Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The house located at 14 Caroline Lane is easily the biggest fucking mansion Lieutenant Hank Anderson has ever seen. It towers over its smaller neighbors with a four-car garage, nine bedrooms, three personal offices, two dining rooms, eight bathrooms, and four porches that adds up to a whopping 6600 square feet.

And his officers are responsible for searching every single inch of it.

It’s certainly an interesting change of pace. Hank is used to trudging through rotten drug dens smothered in mold and animal feces in search of murder weapons and intent to distribute— he’s not used to being met with massive iron gates and manicured lawns that stretch past the horizon. He’s not complaining— He’s been waiting to raid this house for months. Securing this manor and the contents within it would be one of the first major steps to dismantling Detroit’s most notorious crime family.

The Sterns had had a tight grip on the underground workings of Detroit since the late 70’s after a sudden coup d’état overthrew the two other main mob families. As a result the Sterns had a strict monopoly on most underground crime, including but not limited to: prostitution, smuggling, drug trade, gambling, money laundering, dog fighting, loan sharking, extortion, labor racketeering, and now, most importantly, murder.

Seven murders, exactly, four of them low level police officers. That’s why Hank is here, partnered up with organized crime. He honestly hadn’t wanted to investigate the deaths of four other brothers in blue, but despite himself, the further along the investigation went, the deeper he found himself untangling it.

It’s hard work that is several levels above his normal— and the involvement of other police officers meant that the pressure was raining down heavily from the brass, but they were making progress, slow as it was, it was still steady, and getting the warrant to get inside this house was going to be the tide that turned everything up on its head.

It’s because of this case that Hank’s hands are shaking— he’d pledged to himself when he opened this investigation that if he was going to be investigating fellow officers, he’d lay off the drinking at work. It’s a stark change— he’d grown used to feeling mildly buzzed at all times, work or not, but now his blood is dry and his back sweaty despite the December chill. He could drink himself unconscious when he got home, but so long as he worked on solving the deaths of two rookie beat cops and a sergeant and his right hand, he was going to stay sober at work.

It’s miserable, but almost rewarding in its own way.

Almost.

The inside of the house might be even more impressive than the outside with its vaulted ceilings and sculpted stained glass. The carpets are impossibly plush beneath outlandishly ornate furniture. Everything is wrapped in rich maple wood and smells crisply of fresh cleaning solution.

There’s not a single pair of shoes lining the entryway or any coats in the closet, but Hank wasn’t expecting there to be. They have good intel that this house is used for personal matters, but he isn’t so foolish as to believe he got a warrant for the Sterns permanent address.

Nonetheless, he knows for a fact that business is conducted here, and that means there will be evidence of it. It doesn’t matter how professional this family is— there are things in this house that will point them in the right direction, and Hank finds himself itching to find it.

It had been a long time since he’d felt the urge to dig through a case like this— to really dive into his work. He supposes it’s progress. Maybe investing in that therapist had been a good idea after all.

He reaches for his phone absently to place in a call for any idle hands. He knew better than to load this search with too many people, but a house this size was going to take a large crew to shift through if they wanted to be done before nightfall. He’d just have to keep a tighter leash than normal on the chain of evidence.

They get a good gang of officers carefully rummaging through the house, searching through each drawer and cabinet, under tabletops and linens, behind TVs and appliances. They log and pack anything that could be of significance to the case and take careful photos of each place they go. It’s tedious but they’ve already found traces of bleach and blood, and two cabinets full of bank statements.

No one in the Stern family is answering their phones today, but Hank wasn’t expecting them to anyway. They’d been as lowkey about this raid as possible, but there’s a good chance they were tipped off about it anyway. Making themselves scarce only means avoidance of interrogation, which was like the plague to these people. Hank doesn’t mind. If they can find something to nail on one of their members he’d probably have a better chance at catching one of them off guard, and he could use all the information he could get.

He eventually leaves Ben’s crew to their search of the second story and snags Chris to tackle the basement. Their blueprints say that it’s smaller than the rest of the house and only has one bedroom and storage. Between the two of them they ought to get the most important things out of the way so they could leave the rest to the skeleton crew.

The basement door is locked, but so had the offices, and if they were using the basement for storage then Hank hopes there’s good reason to keep people out of the downstairs. They break the lock and venture downstairs, but it’s much like the rest of the house— impersonal but pretty.

The first thing he notices upon stepping into the basement is that it’s fucking cold. Despite the size of the house and the wicked winter chill outside, the rest of the house was an even seventy degrees, but the basement is terribly chilly and drafty— so much so that Hank begins absently looking for an open window. It made no sense for it to be so cool— a family like this wasn’t closing their vents to save money.

Sure enough, he spots three windows thrown wide open on the west side of the living room.

It’s odd, because there’s three of them, and each window overlooks a steep drop. His first instinct had been that someone had fled out the window and left it open, but no one could have made a drop like that and managed to run off before one of the officers standing guard noticed them.

No, these windows weren’t open for escape. They were open for some other reason.

He makes a note to himself to call down the photographer to take note of the windows before turning and pulling his coat a little tighter around himself, deciding to leave them open for now. He goes to dig through the entertainment cabinet, not really expecting to find much but too stubborn not to check everything.

“Lieutenant? You might want to come and take a look at this.” Chris’s voice reaches him from the short hallway around the corner where the bedroom was located.

Hank rounds the corner and pauses in front of the door Chris is standing next to. There’s nothing inconspicuous about it— it’s broad and clean just like every other door in the house. The only thing that makes Hank’s stomach tighten is the large padlock fixed to the doorframe. It’s fastened with a steel plate and required a key to open. It looks extremely of place against the rich maroon walls and dark woods— the carpet is too thick to tell if there are any lights on the other side of the door, but if Hank had to guess he would bet that the lock is meant to keep people out, not to keep something in.

It’s a development, if nothing else. People only locked up things they didn’t want other people getting to. If there was any damning evidence in this house, Hank would bet his house that it’s on the other side of this door.

“Go grab the bolt cutters,” he tells Chris, already pulling out his phone to give Ben an update.

By the time Chris is back Hank is seriously beginning to consider closing the damn windows. Even with the furnace running the basement couldn’t be any warmer than fifty degrees, and the sudden drafts that sweep through the room don’t help. He’s already feeling feverish from the alcohol withdrawal, and the fucking chill doesn’t help the sudden chills. He’d made the mistake of bringing his flask to work anyway, and his fingers were seriously itching to take a swig from it, just to take the edge off.

But then Chris is back, and reality sets back in. He lets Chris have the honors of cutting the lock off and keeps one hand on his service weapon just in case— if there was anyone in there, then they were locked inside, and Hank wasn’t taking any chances with this damn family, not when they were already responsible for the deaths of four officers.

The door swings open to reveal a large bedroom painted a crisp white with matching carpets, complete with bed, bookcase, desk, and dresser. The room is awkward— far too large for such sparse furnishings— almost as though at one point it contained far more inside of it. Gone are the rich woods and extravagant chandeliers— The twin bed has been stripped of all its linens, baring only the scratching mattress pad below.

Seated on the bed with his legs crossed beneath him is a boy no older than six. His hair is slicked back and he’s dressed in an oversized t-shirt and corduroys. He stares back at both of them with massive brown eyes that frankly look far too puppy-like to be real.

Hank’s brain stutters over itself for a few moments while he processes exactly what he’s looking at—

A little boy tucked away in a freezing bedroom behind lock and key?

Hank’s been a detective for long enough to recognize something wicked when he sees it, and he knows immediately that whatever life this kid was living had to be twisted in all of the worst kinds of ways. The Stern family wasn’t known for their healthy nourishment of humanity, and every piece of evidence that they’d dug up so far pointed to this family’s involvement in the most vicious parts of society— Hank has no doubts that that kind of depravity dripped down onto this little boy.

He drops his hand from his holster and steps into the room fully, his mind finally catching up with the situation. Against all odds, he doesn’t even get in the first word.

“Hello,” says the boy, voice soft but confident, “My name is Connor.” He shifts on the bed, squirming a little before settling, staring both of his intruders down. He doesn’t seem frightened despite the fact that two armed strangers just broke into his locked bedroom.

Hank can’t pin it down at first, but there’s something wrong with this kid—

“Right,” Hank says, clearing his throat. “I’m Hank.” He shortens his introduction, taking in mind that he’s speaking to a child. Kids didn’t understand ranks or titles. They knew first names. “And this is Chris—” He motions behind himself. “We’re with the Detroit Police.” He tries to keep the edge out of his voice. Sometimes being confronted by a police officer alone was enough to make even the most cultured kids skittish.

But Connor just watches them, large eyes sweeping them up and down. He looks curious, but there’s something very muted about him— like he’s already accepted that something bad is going to happen and doesn’t have the energy to be upset about it. It’s concerning to see the look on someone so young.

It’s then that Hank realizes what’s wrong— Connor is absolutely tiny. Not late bloomer, “failure to thrive” tiny, but terribly, horribly skinny. The baggy t-shirt he’s wearing hides his physique enough that at first glance Hank hadn’t immediately noticed, but now that he’s looking it’s impossible not to see the striking signs of malnutrition. There is no baby fat in the kid’s cheeks and his collarbones stick out of his shirt like knives— the hollow of his throat is far too deep for a boy his age, and his wrists look as though they’re made of brittle bird bones. Even his hair is dull and his eyes glazed, and his body seems to sink into itself as though it has no ability to hold itself up.

The vague concern that had washed over him upon immediately seeing the kid tightens into a much more concrete knot in Hank’s chest.

This is why he works homicide— dead bodies are far easier to bear than the sight of abused kids and vile parents. He hadn’t had to deal with a living victim in over a year, exactly how he preferred it if it meant avoiding meeting little boys who are too weak to hold their heads up all the way.

He forces himself to step further into the room, looking away from Connor to examine his bedroom. The bookcase is rather bare and there are no blankets or pillows anywhere. The desk has a schoolbook on it with some loose-leaf paper, and there’s an attached bathroom next to it. Compared to the rest of the house, this room is very desolate and empty. Hank suspects that it no accident.

“Are you here alone, Connor?” He steps closer to the bed and lets Chris duck out of the room to report their finding to the others.

“I’m not sure,” Connor tells him, his hands clasping in his lap. “I believe so though. I heard the others leave this morning.”

Heard them leave. Not oh, yeah they came and said goodbye, or anything similar. No one came to check on him. Exactly how long had Connor been locked in this room alone?

Hank frowns. Connor’s speech pattern is strangely formal for a child. He speaks like a little adult, not a kid. Hank considers the situation for a moment before gently sitting on the edge of the bed so he can get a better look at the kid. Once he’s closer he can see how his little body shivers and shakes, papery skin covered in potent goosebumps and ears and nose tinted red. His lips are a little too dark, a little too purple to be healthy.

The windows were left open on purpose.

Hank’s stomach longs for a drink instantly— something strong enough to wipe his mind blank of Connor’s big eyes.

And he hates himself all the more for it. This was his fucking job— the job he used to love. It was his responsibility to see that Connor was cared for now, even if it broke his fucking heart. He didn’t get to reach for his flask when Connor needed someone to make sure he didn’t waste away under the care he obviously wasn’t receiving. Hank doesn’t get to be that useless— he won’t let himself join the list of people who have failed this kid.

With that on his mind, he begins to slip out of his coat, cursing silently as the cold air bit at his skin through his long sleeves. If he was this fucking cold in a sweater then he doesn’t want to imagine how fucking freezing Connor must be in a t-shirt and no goddamn fucking fat on his body. “You heard the others leave this morning?”

Connor eyes him closely while Hank moves, and when Hank offers him the coat he doesn’t seem to comprehend what’s happening. When Connor continues to fail to reach for it Hank sighs and does the work himself, draping the thick fabric around Connor’s thin shoulders and tugging it closed in the front. It completely swallows his entire body, but it’s warm.

Connor is busy examining the coat wrapped around him when he speaks, and Hank can see him manipulate the arms into the sleeves and then pull his knees to his chest so they were tucked away as well. “Yes. Everyone is very busy.”

“And they left you here by yourself?” Hank asks carefully, purposefully not mentioning the padlock. Connor’s apathy at the situation is concerning— whereas any kid would be terrified at the thought of being locked away in their bedroom alone for the day, Connor seemed to perceive it as normal.

“Yes. This is my room.”

Hank nods like that’s the most obvious answer in the world, because he suspects that for Connor it is. “Are you normally left alone during the day?”

