A/N: Pay Attention! Major Plot Points entered! And yeah, I know it's late. :( I apologize
Tony went to work with Toushiro immediately, teaching him everything he possibly could about computer software and the myriad of loopholes and gaps in standard firewalls. Within the space of ten hours, the two were trading viruses and hacks back and forth on a pair of laptops, each attempting to write up protective software and tear down the opponent's cyber-defenses simultaneously.
"Take that, you stupid brat!" Tony was almost frothing at the mouth. Even the version of JARVIS that he'd downloaded onto the cheap laptop as extra protection wasn't doing him much good. Toushiro's fingers flew across the keyboard, his face still as calm as ever, yet without missing a beat he tapped another key and sent the most recent virus through the widening hole in the billionaire's security system.
The cry of frustration would have been heard for miles had Natasha not chosen that exact second to throw a pillow at Tony's face, still leaning against Steve's shoulder. Her aim was stellar, and while the billionaire briefly choked on the fabric, Toushiro shattered the last of JARVIS's defenses.
"I win." Toushiro said smugly, casually downloading the "prize content" onto his laptop and decoding it with remarkable ease. Tony pulled the pillow from where it smothered his stubble and glared.
"Lucky." he accused, still pouting. Toushiro rolled his eyes.
"It took me two hours to completely disable JARVIS's security systems even with you as an active defense, Tony." the boy said smugly, leaning back against the couch cushions. "Face it; you can't decode my encrypted files, and I'm better at finding algorithmic gaps in the programming. I won."
"Only because Natasha helped you!"
"Because you were acting like an idiot."
"I was not!"
Toushiro rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to retort when Steve cut in, his voice unusually cheerful.
"Play nice, you two." he said, looking up from his copy of The Lord of the Rings. "Commander Hitsugaya has two human recruits coming in today, remember? We have to be on our best behavior."
Toushiro snorted.
"Steve, don't talk to me like I'm six." he said loftily. "Tony's the one with the mentality of a toddler. I wasn't the one being a sore loser."
The supersoldier grinned at the preteen captain, his blue eyes twinkling, and gave Tony a sly, amused look. Toushiro's slow transition from a stern shinigami to the sarcastic young man he was now had been interesting, but now that he was perfectly comfortable with the Avengers' constant banter, he'd chosen Tony as his most frequent target.
"Listen to your big brother, Toushiro-kun." Natasha interjected then, and Toushiro shot her an irritated glance.
"Oi, I'm the oldest one here." he snapped cheekily. Then he thought for a second, and a mischievous grin spread across his smooth face. "Imouto-chan."
Natasha eyes widened in surprise, and she sat up straight, her gaze fixed on the smirking preteen before her. For a moment she struggled to come up with a comeback. Steve watched for a moment, smiling, then decided to come to Natasha's rescue.
"Yet you're still the one that baits Tony the most." he said mildly. "That makes you the least mature out of all of us."
Toushiro's face darkened, eyes narrowing, and Steve held up a hand in a gesture of peace.
"It's a good thing, son." he said gently. During the weeks that the Avengers had been based from the SRD's facility, Steve had gradually learned that the best way to work around Hitsugaya's dislike of being compared to a child was to immediately compliment his captaincy afterwards. Thankfully the boy hadn't caught on to the tactic yet.
"You're learning to let your guard down around us. Doesn't mean that you can't be terrifying, though. How do your men put up with you?" Steve continued, smiling again.
Hitsugaya's body relaxed a bit, the hard, lean muscle softening slightly under the black t-shirt and olive green cargo pants, and a smirk curled his lips again. He'd been training with his contingent of shinigami troops yesterday, performing a series of kata, and his pace had been ruthless. Steve had been tired just watching them.
Toushiro batted a loose lock of white hair out of his eyes.
"I pay them." he said smugly. "And train them. And sometimes even save their lives. Eventually they learn to like me, once they get over the initial bout of oh-goddammit-we-got-stuck-with-the-prodigy."
The three Avengers in the room chuckled a bit at the notes of sarcasm present in Hitsugaya's young tenor. Then Tony stood up and went over to the preteen's long white desk, peering at the computer screens thoughtfully. The group was in Toushiro's office, waiting for the two new arrivals to arrive in the private plane that Fury had given them. Clint was out on a mission somewhere, but he'd be back in a day or so, Thor was in Asgard, and Bruce was training with Hirako Shinji almost non-stop. So the four Avengers present were the only ones "off duty" in the SRD's base.
