Chapter 2: The Devil's Bargain
The silence that followed his entrance was more profound than any sound. The hum of the ancient machine seemed to hold its breath. Circe’s initial shock, that cold splash of wrongness, evaporated under the heat of a searing new possibility. He was here. Ahead of schedule, yes, but the core of the plan remained. Her spell was already woven into Gotham’s leylines, seeking him. His presence now was merely… an accelerant.
“My,” she breathed, letting her surprise morph into a languid smile. She didn’t adjust her posture, didn’t try to cover the expanse of leg revealed by the slit in her dark gown. “The Bat. How unexpectedly punctual. Did my invitation find you? Or are you just naturally drawn to places that smell of sin?”
Batman didn’t move from the archway. His voice, when it came, was the low grind of stone on stone. “The energy spike was detectable from the Clocktower. This ends now, Circe.” His eyes, behind the white lenses, scanned the chamber—the basin, the grimoire, the faint, fading silhouette of the smoke-form. “Your games with minds are over.”
“Games?” She laughed, a light, mocking sound that fluttered the candles. “This isn’t a game, detective. It’s an unveiling.” She took a step toward him, the liquid darkness still clinging to her ankles like a lover. “You tracked the power signature. Good. But did you stop to wonder why it was so… blatant? A sorceress of my age doesn’t make clumsy spikes.”
A flicker of hesitation. A minute tightening of his gloved fist. She saw it.
“You wanted to be found,” he stated.
“I wanted you to find me,” she corrected, her tone intimate. She was close enough now to see the dust of Gotham on his cape, the minute scratches on his armored chest plate. He smelled of night air, Kevlar, and a faint, clean sweat. The smell of effort. Of humanity straining against its limits. It was intoxicating. “The others, your little family… they would see a threat. A problem to solve. But you… you see the pattern. The why. You came alone.”
“I work alone.”
“Do you?” Circe’s green eyes glittered. “Even from her?”
The name hung unspoken between them. Diana. It was a weapon she wielded with precision.
He said nothing. His stillness was a force of its own.
Circe circled him, not touching, but letting the hem of her gown whisper against his boots. “She is a wonder, isn’t she? Strength incarnate. A heart so pure it’s almost banal. Does she kneel for you, Batman? Does the mighty Amazon princess get on her knees in the Batcave and take that grim, brooding cock in her mouth? Does she whisper how noble you are while she gags on you?”
“Shut up.” The words were a soft crack of violence.
“Or does she insist on being equals? Mission reports afterwards. A debriefing.” Circe was behind him now, her voice a murmur near his cowled ear. She could feel the immense, coiled tension in his shoulders. “How exhausting. How utterly devoid of… filth.”
In a motion faster than thought, he pivoted. A batarang was in his hand, not thrown, but held like a blade. It hummed with a low, disruptive energy—a counter-frequency to magical constructs. He pressed it against the hollow of her throat. The metal was cold, a shocking contrast to the heat of the room.
“One move,” he growled. “One syllable of another spell.”
She didn’t flinch. Instead, she leaned into the sharp edge, a thin line of blood welling immediately, beading like a ruby necklace. Her smile never wavered. “Direct. I like that. Is that how you fuck her? A tactical operation. Mission parameters satisfied.”
His other hand shot out, a gauntleted fist closing around her throat, lifting her slightly. The batarang pressed deeper. Her breath hitched, but her eyes were blazing with triumph.
“You’re choking me,” she rasped, her pulse hammering against his grip. “Good. I can feel your heartbeat through your glove. It’s racing. Is it anger?” She brought her hands up, not to fight, but to cradle his wrist, her fingers stroking the armored plating. “Or is it the first honest thrill you’ve felt in years?”
He shoved her back. She stumbled, catching herself against the cold basalt wall. The batarang left a stinging line on her neck. He stood, a dark monolith of repressed fury, his chest rising and falling once, twice, under rigid control.
Circe touched her neck, looked at the blood on her fingers. She brought them to her lips, tasting the coppery life. “There he is,” she purred. “Not the symbol. Not the mission. The animal they all fear is really there. She’s seen it, hasn’t she? And it terrifies her.”
“You know nothing about her.”
“I know she represents everything you can never have,” Circe fired back, pushing off the wall. Her own anger, hot and bright, surged. “Light. Redemption. A love that doesn’t get its hands dirty. I offer you the opposite.” She spread her arms, the violet energy crackling anew at her fingertips. “I offer you the dirt. The sweat. The raw, screaming truth of what you are.”
With a surge of will, she unleashed the energy not at him, but at the room itself. The floating mirrors lining the walls shimmered. In each one, reflections fractured. Not of the present, but of possibilities. Twisted, carnal visions.
In one mirror, he saw himself pressing Diana against the Batcomputer, but her face melted into Circe’s, her lips parted in a snarl, not a smile.
In another, he was on his knees, not in prayer, but between a woman’s thighs—thighs that were muscular, powerful, but tangled in violet silk, not Themysciran armor.
Another showed a bed of darkness, limbs intertwined, a mouth on his, a tongue demanding submission, a voice whispering not words of love, but filth.
He roared, a raw sound of denial, and shattered the nearest mirror with a batarang. The vision exploded into shards.
