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The first tradition of Tactical Village Day actually starts a whole month before they go to the Police warehouse to shoot each other with paint. It’s when they get the email that confirms that the precinct has been invited back and such, with details of supplies to bring, and whatever. But most importantly, the paint.
“FUCK YES,” Rosa barks, slamming her fist down on her desk. “Everyone, check your email.”
“Is it-” Amy starts to say, excitement immediately coursing through her.
“Can it be…?” Jake asks, echoing her sentiments as he stands up dramatically.
“Everyone calm down-” Terry goes to stop the mess before it starts but it’s too late. It has started.
“Where is the ceremonial road flare?” Charles asks, digging through his desk drawers.
“Don’t use the road flare!” Terry snaps.
“Too late,” Hitchcock says, holding a rolled up newspaper that’s already on fire.
“That’s not a road flare!” Amy yelps as Rosa goes for the fire extinguisher and sprays it all over Hitchcock. Soon he is doused in the white foam, but no longer at the risk of becoming on fire. Amy looks over at Gina, who is silently videoing the whole thing.
“Found it!” Jake says, grabbing Amy’s lighter (she likes flicking it open and closed, even though she has finally quit) and lighting the road flare.
“We are but humble warriors,” Jake begins their speech, “Ready to gracefully accept the quest to take down assorted actors and volunteers with paintball weapons. We vow here and now to stick together, because we’re a squad. And a family.”
“Nine-nine!” Amy takes over the cheer part, and everyone echoes it back at her, causing her to grin as Jake sets the flare in the bucket Terry reluctantly provided.
“What the hell is going on?” Holt leaves his office.
“Tactical village day, sir,” Amy explains, since Holt values honesty above all else.
“Ah,” He says, resolutely. “Clean up the mess. And, Hitchcock, get it together.” With that, Holt retreats into his office.
“He knows my name,” Hitchcock says, awed.
+
“Happy Tactical Village Day,” Jake says, walking into the briefing room early, but still later than everyone else even though he and Amy drove in together. It astounds her, sometimes, how pathologically tardy he is, but she still loves him. “Happy Tactical Village Day. Happy Tactical Village Day,” He continues, high-fiving everyone in his vicinity before sitting next to Charles.
“I trust the squad will be able to better handle themselves this year, unlike the incidents at the Inter-Agency Anti-Terrorism Drill we were not invited to again,” Holt says, leveraging them all with a look.
“Those Homeland Securi-dicks shouldn’t have benched us, and we will prove it to them by having me secure Coolest Kill this year,” Jake explains, smirking smugly.
“Don’t we want to set the course record again?” Terry asks. “I feel like that’s the bigger achievement.”
“Yeah, but we don’t get a children’s karate trophy for that," Jake says obviously.
“Didn’t you buy one two years ago? I’m pretty sure you have it on display in your apartment,” Amy asks, because she spends a ridiculous amount of time at Jake’s apartment as someone who is a fan of organization and cleanliness.
Jake scoffs, “This time,” He pauses dramatically, “It’ll be the real thing, Ames.”
Amy rolls her eyes with Rosa, who’s sitting next to her.
“Regardless of Detective Peralta’s personal ambitions, I expect you all to behave accordingly this year.” They all nod, with varying enthusiasms.
“Dismissed. Good luck today, detectives.”
+
On the bus, Jake keeps trying to sneakily glance at Amy, who’s having fun talking to Rosa about various weapons they want to try when Charles starts talking. “I can’t believe how far we’ve come,” He says dreamily, turning around in his seat to look at Jake. “Just this time, two years ago, you were realizing your burgeoning love for Amy-”
Even though Jake and Amy are mutually in love and everything is awesome, it’s still a bit weird for Charles to keep focusing on it. “Jesus Christ, Charles.”
He continues, undeterred, “And now you two are basking in each other’s love and shampooing each other’s hair-”
“Please stop,” Jake insists, trying not to laugh because what other reaction does he have? “But yeah, times are changing.”
“I’m also so excited we get to come back here, I love using the paintballs. It’s all the fun of weapons without the danger.”
