If anyone had asked her what her plans for this evening were just 12 hours ago, Cat might have answered something along the lines of budget reports, or editing layouts. She would never have anticipated that she would be sitting in Kara's, Supergirl's, apartment sipping on surprisingly decent whiskey, and watching Lucy Lane and Scully Danvers play the most competitive game of Mario Kart she had ever witnessed. They'd been getting more competitive with each drink they downed and each race they'd finished since Winn had set up the game.
It was funny, the things that could happen in the aftermath of National City's bi-weekly almost destruction.
She watched as Kara, dropped her controller and flung her hands in the air in frustration, having fallen off the track for the 9th time before completing even one lap. From her position on the floor in front of the couch this resulted in her temporarily blocking the view of Lucy who was sitting behind her.
"Down in front Danvers Junior," Lucy snapped, pushing Kara's head forward with her foot. The action amused Cat, but it also amazed her. Only a few hours ago she had seen Kara break the hand of a mad scientist just by refusing to turn her head when he punched her in the jaw. Now she was bending under Lucy's touch, playing the role of an ordinary human.
"Oh relax, you're first aren't you?" Kara asked, batting the foot away with a grin.
"Well duh, but just 'cause you've given up doesn't mean you should help your loser sister by getting in my way," Lucy said, withdrawing her foot, her eyes never breaking from the screen.
"Kara go eat some pizza," Alex said, aggressively jabbing a button on her controller. "I don't need Lane crying about cheating when I kick her ass."
Kara rolled her eyes but moved to join Cat and, a woman who had only been introduced as Vasquez over at the kitchen counter. So far Cat liked Vasquez. She didn't make an excessive amount of small talk just because they were both sitting out the video game madness, and she had supplied the whiskey Cat was currently enjoying.
"If you were planning to eat any more I'd grab more now," Vasquez said, as Kara approached. "Because Kara will probably inhale it all otherwise." Cat chuckled. She was well aware of how much her ex-assistant could pack away when she thought no one was paying attention. Another little detail that had been given a new light now that she'd confirmed her identity as the city's hero.
"I'm not that bad," Kara said, pouting at the amused looks on Cat and Vasquez's faces.
"Yes you are." Alex and Lucy chorused from the couch. Kara scoffed as she dropped herself in the seat next to Cat. She then pulled a box, that still had a whole pizza inside, in front of her.
"I hope Winn beats both of you."
"Yeah right," Alex snorted, "He's like a lap behind."
"It's called strategy," Winn said. He pressed a button and a squid appeared on both Alex and Lucy's screens, any response they might have had being forgotten as they swore and tried to keep their characters on the road. Kara stifled a chuckle around a mouthful of pizza. Vasquez ignored their antics and poured herself another drink. She held the bottle up to Cat, and topped up Cat's glass at a nod.
Cat probably shouldn't have nodded.
This would be her fifth drink. Or perhaps since Vasquez had never let her glass go empty it was still her first? She wasn't sure, but it had definitely helped her settle into the odd circumstance of joining in on one of Kara's game nights.
Strangely enough, Cat didn't feel as if she would have felt out of place even if Vasquez and her alcohol hadn't been there. Kara had practically dragged her through the door when she had arrived, telling her she was going to beat her at Settlers of Catan so she could brag to Carter. Alex hadn't said much but had handed her the glass she was still drinking from. Lucy had traded small talk and banter with her about Catco. Winn had been nervous around her, but he also seemed nervous around Alex so it didn't cause any tension.
It was nice. Holed up in a studio apartment in a part of town Cat would normally never even allow her town car to stop in. Hanging out with a group of people who were close to half her age. She was enjoying herself.
The thought made her huff a small laugh. As if the universe really needed to show her any more proof of just how much Kara had changed her.
How was it that after two years of working together, and all of the ways Kara had changed her life, that Cat was only just beginning to feel like she was finally getting to know the woman sitting beside her?
Drink in hand, Cat turned in her seat to better look at Kara. To puzzle over the question her whiskey tinged mind had conjured up.
She knew Kara of course. The sunny assistant turned photo editor, with a taste for pumpkin spice lattes, and an inability to not help people. The woman who owned, and worse yet wore more cardigans than the occupants of a retirement village down by the quay, who worked harder than most of Cat's staff combined, and who would light up when offered potstickers or ice cream.
