Chapter Text
Detroit spent the morning under an overcast sky and an endless downpour of rain that didn’t let up until midafternoon. The downpour only let up because the wind picked up and caused the rain to come in sideways instead. The sky had turned nearly black by 3pm, and that’s when it hit. The double tornado event only lasted for twenty minutes, but it had been twenty minutes of Hell.
Hank had seen his share of nasty weather, and while this wasn’t the worst he’d seen, it was still devastating. Power was out across chunks of the city. Debris had blocked entire stretches of the streets. Some buildings had been damaged, some had been completely decimated, and some had been left untouched. After spending nearly 18 hours working damage control with everybody else, Fowler had ordered him to go home…to find out if he still had one himself. Despite Connor’s assurances that he could keep working for days more without needing to recharge, Fowler had sent him home too, and Hank…really wished in retrospect that Hank had had some time to gauge the situation at the house before Connor saw the state of it.
The house was still standing. It looked like roughly half of the windows had been blown out, and a tree from the neighbor’s yard had been ripped out at the roots and harpooned through the front of the house, filling the living room with broken glass, splintered wood, and leafy branches. All the furniture was ruined from the hours of rain, along with most of Hank’s old records and hardbound books, ripped off the shelves and splattered across the muddy wet floor.
Hank carefully picked his way through, finding his bedroom, garage, and bathroom intact, just windswept and wet from the broken windows. He and Connor had already checked on the neighbors. The Paulsons next door were unscathed but deeply shaken. Barry and his wife Wendy hadn’t been home when the storm hit, but their six year old daughter Sofie and the teenaged babysitter Greta had been. Hank had spotted Greta first, thanks to her bright blue hair and very wide eyes where she was with paramedics, and made sure she was all right before heading into his own house.
The girl had a big bandage on her forearm but was otherwise unhurt. The sirens had gone off early enough for her to get Sofie into the basement, and then the foolish young woman had defied the storm to go next door and grab Sumo, who had been barking and panicking alone in Hank’s living room so loudly that she had felt compelled to go over to rescue him. The wind had smacked the door into her arm for her trouble, cutting her forearm badly but not breaking the bone.
Foolish, brave, wonderful girl.
Hank moved from the house into the garage, where the wind vacuum had knocked some stuff around, but he didn’t see any damage. The rolling door of the garage screeched and groaned, but it still rolled up as he pushed it and stepped out onto the driveway. Fortunately, the night darkness was blocking most of the carnage up and down the street, but the headlights of Ben’s car cast an unavoidable spotlight on Connor.
Connor was sitting sideways in the passenger seat of the Oldsmobile, parked on the curb since the driveway was blocked by debris. His feet were planted on the ground, and his hands were firmly buried in the fur of Sumo’s neck, where the dog was sitting between the android’s knees. Ben had made a makeshift leash out of an extension cord found in the yard, and Connor was clutching onto the end of it, despite Sumo clearly not interested in going anywhere.
The big mutt was calm now, if only agitated because he could sense Connor’s distress. Sumo’s tongue hung out of his mouth in a canine smile as he let Connor mindlessly pet him over and over again. Connor’s eyes were blank and staring in a detached manner at the ruined half of the Anderson house, visibly trying to process it. Ben was standing nearby, rubbing his jaw and looking almost as overwhelmed and tired as Hank felt in his bones. Polly and Wilson had just arrived in Wilson’s truck.
With everybody at the station affected by either power outages, home damage, or just full on exhaustion, several of the squad was couch surfing tonight, and by the state of the house, Hank and Connor and Sumo were going to be among them. Ben and the Wilsons still had power, and Ben had offered his couch at his apartment. Wilson had offered to take Sumo, since he had a big fenced in yard. Connor had mumbled something earlier about Person offering to let Connor stay at her place. It wasn’t ideal, being separated after something like this, but Hank was grateful for their friends for being as accommodating as possible during all this. Ben had even made some mighty big talk about making his homemade pancakes to cheer up Hank.
Yet, as Hank came a little closer, he wasn’t sure separating was a good idea. Connor looked deeply shaken by the destruction of the house.
“It’s just stuff, Connor,” Hank said, trying to sound reassuring as he approached the Oldsmobile. “Nothing that can’t be fixed.”
Connor looked from the house to Hank, not appearing to be very reassured.
“Got all the important stuff here,” Hank added, patting Sumo on the head and then resting his hand on Connor’s shoulder.
He could feel his friend trembling slightly, and he frowned.
“Hey…”
“It’s…the only home I’ve ever had,” Connor mumbled. “Ever known.”
Hank grimaced, looking past him to Ben, who stared back at him. Ben made a helpless expression and rubbed the back of his neck, squinting and looking over to Polly and Wilson nearby.
