#i am not calling it that other fuckin thing

[elegantauthor]

Saving Grace Chapter 24

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Aurora Stark

Summary: Aurora journeys to the afterlife.

Warnings: Goddess symbolism (death/rebirth)

Series Masterlist

“Kid, no offense, but I didn’t sacrifice myself for you to rain on my parade.”

Aurora hadn’t heard his voice in six months, but it resounded as clear as crystal. She looked around the infinite void, eyes filling with tears as Tony sauntered into view. “Dad…”

“Oh, honey, don’t cry.” He smiled softly, taking a step and another until he was directly in front of her. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and she leaned in; his fatherly touch sorely missed. “You know all this mushy stuff is too much for your old man.”

Aurora huffed a small laugh, opening her eyes, to see moisture collecting unbidden in his. “Am I…?”

“Yeah, honey, you died. What on Earth were you thinking?” His tone held no anger, only his characteristic sass.

“I did it for Bucky,” she answered, knowing in her heart she’d do it again.

“That man is going to be the ruin of our family.” Again, there was no bitterness, just an unspoken acceptance. Death offered perspective, and Tony saw Bucky for who he truly was—a man whose life ended too soon, who was reborn again as the Winter Soldier, and again into the man his daughter loved. “I ought to have words with your mother.”

“What does Mom have to do with this?” asked Aurora, though she already hankered a guess.

Tony smirked. “Turns out love is the greatest source of power there is, but it can’t be quantified in an Infinity Stone. It takes us measly humans, or aliens, or androids—you get the gist—to do something incredible with it.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you have a choice to make. You can either stay here with your old man, or dot, dot, dot.”

~ * ~

“Come with us, White Wolf.” Contrary to their strained relationship since Latvia, Ayo’s gentle words conveyed a promise of redemption and renewed friendship. “We will bury her in Wakanda.”

Scrunching up his face, Bucky nodded. “Yeah,” he rasped, glancing over Aurora’s body. His eyes alighted on the gold chain, a strangled noise filling his throat at the sight of her wedding ring. He swallowed roughly, grasping the small gold band between his forefinger and thumb. She’d worn it all this time. “Let me make a call first.” He retrieved his phone from his pocket and shakily dialed Sam’s number. “Sam?”

“Hey, man, what’s up? Any new leads?”

“I- I lost her. Aurora. She… She’s gone.” Saying it aloud cemented it, triggering a fresh wave of tears. Holding the phone away from his ear, he brought his hand to his mouth and silently cried.

There was a pause on the other end, then— “Buck, I’m— I’m so sorry.”

“I’m going with Ayo to Wakanda.”

Bucky could practically see Sam nodding, as he processed the news. After another lengthy pause, Sam said, “Yeah, yeah… Aurora loved it there. It’s where the two of you—” He cut himself off, but Bucky knew what he was thinking. It was fitting that it should end where it all began. “I’ll be there.”

“Thanks, Sam.”

Bucky carried Aurora’s lifeless body out of the house. She weighed a feather. Ahead of him, the Royal Talon Fighter hovered in the clearing, along with Zemo, detained by the Dora Milaje. Face contorting with rage, he carefully deposited Aurora into Ayo’s arms and stomped forward, snow crunching underfoot.

He reared back his vibranium fist, punching Zemo squarely in the jaw, staggering him. “You fuckin’ bastard!” He shouted, gripping the other man by the lapels of his jacket with trembling hands, his eyes teeming with tears. There were so many things he wanted to do. The thoughts that ran through his mind rampant and sinister, each grislier than the former.

“I did not intend for this to happen,” said Zemo, a quiet contrast to Bucky’s violent outburst. “You do not have to worry about scratching my name off your list. I— do not deserve your forgiveness, nor will I ask for it.”

“Damn right,” Bucky snarled. “You’re lucky I don’t kill you, but unlike you, I know that revenge doesn’t solve anything. It won’t bring her back, just like it won’t bring back your family. She taught me that. But, I swear to whatever gods exist, if I see your face again, I will not hesitate.”

