"You have the right to remain silent," Connor declared with a seriousness that a six-year-old shouldn't have been capable of. "Anything you say can, and will, be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney-"
Hank did his best not to laugh at the sight of Connor reading the dirtbag his rights. But good god it was hard. A toddler pushing along a handcuffed dickwad as he cussed and swore, resisting arrest, was one hell of a sight.
It was really mostly luck that they caught the asshole at all.
Dan Hebler was an annoyingly vocal anti-android activist. He had already amassed multiple assault charges and, unfortunately, several followers. He and Connor had been called to the guy's rally, along with several other officers, since they had a history of turning violent.
They could bitch all they wanted, but they would need to put a stop to it if it got physical.
Sure enough, it didn't take long for the guy to start calling his cult to action. He brought out a gun and they had to intervene. He went down quickly, Hebler and several of his cronies, but during the arrest, he sure as hell didn't exercise his right for silence. Whether he knew it or not, in his shouting for 'justice for the true citizens of Detroit' he admitted to the shooting that they had been investigating when the whole Sawyer mess started.
He would bet his left nut that the bullet they pulled out of Bridget would match the asshole's gun.
"You can't stop the truth!" Hebler shouted as Gavin helped Connor wrestle him into the back of the squad car. "I will go down in history as a great hero of justice!"
"Oh, shut up," Gavin said, rolling his eyes. "You just got arrested by tickle-me-elmo, who the hell is gonna take you seriously after that?"
Instead of waiting for whatever reply Hebler would have spouted, he shut the car door, locking the man inside.
Hank didn't resist any longer, and barked out a laugh.
With the last of the violent protesters packed up and carted away, Connor bounded over to him happily. "We got him!" He declared with all the enthusiasm his little body could hold.
"Yeah, you sure as hell did," Hank praised. Without even thinking about it, he reached out and ruffled his hair, like had scored the winning run in a t-ball game, not put away a criminal. God, his kid was weird. So absolutely, perfectly weird.
Connor slid into place next to him, pressing against his hip as though needing the contact. Hank didn't complain, but the change in mood was hard to miss. He draped his hand over the kid's shoulders protectively. "He wasn't our black market dealer, was he?" He whispered, barely loud enough for Hank to hear.
"No, he wasn't," he sighed. It would have been way to fuckin' easy if he was, no way either of them were that lucky. They had nothing that connected him to Sawyer or anything related to his case. "Didn't look anything like him. Couldn't really have pulled off an impersonation."
"That's what I thought," Connor nodded and leaned impossibly closer to him. "But that's ok."
"Yeah?" Hank asked cautiously. The kid's excitement at catching the guy had melted quickly and been replaced with an oddly muted mood that he wasn't sure how to translate.
"Yeah." He looked up at him. There was a comfortable smile on his face, so he wasn't in distress at least. "We'll get him. I know we will."
"Damn right we will," Hank agreed.
For a while, they just stood like that. Comfortably, silently, as they watched the flashing red and blue of the patrol cars as they faded into the distance. Twelve violent men were now off the streets at least for a little while.
"I think I needed this," Connor admitted softly.
"That so?" He didn't blame him. After the week they'd had, they really needed a win. He moved his hand back to the kid's head, carding his fingers through the soft synthetic hair.
Connor leaned into his touch, then snaked his arms around Hank's waist, hugging him. "I was starting to think my mind was already too far gone. That I had regressed too much," he said. "I thought that might be why we hadn't made progress on the Sawyer case. It was my fault."
"Oh, Connor-" he started, but the kid wasn't done.
"I know. Irrational, right?" There were tears brimming in his eyes, but he still seemed eerily calm. Emotional, but not unhappy. "Except it's not. I know I'm getting worse, or younger, or whatever. I just… I'm glad I can still do this."
Hank crouched down to give him the hug he deserved. Tight, warm, comforting. He wished that, if he just held him long enough, tight enough, all his worries and anxieties would just go away. "You did great today," he said. He let how proud he was of the kid echo in his words.
"Yeah, I did," Connor responded, much to Hank's surprise. CyberLife had basically hardwired an inferiority complex into the kid, to hear him acknowledge a compliment was mind-bending. He nuzzled his face into Hank's shoulder affectionately. "I did good. We all did. I… sometimes I forget that I don't need to do this alone. I have you. I have a whole precinct of people to help me."
Hank wasn't entirely sure where he was going with all this, but he wasn't about to discourage it. He gave the back of his neck a gentle squeeze. "Damn right you do. We're all here for you."
"Exactly." Connor pulled back to look at him and, for a moment, those eyes were as old as he was meant to be. "I'm not alone. If I regress too far, if I can't solve the case, someone will."
God, how was it possible that he could love this kid more? "Well, you're not down and out yet," he told him. "Today sure as hell proved that."
Connor's smile could light up the whole damn city. "Right! I'm not going to stop until I have to."
Hank rolled his eyes, but it was more for dramatics than annoyance. "Don't use this as an excuse to be a damn workaholic."
Connor's responding smile was anything but reassuring.
-o-
Sure enough, Connor hit the ground running, brimming with new vigor for the case. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing, it was nice seeing the kid in such a good mood, but Hank was a little frustrated that he insisted on taking work home with them.
"We agreed I have limited time with my full cognitive functions, Lieutenant," Connor argued when he protested. "I need to make progress while I can."
