Chapter Text
This was going to be a five-star day, Tim knew it. He didn’t have them as often as he’d like, but getting to work in the actual restaurant run by his actual heroes definitely qualified as one.
The sheer busyness of the kitchen of The Butler’s Table ; the various cooks, kitchen hands and service staff making a glorious, chaotic – but nonetheless productive – mess as they turned ingredients into magic was hypnotic to watch.
“We’ll need quick turnover on the pots and pans, so get ready to scrub at high speeds,” Barbara Gordon was telling him, yanking his attention back down to the mundane. “There isn’t much plate service to worry about right now, as you can imagine. When you’re not keeping the equipment throughput running, you’ll be expected to run through the zones and disinfect every non-working station you see – the station holder should turn on their vacancy switch and you should see it pop up on the diagnostic screen, but when the kitchen is at full tilt they don’t always remember, so when you run through, keep an eye out for anything that’s not being used, okay?”
“Got it,” Tim said in a quiet, breathy voice. “Is it at full capacity now?” he asked, watching the boiling activity through the doors of the wash zone room with bright eyes.
Barbara snorted with laughter. “That? That’s not even fifty percent. This is a commercial kitchen, kiddo. When it’s at full capacity the only difference between it and Arkham is that people like what comes out of here. Remember, we are COVID safe here. You will always wear your mask and you will always use sanitizer or thoroughly wash your hands like I showed you. That’s nonnegotiable. You get one mercy infraction but then we have to take action, understood?”
“Understood,” Tim said earnestly.
“Good,” Barbara was apparently convinced of his sincerity. “You’ll be mostly on your own here, but if the kitchenhands run out of stuff to do, they’ll probably take over surface disinfection for you in the zones. Some of our waitstaff are coming in part time and will assist you in the wash zone since we’re not running the in-house dining and the marquis isn’t operational yet. It’ll be a bit erratic, since they are now our delivery drivers as well. We’d usually have more people and we will get more eventually but…” Barbara trailed off, looking tired. “COVID hit the service industry pretty hard.”
Tim nodded solemnly. Both financially and in terms of infections, he knew. He was grimly aware that the only reason there was even a slot open during a mass pandemic was that so many people, especially those jammed into the poorer districts, had been hit so hard in the first wave in Gotham. A lot of them had service industry careers.
“Well, that’s just about it. I’ll leave you to it,” Barbara wheeled back towards the admin offices. “If you have any issues, buzz me on the internal intercom.”
Even though the circumstances were the exact opposite of ideal, Tim couldn’t help the tiny thrill he got, knowing he was actually, really working at his dream job.
A kitchen hand slammed through the doors, bearing a trolley piled high with browned and encrusted pots, pans and utensils. He didn’t bother with a salutation, he just left them at the start of the wash station production line and hurried back into the meal prep zone room beyond.
Tim sighed ruefully. Okay, so it wasn’t quite his dream job, he admitted. His dream job was actually working in the cooking zone, where all the delicious aromas were emanating from. But that was currently an impossibility, given that a) they weren’t hiring and b) they certainly wouldn’t hire anyone who had never been to culinary school.
So…. Pot scrubber and odd-job janitor it was for now. Still, he reflected as he went elbow deep into a stock pot with suds and a scourer, it wasn’t enough to knock a star off his daily rating. It was a literal miracle he was here at all. The fact that it contained a lot of sweat, labor and drudgery didn’t make it less of one.
After his first round of pots were scrubbed and loaded into the dishwasher (and two panicked minutes wasted figuring out the setting to make the cycle run), Tim cleaned his station, lined up the next load of pots to get to later, then shoved on some fresh nitrile gloves and grabbed the disinfecting caddy. Making sure his mask hadn’t slipped while he’d been working, he girded himself and plunged into the meal prep zone, ready for his first round of COVID safe cleaning.