“Bucky…”

His breath lodged itself in his windpipe, eyes blinking rapidly in disbelief. Had his crazy caught up with him? Was he going delusional after all this time? It made sense that Aurora’s death would cause him to finally snap from reality.

Releasing Zemo, he turned at a snail’s speed. No, he wasn’t crazy or hallucinating. Amidst a halo of warm golden light outlining her, Aurora stood, supported by Ayo, whose eyes shimmered with tears. The light subsided, leaving Aurora shivering in her blood-stained dress.

“I suppose you can’t easily kill a demigoddess.”

“Aurora…” He closed the space between them in record time even for a Super Soldier, shrugging off his coat and wrapping it around her shoulders. He palmed her body, cupping her face between his flesh and vibranium hands, blue eyes searching.

“I’m here, Bucky.”

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into him and murmuring into her hair, “Thank, God.”

~ * ~

Aurora sat on the edge of the bed, watching Bucky; her brow pinched. He was staring. Staring wasn’t unusual for him, but there was a pensiveness in his expression that stirred an uneasy feeling in her stomach. Their flight home delayed by a blizzard, they had no choice but to get a hotel room.

“You’re quiet tonight.”

Bucky shifted his gaze, a sweeping pass over her before he looked down. “What Zemo said about protecting you—”

“Bucky, don’t.” He crossed the room and knelt in front of her, hands splayed across her thighs as his head lay in her lap. She threaded her fingers through his hair. “If I’ve learned anything over the past five years, it’s that we can’t always protect each other. I lost you and my dad to a mad titan. The future is uncertain, yes, but… loving you makes it all worthwhile.”

“You love me, even after…?”

She sighed, her chest tightening at the defeat lacing his voice. “When you helped Zemo escape prison, you couldn’t have predicted this. You acted on good intentions, on what you believed was right.”

“It- It got you killed,” he croaked.

“I know, but it wasn’t your fault. You hear me?” Tipping his chin up to look at her, she smiled sadly—he teetered on the balance of recovery and setback, contrition warring with his self-destructive tendencies.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Hey,” she tenderly kissed his forehead and whispered, “at least he brought you back to me.”

His head fell back to her lap, and he stayed in that position. Silence stretched between them, neither uncomfortable nor forced upon with unnecessary verbiage. After a few minutes, Bucky asked, “What do you do with that? The uncertainties, the no-guarantees?”

Here was a man who’d seen war. A man who’d been captured, experimented on, brainwashed, and tortured. There were no right words. What comfort could she possibly give? Then, it dawned on her.

“You live.”

[loquarocoeur]

alex I am so sorry to send another fucking ask but like. I needed to okay, (also doing my first ask on a laptop was a mistake bc I can type at the speed of light here and this got way too long oops?)

something I've thought and wondered about before was the idea of what would happen should max & charles ever be interrupted while max is in subspace. you've covered a funnier side like a regular walk in during sex and both of them just being like Would U Fuck Off, but subspace is different. like perhaps its something just like someone at the apartment door that actually does really need answering, an urgent work call one of them forgot about, someone in an area they are unexpectedly that maybe doesn't see them but their presence is enough to panic max.

if its more the physical presence of someone, even just in another room etc, obviously max would lose 20 years of his life at the idea of anyone but charles seeing him in subspace, its a painfully private vulnerable part of him for charles and charles alone. it'd rock him, obviously.

or if it was more along the line of a phone call or situation where one of them needs to be physically present, how would max feel but also how would charles deal with juggling the Important Thing He Forgot To Do while also soothing a very down very subby max. obviously a first idea is just making the problem Go Away, etc, but a. I like to work scenarios through and b. it'd be enough of a bubble intrusion to cause a shift in the atmosphere anyway.

its not even meant to be like especially angsty if you don't want because heavy shit aint always the vibe. you don't need to know like a definite answer here, or have even thought about it before. I just particularly enjoy the dynamic of subspace itself and wanted to chat (and accidentally send u half an essay about) it. hell you don't need to have a fuckin clue I just wanted to float you my brain thinky stuff bc why not <3

apologies again that I've sent u an ask the length of war and peace

~ swanon 🦢

Yeah I think considering their careers this is definitely a thing that happens at some point.

