-ahfsmbgeuk perfect reaction image^^-

-Inspired by a real life hurt-comfort scenario that happened to me-

Ages:

Damian - 21

Tim - 19

Roy - 17

Jason - 16

Kaldur - 14

Wally - 13

Dick - 11

"Do you think you can manage?"

"I think so, sir. Thank you." He muttered.

"Red Robin and Nightwing can contact me if you need."

"Thank you."

"We'll be back in a few hours. I believe the others are training, so just try to keep up."

"Alright."

"Don't let yourself dry up. Drink lots of water and ask to go to the pool if you need it." 

"Yes, my king."

"Alright, be good." Aquaman squeezed his shoulder. He didn't like leaving Kaldur unattended on land. Kaldur didn't like being lest alone on land either, but he wanted to try it anyways.

The mentors left them in the mountain. Kaldur waunered, leaning with his hand on the wall. This place was so big, and the people were strangers.

"JAYY!"

"ROYY!" The teens embraced. Making Kaldur start from the load noise.

"DUDE, ITS BEEN A HOT MINUTE!" Speedy exclaimed. "Ungrounded?"

"Yep! Ungrounded?"

"Yeah!"

Kaldur glanced around, leaning harder against the wall, wide-eyed. He watched red hood and speedy chatting each other up. Kaldur looked around for a safe place to situate himself.

"Hey! Water kid! You're the new kid, right?" Kaldur froze up as red hood addressed him. "Here, RedRo and Demon are coaching Wally and Rob Today, you should join them!"

"Yeah. hey, I'm speedy, thats Hood. Nice to meet you." Speedy said. "Welcome to the sidekick crew, I'm sure you'll hate it here." He laughed, Kaldur wasn't sure why. "C'mon, Let's get you to the gym with the other baby heroes."

Kaldur tried to keep up as he was lead to a room with a large matted floor. "Rim Tim Timmy!" Red hood yelled. "We got a new one."

Red Robin left Kid Flash and strode over. "Hey kid. Aqualad, right? Welcome!"

"Hello." Kaldur murmured.

"I'm working with Wally, and Damian's working with Dick, you can just join whichever group you want." The young teen boy stared back blankly. "Uh, you wanna join Nightwing and Robin's group?"

"Yes please." He replied quietly.

"Great!" Tim guided him over. "Demon, you get the New kid."

Nightwing watched Aqualad closely in the corner of his eye. "You keep him. You're doing amateur stuff with Wallace. I'm coaching Richard on valuable techniques."

"He's new. He'll be jumping around to find his niche." Red Robin defended. "Here, don't worry about being caught up. Just try to follow along and mark it, andyou can join another group whenever."

"I understand. Thank you." He said, timidly joining the duo.

"Hi Aqualad." Robin waved a little. "Are you training with us?" He gave a tiny shrug.

"We're going to be working on advanced tactile movement. You can try to keep up. Robin? Stretch." Nightwing ordered.

"This is how to stretch." Robin started on his left side, demonstrating. Kaldur did his best to follow along.

———————————————————————————————-

He couldn't keep up, Robin and Nightwing were so fast!

Kaldur shuffled to the side, sitting down to rest in the corner hallway. He hugged his legs. Gravity on land made him so heavy, his legs were heavy and his arms were heavy, and he could barely hold his balance. 

He was slow, physically underdeveloped from a lifetime underwater. He could barely stand, let alone jump or run; if he tried, he'd start breathing too hard and his throat would dry and crack, and he'd inhale his blood.

Everyone here was so fast and strong, and he couldn't even run, he could barely lift his own weight, and his balance and agility was lacking. Not to mention that his only skill, his sorcery, was useless without any water nearby.

"You okay?" Robin asked, squatting next to him. "Are we going too hard?" Kaldur shook his head. "Cramps? Drink some water and take a break, that's what I do!"

"Robin!" Nightwing called. 

"Oop- BRB." Robin pat the teens shoulder and skipped back on the floor.

Kaldur's eyes stung, and he felt his nose tingle painfully. He must be dehydrated again. Shakily, he opened a bottle and took a swig. He'd only just drained it when he was met with a strange feeling. The refreshing sensation of water in isolated areas of his face. Did he spill his water? 

Kaldur raised his wrist to find to source of the dampness, when he noticed his lips trembling. He was crying. You don't notice tears underwater.

His face grew wetter and wetter. Scared of crying himself dry, Kaldur shook open another bottle and drained it in seconds.

There were so many things you noticed on land, you never heard anyone make noises like this under water! It was muffled. He worked hard to stifle his sharp sniffs and chokes. He didn't notice the sparring stall.

"Did I hurt you?"

Kaldur looked up, seeing Nightwing clearly through the tears. "I'm sorry." He didn't know what to do about the tears, no one noticed them under water.

"Do you need help?" He asked gruffly, aloof manner hiding his concern.

Kaldur shook his head a little. "I am well. Thank you." He snuffled violently, clapping his hands over his mouth and nose to shut himself up. He then remembered that he needed them to breath up here, and tried to take a breath, hiccupping viciously. Thats new.

"I'm going to coach Robin. Stay put until I'm back." Nightwing's voice softened a semi-octave.

"Yessir." He sniffled.

Nightwing sent a miniature glance, and returned to the floor, addressing Robin again.

Robin was about three years younger than him, but he was so capable. He could move and speak and understand. He was comfortable everywhere. He practically swim in the air, that's what it looked like to Kaldur, anyways. 

Even Kid Flash could run. Even Speedy was agile and Swift. All of them were reasonably strong, reasonably smart... Kaldur could barely walk unassisted.