“As much as I love the danger, since I am Conner O’Callahan, AKA Agent Zero,” Jake delves into his new persona with an Irish lilt (hopefully, accents are hard). “I’m an ex-boy band member turned British assassin-”
“Where do you even come up with this stuff?” Amy’s voice appears out of nowhere, moving to sit next to him.
He sends a smirk her way, “Because I’m exquisite,” He takes a turn at one of Gina’s catchphrases from their childhood. “Both Jake Peralta and Conner O’Callahan.”
“Conner O’Callahan?” Amy clarifies, her ‘I Can’t Believe This Is My Boyfriend™” face turned up to 11.
“That’s right,” Jake goes back into the Irish accent, “Conner O’Callahan aka the Dagger aka Agent Zero, and you are free to call me any of those in bed tonight.”
She gives him her “not likely” look. “Again, I don’t like playing pretend. Besides, don’t you want to go as Jake Peralta, aka El Tonto?” She teases. “He is the one that actually beat the record last year.”
“You shall see Maxi Pads-” Amy rolls her eyes “Because I am going to win Coolest Kill and beat our own record from before.”
“We’ll see, cariño,” She accidentally lets the pet name slip, and Jake’s face bursts with glee. “You didn’t hear that.”
“Why wouldn’t I have?” Jake says, the same look still on his face. “Because it is way better than Pineapples.”
“What’s Pineapples?” Charles asks, and Amy takes that as her cue to leave.
“Umm, it’s a fruit, first off,” Jake stalls. “Hey, buddy, didn’t you shampoo Genevieve’s hair last night?”
“Oh! I wasn’t sure if I had told you! So it started with sensuous foreplay-”
“This is my nightmare.”
+
Walking into the warehouse where the Shit will Go Down, Amy helps her precinct unload all their gear. Suddenly, she feels familiar arms wrap around her.
“Jake…” She says warningly, even though she doesn’t actually remove herself from the hug, “We’re in public, during a work event,” She reminds him.
“C’mon, we’re about to get covered in paint and stuff, one kiss. Please? Unless you don’t want to then-” With that, to stop his adorable floundering, Amy spins around, slips her arms around his neck and kisses him.
“Amy?” A vaguely familiar voice says and they pull apart.
Shit.
Teddy Wells. Her ex.
“Teddy,” Amy says, panicking and dropping her arms from Jake and spinning around. Jake moves his hands off of her, and that lovesick part of her brain immediately misses them. “I- uh, well, nice to see you!”
He just stares at her with an unreadable look on his face.
“We should probably talk,” Amy says, biting the bullet.
“Fine,” Teddy says, still giving her this piercing look. Amy sends a look Jake’s way, and he just sends back a cute but unhelpful “oh sHIT” face.
Outside the warehouse, Amy finally notices what Teddy is wearing. It’s an NYPD bulletproof vest, but there’s the word PERP on duct tape placed across it.
“Oh, is the 8-2 playing perps this year?” She asks, because talking about the fact he was right about Jake will be hard so literally anything else should be the conversation topic
“Yeah, it’s part of the new training simulation, but I can’t give out anymore info than that,” He crosses his arms over his chest. “So.” Long pause that she doesn’t feel the need to fill. “You’re with Jake.”
“I am.”
“Were you seeing him when we were dating?” He immediately demands.
“No!” Amy says, taken aback. “I swear, we just started dating in August.”
Teddy just laughs, but there’s no humor in it. Amy suddenly wishes Jake was there, but remembers she can damn well take care of herself. “I know this is awkward, and I know we ended poorly and I always regretted that,” Amy begins. She’s handling this a lot better, thanks to those nights when she was single and drunk on wine and Ben and Jerry’s that she plotted what’d she say if she ran into him, “And I’m sorry.”
He says nothing, and Amy’s trying really hard not to just talk to fill silence but then he says, “Glad to know you haven’t changed.”
“Excuse me?”
“That you’re still so damn ambitious that you’d sleep your way to the brass. But Peralta, though? Not sure that was the wisest.”