I think the first time it's probably just the door or something and Max thinks he's going to be fine if Charles just leaves to answer it quickly, but turns out it is not fine and Charles can't just leave him because he will absolutely panic

Also it's probably also more subtle that Max's, but I think Charles also kind of gets into a kind of domspace during sex as much as Max gets into a subspace and even though he finds it much easier to snap himself out of it or multitask with it, it's still a thing and he'd probably need a second too

So I think it obviously does happen like several times to the point that sometimes they either just put it off for a few minutes until they're out of that headspace enough to do the 'important thing' or Charles just ends up taking Max with and letting him just cling onto him behind the door while Charles peeks his head out to sign for a package or smth lol and also let's be real, Charles is not above answering phone calls while he is actively inside of Max

So basically I think it's either Make The Thing Go Away or if that's not an option just Multitask

But yeah I don't think it would end up too great if anyone walked in on them while Max is like actually properly in subspace because yeah that's not something Max wants anybody to see except Charles and it's also not something Charles wants to share with anyone else because it's just like private and personal and it means something to them yknow. And Charles also kind of has the responsibility of taking care of things when Max is like that so he would feel like absolute shit about it even if it wasn't his fault like at all.

Yeah I don't even know what would happen but I don't think they would blame each other at all, if it was bad enough they'd probably end up having a joint breakdown about it crying at the same time like no no I'm sorry it's my fault, no it's mine etc until they finally agree it was nobody's fault and finally calm the fuck down and feel slightly bad for whoever they accidentally traumatised just now

[aprofessionalwithoutstandards]

soldiermedic that started with soldier being completely and utterly enraptured and blown away by medic preforming the most basic of medical tasks like skillfully and quickly wrapping a wrist with a bandage. Soldier is there like "HOLY MOTHER MARY OF JOSEPH. YOU OUGHTA BE NEXT HEAD OF THE STATE FOR THE SKILL YOU POSSESS, MAGGOT!! NO, SCRATCH THAT- NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!!! YOU ARE AN ASSET TO THIS COUNTRY, SON!!!"

amd then he steps out of the infirmary and shouts at the first person he sees like "SCOUT, DO YOU SEE THIS SHIT?? LOOK AT HOW GOOD MEDIC WRAPPED MY ARM. YES IT WAS BROKEN. YES ITS BECAUSE I TRIED TO JAM MY HAND UP THE TOILET HOLE AGAIN. SHUT YOUR MOUTH OR ILL SHOVE YOUR HAMSTRINGS DOWN YOUR THROAT. NOW LOOK!! MEDIC WRAPPED IT!!!! MY BABYGIRL DID THAT!!!!!!!" Soldier is so so proud of Medic. So completely head over heels for his big naturals bbg.

and Medic is just like. Ooh hooh! What a hunk of an endearingly brick-stupid man.

WAITTTT I LOVE THIS... Medic is quite possibly the most self-obsessed man ever put on the page and I think getting this kind of High Praise from Soldier reaaally goes to his head too. Like logically he knows it's Just a wound dressing he's not actually any better at it than anybody else, but in the part of his brain that's Medic-shaped (most of it) he's like maybe I AM the best bandage-wrapper of all time. Everything a hot person tells you must be true so yknow

