Chapter Text
Kara actually flinched as one Katherine Grant continued to berate her daughter in her own office. Kara had never had the pleasure up until a few days ago when she'd actually spoke with the matriarch about her flight plans to National City. Initially Kara had assumed it was to visit even if only for a few hours at a time with her daughter like Eliza did with her whenever she was in town. Given her short responses over the phone and her current behavior now Kara wondered honestly why Cat even bothered with a woman who claimed to be a mother but was instead the biggest monster Kara had encountered.
And that was saying a lot all things considered.
Kara heard the break in the glass of her tablet as she squeezed it, letting out a sigh through her nose at how she would have to have the IT department replace yet another one for her. She cut her eyes back up to the back of Katherine's head as she continued berating her daughter while Cat stood there and took every ounce of it. Kara saw the weight pile on Cat's shoulders with every word like stones and felt something snap in her chest when she actually saw Cat flinch.
“ENOUGH!” Her voice was loud enough to shake the screens on the wall behind her boss. Making the other two women jump, Cat looked at her wide eyed while Katherine made a slow, deliberate turn to regard Kara.
“Well, I see some people just don't know their place.” She looked back to Cat. “Clearly your influence over the girl.”
“Mother” Cat warned though as Katherine looked back at Kara once more, it was evident she didn't feel any sense of threat from either of them.
Until Kara actually stepped into her personal space. “You're an absolute atrocity of a mother.” Kara actually growled and she squared up to her full height feeling the muscles in her body grow tense as if she were facing some alien being as Supergirl.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You, are not a mother. You're a bully and inherently an intellectual coward if you think that you have more class, station and talent than your daughter does and I don't care how many books you've written or awards you've won.”
“Keira.” Cat spoke, but didn't move, afraid her mother would turn on her, though suddenly she was more afraid Katherine was going to do something worse to Kara as she stepped right up toe to toe with her younger assistant.
“How dare you.” Katherine hissed, looking at Kara like she was a bug.
“No, how dare you. Anyone can write a book, especially if they have years to work on it and no doubt bully and threaten their publishers to give them extensions because they can't be bothered.” Kara edged closer. “Your daughter is incredible, everything she's built, by herself I might add. How much work and effort she puts into every, single, second of every day. You can't even be bothered to show up unless it's for others to worship you.”
Katherine took a breath to respond and Kara cut her off.
“And trust me, you're not being worshiped, you're being placated like some washed up old has been so someone can ride your coat tails or get an endorsement to further their own careers.” Kara flung her ruined tablet aside, leaving it to bounce on the couch as Katherine sneered at her. “Your daughter is the only one I've seen genuinely worshiped, and you're not even worthy of the grit on the bottom of her shoes”
Cat let out a shout, seeing her mother rear back with an all too painfully familiar motion, the resounding slap of her hand across Kara's face was louder than even she recalled from her youth as she rounded her desk only to come up short.
Kara for her merit didn't even budge and Katherine was holding her hand as if she had broke it, taking a half step back from the younger woman when she took a full step forward.
“You're just her assistant, paid to kiss her ass and get her coffee.”
“That's where you're wrong you lying, hypocritical, egotistical drain of oxygen.” Kara continued to back the older woman up until the couch caught the back of her legs and forced her to sit and actually appear fearful as she stared up at Kara with wide eyes, still holding her hand.
“That's my girlfriend.” Kara spat causing Cat to falter as she started to edge closer, feeling her whole body seize at that lie. “Or might have been tonight after our date.” Kara actually leaned down, eyes flashing dangerously as she pinned Katherine in place. “Thanks to you, she's going to exhaust herself in her work to try and bleach your existence from her today. Then she's going to go home and be a real example of a loving, generous, self-sacrificing mother that I've seen her be with her son. And don't think that has anything to do with you and how you raised her. She learned that all on her own and it's one of the things I -love- about her.”