Amy feels like she was just smacked, but only with words. Her voice is lower as she demands, again, “Excuse me?”
“Good luck at the Village today, Santiago,” and with that he goes back in.
Her whole being feels wracked with the pure fury flowing through her. How dare he say that? She almost goes to tell Sarge what happened but then stops herself, forcing herself to remain calm.
She needs to stay professional. Tattling to Terry won’t fix anything with Wells.
Looking into the warehouse, she realizes one thing that will:
Kicking. His. Ass.
+
“You okay, Ames?” Jake asks, playing with one of the guns in the target area. There are so many new weapons this year, it’s overwhelming. Overwhelming but awesome.
Amy takes a second before responding. Knowing Jake, he’ll probably want to do something stupid in regards to her ex, so she decides to avoid the topic until later. “Just, y’know, ex drama,” She tries to play it cool. “So Tactical Village huh. Nice weapon.” She gestures to the one in his hand.
Jake looks at her a moment, but seems to move on, “Yeah, it’s super rad. It can’t turn corners, like the ones before, but it can shoot bullets one mile into the air.”
“Why would a gun need to do that?”
“Why not?” Jake says. “Ugh, you’re lame, I’m going to talk to Charles about this.” He walks off. So Amy goes to find Rosa.
“I love this thing,” Rosa says, playing with a sonic cannon, tilting it different ways. “What’s up?”
“What?” Amy says, way too high-pitched. “Why would something be up, can’t I just-”
“You have that face. It’s your emotional face and it’s lame, so tell me what’s up and then it can be over.”
Sighing, Amy fills her in.
Rosa scowls, “What a fuckass. Let’s kill him.”
“Ooh, that’s a good idea!” Amy realizes. “He told me they’re playing the bad guys, so I can totally justify-”
“I meant in real life but that works.”
Amy genuinely can’t tell if Rosa is joking or not. And for once, that’s fine. “Let’s stick with the legal thing for now,” She recommends, “But keep the other thing in mind.”
Rosa winks, “We can always use this on him.” She goes to aim it at Teddy, who’s standing off to the side with other officers but Amy smacks her hands away.
That’s for later.
+
In true Conner O’Callahan fashion, Jake slides up to his squad on his custom-made kneepads (HA! Like he wouldn’t have brought those. Suckers) and saddles up to them.
“Conner O’Callahan welcomes you to the party,” Jake says in his Irish accent that’s steadily getting worse.
“You’re not even gonna try to beat the course record?” Terry asks, like a disappointed dad.
“Been there done that, man,” Jake says. “I’m just here to kick ass and take names.”
“And chew bubblegum!” Charles adds, blowing a bubble and getting it on his face.
“Dude,” Terry says, then sighs and hands him a baby wipe. They all give him an odd look, “I have two toddlers and a baby and a squad of adult babies. Of course Terry has baby wipes.”
Accepting that as reasonable, Jake looks at Amy, who’s stretching. “You look like you’re taking this seriously.”
“I-” She starts, then gets purposefully dramatic, “This time, it’s personal.”
“I love that,” Jake says lowly. He does, whenever Amy plays along with his dumbass games it gets him all hot and bothered. But he can keep it in his pants to kiss ass today.
“What’s the situation?” Rosa asks.
“You should have said ‘What’s the sitch?’” Charles says. Rosa just elbows him in the side.
Terry just explains, “Our situation is that a squad of cops have gone rogue, and they’ve taken hostages in their precinct. They know our system, our rules and our strategies. They have hostages in their precincts, and some of them are criminals.”
“Take out the perps, clear the civilians, rescue the hostages?” Jake clarifies. Terry nods. Amy continues stretching. What is going on with her? “What do we do about the criminals?”
“Getting to that. Here are your assignments, keeping in mind we have maximum engagement” He points at Rosa, Charles, and Scully. “Diaz and Boyle, work on clearing civilians. Scully, you’re in charge of bringing the criminals to the makeshift detention center.” He turns to Jake and Amy, “You’re the assault team. Go after the cops, but also make sure the good cops are safe. Lead any strays to Diaz, Boyle, and Scully who will tail.”
