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The fox first kissed the dog in a kitchen that did not belong to either of them.
Music rattled the cabinets.
Somebody was singing terribly in another room.
The sink overflowed with cups and bottles and the exhausted remains of a party that had gotten too loud too fast.
The dog leaned against the counter laughing breathlessly while the fox stole olives directly from the jar.
“You’re gonna get caught,” he told her.
“I’m literally psychic,” the fox replied. “I know exactly when people are coming.”
Right on cue, someone shouted from the living room:
“MIRIAM, THOSE WERE FOR MARTINIS!”
The fox grinned triumphantly.
The dog barked out another laugh.
That was the first thing she fell in love with.
Not his face.
Not his reputation.
Not the acrobat grace everyone else stared at like worshippers beneath cathedral glass.
The laugh.
Bright thing.
Warm thing.
A sound that made people instinctively move closer.
The dog had arrived already half-heartbroken.
The fox noticed immediately.
Dogs carried grief openly. You could see it in their posture. The way they looked at closed doors like they still expected them to open.
The deer still stood close to him that night.
Not possessively.
Not angrily.
Just sadly.
Like two creatures already beginning to drift apart while pretending not to notice yet.
The fox liked the deer. Truly.
The deer was kind to everyone, including her.
That almost made it worse.
The fox knew what she looked like beside creatures like that. Sharp-edged. Too clever. Too restless.
The dog sat between them on the couch at one point, drunk enough to be soft around the edges.
The deer brushed a hand through his hair affectionately.
The dog leaned into it automatically.
Then he looked over at the fox and smiled.
Not flirtatious.
Not secretive.
Just happy she was there.
The fox felt something dangerous bloom beneath her ribs.
Later, after midnight blurred into something softer, the deer kissed the dog gently on the cheek and murmured:
“I’m going back to the tower.”
The dog nodded.
“You okay getting home?”
The deer smiled knowingly.
“Yes.”
Her gaze flicked briefly toward the fox.
Not accusing.
Just aware.
The fox almost wanted her to be angry. It would’ve made this easier somehow.
Instead the deer simply rested her forehead briefly against the dog’s before leaving.
The fox watched the door close behind her.
Then:
“Well,” she said lightly. “That was emotionally mature. Gross.”
The dog laughed into his drink.
“She’s amazing.”
The fox looked at him carefully.
“You still love her.”
The dog was quiet for a moment.
“Yeah,” he admitted softly. “I think I always will.”
There should have been jealousy there.
Instead the fox just felt tired.
Because she understood immediately:
This was a dog who never stopped loving people once they got close enough.
The first time they slept together, it was clumsy.
Human.
The dog knocked his head against the headboard hard enough to swear loudly while the fox laughed so hard she nearly fell off the bed.
“You good there, acrobat?”
“I’m concussed.”
“You’re dramatic.”
“You psychic people are all mean.”
“Only recreationally.”
The dog kissed her again mid-laugh.
And the fox thought:
This could become dangerous.
It became dangerous very quickly.
Not because they were bad together.
Because they were good together in all the wrong ways.
The dog was fresh from heartbreak and trying not to drown in loneliness.
The fox had spent most of her life learning that affection disappeared unless she made herself indispensable first.
So she became exactly what he needed.
Easygoing.
Funny.
Low-pressure.
The cool girl.
The fox hated how naturally it came to her.
“You know,” the cat muttered one night from atop a nearby rooftop, “you act like you’re trying to win a competition nobody else knows is happening.”
The fox lit a cigarette.
“Maybe I am.”
“That’s depressing.”
“So are you.”
“Fair.”
The cat narrowed his eyes slightly.
“You actually like him.”
The fox looked toward the dog laughing downstairs with his teammates.
The answer frightened her with its simplicity.
“Yes.”
Dating the dog felt strangely domestic.
That was the dangerous part.
The dog remembered her coffee order.
Texted her goodnight.
Held doors open absentmindedly.
Tiny things.
Things that implied permanence.
The fox would catch herself relaxing around him before panic snapped back into place.
Because the dog loved naturally.
The fox loved strategically.
Even when she didn’t mean to.
Especially then.
“You don’t have to perform for me,” the dog told her once quietly.
The fox nearly flinched.
Because the horrifying thing was:
She wasn’t sure who she was when she stopped.
The accusations started after the breakup with the deer became public.
Heroes whispered.
Some louder than others.
Slut.
Cheater.
Homewrecker.
The fox heard them all eventually.
The dog did too.
One night she found him sitting alone on a fire escape staring blankly at the skyline.
“You okay?” she asked softly.
The dog huffed a laugh without humor.
“Apparently I’m a terrible person.”
The fox sat beside him.
“You’re really not.”
“You don’t have to defend me.”
“I know.”
The dog looked at her then.
Tired blue eyes.
Wounded expression.
“Did I hurt her?”
The fox answered honestly.
“Yes.”
The dog closed his eyes.
The fox continued quietly:
“But relationships ending isn’t the same thing as betrayal.”
The dog swallowed hard.
Nobody else had said that yet.
Eventually the relationship began collapsing under the weight of unspoken things.
The dog needed reassurance constantly without realizing he was asking for it.
The fox needed distance constantly without admitting why.
So they began orbiting each other strangely.
Too close.
Too far.
One evening the dog asked softly:
“Do you even want me around?”
The fox answered too quickly.
“Obviously.”
“But?”
The fox looked away.
There it was.
The terrible truth clawing at her throat:
I don’t know how to be loved without becoming useful first.
Instead she snapped:
“Why do you need so much reassurance?”
The second the words left her mouth, regret flooded in.
The dog went very still.
Like a kicked animal trying not to show pain.
The fox hated herself instantly.
Because she knew exactly where that expression came from.
The breakup happened quietly.
No screaming.
No shattered glass.
Just exhaustion.
The dog sat across from her on the apartment floor while rain hit the windows.
“I think,” he said carefully, “we keep trying to convince each other we’re okay.”
The fox laughed weakly.
“That obvious?”
“A little.”
Silence stretched between them.
Then the dog said softly:
“I don’t regret us.”
The fox felt tears sting unexpectedly.
Neither did she.
That was the tragedy.
They had loved each other genuinely.
Just not healthily enough to survive it.
“You know what your problem is?” she muttered shakily.
The dog tilted his head.
“You keep trying to save people before they ask.”
The dog smiled sadly.
“You know what yours is?”
“What?”
“You think needing people makes you weak.”
The fox looked away immediately.
Direct hit.
Of course it was.
Dogs always sniffed out wounds eventually.
Years later, after everything with Deathwing, after the revealed brainwashing and the horror and the violation and the unbearable confusion left behind afterward, the fox would sometimes remember that apartment during the rain.
The honesty of it.
The gentleness.
The fact that the dog had never once treated her like something broken.
Even at the end.
Especially at the end.
And somewhere across the city, the dog would occasionally hear people call the fox manipulative or cruel or unstable.
He never argued loudly.
Never made scenes.
He would simply say, quietly but firmly:
“You didn’t know her.”
As though defending an old scar.
As though love, even failed love, still deserved dignity.