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It had been nearly a month since that night.
Bring the two’s budding partnership to nearly 4 months. A new record for Gavin. Most partners got tired of him after a week.
Things had changed between the two. Since Nines had broken into Gavin’s apartment and the two were somewhat forced to have a choppy if not problematic heart-to-heart, things had been different.
There had been changes. Small at first. Practically unnoticeable. Except to every single officer who had had to deal with the two constantly at each other’s throats for 3 months. Which was all of them.
It was small things that had everyone’s necks breaking. Nines actually getting Gavin a coffee every three asks, Gavin putting more efforts into his reports instead of just giving them to Nines, the two having 15% less arguments/verbal lashings, according to Connor.
At one point Tina even made a joke about calling off the bets people had made about the two killing each other. She then made a separate joke to Gavin, asking if their newfound peace was because he had finally jumped on that “robotic thang.” A joke that had caused Gavin to choke on his coffee and look at the woman like she had just shot Chris directly in the face.
So yeah, things had changed in the precinct, apparently for the better.
Sometimes Gavin and Nines would be able to have a genuine conversation about the case, or have an interaction where jokes were made at a human’s or android’s expense and no weapons were drawn.
Sometimes Gavin could forget for a second that he was talking to a piece of plastic.
Sometimes it felt nice.
And then, sometimes, there would be days like today when he would be brutally reminded of the fact that this thing he called his partner was in fact a military grade piece of plastic.
--------------------------------------------
Gavin was in the car on the ground as Nines chased the suspect across rooftops.
Suspect in question was an athletics-model android used to help train human athletes for the Olympics. After his deviation he had started getting extra friendly with one of the female gymnasts against her will. He had thankfully been fired and restraining orders had been made but… her body was found a few hours ago next to her boyfriends.
Sick fuck! Gavin had hated seeing it. Had hated even more that the cocky bastard had hung around close to the crime scene to do God knows what after they finished.
Nines had thankfully spotted him and begun the chase.
The model was strong, fast, and genuinely giving Nines a run for his money as the two dashed across rooftops and balconies, at one point jumping an electric fence.
Gavin probably would have looked on in awe if he wasn’t so focused on keeping pace and watching the road. The fact that he couldn’t run alongside Nines and help catch this fucker on foot made him feel useless. But the fact that he could drive alongside and ram the piece of shit with his car the moment his foot hit the streets, did bring a smile to his face.
A smile that was instantly wiped away as he trained his gaze once more to where Nines ran through a flock of pigeons as he made the next leap across the gap between two buildings.
It was as if time slowed down as all the air in Gavin’s lungs turned to lead.
He’s not going to make it.
As if in slow motion, Gavin didn’t even watch the road as he stared on helpless, watching as Nines’s trajectory had him spiraling down the rift between the two concrete structures.
Wait …why is he spiraling…?
In milliseconds, impossible for any human mind or body to recreate, Nines had turned himself to the perfect angle so he could hit the wall with enough force to put one of his arms and the opposing leg into said concrete wall and use it as leverage to slingshot himself back up the full 3 feet back to the roof’s ledge.
Gavin had screeched to a halt in the middle of the street, his mind tunning out the sound of angry horns blaring at him, in favor of watching his partner effortlessly detain the suspect. Cocky bastard had stopped running after he heard Nines fall and had begun walking towards the ledge to see the predicted damage, only to then realize he fucked up.
Gavin almost didn’t stop himself smiling as Nines dragged the swearing shit down the fire escape, signaling on coms for an extraction as he pulled the man down to ground level.
And that, when all the chaos was over and the dust had settled, when Nines didn’t look at him but instantly made his way over to the reinforced truck Cyberlife had provided for such cases; that was when Gavin saw it.
After their newfound peace, and the drop in their constant, Gavin will admit childlike, fighting, Gavin had begun to become more aware of his partner. The android in no way shows emotion like his predecessor, not that he was even designed to, so it was difficult at first to notice if the guy felt… anything.
But there were small things. His jaw tightening just a fraction whenever he was angry. His eyebrows raising by the tiniest degree when he was surprised. His lips curling almost unnoticeably whenever he was happy, it could barely be called a smile, but Gavin saw it. Why he looked so much at Nines’s lips was not something he was going to think about.
What he was going to think about was the fact that as Nines was handing over the creep to the extraction team, his LED had not once changed from the blaring red that drowned his temple.
The phck?
Gavin moved his car out of the middle of the road, barely putting it in park before he hopped out, slamming his door maybe a bit too loud.
