Chapter 9

“You know when I agreed to help cheer you up that wasn’t permission to torture me.” Gwen whined as Barbara dragged her along by the arm.

“Don’t be so dramatic. A little shopping won’t kill you.”

“You don’t know that.”

The last final had come and gone, Gwen was officially done with college until she managed to get a legal source of income and re-enroll. Something she accepted with mixed feelings. On the one hand she now had plenty of time to devote to her new nighttime activities. On the other...it was another step away from the person she used to be.

Thankfully before she could get too lost in her own head, Barbara had interrupted by draping herself over the blonde and complaining childishly about how her brain was melting and it was Gwen’s responsibility to cheer her up. Probably untrue (Barbara had competed with Gwen for the top spot in grades for years after all), but it was a welcome distraction at the time.

It was significantly less welcome when Barbara dragged her off clothes shopping.

If there was one area in her life where Barbara Gordan conformed to the stereotype of ‘girly-girl’ it was shopping. Gwen had been dragged to over a dozen clothes stores and counting in over three hours being forced into outfits and peppered with questions and opinions by the redhead. A far departure from Gwen’s normal clothes shopping experience of picking a store in the mall and grabbing the first thing she liked that fit.

“Why did I agree to this again?”

“Because you got caught by her and she wouldn’t let you go until you agreed?” An equally weary voice said behind her.

Gwen turned to see Dick struggling with two armfuls of shopping bags Barbara had foisted on him. He was looking much better without the blackeye and bruising but the long shopping trip seemed to be just as soul crushing for him as it was for her.

“True.” She admitted. “But you do know you don’t need to keep paying for everything right? You’re only encouraging her.”

Dick just shrugged. “Gotta spend my allowance somehow.”

Well if that’s how he wanted to spend his money, who was Gwen to stop him?

“Come on you two! Let’s go check out that store next!” Barbara pulled Gwen off towards another store and Dick followed behind the two girls.

-o-

Another three stores later Barbara finally satisfied her shopping urge and the three of them were relaxing at a nearby café, each of them enjoying their particular favorite drink. Barbara was people watching and commenting on random things she picked out of the crowds, Gwen simply listened for the most part occasionally joining in and pointing out her own observations, and Dick just seemed happy to sit there and recover from hours of being a pack mule.

“So how'd that thing with Kara go?” Gwen asked eventually. The last time they were together Barbara had met up with the Kryptonian and disappeared for a few days. There was nothing in the news about Supergirl and Batgirl teaming up so Gwen was curious if there was something going on that she needed to keep an eye out for or if she needed to worry about a surprise guest at her meeting tonight.

“Hm? Oh, right. Well...uh...she didn’t find what she was looking for but she needed to head home for a bit. It’s not that big a deal though.” Barbara deflected.

Gwen was unconvinced but didn’t let it show. Not that big a deal, huh? Even though it was urgent enough that Barbara dropped out of her civilian life for a bit to deal with it and the two of them still couldn’t find what they were looking for?

“Well if you need help feel free to ask.” Gwen half-heartedly offered.

“Nah, it’s fine.” Barbara waved her off. “Like I said, it’s not a big deal. Nevermind that though, what are you going to be up to now that the semester is finished?”

Gwen took a long sip of her drink to buy time and organize her thoughts. “Not a whole lot of long term plans really. I have a meeting with some guys from Wayne Entertainment in a couple weeks to pitch a mobile game I made recently. Depending if they like it and if it sells then I’ll figure out what to do next.”

“You made a game?” Dick asked, it was the first he had heard about it.

“Yeah. Started a few weeks ago. I don’t have the full thing yet but I’ve got enough for a demo at least. It was a good way to keep my mind off…” ’my father.’

The other two didn’t comment on her trailing off and Gwen appreciated it.

“Ahem...so what’s it about?” Dick coughed in an effort to keep the conversation moving.

“Nothing fancy. It’s my first time really trying this so I’m going for something simple. Basically it’s a sidescroller about a character stealing a jetpack and running through an infinitely large science facility dodging defenses and such. The further you go the higher your score.”

“Seriously? You made a game about stealing?” Barbara asked.

“It’s not really about stealing. More like giving people a bit of escapism in a guilty pleasure.” Gwen defended.

“So what’s it called?”

“No, no wait! I got this!” Barbara interrupted. “It’s about taking a jetpack on a joyride. How much you wanna bet Gwen just stuck those two words together?”

“Seriously?”

