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wherearemyglassesbro · 4 years

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A h/etalia Umbrella academy au but it isn’t actually one, it’s just inspired by UA kinda...idk

//Uh keep in mind that this is going straight from the drafts onto your dash and uhhh there will for sure be spelling errors so don’t roast me lmao

Roman ‘Roma’ Vargas: An eccentric billionaire who founded the Academy of the World’s Finest (or the AWF for short). He gets bored very quickly and went from buying rockets to building hotels to managing casinos to buying children. A very crazy sequence of events! (Roma has many secrets but I don’t feel like fleshing it’s out rn this is just the bare bones of this just for fun!! And if you’ve seen both seasons of UA you probably already knows what you need to know). One faithful day, October 1st 1989, multiple beautiful babies were born from women who were not pregnant the day they were born. This phenomenon made itself known to Roma and he was off to find as many of these children that he could! He sent his staff all over the world to buy these children. He successfully purchased 9.

Number 1, purchased for $10,000 in Las Vegas: Number 1 was picked to be number 1 because Roma thought he was such a strong looking baby. Alfred was actually purchased fifth out of his siblings but no one knows that except Roma himself. Alfred, from a young age, was able to cause an obscene amount of damage. When he held Roma’s hand while learning to walk, he crushed the bones in his hand. When he kicked a soccer ball down the hallway, it went through the wall like a meteor. When he knocked on Arthurs door to bother him, the door snapped in half (and Art screamed bloody murder). He has an insane amount of strength without even trying! It was very hard for him to get a handle on it because he’s so spontaneous and isn’t really one to think before acting but once he and hs siblings started training for hero work?? That was his motivation to be better, to control his power to use it against bad guys!!! He’s the golden boy of the family, he never disobeys Roma and will never, even now, say anything bad about him. ‘Hey! He’s my dad, he saved me from whatever shithole life I was destined to have in Nevada. I couldn’t be more thankful for my life! And mom, if you’re watching this...Thanks. I don’t know who you are but...Thank you’

Number 2, purchased for $25,000 in Le Mans: Number 2’s power presented itself only after he learned to talk. Francis’s power of persuasion is both a blessing and a curse for him. He’s struggled greatly with being ‘number 2’, he wants the same validation and attention as ‘number 1’ gets. He doesn’t think it’s fair. He often used his power for bad things arond the house like ‘J'ai entendu une rumeur that you broke every finger on your right hand!’ that was a very gruesome morning for Alfred and the scolding that Francis got scarred him for life as he was insulted and cursed out in front of his family. Even after that, he still kept up his happy exterior. He was also usually the face of the AWF, appearing on magazine covers which he may or may not have influenced the writers just a bit. His power is strong but he does not use it on Roma because he’s terrified of what would happen if he did!! As he’s gotten older, he’s falls off the wagon a little but he’s trying to make a solid recovery. Also, when he was 7 he found out he was born in France! He then forced himself to become totally fluent in French and taught himself to have a French accent too. Whoopie....

Number 3, purchased for $1000 in Sicily: Number 3 is a dangerous child, he was from day one. When he was born, he was presenting a 116 degree fever yet he was acting totally normal. His mother was convinced he was the devil and was more than happy to sell him off to Roma. Roma felt a deep connection to Lovi from the start....Lovi looked like him. He looked like he could be his biological son. Lovi got special treatment from Roma often but he still felt overshadowed by his siblings. I mean, a majority of his siblings are pretty blondes. He felt left out often. But he would channel that anger into training and cooking! He has a trick that he likes to do, cracking an egg into his palm and cooking it. That one impresses Alfred every time! Not that he’s hard to impress. Lovi would often push himself too far in his quest to be the best and snap at his siblings, leaving him even more alienated from them. He spent a lot of time around Roma and Feli, mostly Roma. He got a lot of one-on-one training with him and a lot of praise too. All he ever wanted to do was be perfect for his father. He set bad guys on fire, did interviews on live tv, set fire to a warehouse full of gang members, all kinds of stuff that he never would have done on his own. Stuff that he didn’t want to do. All so he could impress Roma

Number 4, purchased for $700 outside of Berlin: Number 4 has always been hyper and loud! But his powers suddenly developed over night, which was terrifying for him. Gilbert awoke in the middle of the night to pee one night and was met with a ghost in the bathtub. Naturally, Roma encouraged him to speak with ghosts and would make him go to cemeteries to talk to the dead. Ghosts scared him so he’d secretly take Benadryl to knock himself out but as he got older, he realized that he couldn’t be scared anymore cause these ghosts needed a friend :( so he used these ghosts to fight in missions and in return, he’d play games with them and chat with them, just being friend with the ones who had a hard time crossing over :’) he likes using his powers for good but feels like he’s taking advantage of his ghost friends sometimes which took the fun out of crime fighting

Number 5, given to Roma for free outside of Kyoto: Number 5 got a late start compared to his siblings. His powers took awhile longer to manifest and he had trouble learning to read. But once he caught up, he proved himself to be the smartest out of all of them. Smarter than some of them combined, even. Kiku still often indulged in his siblings antics but at the same time, he felt he was somewhat superior to them. He learned to poof himself from one side of the room to the other, starting off small. He figured out he could time travel one night when Francis and Gil were hammered and knocked a vase over. Kiku felt every muscle in his body tense, then a sensation of falling, then he was suddenly 10 seconds in the past!! Wow!! He caught the vase before it could hit the ground and kicked Fran so he fell down, leaving him to sleep on the foyer floor while Gil just stood there like ‘wtf...?’. When Roma started berating him for ‘getting too cocky’, Kiku threw a bit of a hissy fit and decided to jump to the future!! He did and landed himself in the aftermath of the 2019 apocalypse, unable to get back home cause he wore himself out and had no idea what he had even done to get himself there in the first place lmao sucker.

Number 6, purchased for $10,000 in York: Number 6 was an extremely fussy baby. All he did was cry and cry and cry, it was very frustrating for Roma since the other babies were somewhat easier to handle. Arthur was indeed a handful. When he was hungry, baby food tins and spoons would float out of the pantry and over to his highchair. When he wanted to torment his siblings, he’d take their things and throw them across the room with his mind. When a sinking was annoying him, he’d simply lift them up and shove them out of his room. Easy. He is probably the smartest or second smartest of his siblings. He isn’t the most athletic but he spent lots of time studying, so much so that Roma had to constantly buy new books for Art to read to keep him mentally stimulated. He was often a voice of reason though no one listened to him. When fighting he was very useful!! He never needed to get close to the bad guys, he could throw them around without moving a muscle! The only downside is that it wore him out after awhile...Ugh. He avoided the media but did do interviews with his mask on, encouraging kids his age to stay in school! By the time Art was 13, he was taking college level tests and reading college level material so...he’s one smart cookie

Number 7, given to Roma for free in undisclosed location in Russia: Number 7 is too powerful for her own good. At a young age, Francis was told to convince her that she had no powers. This was done in secret, only Roma, the house staff, Francis and Kiku knew it happened. Everyone else was oblivious and left out of the loop. Vanya has the ability to shake the earth, to cause obscene amounts of damage in the blink of an eye. Her power was something that Roma could have never prepared himself for. So from that day on, Vanya was a ‘normal girl’. She watched from the sidelines as her siblings got to train and fight. She sat with Feli to paint or sew or just talk. She went through every day feeling worthless, like she wasn’t meant to be a part of this family. She channeled her feelings into art, painting canvasses worth of rainy cities or melting people. She made a series of paintings depicting her siblings’ abilities through chunky brushstrokes and vibrant colors. Each painting sold for over one million dollars. She thought her art career would impress her father. It didn’t.

Number 8, purchased for $15,000 and 10 cows outside of Oslo: Number 8 was always a quiet boy, he kept to himself and Roma thought he may be powerless as well for almost 5 years until lightning struck the house...on a bright sunny day...not a cloud in the sky. Turns out Lukas and Kiku were arguing. They were only 5 so they were just shrieking and yelling nonsense then BAM!!!! Lighting. Roma was so terrified but Lukas was giggling and shooting soarks out of his hands, his hair sticking up like crazy. He was always quiet and reserved, he spent a lot of time in the library or on the roof just looking out over the city. He didn’t like sneaking out of the house like his brothers and sisters did but he went ‘to keep an eye on them’...he always had fun though. He stayed away from the media and wore a mask that his most of his face so he wouldn’t be recognized. Sadly, in a tough fight in a hostage situation, Lukas was shot and killed when he was 15, right when he was starting to consider writing a book about hero work and how as he aged, he was becoming more confident in himself due to helping others. It was a tragic loss for his siblings

Number 9, purchased for $800 and a new car in La Coruna: Number 9 was successful from the start, surpassing her siblings in height very very fast. Her power just happens to be her speed. Carmen, as a baby, was a lot to handle since she crawled around the house at 40 miles an hour. Even her sleep schedule was quick, she’d take a 20 minute speed nap and have enough energy to run around for hours after. When she was introduced to the idea of being a hero, she agreed so fast that she nearly bit her tongue off. She always got her chores done quick, helped around the house, all of that since a task that would take 3 hours only took a few minutes for her. She was a great female role model and did many interviews for teen magazines to encourage girls to be their best, that has always been her message. She even wrote ‘GRLPWR’ on her cheeks in black paint before heading off to fight crime in case she had her picture taken. Roma wasn’t a huge fan of that but she didn’t care too much :) she has always stuck up for her sisters!! And she has always been close to Fran and Gil but as they got older, their interests began to differ so she found herself hanging with Vanya and Arthur more

Feliciano Vargas: Roma Vargas’s only biological son. He does not have powers and often felt left out when he was left behind while his siblings went on missions. He’s 2 years younger than the rest of them and is often referred to as ‘stupid little brother’ by Lovino which hurt his feelings. When he was a baby, they were like 2 and a half so they didn’t see him as ‘aww look my baby brother!’ They just found him annoying cause he cried a lot. Like his siblings, he never met his mom but he does feel good knowing that he will always have his dad. When he and the academy kids fight, he will often rub it in their faces that at least Roma is his biological dad. That really rubs salt in the wounds, huh? Feli has always gotten on well with Vanya, they got left behind all the time so they got to paint and play music together :) they made eachother very happy

Gilbert and Lukas: Gil didn’t really like Lukas much when they were younger cause Lukas was just...quiet and reserved. Gil is the exact opposite. But now that Lukas is dead, Gil pities him and hangs out with him. They trained a lot together but Gil got embarassed when they trained cause if someone were to walk in, they’d just see Gil shouting and punching at nothing so...They trained in the dark at 3am on the roof where they wouldnt be interrupted. Now that Gil is older, he can channel Lukas almostperfectly. Lukas has an almost totally physical form when Gil uses his powers, allowing Lukas to channel lightning the way he was able to when he was alive. Lukas doesn’t like doing that too often cause it’s a bit cruel, getting to feel alive when you’re not :/

Kuma: Kuma was a normal polar bear that was experimented on in a lab that Roma funded. The scientists combined his DNA with monkey and human DNA and after much trial and error, they were able to get his brain to process English. So he wears a collar that allows him to talk. He scolded the kids for running around in the house but then five minutes later he’d let them ride his back while HE ran around the halls :) he was like a fun uncle to them. He wore a bow tie :)

Wan yu: Roma fell in love with a woman from China when he was younger. She was studying culinary arts in Italy and he absolutely fell head over heels for her. But things didn’t work out. So once the tech came around, he had an advanced robot version of his first love created for the sole purpose of loving him and his children. She was programmed to be a great role model, compassionate, patient and...A good cook. The kids all called her mom or ma and even though she never technically had favorites, she was always fond of little Kiku. She was the one who taught him to read when he had trouble doing so and she’s stay up late with him in secret to help him catch up in other languages. The kids all had to learn Italian, English, Spanish, Greek and Russian bedore they were even 8 years old. Since Kiku took a bit longer to grasp that kind of stuff, she would sneak him down to the library to have one-on-one lessons with him. :) she was also very caring when it came to Alfred, she saw how hard he pushed himself sometimes and it hurt her to watch. She made cookies for him on especially rough days

Lukas’s death: Lukas’s death hit Arthur, Vanya and Gilbert especially hard. Arthur and Lukas bonded over similar interests, Lukas and Vanya played chess all the time and gossiped and Gilbert always thought that Lukas was the coolest sibling he had. His death was used as motivation for everyone else to continue training. Gilbert ‘summoned’ Lukas three days after his death and Lukas has followed him around ever sicne. Lukas wasn’t avtually summoned, he’d been secretly roaming the house for days and decided to just let Gil think he summoned him. Roma was depressed about his son’s death for a week or so but he never really allowed himself to feel negative emotions for too long so he was over it a bit...too quickly.

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onebadwinter · 3 years

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Baron Helmut Zemo Tropes

Taken from Here and Here

Anti-Villain: Sometimes verges on this, though it's a case of Depending on the Writer.

Arch-Enemy: After his father's death, he takes this role to Captain America and leads the Masters of Evil after inheriting the title.

Aristocrats Are Evil: He's a baron after all, and believes his aristocratic heritage entitles him to rule.

Avenging the Villain: Helmut's original motive was to kill Captain America because he killed his father. Eventually, Helmut came to the realization that actually, Heinrich was an awful father and an even worse person.

Badass Normal: Has no powers, but regularly fights the likes of Captain America and the Avengers. He usually has a contingency that will allow him to deal with his opponent's plans anyway; it's only when these contingencies fail (as happened during his battle with Moonstone at the end of the initial run on Thunderbolts) that he's in trouble.

The Big Bad: Of his fare share of arcs, particularly those involving the Masters of Evil.

Brain Uploading: He only survived being decapitated because Techno uploaded his consciousness to a computer.

Butter Face: A Rare Male Example. He has the body you'd expect of somebody who can keep up with Captain America in terms of physique... but that handsome form is contrasted by a hideously malformed visage. For a while, he had a young, dashing look again after hijacking the body of the Helmut from another Earth, but only two years later his face got disfigured again. When he got Carla Sofen's Moonstone, he used it to fix that, but when Melissa broke it again...

Calling the Old Man Out: During his trip back in time, he ran into his father while the latter was gleefully doing mad science for the Nazis. Helmut had long since discarded any Nazi prejudices he had once had, and was fuming watching his father put down other races, the handicapped, etc. Finally he had enough and started beating the hell out of him while giving a "Reason You Suck" Speech. Quite the sign of Character Development for the guy who started out worshiping and avenging his father's memory.

Captain Patriotic: At the beginning of the Thunderbolts, he disguised himself as Citizen V, supposedly the son of a previous hero who'd gone by that name, whom Zemo had killed. Zemo went the whole hog, even decking himself in a cape designed after the American flag.

The Chessmaster: Zemo has a plan for everything, and lays them out months in advance.

Cool Mask: Wears a tighter fitting version of his father's mask.

The Cynic: Has a generally negative view of humanity.

Daddy Issues: He loved his father, and his father loved him... until the Adhesive X incident, where he became outright abusive in every way. Originally, Helmut blamed Captain America. Now, he acknowledges that his father was just a horrible human being.

Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: He once shot the Grandmaster, one of the Elders of the Universe and a being way outside his normal weight class, through the head. Admittedly, there were mitigating circustances that allowed him to do this, and the Grandmaster did get better (because, hey, comics).

Disney Villain Death: Many, many times (see Never Found the Body below).

