"What do you see when your soulmate is far away from you, daddy?" Kitty asks after the last page of Rapunzel turns, the hardcover shutting with a soft thump. Her father chuckles.
"I don't see anything, sweetheart," he says, Brooklyn accent familiar and comforting. "You mother and I don't see through each other's eyes like Rapunzel and Phillip. When I'm near her – not far away – my feelings are…amplified. It's very strange – you know how daddy feels, yeah?"
"Like there's a blanket over your head. So when you're near mom, you can feel properly?"
"I already feel properly," he corrects her, placing Rapunzel on the side-table. "The blanket just goes away. Everything gets very personal all of a sudden – my emotions get stronger and my physical feeling gets more sensitive. It was scary the first time it happened. Your mother was the same as me, but a little different and she always tried to run when it started."
"And you chased her! Like Cinderella and Prince Florian!" Kitty sits up, grinning. "Mommy's always shakes her head when she tells me about it, but it's like what you said to me before, she shakes her head because she thinks it's silly."
"Mmm, yeah," her father gently pushes her off his lap, standing. "Remind me to tell you about the corduroy incident when you're older. Now, my little Kitty-cat, bedtime."
"But dad-"
Cat never had any so-called 'unusual trait' when she was growing up. She wasn't colour-blind, she didn't have any sensitivity or strange tolerance that would disappear when her soulmate was nearby. She was the epitome of normal – and that grated on her. All around her, there were people with identifiable abilities or weaknesses. Only Lois was the same and they hated the world together, for a time, fucking in the privacy of their shared apartment before Lois met Superman and came to understand why she loved the sky so much.
"Being able to fly isn't something you want to be able to do," Cat later tells Carter, when he declares that he wants to fly like Lois Lane. "Lois isn't invulnerable like Superman – if she flies, she has to stay side-by-side with the caped wonder in case she suddenly falls out of the sky. Also, she doesn't have the Kryptonian strength to pull herself out of wind-currents. How do you think she dislocated her shoulder?"
Carter then, of course, gets terrified of flying, through no fault of his own. Cat sometimes wonders what meeting his soulmate would do to him. Being on the spectrum isn't wrong – it makes him Carter and she worries. Her own parents both suffered terribly before making something of it, discovering new methods to cope. To cope. Being soulmates just made their personality disorders…for all her skills and talents, Cat can't describe it properly. She just hopes with all her heart that being autistic isn't something that finding his soulmate will 'fix'.
Kara impresses something in her. Kara knows she hasn't made a difference yet, but she wants to, she wants to find herself and do something good. That's the kind of confidence Cat can do something with. Cat can build a person out of that, or rather, what Kara can build herself out of. She has potential.
Potential is good.
When Leslie attacks and Supergirl comes to her rescue, Cat sees it for the first time. Supergirl is brave, young and determined – much like her assistant. Cat thinks back, later, on all the instances she's seen Supergirl up close and personal and comes to a stark conclusion, one that leaves her strangely confounded.
"I said you had potential. This was not what I had in mind," she mutters to herself at home, Carter in bed and Supergirl's picture on her desktop, staring up at the sky. "Really? I had an alien for an assistant and I didn't notice? Where is my head? Has it fallen down a rabbit-hole?"
It must be fate, however, when she sees a column in The Daily Planet announcing Lois Lane's marriage to Clark Kent.
"Clark Kent? Oh, that fox-" Cat would go on to bemoan the loss of such a fine specimen, but then she glances at her computer screen again, Kara's picture alongside Supergirl's. "Clark Kent. Clark…Kent." Cat has already made up most of her mind before she manages to bring up a picture of Clark's handsome face and Superman's. "No. Now that is unfair." A brief second passes, before Cat then remembers another fun fact. "Kara requested time off work this weekend – by all the Pulitzers I've won, no! Supergirl and Superman are cousins!"
Cat groans, putting her hands on her face.
"I can't believe you, Keira! You went to Lois Lane's wedding? I feel betrayed, Keira, betrayed." Cat shuts her laptop, thoughts running through her mind, ping-ponging back and forth. "Kara went to Lois Lane's wedding. Kara is Supergirl. Clark is Superman. Clark and Lois are soulmates. Kara went to Lois Lane's wedding. Ugh…" Cat glances at her framed photo of Carter on her bedside table. "You know what the worst part is? I can't talk to her about this. I can't confront her in a glorious fury about attending my nemesis' wedding. For all I know, she was just taking some time off, probably with that sister of hers."
