Blaine doesn’t really know what he expected Brittany’s house to look like – maybe a little less homey, what with the attitude she brings to school every day – but nonetheless, he likes it.

The entire place has a kind of open feeling to it, yet seems somewhat unfamiliarly ominous; Blaine guesses that if he were here more often, he might be able to figure out what was so different about Brittany’s home.

A small squeal echoes down the hallway, followed by even smaller-sounding footsteps, and the difference is suddenly all too clear to Blaine.

A curvy, middle-aged woman emerges from the archway, holding a small bundle of blankets that seem to be clutching to her for life.

Her family’s here.

The woman whispers something to the bundle, and it immediately begins to squeal again.

“Brit! Wanna see Brit!”

Oh.

Brittany steps forward, outstretching her arms and as the bundle shifts towards her, Blaine catches a glimpse of a tiny face.

“Hey, sweetie.” Brittany coos, tucking the bundle over her shoulder.

“I missed you today, Brit. Me and mommy did some colouring!”

“I missed you too, Pres. Can I take off the cloak?”

Blaine raises an eyebrow at the cloak, but Brittany just upturns a lip at him and winks.

There’s a moment of silence, then an okay.

Brittany one-handedly shifts off the first blanket, letting it rest around the child’s shoulders, and Blaine gets the cloak bit, and he suddenly feels like crying. The girl only looks about four or five – she’s incredibly pale, and she’s smiling at Brittany like she’s seeing the ocean for the first time.

What Blaine can’t help notice, though, is the large bandage that almost completely covers the upper side of her head.

“This is Blaine, Presley. Do you wanna say hi?”

Presley looks over at him for a split second, her mouth turning wide at the corners, and Blaine must be having a thing for making people smile today because the second her little mouth curves around a hello his heart swoons.

“Could you take her upstairs for a while, Brit? I need to get some chores done.” The woman, whom Blaine assumes is Brittany’s mother, suddenly looks a lot more exhausted than a few minutes ago.

Brittany nods without a word, beckoning Blaine upstairs, bundle back over her shoulder. Blaine follows, locking eyes with Presley and smiling genuinely for the first time in what feels too long.

*

Presley is settled, playing with building blocks in a separate room, and Brittany sits on her bed next-door and Blaine wants to ask so, so badly but he knows it’s not his place.

“Leukemia.”

Blaine’s heart drops. “What?”

“It was leukemia, about six months ago. They say it’s died down, for now.” She huffs, almost-mockingly. “I still worry about her every day, though.”

There’s an oh, Brittany and stepping forward and next thing he knows, Blaine’s got his head tucked into the crook of her neck and he’s not even trying not to tear up.

“Please, don’t say sorry. Too many people have said sorry.”

“Okay.”

Blaine scoots backwards, out of the hug, and his shoulder pangs. He flinches, and Brittany sees it.

“I’m so sorry, but I’m no good with blood - I’ve called someone who knows their way around wounds, though.”

Blaine’s almost afraid to ask, but he doesn’t really need to because within a minute, Brittany’s door is flying open and the girl that walks in has Blaine scrambling into the corner and trying not to scream.

“Aaaaaaaaaah-“

“-oh shut up, Anderson.” Santana Lopez barely spares him a glance before turning back to Brittany, raising an eyebrow.

“You know I’m no good with blood, okay? You are.”

Blaine really doesn’t appreciate how close he comes to asking why. Santana grumbles, turns to Blaine again.

“Shirt off.”

“E-excuse me?” He splutters.

Santana scoffs. “If you want to ruin your hideously bad Star Trek-“

“-Star Wars-“

“-fine, Star Wars t-shirt then by all means, keep it on. I have no burning desire to see those freakishly mismatched abs of yours.”

“I don’t have abs-“

“You can punch in a wall, sweetie, I’m  pretty sure you’ve got abs of some kind.”

Blaine pauses. Wait.

“How do you know about that?”

