Chapter Text
“Our final skaters represent the United States of America. Carol Ferris and Hal Jordan!”
Dick screams as loudly as he can when Carol and Hal skate towards the centre of the rink, along with pretty much any other US athlete at the Olympics who’ve squeezed into the sold-out arena to cheer on the two ice dancers from Coast City – a welcome distraction of positivity for everyone after the drama of the team event. Wally and Roy, seated on either side of Dick, are screaming just as loudly, fully aware that the next performance could be a historic one.
This is the moment, the one that Carol and Hal – or simply #Harol, as their fans call them on social media – have been working towards for their entire lives. The chance to finally become Olympic ice dance champions.
Technically speaking, they already are Olympic champions, as part of the team event in Munich four years ago. Yet as with most skaters, it’s the individual gold medal that truly matters at the end of the day, and that is the one title that has been eluding them throughout their careers so far. They were on the cusp of victory last time, too – until twizzle mistakes in the free dance cost them dearly. Too dearly, as it turned, when they lost the all-but-assured gold medal by less than 0.5 points. So this is their chance to rewrite history and fulfil their dreams. Their final skate as competitive ice dancers, and potentially the most important one of them all.
Dick holds his breath as he watches Carol and Hal assume their opening poses: standing a couple of feet apart, with their backs turned towards each other. Ice dance is Dick’s favourite discipline in figure skating; while it does include technical requirements like the twizzles, it is first and foremost about musicality and artistry and arguably the most aesthetically pleasing skating event to watch at each Olympics. The other thousands of transfixed spectators in the building seem to agree: you could literally hear a pin drop on to the ice right now – the arena gets that quiet, awaiting the beginning of the final free dance of the night. After the short dance, Carol and Hall have a lead over hometown favourites Jade Nguyen and Thomas Black – Dick’s training mates in Gotham – of more than four points, which equals a whole entire universe in the world of ice dance where there are no jumps, throws, and twists. Still, if the events from four years ago are still engrained in Dick’s mind, he cannot imagine how bad it must be for the real-life couple on the ice right now.
In the moment of silence before the music begins, Dick has a chance to appreciate the gorgeous costumes of the two skaters. Carol wears a beautifully understated long black dress that flows over her legs and covers her slender arms, while Hal is dressed in matching black dress pants and a snug long sleeve that accentuates his imposingly athletic body. Both of their costumes are adorned by white rhine stones, sparkling almost like rain drops in a dark, stormy night – a choice that Dick knows must be on purpose, given the music that they are about to perform to.
Carol and Hal chose “Rain, in your black eyes” by Italian composer Ezio Bosso for their free skate. In many ways, the orchestral piece that only features a piano and strings is a modern- day equivalent to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata in that it is one of the most frequently used compositions in skating, to the point that for many it’s been used to death and become a cliché. But to Dick, that has never been a problem. It’s quite simply one of the most stunning pieces of instrumental music he has ever heard, heart-wrenchingly sad at the beginning and then awe-inspiring and triumphant in the way that it builds towards its climax at the end. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and not only did Carol and Hal not try to fix it; instead, they’ve managed to make the piece seem fresh again and completely their own. While Dick knows the music and routine almost by heart, this is the first time he’s seeing the free dance live in person, which makes the nerve-wrecking wait for the beginning of the programme even more thrilling.
Dick can feel his heart beat in his chest like crazy, when finally the first of three solitary opening notes echoes through the arena, sending instant shivers down Dick’s entire body. There’s just something to hearing gorgeous classical music in an arena setting, with the bass set to the max, that will never cease to amaze him.
The second note arises and Carol and Hal look over their shoulders to meet the other’s gaze, their facial expressions dramatic without being overly forced.
On the third note, they skate towards each other, their right arms reaching out to one another, before their bodies finally connect and the dance begins.
Even though the free dance doesn’t follow a particular narrative or story line, for Dick the theme has always been crystal clear ever since the first time he saw it on the Grand Prix circuit. To him, the programme is about two lovers who know that they have to say goodbye for good, knowing they will never see each other again. The sad music, the intense expressions on Carol and Hal’s faces, the almost funereal look of their costumes – it all fits together. The unbearable tension of not wanting to let go of the other but knowing that you have to – and that this moment will never come again.
The choreography expresses this tension in the most beautiful way, with Carol and Hal constantly being entangled in each other’s bodies as if they want to get as much out of the little time that the two lovers have left, one embrace more intricate and touching than the next.
