Well, it wasn't the weirdest thing he had ever done. It was one of the most stressful though. Somehow, despite knowing fully that she was probably the more dangerous option, Oliver found that he preferred playing minder to Noelle, more than he did his current task.
That being, apparently, trying to suss out the specifics of how Nexus apparently brought people back from the dead.
He was apparently uniquely suited to the task, in that he both a) was such a fastidious non-combatant that there were really no records that he existed for anyone to investigate, and b) was fully capable of pointing to her base on a map - something Krouse emphatically couldn't manage, no matter how hard he tried.
They had all taken to coping with Luke's death differently. After the thing with Cody, Oliver had to figure that they had expected something like this to happen eventually. He knew he had. They hadn't told Noelle. There was no telling how she would react. But she was getting suspicious. Leading people into conversational traps and then pouncing on inconsistencies. Asking some uncomfortable questions. It was probably for the best that only he and Krouse ever really tried to keep a conversation running with her anymore. Noelle was shockingly smart when she had a goal to aim at, and right now, she honestly didn't have anything better to do than figure out what they were hiding from her.
Jess had withdrawn into herself, spending as much time as possible away from the rest of them. Something that wasn't abnormal for all of them, but was particularly noticeable when even Marissa was included in her attempts. Marissa herself was a wreck. She was weepy when she thought no one would hear her, stoically silent whenever they could, and otherwise did her utmost to do what was asked of her and nothing more. Like everything they were doing was merely an unpleasant task that she had to complete in order to move on to better things. Krouse was... Krouse. He'd drawn up two dozen plans to just kidnap Nexus's Father or Boyfriend or something before realizing that she had a movement ability that was vastly superior to his own, meaning that he couldn't pull any cute tricks and expect to get away with it. The only way they were going to get away with that kind of attack would be if she didn't know it was happening, and then never told her about it afterward - which would rather defeat the point of the exercise.
It was frustrating. So frustrating. The plan was supposed to be simple. Noelle wasn't exactly small and easy to hide. To get her into town unnoticed, they would need a distraction. A big one, since the local heroes had just come off of a fairly brutal conflict and were likely itching for an acceptable target to take their ire out on. So they had to cause a distraction. Preferably, a big one. As antsy as the Heroes were, they were usually fairly restrained in their use of force. Especially the Wards who - being kids - obviously had strict oversight preventing them from just executing random villains they came across. This, of course, had been the point where the plan had failed. Because the specific manner in which Luke had gone about his ambush - as planned by Krouse, he noted darkly - had led his victim to believe he was a brute, and that was trying to end his life.
They had obviously underestimated how on edge some of these people were. Because they hadn't, possibly couldn't have accounted for the Boston Games, and the scar it left on the locals. Locals who had been expecting a sudden violent influx of villains looking to take a bite out of them.
So Luke had died. Because they didn't properly have context.
Krouse - Trickster really, since Krouse himself really only existed outside that persona for Noelle, and Noelle alone - had seemingly learned his lesson from that with this newest plan of his. He had been fully briefed on Nexus - not because he was expected to fight her, but because it was Coil's intent that they do everything in their power never to see a hair on her head while they remained in the city, and through that briefing, had learned that the girl could - apparently - resurrect dead capes. It hadn't been directly said, but Krouse wasn't stupid. When their boss said that the entire Triumvirate would fall on them like an avalanche of fists and lasers for screwing with her, it had taken Krouse and Noelle roughly a day to figure out that there was a connection between the two suddenly returned heroes Dauntless and Miss Militia, and Nexus' apparently inflated importance to the PRT.
"And now I live in a castle." He mumbled stupidly to himself, having been awake and contemplating his life for that last several minutes while staring at the single distended ceiling tile that served for the ceiling of the room he had been provided with. It was an empty room, roughly the size of your average convenience store, with absolutely zero furniture in it. there was a door to one side leading to a bathroom that he was pretty sure was a duplicate of another bathroom, just like all the other identical rooms in this wing of the castle, and he had taken to sleeping in the middle of it in his sleeping bag. He had checked several other rooms near his own, and noted that the scratches on the bathroom mirror and all the slight stains in the tiles were nearly identical to one another. He hadn't the foggiest how Nexus had managed that, but given that her power appeared to be 'whatever she felt like' at any given moment in time, he chose not to question it.
With a lazy sigh, he pulled himself free of his sleeping bag and stood, walking towards the shower. Part of him considered buying some furniture for the place. A bed here, dresser there. Enough space in the corner for a gaming area if he wanted. But he quickly quashed the thought. He probably wouldn't get to stay long enough to really enjoy any of it, nice as the thought of his own room was. Once he figured out how Nexus worked he'd be back with the Travellers soon enough.
The shower he took was quick and simple. His power made it hard for him to sweat unless he really pushed himself, so there wasn't really all that much grime on him in the first place. He almost winced when he found himself thinking about how disappointed his mother would be that he wasn't washing as thoroughly as he was supposed to, but quickly suppressed it.
