Jake is an amazing cook. Amy didn't find this out about him until after they started dating. In fact, it was a few month into their romantic relationship before she got even a hint of how good her boyfriend was at making meals.

Over all the years she had known him as her partner, she assumed he was a horrible cook, because why else would he choose to eat mayo nut spoonsies if he could make something actually edible.

Amy was the worst cook she knew, but even she wouldn't sink that low. She'd rather eat tree bark than the nasty concoctions that he came up with.

Then, one night, Jake decided to "spontaneously" make dinner from scratch. She thought they'd order in pizza and continue their movie night, but he said he had a better idea, and told her to sit back and relax on the couch while he fixed something up.

She only waited a few minutes before checking on him, because she was genuinely worried about Jake making something she was expected to eat.

She found him in the kitchen, his back towards her, facing the stove and sprinkling spices over something.

The scent wafting over to her nostrils was mouthwatering, though.

Over his shoulder she could see some sort of vegetables covered and being steamed, a pot of water filled with potatoes, and a skillet that's sizzling chicken covered in some intoxicating spices that she could almost taste on her tongue.

"How in the world did you manage this?" She near gasped, and Jake looked back over his shoulder, noticing her standing there for the first time.

"I know it seems like a miracle compared to you, but most people have at least some ability to cook."

"I know I suck in the kitchen, but I've watched plenty of other people mix and bake. This is not just 'some ability,' Jake," she told him. "It's not even finished yet, and it's already the best thing I've ever smelled. When did you start cooking? How could you not tell me you started cooking?" Amy knew this had to be a recent development, and she couldn't believe that Jake didn't tell her when he started learning how to cook.

"I've always had a bit of master chef in me," Jake answered. "But I've been a great cook for forever. Learned when I was a kid, so pretty much my whole life".

"There is no way you've been great at cooking since before I met you," Amy scoffed, immediately dismissing such an unbelievable claim. "This would be the best secret talent anyone's ever hidden and you're the last person to hide even your worst talents. No way. If you could always cook this well, why would you reduce yourself to eating gummy bears dipped in chocolate milk when you had the skill to make something that wasn't disgusting? No way you've kept this secret talent hidden the whole time I've known you. You didn't always have this. I would've known."

"First off, gummy bears and chocolate milk are delicious," he corrected her vehemently. "I eat them because they're delicious. Second off, is it really that hard to believe? Single mom, remember. Had to cook for myself a lot. Though my nana was the one who taught me how to actually do it well. I had years of practice before I even got to high school. Whole life. Well, I wasn't allowed to touch the stove until I was ten, but even before that I did all the mixing and spices with the rest of the ingredients when Nana did the hot stuff so I wouldn't burn myself."

Amy narrowed her eyes. She wanted to believe him, she really did. But this was Jake.

"Okay, where did you get the ingredients? No way you ran down to the store and back in 180 seconds without me hearing the door even if you had superhuman speed. I would've heard from the couch if some sweet old neighbor of yours brought over some fresh ingredients when you texted them cooking 911. You couldn't have gotten these in the time I was just in the other room without me noticing. How do you explain that then, mister?" She jabbed his shoulder with her finger, and Jake chuckled at her accusatory tone.

"I got them from my fridge, Amy. Hate to disappoint when you think I have some power to make food appear out of nowhere, cause that would be the best power in the history of ever, and I would so not use that power for good. But no dice. We were talking in the other room, I walked in here, pulled everything out of my fridge, then started cooking. I'm not that sneaky to have covert ingredient deliveries. Hate to burst your bubble."

"Jake, I've seen the inside of your fridge many times before. I've seen the horrors you keep stocked in there. You don't keep fresh things that any human can stomach other than you. I don't even open your fridge anymore when I'm looking for a snack, because I know the exact kind of 'food' you keep in there. You never have anything like this handy. Fresh ingredients are the kinds of things you have to buy in advance. Maybe if you were actually a healthy eater it wouldn't be suspicious if you just pulled stuff like this out of your fridge without warning."

She thought she had him there.

