It turned out his suspicions were correct. The doctor thought Richard might be in for four or five days at least, but Richard had insisted on being discharged as soon as possible. In the end, Hank managed to talk him down to three days and insisted he would be returning home with him. Richard objected, of course, but Hank would hear none of it. He couldn't help feeling responsible, especially once he learned how close to a major artery the bullet had grazed. If it had torn through it, he would have bled out in seconds.

"You don't need to fuss so much! I didn't die!" That was more luck than judgement, as Hank often reminded him. "I chose to get in the way, and I was lucky enough that it only damaged my shoulder. You're not responsible for this!" It didn't stop him from feeling responsible, so it was no surprise that, three days later, Hank drove Richard home. His arm was still secured in the thick blue sling. He wouldn't be able to take it off for four months, and his shoulder had to remain immobile throughout that period.

Hank parked in the underground parking lot and grabbed Richard's duffle bag. It was packed with the few personal items he'd brought to the hospital, along with some clothes and his medication. He was on three different pills, but only one of them was for the pain. There was a pill to ward off infection and then some sort of supplement to combat anaemia. Hank wasn't sure if he was always anaemic or if it was because he'd lost so much blood. He'd always been a pasty little fucker. Even after being in the hospital for three days, he still looked like a gust of wind would knock him over.

"You really don't have to stay..." Hank scoffed and waved it off as he shut the boot and led the way to the lift, holding the bag out of Richard's reach. Despite looking so feeble, Hank knew he was a pretty strong guy. All the way back, over every bump in the road, he'd gritted his teeth and kept his lips sealed. He hadn't complained once, even though Hank knew it must hurt. Even now, the most he did to show discomfort was to hold his arm against his chest, supporting his elbow.

"I know, but I'm going to." From the twitch of his lips, Hank was pretty sure Richard was trapped somewhere between annoyance and gratitude. "The boys will be pleased to see you." Since the first night, the ferrets had become more and more unsettled. They were pretty smart. It hadn't slipped their notice that Hank had been feeding them for three days without their owner coming home once. They might have scented Richard on his clothes since he'd visited him at the hospital, but they knew something was wrong. They'd gone off their food the night before, squeaking and running in circles until they'd tired themselves out. Hank had left them earlier than usual, thinking he might be adding to their stress.

"I hope so..." Usually, when he was away on business, he put them in hibernation mode and sent them to their nest box. Real ferrets didn't hibernate, but the extended rest period setting was handy for those who went on vacation or travelled a lot for work. Rather than paying for pet sitters or worrying about your pets getting lonely and feeling abandoned, you could send them to sleep and they wouldn't even notice you were gone. This was the first time Richard had left them alone without hibernation mode for longer than a weekend.

Hank could tell he was anxious as they headed up. He was restless, tapping his heel and shifting from foot to foot until the lift stopped. As soon as the doors opened, he headed down the hall to his room and searched for the keys, forgetting that Hank had them. Hank had no sooner turned the key than Richard shoved the door open with his good arm and stepped inside, kicking his shoes off as he went. Setting the bag on the sofa, Hank followed as Richard hurried down the hall to the ferret room and opened the door.

"Hey! I'm here, Daddy's home. Hello! I missed you, too!" Hank smiled as he peered inside to see Richard's legs being held hostage by the squeaking noodles of fluff. Pop Tart was the faster climber, and had soon climbed up and inside Richard's sling. Hank winced as he watched Richard's lips and eyes pinch in pain, but he didn't complain as the creamy noodle rolled around to get comfortable. Treacle, on the other hand, clawed his way up to lie across Richard's slim shoulders, nosing his cheek and ear.

"Doesn't that hurt?"

"Excruciatingly so, but..." Richard looked into his sling as he turned to Hank, and as Hank stepped closer, he could see it too. Pop Tart had settled along his arm, snout resting on his wrist, and gone to sleep. Treacle wasn't sleeping, but he certainly looked content, hanging over Richard's shoulders like a scarf. Richard took a slow, steady breath as he left the room, taking the ferrets with him. Hank gave him a sympathetic look as he settled on the sofa with a sigh, and Treacle immediately relieved his shoulder by hopping on to his lap instead.

"Do you want a cup of tea?" Hank had been around Richard long enough to know what he liked to drink. He'd thought for sure he was a coffee man when they first met, but he liked tea. Black tea. Almost as bitter as coffee. He'd never seen him drink it with milk or even add sugar. The question brought a somewhat grateful smile to Richard's lips as he settled into the cushions and tried not to move. Moving would disturb the ferrets and send pain shooting through his shoulder. He could take his painkillers, only he didn't want to risk getting addicted. His whole family had a grim history with things like that. He was chemically susceptible. Whenever he could get by without, he did, even going so far as to say he was allergic to morphine to get around taking it.

