The door practically slammed shut as Gwen returned to her apartment after the failed meeting with the local superheroes.

All that work, all the things at risk... and they just tell her ‘stay out of the way’?! Not even a thanks for making sure this didn’t just blow up in their faces with no warning?!

In a pique of anger she threw her backpack across the room and kicked at one of the cabinets by her father’s old desk. Unfortunately, she momentarily forgot about her enhanced strength and the wood splintered under the blow.

Gwen pulled her foot from the now ruined furniture and continued cursing the heroes and the fact she couldn’t even do anything about it without possibly distracting the Bat family and causing them to focus on her instead of the threat to the city.

“Stupid paranoid, secretive, uncooperative, controlling...assholes!” she growled before collapsing on a couch and throwing an arm over her eyes.

Gwen laid there for a while before she could bring herself to sit up again. Before now she was slightly worried that if she needed to talk to her friends in costume she would end up giving herself away. She didn’t really have that worry anymore, it wouldn’t be hard to separate at least one of them from their costumed identity. Who knew Dick could be such a, well, dick as Nightwing. No wonder no one had made that connection before.

“So now what?”

She could just keep trying to poke at the Falcone Family. Even if it did nothing for the auction event, it would still be worth doing.

Call her petty, but Gwen wanted to do more than just go after scraps left by the other heroes. Especially since she had done most of the work pointing them where the biggest problem was. If she was going to establish herself, she was going to make damn sure they knew she could be a team player, but they weren’t going to be able to push her around!

She jumped off the couch, half ready to go swinging through the city in search of something right now, when her foot kicked aside some larger wood splinters from the ruined cabinet.

...she should probably clean that up first though.

The cabinet was a write off. Even if Gwen wanted to replace the panel she had kicked through, the frame itself had warped under the blow. Not to mention she had also broken a couple drawers in the process.

Gwen carefully began removing what little had been in the drawers, brushing off the wooden splinters as she went.

It didn’t take long. This cabinet had been mostly filled with her dad’s work files that had been collected by the GCPD after his death, so there were only a handful of folders left behind filled mostly with junk.

Once those were sorted, Gwen simply pulled the remaining drawers out and tossed them in a pile, she winced a bit when the wood splintered more from the abuse.

‘I’ll finish cleaning later,’ she decided and went back to trying to figure out what she could do to help without interfering with what she gave the Bat family. A couple hours later she still had no new ideas and was nearly pulling her hair out of frustration.

Fortunately for her hair, her brainstorming was interrupted by a knock on the door. Looking out the peephole Gwen was unsurprised to see Detective Renee Montoya on the other side.

The older woman was one of a few members of the GCPD that made it a point to drop by every once in a while to check on her. It had been a bit overwhelming at first, but now it was simply something nice, even if most of them had stopped after some time. Detective Montoya was definitely the one to stop by the most though.

“Hi Detective, I didn’t think you were stopping by this week.” Gwen greeted and allowed the other woman inside.

“Wasn’t planning on it but the Commish sent everyone home early. Apparently there’s something big coming up that he wants everyone ready for.” Detective Montoya ruffled Gwen’s hair on the way in and looked around the apartment. “Doing some redecorating I see?”

Gwen sighed. “Not really, I got a bit heated after some bad news. Might have lost my temper a bit.” She motioned towards the kitchen, “Did you want some coffee or something?”

“No thanks, I just decided to drop by and check in.” Detective Montoya smiled slightly, “Just be sure to finish checking those notebooks before you throw all that stuff out.”

Gwen blinked and looked over at the pile of wood scraps where she had dumped the drawers and sure enough, there were a few cheap ringed notebooks among the debris that certainly hadn’t been in the drawers the first time she checked them.

“Yeah, I was just getting them out of the way first.” She lied. “And something big? Anything I need to worry about?”

Detective Montoya shook her head. “Not that I know of. Sounds like it’s going to be keeping the department pretty busy though so I figured I’d let you know now before I get too busy to come by again.”

Barbara must have tipped off her dad, Gwen thought. Even if she didn’t let him know what was going on, she probably gave him a hint that something big was right around the corner.

“Meh, enough talk about that. How have you been? The semester should be over, right? So I bet you’re glad to be done with those tests. I know I was when I was your age.”

Gwen smiled and started going over what she had been up to in her civilian life. Even if they only talked every once in a while, it was nice to have someone older to talk to about things.

-o-

Gwen and Detective Montoya talked for a while but eventually the black-haired detective was forced to leave and take care of her own things. Gwen didn’t mind. The notebooks sitting in the pile of scrap wood had been in the back of her mind the entire time the older woman was over so she was happy to be left alone and given the opportunity to finally take a look at them.

The first thing she did was try and figure out how she even missed the notebooks in the first place since she wasn’t being careless and knew for a fact she emptied all the drawers beforehand. So when Gwen looked at the debris trying to find an answer she was a little surprised at the answer.

“A false bottom shelf, huh?” she mused. “Dad did always like the classics.”

