Feat. Dick Grayson, Alfred Pennyworth & Bruce Wayne
Warning: Excessive amounts of fluff
[Inspired by @kuradoodles]
“Oh, and celery.”
“Celery, mushrooms, and onions, Master Richard?”
“Yeah…” The young boy’s legs were crossed on the chair with his elbow on the table, propping up his head. “It was kind of liquid-y.”
Alfred scribbled on a pad of paper clinically. “Some broth.”
“But not that liquid-y… Like a sauce that’s really thin.”
“And it was cheesy?”
“Definitely cheesy. But not like mozerella or cheddar cheesy… just, like…”
“Parmesan?”
Dick shrugged his shoulders dramatically. “Yeah, I guess.”
Alfred set the pad of paper down and overlooked their notes. “Perhaps your mother was fond of making chicken tetrazzini.”
“I don’t remember her ever calling it that but maybe,” Dick answered.
“Well,” Alfred said, standing up. “One way to find out. A trip to the store is in order.”
Dick untangled his legs and was on his feet with a scrape from the chair on the tile floor. “Right now? Are we going to make it tonight?”
“I don’t see why not,” the butler answered, straightening out his suit jacket. “The mystery of Mary Grayson’s homemade recipes won’t solve itself.”
“Let me grab my shoes!” Dick said, running out of the room.
A trip to the store later and the kitchen counters were filled with bags of groceries. Alfred bought extra ingredients so they could guess the missing gaps in the recipe with Dick giving his commentary as they went:
“I think there may have been flour in it?”
“No, trust me, my dad hated those leaves…”
“You mean there’s alcohol in here?”
“It’s sherry, Master Richard, a wine commonly used in cooking.”
“Isn’t that technically illegal if I’m eight.”
“Other activities will be more likely to land you in jail.”
Forty-five minutes later, Alfred pulled the casserole from the oven. The warm smell invaded the kitchen as they waited for it to cool. Dick was balanced on his knees on a kitchen chair, scooping some onto his fork. He glanced across the kitchen as he tried a bite, the look morphing into contention.
“Hm.” Dick fell back so he was sitting on the chair instead.
“Something wrong, Master Richard?”
“It’s good…” he said, looking a little confused. He gave Alfred an apologetic glance. “I think it’s too good. My mom didn’t make it this well…”
Alfred chuckled. “I suppose we can’t easily recreate the conditions your mother cooked in. A small trailer sized kitchen, wasn’t it?”
Dick spread out his arms. “Our trailer was smaller than this kitchen.” His arms fell down. He was looking at the dish they made critically. “Your cooking is too perfect, Alfred. What if we got Bruce to make it instead?”
The elderly man laughed. “A worthy use of Master Bruce’s time and skills, I think. Certainly an endeavor worth pursuing.”
So it was that Bruce was drawn into the kitchen by Dick, looking well outside his comfort zone.
“I don’t cook,” the man reminded his partner.
“Yeah, but… please, Bruce?” Dick was already at the counter, pulling down the bag of flour. “Alfred and I came really close… my mom made this dish around Christmas every year for the other performers. She’d make, like, three. It took her all day.”
Bruce stepped up to the counter, apparently won over, if not confused over why he was here at all. The first thing he did was pick up Alfred’s notes, the elegant cursive listing off ingredients and instructions. Bruce glanced over his shoulder to where the butler was sitting at the table, a pair of reading glasses on his face as he turned a page of his book.
Bruce went back to studying the notes, then set them aside, taking the measured flour from Dick and pouring it into a mixing bowl. The flour was packed in tight and fell with a puff of white air that speckled white on Bruce’s clothes. After a moment, the man huffed, radiating disapproval at it while Dick started laughing.
The process took twice as long with Bruce helping. Alfred was better at timing ingredients at the same time, causing Dick and Bruce to spend moments waiting for the sauce to finish heating or the noodles to finish cooking. Another forty-five minutes later and Bruce carefully set the dish down on the stove, removing his oven mitts.
When it cooled, Dick went on the tips of his toes and used his fork to twirl some noodles around it, falling back on the flats of his feet as he took the bite. The sauce was runnier, the noodles were overcooked, and it didn’t have as many spices. Bruce was watching Dick’s reaction carefully as if a lot was riding on this. Several seconds later, Dick nodded. “Yeah, that’s it. That’s my mom’s cooking.”
“Excellent,” Alfred said, setting his book on the table. “I’ll create a copy for your records, Master Richard. That’s one of Mary’s recipes down, and I imagine, several more to go.”
kiragecko 