Some time later, the three young women had managed to lose the helicopter by ducking into one of the safe rooms Batman had littered throughout the city. It was just a simple soundproofed room in a building owned indirectly by Wayne enterprises through several clever cutouts. Once they were done with it, it would be cleaned and removed from the list and another one set up nearby. Not that Ghost Spider knew any of that. She was simply glad they had a place they could sit down and relax for a bit after a significantly more exciting heist than she was expecting.

“Nice place, must be great to have places like this when the weather sucks.” She commented as she poked around the room, mostly on the lookout for hidden microphones or cameras. If Batgirl or Supergirl were going to pick a fight, the moment had passed.

“It has its moments.” Batgirl agreed as she collapsed into one of the cushioned sofas. Despite the tired display, she was still ready to react if anything broke out. “But we aren’t here to talk about that right now. Supergirl, how you feeling?”

“Like I have the flu. The kryptonite is covered up again, why am I still feeling it?” the heroine complained sitting down next to the redhead.

“The silk probably isn’t enough to block all the radiation coming off it.” Batgirl guessed. “I think it's doing enough that it isn’t draining you more, but it's stopping you from recovering.”

“Fantastic.” Supergirl groused.

“There’s a lead lined safe in the closet over there,” Batgirl waved a hand in the relevant direction. “Feel like being helpful?” she shot at Ghost Spider, who had given up her inspection for the moment.

“I’ve been nothing but helpful.” Ghost Spider said a touch acidically. The anger that had gone down during the trip through the city started to flare up again. “What I don’t feel like, is just jumping to do what you say. So what do you want so badly and how quickly can I leave before the Cheerleader pukes on me or something?”

“What did you…” a very pale and nauseous looking Supergirl started to rise to her feet before Batgirl pulled her back down.

“Right, my bad.” Batgirl backtracked. “But can you please put the radioactive rock somewhere it won’t hurt anyone?”

As mad as Ghost Spider was at the heroes, she wasn’t mad enough to deliberately make one of them suffer being bathed in harmful radiation just to soothe her own temper. So she quickly deposited the rock into the safe with no further comment.

...then she dragged the entire safe with her back to the others and set it down in front of the chair she claimed.

Supergirl raised an eyebrow and Ghost Spider assumed Batgirl was doing the same.

“Call it insurance, since I decided to hang around you two. Despite the fact the city is going to implode tonight and I seem to be the only one trying to do anything about it.” she said dryly.

“You aren’t the only one. The whole reason we went looking for you is because you know something we don’t and our plan to deal with the Falcone all at once isn’t going to work any more.” Batgirl sighed. “I know that you know something more than what you gave Nightwing. Is there anything you can give us?”

Ghost Spider’s eyes narrowed and tracked between the two heroines. Eventually she threw up her hands and started massaging her temples.

“Fine. Finefinefine, fuck! I had fantasies about you coming crawling back to me begging for help and now I can’t even enjoy it because everything about this sucks!” Ghost Spider ranted.

“We are not begging.” Supergirl snapped.

“The worst part is, I don’t even have that much for you.” Ghost Spider continued, ignoring the outburst. “I found a bunch of operational notes for what the Falcone had planned but they aren’t the original documents, just references to certain things and potential plans. Bad news is, most of them already happened or were covered by my own investigation. Detective Montoya has them now, but unless she found something I missed this,” she patted the safe in front of her, “was the biggest blow I could do before tonight.”

“What were the Falcone hoping to do with a bunch of kryptonite? Its nearly useless against normal people.”

Ghost Spider shrugged. “The notes said it was payment. No idea who, but someone wanted this in exchange for participating tonight. I figured if this went missing, the merc might just head home.”

“Smart.” Batgirl admitted, “So those notes are how you knew to be at the Detective’s place?”

“Yep. I was lucky. I found out what was going on a few minutes before everything kicked off and managed to get there in time.”

