Author's Note: I'm going to give this threesome a shot, because there isn't nearly enough of it. Let me know what you think. First chapter is a prologue - dialogue to follow.
It dawns harmlessly enough – the affair – though Kara isn't exactly comfortable with the word choice.
Affair. Kara cringes visibly just thinking it. The word feels cheap, dirty, like something scandalous and ill-desired. The connotations paired with the word are about as far from the truth of Kara's reality as she feels that they could be, because the entire thing makes her heart soar above heights even Supergirl has ever risen and flushes her body with a warmth so pervasive that Kara can feel it all the way in her bones. Still, Kara doesn't see it coming, doesn't know Cat's intentions or really even her own; she doesn't know to expect it or even that Cat doesn't actually try to initiate it when she does, especially not in the way that she does, and Kara just doesn't know what else to call it, because the lines are a little bit blurry, at first.
It starts innocently, starts with just a couple of mildly approving sentiments that trigger a reaction inside of Kara both thrilling and bracing, new, low and deep in her belly. It's a frantic swarm of pride and desire and something that Kara thinks feels a little bit like magic, bolstered by every ounce of the vast affection that she's ever harbored for Cat, and the feeling is overwhelming, nice, makes Kara want to seek out more of it. Those few small words teach Kara that she can merit that, from Cat, teach her that she can learn how to inspire them, how to earn more of them, and while she learns, Kara hardly notices that maybe Cat is looking for something in her, too.
All of it starts innocently, harmlessly, but it doesn't start at all until after Cat decides to 'dive,' to leave the home that she has made for herself in National City in favor of deeper waters.
And Kara panics.
Cat Grant is a centric and essential part of Kara's life, here on Earth, and Kara can remember a time without Cat, of course she can, but now that she's known her, now that she's absorbed Cat's light in much the same way as she absorbs that of this planet's sun, Kara can't see how she could ever be expected to thrive again without it. So Kara panics, hides for hours in her apartment while she cries and reminds herself to breathe, just breathe, that it's not goodbye forever– no, it's just until Cat's found whatever it is she's searching for, and why, why can't Cat find it here, in National City? The unwinding questions and devolving thought trails don't help, but Kara doesn't call Alex, doesn't bury herself in a tub of ice cream or turn to the comforts of television for a distraction, because she knows none of that will make this feeling any less bitter or terrible. She just panics. For hours. And cries.
Then Kara steels herself anyway, goes to work the following day and loyally dedicates herself to helping the woman relinquish her legacy to the questionably capable hands of James Olsen. She flourishes in her role as Cat's assistant the same way she's always done, and doesn't even care a little that it's no longer her job to do that, no matter how many times Eve Teschmacher sighs out her frustration and tries to discourage her efforts.
Kara spends days performing her old duties from her new office, gathers the appropriate paperwork and accrues the necessary signatures, frantically arranges, rearranges, rearranges again Cat's schedule to assure that the obligatory, prominent few are bade farewell to avoid any present or future offense to anyone Cat might think to care about later. She sits in on board meetings where stuffy old men and pinched-faced ladies cast wary judgment on every choice Cat has made for her own company in the past decade, watches in ever-present awe as Cat eloquently fends them off and shuts them down with nothing but the power of a few pointed words, and afterward fetches Cat a crisp green salad that makes Cat sigh with pleasure and remark pointedly to Eve that it's the best she's had in months. Kara glows all over with guilty pride, even as she wonders miserably when she will ever have the opportunity to gratify Cat in such a small way again.
It breaks her heart, over and over again, but Kara ignores it as best she can, ostensibly supports Cat's decision in every way that she knows how, and when it's over – when they've signed the last of the documents and Cat's office is overtaken by sports paraphernalia and photos that Kara knows don't belong there – Kara rides with Cat and Carter to the airport. She's selfishly terrified of what comes next and how cavernously deserted she already feels, consumed by fear of what she's going to do without Cat's overpowering presence and advice to guide her forward, but she plasters on a brave face, anyway, and does her best not to cry anymore, because this is what Cat needs right now and Kara could never deny her that, even if she did have that kind of power.
Cat had scoffed and demurred when Kara had first insisted on seeing them off, had outright rejected Kara's request to do so, but Kara had shown up at the door to Cat's condo an hour before Cat's car had arrived and stubbornly refused to leave, carrying the Grants' bags to the trunk just to prove herself useful, one last time.
