Barbara, and she was certainly Barbara at the moment; Batgirl had checked out for the day, stared incredulously at the unconscious form of her college friend who apparently had powers, unearthed a city wide criminal take-over plot, and then saved the life of another one of her friends. Not to mention that she had somehow managed to find time to deduce Batgirl’s secret identity without raising any flags she had been looking for it in the first place!
Alfred had initially been surprised, suspicious, and then calculating, before hiding whatever conclusion he came to behind a mask of professional calm.
Kara was even more unhelpful as she started giggling at Barbara’s face, then chuckling, and finally devolving into full blown laughter as she gripped her sides and rolled around midair.
“She...she…! Hahaha! Oh, Rao!” Kara howled. “We spent hours looking for her and she just...she just turns up here!? Hahaha!”
“This isn’t funny, Kara!” Barbara smacked her friend, but all it did was set the annoying kryptonian off again and give her a sore hand.
“Sure it is!”
“Excuse me, young ladies. Given her current state, I believe we should return our patient to bed before we continue this conversation.” Alfred cut into the brewing argument.
Barbara and Kara exchanged glances and looked at Gwen, who was at risk of falling out of the wheelchair she had managed to borrow, and nodded. Kara easily picked up the other blonde and returned her to the bed from earlier while Barbara returned the wheelchair. And this time made sure that it was far enough that it wasn’t reachable from the bed.
The two heroines left Alfred behind as he checked to make sure Gwen hadn’t hurt herself during her brief stroll around the Batcave.
“Well this is a disaster…” Barbara said as she pulled off her cowl, throwing herself into the computer chair and spinning to face her friend.
Kara shrugged. “I think you’re overreacting.”
“Over- overreacting?! How?!”
“I mean isn’t she your friend? It’s not like she’s going to blackmail you either since she helped out with the Falcone situation even when we kinda blew her off.” Kara shrugged again and reclined midair. “She had every chance to screw us and she didn’t.”
Now that Barbara was past the initial immediate emotional response she was able to calm down and think everything over again without her knee-jerk panic. She had already noticed Ghost Spider didn’t really fight back against heroes, that one time with Supergirl was an exception, and even when she beat up Nightwing she hadn’t removed his mask or anything. Actually hadn’t Gwen winced the next time she saw Dick? Did she already know his identity too?
Barbara shook her head and refocused. She could worry about that in a bit.
Every time they had interacted with Ghost Spider or Gwen once she started going out in costume, the spider-themed Metahuman had remained friendly and hadn’t used their near dependence on her information to ingratiate herself with them, not something a spy or infiltrator would pass up. Granted there was the possibility of her playing the long con, but unless Gwen had been replaced or had been assigned to spend years building up a cover story to befriend Dick and Barbara after the death of her father, a repeat Terra situation was unlikely.
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It wouldn’t stop her from running Gwen’s DNA through a few tests to make sure it was really her friend though.
Barbara would, however, give her the benefit of the doubt for now, but there was one thing she needed to clear up first.
She turned back to Kara. “I thought you didn’t like her, why the sudden change of heart?”
Kara scowled, “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not her biggest fan. But she stepped up to do the heroic thing and risked her life to save mine even though she doesn’t seem to like me much more. That at least earns her a chance in my book.”
Barbara smiled at Kara’s petulant tone. The kryptonian had a temper and acted emotionally when it went off, but at her core she was still pretty smart and genuinely tried to see the best in people...
Once she managed to engage her brain anyway…
So she would wait until Gwen woke up again before making any solid plans on how to deal with this.
“Hey Babs, we just finished up with the GCPD.” Robin called out as he and Nightwing returned to the Batcave. “How’d everything on your end go? I heard some of the cops saying you didn’t stick around and Supergirl flew out in a hurry. Everything okay?”
Barbara bit her lip and thought about the best way to break everything to the other two.
“Well, about that…”
-o-
The two boys took the news...mostly well.
