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Everyone knows well enough that the first few post-Kara assistants will be short-lived. Cat hopes, and rather suspects, that that’s why the first three she tries out are so dismal - none of them lasts the day.
No millennials. No visible tattoos. No overwhelming scents. No Bernie Bros. No family history of Irish witchcraft. Truly, Cat doesn’t think she’s being unreasonable, but Kara seems to disagree.
She presents the fourth candidate with more grit than she had the previous three. “I really think you’ll like him, Ms. Grant,” she says earnestly. “He’s technically a millennial -” a fact which had not, in fact, escaped Cat - “but he’s worked campaign trails and edited his college literary magazine and spent four years working in that coffee shop you liked in Opal City, the one with the gluten-free cranberry scones.”
“Did he bake the scones?” Cat asks archly, but purses her lips in consideration nonetheless.
She’ll give him this - his lattes are excellent, and he lasts over a week. He might have lasted longer, but between Supergirl off fighting some fire or other, a brutal advertising meeting interrupted by an unexpected and even more brutal lunch with her mother, and three missed doses of Lexapro - well. He takes it poorly enough that she doesn’t especially regret it.
The IT boy begins making eyes at Number Five (also “technically a millennial, but -”) right on schedule. Cat’s first thought is to move him to another floor (this was now three of her assistants that he’d fallen for, and God knows the other two had given her their share of problems - she can only hope that this one doesn’t have superpowers) but then she sees Kara perched on his desk, legs crossed at the ankle and looking longer than ever in what looks like a new pencil skirt.
She moves Number Five instead. She’s better suited for the financial offices, anyway, and in the meantime, Kara will just have to continue getting her coffee.
***
She hates Nick’s presence, and she misses Cat’s. It takes her awhile to realize that these feelings aren’t entirely unrelated.
Kara spent two years hovering just within Cat’s orbit, always in earshot, always ready to step into place at her side with a file, a pen, and a cup of coffee (or something stronger). She misses it, the steady pull of something bright, the purpose in every synchronized motion.
And Nick - well, she’d hate him even if he wasn’t constantly blocking her every move, but it just makes the transition more jarring. He’s slimy - Alex’s word, but Kara seized it gratefully. Slimy and spiteful and always there when she needed him not to be.
Like right now. “Snapper wants those transcriptions by 3:00,” he drawls from her doorway (Kara loves her office but it had certainly not gotten her off to a good start with her cubicled colleagues), and she jumps. Closing her eyes in frustration, she shakes her head and tunes out the wail of sirens that had distracted her from Nick’s sudden appearance. “You should probably get on that, Ms. 120 words-per-minute.”
“And you should probably mind your own business,” Kara snaps, whirling around and bracing her hands on the desk in front of her. (James and Winn had been astonished the first time they saw her react to Nick like this, but she’d given up after a week of relentless cheer and good faith gestures. It’s a giddy feeling, in a way: not caring what he thinks of her, not putting up with his crap. She thinks Cat would be proud.)
Cat. Kara knows better than anyone that her boss has the sharpest eye and keenest mind of anyone in National City. She hadn’t realized, though, just how much that sharp eye had overlooked - unexplained absences and odd smells and occasionally wet hair. It was a kindness that had gone unnoticed and unacknowledged, and it makes Kara burn a little with shame.
Nick offers no such kindness. “I’m just passing along the message,” he says snippily, “it’s my interview you’re transcribing, after all -”
Kara marches past him without a word, ignoring his protests as she heads for the elevator and from there the roof. She’ll deal with his questions after she’s saved the day.
***
It’s a barely-there byline, shoved to the back of the magazine where the article spills over from page twenty-six and crammed next to a garish ad for beachwear. Additional reporting by Kara Danvers.
“It’s not a big deal,” she pictures Kara saying modestly. She’d bite the side of her lip and tilt her head down, maybe twist her foot to the side like a first grader, but her eyes would give her away like they so often do. Wide, bright, and eager - that damn gaze haunts Cat even now, especially now, that it’s missing in her day-to-day life.
