Chapter Text
Jason is perched on the edge of the dumpster rummaging for food when a door slams open.
He nearly loses his balance but he catches himself in time to see two men pour into the alley. They’re from the restaurant whose dumpster Jason is trying to fish leftovers out of. They lock it at night but in the narrow window between lunch and dinner, he can sometimes salvage something edible.
“Just listen to me!” one man shouts, the one who looks like he’s getting thrown out.
“No!” the larger man says, waving his arms. He yells something in Italian and spits at the other man as he scrambles to get out of the alley.
Jason knows he should get out of there. This is Maroni territory and they don’t take well to strangers. But the big guy hasn’t noticed him yet. He looks like if someone drew a long rectangle and filled it in with a person. His eyebrows are more gray then black and Jason likes his odds if it comes to outrunning him. Jason can see a takeout container of food on top of the trash bags. He just needs to reach a little farther…
His grip slips from the lip of the dumpster and Jason bites off a swear as he tumbles inside.
When he looks up, the big man from the restaurant is looking down at him like Jason with a pained expression.
Jason tries to vault the edge of the dumpster and run away but the guy grabs him by the arm and hauls him out.
“Can you wash dishes?”
Jason yanks his arm back. He makes a move to run.
“Fifty dollars,” he says, snapping Jason out of his escape plan. “If you wash dishes tonight… And a hot meal after.”
Jason considers running but fifty dollars is over half of what he needs for a motel room. Winter hit Gotham early and the place Jason sleeps most nights is drafty as hell. The restaurant behind them looks warm.
And he’s still hungry.
“Half up front,” Jason says.
The guy nods and opens the door connecting the alley to the restaurant kitchen.
Jason is deep in Maroni territory but the name on the banner reads Angelo’s. The name matches the embroidery on the big guy’s white chef jacket as he shows Jason the kitchen. Angelo shoves a black baseball cap over Jason’s hair and puts him in front of a sink that doesn’t look anything like the one he and his mom had back in Crime Alley. Instead of a faucet, the water comes out of a springy hose.
It’s also piled with a mountain of dishes taller than Jason.
Angelo looks at Jason standing next to the sink and frowns. He disappears for a moment and comes back with a step stool.
“You stand here and wash,” he says. Jason eyes the tower of dishes while Angelo points to the faucet. “Hot, cold, soap,” he says. “Wash pots first.”
“Angelo, what the fuck?” a wiry woman with short blonde hair says from her place in front of a burning grill. “Where’s the dishwasher?”
Angelo gestures to Jason. “Dishwasher!”
“We’re about to open!” she snaps at him. Jason scowls because he’s perfectly capable of washing dishes for a night. He rolls up his sleeves.
It’s just washing dishes. How hard could it be?
--
By the end of the night, Jason’s arms are burning. The entire front of his sweatshirt is soaked with water and his hands feel raw. But he didn’t break a single dish and only one of the chefs yelled at him all night.
He’s put together it’s Angelo’s kitchen. It’s his name on the restaurant and he’s the big boss. But Camilla, the woman who snapped at him first, she’s his second in command. Angelo makes the call but she’s the one who makes it all happen. There’s another chef, Nicky, but he doesn’t talk much except a quiet “behind” whenever he pulls clean plates from Jason’s dishrack.
Jason isn’t sure how many waiters there are, just that the chefs always seem to be shouting at them, particularly Camilla.
Nicky is mopping the floor long after the final orders have gone out. Jason is finishing up the last of the silverware. No matter how many forks he cleans, there always seems to be another waiting for him. He’s beginning to wonder if the sink is somehow cursed.
“Good job, kid,” Camilla says as she’s packing up her knives. Jason gets the feeling she doesn’t give out many compliments and he ducks his head to hide his grin.
The smile drops right off his face when he sees Angelo pick up a heavy pan he just finished washing and put it back on the stove. Last order was called hours ago. Jason’s arms might just fall off into the sink if he has to lift another dish.
When the dish rack is finally empty, Angelo is still cooking. So Jason wrings out the dish towel and hangs it on the edge of the sink like his mom used to. With no more orders coming in and Nicky finishing up the floors, Jason turns to watch Angelo cook.
Garlic sizzles, the smell filling the empty kitchen. The scent sharpens as Angelo adds a red pepper to the mix. He moves the pan back and forth aggressively and Jason is struck by how Angelo makes the movement look effortless even though he's been doing it all night. He adds the pasta, scooping in some of the leftover water, and keeps the pan moving even as steam billows up from it.
Angelo uses a fork and spins it in the pasta until he lifts out a single nest of spaghetti which he transfers easily to a bowl. He turns off the stove and Jason takes half a step back, not realizing he’s been steadily inching closer.
“Come,” Angelo says, bringing the bowl out the front of the kitchen.
Jason’s never been in a fancy restaurant before. Even with the chairs all upside down on the tables, he’s hyper-aware of how out of place he looks standing there in his scuffed sneakers.
The main dining room is marked with dark wood floors and red walls filled with picture frames. Jason doesn’t recognize the people in the photos but they all look like old school movie stars and athletes, forever young in black in white film. Most of the photos look like they were taken in the restaurant.
