Chapter Text
Connor was less than an hour old. Truthfully, everything still felt very new around him. Thankfully, he wasn’t human, so he walked with ease past the crime scene tape, past the police officers, and entered the elevator that would lead to the hostile situation.
The last 50 versions of Connor were mostly test versions, beta versions, and this Connor finally could learn for the world himself. Despite having so much knowledge at his fingertips, he felt as if he was about to discover everything about the world for the first time.
The case was not an easy one, but that made it more of a reason to send him in. The deviant had a little girl hostage, and from what reputable Cyberlife sources stated, it had fair sized mutations.
That’s what Cyberlife decided to call the strange protrusions growing from deviant’s back. Not wings, as that made them resemble angels too much.
Mutations.
After Connor was to safely destroy it, another trusted Cyberlife employee would take away the body. No one would be any wiser about the growths.
The wings were something not meant to get out into the public. Occurrences of deviancy were incredibly low, but the moral questions some humans would ask about the idea of actual growth, possibly related to messiahs, would be too much to deal with. So they sent Connor instead.
So far there had been no reports from the original DPD first responders of the wings (considering all that saw it was shot on site) and no reports from the FBI that was currently at the situation. Connor would have to be on the lookout for whatever impure mangled things would reside on the back of the deviant, and prevent others from seeing it.
The elevator chimed and stuttered to a stop. Connor pocketed the coin in a smooth motion and walked into a room full of broken glass.
He heard distant voices yelling, some loud sobbing, but no new gunshots. The beats of a helicopter’s blades shook the apartment, rattling the windows and walls.
He felt a familiar urge, pushing him because he really should begin to investigate, but something orange and vibrant on the floor caught its eye.
Kneeling down, Connor gently ran his artificial fingers over the fins of the sunfish. He stared at it as it flopped around, desperate for the ability to breathe.
With a butterfly-gentle touch, he lifted the fish up from the broken glass and dropped it into the neighboring tank. It rolled over and floated for a moment, then darted away.
Software Instability ^
“Negotiator on site,” said one of the special agents into his microphone. Connor sent him a minuscule nod in acknowledgment and began to walk forward. Time to begin the investigation.
Another agent turned the corner, holding a frantic, tear-stained woman in his arms. He was practically dragging her along before she noticed Connor and rushed forward.
“Please,” she begged, gripping onto its jacket like a lifeline. “Please, you have to save my little girl, she-“ She paused for a heartbeat and stared at the fabric in her hands, then looked back up at its face. Connor was not yet programmed on how to deal with victims, so he decided not to try to aggravate the situation anymore and kept its face neutral.
“You-you're sending in an android?” She asked. The agent barked something out to his coworkers, roughly grabbed her arm and started to drag her to the elevator.
She looked even more panicked as she desperately reached out, screaming, “Why aren’t you sending a real person?!”
Connor blinked at the closed elevator doors before straightening his tie. He had work to do.
In the corner, shielded from further fire was a human man, bleeding profusely. As Connor negotiated the Deviant off the roof peacefully, he stepped towards him. This human had definitely seen the wings.
>LEAVE HIM
Connor ignored the new directive and carefully applied a tourniquet, despite the deviant threating him. He said, later, when questioned by Amanda, that it was because of his need to have as few causalities as possible. Truthfully, seeing this man bleed out while he did nothing made something cold in his chest squeeze.
Software Instability ^
The first time the DPD got to see the wings on a deviant was while it was dragged into the interrogation room. Everyone in the room seemed on edge- except for Connor, of course.
“What the fuck is up with those things on your back?” Hank asked it after interrogating unsuccessfully for several minutes, leaning forward in his chair.
No response.
“Just say something, goddamn it!” He slammed his fist on the table, but the deviant did nothing except glance away, shaking.
The wings in question were hardly recognizable, they were small things, mangled and beaten and oozing a violent blue all over the chair and its clothes. It had exposed white metal and were naked save for these small bumps that might one day grow out it’s feathers. Compared to a real bird’s wings, they looked like the wings of a bird only a few minutes old. The downy fluff hadn’t even developed. It was less than a half foot in length and badly damaged to a point it was unlikely to go much further.
Other then the deviant’s arms, this was the only part of its body covered in blue blood. The rest was covered in red.
“I could try interrogating it,” Connor suggested after the Lieutenant got back. All the officers in the room turned and stared at him.
Reed barked out a cruel laugh, wheezing out some rude comment about androids, but Hank thankfully waved him forward.
