The Bat Symbol had a weird history in Gotham.

It had started a few years ago as simply a gamble by the police at the time to make contact with the ever evasive Batman back when he was more of an urban legend in the criminal underworld than a recognizable symbol. At the time it was a way of reaching out when the latest disaster struck the city and the GCPD needed his help.

Presumably this became less and less needed as Batman and the commissioner set up alternative ways of communication, and irrelevant when the Justice League started up but the whole time that the signal had been active there had only ever been one attempt at ambushing the hero. As it turns out, most of the criminals of Gotham had an almost ingrained desire to deal with Batman personally and a simple ambush at a police station where he was expected was not adequate enough for them.

The one gang that had tried was found horrifically assaulted by several different hallmarks and calling cards of notorious villains such as Scarecrow, the Joker, Bane, Two-Face, and a few others. The obvious message to everyone that the only acceptable way to ‘beat the Bat’ was in the city itself or at least in person.

Gwen was sure that that single incident was simply the one that everyone heard about and several others had been...cleaned up...on the side, but she was hoping to take advantage of that image of neutrality. If she could clear the air with Batgirl and Nightwing then hopefully they would be willing to help her stop the impending gang war just around the corner.

Night was just beginning to fall over the city when she left her apartment and began wandering the streets. Once she was far enough that she was confident no one was following or paying attention to her, Gwen slipped into an alley and allowed her costume to cover her completely. A short climb later and she was making her way towards the police station and hopefully a peaceful conversation.

The city blurred underneath her as she swung her way through the streets. Ghost Spider was content to let the sights and sounds fade into the background since she wasn’t looking for trouble at the moment. The universe apparently had different plans. Ghost Spider eventually noticed the glow of several blue and red lights flashing in the distance.

Not a rare sight in the city by any stretch of the imagination, but several patrol cars circled around the front of the Gotham Central Bank tended to draw attention. And given that more cars were joining the group, the situation was still ongoing and the local PD hadn’t dealt with it yet.

A webline shot out and Ghost Spider allowed herself to be pulled over towards the bank. Even if she did light up the Bat Signal, anyone from the Bat Family on the way over would stop and check on the bank anyway, she reasoned.

When she arrived on a nearby rooftop the situation didn’t look much better up close than it had from afar. Over half a dozen cop cars were parked out front with officers milling around behind them. From what Ghost Spider could see it was a robbery that hadn’t managed to get out with whatever the robbers grabbed before the alarms tripped and the police showed up. So now the robbers were trapped inside with who knew how many hostages and the cops had no way of getting inside.

Something that wasn’t an issue for Ghost Spider.

She used the surrounding buildings to circle the bank and climb up to a window. Unsurprisingly it was locked so Ghost Spider shifted the tips of her fingers to resemble sharp claws, the symbiote responding to her mental comand, and swiftly cut out a small circle in the glass. With the opening she was able to simply reach through, unlock the window, and slip inside.

The inside of the bank had some highly arched ceilings in the main lobby that let Ghost Spider observe the interior without being noticed by anyone inside. Eight robbers armed with weapons ranging from handguns to submachine guns wandered around the main floor, glancing out windows and occasionally talking to each other. Somewhat worryingly, none of them seemed overly stressed out despite being surrounded by police and trapped in the bank they were robbing. The vault door was open and another robber was going in and out with bags full of what was probably cash. Finally another robber was standing guard at the back offices where presumably the hostages were being held.

Ghost Spider carefully made her into the offices unseen by slipping through a false ceiling and carefully removing a panel to peak around. After a few empty offices, she eventually found the one where the hostages were being kept. Another armed robber stood over eight civilians who were on their knees with their hands on their heads, except for one older woman who was lying on the floor and a younger man kneeling next to her. How the heck did the robbers expect to get away with that many of them? There were far too many people in their group to simply disappear.

“Please, she needs help!” the man said desperately. “She’s arrhythmic. If she doesn’t get to a hospital soon then she could die!”

