queen of bad decisions

“Something like that, and yes,” she replied with a nod of her head, “it’ll put my mind at ease to know you’re okay. The lab’s down the block.”

She’s sighing, but following the other woman anyway. “Dude, you know, I’m totally fine, but whatever makes you happy, I guess.”

“Cool.” Clint picked up the pizza box, pizza and all, and meandered off.

“I... Clint! Seriously?” She’s picking up a piece of paper, crunching it up into a ball and throwing it at the back of his head. “The least you can do is share!”

“Get your mind out of the gutter, not the kind of scandal I meant, which– rude, by the way. But anyways, fine, you’ve twisted my arm. I’ll walk with you.”

“What other scandals do you have on your hands, though? Besides, you know, being Iron Man and all,” she points out and then she’s laughing. “Oh, really? Wait, did I even ask you to walk with me, was that a thing?””

“Kate, I’m dying, give me the gallows humour or let me plummet into the helpless hospice-care despair and sorrow. It’s going on my tombstone first and there is no way you’re beating me out on this race.”

She’s letting out a huff, and then shakes her head. “Well, you know, we can just share. You know.”

“Okay, fine, whatever, but when you collapse and have to go to a hospital and they ask you to make a statement because we were seen together, do me a favour and tell them I told you to go to a hospital. I’m in no hurry to get caught up in another scandal.”

“Dude, no, shut up. The only thing I’m going to do is go to Clint’s house and crash on his couch. I’m not going to the hospital. And we’re not going to be caught in a scandal. Nope. Gross.”

“Tough shit, I’m gonna beat you to it.”

“No. Rude.”

“…That’s a pizza box.”

“No, I want the dinosaur that they drew on the box, like I asked. You can have the pizza box on yours.”

“Oliver Queen gets himself into some pretty interesting predicaments for a billionaire playboy,” Caitlin replied, folding her arms over her chest, “and you don’t hear about it in the news. I’m very discreet. I just want to make sure that the situation isn’t worse than we think it is.”

“What, is he like Tony Stark or something?” She scoffs and then shakes her head. And then she’s sighing. “If I go with you, will it get you off my back?”

…Uh-huh. All right, she’d play along. Caitlin nodded and decided to drop a name of her own just in case it rang a few bells. “Yeah. Oliver Queen is one of them,” she replied. Whether or not others knew of his dual identity as the Green Arrow would soon be clear by her reaction.

Her eyebrows furrow. “What, does Oliver Queen get a lot of concussions, too?”

“Uh…yeah.”

“No.”

…This was suspicious. People often wanted to avoid medical attention for two primary reasons. Either they were drug addicts and they didn’t want people to know about it, or they were vigilantes and they didn’t want their secret identities to be compromised. Since this woman didn’t seem like the former - and because she’d spent a great deal of time with the latter - she had a pretty good idea of what she was dealing with. “I have a private facility,” Caitlin offered, wondering if that would change her mind, “and I’ve had some pretty interesting former patients.”

Kate feels her heart seize up in a panic and she has to take a deep breath. “What, like socialites who doesn’t want people to know she’s in the hospital for something that’s not charity?” Good cover, Kate, very good, that’ll work. She hopes.

“So you’re concussed.”

“... no?”

“Yes! You got it! Ding-ding-ding! Right on the money… punny. Rhymes, and yeah - you’re probably clever enough to put that together too. Your dog, by the way, he looks familiar. Lucky?”

She should be focusing on the fact that she’s a clown or something, but she’s looking back and Lucky and then back at Harley. “Yeah. You know Clint?”

“Yes,” she replied, “if I weren’t, I’d have just assumed you were drunk or tripping on drugs. Could you please answer the question, miss? If you’re hurt, you may need medical attention and time is a factor.”

“Oh, god, it’s not like I haven’t had a concussion, before, honestly, it’s fine. I’ll just walk around like Jack Sparrow for a little bit and I’ll be fine later!” She’s a little flattered that this woman is worried about her, but she doesn’t want people worrying about her. She worries about other people, she saves people, that’s what she does.

“That’s the point of these exams,” Caitlin said, turning off her flashlight and putting it away, “you’re not supposed to tell the patient that it’s coming in order to get a true reaction to the light. I don’t want to alarm you, but have you recently suffered some form of blunt head trauma? Even just a little bit?”

Shes just blinking at Caitlin. “Are you a real doctor?”

Kara wraps an arm around Kate’s shoulders, smiling for the picture. It’s wide and genuine - Kara’s eyes crinkling up at the corners. It’s not until Kate is suggesting that they text that it occurs to Kara that Alex would probably disapprove of this. All of it. But this isn’t the first picture she’s had taken of her as Supergirl… Maybe one of the few from this close. A voice in her head that sounded a lot like her sister’s warned her against putting her number into Hawkeye’s phone. But what was the point of having a sibling in a secret government agency if she couldn’t protect your phone from being traced? Maybe Kara wanted to give Kate the benefit of the doubt, but she didn’t seem like she had malignant intentions. Not to mention the fact that she was a superhero too with an identity to protect. There was some kind of code of conduct here, right? Right. “I’m seeing a superhero team-up in our future,” Kara nods, taking the phone from Kate so she can punch in her number before holding it back out to its owner. 

Kate’s grinning and then nodding. “Oh futz yeah. We’re gonna be the most kick up team up, I mean, come on, look at us.” She’s beaming, and typing in Supergirl with a heart eyes emoji before sending the selfie to Kara. And then she’s posting the selfie onto the Hawkeye instagram with the caption ‘Supergirl and Hawkeye team up? You better futzing believe it!’ Once she’s done, she’s looking back up at Kara. “Man, it’ll be good to have a texting buddy. That actually knows the deal about secret identities and such. Clint doesn’t have that problem so I can’t talk to him about that,” she says with a laugh.