Cat goes to shut her eyes, but then she sees the flash of red through her open bedroom window. Sitting up slowly, Cat gets up, stalking over, raising her eyebrows.
"Are you spying on me, Kara?" There's a long, long moment, before Cat glances a bit further up and sees Supergirl floating near the wall, clutching the end of her cape. "Get down to my level. I am not craning my neck any longer."
Supergirl floats down, floating a little outwards, before Cat's unimpressed look has her coming within touching distance.
"You have some explaining to do, Miss-I-Went-To-Lois'-Wedding."
The alien grimaces. "She's really not that bad."
"Oh? Well, I invite her to tell you about the night that she rudely broke up with me, just because she started sharing Superman's power of flight – oh wait, that would be Clark's power of flight, wouldn't it?"
"You and Lois were together?" Is the younger blonde's reply, causing Cat to roll her eyes before she moves backwards, making space.
"Come inside."
"I really shouldn't…" Supergirl says, floating in anyway, lightly touching the ground, eyeing her plush green carpet. "I wouldn't have taken you for green. White, maybe."
"Carter chose it. It reminds him of moss." Cat elaborates, before shutting her window, the cold breeze ruffling her silk chemise.
"Um, before we talk further, I think you have the right to know," Supergirl starts, looking at her awkwardly…pityingly? "Lois, she didn't- she couldn't fly until she made out with him."
It takes a second to process, but then it's like a punch in the gut. "Oh," she breathes, swallowing the lump in her throat. "Do soulmates work differently when it comes to aliens, then?"
"Y-yeah," Supergirl brushes her hair behind her ear nervously, still holding her cape, grip visibly tightening. "Human soulmates find each other through detection of hormones each person puts out. Not all other beings have the glands to detect them. Kryptonians need to, uh…"
"Kiss." Cat gets out, practically forcing the word to leave her mouth. "So you might have difficulty finding them then, yes?"
"Well, actually, we have our own way," she replies, voice light and so full of nerves, Cat wonders at how she hasn't had some sort of panic-attack yet. "We get…there's a nicer word for it in Kryptonese, but translated, I suppose 'obsessed' would be appropriate."
"Oh?" Cat blinks, thinking back to earlier times, when Clark Kent would look at Lois with recognisable longing. There had been so many bets on whether Lois would snark about it in front of him – he'd always turned red so easily – but she never did. She was strangely nice about it, too nice now that Cat thinks about it.
The "I'm sorry" interrupts her thoughts.
"What?" She snaps back to the present, frowning at Supergirl.
"I'm sorry," the other woman repeats, "I've been lying to you for so long about who I am, what I am. I suppose you don't really want an alien on your staff."
"No," Cat says, before taking in her expression and belatedly realising it could be seen as an agreement. "Of course, I mean, I do want you on my staff, Kara. Don't think otherwise. You're brilliant and I've never had a better assistant."
The tension in Kara's body visibly drops, her cape twisting back into position as she drops it, breathing a sigh of relief. "Thank-you."
"Think nothing of it," Cat shakes her head, before coming forwards. "One thing though, before you leave. You might call it idle curiosity." Kara's eyes widen as she steps into her personal space. "Also, getting back at Lois."
"What?" Kara asks, voice worried.
Cat eyes her assistant, thinking of the implications. "This doesn't have to mean anything, but I would like to kiss you, Kara, if you don't mind." Kara stares. Cat swallows. "You don't have to. It doesn't need to mean anything at all-"
"Yes."
Cat pauses, "Yes?"
Kara surprises her then, hands coming up to her jaw, cradling it gently as their lips touch. Her lips are smooth and Cat somehow isn't surprised by the taste of sugar as her tongue dips into her mouth. Cat clutches her skirt, nails digging into the skin below, but then Kara pulls away, squeaking and putting a hand over her mouth. Cat flushes at the pink smudge she's left behind before discreetly wiping around her own bottom lip.
"That was very…lovely, Kara."
