Two: Wonderland
The first time Vasquez addresses her directly, Kara starts looking around her to see who else the agent might be talking to, since no one's ever called her-
"Ma'am?" Vasquez repeats.
Kara turns back to the agent and presses a finger against her own chest. "Me?"
A few feet away, Alex snickers.
"Yes, ma'am." Vasquez's mouth quirks slightly at the corner, eyes darting past Kara's shoulder to the source of the snickering. She holds out a thin, blue folder. "You asked for these co-ordinates?"
Kara takes the folder and stammers out a response that has a 'thank you' and 'Agent Vasquez' in it and, later, gets pissy with Alex for making her feel like an idiot.
("You're used to the whole 'protocol' thing. I'm used to having my boss call me the wrong name.")
But, Kara settles quickly into the formality. She likes Vasquez. Sure, the agent's a little on the serious side maybe - intense and focused, with a narrowed brow and pensive frown, and blunt, no-nonsense tone - but, it's entirely appropriate and professional; and even the intermittent smirkiness seems fitting - like a low-key release valve in a world of alien prison escapees, occasional meta-humans, and Kara's long-lost aunt trying to-well, they haven't quite figured that out yet.
"So, what have you got for me?" Kara asks during a lull, arms folded, shoulders straight, studying the monitors above the bank of computers at the back of the command center.
Vasquez's eyes shift across the screens. "Nothing right now, ma'am."
"Oh, okay." Kara nods and smiles and stares at the screens a bit longer, then a little bit longer still. She smiles again when Vasquez glances briefly in her direction then rocks back on her heels for a moment or two; then lets her attention drift to the control panel, idly tracing a finger between various lights and buttons and switches, while she waits for word of a car chase downtown, or maybe another bank robbery.
Vasquez pauses and glances up at her again. "Was there anything else, ma'am?"
"Oh. No, I'm just-I'll wait over there." Kara points vaguely in the direction of … somewhere else, and steps down from the platform.
This time, Alex at least remembers to cover her mouth with her hand.
Standing with her back to the counter, hands clasped firmly in front of her to prevent fidgeting, Kara's beginning to wish she'd just used her heat vision. But, no, she'd chosen to warm up her Hot Pockets in the microwave, like a normal person.
Like a normal person whose picture is plastered on the cover of CatCo Magazine. The very same magazine that's lying on the table in the DEO break room, glaring up at her, the glossy red and blue impossible to ignore against the table's white surface. The corners of the publication are dog-eared and a circular dried coffee stain cuts across her face.
Across the table, Vasquez sits, back straight, head bowed, occupied with the phone in her hand. Apparently, she's able to ignore the magazine just fine.
Kara shifts her weight from one foot to the other. "Do you think I messed up?" she asks. She tries to sound off-hand, careless even, but it's an awkward question and it's hard not to let a little self-consciousness creep in.
The agent doesn't look up. "I don't know, ma'am."
"It's just a few facts," Kara continues. "Small facts. Mostly small. Small-ish. And some … questionable opinions from Cat Grant." Her eyes flit to the magazine again before settling on the top of the agent's still-inclined head. "Would you have done it?"
Vasquez's shoulders lift slightly, and if Kara can't actually see the corner of her mouth twitch, she swears she can hear it in her voice:
"Interviewed Supergirl? I don't have to, ma'am. I work with her."
Kara smiles, but her shoulders sag a little anyway. "I think maybe I messed up."
Behind her, the microwave beeps.
Vasquez shrugs again. "That just makes you one of us, ma'am." Then she gets up and leaves the room.
While she's eating, Kara's knee bounces idly under the table and she hums a tune under her breath that she heard on the radio that morning.
The magazine catches her eye again and she sighs.
Still, it was a nice thought.
They're picking up a few last-minute 'stocking fillers' for Carter.
Who, as far as Kara's aware, does not have enormous club feet.
("It's not spoiling him if he's not a brat about it, Kiera. He's worked exceptionally hard this year. Straight A's, taking on additional chores unprompted, and generally being the sweetest, kindest boy in the world … Think of it as an annual bonus. From his mom.")
Ms Grant eyes the chemistry set Kara holds up in front of her. "I got him that last year."
"That was for kids his own age." Kara points to the guide on the bottom right-hand corner of the box. "This is the next one up."
Cat's eyebrow quirks; clearly, she's impressed. "Well, then, we'll take that too," she says to the sales clerk hovering beside them. She turns back to Kara. "Now, how about we go grab some-Kiera, what are you doing?"
