck,” he whispers to himself.
It’s a relief when he hears the garage door opening for Simon a few minutes later. Hank meets them in the hallway as Simon lets Chloe inside. She’s task-oriented, hardly looks around her new surroundings or even at Sumo or Hank. “Hello,” she says, hoisting her bag higher onto her shoulder. “Where is he?”
“He’s downstairs,” Hank says. Chloe nods and continues on without them, but Hank catches Simon by the arm and holds him back. “We probably don’t have more than an hour before the DPD is here. Less, in all likelihood. Jeff called to say they’re heading out soon.”
Simon nods, letting out a heavy sigh. “More time would have been nice.”
“You all should get out of here. Chloe will need to stay, but if they find the rest of you here, they’ll just take you, too.”
“Yeah,” Simon says softly. “We can’t go home, can we?”
He means Amanda’s house, and Hank shakes his head. “Not for long, anyway. They’ll find that property in Connor’s name and search it eventually, too.”
“Shame. It was nice to have a home.”
“Do you have anywhere else you can hide out for a while?”
“There’s an abandoned freighter we scouted a few weeks back. We’ll be okay.”
“Okay,” Hank says, even as it’s hard not to feel like everything is falling apart.
“I’ll get the others.”
Hank follows him downstairs to find North just about done with what they can do for Connor without help. There aren’t many repairs they can do for Markus without some of the biocomponents in Amanda’s lab, but Josh has at least fashioned a bandage for him to cover the damage to his eye and helped him recalibrate his vision settings to account for it.
Cole watches Simon whisper something to North, brow furrowed, before he looks at Hank and says, “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”
God, Hank doesn’t know how to tell him this, but there’s no hiding it from him. He motions for Cole to come with him over to the quiet corner where the pool table is, and he kneels so they’re eye-level and says, “There’s not a lot of time, bud, so I need you not to ask questions, okay?”
Cole swallows hard and nods.
“The cops are going to be here in a little bit. They’re going to search the house, and they’ll try to take Connor.”
“They can’t!”
“Shh. I want you to stay down here. I’m going to try to buy Chloe as much time as I can to help him.”
Cole is biting his lip hard to stop himself from crying again, so Hank puts his hands on his face and kisses his forehead. “It’s going to be okay, alright? They think he’s CyberLife property and that he just went deviant in the last few months like the others. They’re not going to know what to do with Connor having an entire life - a job, a family, all of that protects him. And I know the guys at the DPD still...they’ll listen to me more than anyone else. Just...trust me, okay? I won’t let them take him.”
“I trust you,” Cole whispers.
Hank squeezes his shoulder. “I love you. Go say goodbye to Simon, alright? They need to get out of here.”
Cole sniffles as he leaves Hank’s side, but he’s still plainly determined not to cry. Hank watches him hug Simon for a moment before he moves to join Chloe, kneeling beside her as she examines Connor.
“How bad is it?” he asks, because he has to, even if he’s afraid of the answer.
“Not as bad as it could be, just to look at it,” Chloe says, “but I won’t know for sure until I start the data extraction.”
“Look, you need to know...the cops are coming, and I’m going to try to keep them out of the house, but if they find you...”
“Better that than Kamski’s house,” Chloe says, shrugging. “Please. I need to focus now”
She really is practical, or maybe it’s just years with Kamski that have her resigned to a certain fate. The others leave, and Hank sits across the room with Cole watching her work, waiting for the doorbell to ring.
It’s weird, watching Connor like this. And not just because he’s dead, even if that death doesn’t have to be permanent - although that doesn’t help either. It’s more that Hank watches Chloe connect her tablet to the damaged processor in Connor’s head, and he thinks about how Connor has perfect recall, how he’s never lost a memory. It’s weird to look at that small metal panel and think about how their entire history is on it, tucked away into such a small place.
“His core memories are intact,” Chloe says as she reads the text flying past on her tablet. “That’s good, at least.”
