Author's Note: This is my first Supergirl story, and I really haven't read much of this fandom yet, so I'm honestly just fleshing out characters right now. This is the first part of a two-shot. I have about eight thousand unfinished stories right now and no promises of when I'm going to update any of them (this one included), so for those of you waiting on other updates, I'm very sorry, but I write when and what I feel like writing, and for the moment, this happens to be it. Please don't hate me for that, because if I could, I would certainly change it, both for you, and for myself. If it helps, though, interest in the story definitely motivates me to try a little bit harder for it, so if you're enjoying this piece (or any of my others) I read all the reviews/comments and I definitely take them to heart!
Do I expect too much?
It isn't a consideration that Cat Grant often, if ever, allows herself to spare. In fact, it isn't typically a consideration that the Queen of All Media can even afford to spare. Not for anyone, not even for herself.
Especially not for herself.
Cat Grant has many expectations, she realizes, and certainly more than most. She expects the world to turn, and she expects for it to thrive, in spite of – or perhaps even because of – the creeping shadows that lurk around all of those frightening corners which so many avoid and refuse to ever question. She expects for most of the people who inhabit this world – her world; their world – to carry out their horribly mundane existences performing at equally mundane standards.
But of the people Cat surrounds herself with, of the people she employs, Cat expects more than the mundane. Of these people, Cat expects the extraordinary, though she is often, still, left unimpressed.
Cat expects the people around her to hold themselves to the same high principles that she constantly strives to enforce upon herself, and she expects this of them not to be a coldhearted tyrant as is so frequently believed, but because she must expect this of them. She expects this of them because this company, her empire, it is more than just her life's work; CatCo is more than an admirable achievement, it is more than the awards that line her office walls. Quite simply, CatCo is power – it is Cat Grant's power – and if her employees do not conform to her standards then it is power that is lost upon them all.
Because the thing about power, Cat realizes where few others are capable, is that it is so easily corrupted, and that corruption often has so little to do with intent. Because of course power can be abused in blatant ways – Maxwell Lord has proven this true more than once – but it is the subtler ways that truly matter, the ways that manifest as the undeliberate casualties.
Cat Grant can manipulate the public into practically anything, anything at all, with nothing more than a few carefully crafted words. Cat Grant can ruin lives, destroy cities, topple entire governments with the information that she wields, but she is intelligent enough to know better than that. What is often forgotten, though – the little people, the lives caught in the crosshairs of even unearthing that information, those secrets, even when she chooses not to publically release it – is half of the battle with the kind of power Cat Grant wields.
She expects the people in her immediate vicinity to be ambitious, but not cruel. She expects her employees to be driven, but aware. Cat expects her employees to seek truth in all that they do, but more than anything – more than a story, more than a Pulitzer or an Emmy – Cat wants for them to be concerned. She expects their concern to provide boundaries, limits to what they are willing to do to achieve that which they desire, because Cat–
Cat's own boundaries can be tricked, they are at times questionable, and she does not trust them. There are few things she relies upon other people for, but in this, Cat has little choice.
Because Cat Grant is too ambitious, too driven, and concepts like cruelty and awareness and, most importantly, concern tend to slip away from her when they are needed most – and because of this, Supergirl has become something of a saving grace, for Cat.
Superman can fight for truth and justice and the American way over in that other city and be impressive, but it is a city Cat Grant has a particularly strong hatred for, and she focuses less on Superman's deeds than on the reporters fortunate enough to share his home, and his stories. Supergirl, though… Supergirl is hers, she is Cat's, and she belongs to National City. In reporting on her, naming her, championing for her, Cat is forced to evaluate all that Supergirl truly is.
And Supergirl is a wonder. She is a wonder who inspires Cat, but not for the reasons most would believe.
She is heroic, obviously, but despite her alien nature, she is eerily human, to Cat, in ways that she hadn't anticipated a superhero might be. She makes herself vulnerable to emotion instead of steeling herself against it, appeals to people and thrives from their care for her in a way that is not conceited, but in a way that proves her love for this city and makes her reliant upon their affection in return.
