Save HEx output to Variable

[Neon612]

I've been trying to teach myself C++ over the years and here is another shot at it.

I know how to convert a charcter to its ASCII equivilent(sp?) and then to it's hex equivilent and print the hex number out.

Example:

cout << hex << int(line[a]);

But I want to save the hex output to a variable. I'm not sure whether it should be a string or an int, or even how you go about coding it.

My Guesses:
out_line[a] = hex(int(line[a]));
out_line[a] = hex << int(line[a]);

I do have a background in Visual Basic (megar background, started at age 7, am now 18), and could do this real easy in VB but I want to learn another language so I'd figured I'd give it a shot.