Ghost Spider - Chapter 1-5 (Patreon)

Chapter 1A run down public restroom was not the kind of place many people appreciated waking up in. It certainly wasn’t something the young woman who had just picked herself up off the floor had enjoyed. Between the somewhat slimy feeling it left on her skin and the migraine pounding in time with her heartbeat, this was easily the worst wakeup call she could remember…That she couldn’t seem to remember why she was in a restroom in the first place was another point of concern, but it was pushed out of her mind in favor of dragging herself to one of the sinks lining the wall and turning on the tap.After a quick rinse got the worst of the slimy feeling off, the young woman looked into a slightly dirty window and realised several things at once. First her face and hair was distinctly not what she remembered them looking like. Second, despite the rather pretty new features, she looked like hell with pale skin and circles under her eyes so dark they were almost bruises. Third, she actually recognized the face in the mirror.“Why do I look like Gwen Stacy?” She rasped to her reflection, her voice sounding rough and dry.Naturally her migraine picked that moment to step up the intensity a level. It felt like three separate lifetimes worth of memories were jockeying for dominance in her mind. One was obviously the mind of Gwen Stacy, AKA Spider-woman, given the memories of swinging through cities on lines of silk shot from special devices given to her by Janet van Dyne and after a disastrous encounter that left her depowered, an imitation silk created by a klyntar symbiote.Another was a rather intelligent engineering student, also a Gwen Stacy as it turned out, who had been a rather normal life overall. She was smart enough to reach the top of her classes with diligent study but lacked that ‘spark’ that let her break out and stand apart from the masses. There was more but digging deeper caused the young woman’s migraine to pulse harder, making getting more details an impossibility for the moment.The last, and somehow the dominant personality, was of a nameless person from an Earth with absolutely nothing special about it. Memories of hours spent enjoying the adventures of comic book heroes be it through books, movies, games, ect. easily came to the front of the young woman’s mind. But any hint of personal memories remained absent. Names of friends or family, where they lived, hell even just the name and gender of the person these memories belonged to were just absent.With a groan Gwen- if two out of three memories were convinced her name was Gwen she would roll with it -dropped her head into her hands and allowed the rush of memories to settle. The sooner thinking stopped feeling like a hot poker to the brain the better.A small eternity later, her migraine settled into a dull throb and Gwen decided to stumble out onto the streets and perhaps find a bench she could rest at instead. The smells in the bathroom were not helping her recovery.Thankfully it was evening outside, so despite being in the middle of a city somewhere there was almost no traffic going by. That said, she didn’t recognise her surroundings at all. The dreary beaten down feel of the city was a large contrast to most of the cities Gwen remembered. Between the jumbled up memories, new city, and killer headache she was starting to get an unpleasant idea as to what happened to her.A police car screamed past her, lights flashing, but Gwen simply continued making her way down the cracked sidewalk.She eventually managed to find a nearby newspaper stand and couldn’t help but curse.“Dammit all, I was ROB’d.”Sitting innocently in a display case was a newspaper with ‘The Gotham Times’ boldly written across the top.Well, at least it's not Brockton Bay.

Chapter 2“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.

