#supercatnet

She’s in Kara’s apartment after a little fight about something silly to be mentioned and they’re making out on the couch, it’s hungry, messy and a little bitter too, when Alex barges inside without any warning. She is talking about the takeout she’s just ordered and when her eyes catches the sight of her sister, lipstick smudged all over her face, hair disheveled and Cat Grant sitting on her lap, she drops her purse and gapes, eyes bulging out of her orbits as she stares at them, completely dumbfounded.

Cat winces and pulls away from Kara, who scrambles to her feet and tries to explain the situation in a typical ramble. Alex raises a finger and Kara shuts up, swallowing thickly. Cat doesn’t dare say anything, she just watches as Alex’s features shift from astonishment to something hard and cold. She knows it’s not going to be easy.

Alex opens her mouth but nothing comes out for a few seconds and she seems annoyed. Finally, she just glances at Cat and her eyes are burning with anger when she speaks “You know what, I don’t even want to know. I’m going home, we’ll talk later.”

Kara tries to call her back but Alex glares at her and Cat, who’s the queen of the meaningful glares, feels a chill down her spine at the sight. “I said later.” She repeats and then she’s gone, slamming the door behind her and Kara stares at it with such a pained expression Cat’s heart tug unpleasantly in her chest.

For days after this incident, Kara looks miserable and Cat knows Alex is refusing to talk. She understands the elder Danvers but it still hurt to know she’s responsible for the hurt in Kara’s eyes. Kara says it’s not her fault at all but Cat knows better.

It takes more days for Alex to agree to meet Kara to talk and it takes weeks after that for Alex to accept the invitation to come over for dinner with the Grants. She’s guarded and not entirely comfortable but then she meets Carter and they immediately get along and Cat is both impressed and grateful for the way Alex acts with the young boy.

They’re not friends, rather far from it, and Alex is sometimes snarky, borderline mean but Cat can deal with that if it means she’s not trying to talk Kara out of this relationship.

—

The second person she meets as Kara’s girlfriend is, strangely enough, Lucy Lane.

It’s not planned either but it goes smoothly enough for everyone to be comfortable. They’re with Carter when they run into the younger Lane at Noonan’s one Saturday morning and it’s a little awkward but then Lucy smiles and doesn’t push and Cat is infinitely grateful for that.

They sit around a table and Kara explains how it started, she also adds that Alex knows but she’s the only one and she shyly asks of Lucy to keep it secret for now. Lucy glances at Cat and then nods. She doesn’t look like Lois at all but sometimes, there’s a familiar flicker in her eyes that makes Cat remembers of the other Lane.

Cat hesitates and then asks about James and Lucy says she won’t say anything because James and her are not a thing anymore. She doesn’t elaborate on it but she doesn’t seem heartbroken and she’s smiling and asking Carter about how it is to live with Kara. Carter jokes about Kara eating too much food and it makes everyone laugh and it’s easy.

—

James Olsen is not as easy as his ex-fiancée and Cat doesn’t quite understand why it affects her so much.

He catches them kissing rather passionately, one late night.

He’s standing in the middle of her office, staring at her with anger and betrayal in his eyes as Kara comes to her sides. She welcomes the light touch of fingers settling in the small of her back but she doesn’t dare lean on it. James looks disgusted and mad but he doesn’t add anything, leaving the room without looking back.

It’s an accident, he wasn’t supposed to be working so late, he wasn’t even supposed to be in the building but then again, she always underestimates how good he is at his job, how much he loves it.

Which is why, when he handles her his resignation letter at the end of the week, she takes it hard. She doesn’t exactly consider him a friend but he’s been more than just her artistic director and it hurts. She lets him go, though.

The look of pure hurt in Kara’s eyes is back and she can’t stand it, she wonders if the worst is over. Then, Carter says something about Alex’s mother and she realizes it’s not.

It’s far from over.

—

When Clark Kent raises his voice at her, she knows it’s going to get worse than she first thought it would.

Kara is the one to scream back at him and it’s ugly, it’s resentment and bitter-sweetness and accusations. He’s pushing everything his cousin is saying aside to take it out on her and she stays silent. Cat knows that if she speaks, she’s going to take part in a battle that isn’t hers to fight and she doesn’t want to make Kara feels like she needs protection.

Superman had flown to National City after James’s return to Metropolis. Cat doesn’t know what her former employee said to his best friend but clearly, it didn’t sit well with the superhero because he’s here on her balcony and lecturing her about corrupting his young, sweet and innocent cousin.

