#angstpromptmeme

[fictorium]

Because the supercat angst can be really good: That’s... a lot of blood.

Cat feels her foot slip from under her as she rounds the corner and crashes through the laboratory door. Only years of practice walking (and running) in killer heels allows her to keep her balance, that and the impact on her hip from impacting the doorframe.

Don’t look down she tells herself. Knowing what made the floor slippery won’t make the bruise any smaller or her knee any less jarred from the uncontrolled motion. Besides, in this lighting everything is going to look much worse than it actually is. All that matters is finding Kara. The DEO have a team just moments away, the same agents who were supposed to break in and save Kara in the first place, but Cat’s impatience coupled with a trigger-happy kidnapper had changed the course of events just a little. 

Still, she hadn’t paid all that money to learn how to shoot, to start missing when the pressure was really on. There’ll be nightmares, maybe, about the way the shot had landed almost exactly between the man’s eyes, but even that isn’t important now.

It had taken an investigative mind like Cat’s to find Kara here, and now she’s going to finish the damn job. Through the lab, through the storage facility behind it (still slippery in places, sticky in others. Don’t look don’t look don’t look). Then it’s just one last door, though admittedly a fucking heavy one that Cat doesn’t think will budge. Not until she sees the lever in the corner, the one that releases loud, clanking mechanisms and locks until the thing creaks open like a trapdoor in a low-budget horror movie. 

She’s getting too old for this shit. 

The room that holds Supergirl, an alien goddess with human form, should be a fortress. For days now Cat has been imagining Frankenstein’s lab on an HBO budget, but the reality is bleaker than anything Christopher Nolan ever desaturated. A single bare bulb hanging above, peeling paint on the walls in a shade just south of vomit. The prison that holds the world’s most powerful woman? Nothing more than a generic metal chair, one that would be at home in any hipster coffee shop that features the word ‘reclaimed’ a few times too often.

And then Kara looks up, bound at the wrists and the ankles with ropes that glow in lurid green, and gives the last thing anyone would ask of her in the circumstances: a smile. 

Cat’s stomach lurches at the blood coating teeth that are usually pearly white, and she reels at the extent of the bruising that peppers every inch of that once-flawless bone structure. The dips and deviations suggest more fractures than Cat can bear to count.

“Hey,” Kara says, even in her decimated state she’s reaching out to Cat, steadying her as surely as she used to with a well-timed latte or a refilled prescription bottle. Her voice is glass over broken gravel as she continues. “No offense, but you’re not the cavalry I was expecting.”

“They’re coming,” Cat says, snapping into reassurance mode the way she does when Carter skins his knee or frets over his algebra grades. “Right behind me, but I think I should...” She gestures vaguely at the ropes, and Kara gives a ginger half-nod of agreement. 

The ankles are easily freed, since the ropes were biting mostly into the leather of Supergirl’s infamous red boots. When Cat goes for the wrists she makes the mistake of looking at the floor as she fiddles with the knots, and even in the Game of Thrones quality lighting, there’s no mistaking the dark, viscous substance. 

“Fuck!” Cat gasps, ruffling Kara’s hair just a little. It’s too wet and matted to move like it usually would. “That’s... a lot of blood, Kara.”

“Mmm,” Kara agrees, like they’re discussing ice cream flavors. “I sprung a few leaks once the, uh, green stuff. You know.”

She’s barely coherent. Cat throws the ropes as far away from Kara as she can. Will that let her start healing? A human would need a transfusion by now. The panic is clawing at the base of Cat’s throat. She isn’t qualified for this. Nobody asked her to play the big damn hero. Wounds seem to appear everywhere she checks, and Kara just lets her explore, a rag doll with that same slack smile whenever Cat looks back at her face. 

Cat’s phone is vibrating in her pocket. Good. They’ll be tracking her, they won’t waste time on dead ends in this rabbit warren of a building. She can’t stop now to talk, to give directions. There’s a sink on the far side of the room, paper towels over it the only useful items in the place. Cat soaks a few with trembling hands and starts to clean Kara up as best she can. If she can mitigate some of the worst of it before Alex sees her sister like this, it might be better for all of them.

“Can you stand?” Cat asks. They’re taking too long. She needs to get Kara on her way to some kind of medical help. Those beautiful blue eyes are definitely glassy, and Kara isn’t tracking Cat’s movement the way she was at first. 

“O...kay,” Kara replies, but she’s frowning at whatever her body isn’t responding to. Cat is as careful as she knows how to be, but Kara still howls when she’s leveraged off the chair. They both take a moment to recover from that guttural sound, and Kara’s breathing sounds too liquid to be a good sign. Summoning every core-strengthening, muscle-toning, bit of strength, Cat starts to lead Kara out of the horrible space. It’s more like dragging, and it’s insane that someone so slender should weigh so much, but there’s sheer stubbornness that extends far beyond any fitness level Cat has ever reached for.

