Chapter Text
Body upright, legs straight.
Arms across his chest, hands touching his shoulders.
Like the folded wings of a bird.
Eyes closed.
Dick takes a deep breath, as he stands in the centre of the ice and waits for the music to begin. Then the first slow, melancholic notes of Moonlight Sonata ring through the arena, Dick opens his arms, and he begins to glide across the ice, gathering speed in his first movements to prepare for his first element. THE element.
The quad Axel.
Placed at the transition from the fourth into the fifth bar of Beethoven’s iconic music, it’s the element to set the standard right the beginning of the programme. If he nails it, Dick knows he’s going to nail the entire programme. If he does not, well…
Going out of the choreographic transition, he turns forward, swings his arms and takes off. Yet, as soon as Dick is in the air, he knows that something is wrong.
His rotational axis is slightly off, which distracts him enough to lose control over the momentum of his jump. Trying to salvage it, Dick ends the element in a step out – which still is not enough to prevent him from landing his famous behind on the ice.
Dick lets out a quick sigh of frustration. Not again. Then he gets up to perform the rest of his programme.
The remainder of his elements work fine, even though Dick knows that he’s not executing them nearly as well as he can, but he can’t help it. Every time he misses the opening quad Axel, his heart ceases to be in the programme and he just goes through the motions. Granted, if you’re Dick Grayson, going through the motions still puts you comfortably ahead of 99 percent of your competition.
But 99 percent is not enough if you want to become the youngest Olympic champion ever in men’s figure skating at mere 17 years of age.
When he reaches his final pose and the music comes to a halt, his coach Selina skates towards him, an exasperated expression on her face. “Okay, Dick, time out. You can’t let one botched element get in the way of the entire programme.“
“But it’s not just any botched element“, he whines, doubling over. “The Axel will make or break the Olympics, and you know it.“
“I know. But the rest of the programme will be just as important. Especially if you miss the Axel. That’s why I don’t stop my students’ programmes when they make mistakes. It’s vital that you keep going and don’t let one misstep deter you from the bigger picture. Hey, Dick, look at me.”
He finally pulls himself up and meets his coach's sharp glance. “If you skate full out, your GOE and PCS are higher than anyone else’s on the planet. Don’t throw those points away. Not at the Olympics.”
Dick looks away, unable to bear the piercing stare of his coach’s green eyes. He knows she is right. In many ways, Dick is the perfect textbook figure skater. Not only does he possess incredible jumping technique, thanks in no small part to his circus upbringing which made him naturally athletic. But he also has skating and performance skills to match his jumps and an inherent sense of musicality and artistry. Most skaters are either great athletes or great artists; Dick is the rare skater who is both, truly embodying the best of both worlds. Not many skaters could pull off a free programme to Moonlight Sonata at 17 and not look completely silly and in over their heads, but Dick definitely can. Nobody is more balletic on the ice than him. Nobody has deeper knees and edges than him.
So, all things considered, he should be bursting with confidence right now at his own potential.
And yet…
Distracted by his own thoughts, he doesn’t notice Selina laying a hand on his shoulder and looking at him more kindly until she says, “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Dickie. We all have our off days, even the Boy Wonder. You know you have everything it takes. If you miss the Axel, it's not because of something physical, but something in there." She pokes his forehead. "Take a break, calm yourself down, and then try again.”
“Thanks Selina”, Dick says, giving her a small but sincere smile and skates over to the board of the rink where he puts on his skate guards, grabs his bottle of water and climbs up a couple rows of benches to have a better view of the ice.
The Gotham Ice Park actually consists of multiple ice rinks that are simultaneously used for multiple purposes. Usually, there’s one rink open to the public, one that is used for hockey training, where Dick’s 14-year-old brother Jason is probably shooting pucks across the ice right now, and one rink that is usually reserved for the elite figure skaters and their head coach Victor Fries, who had the idea for the Ice Park years ago and quickly turned Gotham into a figure skating power house. Fries is a legend in his own right, having won Olympic gold in pairs in the 60s and becoming one of the most esteemed coaches after his retirement – esteem that certainly helped him raise the funds for the impressive complex. Though the old gentleman no longer coaches himself, he still shows up at the rink every now and then to see how the next generation is doing. For a young skater, being accepted to the Fries Academy is a bit like receiving a knighthood from the King of England.
