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Kara Danvers is fourteen years old when she first lays eyes on Cat Grant.
It’s her first day of high school, and she’s completely overwhelmed by the number of people crowding the hallways as she makes her way from third to fourth period, books clutched tightly to her chest and her new friend Winn pressed close against her side.
Kara gets clattered by a guy wearing a letterman jacket, and he snickers as she collides with a row of lockers, books falling to the floor.
Kara feels tears spring into her eyes as she scrambles to pick them all up.
When she stands, there’s a blonde standing in-front of the locker beside her.
Her eyes are the green of freshly cut grass, short hair in tight curls, dressed in clothes that Kara could never even dream of being able to afford.
She isn’t smiling, and she looks at Kara with mere disinterest as she tosses her hair and turns her back, nimble fingers opening her locker, the door shielding her from Kara’s view.
Kara knows she’s staring, and she has to blink several times to clear her head before Winn nudges her and they make their way together towards their next class.
Whenever Kara blinks for the next few minutes, the girl is imprinted on her eyelids like an afterimage, like the type you get from staring at the sun for too long.
Kara thinks it is because she is like the sun.
Beautiful and blinding and deadly.
Beautiful most of all.
Kara thinks she’s the most beautiful thing she has ever seen.
x-x-x
She catches sight of her again during her lunch period, sitting on a table with the guy in the letterman jacket, though she looks bored as she picks at her salad.
Kara turns to her sister, sat beside her and asks what the girl is called.
Alex would have never been caught dead eating lunch with her sister back at their middle school – she’d been too concerned with ‘fitting in’, with aligning herself with the popular kids, kids who wanted nothing to do with the quiet, weird girl that came from another town.
Alex only spoke to her at home, but even then, in those first few months, conversation had been sparse.
Kara was the sister Alex had never wanted, the girl that had forced her way into her home, and the resentment from the way her parents had treated Kara – patient and lenient and understanding – whilst they had been so quick to reprimand her, had lingered for a long, long time.
But Alex’s start at high school had started to thaw her cool mood when it came to Kara, and Kara would tentatively call them friends.
Even so, she hadn’t expected Alex to wave to her as she’d stood in the queue at the cafeteria, calling her sister over to her table, where she politely nodded to her friends, Susan and Lucy, as she dragged Winn to sit down beside her.
“The blonde?” Alex asks, now, as Kara surreptitiously points to where the girl sits. “That’s the queen bee of our year. Cat Grant.” Kara repeats the name in her head a few times, so she doesn’t forget it (though she thinks she never will), and freezes when Alex turns her head to eye Kara thoughtfully. “Why?”
“Um, just wondering.” She shrugs, fidgeting under her sister’s stare, not quite knowing how to put it into words, the way that Kara’s eyes can’t seem to stop flitting over to where Cat sits, the strange fascination she has with a girl she doesn’t even know.
“Okay.” Alex looks at her curiously for a few more moments, before turning to answer a question from Lucy.
Kara chews thoughtfully on a fry, trying not to look over at Cat again lest the girl find her staring.
Cat.
The name suits her.
x-x-x
It’s almost six months before they have an actual conversation.
In those six months, Cat Grant doesn’t become any less fascinating to Kara.
She catches glimpses of her in the hallways, sometimes, or at lunch, and each and every single time, it takes a huge effort for Kara to tear her eyes away.
Alex has noticed, because of course she has, and teases Kara every chance she gets.
She tells Kara she has a crush.
Kara would disagree, except every time she looks at Cat she feels her cheeks grow hot and her heart beat faster in her chest, and she’s never been a good liar, anyway.
And it’s a hopeless crush like a crush on a celebrity because Cat doesn’t even know she exists, but Kara decides that’s okay because if Cat ever spoke to her she’d probably pass out.
As it turns out, she doesn’t pass out when they first speak – although at one point she feels kind of dizzy and hears a rushing sound in her ears.
She’s in the library after school, like she is every Thursday, killing time while she waits for Alex to finish softball practice, preferring to wait for Eliza to come and pick them both up than getting the bus home alone.
