Chapter Text
Regular
It is her first week working at the 99th precinct and Amy has made zero progress getting close to her co-workers. It took her three days for her to learn Detective Diaz’s first name. She already hates Scully and Hitchcock on almost immature level. Boyle is nice, almost too nice, but fortunately competent at his job. Gina is simultaneously mean and mysterious, (more so than Diaz). And Peralta…
The fourth day in she looked into Peralta’s file and found out he possibly has ADD. She suspected she could learn to deal with it, but it would take a long time.
(Someone had written ADD into the margins with a question mark, so she assumed it was undiagnosed. Or he was just a sugar addict, she has seen the way he attacks gummies bears. One of her brothers, Jose, has ADHD, so for Peralta she is leaning towards sugar addict.)
It’s frustrating, how Peralta can go from goofball to Sherlock Holmes in an instant.
8 days in, and Captain McKinley tells her to handle a basic B&E case, She recognizes the place; it’s a café not far from Miguel’s apartment. She makes a mental note to tell the story to her brother later, and grabs her notebook and a post-it. “Does anyone want me to pick up coffee before I come back?”
She gets a no from Rosa, both Hitchcock and Scully take it with cream, Jeffords with milk. Boyle asks for one sugar and Gina rattle off long orders that she barely fits on the Post-it, and then she turns to Jake. “Black, no sugar,” he answers without looking up.
“What, you’re not going to add a dozen sugar packets to it?” she asks. He laughs, but it sounds off.
“Nah, not today.”
The B&E doesn’t take long to solve. (The Barista did it). So she returns, holding the coffee tray up with pride.
When Jake leaves, she learns from Jeffords that crappy coffee is his way of punishing himself between cases, because that day a perp got away. It doesn’t matter, because within a few hours Jake drags the perp into holding. She learns that Jake’s regular order is coffee with half- &-half and three sugars, the same way his mom used to take it. After subconsciously memorizing it, the next day she leaves the coffee by his desk. Jake just gives her a nod, and manages to be less annoying the rest of the day.
(She never memorized her boyfriends’ orders, even Teddy’s. Amy justifies memorizing Jake’s because she knew she would work with him for longer than any relationship.)
Café Cubano
Amy’s with her brother Miguel in a Cuban café when the door dings open. She looks up from the coffee and fried plantains, and starts profusely swearing under her breath in Spanish. Miguel stares at her as if she has grown a third head. Miguel turns around, and his eyes lock on to the man she’s swearing at.
“Who’s the guy?” he asks in Spanish, and becomes the overprotective brother of a clan of overprotective brothers.
“My co-worker?”
“Peralta?” Oh ----, he’s smiling now, ------------. While she’s internally freaking out Miguel smirks, and her stomach just drops.
“No! Miguel don’t even think-“
“Hey! You there!” Peralta turns around in confusion, before noticing Amy. He grins cheek-to-cheek.
“Santiago! Or should I say Santiagos, is this your brother?” he asks, holding his hand out to Miguel. She nods, and the two men shake hands before Peralta slides next to her.
“What’s the age gap?”
“10 years. Amy’s the baby of the family,” Miguel said with that stupid grin on his face. “I’ll trade you stories of baby Amalia for any embarrassing stories you have.”
“Miguel Por Favor, NO,” but Peralta launches into a story involving a grandmother, a prostitute and an iguana, so she is utterly doomed. She rests her head on the table, wishing for some excuse to leave.
Jake has just started the story when a waiter from her father’s generation walks up to the table. He could easily pass as my uncle, she notes in her head. “A coffee for my new friend here,” Miguel orders. Peralta protests, but Miguel dismisses it, saying, “Relax, Coffee is cheap here.”
A minute later, the waiter returns with a shot glass of coffee. “Une cafecito” the waiter announces. “Okay!?”
“Um,” Jake says tentatively. “I thought I ordered a regular coffee.” Warning bells goes off in her head, but Miguel winks at her.
