Work Text:
Trying to bake bread at 3 in the morning in the kitchen of a haunted house was certainly… a decision.
However, for what it is, it is trudging along reasonably well. The open jar of sourdough starter is throwing some concerningly big bubbles, but nothing truly disproportionate yet. Someone/something is complaining indistinctly into my right ear, but whether it’s about my baking skills, the mess of dishes, or the state of things in general I can’t make out. Only the tone is unmistakeable. The dough itself has risen a second time (as it should), and I am now forming it into a vague loaf form before losing my patience and consequently dumping it into a pan and putting the whole affair into the oven.
Which I didn’t preheat.
Oh well. I close the door, turn the oven on and set a timer on my phone (the one on the oven only works between 12 pm and 1 am). While I slowly wash the dishes and wipe down the kitchen counter the complaining gets more staticky and vanishes intermittently, like a badly tuned in radio station. Just in time for me to better hear the creaking of the floor in the hallway. It slowly goes up and down the length of it, all the way from the kitchen door to the bedroom door on the other side and back.
Nobody is here but me. Nobody living and human anyway.
The ‘whatever else’ who are also in my apartment are particularly loud tonight. Their profusion of auditory signalling is, of course, the reason behind my very late-night baking. Is it insomnia when it’s not my brain keeping me awake? I’ve already consulted the moon calendar three hours ago. The reason for tonight’s hullabaloo is not due to a full moon (or new moon, or harvest moon…). That leaves me with the conclusion that something big is going to happen out in the city, and there is nothing I can do about that. Like hell I am going to leave my apartment after 9 pm in Gotham.
Nothing to do but baking then.
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After having dragged my body out of bed the next morning I blearily stare into my cup of tea. I have gotten a rousing three hours of sleep in, after the hubbub had died down at around quarter past four. I then take a fortifying sip and pick up my phone. Apparently, the Brownstone of one of the owners of Gotham’s coal plant has had a sudden onset of being entirely overgrown by strangling vines last night. Also, the boys in blue had a run in with Killer Croc (two maimed, none dead).
Really? All of that excitement for this? I thought there was an Arkham breakout for sure.
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“Darling”, Mother says the moment I pick up the phone, “have you read your tea leaves today? I really cannot conscious you leaving the house without doing so.”
“Well, I have to go to work, Mother, tea leaves or not”, I answer, “and why would I need to do that specifically today? You aren’t usually this insistent.”
Mother makes an impatient noise. “Don’t play stupid with me; though your talents may be less than inspiring, your seventh sense works just fine. Something is in the air, and you need to be careful. I don’t want to play around with resurrection with things being this unsettled, so you had better not get yourself killed.”
“Mother”, I hiss and almost fumble the phone, “you are not supposed to practice Necromancy in Gotham at all. We have no idea what kind of local curses could get wrapped up in such an attempt! Do you want to make a second Joker? We were lucky that it just fizzled out last time instead of doing anything worse!”
A dismissive tsk. “Simply watch out for yourself today and nothing of the kind will be necessary.” And she hangs up. Great.
I gulp down the rest of my tea, search in the cabinet for a saucer (chipped), and upend the cup on it. After having cleaned up the rest of my breakfast I lift it and eye the tea-sludge with some trepidation. After turning it around a few times I am more confused than anything else. Oncoming Doom is Gotham’s constant state, so nothing new there, but apparently nothing else will happen today? Good enough. I ready myself, pick up my umbrella and leave for work.
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Having fled the deluge outside into the library I desperately try to tamp down my hair. My way here wasn’t long, but one block before I arrived the wind turned my umbrella inside out for a bit. This mornings attempt at an elegant French knot didn’t survive the experience.
Before I can descend into my territory (the city archives), Barbara Gordon rolls through the door. As an employee of the city here at the library she is, of course, my colleague and (contrary to most others) incredibly competent. She also thinks my moral fibre is highly questionable, which leads to much awkwardness. Why, one might ask, would she think such a thing? Do I have a criminal record? Has she witnessed me littering or kicking puppies? Am I stealing her lunch? Not quite. My crime is one of association. As far as Barbara is concerned, my Dad is a slimeball of the highest order, aka, a lawyer defending the rich and/or well connected in Gotham, as long as the price is right. As the Commissioner’s daughter she has heard chapter and verse about criminal persecutions that went nowhere.
I force a smile and a chipper “Good morning!”, which is returned much less enthusiastically. “Horrible weather we are having” is my next attempt at smalltalk. A raised eyebrow and a speaking look towards my sodden appearance. “Quite.” I nod in agreement and start squelching towards the stairs. “Have a good day!” I throw over my shoulder. Having escaped that awkwardness I arrive at my locker and pull out dry clothes.
The rest of the day goes by in a largely unremarkable way. By accident I manage to find one of the books on my ‘missing’ list, that I suspect has purposefully misfiled itself. I digitalise some marriage certificates from 70 years ago. Several requests for information are answered, several others need to be denied, since the archive can’t give out that kind of personal information. All in all a productive day but nothing out of the ordinary.