She was showering. Honest

"Showering!" Kate said suddenly, gesturing at the en suite, then immediately regretting it and covering her breasts again.

Mary blinked.

"You don't look that wet," Mary said.

"I was about to go in," Kate said quickly. It felt like the easiest explanation.

"Right..." Mary said. "Wait, why were you naked out in the hall then?"

"I wasn't! I was, er, carrying my clothes, I didn't expect anyone to be home," Kate said.

"You... stripped in the hall?" Mary said. Kate blushed. Well what else was she meant to say?

"And?" Kate said.

She managed her best glower. After a few seconds, Mary shrugged and walked out, leaving Kate to sigh in relief. She purposefully shut the door.

Actually a shower wasn't the worst idea. There was a small, small chance she might get lucky and be able to scrub off whatever stupid thing was keeping her from getting dressed. If nothing else she could wipe off the grime she'd picked up from sprinting through Gotham.

She went in, turning the water on nice and hot. She let it stream down her body, closing her eyes, trying to distract herself.

At least it felt normal being naked in there. And, more importantly, at least she was alone and without Mary's webcam or anything looking at her. She ran her hands through her hair, then started scrubbing, vainly hoping she'd get rid of whatever it was that was keeping her like this.

She should probably call Luke soon, check in, hope he'd found some way to speed it up.

Eventually, dripping wet, Kate stepped out of the shower. She felt refreshed. She reached for the towel, then groaned as it dissolved as she tried to wrap it around herself. Well that answered that question; she was still stuck naked. Air-drying it was.

Sighing, Kate stepped out into her room. She nearly jumped to see Mary waiting for her with her equivalent of a stern face. Kate crossed her arms, slightly awkward.

"Dammit Mary," Kate said. "Really?"

"I want the truth," Mary said.

"About?" Kate said.

"You weren't just doing it to shower," Mary said. "I checked the twitch clip, you definitely weren't carrying clothes with you."

"You, huh, what?"

"One of my followers clipped it," Mary said. Kate still looked confused. "They saved the clip! God, I know you were off in the middle of nowhere for a few years, but you could at least try to keep up."

Kate froze.

"You mean it was recorded?" Kate said. She swallowed. "How... how many followers do you have?"

"Few hundred thousand, look, that's not the point," Mary said.

Kate tried very hard not to react. Shit. Getting home was meant to be the end of it, not the time for a grand finale of unwittingly exposing herself to whatever fraction of a 'few hundred thousand' people were catching Mary's livestream, or for that matter seeing the recording.

"What were you doing?" Mary said. "And outside too!"

"What do you mean about outside?" Kate said, too quickly.

"You're kidding, right? You ran through half of Gotham! Story's everywhere. What's going on with you Kate?"

"I was- I- my face," Kate stammered uncharacteristically, caught far too off-guard by the knowledge of just how great her exposure had been.

"I mean, sure, you covered your face, but look at you. pretty distinctive."

Mary gestured to her adopted sister's naked body. Kate looked down, and blushed even hotter. Her tattoos. Shit, it probably wasn't any surprise people could identify her from that.

Maybe she should have opted to cover her body after all.

"So?" Mary said. "Going to answer me? I want the truth."

Kate hesitated. What was she meant to do, tell Mary she was Batwoman, and explain the whole suit thing? That didn't seem like a good option.