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“You could have a daemon,” says Martian Mindhunter, “if you wanted to.”
Kon’s mouth freezes half-open, the pre-loaded snarky remark he was about to unleash stuck in the barrel. He’d thought J’onn pulled him aside to scold him over something. Not to completely out of the blue start talking about– about–
“What?” Kon squawks.
“Daemons are a spiritual trait that are tied to the ecosystem of Earth,” J’onn continues, annoyingly calm in the face of Kon’s complete befuddlement. “That is to say, every human born on Earth will be born with a daemon, in the same way that every human born on Earth must be born with lungs to survive here. But anyone who comes to Earth can manifest their daemon if they so choose, just as many non-Earth beings can adapt to the Earth’s atmosphere in order to live here permanently.”
"Martians have lungs don’t they? Kryptonians have lungs! What are you even talking about?” Kon’s eyes flit desperately to the doorway.
If he yells loud enough, maybe some of his team members will think J’onn’s carrying out some sort of super secret assassin hit because he’s a mind guy and mind guy’s seem like they’d probably be predisposed to having assassin sleeper codes in their heads. Does Cassie have superhearing? If she doesn’t and Kon survives this, he’ll definitely accompany her back to Zeus to demand she gets superhearing so she can hear when an extremely handsome teammate needs immediate extraction.
The first sign of impatience flutters briefly across the Martian’s face. “Martians, like Kryptonians, don’t have daemons naturally. But on Earth, we can use meditation to first see and then externalize the spiritual part of ourselves that is the equivalent to a daemon.”
Wait. I don’t need to be rescued. I could just leave! But Kon has a feeling that won’t go over well. Young Justice just got their three hundredth stern lecture from the Justice League and storming off mid conversation is going to add a little star to the ‘YJ is too immature to be trusted’ column. Ugh. Kon needs to finish this conversation maturely.
“Look, all the knowledge I’ve got up here,” Kon taps his head, “says that daemons are a thing that either are or aren’t. Some evolved species have them and some don’t. Like, that’s it. ‘Cause if what you’re saying is true, why don’t you have one? Why doesn't the old model have one? Krypto’s a fraud, everyone knows that.” In the superhero community at least. The general population of Earth was still none the wiser.
“Superman had been using Krypto as his daemon before he met me and became aware of the option to manifest his own,” J’onn says, his expression settling back into that infuriating patience. “It would complicate matters in all facets of his life to suddenly have a daemon that looks different than the one he’s had for years.”
Kon’s scowl deepens. It’s only recently, only since getting to go the Fortress of Solitude and getting his name, that he even had any idea that Superman might be someone else other than Superman. Kon still doesn’t know who that someone else is, but if it’s this much of a secret that someone else probably doesn’t use an alien dog as a daemon.
Whatever. Kon tries not to think about all the stuff Superman doesn’t tell him. He’s got the only thing he’s ever going to need from the old model - a name - and he’s not letting the guy take up more space in his head. Even if he’s spying on Cadmus a little at Superman’s request. That's just because– because– because it made the name a trade, rather than a gift. Which was for the best, obviously. No way Kon wants to get used to gifts from Superman.
“Yeah, well, what about you?” Kon demands, refusing to let thoughts of Superman feed the pit in his stomach any longer. “You’ve been on Earth forever. Why don't you have a daemon?”
“I have no desire for one,” J’onn replies easily. “I understand the absence makes people uneasy, but all aspects of my appearance do that. Baring one’s soul is a human custom, and I am comfortable abstaining.”
His gaze softens, while somehow also becoming more piercing. But you, Superboy, are part-human.”
***
As far as the general public knows, Superboy has an unsettled daemon that stays out of sight.
After all, it wasn’t like he could have used Krypto while Superman was dead. The damn dog never would have cooperated- it didn’t like Kon on the best of days. And now with Superman back, there was exactly 0 Kryptonian fauna lying around available for daemon fraud purposes.
But not having a daemon at all hadn’t really been option. Not when they were still trying to build public trust in the new Superman. It was a whole thing in Earth religions and mythologies; entities like ghosts and changelings looking exactly like humans and only being identified by their lack of daemons. Which meant a human-looking alien without a daemon made most people instinctively think 'that's a corpse, or perhaps a demon'. Whereas with aliens like Martians, their appearance was already so 'inhuman' that it was easier for people to accept that their lack of daemons was a species thing and not an indication that they were a soulless zombie, a severed husk, or a monster. The whole thing was completely irrational, because all you had to say was ‘my daemon’s in the shape of a killer hornet and she’s under my jacket right now’ and people would relax completely and stop thinking you were undead.
