“Thanks for coming out with me tonight.”

“Blaine,” Cameron insists with a gentle squeeze to their interlaced hands. “It was my pleasure.”

He blushes. “But still, I know I’m not exactly an easy person to date…”

Cameron laughs lightly before kissing Blaine softly. The dark haired boy makes a small noise of surprise that becomes trapped in this throat as he surrenders to the liplock. Their mouths move together slowly and uncertainly, with all the caution and hesitancy of the classic first-date shyness and eagerness to impress.

“You’re really cute, you know that?” Cameron exhales after the break apart for air.

Blaine flushes once again. “Well, you’re beautiful.”

The blonde laughs again and orders him, “Get over here.”

The two men surge forward again, their lips connecting and sliding against each other’s with more confidence. Soon, Blaine slips his tongue into Cameron’s mouth and Cameron grips his biceps and Blaine clutches onto Cameron’s back and Cameron—

Blaine hears a click. It’s faint and Cameron probably didn’t notice it, but Blaine’s been conditioned to listen for these sorts of sounds. This time though, Blaine doesn’t want to hear. He wants to keep making out with his date and maybe, if he’s lucky, he’ll get his hands on Cameron’s ass tonight…So Blaine doesn’t heed the warning signal. Cameron moans and pulls him closer, causing Blaine to let out a groan of his own, and loses himself even deeper into the kiss.

He hears another click when Cameron begins to suck on his tongue. Then another one almost immediately after as Cameron’s hands slide down his sides to his hips. He sees them when Cameron nibbles on his ear, and Blaine’s angry because holy shit that feels so good but he can’t enjoy it because he’s being watched.

“Cameron,” he breathes as he takes a step back.

“What?” the other man asks, his question coming out as a whine.

“We, um, we have to get out here,” he tells him, his voice annoyed yet defeated.

“Why?” Cameron regards him curiously.

Blaine doesn’t get a chance to explain. Before he can open his mouth and find the right words to tell Cameron that they are a bunch of voyeur paparazzi watching them make out a hundred feet away, one of the voyeur paparazzi chooses that moment to get in their faces, the flash of his camera blinding them as he hollers, despite his proximity, “IS THIS YOUR NEW BOYFRIEND, BLAINE?”

Reacting out of a mix of instinct and experience, Blaine grabs a dazed Cameron and begins to tug him in the opposite direction. They couple only makes it a few paces before another photographer seems to appear out of thin air and bombard them with more inappropriate and personal questions. Blaine does his best to ignore them, reaching into the back left pocket of his jeans and extracting his phone. He unlocks it, hits 4 on speed dial, and presses the device to his ear.

“Where are you?” a gruff voice demands, answering only after one ring.

“Outside of The Cheesecake Factory, we’re heading towards the movie theatre,” he relays concisely as he hurries along with Cameron in tow. The number of photographers seems to be multiplying at an exponential rate.

“Be there in a sec,” Happy tells him before hanging up.

Blaine lifts his arm to shield his face from the paparazzi and turns his head to address Cameron. “I’m sorry about this.”

His date simply looks at him owlishly, not sure how to react.

Thankfully at that moment, a sleek black Audi town car screeches to a stop at the curb ahead of them. A burly man steps out, sporting sunglasses despite the darkness, and begins to shoo the photographers away as Blaine ushers Cameron into the car. Once they’re both inside, he locks the door and turns to Cameron with a diffident expression.

“I’m really sorry about all of that.”

Cameron shrugs. “I guess I shouldn’t have expected anything less from a date with Iron Man’s son.”

His voice is flippant, but Blaine knows the damage is already done.

0-0-0

Usually Blaine is put off by the 80’s power rock his father’s workshop is filled with when he passes through the soundproof barrier, but tonight he isn’t bothered by the blaring ACDC, in fact, he feels they express his feelings perfectly.

“I’M SUITING UP!” He calls over “Highway to Hell.”

Tony looks up from his gutted Mark VI and instantly notices his son’s stiff posture and frustrated expression. “Jarvis, turn down the music.”

“Right away, Sir,” the AI answers in his trademark cool, British accent and the song’s volume instantly decreases.

“So, what happened?” Tony inquires, crossing the workshop to where Blaine is standing on the platform, the bots beginning to assemble the various fixtures of his personal suit onto him. “Did lover boy turn down a second date?”

“You could say that,” Blaine replies sardonically as he raises his arms and puts them into his armored gloves.

“I find it hard to believe that he didn’t fall prey to the Stark charm,” Tony muses, watching the red and navy breast plate being screwed into place on top of his son’s chest.

