The fact of the matter is that Kara is no longer Cat's assistant. But she has been, for almost three years, and Kara Danvers is not the kind of person who fails to keep in contact with people she knows, however tenuously and fraught the connection may be. As a consequence, she is one of the first people to know there's a fancy-dress fundraiser - technically, an 'embodiment of what has, could and will be' in the form of what only narrowly managed to avoid being a masquerade, which is fancy talk for a dress up party that just so happens to raise an obscene amount of money - in the works to cover the cost of repairing the latest alien damage to National City. The fact that most of the damage is, for once, due to shoddy construction rather than any alien body-slamming is completely beside the point. No one is turning down the excuse to party on someone else's dime and feel good while doing so.
Everyone who is anyone is attending, from Cat Grant, recently returned to National City, to Maxwell Lord, which pretty much covers the spectrum of human existence, in Kara's humble and totally unbiased opinion.
Kara expects to tag along as Cat's assistant, despite the fact that she's been promoted – her latest hire lasted the better part of two weeks, an improvement of over twenty percent - if she isn't assigned to write an article on what wore who worst by Snapper. (She can't believe she's finally got to the stage where he willingly assigns her articles. Admittedly the articles she is assigned tend to be rather mundane since Lillian Luthor is in jail and there aren't random explosions every other week anymore, but at least she doesn't have to find them herself. She's also got a semi regular contribution to the food section of the Tribune, and has more restaurants reviewed than ever before, since that's the only way to get Lena to eat not-kale.)
She'll probably be informed, either way, about three hours before she's supposed to show up. If the rumours she's hearing about companies involved are true, there may be call for Supergirl to appear. Hank is always so smug when he gets to wear the skirt.
At least this event isn't explicitly Supergirl themed, but she's sure to hear a few rather pointed remarks from Cat regardless.
Lena blindsides her two weeks beforehand, with potstickers. They're from three of the best restaurants – for potstickers, at least - in National City. She smells them from two floors away, so their appearance isn't all that unexpected, and Lena appears in CatCo often enough to give any self respecting assistant fits, (Jess, being Jess, has the florist on speed dial) so her presence isn't a surprise. It wouldn't even be the combination of her two favourite things – sans kale, a development Kara doesn't mind in the slightest. She's surprised to be asked to attend as Lena's ... friend? Date? Non boring, non judgmental person? Kara can't really tell, because Lena's biting her lip and looking up at her through her eyelashes, and Rao – if that Fluffy stuck up a tree again?
(Alex is the worst. She says it's a date. She also throws a box at Kara's head for being so oblivious, but that's okay because it's filled with Easter eggs, and it's another week and a half before they go on sale, and it's free chocolate. Alex is the best.)
(Cat just smirks and turns her attention to the younger Lance. Sara smirks. Kara leaves before they can do more ... smirking.)
Lena also asks her to help decide on a dress to wear. Well, almost. She turns up at CatCo, bites her lip at her, looked at her with those eyes and Kara has to reconstruct what she'd agreed to afterwards, because Rao, those eyes should be illegal. The pen was surprisingly busy afterwards too. (Lucy is there when she has to reschedule tandem flight training with Alex. Alura was a Judicator. Kara knows what well hidden lawyer-y amusement looks like. She is also well acquainted with Pam's barely hidden glee when she drags Alex away to fill out forms AD357(creative misappropriation of DEO equipment and materials, the Danvers version), SG11(unauthorised Supergirl activities), and Pam's favourite, form AD23, (otherwise known to filing staff as we don't have a form for that yet but give me ten minutes, Danvers, another Alex Danvers exclusive.) And the glee in Vasquez's Ma'am is less well hidden than strictly necessary.)
