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rad-batson · 1 year

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Damian Wayne: Figure Skater

or: Damian Wayne Fluff Because Damian Wayne Deserves Joy and Happiness <3

Damian Wayne prides himself on being good at everything he does. He never half-asses anything.

Damian has tried tons of different skills before. He’s mastered dozens of martial arts, become fluent in over thirty languages, earned several PhDs, and he’s not even a teenager yet. Why? He needs to be the best or it’s not good enough.

But there are only so many skills that give him the same joy as when he started. Studio art is his favorite and has always been a constant for him, but he’s yet to find something else. Something that truly invigorates him.

At 12, Damian watches the Winter Olympics with Dick. It’s his first ever time viewing the Olympics, and he doesn’t really know what he was expecting, but Damian is…kind of underwhelmed.

Everyone talked about how the Olympics are supposed to be this grandiose display of the world’s talents, but most of it’s pretty boring.

Curling is boring. Alpine is slow and monotonous. Bobsledding is repetitive, and sled dog racing seems unethical.

But then figure skating comes on. And Damian is captivated.

Without even realizing, he moved right in front of the television and watched an hour of figure skating uninterrupted. Dick notices and smiles.

“Aren’t they cool?” Dick asks. Damian, with his eyes still glued to the screen, nods. “Wanna go to the local rink with me and try it out? It’s even more fun than it looks.”

That pulls Damian out of his trance, and he closes himself off. “No. I don’t need to.”

He just thought it was cool, okay? And he totally doesn’t want to try it himself. And he totally isn’t worried that he won’t be good at it and fall like an idiot in front of his older brother if he does.

It’s just that…it’s so cool!!

Damian knows agility, okay? He can do flips and tricks with ease, and he knows how to do it with both grace and poise. But these people? They can do it on ice! With blades on their feet!!

OF COURSE DAMIAN WANTS TO DO COOL TRICKS WITH SHARP BLADES STRAPPED TO HIS FEET

Admittedly, he goes through a two-month-long period of pretending he isn’t dying to try it. He almost completely forgets. Then, by complete coincidence, Cass and Duke invite him to an indoor skating rink, and he caves. Maybe it’s not that hard.

Spoiler: Figure Skating is Hard

Within five seconds, he falls flat on his face. How do people do this? Cass and Duke say it’s normal, but he still refuses to leave the wall the whole time out of shame.

Once they’re home, however, Damian realizes how stupid that was. He’s Damian Wayne Al Ghul. He can’t just give up! What would the rest of his family think?! What if they go back one day, and he just falls flat on his face again? There’s no excuse the second time, and he doesn’t want the others to think he can’t do it.

So that night, he sneaks back into the rink after hours and tries again. And again. And again. And again.

On the fifth try, he is able to make it all the way around the rink. He realizes that he’s distributing his weight wrong. (Stupid mistake, of course. He’s essentially balancing on knives.) That makes it a lot easier, but he’s still flapping his arms around like a bird.

He spends two more hours improving his balance, then decides that’s good enough. He did what he came here to do, and he doesn’t need to come back.

Two days later, he comes back. (I mean, who knows? Maybe, he’s gotten better.) He didn’t, obviously. But what harm is there in spending some more time on the ice? Other than the collection of bruises he acquires.

He falls way more than he’d like to admit, but once he teaches himself how to do that safely, it’s actually kind of fun. He circles the rink countless times, figures out to start and stop (though it is admittedly a very ungraceful way of stopping.) He can even kind of control his speed.

So he’s done, right? He did it! He can now ice skate to a degree that isn’t mortifying for a beginner. He doesn’t need to come back.

The Short Program

One week and four visits later, he admits that he is hooked. He wants to see how far he can go with this. But he can’t just improve without proper guidance, so he decides to take Tim’s advice for once and use the internet.

That’s when he really starts improving. Exponentially. He pours over articles and videos and diagrams about gliding, stopping, pivots, crossovers, and finally some simple spins. Just basics, of course.

He also purchases his own pair of skates because the rental ones he’s been “borrowing” suck. And they smell. And he forges a membership card (you know, so there’s no paper trail.)

His original goal is to make it to free skate level, but once he’s there, he can’t stop. It’s just so gratifying to add another skill to his repertoire. If he can do front crossovers, then he can surely master them backward. Closed Mohawks shouldn’t be that bad if the open Mohawks were so easy. Before he knows it, he’s spending hours every week developing his skills.