“Where is she now?”

“If she’s following the backup plan, she should be going to a friend’s house to lay low and regroup.”

“A friend’s?”

“She said it belongs to someone she knows from work, but there’s no reason for the Falcone to look there.”

“If she has the notes on her we might be able to meet and find something you two missed if we’re lucky.” Batgirl mused. “At the very least we can get her to an actual safehouse. Where’s she headed?”

Ghost Spider told them the address.

Coincidentally, Detective Montoya had chosen Gwen’s apartment as their backup location. Ghost Spider figured it made some kind of sense. It was a location the Detective was familiar with, it should be off the Falcone’s radar after the hit on Captain Stacy, and it would be a good excuse to make sure Gwen was safe during everything.

Given that Ghost Spider was currently not running around in her civilian persona, she hoped the note on the table saying she left for a ‘business meeting’ to pitch an new game design she left out whenever she was out in costume would be enough to convince Montoya to not worry about her for a while. A necessary precaution when other people had a key to your apartment and a habit of dropping by unannounced. Like when they decide to use your place as a regroup point while being on the run from the mob.

“Why there?”

There was a careful disinterest in Batgirl’s voice and an undertone of worry that confused Ghost Spider. Sure, Barbara knew where Gwen lived but there was no reason to suspect Gwen would be in trouble for the time being.

“The Detective suggested it. Why, something wrong?” she asked.

“Maybe. When the Falcone started hitting police officers last night, the department started calling friends and family to make sure no one was targeted through them. You heard about the Stacy murder?” Ghost Spider nodded, getting a feeling where this was going. “That address belonged to him and it was attacked last night. The police have been trying to reach out to his daughter just in case, but no one managed…”

“You think the Falcone tried something and it could be a trap?” Obviously they hadn’t actually done anything to Gwen. But Ghost Spider wasn’t prepared to just come out and say that with Supergirl right there. She was mostly willing to unmask to Barbara if absolutely needed but she wanted to keep that information as close as possible. Ghost Spider also made a mental note to get back to her cell phone as soon as she could just to make sure everyone knew she wasn’t being held captive the first chance she got.

“Could be. We need to get there before the detective.”

“Right, let’s go then.” Supergirl declared, standing up from the sofa. She was still a little wobbly but it seemed most of the effects from the accidental kryptonite exposure had vanished.

“Hold it!” Ghost Spider stopped the two before they could start moving. “What do we do with this? Because I’m not leaving it where anyone could just come in and take it.” she pointed at the safe.

Batgirl and Supergirl looked at the safe, then to each other, then back to the safe.

“I could take it back to the Cave.” Supergirl volunteered. “If it stays in the safe I should be fine and I can get back in a few minutes tops.”

Batgirl shook her head. “Security won’t let anyone without at least clearance level 3 leave something that big behind. And Nightwing and Robin would be cut out of the system until one of us can clear the alert from the computers. I’ll head back. You take Ghost Spider to the address and I’ll meet you there.”

Both blonds scowled at the idea of spending time alone together, but neither voiced an objection. They had an estimated 10 hours before the start of the auction. After that there was no telling how long until the gang war started. They simply didn’t have time for petty arguments at the moment.

The three of them broke up. Supergirl and Ghost Spider traveling low over the rooftops to hopefully dodge any remaining watchers with Batgirl leaving a bit later and heading in a different direction. Thankfully even in the middle of the day not many people had a clear view of the roof tops so even Supergirl’s bright costume was hard to pick out at a glance.

With the departure of the redheaded heroine, both Supergirl and Ghost Spider made no attempts at conversation until they reached their destination.

When they did…

“What the hell happened here?!”

…it was only to wonder at the ruined state of Gwen’s apartment.

Every bit of furniture had been smashed. The cushions were torn to ribbons and thrown haphazardly, cabinets torn from the walls and in pieces, and anything easily broken was scattered on the floor.

