US-33 E, between Lima and Westerville, 23:41:06
For the first fifteen minutes of the world's longest cab ride, he considered calling Santana and alerting her that Blaine was in danger, but there were a few problems. First of all, if she had been the one alerted about the two captured agents in Doctor Anderson's laboratory, she probably already knew Blaine was in trouble. Second, the CIA was way too slow. It was near midnight and the perfect time to strike the unsuspecting Stheno agents and excellently guarded school. The CIA probably wouldn't be ready for any kind of offensive maneuvers for a few days at least, and Blaine was in danger every second they were sitting in briefing meetings with agents. Third, if he told Santana what was going on, she would know that he was still in contact with Blaine, and she would kill him herself.

It was better not to let the agency know until he had Blaine safe, Kurt decided. If they got on his case before he could get to Blaine, the tenor wouldn't get help for days, because Kurt would probably be in secret agent jail. If that was a thing.

The only problem with not alerting the agency what was going on was that Kurt was powerless, essentially. He didn't have his tricked-out car because he hadn't wanted to alert his father to his midnight mission. He didn't have any of the gadgets he'd had at the Anderson house, having been forced to return those when he was kicked off the mission. All he had was a camera, a flashlight, gloves, the wallet tucked in his belt, and his mobile command center. How was he supposed to rescue Blaine from deadly goons?

Oh, right, he wasn't. That was his whole problem. But that was beside the point.

The probability was that Sue Sylvester had gotten impatient and ordered her goons to pick up Doctor Anderson, completely disregarding the security he didn't know about and her own deadline. Her goons had easily gotten the jump on experienced agents, which wasn't exactly a good sign for Kurt. To be fair, they hadn't been expecting such a direct attack. Since she already had the father under control, she didn't have to grab Blaine. She just had to make sure that he was being watched, so she'd switched out the CIA's security team for one of her own. It would probably have worked perfectly if Blaine hadn't gone into the basement, but the goons hadn't been paying close enough attention to their charge.

The first thing to worry about was the Dalton security system, but that wasn't a problem. The agency was supposed to take care of all the paperwork regarding his transfer out of Dalton, and they had, but they had never bothered to take his ID. Hopefully, he was still in the Dalton system, and the use of his ID to get into Winthrop House and into his dorm wouldn't set off alarms. If they did, he would have to improvise.

Lorde knows how good he is at that. The good news was, he couldn't exactly see himself going through the front door at any rate. All he had to do was get on campus, and scaling a fence was hopefully going to be as fun as it looked in movies, because he'd never actually had to do so before.

He had no idea how he was going to deal with the goons, especially when he had an untrained Blaine along with him, but he would figure it out, somehow.

Winthrop House, Dalton Academy, 124 Washington Avenue, Westerville, OH 01:03:24
Every second of the almost two hours it took to get to Westerville from Lima, Kurt's mind was on overdrive, trying to figure out what had happened and what to do about it.

The worst thing was that he couldn't even keep an eye on Blaine. If his mobile command center truly was compromised, he couldn't check the GPS on Blaine's guitar pick without alerting Sue Sylvester to the fact that he knew something was up. If the GPS was even still on his phone. The CIA had probably stripped it off.

He had to worry about the rats. Blaine hadn't given it a second thought, even though he had mentioned it in his little speech, Kurt could tell, but they worried him. Finding rats in a science laboratory was unusual to begin with, considering how many surfaces were covered in toxic substances or disinfectants, and there was very little food. But the fact they were there was the Andersons' problem. His problem was that they were dead, and half-eaten.

He knew a lot about antineutrinos, even though he hadn't gotten the official CIA briefing, but he was about ninety-nine percent sure they couldn't eat rats, even in groups of millions. What else had Doctor Anderson been experimenting with that Sylvester now had access to?

When the cab arrived outside Dalton, Kurt threw the money in the cabbie's lap and bolted outside the door, saying, 'wait and you'll get more,' to the driver, hoping he would take the offer. Else he and Blaine would have to walk and find a cab, not the easiest thing at one in the morning.

The imposing gates were shut and locked, the fence designed to aid them wrapped around the entire campus. Thankfully, Kurt thought to himself as he examined the fence, Dalton had a good length of nature also surrounding the campus, so he wasn't observable through any windows as he figured out how to break into the school he had attended less than a week ago. Kurt wasn't sure if it was his nerves or his excitement or his adrenaline, but it felt like the world was shaking.

Kurt took a step forward, grabbed the fence, and-

When Kurt opened his eyes, he groaned and checked the time. Thankfully he hadn't actually been out for longer than a minute (he didn't want to waste any time), but the fact that he was on the ground proved that the fence was very electrified. That would explain the world shaking. The whole ground was vibrating from the fence. That also explained why there wasn't any barbed wire on the top. No one would make it there.

