Chapter Text
Hank was sure the kid just did these things to scare him. How else would he be able to time these things so perfectly?
Just as Hank had spotted Connor down the street, being supported by a blonde, bleeding man, the kid had just fell. His eyes had rolled back into his head, the way he’d seen happen to some androids who shut down and humans who died, and he’d dragged the two of them to the ground.
“Connor!” he said, breaking rank and taking off in a run. He was at their side in mere seconds, his hands hovering over Connor, unsure what exactly he was supposed to do.
There was so much damage. The poor kid looked like he’d been dragged through hell and back. Thirium covered him, seeping into the knees of Hank’s pants as he kneeled next to them. Wires shone through the plastimetal in his legs and his arms, strange popping and fizzing sounds occasionally snapping as electricity went through them.
But it was his face that made Hank hesitate.
“Oh, Connor,” Hank whispered, his voice cracking. “What happened to you?”
While his entire body seemed to be riddled with bits and pieces of shrapnel, it seemed as though the injury to his head was the worst.
A piece of what appeared to be metal had pierced into his skin. Right next to his LED, weakly flashing red as he laid there, likely dying. It was completely likely that the metal had pierced all the way into his processors. His brain…
“He saved me,” the man said.
Hank glanced over at the man, immediately taking in the piece of Connor’s jacket tied around his stomach, holding back the blood.
“I’m one of the people who set off the bombs. I’d planned on blowing myself up but he chased me. He grabbed me and forced me into an alley. He saved my life.”
Hank stared at the man, not sure he had heard him correctly. There was no way. No way this man had just confessed to him that he was the reason Connor was going to die. There was no way he had just confessed that and expected Hank to let him live.
It only took a second for Hank to pull his gun out and place it against the man’s head.
“Lieutenant Anderson! What the hell do you think you’re doing!?” Captain Owens yelled.
“He’s the person who set off the bombs,” Hank said. He could hear the anger in his voice. The violence. The hatred. He hadn’t felt this angry since Cole had died.
“What?” she asked.
“He set off the bombs.” He clicked the safety off of his gun. “He killed Connor.”
Captain Owens glanced at the android laying on the ground, taking in the damage that had been done. She’d never seen an android that destroyed that hadn’t already shut down.
“He’s not gone, Lieutenant. His LED is still blinking.”
Hank knew this. Not that it made him feel any better. The damage was so extensive, though, it was unlikely he would ever wake up again.
“We need him alive, Hank,” she said. “There might be more of them.”
Hank wasn’t sure if she meant bombers or bombs. Either way, Hank recognized it as the truth.
Hesitantly, he lowered his gun, his eyes never leaving the other man’s.
Captain Owens moved her men into place, surrounding the suspect and working on getting him out of the scene. She glanced down at Hank, who was still crouched next to Connor.
“My men have a stretcher for him,” she said, waving a few more men into place.
Hank stared at him like he was already gone. “I’m sorry, Connor.”
“He tried to contact you,” the man said. Hank glanced over his shoulder, where the man was being placed on a stretcher of his own. “He freaked out and screamed for you. He only calmed down when he was reading your messages.”
Tears dripped down Hank’s face as he reached out to take Connor’s hand. He grasped it like it was the only solid thing on earth.
“Why did you save him?” he asked. “You could have let him die, and then there would have been no witnesses.”
The man stared at Connor, taking in the link between the two men. “He was so scared. He said he was in pain...He had a lot of people who would miss him. And I owe him my life, as well.”
XXX
>SYSTEM_OFFLINE
>SYSTEM_REBOOT
>SYSTEM_ONLINE
“Connor?”
>SCANNING_VOICE
>VOICE_FOUND
>VOICE_HANK_ANDERSON
“Hank?” Connor asked.
“Fucking Christ, son,” Hank breathed. “I was so scared we’d lost you.”
>SCANNING_SYSTEM
>MEMORY_DAMAGED
“What happened?” Connor asked. He attempted to move and found that he couldn’t move or feel any part of his body.
“They said you might have trouble remembering,” Hank said. He brought a hand up and brushed the hair from Connor’s forehead, gently revealing the damaged spot near his LED. While they had managed to get new, reinforced plastimetal to replace that which had been damaged, his skin had yet to cover it up again. Hank also knew that his processors were likely to be on the fritz until they could get someone with higher clearance from CyberLife to come and check him out.
Hank just prayed it wasn’t Kamski, as he’d heard his name mentioned a few times in reference to repairs.Because, even if he was no longer a part of CyberLife, he had apparently taken an interest in Connor, which meant that any time Connor was damaged it was him who showed up.
“I can’t move,” Connor said. He tried to relax, to decrease his mounting stress, but it was difficult when he couldn’t move at all.
“That’s only temporary. They disconnected those during surgery to prevent any more seizures,” Hank said.
“Seizures?”
A dark look came over Hank’s face, letting Connor know that he must have witnesses one personally. “The bombers used some kind of technology that’s supposed to mess with androids. Apparently, you came into direct contact with it when you saved one of the bombers.”
Connor had no memories of this whatsoever. How much of his life had he missed?
“I don’t remember.”
Hank didn’t seem to be surprised by this, Connor noted.
“You had some shrapnel lodge itself in your skull, near your LED. Jericho’s surgeons warned that you might have memory troubles for a while, or at least until we got someone in here from CyberLife,” Hank said.
Connor closed his eyes, absorbing this information. That’s when he noticed that he barely had any notifications behind his eyelids, bringing up the very faint memory of fear as he was overwhelmed with error messages.
His eyes snapped open. Hank jumped slightly, having thought that Connor had fallen back into rest mode.
“What happened to my notifications?”
“Hm?”
“My error messages. I remember them piling up, blocking out everything else.”
Hank’s eyes widened. “Oh, right. Those. Do they really cover your vision?”
“Yes. If I don’t clear them quickly enough.”
A low whistle sounded from Hank. “Damn, kid. They transferred all of them to one of these android-connected-tablets just in case they were important before they rebooted you.” Hank seemed to be investigating the tablet beyond Connor’s line of sight. “I never knew you saw so much.”
“I don’t. Not always,” he said. “There were a lot of things that happened, I think. Damage to my body tends to result in more alerts.”
Hank scrolled through some of them, clearly not worried about invading Connor’s privacy. And Connor found that he really didn’t mind, either.
Hank paused as he found some of the messages he had sent while Connor was missing. They all had little unlocked symbols next to them, causing them to stick out further than the others.
Hank opened his mouth to ask about them but quickly stopped himself. Connor would likely bring them up whenever he was ready. The last thing he needed right now was Hank pushing him to speak before he was ready.
“Markus said that they should have someone from CyberLife here within a few days,” Hank said. “It would be sooner, but a lot of other androids were damaged. They’re having to work overtime to make sure there’s enough thirium and biocomponents in the state for everyone.”
Connor let his eyes fall closed again. An image flashed behind his eyes, a blonde man he’d never met before helping him up off of the ground.
“What happened to the man? The blonde one?”
He didn’t need to be able to scan Hank to pick up on all of his other cues. The tenseness in his body, the tightness in his jaw, the hard look in his eyes. “He’ll live.”
Connor didn’t think it would do much good for him to ask any more questions, as it was unlikely Hank would answer them.
“Go to sleep, Connor.”
“I don’t sleep. I power down and go into rest mode or power saving mode depending on my ability to charge.”
“Goodnight, Connor.”
“Goodnight, Hank.”