The entire campus was a flurry of excitement. It was the first day of the semester, so there were freshman still moving their things into the dorms and looking at the booths set up at the activities fair. There were dozens of those; clubs, fraternities, sororities, and sports teams that were, more or less, advertising themselves to the incoming student body. Like a massive prostitution, Jason thought to himself. He watched a shirtless blonde dude tack his name onto the end of the sign up sheet for one of the frat houses. The guy turned around, and Jason noticed that he held a basketball. He spun it in his finger, and Jason couldn't help but think, 'douche.'
He honestly hadn't thought he'd ever find himself on a college campus. Frankly, it was hard enough keeping his real name on his driver's license, when he got it, after he became Red Hood. Apparently it was uncommon that a dead person take a driver's ed course. After that hassle, and with the fact that his nightly escapades took up a great deal of his time, he'd never bothered to further his education. It didn't really matter either way; with his methods for controlling crime lords and drug dealers, (which Batman still didn't approve of) he had a pretty steady income. That, and he still received a monthly check in the mail. He supposed it was Bruce's way of attempting to make things right, but Jason couldn't find it within himself to appreciate such an effort. Instead, he mused idly to himself about how his adoptive father would react if he knew that he spent his "allowance" solely on ridiculously expensive underwear.
Ridiculously expensive, but soft as a king's silk, he thought, shoving his hands in his jeans pockets and glancing around. The supposed drug lords he'd been tracking had led him here. He'd decided that it would make his job easier if he surveyed the place before trying anything funny, but it seemed he'd chosen the wrong day to do so. While the crowd made it easy to traverse the campus unnoticed and without question, it also made it hard to locate his targets.
He let out a deep sigh and reached into a pocket on the inside of his jacket. Retrieving a pair of shades, he put them on and stroked the side. Immediately, tiny green words appeared in his vision and the glasses, equipped with advanced technology, began scouring the crowd for the descriptions he'd inputted into the face recognition software the night before. He really hated using the WayneTech devices he owned, really for no other reason than because he'd gotten them from Bruce. Even though he didn't want to kill him anymore, he still hadn't been able to completely forgive him yet. With time, perhaps he would, but for the time being their relationship was rocky at best.
He was so focused on the data scrolling over his vision that he didn't see the booth he was about to walk into until he, well, walked into it. He grunted as the corner dug into his side, and the sign on the front of the stand fell to the ground from the wobbling his weight caused the table to do.
"Shit," he muttered, immediately lunging forward to catch the sign.
"Oh, jeez, are you alright?"
"Yeah, just oblivious, I guess," Jason said, standing and then having to look down to meet the gaze of the girl who was manning the table.
"I was wondering if I'd placed the booth too far out..." The girl said softly, trailing off, and glanced up to meet his gaze with a pair of brown doe eyes. She was quite a bit shorter than him; he was six foot, even, and if he had to guess, he'd say she could barely be five-foot-four. She was pretty, though, with soft features, and she flashed him a grin and tucked a long, dark curl behind her ear. He found himself smiling back, and he took a second to read her sign as he handed it back to her. "A poetry club, huh?"
"Uh, yeah," she answered, taking the sign and holding it at her side. She ducked her head slightly, a rosy blush coloring her cheeks, but she quickly met his gaze again. "Care to join?"
He leaned against the table and took off his sunglasses, shaking his head slightly. "I'm no English major, though I do love a good book."
She nodded, as if to convey her understanding, and moved to tape her sign back to the front of her table. "Are you more classic or modern?" She asked conversationally as she secured the tape. She stepped back to survey her work, then, satisfied that it was hung straight, leaned against the table beside Jason. "I'm admittedly more of a Stephen King fan myself."
"I would've had you pegged for Stephanie Meyer," Jason teased lightly, flirtatiously, reaching out a bold hand to uncoil a wayward curl. He watched it spring back into place when he let go, and she watched in amusement when he did it again.
"Is it the general Bella-like awkwardness or the fact that I'm a nineteen year old girl that leads you to that conclusion?" She shot back, crossing her arms like she was on the defensive. She kept smiling though, seeming accepting of his flirting.