Chapter 3Gwen sighed as she shifted through a mound of old newspapers.For the past few weeks she had been pulled in several directions. Dealing with her father’s funeral, replacing the interior of her apartment, attempting to keep up with her engineering courses, and trying to get her finances in order so she still had all her utilities meant Gwen had very little free time to experiment her powers.That wasn’t to say she hadn’t used them at all. She was rapidly mastering the limited abilities of her version of the Venom symbiote and her spider powers, and swinging through the city at night was one of the most exhilarating things she had ever done, but she simply couldn’t find the limits of those powers with the small amount of time available to her. But now that some of her personal time was freed up, she had a self-imposed mission. Figuring out which universe she was in.The Justice League was a thing. Something that Gwen was happy for because that meant global threats usually were taken care of fairly quickly, but it was also not just the original seven or the dozens of the JLA series. Gwen supposed the League could’ve been in a transitory phase, but none of the events she could find really lined up with that universe.On the other hand the Teen Titans and the Young Justice teams didn’t seem to be a thing. At least there was no mention of a sub-league of sidekicks, though Gwen had come across several of them. Interestingly there were quite a few more than she was expecting. The Bat-family had Nightwing and Robin along with Batgirl, no sign of Damian then. Supergirl was also around, which pruned off several potential universes and at the same time didn’t narrow them down at all. Kid Flash and Speedy had recently teamed up, and several others had also made headlines.Gwen was starting to think this was a universe she didn’t have out of context knowledge of. Something that relieved and concerned her. She wasn’t going to be stuck trying to follow whatever future knowledge she might have been given, but she also wouldn’t know about any major threats ahead of time.“So what was the point of the ROB giving me those memories?” Gwen laid her head in her arms and slouched over the table. “I don’t see a reason.” ’except for the identities of dozens of heroes and villains, their powers, weaknesses, secret plans...okay I think I answered my own question’A chair on the other side of the table was pulled out and someone sat down, leaning over the table to get closer to her.“Gwen? You doing okay?” Gwen looked up from her position to see a redheaded girl around her age looking at her with concern.“Barbara,” Gwen greeted. “Still doing fine. Just like the last fifty times you asked.”Gwen had been visited several times recently by police officers stopping by to check on her and offer condolences. The GCPD might be a corrupt mess in general, but the good officers like Commissioner Gordon and her father had started pushing back that rot.Among the visitors was the Commissioner’s own daughter Barbara Gordon. And while the two girls had quite a bit in common- both were very intelligent girls at the tops of their classes, athletic to some degree, and had a single parent almost married to their job -Barbara and Gwen were at best friendly acquaintances through their dad’s work, since Gwen had been fairly reclusive socially due to her need to keep her grades at the top of the class.The still fairly recent turn of events had led to the redhead checking in on the newly orphaned blonde as much as possible. She sought her out whenever classes let out for lunch, often visiting when other members of the GCPD stopped by her apartment, and otherwise just tried to be there for Gwen.It was nice of her, and normally Gwen would be more appreciative, but with the new knowledge that Barbara was actually Batgirl Gwen was a little paranoid her powers would be sniffed out somehow. It was an irrational fear, but Gwen had no intentions of being kicked out of the city just because Batman had decided he would have final say on what heroes could operate there. Especially not until she figured out exactly what her dad had been killed for.“Right, sorry. I’m not trying to be a pest but I, well yeah.” Barbara trailed off awkwardly.“It’s fine, I get it.” Gwen waved her off. She and Barbara might not really be friends but she still appreciated the effort being put into checking on her, even if it was inconvenient personally.“So what are you working on?” Barbara’s natural curiosity making itself known after the conversation lulled.“Sociology final. We need to write an essay on the impact of the rising number of heroes and villains.” Gwen half-lied. She had mostly been researching for her own purpose but she really did have an essay to write.“Starting early? Finals aren’t starting for another month.”Gwen smiled but there was a bitter slant to it. “Well I figured if it’s going to be my last semester I might as well go out on a high note.”Barbara was shocked, the two of them had been unofficial rivals for the top spot in several computer courses they shared. To hear that Gwen was leaving…“Your last semester? Why? I know things have to be rough right now but to drop out as a sophomore…”Gwen shrugged. “I can’t afford it. Yeah, I’m getting help from several programs and I have what dad left me…” she trailed off for a bit before shaking herself and continuing. “But that won’t last forever. Especially with the way Gotham is.” She shrugged again, “so it's the end of the line for me.”Of course Gwen had plans to support herself, but she recognised if she wanted to do anything more as a hero than be a weekend crimefighter she would need to drop college. A financial crisis was as good a reason as any to drop out and she had only really been in the program for the degree and to make her father proud. If she really wanted to she could learn anything else on her own and start her own company.“And you’re just okay with that?!” Barbara practically yelled, leaping to her feet and slamming the table. She quickly sat down again under the irritated stares coming from the other people in the library but she remained focused on Gwen.Not really if Gwen was being honest with herself. But it was the decision she made.She tried to play it off to the increasingly frustrated redhead as not that big a deal but Barbara refused to calm down. She practically vowed to find a way for Gwen to stay in school to the point Gwen half expected her to offer to pay in her staid. But while the Gordons might’ve been a little more well off than her own family, it wasn’t to the point they could afford two tuitions at the same time.The two girls went back and forth over the issue. Gwen trying to get Barbara to leave it alone, while Barbara fervently tried to figure out how to help a peer after her father gave his life trying to make the city better, privately determining to bring the situation up with Bruce when she saw him.Eventually both young women were politely but firmly told to leave by one of the librarians and they were forced to go separate ways. One, furious at what was happening to someone so similar to herself and determined to find a way to help, the other, upset at what she was sacrificing but also secretly elated.Tonight she was going to be a superhero.

