Chapter Text
Harvey frowned as he searched for his shirt, mumbling under his breath and trying to retrace his steps. He’d taken a few days off for his final exams and he was finding it hard to adjust back to his daily life. He hadn’t even set an alarm for this morning but still he’d woken at 7 on the dot, he hoped that wouldn’t continue for too long, he missed sleep.
Still unable to find his shirt he walked down stairs into the tiny kitchen of his shared apartment, a small breath left him as he saw his shirt on the airer. Selina must have washed it for him, she wasn’t the sort to do it out of the kindness of her own heart and he didn’t remember asking her to, maybe she’d picked it up by accident.
Well, at least it was clean.
He glanced around to check all the curtains were closed before taking off his pyjama shirt and pulling on his work shirt, frowning a little at how much tighter it felt now.
Every time he studied for an exam he gained weight, a noticeable amount. He didn’t have time to cook for himself so he would have pre-made food every day for every meal, take-away if he could afford it. So for almost the whole past week he’d lived on pizzas, ramen, and Chinese food, with fizzy energy drinks on top of that. He was looking forward to his break at work; having the opportunity to eat a salad. He had such a craving for cherry tomatoes.
He sucked his gut in a little and looked at himself in the mirror, it didn’t look as bad as it felt.
After a moment of assessing himself he straightened himself up and walked to the door, he picked his keys and a stray cat toy out of his shoes and put them on, throwing the cat toy over his shoulder and putting the keys in his bag, then slinging the bag over his shoulder.
Selina had started her shift at the café a few hours earlier, Harvey faintly remembered hearing her leave the house as he got up. Hopefully when Harvey got there it wouldn’t be so busy that Selina hadn’t been able to clean up after herself, but not so quiet that she’d done everything and Harvey would be left bored that evening.
Unfortunately, as Harvey approached the café he could see the place was deserted. He let out an almost angry huff: he’d taken extra shifts in the run up to Christmas but there wasn’t really any extra work to do, it was such a waste of time. He really needed a better job.
The bell on the door rang as he entered, smiling to himself, he noticed that at the noise Selina’s head had jerked up. She was desperate for something to do.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said, her head drooping back down to what must be her phone on the counter, just out of sight.
“Is it really that dead?” Harvey asked, smiling and walking to the entrance of the back room, dropping his bag behind the door.
Selina nodded, “You’re maybe the fourth person to come through that door… We may as well be closed.”
Harvey joined her behind the counter, “Does anything need doing?”
Selina shook her head, “I’ve done absolutely everything that needs to be done, do you think I’d be on youtube if there were still things to do?”
Harvey frowned; of course she would, she was subscribed to multiple big cat and rescue animal channels, he knew she’d drop everything to watch anything they uploaded. He turned and walked into the back room, taking it in for a moment. Everything seemed to be stacked and put away correctly. It couldn’t hurt to double check everything though, Harvey was a fan of double checking.
He went into the office and picked up the cleaning check list off the side. He looked over the sheet, front and back, everything had been checked off, Selina really had done everything, she’d even made a note of all the stock that needed replacing.
“Hey Harv,” Selina shouted from the front.
Harvey poked his head out the door, “What?”
“Come sit out here while I do the stock input.”
Harvey rolled his eyes, “Fine…” he put down the sheet and walked back out to the front. Pulling his phone out of his pocket with the intention of searching for another job. Something about searching for a job while at your present job just felt right...
There didn’t seem to be much up at the moment. Hopefully soon all the temporary holiday jobs would pop up and he could take one of them.
He quickly hid away his phone as he heard the door open, looking up to give a smile to what he assumed was a customer.
A man walked in, a regular, Harvey strained to remember his name. He’d been working here for so long that all the customers’ names blurred together. This man came in every day and had done for at least as long as Harvey had worked there.
Edward, the name jumped into his head.
“Edward,” Harvey said as softly and kindly as the empty 6-hour shift in front of him would let him.
Edward smiled at him, “Yes, uh,” he looked at Harvey’s name badge through his tinted glasses, “Harvey. I’ll have a caramel latte, please.” He pulled out a brown piece of card and handed it to Harvey. “This one should be free?”
He said it as if it were a question, but he was a regular customer and they’d had the stamp system for at least 3 years so he had to know how it worked.
“That’s right,” Harvey said, keeping the same smile on his face. He turned to the coffee machine and began preparing the drink, he poured some syrup in the bottom of a cup and began steaming some milk.
“It’s not very busy today,” Edward mused, a soft tone to his voice as he looked around.
Harvey shook his head, “Pretty dead, yeah… I’m not sure why, it’s usually quiet Thursdays but my co-worker says we’ve not even had a breakfast rush today.”
Edward frowned a little, “I hope things pick up again soon, I’d hate for this place to go under.”
Harvey let out a small huff as he finished up Edwards coffee, “We both know that’ll never happen. I’ll probably work here till I die.”
Edward gave Harvey an odd and almost worried look at the statement, he smiled weakly and took the coffee, pausing for a moment. “Wait…” He put the coffee down and reached into his pocket, pulling out a handful of money and dumping it in the tip jar, giving Harvey a small nod as he picked up his coffee and made his way out.
Harvey looked down at the tip jar, his eyes widening; Edward had left several 10 dollar bills.
“Whoa…” he said quietly. He looked over his shoulder “Hey Selina, look at this!” he gave a soft chuckle.
Harvey poured the money from the tip jar out onto the counter, counting it out. $97, that guy had given them $97?
“Nice,” Selina’s voice came from behind him, “Looks like we can get groceries on the way home.” She smirked, “She must have liked how tight your shirt is.”
