Chapter Text
After Connor had calmed down a bit and Hank had gotten him settled back in the bed, Hank grabbed one of the chairs from against the wall and pulled it up so he could sit next to Connor. Despite having been in stasis for the procedure, the android looked tired. His eyes were half-lidded and hazy, staring blankly up at the ceiling.
“Do you wanna get some sleep?” Hank asked.
“It would probably be for the best if I got some rest,” Connor said, frowning. The response was one of not wanting it, but needing it. Hank reached out, taking hold of Connor’s hand.
“I’ll be here,” he said, offering what he hoped was a reassuring smile. It must have worked, because Connor nodded, closing his eyes. In seconds he was asleep, relaxing back into the bed. With everything finally calm, Hank could feel the coffee from earlier wearing off fast. It had been a long and exhausting night. He wanted to be awake in case Connor needed him for something, but he could feel sleep beginning to win out.
In a futile attempt to not have back pain from sleeping on the chair, he leaned forward, pillowing his head on his arm on the bed next to Connor. He didn’t release Connor’s hand, even as sleep took him.
When Hank woke up he was momentarily disoriented, the white walls of the room unfamiliar. But slowly the events of the night before came back to him and he turned his attention to Connor resting in the bed. He was still asleep, and had been all night as far as Hank knew.
He yawned, letting go of Connor’s hand to lean back in his chair and stretch. His back popped with the motion but it did nothing for the soreness of his sleeping position. Regardless, he’d already resigned himself to spending the next several nights like this. No way in hell was he going anywhere while Connor was here, and it wasn’t just because he’d promised the kid he would stay. Hank wouldn’t be able to sleep anyways with Connor out of his sight.
Still feeling a little groggy with sleep, Hank pulled his phone out of his pocket to check the time. He blinked a few times in surprise at seeing that it was only a little past six in the morning. He wasn’t usually up this early but guessed the stress of the night before had something to do with it.
Now that the situation was handled though, Hank had a few things he would need to take care of. He didn’t plan on leaving the hospital until Connor was well enough to leave, so he would need someone to check on Sumo. He also owed Fowler an update.
But it was still too early for any of that, and the growling of his stomach told him that food should be the first order of business. He debated waiting for Connor to wake up first, but he didn’t know how long that would take. Better to try and grab something now and get back before then.
Standing up, Hank took a moment to stretch, pulling his arms above his head. He spared Connor one last look. The android was sleeping peacefully, his LED circling in a lazy blue ring. Hank lingered a few more seconds before forcing himself to walk out of the room. Connor would be okay for a minute.
After a quick stop at the bathroom, Hank found his way to the cafeteria. Thankfully, this facility wasn’t overly large so it didn’t take him too long to find. There were a handful of other visitors grabbing breakfast, but most of the people eating in the cafeteria at the moment were staff. Hank didn’t see Connor’s technician anywhere, but he would probably be in to check on them later.
He got in line, grabbing food without much thought. Hospital food was lackluster at best so he didn’t particularly care what he ate. He was more concerned with making a quick return to Connor’s room.
With his food in hand, Hank only lingered long enough to pour himself a cup of coffee before he was off down the hallway. Arriving back at Connor’s room, he had to nudge the door open with his elbow as his hands were full with breakfast.
He let out a quiet breath, relieved to see Connor just as he’d left him. He was still asleep and nothing on the monitors seemed to have changed.
There was a small table next to the bed where Hank set his food down before dropping back into the chair. Noticing a remote sitting on the edge of the table, Hank decided some TV might be a good distraction while he waited for Connor to wake up.
He turned on the screen affixed to the wall across from them. It was on some daytime show, one of those never-ending infomercials that droned on about some bullshit product being sold for a ridiculous price. He couldn’t believe that these hadn’t died off yet.
He took a sip of his coffee, flicking through the channels in search of something even vaguely interesting. Eventually, he gave up and settled on some soap opera in favor of eating his breakfast.
The food was just as bland as he expected but it was filling at least and the coffee was quickly helping him to wake up more. While he ate, Hank typed out a quick text to Fowler with the latest update on the situation. They already had the rest of the week off, but on the chance Connor’s new part came in late, they could be stuck here longer.
Not waiting for a reply, he messaged his neighbor across the street next about checking in on Sumo. Out of all of his neighbors, the man across the street was least likely to mess anything up or snoop around through Hank’s things. The response from him was immediate, just a quick ‘sure’ .
