“Barbara! Over here!”

Gwen waved to her red-headed friend from the restaurant booth she was seated at. Barbara returned the wave and made her way over to the table and slid in while a waitress stopped by with a menu.

The redhead quickly placed an order for a drink before returning her greeting. “Gwen. I’m surprised you wanted to meet up like this.” She said, referring to them both being out in public and not in costume.

“I just needed to unwind a bit. Do something normal, y’know?” Gwen shrugged. After her encounter the other night she had reached out hoping to meet up and trade notes but she wanted to spend some time out of her mask.

She liked going out as Ghost Spider but lately that seemed to be all she was doing. The only connection Gwen had left to her civilian life was occasionally answering an email from Wayne Entertainment about expansions to her game or maybe developing a new one.

“...yeah, yeah I do.” Barbara sighed, slouching forward onto the table. “We haven’t made any progress on our project and it’s making everyone tense.”

“Something I can help with?”

Barbara instantly shook her head negatively. “Not really. We’ve basically gone over everything we have at the moment and have gotten nowhere. Dick and Tim are still looking though. Maybe they’ll get lucky? Anyways, you’ve been a great help patrolling the streets. We wouldn’t have been able to be as thorough investigating without you helping.”

Gwen swallowed her bitter feelings about that and turned the conversation to lighter topics for now. While she was happy she was helping out - and she didn’t mind stopping people from getting hurt on the streets at all - she still didn’t like being treated like a second string hero. At the same time she couldn’t exactly complain and invite herself into what was essentially someone else’s home just because she wanted to know more.

The waitress came back and they placed their orders, content to talk about mundane things even after their food arrived. The two girls wandered from topic to topic as they ate. A book Barbara had just finished that Gwen had read a while back, what the police were doing after the Falcone Fiasco, short term plans for the future…

Eventually the topic of Gwen’s game came up and Barbara couldn’t hold back a question that had been bugging her for a bit.

“Hey, Gwen. I wanted to ask...why are you trying to be a hero?”

The blonde paused mid bite and raised an eyebrow. “Why do you ask?” She said instead of an answer.

“It’s been bothering me a bit. It made sense in hindsight that you wanted to get back at the ones who targeted you dad, but after that you just kept going.” Barbara frowned. “I mean, I get wanting to help out but you almost died and went back to patrolling like it was nothing almost the very next day.”

Gwen took a sip of her drink to give herself more time to think about it.

A part of her was itching to use the classic ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ speech, but she felt like she would be cheapening it somehow. As she was right now, she didn’t fully believe in that mentality even if she respected it. Sure, she had the memories of someone who lived by that code and had seen other Spiders do similar but those people weren’t her.

So why did Gwen keep on being Ghost Spider?

The depressingly honest answer was she didn’t have much else left to do. College wouldn’t accept her back until the next term and as generous as the contract with Wayne Enterprises was, it wasn’t going to let her pay her way through for some time; and using the money she stole from the mafia was just asking to get investigated by someone. She didn’t really have many friends outside of school due to her need to keep her grades at the top of the class. And she wasn’t really able to get a job she would enjoy without a degree. Sure she could keep trying her hand as a game designer but just like any job that wouldn’t occupy her one hundred percent of the time.

Despite that, Gwen didn’t want any pity so instead she decided to talk about a less honest, but still true reason she liked being a hero, “I guess it’s because I like the feeling of knowing I’m helping get the worst of the scum off the streets.”

“The worst?” Barbara parroted, looking alarmed.

“I don’t mean the most dangerous or anything like that.” the blonde clarified. “I mean the kind of criminals you and the others tend to pass over. The drug dealers, muggers, petty thieves...guys that slip under the radar because they are too small-time to be worth the effort.”

“We go after them too.” Barbara said defensively, a bit heated too.

“I never said you didn’t,” Gwen raised her hands placatingly. “But you also focus on the things the police can’t solve themselves first. I’m not saying that you would ignore something like that happening in front of you but if it’s a choice between a drug dealer and a crime family, you tend to focus on the latter first.”

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“Thats-!”

“-not a bad thing.” She spoke over her friend. “I get it. Only so many hours in the day and even your preppy cheerleader friend can’t be everywhere. So keep doing it. Keep focusing on the big problems in the city. In the meantime I think I’ll start looking for the things you missed.”

“...preppy cheerleader…” the redhead scoffed. “I think Kara would blow a gasket if you called her that to her face.”

“You can tell her I said it if you get me a picture.” Gwen teased.

“Don’t tempt me, but you said ‘missed’. Unless you're still talking about the stuff from the Fiasco that means you found something else…”

Gwen sighed and matched Barbara’s serious mein. “Yeah, I think I might have. See, last night…” She went on to explain everything she saw at the drug deal and about the modified Venom. This wasn’t something she was going to investigate without at least warning the other heroes something was going on.

By the end of it, Barbara leaned back and slowly let out a breath.

“Damn - how did we miss...no, we’ve seen an uptick of Venom dens lately. They must have been flooding the streets with the old stuff to hide moving the new product in…” the Commissioner's daughter was quick to figure out what was going on. “Okay, I’ll…”

Whatever she was going to say was cut off by a ringtone going off. Barbara reached into a pocket for her phone, looked at the message briefly, and scowled. Whatever she had just been told must have annoyed her.

“Bad news?”

