Story Note(s): This is a tribute to Kaldur Week (from Sept 29/30 – Oct 7, yes it's more than a week). I decided to just shove my updated version of Maelstrom in there for the first day. Shhhh, I cheated.

The titles for each chapter will be the prompt provided for the day.

All characters, settings etc associated with Young Justice and DC are not owned by me. I merely own the plot and unfamiliar characters/organizations and am not making any profit off this fiction venture.

Chapter Rating: T (for bullying)

Chapter Synopsis: Kalla begins to stop trying to be friends with the kids who do the hurting but are never hurt themselves. [Oneshot – fem!Kaldur and Calvin Durham]

Verse: YJ-Maelstrom (wherein Kaldur is a cis female, and there's lots of history created by moi)

Chapter Warning(s): physical/verbal bullying

Tiresome

oOoOo

tire·some

[tahyuhr-suhm]

adjective

1. causing or liable to cause a person to tire; wearisome: a tiresome job.

2. annoying or vexatious.

oOoOo

Kalladura'ham approaches the other kids at school, smiling, waving, every single week. She brings a "new" toy usually. Sometimes it's an Atlantean toy that was charmed specially, and those days are always fun, but the truly special days are when she brings a surface-world toy. Despite what the parents of the other kids say – the surface-world is dangerous, the surface-world is scary, the surface-world is primitive – they're still kids and the foreign toys are new and exciting.

She brings a plastic toy train one day. It doesn't work as well underwater, but there are no trains in Atlantis like the ones on the surface-world so the other kids are excited by it anyway. Kalla's cousin, whom she got the train from, hasn't played with it since she was 8 and when she claimed it was a "little kid's toy." Kalla stopped playing with it then, trusting her human cousin's greater knowledge of all things surface-world to advise her on appropriate toys for nine-year-old human girls. The Atlantean kids don't care what some human kid says about it though. It's new, it's exciting, it's colourful, and therefore it gains their attention.

Kalla bites her tongue when they take the toy train from her after school. She doesn't protest when they declare that even though surface-dwellers are "primitive and uncultured" – the kids don't know what that means, but their parents said it so it must be true – they make good toys. Kalla doesn't explain how the train is supposed to be used, how it works on the surface. She doesn't offer to bring out a tablet with the photographs of trains that Calvin got for her. She just watches as the kids marvel over the new toy, a hopeful smile spreading across her face. Maybe today they'll even let her play with them!

Soon though, the kids are swimming away with the toy train in their hands. Kalla remains by the school, her eyes slowly widening as the kids get further and further away, her cousin's toy gripped tightly in their hands.

"Wait!" she shouts, flinging her hands into the air, desperation piercing her words. "Wait!"

She's never been able to shout very loud though. She's never been very loud at all, and the exciting kids usually ignore her anyway. They don't like her gills or her webbing, and some of them even dislike her hair. She's heard lots of them call her a know-it-all, but she just does her homework and enjoys reading about stuff that happened in the past! Why does that make her a know-it-all?

Before she's realizing what she's doing she's swimming after the other kids. They're laughing now. They've separated the caboose and engine from the rest of the train cars, and they're slamming them against the rocks. They're making noises that they think are the noises real surface-world trains make and they're yelling. They're shouting. They're loud.

"They're invading Atlantis!"

"Take them down!"

"Make it explode!"

Kalla doesn't like shouting. She remembers people shouting when she was little. The memories are vague, blurry, but she remembers people shouting, she remembers Matim picking her up, concern twisting her face, and urging Kalla to be quiet. She remembers gunshots and fights. She remembers that whenever there was shouting when she was little she was always scared and confused, uncertain.

Kalla doesn't like shouting.

But that's her cousin's train. She'll shout to keep it safe, so she does, "You're breaking it!"

Sha'ran, the leader of the gang of kids, scoffs at her. He rolls his eyes and holds up the engine he was just attacking with a blast of poorly controlled magic, "We're not breaking it. We're saving Atlantis."

"But-"

"We're saving Atlantis from the Humans on the train," he says, as if she's an idiot. "They're gonna put toxins in our homes and make everyone sick, and then they'll keep taking our food until they start eating us," he leans toward his friends, plastering on a frightening expression.