Chapter 4It wasn’t rare to see a dark shape run across the Gotham City skyline.In fact there was even a website for unofficial ‘Batwatchers’ where pictures of various members of the Batfamily were posted by citizens lucky enough to spot one of them on patrol and happened to have a camera ready.But even if someone had managed to spot the figure gracefully flipping from building to building, they would’ve been clueless as to who it was. Going by the tight fitting bodysuit that completely covered the figure, it was definitely female. The black and white color scheme that seperated the top and bottom halves of the suit helped the figure blend in to the shadows, but stealth was clearly not the main focus, not when the figure had neon blue webbing detailed on the red highlights on her arms and inside the hood she wore. Or the shoes in the same color.Not that Gwen would’ve cared if someone mentioned the color scheme. This was an outfit she remembered wearing for years and she loved it. It was certainly better than the costume she wore when she first started using the Venom symbiote. It was far too…’tounge-y’ for her taste.Gwen cartwheeled along the edge of a roof before springboarding off her hands into the side of another taller building and coming to a halt as she simply stuck to the wall.“I definitely should’ve done this sooner. It’s so much fun!” She declared, reveling in the sense of freedom her acrobatics gave her.‘Thought I would run into more crime though.’ she mused. While there were plenty of nights where nothing happened in Gotham it was annoying that her first night out would be one of them.“Hmm?”Below her a flash of yellow flying above the streets caught her attention. It was Batgirl, swinging from building to building with the use of a grapple hook as she made her way through the city.‘She seems to be in a hurry. I wonder what the big fuss is?’ Kicking off the building, Gwen shot out a line of silk and started trailing after the female crime fighter.-o-The ‘big fuss’ turned out to be an armored truck robbery gone wrong.A small gang of robbers had successfully stolen the truck, but a damaged wheel caused it to go out of control and crash into a safehouse of one of the criminal groups in Gotham. Now there was a shootout between the cops and the gangsters, though the arrival of Batgirl meant the gangsters were getting knocked out pretty quickly.‘Staying out of that for now.’ Gwen thought. The last thing she wanted was to get shot at by twitchy cops because an unknown super came out of nowhere. ‘Though, hello. What are you guys up to?’In one of the alleyways close to the shootout, four men were quickly stripping out of black clothing and into police uniforms. Gwen silently crawled down one of the alley walls hoping to get a better idea of what they were doing.“Oh man, we’re fucked. We’re fucked man. This was supposed to be easy, that was Batgirl just now. The plan is fucked and so are we!” One of the men rambled as he struggled into the uniform.“Would you shut up?” another one snapped. “The plan is still fine. We just wait for the shooting to be over and we walk right on outta here. Batgirl isn’t going to start punching up cops. And as long as you keep a lid on it she won’t have a reason to start.”The four of them finished changing, “Okay, grab the bags. Once the shootout is done we call Gary and the van. Then we’re home free.‘So they were going to pretend to be cops and walk away with what they stole from the armored truck? Too bad for them I was listening in then.’ Gwen thought.The robbers dumped their old clothes in a nearby dumpster and went to grab the duffle bags filled with money when a line of silk ripped the bags off the ground with a distinct ‘thwipping’ sound.“Sorry boys, I’ll be taking this.” Gwen quipped as they spun to face her. “Feel free to hang around for the real cops though. In fact I insist on it.”“It's one of those costumed freaks!” A robber yelled out, pulling a gun and snapping off a couple shots.Gwen’s spider sense let her easily avoid the shots as she dropped in the middle of the group and slapped the gun out of his hand. “Well that wasn’t very nice. I think you should go to timeout.”Grabbing the man by the front of his shirt, Gwen tossed him relatively gently into a wall and trapped him with a quick burst of webbing. Her spider sense blared and she dropped to a crouch, just in time as another one of the robbers managed to draw a gun and take a shot.At this point all three remaining goons had drawn pistols and started shooting at the spider themed hero, but she danced through their shots with the grace of a gymnast. Seconds (and several punches) later, all of the robbers were groaning and trapped by silky webbed cocoons.