Work Text:
Cameras pointed toward a stark white set. In the middle of the set was a handsome dark-haired man in his mid-to-late twenties and a middle aged Black woman with thick coily hair and smooth brown skin who sat across each other at a small wooden table. Alcoholic drinks were lined up along its edge and a deck of cards as well as a shot glass rested in front of the two individuals.
Behind the cameras, a voice called out. “Okay people! We are rolling in three, two, one!”
The young man looked at the camera with a dazzling smile. “Hi, my name’s Dick and I’m here with my amazing mom.” He gestured to the woman across the table.
“My name is Maria and I’m here with my amazing son.” She mimicked, giggling softly.
“Could you tell us a little bit about how the two of you came to be as you are now?”
“Sure! As you all know, my dad, Bruce, took me in when I was nine years old after my parents died, and I met Maria about a year after that. She and him weren’t even dating yet but she still treated me like her own son. Even if she didn’t realize it,” Dick finished cheekily.
Maria rolled her eyes. “You all always say that.”
“‘Cause it’s true.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
He points at her. “See? She didn’t deny it.” Dick jerked his hand back when Maria reached over the table to swat at it.
“Maria, how many children do you have?” The cameraman asked.
“Too damn many,” she huffed, and laughs were heard throughout the room. “I think it’s six though. All of them were also adopted. But only if you don’t count my kids who aren’t really my kids.”
Dick shook his head. “Yeah, we won’t be getting into that conversation.”
“You wanna take a shot before we start?” The two complied and picked their poison. They clinked their glasses before throwing them back.
“Okay, should I ask the questions first or do you want to?” Maria suggested.
Dick cleared his throat and obnoxiously tapped the card deck on the table. “I’ll be asking the questions around here, lady,” he said, his voice deep in false bravado. “Let’s see—” he read the first card and his facade dropped. “Oh my fucking g—I can’t ask this!”
“Uh-uh, you said you wanted to be asking the questions so ask them!”
He relented with a dramatic whine before reading the question aloud. “Have you ever had a threesome and would you?” He looked up slowly to observe Maria’s reaction, only to find her fighting back a smile. “Please don’t answer that.”
She snickered as she reached for the liquor bottle. “Alright. I’ll just keep that one to myself.”
“Please. I’m begging you.”
Maria set her shot down and flipped up a card. “Ooh, you’re gonna have a lot to say to this one.” She reads off the card. “What’s something I do that embarrasses you?”
Dick briefly contemplated. “Y’know, there actually isn’t much you do that I would see as embarrassing me.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Really? Not one thing comes to mind?”
“Well, at least not now.”
“What about back in the day?”
He groaned at the ceiling. “Oh my god, I used to hate it whenever you would drop me off at school in the mornings and yell ‘I love you, Dickie!’ from the windows.” Maria threw her head back in laughter at his imitation of her. “All my classmates would make fun of me. I was mortified.”
“I thought you liked it when I did that!”
“When I was a kid, yeah! But you kept going well into my teenage years.”
“‘Cause you were in your Angry Teenager phase and wanted to catch an attitude over every little thing. I wasn’t with that shit.”
The camera crew laughed as Dick pulled from his deck. “What was the most trouble I’ve ever been in?” He asked.
Maria didn’t hesitate in her answer. “Probably when you broke the chandelier in the ballroom ‘cause you were swinging on it for whatever reason.”
“Was that when he was younger?” The cameraman asked. As beloved as he was in the eyes of the press, little Dick Grayson was notorious for causing a ruckus at galas. Whether it was giving his father heart attacks by dangling from chandeliers to put on a show or “accidentally” tripping one of the snobby elites for their backhanded comments about him being a “charity case.”
“No, this was about a month ago. He wanted to prove to his siblings that he ‘still got it,’” she said, using air quotes.
“What happened after that?”
Dick scratched the back of his head. “I got told off for hours. They still won’t let me live it down.”
“Don’t forget you almost got the shit slapped out of you.” Dick’s shoulders rose in embarrassment at the laughter that followed.
“Just read the next question…” he grumbled.
Maria pulled the next card and snorted at what was on it. “Do you send nude images to the people you’re dating?” She sent him a teasing smile.
“Why do I feel like all these questions are working against me?” he exclaimed.