Even when the mob ransacked the place looking for her father’s notes the first time they weren’t this destructive about it. Either whoever had done this wanted to make sure there was no chance of missing the notes a second time or they had decided to take out the frustration of not finding Gwen there for the taking.

Ghost Spider shivered a bit at what would’ve happened if it was the latter just a couple months ago when she was a normal girl. She had known how to handle herself in a one-on-one fight, not a forced entry by angry goons.

“Well your friend definitely isn’t here.” Supergirl said, looking around at the mess. “And I checked in on the other residents. They seem calm enough so I don’t think there was a struggle here. Did you guys have a backup, backup plan?”

Ghost Spider shook her head but before she could say anything the half-forgotten earpiece crackled to life.

”Ghost, checking in. No idea if your back in range but the hideout’s a bust. I’m in a car circling the block and I’ll be checking in every fifteen or so.” Renee’s tense voice filtered out. Ghost Spider barely had to turn to see Supergirl picked up on the message, both of them relaxed a bit at the confirmation the detective hadn’t been hurt.

“Detective, good to hear you. We just found out ourselves.” Ghost Spider replied, a hand pressed to her ear.

“Wait who’s ‘we’?”

“Me and SuperSk- Supergirl.” Ghost Spider corrected herself before she could complete the insult. The unamused glare by the heroine told her the kryptonian knew exactly what she was about to say.

”Wait, Supergirl is with you?!”

Ghost Spider furrowed her eyebrows. “Yeah, weren’t you listening over the comm earlier?”

”No, I told you Falcone’s people started combing the area after you got away and was falling back. I guess you were busy.”

“No kidding. Got into a fight with Batgirl and her, then had to run for our lives because Falcone has a hit squad waiting in helicopters.”

”My God, would it kill you masks to do anything without drama?” Montoya asked rhetorically. ”Nevermind, meet me at this location. The Commish is setting something up and he wants everyone there. Spread the word to the bats if you can.”

Ghost Spider looked at Supergirl, who nodded and pulled out a communicator. She would get word to the other heroes.

“Got it. We’ll meet you there.”

-o-

The last time that Ghost Spider had seen Commissioner Gordon had been at the funeral service for her father. The aging silver haired man had seemed so sad and tired as he thanked her for her father’s sacrifice, letting her know just how much her dad had been respected in the department and as a personal friend how much he would be missed.

The man standing at the front of the room waiting while a handful of police officers filtered in was an entirely different person. This man had an iron gaze and a confident air around him. Fitting for one of the few honest people working to actually make Gotham something more than a breeding ground for low level criminals.

“Alright people, we only have a few hours before the city erupts, so let’s do this quickly.” Commissioner Gordan began. “As you know by now, thanks to some of our more colorful citizens,” Gordon waved a hand to the side where the four costumed individuals had gathered. Supergirl, Batgirl, and Nightwing standing close together with Ghost Spider a few feet away. Robin had been tasked with staying at the Batcave and keeping an eye out for any early moves by the Falcone. “we figured out that Mario Falcone is planning on a hostile takeover of the Gotham underworld by launching a decapitating strike during an underground auction.”

Spines all over the room straightened at the reveal of what was happening. Most of them had figured out that something big was happening in the city, but only a handful could be trusted to not sell that info to the various info brokers the first chance they got. But with a deadline of only a few hours, even if they wanted to sell off the info no one would buy it. The window was too small, they would have to actually do their jobs this time.

“Originally we had planned to contain this disaster with a series of coordinated raids at their rally points. With his forces stripped away, even if Mario went through with his plan we could eventually contain the situation.” the Commissioner continued. “But after last night, we no longer have the manpower for that option nor the time to request backup. So we will be taking a page out of their own playbook.”

Once again dark eyes scanned the people in the room, Ghost Spider was actually a little mused to see people straighten up even further when they met the Commissioner’s gaze.

“Here’s the plan…”