Random Bleach Time Travel Inccorect Quotes From An AU I Will Probably Never Write (Ichigo Becomes Soul

Have a Bleach extended-winter-war time-travel-fix-it idea. In this AU Kaien's death happened before the whole turn-back-the-pendulum arc. (Yes, another Bleach time-travel AU, I know, shut up.)

As Ichigo and Kisuke are planning to go back to the past, Kisuke makes sure to emphasize to Ichigo that they have to protect Shiba Kaien. Apparently, it's of the utmost importance.

Ichigo doesn't know exactly how Kaien's continued well-being plays into saving the future. Kisuke never really explains it, or gives him a straight answer when he asks. But Ichigo knows that the Shiba Clan-Head carried a great deal of political power, and Ichigo also knows that Kaien -- according to Kukaku and Rukia -- was highly competent, incredibly noble, and fundamentally kind. It's not exactly unintuitive that a person like that could be important to bringing down Aizen.

So Ichigo listens, when Kisuke tells him to protect Shiba Kaien. He memorizes how Kaien died in the original timeline. He's attentive as Kisuke reiterates for the thousandth time that Aizen will keep trying to assassinate Kaien until he succeeds. He takes notes when Kisuke hypothesizes about what Aizen's various assassination attempts might look like -- poison during a meal, hired assassins at night, an ambush during a mission.

Ichigo ingrains the assignment into his core: protect Shiba Kaien, because if Kaien falls, the mission fails.

So when Kisuke slips a paralytic into Ichigo's tea and places Ichigo in the middle of the time-travel kido array and drains the entirety of his own spiritual energy to activate the array, a sacrifice that Ichigo never would have agreed to--

Well. The first thing Ichigo does when he arrives back in the past, numb and alone and only able to function by focusing on the duty that is his purpose -- is track down Shiba Kaien.

After all, if Ichigo is going to kill Aizen -- and he is, no matter what it takes -- he needs to keep Kaien alive.

Ichigo goes straight to the Shiba family grounds. In true Shiba fashion, they accept him immediately as family. They tend to his wounds and give him a meal and welcome him home. They let him get away with his weak excuses and explanations, and they defend his presence to the rest of Soul Society.

Kaien, in accordance with everything Ichigo has heard about the man, personally takes the newest addition to the family under his wing.

Ichigo's plans to deal with Aizen take shape around his need to keep an eye on Kaien.

Ichigo, instead of running as far and fast as he can from the Shiba clan, accepts the offer to live in the Shiba compound. He gets to know every clan member and retainer, subtly vetting for traitors. He sleeps in a room near Kaien's, allowing him to both guard against assassins at night and place warding runes around Kaien's door without having to worry about being caught somewhere he has no business being.

He joins the Court Guard in the 13th division instead of the 5th, because the only real way to protect Kaien on a mission is to be there with him. Ichigo knows that if there's an ambush, or if the mission details have been tampered with, he'll be more than enough fire power to get Kaien out of it. And it's easy to always get paired with Kaien; Kaien -- reliably taking every opportunity to hover around Ichigo that he's offered -- does most of the work, leveraging his status as lieutenant and Ichigo's combat ability to keep them together.

Ichigo finds himself frequently taking meals with Kaien and Kaien's friends. Kaien always invites Ichigo, and Ichigo accepts so he can subtly check the food for poison.

(Ichigo does not tell Kaien about Aizen. Ichigo is still unsure what Kaien's role is in the whole fight, and in the meantime, telling him about Aizen is a sure way to get him killed.)

Things heat up. Ichigo prevents both Miyako and Kaien's death, killing Metastacia before it can hurt anyone. Ichigo's shadow war against Aizen gets more intense. Ichigo sneaks out regularly to dismantle Aizen's illusions, destroy his labs, and attack his network of power, slowly weakening him.

Ichigo waits for the assassination attempts against Kaien, but they don't come, even several weeks after Metastacia fails. Ichigo takes it as a sign that he's got Aizen distracted.

