A/N: The quarantine scenes are inspired by my own time in self quarantine. I feel you, Kurt...

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Chapter 17

A couple of weeks ago, Kurt's daily routine would look like that: He got up at half past six, went to school and fought crime or/ and saved people with the other NDs just before lessons started.

Now, his daily routine looked like that: He had no fixed time to get up, and he was in his room the entire day, lying in his bed and watching dumb reality shows on his laptop.

Why?

Well, since the atmosphere was still full of meteorite particles, it could be dangerous for him and the others to leave the house. So the high-tech team of the GDEA sterilized the homes of every New Direction member, and now, they were trapped in their homes, day in, day out, until Mr. Schue and the GDEA were done constructing their new suits. As a consequence, everyone was forced to tell their families about their secret identities.

Kurt was glad that the secret was finally out, he hated lying to his parents all the time. Or to Blaine. Speaking of which, he had not heard from him since the atmosphere got polluted with meteorite dust. Or from Pam Anderson and Terri Schuester.

Because somehow, Mr. Schue's wife could break free from her prison and escape. So much for high security prison.

Right now, Kurt was lying on the sofa of the living room, watching the news.

"The crime rate continues to increase, now that the New Directions didn't show up for more than two weeks. New Directions, where are you now that the world needs you the most?"

Kurt sighed, stuffing a handful of potato chips into his mouth. They had absolutely no idea. Incredible how dust particles can be that dangerous to keep them from leaving their homes. Right now, Kurt missed even school and the daily facial slushies, and that really must mean something.

At this moment, someone rang the doorbell.

"Finn? Open the door!", Kurt shouted. Finn was probably upstairs, face timing with his girlfriend Rachel. Or was it Quinn this day?

Whatever, he didn't care anyway. As long as Finn didn't cry his eyes out in front of him and Kurt needed to comfort him again because one of the girls had broken his heart again.

Rolling his eyes, Kurt got up and went to the door, looking out of the window first to check who it was.

"Blaine?", Kurt asked, surprised, and quickly closed the door behind him when he let him in.

Blaine rubbed his neck, slightly nervous. "We…we need to talk. About mom."

"O…okay"

He followed Kurt to the kitchen where he took out two glasses from the cupboard. "What do you want to drink? Orange juice? Water?"

"Just water, please", Blaine muttered, accepting the glass of water Kurt handed him.

"What is it that you want to talk about?", Kurt asked him and led him the living room where they sat down on the couch. Why was he so nervous all of a sudden? He gripped his own glass tighter, telling himself to calm down.

"As you know, mom and Multiplice escaped. I think they want to work on phase C of their plan.", Blaine told him, playing with his bowtie. "I want to help you take them down. Because I kind of feel responsible. After all, it's my mother that terrorizes the entire continent."

Kurt sighed deeply. "Blaine, you don't need to feel responsible. You have nothing to do with all this, and I don't want you to get involved."

"Well, too late." Blaine narrowed his eyes. "Mom went too far. And I won't just sit at home and wait without doing anything. I will help you fight against her. And I'm not here to ask for your permission or something. I'm here because I wanted to ask you whether you want to join me."

At first, Kurt thought that Blaine was joking. But his face expression stayed serious. "This is a joke, right?" Kurt looked out of the window. "Blaine, if I leave this house, I might die. And I can't use my powers either. I will be useless."

"So? I don't have powers as well, so we are in the same boat.", Blaine retorted, crossing his arms. "What is your plan? Twirl your thumbs until Dr. Gloom and Multiplice took over the world?"

Again, Kurt sighed. "My hands are tied. What do you even expect from me?"

Now, Blaine looked really pissed. "YOU tell me! You are Icicle, or do I need to remind you of that? Icicle would never just watch and wait until the world ends, even without superpowers."

"Don't you see?!", Kurt suddenly shouted. And nope, Blaine's words didn't affect him.

Not at all.

Well, that's what he thought.

"It's too dangerous!"