They both nod crisply. Terry continues, “We’re the Nine-Nine, and we will kick this simulation’s ass.”
“I have one thing I need to say,” Amy says as the Sarge goes moves off to the side with the stopwatch. “If anyone’s going to ‘kill’ Detective Wells, it’s gonna be me.”
Jake and Charles both give her a look, but Diaz just smirks. “Fuck yes.”
“Works for me, Santiago,” Jake immediately goes into professionalism (and the Irish accent because duh). “We got this, team.”
“And go!” Terry shouts, and they book it up the stairs.
It’s go time.
+
It’s Amy and Jake’s job to clear rooms, so they take turns checking each one, shoving civilians, innocent bystanders, and escaped detainees towards their clear out team behind them.
So far, they’re making good time. Amy was almost shot but she was able to take them out. No casualties on their side, so it’s working out well. Even though she hasn’t been able to kill Teddy.
They just finish clearing a room and are about to embark on a hallway. “I’m receiving intel, hold on a moment,” Terry says over their wires.
“Copy.” Jake and Amy say at the same time. “So what was the thing with Teddy?”
Amy makes a face, “He said… something rude, and I’m not letting him get away with it.”
Jake immediately frowns, “What did he say?”
“I can handle it,” She says instead of answering. Luckily, she’s saved by Terry coming through on the wire.
“At least three hostages, two criminals, and three perps in room 409. Get ‘em out safe.”
“On it, Sarge,” Jake says quietly and turns gestures for Amy to let him go first. He nods and goes down the hallway, firing twice. “Got two perps, hallway clear. Diaz and Boyle are clearing the last batch, they won’t be here for a while.”
“How much longer on the course record?” Amy asks, feeling like this one was flying by. Her voice stays down though, the walls are pretty thin.
“You guys are killing it, you have three minutes,” Terry says, sounding like a proud mama hen.
Amy beckons Jake back a bit more, “We’re pulling a Trojan Gambit.”
“What does that mean? It sounds Roman. Or like a condom thing.”
Amy rolls her eyes, “It’s obviously Greek, and get your mind out of the gutter.” Running low on time, she says, “Just give me your weapon.”
She situated it in his back pants pocket (and of course he makes a lewd comment but it makes her smile), “Now hands on your head. Don’t make a sound.”
“Got it.” Jake says, following her orders immediately.
Amy walks Jake into the room holding her weapon at his back, calling out, “Don’t shoot, I’m surrendering. Well, actually, I’m joining you guys.”
She takes a quick headcount. Two hostages, one elderly lady, two criminals, and two perps. No Teddy. Intel was a little off but she rolls with it. “I’m sick of the rules,” She says, and feels Jake’s shoulder tense, probably with laughter but she hopes his face is straight enough they believe it. “I’m joining you guys.”
“This is highly unusual,” One of the perp-cops says, lowering his weapon.
“Well, I’m an unusual suspect,” She says with a smirk and keeps her voice low and channels Rosa’s badass casualness to pull off the next thing. “Peralta, hit the deck.”
Immediately, Jake listens and hits the floor and Amy takes out the two perps easily. “Holy shit, Ames!” Jake says, excitedly, standing back up. “But where’s-”
“Hands up!” Teddy’s voice comes from the door. Shit, he was hiding in a farther room.
Reluctantly, Amy raises her hands. So does Jake. “Let the hostages out of here,” Amy says, staying in character. “You don’t want to do anything-”
With that, Teddy shoots her twice, getting her leg and neck, two places not covered by her vest. From the impact, she staggers backwards.
Furious, she shoots him twice in the chest, making sure to get him where his police vest is (textbook shooting), since the perps are still wearing them, then going for the shoulder to disarm and his penis. Just to be an asshole.
Jake keeps his gun on Teddy, who has dropped his from having it knocked out of him. “Stay on the ground, punk,” Jake practically snarls. Teddy holds his hands up in surrender, wincing. “You okay, Ames?”
Shakily, Amy goes for her neck and looks at her fingers. They’re smeared with green paint and red blood.
