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Jason knew he’d been spoiled by Alfred’s cooking. Horribly spoiled. His stomach rumbled, squeezing into knots – and Jason, well. He was standing in one of his safehouses’ kitchens, covered in cake batter, flour and goodness knows what else (he did wash up before doing anything in the kitchen, duh, though the shirt he hastily put on might not have been the freshest? And maybe there were bloodstains on it that he couldn’t quite get out).
There were two cakes already made, one chilling on the counter and the other in the fridge, and Jason was currently in the process of buttering up a pan for a third one. Rather, for his third attempt at the same damn cake. Now, Jason didn’t think himself some master chef or whatever, but as he growled over the gleaming pan, he could admit that he was getting a little frustrated.
Because, see, here was the thing – he’d made this cake so many times. Back in the times before, he could’ve sworn he could bake the fucking thing with his eyes closed! It was only now however, that he realised the most crucial factor; he'd always made it with Alfred. Which was apparently all the difference needed to change the taste completely and give him a conniption!
Making a bomb wasn’t this difficult!
Cutting off eight heads and fitting them all in one bag wasn’t this difficult!
Slamming the pan on the counter, Jason prepared to pour in the dough – except, as his hand shot out for the mixing bowl, one stacked somewhat precariously on the remains from his previous attempt, instead of grabbing it like he intended, the bowl got knocked over.
Instead of just falling over though, it flew down the counter like a rocket, spattering the sticky batter all over Jason, the table and then the floor. Jason held still as little droplets of the substance flicked onto his face and chest, and then over his black pants. Seconds passed, until -
“FUCK YOU! Son of a bitch –“ he swore up a storm, now actually covered in cooking ingredients. Maybe he should just put himself in the oven, fucking shit, Jason thought, trying to contain the green spilling over his vision. His fists shook, clenched and he desperately wanted to hit something – yes, hit and kill and maim and somebody is going to pay for this – but wherever he looked, it seemed impossible.
He couldn’t hit the counter, because he’d get more of the spilled batter and flour on himself.
He couldn’t hit his previous attempt because he still needed a point of reference for how the cake was not supposed to taste.
He couldn’t hit the fridge because he needed it in working order –
An aggrieved noise broke itself out of his mouth, and Jason fought not to double over with his head in his hands.
I just want my damn cake! Is that too much to ask for??
Yes, apparently!
He didn’t even know what he was doing wrong! If he had some kind of idea, something to go off of – but as far as he remembered, the recipe did not include baking soda, and there was definitely no way he’d forget something as crucial as what temperature to keep it in the oven for – man, where was Alfred when you needed him?
Wait, no, Jason did not need Alfred. Jason was a crime lord extraordinaire, he was building his criminal empire from the ground up, killing things and taking names, and, most importantly, on a quest of vengeance against that lying, deadbeat ass fucker who was Batman.
And I'm technically dead.
Can’t forget that.
“…”
Sighing, Jason slumped against the dirty counter. The splattered batter squelched beneath his boots as he took a defeated step, but Jason ignored it for the moment. He breathed in deeply, held in for 7, then breathed out. The green, which had already receded slightly at Jason’s internal monologue, faded to a low hum at the edge of his vision.
Okay. Okay.
From the beginning then – he had to analyse what he’d been doing, and maybe then find out what kept going wrong.
He’d gotten off his crime lord duties early today, having supervised a shipment or two and then scared some goons into compliance. Nothing unusual, although one of the men had made him slightly angry (angrier than normal) with some comment or another. And he’d been already agitated since morning, ever since he woke up feeling the unmistakable taste of cake on his tongue and the growing urge to make said cake.
Not really unusual – Jason got a sweet tooth sometimes, and it was mostly easy to ignore, or to subtly satisfy. Even in the League, where earthly pleasures were (sort of) frowned upon, there were dates, mangoes, sometimes even candied fruit that certain people were able to sneak in. Not that Jason got much of those munchies there, the green’s overwhelming presence making most distractions negligible.