Even Evil Has Standards: Arranged the death of one of his ancestors during a time-travel jaunt, after he found out the man was a rapist and a mass-murderer who did it all For the Evulz. He later clashed with another ancestor when he thought he was harassing a girl (the two were actually in love, and he quickly apologised).

Evil Genius

Evil Is Petty:

The Faceless: He rarely ever removes his mask, due to his face being horribly scarred in a accident.

Facial Horror: His head has been slashed up so badly that it's practically a skull, with ribbons of flesh draping over his eyes and sliced-off cheeks and lips. The sight of his face visibly disgusts everyone in the original Thunderbolts.

Freudian Excuse: Raised by his father to believe in his inherent superiority. There wasn't a lot of dad hugs down in that South American jungle, mostly just rants and lectures.

Good Scars, Evil Scars: Hideously disfigured beneath his mask.

Grand Theft Me: After becoming a "ghost", his mind was transferred to the actual son of Citizen V (Techno noted it was basically him playing a joke). That is, until an energy conflict - the V-Batallion tried to teleport Citizen V as the body was being sucked into a portal - made his mind be expelled into Techno's machinery. But given he arrived at Counter-Earth, this meant Zemo could do a literal case of the trope, and took the body of his self from this world.

Heel–Face Revolving Door: Cannot make up his mind which side he is supposed to be on. He even once took a bullet for Cap despite being his sworn enemy.

In the Blood: The arrogance and the drive for control certainly are.

Joker Immunity: Unlike his father, he can never seem to be put down for long.

The Leader: Of the Masters of Evil and the Thunderbolts.

Legacy Character: To his father, Baron Heinrich Zemo XII.

Manipulative Bastard: Zemo's very good at getting other people to do what he wants, playing on their emotions and desires.

Master Swordsman: One of the best in the Marvel Universe. Zemo's dueled the likes of Captain America and survived several decades worth of warfare on a time travel jaunt.

Nazi Nobleman: Started out as one, though he's moved away from fascism in recent years. Nowadays his goals align more with Dirty Communists.

Never Found the Body: During the run of Thunderbolts alone he was declared dead on four separate occasions, all of which turned out to be false. In each instance, his body was never found. By the fourth time, most of the team just assume he'll turn up eventually (not that they want him to).

Noble Demon: He's much more noble than his father,for sure.

Purple Is Powerful: Signifies his aristocratic leanings.

Secondary Color Nemesis: Purple, to oppose Cap's blue and red.

Take Over the World: He insists it's to save it. Some people (like Songbird) aren't convinced.

Taking the Bullet: Once leapt in the way of an energy blast an insane Moonstone aimed at Captain America. Messed his face up bad.

There Are No Therapists: This guy is seriously messed up and would probably have turned out differently if he got professional help.

Token Evil Teammate: Alongside Techno, he serves as this for the first iteration of Thunderbolts. While most members of the team fall somewhere between The Hero and the Anti-Hero, Zemo shows no signs of having softened whilst playing-hero, and alongside Techno manages to almost conquer the world and turn it into a Darwinist nightmare. He also constantly mocks his teammates for wanting to be heroes, calling them "weak" and "traitors to the cause" when they show the smallest signs of heroism outside of their pubic duties.

Unlucky Thirteen: He's the thirteenth Baron Zemo.

Well-Intentioned Extremist: In his mind, at any rate, after some Character Development, he becomes determined to take over the world for its own good. That doesn't mean that he's not an Axe-Crazy terrorist who's willing to perform some truly heinous actions for the sake of the "greater good." Zemo: I would never have hurt a world I worked so hard to save.

Western Terrorists: More like this than a Nazi.

Wicked Cultured: When being held at swordpoint by his worst ancestor, an evil aristocrat who believed only in the absolute of power, said ancestor's son (who'd struck up a friendship with Zemo) asked what was more absolute than power. Zemo's answer? "To be, or not to be."

Worthy Opponent: Sometimes sees Captain America this way, and definitely sees Sharon Carter this way.

Xanatos Speed Chess: He's good at incorporating the gambits of others into his plans, as evidenced by his deft manipulation of Moonstone when they were both members of the Thunderbolts.

One of his nastiest acts of spite was destroying a box of Cap's treasured belongings, including some of his last links to the past, right in front of his eyes.

What was his initial plan in founding the Thunderbolts? Pretend to be heroes, earn America and the world's trust, become famous and respected, and then gather knowledge on the other heroes to... sell to the criminal underworld? Eventually, Moonstone points out this is a freaking stupid plan.

Taken to the highest extreme possible. When he actually did have the power to implement whatever change he might have wanted, Songbird shut him down with the intention of killing him out of not trusting him. What were what he believed could have been his last words?

MCU Zemo Tropes

Adaptational Attractiveness: He's quite handsome here, while his comic counterpart usually has to wear a mask to hide his hideously charred, disfigured face. This is true to his first appearance in the comics as a one-shot villain, before he was scarred upon becoming a recurring character.

Adaptational Heroism: In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, when he does don his iconic comic book alter ego, unlike in the comics where he was a straight-up one-note supervillain, Zemo here is depicted so far as an Ambiguously Evil Anti-Hero ally of Avengers Sam and Bucky without mostly ever betraying them until his escape from the hotel in the fourth episode with most of his redeeming and justifiable qualities shown upfront more than his villainous qualities that Civil War mostly showcased, but still likely an on-and-off antagonist simultaneously during his Enemy Mine with the two superheroes.

Adaptational Nationality: In the comics Helmut Zemo is German, but here he is a Sokovian. Ironically, his actor actually is German, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier sees a bit of his German accent creep in. He also has a vast array of vehicles and a private plane in Germany, and seems very familiar with both Berlin and the German language. Whether this is a Retcon into making him part German or just a Mythology Gag is yet to be seen, though he does identify Sokovia as "his country".

Adaptational Nice Guy: His comic counterpart and that of his father were literal Nazis who wanted mass genocide and world domination, and while the Helmut of the comics did grow out of the former, he still tends to try the latter. This version of Zemo, despite being on a black ops killing team, has a much simpler and more sympathetic motivation, while his father was merely a civilian. Neither have any ties to HYDRA (aside from Helmut's exploitation of HYDRA's Winter Soldier project), while the versions from the comics are both prominent members of that organisation.

Adaptational Wimp: In the comics Zemo is a major adversary of Captain America and the Avengers, with a particular emphasis on his skills at fencing and manipulation. While this version retains his cunning, he is also presented as much less of a direct threat to anyone despite being a former black operative; when Black Panther decides to bring him in alive, he goes down with barely a struggle. Most of his success ties into this, with him exploiting his lack of obvious supervillainous affect to stay under the heroes' radar until his plan requires him to show his hand, then relying on Steve and Tony's flaws and personal issues to do most of the work for him. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier shows that he hasn't forgotten how to do his own dirty work, however, putting his soldier skills to use alongside his usual guile and strategizing once he gets back into the fray.

Adaptation Personality Change: In the comics, Zemo is generally depicted as an unapologetic villain who is primarily driven by a selfish desire to rule over others. His film version, on the other hand, has a much more sympathetic motive for his villainous actions, as he's just a victim of the Avengers' collateral damage in Sokovia seeking revenge for the death of his entire family.

Affably Evil:

Alas, Poor Villain: His defeat in Civil War is treated as an utterly somber affair, with him having nothing left after completing his plan and hoping to commit Suicide by Cop at T'Challa's hands before trying to kill himself when T'Challa refuses to be consumed by vengeance as Zemo has. Even though he got what he wanted (up to a point), it doesn't change the fact that his family is gone forever.

The Alcoholic: Following his escape from prison in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Zemo reveals himself to be a little bit of a tippler, partaking in shots, champagne, helping himself to Sharon's expensive liquor collection, then taking more shots at a club. He apparently approves of the way they party in Madripoor.

All for Nothing: He wanted to destroy the Avengers and was content with them dividing. Thanos's arrival and the events of Endgame undo all of that. In fact, the Avengers are no doubt more beloved than ever as a result.

Anti-Villain: Despite the grim and often hypocritical in hindsight actions he resorts to, he does have some good traits and was hoping for a cleaner way to get what he wanted first. Also, his motive — revenge for the collateral damage-induced loss of his family — is at least a little sympathetic.

Apple of Discord: His Evil Plan is to find evidence that Bucky Barnes murdered Tony Stark's parents while under HYDRA control and show it to Stark, so Bucky's friend Steve Rogers and Tony will turn on each other over whether to spare or kill Bucky, and the Avengers will be ripped apart as they side with one leader or the other.

Arch-Enemy: Since the death of Ulysses Klaue, it seems Zemo has taken his seat as Wakanda's most wanted for the death of King T'Chaka. Not a day after he breaks out of prison, Ayo is already hot on his trail to capture him.

Aristocrats Are Evil: It's revealed in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier that he is a nobleman like his comic counterpart. Though unlike said counterpart, his upbringing had nothing to do with him becoming a villain since his father was by all accounts a decent man in this universe.

Badass Longcoat: The events of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier have Zemo wearing a stylish winter coat, complete with Conspicuous Gloves.

Badass Normal: Unlike most of the Avengers, he's just a plain old human. But, through sheer patience and ingenuity, he still managed to tear them apart. During the trip to Madripoor he proves to be no slouch in combat either, reminding everyone he was former special forces. He also comes much closer to permanently stopping Morgenthau than Falcon or Bucky have ever managed so far, largely because he's fully willing to kill.

The Bad Guy Wins: Downplayed. Zemo has achieved his goals but with never with the fully desired outcome.

Batman Gambit: He's good at finding ways to make other people do things for him by exploiting their predictable behavior.

Beard of Evil: He has grown a beard during his eight years in prison as seen in Episode 2 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Beware the Superman: His return in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier reveals his own take on the idea. While he is against the idea of a Super Soldier on principle, he is not specifically against them as people, but more how they are precisely put on a pedestal, their flaws washed away/ignored and subsequently inspire Blind Obedience. He specifically notes how the personal loyalty inspired by Steve Rogers to Sam and Bucky (then, even now) precisely drives them to such extremes—even breaking the law much like they did to free him. Sam and Bucky do not protest the point. He admits that Steve was not corrupted by the power he was given but points out there was only one of him compared to the many who would abuse it. He is proven right on this point by John Walker taking the super soldier serum and going off the deep end.

Big Bad: Of Captain America: Civil War. He exploits and exacerbates the ideological differences between Captain America and Iron Man, resulting in the eponymous Good vs Good conflict that threatens to destroy the Avengers.

Big Damn Villains: As Sam, Bucky, and Sharon are pinned down by bounty hunters in the Madripoor shipyard, Zemo suddenly makes a grandiose entrance in full villain garb on a ledge, killing several assassins by shooting a nearby gas tank with his pistol before going to ground and taking down the rest in close combat, opening up the heroes' window of escape.

Blue Blood: The Falcon and The Winter Soldier reveals that he was always a baron. While the fall of Sokovia took away most of the power of the title he still has a lot of money and connections as a result of his position.

Breaking the Fellowship: Thanks to his efforts, the Avengers are severely compromised, with several of the foundational friendships that held them together torn apart and anyone who sided with Cap imprisoned or branded a fugitive. Even Tony and his supporters still bear physical and mental scars caused by fighting their friends.

The Bus Came Back: After being imprisoned at the end of Civil War, Zemo returns in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, with the title characters seeking his assistance in tracking down the source of the Flag Smashers's Super Soldier powers.

Cape Busters: Has a personal grudge against the Avengers and plots to destroy them by pitting them against one another. By the time of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he has apparently narrowed his vendetta to all super soldiers, stating that they "cannot be allowed to exist." At the same time, as stated above in Beware the Superman, his is more nuanced compared to other versions of this trope.

Character Tic: He has a habit of tilting his head whenever he's attempting to manipulate someone. It seems to be a subconscious thing he does, as he immediately stops doing it when Sam notices and lampshades it in Episode 4 of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier.

The Chessmaster: He plays all the Avengers like pawns. He frames Bucky for a crime, to have the world hunt him and lure him out of hiding. This partially causes the Avengers to turn on each other, divided over Bucky's innocence. He takes the UN interrogator's place, extorting information out of Bucky and using the trigger words to activate Bucky's soldier conditioning. Before finally showing Tony the tape of what really happened to his parents, sending him into a murderous rage to kill Bucky.

Colonel Badass: He used to be a Colonel in the Sokovian Special Forces, and he is one of the most effective foes the Avengers have faced — though not because of his combat abilities, but because of how effective he is about executing his plans.

Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: In Civil War, he's never called "Baron Zemo", the title he goes by in the comics, and is instead referred to by his military rank Colonel. This is subverted in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which reveals that he was Sokovian royalty and has several characters address him as "Baron".

The Comically Serious: His stoic demeanour tends to stick out when he's in the same room as Sam and Bucky, like when he awkwardly jumps to the defense of Marvin Gaye's "Trouble Man" soundtrack, or his crappy dancing in Sharon's nightclub.

Composite Character: He takes Klaue's role as the man who murders King T'Chaka.

Cool Car: He actually has a lot of these. His family owned an impressive collection of classics, with plenty of Rolls' and Bentleys in his garage. It's a taste he himself had acquired, as he, Sam, Bucky and Sharon make their getaway out of Madripoor in a super-charged muscle car he had stashed in the docks.

Crusading Widower: His wife was among the civilian casualties in Sokovia. He keeps a recording of her last voice message on his phone.

Cunning Linguist: Zemo's multilingualism allows him to assume different identities. Aside from his native Sokovian, he speaks English, German, Russian, and presumably French, given that he was able to convincingly impersonate a French-speaking psychologist.

Death Seeker: Once he has put Iron Man against Bucky and Cap, he first attempts to persuade Black Panther into killing him, then decides to shoot himself. Black Panther catches the bullet before snagging him a headlock so he can face justice.

Determinator: He manages to find new resolve after Civil War, and Iron Man's sacrifice has done little to change his views. With Iron Man dead and Captain America retired, he decides he will stop the creation of any and all super soldiers in the world no matter what happens.

Divide and Conquer: His plan against the Avengers, seeing that there's absolutely no chance he can fight them on his own. He even compares the Avengers to some sort of a mighty empire, which can only be felled by using this tactic.

Driven to Suicide: Tries to goad T'Challa into killing him, and then to shoot himself when he refuses. Neither works out for him; making enemies of a guy with Super Strength and a bulletproof suit was a bad idea, evidently.

Elites Are More Glamorous: His family is Sokovian nobility and he was colonel in EKO Scorpion, Sokovia's black ops kill squad. Even if Sokovia was a developing Balkans country, that still makes him pretty dangerous.

Enemy Mine: Downplayed Trope. Despite not personally hating Sam and Bucky, the latter two consider their alliance with Zemo this due to Civil War and the damage he caused; the only reason they tolerate him is that he can accomodate them with the resources they need to take down the Flag-Smashers. To his credit, Zemo doesn't hesitate in helping their cause because of his Beware the Superman beliefs, even expressing interest in facing Karli Morgenthau herself.

Even Evil Has Standards:

Evil Genius: While he has combat training, his greatest strength is his intellect. Aside from his abilities as The Chessmaster, Zemo was able to crack the encrypted HYDRA files on the Winter Soldier program that Black Widow released to the Internet and build a very effective EMP bomb in his hotel room.