“Look at the man. He’s not an ito, he’s an ande,” Miguel says, and before she can stop them, they send the waiter back.
It takes longer, but the waiter returns with a bowl of coffee. She thinks there’s at least seven shots in there.
“OK?” The waiter asks again. Jake holds up the bowl, making eye contact with the waiter and then tips back the bowl, draining it in one go. The waiter eye’s bugged.
“Yeah, it’s okay,” Jake answers, his voice cracking a bit. The waiter left- dumbfounded. A second later she hears from the kitchen
“Anita, call 911!”
“Man, your partner is loco,” Miguel shakes his head in realization. Another waiter comes with a check and they scram as soon as possible.
“I am never going to sleep again,” Jake declares when they go back to the precinct. He fidgets and doesn’t shut up for the next several hours, but it is normal behavior for him so she doesn’t say anything. (He gives up coffee for a month, and Amy doesn’t comment on that either. She is alone in that regard.)
(When the rest of the family meet Jake, Miguel tells that story while Jake is in the kitchen helping Mom with the food. They immediately declare Jake as Amy’s most badass boyfriend. They are only friends at the time.)
Lattes
Amy has known Peralta long enough that he isn’t that guy at Starbucks. The award for most complicated drink order in the precinct unsurprisingly goes to Gina. Peralta’s normally stingy enough with coffee not to order anything above three bucks –except whenever he gets his first paycheck of the month. On those days, he will ask Gina to pick up a specialty drink from Starbucks and then try to drink it as discreetly as possible. Like his regular order, the monthly reward is another habit picked up from his mom.
Apparently, Charles has a vendetta against Starbucks, which is why Jake tries to stay away from it. “There are plenty of good, local coffee houses here in Brooklyn,” Charles explains, “I want to support them, but Starbucks takes their customers.” He soon ropes her into his quest for the best coffee in Brooklyn (within fifteen minutes of the precinct). Eventually, they settle on a small place that uses the Anthora cups and makes great lattes. It’s not long before they convert everyone to the coffee shop, even Gina.
Redeye
Amy stifled another yawn. God, the last time I was this tired it was finals week. She has not slept the last two nights, as she worked a kidnapping case of a little girl with Peralta.
“Amy, seriously, you’re exhausted,” she also been arguing with Peralta for the last ten minues over this “Go take a nap in the break room.”
“It’s not fine, I’m the secondary on this case. I’m supposed to be helping you.”
“And as your primary, I think I’m right to order you to go take a nap. Just for an hour,” she relents, and passes out the moment she face-plants on the couch.
When Amy wakes up, the first thing she sees is Rosa nudging her in the stomach with her boot. She pushes herself up with a groan, and trudges over to the kitchen for a redeye
When she gets back to the whiteboard, she sees Peralta sleeping on three chairs, with a wolf blanket over him from Gina. She can’t help but smile, because Christ he looks so young.
After staring at him for an unhealthy amount of time, she turns back to the whiteboard and takes a sip of the redeye, ignoring Jake’s soft snores. She scans the board, and in a minute swear in Spanish, because she’s finally found a lead and why didn’t we see it before? Excitement take over, but she hesitates waking up Peralta.
She pokes him in the cheek, and all she gets in response is a soft snore. (When she was little, she would shove her brothers out of bed onto the floor on Christmas. When she was really little, she would jump on them. It was their tradition.) But Jake is definitely not Miguel or Jose or Juan or Jorge or Rafael, so she gently shakes him awake. “I found a lead,” and then he shoots up. They freakin’ race to the squad car, tripping over themselves. Traffic’s a mess, but within three hours the little girl is sitting in the ambulance wearing a shock blanket and drinking hot chocolate with her parents while the beat cops drag the criminal away in her handcuffs. Jake takes her home, and she finally gets to sleep in her bed, while Jake just takes her couch.