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Walking Krypto was sort of great and sort of the worst. On the one hand, he was funny as hell to play around with and cute girls always asked to pet him. On the other, dogs chased things, and shit, and didn’t particularly care if their walker’s secret identities were endangered by them occasionally flying. So it was definitely a mixed bag.
Kon would probably never do it if Lois wasn’t all ‘take some responsibility’ and sort of more terrifying than the justice league member she was married to. But she was. So he did. At least it was pretty out—sunset orange everywhere and a warm breeze straight out of Hawaii.
Kon and his wandering thoughts were both yanked to a stop by tension on Krypto’s leash. The dog was sniffing in circles aaand – “Oh come on, man! You can’t just do that in the middle of the sidewalk!”
Kon sighed. His mantra repeated in his head: nice day, nice dog, non-angry Lois. Kneeling down to retrieve Krypto’s little gift with a plastic bag and a stealthy bit of TTK, he registered the sound of a jogger slowing behind him.
“Sorry, sorry, just go around.” Kon gestured with the hand holding the leash.
“Connor?” a familiar voice questioned.
Kon’s head jerked up. It took him a second to adjust to the strange context.
The jogger wore an outsized tracksuit that must have been stiflingly hot in the summer air. Sweat plastered curls of dark hair to his temples and literally dripped from his chin. Kon wasn’t used to looking up at the smaller boy. He looked good all messed up and flushed with exertion.
He also wasn’t holding a bag of dog shit.
“Uh… Hi Tim.”
Little alarms in Kon’s head for ‘Danger!’, ‘What’s happening?’, and ‘Kryptonite??’ were fighting with other alarms with the distinctly different message of ‘Cute guy!’ and ‘Say something cool!’
Tim beat him to any sort of action (which can’t have been hard) when he broke the awkward silence. “Is he yours? The dog, I mean.”
Kon took a moment to answer, totally not watching a drop of sweat run into Tim’s collar. “Clark’s, but you know, I take care of him and stuff.” He stood, trying to exude pet related responsibility.
Looking around, something was missing. “Hey, aren’t you supposed to have scary bodyguards around 24/7?”
Tim snorted, expression becoming a little more natural. “I do.”
He pointed to a jogger on the other side of the street, “Hope,” to a sedan with tinted windows, “and Charity. When one lives with Lex Luthor, all boo-boos are bandaged twice, privacy is an illusion, and going outside requires at least a bazooka for whatever he’s worried about today.”
Okay, this was definitely a side of the Luthors Kon hadn’t seen before. The elder mother-hening and Jr. not completely overdoing any safeguard.
“Ah, right… Did you just say ‘boo-boos’?”
Tim shrugged. “It’s been at least 10 years since everyone I knew was saying it. I figure it’ll be retro any day now.”
A laugh burst out of Kon before he knew what he was doing.
Krypto wasn’t sure what was going on, but clearly felt the break in the tension. His tail started wagging and he jumped at Tim in the completely innocent and completely terrifying way big dogs had.
With an athletic prowess he hadn’t been showing to Connor Kent, Tim dodged. Kon grabbed the dog he was supposed to have control over by the middle and held him back, trying not to show how much super strength was involved. “No! No, bad dog! Sit or something!”
Tim’s face had gone pale in an instant.
“Sorry. I’m sorry.” Kon winced.
When Tim replied there was a slight wobble in his voice that didn’t mesh with the kung-fu movie leap he’d just made. “You’re fine. I’m just not good with… is he like, a mastiff or something?”
Tim made a gesture across the street and bodyguard #1 returned to her fake casualness.
“We’re not sure.” Kon warily let Krypto back down but kept a hold on his collar (which unlike the leash was actually made of Kryptonian level material). “He was a stray when Clark found him. He’s really friendly though, even if he doesn’t really get that he’s a giant.”
Kon was embarrassed, why was he so embarrassed? Luthor junior was the international criminal who apparently had house-pet-phobia.
Krypto was looking really sad then, all ‘What’d I do? Why no pets?’ His tail slowing from helicopter to a confused beat every other second.
Tim took a deep breath and reached out to gently rub the mutt’s head. Krypto cheered up immediately but stayed on the ground with the reminder of Kon’s hand on his collar.