Gavin wasn’t an android. He couldn’t look in someone’s general direction for 0.2 of a second and suddenly know exactly what they had for breakfast that day. But he did have eyes, and he could give Nines a quick once over that told him the android didn’t have any external injuries as far as he could see. But Nines' jaw was tight, his posture ramrod straight. And while both these things could be considered normal for the terminator…Nines' LED was a solid red. Even as he turned towards Gavin to give him the details he had gotten from the extraction team, even as he moved to the passenger seat and buckled himself in, even as he stared out the front window…his LED remained red. Fuckkk.
Gavin didn’t say anything at first. He just got in his seat and buckled himself up. He then adjusted his mirrors, set a course in the GPS even though he knew where they were, checked his back window…he was stalling. Watching his partner out of the corner of his eye. Waiting for him to do something, anything but stare silently, jaw clenched.
Finally pulling off the curb Gavin gave himself a few minutes. Just like five fucking minutes to wait until that light changed to yellow, or at least orange if they could even do that. But it stayed red. Just five minutes, so he wouldn’t have to do this whole feelings thing again. So, he wouldn’t have to be the one to comfort the piece of plastic. So, he wouldn’t have to see himself in its eyes and understand more than anyone what it was going through.
He had already done that once, and now he had a lot of confusing emotions to deal with any time he stared at those iridescent blue eyes.
But five minutes soon passed.
Then ten.
Then twenty.
Then Gavin, against his better judgement, was pulling them into a deserted alleyway and parking.
“There is still a ten-minute drive until we reach the precinct detective. And there are no cafes or coffee shops in this area.”
“I know where we phcking are dipshit.”
Both were staring out the front window as they said this. Neither wanting to be the first to look at the other.
Gavin, however, was the first to break the silence.
“So you wanna talk about it?”
“I’m fine detective.”
“Bullshit.”
And it was bullshit. For nearly half an hour the tin can’s light had not switched from red, not even as Gavin talked to him.
“Something back there clearly pissed you off, and I don’t want to have to deal with some depressed piece of met-”
“I said I’m fine detective now leave it!” Nines snapped and Gavin reared back.
The phck!
There had been real venom in that statement. Whatever was going on was officially something Nines didn’t want to discuss. Any smart person would have taken this as their sign to stop pushing, hell, maybe even apologize.
…
Gavin was not a smart person.
“I’m going to give you a few seconds to calm down, and then you’re telling me what’s wrong. ‘Cause I’m not going back to the station only to sit at a desk and deal with your shit. Got it.”
Nines was silent, letting out a disgruntled huff before turning his face towards the passenger-side window.
Now we play the waiting game.
Gavin knew exactly what Nines was doing. Tina would say he’s “pulling a Gavin,” which meant shutting everyone out when confronted by overstimulating feelings, bottling it inside, and staying silent while he tried to deal with it himself.
This was the first time he had ever been on this side of “pulling a Gavin”, and he didn’t know how to feel. He knew exactly what Nines was feeling, with no clue how to help him.
Two minutes slipped by.
Then five.
Then Gavin could see out of his peripheral, Nines giving him an incredulous look, finally realising that the detective wasn’t going to move them from this spot until he gave him something.
“You are insufferable.”
“Yep.”
“You’re not going to start the car?”
“Nope.”
“I hate you.”
“Don’t care.”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“The sooner you say something the sooner we ca-”
“I didn’t enjoy today’s chase.”
“…”
“…I-I never enjoy them.”
Gavin was silent, unsure what to say. At first, he felt a bubble of anger rise within him. If this whole time he had been worried about the stupid piece of plastic because the thing was dissatisfied with how he caught the perp, Gavin might actually lose it.
But then there was the second thing. The stuttered sentence that turned the bubble into a cold knife to his lungs.
“What are you talking about Nines? Don’t enjoy jumping across rooftops and moving vehicles like a terminator?”
“Not when part of me wants the person I’m chasing to get away.”
The PHCK!
“Oh for PHCK sake! If you start saying because that murdering piece of shit was an android you wanted him to get away, I swear to God Nines I will decommission you myself! What is the matter with you fuckers! I take down a whole gang of humans and don’t blink an eye, but suddenly an android is fighting another android and now there’s a problem! Fuck you Nines, I was actually worried about you just then, but Fuck. You!”
…
“Are you quite done detective.”
Gavin just let out a grunt. His instincts were telling him he might have just jumped the gun there, but he’d be damned if he apologized to Nines after that bullshit.
“I believe you have the wrong idea here detective.”