“Well that was fun. Not much of a start but it’s a start.” Gwen mused as she retrieved the duffle bag from earlier. “What do you even get for...what is this, 100k?”“Five to ten in prison for starters.” an angry voice said behind her. Gwen turned around to see an unimpressed Batgirl glaring at her. Oversized white eyes widened as she looked at the bag in her hands to the unconscious men in police uniforms hanging from the walls.“Okay I know this looks bad, but I swear it isn’t what it looks like!”-o-Batgirl would never admit to it, but sometimes the best part about her parols wasn’t making sure the streets of Gotham were crime free, it was the stress relief she got by beating up obvious criminals.It didn’t solve all her problems, but it sure made her feel better!She still hadn’t managed to talk to Bruce about Gwen’s situation, the league had been called off to face some unknown disaster and Batman had been unavailable since then. With no idea when he would return, Batgirl had been left with a kind of nervous energy that refused to go away. So when the police scanner mentioned an armored truck hijacking had turned into a major shootout she leaped at the chance to workout her frustrations in a constructive manner.Meaning she went through the criminals like Kid Flash went through a buffet line.She had just finished with the last of the gangsters when more gunfire broke out in a nearby alley. Confident the cops on the scene could deal with the rest of the gangsters, Batgirl quickly went to investigate.People doing things to cops that pissed her off seemed to be the theme this month. Though truthfully it was the lack of resolution to the Captain Stacy murder. However corrupt the GCPD- despite the efforts of her father to clean it up -dead cops made the rest of them much less willing to look the other way. Which also meant the smarter criminals would keep their heads down for a bit.So when Batgirl entered the alleyway and saw four cops hanging from the walls (thankfully just unconscious since she could see them breathing) and a villain rummaging through a duffle bag of stolen money.“What do you even get for...what is this, 100k?” the villain asked her unconscious victims.“Five to ten in prison for starters.”The woman spun around and Batgirl took a second to look over her costume. A lot of the ‘super’ community tended to give hints on their capabilities from what they wore. Tech and gadget users tended to have a bunch of pouches or pockets anywhere they could and metahumans tended to advertise the ‘theme’ of their powers in some way.The tight costume and spider theme leaned more towards metahuman than tech user, but Batgirl knew from personal experience tight costumes could fit a surprising amount of gear.“Okay I know this looks bad, but I swear it isn’t what it looks like!”Batgirl smirked as she slipped one of her batarangs into her hand. “So you didn’t knock these four out and hang them from the walls?”“Well...no...I did do that.” while the other girl’s mask didn’t allow her facial features to be seen, the surprisingly expressive eyes scrunched up in a way that could only be described as sheepish. “Ah, but there’s a good reason for it!” she said quickly. “I did it to take this from them!” she held up the duffle bag.Batgirl looked at the villain, unamused.“Right, that doesn't actually explain anything.” The girl ran a hand down her face. “So introductions. I’m Ghost Spider-” Batgirl was completely unsurprised at the themed name. “-and I saw these four hiding out in the alleyway so I decided to check them out. I got clo-” whatever Ghost Spider was about to say was lost when more police officers ran around the corner and shouted for her surrender, pistols drawn.Ghost Spider took one look at the drawn guns and Batgirl could see the second when the other girl decided ‘nope, not dealing with this’ went through her head.“You guys seem busy. I’ll explain later and you can have fun with the fake cops.” and with that she vanished from sight.