He knew he shouldn’t let himself get distracted, but the actual reality of a fully functional commercial kitchen was too fascinating not to draw his gaze. His keen eyes picked out the patterns under the chaos, followed the thread of creation that wove itself from the Prep zone to the Cook zone to the Plate zone to the Service zone. Chopped vegetables and prepped meats were marched over to the Cook zone with its neat rows of cooktops, ovens and grills, the Confection zone a little island off to one side with its contingent of ovens and quick access to the walk-in freezer. For every appliance there seemed to be a workspace, a blank canvas where a chef could whisk, blend, puree, spice or otherwise add Art to the prepped raw ingredients as they were re-prepped for their destiny, in either oven or stovetop.
There was so much going on, nothing was linear, everything zig zagged and went back and forth like mad and not a single vegetable or drop of oil was wasted. You’d almost have to believe the dozens of workers – and it was a huge kitchen, fit for bulk catering – had choreographed the whole thing.
Well, Tim had missed the rehearsal, if that was the case. He nearly got bowled over by a blonde chef carrying a bowl full of artichoke hearts almost too big to get her arms around. “Hey kid, move it or lose it!” she shouted as she went past.
“Sorry,” Tim wheezed out, but she likely hadn’t heard him over the din given how she had already plunked the artichoke hearts on her current workspace and was apparently tossing them into a steamer.
Another kitchen hand bulled him aside carrying a platter of shaved meats, and Tim shook himself. He wasn’t here to gawk; he had a job to do. He’d memorized the stations with the vacancy lights activated, so he did those first. He knew it wasn’t exactly skilled labor but he was pretty pleased with his spray bottle action and his wax-on-wax-off technique nonetheless. He had lots of practice at this, it had to be said, from his own kitchen. He timed himself relentlessly anyway; always and compulsively trying to find the most efficient method possible.
After that, he was cherry picking stuff to clean. Barbara had been right, some stations had been used and then abandoned as their person had been called off to handle or help with something else. Every person in the room seemed to have half a dozen things on the go and another dozen lining up behind in the meal prep.
Okay, so, get rid of what scraps and peelings were left in the green waste, collect boards, knives, spoons and pots to shove onto the cleaning trolley, scrub with soapy water and then out came the spray bottle and a fresh wipe. Some terribly OCD part of him wished he could also give the stovetop a good scrub, but save for overboiling disasters which were quite rare, that sort of thing tended to wait until the big clean down at the end of the shifts.
He had just disposed of a pile of bones left in a huge heap in a bowl on what was presumably one of the butchers’ workstations and was scrubbing it down when the doors to the wash zone banged open, admitting a loose pack of people who’d entered via the staff entrance, which was beyond the wash zone.
Tim gripped his spray bottle and nearly spritzed himself doing it. They were the Waynes!
There was Bruce Wayne, scion of the Wayne line, whom everybody in Tim’s parents’ circle had spoken unkindly of when he’d chosen to open a restaurant rather than… do what someone with access to his level of obscene wealth would usually do. How they had all scoffed that he’d gone completely mad. Well, eighteen Michelin stars to his name later, he was the owner and CEO of Wayne Food Enterprises and the big name in the Gotham foodie scene.
There was Dick Grayson, his first adopted child, first in his class at the Culinary Institute of America before he’d hit a rebellious streak, dropped out and opened a nightclub restaurant in Bludhaven. No one thought he could make it work — they weren’t exactly looking for a cuisine-and-dance show experience in the slums of Blud — but an entire entertainment venue and three chain restaurants now swinging from his belt, Dick Grayson had done all right by his rebellion. Tim had gone to see one of his showcases once. The spectacles had been good and the food – all esoteric, fusion cooking reflecting the blend of culture he’d grown up with – had been even better.
There was Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne’s actual biological son, whom Tim honestly didn’t know as well as any of the others, but he did know he’d taken the grand prize out in Junior Masterchef and Junior Iron Chef. He’d actually beaten a professional chef to the prize, which wasn’t bad for a thirteen-year-old. The food scene of Gotham all agreed he was one to watch. Given his somewhat prickly nature, they also quietly added ‘from a safe distance’.
