A/N: First and foremost, thank you to all the reviewers. You guys are awesome. On the topic of reviews, please state your opinion on this chapter- I'm not sure if I like it or not, and I'd really like some help. Thanks!
This one took longer to write (pesky normal life getting in the way) but it is long, too, so hopefully that will make up for it. I'm sorry if I use incorrect terminology. Anyways, this one stars Kaldur- and Wally too, of course- tag to episode "Downtime." Originally, I had an idea to do an epic battle scene, where some villian attempts to suffocate Aqualad by covering his gills and Kid would sacrifice his rebreather until Aquaman arrived, but it ended up being too long, so now KF uses his powers this way. As always, I do not own Young Justice.
Summary: They had everything here, except singing crabs.
The more he thought about, the more he was starting to think this was a bad idea. First of all, he was "borrowing" one of Robin's rebreathers with only a vague hope that he was doing it right, and second of all, he really hoped his communicator worked underwater. He'd forgotten to pack a plastic bag to keep it from getting wet.
Third of all, as the rebreather was taking up his entire mouth, there was no way he'd be able to talk, and he'd forgotten to bring something to write on.
Fourth of all, he'd forgotten to tell Kaldur he was visiting- if by "forgotten" he meant having decided this two minutes ago. What if it was a bad time? What if Kaldur wasn't even there?
Nonsense. It was a Saturday in September. What else would he be doing?
Oh, man, What if it was some sacred Atlantean holiday or something? Bad idea, bad idea, abort, abort, abort-
"Recognized. Kid Fla-"
He couldn't quite make out the rest of it as the air surrounding him turned to water. His eyes widened as he quickly turned his goggles to their underwater function, and he whirled his arms around, trying to remain upright as a sense of weightlessness set in. When his goggles adjusted, his eyes widened and he had to remember not to gasp.
Kaldur lived here?
He usually didn't say things like this- but it was beautiful. A concrete-type hallway with complicated statues of merpeople quickly changed into an open walkway with bright blue lamps defining the path. Small aquatic plants already lined the cracks, constantly waving in a nonexistent breeze, and further out he could see larger ones, the size of trees, blowing back and forth. He could vaguely make out the whole dome that defined the city, and even though he knew the dome kept the water pressure light enough that he wouldn't be crushed, he suddenly felt very uneasy, anyways.
Sounds where different underwater that they were in the air, but even through the muffled swooshing sound that came every time he turned his head, he could have sworn he heard giggling.
Uh-oh. People were coming around the corner. If he was going to leave, he had to do so, now.
He occupied himself with looking at a sculpture of a merman holding a trident and did nothing.
A pair of- well, they looking like teenagers- tumbled out into Wally's view. A girl with short red hair and a skimpy outfit was swimming backwards, laughing, as a boy with black hair and a dark blue outfit that loosely resembled Kaldur's chased her, grabbing onto her ankle with his hand. Kid Flash exhaled, letting out a stream of bubbles through the rebreather, and both of them froze, slowly turning their heads towards him.
Well, situation awkward times just about a thousand. Kid guiltily smiled at them, raising a hand in greeting.
When they started to talk, he had no idea what they were saying.
Crap. He hadn't thought of what would happen if they didn't speak English.
"Is… that a-"
"It has to be a surface dweller!" Tula exclaimed, looking eagerly from the boy to Garth. "I wonder what he's doing here?"
"We need to get the king," Garth said, wondering in the back of his mind how she could be so excited about this. "We do not know if he's friendly."
"Well, of course he is friendly, just look at him. Haven't you been working on your surface studies? Do you think you can speak to him?"
The "him" in question was wearing a bright red-and-yellow jumpsuit with an electric bolt emblem on his chest, along with a red pair of eyepieces that masked most of his face. The only parts of him that were visible were the skin below his nose and the top of his head, which was covered in short, red hair even brighter than Tula's. Garth had the distant feeling that he should recognize the boy, although for the life of him he couldn't remember why.
"My surface-speak is far from fluent," he protested, grabbing Tula's arm to restrain her from getting any farther from him, "And, besides, that would not be the appropriate protocol."
She jerked her arm back out of his grip, her bright blue eyes glinting dangerously. "Well, then, what would be appropriate protocol? Interrupting the king himself?"
Garth hesitated, before answering, "I do not know. Kaldur would. Perhaps we can-"
The surface-dweller jumped, clumsily swimming over to them, making wild hand gestures.
