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The first time the fox left her kit with the dog, she looked like she expected the city itself to laugh at her.
“You know,” the fox said while lingering awkwardly in the apartment doorway, “if you don’t want to do this, you can just say so.”
The dog blinked.
The kit sat perched on the couch beside him swinging her legs and holding a juice pouch with both hands.
She looked up at him with enormous curious eyes.
The dog looked back at the fox slowly.
“…Miriam.”
The fox winced immediately.
That tone.
Soft.
Offended.
Deeply dog-like.
“You really think I’d say no to watching your kid?”
The fox rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly.
“I don’t know. Most people get weird about superhero exes and complicated emotional history and…”
The dog was already crouching in front of the kit.
“Hey, kiddo,” he said warmly. “You like pizza?”
The kit nodded instantly.
The dog gasped dramatically.
“No way. Me too.”
The kit burst into delighted giggles.
The fox stared at them for a long moment.
Then quietly:
“…Traitor.”
The dog grinned up at her.
The fox felt something painful loosen in her chest.
Because there it was again.
That impossible gentleness.
The thing that made losing him hurt for years afterward.
The kit loved the dog almost immediately.
Not in the cautious way children sometimes loved adults.
Instantly.
Like ducklings imprinting.
The dog was excellent with children in the deeply unfair way naturally kind people often were.
He listened seriously to nonsense stories.
Made animal-shaped pancakes.
Allowed himself to become a jungle gym during movie nights.
The kit climbed him constantly.
“You’re very tall,” she informed him one afternoon while sitting on his shoulders.
“I’ve heard rumors.”
“You smell like laundry.”
“…Thank you?”
The kit nodded solemnly.
“It’s a good smell.”
The dog laughed so hard he nearly walked into a wall.
The fox pretended this arrangement embarrassed her.
“Congrats,” she told the cat once while the dog’s apartment echoed faintly with cartoon theme songs and tiny footsteps. “My daughter likes my ex-boyfriend more than me.”
The cat snorted.
“To be fair, your ex-boyfriend is basically a golden retriever with rent payments.”
“Rude.”
“Accurate.”
The fox leaned against the fire escape railing quietly.
Then, softer:
“He’s really good with her.”
The cat looked over.
The fox’s expression had gone distant.
Complicated.
“She feels safe with him,” the fox admitted.
The cat was quiet for a moment.
Then:
“Probably because he makes safety feel easy.”
The fox looked away immediately after that.
Because yes.
That.
Exactly that.
The dog never tried to replace the kit’s father.
Never overstepped.
Never assumed.
He was simply… there.
Reliable.
Steady.
The kit eventually started calling him whenever something upset her.
Nightmares.
School problems.
Friend drama.
One evening the fox arrived to pick her up and found the kit curled against the dog’s chest asleep while he quietly braided tiny sections of her hair because she’d asked him to learn.
The fox stopped dead in the doorway.
The dog looked up guiltily.
“…She threatened me emotionally.”
The fox stared at the uneven little braids.
“You learned how to braid hair?”
The dog looked defensive immediately.
“She had a tutorial video.”
The fox sat down slowly on the couch beside them.
Something sharp and aching bloomed beneath her ribs.
Not jealousy.
Something sadder.
Because this was the life they might’ve had if they’d met each other healthier.
The kit adored hearing stories about the Titans.
Mostly because the dog told stories like fairy tales.
“And then Uncle Roy fell off the roof.”
The kit gasped.
“Was he okay?!”
The dog nodded seriously.
“Physically? Yes.”
“What about emotionally?”
The dog looked into the distance.
“…Debatable.”
The kit accepted this answer immediately.
One rainy evening the kit asked a dangerous question.
The fox had stepped out to take a phone call, leaving the two alone with coloring books spread across the coffee table.
The kit looked up suddenly.
“Did you used to love my mom?”
The dog froze mid-coloring.
Children were terrifying creatures.
No warning.
No mercy.
The dog glanced toward the balcony where the fox still spoke quietly into her phone.
Then back at the kit.
“…Yeah,” he admitted softly.
The kit tilted her head.
“Do you still?”
The dog smiled faintly.
Dogs were unfortunate creatures.
Love rarely left them entirely once it settled in.
But the shape changed.
The sharpness softened.
The grief gentled.
“I love her differently now,” he said carefully.
The kit considered this with intense concentration.
Then nodded once.
“Okay.”
Apparently satisfied, she returned to coloring her dinosaur purple.
The dog stared at her in awe.
Children processed emotional complexity faster than most adults.
Terrifying.
Later that night, after the kit fell asleep curled sideways across the couch like a dropped blanket, the fox stood beside the apartment window watching rain slide down the glass.
“You know,” she said quietly, “most people would think this whole situation is weird.”
The dog looked over from where he carefully draped a blanket over the kit.
“Probably.”
The fox crossed her arms loosely.
“You don’t.”
The dog smiled softly.
“You’re my friend.”
The fox laughed once under her breath.
“After everything?”
The dog thought about that for a moment.
Then:
“Miriam,” he said gently, “you’re not the worst thing that ever happened between us.”
The fox went very still.
Because she had spent years secretly believing she was.
The dog continued softly:
“You were also movie nights and rooftop talks and making me laugh until I cried and stealing my fries and helping people and…” He smiled a little. “Really bad psychic poker cheating.”
“That was strategy.”
“That was crime.”
The fox looked away quickly after that.
Eyes stinging unexpectedly.
Because sometimes the dog’s kindness felt almost unbearable.
Not because it excused harm.
Because it insisted people could still become more than it.