Well, the Division Ten shinigami were living there too, but they were busy doing their paperwork and running off on missions to test the growing numbers of spiritually aware humans in New York.
Suddenly, the rightmost of Toushiro's computers made an odd beeping noise, and without warning an uploading box popped up onscreen, the thin white bar marking the percentage of uploaded material slowly turning blue. Tony raised an eyebrow.
"Where's that coming from?" he asked, a bit confused by the sudden upload. Toushiro said nothing for a long moment, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes. Then he spoke, his voice a little choppy.
"Me." he mumbled. The tattoo on his head began to glow blue, and thin wisps of cerulean light peeled away from the boy's temples and drifted into the computer screen. Natasha and Steve nearly choked at the sight, and Tony just scowled.
"Hey, no fair!" he complained. He understood immediately what the preteen was doing. "I've been trying for ages to make an artificial intelligence capable of relatively human thought, and you just get to upload one into your security system!"
Hitsugaya's lips split in a nasty grin, though he kept his eyes closed.
"I had to write the programming to...give her consciousness a digital support, Tony." he said. His fingers twitched, and he frowned. "It wasn't...easy."
Steve stood up and came over to where the young commander sat in his chair, placing a hand on the preteen's shoulder.
"You okay, kiddo?" he asked. Toushiro grunted. Slowly, the upload bar onscreen filled up to 50%.
"...I'm glitching...a bit." he admitted. "Tony...could you change the parameters? For Tessa-chan's...holographic display?"
Tony nodded and after Toushiro gave a vocal override to the fingerprint sensitive touchscreens, fixed the parameters. Toushiro noticeably relaxed, and the stream of blue curling from his temples brightened in intensity. Without warning, the upload bar jumped up to 100%, and suddenly the blue light dimmed, the Tesseract's power once again going dormant. The young SRD commander sat upright, glancing at the computer screens, then gently tapped in a short code.
"Alright, Tessa, you're online." he said. "Give me a signal."
For a moment, everything was quiet, and then the loudspeakers in the wall crackled to life.
~"Hitsugaya-nii-tama, I'm in the system!"~
Toushiro's face went a bit dark.
"Oi, cut the baby-talk, Tessa. You're a big girl now." he scolded. A giggle came from over the speakers set in the wall. Tony, Steve, and Natasha stared in shock. Toushiro had been living with six of these in his head?
~"Ehhh, you're so dull, Nii-sama."~ Tessa complained. Toushiro sighed.
"Alright, Tessa, that's enough." he said sternly. "I need you to make sure you can remote-access and defend all the computer terminals with access to even a part of the SRD's data files."
~"Easy-peasy, Nii-sama! I'll set up the flex-field around our files and enable virus and malware detection. It's my job to freeze all the unauthorized accesses to our server, yes?"~
Tentatively, Steve interjected, glancing at Toushiro for permission almost before he addressed the Space Stone directly.
"Excuse me, miss, but...are you going to be the SRD's security system?"
The AI was silent for a moment, and then she spoke again, her voice cheerful.
~"Yeah, pretty much! Hitsugaya-nii-sama found a way to upload part of my consciousness onto the SRD's databases. I'll be in charge of letting you human-people-men-women-beings access information. Hitsugaya-nii-sama gave me a series of protocols to follow, but he said that if Matsumoto-fukutaicho-san, Steve-nii-chan, Natasha-nee-chan, Thor-san, Bruce-san, Clint-san, or Tony-baka need to get on in an emergency, then I have to help you immediately. I'm Tessa, by the way. Nice to meet you!"~
Steve and Natasha blinked in surprise, then looked askance at Toushiro, whose cheeks had gone a little bit pink.
"Nee-chan?" Natasha said warmly, smiling despite herself. "I thought I was imouto-chan?"
Hitsugaya's face flushed a bit pinker, and Tessa took the opportunity to speak.
