Kara had known James Olson to be a lot of things, clumsy was not one of them.
Mr. Smooth-talking, know what to say and when to say it, photo-taking right-hand-man of not one but two renowned superheroes, clumsy? Never. But here he was, fumbling loudly with the keys in the dark.
Albeit, he was doing so one-handedly. His other hand was preoccupied, wrapped gingerly around her waist. Despite the circumstances, Kara gave a small grin. How many times had she fantasized a scene similar to this one—pressed against James Olson, breathless, him hanging on to her for dear life, as they eagerly rushed into her dark apartment?
Of course, that fantasy was remarkably more romantic than the scene she was involved in now.
"Damn it!" James cursed, quietly. He had given up on trying to single out the key to the front door, and instead was unceremoniously jamming each individual key into the lock, one at a time. "Why don't you just have a skeleton key?" He calmed his voice, referring to the innumerable amount of Catco keys crammed onto to one ring. "Or keep your house and work keys separate—aha!" The tumblers in the lock finally gave way and the handle turned.
He led her inside, swinging the door behind them but never turning around to see if it actually shut.
"Candles—fridge." She muttered as he dragged her past the kitchen and to the couch, navigating around furniture in the dark. "Ah!" she hissed as he lowered her down.
"Keep pressure," James ordered, replacing her hand where his had been holding the wadded up cloth to an open wound on her side. "What?" he registered she had said something.
She repeated through gritted teeth, "Candles. Fridge."
Even in the darkness, she could feel his blank stare, "…You keep candles in the refrigerator?"
Kara had never known James to be stupid either, so she could not suppress a pained snort, "There are candles on top of the fridge, James."
"Oh." He said absently, and got up to find them, taking his phone back out of his pocket to try and convince it to power on. Again.
Kara let her small smile fade, sinking deeper into the folds of the sofa, and momentarily taking her mind off the pain she was in and onto the real problem, and when it started an hour ago. The blackout was incredibly strange—even for National City.
...Earlier...
She had been at CatCo when it happened, putting in some late hours to make up for some much needed work the DEO was siphoning off of her. The crime scene was quiet, so Supergirl was quietly sitting at her desk, typing furiously, when everything had just blinked off—the lights, her computer, and later she would discover her cell phone and DEO comms were also, mysteriously, off. James had been late at work, editing tomorrows headline photos of a new Lord Technologies Eco-tech prototype release, when his tablet died and desk lamp went out, and he emerged from his office to see the silhouette of Kara at her desk, scratching her head and toying with her blank-screened cellphone.
"Where's Winn when you need him?" James had joked as Kara stood to make her way over to him.
"At home where any sane person would be at this time of night," Kara flashed her signature cheesy grin, only visible by the light of the moon coming in from the floor-to-ceiling windows.
He shrugged, "Maybe it's a sign, telling us to get the hell out of CatCo." He tried to check his wristwatch for the time, only to find its digital face blank. He tapped it absentmindedly, "Huh. That's strange."
"Tell me about it, my cell won't turn on either. Can't wait to see what Ms. Grant's reaction to me not responding to her last text will be."
"Kara?" James had made his way towards the window and looked out at the city below them.
As she approached the window her jaw dropped a little.
Blackness. Every light, every street lamp, everything was off.
"Not a cloud in the sky…I wonder what knocked the power out."
"Out of everything," he added, nonchalantly waving his dead tablet, "You might want to get out on the street. People are bound to panic."
She gave a nod and turned on her heel, fingers already undoing the buttons of her blouse to reveal a familiar blue underneath, "It's quiet." She stopped dead in her tracks.
"Well it's one a.m. on a Wednesday—"
"No, James, I mean it's quiet. I can't hear what's going on outside." He noticed a familiar squint on the outline of her face—X-ray vision—as she spun in a circle where she stood, hands still at second to last button of her blouse.
Wordlessly, she grabbed a tin of paperclips from a nearby desk and unwound a single clip, and pressed it firmly to the tip of her finger, "Ow! Uh-oh." She turned back to James, "My powers' out, too…"
