Chapter 11
Cat sighs into her morning coffee—it’s her second cup of the day and the machine is loud enough, very loud actually, to have woken anyone within three floors. So it cannot be a good thing, she thinks, that Kara is still asleep. Deeply asleep.
Here she is, laying on Cat’s uncomfortable couch. One hand slung across her stomach and the other with fingertips just brushing the carpet. She’s messy from head to toe—hair half out of its tie, glasses crooked, socked feet hanging just off the end of the couch, shirt thoroughly wrinkled—and Cat sighs again.
Kara looks tired.
Cat tilts her head, taps a slow, considering finger against the lip of her mug. Then she takes a long pull of the drink—terrible stuff, barely better than instant frozen crud, but she forgets how to use the good machine before her third cup—and lets the caffeine, or its placebo affect at least, buzz through her and kick her brain into action.
She’s never seen Kara sleep before. Part of her is surprised. She wasn’t sure that Kara did sleep. But here she is, Cat thinks again, and if she had ever thought of Kara in bed—asleep—she had thought that Kara would be one of those people who smiles. Who dreams pleasant dreams of puppies and flowers and yet she looks sad and old and tired. The tired doesn’t come as a surprise. Kara had only stopped pacing the entire length of the apartment around three in the morning.
Cat knows this because she couldn’t sleep either.
Kara’s energy spilt on over to her, keeping her awake. In the early hours of the morning she had imagine, when the lack of sleep got to her, the sound of a tigers tail snapping behind the other woman as she paced. The image of Kara all bunched muscles, caged nerves, power contained by clenched white teeth and clenched white knuckles, a growl in her throat. Eyes golden and wide.
She’s drawn out of her musings when Carter creeps up next to her, quiet in his socked feet.
He scratches at his nose, sighs into his orange juice, and tilts his head down at Kara in a look complete with a fond little smile and concerned dark eyes.
Cat reaches over and wraps an arm around his shoulders.
“What are we going to do about this?” she asks him, very quietly, and he leans into her side.
After a minute, Carter shrugs her hand away. She lets it fall. She’s surprises when he snags her, takes her hand and pulls her into her own study.
Carter pulls her office chair around from behind the desk and rolls it closer to the couch, where he sits. He curls into the corner and pulls a pillow onto his lap. His fingers twist at the corner of the pillow.
Cat makes a note to be quiet, to speak softly and slowly, to turn on the subtitles for him when he goes to watch TV later. She’s not surprised. With school picking up and all the excitement of Supergirl, and of Kara staying over and his big assignments starting, Carter must be feeling out of sorts by now. He is making an effort this morning, though Cat can tell that he’s on edge—he’s too still and he won’t look her in the eyes—and Cat is so proud of him. Always. She is always proud of him—but today she looks at him with a whole new days worth of pride.
He opens his mouth, then frowns. Twists the corner of the pillow roughly.
“Carter, do you want to talk?” His lips press tightly closed. “Out loud?” Carter shakes his head no quickly. “Alright. My phone is here, you can text me if you want.”
He tugs at the corner of the pillow. Then he wriggles his phone out of his pocket, holds it for a moment then drags in a deep breath and nods.
you’re invested
That’s all his message says and Cat purses her lips thoughtfully.
“Invested?” she asks, softly. Not too loud. She can do without answers—she doesn’t want to see him upset. But he’s fine, he keeps his eyes on his phone and doesn’t look up.
you like her
i like kara a lot. she’s really important to me
i want you to like her too
“She’s been my assistant for years, Carter. I think I was invested first.”
no
“No?”
she’s been kiera for years
she’s MY kara first
“Your Kara?” Cat crosses her legs at the knees and leans back into her chair. Carter flushes a light pink all the way down his neck, under his sleep shirt—he looks nice in green, she notes, and makes a decision to buy him some more clothes in green—and Cat smirks.
you know what i mean
He pulls his knees up and buries his face in the pillow—his flush intensifies when Cat laughs, a low friendly laugh that Carter has always associated with his fondest memories. Her Carter laugh. He’s never heard it directed at anyone else. It’s a laugh just for him—he loves his mother, he loves her, he knows that she doesn’t show the soft, kind, nerdy parts of herself to very many people or her joy or her frustration or disappointment or sadness and he’s proud that he gets to see it. She’s an intensely private and proud woman and every day she assures him again of how proud she is of him and how much she loves him and he is protective of her but, if there were one person he would be willing to share her with, he thinks it would be Kara. And not because he wants to spend time with Kara—though he does, and with the Supergirl part of her too, of course—but because sometimes when they are together the world goes still for a moment and that is a hard thing to find in this busy, busy world that his mother has made for herself. She looks at Kara like she is precious, and strange, and welcome—wanted—and Carter knows that it is a rare and wonderful thing.
He wonders if they know what they have.
is she important to you?
Carter looks up this time—his blush is gone and his eyes are intent. He doesn’t keep eye contact with her but now and again his eyes will lift to hers and she can see the effort it takes him. Her smile fades and she gives him the same attention back. Slowly, she lifts her coffee cup and sips—it’s almost empty and it’s getting cold.
“Yes,” she says finally. “She’s important to me.” He smiles a knowing little smile and Cat narrows her eyes. “As you know, apparently.” He shrugs but his smile grows to smug. Cat rolls her eyes.
They sit for a while. Cat sets her mug to the side—it’s thoroughly cold now—and Carter drags the blanket from the back of the couch and pulls it over his feet. Carter messages her again.
i heard her walking around last night
for hours
“Yes. I did as well.”
is she okay?
“I’m not sure yet.” Cat reaches out, pauses before she touches him, and she smiles when he leans into her hand. She smoothes down his curls and rests her hand on his shoulder. “Today, I think we go easy on her.”
no sending her out for coffee
“Unfortunately not. But also,” she says, narrowing her eyes and cupping his chin, “no asking her to rearrange your bedroom furniture because you’ve had a whim.”
i think it’ll look better
“Another time, Carter,” she says sternly. He shrugs. “Another time. Kara will be happy to help you, I’m sure.” Carter smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “In fact, I’m sure she’ll be thrilled. She has that whole small town sweetness. Wide-eyed at any display of power, honest. Sickeningly kind. Smiles far too often,” Cat says, rolling her eyes. “It’s appalling.”
Carter laughs, a little breath out his nose.
you don’t mean that
“I do.”
you don’t. sometimes when she brings you coffee you watch her leave
and you like it when she smiles
“Carter!”
There is a timid knock at the study door and Cat freezes. Can Kara read Carter’s texts through a door? She doesn’t know, she’s not sure. Kara knocks again.
“Cat? I’m sorry, uh, I can come back?”
Carter is smiling at Cat, eyes bright and amused—apparently all he needs today to meet her eyes is her impending humiliation.
“Come in, Kara,” she says, and shoots a warning look at Carter.
The door swings open and Kara—honestly, Cat shouldn’t have worried at all, Kara isn’t looking up from the floor let alone trying to spy—shuffles her feet a little and leans into the room, keeps half her body hidden behind the wall.
“Can I make you breakfast?” she asks, still not looking up, and Cat frowns. She exchanges a look with Carter. He looks worried too.
“Kara. Are you alright?”
Kara’s head snaps up and her eyes, red-rimmed, meet Cat’s. Cat feels her heart rate pick up in sympathy—what’s wrong? what’s going on? is she hurt?—but then Kara nods.
“I’m alright. Breakfast?”
cereal
Cat glances down at her phone and nods. “Yes, thank you Carter. Cereal, Kara. Top shelf on the—”
“Oh, yeah, I know where it is. The chocolate one?”
