Chapter four-"Old habits die hard"

Dick wasn´t surprised, not because he had awaken near five in the morning nor that he had found all of his brothers curled up together in his bed. He didn´t mind, he wasn´t uncomfortable, the bed was big enough for all of them. Sadly, one of the down parts of putting food on your mouth was that it had to go out at some point, so he got up trying not to wake anyone up, he didn´t, they all were tired from the day prior. He did what he had to at the bathroom, and wondered about going back to bed, he decided instead to go try the gym they had showed them the night before.

The halls were extremely quiet, since everyone was still sleeping, besides the only ones actually living there were Conner and M´gann, Kaldur would stay just for some days then go back to Atlantis, and Artemis and Wally had gone home.

The gym was an extraordinary thing. It was a circular room with rock walls, padded floor and a high ceiling, a pair of upgraded running bands, probably to keep up with a speedster, a few weightlifting machines along with huge weight wheels, a set of various bars and rings, different types of targets at the far end of the room, a wall with every kind of non-lethal weapons he had ever seen (and some he hadn´t) hanging from it, some machines he wasn´t quite sure of their purpose and, lastly, an Olympic pool that smelled suspiciously like salt water.

It had been a long while since he had stepped foot on a gym, he didn´t really know where to begin. Something deep inside of him said the rings, and he listened.

He began with some stretching and softly lifting his body just to taste how the rings felt, when he was confident his muscles wouldn´t fail he started doing more and more complicated movements, flips and stuns he didn´t remember ever learning. The air harshly brushing against his face felt familiar, like memories from a long forgotten dream. His heartbeat was racing, threatening to jump out of his chest, and so with a final strong backwards flip he let go of the bars, body instinctively turning to land him firm on his feet on the ground, Dick was only half surprised to find that his arms were also raised, like a performer saluting his audience.

A soft clapping resonated in his ears and it took him a fraction of a second to realize that it wasn´t on his head, Dick turned on his heels to see Kaldur entering the room.

"That was quite impressive, my friend" he stopped in front of the…older teen? "I´m sure your skills will be a great asset to our team"

Dick decided to ignore the last part for the moment "You always come here this early?" he inquired eyeing the towel beneath the atlantean´s arm.

"No, I usually come earlier, around six, but yesterday was tiresome" He finished with a small smile.

This took the ex-talon aback; he checked the wall clock and effectively it was eight o´clock and he had been going for close to three hours, his brothers would be flipping. "I gotta go; the boys must be awake already"

"Probably M´gann and Conner went to call them for breakfast; you could meet them in the kitchen"

Somehow he didn´t think that would have gone smoothly, so he decided it was best to go back to his room and check that nobody had died, fortunately the noise of shouting was pretty easy to follow and soon he found himself holding Jason back from attacking Superboy meanwhile Megan was trying to talk him into getting out of the room and Tim and Damian tried to no avail to fill Dick in on what had happened.

Needless to say, he would train at night from that moment on.

After the waters had settle down and Jason´s deep purple knuckle bruises were taken care of, everyone went to have breakfast, and between eggs, bacon and pancakes the silence felt heavy upon them.

"So…have you guys thought of anything you want to do today?" asked bravely the Martian.

Tim seemed to light up at this "Actually, I was wondering if there happened to be a place nearby were we could buy some stuff"

"Hello Megan!" Exclaimed the girl with a light hit to her head, which startled those new to the act. "Batman actually said something about taking you to the mall when you felt ready, I forgot to tell you yesterday"

"That´s perfect! It´s been so long since we´ve actually go to a mall" Replied Tim excitedly looking up at Dick as if asking for permission, as if he could deny anything the younger asked for so eagerly.

So, after finishing breakfast, everyone got dressed and ready to go. Since the night prior had snowed too heavily to take the bikes, Kaldur decided to take the minivan parked next to them, Damian thought on asking why the keychain read "Red Tornado" but decided against it.

The trip by the snowy streets was spent between touring through the town, Dick and Jason´s pleas for driving lessons and Damian assuring smugly that Kaldur could use some too, thankfully they arrived before the moods could rise again.

The mall was a five story building with a lot of windows, the east side overlooking the pier and the sea and the west side next to an extensive park with lots of trees. The main entrance read in big letters "Happy Harbor Royal Mall".

Suddenly the idea that he had never been to a mall before crossed Dick´s mind and he told Tim so in a hushed tone.

"Don´t worry, just don´t touch anything with a 'no touching' sign and don´t take anything out of a store without paying and you should be alright"

There was a bit of fussing over what stores to visit first, but finally on M´gann's advice it was settle for them to head straight to the department store, which was easier said than done. Not a moment after entering the boys had diverge to different apparels on the main entrance hall, leaving a slightly panicking Dick to try and gather them together again.

By the time the made it to the department store, each of them had acquired a modern phone, several books and more than two pounds of gummy bears that they had picked up along the way. It had been a bit stressing going through a mall full of people while trying to keep an eye on three excited boys running ahead, but there was no point on trying to stay even close to each of them in that forsaken store, every time Dick thought he had one of his brothers secured they will go into a new set of mechanic stairs or disappear behind the curtains of a trier. He was about to give up and go sit at a bench when a huge pile of clothes was thrust into his arms and his brothers pushed him to try them on.

When the group finally agreed to go get lunch Dick was pretty sure his hands wouldn´t fit another bag on them. The food court was gigantic and finding a free table among the crowd was hell, and turns out ordering extra jalapeño on your tacos meant melting your mouth off, but other than that the meal was enjoyable for a place so flooded with loud people.