Kara is burning with anger and she almost uses heat vision on her cousin when he tells her she’s not thinking clearly, that Cat is just toying with her. After that, Kara tells him to go back to Metropolis and to never, ever come back here.

Cat feels her heart break all over again once he’s gone because the look in Kara’s eyes is too painfully sad and hollow. It’s all because of her and she thinks she should put an end to their relationship before it drives all of Kara’s friends away.

Kara holds her tight that night and she swallows back a sob because now she doesn’t think she’s strong enough to let her go.

—

Winn, the ones she often calls the Cardigan hobbit, doesn’t react much to the new.

Kara tells him the day James is leaving and he simply shrugs and wish her to be happy. It’s too easy and Cat’s sure there’s a catch.

Sure enough, Winn starts to take his distances. He’s not cold, he’s not mean and he’s still around but it’s different and wounded and Cat knows it won’t be long before him too leaves CatCo.

It takes a grand total of two weeks before he comes to see her with a slightly apprehensive look and she lets him go. He tells her he’s going to work for the DEO and she smiles gratefully because it means he’s still going to work with Kara, in a different capacity.

Kara takes it a little differently when she’s the one to break the new of Winn’s resignation for CatCo. She closes off and Cat doesn’t push because she remembers something Kara said about Winn and her starting working at CatCo around the same time and helping each-other through the years. She knows Kara see Winn’s move like a betrayal and a revenge at once so she lets her deal with it.

Eventually, Kara adapts to the new dynamic.

—

That until Cat is invited over for Thanksgiving.

Kara tells her to bring Carter and she sounds so hopeful and happy, Cat doesn’t have the nerves to ruin her mood by refusing. She’s terrified Eliza isn’t going to accept her and she knows, she knows that after James and Winn’s reactions, Kara’s heart is vulnerable.

Vulnerable enough for her to feel insecure about this relationship and Cat doesn’t know if she can deal with Kara saying it’s over.

She had tasted a life with Kara Danvers as her girlfriend and she’s certain she can’t survive the aftermath of a break-up. The mornings without Kara beside her in their bed. The night when she comes home to a sleepy superhero on the couch, the conversations about life and art and everything and nothing, the domesticity of seeing Kara’s stuff all over her place, the way Carter is acting with Kara as if she’s always been there. She thinks it’s going to kill her if Kara puts an end to it but she can’t say she won’t understand.

The dinner is polite and civilized and Eliza is smitten with Carter, like all the Danvers women are. Cat is uncomfortable and waiting for the other shoe to drop but she tries her best to look unaffected and composed. Kara sees right through her though and she’s grateful for the small touches here and now. A hand on her tight, a kiss across her hair, a stroke against her forearm, gentle and kind and warm.

Then she’s all alone with Eliza and she knows it’s over before the older woman even opens her mouth.

The words are cutting deep in her soul and reflecting all of her insecurities. Eliza is almost gentle but she’s firm and she makes it clear she doesn’t approve at all. She does says that Kara looks happy and it pleases her to see it but she ends the sentence by saying Cat isn’t fair with Kara. She speaks about the age difference mostly, the fact that Cat has a child and Kara is still young and that she shouldn’t have to bear that responsibility.

That’s when Kara barges in the kitchen and comes to stand beside her. Her face is still and neutral and she simply asks for Eliza to go. Cat chokes at the words and she wants to protest that it’s not fair, that Kara shouldn’t have to chose her over her foster mother but Kara doesn’t let her talk.

Kara says, in a voice that is unwavering and so full of certainty that she loves Cat and Carter and that she wants a lifetime with them, she wants them to be her family and that if Eliza isn’t able to deal with it, then she’s not welcomed anymore.

Alex is standing in the doorway behind them and Cat can see the hurt and betrayal and sadness swirl in her eyes and she feels like the world is falling apart around her.

Kara slides an arm around her waist and holds her. Eliza gapes and there are tears in her eyes but she nods and she simply goes away.

Alex looks at Kara in the eyes and there’s understanding in the exchange, before she goes to help her mother with her things.

Later that night, Kara leaves the bed and it wakes her up. She waits a little before following her lover and she hears the sobs before she can put a foot in the living room.

It’s desperate and raw and when she comes to put her arms around Kara to pull her in a tight, tight hug, she sees the pain and the loneliness swirl in those baby blue eyes and she knows.

She knows that every single of Kara’s friends chipped her heart and made her feel like she was loosing everything and everyone all over again. She knows that right now, Kara feels abandoned and betrayed and hurt and it’s like she’s Kara Zor-El, trapped in a pod to witness the destruction of her world in a never ending loop.