[lovelyrotter]

ill probably delete this in a minute but ive just been fuckin boggled by what ive seen across tumblr in the last few days in particular. its why i havent really been around. like holy fucking shit, its really like some of yall just dont want a chunk of the trans community to exist. like some of yall are thisclose to saying it verbatum. way too many already have. 'shut up sit down be quiet and smile for us' type shit, gee where have i heard that before. oh yeah my entire life cause i was forcefully gendered as someones daughter. shock horror i know. you might be surprised to remember and/or learn that very few trans folks know theyre trans before we're 5, or even 10, and that that gendered experience stays with all of us in both/either small or large ways. either bc we literally dont have a solid identity yet (bc we're very small children), dont have the words, we're repressing it out of fear from how others will treat us, we're actually enjoying or enjoyed being another gender in our childhood, or we just genuinely didnt fuckin know until shit lined up later in life. weird isnt it that transmascs dont pop out as 6'1 brick shithouse cis men when we're born so yall know for certain that we're confused lost girls/women oops i mean big dangerous scary men. its almost like we're transgender too. none of yall actually know what intersectionality is or means

[sluckythewizard]

THEY could give me the surgurey i need (inspired alot by evojellys designs for em. GREAT STUFF)

[quirkle2]

suncaster warriors :)

[please don't tag as LU] ; character info under the cut

goes by wars and captain

24, 5'7"

he/him

demifluix and ace

kind and caring and silly (so silly)

heart of gold

a bit of a workaholic

has to have 1 hug every day or he will Die

in a qpr with legend <3

fights with a sword and shield

excellent leader, excels in fighting against crowds

FAST

banned from his era

dark world form is a silver ferret

[crossbackpoke-check]

tagged by ko @tofumilanesa for wip wednesday! big shout out to writevember for making me feel like i can actually call any of these works in progress… your guide to my emoji code under the cut

wip!

🪻🐈‍⬛ - the doc title is still just. YOWLING but i am like 7/8 of the way done with omega yamo fic and hopefully salem isn’t reading this so i can just drop it over a year later with no warning <3

🫃2️⃣ - DEWEY^2 P2!!!! she is almost done (i am lying) but she is so close i can almost taste it. sorry to my pwp that grew its own feelings baby

😇🤭 (🕒 -> 🕜) - rip i’m not telling you about this one until it’s posted but it IS complete aside from being ao3 formatted and the eight billion edits i inevitably do right before full-sending it

☁️💧 - cloud petey fic, which exists mostly as an embarrassingly large tag on a different blog and is condensing into a narrative about as well as water at 30° N/S. the time loop fic also falls under this description

eternally in progress (short list)

🌑🐕 - tyler borzoituzzi exists… there is an index of scenes/plot points… it plays like a movie in my head…

💯❕- fantastic! ‘verse

👁️👻 - stevie brandon seeing ghosts au, which has eight different (now nine i guess but you haven't seen the mustache adam post yet) plots. sorry

just. rotating like a microwave

🍎 - because they didn’t have a pomegranate emoji, this is what i used for the fic that feels like it should be a 50k connor bedard character study hanif abdurraqib/cathal kelly thesis about legends and mythmaking in sports and eating your young. yes i know pomegranates aren’t actually pomes and apples are but it’s fine

🦈 - the one cat da fuck they doing over there meme but about the sharks just like. in general. more on this at five

tagging @colap1nto, @songsandswords, @whitenikes, @gordiemeow, @acheronist, and anybody else who wants to share!!

[lupismaris]

..

[toytulini]

if you draw enough monster ocs, when you go back to drawing a human character, it feels like "sameface syndrome" everytime, by virtue of their face being. human.

[dewgongs]

ughh why do i have to have njghtmares about them

[cerealmonster15]

i dont think i ever felt more annoyed at commercials than when those mean girls walmart ads were playing a few months ago or whenever that was

[feroluce]

smth smth yingfeng paralleling farcille

(magically inclined long lived partner tries to defy death by bringing their short lived partner back to life/have immortality but they come out Wrong(tm) instead)

just. the parallels <3

RIGHT? Like oh my god I love the idea of it: a mortal and immortal character falling in love, and the immortal one doing something horribly taboo for them to be together forever. But maybe they fuck something up, or maybe it's just their punishment for playing god, but their now-immortal lover Comes Back Wrong.

