Title: Black Ties and White Shirts
Media: Fanfic
Author: longlost10
Rating: PG-13 [warning for violence]
Characters: Kurt and Blaine (Special appearances from Sue and Warblers)
Genre: Action/Adventure
Spoilers: N/A
Word Count: 2,003
Summary: A series of mysterious disappearances around the Ohio region provokes the CIA to send in agents to investigate. Kurt Hummel, a junior agent from when he was younger, is chosen to go on the mission.
Additional Notes: Inspired by two gifs. Unbeta'd

Kurt didn't know how long he sat there, his knees up to his chest in a mixture of horror and fear. Blaine's screams stopped ages ago, but he still couldn't move, or get the memory of the sound of his head. In the time that passed, however, the boys had done another few numbers with Sandy yelling at them when they made a mistake.

Occasionally between runs, Kurt would hear Blaine cry off by himself. It didn't sound as if the others were trying to comfort him. Almost as if this was a part of their life now, an initiation of sorts.

All he knew was that it was no longer early morning. In fact, it was probably closer to sunset, as there were shades of orange and pink streaming through the tall windows. The paralyzing sensation left him as he heard a voice "Ugh, you boys are useless! Go eat- there's food in the kitchen area for you. I'm going to get some fresh air. Just remember- if you try leave... I'll know."

Kurt finally got the sense to look at his watch and saw the time: 6:15. Dinner time, no wonder his stomach pained him slightly. Even if it wasn't the first night he'd miss a meal, it didn't make being on a mission any easier. And how long had it been since Blaine was punished?

But something worried him more than his silently growling stomach; Sandy's words. How would he be able to know if the boys were trying to escape? Approaching footsteps on the catwalk told him exactly what the man meant. They also told him that he was in trouble- the barrels he hid behind barely covered his body and there weren't any shadows to help his cause.

Without anymore hesitation, he scrambled to his feet and booked it down the hallway, sprinting up the stairs and bursting onto the roof. His hands still shaking, he locked the door behind him to try and buy him some time. He quickly looked around for a place to hide and his heart fell- all he saw were small outtake vents and the pebbles that covered the roof.

The muted metal clanging of footsteps got louder and he knew he was running out of time. Kurt looked around madly, for anything he could use to make an escape, shoving his glasses into his pocket for better visibility. Nothing was above the roof either; Sue had truly picked a perfect location. All he saw along the roof's edge was a single flimsy tree branch- there were no a cable lines or telephone poles to be found. To make things worse, there was no time left- Sandy was at the door, struggling with the lock.

With nothing behind him but a tiny iota of faith, Kurt ran and jumped off the roof.

His arms went flailing as he soared, knowing that if this didn't work, he'd be dead in 30 seconds. He felt himself starting to fall and his hand being touched by a dozen leaves. Suddenly, his palm hit something rough before starting to feel it slip away. A half second later, he gripped the branch as if his life depended on it.

Probably because it did.

He felt his weight pulling the branch down, the bark cracking. He grabbed the branch with his other hand and tried to pull himself up just as the branch's strength gave out. It snapped, swinging Kurt in an arc towards the other trees behind it.

There were two choices- let go and see if he could land without hurting himself or he could just hold on and see what would happen. But he didn't have much time to think about the decision as the door opened and Kurt bit his tongue to stop himself from screaming.

Blood flooded his mouth as he stretched out his feet and let go of the broken limb. He watched as another tree rapidly approached, flying into a wall of leaves. Kurt had only a moment to brace himself as he slammed into another, larger, branch at chest level. Any air left in his lungs left as he pulled himself onto the branch and straddled it.

Sandy appeared by the edge of the roof, looking out in Kurt's direction. He was hidden behind a few branches covered in leaves, but he still held his breath and didn't move. A few moments later, the man shook his head and turned to walk around on the roof. Kurt let out a sigh as he looked over himself, trying to see if anything was badly damaged. At first glance, there was nothing but his tongue, the one thing he didn't want to assess.

With a still-trembling hand, he brought his fingers to his mouth and touched inside, sending a pain wave through his mouth. When he pulled it out, there was a layer of blood coating two of his fingers as he swallowed the metallic-tasting body fluid. He wasn't a nurse. He barely knew first aid other than the training he got back in Scouts. But he knew that while it'd stay raw and painful for a while, it'd be okay. He just bit into it, he didn't cut through it.

He put his undershirt in his mouth and pressed down, applying pressure to his self inflicted cut and pulled out his glasses once more. Theoretically, the map with heat signature should still be on the dual screen. Shaking slightly still, he put them on and saw that now his blue dot was off the map while Sandy's form was on the roof level.

