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bartistic · 3 years

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Bruce Goes To The Market!

knife tw, food cw, incredibly dumb self-indulgent concept cw, outsider (oc) pov

It is universally acknowledged that a cashier possessing free time, will be in want of an extra task to fill that free time. At least, that’s what James’ managers seemed to think. Privately, he agreed, as he found restocking the shelves to be a most agreeable pastime, one that could in fact suck up hours of his eight hour closing shift.

He was in the soda aisle, debating whether sparkling water belonged with seltzer or with the rest of the store brand items, when he noticed a broad-shouldered man in sunglasses and a Gotham University sweatshirt, inspecting the selection of diet tonic water and looking utterly flummoxed. Customer in need of assistance!

“Hi, how are you doing tonight? You need help finding anything?” Mentally, James winced at the preppy-ness of his ‘customer service robot voice’ as his favorite coworker Stephie liked to call it. Luckily, he’d thrown his voice out enough screaming to Queen karaoke the night before that his voice stayed in the normal octaves rather than shooting into the stratosphere. The man straightened up and looked down towards James, who suddenly felt very short in all of his 5’9” glory. (Well, 5’8 3/4” but who’s counting.)

“Yes, actually. I’m new to the store, could you direct me to where the soap is?” Oh god. Of all the things it had to be the one item James swore was never in the same aisle twice.

“Of course!” He lied through his teeth. “Here, right this way.” Turning, he set off towards the general direction of where the soap tended to lie, with a variation of four different aisles. Luckily, the first aisle was correct, and he watched, intrigued, as the customer gave a thorough inspection to at least 14 different bars of soap. “Anything else I can help you with?” He added, as the man finally selected a bar and placed it in his basket. The man looked sheepish.

“This is actually the first time I’ve been in a grocery store. I’m not usually the one doing the shopping. My—the person I live with gave me a list, but I honestly don’t know where or even what half of these things are.” He held out a grocery list, scrawled in an elegant cursive. It was double-sided. James checked the front of the store, where the other cashier was engrossed in his phone while trying not to appear engrossed in his phone. It was an hour and a half until they closed, and he was pretty sure there was only one other customer in the store at most.

“Sure! Alright, so our first step should probably be to hit the deli, seeing as they have the longest wait times.” After walking the man through ordering Roast Beef, Prosciutto, Pastrami, Swiss, Havarti, Gouda, and Picante Provolone (what) they moved on to the canned goods. “We should probably grab a cart, I don’t think that basket’s going to be able to hold all of this.” Turning into the canned goods aisle, James sighed.

“Caution: Hazard Detected! Precaución, ¡Peligro Detectado!” The store’s resident useless robot assistant was stuck in place, screaming at a small bit of an onion peel that had fallen to the floor.

“Batsy, I swear to god.” James went over and kicked the peel under one of the shelves, pressing the button on the robot to reboot it.

“...Batsy?” The customer sounded somewhere between bemused and amused. Perhaps just ‘mused.

“Yeah, it’s our obtuse robot that only sees what’s right in front of it and makes a big fuss over literally nothing. It can’t even clean anything up, and the few moments there actually is a spill it just skids through it and makes it worse. Technically corporate calls it Patsy, short for Patrick, because we’re Patrick’s, you know? But since this is Gotham, we call it Batsy. Short for... Batrick. I’m not the one who came up with the name, that honor goes to my coworker Stephie. She’s, uh, not working tonight.” James internally began banging his head against the shelves. Why. Was. He. Like. This. “So, do you know what brand of chickpeas your... roommate wanted?”

/ / /

Finally, after another 45 minutes of shopping, they were ready to check out. James noticed the shift had changed while he was away. “Alright, so I can actually take you at this register over here, ‘cuz I’m still logged in and all.” He gulped as the customer began to load up onto the belt. This was... a lot of food. He’d scanned around a quarter when he officially ran out of room, turning to bagging instead. “Let’s get you another cart, actually, so we can load into that without squishing what you haven’t unpacked yet.” He moved to go grab one, but the customer was faster, jogging back with another cart before he could even finish bagging all the protein shakes. There were, admittedly, a lot of protein shakes.

Scanning the meat-substitutes, James scanned his own mind for an avenue of conversation. “So, you mentioned that it’s your son who’s the vegetarian. How old is he?”

“He’s 13. It’s not religious or health-wise or anything, he just really loves animals. Our house is practically a zoo on a good day, and that’s not even counting all his siblings.”

“Oh, how many kids do you have?” It had to be a fair amount for it to be ‘all’ his siblings. The customer opened his mouth as if to answer, then shut it again. He seemed to be thinking. Did he... not know how many kids he had??

“Legally I have... fffffour? Five? Yeah... that sounds right.” James tried to hide the bewildered expression in his own face, but he must not have been doing it well. “That makes me sound like such a bad father. No, I promise, I love them all, I just have quite a few of their friends living with us as well, and I’ve known those kids long enough to feel like they’re my kids too. Not to mention the whole difference between the ones I’ve adopted, the one who was my ward who I then retroactively adopted, the one I’m fostering, and the one who is legally an emancipated minor. And... the one who. Is no longer with us.” James blinked. That was indeed complicated.

“You must have a lot of love in your heart,” he settled on, finally.

“I just h— Oh, #%*$.” The blueberry container had burst open, all over the floor. James internally groaned.