Gwen purposefully didn’t make eye contact with either of her friends as they began chuckling. The name wasn’t her fault, dammit! She was just copying the idea and couldn’t come up with another name!

She just pouted into her drink as the other two had a laugh at her expense. Eventually Barbara noticed and decided to comfort her.

“Hehe...sorry Gwen, but you have to admit it’s kinda obvious.” The redhead said with a sheepish smile.

“It’s fine.” Gwen sighed. “Besides it could be worse. I could have gone the superhero route and just called it Jetpackman.”

“Oof...low blow to all our heroes in tights.” Dick said with a smirk. Gwen wasn’t about to bruise egos with a comment like that. And while most hero (and villain) names tended to be a bit on the nose, they also usually had the presence to make it respectable. “But you’re holding out on us! You made something like that and we haven’t seen it yet!? But hey, if it’s any good I’ll put in a good word for you with Bruce. He likes supporting unknown talent when he can.”

All three of them had fun talking about Gwen’s game for a bit but eventually the sun started getting low and the three split up to head home. Gwen with a pair of bags with her meager purchases and Barbara and Dick with armloads of bags from Barbara’s shopping spree.

It had been a nice distraction in Gwen’s opinion. She got to spend the day relaxing and having fun with a couple friends...friends she was going to be facing off from in a few hours from now and potentially on opposite sides if they decided to be hostile about it.

She should be fine though. Catwoman was still running around and she actually was a criminal, not the implied thief Ghost Spider was made out to be. Once they managed to get past the gang war, Gwen would look into figuring out a good way to break her identity to her friends.

-o-

“Maybe I should have given a meeting time?” Ghost Spider wondered aloud as she sat on an AC unit on the roof of the Wayne Enterprises building. She had been sitting out in the open idly playing with a strand of webbing in an improvised game of cat’s cradle -spider’s cradle?- for a couple hours and there was still no sign of the Batfamily showing up.

Of course they could’ve been checking to make sure this wasn’t a trap and were just sneaking around looking for potential ambushers. Or they were watching her from the shadows making sure she wasn’t planning anything.

…

One paranoid check of her surroundings later, Ghost Spider relaxed when she couldn’t find any signs she was being watched.

“I guess they aren’t coming.”

Naturally that was the moment Batgirl, Nightwing, and Robin stepped out into the open. They had used the towering glowing letters on the top of the building to hide in. Anyone searching for them would be blinded unless their eyes adjusted to the light, which would leave that person similarly useless if they then jumped into the shadows. Clever.

“You wanted a meeting.” Nightwing said tersely.

“I did. Couldn’t say I was expecting all three of you though.” Ghost Spider replied, backing up towards the roof edge a bit. “Batman still out of the city?”

“I was going to come alone, but the other two didn’t want me being the only one to run into you alone and not get their butt kicked.” Robin grinned, putting his hands behind his head.

“He’s busy.” Nightwing just acted like Robin hadn’t said anything.

Ghost Spider looked between the three heroes and noticed all of them were still alert for an ambush. If she didn’t start soon then they might just run off.

“Shame. I really want him here for this. If the Falcone pull this off then the entire city is going to be in chaos for a long time.” She slowly reached down and held up a backpack to the others. “Like I told Batgirl, I’ve been trying to dig up what I could about their plan. I’ve got a copy of everything I’ve managed to dig up printed in here. Wanna take a look?”

Batgirl and Nightwing exchanged glances before Batgirl walked forward. She stopped just out arms length from Ghost Spider and waited. Taking the hint, Ghost Spider opened the backpack and retrieved a binder filled with everything she had found during her investigation.

She gave them some time to flip through the whole thing, waiting a bit longer so Robin had a chance to skim it also. When they were finished everyone had grim looks on their faces. Everything Ghost Spider had given them pointed to one thing. A very hostile takeover of the criminal underworld and one happening very soon.

“Well...this isn’t good.” Batgirl commented. “The Falcone Family is really going to do this at the auction?”

Ghost Spider nodded. “Yeah, I was looking into ways to stop it before then but there’s no way I can find all their staging points and stashes before they catch on and move things. Even then, they still might go through with it anyway if they’re desperate enough. The Family must’ve invested nearly everything they had to get the kind of gear they will need to pull this off.”

“So they won’t back down even if they know we know what they’re planning.”

“Probably not. I don’t suppose Batman is going to be back soon or has a convenient way to reach him?”

Robin scoffed. “Didn’t you know? He’s too important for small things like this these days.”