Thoughts raced though his mind, asking himself what he had to do now. The boys had to get out, there was no other option. But the variable was time, and when could he do it? The answer came to him easily, as it was really the only answer.

Darkness. He needed the cover and Sandy's presence in the morning told him that the man didn't spend the night in the warehouse. And who would, really? There didn't seem to be a respectable room in the whole place.

Now armed with a plan (weak but a plan nonetheless!), he took out his undershirt and tucked the now bloody neckline back under his fleece and started his decent down the tree. He kept under the cover of the foliage that was growing as he ran, ducking, towards his bike. He glanced at the map and saw that Sandy had gone back inside- he could prepare for the wait without too much worry that he'd be spotted.

The bike, he knew, was outfitted with a seemingly endless supply of weapons, gadgets and random items that can be easily hidden in a mountain bike. There was the manual, but he didn't have time to look for the concealed, dangerous weapons. He was looking for the tools that were just plain useful.

He first went to the bike seat and detached it from the pole before flipping it upside down. With the exception of the socket for the pole at the base of the seat, a zipper ran its length. Quickly, he unzipped it and took out its contents. It was almost a letdown- there was a notebook, a few writing utensils, real utensils, a Swiss army knife and a box cutter. But the thing that caught his eye, the real reason why he was digging through a fake bicycle seat, was a small slim rod with a single button slightly raised off the surface.

With a small smirk, he pointed it at a leaf and pressed the button. A thin, red laser beam shot out from the tip and hit the dried leaf. Seconds later it started smoking. Thirty seconds later, it caught fire. Kurt didn't expect it to be this effective, but he couldn't be more pleased as he stopped out the small flame and diffused the smoke.

He pocketed the laser pointer carefully into his pocket and repacked and reattached the bike seat, but not before dropping the Swiss army knife to the ground. After that, turned to the bike's bottom and attacked the pedals. Using the knife he unscrewed the reflectors from their frame and flipped them upside down. For each reflector was a strip of plastic with a LED one end.

Kurt brought his watch to each LED and coded them into it. Instant smoke screens that he could detonate from a distance. Sure, he would lose that weapon from the bike itself, but as he put the small strips into his pocket, he figured he'd get more use of them on land while he was stationary anyway.

A few minutes later, the various pockets on his person were full of useful items as the sun finally started to kiss the landscape. He brought up the map on his glasses once more and saw the swaying red blobs. So they were still practicing... his thoughts wandered to Blaine, and he wondered how the boy was holding up.

The map minimized itself to a corner as he pressed his watch and waited for the operator to speak into his ear.

"Yes?"

"Hello." When preparing to ask for rather large favours, it paid to be polite. "I'm going to need a helicopter or a car that could take the passengers to a helicopter or airplane in about... an hour to an hour."

There was silence on the other line and he didn't exactly blame her. Bikes were one thing... special gadgets, fine. A helicopter? Or a car? Those were big things a reserve agent would ask for. "Why do you need one?"

He tried to think of how to phrase this without letting too much sarcasm slip through, he didn't want to explain; he just wanted his requests met. Was that too much to ask for? Apparently so. "I have about a dozen boys I need to get out of the state in a matter of hours and I can't get them all out on a mountain bike. Unless you want the mission to be a failure, I suggest I get some better transportation relatively fast."

The words were out of his lips before he could stop himself, and the thick silence on the other end told him that the woman probably wasn't taking too kindly to it. For three minutes she made him wait anxiously, anticipating denial and already starting to think of how to get a dozen boys out of the state on a mountain bike.

Finally, "We are sending you directions to a nearby field. It will be undetectable by electronic equipment, other than your own, in 45 minutes. A helicopter will be waiting for you and the boys."

Relief flooded through him as he nodded, even though he knew she couldn't see. Another map appeared on his glasses, looking more like a maze than a map, but it was pretty straightforward. The path to the field seemed easy to get to, which he supposed was a good thing. "Make sure there's a medic on board, if you can. Some of the boys look like they've been malnourished and injured."

"I'll see what we can do."

Kurt glanced at his watch. Seven o'clock on the dot. The sun was all but gone at this point, but he needed to see when Sandy was leaving so he can choose when to strike. With a deep breath, he turned around and started climbing the tree behind him. When he got to a decent sized branch at a respectable height, he sat with his back against the trunk and turned towards the warehouse.

"Can you do night vision?" He asked the glasses. They did, and soon everything was a shade of black or green. Still persistent in the corner was the map of the building with the heat signatures. He would need it later, so why bother closing it now? As the sun finally slipped under the horizon, Kurt readjusted himself against the tree, trying to make himself comfortable, and waited.