A self important little girl.
Tim would have rolled his eyes at the sarcasm if not for the fact that he was busy trying not to choke, glad that his back was currently toward the man. That explained a lot. The teen could only imagine the look on Cass’ face right now, her muffled snickering, and it caused his cheeks to flush. Still, that had been the point, hadn’t it? To hide his identity as best as possible? And he had picked a more feminine tone, so really, this is what he wanted. Besides, if Hood thought he was a girl, it was just another wall protecting his identity, and he supposed that was worth the misconception.
Apprentice? Tim didn’t know Hood had an apprentice… Was he making up for the split of the Outlaws? Trying to expand his shrunken family? The man didn’t seem the type, but he had been wrong before. As the large man spoke, Tim began to type, pulling up any surveillance and marks he had in the area of the Narrows. It was a strange occurrence, having someone like the Red Hood ask him for a favor, but he didn’t have much time to appreciate the feeling, his fingers stopping suddenly as he spun around in his seat to face the Hood once again. If Tim’s face wasn’t hidden, he would have worn a look of concern and incredulity.
“Dick? Dick is your—” He cut himself off, realizing that wasn’t the most important thing to know right now. Swiveling back around, Tim continued to hone his search. “Did he have his phone on him? If so I can access the gps in it. Otherwise it might take slightly longer.”
The girl didn’t even let him finish his sentence before spinning around in the massive chair, fingers furiously clacking on the computer that Jason himself had bled on once before. Figures, maps, charts, and timelines erupted onscreen, and quickly became indecipherable.
Jason, while proficient enough with tech and computers, had never taken to it like this girl obviously had. Lines of code filled an entire computer screen, with several others looking as if they were running some sort of facial recognition software. Not for the first time, he was glad he had chosen a full face mask all those years ago.
He let the sentence about Dick go, noticing just how the girl reacted. She froze, fingers hovering shakily above the keys. Spinning back around, she asked a question that meant she obviously knew the young assassin, then decided to go elsewhere.
His phone.
Without seeming to move a muscle, Jason shut the vents on his mask, muting the speakers as well. Remind me to thank Henri and Ilya for cyberkinetic controls. Jesus, that’s useful. They’d mentioned enough about it for Jason to know how to work it, but that was it. Something about iris tracking and facial expression recognition. Regardless, it was damn useful.
“Call Grayson.” It was barely whispered, but the onboard mic picked it up just fine, and was dialing less than half a second later. Still dead. With a flick of his eyes and a twitch of his eyebrows, the hood vented again, allowing Jason to speak.
“Still dead. Not sure if it’s destroyed or otherwise useless; it could be just out of juice. The kid’s bad at keeping it charged.” Secondhand embarrassment. Still an odd feeling, empathy for the kid. So much had changed since Roy died, and one of the most important changes was in the dynamics of the Red Hood and his apprentice. Before, they had been stiff, strictly for training. After, well…They’d almost become friends. The kid had some serious potential, and it was hard to dislike him.
As the girl turned back to the screen, Jason spoke to her back. “How do you know him? Kid’s got a network to rival mine, it seems.”
and all of this will never be the same again 