Now, back in the hellhole that was Gotham, he had other options; this morning for example, on his usual coffee run, he also bought himself a pastry that looked vaguely as if it could satisfy his craving.
Unfortunately, after the first bite it was obvious that the pastry was not it. Jason finished it, sure, mostly because wasting food still felt like a crime worse than murder (ha), but it wasn’t the same. Really, it only made the craving worse, reminding him of Alfred’s cake and just how superior to other baked goods it was.
Which was when he resolved to make it himself, once he got back to his safehouse. Throughout the day he daydreamed of the recipe, not really trying to recall it per se, but rather simply… Imagining making it. And eating what came out. Finally, he’d have a whole pan just for himself, he'd thought.
As if.
On his way home, he made a grocery run; all the ingredients he recalled, coupled with several he remembered as being optional additions for when you wanted to spice things up. Of course, he wouldn’t add them on the first run, but since he would probably make the cake again, why not give himself options?
That was probably the beginning of the end.
Though the real problems started once he was in the kitchen. Everything seemed to go well, up until the cake was all done, out of the oven and still steaming. Jason cut himself a slice after merely five minutes, unable to wait. He’d taken his first bite, only to discover –
This was not the same at all!
Glaring at the cake in betrayal, he’d thought to himself, well, this is just my first attempt. I must’ve fucked something up along the way. The cake had seemed a little too sweet, a little too sticky – too much sugar, not enough time in the oven, then.
On his second attempt, he’d tweaked it a little. Instead of adding one cup of sugar, he added ¾ , and then held it in the oven for an additional ten minutes, five of them after he turned the thing off.
That time, he took a slice barely having waited a moment, almost immediately burning himself on the hot baking tray. Since he was a fearsome crime lord instead of a whiny twelve year old, he only cursed for a bit and then held his hand under a cool stream of water for a couple of minutes. It was probably what saved his tongue from a similar fate.
Either way, burn taken care of, Jason turned back to his cake – only to find it drier than expected, a little hard in the middle, as if it hadn’t baked properly, and tasting chalky in addition.
Which was what lead him to his third attempt; although now he obviously wouldn’t taste the fruits of his labour, he was sure that as frustrated as he’d been it wouldn’t have come out any better. Now he had to go back to the store to boot, because he’d used up all the base ingredients besides baking powder (or was it baking soda instead? Agh, his mind was messing with him).
What was he doing wrong? No matter what way he looked at this, the problem was invisible – as far as he could remember he was following the recipe exactly, and yet the result was different every time! Not that he had that much to go off of, really – two attempts were not a lot, he told himself. Surely, surely, if he did what he could so clearly recall, carefully and with his full attention on the task, he would succeed.
Having regained some of his cool, Jason first turned to clean the kitchen (which almost brought back the green to his eyes), then grabbed a quick change of clothes, and then was out like a man on a mission. Which he was, although currently on a different one than usually.
Jason was at the point where he was starting to pull his hair out. He was going insane. Legitimately, he was going to turn into the next big Rogue, however instead of going in guns blazing and with a red helmet on, he’d come in with a spatula and covered in batter, throwing his failed cakes at unsuspecting passer-by.
He’d be like Condiment King, except cooler, and much more unhinged.
He had the cake to do it too; plates of cake were littered around his kitchen, most with less than a slice missing – after the sixth one, Jason had just started to dig into them with a spoon as soon as they were cool enough to eat. He could feed the entire flat with these (maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea – maybe his upstairs neighbours would stop banging like dogs in heat for at least the time it took to eat the damn cake)!
Collapsing on the chair he’d bought himself to be able to do just this, Jason closed his eyes and tried not to imagine strangling the oven.