Things continue for a while. Ichigo falls into a strange routine.

(And Ichigo tries not to break, seeing so many of his loved ones alive and unknowing of him. It is agony, to be around Shunsui, who is not his mentor, and the Visored, who are neither visored nor pack.

But the worst is when Captains Urahara and Shihouin catch on to his war against Aizen. He finds himself working with them as allies.

Allies. Mere allies, instead of --

Well. Not that it matters anymore.

All that matters is his duty.)

Time passes. Aizen weakens. There are no attempts on Kaien's life yet.

And then Aizen's web has unraveled enough for Ichigo to attack.

It's a long battle. It's a bloody battle. It's a very public battle.

Ichigo wins.

And it's only after it's all over -- after Aizen's crimes are revealed and Soul Society is at peace and the future is saved; after Ichigo finds himself still alive and adrift, with nothing left obligating him to keep going and everything telling him to give up; as Kaien refuses to leave Ichigo alone and escorts him to regular appointments with Unohana and forces him to talk about the truth of his past --

It's only then that it clicks.

Ichigo is whispering secrets about the future into Kaien's chest, Kaien's arms wrapped tight around him, when Ichigo confesses that he messed up, that he put the Shiba clan in unnecessary danger. Ichigo tells Kaien about his death in the original timeline. He talks about how Kisuke told him that in this timeline, Aizen would try and kill Kaien again if the first attempt failed. Ichigo promises desperately that he never would have sought out the family -- would have kept the danger far, far away from them -- if he hadn't thought he had to watch Kaien's movements so closely.

And Ichigo admits that Aizen never actually tried again. Ichigo admits that he and Kisuke miscalculated, that Ichigo brought danger to the Shiba's doorstep for nothing.

It happens like this:

First, the words leave his lips, "Kisuke" and "miscalculated" in the same sentence. Hearing himself say it lays bare the absurdity of its premise.

Then, Kaien draws away slightly, to look Ichigo in the eyes. Ichigo sees, plain on Kaien's face, a terrible, damning gratefulness.

Then, Kaien says -- fierce and defiant in the face of what could have been -- "I am so glad you came home."

And it clicks. At last, Kisuke's final manipulation reveals itself to Ichigo's eyes.

The emotions flash through him: the sting of betrayal; a flavor of love that bursts across his tastebuds as hurt; a familiar brand of exasperation that, a split second later, has his knees giving out under the weight of old pain made fresh.

Kaien catches Ichigo before he hits the ground and holds him as he shatters. And Ichigo can barely breathe through the knowledge that Kisuke would have been so smug to see them.

A sob rips itself from Ichigo's chest, and it's followed by another, and another.

Ichigo's older cousin holds him, in the home of their family, through it all.

_________

THE END except not really.

This must immediately be followed by a whole arc where Kaien, much to his own dismay, finds himself trying to hook Urahara up with his little cousin.

After all, Future-Urahara sent Ichigo to the Shiba clan. Future-Urahara tricked his little cousin into bypassing his own self-destructive tendencies to seek out family and love and support. Clearly, Urahara would actually be good for Ichigo.

And, you know, Ichigo clearly loves Younger-Urahara, judging by Ichigo's whole... well, everything, whenever the two interact.

(This whole matchmaking endeavor is made easier by the fact that 1) Kisuke is already infatuated, fascinated, and not a tiny-bit madly in love, and 2) Yoruichi is also, from the other end, trying to set Kisuke up with Ichigo.

This whole endeavor is made more difficult by the fact that 1) Ichigo is in denial that he loves this younger Kisuke since he never thought this younger Kisuke could also fall in love with him, 2) Kisuke is in denial that he loves Ichigo because that is a Shiba and he himself is a creepy low-born ex-assassin mad-scientist, and 3) neither Ichigo nor Kisuke know what it looks like when someone is interested in them.)

Poor Kaien. He succeeds eventually, but not before witnessing truly legendary social ineptitude.

