Disclaimer: I do not own Big Hero 6, or whatever's on the menu for today.

Chapter 2 – Karmi Gets Served

"Alright, everyone. Quickly, now."

The staff of Gramercy gathered together in the kitchen, the small counter the only thing separating them from the titular chef. Bolton glanced around at the crowd, taking a silent head count.

"Aren't we missing someone?"

"Me, Chef!"

The crowd slightly parted to let Karmi in, her hair disheveled. "Sorry, I'm late, Chef. Traffic was terrible."

"Do you not walk?"

"I did!" Karmi adjusted her collar and straightened up. "But there was a major police investigation. Apparently they confiscated an entire warehouse of stuff that was stolen. They were still there when I went by and had to detour."

"Hmm," he scoffed. "Well, do be sure to let the police know when you have to work next time so they don't inconvenience you."

There was an awkward silence where a couple of the wait staff started snickering. Karmi paid them no mind, and neither did the famous chef, who continued onward.

"Right. Well, now that we have everyone here (Gramercy cast a glance in Karmi's direction), I want to say a few things before we get dinner service started."

He held his arms out wide as he addressed the group. "Tonight..will be the last night I will be here. I have been very fortunate to see how much of a rousing success we've become over the past few weeks. And that...is all to you," he added, pointing to the crowd.

Gramercy nodded off to his right, where one of the other chefs was busy preparing some of the food. "Do not worry, though! Chef Ariel, who has also been here since the beginning, will be take over executive chef responsibilities. I trust that you will show her the same respect that you have shown me. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Chef!" the staff echoed.

"Very well." He waved his hand at the counter in front of him, his chefs placing full plates in front of him. "For the occasion, I have decided to modify the menu a bit. The first course..."

With that came approximately five minutes of Chef Gramercy going over the dishes with a fine-toothed comb. Everyone around Karmi was furiously writing down notes to remember the dishes. Karmi was doing it as well, but being a teen genius and all, she could remember most of it except for the finer details.

As he carried on, her mind started to wonder. The truth was she only wished she could use the police activity as an excuse for her tardiness, but in actuality, she had almost completely forgot about her shift today. Between school, her work with Liv Amara, and her newfound friendship with Hiro's group, her mind was in tatters.

And that wasn't even counting whatever was going on between her and Hiro himself. Every time they got together, it seemed like another crazy moment would occur. Last time, she got thrown into the air as an experiment by him.

And then she almost kissed him.

Again.

...Yeah, it was a bad time for her brain to bring that up.

"Ahem."

Uh oh.

Karmi looked up from her pad to see Chef Gramercy staring at her. "As I am sure Karmi was paying attention, I am also certain that she can review for everyone what tonight's featured entree dish is."

She looked down at her notes. "A filet mignon served with a mushroom gratin, Yukon mashed potatoes, and roasted broccoli, with the meat surrounded by its own au jus." She looked back up at him. "...Chef."

Gramercy didn't blink. Instead, after a moment, he looked up at the rest of the staff. "I sure hope that everyone wrote that down."

There was a flurry of scratches from pens and notepads as everyone else mad a mad dash to put it down. Seemingly satisfied, the celebrity chef pulled up his tablet. "Now, for sections..."

Tonight, Karmi was given a prime section, right in the middle of the restaurant. As servers started filing out to take their place, Gramercy waved her over to the side door.

"Karmi. Two seconds."

Oh boy, this wasn't going to end well.

She followed Gramercy through the door, outside of the restaurant. Once there, he propped the door open with a spare piece of wood. "Remind me that I need to get this door fixed."

"Chef, is there something wrong?" Karmi asked, cutting him off.

"I was just about to ask you the very same question."

"Me?" Karmi was confused. "I'm fine. Everything's fine."

"Karmi." Satisfied with the status of the door, he turned to face her. "You may have been blessed with the ability to multitask, but I have the ability to tell when someone is lying, and you...have been zoned out since you've arrived."

Was it really that obvious? "Chef...I'm sorry that I haven't been around. I've been so busy at school and my internship that I had to cut back my hours here. But I promise you, I'll prove to you that I can be here."

She saw him shake his head slowly, eyes closed.

"Karmi, Karmi, Karmi."

She watched him bend down and put his hands on his knees, now at her level. She braced herself for impact…

"You have been one of the most consistent workers here."

Huh. This didn't sound like a classic Gramercy tirade.

"You take the worst shifts, even work some of the bad sections, and I don't think I've ever heard you complain once. As far as I am concerned..."

He looked at her straight in the eye.