At the airport, Cat rolls her eyes and flutters a dismissive hand with a weighty, put-upon huff of breath, sharply delivering a couple of insults on Kara's damaging inability to just let go, but Cat does all of that with fond, wet eyes and a foreign little tremor that settles shakily over the pink of her lips. Kara forces a grin through her own tears and waits out the defensive vitriol, coiling her arms around the smaller woman as tight as she dares, despite it.
Cat wraps her arms around Kara's frame, too, squeezing much too closely for even Kara – with all of her insecurities in regard to Cat Grant – to actually believe that the Media Queen is unaffected by their parting, and Kara sighs out a complex noise of crushing relief and desperation that catches in a bed of sun-kissed curls. Kara holds her tight and breathes her in, deep and slow, smells Chanel at her pulse and raspberries in her hair and melds it into memory. She feels Cat's soft skin beneath her fingertips, feels the gentle dip of her flesh beneath Kara's palms, and lingers a second too long just to rejoice in the feel of Cat Grant in her arms, however briefly Kara is privileged to hold her.
When she peels herself away, eyes skirting the tender glance of Cat's green because it shatters her all over and Kara's sure that she can't bear it, Carter tackles into her legs, winding himself around her like a cobra does its prey. She ruffles his hair as he sniffles, combs her fingers through it and kneels down to his level, presses a long kiss into the skin of his forehead before he tucks his nose into the collar of her pastel Oxford. She promises to check in, makes him promise to keep his grades up, swears that she will mail him every article she ever writes as a junior reporter so that he doesn't feel like she's forgotten him, and Kara's sure that she could never.
He's a growing boy and he gets taller every day, Kara thinks, but he is still as sensitive and special as he was when she first met him, and he cares only for a limited number of people. Kara counts as one of them and she knows it, could never forget how he beams at her when he comes to the office, how he grins in triumph when he eventually beats her at Settlers of Catan or the starry-eyed look he casts in Supergirl's direction when she drops by to visit their penthouse, even though Kara is pretty positive that both he and his mother know that they are the same person.
When they walk through security, where Kara can't follow, Cat stalls. It's something Kara has never actually seen Cat do, something that feels bizarre and wrong and only solidifies the feeling mangling at Kara's heart. Cat stalls, stroking her fingers over Kara's shoulder, brushing away a speck of lint that Kara is pretty sure doesn't even exist, and Kara has supervision, so she thinks she'd know.
Cat stalls, and after a long moment practically fit to burst with uncertainty, Cat caringly whispers a quiet, "Thank you, Kara," before she lights the Kryptonian's cheek up with a soft kiss to the corner of her mouth. Kara blushes furiously and stammers, drags the sleeves of her shirt over her palms and squeezes the fabric between her fingers to keep from reaching out and catching Cat's hips in a too-hard grip. She swallows once, hard, does it again when the first try doesn't work right, and offers a quiet, waterlogged reply.
"You were never a trouble, Ms. Grant. Never more than I could handle, at least."
Then Kara is finally allowed to cry – really, truly cry, fat tears and heaving sobs as she crosses her arms over her stomach and holds onto nothing but her own devastation – because Cat spins abruptly on her Jimmy Choos and clicks urgently away, off on a brand new adventure doing Kara can only guess what, far away from National City.
Kara's felt this way before, this fear, this consuming barrage of isolation. It's not like it once was, or it shouldn't be, Kara knows, but it is. It feels the same.
The unfortunate truth is that this feeling, this painfully deep ache of loneliness and loss, lies at the crux of Kara's existence, the very core of her being. Kara loathes to say goodbye, loathes to be alone, remembers it from when she was small. She remembers the parting words of her mother from long ago, the deep, saddened farewell of her father, remembers the terror of her departure and the explosion of her world, her home, kicking her pod off course. Kara remembers years upon years in the darkest parts of space, remembers the place where all of time stands still but Kara's thoughts and fears and feelings race, remembers how genuinely, petrifyingly alone she had been – the last daughter of a once-advanced planet that is now nothing but a vacant hole in the galaxy – and Kara never wants to feel that way again.
But saying goodbye to Cat Grant– it feels the same, even though Kara knows that it shouldn't.
It's three weeks of Snapper Carr's relentless dogging before Kara's first article is published. It's a piece on L-Corp, and while the red nightmare of edits Snapper first returns to her is intimidating, Kara works and works and works some more to smile in the face of his snark and persevere in spite of him.
