On his first official day at ZPD, she makes him wear the meter maid vest all day.

"C'mon, Carrots, I thought we were friends," he smirks, looking down at just how terrible the neon orange clashed with his well-groomed fur.

Her nose twitches the way it always does when she has one-upped him. It is slightly disconcerting that he can tell her nose twitches apart. Maybe he shouldn't linger on that thought for too long.

"Well, a promise is a promise, Slick." Carrots replies with her own smirk.

She reaches for what Nick has begun to call her Super Duper Do Gooder Belt and pulls out the infamous carrot pen that began this whole charade and hits the play button.

"Listen, Carrots, there's no way I'll ever make valedictorian. I mean have you seen Jeff? I know he's a gorilla, but still-"

"Fine," comes her voice through the little speaker, "Then how about a bet? If you make valedictorian you have to wear the meter maid vest for one whole day."

"Sure, I'll wear that dumb vest, but be prepared for the crushing disappointment of never seeing me in it."

The recording stopped playing and he rolls his eyes, "How much room does that thing have anyway?"

"Enough." She grins, her straight white teeth on display for him. "Why, got anymore secrets to cough up?"

He looks at her, studying her face for one ephemeral moment, and though he might once have been offended by the question, he now sees no trace of malice or dislike in her features. Nick doesn't really know what having friends should feel like, but he supposes this was as close as he would ever get.

(Not that he'll ever admit that to her, especially if he didn't know where her pen was hiding.)

"Oh you'll have to get to know me a little better than that," He winks.

She quickly looks away, and the awkward moment settled upon them both until she pulls yet another spray canister from her belt.

"Seriously, where do you keep this stuff?" He quips, but she tosses it to him and says easily, "Just something to keep you safe out on these wild streets."

He looks down at the can, which had one sticker on it, handmade, that reads: BUNNY REPELLANT in her familiar handwriting.

"I believe this is the start of a beautiful partnership, Carrots," he says through his laughter, pocketing the little canister.

.:.

It is never easy to be her partner - she is reckless and entirely too cheerful and on top of that, she is a morning animal. Nick made special note to never trust morning animals, especially rabbits who should logically be nocturnal like foxes.

But he kind of loves those things about her, too. He has never met anyone so enthusiastic, to the point where it can become literally nauseating if she drives the squad car after lunch.

They make a good team, because as he had pointed out gleefully many times, she is no different than him at the end of the day. She bends the rules to suit her, (granted it was for the better of society, but still, rule bending is rule bending), and she is never afraid to play dirty.

Sometimes in the long hours of the night, when he was restless, he allows himself to think about his teeth around her throat that day with ex-Mayor Bellwether. It's easy to remember the feel of her blood pumping underneath his teeth, his for the taking should he want it.

It's harder to remember her eyes, which behind the facade of fear, held such utter trust that he wanted to hide from them.

"One blueberry bagel to go," she breaks into his reverie, hopping in the car, quite literally, and drawing a bagel from a small paper sack. "I made sure they didn't put too much cream cheese on it this time"

She is in the middle of taking a bite of her own carrot and celery bagel when she looks over at him and says, "Nick, you're kind of staring."

He shakes his head and grins easily, "You've got a little-" he reaches his paw out to move the piece of carrot from her whiskers.

He almost doesn't notice the twitch of her nose when he makes contact with her whiskers. Thousands of years ago, they would have told her to run from this predator, but now she just smiles toothily and takes another bite of her breakfast as he watches.

"I know pigs with better manners," he smirks at her, pulling his paw back.

Pushing that funny feeling in his gut from a moment ago to the back of his mind, he turns back to face the road, "So, what kind of swashbuckling scheme has Bogo got us doing today?"

.:.

Nick is really, really, really, bad with blood.

She's bleeding badly, the crimson liquid is pouring from behind her ear, and Nick tries his best not to faint as he runs through Tundra to find a hospital.

"Stay with me, Carrots," he says urgently, his eyes flicking down to her pained expression. "I've got you."

"So… Dizzy…" she mumbles, and he sees the blood on his own paws and everything turns red. He grabs his radio and says frantically, "Benny! Hopps is down, I need a medical staff in Tundra, I'll never make it to City Central in time."