Plan B, then. Standing up and trying to shake off the raw feeling his skin had, Kurt pulled his old Dalton ID card out of his wallet and held it up to the scanner next to the gate, holding his breath. He only let out that breath when the scanner flashed green and a loud grating noise announced the opening of the gates. There was no way he could avoid that, but he slipped through as soon as humanly possible so that by the time people probably came to investigate the student out way past curfew, he was already lost in the trees.

He hadn't attended Dalton for long, but he knew his way around well enough to get to Winthrop House, which housed the dorm he and Blaine had shared, from the front gates. As soon as he was there, he looked around. Cameras, which the Stheno goons probably had access to, focused only on the front door. Apparently, they weren't too worried about people scaling the building, which was what Kurt was going to be forced to do, but he wasn't exactly sure how. Plus, there was the card scanner, but he wasn't going in the front.

He needed an entrance strategy, which he was failing on, but equally importantly, he needed an exit strategy that could be utilized with someone completely untrained. Rescuing damsels in distress was not as easy as movie princes made it seem. If Lorde was going to grant him any favors, Blaine's room would be on the first floor, but Kurt knew it wasn't. It was on the third floor of the building.

The good news was, the building would be easy to scale with the proper tools. Accessible roof, slight platforms at the height of each floor, and old brick. The bad news was, Kurt didn't have any tools. He would have to get creative.

Kurt circled around to the proper side before approaching the building from the woods. It was too much to hope that Blaine was staring out the window waiting for him, and he wouldn't dare throw up rocks in case there was a goon in the room with Blaine, or perhaps Blaine wasn't there at all. So, he would have to climb the building, but that left his option for leaving as jumping out a window. Not impossible for him, considering it was only three floors, but Blaine would break an ankle without something soft to land on.

That thought, thankfully, led him his first good idea of the mission. It was autumn. What did people jump into for fun during autumn? Leaves. What was Dalton surrounded by? Woods. It was too easy. It wouldn't be very quiet, but if he did it before he entered the building, it hopefully wouldn't be too noticeable.

Once Kurt had created his exit strategy for him and Blaine, he still needed to get in there and rescue Blaine. He wasn't tall enough to reach the first platform (which was enough of a handhold) without jumping. Jumping would work for the first floor, but the platform wasn't enough of a foothold for him to jump off it safely.

Kicking the building in frustration wouldn't have been the most productive idea, if the brick hadn't shifted. Weak mortar, Kurt guessed, but it gave him an excellent idea. If all the mortar was weak, and he would have to be willing to gamble that it was, he could turn the side of the building into a rock-climbing game, just for the second story.

Without stopping to think about it, Kurt jumped up and grabbed his handhold, level with the floor of the second floor and ceiling of the first floor. He couldn't pull himself up very much (his whole body still hurt from his shock... he didn't want to know what his hair looked like), but he pulled himself up far enough to kick in another brick. Then he had a foothold. Then two footholds. Then he bloodied up all eight knuckles for handholds, and managed to get his feet on the ledge. One more story to go, and he could do it in the exact same way.

When his feet were safely twenty feet above the ground, Kurt managed to inch over to Blaine's window. He didn't dare knock on the window, because it was dark inside and he didn't know who was in there, but he prayed Blaine would look over soon... and that it was actually Blaine.

For the first time since he started at the damn CIA, fate smiled on him, and Blaine opened the window. "What are you doing here, you lunatic?" he hissed, not moving from the window so that Kurt could swing in.

"Aren't damsels in distress supposed to be grateful?" Kurt asked equally quietly.

"I am not a damsel in distress," Blaine replied. "How did you even get up here?"

"I am a highly trained CIA operative-"

"Who I found gagged and bound in an empty library. Plus, I found two of your brethren in my basement." Kurt wasn't sure in what world they were his brethren, but he was starting to doubt his balance... which was not a good thing. Not because the fall would be dangerous, he had insured it wouldn't, but because if he fell, he would have to climb back up again.

"Are you going to let me in or not?" Kurt hissed, and Blaine stepped away from the window. "Thank you," Kurt said semi-sarcastically as he vaulted into the room, landing perfectly quietly. "Where are the goons?"

"Hallway. What exactly is your plan here?"

"Depends. Why is the door open?"

"They told me to leave it open, because they still think that I think they're the CIA, or FBI, or NSA, or whatever. What is going on here?"

