A/N: So, this is a pacifier while I'm struggling to finish the latest chapters of The Power of Seven. I'm hitting some severe roadblocks... :(
Anyhow, enjoy! This is equal parts fluffy and sad.
"Foreign Language."
So far the mission had gone well. The target was a Hyrda holdout somewhere deep in the frozen Siberian tundra, probably used for human experimentation, if the laboratory Steve and Natasha had found meant anything all. Natasha was still a little repulsed by it, and though she wasn't saying anything, Steve knew she was thinking of her experiences in the Red Room.
Walking side-by-side, the pair came upon a long stone passageway spattered with fresh scarlet blood. Several corpses lay collapsed on the floor, varying expressions of incredulity and fear on their stone-cold faces. Natasha peered over the tall soldier's shoulder, her gaze calculating.
"Looks like the kid's handiwork." she said, her tone appreciative. "He's a still a little messy."
Steve groaned upon seeing the hapless Hydra soldiers' slashed throats and spines, the gory holes through their heads narrow and slanted - blade wounds. All who had the misfortune of standing in Toushiro's path met bloody deaths, that much he knew from past experience working with the boy. However, as Natasha had assured him time and time again, each deathblow that the young man dealt was one which effected instantaneous death. Even though his methods exercised brutality worthy of a serial killer, the end result was akin to a mercy killing.
"I still wish he wouldn't kill." Steve said ruefully, stepping over the corpses and taking off towards the cold burn of his little brother's reiatsu. Natasha shrugged casually, following effortlessly.
"Steve." she warned gently. "He's as merciful as a warrior could be, and you know he won't ever stop wanting to fight. It's as much a part of him as it is a part of you and me."
Steve reached out for the Russian woman's hand, brushing his thumb wordlessly over her gloved knuckles, looking downcast. She softened a bit, squeezing his fingers gently. She knew what was bothering the warm-hearted soldier.
"Hey." she said softly. "You're doing your best. There's only so much you can do for him, and Toushiro knows that there's a limit. But he appreciates that you're trying to give him a parental figure - you know that."
Steve glanced down at the shorter woman, smiling wanly.
"I know...I just wish the poor kid could've had a real childhood, that's all."
Natasha's face closed off a bit, but Steve was quick to catch the negative memories as they whispered in his girlfriend's ears, and he kissed the lithe spy on the cheek, his nose and cheeks a bit pink. She went as red as her hair, her train of thought breaking off instantly. The supersoldier's face was understanding.
"At least he has a badass older sister to help him out, though." he teased, digging an elbow into the woman's ribs, stepping gingerly over another of Toushiro's kills. Natasha rolled her eyes.
"And a clueless pushover of an older brother who's perfectly willing to bend over backwards for his every tiny whim." she said dryly, causing Steve to laugh in protest. Both knew that the statement was true, however. Toushiro - though he wasn't aware of it - had the WWII veteran wrapped around his little finger. The entirety of the Avengers knew about it, even Tony. Though that had been unfortunate. But in return, Steve (and Natasha, to some extent) was the only person that Toushiro dropped his guard around.
As the pair turned a corner, they were greeted with the last of the series of bodies, and Toushiro's cool reiatsu flickered steadily in the room beyond. Suddenly, the Russian woman noticed something and bent down to examine the latest body on the floor, glancing from the wound in his eye socket to the streak of red on the wall. She blinked.
"That blood doesn't belong to this man. The angle of spray is too sharp." she said, gesturing at the streak of crimson, concern on her face. Then she glanced at the wall behind them, where any bullets would have impacted. Carefully, she moved closer, examining the three large bullet marks in the concrete. One of the three holes had flecks of red splattered around it. Natasha noticed with a flicker of apprehension how large the bullets were.
"Toushiro was hit. On the one day that he wasn't wearing his body armor. Of course." she said grimly, her composure breaking slightly, eyes widening. Steve froze, and the pair exchanged a long look, then as one bolted for the solid steel door at the end of the hall.
As they burst into the room, the dim light dulled their vision for a moment, and thus they didn't notice how Toushiro was crouched in front of a large cage in the far corner of the dimly lit room, his haori flared about his small waraji-clad feet. Steve looked around frantically.
"Toushiro?" he called, his voice nervous, blinking as his eyes adjusted. A sudden, terrified cry split the air, and both Natasha and Steve recoiled, spinning to face the far corner of the room where the young shinigami was, his face saddened but still kind. He glanced up at them, then sighed and stood, his hand extended to sit gently on the shoulder of a frightened little girl, no more than four years old. A chain dangled from her white-clad chest, and a small, slumped figure could be seen still in the cage, the dull brown eyes wide in a paroxysm of horror.