“That would be the one.” Cat can’t even pretend to be surprised that Kara knows the food in her house. “A bowl for Carter.” She considers for a moment and her phone buzzes. She has a feeling she knows what it will say and from the corner of her eye she can see Carter’s lips turn upwards. She ignores it. Kara is blinking at her sleepily and just waiting for her word—Cat smiles. “One for me as well. If you don’t mind,” she says, and Kara beams.
“Not at all. Back in a sec.”
Carter is insufferable—silent, but insufferable with a silly little grin—and Cat chances a look down at her phone.
you’re staring
She can’t think of a single thing to say back to him and he knows it.
Kara is back soon. Cat finally thinks of something to say.
“I thought you said you would only be a second?”
“Well, I, that’s,” Kara snorts, laughs awkwardly. “That’s just a, something that people say. A phrase—a figure of speech.” Cat raises her eyebrows. “You know?”
“No. I don’t know, Kiera. You said you would only take a second.”
“I…I’m sorry?” Kara is frozen in the doorway, balancing three bowls in her hands. “I…don’t know what you want me to do.” Her phone buzzes in her pocket and Kara looks between Cat and the bowls and her pocket and her smile falters. “Umm.”
“Kara, I’m joking.” Cat stands smoothly from her seat—she revels in the way that Kara’s eyes drop from her face down to her legs, and in the blush that heats up her cheeks when she realises what she’s done. She relieves Kara of one of the bowls. She knows that it’s hers—it’s made exactly the way she likes it, which makes her smile since she can guess that she’s only asked Kara for cereal twice, maybe three times, in their two years together—and when she’s lifted it out of Kara’s hand, the other woman pulls her phone out of her pocket.
“Um. Oh,” she beams at her phone. It looks mostly real, if a little tired. “Good morning, Carter. Breakfast of champions. Well,” she grins and kneels next to him, hands him one bowl and puts the other on the table next to him. “It’s mostly sugar.” That pulls a smile and then he frowns. “What’s wrong?” He holds his hand out, open palm. “I—oh! Spoon!”
He barely has time to think about blinking and then a spoon is being laid in his hand. A strand of hair flutters gently down to her cheek. Carter’s fingers shake a little as he closes them around the spoon and Kara gives him a smile.
“Did you just…?” he whispers, and her smile grows. She doesn't answer, just smiles, and shoots to standing.
“Cat.” She hands her a spoon as well. Cat takes it with a suspicious look, glancing over at her son who holds his spoon in awe.
“Thank you.”
Kara nods and hesitates, glancing to the door. Carter pats the seat next to him and Kara shakes her head and sinks cross legged down onto the floor—either because she knows that Carter needs his space right now or because she just wants to sit on the floor—but she does take the blanket from Carter with a smile when he offers it. “Thank you, Carter.”
They sit for a while—Cat notices that Carter’s cereal, too, is exactly as he likes it. Half and half, more or less, of milk and cereal, with a little side bowl of extra so he can add more as he goes. He must have told her how he took his breakfast at some point. Or maybe Kara just paid attention. Either way, Cat’s heart throbs a little, her smile grows a touch too wide, and tears prick at her eyes. Kara takes care of them. Kara loves Carter. Enough that she sees him. Understands him. A mistake with his food on a day when he feels like this—a little uncomfortable, uncomfortably on the cusp of what Carter likes to call A Mood—could have been a minor disaster and Cat is relieved that Kara is exactly who she is.
Kara loops an arm around her bent knees and yawns until her jaw clicks. She rubs at her eyes hard.
“Sleep well?”
“Not really.” Kara leans forward, yawns again. She rests her forehead on a knee and adjusts the blanket with small tugs so it drapes over her shoulders. “No offence, your couch is awful.”
“Mm. Yes.”
“A torture just for your mom?”
Cat smiles when Carter flushes. “Perhaps. The couch is a study in appearance versus comfort. Particularly apt, don’t you think?” she murmurs. Kara rolls her head to the side so that Cat can see her smile, an agreement.
“I’m falling asleep,” Kara warns. True to her word, between one yawn and the next, she’s out.
Cat just raises her eyebrows when Carter catches her looking at Kara with undisguised affection.
//
Kara wakes to her blanket tucked carefully around her sides. There’s a pillow under her head as well and the curtains have been pulled open so the sun streams directly down onto her. There is a beam cast right onto her palm and her hand twitches and curls as if around the gold light. It feels lovely.
She stretches languidly, groaning as her joints pop and she really focuses on and feels the warmth on her skin and the delicious stretch of muscle. Sitting upright, she pushes her hands up and over her head and hums happily.
“Oh.”
The word is breathed out, very softly, and Kara doubts that she would have heard it at all if not for her powers. She twists to look over her shoulder.
Cat is sitting at her desk. Staring at her, rapt.
“Hi,” Kara murmurs. And she remembers how Cat had let her in the night before and how Cat had looked at her and it was…she doesn’t quite know what it was, it was entirely new to her, but she likes it. Cat’s doing it again now. But this time, Cat is blushing and she looks thoughtful as well, a finger touched to her lips very gently. “What time is it?”
“Breakfast time, for you. Your stomach has been making itself heard for the last hour.”
On cue, Kara’s stomach growls and she grimaces.
“Sorry.”
“Mhm. Shoo.” Cat points to the door. “Come back only when you are ready to work. We have a lot to do,” she says. Looking away when Kara stands—and stretches, hands raised high above her head and shirt riding up an inch—Cat moves her papers around a little so when Kara passes by her desk to leave, she can easily make out the title.
INTERVIEW WITH SUPERGIRL - NOTES
Kara stares down at it for a moment. She remembers Non’s threat from the night before. He will take away those you care for the most—Kara yanks her eyes away from the pages, black ink swirling on the page, Supergirl looking so much like a taunt or yet another threat, and her eyes lift to meet Cat’s. She’s looking at her steadily and Kara’s lips tremble.
“Right.”
Revealing herself and then revealing the danger she’s put Cat—and oh Rao, Carter—into.
Her stomach clenches uncomfortably and she decides to leave breakfast until after she’s showered and dressed.
She ducks out of the room—Cat’s eyes follow her the whole way, she can feel them—and she takes her time to get ready. Super speed is all well and good but Cat’s showers have insane pressure and they never seem to run cold and every single product in the shower smells amazing. Kara is sure that it’s all wildly expensive but she can’t find it in her heart to care. Her apartment shower has thready, weak pressure—the DEO showers are always just on the edge of cool. So this, this is heaven. She only steps out of the shower once her stomach is growling almost non-stop and her knees are a little weak from hunger and the weight of water-logged skin.
Carter watches as she makes a single sandwich and struggles to finish half. He’s moved a bundle of blankets and pillow to the living room floor and he’s nestled into it with his homework. She paces. He watches.
Kara’s phone buzzes.
are you okay?
Kara nods.
you don't have to lie to me
I’ll talk to you later, she texts him back. I promise
He watches her for a few more minutes, then nods.
are you going to talk to mom about being supergirl?
“I’m not—“ she says with a laugh and Carter adjusts his blankets, shrugs. “I’m not!” Carter sighs. Kara leaves her plate in the kitchen and drops onto the couch behind him. She shuffles a bit to get comfortable and tugs a pillow to her chest. “I should tell her, huh?” He nods. “How do you think she’ll handle it?”
Carter props his notebook where she can see it.
she’ll be fine, he writes.
“I—do you want me to write or is okay if I talk?”
talking is okay
“Okay. Cool.” Kara sighs. “How do you really think she’ll handle it. I lied to her, y’know? I made her think I wasn’t…her.”