With the only two things he needed to do taken care of, Hank leaned back in the chair and watched the TV. It was just as boring and predictable as one would expect from a drama that had been running for over a decade now. But it was a distraction, keeping his mind off of where he was. Whether for androids or humans, hospitals all felt the same with their pristine surfaces and chemical-smelling air.
Hank took another long sip of his coffee, enjoying the way it overpowered that chemical smell, even if only for a moment. It was going to be a long few days.
It was almost three episodes into the drama when Hank noticed Connor beginning to wake up. The first sign was Connor’s fingers twitching in the periphery of Hank’s vision. He immediately turned his attention away from the TV.
Hank hesitated for a moment - torn between not wanting to crowd Connor and wanting him to know he was there - before taking his hand again. Connor’s fingers loosely curled around the back of his hand and then a few seconds later his eyes opened. He squinted up at the ceiling almost looking confused.
“Mornin’” Hank greeted, giving his hand a light squeeze. Connor turned his head to look at Hank, blinking a few times.
“Morning,” he returned the greeting. He moved to sit up and Hank stood from his chair, bringing his other arm around Connor’s shoulders to help him up. Then he rearranged the pillows on the bed to give him more support, being mindful of the tube sticking out of his right side all the while.
“How’re you feeling?” Hank asked, sitting back in his chair and giving Connor some space.
“Better,” he said, though shot the machine next to him a brief annoyed look. Hank assumed having that thing sticking out of him couldn’t be very comfortable, but it was also the only thing stopping him from having another purging incident.
“That’s good,” Hank said. Looking Connor over, he did look a hell of a lot better than the day before. Barring the tubing sticking from his side, he looked almost normal.
Connor’s fingers fidgeted with the bedspread at his side, scrunching and twisting it. He looked like he was considering something, so Hank stayed quiet and waited for him to speak. The TV droned on in the back, stopping the silence from growing too heavy.
“Hank,” Connor started, staring down at where his fingers messed with the covers before looking back up at Hank. “Thank you… for staying,” he said.
“Of course, son,” Hank said, giving Connor a warm smile.
“But you don’t have to,” Connor pressed his lips together in a tight line, dropping his gaze again. “I know you don’t enjoy hospitals and it will be boring just sitting here all day.”
“Connor,” Hank cut off the impending ramble of reasons why he should leave. “I promised you I wasn’t going anywhere. That’s what you want, right?”
“Well, yes .”
“So, I’m staying, end of story,” Hank said.
“What about Sumo?”
“He’s fine, got someone checking in on him. There’s nothing I need to leave for.”
Connor quieted, but he could tell that the android was still stressed by the way his grip tightened on the sheets and at his refusal to meet Hank’s eyes. Hank let out a sigh. Just yesterday Connor had been desperate to not be alone, making Hank promise not to leave him. Even if he was trying to put on a brave face now, Hank could tell that he was still feeling that stress.
“It’s not selfish to not want to be alone, Con. Besides, I’m here because I want to be. No way in hell I’d be able to think about anything else even if I tried to leave,” Hank said.
“If you insist,” Connor said, though the stressed motion of his fingers had stopped.
“I do,” Hank nodded. “Now pick something other than this garbage for us to watch,” Hank took the remote from the side table, shoving it into Connor’s hand.
Of course that’s how they ended up watching a dog show. It was even more boring than the drama, but it made Connor happy so he didn’t complain.
Connor’s technician, Martin, didn’t come around until later in the afternoon, a few hours after Hank had dinner. Apparently, it had gotten rather busy at some point during the day and it took longer than he expected to make his rounds.
Since Connor was stable, he took a lower priority on those rounds, only really needing a quick check-up to make sure that the external filter was doing its job and nothing else was malfunctioning. It didn’t take him long. All he needed was to look at the computer monitoring Connor’s system and to ask the android a few questions before he was off again.
Connor sighed, and since he didn’t exactly need to breathe Hank knew it was a deliberate show of frustration. He was proved right when Connor turned to him, a slight frown on his face.
“Are you sure I can’t convince you that we could go home?” Connor asked.
“Positive,” Hank answered immediately. That earned him another sigh as Connor sunk back into the pillows to stare at the ceiling.
At this point, TV was doing little to distract Connor. With the way his computer brain worked, Hank wasn’t surprised he was feeling a little restless or bored doing nothing else all day. It sucked, but hooked up to the external filter, there wasn’t much else for him to do.
“I know you don’t like this, but it’s only for a couple more days,” Hank said, giving him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Maybe we can figure out something else to do tomorrow, other than just watch TV.”