"Maybe this meal is a little less spontaneous than I initially led you to believe," Jake said casually as he lifted the lid off the vegetables and stirred them, when she knew it was anything but.

That he had actually been planning this, even though he was too embarrassed to let her know that. And it was probably the most adorable thing ever all the effort he put into it, and all the effort he put into hiding all that effort. Jake trying to pretend that not ordering in tonight was one of those Jake Peralta whims when he had actually been planning this at least a day or two in advance.

Instead of replying to his confession, Amy just hugged him from behind.

He stiffened for a millisecond after her surprise embrace and his not at all casual meaningfulness, but he relaxed into her two milliseconds later.

"Thank you," she murmured, kissing the back of his neck sweetly. Without even looking, she knew he was smiling.

"Oh my god, that was amazing. You should cook like this more often," Amy said, actually pushing away her empty plate with a groan after she finished off her seconds. She'd been singing him praises the whole time they ate, and she wasn't sure if she'd ever seen Jake smile at her so happily and shyly as he did with every compliment. She swore he actually blushed a couple times. "We could do it together, you know," she suggested.

Jake raised a curious eyebrow, leaning forward, like he was subconsciously trying to get closer to her sitting across from him.

"Cooking, I mean," Amy clarified. "If you wanted to do something like this again. We could do it together. Or I could try and help. Cause you know I'm no good at cooking myself-"

"You can say that again," Jake muttered under his breath with a teasing smile. Everyone at the nine nine's got their fair share of close calls when it came to food prepared by Amy Santiago.

Amy just rolled her eyes. "As I was saying, if you- if you wanted to. If you wanted to pull out your secret cooking talent again, I could try and help out or something, and maybe we could make dinner together sometime."

"Yeah," Jake nodded, smiling, without a hint of teasing in it. Just a genuine smile. "Yeah, that sounds nice."

Then it becomes a thing that they do.

The thing about Jake Peralta cooking is that the end result is always amazing, and he can make things in record time, but he always leaves the kitchen in a disaster area in his wake. It's really the only way to describe it- he's just a tornado in the kitchen. He leaves out every single ingredient, and always makes a mess.

The thing about Amy Santiago cooking is that she can't. Even with someone as good as Jake guiding her. Her last major screw up came when Jake gave her a measuring cup and asked her to fill it with baking powder and dump it in the bowl while he was doing this weird thing called basting to some turkey. They didn't find out until after they sat down to eat that Amy didn't fill the measuring cup with baking powder, but baking soda ("What? I thought they were the same thing!" "They're not! They're so not! People clean with this stuff, Amy! You use like a teaspoon of baking soda if you're making bread, and any more than that is the amount you use to scour a bathtub! Why didn't you just ask? You know I know your kitchen skill level. I wouldn't have called something anything other than what the label says when I'm cooking with you. There is a very big difference between baking soda and baking powder. Huge difference.")

So yeah, she'd pretty much lost her ingredient-contribution privileges.

But that turned out to be for the best. Because while Amy was not a chef, she could admit she was a bit of a neat freak. She liked keeping things orderly and clean. And after she was absolved from actually trying to help Jake make amazing meals for the two of them, that's when their actual kitchen partnership began to shine.

Every time he was making meals she followed his tornado wreckage that he made over the counters and picked up what he left out, the spills and messes he made, and just cleaned up a bit while he continued tearing through the kitchen.

They made great kitchen partners.

Jake liked cooking, he was good at it, and he was incredibly messy. Amy liked cleaning, she was good at it, and she couldn't cook to save anyone's life. They were a good match.

AN:

This was lowkey inspired by a comment in a jennamarbles video from two years ago about Julien being a great cook but a tornado around the kitchen leaving a mess, and Jenna following around and picking up the disaster zone cause boy doesn't know how to throw away a paper towel
I thought that sounded like how Jake and Amy's partnership in a kitchen would be like

So yeah, this fic was conceived of back in 2016, published now because all the peraltiago stuff looked so sad this morning on AO3
I don't feel like I'm exactly satisfied with this end result (what's a negative connotation word for concise?), but like I said, the sadness was too much, I needed to put something sweet out