Supergirl?
“Yeah.”
Carter frowns, taps the end of his pen against the paper. He scrawls a little super crest on his page. Do you really think that mom believed you?
“I was pretty believable.” Carter rolls his eyes. “Hey! I was!”
well she knows now. but you still have to tell her
“Just like that?” Kara asks and he nods. “Sure. Right, of course. Totally, I can totally do that, I can totally do that.” Carter opens his maths textbook. “I can do that no problem. No problemo. Winn,” she laughs, “would say easy peasy lemon squeezy.” Carter sighs heavily and makes sure that she’s watching as he starts working on his first question. “I’ll go…do that then,” Kara says and he nods.
Carter doesn’t look up again—she walks very slowly over to the kitchen, sneaking a few looks back at him and he hunches further over his book.
“Fine. I’m going.” She grabs up the rest of her sandwich and, with one last hopeful look over her shoulder at Carter, she makes her way to Cat’s study. She sucks in a breath and, gathering her courage up in both hands, raps very softly on the door. “Cat? Can I come in?”
Cat waves Kara in. She’s absorbed in her reading of Carter’s notes so she just points to her spare computer where a new pack of earphones are waiting for Kara, still in their packaging.
Kara gets to work.
It takes a minute to set everything up and she hesitates before she begins but there is no going back—not that she wants to go back, really, she does want to tell Cat because Cat has been a guiding force, a mentor, a friend, and…and Kara just wants to tell her.
Cat looks up from her papers and catches Kara’s gaze. “Problem?”
“No,” Kara says, shaking her head.
“Good. Chop chop, Kiera.”
Kara grins and presses play.
Her nose scrunches when she hears her own voice—is that really what she sounds like?—but she dutifully types a transcript as she listens. At five times the speed.
“Done already?” Cat remarks when Kara takes her earphones out. “How utterly unsurprising.” She makes a note and turns the page she’s working on.
Kara’s heart flutters in her chest. Sunlight is streaming in through the window against Cat’s back, lighting up around her like a halo, and it’s not a sign but it feels like one. This is the moment. This is it. No going back.
“Miss Grant,”
“Strange,” Cat murmurs, flicking through the pages on her desk. “For a moment there I thought someone was calling me Miss Grant even though I have expressly told her to call me Cat while we’re in my home…”
“Cat,” Kara corrects herself, quickly and quite obviously obligingly. Cat can tell that she isn’t paying attention. Not really. Kara closes the lid of the laptop and shifts in her seat so she’s facing Cat straight on. “I, there is something I should tell you.” She folds her hands in her lap, clenching them hard into fists. Her knee bounces. “There’s, I,” Cat looks up from her pages and, seeing Kara’s distress, puts everything down. “Oh Rao,” Kara whispers. She stands and paces the small room. She shakes her hands, shaking out the tension. “I…"
Cat doesn’t help. She drinks her coffee—her fourth of the morning—and watches Kara pace.
“You?”
“Yes. Me, I… See, when you said… I was, it wasn’t that I wanted to, I just… The thing is,” she says, and she stops still and slams her eyes shut. Sighs. “Rao, this is hard. Okay, I’m just going to say it. I’m just going to come out and say it.”
Cat’s lips twitch upwards. This is Kara, through and through, and through she had dreamt up a hundred scenarios of how this might happen, this one is real. Kara turns quickly to face her and marches up to the desk and looks Cat right in the eyes. She folds her arms—hands still shaking a little—over her chest and nods.
“I’m Supergirl.”
Cat stares up at her for a long minute.
“Oh my god.” Kara pales. “You didn’t know? I thought you knew. Cat, I, that—“
She stops, frozen by a single raised finger.
Cat waits to make sure that her babbling has stopped and then she flips through Carter’s notes to the last page. She takes her time—longer than necessary, Kara is sure of it. When she’s found it, she holds it out until Kara unfolds her arms and takes it.
Takes it, in two trembling hands. Reading the note, Kara laughs. A small, nervous laugh and then something far more genuine.
In conclusion, Carter has written neatly at the bottom of the page, Kara is Supergirl.
“Dammit, Carter.”
“He has compiled a very impressive evaluation of your vocabulary and syntax and cross-examined it with Supergirl’s. That, and your physical similarities and identical moral anchors.” Cat takes the page back from Kara. “It’s one thing to see it written down,” Cat tells her, “and quite another to hear it.”
Kara nods.
“I knew, of course,” Cat continues. She smiles a smug smile and nods, pointing a finger at Kara. At her chest, like she can see that S there. “My secret weapon. My guardian angel,” she says with a delighted twinkle in her eyes. Kara smiles.
“Of course. You knew, without a shadow of a doubt?”
Cat sniffs. Pushes her hair back over her shoulders. “I had a minute of doubt, perhaps.”
“A minute? I had you fooled!”
“No, you used some kind of alien trickery, which isn’t the same thing. And I suspected you regardless. It was some awfully convenient timing.” Kara smiles. “My coffee is suddenly hot all the time, you hear things you shouldn’t be able to hear, you’re gone at all hours of the day, you are flown away by Bizarro and not a scratch on you but no,” Cat says, rolling her eyes. “Not Supergirl, not you.”
Kara can’t stop her smile. She must look like a fool, her wide smile fixed in place—it feels invincible, nothing can stop her from smiling, she feels so relieved that Cat finally knows that she can’t force it away.
“I’m sorry I lied to you,” she says, because she owes Cat that.
“Yes, well.” Cat taps her computer awake. “It’s unfortunate that you felt you couldn’t tell me but like I said, I already knew.”
Kara frowns. So much for an invincible smile. “Felt I couldn’t… Cat, it’s not really my secret to tell.” She reads Cat’s confused face correctly and sits, leans forward, hurries to explain. After a moments hesitation, she reaches out for Cat’s hand—Cat stares down at the fingers that touch lightly to the back of her hand, but she doesn’t move away. “It’s not just me. My sister, my friends, my family. They’re all involved in my being Supergirl. I can’t just tell anyone I want.”
“And especially not me.”
“I,”
“You can tell Lucy Lane but you can’t tell me.”
“Lucy,” Kara laughs nervously, pulls her hand back to touch her glasses. “Lucy came to me, she was upset, I had to tell her.”
“I confronted you sleepless and irritated.”
“You’re always sleepless and irritated,” Kara points out teasingly, not noticing the risk in that until it’s too late and she smiles to soften it but Cat still narrows her eyes.
“Hmm.”
Kara grins down at her hands—her smile falters after a moment. Cat knows that she’s Supergirl, but she doesn’t know what that means: flying, yes, saving people, yes, bulletproof, yes, but also—fighting constant fighting, winning, losing, putting her family her friends in danger, learning things she’d never wanted to know about her mother, feeling anger burn too hot in her head until it feels like she’s going to explode, and this numbing creeping knowledge that nothing she ever does is going to be enough because this world is a big place and her shoulders are only so wide.
She doesn’t know how to tell her.
She buys herself some time.
“What are you going to do?” she asks, staring over Cat’s shoulder. She doesn’t tell the other woman that she is looking right through the wall, out past the building, past the city, sweeping the line of buildings.
“Do?”
“Now that you know about me. About Supergirl.”
“Well,” Cat says with undeniable relish, and she straightens in her seat with a pleased wriggle. “I was thinking a three—no—a five piece series on Krypton.”
Kara smiles. She would be horrified by that if she didn’t know that Cat isn’t being serious. Or—Cat is being serious, but Kara knows that this isn’t final, that they can and will talk about it, that this is as far as it will go unless Kara says otherwise.