I'm actually not caught up on dunmeshi (I get the gist of farcille from socmed, though) but I really like an Inuyasha/Kikiyo flavor to it- Mortal lover is full of rage and hatred, immortal one can't not love them, and then they romantically and dramatically die together murder-suicide style and drag each other to hell. You know, the good shit. ☆

It is one of my ideal dynamics for a bad end pairing. And I do like necromancy shenanigans with a happier/good end, like farcille style too! Just...I don't like either situation for yingyue.

I don't think there's anything wrong with playing with them that way as long as you don't pass it off as canon, like I say all of this with no judgment. But I'm picky and I like to follow canon more closely so I can't really see them in that kind of scenario haha.

It's just! Yingxing's whole deal is that he's a haughty, spiteful, arrogant asshole of a man whose life mission is to be such a damn good craftsman that he can tell all the Xianzhou Natives who looked down on him to suck his short life species dick and flip them the bird. Him being made immortal takes all the fun out of it for me and kinda removes a central part of his character. I LOVE him being petty and full of himself. He should do it more!

And I am so so dearly enamored with the relationship between him and Baiheng. I can't write her out of the whole equation, especially considering she and Yingxing both Came Back Wrong from this incident, and she was the actual intended target.

Like. He loved her. Yingxing loved her. Baiheng was so, so important to him. She's referred to as "the beloved" in Blade's character stories. He called her his bosom friend. He handmade a jade flask just for her.

Not a weapon,

not something she needed,

not something he was doing to show off,

just a flask.

Something pretty, and just for her, something that she would like and use everyday. Not a need, but a want. He did it simply because he wanted to give her a present.

She was the first person to really encourage and believe in him. She helped him come out of his shell (so all that arrogance is her fault BSMZJMS). That animated short where they went up in her star skiff together and she called him cute fucking killed me. They make me chew concrete.

And she was really important to Dan Feng too! He wouldn't have tried to bring her back, otherwise! She died saving him. And he knew what he was doing when he chose to try to bring her back as a Vidyadhara. He had to have. There's no way he couldn't have known that his life was forfeit after this. They don't let you get away with purposely breaking one of the Ten Unpardonable Sins like that.

And he chose to do it anyway. He still chose her life over his own. Dan Feng loved her, too.

He and Yingxing both worked together to try to bring her back because she was someone neither of them could bear to lose.

So if anything, I feel like yingyue is more like larcille bringing back their beloved Falin haha

But no matter who is romantically involved with who, like. It's the love between all three of them that's important.

That's the secret ingredient that makes the triumph of Falin's rebirth and the horrific tragedy of the Sedition of Imbibitor Lunae so emotional. Because these were things that could not have happened unless they all loved each other.

[strawbrains]

Why do so many psychiatrists love to gaslight. Okay, Hannibal Lecture.

If I had a nickel for every time a psychiatrist straight up told me lies I would have too fucking many and that's a problem.

[pumpkindogart]

Stop fucking bringing up the Spine's stupid ass mustache if y'all are going to just immediately shit on it it's so fucking annoying

[giantkillerjack]

Literally every piece of cookware/dish that has ever been devised in the history of mankind: You can wash me with soap and water!

Cast iron skillet: tehe 🤭 soap and water? I guess that's fine if you like your steak rusty haha 🙈 I can only be washed with salt and oil and lemon and spit or I will immediately die haha so just spit on me okay spit on me and make me clean, mommy 🤗🥵😏💦👅👅👅

Me:

[faradaykay]

being aroace is crazy bc sometimes it's like. whoo yay i have such a wider perception of relationships that's so cool yay!!! and sometimes it's like. i hate this it sucks