Chapter Text
Today feels like a shorts day.
Amy gets out of bed and, for whatever reason, looking at the usual red dress in her closet stings. It’s just been a while since she’s switched it up, she figures. Changing out of her pajamas, she omits a shirt, too; it’s a weird morning, and the idea of wearing one right now feels suffocating.
She looks in the mirror, studying the green cargo shorts ending just above her knees and her heart-shaped peach-colored belly on display, and something feels missing. The headband wouldn’t really go with this outfit, she doesn’t think.
She goes through her bedside drawer, digging through various sentimental trinkets (the pressed and laminated flower from Little Planet, the conch shell from Emerald Coast) until she spots it: the red ribbon she hasn’t really worn in maybe four years. She was eight, then.
Tying it with a simple knot at the back of her neck, she stands and looks at herself in front of the mirror again. In the process of messing with her quills, she fluffs them up and holds them in a way where they face upwards, just for a moment, and there’s a recently-familiar feeling there. One that comes with a pang and makes her heart swell at something about herself, seemingly only under specific circumstances.
Whatever those circumstances are, she’s not exactly sure.
She looks in the mirror, still holding her quills upwards, and it feels right . It’s too much of a change, though, and the quill cream she uses has been consistently keeping her quills down…
She lets go. Her quills fall back down to their usual bob position, and for some reason she has to make herself look away at the sight.
It’s no matter. There’s bread to bake today, and the yeast is missing from her pantry.
After breakfast and washing up, she decides on the last piece of the outfit at her apartment’s front door: a pair of red sneakers with the same white stripes that her heeled boots have. She misses feeling slightly taller with the heels, but these shoes fit the look better. Piko Piko Hammer stashed in her quills, she makes her way out of her apartment building and into the streets of Station Square.
“Good morning, hammer child,” the older human-lady cashier says once she’s in line at the grocery store she regularly goes to. “I must say I enjoy the outfit today. Trying something new?”
“Oh—I guess,” Amy says, placing her bottle of instant yeast and box of butter sticks on the register’s conveyor belt. “Today didn’t feel like a dress day.”
The cashier hums and nods as she scans the items. “Reminds me of how one of my nephews around your age dresses, that boy. Very simple and casual, it looks nice on a kid like you.”
Amy flushes at the compliment, and there’s that swell of her heart again, she realizes. With the style of the shorts she’s wearing, the comparison makes sense—but she’s spent so much time on the islands recently that it takes her brain a moment to code switch and remember that humans see the combination of casually wearing pants and no shirt as a masculine thing. “Th-thank you,” she says, and she can’t stop her smile from widening. “I appreciate it!”
“Of course, of course,” the cashier says, bagging her things. “What are you baking this time?”
“Dinner rolls,” Amy says and hands money to the cashier, still feeling a little sheepish. Compliments are always nice, but they don’t usually make her feel this shy and over the moon, and she might be riding this high all day. “I haven’t had much time to bake lately, and I’m hoping to share them with my friends!”
“Oh, how delicious! I hope you have fun,” the woman says, handing Amy her change and plastic bag. “Have a nice day, handsome!”
Her heart feels the pang even stronger this time.
“You too!” Amy says, leaving the store with a smile and shaky hands.
That’s so weird. Compliments have never made her feel this nervous. She’s never been complimented on something masculine, that’s what’s throwing her off. Walking along the sidewalk and trying to still her beating heart, it makes her think too hard.
Why does she want it to happen again?
The sudden sound of beeping interrupts her thoughts, and she realizes it’s coming from her wrist communicator. She switches the bag she’s holding to her other hand and brings her wrist up. “Go ahead?”
“Amy!” she hears Tails’ voice say over the line, and she winces at the sound of her own name (...in surprise?). “Sonic says he found a small Eggman base near the Mystic Ruins. Are you busy?”
Another voice pops up on a third end; Sonic’s, a little more staticky. “Yo, Sneakerhead calling Hammer. Hammer, do you copy? Over!”
The feeling in Amy’s chest tightens.
“Sonic, I don’t think we really need code names—”
“No, no, they’re fun!” Amy scrambles to say as she turns on her heel to walk the other way towards the train station, refusing to let this feeling go. “Copy, Sneakerhead! This is Hammer, go ahead, over!”
Sonic’s snickering is heard over the comm. “You definitely don’t wanna miss out on this badnik bash, Hammer! Ol’ doctor’s got a bunch of these oh-so-destroyable guys today! Over!”
Ah, there goes baking plans. Dinner rolls will either be a midnight snack or part of tomorrow’s breakfast. A spontaneous badnik bash isn’t too bad, though. “Alright, I’m on my way.”
“Okay! Meet me at the lab, over and out!” Tails finally says, and the line goes silent.
In the back of her mind, Amy remembers a while ago after all the Neo Metal stuff when Shadow had also called her “hammer” to get her attention. He admitted he still hadn’t remembered her name, and she almost didn’t correct him in the midst of her not really even feeling offended. It was a little funny in hindsight, and being called that wasn’t so bad. In fact, it was…
She recalls the same feeling currently settled within her ribs and how it had come in a sudden struck to her heart, like she’d been shot with a stereotypical bow and arrow; no physical object of affection in sight, but instead a fondness towards an unidentifiable idea.
What the hell was that?
She can think about this later. There are badniks to go bash and a train for her to catch.
