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“We should be safe here,” Kara decides as they land, scanning the cave in front of her with every trick of vision her powers provide. It’s not as convenient as the Fortress, but it has the benefit of not being obvious.
Anyone who knows anything about her or her cousin knows about the Fortress, which means it’s off the table as a hiding spot. But that doesn’t mean Kara can’t borrow a trick from its location and head for somewhere utterly remote. No one will think to look for them in the Arctic tundra. Not when they’re currently thousands of miles from the nearest human or other sapient species.
No, they should be safe here.
“You couldn’t pick somewhere warmer?”
Well, safe from those hunting them, at least. Whether Kara will be safe from a deservedly infamous temper is another story.
“Once we’re out of the wind, it should warm up,” she tries, despite knowing Cat gets particularly prickly when she’s experiencing discomfort. Still, it’s worth a shot. And Kara was always decent at getting Cat out of her moods. She’ll just have to hope it works despite their current sub-zero location.
“It had better,” Cat mutters, arms crossed where she’s still being carried.
Kara would offer to set her down, but with the height of the snow around her boots even on the relatively windswept crest, she doesn’t think it would be particularly welcome. Not when Cat’s heels for the day are more strap than anything substantial.
Instead, she heads for the cave without saying anything, knowing results will help more than anything else she tries.
The sudden silencing of the wind around them does help, and Kara can feel Cat relax the slightest bit in her arms as she heads deeper into the darkness. Not that a little darkness bothers Kara, she can see perfectly fine no matter how little light there is. But when they curve around one more corner and the last of the weak sunlight fades completely, Cat tenses right back up in her arms.
Knowing fear will cause even more prickly comments than the cold, Kara considers her options in the brief milliseconds before Cat can open her mouth to say something. Thank Rao she can think as fast as she can run.
Letting a bare fraction of her heat vision to the surface, Kara smiles as Cat relaxes once more, the faint light of their glow giving off just enough light to bathe the corridor in a dim glow. Not much, but as human eyes adjust, more than enough to make out rough details.
“Handy,” Cat says once she can see, looking around at their surroundings with both interest and disdain. “Anything else useful in that toolbelt of powers you have? Maybe something for heat, or interior decorating?”
Rolling her eyes only because she knows the glow will hide it, Kara’s nevertheless relieved Cat is acting like her usual self. At least as much as their surroundings will allow. If she were perfectly calm and pleased with the whole thing, Kara might have to worry she’d somehow succumbed to mind control or been replaced by an imposter.
“Once we reach the wider cavern a bit ahead, I’ll heat some of the rocks up. They might not be as good as a fire, but it should be enough to keep you warm.”
Not to mention Kara’s cape can be useful as a blanket, should it come to that. It might make flying easier any time she needs to make tight turns, but she’s got enough experience now that she thinks she can adjust to compensate without it. Plus, they aren’t supposed to be fighting anyone right now. They’re supposed to be hiding.
Mood souring once again as Kara remembers Alex and J’onn ordering her away from National City, Kara falls silent as she carries Cat the rest of the way to the chamber she’d spotted earlier. Not much wider than the winding passageway, there’s still enough of a nook to the side that Kara thinks will help hold heat better. Plus it will give them a place to keep their backs to the wall. Even this far from society and people, Kara knows the benefit of a defendable location.
Cat seems to pick up on Kara’s mood, not offering another comment or criticism on their surroundings. Kara knows better than to think it will last, but she’ll welcome the respite while she has it.
Setting Cat down is harder than Kara expected. She’d gotten used to having the woman pressed so close to her on the flight here, no matter how she tried to pretend it was no different than flying Alex around. It was very different, and Kara knows it. But knowing doesn’t do her any good, so pretending it will be.
Of course, the way Cat seems just as reluctant to let go doesn’t help.
Even knowing it’s likely little more than an instinctive reaction to the near-total darkness doesn’t stop the traitorous parts of Kara’s mind from shivering at the way Cat’s hands grip her forearm, reluctant to let go. A reluctance Kara shares, for all that it would be a lot faster to get things set up without Cat hanging off her arm.
Eventually deciding she’s done harder things in her life, Kara shrugs to herself and gets to work setting up their temporary camp. There’s not much she can do to make things actually comfortable, but a quick use of super strength gets them two roughly chair-sized chunks of rock. Super speed and a little more strength get them smoothed to a fine enough finish that they aren’t digging in anywhere and causing extra discomfort.