“They’re just thoughts, Bruce,” Circe whispered, using the name like a thrown dagger. She was close again. The spell in the air was thick, a psychic musk of desire and corruption. Her earlier ritual was feeding off his presence, amplifying. “Your thoughts. Your hidden hunger. I’m just giving them form.”
He turned on her, but his movement was slower, heavier. The magic was a weight in the air, pressing down on him. She saw the tremor in his hand now. Not from anger. From the fight within.
“The feather…” he slurred, shaking his head as if to clear it.
“A focus,” she nodded, stepping into his space. She placed her palms on his chest plate. He didn’t push her away. “It called to your obsession. To track, to retrieve. But it also opened the door.” She leaned in, her lips a breath from his cowl. “Let me in.”
Her kiss wasn’t on his lips. It was on the hard plating where his mouth would be. A hot, open-mouthed press against cold ceramic and kevlar. She poured the last of her will into that contact, a final, vicious incantation of need.
The resistance in him snapped.
A shudder wracked his frame. His hands came up, not to attack, but to grasp her waist, fingers digging into the fabric with a brutal intensity. He pushed her back, not away, but towards the central dais where the basin of darkness still swirled.
“Yes,” she hissed, scrambling back onto the cool stone, pulling him with her. “Show me. Show the animal.”
His methods were not of seduction, but of conquest. He tore at her gown, the fine fabric shredding under his gauntlets. The sound was obscenely loud. Her own hands worked at the catches of his armor, her ancient knowledge making quick, efficient work of the complicated mechanisms. The chest plate fell away with a heavy clatter. The greaves, the gauntlets. Piece by piece, the Bat was stripped, not by an enemy’s hand, but by his own frantic, magic-driven need.
Beneath, he was a landscape of scars and hard muscle, pale from a life lived in shadow. He was breathing like a wounded thing.
She was naked now, her skin glowing in the violet light. She wrapped her legs around his hips, drawing him down onto her. There was no preamble, no gentle exploration. He was hard, brutally so, and he drove himself into her with a single, searing thrust that forced a sharp cry from her throat—a cry of pain and vicious satisfaction.
“Fuck,” he growled into her neck, the word ragged, torn from him.
“Yes,” she gasped, clawing at the bare skin of his back, feeling the muscles bunch and strain. “Like that. No hesitations. No sacred fucking vows.”
He set a punishing rhythm, each thrust a violent punctuation in the silent chamber. The machine’s hum seemed to synchronize with their pounding. This was nothing like the twisted, graceful seduction she had fantasized. This was raw, desperate, hateful coupling. It was perfect.
She matched his violence, meeting him thrust for thrust, her hips slamming up to take him deeper. Her heels dug into the small of his back.
“You feel that?” she panted, her mouth against his ear. “That’s what you want. Not a goddess on a pedestal. A cunt you can ruin. A witch to fuck the nobility out of you.”
He bit her shoulder, a sharp, possessive claim. His hand fisted in her purple hair, yanking her head back. “Stop talking.”
“Make me,” she taunted, her eyes blazing up at him.
He did. His mouth crashed down on hers, a kiss that was all teeth and conquering tongue. It tasted of blood—hers, his, she didn’t know. It was filthy and perfect. She could feel the spell coiling around them, rooting into his soul with each savage connection. This act, this ugly, honest fuck, was the anchor. She was replacing Diana not with fantasy, but with a darker, more visceral truth.
Her climax hit her like a shockwave, a searing contraction that had her back arching off the cold stone. She screamed, a sound of pure, unadulterated triumph, and felt him follow, his own release a hot, pulsing flood inside her as he stiffened with a final, guttural groan against her throat.
For long moments, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing echoing off the basalt. The violet light guttered low.
He collapsed beside her, not holding her, but lying on his back, staring up at the shadowed ceiling. The magic haze was receding, leaving behind the stark reality of what they’d done.
Circe rolled onto her side, propping her head on her hand. She traced a finger down the sweat-slicked valley of his chest, over the scars.
“See?” she whispered, her voice hoarse. “No more games.”
He caught her wrist. His grip was still strong, but the frantic energy was gone. Replaced by a cold, deep horror. He looked at her, and for the first time, she saw his real eyes through the lenses. They were haunted, shattered.
“What did you do?” he asked, the voice barely his own.
“I showed you a mirror,” she said softly, cruelly. “And you liked what you saw.”
He shoved her hand away and stood, moving with a stiffness that had nothing to do with injury. He began gathering his scattered armor, piece by piece, his movements mechanical.
He was leaving. The spell was cast. The hook was set deep. She could feel it thrumming in the air between them, a tether of corrupted desire.
He paused at the archway, fully armored once more, but somehow… less. He didn’t look back.
“This isn’t over,” he stated, the Batman voice back, but fractured.
Circe lay amidst the ruins of her gown, a slow smile spreading across her lips. She felt raw, used, and utterly powerful.
“No, my dark knight,” she murmured to his retreating back. “It’s only just begun.”
She listened to his footsteps fade into the tunnels. Then, she brought her fingers, slick with their mingled fluids, to her mouth.
The taste was victory.