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Bring it immediately, Kara.
Never mind that Kara might have a life. Or a second job. Or a recently ex-boyfriend who realized that it’s not quite the same being besties with a superhero as it is being the date that always gets left behind. That’s without even getting into all the weird questions about is it the same as him when you... that crossed over into some very revealing territory about why Lucy probably had every right to be jealous. Or the way James never seemed to accept that Cat needed Kara at odd hours, for ridiculous reasons, and that Kara simply had to go.
So.
Single.
Alone on a Friday night.
Kara’s been here before and she’ll be here again. Only last time she hadn’t been considered a close, personal friend of Cat Grant. Hell, that’s how Cat had introduced Kara to Perry White of all people just last week, before spending the night drunkenly fuming about thrown chairs.
It’s that thought that calms her irritation enough not to break the door of Cat’s home as she slips through it with the silence perfected over two years as an assistant. Even so, Cat usually manages to appear without warning, using her knowledge of the terrain to her advantage. Not tonight.
Shifting the bottle of cognac in its presentation box from under one arm to the other, Kara sets off in cautious search of her friend. She’s learned her lesson already about using x-ray vision and seeing very private moments, so Kara relies on her hearing to pick up the gentle sigh that is unmistakably Cat. X-ray vision is probably Kara’s least favorite of her powers, because it had taken three weeks to stop blushing after the time she’d caught Cat changing between work and an evening function. Four weeks after the time when she’d interrupted what Cat had put in her calendar as ‘Stress Management’.
So. Super hearing it is. Only one heartbeat other than Kara’s too, so Carter is off somewhere Kara doesn’t have access to now that she doesn’t manage Cat’s schedule.
The mansion in the hills of National City has been featured in three different architectural magazines, and Kara has been here at least a dozen times, but she knows from the constant updates in Cat’s accounts that there’s always something being changed and tweaked in the house. Maybe whatever’s changed the layout of the second hallway Kara walks down is the reason Cat has a hankering for this one particular bottle of cognac.
Don’t bring me brandy this time. Which had happened exactly once. Okay, so maybe Kara had also not known the difference between Finnish and Swedish vodka, either, but Cat’s whims are too extensive for everything to be exactly right, every time. You do know the difference between brandy and cognac?
Kara should say she does, given that she just flew to the Cognac region of France to retrieve this very bottle. It’s not much different to getting Alex tacos from Chicago, is how Kara justifies it to herself. And it’s not like she’s bad for the environment like the CatCo jet.
Eventually, she runs out of house. All that’s left is the wing that comprises Cat’s bedroom. Well, there’s a room for sleeping, anyway. There’s also a dressing room bigger than Kara’s apartment, a yoga studio and the deep saltwater pool Cat keeps for herself, with a more Carter-friendly one on the far side of the property.
It’s already dark out, but Kara sees that the pool lights are on, as well as a soft glow on the path that goes past it. She lets herself out of the glass doors of Cat’s bedroom, trying not to glance towards the bed where she’s put a tipsy Cat to bed more than once, or roused her from in the morning when she’s adorably rumpled and viciously hungover.
The building on the end is new, some kind of wooden extension to the property that Kara hasn’t seen before. She hesitates as she notices the heat signature of the walls, glowing faintly red to her vision. Another sigh from inside confirms Cat’s presence.
Kara sets the bottle down and takes off her peach-colored cardigan, draping it across the wooden box. After a moment’s consideration, she takes off her glasses and sets those down on top.
“Miss Grant?” She calls out. There’s a soft groan in response. “I mean, uh, Cat?”
“In here,” she replies. “You took your time.”
Kara bites her tongue about the wind resistance over the Atlantic.
“I can just leave it here,” Kara tries, but she kicks off her shoes anyway. There’s something inevitable in the air around her tonight. Maybe she’s always known where this was going. “Do you need a glass?”
“Join me,” Cat insists, the temptress in a fairytale, the voice behind the curtain. “There are towels just inside the door.”
There are cues Kara misses sometimes, the lingering effect of formative years spent on a different planet. Tonight, she doesn’t miss the inference that comes with those towels: that they’re all a person should wear after stepping through that door.
A choice, then. It’s like they’ve been sparring in a real world equivalent of the green room Kara hates so much. Trading equal blows, taking equal amounts of risk, inching forward and then retreating before anything can get too real. Before the damage can really be felt.
The burst of super speed to remove her dress and underwear is a defiant act, a dare for Cat to notice from behind the warm wall that shields her from Kara. There are cameras all over this property, but Kara reaches for the handle on the door and steps inside before she can be exposed for too long. The white towel feels like a flag of surrender when she takes the Egyptian cotton between her fingers, but it might just be the last line of defense before making a complete fool of herself once and for all.
She’s expecting steam, but the room is merely hazy like a long road on a sunny day. Waves of heat ripple around Cat, her towel still tucked and her head bowed. This is planned, then. Why else would she need to keep her towel if she’d expected to be alone all evening?