“Sucks for her. But one old lady croaking isn’t going to change my mind.”

“If she dies then that’s a murder charge for your whole group! Is that what you want to happen?!” the man attempted to rise to his feet but froze when the robber turned his gun on him.

“Sit back down.”

Fear and determination warred on the hostage’s face before determination won out and he continued moving to stand. The other hostages whimpered at the action.

“I’m getting her help. If you’re gonna stop me then you’ll just have to shoot me.”

“You know what? Fine by me.” the robber raised his gun in preparation to fire.

With quick certain moves, Ghost Spider dropped down behind the man and ripped the gun out of his hands before he could get his finger inside the trigger guard. At the same time she punched him in the gut to stop him from calling out and alerting his friends and gave him a faceful of webbing just to be sure before knocking him out.

Shrieks broke out among the hostages at the sudden appearance and violence. Ghost Spider turned towards the door leading back into the bank just in case anyone heard the commotion and came to take a look, but after a few seconds with nothing happening she relaxed a bit and turned back to the hostages. With their captor tied up and unconscious, they had moved to huddle in the back of the room.

As long as they weren’t panicking Ghost Spider was happy to ignore them for a second and check on the person in need.

She turned back to the old lady to find the young man from earlier standing protectively in front of her.

“Is she okay?”

Ghost Spider’s question made the young man relax a bit before he knelt to take the woman’s pulse again.

“She needs to get to a professional soon. I’m only pre-med but the longer it takes for someone to check her out, the worse her chances.” the young man said. “I don’t suppose you managed to take down his friends on the way in?” he nodded towards the tied up robber.

“Sorry, I snuck in to see what was going on. Wasn’t planning on taking down the bad guys until he was ready to gun you down.”

“Ah, dammit. B-but you’ll help right? I mean, even though you’re a-”

“If you say villain I am going to punch you.” Ghost Spider interrupted dryly. The young man pointedly didn’t say anything.

She sighed. “Anyway, is there another way out of the bank without going through the main lobby? We can sneak everyone out that way and I can deal with anyone in the way.”

“T-there’s an emergency exit out the back.” One of the clerks stammered. “But one of the robbers started welding the door shut when they locked us in here.”

“...seriously how do they expect to get out of here?” Ghost Spider muttered under her breath before addressing the hostages. “Okay, I’m going to check out the back and see if I can find a way to sneak you all out of here.”

“And what do we do?” one of them asked loudly, earning a fearful jab in the ribs from the person next to him.

“Stay here and keep quiet until I come back.” Ghost Spider replied, trying to project confidence. “It will be safer if everyone stays here until I can find a way out.”

There was some grumbling but no one was willing to push the issue, especially in the face of Ghost Spider narrowing her eyes dangerously at the loudest of the group.

“I’ll be back in a sec...don’t do anything stupid.” With that she slipped out into the hallway and looked around. She could see the robber standing guard on the other side of the frosted glass leading to the main lobby. It didn’t seem like he noticed the scuffle with the hostages either, so Ghost Spider was content to web the corners of the door shut. It wouldn’t stop anyone determined to get inside but it should give her enough warning to make it back in a hurry if needed.

She turned and stealthily hurried the other way, following the glowing exit signs to her destination. She hadn’t gone very far when she heard some shuffling from inside one of the closed offices. There shouldn’t be any employees separated from the others or they would’ve mentioned it, so Ghost Spider crouched next to the door and waited for the person to open it and peek around. The person inside opened the door further and stepped out into the hall just in time for Ghost Spider to tackle them, straddling their chest as she secured their hands above their head and drawing a fist back to knock them out when she was distracted by a flash of red and took a second to actually recognise who she just jumped.

“Batgirl!?” Ghost Spider’s eyes went wide. Batgirl also seemed to recognise who attacked her and wasn’t happy about it.

“You!”

Batgirl tried to throw Ghost Spider off her, but between her strength and reflexively sticking herself to the floor was completely unable to.

