Title: At all costs.
Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice.
Rating: T.
Warning: Spoilers for Season 2, Episode 3.
Summary: Kaldur has something to do. No matter the cost.
When it is discovered that Ocean Master is Prince Orm civil war breaks out in Atlantis.
Kaldur returns home (against his team-mates' wishes – they had pleaded with him to stay with them where it was safe because he would be one of the most obvious 'impure' targets to take out as he is close to the Royals) and goes to aide his King.
Orin does not look well – there is a paleness to his skin that Kaldur has never seen before and grief has etched jagged lines in his face. But when he sees Kaldur he seems to stand a little taller, as if a weight had just been lifted from his shoulders.
"I am glad you are here Kaldur'ahm." Orin whispers, placing a hand on Kaldur's shoulder. "I knew I could rely on you."
And Kaldur knows that he made the right choice.
"Protect my son at all costs."
The civil war seems to come to a resounding halt when Black Manta enters the fray. Because while the Purists and the 'Impure' Atlanteans have their differences Black Manta is a surface dweller, an outsider and much more dangerous than any Atlantean.
"Protect my son at all costs."
Orm comes to Orin and they agree to fight him on together. Mera refuses to let Orin go by himself (she does not trust Orm to watch her husband's back) and so they go to take on Black Manta with Orin and Mera choosing to leave their four year old son to the three people they trust the most.
"Protect my son at all costs."
It is a trap. The moment the Royals have left the City Black Manta attacks. There is just him, Garth and Tula against an entire army and they are losing before the fight even really starts.
When Kaldur awakens, badly wounded in the Healer's Ward, it is to find out that there was nothing but a few tufts of blond hair and blood left of Orin's son.
"Protect my son at all costs."
Kaldur had failed the one person who trusted him the most.
His mother comes to visit him while he is recovering and decides that it's time for the truth.
Black Manta is his father and the fact that he, Kaldur, is loyal to Orin is probably what prompted Manta to kill the King's son. After all, Orin had taken Manta's child so why shouldn't Manta take Orin's?
The moment Kaldur is able to leave the Healer's Ward he flees back to the surface world. Where he does not have to look at the grief-stricken faces of his King and Queen and know it is his fault twice over that their son is dead.
Garth and Tula follow him up there.
"You're mother told us the truth."
"We are your friends. We love you."
"This changes nothing."
"Let us fight together up here – we will stop him."
Their words mean a great deal and it gives Kaldur the courage to continue. But not as he once did. He hands over the tile of Leader to Robin – now Nightwing - and tells him why he has to do so. Nightwing understands in a way Kaldur didn't think he would. He lets them track Manta whenever they have a free moment. And whenever he can their new leader helps them research. Kaldur cannot find the words to truly express his gratitude to the Boy Wonder. But he thinks that Nightwing knows anyway.
Tula dies. Painfully and alone.
Garth, incapable of handling his grief and the mission, goes back home to Atlantis. La'gaan comes to back Kaldur up as the League feels that they are better off with two Atlanteans on Young Justice at the moment. Black Manta is still at large after all.
Kaldur adds Tula to his list of people to avenge and keeps on going because it would have been what she would have wanted. She approved of what he did up here; she would not want him to forsake all those he cared about now.
A routine mission goes wrong. Everyone except Kaldur and Nightwing end up unconscious and that's when Black Manta makes his appearance.
"Last one standing, Kaldur?" Manta asks cheerfully and Nightwing quickly closes his eyes so the man can't see he's awake. Clearly Black Manta had been waiting in the shadows until it was just Kaldur left so he must have some sort of plan. And they both want to see what that plan is so it's better to go along with it. "There's a game I want to play and I think you can help, son."
"Do not address me as such." Kaldur spits out, trying to drag himself upright so he can face his biological father. "And why would I help you after what you have done to those that I care about?"
"Orin's son is still alive and if you want him to remain that way you will do exactly as I tell you." Manta says quietly.
And Kaldur can recall perfectly the look on Orin's face the day the King gave him his last order; "Protect my son at all costs."
So Kaldur knows what he has to do.
"Prove to me he is alive," Kaldur says softly looking past Manta to make sure that Nightwing is looking at him, "and I will do whatever you want to save him."
Nightwing nods behind Manta. He approves. He agrees. So Kaldur takes the hand of the enemy.
It was simple. Manta wanted to make Orin hurt as much as possible. So he took his son, Arthur, (intending to raise him as his own and have him help Manta bring Aquaman down one day) but it wasn't enough. So he decided that he would use Arthur to turn Kaldur against Orin as well.
