Chapter Text
Hank was on his third coffee for the day, as Fowler screamed for him to come into his office. He grumbled as he rose, taking the coffee with him. Hank stepped inside the office and let himself fall down onto a chair.
“What do you want, Jeffrey?”, he grumbled.
"It better not be another case, I’m up to my fucking eyeballs in this shit.” He took a sip of his drink and then noticed a man standing behind his boss.
“Who the fuck is this?”
“That's why I wanted to talk to you. This is Connor. It's his first day at the precinct. I'm assigning him to you as a partner."
Hank groaned.
“You gotta be kidding me. I have a million open cases and now you're assigning me a rookie to take care of?”
Connor’s face seemed to fall as he heard the dismissive tone in Hank’s voice. He almost felt like groaning again at the puppy dog look on the rookies face.
"It’s been ages since I had a partner, Jeffrey. You know I don’t get on with newbies.”
Fowler threw his arms up, pointing at Hank.
"You’re taking Connor with you, whether you like it or not. And don’t call me Jeffrey.”
Hank muttered something under his breath, before leaving the office. He knew it would be pointless to argue with Fowler either way.
The rookie followed him soon after and stared at Hank with wide eyes. Hank sat down at his desk. Connor stood, wringing his hands together.
“What?”, he asked at the looks.
”I'm sorry you got me assigned as a partner. I hope we can still manage to work well together and perhaps become friends?”
Hank ignored the urge to smash his head into the table.
“Oh, for fucks sake.”
“I didn’t mean to -”
“Please just sit down and shut up”, Hank interrupted him, vaguely gesturing at the desk across from his.
Nobody was using it, not since his last “partner” had left and he had been perfectly happy with being left alone. As Connor moved over and sat down, he put what was left of his coffee on the table and moved back to continue reading updated reports on his monitor.
It was only a couple of minutes before he felt someone staring at the side of his head, and he twirled in his chair to face the rookie. If he wasn’t friendly, maybe Connor would ask Fowler for a new partner, and then it would be another couple of months that he would be left - blissfully - alone.
“I am sorry Lieutenant, but I was wondering… Do you have a dog?”
Hank stared at him.
“Why the fuck would you ask that?”
And how did the goddamn rookie not realize Hank wanted him to leave him alone?
Connor looked down at this hands on the table and pushed his fingers between each other. He at least looked a little discomforted. Maybe it would just take a little while to push him away, given how shy he seemed.
“You have dog hairs on your chair. I like dogs. My apartment doesn’t let me keep animals.”
He looked straight at Hank, a slight blush dusting his cheeks as Hank blinked and the scowl he had been putting on was chased away by the sheer innocence raidianting off the boy.
There probably wasn't too much harm in answering one question.
“I have an old St. Bernard. His name is Sumo”, he mumbled, before turning toward his computer. Hank stared at the case file of one of his open cases, despite the fact that he read it multiple times by now. He still wasn't any closer to figuring out who the killer in this case could be.
“Are you alright, Sir?”
Connor was leaning over the divider, uncomfortably close to his face. Glaring, Hank pushed him back over, pointing at the monitor on the other side. He should have been given his login information, when he came in this morning, but if he hadn’t, that wasn’t his problem. He’d point the kid in the right direction, but he wasn’t about to start babysitting.
“Monitor’s on your desk.”
He raised one of his eyebrows and turned back to the block of words on his own, straining his eyes to read.
“You should have access to the same files I do.”
Connor looked at the monitor in front of him and Hank watched him for a moment, as he was reading the file. He looked concentrated. Hank briefly wondered if Connor would be able to provide any thoughts on the case, he hadn’t come up with in the last few weeks. He sincerely doubted it, the boy was fresh out of the academy, had no actual experience with police work whatsoever.
Blowing some of his hair out of his face, Hank rested his head on his hand and continued sipping from his coffee cup. There was nothing new in the information, no new leads, but he didn’t have anything else to try to pull from. There had to be something here, and if not, then he could go back to the witnesses and try again. Someone would slip up somewhere, and he was going to be there when they did.
“Hank, there’s something wrong with these two reports.”
The rookie was pointing at his screen, brows furrowed, “They don’t match up with each other.”
Hank looked at the screen, until he finally figured out what Connor was talking about. How the hell did he miss that? Cursing under his breath, he got up. Hank downed the last of his coffee - which by now, was cold - before shouting for Gavin.
"I think I know who's behind this, you wanna back me up?”, he asked the other officer. Connor looked a little confused.
“Why can't I -”
Hank rolled his eyes.
“I'm not gonna have a fucking rookie on his first day be my backup for this. We've been trying to figure out who's behind this for weeks.”
Connor’s face fell, and for a moment Hank actually felt like a scumbag. He growled under his breath, checked for his gun and shrugged on his jacket before deciding to gesturing for Connor to follow.
On the way out, Connor seemed to bounce behind him out of excitement for his first case, which made him feel even more tired and old than he was. Heading towards his old car wasn’t helping, and he scanned the area, wondering how the rookie had gotten here.
"Don’t fuck this up, got it?”, he warned.
"You get in the way, I’ll kick you out.”
“Got it, Lieutenant”, came back the prompt response.
He opened his car and got inside. Connor sat down on the passenger seat.
Hank noticed he looked extremely nervous.
He really hoped taking the boy with him wouldn’t end up being a huge mistake.