Chapter Text
Tim hates getting new rogues. All of them do, really, and it isn’t just the annoyance at having a new irritation get in the way of their lives. It’s the reminder that no matter what they do, no matter how many people they help, there will always be someone else they failed.
He’s spent an embarrassingly long time in front of the Batcomputer, the newest rogue’s file open on the desk in front of him, practically bare.
Specter is young. Bruce thinks he’s around Jason’s age, maybe nineteen or twenty. It’s hard to tell with his outfit—the guy is covered head to toe. Recording devices glitch out when he’s around, likely some side effect of him being a meta, so they can’t get any photos. Damian drew a sketch of him for their file at Dick’s request.
Tim has only seen him up close two or three times. He wears black cargo pants with neon green threading and a matching skin-tight top with white accents. There’s a white oval in the center of his chest where a logo should be, but there isn’t any. His tall boots and fingerless gloves are white, and he wears a black hood and a mask that covers the lower half of his face like Spoiler's. It’s still not much of an identity concealer, given the glowing green eyes and snow-white hair, which are quite distinct.
So why can’t they figure out who he is?
He appeared randomly one night, there one second and gone the next. It began with a call-in about a bank robbery. Nightwing and Robin had dropped in, expecting to de-escalate a tense situation with bank tellers at gunpoint, but instead found an incredibly irritated manager complaining about what their customers would think.
The money wasn’t stolen.
Someone had dyed it pink.
Specter appeared more frequently after that. They’d catch sight of those glowing eyes winking at them from across rooftops and give chase, only to find themselves running around in circles. Top-security weapons were stolen from vaults, just to be returned later and altered to shoot glitter. A giant “BOO!” was spray-painted in neon green on the side of the Wayne Enterprises building, almost near the top, which shouldn’t have even been possible. An entire colony of street cats had been let loose on Robinson Park, which pissed off Poison Ivy and the Bats, who’d had to deal with the aftermath. Damian had a field day.
Point being, Specter is a pain in the ass.
Every other week, there’s a new prank or inconvenience, and Tim is becoming progressively more frustrated.
He’s spent hours at the computer, failing to learn anything new. He’s scoured weeks' worth of camera footage across the city, waiting for the video to go fuzzy, signaling that Specter was nearby. Hell, he’s staked out places that Specter has been known to appear at more often, but the rogue never shows up. He must have known Tim was watching, but how?
The only powers they’ve been able to guess for certain are intangibility and invisibility, which would explain the ghost-themed name. It’s an unfortunately overpowered combination of abilities and results in an almost guaranteed 100% escape rate, especially if they can't find something he can't pass through. But the thing is, they never actually catch him using them, so they can't even say for sure that he has those powers.
But like Bruce says: if there’s no other good explanation, it’s probably the right one. Occam’s razor and all that.
Sighing in frustration, Tim pushes the rolling chair away from the desk and gets up, letting his cape whoosh dramatically at the motion. Staring at those blank manila pages is not helping. He needs to clear his head.
Tim checks the time; it’s 1:03 in the morning. Jason and Dick would have already started their patrol. Damian has a test tomorrow, so he’s asleep at Alfred’s insistence.
Throwing a leg over his bike, he speeds into the cool, dark Gotham night, his mask shielding his eyes from the wind. He rides along dimly lit roads for half an hour, waiting to hear something, and stashes his bike in an alley when he feels the urge to grapple instead.
The sky is a dark shade of indigo in the early-morning hours, clouds blocking out what little light the moon offers. The city sounds of honking cars and the murmur of voices are a comforting melody that relaxes his constantly turning mind.
Tim stays on the rooftops, only dropping down into the shadows of the street lamps to stop a mugging or two. The night is—well, he doesn’t want to jinx it, but it’s quiet.
Dick and Jason hop on comms to bicker for a while. Tim listens as Barbara plays mediator and Bruce ignores them. It would be annoying if Dick wasn’t clearly thrumming with amusement, joy barely concealed in his voice. Their oldest brother loves when Jason humors him, and they can all tell Jason isn’t truly mad.
He moves on from Tricorner Yards and heads toward the Narrows, which border Crime Alley enough that Jason won’t loudly protest his presence. The buildings are shorter there, putting Tim closer to the activity. One would think that a shady area like this would be less populated at night, with everyone shutting their doors and seeking safety, but Gotham is as alive as ever.
Danger loses its thrill when there are a dozen things that go bump in the night. It’s stranger when there’s silence.
A group of drunk men stumble out of a bar, one tripping over his feet and bumping shoulder-first into a car parallel parked along the sidewalk. The headlights flash and the car alarm begins to go off, much to the man’s chagrin.