Finally done cleaning himself, Oliver stepped out of the shower, quickly brushed his teeth, and got dressed for the day. Then he went through the arduous task of trying to remember how to get from his - the room he slept in, to the kitchen - which for some reason wasn't anywhere near the rooms apparently set aside for sleeping.
Not that he ever saw anyone else on the team using them. Parian and Aspirant apparently had rooms above the Dojo and Boutique in front of the castle respectively, and Trainwreck mostly just slept in his garage.
So he pretty much had the whole place to himself. Mostly. Occasionally, he might stumble across one of the workers who were refurbishing part of the castle into a mall or something, or cross paths with Taylor's Father, who always politely greeted him and asked if he needed anything or had any questions, but in general, for a place with so much space, there were surprisingly few people in it. Finally, he managed to stumble across the kitchen, after taking a turn he was certain it wasn't behind the day before. The Castle did that sometimes. He was pretty sure it didn't so much rearrange itself as trick you into going places you didn't intend to. He was also pretty sure it didn't particularly like him. He had brought this up to Trainwreck once, and been summarily laughed out of the room for it.
Once he'd made himself a hearty breakfast - the kitchen was always well stocked even if nothing else in the building seemed to be - Oliver found himself with a disturbing amount of free time to kill. He had expected that joining a Superhero team would include a lot more... doing things. Oh, he had been trained somewhat. Aspirant came around periodically to get him to work through some forms that he didn't recognize but quickly mastered none the less. They would spar a bit, which was more training than he ever really did with the Travellers. Trainwreck had started trying to teach him about the local threats that he had apparently studied up on - this, ironically, included most of the Protectorate and Wards - mostly by yelling the information at him while the Tinker otherwise worked. Parian had basically woken him up on his second day to get his measurements and then left just as quickly, not having really done much talking to him at all. But as far as teams went, they didn't really do anything. Trainwreck and Aspirant wandered out twice a day to patrol a sizeable radius around the Castle, but they never brought him with them. Nexus came by sporadically to do... seemingly whatever popped into her head that day.
And he was left with nearly nothing to do.
The weirdest thing was when the group was altogether at once. With or without Nexus around, there was a sort of relaxed air among them. Trainwreck, for all his crass remarks pointedly never made passes at Parian. Aspirant seemed completely bored most of the time, but would occasionally chime in with something sufficiently Mister Miyagi sounding until you dissected it enough to realize it was a joke. Parian mostly argued with everyone about the abysmal lack of fashion sense, while simultaneously trying to convince them to wear Tabards of all things. It was an atmosphere not dissimilar to what his friends had had, before they had been tossed into this insane world. There was no tension. No constant nagging worry that today would be the day Noelle got out and killed them all. Or that they would screw up a job and get killed.
Like Luke had.
It was all so very strange to him. Rather than call the Oathbound a group of Parahumans who worked as a team, it seemed simpler to consider them a group of similarly aligned Parahumans that occasionally got together to fight things. Less X-Men, more Justice League, even if that he knew that reference would shoot right over the heads of anyone on this planet who hadn't dedicated more time to Earth Aleph media than was strictly healthy.
And despite the complete lack of any oversight from there supposed leader, it somehow all just... worked. He'd seen Trainwreck and Aspirant spar once. Just once. It was ludicrous. He had genuinely thought they were trying to kill each other at first. Then a timer had gone off and they had just stopped, immediately switching to friendly conversation like nothing had happened.
He was just thinking about trying to find that room Nexus had set that weird pillar formation up in when Trainwreck not so politely, banging a metal knuckle on the door to the kitchen caught his attention, causing him to jolt from his meal to look up at the Tinker standing in the oversized doorway that seemed almost designed for him.
"Yo, skinny. Garage." He intoned easily, jerking a thumb over one shoulder. It wasn't a request, and he hadn't bothered to phrase it like one. In the very short period of time Oliver had been here, he had determined that Trainwreck was the defacto second in command here. He organized the patrol schedules. He researched the threats. He made sure they all saw each other to talk shop and keep updated every evening. No one had explicitly said it, but there was an unspoken expectation that when Trainwreck asked you to do something - you did it. Even Parian seemed to respect that, which was strange given that she otherwise claimed not to be a combatant.
Oliver thought that 'Non Combatant' and 'Parahuman' were irreconcilably different, but he never tried to tell her that.
With a polite nod, he quickly scarfed his last few bites down, and then hurried off to follow Trainwreck to the garage. As much as everyone else in the place used that space like a meeting room, with Nexus entering and exiting it as readily as one might their own basement, Oliver had learned early on that that was an exception more so than a rule. He doubted anyone else would refer to the Garage as Trainwrecks tinker lab, but he undoubtedly did - and he had learned a long time ago that one of the first rules of Tinkers was not to fuck with one in their own lab.
"Alright, I ain't the most subtle fucker so let's be straight. What were you doing snooping around the boss' shit the other day?" Trainwreck said bluntly as Oliver crossed the threshold into the Garage, which immediately shut behind him as though it had a mind of it's own.
"I was just curious is all." He answered sheepishly, even though his heart was already trying to leap out of his chest it was beating so hard.