In reference to this post, I do legitimately wonder what exactly Nick Fury’s expectations of Steve were.

Assuming his two primary sources for Steve Rogers Anecdotes were Howard and Peggy (and I think they were), there’s no way he would have gotten anything approaching an accurate account for who Steve was as a person.

I honestly don’t think Howard knew Steve well.  All his reminiscences are going to be fundamentally colored by the fact that, despite the epiphany he comes to in the S1 finale of Agent Carter (he says something like, ‘he was good before I got my hands on him, wasn’t he?’), Steve’s successes as Captain America are in part his successes because he helped make Captain America.  So all the stories Howard could tell Fury (and, sorry about your horrible childhood, Tony) are going to portray Steve in a very specific way, turning him into the ultimate war hero, the ultimate super solider, the ultimate weapon that Howard helped create.

I doubt Peggy’s telling a lot of truths either but for different reasons.  Or, well.  Peggy doesn’t lie about Steve, but there are certain things she doesn’t say about Steve.  Because everyone knows and mourns Captain America, but she’s one of a small handful of people who actually mourn Steve Rogers.  There are things about him she keeps private and safe for herself.

Like the fondue story?  I am positive that never made it into the global Captain America narrative.  I also don’t think it’s a story Tony or Sharon ever heard.  Howard doesn’t tell it because it’s not a Cap Story, it’s a Steve Story, and Howard’s far more interested in the former than the latter.  Peggy also doesn’t tell it because it’s a Steve Story, and the world isn’t owed any more of Steve Rogers than they already have.  They can keep Captain America, but Steve is hers.

But I honestly believe that if Nick got half a shot of whiskey in Colonel Phillips, he would spend literal hours dragging Steve Rogers through the mud.

“Rogers?  Biggest pain in my ass that ever lived, and that’s before Stark and Erskine got their god damn hands on him.  I’ve had a hemorrhoid or two tried to compete, but nope.  It was Rogers.

“That son of a bitch probably spent six weeks AWOL altogether thinking he knew better than me, the SSR, and all the Allied powers put together.  At the end of it, he’d come into my office, stand at attention, salute.  Then I’d maybe get one ‘yes sir, no sir’ out of him before he started arguing with me about whatever damn fool thing he’d just done.  Which, I shouldn’t have to tell anyone, is not how the god damned United States Army works.  Rogers never did manage to grasp that concept.

“Don’t ask me about vehicle requisitions.  I don’t even know how many cars those idiots wrapped around how many trees.  I finally had to order the motor pool to stop giving him motorcycles at all.  He kept throwing them at the enemy.  That worked for maybe a month.  He started stealing them, and I gave up.

“Once I ran into Barnes just staring at a wall looking whey-faced, terrified, and madder than a hornet.  So I said, “What did that captain of yours do this time?” and he says, “He charged a fucking tank,” and I say, “Of course he did,” and he says, “Dumb bastard wasn’t even wearing his helmet,” and I say, “I don’t understand how you kept that boy alive long enough to con his way into the army in the first place,” and Barnes says, “You’ve got no god-damned idea, sir, you really don’t.”

“You know Carter shot at him once?  I’ve never envied another human being so much in my whole life.

“Steve Rogers gave me most every grey hair on my head, don’t you let her tell you any different.  I had a full head of thick black hair in 1943; by ‘44 I looked like someone dropped a pound of drywall on top of me.  I aged a year for every hour I spent in Rogers’s company.  When I die, if the coroner doesn’t list my cause of death as Steven Grant Rogers, it’ll be god damned perjurous.

“I could have court-martialed that jackass on at least 16 separate occasions, and we wouldn’t have won the war without him.  God rest the son of a bitch.”

….so we have to assume that Fury never talked to Phillips I guess.

BUT OH GOD DO I WISH HE HAD

Dick is kind of a big brother who knows what effect he has on his siblings's friends, and he never misses an opportunity to make himself look even cooler in their eyes. But Jason? Oh, Jason has no idea that people even consider him pretty and interesting.

It pisses his siblings even more.