Superman had decided to use Krypto as his daemon. Generally, daemons could tell when they were interacting with an animal and not another daemon. But Krypto's alien-ness crossed enough wires that so far no one had seemed to figure out that he was just a weird exotic dog. Cadmus’s original plan had been for Superboy's daemon to "stay out of sight" while still in the period he could plausibly be unsettled (though sixteen was really pushing it), while they worked on a robotic daemon that could fool real daemons the way Krypto did.
That all got shelved when they realized Kon wouldn't age. That he'd be sixteen forever. Which meant he'd be able to have an unsettled daemon that "stayed out of sight" forever. He'd never have to worry about people looking for his daemon.
Because he'd never grow up.
***
“So it’s totally fine to not do the whole daemon thing,” Kon says dismissively, with a dismissive hand wave to really dial in how much he’s dismissing this. “I’m not growing up anyways - teenage dream forever, baby! - and the whole point of daemons is settling right? Figuring out what person you’re going to be by the shape it stays in. And lucky me gets to be the amazing person I already am forever! So a daemon’s kind of pointless for me, actually.”
For some reason, there's an assortment of constipated expressions on the faces of the rest of Young Justice. Or maybe that’s just the campfire light, casting weird shadows. Yeah, it’s definitely the campfire. Probably.
“I bet that’s why the outdated Superman didn’t do the whole meditate-and-manifest thing,” Kon carries on gamely. “‘Cause he was already an adult when he learned about it, and he already knew the boring, stick-in-the-mud person he was going to be. So like, what was the point in conjuring up a daemon to confirm it?”
“It’s lonely,” Secret says suddenly. Her hands are twisting together, fingers mushing into shapeless fog. “It’s lonely without a daemon. If you could– if you could have one, you should.”
There’s a ripple through the rest of the group, the emotion in Secret's voice like a stone dropping into a pond. Cassie’s hawk shifts on her shoulder until he’s pressed against her face and head. Cissie’s hand tightens into the bristly fur of her spotted hyena. Bart’s weird-as-fuck-rabbit-thing moves from running around the fire in a blur of shifting fur patterns to running in a tighter circle around Bart and over his legs. Only Robin, of course, stays stock-still. Not reaching for anything, and not being reached for.
But Kon doesn't have a daemon, so obviously he's fine.
“I’m not lonely,” he scoffs. “Back on Hawaii, I literally can’t take two steps without being swarmed by adoring fans and attractive women– considerable overlap between those two groups by the way. And besides Secret, I’m not gonna split up the no-daemon duo. You and me are in the same boat, right? I’m not leaving you hanging.”
Secret doesn’t look anywhere near as pleased by that statement as she should be.
“But Secret would have a daemon if she could, Kon. She'd ask Martian Manhunter for help with this if she didn't have to hide from the Justice League," Cassie argues. “And it’s not just about not being alone. It’s also being with others! Our daemons could hang out if you had one.”
She blushing now, and the Harris’s hawk on her shoulder is preening a wing in a blatantly self-conscious way. “It could be…it could be good for team building.”
“Yeah right. If daemons had anything to do with team building, mystery boy wouldn’t be constantly calling the shots,” Kon counters, rolling his eyes and jabbing a thumb in Robin's direction.
Robin is still stone-stiff and quiet. He tends to be, when conversation focuses solely on daemons. Or when Cassie and Cissie and Bart’s daemons start playing or fighting with each other. Daemons basically never interact with any human other than their own, which means Kon, Secret, and Robin have never spoken with any of their teammates' daemons and aren't part of whatever bond has formed there. But Kon never lets that awkwardness keep him distant; he'll gamely talk to Cassie and Cissie and Bart while their daemons are all tangled up. Secret will usually lean close in a wistful way. But Robin just goes still and quiet, like if he turns into a statue everyone will forget he's there, with a daemon that exists but isn't present.