Cat knew Supergirl too. The maiden of steel, righteous and just. Always striving to do what she could for the city she called home, always trying her best to help its inhabitants listen to their better angels. The lost hero. Torn between being angry at the circumstances that had brought her here, and gratefulness for the life she had found. Always fighting to make sure no one else suffered as she had.
But here and now there was something different about her. Sitting her home, in a pair of sweatpants and a tank top, her hair pulled back in a haphazard updo, practically inhaling the food in front of her just as Vasquez had joked she would. Cat let her gaze wander over Kara's body, from her sock clad toes, over feminine curves and the toned muscles of her arms and back to her face.
That's when it struck Cat that Kara wasn't wearing her glasses. She wasn't dressed up as Supergirl, and wasn't wearing the confidence that the suit seemed to instill in her, but she wasn't meek day to day Kara, hiding behind glasses she didn't need, or huddling in a cardigan. She was just existing somewhere between the two, and she was beautiful.
Kara seemed to feel her watching because she paused, still reaching for another slice of a pizza that was already more than half eaten, to meet Cat's gaze. Rather than try to pretend she hadn't been looking Cat just offered a smile, that may have been more of a smirk. Kara smiled back without hesitating. There was a moment when she looked away for a second. When Lucy let out a particularly loud curse and began to mutter something about Alex never staying on top for long. Then after shaking her head at the people on the couch she looked at Cat again. Cat who had never looked away, a smirk still playing at her lips. It earned her another smile before Kara went back to eating her pizza. Maybe it was the alcohol in her system, or maybe it was the lighting, but Cat was sure she could see the slightest tint of pink on the tops of Kara's ears.
"You really are super aren't you," Cat asked. She put her drink down on the counter, her fingers absently circling the rim of the glass.
"I just need a lot more calories than a human, flying burns a lot of energy," Kara said, not picking up on Cat's tone. Cat smiled, shaking her head just a little. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Vasquez leave to join the others by the couch.
She also saw the way she nudged Alex's shoulder, and the smirks they shared. Both knowing and exasperated.
"I'm not talking about your pizza consumption," Cat said, "though that is quite impressive in it's own right. It makes me wonder if your other appetites are just as voracious."
A choking cough from the couch disturbed the moment as both of them turned towards the sound of distress.
"That's what you get for thinking you could stay ahead of me, and eat a pretzel Lane," Alex teased, her eyes firmly on the screen. Lucy however took a moment to give Cat a wide eyed look before returning her attention to the game.
"Shut up Danvers, you haven't even got that far ahead."
Cat couldn't help the smug grin that crept onto her face at Lucy's reaction. She turned back to Kara whose attention was on what was happening on the couch for a half second longer. Just long enough for Cat to scoot her stool a little closer so that her knees just barely brushed against the side of Kara's thigh. If Kara noticed the contact, she didn't let on.
"I was talking about you," Cat continued, as if there had been no interruption. "Even now, sitting here as Kara Danvers, without the suit, you're still every bit the hero."
"I've already told you Cat, I can't be Supergirl all the time, no one could be." A hint of defensiveness entered Kara's posture. The same swirls and fear, pain, and defiance that Cat had seen in her eyes as she had quit her job after the first time revealing her identity, flickering to life in her gaze now. She noted with a small amount of sadness that Kara's reaction didn't surprise her.
Cat reached to her then. Giving Kara's wrist a gentle squeeze.
"Of course not," she said, feeling the tension leave Kara at her words. She kept her hand resting on Kara's wrist. "But it's true. Even just sitting here it's so obvious that you have the heart of a hero."
Kara laughed and shook her head.
"Yeah, I probably look very heroic, in my old sweatpants and stuffing my face with pizza" Kara said, pointedly taking another massive bit of the slice she was holding.
In her periphery Cat could see the way Alex face palmed with her controller, and the sympathetic pat on the shoulder she received from Vasquez before she resumed playing. She also saw the way Lucy and Winn seemed to share a look. It was hard to tell from the angle she was at but she assumed Winn's expression was some kind of horror. Lucy's expression was clearly one of gleeful enjoyment.
"It's your heart Kara," Cat said, pretending not to notice the others, even as she lowed her voice, leaning a little closer as she did so. The hand that had been playing with the rim of her glass fell to her lap, and the other started moving instead. Stroking slowly up and down the length of Kara's forearm.
