"Okay, how should we play this?" asked Officer Hopps, bouncing on the balls of her feet beside her partner, who stood, utterly relaxed, watching her lazily out of the corner of his eye in amusement.
"I say we go with the classic good-cop, bad-cop," Nick Wilde replied.
Judy nodded, her boundless energy keeping her shifting restlessly from one foot to the other as she stared through the one-way glass at the criminal they had just caught and dragged into the ZPD. "Good idea."
"You be the good cop…" they said in unison.
They paused and looked at each other, until Nick smirked. "You want to be the bad cop?"
"Oh come on!" Judy replied, half pleading, half playful. Watching her made Nick's whiskers twitch in amusement. "You always get to be the bad cop!"
"You sound like a child, Carrots."
"Please?"
Nick chuckled. "Please, Carrots. You're fluffy and adorable…"
"Don't call me…!"
"Ah, ah, ah," he said, wagging his finger, "I said adorable. As I was saying, you're fluffy and adorable, whereas I am a shifty fox. Now who do you think he's more likely to trust, hmm?"
Judy put her hands on her hips and frowned at him. "That sounds an awful lot like stereotyping, Slick. I thought we were against that?"
"Sometimes we can make the stereotypes work in our favour."
The frown did not disappear from the bunny's face. She only glared at him. Nick recognised the expression and sighed. They battled it out with a staring contest for a few minutes before the fox finally gave in. "Fine. You can be the bad cop."
Judy squealed and jumped up and down in excitement.
Nick watched her until she calmed down somewhat and then said, voice absolutely drenched in sarcasm, "Yeah. You're cut out to be the bad cop."
As the door opened, the porcupine sitting in the interrogation room looked up to see the two cops who had caught him enter, first the fox, then the rabbit. The fox strolled over to the chair across from him and sat down, while the bunny paced back and forth behind her partner, scowling at him.
"So, Danny boy," Nick started, in his suave, unconcerned way. "Pretty tough pickle you've gotten yourself into now, eh?"
"Yeah, so you better start talking, or else you'll be in for a world of pain!" Judy added, in a tone which Nick was certain would sound threatening coming from a wolf or a bear, or even himself. Just not…a bunny. He had to hold back his laughter.
Danny looked at her bemusedly, clearly unintimidated.
Nick relaxed back in his chair, happy to watch what would come next without input. Judy tried staring the porcupine down, tapping her foot impatiently, which was really more on the mildly annoying side than threatening.
Finally, after a full minute of silence, the porcupine looked at Nick and said, "Seriously? You made her the bad cop?"
Both police officers froze, looking as though they had just been told they were going to be arrested for felony tax evasion.
Then suddenly, the fox threw back his head and laughed. "I told you, Carrots! I told you! You just aren't cut out to be the bad cop!"
Judy scowled at her partner, eyes narrowing. Nick, however, paid her no mind as he went on teasing her.
"You…you tried…" he wheezed, wiping away tears. "I told you. You're just too CUTE!"
"Don't. Call me. CUTE!" The bunny leapt over the fox onto the table so that her face was right up in the porcupine's. Danny reeled backwards in shock. "Tell us who your boss is, NOW!" she demanded, fire blazing in her eyes, "or I will stun you with my fox taser!"
Danny looked desperately past her at the fox, who had settled back into a position of careless relaxation, his hands behind his head.
"I wouldn't recommend that," he said to the porcupine, winking at him. "It really hurts."
Five minutes later, the two police officers left the room. As soon as the door was shut behind them, Nick let out a whoop of laughter, and Judy joined in, resuming her natural happy demeanour.
"That was easy!" Nick cried. "We should try bad bunny cop more often."
Judy giggled. "Ha! And you didn't think I could do it!"
Nick held a paw over his heart in a mock solemn gesture. "Carrots, I always have faith in my partner."
The bunny smirked at him.
The pair headed off to file the new information in the case until Nick paused and cocked his head to the side. "Do you really have a fox taser?"
Judy shot him a devilish smile over her shoulder and flicked her cottontail at him, but didn't reply.
I think I'm rubbing off on her too much, Nick thought. "Is that a yes or a no?" he called after her.
Her answer floated back down the hallway. "I never make a threat I can't keep, Slick."
The fox stared after her until she disappeared and then muttered, "Oh sweet cheese and crackers."