"I- ah-" Kara steps back sharply, looking to the window. "I gotta go! There- there's a cat up a tree!" Before Cat has any chance to reply to her frankly strange comment, Kara rushes to the window, opening it again and disappearing into the night.
"What in the blazes…" Cat looks out the window, nonplussed. Shaking her head, she goes to her bathroom, trying not to think about…what just happened and how she had liked it far more than she should. It meant nothing and anyway, what harm can one kiss do other than inspire far more awkwardness at the office? I hate awkwardness.
Cat grimaces at herself in her mirror.
Dammit.
Surprisingly, nothing comes of it. Kara vaguely avoids her for half the morning before getting back into the swing of things as Cat deliberately shows no sign of recognition for what happened the evening before. She makes no fun comment about any 'super' abilities Kara has or act any different from normal.
Normal.
It's just a normal day.
The day after that is normal and the day after that, too. The whole week is normal, average. Cat doesn't even complain at Kara's strange absences, because unlike what other people might think, she can deal without having an assistant – having Kara just makes it less stressful, both on Cat and on the people that interact with her rather than her metaphorical door-guard. No-one gets into her office without going through Kara, unless it's an emergency or they're a shareholder and even then, Kara is a very willing and able wall.
It's only when she's having a meeting with said shareholders that something goes wrong.
"-numbers are down, there's been no incident with Supergirl and any of her enemies for so long-"
"And do you want there to be incidents?" Cat interrupts, voice icy. "Do you want Supergirl to get into fights with over-powered humans and aliens with vendettas? Every time Supergirl gets into a giant fight with one of them, the city suffers side-effects. People die, property is damaged and The Tribune covers more than just its poster-girl, might I remind you!" It's then that Cat feels an itch in her eyes, a terrible heat, just as the shareholders back-peddle, getting up and stumbling back.
"Oh my god!"
"Cat," James is the only one to step forwards, stepping in between her and the man who had gained her ire. "Look to the window, to somewhere that doesn't have another building in the way."
Cat doesn't know why he's telling her this, but she squeezes her eyes shut as the itch turns into pain and by god it hurts. Am I having an aneurysm? She grips James' arm, gasping.
"What the hell is this?" She hisses, before opening her eyes – red light pouring out and burning her carpet before she feels her energy drain beyond measure, the pain in her eyes disappearing as she falls unconscious.
Cat wakes to a concrete ceiling and an ache in her back from a crappy hospital bed. Blinking rapidly, squinting at the bright lighting, Cat looks around, glass windows revealing a busy base full of busy people, all with at least one handgun on their person.
"You're awake," comes a relieved voice and Cat snaps her gaze right, finding Kara in her superhero-getup on a chair. "Thank Rao. They didn't know when or if you would-"
"What happened to me?" Cat interrupts, "Where am I? How did I get here?"
"You- you used heat vision without meaning to. It drained your energy and vitamin D levels very, very quickly. James called out to me using his superwatch so I didn't come as Kara Danvers to help out and I brought you here, to the DEO. It's the city base, where my sister was recently transferred. It's new and shiny."
"New and shiny," Cat repeats, before shaking her head in disbelief, "How could I use heat vision, Kara? It's impossible!"
"Not…no, it's not," Kara breathes in deeply, "You're able to use Solar Flare the same way that Lois can fly."
Once again, Kara renders Cat momentarily speechless, her shock causing her to open and close her mouth, words unable to come to her mouth.
"You've been under for a while," Kara continues, "And by a while, I mean a month. Carter's father refused to come home from his cruise to me and my family have been looking after him. My mom came from Midvale and everything. I've been taking a break from Supergirl-ing as well, a bit. I've been busy making sure CatCo's okay. The major shareholders after you wanted their piece, while you were gone, but someone made it a protocol that I take over in your absence." She gives Cat a look, before continuing. "It's been stressful, but I've been doing most of the work for years. It's more signing things off that makes me nervous. I really, really hope that I did a good job."
"I trust you," Cat mumbles, sitting up and spreading her hands on the starched covers of the bed. "I always trusted you."
"…even when I mucked up with Adam?"
"Even then." Cat swallows before repeating, "I always trusted you. The fact that you never truly trusted me isn't the issue I have right now though – just that you didn't tell me. I could have been angry anywhere. I could have been pissed at home, I could have hurt Carter with this. When did you realise we were soulmates?"
