Chapter Text
Kara hates days like this. Hates the days when there's an influx of new people. New people, new names to remember, new relationships to struggle with, new people to explain things to. Things like the fact that she's autistic when they see her having a meltdown, or a shutdown, or a burnout. She has a meltdown. It was the first freaking day that the new reporters were at work, and she had a freaking meltdown.
Cat, of course, had been there, soothing her, reassuring her, telling her she loves her, that it's all right, that she'll be okay. But after - after when the whole office is looking at her but she's present enough to know - that's almost just as hard as the meltdown itself. So Kara can't talk, can't explain, because she's been caught off-guard, like a deer in the headlights. And if there's one thing Kara learnt when she left school, it's that adults aren't any kinder than kids.
So she wished she could say she was surprised when she heard: "What's wrong with her?". The voice was one of the new reporters, and she looked at her, brain trying desperately to process the words.
"Excuse me?" Cat asked, her arms still around Kara's body, as if she could protect her girlfriend from anything and everything.
"What's wrong with her?" the girl repeated. The majority of the office that knew Kara was autistic held its breath. They knew what was coming next.
"Get out," Cat hissed.
"I'm sorry?" the girl asked.
"You're fired."
"What for?!" the girl sounded outraged.
"Nothing is wrong with her, you twit!" Cat said, moving away from Kara, who didn't need Cat's anger so close to her right now, because Cat knew, she knew Kara was confused, that Kara needed stability. "She's autistic."
"She has..." the girl trailed off, as though she was afraid to say the word, as if it would summon the devil himself.
"Autism. Spectrum. Disorder," Cat spat viciously. The girl said nothing. "What? Afraid to call it what it is? It's not a disease! It's who she is! And if you think that there's something wrong with people who are autistic, or bipolar, schizophrenic, or have any other kind of disability, then I don't want you working here. There is nothing wrong with people who aren't carbon copies of 'normality'," she air quoted the words, "and if you think there is, I suggest you go to therapy."
The girl's mouth opens and closes like a fish's, and Cat turns, and Cat goes to Kara, and she guides Kara into her office, where they curl up on the couch together, and Kara lets Cat take care of her.