~"Hitsugaya-nii-sama always thinks of Natasha-nee-chan and Steve-nii-chan like that."~ She said in her by-now-trademark cheery way. ~"He told me that they were nice people, and that if they ever got into an argument with Tony-baka, then I was supposed to listen to them because they aren't stupid idiots."~
Steve and Natasha started laughing as Tony spluttered, suddenly realizing that the nickname "Tony-baka" was directed at him, but Hitsugaya's face remained a delicate shade of rose, colored by embarrassment. He'd somewhat forgotten that Tessa was still in constant contact with his mind, and now that she had the means to vocalize her thoughts, she could reveal a great deal of what he felt.
"Tessa-chan...do you mind?" he asked her quietly, their telepathic connection waxing strong. Blue flickered against the thrumming rainbow of color in his mind's eye.
"Hitsugaya-nii-sama, what should I mind?" she asked curiously. "You told me that being honest was always the best thing to do."
Toushiro sighed mentally, gaze flicking to the ground. Despite all the progress that the six had made, they still were a bit fuzzy on the concept of discretion and similar things.
"Others' feelings are private, Tessa." he remonstrated gently. "I prefer to keep my emotions to myself. It's perfectly fine for people to share their emotions, but not everyone likes doing that. I'm one of those people."
Tessa gave a mental shrug.
"It makes the human-people-men-women-persons happy." she said in her naive way. "Their dopamine levels elevate. I don't understand why it matters so much to you, Nii-sama. You make them happy by thinking about them that way."
Toushiro sighed, feeling Hyourinmaru's rumble of agreement in the back on his head. The other Stones listened curiously.
"I know." he replied despondently. "But old habits are hard to break, and I do have a reputation that I need to uphold. Could you please respect what I want, Tessa-chan? I'll talk about myself when I'm ready. It has to be a decision that I make."
"...okay, Nii-sama." Tessa said, the cheer in her voice going down a notch. She understood a little better now, but she still didn't quite get it. Neither did the other Stones. But that was okay with them - they knew that their host was a very complex person, and they knew that understanding him would take a long time.
"Why the hell am I the only 'baka' in that group?" Tony pouted, glaring at Steve and Natasha as they laughed. Toushiro blinked owlishly up at him, jade gaze completely innocent.
"Because you're the only one stupid enough to provoke me, Tony." he said evenly. "I can freeze you, you know. Or hack your bank accounts. It would also be fun to sell your Social Security number...and you can't retaliate, because I'm already dead."
Tony shrugged, a wicked smirk curling his lips.
"Actually, that means I can retaliate in the worst way possible." he countered. "I can die. And then you'll be stuck with me forever."
Toushiro blanched at the thought, eliciting howls of laughter from Natasha and a soft chuckle from Steve.
~"Tony-baka, you can't die yet!"~ Tessa pouted over the intercom. Tony patted one of the nearby computers.
"Don't worry, Tessa-girl." he said pompously, shooting a smug grin at the young shinigami. "It's a last resort sorta thing."
"Thank god." Toushiro muttered under his breath, a little bit dazed by the thought. A mild whiplash of golden power drifted through the room, toying with everyone's hair and lifting a few loose pillows into the air before the boy calmed himself and capped over his telekinetic power. Toushiro frowned at the sight, his lips curling down. Then he strode over to the door and pressed his palm to the scanner.
"Where are you going, son?" Steve asked. Toushiro glanced back over his shoulder.
"Training." he said offhandedly. "You three want to come?"
Natasha and Steve exchanged sidelong looks and nodded simultaneously, but Tony shook his head.
"Nah." he said. "I have to get back to Pepper anyway. She's been pestering me recently about my latest project. It's kinda been lying around the house."
Toushiro's forehead tattoo suddenly glowed blue, and he extended an arm to the billionaire.
"Want me to take you there?" he asked. "It's your place in New York, right?"
Tony's eyes gleamed that dangerous, mad-scientist gleam at the sight of the Space Stone's blue energy swirling about the young man's fingertips, and without hesitation he took the boy's arm. Toushiro shot a grin at Steve and Natasha, wicked pleasure ablaze in his jade glare. Both spy and supersoldier flinched at the sight.
"I'll meet you in the big training room." he said pleasantly, azure energy flickering from his slender frame and beginning to spiral about the SRD commander and the completely hapless man at his side. "If the new recruits come in while I'm out, let them know that I'll return shortly."
Natasha saluted jauntily.
