I had no idea that people were actually interested in my Rose/Kaldur fic, and someone asked me for the link to it. Since it’s on Wattpad, and everyone apparently hates Wattpad, I figured I’d post an excerpt here so you guys can decide if you want to brave the orange or not.
Rose didn’t know what to expect. The Light was an underground organization of villains who managed to keep themselves hidden from all major governments and from the Justice League for quite a while.
Instead of being instantly admitted to the Light’s top-secret central headquarters, Rose, Tara, and Slade left their bunker in the Nevada desert and flew out to Hawaii to meet with Black Manta, another Light hopeful. Slade said that Savage said that the two groups would have to partner up and work together to prove their way into the Light. To say the least, Rose was not looking forward to it. But at least now she’d get the chance to teach Tara some people skills, even if her own were somewhat lacking.
They dropped their stuff off in the hotel room, and then Slade donned a civilian tourist disguise to meet Manta at the rendezvous point, instructing Rose to take Tara out to the local market to finally get some fresh food to eat.
Tara snacked on a snowcone and frozen pineapple chunks while Rose looked through the freshly fried pork and the potato-like starch they had at a certain seaside stall, trying to figure out what to make for dinner.
“Why don’t we get some sushi?” Tara asked, looking at the next stall over.
Rose shrugged. “Well at least I won’t burn it that way.” She admitted. Sushi wasn’t really her thing, and she’d been craving pork for a month now, but Slade rarely let them leave the bunker, even for grocery shopping, unless they had a job.
She stole a pineapple chunk from Tara, snacking on it as she added a box of sushi to her bag and paid the vendor.
“Go grab a pack of bottled water,” she instructed Tara.
“Can we get ice cream?” Tara begged.
“I got you your dessert already, now go get the water!” Rose barked. Tara skipped off with a grin anyway, licking up the rest of her rainbow snowcone.
Rose sighed and looked out over the dunes towards the beach, where other kids her age were tanning, surfing, and swimming without a care in the world.
She wondered if she'd be doing something similar with Grant and Joey if they were still alive, but considering who her father was, that was highly unlikely.
Rose examined a pineapple, trying to figure how to tell if it was ripe or not. The three of them usually just ate whatever was available, but being assassins meant that they had to eat healthy, and as servants of the Light, they had a steady pay, and thus didn’t have to worry about where the next paycheck would come from. They could buy whatever they wanted to eat.
She finally grabbed the pineapple off the top of the pile and tossed a five dollar bill to the vendor, looking around to see if Tara had gotten the water yet, or if she needed help.
She sighed, realizing that Tara was farther off than she expected, but then she spotted someone else of interest.
He was tall, wearing shorts and sandals and an open button-up shirt like all the ones covered in Hawaiian flowers that tourists loved so much, but his stiff shoulders and perfect posture weren't signs of a tourist relaxing in one of the hottest vacation spots in the world.
She noticed some faint, dark runes tattooed on his arms and legs, and the skin on his neck looked a little loose for one of his apparent muscular build. Atlantean markings.
What the heck was an Atlantean doing here? They were supposed to be wary of those who didn't live underwater as they,with the exception of Aquaman and his sidekicks, who helped the famous Justice League and their covert operations team protect-
That was it.
Slade would kill her for being so slow on the uptake.
If Aqualad was in Hawaii, the rest of the Justice League’s 'covert’ team wouldn't be too far behind.
She had to find Tara and warn Slade that their meet-up with Black Manta might have to be rescheduled.
She forced her shoulders to relax as she zig-zagged through the crowd. She didn't want to let Aqualad notice that she had noticed him and follow her, though she knew that he would never risk a confrontation with all these innocent civilians in the way.
Or maybe he would, she realized, feeling a heavy hand squeeze her shoulder.
“Pardon me, Ravager.” He whispered.
Atlanteans were about ten times stronger than an average human, but neither Rose nor her father were average humans. She grabbed the hand on her shoulder, lifting it up over her head and tossing it into the cement sidewalk, taking Aqualad with it.
