Chapter Text
Lots of people said that Barbara Ann Minerva was lucky, and honestly, she wouldn’t disagree.
To start with, she'd been born at just the right time to be a prominent figure in the second great age of archeology.
The first great age of archeology had come to a close when the world's most powerful nations had finally decided that there might be something morally questionable about competing to see who could carry off the most (often literal) tons of historical relics belonging to someone else, and so, for a long time, archeology had become primarily about tiny brushes and research papers.
Then, supervillains got involved.
It turned out that when pretty much every nation had at least one story of an ancient treasure, location, or ritual said to grant incredible power, people who had gained the amazing abilities after being struck by lightning, falling into a vat of chemicals, or allowing themselves to be experimented on by unscruplous scientists were plenty willing to take such claims at face value. Not only that, but the prospective payoffs were big enough that checking out every such story seemed to be a worthwhile investment, no matter how many turned out to be nothing but colorful local tradition.
The world could only be menaced by supervillains who wanted to: steal the amulet from which all magic on earth originated, unearth long-buried Vikings, or transform a terracotta army into thousands of deadly golems so many times before there was a reaction.
The second great age of archeology and people like Barbara Ann Minerva were that reaction.
Archeologists who delved deep into places long forgotten by the modern world (yet somehow always having still functional death traps) to retrieve powerful ancient relics so that they could be turned over to the proper authorities before they wound up becoming part of some supervillain's scheme.
It was a good career choice for a woman with a deep interest in mythology who didn't mind risking her life in exchange for public acclaim, a generous government stipend, and all manner of intangible benefits. Though what Barbara liked most about her chosen career was one extremely tangible benefit… it was how she and girlfriend had first started seriously spending time together.
In a shocking display of common sense, most of the world's governments had agreed to a policy of multilateral mystical disarmament, that is to say, they wouldn't retain possession of the powerful enchanted artifacts people like Barbara recovered; instead, they'd be turned over to more trustworthy groups of superheros and spellcasters who could make sure the relics didn't fall into the wrong hands. The Amazons of Paradise Island had ended up being granted the honor of guarding some of the treasures Barbara had unearthed, and their official ambassador to the World of Men, Diana Prince (also known as the superheroine Wonder Woman), had worked with Barbara to oversee the relics' relocation.
The two had gotten along quite well, and Barbara had even managed to avoid being reduced to a monosyllabic blushing mess upon first introduction despite how "appealing" the prospect had briefly seemed.
Barbara still wasn't quite sure why Diana had ended up choosing her; the Amazon Princess could have had pretty much any partner she wanted, be they man, woman, non-binary, or space alien. Somehow, out of that ocean of affection, she'd picked Barbara Minerva as her beloved, and there wasn't a single day that Barbara didn't wake up feeling grateful for that particular honor.
Not that there weren't bumps in their road of romance. It had been over a month since the two had last seen each other in person, because Barbara had been off in Egypt performing another one of her archeological investigations. Not that her time had been ill-spent, Barbara had returned to America with practically an entire pantheon's worth of enchanted artifacts. Even if examination by the Justice League's more mystically inclined members proved half of them to be little more than the magical flashlights, she'd still have surely thwarted at least a handful of various villains' pernicious plots before they could even truly begin.
It might lack the "whack" "pow" and "biff" of Diana's approach to fighting supervillainy, but Barbara Minerva was saving the world in her own small way, and for a woman who hadn’t been blessed by genuine gods from the moment of her birth/creation (she'd hadn't yet worked up the courage to ask Diana if the "magic clay" thing was the Amazon equivalent of storks delivering babies), that was a no small achievement.
And just as it was no small achievement, it inevitably entitled Barbara Minerva to no small reward… having an evening alone with Diana Prince. That was an event Barbara could (but not being the type to kiss and tell very much wouldn't) vouch was exactly the sort of divine experience that had inspired all manner of heroic quests in ages past.
There wasn't a banner saying "welcome home, Barbara" waiting for her, and Diana wasn't even wearing anything especially dramatic, just a simple blue suit and black skirt with only a golden necklace and earrings for adornments. But then, Diana Prince could have left an entire crowd of men and women alike speechless while dressed in only a paper sack (perhaps especially when dressed in only a paper sack).
One single look at her girlfriend was all it took to leave Barbara feeling like she was simultaneously overdressed and underdressed for the occasion, even though she was effectively wearing more or less the same outfit (in red), save for choosing long pants over a skirt.
"I missed you." Barbara rarely (make that never) knew exactly what to say when reunited with Diana after one of their long separations.
So rather than trying to find the perfect words, she instead simply settled for the unvarnished truth, an approach Diana could always be counted on to appreciate.