Cat’s sure that Kara’s friends will celebrate her accomplishment appropriately, with hugs and wide smiles and perhaps dinner or drinks. And while Cat may have been anywhere from vaguely to acutely aware of the goings-on in her assistant’s life, she’s certainly not expected to follow the career trajectory of each junior member of the editorial team, much less pitch stories particularly suited to their individual areas of expertise. Certainly not expected to spend the hours before CatCo Magazine goes to print curled up in her home office, inspecting every word of an otherwise unremarkable article to make sure that it meets every possible standard.
She huffs out a sigh, dropping the final cut of the magazine onto her blanketed lap, and allows a small smile to curl her lips.
It would be strange for her to say something, yes, so she’ll leave the congratulations to the others. But perhaps she’ll leave for work a little early tomorrow, just early enough to make a stop. Perhaps she won’t get to see Kara’s eyes light up at the sight of the magazine - the first one hot from the press, with a sticky note peeking out of page 346 - beside a single cupcake in a box.
She wonders when it became enough to know that the girl will smile, even if it’s not at her.
***
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Cat begins grousing the moment the door opens. She glances up from her phone, barely registering the takeout bags and drink tray precariously held in Kara’s arms before leaning back into the small, well-worn loveseat nestled in the alcove and returning to her email. “But even I have bad ideas on occasion, Kiera. Learn from my mistakes - no glass offices.” She holds out her hand, waiting a beat longer than she normally would before looking back up at the other woman. “My tea?”
“Right!” Kara says, flustered, and drops the food on her desk. “I - how did you know I was getting you lunch?”
“Marian left crying this morning and James came by my office,” Cat replies vaguely, wiggling her fingers impatiently. “He said you were going to the Chinese place. My favorite Chinese place. With my favorite iced green tea.”
“You know I’m not actually your assistant anymore, right?” Kara asks lightly, finally handing it over. It’s in a plastic cup, which Cat normally avoids, but she simply sighs and removes the lid to take a sip of the cold, biting drink.
“Mmm,” Cat hums. “Speaking of mistakes.”
“Yes,” Kara says. “Speaking of mistakes.” She looks pointedly at Cat, who is now eyeing the steam-fogged plastic cover of what looks to be her usual pork dish, and who takes a moment to register what Kara is getting at.
“Oh for heaven’s - fine, Kara, let’s talk about mistakes! Like this couch - only you could take an office with no windows and make me feel like I should be wearing sunglasses.”
Kara narrows her eyes, separating the food and arranging Cat’s on a small tray not unlike the one in her own office. “It’s comfortable,” she defends herself. (Admittedly, it’s a good defense, and Kara knows it. Cat has spent more time than she’s comfortable thinking about on this couch these past several months.) Her smile, until now bitten back and only visible at the edge of her mouth, widens and turns wicked. “Plus, it was free. My sister found it on a curb.”
It’s a very good thing that the tray was still on Kara’s desk, because Cat is up and across the room so quickly that even Supergirl must be proud. “She what?” Cat hisses. “Kara, you let me sit on street furniture?” She’s about two seconds from calling her driver to take her straight home for a shower when she notices that the mirth in Kara’s eyes has only grown. Cat turns still and silent, and is pleased to see the humor drain from Kara’s face.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Grant,” she says nervously. “I was just kidding. I mean, I bought it used, but we cleaned it really well before bringing it here. You can have my chair if you want?” She drums her fingers along the edge of said chair.
Cat draws out the silence out significantly longer than she might have with anyone else. She waits until Kara’s face is several shades paler and her mouth opening again for another rambling round of apologies before she finally rolls her eyes and seats herself in the chair that Kara had offered, gesturing imperiously for the girl to take the couch.
Kara’s sigh of relief is audible, and the laughter once again tugging at her lips as she hands Cat her drink back. Cat narrows her eyes. “Promoting you was definitely a mistake,” she sniffs, pulling the lid off of her lunch and making herself comfortable.
***
Cat’s commencement speech is amazing: smart, witty, and demanding, a soliloquy holding the graduates accountable while lifting them up with her sincere and unfaltering faith. “The world has its superheroes,” she tells them, “but those heroes don’t exist without you, not just as people to be saved but as people worth saving.”
Some nights - nights like this - Kara wishes that her own faith was as unfaltering as Cat’s. Not just her faith in herself (though that needs work too) but her faith in the people she’d dedicated herself to protecting.
“You can save people from a lot of things, Kara,” Alex had told her earlier, “but you can’t save them from themselves, not unless they want to be saved.”