Face Death with Dignity: When T'Challa finally catches up with him at the end of Civil War, he's completely calm and fully prepared for T'Challa to kill him to avenge his father, even seeming to acknowledge that in his mind T'Challa's revenge against him is just as justified as his own revenge against the Avengers. Later, in episode 5 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he's completely calm and accepting when it looks like Bucky is going to execute him, and later he calmly walks away with the Dora Milaje when they show up to take him into custody, knowing there's a decent chance he's going to be executed in a spectacular fashion in Wakanda for killing the king (for some reason the Dora Milaje went to all that trouble just to turn him over to the U.N. where he'll be held in the same prison that used to hold Captain America's half of the Avengers, but he's got no way of knowing that).

Facial Scruff: His brief appearance in the second episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier has Zemo with this due to his time spent in prison. Downplayed in that it looks relatively thin despite having been locked up for eight years at this point, and he shaves it off shortly after.

Fantastic Racism: He has a distaste for enhanced individuals in general, and super soldiers in specific. Specially if such super soldiers are put on pedestals he deems completely unearned.

Flaw Exploitation: He turns the Avengers, particularly Steve and Tony, against each other through a series of Batman Gambits with the ultimate goal of making them fight each other to the death — or if not that, at least to the point of no longer being a cohesive unit. In particular, he reveals to Tony the truth of what happened to his parents knowing that he'll go into an Unstoppable Rage against Bucky and that Cap will prioritise keeping Bucky alive even at Tony's expense.

Friend to All Children: Invoked in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. In the fourth episode, Zemo earns the trust of a few children in Latvia by offering them sweets in exchange for information. But he also uses to opportunity to manipulate them into thinking Bucky and Sam aren't to be trusted.

Four Eyes, Zero Soul: When he infiltrates the UN compound to activate the Winter Soldier, he wears a pair of glasses as part of his disguise.

From Nobody to Nightmare:

Gambit Roulette: The final part his master plan relies on little other than his assumptions on the personalities and capabilities of various characters after studying thousands of pieces of intel from HYDRA and S.H.I.E.L.D. that Black Widow dumped online back in Winter Soldier. The whole thing would have fallen apart if...

Godzilla Threshold: Sam and Bucky see recruiting him to stop the Flag-Smashers at this...and ultimately cross it when they run out of options.

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: Even if any of the above had happened, Zemo still would’ve won because his entire goal was for the Avengers to disband - whether through an amicable parting-of-ways or a bloodbath - it was always a matter of how big his win would be. The only real flaw in his plan was the interference of Black Panther, and the creation of the Sokovia Accords, both of which he’d have no way to account for.

He Who Fights Monsters: He wants to take revenge for the death of his family, which he blames on the Avengers for causing collateral damage in the Battle of Sokovia. In doing so, he is responsible for the deaths of dozens of innocent people himself. He even earns someone coming after him for revenge in T'Challa.

Hidden Agenda Villain: His motives remain unclear for much of Civil War and are only revealed as the final battle is taking place.

Hidden Depths: Like Sam, he's a fan of Marvin Gaye and considers "Trouble Man" a masterpiece.

High Collar of Doom: He does the Marquee Alter Ego and Not Wearing Tights through the whole of Civil War, but his winter gear in the third act features a large collar turned up, giving off this vibe. His supervillain gear in Falcon and the Winter Soldier also features one of these, albeit with his comic self's fur trim included.

Human Shield: Thanks to his EKO Scorpion training, is fully capable of taking hostages to hide and shoot behind, as a group of assassins in Madripoor discovered.

Hypocrite:

Interrupted Suicide: After explaining his motivations to T'Challa and apologizing for the death of his father, Zemo tries to shoot himself in the head. T'Challa, however, has none of that, and stops him to make sure he pays for his crimes and turns him over to the authorities.T'Challa: The living are not done with you yet.

It's Personal: Zemo has a personal vendetta against the Avengers. His family was killed during the Battle of Sokovia and he simply wants revenge on those he holds responsible. As pointed out in Beware the Superman, he extends this to any Super Soldier held in such high regard, which is why he has no problem teaming up with Sam (who's more or less Badass Normal like himself) and Bucky (who is a Super Soldier, but isn't exactly held in high regard). When he, Sam, Bucky, and Sharon come across the HYDRA scientist responsible for creating more Super Soldiers after the failed Siberian Winter Soldiers, Zemo quietly and stoically shoots the man before the team is attacked.

Jerkass Has a Point: In episode 4 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Zemo explains why he doesn’t believe that super soldiers should be allowed to exist. By his own previous statements, Sam would probably agree with much of what he says, and John Walker spends the rest of the episode illustrating his arguments.

Kick the Son of a Bitch:

Kill and Replace: Murders the psychologist who was supposed to be evaluating Bucky and takes his place, taking the opportunity to activate Bucky's brainwashing during the evaluation.

Knight of Cerebus: He's a Villainous Underdog, but he manages to tear the Avengers apart through tactics. Unlike previous villains, his methods includes manipulating Tony into trying to execute Bucky to avenge the deaths of his parents and turning on Steve in the process. Averted in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier when his Laughably Evil side lightens the mood.

Know When to Fold 'Em:

Laser-Guided Karma:

Laughably Evil: Downplayed the next time he makes an appearance as he becomes The Comically Serious in an Endearingly Dorky kind of way when he joins in Sam's conversation with Bucky to praise Marvin Gaye's "Trouble Man" soundtrack, or his lame dancing in Sharon's nightclub.

Manipulative Bastard: He is very skilled at manipulation, having studied the Avengers' psychological profiles in order to exploit their individual weaknesses and play them against each other.

Man of Wealth and Taste: Zemo is a baron and more than loaded, owning a private jet, a fleet of classic cars, a personal retainer, and plenty of money and stashed resources.

Marquee Alter Ego: In Civil War, Zemo does not wear a mask — or any kind of costume at all, unlike his comic book counterpart. This changes in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Master of Disguise: Zemo uses prosthetics and heavy makeup in order to convincingly make himself look like Bucky Barnes in the security cameras, fooling just about everyone into thinking the latter was responsible for the UN explosion. He later pulls a Kill and Replace on the psychiatrist who was intended to interview a contained Bucky with no one none the wiser until things start going wrong. Although the latter example is downplayed as when Tony finally discovers the real psychiatrist's body, he looks decidedly nothing like Zemo's impersonation of him.

Misplaced Retribution: Zemo holds the Avengers responsible for all the damage Ultron caused; while Tony and Bruce did create Ultron (after the former was influenced by Wanda), the "end all human life" thing was still his idea. The rest of the Avengers, however didn't know about Tony's plan, and did their best to stop Ultron once he went rogue.

Moral Myopia: He seeks to avenge his family, but he ends up killing multiple innocents who surely had family of their own. He acknowledges this, seeing as how he apologizes to Black Panther for killing his father but by that time he’s hoping to be killed so he can join his family, either by T’Challa or his own hand, so it’s more about easing his conscience rather than remorse for what his actions indirectly caused.

Movie Superheroes Wear Black: Instead of the purple and gold costume he had in the comics, he sticks to dark civilian clothes. Near the end of Civil War, he has a pitch-black coat with a large collar. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier trailers and promo images however reveal he’ll be getting a new costume featuring his signature purple mask and even incorporating the classic ermine trim on his collar.

Nazi Hunter: As part of his Adaptational Nice Guy he's no longer a member of the Nazi-affiliated and fascistic HYDRA group, but is shown to despite and openly oppose them, telling Karpov that "HYDRA deserves its place on the ash heap". The Falcon and the Winter Soldier has him openly despise Nazis and reveals that he'd been hunting down and killing HYDRA members for years as part of his quest to destroy the Super Serum, long before the destruction of Sokovia.

Necessary Evil: How Bucky, and especially Sam, view him in their fight against the Flag-Smashers. No one knows more about the super-soldier serum and Hydra than Zemo, and fortunately for them, they have a common enemy in the Flag-Smashers.

Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: While his plan does succeed in its goal, it does allow Steve to find Bucky, after fruitlessly spending two years scouring the Earth for him, and gives them an ally who can get the brainwashing out of Bucky's head.

Nice to the Waiter: He is quite friendly and courteous to both a staff member of the hotel he stayed at for Civil War, and his old family butler.

No-Nonsense Nemesis: Zemo is an extremely pragmatic man who knows full well that he's just an ordinary person in an extraordinary world, and realizes that it will give him no quarter if he were to dally about with regards to his vengeance. He has no choice but to be utterly cutthroat if he wants to complete his goal. This is especially shown in his first full-blown action sequence in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, taking down assassins after himself and the heroes in a surprise attack that wouldn't be out of place in a first-person shooter game.

Non-Action Big Bad: Although he has military training, he never directly fights any of the Avengers in Civil War, acknowledging that he could never physically stand up to the likes of them. Instead, he relies more on subterfuge and deception. Becomes a Subverted Trope by the time of Falcon and the Winter Soldier, showing he's fully capable of taking down several assassins after the heroes, though all of them are still normal humans.

Not So Above It All: After being freed from prison in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Zemo shows that he isn't a stoic and unpleasant individual 24/7. Notably, he jumps in on Sam and Bucky's conversation about Marvin Gaye's Troubleman soundtrack to give his own thoughts on the record, and he can be seen thoroughly enjoying himself Madripoor, drinking quite a bit of hard liquor and awkwardly dancing at the Little Princess nightclub.

Nothing Left to Do but Die: After getting Tony to fight Steve and Bucky, Zemo decides to listen to his wife's voicemail one last time, before deleting it and attempting to commit suicide.

Nothing Personal: He tells T'Challa that he is sorry for killing his father and that he seemed like a good man in Civil War. While conversing with Bucky for the first time since the events of that film in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he says this verbatim about using him to tear apart the Avengers.

Not Wearing Tights: He doesn't wear anything remotely resembling a costume in Civil War. However, he dons the purple mask in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Outliving One's Offspring: His son was a casualty from the Avengers' fight with Ultron.

Old Money: He is generationally wealthy due to his family being Sokovian royalty.

Only Sane Man: In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, it says a lot about Sam's present circle of associates that (other than Sharon Carter) Zemo is by far the most mentally well-balanced individual Sam has around him at his job.

Papa Wolf: The reason he's out to destroy the Avengers? His family was killed in their fight with Ultron.

Patriotic Fervor: Averted. As Zemo himself remarks ruefully, while he served in Sokovia's armed forces, his drive for vengeance isn't out of any love for the country, as he never actually had much patriotic feeling. The Falcon and The Winter Soldier shows that he does have some serious grievances over how it ended up, though, even chastising Sam and Bucky for not visiting the memorial.

Politically Correct Villain: As part of his Adaptational Nice Guy he's no longer a member of the Nazi-affiliated and fascistic HYDRA group, but is a fan of Marvin Gaye and understands Trouble Man (Sam's favorite album) to be a condensation of the African-American experience. Also berates Sam for stereotyping himself as a "pimp" just because he's flamboyantly dressed.

Purple Is Powerful: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier sees Zemo don a purple mask, coat, and gloves as he resurfaces to the criminal world.

Put on a Prison Bus: Zemo is taken to prison by Black Panther before he can commit suicide, ultimately sitting out the next few years until his return in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. And it happens again in Episode 5 of the aforementioned series, where he's taken by the Dora Milaje to the Raft.

Pyrrhic Victory: Zemo succeeds in fracturing the Avengers and getting the majority of them branded as fugitives, but he is also captured by Black Panther and still has to face prosecution for the murders he committed. It also works vice versa on his capture being a Pyrrhic Victory for the heroes. Best summarized by the following exchange:Everett K. Ross: So how does it feel? To spend all that time, all that effort, and to see it fail so spectacularly? Helmut Zemo: ...Did it?

Revenge Myopia: Getting his revenge was worth anything — including inflicting upon others the same pain he complained about suffering. Lampshaded at the end of the movie, when T'Challa observes that the revenge he seeks has consumed him. Worse still, because he tore the Avengers apart, they had no gameplan and were unable to present a united front against Thanos, leading to even more families the universe over being devastated by the Snap.

Rogues Gallery Transplant: Downplayed. While Zemo is still an enemy of Captain America and The Falcon as he was in the comics, he also ends up becoming an enemy of Black Panther's, due to his involvement in King T'Chaka's death. It extends to the entire nation of Wakanda as well, as they immediately dispatch Ayo to apprehend him when he escapes from prison in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Royals Who Actually Do Something: His noble lineage while serving in the Sokovian special forces makes him this.

Secretly Wealthy: He may have been living the gritty villain life in Civil War (probably to fly under the radar), but The Falcon and the Winter Soldier reveals that he is a wealthy Baron like his comics counterpart. Sam even reacts with "So all this time, you've been rich?"

A Sinister Clue: Zemo is left-handed and is the Big Bad of Civil War. Shooting a gun with his left hand starts off his Big Damn Villains moment in Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Sucks at Dancing: While the gang rests and spends the night at Sharon's club in Madripoor, Zemo's dancing moves leave him wanting. Let's just say he was channeling his inner Commander Shepard.

Suicide by Cop: After apologizing to T'Challa for killing his father, he says that he seemed like a good man "with a dutiful son", saying this last part with a meaningful glance, obviously hinting that he's fine with T'Challa taking vengeance upon him now. When T'Challa refuses to do so, Zemo attempts to just shoot himself, but T'Challa thwarts this effort as well.

Superhero Movie Villains Die: Subverted. After completing his plan to turn Iron Man and Captain America against each other, he first attempts Suicide by Black Panther. Attempts being the operative word, as T'Challa refuses when he realises how close he came to turning out like Zemo. As a result, Zemo attempts to shoot himself in the head, but Black Panther stops him and turns him into the authorities, leaving him incarcerated but very much alive.

Supporting Protagonist: Of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, as most of Bucky's and Sam's story and dynamic are sometimes told from his viewpoint during his team-up with them.

They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: There's nothing from his looks that would suggest that he's more than just an everyday guy.

Took a Level in Cheerfulness: He's much more upbeat in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier than he was in Captain America: Civil War. Which makes sense: in the latter he had just lost his family and was on a revenge quest whereas in the former the stakes aren't as personal and he's had time to grieve for his family in prison, meaning he has the time and temperament to joke around, make fun of "allies" and dance badly.

Took a Level in Kindness: Downplayed, but in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he's much friendlier with Sam and Bucky than he was with Tony and Steve in Civil War. Justified, as this time around he's working together with them to take down the Flag-Smashers and even then he still takes the time to engage them in relatively civil conversations.

Tragic Villain: He pursues his vengeance purely because he feels he has nothing else to live for without his family. This is highlighted by his decision to goad Black Panther into killing him and, when that doesn't work, shoot himself.

Tritagonist: Of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, when he teams up with Sam and Bucky in their crusade to defeat the Flag Smashers, while being more developed as a character in contrast to his debut in Civil War along the way of the narrative.

Tranquil Fury: Despite spending the whole movie on a murderous crusade, Zemo avoids all the theatrics of Loki or Ultron and seldom even raises his voice. This includes when he finally spells out his motives to the heroes.

Troll: Even when he's not manipulating or killing everyone around him, he's kind of a dick, as seen in his reappearance in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, reciting Bucky's trigger phrase, knowing it doesn't work, just to upset him, needling Sam about his experience in the Raft, and later telling his retainer to serve Sam and Bucky them any food that's gone off.

Truer to the Text: Zemo in Civil War was a borderline In Name Only depiction of him. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier retroactively adds a lot more aspects of the original comic character, such as his noble status, his costume, and his physical prowess.