So when circus prodigy Dick Grayson was adopted by Bruce Wayne - who'd donated a large part of the funds to build Gotham Ice Park - following the tragic death of the boy's parents and the young orphan timidly voiced his interest in figure skating, there was no question of where he would go. Plus, as soon as the eight-year-old stepped on the ice and got his first lessons from former Olympic medallist Selina Kyle, any grumblings about Dick only getting into the Academy because of Bruce Wayne's money flew out the window. Dick was a natural, just as much a Boy Wonder on the ice as he was on the trapeze, and soon enough he started racking up medals and trophies all by himself.
In the here and now, the Boy Wonder takes a long sip of water and then focuses his attention on the ice where Stephanie Brown and Duke Thomas just assumed the opening pose of their short programme, before the infectious beat of Justin Timberlake’s Rock your body starts to boom through the sound system. Steph and Duke are still juniors and therefore not eligible yet for the Olympics, but with the way that their career is going, they will definitely be contenders for pairs in four years. They already won bronze at Junior Worlds last season and are improving with every competition. You can’t help but fall in love with their joyous exuberance that they bring to every performance, even in training, and Dick finds himself grinning like an idiot at Steph’s face when she nonchalantly lands the huge triple twist like it’s the easiest thing in the world.
Also on the ice right now is Cassandra Cain. Unlike most other skaters at Fries Academy, she does not have any Olympic prospects in mind. Cass does solo dance, which is unfortunately not an Olympic discipline. Yet. If it were, though, she’d be walking away with the gold medal, for sure. Dick has never seen anyone glide across the ice more elegantly and gracefully than her, and that’s saying a lot coming from him. She’s already won Nationals twice in a row and will undoubtedly make it three this season. And what’s even crazier is that at 15 years of age, she’s already choreographing much of her material herself. Dick envies the skaters of the future who will be allowed to dance her choreos.
A door opening to his right makes Dick’s turn and he sees Barbara Gordon enter the stands and wheeling her way towards him. Seeing the red-haired woman in her wheelchair still breaks Dick’s heart, even after all the months he’d had to get used to it.
Barbara is two years older than him and had already been a senior while Dick was still competing as a junior. A silver medallist at Worlds, she had arguably been the US’s greatest talent in women’s singles in years, as one of the few non-Russians girls to land a quad past her puberty, and had been tipped for great success at the upcoming Olympics. But then a horrific car accident the summer prior to Dick’s first senior season left her paralysed and crashed any Olympics she may have had. The entire Figure Skating world had been devastated, but nobody more so than Dick himself, who had grown as close to Babs as a guy and a girl could without actually dating. The day he’d first visited her in the hospital had been perhaps been the most difficult since the funeral of his parents all those years ago.
Yet even then, she had managed to crack some jokes, despite the horror of the situation. “Promise me you wear something red at the Olympics, Dickiebird, okay?”, she’d grinned. “Somebody’s gotta bring some colour onto that ice if it’s not me.” The memory still brings a smile to his face – and gave Dick no choice but to pick a red costume for his “Fly Robin Fly” short programme this season.
What’s more, being the trooper that she is, Babs hasn’t let tragedy define her, and has found a different way to bring her many talents into Fries Academy: by becoming a masterful music editor. She’s always been a tech prodigy, so now, no skater from Gotham, including Dick himself, steps on the ice without a music edit courtesy of Ms Gordon herself, aka DJ Oracle.
“Hey Boy Wonder!”, she smiles at him.
“Hey Babs”, he attempts to smile back at her halfheartedly.