But all that paled in comparison to the fourth member of the loose pack making their way through the lines. Looming as tall as his adoptive father and almost as broad was Jason Todd. The Jason Todd.
Tim’s heart did a little kickline number in his chest. Okay, he could grudgingly admit he had a little crush on Jason. It was, he admitted ruefully, a garden variety celebrity crush, no matter how much a part of him wanted to say it was more meaningful than that. Tim had been infatuated with Jason Todd ever since he was a little kid, left to his own devices in a huge house without another soul to talk to, desperately and erratically teaching himself self-care through YouTube; mostly cooking videos. Mostly a young Jason Todd’s cooking channel, actually.
Jason Todd’s smiling face filmed in the Wayne Manor’s gleaming kitchen had guided Tim through a lot of otherwise lonely times. His first forays into cooking – and therefore, independence – had been unknowingly and benevolently overseen by the young teen chef. He had always wanted to tell Jason how grateful he’d been for all the good he’d done; not just for Gotham, but for Tim, personally, too.
He’d never gotten the chance. Tim had cried the day the videos had stopped coming.
Tim surreptitiously watched them bickering, some more good naturedly than others, as they checked workstations and caught up on all the restaurant goings on. They weren’t often at the restaurant for the lunch rush properly, but Tim couldn’t blame them for that.
After all, they did all have night jobs as well. Even Batman needed to sleep sometime, and so did all the other Gotham vigilantes – Nightwing, Red Hood and Robin.
Tim turned away and hurried off to dump the scraps and other stuff into the big green compost dumpster. He knew that, contrary to all urban legends, Batman couldn’t actually read minds but Tim was going to wager on his own ability to hide his expression. He wasn’t supposed to know that about his new boss and Bruce Wayne only acted the fool; if Tim was stupid enough to draw the attention of the World’s Greatest Detective, he would almost certainly give away everything.
Tim never was a very good liar; at least, not to people as sharp and well trained as the Bats.
When he came back, the Waynes were still in the kitchen. They’d obviously scrubbed up and had taken over workstations, although Damian was hanging sullenly around the dessert zone rather than actually cooking. Their argument, if that’s what you could call it because it sounded more like an ongoing snark war, continued over the din of the kitchens, which bustled around them like this was normal. Maybe it was.
“I get where you’re coming from, Jay, but now is not the time to open your restaurant,” Dick was saying as he sauteed something delicious and spicy in a pan. “I had to furlough, like, eighty percent of my people. Do you know what job opportunities there are for theater and stage performers right now? It ain’t good odds, let me tell you.”
“Look, I got the site, I’ve got the kitchen, the cold store and the suppliers all lined up,” Jason snapped back, lining up a huge stock pot. “Steph, you got?” he bellowed over the kitchen din. The blonde chef waved him over to the far side workstations absently while wielding a wicked looking ceramic knife. “Thanks! I don’t see why I shouldn’t open now,” Jason continued his debate without missing a beat. “Yeah, the dining room isn’t outfitted but who the fuck cares? We’re not doing in-dining for a while. I can start up a takeaway joint and give some folks in the neighbourhood some paying work that doesn’t involve getting fucked over gigging for Uber Eats or DoorDash. Why not?”
“You haven’t built up a client base yet,” Bruce called over from where he was delicately spiral peeling vegetables for rose garnishes with effortless precision. “Getting a restaurant off the ground requires a lot of word of mouth, a lot of marketing blitzes. You’ve got to build up your regulars.”
“Ever hear of twitter, old man?” Jason snarked irritably. “I can handle cyber PR, okay? I’ll work the socials, an’ I got plenty of folks willing to talk me up in my area.”
“Jay, people aren’t looking for anything new right now,” Bruce insisted. “They’re drawn to what’s old and known – they have to, the world feels like it’s on fire and they’re falling back on what comfort they can find. Trust me, I’ve been in the business a long time. I’m telling you, the market just isn’t right for it.”
Jason scowled impressively. “It’s easy to talk about markets when you’re living in the middle of Restaurant Row, B. The Bowery ain’t got much access to variety when it comes to dining. They’ll take it because it’s there and because upmarket getups like the Table don’t deliver to the peasantry.”
