A Very Supercat Christmas
Written for @alex-loves-tv-shows as part of the @supersantafemslash fic exchange! The (awesome!!) prompt was: “ Kara and Cat spend Christmas together because (whatever reason you like), they end up kissing and get together, lots of Fluff please.” Happy Christmas, my dear!!!
Carter's father has him for Christmas, and Cat has been on the rampage in the office since Thanksgiving.
Because Christmas is supposed to be her time with her boy, her time with the only child that's still willing to be in her life, the boy that's growing up far too quickly.
"Kira," Cat calls on Christmas Eve, with even more snap than usual. The tension in her shoulders is as clear to Kara as her elevated heart rate the closer it gets to Christmas. So when Kara answers her hail, rising from her desk and adjusting her glasses as Winn silently wishes her luck, she braces herself for a boatload more of work.
A boatload more of work that she'll have to do at human speed, because Cat is suspicious enough about Kara's connection with the Girl of Steel already.
But a boatload of work is far from what she gets as she steps into Cat's office, hands clasped in front of her skirt, waiting.
"Kira," Cat repeats, in a lower voice this time, without looking up from her computer. "It's six pm on Christmas Eve, and yet you all seem to still be working."
Kara blinks and adjusts her glasses with a slight shift of her feet. "Yes, Ms. Grant," she answers, a slight question in her voice.
Cat sighs and tosses her glasses off elegantly, looking up at Kara with an expression that is somehow tired, exasperated, and affectionate all at once.
"I think you've all more than earned an evening off, don't you?" Cat deadpans, and Kara adjusts her glasses again. The corners of Cat's lips twitch at the endearing familiarity of Kara's fidget.
"I think that would make everyone happy, yes, Ms. Grant."
A silence. Then: "You know you're not interviewing for your job anymore, Kira. You can drop just a few of the formalities." She sighs and tosses her hands up with limp wrists toward the explosion of holiday decorations Winn had littered the office with last week. "It is Christmas, after all."
Kara's brow furrows at that, and she hesitates for a moment before stepping closer to Cat's desk. "Ms. Grant, are you alright?"
"It's the season to be jolly, Kira, who wouldn't be alright?"
Kara frowns fully at the deflection, and Cat does a double take at Kara's reprimanding expression before rolling her eyes slightly.
"Carter's father insisted on taking him for Christmas. Something about Paris and broadening his cultural horizons. More accurately, broadening his ability to cause me pain."
Something flickers in Kara's eyes as she watches Cat rise from her desk and pour herself a glass of water distractedly. "I'm sorry you won't be with Carter tomorrow. He loves you so much, and you deserve to spend the holiday together."
Cat's eyes snap forward to Kara's sharply for a long moment before she shakes it off. "Yes, well, tell that to my mythological demon of an ex-husband."
Kara's fists clench, and though Cat doesn't acknowledge the action, she notices it and -- for reasons she won't quite acknowledge to herself -- it makes the iron fist clenching her heart loosen slightly.
"I would if you'd let me," Kara murmurs, and Cat walks toward her, stopping only when she can smell Kara's perfume, barely covering the smell of car exhaust from the car accident Supergirl had stopped this morning.
Cat's hand reaches toward Kara's hair, but instead of brushing it behind her ear, she adjusts the collar of Kara's shirt. If she hears Kara's breath hitch, she doesn't outwardly acknowledge it.
"Sometimes I wonder how you get by in this world day to day, with that heart of yours. Kara," Cat murmurs, almost more to herself than to Kara, who can hear her heart racing, but doesn't want to hope that she's right about the reason why.
"Ms. Grant -- "
Cat arches an eyebrow, and Kara adjusts her glasses.
"Cat -- are you going to be alright tonight and tomorrow? Alone?"
Cat scoffs and steps back, only somewhat breaking the spell between them. "Of course I will, Kira, I'll have more than enough work to occupy my time." She turns back to her desk, and Kara almost falls forward with her eagerness to stay wrapped in the soft shell of Cat's body heat. "Let the staff know that they should all go home to their families, Kira, and then do make sure to go home yourself. Take Toymaker the Younger with you; he seems like the type who enjoys family this time of year."
"Ms. Grant, are you sure you -- "
"That's all, Kira, thank you."
Kara stays rooted to the spot for a long moment, watching Cat sit back down, put her glasses back on, and sink back into work. She waits, perhaps for Cat to look back up, to say something else. To acknowledge, at least, that she's still standing there.
She doesn't.
So Kara's feet carry her out of Cat's office.
And the next morning -- after a celebratory night with Alex, James, Winn, and J'onn -- her feet carry her to the only place she can imagine being right now.
Exactly where Cat needs her.