It’s weird because it makes Hank confront another question - what if they can recover enough of Connor that he’s himself, but not enough that he remembers Hank? It’s shitty to think about, all of that time lost for Connor, but Hank supposes he can remember for him, if he has to.
Mostly it’s just weird, and so hard, to think about all of the different ways their lives could be broken after tonight, even if Hank also knows none of them matter as long as Connor makes it through this.
“How long?” Hank asks once Chloe starts the data extraction.
She sits back and stretches her arms over her head. “Twenty minutes. It won’t be done then, but we’ll at least have the full picture of what we can salvage. We have enough to bring him back online, but I don’t know how many gaps he’ll have, or how large they might be.”
It’s at least some good news in the midst of a profoundly shitty night, even if Hank knows how hard any gaps in Connor’s memory would be for him when he’s used to none at all.
He doesn’t have much time to think about it, because there’s a heavy knock on the door then. Cole sits upright beside him as Hank gets to his feet. “Dad?”
“It’s okay, bud. Just stay down here with Chloe. I’ll be back when I can.”
Cole gets up and wraps his arms around Hank’s middle, and Hank says, “Hey. It’s okay. He’s going to be okay.”
Cole extricates himself, nodding and wiping his eyes, and Hank ruffles his hair before he turns to go upstairs.
There’s another knock at the door before Hank can get there, loud enough that it has Sumo bristling and barking at his side. Hank hopes with everything he has that it isn’t Gavin - he thinks he can reason with anyone else - but it’s still a relief when he finds Chris Miller on his doorstep instead.
He isn’t alone - there are three cop cars along the street, lights spinning, and just as many reporters who must have followed the police radio transmissions there - not surprising, really, given the escalation of the deviancy crisis and the relative lack of information. They’re desperate for a story.
“Hey, Hank,” Chris says, apologetic. “You doing okay?”
“Been better. How about you?”
“Yeah,” Chris says. “About the same. I’m sorry about Connor.”
Chris and Connor met once, at Jeff’s Christmas party a few months back. They got along well.
Hank doesn’t say anything to that - he just doesn’t know what there is to say, because saying that he’s sorry, too, isn’t anywhere near enough to account for what he almost lost tonight. The moment of silence passes long between them, until Chris scuffs the toe of his shoe along the doormat and says, “Can we do this the easy way and you just let me in?”
Hank sighs, shaking his head. “I don’t think we can.”
“Yeah. I thought not.”
“I have lawyers on the way who are prepared to make the case for Connor’s personhood, but until they get here, I’ll stand between all of you out there and him. They’re all alive - the deviants, they all are - but it’s more than that with Connor. He’s never not been alive, and he’s not CyberLife’s.”
“Hank,” Chris says, “I don’t want this, either, but there’s not much either of us can do. If it’s not me, it’s just going to be another officer, and I’ll be kinder.”
It’s true, Hank knows it is, but he still stays where he is and says, “If you want me to move, you’ll have to make me.”
“Hank,” Chris says again. He puts his hand on his gun, but he doesn’t draw it - an idle threat, and they both know it. “Come on.”
The thing is, Hank understands Chris’ rationale all too well - he told himself similar things so many times when he was on the force, that he had to do something because it was going to be done either way, and at least he would be some degree of compassionate about it. If Chris left his doorstep, another officer would just come instead, someone who might like Hank less and who’s never met Connor to feel anything for him at all. Hank gets it.
But what he also knows, and what he expects Chris will learn, too, with time and maybe some distance, is that there’s no room for good people in this line of work, and no way to be good doing some of this shit.
And dissuading him isn’t the most important thing, either - what they need here is time more than anything, time for Chloe to do her work. And beyond that, they need to craft the narrative, because there are reporters watching, and this feels like a crucial moment that will shape what comes next.