"I missed you too." An instant after the words left Diana's lips, Barbara's hand was clasped by that of a woman who could bend steel, and yet the embrace felt almost ethereally soft.
Repeated exposure to Diana's "divine beauty" (a term that was equal parts trite and accurate) had helped Barbara to recover her wits more quickly each time the two met, and soon enough, she was once again able to think about things other than how lucky she was to be dating the world's most perfect princess.
"Guess we’ve both had to put business before pleasure. Let me show you a few things best talked about only in person." Barbara offered.
The two of them knew that, thanks to the Justice League, their typical romantic text messages were more heavily encrypted than some nations' military secrets, but such security had been breached before, so the nature of Barbara's findings had remained undiscussed until now.
"While all of these are magical, exactly what type of magic is still up in the air at the moment..." The archeologist cautioned as she pulled out a mundane metal briefcase whose contents were anything but ordinary.
As it turned out, it was a lot easier to detect the presence of magic than to suss out the exact nature of it. So after Barbara's "rabbit out of a hat" tier magic using government contacts determined which of her findings possessed arcane energy, she'd escort any of them that did back to America, where the items could then be perused by more powerful and knowledgeable mystical minds. The enchanted items that were more or less harmless (it turned out that self-cleaning/dust-repelling charms were as ubiquitous among ancient cultures as distilleries) would be returned to various museums in their country of origin. Meanwhile, determining the final fate of the stuff with "don't touch it, you fool" level of mystical mumbo jumbo tended to require a degree of political wrangling that made actually acquiring the items seem like a walk in the park. Even simply perusing summaries of the relevant discussions had left Barbara profoundly thankful that she worked solely on the retrieval side of the process.
"Based on the legends I was able to collect about my various finds, this one is the most likely to prove genuinely dangerous." Barbara placed the briefcase down on a nearby table, opened it up, and extracted a single small glass case.
Then, with the reverence and caution due to a magical artifact of unknown nature, she opened the case and presented its contents to Diana.
It was an ornate golden dagger with a curved blade whose pommel had been crafted in the shape of a cat's head with a pair of small yet still brightly shining emeralds for eyes.
"This, according to every relevant expert I've contacted on the matter, is the Claw of Bastet. Once, in an irritatingly unspecified time, when the city of Bubastis was threatened by an invading army, the local high priestess performed a ritual to invoke the goddess's blessing, before cutting herself with it, so the open wound could serve as a gateway through which her patron’s power flowed into her. The very next day, she, acting completely alone, routed the invaders." Barbara recounted the story she'd heard several dozen times over the last month.
"If that legend is true, this might be the most powerful artifact you've ever recovered." Diana's words were heavy with the weight of ages past, invoking the gravitas of the ancient deities whom she had personally beheld and been blessed by.
Barbara blushed a shade of red nearly as deep as her clothing.
"If the legend is true. Even if it is, invoking the dagger's power might require some complex ritual in a version of Arabic that's been completely lost via millennia of linguistic drift. On top of that, it also depends on whether whatever deity the dagger was attuned to is still around and in a generous mood. When all is said and done, this thing might be nothing but the world's most magical letter opener." Barbara desperately tried to downplay her accomplishments.
With anyone else, she wouldn't mind letting them puff up her ego a little, but with Diana… Barbara only wanted to hear her say those words if they were true, and it was far too early to assume that the Claw of Bastet would prove to be mythologic-fact rather than mythologic-fiction.
"Well, as you said, it's only the most likely relic to possess genuine powers. I'll bring your discoveries to the Watchtower tomorrow and have Dr. Fate or Zatanna start checking them over. Even if none of them prove dangerous, I'm still proud of the work you did locating them, Barbara. I sleep more soundly knowing that there are fewer unclaimed magical relics in the world thanks to you."
"I bet that's not the only thing I'll be doing to help you sleep more soundly tonight." Barbara couldn't help but tease.
"I bet you're right." Diana had a laugh so musical you couldn't help but expect blue birds (or, barring such thematically appropriate avians, at least some passing pigeons) to halt mid-flight and harmonize with her.
Just like that, it was as if the two had only been apart for a few hours instead of an entire month.
Indeed, Barbara already found herself silently counting down the seconds that it would take for Diana to finish examining the Claw of Bastet, because she knew what would come next once that the task was completed; the Amazon Princess would reward her brave "knightess" with a kiss, and with Diana Prince a simple kiss in the living room could be but the first steps upon a journey to places more exotic than any ruin Barbara had explored in Africa.
