#but hypothetically if we. were. you're lying because I'M jesus in the real and I make deals with the devil all of the time

[p1nkp0nkk]

IM LITERALLY JESUS. WE ARE DOING THIS AGAIN BECAUSE YOU'RE WRON

first 5 faceless emojis are how your summers gonna go

[archadianskies]

you're writing captain allen fic! can i um, request a nines/allen fic??? not sure if you're taking requests but it's a rarepair fo mine i'm desperate for more content /sweats no pressure though absolutely understand if you say no!!

→ on Ao3

While Markus and his merry band were busy demanding equal rights for the bots of America, a neat little plot was uncovered when the CEO of CyberLife was stood down. Part of their agreed terms was to halt the production of androids immediately, and release all those in storage as awakened deviants. What they didn’t count on was the discovery of confidential emails, staunchly denied by the government, placing an order of 200,000 RK900 units for the purpose of crushing the android revolution under heel and restoring the power balance back into the hands of humans. 

Never happened, of course, and the RK900 never went into production. Only one was fabricated, and was in its final stage of its testing phase when the revolution ended. It then became a reluctant olive branch offered to the DPD, a ‘sorry we tried to make killing machines behind your back but you can have this one and keep the prototype too’.

There’s no reason to double up, Fowler says, and this model has military upgrades so it will suit your unit better. That’s all the warning he gets before there’s an android standing in his office at 9:00am sharp on Monday.

“Captain Allen, I am the RK900. I have been assigned to SWAT unit 32, under your command.” He says, in a voice deeper than Connor’s and a little more polished. He seems to loom over him, filling out the space of his office like a large shadow, like a Terminator from those movies one of his mothers always liked.

“Do you have a name?”

“No, I was not assigned one.”

“You’re Connor’s little brother aren’t you?” He crosses his arms over his chest. “Heard you were called Nines or 900 or something.”

“No.” Firm refusal. “I do not wish to be associated with a number.” A pause, a frown. “It feels demeaning.” Feels , he says, because apparently androids can do that now.  

“We’re going to have to call you something.” He cocks a brow, and the android averts his gaze, unsure. “Well. You’re the newest guy to the team so that makes you the rookie.”

“Rookie?” The android echoes curiously.

“You’re the rookie until the next recruit shows up.” He shrugs. “That’s the rule. We’ll call you rookie until either you give us a name, with which we will occasionally call you while still referring to you as rookie, or until there is another recruit; whichever comes first.”

“Understood.”

*~*

Connor’s baby brother is 6’5” and if looks could kill everyone would certainly be dead. Terminator’s got the worst case of Resting Murder Face he’s ever seen; it’s as if the psychos at CyberLife used nothing but rulers to design him, as if they took Connor’s model and took away everything that could possibly allude to friendliness. They even gave him startling grey eyes, as if the brown of Connor’s eyes was too warm to keep. What he learns quickly, though, is that even if CyberLife made him look like a cold blooded killing machine, they failed to scrub away the almost puppy-like demeanour so integral to Connor’s personality.

He walks in on his team in the training hall enthusiastically trying to beat the android at every obstacle course, using their years of teamwork to try and pool their skills in order to beat CyberLife’s latest and greatest. They fail spectacularly, to no one’s surprise, but the rookie’s grinning in that slightly lopsided goofy way Connor grins and the team muss his hair like one would pat a dog and he lights up just the same. He’s just as eager, as desperate to please, to integrate, to gain the approval of his human peers and there’s something both endearing and a little sad about it.

*~*

Everyone’s lives depend on trust and teamwork and that means figuring out where the rookie will fit in best. He runs them through endless simulations and the android bests them all; he can be placed anywhere, given any role, and adapts to each situation perfectly. It’s not enough- a simulation is hypothetical, a simulation is safe and is nothing like the chaos of a real mission with very real lives at stake.

“Will that be all for tonight, Captain?” He knocks his reading glasses up briefly to rub at his tired eyes, looking up from his reports to find the android standing dutifully at parade rest in front of his desk.

“Weapons cleaned, locked and logged?”

“Yessir.” A nod.

“You’ve been here a week now.” He leans back in his chair, crossing his arms. “What do you think of Fowler’s choice, assigning you to my team?”

“I believe I am where I ought to be.” The rookie says slowly. “This is the department where my skills prove most useful. Connor is built to assist with detective work, and has the social programming to build strong social bonds. I lack such programming, and have been built with military modifications instead.”

“The team like you plenty.” He shrugs, and the android’s LED spins yellow as he looks away almost self-consciously. “I am glad.” He says quietly. “I find their company enjoyable.”

“Good. Their lives depend on how well you work with them, you understand that right?” Another nod, and he spares him one last glance before returning to his reports. “Alright. Dismissed.”