“I know you enjoyed talking about it and Lane will positively gag when I get my hands on something she can’t.” She closes her eyes—blows a breath slowly out her nose, pushes her hands out wide against her desk and lowers her chin to her chest. She hums happily. Kara thinks maybe that Cat is…thrilled is a light word for it. Cat’s pupils are blown wide when she looks up at Kara. “Why is that, by the way?”
“Kal was a baby,” Kara reminds her, feeling a little distant. Mind elsewhere, eyes still skimming the skyline, she feels in two parts and some hazy, cottonball gap between the two keeping her from settling.
“And you?”
“I was thirteen.” She remembers the utterly soft fabric of her dress, the heat of her planet, the way her father smelled when she pressed her nose into his shoulder. Her mothers arms wrapped around her, a kiss pressed hard and desperate against her forehead. The last kiss ever.
Cat nods, flips through the pages in front of her. “Hmm, yes. You did tell Carter that. How did you escape?”
“Umm.” Kara blinks, focuses on the other woman for a moment. Her pen shines silver. “There was a pod. My parents sent me away to look after Kal.” She can see her mother in front of her—she sees her every night recently, sometimes she sees her when she closes her eyes, Krypton destroyed a second time and she’s afraid that she will use up her memory that her mothers face will blur. Eliza had shown her some of her old photographs, once upon a time, and Kara is afraid sometimes that her memory will follow suit—that the sharp lines of her mothers cheeks and jaw and the delicate curl of her hair, the slopes and planes of her neck and collar, arms that held her tight, a stomach she rested her head on and slept till morning, her body a familiar landscape—the landscape of a home she knows is long gone—she is afraid these memories will soften with age as ink will seep into paper and fade and fade and her memories will turn into so much red dust. She strokes a finger over her drop necklace. “When Krypton died, the shock wave hit my pod off course. It slipped into the Phantom Zone—it’s this place where time stands still,” Kara tells her and Cat blinks. “I was there for twenty five years.”
“Twe—” Cat turns her pen in her hands, twists the cap off. Clicks it back on. “Were you awake for any of that?”
“Bits and pieces.” Kara shrugs and gives her a shy smile. “I remember waking up when the pod activated.” She shivers. “It was cold. And dark. And then I must have fallen asleep again because the next thing I know, I’m here on Earth. And my cousin was…” Cat is looking at her with surprisingly soft eyes. Kara’s breath catches—she thought that Cat would look more shrewd, more scheming. But this…Kara guesses that this is the difference made when Cat is listening to her. Kara and Supergirl, not Supergirl alone. The realisation is striking. “Um.” She falters for a moment. “Um, Kal, my cousin was—he didn’t need me.”
“And you landed at thirteen and all alone,” Cat surmises. “Carter’s age. I’m sorry. I can’t imagine…”
“He will never have to know what it feels like,” Kara swears fiercely. Then she remembers that she can’t actually promise that—she can’t promise that Carter will be safe, she can’t promise that anyone will be safe, she can’t promise a damn thing. “I need to talk to you.”
“So talk.”
“It’s about Monday.”
Cat clicks her tongue immediately, annoyed, and narrows her eyes. “Really, Kiera? Must I reassure you about everything?” She heaves a sigh. “Very well. Your identify is safe, your job is safe, provided you continue to do it well, of course. I won’t hesitate to fire you if you slip. I didn’t think I would have to tell you that I find it quite pleasing that I have a literal superhero at my beck and call. You don’t get to where I am, Kiera, without a healthy enjoyment of power plays.” When Cat realises that Kara is just staring at her, she stops. “You weren’t talking about your job.”
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
“Something is about to happen,” she tells Cat, and her eyes return to the wall and beyond and she doesn’t see Cat’s eyes widen—it is one thing to know that Kara is Supergirl, it is another to be told, and it is quite another to hear Supergirl’s voice coming from the soft, pastel-wearing Kara.
“I do so enjoy ambiguity, Kiera.”
Kara smiles at that. “I’m sorry. I don’t know a lot about it. They call it Myriad.”
“They?” Cat asks. “Myriad?”
“I don’t know what it is yet.” Kara feels shame settle around her shoulders heavier than her cape and she leans forward, braces her elbows against her knees. “I don’t know.” Kara can feel the weight of Cat’s gaze, too, heavy. Considering and focused. “I don’t know,” she says a third time, but that’s not the whole truth. The whole truth is, “The end of the world, I think.”
“The end of the world.”
“We’re working—we’re trying to figure it out.” Kara gives a bitter little laugh. “My sister is. And Max. And Winn. They’re trying to figure it out. I’ve been sent to wait.”
“Kara—” Cat stops when Kara shakes her head.
“It’s fine. It’s fine, I know how it goes. It’s just frustrating.” She laughs again and her smile is a small twist of her lips. Upwards, yes, but not convincing. “All I can really do is beat up aliens. I just wish there was a way I could help before it gets to end of the world levels.”
“I understand.” Kara nods. Cat knows she does understand—but sometimes the saying of a thing helps more than even a mutual understanding. “When the news finally gets to me and I can finally do something about it, it’s already over. I report after someone has been shot, after a bank has been robbed, after the battle has been won.”
“You know it’s important, though. You know that, right?”
“Of course.” Cat waves a hand. “I didn’t tell you that to be pitied, Kiera. I told you because there are things even I, as successful and talented and intelligent as I am, cannot do. I am not a soldier or a doctor. I am a journalist. And what I do is everything that I can. I donate my considerable wealth to people who can help and I use my name and my face and my words to influence peoples minds and deeds. Are there days when that doesn’t feel like it’s enough?” She shrugs delicately. “Of course.”
“How do you do it? How do you get past it?”
“I pour myself a drink and I get back to work.” Cat smiles. “So. Would you like a drink, Kara?”
“I—yes,” Kara says. “I would.”
They spend a few minutes in silence. Cat stands and makes her way over to the fine bookshelf that makes up a whole wall of her study—it’s made of a dark wood and relatively plain, but it is smooth and strong and she’s had it and many of the books living on it since she was very young. The glass decanter clinks softly against her glass, and then Kara’s, and she picks up Kara’s glass in her hand and walks it over to her. Kara sits back in her chair and takes it with a smile, tilting her chin up to Cat. Cat holds onto the glass a moment longer.
It would be easy, Cat knows, to lean over and press a kiss down onto those waiting lips. Kara would let her.
She doesn’t do it.
"Thank you," Kara says, when Cat releases the glass.
Cat nods. She places her hand on the backrest of Kara’s chair, steps in until her thighs are pressed against the arm of it, and stares down at Kara. Cat drinks slowly—Kara mimics her. They are close. Cat doesn’t want to move away, so she doesn’t. Instead, she asks, “Why do you feel so strongly about this battle?”
Kara drinks again.
"My mother stopped him once," she says, and she casts a look out the windows again. Cat waits. "He was trying to stop them from destroying Krypton but my mother stopped him—he was hurting people and she had a job and I don’t know if she was right,” Kara admits, “but I know that she couldn’t let him get away with killing people. She sent him to prison and now he’s here and he won’t stop until this planet is safe.”
“But not the people on it,” Cat deduces.
“To him, humans are a disease,” Kara says. The words feel bitter and unpleasant in her mouth—she cannot comprehend them, she is flooded with the faces and names of humans who have loved her and who she has loved and lived with and saved. “He will kill everyone before he lets you kill your planet.”
“Our planet? Your planet too, Kara.”
Kara smiles. “Yes,” she agrees. A small, sad part of her says no.
