"Good morning, everyone! Glad to see you all so eager and alert this fine day!" exclaimed the Penguin, beaming at Joker, Ivy, and Two-Face, who had all assembled in the Iceberg Lounge at 6 AM as ordered. They were anything but eager and alert, however. The phrase 'rise and shine' was abhorrent to most of the Arkham inmates, because as the old adage states, 'Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.' The Arkham inmates being none of those things, it would naturally follow that they didn't heed the old adage.
"You're not a comedian, y'know, Pengers," growled Two-Face. "Leave the jokes to J."
"I'm too tired to make jokes right now," muttered Joker, rubbing his eyes. "Harley kept me up all night with the phone sex. Kept me up as in awake, and up as a sexual innuendo…you get it, do your own joke," he said, yawning and waving his hand.
"Well, we certainly can't have you distracted at work by telephone calls," said Penguin, holding out his hand. "Give me your phone."
Joker glared at him, but couldn't resist the command. "From this moment on, everyone, you have no free will of your own," announced Penguin. "You will follow my orders to the letter, and will only heed my commands or any commands given to you by my customers, for waiting purposes. The rest of the time, you will sit quietly and calmly in the kitchen, awaiting further instructions. Now, do I have any volunteers for the jobs? We're going to do a deep clean now, but I'll need a waiter, a cook, and a dishwasher once we open. So who wants to do what?"
Nobody said a word. "All right, I'll decide for you," said Penguin. "Pamela, if you'll be the dishwasher…"
"You sexist pig!" snapped Ivy. "What, I'm a woman, so I've gotta be confined to the kitchen, is that it? Doing the most mindless, tedious task because my female brain can't handle remembering orders or cooking meals, is that it?"
"Actually, I was thinking you wouldn't want to cook because you'd have to mutilate plants," retorted Penguin. "And you're far too attractive to be a waitress – you'd distract my customers from their meals."
"At least I'd bring in business!" snapped Ivy.
"My business is doing just fine!" retorted Penguin. "It doesn't need your feminine wiles to spice it up! This is a classy place, not Hooters, for goodness sake!"
"So who's gonna be your waiter?" asked Two-Face.
"Oooh, pick me!" said Joker, shooting his hand up. "I can't cook anyway – that's why I keep Harley around."
"She can't cook either," retorted Two-Face.
"No," agreed Joker. "But it's her job as a woman to be good at that. I can't help it that she's a failure as a woman. That's her problem, not mine."
Penguin sighed. "Can you cook, Harvey?" he asked.
Two-Face shrugged. "I can make a fairly decent stab at it. Women like a man who can cook for his dates."
"Women like a man who's not a slave to established gender roles that chain women to the oven," muttered Ivy. "Or the kitchen sink."
"Oooh, can I chain Pammie to the oven?" asked Joker, shooting his hand up again. "Pretty please? Pretty please with sugar on top?"
"It's a metaphor, you idiot!" retorted Ivy. "To symbolize the power of the patriarchy!"
"Nobody's chaining anybody anywhere!" snapped Penguin. "You three are going to get to work right now! J, you're cleaning out the grease-traps on the fryer, Ivy, you're doing the dishes, and Harvey, you're setting out the places for lunch. Everyone get to it!"
The three set off reluctantly with much grumbling. "I can't believe I'm going to spend all day doing dishes," muttered Ivy. "That's gonna wreak havoc on my skin!"
"Aw, c'mon, Pammie – I thought plants liked a good watering!" chuckled Joker. "Anyway, I'll happily swap morning jobs if you wanna get all greased up. I know Harvey would enjoy that!" he giggled.
"Actually, being a greaseball yourself, J, I think the work suits you more," retorted Ivy. "You'll feel right at home."
"I've been to enough fancy restaurants that I should be able to visualize how to set tables," said Two-Face. "But I can't, so I'll just have to improvise."
Penguin went over to go sort out the menus, and examine the selection of liquor at the bar, leaving the other three to work in the kitchens. Not even five minutes later, he heard shouting and screaming and crashing from the kitchen.
He rushed in to see Ivy and Joker hurling dishes and blobs of grease at each other. "Stop, stop, stop!" roared Penguin. "I thought I ordered you to work!"
"Yeah, we're doing what you told us," retorted Joker. "I'm cleaning out the grease-traps and throwing what I cleaned out at the Weed Lady."
"And I'm cleaning dishes by breaking them on J's face!" shrieked Ivy, raising a plate above her head. Penguin caught her arm, livid.
"I command both of you not to attack each other as long as you're on my premises!" he squawked. They both lowered their arms, glaring at each other.
"Ok, but we're still gonna insult each other," retorted Joker. "Insulting ain't attacking – it's just stating facts."
Penguin sighed. "Pamela, clean the dishes by washing and rinsing them in soapy water. J, clean out the grease-traps and dispose of the waste in the waste disposal system! Honestly, you wouldn't think I'd even need to order you to do the obvious…" he muttered, storming from the kitchen and re-entering the main dining area where Two-Face was setting the tables.
"Um…they don't need two tablecloths," said Penguin, noticing that Two-Face had placed two on every table. "And they don't need…two of every utensil. Or dish. Or candle…"
"I just like the symmetry," muttered Two-Face.
"I suppose I could always pretend we had salad forks and regular forks, plus soup spoons and regular spoons, and cheese knives and regular knives…yes, on second thought, this can only add to the classiness of my establishment," said Penguin, smiling. "Good work, Harvey. You've earned your toilet break when you need one," he said, patting him on the shoulder and heading off to the bar.
"How generous," said Two-Face, rolling his eyes. He headed back to the kitchen to get more dishes to see Ivy and Joker engaged in their separate tasks, glaring down at them as if imagining the other's face in the object in front of them. Ivy was holding a plate under the water and scrubbing a little too hard, while Joker was scraping the grease off with deep, slow scratches.
"How's it coming?" he asked. "I just earned my bathroom break."
"He'd better give us all one, or I'm going on the food," retorted Joker.
"Thanks for the image, J," growled Ivy. "And no, you're not, because I'll be the one who has to clean it up."
"How are we getting out of this one?" asked Two-Face, hastily changing the subject as he collected double the amount of napkins he would usually need. "Has Harley got a plan, J?"
"Don't wanna spoil the surprise, Harv," retorted Joker. "But let's just say I don't intend to spend another morning cleaning out grease-traps. Although I'm kinda looking forward to tonight," he said, turning to grin at him. "If waiter Joker can't pull a few gags on a few guests, he might as well be dead! Just like the guests might be after they're served by waiter Joker!"
Two-Face left the kitchen and reached into his pocket for his coin. "Good side, tell Cobblepot that J and Harley have some chaos planned for tonight. Bad side, leave him to find out for himself."
He flipped the coin into the air. It landed bad side up, and Two-Face shrugged, pocketing it again. "Serves him right for using slave labor," he muttered, heading back toward the restaurant.