It felt as if each attempt he made, he was further away from the goal. After the fourth (if we aren’t counting the third one, some of which Jason was sure was still stuck in his hair), he’d become desperate enough to search through online recipes. It was hard, because he didn’t really know the name of the cake (Alfred just called it Bruce’s favourite, although it quickly transformed into Jason's favourite too. And if this was the one thing he had in common with the bat, he'd take it), but with some surfing of online cooking guides, he found some that seemed similar.
And while he wasn’t going to try any of them, he could try and figure out, based on those recipes, if there was just some common trope to them that he was missing from his own cake.
From then on, he tried it all.
Adding a pinch of salt to the mixture (the cake came out bland and weirdly tasteless).
Folding the cake batter by hand instead of using the mixer (the cake was so fluffy, but it also tasted all wrong).
Putting it in at lower and higher temperatures, because maybe it was his oven’s fault (the higher temperature cake was burnt at the edges and Jason had to take it out earlier unless he wanted all of it burnt, and the lower temperature cake was definitely uncooked in the middle when he took it out. Putting it back in for a few minutes resulted in the same problem he had with cake nr. 2).
Following were attempts at adding different flour (another grocery run), adding more or less of it, adding sparkling water instead of still as top up for milk, adding both a mixture of baking soda and baking powder, using yeast instead of either soda or powder, setting the mixer to the lowest setting while mixing, adding one more egg yolk than in the recipe, and so on it went.
Until Jason was surrounded by cake, in the middle of his kitchen, with his head between his knees and trying not to murder his oven. Brutally.
Maybe he was having an existential crisis too, somewhere on the side.
What more can I do? He asked himself, dragging his caked up fingers through his already dirty hair. No recipe he found online seemed right, and everything he remembered came down to the same shit cake that never tasted the same. Everything was wrong, and by now he was afraid that nothing he could do by himself would make any sort of difference.
If he just knew the original recipe –
Wait.
His eyes snapped open, bloodshot and wide. There was no green in them; nothing but pure, cake-fuelled mania.
I can get the original recipe.
Alfred must keep them somewhere, right? He can’t have it all up in his head, surely? There must be a cookbook somewhere in the manor, or – or some recipe cards like from a calendar or some shit! Jason had honestly never been in Alfred’s quarters beyond just calling the man down for whatever bullshit was going down, so maybe the butler had a cookbook hidden somewhere in his quarters.
And it wouldn’t even be very hard to break into the manor – Jason had half wondered if he should, when he considered where to stick it to the Replacement – considering he knows it upside down and nobody was expecting him.
Why hadn’t I thought of this earlier???
With the sudden revelation in his veins, Jason jumped from the chair. Without even taking a shower, or changing out of his flour-dusted, batter-splattered clothes, he put on a coat and shoes and sprung out of his apartment like a bat on fire.
I am going to get that recipe if it fucking kills me.
At 4 AM the manor was mostly quiet. Sans Rogue breakouts or other emergencies, the bats tended to go home at around two at most, especially during the week. And Jason somewhat blearily remembered Alfred not getting up until 5, so this was truly the only time of the night when the manor was, by all rights, empty.
Jason, who’d climbed in through the kitchen window after carefully manoeuvring around the security system’s blind spots and avoiding cameras, was well aware of just how empty it was.
The kitchen, dark except for the moonlight coming in from behind him, made something inside him shift uncomfortably. Maybe it was the hunger biting at his insides, or maybe it was the fact that it looked almost exactly the same as it had when he last saw it. The marble island, the fridge with a dent from one of Dick’s early antics (as told to him by Alfred), and the collection of antique plates hanging on the walls.
Well, if that hasn’t changed, Jason thought, eyelid twitching, then he doubted he’d find any cookbook here. He hadn’t in his teenage years, when he had once torn the kitchen from top to bottom during an Easter-egg hunt. So, assuming that everything was in the same place it had been and Alfred hadn’t suddenly decided to keep his recipes here, he would find no clues in the kitchen.
Which meant he had to go to Alfred’s quarters.
