Change of Heart
Summary: All you wanted to do was escape the hopelessness and despair, even for just a moment. But you couldn’t possibly have known the impact it would have.
Takes place during Crossroads
Slight Connor x Android Reader
A/N: The song link in the story is a recommendation. Feel free to substitute what ever gets your groove going.
You were short on blue blood and biocomponents. Your wounded were shutting down and there was nothing you could do about it. President Warren had issued an official statement stating you were a threat to national security and needed to be exterminated. Humans were conducting raids in all the big cities and taking androids to camps to destroy them.
Needless to say, it was a very serious situation.
You could see the stress carved into Markus’ face. You could hear the strain in his voice. You’d watched the life fade from the eyes of too many androids to count. You’d hauled away so many biocomponents and mopped up so much thirium you swore your hands were stained blue beneath your skin. All around you, so much death, sorrow, hopelessness. So many newly awakened androids experiencing emotion for the first time only to feel despair.
Needless to say, it was not the kind of situation that called for music.
Or dancing.
Unfortunately for you, your model was designed for entertainment and musical theater. In these trying times, your programming defaulted to various showtunes and inappropriately timed slapstick humor to relieve the tension.
Fortunately for you, the only other androids present when you learned that about yourself were Simon and Markus.
The correction had been firm, but gentle.
You’d gotten very good at curbing your tendencies for showmanship very fast. You were quick, nimble. Built for grace, agility, and extravagant dance numbers. That made you an ideal candidate to lead Jericho’s very own squad of android coyotes. Even North had thought you were crazy when you proposed the idea. When you’d returned to the dilapidated ship less than 24 hours later with a dozen fugitives, nearly all of them changed their tune.
Josh was never any fun anyway.
The soles of your boots skidded on the frozen asphalt as you sprinted across the road, hot on the heels of the three stragglers you’d encountered on your last sweep of the city before Markus locked Jericho down. Good thing you’d found them, too. As hard as you fought to go out one last time, just in case, you didn’t think you could stand the insinuating eyebrow raise you knew you’d get if you turned up empty handed.
Cocky little shit.
“Keep going!” you hissed under your breath, eyes darting side to side for any hint of movement, any miniscule flash of light.
God damned soldiers were everywhere.
They obeyed without question, LEDs spinning red and eyes wide with fear. You felt a pang of regret for the sharpness in your voice. It wasn’t that long ago that you were in their position. But, you didn’t have time to dwell on that now. Jericho was nearly in sight.
“Hold up,” you whisper-shouted, skirting around their hunched figures to peer out of the dark alley the four of you were crouched in and out into the street.
You couldn’t detect any movement, save for the falling snow and the thick, industrial tarps that flapped freely in the wind. With a flex of your fingers and a set of your shoulders, you turned back to the three androids whom you had just met, but that trusted you with their lives.
“We’re almost there,” you said lowly, taking care to keep your voice calm and even. “The docks are at the end of the road. We stick to the shadows, and we stick together. Got it?”
Despite the blind panic written clearly across their faces, they all nodded with an inspiring sense of determination.
“Okay,” you huffed, turning back around and steeling yourself for the run. “Stay close.”
With that, you darted from the cover of the alley and out into the street, strafing along the side of the chain link fence on the opposite side and away from the high floodlights that lined the sides of the buildings. They were brave, you had to give them that. It was with a great sense of pride when you heard three separate, distinct footsteps directly behind you as you broke out onto the docks, the entrance to your refuge in sight.
You didn’t slow down until your feet found the rusted metal floor of the ancient freighter, finally slowing to a jog then brisk walk as you wound your way through the labyrinth of hatches and corridors to the hold. It was bustling with activity inside, androids strewn in every room, on every stairwell, on every walkway. You picked your way through the crowd with your charges in tow, peeking over your shoulder every now and then to make sure you hadn’t lost any of your little ducklings.
“The main group is in here,” you called, the hatch to the hold swinging open with a groan. “Medics are over there, go have yourselves checked out.”
You pointed off to the far corner where opaque white tarps were hung to create a makeshift ER.
“Once you get the green light, make yourselves at home.”
You smiled in response to their tearful thanks, squeezing each of their hands reassuringly before sending them on their way. You watched them go for a moment, allowing yourself a split second of victory before sending a message to Markus that you were back in one piece and with three new recruits. He was quick to respond, but you had already begun to make your way up to the captain’s hold. You knew he’d want a debrief on the situation currently playing out in the streets of Detroit.
You also knew he wouldn’t mind if you took a few much-needed minutes to yourself.
He may not have understood how you handled your stress, but he respected it nonetheless.
You tilted your face skyward as you stepped out onto the deck, eyes slipping closed as you allowed snowflakes to melt on your cheeks while you searched through your archive. Not that you really needed to. You already knew what you were looking for. It was old, a bit dated, probably hadn’t been played on any radio station in decades, but there was just something about it.
It was with great effort that you repressed the urge to sing along with the first harmonized line of vocals as the song began, rolling your head on your shoulders to get the thirium pumping. Eyes still closed, your hips began to move themselves to the beat of the thumping drumline, lips noiselessly moving along with the lyrics. You didn’t think about your movements, you simply let them happen. You let the rhythm of the familiar song carry you away. Away from the disintegrating ship you now called home. Away from the soldiers and the humans. Away from Cyberlife and their hypocrisy.