“Sit, sit,” Angelo waves him to a seat at the bar where the chairs aren’t upside down yet.
Jason climbs up onto the chair.
The main restaurant is deserted but he can hear laughter coming from a room to the side. A set of thick double doors are closed but shadows move across the gap of light beneath them. Someone laughs again and classical music begins to play.
“Eat,” Angelo says as he moved behind the bar to pour himself a drink.
Jason looks down at the plate in front of him. He picks up the fork and takes a bite.
It doesn’t taste like any pasta he’s ever had before.
The garlic is toasted and somehow sweet. The red pepper adds a bit of heat and lemon cuts through the richness of the olive oil sauce to balance it out. And the pasta. Jason remembers many chewy bowls of spaghetti from when his mom wasn’t too strung out to cook dinner, but they never tasted like this.
He takes another bite, bigger this time.
Behind the bar, Angelo chuckles. When he comes back, he puts down the rest of the money he owes Jason.
“Tomorrow, you come back at two?” he says and Jason, scraping the bottom of his plate, nods.
--
Angelo’s is open five days a week and Jason works as the evening dishwasher every one of them. When the kitchen closes for the night and Nicky is finishing the cleanup, Angelo pays Jason in cash and teaches him how to make his next meal.
The whole staff eats together before the dinner shift so for the first time since he ran off from foster care, Jason is consistently eating two meals a day. Jason keeps his head down until he has a better understanding of the staff dynamic but it feels like they're speaking a different language. He pieces together he’s Back of House. Dishwasher.
The Front of House staff are the waiters and the host, Lorenzo, who Camilla hates. Camilla seems to hate a lot of people but she particularly hates Lorenzo. She spends all of family meal grilling him on the menu changes and reservation blocks until he throws up his hands and storms off in a flurry of Italian.
Nicky says he’ll understand when he’s older.
It’s been a little over a month when Jason shows up to work to hear Camilla and Angelo in the middle of an argument.
“Either you do something about that boy or I will,” Camilla snaps at him.
“Tonight, I’ll tell him tonight,” Angelo waves her off.
Jason disappears around a corner before either of them see him.
Jason first met Angelo as he was throwing out another dishwasher. He knows it’s stupid to think that things might last forever, but with the steady cash from washing dishes and food from the kitchen, the winter’s been manageable. Jason doesn’t know what he’ll do if he has to go back to picking pockets and lifting tires again. The MP3 player he bought from a pawn shop feels like it’s burning a hole in his pocket. He was excited to show it to Nicky before the dinner shift but now Jason feels like a fool for spending the money when Angelo is going to throw him out at the end of the night.
He keeps his head down his entire shift. It’s Saturday, their busiest night, so no one bothers him and he turns over dishes as fast as he can, hoping it’ll convince Angelo to keep him on for another week.
A glass slips out of his hand and shatters at the bottom of the sink.
Jason swears and starts to clean it up. But the kitchen keeps moving as he fishes the broken glass out of the murky water. He’s going too fast and he cuts the edge of his hand. Jason goes to the first aide kit to bandage it but then the bandage won’t fit in his kitchen gloves and the dishes start to pile up.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Camilla mutters darkly as she searches for a ramekin.
“Sorry, sorry,” Jason says, shoving his bandaged hand imperfectly into a latex glove so he can get back to work.
“Get your shit together, Jay.”
The wound stings the rest of the night and Jason struggles to catch back up. Even Nicky is getting frustrated with him the third time he’s missing dessert plates.
The only person who doesn’t seem to notice is Angelo.
At the end of the night, Nicky mops the floors and Angelo talks Jason through cooking veal marsala but Jason keeps wondering if this is going to be his last meal from the kitchen. He knows he should eat it. The mushrooms and wine sauce smell heavenly, but every bite tastes like ash.
“Jason,” Angelo says and Jason’s eyes snap up. He gestures at his hand. “Show me.”
Jason holds out his hand and Angelo inspects his shoddy bandaging. He tuts and Jason’s mind reels. Is he going to be mad Jason used supplies from the first aid kit when he’s about to be fired? Does it even count as being fired if he’s being paid under the table?
Angelo gets up and comes back with the first aide kit. He pulls away Jason’s bandages and applies an ointment before rewrapping it.
After he puts the supplies away, he lingers awkwardly. While Angelo is a man of intense feeling, he does poorly with words. “Being in a kitchen… lots of scars,” he says finally, snapping the plastic case closed and retreating.
When he comes back, it’s with a scoop of the vanilla ice cream.
Jason stares at it in disbelief. Angelo stares back.
“Is this the boy then?” a voice behind them asks and Jason nearly falls out of his seat.
The double doors in the dining room are open and out steps a man in a suit Jason’s never seen before. He looks older than Angelo and he smiles easily at them both.
“Welcome to the family, Jason,” he says, holding out his hand.
Angelo gives an embarrassed cough and mutters something in Italian. The older man gives Angelo a playful glare.