“You can do it harder if you want.” Kon winced. It was one thing when he was trying to be suggestive, but that just sounded wrong . It was those clashing alarms again, messing up his verbal filter. When Tim was in his civvies, Kon’s brain didn’t know whether he was about to get in a fight, or flirt, or fake being an unsuspecting classmate. “I’m pretty sure this guy was a tank in a past life or something.”
Kon demonstrated a Krypto style head rub that made his ears flop around and his dog tags jingle. He wondered for a brief moment if a human had enough comparative strength for the maneuver, but Tim was doing fine. He had this look of concentration on his face that was pretty cute considering the context.
“What’s his name?” Tim asked in a voice that was only a little tighter than normal.
“Kry—“ oh no. Why did the Super-Dog not have a secret identity? What was he going to do? What friggn’ normal dog name started with ‘Kry’? “—Krypto.”
Great job, Kon. Very creative.
Tim’s face scrunched up for a moment “Krypto?” and then he laughed. “Oh my god, Clark Kent named his giant, puppy after Superman?”
Relief washed over Kon. “Well, I mean, he’s a bit of a fan.”
Tim was still laughing. “That really seems like more of something Lex would do.”
Kon rolled his eyes. “Oh haha, that was so funny. At least Superman cleans up after himself.”
Tim razed an eyebrow. “Agree to disagree.”
Kon didn’t know what to say for a moment. “Fine. So what’s a Luthor pet do? Day trading?”
Krypto’s sort of head-butting Tim’s hand now, distracting him from Kon’s sick burn.
“Lex doesn’t participate in any investment that doesn’t result in a real product or service. And I don’t think he’s ever had a pet. I haven’t.”
Well, that was sort of depressing. Even supervillains were supposed to have balled cats or something.
For never having had a pet, Tim was doing pretty good with Krypto now. Teaching Krypto that Tim wasn’t a threat probably wasn’t the best idea, but they could maybe do something about that later. Put a Tim-mask on something terrifying like the vacuum cleaner or whatever.
“I’m gonna let go of his collar now, ‘kay?”
Tim looked a little startled. “What should I do?”
Kon smiled. “You’re fine. Just keep up what you’re doing.”
He let go and all Krypto did was cuddle closer to Tim. “Oh,” the other boy breathed out a laugh. “You’re not scary at all, are you?”
“He eats a scary amount,” Kon assured him.
“Oh, I believe you.” Tim said emphatically.
He raised the hand that wasn’t petting Krypto to his own neck, pointer and middle finger to his pulse and was silent for a moment.
“Well, my heart rate is going down, now that I’m not being mauled or anything. I better get back to it. See you at school tomorrow.” He walked to the end of the leashes reach before starting up his run again.
“See you,” Kon replied.
The female Jogger across the street picked up her speed. The sedan moved a moment later.
Kon stayed still waiting for Tim to round the corner before moving himself.
He really didn’t mean to keep looking, but he really didn’t have great control over his x-ray vision yet. It just kept popping into normal friggin’ life. Looking through the building, fine. Whatever, superpowers. Buuut if he could pull it back from looking through Tim’s clothes that would be just great.
Goddamn though, the guy had way more muscle than anyone his size rightfully should.
He caught himself again and rushed to turn his eyes to the ground, x-ray vision flickering from asphalt to bedrock. How many rats could one city have?
Think about the rats, he told himself, nasty gross, boner-killing rats in storm drains.
…Not about how strong Tim’s shoulders looked. Or the fact that he was definitely wearing a bullet-resistant vest over them.
It explained the bulky clothing for a summer run as well as all that sweat. Carrying the extra weight of the armor on top of a workout was really—Rats. Unsexy horrible rats.
When Kon looked up, his sight was normal. The building between him and Tim had solidified again, blocking the view of his figure becoming smaller and smaller in the distance.
It was hard to remember sometimes with how in control Tim always seemed, but he was just a guy . No metagene, alien powers, or godly gifts. Sure, Luthors all had the power of throwing money at an obstacle, but Tim still had to wear body armor for a jog around his own neighborhood.
The unpredictability of Kryptonite or magic was hard enough for Kon to deal with. Tim knowing that every time he went out on a job he wouldn’t just possible but probably end up taking some damage, and still going? It’d take either a very dedicated person or a very stupid person to do that.
Stupidity sure as hell wasn’t the thing that had Tim Drake-Luthor back in the game again and again.
Krypto was pulling on the leash and whining, nose pointing to the path Tim had taken. Kon sighed. "Can't say I disagree man, but it is sooo not a good idea.”