Now something in Connor’s expression changes. He eyes Hank warily, lips pressing against each other. He didn’t seem to like that question. He doesn’t answer and chooses instead to tap his fingertips together silently.

Hank frowns slightly. Connor seemed far too young to understand concepts such as when to withhold information from others— especially a police officer, the most classic example of an authority figure. Kids Connor’s age tended to babble at every chance they got and share every secret they’d ever heard if it got them a scrap of attention. Hell, even Cole had babbled to his daycare leaders and school teachers, and he had been one shy fucker.

Fuck.

Fuck. He’d gone weeks without thinking of Cole, and already this case had broken his streak. He was going to be in trouble.

He lets Connor squirm for moment while he considers the situation.

Connor needs to be admitted into a hospital. He’s skinny enough that Hank is legitimately concerned about his heart, and even if he wasn’t in immediate danger, the abundant signs of abuse need to be recorded and logged into evidence by a trained medical professional. He obviously couldn’t stay in this house with these people— Hank had every constitute to remove children from neglectful guardians and place them into the hands of Detroit’s social care system— and Connor had already met several cues of mistreatment that were grounds for removal. Now it was a matter of doing so in the least scarring way possible.

Connor is watching him again with those big fuckin’ eyes, but he doesn’t ask any of the questions that are obviously on his tongue. Instead he just waits patiently, fingers tapping together beneath the fabric of Hank’s coat. If Hank listens closely he can hear the faint footsteps of the officers searching the house above them— and then it dawns on him— “Did you hear us come in?”

Connor hesitates for a moment before nodding. “Yes. I was waiting for you.”

“How did you know who it was?” Hank asks, tone mildly disbelieving. Connor couldn’t be older than 6— there was no way a kid that young was that observant—

“There were too many people for it to be Kara and Luther,” Connor tells him first, eyes lighting up just a bit. Hank isn’t sure if it’s from the mention of these people or from a chance to show off his intelligence. “And too much movement to be... the others.” Connor pauses there, like he had to decide just what to call these ‘others’. “I heard a walkie talkie too. And no one was running, so I guessed it was the police.” Connor rocks forward as he speaks, hands rubbing together. He’s still shivering despite the coat, but his eyes don’t look so glazed.

Hank’s... impressed, damnnit. Impressed and mildly creeped out, because what fucking kid could deduce who was in his house by sound alone? Had he been raised on Sherlock Holmes knockoffs or something? What kid heard strangers in his house and sat calmly on his bed while he waited for someone to discover him? He hadn’t screamed, hadn’t cried, hadn’t tried to alert anyone to his location— that he was locked in his bedroom and slowly freezing to death.

Hank can’t possibly imagine how twisted Connor’s inner monologue must be to find normalcy in a situation like this.

The urge to get Connor out of this place and into a warm hospital is only growing, and Hank decides that any other questions can wait for later. He hears a few people coming down the stairs and rubs a hand across his face quickly before standing. “Stay here for a second, I’ll be right back.”

Ben is waiting for him in the hallway, peering into the bedroom to look at where Connor sits on his bare mattress, his eyebrows furrowed. “What the hell?”

“He was locked in there,” Hank informs him, some of his anger seeping into his tone finally.

“There’s no records of any kids in the Stern family.” Ben reminds him.

“I know,” Hank mutters, folding his arms across his chest to retain some heat. “But he obviously lives here, and he’s being abused to all fuck. He looks like a fucking gust of wind will blow him away.”

Ben nods in agreement, grimacing as he speaks. “If he’s been living here then he might be able to give us good intel.”

It was true, but it hadn’t even been close to what Hank had been thinking of. He’d been thinking of looking for some shoes so he could take Connor to the hospital and get him logged in with DCFS, not of what information they could coax out of the kid. Ben has a good point, but for some reason it only makes Hank’s anger burn brighter. Was no one going to do the right fucking thing for this kid?

“We’ll worry about that later,” he snaps, rubbing at his temple where he could feel a headache coming on. Maybe he’d have a shot from his flask after all... “Right now I’m taking him to the hospital for processing and we can go from there. He needs fucking medical attention.”

Ben shrugs, wrapping his own coat tighter around himself. “Sure, but are you sure that’s a good idea? I mean, Chris or Tina could take him...”

Of fucking course. Of fucking course someone else could take Connor, as if Hank doesn’t fucking know that. There were other things that needed to be done, and other excuses Hank could use to avoid interacting with Connor at all. It would probably be better that way, even. Connor wouldn’t have to deal with an asshole and someone else gets to suffer whatever heartbreak Connor’s story will end with. He doesn’t have to look at this tiny six-year-old with brown eyes that are just so fucking like Cole’s, doesn’t have to watch this kid suffer through whatever horrible truths will be shoved upon him. He wouldn’t have to see his dead baby’s face in Connor’s hollow cheeks or think of the piles of children’s clothes stacked up in his storage closet at home when he looks at the clothes Connor obviously doesn’t fit in.

He doesn’t have to ensure that Connor is treated well— that he’s taken care of and looked after. He doesn’t even have to walk back into that room— someone could give him his coat back later.

Except he knows that he’s going to anyway.

He’s going to anyway because he’s never done the best thing for himself— he’s never known how to say no, he’s never managed to abandon something this important. All he had left in this stupid fucking word was his work and his liquor, and while he still plans to get blackout wasted tonight, that doesn’t change the fact that right now Connor is his responsibility until Hank decides to assign him to some other poor motherfucker. It’s his job to make sure Connor is cared for, and he isn’t going to just fucking pretend it isn’t so he doesn’t have to think about the baby shoes still sitting in the bottom of his bedroom closet. Until he finally manages to kill himself or get fired, he’s going to do his fucking job, and right now that meant walking back into that room and taking Connor to get help.

“No,” Hank says with a lot more conviction than he really feels. “I’m going to do it. This family is fucking dangerous. I’m not going to risk anything.” It’s a partial truth— Connor would need a certain level of protection until he was deemed to be safe and no longer under possible threat from his family. With a higher-ranking officer calling the direct shots, Connor’s protection would be more preventive and dynamic. Protocols wouldn’t be lost in translation and middle men. Hank had the authority needed to accomplish the tasks that would be tied to Connor’s case— it would be more efficient this way.

Ben frowns at him but shrugs. “Alright. If you’re sure.”

Bless the agreeable bastard.

Chris and Tina chose that moment to join them, both donned in their DPD issued jackets. Hank turns to them, “Go introduce yourselves to Connor in there. We’re all probably going to be working with him closely,” He grumbles. Hank watches them enter the bedroom again before fishing out his phone to update Fowler. This case was already messy, and apparently it was only going to get worse.

——

“I can’t leave,” Connor tells him immediately. He hasn’t moved from his spot on the bed, but he’s hunched further into the jacket. Hank thinks absently that he looks a little bit like a turtle desperate to disappear from the world.

That’s not the feeling he wants to bestow on the kid. He’s spent enough years working with abuse victims to understand the mentality, and he knows that leaving an abuser or a place of dwelling tends to be extremely distressing— especially for children who were unaware of the abuse they were suffering. The process of earning Connor’s trust would be hard, but more than anything Hank didn’t want to fuck the kid up worse. Kids like Connor tended to walk on fragile lines between normalcy and instability, and Hank didn’t want to be the one to push him over the wall.

“Why?” Hank asks, trying not to sound too demanding.

“I’m supposed to stay in my room.” Connor’s tapping has only increased, and now Hank can see one of his legs has begun jiggling despite the fact that it’s currently trapped under his body.

Hank’s stomach rolls uncomfortably— Connor believed he was supposed to stay in his room so strongly that not even the word of an authority figure was enough to convince him to leave. He’d visited enough schools and run enough domestic calls to know the weight a police officer’s words had on kids— even kids who didn’t listen to their parents listened to the police.

What made it worse was that Connor was clearly uncomfortable with defying Hank and his request that they leave. He seemed genuinely upset that he couldn’t simply agree with the officers around him and do as he was told— whatever consequences came with leaving the room where more concerning to Connor than the consequences the police could bestow on him, and it’s that realization that makes Hank’s skin crawl.

“What happens if you leave the room?” Hank asks, hoping for some insight. It’s the wrong thing to ask apparently, because Connor’s mouth snaps shut and he looks away almost immediately. Hank suppresses a sigh. It can be expected— Connor didn’t want to talk about what happened when he got in trouble— no kid did, only Connor’s was far more extreme. Connor probably saw his abuse as simple discipline.

Hank’s beginning to suspect that Connor’s psyche is twisted in too many ways to understand in a first meeting.

He tries a different tactic. He knows it will be pointless to explain to Connor that he’s being abused. He was too young, and if Hank understood correctly, his entire existence was woven with similar themes of wickedness. Trying to make Connor understand that his normal was in fact society’s abnormal would only cause more harm than good.

He’d like to have more information, so he knows exactly how to handle Connor’s care, but in the moment getting Connor to a doctor took top priority, so Hank pushes that to a backburner to be dealt with later.

“Our boss says that we can’t leave until we take you to the hospital,” Hank lies, stomach clenching with each word. He is manipulating Connor, but in the end it would be to help him. It just makes Hank feel scummy in the moment.

He can see Connor processing this. No doubt Connor had been taught not to trust the police— he was living in one of the most affluent crime families in Detroit after all. The police were the enemy and they were invading his home, and a boy as smart as Connor had probably figured out that they were looking for ways to end his family’s reign. If Connor had been raised to shy away from the DPD, then complying with Hank to get the rest of the police out of the house should be a temptation worth considering.

Sure enough, Connor’s jiggling increases. He is anxious at the prospect of disobeying an obvious order to remain in his room. Hank can see him rubbing his hands together as his eyes darted around the room.

“I’ll be in trouble,” Connor tells him, voice small. Hank hates that he’s frightening him, but everything about this process was going to be frightening.

“We’ll talk to your parents.” Hank leans forward a little on the bed, carefully staying out of Connor’s space. The room was beginning to warm up some— they’d closed the windows and heat was slowly building in the basement— but it’s still too cold to be comfortable, and Connor’s swaying is more pronounced now as he struggles to continue holding himself up. It seemed like despite his anxious energy, all the activity of the search was weakening him.

Connor chews on his lip, anxiety rolling off of him. Hell, he was making Hank nervous just looking at him.

“You can’t.” Connor looks like he very much wants to shed Hank’s coat and maybe start pacing— or sprinting— with the way he almost vibrates. He’s chalked full of fearful energy despite the dwindling state of his body. Hank suspects he will crash very hard, very soon.

“Why not?” Hank asks, only prodding a little. Connor’s eyes only meet his for a flash second before returning to their frantic scanning of his room.

“She won’t talk to you.”

“I’m very good at getting people to talk to me.” Hank tells him, adding just a dose of teasing into his voice, a reminder to Connor of his profession— “I’m sure if I explain everything she won’t be upset with you.” That’s a lie, Hank thinks bitterly. Anyone who starved their child and locked them in a freezing basement without blankets was a monster in Hank’s book, and he wasn’t planning on every letting someone like that get close to this kid again— but that would be far more distressing than a lie, so Hank grits his teeth through it.

Connor looks up at him again, and for a moment Hank thinks the kid might just chew his own lip off. He frees his hands from the jacket entirely to vigorously tap his middle fingers to his thumbs, hands moving so quickly that they blur. The urge to reach out and comfort him is so strong that Hank nearly cracks, but Connor speaks before he does.

“I can’t make her angry.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Hank promises again. It’s repetitive but living with his own son had taught him that kids tended to need absolute confirmation. “Is she your mother?”

Connor doesn’t answer, but Hank can’t tell if it’s purposeful or if his anxiety has finally overridden his auditory processing.

“Connor?”

“I’m not—” His voice is tighter than before, and Hank’s concern is only growing. They’re about to come to a crest, but what that will entail Hank doesn’t know, though he has suspicions. Either way he can’t just sit and watch the kid slip into a panic attack any longer in the hopes of getting results.

“Connor, it’s going to be okay.” His hands itch to reach out and gently take the kid’s shoulder, but Hank doesn’t know what kind of abuse Connor has withstood, and just what feelings touch may be associated with. He’s really only got his words to work with unless Connor initiates contact first.

“It won’t.”

“It will,” Hank promises, because if nothing else Hank’s going to make it okay, through whatever means necessary.

Connor shakes his head no, his entire body slowly coiling smaller with fear, his muscles tightening. When he speaks again his voice cracks, and Hank has to actually lean closer to hear his whisper. “What happens if I say no?”