Her hand trembles as she raises her hand to knock on the door, and she doesn't pause to wonder why she's trembling now, when yesterday she stopped a tracker trailer from careening off a bridge without breaking a sweat. If she pauses, she might not knock. If she pauses, she might leave.
So she doesn't pause.
She knocks.
She knocks, and she thinks about running -- or, better, flying -- away, but she waits instead.
Waits until she hears Cat's padded footsteps approaching the door, unlocking the door, opening the door. Staring up into her face, wearing nothing but a fluffy bathrobe and slippers, a mug of coffee in her hand.
Kara doesn't speak for a moment, because she's forgotten words: Kryptonian, English, any and all words.
And Cat doesn't speak for a moment, because she's looking up at Kara Danvers, who's dressed in a classically ugly Christmas sweater featuring dancing penguins and evergreen trees, her hair topped with a Santa hat, a huge (and hugely festive) bag dangling from one hand, and a box of cupcakes in the other.
"Kira, what in the name of -- "
"It's Christmas, Ms. Grant. Cat. And I know you already took the day off when you thought you'd have Carter for the holiday, so you're not going into the office. And you're not spending Christmas alone."
Cat blinks, something cracking behind her eyes to reveal something softer than snark and lighter than loneliness in her gaze.
"Kara," she whispers, so softly that Kara wouldn't hear it without superhearing, despite how close they're standing together. Kara hears Cat swallow and compose herself, and she doesn't dare to hope about why she has to.
"Well," she clears her throat. "You might as well come in, since you've come all this way. And take that ridiculous thing off," she invites as she opens the door wider to let Kara in.
Both women flush at her words. "The hat. And don't tell me you need it to be warm. I think we both know better than that," Cat arches an eyebrow, but when Kara reaches nervously for her glasses and nearly spills the cupcakes out of the box, Cat doesn't push the topic further.
"Did you hijack Santa's sleigh and punch out his reindeer to get at his stash?" Cat asks as Kara stands, unmoving and uncertain, in the center of her living room.
Kara tilts her head for a moment, and Cat nods at the massive bag in Kara's hand.
"Oh, right! No! I'd have to be able to fly to catch Santa's sleigh, and I mean, pfft, humans can't fl -- "
Cat just stares. Kara's sentence dies in her throat. Cat smirks in vague victory.
"If you're going to insist on staying, you don't have to stand there, dear."
She sits on the couch that Kara's played Catan with Carter on so many times, and she pats the cushion next to her. Kara sits gingerly, putting the cupcake box on the coffee table and laying the bag at her own feet.
"I brought Christmas cheer. Not stolen from Santa, just... my foster mother is really into holidays. All of them. So I've... accumulated things over the years. Christmasy things."
Cat watches with slightly raised eyebrows as Kara takes out of the seemingly endless bag everything from a full stocking and a string of white Christmas lights to a hot chocolate mixer and a sprig of mistletoe.
Cat's eyebrows raise even higher at that, and Kara fidgets with her glasses again as she blushes almost as deep red as her Santa hat, now on the couch next to her.
"I didn't... my sister must have tossed that in the bag. I..."
"You didn't have to do any of this, Kira."
Kara almost glares, and Cat rolls her eyes slightly.
"Kara," she corrects, and Kara stands wordlessly and starts scanning the room for the best places to string the lights.
"You could always fly up the string them along the ceiling," Cat suggests, and Kara ignores her with a blush and a smirk to match Cat's own.
Kara feels Cat's eyes on her as she scurries across an apartment that isn't hers, hanging all the Christmas accouterments that Cat had taken down when she found out she wouldn't have Carter this year.
"Why are you doing this for me, Kara?" she asks, and her voice lacks any and all sarcasm.
"I told you. You don't deserve to be alone at Christmas. And I..." Kara shifts and worries at her bottom lip with her teeth. She gulps as she hears Cat's heart rate increase. "You shouldn't be alone on Christmas."
"And what Christmas activities did you imagine us doing together?" Cat asks, and Kara's stomach swoops at the hint of suggestion underneath her words.
"Well, I brought the ingredients for a gingerbread house, and I brought a stocking for you, and I always like to watch old Christmas movies, but... but first, I thought you'd want to get some work done before we settle in, so I figured I'd decorate while you do that." She says all this very fast, like she's only now realizing that she's alone with Cat Grant in her empty apartment on Christmas, Cat wearing nothing but a robe, sleep still in her eyes. Like she's only now realizing that Cat actually let her in, that Cat actually is letting her see her like this, that Cat doesn't seem... hostile to the idea of spending the holiday so intimately with... with Kara.
"Kara," is all Cat whispers, and Kara finds herself suddenly overwhelmed by the way Cat's tongue caresses her actual name. Almost reverently. Almost like if she says it too often, it will become impure, somehow.