They’re both halfway to collapsing when the sound of heavy boots approaches. Alex lifts Kara bodily off of Cat, and the agent whose nametag reads Vasquez is the one to catch Cat as she slumps against the wall. No slipping, no sliding, no landing in Kara’s spilt blood.

“Will she make it?” Cat demands as they’re half-carried, half-dragged back out to the waiting military vehicles. “Agent Danvers?”

“I don’t know,” Alex admits as she lays Kara on a stretcher, other medics working briskly around her. “But if she has any kind of a shot now, it’s thanks to you, Cat.”

“We’re gonna need another medic here,” Vasquez is saying as the noise and the exhaustion overwhelm Cat at last. She feels her knees giving way, and everywhere she looks it’s getting darker round the edges. It might be fainting, it might just be refusing to look at it anymore, but she’s put on a stretcher of her own, bundled in right alongside Kara in the camouflaged ambulance. 

Right before the world fades out, Cat reaches out blindly toward the other stretcher. When Kara grabs her hand the grip is weak, but it’s enough for Cat to let the darkness slip right over her. 

[fictorium]

hi! the "i don’t want you to be alone." prompt for supercat, if you feel like it. thanks

“You can’t be here,” Cat says, hearing the flicker of the cape, a sound as familiar to her now as the rattle of ice in a glass or the whoosh of an email sent. “Don’t you think I’m in enough trouble?”

“Well, my friend J’onn gave me a device that lets me walk through walls, and I decided there’s only one wall I wanted to walk through.”

“And don’t you think this jail cell has a surveillance camera?” Cat gestures to the corners of the room. Whatever they’re watching her with, it’s discreet at least. 

“That’s being taken care of too.”

“Winn?” 

Kara shakes her head. “He’s on... assignment. But we can trust this other guy. If he were here he��d tell you himself just how good he is at all this stuff.”

Getting up from the cot she’s been lying on, Cat sets aside her book. It feels better to be in motion, to be stretching her legs even in this limited space. Kara, in that ridiculous primary-colored suit, doesn’t take up much space in the corner, arms folded as she watches Cat pace. 

“Why are you here, Kara? It’s bad enough I could be asked about your identity under oath tomorrow--don’t worry, I’m pleading the Fifth--but if anyone else puts it together then it affects your testimony, too.”

“My testimony is you haven’t done anything wrong and you don’t deserve to be locked up like this. It was my story, and my source. If anyone should be in prison, in violation of her First Amendment rights, it really should be me.”

“And when Supergirl isn’t available for the entire time Kara Danvers won’t give up her source in the Justice Department? No, the Tribune and CatCo Magazine are my publications. Anyone who comes after my reporters will have to go through me.” 

Cat feels weary just saying it. Her appetite for a battle has waned with each successive night in this tiny cell. Paying off a fixer and most of the guards has kept her comfortable, but she misses so much about her life that it doesn’t bearing thinking about. She misses Carter like a physical ache, as though part of her body has been torn from her, and the lack of connection to the world has been doing a number on her anxiety.

“This isn’t a normal government, Cat,” Kara is building her protest. “They don’t care how bad they look, or how many rights they violate. They think they’re untouchable and I’m worried they’re right. No reporter should have to give up their source on a story, and you shouldn’t be punished for it like this. I spoke to Lucy, she said your legal team have a new strategy.”

Rounding on her, Cat is pleased when Kara almost backs through the brick wall all over again. “No. I know what they’re suggesting and I won’t let you do it. You going out there and perjuring yourself, breaking the law just to get me off?”

Kara flinches at the choice of words. Cat files that away for future reference. 

“It wouldn’t be lying, not really--”

“If you lie for me on the stand, I’ll never talk to you again,” Cat tells her. “You’ll have compromised the one thing we’re supposed to be fighting for in all this: the truth. Tell the truth or stay away, Kara. Those are your only options.”

Relenting, Kara scoops Cat into a hug instead. She moves so quickly Cat doesn’t see it coming, sinking into the warmth of it too readily. 

“You knew I wouldn’t go for it, so why are you really here?” Cat whispers.

“I don’t want you to be alone, to feel alone up there tomorrow. I don’t want you to get sentenced to years in prison when Carter needs his mom.” Kara takes a deep breath. “And I don’t want you to go to prison when I haven’t even asked you to dinner.”

“I can’t think about that right now,” is the only reply Cat can give. “There’s every chance they’ll keep making an example of me. But when I win--and I will win, Kara--then I might just hold you to that dinner.”

“Promise?” Kara pulls back to make sure Cat is sincere. All she can trust herself to do is nod.