“So. This man. He has a plan. To end the world?"
“Yes. Something big. They’ve installed something in Max’s satellites, that’s why he’s helping us. Alex says that he found something in the code so they’re trying to figure out what it is. Anything that will give us an advantage—“ Kara shakes her head. “It’s not even an advantage. We’re just looking for anything that will help us figure out what their plan is.”
“And then you’ll defeat him.”
“I’ll try.” Kara leans her head back, close to where Cat’s hand is resting. Close enough to touch. “It’s hard when they have all the same powers as I do. And he has nothing, no care for this world, to hold him back from destroying it all.” Her voice is quiet and sad and Cat reaches out then to smooth her fingers over a single lock of that gold hair. Kara gives no indication that she felt it.
Cat waits. She has always been very good at knowing when someone has something more to say.
“Do you know why I come to your balcony?”
It’s not what Cat expected to hear, but she lets it play out. “Because I’m there, of course.”
“Yes,” she smiles. “But you also have the best view of the city.”
“The view?”
“I can hear so much from your balcony. I feel like I’m where I’m supposed to be. Right in the middle, right in the heart of it all.” Kara hesitates. Then, softly, she says, “You are, you know.”
“I am what?”
“The heart of the city.” Kara’s smile feels like sunrise to Cat—expected, but as surprising and beautiful as always. The corners of her eyes crinkle with the force of it. Kara leans her head, traps Cat’s fingers—which have been smoothing down that lock of hair, and Cat had tricked herself into thinking that Kara hadn’t noticed but of course, of course she had but she had let Cat do it regardless and now her fingers are caught. “You’re in touch with all these people, all these stories, and you deal with everything with so much care.” Kara smiles again. “I’m always in awe.”
“Oh.”
“It’s not just a safe place, it’s…” Kara frowns, considering. Cat itches to smooth out the furrow between her eyebrows. “You’re a symbol. An inspiration, every bit as much as,” she taps her chest, fingers twitch in an approximation of an S. “You, CatCo, you let people know that things don’t have to be bad or hopeless, that they can look up the sky and search for me or for the sun or the stars. But you’ve also taught them that they can look out for themselves and for each other. That good is still good, whether its me putting out a fire or someone returning a, a lost wallet.” Kara knows how cheesy it all sounds and her nose crinkles a little. She laughs a little self-consciously but Cat doesn’t seem to register it—she’s still staring down at Kara, mouth very slightly agape. “Anyway, I just wanted to thank you. And let you know that whatever happens on Monday, I want you to know that I appreciate everything you have done for me, for the city.”
Cat’s recovery is lightning quick. “I’ll tell you what you’re going to do, Kara.” She takes Kara’s glass—empty now—and her own and walks them back to the little sink in her bookcase bar. She speaks to the wall when she says, “You’re going to put on your suit and if he means to hurt people, you will stop him.”
She doesn’t hear Kara move, but she isn’t surprised when she sees her step up to just behind her right shoulder.
“And if I can’t?” Kara asks her, low and serious.
“There is no can’t. You will.” Cat turns to face her. “I—we can talk about this later.” Kara’s eyes shadow over a little and Cat can tell that she doesn’t believe her. “But for now, it’s lunch time and Carter is waiting for us.”
“Oh.” Kara cocks her head to the side. “He’s coming this way. How did you know?”
“Not all of us have super powers, Kiera. But some of us do have our secrets,” she says with a smile. She pushes off the bookcase and makes her way to the door. Or, she starts to. Kara shifts slightly until she’s in Cat’s way—easy to step around, if Cat wants to, but she looks at the set of Kara’s jaw and the worry in her eyes and she stops. “It’s not a big secret that he has a set routine,” she teases.
Kara allows her a smile. They both know that’s not why Kara stopped her.
“We will have to talk about this later,” she says.
Cat presses her lips together tight. Kara doesn’t move when Carter knocks on the door—her eyes are intent and Cat looks between her and the door quickly.
“One moment, Carter.” She lowers her voice. “Later, Kara. I promise. Trust me.”
She does.
“So what’s my present?” Carter asks after they’ve eaten.
Kara jerks her head up and back into the conversation—she’s been frowning down at her phone for most of lunch, texting someone—and she smiles. “Dude. You’re going to lose your mind.” She sounds a little like Winn for a moment, but she can’t help it. His enthusiasm about the gifts, about her idea, was contagious and fun and she’s always liked the way her friend’s words have felt when she repeats them. “Hold on, let me get them for you.”
Carter groans when she walks infuriatingly slowly to put her plate in the sink and then down the hall to the guest room.
“Kara, come on,” he calls, and her only answer is a light laugh.
“Okay.” She returns with two small metal boxes. “This one,” she peeks into it and grins, passes it to Carter, “this one is yours. And, Cat?” She holds out the other to Cat, who lowers her fork and dabs at the corners of her lips with her napkin before she takes it.
Carter holds his present carefully, awed, and a thought occurs to him. “Will you take me flying again?” he asks.
Kara folds her arms over her stomach and laughs. “What? I can’t—” She laughs again, an awkward sound. “Fly. Right. Yeah.”
“Not used to people knowing?” Carter guesses with a grin.
“Not used to people knowing and being so excited,” she admits. “I mean. Winn? Sometimes? But he tries to be cool about it. He doesn’t ask a lot about my, y’know.”
“Powers.”
“That. Those, yes.” Kara fiddles with her glasses, ducking her head. “But, uh, you should open your present, Carter!”
He nods quickly and his fingers scrabble to pull the watch from its box. Kara notices that Cat has clicked her own present down onto the counter, content to watch Carter open his first, and she leans in over his shoulder to see what it is.
“Oh cool.” He turns it over, examining every inch of it. “This is cool. Does it have gadgets? Poison gas? Freeze dart? Trip wire?”
“I’m a superhero, not a spy,” Kara laughs. “So no to all of those.” She takes it from him and slips it over his wrist, tightening it until he nods. “This does two things. One, it’s a normal watch so it tells the time.” He grins. “And two, if you are ever in danger, press this.” She presses a button on the side of the watch and sees with a little thrill that Carter’s eyes widen and his breath catches—the face of the watch flips up and displays a small glowing red super crest.
She had asked Winn if they could make something a little less on the nose but he had scoffed. “Carter will be totally thrilled when he sees this, Kara, trust me. The crest is like, the coolest thing about your costume. He doesn’t know about the tri-layered super strength polymers I designed which personally I think are the coolest so the crest will have to do.”
Judging from Carter’s quiet awe, Winn had been right.
She closes the lid and runs her thumb over it, making sure that it’s closed.
“Thank you,” he whispers, reverent.
“You can keep it so long as you promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“Stay safe. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”
He grins. “I promise.” Carter twists in his seat and throws his hand out to show his mom the watch. She ooh’s and ah’s appropriately and then Carter pushes her own gift towards her eagerly. “Open it! Is it a watch too?” he asks, turning back to Kara.
“No. I didn’t think a watch was right. And I thought maybe a necklace,” she says, and her eyes shift over his shoulder to meet Cat’s eyes, “but I know you like to change up your accessories. So I thought…” She gestures to the box.
Cat lifts the lid and her eyes brighten, lips lift up into a smirk. “Ah. How appropriate.”
“Yeah?”
“Very subtle.”
Kara beams.
“I suppose I don’t need your number now that I have this,” she continues, lifting the hand mirror from its box.
Kara grimaces. “I’d rather you call me if you’re not in danger, actually. This emits a high frequency tone that only Kal-el and I can hear. And the other Kryptonians, I guess. But they won’t know what it is. I told my cousin, he’ll keep an ear out.”
