Work Text:
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a woman in possession of plans for a very important date, must be in want of a quiet day, Cat thinks wryly to herself as she slashes a red pen through some truly terrible prose in a review of a local theater’s production of Sense and Sensibility.
It’s been six months to the day since Kara showed up on her doorstep a few nights after Cat returned to National City. Five months and 28 days since Cat showed up at Kara’s demanding to know why Kara had kissed her, yelled at her for leaving, then flown off without another word. (There had, apparently, been a Supergirl emergency, and Cat was pleased to see that they’re no longer skirting around the fact that Cat knows, has known, for quite some time now.) Five months and 27 days since Cat first cooked dinner for Kara and they agreed to take things slow, see if they could make it work before even thinking about going public. (Incidentally, it has also been five months and 27 days since they first slept together. But, already half-undressed on Cat’s couch, they’d agreed that the many years of dancing around the attraction between them meant that this could still count as taking things slow.)
Tonight, finally, they’re meant to make things public. Cat’s publicist has been warned. HR had been informed once Cat took over at CatCo again. There was a pancake breakfast with Carter, who seemed not at all surprised, and several nights spent with Alex and a bottle of scotch as she slowly warmed to Cat and the idea of their relationship. The dinner with Eliza went surprisingly well, and the dinner with Catharine was, unsurprisingly, awful.
So obviously the universe is conspiring against Cat.
Her usual driver had come down with whatever bug his wife had the week before, which meant Cat was stuck with someone new wearing a too-strong cologne who didn’t think to avoid Liberty during morning rush hour, leaving her with a room temperature latte and no time before her 9am to look at her inbox and see the courtesy note giving her an hour’s notice before a breaking news story—some former CatCo board member she’d never gotten along with was apparently indicted for embezzlement—that left her in meetings with her lawyers and CatCo’s PR team for hours and hours. And now, she’s stuck sitting with this absolute mess of an entertainment section on her desk practically dripping with red ink hours before it needs to go to the printer.
A last-minute meeting with the section editor leads to a last-minute firing of their theater reviewer, who had apparently missed the first half of the play and assumed he had seen enough productions over the years to bullshit his way through a review.
By the time Cat looks back up at the clock, it’s already five minutes after the time she was meant to meet Kara at the restaurant. Cursing under her breath, Cat pulls out her phone and dials Kara’s number, drumming her fingers against the desk as she waits for her to answer.
“Hey, Cat!”
“Kara,” Cat sighs. “I’m sorry, I—”
“Don’t worry, Aaliyah already gave me the heads up about the entertainment section stuff.”
Aaliyah, whose restaurant reviews had all been just as polished as they should have been at this point in the process. Cat wonders if it would be considered some kind of favoritism if she gave her girlfriend’s friend a promotion… Perhaps something to run by Pam.
“Why don’t I get something to go and bring it back to your place?”
Cat glances at her computer, at the inbox number still ticking upward. “I really should get more work done.”
“I bet you’d work even faster with a good dinner and comfortable clothes and”—Kara drops her voice a bit, and Cat can hear the din of the restaurant swelling behind her during the pause—“a reward waiting for you in bed when you’re done.”
“I suppose I can’t say no to an offer like that…”
---
Ultimately, they chalk it up to the universe doing them a favor. That Friday had turned out to be a slow news day, and Cat is sure their outing would have been blown out of proportion, turned into something scandalous and sordid—even more so than she fears they’ll already make it—to fill more space in the weekend papers.
So they simply reschedule, choose a new restaurant and new outfits—coordinated to work well together without approaching anything like an inadvertent matching incident—and wait until then.
That next Friday finds Cat alone at a new Japanese-Italian fusion restaurant, scrolling through breaking news updates on Supergirl’s latest battle as she and an alien nearly double her size go soaring across the skies. It’s close enough to the restaurant that the manager evacuates them all, making his sincere apologies and promising to honor their reservations on a future evening. Just as well, Cat decides, that she didn’t need to deal with headlines wondering who had stood up the Queen of All Media. Instead, she goes home and obsessively checks the news until her phone lights up with a message from Alex letting her know that Kara is okay but out for the evening for a bit of sun bed therapy.
The following week a ransomware attack at Lord Technologies has both CatCo and the DEO working around the clock with no time for things like public appearances and scheduled dates.
Carter gets hurt in gym class the following week, and Cat spends a long afternoon scowling at teachers and threatening school administrators, then several days working part-time from home and tending to Carter, even though he insists that a sprained ankle really isn’t the worst thing, especially not when it gets him out of PE for the next month or so.
Before Cat and Kara know it, they’re closer to their eight-month anniversary than their seventh and still no closer to a date that someone might actually see and recognize as such.