Angling herself away from the shop floor behind them, Kara holds the box a little higher against the side of her face. Because just a few short displays away, Vasquez is making her way through the department store in jeans and a button-up and a leather jacket - apparently the go-to civilian outfit for DEO agents everywhere - the expression on her face, well, festively serious, like she's about to obliterate the list no doubt tucked inside her messenger bag if it's the last thing she does.
Cat glances across the aisle, eyes narrowed. "She looks … interesting," she says, then arches an eyebrow at Kara. "Friend of yours?"
"Kind of. Not really. I'm not sure. We … know one another. Sort of." Kara's voice drops to a near-whisper. "I'd just rather she didn't see me like thi-right now."
Ms Grant's eyes shift back to Vasquez, then to Kara, then back to Vasquez, just as the agent disappears around the corner at the end of the aisle. She looks at Kara again. "I see," she says thoughtfully, as Kara moves the box away from her face. Her eyes practically sparkle under the harsh department store lights.
As if she's made some sort of relatively minor, but nonetheless fascinating, discovery.
"Oh," says Kara. She shakes her head, gripping the arm of her glasses to stop them flying off her face. "Oh no, Ms Grant, you think … Not that there's anything-I mean, 'cause who knows-um … I guess? But, no, really, it's not what you-I'm not-" She splutters to a halt, suddenly struck by a wave of guilt. Not because it's true, but because it feels kind of unpleasant to insist on that particular truth when so much about her life is a necessary lie.
On the other hand, maybe not insisting means she's appropriating … something.
In any regard, it's too late. Ms Grant's already studying her with a resigned sort of expression on her face.
"Pity," she says with a sigh. "It would explain so much. Mostly the cardigans …"
Before Kara can even think about responding to that, her boss gives her a blinding smile.
"Now, hand the box over to the nice sales clerk, Kiera, and let's go eat ..."
When Kara first heard about 'gaydar', she'd thought it was a real, actual thing, like sonar or ultrasound, except these echoes could detect people'sfeelings.
("You mean no one had gaydar on Krypton? Wow …"
"Alex, stop teasing your sister. Kara, honey, don't listen to her.")
She hadn't realized, until Eliza explained it to her, that it was mostly a matter of picking up clues based on clichés and stereotypes.
Ms Grant says she has 'excellent' gaydar when it comes to men; less so when it comes to women.
"Why d'you think that is?" Kara asks, as Cat signals the waitress for another glass of wine while they wait for dessert. Kara hasn't finished her first drink, yet.
Ms Grant looks pensive. "Women are more … complicated," she says finally and offers no further explanation.
Kara eyes the empty glasses on Ms Grant's side of the table, searching for an excuse, because, frankly, it sounds like something one of her more obnoxious dates at college would say and she's kind of disappointed that Cat would go there.
So, she's relieved when, seconds later, Cat smoothes the napkin lying over her lap, leans a little closer across the table, and waves a finger just inches from Kara's nose. "But, don't ever let some opportunistic little cretin tell you that, Kiera."
Alex's voice crackles through Kara's earpiece:
"Hank, she's found her."
Vasquez is bleeding - her combat pants are soaked a sickly dark crimson from her right knee down to her ankle - and her laptop and comms headgear lie crushed beside a pile of what used to be metal scaffolding.
A few feet away, the body of a massive, saw-toothed Fort Rozz escapee lies unmoving on the floor with a single bullet-hole in its forehead. And a decompressed trigger in its dead hand.
Kara does a quick calculation: The only way they'll make it far enough away from the bomb in time is if she flies Vasquez out of the already dangerously dilapidated warehouse. And, yet, while Kara doesn't like to assume things, given what she knows about the agent (which, to be honest, still isn't a whole lot), even without the presently-donned tac vest and leg rig, Vasquez - serious, stoic, slightly smirky Vasquez - sort of looks like she might be one of those types of people who wouldn't really want to be carried …
"Supergirl, what's going on? Is everything okay?"
… short of being rescued from impending death-by-enormous-explosion.
Slipping her arm around the agent's waist, Kara murmurs a quick, "Hold on," and rockets them up toward the skylight, shielding Vasquez's head with … her armpit? really? … as they crash through the glass into the azure sky above. Seconds later, the air around them shimmers with a wave of intense heat, while tremors from the blast cause both of them to hold on a little tighter.
That's when she feels Vasquez's heart rate soar to at least one-fifty.
Kara tries to remember what she knows about the various causes of accelerating heart rates, runs through her last half-dozen or so rescues to compare and contrast. But, before she can spend too much time thinking about it, they land just outside the perimeter fence of the warehouse yard - clear of any freshly exploded debris - where an armored truck is already heading toward them. Kara sets the agent gently down on her feet, propping her against one of the pylons by the entrance gate. She takes a couple of steps back, watching as Vasquez wipes a shaky hand across her forehead, runs her fingers through sweat-damp hair, then pats the weapons pouch strapped to her thigh, as if to check that it's still there.