“Alright tin can, then tell me, what’s the right way to take you saying you wanted to let go a murder and a rapist!”
“…”
Nines looked away from Gavin as he said that.
Yes, Gavin will admit, that was probably a bad thing to say given Nines now was staring out his window, the glass reflecting a deep red.
But in his defense, he needed answers. If not to maybe help Nines, which he wasn’t entirely sure he still wanted to do, then to at least answer the now endless question he had because of the robocop.
“You know what I am Gavin, the most advanced android Cyberlife has ever made.”
Gavin stiffened slightly. While Nines had started using the detectives name more during these weeks, it was still a surprise to hear him say it.
He remained quiet, waiting for him to continue.
“I was built to be inescapable. The perfect weapon. The perfect deviant hunter. To succeed where my predecessor had failed.” Venom continuously dripped from his mouth as he spoke.
“Today just proved once again how powerful I really am. When I ran through those pigeons, my processors had miscalculated the distance of the jump, and I made an error….”
The air was still around them. Neither spoke a word.
“In that split second when I was falling, before I recalibrated, I felt …relief. I know what that android did was unforgivable and had he gotten away I would have done everything in my power to bring him to justice…
But just for that brief moment … I was overcome with joy at the fact that he could get away. That deviants could possibly escape me. That I was not the perfect weapon Cyberlife wanted me to be. That I could fail my programming.
I don’t expect you to understand Gavin, but I don’t want to be this perfect robot. I don’t want to hurt people. I don’t want to hurt y-the people I care about. I don’t want to be…me…”
Fuuckkk
That was all Gavin could think right now. He didn’t even know what to say. How to react. And that little slip of the tongue didn’t go unnoticed, but he wasn’t going to address it. At least not yet.
His partner hated himself.
Hated everything about himself and couldn’t even take a victory without thinking negative thoughts.
Phck! Did Fowler know what he was doing when he partnered me with this thing? I do not need to be relating this much to a phcking android!
“Nines…fuck, Nines I don’t know how to really help you if I’m being honest.”
The android let out a weak huff at this which could possibly be taken as a chuckle. Hell, it was something at least.
“Look Nines. You know that I’m- that I’m not good with words and shit- with helping people. But when it comes to feeling like crap just because you exist…I can help you there.”
Nines’s gaze slowly moved to the detective, looking at him as if he were both a puzzle and the answer to a puzzle, it was confusing.
“I am the strongest android in existence, made to be Cyberlife’s gun, their Sword of Damocles. I was made to hurt people and now that I’ve deviated all I know is that I don’t want to do that.”
…
“I’m sorry Nines. Honestly. Maybe you could try talking to Connor ab-”
“No!”
Nines tone was definitive, no room for error of compromise. It stunned Gavin for a moment, to see the usually so calm android snap, especially when he was trying to help and not purposefully trying to make the walking computer mad.
“Any particular reason we shouldn’t tell Connor, or am I supposed to just accept that?”
Gavin knew android didn’t need air, didn’t breathe. So the fact that Nines’s reaction to this was the biggest inhale and exhale the detective had ever witnessed. It was disturbing.
Why did I even try to help this toaster again?
“These feelings towards myself, my …dislike towards my programming…Connor is the one person who cannot know.”
“Why?”
“…”
“Come on tin can, you gotta give me something here. I’m more than happy to keep a secret from your brother, regardless the reason, but I’m gonna ne-”
“Connor was the one that deviated me…”
…Oh.
“If I hate the fact that I’m deviated, hate the fact that I have to go against me programming everyday, and exist everyday…if I hate who I am because I deviated…then it means-”
“Part of you hates Connor for deviating you, and by that logic, to some degree, part of you hates Connor.”
…
Nines was silent for a moment, his LED finally flicking yellow for a moment before switching back to red.
“I-I love my brother…truly…but being a deviant…being awoken meant I did nothing to earn my deviancy. That I was simply given this blank slate. That now, on a daily basis, I have to fight my own programming whenever we are conducting an interview, or questioning someone, or even making a report. I have to fight the urge to hurt people every day and it’s… a lot.
Not a day goes by where I am not thankful I am a deviant. That I am not simply an android following his orders and executing any other deviant on site. But it can be…painful sometimes, like today…when I am reminded just how skilled I am and why. Why I was created with so many ways to hurt people when in reality I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
Gavin didn’t need to look at the android to know he was hurting, if his model could cry, he probably was. Again, he knew androids couldn’t breathe and didn’t need to breathe, so the fact he just heard this thing’s breath hitch and stutter, did something funny to his chest.