On the way back to the mountain, practically buried with bags, Dick found his thoughts diverting back to past years, wondering what would his old teachers say if they saw him like this, it had been a long time since he had thought of the Court but the interrogation the day before and his training that morning had freshened the haunted memories of painful discipline and bloody weapons.

"Here we are" Said M'gann merrily when the garage door shut behind them.

"You are bleeding" Dick hadn´t noticed his nails were indeed digging into his palms until Conner stated it.

Seeing his brother in a loss of words, Jason interfered "It´s nothing, he´ll be fine. See?" he took his brother´s hand and held it up for the others to see the skin closing, only remaining the angry dots of red.

"We were not informed you were metahumans" Came Kaldur´s intrigued voice while he unloaded the bags.

"Tt, we are not"

"He means it´s only Dick who has enhance healing and cellular regeneration; the rest of us are pretty much normal"

"Speak for yourself, Drake. I have got the sharpest training this world could ever offer"

Despite the bitter remarks, all three of them could see Dick was grateful for the change of subject, and seeing him swallow thick and put on a forced smile it didn´t take a genius to figure out what he had been thinking about. His eyes were dark and distant once more.

_break line

Thankfully the team let them have some time alone so they could arrange all the stuff they had bought.

Dick was currently in sitting in Jason´s bed while Tim taught him the basics of a phone.

"Okay, so now that you have your email account all you need to do is log into every app you start using from now on"

"Agh! There´s no way all of this is gonna fit in here!"

"Trust me, Jason, put socks and undies in the same drawer" Tim said without looking up from his new phone.

"What do you think I'm trying to do?!"

"Don´t just throw everything in there" With a sigh Tim lifted himself from the bed and went to aid his hot headed brother, leaving Dick to his technology.

All that Facebook and stuff was completely new to him, but the basics were pretty simple and soon he had found Barbara´s profile, after sending her a friend request he went through her photos, there were plenty of her with her father, some with another younger redhead whom he assumed was her brother, a bunch of pictures with different people that probably were her friends and classmates, and to his surprise there were pictures with the four of them as well, some dated from the first year they´ve met, back when they found Jason, others went along the seven years they had been friends, one of them was from the walk through Gotham Park last week. It was kinda funny that he didn´t remember her taking any of the pictures except for the only one that didn´t have Babs in it: It was taken outside Barbara´s college, it was her birthday and they had wanted to give her a nice surprise by visiting after classes but had fallen asleep sitting under a tree, since they didn´t really have money to buy her something they had spent all morning picking up flowers for her at the park and Tim had arranged them into a lovely bouquet that was firmly grasped in Dick´s hand, all four of them were cuddled together under the shade of the tree, peacefully slumbering. Dick remembered waking up while Barbara was pulling the camera out, she had bitten her lip and drawn her index to it, he had just closed his eyes again and trying to conceal the tiniest of smiles.

The legend Barbara had wrote read "Such vigilantes they turned out to be, love you boys anyway". It was a beautiful image and the memories it brought made him feel warm and safe, unlike the terrors of his time with the Owls, the thought of the redhead always brought a sort of peace to his mind and a gentle pressure to his chest.

Suddenly he realized that was the only photo with just the four of them and a feeling of nostalgia filled him, all those moments shared with the boys, watching them grow up. He was so naïve, he knew he would never age but they will, they will grow and age and become old, and one day they will …

Desperation shot through his veins and soon he found himself shouting his brothers´ names at the top of his lungs, tears biting the edges of his vision.

"Dick, what´s wrong?" Jason held onto his arms while Tim questioned him with alarmed eyes.

Damian erupted into the room "What the hell´s going on?"

Their oldest was shivering and his voice shook "The camera, we need to take some photos"

"What?"

He looked up to meet their eyes "I don´t want you to be just a memory, you´ll grow old and d…die and I will not. I don´t want to live without you. I…I can´t live without you" Dick´s eyes were wide open looking at the distance and tears felt like rivers from them, all of his body was trembling violently, and he had started hyperventilating.

A panic attack.

The younger boys looked at each other, this kind of things used to happen to Dick all the time when Jason had first come to live with him but had lessen to almost never over the years, it had only happened twice since Damian had joined them, not including this time, so it still chilled him to the bone when he saw his usually calm and collected brother like this "Shhhhh…Calm down Richard, you are not going to lose us" From what Damian understood of his brother´s physiology, that may not be true.

"Lil´d" Jason called and shook his head no. "Hey, Dick, come on look at me" He waited for the other to do so and ever so gently pushed him back until his legs were against the bed and made him sit, the other two following them up close. Movement behind him told him Superboy had heard Dick´s screaming and the team had rushed to his door but thankfully stayed there, once Dick got out of it he would be extremely ashamed as usual and they needn´t had other witnesses to this. He signed Tim go close the door and heard him exchange a quick 'he´ll be fine' with others before doing so and rushing back to the bed, meanwhile Damian had taken both of Dick´s hands in his own and held them tightly under his chin. "Hey, Dickie bird, look at me" He held his brother´s face with his thumb until their eyes met and dried his tears with the other hand "It´s okay, it´s gonna be okay. When you calm down we´ll all go and take pictures of us everywhere, like a family. You´ll like that?" he waited until the older man gave a little nod "Great, but can you do something for me? Can you breathe deep through your nose?" Jason did it as to show him how and soon the other two joined him ´till they got Dick to breathe normally again and a few moments later the conscience got back to his eyes.

Dick stared at his little brothers and released a sigh before pulling all three of them into a chocking hug. What would he do without them?