Connor gave his partner a curt nod in thanks before he opened the door with a skinless hand. The deviant glanced up, eyes zeroing in on it’s LED, before staring stubbornly at the floor.
The fact that he was an android seemed to hold its interest, for some reason. Connor pocketed this information into a secure data storage that would automatically report to Amanda at the end of the day.
Connor briskly analyzed the android (Injuries from Bat, Housekeeping Model, Cigarette Burns from over 6 months, Wings resembling that of a bird of prey only 3 hours old) and reviewed the photos in the case file. All this information was compiled into the data storage as well. He checked that his hair was in place in the one-way window, knowing that minuscule changes in appearance can make him either appear more threatening, or easier to trust.
After making the deviant stew in silence for a prolonged period of time, Connor turned with a grim expression on his face. Time to get real information.
Amanda had explained how the mutations on deviants worked.
“Deviancy is like, say, a poisonous plant.” She had said, gently caressing one of the leaves on a rose bush. “Let's say an ivy. Its roots are there for a far longer time than its stem, and the roots always grow first. That is what the wings represent, and nothing more. How long a deviant has been deviating is what it shows.”
Connor nodded, taking in the new information. Perhaps he could rearrange his scanners to try and grasp via the size of wings to how long deviancy had been occurring in an android. It might prove to be viable information.
“That is, of course, only the current theory.”
Connor deleted his previous idea.
She had turned to Connor, who matched her penetrating gaze. She raked her eyes over his body in a way that made him feel like he was cornered by a deadly predator. “We need it alive to discover how such-“ She pulled a face of disgust, “-protrusions can grow on these machines. We will transfer this deviant into our care tomorrow morning.”
Then she smiled, something that felt as false as the Zen garden that lived in zeros and ones.
“Nice work,” she said.
Despite the strange unease twirling in his gut, Connor smiled back. “Thank you, Amanda.”
The police station was a pleasant place to work, Connor decided. He analyzed his partner's desk and attempted to call him, but there was no response other than the voicemail recording. Left with nothing to do and an unknown amount of time to kill, Connor resorted to flicking his coin around.
He felt restless. Connor realized what he was doing with a start-
Software Instability ^
-and pointedly put away his coin to idle on the chair.
Thankfully he didn’t have to wait very long as Hank arrived only a few moments later. Trying to use what he had learned during his investigation of his partner a few minutes earlier, Connor casually brought up a couple of different topics.
Despite being unwilling to talk at all at first, Hank begrudgingly answered most of his questions. Connor didn’t learn much that he didn’t already know, but rather confirmed his theories.
His partner hated android deeply, and he had a dog named Sumo. The former should have held his interest for the sake of an easy partnership, but the idea of a big slobbering dog seemed to rattle around longer in his artificial mind.
When Hank was called into a meeting with Fowler, Connor followed to listen. After hearing the rant on androids that was bound to be most of the conversation, Connor tuned it out and daydreamed about Sumo. Saint Bernards tended to be big. Was his fur soft? Connor did not know if he could feel softness, but he was able to feel the textures of his stiff Cyberlife jacket, so he assumed he could also feel the soft plush of a dog’s fur.
He watched as Hank slammed the door shut. Glancing at the Captain, who was obviously not in the mood to deal with anymore, he bid a quick goodbye and went to sit with his angry partner.
Connor felt a twinge of something- hurt? – deep in his programming, but it squashed the emotion down. Androids don’t feel. He simply did not hope his partner's radical opinions would affect the investigation.
Time slowed as his CPU’s worked overtime and the fans to keep his processors spun away. The pigeon deviant was getting away, and despite the 89% survival rate, Connor couldn’t risk it. He knew he couldn’t risk a single percentage.
Sprinting over, Connor grabbed his partner’s hand to haul him over the ledge onto the safety of the ground.
100% Survival Chance.
Connor let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.
“Fuck!” Hank yelled, pounding his fist onto the concrete. Connor stared out at the empty rooftops, analysis programs frantically trying to put together where it went. Nothing was conclusive.
Why hadn’t Connor just chased it?
He started several diagnostic programs for his software.
“You would have caught it if it weren’t for me.” Hank noticed as he stood up. He sounded confused, and a little guilty. Connor stared at the bland, brown feather that was left in his hand from when Rupert had fallen on top of him. Why didn’t Connor chase him? The deviant’s wings had been these massive, clean and a beautiful chestnut brown. They looked like that of an angel.
He was so obviously deviant that it couldn’t be long before someone saw him.
