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Bright and early Thursday morning, they got ready and left on a bus to Philadelphia for the Philadelphia Summer International competition. It was kind of local to them, with Philadelphia near New Jersey, which was a large part of why they were attending, but it was on the ISU’s official calendar this year, which meant it counted for winning points towards the standings. The competition only had men’s & women’s singles in the senior and Junior categories.
Tim would be making his debut in the Senior level at this competition. Technically, he could still compete at the Junior level, since his birthday wasn’t until later in July so he fell after the July 1st cutoff, but he wanted to move up and compete at a higher level. Also, Damian would be debuting at the Junior level and they didn’t want Tim and Damian in direct competition with eachother, because those two could get a bit antagonistic with sibling rivalry at times. Which, technically, Damian was too young to be competing at the Junior level this year.
The age cut off for Juniors had increased so now they had to be born before June 30th, 2002, and Damian’s Birthdate was December 20th, 2002. But, Damian’s birth was weird: In Talia’s 2nd trimester, she’d transferred him to an artificial womb to incubate more and he was approximately 6 months old physically when he was “born” on December 20th. His official birth certificate from Tibet only listed the birth year of 2002 with no precise birthdate. When Damian came to live with Bruce in late November a few years ago, they’d ended up finalizing the custody paperwork and Damian’s legal documents on December 20th as an excuse to make his actual birthdate the official one. So, with his official birthdate, he was too young.
They’d filed a thing arguing that the official birthdate for Damian only listed the year of 2002, they didn’t know his official birthdate and had chosen his adoption date of sorts for his birthdate on paperwork since American records required a full birthdate, so he could be born before the June 30th 2002 deadline. They also argued that Damian’s skill level was already more fitting for Junior level competition and for him to be grandfathered in since they were actively changing to cutoff date. All factors considered, and mainly the thing about his imprecise birthdate, meant they were granted permission for Damian to compete at the Junior level.
Of course, Damian argued that if he was officially over 13 as far as figure skating was concerned, he should be allowed to do full fighting-patrols as Robin, and they argued they were still using his December birthdate for that with a gentle reminder that Tim wasn’t done with the Robin mantle yet. Dick should really find time to talk to Tim about the Robin mantle at some point….but he was just so busy. Maybe after he had everything more firmly established for the meta-teens at the end of the summer, he would find time and energy to do his big-brother duties towards Tim.
Anyways, the entire group they were bringing to the Philadelphia competition included Cass, Dick, and Tim all competing at the Senior level and Damian competing at the Junior level. Cullen was technically old enough to compete at the Junior level, he was born the same year as Damian but born in the spring, but his skill level wasn’t ready for the Junior level and he was still working on making a new program for the new year. Lily and Lian were too young to compete as well. However, as their best figure skaters, they were bringing Cullen, Lily, and Lian along to watch the competition (along with their guardians, Harper, Annette, and Roy respectively). Mia their figure skating coach was attending as well, of course.
It was only a 1-2 hour drive, so they arrived with plenty of time before the competition started. On Thursday the 16th, the only one competing for them was Damian in the Junior Men’s free skate. Damian was ready to debut his programs for the new season. For his short program, he was doing 1812 Overture, with his biggest jump on the cannon noise part of it. He performed a perfectly clean routine and was in the lead following the short program. Dick was sure to congratulate his little brother for a strong performance.
On Friday, Cass performed her short program, some springtime-themed classical music piece. Dick knew her free skate this year was to the Firebird ballet, he’d seen the pretty costume for it. Damian performed his free skate, which was to the Pirates of the Caribbean sound track, and he also had a clean program. Though, he had upgraded to a triple axel jump without permission, but he had landed it. Mia was fuming in exasperated concern but Dick could only think about how Damian took after him, smiling fondly as he watched the routine. Damian ended up winning the Junior level competition, with the help of his triple axel, so Dick couldn’t blame him and only congratulated him for a performance well-done.
Dick performed his short program, which was to P!NK’s song Sober, which….was a song that had been a big mood recently as he went drinking and partying to try and ignore his feelings. Tim also performed his short program, for which he’d chosen a Green Day song, “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)”. Tim completed a clean routine, with a triple axel and a quadruple toeloop jump, similar to what he’d done at Junior Worlds. Dick ended up winning the short program with Tim in second behind him. There were small award ribbons for top 3 placement in the short program so they accepted those.
On Saturday, they’d arranged for Dick to be allowed to compete his free skate first instead of last, since he needed to travel that day for the Gymnastics competition; the organizers had clearly agreed on account of knowing how Dick performing would draw in way more fans and boost ticket sales. Dick performed his free skate to The Show Must Go On, which he’d debuted at Worlds, though he didn’t attempt any quint jumps today. Still, the crowd was excited about it, even as early as it was at 10am.
Then Dick immediately left; they arranged for one of their speedier private planes (that was one they were known to publicly own, not a batplane) to fly Dick to the location of his next competition in Colorado. Normally it would take like 4 hours for this flight, but with the private 2-seater plane which was adapted from a fighter jet, they made the flight in 2 hours. Dick did have an official pilots license learner’s permit or whatever it was called, but he’d never logged enough civilian flight hours to upgrade it to a proper flight license. Still, he was comfortable on a plane like this, he was certainly well adapted to G-force.
Dick went directly from the airport to the competition location, where the Senior level competition was kicking off at 2pm. He arrived and was able to check in with an hour to spare before competition. He’d packed light, bringing a single duffel bag for what would be a short trip here. He made sure to eat and hydrate as he needed to before he went through his stretching routine
Dick knew the competition he was in started at 2pm and was prepared to head straight to the competition center from the airport, before he remembered there was a 2-hour time difference, so it was only like 11am instead of 1pm. He stopped by the hotel, for a quick shower and a change of clothes and dropping off his suitcase. He made sure he had everything he needed in his duffle bag to bring to the competition. He went ahead and got changed into his gymnastics uniform, though he had a change of clothes in his duffle. He hydrated and ate properly, doing 15 minutes of yoga to settle himself after the flight and the running around.
He idly checked his phone: Tim and Cass had both performed well, and Tim came in 2nd in the competition, just behind Dick himself. He’d previously authorized Tim to accept Dick’s medal on his behalf. Dick checked over the social media posts that Rachel had drafted for him, approving to post the one about winning at the figure skating competition.