"So… Amy's pretty mad, huh?"
"Mm?" Miles glanced up from the circuit board he was working on to affix the blue hedgehog with a cool gaze. "Did somebody say something?"
"Oh come on, little buddy, not you too!"
"Sonic, you disappeared for three days. Nobody knew what happened to you, I even sent a spybot into Eggman's fortress to make sure you hadn't been kidnapped. I saw Eggman in his underwear because of you, Sonic. Of course I'm mad!"
"It's not my fault!" Sonic raised his hands defensively. "I was just grabbing something to drink because the chilidog place's soda machine wasn't working!"
Miles nodded. He knew that much perfectly well. He'd been the one who broke it. "And then…?"
"Then I ended up in this far out world! I met with a nymph called Calypsa and-"
Miles raised his hand, pressing palm to fuzzy face with an exasperated sigh.
"This is exactly the same story you told me the last time you disappeared."
"Huh? No, that time I was the real King Arthur, and-"
"Did you ditch Amy that time too? Is that why she smashed up my lab looking for you?"
"She- she did, huh?" Sonic's grin turned shaky. "I didn't… know… about that. Eh heh."
"So you did?" Miles shook his head. "Sonic, you can't keep doing this to her."
"Huh? What do you mean, Tails?" Sonic tilted his head, eyebrow raised.
Miles sighed.
"Forget it."
He was hardly blameless himself at this point, after all. Sonic had just bailed on Amy, he was the one who intentionally set her up for the unromantic date in the first place. Just the two of them playing and having fun instead of doing romantic… date… stuff. He was probably hammer on sight for her too, next time she saw him.
"So… you'll help me out?" Sonic shuffled closer, eyes sparkling.
"Huh?" Miles perked his ears. "With what?"
"With Amy, bud! Just… talk to her! Last time she almost got me!"
Liar. He could walk on his hands faster than Amy could sprint. That was part of the problem, Miles was pretty sure she calmed down faster when she actually managed to get a hit or two in. He'd had plenty of experience with that the last time Sonic had roped him into dealing with an upset Amy.
"Come oooon, old buddy, old pal. Pretty please?"
"No way, Sonic." Miles folded his arms with a frown. "You're going to have to deal with Amy yourself this time. I'm not helping you, no matter what."
Sometimes Miles wondered if he was too much of a pushover.
Standing outside Amy's house wearing a scarf against the snow and driving wind, and an armoured grey coat against the inevitable bruising his ribs would receive, this seemed like a good data point in support of this particular hypothesis.
But nevertheless, Miles extended his hand, straining to try and reach the buzzer of Amy's apartment and failing miserably. Why she insisted on living in human territories with their giant stairs and unreachable buttons was beyond him. Eventually he grabbed the railing with a tail and swung himself up on top of it, wrapping his second tail around the other way to anchor him to the icy metal as he stretched up to press the button with an outstretched fingertip.
Success, a buzzing came from the door speaker. Miles slid down the railing, boots biting into the slippery surface of the doorstep once more. He could just imagine Amy using her hammer to whack the button. He smiled faintly at the thought as he waited, snowflakes lazily drifting down to settle against his head, white on orange.
… Nothing. He flicked his ear as a snowflake drifted inside, disturbing the delicate white fur within.
Was she at work?
It was a thing he assumed happened. He knew she had a job, after all, somehow convincing humans to employ a girl whose height and age both screamed to their instincts that they should do no such thing, however more technical terms like "maturation rate" and "competence" might suggest otherwise.
Did Amy have… human friends? He assumed she must have a few. Did they treat her like humans treated him? Adoring patronisation? Was she just some mascot? Did strangers pat her head, giants crowding around her while she was terrified to move for fear of what strength that could smash metal might do to flesh?
Miles snorted, stomping an avalanche off his fur as wind blew fresh flakes onto his cheek. The thought of Amy Rose, hero of the mobian territories, just tolerating someone patting her head without either a hammer to the knee or a spine through a finger seemed ludicrous. He'd just head by her workplace with the Vortex and…
The speaker crackled into life, startling him out of his train of thought.
"Sorry! Sorry! I had my hands full and she-... Are you still there?"
Oh great. Was that a "push to talk" button? Miles lifted off with a sigh, sending snow spraying out across the seemingly, hopefully, deserted street with his spinning tails.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Amy." Miles murmured, nose pressed up against the freezing metal of the speaker to make himself heard. "It's-"
"Tails? I'll be right down!"
Well that was convenient. She could just run down and hammer him here rather than him having to figure out where she worked. Miles dropped to the floor once more, blowing air into his cupped hands and rubbing his nose. Figured the one place he didn't have fur was the part that kept getting the cold on it.
A light turned on in the window above the door. Miles stood back a safe distance in preparation.
Strange how society worked. Even an average human could probably kick down a typical door like this. Someone as strong as Amy could certainly do it, probably bare handed. But because of what that door represented, there was this shared pretense. People could be safe in their homes behind this thin barrier of glass and plastic, so long as everyone was willing to pretend. Some had been pretending so long that they had forgot they were pretending.
Well, when Eggman got bored of killing mobians and turned his attention to his fellow humans once more they'd probably remember soon enough. Miles put on a smile as the door opened, giving a little wave to the hedgehog wearing an oversized human t-shirt that draped down to her knees, cinched at the waist with a bright red sash.
"Tails! Oh wow, it's really coming down, isn't it?" Amy blinked up at the snow with a shiver.
"Hey, Amy. It's fine. I just-"
"Don't just stand there! Come on in already, it's freezing!" Amy leaned forward, toeing the threshold with her socks as she tried to grab at his jacket without stepping outside.