Except the look of focused concentration upon Diana's face abruptly gave way to an entirely different expression, one that Barbara would say she hated, if it wasn't so impossible to hate anything about her girlfriend. It was the look that Diana got when she was receiving a telepathic message from one of her fellow superheroes about a day desperately in need of saving.
Barbara could feel her arm muscles tense and had to fight to stop her hands from curling into fists.
"League business?" In a show of extreme self-control, she kept her tone neutral; it wouldn't do to sound bitter or accusatory.
It wasn't like she was the only one who had to suffer this particular tragedy after all, the romantic partners of doctors and firefighters doubtlessly had their trysts intruded upon by their partner's professional life more than once. Hell, Barbara was pretty sure she wasn't the only normal person in the world who was romantically involved with a superhero…
Still, did it have to happen less than ten minutes after she and Diana were finally reunited?
"Giganta just grabbed an armored car right off the street. I'll be back in an hour, I promise." Diana explained while setting the dagger back down.
She did take the time to plant a quick kiss on Barbara's cheek before changing into her costume, opening up a window, and flying off into the night, for all the difference that made.
Just like that, Barbara Minerva was completely alone in a house that honestly felt a little too large even when two people were living in it. The worst part was that she knew she couldn't sincerely justify feeling even half as upset as she did at the moment. Diana had told her the truth about being back in an hour; Diana always told the truth.
All Barbara had to do was sit around watching the paint dry for another fifty-nine minutes, and then Diana would be back to spend the rest of the night with her. As many interruptions as their relationship had been forced to weather, Diana had never been pulled away from Barbara twice in the same evening.
If she could just passively wait for Diana to get back, then their evening could continue exactly as it had started; if she could just go grab a quick catnap she'd inevitably wake up with Diana by her side.
Barbara Minerva should have been better than this, a woman who could endure spending a month on an entirely different continent from her girlfriend shouldn't suddenly be acting like a spoiled toddler the moment the tiniest of interruptions reared its ugly head.
Except that was exactly how Barbara felt and exactly how she was acting. So, not only was she upset, but she was getting further upset with herself for being so upset in the first place, which all added up to… well, nothing good. She needed to find something that she could do to act as an outlet for these emotions, rather than just stewing in them until Diana returned!
"Giganta, you absolute, oversized, JERK!" Barbara cursed the size-changing supervillainess who had ruined what should have been her and Diana's romantic reunion while slamming a fist down on the table in frustration.
She struck with enough force that the table wobbled slightly in an entirely unremarkable manner. What was worthy of remarking upon was that Diana had been in such a hurry to set down the Claw of Bastet before leaving to thwart Giganta's heist, that she'd placed the dagger quite close to the table's edge.
"No, no, no!" By the time the words were out of Barbara's mouth, it was already too late; the table wobbled, the dagger wobbled, the dagger fell.
The Claw of Bastet plunged downwards towards Barbara's leg with incredible speed, and yet somehow at the same time it barely seemed to be moving at all. Barbara Minerva was frozen in the same agonizing final instant before catastrophe that bomb disposal experts would experience while watching someone attempt to disarm an explosive device via the "technique" of shaking it extra hard.
She tried to yank her leg away, tried to leap backwards to put some distance between herself and the descending dagger. Barbara Minerva tried with every ounce of strength and willpower she had… but Barbara Ann Minerva just wasn't fast enough.
With barely even a pinprick of pain, the Claw of Bastet effortlessly sliced through her pant-leg to inflict a wound no deeper than your average paper-cut, before clattering against the floor.
Moving slowly and listlessly, as if she were sleepwalking, Barbara picked up the dagger, put it back in its case, and closed the lid. Then she went to the bathroom and washed the cut with soap and water. She would have applied a band-aid to the wound, but noticed (in what was a decidedly ill omen) the cut was already completely healed without even a red mark left behind. All this she did without saying a single word.
Only after accomplishing literally everything that she could think of that might possibly make a difference did she forlornly lean her back against a wall and turn her eyes towards the heavens.
"Well… there goes… everything." Barbara sighed despondently.
She had heard all the stories, listened to all the lectures (she'd even given some of them), and they were all impossibly clear on this particular point. Barbara Minerva had, through an act of spite and jealousy, inflicted a wound upon herself with an ancient magical blade, short of asking Diana to take her to Olympus so she could personally spit in the gods' faces, there was no more certain way to wind up cursed.
A part of her wondered if maybe she should throw herself into some final desperate action... but knew in her heart of hearts that it would be pointless. Yes, she could rush over to a phone and leave Diana a heartfelt message about how much she loved her in whatever time remained before some appropriately ironic fate smote her like so many others who had drawn the ire of the gods, but that sort of grand pathos had never been Barbara Minerva's style. Whatever was about to happen, at the very least, she could face it with her customary determination and dignity.