“You don’t wanna answer?” she asked, already moving for the bottle.
“No!”
She shrugged. “Alright, we’ll take a shot then.” Maria filled Dick’s glass before her own. They clinked the cups and drained them. “By the way, you don’t gotta be embarrassed ‘cause I already know the answer to that question.”
Dick pointedly ignored her and read another card. However this time, he hesitated, an action that would go unnoticed by the untrained eyes. Not Maria’s eyes. She noted how his eyelids dropped slightly, the brightness in them dimming.
“Did I ever feel like a burden?” he asked, schooling his expression, though the smile on his face was not as genuine as before. His eyes repeatedly flickered from her face to somewhere in the room then back to her face.
Maria knew what he was feeling—she could feel it herself; a nasty bitterness and insecurity that settled in the crevices of her chest, a feeling that was likely more intense in her son's—and her heart ached at the thought of him ever feeling like his presence, his existence was a burden on her life. He couldn’t be more wrong.
“No,” she declared. “You have never, ever felt like a burden. From the day I met you, you’ve brought nothing but joy to my life and I’ve loved you ever since. Like you said before, maybe I just didn’t know it then.” She looked him dead in his eyes as she spoke, and he didn’t look away either. “You are the best thing that's ever happened to me. You and your siblings. Don’t you ever forget that, Richard Grayson. Okay?”
He nodded mutely, a slight sheen to his eyes that he tried to blink away. The tension in his body visibly dwindled at her answer.
“Do you understand?” she asked again.
“Yup!” he said. That smile returned, now cheeky and sincere. “I was just making sure. Jesus, that got deep. We can move on now.”
Maria withdrew a card from her deck and breathed through her nose at the question. “Here we go…” she muttered. “What’s something you wish I had done differently around your adoption?”
Maria hid her nervousness a little better than Dick, but only to people who didn’t know her. Dick knew her upright posture and steady eye contact was her way of bracing for whatever words would be thrown at her.
“I wish you had adopted me earlier,” he admitted. “I wish you and Dad didn’t wait so long. I know it was still a while after we met before you and him started going out, so there wasn’t much you could do in terms of legal stuff. But I did wonder for a little bit why everyone else was getting adopted except me.”
This wasn’t a new conversation for the two of them. They had talked about it before, albeit in an emotionally-charged setting with more tears and angst. Even so, the topic still made her heart twist.
“I think… we hesitated on your adoption because, even though they had passed, you still had your own parents,” she explained. “The last thing we wanted was to cross that boundary or make you feel like you were replacing them. But I do understand why you might’ve felt like you were left out or weren’t loved enough to be officially adopted and I’m sorry about that.” The crease between her brows was one of remorse.
Dick grinned. “‘S okay. All I needed was to secure my inheritance.” Maria shook her head as she fought back a smile.
“Well that’s all we have for you! Is there anything you guys want to say to each other before we end this?” One of the crew members asked.
“Nah, nothing much. I just want this one”—Maria jerked her head in Dick’s direction—“to know that he is not a burden and that he is loved very much.”
Dick outstretched his hand to take hold of Maria’s own. “Yes, yes, I know that now. And I’ll be hearing it nonstop for the next six months, I’m sure.”
“As you should. Can I give you a hug?”
“I can never say no to those.” They rose from their seats and embraced each other. The set workers gushed affectionately at the sight.
Dick closed his eyes and let out a content sigh, his chin finding a comfortable place atop her head. Maria was a few inches taller than the average woman and their height difference was not extreme, so their hugs lacked the awkwardness that sometimes came with people of significantly different builds. Just as he liked to initiate hugs, he loved receiving them too, especially from his loved ones.
A hug from his mother had a similar effect on him like that of a child drifting off to a lullaby. The stress and tension that made a home in his bones and weighed down his spirit all but dissipated when her arms wrapped around either his shoulders or torso and her hands smoothed his back with gentle motions. He would even plop his head in her lap at random times and take pleasure in the feeling of her fingers running through his hair, of her nails scratching his scalp.
So yeah, he could never say no to experiencing this.
"I love you, mom." Dick whispered.
Maria's arms tightened ever so slightly around him. "I love you, too, baby."
"And cut! That's a wrap everyone!"