“Trust me, the Stark charm was working fine,” Blaine assured him, again in a scornful tone. “It was the paparazzi ambush while we were—um, walking around that sent him running.”

“Funny, most of them find it glamorous,” the elder Stark offered.

“Yeah, well, he didn’t,” Blaine replies frankly, stepping off the platform. “Something about how he wasn’t out to his lacrosse team—“

“Pepper will take care of the pictures,” Tony assures him so quickly it was practically a reflex. He and his wife went to great measures to keep Blaine under wraps. Of course the general public knew that Tony had a son, yet they were able to keep most details about Blaine private.

“I know,” Blaine sighs, twisting his torso and rolling his neck to get used to the feel of the suit, it had been close to a month since he had last worn it. 

Tony, who is complete bullshit at fatherly endearment (so much so that he considers it a miracle that he and Blaine are on speaking terms, much less that they share such a healthy relationship) decides not to push his son any further  simply orders him “Stay in the country.”

Blaine rolls his eyes, but nods nonetheless.

“I’m serious, we haven’t had a training session lately and you’re not ready to go transatlantic yet, Blaine,” he says. Tony may be shit at paternal sentimentality but he has the austerity and authority of a father down pat. He had a pretty good example in his own father after all.

“Well, I’m not the one who disappears on Iron Man missions for weeks at a time and has board meetings like every other day,” Blaine points out.

“Hey, watch it,” his father warns him. “Don’t take it out on me that your boytoy couldn’t handle the paps. You’re a Stark, Blaine, get used to it.”

Blaine simply glowers at him with chagrin.

“Now get out of here before you make another smartass comment and I disable your repulsors,” Tony tells him firmly but with an underlying sentiment of father-son fondness. Blaine’s tempted to do just what his father forbade, but instead he opts to merely grimace and roll his eyes once more before the frontal plate lowers and obscures his face.

“Ready when you are, Jarvis,” Blaine says a few moments later.

“Right away, Master Blaine, I am updating your preferences and calibrating the virtual settings. You will be ready for takeoff in five…four…three...two—“

The sound of his repulsors firing away overpowers Jarvis’s voice and the next thing Blaine knows, he’s speeding out of the workshop.

0-0-0

“Dude, you alright?” Finn questions from Kurt’s doorway.

“Oh, um…yeah,” Kurt replies after a moment’s hesitation. He had been gazing out of his window dejectedly, ruminating over his latest romantic fiasco.  He smiles woefully before answering “I’m fine.”

“Listen,” Finn begins, taking an unsure step into his step-brother’s room. “I’m sorry Sam turned out to be straight. I mean, it’s his loss, right? He’s kind of an ass anyway.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Kurt agrees, but his tone is flat and unconvincing.

“I know it sucks being alone and everything—“ Finn says, and Kurt withholds his contradiction because he doesn’t know. He can’t remember the last time his brother wasn’t involved with Quinn or Rachel or even Santana for God’s sake. Nevertheless, he keeps quiet and lets him continue speaking, “—but there’s someone out there for you. You just gotta have faith, dude.”

The corners of Kurt’s mouth twitches upwards into a slightly more genuine grin. “Thanks, Finn.”

“Anytime, bro,” he responds with own smile. “’Night.”

Finn disappears into the hallway and Kurt turns his line of sight back to the window. He gazes at the stars listlessly for a few moments and then it happens. A flash of light speeds past his vision and Kurt doesn’t have to think twice for what he wishes for. I wish I had somebody to love, and somebody to love me.

0-0-0

Whenever Blaine takes his suit out to cool off, his excursions always tend to follow the same pattern. First, he flies as fast as he can to the east coast. Tonight he had chosen New York City, cliché he knows, but Blaine loves to maneuver and weave between all the skyscrapers while immersing himself in all the lights and sounds of the city. They have a place on the Upper East Side, and Blaine’s almost tempted to land and maybe wander around on foot a little, but that wouldn’t be part of his routine. The next part of Blaine’s blowing off steam ritual is to fly, much more leisurely, back westwards until he reaches a certain isolated plot of land in Montana where he can just blow a bunch of stuff up and work all the anger out.

That’s where Blaine is headed now, currently passing over Lima, Ohio according to Jarvis’s GPS. He’s descending down to his spot only minutes later, fingers already itching in his gloves to let his repulsors rip. Blaine spots an old stump, no doubt a carcass from a previous visit here, aims and fires, and the stump is obliterated a split-second later. He continues in this fashion for a while, causing explosions or using the suit’s enhanced strength to punch things, and all the while, he can’t get four words his father spoke to him out of his head.

