Bridge ficbit – the oddest job

~ crossovercreativechaos

And when, precisely, did sit down become sit on me? Loki thought wryly, using Isshin’s arm to slump back into bed with small, warm bodies all around him.

“A long time ago, before I ever met your mother, I used to see monsters,” Isshin started. “And I knew… people who dealt with them.”

“You knew superheroes?” Karin blurted, eyes wide.

“Nah. Just guys with a really, really weird job,” Isshin replied. “Nothing like the guys in costumes you see on TV. These guys… well, they don’t like to be seen. Ever. But they do a good job, and they take care of the monsters. Most of the time.” He sighed, looking serious. “But once in a while – once in a long, long while – one of them goes bad.”

Truth. Loki tried not to hold his breath.

“Like the cops that work for the yakuza?” Ichigo said solemnly.

“Kind of, yeah.” Isshin shook his head. “Well. There is a bad guy, and… I kind of caught him at it. And then things got really, really messy.”

Not the first guy to go splat in Karakura, Loki thought. He was telling the truth.

“So for a long time, I couldn’t see the monsters anymore,” Isshin finished. “That only came back… well, pretty much today.” He grinned at the kids. “Don’t worry. No more monsters today.”

If you have to reach through that phone and drag Kisuke here by the scruff of the neck to handle them, Loki thought. That will do for today. What about tomorrow?

…Damn. He was thinking about tomorrow, and a boy the Hollows wanted to eat, and eyes that didn’t see him as a monster.

I’ll stay until I can outrun Kisuke. It’s only sensible.

Surely a few days would be enough to teach Ichigo how to tell the living from the dead. Beyond that, the boy should be able to look after himself.

Just a few days. Then….

He didn’t know.

29 thoughts on “Bridge ficbit – the oddest job”

    1. Isshin has two advantages over Odin here. (Besides not being a controlling Manipulative Bastard.) 1) He might have been born into a clan, but most families in Soul Society are all adopted. So the issues are familiar. 2) He has access to plenty of human psych books on “how to handle adoption/finding out you are adopted”. Which includes the fact that getting angry is normal.

      Seriously, the attempted genocide is definitely out of line. But being mad enough you want to maim something? Perfectly normal response. Add to that he’d been told Jotunns were monsters all his life… Whoof. Boom.

      Isshin plans to leave books on adoption around the clinic, BTW. If Loki decides to pick them up and browse through them…. 😉

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      1. Re: genocide out of line. On a personal level I agree with you. But Odin is not known for his self restraint, and there is a clearly defined idea of ‘see monster, smash monster. Upset? FIND monster, so can see monster, so can smash monster,’ in the Norse myths I’m familiar with. So, the Jotun genocide was, I feel, a case of Unintended Consequences smacking someone in the face.

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    2. >You’ve been adopted Loki, you just don’t know it yet (and this time should be better if not crazier).>
      Remember that Yuzu’s magic ‘affinity’ is supposed to be of household and hearth. And that Loki now has her magic in his system.

      And considering that untrained magics (which Yuzu’s definitely are) would be greatly effected by her subconscious and emotions, I suspect there are going to be some lasting effects.

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      1. Mostly along the lines of “you stay here until you get better!” Yuzu might have been thinking of purely physical “better”, there, but my bunnies say Loki needs serious time with people who don’t want to manipulate him to get mentally better.

        …Well, who don’t want to manipulate him past stopping for another scoop of ice cream, maybe… 😉

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  2. Just a few days, sure, whatever you say . . . . .

    Later
    Loki: “How did I wind up staying here for years?”
    Isshin: “Well, you were helping me with Ichigo . . . Karin thought you were really awesome and cool when you go blue and super cold . . . . and Yuzu look at you with big sad eyes every time you said you were leaving . . .”
    *Yuzu comes in and only heard the tail end of that statement*
    Yuzu: “Loki-nii-san, you’re leaving us?”
    *aforementioned big sad eyes*
    Loki: “No! No, Loki-nii-san is staying right here. No need to cry.”

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  3. . . . People on the news? I’m getting confused about timelines now and have been for a little bit honestly.

    When you mentioned falling off/breaking the Bifrost having temporal side-effects I had honestly assumed that in addition to now being Jotun equivalent to 17 Loki had also been sent back in time. That way by the time he got involved in the Avengers shenanigans enough years would have passed for Ichigo to become the hell raiser we all remember from canon start and maybe even enough time to deal with the altered Rescue Rukia arc – I’ll admit, I also assumed he’d be getting involved around the time of the first Avengers and no later than shortly after Civil War.

    In the standard MCU timeline the earliest person in costume running around on the news (ignoring Captain America documentaries) I know of is either Tony or Bruce depending on how you want to count it, and unless you’re counting from the first (slightly disastrous) Hulk movie it’s only four years from Iron Man to Avengers. I thought I remembered Ichigo being 8 or 9 when his mom died, which you’ve made clear is very recent here. So I guessed you’d need something closer to six, maybe even seven years before Loki really gets involved in MCU events again. In which case (assuming for immediate post-Soul Society and Avengers matching up) wouldn’t people in costume not start showing up until two or more years from now (as of this bit)?

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    1. Marvel Timelines! *Invokes plagues upon them all.*

      Okay, I should put up a note that this fic invokes not just the Cinematic Universe, but the X-Men movies, and several things from various comics. Because there’s no way I’m not having Dr. Strange in this ‘verse. Not to mention other magical shenanigans.