Finally, she looks at Kara, squinting a little against the sun. "Thank you, ma'am."
Kara simply nods, timing the agent's decelerating heart rate until it levels out at what's probably a still fairly stressed, and therefore pretty impressive, seventy-something.
Moments later, Alex guides a limping Vasquez into the back of the truck stocked with medical supplies that'll allow her to start tending to the wound without having to wait until they reach the DEO.
"Do you want me to call someone?" Kara asks Vasquez as the agent lowers herself onto the bench that runs along the wall of the container, her right leg stretched out stiffly in front of her.
"She's not dying, Kara," Alex says, rolling her eyes. She climbs into the back of the truck, crouching down on the overhang, pivoting back round to face her sister. "You did good," she says quietly, tucking a messy lock of bomb-swept hair behind Kara's ear. Then louder: "See you back at base, Supergirl!"
The doors slam shut.
But, not before Kara hears a voice call out from deeper inside the vehicle:
"Thanks again, ma'am! I owe you!"
Kara finds herself trying to remember if Alex has ever mentioned Vasquez-and-Vasquez's-someone. She could ask Vasquez herself, of course, but that might seem a little intrusive ("Hypothetically, if youhadwanted me to call someone that day, who would I have called? Asking for a nosy friend.") and, really, it's nobody's business but Vasquez's.
If there is a someone, though, Kara hopes it's a nice someone, because Vasquez is nice and-
"… Kiera, pay attention, please?"
Cat's fingers snap rapidly in front of Kara's face, causing her to recoil a little. She blinks away from a smiling James and Lucy, visible through the throng of guests separating one side of the room from the other. Beside them, neck craned, Winn adjusts his tie. He's barely taken his eyes off her since she and Cat arrived ten minutes ago.
Kara focuses on her boss. "Yes, Ms Grant. Instructions. Right."
"Right," Cat confirms. "So … stick to your usual, what, two drinks max? Avoid the following topics: politics, religion and, in your case, fashion - although, I have to admit, you don't look terrible tonight." Ms Grant pauses to adjust one of the shoulder straps of Kara's one-sixty-reduced-from-three-hundred-dollars cocktail dress. "And remember, when the time comes, choose wisely. This isn't a frat party."
"Choose, Ms Grant? Sorry? I'm not sure I-"
"Oh, for god's sake, Kiera … Midnight? New Year?"
"Oh. I hadn't really intended to-"
"Yes, whatever. Now go. Mingle. I need to make sure Jennifer Lawrence doesn't relatably 'trip' into the fountain ..."
A drugstore hold-up has Kara sneaking away early, dress and shoes stashed neatly behind a rooftop air vent.
Afterwards, she flies to the DEO, where one of the screens is tuned into National City's CatCo-sponsored countdown. There's music and food and streamers and balloons; and, while it might be fairly haphazardly put together and nowhere near as sophisticated as Cat's indoor fountains and ice sculptures and catering that cost more than Kara's annual salary, she's in no hurry to return to a party she can always read about - with 'exclusive pictures' - later.
She and Alex head down the corridor to the break room, where a collection of limes, lemons, oranges, and pineapples sits on a tray beside the sink. In mere seconds, the fruit is sliced and tipped into a fresh punch bowl. Kara watches as Alex adds rum and soda water.
"You go ahead, I'll clean up here," Kara offers as Alex lifts the bowl with both hands and heads for the door.
"We'll clean up later."
"And that's exactly the kind of talk that leaves certain people with no uncontaminated dishes for two days."
Alex makes a face, deftly turning the door handle with her elbow, albeit not quite dexterously enough to stop the punch sloshing perilously close to the rim of the bowl. She pauses in the doorway. "This isn't some second-loneliest-night-of-the-year-sit-and-mope-in-the-dark thing, is it?"
"Nope. Just a sticky-knives-and-worktops thing."
Alex smiles. "Come find me at midnight, okay?"
Kara nods and watches her leave.
When midnight comes, she's still standing by the sink, knives long-since washed and dried and put away, worktops wiped clean. It's not moping in the dark - the too-bright overhead strip lights are still on, for one thing - but, she's thankful for the relative quiet, for the opportunity to try notto feel overwhelmed by, well, everything that's happened over the last three months.
