Don't Fear the Reaper

68) Beware the Passive Aggressive Might of Alfred

Nico had made no friends while at the Mountain, and he was trying damn hard to keep it that way. He had mostly kept to his temporary room, only venturing out at night to train when most of the residents had gone to bed. After their first few invitations to eat with them had been shut down, Kaldur had begun bringing meals to his room—most likely on request of one of the Bats.

He never joined the others in training, but he had managed to figure out how to work the hologram training pad after a few attempts and he had been spending basically every night on it, just working on rebuilding his hand to hand combat instincts. It was exhausting, having to relearn what was once second nature, but by the 5th day, he had gotten himself somewhat close to where he had originally been at.

On his sixth night of training, Bruce had showed up. The man had rudely turned off the holo platform while he was in the middle of a fight in an attempt to speak to him, but Nico didn't say a word.

He knew that Bruce had sent him there for a good reason and that he wasn't ready to see anyone from his past, but it didn't change the fact that he was pissed. He didn't know what  he wanted to alternative to be, but that didn't make how he felt any less real. He was in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by unfamiliar people, and he felt like he was existing while half blind without his powers. At least when he was at the manor, he knew what to expect. He had lived with them for months—both willingly and unwillingly—and he could depend on the monotony. The Mountain was new and it was isolating and it was completely out of his control. He knew that he had to be there, that it was the only good option, but it felt  like captivity. 

Bruce seemed to understand this—well, he understood that Nico's silence came from an anger at the situation more than at him—and simply handed over a bag that contained the knives they had taken from his uniform months prior. The man told him that he was allowed to use them while in the training room, but an alert would go off if they left. He was given a small locker he could keep the bag in that only he and the Bats had an access code for before Bruce got a call from Barbra and had to leave.

Ever since then, he hadn't wanted to stop training. It wasn't just about the familiar feel of the knives in his hands that brought him comfort, it was the fact that he finally got the closest thing to normal he'd had in a while. The holograms were exactly that: holograms. They weren't human beings that should have felt a life force for, so he didn't have to face the absence of it. While he still had to focus on every move he made, his instincts having yet to return to where they once were, he felt liberated. He began staying in the training room longer and longer, pushing his luck for not running into anyone.

On the morning of the 8th day of him being there, he had been in the training room until the others actually began to wake up. Thankfully, he had been putting his knives away when the earliest risers walked into the training room for what Nico assumed was their morning workout.

"Oh, hey," the blonde girl he had briefly interacted with before said, looking at him in surprise. "I guess we're not the only early risers."

Nico looked at her and Kaldur, frozen in surprise. The training room had no windows, so he had no idea it was already so late in the morning. He really wasn't in the mood to talk, but considering that he knew neither of them knew sign, he forced his vocal cords to comply. "I've been here all night."

"You did not sleep?" Kaldur clarified, looking concerned.

Nico shrugged, returning his attention to the locker in front of him as he stowed the bag. "I prefer to train alone."

The girl—he was pretty sure her name was Artemis—shared a glance with the Atlantean. "I mean, I get that you value privacy, but I don't think it's wise to sacrifice sleep for training."