"Will do, Commander." she teased gently. "Safe travels."
Toushiro's grin became noticeably vicious, but just as Tony was about to voice his objections, the Tesseract's space-bending powers activated, and a portal opened around the two for a split second before sucking them in and closing with a brilliant blue flash. Steve and Natasha exchanged long looks, then headed out of Toushiro's office and went down to the main training room. Several shinigami were in there already, including Shinji, though Bruce was noticeably absent.
Shinji came over to them with his horse-like teeth set in a eerie grin, his blond bob of hair hanging loose about his ears. He was wearing a brown cap and pressed brown slacks, a short-sleeve white button-down and red tie completing his schoolboy appearance. Steve nodded politely to him, and Shinji laughed.
"No need to be so polite, Cap'n." he drawled in his usual sarcastic fashion. "We're all friends here, right?"
Natasha sighed.
"Alright, Hirako-taicho, what do you want?" she asked flatly. "You never talk to anyone like this unless you want something."
Shinji pretended to be offended for a moment, but neither Natasha nor Steve bought the act, so he groaned, cracked his neck, and asked.
"Where's the kid-captain?" he asked offhandedly. "Thought I sensed him with you."
Steve paused, thought for a moment.
"He'll be here any second." the supersoldier replied calmly. "...He went to drop off Tony at the Stark Tower."
Just then, blue energy began to spiral out from a single point which hovered a few feet above the tiled floor. Steve smiled.
"There he is now."
With a sharp snap of roiling blue, Toushiro materialized in midair, gasping for breath, his face twisted by laughter. With a choked crackle of mirth, he spilled out onto the ground, his vicious laugh echoing. Natasha leaned forward eagerly.
"What did you do to him? She asked, fascinated. Toushiro couldn't stop cracking up.
"I...I missed the Tower." he choked out. "I accidentally sent him skydiving a foot away from the edge. He screams like a little girl. I caught him of course...but it was funny to watch him fall for a little bit."
Natasha burst into full-bodied laughter and offered her hand to the young commander.
"Oh, Commander Hitsugaya, you're a man after my own heart." she said in her usual mocking way, though the mirth she felt was clearly very genuine. "Next time you scare the shit out of someone, invite me please."
Toushiro accepted the hand with wicked smirk and let the tall woman pull him to his feet, still chuckling helplessly.
"Will do, Agent Romanoff." he said graciously. Hirako cleared his throat.
"Hey, Hitsu-kun." he said in his curiously sly manner, the glint of his eyes narrowing. "Got a question for you."
Toushiro's good mood vanished in a flicker of icy white-blue, his reiatsu leaking strong and cold from the slender muscle packed tightly throughout his body.
"It's Hitsugaya-soutaicho to you, Hirako-taicho." he snapped, watching as the Vizard captain's eyes widened in shock, and huffed irritably.
"Of the SRD, idiot." he said, cutting into the words surely forming on the elder captain's lips. "I have dual rank - here I'm soutaicho, there I'm taicho. Not that difficult a concept to grasp, I'm sure."
Shinji's smile thinned to a sneer, his teeth disappearing behind pale skin.
"Sharp a tongue as ever, ne, Hitsugaya-taicho?" he said sourly, glaring at the young man before him, eyes keen and predatory as ever. His Hollow side had tainted his personality a bit, and Toushiro felt the gossamer prickle of apprehension cool the fire everpresent in his blood. The younger captain's face turned to ice.
"It isn't my tongue that you have to watch, Hirako-taicho." he said softly, his breath misting out in puffs. "It's my teeth - my bite is worse than my bark. But you knew that already...didn't you?"
The Vizard captain gave the young man before him a considering glance, both shinigami ignoring the sudden outbursts of protest that had erupted from Steve and Natasha at the thinly-veiled threat in Toushiro's words. Then the Vizard grinned his eerie grin again, sly eyes watching.
"True, Hitsugaya-taicho." he agreed then, approval flashing somewhere in the poisoned dark of his Hollowed soul. "Now, I think I had a question for ya."
The brief contest of will had faded - the Fifth Division Captain had bowed his head in submission - and both captains understood the sway of power that had just taken place. Hitsugaya's position was politically fearsome now, especially given his entry into Yamamoto's coalition, and Hirako wanted in. It was an understandable allegiance.