You’re a Stark, Blaine.

0-0-0

“I’m sorry, you want to what?”

Blaine squirms under his father’s accusatory and bewildered gaze. He licks his lips and swallows, trying to get some saliva back in his mouth so he can explain, “I-I…I’d be trying something new.”

“That’s one word for it,” Tony huffs and crosses his arms. Blaine shoots a pleading look to Pepper who is seated next to his father at the kitchen table. She sends him a reassuring smile in return, but doesn’t speak just yet. His father isn’t quite finished with his interrogation, and his next inquiry is just as vulnerable as it is critical. “Are…are you ashamed of me?”

“No! No,” Blaine insists immediately. “Dad, you’re…I mean, every guy wishes their dad was a superhero and I love you and Pepper and Mom and everything…but I just want to try you know, being normal again.”

Blaine grimaces at his own lack of articulateness. Things had sounded so simple and perfect and his head. He was proud of his father, and when the time came, would carry on his legacy with Iron Man and the company (on the terms that Stark Industries expanded into music) but right now he didn’t want to be Blaine Stark. It wouldn’t be forever, just for a little while. He just wanted to experience high school as a normal teenager, not the son of a billionaire/genius/ inventor/ reformed playboy/superhero, at a normal high school, not a cesspool of entitled brats who competed with each other to find new ways to flaunt their daddy’s money.

For most of his life, the only presence Tony had in Blaine’s life was financial. Sure, he saw him at Christmas and maybe on his birthday if Pepper pushed hard enough and he wasn’t too hung over, but up until his freshman year of high school Blaine’s definition of a father was an uninterested man who signed the checks for his medical bills, music lessons, and travel soccer team. But then Tony came back from being held captive in Afghanistan around the same time Blaine was put into the hospital after being beaten up at the Sadie Hawkins Dance and things changed. Tony actually cared. He wanted weekends, he got Blaine into a prestigious prep school when he decided to transfer, he designated a room in his mansion for Blaine, he wanted bonding time. And even though at first Blaine came off as resentful and aloof, deep down he wanted it too. Sure there had been a couple road bumps with the whole rebuilding-the-Impala fiasco and Tony’s purchase of straight porn with the suggestion that Blaine ‘just try it’, but over the past two years, Blaine and his father had definitely made a dent in making up for the lost time. Then there was this summer and Tony’s near-death experience and the best birthday present ever (Blaine’s own Iron Man suit) as well as the training that had come along with it, and the two had never been closer.

“Well you can’t move back to San Francisco,” Tony remarks.

“I know,” Blaine replies. He had grown up in the Bay Area, where his mother had taught at one of the nicer Catholic schools in the area, her modeling career effectively ended by Blaine’s birth. The school she worked for let the children of faculty attend for free and Christina discovered and cultivated a true passion for teaching while at it. Everything had worked out perfectly…until the Sadie Hawkins Dance freshmen year. Nevertheless, Blaine transferred and his mother eventually found a job at another school and then she was offered an executive position in a program that was a lot like Teach for America but in the Philippines in February. That had been the reason for Blaine moving into the mansion over the summer. Christina had sacrificed so much for him, and Blaine would rather have lived on the streets than to be the reason why his mother couldn’t pursue such an opportunity. Not that he didn’t like living with his dad, he just needed a refuge from the public eye. “I was thinking I could transfer schools—“

“Again?” Tony repeats incredulously.

“Yes,” Blaine confirms, his agitation growing. “And stay in an apartment near the school and just go back to using Anderson as my last name.”

“Absolutely not,” his father said. “Your mother barely—the only reason your living here is because Pepper is here too, because she has so little faith in—and if I let her seventeen-year-old son just up and—absolutely not.”

“Dad, you know I’m responsible,” Blaine tries to reason.

“I’m not saying you aren’t,” Tony counters. He labors a breath before continuing in a more somber tone, “But, Blaine, you’ve got to stop running away from your problems like this.”

Blaine’s face twists into one of disgust. “So you think I’m coward?

Tony sighs, “I never said that, don’t put words in my—“

“Well I’m sorry I’m not a reckless alcoholic! I’m sorry if I just WANTED TO BE NORMAL!” Blaine shouts as he rises from his seat and stomps out of the kitchen.

“EXHIBIT A, BLAINE!” Tony shouts after him. “GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE OR—“

“Tony,” Pepper interjects softly.

“What?” he says snappishly, whipping his head downward and to the left to regard his wife. “He’s got to realize that he isn’t normal. He’s the heir to the company and the next Iron M—‘

“He’s a seventeen-year-old boy,” Pepper interrupts once again, her tone persistent yet gentle.