“Hmm”, she ponders, wheeling closer towards him. “A mildly grumpy Dick Grayson in the stands rather than on the ice with everybody else. Let me take a guess. The Axel.”
“Yup”, Dick answers shortly, popping the p in annoyance.
“Aha”, Barbara comments drily.
When the black-haired boy remains silent, she continues, “May I kindly remind you that you comfortably won both of your Grand Prix assignments even without the Axel?”
“Only because he was not there”, Dick mumbles under his breath.
“Oh. Of course”, she deadpans. “He. How could I possibly forget?”
The He in question is Wallace ‘Wally’ West, the superstar of male skating from Keystone City. Three years Dick’s senior, West has dominated the sport for the past Olympic cycle, winning two world titles back-to-back. He had been well on his way to the third last year when none other than Dick, in his first season as a senior, had caused the upset of the century by landing the first ever quad Axel in competition and winning gold with a record-breaking score. West’s inevitable Olympic triumph of all of a sudden seemed no longer certain and the press promptly pronounced the Battle of the Bird and the Flash, pitting the two skaters’ nicknames against each other.
That had been in March last year. Since then, Dick and Wally haven’t competed against one another – and Dick also hasn’t been able to land the quad Axel again, which has caused some debate online whether his performance at Worlds was just a fluke. The two had been set to go head-to-head again at the Grand Prix Final in December, but a shoulder injury had forced Dick to withdraw, which paved Wally’s way to an easy win and a new personal best, while Dick had to sit around at home and do nothing but watch. And now, in January, there are only two weeks left until Dick will go up against Wally again for the first time since Worlds at US Nationals, and everybody is waiting with bated breath for the rematch that could potentially predict the Olympic title.
The weird thing about the West situation is that in spite of it all, Dick cannot even bring himself to hate him. On paper, Wally is the only skater who could challenge Dick for the Olympic title. He may not be as artistically gifted as Dick and hasn’t attempted the quad Axel yet either, but the consistency of his other jumps is second to none and his incredible speed on the ice deservedly earned him the nick name Flash.
Still, although he is the only potential threat to Dick’s Olympic dream, Dick does not feel the kind of resentment towards his ginger rival that the media try to instigate between them. Even at Worlds, when Dick had shocked the Figure Skating community (and himself) to its very core and had given West his first defeat in three years, the 20-year-old had surprisingly shown nothing but kindness and respect towards Dick which made it simply impossible to dislike him. And Dick knows enough about performance to tell that Wally’s friendliness was not the kind of fake friendliness that you only put on for the cameras.
No. Wally West’s friendliness was sincere.
Which begs the question: why?
Why had he been so nice to Dick?
Why doesn’t he hate Dick?
Why doesn’t Dick hate him?
...
And why do Wally’s freckles look so goddamn cute whenever he smiles?
And he does smile a lot. Which Dick would only know from following him on Instagram and liking every one of his posts.
Which he totally doesn’t.
Just like Wally totally doesn't follow him back.
Because what kind of rival would do that. Right?
Lost in thoughts he should not have, Dick startles when Barbara leans forward in her chair and grabs his hands.
“Dick, you beat him at Worlds last season. You’re gonna beat him again at the Olympics. Simple as that. Case closed.”
“His score at the Grand Prix final beats both of my Grand Prix scores”, he answers with resignation in his voice, “and now he’s got all the momentum going into Nationals.”
Barbara rolls her eyes, before replying, “Richard John Grayson, you know very well that you can’t compare different competition scores unless we’re talking ice dance. If you skate perfectly, nobody in the world can beat you. Not even Wally West.” She squeezes his hands encouragingly.
“But I’m not skating perfectly right now! I haven’t nailed the Axel once since Worlds.”
“Because you’re still recovering from a minor shoulder injury. Every body’s recovering from something all the time, that’s completely normal in this sport. Listen, Dick. You sat out the Grand Prix Final to not take any risks and focus on Nationals instead, which was absolutely the right choice. You’ll have many more Grand Prix Finals in the future but the Olympics don’t come around that often. You’re getting better and better every day, and it’s only a matter of time until the quad Axel is back on track.”
