Chapter Text
“He is never going to make a move.”
Nick had been saying that for the past hour. Hour and a half. Judy had her brow furrowed so long it was starting to hurt. They were meant to be tailing a wallaby in a silver Furrari. A possible connection to one of the few remaining escaped convicts left to be reapprehended after the Lynxley case wrapped up about a month ago. Bogo had installed a large cork board in the bullpen with each felon’s name and picture tacked to it. Each photo had been removed one by one after an arrest, like they were contestants on a game show. Last Felon Loose. Something like that. The favorite to win that dubious honor was between a pangolin hacker that once shut down the electric grid to Savannah Central and a platypus that trafficked in illegal dart weapons.
After driving around the canal area all afternoon, their perp had parked in front of a two story brownstone and failed to come out. For several hours. Judy’s spiral notebook just had NTR (nothing to report) written down over and over for every time slot.
Nick had been busy balancing blueberries one by one on the top of his nose and attempting to catch them midair.
She was in love with the guy, but that didn’t make it impossible for her to be irritated at the same time.
“This car is a rental,” she said, watching yet another berry hit the floor.
“I used to be able to do twenty of these in a row—ah.” He missed another one.
“Lost your touch?”
“Out of practice.”
“You’re distracting me.”
It was both true and misleading. He had nothing to distract her from at this particular moment, but he was nevertheless distracting from the thing actively not taking place. They were still supposed to be working.
“He’s never going to move.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“He’s going to stay in that car until the Zebros get here to trade shifts. He probably knows we’re watching him. That’s why he’s not coming out.”
“Maybe he doesn’t know… We were careful.”
“We were behind him for three separate stops.” He lifted a finger to represent each one. “Not much object permanence required to figure out there’s a reason a black Ford Muskrat is at each one.”
Judy grumbled. She scribbled another NTR into her notebook.
“You feeling ok? I’m supposed to be the grumpy one.”
“Yessss,” she sighed, “I feel fine.” Not a total lie… “This is just— my least favorite thing. Just doing nothing. It’s as bad as a stakeout.”
“You just need to learn how to entertain yourself.” A blueberry rolled off the end of his nose. He caught it in his paw, and then visibly brightened.
It was a good thing Judy Hopps had trained her whole life for risky and unpredictable situations. It was a good thing she’d cultivated nerves of steel to control that pesky flight response that characterized so many rabbits. It was a good thing Judy Hopps was not most rabbits.
Because for some reason, Nick Wilde chose that exact moment to lean in very, very close and very delicately position that blueberry onto the bridge of her rabbit nose with all the concentration of a man disarming a bomb. And Judy Hopps remained absolutely, completely stock-still. Did not blink or twitch or falter. At least not externally.
Inside, her gut was churning with a live swarm of baby butterflies, fluttering amok and escaping to run up and down her spine. It felt like her ears would twist themselves together if they could. Her head went dizzy, contradictorily too heavy and too light. The whole system basically shutting off for a second and devoting itself to the sighing thought of “Ohhhh, he wants to play. Isn’t that niiiiiiiice?”
Her nose was not well suited to the task and the berry rolled off basically the instant he let it go. Judy caught it in her palm.
“I think you twitched.”
“I did not twitch. My nose isn’t shaped for this.” She tossed the blueberry in his general direction. His muzzle took a snap at it and it basically disappeared.
“Oooh.” That actually was a bit satisfying.
Outside something heavy and metallic slammed shut. Judy’s ears flipped.
“Oh, shoot, was that our guy?”
Nick sheepishly dropped the rest of the blueberries back in their container.
If Judy’s mother could somehow watch what was going on, she would’ve called her twitterpated.
Judy could just see her at the kitchen stove in her pink cotton apron, clapping her hands in delight that her most… unusual daughter had finally developed a crush like a proper bunny. It took jumping out of a moving snow plow after several near death experiences to finally happen, which was not the typical twitterpated story, but still. She had it bad. She knew she had it bad.
She had all the typical twitterpated symptoms: stomach butterflies, light headedness, that walking-on-air feeling, excessive daydreaming. She used to tease her sisters for this type of behavior, now she felt like a hypocrite. There were even times at night, awoken from a less than pleasant dream, where repeatedly playing the recording of his voice eased her faithfully back to a good sleep.
The fact that she was twitterpated over a fox… well, her family had gotten over the cop thing, they could get over this too.