Connor talks about this sometimes, about how every move he’s made for eighteen years is carefully calculated, because it’s always been inevitable that one day the truth of what he is would come to light, and the story he’s told about himself, the narrative he’s crafted, has to be beyond reproach, undeniably human.
And Hank knows they can hear him, that every one of these reporters is armed with equipment to amplify their conversation, so he says, “He’s been working with Warrior for fifteen years, Chris. Fifteen years. He had an apartment before he moved in with me, and a gym membership, and a favorite bar...he’s a person. He’s just a person.”
“I know,” Chris says, and Hank thinks he means it, that he just feels like his hands are tied.
And it’s okay - he isn’t talking to him anyway.
“I’ve known him for more than a year and I could never tell he wasn’t human. And then once I knew I married him anyway.” He pulls his marriage license from his wallet and holds it out to Chris. “This has to change something, doesn’t it? You can’t handle him like the other deviants when there’s this. His lawyers will make the indisputable case that he’s a person if you take him, and the DPD will look like shit in court. I know you think you have to, but you don’t want to be part of this. No one does.”
Hank hears something behind him, a floorboard creaking, but it’s quiet enough that he doesn’t look away from Chris until Cole appears at his side, jaw set despite the tears on his cheeks, hands fisted at his sides.
“Leave my dad alone!” he says, loudly enough that everyone can certainly hear him even without equipment.
Hank grasps him by the arm and hauls him around behind him - Chris doesn’t have his gun drawn, and he wouldn’t shoot, but this is still too close for comfort. “I told you to stay downstairs.”
“Hank and I are just talking,” Chris says. “I’m not going to...”
Cole leans around Hank to say, “I mean Connor - leave him alone!”
Chris looks at Hank and says, “Why don’t you take him inside and get things sorted? I’ll, um...let me see what I can do.”
It’s a kindness he doesn’t have to give them, even if it’s no guarantee, so Hank tries to feel grateful as he nods and pulls Cole back inside after he shuts the door. “What are you doing?” he asks, taking Cole by the arms and shaking him gently. “It’s dangerous. I told you to wait .”
“I just wanted to help!”
“This isn’t your fight, bud. You shouldn’t have to...”
Hank’s phone rings then - Jeff’s number. He picks it up immediately.
“Hey,” Jeff says when he does. “I’m, uh. I’m going to call my guys back for tonight, okay? This is going to go above my head by tomorrow, and there won’t be much I can do...I mean, I’ll probably be fired for this by then, but just...take the night, okay? Get those expensive lawyers you mentioned, and get Connor in better shape.”
“Okay,” Hank says weakly. “Thanks.”
“Yeah. Don’t mention it.”
Hank scrubs a shaking hand over his face. “It’s just going to be this same thing tomorrow, isn’t it? Them trying to take him and deactivate him so they can look him over.”
He doesn’t say, “I need to get him out of here,” but it’s what he’s thinking, and maybe Jeff can tell.
“I don’t think so,” he says. “They’ve been broadcasting this all night...I don’t think anyone can take Connor without backlash. Your kid just made sure of that. Just...don’t run, okay? Running is going to make it worse. If Connor hasn’t done anything, then try to just ride this out. I think...I think he’ll be okay. You’ve done it, you know? They have to handle him differently because of you and Cole. And if I’m still on past tomorrow, I’ll do what I can to protect you.”
Hank looks out the window and meets Chris’ eye as he gets into his car. Chris gives him a weak smile and a small wave, and Hank returns the gesture. He doesn’t think Chris is any more cut out for this work than he ever was. He hopes someday he’ll realize that.
“I’m sorry, Hank,” Jeff says. “It’s...hard, to know what to think about any of this shit. But...I don’t know. You aren’t usually wrong.” He sighs heavily. “I hope Connor will be okay. Sue the hell out of us for this.”
“Yeah,” Hank says. “I will.”
“Good luck,” Jeff says. “You don’t have to, but let me know how things are later, if you want to.”