Smart fucking kid, Hank thinks bitterly. Connor didn’t want to agree— but he knew that chances were in the end his refusal wouldn’t actually make a difference. He was a child, and they were cops, and while it seemed like the decision it was in his hands, he had seen through the facade and understood that they were just trying to avoid forcing him. There wasn’t actually any choice being presented to him— they were just waiting for his cooperation.

Hank refuses to lie this time. Any kid smart enough to understand that deserved to know the truth. “You’ll have to come with us anyway. We can’t leave you here. We’ll take you to the hospital and sort things out from there.”

Connor’s fidgeting stops abruptly, and he’s horribly still for a few moments before his arms disappear back into the jacket and snake around himself. His eyes are dropped to the mattress, and he’s stopped biting at his lip. Hank decides instantly that he preferred the restless anxiety to this horrible resignation— children weren’t supposed to be so meek, so subdued. It was wrong.

Hank waits several moments in which the silence stretches, already thinking of ways he may be able to get Connor up and moving without causing him any more distress, when Connor relents.

“Okay,” He whispers, tone flat. Hank watches him for a moment, his heart aching something fierce.

It wasn’t fucking fair that in order to be rescued, Connor had to defy everything he was comfortable with— had to face the wide unknown against his will. It makes fire burn in the back of Hank’s throat, because kids didn’t fucking deserve that.

He lets out a heavy sigh— he could mourn the bitterness of the situation later tonight with a bottle of scotch. For now, he had a goal, and that was getting Connor the fuck out of here.

“Alright,” Hank says. Connor won’t look up at him like he had been before, and despite knowing that this was going to be the path that ended with the happier ending, guilt winds deeper in his gut and twists. He makes himself stand anyway. “Alright,” He repeats. “Let’s pack you a bag.” This gets Connor’s attention, and he looks up, a question in his eyes that he doesn’t ask. “We don’t know how long this all will take— it would be good for you to have some of your things with you.”

Connor only sits for a second longer before slowly straightening and crawling off the bed. His movements are jerky and stilted, like he’s moving on muscle memory instead of consciousness. He leaves the coat on the bed while he goes to the dresser and pulls out a drawer. Inside Hank can see only two shirts and bare wood. Connor picks both up before stopping and clutching them both to his chest. He turns to Hank, dread in his eyes. “I don’t—” He lets out a little gasp, “I don’t have a bag.”

The panic in Connor’s eyes has Hank speaking to comfort him before he even realizes. “Uh— it’s okay. I’ll uh— I’ll find you one. Put the things you want to bring on the bed—” Hank ducks out of the room and calls over Chris.

Chris peaks into the bedroom as he speaks, “Yes, Lieutenant?”

“Help Connor here pack some of his things, I’m going to go find him a bag.” He knows he sounds cross, because he is, because this is fucked up and he doesn't really want to be around any kids that remind him so much of his own dead little boy, but he’s already gone down this path, and he’s going to see it through. With enough whiskey tonight it won’t matter anyway, so he watches Chris slip into the room and awkwardly try to help Connor collect a few things before turning back towards the stairs.

He’s not sure if his therapist would be proud or concerned that he’s decided to shoulder Connor’s wellbeing personally. He’s not even sure why he’s doing it himself.

Too late now anyway.

———

Hank’s prediction that Connor was on the brink of crashing is wildly accurate. He gathers up two pairs of pants and some shirts, underwear, socks, a toothbrush, and two books before sitting down on the floor in a barely controlled fashion, legs crumpled beneath him as he frowns, as though he’s not entirely sure how he got there. Hank walks in to find Chris squatting down with him and speaking in low tones, looking a little desperate for direction. He looks relieved to see the Lieutenant.

Hank passes him the bag he’d snatched from the back of Ben’s van and Chris begins filling it with Connor’s belongings without being asked. Hank takes a second to grab his coat from the bed before kneeling in front of Connor, grimacing as both his knees pop on the way down. Connor watches him, blinking slowly. He looks on the verge of falling asleep while sitting up. Now that he’s closer Hank can see that his lips are tinted blue, and he shivers violently. It’s startling at first— had he looked so miserable earlier?

“How are you feeling?” Hank asks, trying to gauge Connor’s condition without getting in his space.

Connor looks at him and blinks, his arms slowly wrapping around himself. “I’m okay,” He says, voice unsteady.

Hank frowns. Connor was obviously not okay, and most any kid would take up any opportunity to announce to the world at large that they were feeling unwell. While uncomfortable, illness equaled attention, and attention was one of the most important things to kids Connor’s age. Hank remembers Cole’s friends babbling strange impossible stories in attempts to be noticed, and even Cole had yearned for attention where he could find it.

But not Connor. Connor was lying to avoid Hank’s attention. It’s not too surprising, as Hank could be dubbed the enemy by Connor’s family, but Connor seemed far too young to have fallen into that mindset yet.

Hank tries something else, “Are you sure? You won’t be in trouble. I just need to know so we can do this efficiently.” Logic— Connor seemed like the type of kid to be persuaded by logic.

Connor squirms for a second before speaking— despite being so exhausted that his lips don’t quite line up right, he doesn't mumble, and his words are clear. “I—” He swallows thickly and speaks again, “My belly hurts.”

Yeah, Hank thinks bitterly, it would. Starvation tends to do that to people. The anger pulsing in his chest only increases at Connor’s obvious suffering— starvation was used as a torture technique— it was often underestimated as a form of control, but the actual pain that came from not eating and instinctual need to re-energize was one of the most popular forms of manipulation and control. The fact that this family had enough money to feed all of Detroit’s homeless for at least a week and yet this boy in their basement was starving makes Hank want to stand up and punch a wall.

But he could do that later. Later when Connor wasn’t staring at him with those big fucking eyes, almost pleading him to just make this better.

“Okay. Anything else?”

Connor watches Hank carefully, and he hopes absently that the anger churning around inside of him isn’t obvious on his face. That’s not what he wanted Connor to see now.

“And my head,” Connor admits, folding in a little tighter on himself, like the admission is a sin.

“Do you think you’re going to throw up?” Hank asks, softening his tone purposefully.

Connor seems to consider this before shaking his head no. The motion seems to be just a little too much for his body however, and he nearly headbutts the wall. He’s saved only by Hank’s quick reflexes that catch him and tug him a little further away. Connor tenses under the touch but doesn't pull away— whether that’s because he actually doesn't mind or because he’s too weak, Hank can’t tell. Either way, Hank’s had enough. It was time to get a move on.

Reassured that Connor wasn’t going to immediately barf all over him, Hank drapes the coat around him again. “There’s some blankets in the car too,” he tells him. Connor doesn’t react much, and that’s enough to convince Hank that they’ve all wasted enough time. He moves to squat so he can reach for Connor and pick him up, but Connor surprises him by forcibly getting his feet under him and standing. It’s obvious he’s only running on fumes, but he’s up nonetheless, so Hank doesn’t push him. If Connor wanted to walk, Hank wasn’t going to take that little bit of control out of his hands.

When he heads out of the bedroom, Connor follows on unsteady feet, one hand snaking out of the coat to support himself with the wall. Hank walks slow enough that even when Connor lags he doesn’t have to fight too hard to catch up.

There’s a handful of officers rummaging around downstairs now, opening boxes and upturning storage closets. Hank catches a look of alarm on Connor’s face. “They won’t break anything,” Hank tells him as they reach the stairs. They’d decided to take Connor in Ben’s new SUV, a car far cleaner than Hank’s and far more comforting than one of the cruisers.

Connor still looks upset, but he nods nonetheless. It’s odd— like the need to respond when spoken to is unconscious to him. Hank grimaces and files that away in the back of his mind for later.

“Where are your shoes?” He asks, but Connor struggles to turn his head to look at him.

“I...” Connor seems to struggle to swallow, like the words are caught in his throat. “I don’t know. I don’t know where they keep them.”

He doesn’t sigh, because Connor could interpret it as disappointment, but the air builds up in his lungs nonetheless. Kids Connor’s age knew where their shoes are— he was at the age where parents began to encourage independence in morning routines so they could prepare for school on their own— and yet Connor had maybe two entire outfits in his bedroom and now had no idea where his shoes were kept.

Hank turns and sits down heavily on the step so that he’s eye to eye with Connor, rather than a tall figure towering over him. “How often did you need your shoes?” It’s a nice way of asking just how often Connor is allowed outside.

Connor sways where he stands, even as he holds onto the wall. “Not very much.”

“Do you get to leave very much?”

“No,” Connor admits, and Hank frowns. He hadn’t really been expecting an answer considering how withholding of information Connor had been previously. He blames it on the exhaustion.

“Connor, would it be okay if I carry you to the car? We’ll have someone bring you shoes later.”

Connor is eyeing him up and down, but his eyes are glazed and glassy, and Hank suspects that he’s not fully there. It’s upsetting to see a kid in such a state, but there’s not much more Hank can do to rectify the situation.

Finally, Connor nods. Hank puffs out air in relief— he really hadn’t wanted to just scoop the kid up against his will, but they were very quickly running out of options. He holds out his arms but purposefully doesn’t reach, letting Connor come to him instead. It takes a moment, but he does eventually, and Hank stands from the stairs with Connor perched on his hip.

Hank knows he’s old, and sure enough the added weight of Connor makes his back twinge instantly, but Connor is far lighter than Cole had been at this age. It’s startling at first, just how little Connor weighs, even though Hank supposed he should have been expecting it. The comparison to Connor and Cole aches fiercely, but he’s managed to muddle his emotions and memories thoroughly enough through years of alcohol that he knows he won’t drown in grief until later.

Connor squirms almost immediately, his arms butting against Hank’s shoulders as though he had no idea how to be held, and the second Hank thinks about it, it’s probably true. Who knew when the last time Connor had been picked up was?

Hank lets him wiggle while he carefully climbs the stairs and heads out the front foyer. He knows he’ll be back to this damn house, and he finds himself already dreading it. No amount of flashy rugs and expensive antiques could hide the atrocities in that basement.

He tugs his coat a little tighter around Connor’s tiny shoulders before stepping outside against Detroit’s wicked winter. Connor’s finally stopped worming, and after a moment his skinny arms snake around Hank’s neck. He sluggishly melts into the hold and slowly grows limp, but one quick look proves that his big brown eyes are still curiously looking around.

Hank hates himself for it, but he missed this— missed holding a tiny body so securely, missed that innocent slice of life, missed fighting for something better than himself. Holding Connor is too familiar— too warming, too trusting. He misses carrying a baby, misses getting to be the protector.

He misses holding Cole.

Fuck— fuck—

Connor’s seemed to have enough of looking around, and he drops his head heavily onto Hank’s shoulder, his grip tightening. It makes the ache in Hank’s heart dig its claws in deeper, pry him open and leave him gaping and raw. Maybe this was a mistake— maybe choosing to look after Connor was a mistake—

He opens the backdoor to the SUV and clambers in gracelessly, using one hand to climb in and the other to keep Connor secure. They don’t have a car seat, but Connor doesn’t really seem interested in letting go anytime soon anyway. His hold has only increased, and Hank can feel his tiny fist gripping the back of his shirt tightly. None of the commotion has convinced him to raise his head again either, so Hank decides trying to pry him loose for the car ride won’t really be worth it.

“Let’s go.” Chris is driving, and he pulls the car out towards the main road away from the mansion.

Hank takes a moment to reach into the back and pull out one of the heavy blankets Ben had stashed there and wraps it around Connor securely. He goes as far as to tug it up over his head, but Connor refuses to let go, so he doesn’t get to encase him entirely. “There. That’s better, huh?” He pulls the seatbelt across them both and leans back, eyes following the highway that stretched out in front of them. His hand absently rubs soothing circles on Connor’s back, hoping to keep him calm, but Hank can feel each of Connor’s vertebra poking out through the blanket.

It’s miserable, the state of this boy.

But this was his job, and they were already on the path of making things better. Maybe if they got lucky, the ending wouldn't be a tragedy.

Chapter Text

Hank had decided back at the manor that Connor looked small, but here in the hospital, sitting on a mobile bed and wrapped in blankets that smell of disinfectant, Hank decides that Connor is actually absolutely fucking tiny.

The children’s gown they bring for him is far too large and threatens to fall off his skinny shoulders at each turn until Hank ties it with a large knot to stay tight enough.