“Now go, before your friend’s trickery runs out with the cameras. I’ll see you in court tomorrow.”

Kara is reluctant to let go, but she does at Cat’s urging. “It’s going to be fine,” she promises.

“Of course.” Cat waits for Kara to be gone before going back to her cot, picking up the book with her papers tucked inside the front cover. A custody agreement giving Carter’s father full custody. The final page of the deal that will sell CatCo and stop the company being stripped of assets if she goes down. There’s no point in hesitating any longer, they have to be ready and on her person tomorrow in case the worst should happen. 

She pulls a pen out from the small wash bag that holds all her possessions, and signs both without her customary flourish. There, the bases are covered.

For a moment Cat thinks she hears the flap of Kara’s cape again, but her mind has finally resorted to playing tricks on her. She lies back on her bunk as the lights are turned out, much too early as usual. Closing her eyes, Cat wills her brain to sleep, to accept these surroundings and relax at last. There’s every chance she’ll be doing the same every night for years to come. 

[fictorium]

"I wish I could take the pain away" for the supercat prompts?

Kara nods at the armed guards as she makes her way along the hospital corridor. Some are CatCo private security, men and women who have been responsible for Cat’s personal safety since long before Supergirl ever accepted a job in the building. Others are DEO, led by Vasquez who’s guarding the last door alongside Marcus, Cat’s first-ever bodyguard. They’re armed for a warzone, which just confirms how far from normal things are for Cat right now. 

It’s strange to be back in regular clothes, and Kara isn’t sure that her pastel-pink blazer and skinny black jeans are even all that appropriate, but her sensible flats are quiet against the linoleum as she approaches the door and knocks.

There’s no answer, of course, so Kara waits a moment before entering. Usually she’d slip her glasses down her nose and check the lie of the land before interrupting, but it feels like an intrusion too far. 

“Hey,” she says by way of announcement, closing the door as quickly as she can to preserve the quiet. There’s just the beeping of monitors, and steady breathing. No screens are lit up, and even though Cat is in the room, she doesn’t have her permanent soundtrack of overlapping CatCo channels. 

Cat isn’t holding a phone or checking a tablet, the only place for her hands right now is to have both of them clasped around one of Carter’s, placed with meticulous care to avoid jostling the IV port that’s taped in place on back of his hand. 

Clearing her throat, Kara decides it’s better to ask than add to the stifling silence. “Is there...”

“No.” Cat does look away from her son’s face for even a second. “God, Kara. Don’t you think if there was anything I’d be screaming it from the rooftops right now.”

“Okay, okay,” Kara soothes with a hand on Cat’s shoulder, relieved when it isn’t shrugged off. “I know you need to be here, of course you do, but is there anything I can get for you?”

“You’re not my assistant anymore.”

“No, but I’m your...” Kara doesn’t have an end for that sentence right now. Employee? Friend? Ill-advised fling? Surely not girlfriend, not with the furtive way they’ve been sneaking around in the past few weeks. 

Cat does look up at that awkward pause, leaning back in the uncomfortable plastic chair. All her money and private clinics, but when it comes to emergency treatment, Carter is safest and best looked after here like everyone else. The private room, well, wing technically is the best Cat has been able to do so far. 

“If you’re looking for reassurance, Kara, you’ve picked one hell of a time,” Cat says, taking one hand away from Carter to run through her hair, pulling it loose from the short ponytail that was already halfway out. “If we hadn’t been...”

She loses it then, for the first time since they’d first heard the news from Carter’s school. Kara watches on, helpless, as heavy sobs wrack Cat’s petite frame. It’s only when she slumps forward on the bed, letting go of Carter for the first time, that Kara feels able to step in and gather her into a careful hug. 

“I’m so sorry,” Kara murmurs, on her knees to support Cat fully as she slides from the chair to let Kara hold her. They’re basically on the floor, and for once Cat isn’t complaining about germs or whether that’s even appropriate. “I wish I could take the pain away, Cat. For you and for Carter.”

“I know,” Cat says, gathering herself with a shuddering sigh and wiping her eyes as best she can. “Have your secret agent friends found out anything about who did this? Why Carter was targeted? If it’s something to do with CatCo, some cause I’ve supported, I’ll sell the whole damn thing right now. Lena Luthor has been sniffing around for months.”

Kara’s stomach sinks. Cat giving up her company is unthinkable, and the first thought is one Kara doesn’t dare express: that Cat will need work as a distraction if Carter doesn’t come through this. Whatever the toxic gas released in his classroom is, even the DEO hasn’t encountered it before. 

“Let’s not worry about that yet, okay? Everyone is doing everything they can, and I’m here for anything you need.”