"You have nothing to prove."

"...Um..."

"Karmi, I know that you have a very busy life outside of this restaurant. I would not want your work here to intrude on anything you're doing at school or elsewhere. It's actually quite astonishing that you're still working here at all. I've heard a lot of things that you're working on from Chef Cass."

"Oh." Karmi shuffled her feet nervously. "I didn't know you talked to her."

"Well, she made quite an impression on me a bit ago, and I've learned that when she speaks about someone, I should listen." Gramercy crossed his arms over his body. "Look, you are more than welcome to be here as long as you wish to. You've proven to be dependable. I could bloody use ten of you in this restaurant. I'm sure Chef Ariel would be more than happy for you to stay."

She wiped a tear away from her eye, touched. "Thank you, Chef. I really appreciate that. But can I be honest for a second?"

"Certainly."

"I...really thought you were going to yell at me."

"Well, I have been known to do that from time to time. Can't say I blame you there," Gramercy joked, opening the door and waving Karmi back inside. "Don't worry; I'll probably be doing that at some point during service tonight."

And he did. To be fair, it wasn't her fault.

Tonight was another busy evening at Gramercy, and even though she hadn't been around for a while, the crowd was keeping her on her toes. Two hours in, she already had to deal with an errant child that almost caused her to drop an entire table's worth of food, a trio of uppity gentlemen who left barely enough money for the check (so no tip), a mother with every food allergy under the sun (spoiler: she actually wasn't allergic to anything), and a teenage couple on their first date that spent more time eating each other's face than their entrees.

Karmi managed to walk away just as they got their second wind, the check laying on the table next to them. She only hoped that it would come back not damp.

"Excuse me, miss?"

She turned to the table next to them. An older gentleman was sitting with presumably his wife, a younger couple sitting opposite them. She walked over to them, bending down slightly. "Yes?"

"I know that you're not our waiter, but we ordered our food a while ago, and we haven't seen our server since we've gotten our drinks. We've been waiting very patiently and would like an update as to when we'll get it."

"I'm so sorry about that, sir," Karmi said. "Who is your server?"

"I apologize; I didn't catch his name." He held his hand up, to a little above Karmi's head. "He's about this tall, with brown hair. Quiet fellow."

Oh no, she thought. She knew exactly who he was talking about, even having been absent for a couple of weeks.

"Sir, I know who that is. I'll see if I can track him down. But in the meantime," she added, pulling out her notepad, "Tell me what you ordered and I will speak to the chef personally."

Twenty seconds later...

"Chef!" Karmi strode into the kitchen, almost knocking over one of the other waitresses going out. "We have a problem!"

Gramercy looked up from the plate he was preparing. "Oh, look. Little Miss Quiet finally found her voice. And she's using it on me. Wonderful."

"Table ten has been waiting for their food for almost forty-five minutes, and they're getting a little impatient. Also, Dante seems to have wandered off again."

"Ten?" He scooted over to the right as he scanned the handwritten tickets on the top of the shelf. "That got sent out twenty minutes ago. Filet mignon and scallops?"

"That was table eleven, which is in my section." Karmi peered at her notepad, reading off the four-top's order. "Ten is the double filet mignon, lobster risotto, and fettuccine alfredo."

Gramercy paused for a moment, staring at a ticket. Slowly, he lifted it and looked underneath...and proceeded to curse up a storm.

"Bloody..." He turned to his sous chefs behind him. "I need a refire on this ticket!"

"Yes, Chef!"

He turned back toward Karmi, raising both of his hands and facing his palms outward. "Ten minutes. Let them know, and I will personally bring out the food with you."

"Ten minutes heard, Chef."

"Oh, and Karmi?"

She was almost at the door when she looked back at him, peering through the counter to look at her. "Yes, Chef?"

"When you find him, let Dante know that I need a word with him. A few, actually."

The night was over. Finally.

Karmi was sitting outside on the bench, waiting for her ride to show up. The staff had just finished divvying up Dante's tips (which he relinquished when he went MIA in the middle of service). In the end, it turns out he tried to hide in the bathroom to talk to his girlfriend and got lost in a very long conversation with her.

And then Gramercy busted the door down.

...So now, as well as needing a new server, they needed a new bathroom door.

The four-top had taken the entire situation in stride, the old gentleman casually brushing aside Gramercy's apologies with excellent compliments about the food. Karmi had also been given that table's generous tips, so it all ended in her favor.

She pulled her shoe off, rubbing her foot. Most of the staff had already taken off, leaving just Karmi and a few of the cleaning crew. She should have asked if any of them had some baby powder.

