Work Text:
“Yes?” Cat snaps, and Rao is it good to hear her voice.
“Miss Cat? I mean,” Kara dissolves into giggles. This is such a good idea. Where’s Alex so she can tell Kara what a good idea this is? “Miss Grant?”
“It took you long enough, Kara,” Cat continues and oh her voice, so pretty and so tired. “I was beginning to think you really hated me after all.”
"I could never!” Kara gasps. Can Cat see her? How does she make the little faces on her phone move? Harry Potter never has this problem. Little punk. “How can I hate you? I miss you so much, it’s like Reese’s stopped making... those things.”
“Peanut butter cups?” Cat sounds like she’s smiling. She has such a good smile. Kara can see it even without the phone face. Or x-ray vision. “Who knew I was as important as one of your five major food groups?”
“I have... ten,” Kara counts on her fingers. Oh. Phone on the floor. She falls off the chair picking it up. Floor is fine, floor is cool, and her face is so warm.
“Kara? Kara?” Cat sounds worried. “Are you hurt?”
“I can’t get hurt,” Kara laughs with the phone mushed between her cheek and the floor.
“Kara if this is your big coming out party, with a dose of ‘puny humans’ thrown in, can it wait until morning?”
“Coming out of what?” Kara doesn’t understand. Cat doesn’t sound happy anymore. She sounds like when she wants to fire someone and Kara gives her five good reasons why not. Then nobody gets fired but Cat is so disappointed for the rest of the day.
“Call me after the hangover,” Cat sighs, and then her pretty voice is gone.
Later Winn’s face is on floor too, only he thinks Kara should get up now. Stupid Winn. Nobody asked him.
“What happened to your phone?” He asks, but Kara doesn’t know. She kicks the pieces and wow, standing is hard. “I’ll get you a new one,” he promises, and then Kara has a phone again and she’s just going to nap in one of the bunks in the cell. Mon-El can sleep on the floor. He’s a jerk anyway.
How’s the hangover? Is what Kara wakes up to. That phone is almost toast too, from the fear that grips her. What the hell did she say last night, to Cat of all people?
Sorry Miss Grant she replies, typing slowly because the tapping hurts her already fragile head. It won’t happen again.
Don’t be an idiot is Cat’s charming response. You know where I am if you need me.
Only Kara doesn’t know where she is, apart from a few news snippets and tweets from Cat’s new project. The woman herself is roaming the world like a ghost, until the paparazzi bump into her in Sevilla, or she has dinner outside in Budapest.
Kara’s been reduced to watching clips of the talk show on CatTube when missing her gets too much, but that’s public Cat. That’s the Cat Grant the world gets to see, polished and perfect and hard in ways that Kara knows but chooses to overlook. The Cat she misses - the one she’s not doing much better at living without - is chaotic and thoughtful and kind . The closest public record of that are Cat’s broadcasts about Supergirl, one extolling her virtue and the other still too painful for Kara to watch.
There are showers to be had, so Kara jams her phone in her pocket and rolls off the bed. Maybe kicking Mon-El’s ass like it’s never been kicked will help.
Alex kicks her out eventually, and Kara goes to the bar looking for Maggie, who has the good sense to be nowhere in sight. The nice bartender that J’onn wants to be Martian friends with smiles nervously at Kara, offering up one of the drinks from the other night without Kara having to ask.
“You should be careful,” M'gann warns. “There’s a code here, amongst the aliens who can hide in plain sight. But that loyalty might not extend to the alien who gets them locked up.”
“I’m just here-”
“Whatever you say, Supergirl.” M'gann waves away Kara’s fumbling for cash. “And no one told me, there’s only one or two types of mind I can’t read. You can tell your boyfriend I wish Daxamites were one of them.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Kara groans, sipping her drink this time. It tastes like the honey they had on Krypton, with something sharp underneath it. “Can I have another? But you have to let me pay. You did a good thing for J’onn. I heard all about it.”
“One more,” M'gann concedes. “You don’t have much in the way of tolerance.”
“I’ll be fine.” Kara downs the rest of her first glass. Just one step closer to being like everyone else.
“It’s Supergirl.” Wow, the CatCo building is tall. Kara should maybe not have flown up here. But calling Cat from Catco, that’s the right thing. “And no, I’m not borrowing Kara’s phone. This is... it’s coming out day!”
“That was months ago,” Cat argues. “I helped with Carter’s school project on it.”
“My sister is really gay,” Kara keeps going, because she’s never going to get there any other way. “So gay. And she didn’t even know. Do you know why?”
“Because we live in a heteronormative and patriarchal society where any woman claiming not to be attracted to men is treated as a deviant who can’t possibly know her own mind?” Oh. Sassy Cat who sounds like an article in the Economist. This is one of Kara’s favorite Cats.
“Right, that,” Kara nods at the night sky, swaying in the breeze. “Also because I suck. I’m a superpowered attention seeker who likes people looking at her. And Alex didn’t get a minute to be herself because it’s all about me! I suck.”
“Do you?” Cat’s voice is uh oh . Like that day she told Kara she was worthless and Kara didn’t know whether to yell back at her or go hide in the bathroom and... well. Yelling happened. That was good too. “I know a thing or two about selfishness, Kara. And you wouldn’t even make the minor leagues.”
“But you’d win the World Series?” Kara stop, Kara no . “Running off and leaving people, even when they don’t wanna be left?”
“Big girl pants,” Cat reminds her. “Are you done coming out? Some of us have to sleep occasionally.”