"Fire away." Toushiro commented lightly, making a shushing motion at Steve with his hand, his green stare somewhat chiding. He couldn't expect the man to understand the subtleties of Seireitei's den-of-wolves culture yet, but it was his compound, and here he was supreme. Steve went quiet with a confused look at Natasha, sensing perhaps the icy reprimand in his foster brother's reiatsu, and followed after the pint-sized warrior as they walked casually towards the target range which he'd been recently using to hone his aim with his telekinesis.
Shinji sighed.
"Can Hinamori-fukutaicho come here and work with you?" he asked gently, well-aware of the reaction such a question would produce. And the the effect was immediate. Hitsugaya froze up, causing Steve to run into him from behind and stumble back - the collision hadn't moved the boy at all. A faint sheen of frost swirled down the gigai Toushiro wore.
"...why are you asking me this?" Toushiro demanded suddenly, jade glare wide in helpless anger and grief. "You know what happened between us. You know that we destabilize each other."
"I know." Shinji said, his tone somewhat bitter. "And look, I'm well aware how much I'm asking you to sacrifice here...but Soul Society is getting to be too much for her. Everyone talks about Aizen behind her back, and she knows that, and she hates it. You know how much the bastard meant to her, and despite all that he did...she can't help it. You're the only person she has left. She still cries over your almost-death, you know."
Toushiro let out a long breath, fisting one pale little hand in his white hair. Steve and Natasha blinked at the boy, worried by his sudden angst. He seemed almost paralyzed with indecision. A pale gust of cold arctic air flowed from the young captain's svelte frame, and with a soundless yell of anger a familiar blade materialized in his hand and swept up. The Reality Stone's scarlet energy flashed from the sword's keen edge and hit a faraway target on the other side of the room, vaporizing it instantly.
Everything went still, and Toushiro let his Zanpakutou-gigai fade gently from his fingertips.
"Alright." he said finally, shoulders sagging. "She...she can come. I'll ask Matsumoto to show her the ropes."
Shinji nodded, then reached out and clasped the boy's shoulder for a long moment, the grateful, submissive wolf in his gaze almost apologetic in its lack of ferocity.
"Thank you." he murmured. "You have no idea what this will do for her."
Toushiro laughed hollowly. He knew better than most.
"It will tear her apart inside, Hirako-taicho." he warned, his voice taut. "She expects me to feel the same way about Aizen, yet I can't even look her in the face without...without going back to that moment. Every time she tells me that she doesn't blame me for it, it drives the knife a little bit deeper, because I know that she doesn't blame Aizen for it either, but then..."
Steve and Natasha listened with growing confusion as Toushiro spoke, when suddenly, Steve remembered a conversation he'd once had with Matsumoto.
His sister, Hinamori. Oh gods, where do I start with that...has Taicho told you about a man named Aizen?...He quite enjoyed playing mind games with my captain and Hinamori. He turned them against each other a few times, and his trickery ended up destroying the relationship those two had. Nearly killed them both in the process...
Hinamori. No wonder the young man was so upset.
"But then you feel like if it isn't Aizen's fault, it has to be yours." Shinji finished bluntly, startling the two Avengers present. Toushiro quailed in the face of that assertion.
"It was my fault." he said tiredly, irately, the hollow of his voice ringing. Without thinking he sliced a hand through the air, gold trailing his fingertips, and several lumps of smooth, dense metal shot into the air and through another of the targets. "I let myself be overcome."
Shinji shot the young captain a sidelong glance, but said nothing for a long moment. He frowned then.
"You need this just as much as she does." he stated finally. Hitsugaya looked up, confused, and Shinji continued, his voice growing more severe, more stern. "You both need to learn that whatever bond you shared...it's gone. You grew up differently - that much is obvious just by watching you - but neither of you realize it, and you're still stupidly trying to remain in each others' lives when it only hurts you more in the end!"
Toushiro's temper flared.
"Don't talk about us like you know us!" the white-haired boy snapped. Shinji snarled.