Of course what her parents potentially might think about this turn of affairs didn’t matter much if she couldn’t figure out how to tell the fox in question. Or if she even should. That was a dilemma that had her stuck. Foot glued to the metaphorical floor kind of stuck. Run headfirst into a wall type of stuck.
She absently put the side of her pencil in her mouth and bit down. She was supposed to be doing a workbook for partner’s therapy, but she just couldn’t focus enough to finish it. The barely muffled arguing of her neighbors behind the wall also wasn’t helping.
This wasn’t just Peter Cottonball, (or was it Corntail?) in the fifth grade telling her she looked purty and attempting to kiss her behind an oak tree. An incident that earned him a black eye and would’ve landed her in detention if she hadn’t submitted a formal complaint to the superintendent. Nobunny dared try to kiss her after that, which was all well and good as far as Judy was concerned.
This was different, though. Nick wasn’t just some boy. He was her partner. Her best friend. The most important person in her life. He defied category. And it gave her silly lightheaded fantasies an accompaniment of cold dread. Like a sweet little daisy inconveniently growing up in the shadow of a massive, off balance, swaying boulder.
What if this crush of hers killed their friendship?
What if he found out and teased her about it? Even worse, what if he stopped joking with her all together? What if he didn’t think of her the same way, and her stupid feelings made it so awkward and uncomfortable he couldn’t be himself around her anymore? He’d make excuses to avoid hanging out with her after work. He’d stop calling her. The walls would go back up. He'd stop trying to make her laugh, stop casually putting his paw on her shoulder, she wouldn’t see his eyes light up an especially bright green when he got excited…
She bit down too hard on the cheap pencil and the thing cracked. Judy grimaced and tossed it to the side.
She needed more information. Just like any other problem. And she needed to be delicate in how she went about getting it.
Asking him outright was too risky. It would either blow up in her face or he’d petrify right on the spot and what was she gonna do with a fox statue and no answers? Nick so often said things he didn’t mean and meant things he didn’t say, anyway. This time she needed it to be clear.
She could ask one of their friends to do some reconnaissance. Nibbles, or Gary, or even Flash. But if Nick was unlikely to be direct with her, how forthcoming would he actually be with a third party?
She could wait for him to make the first move.
Who was she kidding? No, she couldn’t. Nick was capable of sitting on his feelings indefinitely. And patience was not exactly a strong quality of hers.
She needed a clue. Or a litmus test of some kind. Some indication that he was even interested in… well, being romantic with her.
She didn’t at all doubt his sincerity that he cared about her. Loved her, even. But how did he love her? That was what she had to find out. And if he didn’t feel the same way… well, at least she’d know. She needed to know.
She didn’t know how much longer she could stand not knowing.
Flash agreed to meet up during his lunch hour on a day when she was off duty. They picked the tiny little coffee shop right next to the DMV to be as convenient as conceivably possible.
Judy had gotten there early. She ordered both of them coffee and bagels so Flash wouldn’t have to, and snagged the table closest to the door to minimize the time it would take for the sloth to get settled. She sat on the cold metal chair, tap tap tapping her foot anxiously until he finally made his way through the door.
“Hello… Judy…” the sloth lifted his clawed hand in a glacial yet friendly wave.
“Hey Flash,” Judy waved back, nearly buoyant.
The sloth reached for the chair across from Judy and pulled it back. It made a horrific, grating, scraping noise across the tiled floor for a good solid minute. A minute might not seem like a long time, but sixty seconds of scraping echoing full-blast in your ear is, indeed, a very long time.
Judy tried not to let the breath of relief show too much when Flash finally sat down at long last. She clapped her paws together.
“So, Flash... I really wanted to talk to you because you’ve known Nick since high school, and that’s actually kinda a long time, and– anyway, just out of curiosity– I wanted to find out, did Nick ever have, like, a sweetheart or a date— not that I’m checking up on ex-girlfriends or anything! That’s weird. I just wanted to know what he’s like, uh in a context of, y’know—does he act any differently with someone he likes as more than just a friend versus strictly a buddy. Like, what should I look for—? This is all theoretical, of course.”
She suddenly realized she was rambling. Full speed ahead rambling. Flash was just staring blankly at her, wide eyed. He suddenly rocked backwards, landing into the grating metal chair, and Judy realized he had never actually properly sat down yet.
Maybe starting with Flash was a poor choice.
