When Worlds Collide

37) Pudding War (Pick a Side)

A/N: I'm totallty not late because I forgot I didn't pre-load a chapter and I was making my friend an egg. 

Nico had been on the holo-fight pad for around an hour by the time that he sensed someone else walk into the gym.

"You know, over training can cause more harm than good," Artemis said from behind him.

Nico just kept slashing away. "I'm fine."

Artemis sighed, but she didn't say anything so he assumed that she had just accepted it... and then the holopad turned off.

"Hey!" He said, turning around to face her.

Artemis crossed her arms. "People that are fine don't storm out of therapy and then immediately start training for an hour straight."

Nico threw down his knives and stormed over to his water bottle. "Can people just stop telling me what 'fine' people do."

Artemis rolled her eyes and sat on the bench. "They'll probably stop doing it as soon as you stop saying you're fine when you're obviously not."

"How do you know? How are you so sure that I'm not fine?" He hissed out.

"Honestly, because none of us have been fully fine after Markovia, and none of us lost a limb." She said, her voice serious. "We... we thought you were gone for good. We've been relatively lucky so far, but we've still lost people. We lost the second Robin. We lost Aquagirl. We thought we lost you too and even after you came back, we haven't been the same."

Nico looked at the blonde and sighed as he sat down next to her. "I'm fine— physically, at least. You don't have to worry about me."

The girl chuckled slightly. "I know, but I'll probably still worry. I know you aren't technically on the team, but we still think of you as one of us. We care about each other fiercely and that doesn't go away even if you did go and make yourself a new team."

Nico smiled at her lightly. "Thank you. I care about you guys too. Though, technically this isn't a new team."

Artemis raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Technically, they're my old team, the one I told you about." Nico smirked. "You know, from the 'army'."

The girl rolled her eyes. "You're never gonna let that go, are you?"

"Probably not, no."

The duo laughed before the girl stood up and picked up his discarded knives off the mat and handed them back to him. "Put these in the shadows or whatever you do with them and let's go join the others. The newbies need to get to know you and the originals miss you."

Nico slipped the knives into the shadows and followed the girl down the hall. "It's weird being back here after so long. I've spent like the last month just going between the manor and my teammates."

"When are we gonna get to meet this mysterious team of yours? The league won't tell us anything about them."

"I'd be more surprised if they did considering the fact they don't know anything about my team to begin with," he said with a chuckle.

They entered the kitchen/lounge area where half the team was spread throughout the room and Artemis stopped to look at him in surprise. "Even Batman?"

Nico shrugged. "He probably had a good guess, but he doesn't really know anything about what we're planning."

"You talking about Nico's super secret team?" Bart asked excitedly, zipping over to them. "When do we get to meet them?"

Nico smiled at the speedster's excitement. "Arty asked the same thing. Right now, the plan is to keep them pretty hidden just for safety reasons, but at some point the League will probably insist on meeting them, so you'll most likely meet them then. Plus, you guys already know Tech and Surgeon."

"Wait, who's Tech? You mentioned Surgeon before, but even then you just said he didn't exist," Virgil said as he turned around to face them from the couch, leaning over the backrest.

Nico sighed. "Tech is short for Technician. He's the guy who made my prosthetic. Surgeon is my boyfriend and also a doctor."

"How old is Surgeon? It takes years to become a doctor. Are you dating like a twenty five year old or something?" Traci asked, looking concerned.

"Surgeon is my age, but his powers are healing oriented. He's the head healer of the East Coast base for my people."

Everyone blinked at him.

"Your head healer is 15?" Megan asked, looked very concerned.

Nico groaned, not really sure how to explain. "He became head healer when he was 13 after the deaths of his older brothers. My people fought in two wars. During the first one, we lost Lee first who was 17, and then Micheal who was 16. Surgeon was the next oldest, so he took over as head healer."

Nico didn't know why he thought that explanation would make any of them feel better about a 15 year old being the main doctor for a bunch of child soldiers, but the looks of horror on everyone's faces was proof enough that it failed to ease their minds.

"That's horrible," Cissy said, covering her mouth.

Nico just kinda stood there. He wasn't great about dealing with pity. "If it makes you feel any better, I got my title when I was 11, so he wasn't that young for our standards."

"That made no one feel better about the situation," Tim said with a sigh. "I don't know why you thought it would."

Nico shrugged. "I said 'if.'"

Bart laughed anxiously. The speedster loved camp, but it was easy to forget about the horrors the campers had seen while you were there. "I hung out with Surgeon for a while when I visited the descendants with Nico. He's a great dude and an amazing healer. Plus, he's one of the few people who Nico actually listens to."

Nico rolled his eyes. "You say that like I never listen to anyone."

Dick snorted. "That's because you never listen to anyone."

"traditore," Nico muttered.

"You speak Italian?" Cissie asked.

"I speak a lot of languages."

"parles-tu français?" Cissie said curiously.

Nico smirked. "Oui."

"你識唔識講廣東話," Traci said with a smirk. (Do you speak Cantonese?)

Nico returned the smirk as he said, "是的，喺中國南方旅行時學識咗它" (yes, I leaned it while traveling in southern china).

The girl's jaw dropped. "Damn, I thought I had you there."

Nico shrugged. "Like I said, I speak a lot of languages. We have descendants from all over that live at camp, so I tried to learn the native languages of newcomers to make the transition easier, though I learned Cantonese in Beiliu, Guangxi. When I was still learning to shadow travel, I kept accidentally popping up there."

The team looked at him in surprise.

"Do all of your people speak this many languages?" Wally asked.

"I mean, not really. All of us are bilingual, but I know a lot more than most. Tech is fluent in Spanish. Surgeon is attempting to learn Italian. Tidal, you guys saw him briefly, he speaks Atlantean. Three more people on my team speak French, one Canadian, one Louisianan, and the other regular. One of them speaks a bit of Mandarin, though he isn't fluent." Nico paused doing a mental count in his head. "Another one speaks Spanish too, but Puerto Rican dialect. Oh, and a few of them know Morse code I'm pretty sure, but I don't know if that counts as a language. Also, most of us know ASL."

The team once again looked shocked.

Jamie broke the silence by laughing. "Damn hermano, we need to meet these people as soon as possible." 

A/N: tbh I did not edit this at all. oops. sorry not sorry, I am tired. 

Vote Comment. Tell me your favorite kind of pudding (I like the blue jello ones) (my friend picked this question and is now bullying me for my response. her's is chocolate vanilla swirl).