The dismissive tone caused Ghost Spider to pause for a second and look at the other two to get an idea where that was coming from.

“The last invasion left behind some weird energy that’s messing with communications. Batman is coordinating the cleanup effort and probably won’t be reachable until this is over anyway. We tried reaching out to him while we were...dealing with a different issue.” Batirl explained with a sidelong look at Robin.

“Yeah and he told us we were on our own!” Robin snapped.

“No. He told us the city was in our hands until he was done.” Nightwing broke in. “But that does mean we can’t expect help so we’ll need to be smart if we want to stop this.”

Ghost Spider grimaced at the news.

“So what’s our next move?”

“Our?” Nightwing echoed.

“Yeah? Shouldn’t we work together so the mafia doesn’t throw the city into a gang war?” She asked with a sinking feeling.

Nightwing was already shaking his head before she even finished speaking.

“No way. Even if you weren’t a criminal this is way too important for us to risk working with an unknown newbie. Thanks for the information but we’ll handle it from here.”

“...so this is what it’s like to be on the other side of that speech.” Robin muttered but Ghost Spider barely heard him. She was too busy staring wide eyed at Nightwing, something emphasised by the large eyes on her mask, in disbelief.

Was he serious?

The city was on the verge of chaos and he was cutting her out of this after she was the one who had done all the work figuring out what was going on?

Ghost Spider stalked towards him, finger pointing accusingly, but stopped when all three heroes tensed and shifted to more ready stances.

…

That was...they were...you know what, fine. She knew this battle was over.

Without another word Ghost Spider turned her back on the heroes and leapt off the building, disappearing into the city in seconds.

-o-

Batgirl watched as the spider themed maybe-thief swung into the city until she made a sharp turn and disappeared into the Gotham city-scape.

“You sure we don’t want to work with her? She doesn’t seem as new to this as you said.” She asked Nightwing.

“That's what bothers me. She pops up from nowhere and conveniently has this entire plot mapped out? Either she’s new and had a series of lucky breaks, she’s had training but no one’s heard of her, or she’s a plant.”

“You're going to need to explain those last two. Plenty of new heroes have a bit of training before they hit the public.”

“Yeah, but the only person I can think of who could’ve trained her is Black Spider which means she might be connected to the League of Shadows. Or she could be like Terra.”

Batgirl and Robin exchanged glances.

Terra remained a sore point for Dick. Back when he still wore the Robin mantle and joined up with a group of other sidekicks in one of the first dedicated hero teams, the Teen Titans, they had accepted the geokinetic with open arms. As an individual she was powerful and had managed to build up a small reputation as an up and coming hero even if she mostly dealt with small scale crimes. She had some issues fitting in with the team, causing several incidents that meant the bad guys got away more often than not, but they had thought it was just growing pains and she would get better.

So when it was revealed Terra was actually working for a villain to undermine and break up the Titans Dick, as the leader of the team, took the betrayal personally since he felt he should’ve caught it beforehand. Even without Terra, the Titans failed to recover the same cooperation they used to have and eventually broke up. So Batgirl couldn’t really judge him for being extra cautious with a new girl showing up trying to be helpful.

“So what now?”

“Yeah, this seems way bigger than we thought it might be.” Another female voice called out from above them. Supergirl gently touched down next to them and looked around. “I mean if this is legit, then my thing might need to wait.”

Nightwing nodded. “Probably. Best thing to do is split up and start making sure these leads are real. We can decide what to do next. You and Batgirl take a look around the auction site. We might get lucky and find something out of place. Robin, you take the binder and start matching it with our computer records. See if they match up and if you can find anything else.”

“What?! Why am I on computer duty?” Robin complained as Nightwing tossed him the binder.

Batgirl couldn’t resist. She grinned and ground her palm onto the top of Robin’s head. “You saying it’s too hard for you? If you want I’ll do it instead.”

The grumbled complaints coming from the teen lightened the tone for everyone and nearly made Batgirl break out laughing.

“One last thing.” Nightwing said. “Supergirl, did you manage to get a look at Ghost Spider’s face?”

“Nope. I’m not sure what her costume is made out of but it clings really closely to her skin. It’s almost like it was a part of her.”

“Or maybe you just suck with x-ray vision.” Robin commented under his breath.

“You want to say that to my face twerp?”

Batgirl smiled as she watched Robin run away from her blonde friend but underneath that she was still worried. Nightwing might be right to keep Ghost Spider at a distance, but what would she do now that they had brushed her off?