Dick has had goose bumps every time he’s watched the programme on TV or on his computer, but witnessing it live is just that much more powerful. It’s only as a spectator in the arena that you realize with what power and speed Carol and Hal thunder across the ice, and yet with what ease and elegance they still maintain perfect control over their blades at all times.
A minute into the programme, the string accompaniment in the music begins to swell and the piano line rises in pitch, and Dick knows that the moment of truth is imminent. The twizzles, i.e. the rapid turns on one foot with several multi-directional rotations back to back. It is the make or break element in ice dance, the one that determines your fate more than any other move and that will separate the good from the great. Ice dance may not have any throw jumps, but if you mess up the twizzles, it’s game over for you, and this is exactly what happened to Carol and Hal four years ago. A stumble from Hal and then another one from Carol, and their dream of Olympic gold came crushing to the ground. Will they make it today?
The atmosphere in the arena is so tense, you could cut it with knife.
Dick holds his breath as Carol and Hal speed into the first set of five one-footed rotations, their hands outstretched for added difficulty and extra points.
They nail it!
A few choreographic steps during which they briefly touch and change directions to go into the next four rotations, this time raising one hand above their heads and grabbing the blades of their free legs with the other.
Another one nailed!
One more change of directions, and Carol and Hal transition into the third and final set of twizzles, both of their arms now raised above their heads as if they are ballet dancers on ice.
“YESSS!!!”, Dick cries out together with what sounds like everybody else in the arena when Carol and Hal exit the final set of twzizzles in perfect synchrony and without even the hint of a flaw. They’ve done it! They’ve nailed the twizzles! The thing that cost them gold four years ago! Now they just have to get through the rest of the programme cleanly. While that’s not necessarily a given – sometimes freak accidents do happen during other ice dance elements, too – the twizzles are by far the greatest risk of errors for any ice dance team, so bar any major disasters like a downright fall, the gold should be theirs. Still, Dick, his eyes already stinging with unshed tears, does not allow himself to breath, far too absorbed and captivated by what’s happening on the ice to let his hopes for Carol and Hal get the better of him
After about a minute and a half of the four-minute programme, the music comes to a halt and Carol and Hal perform a combination spin that ends with them kneeling in front of one another and touching the other’s cheeks with their left hands, as if they are each wiping away a tear rolling down their beloved’s face.
Suddenly, Dick’s breath hitches.
I’ve seen this gesture before!
A rainbow of bright and colourful sensations flashes before his eyes. The painted smile of a clown. The trumpeting call of Zitka the Elephant.
And from one moment to the next, Dick is no longer sitting in the Olympic Ice Arena in Montreal, but back in his bunk bed inside of the Graysons’ trailer at Haly’s Circus.
Hs mom is couching in a nearby chair, her eyes rimmed red from crying, and his dad is squatting in front of her, smiling at her consolingly and wiping away the tears on her cheeks with his fingers.
Just like Carol and Hal did right now on the ice.
Just like Dick’s parents always used to do to comfort each other.
Just like my parents always used to do to comfort me.
His parents – who were the same age when they died as Carol and Hal are right now.
Then the full realization hits Dick.
This free dance isn’t just about the tragic farewell of two lovers. No.
This is about my parents.
It may not be about them for Carol and Hal, or for anybody else on the planet watching the performance for that matter. But for Dick, watching the free dance live for the first time and seeing every nuance of the performance amidst the poignant beauty of the music, the sudden epiphany washes over him just as the swelling of tears quickly overpowers his eyes and a mighty sob rocks his captivated body.
The music picks back up again, the programme continues, and the memory of Dick’s dad consoling his mom is replaced by another image – the most painful one of Dick’s life, from that fateful night more than nine years ago.
Through Dick’s teary eyes, the dramatic expressions on Carol and Hal’s faces suddenly transform into the shocked faces of his parents the moment that the trapeze at Haly’s Circus snapped and the young parents knew they were falling to their deaths, with no safety net or hero to save them.
Now, though, watching Carol and Hal dance on the ice, the few seconds that changed Dick’s life forever become an achingly yet beautifully extended goodbye. Dick’s memory decelerates into slow motion, and he finally has a chance to perceive the moment in which his parents’ faces transition from despair to reciprocal understanding and lastly to all-encompassing, death-defying love with which they stare up to their screaming, eight-year-old son, all alone on top the high platform as he realizes that he will never be able to talk to his parents again.