“New restaurants always have an element of risk involved for customers,” Dick pointed out. “Who the hell wants to take a risk right now?”
“Dickie, I live in the fucking Bowery ,” Jason retorted. “You think people around there don’t know about taking risks?”
“Jay,” Bruce actually came over to lay his hands on Jason’s shoulders. “I know how badly you want to do this. I know how hard you’ve been working towards this. But I’m telling you, if you do a start up right now, it will fail. You don’t trust me on a lot, I know, but I am telling you it just won’t work.”
Jason scowled and turned away, dicing his shallots with more force than strictly necessary. “So whaddya want me to do with my fucking time now that I got a freehold I’m paying for and a kitchen I can’t use?” he asked with prickly sarcasm. Clearly he didn’t like losing the argument.
“Come work for me.”
“Say fucking what ?!”
Tim absorbed all this with no little amount of fascination. He maintained it wasn’t eavesdropping; the discussion was carrying on so loudly that the whole staff could hear it and probably people out on the street too. If he was cleaning and disinfecting a little slowly, well, in the age of COVID it was hardly a vice to be thorough with hygiene.
So Jason Todd wanted to open his very own restaurant. Tim had a moment’s sheer thrill at the thought of going to eat there and watching the master of his own personal comfort foods work.
Then he had a thrill of terror as a voice came from his blind spot with menacing intent. “Who are you?”
Tim jumped, nearly dropping everything in his hands, and turned to face the cold glare of Damian Wayne, who was standing way too close for comfort. He opened his mouth but all that his throat could manage was an embarrassing wheeze.
“I’ve never seen you here before,” Damian glowered. “Who are you?”
Tim leaned back. “Uh… I… I’m Tim?” he whispered. “I’m new here?”
Damian’s face fell into furious lines. “FATHER! What is the meaning of this?” he bellowed.
Tim felt a shriveling sensation in his stomach as the whole room was suddenly looking at them. He wasn’t all that comfortable in the limelight.
Bruce, for his part, was puzzled. “The meaning of what?”
“I have petitioned you for months about letting me embrace my inheritance as your heir! Multiple times! Why is this milksop allowed to be here when I am not?”
Tim shrank back as Bruce’s attention fell on him. The man frowned. “I’m sorry, who are you?”
“Uh… Tim,” Tim forced out, his voice horrible and breathy. “I’m Tim Drake, sir.”
Jason, who had been on the losing end of yet another argument and was therefore in a fine, towering temper, swung around from where he’d been searching workstations in the cook zone. “Drake?” his nose wrinkled. “What the fuck, Bruce, I have a wait list of street kids a mile and a half long, what the fuck are you doing hiring a fucking rich kid? As if he fucking needs the work!”
Tim felt his stomach contract further. Jason Todd didn’t know him or his circumstances, so Tim couldn’t hold that against him. Still, the dismissal stung deeply. He felt himself go red as the room kept on staring at him.
Dick pinched the bridge of his nose tiredly. “Jay, enough. Don’t embarrass him. Damian I told you, you can’t legally work in the kitchen until you’re fourteen. Nothing about that has changed in the last hundred times I told you.”
Bruce was still frowning at Tim. “Who was your interview conducted with?”
“Um…” Tim felt his stomach sink. This would likely not go over well. Still, what could he say? “Mr Pennyworth, sir,” he mumbled.
Silence. Except for the hum of ovens and the occasional sizzle of a pan mid-sauté, everyone stopped what they were doing to stare.
Because of course they did. Alfred Pennyworth was the heart and soul of The Butler’s Table . Tim had just started and he knew that Mr Pennyworth being assaulted and left for dead six months ago was an unspeakable topic in this kitchen. The old man was still recuperating. His name, around here, was sacred and rarely invoked.
Bruce’s lips thinned into a grim line, looking way closer to the Bat than he normally let show. “I see.”
There was a beat of awkward silence, before everyone got back to work with almost frantic energy.
