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Bruce inhales, slowly. Lets it back out again. “Clark,” he says. Then he counts to ten. “That is not a dog.”
“His name is Krypto,” Clark says from offscreen, as if that is a reasonable response. “He’s my son now.”
Bruce will forgo comment on Clark’s sad, sad lack of creative naming skills at the moment, because right now he is more concerned with the possibly hostile, definitely dangerous alien life form that Clark is calling a dog.
It is not a dog.
It vaguely resembles a dog, in overall body shape and proportions. But dogs do not have several sets of glowing false eyes. Dogs do not have feathered crests. Dogs do not have pale blue, vaguely scaly skin. This creature has all of those. It is not a dog.
Bruce hears a thick sniffle from somewhere offscreen. As if the not-dog wasn’t enough. “Clark…” he says in a warning tone.
“What?” Clark asks, and promptly ruins any chance at pretending innocence by sneezing loudly and dropping the tablet he’s using to videocomm Bruce. The not-dog responds to this with a noise somewhere between a parrot screeching and a car backfiring. Bruce will assume that is a normal noise for not-dogs until proven otherwise.
“Shh, Krypto, it’s okay.” The image shakes as Clark picks up the tablet, sets it back in its usual place on his ship’s dashboard. Bruce examines Clark’s face carefully. He doesn’t look pale, and his nose and eyes aren’t red, but that only means Clark hasn’t been sick for long. At least he’s on his way back now. Small favors.
“You have a full-body suit with a sustainable microenvironment for a reason,” Bruce says. Pauses. Then, in case this was all the result of one big miscommunication, he adds, “The reason is so you stop bringing back space plagues.”
Thankfully, the most durable and long-lived Kryptonian virus is not some kind of space anthrax. It’s a virus that has two notable qualities: it infects its hosts by taking advantage of a mechanism unique to Kryptonian cells, so it will virtually never be capable of making an interspecies leap (really virtually never, not the variety of ‘virtually never’ that the League generally encounters, which actually means ‘guaranteed to happen’) and the associated symptomology is equivalent to the human common cold. Clark has apparently decided to make up for two and a half decades of never getting sick by finding every single planet where the virus could be and exposing himself to it. In the five months since his first encounter with the virus, Clark has explored four former Kryptonian colony worlds and has now picked up the virus on two of them, despite the suit.
“The suit scared Krypto,” Clark says. Again, like that is a reasonable response. “Also, it kind of got shredded.”
“Shredded.”
“By a pack of wild dogs,” Clark says. His tone is entirely too cheerful for that pronouncement.
“Is… Krypto… one of the wild dogs that shredded your suit?” Bruce asks.
“No, those ones seemed just fine staying where they were. But I think Krypto was orphaned or something. I watched his nest for days and no other dogs came by. He didn’t have anyone taking care of him.”
Bruce firmly squishes any sense of empathy for the not-dog and focuses on the most important part of this latest revelation. “That’s not an adult creature?” True, judging scale in a video isn’t always easy, but Bruce is certain that the not-dog in Clark’s ship is at least three feet tall at the shoulder. At least.
“No. The adults were way bigger.” The not-dog’s snout appears in a corner of the screen, and Clark reaches down to pet it. “And he doesn’t have a pack, so he couldn’t really hunt. I couldn’t just leave him. We bonded.”
There is a headache building in Bruce’s temples. “What makes you think this is a good idea?”
Clark, who abandoned all subtlety regarding his poor health the moment he was caught, rubs his nose with the heel of his hand as he answers. “I’ve seen this species in the records from Krypton. They really are dogs, Bruce – animals domesticated as guards and hunting partners by ancient Kryptonians. The records indicated that they’re very smart and extremely loyal. I already taught him some stuff – watch.” Clark adjusts the tablet until it’s pointed at the not-dog again. “Krypto, sit.”
The not-dog sits.
“Good puppy!” Clark says, and tosses something.
The not-dog lunges and snaps whatever it was out of the air with a motion that reminds Bruce of a Great White Shark catching a seal.
“See? He’s perfect.” Clark sounds proud. He has to know that this is not normal, not even by their standards. Right?
Right.
“He’s going in quarantine until we determine that he doesn’t have any diseases that pose a risk to Earth’s ecology,” Bruce says, because he knows there is no way he can talk Clark into turning the ship around and putting the not-dog back. This is his life now. This is what he has become.
Clark sneezes again. The not-dog croaks.
“Until we determine that you both don’t have any diseases that pose a risk to Earth’s ecology,” Bruce amends.
~x~
“He got a what,” Lois says.
“An alien life form he insists is a dog,” Bruce repeats. He is largely sure that Lois heard him the first time and is simply expressing disbelief, but just in case, he also adds, “It is not a dog.”
“Great. Thanks for the warning,” Lois says.
“He’s also sick again,” Bruce says, because that seems relevant to the current topic of discussion, which is ‘Clark Kent’s Poor Decisions – Space Travel Edition.’
Lois sighs so heavily that static crackles across the line. “Of course he is. When’s he due back?”
“An hour from now.”
“Perfect. Zeta me up when he gets in. Bye, Bruce.”
“Goodbye, Lois.”
Bruce hangs up, and gets to work making the necessary changes to what has, over the past few months, become Clark’s personal quarantine room. The same protective field that renders Clark immune to most explosions, projectiles, and other forms of damage prevent traditional decontamination procedures from working effectively. The procedures that do work take a day to complete, followed by an additional day of observation in case something dangerous survived. Hence the personal quarantine room.
