Gwen's Thursday night plans of staying in, watching TV, filtering police reports of incidents for anything that might need her personal touch, and steadily making her way through a gallon of chocolate ice cream were interrupted by a sudden phone call from Barbara.

Gotham's newest vigilante had no issue answering and nodding along with her friend's smalltalk and other pleasantries for a while, partially because the longer Barbara talked the more ice cream Gwen could dig through and partially because she knew the redhead was working her way up to asking for a favor.

They had just seen each other the other day and Barbara wasn't calling their 'work' phones so it had nothing to do with hero work.

"So…are you busy on Saturday?" Barbara finally gave in and asked when it became clear Gwen wasn't going to ask why she called.

"Don't think so. Why?"

"I need a favor."

Called it.

"This weekend is the Wayne Foundation Charity Dinner but, uh, my plus one kinda had to cancel last minute. Any chance you want to go?"

Gwen pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it in shock.

"Wait, you want me to go to a fancy dinner party with a bunch of rich people I don't know and do smalltalk." She said once she got back on the phone. "You do realize I don't fit in there…like, at all?"

"I mean, yeah, it's not your normal crowd or anything, but it's for a good cause? And it would help me out?"

"Why do you even need a plus one? Just go by yourself or take Dick if you really need someone." Gwen said. "Hell, take Tim!"

"Tim's got a school thing going on and Dick's already going." Barbara explained. "And I need another girl so when I get stuck in some boring conversation someone can come rescue me without people assuming something and making a big deal out of it."

"Nope, no way. I have way better things to do than that."

"You just said you weren't busy!"

"Changed my mind. Because there is no way you are going to convince me to attend some fancy party for no reason–"

-o-

Gwen smiled at the waiter as she accepted a flue of sparkling cider.

"I can't believe you convinced me to be here." She hissed at Barbara standing next to her.

The redhead smiled blandly back but Gwen could see the malicious amusement in her eyes. "That's what you get for being easy to bribe."

"...!"

Gwen couldn't even argue that.

All it took for her to agree was for Barbara to offer her some custom components made through the same channels the rest of the Bat Family's gear came from. Components that Gwen could theoretically make with a lot of time and effort, but there was no way she could make dozens of tiny metal frames and pieces for the trackers, cameras, and listening devices she wanted at the same rate as whatever machines Batman used for his own stuff.

So yes, Gwen had folded pretty quickly after that.

"Cheer up," Barbara said, nudging her with an elbow. "It's only for a few hours. And it's not like either of us actually have to talk to anyone here."

"Well, well, well…" As if provoked by those words, two of the other guests made a beeline right for the girls. Worse, Gwen actually recognized one of them. It was the same exec that kept giving her a hard time over at Wayne Entertainment, Mrs Collins. "If it isn't little Barbara Gordan!" The man next to Gwen's business enemy continued. "It's been some time, how's your father?"

"Mr Zeus." Barbara smiled back. "And Dad's just fine. I think he was near the buffet table if you were looking for him."

"No, no." The dark haired man waved her off. "Merideth here was just talking to me about some new projects coming out of Wayne Entertainment that she's excited about and I thought it would be nice to spread the news around the younger generation. Get some word of mouth advertising going on, you understand."

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"It's the newest project coming out of our mobile gaming division." Mrs Collins said. "A lot of younger talents have worked really hard on it, including my own son. He's put so much work into it that I want it to be a success."

Gwen looked at the exec in confusion. Was she just pretending to not know her? And if this was the project she was thinking of, didn't she hand over the final version of the code a few days ago? The only thing anyone else contributed were a few animations and music files.

"Really? What's it called?" Barbara asked 'innocently' which instantly made Gwen suspicious. "Maybe I've already heard of it? Gwen here is a game designer with WE and was working on something pretty recently. Maybe it's even the same game?"

Mrs Collins froze and seemed to actually see Gwen for the first time. Her mouth quickly set into a small frown though she did her best to hide it.

"Could be!" Mr Zeus exclaimed. "Merideth did say her son had an excellent team under him. Did you work on the RAID project, miss…?"

Gwen did her best to turn her grimace into something resembling a smile. "Gwen Stacey, and yeah I did some work on it. I'm the lead designer and programmer for it after all."

Yes, she had decided to introduce RAID to the world. A game that if properly managed had the potential to spread like a disease and hang around for years. Part of her felt guilty knowing that soon ads for the thing would pop up everywhere, but the passive income was too tempting to ignore.

"Lead designer? But I thought…" Mr Zeus started before Mrs Collins interrupted him.

"Let's not spend too much time talking business." She said quickly. "And Jen! I had no idea you attended these types of events. They seem a little-" She made a motion towards the random department store dress and leggings Gwen was wearing. "-out of your comfort zone. I didn't recognize you in that!"

"Gwen is here as a favor to me." Barbara jumped in. "The person I intended to bring canceled last minute and she was nice enough to come instead."

"It's always nice to have people willing to help you out." Mr Zeus smiled. "Now Gwen, I'm curious, how much of the RAID project were you involved in? Do you think–"

"Maxie, let's not bother them too much." Mrs Collins interrupted again, not so subtly pulling the man away. "Let them enjoy their night. I'm sure Jen would be happy to talk with you about our game some other time, I'll have Sarah give you her contact information."

"It's Gwen…" Gwen corrected.