Unknown Rival: To the Flag-Smashers, particularly Karli Morgenthau. Do to being enhanced with the super-soldier serum, Zemo considers the Flag-Smashers to be dangerous individuals, and is more than willing to form an Enemy Mine with Sam and Bucky to take them down. Karli on the other hand, isn't even aware that Zemo exists until he shoots her and destroys the serum right in front of her. Even then, she seems more content to get up and run than to try to confront him for his actions.

Unwitting Instigator of Doom: He successfully managed to break up the Avengers, hoping to bring down the most powerful team of beings in the universe to avenge the deaths of his family. Unfortunately for him, it worked a little too well, as they don't stand on a united front when Thanos arrives and, despite putting up a good fight, get flattened by the Mad Titan. Said Mad Titan then uses the Infinity Stones to wipe out half of all life in the universe, turning the world into a total mess that it spends five years trying to recover from until the Avengers find a way to set things right. Even when they do undo the Snap, the world falls into utter chaos once again trying to handle those that were restored to life, leading to the Flag-Smashers taking rise and causing just enough trouble to force Bucky and Sam to bust Zemo out of jail to help them.

Villain Protagonist: So far of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, when he teams up with Sam and Bucky to take down the Flag Smashers, getting more screen time and more of his development unlike in Civil War.

Villain Respect: As of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Zemo develops this towards Sam Wilson due to his refusal to be ehnanced into being super soldier while maintaining his idealistic outlook. He also concedes that Steve Rogers was not corrupted by the power he held but holds him as an exception.

Villainous Underdog: He's not a Physical God, not an alien, nor a Super Soldier. He's just a former military colonel with patience, a simple yet effective plan, and The Power of Hate. This is exactly why Sam and Bucky decide to bring him into their crusade against the Flag-Smashers.

Weak, but Skilled: Invoked. Zemo is a professionally trained special ops colonel who has the combat skills to take down regular men with ease. However, he knows that no amount of skill can destroy a group of enhanced individuals like the Avengers, and so relies on his manipulation and espionage skills to turn them against each other instead.

Weapon of Choice: A Smith and Wesson 6906 pistol, which he uses to execute the other Winter Soldiers and attempt suicide.

Well-Intentioned Extremist: Zemo's objective in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier is to stop the creation of any and all super soldiers, believing that they create symbols of facism like the Red Skull once did. He accomplishes this in the fourth episode by shooting Karli Morgenthau multiple times and then smashing the remaining vials as Nico is helping her escape him.

What You Are in the Dark: When Zemo corners Karli and discovers the last of the Super Soldier Serum in her possession, rather than take it for himself, which would have made his mission a lot easier, he smashes the vials and would have successfully destroyed them all had Walker not intervened.

Wicked Cultured: He's a connoiseur of music and art, as revealed in Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: He has quite a sympathetic motive for his mission of revenge against the Avengers, namely that he blames them for the death of his family.

Xanatos Speed Chess: He's not in control of everything that happens in Civil War (for one thing, he has nothing to do with the Sokovia Accords), but he's good at taking advantage of unexpected situations to further his plans. Even more so in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. In Civil War, at least he still instigates most of the events, but in the show, he's broken out of prison without having expected to and is more or less thrust into an ongoing conflict he has nothing to do with. He still manages to play the heroes and the villains—that he utterly disagrees with—and so far has gotten away completely unscathed, once again having succeeded at what he set out to do.

He's the Big Bad of Civil War and is more than willing to commit mass murder to achieve his ends, but the times he acts polite or remorseful are genuine. He states he'd rather avoid unnecessary deaths if he can, has a few standards, apologizes to T'Challa for killing his father, has regular courteous interactions with a staff member of the hotel he's staying at, and even eventually apologizes to Bucky for using him. Considering he's just a grieving man who's dedicated to avenging the deaths of his family, it makes sense he wouldn't act like a cackling maniac.

By The Falcon And The Winter Soldier, he is shown to be fairly courteous to those around him (who, apart from his family butler were his enemies before) and he is capable of holding civil conversations with Bucky, even offering him a genuine apology for his actions in Civil War. He also agrees to join Sam and Bucky's crusade against the Flag-Smashers, without the driving of a hard bargain one might expect from him. He is also fully willing to lend his resources from the criminal underground to Sam and Bucky to take the Flag-Smashers down, no questions asked.

While none of the Avengers die as a consequence of his plan in Captain America: Civil War, he accomplishes his main goal in dividing them and is content with this. While the looming threat of Thanos forces them back together in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, the reunion turns out to be temporary — by the time of Spider-Man: Far From Home, WandaVision, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the Avengers are still very much defunct.

In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he successfully killed the man who recreated the super soldier formula and destroyed all but one of the remaining samples while inadvertently leading to John Walker gaining the Super Serum for himself. This turns in Zemo's favor after Walker brutally executes a defenseless Flag Smasher in broad daylight in front of civilians, corrupting the image of super soldiers in the public eye. He willing gives up a chance at pulling a Villain: Exit, Stage Left to visit a memorial and allows him self to be captured, his work done.

He framed Bucky Barnes for bombing the United Nations, then relied on everyone else including Captain America hunting him down for it, and further that no one but the Avengers would even be capable of killing Bucky, to get access to Barnes and his knowledge of HYDRA bases.

He arranges for his ruse to be discovered by the media, relying on Tony to find out and make amends with Captain America, so they'll both find the Siberian compound where Zemo reveals to them that Bucky killed Tony's parents.

His entire plan is based on assumptions from the S.H.I.E.L.D. intel on the Avengers he's studied that Captain America's over-protectiveness of his friends and Iron Man's complex over the death of his parents would mean not only that the two would turn on each other if Bucky's involvement in the Starks' death was revealed, but that Steve wouldn't have talked to Tony about Bucky's potential involvement beforehand.

His setup gambled on the fact that it is a conflict that only works if there are no voices of reason to hold either of them back. The fact that the airport fight left only two active members of the Avengers, Bucky and a third party present in the Hydra compound in a place where no one would interfere was a happy accident for him since most of the Avengers present could have prevented things from reaching the breaking point. Of course, this is covered under Heads I Win, Tails You Lose.

Notably, this is also why he finds Bucky a bit tolerable, since he is being bewared of.

In a stark contrast to his comics depiction, he lacks any affiliation with HYDRA and outright states that they deserved to be brought down. A conversation in Falcon and the Winter Soldier reveals he despises the Red Skull and those who idolize him, and he kills Doctor Nagel while the man is gloating about being a god.

Despite his profound hatred of the Avengers, he declined to unleash the other five Winter Soldiers and shot them dead rather than risk someone else doing so, as they were worse than Bucky and would do untold damage to the world given the order. He also seems uncomfortable with the concept of experimenting on humans in general.Zemo: If it's any comfort, they died in their sleep. Did you really think I wanted more of you?

Zemo was "just" a special forces operative, but when his family was killed, he used his intel on HYDRA to take on the Avengers and came closer to destroying the team than any previous villain.

Falcon and the Winter Soldier reveals that at some point, he became involved with the criminal underground, under the simple but accurate alias of "Baron".

A) Captain America and Bucky had captured Zemo before Iron Man arrived (then again, he was in a fortified bunker that would take serious fire-power to break through).

B) Iron Man had not figured out where Cap and Bucky were headed in the first place.

C) Iron Man had not come alone, meaning there might have been someone to restrain him or talk him down after he learned the truth.

D) Black Panther had succeeded in killing Bucky during one of their three fights during the course of the film (of course it’s highly unlikely that he even knew the Black Panther existed).

E) Captain America told Iron Man that the deaths of his parents were orchestrated by HYDRA.

Zemo hates the Avengers after the collateral damage they caused killed his family. So he decides to split the team up and in the process causes collateral damage that kills other people's family members.

Zemo believes that "gods" like the Avengers should not be allowed to exist. Sam points out that be decreeing who deserves to exist, he's speaking like a god.

Tortures and kills Vasily Karpov for information. Karpov is not only a still loyal HYDRA operative but one of the main leaders of the Winter Soldier project and ordered the death of the Starks and his slow death is just desserts. He does the same to the HYDRA scientist responsible for making more Super Soldiers in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, finishing his work from Siberia.

He also happily participates in the interrogation of Doctor Nagel, the Mad Scientist who recreated the Super Soldier Serum via human experimentation, and personally guns the man down.

Zig-zagged; he knows very well that he can never kill the Avengers himself, since more powerful men than him have tried and all have failed, which is why he makes a plan to get them to kill each other for him.

In the secret HYDRA lab in Madripoor, he and his comrades come under attack. Not knowing where the assailants are, Zemo makes a quick getaway, causing Sam and the others to think he bailed... only to show up moments later when the assassins are in plain view, making it much easier for him to take them down.

When the Dora Milaje apprehend him a second time in episode 5 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he surrenders himself without a fight, presumably both because he knew he had no chance of victory and because he had already achieved his goal of destroying the current iteration of the super-soldier serum.

He uses Bucky's Trigger Phrase while the latter's locked in an apparatus, making him go on a rampage. By the end of Civil War, he himself is locked in the same apparatus.

He kills T'Challa's father in the course of his Evil Plan. After T'Challa learns the truth about this, he foils Zemo's attempted suicide to ensure he faces justice for his crimes.

#HelmutInformation

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piccadilly-lilly · 3 years

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“The predicament in which Isolde and I found ourselves seemed fictional, fantastic right from the start. 　 We met while I was on holiday behind the Iron Curtain. I was a Swedish student working for my doctorate in political science. She was a medical student from East Berlin: beautiful, slender with dark hair and smiling eyes. In a few days we were in love and, three months later, visiting her at her flat in East Berlin, I asked her to marry me. 　 "But that is impossible," Isolde said, her eyes brimming with tears. "The authorities would never let me leave the country." 　 I refused to take no for an answer, and finally convinced her that she must try to escape. On a map, we examined the communist borders stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea and considered how we'd slip out. By that time (July 1965), all the standard means of escape such as a break through the Berlin Wall, were too risky. 　 Suddenly, to my own astonishment, I heard myself say, "I'll fly you out Isolde." 　 Her eyebrows shot up. "But I didn't know you were a pilot." 　 "I'm not," I admitted. I had never been in a cockpit in my life. But I will go back to Sweden and learn to fly, and then I'll fetch you." Isolde looked at me as if I were crazy but before the evening was over, she agreed that a small plane was our best chance. 　 The trouble was that, within an hour of my first lesson in Stockholm, I learned that flying definitely was not my strong point. My coordination was poor, my depth perception and sense of balance wretched. 　 But I kept at it, and eventually I was learning how to execute ludicrously inept landings. My instructor, however, was not encouraging. My persistence in flying too low over the treetops (one day I would have to fly that low to get in under the Communist radar beams) especially upset him. "Higher, higher!" he'd shout. "We don't want to lose our plane!" 　 It took me nearly a year, 40 training hours in the air, to get my pilot's certificate. One August day in 1966, I got the precious document. I also succeeded in obtaining a tourist visa valid for two entries to Czechoslovakia, which we had decided was the country best suited for the rescue flight. 　 Next morning, Sunday, August 14, I took the train to Vienna and on Monday drove from there to the nearby check border in a hired car. The frontier police examined my visa and painstakingly checked my car and luggage. I made myself relax. How were they to know that my real mission here was to find a suitable out of the way field in which to land and pick up Isolde? 　 I selected an abandoned pasture north of Bratislava and about 25 miles east of Vienna, near a point where the sombre, wooden guard towers were a little farther apart than usual. 　 Although there were no Cessnas - the only plane with which I was familiar - available in Vienna, I learned that I could hire one in Salzburg, 155 miles away. I took the train there, and proved to an inspector at the airport that I could handle the plane. Then I managed to navigate the little aircraft back over the unfamiliar landscape to Vienna. 　 Everything was now ready. From Salzburg I had sent Isolde the coded telegram she had waited so long for. "MAGNUS ARRIVES AT 16.40 BRUNO." In the Swedish calendar, of which Isolde had a copy, each day has a special Christian name. Magnus was the following day, Friday, August 19 and I was asking Isoldeto meet me at the railway station in Brno, Czechoslovakia. 　 On Friday afternoon, I sped by car to Brno, 68 miles away. Isolde was there at the station. In our joy at being together again we forgot for an hour or so that the night held any problems for us. 　 By dinner, our laughter was hollow, our smiles frozen. We were aware that we might be celebrating our last meal. After dark we drove to the "escape field." I switched off the lights before leaving the road and crossed the pasture in the dark. 　 There was no time to waste. At any moment the tower's searchlight, slashing about in circles just 330 yards away, might spot the car. 　 "Hide there in the trees until morning," I told Isolde. "I"ll come just before dawn. When you see my plane, wave your scarf to show me where you are. And remember , whatever happens, I love you." 　 Back in Vienna two hours later, I was far too excited to sleep. instead, I wrote a letter to my parents in Sweden, telling them for the first time about Isolde, and asking for their understanding in case anything went wrong. At about 3 a.m. I checked out of the hotel and went to the airport where I explained that "urgent business in Salzburg" required me to take off just as soon as it was light. But I had hardly settled in the cockpit when the sky was split by jagged forks of lightning, followed by tremendous thunderclaps. Then the rain began to fall and I was unable to take off. 　 For two more hours I fumed and fretted, waiting for the storm to abate. Finally, at 8 o'clock sharp, I was cleared for takeoff. 　 Once outside the traffic pattern, I dived to treetop level to slip under the radar surveillance at the border. Hedge-hopping, I followed the main railway into Czechoslovakia, swept in between the two guard towers I'd chosen and skimmed over the empty pasture at an altitude of only 65 feet. 　 No familiar jumper, no waving red scarf. Isolde was not there. I banked, and rolled back towards the two guard towers. Terrified, I fully expected the soldiers, plainly visible on the towers, to open fire. But I had caught them off guard. 　 Safely back in Vienna I was utterly exhausted and worried sick about what might have happened to Isolde. There was only one thing to do. I hired another car and rushed back to Czechoslovakia, to the Bratislava hotel where we had planned to meet if anything went wrong. She was there, safe though badly shaken. 　 In her hiding place she had been drenched with rain, frightened by unfamiliar night sounds, and terrified when, at dawn, she had heard a burst of shots from the near-by border. Remembering our agreement that I would arrive shortly after the dawn she was afraid something had happened to me. Yet she had waited for me until full daylight, only then had she left her hiding place and found a road where, eventually, a motorist picked her up. 　 Despite her ordeal and knowing that a second attempt might be twice as dangerous, Isolde was eager to try again. "What other chance will we ever have, Hans?" She asked. 　 The following morning we set out north along the border searching for a new "escape field". We found it near the little town of Mikulow. It was well marked by a small lake and a tall pine grove which I believed I could easily see from the air. 　 I left Isolde there about 3.30 p.m., again promising to pick her up at dawn the next day, Monday August 22. 　 On the way back to Vienna I stopped briefly in several towns to make small sketches of the distinctive church steeples in each. These, I hoped, would help lead me back to the meadow. It was late afternoon when I stopped at the airport. Because the airport people were still friendly, I knew the Czech authorities had not lodged a complaint about my illegal morning flight. 　 Trying to sound casual, I asked the meteorologist, "What about the flying weather tomorrow, good?" 　 "No," he said. "Low hanging clouds are moving in early tonight." This meant that with my limited experience, takeoff and landing might be impossible by morning. The news hit me like a blow in the stomach. If all our efforts were not to be in vain, I would have to act quickly. It was now 5.30 and soon it would be getting dark. 　 I rushed over to the flight operations desk and tried to keep my voice level as I said, "I'd like to take a little exercise flight just to see the sunset." "Alright," said the flight dispatcher, but since you are not cleared for night flying you must be back by dusk-no later!" I knew I couldn't get back before dark, and I've never flown at night. But there was no time to worry about it. I dashed for my plane and took off. 　 Following the church steeples I'd sketched, I found my stretch of frontier, dived to an altitude of only 30 feet and leapfrogged a hill between two guard towers. Suddenly, right in front of me and less than 100 yards away, was a third tower I hadn't seen before. I missed the tower top by what seemed inches. A soldier opened his eyes wide with terror as I practically flew into his open mouth. 　 But the near-miss disorientated me. Where was the little lake, the tall pine grove where I had left Isolde. Circling, I found one lake, then another, but neither was ours. I broke into a cold sweat the light was fading fast. 　 With shaking hands, I took out my map and saw that there were only three lakes in the whole area. Climbing to get a broader view, I suddenly saw it, and saw to my enormous relief, OUR field beside it, our pine grove… and a tiny figure frantically waving a red scarf. 　 it was certainly one of the worst landings I ever made. I came in too high, overshot the field and had to break heavily to stop. Without a word Isolde jumped into the seat beside me. Almost instantly we were roaring up into the dusk in a take off as bad as the landing. I could almost hear the sound of machine-gun fire as I spiralled up as fast as I could. It was now quite dark and all the familiar landmarks had vanished. I did the only thing I could: took a compass heading of the opposite direction from which I had come. 　 Luck was with us. After some 20 acutely anxious minutes, we spotted in the distance a cluster of jewelled lights – Vienna! – then the straight, beaded string of lights that marked the airport runway. I made my approach just as if it were daytime. When I thought the runway lights whizzing by looked big enough, I pulled up the plane's nose and made an amazingly smooth landing. 　 One last hurdle remained: the airport authorities must not see Isolde or back she might go. We had planned for her to slip away into the darkness of the big field. But just as she was getting out, a car from the control tower board down on us with blazing headlights. 　 "Hide!" I whispered. Isolde scrambled back into the baggage compartment and disappeared just before a furious air control officer pulled up. 　 "You've put us to a lot of bother tonight," he snapped. "We even contacted Czech Air Control to see if they'd seen or heard you." My heart sank. "They said they had, but only over Austria, and that's a good thing for you, mister. You can get into serious trouble blundering across the border!" 　 He drove away, and I taxied the plane to a hangar. As an attendant blinded by my lights, opened the hangar door, I told Isolde, "Quick run for it." She did, without being seen. I met her outside the field and we drove jubilantly into town. 　 Next morning I sneaked Isolde back aboard and flew her to West Germany, where I landed in a field and let her out. After returning my plane to Salzburg I rejoined her. It took her a month to get her papers, and on her 25th birthday she arrived in Stockholm. We were married in the white stone church where I'd been christened, and we left on our honeymoon by car. I no longer fly planes.”