"That's exactly what I mean!", Blaine answered, shaking his head. He got up and straightened out the wrinkles of his pants. "Where the hell is Icicle when we need him? Where are the New Directions?"

With that, he opened the front door and left the house. Kurt took the pillow next to him and groaned loudly into it.

Right now, he hated life more than ever.

Paranoidly, Blaine looked around when he entered the deserted choir room of McKinley High. He had sneaked into this school after everyone else already went home because he didn't want to risk that Agent Schue or Ms. Pillsbury caught him.

He went to the whiteboard and lifted the sponge where the scanner was hidden. After that, he retrieved the fingerprints which he had stolen from Kurt's glass (which he had stolen as well.). When he scanned the fingerprints, he saw how the floor underneath suddenly opened and granted him entrance to the New Directions' HQ.

Slowly, he went down the stairs, looking around curiously.

"Good evening, Kurt Hummel", another voice suddenly said, and Blaine jumped a few inches in the air because he startled.

"Who is there?", Blaine wanted to know, looking around but spotting nobody.

"This is Kelly, your personal AI – assistant. Master Abrams installed me one week, three hours and forty-four seconds ago."

"You…you are a machine?", Blaine gasped.

"The more correct term would be artificial intelligence, Kurt Hummel", she answered. Blaine bit back his laughter. That computer still seemed to think that he was Kurt although they even didn't sound the same. Artie had a lot of work to do with his new AI experiment.

"How can I help you?", she asked.

Blaine thought for a moment and grinned when he got an idea. "Kelly? Listen, I need my suit. And all the weapons you have, preferably the most dangerous ones."

"Of course, Kurt Hummel" In the next moment, a light beam appeared in front of him – and when the light disappeared, Blaine spotted one dozen highly sophisticated weapons right in front of him, and a neatly folded superhero suit. He gasped for air. But then, he remembered something.

"Oh, and Kelly? I also need an instruction manual for all those weapons."

"Please, take your phone and scan the QR code that will be displayed on the flatscreen. And download the document of the link", Kelly told him.

Blaine slowly followed orders – and gasped when he saw the PDF file he needed to read. "Kelly? This manual has 104 573 pages."

"Master Abrams always said: No sweet without sweat. Ha ha ha."

He cocked his head to the side. "Are you trying to be funny or something?"

"No. I quoted Master Abrams, but I am not able to imitate the sounds he made with his mouth. I am not able to feel emotions, such as pain or joy or love. My life is sad."

With his prey in his arms, Blaine backed away. "Th…thank you Kelly. I need to go now."

"Goodbye, Kurt Hummel."

"Oh, and Kelly?", Blaine said before he left the HQ. "Please don't tell anyone I have been here. And delete all the evidence on cameras that would prove my short…visit to McKinley."

"Of course, Sir."

Blaine grinned to himself when he left the school building and got into his car. "May the 'save the world from my psycho mom' mission begin!", he muttered to himself, carefully touching one of the weapons.

Now that the New Directions wouldn't take care of that problem, someone else had to take over that role. And this someone was going to be him.

Now, it was his time to show the world what he was capable of doing.

But first, he needed to do something else. He looked at Kurt's suit he had just stolen. And then, he retrieved some scissors. "This suit needs to be adjusted.", he mumbled, starting to cut it.

"Soo…how is it going?", Burt asked during family dinner.

Kurt just grimaced. "Same old, same old." Yes, he wasn't allowed to leave the house, so he practically felt like a prisoner. At his own home. No biggie, dad.

"Did Mr. Schue call you or something?", Finn asked him and took a sip of his lemonade.

"Finn, I would tell you immediately if he did", Kurt answered, somewhat annoyed.

"Oh."

Kurt refrained himself from banging his head on his table repeatedly. Lately it got more straining to bear his stepbrother's stupidity. Spending that much time together with him due to their self-isolation drove him crazy. And to be honest, Kurt considered a couple of times stabbing Finn with his fork because he was so freaking annoying.

Maybe he was losing his mind. This confinement was definitely not doing him good.

