Chapter Text
Kara’s main miscalculation, in Cat’s opinion, was her assumption that people wanted to know her identity. That was where Kara’s naivety showed itself most. Like most young people her age, she assumed people wanted to know who she was, what she was like, how she lived her day to day life.
Cat knew better. She knew that couldn’t be further from the truth. No one really cared about knowing Supergirl’s identity - they wanted to look at her, consume her. They wanted to see Supergirl, wanted to gaze at her like all their other celebrity idols and Instagram crushes. They wanted her to live in pictures, in tiny videos on their iPhone screens, a clip of heroism devoured over lunch at their desks. They wanted to follow her, not know her.
Cat understood this, but she’d been avoiding it so far. While she had no problem slapping a name on this hero and publishing photos of her public battles, it would be an entirely different animal to have Kara sit down in the studio and pose for her. She considered the prospect now, sitting alone in her office, leafing through James Olsen’s shots. He captured action well. His itchy trigger finger, honed at the Daily Planet, caught all the right moments. But what his shots were missing was intimacy; they lacked the eyes of the hauntingly beautiful subject.
The world wanted to stare into the eyes of their hero, and for that to happen, Kara had to stare directly into her lens.
Professionally, she knew she should give the assignment to James. He could easily have Kara come in for some casual shots and give Cat plenty of decent options; a single portrait of the girl in red and blue would be front page material. But Cat felt oddly possessive of this opportunity, and she knew this wasn’t really Olsen’s forte. He could capture Supergirl while she was happening.
Cat could capture her while she was standing perfectly still.
Monday morning, Kara was striding along behind Cat, giving her the usual informal morning briefing.
“So you have Smith at 11:15, but you should do your best to be done with him by 11:30 because you have lunch with Diane at 11:45. She’s usually early. This afternoon-”
As they passed through the doorway into her office, Cat turned so suddenly that Kara nearly crashed into her. She clutched her iPad to her chest and stepped back quickly, her mouth already open to apologize, but Cat stopped her.
“Kara. I’d like you to clear my afternoon,” Cat said.
“Of course, Miss Grant,” Kara said without pause. “Should I make sure you’re completely undisturbed after lunch, or will you still be taking calls?”
“Sit,” Cat said, and Kara was starting to look nervous. Kara moved to the left couch and sat as requested, her ankles crossed and her hands folded neatly in her lap, waiting expectantly for Cat to speak.
Cat began to pace slowly back and forth behind the second couch, gathering her thoughts on how she wanted this shoot to go.
“Kara, I’d like to set up some time this afternoon to see Supergirl ,” Cat began, and she arched an eyebrow at Kara. Kara nodded almost imperceptibly, acknowledging their secret. “You see, I think the world needs to see more of Supergirl.”
“Miss Grant, don’t you think the world sees a lot of her already? I feel like I’m - she’s - plastered all over every newspaper from here to Metropolis,” Kara said. “I wonder if overexposure is a bad thing here?”
“If we were talking about more shots of her pulling dogs out of floodwaters or rescuing careening school busses full of children, I’d agree with you,” Cat said sharply. She didn’t like being questioned before her ideas were fully formed. “But I’m not talking about that. I think the world needs to see Supergirl differently. I want her to come to my studio today and pose for me. For portraits. I want to publish the world’s first photo of Supergirl willingly posing for the shot.”
Kara looked a little taken aback, but she didn’t seem to hate the idea. “... you have a studio?” she asked, genuinely surprised to find out Cat Grant had a secret that Kara wasn’t already keeping. Cat smiled.
“I have a studio,” Cat confirmed. “Could you please arrange for Supergirl to meet me on the 14th floor at 2pm.”
It wasn’t a question, but then again, Cat’s demands never were.
Kara floated onto the 14th floor balcony right on time, and Cat was ready for her. She’d come down to 14 immediately after lunch to start preparations. She hadn’t invited anyone she cared about into her studio in a very long time.
Just like her office, everything was white and clean. Backdrops of various colors and textures rolled down from horizontal bars hanging from the ceiling, and a vast array of studio lighting equipment was set up against a white backdrop at the far end of the space. It was a huge open warehouse-style room, and floor to ceiling windows flooded the studio with afternoon sun.
On the other side of the room, a lone clothes rack was covered in mostly-empty hangers made of richly toned wood, though a few at the end held various tees, button down shirts, and dresses.
Cat was staring at the camera, her fingers manipulating the buttons to desired effect, adjusting the focusing ring on the lens. She had changed into jeans and an airy button-down shirt not unlike the ones on the clothes rack. She’d kicked off her heels an hour ago, and the concrete floor was cold against the soles of her feet.
“Don’t just stand there in the doorway, Supergirl. In or out,” Cat said.
After a few moments Cat looked up at her and smiled, and Kara met her gaze with a wary quirk of her lips. It was hard to read Kara when she donned the suit; it gave her a certain air of authority that had left Cat feeling unbalanced before. Now that the truth was out, she simply found it a fascinating contradiction in terms.
Cat turned to mess with one of the lightboxes and Kara stepped inside the room, the heels of her boots clicking loudly in the cavernous space.