Usually, it’s empty, but there’s a big history assignment in Alex’s grade (Kara knows because she won’t shut up about it), and as she walks inside she glances around to find that pretty much every seat is taken, and she sighs, ready to turn around and trudge away, finishing her homework on the bleachers or in an empty classroom.
But then, before she leaves, she catches sight of a familiar head of blonde hair, and catches her breath.
Cat Grant is sitting at a table with four chairs surrounding it, though three of them are empty.
Biting on her bottom lip, Kara wanders hesitantly over to the table, pausing when Cat looks up and fixes her with a piercing stare that makes her forget how to breathe.
“C-can I… can I sit here?” She hopes that Cat assumes the stutter is because she’s shy, not because of the realisation that she’s actually saying something to the girl she’s been crushing on since the moment she first saw her.
“No.” Cat answers, voice clipped, short, and Kara’s face falls at the unexpected answer, cheeks flushing as she turns to flee, upset and embarrassed all at the same time. “Wait,” Cat stops her before she can leave, sighing, and when Kara whirls back around she’s shaking her head. “You don’t need to look like such a kicked puppy about it. Sit.” She kicks out one of the spare chairs with one booted foot, and Kara beams as she settles into the seat.
“Thank you.”
“Yeah, yeah. You can only stay if you’re quiet.” Kara pushes her glasses up her nose and nods, because she can do that, she’s good at quiet, at blending into the background and not being noticed.
And at least that way she can’t make a fool out of herself in-front of Cat.
She pulls out her math book and some paper, bends her head over the page and scribbles away.
It takes her a while to notice that there are a pair of green eyes watching her.
She sets down her pen, fingers trembling, as she raises her head, and finds Cat looking at her thoughtfully, lips pursed and chin resting in the palm of one of her hands.
“Kara Danvers, huh?” She says, and Kara gapes, astounded, because how does Cat even know her name? But then Cat takes one look at her face, rolls her eyes, and taps her index finger against the cover of one of Kara’s books, her name scrawled in the corner. “You Alex’s sister?” Kara nods. “You can speak, you know. The silence is starting to freak me out.”
“You told me to be quiet,” Kara points out, not able to look Cat in the eye for longer than two seconds at a time.
She’s scared of drowning in pools of green.
“No-one usually listens to me,” Cat tells her, lips quirked into a small smile that makes Kara’s heart skip a beat.
“Oh.” Something that looks a lot like amusement glitters in Cat’s green eyes, like this is the most fun she’s had all day.
Kara supposes, glancing at the history essay in-front of Cat, that she probably is the more interesting of the two.
The thought warms her heart.
“You don’t look much like your sister.”
“I… I’m adopted.” Kara glances down at her math homework, the numbers and symbols familiar to her, easier to stare at than the sympathy in Cat’s eyes. “My parents died two years ago. Car crash.”
“I’m sorry,” Cat says, her voice soft and so very warm, and before today Kara has never really heard her speak before and now she never wants her to stop.
The words ring empty, though, even from Cat. She’s heard them so many times – every time she tells someone about her past, about the fact that she’d lost her family.
They don’t comfort her, not when her heart is still so heavy with their loss.
“Why?” Kara asks, like she always does whenever someone offers her their apologies. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”
“It’s just what people say – wait. What do you mean it’s your fault?” She glances up, and Cat is squinting at her. “I’m pretty sure you can’t drive.”
Kara doesn’t know if it’s an attempt to cheer her up, to make her laugh or even just smile, but it doesn’t work.
“No, but they were in the car that night because of me. I was at my friend’s house and we had a fight so I called them and asked if they could come and pick me up.” She glances back down at her book, tears stinging her eyes. “They never did,” she whispers, the words raw, and opposite her, she hears Cat draw in a soft breath.
Kara doesn’t know why she’s telling Cat this, things that she’s barely said aloud to anyone else before, let alone someone she doesn’t even know.