The blankets swallow him up, tucked around him all the way up to his neck— which is good because he’s lost all energy to even shiver, still freezing from the house and unable to create his own body heat from the absolute lack of calories he’s consumed. His skin is still cool to the touch and so pale that Hank can see the faint outline of veins in the kid’s cheeks.

It’s gut wrenching— seeing a kid so sick that didn’t have to be. Connor wasn’t sick because he had cancer or meningitis or the measles. Connor was sick because the people around him were monsters who had wanted to see him suffer.

A child.

Fuck, Hank hates this.

Getting Connor back into a room had been easy enough with his young age and concerningly low blood pressure, but now that they were waiting for a doctor’s audience it seemed that they were both doomed to be there forever.

They had to rely on two different public systems: the health care system and the social care system. Not only did they have to get a doctor around to evaluate Connor’s condition and send him up to peds, they also had to wait for Child Welfare to send over a social worker who could stand in and act in Connor’s interests.

It’s all such a long and painful process full of piles and piles of paperwork that Hank’s back already hurts just thinking of all the forms he was going to need to fill out at his desk tomorrow.

For now Hank decides to use their bountiful time together to get to know Connor better.

At first he’s not sure it’s a good idea— Connor is curled up against the raised bed, mostly sitting but relying on the mattress to support his weight. He looks a little bit like he could melt right into that bed and never escape— like this hospital could just eat him alive as though he’d never existed in the first place.

Hank’s not sure if he should further insert himself into Connor’s care or even bother him. He was obviously pushed too far past his limit by the activities that had consumed his house, and all the commotion of packing up and leaving had drained the little bit of energy Connor had seemed to possess in the first place. Maybe just letting Connor rest while they waited for the doctor was a better choice.

But then Hank notices that Connor is tapping his fingers together again— he’s not sure if it’s a tic or a stim, but it seems to occur when he’s nervous and agitated. Despite lacking the energy to hold his head up, Connor was still frightened enough that he was attempting to self-comfort.

So Hank decides to see if he can distract him, even if just a little.

“Connor?”

Connor’s dark eyes slip over to him, and Hank can see the glaze that covers them. Poor kid was exhausted. Hank’s priorities shift.

“Are you thirsty? I can get you some water.”

Connor blinks at him, taking a long moment to process that. Hank wishes desperately that he could offer the kid food, but he knows far better than that. Connor had definitely reached the dangerous stage of starvation where the sudden consumption of rich food would be far more harmful to him than helpful. If they were lucky he’d just throw it back up, if they weren't it could kill him. So Hank sticks to water. There had been a cup in the bathroom back in Connor’s room at the house, so he assumes that’s something that wasn’t withheld as well.

But Connor shakes his head no, his nervous tapping increasing in tempo. He looks terrified.

Hank fights back a sigh. Connor was uncomfortable, and Hank isn’t entirely surprised that he’s not willing to accept favors from other people. It’s hard to imagine just what is going through his head, but in order to make all of this work, Hank needs to try. “Are you tired?”

Connor looks at him again, and Hanks suspects that he doesn’t actually want to, but rather that the instinct to do so is one that he had to learn in the Stern family— Look at me when I talk to you.

After a moment he gets a nod. Well, that’s something.

“You can sleep, if you want. I’ll keep watch. We can even turn the lights down and I’ll wake you up when the doctor gets here.”

Connor stares at him blankly, and it’s mildly painful to see such bright eyes clouded with exhaustion. He sees Connor struggle to swallow and remembers that being a symptom of starvation as well.

When Connor takes too long to answer, Hank tries again. “It’s okay. You can sleep.”

Connor squirms under the blankets, limbs shifting and curling in tighter against himself. After a moment he speaks, but his voice is quieter than before. “It hurts.”

Hank’s heart just shatters right into a million pieces.

Fuck. Fuck it’s so fucking hard seeing a kid suffer needlessly like this. Fuck.

“What hurts?” He makes himself ask, because the more he knows the better, and maybe he can use it to get this piece of shit doctor in here faster and do something to make Connor’s pain lessen.

“My belly,” Connor tells him, eyes scrunching some. “Everything.” The last word catches in his throat like he’s on the brink of tears, but his eyes are dry. His skin is already so splotchy that Hank can’t tell if he’s going to cry— but Connor doesn’t.

Hank can’t help but wonder if it’s because he’d been conditioned not to or if he was just too dehydrated.

He’s really not cut out for this— for being witness to this kind of pain. He’s always been a fixer, not a bystander. But Connor’s problems couldn’t be fixed right there in that moment, and Hank’s old brain hates that.

“Okay,” Hank says, getting Connor’s attention again. “And it hurts too much to sleep?”

Connor nods again.

Hank nods and stands, going over to the sliding glass door where the light switches are. He flips them a few different times, looking for a good balance that would be dark enough to sleep but still light enough to see. He ends up shutting off the the overhead lights and the light hung above the bed, leaving on the side lamps near the door. Then just for fucks he flickers the main lights several times, toggling them in a way every kid has been told not to in an attempt to be cheerful.

Sure enough, Connor’s eyes brighten at the silly display, but he does not smile. Hank considers it a win anyway.

“Okay. Well I’m gonna leave the lights off just in case you do fall asleep.” He tugs on the curtains that block out the ER just a little tighter closed so that the light that filtered in from it was less. He returns to the chair he’d pulled up to the side of Connor’s bed and sits into it heavily.

It was nearing six PM, but it feels like the day had lasted weeks. The memory of crawling out of his bed that morning is faded and distant, and he longs to go home and pass out for maybe a week where he could forget the similarities between the boy in the bed in front of him and the boy he had buried years ago.

He stops that train of thought before it even gets started.

He is here now, and Connor needs him here. He isn’t going to dream of going home when now Connor had no home to go home to at all. He doesn’t want to be that person. Not anymore. Not around this kid.

Connor is still watching him, but Hank doesn’t mind. He was more than justified in having suspicions. Hank certainly didn’t blame him. He’s conducted enough interviews to not mind being ogled. He gets more comfortable in his seat and pulls out his phone.

He decides to wait. He knows Connor’s in pain— but he’s also exhausted, and Hank suspects he will fall asleep quickly if he’s ignored. If ten minutes pass and Connor’s still awake, Hank will put a video on his phone for Connor to watch while he tracks down someone to fucking speed up the process of getting a doctor in.

He works through the smaller parts of the job while he waits, updating Fowler and Collins and contacting DCFS again for an arrival time on their agent. He couldn’t do much until a social worker came to stand in as Connor’s guardian. Hank could be temporarily appointed to that role so long as they were waiting, but there was a severe conflict of interests at play, even if Hank never planned on exploiting Connor’s position.

As a member of the task force set out to investigate Connor’s family, he could theoretically be expected to put Connor’s usefulness as a witness above his safety and happiness as a person. Having a social worker present made the chances of that happening decrease significantly.

Hank had no plans of being the kind of a bastard who put Connor’s ability to tell them the schedule of the cleaning staff over Connor’s own health, but he knows that not everyone is like him, and not everyone would care so much about Connor’s future. The rules were created for a reason set by precedence, and even though working with DCFS could be one of the most frustrating things on the planet, he agrees that children sometimes needed protected from the justice system.

Good intentions could only go so far, and actively working to keep kids safe and happy sometimes carried farther than any court conviction could ever dream to.

So, even though he’s frustrated that Connor’s social worker isn’t there yet, he still works with the system, because he knows it’s there for a good reason.

By the time he finishes his emails and looks up, Connor is sleeping deeply, confirmed by the soft call of his name and failure to stir when Hank tosses another light blanket on the lump that is Connor curled up on his side.

It’s been a long time since Hank has tucked someone in. He tries to ignore the pang of longing that accompanies it. Now was not the time.

Now would never be the time. Not anymore.

He learns from Ben that some interesting pieces of evidence were in fact found at the house, but nothing concrete enough to get them an immediate conviction. Mostly circumstantial evidence that they would need to track down and dig through before it could be of any real use to them. Nonetheless, it’s progress, and Hank will gladly take it.

Besides, they found Connor. Even if the kid couldn’t tell them a single damn thing, Hank will take it as a win. Who knows how much longer Connor could have been left in that basement before he either froze or starved to death? Saving a child’s life was a success in his line of work, anyway you wanted to look at it.

He hates thinking about whether or not the Stern family had actually been planning to come back for him. They had known about the raid beforehand, that much was obvious, and yet Connor had been left behind for the police to find. It doesn’t add up seeing as Connor could potentially be witness to crimes and act as a witness against the family. Leaving Connor alive in that basement for the police to find didn’t make sense unless it was strategic or an accident. If they’d wanted Connor out of the picture, it wouldn’t have been hard to kill him. Hank knows for a fact that the family had offed dozens of people through hitmen, and Connor was only a child. Leaving Connor for the police to find hadn’t been to get him out of their hair.

There was a chance that they had purposefully fed Connor false information and were relying on him relaying that to the police, but that was far too flimsy of an idea. Children aren’t reliable, and not even Connor’s intellect was enough to mislead police on where they should be looking.

Hank dismisses the ideas that Connor had been left behind as a means to be rid of him, as well as the idea of Connor being left behind as a decoy. Both just don’t make sense.

Had Connor really been left behind on accident? Or had a sympathetic caretaker left him behind on purpose with the hopes that the police would free him?

They have a good list of active names, but without Connor they couldn’t know who was directly responsible for his care. The head of the household, Amanda Stern, was too old to have children Connor’s age, and they didn’t have any other ways to narrow down their list of known associates in their connection to Connor without more intel. Earlier Connor had mentioned a Kara and Luther, and Hank puts in a request to have Chris start looking for their names or aliases that could be available. They were only first names, but if they had ever committed a crime together or had any known connections with one another in the DPD’s system, they might get lucky.

Connor had also mentioned a ‘her’ back in the basement. He hadn’t said mom, or aunt, just ‘she’. Hank wonders if the family was so strict that they had discouraged any kind of familial titles like the Perez had back in the 90s, or if Connor just had been too out of it to realize how strangely he was talking.

It’s a lot to think about, and Hank begins planning how he’s going to build up his research when his phone buzzes in his pocket again.

The social worker won’t be able to make it in until at least ten PM due to a backlog of court cases and two emergency responses in the West End district. Hank personally believes that Connor’s case is certainly its own fucking emergency, and he argues as such through a heated conversation that he takes into the hallways.

It dawns on him halfway through the conversation that he’s already fighting for this damn kid. It’s concerning, the sudden urge to actually make this happen. He’d been living in a vague fog for years— treated his work as a means to the end, and while he put in the effort, he didn’t care much about outcomes. It had been an extra source of agony— another reason to hate himself, that he couldn’t even drudge up enough compassion to put in 100% into the investigation of people’s worst nightmares.

But now he feels that same fire flaring up again. He hasn’t felt it for years— that urge to fight for answers and get results, but the second he stumbled across this little boy suddenly the stakes were higher.

Despite his arguing, their timeline isn’t pushed up any further. The department agrees that Connor’s care can’t wait any longer, so they grant Hank temporary privileges to act in his interest until the actual social worker arrives. It’s not ideal, but the administrator knows who Hank is and apparently trusts him to get Connor taken care of until his representative could get there. It’s not exactly orthodox, but it’ll get Connor treated faster, so that’s what it comes down to.

The kid is dead asleep, buried beneath a mound of blankets and partially propped up in the bed. He’s still pale, but some of the purple in his lips has lessened, as has the red tint to his nose and ears. Hank hopes that only means he’s warming up and not something worse. The hospital isn’t exactly quiet, but Connor doesn’t seem to mind the nose of rattling carts and bustling nurses outside, instead only twitching when Hank moves too much. The more he sleeps the more he curls into himself, and Hank can see how he wraps his arms around himself— the bed is far too big for him, and he barely takes up half of it.

By 8, they finally get a nurse named Dante— an impossibly tall black man who moves too fast for Hank to keep up with. He’s fast, efficient, and purposefully stays quiet while he hashes out the details so Connor can sleep longer. He doesn’t bother even flipping on the lights, just stands by the window for lighting as he gets Connor’s basic information, most of which is unknown. He already has all of Hank’s paperwork lined out, has all the DCFS faxes, and takes down detailed notes for the doctor when Hank explains how they found Connor.

It’s a relief to have someone so competent. The entire process of getting Connor here and settled had been stressful, but this nurse makes it easier on them both. By the time they have to wake Connor up for the actual examination, all the details have already been handled. If nothing else, it’s another box marked and one less thing to worry about.