"Uhuh. That room with the pillars in it? Off limits. Stay the fuck out. And quit fucking lying to me you little bastard." Trainwreck said with an ornery tone, reaching out to smack Oliver on the back of the head with a metal limb that nearly made him black out from the impact.
"I- I'm not!" He defend blearily, trying to blink the stars out of his eyes.
"Listen kid, I was a homeless piece of shit. I'm still a piece of shit, but I ain't so homeless anymore. The boss gave me a place to live, the freedom to do whatever the fuck I want, and a fucking castle. So I'm gonna level with you. From one piece of shit to another." Trainwreck said seriously, reaching out with one hand and wrapping Oliver's entire skull in his fist.
"Did that weirdo in the gimp suit send you?" He asked. Oliver felt his heart drop out of his chest and into his stomach. Shit. He was going to die, and there was nothing he could do about it.
"N-" He started but stopped to scream in agony as Trainwreck's hand around his skull began to squeeze.
"Let me qualify that statement. Gimpy paid me to hook up with this here crew. Just so happens, I like my current boss. She's nice. She trust me. Even sometimes manages to convince me I'm not a piece of shit. So when Gimpy started trying to call me in to do him some favours I said 'fuck it'. That brouha at the PRT a few weeks ago? I was supposed to let one of his guys do some shit in their while it was all busy like. He told me himself." Trainwreck explained pensively, and with surprising eloquence, lifting Oliver to eye level with him before continuing.
"I killed that guy. Popped his head like a zit. Did it to the last two guys who caught me on patrol and told me he'd screw me over if I didn't comply too." He continued drolly, as if not having just admitted to at least three murders.
"So this is real important. Did. The Gimp. Send you." He intoned clearly.
Oliver, in his infinite wisdom, found just enough focus through the intense pain he was in to make every negatory motion he could remember. He'd have just shook his head but well. That would likely hurt a great deal. So he didn't.
"No!" he croaked out, waving his arms about and scrabbling desperately at Trainwrecks hand until it loosened, dropping him to the ground bonelessly.
"So what the fuck are you here for then?" Trainwreck asked in irritation.
"My friend is dead and Nexus raises the dead!" Oliver replied quickly, too obscenely happy that Trainwreck believed he had nothing to do with Coil to bother to filter himself at that exact moment.
"And how'd you find that out?" He asked conversationally.
"I don't-" He started then thought better of it when Trainwreck made to grab for him again.
"Okay! Jesus!" He yelped, scrambling away from the larger man.
"I don't - Coil didn't send me, but my friends do work for him." He explained, not sure why he was doing so.
Then he looked around at the dozens of armored suits in the room, complete with many times more extremely painful looking weapons lining the walls, like a steampunk torture chamber, and recalled how much he disliked Krouse a that exact moment. So he sort of did know why he was doing it.
"Gimpy." Trainwreck said pointedly, making Oliver blink.
"What?" He asked hestiantly.
"Call him Gimpy. He looks it." Trainwreck expanded, before gesturing for him to continue.
"My - my friends work for Coil. We need a cure for our friend that he says he can find." Oliver reluctantly admitted.
"Huh. So you... trusted a gimp with a literal snake on his costume, not to be a snake?" Trainwreck asked in confusion. Oliver took that in for a moment, and then had to admit to himself that yes, that did sound blatantly self defeating. Still, he decided to change the topic.
"So... what now?" He asked fearfully.
"Eh. You're good." Trainwreck answered with a shrug.
"You're just going to... let me go?" He asked incredulously.
"Fuck no. Go find Aspirant and do some kung fu or some shit. Your one of mine now. It ain't like I never took the guys money. You don't betray the boss and I've got no problems." Was Trainwrecks nonplussed answer.
"...How did you even know I was here for a reason?" He asked stupidly.
"I told you. I'm a homeless piece of shit. I recognize my own. We gave you your pay on day one so you could buy furniture and shit. You still sleep in an empty fucking room. It doesn't take a genius to get that you weren't expecting to stay, and you weren't fucking subtle about walking in either." Trainwreck snorted.
"...I thought I did okay..." He said dejectedly, shifting into a less terrified sitting position now that he knew he wasn't about to die.
"That's cus the Boss spends seventy percent of her time staring at your ass when you talk to her. Love that girl, but she'd trust Jack slash if he approached her the right way. Hence." Trainwreck replied, gesturing at himself.
"Internal fucking security. Takes one to know one and all that." He finished in a somewhat self-deprecating tone.
Oliver didn't know what to say to that. He also didn't know how he was supposed to proceed. What few spy movies he'd watched indicated that when you were 'made' you should probably run the hell away. And if Trainwreck caught him doing anything he wasn't supposed to, he had no doubt he would end up at the bottom of the bay in an Oliver sized metal box somehow. But somehow... somehow, he didn't really want to go. And if Trainwreck wasn't going to kick him out well... technically he could still accomplish his goals right? He'd just have to try a bit harder to fit in. Maybe actually pick up a bed.
It wasn't like he hated it here after all. It was certainly more welcoming than what he was accustomed to nowadays.