The Shape of Things to Come

12

Kara frowned at the copy of the Tribune in front of her. Cat had only been in the office long enough to deposit it on her desk and collect her latte before she was off to a meeting down on the twenty-sixth floor to work on the integration plan for the five new radio stations CatCo had just purchased. The reason she couldn't take her eyes off of it was simple. Her own face was staring back at her. She'd been expecting that when she handed Cat the thumb drive with the high rez stills Konex had captured, but she'd forgotten how easily Cat had seen through her disguise the first time around. On top of that, she'd spent the last year making sure Cat didn't ignore her. Not like the first time through.

She'd pulled strings she hadn't known existed before, traded on Clark's contacts as much as he would let her to build working relationships with Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince, which led to dozens of other connections along the way. She'd opened doors for Cat that no regular assistant should have been able to and it gave her a degree of credibility she hadn't had in the previous timeline. Unfortunately, it was starting to look like it may have caused Cat to recognize her earlier than she had before.

Whether that was a good thing, or a bad one, remained to be seen.

"Hey, Kara," James said.

Kara jumped slightly, a reaction that was completely fake because she'd heard him approaching, but which helped to sell the 'hapless assistant' disguise. "James!" she said. "You scared me."

"Heh. Sorry about that, but I was wondering if you had a minute?" he asked.

"Sure," she said.

"Meet me on the roof," he said, before turning and heading towards his office.

Kara leaned back in her chair and sighed. She'd known this was coming but she wasn't sure how to handle it. She needed James in the inner circle, but she also needed to make sure he didn't develop a crush on her and unlike Winn, she didn't expect her sexuality to be any sort of inhibitor.

"Hey, Winn," Kara said.

"Yeah?" he asked as he looked up from his game of Minecraft.

"Keep an eye out and text me if Ms. Grant comes back?"

"Sure. You going to be okay with James?" Winn asked.

Kara smiled when she heard the question in his voice. "It'll be fine. It's not like I can't throw him back to Metropolis if he gets handsy."

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Kara was more than a little surprised when she saw not one, but two figures standing on the Helipad on the roof of CatCo. She was even more surprised when she figured out who the second figure was.

"Kal?" she asked.

The man standing next to James turned around, and sure enough, it was her baby cousin. She didn't even try to stop herself. She was up the stairs and across the Helipad in the span of a breath, crushing him in a hug that would shatter bones and pulverize organs if he was human, and Kal was hugging her back.

"Hey, Kara," he said.

"Hey," she replied, pulling away from him. "What are you doing here?"

"Um, well, Jimmy said you were mad at me, and I thought maybe I should talk to you so you don't take it out on him, because that would make things awkward."

Kara smiled, and turned to James. "Give us a minute?"

He nodded. "Sure. I'll just go run interference with Cat."