Tula gasped in surprise. "Maybe he understands a bit of Atlantean!" she guessed, and started speaking slowly. "Do-you-want-to-see-the-king?"
Garth sighed as the boy took on a blank expression again. "That I doubt," he said, finally placing the boy in his mind. "Kaldur'ahm?" he asked slowly. As anticipating, the boy smiled again, nodding quickly. He turned back to Tula. "This must be one of Kaldur's teammates."
"Kaldur's teammates?" she repeated, her eyes glancing back at the boy, who appeared to be trying to follow their conversation. Garth thought he could detect a bit of jealousy in Tula's voice. "Why doesn't he speak and tell us so?"
"Perhaps he cannot," Garth shrugged, looking over his shoulder to the boy as well. He did not understand how the other received oxygen, but a small stream of bubbles frequently escaped his lips, so he must have a method. Sighing, he swam a length forward and started to speak slowly, in his best surface-speak., making hand gestures as he did so. "We take you…at Kaldur'ahm."
The boy paused, before nodding again and grabbing Garth's hand, moving it up and down a few times while he brought the other up to his chest. Then he turned to Tula and bent over, doing a sort of somersault with his legs fully extended, before straightening up again.
"What's he doing?" Tula whispered.
"I know not," Garth whispered back. "Come," he said in surface speak, indicating the way, watching as the land dweller did an awkward but effective swimming method resembling a frog.
Kaldur would know what to do.
"Kaldur? Kaldur!" the girl called, grabbing hold of a doorframe. Of course, it wasn't even a doorframe, because there wasn't a door inside it. Kid Flash had seen actual doors back where they had been swimming, but in the current area, there were only curtains of seaweed. He supposed this had something to do with water flow, but it probably made privacy difficult.
He sighed in relief as he heard Kaldur's voice answer, letting out more bubbles. The bubble effect was like standing outside in the cold- you could see your breath. Not anything special, unless you were a hyperactive teenager. Then it was constant amusement.
Kaldur brushed aside the piece of seaweed as he swam through the entrance, his eyes traveling over the two others before they landed on KF. "Kid?" he asked, his voice immediately filling with surprise and concern. To Kid's relief, he started speaking English, good English, unlike the other guy's. "What's the problem? Is there an emergency? I had my communicator…"
His voice faded away as Kid Flash shook his head, made gestures to himself, and then a waving motion with his hand, which sent him edging back in the water. He had to work to move forward into his original position without overcompensating.
"You wanted to say hi," Kaldur translated dubiously. Kid Flash beamed and tapped his nose, until he saw a confused expression on Kaldur's face and quickly switched to a thumbs-up.
He waited while Kaldur turned back to the other two kids started to speak Atlantean, hopefully something about how his friend was here for a visit and not this idiot really has no purpose for being here. When he saw the other two teenagers relax, and the girl smiled at him again, he took it as a good sign.
"Wally," Kaldur said, addressing his friend again. He had a small smile on his face. "Forgive me for jumping to conclusions earlier. Your visit in unexpected, but welcome. My friends and I would like to give you a tour of Atlantis."
Wally's face lit up, and he immediately swam over to Kaldur, bumped into him, threw one arm around his shoulders, patted his back below his water-pack thing, and used Kaldur as a rock to push himself away from. Wally glided five feet in the water; Kaldur barely moved.
This was going to be fun.
"What was that?" Tula asked, watching as the surface-dweller struggled to find a position right side up without moving too much.
"Uh," Kaldur said, looking from Wally to his friends.
"He made other signals towards us earlier," Garth added. "Perhaps you could explain? He grabbed my hand and moved it about, and then he somersaulted in front of Tula."
Luckily, he could picture Wally's actions fairly easily in his head and knew what he was trying to do. "The first one is known as a handshake," he said, repeating the action to Garth the proper way. "It is a surface greeting of respect, often performed when meeting someone for the first time. The other, I believe, was my friend's attempt at a bow." He again performed the action the way Wally probably meant for it to come out. "It is…a…" he thought quickly for something other that 'Wally's way of saying he finds you attractive-' "another greeting of respect towards women." Ah, what the heck. Hopefully they'd never find out, anyways. "My friend's greeting towards me is a more informal communication of…" friendship? Thankfulness? How does one describe Wally?