And the process leaves Kara with a nice pile of small and medium-sized rocks, easy enough to pile up midway between the two chairs. Then it’s just a matter of intensifying her heat vision for a few seconds until the rocks are glowing red and orange, helping cut through the darkness more than Kara’s eyes alone.
“Well, that’s handy,” Cat says as she slowly lets go of Kara’s arm, some level of reluctance still clear enough to puzzle Kara. “At least I won’t have to stand in the snow until your sister and her shadowy government agency can clean up the mess we left behind.”
“Alex shouldn’t take too long,” Kara defends instantly, even as she knows she doesn’t sound convincing. “She doesn’t like us being out of contact any more than we do, so she’ll kick some ass and get us home soon.”
Cat looks momentarily surprised as she settles herself on one of the chairs, shivering a little at the still cold stone. “I didn’t know Sunny Danvers knew how to curse.”
“Can-” Kara starts, cutting herself off with a heavy sigh and running a hand through her hair before deciding to continue, “can we forget that you know that for now? You knowing is the whole reason you’re in danger alongside me. If you didn’t know who Supergirl is, you’d be home safe in National City, ordering CatCo employees around to get the best coverage of the fighting.”
“Mm, perhaps,” Cat agrees with a tilt of her head. “I won’t deny that knowing your secret is a large factor in why I was targeted alongside you. But I think actively being alongside you at the time had a bigger part to play in my inclusion. At least as far as the initial attack, which will hopefully be the only attack.”
It’s not much better to think Cat would still have been an eventual target, nor does it do much to calm Kara’s nerves about any future attacks. But she’s been around Cat long enough to know when a thought isn’t finished.
“But Kara, do you really think anyone believes I don’t know your secret identity by now?”
Utterly unprepared for that particular argument, Kara’s head shoots up to look at Cat in surprise. “You- but CatCo never published anything. Why would people assume you knew?”
Sitting back like she’s in her office chair instead of a rough carved slab of rock, Cat almost manages to hide the flinch at the feeling of cold stone against her back. But the slightest flash of it is all Kara needs to spring into action, at least until a quelling look from Cat keeps her pinned firmly in place.
“Well, it’s nice to know you only watch CatCo news sources,” Cat says after a moment, her tense posture relaxing as she gets used to the chill. “I always knew cementing Supergirl’s connection to CatCo was the way to go.”
“I don’t only read CatCo articles,” Kara denies, though it’s closer than she’d like to admit. “I also read all the top investigative journalism articles. And some international news.”
“Locally, though?” Cat asks with a knowing look. And for the first time, Kara’s glad it’s too dark for Cat to really pick out details. Like the way she’s flushing at a direct hit.
Not that Cat needs to see her face to know her point has landed.
“Locally then, why does it matter that I only read CatCo?” She could try for continued denials, but she knows they don’t work with Cat. Better to just accept and move on.
“It means you don’t see all of the tawdry headlines splashed across the cover of any rag that pretends to be actual journalism. Or the baseless gossip buried within the opinion sections. All the stories about how Supergirl’s attachments to CatCo must be far less than professional for her to deal with the head bitch in charge for this long.”
Kara’s first reaction, honed by years as Cat’s assistant, is to protest the description chosen. Her second takes a bit more deciphering.
Once Cat’s words sink in, Kara can’t help the emotion that rushes through her. Impossible to name, the closest Kara can come is ‘I wish’, which doesn’t do it justice. Not when there’s denial mixed with her long-buried crush, all wrapped up in the need to apologize for anything she might have done to give that impression. Sure, she knows the gossip rags will take any small thing and run with it, whether true or not. But that doesn’t mean they pulled something out of nothing in this case. Not when Kara knows her attraction has likely been visible from space on more than one occasion.
“I-”
Words have abandoned her completely, Kara realizes as she sits frantically trying to think of something to say. Some denial, or explanation, or apology. Anything more than a few half-formed sentence starters that never go anywhere. Rao, she knows how Cat feels about those.
Either missing or not bothering to address whatever Kara’s currently experiencing, Cat continues with a familiar dismissive wave of her hand. “Other than some admittedly amusing fumbling as they tried and failed to make ‘puppy-dog eyes’ into a cat pun, there was nothing more than the usual drivel. Two powerful women spend a few moments in each other's company outside of mortal peril, and gossip rags will swarm for anything they can find.”