"I do know you! I know you just by looking at you!" he spat. "You're a child prodigy with a dark past and a rough life. You've been through hell and back trying to claw your way into the spectrum of mattering and it's made you harsh. It's made you cold. It's made you cruel. Hinamori, on the other hand, doesn't have any of that. She's been treated well. For most of her time in Seireitei she's been a cut above the rest, special in her own way, powerful yet still weak enough to bend to another's will. She's NOT harsh. She's NOT cold. She's NOT cruel. And she doesn't have a clue why you are any of those things. So now, for the first time in her life, she's become nothing to a man that mattered to her, and she can't see why you aren't shocked about it the way she still is! And you, for all your intelligence, can't understand why she can still care about a man that nearly killed the both of you!"
Suddenly the light pouring through the windows darkened from gold to grey, and thunder crackled in the air outside the building Steve and Natasha looked on, frightened despite themselves. Toushiro's teeth were bared, canines looking unnaturally pointed, and without warning a corona of white light - brilliant, shining - surrounded him. He didn't appear to notice.
"Be SILENT!" Toushiro roared, and without warning the world around him seemed to flicker and fade, unsure of itself, ringed in radiant white light. Everyone watched in shock, utterly silent as the Kismet's power raged in anger. And Shinji complied, staring, bewildered and terrified by the thought of all the destruction the boy could now unleash. For Toushiro's white power ran wild now, awake as nothing else had been, uncontrollable and dangerous.
Steve found himself moving without thinking, reaching wordlessly, fearlessly for the shield at his back, the rising tide of Toushiro's power stirring some protective instinct in him. He understood now, what Matsumoto and Thor had meant when they'd discussed attacking the young shinigami earlier. With pure, unadulterated energy like that running amok, the young man could accidentally kill himself with terrifying ease. And so he yelled, his voice strong, and thrust the shield forward, silver-blue wind concussing the air around him, his reiatsu spinning.
"Wind Bullet!" he shouted, unconscious of the words leaving his lips. The front of his shield lit up like a beacon, and a concentrated balloon of wind rocketed forward. It struck the young shinigami head on, throwing him into the nearby wall, the white power of the Stone in his blood unable to coalesce into an adequate defense without the benefit of a controller. Toushiro's white head struck the stone wall hard, a sharp crack echoing in the room, and slid down, crumpling to the tile floor like a puppet with its strings cut. The Kismet's power faded when the boy crashed into unconsciousness, leaving the world safe again from its devastating potential.
And for a moment, everything was so completely silent that one could hear a pin drop. Toushiro lay in a small, slumped pile on the floor, eyes closed, his face slack, a thin trickle of blood dripping down the side of his face from a cut just beneath his hairline. Then, with a loud crash, Steve dropped his shield and ran to the young man's side, gently sliding a hand beneath the boy's shoulders and knees and lifting him in his arms. A soft groan escaped the preteen captain, but he did not wake.
Natasha swallowed hard.
"Steve..." she began, then faltered, well aware how horrified of his own actions the warm-hearted soldier must be. The supersoldier looked up at her.
"I knocked him out. I used my reiryoku to knock him out." he said without preamble, eyes wide in shock. "He's concussed at the most. Miss Rangiku said that the stronger the shinigami, the less likely they are to take damage..."
He knew he was rambling, trying to justify his actions to himself, but when half of the shinigami in the building raced into the training room, accompanied by Thor, Bruce, and Clint, he found himself tongue-tied. He'd attacked Toushiro. The boy who'd literally died (for three minutes) to save them.
Sudden terror overwhelmed him, reiatsu flaring wildly in response. For a split second he could feel the wind of his reiryoku on his face at high speed, cold and sharp, the snow blowing everywhere, and all he could see was Bucky's terrified face as he fell...then he shook himself, blocking out the memory. It wasn't World War Two anymore, and he wasn't on that windswept train, watching his best friend plummet to his death.
Thankfully, nobody seemed to notice his brief bout of panic, and Shinji nodded at the supersoldier, drawing attention away from the shell-shocked man for a moment and drawing it to himself.
"Kismet." he stammered out. The Avengers and Matsumoto froze. "Steve...Steve cracked Hitsugaya's head against the wall...if he hadn't, we'd all be toast."
Matsumoto put a hand to her head, running her fingers through cropped, strawberry-blonde locks. She let out a long breath.
"How is he, Steve-kun?" she asked gesturing at her captain. She seemed to have recovered in the brief stillness. "I felt your reiatsu flare. You used it against him?"