“You came,” she mutters, not lifting her head. Her usually meticulous curls are wet, hanging heavily around her face and obscuring it from Kara’s view. “Take a seat. I assume you’ll be able to handle the temperature?”
Kara nods and murmurs in agreement. They don’t talk about it, not directly, but it’s going to be apparent when Cat finally looks up that Kara hasn’t broken a sweat.
When Cat does move, it’s to spray the rocks in the corner with something. A moment later the space smells like eucalyptus, and Kara leans back against the pine bench in something close to contentment. She can handle this near-naked proximity to Cat. The wood is hot and damp against her shoulder blades, and the sensation of it distracts her until Cat speaks again.
“Thank you,” Cat tells her. “I thought you might be busy.”
“Never too busy for a pointless errand,” Kara teases, emboldened by the invitation, by two towels being all that covers their naked bodies. “And this is pretty nice.”
“It’s good for me,” Cat groans. “Or so my latest doctor insists. I think he must have pine in his investment portfolio.”
“Your cognac is outside,” Kara mentions. “You didn’t mean for me to…”
“Not a good idea to drink in this heat,” Cat confirms. “Although you’d probably be fine. As we know.”
Kara says nothing. It’s almost routine now.
“If I’m disturbing your quiet evening…” She offers eventually. “These towels aren’t very comfortable once the heat builds up.” If she feels the damp cotton is unpleasant, she can only imagine how it is for Cat.
“They’re optional,” Cat answers, her tone just a fraction too breezy, like when she’s trying to pretend Kara hasn’t deeply wounded her feelings. “I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about that.”
“Well, if it’s just the two of us,” Kara concludes. “I’d say that this is a private show. Wouldn’t you?”
“Brazen, again.” Cat whispers, pushing a wet strand of hair from her eyes. “I had hoped…”
Kara knows she has to make the first move, because she’s been too scared to make it until this very moment. Cat thinks in too many dimensions, her business brain overruling most impulses, almost every time. She sees this spark between herself and Kara and tamps it down with potential lawsuits and headlines and morality clauses. Kara has to be the one who counteracts all that, as surely as she might freeze a forest fire with her breath.
With a deft flick of her fingers, the tucked part of her towel comes loose and she whips the sheet of white away from her body. Cat nods in approval, her gaze hungry and unapologetic as it rakes over Kara’s form, before replicating the same dramatic removal. As opening shots go, they’re evenly matched. Kara fights her usual blush and steadily looks her way up Cat’s body, fighting the impulse to either apologize or ask for permission.
Cat preens a little under the attention, while Kara resists the urge to roll her eyes. This is who she’s been hopelessly crushing on all this time; she shouldn’t have expected anything less. There’s an expectation hanging in the warm air, that Kara should continue to make her moves, to insulate Cat from all responsibility for what happens next, but she’s not interested in chasing, just like she isn’t interested in completely surrendering.
What Cat gives her, what she should give her, is the exchange of power between two differing but equal forces. No dimming Kara’s superpowers to make room for a fragile ego, not when Cat’s ego is made of something tougher than diamond. Kara can be everything she is, every powerful and impressive thing, and Cat will meet her accomplishment for accomplishment.
When Cat bites her own bottom lip while she looks at Kara, the resolve almost weakens. Kara feels the impulse to get down on her knees and let Cat know what it’s like to be worshipped, but that’s not what tonight is about. Instead, Kara crooks her finger - a promise of actions to come, too - and beckons Cat closer.
The benches cover three walls of the room, a u-shape that leaves only the stones in the corner and the door on the remaining wall. Cat is on her side, fingers grasping the wood on either side of her legs. Sitting directly opposite with her hands in her lap, Kara breathes in the warmed air, feels the eucalyptus tingle in her throat and waits for Cat’s response.
Cat could stand and be in front of Kara with a couple of steps. Cat could counter Kara’s beckoning with a gesture of her own, and Kara isn’t sure she could disobey. Instead, Cat gets on her hands and knees and crawls along the bench that connects them, a few feet in distance, but it feels like an eternity because her eyes never leave Kara’s. The fire in those eyes outstrips any heat the sauna can provide, and Kara thinks she might be ever so slightly doomed.
Because Cat is a vision.
The most powerful person in National City on her knees and stalking towards Kara like she’s all Cat wants in the world. The way her skin glows, and the droplets of sweat fall from her body leave Kara aching to touch, but she forces herself to stay in place for those long, agonizing seconds it takes Cat to approach.
“Well?” Cat demands, her face inches from Kara’s. “You basically told me to come and get it.”
Kara raises her hand and runs one finger down Cat’s perfect cheekbone. It’s enough to make Cat’s eyes flutter shut for a moment, and when she opens them again, she takes Kara’s hand and draws that single finger into her mouth. Cat runs her tongue along the finger in teasing flicks, before sucking lightly.