"Not really the time, Blaine," Kurt said as he approached the door, pulling the camera out of his belt. He quickly checked that the flash was off, stuck it in the crack of the door, making sure the lens was in the hallway, took a picture, and pulled it back into the room. "Good, only one goon," he said as he looked over the picture. He was down the hall a little ways, leaning against the wall, but he seemed entirely focused. Not dozing or checking his phone or anything.

"There were more."

"There are probably some on the first floor, monitoring the cameras at the front door, and setting up to monitor everywhere else in the school. Thankfully, you haven't been here long, and they haven't set up surveillance anywhere but here. I even came in through the front gate."

"I'm guessing the explanation for your hair and hands is that you didn't know the fence was electrified?" Blaine asked with way too much amusement for someone being rescued by a selfless hero.

Kurt checked his hands for the first time and noticed burns on his palms. "Awesome."

"You didn't notice those."

"High pain threshold. We have to get you out of here."

"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what's going on. The whole story, not just that my dad's mixed up with the wrong people. I could have figured that part out for myself."

"Blaine, I will explain everything to you in the cab, we just have to get you out of here."

"And what exactly is your plan?" Blaine asked. "There's a goon in the hallway, and more between here and the door."

"Who said anything about doors?" Kurt asked, pointing to the window.

"No."

"Going out the way I came in."

"I'll break something!"

"There's a pile of leaves at the bottom of the window. It's only three stories. Just jump, and I promise you'll be safe."

"Everything you've ever told me is a lie, besides your damn name," Blaine hissed, and was he really bringing that up right now? "Why should I trust you?"

Kurt looked Blaine straight in the eye and was completely honest with him. "You really don't have another option, do you?" Blaine still looked angry, but he didn't answer. "You jump first, I'll be right after you."

"Why do I have to jump first?" Blaine asked.

"You're awfully argumentative for someone being rescued," Kurt muttered, but he explained anyway. He was never going to get Blaine out of here without acquiescing to some of his demands. "Number one, there will be more leaves for the person who jumps first, and you have less training. Number two, if I jump first, you won't time or place it well enough to avoid knocking me over. Number three, I'm the agent, you're my assignment, you better just listen to me and jump before I throw you out the damn window!" Kurt hissed.

"Fine, but I am not happy about this, and when I asked for help, I didn't mean tonight."

"Then why were you still awake?" Kurt asked.

Instead of answering, Blaine jumped out the window.

It was a brilliant plan. Blaine would land safely and unharmed. However, Kurt didn't take into account that Blaine wouldn't land quietly, and the window and door would be open.

"Blaine?" the goon in the hallway called out for him, and Kurt quickly hid behind the door. If he was going to have to fight this guy, he would at least get the jump on him. "Blaine?" the goon called again as he opened the door. "Son of a-" the goon started saying when he saw the open window, but he couldn't get the full expression out before Kurt's fist was in his solar plexus. The goon toppled and Kurt was on top of him. However, he didn't exactly have a plan from here. If he let the goon go, he would probably alert other goons by phone or walkie-talkie, and he and Blaine would never have a chance, but he certainly couldn't kill the guy or anything. Kurt's moral dilemma lasted about four seconds too long, long enough for goon to get an arm free and put the elbow of said arm in his windpipe. Kurt's momentary weakness was enough for the goon to throw him off, and Kurt was on his feet as fast as possible, but the goon was already out of the room, and Kurt had to chase him down.

When the goon heard Kurt's not-light footsteps, he turned around and used the momentum to drive him fist hard into Kurt's stomach. The agent tripped, but didn't fall, landing a hit of his own against the guy's nose and shattering it, judging by the crunch and blood spatter.

"So, you're the little FBI shit," the guy hissed out, his speech slightly hindered by his broken nose. "Thought for sure they would have sacked you."

"It's amazing the poor decisions the U.S. government makes," Kurt said dryly as he blocked the punch to his ribs the goon had been trying to land by distracting him.

"Too bad you'll burn in Sylvester's world, little shit." The goon faked him out and got a hit on the jaw, but none of Kurt's teeth felt too loose, so he didn't worry about it.

"You know, that's really not my name," Kurt said, spitting out the mouthful of blood he had acquired before landing dual punches to the guy's torso and head. THe goon dropped like a stone, eyes fluttering shut, but Kurt checked. His pulse was still steady, but when Kurt opened his lids, his eyes were rolled in the back of his head.

Out, Kurt concluded, and tried not to feel proud as he ducked back into Blaine's room. He shut and locked the door before grabbing Blaine jeans, a t-shirt, sweatshirt, and pair of clean boxers (running in pajamas wasn't easy). He quickly scanned the room for anything he could use as a weapon in case the other goons had heard the commotion, but the closest thing he could find was nail scissors. He stuck those in his utility belt and barely looked before jumping, rolling in the air and landing slightly left of the leaf pile. However, he was trained like a cat, and he landed on his feet.