“And?”

Pepper lets out a little laugh of disbelief. “Tony, don’t you remember what it was like to be a teenager?”

“I was at MIT making the graduate students look like preschoolers,” Tony answers.

“Right, I forgot who I was talking to,” Pepper says with a scoff and roll of her eyes. “Well, when I was a teenager, Tony, all I wanted to do was blend in. I was gangly, I had freckles and these god awful glasses—“

“Okay, why have I never seen these pictures?” Tony interjects playfully

Pepper presses on, shooting Tony what is supposed to be a threatening look, but end up being more affectionate than she intended. “—the point is there’s nothing wrong with Blaine wanting a little anonymity.”

“I get it Pep, I really do,” Tony concedes. “But what am I supposed to do with him? I can’t violate Christina’s trust and let him go to some public school a couple hours away.”

“What about Ohio?” Pepper suggests.

“What about it?”

“Christina’s parents live out there. And when we were looking for places for Blaine to transfer two years ago, she and I thought about Ohio. There’s a school out there in Westerville, where Blaine’s grandparents live, it’s the top in the state. They board there too, so we wouldn’t have to worry about him being on his own, and Mr. and Mrs. Anderson would be twenty minutes away.”

Tony takes a moment to consider his wife’s proposition. Back when Blaine had been in the process of moving schools, he had been in the process of creating Iron Man, and only remembers making a phone call to the school Pepper and Christina had selected to ensure their son’s acceptance. “What’s this place called?”

“Dalton Academy for Boys.”

“You think he’ll be happy there?” Tony asks quietly.

“Very happy,” Pepper promises. “I think some of his friends from Ohio are students at the school.”

“So, what I’m just supposed to send him there until May?” He inquires, defensiveness creeping back into his tone.

“Let’s start with the rest of the semester,” she says, “until Christmas.”

“I’m going to miss him,” Tony mutters at a barely audible volume. 

“I know,” Pepper grins softly, placing her hand on top of her husband’s. “But this is going to mean so much with him.”

Tony sighs and rests his face in the hand that Pepper isn’t holding. “Alright,” he declares after a moment. “You call Christina and I’ll go talk to the Drama King.”

“He gets it from you,” Pepper accuses him good-naturedly.

“Yeah yeah,” Tony brushes the (completely true) allegation off, and ascends the stairs to Blaine’s bedroom.

0-0-0

Blaine is in the middle of giving a very angsty rendition of Christina Aguilera’s “Fighter” to his bedroom mirror when Jarvis alerts him that his father is at the door. He heaves a sigh, tells the AI to cut the music and goes to address Tony.

“What do you want?” He demands after he pulls the door open.

“To talk,” Tony answers.

“About what? My cowardly behavior?” Blaine asks bitterly.

“Actually, it was about transferring schools but if—“

He begins to leave when Blaine calls out “No, Dad—wait!” Tony does and a heavy silence lingers between the two for a moment or two. “I…I’m sorry,” the younger Stark apologizes. “I shouldn’t have taken my anger over Cameron out on you. And I don’t think you’re a reckless alcoholic…anymore.”

Blaine smiles at his father cheekily and Tony drops his defensive posture. “Fair enough. And for the record Blaine, I don’t think you’re a coward. It’s just…you act so mature for your age that sometimes I forget you’re still only a teenager.”

“Thanks, I guess,” Blaine mumbles unsure of how to react. He takes a moment to recompose himself before speaking again, “So you said something about transferring schools…?”

Tony nods and gestures for the pair to enter his bedroom. Blaine perches cross-legged on his bed and Tony half-sits on his dresser across from him.

“So…” he begins expectantly.

“Pepper and I talked,” Tony begins warily. “She’s currently talking to your mother, and if Christina gives us the okay, you can start Dalton next week.”

“Dalton?” Blaine repeats, trying to recall where he knows the name from. “Like in Ohio? Where Wes and David go?”

“Well I haven’t the slightest idea who Wes and David are, but yes,” Tony tells him. “It’s a good school, they board so I wouldn’t have to get you an apartment and you mother wouldn’t tear me a new one, and your grandparents are out there.”

Blaine hesitates as he takes it all in. He had been planning to stay on the West Coast and go to a public school, but Dalton didn’t sound terrible. His dad had a point, even though Dalton was another prep school, he’d have family in Westerville as well as friends already there.

“Blaine?” Tony prompts him after the silence stretches out for over a minute. “What’re you thinking, bud? Do we have a deal?”

Blaine turns to his father with a grin and an outstretched hand. “Deal.”