“I’m here for my glamour shots,” Kara joked, and Cat laughed.
“Perfect. I’ll just call someone to tease your hair and apply the blue eyeshadow.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Kara said, looking around the room, looking anywhere but at Cat, her hands moving from her hips to crossed over her chest and then up to nervously tuck her hair behind her ears.
“First of all, relax,” Cat said. “I’ll tell you exactly what to do. Second, I need you to help me out with white balance and framing, so if you could just sit there,” Cat gestured to the stool nearest the white backdrop. “Let me see how the light hits the suit.”
Kara walked over and sat down, hooking the heels of her boots over the bottom rung of the stool. Kara clasped her hands in her lap, clearly unsure what to do with them.
Cat looked up at the scene in front of her. The studio umbrellas gave a pleasant white glow, highlighting the sparkle of Kara’s golden hair and pushing gentle shadows against her jawline. Even hunched in bad posture and glancing around anxiously, Kara was absolutely beautiful. She was so perfect that it almost hurt Cat to look at her, and Cat felt that familiar pull in her stomach. She brought the camera to her eye and snapped several shots from a few different angles. The click of the manual shutter was loud in the room.
“Film?” Kara asked.
“Old school,” Cat confirmed.
“How does it look?” Kara asked, full of uncertainty. Cat let the camera dangle at her neck and smiled.
“You look perfect,” she said.
Kara burst into a huge grin at the praise and Cat immediately lifted the camera and snapped another shot. Cat stalked toward her then and the smile dissolved from Kara’s face - whether in fear or something else, she couldn’t be sure. When Cat drew so close she was almost between her knees, Kara sat up a little straighter, gazing up into Cat’s face. Cat swung the camera to her side and, without asking for permission, ran both of her hands through Kara’s hair, mussing it gently. Kara’s eyes slipped closed at the contact and her lips parted ever so slightly.
Cat kept one hand tangled in the blond tresses, but with the other, she grabbed the camera and snapped another photograph, a beautiful close up with her own hand visible in the girl’s hair. That one she could never publish, but she had a feeling it would be one of her favorites. Kara’s eyes opened again at the sound, but she said nothing. If she minded Cat’s hands on her, it didn’t show.
Cat pulled back and swept the red cape a bit to Kara’s side. She backed up a few more paces and clicked the shutter again, but she was still unsatisfied.
“Kara, I know how this is going to sound,” she said. “But I’d like to see you take off the suit.”
Kara froze, and Cat wondered if she’d finally pushed one step too far. “You want me to be…” Kara looked down at her body and back up at Cat, fear evident in her eyes.
“No! God, no. Just… try this,” Cat said. She strode across the vast room to the clothing rack, plucked off a hanger with a simple oversized white t-shirt, and walked it back over to Kara. In a silent offer of privacy, she turned her back and fiddled more with the camera. She heard the thud of boots and rustle of heavy fabric. Even with her back turned, she had to close her eyes for a moment and focus on her breathing; Kara undressing just a few feet away was more difficult to ignore than Cat had anticipated.
“Okay, Miss Grant,” Kara said finally, and Cat turned around. Kara stood in front of the stool in just the baggy white t-shirt, her toned, smooth legs a distracting sight beneath it. She was barefoot now as well, and her suit and cape were puddled around her, spots of distinctive color in the otherwise white room. Her boots lay on their side at her feet. Her wavy blond hair cascaded down her shoulders. Kara shrugged with a small smile, waving both hands briefly in a dorky little greeting.
“Okay, sit,” Cat said. Kara obeyed. “Put one foot on the bar of the stool, and the other on the floor. And I’d like you to look at me like you want something, okay? Think of the thing you want most in this world. Take a minute to really think about it. Look right into the camera and tell me what you want with your eyes.”
Cat raised the camera again, focused, and waited. She could see emotions flitting across Kara’s face (confusion, worry, determination) and then the girl started to move. Kara slowly dragged one hand through her hair, down her neck, and finally let her palm rest against her own collar bone. She leaned forward at the waist, bit her lip gently, and shifted her legs ever so slightly while using her other hand to tug the white tee down between them, keeping herself covered.
Cat had forgotten to breathe, but she didn’t forget to press the shutter. That was the one. This was the Supergirl that National City would pay any price to see. She was open, vulnerable… human. She was wanting. This photo would leave them wondering what Supergirl was thinking about, just as Cat was wondering it now.
“That’s it Kara, that’s the one. We’ve got it.”
“That’s it?” Kara asked, surprised out of the quiet reverie of the shoot. She almost seemed disappointed.
“Yes, you’re done. I’ll leave you to change,” Cat said. “Thank you for doing this. I’ll let you have approval over the proofs.”
Cat slipped back into her heels and started to walk toward the door, but turned just as she reached the far end of the room.
“Kara?” she called.
“Yes, Miss Grant?”
“What is it that you want? What were you thinking of?”
Kara waited a moment, not sure she wanted to answer.
“Someone I can’t have,” she finally said.
Cat stared hard at her for a minute. “I doubt that,” she said. Then she pushed through the door and was gone.