Although, being the end of the night, it was probably too late for that.

"Warm water and Epsom salts. Always hits the spot for me."

Karmi looked up to see Chef Gramercy standing next to her, jacket on. "Chef! I thought you left already."

"I have to make sure everything's in order for Chef Ariel to take over," he explained. "Also have a long road trip ahead."

She followed his finger as a large eighteen wheeler rolled up, emblazoned with the chef's face. Karmi peered at the caption next to the picture. "Restaurant Rescue?"

"There's a business in Santa Angeles that needs my help. We're heading straight over there and shooting in the morning. I'll probably be sleeping the entire time."

"On the road?"

"Do enough episodes, and you learn to get rest where you can," Gramercy said, stifling a yawn. "Although after tonight, I may bloody well need a drink to get me through tomorrow."

He wandered off to the side of the building, Karmi cautiously following. He peered around the ground a little bit as he rubbed his chin in thought.

"Tell me, Karmi. What would you think of adding an outdoor patio? Four or five tables, maybe a little wooden lattice on the bottom part of the wall? Candlelight for the romantic folk?"

"I think that would be lovely, Chef," Karmi said. "It's a shame that we didn't have that earlier."

"Ahh, yes. The couple in your section?" Seeing her nod, he chuckled. "I saw them for a little bit. Bloody hell. I hope not all American teenagers are like that. Please don't tell me you're like that with your boyfriend."

"I...don't have a boyfriend."

"Hmm." Gramercy looked down at the watched and tapped the face. "Well, when you do get one, do me a favor, yeah? Don't suck his face off like a mosquito at a blood bank."

"I don't think there's any danger of that, Chef."

"Good girl. As for the patio, I'll get my designer on the horn and brainstorm some ideas." He started walking toward the parking lot. "Here, I almost forgot. Follow me, Karmi."

The chef and Karmi made their way to the giant truck, where he turned once he arrived at the door. "I wanted to give you something. A token, so to speak, for all of your hard work."

She watched as he pulled a thin metal card out of his coat pocket. He handed it to her, the steel cool in her hands.

"This...is a pass for an all-exclusive night to here. Once turned in, your entire evening would be paid for by me."

Karmi was floored. "Chef, I can't accept this. This is too much."

"Please. I insist. I do not hand these out very often, and I cannot think of anyone that is as well deserving as yourself."

She gripped it tight in her hands, her tears threatening to come out again. "Thank you, Chef. I don't know what to say."

"Just promise me you'll use that someday soon. Maybe on a day that you can relax and take the night off. Maybe on your family...or someone special." Gramercy winked at her. "We might even have that patio built that you can use."

He extended his hand to her, which she grasped with both of hers. "Best of luck to you, Karmi. I'm sure we'll see each other somewhere down the road. Speaking of which...it's best time that I head that way as well."

He climbed up into the cabin and shut the door, nodding to the driver. Karmi waved him goodbye, which he returned as the truck went onto the road.

Karmi twirled the card between her palms, her brain seemingly rotating with it. A night out, on the house? It almost seemed too good to be true. Now to think about who she could take...

A sudden burst of noise caused her to look up into the sky. The cloud train that was being emitted by the foreign object was heading toward the busier part of the city, no doubt looking for evil-doers and whatnot.

She smiled as her ride pulled up. Yeah, maybe that was another person she could offer, too.

Always best to keep your options open...especially because the superhero above wasn't the first person she thought to ask.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm going to give you guys ten guesses as to who it's going to be, and the first nine don't count. ;)

Unfortunately, you're going to have to wait for that particular story. It'll be a while.

I watch way too much Gordon Ramsay. Blame my sister; she tapes all of his shoes. But it's good that I did; it helps to get into his characters.

Also got to fit as much awkward Karmi/Hiro stuff before Season 2 completely screws it up. I do have a contingency, though. 's called "Deal with it".

My journal over at DeviantArt has some...thoughts about Season 2, and I'm hoping (again) that I don't have to edit too much of my future writings in lieu of what happens in the show. If it does...it does. Nothing I can do.

Oh, and Santa Ana + Los Angeles = Santa Angeles.

Next chapter will not be the last chapter of this story, but it will be the last update before Season 2 starts. Thus, instead of ending the story with him, we're going to put Hiro front and in the center, as well as another Marvel character cameo.

Who could it be? What is Hiro's job? And will Karmi show up?

Guess you'll just have to find out.

Read and review, if you like. Until next time, everyone.