Waking Connor up proves to be very difficult. He doesn’t stir when called or shook, and at first Hank begins to panic quietly, but Dante reassures him that it’s not as drastic as it seems.

“When the body suffers from malnutrition like this,” he explains as he messes with the controls on the bed and lowers the head of the bed, slowly easing Connor back down, “It doesn’t have enough resources to make new blood for what it uses, and the heart weakens. So their blood pressure really suffers. Chances are his pressure is just too low and he’s having trouble waking up.” He says it like it’s no big deal, but it still sounds pretty fucking bad in Hank’s ears.

Nonetheless he sits on the bed and together the two of them sit Connor up fully, blankets and all. It’s enough to rouse him, and he blinks awake sluggishly, bright eyes fluttering. He doesn’t quite manage to sit up on his own though, so Hank gets the honors of holding him while Dante rolls over a cart with pediatric equipment.

Connor’s heavy head lolls onto Hank’s shoulder and stays there.

Fuck.

This was a mistake. He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be around kids— especially not kids with big brown eyes and a future even bleaker than his own. Not when his heart is so fragile and his life so fucking messy. Connor needed stability, not a mean old drunk who got clingy because of a resemblance to his dead son.

Somehow, even as he thinks it, his grip on Connor tightens.

Fuck.

Connor watches Dante with dark eyes as he introduces himself calmly and starts getting some more detailed information. It’s all tame stuff, until—

“Do you know your birthday, Connor?”

Connor nods his head against Hank’s shirt. “August 14th, 2010.”

Hank’s brain stutters over the math in shock, and he look down. “2010? You’re eight?”

Connor nods again, eyes roaming over the cart Dante had brought over.

Eight. Connor was fucking eight. No fucking way— he looked maybe six, not eight, nowhere near eight— but then again, who knew how long his abuse had been taking place? It isn’t hard to imagine his growth being stunted... but eight?

Some of his behavior made more sense if he was actually older, but Hank still has a hard time wrapping his mind around it.

Damn.

Hank suspects Dante has either worked a stint in peds before or has dealt with a great deal of traumatized children, because he never moves too fast and never does anything without explaining exactly what he’s going to do first. Connor doesn’t seem thrilled about any of it, but he never protests. Hank wonders if it’s because of the fatigue or because he’d been conditioned not to complain.

Connor shivers when he has to unearth his arm for the blood pressure cuff, and sure enough his pressure is tanked. Dante doesn’t give any reaction to the numbers, reading them cheerfully despite the heavy weight they carry. Connor struggles on deep breaths for the stethoscope and his heart rate is low, but the longer he’s awake the more strength he seems to gain back. Eventually he sits up on his own and folds his legs under him again, similar to how he’d sat back in his bedroom.

The journey to the scale and back is tedious, but they manage okay. It’s then that Hank learns that Connor weighs a whopping 36 pounds with a BMI of 12.

36 pounds. 12.

Any BMI under 18 was considered underweight. Hank didn’t even know the scale went that low.

Fuck.

———

Other than the obvious starvation and the effects it has on him, Connor doesn't really show any other signs of abuse. There are no strange scars or bruises, and he doesn’t indicate that anything hurts externally. He doesn’t flinch when touched and doesn’t seem to mind physical contact. He’s not overly shy or timid, and he doesn’t seem to fear neither Hank or Dante, even though he’s not entirely trusting of them either.

Hank keeps a close eye on him and his reactions— he’s has enough training from over the years to spot the signs of different abuse on kids, and Connor doesn’t show any indication of ever being assaulted physically or sexually. He seems intimidated by all the attention, and confused about the questions they ask him, but not frightened. The signs of manipulation and deception are all there, as are severe mental abuse, but at least he wasn’t being beaten daily.

Connor doesn’t reveal anything about his home and family except for tiny snippets— just enough information to answer a question but never enough to Hank to fully understand what kind of life he lived.

Hank rubs his hands across his face. Apparently, there wasn’t going to be a single part of this day that wasn’t going to be fucked up in some way.

Thankfully, Connor is only eight, and while he is incredibly clever for his age, he is not an adult. He lets things slip that probably seem unimportant but give Hank an edge for where he should be looking.

He finds out that Connor has no idea who his father or mother are and was told that it didn’t matter anyways. The structure of the family hierarchy itself is greatly ignored in favor of Amanda— a name Hank already knows.

He’s certainly surprised— he hadn’t been expecting the head of the family to be raising Connor personally. Amanda was generally associated with the larger aspects of the family business. She organized the jobs and called all the shots. They knew almost nothing about her other than the jobs she controlled, and even then usually only learned of her involvement after the fact. Connor seemed to interact with her frequently, though her name only comes up once, and even then it’s only because Connor makes a mistake in his wording.

Hank feels somewhat bad for taking information he gathers from Connor’s mistakes, but he has to remind himself that dismantling the family would be for the better, even if it tore apart the life Connor was used to. That life was no life worth living, and not a suitable life for a child at that. While it would be painful, it really was for the best that Hank gathers all the information he can.

“Who cares for you, Connor? I know you don’t have a mother or father, but does anyone in particular look after you?”

Connor seems to chew on this, his small movements coming through again. He tugs the blankets around his shoulders just a little bit tighter. “Yes,” He admits.

“What are their names?” Dante asks, voice unconcerned. He doesn’t look at Connor when he asks questions like this, always keeps his eyes glued to his clipboard. It’s a good tactic seeing as sometimes eye contact was too pressuring for some abuse victims. Connor seems to prefer it.

Connor doesn’t answer right away, instead looking to Hank. At first Hank is surprised. He certainly doesn’t know that information, and Connor doesn’t need his permission to give it. He nods back at Connor in confirmation nonetheless— maybe he just needed some encouragement.

Connor starts slowly rocking back and forth, his hands clamped around his ankles as his body moved. “Luther came the most. Sometimes Kara. They’re nice.” He tacks on the last part after a moment, like he doesn’t want them to get the wrong idea. He looks a little bit like he wants to swipe his words back out of the air.

“Do they have last names?” Dante asks, infinitely cheerful despite the emaciated child on the bed before him.

“Yes, but I don’t know them.”

Dante nods, and abandons that line of questioning. The hospital needed to track down Connor’s birth certificate in the hopes of finding more of a medical background for him, and Hank is sure that asking about who cared for Connor was a way of getting more names to backtrack over, but Dante seems to think that they won’t get anything else useful that way. Hank has to agree. There would be plenty of time to ask Connor questions later— for now he needed to be looked after.

“That’s okay.” Dante finishes with his paperwork and looks up at Connor with a brilliant 1000-watt smile. “You’ve been so helpful, Connor. Thank you so much. You’ve made my job much easier.” His eyes crinkle as he speaks, and his feet space apart openly. He makes a very inviting and trusting figure, and Hank is impressed. They had sent their best nurse for this case.

Connor’s nervous rocking slows as he accepts the praise, and while it would be overstepping to call the little quirk to his lips a smile, his face brightens nonetheless.

It’s progress.

Dante excuses himself and ducks out, and Hank sits back in his chair. Connor is watching the space between the curtains where people can be seen bustling about in the ER, bright eyes tracking each movement and where it goes. He seems fascinated. Hank wonders again how often he was allowed out of the house.

“Have you ever been to a hospital before, Connor?” He asks, because that seems like as good a place to start as any.

Connor’s eyes snap over to Hank on instinct, his slow rocking back and forth making the bed sway just a little. “No.”

“You’ve never been to a hospital? At all?”

“No,” Connor confirms, and if Hank was impressed before, now he’s even more so.

Hospitals are frightening to adults and fucking terrifying to children. They represented needles and loud noises, rules and sick people. There’s nothing too drastic in Connor ER bay, just an IV diffuser and some oxygen outlets, classic pressure cuff reader and otoscope, a pulse oximeter and a storage cart— but for a kid that didn’t know what the fuck each thing did or had never seen them before, Hank had to bet they looked fucking intimidating.

And yet Connor had only watched everything closely, never asked any questions, and never complained. He’d never questioned what he was doing there, or what was going to happen to him, or what was coming next. He’d sat quietly and just observed, and then eventually slept. Sure, it could be partially blamed on the exhaustion, but Hank wasn’t willing to write it all off on that alone.

Any kid being thrust into a new world and uncertain future was going to ask questions. And yet Connor hadn’t.

“Connor?” He asks, pulling the kid’s attention away from the window where he was people watching. “Do you have questions? I’ll try to answer anything I can.”

Connor blinks at him, then blinks again. He breaks eye contact and squirms a little where he sits, feet kicking out and then tucking back under himself again. He looks extremely uncertain, and the pace of his rocking increases in speed.

When he doesn’t speak after a few moments, Hank tries again. “You won’t be in trouble. I’m just sure you want to know what’s going on. If you have questions I want to answer them.”

Connor eyes him distrustfully, like the whole thing is a trick. Hank keeps his knees open and hands dangling in his lap, trying not to appear intimidating. It’s a refreshing change of pace— generally he has to use his size and appearance to scare the ever-loving shit out of criminals, but trying to look trustworthy and nonthreatening is a welcome change.

Connor chews on his lip, and Hank wonders how long he’s done that— if it’s a new tic or something he’s always done. Someone will have to break him of it one day, lest he scar his own lip. For now though that’s certainly not Hank’s priority.

He’s a little surprised that Connor has as many tics as he does— surely an upbringing as strict as his seems to have frowned upon any distracting movements? Maybe they just hadn’t gotten around to it.

“When can I go home?” Connor asks, voice small and hesitant, and if Hank’s heart wasn’t already broken then now it’s been stepped on by an elephant.

It’s not fair. It’s just not fucking fair.

“Not for awhile,” Hank tells him, because it’s true. He hopes that Connor never ever steps foot back in that house, but that’s not what Connor needs to hear now. But he doesn’t lie— doesn’t tell him he can go back home. Connor deserves as much truth that Hank can provide him with. “You’re in pretty bad shape, so we have to make you better first.”

Connor seems to consider this, rocking faster as he does. Hank wonders briefly if he’d rock himself right over the side of the bed before he noticed if he was moving.

“Am I in trouble?” Connor asks next, only looking at Hank because he has to.

“No,” Hank says quickly— maybe a little too quickly. That was the last thing Hank wanted Connor thinking. “You’re not in trouble, Connor.” He takes a breath and tugs his chair just a little bit closer. They’ve kept the lights low but on, and the overhead lights cast strange shadows on Connor’s face, making him look skeletal. “You’ve done nothing wrong. Do you understand?”

Connor watches him, hands abandoning their grip on his ankles to twist together. “But I’m not supposed to leave my room, and now I’m here—” He cuts himself off, voice morphing into a soft sort of desperate whine only children are capable of.

Hank realizes how terrified he is, and how well he’s hiding it.

He debates exactly how he should go about this. There will be no easy answers, and nothing he can say now will completely put Connor at ease.

He tries his best.

“Okay,” He starts, rubbing a hand down his face and scratching at his beard. “Alright. Look. You weren’t supposed to leave your room, I know, but the people who put you in your room shouldn’t have done that either. You won’t be in trouble, because they aren’t allowed to do that first. Does that make sense?”

Connor shifts uncomfortably. “But I was just— they don’t always put me in my room. Just when I don’t when I’m not good enough. It’s to make me better. It’s good. It’s— Amanda says it’s good. It makes me better.”

Hank moves in his seat, hiding his hands at his sides so Connor can’t see how desperately his nails dig into his palms. It had only been one day, and he already hated Amanda. Before she had just been a big shot criminal that he needed to track down, but now she was a wicked force in this little boy’s life, someone who needed to be hunted down and stopped—

He can’t get emotional about this— he has to keep his head. As much as he wants to lose his mind and get up and start shouting and go on a wild binge of tracking the bitch down, that won’t do anyone any good. Not Connor, not himself, and not the department.

No, he had to do this right.

“I know that’s what she said, but she was wrong. I know that’s hard to understand.” Connor doesn’t seem to believe him. “I know it’s hard, but for now just know that you haven’t done anything wrong. You’re not in trouble, and everyone who I work with are going to take care of you, okay? You’re not in trouble, and we’re going to look after you for now.”

Connor listens closely, hands moving to wrap around his elbows and then to his ankles and then twist together and then back to his ankles. He can’t seem to sit still. Hank does not reprimand him. If Connor self-comforted through movement, then so be it. Kids tended to be like that.

“Anything else?” Hank asks, trying not to push. It was a lot to think about for an adult, let alone an eight-year-old child.