Katherine made to stand and Kara actually pushed her back down by her shoulders. “No. You listen, hear me very carefully. Don't even think for one second that any of that is going to ruin any intention I have towards your daughter. I'd wait a millennia for her, and I'm going to do my job and make sure her day is the best one she could have despite you being here for a few scant hours. Then I'm going to try and salvage her night if she'll let me.”
Kara was practically shaking and could easily her Katherine's heart pounding hard against her chest. “And I promise you, you'll never see her or your grandson until you can prove you're actually worthy of them. Cause remember I'm in charge of getting your bony ass here in -her- city.”
Cat's hand barely touched her shoulder before Kara straightened away and turned on her, only to feel the entire weight of the past few moments slam into her full force. Her eyes went wide as Cat stared at her with a look Kara couldn't read which only served to frighten her even more. Cat swallowed visibly, her hand still trembling as she again reached for Kara, letting her see her hand as one would a frightened animal before she curled her touch around her assistant's forearm.
“Sorry, I couldn't. The things she was saying. I-” Kara tried to find the words, the explanation and Cat just continued to stare at her.
Katherine took the opportunity then to rise, gathering her things as quickly as possible. “You'll be hearing from my lawyer.”
Kara almost turned but the pressure of Cat's grip on her forearm halted her motions, she pulled gently then putting Kara behind her as she stared her mother down. “Not before mine.” She watched her mother pause, still holding her hand with its opposite.
“You wouldn't.”
“Kara get your things.” Kara didn't have to be told twice, she slipped past Cat, grabbing her tablet and notepad from the couch before making her way to the door, taking a small ounce of pleasure as Katherine actually gave her a wide birth until she was clear of the double doors.
“You assaulted her mother.” Cat pressed, a hand resting on her hip to keep it still. “You don't think I have cameras in here?”
“She provoked me.” Katherine defended, lifting her chin that much higher. Cat looked over her shoulder and out to the main room, Winn and James were already at Kara's side, clearly they had heard something. Given that Winn was actually looking her cheek over made Cat think it was the slap her mother had provided.
“You provoke everyone.” Cat stated, feeling some of her resolve slip as Kara made herself scarce, her friends in tow, although James did have the sense of mind to check in on her as they passed. Seeing as Cat and her mother were across the office from one another he no doubt assumed she could hold her own.
“Kitty you can't be serious about this, brazen unhinged woman.”
Cat almost had to laugh, her head shaking from side to side. “Unbelievable.”
“It is, I know you like them young, I had assumed it was just to soak up their youth and then throw them out with the trash when you were done.”
“I'm not like you mother, besides, it's not as if that method has done you any favors aside from show everyone how old and worn out you really are.”
“Catherine Isabella Grant.”
“Enough, just enough mother, go home or to your hotel or party or whatever. I have a date I need to concentrate on later.”
“I'll believe that when I see it. I'm not so stupid Kitty, your assistant may be delusionally enamored of you which is already dangerous as it is. For your reputation and your money, stalkers are less of a hassle. But I'd bet my royalties that the two of you aren't dating, have never dated, will never date and she's just using shock tactics to scare me off.”
Cat felt her jaw shift, arms coming to cross under her chest defensively as she glared at her mother. “Is it working?”
Katherine snorted, adjusting the strap of her bag one last time. “Goodbye Kitty, watch your empire.” With a turn Mrs. Grant shouldered her way out of Cat's office, making for her daughter's personal elevator and disappearing with the clunk of the door shutting.
Cat felt her entire body go slack in a wave with her exhale, so much so that she actually had to maneuver herself to her desk in order to stay upright. Her palms were flat on the cool surface, head bowed and shoulders up as she balanced her weight on it and tried to remember how to breathe.
Her heart was pounding furiously in her ears with enough force to make her chest hurt. Her eyes were locked on the desk and her vision blurred. “What the hell have you gotten yourself into now.” At the sound of her name she startled and spun around, reversing her position almost completely, hands fanned out on her desk as she braced herself on its edge and was again faced with her assistant.