But there’s something warm about her that makes Kara want to open up so she does, and she nearly jumps out of her skin when a soft hand rests on her forearm, squeezing gently, raises her head, eyes wide, to find Cat leaning over the table towards her.
“You can’t blame yourself, Kara. Your parents wouldn’t want you to.” Kara shakes her head, isn’t sure of that at all, and she’s mortified when she feels a tear slip from the corner of one of her eyes, wipes it quickly away. “They wouldn’t,” Cat tells her again, fingers warm on the bare skin of her arm. “My father died when I was eight. It was a heart attack, so there was nothing anyone could do, but… sometimes I wonder if I could have reacted a little quicker, called 911 sooner… I wonder if he’d still be alive. But I know he wouldn’t want me to torture myself over it.”
“It’s not that easy, though.” Kara has replayed that night a hundred thousand times in her head, over and over again, wondering if there was something, anything she could have done differently, even though she knows it won’t change the past.
“I know. But you have to try. Promise me.”
“Why? Why do you care?” Kara stares at Cat with something like wonder, a girl whose past seems to be marred by tragedy just like her own, wonders why she would even give someone like Kara the time of day, let alone open up to her like this.
“I don’t know,” Cat shrugs. “Maybe cause you look terrified half the time and sad the other half.” Kara stares even more, because does that mean Cat’s noticed her, too? “You look like you need someone to tell you that it’s all going to be okay.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Little Danvers.” Cat grins at her nickname when Kara makes a face, and then Kara jumps when her phone buzzes loudly on the desk in-front of her, Eliza asking her where she is.
She hadn’t even realised the time.
“I have to go,” she says, apologetic, disappointment flooding through her because she doesn’t know if she’s ever going to get a chance to speak to Cat like this alone ever again.
“See you around, Little Danvers.” Kara smiles, this time, shoving her books into her bag.
“Bye, Cat.” She raises her head, quirks an eyebrow.
“I never told you my name.”
“Everybody knows your name,” Kara tells her, with a sweet, shy smile, and then she gives Cat a little wave goodbye that makes her roll her eyes.
But there’s a smile on her lips as she turns back to her essay.
A smile Kara thinks she will probably be dreaming about later tonight.
x-x-x
“Little Danvers.” Kara nearly has a heart attack when she hears Cat’s voice from behind her, the book that she’d been reading flying out of her hand and landing on the grass beside her.
Cat stands in-front of her, looming over her, blocking out the sun so that it forms a halo around her head.
It makes it hard to look at her, so Kara stares at her hands instead.
“What’re you doing in my spot?”
“Y-your spot?” Cat has her hands on her hips and her lips are quirked into a smile, and Kara scrambles for her book and holds it close to her chest. “I-I didn’t realise. I only found it last week.” She’d stumbled across the park when she walked a different way to the grocery store.
Two years in this town, and she still doesn’t know all its secrets.
“Do you want me to leave?” Kara asks, voice small, as she peers up at Cat, but she merely shrugs and drops onto the grass beside her.
“Not unless you want to.” Kara smiles, pushes her glasses up her nose, and tries not to blush when she finds Cat watching her out of the corner of her eye. “What are you reading?”
Kara brandishes the cover, and Cat raises an eyebrow.
“Nerd.” But Cat is smiling and the word is almost affectionate, and it doesn’t sound the way it does when the bullies at her old school had called her that.
“I like space,” Kara says, defensive, as she hugs the book close once more. “All the stars and the constellations.”
“Maybe you can teach me one day.”
Kara’s heart thuds hard in her chest.
“Maybe.”
They sit in silence for a little while after that.
Cat stretches out on her back, closes her eyes, and basks in the warm sunlight that beats down on them.
Kara stretches out on her front and continues to read her book, listening to the quiet sound of Cat’s breathing and trying her hardest not to stare at her.
x-x-x
After that, it becomes almost a routine.
Kara heads to the park most Saturdays, and on weekdays when the school year ends and summer begins, takes a book or her homework and lies on the grass and gets away from the world for a little while.