“Do you?” It’s said so quietly he almost misses it. When he looks up, he catches the briefest flicker of red before the android’s LED swirls yellow.

“Do I what?”

“Like me?” Another brief flicker of red. “You command this team, Captain Allen. You are the most integral part of it. I wish to get along with you too.”

He thinks back on the week that just passed, on the drug busts, on the anti-android protest that turned ugly, on the black market CyberLife raid. He thinks back on the stunned horror on everyone’s faces when the RK900 snapped a rifle in half, picked up a grown man and tossed him aside like a ragdoll in order to protect a fallen teammate. 

He thinks back on that afternoon when he ran a segment of the baton relay race, of both the SWAT unit and Android Crimes Division combined up against Connor and the rookie. He remembers how easily the brothers had beaten them and how his team had so melodramatically displayed their fake disappointment at losing by trying to tackle the RK900 and piling on him ineffectively. He remembers hearing him laugh and seeing him smile that slightly lopsided smile.

A killing machine with the personality of a puppy; loyal to a fault.

“We get along just fine, rookie.”

“I am glad, sir.” He says again, softer this time. “Good night.”

*~*

He turns 44 on the job, and they’re filthy from chasing perps through the slush, teeth chattering from the cold as they huddle in the van headed back to the precinct. He expects to die on the job, so a birthday holds no special weight. He bargains with himself that if he makes it to 50 then he’ll make a big deal out of it. Maybe.

He likes to think he’s still in his prime, and this job demands the best from him both physically and mentally. Careful with what he eats, diligent with his exercise and strict with his training he refuses to let himself slip up; he knows better than anyone what this job requires. Still, though, on missions like these he reluctantly admits to himself he’s not 20 and spry anymore.

The showers cloud with steam as they all scrub off and it’s heaven on his sore muscles and cold skin. Wrapping a towel around his waist he heads back to his locker to grab a fresh set of clean clothes, lost in his thoughts as he goes over the mission in his head. A success, though a messy one. Another slightly amusing, slightly horrifying moment when the rookie snapped a perp’s arm simply by squeezing a little too hard. Jesus he’s glad they’ve got him on their side.

Fingers ghost along his ribs and he instinctively grabs the hand and twists.

“Captain I-”

“What-”

“Sorry! You-” Red LED as he drops his hand, and the RK900 steps back to put distance between them. “Your scar- it’s- you have-”

He stares at him and the android fidgets under his gaze. Looking down at himself, he turns slightly and lifts his arm to touch the long jagged scar along his ribs. “Serrated hunting knife.” He taps a puckered scar below his collarbone. “Gunshot.” Another skimming his hip bone. “Gunshot.” Another on his shoulder. “Gunshot.”

The rookie steps closer hesitantly, reaching out slowly to give him every opportunity to knock his hand away. He remains still, and lets him touch a faint scar on his forehead. “And this one?”

“Courtesy of my cousin swashbuckling with sticks when I was five.” A small smile spreads on the android’s lips, and he takes the opportunity to look him over. God it isn’t fair the android literally hasn’t put in a day’s work to have a body in peak, perfect shape. He’s plated in kevlar too, and he raps his knuckles on the hard chest plate. “You’re brand spanking new, rookie. Not a scratch on you.”

“Shiny and chrome.” One of the men pipes up. “Don’t worry rookie, you’ll earn your battle scars too someday.”

“Then you’ll really be one of us.” He grins, and the android grins in return and something catches in his throat and he thinks oh no.

*~*

“Will that be all for tonight, Captain?” Every evening, the same question, the same earnest expression on his face.

“Weapons cleaned, locked and logged?”

“Yessir.” A nod. “I-” he steps forward hesitantly and thinks the better of it, stepping back. “Happy birthday, Captain Allen. Good night.”

“Thanks rookie.” He manages a tired chuckle. “See you in the morning.”

*~*

Not every mission is a success. Sometimes the intel is bad, sometimes the raid is premature, sometimes the weather fucks them up. Sometimes things just go wrong, horribly, horrifically wrong and all they can manage is damage control.

“No, not like this. Not like this rookie, not on my watch.” He skids over to his side and drops to his knees, the RK900 lying on his back with his chest blown open by an explosive. By a fucking grenade he caught to protect the team. The android is shaking uncontrollably, LED blood red and he bleeds and bleeds and bleeds. 

“I- I don’t know what to do. Rookie, I don’t-” there’s nothing to press down on, there’s no human anatomy here, he has no fucking clue. There’s just blue everywhere, and some distant part of him thinks Hank Anderson will literally kill him with his bare hands for getting one of his sons killed. And he wouldn’t blame him, he wouldn’t fight him on that either. “Not like this, c’mon rookie, please god not like this-” the call’s already been made, and a medtech van is being sent with the EMTs but he knows he won’t last that long. This is the worst part of the job and though he’d give anything not to be in this position, he wouldn’t wish this on anyone else.

