Damian had no idea what he was doing.

The last time he had any attachment to one dog in particular was when he was little, before all Hades had broken loose and the Ziggurat fiasco started. He would spend more time at family events playing with his cousin's german shepherd than interacting with relatives back then. Unfortunately, the useful information stored in those fuzzy memories was miniscule and he doubted that Jack was going to be any help.

At least he had Google.

What started as an innocent search of information about how to raise a puppy quickly fell into an all-out name hunt. Whether or not Jack let Puppy stay, he needed to have a name while he was here, and Damian was nothing if not horrible at naming things.

"Top 100 most popular male and female dog names" had sounded promising. The only thing that stuck out to him was that Jack was in the top 10 for male dogs.

Probably shouldn't mention that to Jack.

Damian studied the puppy curled up on his bed. Jack tended to name things based off of properties, so maybe that would work? What did this puppy do? He chewed on things, and ate a lot, and ran around.

Damian made a disappointed sound. Puppy's ears perked up and he looked at him. They were shaped like triangles, maybe Dorito? Doritos were triangles.

This was not going well. He buried his face into the mattress and raked his brain to come up with something halfway decent.

"Damian!"

The tone was enough to make him jump. Was Jack still mad at him?

It wasn't until he got up to see what was wrong that he noticed that the spot where Puppy had been sleeping on the floor was empty.

Oh, no.

Damian found him in the living room with Jack, who was holding the remains of a paintbrush between to fingers. "Look at what it did."

Damian could practically see fire in his eyes. "Um, sorry?"

Jack took a long moment to glare at both of them, then sighed and stalked into the kitchen.

Puppy tried to follow him, but Damian grabbed him and carried him outside. "Probably not the best idea you've ever had, little guy."

Maybe there was more to that whole "you need to puppy proof your house" spiel on that one website than he had previously thought. He read the entire article again and made a mental list of things he needed to fix.

…

The moment they went back inside, Damian went on a cleaning rampage.

That in itself wasn't anything unusual. Their cleaning schedule essentially consisted of not doing anything until the mess was too much for one of them to be able to stand any more. Admittedly, Jack tended to snap first, but he wasn't surprised. Things had gotten impressively bad over the time he had been slaving away on his latest masterpiece.

A few hours later, when he walked past Damian attacking the floor under his bed with a broom, Jack was concerned.

"Damian," he walked into the room without a second thought. The door was wide open, a signal for free entry. "What are you doing?"

Damian paused his assault. "Making sure that there's nothing under here that he can get into."

"Who can get into?" Jack asked. As if in answer, Damian's puppy popped out from under the bed and jumped around him. "Oh, that thing."

"Yep. He really seems to like you."

"Joy," Jack muttered and nudged it away with his foot. It just came right back. "How do I make it stop?"

"I don't know. Ignore him, maybe? Getting a dog not to like me has never been something I've wanted to do. You're supposed to be trying to get along with him, remember?"

Jack laughed. "Oh please, if you seriously think I'm going to make an effort to get attached to it, you don't know me nearly as well as I thought you did."

Damian shrugged. "Yeah, well, you didn't think much of me at first either, and look how that turned out." He turned around and shoved the broom back under the bed.

Jack massaged his temples. "When did I become the voice of reason?"

…

It had been a long day, and as happy as Damian was that he had somehow managed to con Jack into keeping Puppy for at least a little while, he just wanted to sleep. Puppy, unfortunately, had other ideas.

Damian groaned and buried his head in his pillow. "Come on, little buddy. We need Jack to like you, and you're not doing yourself any favors."

As expected, reasoning with him didn't work and the whining and scratching at the crate's door continued. Damian glared into the darkness for a few more moments before he dragged himself out of bed, muttering under his breath.

They went outside first. The last thing Damian wanted was to wake up with a mess on his bed. Surprisingly, Puppy actually did sniff the ground, circle a few times, and take care of his business.

"Good boy," Damian told him with a pat on the head. Then he went back to bed and set Puppy on top of the covers. "This is just for tonight."

…

A/N: I still don't own MFB, so I just spend my days thinking of ways to sneak Beyblade jokes into ordinary conversations and yelling at myself for getting new ideas when I refuse to work on the ones I already have. Yayy.

And seriously, Damian and I both have no name picked out for Puppy. My sister, very thoughtfully, suggested Pinecone. Why? I have no idea.