“Wha-! Hold on, I don’t have time to fight you right now!”

“Sorry, am I messing up your heist or something?” Batgirl said sarcastically.

“Listen! I don’t have time for this.” Ghost Spider hissed. “I’m not with them. I sneaked in and found the hostages they have but one of them, an older lady, is arrhythmic and needs to get to a professional. Can we get her out using whatever way you got in here?”

“Not unless she’s the most athletic senior citizen in Gotham.” An unknown voice said from the same office Batgirl came out of. “Crawling through air vents isn’t easy. And wow, you’re a jumpy one.”

The sudden sound of an unknown person shocked Ghost Spider enough that she immediately somersaulted off Batgirl and down the hall to land in a crouch. She relaxed slightly when she saw it was a smaller teenager in a red and black costume with a yellow ‘R’ on the left side of his chest.

It looked like Robin had also tagged along for the ride and had simply held back as Batgirl went through the door. Ghost Spider had stopped paying attention to her surroundings when she realised she had attacked Batgirl. A mistake that would’ve been much costlier if it had been Batman or Nightwing and they had attacked her in turn.

Ghost Spider mentally chastised herself for assuming only one member of the Batfamily would’ve come to help. Thankfully they shouldn’t attack her now that they knew what was at stake.

“So this is how it’s done, huh?” Robin said to Batgirl. “Glad I let you go first, I never would’ve figured out getting jumped by the bad guy was step two.”

“Shut it.” Batgirl snapped back.

“Look, you two obviously have something to work out but do either of you have something that can break through a metal door? According to the hostages, one of the robbers welded the back exit shut.” Ghost Spider interrupted.

The two superheroes thought for a bit before Robin shrugged. “Maybe. Depends how good of a weld it is, I guess.”

“We have some explosives, but it will alert the robbers without a doubt.” Batgirl continued.

“It’s only a matter of time before they know something’s up anyway. I had to knock out one of the robbers when he was about to shoot a hostage.”

“Good to know even the bad guys have issues working together and it’s not just us.” Robin smirked.

“Look you punk.” Ghost Spider censored herself but jabbed a finger at the teen. “I’m not working with them. I’m not here for anything in the bank. I was on my way to try and contact you guys and this caught my attention. Now either be helpful or get out of the way, this isn’t the place to play around.”

She had gone for authoritative so when Robin groaned and palmed his face and Batgirl smirked, she was understandably confused.

“Great, there’s two of them.” Robin moaned as he turned and started down the hall following an exit sign.

Ghost Spider looked between the two heroes, still lost, but apparently it had something to do with an earlier conversation and they weren’t going to fill her in since Batgirl started grilling her for answers about everything going on in the bank. Ghost Spider filled her in on everything she could remember about the robbers. Numbers, positions, gear, and even her unease with the robbers sealing the back door.

“Yeah, that’s concerning.” Batgirl muttered when they reached the emergency exit. Half the door had been welded to the frame to keep it from opening. The robbers clearly weren’t expecting to use this door again.

“Can you get through it?”

“Probably... Robin, you start setting up the charges. I’m going to bring the hostages closer so we can get them all out at once.” Batgirl uncliped a few devices from her belt and handed them to teen and walked away from the door, snagging Ghost Spider’s arm on the way. “And you are going to show me where the hostages are.”

“I’m not against that. You don’t need to pull me along.” Ghost Spider said dryly, letting herself be pulled along anyway.

Batgirl lightly shoved her so Ghost Spider was in the lead, the perfect position to easily react to an ambush or sudden attack, and huffed. “You said you want to talk, but you also assaulted several police officers and Nightwing, not to mention any other crimes we haven’t heard about, I’m not letting you out of my sight. Especially with your disappearing trick.”

“You mean the fake cops trying to run off with the cash I pulled off them? You did check their badges right? Because the clothing on the ground should’ve been a hint.” Ghost Spider said. “And Nightwing was the one to start that fight. I was happy to go after the Penguin.”

