Il Ritorno (By writerstealth, formerly known as Sexghosts)
Fandom: Supergirl
Rating: T
Kara couldn't think of anything to do at this moment, as she lay on her couch still wearing a blue chiton she'd been given by the Amazons, with the cobwebs clearing from her mind, but the one thing she'd avoided since she got to Paris: call Cat.
She waited anxiously while the telephone rang. She did the quick subtraction; it was 10pm on Sunday here in Paris; it would be 1pm in National City and Cat could be up to just about anything. She had to try though.
Cat picked up on the third ring. There was a longish pause before she spoke. "Kara?"
"Hi, Cat." Kara said. Her heart was pounding but she felt steady and her aim felt true. "How are you?" The loaded question.
"I'm … alright." The answer that answered nothing.
"Is this a bad time?"
"No, no, I'm just in the car on the way to a charity luncheon, I have a few minutes." Another pregnant pause. "I'm enjoying your pictures," Cat added after a moment. "You're really developing an eye."
"Easy when the subject is beautiful. You could drop Stevie Wonder in Barcelona with a camera and he could take a good picture of the Magic Fountain at night." Kara laughed awkwardly at her own bad joke. "How's Carter?"
"He's fine. He misses you." And the unspoken And so do I was clear enough in her voice.
"Diana holding everything together?"
"Oh, sure, she's good enough," Cat sighed. "We've seen a slight uptick in Ancient Greek monsters crashing through the front windows of coffee shops, but your aunt and her charm squad have been pretty quiet."
Kara chuckled, and this time it was genuine. She hadn't forgotten how Cat's wit made her laugh, when the barbed end of it wasn't pointed at her.
"It's late there," Cat realized. "Is everything alright?"
"Yes," Kara answered quickly. "More than alright."
"Oh?"
"Yes. I think… I think I've figured out something important. I haven't figured out how it's going to take shape in my life, but… but I just wanted you to know." Cat didn't say anything, so Kara plunged on. "Cat, I'm … I've been two different people for so long now, and in a way, it's been more than that. Because it's not just Kara Danvers and Supergirl, you know? When I fell in love with you, I … I became another set of question marks, if that makes sense? Gay or bi or straight? Your lover, your girlfriend, your assistant? I just kept breaking myself into smaller and smaller pieces. But I'm one person. I'm not Supergirl, or Kara Danvers. I'm Kara. Just Kara. I'm the sum of everything that's happened to me and every choice I've made. I'm not ready to say how this changes what I'm going to be doing or how I'm going to be living my life, but… I'm strong enough for you, Cat. And once I figure out what being one person means, I want that person to be with you."
Cat was quiet for a long moment. For such a long moment, in fact, that Kara worried that the call had been dropped.
"Cat?"
Cat took a deep breath before answering. "I know you're strong enough, darling. I never would have gone down this path with you if I didn't think so."
"I know," Kara said, and she felt the words tumbling out of her, almost unconsidered, not hammered and sculpted over and over in her head the way she was so often wont to do. "But Cat, you have to be strong enough for me , too. You have to be strong enough to do the things you're afraid to do and accept the parts of me that are different."
Cat seemed startled, but not angry. "Kara…" She'd brought Cat to a rare moment of speechlessness.
"I'm not ready for us yet, but I will be. But I need you to be ready, too. Can you do that?"
"Of course," Cat's voice came, almost breathless through the line. And it was only two words, but they were as meaningful as two words could be, and they were enough for Kara right now.
"Good," she said, feeling strangely satisfied.
"Kara… I… I have to go, I've arrived at the thing… but… I'm glad you called."
"Me too," Kara answered, a calm happiness welling in her chest. "Good luck at your thing."
"Thank you."
"Oh! Also, I went to Diana's island and they made me an ambassador to Krypton, so that was exciting." Kara waited for the reaction to this nonchalant declaration.
"I see," Cat replied skeptically. "Well, you'll have to tell me more about that later." An awkward pause. "Call me again soon?"