Harvey looked up at her and shook his head, “No it was uh, that Edward guy? Ginger business guy?”
Selina frowned, “What? I never get so much as a hello from him…” she leaned up against the counter and smirked, “You know he pays with a black credit card, right? To him this is literally just pocket change.” She shook her head, shovelling the notes back into the jar, “These rich guys are so up themselves it’s sickening.”
Harvey shrugged and shook his head, “I understand that… But we’re benefiting. I think he felt bad for us.”
Selina rolled her eyes, “Ugh, pity? That’s even worse.”
Harvey let out a soft huff, chewing his lip. “I’ll get groceries on the way home and then we’ll go out with the rest.”
Selina leant an arm against the counter, “And get one $2 beer each? I’m good. Just get better food.”
“I’d rather have a $2 beer than spend more money on food.” He shifted uncomfortably on his feet. He hadn’t been out to do anything fun in ages, since before he started prepping for finals. He needed to go out soon, blow off some steam.
He struggled to remember a time when he wasn’t either bored at work or rushed off his ass at school. It was a metronome of stress and he was sure if things didn’t mellow out soon he’d have a heart attack.
“I’ll go by myself,” he remarked, emphasising with a shrug.
“Yeah? Maybe you’ll make a new friend,” Selina smirked. She patted the counter with her hand, turning away, “I’m going to get back to doing stock input.”
Harvey shook his head weakly and rolled his eyes to no one’s benefit but his own as Selina walked away. He let out a slow sigh of boredom, and turned his attention to the coffee machine, he took his time cleaning it, taking apart the nozzle and cleaning it with a bottle brush in order to make the task take a few extra minutes.
After that he returned to job hunting, but even that was a finite task. Soon he found himself looking over jobs that he’d seen the day before, the week before…
6 hours of this…
Usually when he got to this point he’d begin watching youtube on his phone, but he’d been working for under an hour and he didn’t want to resort to youtube this soon into his shift. He’d use up all the videos he’d saved. He decided to give the floor a sweep and mop, really get into the corners and clean the skirting board.
After a little over an hour of boredom, by the time he’d gotten through a little over half of the mopping, the bell on the door rang again, the sound made him jump and spill soapy water everywhere.
“Shit,” he muttered to himself, his stomach clenching as he realised he’d sworn in front of a customer.
He looked up, his eyes wide and his mouth open ready to apologise. After seeing who it was he closed his mouth.
“Did you just swear?” Bruce said, his arms crossed, an eyebrow raised in judgement.
“I won’t answer that,” Harvey huffed, turning his eyes back to the mess he’d made on the floor, mopping it up before turning his attention back to his friend. “What is it that you want?”
“I’m on my break,” Bruce shrugged, walking over to the counter, looking at the muffins behind the glass shield. After a moment his eyes moved from the muffins to the tip jar. “Whoa,” he gasped, “What happened here?”
“Rich guy emptied his pockets,” Harvey said, leaning the mop up against the wall and walking back behind the counter.
“We all going out tomorrow night then?” Bruce asked.
“I’m going out,” Harvey emphasised, he shrugged, beginning to make Bruce his usual; a tuna melt panini and a salted caramel latte, “If you wanna come you can.”
“If I’m not called in to work again,” Bruce jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, gesturing towards his workplace across the road.
“Yeah, I wasn’t expecting to see you here today,” Harvey remarked, glancing over his shoulder at Bruce as he made his drink.
Bruce shrugged, pouting, “Internships, man. If I want the reference then I gotta be at their beck and call.”
Harvey rolled his eyes, “But you’re Bruce Wayne.”
“Yeah, and that doesn’t mean shit unless I can prove myself, Harv. People think I’m there just because of my name and they’re harder on me for it.” He let out a huff, cutting himself off, “Sorry. Pisses me off.”
Harvey held up a hand, excusing Bruce’s apology, “It’s fine. Everyone has issues. If you wanna complain Selina’s out the back, you know how much she likes to bitch about rich people.”
Bruce considered it, and then shook his head, “I’ll take my food and get back. Don’t want them yelling at me for slacking off.”
Harvey nodded, taking the panini out of the press and putting it in a little box, ringing him up. Bruce pressed his phone to the card machine. It bleeped, and then a second later beeped again.
“That’ll be them,” Bruce growled, taking his drink and his food, walking out of the café without another word.
“Bye then,” Harvey huffed. He rolled his eyes again and began to clean the panini press and the coffee machine.
“You know if you keep rolling your eyes like that they’ll fall out your head,” Selina’s voice came from the door to the back room.
Harvey glanced over at her, then huffed and returned to cleaning as if he hadn’t heard her.
“I thought I heard you talking to someone?” Selina said, looking at Harvey and then at the register. “Another hot rich guy leave a tip?”
Harvey shook his head, “Nah, it was just Bruce.”
“Oh,” Selina said, her voice dropping a little in boredom, “Should have recognised his bitchy whining.” She drummed her fingers on the doorframe before heading back into the office.
Harvey let out a small hiss, “Oh my god, why don’t you just fuck him already…” he mumbled.
“What was that?” Selina shouted through the door.
“I said I hate this job!” Harvey yelled back. He focused himself on cleaning the grill, and the coffee machine, again taking apart the nozzle and cleaning that in depth too, and then finishing mopping the floor. Taking his time doing it all, making sure everything was sparkling.
He looked at the clock, having finished his small list of tasks. He still had 4 and a half hours left.
He let out another deep sigh, feeling the weight of tedium pressing down on him. He felt he was wasting his life. At least Bruce was gaining experience, learning the names of people he would be working with throughout his life. What was Harvey doing here other than losing brain cells?
He leant against the counter, letting his mind begin to drift.