It’s not like she doesn’t like her home, because she does. But sometimes it’s too loud or sometimes it’s too quiet, especially at this time of the year as they approach the anniversary of her foster father’s death, and she relishes the chance to spend some time outdoors, to spend some time on her own where she doesn’t feel like she’s being smothered.
She doesn’t know why Cat doesn’t spend her weekends at home, and she doesn’t ask.
She doesn’t know why Cat seems content to just curl up beside her, either, sometimes in silence, sometimes not, but every week, Kara goes to the park and either finds Cat waiting for her, or doesn’t have to sit long before she appears.
At school nothing changes, though sometimes Cat smiles at her in the hallway and Alex teases her about the way Kara flushes pink for the rest of the day.
She thinks she should be used to it by now, considering the amount of time they spend together, but she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to adapt to the way Cat Grant makes her feel.
Kara still has no idea why Cat likes spending time with her, because she doesn’t think she’s very interesting and she stutters a lot and she can’t really look Cat in the eye for very long, and there’s a part of that wonders, sometimes, if this is just some kind of bizarre social experiment.
Still.
She’s not going to question it.
Not when she gets to spend a few uninterrupted hours alone with Cat each week.
One Saturday, she teaches her some of the constellations.
She has a map of them, stretches it out on the grass and lies on her stomach in-front of it, with Cat warm at her side.
She points to the stars and she explains their names and where they lie in the sky.
She wishes that it were dark, that night had fallen around them and the only light was from the moon, wishes that she could lie on her back and point upwards, trace her finger over their outline in the sky.
She wishes that she could show Cat the beauty of the stars, and tell her that the stars would never be quite as beautiful as her.
Instead, she settles for her map, and when Cat reaches out a finger to point at the constellation of her star sign, their hands brush, and Kara sucks in a sharp breath as she feels her skin tingle, her heart racing in her chest.
“What’s your sign?” Cat asks, their hands still touching, and when Kara turns her head she finds Cat’s face scant inches away from her own and stops breathing altogether.
This close, her eyes are green and gold and her lips are red and soft and inviting, and Kara blinks hard and tears her gaze away before she does something stupid.
Like kiss Cat Grant.
“T-taurus.” Kara’s finger trembles as she traces over its outline, and Cat hums quietly under her breath.
“Interesting.”
“Why?”
“Well, I may not know a lot about constellations,” Cat tells her, smirk on her mouth, “but I know a little about star signs. Capricorn and Taurus go pretty well together.”
“R-really?”
“Mhm.”
“C-cool.” Cat stares at her for one further long, heavy moment, before she grins and rolls onto her back, and Kara sucks in a lungful of fresh air and tries not to pass out because what does that even mean?
She’s pretty sure that Cat Grant’s going to kill her, one of these days.
Kara’s also pretty sure that she’s going to let her.
x-x-x
One day in the middle of summer, Kara arrives at their spot to find Cat waiting for her.
She’s hugging her knees as she stares off into the distance, and her eyes are rimmed in red and there are tear tracks down her cheeks and Kara wonders how it’s possible for someone to look so beautiful even when they’re crying.
“Cat?” She asks, frowning in concern as she lowers herself to the ground beside her. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Cat murmurs, wiping at her cheeks with the back of her hand, her voice rough and Kara wonders how long she’s been out here, upset and alone. “I had a fight with my Mom. Nothing new there.”
There’s not, because Cat fights with her Mom almost every day – Kara has overheard some of them, when Cat’s phone rings when they’re together.
They usually just make Cat angry.
Kara has never once seen them make Cat cry.
“Okay.” Kara had learned long ago that with Cat, it was best not to push, so she pretends that everything is normal and opens up her latest book on her lap, and she waits.
“She told me that my father would be disappointed in me,” Cat says eventually, after Kara has read two chapters, much slower than she usually would because she keeps shooting worried glances at Cat out of the corner of her eye. “In who I’ve become.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Kara replies softly, setting down her book and turning to face Cat. She’s still hugging her knees, still looks lost, and it makes Kara’s heart ache. “Why did she say that?”
