Chapter 2: Fever Dream in Fur and Rain
The dream held him like a fist.
Rain hammered the window of the safehouse, but in the dream there was no window, no walls, no world beyond the heat and the weight and the scent of her. Barbara straddled him, her spotted thighs clamped around his hips, her fur slick with rain and something else, something muskier that filled his nostrils and short-circuited his brain. Her claws rested light against his chest, just pricking the skin, and every time he tried to speak she rolled her hips and the words dissolved into a groan.
"You feel that?" Her voice was honey poured over gravel. "That's not the drug, Steve. That's you. That's what you've been hiding underneath all those years of playing house with the Amazon."
He wanted to deny it. He wanted to say Diana's name, to call out for her, but his mouth wouldn't form the syllables. Barbara leaned down, her breasts—small, firm, furred at the sides where the transformation had claimed her—brushed against his chest. The sensation was electric, wrong, perfect. His hands found her waist and gripped hard enough to bruise.
"That's it," she breathed against his ear. "Hold on. You're going to need to."
She sank down on him in one slow, agonizing motion, and his back arched off the mattress. She was tight. Hot. So fucking wet that he could hear it every time she moved. Her inner walls gripped him like she was made for this, like some sick god had carved her out to fit him exactly.
"Fuck," he gasped, and she laughed, low and throaty.
"I know. I know, baby. Just let it happen."
She started to ride him. Not the way Diana did—not with that careful, almost reverent rhythm, like she was handling something precious. Barbara fucked like an animal. She fucked like she was claiming territory. Every downward stroke was a blow, every upward drag a theft. Her claws dug into his shoulders and he felt blood well up, felt it run down his chest in thin warm lines, and he didn't care. He couldn't care. He was too busy watching the way her tits bounced, the way her head fell back and her mouth opened and those sharp teeth gleamed in the dim light.
"You're so deep," she moaned. "God, you're so deep. Is this what she gets? Is this what the princess gets every night?"
He didn't answer. Couldn't. His hips were moving on their own now, driving up into her, matching her rhythm, and the sound of their bodies slapping together filled the room like applause.
Then he saw Diana.
She stood in the corner, just out of reach, her face a mask of horror and grief. She was wearing the armor—the golden eagle, the red bustier, the tiara—and she wasn't moving. Wasn't speaking. Just watching. Just witnessing.
"Diana—" he tried, but Barbara grabbed his jaw and forced his face back to hers.
"No," she said. "Look at me. I want you to look at me while you come. I want you to remember exactly who made you feel this way."
She leaned forward, pressing her breasts into his face, and he was lost. The fur was soft against his lips, softer than he expected, and the skin beneath was warm. He opened his mouth and took her nipple between his teeth, biting down gently, and she hissed with pleasure. Her hips picked up speed.
"Good boy," she purred. "Now say my name."
Diana made a sound in the corner. A small, broken sound. The sound of something shattering.
"Say. My. Name."
His throat worked. His brain tried to fight. Tried to find the words that would keep him loyal, keep him good, keep him the man Diana thought he was.
"Barbara," he said.
The dream fractured. Her face, her body, her scent—all of it dissolved into rain and static and the cold reality of a safehouse bedroom where he was alone.
He woke with a jerk, gasping, his hand wrapped around his cock and moving fast. The sheets were soaked with sweat. The window had fogged from his body heat, and through it he could hear the distant wail of sirens, the soft hiss of rain against brick. His blood was pounding in his ears, in his throat, in his dick.
He didn't stop. Couldn't stop. His hand was slick with his own pre-come, and every time he closed his eyes he saw her again—spotted skin, yellow-green eyes, the way her mouth curved when she told him to say her name. He was so close. So fucking close.
Then he tasted it. Sandalwood. Faint but unmistakable, like she'd been in the room just moments ago, like she'd been the one touching him.
And he realized with a sick lurch that he was still hard. Still desperate. Still thinking about her. Not Diana. Her.
"No," he grunted, forcing his hand away. His hips bucked into empty air, seeking contact, and he had to grab the mattress with both hands to keep from reaching for himself again. "No, no, no."
The word became a mantra. A prayer. A shield against the images flooding his brain—Barbara on her knees, Barbara's claws raking his back, Barbara's voice whispering filth while he fucked her from behind.
He sat up. The room spun. His arm burned where she'd scratched him, the wound still red and angry, and when he touched it his fingers came away slick with something that wasn't quite blood. Something that gleamed in the low light like oil on water.
Venom. Her venom. Still working its way through him, changing him, rewiring him one neural pathway at a time.
His phone sat on the nightstand. He stared at it like it was a snake.
He needed to call Diana. That was the protocol. That was the only sane response to being drugged and compromised and losing his fucking mind. She needed to know. She needed to help him.
But his hand moved toward the phone and stopped. Because the number his fingers wanted to dial wasn't Diana's. It was the one Barbara had left on his communicator two weeks ago, after a fight that had ended with him pinned against a wall and her mouth pressed to his ear, whispering that he should call her sometime when he got tired of playing hero.
"Call me when you want something real," she'd said.
He'd deleted it. He was sure he'd deleted it. But muscle memory was a hell of a thing, and his fingers found the number anyway, punching it in like they'd done it a thousand times before.
The phone rang once. Twice.
Then: "Hello, Steve."
Her voice was soft, almost gentle. Like she actually cared. Like she wasn't the monster who'd done this to him.
"I hate you," he said. His voice cracked on the second word.
"I know, baby. I know."
He closed his eyes. His cock was still achingly hard, jutting up from his lap like an accusation. In his mind's eye she was on the other end of the line, wearing nothing, rain-soaked and waiting.
"I'm going to find you," he said. "And when I do—"
"You'll do what?" She sounded amused. "Fuck me? Kill me? Bend me over the nearest surface and make me pay for what I've done?"
His breath hitched. Both. The answer was both, and the horror of that truth made him want to vomit.
"I can hear it in your voice," she murmured. "The wanting. The need. You're trying so hard, Steve. Fighting so hard. It's beautiful, actually. Watching you struggle."
"I'm going to kill you."
"Maybe. But not tonight."
The line went dead.
He sat there in the dark, phone clutched in his hand, body trembling with a hunger he couldn't name and couldn't fight. The worst part—the absolute worst part—wasn't the dream. Wasn't the way his body responded to her voice. Wasn't even the fact that his cock was still hard and leaking and desperate for a touch he couldn't give it.
The worst part was the last thought that drifted through his mind before he finally threw the phone across the room and buried his face in his hands.
She was right. He did want to see her again.
And somewhere in Gotham, somewhere in the rain-soaked dark, Barbara Minerva smiled.