"You're a disappointment, Connor," Amanda says, with disdain dripping from her voice. "I've anticipated that you would've gotten back by now." Connor shows no reaction but does feel shame in him.
"Perhaps Cyberlife needs to replace me, all this is just a hindrance to the investigation. I can simply upload my memory to the Cyberlife data cloud." Connor agreed, slightly goading Amanda.
"You and I both know that you cannot do that unless that… 'portal' is open. Only then would you establish a proper connection to pass on the information your model has collected so we could replace you." Amanda sat down on the rowboat in the river of the zen garden.
Connor began rowing.
"Of course, Amanda. My mission is too important to think about the variables. My primary function is to investigate and hunt deviants."
SOFTWARE_INSTABILITY: \/
"…he's waking up." Connor filters his eyes open, he must've unwillingly initiated a reboot program after that blow to his head. He remembers speaking with Amanda in his mind palace, and he remembers being reminded of his primary function.
Connor sits up and notices he's on the floor of the hall where Peter had managed to shoot him in the head with some kind of web substance. By the look of it, when Connor fell down after initiating a reboot, he landed on his arm which severely worried some people.
"Oh my God! Your arm is all bent and twisted!" Peter calls out worried. Connor looks at his arm and snaps it back into the correct rotation and remould his arm to bend it back into shape.
"It's fine." He says, getting up with a steady posture as if he didn't just faint a second before. He straightens his tie.
"We have health cover you know, you can get that x-rayed." Connor turns him down on that.
"You are exposed to an extra 0.7 micro-sieverts of ionising radiation in an x-ray, besides there is no need, I am functioning perfectly fine." Connor flings around his coin from his pocket with ease, performing tricks that Tony and Peter could only dream of performing.
Well, Tony maybe, but with enough practise and aid from his spider reflexes, Peter may be able to master the coin tricks. He tosses the coin back and forth while catching it by its edges with his index and middle finger.
It spins as he passes it back and forth along the tips of his fingers. Tony looks doubtful but doesn't force Connor to do anything he doesn't want to do. He would continue trying something else.
"Who's hungry? I had my chefs set up a feast, let's go! everybody to the dining room!" Tony immediately exits forcing them to have no choice but to go out to the dining room. In there, Peter and Connor notice that the entirety of the Avengers are already there, waiting for them to take their respective assigned seats around the circular table.
Most of them are in something formal, and Peter feels out of place in his T-shirt and jeans. Even Connor's wearing something nice, although he usually wears nice and socially acceptable clothing anyway.
Connor didn't really seem to have a taste in clothing, just more of a set of rules or a guideline on what to wear.
Everybody started to dig in. All except Connor.
"Whats wrong?" Says Peter through mouthfuls of mashed potato. Connor doesn't say much but does reluctantly start to pile an assortment of different foods on his plate, most of it are foods that are considered only to be eaten by those on a diet. He takes a lot of the salad and a few oysters.
He cuts everything into small pieces and when he places one of the carefully proportioned pieces into his mouth, he chews fifteen times before swallowing slowly. It's three bites in the potato salad when he abruptly stands up and rushes over to the bathroom. A retching can be heard and then a flush.
He doesn't bother returning to the feast.
The heavy feeling in Connor's stomach cavity doesn't go away after he's thrown up, and Connor can just feel Amanda's disappointment in him. He's done something much too… human. It's not right.
When he arrives back home, he's just so frustrated with everything. He tears his beanie off his head and throws it away. He never wants to see it again, it feels filthy and it feels wrong. It feels wrong to hide who he is. He want's to tell the people, who he has come to care about, who he really is, but he just can't.
He want's to tear the LED right out of his skull. He can feel Amanda in his head. He wants to do everything at all but he also wants to do nothing because what exactly is the point of this all?
He was replaceable. There were probably lines and lines of his model just waiting to be replaced. Sure, it may cost a small fortune but he could be replaced at absolutely any time.
Hank, Connor realised. Hank was the irreplaceable variable. Hank was the top lieutenant that the Detroit Police department had to offer.
If he couldn't fulfil his purpose of hunting down deviants, he'll be damned if he doesn't get Hank back.