"Brothership," Garth interrupted Kaldur's thought, in English. The surface dweller smiled again, bringing his hands together a few times, then moved one arm back and forth between himself and Kaldur, while pointing the other at Garth and made a fist with the thumb sticking upwards, which he assumed, based on earlier, was a gestured of affirmation.
Kaldur looked at him in surprise, both at the surface-speak and the word he had chosen. Garth finally felt a bit of Tula's earlier jealousy sinking in. He knew what he said was true, that they acted as brothers. He could tell, not just by the way the surface dweller became completely at ease when Kaldur greeted him, but also by Kaldur's small smiles of amusement at his friend's flamboyant actions. It took a lot to earn Kaldur's smiles. Garth never regretted his past actions, but did regret losing his friendship with Kaldur. It hurt a little to see it replaced so easily.
"Brotherhood," Kaldur finally corrected, and then repeated it in Atlantean for Tula's benefit. "Yes, in a way, I suppose. My colleague is a very friendly person; things are different up on the surface. Oh, introductions. Forgive me. Garth, Tula, this is Kid Flash."
Wally, who seemed to be following along (he probably recognized his name), tapped Kaldur's shoulder and made a W with his fingers. Kaldur nodded to him and nodded, "his name is Wally. He is Kid Flash and Wally like I am Aqualad and Kaldur," he added, just to clear up any confusion.
He turned to Wally. "Wally, this is Tula and Garth. They are old friends of mine."
Wally smiled eagerly, turning towards the two of them. He made a lot of quick hand gestures, tapping on his chest, gesturing to Kaldur, the two of them, himself, and then pantomiming a hug.
"What does he mean? Can you actually understand all that?" Tula asked curiously.
He decided it give it his best shot. "Any friends of mine are friends of his," he said. "I think. It's a common expression on the surface." He tapped Wally's shoulder and gestured back down the hall. "Shall we get started?"
It was strange how quickly the surface creature could make her feel alienated in the presence of her two best friends. Of course, he was one of Kaldur's teammates back on the surface, so it made sense that they would be close. Garth, who'd always been more interested in the surface out of the two of them, kept sticking close to the land-boy, trying to study, judge, and learn from him. Moreover, even with his limited knowledge of surface speak at the boy's apparent inability to, the two seemed to get along fine.
For some reason, she had the feeling Kaldur was trying to keep her and the boy away from each other, but she dismissed it, deciding that whatever Kaldur was doing, he had the best of intentions in mind.
Did he still have her in mind?
She wasn't, would never, regret choosing Garth. He was perfect for her, she valued the time she spent with him more than all the pearls in the sea, but…in the back of her mind, she still wondered… at the depth of Kaldur's true emotions for her.
At his original revealing of his plan to sacrifice being Aqualad for her, she hadn't thought much of it at the time. She'd been more worried about her own confession, and then, of course, the attack on Atlantis. While she knew of the existence and importance of Aquaman and Aqualad on the surface, that had somehow seemed far away, insignificant. She hadn't known that Kaldur had made bonds of friendship so strong that it would be considered brotherhood. Yet here it was, evidence in the flesh, that a surface-dweller would visit Atlantis just to spend time with his friend…how much else had Kaldur established on the surface? It couldn't just be a military base for Kaldur. It must have been his second home.
And he'd been willing to give all of that up for her.
"Coming, Tula?"
She looked up from her thoughts. Despite the slow pace they were taking for the surface dweller's benefit, she had still managed to drag behind. "Coming," she answered Garth, giving a few solid kicks to catch up with the rest of them.
It was normal to feel a bit overwhelmed in situations like this, wasn't it?
It was more of a reflex than a decision. As they passed from one chamber to another, (the concept of inside and outside was different underwater) Wally could see a small statue tumble from the fingers of a small, slightly pudgy girl. Getting over there superfast was an impulse. Hey, he could still vibrate his molecules at an exponential rate, so super speed still worked underwater. He wasn't nearly as fast, but it still worked.
He caught the sculpture- he couldn't tell what the white material was, it wasn't marble- with ease, and looked up, trying to swim upright again. Unfortunately, that wasn't so easy. If he had trouble decelerating from running, swimming was about a hundred times harder.
Garth blinked. One second, he had been glancing above the surface-dweller's head to catch Kaldur's eye, grinning at a joke he had made. The next, the surface dweller was gone, and Kaldur was looking in a distant direction in front of them with a grimace on his face.