The big question was what was so important that he decided to hide them like that?

The first thing Gwen noticed was that all the notes were in her dad’s handwriting, the second that they were all in code, and the third was that whatever her dad had written in these...they were only his thoughts on another source. Every note started off with references to a ‘master journal’ but no matter how she compared the books she had, they simply didn’t fit that description. Gwen had a nagging suspicion this is what her dad had gotten shot over.

She tore through the information.

Everything was a breakdown on powerful individuals throughout the city, and a few outside of it, and certain blackmail regarding them. Her dad’s thoughts on how to individually prove the blackmail existed without the use of the master journal, and what the fallout would be if someone were to use that information for a large number of individuals.

Just that by itself would have been fairly terrifying, whoever had this information could essentially force the city to do nearly anything for a while, but what was making Gwen break out into a cold sweat were dated references to ‘the operation’ scheduled to take place soon.

By itself it meant nothing, but Gwen had the benefit of actually knowing about the auction and was able to connect the dots. The same time the Falcones were going to try taking over the underworld, they were going to be setting up to have the authorities sit back and let them.

For a brief moment Gwen thought about trying to let the other heroes know, but then Nightwing’s dismissive tone and actions caused her to reconsider. She didn’t have a quick way of reaching them anyway.

The last entry in the notebook was what clinched her decision.

It was a list of Police officers the Falcone had determined would not step aside if ordered and that couldn’t be blackmailed.

On that list was Renee Montoya.

And she was scheduled to be removed tonight.

Gwen was out the door and heading for the rooftops without another thought.

-o-

In a completely different part of the city, Renee Montoya was lounging in a well broken-in armchair going over some work papers and listening to the TC playing in the background.

Gordon might’ve sent them home to be rested for whatever shitshow was going down, but the lack of information just made her antsy to know what was going on. It was one of the reasons she had made detective, despite the workplace conditions the GCPD found themselves in recently.

Not that it wasn’t getting better...slowly. There were still a bunch of men and women on the force that would turn a blind eye for certain groups, but they were on the way out. The Bat was doing a good job bringing their protectors out into the open and the ripples were being felt. Renee just felt it was a shame it was going as slowly as it was. At this rate they might finish cleaning house just in time for her to retire.

Renee snorted and reached for the nearby coffee mug.

Retire? The cynical part of her mind gave her even odds of catching a bullet in the next five years. Stacey had proven that getting too involved with stopping the scumbags running around was bad for your health, and Renee was just as stubborn as he was.

She sighed at the thought of the Captain and couldn’t help her mind wandering to her visit with Gwen. The young woman was holding up really well after the death of her last family member. Something Renee was simultaneously proud and saddened by. Gotham wasn’t kind to people who lost themselves in grief.

Hopefully Gwen wouldn’t let what happened make her too bitter. There were enough people like that in this city already and Renee would do what she could to make sure at least one wouldn’t turn out the same way. She owed it to her Captain after all.

Soon enough though her mind went back to the reason she was home early listening to some jackoffs on what passed for the latest trend on TV.

Gordon hadn’t said anything about what was going on. Which meant the Bats tipped him off about something and he didn’t have enough to say where or what, but certainly had the when. Or he had all the details but didn’t want it leaking until it was too late to matter.

She was guessing the former. Because if the Commish had any clue what was going on he would’ve at least tried to tip off the people he thought he could trust. And Renee liked to think she was a member of that group.

A shadow passed by her window as she returned the mug to the table causing her to pause. With very casual movements she retrieved her phone and pulled up a wifi camera app. Paranoia paid in this city after all.

Two men were just barely in frame and facing her house. Both of them trying and failing to look casual in her opinion. She raised the volume on the TV a hair and unmuted the camera mic.

Luck was on her side tonight because not only were the men in range, they were chatty too.

“All I’m saying is I don’t see why we need to just stand here and wait for the other guys to do all the work. It’s just one chick.” one of them complained.

“We’re here in case she rabbits, you idiot.” his companion berated. “The boss isn’t tolerating screw ups on this. We wait around outside, Doug handles the back, and the other guys take her out. No noise, no alarm. And I’m not going to explain to the boss we fucked up because you couldn’t stand still for five minutes…”

Renee cursed. At least four thugs, possibly more, and she had left her service weapon in her bedroom when she changed. She could call for help but unless the Flash was in town for some reason, they would be far too late to do anything.

Keeping her movements relaxed and unhurried Renee started making her way to her bedroom. Even if she couldn’t get away, she wasn’t going to just meekly wait helplessly around. Her handgun was still in the leather holster draped over her computer chair, Renee quickly crossed the room and reached for it.

Just as her hand made contact with the case, a strong grip nearly crushed her forearm as another hand wrapped around from behind her and covered her mouth. Renee immediately tried to break free but her captor wrenched her arm behind her and hissed in her ear. “If you don’t want to die, detective, you will be quiet and do exactly what I say.”