Lena, as it turns out, has a lot of dresses. Not party dresses, although the thought of those is enough to make Kara fry eggs with her cheeks alone, these are in a different league od dressery altogether. They're full on period ball gowns, with embroidery, skirts and waistcoat things that aren't corsets but kind of look like them and all. From what she can see, Lena' closet could comfortably fit at least three football teams. If they left Alex's exotic weapons collection out, most of the DEO could squeeze in for a weekend. It's the sort of closet that probably emerges in Narnia, with possible exits in Themersra and the TARDIS.
Kara may or may not suddenly be a lot more interested in the clothing choices of National City's elite. One might say the panicle of National City's elite. And Earth history. And the Tudor period. Full of innovation, the Tudors. Agricultural, political, religious ... and dresses. Dresses ... Lena's dresses. Lena's dresses that Lena's going to be wearing. In front of her. Oh Rao. Kara is fast becoming a connoisseur of medieval garments. She likes them. Especially on Lena.
It doesn't end there. If it had – well, Kara's grown quite used to becoming a flustered mess around Lena, something Lena seems to enjoy. Lucy says its boarding school thing. Modelling the options for Kara, Lena's accent changes to something that's almost British, or what Kara thinks it British, from her bingewatches of Downton Abbey with Alex. It holds old world connotations, aristocratic, heavy with history and with just a tinge of formality to it that brings the old houses of Krypton to mind.
It drives Kara to distraction. Kara's distraction causes a sizable delay in proceedings, because Lena seems to think a distracted Kara is distracting, and then goes on to prove it. It turns out that a distracted Kara distracting Lena has the same effect as a distracted Lena distracting Kara, and that they get very little dress appraisal done while investigating distractions.
Repeatedly. Which ends up ruining no less than three of the dresses when they trip over the hems. Kara can't quite act contrite about the fact, once they've finished untangling themselves, because as good as Lena looks in all the dresses, there's only so much food she can go without. Even if Lena is a lovely snack.
For her own outfit, she goes to Winn. It takes a while to get the concept across – yes, she wants the S which-is-not-an-S, how many times does she have to explain it, and no, she doesn't want red, or yellow - because he, unlike Alex, doesn't have helpfully Black Mercy provided visuals to base his work on. They settle on a compromise where she provides sketches, lets him poke at her with needles and helps to pick out the fabrics. He takes care of the rest.
Kara shows up to the ball - she'll call a mango a mango, and whatever it says on the invitations, this is a full blown ball, with at least three people that she knows of showing up at the door in horse drawn carriages - in full formal Kryptonian garb, not that she expects anyone will recognise it as such, except maybe Alex.
Miss Grant certainly makes note of the exotic design, but smirks and says nothing as she descends on an unfortunate politician who has aspirations to run for office. Defund local schools, would he?
As emboldened as she is, she nearly swallows her tongue when Lena appears at the top of the stairs in red and gold like a much more attractive Iron Man. She's a vision. A vision of what, exactly, Kara wouldn't be able to say without a lot of stammering and turning red enough to paint a still life exclusively centred on tomatoes, but ...
It's like the visual translation of the first time she tasted a potsticker, or the feeling of freedom she gets floating beneath the sun, weightless and energized and buoyant, or a lot like that time when Aunt Astra punched her in the face, but not painful, in a good way, or -
It takes an inconspicuously applied elbow to her back to snap her out of her daze. It's a work of art, that elbow. Vasquez is proud of that elbow. Perfectly aimed, with just the right amount of force to break her out of her spell without damaging anything vital, and out of the line of sight of everyone who isn't hiding behind the potted plants. She didn't specialise in communications for nothing.
Alex has a similar reaction. Lucy has to grab her glass before she spills her drink on herself, unobtrusively jabbing her under the ribs to bring her back to herself, turning to make a sweep of their surroundings as she does so. Blackmail is always useful, but not when every man and his dog has access to it. Cat catches her eye and with a glance, Lucy lets herself relax. It's taken care of. Now all that's left to do is ...
"Damn, Danvers, I can't believe I ever thought you were straight."
"I - what? No, I – pffft."