After a few months, his improvement plateaus because the jumps prove difficult. He doesn’t know how to build up the speed, and his stealth and fighting techniques (which he’s been borrowing from thus far) just make him wipe out. So he works on that for a bit and tries to figure out what he’s doing wrong.

During a JL meeting, The Flash happens to mention a rogue who used to figure skate. Lisa Snart, or the Golden Glider, is a famous figure skater from the 90s, but she was kicked from the Olympic team due to her life of crime. Now, she jumps between both petty crime and vigilantism.

Damian tracks her down and claims to be researching the sport for a school assignment. Yeah, it’s a bit thin of a cover story. If she wanted to see through his lie, she’d only have to break into his school and check his teacher’s assignment book, but once he laments about how every other skater is busy, and he was so surprised to learn that she was no longer skating when she’s clearly so talented, Lisa happily tells him all of the secrets to the sport.

For a few months, he applies her techniques and even asks her to skate for him a few times, recording her from multiple angles. “I value the quality of my education,” he explains. She sees through the lie but doesn’t say anything. (And somehow, he doesn’t particularly care.)

In the coming year, Bruce notices a change in how Robin moves during patrol. If he had to describe it…well, there’s a lot more power behind his movement. He redistributes his momentum with ease, which proves extremely valuable. There’s more height to his jumps and speed in his attacks. On top of it all, he can reorient himself quicker.

Bruce praises Damian once they’re back at the cave and even allows him more freedom during missions. Damian totally doesn’t cry about it in his room.

The Free Skate

Damian refuses to let anyone watch him practice for YEARS to save his pride. I mean, yes, he’s at free skate level 5—thanks, Lisa—but he’s not at level 6 yet! And that won’t take too long, right? Maybe they can know once he’s mastered his quad axel (which is a totally doable goal. He’s not overachieving. He’s Damian Wayne Al Ghul.)

Next, he works on transitions. At first, he copies other skaters’ forms, then he slowly develops his own. It’s sharp in some ways and fluid in others like he’s been on ice his whole life but he’s got places to be.

At about 15 or 16, he invites Jon to come with him one day. He shows him “a few spins” (triple axels) and Jon immediately starts encouraging him to join some kind of showcase or competition.

Damian’s response is “No! I’m not good enough yet. I still can’t land a quad axel. That’s insulting.”

Cue Jon’s family-friendly “bitch please” face. He says, “Okay, but you need to show someone else. I can’t be the only person in the world who knows.” so they get Billy in on it.

He’s obviously good at keeping secrets, considering he hid his age and the fact he was homeless from the JL for five years.

Billy also loses his shit, but he’s more understanding about the “I don’t want to tell anyone else” thing. Thus, Jon and Billy become Damian’s cover for every time he’s caught sneaking out. (He was running out of excuses anyway.)

Bruce hears that Damian is hanging out with Jon and Billy every week, gives him a look, and tells him he’s proud that he’s making friends.

Damian nods along, thanking all the gods in Billy’s head that his secret is safe. If Bruce doesn’t have any reason to snoop, then he won’t. Simple as that. The greatest detective in the world doesn’t need to start snooping.

During the next Winter Olympics, Damian watches every single skating performance from the comfort of his room. (Tim can hear him yelling at his TV through the walls but doesn’t have the energy to question it.)

Jon and Billy are his cheerleaders. They go out for lunch then head to the rink with him and mess around while Damian practices. Sometimes, they spend all day together. Doing homework, gossiping, playing fun little games.

Damian keeps mentioning the quad axel to them until Jon looks it up and says, “Um, hey Dami? Apparently, the quad axel is like…almost physically impossible. You know that, right?“ “If Lisa Snart and Ilia Malinin can do it, so can I.” “Okay, Mr. PhD.” Still, they don’t doubt him for a second.

Damian teaches them some stuff during a public skate in Fawcett City. Jon cheats multiple times by floating a tiny bit to keep his balance. Billy falls a lot.

As much as he likes being with his friends, though, Damian finds himself skating more to clear his head rather than to improve or socialize.

When he has a bad patrol or gets into some trouble he could have avoided, he’ll sneak into the rink alone and skate for hours.

He’ll pour all of his frustration into the music and carve it out into the ice until he’s exhausted and lying down with the cold surface against his back, letting it sink some sense into him.

It’s a good outlet. Kind of like his art, but there are only so many pencils you can snap in anger before your dad cuts your art supply budget. Bruce doesn’t know about this yet.