Your arms floated out to the side, your feet skipping along the slick metal panels that made up the deck. Hips swaying, head swinging, you were free.
“Well done, Connor. You succeeded in locating Jericho and finding their leader. Now, deal with Markus. We need it alive.”
Connor’s dark eyes slipped open, severing the link to Cyberlife. Without so much as a second thought, his fingers wound around the grip of his pistol, pulling the weapon from the waistband of his jeans as he stepped from the darkness. This was it. What he was designed for. What he was programmed for. Every moment of his existence had led up to this moment. He knew what he had to do, and he would not fail. As he stepped dutifully forward, jaw tight, shoulders set, the slightest flicker of moment out of the corner of his eye caught his attention.
He couldn’t help his curiosity. He was programmed to be tenacious, to find the little details human investigators could not. It wasn’t his fault, it was his nature.
At least, that’s what he kept telling himself.
But of all the things he had expected to see as he turned his head to investigate, a rogue deviant, a soldier, even Hank, an android dancing whimsically in the snow was not one of them. His Cyberlife instincts had him drawing his gun, had him advancing, had him opening his mouth to bark the order not to move, but that’s where it stopped. His lips parted, yet no sound came out.
It was as though he had fallen into a trance. It was as though all of his programming had been deleted, all of his instructions, his reasons for functioning, for existing, had been wiped clean. He was transfixed by the sight before him, as if it were not real life but he had stepped inside some kind of fantasy. Sharp lines blurred, colors swirled together, and at the center of it all, an android. One he had never seen before. It wasn’t Markus, he knew that. It was a hard, indisputable fact.
Yet, he still felt as if this was the android he had been sent to Jericho to find.
It was with clouded judgement that, in a moment of insatiable curiosity, he reached out and discreetly accessed their audio synthesizer. He still hadn’t had much of an opportunity to listen to music, except for the music Hank blasted at a volume that couldn’t be safe for human ears in the car. But in that moment, he was grateful. As the melody filled his head, he was grateful that this, here in the snow, pistol still gripped firmly in hand in front of him, was his first real musical experience. He was truly lost, now. Lost to the rhythm of the unfamiliar song, lost to the fluid, mystifying movements of this intriguing stranger.
They were drifting closer now, their carefree undulations carrying them across the deck of the large ship and towards the captain’s hold where he knew Markus waited. It was only a matter of time before they noticed him, before they sounded the alarm and he was swarmed with hundreds, possibly thousands of deviants.
But somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to move. He couldn’t bring himself to tear his eyes away from the enchanting sight before him. Even as the stranger danced closer, and closer, until they were mere feet away, until he could reach out and take their hand in his. He froze at the thought, unsure of where it had come from.
What was happening to him?
The frightened gasp snapped him out of his head, eyes refocusing to stare down the barrel of his gun at the wide eyes of the dancing android.
You could feel the tension drain from your system, trickling down your arms and legs to leave your body as you twisted and spun gracefully across the open space. It had been so long since you’d had this opportunity, since you’d been alone and free to be yourself without the burden of purpose you had eagerly accepted and wouldn’t hesitate to accept again. You would never regret your choices, but you’d learned to take whatever time for yourself that you could find.
For those few minutes, the imminent possibility of extinction didn’t hang over your head like a dark, heavy cloud, sparking and crackling with the thunderstorm that threatened to devastate you all. For those few minutes, you had no other responsibility or obligation than to dance like an idiot. What was it the humans said…
To dance like nobody is watching.
You were nearing the captain’s hold, and the sad end of your few minutes of reprieve from the shit storm your life had become. For those last few bars, you didn’t hold back, skipping and floating across the deck as light as a feather and as carefree as a bird, giving it everything you right up until the end as the song faded away once again into silence. You allowed yourself just one, last moment of peace, a satisfied smile stretching across your face as your arms dropped to your side.
Right. Back to work.
You set your shoulders with a huff, snapping your eyes open and preparing to for the short trek to where Markus waited for you, but sight you were met with rooted you firmly in place. You couldn’t stop the surprised, panicked gasp that escaped your throat, eyes widening in shock as you found yourself face to face, or, rather, face to gun barrel, with the deviant hunter himself.
The seconds ticked by, each one slower than the last. You stared at him, and he stared back at you. Each, excruciating moment you waited for the click of the trigger, for the blast of gunpowder, for the inevitable moment that you would either cease to exist or be dragged away to a recycling camp. But as each moment passed, nothing happened. As your racing mind slowed and your jumbled thoughts disentangled themselves, you could see the conflict in his eyes, on his face. You could see the hesitation and slight tremor in the gun he pointed at your face.
He started as if he had suddenly realized you had spotted him, eyes following yours to drop to the pistol he gripped in his hand as if he suddenly realized he still held it. Another moment passed, and slowly the round barrel dropped away from your face, his eyes still staring at the weapon as if he wasn’t quite sure what he was doing. As it fell to his side, he turned his face back to you, still confused, conflicted, but with fresh purpose, fresh life blooming deep in his eyes. You weren’t expecting him to speak, so you nearly didn’t catch his words as they tumbled hesitantly from his lips.
“They’re going to attack Jericho.”