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kiss and cry

summary | you’ve learnt to build your walls sky high in the wake of dick grayson’s abrupt departure from the world of skating. but one decade later, he’s back like nothing ever happened, and you’re back to square one. prompt | language of flowers event: a bouquet of purple hyacinths in blue wrapping paper with a pink ribbon ♡ pairing | dick grayson x gn!reader wc | 3.2k warnings/tags | pairs figure skating, childhood friends to strangers to ???, mutual pining, repressed feelings, angst, swearing, insecurity, no use of y/n, very liberal interpretation of how you’d qualify for the olympics ty @strangergraphics for the divider!

Brian Orser is a liar.

“Oh c'mon kid, I had no idea. I thought this was a good kind of surprise! You might have a chance at the Olympics this time around!”

You should’ve known something was up when he asked you to stay after practice. The old man is annoyingly close to catching up with you, and if you weren’t wearing skate guards right now, you’d speed walk to the lockers faster.

“Isn’t this good? You need a new partner, Dick finally decided to call me back, and anyways, I thought you l-”

You don’t need to hear the rest of his sentence to know what he’s about to say. “I didn’t. And I don’t anymore.” Neither of you seem convinced, but at least it gets him to shut up.

What pains you the most is you can’t even be mad at the older man. You can’t cry, or scream, or throw a tantrum like you were 9 again, because at the end of the day, this is the coach you had begged to take you on. The one who has been behind so many legends and basically built your career up from the ground. Had this been any other situation, any other person, besides the Boy Wonder himself, you would probably be on the verge of much happier tears. But you know, just like last time, he won’t be here to stay. And you don’t know how much more heartbreak you can take.

Before you get the chance to talk him out of it, a pair of footsteps joins you. Speak of the fucking devil.

It’s like they had planned some flanked attack, with Brian herding you towards the front of the building and Dick stepping in to cut you off as you’re about to make your grand escape. No idea, your ass. Brian knew you wouldn’t be able to say no if they had you cornered like this.

“Dick!” he exclaims, pushing past you to wrap the black-haired man in bear hug. Normally, you think you’d be hurt by how his face is practically illuminating (he had never greeted you like that before). But you have your own worries to deal with: namely, a heart that is currently trying to claw its way out of your throat and lungs that have forgotten how to inhale air. You think Brian might still be speaking, but if he is, you’ve tossed that all to the side in lieu of studying the man in front of you.

You make it a point not to meet his gaze, even as you feel him trying to meet yours. Perhaps it’s pride, perhaps it’s fear, but either way, you know as soon as you look at him, properly look at him, any objectivity will fly out the door.

So you settle for the obvious things. He’s taller, and his face is sharper, no longer rounded by baby fat. Even the spiky haircut you used to tease him for is grown out now. He looks good—but nothing like the boy you have enshrined in your memories. This isn’t the boy who would stay behind to help you practice your jumps. This isn’t the boy who would pack an extra lunch for you in case you forgot yours. This isn’t the boy you cried yourself to sleep over for months, the boy who almost made you quit the one thing you loved most in the world because the thought of skating alone made you want to hurl.

This? Him? It’s just a bitter reminder that figure skating wasn’t the only thing he left behind all those years ago.

You think you hear the two of them discuss the technical details. Practice schedules, song choices, choreography—it all goes in one ear and out the other. It’s a conversation you have with the older man at the start of every season. An annual promise that that year would be the year you finally earn the recognition you had worked so hard for.

Technically, everything had been perfect. Technically, you were good. Enough to consistently land a spot at the Grand Prix Final.

But not good enough for a medal. It was never enough. No matter how much training you did, how many extra jumps you crammed into your programs, how many partners you had cycled through. There was no use in denying it: after Dick had left, you hadn’t been the same skater.

It’s pathetic. Your crush had not only abandoned you at 14, but any hopes of even making it to the podium had been crushed then as well. And you hate that 10 years later, you still haven’t moved on. Not enough to say no to his offer. Because like it or not, chemistry is everything in pairs, and there’s nobody like him. There is nobody like Dick Grayson.

It’s silent now. They’re waiting for you.

You finally look up to meet his gaze. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

—

It’s too easy to fall back into step with Dick. He always greets you with a smile, brings you snacks before practice (homemade ones at that), and carries your bag to your car for you, even though you insist that you’re more than capable of doing it yourself. He’s certainly trying, but the more effort he puts in, the more you can’t help but resent him.

His kindness is all just a means to an end for him. He’s buttering you up so your movements are less goddamn stiff when you’re next to him, so you at least vaguely resemble an evenly matched pair. You know from Brian that he’s only coming back because of a stupid bet he made with his brother. He’s just here to prove he can make it to the Olympics. Your childhood dream, what you’ve decided would be the sign that you’ve made it—to him, it’s just another achievement he can use to inflate his ego. The worst part about it is he’s good enough that he could genuinely make it happen that effortlessly. And once he’s satisfied with that, he’ll waltz out of your life just as quickly as he came in.