"But we still don't trust him", Finn went on, sullenly biting into his potato. "He betrayed us, and I hate him for what he has done."

"Whether you want it or not, you need him, sweetie", Carole said softly. "I have seen you and him working together, and I doubt that he is a bad person. He really seems to care about you."

"Maybe you are right", Kurt said, frowning "but that doesn't undo what he has done in the past. We are just working with Mr. Schue because we have no other choice at the moment. But after we have beaten Dr. Gloom, I want to quit the New Directions."

He couldn't believe that he just said that out loud. Yes, that thought was manifesting in his head slowly, but he never would have thought that he would admit it one day.

Finn was gaping at him from across the table. "You serious, dude?"

To be honest, he had no idea whether he was serious. But he decided to nod anyway.

"If you quit, I will quit as well. New Directions without Icicle is lame, and without you, it won't be fun."

"Finn, no!", Kurt said sternly. "You are Force, the leader of the New Directions! Do you really think the others will take Rachel as the leader serious? Without you? "

"Boys, please don't hurry things", Burt intervened. "Don't do anything stupid, okay?"

When Kurt was about to answer him back, the doorbell suddenly rang.

"Who can it be? Does anyone expect someone?", Carole asked in the round.

When the other three shook their heads, she got up, going to the entrance door. "Boys! There is someone who wants to talk to you", she shouted one second later.

Kurt and Finn got up and went to the hallway, exchanging confused glances. Who could it be?

Next to Carole was standing Matthew Anderson, Blaine's dad.

"I know I have not been really nice to you lately, but I don't know where else to go.", Matthew started and cleared his throat. "It's about Blaine. He went missing."

"What?", Kurt blurted out, and his eyes widened.

"He didn't come home from school on Friday. Today's Saturday, and there is still no trace of him."

"Did he…hint that he wanted to leave?", Kurt asked carefully.

Matthew scratched his head, thoughtful. "Alright, but please keep this piece of information to yourself." He cleared his throat again before he went on. "My wife has been unmasked as Dr. Gloom."

Finn and Kurt feigned bewilderment.

"She and her assistant disappeared a while ago, but I know Pamela well enough to know that they will return. And Blaine was always talking about stopping her. " He rubbed his eyes nervously and took a deep breath. "I came here to ask you whether he had told you anything. He had been at your place before he disappeared."

Kurt shook his head slowly. "Sorry, Mr. Anderson, but he really didn't say anything suspicious." He wouldn't drag Blaine's dad into this mess as well and endanger him. That would be the last thing they needed.

The mayor nodded. "Okay. Thank you anyway." He backed away, opening the door. Before he left, he sniffed in the air, frowning. "Why does it smell like artificialities in there?"

"That's…that's my mom's new air refresher", Finn said quickly, and before he could pose them more questions about it, Finn had already slammed the door in front of him.

"Finn!", Kurt berated him, face palming. "You can't just slam the door in front of Westerville's mayor! And my best friend's dad!"

Where he and Blaine still best friends? Honestly, Kurt didn't want to know the answer.

"We have bigger fish to roast, dude", Finn told him.

"It's fry, Finn."

"What?"

"Bigger fish to fry, that's how the saying goes."

"Oh."

At this moment, Kurt missed his powers more than ever. Because he really would love to stab Finn with an extra sharp icicle if he dared to ever say words such as oh and dude ever again.

"Whatever", Finn continued talking. "We need to tell the rest of the New Directions about Blaine's plans. If he really left to fight against Dr. Gloom, all alone, he would dig his own grave."

"You are right.", Kurt agreed.

He would never forgive himyself if something happened to Blaine. They needed to stop him, that was just for his own good.

Singing along to the latest song of Katy Perry, Blaine drove along the highway, the weapons as well as his adjusted suit were on the backseat.

"Don't worry, mom", he muttered in a perfidious way, looking at the map where he had circled a place with red permanent marker.
"I will find you. And I will put a stop to your game, and if that's the last thing I will ever do."