Jason, on his bike, with the most insane face card: Hey, Replacement, hop on. We have work to do.

Kon, twirling his hair: Is your brother, like... free?

Bernard: Yeah, on Friday

Tim, with his eye twitching: I will kill you.

Jason, absolutely unaware of what is going on: ??? WHAT THE FUCK DID I DO

***

Jon, waving enthusiastically at Jason, who passes by kitchen: Jason is so cool!

Damian: ...

Jon: And kind!

Damian: Calling Todd kind is definitely a choice.

Jon: But he read me a bedtime story the last time I was staying here 😕

Damian, frowning: ...

(Damian, later that day: Why did you read bedtime story to Jon and not me.)

***

Jason: Why Tim's and Damian's friends keep fucking glaring at me? Or stumble when I am around? What tf am I doing wrong?

Dick, trying to hide his laughter: Eh, no idea

Bruce, absentmindedly: I, actually, have the same problem when I am around other people

Alfred, amused: No DNA test required, that's for sure

Tim: Ra's has a special hatred for me.

Tim: i'm the one he wants. he keeps specifically targeting me during attacks.

Jason, throwing popcorn in his mouth: you think that makes you special?

Jason: when i was in the league i used to sneak into his private chambers at night to set fireworks off underneath his bed.

Tim:

Jason: when i came back to gotham he used to send assassins after me, but they were all from the league, so i was chill with them. convinced them to just have a beer instead.

Jason: only reason he hasn't killed me himself is because he's afraid of what Talia will do once i come back again.

Tim:

Tim: i feel like we should have an in depth conversation about the time you spent with the league.

Dick: i feel like we should have an in depth conversation about why you're so confident you'd come back again.

Jason, shrugging: just seems likely.

Do you mind writing more canon compliant!stucky cockwarming Ps love your blog

I don’t mind at all :D

Scenarios to consider:

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can you tell us more about indecently jiggly Steve? like does he ever get off just from Bucky playing with his tits? I love oblivious Steve who doesn't even realize what he's doing to Bucky by wearing those all too tight shirts, but I also love Steve who teases Bucky and gets him all riled up by walking around in just those short shorts of his. idk.

okay but consider:

Steve in tiny little booty shorts and a tight crop top.

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Talia: “your father is of high intelligence”

Bruce: [reading an instruction manual to the tv remote] “Damian, how do I turn the volume down?”

Talia: “he’s a fierce and resilient fighter”

Batman: [getting his ass beat by a grandma swinging her handbag] “ma’am! I am not— ma’am!”

Talia: “even your grandfather was impressed with his detective skills”

Bruce: [staring at Jason who’s covered in blood]

Jason: “I got hit by a car and had a major nose bleed”

Bruce: [shrugs] “glad you’re ok now”

Talia: “always 10 steps ahead”

Bruce: “wait I forgot to add sugar” [looks at the cake he just baked]

Talia: “he understands there’s a time and place for emotions, he won’t let it compromise him”

Bruce: [sobbing through a Disney movie]

Talia: “broken bones, gun shots, debilitating injuries, he pushes through”

Bruce: [holding a hand to his back as he walks]

Dick: “did you slip a disc again?”

Bruce: [grunts]

Talia: “he’s graceful with everything he does”

Bruce: [snorts wine out his nose at a gala]

Talia: “he has strong morals. He cannot and will not go against them”

Batman: [standing over a man that Red Hood just unalived]

Red Hood: “I’m sorry?”

Batman: “are you really, Jay?”

Talia: “your father is well respected, Damian. He’s defeated your grandfather on many occasions, he’s not an average man”

Bruce: [drinking tea]

Jason: [walking by] “fuck you, bitch”

Talia: “you’re father is a strict and disciplined man, he will not tolerate childish behavior, do you understand?”

Damian: “I understand mother, but what if I’m not what he expects? What if I’m not…”

Talia: [strokes Damian’s cheek] “don’t you worry. You’re perfect”

Bruce: “dammit Damian, who’s cat is this?”

