The problem with Gotham weather was that rain came in two flavors.
A dreary light mist that was tolerable as long as you didn’t mind everything being damp, and a downpour that a fish would find fairly comfortable if they found themselves out of the river for whatever reason.
A sudden storm that would cause any sane person to seek shelter rolled in practically overnight and, unfortunately, rain-checks for bad weather didn’t often apply to superhero work. So Ghost Spider was stuck on a roof overlooking an old brick factory that had supposedly been shut down for over three years doing her best to not drown on land. Thankfully her symbiote suit could shift to be completely water repellant so she wasn’t as miserable as she could be.
She was still miserable, of course. But now she was only a seven out of ten on the scale rather than a full ten.
The spider-themed metahuman wasn’t about to leave though.
The factory had been one of the few places that had not been frantically abandoned after the police swung by to pick up Mr. Gaylord and his friends. Unlike the others, it stayed active even after the GCPD visited three times. Nightwing had kept her updated on each site as an apology for the ring tone incident - it turns out the shortcut to activate the speaker is one key off from just making it vibrate - and had fed her that information when it was clear something fishy was going on.
So now Ghost Spider was staking out the place waiting for the person Nightwing assumed was in charge to show. But after another hour of getting rained on, her patience was at an end.
“Alright that’s it. If no one shows in ten minutes I’m busting the place anyway.” She declared to the world. Not even five minutes later a sleek black car pulled up and a man rushed into the building.
Ghost Spider simply blinked at the sudden development and cocked an eye skyward. “Huh, any chance of the rain letting up?” She asked rhetorically. If anything the rain picked up for a second and a sudden wind pushed a sheet of water directly into her face.
“Yeah, didn’t think so.” She sputtered before making a leap off the roof towards the factory.
-o-
Getting inside unnoticed took a bit of finesse to avoid leaving a massive puddle of water but she managed it.
The last thing she wanted was these people scattering into the city. It would be hard to round them all up on a normal night, nevermind the current downpour.
The rain wasn’t all bad news though. The constant dull roar of water falling on the roof masked any sounds made by the rusting catwalks overhead as Ghost Spider moved invisibly to observe the main floor.
A dozen men in protective gear were carefully mixing vats of chemicals or operating machines that spit out lines of injectors filled with a nearly glowing green liquid or loading boxes with the stuff. Clearly this was a major Venom production plant and the owner had someone deep in their pocket if they could keep operating this openly even after a major drug ring was busted and in the process of getting cleaned up. She made a note to let Nightwing know when she talked to him next. This might be the loose thread that let them take out another corrupt official.
Actually, why wait?
Ghost Spider pulled out her communicator and sent the original Boy Wonder a message letting him know about the factory along with several pictures. That should be enough to force the police to act even with whatever backer this group was hiding behind.
So she was a little surprised when Nightwing called her, thankfully without a ringtone, almost immediately after.
“Hey Nightwing, kinda in the middle of something. Can we talk later?” She asked in a whisper.
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“This won’t take long. I’d send a message but you need to hear this.” He replied grimly. That probably meant nothing good.
“This have something to do with what the others left to deal with?”
“It does. They left to help track down something called the Markov device. It’s a-”
“An experimental device that operates on some really advanced principles of geo-resonance, originally meant to assist in land development. There were some really interesting articles about it when they released the idea, but I was more interested in the vibrational insulation they used to stop the thing from shaking itself apart. Those dampeners were some of the most - not the point. I thought it was shut down?” Ghost Spider caught herself before she continued to give a speech about the mechanics involved. She couldn’t help it though! Technology had always been a passion for her.
“...” Nightwing was silent for a few seconds before sighing. “Right, forgot who I was talking to. Of course you would know about something like that. Only you would read those articles for fun.”
“I resent the implication.” Ghost Spider sniffed, then grew serious. “But I doubt you decided to bring up a scrapped experiment for no reason. Someone stole the tech to make one?”
“You’re right, I’m not. The mastermind behind the thefts was Gorilla Grodd. He wanted to use the device to systematically level the biggest cities in America but we managed to catch him before he could get it running.” Well that was the good news, Ghost Spider was willing to bet there was a complication though because Nightwing didn’t sound like everything had been wrapped up. “The problem is Grodd wasn’t the one to build the device. That we discovered was Malcolm Merlyn; former CEO and partner of Brion Markov. He agreed to build Grodd’s device as long as he was able to keep the prototype for himself… So he could get revenge on the people who ruined his life.”
