Chapter 1: Claws in the Rain
The rain came down in sheets, turning the rooftop into a slick black mirror that reflected the city's indifferent glow. Steve Trevor pressed his back against the ventilation shaft, lungs burning, heart hammering against his ribs like a caged animal. The metallic taste of blood coated his tongue where he'd bitten down hard during the climb up the fire escape. Three stories of rusted iron and praying the whole way that the woman he was chasing hadn't heard him coming.
She had. Of course she had. Barbara Minerva didn't miss anything.
"I can smell you, you know." Her voice drifted through the downpour, playful and predatory, carrying that lilting quality she used when she wanted you to think she was harmless. "That cologne you wear. Sandalwood and gunpowder. It's very... you."
Steve wiped rain from his eyes, scanning the rooftop. The crates sat in a loose semicircle near the eastern edge, their lids splintered open. Gold glinted from inside—artifacts, probably, the kind that belonged in museums instead of the hands of a woman who'd already sold her soul for power. The wind howled through a shattered skylight nearby, carrying the acrid tang of ozone and something sharper underneath. Something animal.
"Barbara, this doesn't have to go the way you're thinking." He kept his voice level, steady. The way he'd been trained. The way he'd talked down suicide bombers and warlords and men with nothing left to lose. "Whatever you're planning, we can figure this out."
A laugh rippled through the darkness. Low and throaty, the kind that used to make men lean closer in smoky bars before they realized what she really was.
"Figure it out," she repeated, drawing out each syllable like she was tasting them. "That's adorable, Steve. Really. The soldier playing therapist. Does that work on Diana? Does she swoon when you use your negotiation voice?"
His jaw tightened. He didn't answer.
Movement to his left—a blur of tawny fur and sleek muscle that disappeared behind the crates before he could track it. She was fast. Faster than anything natural. The ritual had made sure of that.
"I read your file, you know," she called out, her voice coming from somewhere else now. He turned, searching. "Before all this. Before I became... this. You were just a name on a dossier. War hero. Pilot. The man who crash-landed on Themyscira and came back with a goddess on his arm."
Another blur. Closer this time.
"I hated you before I even met you. Did you know that? Not you specifically. What you represented. A mortal man who somehow earned the affection of an Amazon princess. Meanwhile, I spent years in the dirt, digging up other people's glory, and no one ever looked at me the way she looks at you."
Steve's hand drifted to his sidearm, fingers brushing wet leather. The gun wouldn't do much against her—he knew that—but it might buy him a few seconds if things went sideways. And things were definitely heading that way.
"You're angry," he said, buying time. "I get it. The transformation changed you, I understand—"
"You understand nothing." Her voice cut through the rain like a blade, suddenly sharp, all pretense of playfulness gone. "You understand nothing about what I've become. What I've sacrificed. What I've gained."
The wind shifted, carrying her scent—musky and wild and wrong in ways that made his hindbrain scream danger. She was behind him now. Close. He could feel the heat radiating off her body, smell the copper-tinged wrongness of her.
He spun.
She stood six feet away, rain streaming down her spotted face, those yellow-green eyes gleaming in the dim light. Her costume was dark with water, clinging to her lean frame, and her claws—Christ, those claws—glittered like crescent moons at her sides. She smiled, showing teeth that had grown just a little too sharp.
"Hello, Steve."
The gun was in his hand before he'd made the conscious decision to draw it. She didn't even flinch.
"Going to shoot me?" She tilted her head, water beading on those sharp cheekbones. "That seems rather pedestrian for you. I expected something more creative."
"Last chance, Barbara. Stand down."
She laughed again, and this time there was nothing charming about it. "Or what? You'll shoot me? You'll call your girlfriend? She's a little busy right now, if you must know. Something about a collapsing bridge in Metropolis. Very dramatic. Very Wonder Woman."
The words hit him like a gut punch. Diana wasn't coming. Barbara had planned this—had planned for this—and he'd walked right into it like a rookie on his first op.
"Ah," Barbara said, watching his face. "There it is. The realization. You're alone, Steve. Just you and me and all these lovely stolen relics."
She gestured at the crates, rain pooling in the hollows of her collarbones. "Do you know what's in these boxes? A necklace that belonged to Genghis Khan. The dagger that killed Caligula. A ring that supposedly belonged to Circe herself." She ran a claw along the edge of one crate, leaving a gouge in the wood. "Delicious little pieces of history. The kind of things that make men like you come running."
"Men like me?"
"Heroes." She spat the word like it was a curse. "Idiots who think they can save everyone. Who think they can defeat death and pain and darkness with nothing but courage and a pretty smile." She took a step closer, and he backed up. "But you can't, Steve. You can't save anyone. Not the past. Not the present. Not even yourself."
He fired.
The shot went wide—she moved too fast, a blur of movement that his eyes couldn't track. One moment she was standing in front of him, the next she was at his side, her claws closing around his wrist like a vise. The gun clattered to the wet concrete.
"Naughty," she whispered in his ear.
He drove his elbow into her ribs. Hard. The kind of hit that would drop a normal person. She grunted, but her grip only tightened, and then she was twisting his arm behind his back, forcing him to his knees.
