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Kara had supposed she wouldn’t be Cat’s assistant forever, that eventually, she’d graduate and move into some other role, but it was weirder than she expected it would be. She hadn’t quite decided what her new job was going to be yet, but she had her own office and that was exciting. It had no windows, which was a little weird, and she was suddenly not within view of the perpetual motion machine that was Cat Grant anymore, which was even weirder. She’d been used to breathing the same air and jumping to attend to her every cough and raised eyebrow, and now… there was none of that sensory input. She had a quiet little space with a door that closed and she could sit and have her own thoughts and they weren’t going to be interrupted by Cat clearing her throat and Kara instinctively knowing that because it was getting on noon, it meant she needed to order Cat’s lettuce wrap.
Was it wrong that she missed it a little? Or maybe more than a little?
Nevertheless, the office was modest, but it was a blank canvas and the idea that she was able to make it hers was exciting and a little daunting.
The thing was, she realized, she was something of a blank canvas herself. She hadn’t formally declared what her new job was going to be, but she continued coming into work, helping with odd things here and there.
“Kara,” Cat would say to her (and the sound of Cat using her correct name wouldn’t stop feeling weird in her ears for a while), “what are you doing?”
And she’d reply that she was helping whoever with whatever to see if she was interested in incorporating that into her new job. And Cat would smirk and say nothing, and Kara felt that Cat was staring right into her. Something had changed between them since Myriad, but she hadn’t quite worked out what.
Literally saving the world had given her a new confidence to step outside herself and she realized, she wasn’t just a blank canvas professionally, but personally too. Those cardigans from JC Penney’s were as much a costume as the supersuit, in a different way. They were the wardrobe of a girl hiding her potential.
So, she stepped in to help with some of Kelly’s old duties. Kelly from fashion, the one person she’d not been able to save in all the horrors of Myriad. It seemed only right. So, a wheeled clothing rack appeared in her tiny, still undecorated office, holding approximately six buttloads of clothing samples that needed to be sorted. Cat appeared in the doorway, watching her for a few minutes as she thumbed through the clothes. “See anything you like?” she asked, and Kara couldn’t quite tell if there was sarcasm in her voice.
She paused, holding a pair of overalls that had a bit of something sparkly woven into the black denim. “I … I was just trying to help out.”
Cat tsked quietly. “Yes, that’s true. I believe that. But…” She stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. “...you’re also looking for something.” She moved a little closer to Kara and thumbed the garment in Kara’s hands, frowning at its muted sparkle. “You’re looking for your identity in these clothes, aren’t you.”
Kara swallowed. She nodded slowly.
Cat smiled, a little grin that Kara had seen before, easing across her lips. “Hm. Of course.” She cast a glance up and down at what Kara was wearing, and then turned to the rack, flipping through it at lightning speed. “You are…” she decided as she flipped, “...a ten, I think.” She pulled a charcoal grey something off of the rack, and Kara saw that it was a one-piece suit dress with subtle embroidered patterning around the collar, cuffs, and hem. That texture would be wonderful for her to worry at and fiddle with when her senses were feeling a little deprived and upside-down. She took it from Cat’s hands.
“Well, put it on,” Cat urged.
Kara paused awkwardly. “Now?”
Cat folded her arms. “Is there a problem?”
Kara hesitated. “Sorry, I’m… I’m just shy,” she decided. It was easier to say that than say that she wasn’t sure she wanted the first time Cat saw her unclothed to happen here, like this.
Cat scoffed. “It’s only me, Kara. And you have no windows.”
“Yeah, I know,” Kara answered, resigned. She began unbuttoning her cardigan. “I’m beginning to suspect that this was a supply closet you cleaned out for me.”
“It was,” Cat retorted, her eyes lingering on kara’s fingers as she unbuttoned. “You don’t even know what your job is and you think you deserve windows?”
Kara didn’t say anything else for a minute. She slipped the sweater off and dropped it on the desk behind her. After another awkward hesitation, she liberated the one large button on her skirt and slipped out of that as well. She could hear Cat’s heartbeat pick up a little at this, though she kept her gaze even. She was momentarily glad that Cat didn’t have super hearing.