Because none of them have seen his daemon. Kon hears her sometimes, if he listens. She either follows them from afar, at a distance that unnerves the others, or stays hidden in a pouch on Robin’s back, beneath his cloak. In the hideout, she basically lives inside the fucking vents. They all know that she can fly, because Robin had begrudgingly admitted as much the first time he sent her to do aerial reconnaissance on a mission. But within Young Justice, only Kon knows for sure that she’s a bird. He’s heard the rustle of her feathers. And really, he deserves some credit for not spilling the beans. But he’d much rather Robin just bring the damn thing out instead of acting like catching even a glimpse of her would blow his oh-so-precious identity wide open.
Not that Kon cares that much, but everyone else sure does. As is evident by the stink eye Cissie throws at Rob, the large discomfort on Cassie’s face, the smaller but no less clear discomfort on Bart’s face, and the way Secret looks like she might be mad at Rob like Cissie is, but doesn’t know how to like, do that, so her misty face is just kind of agitated.
If Robin notices he doesn’t let it show on his face. He does stop pretending to be a statue though, turning his head towards Kon and asking, “Have you talked to Superman about it?”
“Why would I do that?” Kon snaps. "If he wanted to talk about it, he would have brought it up during our VR meet-and-greet. But he didn’t, because that trip was all about Krypton–,” —and the inherent immoral danger of clones— “–and Kryptonians don’t have daemons.”
Robin seems to quietly consider this for a few seconds. Before saying, “If you had a daemon, you’d be able to do things that Superman can’t. There are limitations to having a real animal as a daemon, even one like Krypto."
Kon knows immediately what Robin’s talking about, but Cissie frowns. “What do you mean?”
“Daemons can touch animals, and it’s not an issue, usually,” Robin says carefully. “Except for highly intelligent, nearing sapient animals. There are reports of discomfort when certain gorillas, chimpanzees, and even certain elephants and dolphins touch daemons. Not the whole species, but highly trained animals with a lot of human interaction. Krypto’s intelligence is nearly on par with a human's. When he interacts with daemons, it’s uncomfortable. People usually dismiss it as being because he’s an alien daemon. But Krypto limits his contact with actual daemons as much as possible. If Superboy had a real daemon, it wouldn’t have to do that.”
You can't touch another person's daemon– that's assault. The equivalent of reaching inside someone and getting your grubby hands all over the core of who they are. Daemon-touching is reserved for parents when you're a kid, and lovers when you're grown. Though in the past ten years or so there's been a push to normalize platonic daemon touching between friends. The point is, it's an intimate thing. Even when arresting criminals, touching daemons is just an absolute no. But like Robin said, animals touching daemons can be a grey area.
Still, Krypto's signature move is using a leash to capture the daemons of ne’erdowells rather than grabbing them himself. He also likes body slamming daemons, then knocking something heavy on top of them to pin them. He very, very rarely gets into full on scraps with daemons. It’s always fast, brief hits with minimal contact, or the use of tools or objects.
“Oh my god, is that what Superman's whole ‘poor bedside manner’ thing is about?” Cissie gasps.
“Superman's poor what?” Bart asks. There's a cheeky half-smile growing on his face that suggests his mind is in the gutter.
“My Mom is like, super critical of the PR strategies of other superheroes,” Cissie continues, while Cassie pinches Bart's arm until he whinges. "And Superman's got a glowing record in the media...except for post-disaster comforting. Because all the warm, approachable superheroes are really good about throwing an arm around the shoulder of someone they just saved and drying their tears or whatever, and their daemons will do the same. Except for Krypto. Superman comforts people, Krypto never comforts their daemons. I mean, most people theorize that daemons on Krypton don’t touch each other casually or something. Like they’ve chalked it up to cultural differences. But Mom lasers in on it anytime it’s mentioned in the news, because it’s the one black spot on Superman’s boy scout PR record. His alleged ‘poor bedside manner’.”
“And Kon wouldn’t have that problem, because his daemon would be real!” Cassie is smiling now. “You’re always saying you're the better version, right? The updated, new and improved model? This would prove it!”
“I don’t need a daemon to prove I’m the better version,” Kon says, but there’s a waver to his confident tone. “And cuddling strange daemons does not outweigh all the annoying things about daemons.”
“Annoying?” Now Secret’s almost-mad-mostly-agitated face is directed at him. But Kon doesn’t let it dissuade him. Not after she left him out to dry earlier when he tried to cash in on some solidarity.
