"How did I let you talk me into this again?" Tails sighed, fidgeting uncomfortably in the front seat of the Tornado, clad once more in the pilot gear Amy had given him.
"Because you're a pushover." Amy grinned smugly, her chin resting on his shoulder as she leaned over from the back seat.
He'd even tied his own laces this time. So proud.
"You are curiously vulnerable to coercion, Mister Tails." Cream nodded gravely from the seat in front of him.
Tails groaned.
"And why are you here? How am I supposed to fly with you in front of me?"
"Because I'm too scared to go up on the wing, Mister Tails." Cream batted her eyelashes up at him.
"And I don't feel like sharing." Amy smirked.
"Ugh. Whatever." Tails reached around Cream for the controls. "Just don't wriggle. And hope we don't take fire."
Cream stiffened nervously between Tails' arms, leaning back against him as the plane accelerated down the runway.
"Stop complaining. You know it makes sense for us to come along." Amy smirked as momentum pushed her back into her seat.
It was even true as well. When there were two highly competent young heroines available to help, why wouldn't you want them to come along? The fact it would just so happen to let her see Sonic and get Tails and Cream spending some much needed time together was just the icing on top of a delicious cake of logic.
And if Cream got into trouble… well, nothing like a quick rescue to get the heart racing. Or… maybe Cream would save him instead? That would be fine. He tended to need a lot of saving nowadays, and she assumed it would work either way around. Anything to propel their relationship forward past their mutual shyness before they ended up trapped in a painful limbo for five years.
Or something.
Amy sighed.
It would be nice to see them getting somewhere before she left.
She wasn't quite sure how she felt about leaving. It had taken her this long to barely begin to domesticate Tails, getting him to start eating proper meals and sleep - most nights. And when she left, Tails would disappear from her life for months on end to the other side of the planet, and would probably be back to never sleeping and living off candy within the week.
It was like she'd found a wounded flicky out in the wilderness, nursed it back to health and now had to let it go back to the wild with the firm knowledge that it was going to fly straight into the nearest powerline.
Except… she'd been the one to hurt the flicky in the first place. And the flicky had been the one saving her from being out in the wilderness? She wasn't sure where she was even going with the analogy at this point. Tails had been as nice to her as he was casually self-destructive, and it had been wonderful having Sonic for a roommate, at least for the increasingly brief periods of time he stayed at the lab before leaving entirely as soon as the bandages came off.
That was just her raw animal magnetism, she supposed. Amy frowned, checking her quills with her hand as she glanced out at the clear blue winter sky above. Shame she was the kind of magnet that pushed Sonic away.
Cream giggled from the chair in front. Amy hadn't heard it, but given the tilt of Tails' ear, he'd just made a joke. She was half tempted to lean forward so she could hear, but being the third wheel after she'd been the one to set up their current seclusion in the first place would be pathetic. Had it even been two minutes since they took off?
Amy sighed, watching the world go by below, listening to soft murmurs and laughter she couldn't quite make out as time stretched on.
...Maybe she should have had Cream come sit in the back with her. Amy laid her head on the side of the cushioned interior of the plane, feeling strangely uncomfortable. Maybe because she'd spent so much time monopolising Tails lately she just wasn't used to missing out? Or was this a natural thing to feel when two of her most treasured people were enjoying themselves without her?
Maybe it was because it reminded her that this would be her normal again soon? Home alone, strong and independent... with all the dull loneliness that came with it, half a world away, on average, from a boyfriend that had taken her on two dates and never even kissed her. Cream was laughing and cuddling up with Tails so easily. Soon they'd be going out even though it hadn't even been a year since they met. Even though Tails was shy and reclusive and Sonic was bold and assertive and she'd been so good and it hadn't helped at all and-
A tail coiled around her leg, tugging gently. Amy looked up in surprise. Did he want to talk to her? Was she being invited into the conversation?
Tails raised his hand, thumb and forefinger in the air before pointing ahead. Amy glanced in that direction to see black clouds ahead, so thick as to plunge a good fraction of the zone below them into darkness.
And at the edge of that darkness stood a blue speck, waving up at them from a rocky plateau.
"Sonic!" Amy leapt up, almost tumbling out of the plane but for the tail still coiled around her. "Hi!" She waved with all her might, not stopping until the Tornado's rumbling landing on the uneven terrain knocked her down. Even then, she leapt clear of the plain a moment later towards the blue hedgehog.
"Uh, hey Amy." Sonic endured her impact and subsequent hug with a pained expression, not reciprocating as usual. "Wasn't expecting you to come along."
"Hi, Mister Sonic!" Cream raced up, hands together and tail wiggling as she stood before him, a bright smile on her face.
"Cream! Long time no see!" Sonic peeled himself out of Amy's grip to pat Cream on the head with a smile.
"They were at the lab and wanted to help." Tails paced up, pilot goggles pushed back, Miles Electric already in his hands.
"Good… thinking little buddy." Sonic glanced at her for a moment. "Good to have you back."
"Good to be back." Tails fist bumped Sonic without looking up. "Whatever that smoke stuff is, it's producing a deleterious counter-resonant frequency to the Miles Electric's active sensor arrays."
Sonic just stared at him.
"It's uh… It's blocking radar scans." Tails shrank a little. "I'm not sure what's going on in there."
"Well, I guess that just means we need to take a look around!"
"Hm..." Tails looked up at the shadowy jungle with a frown. The dark cloud seemed to be emanating from somewhere within. "There's a lot of ground to cover in the dark."
"Perhaps we should split up?" Cream piped up. "If we go in pairs we can look around twice as quickly."
"Well, maybe." Tails rubbed the back of his head. "I'm not sure what the smoke will do to our comm-"
"That sounds like a great idea!" Amy wrapped her arm around Sonic's with a grin. "Cover more ground." She nodded.
"Well, alright." Sonic sighed, pretending to be disappointed. "I guess I'll go with Amy then. You two stay out of trouble, alright? I've seen some weird stuff in there."
"Will do, Sonic. I'll try and signal you if we find anything." Tails nodded. "Let's go, Cream."
The sidekick duo kicked off into a sprint, rapidly disappearing into the shadowy jungle.
"Guess it's you and me now, hmm?" Amy smiled.
He hadn't run. She'd just gone for it, no worrying about being good or scaring him away and here he was, alone with her for the first time in months. This was going great. She'd half expected him to have slammed his hand into her face and shoved her away, which he did when he was feeling particularly shy. But she'd taken a risk and it had paid off. He liked her, he really-"
"Well are we going to let them get the lead on us like that?" Sonic grinned, slipping his hand free of her grip to give her a thumbs up. "Come on, let's go!"
He burst forward with a sonic boom and a shower of dirt. Amy scrambled after him, her hand outstretched.
"Sonic! Waaait!"
But he had already gone, vanished into the darkness, leaving her alone.
"... Penders." Amy sighed, brushing the dust of his departure off her dress before racing into the jungle after him.