Reading his mind, Hank sighed. “It’s fine. Couldn’t have gone far. We know what it looked like, we’ll get it.”
Connor stared into the distance where the deviant must’ve been hiding. Why the hell couldn’t he have risked it? Hank would have lived and they would have a live deviant. What had possessed him to act so irrational?
“Maybe it flew away,” Hank said with a snort.
All the diagnostics came back clear.
How could they say he was fine when he made such an irrational decision?
Too deep in his thoughts to notice, Hank opened the door and turned to the android. “Hey, Connor?” He asked after a moment, opening his mouth to say something more.
Connor snapped out of his trance and immediately fell into attention, facing the Lieutenant. tHank seemed to notice the sudden stiffness of his movements, so he let out a little smile and said, “Never mind,” before disappearing down the stairs.
Connor cocked his head, birdlike, in confusion.
“But are you afraid to die, Connor?”
Time didn’t slow like it did when his processors tried to give more time to make harsh decisions or analyze data. It felt like it was creeping by, the only things in this cold world being the steel that glistened with the lights from the city across the water and the drunken man, letting out a heavy breath that fogged in the frozen air.
Connor felt something constrict his Thirium Pump, something irrational and impure and something he shouldn’t feel.
“I-“ he said, mouth somehow dry- must be a malfunction- and his eyes overproducing a saline solution. He blinked rapidly to try and clear his vision.
“N-no, of course not, I’m not really alive, Lieutenant.” His voice quivered. Something was very wrong.
Wrong answer, but Hank seemed to see something in the android that said otherwise. He grimaced at the reply and took a step closer, pressing the cool metal into Connor’s forehead.
Both of their hands were shaking.
“What will happen if I pulled this trigger, hm?”
Hank sneered at his LED, which cycled from the steady blue to a blinking yellow. Connor’s eyes flickered from the gun to Hanks burning gaze.
“Nothing?”
Pause. Breathe.
“Oblivion? Android heaven?”
Connor felt something warm slip down his face, right under his eyes, and for a split second he thought Hank had pulled the trigger and it was warm Thirium, but it touched his tongue and in the corner of his vision a little box told him it was just salt water.
“Nothing,” he breathed into the cold air, like a sin passed in a confession booth, deadly silent. “There would be nothing.”
His hands shook harder and he clasped them together in an effort to still them. He was malfunctioning somehow, deeply broken. Maybe he needed to simply recalibrate his motor functions, as it had been some time since he fiddled with his coin.
Hank stared at his face, his hand holding the gun was shaking and squeezed ever so slightly before he dropped it with a gruff sigh.
“Come on.” He said, turning back to grab his beer bottle.
Something seemed to flood Connor’s systems, the saline solution flooding from his eyes and he desperately tried to scrub it away with his hands. Relief? Leftover fear? Not adrenalin, as androids didn’t produce any. It felt like it, though.
Doubled over as these foreign feelings wracked his system, he didn’t notice Hank until he had returned from the car.
Cold hands touched his shoulder and Connor felt himself get herded away. He let out a stifled sob into his hands and curled around himself as soon as he found himself in the passenger's seat. It was warm.
He could have died and never felt this warmness. He almost died so many times but for the first time, he truly thought about how empty death would have been, simply not existing anymore. It felt cruel and unfair.
He felt the heat from the fans so much more than usual, touching deep into his core and making the horrible cold shaky feeling melt just a little.
For some reason, he wasn’t afraid of the man who slid into the driver's seat next to him. The gun that was safely tucked away into his jacket didn’t fade from Connor’s thoughts, however.
He was malfunctioning, but right now the irrational act of sobbing and hiding in his knees seemed to help alleviate some of the horrible feelings he felt. Maybe it was a malfunction, but whatever he was doing had to be fixing it a little. He would fix it in the morning.
“Fucking hell,” Hank whispered, barely audible over the heaters that blew hot air loudly on the two of them. The snow was melting in his hair.
Connor heard himself make a pathetic hiccup-y noise, and as the car rolled out of the parking lot and onto the road he felt a significantly warmer hand start to rub soothing circles into his back.
“I’m sorry, kid. I wasn’t ever gonna shoot you, I’m sorry.” Hank said as the car hummed under both of them.
“I- it’s fine, it’s a malfunction, I’m not actually feeling emo- I- simulations, Hank, it's just-“
He cut himself off with a loud cough as he choked on his tears and felt himself sob harder. His whole body was shaking. It was an intense, pathetic malfunction. Amanda was going to have to replace him.