"Can you manage?" Richard asked as he turned his head towards the kitchen, where he could see Hank bustling about between the counters. The kettle was already bubbling as Hank turned away and reached up into one of the middle cupboards. Richard would usually need a stool to reach that high, but Hank didn't even need to lift his heels. From where he sat, Richard could see the muscles along Hank's shoulders shifting beneath his shirt. He was pretty strong. Strong enough to toss him around like a rag doll, as he'd already learned. His nose twitched at the memory.

"Don't worry about me. I know my way around the kitchen." It wasn't like it was the first time he'd been in the apartment, and running around after those little fur noodles was hard work. He was pretty sure Richard wouldn't begrudge him the odd cup of tea or a snack here and there. Not that Richard had many snacks. When Hank first arrived, he was lucky to find a packet of crackers in the cupboard! Luckily, the snack situation was now under control. Alongside the tea, Hank tipped out a stack of chocolate biscuits.

"Where did these come from?" Richard asked as Hank set the plate of biscuits on the low coffee table. Hank chuckled as he handed Richard his mug of tea and returned to fetch his own.

"Your cupboards were empty! What was I supposed to do? Let you starve?" It wasn't only unhealthy snacks he'd bought. Since Richard was coming home, he'd stocked the fridge with fresh food and added some frozen ready meals to the freezer. Though he planned on sticking around and being a nuisance as often as possible, he couldn't watch him twenty-four hours a day. That meant there had to be something ready to eat lying around, so he didn't hurt himself in the kitchen or push himself into going on a grocery run.

"They were not empty!" Hank raised an eyebrow in disbelief and snorted.

"Sure they weren't..." Richard tried not to squirm in his seat. They both knew the truth. "Let me guess, it was the end of the week and you were about to do a grocery run." Richard huffed softly and hid behind his cup to hide his twitching lips. That's precisely the excuse he would have used. A comfortable silence fell between them as they sat in the semi-darkness, looking out over the city. The only light in the room came from a small lamp by the nook. Richard rested his cup on the arm of the sofa, gently gripping the handle. From the stillness of his sling, Hank assumed Pop Tart was still asleep. Treacle was curled up on Richard's thighs like a doughnut, with his snout buried in his tail.

"You know, I was surprised...I didn't imagine you were the furry animal kind of guy." Richard's chuckle was enough to tell Hank he wasn't the only one. Being so tenacious at work, having such a ruthless attitude, and generally being an unlikeable asshole came with its own assumptions. None of his co-workers would believe that he came home after a gruelling case to long playtimes and peaceful hours spent curled up with his ferrets. They were everything he wasn't. Excitable, lively, and hungry for attention.

"I wouldn't be if not for Cyberlife. There's no way I could keep a real pet. At least with these, I can put them in hibernation mode while I'm away." Hank hummed his agreement. It was a worry he often had with Sumo these days. A few years ago, his wife had been home, but since the divorce and losing Cole, the poor old dog had spent many long hours alone. He had a dog door put in so he could go outside, but he'd wondered more than once if keeping Sumo was the right call. In the end, he always came to the same conclusion. Sumo was old, and sending him to a shelter would be akin to sending him to the slaughter. At his age, it was unlikely he'd be adopted, so it made sense to keep him. Even more so now that Connor had bounded into their lives. That kid had taken to Sumo the moment they met, even when he was still a machine. Sumo was getting more love now than he'd gotten in the past three years.

"Why ferrets though?" Hank had told him more than once that he looked like a ferret, and he probably wasn't the only one to think so, but their personalities were a little at odds with Richard. The ferrets were twitchy and scatterbrained while Richard was smart and well put together. He would have thought the ferrets would drive him mad with all their squeaking, running, and chewing. They weren't an easy pet, like a cat, that you could leave alone for hours on end with no worries. They needed to be watched and taken care of.

"I don't know...There was just something about them. When I was looking around, I did consider a cat, but then I saw these guys. They came as a set, you know. Real ferrets like to live in family groups, so they came in boxes of two. I guess I like a challenge. The clerk said they were high energy and might wreck the house unless I adjusted their settings. That's the thing with android pets. If you don't like the personality, you can just...change it." Richard's eyes seemed even darker as he said that last part with a click of his fingers, and Hank shared that graveness. He'd seen it with humanoid androids all the time. They were empty. Devoid of individuality. Seeing Markus on TV, feeling the passion of his words, was one of the things that first made him dare to believe.