“What happens now?” Connor’s fingers have gone to the blanket he’s wrapped up in, plucking at it.

“A doctor is going to come in and take a look at you. Have you seen a doctor before?”

“Yes. My family has a doctor.”

Made sense, Hank thinks. If the Sterns had a private doctor then they could keep their medical happenings under tight wrap. Hell, if that was the case there was a chance that Connor didn’t have any birth certificate at all, which was bad news.

“Okay, good,” Hank says. “Well, the doctor is probably going to want to keep you here for a few nights, just until you’re feeling better. They’ll take real good care of you, and it will be safe.”

Connor takes a deep breath that seems to rattle his lungs. Then— “You’ll leave? I’ll be alone?”

Oh— his poor fucking old heart. Fuck. Fuck. He wants a drink. He wants a drink so fucking bad— anything to wash this all away—

“I’ll have to leave for a while, yeah, but you won’t be alone.” Hank rushes to explain. “You won’t be alone. There’s a really nice lady on the way, and she’s going to look after you just how I am.”

Connor is watching him far too intensely for a boy so young. Hank feels partially like a monster. “But I’ll still see you.” He finishes, and it feels lame even to him. Connor obviously didn’t want to stay here. He wanted to go home to where he knew what normal was, probably wanted to see the bastards that he thought were “improving” him, and sleep in his own bed, even if it didn’t have any sheets.

Sure enough, Connor’s breathing begins to pick up, and he turns his head away from Hank rather forcibly, ducking his eyes and wrapping his arms tightly around himself. He gives no other indications, but Hank knows what's going to happen.

Connor only lets out one miserable sniffle before grabbing the blanket and tugging it quickly over his head, biting his lip fiercely as he disappears under the fabric.

He was going to cry, but he was hiding it. It doesn’t take a genius to understand why. Kids cried all the time, over the smallest things— a broken toy, a stubbed toe, a skinned knee, a serving of vegetables— Connor’s entire life was being torn down around him, and yet he was afraid to be seen upset.

Hank fears what had happened to him the last time he was caught crying.

“You’re allowed to cry, Connor.” Hank blurts out, standing from his chair and kneeling in front of the bed on instinct. His knees crack loudly as he does so, and he has to grip the bed rail to steady himself. The lump that is now Connor shrinks in on itself, becoming impossibly smaller. When Hank kneels down Connor cowers backward— but he overshoots and is closer to the edge of the bed than he realizes and begins to tumble off. It’s enough of a surprise that the lump yelps and flails frantically.

Thankfully, Hank has long arms, and reaches out and snatches Connor’s upper arms before he goes sailing off the other side of the bed. He tugs him back to safety, standing again as he takes in the tear tracks that are revealed when the blanket falls down around Connor’s shoulders.

Connor’s entire body is vibrating, and he ducks his head so far against his chest that his entire face is replaced by a nest of wild hair. Hank releases him gently, and the second Connor’s arms are freed he uses one hand as a gag and bites down on the fleshy part of his palm, keeping himself silent as his body is racked with tears. He bites hard enough that Hank’s immediate concern is that he’s going to maim himself, and he reaches out on instinct, but Connor shies away from him like he’s the plague.

So Hank drops his hands and stands there, trying to think of how he can comfort this broken fucking kid, his heart aching so terribly that he’s almost dizzy with it. Connor’s hunched over himself, like the smaller he is the better, and Hank kneels down again.

But then, as soon as the tears start, they stop. It’s such a fast transition that Hank has to blink, because that had lasted maybe three minutes, and anyone in Connor’s position deserved a few long hours of sobbing— not a miniature breakdown—

But Connor’s already done, dropping his hand from his mouth and swipes at his eyes violently, erasing any traces of tears as they come. He scrubs at his face with the heels of his palms a second later and shakes his head, composing himself faster and more efficiently than some of the officers Hank works with on a fucking daily basis.

It’s terrifying, how fast this child just picks himself up on floor and collects himself— shakes himself off like nothing had happened. He looks embarrassed, his hands twisting together once more.

“I’m sorry—” He starts, voice cracking horribly as he speaks.

“It’s—” Hank doesn’t have words at first, and he shakes himself off as well. He needed to get his head on straight. “Connor, it’s okay to cry. You’re allowed to cry and be scared. That’s okay. It might help, even.”

Connor listens but shakes his head no after a moment. “No. I shouldn’t have cried. I’m sorry.”

Hank sighs. He wants to discuss it further, to go on until Connor understands that he is allowed to be frightened and experience emotions, but Connor already looks exhausted from that small crash and burn alone, and Hank doubts anything he says right now will change Connor’s mind anyway.

Still, while they wait for the doctor to show, he marvels over how mature this damn kid is. If he had never actually seen Connor’s face or heard his voice, was only aware of his actions and personality, he would guess the kid was twelve, or maybe even older. He was smart as hell, but the maturity he held was also remarkable.

Except Hank knows where that kind of maturity stems from, and then it becomes far less miraculous and far more tragic.

Connor seems content just rocking back and forth, tapping his fingers together while he waits, so Hank lets him be for a bit, lets him finish collecting himself. If Connor wanted to be strong in moments of uncertainty, then Hank wasn’t going to take that away from him.

———

The pediatrician on call for the ER that night takes exactly one look at Connor after reading Dante’s notes and whips out the admittance papers. She’s kind and bright, if a little frazzled, and is obviously embarrassed by how long it took to get Connor seen. While Hank had been expecting the wait anyway, he lets her apologize even though it’s not her fault, just stupid fucking Detroit’s.

The process of finishing up Connor’s examination ends with a blood draw and scheduling an MRI and CT scan for the next morning, neither of which Connor asks about. Hank makes a note to be sure to explain it to him anyway later. Connor shies away from the needle the same as any kid but doesn't actually voice any protests.

Hank actually wishes that he would. The meekness is so much worse.

By eleven they’re officially settled into Connor’s new room in the Peds ward— the walls are painted a bright pastel green and have colorful jungle wallpaper plastered here and there along with posters of monkeys hung on the walls. The bedding is covered in pictures of lions and zebras and the sheets are bright yellow— both of which match the curtains.

It’s all so familiar, but not at the same time. Hank is just grateful that this is Sinai instead of Henry Ford. He’s not sure he’ll ever be able to set foot back into the children’s ward in that damn place.

Connor’s asleep in the bright bedding, thoroughly wrapped in blankets and now receiving saline and various vitamins through IV. It had taken three nurses to find suitable veins, and while he has one in his forearm Hank knows that there’s yet another in his leg.

The urge to drink himself into oblivion is only growing stronger the longer he stays in this place and increases exponentially each time he looks at where Connor’s tiny body is buried beneath blankets. Connor’s heart rate is displayed brightly on a monitor over his bed, facing the viewing glass that leads out into the hallway where nurses can read his vitals from their station. He’s very close to the main action— which is good because if something does go wrong it will be immediately noticed, and also bad because there is far too much activity going on, and Hank suspects that it will only distress Connor further.

He gets a text that the social worker is on the way and feels such a mixture of emotions that he isn’t exactly sure what to think. He’s relieved in a way— Connor’s wellbeing was being taken out of his hands— he could finally go home to his dog and get blackout drunk until he forgot the piles of toys in his garage, and Connor would be looked after by someone actually competent. On the other hand, he doesn’t want to leave Connor to anyone else— he wants to see this through— wants to make sure Connor gets the best possible care. He knows that Connor doesn’t want him to leave— doesn’t want to see Hank go, and somehow just the thought is enough to upset even Hank himself.

It’s a mess, but it’s also a mess he doesn’t have a say in. Patrols would be checking in on Connor’s room every two hours, and the social worker would be with him for his stay at the hospital before taking Connor to a group home. That’s how it was going to work, and whatever qualms Hank had about it didn’t matter.

So he takes one last moment to watch how Connor’s frail chest rises and falls in his sleep, how his breath makes the longer hairs on his forehead shift, how his small hand grips the blanket up around his chin. Everything in this room is smaller— designed for children instead of adults, and still Connor looks tiny compared to it all.

Hank’s not a religious man by any means, but he maybe sends what could be called a prayer up for this poor fucker. Just a letter on his behalf— a reminder that Connor existed, and hey, could use some fucking help here.

It doesn’t seem like enough, but until he got back to work tomorrow, it was the best he could do.

A soft knock comes from the door, and Hank turns to see Connor’s social worker, Rose. She’s a heavy-set woman with possibly the kindest eyes that Hank has ever seen, and she smiles at him with the kind of warmth only a mother possesses. He can't help but smile back. She’s got a massive tote on one arm and her coat in the other, a visitor’s pass pinned to her sweater. It was way past visiting hours, but guardians got special privileges.

“Well hell,” He says, keeping his voice low as to not wake Connor. “I didn’t know it was you they were sending over.” She gives him a wink as she rounds the bed and sets her things down by the wall, laying her coat out over the small couch in the room.

She pats him heavily on the shoulder, a mischievous smile on her face. “Someone’s got to keep you on your toes, Hank.” She sits down on the couch and rummages through her bag for a moment before pulling out a file folder and handing it over. “Sorry it took so long to get here. You know how it is.”

Hank takes the folder and opens it, already reaching for the pen in his pocket. “Yeah. Detroit’s pretty fucked up. I know.”

She scowls at him and motions to where Connor sleeps, berating him for his language. He huffs out a laugh and gets to work on signing Connor’s life away. Each signature feels far too final, too heavy. He was going to see the kid again— there was no doubt about that. Hank was lead on this investigation and Connor was their main witness. They wouldn’t be strangers.

And yet it saddens him to lose the little bit of guardianship he had over Connor. There’s a billion and one reasons why that’s the case, and even more reasons why Hank is not willing to think about it, so he doesn’t. Instead he puts his initials down where they belong and hands the folder back, officially no longer in charge of Connor’s life. This entire day would be at least another two months in his therapist’s office, but Hank doesn’t regret personally seeing to Connor’s wellbeing. He may not feel that way tonight seven shots in, but for now he’s content with knowing he fought for this damn kid.

Rose gives him a soft smile that says she knows things about him he’ll never see, and if he didn’t like her so much he would be put off by it. As it is he just scowls back and stands.

He almost tells her about the remote to the TV and Connor’s trauma, but she has the report filled out by Ben, and his own personal notes that he’d left for the agency while he’d waited with Connor earlier. There wasn’t much to say. Rose had done this a million and one times, looking after broken kids with twisted families. She knew the ins and out of the process and this hospital, and she’d know how to comfort Connor.

She was good. She was very good. Hank didn’t need to worry. Hank wasn’t worried.

So instead he just sighs and lets his hands fall to his side with a slight slap. It sucked, but so be it. Sometimes that was just how things worked.

He debates if he should bother waking Connor— after such a long day the kid had practically fallen asleep even as he was being tugged on and poked with needles, and now he seemed to be dead to the word, even with Rose’s entrance.

Then he remembers how Connor had cried earlier after Hank had told him he’d be leaving and decides that leaving without telling him so would be more cruel in the end.

So he goes to the head of the bed and gives Connor a solid shake— enough to rouse him through the utter weakness that plagued his body. Connor blinked at him blearily, just barely conscious as he licked his lips, eyelashes fluttering.

“Hey kid. I’m gonna head out for a while now, alright? I’ll see you soon though,” Hank says, because it’s true. He would be arranging the patrols that saw to Connor’s safety and likely conducting any interviews with him. It wasn’t really goodbye.

He hesitates for a moment before gently ruffling Connor’s hair, and Connor melts back into sleep under the touch, eyes closing as he drifts off again. Hank’s not surprised at the lack of reaction considering he’d acted the same the last time they’d woken him up earlier. He lets Connor fall back asleep and tugs his blanket up to his cheeks where Connor lies on his side.

 He takes a deep breath.

Maybe it was better this way— As much as Hank wanted Connor to meet Rose and see how much Hank trusted her, this way there was no long dragged out goodbye, and Connor wouldn’t have to be upset by Hank’s departure until after the fact.

Besides, he’s seen the magic Rose can work on children. She’d have Connor’s trust quickly, and Hank has no doubts in her ability to care for Connor.

All things considering, this was probably a best-case scenario, even if it doesn’t exactly feel like one.

He knows better than to linger in moments like these, so he bids Rose goodbye and makes a hasty retreat, calling a cab as he walked back down the hospital’s main entrance.

It was better this way.

It was.