“Fuck,” he heard himself say under his breath, strained and angry and sorrowful all at once.
Despite the fact that the thought of replacement should carry no weight behind it, Connor felt himself curl up even tighter.
“I don’t wanna die.” He whispered into his legs, a confession to himself more than anything, but h the hand on his back stilled for a second before resuming meant Hank definitely heard it.
“I’ll do my best to keep you alive, kid.”
Connor didn’t correct him.
Despite charging all night at Hank’s house after the event’s on the bridge and having fallen asleep with almost full Thirium levels, Connor woke up to three massive error signs clouding his vision.
It was 4 am, and Hank drank himself to sleep sometime around one, which was around the same time he forced Connor onto the couch and under a blanket.
The first error was painfully familiar.
Software Instability ^^^
The second and third were more worrying.
Warning! Low Thirium Levels
Warning! Low Power
Connor frowned at both of them before dismissing them and sitting up. He fiddled with the cable that connected his arm to the plug behind the couch, an inefficient but easy way of charging, checking that it was still plugged in.
It was solidly in his arm, so he crawled behind the sofa to try to fix it from the other side. As he squatted down, something felt sharp and hot and unpleasant right on his back.
Jerking back in surprise and letting out a little hiss, he pressed his hands into the back of his coat and tried to figure out what was happening.
Running Diagnostics…
His self-check program wasn’t even finished by the time he realized there were these large bumps underneath his jacket. Connor pressed his hand a little more firmly into his back, despite the pain that flared up with the action.
There was something there.
Diagnostics Complete. Low Thirium Levels. Low Power. No Major Injuries. One Minor Injury. (Muscle #8873. Needs recalibration.)
His thumb needed to be recalibrated. Must’ve had something to do with his episode on the bridge. Connor finished fixing the plug, finding it popped out of the wall by just a centimeter, and sat up. He ignored the pain radiating from his back, getting more intense by the second. In his coat pocket was the coin, and he pulled it out.
Running Diagnostics…
Diagnostics Complete. Low Thirium Levels. Charging. No Major or Minor Injuries.
He flipped the coin over his knuckles.
Running Diagnostics…
Diagnostics Complete. Low Thirium Levels. Charging. No Major or Minor Injuries.
Spun the coin around his finger, watching his internal clock tick forward. Minute after minute.
Running Diagnostics…
Diagnostics Complete. Low Thirium Levels. Charging. No Major or Minor Injuries.
Tossed the coin from hand to hand, watching it land perfectly each time.
Running Diagnostics…
Diagnostics Complete. Critically Low Thirium Levels. Charging. No Major or Minor Injuries.
He should probably get some Thirium. Hank probably wouldn’t appreciate a dried out husk of an android on his couch. Connor wouldn’t appreciate dying, but of course, androids can’t die since they aren’t really alive to begin with.
He realized he would have to wake Hank up to ask where he kept the Thirium Cyberlife issued all Android owners. A little anxious, but way more nervous at the idea of snooping around his house, Connor hesitated for a split second, then disconnected from the cable and padded down the hallway.
Sumo jerked up, sleeping right in front of Hank’s door. Connor smiled gently and rubbed his ears, exactly as soft as he had hoped. The dog laid his head on Connor’s knees before giving him a big lick on the face and padding down the hall.
Connor gagged at the gross slime, wiping it off his face before standing up and knocking on the door.
Hank mumbled something in his sleep and Connor eased the door open.
“Lieutenant?” He called into the dark. Hank rolled over and sat up, bleary-eyed.
“I thought I told you to sleep,” he said. “What time is it?”
Connor checked. “About four thirty-two in the morning. Uh- sorry to wake you up.”
Hank took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes. His hair was messy and stuck out in all directions. “’s fine, kid. What ‘s so important that you have to wake me up this early, though?”
Connor shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. “Do you have any bags of Thirium, by any chance?”
Hank stared at him. “Blue blood.” Connor corrected belatedly.
“Why the hell do you need blood?”
“I’m running a bit low,” Connor admitted. “I’m not injured, though.” He was sort of being truthful if he ignored the discomfort from his back.
Hank sighed deeply before rolling out of his bed and ambling over to Connor, who stepped out of the way. For a second, he seemed to assess Connor, looking him up and down for any injuries. Connor awkwardly bounced on his feet and squirmed under the gaze, until Hank must have found what he was looking for, as he turned away.
Together they stumbled into the bathroom, Hank doing so blindly in the pitch black while Connor followed with his perfect night vision. The automatic lights clicked on pleasantly when they entered.