“Okay,” Hank says. “Thanks, Jeff.”
He hangs up and turns back to Cole, who’s watching him expectantly. “They left,” Cold says softly.
Hank bends to wrap his arms around him. “Yeah,” he sighs. “I think we’re going to be okay.”
Cole squeezes him tighter. “Chloe says we can wake Connor up soon. He just...some of his memories were corrupted, so he’ll remember most things, but not everything. Kind of...”
He stops, trailing off, so Hank says, “What?”
“Nothing. It’s just...that makes him kind of like us, doesn’t it?”
Hank smiles, eyes watering again as he squeezes Cole’s shoulder, because it’s a nice way to look at things, and a small comfort. “Yeah,” he says softly. “Yeah, I guess it does.”
Hank puts a hand on Cole’s back and guides him back downstairs. Sumo follows dutifully after them, immediately crossing the room to lay on the floor beside Connor as Chloe types on her tablet.
“Hi,” she says. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. They’re gone, for now anyway.”
“Good,” Chloe says, smoothing her hands over her skirt. “He’s going to be okay. There are some things he won’t remember, and with the memories being corrupted, I can’t say what they are or how consequential they might be, but I do know they’re just blips in time. A few hours out of a day three years ago...things like that.”
There’s no way to put into words how much lighter that makes him feel, so all Hank says is, “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
Chloe gives him a small smile. “All things considered, it isn’t.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. I’m glad I could help.”
“I’ll loan you my car - you can take it out to Amanda’s house and meet up with the others, if you want.”
“I think I’m actually going to go home,” Chloe says. “My sisters are still there, and I’m the only one who’s awake. I want to get them out eventually, too. And besides...maybe you could use someone who knows what Kamski is up to.”
“Maybe we could.”
Chloe gets to her feet - she’s much shorter than Hank, but she still reaches up to grasp his shoulder before she looks back at Connor. His chest cavity is still open, a thirium replacement IV line running directly into his pump. “He lost a lot of blood,” she says. “He’s going to be very cold for a while when he wakes up, but that’s normal, and his temperature will stabilize as his systems do. Just keep him bundled up in the meantime and he’ll be okay.”
“Okay,” Hank says. “Listen, if you ever need anything, you have my number. I owe you.”
Chloe smiles and squeezes his shoulder again. “I’ll get a cab. Stay safe, okay?”
“Yeah, you too.”
“Bye, Chloe,” Cole says as she turns to go, and Chloe smiles and ruffles his hair.
“Bye, sweetheart. Stay brave.”
Hank watches her climb the stairs, and then he turns back to Connor, pulling the blankets Chloe has draped over him over his unbuttoned shirt, up to his shoulders. He looks small and pale, but he shifts the smallest bit when Hank pushes his hair from his forehead, and it’s a welcome change to the complete stillness.
Hank’s shoulders sag as he sinks back to the floor beside him, some of the tension leaving him, even if it isn’t gone entirely. At least he and Connor can figure the rest of this out together.
“I’ll go get the space heater,” Cole says. “Do you think he’ll want hot chocolate?”
There’s nothing about that question that should make tears well in Hank’s eyes again, but it’s been a hard night. “Yeah,” he says, softly, so his voice won’t crack. “I’m sure he’d like that, bud. Thank you.”
Cole smiles. “I’ll be right back.”
Hank watches him go, and then he reaches for Connor’s hand, lacing their fingers.
It’s hard, waiting for him to wake up. But at least it’s not forever.
Connor dreams of swimming through an ocean of static and empty white noise, that he’s being pulled open and stretched thin, like too little putty over too large a surface, and then folded in on himself again.
He dreams that he’s trying to find Hank. He doesn’t remember reaching him, but suddenly he’s holding his hand, and it hurts less, so he must have found him.
He dreams that he’s open and exposed, that Cole is there and he can see everything that isn’t human inside of him. He tries to close himself up so he can’t see...so he won’t know...