“Yeah, annoying,” Kon emphasizes. He points at Cassie. “Zeus either forgot to give your daemon powers or just didn’t feel like it, so your hawk can’t fly as fast as you or take the same hits. And your secret identity deal means you constantly have to paint his feathers to hide his breed.”
For most people, getting further than 20 feet from their daemon is excruciatingly painful, and stretching a tether past that can literally result in death. There's techniques to develop the ability to be apart from your daemon for any distance without pain or danger, but only weirdos like Batman successfully do it. Otherwise, only people who were more than human could have a limitless tether. Like Wonder Woman. But Cassie and her daemon have the standard tether, which means she can't just leave him somewhere and then go off to do her own thing. When Cassie flies anywhere, her hawk hooks his claws and beak into her jacket and holds on for dear life. It's actually kind of hilarious to watch. And the hawk has to stay well out of the way whenever Cassie's fighting something that could kill a baseline human, since he's not demigod durable. The dye job to hide the hawk's identity is also kind of goofy. Physical materials like paint and dye didn't normally stick to daemons, but the Justice League has a supply of magical paint that Impulse regularly raids for Cassie's benefit.
“And Cissie,” Kon waves a hand in the archer's direction, “has the secret identity thing and her whole hyena hang-up.”
As a baseline human, Cissie doesn’t have the problem of her daemon keeping up with her. But the daemon's appearance complicates more than just keeping her identity hidden. Hyenas are a daemon commonly associated with criminals. And Cissie's mother hasn't been quiet about the negative press that could bring Young Justice, which already has extremely, extremely low approval in the public eye. Cissie's hyena wears a long hood to cover her head and mane, as well as a false tail. People aren’t meant to look at the disguise and think it’s real, they’re meant to look at the disguise and assume it’s to hide what breed of dog she is, not to hide the fact that she’s not a dog at all. And on top of all that, Cissie's hyena is female. Daemons that are the same gender as their person still turned heads, and not usually in a good way.
“And there’s like a 90% chance that Bart’s secret identity is fucked forever once he actually settles for real,” Kon continues with a smirk.
“That’s not true,” Bart scowls. “Her horns could be nubby. And then they can be hidden under a hat.”
“Your daemon is almost never nubby-horned, Bart.”
“But she might be!”
Like most metas, Bart’s daemon has the same powers as he does. And because of that, it's easy for her to keep out of sight while he's acting as Impulse. But she's still going to pose a problem for his personal life, because she's definitely settling as a jackaloupe, which is a horned rabbit-hare thing that definitely doesn't exist in this century. The only thing that still shifts is her breed; the colour of her fur, the size and shape of her ears and feet, and the type of horns on her head. If she settles as something with short, stubby horns, then Bart might be able to get by in his personal life with just sticking a hat on the thing. But if she settles as a breed with tall horns or antlers…yeah, he's kind of fucked.
"And then, of course, there's Robin." Kon's eyes narrow, a simmer of something genuinely hot, biting, entering his voice. And he's gratified when Robin's shoulders hunch just a little. "Who thinks he's too cool to–,"
“Superboy, stop," says Secret, voice trembling. “We get it. You’ve made your point. Stop being mean.”
“I’m not being mean, I’m just–,”
But Kon stops himself this time. At the sight of the defensive lines throughout Cissie’s posture, the sudden racing of her heart beat. The hyena with her tail low, turned away from everyone. Cassie’s miserable expression, her hawk’s head ducked. Bart breaking campfire sticks and looking at no one, while his daemon’s paws run over her currently nubby-horned head again and again, pressing down anytime the horns start to lengthen into antlers.
“Whatever,” Kon mutters, looking to the side and fiddling with one of the spikes on his jacket.
“This is why I wanted you to talk to Superman, by the way,” Robin says, breaking the awkward silence in an infuriatingly unbothered voice. “To talk through the pros and cons of having a daemon. The things you'd lose and the things you'd gain. It shouldn’t be a decision you make hastily, or based solely off of emotion. But clearly you have thought it out, so we’ll respect your choice to stay daemon-less. Right, guys?”
And now Robin’s turned his steely glare at the others, as if they’re the ones who should be scolded. And Kon kind of hates that, hates that he's relieved when everyone grumbles in agreement and follows Robin's order. Bart changing the subject and Cassie gladly jumping onto the new conversation topic. Hates that Robin's leadership saved the day again.
Hates that Secret's still curled in on herself. Small, upset. Alone.