She thinks Alex is right - Krypton was proof of that.
And even if it wasn’t, the three people dead at the hands of a drunk driver with a suspended license certainly is.
She rewinds the speech on YouTube, leaning back against her headboard and wrapping an arm around her knees. “I don’t believe in failure,” Cat says onscreen, voice tinny from the speakers. “Not if you get back up when you’ve fallen down.” She looks beautiful in the long black gown, hair spilling out in loose curls from under the cap. Kara pauses the video as Cat takes a deep breath and looks down at her notes, lips slightly parted.
She traces a finger over the older woman’s pixelated features. Between Cat’s trip to the East Coast and the budget deadline immediately preceding it, she hasn’t seen her in real life for over a week. She’s adjusted, mostly, to not being at her side day in and day out, and she likes their new relationship almost as much as she’s terrified of it, but none of that means she doesn’t miss her.
Leaning forward to rest her head on her knees, she turns her gaze in the direction of the CatCo building. It’s late, nearly midnight, but there’s always a chance that Carter is with his father for the night -
Cat’s office is dark and still across town, a single light on the balcony flickering slightly. Kara refocuses her vision, disappointed - she should have known. Not so long ago, she would have.
Sighing, she switches off the lamp beside her bed and shifts so that she’s lying down. It’s only with the slightest hesitation that she settles her laptop beside her and presses play once more.
***
“Can I ask you something?” Kara asks. Cat rolls over, amused at the hesitant question.
“I would think so,” she replies, stretching contentedly and delighting in the way Kara seems to forget her train of thought in favor of watching Cat’s lazy movements.
“Right,” she finally says after Cat coughs pointedly. “I was just wondering. Um. When did you first - when did you - I mean -”
Cat hates cat puns with a passion, she truly does, but she can’t help herself. “Cat got your tongue?” she drawls, settling more comfortably on her stomach and propping her head up on one hand.
Kara’s blush deepens, and Cat takes pity on her, pulling her forward for a long, slow kiss that ends with Kara half on top of Cat and Cat’s knee hooked up over Kara’s hip. “Well,” she says slowly, “if you’re asking when I first realized I was attracted to you -” Kara scowls, but doesn’t interject - “I honestly don’t know.” She brushes Kara’s hair back from her face and looks at her intently. “I know I didn’t admit it to myself until after I promoted you,” she clarifies, “but there was certainly something building before then.”
“Tell me about it,” Kara grumbles, leaning down to kiss Cat again. Cat trails one hand up her long, smooth back and the other one down it, holding her possessively against her.
“Mmmm,” she finally agrees. “Even when I realized what was happening, it’s not like I thought it was anything I’d ever be able to act on.” They had been over this much, at least, since the night three weeks ago when Cat had in her tipsy wisdom decided to ask for Kara’s thoughts on an article about vibrators for their upcoming Women’s issue. In retrospect, she’s not entirely sure that she hadn’t intended for them to end up naked.
In the light of day, however, she had panicked, as had Kara. The week that followed had not been a good one for CatCo’s employees and shareholders. Or, for that matter, for the staff at Noonan’s, three senators and their staffs, Nigel Kippling and his now-ruined jacket, and her son.
“I’m glad you did,” Kara tells her, smiling that stupid, lovely smile. Cat barely stops herself from kissing it away - she can’t get in the habit of that now, or she’ll never break it.
“Yes, well,” she says instead, her own smile fading as she threads her fingers through Kara’s hair. Kara herself is something of a habit that she had long ago declared off limits, and look where that had gotten her - lying naked in her own bed underneath a superhero thirty years her junior.
I don’t understand why you have to make everything so difficult for yourself, Catherine.
Kara kisses away her mother’s voice in her head. “Hey,” she murmurs. “I’m glad you did.”
And God help her, but so is Cat. “Me too,” she agrees, tabling the other thoughts for later. “And,” she adds, a wicked smirk twisting her lips, “I’m very glad I promoted you.” She pulls lightly at Kara’s hair, eyes flickering down to her lips and then back up as the other woman settles more fully between her legs.
“Yeah?” Kara asks breathlessly. “Why’s that?”
“Because,” Cat replies, voice turning low and rough, “I could never let my assistant be on top.”