People backed up as Aqualad was nearly thrown on top of them, and others screamed as they saw the dent in the cement. Rose was already running in the other direction, hoping the Junior Justice League members would look after their leader instead of chasing her.
Tara suddenly appeared in front of her, eyes widened as the crowd parted like the Red Sea to let the wild, white-haired girl through.
“Rose, what's going on?”
“There you are!” Rose answered, grabbing Tara by the arm, dragging her and her six pack of bottled water through the maze of a marketplace.
“Rose,what did you do?” Tara's voice squeaked.
Rose glanced back over her shoulder, seeing Aqualad already recovered and running after them.
“We gotta warn Slade and Manta, we got company.” Rose growled, taking a sudden series of sharp twists and turns in an effort to lose the loyal-to-a-fault Atlantean.
Of all the days to leave her swords behind.
They found and alley connecting two streets, in between an ice cream shop and a music store. Rose pushed Tara in front of her, breathing heavily as they ran to escape.
Before they could make it to the next street over, a dozen ninja-like figures in sleek black clothing jumped down from the rooftop, aiming laser guns at the two girls. Now these weren't Justice League.
“Great,” Rose growled, shoving Tara behind her again and giving her the food to hold onto.
Slade could easily take out fifty heavily-armed men in two minutes. Rose was lucky to take out that many in half a day. Normally, taking down a dozen ninjas would be nothing but time-consuming, but protecting Tara threw a wrench into Rose’s calculations, and these were long range weapons. If they tried to run, they'd be taken down. The only option was defense.
She lashed out at the closest ninja with a kick to the jaw, hitting another in the head with her red flip-flop. Normally, that wouldn't be very harmful, but it was the velocity that took him down.
She grabbed a couple water bottles from Tara, using them to knock two more behind the knees and in the gut. Surprisingly, the plastic held.
“Good purchase!” She told Tara, tossing a bottle up in the air and catching it again.
“I...I didn't get to pay for it, actually.” Tara wrung her hands nervously, standing back against the wall. Anytime one of the ninjas tried to get close to her, Rose whacked them in the neck with one of her bottles. Her father always told her that protecting Tara was to be her biggest priority, no matter what. There was too much invested in her.
Rose shrugged. “Who cares?”
Once more, someone behind her reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling the water.
“I was unaware that Deathstroke and Ravager had stooped to stealing water,” Aqualad said calmly.
Before Rose could break his grip, he held his free hand out towards the bottles in hers. The icons on his arms that she had noticed earlier glowed a gentle bright blue as he pulled the water out.
“Your weapons are useless,” he told her, crushing the plastic bottles and tossing them out of her reach.
Rose had to smirk.
He blinked, and that was all the time it took for Rose to slam Aqualad up against the stone wall, her arm up against his throat.
“I'd be a pretty pathetic assassin if I was useless without any weapons.” She told him blatantly. He didn't seem that surprised at his current position, which surprised Rose.
“Where's your little sidekick friends?” She asked, brushing it off.
“Rose!” Tara shouted.
Rose whipped around with one arm, the other holding Aqualad in place, expecting to meet another ninja or a fleet of tiny superheroes.
Slade blocked her hit.
“Rose.” He said sternly. “Why don't you let the poor boy go?”
She wanted to laugh at the sight of him; snow-white hair, black eyepatch, tourist cargo shorts, sandals, and a t-shirt in his typical orange, but now accompanied by purple orchids in a Hawaiian shirt fashion. However, she did as he said.
Slade cleared his throat as the ninjas began to regain their footing. Wisely, none reached for their guns. “Ravager, Terra, I should like to introduce you to our new partner: Black Manta.”
He gestured to the ninjas, who stood around a dark-skinned man with very well groomed facial hair, and wore a white polo shirt and khaki slacks in the Hawaiian heat. They removed their masks, and Rose saw that each of them had some sort of variation of dark skin, as most Manta's troopers did.
“Terra, Ravager,” Manta’s voice was strained with politeness as he glared at Rose, placing his hand on Aqualad’s shoulder in a gentle, proud gesture.
“I would like for you to meet my son; Kaldur'ahm.”
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