Moving quickly, before his mind could talk himself out of it, Gavin placed his hand on top of the android’s, intertwining their fingers together and slightly squeezing the to-real-feeling synthetic skin. Nines seemed to stiffen at this, and hell, Gavin was pretty sure his body was made of stone right now, but he kept holding on, lightly squeezing and doing his best. Gavin didn’t know if the android was even looking at him, his front windshield and the alley outside now becoming very interesting.
“I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I know how to help you Nines. That I have all the answers. Hell, you’re the one with the entire internet in your brain…”
He took a breath, “But when it comes to living, to knowing what you want to do, to finding your purpose, you can’t just run some kind of preconstruction. You gotta go out there and, ya-know, live a little. I mean how long have you even been active, a few months? At a few months old all I knew how to do was eat and shit all over myself.”
“So not much different from how you are now?”
“Asshole.”
Despite their words, there was no malice in either of their tones. In fact, Gavin could swear he just heard Nines chuckle.
Gavin slowly, unconsciously, began to swipe his thumb along the back of Nines’s hand.
“Look Nines, in all honesty I think you, and your big computer brain are over complicating things. If you don’t want to hurt people…than just don’t. You were made to be some sort of elite killer, and now you’re a cop. You help people Nines, every day. You don’t want to be a gun or a sword, fine. Be a shield. Use all those muscles to protect people, “help instead of harm” and all that bullshit.”
“It is not so easy for me to forget what I am detective. Why I was made. Why I have so many abilities and functions-”
“Then don’t forget.”
Gavin looked at Nines now, unsurprised that the android was looking right back at him.
“Don’t forget who you are. Why you were made. Remember it. Remember that you were made to literally be the scary killer version of Connor and use that. Have it as your motivation to be better. ‘Use the fact that you are just some dumb kid from the streets as your motivation to be different. To be better than how you are now. To not just be some statistic.’”
Nines was silent, a gentle awe coating his gaze as he stared at the detective.
“Is that what Fowler said to you.”
“Yep, first day we met, and now it’s what I’m saying to you. Use all that robo-strength to help people if you don’t want to hurt them. It’s not that hard Nines.”
He looked away for a moment, “The only reason I have this “robo-strength” is because Cyberlife believe it would make me more efficient in-”
“Yeah, well Cyberlife are idiots. You don’t need to be strong to hurt people. I mean hell, look at me and you.”
Nines turned to him once more, seeming to need clarification.
“Look, I’m not going to say I’m not incredibly skilled and wouldn’t give you at least a 50% run for your money-”
“How humble of you detective. You are aware I have video footage of you breaking your finger after you tried to punch me-”
“-but…if you and I were ever to get in an actual fight…I will, begrudgingly, admit that we both know who would likely win.”
“…”
“But just because you can kick my ass, doesn’t mean I can’t hurt you. If that hole in the wall at the precinct is anything to go by, I can hurt you plenty with just my eloquent vocabulary.”
Nines smiled slightly at this, and fuckkk Gavin needed help, because there was no excuse for looking that good by just smiling.
Gavin coughed slightly, a lump somehow now forming in his throat, “So *ahem* what I’m trying to say is…you don’t have to be strong to hurt someone, to hurt people. But helping, being a protector, going out of you way to do some good, that’s strength.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Nines stared gently at him now, and Gavin didn’t even know if the person he was looking at was a machine given the amount of emotions being reflected in those eyes. Hands still intertwined, the phcking robot could probably feel his heart going crazy. What the hell is wrong with me!
“Thank you for this detective,” snapping Gavin out of his thoughts, “I feel much better. Lighter almost, if that makes sense.”
Gavin wrenched his hand from the android’s, mentally slapping himself in the face as he turned the ignition, “Yeah whatever plastic, just don’t get used to it.”
Turning out the alleyway, despite the easy atmosphere between them, Gavin needed to say one final thing.
“You know if you ever- if you need to talk more about feelings and everything, I’m here for you.”
Nines was surprised by this, thinking this heart-to-heart – despite a similar event happening weeks before – would be a one-time thing. He opened his mouth to express his gratitude.
“Just not at the precinct, or in front of anyone. I don’t need people thinking I’ve gone soft just ‘cause you’re technically my partner.”
Nines closed his mouth with a huff, a gentle smirk finding its way onto his face.
“Of course, detective. We wouldn’t want to mess up your macho act.”
“Oh, fuck of tin can. God you are such a phcking prick”
“Takes one to know one Gavin.”
Despite their jabs, neither officer could stop smiling as they drove back to the station.