Wait…
“They think our balcony talks are only because I have a crush on you?”
Kara doesn’t realize what she’s said, or more specifically how she said it, until Cat straightens up from where she’d been slouched into the stone. Which is probably good given the faint shivers Kara can see even with the stones still giving off heat, but it definitely means Cat spotted something in her words.
Not that Kara’s surprised. As much as she likes to protest, subtlety really isn’t her strong suit.
“You’re still cold,” she says before Cat can capitalize on her lapse. Standing and pulling her cape free, she holds it out for Cat to take. Whether as an offering or a distraction, she couldn’t say, but she also doesn’t want Cat to catch something or be harmed by the temperatures around them.
Someone with Cat’s experience would have to be unconscious to miss the deflection in Kara’s offering, but thankfully for Kara, pragmatism wins out. Though warmer than the surface, the cave is still far colder than comfortable for humans. Especially humans still wearing clothing fit for spring in National City.
“The rocks could use another zap,” Cat says instead of pressing as she wraps the cape around herself, sitting back down and already looking far more comfortable. Even if Kara doesn’t need it, the insulating properties of the Kryptonian blanket were far better than the thin fabric Cat’s wearing.
But in the chill around them, better isn’t quite enough, so Kara obligingly hits the rocks with another burst of heat vision. It has the unfortunate side effect of brightening their alcove back up to where Cat can see her face with near-perfect clarity, but Kara has to admit she prefers that embarrassment to Cat being in discomfort.
Letting silence lapse between them, Kara silently thanks Rao for the reprieve. She has no doubt Cat will eventually bring up what she let slip, along with everything else the perceptive woman has deduced from Kara’s behavior. But for now, she’s off the hook.
How long it will last, there’s no way to know. So Kara will enjoy it while it lasts.
“How will we know it’s safe to return?”
The question that eventually breaks the silence is one Kara doesn’t mind answering, and she seizes the new conversation topic with relief. “Alex will set off her watch in a very specific pattern to give Kal-El and I the all-clear that National City is safe.”
“Ah yes, can’t have that cousin of yours coming to visit and running face first into the wall of Luthor’s kryptonite surrounding the city.”
Shuddering slightly at the memory of Kryptonite-induced pain and betrayal, Kara still manages to nod. “Alex promised she’d warn him to stay away and keep an eye out for anything similar in Metropolis. And he’ll have put the word out to some of the others that National City at least might need a little extra help for a while. To keep anyone from getting the wrong idea about Supergirl’s absence.”
Cat hums, clearly seeing the shudder but not commenting. “I suppose your sister has proven herself competent often enough. I’ll just have to hope she can manage again and end this quickly. Unless you’ve got more in that pack of yours than it looks like.”
Belatedly remembering the tiny backpack Alex had tossed at her as she’d grabbed Cat and headed for anywhere but National City, Kara swings it off her back to check the contents. It’s not big enough to hold much, just as Cat noticed, but maybe there’s something in there to help with either the cold or the darkness around them.
There’s nothing for the cold, not that Kara’d had much hope there. With no idea where she was heading until they were already halfway to the Arctic Circle, there’s no way Alex would have anticipated the need for a blanket. Not in the roughly two minutes she’d had to pack it.
What they do have is ration bars, several of the highly concentrated things Barry taught them to make when he realized Kara’d never developed anything to match her nutritional needs. While not her favorite, a single bar is enough to replace one normal meal, saving her from eating half a dozen times or more throughout the day. And there are enough in the bag to last her a week, even sharing with Cat. Thankfully, her human appetite means a single bar should last her a full day. Two, if it wasn’t so cold.
There’s also a small lantern that Kara recognizes as a smaller version of the sun lamps at the DEO. Clearly meant to help Kara regain her full strength after the Kryptonite, it will work equally well for a light source brighter than a pile of rocks.
“This might be a little bright at first,” Kara warns as she sets it down, pointing it towards the wall of their little alcove and turning it on.
It definitely sheds a lot more light than the rocks, though Kara hits them with another zap of heat vision to be safe. Any additional light can only be a good thing, and Cat still needs the warmth.