“Hey,” Hank started in a more comforting tone, leaning against the car. “We’ll fix it up just like new. Even if the damage is so bad that we have to knock the whole thing down and rebuild it—“
Connor’s head whipped around to look up at him; his wide eyes informing Hank that that possibility hadn’t even crossed the guy’s mind.
“I don’t want to knock it down!” Connor stammered. “I don’t—I don’t want to have to ‘fix’ it. I just want it to be…the way it was. I don’t want it to look like this…”
He glanced to the wreckage that was the front half of the house, flinched, and screwed his eyes shut, turning his face away. He curled forward around Sumo, losing his face in the scruff of the dog’s shoulder. Hank took a deep breath, trying to find some strength from Ben, but the other man had walked away, closer to talk to Polly and Wilson.
Hank moved his hand from Connor’s shoulder to the top of his head.
“I know, kid. I’m sorry…I hate this too. Makes you feel…” He blinked a few times, trying to find the right words. “Makes you feel like you’ve lost your tether. Like the rug’s been ripped out from under you, and…nothing feels safe anymore.”
Connor lifted his head, heaving a sigh and giving Hank a composed, if forlorn, look.
Hank mustered a pursed-lipped smile for him. “Yeah…this was home—is home, but home is more than walls and a roof. To me, home is people.”
Connor nodded dully to that, expression remaining pinched. “It still hurts.”
“…I know,” Hank sighed. “Same here. But…there’s nothing we can do about all this tonight. Everybody walked away from this, and that’s what matters. Everything else will be okay. So…let’s try to get some sleep tonight, and we’ll touch base tomorrow to—“
He didn’t miss the tension that locked up Connor’s frame, and he let the sentence trail off. At the same time, Connor avoided his concerned gaze, focusing on his hands, messing with Sumo’s collar. He fidgeted, and Hank could read the anxiety and self consciousness radiating off the guy.
Before he could think of what else to say to comfort his friend, there was Polly.
“Hey,” she greeted softly, giving Hank and Connor both a worried look. “How, uh, how are you guys holding up?”
Connor grunted something, and Hank shrugged.
“We’re alive. That’s all I got right now,” he said lightly.
Polly managed a smile, then her eyes lingered on Hank long enough to hold his attention. She glanced pointedly at Connor, then winked at Hank and went on.
“Well, hey, I was thinking—I mean, there’s…plenty of room at the Wilson house if all three of you want to crash there. Y’know…so you can stay together…I know if I—if this was me, that I wouldn’t want to be away from—I’d want to be with my family. So…I mean, I’m offering—We’re offering—“ she nodded toward Wilson, talking to Ben. “If you’d rather…”
Hank felt a bubble of warmth in his chest toward the android as she babbled, and he gave her an appreciative look. Connor was less subtle. He stood up, displacing Sumo slightly, who stood on all fours and wagged his tail. Then Connor was giving Polly a bear hug.
“Thank you,” he stammered at her, his back turned toward Hank.
Polly looked over his shoulder to Hank, who nodded gratefully to her. She smiled and rubbed her hands up and down Connor’s back comfortingly.
“Of course, man, of course,” she assured. “Mi casa su casa.”
Sumo boofed lightly , nudging at their legs. Hank gave them a slight berth, stepping around them and approaching Wilson and Ben. He looked first to Wilson.
“Thank you,” he pressed, offering his hand.
Wilson gave a somber nod, shaking his hand. “Whatever you need.”
“Well fine,” Ben said in mock offense, folding his arms with a dramatic pout. “I’ll just keep my pancakes to myself then.”
Hank grabbed onto the lighter tone with a gruff laugh. “If you’re so desperate to share your pancakes—“
“World famous pancakes!” Ben moaned.
“World famous pancakes,” Hank corrected himself, “then take your happy ass back to the station and whip up a breakfast for everybody there. They’re gonna need the fuel to get through another day of this.”
“Now that’s now fair…Tina’s a stress eater. There isn’t enough pancake batter in the city limits—“ Ben rambled.
Wilson laughed at him, and Hank shook his head, putting his hands on his hips and looking back to Connor. He had mercifully released Polly, who was eagerly explaining to him all the comforts that the Wilson home could provide. Honestly, at this hour, all that Hank could ask for was a hot shower and somewhere to rest his weary bones.
He braced himself to go back into the house to salvage what he could for now, but he hadn’t been lying to Connor earlier. It was all just stuff, some that could be replaced, some that couldn’t. And yeah, it was a loss, and it was going to hurt for a while. But…
He watched Connor take hold of Sumo’s leash again, looking like he was finding his way back to solid ground with Polly sticking close beside him.
…It could have been so much worse, so all that Hank could feel right now was grateful that it hadn’t been.
Everything will be all right.