Judy took a deep, deep breath. Patience, bunny, patience. “Ok, let’s start over.” She folded her paws politely on the table. “Hello, Flash, It’s nice to see you.”
“Nice…to…see…you…too…”
“How is Priscilla?”
“I… think…I…might…have…” Flash twisted ever so slowly to get to his pocket and pulled out his phone. He brought it to the table.
“A picture…”
Judy held her mouth in a tight line. It was so, so hard not to interrupt. She pretended her mouth was zipped up like a jacket. And locked with a padlock. That was soldered.
“Of… us…”
Flash was scrolling and scrolling. Judy tapped her foot. Flash and Priscilla had recently been on their honeymoon to Outback Island. And it wasn’t as though she didn’t care to see photos of his trip, they had posted a few on Instapaw and the view looked incredible. But she had come with an objective. And it was hard to deviate when she had an objective.
“From… high…school…”
Judy’s foot stopped tapping on a dime.
“I’m sorry, you have what now?”
“Here…we…are…in…track…”
She gasped. “Let me see! Let me see!” She squealed, feet kicking of their own accord. Flash slowly rotated the phone around.
“Oh no,” she cackled laughing. Her paws automatically went to either side of her face. “You were so cute, oh my god!”
They were both in track uniforms with a giant black Z emblazoned on the front. Nick was looping one arm around Flash’s shoulder and the sloth was holding up his claws in a wave. Flash had a big, open mouthed grin and a fluffy cub-ish look. Nick was smaller and lankier than even the present version, or maybe the uniform was just a size too big, and the fur on his head had a very deliberate droop over his forehead. His trademark smirk was still in development, and didn't quite reach his eyes. Or maybe it was the goth curious vibe he apparently had at this age. There was a shiny silver ball on the outside edge of one ear.
“Is that an earring? Is that real?” She tried to squint, as if that would give the image more pixels.
Flash laughed. “He…had…a…phase…”
It took an hour for Flash to relay the tale of how he and Nick met at track practice. Flash wasn’t particularly liked in most sports, everyone thought he would drag down their numbers. Nick didn’t care about the numbers, though, he just wanted someone to talk to. They rigged the hundred yard dash once by secretly moving the tape for the finish line behind the starting blocks and having Flash run backwards.
They never did pivot the conversation back to her original question before they ran out of time. But Judy found she actually enjoyed talking to Flash. And he was nice enough to text her that picture.
Had lunch with Flash today
Judy waited to text Nick as soon as she got home. She was balancing a basket of laundry on her hip and had the phone in the other paw. Bucky and Pronk paused their argument on where to install their new lamp long enough to greet her through the wall. Her phone dinged as she was hanging up her clothes on the little bar that served as her closet.
trying to make me jealous?
Judy rolled her eyes and typed back.
We did talk about you
Were your ears burning?
gossip Carrots?
about me? 😱
She selected the track photo in her phone’s gallery and hit send.
After about thirty seconds her phone started to ring.
“You were never supposed to see that,” Nick said in lieu of a greeting.
“And yet I have,” Judy sat down on her bed. It squeaked, the rickety thing.
“Were you looking for blackmail material or something? Should I be hitting up an ATM?”
“It’s not even that embarrassing, Nick. How dare you be a teenager.”
She opened her photo app and navigated to the album labeled High School. There was not a lot to choose from. She hadn’t taken a lot of pictures at that time in her life. Most were family photos so dense with ears it was hard to tell which rabbit was her anyway. She did have a few from kick boxing, which was her sport in high school, but the helmet pads always got in the way of her face.
“Those were not my best years. In many ways.”
“Well, fair is fair.” She selected her year book photo from freshman year. It was easily the worst picture of her on record. The shadow of her phone from where she held it over the yearbook to take the picture obscured one corner. It also gave the whole photo an extra sheen of ugly graininess to it. She actually felt nervous tapping the arrow to send it.
“What does that mean?”
“Just wait for it,” she told him. A faint buzz sounded on his end of the call. There was a long pause.
“Oh, Carrots—“
There was something tantalizing and different about how he said her nickname that time. More low and drawn out than normal. She flopped back onto her pillow.
“You were so cute.”
“Watch it—“
“Sorry, bad word. Mea culpa. You were adorable.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m cross eyed in that picture.”
“Adorable. And that retainer looks like it could clip a lawn. How long were you stuck with that thing?”