“Well, at least there’s that,” Cat says as she blinks at the sudden brightness. “And you don’t seem worried, so I assume there’s food as well. Anything else? Some special government issue collapsible penthouse, perhaps?”
“I’m afraid not,” Kara says with a laugh, settling back onto her stone chair with a sigh of relief, already feeling better even if she’s not directly in the sunlamp’s beam. “Food, we have plenty of. Not up to your standards, I’m afraid, but enough to keep us going for a week.”
Cat wrinkles her nose at the thought, pulling Kara’s cape tighter around her. “I’ll be billing them for actual food once we get out of this, then. But I suppose it will do for now.”
Silence falls again after that, both women lost in their own thoughts. Kara can’t help worrying about the situation in National City, wondering how Alex is faring. It feels wrong to be sitting it out, even knowing the amount of Kryptonite spread around the city would stop her long before she could reach the DEO. Not to mention she’d either be leaving Cat defenseless or taking her into an active conflict zone. Neither of which is anything Kara ever wants to do.
***
Sensitive as she is to solar energies, Kara can tell when the sun begins to dip below the horizon. If she were sitting directly in the beam from the sun lamp, she likely wouldn’t notice any difference, but she’s still in just enough shadow to catch the shift.
“It’s getting dark,” she tells Cat, voice quiet as she breaks the silence they’ve been sitting in for longer than Kara wants to admit. She knows better than to underestimate a Luthor who’s out to get you, but somehow she’d still expected Alex to have things solved by nightfall. Especially with how seriously she took any threat to Kara.
Cat looks just as shaken at the thought night is falling, but she doesn’t comment on it. From the moment Kara said they had food for a week, they’d both clearly been preparing to potentially spend the night out here.
“I don’t suppose those powers of yours could come up with a bed that at least won’t result in my developing hypothermia overnight?” she asks instead, bundling the cape tighter around herself. “I’m not expecting the Four Seasons, but I’d like to still have all my fingers in the morning.”
Checking the pack one more time and hoping she’d missed an emergency blanket or tactical tent, Kara grimaces when her search turns up exactly what she’d expected. Absolutely nothing. “I can probably find a big enough boulder to smooth into a bed, but it won’t be comfortable. It will be big enough that I can heat it from the bottom without burning you. That will mean staying up all night, though, and I don’t know how long I can keep that up.”
Even if she moves the sun lamp to shine directly on her, Kara knows she’ll need sleep sooner or later. There’s only so much that stored solar energy can do to keep her in fighting shape. It can keep her muscles in shape, sure, but it doesn’t do much for her brain. Not enough to keep her thoughts moving at the speed she’ll need to fend off any threats.
“I don’t much like the thought of you facing off against anyone that might find us while you’re sleep deprived,” Cat says after a moment, echoing Kara’s hesitation.
Thinking furiously, Kara tries to come up with a solution that doesn’t involve leaving Cat in the cold overnight. Her cape will hold off the worst of the cold, but it can’t cover everything. Especially not if she also needs to use it as a ground cover to keep off the cold stones.
“It’s too late to try and fly somewhere to get another blanket,” Kara says, thinking aloud. “I can’t stay awake all night to keep the rocks warm without becoming sleep deprived and less able to fight, if it comes to that. So what if instead of carving a boulder for a bed, I float, you lay on top of me, and we drape my cape over us both? That keeps you off the cold rocks, and between the cape and the heat I give off you should stay warm enough to avoid the cold getting to you.”
Cat’s staring at her like she’s crazy, but Kara doesn’t know what other solution there is. Not if she wants to get any sleep at all. And Alex has commented several times in the past about how much heat she gives off when they cuddle up for sister night movies. Surely she can manage to keep Cat warm for one night. And tomorrow, if Alex hasn’t stopped whatever Lena’s planned, then Kara can fly somewhere to get better supplies.
She’d rather not be seen anywhere, knowing how wide the Luthor spy net extends, but she might not have a choice. Asking this of Cat for even one night might be too much, she can’t expect her to put up with it for longer than that. No, if they’re going to be here longer than a single night, Kara will have to find something else. Even if it means stealing a blanket so no one sees her. She can come back later as Supergirl to pay for it and apologize
Just as Kara finishes wrestling with the ethical conundrums that surround the possibility of obtaining more supplies, Cat lets out a long sigh. It’s her ‘might as well get this over with’ sigh, but with an edge Kara doesn’t recognize. Both familiar and completely new at the same time.