When the night's over, when the fire's been doused and they're all starting to crawl into their tents, Kon steels himself and pulls Robin aside.
“Hey, uh, Rob,” he says, clearing his throat, “you do like…meditation and shit, right?”
Robin stares at Kon for a long time, clearly expecting a follow-up insult or some kind of trap. Then nods his head, and shockingly doesn't launch into a lecture about how he molds his body into the perfect weapon which is why he doesn’t drink or hit on girls at parties or whatever. So clearly he also doesn't want to get into a fight.
“The Martian said the whole...manifest your daemon thing was mostly meditation,” Kon continues, pushing his sunglasses up to show how casual and not at all awkward and stressful this conversation is. “So like…if you know how to do it, you could probably help Secret out. Obviously J'onn could do it easier, being a telepath, but his whole stupid monologue was about how anyone who lives on Earth can manifest their daemon. So a telepath isn't required."
“Really?”
Kon curses and jumps as Secret's cloudy self billows out beside him, an explosion of smoky joy before she sucks herself back into a human form. "I could have a daemon, and still stay a secret from the Justice League? Robin could help me?" Her face is all hope and wonder as she looks at the boy wonder.
Robin's face is not properly neutral, but the strained expression he makes when he's trying not to have any expression at all. It's gratifying to see him fail at something. Except not really, because if Robin can't do this than Kon just got Secret's hopes up for–
"I would need more details about the type of meditation required," Robin says slowly. "But...if it's something that can be done by anyone, not just telepaths, then yeah, I should be able to–,"
Secret squeals with delight, and then both Kon and Robin are enveloped in what is probably her best attempt at an intangible hug.
Who's mean now? Kon thinks, smug and smiling.
The daemon-less duo is going to become the daemon-less uno, but that's. That's fine. That's whatever. Kon's made his decision. He's thought it out, just like Rob said. He doesn't want a daemon.
Kon's eyes slide to Rob, through the smoke of Secret's excitement. Robin's cape is lying flat. Which means his daemon is out in the forest somewhere. Far, far away from her human, as usual.
…Though I guess it’s really been the daemon-less trio, huh?
***
"It didn't work," Robin says flatly.
Kon clenches his fists.
He knows.
He heard it.
Robin sent Kon and the others away from the hideout to minimize distractions while he and Secret tried the meditation. But they hadn't gone so far that Kon couldn't dial up his superhearing and listen in.
So he'd heard Secret scream: “Get out, close the door– I'm telling Mom– No, no no what are you doing– No!”
And he'd heard her sob, “Eurusan!”
And by that time he'd rushed back to the hideout, so he'd seen her flying away, heard her hysterical cries fade off into the distance.
And now there's Robin. Standing there with his stupid business casual face on. Like he didn't just ruin everything. Like he didn't just drop the ball of hope that Kon had passed him and leave Secret hanging.
"You must have done it wrong," Kon snaps. "I told you every single step that J'onn told me. I didn't get anything wrong, so you must have!"
Robin's mouth is a pale, thin line. He's tense, and his heartbeat's elevated, and it's only a little gratifying to see that some of his composure has been rattled.
"Secret said...after the meditation, we now both suspect that Secret isn't a meta, or an alien, or any other non-human lifeform," Robin says slowly, stiffly. "She said...we think...we think she might not...be alive. That she had a daemon, once. But..."
Eurusan!
“People who come back from the dead can…find their daemons again. There are reports of that,” Robin continues, quiet. “But…that’s when…when they’re alive again. Not for…”
“Ghosts?” Kon says incredulously, angrily. “You’re saying Secret’s a fucking ghost? Get real! What ghost can do all the stuff she can do?! She’s here, she’s with us, she’s real.”
“I’m not saying she isn’t real,” Robin says testily, “just that…that manifesting her daemon might not be–,”
“You’re just trying to make excuses because you, Mr. goddamn perfect, finally failed at something and admitting when you fucked up goes against your programming or whatever! You’re more of a robot than Red Tornado, you know that?”
Robin doesn’t say anything, just stays stone-faced like it doesn’t bother him. But since he didn’t throw out any biting remark, Kon knows that it did bother him, and is viciously, poisonously pleased by that.
***
Kon floats on his back, staring up at the sky.