"Hello, Steve." he said, his tone unusually gentle, then he returned his attention to the little girl and spoke gently to her in slightly accented Russian. "Olga-chan, this is my big brother, Steve. He's not going to hurt you, okay?"
As Natasha translated, the tiny little girl nodded, trying to turn back to look at the cage, but Toushiro caught her head with one hand and prevented her seeing the body by covering her eyes. Slowly, he turned her to face the two in front of him.
"Don't look back, Olga-chan." he said gently. "You're safe now, alright?"
Olga looked up at the taller boy, her brown eyes wide, and she nodded. Then she threw her arms around him and squeezed tightly.
"Старый брат..." she whispered, burying her face in Hitsugaya's haori. His jade eyes suddenly filled with tears, startling both Steve and Natasha, but he kept himself together and choked out a smile, patting her gently on the back.
"Olga-chan, I'm going to help you pass over, okay?" he said, drawing Hyourinmaru from the icy sheath with a soft rasp. Olga flinched at the sound, but when she saw that the sharp edge of the sword was pointed away from her, she relaxed.
"Pass over where?" she asked, her Russian garbled by confusion and a tiny, adorable lisp. Toushiro reached out, ruffled her dirty brown hair.
"You're going to a place called Soul Society." he told her gently. "Most people there are very nice, and few people get hungry."
Olga blinked, then smiled widely.
"No more grumblies in my tummy?" she asked, bouncing up and down. Toushiro shook his head.
"Not unless you can do magic." he replied, simplifying the Shinigami arts to one word for her sake and smiling at her antics. "Now, hold still for me, okay?"
Olga went still obediently, and Toushiro tapped her forehead with the hilt of his Zanpakutou. A glowing seal appeared between her eyes, a pool of white light spreading from the ground underneath her feet, and she fell backwards into it, her face peaceful.
"До свидания, молодая сестра." the shinigami said quietly, watching solemnly as the light faded and a tinkling black Hell Butterfly with a dash of magenta on the delicate wings fluttered from the shrinking spot of white light on the floor. He held out his hand to the butterfly, which oddly enough flittered over to him and landed on his fingertip for a brief moment before flying unsteadily out the window and vanishing into the cold Siberian night. Slowly, Toushiro cupped a palm to his face and breathed deeply, a single teardrop of glimmering crystal trickling down the side of his face, but he was smiling.
It took a moment for him to regain his composure, but when he did he was completely unruffled, his serious expression back on his face. Steve took a step forward, the beauty of the scene he'd just witnessed touching him somehow, despite the fact that he was mystified by it.
"...Where did she go?" Steve asked gently. Toushiro turned to him, eyes now dry, and shrugged.
"Soul Society." he said simply. "I performed Konso - a Soul Burial, you'd probably translate it as."
Natasha came up and wrapped an arm about the young shinigami's waist.
"Why?" she asked. Toushiro sighed and pointed at the large cage, causing both adults to turn and look. The bloody corpse of a little, four-year-old girl lay there, a bullet hole through the center of her forehead. It was Olga's corpse. On the other side of the cage lay the mutilated body of a scientist in a white lab coat with a gun in his hand. His chest had been slashed open, a cruel blow, and it was clear he'd died in agony after killing the tiny girl. Toushiro glanced at the dead man and looked away, hatred flaring in his eyes for a moment. It was obvious he'd purposefully left the scientist to bleed out.
The pair of SHIELD Agents suddenly felt sick.
"I sent her soul on." Toushiro explained quietly, his tone a bit bitter. "She wasn't attached to this place, but there was a lot of fear in her, a lot of sadness. Souls who die so young can rarely move on - they have to much regret to go. I was that way, once, but Matsumoto performed Konso on me and sent me on the same way."
Steve left his brother carefully in Natasha's grasp and went over to the tiny girl's corpse. It was fairly clear that she had been one of the experiments - she had scales climbing up one side of her neck. Suddeny, Toushiro's fit of cruelty towards the dead Hydra scientist seemed less repulsive. Gently, Steve lifted the frail body in his arms, then turned to look at the young shinigami with compassion in his gaze.
"...It's hard for you to do that to such young people, isn't it?" he asked. Toushiro nodded once, then smiled and looked out the window at the cloudless cold sky.
"Always." he replied. "But then I remember how Soul Society is, how it works. A little girl like her will be given a good home. Her spirit will be just fine, until it's time for her to be reborn here."
Steve nodded thoughtfully, a sort of solemn understanding in his bright blue gaze.
"What about the man?" he asked carefully, watching as Toushiro's face darkened.
"I gave him a one way ticket straight to Hell." he growled out, his fingers twitching toward his now-sheathed Zanpakutou. "The second his soul appeared, the Gates of Hell opened for him. He'll suffer for eternity there."