“Oh,” Kara gasps, her words deserting her now. Cat releases her finger, and kisses the echoes of that ‘oh’ right off Kara’s lips. It’s not at all like Kara expected, something direct and forceful. Cat’s kiss is tender, coaxing Kara to come along with her and meet her halfway in every brush of lips, every massaging moment of pressure, and then the first tentative slip of tongue against tongue.
By the time Kara pulls Cat into her lap, both of their bodies are slippery, and it takes a little super strength to keep Cat in place.
“As hot as you are,” Cat murmurs as she kisses her way along Kara’s defined jawline. “I suspect it’s a little too hot in here for this. I don’t want to pass out halfway through, and I expect you to give me quite the workout.”
“Where?” Kara gasps as Cat nips at her earlobe.
“Out,” Cat says through gritted teeth, because Kara’s retaliation for teasing touches is to slip her hand between Cat’s thighs. She is, pleasingly, even wetter there. “My bedroom is just-”
Kara kisses the rest of the thought into silence, picking Cat up and revelling in the feel of strong legs wrapping around her waist. They kiss as Kara takes careful steps out of the scalding heat of the sauna, the evening air a delicious shock to both of them when they make it all the way outside.
They don’t stop to collect the allegedly essential cognac. They barely stop when Kara stumbles and almost tips them, her adversarial relationship with gravity saving her blushes just in time. When they reach the house at the end of the short path, Cat is dragging her thumbs across Kara’s nipples in broad tugs that make moving even a step further impossible.
Instead she backs Cat against the glass walls of her bedroom, still outside. Kara feels a light breeze at the back of her neck, and hears the squeak of Cat’s damp skin against the glass. They’re not going anywhere else until Kara feels Cat coming apart at her touch. It has to happen.
Now. Here. Soon.
Cat clearly agrees from the way she pulls Kara’s hand back between her legs, letting Kara pin her easily against the glass wall and rolling her hips into each touch as Kara’s confidence grows with every moan of satisfaction Cat allows to escape. There’s no direction needed to lavish attention with teeth and tongue on tight, hardened nipples. Kara wishes she could feel it more sharply, but she nips at the nipple in her mouth all the same when Cat’s nails rake down Kara’s back.
Finesse can wait for the next round, because Cat is urging Kara on with a barely vocal mantra of fuck me fuck me fuck me and Kara is nothing if not good at following Cat’s every command.
For a moment, Kara thinks they’ll shatter the glass. Cat’s half-scream is guttural, drawn out of Kara’s body almost as much as her own. It’s two years of heavy-lidded glances and pursed lips and accidental brushing contact, cracked free in one drawn-out climax that bows her spine and pushes Kara’s self-control to its limits.
“Jesus,” Cat gasps as Kara kisses her neck, open-mouthed and insistent.
“Fuck,” Kara murmurs in agreement against Cat’s skin, feeling the skip in the hammering pulse when Kara says it. She can say these things now, these unexpected things, because the world has tilted on its axis and Kara is not who she was just an hour ago.
“I want...” Cat pants, not bothering to limit her options. She wants. Kara wants to be wanted. “Bed?”
“You should cool down properly,” Kara muses, contemplating the private yard and the flickering light from the pool that reminds her of fireflies. “Bed will be there later.”
Cat glances down at her own body as Kara sets her back on her feet. It’s just occurring that they’re naked, that in some thrown from the garden moment they should perhaps feel shame. Kara doesn’t like the sound of that one bit, and so she leads Cat by the hand towards her own pool.
“You’re not serious,” Cat refuses at the pool’s edge, but she doesn’t let go of Kara’s hand.
“It’s pretty,” Kara argues. “I want the first time you make me… this is where I want it. Okay?”
“How could I resist?” Cat asks, drawing Kara back into a long kiss. “You know that’s a miniature waterfall over in the far corner. How does that work for this little fantasy of yours?”
Kara’s answer is to draw Cat’s hands between Kara’s parted thighs, tipping her head back with a soft moan when Cat begins to tease with expert touches.
“I swear,” Cat warns when the kiss pauses for a moment. “If you’re about to I jump, you jump me…”
“It’s you jump, I jump,” Kara corrects. “And that Titanic obsession of yours is getting out of control. First your dossier on me, now this…”
“Kara?”
“Yes?”
“Shut up and get in the pool.” Cat doesn’t give her time to argue. This time she’s the one pulling Kara into the water with her, the splash quite ridiculous. Within seconds their bodies are pressed together again, kissing breathlessly until they drift towards the waterfall in the corner.
“Cat?” Kara sighs as Cat’s fingers get back to their previous task, far more insistent now to compensate for being in the water.
“Yes?”
“I’m glad you asked me here tonight.”
Cat slips her finger inside as a response. A moment later she curls it, before adding a second.
“Me too,” she acknowledges as Kara falls against her, lost to the rhythm of Cat’s fingers. “Me too.”