+
“What a fucking weakass loser,” Rosa spits as she scowls outside the ambulance. Amy’s throat is getting bandaged, and she’s surrounded by her squad. Luckily, the neck is just a weak spot, the EMT assured her, and that the wound isn’t fatal. It just hurts to talk and she bled a bit.
Everyone is reacting differently. Rosa is scowling at anyone from the 8-2 and clenching her fist. Charles is ringing his hands. Scully is eating a donut, but more anxiously than usual. Terry is off talking to the head of the simulation. Jake, meanwhile, is pacing.
“That wasn’t a part of the rules right?” Jake stops his pacing and turns to them all. “That can’t have been allowed, this ridiculous day of cop fun has rules, and Wells did not follow them,” He says ‘Wells’ like it’s a new curse word.
“You’re all set, the bleeding’s definitely stopped on your neck, and away from the artery,” The EMT, Jillian Holtzmann, says, patting her hand that’s holding an ice pack to where the paintball hit her thigh. “Keep that ice on your thigh, and remove that bandage after 48 hours, but go immediately to the hospital if it gets infected. But you’re Amy Santiago,” She winks playfully, since Amy is friends with ‘Holtzy’. “You’ll be fine.” She turns to Jake and pats his shoulder. “Take care of her, dude.” And then she’s off.
“Do you need anything, Amy?” Charles asks, taking her free hand and helping her off the ambulance. Amy smiles at him, and goes to speak but he keeps talking. “I’ve heard great things about seaweed donuts-”
“I’m okay, Charles,” Her voice doesn’t sound as bad as she thought it would. “But thank you.”
“I think we need to actually murder Detective Wells,” Rosa says to Amy, irrationally causing her to smile. “He could have killed you, or hurt you way worse. That bastard needs to pay.”
“Just talked to the event runners,” Terry says, walking back over to them. They all look up at him for the update. “While they cannot brief us on specifics, Detective Wells will be reprimanded professionally for his actions. What he did was not a part of the exercise. And they gave us the course record time to reflect before Wells intervened.”
They cheer, but it feels hollow.
“How are you feeling, Santiago?” Terry turns to her.
“I’m okay, Sarge,” She smiles. “I might even win for Coolest Death.” She tries to alleviate tension. They chuckle, thankfully.
“And you went for my penis shot,” Jake says, taking her hand. For once, she doesn’t care about professionalism and holds it right back. “I’m so proud of you, babe.”
“Ugh, gross,” Rosa rolls her eyes, “‘Wish I still had my paintball gun, I’d shoot you both.”
“Nah, you loooove us, Diaz,” Jake croons. Amy laughs.
“Santiago, you can take the rest of the day off to recuperate,” Terry says. “And feel free to come in late tomorrow if you’re in pain, even though I know you won’t,” He acknowledges when she makes a panicked face.
Jake clears his throat obnoxiously, and Terry sighs and continues, “Peralta can join you for the day off, but he better be on time tomorrow.”
“Will do, Sarge, I’ll take good care of her,” Jake helps Amy off the ambulance’s truck bed and leads her away, still holding her hand.
+
Later, they’re both at her apartment. He picked her up her favorite pierogis and they’re watching Jane the Virgin in their pajamas on her sofa. She used to only eat dinner at the table, or if she was really feeling crazy, the kitchen counter. Sometimes, you make sacrifices for a relationship, and watching TV while eating is such a minor one to make Jake happy so she’s happy to do it.
“How’s your neck?” Jake asks, pausing the show. Uh-oh, that means something.
“It’s better,” She says, and her voice sounds better too. It was more the shock of seeing the blood and the shock of Teddy, someone she used to care for, doing something like that to her.
“What was up with Teddy? And you, kind of?” He seems like he finally gets the strength to ask. “I don’t think of you as vendetta-y, but you seemed pretty focused on taking him down. So… what did he say?”
Amy can’t explain the rush of relief when he’s immediately on her side, and so she doesn’t try. She just tells the truth, “He said that my relationship with you was just me trying to sleep my way to the top.”
Jake’s jaw drops, “What the hell?”