Steve blinked in shock, but Toushiro was already anticipating the question. He knew the older man well enough by this point to realize what the man would ask.
"And before you ask," he sighed, "No, I did not summon the Gates myself. They appear automatically when someone has committed grave crimes in their mortal life and not repented sufficiently - though how that's determined, I do not entirely know."
The supersoldier looked like he wanted to say something, but then he looked down at the tiny body in his arms, and his face tightened. He said nothing. Suddenly Natasha tightened her hold on Toushiro's middle, and the boy groaned in pain, doubling over. She glanced up at Steve, watching as his attention flashed to his younger brother, distracting him from his earlier thoughts, then returned her attention to the young man beside her.
"Where did the bullet hit you, kid?" she asked, her tone stern. Hitsugaya glanced away and gingerly straightened himself back up.
"I'm fine."
"You whimpered , Toushiro-kun."
"Shut up."
"Look, you and I both understand that I will tie you up and examine you myself if you don't tell me what I want."
Toushiro's glare was murderous, a frosted glower curling into a frown, and he just scowled, trying to pull away from the spy. But Natasha quickly swept his legs out from under him and pinned him to the concrete below him, causing him to yelp as she fell on his stomach. Natasha's face went taut with concern, but she made no move to get up.
"Toushiro-kun, can I please take a look?" she asked cautiously, reaching for the collar of Hitsugaya's shihakusho. The black fabric was ripped at one point, a warm, sticky fluid staining the edges of the tear, and Hitsugaya glanced down at it, wincing, then nodded. Natasha took the permission gracefully, sliding her thumbs under the black silk kosode and the white shitagi and gently pulling it from where it was tucked into his hakama to expose the wound. Natasha hissed when she saw the deep gash just beneath the boy's ribcage, and Hitsugaya winced a bit as the fresh air hit the slashed flesh and stung. While not particularly long, it was very clear that the bullet had bit deep.
"That's a nasty graze." Steve observed, a touch of worry in his blue eyes. Toushiro rolled his eyes.
"I've had worse." he defended himself, scowling a bit.
"It's bleeding quite a bit, son."
"Seriously, Onii-san, I'm fine."
"Natasha, would you radio the medical squad and tell them that Toushiro will need some stitches?"
"Of course I can; toss me your radio, would you?"
"Here you go."
"You two insufferable-"
"Oh, hush, Toushiro-kun. Steve and I have every right to be worried about you."
"I've had my entire left side cut off before, and you're worried about a scratch?"
"Toushiro, would you please quit trying to break the radio in Natasha's hand? We need that."
The three were still arguing when the three arrived back in the main room of the Hydra base, where several captured Hydra soldiers were kneeling on the floor, their hands in handcuffs. SHIELD agents watched over them, guns held in nonthreatening, though still ready, positions. A few SHIELD agents who were wounded were being treated in one of the room's corners, and the dead were being laid upon tarps on the other side of the room. Steve left to go put Olga's body down there then returned to help wrangle the belligerent young man over to the doctors, among which Bruce had been stationed.
"Toushiro, for the love of all that is holy, would you please let Bruce take a look at your side?" Steve finally snapped, causing the young shinigami to stop short. "Your pride isn't going to shatter just because you're taking care of yourself!"
Hitsugaya's lips pressed into a thin line, unhappy with the statement, and Natasha stepped in, her voice cool.
"He doesn't like seeing you hurt, Toushiro." she said evenly. "Neither do I. And frankly, you don't really have a choice in the matter. Steve is the Avenger's head-honcho on the field, and your older brother. You can't really disobey him."
Toushiro glowered unhappily, and Steve sighed.
"Come on, son. It would make us feel better."
The green eyes rolled sarcastically in the large eye sockets, but finally the young shinigami conceded defeat and allowed the pair to lead him over to where Bruce was busy wrapping a soldier's bloodied forearm with bandages. He blinked as the three approached, then tied the knot of gauze and sent the man on his way so as to turn his full attention onto his three friends.
"Which of you three is it this time?" he asked dryly. "No, wait. I already know, considering that Toushiro is scowling like a thunderstorm and the two of you look tired."
Hitsugaya's cheeks went a bit pink as Bruce gestured for him to sit on the nearest of the portable examination tables that SHIELD always carted around on their missions. He looked at the table distastefully, but then he felt Steve's hand brush anxiously against his upper back, the gentle, concerned flicker of reiatsu stirring the supersoldier's windy power. A heavy sigh escaped the boy, and so without a word he pulled Hyourinmaru's sheathed length over his head and passed the blade to Steve. Then he shrugged his haori off and untucked his kosode and shitagi from his hakama and pulled those garments from his shoulders as well. Only then did he gingerly move to do as Bruce had bid, hopping up onto the white surface with only a flicker of discomfort.