Wincing a little, because this part of this whole plan was the most risky, Jason steeled himself. He was trained by the League, dammit, he wasn’t scared of rummaging through a butler’s quarters! He needed that recipe pronto, and if the only way to get it was to enter the lion’s maw, then Jason was going to do it!
If push came to shove, he’d just run!
Either way, as he crept across the manor, Jason tried not to look too much at the interior. The familiar walls and carpets, the way something at the back of his mind was niggling him to go to his old room (and see how much they changed it… See how much they hated the street boy who was so thoroughly replaced – maybe he’d even find Replacement there, served up to him on a silver platter), or the fact that he was now in the same building as Batman, and just how much he detested that thought.
His vision began to turn green, and Jason could tell doubly because everywhere he looked was bathed in a faint, green light. Closing his eyes for a moment, he shook himself off like a wet dog.
No, he had a purpose, and half-baked revenge was not it. There would be time for that, but now – now he had to have that cake, or he was going to die a second time, all for nothing. Stomach gurgling in agreement, Jason crept through the halls and towards Alfred’s room. Like a ghost (ha ha), he was silent, the sound of his breathing so quiet that not even Bruce could’ve heard it.
(That League training was finally useful for something huh?)
After an indeterminable amount of time, Jason found himself in front of Alfred’s door. It was the room closest to the exit, therefore the one closest to the kitchen. Alfred had always valued efficiency, after all.
It felt more than illicit to put his hand on the knob and twist, with the intention of rifling through the butler’s belongings. Maybe he was just looking for one recipe, but he knew that because of time constraints, if he simply found a big cookbook, he’d take the whole thing with him, consequences be damned. If he had to shift through loose papers, he’d probably just put them all under his coat and abscond, too, which… Well, stealing was far from the worst of his crimes, and what else could you expect from a replaceable street kid?
Entering the room in the darkness of the night, Jason was still somewhat able to see the outlines of everything because of the light coming in through the window. Slipping in without jostling the door too much (he knew it creaked if opened to a certain degree), he surveyed the room and –
And froze, because that right there on the bed was his grandfather Alfred, soundly asleep. His face was smoothed out and free of tension, the covers pulled up to his chin and one of those special orthopaedic pillows under his head. The smell of Alfred’s preferred detergent was strong here, and Jason could even tell that the bedsheets had been traditionally starched before being put to use.
Blinking rapidly, a traitorous prickling to his eyes that he didn’t know the source of (shut up dammit!), Jason did not know how much time he spent there just staring.
What finally shook him out of that state was Alfred shifting in his sleep. Jason forced himself to stop blinking like an idiot, and resume on his original plan – get the recipe and get the fuck out. Taking a look around, he quickly determined that there were very few places Alfred could’ve put his recipes.
The man surely wouldn’t keep such things in the closet, or in the nightstand by the bed. So, that left everything else.
Still on silent feet, Jason crept up to the desk first.
It yielded him no answers, besides Alfred’s schedule for the next week, some old receipts and personal notes. The side panels of the desk also yielded no recipes, mostly filled with old records of the manor’s maintenance and medicines. There was also a first aid kit, one which Jason knew could be found in all the manor’s bathrooms and in every resident’s room.
Quietly sliding everything back into place, Jason moved onto his next haunt – a wide drawer which took up the majority of space between the desk and the bed. It was very old fashioned, with metal knobs and intricately carved exterior. Opening up the first drawer, Jason winced at the way it creaked, gaze snapping over to Alfred –
But the butler was still sleeping, and Jason muffled a sigh of relief.
Unfortunately for him, he would find no recipes there.
Everything else was irrelevant, and with mounting frustration, Jason continued his search. Until he got to the last drawer.
It was full of folders. Albums? He wasn’t sure. Either way, they were things meant to hold paper, so he was on the right track. Hope flickered up to life, and Jason eagerly lifted up the first thing he could reach, mind already on the image of the perfect cake coming out of the oven –
Only to open the album up and see – himself?