He held his hands up, as if in surrender. "Okay, okay. The pretty girl likes horror stories, I can get behind that."
She blushed deeper, if that were possible, but she beamed at the compliment. "And the cute guy is charming, too. I can get behind that."
He flashed her his sexiest smile, feeling his chest swell with pride when she unconsciously leaned closer. It was obviously on purpose when she grabbed his hand, though. She reached behind her, not breaking eye contact, and fumbled for a moment before she found the pen that lay next to the sign up sheet at her booth. She bit her lip as she scrawled a series of numbers and a name across his palm, and he found himself grinning at the crease between her brows that told him she was having trouble remembering her own phone number.
"Hannah," he read from his palm. "Nice name. I'm Jason."
"Jason," she echoed, "Well, Jason, I'll be expecting a call."
He found himself nodding, a smile pulling at his lips, and she returned to her stool behind the booth, replaced the pen, and picked up a thick volume that had the name Stephen King printed across the spine. "You can count on it." He said, and then he put his sunglasses back on and slowly left the booth behind. He glanced back twice during his retreat; both times she was already looking, and quickly buried her nose in the book. He winked, then finally turned to walk away for real.
It took him a couple minutes of walking to remember his purpose. He touched the side of the frame of his glasses, and the device came to life again, a small red box running over the crowd around him, searching for the faces of the thugs he was looking for using face recognition software.
He walked across campus, waiting to get a hit, and wondered if his cooking was good enough to invite a girl over for dinner. Was it more romantic to go out to dinner and a movie or to stay in, cook dinner, and watch a movie? He pondered this for a while, but ultimately decided to call and ask Barbara later. Babs always seemed to know the answer to such questions, though Jason rarely asked her for advice. He preferred to keep an emotional distance between himself and the rest of the Bat-Family; it was nothing personal, except a little bit where Bruce was involved. He didn't want them all to know that he still had nightmares about laughter, broken bones, and the silence that closed in just before death. He woke up in cold sweats some nights, and he could clearly remember how it felt every time that crowbar hit him; every possible angle, every surface of the damned thing. Jason shivered involuntarily. No, he didn't want them to know that he was still afraid.
He'd been walking for a very long time, he suddenly realized. He'd made it around most of the campus, and he hadn't gotten a hit yet. He started to wonder if the whole thing was a bust, - with the small bonus of scoring a date - and if he'd gotten a false lead. He finished his loop through the campus and paused by the front entrance.
If this lead actually led him nowhere, Jason would find himself back at square one on this case. He'd have nothing, except faces without names and nowhere to look for them. Unless, of course, he enlisted the help of the Bat-computer, but he didn't particularly want to visit his adoptive father.
His thoughts were interrupted, suddenly, by a portly man bursting through the doors of the building and nearly running Jason down with his hulking frame. He carried a briefcase, and was probably in his forties. A professor, Jason assumed. His only thought about the guy was that he was moving really fast for somebody so large. And then his glasses beeped.
Jason focused his eyes on the words behind his lenses, which read, "Facial recognition: match." The red box had turned green and was following the man's movements precisely. So the criminals here were professors, not students. Well, that explained his lack of luck with suspects at the activity fair.
"Looks like the big guy's got somewhere to be," Jason said to himself.
He reached into his jacket and pulled out a tiny tracking device. Activating it, he tossed it at the man's briefcase. Like a tiny bat-arang, the device flew steadily and then embedded itself in the material of the briefcase. He now had a tail on his gang, and a date. Not bad for a day's work, he thought. Especially since it was only noon, and he hadn't gotten in until nearly six that morning. Sleep deprivation was something one got used to in his line of work, but Jason readily accepted the thought of going home and taking a good, long nap until he broke out his Red Hood helmet again come nightfall.
Besides, with the tracking device employed, it would be easy work finding the headquarters of whatever underground operation was happening in his city, assuming he'd tagged a thug whose employer allowed him there. He hoped he had. Something told him that this was no ordinary case, and the thought excited him. After all, a little bit of mystery was always entertaining.