“Superman might come?” Carter asks, so high-pitched Kara winces.
“If I can’t, yeah. He will.”
“Oh my god,” Carter sighs, stars in his eyes. He flops backwards onto the couch, cupping his watch to his chest. “Superman. Amazing. So cool.”
“So this is what jealousy feels like,” Kara says quietly, watching Carter with amused eyes. He lifts his head—a question on his lips. “You like my cousin more than you like me.” She pouts.
“He’s Superman,” Carter says, awed. “But you’re Kara.” His tone is no less awed, but far more warm and pleased and sweet.
“He is kinda cool,” Kara admits. “He’s a huge nerd though. You know he named all his super powers? Freeze breath,” she scoffs, shaking her head. When she looks up, Cat and Carter are looking at her with equally expectant faces. “What?”
“Now that you mentioned your powers,” Carter starts, and he reaches over and grips onto his mother’s arm.
“Freeze breath?”
“But,” she frowns, confused, “you’ve seen it all before.”
“Not like this.”
“I—” They’re both watching her expectantly and she smiles. “I’d love to show you. What do you want to see?”
Carter sits up ramrod straight, buzzing with energy. “The—there’s,” he can’t form the words he’s too excited and he punches his little fist into the couch cushions. Cat takes over smoothly.
“There are plastic cups somewhere in the kitchen. You can fill one with water.”
Kara bites down on her lip and, after a moment of consideration, she pulls her glasses off very slowly. She folds the arms and blinks—she isn’t sure how much of that is muscle memory, pretending that her eye sight is terrible, and how much is her adjusting to that slight uptick in her powers.
The sound of glasses being clicked down onto the kitchen counter is like a starting shot and, when they look up at her, she grins, drops Carter a wink, and zooms a little too fast into the kitchen. She hears matched gasps behind her. When she comes back, they’re both sitting on the couch and Kara sips slowly from the cup. Cat’s eyes narrow—Carter laughs at her theatricality.
She’ll never admit it to her sister but she’s tried ice trick from The Incredibles too many times to count and she’s a little afraid that nerves will get to her but she’s practiced enough that it should be easy and she spits the water up into the air and follows it with a quick blast of her freeze breath and Carter bounces up onto his knees on the couch, gripping at his moms shoulder.
Kara catches the icicle and twirls it between her fingers before she holds it over the plastic cup and, very carefully, melts it with her lazer eyes. It drips then pours, sizzling, into the cup.
“This is so cool,” Carter hisses and he stumbles up onto his feet and runs over to her. He rockets into the counter, bracing himself with his hands. Kara puts a hand out warningly.
“Don’t touch. It’s hot.”
“Obviously.”
“Smart ass.”
He bends over to look at the cup, eyes wide and amazed, and she feels a little thrill at her own powers. They are cool, they are fun, and sometimes she forgets that they can be. She turns to smile at Cat and falters—the woman is trembling, faintly, staring at Kara with a look Kara doesn’t recognise. A little dip between her eyebrows suggests a frown, suggests this is not good and so, hurt panging deep in her chest, Kara takes one step and then another back away from Carter.
Kara finds out in that moment, quite unexpectedly, that she has always been frightened that Cat will be frightened of her—frightened that she might hurt Carter by accident, frightened of all the power that she holds because if anyone knows what kind of bad, dark, terrible things can be done by people with too much power, it’s Cat Grant.
Kara crosses her arms tight over her chest to make her body small—her muscles tense and she feels her shoulders widen and realises exactly how aggressive a stance it really is. Her hands slip, around her stomach, then drop down to her sides. What to do? She reaches up to her glasses and then hooks her fingers together behind her back.
She picks up her glass to drink some water because anything, anything other than looking at Cat Grant’s disapproving face will do—she assumes it’s disapproving. Maybe even scared. She doesn’t dare look to find out for sure.
She drinks successfully—it’s when she’s putting it down again that the glass cracks and then, when she grips it more firmly to hold it together, shatters.
Kara wants to cry.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Carter,” Cat says quietly, “would you give us a minute?”
He had jumped when the glass broke but he’s still staring at the other cup, with the water she had frozen and unfrozen, and now that it has cooled he holds it in his hand and has brought it right up to his face. He shrugs. ’“Sure. Kara, are you staying for dinner?”
“We’ll see,” Cat says for her, when Kara stares wide eyed over at her. “Go on, Carter. I know you have some reading to do for class.”
“Okay.”
“I’m so sorry,” Kara whispers when Carter’s bedroom door closes behind him. “I didn’t mean to break anything.”
“Kara,”
“I’ll clean it up right now—no, Cat, no stay where you are. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Cat stops just beyond the furthest fragment and Kara carefully sweeps it all up.
“Why do you do it so slowly?” Cat asks as she works. “Habit? Surely it would be easier to do it with your superspeed.” Kara shrugs. “Kara,” Cat says, voice sharp. Kara knows that she expects an answer.
“I don’t want to scare you.”
“Scare me? I know you have powers already. I have seen them before.”
It’s a challenge or something like it—best case, Cat can prove that she trusts Kara. Worst case, Cat panics.
“Alright.” Kara says slowly, and she stands, and then the kitchen is spotless. Not just the glass fragments—Carter’s lunch plate, Cat’s coffee cups, a mark Cat has never been able to get out of the table top—they’re all gone and everything is shiny and gleaming and Kara is closing the cupboard beneath the sink and turning on the tap to wash her hands. She dries them, also slowly, and turns to Cat, wadding the cloth up in her hands. She leans back against the counter and meets Cat’s eyes.
“So?”
Cat swallows. Kara’s eyes slip down to her mouth, her head tilts a little and she frowns down at Cat’s chest. After a moment, her eyes clear and she flushes. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other.
“You’re not scared,” Kara says.
“No.” Cat smirks. She makes her way over, slow and purposeful. It’s gratifying to see that Kara watches this time. To see that Kara’s hands drop down to her side and reach back to wrap around the edge of the marble counter.
Cat doesn’t stop her advance until she’s a few inches from Kara. Nose to nose, almost. They would be if she were wearing her heels. Kara hunches a little—Cat doubts the woman knows what she’s doing.
“You know,” Cat says lightly, reaching up to twirl a strand of Kara’s hair around her finger. Kara watches the movement closely, so closely that she misses Cat lifting her other hand to press against the counter scant millimetres from Kara’s hand. “I’m very attracted to power.”
A strangled noise slips from between Kara’s lips.
Cat sways forward a little, enough that Kara can feel the heat of her body, and then away. Kara bites down on her lower lip. Cat forgets her plan for a moment—she watches that lip dimple and whiten under Kara’s teeth. It’s deceptive how soft she appears. Intoxicating.
“Cat,” Kara murmurs. “What are we doing?”
“Anything but being professional.”
She leans in slowly. Drags her fingers over Kara’s knuckles, first, then up her forearms and up to her shoulders. She wants to linger—to dig her fingers into the hint of muscles she can feel but Kara is already breathing heavily and her eyes are wide and dark. She’s trembling and it’s too much to resist.
She goes slowly. Kara could pull away. Cat’s barely touching her—hands are resting so lightly on Kara, skimming up her neck. Her fingers brush lightly across Kara’s jaw and she’s surprised and agonisingly turned on when Kara crumples at the feel of it, a groan ripped from her throat. Kara’s knees quake and she sinks down—Cat grabs her arms firmly and pushes her back against the counter roughly.
Cat places a flat palm on the back of her neck, but it’s Kara who closes the distance between them.