“Our Angelo, not one for words,” he says to Jason like they’re sharing an inside joke. “My name is Salvatore Maroni, but you call me Zio Salvatore, okay? Angelo here tells me you’ve been working hard in the kitchen.”
Jason’s eyes go wide. Salvatore Maroni is the head of the Maroni crime family. He must be who they reserve the back room for every night. Jason shakes his hand dumbly.
“Angelo and I have been friends for a long time,” Maroni continues, taking a seat at the bar with the two of them. “He loves this restaurant. He built it up from the ground himself. He’s always been there for me. So you must understand how fortunate I feel to be here for him on this occasion.”
Salvatore Maroni snaps his fingers and another man emerges from the back room. He passes Maroni a folder. He opens it for Jason.
“Jason Moretti,” he reads. A birth certificate.
Jason looks at Angelo. Angelo coughs and looks away. “There is a spare room upstairs,” he says, gesturing vaguely to the ceiling but the words sound practiced. “It’s warm. Clean,” he adds, sliding a house key across the bar to him. "Yours if you want it."
Jason picks up the key.
Salvatore Maroni claps his hands loudly, startling both of them. “Fastastico,” he says, reaching out an arm to usher Jason towards the double doors that lead to the back room. “Come meet the family.”
The next hour is a blur of introductions. Jason is clapped on the back and his hair is ruffled by no fewer than thirty people.
There are a bunch of kids running around who look younger than him. A girl with brown curls darts past him, chased by an older boy shouting after her. Jason’s head is spinning.
The room smells like smoke and someone starts up the record player. Jason thinks about the cup of ice cream melting on the bar.
The only person equally overwhelmed is Angelo. Everyone is congratulating him and saying it’s about time for him to take in a kid. Salvatore presents him with a box of cigars wrapped in a green metallic foil and Angelo looks genuinely touched.
Jason yawns once and Angelo swoops in, making excuses in rapid fire Italian. He slips past the double doors and uses a key to open a door behind the host stand that reveals a staircase Jason’s never seen before. It leads up to a small apartment.
Angelo shows Jason to a spare room. There’s not much in it other than a bed and a desk, but true to his word, the room is clean and warm.
“It’s not much,” Angelo says haltingly.
Jason shakes his head. He runs one hand over a handmade quilt. “It’s perfect.”
“I have to go back downstairs,” Angelo says. “You should get some rest.”
Jason thinks of the cache of supplies he has hidden back in the Alley. A spare change of clothes and a couple of days of food are nothing to scoff at so he makes plans to go back for it. If he ends up staying.
He can still hear the sound of the party going on downstairs. There’s a brief cheer when Angelo rejoins the company of his friends. Jason, not ready to trust these new surroundings, stays awake watching the door.
Angelo eventually climbs back up the steps, humming some opera record that played downstairs. Jason watches through a crack in the door. But Angelo just turns towards a room down the hall, swaying slightly as he retreats to his own bed.
--
Jason learns every part of the restaurant.
Camilla teaches him to dice an onion. She shows him how every knife is a tool and which job each is best suited for. She makes him debone fish after fish until Jason could do it in the middle of the dinner rush with the kitchen burning down around him.
Nicky takes him to the markets before dawn and shows him how to pick the best produce. Jason feels a swell of pride whenever he hands Nicky a lemon or tomato and he nods in approval.
Lorenzo introduces him to the temperamental espresso machine and teaches him how to negotiate a half decent shot from it. Then he shows him how the break it down to its bolts, clean it, and put it back together.
Angelo… Angelo teaches him to cook.
He’s a particular man in the kitchen. He prefers all pasta to be made fresh. Olive oil has to come from Southern Italy or it is no good. He believes in simple ingredients and well-executed cooking methods. Even if he is making Jason eggs for breakfast, it has to be served on a hot plate.
Every dish is half a history lesson and half a language lesson. Angelo speaks halting English and animated Italian. His first love might be the restaurant but soccer (“calcio, Jason, per favore”) and cigars are a close second.
Angelo hires another dishwasher because Jason goes back to school. But instead of Park Row Middle School, he starts at Webb Academy, the private school all the Maroni boys go to. Matteo Maroni is a year younger than Jason but they’re in the same grade.
Jason dropped out of school when he started living on the street so he’s a year behind the other kids his age. On his first day of school, Matteo shows him how to knot the tie for his school uniform. When Jason struggles to answer a question in class, one of the other boys mocks him and Matteo narrows his eyes.
At lunch, Matteo’s older brother holds the boy out of a third story window and pretends to drop him until he cries. The teachers do nothing. Because Vincenzo Maroni is untouchable. And when Jason walks with Matteo and his brother, he feels untouchable too.
He feels like part of the family.
Jason spends the next ten years working for the Maronis. They could have taken any kid off the streets but they chose him. Jason knows he owes them but they never make him feel like it. Even when Zio Salvatore teaches him how to move money through the books at Angelo’s, it just feels like Jason is doing his part, giving back to the people who gave him so much.
Which is why, when he finds Robin bleeding out in the dumpster behind the restaurant, Jason would be an idiot to throw it all away.