"Oh… uh, okay." Miles shuffled forward. He didn't actually feel the cold much, short of getting sprayed by liquid nitrogen, which had happened to him more times than he thought was strictly reasonable, but he also didn't really have a reason to stay outdoors and make Amy catch a cold while he presented her second-hand non-apology.
"So why are you here? Eggman attacking? Alien invasion?" Amy closed the door behind him. "What's the emergency?"
She didn't seem mad. At least not yet. Miles flicked snow off his jacket to the doormat as he stared down the drab hallway to the various numbered doors within.
"Well..." Miles followed Amy as she hopped over to the stairwell. "Sonic's back."
"Oh?" Amy paused, glove resting on the bannister without looking at him.
"He says he's sorry for ditching you," Miles lied, flinching in readiness. "And he says that he just came back from saving mntolympssthrchsnsvr." He squeezed his eyes shut.
"He said what?"
Miles squeezed open one eye. Amy had instantly crossed the intervening space between them like a ghost in a horror movie, wide-eyed stare unblinking as she stared down at him. He squeezed the eye shut again, taking a slow, steadying breath.
"He just… came back from… saving mount Olympus as its chosen saviour." He gritted his teeth, instinctively drawing his fluffy tails up to absorb the impact.
A hand laid heavy upon his head, an explosive rush of air escaping Amy's nostrils. He flinched lower.
"And you decided to come out and tell me this, in person, in the middle of a blizzard, because...?"
The anticipation was almost worse than the hitting at this point.
"... So you'd have someone you could be-... mad at."
The hand brushed across his head.
...Gently? Miles opened his eyes to see Amy's face contorted in something closer to guilt than anger for a moment before it was replaced by a scowl. She pinched her thumb and forefingers down on the tips of his ears.
"Ah?"
"You're an idiot."
"Huh?" He went to flick an ear in confusion only to find it held fast. "You're... not mad?"
"Well, of course I'm mad." Amy frowned at him. "You know that's the same excuse he gave me the last time he ditched me?"
Miles nodded as best he could.
"But I'm not that mad at you obviously."
"You're not?" She really needed to let go of his ears.
"Well of course not. We had fun, right? And finally managed to figure out that fish's name!" She grinned. It didn't quite reach her eyes this time.
"It- it was okay?"
"Oh stop fishing for compliments, You get a 'C+'." Amy finally released him, turning back to the stairs with a smirk. "Now let's go, it's freezing down here."
"Oh, uh, I was just… going to leave?"
"In the middle of a blizzard?" Amy stared at him half-lidded. "Get moving before I whack you."
"Oh… okay." Miles trotted after her, straining to clamber up stairs designed for people more than twice his height with a sigh.
Once more, Amy Rose had surprised him.
"You know, I think this is the first time you've ever come to visit." Amy said conversationally as she climbed the stairs. "Usually I'm the one coming to see you."
Well, coming to see Sonic, at least. Miles glanced from one oversized door to the next. Living near so many people was about as far from his own living environment as one could imagine.
"Here we go." Amy produced a set of keys from nowhere and hopped onto an old chair seemingly left for that very purpose as she slipped it into one of many near identical locks. "I'm back!"
She hopped down.
"Come on in. Either space your boots or put 'em in the caddy there." She waved idly. "And coat on the heater so it can dry-" She sniffed the air. "Oh no!" She ran off, leaving Miles stood awkwardly in the doorway as it clicked shut behind him with a certain sense of doom.
The apartment was a mess.
Not in the way he was accustomed to, with all the useful stuff within a tails' length of a workbench, organised in a way only someone like himself could keep track of. No, the apartment was in that sense quite clean and orderly, with only a few things out of place here and there showing signs of recent use. But the furniture itself was all over the place. Mobian chairs sat around a human coffee table, giant sofas and enormous screens echoed by oversized cabinets and a tiny - in comparison - stepladder for reaching their contents. Amy's home was full of constant compromises she'd made between living among humanity and being able to live herself.
"I'm sorry, Miss Amy!" A familiar voice came from the other room. "I tried, but you know I can't reach the stove!"
"It's fine, Cream." The pink hedgehog wandered back into the main room once more, a plate of slightly darkened cookies gripped in an oven mitt. "We'll just let these cool off, they'll be fine with some cocoa."
The eponymously coloured rabbit walked into the room a moment later, a batter-stained pink apron draped over her dress. She paused the moment she saw Miles, waving a hand with a bright smile.
"Hi, Mister Tails! Are you visiting Miss Amy today too?"
"Hi, Cream." Miles tensed. Cream was six years old, a peace-loving, sweet and innocent girl with a happy homelife and loving family. "Cheese not with you today?"
Cream shook her head with a smile. "He doesn't like the cold much, so he's staying home with mama."
Miles nodded blandly. In short, Cream was almost his complete opposite in every respect. She made him more than a little uncomfortable.
"Come in and sit down, Tails." Amy waved at the coffee table, sliding the plate of cookies onto a wicker mat with practised grace. "Cream, weather's looking like it might be too bad to take you home tonight. I'll call your mom in a bit to let her know, okay?"
"Okay!" Cream smiled easily.
"I could take you home if you like?" Miles piped up, raising a gloved hand.
"You think you're going anywhere in this weather?" Amy glared at him. "Nuh uh. You're grounded too, fly-boy."
Miles went to speak up again, after all, he'd flown in far worse conditions and it barely even qualified as a blizzard-
Amy frowned, and he rapidly revised his argument into a meek "okay". She nodded in grim satisfaction.
"Great! Why don't you two sit down and I'll grab that cocoa, alright?"
And so Miles found himself sat opposite Cream, who was playing with the orange tips of her long ears as she kicked her feet, looking around without a care in the world.
"So… how's it going?" He rubbed the back of his head, awkwardly.
He was going to get Sonic for this.