"Your compassion, your warmth, your strength." Her hand drifted up further, tracing the definition of Kara's bicep. Kara didn't reject the contact, it was almost as if she had yet to notice it. "You could be wearing an old potato sack and they'd still shine through."
The way Lucy had practically shoved Winn off the couch so she could lean in to listen was almost enough to make Cat roll her eyes. She managed to stop herself, only because it would have ruined the moment with Kara. Vasquez was subtler, since she had been standing behind the trio to watch them play, she simply moved closer to end of the couch that was closer to the counter. Alex seemed to be trying to ignore them, but Cat still caught the tiniest turn of her head when she snuck a look at them, curious in spite of herself.
"Your strength especially," Cat said, her fingers now dancing near the joint of Kara's scapula. "Your confidence, the way you move, how much can you lift I wonder." It's meant as a rhetorical. A lead in to an admittedly corny pick up line about Kara being able to pick her up. Instead Kara, sweet oblivious Kara answered.
"Well my record is about a million tons, but I almost died lifting Fort Rozz into space so I probably won't be attempting to break that record." Cat's stomach clenched at the off-handed way Kara admitted to almost dying. Cat had known from they way Kara had come into her office talking about what an honour it had been to work with her that she had been about to take a risk. But she had been back at work the next monday just as bright as ever, it had been easy to assume that whatever had happened hadn't ended up as bad as expected. It hadn't occurred to her how close she might have come to actually losing Kara.
Kara was still talking, something about how her almost death was more to do with flying into space than it was about lifting the weight, so maybe she could try to break the record some time. This time Alex and Lucy are in the background face palming with their controllers, though Lucy's shoulders seem to shake with laughter as well. Vasquez is shaking her head, but clearly holding back laughter so as not to bring Kara's attention to them. Only Winn seems focused on the game, but the blush on what Cat can see of his cheek and neck give him away as listening.
And none of it matters because Cat almost lost Kara, and she had never quite recognized that fact until now. The hand that had been playing around Kara's shoulder, moved up to cup the back of Kara's neck and pull her around to face Cat. With their faces only a few scant inches apart Cat made sure to make eye contact with Kara before she spoke.
"I don't care how much of a hero you are, you do not get to leave me and to go sacrifice yourself," Cat said, eyes scouring Kara's face for reassurance. "Especially not without saying a proper goodbye."
Some lightbulb of realization pinged into life in Kara's eyes in that moment. A soft "oh" passing her lips, as her eyes darted down to look at Cat's own before she looked once again into Cat's eyes. Some small part of Cat's mind registered that they had a very attentive audience, but the intensity that suddenly filled Kara's gaze made anything beyond the two of them seem too hazy to matter.
"I need you, Kara Danvers, you're my hero."
"And you're mine," Kara whispered, drifting closer.
Her lips paused so close to Cat that Cat could feel the way Kara's breath had caught in anticipation, just by the lack of air passing over her own lips. It was Kara's way of asking permission, giving Cat the choice to move back or turn away. She didn't.
She pressed their lips together, in a kiss that was chaste for only a heartbeat before Kara nipped at her lip and she responded by pressing the tip of her tongue probingly against the seam of Kara's lips. Kara allowed her entrance, turning her body to face Cat, pulling her closer as the taste of pizza sauce, and whiskey, and Kara combined and overtook Cat's senses.
Distantly she heard Lucy's whoop of celebration, and Winn's playful, the hero finally realises she got the girl. She heard Vasquez's laughter, and Alex telling them that though it was about damn time, they needed to stop, because ew.
They did stop. Just for a moment. They were smiling too hard not to. Long enough for them both to see the happiness in one another's eyes. Kara's embrace around her softened a little, and she laughed as she peppered Cat with kisses, all over her face. Cat laughed too before catching Kara in another full kiss.
Vasquez and Lucy both let out exaggerated aws, and applause. Alex threw a cushion at them. A beet red Winn, drove his character over the finish line, in first place.
Cat could never have predicted 12 hours that this was where her day would lead her. She didn't think she could have ever predicted it even if she had been given more time to think. But as she stood there, with her arms around Kara as Kara threw a pillow back at her sister, she knew that nothing she could have predicted, or imagined, could ever be better than this.