As the sauce bubbled in the pot, Jason happened to notice the pattern on its bottom-it was the first pot Alfred had taught him to cook with, its rim still bearing the scorch marks from an old mishap. For a moment, the damp air of Crime Alley seemed to drift in, mingling with the warm, homey smells of Wayne Manor.
The children of Crime Alley cooked only to fill their stomachs. As long as it was edible, it was good enough, and Jason had been no exception. But after Bruce adopted him and brought him to Wayne Manor, Alfred noticed his interest in cooking and personally taught him to make a few simple dishes.
Back then, he had only just arrived at Wayne Manor and felt utterly lost in a kitchen full of cookware. Alfred stood beside him, guiding his hands as he cut tomatoes, his voice gentle but unmistakably serious. "Cooking is like fighting. It requires both precision and patience."
But he had been full of rebellion then. He cut the tomatoes into uneven chunks and deliberately added too much salt. The resulting bowl of pasta was so salty it tasted bitter, yet Alfred ate every last bite and merely said, "Just adjust the proportions next time. Making mistakes is part of growing."
Later, after waking in the Lazarus Pit, he had tried making pasta himself during those days of living alone. There had been no precise kitchen scale, no fresh ingredients-only canned tomatoes bought on sale at the supermarket and bacon nearing its expiration date. In a cramped safe house, he slowly simmered the sauce in an iron pot with peeling paint.
Back then, he always thought that if Alfred were there, he would surely tell him the ingredients weren't fresh and the meal wasn't nutritionally balanced. Yet