Under a Green Hood (ch1)

Disclaimer: I do not own Zootopia or its related characters. All is the property of Walt Disney Animation Studios, Clark Spencer, and Byron Howard. I'm just borrowing them for some non-profit entertainment.

Under a Green Hood

Chapter One: A Red Plume

Judy was already sitting in their shared chair by the time Nick swaggered into the bullpen. That was nothing new. The energetic farm-raised bunny was a morning person by nature and an early riser by practice. The recently reformed fox whom was descended from a mostly nocturnal species was not.

But that wasn't why he was -not late, just not quite as early as Judy- today.

Climbing on top of the desk -getting paw prints on a file she had open- the fox whistled to get everyone's attention, and waved a manila legal envelope with a wax seal as if it was a trophy of some sort.  

“Attention, everyone!” He announced, seemingly oblivious to the fact that his outburst was interrupting the otherwise steady flow of actual police work being done. “I am about to become filthy stinking rich! -Legitimately.” He added, bending down so that only Judy with her keen rabbit hearing could catch that last part. “My rich and ambiguously related relative from the Old Country just died!”

Instantly, the mood in the room changed from patient irritation with Officer Wilde's latest antic to horrified disgust at his statement.

“What's wrong with you, Wilde?” Asked McHorn. The rhino shaking his head in disappointment at the smaller officer.

“A Mammal just died and all you can think about is what you get out of it.” Howler turned up his nose in disgust with his fellow canid predator.

Several other officers muttered similar sentiments.

Judy had her own opinions about Nick's views of what the appropriate behavior was when a relative passed away, but she kept them to herself. If a scolding was still necessary by the time they got into the privacy of their squad car and hit the streets, she would talk to him then. Not here with an audience.

“Guys, guys, you're not getting it.” Nick insisted, refusing to listen to their admonishments. “He. Was. Rich! Sir Robert of Loxley VI! He's so rich, he has a 'Sir', an 'of', and a numeral in his name! And his estate just sent me this!” He brandished the manila envelope. “I'm about to become a millionaire! Maybe I'll even get a title and a barony back in the Old Country!” He lowered the envelope and folded his arms solemnly. “I will now take requests for gifts I can get you all with my unimaginably absurd wealth. McHorn and Howler get nothing because they're nay-sayers, everyone else, lets hear it!”

There was a beat of silence in which everyone in the bull pen just stared at him, mystified.

Finally, Judy broke the silence by making the practical suggestion. “Why don't you open the letter and see how much you actually got before making promises I'm almost sure you won't be able to keep.”

“Ugh. You never let me have any fun.” Nick sighed as he turned the envelope over. He dragged a claw across the wax seal. Green wax stamped with an arrow and a bow. He lifted the flap and was about to reach in when he got nervous. “Ooh! I'm to excited! Someone else read it for me!”

Delgato came up and yanked the envelope from the fox's paws. “Gawd, Wilde, you're such a cub!”

He examined the wax seal for a moment. The lion officer thought the arrow and the bow looked oddly familiar, then he shrugged, deciding it ultimately didn't matter. He reached his over-sized lion paw into the to-small-for-him fox-sized envelope -and felt nothing. In confusion he wiggled a finger inside the manila envelope until he finally touched something and pulled it out.

“Looks like you got hustled again, Wilde.” Delgato announced. “There's nothing in here but this.”

He held up a single red feather.

The room erupted with laughter at the fox's expense.

That was when Nick's mood changed. He wasn't discouraged by their reprimands of his behavior, or Judy's cautions that he might be disappointed by his inheritance, or even the fact they they were now laughing at him as if he were the precent idiot, no. A little red feather was the thing that finally made Nick's ears droop and his eyes go wide with -not disappointment. Was that... apprehension? Horror? Dismay?

“Is that a robin feather?” He asked, voice almost quivering.

He snatched the feather and envelope back from the lion, hopping off of the desk, finally. Judy might have gone back to work now that he was no long standing on her documents. Everyone else dispersed quickly enough after realizing that Wilde had been put back in his place. Except now she was concerned about him. Nick was staring at the wax seal of the envelope as if seeing it for the first time. An arrow and a bow in forrest green wax.

“You okay there, partner?” She asked, ears flattening against her back. She leaned over the desk to him, nose twitching.

“I don't understand.” Nick muttered, holding the red robin's feather now like it was some ancient and sacred religious artifact. “I'm not- I can't be- There's gotta be a mistake.”

“What is it?” Judy asked, more serious this time, thinking that the robin's feather was some strange and convoluted death threat from another mob boss he might have angered during his con-artists days. Nick already had a pantheon of enemies when Judy first met him and that number had only increased since he graduated from the academy and became the first fox officer on the force. “Are you in danger?”

He looked down at her, startled. Almost as if the fox had forgotten she was even there. “Danger? No. No, nothing like that. It...” He looked back at the robin feather, at the arrow and bow seal, back up at her. “It's a fox thing. I can't- I can't really explain it. Sorry. I gotta go.”

He -very carefully and respectfully- stuffed the robin feather back in its envelope and made a b-line for the door.

“Wait! You'll miss roll call!” Judy called after him. But Nick was already gone. Not even bothering to shout back for her to 'cover for him' with the Chief. The bunny slumped back down in her seat and crossed her arms over her chest with a pout. A fox thing, her lucky foot! Nick was hiding something from her and -given his checkered past- she did not like the implications of that.

…

Marian Wilde lived in the same apartment over her late husband's failed clothing business for over thirty years. Certainly, it was the only place Nick ever remembered her living. So that was where he went after he ran out of work in a distraught, disbelieving, and slightly dazed huff.

Nick had a key to his mother's house, but his paws shook so badly with nerves that he dropped them three times before giving up and just knocking instead.

Marian opened the door slowly, and then blinked in surprise at finding her son -in full uniform- standing on the doorstep looking shocked and a little lost. Her mind instantly jumped to one of the many fears she had developed since he first joined the ZPD and a paw flew to her mouth in preemptive horror. “Oh, Nicky! Who died?”

“What?” The younger fox blinked at her. “No. No one died. Well, I mean, some old knighted fox from the Old Country died. But I didn't know him. That's not why I'm- Look. Here.”

He held out the envelope with its arrow and bow seal pressed into dark forrest green wax. Nick might not have recognized the seal the first time he saw it, but Marian did. Every fox knew that seal. This time the paw over her mouth wasn't horror, but rather, quiet disbelief. She opened the envelope and pulled out the red robin feather.

“I found this in my mailbox this morning.” He explained. “The return address is from the Loxley Estate.”

Marian ran a finger over the feather, smoothing out the strands. “Nicky... do you know what this means?”

“Yeah...” He muttered. “I mean, I think I do. But I don't get why.”

He used to really love all the stories his dad would tell him about the hero fox under the green hood who wore a red robin's feather as a badge. The Robin under the Hood. He was the one and only fox from classical literature that could be considered a 'positive role model' -even if he was a thief. But he gave everything he stole back to the over taxed and impoverished. But after the incident with the Scouts, Nick stopped paying attention to those stories. He stopped liking them. A fox as a hero. Ha! What fairy tale was he living in?

Then he and Carrots saved the city from a convoluted speciesist conspiracy and he became a hero fox. A real life hero fox. Just like Robert of Loxley the First, just like Percival Blakeney, just like Diego de la Vega. Suddenly he receives a red robin's feather in the mail, the badge of a Robin under the Hood. Nick's conception of the world and how it worked was very shaken. He felt like a nervous little kit again who didn't know where he stood in the world or where he was going.

“Mom...?” He asked, voice quivering slightly. “Am I Robin Hood?”