Kara tries to keep Cat in a good mood by reminding her that, really, an extra few weeks without all the media scrutiny isn’t the worst thing in the world, but the waiting makes Cat anxious. It leaves her convinced that any time she so much as touches Kara they’ll be photographed and splashed all over the trashiest of tabloids instead of getting to tell the story on their own terms.
Of course, after Cat receives the third in a string of what she would call flattering and Kara calls “overly familiar” comments on her Instagram from an old friend—an actor having his moment in the spotlight with the upcoming release of some new action film she has absolutely no interest in seeing—Kara decides the time for waiting is over. Not that Kara ever admits to being jealous of Jake. No, she just doodles on his picture in magazine ads and talks loudly about how obviously photoshopped his muscles are—“you’d think if they were doing that much CGI, they might give him more than four abs,” Cat hears her huffing to Alex one night.
(The pouting is almost cute, though Cat decides Kara really doesn’t need to hear about the time she and Jake got more than a little tipsy and made out at Cannes back when he was still doing indie films and she was still covering the entertainment beat. At the very least, Kara doesn’t need to know just now. Maybe in a few months when Jake’s face is no longer plastered on every other billboard in National City. Cat can paper over a lot of things with the right spin, but she really doesn’t feel up to the PR nightmare that would be trying to explain away Supergirl’s getting caught hovering midair drawing a swirling mustache and unibrow on Jake’s face.)
---
“Tonight,” Kara announces with little fanfare one Saturday afternoon after Jake comments, “Gorgeous as ever, Cat,” with a little flame emoji, under a particularly flattering photo Kara had taken of Cat out on her balcony.
“What about tonight?”
“We’re having a date. No CatCo. No Supergirl. You and me, out on a date, showing the stupid paparazzi guys that you’re not dating Jake or Josh or Justin or anyone else.”
Cat’s lips quirk up into a smile. “If I didn’t know any better I might think you were jealous.”
“I’m not. Why would I be? All of my abs are real.”
Cat hums, taking one step forward, then another, until her fingers are teasing at the thin cotton of Kara’s shirt. “That they are.”
Kara’s eyes flutter closed at the feeling of Cat’s nails on her skin, but a moment later, she shakes herself out of it and gently pulls Cat’s wrist away. “No, wait, gotta focus. You fired someone recently, right?”
Cat’s brow furrows. “Yes. Why?”
“I have a plan to make sure we can get away.”
“Oh?”
“I’m gonna tell the DEO that there’s a credible threat from a disgruntled former employee, and I need to get you out of National City for the night. They should remember Siobhan and Leslie enough not to question it.”
Cat grimaces, not bothering to point out some of the other, more mundane threats that have cropped up over the years. She’d done what she had to do, and she doesn’t regret it—can’t regret it—but Leslie…well, Cat had always had a bit of a soft spot for her. Enough to make her wish that she’d done things differently, mentored her instead of indulging her…
Trying to push those thoughts from her mind, Cat looks up at Kara. “Out of National City?”
Kara grins and nods. “Yup. Made us reservations for a little getaway in one of those beach towns all the celebrities go to when they want to show off a new partner.”
“My, you really have thought of everything, haven’t you?”
“Except timing. Because we actually should have left, like, five minutes ago.” She flashes Cat an overly wide smile that barely hides the panic behind it—Cat recalls seeing it a few times back when Kara had worked for her. “But it’s fine, I’ve got it!” In an instant, Kara is gone in a blur of motion. A few moments later, two small suitcases appear in front of Cat, then Kara is back in a nicer outfit with car keys in hand. “Ready?”
“I can be by the time you load the car and get me a coffee for the road.”
Kara gives a little salute, and soon enough, Cat finds herself in the passenger’s seat watching as National City slowly disappears behind them.
---
“Is this person even real?” Kara asks, letting out a loud huff and inadvertently chilling the air around them.
Cat shivers and turns on the seat warmer, summer heat be damned. “Yes, Kara. Now I believe that’s far more than your allotted 20 questions, so are you ready to give up on this infernal game?”
“Absolutely not! She’s famous. A woman. In politics. In Europe. But literally none of the women I named. And you aren’t sure that I’d get along with her.”
“Right.”
“Is she at the local level? Like, the Leslie Knope of Cyprus?”
Cat snorts and shakes her head. “No, definitely not.”
“Cat,” Kara whines. “How is this so hard? How do you know so many people? Have you slept with her?”
“No.”
“Think she’d be open to it?”
Cat rolls her eyes and glances over at the exit signs. Another hour in the car still to go. She wonders if Kara will be any closer by then. “There were enough rumors about her to suggest perhaps.”
Kara’s brow furrows as she taps her fingers along the steering wheel.
“Kara, I know I’ve told you this a dozen times, but you are missing a hugely important question to narrow this down. I can only hope your interview skills are better than this.”