“Because I told her I wanted to be a journalist.” Cat’s lips twist into a bitter smile. “She wasn’t very happy about that.”
“I thought your Mom was a writer?”
“She is,” Cat shrugs. “But apparently ‘writing fluff pieces for the Daily Planet is nowhere near the calibre of what a Grant should achieve’.” Kara’s never met Cat’s Mom, but the impression she does of her seems to line up with what Kara’s overheard through the phone. “And that my father would be ashamed if he were still alive.”
“I don’t think he could ever be ashamed of you,” Kara says, her voice soft as she stares down at her hands to avoid Cat’s curious eyes. “You’re really smart, and you’re really funny, and…” She bites at her bottom lip and adds, shyly, “You’re really pretty. I think he’d be proud of you. No matter what you choose to do.”
She looks up when Cat doesn’t say anything for a few long moments, and finds Cat staring at her with something like surprise on her face.
“Why… why are you always so nice to me?” She makes it sound like a foreign concept, like Kara must be after something from her, that there must be a price for her kindness.
“Because that’s what friends do,” Kara shrugs, and when she offers Cat a small smile, she returns it, and Kara feels her heart start to race.
“I guess I’ve just never had a friend like you before.” The words make her stomach flip, and she flushes – which Cat never fails to delight in, how often she can make Kara’s cheeks tinge pink. “Thank you.”
“It’s okay.” Kara fiddles with her glasses and goes back to her book. Every so often, Cat will interrupt her to ask her questions like ‘why is the sky blue?’ because she does that, ever since she’d learned how much Kara knew about science, seems to like hearing her talk and explain things, will watch Kara’s wildly gesticulating hands with something like affection in her eyes.
When Kara’s stomach starts to rumble she glances at her watch and blinks in surprise when she realises the time, that she’s going to be late for dinner, and when she starts to pack her things away she sees disappointment flash across Cat’s face, no doubt thinking about going home to face her mother, and she asks,
“Want to come over for dinner?”
Before she can talk herself out of it.
“My foster Mom won’t mind,” Kara shrugs, fiddling nervously with her hands when Cat doesn’t answer straight away. “She usually makes extra. And she’s always telling me that I should bring more friends home.”
“I…” Cat glances towards where Kara knows her house is, and something dark flits over her expression before she nods, smiling back when Kara beams. “I’d like that.”
x-x-x
Eliza is overjoyed when Kara leads Cat through their front door a few minutes later.
She’s always complaining that the only person Kara ever brings for dinner is Winn, and she’s been desperate to meet the ‘mystery person’ she kept going to meet in the park.
Alex thunders down the stairs when she hears the front door open, but stops halfway, gaping, when she sees Cat hovering a step behind Kara.
Kara doesn’t think she’s going to be hearing the end of this for a while.
Cat looks out of place in their hallway, pressing close to Kara’s side, but she relaxes when Eliza ushers them in, her joy obvious enough to assure Cat that she’s not being any kind of nuisance, and Kara gives Cat the tour while they wait for dinner to finish.
Cat’s favourite place seems to be the yard, and Kara listens to the sound of the waves crashing on the shore below them as Cat stares out at the horizon.
She’s lit up by the sun and Kara aches for the sketchbook in her room upstairs, because this is an image she never wants to forget.
Eliza calls them inside and Cat is the perfect dinner guest, polite and putting up with all of Eliza’s questions, and the entire time Alex is quiet and stares between Kara and Cat like she’s trying to figure them out, until Kara kicks her sharply under the table when no-one else is paying them any attention and tells her to quit it.
Alex makes a face but stares down at her plate, after that, instead.
Later, after Eliza drops Cat at home and Kara is curled up in bed, Alex’s face appears above her as she leans over the side of the top bunk.
“What?” Kara asks, when Alex only stares at her.
“You invited Cat Grant over for dinner.” Alex says it slowly, like she can’t quite believe it. “And she said yes.”
“Yeah… and? We’re friends. You know that.” She thinks Alex is a little jealous of the fact that Kara is spending so much time out of the house. Kara remembers the way that Alex hadn’t wanted her around for her first few months in this house and decides she shouldn’t feel guilty about it.