"Or you can call me," Kara answered. "You're allowed, you know."
Normally after her weekends away, she found her restlessness at work somewhat quelled. But not this Monday. She felt itchy from the moment she stepped through the doors. She decided she was going to do her job the way only she could do it. It started quietly enough, by knowing when to run to editorial because she could hear Manon grumbling at her boss that she really would have liked another hour with whatever it was she was working on. She'd turn up grinning in front of her friend's desk just as she was about to pick up the phone to call her. The first time or two, Manon didn't say anything about it, but the third time, she demanded, "How did you know it was ready?"
"I heard you complaining at Michel," Kara laughed.
"From two floors down?" Manon demanded, incredulous.
"Yeah," Kara answered, smiling and taking the thin envelope from her without offering any further explanation.
She propped up a flagging Julien as he was slogging through the third straight day of server maintenance. "I need a coffee," he was groaning aloud at the screen, not expecting one to appear in his hand fifteen seconds later. He looked around, but hadn't seen her deposit it there.
She started taking advantage of her speed in little bursts here and there, enjoying bringing her whole self into the job and not taking much care to hide it. Phillippe would begin a sentence, "Have you seen the–" And by the time he'd turned around, she'd already gotten whatever it was he'd been looking for.
She would have judged this as reckless a few months ago, but now it just felt like she was living in her own skin. It was better.
But she still felt restless.
The only reason she didn't start flying to work was that she liked reading on the Metro. She had a biography of Hemingway that she was devouring from cover to cover on the 2 train from Montmartre to La Défense, where CatTV's offices sat tucked among the other shiny high-rises. She'd become fascinated with that "Lost Generation" of the 20's in Paris, and Hemingway in particular, although his writing was too spare for her tastes. But she liked that he was a soldier, a journalist, a writer of fiction, a hunter, a man known for his life of adventure. The hypermasculinity of it was all a bit much for her, but at the same time, she loved the idea of him, the breadth of his experiences, and how each thing he did informed the others.
This particular morning, she came out of the Metro, the book tucked under her arm, to somewhat more commotion than usual. A Presidential motorcade was tying up the streets, and she remembered that Obama was supposed to be in town. The ensuing traffic jam clogged the highway that snaked around the wide open plaza that featured the modernist majesty of the Arche de La Défense. A lot of people were out in the plaza, peering out over the highway to get a look at the motorcade, and the cars on the highway were in a dreadful snarl. She could hear the density of the motors and the horns, four lanes thick. And more alarming still, she heard the despairing whoop of a French ambulance siren, caught in the tangle of cars and unable to either back out of the traffic or move forward through it.
She checked her watch. She was terminally early for work, as usual.
She jogged to the edge of the plaza and could see the ambulance lights, the cars ahead of and behind it trying to rearrange themselves to make way, but to no avail. She took a running leap, and felt that gladdest of sensations; that of the ground falling away beneath the soles of her feet, of being borne on the air with the quickness of sunlight. She landed firmly beside the ambulance and knocked on the window. The driver, in confused suspicion, rolled down the window. "What do you want?" he asked.
"What have you got back there?" she asked him, gesturing toward the back.
He hesitated, looking at her suspiciously.
"I can help you," she said firmly.
"Are you a doctor?"
"I can help you," she repeated.
He sighed. The ambulance clearly wasn't going anywhere, he decided, so he had nothing to lose. "Injury from a fall, twelve year old boy, landed on a fence spike. Probably a couple of broken ribs. He's bleeding heavily. We're going to run out of time."
Kara nodded firmly. "Close your window and buckle up," she ordered. She marched around to the back of the ambulance and opened it onto the sight of a startled EMT and a boy strapped to a gurney. "Secure that gurney," she said quickly. "I understand we don't have a lot of time."