Chapter Text

Chapter 3: Crackle Pop

Hank returns to the precinct the next day at ten, bones aching and vision blurry as he makes a beeline for the coffee machine, only stopping by his desk long enough to drop off his go-bag. After leaving the hospital he had been looking forward to downing enough whiskey to drown out the images of Connor’s emaciated body from his mind, but the second he arrived back home he never actually had a chance to pull out the bottle.

He’d been expecting to get wasted right away, but then Sumo had needed walked and fed, and he’d stopped at his computer just long enough to send a quick update to Fowler— instead he had spent three hours scrolling through the detailed evidence log that Chris had send to him. A night of drunken misery had been overlooked as he got distracted by the case, and then it was three AM and he crashed into bed, surprisingly sober and already sporting a massive headache.

His body hates him for all of it. At this point Hank isn’t sure if he would feel better drunk or not— he was technically in withdrawal— it had been almost three days— and the feverish aches and soreness could be blamed on the long work days and stress too.

He’s too old for this— for all of it. Too old to be conducting raids and caring for children and staying up til the asscrack of dawn like some rookie chasing down a scent of a lead. He was far past the age of so much active duty, and he was paying for it. It’s a curse he’s bestowed upon himself though— the only reason he’s still so active is because he refuses desk duty cases everytime they come his way. He hates the paperwork, hates sitting still and running a paper trail. It’s boring and annoying, and not what Hank signed up for.

Though he fears that may be his fate sooner rather than later. Drinking like a madman and smoking like a fucking freight train means that his body has taken a habit of breaking down in the most inopportune moments, and it’s starting to show in how his back cracks every time he stands and his head pounds more often than not.

Thankfully, he has coffee, and coffee can fix anything, a fact he learned way back in college.

His desk is overflowing with files and memos, and when Hank finally turns on his terminal he finds it in a similar state. They have a lot of evidence to shift through, and a lot of leads (many of which Hank assumes will be useless) to track down. Chris had sent over all his findings on the names Hank had him chase down yesterday while he was at the hospital, but the results are still too broad to really crack down on. Maybe he could get more information from Connor eventually and find his Luther and Kara that way.

Speaking of Connor, Hank digs his phone out of his pocket as it chimes, and pulls up the message sitting there for him. It’s from Rose— technically she didn’t have to keep him updating aside from the reports that she sent to the department daily, but being the bright woman she is, she seemed to have immediately picked up on his connection with Connor, and had chosen to update him personally as the day drew on.

“He sleeps very hard! I wish my kids back in the day slept so well!”

“He is very quiet, but I think I can get him chattering.”

“He had the MRI and ct scan— doctors think he might be allergic to their dye. He had a nasty reaction but he’s sleeping it off now. Not sure we’ll be able to get him back in there again though.”

Hank frowns as he reads the messages— of fucking course Connor was allergic to the dye, the poor fucker couldn't catch any kind of break. It wasn’t fucking right. If Hank didn’t know better, he would say the universe seemed to have it out for the kid.

Fortunately, he does know better, and he knows that the universe isn’t responsible for Connor’s suffering— people are, real living, breathing people who Hank was going to track down and stuff in to a prison cell.

He sends Rose a quick thank you for the update and puts his phone away.

He has a lot of work to do.

———

He learns very quickly that he will not be able to get any work done unless he forgets about Connor’s existence.

He has to be objective if he wants to actually accomplish anything, and it’s impossibly hard. This case is already complicated and interwoven with several layers of depraved humanity, and he can’t afford to lose his head just because some little kid with big brown eyes snuck into his heart. He still has murders to solve and a crime family to tear down. If he focuses on the consequences each of his actions might possibly have on Connor’s future, then he’ll never ever get anything done.

They’ll keep Connor under protection, and they’ll keep him from public eye, but fact of the matter is that whatever they did to dismantle the Sterns, Connor’s life would be affected. He couldn’t act based on Connor’s future alone— he needed to think about his duty to the job, to the officers who had been killed, to the Stern’s other victims. Nothing about the investigation would be perfect, and Hank had to get out of his head if he wanted to actually get anything done.

So he tries to erase Connor from his mind— not completely, but enough that he can get done what needs to be done.

———

The Sterns have a fierce grip over Detroit. It’s one of those facts that Hank’s always been aware of but never realized just how far reaching their influence stretched.

He realizes just how intense their influence is the next day— he goes out to south side and tracks down seven of Amanda’s beat workers, men and women who finished her dirty work and ran her smaller jobs, collected payments and the like. They live in tiny apartments riddled with rats and caged in with nicotine stained walls.

None of them are willing to turn on her, or even hand him crumbs of where to look next— despite the utter desolation they lived in. Hank knows where that kind of loyalty stems from— it’s obviously not coming from money, or else these people wouldn’t be living so miserably.

No, this loyalty came from drugs and fear. All seven of his suspects are high, told to him from their shaking hands and stuttering breaths, but when he asks them questions, their eyes alight with fear. Hank expected nothing else, and now he’s made them nervous, which is exactly what he wants. Nervous people make mistakes.

He leaves southside with a better idea of what he’s working against, but with no more concrete leads. He leaves a patrol car lingering around the block, hoping to catch a break.

He spends the next two days establishing a proper chain of command with the two other Lieutenants from organized crime and a few others.

Amanda sits on top as the head— her word is final, and her control reaches across the entire family. She is the last person reported to, and handles all of the elbow brushing and resource gathering. She is the one who develops relationships with other families and corporations, and she is the one who calls all the shots.

She was also apparently directly involved in Connor’s life— Hank still doesn’t quite understand that. Connor wasn’t her kid, that much was obvious, but Amanda seemed to have a personal connection to him.

Beneath Amanda are five Lieutenants who take care of the singular jobs and operations. Each Lieutenant has up to several dozen enforcers, and each enforcer has a level of operation themselves. Between all of them, the family adds up to over one hundred and fifty members. Only a small portion of those workers are actually blood related to Amanda, and each member with blood are automatically promoted to higher positions.

It’s extremely exhausting to link it all together— they know a good number of names and associations, but they don’t know them all. They have a good guess on the numbers involved, but they don’t know the who’s or the where’s. They know there’s still businesses connected to Amanda’s organizations that they haven’t discovered, and influences at play that they can’t see.

It’s not perfect by any means— there are large gaps in their chains— but it’s better than what they had before. Now they have a starting point, a place to fill in the blanks.

Hank sits back in his chair— the other officers are chatting together, and two are at their whiteboard, plotting out different files.

Hank is tired, and a part of him wants to turn in and go home early. He wants to see Sumo and finally get his drink...

But they’re on a roll, and frankly, there’s a few more things Hank wants to look into.

With how far reaching the Stern’s business stretches, Hank has a few suspicions. He’s no fool, and he’s worked this job long enough to have doubt in the system. No family this large and this affluent stayed on top for as long as they have without a little help. Hank would bet his fucking house that they’ve got a few moles in the police, maybe a judge in their pocket, maybe some bail wardens as well, a few patrol officers. There were far too many precincts in Detroit to try to snuff any specific person out without any framework to start with, but Hank decides that he’ll keep his eyes open from then on out. He can’t risk losing the small foothold they have in the Stern’s organization to a rat he passes in the hall.

It’s harsh and depressing to think about— that his own coworkers could be involved in a case like this— but Hank knows that it’s possible. He’s seen it before.

That considered, Hank can’t afford to get paranoid this early in. He makes a decision then that he will trust everyone within the room, along with the officers he works with on a daily basis. They are the people he interacts with the most, and if they are dirty, he trusts that he will be able to see it before it becomes a problem. If he doesn’t notice... then it won’t matter anyway.

———

Rose texts him every now and again, mostly just about anything significant. He learns that Connor won’t be allowed to eat solid foods for a few more weeks, and that he’s been assigned a permanent pediatrician. She tells him that he already looks better, and that he’s scheduled to go home in a few days.

It’s good news, if nothing else. Seeing new messages from Rose makes his stomach twist unpleasantly— he wants to know how the kid is doing, but he can’t for the life of him figure out just how involved he needs to be. He doesn’t know where he stands, how much he should care.

Instead of trying to figure out all the emotions that swim in his heard regarding Connor, he dives into the work. It’s hard but interesting, and while sometimes it feels like he’s not making any progress, he chips away at the evidence and names bit by put, piecing things together.

He almost doesn’t even notice when the weekend arrives. He spends a good amount of time still at the station, and every other moment meeting with the organized crime task force. Connor goes home, and Hank and the others set up patrols to drive by his group home every hour. One of the other Lieutenants— Richard Caltron— mentions the possibility that depending on how tense things get within the Stern family, that they may have an officer stay within the house as well, changing out on four hour cycles. It’s something worth considering, and the next Monday Hank sits at his desk and ponders it, tapping his pen against his desk as he thinks.

“Anderson.” Fowler falls him from the entry of his office.

Hank lets out a heavy sigh and takes another long swing of his coffee before he bothers standing. He’d downed half a bottle of Jack’s saturday and was still paying for it. He’d been overly optimistic about his own capabilities to stay sober and now he’s beginning to doubt if he’ll ever be able to stop drinking. Diving into work only lasts for so long, and unsurprisingly he still can’t sit alone in his house with nothing to do. He still starts thinking, and he still starts sinking into misery, and he still gets wasted. One week sober isn’t going to change that.

He pushes himself up from his desk and joins Fowler in his office, plopping down into the seat across of the other man’s desk. He couldn’t remember anything in particular that he’d managed to fuck up, but that didn’t mean anything anymore.

Fowler types out a few more things on his computer before turning on one of the projectors on his wall. Maybe Hank wasn’t in trouble after all.

The projector boots up and displays a few files onto the wall. Finally, Fowler speaks— “Connor was sent back to the ER this morning.” He clicks on a few files and pulls up the paperwork the hospital sent over.

Hank frowns deeply, hand already itching to pull out his phone and text Rose. He doesn’t understand— just yesterday she’d messaged him that he was fine.

“What the fuck for?” He demands— if Connor had gotten into trouble with the other boys in the group home, Hank was going to raise hell—

“He had a seizure— a bad one, apparently.” Hank can hear the concealed apprehension in his boss’s voice.

Hank blinks, his mind trying to process that. “What the fuck— why? What the hell happened?”

Fowler clicks on another file on screen. “Mrs. Chapman called the station and informed us that she was taking Connor back to the hospital—” A report of it shows up on the wall and Hank browses it. “They put him on anticonvulsants and are doing some tests, but...” The report is switched out for what appears to be an CT scan of a brain. A little brain. Hank leans in on his elbows, looking over the scan. He doesn't know enough about this shit to understand what he’s looking at.

Thankfully Jeffery switches a few photos aside, and another scan comes on the screen, this time with a specific portion highlighted and circled. Sure enough, when Hank looks closer at that section, he notices that it’s slightly darker and sticks out just a little farther than the other tissue surrounding it. Hank couldn’t tell you what it is, but it’s definitely different. “What the fuck am I looking at?” He asks.

Fowler reaches across the desk and hands him a paper file. Hank opens it and glances through it with a frown. Doctors notes. “From what’s on that report his doctor seems to think that it’s an old injury— blunt force trauma.” Fowler’s voice darkens even as he sits back in his chair. Hank tries to get his bearings with the cat scan. The brain damage is at the back of the head, near the base above where the head meets neck. If there was any sign of an old injury Connor’s hair would have covered it.

“Report says that the damage had to have happened when Connor was an infant.” Fowler continues, eyes shadowed. He sounds uneasy, and Hank remembers that Jeff himself has two sons.

Hank looks back at the scan on the wall. The darker section— Hank supposes it may be scar tissue?— wraps around the back of Connor’s head as it is. If Hank tries to picture that amount of damage on a baby...

The hot sickness he’d momentarily forgotten while he spoke with Fowler comes back up on him quickly at the thought. This kind of fucking trauma on an infant... How the fuck did something like that fucking happen? Let alone to a fucking baby? It doesn’t make any goddamn sense—

His thoughts must be showing on his face, because Jeffery doesn’t even give him a chance to speak. “I know, I know. That’s why I’m telling you. We have no records on file of any babies coming into the ER in 2011 with any kind of injury like that. There’s no police report, no DCFS file, there’s nothing. Any baby going into the ER with an injury like that would have been reported to the welfare agency, but we have nothing that even proves Connor exists.

Ben found that around his birth a DCFS investigation was opened up on the Sterns because a neighbor said that they’d seen a pregnant woman living there, but no babies were registered with the state, but it came out inconclusive and was dropped. That’s the only paperwork we have of Connor’s existence, and it technically doesn’t even have Connor’s name on it— only the Sterns’.”