Steve nodded numbly, clutching his young friend and not-blood brother to his chest just a little more securely. He wouldn't let go this time.
"I'm with you to the end of the line." he vowed silently, watching as Toushiro twitched a bit then, sluggishly pulling himself back to the waking world, bleary-eyed. Matsumoto smiled, the expression faint.
"Well done, Steve-kun." She congratulated him, impressed that he'd managed to draw out his reluctant powers. Then her expression changed a bit.
"You were scared he'd do something he'd regret?" she asked quietly. Steve shook his head, swallowed uncomfortably, and hardened his resolve just a little more.
"I didn't want him to hurt himself somehow." he said. Then he glanced at Shinji, his face tightening a bit.
"And you." he said sternly, a slight threat in his tone. The Vizard blinked in surprise at such a direct address and tensed. The whirl of Steve's gusting reiatsu was intimidating, even though he was clearly weaker than the Fifth Division Captain. Steve frowned, watching as the ghost child he carried in his arms blinked fuzzily, trying to focus.
"If you ever upset my brother like that again, I'll be the one you have to deal with." he said flatly, silvery-sky-blue light illuminating his face for a moment. "I don't know why it upset him so much, and frankly, I don't care. You overstepped your bounds talking about his sister like that."
Shinji blinked, then turned to Matsumoto.
"Sister?" he asked. The lieutenant scowled but nodded, understanding now why Toushiro had reacted the way that he did.
"He and Hinamori grew up together." she said, her tone clipped. "He did everything he could to make sure that she stayed safe and happy, even agreeing to stay behind in the Rukongai to take care of their grandmother despite the fact that his reiatsu dwarfed hers even then by a massive margin. Hitsugaya-taicho knows Hinamori-chan better than you ever will."
Without saying anything, the Avengers and the shinigami of the Tenth Division solidified into one mass, one single entity. The Soul Reaper Division. And they stood behind their Commander. Even Bruce stood with them, despite all his experience training with Shinji.
"Alright, fine." the horse-toothed man said petulantly, scowling. For a moment, he and Steve had a staring contest of epic proportion. Toushiro chose that moment to regain full coherence, however, shattering the tension.
"...Steve?" He muttered, rubbing at one of his temples with his free hand. He winced. "My head..."
Steve adjusted his grip on the blinking preteen, turning gently towards the door.
"Yeah, sorry about that, kiddo." he said guiltily. "You lost control of one of the Stones and...I just acted."
Toushiro groaned as light penetrated his skull like a nail through cotton and buried his face in Steve's shirt.
"...S'ok. Glad you stopped me." he mumbled. "...goddamnit, I can't concentrate."
Steve exchanged a long look with Matsumoto and watched with a knowing glint of appreciation in his eye as one of the medically experienced shinigami scurried off towards the on-base infirmary they had. Then he turned to Natasha, gaze steely.
"Tasha, make sure that Mr. Hirako is terrified of your smile before he leaves." he said, his tone leaving no room for argument - not that the spy would argue anyhow. She cared about the boy about as much as the rest of the Avengers did. Which was a lot.
"Of course, Steve." she said, her tone deceptively kind. As Steve walked away, carrying a still-disoriented shinigami captain to the infirmary, she treated the Vizard to a rare, overly-saccharine smile. Hirako paled a bit, then had a thought and sent a fervent prayer to the Soul King for Unohana-taicho and Natasha Romanoff never to meet. If those two became friends...all of Soul Society stood no chance against those smiles.
Dvaoudar stiffened suddenly, mandibles clacking sharply together. He'd sensed it for just a moment, felt just the barest hint of that familiar white power. It drifted through his otherwise-useless nose, a sweet, pure scent unlike any other that flared in the universe.
For a moment he tried to follow it with a telepathic finger, but the signal was lost and jumbled in a chaotic mess, only pointing in a general direction rather than trailing to a specific planet in a specific galaxy. A sneer curled his lips nonetheless. The ones he'd been cultivating, slowly and surely, lay hidden in that quadrant. What a stroke of luck.
"Thanos..." he hissed into his subordinate's mind, twisted delight filling him. "We will set out for the Eighty-First Sector immediately. I can taste the Kismet!"
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~avtorSola
P.S. The next chapter is going to be a little angsty, and a little fluffy. You have been warned. ;)