Dick cannot unsee it. Carol and Hal’s gesture may have only been a minute part of their overall choreography, but it was enough to unlock something in Dick’s chest that the 17-year-old thought he’d locked away a long time ago.
With the lock to Dick’s memory broken open, the tears now flow and flow and flow down’s Dick’s cheeks and his sobbing grows worse and worse. Not since his parent’s funeral has he cried so openly about their deaths, and as the programme continues into its middle section, Dick begins to understand why the performance is affecting him so much.
This programme is the farewell that his parents never had. The farewell that Dick himself never had, either.
In all the years he’s been living with Bruce, there is one thing that Dick’s been wishing for more than anything in the world. The chance to speak to his parents on last time and to tell them how much he truly loves them. Dick could not be more thankful for the new family he has found. Bruce, Alfred, Jason, Tim, Talia, Damian – Dick loves them all more than he can ever say.
And yet, if only I could hug my parents just one more time and tell them how much I love and miss them!
One more chance to feel their hands in his soft hair, their soothing breaths on his skin, their heart beats in sync with his.
One more chance for the Flying Graysons to be together again.
And now, here they are. Mary and John Grayson, brought back to life for four minutes by Carol Ferris and Hal Jordan in the most moving performance of Dick’s life.
It’s almost too much, Dick despairs silently as his sobbing grows more intense, shaking his breathless body.
It is too much!
Just when Dick thinks he can no longer bear to watch, about two and half minutes into the programme, he feels the weight of another hand on his right, long fingers interlocking with his own. Turning his head to his right side, Wally’s emerald eyes gaze at him with the fiercest shine of compassion Dick has ever seen.
“I got you, Dickie”, Wally whispers, barely audible against the music and yet powerfully resonant.
Another sob breaks forth from Dick, but this one of gratitude rather than sadness, and Wally gently lays his arm around Dick’s back and guides his raven-haired head towards his own shoulder, where Dick lets his eyes falls closed for a brief moment of reprieve and exhaustion.
Holding onto Wally’s body like an anchor in the raging sea of tears, Dick forces his mind back to happier memories.
His first ride on top of Zitka.
The first time he successfully executed a quadruple summersault.
His parents surprising Dick with a card on his birthday promising him that they would try to give him a little sibling.
And all of a sudden, the images from Dick’s pasts turn into images that he knows will never come to be, but which fill him with love and gratitude all the same.
His entire family sitting around the dinner table at Wayne Manor, Wally on Dick’s right side, his mom on his left, chatting to Alfred on her other side and Talia about their favourite flavours of tea. His dad is sitting opposite Dick, making Jason and Tim giggle with one of his many stories about being a teenage rascal himself, while on his right, Wally is having a passionate discussion with Bruce, whose lap is occupied by a wide-eyed Damian, about the current season of the Gotham Knights.
Letting his eyes wander across the imaginary dinner table, Dick is no longer filled with sadness for the loved ones that he lost way too soon. Instead, he is overcome by thankfulness for the people he was blessed enough to meet and whose love and affection made him the young man that he is today. The young man who loves his family with every fibre of his being and who is just two days away from competing on Olympic ice.
Suddenly, the booming voice of his perpetually optimistic father rings through his ears.
You can take a Grayson out of his family, he once said when his son felt particularly homesick one day, but you can’t take family out of a Grayson.
Smiling through the last few tears, Dick opens his eyes just in time when the music moves into the final minute of the programme and Carol throws herself with wild, impassioned abandon into Hal’s arms as thunderous piano chords amp up the tension in the arena.
Hal spins Carol in a jaw-dropping dance lift that covers almost half the length of the rink and earns them spontaneous applause from the gobsmacked audience, before the two separate and begin their side-by-side choreographic step sequence. Each motion is in perfect unison with the music, translating the rising tension of the score into ever-intensifying arm movements and turns.
Dick is grabbing Wally’s hand as if his life depends on it, no longer drowning in re-emergent grief, but willing to throw his heart on the ice to make sure that Carol and Hal win the gold medal that they so desperately deserve.