From half a block away, she hears the automated voice saying “the train headed for the Mystic Ruins will be departing soon,” and it takes her a bit of running across the station to catch the train on the line before it leaves. She still has her groceries; she’ll probably ask Tails if she could leave those in his fridge in the meantime, and she has to be careful not to hit anyone with the flailing bag as she runs. She gets on the nearest crowded train car just before it leaves, heaving out a sigh of relief as she hears the voice over the speakers say “doors closing.” There aren’t any available seats, so she has to settle for standing and holding onto one of the poles. Not the first time she’s had to; while reliable public transport, some of the SSTA’s trains can move kinda rough and sudden…
The tap of a small hand against her shoulder interrupts her thoughts. She looks at her side to see a human toddler boy, whose mother holds the train car’s handlebar above with one hand and her son’s little hand in the other.
“Excuse me,” the kid says. “Are you a girl or a boy?”
The question makes Amy’s insides rock just as the train does on the tracks.
“Um,” she says, and her own hesitation confuses her. “A… girl.”
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” the boy’s mother says, motioning him to move to her other side. She picks him up into her arms and slightly turns the other way, lowering her voice to talk to her son. “Honey, we don’t just ask strangers questions like that.”
Amy turns to look towards the window of the train car door she stands near, watching the view transition from outer city to mountains, trying not to make it obvious she’s still listening to their conversation: “Why isn’t she wearing a shirt?” “I don’t know, sweetie. Wearing clothes is a little different for mobian people like her.”
Amy focuses her eyes on the dirty glass of the door window so she doesn’t get dizzy focusing on the quickly-passing trees instead. She continues to think about her hesitation even after the mother and child get off on the next stop in the suburban area before the Mystic Ruins’ stop, cursing herself for not bringing her Tamagotchi along with her for a distraction. The kid’s question repeats in her head over and over again, making her stomach churn.
What the hell was that?
Whatever. There are friends to greet and badniks to go bash, and the Mystic Ruins is the next stop.
The area is always nice to come visit—being surrounded by nature is always grounding and refreshing. They’re about to go into an Eggman base, but as she walks up the stairs that head towards Tails’ workshop, it’s nice to savor what she’s surrounded by right now to remind herself what she’s going in and destroying that base for.
“Oh, hey, Amy!” Tails exclaims once he opens the door. “Nice outfit! I like the green.”
Amy winces at her own name again, but brushes it off at the compliment. “Hi, Tails! Thanks, I felt like switching it up today.” After a moment, she realizes there’s no Blue Blur in sight. “Where’s Sonic?”
“He was scouting the area around the base,” Tails says as he steps aside to let Amy in. “He said he was gonna come back soon and—”
The sound of sudden fast footsteps and a gust of wind coming from behind them interrupts the two, the culprit standing a few feet from the front door with his hands on his hips and a smirk on his face. “Hey, guys! You ready to get going?” Sonic looks Amy up and down, an unreadable expression on his face within the depths of his smile. “Nice fit, by the way.”
Amy flushes a little. “Sonic, hi! Almost—Tails, can I leave this in your fridge? You guys caught me right after walking out of the grocery store for baking ingredients.”
“For sure!” Tails says. “What are you gonna bake?”
“Dinner rolls,” Amy replies, opening the fridge in the small kitchenette of Tails’ workshop and putting the bag in. “I was thinking of handing them out to some friends, including you guys. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to bake something… they’re a versatile bread, so they can be served with a lot of things.”
“ Woo! Alright, boys, we’re gonna be eatin’ good tonight,” Sonic says once they’re all outside, raising his arms behind his head and walking along. “You think you could make chili dogs outta those?”
Boys. The sentence makes Amy’s heart pound.
“I mean, I guess? It’d be a pretty small chili dog,” she says with a too-wide smile, trying not to get overwhelmed by the feeling rushing within every nook and cranny between her heartstrings again.
This happened once before, a few weeks ago when Sonic had referred to her and Tails as “the boys” while talking to Eggman about bringing them along to another badnik bash. He’d asked if it was weird to say, and she’d panicked and said no, she’s an honorary boy! It felt nice to be included, she thought; she did hang out with a bunch of boys after all, and…
“Guess we’ll have to try it out later!” Sonic says with a slightly widening smile, and she swears there’s a… look in his eye. “Here, I’m sick of walking. I’ll try to keep at your guys’ pace, but don’t fall behind!”
“You got it!” Tails says, gearing himself up to start running and spinning his tails.
Amy ‘mhm’s with shaking hands and wordlessly prepares herself to start running. In a dash, Sonic’s already gone—the blue of his quills and fur are only so visible between the trees of the forest they embark into—and she watches Tails up and go, trailing behind him. She follows and as she feels the humid forest air on her face, she thinks about how he’s always been a little faster than her, advantageous with the speed he can gain with his tails.
She spots a boulder up ahead and reaches for her Piko Piko Hammer from her quills as she runs, pulling it out and hitting the boulder with a CRACK! sound that echoes and goes, and the hit gives her a horizontal boost of momentum in the air, if only for a moment. She lands on the dirt to keep running next to Tails now, and she watches Sonic up ahead; adrenaline runs through her veins with the rush, and she can only figure it’s just a fraction of what Sonic feels. Oh, how she wishes she could be just like him, a guy with all that freedom and no worries at all…
A guy… with…
Oh.
Oh. Crap.
A guy.