A quick x-ray check shows Alex hugging J'onn and kissing him on the cheek, and various other agents and technicians sharing hugs and kisses and high fives; and Kara begins to debate whether she should have just returned to the command center with Alex after all, because, strip-lights aside, staying put and reflecting on all the things she's gotten right, all the things she's messed up, all the things she still has to learn, is starting to feel a lot like-
"Ma'am?"
Vasquez's voice jolts Kara back to her immediate surroundings, the chimes from the clock on the TV broadcast no longer reverberating down the corridor, although she reckons it can't be more than three or four minutes into 2016.
"Agent Danvers is looking for you," says Vasquez, just inside the doorway, hands clasped behind her back, shoulders squared, feet planted apart. "It's New Year, ma'am."
"Yeah," Kara nods. "It's … Happy New Year." With a wide smile, she makes her way around the corner of the table, while Vasquez unclasps her hands and takes a step forward.
They both pause.
"So, do we …?" Kara makes some sort of gesture with her arms that she supposes is meant to signify handshake-or-hug?
Vasquez frowns thoughtfully. "I guess … it's up to you, ma'am."
Unbidden (or perhaps slightly bidden, she thinks later on reflection), Kara pictures James and Lucy during the chimes at Cat's party; and Winn looking all tragically forlorn, as if she's deliberately trying to hurt him by not responding to his clumsily dropped hints. And she considers Ms Grant's words of probable sound judgment, since she's been pretty much on-point about a whole bunch of stuff lately.
Kara looks at serious, sharp, reliable, rarely anything-but-calm Agent Vasquez. Who doesn't need advice on anger management or juggling responsibilities; who, as far as Kara's aware, doesn't have an aunt who's trying to kill her; who's not pining hopelessly over an already taken friend-slash-office colleague …
Whose presence right now feels like the opposite of overwhelming.
Kara takes a deep breath. "How about we just go for it?" she suggests brightly. "I mean, it's New Year, right?"
Vasquez frowns again, just before her eyes widen slightly in realization. "Oh."
Reflexively, Kara starts to back-pedal. "Unless you-I mean, I'd totally understand if-"
"No, it's …" Vasquez coughs politely into a loose fist before her hand drops to her side once more. "It's fine, ma'am. New Year, right?"
"Yeah, you know … tradition, I guess," Kara affirms, and they both take another couple of steps forward until they're standing so close that, if Kara hadn't sliced up all the fruit earlier, they could play a - probably kind of fun, but, slightly pointless - round of 'pass the orange'. Although, by the time Kara has her arms draped over the agent's shoulders and Vasquez slides her hands underneath Kara's cape and rests her palms against the small of her back, they'd be lucky to fit half a lemon between them.
Vasquez clears her throat. "Is this okay, ma'am?"
"I think so, yeah," Kara nods, although she's not quite sure what the agent is asking. She masks her uncertainty with another smile. "But, you know, under the circumstance, you can probably drop …" She trails off as Vasquez's mouth twitches faintly at the corner, matching a slightly arched eyebrow. All of a sudden that word sounds a little less benign than usual - and not because she's suddenly become really invested in properly carried-out extra-military protocol.
"Ma'am?" Vasquez's eyebrow arches a little higher.
"Never mind," says Kara.
And half a lemon turns into a razor-thin slice.
Of course, Alex finds out - because it's ever so slightly possible that Kara's really not that great at keeping secrets.
Kara waits for the disbelief-worry-mild hysteria to subside …
("Vasquez? At New Year? God, Kara, this isn't going to turn into an awkward crapfest, is it?")
… then laughs and says, "It's okay, Alex. And no, there's no crapfest. It was just a New Year thing, that's all. Really. It's okay."
Because it reallyis okay.
When Bizarro happens, Kara pauses in the doorway of lab X17 and sees kind, earnest eyes shift away from the sleeping girl, before Vasquez gives her a small nod of commiseration then steps out of the way to let the medical team take over.
When Astra dies, Vasquez seems to hesitate for a second, then simply says, "Sorry for your loss, ma'am," apparently uncertain as to the precise nature of Kara's relationship with the older woman. Kara acknowledges the gesture with a somber, but grateful half-smile before the agent leaves her to enter the room where prisoner five-oh-nine-oh waits to talk to her.
When Supergirl sinks the missile only three thousand feet away from leveling National City, on her return to the DEO, Vasquez grins at her - not smirks, but grins - and says, "Great job, ma'am."
A high five may also be involved.
-Vasquez deserves someone nice.
So.
Unlike pointless, boring 'updates' between the Cowardly Martian and Senator Asshole Crane, this could actually be fun.
Glancing both ways along the otherwise empty hallway, Kara steps closer, placing her right hand against the cool, grey wall just above Vasquez's shoulder, dust and fragments of concrete from around the corner still clinging to her knuckles.