Matching Dick’s accelerating heartbeat, the music grows ever faster and louder until finally a high-pitched violin line is added onto the orchestral soundscape. The music escalates into a frantic, overwhelming crescendo, and Carol and Hal give each other one final look that all but says ‘I love you’. Then Hal raises up his partner into a last, death-defying rotational lift. On cue with the music, they pull apart and throw themselves onto the ice, smashing onto their knees and leaning far back onto their legs, their heads raised up towards the ceiling of the arena and their hands still holding each other as if to say, If we have to go, we will go together.
United as one, until the very end. Defying death so that nothing will pull them apart.
Just like my parents.
The final chord of the music hasn’t even finished echoing through the arena by the time that Dick jumps to his feet and screams his lungs out, his voice once again quivery from the tears of happiness that are now streaming down his cheeks. The other spectators in the sold-out arena instantly join him to give Carol and Hal a standing ovation, their cheers so loud that Dick thinks the roof is about to collapse any moment now.
Carol and Hal need a moment to compose themselves before they rise to shaky feet and give each other a long and deeply felt hug that lets everybody watching in Montreal and at home know how much this moment meant to them.
Scores don’t even matter anymore. With a four-point lead, Carol and Hal only needed to avoid mistakes to win, and not only did they avoid mistakes; they just delivered the skate of a life time, not just for them personally, but for everybody watching, most of all Dick himself.
Inspired by the skaters on the ice, Dick suddenly cannot stop himself from turning to his right and wrapping Wally in the firmest hug he can manage. Wally starts in surprise, but soon closes his arms around Dick’s body, too.
With a shaky voice, Dick sobs into Wally’s shoulder, just loud enough for the ginger to hear him.
“Thank you, Wally. Thank you so much.”
With everybody’s attention directed towards the ice, Dick doubts that anybody will notice them hugging, and even if somebody does after all, Dick no longer cares.
Dick loves Wally. He has known so for a very long time. But the last four minutes have told him something else, too. Something just as important.
My parents would have loved Wally, too.
Both for who Wally is, and for the way that he cares about their son.
Mary and John Grayson would have received Wally West with open arms, and that thought alone makes Dick pull his own arms around his boyfriend just a little bit tighter.
His boyfriend doesn’t seem to mind, either. Instead, Wally strengthens his hold of Dick as well, kisses his raven hair and murmurs in response, “Any time, Dickiebird.”
***
Later that night, there is a reception at the Team USA house to celebrate #Harol’s record-breaking Olympic victory and of course all the figure skaters, including Dick, have gathered to pay homage. Thankfully, Dick’s emotions have calmed down again in the meantime since the free skate – down enough that he feels like he can go through this event without having to hold Wally’s hand for mental support the whole time. Still, that doesn’t stop him from giving the ginger his warmest, most affectionate and most grateful smile every time their eyes meet across the room. Which happens more than a few times.
So many times, in fact, that Harley Quinzel of all people calls him out on it when she appears out nowhere next to him, a glass of orange juice in her hands. The women’s free skate is tomorrow, and Harley is lying in fourth place after the short programme, but close enough to still have a shot at a medal.
“You and West seem awfully close considering that you are direct rivals.”
“OH!”, Dick starts, his face growing pale in surprise while a knowing smirk adorns Harley’s.
“Harley, s-sorry”, Dick begins to stammer, “I, uhm did not see you there.”
“Clearly”, Harley grins, “but then again, can I blame you when your eyes are all fixed on those gorgeously freckled cheeks from Keystone?”
Embarrassed heat is flashing rising up into Dick’s face.
“Uhm, I don’t know what you’re t-talking about”, Dick tries to deflect poorly. “Wally and I are just friends!”
“Sure you are”, Harley rolls her eyes. “As surely as I will hunt you down if I don’t get an invitation to your wedding in a few years’ time.”
“Harley!”, Dick exclaims.
“Listen, Dick,” she says in a more serious tone, stepping closer so that nobody else can hear them. “If you’re worried about me selling you out, I won’t. In fact, I think that you and Wally dating is the best thing that could have happened to figure skating in a long while. It’s high time that this crusty old sport arrives in the 21st century, and that people realize that not all of us play it straight, okay?”
A pause, during which Dick marvels at Harley’s words. Then he grins and asks, “Us?”
Harley merely winks, drains her orange juice, and says, “Now, if you will excuse me, Boyfriend Wonder, I gotta go to bed to make sure I can claw my way onto the podium tomorrow.”
“Good night, Harley, and the best of luck tomorrow.”
“Good night, Robin”, Harley sings, giving Dick a quick peck on the cheeks and vanishing into the crowd.