Robin hadn’t really had any issues with Ghost Spider and Tim had never met Gwen so beyond some minor questions the younger boy didn’t really mind the situation once he knew Gwen was a friend of Barbara’s. It was Dick who was having a minor meltdown.
Ghost Spider had been pressing his Terra Trauma buttons before, this new situation was now jumping up on those buttons and lighting off fireworks for effect.
“...this has to be some kind of plot! Where did she get her information from? Who is she working for?” Nightwing practically shouted as he paced around the cave.
Barbara was only half listening at this point. Dick had basically ignored all of them by now and arguing in circles when they needed more information wasn’t worth it. There was nothing more they could do until Gwen could give them more details, and since she was in the Cave with them she wasn’t going to be secretly sharing information without them seeing her or anything so he was really just working himself up for the sake of it.
“Pardon me, sir, but I believe this line of thought isn’t very productive. Shall we move on to discussing the state of the city and the aftermath of our latest criminal endeavor?” Even Alfred was tired of listening to Dick’s rant apparently, not that he would ever admit to it, and gave everyone an opening to change the subject.
“Ooh, ooh! I got this!” Tim jumped in place and waved an arm around in an exaggerated parody of a school kid looking for attention. “We tracked down a bunch of gangsters, kicked their butts, and saved the city! Case closed.”
“Hmph, nice try twerp. You still need to give us a proper rundown.” Kara said, ruffling the boy’s hair. “Not all of us were there for the cleanup.”
“Tch, fiiine. According to the GCPD, they managed to catch about 30% of the Falcone’s known bigshots. Probably could’ve gotten more but after the hits on the ones who weren’t so crooked they go bowling with the bad guys, they ‘missed’ a few of them. Probably would’ve been more if it wasn’t for Detective Montoya showing up.”
“It wasn’t that bad.” Dick broke in, paranoia reigned in for the moment. “A few of the lieutenants might’ve slipped away, but I caught Mario and his underbosses right where we figured they’d be. Without him out to run the show the Falcone Family isn’t going to be an issue for a long time. Plus we managed to snag a few mid-level members from some of the other crime groups that got left behind at the Iceberg Lounge Auction House.”
Barbara perked up. “Wait, some of them were still hanging around? I thought everyone would’ve bailed when Metallo started his attack.”
“From what we can tell most did, but even with…” Dick grit his teeth, “Ghost Spider jumping in, a few of them were hit by the gun. They got left behind and picked up when the rest of the police were free to clean up. Speaking of, why was Metallo there?”
Kara explained to the group how Metallo had been hired as a mercenary and stuck around despite Ghost Spider snatching his payment and then started telling her recollection of the fight in the auction house with Barbara pitching in with any helpful details she had.
“...and then I guess he decided to play dead to get the drop on me. Spidey over there shoved me out of the way and took a really bad hit in my place.” Kara finished her story, then looked at Dick seriously. “So yeah, I know you’re freaking out about this being Terra all over again, but I think she deserves a fair shot at least.”
“She really did help us save the city.” Barbara pointed out.
“Hey, I’m cool with her.” Tim protested, waving his hands in front of him.
All eyes turned to Dick. He let out a long sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Fine, I’ll try and give her a chance. But I AM going to be watching her closely.”
Barbara figured that was the most they could ask for and gave her friend a supportive smile.
“Then I believe it would be best if I began preparations for dinner.” Alfred informally called the meeting to a close. “Miss Danvers, will you be staying for the time being?”
“I’d love to! Can’t pass up the chance for a meal made by the great Butlerman afterall.” Kara teased.
Alfred smiled and left for the kitchen while the others began the process of formally writing a report about tonight for Batman to review later. That, along with a compilation of all the details they had regarding the Falcone’s takeover attempt would be handed over to Barbara’s dad to ensure that everyone caught tonight would be seeing the inside of a jail cell for a long time.