This was, for all intents and purposes, a disaster. And not a 'beautiful disaster', how pretentious assholes like to call a teenager acting out by snorting coke in a public bathroom and smoking behind the school while giving a grand pointless speech full of clichés about – wow, yet another reason for Kara to limit her daily 'Cat Grant' intake. Anyway. It was a full on 'Katrina' situation, that's what it was.

Or, in other, less dramatic but not less terrifying words, she was on a date with Cat freaking Grant, and the Queen of All Media was awkward. And when she was awkward, she usually hopped aboard the 'let's get so fucking drunk we can't remember why we're awkward in the first place' train. And Kara was seriously considering joining her, but, because of her own big mouth and a constant presence of a foot in it, she was stuck with apple juice. Plus, she'd probably need to drink several gallons of absinth to get even remotely drunk. Or not. She never did find out just how much she had to drink to become intoxicated.

She did know one thing – Cat Grant didn't need much, and it was on her to make sure her boss didn't reach that stage, for both their sakes. And also for the sake of poor human Kara the assistant, who will be dealing with a hangover boss who tends to compensate her embarrassment by being an absolute nightmare to deal with.

"Miss Grant, I hope you don't think I'm being rude or disrespectful, but…" She really needed to think things through because right now, she didn't have the continuation of this sentence. Well, one that wouldn't piss off Cat, which would result in her straight up chugging that bottle of wine.

"Yes, Supergirl? Gosh, that name sounds really weird in a casual conversation, now that I think about it," Cat mused, already well on her second glass. "Great for headlines. Really doesn't work at dinner." She squinted. "Should we come up with a new name for you, since you can't tell me your real name for secret identity reasons?"

Kara simply sat there, blinking.

"Oh! You were going to tell me something," Cat focused her gaze on the hero. "What is it?"

Screw being sensitive, she had to save that date now. For mentor-mentee relationship reasons, of course. And for her assistant identity.

"I just think it would be better if we both were on the same level, and since I can't get drunk…"

"Oh." Cat nodded and, to Kara's relief, simply placed the glass on the table, sliding it away. "Then I would have to ask for your juice."

"Won't be a problem. Not like we're gonna run out."

They eyed a small fridge stocked with apple juice to the brim.

"Yes, my assistant, Kara, she… She sometimes… You know what, no. This is on me. I presume you already know the purpose of this thing we're currently failing at," Cat gestured between them.

"I, uh, yes, I noticed it was different from our previous dinners." Kara saw a golden opportunity then and went for it. "And it doesn't have to be! Why don't we go back to the way it was before? This clearly isn't working."

"Hmm, yes. Our previous dates –"

"Wait, dates?!"

"-as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted," A glare, of course. Cat Grant, ever the passive-aggressive one. "we should definitely take a more relaxed approach. You're right."

That was absolutely not what Kara meant, but she was kinda afraid to say anything now. She may be able to lift cars and punch people real hard, but Cat Grant was on a whole other level of intimidation.

"So," Cat delicately took a sip from her glass full of apple juice which Kara filled for her. Habits die hard, indeed. "Have you read my suggestions?"

Kara was about to steer the conversation back to them not dating, neither now nor in the future, but faith chose to play her joke right as she was about to 'not-dump' Cat Grant.

'Supergirl, I need you at Woodbridge, stat.' Hank's voice came through the speaker, pausing her right before she started to speak. This meant two things: one, she didn't have to suffer through a very uncomfortable confrontation. Two: she'd have to suffer through it eventually, and now that it was delayed, her anxiety levels would be through the roof up until the moment they finally hashed everything out.

"You need to go," Cat stated, trying to mask her disappointment. Kara felt a small pang of guilt. About having to leave her with a false hope, of course. No other reason.

"I'm sorry. We'll finish this later. The conversation, I mean." What was it about Cat that reduced her to a fumbling fool?

"Among other things," the older woman replied. The last thing Kara saw before taking off was mischievous twinkle in Cat's eyes.

Naturally, things got worse. Kara hated it when she was right.

Turned out that for all of her heroic deeds, Supergirl was chicken shit when it came to dumping her boss, and technically not even dumping since they weren't dating in the first place – for some reason, Kara always had to remind herself of that. So, instead of facing her demons – and by demons she meant a sinfully attractive boss who liked her skirt hiked up when she lounged in a chair – she simply made one excuse after another and stopped showing up to their dates. Dinners. To their dinners.

But Cat Grant was nothing if not resilient.