“Bad timing,” She gave Gwen a complicated look. “The boys actually got lucky...A robbery matching the ones here was just reported by a friend of ours in Star City, someone just stole some unstable isotopes from a research lab. We have a lead on the mastermind but two of us are probably going to need to go there and one stay in the cave to coordinate everything.” She chewed her lip in frustration. “I don’t know if we can help…”

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Gwen shrugged, not letting her disappointment show. “If whoever is behind this is going after stuff like that, it isn’t going to be for something small. Definitely more important than some drug pushers. I’ll figure something out in the meantime.”

“No, I can’t just leave you hanging like that. Especially when I asked for your help in the first place.” Barbara instantly denied. “We might not be able to help directly this time, but I’ll set you up with a communicator with some access to our systems. It should save you some time investigating and give you a direct line to us if you find something.”

Oh! That was much more helpful than Gwen had been expecting.

Honestly, when she heard that there was an issue in another city, she had been half expecting to be told there was nothing they could do and she was on her own. At least this way she had someone to contact if she started getting in over her head again.

“That would be great.” She said with a relieved smile.

By some unspoken agreement the two girls turned back to mundane topics for the rest of their meal, enjoying the time they had to relax before they would need to focus on the upcoming investigations.

-o-

Once Barbara split from Gwen, having given her a spare communicator she kept in a hidden stash for moments like this one, she made her way back to the Cave as fast as she could. The message she had gotten had been deliberately light on details but it hinted at a bigger issue.

When she got there she was greeted by both Dick and Tim huddled around the main computer in plain clothes, going over some technical manual Barbara couldn’t make heads or tails of. Something to do with geo resonance.

“Hey guys, what’s going on?”

The two boys turned to look at her and Barbara noticed Dick seemed more stressed than the last time she saw him.

“Barbara, thanks for making it back so fast. We have a problem.”

“More than an unknown mind controller committing robberies across the country?” She asked.

“Yes. We think we figured out what the robberies are for.” He turned around and scrolled to the top of the document. “The Markov Device. An experimental device capable of creating artificial earthquakes meant to be used for wide scale demolition work and earth flattening that was scrapped when the environmental effects were considered too damaging for real use. It was decommissioned and the main components sent to Wayne-Tech for further research. The same components that went missing in the last robberies.”

Barbara let out a breath. “My god, what would anyone even use it for?”

Tim snorted. “If we’re lucky? They just want a quick way to level some back-country land. If not…”

“They would have a weapon that could raze a city in an afternoon.” Dick said gravely. “Which is why we’re teaming up with KF, MM, and Speedy to make sure we catch them before they can use it.”

Those were really good choices for backup. Kid Flash would make sure nothing short of teleportation would let the bad guys slip away, Miss Martian would hopefully counter any mind control and was powerful enough to be a trump card against heavy hitters, and Speedy knew Star City like the back of his hand.

With one person staying behind as support, that would be a pretty solid five-man team. But one thing was bothering Barbara…

“The Justice League isn’t trying to take over?” It had been a big friction point between many of the ‘sidekicks’ and their mentors over the past couple years. The older heroes wanted to shield them from the bigger and more dangerous things required of the job while the younger ones wanted to take more on. It had gotten easier now that many of them were older but every once in a while it would pop up again.

“No one’s available to try.” Dick said shortly. “Superman and Wonder Woman are busy with a flood that hit a town, GL is off planet, Flash is tracking down an arms dealer selling some alien tech, and the rest have their own things to look after.” It went unspoken that any of the other league members simply didn’t have the right to order them to do anything.

“What about Bruce?”

“He’s being super mysterious again and disappeared.” Tim muttered. “At least this time he sent us a note.”

Barbara saw Dick clench his jaw and nod. “He told us he’s investigating something and needed to go dark for a bit. Which is why I’ll stay behind and keep an eye on Gotham.”

The redhead nodded, realizing why Dick seemed more stressed. Batman didn’t leave Gotham to other people. At least he didn’t until now.

“Hey, should we ask the spider chick to help us with this?” Tim asked suddenly. “She stood up to Supergirl for a bit. It’d be nice to have another heavy hitter with us.”

“Trying to spend more time with a cute blonde?” Barbara teased, trying to ease the tension in the room. Making Tim flush scarlet was just a bonus.

“No! I mean yes! I mean -- I thought it would be a good opportunity to introduce her to the rest of the heroes our age.” The younger teen stammered.

“Not a good idea.” Dick swiftly undercut that option. “This is too important for a meet and greet. We’ve never really worked with her and this mission is going to require perfect teamwork. If we slip up it won’t just be us paying the price.”

Barbara sighed as the tense atmosphere quickly returned.

“She might not have joined anyway. She has her own investigation going on right now.” She filled both of them in on what Gwen had told her. An improved version of Venom that had fewer drawbacks but didn’t last as long. And someone was going to be using them for at least one underground fight ring. Gwen was still looking into the source to see where the rest could be sent off to.

“...so I gave her a spare communicator and asked her to keep us up to date.” she finished her recap of her lunch conversation.

“Good work.” Dick complimented after a few seconds of silence. “I’ll try reaching out to her and figuring out how we can help.”

Both Tim and Barbara had surprised expressions after that.

“ ‘Good work’? Weren’t you just ranting about how she could be some kind of plant yesterday?” Tim asked incredulously.

“And she still could be.” Dick shot back. “But keeping people safe is more important. And if she isn’t a plant we’re going to need to work with her. This way we at least know what she’s up to.”

Barbara sighed at her friend’s continued paranoia but didn’t say anything. It would be counterproductive at the moment.

She just hoped working together would mend the bridges between Dick and Gwen a bit. She was starting to tire of needing to sidestep them avoiding each other.