Laying her out on the snow, he pulls his handkerchief from his pocket, wrapping it tightly around one of her ears.

"Carrots?" He asks apprehensively, but there is no response. "Hopps? Judy? C'mon, you can't quit on me."

Nothing.

"I don't know what I'd do without you," he says, low and broken, honesty etched into each word.

"I never knew how to quit," she says, her words a little slurred, but her voice is strong.

Before he can respond, the emergency medical team lands, and he has never been happier to see the feathered vultures in their yellow scrubs.

"What happened?" one of the birds barks at Nick, who can't shake the image of himself covered in Judy's blood, and how very bad this would look if not for their uniforms.

He takes a steadying breath, "We were chasing a raccoon and he… He took a swipe at her."

The staff was already assessing the wound and cleaning it, working with their beaks to wrap sterile gauze around her head.

"She doesn't appear to have more than a flesh wound. She will need a rabies shot within the next few days, but she will be okay." The vulture said calmly, dictating the charts to the armadillo support staff next to him.

The air comes back to his lungs in a sickening lurch and he realizes he has been holding his breath for the duration of his talk with the healer.

She'll be okay.

But in a way, it feels like he'll never be okay again.

"Don't ever do that to me again," he says quietly once she wakes up in her hospital bed.

(He brought flowers - daisies - but the card is blank and he doesn't mention them. She still seems to know, like she always does.)

She gives a sleepy smile, "Thank you, Nick. You saved my life."

He goes back to that moment that seems so long ago now, the first moment he looked into those wide eyes and knew he could trust Judy Hopps. He searches her eyes now, wishing he could say more.

"Yeah, well, I can't go back to selling Pawpsicle sticks, Finnick found a new partner already," he jokes, knowing how feeble it sounds in his ears.

In a knowing way, she reaches out to touch his arm and he doesn't pull away for once.

"Oh, Nick, I thought you knew," she says a little breathlessly and his own breathing hitches before she breaks out a smirk, "You're stuck with me for a long time, Slick."

.:.

On Nick's one year anniversary at ZPD, he realizes he is completely and utterly in love with his partner.

Interspecies relationships aren't uncommon, but he is willing to bet a year's salary that rabbit-fox relationships haven't ever existed at all.

There's a little scar behind her ear now, in the shape of a crescent moon. Nick looks at it a lot when she isn't paying attention and thinks about how brave she is, how warm, how kind, how-

Everything freezes in an almost comical way in his mind.

He's never really cared for anyone other than himself. He doesn't know how things like love and open declarations are supposed to work theoretically. And anyway, what chance was there of her feeling the same way in return? On principle, he doesn't allow things like hope to infect his chest.

"You have been so weird lately," she says to him one night after they get of shift and go to the one ice cream shop in Central City that he hasn't been banned from.

"Gee, thanks, Carrots," he says in mock outrage, hoping she'll drop it.

"C'mon, Nick," she says in that soft voice that drives him crazy, "What's up?"

For a good chunk of his life, he'd been a contented cowardly con-fox. But animals like Judy Hopps take those around them and turn them into beacons for hope and goodness.

"I…" He starts softly, "I… love you, Carrots."

One heartbeat stretches into two, stretches into three, four, five.

"I know how cuckoo that sounds, trust me," he says, staring pointedly at his empty bowl. "But I do. I love you and your annoying flowcharts and your terrible taste in music and never-ending cheeriness. I even like your crappy apartment and the way kids on the street flock to you. And I know this seems… sudden, but you're the best friend I've ever had and-"

She's lunged across the table before he can finish, her small mouth on his, kissing the daylights out of him. She never does anything by halves - he loves that about her too.

They're gonna spend their lives being the first at everything they do, he thinks as he returns her kiss in earnest.

When they finally pull apart, he laughs, "Where's the pen, Carrots?"

She grins back and kisses him once more, pressing the play button from the back of her belt so his declaration fills their ears once more.

"I think this is the beginning of a beautiful partnership," she whispers against his mouth sometime later. "Clever fox," she adds playfully.

"Dumb rabbit," he smiles slyly at her.

He's so radiantly happy, he really can't even feel the blow to his arm that comes a moment later.