-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?"

"Is that...?" Kaldur tried again to meet his mentor's eyes. "I'm supposed to stay here."

"That's broad, come on, let's find some life around here!" Speedy lead the way up the dock.

Kaldur glanced back at his king once more before stumbling after the older boy, his walking still clumsy and difficult. "Where do we go?" He asked.

"I think I saw a taped-off section of the boardwalk, figured I'd check it out." Speedy turned to face the younger boy. "You're coming, right?"

Kaldur wasn't entirely sure what any of that meant, but he knew it was polite to say yes, so he did.

The two boys crept along the nearly-deserted boardwalk, eyeing the shops and stands that were closing up for the night, pieces of strange multicoloured clothing hung on outdoor racks under unnaturally glowing signs he couldn't read. None of the lights around the shore seemed to be bioluminescent, which was surprising to Kaldur, as that was quite common in Atlantis.

"Will they know?" Kaldur unsurely put a hand over his left set of gills.

"Nah, it's fine. You're with me." Speedy said confidently, leading they way to the end of the boardwalk; a bright yellow ribbon stretched across the walkway, a sign infront with a large red symbol, and words in a foreign language that might have been English, but Kaldur hadn't yet learned to read it. "Come on," Speedy ducked under the tape.

"We are allowed?" Kaldur asked, following.

"Sure. So long as we're back before Arrow runs out of steam and notices we're gone." Speedy stepped carefully over broken wooden boards, carefully watching the waves crash against the rocks beneath the boardwalk.

"Aqualad?" He asked. "Kaldur'ahm!"

Arrow glanced around. "...Speedy." He sighed. "That kid will be the death of me."

His relaxed tone contrasted sharply with Orin's. The promise he made to Sha'lain'a echoing through his mind, he'd sworn to her three times that he'd keep the boy safe; once back when he was a baby, once when he came to the conservatory for training, and once when he'd taken on the boy as Aqualad. He couldn't let anything happen to the boy under his care.

The children couldn't be found playing on the rock, so the only option was that they'd headed to the land. Luckily, you can't get very far with an Atlantean without running into issues, so the boys couldn't have gone far.

The shops on the boardwalk were closed and the evening's attendees had dispersed for the night.

"Aqualad?" He called, hoping for the boy to come running (of, as close as he could get to running). 

"Speedy! C'mere boy, we've got work!" Arrow shouted.

They reached the end of the boardwalk, finding the rest ad been taped off, a large sign warning that several of the boards had rotted through.

"Would they dare..."

"Absolutely they would." Arrow stepped over the tape cautiously, sticking to the edge of the the walkway, where the wood was most stable. After a couple turns the boys came into sight, sitting on the edge of the boardwalk. "Speedy!"

"Shit." The boy sighed, standing. 

"How many times do I have to tell you to stay put?" His mentor scolded lightly. It was just a slap on the wrist really, he wasn't too bothered by the boy's antics.

Orin hurried to his student's side. Kaldur stood and saluted, eyes on the floor.

"Kaldur,"

"Sir." He switched to Atlantean: "I did not mean to leave you."

"At ease." His king replied. He gave the boy a once-over. He seemed alright, say for the way his skin became chalky and cracked from the dry air. "Were you aware that you have wandered out of bounds?"

Kaldur shook his head, surprised. "No, sir."

Orin nodded patiently. Kaldur had just followed the other teen, unaware of the dangers of the splintering wood they stood on, unaware of what might happen if somebody saw an Atlantean on land-- Aqualad had yet to be introduced to the human population-- and any bystander could have called the police, assuming he was some sort of unfamiliar ne'er-do-well. 

Kaldur looked up, his eyes trembling in anticipation of his punishment. Aquaman so no point in scaring the boy further. "In future, stay at my side."

"Yes, sir."

Orin turned back to his colleague. "I should return Aqualad to the water before he dries too much."

"Uh, right." Oliver replied. "We should probably get going too."

When Kaldur was fifteen he hadn't grown much physically, but he'd gotten much more comfortable with his mentor. He was still timid and soft spoken, but he'd been coming out of his shell, which Orin was glad to see.

On this particular day they were meeting with Batman regarding a barrel of the Joker's toxin which had been dropped in the harbor and was yet to be located-- and by extension, Kaldur was left with Robin to chat. At this point Kaldur had gotten more proficient in his English and was able to read decently well.

"You get better at this every time we meet!" Robin encouraged. "It took me forever to get good with English." The boys sat on a large flat rock, watching their mentors talk. Robin was quite smaller than Kaldur, being only twelve years old, though Kaldur himself wasn't particularly tall. He'd been exposed to the surface's pressure and gravity, which seemed to be affecting the boys growth, as he was a bit shorter and stockier than other Atlanteans his age.

"Thank you." Kaldur said modestly. "You're being kind, and you are how well in school?" He was fascinated by human schooling; it lasted at minimum twelve years of intensive physical and mental testing, after which the human would split between paths of higher education, or employment. Kaldur wondered which one Robin would pick when he was old enough.