"The thing about you, Steve," she said, her breath hot against his neck, "is that you're predictable. Chivalrous. You see a woman in distress, you have to save her. You see a trap, you have to spring it. Diana loves that about you. It's why she keeps you around."
Rage burned through him, white-hot and useless. He struggled, but she was impossibly strong, her body pressed against his back like a second skin.
"I've been watching you both for months. Learning your patterns. Your weaknesses." Her claws traced a light line down his arm, not breaking skin—not yet. "Diana's weakness is you. And your weakness is..."
She paused, and he felt her smile against his throat.
"Your weakness is that you believe in goodness. In redemption. In the fundamental decency of the human spirit." A soft, mocking laugh. "It's so earnest. It's how she loves you, isn't it? The mortal who reminds her why she fights. She looks at you and sees hope."
He jerked his head back, trying to headbutt her, but she was already moving out of the way. Her claws dragged across his forearm as she released him—a shallow cut, almost gentle compared to what she could have done. He didn't even feel it at first. Just a brief sting, like a cat scratch.
Then the burning started.
"What did you—" The words caught in his throat as fire raced up his arm, through his chest, into his skull. He gripped his forearm, staring at the thin lines of red welling up from the scratches. His vision blurred, then sharpened, then blurred again.
"Just a little something I've been working on," Barbara said, stepping back to watch. "A compound derived from my own venom, modified, enhanced. It's quite elegant, actually. Takes about thirty seconds to reach the brain. Another minute to fully saturate the neural pathways."
Steve tried to stand, but his legs wouldn't cooperate. The rain was cold on his face, but his blood felt like it was boiling. His heart raced, skipped, raced again. Something was wrong. Something was profoundly, terribly wrong.
"You see," Barbara continued, crouching down to his level, "I realized something interesting during my research. Physical pain is fleeting. Memories of pain fade. But psychological pain... psychological pain lingers. It festers. It poisons everything it touches."
He looked up at her, and the world tilted sideways. She was beautiful. She was always beautiful, in that sharp, dangerous way, but now... now he couldn't look away. The way the rain ran down her face. The way her eyes caught the light. The way her mouth curved into that knowing, predatory smile.
No. No, this wasn't real. This was the drug. Had to be the drug.
"You're wondering what it does," she said softly. "I can see it in your eyes. That's good. That's exactly what I want you to do. I want you to wonder. I want you to feel it working and know that you can't stop it."
He tried to push himself up, to get away from her, but his arms gave out. He landed on his side, rain splashing against his cheek, the taste of copper filling his mouth. She was so close now. He could smell her. Sandalwood and musk and something wild underneath. It filled his head, his lungs, his blood.
"The compound creates an obsessive fixation," she explained, almost clinically, as if she were lecturing to a room full of students instead of watching a man fall apart on a rooftop. "It rewires the brain's reward system. Everything you once felt for Diana—that devotion, that desperate love—it redirects. It finds a new focus. A new object."
She reached out and touched his face. Her fingers were warm despite the rain, and his skin tingled where she made contact. He shuddered, but not from the cold.
"In about two minutes, you won't be able to think of anything but me. Every breath you take will be for me. Every beat of your heart will belong to me." Her thumb traced his jaw, and he hated how good it felt. Hated how his body was already responding, already leaning into her touch. "And Diana will know. She'll see it in your eyes. She'll feel it in the way you pull away from her. She'll know that somewhere, deep down, you've become mine."
"You're insane," he managed, but the words came out raspy, breathless. His skin was too tight. His thoughts were dissolving like sugar in hot water.
Barbara laughed again, and it was the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard. He wanted to hear it again. Wanted to make her laugh. Wanted to—
No. No. This wasn't him. This was the drug. This was—
"Let's see how long the Amazon's pet stays loyal now," she purred, and leaned down to press her lips to his forehead.
Every nerve ending in his body lit up like the Fourth of July. He gasped, arched, his hands coming up to grip her arms involuntarily. She tasted like ozone and honey and something darker underneath, something that made him want to burrow into her and never come out.
She pulled back, and he nearly whimpered at the loss. The rain was still falling, cold and relentless, but all he could feel was the ghost of her mouth against his skin, all he could see were those yellow-green eyes, infinite and hungry.
"Three minutes," she said, standing. "Maybe four. You'll feel it fully soon. And then..."
She smiled one last time, sharp teeth glinting in the darkness.
"Then we'll see what happens when you go home to your girlfriend."
She was gone before he could respond—if he could have responded, if there were any words left in his shattered brain. The rooftop was empty except for the rain and the crates and the distant sound of city traffic, indifferent to the man lying on the concrete, feeling the last pieces of himself slip away.
He had to warn Diana. Had to tell her what Barbara had done, what was happening to him, what he was becoming. His fingers fumbled for his belt, for the communicator, but he couldn't remember how to work it. He could only lie there, shivering, as the drug wormed its way deeper, and the image of Barbara Minerva—her smile, her touch, her smell—burned itself into the core of who he was.
Somewhere far away, thunder rolled across the sky.
Steve Trevor closed his eyes.
And all he could see was her.