Garth followed his gaze. The surface dweller, in his flamboyant outfit, was easily to spot. Garth's jaw dropped a little. How had he managed to get way over there? Wally, as he was known, was bouncing around the domed ceiling like a shell in the surf, waving his arms wildly in between trying to get a grip on the surface. Next to him, he could hear Kaldur sigh and mutter, "I shall handle this," and swim up to the ceiling, probably to get his teammates down.
He was barely listening as Topo, the best artist of their generation, came up to him and started rambling nervously. "Garth! What's going on? A yellow blur grabbed one of my coral statues I dropped before it could break. What is it?"
"That is Kid Flash of the surface world," he answered. Tula's hand gripped his arm, probably wondering the same thing. "Kaldur will explain."
"His powers are of movement, yes?" Tula asked, her eyes widening as she watched Kaldur seemingly catch Wally in mid bounce and try to steady him.
"I believe so," Garth answered, ignoring Topo's gasp as he put all the pieces together.
"That must be how he got there so fast," Tula rationalized, narrowing her eyes against the light so she could see the two better, who where swimming downwards. "Look, he has your statue."
For a nonverbal person, Wally certainly did make a fuss first over Topo and his tentacles -if those wiggly fingers did mean tentacles and not gills. Wally had done the same signal on the sides of his neck earlier to mean gills, according to Kaldur. He then spent another twenty minutes examining Topo's coral art (poor Topo was so nervous it would break) before Kaldur declared, "Now might be the best time to conclude your visit, Wally," in surface speak, which Garth found that he could understand most of.
Wally nodded, patted his mouth with his hand a few times, shook Topo's hand, bowed to Tula again, and punched Garth lightly on the arm, smiling at him. Garth smiled uncertainly back, hoping it was another gesture of friendship (the surface seemed to have a plethora of them), and decided to answer with his own gesture back, brining his fist to his forehead in a way he wouldn't normally greet another boy his age, decided it would be exactly was Wally Kid Flash needed.
In return, Wally beamed at him and made a similar signal back. It was almost perfect, if only it had a little less movement and he curled his hand into a fist instead of leaving in back. Next to them, Kaldur shook his head, trying not to laugh, before finally tapping Wally's shoulder and leading the way back to the portal.
By no means was Garth happy that his best friend was barely in Atlantis anymore. He often missed Kaldur's sensible way to thinking and his ability to catch all of his subtle jokes. However, if he was to be replaced by surface dwellers, he was glad to have been able to meet one of them to put his mind at ease. Kaldur had been accepted as a brother to these people. He deserved nothing less.
Tula had seemed distant- and apparently off limits, by Kal's body language- but Garth was pretty cool, from the impression that Wally could gather from his expressions and broken English. That squid person had been a little creepy, but his art had been fantastic. Wally vaguely wondered if he used his tentacles to help him build stuff.
"-Kid Flash. B zero three."
The portal had dried him off a little bit, so he was damp but not soaking wet when he emerged in Mount Justice. He popped the rebreather out of his mouth- souvenir? - as Kaldur stepped out of the portal behind him. It took a few tries to remember how to work his voice again, but as soon as he did, he started to talk.
"Dude. That was the sweetest place I've been to, like, ever! I can't believe it! Why do you choose to spend your time up here? Well, we're lucky to have you, anyways. I hope that didn't cause too much of a commotion. I noticed the people staring as we swam by, and it wasn't because of my looks. Probably yours, bro. Garth- that was his name, right? I don't want to say it wrong- he was hilarious. You hang out a lot?"
Kaldur interrupted right there before Wally could really get into it. "Thank you," he said, standing up straight and observing the hall. No one else was in the main room. "The people know I am Aqualad- I have made a spectacle of myself before this, believe me. Garth enjoyed your company as well. He's one of my closest friends."
Wally nodded and grabbed his goggles, raising them to reveal dull eyes. "That's lucky I ran into him, then. I'm so starved. Wanna go grab a snack?"
"Actually, I have things I must complete at home. You visit was a welcome interruption, and I'm glad you enjoyed Atlantis, but I really must finish. Shall we complete the conversation another time?"
Wally was nodding when a third voice echoed from down the hall. "FINALLY, YOU'RE BACK, YOU FREAKIN' KLEPTOMANIAC!"
Kaldur chuckled at the look on Wally face. He wouldn't want to deal with an angry Robin, either. "Good luck," he said, quickly tapping in his location in the transporter.