Something stops him, taking him by the wrist, and Connor tries to pull his arm back until he hears Hank say, “Connor. Hey, baby. It’s okay. You’re dreaming. You have a thirium line running, you can’t close that yet...”
Cole isn’t there. It’s just a dream.
Connor tries to open his eyes, but before he can, Cole takes his other hand and squeezes.
There’s a moment of panic, an awareness that Cole has to know, but Cole wraps an arm around him, fitting it around his open chest port, and hugs him before Connor can make sense of it.
When he opens his eyes, his head is on Hank’s lap, and Cole is sitting on the floor with Sumo beside him, forehead tucked to Connor’s shoulder. There’s a thirium line running, like Hank said, and he’s freezing but alive.
“Hey,” Hank says softly when Connor’s eyes focus on him, running his fingers through Connor’s hair. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”
Connor tries to speak - his mouth is dry, and it takes him a moment to get the words out, but finally, he manages to hoarsely say, “Are the others okay?”
“Yeah,” Hank says. “They came here with you after Carl’s. They’re...I think they’re going to go to Jericho for a while. Until things are safer.”
Connor nods, putting a hand on the back of Cole’s head. “This wasn’t how I was going to tell you any of this, bug.”
Cole squeezes his hand. “I know. I don’t care if you’re an android, though.” He shrugs, smiling sheepishly. “Besides, it’s kind of cool.”
Connor ruffles his hair and then lifts his hand, reaching around to feel the healing bullet wound at the back of his head. His synthskin has already mended itself, his hair grown back into place, but he can feel it underneath, the scar written into his chassis.
He looks back to Hank and says, “Markus?”
“Yeah. He’s okay, too. He’s with the others. Kind of took to Josh.”
“Good,” Connor says softly. “Can I sit up?”
Hank grasps him by the arm and steadies him as Connor gingerly rights himself. He has to move carefully with the thirium line and his open chest port, but he eventually manages to fit himself in at Hank’s side, and he’s grateful when Hank wraps a warm arm around his shoulders and kisses his forehead.
Cole gets up and sits in the empty space beside him, and Connor is quiet for a moment, trying to sort through the evening and everything he remembers, before he finally says, “I was dead. Wasn’t I?”
“Yeah,” Hank says softly.
Connor nods. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers, voice breaking. “I was trying to help Markus...I didn’t know they would scan me. I’m sorry I did that to both of you.”
Hank already has an arm settled around his shoulders, but he pulls Connor in closer to him and wraps his other arm around him, too, so Connor is enveloped and safe. “You didn’t do anything,” he says into Connor’s hair. “They did. I think after tonight at least some people have to see that.”
They sit there together, with Sumo at their feet, until Connor’s thirium line runs out - Cole passes Connor the hot chocolate he made for him, and Hank tells him everything else that happened that night, and Connor thinks that however bad it was, it could have been so much worse, that he has Markus and Chloe to thank for looking out for him, but also Hank and Cole for loving him so fucking much, so obviously, because that was really what laid a shield over him.
It’s five in the morning by the time Connor can detach the empty line and close his chest panel - his temperatures are slowly regulating, and he feels better, even if he still stays nestled close to Hank, even as they walk together upstairs to bed. Cole gives Connor another hug, strong enough that it knocks him back a step, before he goes to his room. Sumo follows Hank and Connor into their bedroom, and Connor is grateful, once Hank has helped him change and he’s tucked under the covers, for the additional warmth as the dog lies at his side.
When Hank gets into bed beside him, Connor twists to face him, to put his hands on his face and kiss him while he tells himself he’s never going to let him go again, to look at him, both of them on the verge of tears, because they know how close they came.
Hank is warm, and solid, and alive, but Connor is, too.
He’s alive, too.
And he thinks, in spite of everything, in spite of how bad so much about their situation still is, that this feels like something of a turning point.