“Hey! You know they are.”
“I’m beginning to doubt.”
“Okay, c’mon, give me a hint.”
Beyond done with the game, Cat doesn’t even aim for subtle as she turns to Kara and says, “She’s dead. Long dead..”
“No! No way, that’s no fair! History lessons aren’t allowed in car games.”
“Well then maybe we shouldn’t be playing car games at all.”
“How else are we supposed to pass the time?”
“Just talking! Like regular people!” Fishing her phone out of her purse again, Cat checks to see if her publicist has gotten back to her about the new plan. “By the way, it was Marie Antoinette.”
“I could have gotten that!”
Cat lets out a little hum. “Sure.”
“I could have!”
“Okay.”
“Clearly we’re gonna have to play another round now so that I get a fair chance.”
Cat’s eyes flash as she turns to glare at Kara, who looks only slightly abashed but lets the topic drop.
A few minutes later Kara clears her throat. “You undersold yourself earlier.”
“How?”
“I bet she totally would’ve slept with you.”
Cat snorts. “Well, you just let me know when you build a time machine so we can find out.”
The car grows oddly silent for a moment before Kara shakes her head, muttering under her breath, “Probably shouldn’t try to convince Sara…”
---
That evening, walking down the sidewalk to Nicolo’s, Cat clasps Kara’s hand in her own and focuses all of her attention on Kara, lets Kara be the one to smile and nod at the cameras with that sunny charm of hers. (Cat’s too jaded, too accustomed to shooting the cameras the same bland half-smile that she just knows someone will read too much into, assuming it’s about Kara and not about the show she’s forced to put on for the paparazzi.) There’s a moment where Kara stumbles—barely, just a patch of sand spilling out onto the sidewalk that’s enough to have her sandal slipping—and Cat drops Kara’s hand to curl an arm around her. Kara pauses, turns in Cat’s arms and beams at her, blue eyes catching and sparkling with the last rays of sunlight. And just like that, with the flash of a dozen shutters, Cat knows it’s the shot they’ll use. She lets her smile gentle, presses a soft kiss to Kara’s lips, then takes her hand once more and leads her inside.
It isn’t until they’re seated at their table, surrounded by too many new celebrity couples to count, that Cat feels herself really relax. Nicolo’s might be the spot to be seen on a new someone’s arm, but the owner has a strict policy of keeping the paparazzi off the premises of the restaurant itself. A quick glimpse around is enough to reveal shoulders losing their tension, jackets coming off, ties loosening, as if they’ve all just closed the front door behind them.
“Think we’re good?” Kara asks.
“Mm, we should be.” Cat glances at her phone, spots a message with little more than a thumbs up from her publicist. “A rather perfect plan on your part.”
Kara grins. “It was my turn to pick the movies this week, so Alex and I might have watched a lot of romcoms for inspiration.”
“So long as they have a happy ending, I suppose.”
“You-know-who is off duty for the weekend, so I can promise lots of happy endings,” Kara whispers with a suggestive, overly dramatic wiggle of her eyebrows.
Cat bites her lip to keep from laughing, contenting herself with a half-hearted roll of her eyes. “I didn’t know they awarded Pulitzers for overdone puns these days.”
“Ouch, Cat, here I thought we were supposed to be out playing the part of the new, adoring couple still in their honeymoon stage.”
“You’ll recall I divorced one of my ex-husbands on our honeymoon.”
“Yeah, well he was a total—”
“Good evening, ladies!” Cat flashes a bland smile back at their waiter as he introduces himself and tries not to snort at the way Kara practically drools as Jonathan reads out the daily specials. Cat asks him for a few minutes before they order, knowing how much thought Kara likes to be able to give to her food before making a final decision.
Dinner goes smoothly, and Cat lets herself bask in the ease of a night without email and CatCo and Supergirl emergencies, relaxing into the quasi-anonymity of a room full of Hollywood celebrities who care as little about the fact that Rob Lowe is at the bar as they do that Cat Grant is a few tables over. It’s not as if they’ve stopped caring for one another or working at their relationship, but it strikes her just how long it’s been since they had a night where they could simply be—Cat and Kara, not CatCo’s CEO and Supergirl. It sends a pang of longing through her, and before she knows it, she’s holding Kara’s hand between her own, a thousand ideas on the tip of her tongue.
“Come with me, we’ll get dessert somewhere else.” All she knows is that her happiness, the joy of this little weekend away, can no longer bear to be contained by the four walls of Nicolo’s.
“Um, sure, yeah.” Kara nods and watches as Cat flags down their waiter and hands off her credit card, impatiently tapping her fingers while they wait for him to return. They leave through the backdoor—Cat unwilling to manage the slow, measured walk and careful, staged smiles a second time.