“S’for slackers.” Oh, Kara is tired. “I can’t come out in all the ways now. Alex is... she’ll think I’m trying to get the attention. So straight Kara Danvers it is.”
“You’re not straight?” Reporter Cat, sharp Cat, your cousin? Cat who misses nothing. “There’s no quota. Maybe your sister would appreciate the solidarity.” Kara can hear the smirk. “So who’s the lucky woman? I’ve seen you out on the arm of-”
“Lena?” Kara cackles. That is funny . Everybody thinks Kara doesn’t know but Lena is obvious like flashing lights and bad pickup lines, obvious. Kara knows, and Kara likes people thinking she’s pretty, but how could that ever compare? “What happened to not believing everything you read, Cat?”
“There were pictures.” Huffy. Is Cat... no. She can’t be jealous.
“I like...” Kara starts, but she can’t do it. She chickens out and ooh fried chicken would be so good right now . “I like my CEOs a little more experienced?”
“Kara-”
“Bye!” She puts her phone away and swoops down off the roof. Too close. Way too close. And damn, it is hard not to smack into buildings after two glasses of that cider.
At 2am it should only be the DEO, so Kara answers without looking.
“Where am I needed, Alex?” She answers, sitting up in bed.
“That’s a...” Cat’s voice hits Kara like a truck. One that doesn’t just bounce off. “Dangerous question. I can think of a few places I need you.”
“Cat?” Kara forgets to hide behind formality. “Are you okay?”
“Super,” Cat snaps back, but it’s fuzzy around the edges in a way that Kara recognizes as more than a couple of fingers of bourbon. “I have a question. Reporter to reporter. But off the record.”
“If it’s off the record, do you need to be a reporter?” Kara feels her heart start to race. The line sounds different. Cat sounds different. Almost like she’s in... stereo. A blast of x-ray vision and her presence at Kara’s apartment door is confirmed. Wow, everyone is stopping by lately. Kara has never been so popular.
“Open the door,” Cat commands. It’s not even a choice to use superspeed, Kara just complies. “Well, isn’t this the hipster take on Martha Stewart Living I always expected?”
“It’s... are you... um?” Kara can’t find the words.
“Yes, it’s late. Yes, I’m a little tipsy but not all of us need to get drunk for important confrontations,” Cat supplies. “How did you manage that anyway? Or are you just less straight edge than him? I’m sure he implied it wasn’t possible, though.”
“Things have been changing,” Kara settles on, because she’s always been better with secrets that aren’t hers to keep. “I made some new friends, they’ve shown me some new things. I’ve been diving, I guess.”
“I’m glad,” Cat says, and the softness is unexpected. She unties the belt of her stylish coat, shrugging it off and throwing it over the back of Kara’s sofa. “Kara, come sit with me a moment.”
At least, Kara thinks that’s what she said, after the fact. It’s hard to hear or think when presented with Cat in a tight black dress that hits higher on perfect thighs than Kara has seen on her. The champagne colored heels just make those surprisingly long legs seem to go on for miles, and Kara doesn’t so much sit down as she does slightly collapse at Cat’s side.
There is for sure not a straight Danvers sister left in the batch.
“I’m not in the habit of making a fool of myself,” Cat begins, and Kara grabs her own wrist to make sure she doesn’t reach out and touch that shimmering, inviting stretch of thigh right in front of her. She can barely even glance at the dress’s plunging neckline. “But I realized that if you’re getting drunk just to get up the courage to call me, then something isn’t right.”
“Oh, I wasn’t-”
“Are you dating Lena Luthor?”
“Are you only here because you think I am?” Kara challenges right back. She is nobody’s property. “You don’t get to come... pee around me in a circle and then leave again!”
Cat shudders. “That is... off the table, for the record. And not what I’m doing. I’m simply taking my own advice, not to mention being inspired by you again.”
“You are?” Kara wishes she was wearing something more appealing than a tank top and running shorts. Cat looks so elegant, so put together. Her curls fall in perfect arrangement against her collarbone - longer, then - while Kara has settled for a messy bun. They don’t go together at all, on the surface, but that’s never stopped Kara from wanting it all the same.
“Very,” Cat reaches out a finger to trace the neckline of Kara’s tank top. “Inspired.”
Kara nods, and it’s the answer to some kind of question, because before she can speak again Cat’s mouth is on hers. She tastes like good Scotch, and kisses like Kara might float away at any moment. Honestly, she might.
“This is what you needed?” Kara asks between kisses, running her fingers through Cat’s hair. “Because I do. I need this, and if it’s just tonight, then I’ll learn to deal, but Cat-”
“We’ll see,” Cat reassures. “No pressure. You can’t always be five steps ahead and saving us from ourselves. But have you ever known me to half-ass something?”
“No,” Kara admits. “But speaking of...” She kisses Cat again, letting her hands wander to grab Cat’s perfect ass, before tipping her back on the sofa. “I can’t believe you’re here,” Kara whispers, and for a mortifying moment she thinks she’s going to cry.
Cat strokes Kara’s cheek with her thumb, as though wiping away the tears that don’t quite fall. “Believe it,” she orders, firm in her convictions even though her cheeks are flushed and she’s pressed between Kara and the soft cushions of her couch. “I’m glad you drunk dialled me.”
“I’ve got better plans for my fingers tonight.” Kara of a month ago would have covered her mouth if she’d ever been able to say those words. But this Kara knows what it’s like to finally get what she never thought she could, and just like a cape or the ability to save the people she loves, it makes her brave. “Now, where were we?”
“Right here,” Cat reminds her, tapping her lips with one finger. “Right here.”