-Hans Christian Cars, from a translation of “Flykten över järnridån”

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starker-stories · 4 years

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The Cold, Chapter 4 - The Messages Series

This chapter on AO3

By @thestarkerisobvious and @starker-stories

New chapters in the series post every Thursday.

All links are to AO3. You don’t need to be a creator to have an AO3 account. You can have one solely as a reader. But to read anything at all in this series, you can just be an anonymous reader and/or commenter.

The best way to keep up with The Cold is to subscribe to the story on AO3. And the best way to keep up with the Messages Series is also to subscribe. Click on the ‘subscribe’ button on each of the above links.

Tags: Tony Stark Feels, Peter Parker Feels, College Student Peter Parker, Established Relationship, Anal Sex, Oral Sex, Tony Stark Still Has Arc Reactor, Arc Reactor Kink, Peter Parker is a Mess, Spider-Man powers, Communication, They Finally Communicate!, And Fuck Of Course Look at Who It’s Written By Of Course They Fuck, Avengers Compound

The entire Messages Series. All links are to AO3.

Messages Unsent (complete & posted)

Nothing More Than A Machine (complete & posted)

Tomorrow (complete & posted)

My Virgin (Revisited) (completely & posted)

The Cold (completely written) posts every Thursday

Untitled Book 6 ( in progress )

Untitled Book 7 ( in progress )

Chapter 4: Fifteen

“So, this is going to sound unrelated but… hear me out.

“I’d been asked to go to this group that meets at this really liberal church; it’s where all the gay advocacy groups meet. Anyway long story short, some people I go to class with swear by it, and I was just so damn angry and lonely and frustrated and weird so I figured it couldn’t hurt. Okay that’s a long involved story but the point is I was talking to some guys there and they said if your dad leaves early? You’ll never get to find out how imperfect he was. And I was like, ‘Wow, my dad died when I was like four, so do I win?’ And they’re like, “No, now your view of guys is screwed up forever because you’ll never know that he wasn’t perfect, that there’s no such thing as the perfect guy, because you didn’t ever get to know your father as an adult.” And I don’t know, none of them even had dads so what did they know, but I thought about it a lot…”

The berm was directly in front of them now. One perfect single wall, about forty feet long and fifteen feet high. Peter dashed across the wooden splinters that littered it and, with that short running start, leapt to the top, landing on his hands. He then walked across the top of the wall on his hands, continuing the conversation upside-down.

“I talked about it with Ned and he says it’s true, once you realize your dad is NOT perfect, but just a human guy who makes mistakes sometimes, it changes everything. And I wondered about that. My dad was just a normal guy in the end, a guy who must have screwed up sometimes, like everyone. And Ben…” He shifted his weight to his left hand and, right hand behind his back, began hop-walking forward inches at a time.

“Ben died. And that was my fault. And I’ve learned to live with that. But Ben wasn’t perfect either; he was pretty amazing but he wasn’t perfect. And I remember when he died, everybody was all like, ‘Oh no what will little Peter do without his father-figure oh gosh!’ And I thought ‘I’ve got to be fine, I had a father-figure, which is more than a lot of kids, and he was pretty cool, and he’s gone now and I’ll just do without. Just like half the kids in my grade do. That’s no big deal’.

“And then I met you.”

Effortlessly he stretched his feet in front of him, placing his toe on the ground in front of his hand, landing it half-on, half-off the edge of the wall. He righted himself and then stood, looking down at Tony. He paused for a moment.

“I would have sworn I didn’t need any more fathering when I was fifteen, Tony. If anyone had asked ‘Is Tony your father-figure?’ I would have said ‘No! Seriously!?’ I mean I made my first suit by myself. I made the webbing and the shooters and all of it all by myself and I became a crime-fighter, all by myself. I didn’t need anybody, and I was pretty proud of that. And I didn’t tell a soul, and I was pretty fucking proud of that too. I really thought I was doing fine without any father-figure around.

“Then you showed up.

“…And I had no right to draft you as a father-figure, Tony, and I absolutely 100% did. You never volunteered for the job; you would have turned me down if I had asked. So that one’s on me.

“I never should have asked you to be my father-figure AND my lover. Because a father-figure is perfect… and a lover… a lover is a person. A real-life person who farts and belches and leaves the toliet seat up and says stupid things without meaning to and generally acts like a shit sometimes. An imperfect person, just like me. And that’s okay. That’s how it’s supposed to be.

“So, you’re fired.”

He leapt from the wall — which is to say he aimed his head downward and fell. He caught himself on his hands, then flipped back onto his feet. Turning around he looked Tony in the eye and spoke.

“You’re fired as my father-figure. And also, thanks, but I’m firing you as my mentor, too. And no offence? But looking to you as my moral compass? Probably a terrible idea in the first place.”

Tony’s eyes crinkled with a held-in smile. Truer words had never been spoken. Moral compass? Him? Yeah. Not the greatest of ideas.

Peter looked down at his hands, now covered in wooden splinters, and brushed them off. “It’s because… it’s because I need you Tony. I need you now more than I ever have. But I need you as an equal.”

When Peter stood straight after brushing his hands clean, Tony noticed it. Something he’d been almost noticing but the image he had in his mind of Peter didn’t let him notice. Peter stood straight… and was as tall as he was. Exactly.

“That’s what I brought you out here to say.” he said as he put his arms around Tony’s neck, leaning in to whisper.

“I had to tell you about ‘The Cold’, and I had to bring you here to show you that it wasn’t all in my head. It’s about my body changing but… it’s about you too. You’re totally right, the world isn’t what I thought it would be and, sure, that’s just life. I’m trying to tell you that it’s also about… I was colossally angry at you, I was ready to break up with you. For not being perfect. And that’s my fault, not yours.

“And I’m scared, Tony, because I don’t know who I’m going to be when this is all over. I don’t know if I’m still going to be someone you’ll want to be with… I hope I will be… all I know is, whatever happens…” His voice broke again. “I’m going to need you on my side.”

Tony settled his hands lightly on Peter’s waist. They looked at each other eye-to-eye.

“Where else would I be, Peter? That’s where we belong. On each other’s side. You have my love. And that’s something that you will have…” The terms of mortality change when you’ve been dead a few times. “…Eternally. I love you. There’s nothing that will ever change that. I will be there, wherever you need me to be.”

Peter’s shoulder’s sank in relief. He closed his eyes, sighed, and stepped forward to lean his forehead down onto Tony’s shoulder.

The kid he’d taken to Berlin all those years ago wasn’t just grown up, he was gone. He never wanted to be a father-figure to Peter. This… this is what he wanted.

They turned to walk toward the main building, in the far distance, across the field. Tony put his hands in his pockets. Peter reached over and took Tony’s wrist, drawing his hand out of its pocket and putting it into his own. They walked hand in hand in silence for a while. It was Tony who broke it.

“I knew what I wanted when I left Berlin. I needed another person in the fight. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I’d fought side by side with these guys in New York and after. But I couldn’t just let them go. There were consequences to be faced. I needed them held, not hurt. Which you could do. I needed something, you had it, and I had the negotiating tactics of a forty-six year old businessman versus a fifteen year old high school kid. You were coming with me to Berlin.

“But that changed within minutes of meeting you, Pete. It’s not just since we got together, but from the first moment I met you — everything was so fast, you gave me whiplash.

“God, I was so conflicted. Here you were, this brilliant superhero. Something needed doing and you could do it. There was the mission.” He remembered his own words to Pepper a very long time ago. “That’s what got you going. Not building the retro-tech and certainly not the drudgery of high school. It was doing the very unique things that only you can do.” Their hands together, Tony let them swing, joined, between them as they walked.

“You were doing them on your own,” Tony said in wonder. “You were adult in so many ways. Not the least of which, I had to keep reminding myself, was the way the spider changed your body. You were fifteen and you looked like you were maybe nineteen or twenty. While I have done many morally dubious things, and downright immoral things, in my life, that has never been one of them,” he said firmly. “But you were doing things that no kid your age could possibly do. Looking like no kid your age could possibly look. I couldn’t reconcile the feelings I had for you with the absolute certain knowledge that I would never touch a kid of fifteen. There aren’t neat categories for what was going on with me. None of which was your problem.

“You were FIFTEEN. And god… you stood up to me, right there in your bedroom. There are guys in their forties who don’t have the balls you had when you webbed me to your doorknob.

“You were FIFTEEN. And I had… very, very inappropriate feelings about you. Not sexual, not then, but I felt closer to you than most of the other Avengers.

“You were FIFTEEN. And at fifteen, the only relationship a man of forty-six can have with a kid that age, is a fatherly one. So, despite not feeling anything fatherly towards you, I moved into that space. Only… what you were saying about imperfect fathers? Yeah. Kinda never had any model to role that on.”

Peter nodded as Tony spoke. Nodded, and grinned a little. The look on Tony’s face when Peter had webbed him to the doorknob, well, it was a memory he would treasure forever.

“I’m about as fucked up as a father-figure as you could’ve possibly turned to. I gave you exactly everything you ever dreamed of and then, over something that I should’ve talked about to you as my teammate, I acted like Howard. I yanked what you needed away instead. And I almost got you killed.”

Tony walked silently for a while. He watched his feet moving on the grass. Still holding Peter’s hand — perhaps a little tighter.

“So, me as a father? Worse than Howard. At least he never left me so stripped of everything that I nearly died, thinking I’d been abandoned. God, Pete. I will never be able to tell you how fucked up that was. If there was anything in my life I could go back and change, I’d go back and change that.

“But then, in true Howard Stark fashion, when I fucked up… instead of dealing with the fuck up, I go and plan your whole life out for you. I throw you a one point four BILLION dollar bribe that you weren’t ready for and never asked for, in hopes of gaining your forgiveness. Then on top of that, I dangled something you’d dreamt of, but also weren’t ready for. I planned your whole damn life out. I was about to do the equivalent of shipping you off to MIT at fifteen. Throwing you into the mess that was Avengers post-Berlin, post-Siberia… at FIFTEEN. God!” Tony said angrily. He twisted his head sharply away, his mouth drawn tight in disgust with himself. He took a deep breath. None of that mattered. It was over. They’d moved on.

“You were stronger than me in so many ways. You saved yourself when I took your first dream away. You gave yourself what I failed to give you. Then, instead of just letting me drag you into a future you weren’t ready for… you told ME no. Flat out told Tony Stark ‘no thanks I don’t need the future you’ve designed for me, I’ll make my own’.”

“Oh, shit. I did do that, didn’t I?”

“God, Pete,” Tony said. He looked at Peter as if he was the most amazing, wonderful thing in the universe. Because he was. “You absolutely blew me away. Which caused so many more conflicted feelings.” Tony paused, and they kept walking.

“Because…” He stopped their walk in the middle of the neatly-kept lawn. He looked down at their twined hands and lightly rubbed his thumb against the back of Peter’s. “That’s when I started to fall in love with you.”

Peter started a little at the revelation, but he didn’t speak. He walked into Tony’s body and touched his head to the man’s shoulder, but he didn’t speak. They kept walking.

“Again, not pervy… I just… Peter, you took hold of me in ways… I admired the hell out of you.” He stopped again to make his point. To make sure Peter understood his point. “Do you know how many people I admire? ONE.”

Tony swung their hands once as they headed back. The main building was in sight. “So what does that feel like? When it’s a fifteen year old kid?” He gave a slight shake of his head, feeling again that incredible struggle that went on inside him after he dropped Peter back off at May’s.

“We came back from Berlin — and Siberia — and you stood up to me. But you did it honestly. No deceptions, no dithering, no evading. You just said ‘no’. Not lying to ‘spare my feelings’. When you walked out of here, you didn’t just have my admiration, you had my trust. There’s a couple more people I trust than I admire. Three. Including you. That’s it.

“And, as I’ve been saying… you were fifteen fuckin’ years old. Then after? I can’t even touch what the things that happened after that did to me when I thought about you. What happened on Titan… I… I can’t.”

He couldn’t. Not Titan. Even though years had passed. Feeling Peter turn to dust in his arms. Watching the boy hold on with every bit of his spider-strength so he could reach up to comfort him as he was being torn apart, what felt like over and over again, as Tony held him. And he couldn’t even say how good the kid was. How much he admired him. How much… he loved him. To hear Peter apologize for leaving him… to say those two meaningless words and mean them… He couldn’t. He went back to a time when he could.