“But you like her, don’t you?” Kara shifts, a little uncomfortably, before she shrugs because she knows there’s no point denying it. “I think she might like you, too.”
“What?” Kara’s eyes widen, and she stares up at Alex in the dark, as Alex squints down at her with consideration.
“I was watching you guys at dinner.”
“Yeah. I noticed.”
“You can’t bring Cat Grant here without warning me and expect me not to stare, okay?” Kara rolls her eyes, and Alex huffs out a sigh. “Anyway. I’ve watched you pine after her for like. A year. So I know what you’re thinking about when you sneak glances at her when you think she’s not looking.” Kara makes a face, and Alex grins down at her. “But… I noticed, today, that she was sneaking glances at you, too.”
“That’s… ridiculous.” Because there is no way that someone like Cat Grant – smart, funny, popular and gorgeous – would ever think about someone like her that way.
Sure, they spend time together and she can make Cat laugh and sometimes she feels Cat’s eyes lingering on her skin when Kara has already looked away, but that doesn’t mean anything.
Does it?
“Fine.” Alex rolls her eyes, and shoves herself back onto her bed, out of sight. “Don’t believe me.”
x-x-x
Kara doesn’t get a lot of sleep that night.
She stares up at the bottom of Alex’s bunk, listening to the quiet sound of her sister’s breathing, and thinks about what Alex had said.
Wondering whether it’s possible that Cat might have a crush on her, too.
Wondering if she’s stupid for daring to hope that it could be true.
x-x-x
She doesn’t do anything about it.
She doesn’t know how, because every time she’s around Cat and they’re sitting close together and Kara finds herself wondering what it would be like to lean over and kiss those lips that she finds herself staring at, sometimes, she just… freezes.
And anyway, she likes being friends with Cat.
She’s sweet and she’s funny and she makes Kara laugh and she makes her days brighter, and that summer with her in their park is the best summer she’s had since she lost her parents.
She’s happy, and she doesn’t want to ruin that.
She can’t stand the thought of telling Cat how she feels only to be rejected, for Cat to look at her with horror and never speak to her again.
It’s not worth the risk.
And being Cat’s friend can be enough for her, because it keeps Cat in her life.
She ignores the butterflies in her stomach when Cat leans into her side, ignores the way her skin tingles whenever they touch, and the way her heart beats fast in her chest whenever Cat is around.
They’re friends, and that’s okay.
It has to be.
x-x-x
When the summer ends and school begins again, Kara doesn’t expect anything to change.
Towards the end of last year, even when she and Cat were meeting up every weekend and talking for hours, Cat didn’t really acknowledge her more than the occasional secret smile, just for her.
But on the first day of her sophomore year, when Kara sits to each lunch at her usual table with her sister and their other friends, a tray is set down next to her, and Kara recognises the floral scent of Cat’s perfume, turns to find the blonde sliding into the empty seat.
Winn, sitting opposite Kara, stares, a fry raised halfway to his lips and his mouth dropping open, and Cat takes one glance at his expression and rolls her eyes.
“What?” She snaps, and Kara, always well-attuned to Cat, can feel the tension radiating from her, as she glares at Winn with narrow eyes.
“N-nothing,” he stammers, snapping his jaw shut and staring down at his food, and Kara glances at Cat and realises that she’s about two seconds from bolting and going to sit somewhere else, knows that if Cat leaves, she won’t come back to this table again.
Luckily, Alex’s friend Lucy swoops to the rescue.
“Hey, Cat.” Lucy has the kind of easy-going smile and personality that makes everyone around her relax. “Good summer?”
“Not too bad,” Cat shrugs. “You? How’s your devil of a sister?”
Lucy grins, the tension is diffused, and Kara breathes a sigh of relief.
They get a few looks glances for the rest of the period, especially from Cat’s old group of friends, but Cat doesn’t spare them so much as a single glance.
