Filler chap.

Ichigo had to ditch her body once she was absolutely certain that Loki was either too occupied to notice any changes in her, or the slight fluctuation in her power as she used it. Once that was done, she left the compound to go take care of the guy that died earlier that day in the shooting.

He was still at the scene of the incident when she arrived, just...hanging out and watching the people passing by him with sad eyes. She wondered if he'd been trying to communicate with anyone up until now or if he'd just stood there in shock all day?

"You look like a puppy that's just been kicked a few too many times. I'm guessing that you just figured out that your gone." She said as she walked over to him. The sound of her voice causing his head to snap up and around so that he was looking at her.

"Y-You can see me? Hear me?" He asked in a trembling tone. "H-How?"

Ichigo didn't reply right away. She felt it was more necessary to let a random stranger walk through her spirit form right then- to clue him in as to why she could see and hear him. The look on his face when the person went through her was priceless.

She doubted that she'd even seen anyone look quite so...comically startled before. And under different circumstances, she might have laughed. But this was a somber occasion and humor was the furthest thing from her mind at the moment as she scanned the surrounding darkness for Hollows.

They were lucky that none had showed up just yet. But that luck wouldn't hold out forever. One was going to show up sooner or later. And she needed to make sure that the guy was gone before then.

"Are you...dead too?" The guy asked her hesitantly, looking as if he just might cry if she was.

"No. I'm not dead." She said gently as she moved just a tad bit closer to him and reached up to draw her zanpaktou. "I'm...well, I suppose that the closest explanation that I can give you is at present I'm having a little bit of a near death experience. I'll wake up later, just fine."

"I'm so glad." The guy said in a relieved tone before then rambling a little bit. "I saw you here earlier today. You checked on me even after I was gone and even covered me with something. Thank you, for that."

"I'm just sorry that I couldn't help you." Ichigo said quietly as the guy shook his head.

"Don't think like that. You had enough on your plate already with helping the others. You did a great job, by the way. I was rooting for you the whole time! I was really worried when I found out that you'd been shot too!"

Ichigo smiled a little at his words, and quickly pressed the end of her sword hilt against his head and watched the glowing gold symbol appear on the startled man's forehead. "Thank you for saying such kind words. I'm going to help you go on now." She said as he slowly disappeared from her sight until all that was left was a Hell's Butterfly, fluttering in front of her.

"Be safe on your trip." She said as she waved the butterfly off and then just stood there watching it until it was completely gone. Sighing softly, she then turned and started to move back towards home.

Loki had no idea what the hell had happened.

All he knew was that he'd drifted off to sleep at some point only to be awakened a little bit later by Bruce, Thor, and the others showing up- startling him awake- and demanding to know what was wrong. But since he didn't know what was going on, he was about to send them away out of worry that they might wake the girl up when Friday chimed in and stopped him.

Apparently Friday had noticed something was wrong with Ichigo and had alerted everyone of that fact. Which is why he was currently standing in the doorway watching Bruce try to resuscitate her since she didn't appear to be breathing at all.

"Come on, come on," Bruce gritted out as he pressed down on her chest several times and then pinched her nose between his fingers and covered her mouth with his own and breathed into her. "Don't die on us. It'll kill Tony." The man growled as he did this a few more times before then checking for a pulse.

The snarl that left him nearly sent Happy into a dead faint as Pepper announced, "The ambulance is on it's way! How is she doing?"

"She still isn't responding to CPR. Thor! Get over here and give her a small shock!"

"Aye." Thor said as he moved over to where Bruce was as the man arranged the girl's body just so and shooed the cats away so that they wouldn't get shocked as well. Thor was about to reach out and shock Ichigo when Loki happened to look over to the corner of the room, feeling as if he were going to be ill any second now when he noticed her standing there taking in the scene with a disgruntled look on her pretty face.

He had to do a double take because he wasn't totally sure of what he was seeing. But from the feeling of the power rolling off of her- he'd say that he was looking at a very powerful non-human entity.

He opened his mouth to say something as she finally noticed him and lifted a hand to give him a small, awkward finger wave as Thor shocked her for the first time. Loki cringed a little bit at the power of the shock that Thor had used on her. And had to move quickly to intervene before he could manage to shock her again.

"Stop!" He shouted as he practically lunged across the bed and grabbed his brother's wrist in his hand, startling everyone while Ichigo used the small opening to slip back into her body and blot upright with a blood curdling scream.