His younger self stared up at him, a crooked smile and a sweaty face, and a peace sign held up to the camera. There was writing at the edge of the page, and Jason had to tilt it up to the moonlight to see –
Jason, Gotham Academy track running competition, 22nd April, 20XX
Jason froze.
Then, as if in a trance, he turned the page.
This time it wasn’t only him staring up from the photo. No, this one was one with Dickhead, both of them squeezed together in some photo booth, grinning like idiots. There also was a note above it.
Jason and Dick, Trip to New York, 16th June, 20XX
That was not long before Jason’s death, wasn’t it?
Jason stared, again. There was a faint tremble to his hands that he didn’t even register, and maybe a newfound hitch in his breath and –
“Hands in the air,” he heard, a clear and crisp tone accompanied by the cocking of a gun. The words were spoken with that familiar British accent, and Jason couldn’t hold back a flinch.
Oh fuck.
I am so cooked right now.
Turning around slowly, hands raising themselves automatically, Jason prayed that his expression did not give away the absolute eternal panic he was feeling at the moment. Then, he registered the shotgun pointed at him, and at it’s other end Alfred’s focused face, eyebrows drown and lips pressed in tight.
Then, the face exploded with surprise, shoulders slackening and the gun lowering just a millimetre.
Oh shit.
Of all the fucking days he decided to go out without his helmet, or his domino, or anything to cover his face, it had to be this fucking day! Motherfucker…
“Jason?” asked Alfie, bewildered. If Jason had been a stronger man, he might have taken the chance and slipped away – the gun had been lowered enough that he could make it to the door without being shot, probably. Or through the window. But no, his feet seemed rooted to that well-groomed carpet, and his brain was scrambling in panic.
“Ha ha, surprise?” he finally settled on, because the nervous giggle was absolutely crime lord coded. And, like a true crime lord, Jason added, “I was just on my way out, don’t let me keep you up!”
“What in the – who are you?” Alfred’s eyes narrowed again, and as Jason took a tentative step back, the gun was right back to being pointed at his face. There was a thought niggling him at the back of his head that he should maybe pull out his own gun and do something, but the rest of him squashed it relentlessly – he was a crime lord, yes, hell-bent on revenge too, but he wasn’t about to shoot his own grandfather Alfred! That just didn’t – that just wasn’t the reality of this world, okay?
With all that said though, he was still currently at the wrong end of a shotgun, and with Alfred looking at him like that, Jason knew he’d definitely be willing to shoot, especially if Jason didn’t start explaining.
“Already forgotten me, Alfie?” he asked, and while it was meant to be mocking, it definitely came out more pathetic than intended, especially with the album still clutched in his right hand (huh?). And because apparently Jason’s stupid mouth was on a roll now, he said, “I’m hurt.”
Fuckity fuck, put a foot in your damn mouth asshole!
“I do not know who you are, but my grandson has been dead for three years now,” the butler said at that, seemingly calm, and yet Jason could hear the undercurrent of something dangerous in his voice.
“Not so dead anymore,” muttered Jason, though the look Alfred levelled at him would’ve had younger him quaking in his boots.
“Whatever is your purpose here, and in deceiving me, I hope you’ve thought it through,” the older gentleman said, a threat in and of itself. Jason spluttered, his mind unwillingly back on his earlier goal. Apparently his lip was as loose as before and he was still an idiot though, because before he could stop himself he was already speaking.
“I just need that cake recipe and I’m going! Promise!” he said, as if he were still that little boy living in the manor.
Once again, Alfred seemed floored.
“…What recipe?” he asked, and Jason gulped.
Well, his identity was shot anyway, why not expose himself further, he thought a little hysterically. Especially when the question really made him want to tear his hair out and also ask his grandfather why he was asking some guy who looked like his dead grandson (!), who broke into his room at 4 in the morning, what recipe he was about to steal from him.