"When we kissed," Kara replies, guilt drenching her voice. "I know what could have happened. I thought about it- I still think about it, weeks later."
"Good," Cat says sharply, before sucking in a breath. "I need to see my son, please."
"I'll go get him, if that's alright."
"Yes, just- just go. Get him, then leave."
"Daddy?" Kitty tugs on her father's jacket, "Daddy, where are you going?"
"Away, sweetheart. Everything is too much right now. Daddy is sick, very sick and I'm making your mother unhappy. She's heartbroken, kiddo."
Kitty looks up at him with confusion, not understanding the liquid sheen on his eyes or the shake in his hands.
"You don't look sick. When are you coming back?"
"I'm not coming back."
"But…" Kitty tugs on his jacket again, "but you have to come back! You have to- you have to tell me about the colder incident!"
"Corduroy incident," he croaks out, shaking his head and pushing her away roughly. "Get Katherine to tell you. Now get back to bed, Catherine Grant, before I wallop your hide."
Cat never saw her father after he left and she never found out what the corduroy incident was. Her mother told her when he died and she cried for what seemed like forever. It wouldn't be until she went to college that she would find his grave, having not attended his funeral nor been told where it was, in any case. She cried again when she found the marble headstone and cried again when Adam was born, because she didn't have the courage to name him after his grandfather. It would only be later, after Cat finally found some peace that she would name her son Carter.
"Why?" Katherine asks, when she visits them in hospital, just like last time – except, this time, not telling Cat that she had a future, that Adam wouldn't let her have that future.
"Because I loved him and I miss him," Cat replies, "Do you?"
Katherine doesn't reply for a long, long, long moment. When she does, Cat isn't even hurt by her no. Katherine had never felt things like Cat, just like Carter didn't – but at least Carter had tried. Even though Cat shouldn't feel bitter that Katherine didn't try harder – because it's not her fault, it's just how her brain works, what makes Katherine Grant Katherine Grant – she does. When her son Carter turns out to be autistic too, Cat makes sure he knows he's loved by both of them, but that he also knows that not everyone can show it or feel it as strongly as others might.
Somehow, even without Cat's assurances, Carter knows that Kara loves him, that Eliza adores him and that Alex will always help him with his homework. He trusts them.
They haven't told him that Kara's his mother's soulmate and he trusts them anyway.
"Can I kiss you?"
Kara pauses, side-eyeing her as she places Cat's tray of sushi down in front of her. Cat shifts in her seat slightly, aligning herself with her former-assistant.
"I suppose so," Kara leans down, pressing her lips to Cat's softly. Cat reaches up, holding her in place with one hand as she takes Kara's forgotten glasses from her desk, placing them on her gently as she pulls away. "Oh, thank-you."
"Ricky was looking at you funny earlier."
"Robin was looking at me funny earlier because he saw the beginning of my tattoo. He confronted me in the break-room. Thanks for that, too." Kara plucks at the blue summer dress lightly. "The back is lower than I'm used to and I can't wear my cardigan because it's too hot."
"I like your arms," Cat smirks, running a nail down her bicep. "Everyone else in the office likes them too."
Kara shakes her head, standing up straight. "You're supposed to be possessive."
"I am – that's what this is for," Cat reaches into her lead-lined drawer, a present from Alex, taking out a box. Kara freezes as Cat spins on her chair, crossing her ankles lightly, opening the box and sliding it across the edge of her desk. "Will-"
"Yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes-" Kara squeals, twirling excitedly before leaning down and kissing her enthusiastically. Cat smiles into the kiss as James' camera goes off from where he stands in front of her sofa, his work spread across the table in a faux-meeting style. Kara immediately looks over to her friend, eyes widening. "You knew?"
"I had an inkling," James replies, "May I be the first to offer my congratulations."
"Alex beat you to the punch," Cat reveals as Kara takes the Krypton-style wedding bracelet from the velvet box. "She made it for me. It's an alloy from Krypton – from the top of your pod."
"Oh Rao, really? I knew that something had happened to it, but I didn't think it had been broken on purpose." Kara puts it on, blinking away tears. "Do you have one too?"
"I thought I'd leave the decision to you," Cat smirks, "If that means you have to propose to me, too, well then – I'd be very impressed."