Supergirl makes herself reflect on all the things she could have done better, or differently, to benefit the people of National City the most, and that is admirable, even to Cat Grant. Because Supergirl had started out her heroism in this city fumblingly, she had still been learning, and from all that Cat has observed, she does not believe that Supergirl will ever truly stop learning, simply because she cares enough to try.
So when Supergirl tells her that she is lost, when she stands at Cat's side on that balcony the night that Myriad is activated and confesses that her mother had once faced a similar choice and had subsequently chosen wrong, Cat is not surprised. She is not surprised that even in spite of Supergirl's apparent love for her mother, the superhero is still trying to learn from her, still trying to mine from the past to find her answer now.
And, inexplicably, Cat Grant thinks of her assistant. Cat Grant thinks of her sweet, eager-to-please Kara, who is so startlingly naïve for a woman of her age. She thinks of Kara, who had once defied even Cat's inarguable power just to reunite the media mogul with her lost son, to soothe Cat Grant's greatest regret, simply because she could, simply because she had cared enough to risk her job, her financial stability, her own emotional security solely to ensure her employer's happiness.
There is hope in that, Cat believes now. There is hope in the risk Kara had taken, and it had motivated Cat to be brave, to be brave like Kara, and to take a risk of her own. And Cat had met with Adam, had built something – something tentative, but something with boundless potential – and it had been all in thanks to her much too caring assistant.
Kara inspires hope in Cat in ways that no other has ever been able, had inspired it that day, even, and it is that – that feeling which had reminded her so much of Supergirl, and the kind of blinding hope that she offers to this city – which had prompted Cat not to fire the girl on the spot.
And Cat knows – she cannot prove it, but in that moment she knows – that they are the same. She knows that Supergirl and Kara are one, no matter what tricks had been played upon her beliefs to convince her otherwise, because no one else truly forces Cat to look into the depths of her own heart the way that only the two of them are able. And so she purposefully lets slip that Supergirl had inspired her to become that person, for Kara; she lets Supergirl believe that it had been her heroics, her symbol, her impact upon Cat – just one, small, albeit powerful, person – which had driven the Queen of All Media to let Kara, her sweet Kiera, breach the professional line and merge into the personal.
It is a lie, because it has little to do with Supergirl and everything to do with the complete contradiction of a girl so fearlessly bold and simultaneously, preciously caring and shy as Kara has proven herself to be, but right now, that has nothing to do with Cat's point.
Because Supergirl – Kara – needs to hear it. She needs to hear that Cat has been affected by her effort, and she needs to be reminded of the little people, the people who will be caught in the crosshairs and whose lives will be ended if she follows through with Max Lord's plan.
Cat is not often placed in the position of acting as a conscience, she surrounds herself with more extraordinary people who will act as that in her stead, but for Supergirl – for Kara – Cat can strive to be better. She can push her own high standards just that little bit higher, and she can be more, because that is what Kiera makes her.
Kiera makes her more, because Supergirl – Kara, Kiera, or whatever she calls herself – is more than any human can be, and it is not because of her power, or her strength, but because of her unfailing heart and her constant desire to learn to be better.
But Cat wonders, again – always, with this girl – if she expects too much. She wonders if this is too much to place on one girl's shoulders, superhero or no, alien or no, because it is not fair. Nothing about this is fair, and with the darker whisperings of Max Lord in her ear, Cat can easily understand why having a plan – any plan, even this one – could be tempting. Still, there must be another way, even if Cat cannot immediately call one to mind.
People will die, with Max's plan, but not nearly as many as Surpergirl will save. It is the right thing, Cat supposes, if considered in a certain light, but it is still so very, very wrong, and if Cat can see that where Supergirl cannot, then something must be changed.
So she tells Kara to have hope. She reminds Supergirl of the importance of hope, reminds her of all the hope that she has given not only to National City, but also just to Cat, and she hopes that it means something.
And it does.
It gives Supergirl an idea.