Hank sighed, tossing one of the documents onto the coffee table. He hadn't actually given it a good look, but they were off the clock dammit. "Ok, first of all, I don't care if you're technically still working, you leave that 'Lieutenant' bullshit at the precinct," he scolded. "Second, what the hell happened to enjoying your childhood?"
"Sorry Hank," he said, leafing through another file and sounding anything but. "I assure you, I am enjoying myself."
Good lord, the crazy kid probably actually was. "Alright fine, you win. Knock yourself out. But I'm sure as hell done working for the day."
Connor didn't protest, so he leaned back on the couch and flipped on the tv. He spent the better part of a minute scrolling through various channels trying to decide what to watch when he got a devious idea.
He turned on Finding Nemo
Yeah, they had finished watching it yesterday, but it was Connor's favorite movie. If anything was going to distract the kid, this would be it.
Sure enough, as soon as the opening scene began to play, the tiny android's attention snapped to the screen. A small gasp escaped his lips with a quiet declaration of, "Nemo!"
Success.
Hank chuckled and patted the couch next to him. "You can watch it with me, if you want."
Connor's expression turned accusatory. "I know what you're doing, Hank."
"I'm not doing anything," he insisted. He grinned, knowing damn well if he was shooting for innocent, he missed the mark by a mile. "I'm just watching a movie."
He didn't look amused. His tiny face scrunched in frustration and he stared back down at the document he was holding. But his eyes kept straying to the tv.
Connor let out a frustrated groan before sharply setting down the file and climbing up onto the couch. "I guess I can take a break," he reasoned, snuggling up next to Hank.
Hank's smile only widened and he leaned over to plant a kiss on the top of his head.
"You're a bad influence on me, you know," Connor scolded, settling in comfortably.
"Oh no," he responded in mock horror. "I'm watching a movie instead of working unpaid overtime. How terrible."
"I'm going right back to work after the movie," Connor promised. His voice already sounded vaguely distant, almost on autopilot, as the bright animations distracted him.
Hank just hummed in agreement and held his kid, running his fingers through his hair rhythmically. If only things could stay like this, he mused. Simple, quiet. No murderers to catch or bodies to examine. He loved his job, he did. But part of him wondered if Connor would consent to a less hostile career if he were to retire.
The thought of being a full-time dad was sure as hell appealing.
But none of that really mattered right now. Now, he was happy to sit here on the couch watching a kid's movie with his adult son turned toddler. Hank had learned enough about parenthood to know that moments like this had to be cherished, that they didn't last.
He also knew how important this case was to Connor. So, despite wanting nothing more than to keep cuddling the kid, he didn't argue when he went back to sifting through the case files once the movie was over.
Connor happily spouted theories and ideas while Hank bounced his own scenarios back. It sure as hell seemed to make the kid happy, so he would just take it as another messed up way to entertain him. And if they made some headway, that was all the better.
The two of them sat sprawled on the living room floor for hours. Hank's back protested, but he could deal.
"I have the lists sorted by facility," Connor explained. "The employee and volunteer information is at the bottom. Unfortunately, not all of them have accompanying pictures, so we'll need to do a cross search to see if we can find any close matches."
"That's assuming the guy actually works there," Hank reasoned. He stretched, back popping loudly in the process. "He could just have an inside man too."
"I have attempted to factor that in. It will, however, add significant time to the search." Connor sighed. He typed into his tablet in one hand while sifting through files with the other.
"At least we know he needs to look a hell of a lot like Sawyer did," he offered.
Connor nodded, glancing up momentarily. "He has to, since he successfully passed as him."
He tapped a new search into his tablet screen, pausing only a moment when an ad played for some ridiculously unnecessary pool toy. Hank could almost see the child side of his mind getting drawn in before he won the fight for rationality and pressed the little X to close the window and resume his original search.
"Still a lot of people to sort through though," Hank reasoned, ignoring the break in concentration for Connor's sake.
Connor nodded, taking notes in another window before turning back to the file. "It is unfortunately tedious. I wish I had my normal computing capabilities. I would be able to run the searches in my head in a fraction of a second."
Hank had to admit, that sounded convenient. No wonder on a normal day Connor ran circles around the rest of the precinct. But, no sense bitching about it now, they'd make do.
Later, he reasoned, as he glanced at the clock and noted that time had gotten away from them. If Connor's increasingly frustrated noises were anything to go on, the kid was getting tired. Which meant he was also going to get grumpy. As much as he wanted to indulge the kid, his well being came first.
"You'll be back to your regularly scheduled computing before you know it," he promised. "But right now, I think it's time for bed."
"I would like to finish this," Connor countered both immediately and stubbornly.
Hank shook his head. "There'll be time for that tomorrow. There's too much to finish tonight and you need to get to sleep."
He looked up at him with a pout. "Just a little longer."
"Connor..."
"I'm not tired," he insisted petulantly, stomping one of his feet for good measure. Hank raised an eyebrow at the display and Connor froze. "Yeah, no, I heard it," he admitted sheepishly, closing the case file and setting down his tablet.
Hank chuckled then leaned over to kiss the top of his head. "Just go to bed, kiddo. The case will be there in the morning."
"I know it will." Connor leaned into the touch, smiling at him with that tiny, grateful smile of his. "Thank you, Hank. Good night."
"Good night, Connor. I'll see you in the morning."
He watched the little android go, only mildly concerned that he took his tablet with him. Hank had no doubt the kid was going to try to do a little more work before he fell asleep, but figured he would pass out before long. He'd check in on him before heading to bed himself and make sure.
With how tired he looked, he wasn't too worried.