So when he offers you a hand as you step out of the rink, when he happens to have an extra energy drink, when he suggests a “team bonding” dinner, you don’t accept. You’ll let yourself entertain him on the ice for the sake of the skate. But nothing more.

At the very least, you can admit that your performance aspect has definitely improved since skating alongside Dick. You breeze through Eastern Regionals, then Skate Canada, then Skate America, and in no time at all, you’re at the Grand Prix Final: the one barrier you’ve always hit.

The short goes even better than you imagined it would. Too good. You’ve seen the posts that the fans have made about the two of you, digging up old skating clips to support their theories about the two of you. There’s a poorly worded interview by Brian that does nothing but fuel the flames, and even some of the commentators have been talking about how good the two of you look together. All signs seem to be telling you that you have nothing to worry about; the two of you are perfect. They don’t understand that that’s exactly what you’re worried about.

You don’t catch yourself until it’s too late. You’re slowly getting consumed by him—by his soft smiles and whispers of encouragement and stupid, stupid puns. You’re back where you started, feeling weightless as the two of you skate your free program, actually losing yourself to the music. There’s nothing to prove anymore; this isn’t a performance—this is just how it’s always meant to be. It should feel right. But it doesn’t, because you’re terrified that if you let yourself get comfortable in his embrace, you won’t be able to skate like this ever again.

You pop the triple Lutz. Then you go into an Euler and a double toe loop that’s under-rotated too. You don’t understand, your jumps have always been pristine, especially your doubles. You haven’t made a sloppy mistake like this in a while. The last time was when–

Shit, you’re too early into the step sequence, the turn too sharp at the corner. You meet his gaze repentantly, like that will absolve you of your guilt. You don’t know what emotion you’re expecting to find in eyes. Maybe anger? Frustration? That’s certainly how you feel at the moment. Whatever it is, it’s certainly not adoration.

You want to ask him what the hell is going on, but there’s no time. Last move. Death spiral. You have to hold hands, and the contact makes your skin burn. You don’t have the heart to look at him again. You’re afraid of what you’re going to find.

Suddenly everything feels too tight: the rink, your chest, the skates around your feet. You have to get out of there. One revolution, two, three, four. You can hold on, it’s almost over. Another four. He pulls you back towards him. It’s your final pose. The two of you are chest to chest.

You just have to hold this for a second, and then you’re free. You can do it. You can do it. And then he’s leaning in even closer, until his forehead is pressed against yours and your lips hovering over each other.

You can’t do it anymore and all you can think about is how to get out of there. You don’t even bother to wait for your score; you’ll deal with Brian’s scolding later. But you know if you stay out there any longer, you won’t be able to scrape together what little sanity you still have left.

You’re leaving. You have to leave.

And as you run back to the lockers, you realize somebody’s been calling out your name.

“Hey, wait! Is everything okay?” Of course, the one person you don’t want to see would follow you. “Why did you leave like that? Did I do something wrong?” His hand hovers over your arm for a moment before he pulls it away and you don’t know whether you should laugh or cry. He used to do it with practiced ease back when you were kids, when you would joke that he had cooties but let him do so all the same. Now, you’re not sure if you can stand his touch, and from the look on his face, it seems to break his heart.

”Nothing, let’s just forget about this.” You feel like you’re being strangled and it takes all of your energy not to burst into tears at the moment.

”No,” he says softly. “No, I know you, I know you’re not okay. Please, let’s talk about this.”

And suddenly, everything’s just too much. He’s acting too nice to you, like he actually cares. Like maybe the fervent glances and lingering touches on the ice mean more to him than just pandering to the judges. But you know he doesn’t, because then he wouldn’t have left.

You let out a bitter laugh, shaking your head. “No, you don’t know a single thing about me. So don’t act like you care about me now.”

”I do though!”

“Bullshit. We’re not anything to each other.”

His face crumples immediately. He takes a step back. This is the closest he’s ever been to tears.

On a kinder day, you’d take it all back. You’d apologize and beg for his forgiveness and he would be disgustingly kind like he always is and you could both forget about this. But you’re tired of dancing around the issue and you think there’s a sick part of you that revels in his pained expression.

You take a step forward. “You’re just a coworker. This? This act where we pretend like we can stand to be in the same room as each other? This isn’t real. So stop acting like it is. You didn’t care about me when you left. So why the change now? Do you know how fucking hard it was for me to move on? I couldn’t even skate afterwards. I thought my career was over. And I’ve had to fight every single day to prove that—that I’m still a capable skater, that I have a place in this sport.”