"Where the hell-" Blaine started to yell, but then he was staring. "What happened to you?"

"Goon heard you fall into the leaves," Kurt explained, putting Blaine's clothes under one arm and grabbing Blaine's upper arm with his other hand. "Let's go," he said, handing Blaine the flashlight to navigate around the woods. "We might have more company soon."

"Awesome." As Blaine was navigating (Kurt let go of his arm once it was clear Blaine was going to come along without more questions or objections), Kurt grabbed his mobile command center and called the cab company. He couldn't be entirely certain Sue Sylvester wasn't listening, so he gave a location a few blocks from Dalton for ten minutes into the future, and specifically didn't tell the cabbie where they're going. He didn't even bother with the cabbie he had left out front, because the irritable bastard was probably headed back to Lima.

"So, I'm assuming you have some sort of plan?" Blaine asked as they walked through the woods. Kurt didn't feel the need or have the energy to run.

"I'm dropping you off at the agency with Agent Lopez," Kurt explained, and Blaine stopped in his tracks.

"Like hell you are! What about my dad?"

"The agency will take care of that."

"Because they did such a good job last time."

"Stheno got the jump on them. It won't happen again. We'll be on the offensive. Plus, we have their leverage."

"What do you mean?"

"Stheno was probably keeping tabs on you to be able to tell your father, wherever he is, that they have you in their custody. They could have been threatening him with you. Now the agency is keeping you safe."

"They probably won't tell my imprisoned father that!" Blaine exclaimed.

"Blaine, lower your voice," Kurt hissed, grabbing Blaine's arm and pulling him along, not caring that he couldn't exactly see where he was going. He knew the layout well enough. "We can talk about this when we get to the agency."

"I'm not going to the agency!" Blaine objected, but he was at least speaking at a safe volume. "You're just going to say we're going to talk, stick me in a cell, and leave me there."

"Blaine, we're not imprisoning you there. You're a guest, a witness, and a former target. You'll be treated well, I promise."

"The only reason I trusted you last time is because I really didn't have another choice. Now I do, and I'm not going to the agent."

"We'll talk about this in the cab too," Kurt said with a sigh.

Corner of Electric Avenue and Crescent Drive, Westerville, OH 01:42:06
The cabbie that picked them up in Westerville seemed much less annoyed that it was almost two in the morning. "Destination?" he asked as they got in the cab, Kurt trying to hide his bloody and disheveled appearance as much as possible behind the armful of Blaine's clothes he still had.

"Stockbridge Park, Columbus," Kurt said, and the ride would give them about half an hour to talk.

"Okay, explain to me what's going on," Blaine demanded immediately, but Kurt started coughing, the punch to the gut finally catching up to him. "Are you okay? You're... coughing up blood," Blaine noticed, wrinkling his nose.

"I'm also probably bleeding internally, but I'm not going to worry about it right now," Kurt snapped. "To be fair, some of that blood was already in my mouth."

"Shouldn't we take you to a hospital?"

"First things first," Kurt dismissed his injuries. They weren't terribly bothersome. His jaw was swelling a little, which would shortly affect his speech, and his stomach hurt from the strange exercise plus the punch, but the burns and cuts on his hands he barely registered. "I'm not technically on your father's case anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"My cover was compromised. You know who I am, and so do the bad guys. They even bugged my phone." Blaine's eyes widened in concern. "Don't worry. The bugs only work when my phone is sending a signal. I went through the settings and turned everything off. It's in airplane mode."

"Wait, if you're not on my dad's case, why are you here?"

"Because you were in trouble, and it was my fault. Plus, I may not be on this job, but I'm still an agent, and protecting you is still my job."

"Why do I have a feeling that means you threw out the rulebook to come save me?" Blaine asked, and he sounded almost... charmed.

"Because you're smarter than most people," Kurt replied.

"I'm still mad at you."

"I know, but right now I really don't care. I'm trying to keep you safe, Blaine, and you won't listen to me."

"What, exactly, is my dad involved in?" Blaine asked, staring at Kurt with those big hazel eyes, and he had already thrown out all the rules anyway.

"Do you know anything about antineutrinos?"

"I know my dad had a lot of tanks delivered for them," Blaine said helpfully.

"Well, that's what he's researching for a very powerful company called Stheno, which is run by a very powerful, very dangerous, and very crazy lady named Sue Sylvester, who has super villain dreams of taking over the world. He wasn't aware until recently of Sylvester's intentions, so none of this is his fault, but Stheno kidnapped him to try to increase his productivity, to make the technology easily useable in a short period of time."