Though it would be nice if her now inevitable doom would hurry up a little, rather than continuing to leave her in suspense.
"I'm ready to be cursed any time now." Barbara declared aloud, as if that would make a difference.
"I can worrrrk with this." A feminine voice didn't so much whisper as purr the words in Barbara's ear.
Then the curse struck.
Barbara was instantly driven to her knees as her entire body convulsed; she felt like she was on fire, except the burning sensation traveled out from her heart rather than in through her skin. Desperately prying open eyes that had been involuntarily squeezed shut by pain, she caught a glimpse of her hands starting to grow larger, her fingernails sharper.
She could sense each of her toes twisting and contorting inside her shoes, feel the fabric of her clothing struggling against a body that it was suddenly too small for. Instead of bursting at the seams, every single scrap of fabric she was wearing abruptly ceased to exist, leaving Barbara paradoxically cooking on the inside and freezing on the outside.
The fur solved one of those problems.
With a surprisingly clear and analytical mind, Barbara watched as tawny golden fur (punctuated by black spots) spread out across her entire body. It was accompanied a moment later by the shocking but relatively painless (compared to everything else she was going through) sensation of her tailbone became much less figuratively named. She could feel her ears getting "sucked into" her head one moment, only to erupt from the top of it a few seconds later!
This was all topped off by her incisor teeth lengthening into predatory fangs…. And after that... she could feel… nothing.
The agony of her transformation ceased as abruptly as it had started, leaving Barbara lying in a crumpled mess on the floor, and aside from having just undergone a metamorphosis of mythical proportions, things could have been worse.
This was supposed to be the part in the stories where the unlucky victim felt themselves descending into a frenzied bloodlust that drove them to rend and consume all they came across, typically starting with those they had once held most dear… yet Barbara Minerva was completely asymptomatic on that front.
So, for lack of anything better to do, she stood up and checked her reflection in a mirror.
Barbara doubted she'd be starring in a Disney movie any time soon, but she also didn't feel a pressing need to start smashing every reflective surface in the house. Her brown hair had darkened into a fiery red, her blue eyes had become the deep orangish yellow of a large predatory feline... along with the rest of the entire "humanoid cat" thing, she would evidently have to live with now.
Then she noticed that the mirror she was examining herself in looked a little smaller than it used to, before hitting upon the much more likely conclusion that it was actually a case of her having grown larger. Barbara took a moment to flex an arm, and it would be a lie to say she hated the results. Her exact figure was partially camouflaged by a lot of recently grown fur, but she felt confident that her muscles (already fairly well developed from a lifetime of globetrotting) would now be the envy of an Olympic track star. Still not as big as Diana's, of course, but there were few paths to disappointment more surefire than measuring yourself against an Amazon Princess.
That said, unless she was much mistaken, thanks to the extra inches she's gained from her transformation, it would now be Barbara who stood slightly taller than Diana.
Then her eyes drifted downward, and Barbara decided that even if all the fur somewhat obscured her physique, at least a little clothing wouldn't go amiss, assuming she still owned anything that would fit.
A quick ransacking of her closet later yielded a black workout top and a matching pair of bottoms that were up to the task… once she ripped a hole for her tail in the latter, of course.
"Okay, better than nothing. Guess I'm lucky that my girlfriend owns a magic artifact that will confirm I'm telling the truth when I try to explain… any of this." Barbara sighed, wishing she could go back to just being human.
Then the room abruptly became "bigger" as Barbara Minerva found herself looking at a pair of distinctly fur-free hands. A glance downward revealed that she was once again wearing the same red outfit and shoes she'd had on before her transformation.
"Wait… does this mean….?" Barbara began to ponder aloud.
A more timid soul would have let sleeping dogs (or in this case, cats) lie and done their best to pretend nothing had ever happened, but then, someone with a timid soul would never have possessed the courage needed to ask Diana Prince out on a date.
Cheetah, cheetah, cheetah. Barbara thought to herself.
She changed again, this time without the torment that had accompanied her first transformation.
Human. Barbara thought to herself.
Which was all it took to get her back to normal.
She repeated the process roughly half a dozen times before feeling confident that it really was just that simple.
"Different hair color, different eye color, and my clothing changes without even having to do Diana's spinny thing, convenient." Barbara reflected as she took stock of herself, once more in feline form.
"Now, why don't we find out exactly how fast this cheetah really is..." Barbara grabbed a pillow off her and Diana's bed, tossed it into the air, and took off running.