“Well... fuck.” Hank mumbles, sitting back in his chair. “Damn.”

It’s a lot to piece together. Connor obviously wasn’t born in a hospital if there were no records of him— and it was looking like he was injured as a baby but that he never got medical treatment for it. “So how the hell does an infant survive a blunt force trauma without fucking treatment?” He asks.

Fowler leans forward. Hank can tell that he’s interested in the case even though he’s only supposed to be overlooking it. Even Fowler was a beat cop back in the day. “Doc says that he definitely did receive treatment. There’s surgical scars— and when they did an x-ray they found...” Fowler flips through his own copies of the examination, pulling out paper out of the rest— “yeah, there’s signs that they did,” he pauses and settles forward on his desk, frowning as he rubbed at his face. “--a surgery to decrease the pressure in his skull—” He makes a little helpless movement with his hands. “Report says it would have been extremely complicated with his age, and that there’s signs that it was performed by a neurosurgeon. I’ll let you get more information from the doctor, but so far it’s looking less like they healed him themselves and more like Connor was in a facility being treated and they got all his paperwork erased.”

Hank nods. That made sense— the Sterns would have had the power and money to make that happen. They could have taken Connor to a private hospital and paid off all the staff— but that also meant that the Sterns would have had Connor since he was a baby. There was always the chance that they’d acquired Connor later in life. Hank takes a pen from Fowler’s desk and flipped over one of the reports, writing down notes on the other side along with some brief questions to mention to Connor the next time he saw him. He didn’t want to forget anything.

“Either way, add that to your list of fuckery to figure out. If we can pin them with more child abuse it may be a way to pull their records from years ago.” Fowler says even though Hank already knew that much. This kind of abuse was old, but it could still be investigated and open doors to their current investigation

Hank finishes writing and sits back, taking another look at the scans. His stomach tumbles. He wants to know what happened to cause an injury like that just as much as he doesn’t want to know. He sighs and nods. “Alright.” he agrees. “So I’m assuming this—” he waves the brain scan a bit, “— has something to do with the seizure?”

“You’ll have to call his doctor to get all the details, but yeah. They know he has epilepsy, and they’re running more tests. The epilepsy is caused by the brain damage.”

Hank rubs a heavy hand across his face with a sigh. Not only was Connor starving to death, but he also had brain damage. Who knew how that impacted him everyday. Had Connor been having seizures down in that basement, freezing to death on the floor? Had they given him medicine or just left him to suffer?

It’s something to look into if nothing else.

“Alright, I’ll call his doctor.” Hank agrees, gathering up his papers. “God this is turning into one big fucking mess.”

Fowler snorts from his seat, closing off the files projecting. “It’s organized crime. Of course it’s messy.”

————

Hank does call Connor’s doctor later that day. He doesn’t get the best feel for the man over the phone, but he sounds young and capable. He’s also propestrily cheery— the kind that calmed children but riled up adults. Dr. Green has an answer for everything Hank can think of, and to him reassures him that at least Connor’s doctor seemed competent.

He learns that Connor’s seizure had been severe but not uncommon, and that he’d only had one more since they put him on meds. Apparently mixing the anticonvulsants and an empty belly is the worst kind of idea, and that they’re struggling to keep Connor comfortable through anti-nausea drugs and an extremely light sedative. The doctor stresses that Connor isn’t drugged out of his mind to the point that Hank almost becomes suspicious of it, but he’s not informed enough about it all to really say anything.

Unsurprisingly, the stress of being removed from his home has only worsened Connor’s condition. It makes Hank’s heart ache to think about.

He spends a good fifteen minutes sitting at his desk despairing for Connor and his situation. Not only was Connor sickly and starved, but he had lurking brain damage and epilepsy thrown on top of it. Chance were his growth was already stunted from the abuse, but if he had brain damage, would it come out to haunt him later? Would he be able to live a normal life? Hank knew Connor was smart as hell just from spending the day with him, and was actually very socially mature. He has no doubt that Connor is very intelligent, but would he ever be able to adapt to a classroom setting if he’d yet to experience it? Would the damage to his brain raise other hidden conditions? Would the epilepsy cripple him?

Fifteen minutes, Hank thinks of nothing but this poor kid and his bleak future.

Then he takes all thoughts of Connor and shoves them away in the bottom drawer of his desk, and tries to get back to work.

He needs to crack down on the Sterns, and then maybe Connor could live a normal life. Crying for him now would do him no good.

———

Rose texts him at nearly midnight on Wednesday, buzzing his phone with a stream of messages.

-did connor cry while he was with you?-

Hank frowns at the message, heart constricting in his chest as he pondered the implications behind such a message.

“Yeah, for a total of like maybe 40 seconds then he made himself stop. it was weird.”

“why?”

He asks, even though he’s not sure he wants to know the answe.

- it’s just that he’s only cried once since i’ve been with him, and that was while i wasn’t in the room. i only noticed because his eyes were red.-

-at first i just thought he was being tough but now i think he’s trying not to feel anything at all-

-like he’s trying to block out all emotions-

Hank sighs heavily, bringing a hand up to rub at his face. The case is a fucking mess— it’s not surprising that Connor’s brain is fucked up too.

Still, children weren’t supposed to know a damn thing about suppressing emotions. Kids were meant to cry over dropped ice cream and baths, not fight tears while they were admitted to a hospital or preparing for an MRI.

He’s only on his third shot tonight, and despite the relief the alcohol brings, Hank isn’t sure he can stomach much more with how his stomach twists at the image of such a little boy trying to put on a tough face.

Except, if Rose was right, he was already trying too hard. It’s impossible to suppress everything, and it only led to more pain in the end. Connor was only on a train destined to crash.

He sets down his glass and tries to focus on helping. “Have you talked to him about it?”

Rose mustn’t be by the phone, because her reply takes almost a half an hour. Hank isn’t surprised— Rose stayed at the group home most nights and helped out. After her youngest son had gone to college she claimed to have too much free time and too big a house to stay in all by herself. Her days were dedicated to her job at DCSF, but Hank remembers her telling him that her nights were dedicated to those boys and making sure they were happy.

Hank had been to a few different group homes back in his days as a beat cop— some of them were nice and calm and others were overcrowded and chaotic. The one Connor was staying at was much smaller and more personal so that his health needs could be met. Hank suspects however that the agency will try to place Connor in a foster home as soon as possible so that he can get the one on one attention a kid like him would need to heal.

For now though he’s still living with the other boys, and Rose was staying around to help out. Hank has no doubt that that is a 24 hour job. He doesn’t know when she ever gets to sleep. He doesn’t mind waiting for her response.

At least he didn’t think he did, until he wakes up at the kitchen table at 4 am, only belatedly realizing he’d fallen asleep while he waited.

He checks his messages after he falls into bed, and opens Rose’s message.

- yeah but he pretends not to know what i’m talking about. i’m pretty sure he’s pretending at least. i didn’t push him. he’s supposed to start therapy this week so i figured i would mention it to his therapist-

Oh fuck, yeah, Hank has forgotten all about that. Connor was meant to go to a psychiatrist to be evaluated. Hank would bet his best bottle of whiskey that he’d end up in regular therapy— hell, maybe even a few. That was good. Therapy was good, Hank was slowly learning. Sometimes he even listened to his own therapist.

He hoped maybe Connor will be the same.

———

The Sterns own a fish cannery on the North side, and Hank wants to crack it open and see what secrets will spill out of it. He spends all day Tuesday and Wednesday sitting with Ben and pouring over it’s audit history, shipping logs, resource history— anything they can legally get their hands on to find discrepancies in. It’s boring as hell and tragically long, but it’s necessary and they’re waiting on all their other leads to mature before acting on them.

Rose still texts him occasionally. He tries not to think about how much he appreciates each update. Connor is sick and weak, but he’s not miserable. Rose says that he reads every single book she brings him within hours, and that he sleeps through the worst of it all. They sedate him for most of the tests they have to run on him, and Connor tells her that he doesn’t remember much of the examinations anyway. She swears that he already looks healthier, but the scale hasn’t proven it.

She tells Hank that while Connor was with the other boys that he didn’t quite fit in, and that he tended to keep to himself in a separate room if he was allowed. Hank’s not surprised. It’ll be a miracle if Connor ever figures out how to interact with children his own age, since it’s looking more and more like he’s never been around other kids before.

He stays late at the precinct Thursday night with Chris and Richard, sipping on coffee as they try to pick apart the financial contributions put into the cannery. The numbers swim in front of Hank’s eyes, and he sits back in his chair to rub at his face. “All this shit looks exactly the same.” He mumbles, mood foul. As much as he doesn’t want to be there, he doesn’t want to be at home alone any more, so he stays and works.

“Yeah, I feel you.” Richard agrees, propping his head up on his knuckles. “I’ve reread this application three times.” He drops the paper and reaches for another.

Hank snorts and downs the rest of his coffee. It’s beginning to taste like water.

Maybe with all these overtime hours he’s wracking up he’ll go on vacation. He’ll go somewhere warm— somewhere with a beach. He won’t do fucking anything but sit in the sun and get burnt. Maybe he’ll even bring Sumo— they’d have to drive, then, but Sumo loves car rides. They could go to North Carolina maybe—

“Why the fuck are you guys still here?” Gavin Reed’s voice pipes up from across the bullpen. He’s carrying a pile of files and looks a little bit like a rabid raccoon with the circles around his eyes. Hank wonders if his own look the same.

“No lives,” Richard says.

“Papertrail,” Chris tells him.

“Fuck off,” says Hank.

Gavin just snorts and meanders towards his own desk where he drops his stack and rubs at his neck before popping his back. He plops down in his chair. “I thought for sure I’d be the only other sorry motherfucker stuck here,” He says to the room at large. Chris leans back to chat with him. Hank tries to ignore them all.

Maybe he should go home. He’s not really processing anything anymore—

“Wait, are you guys working on the Stern case?” Gavin asks, still lounging back in his chair and chewing on what looks like a pen cap.

“Yeah.” Richard tells him, holding two pieces of papers up by each other as he examined them. “It’s a fucking mess.”

“Need any help?” Reed asks. Hank is immediately on high fucking alert.

“Whoa whoa whoa, hey— hey. What the fuck was that? Did you just offer to help?” Hank’s voice is dripping with exasperation. Maybe fighting Reed will energize him.

“Shut the fuck up Hank, that case is gonna be the break of the century. I want on it.”

“Of fucking course.” Hank tells him, scowling. “Leave it to you to see this shit as a fucking career boost.”  

“Not all of us are as fucking old as you Hank. Lord fucking knows you stepped on toes to get where you are. The case is interesting. More interesting than this bullshit.” Gavin motions to the piles of papers sitting on his desk. “Come on. Put me on the case and you’ll have another set of eyes.”

“I’ll also have to fucking deal with you.” Hank grumbles. He’s tempted. Gavin is one of the world’s biggest assholes and an utter piece of fucking garbage, but he is a good detective. Hank’s seen Gavin solve shit in hours that would take most detectives days. He wasn’t afraid to get dirty in his work and he was dogged, Hank could give him that. Having the asshole on the case could actually be useful.

But then Hank would be his CO, and he really doesn’t want to have to see Gavin any more than he fucking has to. Having Reed report directly to him would ruin that.

His phone buzzes with another text from Rose.

- Connor hogs blankets. I think I’m going to have to buy him some more.-

Fuck.

If Gavin could help them solve this case faster, then so be it.

“Fine, but I’m putting restrictions on you. You don’t start your own side investigation and you and Chris partner up. I don’t want you running around fucking this up. You report to me before you fucking go anywhere or talk to anyone. Clear?” Hank demands, sitting up to look Gavin straight in the eye. He’s not fucking around. Not with this case. Not with the stakes so high.

Gavin’s shiteating grin makes Hank almost regret his choice, but it’s too late now. Besides—

He hears an alert ping on his computer across the office at the same time Chris’s own computer goes off, and waits the approximate eight seconds before his phone starts ringing. He’d put in a request with dispatch last week to be alerted personally of any calls that came in within a block’s radius of Connor’s group home. Hank’s stomach twists in fear. He picks up his phone and the operator relays the information he needs.

10-33 Alarm sounding.

10-46 Sick person [ambulance enroute] to 2067 Finley Street.

10-57 Firearm discharged. Shots fired.

Shots fired, multiple shooters active—

The Sterns were coming back for Connor afterall.

——