“There’s a reason I used to be Head Cheerio, you know. Sue doesn’t tell Hummel everything.” Santana softens. “I can do stuff, too.”

Asdfghjkl;

“Y-you can?”

“Me too,” Brittany chimes in. “It’s how we met; one of the guys stuffed up one of my flips, and she caught me mid-air. I erased everyone’s memory, after that, but Coach had already seen. She let us stay on the squad as long as we didn’t let anyone else know. Well-“

“-anyone sane, right?”

Santana smiles. “Yeah.”

Blaine’s shoulder pangs, and he noticeably flinches. Removing his shirt as shamelessly as possible, he looks up at Santana.

“Could you…”

Santana nods, leans forward. Smooths over his shoulder. “Shit.”

Blaine gulps. “What?”

“It’s healed. Brit, get me a towel and something sharp.”

“Wait, what do yo-“

Brittany’s back within a minute, holding a knife, towel and a small stress ball.

“Blaine, put this in your mouth.”

“Why?”

Brittany sighs. “If you want to wake up all the cats in the neighbourhood, go ahead and leave it out.”

Blaine puts the ball in his mouth. Squeezes his eyes shut.

“I’m gonna count to three, and then I’m going to stab your shoulder.”

Blaine’s eyes open, widen.

“I need to get this bullet out, or it’ll fuck up your system, ‘kay?”

Blaine squeezes his eyes shut again, clenching his fists.

“One, two-“

“OHMYFUCKAHH-“

Blaine wheezes, shoulder exploding in pain as his mind flashes back to crying and knees hitting cheap lino and the coldest laugh in the world and-

“Blaine?”

It’s Brittany, smiling grimly up at him, and the memories drown out, if just for a second.

“Done.”

“Seriously?”

Santana blushes. “I’m fast, okay? It’s kind of my thing.”

“Thanks, Santana.”

Brittany giggles.

*

They’ve been making small talk for about an hour, chattering away like the golden trio, when Brittany finally speaks properly.

“Where do you go from here?”

“What do you mean?”

Brittany stands, using her hands to elaborate.

“You became super, you found out you were super, you found other supers…Now what?”

Blaine pauses, pondering a thought.

“What if I do something with it?”

“Hmm?”

“What if I use it to protect people? My powers, I could use them for protecting people from crime!”

Santana scoffs.

“What?”

“No offence, Blaine, but you got shot on the second go by a high school kid. I don’t think you’re quite ready to step up to muggers and rapists.”

Blaine stops, head down. Head up.

“What if you guys taught me?”

“Taught you…?”

“How to fight! How to defend people, how to be tough!”

Brittany freezes, looking back at him.

“That just might work.”

“What?!”

“Think about it, San. We’re not doing anything with our powers, but at least we know what to do with them. If we help out Blaine, he could do something with his!”

“I don’t know.”

“I’d get to make another costume…please?”

Brittany looks at her, puppy-eyed, and Santana sighs. “Fine.”

“Yes!”

Blaine grins, giddy and light.

“Oooh, we need a name!”

“A name?”

“All superheros have a name!” Brittany grins, picking up a nearby book and pencil. “What can you do, Blaine?”

“Well, I got really hot this one time, and-”

Santana snorts.

“I know.”

Brittany’s eyes light up about five times before she speaks again.

“Blaine, you transferred from Dalton at the start of last year, right?”

“…Yeah?”

“And they had uniforms there, right? Matching blazer and tie?”

Blaine nods.

I can’t see where this is going.

Brittany grins at him. “Blazer.”

“What?”

“Well, a blaze is another word for fire, right? And we could base your costume off Dalton’s uniforms!”

“No, no,” Santana interrupts, “That’d be too obvious. It’d link him straight to the school.”

“We can at least mix around with the colours a little, right?”

“Fine.”

Brittany grins. “I’ll probably have a solid idea by tomorrow.”

Santana grins. “Well, Blazer, ready to learn how to kick ass?”

Blaine sighs.

“As I’ll ever be.”