He wanted to go home. He wanted to go back to where he was strong and fast and smart. But... he didn't want to give up and go home. He didn't want to return to his family and friends having given up on a once-in-a-lifetime possibility because it was hard.

He just didn't want any of it. It was all too hard.

"You homesick or something?" Robin asked, sitting next to him. He paused. "...I get it. I still get homesick sometimes." He paused again. "...were we being too hard on you? We can do easier stuff if you want. It's not that bad." He watched Kaldur closely. "What's up?" He reached across and wiped Kaldur's face.

Kaldur followed his demonstration, wiping his own cheek. That was something he hadn't thought of. Water had never been inconvenient before...

"Thank you." He sniffed, feeling the preteen lean into his shoulder.

Nightwing approached, water bottle swinging from one hand, and a keyring in the other. "Let's go sit in the Car."

———————————————————————————————-

Kaldur was lead towards what he could only assume was a car: a large metallic machine with four what seemed to be doors.

"Let's hop in the back." Robin said, opening one of the doors and tugging him in, onto a padded bench in the back, decked with hanging straps and odd-shaped buckles. "What's up?" 

Nightwing took one of the two seats in the front, leaning back to look at them. Kaldur was careful not to let his tears soil the clean leather-like seat.

"Are you hurt externally or internally?"

"That means 'do you feel bad here or here'?" Robin explained, tapping his head, and then his body." Unsurely, Kaldur'ahm touched his head. "What's wrong?" The younger boy asked. "Why are you crying?"

Kaldur did his very best to explain. "I- I am bad- not good feeling- feeling good." He studied Robin's face for any sign of recognition or understanding. As the boy stared blankly, Kaldur felt another shaky sob rise through the lump in his throat. The gasp made his whole body shudder.

"What's wrong?" Robin asked again quickly, grabbing his shoulders.

"Wait." Nightwing left the seat ahead of them and walked around the car, opening the very large door at the back. He rifled around, and eventually returned, opening the door closest to Kaldur, and reaching some instrument across to Robin. "Try this."

Robin squealed a little and flipped a few switches. He spoke into it and held the device up to Kaldur, grinning as a robotic voice, like that from the zeta tube, translated his question into relatively fluent Atlantean.

Kaldur, upon prompting, muttered unsurely into the device. Sure enough, it spoke in the same surface language he was learning:

"Things are harder on land. I'm not talented as I am at home."

Kaldur had to assume that was an accurate translation of what he said.

"How? You're talented." Robin said, letting the translator fill in the blanks in the teen's vocabulary.

Kaldur gave his best answer, and monitored Robin and Nightwing's reactions unsurely as they listened to the translation: "I used to be good at home, good enough to be aqualad, but now I'm bad. I'm not anywhere near average."

Nightwing spoke to Kaldur directly. "You've learned how to stand, walk, and speak in two weeks. You'll catch up quickly. Red Robin couldn't land a sigle hit four years ago, you'll adapt to it." Kaldur shied from the eye contact, Nightwing maintained it the whole time, even while the device repeated his words.

Kaldur felt several more tears shoot down his face. "Th'nk you." He muttered in his new, shaky English.

Nightwing just turned away.

"Yeah, plus we're friends now! So I'll teach you ANYTHING you don't know." Robin said proudly, putting down the device and leaning over to hug him. Kaldur accepted the embrace hesitantly. Robin didn't break it. 

"Do you want to go for a drive?" Nightwing asked. 

"Yeah! Aqualad, is this your first time in a car? You're going to love this!"

———————————————————————————————-

The drive was fantastic! Kaldur had never felt anything like it, he was moving so fast, but felt perfectly still. The land flashed by, he could see other cars, and buildings far off. There were humans, and other animals he'd never seen. sometimes the Car would jolt, and he got scared, but excited.

Robin showed him how you could pull the widows down and stick your head out. It made it hard to breath, but felt so new and wonderful.

Kaldur felt better as he stepped out of the vehicle. That was the fastest he'd ever gone on land. His skin was practically glowing from the sun that had glared through the tinted window. Sun was new too, they don't have that back home.

"Fun, right?" Robin asked. "C'mon, Let's find KF! Maybe lunch is ready!"

Kaldur stumbled over his feet, trying to keep up as Robin towed him through the building back to the training rooms.

"Wally! Let's get a snack." Robin called. Kid Flash zipped over.

"Where'd you go?" The red haired boy asked. 

"On a drive. Come on! We should get Aqualad some human food!" Robin grinned. "Jay! Roy! Can we have some snacks?"

———————————————————————————————-

When their mentors returned, the boys were in the pool area. Dick and Wally were tossing dry cereal into each other's mouths, while Kaldur leaned on the edge on the sensory deprivation tank (the closest thing this base had to a saltwater pool), picking cautiously around a dish of dry corn flakes.

"You kids have fun?" Barry asked, looking over them."

"Uh huh!" Wally caught a cheerio in his mouth and pumped his fist in celebration. "Tim showed me how to point your foot ballet-style without it sickling. Wanna see?"

"Sure." His uncle stooped, grabbing some cereal for himself.

"Kaldur'ahm, did you have fun?"

He sank his neck a little lower to let himself inhale the water, and nodded. 

"We had SO much fun. Aqualad ran a bit, and He's good." Dick reported. 

"Good job." Arthur pet his head gently. "Are you ready to go home?"

"Yes please." He said shyly, crawling out of the pool. 

"Come on, Let's go." He helped his sidekick up. "Did you make friends?"

"Yes sir." Kaldur replied.

"Good. Come on."