“I loved you when you walked out those doors.” He nodded towards the building they were headed towards. “You were fifteen and the only way that someone my age was supposed to love someone yours was as a father,” Tony reiterated with a wry laugh. “I am SO not father material.” Tony stopped their progress. He turned and faced Peter directly. “You can’t fire me, I quit,” he said, smiling widely at him.

Peter sighed in content, overwhelmed with relief. He didn’t realize until this moment how afraid he had really been. Up until they had landed at the compound he told himself his biggest secret, his biggest worry, had been The Cold. Now he leaned forward and touched their foreheads together, speechless. He wasn’t sure he could speak.

Finally, they parted and began to walk again. “I don’t want to tell you what to do. I don’t want you to need my permission to live your life. I never wanted that from the moment you left here. I wanted what I’ve always been looking for — someone to fight alongside me. Someone I could trust. Someone I could look to and see… myself, sure… we’re a lot alike… but Pete, you are…” Tony shook his head. “I don’t want you to be like me. I want to be like you.”

Peter pulled Tony’s hand up to his mouth and kissed the back of it.

There was a little stretch of silence while Tony tried to put his thoughts into words that made sense.

“I want us to be like us. Because that’s the only way I can be now. An equal part of an ‘us’. When we need anything… I want to look to you and I want you to look to me. What we need at the moment might not always be there. We’re imperfect. But I want to be your ground. I want you to be the home built upon that ground. I’m too… Tony looked away, off into the distance for a long time before speaking again.

“There’s too much damage for me to ever be able to give pieces of myself to other people — everything that’s left in me… I can give it to you because I love you.”

Peter stopped them from walking and pulled Tony closer. He lay his forehead on Tony’s shoulder again, locking his hands around the back of Tony’s head.

“I love you, Tony.”

Those ‘three little words’ that he hardly ever said before were now so lacking, even though he said them often after he and Peter got together. Since seeing Peter come back on the battlefield, since seeing Peter fade from his vision as he died, since seeing Peter holding on to him, refusing to let him go — everything since Tony had come back to life boiled down to those three little words: I love you.

Tony rested his head against Peter’s that was on his shoulder. “There’s nothing of me that isn’t yours.”

#starker #Messages Series #Messages Cold #Von Writes Stuff #Thewitchway Writes Stuff

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blackkudos · 4 years

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Jesse Owens

James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens (September 12, 1913 – March 31, 1980) was an American track and field athlete and four-time gold medalist in the 1936 Olympic Games.

Owens specialized in the sprints and the long jump, and was recognized in his lifetime as "perhaps the greatest and most famous athlete in track and field history". He set three world records and tied another, all in less than an hour at the 1935 Big Ten track meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan—a feat that has never been equaled and has been called "the greatest 45 minutes ever in sport".

He achieved international fame at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, by winning four gold medals: 100 meters, 200 meters, long jump, and 4 × 100-meter relay. He was the most successful athlete at the Games and, as a black man, was credited with "single-handedly crushing Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy", although he "wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either."

The Jesse Owens Award is USA Track and Field's highest accolade for the year's best track and field athlete. Owens was ranked by ESPN as the sixth greatest North American athlete of the 20th century and the highest-ranked in his sport. In 1999, he was on the six-man short-list for the BBC's Sports Personality of the Century.

Early life and education

Jesse Owens, originally known as J.C., was the youngest of ten children (three girls and seven boys) born to Henry Cleveland Owens (a sharecropper) and Mary Emma Fitzgerald in Oakville, Alabama, on September 12, 1913. At the age of nine, he and his family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, for better opportunities, as part of the Great Migration, when 1.5 million African Americans left the segregated South for the urban and industrial North. When his new teacher asked his name (to enter in her roll book), he said "J.C.", but because of his strong Southern accent, she thought he said "Jesse". The name stuck, and he was known as Jesse Owens for the rest of his life.

As a youth, Owens took different menial jobs in his spare time: He delivered groceries, loaded freight cars and worked in a shoe repair shop while his father and older brother worked at a steel mill. During this period, Owens realized that he had a passion for running. Throughout his life, Owens attributed the success of his athletic career to the encouragement of Charles Riley, his junior high school track coach at Fairmount Junior High School. Since Owens worked in a shoe repair shop after school, Riley allowed him to practice before school instead.

Owens and Minnie Ruth Solomon (1915–2001) met at Fairmont Junior High School in Cleveland when he was 15 and she was 13. They dated steadily through high school. Ruth gave birth to their first daughter, Gloria, in 1932. They married on July 5, 1935 and had two more daughters together—Marlene, born in 1937, and Beverly, born in 1940. They remained married until his death in 1980.

Owens first came to national attention when he was a student of East Technical High School in Cleveland; he equaled the world record of 9.4 seconds in the 100-yard (91 m) dash and long-jumped 24 feet 9 1⁄2 inches (7.56 meters) at the 1933 National High School Championship in Chicago.

Career

Ohio State University

Owens attended the Ohio State University after his father found employment, which ensured that the family could be supported. Affectionately known as the "Buckeye Bullet" and under the coaching of Larry Snyder, Owens won a record eight individual NCAA championships, four each in 1935 and 1936. (The record of four gold medals at the NCAA was equaled only by Xavier Carter in 2006, although his many titles also included relay medals.) Though Owens enjoyed athletic success, he had to live off campus with other African-American athletes. When he traveled with the team, Owens was restricted to ordering carry-out or eating at "blacks-only" restaurants. Similarly, he had to stay at "blacks-only" hotels. Owens did not receive a scholarship for his efforts, so he continued to work part-time jobs to pay for school.

Owens achieved track and field immortality in a span of 45 minutes on May 25, 1935, during the Big Ten meet at Ferry Field in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he set three world records and tied a fourth. He equaled the world record for the 100-yard dash (9.4 seconds) (not to be confused with the 100-meter dash), and set world records in the long jump (26 ft 8 1⁄4 in or 8.13 m, a world record that would last for 25 years); 220 yards (201.2 meters) sprint (20.3 seconds); and 220-yard low hurdles (22.6 seconds, becoming the first to break 23 seconds). Both 220 yard records may also have beaten the metric records for 200 meters (flat and hurdles), which would count as two additional world records from the same performances. In 2005, University of Central Florida professor of sports history Richard C. Crepeau chose these wins on one day as the most impressive athletic achievement since 1850.

1936 Berlin Summer Olympics

On December 4, 1935, NAACP Secretary Walter Francis White wrote a letter to Owens, although he never actually sent it. He was trying to dissuade Owens from taking part in the Olympics on the grounds that an African-American should not promote a racist regime after what his race had suffered at the hands of white racists in his own country. In the months prior to the Games, a movement gained momentum in favor of a boycott. Owens was convinced by the NAACP to declare "If there are minorities in Germany who are being discriminated against, the United States should withdraw from the 1936 Olympics." Yet he and others eventually took part after Avery Brundage, president of the American Olympic Committee branded them "un-American agitators".

In 1936, Owens and his United States teammates sailed on the SS Manhattan and arrived in Germany to compete at the Summer Olympics in Berlin. Owens arrived at the new Olympic stadium to a throng of fans, according to fellow American sprinter James LuValle (who won the bronze in the 400 meters), many of them young girls yelling "Wo ist Jesse? Wo ist Jesse?" ("Where is Jesse? Where is Jesse?") Owens's success at the games represented an unpleasant consternation for Hitler, who was using them to show the world a resurgent Nazi Germany. He and other government officials had high hopes that German athletes would dominate the games with victories.

Just before the competitions, Adi Dassler visited Owens in the Olympic village. He was the founder of the Adidas athletic shoe company, and he persuaded Owens to wear Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik shoes; this was the first sponsorship for a male African American athlete.

On August 3, he won the 100 m dash with a time of 10.3 seconds, defeating a teammate and a college friend Ralph Metcalfe by a tenth of a second and defeating Tinus Osendarp of the Netherlands by two tenths of a second. On August 4, he won the long jump with a leap of 8.06 m (26 ft 5 in) (3¼ inches short of his own world record). He later credited this achievement to the technical advice that he received from Luz Long, the German competitor whom he defeated. On August 5, he won the 200 m sprint with a time of 20.7 s, defeating teammate Mack Robinson (the older brother of Jackie Robinson). On August 9, he won his fourth gold medal in the 4 × 100 m sprint relay when head coach Lawson Robertson replaced Jewish-American sprinters Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller with Owens and Ralph Metcalfe, who teamed with Frank Wykoff and Foy Draper to set a world record of 39.8 s in the event. Owens had initially protested the last-minute switch, but assistant coach Dean Cromwell said to him, "You'll do as you are told." Owens' record-breaking performance of four gold medals was not equaled until Carl Lewis won gold medals in the same events at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Owens had set the world record in the long jump with a leap of 8.13 m (26 ft 8 in) in 1935, the year before the Berlin Olympics, and this record stood for 25 years until it was broken in 1960 by countryman Ralph Boston. Coincidentally, Owens was a spectator at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome when Boston took the gold medal in the long jump.

The long-jump victory is documented, along with many other 1936 events, in the 1938 film Olympia by Leni Riefenstahl. On August 1, 1936, Hitler shook hands with the German victors only and then left the stadium. International Olympic Committee president Henri de Baillet-Latour insisted that Hitler greet every medalist or none at all. Hitler opted for the latter and skipped all further medal presentations.

Owens first competed on Day 2 (August 2), running in the first (10:30 a.m.) and second (3:00 p.m.) qualifying rounds for the 100 meters final; he equaled the Olympic and world record in the first race and broke them in the second race, but the new time was not recognized, because it was wind-assisted. Later the same day, Owens's African-American team-mate Cornelius Johnson won gold in the high jump final (which began at 5:00 p.m.) with a new Olympic record of 2.03 meters. Hitler did not publicly congratulate any of the medal winners this time; even so, the communist New York City newspaper the Daily Worker claimed Hitler received all the track winners except Johnson and left the stadium as a "deliberate snub" after watching Johnson's winning jump. Hitler was subsequently accused of failing to acknowledge Owens (who won gold medals on August 3, 4 (two), and 8) or shake his hand. Owens responded to these claims at the time:

Hitler had a certain time to come to the stadium and a certain time to leave. It happened he had to leave before the victory ceremony after the 100 meters [race began at 5:45 p.m.]. But before he left I was on my way to a broadcast and passed near his box. He waved at me and I waved back. I think it was bad taste to criticize the 'man of the hour' in another country.

In an article dated August 4, 1936, the African-American newspaper editor Robert L. Vann describes witnessing Hitler "salute" Owens for having won gold in the 100m sprint (August 3):

And then … wonder of wonders … I saw Herr Adolph Hitler, salute this lad. I looked on with a heart which beat proudly as the lad who was crowned king of the 100 meters event, get an ovation the like of which I have never heard before. I saw Jesse Owens greeted by the Grand Chancellor of this country as a brilliant sun peeped out through the clouds. I saw a vast crowd of some 85,000 or 90,000 people stand up and cheer him to the echo.

Albert Speer wrote that Hitler "was highly annoyed by the series of triumphs by the marvelous colored American runner, Jesse Owens. People whose antecedents came from the jungle were primitive, Hitler said with a shrug; their physiques were stronger than those of civilized whites and hence should be excluded from future games."

In a 2009 interview, German journalist Siegfried Mischner claimed that Owens carried around a photograph in his wallet of the Führer shaking his hand before the latter left the stadium. Owens, who felt that the newspapers of the day reported "unfairly" on Hitler's attitude towards him, tried to get Mischner and his journalist colleagues to change the accepted version of history in the 1960s. Mischner claimed that Owens showed him the photograph and told him: "That was one of my most beautiful moments." Mischner added: "(the picture) was taken behind the honour stand and so not captured by the world's press. But I saw it, I saw him shaking Hitler's hand!" According to Mischner, "the predominating opinion in post-war Germany was that Hitler had ignored Owens, so we therefore decided not to report on the photo. The consensus was that Hitler had to continue to be painted in a bad light in relation to Owens." For some time, Mischner's assertion was not confirmed independently of his own account, and Mischner himself admitted in Mail Online: "All my colleagues are dead, Owens is dead. I thought this was the last chance to set the record straight. I have no idea where the photo is or even if it exists still."

However, in 2014, Eric Brown, British fighter pilot and test pilot, the Fleet Air Arm's most decorated living pilot, independently stated in a BBC documentary: "I actually witnessed Hitler shaking hands with Jesse Owens and congratulating him on what he had achieved." Additionally, an article in The Baltimore Sun in August 1936 reported that Hitler sent Owens a commemorative inscribed cabinet photograph of himself.

Later, on October 15, 1936, Owens repeated this allegation when he addressed an audience of African Americans at a Republican rally in Kansas City, remarking: "Hitler didn't snub me—it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram."

In Germany, Owens had been allowed to travel with and stay in the same hotels as whites, at a time when African Americans in many parts of the United States had to stay in segregated hotels that accommodated only blacks. When Owens returned to the United States, he was greeted in New York City by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. During a Manhattan ticker-tape parade in his honor along Broadway's Canyon of Heroes, someone handed Owens a paper bag. Owens paid it little mind until the parade concluded. When he opened it up, he found that the bag contained $10,000 in cash. Owens's wife Ruth later said: "And he [Owens] didn't know who was good enough to do a thing like that. And with all the excitement around, he didn't pick it up right away. He didn't pick it up until he got ready to get out of the car." After the parade, Owens was not permitted to enter through the main doors of the Waldorf Astoria New York and instead forced to travel up to the event in a freight elevator to reach the reception honoring him. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) never invited Jesse Owens to the White House following his triumphs at the Olympic Games. When the Democrats bid for his support, Owens rejected those overtures: as a staunch Republican, he endorsed Alf Landon, Roosevelt's Republican opponent in the 1936 presidential race.

Owens joined the Republican Party after returning from Europe and was paid to campaign for African American votes for the Republican presidential nominee Alf Landon in the 1936 presidential election. Speaking at a Republican rally held in Baltimore on October 9, 1936, Owens said: "Some people say Hitler snubbed me. But I tell you, Hitler did not snub me. I am not knocking the President. Remember, I am not a politician, but remember that the President did not send me a message of congratulations because, people said, he was too busy."

Life after the Olympics

Owens was quoted saying the secret behind his success was, "I let my feet spend as little time on the ground as possible. From the air, fast down, and from the ground, fast up."

After the games had ended, the entire Olympic team was invited to compete in Sweden. Owens decided to capitalize on his success by returning to the United States to take up some of the more lucrative endorsement offers. United States athletic officials were furious and withdrew his amateur status, which immediately ended his career. Owens was angry and stated that "A fellow desires something for himself." Owens argued that the racial discrimination he had faced throughout his athletic career, such as not being eligible for scholarships in college and therefore being unable to take classes between training and working to pay his way, meant he had to give up on amateur athletics in pursuit of financial gain elsewhere.

Owens returned home from the 1936 Olympics with four gold medals and international fame, but there were no guarantees for his future prosperity. Racism was still prevalent in the United States, and he had difficulty finding work. He took on menial jobs as a gas station attendant, playground janitor, and manager of a dry cleaning firm. He also raced against amateurs and horses for cash.

Owens was prohibited from making appearances at amateur sporting events to bolster his profile, and he found out that the commercial offers had all but disappeared. In 1937, he briefly toured with a twelve-piece jazz band under contract with Consolidated Artists but found it unfulfilling. He also made appearances at baseball games and other events. Finally, Willis Ward—a friend and former competitor from the University of Michigan—brought Owens to Detroit in 1942 to work at Ford Motor Company as Assistant Personnel Director. Owens later became a director, in which capacity he worked until 1946.