“The interviews, if there were any, would have been months ago. Why would you just start today ?” Damian asked, voice marinated in suspicion.
Tim felt all his confidence shrivel in the face of their stares. “I just got the call and came in,” he explained, voice breathless from the tension. The awful specter of his anxiety rose up, taunting him. He was making a fuss . He was a failure . He felt his five-star day dropping to four as he tried to control his breathing.
“ That’s true ,” came Barbara’s voice over the PA. “ He was first on the waiting list. ”
“There are people who actually need a job who should be higher,” Jason muttered, not quite quietly enough to be inaudible.
Tim felt his face go redder, guilt clawing up his throat with merciless claws.
“Steph!” Jason yelled over to the blonde, getting back to his job and apparently ignoring everything else. “Where the fuck are my soup bones?”
“They’re on the far bench near the sauces!” she yelled. “I left them in a big silver bowl!”
Oh. Tim felt panic grip his chest as Jason yelled back “What the fuck blondie, there’s no damn bowl there!”
“Oh, I, uh,” Tim forced out as loudly as he could manage as Steph came stalking over to defend her honor. “I think I… um, threw them away.”
“You fucking what ?”
“I-I thought they were scraps!” Tim said as they all started staring at him again, his confidence tanking further and humiliation rising in its place. “I’m sorry,” he added weakly.
“Sorry?!” Jason shouted furiously. “We don’t fucking debone meat in the cook zone, asshole, we do that in the prep zone! You know, because it’s fucking prep . Anything in the cook zone is to fucking cook. Where the fuck did you go to culinary school?” Jason asked furiously, storming over towards the pantry, no doubt looking for powder stock to replace the bones he’d been planning to use. “In a fucking McDonalds university?”
Tim felt wretched. Then words slipped out before his horrified brain could stop them. “I didn’t,” he choked out.
Even Dick looked up from his pan. “Didn’t what?”
“Um, go to… um, culinary school,” Tim admitted in a mumble.
Damian scoffed. “ This is an acceptable hire for one of the finest restaurants in Gotham?”
“It’s a bit unusual, I admit,” Bruce sighed. “But it’s not like he’s aiming to be a chef. We’ve probably had too much turnover in the wash zone,” he added, voice weary.
Tim stared at his feet. He did want to be a cook. That dream was starting to evaporate in the face of Bruce’s easy, impersonal dismissal.
“Guys, you’re making him feel bad,” Stephanie pointed out, which made everyone look again, which didn’t make Tim feel much better, to be honest.
“He should fucking feel bad,” Jason slammed down more pots angrily. “There goes about ten gallons of fucking soup that would have fed a lot of desperately hungry mouths because he’s a fucking failson who shouldn’t be here. Do me a favour and keep him in the wash zone; that way if he fucks up no one has to go hungry because of it,” Jason griped and turned away.
Steph sent him a sympathetic look. “I think we’re all clean in here,” she suggested gently.
Mortified beyond belief, Tim nodded and dejectedly hurried away; all the chefs he admired had long since written him out of the universe as they focused on their work in the kitchens.
He knew Jason was just upset about his delayed restaurant opening. He was in a bad mood and didn’t have a lot of patience to spare. He knew it hadn’t been personal. Still, the scathing criticism from his childhood hero, both in and out of the mask, and the insinuation that Tim had somehow left people hungry through his carelessness, cut pretty deep. Tim sniffled and wiped away a couple of tears as he got back to the pots and pans in the wash zone, hands shaking and brain screaming at him that he was a failure, that he’d never be enough. It had been hammered and hammered into him, that he was constantly a disappointment that could never quite reach the high pinnacle of perfection his parents had set for him. Hearing that from his childhood hero was enough to strip the five stars from his day like a bad review on Yelp.
It was so bad that he barely found the confidence to emerge to do his job disinfecting when the time came. He picked up his phone and dialed instead.
“It’s me,” he whispered where no one could hear him. “I know you said I had to come here, but…” Tim’s face crumpled. “I don’t think this is going to work.”