Tim rolls his eyes and moves along.
Up ahead, he spies an odd green glow coming from behind a concrete rooftop entrance and cautiously grapples closer. The thick soles of his boots land silently against the gravel. When he glances around, the glow is gone, but there’s someone standing on the edge of the rooftop. Tim tenses, rereading the situation.
A fall from this height wouldn’t kill someone unless they landed on their neck, but it might leave them with horrible injuries and lifelong pain.
“Hello,” Tim says calmly, inching forward as he tries not to spook them. He can’t see their face; they’re wearing a hoodie. “Can you step away from the ledge for me?”
The person startles, and Tim’s heart skips a beat, seizing in his chest. If they fall because of him—
“Red! Fancy seeing you here!” they say, and the worry melts away when the person spins around, revealing the glowing eyes of Specter himself.
He brushes his bangs back, using the motion to subtly tap on his coms, signalling to his family to listen in. Anyone who was speaking falls quiet.
“Specter,” he greets, carefully controlled. He’s annoyed, but he doesn’t want to seem angry. The rogue is jumpy. If Tim makes too quick a movement, he’ll vanish. “What are you doing?”
“Oh, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Why? Are you stalking me?”
“No—”
“I’m flattered! I’m not used to all the attention,” Specter says. Tim can practically hear the grin.
“What are you up to?”
Specter pouts. “A guy can’t get fresh air anymore? This is profiling.”
“It’s not profiling when you’re a known criminal out at night in your criminal outfit,” Tim says dryly, but he’s encouraged by the familiar feel of banter. So far, so good.
The rogue is light on his feet as he walks along the edge, arms out like a child balancing on a beam and unconcerned about the risk of falling. He doesn’t carry a grapple gun, and Tim has spent long hours speculating how he gets around so quickly. It’s like he appears out of nowhere and disappears into the darkness just as well—they concluded it must be the invisibility.
“Maybe I just dress like this. You don’t know me.”
“Someone’s chatty tonight,” Dick says over coms. “See if you can get him to drop some hints about his personal life.”
“You’re right,” Tim prods carefully, risking another step closer. Specter has never stuck around so long for a conversation. What makes tonight different? “I don’t. How’s a game of Twenty Questions sound?”
Every step nearer feels like pulling a rubber band, waiting for the inevitable snap. None of them have gotten this close. The air is strangely cold.
“Awe, and here I thought we were friends. You’re just fishing for information.” He turns the corner and begins walking the next ledge. Tim tilts his body but stays rooted to his place, keeping his feet apart, always in a position to leap into action.
“Isn’t that how making friends works? Asking questions?”
Specter makes a sound that must be a hum muffled by his mask. Tim follows the rogue’s gaze, past the short building beside them. Across the street, there’s a jewelry store, and Tim narrows his eyes.
The windows are barred and boarded up, which may seem extreme anywhere else, but Gotham has adapted. If you’re going to sell something valuable, take the appropriate measures. Tim doesn’t doubt that there are motion sensors inside and that the windows have extra security set to alert local police.
Of course, the entire point is that it’s Gotham, and nothing is ever enough to deter a gang—or a skilled thief—from trying to make some quick cash.
If there’s anything they do know about Specter, it’s that he’s got sticky fingers (the confusing part is what he does with the things he steals afterward. They prefer not to let it get to that point).
“Let me guess. This is a stakeout?” Tim says, feigning nonchalance as he thumbs his bo staff.
Specter’s hood shifts as he looks back at the hero, the angle casting his entire face in darkness. The only thing that stands out is his glowing glare, so similar to Jason’s angry Lazarus eyes. He can’t help but wonder if they’re the same, which might explain the ghost-themed alias (although the powerset does that as well), but the rest of his brain argues that the rest doesn’t line up. Specter shows no signs of League training or even an assassin’s mentality. His escapades have had no casualties, and they haven't seen evidence of rage-fueled rampages, either.
Still, it puts Tim on edge, the hair on the back of his neck rising. His knuckles turn white around the cylinder of his weapon, waiting for a potential attack. The energy is thick in the air.
Specter breaks it first. “So quick to assume the worst.” The comment is deceptively lighthearted.
Tim doesn’t buy it.
He goes to respond, but before he can, an obnoxious undulating alarm pierces the air. Both of them jolt towards it—the jewelry store. The sound of gunshots follows.
In the single moment that he looks away from Specter, the rogue has left the rooftop, running toward the store in a flash of black and white. Tim doesn’t waste time on a sigh, already in pursuit, but he definitely feels it internally. He hates when he’s right.
