“Dammit all, I was ROB’d.”

“Miss? Are you alright?”

An older female voice spoke up behind Gwen, making her jump from the unexpectedness of it. She whirled around to look at the new speaker, only to screw her eyes shut and clutch at her head as the swift movement made her headache flare up again.

“Hey, easy now. I’m not going to hurt you.” The woman continued, her voice gentle but with a steel core to it. Gwen managed to crack an eye and at least get a look at the newcomer though. A latino woman with long dark hair was edging towards her. Gwen might’ve been more suspicious of a person in dark clothes and a hand reaching to their side but the police badge hanging from the woman’s neck dismissed most of those feelings.

“You said you were robbed? My name is Detective Renee Montoya, I can help...wait, Gwen?! Is that you?”

“Do I know you?” Gwen asked hesitantly. Her memories were still jumbled together and while Renee Montoya sounded familiar for some reason she couldn’t immediately place the name to a face.

“I...I guess you wouldn’t remember, but I used to visit once and a while when you were littler. I used to work with your father?” The last part was a tone mixed between hopeful and melancholy. Gwen knew there was more to her statement then that but couldn’t bring herself to try and remember.

Gwen didn’t know what to say to that so she simply kept quiet.

Detective Montoya waited for a bit hoping the younger girl would open up a bit. But the longer she looked at the girl the more she realized Gwen was barely standing. “Okay Gwen, can you tell me what happened? You don’t look so well, and I heard you say you were robbed?” She prodded. Hopefully this time Gwen would say something.

“Ah, I- I don’t really know? I woke up in a restroom back that way,” Gwen waved back in the general direction she came from, “and I just noticed I didn’t have my wallet.” She lied lamely. It wasn’t like she could tell someone that she was dropped into a random dimension by an unknown cosmic entity.

Renee nodded along but didn’t fully believe her. There had been a report of an altercation in a restroom a little while ago and that one of the participants had smashed into a wall and from cursing overheard by the caller was without a pulse. Gwen didn’t have any visible injuries but Renee pretty easily figured Gwen was the person knocked out. There must’ve been a reason for it, though she wouldn’t press for answers until later.

“Do you feel like you need to go to a hospital?” Renee began running down the standard list of questions regarding someone’s health. Gwen honestly told her she felt awful but had no desire to go to a hospital. The two went back and forth several times until Renee was tempted to force the issue.

Seeing that Gwen tried to reach a compromise. Renee could drive her home- apparently the address the detective had matched one of the addresses that randomly popped into her head from one of her sets of memories -and if there was any signs of Gwen getting worse she would go to the hospital then. However, if there was any sign of Renee taking her to the hospital before then, she would jump out of the car and take her chances on the street. Something she would actually try when she saw a sign pointing to Gotham General before Renee gave up and turned onto another road.

Gwen tried to keep alert for any more deviations, but the Detective soon pulled up next to a modest looking apartment building and began helping the younger woman inside.

“Come on Gwen, just a little further and then you can lie down.” Renee cajoled as she half guided/half carried the girl into the room. “I’ll get you sorted out and then...what the hell happened here?”

The small apartment looked as though every square inch had been ransacked. Every cabinet and drawer had been opened and their contents thrown to the floor. Papers covered nearly every surface in a way that was clear that someone had been looking for something specific in a hurry.

There didn’t seem to be anyone still in the apartment but Renee still drew her sidearm regardless, you didn’t last long as a cop in Gotham by taking stupid risks.

“Is anyone there? This is the GCPD!” Detective Montoya called out. Gwen twitched at the sudden loud noise and began looking around. Something like a ghost sensation made her look back into the hallway leading to the apartment where she saw a lone man in a suit steadily walking towards the two of them.

Gwen weakly pulled on Renee’s sleeve, drawing the older woman’s attention to the newcomer.

“Good evening Detective.” The suit called confidently. He halted close enough that they could speak easily, but far enough away that he seemed unthreatening. “I’m glad to see you found the young Ms. Stacy. It would be...unfortunate if anything befell her after the tragedy with her father.”

Detective Montoya’s eyes were like flint. “Falcone.” She accused.

The man nodded but made no comment.

“A notice will make its way to the Commissioner, but the Family had nothing to do with what happened to Captain Stacy. It was a frameup by an individual who thought he was smarter than he is.” He said instead. “Ms. Stacy has nothing to fear from them and the individual will be dealt with.”

Gwen winced as more memories started to fall in place. Her father, Captain George Stacy, working late into the night over some important case. Him saying he figured something out. Gunshots ringing out on a street corner and the feeling of needing to run away. A week of hiding out on the streets, bouncing between 24 hour diners and coffee shops. Never feeling safe enough to sleep.

Having delivered his message, the man offered his condolences and turned to leave.

“You think you can just walk away from this?” Detective Montoya snapped, raising her pistol to point at the man.

“I’m just a messenger, Detective.” The man said plainly. “Besides shouldn’t you be more concerned about the girl there than me?”

Both of them knew Gwen was in no shape to do more than perhaps flop defensively away if violence broke out soon. Renee dropped her arm with a snarl and the suit took that as a sign to disappear down the hall.

“Dammit all...alright come on Gwen. I need to go down to the station and talk to Gordon about this. Let's get you to bed and I’ll be back first chance I get okay?” Renee went back to guiding the younger girl forward, eyes peeled for any more surprises.

Renee hated the idea of leaving a vulnerable girl in a wrecked apartment alone, but unfortunately Gotham was often a place where choices ranged from ‘bad’ to ‘horrible’ and the people just needed to deal with it. Still she felt the place was reasonably secure after finding a spare key to the front door and locking it behind her as she hurried off to report to the Commissioner. The sooner she got there, the sooner she could make it back.

On Gwen’s part, she found that despite not really knowing what was going on, the mixture of her headache and the fairly soft bed Renee had dumped her in made consciousness a tenuous state of being. In fact the longer she laid there, the more she allowed the waves of memories to wash over her. Slowly allowing them to settle in place as she drifted off into a restless sleep.

-o-

When Gwen awoke from her rather unsatisfying sleep, she was still exhausted but was pleased to notice her headache had almost entirely disappeared.

But just because she wasn’t in pain didn’t mean it wasn’t still a shock looking around the ruined scene of her apartment. She blinked at the thought that it was her apartment. Apparently she had neatly resolved any dissonance between her three memories...she wasn’t entirely sure that was a good thing.

It practically screamed of something meddling to her.

Especially since her newly cleared head gave her the full picture about what the suit had been talking about last night.

Her father had been murdered- Gwen had to fight back some tears at that thought -because someone had tried to frame something on the Falcone Mafia and he stumbled into something. Going by the state of her apartment and the apparent attack on her in the restroom, whoever had done it was still looking for whatever information her dad had found.

“I could’ve really used spider powers a few days ago.” Gwen idly used a mental command ingrained from her memories as Spider-Woman and was shocked when the sleeve of her coat shifted to a skintight white glove.

“Although I guess better late than never.” She said with a slight smile.