Your voice trembles, and it takes all of your strength to swallow the lump in your throat. “I had to fight to be able to skate without you. To have the courage to stand on the ice alone. So I’m sorry that I’m not willing to welcome you back with open arms, because I know this is just some stupid game to you. You’ll get to the Olympics, because of course you will, and I’ll get to ride on the coattails of that. And that will be the greatest moment of my career, but to you, it’s just another thing on your checklist. Then you’ll go back to whatever you decided is more worthy than m–” You choke on your own words. “Than skating. And I’ll have to pick up the broken pieces again. But frankly speaking, I don’t know if I can do that a second time.”

It’s dead silent, save for your panting. You feel like you just ran a marathon. And Dick? You can’t read him, and that’s what scares you the most.

”Forget it.” The silence is driving you insane, and you just start running your mouth. “Fuck, forget it. I should just be grateful you’re even my partner this season. It’s the only way I’ll make it to the Olympics. I know you’re thinking it, you and Brian—”

“Don’t say that.”

“—that’s why you left, isn’t it? Didn’t want to be tied down to a pathetic fucking loser.”

“I never said th—”

”I can’t blame you. I’d leave me too—“

“I DIDN’T LEAVE YOU!”

Now you’re both silent. You’ve never heard him raise before. You’ve never seen him this desperate either. He’s shaking as he stands in front of you. “You’re right, I didn’t care about skating. It was always just a hobby to me. But I stayed because of you. Because I was young and stupid and in love and the only way I knew how to show you that was to skate with you. And it killed me when I had to quit, but I just…I saw how much passion you had for skating. Like it was the air you needed to breathe, but I knew I couldn’t dedicate myself to the sport like you could.. And you deserved a partner who would love skating as much as you do.”

You think your brain short circuits after “in love,” and if he says anything else after that, you certainly aren’t processing it. “…You loved me?”

Dick laughs like you’ve just asked if water is a liquid. ”Of course I did. Everybody knew it too. Brian used to tease me about the way I would look at you. And I figured I would finally tell you after I quit, in case it would make things awkward, but then…”

“I blocked you.” You whisper in horror.

“Yeah, so I figured you didn’t want anything to do with me after that. I didn’t realize quitting meant I would lose you too.”

And suddenly you’re 14 again, watching the boy you’ve had a crush on for over half of your life tell you that he doesn’t want to skate anymore, and you feel so small and so stupid. “Oh god. So all of those years…”

He nods, “I lied about the Olympics thing. Or well, I really did have a bet with Jason, but when Brian told me that you needed a new partner…I came back hoping it would be a chance to make it up to you.”

You’re still having a hard time wrapping your head around the fact that maybe Dick had genuinely been trying to make amends with you. “So you being nice wasn’t just for show or team-building or whatever?”

“Team-building? God, I don’t think there’s a world where I can love you in any other way.”

The first realization that he had loved you in the past had been enough to nearly give you a heart attack. But to hear love? In the present tense? You think back to how he’s been acting for the past few months. All of the weird incidents that you can’t just explain away by saying that he’s making fun of you or being civil to you as a teammate or just being nice because that’s how he is.

Because there’s no other explanation for why he looks at you like you hung the stars in the sky, why he lifts you with a reverence that could rival the likes of Keats and Byron, why he lingers on the ice after every practice, like he’s chasing the last vestiges of your warmth.

And you have so many words dancing on the tip of your tongue, ways in which you can lay down your heart for him as he has done for you. But both of you know that even this stolen moment is just that: stolen time.

”Shall we go back?” He offers you his hand evenly, but there’s a tremble in his voice that gives him away. Like he’s worried that even after all of this, there was a universe in which you still don’t reciprocate his feelings.

Your heart is screaming at you to assure him, promise that yes of course, you would accept him. But the words evaporate from your mind before you have a chance to grasp onto them. So you hope that at the very least, your actions can convey a fraction of your feelings. Hand in hand, you make your way back to the rink. No matter what the result is, you think it’ll be alright if you have Dick’s shoulder to cry on after this is all over.

—

“And with a free score of 129.44 and a final score of 205.57, that puts America’s own duo from Gotham at third place in the Grand Prix Final!”

Third, the word echoes in your head, taking you a few moments to process. Third, and there were no other American teams on the podium. Sure, it isn’t exactly the most fairytale ending, but it’s better this way—more real. You turn to look at Dick, who you’re sure has the exact same look of astonishment that you do. You remember Brian doing the math before you guys had even made it to the venue. Based on this event and the rest of your results this season, it was clear that the two of you were the uncontested pair in the whole country.

“You’re going to the Olympics!” Brian whoops, hugging the both of you and jumping for joy in a way you think only he can get away with. You’re grinning so hard your muscles are starting to twitch but honestly you could care less about that. All of the training, all of the sleepless nights had finally paid off, and you felt like you had really, truly made it. And the fact that you did it with Dick makes it all the sweeter to you.

You got a medal, a boyfriend, and that day, the kiss and cry finally lived up to its name.

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