“W-what?” one of the officers gasped, and started twitching at shadows. Batgirl was about to suggest that he calmed down before he risked shooting at someone when his hand was suddenly engulfed in thick webbing, a condition soon shared by the rest of the officers.No webbing was sent at Batgirl but she dodged to the side just in case. When there was no follow up attack she carefully looked for signs of Ghost Spider. The duffle bag was laying abandoned on the ground and no sign of the other girl, but Batgirl wasn’t going to let her get away without figuring out what just happened.She retrieved her grappling gun and took aim at the rooftop.-o-“Well that could’ve gone better.” Gwen complained as she sprinted over the rooftops. Still, she stopped the bad guys. Once they checked the fake cops they would realise what was going on. She could try getting her name out as a hero some other time. Maybe try speaking to Batgirl again after she stopped a few more clear cut crimes?Her spider sense blared and she quickly leaped over two bat-shaped projectiles. They crashed into a nearby air conditioner and exploded into a quick drying blue foam.‘Or I could try talking to her right now.’ Ghost Spider thought sarcastically.“Batgirl! It’s been so long! How’s your night going?”“Better once I catch you!” Ghost Spider ducked under a batarang fired out of a handheld launcher. A second later she realised it was a feint as Batgirl flew at her at high speed using the attached wire to close the distance quickly.“I think we got started off on the wrong foot.” She leaned back to avoid getting a punch to the face. “Want to start over?” she ducked under a roundhouse kick. “Talk out our differences like mature individuals?” she rolled to avoid Batgirl pouncing on her and started shooting webs at the heroine. “Or just continue beating on me until you feel better?”“Do you ever shut up?!” Batgirl threw half a dozen bat shaped shurikens causing Ghost Spider to acrobatically dodge out of the way.“I do when I’m serious, but not really feeling a need for that here.”Batgirl snarled at the insult and prepared to rush after the spider themed metahuman but was shocked to find out her foot had been caught in a glob of webbing, firmly anchoring her to the roof.“Right, not sure what your issue is tonight but I’m just gonna run off.” Ghost Spider stood up and stretched languidly. “See ya around!”With that she jumped off the building and swung off into the city.-o-The next day Gwen groaned in disbelief and collapsed on her kitchen table. A newspaper with the headline New Supervillain Avoids Capture! and an amature picture of her and Batgirl fighting on the roof slipped out of her grip.Was she just cursed to never have a good start with the police?She had hoped having the memories of that meant she would get a fresh start. And when she found the person who took that picture she was going to kick their ass!

Chapter 5A man stood in a dark alley. For all intents and purposes he was just a lazy worker, stealing time to have a smoke and skip out on whatever job he was supposed to be doing. No one would’ve paid him or the person walking up to him another glance as the second person asked for a light.But when the lazy worker leaned forward to light the newcomer’s cigarette, he quickly whispered “Warehouse 14, 10 o’clock, two weeks.” and leaned back. The second man thanked him for the light and walked off again.The whole interaction lasted less than fifteen seconds.After another few minutes, the worker snuffed out the butt of his cigarette, turned, and retreated inside. No one noticed a line of quarter sized spiders suddenly emerge from several nooks and crannies and make their way to the rooftop.-o-Gwen glared at three notebooks. Silently commanding them to tell her the information she needed. If anyone else looked at the notes they would only see the innocent ramblings of a college student, to Gwen they were a compilation of all the tidbits she had gathered from spying on Falcone fronts and encoded in the way her father taught her.She pushed away the pang of grief she got at the thought of never leaving encoded notes to each other again.Something was about to happen in the criminal underworld. Something big. The Falcone Family was gearing up to make that move and while Gwen had managed to narrow down the timeframe, she had no idea where it was supposed to happen or what it was going to be. Not exactly something she could bring to the police or the heroes either.‘Something will happen in two weeks!’ she scoffed. It was Gotham. Something was always happening. Whether that meant the Penguin had organised another art theft or Scarecrow was trying to infect the water supply with his fear toxin again. Raising an alarm with nothing to go on wouldn’t get her anywhere.Of course that wouldn’t stop her from poking around. Warehouses were mentioned more often than not so the Falcone’s were either shipping a lot of something out, or smuggling a lot of something in.Gwen was shocked out of her thoughts when an irritated Barbara sat down heavily on the opposite chair.