"Of course, my apologies…"

"Well, Meredith is right, I wouldn't want to bore you with work talk when you came to enjoy yourselves." Mr Zeus said, moving past the building tension. "And Ms Stacey, do expect a call. I'm sure someone with your skills could do great things for me." There was something off about how he phrased that last part but Gwen could only wave goodbye as the pair left and wonder exactly what had just happened.

"Well that was fun."

"What was fun?" Gwen turned to see Dick had made his way over to them while they were busy talking with the other two.

"Merideth Collins is still trying to steal credit for Gwen's newest game and diminish her involvement." Barbara explained making the blonde look between them.

"Wait, did you know this was a thing?"

"Mhmm."

"We didn't want to say anything because we didn't want you holding a grudge against her specifically and ruining your chances of producing your other games." Dick explained. "I thought that Barbara was going to explain that to you?"

"I meant to, but forgot when we got distracted with our rodent problem." The redhead winced. "And then it looked like she stopped so I thought she dropped it. Looks like she just started trying to push credit to other people unofficially instead of actively working against Gwen."

So what, they were just not going to tell her there was a problem because nothing came up from it?! No, that wasn't really fair. They actually had kept an eye on it until it looked like nothing that would hurt her was going on despite neither of them actually working for Wayne Entertainment. And it wasn't like she updated them on every little thing she looked into either. Actually…

"Speaking of our rodent problem. I found three more of them." Gwen informed them.

"Really? That's good news. Only six more to go." Dick mused before shaking his head. "Not the time to be thinking about that. How are you two enjoying the event?"

Neither Gwen nor Barbara had anything bad to say about the dinner. The food was good, the music was the bland instrumentals you would expect to give background noise but not be distracting during a conversation, and the waitstaff expertly moved between groups without getting in the way.

Barbara was probably used to it in some way, but Gwen felt distinctly out of place with how refined everything was.

The three of them made light smalltalk and for a while it reminded Gwen of how they used to be before Dick decided to make an ass of himself constantly.

Of course that couldn't last because as the conversation went on Dick started to act shifty.

Just small things like constantly shifting from foot to foot like he wanted to move somewhere else, little glances at her when he thought she wasn't watching, and the main one that got progressively worse was shutting down conversations until the three were starting to see awkward silences pop up more and more.

Gwen wasn't stupid and quickly realized Dick wanted to talk to Barbara alone, but if he was going to act like that she was going to make him say it.

Dick actually held out longer than she expected but eventually it came anyway. "Uh, hey Gwen…do you mind if I speak to Babs in private? League stuff, you understand."

She didn't, but this wasn't the place to lose her temper.

So instead she plastered an extremely fake smile on her face, said goodbye to Barbara, and walked out to the balcony for some fresh air.

-o-

Barbara watched as an utterly pissed Gwen walked out of the room before she turned back to Dick.

"Alright Grayson, what is it? And make it quick because the whole 'I'm working on being friends again, then pushing Gwen away every chance I get' routine got old a long time ago. And I'm done begging Gwen to give you more chances."

She did get a measure of satisfaction watching him flinch at her words, but not enough to humor him for long.

"Talk quickly."

"I need your help getting Gwen out of the city for a while." Dick said immediately. "I finally got a match for our calling card murderer – Black Spider, a member of the League of Shadows. He's the one behind them."

"Dick, I swear to God, if you think Gwen has anything to do with–"

"Give me some credit, I know wherever she got her training it wasn't with a group of assassins." He interrupted. "But I think someone put a hit out on her specifically and Black Spider is in town to do the job. Either because someone has a sick sense of humor or because he took issue with her theme."

Barbara relaxed a bit knowing Dick hadn't completely lost his mind but still raised an eyebrow. "Then why don't you just tell her that?"

"Because I don't think she's ready to tangle with criminals on that level out for her specifically." He replied. "I'll admit she's done pretty good so far, but even Bruce needs to take the Shadows seriously and we usually team up when we run into them. One of them going for her on her own? I don't like the odds."

"Okay, so again, why don't you just tell her?"

"Look I'm not totally stupid, alright?" Dick sighed and rubbed his forehead. "If I tell her I don't think she can handle it, she's going to take it as an insult, dig her heels in, and go looking for the Shadows herself."

That did sound like something Gwen would do, Barbara had to admit. And unfortunately, she couldn't really dismiss Dick's concern. Even if Gwen beat Black Spider, if they didn't find the ones that put out the hit in the first place the Shadows would keep coming. And they only needed to succeed once.

Barbara opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted when the doors to the dining hall were blown off their hinges and a group of armed men rushed in and held the attendees at gunpoint.

"What do we have here?" A voice rasped from the other side of the door.

Barbara watched the man walk in. If you only looked at his right side, you would see a classically handsome man with a charming smile, short slicked back black hair, and an air of refined confidence. But if you looked at his left, it was the opposite. Wild white hair, deformed discolored skin, and an almost permanent snarl gave him a monstrous appearance, the difference only heightened considering he wore a white and black suit, shirt, and tie with the colors inverted perfectly down the middle.

"The rich and fortunate all gathered here to share their bounty with the needy." He continued, flipping and catching a coin as he walked. "I wonder though, is it out of goodwill? Or just the opportunity to lord their wealth over others." He viciously snatched the coin out of the air and held it up so Barbara could see the deep scratches scaring the coin's face.

"Let's find out shall we?"

Two-face had apparently decided to crash the party.