“I suppose you wouldn’t offer if you couldn’t stay still overnight?”
“My sister says I sleep like a log,” Kara promises, hoping she got the saying correct. She’d never understood how a log could sleep, given that it was a tree. A dead tree, at that. Human sayings were weird.
“And you’ll be able to catch me if I’m the one that shifts?” Cat asks, looking a little calmer about the idea at Kara’s answer. “Or at least float within a foot of the floor so there’s not far to fall?”
“I won’t let you fall,” Kara promises. How she knows, she couldn’t say, but Kara’s certain of it. She won’t let Cat fall.
Another moment of deliberation, and Cat nods. “How does this work, then? Do you float and then I just, what, climb on?”
Blushing brightly enough Kara’s sure Cat can see it this time, Kara desperately tries to keep her mind off of the images that phrasing conjured. She can’t go there. Not when she’s about to spend hours literally sleeping with the woman she’s had a crush on for years.
“Um, I think it might be better if I hold you like we’re going to fly, then lean back,” Kara offers quickly instead. “That way the cape will settle around you to keep the heat in.”
Cat’s heartbeat is thundering in her ears as they stand and slowly move closer. Kara wishes she could turn down her super hearing, but she can’t close out Cat without losing her ability to track for presences outside the cave. She just has to deal with the way she wishes it meant what she wanted it to mean. If only she could be the cause, rather than Cat’s usual dislike of being that close to anyone.
She can still hear it after they settle into place, Cat’s weight a comforting warmth as she can’t quite push down the thought of what it would be like to have this every night. Or even for one, but one night that actually meant something. Not closeness strictly due to unfortunate circumstances.
Then Cat says something, and Kara has to focus to figure out what it is over the way her own heart starts pounding. The quiet brush of warmth against her neck is almost too much to think past.
“It’s not quite a replacement for our balcony talks, but I suppose this isn’t too bad.”
Kara nearly drops to the ground when she finally processes, only her well-ingrained need to keep Cat safe and comfortable stopping her. “You can’t just say that,” she says instead, no brain power left for self-preservation. “Not, not when we’re practically cuddling.”
Cat laughs softly at that, and the breath of warm air does make Kara drop an inch before she can catch herself. “I don’t think I’d have the courage to say it any other time.”
“Not have the courage? You? But you’re Cat Grant. You can do anything,” Kara says, utterly certain of that.
Another laugh, and this time Kara manages to keep them steady. “As much as I hate to admit it, some things are beyond even me. As demonstrated by the way we’ve danced around that crush of yours for years now.”
Kara immediately starts apologizing, only to be cut off by Cat before she can properly formulate what she means to say. “I suppose that to be fair, I should admit that it’s not only your crush we’ve been dancing around.”
If not for the fact she’s currently all that’s supporting Cat, Kara would have immediately sat up in shock. Of all the things to hear in a tiny frozen cave miles from society, that was not anywhere on her list.
The little voice in her head that’s currently undermining her control keeps reminding her that she’d wished for this even if she never expected it. It might just mean something after all.
But she doesn’t want this to be nothing more than an adrenaline fuelled conversation while they’re both tired after a long day. And maybe she also wants an excuse to guarantee she can hear Cat say those words more than once.
“Maybe we can be brave together,” she starts, feeling Cat tense a little in her arms. “Maybe starting with a balcony talk once all of this is over?”
A moment becomes two, and then Cat relaxes. “It does seem fitting, having this conversation there rather than trapped in a dark cave, doesn’t it?”
“Very us,” Kara agrees. “And-” this is no time to chicken out “it would be nice to actually see you while we talked about it.” Because as nice as it is holding Cat like this, it feels wrong. Too artificially close, not their usual dynamic. Maybe someday they’ll get to the point there they have long, heartfelt conversations while holding each other close. But they’re not there yet, and Kara doesn’t want to risk that future by pushing too fast now.
“I think that can be arranged,” Cat agrees, the end of her sentence split around a yawn. “IT’s a date, then.”
And with the way Kara’s heart leaps at those words, she’s not sure whether she imagines it when Cat’s lips press ever so briefly against her neck. Fleeting enough to be an accident or figment of her imagination, though after everything, Kara’s not so sure of that.
Either way, it’s time to get some rest, and Kara already knows her dreams will be sweet.