More Young Justice Trash

The Loyal Apprentice

-I'm fudging the official timeline for this AU, I'm assuming most of you won't notice but I just wanted to say: I know.-

Orin had been aware of Kaldur'ahm's existence since before he started his career as Aqualad, when the King Orin was still Prince Orin, and he was yet to take the Aquaman title, this was before his mother passed. 

One day a couple had come to court, a baby clasped to the woman's chest. Both were exhausted. The man was a human, mutilated and genetically engineered, with gills carefully grafted along his throat. He pleaded for his life, admitting that he'd worked for Black Manta, and that he was trying to escape with Manta's mistress, a handsome Atlantean native. The two knew they knew they would be living in poverty, but all they asked was for the baby's protection. 

The baby was Manta's. 

That had been the first thing to catch Orin's interest. 

And while he personally didn't do much at the time, he'd helped the man, Calvin Durham, find a relatively secure job in exchange for as much information as the couple could give. The woman, Sha'lain'a, had wept, desperately trying not to wake the baby, as she thanked them.

He wouldn't see that child for nearly thirteen years.

When it came down to it Garth would have made a good sidekick, but Orin was glad Kaldur had been the one to accept his offer. 

When Kaldur accepted his place of Aqualad he was barely fourteen, and at the time, he seemed like quite the child to Orin; sure, he learned quickly and worked very hard, but he was still shy and distant, always escaping into his mind when things became too much for him. It was clear the boy was used to thankless labor and masking the exhaustion.

Around that time Orin had been bringing Kaldur up to land more often. He'd said it was so that the boy could be more helpful by learning about the surface, and by meeting the other heroes, but that wasn't the entire truth; some of Manta's men had attacked a military base a few days prior, and Sha'lain'a had begged him to get her son as far away from Atlantis as possible until things calmed down. They couldn't risk Manta taking revenge on those which had betrayed him, and if that did happen, they couldn't risk him coming after Kaldur.

His meeting with Kid Flash had been unplanned, but the boys seemed to have gotten along, so they'd been encouraged to let him meet Robin. Robin had been delighted with the new friend, and despite the language barrier the boys had found a way to communicate.

Speedy he was worried about, the boy was sixteen, and had a much rougher edge to him than Robin or Kid Flash. He foresaw the demure, good natured Aqualad falling victim to Speedy's edgier influence. 

"Aqualad, huh?" The scrawny teen looked him up and down. Roy barely had three inches on Kaldur, but those three inches seemed to affirm his social status as the older teen. "cool, I guess."

Kaldur nodded politely. "The Speedy?" He asked.

"Yeah." He eyed Kaldur again. "So like, how old are you anyway?"

Kaldur's brow furrowed slightly as he thought, eventually replying "Four-and-ten."

"You mean fourteen?" Roy asked, shaking his head in slight amusement. 

"Yes, I believe." Kaldur looked around unsurely for his mentor, but Orin had just gotten cornered by Oliver and had more important things on his plate.

"I'm sixteen, six-and-ten." Roy held out his hand and Kaldur timidly took it, he was only just learning human culture and still found these things foreign and unfamiliar. Roy laughed uncomfortably, pulling his hand back. "So, what do you say we ditch those two?"