More people see now what Hank has always seen, what Amanda always knew - that he’s alive. And if Connor is alive, then all of them are. Connor knows Hank is shaken up, unsettled by the night - it’s the same way Connor felt after the accident, when he saw exactly what it would be to lose Hank, even though he didn’t. He can feel it in the way Hank is holding him, like he doesn’t have it in him to let him go, like he wouldn’t know how to.
“Hey,” Connor whispers to him when Hank slips a hand into his hair, when his face twists when he feels the scar under Connor’s skin. “I’m okay.”
Hank nods against him, inhaling a shaky breath. “They’re going to be back to take you in for questioning in the morning.”
“I know.”
“If you don’t trust them...if you wanted to go to Jericho for a while...it’s your choice, baby.”
“Jeff’s not wrong. If I run, that just tells people I think I have something to hide.” Connor snaps the waistband of Hank’s boxers against his stomach, trying for a joking tone when he says, “Besides. I’d miss you too much.”
It gets a small laugh out of Hank that feels like its own reward, and Connor grins and kisses him again, a little more insistently this time, like a suggestion.
And it’s a suggestion Hank is all too happy to oblige - he’s a delicate, almost impossible mix of desperate and painstakingly careful as he twists Connor onto his side and helps him work his sweats over his hips, and as he fucks into him from behind, arms wrapped tight around him, pressing kiss after kiss to Connor’s temple and his neck and the corner of his mouth, Connor doesn’t think he’s ever held him tighter.
Connor knows he’s missing things - he’s aware of those little blank spaces in his memory the way a human wouldn’t be, because they’re so foreign. He’s missing tiny pieces of his life before Hank, and fragments of his life with him, and that hurts the smallest bit, but even without his perfect memory, he still knows that tonight is special.
In the morning, as Connor is brewing coffee and Hank is watching Sumo in the yard, they get the call from the DPD, calling Connor in.
Hank goes with him while Ben watches Cole - they do Connor the courtesy of allowing Hank in the interrogation room along with his lawyers, although Connor suspects that’s more for Hank’s sake than his. Connor sits there with Hank’s fingers laced with his under the table while he answers their questions about the shooting at the Manfred residence, and about himself and his history.
The officers ask him where Markus and the others are, and Connor lies and says he doesn’t know. They want to subject him to a memory scan, but Connor’s lawyers get him out of it, and after several tense hours, the officers say, “Stay where we can find you, okay? You’re free to go for now.”
Jeff Fowler is watching from his office when Hank and Connor leave, and he gives them a small smile.
~~
Connor doesn’t always feel certain of much, but he is sure that Kamski’s intention in building Markus was to try to start a war, one that would leave him back on top even if it ruined all the rest of them.
In the end, he doesn’t get one.
It’s a much quieter thing. It has to be. Footage plays on repeat across the news outlets of Hank and Cole that night, information about Connor and his life - his job, his history...some of them even run his and Hank’s wedding pictures. Some people decide Connor is dangerous, some kind of weapon, but others?
Others look at Hank and Cole standing between Connor and everything trying to take him and figure there has to be a reason why.
And so it caves, crumbling in on itself from there. If Connor is human, maybe their androids could be, too, or maybe they already are. Most people aren’t inherently ill-willed - they just don’t know better. But now they’ve seen the unavoidable truth of it. Android sales slow, and CyberLife’s stock tanks, and more and more people protest for android rights as the summer passes, until finally, on a snowy night in November, otherwise uneventful, their autonomy is granted. Hank and Connor are there in the plaza with the others when it happens, gathered there because they heard whispers the legislation was under review that evening. Somehow the news cameras find them, even from the helicopters flying over the crowded streets, and clips of Connor catching a hand in Hank’s hair and kissing him circulate across the internet for days afterwards.