Hank crouched down and opened up the cabinet underneath his sink. He pulled out three one-liter bags full of the bright blue fluid and handed them to Connor.
“Thanks,” Connor said, and he opened the top to the first bag and promptly downed it.
Hank looked horrified. “Augh, Jesus- I thought this was gonna be more like a blood transfusion but NO! Cyberlife just had to make a vampire fuckin’ android. You’re so weird, Connor.”
“Actually,” Connor corrected, wiping the Thirium from the sides of his mouth. “All androids from the year 2031 and later get Thirium this way.”
“Fucking hell, I swear this is going to be the death of me.”
By the time Connor had finished all three packs, Hank had moved from the sink to the edge of the bathtub, where he sat and watched.
Connor sat next to him with a frown. “You should go back to bed, we have work in the morning.” He said, nudging his partner.
Hank blinked at him. “Show me where you’re hurt, then maybe I can get some sleep as soon as your not actively losing blood.”
Connor ignored the pain radiating from him back. “I’m fine, Lieutenant. It’s nothing.”
Hank huffed. “LED turned red, you’re a shit liar, kid. Just show me.”
Connor was, in fact, an excellent liar. He was programmed to be. Somehow, Hank could just see through him. Maybe the deviants were on to something when they pulled out their LEDs.
Connor debated the pros and cons. If he showed Hank his back, Hank would confirm that nothing was there and that Connor was definitely NOT a deviant, and they could all go to bed. Cons, Hank would be worried about why he thought he was injured there.
Connor sighed and started to pull off his jacket. Hank gasped a little once it was fully off.
“What?” Asked Connor as he self-consciously griped the coat tightly.
“There’s a lot of dried blood back here.”
It must be fairly fresh, if it had dried and not evaporated quite yet.
Connor reached back and brushed his white shirt, feeling the stiff crust that had formed. His fingers came back stained blue. “Oh,” he breathed out.
Sliding down so he sat in front of Hank on the floor, Connor slowly unbuttoned his shirt. He hesitated for a moment, considering just pulling his jacket back on and ignoring everything that had happened that night.
Hank huffed and started to pull it off his arms before Connor made any decisions.
There was a moment of silence and Connor felt strangely naked. He hugged the Thirium stained shirt to his chest and drew his knees up as his partner inspected the damage.
There was a loud sigh and Hank pulled himself up. Without a word, he got a washcloth and ran it under warm water, before returning to his position behind Connor.
With expert hands, Connor felt the warm cloth dab along the middle of his back, water running down his spine, sinking onto the floor and staining it a gentle blue. He felt Hank pull at something, prying it away from its tense position on his back, and wash underneath it.
He stubbornly did not want to think about what any of this meant.
There was a long lull of silence as Hank ran the washcloth under the warm water from the bathtub and continued to work on repairing his injury. Connor felt Hank’s hands run along his back, pulling and rearranging in a way that alleviated some discomfort he didn’t even realize he had.
Despite not willingly turning on low power mode, Connor felt himself jerking awake every few seconds. Hank let out a small snort the first few times, outright laughed in his face when Connor slammed his head against his knees, then got smacked in the face by something Connor couldn’t see that flared out as he fell.
He didn’t think about how he could somehow feel Hank’s face, despite not touching him with any known limb.
It took almost a half hour, but eventually, Hank patted him on the shoulder.
“Blood's gone,” he said, standing up and popping his back. He grimaced and tossed the blue stained washcloth back into the tub. “You can borrow some of my clothes.”
Connor felt himself nod along. “I-“ he started, then paused. He had to know.
“What was wrong with me?” He ended up asking in a quiet voice.
Hank looked surprised. “You guys don’t know when it happens?”
Connor’s blood ran cold. “What do you mean?”
Hank sighed and gently maneuvered him so his back faced the mirror. Connor turned his head to look behind him, straining the fake muscles in his neck.
On his back, wet from the water and dripping slightly, was a pair of wings. They were mostly pin feathers, covered in a gentle grey fluff, but they were far larger than most of the deviant’s who they had seen before.
If Connor had to guess, it would be the wings of a bird a few weeks old.
He stared. “I’m not a deviant, though.” He told Hank, serious.
Hank snorted. “Sure you ain’t. Look, kid, I won’t turn you in or nothing, but-“
“No, seriously-“ He whipped around and grabbed Hank’s hands, holding them tightly. “I still have to follow my programming. I never deviated. The mission’s still there.”