Lena Luthor is kind, and she is smart and she is sweet, and she takes to Kara in a way that makes the blonde reporter glow with immediate fondness. Lena is poised and elegant, sharp – she's had to be, Kara knows, she is a Luthor after all – but she is also warm and soft and she often smiles at Kara like she is the only one who takes from her words what Lena actually means to say. Kara feels her desire to alter the meaning of the Luthor name in everything that the woman does, doesn't care that as a Super she should probably be wary, because how could she be?
Lena works hard and she is brave, she is willing to do what it takes to achieve her goals despite the abundant scorn of the public, and Kara is endeared to her in a way that is brand new, no matter the warnings Kal-El issues forth when he learns of their frequent contact. Kara doesn't care, wants to help Lena, wants to support her throughout the long journey that inevitably lies ahead, and Kara tries her hardest to impose the notion of change for the better in her article without appearing biased, because Kara truly can't help herself.
Snapper hems and haws, but eventually allows it through to print, and the youngest Luthor grins at Kara when she reads it, flushed in her typically-pale cheeks, visibly stunned and flattered by Kara's enthusiastic prose and praise. She presses a gentle kiss into Kara's cheek in gratitude, congratulates her with a tentative squeeze around Kara's waist. Lena promises a night out for drinks soon, and Kara beams out her pride, tells Lena that she's earned it all on her own and that Kara is happy to reward her success.
And Kara is.
She's surprised by the warmth that suffuses her when she realizes she is able to do that, for Lena, that she is able to take control of something and use it to help the brunette move forward. She likes the pleasure in Lena's smile, likes that she is the one responsible for putting it there, the one responsible for the extra sparkle that lights in her bright blue-green eyes. Lena is particularly pretty this way, particularly luminescent and warm in the professionally cool exterior of her office walls, and Kara wants to do more of that for her, will find a way to put that smile back on Lena's face another time.
But it's her first article, and Kara has a job to do, because all she can think in the moment is that she promised. Kara promised Carter, wants to fulfill that promise and knows that it's important, knows that he is waiting, so she leaves Lena's office in a hurry, and it's three whole weeks before Kara dutifully mails off her piece to the young boy who has come to mean so much to her.
It's four weeks when Kara opens her email to a notification from Carter's mother. The message is short, and it tells Kara nothing of what Cat's been doing while Kara struggles through her new job and scrambles to hold onto the memory of Cat and all of the advice that the Media Queen has ever offered to her, but she tremors and shakes all over with heated glee when she reads the three words waiting for her in her inbox.
Well done, Kara.
She takes two days to reply, wants to get it perfect, wants to express her appreciation for the compliment and the compelling gratitude and fluster that she feels at Cat's praise to her work. She wants to acknowledge the older woman's contribution to it, the way that Kara's success has been achieved solely due to Cat and all that the woman has taught her.
She toils for hours over just the right words, working to convey the appropriate emotion, and eventually comes up with something she feels will do the trick.
I wouldn't want to disappoint you, Ms. Grant. You've taught me better than that.
And no more than an hour later, Kara's phone dings with a soft, trilling alert in reply. It reads simply: Good girl.
And that's how it starts. Innocently, with just a couple of mildly approving sentiments that trigger a reaction inside of Kara both thrilling and bracing, new, low and deep in her belly.
Kara feels it, knows it's important, knows that this can become something more and is willing to try, willing to risk the fragile existence of her heart by betting on Cat Grant. Kara will always bet on Cat, will always believe in her, will always trust her and rely on her, and feels in this moment that Cat might actually want that, from Kara, so Kara is willing to try.
The whole affair dawns harmlessly enough, and Kara begins to feel threads of anxious wonder spooling throughout her veins, sweeping up from her trembling fingers and blooming through her cheeks. Her belly is a nervous bubble of energy, full to burst with an ache of want and clawing need and affection cultured through years of deep, silent longing and care, and Kara hardly knows what to do with herself. She feels a frantic desire to please and to satisfy, to be good, to make Cat proud, to make absolutely sure that Cat never even thinks to regret choosing Kara, because Kara can't believe that Cat would, can't believe that she could ever be so lucky, but she knows well enough not to look a gift horse in the mouth and Kara would laser off her own arm before she'd take an opportunity like this for granted.