Dick doesn’t say anything, but looks forlornly into the distance. Narrowing her eyes inquisitively, Barbara stares at her best friend for a long, silent moment. Eventually, she says, “Unless this isn’t about the quad Axel.”
“Huh?” Dick turns his head back to her, perplexed.
“Maybe your trepidation about meeting West again isn’t at all about the competition.”
“What are you talking about?”, Dick asks, growing more confused with every word Barbara is saying. Then the red head’s unreadable expression turns into a grin.
“Don’t act like I didn’t see that whisper of a blush on your face when he talked about you during that press conference at Worlds. The same blush blooming on your pretty little cheeks right now, might I add. You’re lucky the cameras were focusing on him and not you, but you can’t hide a crush like that from the Oracle.”
“Don’t be silly, Babs, I don’t have a crush!”, Dick tries to deflect as his cheeks grow as red as his best friend’s hair.
“Oh I’m definitely not the one being silly right now”, Barbara smirks. “I’ve always been surprised at how well you two get along anyway, considering that you’re rivals for gold.”
“So what?” Dick murmurs, looking pointedly at his hands, which are still being held by Barbara. “Just because we’re fighting for the same thing and only one of us can get it, doesn’t mean I have to hate him…”
“OH MY GOD, SO YOU DO HAVE A CRUSH!!!”, Barbara squeals.
“Will you please shut up?!”, Dick hisses, his head spinning around so fast to see if anyone heard them that he thinks he might get whiplash. Luckily, Steph and Duke's music has drowned out any incriminating echoes.
When he’s certain nobody heard them, Dick goes on.
“Okay, so maybe I’m not completely … I don’t know… appalled by the idea of … liking him.” Finally he’s able to meet Barbara’s eyes, who looks at him in understanding and sympathy.
“And you only realized it at Worlds, after which the two of you didn’t compete against each other again, and now you’re worried that it will distract you so much that you bomb both Nationals and the Olympics.”
“EXACTLY!!!”, Dick exclaims, the relief of finally speaking to somebody about this mess bursting out of him like a firework on New Year's Eve.
The issue isn’t his sexuality itself. Everybody knows he’s gay – even though he never ‘officially’ came out. Perks of winning Junior Worlds at age 15 with a Lady Gaga free programme.
The issue is that Dick has a fucking crush on his number one rival for the Olympic gold medal.
“Knowing you”, Barbara continues hesitantly, “I assume I’m the first person that you’re telling this.”
“Second. Dinah was the first, actually. Sorry.” Dick smiles bashfully at her. “But she told me not to bottle things up inside.”
Barbara squeezes his hands again. “Don’t apologize, you know you can talk to me about anything. But Dinah’s right. Don’t you think that it might be good idea to speak to Bruce about this?”
Now it’s Dick’s turn to deadpan.
“Because Bruce Wayne is such an expert on emotional self-care?”
Neither of them can hold back laughter at the suggestion.
“Besides”, Dick continues when he’s composed himself again, “he’s still so busy right now with Little D anyway that I don’t want to add any more stress onto him.” Dick’s lips turn into a gentle smile, thinking of the youngest addition to his ever-growing family. Training for the Olympics while also being the oldest of four brothers whose ages range from 17 to 1,5 is a challenge even at the best of times, but Dick's always been a family person, and he wouldn't want it any other way.
“But Dick, if it’s something that’s bothering you like this, then you need to open up to somebody that isn’t just your best friend or your sports psychologist but somebody in your family. I’m sure it will make you feel better.”
“Hmm”, he considers Barbara’s advice for a moment. “Maybe you’re right.
Then he adds with a wider smile, “I’m overdue for another afternoon tea with Alfred anyway.”
"See? You know what they say." Barbara smirks at him. "The Oracle is always right."