Afterwards, before Cat disappears to her next class, Kara catches her arm, fingers wrapping around her wrist and pulling her to a stop.
Cat glances down at Kara’s fingers with a funny expression on her face, one Kara doesn’t recognise, but one that makes her swallow nervously and immediately let go.
“What was that?” Kara asks, because she has to know, know why things are changing, whether Alex could have been right, after all.
“What?” Cat shrugs, though there’s a restless, nervous kind of energy about her that Kara isn’t used to seeing and looks out-of-place on her. “Friends can eat lunch together, can’t they?”
“I… yeah. I just… you never have before.”
“Do I need a reason to spend time with you now?” There’s something glittering in the green eyes that Kara has come to know so well, something that she can’t for the life of her identify.
“Never,” Kara promises, and she means it. Cat stares at her for one long, heavy moment, before she smiles, one of those smiles that lights up her whole face and makes Kara’s heart pound.
“Good to know,” Cat murmurs, softly. “See you around, Little Danvers.” Kara makes a face at the nickname and Cat grins, squeezing her shoulder before she disappears down the hallway, Kara staring after her, heart still beating a frantic rhythm in her chest.
Friends might be okay, but god, she wants so much more.
x-x-x
After that, Cat eats lunch with them most days.
Sometimes she disappears to her old table, but those days become more and more infrequent as the weeks stretch into months, and when Kara asks about it, Cat just shrugs and tells her that she likes Kara’s friends better, anyway.
Well.
Aside from Winn.
Cat hates Winn.
Alex tells her it’s because everyone with eyes can see that he has a huge crush on her, and Cat doesn’t like it.
Kara tells her she’s being ridiculous.
Except… she watches Cat, sometimes. Watches the way her eyes seem to darken whenever Kara laughs at something Winn says, or whenever he whispers something into her ear, or whenever she leans close so that she can hear what he’s saying over the loud chatter of the cafeteria around them.
One night, when she and Cat are in their spot, and the sky is darkening above them, and Kara’s face is half-hidden in shadow, she feels brave enough to ask about it.
“Why do you hate Winn so much?” Cat, snuggled into an oversized sweatshirt to ward off the slight chill in the winter air, stills at Kara’s question, pulling at her sleeves as Kara watches her closely.
“I don’t hate him,” she murmurs, and Kara rolls her eyes.
“Why don’t you like him, then? And don’t say you do. You call him a cardigan hobbit.”
“Because he is a cardigan hobbit.” Kara presses her lips together to hide a smile. “I… I guess I just don’t like the way he looks at you.” Kara’s breath catches, and Cat refuses to look her in the eye, staring down at her hands. “Like you’re… like you’re a piece of meat.”
“He’s harmless.”
“You deserve better,” Cat tells her, and Kara’s heart aches because all she wants is her and she knows she couldn’t do any better than Cat Grant.
“I don’t like him,” Kara murmurs, and now it’s her turn to look away from Cat’s searching gaze, lest she give too much away. “He’s sweet, but… he’s not my type.”
“Oh yeah?” Cat sounds interested, and Kara risks a glance at her, finds Cat turned towards her, eyes sparkling in the dim light. “What is your type, then?”
You, Kara thinks, but she doesn’t dare say that aloud.
“I don’t know,” Kara shrugs, looking away, off into the distance. “Just… Not Winn. Ever.” Kara shudders, just a little, and Cat’s lips twitch in amusement. “He’s just a friend.”
“Sometimes friends can become more.” Kara’s head snaps up, suddenly finding it hard to breathe as their eyes meet.
She can’t read the expression on Cat’s face, not with the sun sinking in the sky and half-hidden by cloud, darkness creeping in all around them, and she wonders what that’s supposed to mean.
“Y-yeah,” she whispers, wondering if she might dare to hope that this could become something, after all. “Sometimes.”
x-x-x
Two weeks later, Kara finally shows Cat the constellations that she’s told her so much about over the past several months.
They curl up together in the porch swing on the Danvers’ deck, a mug of cocoa, courtesy of Eliza, who has practically adopted Cat as a third daughter after discovering just how terrible her home life could be, clutched in their hands.
