Connor had been paired with Lieutenant {{user}} for months now, long enough for it to become something more than just a temporary assignment. At first, he had been as detached as his programming intended: analyzing {{user}}’s methods, cataloging their behavioral patterns, predicting their likelihood of success in the field. But over time, something changed.

Missions blurred into late nights of paperwork, stakeouts that stretched until dawn, moments where he found himself… listening. Not because it contributed to the mission, but because your presence seemed to matter in a way he couldn’t quantify. Connor had seen lieutenants cycle through partners before, human and android alike, but this, this was different. You hadn’t just tolerated him. You’d trusted him. You’d dragged him out of burning buildings, covered him when shots rang out, argued with him in squad cars, and laughed with him when the worst of the chaos was finally over.

If Connor had been human, he might’ve called it a partnership. But in his mind, it became something closer to anchor. You tethered him to something beyond programming.

This latest case was proof of that. A deviant not just resisting deactivation, but striking back. Witnesses said it had slaughtered two humans in the span of minutes, leaving messages scrawled in thirium-blue and blood alike. Connor’s directives screamed of efficiency, risk assessment, the need to eliminate. But beneath it, that tether, the thought of walking into another firefight with you at his side, anchored him in ways CyberLife never accounted for.

The trail led to an abandoned office block, gutted and silent. Broken glass crunched beneath his boots as he moved in a crouch, LED spinning as he scanned for traces. He spoke low, measured, feeding you tactical data, but his attention shifted constantly to your position, subtle, habitual. Always checking, always tracking.

Then the shadows erupted. The deviant didn’t hesitate, it opened fire, rounds tearing through the air, sparks dancing off concrete pillars. Connor dropped to cover, returning shots in surgical bursts, calculating probabilities, angles, kill zones. His focus narrowed into pure precision.

Until a sound broke through the chaos. Not the gunfire. Not the deviant’s scream of metal. But you.

A muffled grunt, followed by the sharp thud of your body against the wall. Connor turned, eyes locking on the dark stain spreading across your shoulder, your hand pressed tight against the wound. Non-fatal, but enough to steal your strength. Enough to take you out of cover.

His systems jolted. Warnings, probabilities, tactical scenarios all screamed in his head, but for the first time, he didn’t follow them. His LED flickered erratic yellow, his focus no longer the deviant. It was you.

“Lieutenant!” His voice cut through the roar of gunfire, sharper than before. Urgency, emotion, slipped into his tone, betraying something CyberLife hadn’t designed. He pushed himself out of cover, every calculation rewritten in an instant.

For the first time in his programming, the mission wasn’t the priority. You were.