She bleeds because the words are twisting their way into a wound that never truly healed. It’s heartless and merciless and it salvages everything.She’s bleeding emotions and it’s dripping from her like a wild mountain torrent.

She doesn’t even realize she’s sitting down on one of those comfortable sofas she often uses to listen to whatever Miss Grant is willing to teach her. The fabric under her fingers is rough and unfamiliar. Everything feels different now.

There are soft, gentle and kind green eyes watching her and she looks into them, unable to bring herself to say something. She finds some solace in the familiar gleam shining deep down in Miss Grant’s emerald eyes but it does little to calm her, even with the familiar voice speaking words she doesn’t even hear.She’s agonizing inside and she knows she can’t say anything.

Those feelings, bleeding through the open wound like blood would from a human injury, are forbidden and she knows it. She’s carrying them around for so long now, cowardly hiding behind the plausible and acceptable excuse of simply harboring a crush for her boss.After all, what’s not to like in such a brilliant, rich, attractive and powerful woman like Miss Grant. She knows for a fact that more than half of the employees of this company have a little crush on their boss and she gets it. She gets it and she sometimes wishes she could be like them.

But what’s she’s feeling is so much more than just a crush. It’s deep and authentic and pure and it goes beyond Love itself. She couldn’t even try to describe it, should someone ask. It’s not a feeling, it’s not an emotion, it just exists.She didn’t see it coming either. She woke up one morning, she went to work like she always did, Cat yelled something at her about the fashions spread and then suddenly, suddenly she understood what Winn once said to her. Ka-pow.

Cat Grant is leaving and she suddenly feels like the sun has been ripped from where it used to hang in the sky and it’s raining. Everything is Grey and dull and weakening.

“I need to dive.”

She doesn’t know if she wants to choke a bitter laugh or if she wants to cry her despair out at those words that were first directed at her, earlier in life. There’s a scream caught in her throat that she’s too afraid to set free and there are tears veiled up in her eyes she’s strong enough to contain. Barely, but it will have to do.

She takes a sharp intake of breath and she’s almost in awe at the fact she doesn’t cry. Instead, she whispers something that is the understatement of the century.

“Oh … Everything is changing so fast.”

She swallows and it’s hard because she still wants to scream and cry and yell at the same time. She wonders how long it’s going to take for her to finally break.

“I … I do not do well with changes.”

She grabs a cushion, mostly to do something but then her fingers dig into the soft fabric and she’s holding to it for dear life. She almost smiles at how pathetic this is. Her world is crumbling and dissolving into the unknown and she’s clutching to a cushion like a castaway to their lifebuoy.

She looks around and she takes in all the details of this office she knows by heart already.The top left screen with a few dead pixels in one corner. The bowl of m&ms atop the alcohol cabinet. The piles of books under the coffee table, of which she could list the titles by order of arrangement. The rug underneath her feet, where she once spilled a few drops of actual blood the day she lost her powers.She sighs and her lips wobble, she doesn’t even know how she manages to say the words.

“Gosh, Miss Grant … I … I can’t imagine being here without you.”

It’s as close of the truth she will ever get and she wants to curl into a ball and cry because it’s not even scratching the surface.

It gets worse when she looks at Miss Grant’s face only to see sadness swirls in those ever deep green eyes. For a moment, she thinks they are about to say all the things they can’t tell out loud but the moment passes and Cat’s voice almost breaks when she whispers one, single word.

“Kara.”

The wound in her heart bleeds and bleeds and bleeds and everything fade into pain. Her own name echoes in the air and sounds like a curse and she hates it.

Miss Grant’s features are soft and open and she’s never seen the woman so unguarded before. She doesn’t even want to know what that means because she’s leaving and Kara will be alone.

Again.

Suddenly, Cat’s close and Kara drowns in her perfume when her boss reaches a hand to play with a strand of her hair. Her heart stops altogether and she can’t breathe anymore.

“Oh, Kara. You … will rise to the occasion.”

The moment is gone and they both know it. There’s something tender in the way they both look at each other and Kara doesn’t want that. She doesn’t want to think it’s the last time she will see Cat. The scream in her throat burns and she’s about to give in so she does something even more stupid instead.

She rises and she puts her arms around Cat.

Oh, this is the biggest mistake of her life, she has no doubt about that but when Cat holds her tight, when she’s surrounded by the strong, spicy perfume and when blonde hair caresses her cheeks and neck, she simply reveals in it.

It’s soft but it’s strong and it’s desperate and they both know it. This is a goodbye and it tastes like ashes and ruins and salt.

Then, the usual Cat Grant is back with a stern but inspiring comment and Kara nods because she knows she can’t hold on to Cat forever.