It’s been over a month since the daemon attempt. Cissie's quit the team, which is awful, which fucking sucks, and Secret's gone too. They don’t know where she is, where she flew off to after fighting with Harm.
But Kon gets why she ran.
They have confirmation now that Secret’s a ghost. That she was killed, which means she's...dead. And being dead is a lot different than being a smoke monster with cool powers. Being something inherently soulless is a lot different than just being inhuman.
Dead things and demons don't have daemons.
But she's not like a ghost-ghost! She has powers! She's still around! She doesn't seem to get fucked up by salt! That has to mean something, right? Kon scowls, rolling into a sitting position in the sky. Secret's special. And more than that, she's part of Young Justice. She's not some dead thing that doesn't belong; she's their teammate. And she has a place with them, always.
Maybe she'd believe that, maybe she'd come back, if Robin hadn't fucked up re-manifesting her daemon. Because he has to have fucked it up. Secret's not a soulless ghost– she definitely, absolutely, has a soul. It's Rob that messed up.
Maybe the problem was Robin being one degree removed from the instructions. Maybe if Kon is the one leading the meditation, teaching her, it’ll work. It would make sense for Kon to be better at it anyways. He’s always concentrating, all the time. He’s all in on the mind stuff, it’s how his powers work; The TTK field to mimic Kryptonian powers. So if Kon tries it with Secret, he won’t fuck it up. Probably.
And also...dead things and demons don't have daemons. Clones, in a lot of people’s opinions, fall somewhere in between. So if Kon can do it, if Kon can make the meditation work...than Secret should be able to as well.
Shit, how did J’onn describe it again? Meditating, feeling only yourself and your body, looking inward and turning that inward look outward and blah blah blah–
It’s not actually that hard to slip into the meditating mindset.
Which shouldn’t surprise anyone - Kon's powers depend on him staying focused at all times. Focus is, paradoxically, background noise for him. Maintaining his TTK is some middle area between breathing and walking. He can keep it up in his sleep, does obviously, but he wouldn’t say it’s like breathing in that his body will do it no matter what. It’s just that the level of focus needed to maintain his TTK is something he can keep up in his sleep.
People love to call him impatient, immature, impulsive– but that doesn’t mean he’s bad at focusing, at concentrating. He’s great at meditating, actually! And with some practice, he’s sure he’ll do a great job guiding Secret.
Kon feels when it stops being practice.
Feels when something starts to pull in his chest, when his senses get fuzzy in a way that is less a meditative state and more the state of half-dreaming that sleep paralysis brings. The way he knows when he has to open his eyes, knows when he has to look, and also knows that if he looks there’s no going back.
But all of that realization happens in the span of like, a half second. And Kon’s body is faster than his thoughts, as usual, and his eyes are opening and head is turning before he can really decide if he actually wants to commit to this.
But he’s already seen her.
Floating in the air beside him, staring back. She’s pale, transparent, and there’s no sound to her, no suggestion of realness. But now that Kon’s seen her…
There’s no way he’s going to look away.
He finishes the meditation.
***
“What…is that?” Bart asks, on behalf of the group at large.
“My daemon,” Kon says, grinning. “Kind of manifested her accidentally. Whatever, she’s here now. Isn’t she cool?”
Apparently, Jury's still out on that. Bart's gaping, Cassie seems at a loss for words, and Robin is fucking inscrutable as always.
And Kon gets it. He does, really! He made a whole big stink about not needing or wanting a daemon, and now he's randomly shown up with one out of the blue. It's fine, understandable even, that his teammates are speechless and stunned because he surprised them. That's...that's okay. He can deal with that. As long as they're not like, judging her. As long as Cassie and Bart and Robin and the hawk and the jackaloupe aren't staring at Kon's daemon wordlessly and thinking stuff like lab experiment gone wrong or abomination. As long as their issue is with Kon's choice, and not the shape of Kon's soul.
She stands at his side. Tail held high. Unusually large ears pricked. Lanky legs standing straight. Like Kon, clearly communicating that she's totally and completely undaunted by the stares. Even though her tail isn't wagging.
“She’s…a Kryptonian dog?” Robin finally ventures.
“A hybrid,” Kon corrects. “A Kryptonian hunting dog and an earth coyote.”