’And there it was.’
“So there’s another device out there? Sounds bad, but what’s that got to do with me?”
“Merlyn listed three cities he wanted left alone. New York, Metropolis, and Gotham. We think he wanted to hit those cities personally so we put the word out to all heroes we’re in contact with. You have a habit of digging up information so I wanted you to know in case you managed to stumble onto it.”
“Nightwing, I appreciate the sudden confidence. I really do. But this needs more than a handful of people looking for it. Please tell me we aren’t the only ones looking!” Ghost Spider hissed into the communicator.
At the same time, the man she saw earlier walked into the main floor having an argument with someone over the phone. Ghost Spider had intended to catch him alone if possible, but a city-destroying earthquake generator was a tiny bit more important.
“We have the GCPD looking everywhere they can.” Nightwing assured her. “We won’t have to sweep the city by ourselves. That also means the most they will be able to do about your drug factory is send a wagon for pickup.”
“That's fine. All I needed really. I’ll let you know when they are all wrapped up and ready for a ride.” The wall-crawler joked half-heartedly.
The call ended and she looked down at the floor again.
Most of the men had stopped what they were doing to listen in on their boss yelling into his own phone, though it looked like whatever conversation he was having was winding down.
He spat one final insult into his phone before snapping it closed and glaring at it like he was considering throwing it into a wall. A second later he almost regretfully put it into a pocket instead and waved to those watching to stop whatever they were doing.
“Alright boys, if you couldn’t guess that was our customer. He’s not going to cough up extra to cover transport costs since Marcus got pinched and he still wants his stock on the same date. Fuck him though, I’m burning favors like crazy keeping the cops from stopping by and the money promised isn’t worth it. Finish up the last batch then pack it up. We’ll sit on what we have until another buyer lines up.”
Huh, another business type boss. Ghost Spider had been running into quite a few of them lately. She had been expecting crazier since, ya know, Gotham but she was fine taking down assholes that were fine with ruining people’s lives for a buck.
So with the grace an olympic gymnast would be jealous of, Ghost Spider jumped off the catwalk, twisting as…
*Thwip!*
*Thwip!*
*Thwip!*
*Thwip!**Thwip!**Thwip!**Thwip-itty!**Thwip!*
…she spun fast enough to web each man on the way down before landing in a crouch on top of one of the machines.
“Points for realizing making drugs for a jackass boss is a bad idea. Minus points for making the drugs in the first place, assholes. Now why don’t you all just relax while we wait for some nice men and women from the GCPD to come give you some nice new bracelets to try on?”
“Dammit! Fucking asshole said he was keeping attention off us!” the boss complained. “No way we should be getting attention from Masks…”
Ghost Spider shrugged. “Maybe he was. The problem with that is I had the original list. Doesn’t take a genius to see no one stopping by and figure something isn’t right. But if you give me a name, I’ll see if I can swing it so that he gets the cell right next to yours so you can complain in person.” She offered.
“Heh, swing it. Cause you swing from webs.” One of the others laughed.
“See, he gets it.” Ghost Spider pointed at the man with an eye-smile, but internally she was getting cautious.
None of the men seemed to be panicked about suddenly being covered in sticky white silk. That meant they were either too stupid to realise they were in trouble, or they were confident they could deal with is anyway. One person being that stupid was acceptable. Everyone here, including the boss who just backed out of a job he decided wasn’t worth the heat? Much less likely.
“Jacob? Shut up.” Said boss snapped. “And you, girlie, I’ll give you one chance to leave and forget you saw this or we dump you in a back alley. I’m not in the mood to play with some vigilante.”
“You’re pretty confident for guys that are already tied up.”
“Whatever, I gave you a chance.” the boss sighed. “Boys, take her down.”
Ghost Spider frowned at the seemingly delusional command before she heard a slight hissing sound coming from the closest henchman. It sounded kinda familiar…almost like…
She didn’t finish that thought as every single one of them bulked up like someone had injected helium into a balloon and easily tore out of the silk strands holding them.
One winced uncomfortably and yanked something away from his collar. It was a tiny automatic injector with something green dripping from the tip.
“Oh.”
If you were worried about people taking you to jail and had access to a super steroid, it made sense they would have it prepared as a last resort. And now Ghost Spider was surrounded by a dozen enhanced goons with superstrength. And unlike her friend from the alley, it was clear these guys were used to the effects and knew how to fight.
“Well then…”