The next day, Cat stood alone in her darkroom, staring at prints coming to life beneath the liquid. Kara’s beautiful eyes gazed at her from every photograph, staring into her and confusing her thoughts. Something about shooting Supergirl had torn her open from the inside, complicated things, and twisted her steady determination into something that felt vaguely like wanting. The whole point of the shoot had been to show the world a softer, unguarded side to the hero, yet Cat was the one who felt exposed.
She sighed. “Get a grip, Cat,” she muttered. Talking to herself probably wasn’t a great sign either.
She reached tongs into the liquid and pulled out a photo from the middle of the shoot, Kara grinning after Cat had told her she looked good. It was two seconds of praise, but the girl’s reaction was blinding happiness. She couldn’t think about that too closely. She hung the photo on the wire to dry and went along one by one, pulling the prints from the rinse.
When she got to the final shot, the one she knew she had to print in tomorrow’s paper, she stared at it nervously. It was exactly the shot that she’d intended to get - it was intimate, almost sexual. Even though Kara was staring directly into the camera, her eyes looked distant, almost lost. The grip of her hand on her shirt, the clothing on the floor. The photograph seemed… private.
Private was exactly what would sell newspapers. The outtakes of the shoot would send digital subscriptions through the roof. And as she planned to publish the photographs without credit, the entire world would be wondering who got Supergirl to take off her suit and pose for that shot.
Still, she couldn’t help her unreasonable wish not to share the shots with anyone. Maybe just one… the shot of her hand in Kara’s hair. That one would remain hers and hers alone.
Cat dumped the pile of photos on her coffee table in front of Kara, who stared down at them from the opposite couch.
“May I…?” Kara asked.
“Please do, that’s why I called you in here,” Cat said, her tone clipped.
Cat sat back and watched Kara’s face as she looked through her work. Kara smiled at a few and skipped right over others. When she came to the white t-shirt shot, Kara slowed way down, examining the photograph.
“God, Miss Grant this is…”
“Too much?” Cat asked.
“No! No, it’s just… you’re really talented.”
“When you’re standing in front of someone who looks… how you look, it’s not hard to take a good photograph,” she said dismissively. Kara’s eyes immediately met hers over the top of the print.
“And how do I look?” Kara asked. It was direct and bold - it was a Supergirl question.
“Like you’re not even from this planet,” Cat said. Whether she saw through the answer or not, Cat couldn’t tell. Kara looked down at the photo again and Cat was relieved that she seemed willing to drop that line of questioning.
“I’d go with this one,” Kara suggested, handing the shot over to Cat.
“That’s the one,” Cat confirmed. “Send it down to layout and send the rest of these to digital. I want hi-res scans for the digital edition.”
“Yes, Miss Grant,” Kara said, but she didn’t move, and her expression was indecisive. She was stalling.
“Something else?”
“Ah yeah um… the closeup you took. The one where… the one with your hand in my hair,” Kara said.
If Cat didn’t know better, she would swear an earthquake just tilted the room. Internally, her mind raced and her stomach dropped.
Externally, she was carved from granite.
“What about it?”
“Was it... was it printed? I just was curious to see it. Did you toss it? Maybe it was a terrible shot, I mean because of my face, not because of your-”
As Kara rambled, time slowed down in Cat’s mind because she now had a decision to make. Kara wanted this photograph specifically, and had been brave enough to ask her for it directly. She should reward Kara for that kind of behavior. However, handing it over would tip Cat’s hand. Sure, she could tell Kara that she didn’t bother printing the photo because it was out of focus or otherwise unusable. She could deflect this entire situation. But at this point, did she want to? Kara had asked.
“Kara,” Cat interrupted. Kara immediately shut her mouth. Cat walked purposefully over to her desk and opened the top right hand drawer, the one where she kept her Lexapro and her keys and everything important. She glanced over at Kara and smirked, because Kara looked absolutely stunned. Cat pulled out the single print and handed it over.
“Is this the one you meant?” she asked. Cat knew very well that it was.
Kara’s eyes darted from the photograph to the drawer, to Cat, and back to the photo. Kara said nothing.
“Take it, it’s yours,” Cat said. “That’ll be all, Kara.”
Once Kara was gone, Cat allowed herself a rare moment of defeat and rested her forehead on her desk. She should have given this assignment to Olsen.
The next morning, Cat rolled in just past 7, her head throbbing and hangover in full effect. She’d hosted a one-woman pity party in her media room after Carter had gone to bed, drinking whiskey well past 2 while she stared blankly at old Grey’s reruns. But that was last night, and last night was done. This whole business with Kara and the photographs - that was done as well. She’d just keep telling herself that she did what needed to be done to get the shots. She would keep telling herself that and eventually, it would be the truth.
She was so early that the bullpen was empty, and she was relieved at that. She trudged into her office and dumped her bag on the desk, then opened the desk drawer to put away her sunglasses and keys.
She froze.
There on top of the other items in her drawer was the portrait of Kara, Cat’s own hand easily visible, her fingers threaded through blonde locks. It was tucked into a beautiful white frame, and there was a post-it note stuck to the edge.
“It seems like we both wanted this, so I made you a copy. X, Supergirl”