Notes: This is very much inspired by my own experiences at Pizza Hut. The jukebox is boss and taking home free pizza is worth its weight in gold. I honestly thought about this drabble for days, writing it in my head. I hope it's very authentic and I hope you enjoy it.
Alternate universe in which Wally is a waiter at his favorite pizza shop in town. Working alongside his friends, he finds a special talent for annoying the cook.
There are three things Wally loves more than anything about his job as a waiter at Justice Pizza. One, if any pizzas are made incorrectly, Wally gets to eat them for free. Two, the jukebox in the dining room hasn't been updated since 2003 so he gets to listen to songs he hasn't heard in forever and forgot how much he loved jamming to them. Three, he gets to make fun of the part-time cook for the hairnet she hates but still has to wear.
"You know, if there's hair in the pizza, I don't make good tips," Wally tells Artemis, tugging gently at a strand of shimmering blonde hair that's somehow escaped her hairnet trap.
"What a tragedy," she rolls her eyes. But she shoves at the offending strand until it's secure and out of her way before scowling greatly at him. "Don't you have a table to harass?"
She shoves more harshly at the hand sanitizer dispenser than necessary and rubs it into her skin with a clear vendetta.
"I don't harass," Wally insists, one hand pressed against his polyester uniform in the most earnest fashion. "I make pleasant conversation and make their night out even more enjoyable."
"Right," Artemis snorts, systematically individual pepperoni slices on the raw pizza before her. "I'm just impressed they can look at your face and still want to eat."
"It's only because they haven't seen him eat that they can still stomach their food," Dick chimes in as he exits the walk-in refrigerator behind the cooking station with a cart full of bottled beverages.
Wally turns to give him a look, but his best friend has already alluded him to restock the front of the restaurant, his cackling trailing behind him dutifully.
Artemis snorts again and it shouldn't be quite as adorable as it is, but Wally has long since overlooked that flipflop of his heart and instead focuses on the cause of her laughter.
"See," he gestures at her form, perfect posture and calculated movements even as she places her newly finished pizza in the oven, "it's this attitude here that kept you from being a server with me."
"Yes," she nods with absolute complicity, "and it was your inability to not eat the ingredients while cooking that kept you from being a cook."
Unable to find any flaw in her logic, he just grins and takes advantage of her momentary distraction at the oven to toss some chilled pineapple into his mouth. He watches idly as she moves near the cut table. Technically, Conner is in charge of the pizzas once they come out of the oven, cutting them into eight slices and putting them into boxes or onto plates. But Wally's noticed that whenever he waits for his pizza personally, Artemis is always there to take care of them herself.
"Anyway," she says, coming back to his side with his pizza directing in the center of the serving tray. "Here is the pizza you wanted me to make while you hovered over my shoulder."
She hands it to him unceremoniously, a thrust in his general direction that he accepts with an easy grin. When she looks at him again, there's a hint of humor in her steely eyes.
"Why can't you wait until it's placed in the server's station like Zee and Megan?" she asks, referencing the other servers as she pulls out another mound of dough from the refrigerated stack above her station.
"I'm the fastest server here," he explains slowly, as if talking to a child. It riles her up and he loves it. "If I want to live up to my title, I need to deliver my food in a timely fashion."
"Whatever," she ticks, tongue smacking against the roof of her mouth disdainfully. She looks down at the pizza he's still holding out between the two of them. "One large, thin and crispy veggie lovers with extra artichoke."
"Okie-dokie, artichokie!" he announces loudly, grinning toothily at her even as she groans loudly.
She makes a move like she wants to shove at him, but thinks better of it and instead kneads the dough with unnecessary viciousness.
Beside them, Conner makes himself known with his boom of a laugh. Wally turns his grin onto his friend and is greeted with an amused shake of the gentle giant's head.
"I'll never forgive you for laughing," Artemis informs Conner haughtily, and she shakes her head in a way that would have made her hair toss impressively if not for the hated hairnet.
And even though Conner is the one who laughs, it's Wally who is treated with the most level of all Artemis's glares. Of course, it has the opposite effect on him as he grins wider and feels his heart soar up into the general region of his throat.
This momentary happy feeling is soon shattered as he attempts to moonwalk out of the kitchen with his pizza, forgetting that his non-slip shoes do not allow for such impromptu dancing.
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