“Why are boys sometimes such dicks?” she said hotly.“Hello Barbara, how are you? I’m fine. Sure you can sit here.” Gwen retorted dryly.Barbara’s face shifted from annoyed to slightly sheepish. “Sorry, there were no open tables.” she said in half-apology.Gwen looked around the small campus cafe she had been settled for the past few hours. True to Barbara’s word the entire place had been filled with college students and the only open seat had been the one Barbara just claimed.She waved Barbara off and closed her notebooks.“So what’s this about boys?” Gwen decided it was just easier to accept the redhead had adopted her as a friend and move on. “Trouble in paradise? Grayson put his foot in his mouth again?”Contrary to what most of the campus thought, Barbara and Richard Grayson were not dating. Not that Gwen could blame them for thinking that, to the uninformed they definitely acted like a couple. It might’ve been a byproduct of growing up...not next to, but maybe adjacent?...to the pair of them that let her see Barbara and Dick thought of each other more as siblings than partners.Of course if Barbara was going to keep injecting herself into Gwen’s life then she wouldn’t hold back teasing the redhead about the misconception.“No thankfully. I’d have to kill him if I heard this from him.” Barbara groaned. “I just got done sitting through an entire class listening to half the boys wondering how I was bribing the professor to get my scores to the top of the class, because I can’t be smart enough to get them on my own. I don’t get it! You never have those rumors going around!”Gwen scoffed. “That’s because I am the weird introvert that spends most of her free time studying. You are the extroverted campus princess that spends her time being nice to people and talking up a storm. You don’t get to be friendly, pretty, and smart.”“But you’re all those things too!” Barbara whined.Gwen cocked an eyebrow.“Introvert, remember?” She said, pointing at herself. “I don’t talk to people, so by default they think I’m a bit of a bitch. Besides it’s just for another week, then everyone will be too busy with finals bother you.”Barbara ignored her to take a vicious bite out of her sandwich. Gwen shrugged and picked at her own meal, somewhat forgotten while she was looking at her notes.They ate in comfortable silence before Barbara put down her food and leaned in.“So, did you see the news the other day?” she asked conspiratorially.“About the alien invasion near Hawaii? What’s that like the third one this year?”“No not that, the new supervillain that showed up a few nights ago!”Gwen rolled her eyes. She had been hoping to avoid this topic.“I mean I saw the newspaper, but I didn’t see anything that pointed to supervillain other than she and Batgirl got in a fight.” She said in an uninterested tone, hopefully Barbara would pick up on it and drop the topic…“Then why did she steal a bunch of money and run away? Yeah, she left the cash behind- or so Dad thinks, they’re still counting all the money taken out of the truck. -fought Batgirl. Apparently trapped her and then...just ran off? Who does that?” She pointed dramatically at Gwen. “I think it’s supervillain posturing. The whole ‘I beat you and now I’m going to mock you’ thing.” Barbara said confidently.“Ooor,” Gwen drawled out, pushing Barbara’s finger away from her face. “There could be another reason Ghost Spider ran off.” Thankfully her chosen name had been leaked to the press so she didn’t have to avoid using it.“Yeah? Like what?”“New hero was intimidated by meeting an established one, GS is shy and doesn’t like the attention, the bad guys were stopped and she just wanted to leave?” the blonde ticked off a couple reasons. ‘Not wanting to be around someone who could identify her by her voice.’ Gwen added mentally.“From what my dad was saying Batgirl reported Ghost Spider definitely isn’t inexperienced or shy. I just can’t figure out her motive...”“Does it matter? Even if there was a goal, you need more than one data point to get anywhere.” Gwen desperately wanted to drop the conversation. “And why not ask your boyfriend. Isn’t he the one studying criminology?”