Cat shakes her head, pulling back from Kara and easing back into her chair. “That can’t be an option, not now. If we hadn’t been having one of our little afternoons out of the office, they might have reached me sooner.”

“But Cat, what could you have done?”

“That’s not the point!” Cat snaps. “I am his mother and I wasn’t here when they first brought him in. I’ll never forgive myself Kara. I’ll...”

‘‘...never forgive me, either,” Kara finishes for her. “Because every time you look at me now, this is what you’ll think of.”

Somehow the quiet shrug of acknowledgment is worse than if Cat had just said something cutting. 

“Then you understand. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to be alone with my son. The doctor will be in soon, and I need to prepare.”

Kara feels almost human in her numbness, every bit of movement seems harder than it should be, as though her arms and legs have turned to concrete. She looks to the door, decides she can’t face walking back through all those people. Instead she goes to the window, spinning into her suit with a quick glance to Carter to see if it might have roused him from his coma. 

Nothing. 

“You know where I am,” Kara says, sliding the glass open with a heavy heart. “I’ll be doing everything I can to help, and when we find who did this...”

Cat waves a hand in acknowledgment. They’re back to avoiding each other’s gaze. Easing through the window, Kara hesitates only to close it behind her before darting up into the clouds. She doesn’t let herself until she’s high enough for the tears to freeze. 

[fictorium]

Did you have another nightmare - for Supercat

TW: major character death. SORRY.

****

Kara is out of bed and rushing down the hall before she even realizes she’s awake. Between her heightened senses and the emotional rollercoaster of the past few months, she’s developed an instant response to the sound of Carter crying out in the middle of the night.

He’s still wrestling with his sheets when she comes in to comfort him, untangling his legs as quickly as she can and propping up his pillows so he can settle back against him. “It’s okay bud,” Kara reassures him as he calms, still breathing heavily. “I’m right here.”

“Kara?”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Kara flips on the nightlight by the bed, ashamed she forgot to do it right away. Carter kept putting it away at first, finding it too childish, but it’s become part of his comfort now, and they don’t talk about it returning to the closet. “Did you have another nightmare?”

Carter doesn’t hug her this time, it’s about a fifty-fifty shot each time whether he will. Sometimes he clings like a barnacle, like he’s never going to let go. Other nights, like tonight, he flinches if Kara so much as strokes his hair in an attempt to soothe him. He does answer her with a nod, eventually. 

“Do you want to talk about it? Dr. Whittaker says it helps to process it when you first wake up.”

“You know what it is,” Carter says, looking down at his hands as he sits cross-legged in the middle of his bed. Kara keeps her place right on the edge, unsure of her role still. “I keep dreaming that this time I can save her, that she doesn’t let go as soon as Dreamer has a hold on me.”

Kara closes her eyes, tries to hide the wince from him. She’d been incapacitated by kryptonite for hours at that point, barely able to lift her head, never mind catch Cat as she fell from the crumbling balcony. Her own DEO-appointed therapist is frustrated by Kara’s inability to discuss the events of that night, even three months out. 

“You know that if we could have saved both of you, we would have,” Kara reminds him. “Your mom knew exactly what the situation was and she made Dreamer promise to get you to safety first. If she’d taken you both on that leap, nobody would have made it.”

“I know,” Carter sighs. He’s crying again, and Kara reaches for the tissues so she can offer him one. “Do I have to go to Dad’s tomorrow? I know you need a break, that you didn’t sign up for being a full-time stepmom, but being at his place just makes it worse. It makes it... I feel like when I come home again this time mom will be here, you know?”

“Maybe we can talk to him about spending time with you here,” Kara suggests. Robert has been more than accommodating, and a cynical part deep inside her thinks that’s more about not wanting to deal with his son’s grief. “But I don’t need a break from you Carter. When your mom and I got married, we all became family. I know I can’t make up for her, but you could be with me every day if that was okay with your dad.”

“Am I ever going to stop missing her?” Carter asks, and Kara feels a fresh fissure ripping through her heart. 

“It won’t stop, but it does get easier to handle,” she tells him, fighting back tears of her own. “This house still has so much of her in it, sometimes I forget too. I come home and think I’m going to find her frowning at some emails in her office, or sneaking cookie dough from the fridge. But she’d want us to get through this as best we can, Carter. Together.”

“You want to sleep in here tonight?” Carter asks, like he’s doing her a favour. Maybe he’s doing them both one. “I mean, it’s only like three hours until your alarm anyway.”

“Okay,” Kara says, stealing one of his pillows for herself. When they’re both lying down he does hug her, and Kara hugs him back as forcefully as she dares. “Let’s try to get some sleep, okay?”

Carter nods against her shoulder, and Kara lays there in the glow of the nightlight, listening to his breathing even out until the first gentle snore.