“There’s an ice cream parlor I took Carter to the last time I was here. I thought you might like to get something from there? Maybe walk on the beach. Do…anything, really.”
Kara smiles over at her, something soft and warm in it as she curls an arm around Cat’s waist and presses a kiss to her temple. “It’s nice, isn’t it?” Kara whispers.
“It is.”
“Obviously I wouldn’t want to abandon my job or my…night job, but it’s nice to have a break that isn’t spent in a coma or a sun bed or something,” she laughs. “Just spending time with you, feeling like we really could do anything.”
Cat ignores the pang of fear that always comes with reminders of the risks Kara faces day in and day out, contenting herself with tangling her fingers with Kara’s and squeezing as hard as she can, holding fast to what they have for however long they have it. “I know it’s only been a day so far, but Nation City hasn’t collapsed without us yet. Perhaps we could find time for us, for breaks, a little more regularly.”
“Yeah?”
Cat shrugs. “I’ve always managed to do it with Carter. It’s about making the time.”
Kara nods and gives her hand a much gentler squeeze. “Maybe he could come with us next time?”
Cat smiles up at Kara, gently pulling her around a corner to keep them heading in the right direction for dessert. “I’m sure he’d love that. Though he may drag us out to some godforsaken cornfield to visit Grinnell or something. Did you know he’s already talking about visiting colleges? I think he had some plan to get his father to take him on a few tours at local schools this weekend.”
“Of course he is,” Kara laughs. “I was so…confused by how all that stuff worked when I got here.”
Cat glances over at her. “Oh?” They’ve talked plenty at this point about Krypton and Kara’s rocky transition to life on Earth, about the time stuck in the Phantom Zone and the nightmares she still has sometimes, reliving those vasty, empty years of fear and loss and utter nothingness. “Did the guilds take care of training and that sort of thing?”
“Sort of.” And then Kara is off and running, chatting all the way to the ice cream parlor about what kind of things were predetermined by your household and your parents, and the other things that offered more choice, about how being in a high-ranking family like hers actually constricted her freedom in ways she was grateful to find Earth did not require, even as she missed the stability at times.
With two ice cream cones in hand—one with a single scoop of a dark chocolate sorbet, and one stacked higher than the staff recommended because Kara couldn’t decide between all of the flavors she’d sampled—they head down to the beach. By the time they’re done eating, Kara has convinced Cat to take off her shoes and wander down to the wet sand and shallow water, the waves cool against her skin before the tide pulls them back to the sea once more.
Shoes in hand, they walk together through the surf in the general direction of the small house Kara rented for them. Without all the light pollution of National City, the stars shine brighter, and the reflection of the moon—nearly full by now—glimmers and dances in the waves.
“I know…I know it’s only been eight months, and we’re only now going public with things, but I just want you to know that I’m really, really happy. That being with you makes me really happy, Cat.”
Cat glances over at Kara, her eyes sparkling with the kind of honesty and openness that Cat had long ago given up on finding in life. Her hair catches in the light ocean breeze, and Cat reaches over to tuck a loose strand behind her ear, fingers lingering on Kara’s cheek. “You make me feel lighter than I have in a very long time, like I have a chance at the kind of happiness I only ever thought I’d have with Carter.”
Kara leans in and presses an achingly gentle kiss to Cat’s lips, then another. “Well, here’s to our future, yeah? As many years as we can get of working on this and trying to claim as much happiness as we can get.”
Ignoring the tears she can feel prickling at the corners of her eyes, Cat nudges Kara’s shoulder with her own. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you might have overdosed on romcoms with that much sappy sweetness.”
Kara grins. “Probably all the sugar from my ice cream.”
“Ate so much it’s leaking out your pores now?”
“Something like that. God knows Eliza tried to warn me about the need for a balanced diet, and now here I am, as sappy as a maple tree.”
Cat’s nose wrinkles. “Eww.”
“Yeah, you’re right, that sounded funnier in my head. Let’s rewind to where I was being super smooth in telling you how great you are and how good we are together.”
“Too late,” Cat tosses over her shoulder, half-laughing around the words. “Mood’s officially ruined. Guess we’ll just have to go home and watch old Law and Order reruns and fall asleep during the commercials.” The last word is cut off in a shriek as she’s lifted into the air, suddenly finding herself cradled in Kara’s strong arms.
“Luckily you have your very own superhero at your service here to save the mood.” She winks down at Cat. “Can’t have a night with no interruptions and no one else around go to waste on reruns.”
“Strong as these arms are, I think I’ll need a little more convincing…”
She’s rewarded with a long kiss that leaves her more than a little grateful not to be worrying about trivial things like standing on legs that now feel like jello.
“Better?” Kara asks.
“Much. Now take me to bed. I think I remember something about making each other very, very happy.”