They’re going to have to decontaminate the not-dog. Since Clark didn’t say anything about Krypto displaying superpowers, Bruce will assume that traditional decontamination procedures will be effective. He’ll also want blood, skin, and stool samples to scan for diseases and parasites, because the last thing the Justice League needs to deal with is an outbreak of alien tapeworms. That’s more a precaution than an actual risk. The one good thing about Krypto being very much not a dog – very much not anything from Earth – is that the chances of him carrying anything that will be dangerous to Earth creatures is very slim. The genetic and cellular structure of Kryptonian organisms is so different from that of anything on Earth that disease transference is highly unlikely. Bruce is going to make Krypto stay in quarantine for a while anyway. Which means he’ll need not-dog care supplies.
Extra bedding is a given – Clark said it had a nest on its home planet, which could mean anything. Blankets will do for now. He’ll also need to provide food of some kind - judging by the teeth and Clark’s reports of hunting behaviors, not-dogs are carnivorous. He’ll stock the fridge with several different varieties of meat in addition to Clark’s usual fare.
What else do dogs – not-dogs – need? Toys? Collars? Televisions? Despite the pleas of two of his wards, Bruce has never owned a dog. He has never owned pets, really, except for the frogs he caught in his childhood (always released back to the wild after a few hours of observation) and the stray cats that seem to congregate at the manor, which are only “his” in the sense that he feeds them and gets them sterilized and vaccinated.
Bruce calls Alfred.
“Yes, Master Bruce?” Alfred says.
“If, hypothetically speaking, Clark acquired an alien life form that he insists upon calling a dog, what sorts of supplies would he need to provide for its care?” Bruce asks.
There is a stony silence.
“Despite the company you keep, I cannot say that I am an expert on alien life forms, Master Bruce,” Alfred finally says.
“If it were a dog – which it is not – what would it need?” Bruce amends.
“Food, water, appropriate dishes to contain them, toys, bedding, and to be spayed or neutered,” Alfred replies promptly.
Spayed or neutered.
Bruce is going to figure that out later.
“Purchase the supplies you deem necessary and send them to the Watchtower,” Bruce says.
“Right away, Master Bruce.”
~x~
Alfred sends the supplies up with Tim.
“I want to meet the space dog!” Tim says immediately.
Bruce’s fingers twitch. “It is not a dog.”
“Well, what is it? Do you have pictures?” Tim asks.
Bruce shows Tim one of the less blurry images of Krypto he managed to obtain from Clark’s video.
“Yikes,” Tim says.
“Hrm,” Bruce agrees.
“That looks like a velociraptor, a dragon, and a German Shepard got spliced together. And then got mange.”
It is not an inaccurate description. Bruce is glad that someone is being reasonable about this.
“That’s so cool!” Tim says.
Scratch that.
“You’ve gotta let me meet it, Bruce, please!”
“Absolutely not,” Bruce says.
Tim scrunches his face into an expression halfway between a pout and a glare. “Clark would let me meet it.”
“Clark is the reason we are in this mess. I would not consider Clark a role model in making responsible, informed decisions.” Tim is still glare-pouting.
Bruce sighs.
“You cannot touch it. You can only look at it through the glass in the observation room.”
Tim’s face unscrunches and he gives Bruce a giant, beautiful smile. “Thank you!”
“Hrm.”
Bruce gets to work stocking Clark’s quarantine room with the not-dog supplies. There’s a giant dog bed, which may or may not actually be big enough, several metal dishes, one of which Bruce fills with water and places on the floor, the rest of which he leaves stacked on the counter, several canisters labeled “Biologically Appropriate Raw Whole Diet”, which go in the refrigerator, and a truly absurd amount of toys, which Bruce leaves in a pile on the floor. There. All set. And only five minutes left until Clark is due to arrive.
“Out,” he tells Tim, who slouches out of the quarantine room with an uncomplimentary sounding mutter.
~x~
The not-dog is even less doglike in person.
Bruce Zeta Beamed Clark and the not-dog directly from the ship to the decontamination chambers, as procedure dictated, and then sent the ship and whatever Kryptonian relics Clark found on this expedition to be thoroughly decontaminated themselves. Then he went to meet Tim and Lois in the observation room to see more of Clark’s alien creature and hopefully get a better explanation of why it was here.
The doors to Clark’s decontamination chamber and Krypto’s decontamination chamber opened automatically when the procedures were complete. The not-dog promptly barreled out and went straight for the glass separating the quarantine room from the observation room. It stopped an inch from the glass and stood there. Staring directly at Bruce, Tim, and Lois, without moving.
“That’s so creepy,” Tim says.
Bruce can see Krypto’s ribs as he inhales, blue, pebbled skin stretching over bone. Clark wasn’t mistaken about the not-dog’s survival prospects if left alone, at least. That can’t be healthy.
“Hi Lois! Tim!” Clark sounds even more pleased with himself than he did over the call. “This is Krypto!”
Krypto is still staring. Bruce doesn’t think he’s blinked once.
“Wait ‘till we get out of quarantine – he has the softest fur, you’ve got to feel it. And he loves ear rubs – watch.” Clark steps forward and takes one of Krypto’s ears between his thumb and forefinger.
The not-dog’s chin wobbles and its mouth drops open, displaying a truly impressive set of very sharp teeth. Its purplish tongue lolls out.
“What a good baby. What a sweet puppy,” Clark coos.
Lois gives Bruce a Look. If Bruce is interpreting correctly, this is the Look that means, approximately, ‘are you seeing this shit?’
Bruce is, in fact, seeing this shit.
He gets the feeling that he will be seeing a lot of this shit in the future.
The not-dog makes a noise like a vacuum cleaner.