“He’s not my boyfriend.” Came the reflexive response. Barbara pouted a bit at Gwen’s exaggerated eye roll. “He’s also still in class for another half hour, besides you’re the only girl friend I have that I can talk about these things with. It’s nice having an intelligent conversation.”Gwen despaired quietly at the confirmation she had been officially adopted by the extroverted redhead and went back to picking at her food.“Fine, tell me all about the dastardly villain who hasn’t seemed to have done anything yet.”-o-Ghost Spider silently moved across the top of the warehouse.She still hadn’t managed to figure out exactly which one was the one marked out by the Falcone family. It certainly wasn’t just the address number. And without another lead she had no way of narrowing it down, so she did the next best thing she could think of…She went spying on all of them.It was going faster than she would’ve thought. Most of the warehouses were either slightly empty at the moment or the contents easily identifiable. For the ones that weren’t, Ghost Spider had a trick to get a close look at their contents.She dropped in through a skylight and made her way over to a plastic wrapped pallet and placed a hand on it. Her costume from the elbow down suddenly started to dissolve into a mass of black and white spiders that swarmed over the wrapping. Proving that there was nowhere a spider couldn’t get inside pretty soon Ghost Spider was able to look through their eyes and see a crate full of hundred dollar bills.White eyes widened when a quick check confirmed that several more crates lined the warehouse.This was millions of dollars being stored in what was essentially wide open space with no guard.That told Gwen two things. Someone was obviously looking to make a large purchase entirely in cash, and that they were confident no one working in the warehouse would try to make off with anything in here. Gotham work crews were infamous for ‘misplacing’ merchandise for sale on underground markets. Which meant this warehouse was owned by organised criminals.As if waiting to confirm her thoughts a door slammed open and five men walked in. Well, four of them walked. One was dragged inside, his face a bloody mess.Ghost Spider shifted invisible and made for the shadows.Unaware of their invisible guest the four men set about tying their bloodied friend to a chair in the middle of the floor. Once that was done one of them not so gently smacked the person in the chair awake.The man’s head lolled around and he groaned indicating he was conscious at the very least.“Time to wake up, Mr Russo. The Don has some questions for ya before ya go for a swim.” Three of the men spread out across the warehouse making sure nothing was out of place while the apparent leader stayed with their captive.Russo took a moment to collect himself before glaring at the gangster in front of him. “Not the friendliest welcome Jon. Do you usually lead with a death threat? Might be why you're such a shit enforcer.”The gangster- Jon apparently -shook his head. “Not my call. The Don doesn’t ask a lot from his goons, but selling out to the cartels? Turning your back on the Family? The Don can’t let that go unpunished in his city.”Russo spat at his feet. “Go jump off a pier, Jonny. Mario doesn’t have half the hold his father did. He’s barely keeping ahead of the costumed freaks and Gordon is ready to jump on him if anything slips. I’m just looking out for myself.” He started off strong, but when Jon took a step forward his demeanor cracked. “N-now wait a second. You gotta understand. We take all the risks in this business and we’re lucky if the Don gave us some scraps. I-I didn’t even give them anything on the family, just let them know where to avoid stepping on toes.”“And told them exactly where our operations were. You think it was a coincidence our safehouses have been hit across the city? Our businesses trashed?” Jonny spat then shook his head. “Forget it. Did your men go after Captain Stacy?”Gwen had been preparing to intervene before anyone got hurt, but the mention of her father made her go very still.“The c-cop? What’s he got to do with this?”Jonny started to circle the bound man. “See, someone pinged the Captain off on a secret the Falcone Family doesn’t want out there. Then when we find out Gordon has him poking around where we don’t want. The Don tells me he found something. Something that we want back very much but before we can talk to him, guess what? He’s dead in a sudden shooting walking around with his daughter.”Jonny stopped behind the chair and placed his hands on Russo’s shoulders. “Now the Family has the whole force looking at us cause not only was Stacy good at his job but it’s the kinda sob story the media will just eat up. Pretty little blonde orphaned by the mafia? People are going to be keeping an eye on her for months. So...did...you...go...after...him?”