Her whole body itches, like she's trying to claw out of her skin, trying to reach for … something to lift the crushing weight, to let her breathe, to make everyone see. And yet, she's never felt so at peace with herself, with what she is and what she could be if she'd only just let herself ...
"… feel like we just got started back then," she says, fingers from her other hand trailing softly up and down the length of the other woman's arm. Kara tilts forward until her lips are barely a hair's breadth from the agent's ear. "Like things didn't have to stop when they did." She leans back again, her lips drawing slowly across her teeth until it feels like she's smiling.
Vasquez gazes back at her, eyes steady, unblinking. "I don't think so, ma'am."
Kara's eyebrows rise. "You don't think so?" she echoes, her fingers coming to an abrupt halt somewhere near the agent's elbow. She barks out a terse, icy laugh. "Where the hell were you that night?"
"Ma'am, that's not what it was about-"
"Wasn't it?" Kara sneers. "Don't think I never noticed. All those looks, all the Yes, ma'ams and No, ma'ams …" She cocks her head, summoning a pleasant smile, fused with just a hint of mockery as she toys with Vasquez's collar, tugging lightly at the tab of the zipper. "Why d'you think it was so easy for me? You could have said no, and yet …"
Vasquez doesn't even flinch. "Again, ma'am, I think you're mistaken."
The tab snaps off and drops to the floor with a quiet, metallic bounce. Kara steps on it, sliding her foot between the agent's own, using the motion to nudge Vasquez's boots a little further apart. She leans close again so their foreheads almost touch.
"I saved your life," Kara hisses. "You owe me, remember?"
Vasquez doesn't move, doesn't say a word, but, Kara can feel the agent's breath against her lips, can see those wide, brown eyes start to darken, can hear that heart rate begin to-
"With all due respect, ma'am … go fuck yourself."
Kara blinks, startled.
(shocked, furious, confused, aroused, frustrated)
"Yeah, like you wouldn't want to see that," she spits. Stepping away, hands dropping to her hips, she shrugs. "But, whatever. Your loss."
It's late. She has work tomorrow.
Kara turns away, starts to stalk down the hallway, and then she hears it, echoing off the walls behind her:
"Whatever you say, ma'am."
Her step falters. She's tempted to look back, but she doesn't. Instead, Kara finds herself picturing Cat Grant firing orders and lobbing demands at Agent Vasquez, only to be met by a blank stare and that barely discernable smirk - the kind of expression the ungrateful bitch might wear under torture. Cat's head would probably explode.
Kara starts to smile.
She holds onto that thought as she flies home.
While Alex visits J'onn in his cell, Kara finds Vasquez at her usual post in the command center.
The agent glances up for only a second, eyes skimming even more swiftly over Kara's clothing, before she returns to the task of monitoring Earth for evil alien activity.
The irony isn't lost on Kara, and she wants to ask for somewhere more private for discretion's sake, but it doesn't feel like something she has any right to request. Not now. Instead, she relies on the relative dearth of agents in the immediate vicinity and a low voice.
"I'm so sorry. I made it horrible and weird and I didn't mean any of it …"
Vasquez's eyes don't move from the monitors. "I know, ma'am."
"I want things to be okay again," Kara says, and almost takes a step closer, before thinking better of it and staying where she is. "Just tell me what I can-"
She's cut off by a short exhalation of breath, as Vasquez's chair swivels to the side and the agent looks up at her.
"Things are okay," says Vasquez.
"Really?" Kara checks.
Agent Vasquez doesn't say anything for a moment. Then the corner of her mouth curves just a tiny bit upward and she shrugs one shoulder. "If it helps … I've had weirder."
If the agent's lying, Kara can't tell, but she smiles anyway and leaves the platform and waits for Alex to take her home.
She's had all day to think about it, but it only really strikes her the next night when she's flying toward CatCo Plaza, her mind momentarily free enough from the immediate aftermath of broken buildings and damaged relationships to turn over what Alex told her when she first woke up in the recovery room.
She thinks about her petty, childish jealousy toward Lucy.
J'onn's prior reluctance to embrace his alien identity.
Cat's arrogance and shallow self-centeredness and sometimes brutal mean streak.
Her relationship with Alex and the tiny shreds of resentment and envy buried deep amongst infinite layers of love and loyalty and pride in one another.
Landing softly on Ms Grant's balcony, Kara sits back on the arm of one of the outdoor chairs and gazes out across the city. She follows the lines and shapes of tall buildings that don't quite reach the stars, of windows that reflect the lights that pulse all over town.
Like heartbeats.
And she tries not to wonder.