No Straight Line
(Takes place after 'Gliding Over All')
He shot Tuco Salamanca and killed him. He single-handedly fought off two skilled assassins from the Salamanca Empire and lived. He juggled a marriage, a broken relationship with his sister and her husband, and his career everyday. He risks his life every time he wears the vest, or holds the gun. He faced PTSD and the deaths of his co-workers from an exploding turtle. For Hank, it's safe to say he's seen it all.
Except the fact that nerdy, shy, quiet, Walter White is the ruthless and calculating Heisenberg.
The same Heisenberg that caused his injuries, the deaths of his friends, and the nuisance known as Jesse Pinkman, is his brother-in-law.
Part of Hank wanted to kill Walt; one slug in that bald head of his sounds reasonable right now. Another piece wanted to turn him in, with stacks upon stacks of evidence held against him. Walter, and everyone involved, will go down like dominoes within weeks.
But there's a foreign part of him, a tiny sliver that tells him to look the other way.
The disgusting part is that he's agreeing with it.
He knows his job is to uphold the law; if someone's doing something wrong, it's his job to arrest him or her in the sake of justice. That black and white logic is starting to dissolve in this world of grays, he finds.
He's guilty of looking the other way sometimes; how many times he had to weasel Marie out of shoplifting charges he'll never tell. There was even an incident he had nearly beat Jesse Pinkman to death when he thought Marie was in danger. He could count on all fingers and toes he worked on instinct and not by the books to get the job done.
As he lives everyday as a cop, a friend, and a professional asshole, he realizes there's no straight line to walk. This world is about gray areas, crooked paths and angles to look from. Hank tries to understand Walt's angle, the reasons why he did the things he did. Hank wants to understand, wants Walt to tell it to him the question brewing in Hank's mind.
Why?
Financial reasons aren't an excuse: Hank is more than willing to give his last cent to support Walt and his cancer treatments. Forget worrying about paying him back; family always comes first.
Walt's cancer: perhaps Walt wanted to do something insane and dangerous as a last hurrah before he kicks the bucket. Sounds plausible, despite the calculated way to go out with a bang. If Walt wanted to do something insane, he could have told Hank and they would have gone to Mexico for a few weeks and Hank won't tell a soul.
Ego: Walt, though he appears to be modest, has moments of arrogance so potent Kanye West looks humble in comparison. Hank can't blame him; here is meek Walt running a drug empire under a DEA agent's nose.
Turning him in would only admit that and make him look like a fool in the eyes of justice. He'd be the laughing stock of his co-workers, he wouldn't be taken seriously. If anything, Walt's manipulation skills could make it seem like Hank is Heisenberg and not the other way around.
He decides the best way to go about this is to look the other way.
He'll play the lovable asshole DEA agent role to a science. He'll smile and laugh and eat at the table of the man who's killing his family than helping it. He'll pretend his discovery is null in void and will continue his life as is.
But as he's doing this, he's collecting evidence, biding his time. It won't be long before the cards come down and it's over.
His best course of action, after all, is to tread lightly.