“No! I don’t do those kinds of jobs. Look, Jonny you don’t have to do this. I’ll clear out okay? One day, and then I’m off to the west coast. You’ll never see me again!”“No? That’s good for you I suppose. At least you weren’t stupid enough to completly betray us.” Jonny said, ignoring the plea. “Do you know anyone else who betrayed the Family?”“Please-, No there isn’t-” there was a sharp crack as Jonny smacked the back of Russo’s head.“Who else?!”“I don’t know! I only met the boss once! He said I could either work for him or he’d kill me, I never talked to anyone else!”Crack! “WHO?”“Bane! It was Bane!”Jonny suddenly released his shoulders and walked back in front of the chair. “The wrestler, hmm? Well at least you were somewhat useful, and it matches some of the other rats.” he said in an almost friendly tone.“So you’ll let me go?”The gangster laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. “Oh no. Like I said, the Don can’t let this go.” He pulled out a silver revolver and pointed it at Russo. “Nothing personal, but at least I’ll make it quick.”Thwip!The gun was swiftly yanked out of the gangster’s hand by a line of silk.“You know, they always say it isn’t personal, but I think it’s pretty personal to him.” Ghost Spider quipped as she revealed herself on top of the shelves.“Shoot the freak!”The three gangsters who had spread out around a bit more, pulled out much more reasonable pistols and fired at the black and white figure.Ghost Spider dove at one of the gangsters, easily dodging around the bullets and knocking him out with a sharp jab to the jaw. The two others quickly had their guns jammed by additional globs of webbing, rendering the guns useless.“Wow, you really know how to make a girl feel welcome.”The gangsters charged her, one of them swinging a crowbar he found on the way. Ghost Spider ducked under the blow, grabbed the man by the front of his shirt and threw him at the other. Pausing for a second, she noticed a chemical smell in the air and turned to see some kind of liquid dripping from the shot up containers.“That’s probably not good.” she vocalised.Her spider sense blared and she sprinted into a rolling dive, a machine gun spitting bullets at her the whole time. Sparks stitched a line across the ground where ricochets bounced off. One particular spark managed to land near the leaking containers. Unfortunately the fumes proved to be quite flammable and soon the entire shelf was on fire.“Hey genius! How about you don’t shoot up a warehouse full of flammable things while we’re inside it?”More gunfire was the answering reply.Ghost Spider was keeping ahead of the gangster’s rather lousy aim but she also didn’t have a chance to web his gun with the rate of fire he was sending her way. Of course if he kept this up, pretty soon he would- Click! -run out of bullets.With a burst of speed, Ghost Spider flipped over the pallet she had been using as cover and quickly webbed the last gangster’s feet, yanking them out from under him, and causing the machine gun to clatter uselessly to the floor.Ghost Spider took another glance around. Four gangsters groaning on the floor or unconscious, one criminal tied to a chair and alternating between begging her to let him go and trying to bribe her, and a warehouse that was only a little on fire-Boom!-or maybe a lot on fire! Gwen panicked a bit as the chemical containers exploded and spread the fire to almost all sides of the warehouse.“Well it could’ve gone worse” Gwen consoled herself as she quickly ran to collect the beaten criminals and drag them to safety.On her last trip out, she glanced at the pallet containing the bricks of cash lying in the path of the fire.On one hand, it went against two lifetime’s worth of memories. Her dad saying money was only good from honest work. On the other, a third lifetime cynically pointed out the money was going to be burned if she did nothing and she was swiftly running up to the point where money might become a legitimate issue.She dumped the last of the criminals together and webbed them all far away from the now burning building. She would only have a few seconds to make a decision.Gwen worried her lip for a second before making up her mind.She only hoped it was the right choice.