Connor looked over at him, raising an eyebrow. “Like what?” he asked. light
Hank scratched at his beard, trying to think of something. “Maybe cards? I think I have an old deck buried somewhere in my car,” he said. It’d been years since he cleaned the thing out and the trunk was piled with junk. Connor had gotten on his case about it before but he still had yet to get around to it. Maybe it would pay off though if he could find them something to do in there.
“That might be nice,” Connor said.
“I’ll go search for them in the morning,” Hank agreed.
Hank had his cards fanned out in front of him, and he glared at Connor half-heartedly over their edge. Connor had his own cards held close and he was giving Hank a scrutinizing look.
“Do you have any threes?”
“Fuck… yeah,” Hank handed over the two threes in his hand, glare narrowing further at the hint of a smirk on Connor’s face.
“You know you aren’t supposed to cheat with your fancy techno-shit, right?” Hank grumbled.
“I’m not counting the cards if that’s what you’re implying, Hank. Besides, you could have asked me for threes on your turn,” Connor said, lining up the set neatly next to his seven other stacks of cards lined up on the overbed table. Hank only had two messy piles in front of him. It was their fifth game of Go-Fish and Hank was no closer to beating the android than their first game.
“No X-ray vision either,” Hank said. Connor’s eyebrows furrowed.
“Androids don’t have X-ray vision. And X-ray wouldn’t even work the way you are thinking. It would just-”
“Yeah, don’t need a science lesson,” Hank waved him off. He glanced over his shoulder at the TV, squinting to see if there was some chance it was reflecting what was in his hands. If it was, he couldn’t see it.
“Perhaps if you considered what cards I’ve asked for previously it might help,” Connor said. Hank couldn’t tell if he was being a little shit or trying to help. Either way, that earned Connor a light smack on the top of his head. Connor batted his hand away but kept his cards held close to his chest.
“Not everyone has a perfect photographic memory. Now quiet, let me think,” Hank said.
Hank searched Connor’s face as if it would magically tell him what cards to ask for. He still had that faint smirk coloring his expression and raised an eyebrow when he met Hank’s eyes.
“Have any sevens?” Hank asked.
Connor’s eyes flicked from his cards up to Hank. “Wow, that’s quite impressive of you Hank,” he said, completely failing to keep a straight face.
“Yeah, and why’s that?” Hank said, already having an idea what was coming next.
“Your persistence is admirable. But like the previous four turns, no, I do not have any sevens. Go fish,” Connor said.
“You know just saying ‘no’ is enough,” Hank muttered.
He wanted to be annoyed at losing and the subsequent teasing from the kid, but he couldn’t. The card games were doing their job of distracting Connor from his situation and he was happier now than Hank had seen him since they got here. Still, Hank made a show of glaring at Connor and grumbling under his breath while he drew a card from the pile in the center.
The game didn’t last much longer after that, Connor beating Hank in a landslide. Go Fish was a stupid luck-based game anyway, and Hank decided it was time to turn the tables on him.
“Enough of this, we’re doing something else,” Hank said, gathering the cards to shuffle.
“And that is?” Connor asked.
“Bullshit,” Hank said, bridging the cards and letting them fall together in perfect alignment.
Connor tilted his head to the side. “Excuse me?” he frowned.
“It’s another card game,” Hank chuckled.
“Oh.” Connor’s LED blinked yellow for a few seconds and Hank knew he was probably searching the rules of the game.
“It doesn’t seem too complicated,” Connor said after a moment.
“We’ll see about that,” Hank said, dealing the cards out.
Maybe Connor could still count cards to see when Hank was lying, but that did nothing to help him deceive Hank. Little did Connor know, but he was a shit liar. Sure, he did fine in interrogations and other work-related investigation stuff. But when it came to anything else, his tells were so obvious to Hank it was laughable. Even funnier was the fact that he hadn’t realized that yet.
Since there were only the two of them, Hank took a small chunk of the deck and left it off to the side. At least then it wouldn’t be completely obvious every time one of them didn’t have the right cards. Hank had the ace of spades, so he put that down first on the center of the table.
Connor quickly took two cards from his deck, laying them face down on top of the ace.
“Two, twos,” he said. Hank didn’t see any signs that Connor was lying, so he put down his own card next.
“One three.”
“One four.”
“Two fives.”
“One six.”
Hank had to hold back a smug look. Connor wasn’t as good at catching Hank lying as he would like to believe either.
“One seven,” Hank said, putting down a card that definitely wasn’t a seven. Connor didn’t seem to catch it.
“Two eights,” he drew the cards a little too fast, slapping them down on the pile. Hank caught the briefest flicker of yellow that escaped into the blue of his LED and the way his eyes darted to Hank for half a second.