"I'm doing good in school." Robin replied. "Except chem, Kid Flash is helping me with homework, but I got a C on my last test."

Kaldur didn't know what that meant, but Robin sounded discouraged, so he reached out and touched the boy's arm.

Robin let out a little noise. "I forgot how weird your skin feels!" He chuckled. "In a good way, I mean."

Kaldur thought human skin was the one that felt strange: cool and rough and covered in miniscule hairs. Atlantean skin was softer, closer to a whale's blubber than dry leather, and they ran hot so as to keep warm without the sun's light. That being said, Kaldur regularly walked land barefoot, and his soles had developed protective callouses. It was embarrassing to admit but he'd actually been scared when he'd first noticed them, not understanding what they were. His king had quickly assured him it was just his body adapting to the surface.

The boys gradually shifted to watch the men talking. 

"What do they say?" Kaldur asked himself redundantly. The men were speaking fast, too fast for him to fully decipher their words; they all streamed together into an unending patter of syllables. 

"They're talking about how they'll dispose of the Joker's toxin." Robin translated. "Nothing interesting." The boys sat for a moment. "Have you ever seen a Robin?"

Kaldur frowned. "What do you mean by that?"

"Robin's not just my name, it's the name of an animal." The boy took his cell phone out. 

"A land animal?"

"Sort of, it's a bird." The boy held up the bright little screen. Kaldur squinted as the picture came into view; a small avian creature with an orange breast. It looked incredibly strange to Kaldur, as most surface animals did, and it was so unfamiliar to anything he was accustomed to that he was unsettled and almost frightened of the creature. It had soft, delicate frill-like feathers and a beak like a squid, though the beak was right between the eyes. It had two thin legs and two fin-like appendages that they must use to swim through the air.

"Why do you share a name?" Kaldur asked. "You do not look much the same?"

"Oh, uh," Robin shrugged. "My parents used to call me their robin when I was a little kid..." He looked a little sheepish. 

"You are not alone," Kaldur assured. "When I was a small child my parents said I was... how do you say it? They said I was like Smelt, because I was very small."

Robin smiled. "That's why they called me Robin, I was a small kid too!"

"Robin." A firm voice said, the two boys looked up at Batman. Kaldur withered a little under his gaze, though Robin seemed a unbothered.

"What? I was no where close to revealing our identities!" The boy grumbled, standing.

"We need to return to the cave. Say goodbye."

Robin huffed a little. "Bye Aqualad. See you later."

Now that Kaldur was sixteen, things were different. Kaldur had the team now, and though he wasn't so childish as to actually be jealous of the teens, Aquaman couldn't help missing the days when it was just Kaldur and himself. He'd watched the timid boy who'd never even seen the sun grow into quite the determined young man.

Of course, when the team had formed Aquaman had respected his sidekick's want to stand up for himself and the other children, but a small part of him had felt dread: Kaldur on land for hours if not days at a time, not just unsupervised but actively in charge. He wouldn't be there every time to protect the boy, and while he had no doubts regarding Kaldur's skill, he couldn't help worrying.

The incident in Bialya had merely compounded on these anxieties: the boy had been critically dehydrated, it took him nearly a day to fully come around after that, at which point Aquaman insisted he return home for a few days to recover.

So when he'd gotten a call that Kaldur had fainted on his most recent mission, he'd made his way straight to the mountain.

He found the boy sat up with his head in his hands, several fistfuls of bloody tissues on the table besides the gurney. He had an IV sticking out of his arm, though whether that was reactionary or preventative was impossible to tell.

"Aqualad?"

"Sir." Kaldur stood to salute, only for his knees to buckle. He grappled for the edge of the bed, missing and landing hard on the sterile floor of the infirmary.

"Kaldur!" Orin dropped to his knees to check on the boy, who was already fighting to get up. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, Sir." He looked a little bashful, eyes on the floor beneath him.

Orin smiled an eighth of an inch, helping the boy up and back onto the bed. Finally Kaldur raised his eyes. Aquaman was taken aback to see the boy's sclera had been stained a slight orange. "Kaldur'ahm, your eyes."

"Batman said that the change in pressure caused a couple blood vessels to burst." The boy said quickly. He grabbed another tissue and hastily blotted the dribble of blood from his nose. "I promise I am well."

"I don't want to take risks." He said firmly. "You will return to Atlantis with me for the night."

"That won't be necessary." Kaldur assured. "I'm recovered already."

"Your fall says otherwise." His king replied, his mind wandering back to that quietly fussing baby in court that day, his mother desperately soothing him so as not to disrupt the proceedings. "Kaldur, I promised your mother I'd keep you safe."

The boy looked down again. "I know."

"Come now," Orin stood, reaching out to help the boy stand. "You'll feel better after a night at home."