"And did you?"

"Hm?" Richard looked down at the ball of fur curled up on his thighs. "Oh. No, I didn't. Like I said, I like a challenge, and I wanted them to come to like me for me, you know?" Hank nodded, thinking it was actually sort of sweet. "Though there were a few things I had to program out for their own good," Richard chuckled as he sipped his tea. Hank offered the plate of biscuits with one hand and removed his cup of tea with the other. Taking a biscuit, Richard immediately nibbled the crumbly edge, exactly like a ferret. I guess it really is true that owners start to look like their pets.

"Like what?"

"Like their habit of chewing on things they shouldn't. I tried to train them out of it, but Treacle had a taste for electric cables and within the first week, Pop Tart got into the cupboard and ate his way through an entire box of Pop Tarts! The chocolate filling gunked up his insides so badly I almost had to replace him." Hank could believe it. Pop Tart was a nippy little fucker. It stood to reason he enjoyed putting things in his mouth that he shouldn't. Hank chuckled and eyed Richard's sling, but the ball of cream fur was well hidden within.

"Is that why you called him Pop Tart?" Richard nodded.

"He was called Caramel before that, but Pop Tart suits him better." Treacle and Caramel sounded like quite a pair, but Pop Tart was way more fitting. "Besides those restrictions on eating things, I let them grow and learn authentically. It took a little time to get them to lay off the furniture and stop clawing things. I had to ferret proof the whole apartment to stop them getting inside the walls, and when I'm at work, they're confined to the playroom, but when I'm home, they're free roamers. As long as they're played with, they're happy." They certainly looked happy now, which made a change from the angry screeching Hank had been subjected to for the past three days without Richard. They probably thought he was holding him prisoner somewhere. Pop Tart certainly treated him like it, digging his teeth in any chance he got.

It didn't take long for the night to catch up with Richard. With both ferrets already curled up and snoozing, warming his body and rumbling against his pelvis, his chestnut eyes soon started to droop. Hank didn't mention it. He knew he hadn't slept well in the hospital, so if he fell asleep on the sofa, Hank would simply move him to the bed. It happened within a few minutes, and Hank hastily removed his almost empty tea cup so it didn't fall. It was probably his imagination, but the purple under his eyes looked a little softer in his own apartment, like the fatigue didn't touch him as much here. In reality, it was probably the low lighting. Hospital lights always seemed to make people look more sickly.

"Alright, come on you." Hank gently touched Treacle's curved side and started pushing. He watched with some amusement as his tiny paws curled, claws digging into the fabric of Richard's pants as he was slowly pushed away. "Silly noodle," Hank huffed as Treacle finally lost his grip and rolled off on to the sofa cushions with an indignant flail. He lay there, wriggling and squeaking indignantly, as Hank got one arm beneath Richard's knees and curled the other around his back. At his age, he might have been worried about lifting another full-grown man, but Richard was almost half his size. He was light as a feather as Hank headed to the bedroom with Treacle bobbing and squeaking around his feet. "Watch I don't step on you, idiot!"

There was a high-pitched squeak as Treacle zipped ahead, barely escaping the bottom of Hank's foot. Rolling his eyes, Hank opened the door with his elbow and strode across to the bed, where Treacle was already clawing his way up the duvet and on to the mattress. Hank had already guessed from the tissue box above the pillow which half of the bed was Richard's. It seemed the other half belonged to the ferrets, judging by the way Treacle immediately curled up. Hank huffed fondly and ran his fingers down Treacle's spine before drawing back.

"Agh! You little fucker!" He forgot, as he reached inside Richard's sling to find Pop Tart, how much the lighter ferret disliked him. Disliked him enough to draw blood, it seemed. Putting his thumb in his mouth, Hank glared at the beady little eyes that stared up at him with an air of smugness. "Come on now, you can't stay in there!" With a warning squeak, Pop Tart scurried out of the sling and across the bed, where he promptly wound himself around Treacle. Richard didn't notice a thing, though the smallest of sighs slipped out as Pop Tart's weight left his arm.

With a final sigh, Hank took one last look at the trio. They were already dead to the world. He assumed the ferrets were programmed to enter stasis at night to mimic real sleep. Richard, meanwhile, was exhausted after three nights spent in an unfamiliar place. Hank felt like that himself whenever he had to stay elsewhere overnight. Since they were settled, he shut off the light and returned to the living room. It was peaceful, far quieter than where he lived. He couldn't even hear the evening traffic as he washed the mugs and packed away the remaining biscuits. Once he was done, he slumped down on the sofa. It was a little on the small side as he stretched out. Not ideal, but it would do for the night.