Damian: “he’s ours now”

Bruce: “absolutely not, I told you no more animals Damian”

Damian: “but baba…” [wipes his eyes]

Bruce: “He can stay only for the night…”

... one of these days, we probably are going to hear about That Ass in France in detail, right? (gigglesnorts at your Bucky Muse)

Here’s the great thing about the story of The Ass In France:

No one even remembers why it was necessary.

Bucky sure as hell doesn’t and least of all because of his time as the Winter Soldier. The Commandos, upon retelling the story, found that they, too, had forgotten why it even had to happen in the first place and so none of their descendants know.

No one’s ever bothered to look it up, either, because the less said about their mission reports? The better.

The point is, no one knows why the fuck Peggy had to get Steve all dolled up in women’s clothing and they certainly don’t know why halfway through the mission, clothing became synonymous with women’s lingerie. He lost his dress somewhere along the way and they never found it.

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jason comes back to gotham as red hood and the batfam have no idea who he is or that he has anything to do with the league of assasins until during a wayne gala theres a hostage situation and before bruce or anyone can figure out a way to go suit up a crime lord appears and saves everybody only to have a publically friendly catch up session with.... damian wayne.

damian covers to the press afterwards that its because of red hoods 'i dont hurt kids' rule and that he'd met the guy a few times in crime alley before he was dumped on bruce's doorstep. gotham's citizens are slightly concerned but honestly? the scary stabby child that's been glaring at them from the corners of parties since he got here with absolutely no backstory or history in gotham turning out to have a past with crime alleys most infamous protector/crime boss? it's a little comforting.

it's less comforting to the bats.

damian, getting out the car after the gala: I don't know what hood was thinking, making me his public ally. he's lucky the simpletons of this city bought that, don't you agree father?

damian: *turns to see the rest of the family staring at him with hard eyes*

damian:

damian: ...what did i do?

everybody's less than pleased that damian withheld the info that red hood is trained and from the LOA, but damian simply maintains that they never asked. when further questioned about why his relationship with hood was so familial and about what his identity is... they get

damian: hood was perhaps my favourite tutor back home, the only one i didn't kill. he taught me many things, from how to poison somebody to famous quotes and sayings from classic literature.

bruce: what. is. his. name.

damian: you know what one of those sayings was? 'snitches get stitches'

dick: *slams his face into the wall*

tim: well you did want him to be more childlike.

they eventually have to move past it because damian won't budge, unfortunately jason is finding this whole scenario fucking hysterical because holy shit he'd thought about coming back and pissing off his family through their secret personas but he hadn't even considered the beauty of coming back and pissing them off through their public personas.

and from then on the entire batfamily has to deal with pretending to be nervous or wary every time the red hood comes and crashes their very real wayne public events. it's fucking incredible. jason can't believe that he was gonna try and beat the shit out of tim to freak out bruce when all he had to do was grab a glass of champagne, walk up to the dude, and ask politely how stocks at WE are doing. 'brucie wayne' has no fucking clue what to do, and jason just poured the champagne against his helmet and let it all fall to the ground and everybody's too scared to say anything.

nobody else bats an eye when red hood becomes an occasional presence at these fancy events, apart from the people who know for a fact they could be on his shitlist. mostly because this is gotham, but also because they know he's a crime lord so like... riches and business running wise he kinda fits the bill for these things anyway? and if the stoic kid of brucie wayne eases up around him then the whole 'i dont hurt kids' thing must ring true so it's not like he'll cause too much trouble. also the guards are too scared to tell him he's not allowed in, so there's that.

the bats hate everything about this. they don't even know what red hoods game is, they have no idea why they're being tortured and they're getting paranoid about it. damian's absolutely no help because he's just happy to 1. get to see his brother on a regular basis again, and 2. get to see his brother find a less self-destructive outlet for the pit rage he's watched jason struggle with for years.