Dick’s eyes are still following her, processing the interaction he’s just had with Harley, when a man’s voice behind his back calls out his name.
“Dick! So great to see you here!”
Turning around, Dick finds none other than tonight’s cause of celebration, Carol Ferris and Hal Jordan, walking towards him. They are dressed in their red, white and blue Team USA suits, decorated by the freshly awarded gold medals hanging around their necks.
Dick clears his throat, feeling his face blush a little at the sight of these two skaters who transformed him into a tearful wreck not too long ago, then he answers, “Of course! I wanted to congratulate you in person. And also thank you. Your free dance today really moved me. In a profound way that I didn’t know I needed. So thank you.”
The words are out before Dick can stop them, and he doesn’t know exactly why he is telling them about his emotional reaction to their free dance, but Carol and Hal don’t seem offended about it. In fact, Carol’s face lights up even more than before, if that’s even possible, and she replies, “Wow, that’s so kind of you to say. Although I think it’s actually us who have to thank you.”
“What? Why?”, Dick answers, taken aback.
“It was you who inspired us to dance to ‘Rain, in your black eyes’ for the free”, Hal explains in a fond smile.
Dick is still in disbelief. “How?”, is all he manages to say.
“Remember that interview you gave to Lois Lane last summer about the Olympic season?”, Carol begins. “You said that you had picked Moonlight Sonata for the free, even though it had been ‘done to death’ – your words. You also said that if you really love a piece and give it your all, then it doesn’t matter how many people have used it before. ‘It’s the passion that makes it yours.’ Well, at that time we were still unsure if ‘Rain’ would be the right pick for the Olympic free dance, just ‘cause it had been skated to so often in the past. But still, we loved the piece, and then your interview came out it was the last push we needed.”
Dick feels like the air has been punched out of his lungs. He does remember saying those things, but at the time he hadn’t given them much thought, a throw-away line more than anything. It had been his honest opinion, so why should he comment anything else?
I never thought anybody would listen to what I have to say, Dick marvels silently. Least of all icons like #Harol.
I never thought that I could make a difference!
It’s Carol’s voice which pulls Dick’s out of his thoughts and back into the here and now.
“To be honest, I’m not sure we would have picked ‘Rain’ if it hadn’t been for your comments in that interview, so in a way this gold medal is as much yours as it is ours.”
There goes Dick’s speechless blush again.
“Which I hope won’t stop you from going after your own gold medal this week”, Hal adds with a smirk. “How do feel about your event, by the way? The short is the day after tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah, it is. The competition will be brutal. I could win or I could just as well not even make the podium. It’s that open. Valentin will be especially hard to beat, with the shape that he’s in it right now. But despite all that … I feel calm. Like I know that everything’s gonna be fine. No matter what happens. So I’ll just skate and enjoy my time on the ice, and then we’ll see.”
While Dick’s speaking these words, his eyes wander to the other end of the room, where Wally is currently chatting with veteran pair skaters Henry ‘Hank’ Hall and Dawn ‘Dove’ Granger. As if he can telepathically sense Dick’s gaze on him, Wally looks to the side to meet Dick’s eyes and smiles. Warmly and fondly. Like he did before the free skate at Nationals. And Dick knows in his heart that everything is going to be all right, no matter what happens on the ice this week. Because how could it not, when the person that Dick loves more than words can say smiles at him like that?
“That sounds like the healthiest mind set I’ve ever heard an Olympian have”, Carol comments, sounding genuinely impressed at the maturity of the 17-year-old Boy Wonder.
“Haha, yeah,”, Dick laughs bashfully, tearing his gaze away from Wally and back to Carol and Hal, “well, I’ve realized this season that I just want to be happy, and I love skating too much to have it be one of the reasons that make me unhappy. So whatever happens, will happen.”
“And whatever happens, we will be there to cheer you on”, Carol smiles fondly.
With a slightly more crooked grin than his partner, Hal Jordan leans down towards Dick and whispers into his ear, “You and your boyfriend.”
Before the shocked Boy Wonder can reply, the newly-crowned Olympic champion squeezes Dick’s shoulder and nods at him encouragingly, and Dick doesn’t need any words to know that his secret is safe with Carol and Hal, just like it is with Harley, and that his team mates will support him unconditionally. And as a queer teenage boy, that means even more to Dick right now that any medal ever could.