“I don’t remember. A year? Year and a half. I had braces for four.”
“Ouch.”
“Bunny problems.”
“Well, at least you still look recognizable. I don’t even want to think about whatever phase I was going through.”
Judy wanted to disagree that the photo actually did resemble him quite a lot. At least as much as the younger version of herself resembled her now. She didn’t though.
“Hey bunny, you got friends over?” Bucky’s voice sounded from the other side of her wall.
She covered the phone with one paw and gave the wall a light kick. “Phone call! Quiet, please,” she shouted. Then she held the phone back into position as if nothing had happened.
“So, what made bad boy Nick Wilde decide to join the track team?”
“Uh, well, first off, ‘bad boy’ is incendiary language. And second, team is not the best description of track. It’s an on-your-own kind of sport, if you don’t count relays.”
“I see.”
“Mother thought sports would keep me on the straight and narrow.”
“So you chose one that doesn’t really do teams.”
“Something like that. So what are you up to? Other than collecting dirt on me.”
“I already have your tax forms.” It wasn’t technically true she was collecting dirt, but she was still after something. She’d know what it was when she found it.
“You want to watch a movie?”
This gave her pause. Watching a movie was a thing mammals did on dates. Well, not strictly for dates. Friends could watch movies together. She was jumping too far ahead again. Slow down, Judy.
“With you? Now? On the phone?”
“Sure... We just have to press play at the same time. You can pick. If you want.”
It was just a carrot picking movie. Why was her heart racing?
“Yeah…ok.”
“I can’t help but feel we’re seeing an awful lot of this murder plot in the first ten minutes.” Nick said. He was in a tiny little box in the lower left-pawed corner of her laptop screen. The rest of the screen was occupied by an elderly mink in expensive pearls dragging her unconscious costar into a room-sized safe packed with valuables. The mink was going to lock him in and then go on vacation to establish an alibi. It was one of Judy’s favorites.
“Oh, they’ll show the whole thing right off the bat. You’ve never seen Columbo before?”
“Nah, never heard of it. You said it was a detective show?”
“The detective will come in after the first act. I can’t believe you never heard of it. It was really popular in the 70s.”
“How old do you think I am, Carrots, jeez— "
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she rolled her eyes. “It was a popular show.” She was lying on her stomach with her pillow balled up under her chin. Her laptop she propped up by the window so she could watch the show while lounging on her bed. It had taken a long time to find something they both had access to. Her little tv wasn’t hooked up for streaming.
“Anyway, it’s not a usual who-dunit show.” She went on. “They give away the whole murder in the beginning, make it look like the perfect crime, and then Columbo comes in to investigate. The mystery isn’t figuring out who the right guy for the crime is, you’re watching to see how they get caught.”
The title character finally stumbled in after a blackout where, in a bygone era, a commercial would’ve gone. He was a capybara dressed in a very baggy, worn and wrinkled raincoat. The actor had a glass eye that either made him look wall eyed or incredibly squinty. The show wasn’t Judy’s usual fare growing up. No car chases or gunfights. But her tastes could contain multitudes. She liked the kind and gentle approach to vicious killers. Disarming them with a soft, nearly bumbling front, basically annoying them with persistence after a vague inconsistency, and then the whole case all unraveling with one tiny, innocuous detail. Usually explained by the schlubby detective pretending to be on his way out the door and coming back with a disarming “just one more thing…”
“What did you think?” She asked as the end credits started flashing.
“Hobo detective catches murderers with kindness and trickery. I think I see the appeal. Was this your favorite show growing up or something?”
“One of…” she made a mental check of all the tv she watched as a kid. Armadillo-12. Pawaii Five-O. A lot of them were 70s cop shows.
“Any other bunnies back home that idolized a hobo solving murders?”
Judy scoffed. “Not really, I’m not a typical bunny, Nick, you know this.” She suddenly yawned, against her will.
“Time to call it a night, huh?”
She checked the time. She didn’t really want to hang up. She wanted to watch another one. It would be irresponsible to watch another one. They had work in the morning. “It is getting late," she was forced to admit. "We should probably say goodnight.”
Nick recentered the camera so that his whole face appeared on screen. “Alright. See you in the morning, Carrots. Bright eyed. Bushy tail. All that.”
She smiled at her laptop screen.
“Goodnight, Nick.”
“Goodnight.”