His daemon's got fluffy mottled brown fur and a long snout and a bushy tail tipped with black. Her legs don't have the same fluff to them, giving her the appearance of a brown cloud on stilts. Her ears are massive and almost cone shaped, like some bat species. Her paws are massive, oversized in a puppy kind of way, which makes Kon think she's not full-grown yet either. The shape of her head and muzzle definitely suggest more than a dog, something wild in this one. And just like Krypto, there's something off in all her proportions. The length of her legs, the size and shape of her ears, the way her joints bend– something that suggests that, maybe, this might not be an animal from Earth.
There wasn’t a lot of Kryptonian info outside the Fortress of Solitude, but there was more ‘harmless’ general info about Krypton available on the Justice League database, which they had access to in the Young Justice cave. And information on Kryptonian dogs was available in Krypto’s file. Krypto is, apparently, a breed of Kryptonian dog commonly used as a service or guide dog. Kon's daemon is something different; a hunting dog.
“They used to be used for hunting, way, way back in the day on Krypton,” he explains. “Then they became the preferred breeds for Kryptonian law enforcement, before they were replaced with drones and robot partners. In modern Krypton they were pets, but like, that’s just because Krypton used robotics for everything. Not because Kryptonian hunting dogs weren’t amazing.”
There was more information in the file that's obviously unimportant and that Kon doesn't need to share. Like notes on temperament. As pets, Kryptonian hunting dogs were high energy dogs that needed both a lot of exercise and a lot of attention, but apparently had a very sweet temperament, were extremely loyal, and easy to train if they liked you. They could, however, become unmanageable if not given enough stimulation and affection, and were not considered good pets for first time pet owners.
"Interesting," Robin says, and Kon has no idea if Robin's also read that file and hates that. "And an Earth coyote? What kind?"
“Um.” Kon hadn’t even known there were types of coyotes until his daemon told him what she was. And then he’d looked up that subspecies up on Wikipedia, and kind of wished he hadn’t. “Like, a coyote?”
Robin's brow scrunches a little, like his eyes are narrowing behind his mask. But he doesn't press.
Coyotes on their own already have bad press. Wild, roaming animals. Vagabonds and scavengers frequently seen as pests. Stuck on the fringes of urban life and the wild. But the eastern coyote is a subspecies with wolf hybridization fairly recent in their genetic tree. They're big, family group-oriented, gorgeous, and the subspecies responsible for the only fatal coyote attack on an adult human in recorded history.
So like. No one needs to know that. Kon's daemon is a coydog. Earth and Kryptonian. That's all that's important.
Some of the tightness in Kon's chest unwinds when Bart and Cassie's daemons break the tension. They bound over to Kon's coydog, talking to her, checking her out. The jackaloupe running around her in quick bursts, darting over her paws and tails. The hawk hopping along the ground beneath the coydog's body, stumbling back with a squawk as she abruptly lies down, nearly squashing Cassie's daemon with a grin and a vigorously wagging tail.
Robin just watches on in all his daemon-less wonder, as usual.
Or...maybe a little tenser than he was before. Now that Secret's missing and Kon's defected to the other side, Robin really is the only one without a daemon in the group.
But Kon didn’t come here to think about Robin being stuck in a hole of his own making. He’s got to worry about his own daemon, now that he has one.
“Um.” He’s confident. He’s totally confident. There’s no shred of uncertainty or nervousness or embarrassment on his face. This is fine. “Um. So like. Obviously I don’t have parents or anything. And yeah, Superman gave me my name, but he doesn’t have a daemon, so I don’t think he’s qualified to…and uh, Red Tornado also doesn’t have a daemon anymore, so he's also probably not qualified to…uh...what I'm saying is, Ithoughtmaybeyouguyscouldnameher?”
Kon winces as the words tumble out. Braces. One hand tight in his daemon's fur.
But no one laughs. And no one looks weirded out. And no one says No.
Instead, Cassie smiles, and Bart grins, and Robin nods solemnly.
They send Kon away with headphones on while they huddle together to confer. Kon and his coydog spend over an hour doing lazy loops through the air, actively not listening in with hearts pounding, until Cassie's waving hand calls them back down to the ground. And after making him wait all that time, they don't even have the decency to just tell him what they've come up with. They insist on explaining first, no matter how much Kon groans.
"You’re really tied to Hawaii, so we wanted to do a Hawaiian base,” Robin says. “We only knew a few names from pop culture, and were looking up traditional names on Hawaii. But then…we actually thought it might be kind of fitting, to go with the pop culture ones. Considering you’re whole…T.V. star thing.”