“Bullshit,” Hank said. Connor opened and closed his mouth, and then huffed, nearly pouting as he collected the cards from the middle.
“The most advanced prototype and he can’t even lie,” Hank said, reveling in the opportunity to now tease Connor.
“I am perfectly capable of lying, Hank. You just got lucky that time,” Connor said. Hank barked out a laugh, unable to contain it as Connor was now definitely pouting.
“Sure, keep telling yourself that. Now play your card,” Hank said. Connor snatched two cards from the now considerably larger collection in his hand.
“Two nines,” he slapped them down on the table.
Card games had been a massive success, and Hank was once more grateful for the messy state of his car. Still, after two full days of nothing but card games and TV, both Connor and Hank were growing restless.
The nervous energy had Hank nearly shooting to his feet when Connor’s technician came in that morning. He gave them both a cheery smile.
“Good morning you two. Connor,” he turned to the android, “your new thirium filter came in this morning.” Connor brightened up considerably at the news, a faint grin gracing his features. He sat up straighter in the bed.
“Does that mean I can leave today?” Connor asked.
“You can leave as soon as your systems finish calibrating. My assistant will be bringing it in shortly,” Martin nodded.
“Wait,” Hank said, causing them both to look at him, “you’re just going to do it in here?”
“Replacing most biocomponents is rather simple. It won’t take more than a couple minutes,” Martin answered.
“It doesn’t hurt, Hank. It’ll be okay,” Connor said. Hank sighed.
“Alright, if you say so,” he said. Usually, whenever Connor ended up at a repair center and needed something replaced they wouldn’t let him be there, so he didn’t really know much about the procedure. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to seeing Connor’s insides but he didn’t plan on leaving either since they weren’t making him. So he leaned back in his chair and waited while Martin got Connor prepped to install the new biocomponent.
He had just finished detaching the external filter when his assistant entered the room, a white plastic bag held carefully in her hands. She set it on the table and opened it, pulling out what Hank guessed was the new thirium filter.
It was kinda freaky looking, a little boxy and smaller than Hank had expected. She stood nearby while Martin reached across Connor's chest, pressing in somewhere on the side. Connor’s skin retracted, and the front panel of his chest slid open, revealing everything underneath.
Hank grimaced, taking Connor’s hand and turning his focus to the kid’s face instead of the open chest cavity. Sure, the kid had said it didn’t hurt, but Hank didn’t think it could be very pleasant either. Connor met his eyes, shooting him a small smile. He seemed totally unphased by all this.
True to his word, Martin finished putting in the new biocomponent in just a few minutes and then he was closing Connor’s chest up. With the artificial skin back in place and the tube removed, Connor looked good as new.
The assistant handed Connor a shirt, something he hadn’t even noticed she was holding before. It was the same one from a few nights ago, but no longer stained blue. Whether that was because the thirium had evaporated or they washed it, he didn’t really want to know. But the way Connor took it without reaction and put it on, Hank was betting on the latter.
“I’ll check back in about an hour. Everything should be finished calibrating by then and then you’ll be good to go,” Martin said before he and his assistant left the room. Connor pulled the covers the rest of the way off and swung his legs over the side of the bed.
“Woah, hey, what are you doing?” Hank said, reaching out to stop him.
“I can move around while the new part calibrates,” Connor said. Hank gave him a skeptical look. He could be telling the truth. But it was also very like Connor to push himself when he should just rest.
“Really, I promise,” Connor said, looking at him with those damn puppy eyes, “I just want to stand. I’ve been in that bed for days .”
“Fine,” Hank relented, letting Connor finish getting up. But he stood up as well, staying close by just in case. “I know you’re anxious to get out of here,” Hank said.
“Finally,” Connor agreed. Hank was also more than ready to put all of this mess behind them. It had been a horrifying few days and he was glad that it was all over now, more or less.
“Sumo’s gonna freak out when we get home,” Hank said.
“I’ll have to give him some extra attention to make up for our time away,” Connor said.
“Big mutt won’t leave you alone for days, I can promise that,” Hank chuckled. They lapsed into a comfortable silence, half-watching whatever show was playing on the TV. Hank was more focused on deciding how he was going to keep Connor away from work for at least a few more days - no matter how ‘better’ he insisted he was - when the android interrupted his thoughts.
“Thank you, Hank,” he said, his voice genuine, “for being here.”
“Always, son,” Hank said, bumping their shoulders together. He would be there for his kid for as long as he was alive. After all, someone had to look out for him.