Cat Grant had always lauded herself to being a reporter, a writer, above all other things in this world. Being the owner of a media conglomerate possibly landed as a close second, despite the emptiness it had created in her life via family relations, but it was as close to something that made her feel like she was doing positive work in the eyes of her mother. Sure, it wasn’t exactly that, but it was better to hear about how she didn’t match up to the life her parent wished to her have with a corporation under her precisely trimmed fingernails. It was preferred over the weight of a pencil at her ear as she was berated for her choices, since she had money to spend and argue with when the vicious words came. Being a human was somewhere much lower on the rung, of course, but that didn’t quite matter so much. Humanism didn’t pay the bills far too often, and for too long humanism was the closest thing she’d been taught was a weakness.
But, as mentioned, writing was what gave her life, that filled her bones with purpose, and everything else simply paled in comparison. Perry White, while an aging man who was still refusing to see the light that the newspaper was becoming a thing of the past, had taught her well when she’d been fresh in the field. She could smell a story, she could feel the beating drum of one whenever she was presented with it. It was this gift that had allowed her to expand, to grow as an entrepreneur and as a woman, and she knew in her heart just what got the blood of National City pumping. Rumors and speculation, theorized exploits and catching teen stars in the act of whatever wrongdoing the public ached to know- that was what sold, and she gave the people what they thought they wanted. CatCo released a magazine and an online resource with the news and the etcetera, and she became the name that their city relied upon whenever something happened.
Which, when the city watched a plane as it was guided down by a strong and empowering woman, she latched onto the story with her claws. She gave the girl her name. She sought for the first, and so far only, interview with the girl of steel. She put her reputation and namesake on the line for a possible superhero who may or may not live up to the potential the girl had. The Daily Planet didn’t need to do such measures, and Perry White didn’t need to focus himself as the background source on all things that dealt with the red and blue boyscout. The information was given to him and the Planet- possibly due to a fleeting glance, a heated kiss, something, between the man of steel and the woman that had captured him as a news source.
It wasn’t as though she felt irritable toward the fact that Lane had been the one lucky enough to catch the eye of her pulitzer prize winning subject. Finding the news was fickle and uncertain, and, often times, one needed to be in the right place and the right time to be able to do so. Lane got her story- and so Cat forced the girl of steel to become her’s, whether the young woman seemed to like it or not. After all, the news was fickle, and if she couldn’t be there at the right time, then she was going to make the time right.
Luckily, her golden goose had come calling- all in her blue and red glory, giving her the scoop of the year without meaning to. CatCo was selling out with every issue, their website was reaching peak numbers, and the people of National City found themselves yearning to know anything and everything they could find out about their newly made hero.
But now, as the weeks went by and the news of their copy and pasted Superman wannabe grew to become stale, something had nagged her. She could sense it, just as she had before, that there was a story standing right in front of her, and her eyes had sharpened and refined with curiosity and wonder. It generally could have simply been an empty stomach that made her wonder, that drove her senses mad, yet there was a story- a true story- that she simply had to see so that she could write. Her gut felt jumbled, similar to the way she’d felt once she had learned of her city’s protector, and yet there was comfort in between the cracks that told her that the story she searched for was closer to home than she’d initially believed.
And so, in crude silence, with her television sets muted behind her, Cat sat within her office and glared at the glass walls of her office with scrutiny. Her vision flitted between the members of the office that seemed to wilt under her stare, somehow knowing that she was looking, and she briefly weighed her options as she tore her knowledge of each to bits. Her art director, the so-called famous James Olsen, seemed to be hunched over his desk, although he was speaking to someone… not of consequence, nor on her pay stub. The strange girl was not of consequence, yet he would speak to him about how visitors were useless and a drain upon her resources. The red haired boy was back in the space he had vacated several days (was it weeks?) ago, and he was just as distracting as he had before. She would have to ask her assistant to take care of his seating arrangements once more…
Her assistant. Kara… There wasn’t much that she knew of the girl, and could perhaps count what she cared to know upon possibly a single hand. She’d only recently learned that the woman had encountered loss early in her life, her parents lost to her when she was a teenager, and further research into her past had been… frustrating. Her personal files were nearly empty prior to her fostering, not that she was supposed to have seen anything anyway, but she’d called in a small favor to get something from her past that explained more about her. Intuition had, of course, gone haywire, but she allowed herself to believe that her life had been so boring that the government didn’t bother to file basic documents on her life.
And yet, now, she felt that intuition humming to life once more, her strong gaze unmoving from two forms who seemed to forget that they were at their work.
Kara was spending her time speaking to… Wilson, Weston, Wick- something of that nature, of course, but she didn’t have the time or care to learn which- although it was the closeness of their conversation that cause her to pause. They spoke in whispers- something she could tell even at her distance- and she found herself straightening her glasses as she watched with interest. Were they lovers, seeking solace in each other after hours? Probably not, she noted, although she could tell from the male’s stare that he wouldn’t deny the chance if it presented itself. Kara, on the other hand, seemed to not even notice his saddened gaze nor slumped shoulders, and probably had continually missed the all too noticeable cues that he was offering. Cat’s eyes narrowed slightly for a moment, attempting her best to use a method of reporting that few in the field could.
The curves of her lips, moving rapidly and yet as casual as she could make it… the way he shifted anxiously, looking left and right before offering another hasty reply, his words making his mouth draw close together. She hadn’t been able to catch it all, but what she had… well…
‘There’s … on seventh.’ Kara seemed certain, and Cat did her best to translate their softly spoken conversation from the comfort of her desk. ‘I… go. Cover me.’ One of the city’s seventh’s were near the other side of the city, and the other was no closer- and to assume that there was an emergency to which the bespectacled woman needed to attend to was quite preposterous. The simple fact that she seemed to be trusting the male made the business owner ponder over why. Wilton, Warwick seemed to agree, responding in kind, a hand on her back as Kara moved away and down a dead ended hallway that would get her no closer to the street(s).
So, in the methods of a reporter of old, she… googled what exactly was occurring in their fair city. Their site had been updated as of recent about a fire, one that had been started by an unknown gas leak, and it was located on… seventh avenue. Her hand moved to her intercom, buzzing the girl’s desk, watching as Walton, William moved to answer the call. “Miss Grant, so sorry, but Kara’s… dealing with some… issues.” He paused, obviously searching for an answer that he didn’t have. “Five alarm… chili, ma’am. Packs a punch.” He pulled his finger off the buzzer as he laughed uncomfortably- a fact that she was thankful for, since she genuinely didn’t need to hear it.
“Inform me when she returns from her… chili problem then,” she prompted, drawing out the last three words carefully, leaning back into her chair in thought. Perhaps there was something more to her assistant then she’d assumed…
After all, she was a reporter before anything else- and she was determined to get down to the bottom of whatever it was that seemed to be going on.