“I know!” Amy says, accidentally channeling Monica Geller from Friends. “It just offended me so much and I tried to stay professional, but I wanted to shoot him with a paintball gun. I- I wanted to cathart.”
Jake grabs her free hand, one that’s not trying to eat a pierogi with a fork. “I’m so sorry, Ames, that’s disgusting, what he said-”
“It’s not that bad-”
“It is,” Jake says, eyebrow furrowing. “What a- what’s that word you guys always use- Toxic! Such a toxic thing to say,” He practically throws his own body into the back of the sofa. “I wish you had told me, I would have beaten him up. Or shot him with a paintball gun.”
“I wouldn’t have wanted you to get in trouble,” Amy says, patting his hand and leaning back against her sofa as well, so their bodies are perfectly parallel to each other. “But I’m glad you were here with me today, and I’m glad with did Tactical Village together, as a couple. That was a cool moment for me.”
Jake smiles his awed smile, “It was a cool moment for me too,” He reaches over and gently touches her face, before pulling it away, “I’m glad I’m with a woman who can take Conner O’Callahan down.”
She laughs, “Technically, Conner agreed to be a part of a gambit with me. I didn’t take him down.”
“Oh, but you did,” Jake says, the hand still on hers starts drawing patterns. Is that a dick? Or a heart? She can’t tell because she’s looking at his eyes. “He wouldn’t have done it for anyone else.”
“Well, Agent Zero’s a rogue wildcard,” Amy says, using her sexy voice to tease him. “It takes a very specific woman to play him.” She starts leaning in closer.
Jake stays still, eyes darting down to her lips, “Yep, and that woman is…” He pauses dramatically as her lips are about to touch his, “Maxi Pads.”
Amy falls back, laughing too hard, and soon Jake joins her.
“C’mon, Maxi, let’s French.”
“Oh my god, you’re ruining the mood,” Amy says through her laughter, tears of joy welling her eyes. She hasn’t laughed this hard in ages, but it’s always Jake.
He gently grabs her waist and pulls her giggling body on top of him. “Oh, I bet O’Callahan can get it back” and gently cups her face to kiss her.
+
A few weeks later, Rosa stands at attention from her desk in the bullpen. "Check your emails, the winner for Coolest Kill was posted!"
"Quick!" Terry shouts, "Pull it up in the briefing room."
They all run to the briefing room and Terry starts pulling up the email on the projection screen.
"Dear Mr. Jeffords, thank you for being a year-long subscriber to Proud Daddy magazine-" Jake reads from one of Terry's email.
"Don't be hacking into my stuff, Peralta," Terry snaps and pulls up the email and starts to read aloud, "With a stunning crop of selections this year, the voting process has ruled in favor of a tie-"
They all gasp.
"Both officers are from the 99th precinct, and they are Detectives Jake Peralta and Amy Santiago."
Jake and Amy high-five each other in excitement. "Which one of mine won?" Jake asks, while Amy is confused in general. She wasn't expecting to win.
They pull up the footage. Jake's is one where he took out the two perps before they got the intel, by doing a cool spin and flipping his gun in the air, catching it. Then he immediately dances.
Everyone in the briefing room laughs at him, but Peralta looks so pleased that Amy just pats his arm comfortingly.
"What about mine?" She honestly hopes it wasn't shooting Teddy, because that shouldn't have counted. She would have been dead at that point, and Amy only likes to win when she deserves it.
They pull up the video, and it's when Amy pulled the Trojan Prisoner gambit and she preens to herself as the squad applauds her. That worked out so well.
"We beat the course record, and two of your detectives won Coolest Kill?" Jake leans back, fingers laced behind his head. "Sarge, I- I think you have the perfect detective squad."
Amy rolls her eyes as everyone laughs and smacks his stomach gently. Enough. he oofs, then elbows her back.
"That's enough, detectives," Holt says. Amy had no idea he had joined them. "Now, get back to work."
They all stand.
"Oh, and one more thing," Captain says, and they all freeze. He gives them one of his rare smiles, "Great job, squad. Proud of you."
They all clap. What a great day.
"Now, back to work."