“The cake one! You know which! Bruce’s favourite! Agh!” Jason waved his hands in the air, aggrieved. He’d just wanted cake! The Cake! Why was this happening??? His frustrations were easy to put into words when he was already so worked up, “I’ve been trying to make it since the afternoon, but every time I try, it comes out wrong! I don’t know what I’m doing wrong! What did you put in that cake Alfie??”
The last sentence came out like a whine, one which had the butler lowering his gun, disbelief written all over his face.
“…Did you pre heat the oven?” the butler asked after a short pause, one filled with Jason’s heavy breathing and the distant sound of a clock ticking.
“YES!”
“Did you use one tea spoon of baking powder?” Alfred asked, gun lowering one more inch, not that Jason really cared about that, mind on the countless cakes he’d made.
“Yes!”
“Did you add a mix of brown and white sugar?”
“Yeah, of course, how could I forget something like that?” Jason confirmed, at the point where he really was about to tear his hair out. At least with the hand that wasn’t clutching the album, which was resting on his head while he tried to not tug at the strands with his other.
“Did you fold in the melted butter before the eggs?” Alfred asked and –
“Yeah, of – wait. Melted butter?”
“Yes, melted. It adds warmth, and I find that the cake becomes more buttery at the end,” the butler said, gun down and a hand on his chin.
“Oh my god, how could I have forgotten that?” Jason moaned out, slumping. Tears prickled at his eyes for real now, and he wasn’t quite sure if it was only the lack of melted butter to blame for that.
“Usually, I used to do it,” Alfred said, tone wistful. Jason chanced a look at him, and found himself staring, once more, “You always took on the task of mixing the dry ingredients with milk, while I melted the butter. Then, while I mixed it in, you’d prepare the eggs… I suppose it was the one part of the process you were least involved in.”
“…You remember that?” Jason asked, voice thick. When the older man looked at him in askance, Jason continued, “I though you would’ve forgotten all about it…”
Those insignificant moments they spent in the kitchen, baking and cooking, and Jason, young and impressionable, had been enraptured by it all. All those ingredients, coming together under a masterful hand, making something new and delicious. But Alfred – how many cakes had he already made in his lifetime by that time? Jason had thought that –
“Of course not,” the butler assured, seeming affronted. “How could I forget it? You loved cooking with me so much – neither Master Dick nor Bruce ever had much passion for it, so seeing a young face light up like that, ah. One might say that my heart had melted every single time.”
“…Alfie…” Jason felt himself break, just a little. Something warm trickled down his cheeks. His hands fell to his sides, and his vision blurred.
“Oh, Master Jason,” that was Alfred’s concerned voice now, and Jason couldn’t help the hiccup that suddenly forced itself from his throat. He heard more than saw the old butler get up from the bed, and then, a careful hand settling on his cheek. The fingers of that withered hand placed themselves carefully on his face, a gentle touch that brought Jason right back to when he was 13, crying because Alfred just managed to recreate the pancakes from one of the earliest memories he had with his mother.
“Alfie – I’m, I’m,” he wasn’t even sure what he was about to say, not when he was promptly squeezed between the man’s strong arms (was he taller than Alfred???).
“It’s okay,” the butler said, sounding a little choked up himself.
After a while of just standing there like that, after most of the tears dried (or rather made batter, having mixed with the flour that had dusted Jason’s face), Alfie spoke again.
“It’s going to be alright, my dear boy. Let’s head to the kitchen,” he said, and Jason blinked at him in confusion as the man untangled him from between his arms, “I am going to walk you through making that cake, and I will explain everything as I go. Come.”
With that, the older man pulled Jason behind him. Jason, who had expected at least a little more questioning before he would inevitably be brought to a cell or told to go away (or would he? The green was sure that he would’ve been thrown out, unwanted and replaced, but Jason wasn’t so sure anymore), followed dumbly. He didn’t understand what was happening, but his stomach was growling, his eyes felt sticky, and he could imagine nothing better right then than cooking together with Alfred again.
Hopefully this time he’ll remember the cake recipe, too.