She promptly made a complete circuit of her home, which concluded with her shockingly managing to catch the pillow before it landed.
"Cheetahs are fast, but they are not that fast." She chuckled while returning the pillow to its customary resting place.
That was the kind of speed that she'd only rarely seen Diana pull off, and Barbara had accomplished it straight out of the gate!
Then she suddenly felt a sinking sensation in her stomach and looked behind her. To her immense relief, despite running through her home at a truly blistering pace, she hadn't left a tell-tale trail of claw marks in her wake.
That was a welcome surprise, but a rather illogical one…
"Wait, doesn't everyone know that cheetahs don't have retractable claws?" Except as it turned out, everyone didn't include whatever divine being had been behind this particular bit of magic.
Because, as certain as she had a tail at the moment, Barbara's hands/paws had retractable claws.
Then, unable to resist curiosity's call, she sat down on the floor, curled one of her legs around to face her, and confirmed that the same was true of her feet/paws as well.
"Should have known better than to have expected magic to make sense," Barbara admitted with a shake of her head before standing back up.
Having already examined her capabilities when it came to speed, a quick trip to her workout room yielded equally impressive results regarding raw strength, as she could now effortlessly lift any of her own workout weights. Investigating Diana's training aids (which were magically enchanted to be super heavy but not plunge straight through the floor if mishandled) gave her a struggle great enough to prove that, unsurprisingly, she wasn't quite as strong as Wonder Woman.
She was unquestionably in the same league, though, and that was a position that Barbara Minerva had never even dared to dream of occupying!
"Need to ask her what's the safe way to find out exactly how tough I am..." She added, while it was highly likely that her seemingly ordinary fur (at least as 'ordinary' as any coat of fur covering a human body could seem) would probably prove capable of putting Kevlar to shame, she had no intention of simply shooting herself to find out.
Having taken stock of all the easily testable aspects of her new abilities (Barbara still wanted to discover exactly how sharp her claws were, but she'd need an appropriate 'scratching post' for that), there was just one big question left: now that she had all these amazing abilities, what was she going to do with them?
The word 'sidekick' almost instantly jumped to the forefront of her mind. It was an almost painfully obvious conclusion for equally obvious reasons. Barbara had already been putting her life on the line to help people with her archeological efforts, so now that she had powers equivalent to Diana's, why not throw herself into superheroing?
It would mean that she got to spend more time with her girlfriend… wouldn't it?
Therein lies the rub, though; while it wasn't like the Justice League had an HR department that would frown on the prospect of two of its members fraternizing, they did oversee superheroics with the gravity that such acts deserved. It was an organization that existed to help make sure the right hero(s) showed up to stop the right villain/disaster at the right time… not to facilitate people dressing up in sexy costumes before playing "seven minutes in heaven" in the Watchtower's janitor closet.
If she became a superhero, would it really mean that she and Diana got to spend more time together, or would it just mean that now the couple was twice as likely to have their intimacy interrupted by some random supervillain de jure showing a complete lack of respect for Barbara Minerva's love life?
It just wasn't fair that no matter how much she loved Diana, Wonder Woman was too noble not to deal with her supervillains first and her girlfriend second.
Then Barbara got an idea.
An awful idea.
Barbara got a wonderful, awful idea.
"Barbara Ann Minerva may never have a hope of being the most important woman in your life, Diana… but Cheetah is going to scratch and claw until she leaves all her competition in the dust!"
End Chapter 1.
AN: If you couldn't tell, Barbara's "normal" outfit is based on what she wears in "Catwoman Hunted", while her "supervillain" costume is based on what Cheetah wears in "Justice League Doom" minus the fingerless gloves and whatever the appropriate name is for those things she has on her feet.
Meanwhile, Diana is wearing her civilian attire from The Justice League Unlimited Episode "To Another Shore."
I would also like to take a moment and thank bathbombhater https://archiveofourown.org/users/bathbombhater/pseuds/bathbombhater for their wonderfully poignant and heartfelt Diana/Barbara stories posted to this site, which served as an inspiration for this work… in much the same way that Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight could be said to help inspire Lego Batman.
I know I'm never going to write something that good, so instead I'm going to write something with an entirely different tone to reduce the odds of anyone comparing our works directly. Thus, instead of a deep, sorrowful piece about a love that has been twisted and warped into something rancid due to evil magic and Barbara having a level of hubris befitting the protagonist of a Greek tragedy, we're gonna do something more light, fluffy, and funny.
Barbara still is going to make bad decisions leading to bad outcomes, obviously, she wouldn’t be Barbara Minerva if she didn’t, but think less Icarus and more Fawlty Towers.