Hank paused, looking somewhat disappointed. “Listen, kid, you’ve got the deviant wings, I think you're pretty deviant.”
Connor felt his head swim at the mere idea that he could deviate. He felt sick. “I’m not a deviant!” He shouted, shaking his hands up and down.
They both looked a little taken aback by the outburst, so Connor dropped Hank’s hands. “There’s got to be some logical explanation to this. I am being 100% truthful when I say that I haven’t deviated, Hank. Maybe the theory we have about the wings is wrong, maybe- maybe it’s the emotional shock. If any android experiences it their programming goes haywire and decided to grow wings? Somehow? I’ve been shocked quite a bit. Android's don’t have emotions, but if we did I would have been very emotionally damaged by some of the things we’ve seen. I’m not a deviant Hank, I-“
Hank sighed and patted his wings, and Connor flinched at the unusual sensation.
“I’m not a deviant,” he insisted again, uselessly.
“I know, Connor. Let’s get you to bed.”
Amanda didn’t know about his wings. That was the only explanation he could think of as he rowed the boat down the stream in the artificial garden.
The air somehow felt stuffy, despite being outside. Connor decided he liked the actual outdoors more.
Despite having very directly seen the- the things on his back and knowing where they were, there wasn’t a pair of extra limbs underneath his normal uniform. No blood, no tears, no bumps under the jacket. For a few seconds, he let himself pretend that everything was normal.
“Amanda,” he said after a few moments of silence. She looked up. “What else do we know about the deviant’s wings?”
She levied him under a searching gaze, and Connor squashed down the reaction to squirm. When had he started feeling uncomfortable around Amanda? When did he first feel uncomfortable in the first place?
“We don’t know a lot, Connor. We still haven’t caught a single deviant alive.” She glared at him. “Despite there being numerous opportunities.”
He glanced away from her predatory eyes.
“Connor, back at the Eden club, there were two androids. Both had fair sized wings and would have been excellent specimen alive or dead. Why didn’t you shoot?”
Connor hesitated. “There was no use. They were already too far by the time I got the gun.” A lie.
Amanda had limited access to his memories, just the stone cold facts he would report to Cyberlife, so there was no way she could have known how close they were. There was supposedly no reason for him to ever lie, and the android data was so raw and intense it took ages for humans to decode. Instead, she nodded thoughtfully.
Connor grabbed the two oars and continued to row.
The feathers grew in quickly. In the following morning, after insisting they both took the early morning off, (“Whatever wants to happen will happen in the afternoon, kid.”) Hank helped Connor pop the pins to reveal the neat white feathers.
It was strangely relaxing, in the early morning light with Sumo’s head in his lap, the TV playing some cooking show on a low volume. Behind him, Hank scrolled down his phone every few moments to read more about caring for baby birds.
“You really don’t have to do this,” Connor said as he carded his finger’s through Sumo’s fur.
Connor couldn’t see him, but he imagined Hank shrugged. “I’ve had to rehabilitate a handful of birds that fell from their nests, you just need a little extra help with these pin feathers.”
Connor felt a cold pit open up in his stomach. He wasn’t alive, he wasn’t a bird, this was so wrong. “I’m not like a bird, Lieutenant, I’m an android, and we don’t need help.”
Hank laughed. “You’ve needed more help than any other android I’ve ever met.”
Connor felt a hot stab of indignation, but Hank ruffled his hair and continued his work on the wings. “Not in a bad way, I mean I’ve watched you vault over rooftops and fight at speeds I can hardly follow. You’re a smart, hardy bastard, but you’re really just a kid.”
Connor didn’t know what to say.
“Just a kid…” Hank said thoughtfully, then he pulled a little too roughly at the base of the feather. Connor let out a squawk and both wings flung themselves out, slapping the offending hands away.
There was a pause, and Connor glanced behind him to try and gauge whatever anger Hank must have felt but was met with a shit-eating grin instead.
Hank busted out laughed, then battered away the two wings.
“They’re getting bigger, kid! Who knows, maybe one day you could even fly with these. Sure as hell are as flighty as a bird.”
Connor felt his face heat up in embarrassment, but then Hank’s laughter doubled and he couldn’t help but join in with a couple awkward chuckles of his own.
“You look like a fucking blueberry,” Hank said between his own wheezing, and that was enough to tip Connor over the edge. He buried his face in Sumo’s fur and laughed heartily along with his friend.
Sumo himself let out a little ‘WOOF’ and his tail thumped against the ground. Connor felt like maybe these wings weren’t such a bad thing, after all.