Kara’s lips are soft. Her whole body is soft—it gives and gives under the press of Cat’s body, presses further back into the counter, flesh dimples under gripping fingers. She gives when Cat pulls on her hair, gives a groan and a sigh and her lips open when Cat demands it with an insistent tongue. She’s so soft and smooth and warm and Cat has always loved that about women but this woman, this woman who should be hard edges and steel is so warm and soft Cat can’t think. She can hardly breathe because this woman can also kiss—gently and carefully and with a slow building intensity like she wants to experience all of Cat, know all of Cat. Cat is inclined to let her.
She tastes of sugar and Cat licks into her mouth and makes Kara open up to her, desperate for more of the taste of Kara coffee and sweet, sticky syrup and something darker, rougher, warmer, like black smoke, and the reminder of dimension is a reminder too that this isn’t just sweet Kara this is Supergirl and when Cat’s fingers curl and tug in her hair and pull her head back, intent on kissing and biting and marking a path down that perfect throat, Kara gives her a low rumble of pleasure, and the marble cracks under her hands loudly.
Cat withdraws her hands very slowly—one from Kara’s hair, now deliciously mussed, one from just under her shirt from her hip—and she smirks when Kara blinks her hazy eyes open and searches for her, confused.
“What—” Kara licks her lips. Cat stares at the smudges of red she’s left on that golden skin. Kara clears her throat. “What’s wrong?”
“You broke the counter,” Cat tells her, very obviously smug.
Kara peels her hands away and small shards and powdered marble cascades down to the floor. “Oh.” A flush crawls up her cheeks. “S—sorry. ”
“Don’t be.” Cat gestures for her to move away and she traces the impressions with one finger. “Hard to explain to Carter but,” her eyes flash over her shoulder and Kara’s knees tremble again, “I’m very pleased.”
“Then,” Kara shakes her head to clear out the very persistent haze of arousal. “Why did you stop?”
“You broke the counter. Also, Carter is three doors down and has a habit of listening at doorways,” Cat reminds her. Kara grins.
“He’s still in his room. He’s playing with—” She winces and clamps her hands over her ears. “With the watch,” she grits out. “Carter.”
“Sorry! I just wanted to see if it worked.”
“It does.”
“Cool!”
Kara can’t help but grin and she sticks her fingers in her ears and wriggles, works her jaw to pop the ringing noise out. The insistent tone has gone and it—and Carter’s presence—has taken all her arousal with it.
They stare at each other for a few moments. Cat doesn’t dare move closer—she’s sure, absolutely certain, that she will kiss Kara again if she does. Kara can see it too and she wavers between staying where she is and moving closer to help that along a little.
It is good, then, that Kara’s phone buzzes.
Kara glances at it, narrows her eyes a little. “It’s Alex,” she says, though Cat is closer to the phone than she is by the whole length of the kitchen.
“You should get that. I’m sure it’s important.” Kara nods. “I assume you still want to talk?” Kara nods again. She can’t look away from Cat’s lips—the lipstick is smudged and she lifts a hand to her own mouth, drags her fingertips across them. They come away glossy and coloured and she looks down at them for a moment before her eyes return to Cat. She steadies herself against the counter and slides Kara’s phone over to her. “I’ll leave the window open tonight,” she says, and turns her back on Kara and walks away.
Kara waits until she hears a door close behind Cat and then she lunges for her phone, skimming the message. She rubs harshly at her lips to take the colour off. As much as she likes it, and she does, she can't imagine what Alex would say when she saw it.
When she sees the mark on her jaw, Kara's knees weaken again and she stares at it in the reflection of the oven for a moment before she scrubs it away with her thumb.
“God, Kara, what are you made of? Bricks?” Alex grunts as she leans Kara back against the wall. She rolls the tension out of her shoulders and cracks her “Are you sure about this? Because if I have to walk you all the way to the door and then you freak out and I have to walk you all the way back to the elevator…” She puts a warning hand on her gun and Kara grins, rolls her eyes.
“I’m good, I’m fine, just give me a second.” Kara presses a hand to her tender ribs. “I told her I’d be back tonight. Well, it was implied.”
Alex sighs and holds out her hands. “C’mon then.”
Kara nods a few times, psyching herself up, and then rocks her body forward. She lifts one arm—“ah, wait wait, cramp cramp”—and wraps it around Alex’s shoulders and they start the long limp down the hall.
“This is a bad idea.”
“Oh come on, you say that about everything.”
“Because if I say it, you make marginally less terrible ideas.”
“I think I’ve done alright,” Kara says with a proud little grin and she groans when Alex jabs her elbow into her rib. She can’t fully feel it but she knows that she’s feeling tender so the “Ouch!” feels justified. She leans heavier into Alex in retaliation and almost sends them both to the ground.
“Good one, Supergirl.”
“Shut up.”
They limp a little further down the hall. When Kara’s head dips forward and her weight pitches with it, Alex makes them stop. She rubs her hand in wide circles over Kara’s back.
“Did I make the right choice tonight?” Kara asks her after a few long moment.
Alex considers her reply—as a soldier, she would say no. But as a person, and as Kara’s sister, Alex knows that she made the only choice she could live with.
“A family is alive right now because of you,” she says, and she presses her hand a little more firmly into Kara’s back to make sure that she can feel it—the warmth of skin, the pressure—and know that Alex means it, and that she isn’t flinching away from Kara, or abandoning her, or any of those quiet scary thoughts that go through Kara’s mind after a night like this one.
Kara gives her a sidelong glance. She knows what Alex isn’t saying. “He escaped. He could have told us about Myriad.”
“We have time to figure it out.”
“We have a day.”
“We will figure it out,” Alex says again. “Stop thinking about it. You just rest. Talk to Cat,” she teases, now that she’s gotten over Kara’s admission that Cat knows she’s Supergirl. Kara gives her an embarrassed scowl. “Whoa, what’s that for?”
“Don’t tease me.”
“About what? You not being able to keep a secret? Or about your crush?” Kara flushes red. “What? Cat got your tongue?”
“First of all, that’s a terrible joke,” Kara scolds her, nose crinkling, “and second of all,” her eyes start to water, “I just don’t want to be teased right now.”
“Oh no.” Alex manoeuvres Kara so her back is against the wall again and it’s been tough going making their way down the hall and Cat’s door is, like, right there but apparently they aren’t going to make it just yet. She cups Kara’s face and tilts it up to look at her. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
Kara sniffs and lowers her eyes, shrugs.
“Kara.”
“My ribs hurt and my suit is torn up and he punched me into the ground and I’m all dirty,” she plucks at a leaf in her hair and sullenly shows off the dirt under her nails too, “and I lost Non’s stupid henchman because they think it’s okay to throw a car into a ravine and I have to talk to Cat about stuff and I want to help you but I’m so tired.” She can hear how close she is to whining and hates it but Alex thinks it’s cute, thinks it’s incredible to see through the smudges and the suit and all the toughness that she has to cloak around herself when she’s Supergirl it’s good to see that Kara, her little sister, is always there.
Kara breathes out shakily and leans her forehead against Alex’s shoulder.
“I know you see it like you’re being sidelined,” Alex says. She leans her cheek against Kara’s head—pulls a leaf away first. “But this isn’t that. We aren’t punishing you. We just want you to rest. You do so much, Kara. I won’t have you do too much and get burned out halfway through a fight.” She says it calmly, the same way she directs Kara when they are sparring, but desperation floods through her and she hugs Kara a little more tightly. Kara is tender—she hopes that she feels the hug that little bit more, that little painful edge the same as Alex can feel. “It’s not too late to change your mind, you can always come back to my place. We can get take out. Watch something.”