"Do you listen to music while you work? Because I can put some Christmas music on -- "
"Absolutely not."
Kara smiles at that, and -- to the distinct flipping of Kara's heart -- Cat smiles back as she reaches for her glasses, for her laptop.
Kara doesn't try to play music, but she does hum to herself as she putters about Cat's apartment, hanging lights and arranging tinsel and baking cinnamon rolls. To her surprise -- to both of their surprise -- Cat doesn't object to Kara's absent-minded humming.
To both of their surprise, Kara's unannounced presence doesn't feel strange. It feels... strangely right.
"Aaaaand done!" Kara exclaims when she's satisfied that they apartment is suitably Christmas-y, and she finds herself almost leaning over to embrace her and kiss Cat's hair instinctively as she walks back to the couch. "How's your work coming?"
Cat holds up a single finger without looking up, but when she does, her eyes are shining softly. "Good timing, Kira. I'm finished, too."
Kara smiles and tosses up her hands. "Do you like it?"
Cat's smile doesn't only cover her entire face; it lights up her entire body. "Carter will love it," she nods, satisfied, and Kara faux-glares with a smile.
"That's not what I asked you."
"We have slightly different tastes, dear," Cat shakes her head with a soft laugh that makes Kara's knees weak.
"You didn't hang the mistletoe," she observes, doing her best to keep her voice even, but Kara detects the trembling and dares, just a little bit, to hope.
"I didn't want to make you uncomfortable," she murmurs, adjusting her glasses and suddenly finding her own sweater extremely interesting.
"It wouldn't have," Cat answers, but again, so softly Kara isn't sure she would have heard it if she were human.
Cat clears her throat as Kara's eyes fly to hers. "What movies do you typically watch?" she asks, and she pretends she regrets it the moment she does -- because the question makes Kara squeal and dive back into her bag to grab an absurd array of Christmas DVDs -- but really, Kara's enthusiasm makes her heart soar.
"You pick!" Kara spreads the DVDs in front of Cat, who smirks as her finger scans right past The Muppet Christmas Carol and settles on It's A Wonderful Life.
"A classic choice!" Kara praises, and Cat finds herself trying not to stare as Kara bends over to put in the DVD.
She can't, though, stop herself from moaning slightly at the taste of the cinnamon buns Kara had baked, and she doesn't bother trying to hide the tears that mist up her eyes when they watch George Bailey saving his little brother from the ice.
Kara shifts closer to her as they watch Mr. Gower hit George as he cries. "Carter's fine," she whispers, and Cat leans into Kara almost imperceptibly when Kara reaches a tentative arm around her shoulders.
"You remind me of him," Cat says after not speaking most of the way through the film, and Kara's stomach sinks, because she thinks Cat means Carter.
She grunts, and Cat continues. "George. You remind me of him. Born old. Always caring for everyone around him. Forgetting to think about himself so often he forgets how loved he is."
Kara turns her face to Cat, her eyes wet, their lips inches from each other from how close they're sitting, now. "Sounds like someone else I know, too," she whispers, and Cat scoffs softly and shakes her head.
"You're too good of a soul to be like me," she objects, but Kara shakes her head as she raises a trembling finger to Cat's jawline.
"Let the people who love you judge the quality of your soul," Kara tells her with a dry mouth and a pounding heart.
"Carter's hardly objective," Cat protests, but her eyes flicker down to Kara's lips, and it gives Kara the courage she needs to shake her head.
"He's not the only one in your life who cares about you."
"You have an entire family who probably wanted to spend Christmas with you," Cat leans forward slightly, and Kara's breath hitches.
"We celebrated last night. I wanted to be with you today."
"On Christmas," Cat trembles slightly.
"On Christmas," Kara confirms, and they both smile without looking at the television as George starts to shout 'Merry Christmas' up and down a newly restored Bedford Falls.
"My favorite part," Kara says, and Cat nods.
"Mine too."
"Cat."
"Kara."
"May I -- "
"Yes," Cat whispers, and when Kara's lips meet hers gently, she swears she could take flight.
She parts her lips slightly, and Kara's tongue is tentative until they both sigh in relief, in finally, finally, finally.
She can feel Kara shaking, and she knows how much restraint she's using to not hurt her, to not break her bones accidentally.
And she trusts her, loves her, all the more for it.
"Is this alright?" she asks when they part slightly for breath, even though Kara was the one who initiated the kiss.
"More than alright. If... if you -- "
"Yes," Cat repeats, and Kara smiles as she leans down to kiss her again, again, again.
"Merry Christmas, Cat," she whispers against her lips.
"Merry Christmas, Kara," Cat whispers back, because now, it really, really is.