All the fight and passion from earlier in her was gone, even her stature seemed smaller than mere moments ago as she fidgeted with her fingers in front of herself and was barely able to look at the other woman. “Are you alright?” Kara cautioned, her tone was genuine and it made Cat's heart seize as that same protective look from earlier flashed across Kara's eyes for her to see.
She nodded once or twice over, letting out another stutter of a breath and allowing her body to relax further against the lip of her desk. She kept her hands at her sides, fingers itching to move but she knew they were safer on that cold, unforgiving surface. She ran over every little detail of Kara's statements to her mother, feeling a small secret part of her flutter around her torso with excitement at the prospect.
However the larger part of herself , the part she'd been fighting against for months now, the part that made excuses about her age, her position, her two divorces and two grown children. The part that worked hard at convincing her it was just a thing of lust that she felt for Kara, nothing real, or substantial. The part that argued right now that she wasn't worthy and sounded frighteningly like her mother was trying to convince her to stop this now. That part was starting to overwhelm her.
“I hope you don't have plans tonight.” Cat managed, surprising not only Kara but that voice inside of her as well. Until it seemed to latch onto her path of thinking and jumped on the bandwagon in some twisted sense of showing up her mother, even if it wasn't real.
Kara stopped fidgeting, her hands locking together in front of her before she secured them behind her back so as to not give anything away. “I, wh-just uhm. No. Cereal and TV.” Kara winced at her admittance, giving a small shake of her head and swearing internally in Kryptonese at how juvenile that sounded.
Cat huffed out a breath, curling her fingers around the edge of her desk in an almost territorial display. “And you better have a better sense of evening attire than you have for the workplace.”
Kara tipped her head, looking down at her clothes with a small frown before looking back up at Cat curiously. “Uhm-”
“Not to mention have a better grasp of the English language. Because everyone is going to hang your every word.”
“I don't, what do you mean?”
“We're going on a date. You got us into this, I'm going to get us out.”
What neither of them had noticed in that short span of time was how much busier the phones just beyond Cat's office doors seemed to be, in fact ever since Kara had stepped back into Cat's office they seemed to light up one right after the other with no signs of stopping.
Kara's eyes widened and she actually stepped closer, her hands falling to her side. Cat felt herself straighten as her assistant showed no signs of stopping. She felt her heart pick up its pace, not sure what to expect from the other woman, that was until she stepped to the side, bypassing her enough to pause near the far edge of Cat's desk. “Oh my god.”
Cat blinked, wondering now if Kara had even heard her, she twisted off her desk to face the wall coming to stand at the opposite corner just to be safe. Her mouth fell open a second later, hands curling into fists as each station began to cut away from whatever they were covering to a breaking exclusive. She saw her name splashed across the red banners in stark white letters, crawls about her prior dating history, pictures from galas, award shows and excursions from her past filling the screens coupled with one single constant. An atypical image of an anonymous silhouette in the upper corners with the words, 'who is Cat Grant's mystery woman?'
“Turn off the phones.” Cat growled, glancing at Kara before the two of them turned together to look out over the office floor, sending half the personnel scurrying back down behind their cubical walls or out of Cat's eye line completely. “No one answers another call, about me about you about anything.”
When Kara didn't move Cat turned her gaze to her, seething on the spot, she was going to kill her mother. “Keira!” She barked startling the woman into action.
“I'm on it!” She was out the office doors in a rush, already speaking as loud as she could to try and get everyone to comply, relaying the do not disturb code for the phones before rounding her own desk and calling IT in order to route the calls to voicemail or just drop the system entirely on Cat's order.
Kara chanced a glance up at Cat and felt an even larger sense of dread begin to fill her as the woman mouthed. “Pick you up at eight.” Before she turned away to put out more fires at the stunt Cat's mother had just pulled.