"What do these things do?"

"They ride electrical signals," Kurt over-simplified. "That's how they bugged my phone. Fortunately for us, they only work in airless environments at the moment, which is why my phone is shrink-wrapped."

"Okay," Blaine said slowly, nodding. "So how do we stop them?"

"We don't," Kurt said, continuing before Blaine got the chance to object. "The agency does. You and I are powerless, gadget-less, and have no idea where they are. I'm probably about to be fired from the CIA. You need to go into protection and trust the CIA to take care of your father."

"It's kind of ironic that they're going to fire the only competent one," Blaine said with a snort.

"Blaine, you do realize I'm the reason your father is in danger?" Kurt asked, because he didn't seem to understand that. "If I hadn't been caught, Stheno would have assumed themselves unobserved and wouldn't be pushing your father beyond scientific limitations."

Blaine put his head in his hands. "This is... what the hell am I supposed to do about this?"

"You're supposed to go to the agency, make sure you're safe, and trust that the CIA will take care of your father," Kurt repeated.

"That's a load of crap, and I bet you know that too," Blaine said icily, turning to stare at Kurt. "If you thought the CIA was perfectly capable of handling this, you wouldn't have come to Dalton yourself to get me out of Stheno's grasp. So, tell me what's really going to happen, because I am so tired of you lying to me."

"I'm going to drop you off at the CIA," Kurt started, making up a plan as he went. "You're going to tell them that you saw the agents and escaped from Dalton. You are not going to mention our interaction at all. I will assess the situation with your father and see if it requires immediate action." He probably shouldn't have been saying all of this stuff in front of the cab driver, but the poor cabbie had probably heard weirder. Plus, Kurt didn't really have anything left to lose.

"Of course, it requires immediate action! He's my dad! And I'm damn sure not sitting around like a useless puppy at the CIA headquarters while you 'assess the situation' all by yourself. I'm coming with you."

"Like hell you are," Kurt snapped, too tired and in too much pain to care about tact. "You're completely untrained! You'll be more of a hindrance than a help, no matter what my plan is."

"Which is you admitting that you don't have a plan," Blaine pointed out. "I can help you. I want to help."

"You won't be able to help. I have to do some very dangerous and probably illegal things, and the CIA never involves civilians in matters of international security." Great, now he was starting to sound like Director Schuester.

"International security?" Blaine asked with a raised eyebrow.

Crap. "Antineutrinos could be used to compromise satellites, nuclear missiles, and global communication systems. This is way bigger than you and me," Kurt pointed out, and then wanted to slap himself upside the head when he realized what phrase he had used.

"There's no 'you and me,'" Blaine said testily.

"I know that."

"And you owe me. Not only for lying to me, but also because I probably saved you from torture at the hands of those goons." Kurt didn't mention the injuries he had already sustained because of Blaine. It didn't seem worth the effort to argue with him until he was done his point. "Let me help you. I'll stay out of the way or whatever, but you're not leaving me behind at the CIA headquarters."

"You do realize, in order to rescue your father from Stheno, I have to find the villain's layer and create an attack plan, steal gadgets from the federal government in order to execute my plan, and go on a life-endangering mission to Lorde-knows-where to save him, probably fighting bad guys and blowing up buildings!" Kurt spit out, exasperated. "You didn't even want to jump out the window of a three-story building. So don't tell me you're ready for this mission when you're not."

"What do I have to do to prove to you that I can do this?" Blaine asked, and he appeared to be shaking with anger. "I'm smart, I'm strong, I'm fast-"

"You're not trained, and you're a civilian!" Kurt arued.

"If I tell the CIA you rescued me, you will be too," Blaine hissed angrily.

"Are you blackmailing me?" Kurt demanded.

"Absolutely."

"Fine, you can get me kicked off the CIA. That doesn't change the fact that you can't do this Blaine. Even if I do get kicked out of the CIA, I'm still going to take care of your father."

"I can't trust you on this one, Kurt, I can't."

Kurt sighed heavily, leaning back from their hushed conversation to think. If he brought Blaine along, he would be completely handicapped. He would have to bring along something to minimize the handicap and outweigh Blaine's lack of training. There was only one person he knew that would work under the radar for him, and she definitely wouldn't be happy about it.

"Columbus Metropolitan Library, South Grant," he said to the cabbie.

"Where are we going now?"

"To plan a mission."

A/N: Okay, so this is a day later than I planned, but I forgot! Sue me. I hope you enjoyed :) More romance-y stuff next chapter. For right now, Blaine's just really annoyed with Kurt.

Reviews are Love.