Of the group of criminals, the man with the gun—and there’s only one, these guys must be novices—is the easiest to take down. People with weapons tend to be sloppier because they think they’re invulnerable, and usually don't expect a physical attack. A quick knee to the balls disarms him and a swift leg to the ankles puts him on the ground, making it easy to slip a knot around his wrists to hold him for the time being.
He takes out the rest of the amateur robbers with a few more punches and one particularly rough dropkick on a stubborn guy, but it’s the work of five minutes to get them all down and tied up on the curb.
No one is shot, but the underpaid worker is shaken, hands still up, a bullet hole in the wall dangerously close to his head. Tim offers to call a family member to pick him up and stays next to the worker while he waits for confirmation that they’ve got a ride.
But when he turns, pissed and ready to deal with Specter, he’s gone.
And so is the most priceless jewelry.
Tim looks toward the ceiling and curses Specter’s entire bloodline.
“Red Robin. Report.”
“He got away again! Is that what you want to hear?” Tim flings his bike helmet into his locker, furious with himself. He can feel the eyes of several of his fellow vigilantes in the cave. “Gods, and it was only five minutes! Five minutes while I fought those guys, and half the cases are wiped clean? How is that even possible?”
Jason lets out a low whistle. Tim flips him the bird.
“Why don’t we think about this logically?” Bruce says from where he’s standing by the computer, removing his cowl. Steph enters from the garage, making a face as she pulls strands of sweat-slick hair from her forehead.
Tim scowls. “That’s all I’ve been doing. There’s nothing logical about Specter.”
Bruce starts flipping through the rogue files, not looking in his direction. “Metas often seem that way, but there’s a scientific answer for everything. What we don’t know isn’t supernatural or illogical. It’s just a mystery.” He stops on Specter’s page. “What stood out tonight?”
“He seemed…caught off guard,” Tim says, replaying the conversation in his head.
“Weird. Usually, he hears us coming. Isn’t superhearing the leading theory?” Steph wonders as she drops onto the ratty couch Jason’s resting on.
“And the robbery. That didn’t add up,” Tim says, feeling more confident as pieces start to come apart. Normally, it’s the other way around—things making more sense instead of less. But sometimes reverse engineering a problem is the best way of solving it. “Specter works alone. Why get with some small-time thieves just to let them get caught and run with the goods?”
“Perhaps he wasn’t working with them,” Bruce says thoughtfully.
“What, you think it’s a coincidence?” Jason scoffs, eyebrows raised. “You. Batman. Mr. I-Don’t-Believe-In-Coincidences.”
Bruce is silent, but Tim’s mind can’t help but whir, fighting desperately to follow the line of thought. If he hadn’t been working with them and it wasn’t a coincidence that both had chosen to rob the same store on the same night, the only other option would be a robbery of convenience. Specter had never been planning on robbing the store in the first place, but with Tim distracted with the thieves, he took advantage of the situation to make it easy for himself to get away with another harmless crime.
Bruce looks up and Tim meets his eyes, and he can see that they’ve both come to the same conclusion.
He joins his father and looks back at that irritating page, a single paper clipped to the back of their rogues gallery. He adds a question mark to one of the notes.
KNOWN ALIASES: Specter
IDENTITY: Unknown
AGE: Estimated early 20s
HEIGHT/WEIGHT: 5’9” (estimated), unknown
SPECIES/RACE: Metahuman (presumed), Caucasian
AFFILIATION: Rogue
BASE OF OPERATIONS: Unknown
KNOWN ABILITIES:
- Intangibility (density shifting or plane hopping?)
- Invisibility
- Superhearing (?)
KNOWN WEAKNESSES:
NOTES:
- Non-violent trickster, but flight risk. Approach with caution.
Robin-level training in the escape arts.Difficult to catch due to meta abilities.- Need to work on containment (attempt defection first). Arkham/Blackgate?
- Contingencies:
The contingencies section is painfully bare. Bruce hates it more than anyone. He’s a control freak, but that has always been the way he shows his love. He wants a tangible answer, something that he can point to and say, this is how I will keep you safe. Tim knows the feeling intimately.
Some of their missing information is understandable. The phenotypic information is usually something obtained after the first capture and admittance to whatever prison they’re being sent to, as well as their identity. But the rest is insufficient.
Every blank space haunts him. Unknown, unknown, unknown. They should know. Tim should. It’s their job to know things, but him especially, as the person they all rely on for answers when Bruce falls short. The real World’s Greatest Detective.
The rogue’s file is nothing but crossed out notes and scribbled questions, and Tim can only run himself ragged for so long. He stares at Damian’s drawing and wonders:
Who are you, Specter? What do you want?