He didn't question her, he just locked it into place. She slammed the door and gave it a tug to make sure it was closed. She knelt down, gripped the rear bumper, and slowly lifted the rear end off of the ground until the angle was just enough that she could get herself underneath the vehicle. And then, with the weight of it resting on her shoulders, she took a moment to make sure it was balanced, and then took off as lightly as she ever had, gliding over the streets of Paris as delicately as a butterfly. A butterfly carrying an ambulance on its back.
She lightly deposited it in front of the closest hospital, executing the drop in the reverse of the process she'd used to lift it. She walked around to the driver, who was understandably a bit shaken at the unexpected airlift he'd gotten.
"Who are you?" he demanded, his face white and looking a little motion-sick.
"Just a concerned citizen," she answered with a bright smile. She jogged away, and once more, felt the delicious sensation of the ground falling away, as she streaked in a beautiful, perfect arc across the open sky, and deposited herself back in the plaza. Her chest felt light, like her heart was full of helium and ready to float away, and the exhilaration of rescue, of flight, made her blood sing. She trotted up to the front of the CatTV Building, aware, but unconcerned, with the looks that she was getting from people milling about the plaza. She hadn't concealed her landing. She wasn't going to do that anymore. Although, she noticed with some consternation, there was grease and soot all over her pin-striped button-down shirt. Oh, right, she thought. That's why the suit.
By the time she was trotting toward the front door, she nearly bumped into Julien, who had just come out of the Metro was looking intently at his phone while walking. "Julien!"
He glanced up. "Kara! Did you see the news?"
Kara smiled. "I think I am the news."
He looked at her quizzically, then registered the dirt all over her shoulders and, as she did a little turn, her back as well. " Merde! What happened to your clothes?" he exclaimed.
"I carried an ambulance on my back and dropped it at a hospital," she answered matter-of-factly. "Can I borrow your sweater? I can't go in there like this."
Unsure of what to say to that, Julien stuffed his phone into his back pocket, pulled off the thick, grey rib-shawl sweater he was wearing, and handed it to her. "Here it is. Don't forget to give it back. You know, I don't lend my sweaters to girls because they never give them back."
"Why am I so special?" Kara teased as they walked through the sliding glass doors into the building.
"You carried an ambulance on your back," he answered with a shrug, not really sounding like he believed it, but not having a clever response. "Am I supposed to say no to the hero of the day?"
The predictable alarmed texts from Alex followed. Kara begged her not to worry, insisted that she was doing what she had to do, and that it was all perfect.
She spoke once with Diana that week, who was amused but supportive, and encouraged her to follow her gut. "I know you'll do the right thing, Ambassador," she said, joking but not.
She continued to do her job, continued to feel restless. She liked journalism, she still felt it was important, but she also felt she was outgrowing traffic management, though to what, she didn't yet know.
Her interventions grew more frequent, less discreet. CatTV and the respectable media weren't touching it yet, but they would soon. Meanwhile the tabloids had begun talking about her. She wasn't sticking around to chat after her rescues, so they didn't know who she was, but a number of people had reported a pretty blonde girl who spoke French with a slight American accent. The tabloids nicknamed her simply " L'Americaine ", which she thought was funny because it was true, but technically also not.
Julien and Manon were at this point not surprised by anything she said anymore, or anything she did. If she showed up with her face covered in soot or the shoulder of her sweater torn, they'd help her clean up or loan her a blazer or a sweater. They never had a confrontation or a revelation, but Julien at some point started addressing her as " L'Americaine " with a little wink, and she didn't bother to dissuade him.
And then on her next weekend away, everything came into focus.
Cat stood in front of the wall of televisions in her office. Poor, put-upon Sandra, who had somehow managed to keep her job thus far, was standing behind her, along with Wick and an assortment of other stragglers from the bullpen, watching something stunning unfolding live, on a CatTV news feed, from the Piazza Navona in Rome.
The sound of gunfire was loud and repeated, and the camera was clearly lying on the bricks of the street, having fallen from the hands of the cameraman who was holding it. Feet went rushing through the frame, away from the sound of the gunfire. One could dimly make out a couple of muzzle flashes in the corner of the frame. And then the camera lifted, panned around, taking in the chaos as people streamed out of the church at the other end of the piazza. It panned down, and took in two news crew members, clearly a cameraman and field reporter, both downed by bullets. Cat turned white as she heard a voice she recognized.