"As long as you work for me." Manta had said softly, clutching the trembling four year old in his arms. "As you long as you act like my son, as long as you do what I tell you. He not only gets to live but you get to raise him. When Orin comes to 'talk some sense into you' – and he will come - you will act like you hate him, like you blame him. And he will have lost two sons instead of one."
Kaldur nods his assent and takes the sobbing child into his arms. There's some kind of alien bomb strapped to his torso that, if Kaldur tries to remove it or take Arthur outside of the submarine, it will explode. This means that Arthur is stuck here and as long as Arthur is here Kaldur will be too. And there's a horrifying fear filling him up as Black Manta slides his new uniform across the table towards Kaldur.
But Nightwing knows the truth. Nightwing knows that Kaldur is not a traitor. Nightwing will find a way to save them both and, in the mean-time, as long as Black Manta thinks that Kaldur has no one to turn to he will not expect Kaldur to investigate information for his team-mates. Kaldur will be unsupervised around the ship. Kaldur will have one, very small, advantage in this game they are playing. And if he plays this right, he can not only save Arthur but perhaps thousands of lives from whatever it is the Light has planned.
So Kaldur grits his teeth, tucks Arthur under one warm, grasp the suits with other and gets to work.
After three long months of trying to find a moment to leave a message for Nightwing Kaldur finally finds the time, away from the prying eyes of his father's soldiers, to do so. There was a cafe that Dick always went to when he was feeling upset and needed to get away in order to organise his thoughts. A few months into their forays as a team Nightwing (then Robin) took him to the cafe and told him that being Leader didn't look like much fun so sit down, order a coffee and organise your thoughts. Robin had sat opposite him for three hours without saying a word and when Kaldur had finally felt ready to go back to the Mountain Robin had just silently followed him out the door. And so that cafe had become their place to unwind and collect themselves. Their safe haven from the problems of their lives.
It's the perfect meeting point.
Kaldur asks the owner to keep a disk behind the counter and says it's for Dick when the boy next comes in. The man, having known them for years, just shrugs his shoulders and slides the disk under the counter.
When Kaldur goes to have a coffee at the cafe two weeks later it is to find that there is a disk waiting for him from Nightwing. His friend has not told anyone else the truth. If Manta is to believe that the League thinks Kaldur is a traitor then they have to act appropriately. Nightwing doesn't think that the others will be able to act well enough to fool Black Manta (especially Orin who Manta knows fairly well after fighting each other for years) so he is keeping it to himself. It makes sense of course but Kaldur feels a weight settle in the pit of his stomach at the realisation that his King, his Queen, Garth, his mother, the entire team will all think he has betrayed them.
Kaldur finds out as much as he can without tipping his hand. He warns Nightwing about the Kroloteans and their zeta-tubes. And the new alien technology that the Light is getting from somewhere (though he has no idea where.) And while he does all this Arthur grows and matures. Kaldur has started teaching him to write now and every time he achieves something it hurts because his King and Queen are not there to witness their child's progress.
But, Kaldur reminds himself again and again, he is still alive and that is what counts.
Nightwing must not have found the time to go get Kaldur's latest message because the bomb explodes (and Kaldur had made sure to include how to disable it in his last message) and that thought makes him feel sick to his stomach but he goes to report to his father anyway. Manta seems to have got lost in his own game now because, even when it's just the two of them, he keeps calling Kaldur son and talking about how proud of Kaldur he is. The blond goes along with it because it just seems like the easier thing to do but today he is exceptionally glad that his father is called away because he doesn't think he can keep up the charade for long after what has just happened. The moment he can Kaldur rushes back to his quarters where he throws up because he may have just killed his friends.
He spends the next twenty-four hours watching Arthur talk and write and play and sleep and reminds himself why he is doing this.
"Protect my son at all costs."
He has a job to do.
Nightwing apologies in his next disk. For not getting the information, for not saving the Kroloteans. But Kaldur knows the blood is on his hands. He set the bomb that killed them after all. So far he has managed to avoid killing anyone but now . . . now he feels like he has taken one small step towards actually becoming his father.
It's harder to pretend when he faces his team-mates than he thought it would be. Superboy yells at him, anger and betrayal written in his eyes and it hurts. Because he had spent so long trying to help Conner come to terms with his anger issues and to know that he's reduced the clone back to this state again is just . . .
And it's there on all their faces, new friends and old, that he is wounding them just by standing before them. But he keeps on going. Because he has to. Nightwing will work out how to disable the alien bomb that has been strapped to Arthur eventually. And then he and the others will come for Kaldur and Arthur. Until then all Kaldur has to do is wait and listen and . . . obey orders.
He can wait. He can survive this. Because he has a job to do.
"Protect my son at all costs."
And he will do it, no matter the cost.
End At all costs.
So this is me protesting because I don't want Kaldur to have abandoned the team and his King.