"Humans aren't gonna eat us," Kalladura'ham protests as his friends display mock fright. "They just need to learn how to fish properly. That's all. Can I have the train back, please?"

"No. It's mine now."

Kalla can feel dread seeping through her body. Calvin told her that she could take the train to school as long as she only took it out afterwards and brought it back home in pristine condition. She can see dents in the plastic, though scratches on the wheels, and the engine is being burnt. Kalla knows that isn't pristine condition. It looks terrible.

"But I need to bring it back," Kalla objects weakly, reaching out for the train. "I need to bring it back to my cousin."

"Your human cousin," Sha'ran hisses. "Your cousin is stupid."

Kalla knows she shouldn't do it but she hates it when people insult her family.

She shouts and grabs for the engine in Sha'ran's hand, "She is not!"

He drops the engine and punches her in the gut, a grin on his face. He had been trying to make her angry. It's the second time this week.

She buckles over but instantly ignores the pain. She darts around Sha'ran and leaps into the group of kids. Her hands wrap around the caboose and a middle car when Sha'ran shouts and suddenly two of his friends are on top of her.

She knows she isn't supposed to use her magic against them. She knows Matim said to only use the fighting stuff she taught her on the bad guys. And these are her classmates so they aren't bad. They can't be. They're her friends, almost. Right?

She blocks the blows to her head and takes the ones to her belly. When the attacks finally stop she can feel bruises forming on her stomach and forearms. Someone kicked her in the thigh and a bruise is forming there as well. She pushes herself up, hearing the kids swimming away, laughing. They don't notice her getting up. Or, they don't care.

Kalla doesn't particularly care. The pieces of Pansy's toy train are scattered two metres in front of her and she knows that even though Pansy claimed she didn't care about the toy, she does. She'll be hurt if she doesn't get it back, in perfect condition or not. With that in mind, Kalla quickly gathers the pieces of the toy train, glances back in the direction Sha'ran and his friends went, then goes the opposite direction. She takes the long way home, through alleys and back paths. She doesn't want to have to answer questions from people or endure their stares, either because of her hair or her bruises and surface-world toy. She just wants to go home.

"Kalla, how was-" Calvin stops abruptly upon seeing the nine-year-old in the entry. Her forearms are bruised and while she's holding the pieces of the toy train she's also holding her belly gingerly. Immediately, he takes the pieces of the toy train from her and crouches, "What happened? Who did this to you?"

"I fell," she explains.

"No you didn't," he says, examining the bruises on her forearms. "Was it the kids at school again?"

She doesn't say anything so Calvin takes that as a yes.

"Come on, let's get you cleaned up. Where's your schoolbag?"

Kalla's eyes widen. She looks at the floor, "I-I forgot it at school. I was trying to get the train back and I left it there."

"That's okay. We can pick it up later and explain to your instructor why you couldn't do any homework. They took the train?"

"Yes," Kalla nods, giving up the attempt to claim she fell. "They would not give it back, even when they started pretending that it was attacking Atlantis and they started attacking it back so now it's broken too."

"It'll be fine, Kalla," Calvin promises, hugging her tightly. "Pansy isn't gonna care. She just wants you to be okay. Why do you try and hang out with those kids anyway? They hurt you. Friends don't do that."

"I…because I…I want to," Kalladura'ham says. "No one hurts them. I do not…I do not want to be hurt so if I'm with them then I won't be hurt."

"But they hurt other kids don't they?"

Kalla nods.

"If you become a part of their group don't you think that they'll just make you hurt other kids?"

"Um...maybe?"

"Do you want to hurt other kids?"

"No."

"Then you know what you should do, right?"

Kalladura'ham nods, not wanting to resign herself to spending the next couple years alone or with the kids who get hurt, but aware that if she doesn't then she'll just hurt other people. She doesn't want to hurt other people.

Calvin squeezes her hands comfortingly, "Come on, let's get you cleaned up and then we'll have some fun."

"Calvin…I'm tired of trying to be their friend. Of being hurt by them. How-how do I stop without them hurting me or other kids?"

"I'll help."

Kalladura'ham nods mutely, accepting that for the moment as he lifts her up, "M'kay. Thank you Calvin."

"No prob, Princess."

A/N: I find bullying and being nice to people who aren't nice to you rather tiresome. So.

Hope you enjoy!