. (spacecowboys) wrote in rooms, @ 2015-02-14 17:32:00 |
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Entry tags: | !dc comics, *narrative, selina kyle |
Narrative
Who: Average!Selina, two cats, and a little girl named Helena
What: A typical day (thanks to her wish giver)
Where: Gotham's suburbs
When: Feb. 14th
Warnings/Rating: Absolutely none
It was a long day at the office, overtime on Saturday and her feet ached. The chairs in the meeting room were terrible, and they really needed to do something about how cold it got in there, but a dozen nicely worded notes in the vendeteria comment box hadn't accomplished anything. If she was another kind of woman, she would break into the little thermostat box that was locked behind plexiglass in the meeting room, but she wasn't another kind of woman. Instead, she brought a sweater to the office, and she dreamed of someone walking in and fixing the temperature, all while she sat in her cubicle and worked on spreadsheets until her head ached.
But she was home now, after picking little Helena up from daycare. Stouffers had been on the menu for dinner, because Selina was too tired to cook, and she was currently sitting on the couch, rubbing the arch of her foot and nursing some red wine. Helena was playing with the cats, homework completed and on the coffee table, and the news was muted in the background. There was a story running about the mayor, but Selina wasn't paying much attention. She hadn't finished a meeting agenda for Monday, and she was distracted by all the ways the numbers she'd spent the day crunching could turn out to be wrong.
It was days like this that she missed her worthless husband. The man had worn a suit well, but his usefulness was limited to bringing home the bacon and providing sperm for a very lovely child. He had causes, her ex, and they always kept him too busy to remember things like birthdays or date nights or sex. But that bacon? Selina missed it during weeks like this.
Helena started getting drowsy, big blinks and even bigger yawns that she tried to hide in the cats' fur, and Selina chuckled and set her wine aside.
"Come here, kitten."
The little girl climbed onto the couch, cats in her arms and wriggling to get free, which they did once Helena settled against Selina's side.
Long fingers dragged and dragged through the little girl's hair, and the tiny and tired slump was slow, while Helena babbled about a boy in daycare, and how she'd beaten him in the math bee. But sleep, it came to the tiny girl, as Selina knew it would. She smiled at the sleepy little girl, and the exhausting day seemed less terrible, less dull somehow. Sore feet forgotten for the moment, she scooped Helena up and carried her to the room furthest down the hall. Cats and knights decorated the walls, and Helena refused to be about princesses or princes; it always made Selina smile. She pulled the blankets back, and she set the little girl down and tucked her in. She got a sleepy murmur for her efforts.
"I love you, kitten." A kiss to the forehead, and she turned off the green question mark lamp that Helena had fallen in love with at Christmas. The cats were already on the foot of the bed, and Selina scratched each of them in turn before leaving the room.
Back in the living room, she ignored the dishes and the muted television, and she took her glass of wine to the window. She looked out, and she wondered if this was it. Maybe it was the stupid holiday, hearts and fat cherubs and chocolate that would go right to the hips. Thirty was right around the corner, and she was bored. Wasn't she too young for that? But maybe it was the wine talking, and she should really crunch those numbers again. The Gotham charities were counting on her, like her misogynistic boss always said. But she knew better. The only person counting on her was currently asleep beneath purple blankets.
It was a nice thought. Nicer than spreadsheets, and maybe she'd go into work on Monday and sabotage the air conditioning. She smiled to herself as she moved away from the window and, even though she knew she wouldn't, it was nice to imagine the look on her boss' face if she stood up mid-meeting and broke the little plexiglass box.
She turned on some quiet jazz, and she made her way into the kitchen to do the dishes; she'd ignored them for nearly an hour, and that? That was a record.