"And...we know you have a complicated relationship with Superman, but he gave you your name, and you're still tied to each other," Cassie continues. "So we wanted to incorporate that at least a little. But also with like...plausible deniability, I guess?"
"It's Nanella!" Bart bursts out. "Like Nani from Lilo and Stitch and Nanea the American Girl character and the Kryptonion el but with ella so you can pretend it's not the Kryptonian el if Superman's being an ass to you again."
"Nanella," Cassia repeats, confirming with a smile.
"Nanella," Robin echoes. He doesn't smile, he swallows. "That's just our first suggestion. We have other ideas if you don't like it. It's okay if you don't like it. We want this to be right. We want it to fit."
Nanella. Kon's glad none of the others have superhearing, because his heart is racing. And that's not cool at all, that's not the unbothered, always confident Superboy he wants to be. One who gets all flustered and choked up by his friends naming his daemon. By the name feeling right on the first try. He's glad they can't hear his heartbeat, even if they can see how red and blurry his eyes are getting.
"Nanella," he repeats hoarsely. Then clears his throat a bunch of times. "I mean, it's fine I guess. Do you like it?" He looks down at the coydog.
"Yes!" she whispers to Kon excitedly. She's grinning a big doggy grin. "Yes! And you can call me Nana for short. I like that too."
"Nana. Yeah, Nanella's a bit of a mouthful, right?" Kon grins, watery. Still blink furiously. "I bet the extra syllable's all Rob's fault. Yeah, Nana for short. I like that."
"Nana is the name of the dog from Peter Pan," Robin says, voice quiet. And that makes Kon feel weird in a lot of ways. Which is maybe why Robin said it like that; like a question and a warning.
"That's fine," Kon says, and tries to mean it. "Me and Nana aren't ashamed of what we are." Or more specifically, what they'll never be. Grown.
“My daemon’s name is Baranos,” Bart blurts out. “But I call her Bunny.” His daemon stands up on her hind legs, fur shifting to a bright, visible white and curling ram horns spiralling out from her head as she nods her approval.
"Auster," says Cassie, as her hawk lands on her shoulder. She's blushing. "Cissie and I shared daemon names awhile back...it's definitely fine if you guys know his name too. Just don't tell my mother."
And there's the awkward pause. The absence and silence. And Bunny and Bart only look at Robin for a second before conspicuously finding something else to stare at. And Cassie and Auster manage not to look at Robin at all. But Nana's whole head turns towards him and she just stares.
And surprisingly, shockingly, Robin breaks.
"When I...when I can tell you who I am," he says, breath all shuddery, shoulders slumped. "When I can tell you my name, I'll tell you hers."
It's almost awkward, the resulting silence, but then Bart grins and slings an arm over Robin's shoulder and Cassie smiles and gives him a hug.
"Whatever," Kon shrugs, "It's not gonna be as cool as Nanella anyways."
Rob cracks a smile.
When the party's broken up, when they've all flown or driven off to return to their respective cities, Nana practically knocks Kon over while they fly, bowling into him with an excited yip.
"I heard her. I heard her," she says excitedly, twirling in the air. "The bird. She said 'It's nice to meet you Nanella'. She said it quiet, but she said it knowing I would hear her. I heard her. I heard her voice!"
"What the hell, is your hearing better than mine?" Kon splutters. But that's not surprising, maybe. Kon has to actively think about his superhearing, has to choose to switch it on. His daemon's powers are authentic, not replicated using telepathic manipulation.
"That's okay, because now I'm here, and I'll tell you when you've missed something," Nana says, rubbing her big head against his stomach. Warmth spreading through Kon everywhere she touches. "I'm here now, and I'll tell you if she talks again. And when Robin's bird finally comes out, I'm going to chase her aaalll over. I'm going to hunt her and I'm going to catch her! And then she won't be able to hide ever again!"
"No hunting teammates," Kon scolds, but he's grinning. And he rolls onto his back so Nanella can jump on top of him, snuggling into his chest while he runs his hands through her fur.
Kon didn't want a daemon. Didn't need one. Seriously, he'd have been fine without her. But now that he has Nanella, he can't imagine not having her. And he's never felt so genuinely bad for Secret, has never felt so devastated for her loss.
And he has never understood Robin less.