Bruce examined the bloody furrow thoughtfully, then reached into a nearby bag and pulled out a sealed roll of sterile cloths. He extracted one of the fluffy layers of padding from the roll and passed it to Toushiro with a faint smile.
"Here, press this to that gash to stem the bleeding. It's not life threatening." he said, his attempt at humor causing a rare smirk to flare across Hitsugaya's face. "But I'm going to disinfect, stitch and bandage it, just to be sure. And...it's a bullet wound, yes?"
Toushiro shot a triumphant glance at his older brother, but quickly returned his attention to Bruce's question and nodded.
"Yeah, one of the bastards caught me a bit off guard." he admitted, his tone a bit more cheerful now that Steve - though thoroughly amused by the younger boy's cocky behavior - was muttering sarcastic phrases under his breath. Bruce took the new information in stride.
"I thought so." he said contemplatively. "Tell me; have you ever had a tetanus shot?"
Toushiro blinked in incomprehension, and Bruce sighed, turning to consult his computer and quickly bringing up Toushiro's medical file - which kindly enough was on loan from Unohana. He confirmed what he needed to know with a cursory glance, then swung his hands to his medical kit.
"It doesn't look like your people have tetanus vaccinations, but these Hydra weapons are rusty as hell, so I'm going to go ahead and give you one after I stitch your side up. Is that alright?"
Hitsugaya shrugged, glancing helplessly at Steve. Natasha and Steve smiled at the sudden turnabout - one second, the boy would be pushing them off with all his usual irritability, and the next he'd be begging for some sort of aid or knowledge. It was mildly hilarious, and completely adorable.
"Lockjaw preventative, kiddo." Steve explained casually, smiling. "Most people in affluent enough countries have them these days. I'd go ahead and get one. I doubt your doctor would be angry with you."
Toushiro considered, but after a split second he followed his older brother's advice and gave Bruce his consent. The calm scientist bobbed his head in approval, then set to work cleaning and stitching Toushiro's side back together. The young shinigami gritted his teeth together when the needle pierced his side for the first time, focusing on breathing, and fairly soon Bruce was wrapping medical tape over a layer of sterile padding on top of the boy's stitched wound.
The tetanus shot provoked a flinch of trepidation, but it quickly passed, and without any further comment, Toushiro slid off the examination table, wincing a bit as he put his clothes back on and tied Hyourinmaru to his back again. Bruce had warned him that the tetanus shot would make his shoulder ache, and he wasn't lying. Then Bruce turned to Natasha and Steve, his face expectant.
"Alright, which one of you two was shot this time? You never hover like this unless it's one of you." he asked blandly, causing the pair to exchange long, amused looks.
"Neither of us." they chorused in unison. "Just Toushiro."
Bruce didn't stare, to his credit, but his lips did quirk.
"Ah, I see." he said. "Demonstrating parental concern this time, instead of the usual smitten worry."
Natasha stamped her foot, her red hair bouncing, her eyes steely, and beside her, the American soldier's face had hardened, a faint red blush tingeing his cheeks. The atmosphere suddenly seemed very cold.
"I would suggest you rethink that statement." she said ominously. "Steve and I are not smitten."
Bruce laughed her off, well aware he was inviting disaster but the couple's reaction was too perfect to ignore. But then the rasp of a blade being drawn filled the air, and the temperature dropped again. The scientist paled a bit, turning slowly to face an eerily blank-faced Hitsugaya. Hyorinmaru's point lingered at Bruce's throat.
"The last time I checked," Toushiro murmured calmly, "You rather enjoyed having a head, Bruce."
The sometimes-green-rage-monster felt the Hulk's anger quail in the face of that serene threat, and he felt his heart rate speed up.
"Uh...uh..." he flailed for an answer for several moments, but luck was on his side. Toushiro sheathed his sword.
"I am not a child," he said deliberately, "You will remember that."
Bruce just nodded and watched the boy walk away towards the corpses of the dead, searching for aimlessly wandering souls, then turned to Natasha with a wicked grin, winking at Steve.
"Oh, that was you all over, Natasha." he said, watching as the recognition passed across the pair's faces. Steve laughed, glancing at his girlfriend with a knowing look in his too-blue eyes, and the Black Widow rolled her eyes.
"So his badass-ness comes from me, and his clueless, adorable social-ineptitude comes from Steve." she deadpanned. Then she smirked. "That sounds about right."
"Well, that was harsh."
"...Oh, shut up, Bruce."
A/N: Translations!
Старый брат - Staruiy braht - Big brother
До свидания, молодая сестра - Do svidaniya, maladaya sestra - Goodbye, little sister
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