It was the accusations that were making Kaldur, Aqualad again, guilty.
Most of them were silent and the ones that were spoken out loud were never told to him ("Everything's great, Kaldur. No need to worry."), but he could still tell that they were there.
It had never been Dick's plan for him to go undercover as Black Manta's son (he felt a stab of pain as he remembered the absolute heartache and denial his father felt who, despite being a horrible villain, was a great father), but his when Tula (and it still hurt to even think her name) had died. Kaldur ("All about the sacrifice," Dick had told him once) had known that more of their teammates (Brothers, he thinks, remembering the tears that Dick had let out silently at Jason's funeral) were going to die without more information. Artemis was never going to get information from either her father and her sister, despite the fact that her sister seemed to almost blur the line between hero and villain with great skill, and Conner was never going to find anything out from Luthor. Pondering this, Kaldur finally realised that they could send someone undercover, but that someone would have had to be him. Artemis and Wally had already retired at this point; Conner, despite having calmed down, was still too emotional; M'gann had already started changing into the fierce warrior who did not care about the minds of the enemies, which Kaldur was feeling somewhat guilty about because he could see the warning signs but chose to ignore them; Dick was too important to the Team to go undercover; and the rest of the Team had been too inexperienced.
So, in front of Tula's memorial, he spun the wild plan he had and, with great reluctance on Dick's part, had managed to make him agree. It had also been his decision to keep the plan within the two of them, which was giving Dick now and had given him grief all those years ago.
"Why do you not want me to tell them that the undercover operation was my idea?" Kaldur had asked Dick once, seeing more silent accusations in everyone's eyes.
Dick had smiled gently then. "I never should have agreed to the plan and that makes everything that has happened partially my fault."
"But the blame is mine and mine alone," replied Kaldur, confused. Why was Dick to blame for anything that had happened?
Dick had smiled, this time a more bitter smile, and had changed the subject.
(Later, when the dust settled and Dick had to quit the team to get away from the memories, Kaldur had made sure to tell Dick that Wally's death was not his fault.)
Kaldur heard shouting from Mal, now Guardian, towards Dick, yelling at him for keeping the undercover operation a secret. He stayed on the outside of the room, not even pretending to not be eavesdropping and stared silently at Mal when he left the room.
"It's so good to see you not evil, man," Mal stated with a smile before walking off.
Kaldur silently walked into the room that Mal had deserted, seeing the defeated posture in Dick's stance. He placed his hand on one of Dick's shoulders and could feel Dick relaxing, but putting up his usual walls, with his touch.
Before, Kaldur had been the one to silently burden his shoulders and Dick had been the one to lighten it with some advice and a joke. Now, it was Kaldur's turn to lighten the burden on Dick's already worn shoulders.
AN: I'M SORRY I MADE MAL THE JERK TO YELL AT DICK. I couldn't think of another person that hadn't done it in the show. And I hope this wasn't horrible. :/
Written for this thing: . ?page=3 where the prompt was "Dick/Kaldur (friendship); everybody thinks the mission was originally Dick's idea, but it was actually Kaldur's. They never set the record straight."