it's also just really fun to watch tim accidentally fall asleep against a wall mid-gala, wake up to red hood's helmet 2 inches from his face, and then almost break his own hand trying to punch it because he forgot that he wasn't in-mask and had to hold back last second.

dick is mostly just indignant because every time red hood shows up and hangs around near damian, damian immediately becomes a picture perfect public persona, interacting with the elites of gotham with the same expertise of tim or bruce. he's so mad that a crime lord can wrangle HIS little brother in public but he can't, that he completely disregards the whole crime lord thing and starts bugging red hood both in and out of mask about how to be a better older brother to damian. at one point he corners red hood on a rooftop mid patrol.

nightwing: ok, seriously, when I asked damian not to be rude to the new investors he told a woman her coat looked like it would hold up in a fight against two-face, but when YOU ask he becomes a model citizen, what is UP with that?

red hood, being an asshole: *gasp* y-you're.... YOU'RE RICHARD GRAYSON?

nightwing:

nightwing: ....oh my god you didn't know?

red hood: no i fucking knew you're just an idiot. and damian listens to me because I'm the only tutor he could never kill and he knows i'll beat his ass with my magic swords.

nightwing:

red hood: and also im the only one at the league who played Just Dance with him so i get special privileges, like telling him what to do.

dick asks damian to play Just Dance with him that night and damian just looks at him all forlorn, like 'it wouldn't be the same without the exhilarating thrill of knowing if anybody catches us hood will be stabbed and thrown in the lazarus pit again as punishment for corrupting me... it was really an unfair punishment considering he replaced grandfather's bed with a plastic pool covered by a sheet once, and the only punishment he got for that was being banned from the family dinners for two weeks'

dick stares at him. damian just adds 'he used to sit outside the window like a dog. watching and occasionally yelling about the injustice. mother gave him a plate of roast potatoes through the window once. grandfather disapproved.'

nobody knows quite what to do about red hood becoming a gotham elite, but they are becoming more concerned about damian's family's dynamic every goddamn day.

I know the fandom mostly agrees that Jason is that one always unemployed sibling in the family, but let me offer you a slightly enhanced concept - unemployed sibling Jason, who is the busiest sibling in the family.

No one can get hold of him. Like, ever. And it is not like he is lying, he is genuinely always has something else to do! Something random and unexpected, and, honestly, all his family can think is: what the hell?

Bruce, frowning: Remind me again, why the dinner in the circle of the family today doesn't suit your... schedule?

Jason, shrugging: I have a book club evening in the nursing home. We are discussing Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad tonight. Can't miss it. Also, Jennet-

Alfred, confused: Who is Jennet?

Jason: One of the old ladies in the nursing home, duh... Anyway, yeah, Jennet is having a birthday. She would be hella mad if her favourite grandson missed it, you know?

Bruce: ...Jason, you are not her-

Jason: (leaves)

Dick: Hey, wanna join me for tomorrow morning's training?

Jason, sighs: Sounds nice, but I have classes tomorrow.

Dick, confused: Classes? Since when you are enrolled in college?

Jason: Oh, no. I am a substitute teacher in one of the school's around.

Dick: WHAT-

Damian, calling Jason in the middle of the day: Can you pick me up from school? Others are busy, there is an emergency in the town.

Jason: Damn, sorry, kid, but I am not in the country right now. By the way, do you want to talk with your mother?

Damian: ...What that supposed to mean? Where are you?

Jason: I was planning to visit All-Caste, but first decided to meet up with Talia. I am kinda in Egypt right now, anyway.

Damian: ...

Tim, already used to Jason's constant busy status, sighing: I bet you won't agree if I call you on the lunch tomorrow?

Jason: Uh, no. I have plans. But if you tag along with me, we can get lunch together later.

Tim, surprised: ...Okay. What do you have tomorrow? Knitting club? A shift in library?

Jason: Nah, graduation ceremony.

Tim: Right, you are a substitute teacher.

Jason: No, no. My graduation ceremony. I am getting my PHD in literature.

Tim: SINCE FUCKING WHEN-