Alex doesn’t try to mask the hope in her voice.
“You need to get back to work,” Kara points out. Alex knows she’s right. “I’ll bring you lunch tomorrow and you can catch me up with what you find out about Myriad.”
“Right.”
“But what about Tuesday? You said you wanted to catch up on Homeland.”
“Right, Tuesday.” Alex nods. “I’ll ask Hank if I can get the night off.”
Kara giggles. “If we win, I’m sure he’ll be happy to let us relax.” They share an identical grin and ignore the big if that hangs between them. “Maybe we should invite him along. How long do you think it’s been since he actually had fun? And beating me up in training doesn’t count.
“Oh I assure you, it does. That never gets old.”
“Alex!” Kara laughs—and then groans and presses against her ribs and sighs. The hallway light flickers on—Cat’s door opens quickly and Alex’s hand darts to the gun on her hip, drawing it and half-raising it in one swift move.
“Oh simmer down, Scully. It’s just me.”
“Miss Grant.”
“Congratulations, you have eyes. Supergirl,” Cat says sharply, turning to Kara who tries valiantly to push Alex away and stand on her own two feet. “This isn’t the window.”
“I got in a scuffle.”
“Well. Since you’re here. ” She opens the door a little wider. “I suppose you should both come in.”
Kara waves Alex’s hands away until she stumbles three steps in and Cat wavers in place—then she allows herself to lean on her sister and they hobble in.
“Scully, you can escort her to the guest room. Supergirl knows which door it is. There is a towel on the end of the bed and I’m sure her clothes from the other day have finished in the dryer.”
Alex murmurs a quiet thank you and tugs Kara down yet another hall. This one feels longer than the last, with Kara yawning with every step, and mumbling about bed. She gazes longingly at her guest bed as Alex wrestles her into the shower—the cold water brings her back to herself and she glares at her sister, yanking herself out from under stream of water.
“Can you do this bit by yourself?”
“Yes.” Kara folds her arms over her chest and glowers at her sister. “Thanks for wetting my suit, really considerate of you.”
“You’re welcome.” She motions for her to turn and helps her with the zipper, yanking it down. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You look creaky.”
“Creaky?”
“You move like mom does when she falls asleep in the armchair. And she’s old.”
“I’m telling her you said that.”
“Don’t you dare.”
Kara pokes her tongue out and grins. She still looks tired—around the eyes and the downward slope of her lips—but Alex is relieved to see some more energy in her movements. It would have been nice for her to get that back when they were walking down the hallway but better late than never, Alex reminds herself.
“Turn around?” Kara obliges. There are no bruises to speak off and Alex pokes and prods at the skin of Kara’s ribs and her shoulders and grudgingly nods. “Alright. But if you don’t feel better tomorrow, I want you to come back and rest in the sun bed.”
“Okay.” Alex lingers and Kara rolls her eyes. “Can you, like, leave? I’m trying to shower.”
“Don’t drown.”
“Why do you always have to have the last word?”
“Because I’m the cool one, and the pretty one,” she tells her, and yanks the bathroom door closed behind her quickly so she can’t hear Kara’s reply. She thinks about waiting around, just to make sure that Kara doesn’t drown, but Kara would be able to hear her so she decides not to. Instead, she makes her way back out to the front hall and, when she can’t see Cat, into the dining room. She’s sitting primly there at the table and when she hears Alex’s footsteps, she looks up.
“Scully.”
Alex stops a few feet away and falls into a familiar pose, hands on hips. Well. One hand on her gun.
“Let me guess. This is the point where you threaten me if I say anything about Supergirl’s identity and then you make some kind of cat pun.”
“No, this is where I threaten you if you hurt Kara at all. I promise if you do,” she smiles, all teeth, “I’ll end all nine of your lives.”
Cat arches her eyebrows. “Well. That one wasn’t terrible. Drink?”
Alex wavers. “Thanks, but no. I have to get back to work.”
“Another time, then.”
Alex nods. She stares at the woman—she understands why Kara likes her, she really does. Or, she gets why someone might. Kara has always been different so she doubts that her reasons are solely Cat’s beauty, or her apparent unflappable poise when faced with a stranger with a gun and an alien, or her good taste in alcohol. She doesn’t seem to mind that Alex is taller, clearly stronger, armed, that Alex is standing while she is sitting, and that kind of composure comes only from experience and confidence and a healthy daily dose of power—that, or it’s faked. Either way, it’s impressive.
“You got a phone?” Alex asks, and Cat blinks—the only sign that she’s surprised.
"No. I'm the CEO of a massive international media company and I don't have a phone."
Alex rolls her eye and waits until Cat gets over herself enough to point to the couch, where a phone has been discarded on the cushions there. Alex scoops it up and programmes her number under Agent Scully. “It’s for emergencies only. Clear?”
“Crystal.” Cat sips her drink. “Tell me, Agent Scully, how is our hero?”
Alex glances over her shoulder. She can still hear the shower running. “She had a run in with an enemy tonight. He threw a car down a ravine.” She sees the way Cat’s body jerks. Alex understands—sometimes, she’s still surprised by what they can do, what Kara can do. She saw her sister catch the SUV in her arms like it was a toy. An ungainly toy, yes, but no trouble at all. “She caught it.”
“Were there people inside?”
“A family,” Alex nods.
“Are they alright?”
Alex strains her ears for any sign that Kara is listening. “The mom hit her head. Died on impact,” she tells Cat very quietly. “The dad is okay. And the little girls as well.”
Cat sighs. “What can I do?”
It isn’t what Alex expected. After two years of Kara ranting about Cat Grant, this isn’t the woman that Alex expected. But, she supposed, Kara hadn’t known Cat. Just Cat Grant. This woman allows herself to be soft in her own home and Alex can respect the separation of work and home.
“She’s okay. Or she will be. She just needs to rest.” Cat nods. “Oh, and make sure she sits in the sun tomorrow and doesn’t spend all day in bed.”
“Are there any foods in particular she should eat?”
“No, just lots of it. Sometimes when she’s hungry she eats so fast I doubt she tastes any of it.” Alex grins and Cat returns it with a small, small smirk that is an agreement and also a thank you—for opening up, for trusting her with information that any mere agent wouldn’t know about Supergirl. For trusting in Kara’s trust, and showing Cat that yes, they are sisters. “If she goes quiet and sad, try and pull her back,” Alex continues gruffly, ducking her head. She stares down at the phone in her hands and pretends that she’s adding more details to the contact she made for herself. “Kara is the best person I know and it’s hard for her to lose someone. Be nice.”
“Sometimes, nice isn’t what she needs. She’s made of sterner stuff than even you realise.” Cat’s tone is sharp and Alex frowns. “I’m not sure you always know what is best for her.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Alex steps in closer. Cat doesn’t flinch, just turns her head and lifts her chin.
“It means I’m surprised you’re here at all. I heard you two had a…falling out.” Cat narrows her eyes. “Kara was very upset.” She looks smug when Alex flinches. Alex clenches her free hand into a fist.
Her teeth grit. “I know. It was unavoidable,” she says, giving nothing more away. The very faint shadow of disappointment that flickers over Cat’s face sends a sharp spike of satisfaction through Alex—she’d been scrounging for details, obviously. Alex holds out the phone, smacks it into Cat’s waiting palm. “Let me know if you have any trouble.”
“If we have any trouble, you’ll hear from me.” They both hear when the shower stops. Cat stands smoothly and downs the last of her drink. She steps into the hall. “You know your way out, Agent Scully.”