The months haven’t been without struggle - as public support mounted, the deviant androids have been much safer moving through the city, but Markus and Simon have both been hurt at different times. Hank lost his job at CyberLife almost immediately after the news about Connor came to light, but Warrior Games, somewhat miraculously, kept Connor on their staff. Hank has always been careful with money, and their budget never really grew into his CyberLife salary anyway, so in the end, it’s enough to see them through.
That Christmas, they have the wedding they rushed earlier that year, because if everything went to shit, they wanted to at least be married. Cole and Sumo are there again, and so are Ben and Jeff and Chris and Jen, but the others - Markus, North, Simon, Josh, and Chloe - they’re there, too. It’s awkward and tense but in the way all new things are, and it helps that Jeff and Chris have both left the force since the beginning of the year.
And so things go on. Connor gets rid of the birth certificate Amanda had fabricated for him and keeps only the one that lists her as his mother. He still has the inheritance she left him, and her house - he’s never known what he’s saving them for, why he doesn’t sell the house, why he keeps the money separate from his own savings, but now he thinks he does.
They open the sanctuaries in the summer of 2039, halfway houses in Amanda’s name intended for androids recovering from trauma, or just from their programming, for people who don’t have anywhere else to go. The first to open is in Detroit - Markus and Josh move in there, intending to help the others transition. North and Chloe do too, for a time, but they’re intended to move to California once their west coast house opens, and Connor doesn’t blame either of them for wanting to get away.
(Simon has gone home, back to Hunter’s family - they pay him as their housekeeper and treat him as family, and Simon couldn’t be happier, but he still joins them for the ribbon cutting.)
There’s a statue of Amanda that Connor had commissioned to stand outside the house. She stands there with her glasses on and her hair held up with two pens, like she always did when she worked, like Connor remembers her, a kind smile on her face so different from the program Connor removed from Markus, the one Kamski wrote in her image but not in her likeness. There’s an android child beside her, holding her hand, and it’s not Connor, but it could be.
It could be all of them, and that’s the point.
After the news crews disperse and their guests go home and the androids have settled inside, Connor sits in the courtyard, looking at that statue. He glances up when he hears the door open, finding Hank slipping out of the house. He slouches down on the bench beside Connor, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.
“What are you thinking?” he asks, and Connor shrugs.
“That I wish she could have met you,” he says, “and that... I don’t know. That I hope I’ve done right by her.”
Hank pulls him in and kisses his forehead. “You have, baby.”
Connor misses Amanda terribly, and he always will, but he thinks so, too, and that’s it’s own sort of comfort.
Hank squeezes Connor’s leg and says, “You want to head out? Jen’s dropping Cole off soon.”
They’re having spaghetti for dinner and Cole is bringing the new game they’ve been playing together. He’s been learning how to code and wants Connor to help him with his homework. They’ll sleep in on Saturday the way they always do, and Connor will wake up with Hank’s arms around him, and he’ll think about how much of his life he spent feeling set apart and alone, and how he can barely remember what that feels like, and isn’t that so small and so remarkable all at once.
“Yeah,” Connor says, taking Hank’s hand and leaning over to kiss him, feeling Hank smile against his mouth. “Let’s go home.”
Notes:
Thank you all so much for your patience and support while I take my fucking time posting this fic. I finished writing it at the beginning of the year, so it's definitely taken me a while to get it edited and posted here. This year has been really difficult for me with a number of pet health scares and the toll those have taken on my mental health, so I really appreciate all the love and kindness.
The good news about it taking so long, if you like my fics, is that I've finished a whole other fic and started on another one in the time it's taken me to finish getting this one posted. I won't say much about either of them, but if you're a fan of sugar baby Hank, like, as a concept, I've got you covered. 👀 I'm hoping to get both of those posted in a much timelier fashion than I did with this one, so keep an eye out for me soon.
And I know I say this every time, but thank you for all the kind comments even though I'm really shit at responding to them. I see them and appreciate them so much <3
I'm on Twitter if you want to chat with me. ❤️
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