      So, short version: You’re correct, Loki’s been sent back in time before either Iron Man or Hulk has shown up. However. The X-Men, Magneto, Baron Mordo, and other costumed crazies have indeed been spotted around. The Fantastic Four will be in NYC. (To Tony’s great dismay.) Dr. Strange has been quietly active in NYC for decades; he probably misses Thanatos due to extradimensional problems elsewhere at the time… or he was making sure the breach didn’t get worse.

      After all, there are reasons SHIELD exists!

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      1. Ah-hah. You had me confused. To be fair to MCU Strange will show up eventually (though from what I hear the whitewashing is pretty horrific, but this is the same ‘Verse that fridges Janet Van Dyne. The character in the comics who *named the Avengers*), he’s just not active yet.

        Combining it with X-men and Fantastic Four does explain pretty much everything (No Thing can explain X-men Origins: Wolverine or Fant4stic).

        And as for Strange not dealing with Thanos: eh. In the comics Thanos is always treated as more of a sci-fi/galactic threat and usually falls under the Fantastic Four or the Avengers’ purview when he comes to Earth. Strange is usually busy with Dormammu, Shuma-gorath, or occasionally Mephisto.

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      2. If they whitewash Strange’s backstory, I will be very upset. I’ve read and seen a couple versions – the animated movie a few years back was pretty cool, and it quite bluntly got at how arrogant the ex-doctor used to be. (And in some ways, still is.)

        I’m not even going to try explaining Fant4stic. I’m going to do my best to pretend it doesn’t exist, except for mocking. (As Alan does in Around, I admit.)

        Eh, maybe Strange was busy going after Lillith when Thanos crashed the party.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightstalkers_(comics)

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      3. Story as I heard is as follows:

        Apparently if a film has any references to Tibet as an independent country then it gets categorically banned from release on the Chinese market. Since that’s a huge market for films Marvel decided to cast a white woman as the Ancient One and replace all the eastern symbolism and imagery with a more Celtic bent.

        Fun link, heard of the Nightstalkers before but never read them. Most of my exposure to Blade was from the ’90s Spider-Man cartoon. And DOA makes me chuckle since I made up a reoccurring SHIELD division to handle paranormal events in the Marvel Comics tabletop I run with my buddies. Supernatural Protection Enforcement And Research.

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      6. *Snrk* Ooo, zing.

        But let’s be generous fanwriters, and give the poor organization the benefit of the doubt and say at least half of them were doing their jobs. After all, Coulson. (The God of Badass Secret Agents. There’s a fic on that on AO3, too….)

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      1. Angry Blue Alien Falls From Space and Needs Slightly Broken Adopted Family to Overcome Anger Issues and Instill Self-Worth… wait… (We’ll leave Stitch!Loki reading the Ugly Duckling to the imagination because there is such thing as too many feels.)

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  5. *snrk*
    (The Twins force him to watch Lilo and Stitch at some point. From there, I’m torn between the headcanon is that “Ohana,” becomes a sort of family in-joke of Belonging, and the headcanon that Loki… doesn’t like the movie much- it hits far too close to home and the result is that it’s Never Spoken of Again.)

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  6. I miss the Nightstalkers. *sighs* (Of course, my favorite character was Blade, but second was definitely Hannibal, poor Frank Drake never gets any love.)

    And a proper Lilith, mother of demons is a rather terrifying enemy. *shakes head* On Lilo and Stitch…depends when he sees it, I would think. I have to admit, I love the movie, but I never rewatch it because tears. And dealing with adoption, from what happened in my family, it’s definitely messy. I can’t really blame Frigga for seeing Loki as her son, first and foremost, and not wanting to bring up anything to make Odin look bad. And there’s certainly a lot of undercurrent in the movie that while Thor was the favored son, Loki was definitely Frigga’s favored son. Messy.

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    1. I met Hannibal by picking up some of the original Tomb of Dracula issues, so he’s always been my favorite. (Check out the Wikipedia entry on him – he gets an awesome intro!)

      And yes. Lilith is meep of the strength that I’d believe Strange would say, “Let the Avengers handle Thanos, I’m busy.”

      Yeah. Loki’s whole situation in the MCU sucks. Which makes more sense if you bring in a bit of myth canon that Frigga may have been a war bride. Ow.

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      1. ToD 25 might be the best issue of the series, yes. Though I always have a soft spot for the first half of Janus’s storyline. And it is an awesome issue even reading it after you know more about the character, that takes skill.

        I also have to admit, I really, really want the MCU to do a Borderline Investigations series on Netflix. I would forgive all the sins(Especially if they do a more ToD sane Blade instead of the driven insane one)

        On Frigga…yeah, Norse mythology avoids the whole marrying your sister thing by horrid other things going on.

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  7. >> *Snrk* Ooo, zing.
    But let’s be generous fanwriters, and give the poor organization the benefit of the doubt and say at least half of them were doing their jobs. After all, Coulson. (The God of Badass Secret Agents. There’s a fic on that on AO3, too….)

    Y’know it’s actually funny, the Russo brothers had originally intended for Coulson to be the HYDRA plant in Winter Soldier instead of Sitwell. They just changed things around when he got knifed by Loki and wound up ‘dead’ in Avengers.

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      1. I think that was supposed to be the point? The HYDRA infiltration was the unexpected plot twist of Winter Soldier, and having the first plant they grab be someone who’s been loyal to the organization’s stated goals and trustworthy until now just drives home how undetectable said infiltration was.

        Well, that and Coulson was the only named SHIELD agent unique to MCU films. All the other named agents were loyal in the comics.

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