“And what exactly were you hoping to talk with us about.” Batgirl asked, ignoring Ghost Spider’s comments for the moment.

That was fine. The gang war took priority.

“What do you know about the upcoming underworld auction?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Batgirl asked a touch more defensively than Ghost Spider figured it warranted. Did they already know about what was going on?

“I’ve been following leads on the Falcone Family for the past few weeks. Everything I find points to them stocking up for a fight and telling guys to be in the area on the day of the auction. You can guess what that means right?”

“Really? A power grab in the middle of a supposedly neutral event? They would turn every crime group in the city against them.” Batgirl was right to be skeptical. A shortsighted move like that might be something to expect from a new player. Not from someone like the Falcone family who practically ran the city before Batman arrived on the scene.

“If they take out enough of the people there it won’t matter if everyone else is against them. There won’t be anyone organised or influential enough to direct the other groups and you know they will fight between themselves just as much as they would the Falcone.”

The heroine silently accepted the point and moved on. “And what do you get out of this?”

“Besides a city that isn’t on fire?” Ghost Spider replied sarcastically making Batgirl snort in amusement. “Believe it or not, I’ve been trying to get established as a hero. I’m just having issues when it comes to public perception.”

“Probably because heroes don’t steal things and attack cops.” came the dry response.

“Fake cops.” Ghost Spider emphasized. “And not all of us get privately funded by Batman. I only took something from that warehouse because the Falcone lit the place on fire and it would’ve been ashes even if I didn’t take it.”

“Hmnnn”

They were close to the hostages so there was no more time for discussion. Ghost Spider waved at the room they were held in to let Batgirl know their destination. When the heroine made no move to go forward Ghost Spider sighed and moved to open the door herself.

“Everybody still okay in here?” she announced as she entered. The older lady was still pale, sweaty, and just generally unhealthy looking but she was alive which was a good thing. The others had sorta circled around her trying to make her comfortable.

Once Batgirl confirmed Ghost Spider wasn’t about to spring a trap she quickly moved among the hostages and started organizing them to head towards the exit. It was actually rather impressive how quickly she was able to convince even the more skittish among the hostages that the best move was to leave the room and escape rather than stay in a place they had subconsciously started to consider ‘safe’.

It had taken a couple minutes to ensure they could safely move the elderly Mrs. Smith in her condition, but considering she wasn’t going to get help here and the only treatment the robbers could give seemed to be a bullet it needed to be done. Three other hostages carried the woman towards the back exit and soon Batgirl and Ghost Spider were alone.

“Don’t you need to go with them?” Ghost Spider asked as the last of the hostages disappeared around a corner.

“I trust Robin to take care of them.”

Ah, so she couldn’t trust Ghost Spider then? Whatever. The people were safe, or at least on the way to getting there. Gaining the trust of a heroine taught by a man notorious for his paranoia wasn’t as important at the moment.

Instead they should be focusing on what to do about the remaining criminals milling around the main lobby. Now that all the civilians had been sent elsewhere Ghost Spider and Batgirl had a chance to watch them from a decorative vent that separated the lobby and the false ceiling space above the back offices.

“Something’s not right.” Ghost Spider murmured as they watched the robbers down below. “They don’t look stressed at all. It's been almost half an hour but I’m not seeing any shifting, muttering, anything...hell I don’t even think they’re blinking.”

“You’re right. Look over there.” Batgirl pointed at one of the robbers coming out of the vault.

Now that she was watching closer, Ghost Spider could see the man walking with an almost mechanical precision. He carried a full duffle bag to a pile of similar ones and rather than gently place it on top of the others, he crushed it on top of the pile almost like he expected it to be smaller than it was. Then he straightened up, turned, and walked off in the same precise fashion as before.

“That’s creepy. So what do you think, mind control or robots?”