After a moment, she slipped out of the tank top she’d been wearing underneath the sweater, and was standing in her depressingly functional underwear, in the middle of her still-bare office. She hastily found the dress, tugged it off of the hanger, and began to fumble at the buttons. After watching her struggle for a moment, Cat gently took the dress, cast another glance up and down the length of Kara’s body, and then laid it on Kara’s desk and unbuttoned the buttons one by one. She handed it back to Kara.
“Thanks,” Kara said weakly, “I’ve got butterfingers today or something.”
She was so grateful to slide into the dress and cover herself up again, but then Cat’s hands were working the buttons closed before she had a chance to do it herself. She started at the lapels, her finger popping the ebony button through the hole. Kara was suddenly terribly, shamefully aware of Cat’s nearness and how close those slender fingers were to Kara’s cleavage. She bit her lip. Cat looked up and caught her gaze, and for a moment those green eyes seemed like they were full of smoke too. But then Cat looked back down and attended to her task. Her hands worked swiftly down the front of the dress and Kara held her breath as Cat buttoned the buttons all the way down to her hem.
Cat stepped back. “Not bad,” she decided.
She whipped out her phone without warning, and took a picture. She showed it to Kara.
Kara barely recognized herself in that thing. In a good way. “Cat…” she began. But she didn’t know what else to say.
Cat stepped closer and her fingers began to fiddle and worry the patterning on the dress, first on the lapels, which made Kara’s breath halt somewhere in her chest, then the cuffs. “How does it feel to know you can look like that?” she asked with deliberate weight on each syllable. Cat’s fingers were brushing along the cuffs, brushing the inside of her wrists.
Kara had told herself all along that what she felt for Cat Grant was just admiration, but at this moment, with Cat’s fingers brushing over her wrists in a way that they never had before, Kara felt a warmth between her legs that made her press her thighs together. At this moment, she realized that she had to stop kidding herself. That James, Winn, and Adam had all just been another species of cardigan sweater. She wanted Cat Grant.
“I … I like it.” The understatement of the year. She’d wear a paper bag if it got Cat this close to her, touching her like this.
“You look like an adult,” Cat went on, and looked up again, locking eyes with Kara. Her fingers still fiddled with the cuffs.
“Good,” Kara whispered. Her heart was banging around in her chest like it was trying to get out, and she could hear Cat’s was too. This was ridiculous. All Cat was doing was touching her cuffs, but suddenly the sexual tension between them was so thick, Kara was afraid she’d become wetter than spring.
“You’re a blank slate, Kara,” Cat continued softly.
Write on me, she wanted to say, but didn’t.
Cat licked her lips and inched further into Kara’s space. Kara stumbled back a half step and found herself sitting against the side of her desk, and Cat’s face was suddenly eye level. Cat’s hands went back to fiddling with the lapel. Her eyes dropped down to where the lapels met, where they framed just the slightest suggestion of cleavage. Kara wanted to die.
“You’re a blank slate, but you have incredible… potential.” Her fingers wandered up and stroked Kara’s shoulder. Her fingers brushed the side of Kara’s neck, briefly. Kara closed her eyes. She couldn’t even speak. “I want you … to work out what it is you want, Kara. Who you are. Because so far … I like what I see.”
Kara could feel Cat’s warm breath on her lips. She took a shaky breath. “Cat,” she whispered plaintively. It was impossible. How could she be getting this aroused from a little collar-fiddling?
“But,” Cat finished, “you’re a work in progress.” She pushed in closer, so that they were chest to chest. One hand settled on Kara’s thigh, the pad of her thumb edging near the inside of it. Kara was gone. Done. She was wet and wanted Cat to do something to her. But she was out of luck. “Show me what you’ve got, Kara. I’m really–” She squeezed Kara’s thigh, and Kara let out a little involuntary whimper. “–eager to see.”
Kara opened her eyes and found Cat’s face right there. She wanted to kiss her, but she knew she wasn’t ready. But she would be.
Cat smirked and pulled away. “Have fun playing dressup, Kara. See if Walter has some Ferragamos you could try out with that.” She breezed out of the office.
Kara closed the door behind her and locked it. She sat down at the desk, and, sliding her hand up her skirt, was suddenly very, very glad that this office had no windows.