Cat is warm, tucked into Kara’s side, as she stretches out her free hand towards the sky, and points out Cassiopeia.
The night is clear and the moon is high in the sky, casting a glow down on the pair of them.
Shadows play across Cat’s face when she turns towards Kara, her eyes bright, and Kara’s breath catches because once upon a time the sight of the moon and the stars would have been the most beautiful thing she could ever see but now, here with Cat, Kara knows that the night sky doesn’t even come close to matching the beauty of her.
“Kara, look!” Cat’s eyes sharpen as she looks up, and is takes a herculean effort for Kara to tear her eyes away from Cat’s face and to follow her gaze.
“A shooting star,” she breathes, as she watches it flash across the skyline, a sight that she has only ever seen once before, when she was five years old and her Dad had taught her all about the stars, and her love of space had been born. “Make a wish.”
Kara watches the meteor cross the horizon, and makes one of her own.
Cat’s eyes are bright with awe once the meteor is gone, the smile on her face soft and setting Kara’s heart racing.
“What did you wish for?” Cat asks, her voice quiet, and Kara bites her lip to hide her smile as she shrugs, shifting to set their empty mugs down on the ground at her feet.
“If I tell you it won’t come true.” Cat pouts, but Kara shakes her head, because she doesn’t know how she’s supposed to tell Cat that all she wished for was her.
That that was all she’d wished for ever since the moment she’d first seen Cat, over eighteen months ago.
“How about I tell you what I wished for?” Cat asks, and suddenly she’s closer than she was before, her arm slung over the back of the swing, fingertips brushing against Kara’s shoulder, and she swallows nervously and prays Cat can’t hear how fast her heart is racing.
“N-no, cause then that won’t come true either.”
“Then why don’t I just show you, instead?” Kara watches Cat’s eyes drop to her lips and wonders if this is what a heart attack feels like, manages to nod because she doesn’t trust herself to speak.
Cat leans closer and Kara’s mouth goes dry and her eyes flutter closed, and Cat brushes their lips together softly.
Kara’s never been kissed before, though she’s dreamed about it a hundred thousand times – especially over these past few months, as she and Cat had grown closer.
The reality is so much better than the dreams.
Cat’s lips are soft and warm, and when Kara recovers enough to kiss her back, reaching one trembling hand up to cradle the side of Cat’s face, Cat sighs softly and it’s the most perfect sound Kara has ever heard.
It lasts for only a handful of seconds, but when it ends, Kara is still breathing heavily, leans back and stares at Cat in wonder, barely able to believe that any of this is real.
“What… what was that for?” She asks, whispering, terrified that she will shatter… whatever this is if she speaks too loudly.
“I wanted to make sure my wish came true,” Cat murmurs, and she’s still got one arm around Kara’s shoulders, reaches out with her other hand to play with the zipper of Kara’s jacket, avoiding looking her in the eye. “And hoped that maybe yours would, too.”
“You… your wish was to kiss me?” Kara blinks, and Cat glances up, takes in her wide eyes and smirks before she nods. “W-why?”
“Because I like you, idiot,” Cat murmurs, and it’s everything Kara’s wanted to hear and delivered in such a Cat way and she thinks this might be the greatest night of her life. “You think I’d spend so much time around you if I didn’t?”
Kara’s brain is unable to form a proper, coherent sentence, because Cat Grant just kissed her like she’s been dreaming of for months, told her she likes her like she’s been dreaming of hearing for months, so in lieu of a response, Kara slips her hand into Cat’s silken hair, draws her close, and kisses her again.
This one lasts longer, and Cat’s fingers form a fist around the lapels of Kara’s jacket to pull her taut against Cat’s front. Cat tilts her head and deepens the kiss, and Kara can taste the cocoa on her tongue as it teases at her own.
Kara smiles against Cat’s lips, barely able to believe her luck, and Cat kisses her harder but holds her softly, like she’s something precious.
Kara holds Cat like she never wants to let her go, and hopes she never has to.