Her plan "Woo Supergirl" was set in motion, and Kara Danvers was in on it. She found a construction company and had them install a small, but durable glass case on the rooftop of CatCo building, where Kara had to leave messages for Supergirl, so the wind wouldn't carry them away. It glowed at night, too. Kara was assisting her own love life, and she had a fucking glowing glass case to look forward to on her night patrols. 'Kara bring me a latte' was replaced by 'Kara place those flowers on the rooftop', and 'Kara edit that buffoon's article and craft his termination letter' was instead 'Kara skim through this note, does it make you barf and will it make Supergirl barf, too?'. And she couldn't simply let the flowers rot in that damn case! She tried that once, and Cat was so upset the next morning she didn't even throw a thinly veiled insult at Winn once. Not even once! It was a whole new side of Cat, a sulking, mute one, who was only able to consume jelly beans in unhealthy amounts. She even shared with Kara. Ever since then, Supergirl became a silent recipient, taking, but not answering. It was hell. Her very own, customized hell, probably for all the cats she failed to save from the trees because she was too busy playing with other aliens.

And it didn't help her any that Cat's notes were incredibly, absolutely beautiful. The woman even wrote a poem once, and Kara had to excuse herself to go weep in the bathroom, clutching the damn piece of paper to her chest. The poem's elegant, tender style tug at her heartstrings, and she simply couldn't ignore this letter. So she didn't come up with anything better to do than to leave her cape in the glass case in exchange for the letter. She thought it would be symbolic and romantic, and it was only the morning after when she realized that was kinda exactly the thing she was trying not to be with Cat. In her defense, Cat was positively glowing the whole day, and God she was starting to hate herself – the other, caped herself. Oh, and the confusion intensified tenfold, too.

This had to stop. And it was only fitting that it would stop with the same person it technically started.

"You have got to be kidding me, Supergirl."

Kara winced

"I take it you're in?" She gave an awkward, pleading smile to Hank who simply glowered in return. The Martian looked more disapproving than usual, and Kara was afraid.

"You," he pointed his finger at her, accusingly, "want me… to dump Cat Grant for you?"

She winced again.

"Not, like, dump. Just let her down. Gently. Please? My identity is at risk here," she tried to appeal to reason, one thing she knew Hank couldn't refute.

"No, Miss Danvers, it's much more than that. This is a matter of national security." He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. "You had every opportunity to do so yourself, and now – do you even understand the gravity of the situation?"

Kara felt offended.

"If I didn't, I wouldn't be asking you to do this! I'd be happily hanging out with Cat."

"I don't give a rat's ass about who you hang out with, but dating Cat freaking Grant should be off the table to you. She's the Queen of All Media! She exposed your relation to Superman! Kara, this woman is not to be trusted at all–"

"Whoa, Hank, come on. She's not that bad!" Kara was really tired of people assuming the worst about her boss. Especially ever since she found out what Cat was actually like.

It was only after Hank's eyes began glowing that she realized that was probably not the thing she should be refuting in the first place. She hurried to fix that. "Okay, that's beside the point. And the point is – I am not dating her, and I am not going to, and I haven't even thought of dating her!"

Hank snorted.

"Fascinating how Kryptonians blush just like humans when they're lying their alien ass off."

Kara really, really didn't have time for his sass.

"Look," she said. "I'd be happy to do it myself. But I am waitressing at this grand romantic dinner Cat's organizing for - well, me, the other me. And I may be able to break a sound barrier, but I haven't mastered the art of cloning myself just yet."

"Oh I'm sure your boss would've loved that," Hank muttered. Kara chose to ignore him, because it wasn't a terribly important remark, and it was also gross to hear Hank joke about threesomes.

She also really didn't need that particular image in her brain, but lately nothing went her way.

"So I really need you to do this. I can't get out of being a waitress for this date, because Cat might get suspicious again, it doesn't take her long to connect the dots. I'm surprised I managed to fool her up until now."

"Don't get too pleased with yourself, Danvers, it has much less to do with your stealth than with your boss being in heat for Supergirl." Hank grumbled.

"Oh, my God, really, 'a cat in heat' joke? And if you think Cat would have let her feelings cloud her judgment, you're very wrong. Also, you're gross." She suddenly stopped caring about subordination. He wasn't the only one frustrated with this problem. He didn't have to constantly lie to someone he cared about – at least, not anymore, since he told Alex about his secret. She thought he would understand how difficult it was for her, and how much worse it had gotten. She couldn't look her boss in the eye after reading all those notes, and she constantly had to hide how deeply touching they were to her. It was a mess, she was a mess, and she was so freaking tired.

"Very mature, just like this whole conversation." He shifted on his feet, letting out an exasperated sigh. "Fine. Tomorrow night?"

Kara nodded.

"Yes. That leaves us with twenty hours to prepare you."

"Wha- I have to prepare?" Hank looked incredulous.

"Well, yeah. Supergirl read the notes, and Cat's gonna want to talk about them." She rocked on her feet, anxious to start. "Don't worry, there's not a lot of them, you just need to know the meaning in her words."

"I think I'm perfectly aware of what she wanted to say," he grumbled. "Good God, what is it about journalists that make Kryptonians lose their bulletproof heads?"

Kara chose to ignore that, too.