"The uh… the CatTV news crew here seems to have been uh, taken down …" The camera rocked in a seasick manner as its carrier knelt down. A familiar hand came into frame and tugged at the press credentials hanging around their necks. "The reporter Enzo Colletti and his cameraman, Giulio Rodino…. The chaos here is incredible right now." The hand then checked the pulses of the injured news crew. "These … These guys have pulses but they're very weak. I don't think I can risk moving them till the situation is contained…"
The sound of more bullets whizzing by. The seasick movement of the camera again as it was hoisted onto its carrier's shoulder. It panned clumsily around to face the other end of the piazza, where the church stood. More muzzle flashes, more people in the crowd fell. The perspective suddenly lifted, viewing the piazza from above, as if the carrier of the camera were being lifted by a crane. But Cat knew it wasn't a crane. The voice continued. "I'm going to get in closer now, but there appear to be at least two gunmen firing into the crowd outside the church."
The scenery whizzed by at a sickening speed and suddenly, the frame had nothing but bricks. "Put down your guns!" came the voice of the camera bearer. The camera panned up and Cat saw two surprised gunmen standing at the top of the steps of the church, angling their weapons at the camera.
The distant wail of sirens drew closer. Two burning red bolts of laser fired into frame, heating their Kalashnikovs and causing them to drop them. Again, the scenery blurred for a moment, the camera whizzing forward. It spun again in a seasick manner and Cat heard the voice, that familiar voice, "I'm not going to let you hurt any more of these people."
The shot panned down to show one of the gunmen on the ground, with a sneakered foot on his throat, then swung back up, to show a closeup of the other one, pinned against the the thick wood of the church door, held there by that same familiar hand at his throat. "Why?" the voice demanded. "Why are you doing this?"
He cursed at her in Italian.
" Perché? " the voice behind the camera said. " Dimmi, e forse la polizia non si spara! "
She speaks Italian now? Cat thought, unable, through her nervousness, to keep from being a little impressed.
The grip around the gunman's throat tightened.
"Clemenzo," he choked out. "Padre Clemenzo."
The sirens grew louder as she continued questioning the gunman in Italian. After a few more moments of exchange, Cat heard her voice again: "The shooter reports that he's working for the Sacra Corona Unita, a local mafia group, that this is a retaliation against Padre Clemenzo, a response to his leading public demand for action against them."
The camera jostled again, pulled back to show police and ambulances pulling up in front of the church. She heard an exchange in Italian with police, camera keeping them in frame. "I've explained to the local police that I'm press, and they're now arresting the two shooters. They, uh … seem to be familiar with the dispute between Padre Clemenzo and Sacra Corona Unita." The camera steadied and took in the tableau of the two gunmen being hauled away in cuffs. "They're loading the two gunmen into police vehicles, and have called for more ambulances to treat the injured."
"There appear to be several wounded outside, about fifteen or twenty at a quick glance, some of them are down and may be dead but we'll need to wait till the medical examiners get here to determine those numbers exactly." It panned over the crowd, still milling around, dazed, looking up at the camera and then at each other. Then the view panned back up over the piazza. Some more shouting in Italian, and then another ambulance pulled away and rolled past the statue of Neptune to where the two reporters lay, felled by stray bullets. "An Italian ambulance is now moving down to aid the two reporters." Another team of police swarmed the steps and rushed inside the church.
"The police are now securing the scene."
The report unfolded, moment by moment, the familiar voice translating as conversations transpired, and the police recovered one more shooter from inside with no shots fired. Police cordoned off the area as more ambulances rolled in. The voice finally said, "For CatTV, reporting live from the church of Sant'Agnese in Piazza Navona, Rome, standing in for Enzo Colletti and Giulio Rodino, this is Kara Zor-El Danvers."
And then the feed cut out.