“Oh no! Sorry about that, that’s the third one tonight. The packaging is just... not great. Do you want me to go get you another one?”

“No, I can get it. Thanks though.” The customer gingerly stepped through the minefield as James power walked to go get the clean up supplies. Six feet away, Batsy was screaming at a blueberry.

“Eat your heart out, Mister Miyagi,” he aimed a light roundhouse kick at the button to reboot the robot. Batsy got two feet before it encountered another world-ending-threat, danger level blueberry. James sighed and went to go clear that area first.

/ / /

Finally, almost everything was scanned. James was scanning the bread and rolls as the customer fit all the bags into the two carts, like an expert game of tetris. There were a few hiccups where James had had to explain that you probably shouldn’t bag Raid with milk, or that it was a good idea to double bag heavy items, or that you should wait until the end to put the eggs in (and there were a lot of eggs. Gaston-levels of eggs. Probably to be expected with that many kids in the house. Hah. eggs-pected.) But by the end they were working like a well-oiled machine. James bagged the last item, hit the button to total it, and watched as the customer realized he forgot his deli items.

“I’m just gonna— gonna run and go get those real quick. Is that okay?”

“Yeah, sure. Can you fill out the charity question real quick though? Th...thanks.” The customer was gone before James could question him on the fact that he’d used the custom amount option to apparently donate $1k to Gotham General’s children’s ward. It was... probably a mistake, but he’d wait around to check. He turned as he heard the beginnings of a commotion behind him, from the one other customer in the store. This guy’s whole aesthetic just screamed gross, from the white-boy dreads to the Blue Lives Matter gaiter mask. It looked as if he was having trouble at self-checkout. James was about to head over to help when his coworker passed him. He turned back to keep an eye on the clock. 10 minutes until closing. Please come back with the deli items soon. He heard an aggressive murmuring that sent chills up his spine, a distinct feeling of Not Right Bad. He turned back to where his coworker was engaged with helping the other customer. His coworker who was... very pale. Frightened. The customer whose hand glinted silver with... oh #%*$, that’s a knife. Not Good Very Bad... oh hell no, you are not hurting my coworker on my watch.

“HEY #%$&FACE, EAT BEANS!” As the aggressive customer turned to meet the container of garbanzo beans that was currently hurtling towards his face at the maximum speed a theatre-kid-who-never-did-sports could throw, the world seemed to throw down. Faintly, James could hear rational thoughts pounding at the door to his mind, begging to be let in. Thoughts like ‘They’re definitely going to fire you for attacking a customer’ and ‘They’re definitely going to fire you for cursing in front of a customer’ and ‘They’re definitely going to fire you for damaging the merchandise’ and ‘You can’t even throw a ball to save your life, there’s no way that’s going to hit him.’ Praying to Freddie Mercury, Elton John, and all other things holy, James watched as the beans sailed through the air and struck their target true— albeit a little lower than planned.”

Grossface automatically brought his hands down to protect his nethers, apparently forgetting that their was a knife in his hands. He let out a second agonized howl as he stabbed himself in the balls. Blindly, James groped around for more ammunition. Holding out a zucchini as threateningly as he could, he watched as the would-be aggressor ran out of the store as fast as he could with both hands clasping his junk. “Are you okay?” He asked his coworker, feeling his voice echo through the suddenly very-quiet-sounding store. She nodded mutely. He nodded back, then turned back to his register and oH shit there’s His Customer, holding the deli items.

“Nice shot.” Okay, this time he definitely sounded amused.

“I... am so sorry about the beans, I can get you a refund on those or I can go get you some more or—”

“No need, they definitely went to a good cause.” The customer grinned and held out the deli items. Faintly, James began to wrestle with the bag to get to the barcodes. Finally, everything was scanned, for good.

“Alright, will that be everything?” The clock read two minutes until closing.

“Yes, that should be everything. Again, thank you for all your help.” James watched as even with the membership points taken off, the total soared to over $750.

“Alright, your total is... $754.33, here’s some coupons and a survey slip. If you fill that out you get entered for a drawing to win a $500 gift card. Which... I don’t know that you’d need, but. Why not.” The customer reached into his wallet and counted out 5 $100 bills. Then he pulled out a black card. He paid off the total with the card, then handed the bills to James.

“Here you go, I wasn’t sure how much you tip cashiers.” James opened and closed his mouth a few times, like a fish.

“People don’t normally... tip cashiers...” and especially not HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS.

“Oh. Well, you were a good cashier. You deserve it. And here—” at this he pulled a crisp business card out of his wallet. “At Wayne Enterprises we could use quick-thinkers like you.” Pulling down his sunglasses, he gave a quick wink. James waved absentmindedly as BRUCE #%*$ING WAYNE walked out of the store. He looked down at the business card. Written upon it were the words: “Call here for an interview, mention Malone and they’ll know I sent you. Best of luck with the current job— BW”

James sat down. The clock was 10 minutes past closing before he remembered to look at it. There were a million thoughts running through his head. Oh my god I joked around to a billionaire. I cursed in front of a billionaire. I chucked a can of beans into a man’s nutsack in front of a billionaire.

But oddly enough, the only question that remained at the top of his mind was this:

This is because I have black hair and blue eyes, isn’t it.

#batfam #batman #bruce wayne #crack fic babey #my writing #written over the course of 2 hours following an 8 hour shift #shameless self-insert time

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