Six months later, when Damian lands his first quad axel in front of Jon and Billy, they all scream for five consecutive minutes and celebrate with hot chocolate and sorbet.

“What’s got you in such a good mood?” Tim asks when he’s back home. Damian tries to hide his smile but fails spectacularly. “Oh, nothing.” He’s never had a problem with schooling his emotions before, but anything is possible now. Even a quad fucking axel.

Competition Season

During patrol one day, Dick sees Damian spinning on the roof and says, “Hey, where’d you get those sick ballet moves? Did Black Bat teach you that?” Damian immediately stops and says, “Uh yeah.” Thankfully, Dick doesn’t ask Cass to confirm.

At 17, Jason catches him sneaking out at 10 pm and unknowingly opens an entire can of worms.

Damian, too tired to make a good excuse: “I’m seeing Jon.” Jason: “Like a date?” Damian, dying inside: “…Don’t tell Baba.”

At 18, he’s able to reliably land the quad axel and do it with style. It’s almost more gratifying than punching criminals in the face. (Almost.) That’s when Jon and Billy finally bring up the idea of telling others about it.

Damian is still hesitant, but he thinks about it.

I mean, he’s made a lot of progress in six years, hasn’t he? The only other thing he’s spent so long practicing was his assassin training, then his vigilantism, and his art. But this one is special because it’s just his. (And Jon and Billy. Kinda.) And getting to show off to them is fun, especially when he perfects another element, and they got batshit crazy together over it. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Having a few more people to mess around with in the rink?

He just doesn’t know if it’ll be impressive enough. After all, his entire family is great at stuff. Bruce is the world’s greatest detective—how he hasn’t learned about this yet, Damian doesn’t know. Dick is a beyond incredible acrobat. Jason has one of the highest proficiencies in marksmanship ever. Tim is the best bo staff user on this side of the Atlantic...

...And Damian can do jumps and tricks on the ice. Wow, cool. Good job, Damian.

But then he’s twelve again. And he’s sitting in front of the TV watching Yuzuru Hanyu and Yuna Kim do triple axels, and Dick is inviting him to try it out together. And Cass and Dick are taking him to the rink because they thought it’d be fun. And Lisa is rambling about how she misses skating competitively. And Bruce is telling him he’s proud of the progress Damian’s made both inside and outside of patrol. And Tim is telling him he looks happier than usual.

He is happier.

Yeah. Maybe, they deserve to know.

He agrees to sign up for a free skate competition. But not one in Gotham. And only a small one. He wants to test out the waters first. They find one that’s a month away, and Damian signs up.

When the day comes, Damian is shaking in his skates. He did not account for a “small competition” still having over two hundred people watching. What the fuck was he thinking?

What Jon and Billy don’t tell him is that they snuck Dick into the crowd to watch. Dick has no idea what he’s doing there until he sees Damian skate out to the middle in a red and grey top with black pants and matching skates.

He performs to Beggin’ by Måneskin and starts the performance out with his quad axel.

Everyone loses their shit.

He looks so genuinely excited when he’s skating. He completely ignores the hundreds of people watching, doesn’t count points. He just jams out to the song until he’s breathless, spinning and gliding and jumping and turning to the beat, mostly showing off to Jon and Billy like he always does.

When it’s over, he just hears this massive crowd of people screaming, and then overtop of it, Dick shouts, “THAT’S MY BABY BROTHER!!” and Damian almost falls flat on his face.

Dick uses the Emergency Group Chat to send a video of Damian skating then screams into the phone to Bruce, who immediately drives out to the rink with the rest of the family, and his siblings make Damian do it over once the place is cleared out because they can’t believe they missed it.

Dick: When did you learn to figure skate?! Damian: After we watched the Olympics together. Dick: You’ve been hiding this for SIX YEARS?!?! Damian: …It looked fun.

Of course, Damian is still the son of Bruce Wayne so tabloids eat it up.

“Damian Wayne: Figure Skating Prodigy” “Wayne Prodigy Wins Gold at Regional Figure Skating Competition, Baffling Judges” “Is Damian Wayne fit to represent the US during the next Winter Olympics??”

A swarm of coaches ask Damian if he would like to skate competitively but he declines. He just likes doing it for fun.

Thankfully, the performance was recorded by the competition holders (after a suspicious request from the CEO of Wayne Enterprises last week. Wow, wonder why)

Leave it to Damian to spend his rebellious phase becoming an Olympic-level athlete.

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