In 1946, Owens joined Abe Saperstein in the formation of the West Coast Negro Baseball League, a new Negro baseball league; Owens was Vice-President and the owner of the Portland (Oregon) Rosebuds franchise. He toured with the Rosebuds, sometimes entertaining the audience in between doubleheader games by competing in races against horses. The WCBA disbanded after only two months.

Owens helped promote the exploitation film Mom and Dad in African American neighborhoods. He tried to make a living as a sports promoter, essentially an entertainer. He would give local sprinters a ten- or twenty-yard start and beat them in the 100-yd (91-m) dash. He also challenged and defeated racehorses; as he revealed later, the trick was to race a high-strung Thoroughbred that would be frightened by the starter's shotgun and give him a bad jump. Owens said, "People say that it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do? I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals." On the lack of opportunities, Owens added, "There was no television, no big advertising, no endorsements then. Not for a black man, anyway."

He traveled to Rome for the 1960 Summer Olympics where he met the 1960 100 meters champion Armin Hary of Germany, who had defeated American Dave Sime in a photo finish.

In 1965, Owens was hired as a running instructor for spring training for the New York Mets.

Owens ran a dry cleaning business and worked as a gas station attendant to earn a living, but he eventually filed for bankruptcy. In 1966, he was successfully prosecuted for tax evasion. At rock bottom, he was aided in beginning his rehabilitation. The government appointed him as a US goodwill ambassador. Owens traveled the world and spoke to companies such as the Ford Motor Company and stakeholders such as the United States Olympic Committee. After he retired, he owned racehorses.

Owens initially refused to support the black power salute by African-American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Summer Olympics. He told them:

The black fist is a meaningless symbol. When you open it, you have nothing but fingers – weak, empty fingers. The only time the black fist has significance is when there's money inside. There's where the power lies.

Four years later in his 1972 book I Have Changed, he revised his opinion:

I realized now that militancy in the best sense of the word was the only answer where the black man was concerned, that any black man who wasn't a militant in 1970 was either blind or a coward.

Owens traveled to Munich for the 1972 Summer Olympics as a special guest of the West German government, meeting West German Chancellor Willy Brandt and former boxer Max Schmeling.

A few months before his death, Owens had unsuccessfully tried to convince President Jimmy Carter to withdraw his demand that the United States boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He argued that the Olympic ideal was supposed to be observed as a time-out from war and that it was above politics.

Death

Owens was a pack-a-day cigarette smoker for 35 years, starting at age 32. Beginning in December 1979, he was hospitalized on and off with an extremely aggressive and drug-resistant type of lung cancer. He died of the disease at age 66 in Tucson, Arizona, on March 31, 1980, with his wife and other family members at his bedside. He was buried at Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago. Although Jimmy Carter had ignored Owens' request to cancel the Olympic boycott, the President issued a tribute to Owens after he died: "Perhaps no athlete better symbolized the human struggle against tyranny, poverty and racial bigotry."

Legacy

The dormitory that Owens occupied during the Berlin Olympics has been fully restored into a living museum, with pictures of his accomplishments at the games, and a letter (intercepted by the Gestapo) from a fan urging him not to shake hands with Hitler.

Awards and honors

1936: AP Athlete of the Year (Male)

1936: four English oak saplings, one for each Olympic gold medal, from the German Olympic Committee, planted. One of the trees was planted at the University of Southern California, one at Rhodes High School in Cleveland, where he trained, and one is rumored to be on the Ohio State University campus but has yet to be identified. The fourth tree was at the home of Jesse Owens' mother but was removed when the house was demolished.

1970: inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame.

1976: awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Gerald Ford.

1976: inducted into Silver Olympic Order for his quadruple victory in the 1936 games and his defense of sport and the ethics of sport.

1979: awarded Living Legend Award by President Jimmy Carter.

1980: asteroid newly discovered by Antonín Mrkos at the Kleť Observatory named 6758 Jesseowens.

1981: USA Track and Field created the Jesse Owens Award which is given annually to the country's top track and field athlete.

1983: part of inaugural class into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame.

1984: street south of the Olympic Stadium in Berlin renamed Jesse-Owens-Allee

1984: secondary school Jesse Owens Realschule/Oberschule in Lichtenberg, Berlin named for Owens.

March 28, 1990: posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by President George H. W. Bush.

1990 and 1998: two U.S. postage stamps have been issued to honor Owens, one in each year.

1996: Owens' hometown of Oakville, Alabama, dedicated the Jesse Owens Memorial Park and Museum in his honor at the same time that the Olympic Torch came through the community, 60 years after his Olympic wins. An article in the Wall Street Journal of June 7, 1996, covered the event and included this inscription written by poet Charles Ghigna that appears on a bronze plaque at the park:

1999: ranked the sixth greatest North American athlete of the twentieth century and the highest-ranked in his sport by ESPN.

1999: on the six-man shortlist for the BBC's Sports Personality of the Century.

2001: Ohio State University dedicated Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium for track and field events. A sculpture honoring Owens occupies a place of honor in the esplanade leading to the rotunda entrance to Ohio Stadium. Owens competed for the Buckeyes on the track surrounding the football field that existed prior to the 2001 expansion of Ohio Stadium. The campus also houses three recreational centers for students and staff named in his honor.

2002: scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Owens on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

2009: at the 2009 World Athletic Championships in Berlin, all members of the United States Track and Field team wore badges with "JO" on them to commemorate Owens' victories in the same stadium 73 years before.

2010: Ohio Historical Society proposed Owens as a finalist from a statewide vote for inclusion in Statuary Hall at the United States Capitol.

November 15, 2010: the city of Cleveland renamed East Roadway, between Rockwell and Superior avenues in Public Square, Jesse Owens Way.

2012: 80,000 individual pixels in the audience seating area were used as a giant video screen to show footage of Owens running around the stadium in the London 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, just after the Olympic cauldron had been lit.

In Cleveland, Ohio, a statue of Owens in his Ohio State track suit was installed at Fort Huntington Park, west of the old Courthouse.

Phoenix, Arizona named the Jesse Owens Medical Centre in his honor, as well as Jesse Owens Parkway.

Jesse Owens Park, in Tucson, Arizona, is a center of local youth athletics there.

For his contribution to sports in Los Angeles, Owens was honored with a Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum "Court of Honor" plaque by the Coliseum commissioners.

in July 2018, Ohio Governor John Kasich dedicated the 75th state park Jesse Owens State Park. It is located on AEP reclaimed mining land south of Zanesville, OH.

#09/12 #03/31

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shusiha · 6 years

Text

Vacation part 1

Hey guys, this is my first fic. i hope you like it!

Summary: The Reader is on vacation and meets Tom in a small coffee shop .

Warnings: none.

Vacation in England. Sounds great, right ? Yeah, not so much. I mean technically it is but being alone there with no plan what to do isn't how I imagined my vacation to be. Okay enough with that I should use my time to just make a plan.

I was here before, it shouldn't be too hard. With those thoughts I close the red, not the nice kind of red more like rusty, door to my small apartment. It's small but I did good with the facility, at least I like to think I did.

The first thing I see is a cute little yellow bike being tossed around by a child, the mother trying to soothe her son but failing miserably. I try to hold in my laughter and take big steps to get away from the weird scene as quick as possible.

After a quick walk I finally see my destination, a cute little coffee shop with the cutest, not to forget the most comfortable, little sofas I've ever seen and sat on.

I guess it's my lucky day. There were only three people in there I realized as the delicous smell of coffee hit my nose. My favourite spot at the Window was free too. The people looked friendly but to be honest they always did.

There was an old lady in the back, enjoying coffee and a piece of cake with her husband. They make a cute couple. I let out a quiet sigh, would be nice to have a love like that. I quickly shake myself out of my thoughts.

After doing so I see a middle aged woman furiously typing something in her computer. A quick observation later I'm on my way to the counter.

"Good morning! What can I serve you on this lovely day" the waitress greets me with a big smile, her perfect white teeth seemingly shining as much as her hazel eyes.

After giving her my order with a kind smile of myself, I quickly stride over to my favourite spot. With a small huff I let myself fall into the soft pink cushion. I take out my book and let myself be pulled into the imaginary world.

I don't realize that another customer, a handsome middle-aged and well known man I would later learn, stepped into the small shop. I didn't even noticed his first attempts to communicate with me, as I was way to deep into the story.

I softly jumped when I felt someone tap my shoulder. Then man instantly apologized. "Oh my, I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to scare you, ma'am. I really am sorry. Are you okay ?" I was damned if I didn't recognize this voice in an instant. It was freaking Tom Hiddleston, smiling kindly at me.

I was too starstruck to say something so I just nodded. "I'm really sorry to disturb you but this right here is my favourite spot and I was wondering, and I totally understand if not, if I could take a seat ?" I nodded again still too shocked to speak. "I'm Thomas but please call me Tom" from my reaction I'm guessing he knew that I already know his name but he was simply too polite to say so.

After a bit he was still looking at me. I suddenly remembered I never told him my name. "Oh. I'm sorry my name is Y/N." He smiled another dashing smile at me and nodded with acknowledgement. There was silence until the waitress came with our orders. Nice to know that he gets his at the same time as me, even though I ordered way before him.

" Latte, mh ?" He smiled. "Yeah" I said and looked out of the window, embarrassed that I couldn't even hold a conversation. Out of the corner I could see him deflating a bit. He drinks his drink in silence and doesn't glance at me anymore. I realize that I probably gave him the impression that I want to be left in peace. I finally found it in myself to talk.

"I'm sorry for being impolite I was just nervous I guess" he looked at me surprised but it quickly turned into a smile. " Oh, that's fine. Really. So, what brings you to my favourite place ?" I smile relieved that there were no hard feelings.

"I'm on vacation. And I know from this place because an old friend told me it's worth checking out." It was easier to talk now. "It certainly is. Where are you originally from then ?" His eyes looked way prettier in person. "I'm from Germany, Berlin to be more precise." He looked surprised. "Wow. I couldn't tell you speak English like you were born here." I blushed a bit. It was a compliment, right ? Right.

"Thank you. I have family in here. Guess it's in my blood" I said laughing a bit he chuckled softly. A nice sound, very nice I could gladly get used to it. "how is it to live in Berlin I only ever went for premieres. Sadly I didn't see much of the city." He's good at conversations. "It's nice but it can get a bit too much. I don't miss it when I'm here tough, only my friends and family."

I was at ease with him now. A normal guy having a friendly conversation with me. In reality it was like that from the beginning but it was hard to not treat him like a famous person, now it felt natural. After finishing our coffees I heard his phone ding and watched as he reached for it with kind of an disappointed face. I knew what was coming now. We would say our goodbyes and never see eachother again.

"I'm sorry but I have to go. It was very nice talking to you" he seemed to fight a bit with himself, so I decided to be bold and take a risk.

"I would like to see you again, what do you think ?" I watched as his face broke out in a big smile. "I would actually like that very much." He took his napkin and a pen from the inside of his jacket, he wrote his number down. "Write me" he smiled and leaned down to give me a hug. I don't think a hug ever felt this good in my life.

After he walked away I couldn't help but smile from ear to ear. I packed my things and went to the counter too pay. The waitress shook her head. "The handsome gentleman already paid for the both of you. Have a nice day!" I nodded. "You too" with that I walked out too feel the warm spring breeze on my face.

As I walk down the street I can't help but too think about Tom. I wonder when I should write him. Or should I call ? Was it too old school to call or was he into that stuff ? Would It be to early to write now ? I don't wanna come of as needy.

Not really thinking were I'm going I nearly get hit by a car. The loud honking kicks me out of my thoughts and with a shriek I run off the street. Nice. How embarrassing was that ? After the little embarrassment and a little walk I'm back at my place. I walk the steps to my floor and open the old door with a quiet squeak.

After settling down on my couch, laptop on my lap, I grab my phone a decide to call. Very old school, but classy. After a few rings he picks up. "Hello ?" I'm silent. A bit to long I guess. "Hello ? Is someone on the line ?" I quickly snap out of it. "Y-yeah hey. Hello. It's me the spot thief" I facepalm. smooth. Very smooth.

To my delight I hear his laugh. "Ah hey, Y/N. Missing me already ?" I blush a bit but he couldn't see it so everything was fine. "hah, you wish." I try to come back with a sarcastic remark. "Maybe I do. Maybe I do." His cheeky answer comes right back. "I was just calling if you're free for a drink ? This evening. O-or whenever you're free." Wow. Smooth.

"Yes I am. Would you like me to come by MD pick you up ?" Gentleman. I love it. "That won't be necessary I'm a big girl you know ?" "Oh I know But I insist. I know a really nice place to get drinks. Is seven alright by you ?"

He's so polite. I can't remember when I last met a guy this polite and nice and handsome and.... Anyway. "If you insist. Yes. Seven is perfect." It's good that he can't see my goofy smile.. "then it's set. So how about the lovely lady sends me her address ?" " The Lady gladly will. See you at seven." "Can't wait. Goodbye" the line ends and let the phone fall on the couch smiling from ear to ear. "Me neither".

#tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston imagine #marvel #marvel imagine #tom hiddleston x reader #tom hiddleston x you #x reader #marvel x reader

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holocenerpg · 6 years

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First of all, we’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who applied or expressed interest to Holocene. We’ve had some really hard decisions to make over the last nine hours (!!! nine, that’s how much we loved these apps) and we really encourage anyone who didn’t get accepted this time to message us if you would like any feedback! We honestly liked something about every app, and we’re so grateful you thought we were worth your time and creative energy because it was our genuine pleasure to read all of your apps.

We’re so sorry about the wait —- we totally didn’t realise it would take this long, but some of these apps were super detailed and we wanted to be as thorough as possible with our decisions. We want to take this opportunity as well to remind you of our recent decision regarding tomorrow’s acceptance for reserves: as it may be our last open acceptances and applications before the group closes, given how many wonderful members we’ve accepted today, we’ve decided that anyone can apply at tomorrow’s applications, whether or not there was a reserve. We’re closing the submit two hours later than initially advertised as well, to try give a little more time, so the submit will be closing for the final time at 5PM PST / 8PM EST / 1AM GMT on Sunday, 16th September. This means that if you didn’t get accepted today, you can apply again tomorrow —- and we really want to reiterate that we encourage you asking us about your apps, because there are some things we loved about all of them, and we have feedback as well which may help. You’re all such wonderful writers, and it was truly such a difficult last nine hours.

And to those who are accepted, congratulations! We can’t wait to roleplay with all of you. I’ll be around for the next few hours as I finally switch gears to my assignments, so I’ll be around for receiving blogs and sending out OOC discord links. If you were accepted and have any questions, please don’t hesitate to send them in, and either I’ll get back to you or Admin Sarah when she wakes up from some well-deserved rest!

Note: a reminder that Hugo Weasley is under reserve, so his current app will be considered at tomorrow’s acceptances.

