Amy frowned as she stepped back from the window. It was openable, but that wouldn't do them much good; they were three floors up, and they didn't have anything to aid their descent. It looked like their only option was the door they had come through – the one with over a dozen armed soldiers on the other side.
Surrounded and outnumbered, there was no way they were going to be able to reach their objective before they were overcome. "I think we're out of luck."
"We're not letting them beat us again," Jake said. "They trounced us last year, and they've been insufferable ever since."
"Well, what would you suggest?" The rest of the Nine-Nine had all been taken out early in an ambush set by the other team, leaving the two of them alone against a mostly-intact enemy force.
Jake grinned the way he always did when he was planning to do something particularly brave or stupid. "I'll distract them, and you make a run for the flash drive. They didn't see us sneak in, so they won't know you're here."
"Splitting up? That's your idea? All it'll mean is they take you down, leaving me without backup."
"Not if you run fast enough. Pretend it's a folder containing the secrets to impressing Holt."
"Hey! Wait, no, that's actually fair." She wished she could protest the implication that she would try harder to gain Holt's respect than she would to complete a mission, but she couldn't. It was like those stories of mothers performing impossible feats to protect their children; no matter how hard she might try on a normal day, she seemed to become a bottomless pit of energy when it came to impressing the captain. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Run headfirst into enemy fire, sacrificing myself so my girlfriend can escape? It's like a dream come true."
Amy flashed him a quick smile. "Then let's do this, Peralta."
"See you on the other side, Santiago."
He opened the door, and she slipped out, knowing that she had to get as far away as possible before his mad dash. Otherwise, they might see her when they were looking at him, making it all for naught.
Reaching the corner of the room, she ducked behind a stack of boxes and turned back to give Jake a thumbs-up.
The last thing she heard as she hurried for the side door up ahead was the sound of Jake screaming as he sprinted into the room.
-x-
Amy was sweating from exertion. Somehow, against all odds, she'd managed to get most of the way to the computer lab where the flash drive was supposed to be. Several agents had tried to stop her, but she'd dispatched them all handily, if not easily.
While she hoped to win, she didn't expect to, so she'd started setting mini-goals for herself. Clear the next room. Take out one more person. Last another few minutes. With every goal she reached, she felt herself taking heart in the fact that the Nine-Nine hadn't failed as spectacularly as they would have had she and Jake been shot coming out of that room.
"There she is!"
Reacting on pure instinct, Amy dropped to the ground and rolled under a nearby desk, suddenly gratefully for all the burpees Terry made them do for training. Under the safety of the furniture, she rose into a crouch and readied her weapon.
Take out one more person.
His footsteps rang out against the wooden floorboards, drawing ever nearer. Gripping the gun tighter, she waited for him to be close enough for her to pop out and shoot him.
"Take that!"
"What the – Peralta?"
"Jake?" Amy peeked out from under the desk. A man she'd never met before was standing in front of her, green paint splashed across his tactical vest. Across from him stood Jake, somehow – mercifully – clean of any paint or colour. "How are you still alive?"
"How many times do I have to tell you, Ames?" he asked, beaming. "I have superpowers; I just don't like using them in public because it's important to me that I and any children that I one day have get the chance to live a normal life."
She scoffed and shuffled out from beneath her cover. "Oh, come on. If you were Clark Kent, you wouldn't be able to keep it secret for a week. You'd totally Iron Man it."
"I resent that! I will have you know that I am such a professional secret-keeper that I have qualifications."
"Oh, really? And what are you getting Charles for his birthday?"
He grinned. "There's this cooking thing I saw down at the mall the other day. Super cool. It can do, like, ten jillion things. Is 'jillion' a word?"
Amy raised her eyebrows, sharing a look with the other man. "Yes."
"Well, it is now."
She frowned, but he didn't seem to notice his mistake.
"It can even do – oh. You're not really interested in this, are you? You were just trying to prove your point."
"Trying, succeeding, slam dunking it to a touchdown."
"They're not the same..." His voice trailed off. "Never mind. We have a mission to finish. Are we going to do this or what?"
"With your superpowers?" she teased. "It'll be a walk in the park."
A/N: For CrimsonGoldQueen for the Drabble Game Challenge with the prompts 'Jake/Amy' and '"How are you still alive?"'