“Mind control possibly. I doubt anyone skilled enough to make androids that realistic and unique is going to have them rob a bank. No signs of tech though, so we might be dealing with a psychic. It might explain why the robber you took out was so willing to shoot a hostage.”

Ghost Spider nodded.

Mind control in its various forms had been studied extensively over the years. With potential vectors from simple hypnosis to mind control gadgets to physic ability it was hard to narrow down exactly how people would react without a very thorough understanding of how exactly the person was controlled to begin with. But something that was fairly consistent across all studies was that the more complicated the command or detailed the control, the less free will and individuality the victim expressed.

A person told to do a series of tasks would behave a lot more robotically than a person told to stand in a room and not allow anyone to leave. And since there were less variables to account for with simpler commands, more of the victim’s personality tended to leak out. Although seeing as the rest of the robbers were also standing around like robots while not doing anything there must be something else they were instructed to do and were waiting on some kind of trigger.

“They’re probably waiting on some kind of signal.” Batgirl was clearly thinking along the same mental track as Ghost Spider.

“Yeah, but for what?

“Could be anything. A timer, a specific condition, new orders...I don’t know.” Batgirl shifted to get a better look at the main doors. “Don’t think I’m gonna wait to find out though. Robin should be getting the hostages out any-” there was a loud bang in the background. “-second now. And the police look like they're getting ready to move in. Let’s finish this before someone gets hurt.”

“Ah, about that.” Ghost Spider said. “I think they got their signal.”

The robbers had suddenly gone stiff, stiffer in some cases, and stopped whatever they had been doing. At the exact same time all of them grabbed a weapon and started marching for the doors.

“And I think that’s ours.”

Batgirl didn’t respond. She simply kicked out the metal grating and jumped through. Ghost Spider followed suit, leaping through the air and webslinging in front of the robbers.

“Hi guys! Nice of you to leave without taking the money, weird by the way, but it’d be really nice if you left the guns behind too.”

There was no response from the robbers. No twitching, no widening of eyes, no calls of alarm. They simply raised their guns and opened fire. Not that Ghost Spider was still there. At the first twitch of the gunmen, she had jumped back to the ceiling and started webbing up the various guns pointed at her. Incidentally, shifting the gunfire so it was pointed upwards rather than at the floors or windows where a ricochet or stray shot could hit someone outside. The mind controlled robbers weren’t exactly a group of crack shots though, so it was rather easy for Ghost Spider to avoid their attack with some simple acrobatic dodging and some webs.

In the back, she could see Batgirl subduing the robbers with a mix of thrown batarangs or bolas and a swift punch to the jaw. Whatever orders the robbers were under it seemed their skills consisted of ‘point and shoot’ as far as combat went and the heroine was tearing through them as a result.

Within a minute, every one of the robbers had been disarmed, knocked out, and tied up. The police had heard the gunfire and were cautiously moving in which meant that it was time for Ghost Spider to slip away.

“And where do you think you’re going?”

“Well considering the police and the media keep calling me a thief. I thought it would be a good idea not to let them see me in the middle of a failed bank robbery.” Ghost Spider replied to Batgirl, even as the female superhero moved to cut her off.

“You still need to tell me about what you found on the Falcone.”

“Fine. I’ll meet you on top of the Wayne Enterprises building tomorrow night. And before you make a scene I think he wants to talk to you.” Ghost Spider said pointing at nothing over Batgirl’s shoulder.

“Who?” As Batgirl turned to look, Ghost Spider shifted invisible and ran over to a wall. She silently crawled back to the window she first entered the bank from and looked down. Batgirl was looking around frustratedly at her disappearing act while the cops swarmed in around the captured robbers.

With an amused smirk on her face, Ghost Spider slipped out the window and began heading home.

Tonight hadn’t gone to plan in any way, but she had managed to warn the heroes like she wanted and had even stopped some crime as a bonus. The one hiding behind the mind controlled minions was still out there, but one thing at a time.

Overall, it was a successful night.