The android weakly grasps his wrist, clumsily pulling his hand to touch an erratically pulsing circle just below his sternum. The blast has indented whatever it is, pushing it in a skewed angle.

“You want me to pull it out? Get it back in properly?” A weak nod, and he scrambles for his knife. “Okay, okay uh-” He wedges the tip of the knife under the edge of the glowing circle, and it takes a few tries for him to get it to catch properly, the blood making the surface so slippery the blade ends up sliding out of place. It pops up just an inch and then he has to reach in sideways through a missing chunk of plating to push it awkwardly back into an upright position, only then can he pull it out completely. It detaches with a wet click, and then he’s carefully lowering it back in until it latches into place. He’s trying not to focus too much on the fact he can see the rookie’s insides, at all the broken tubes and wires and the sparks, and the blood just pouring out.

“Stay with me rookie, what’s next? What do you need me to do?” The android pulls insistently on his hands, guiding them towards an open segment on his chest. “Here? I don’t- ugh!” he’s unable to stop the sound of disgust that leaves his mouth as the android pushes his hands inside of his chest until he touches some sort of glass component. It has thick tubes connected to it, and the blast has fractured it in several places. He shifts a little so he’s nearly straddling him in order to keep his hands securely on the biocomponent. It thrums in his hold, warm to the touch. Whatever it is, it’s stabilising him and the rookie looks less frenzied than before, taking slow, measured breaths most likely to ventilate his overheating systems.

It feels like an eternity before the medtechs arrive with their fancy equipment and then they’re very gently extracting his hands from the rookie’s chest and before swarming the android and whisking him away for surgery.

Somehow he makes it home. He’s not sure of anything, really, but somehow he’s showered and all the blue blood is gone and he’s in his favourite old hoodie from his academy days. His hands shake when he tries to pour himself a drink so he settles for a bottle of water from the fridge. When he looks at his hands they’re clean and then they’re not, they’re drenched in blue, and then they’re clean and they’re blue again and so he takes some advil and goes to bed.

*~*

He goes to Jericho in the morning, to see the rookie and he doesn’t know if he’s there to pick up a body or is there to visit as a guest. It’s the latter, thankfully.

“So he’s alright?” He asks one of the android doctors, and she nods with a smile.

“Yes, you saved his life.” She leads him down a hallway. “His heart was damaged by the explosion but you held it together and allowed it to keep pumping blood around his body.”

“I had-” he swallows thickly and thinks about the warm glass against his palm, “I held his heart in my hands?”

“And saved his life.” She gestures at a door. “He’s running a diagnostic cycle, but he’ll be ready for discharge in an hour.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you .” She laughs softly, before taking her leave.

The rookie is propped up by a couple of pillows, looking down at his chest.

“Hey.”

“Look, I have scars now.” The android says quietly, tracing a few jagged lines on the black kevlar plating around the glowing blue circle beneath his sternum.

“In my defence,” he takes a seat by the bed, “there was blood everywhere and I couldn’t wedge my knife under it in one go.”

“I like them.” He smiles tiredly, touching one of the thin jagged lines. “They remind me you saved my life, Captain.”

“I was way out of my depths there rookie, I’m glad you were awake enough to guide me.”

They sit there quietly and he listens to the machines beep and whirr and tries not to focus on how exhausted he feels, how raw and exposed he feels because of all that’s transpired.

“I have been alive for exactly one month today.” The rookie says quietly.

“This is a pretty lousy way to start off the day, sorry.”

“I’m starting it off alive, so I would consider that far from lousy, sir.”

“Oh so you’ve got no social programming, but you’ve got sass is that it?” He rolls his eyes, unable to stop the smile on his lips. The android regards him with those striking grey eyes and he knows the only cold thing about them is the colour. Reaching for his hands, just like yesterday, he guides them to rest on his chest.

“You held my heart in your hands and you saved my life.” He murmurs, LED flickering yellow and holding. “Would it be alright if I entrusted it to you for safekeeping?”

He knows what he means, he knows what he’s asking of him and it terrifies him. He knows this job is hell, he never wanted a partner to get caught up wondering, waiting for him to come home and the one inevitable time he won’t. He’s kept everyone at arm’s length, he’s given his mind, body and soul to this job in place of his heart. Maybe this way they’ll keep each other safe. Maybe this way it’s better; they both know the risks, they both know what the job demands of them.

Leaning in, he presses their lips together and gives his heart in return.