Congratulations, DRIZZLE, you have been accepted for ALBUS POTTER with the face claim of ALFIE ENOCH! (Please note that Albus is adopted.) We are so excited to get an Albus here at Holocene, and we absolutely love him! I cannot wait to see him cracking jokes about being a keeper whilst simultaneously being the most stressed by all of the nonsense shenanigans his family members get up to. I also think he’ll be an excellent addition to the Sixth Year Slytherins, and I can’t wait to see how he interacts with his cohort as well as the rest of the students in general. Sarah and I absolutely loved and agreed with the reasoning behind his positions and we can’t wait to see his powerpoints hit the dash! Welcome to HOLOCENE, we’re so excited to have you here! Your requests for ALBUS to be involved with the SHACKLEBOLT INTERNSHIP and a SLYTHERIN KEEPER and PREFECT have been accepted. Please send in your account to the main by twenty-four hours or send us a message if you need more time. Make sure that your theme is accessible and that your characters’ name, house, gender, year, and pronouns are stated somewhere in the description. Remember that your second character can be on a sideblog if you’d like, but we do not allow MUMU blogs.

Congratulations, MEGAN, you have been accepted for AMIRA SHACKLEBOLTwith the face claim of KIANA LEDE! I loved everything about this application – reading your headcanons about her family was particularly interesting. It was lovely to see how caring and dedicated Kingsley and Mariah are as parents, and it broke my heart when I read about how Kingsley and Amira have drifted apart over the years even though it was understandable. Jane and I were talking about how much we loved that she’s so open about her sexuality and that her family loves her all the same – it’s absolutely not their job to be a model family for sure, but still, it was such a great take. Welcome to HOLOCENE, we’re so excited to have you here! Your request for AMIRA to be involved with the SHACKLEBOLT INTERNSHIP PROGRAM has been accepted. Please send in your account to the main by twenty-four hours or send us a message if you need more time. Make sure that your theme is accessible and that your characters’ name, house, gender, year, and pronouns are stated somewhere in the description. Remember that your second character can be on a sideblog if you’d like, but we do not allow MUMU blogs. (Amira will be filling Iris Parkinson’s friends with benefits wanted connection.)

Congratulations, CARA, you have been accepted for ARIES ZHENG with the face claim of LIN YANJUN! Ahhhh, we absolutely loved your headcanons, and we’re so excited to see Aries gracing our dash. We’re both so excited that you applied for the sixth year squad connection —- a personal favourite part of your application for me was your family headcanon, and seeing both that sense of family and the ways in which the sixth year squad help him with these important moments in his life, be it coming out or applying for summer programs. Aries is just such a lovely character, and even if he is Too Much for some of his peers, he’s absolutely Just Right for us. We can’t wait to see his creative self gracing our dash! Welcome to HOLOCENE, we’re so excited to have you here! Your requests for ARIES to be the INTERNATIONAL QUIDDITCH LEAGUE KEEPER and RAVENCLAW KEEPER have been accepted. Please send in your account to the main by twenty-four hours or send us a message if you need more time. Make sure that your theme is accessible and that your characters’ name, house, gender, year, and pronouns are stated somewhere in the description. Remember that your second character can be on a sideblog if you’d like, but we do not allow MUMU blogs. (Aries will be filling Mia’s sixth year squad wanted connection, but this connection is still open for more characters.)

Congratulations, MEL, you have been accepted for ASTRID DELACOUR-DUBOIS with the face claim of KRISTINE FROSETH! Reading about her parents’ divorce was absolutely heartwrenching, but it gave such wonderful insight on what her family and home life was like. We really loved your second headcanon about her perfectionism and anxiety as well, and as Jane said, it was such a nice twist on natural brilliance. And god, not only do I love Astrid, I adore her mother Gabrielle! It’s always wonderful to see parents who accept their children’s sexuality without question. I just can’t wait to see Astrid on the dash! Welcome to HOLOCENE, we’re so excited to have you here! Your requests for ASTRID to be a prefect and involved with the SHACKLEBOLT INTERNSHIP PROGRAM have been accepted. Please send in your account to the main by twenty-four hours or send us a message if you need more time. Make sure that your theme is accessible and that your characters’ name, house, gender, year, and pronouns are stated somewhere in the description. Remember that your second character can be on a sideblog if you’d like, but we do not allow MUMU blogs.

Congratulations, EM, you have been accepted for CLEO BUNNAG with the face claim of LYDIA GRAHAM! I can’t help but feel as though I have a personal connection with Cleo – as someone who is half Thai, it was really lovely to read about a character with the same ethnicity as me since I so rarely see that in the RPC. But beyond that, she was just such a well-developed and fleshed-out character. I love how she’s just so purely Slytherin and how clearly that’s shown in her protectiveness and loyalty towards her friends. And god, when you described her as a lesbian icon, I was hollering. We’re definitely here for it. And your extras were wonderful as well! I can’t wait to see Cleo on the dash! Your requests for CLEO to be a SLYTHERIN SEEKER and involved with the SHACKLEBOLT INTERNSHIP PROGRAM have been accepted. Please send in your account to the main by twenty-four hours or send us a message if you need more time. Make sure that your theme is accessible and that your characters’ name, house, gender, year, and pronouns are stated somewhere in the description. Remember that your second character can be on a sideblog if you’d like, but we do not allow MUMU blogs. (Cleo will be filling Lily’s girl gang wanted connection, but this connection is still open for more characters.)

Congratulations, JO, you have been accepted for DYLAN WILALAI with the face claim of LALISA MANOBAN! Jo, Dylan absolutely broke our hearts. She’s so gorgeous and well-crafted, and we love how much her resilience shone through your app, even as we hate why she’s had to be so resilient throughout her young life. It’s so interesting having a figure skating community here at Hogwarts and in the wizarding world in general, and it was so interesting to read about her life. Sarah and I were devastated reading about how her mother treated her and her werewolf attack —- we’re so glad her friends have been able to help her in so many ways, and we can’t wait to see how she continues to develop! Welcome to HOLOCENE, we’re so excited to have you here! Please send in your account to the main by twenty-four hours or send us a message if you need more time. Make sure that your theme is accessible and that your characters’ name, house, gender, year, and pronouns are stated somewhere in the description. Remember that your second character can be on a sideblog if you’d like, but we do not allow MUMU blogs. (Dylan will be filling Lucy’s best friend wanted connection; she is also filling Lily’s girl gang wanted connection, but this connection is still open for more characters.)

Congratulations, ARI, you have been accepted for ELIZABETH ‘LILIBET’ MOODY with the face claim of LAURA BERLIN! I really enjoyed hearing the backstory behind her family and their home, I thought it was so creative and interesting. And I loved the headcanon about how she quietly protects the other children from Order families – I think it’ll be really lovely to see a more reserved character in that group too. It was great how you incorporated the technology aspect of our roleplay into our application, and I’m definitely really excited to hear more about her thoughts regarding muggle technology and her inventions! I can’t wait to see her on the dash! Your request for LILIBET to be involved with the SHACKLEBOLT INTERNSHIP PROGRAM has been accepted. Please send in your account to the main by twenty-four hours or send us a message if you need more time. Make sure that your theme is accessible and that your characters’ name, house, gender, year, and pronouns are stated somewhere in the description. Remember that your second character can be on a sideblog if you’d like, but we do not allow MUMU blogs.

Congratulations, S, you have been accepted for FOALAN THURKELL with the face claim of ALIA SHAWKAT! Jane and I really loved the idea of a squib caretaker apprentice, so we’re so happy you decided to apply! Your application was wonderfully succinct, telling us so much in a short and concise way. The detail about how her grandfather was turned into a hedgehog just for being a squib definitely sounds like something wizards would unfortunately do. And I really liked Foalan’s spunk and tenacity. It’ll be so interesting to see her taking some classes at Hogwarts as well. I’m really excited to see more of her! Please send in your account to the main by twenty-four hours or send us a message if you need more time. Make sure that your theme is accessible and that your characters’ name, house, gender, year, and pronouns are stated somewhere in the description. Remember that your second character can be on a sideblog if you’d like, but we do not allow MUMU blogs.

Congratulations, MAR, you have been accepted for JOSEPHINE ‘JOSIE’ WASHINGTON with the face claim of KIERSEY CLEMONS! Jane and I really loved hearing about her family in the first headcanon – we felt like it really set the stage for the rest of the application. And god, it just broke my heart to see Josie search so hard for a cure for her father’s illness but just wasn’t able to find one. It makes a lot of sense as magic has its limitations, but wow, I feel so much for Josie. It was really so interesting to read about how much his death changed her, and I can’t wait to see how she develops throughout the course of the roleplay. Your request for JOSIE to be a GRYFFINDOR BEATER has been accepted. Please send in your account to the main by twenty-four hours or send us a message if you need more time. Make sure that your theme is accessible and that your characters’ name, house, gender, year, and pronouns are stated somewhere in the description. Remember that your second character can be on a sideblog if you’d like, but we do not allow MUMU blogs.

Congratulations, CARA, you have been accepted for JUNE GREENGRASSwith the face claim of LANA CONDOR! (Please note that June is adopted.) Wow, I cannot tell you how much I love Daphne and her reasoning on adopting June. Jane and I really loved how much June felt like a teenage girl, who feels and loves so easily and deeply, who can be selfish at times, who has so much life and vitality to her. Like Jane said, she’s a character who just feels so fifteen– but in a good way; let teenage girls be teenage girls! I’m so excited to have her here! I think she’ll make a great addition to the girl squad and the entire roleplay as a whole. Your requests for JUNE to be a GRYFFINDOR PREFECT and involved with the SHACKLEBOLT INTERNSHIP PROGRAMhave been accepted. Please send in your account to the main by twenty-four hours or send us a message if you need more time. Make sure that your theme is accessible and that your characters’ name, house, gender, year, and pronouns are stated somewhere in the description. Remember that your second character can be on a sideblog if you’d like, but we do not allow MUMU blogs. (June will be filling Lily’s girl gang wanted connection, but this connection is still open for more characters.)

Congratulations, MARK, you have been accepted for LOUIS WEASLEY with the face claim of MILES HEIZER! Straight up, as soon as I read that he was a weird combination of Percy and Ron, I started laughing and fell in love. Sarah pointed out how new and refreshing it felt to have a Weasley described as a mix of those two specifically, and I absolutely agree. I cheered at Ginny being his favourite aunt because, honestly, what an icon? Excellent taste. It was so good seeing his relationship with Fleur —- it’s always so wonderful to see parents being loving, accepting and supportive of their children. We’re so excited to see where Louis goes next, and to see him hanging out with his relatives —- especially Al, with their similarities and yet how they manifest in completely different ways and houses! Welcome to HOLOCENE, we’re so excited to have you here! Your requests for LOUIS to be involved with the SHACKLEBOLT INTERNSHIP and a GRYFFINDOR KEEPER and PREFECT have been accepted. Please send in your account to the main by twenty-four hours or send us a message if you need more time. Make sure that your theme is accessible and that your characters’ name, house, gender, year, and pronouns are stated somewhere in the description. Remember that your second character can be on a sideblog if you’d like, but we do not allow MUMU blogs.

Congratulations, MAR, you have been accepted for LYSANDER SCAMANDER with the face claim of BOOBOO STEWART! The very first thing Sarah and I said about their app was how much we loved the depiction of Luna and Rolf: it just rang so true, and we could absolutely see how Lysander developed the way they did from their upbringing, which we loved. I especially loved the idea about them working at a vintage shop in Diagon Alley over the summer, and I think they’ll be an excellent addition to the current group of Hufflepuff Seventh Years! Also, that Herbology headcanon, with plants arounf their bed? We stan. Welcome to HOLOCENE, we’re so excited to have you here! Please send in your account to the main by twenty-four hours or send us a message if you need more time. Make sure that your theme is accessible and that your characters’ name, house, gender, year, and pronouns are stated somewhere in the description. Remember that your second character can be on a sideblog if you’d like, but we do not allow MUMU blogs.

Congratulations, BECCA, you have been accepted for MATEO ‘TATE’ BECKETT with the face claim of TYLER POSEY! We are so excited about all of the potential of figure skaters in the wizarding world and we’re really interested to see where Tate goes next. I have to say, I already ship Javier and Madeleine so hard, and we loved seeing his personality filtered through the traits he’s inherited from his parents because of the insight it gave us into how he feels about who he is vs who he wants to be. Reading about his journey with Clara was so impactful and we also adored how much he feels, and how deeply, especially in a male muse. Also, your reassurance at the end made us laugh! Welcome to HOLOCENE, we’re so excited to have you here! Please send in your account to the main by twenty-four hours or send us a message if you need more time. Make sure that your theme is accessible and that your characters’ name, house, gender, year, and pronouns are stated somewhere in the description. Remember that your second character can be on a sideblog if you’d like, but we do not allow MUMU blogs.

Congratulations, DANIELLE, you have been accepted for NOELLE ‘NOAH’ WOOD with the face claim of SOPHIE COOKSON! Ahhhh, a Wood! Unlike Noah’s somewhat (completely understandable) fraught relationship with him, we love Oliver and we’re so excited to have one of his kids on the dash, especially with the potential for her half-siblings. Also, seeing as Sarah and I both play werewolves, we’re so excited to see so many werewolves around —- while her experience with her lycanthropy is complicated, we’re really excited to see how she fits in with the others and whether a pack is viable! Also, I absolutely love your face claim choice and her interest in surfing, especially as we have another surfer here! Welcome to HOLOCENE, we’re so excited to have you here! Please send in your account to the main by twenty-four hours or send us a message if you need more time. Make sure that your theme is accessible and that your characters’ name, house, gender, year, and pronouns are stated somewhere in the description. Remember that your second character can be on a sideblog if you’d like, but we do not allow MUMU blogs.

Congratulations, DRIZZLE, you have been accepted for PENELOPE ‘PENNY’ PUDDIFOOT with the face claim of WILLA HOLLAND! Cheerleader Penny! We’re both super pumped to have a character who’s so excited about cheerleading and to have it get the respect it deserves at Hogwarts, both in terms of participation and recognition. We love the closeness of the sprawling Puddifoot family —- we’re a huge fan of family dynamics here, and what you’ve described for Penny’s whole family just sounds like it’s overflowing with love and laughter, and we can absolutely see how Penny would come to be the big-hearted girl she is from that! Welcome to HOLOCENE, we’re so excited to have you here! Your requests for PENNY to be the FLYER and CO-CAPTAIN of the HUFFLEPUFF and HOGWARTS CHEERLEADING TEAMS have been accepted. Please send in your account to the main by twenty-four hours or send us a message if you need more time. Make sure that your theme is accessible and that your characters’ name, house, gender, year, and pronouns are stated somewhere in the description. Remember that your second character can be on a sideblog if you’d like, but we do not allow MUMU blogs.

Congratulations, JINX, you have been accepted for ROSE WEASLEY with the face claim of MEDALION RAHIMI! (Please note that Rose is adopted.) Wow, Jinx. Rose sure is something, and we love her. She’s so very much herself, and as intangible and vague as that sounds, I mean that in the best possible way, because I have such a clear idea of her from that app. Her absolute dedication to her family and her unshakeable loyalty — her love of humour and tendency towards self-deprecation — her loudness and bluntness and tendency to take some comments so hard to heart — they all make up such a wonderful, interesting girl, and we can’t wait to see her on the dash! Welcome to HOLOCENE, we’re so excited to have you here! Please send in your account to the main by twenty-four hours or send us a message if you need more time. Make sure that your theme is accessible and that your characters’ name, house, gender, year, and pronouns are stated somewhere in the description. Remember that your second character can be on a sideblog if you’d like, but we do not allow MUMU blogs.

Congratulations, EMILY, you have been accepted for SCARLET ‘SCAR’ GREYBACK with the face claim of REINA HARDESTY! (Please note that Scar is adopted.) God, this application murdered me. And then it revived me. I’m just so love with Scar, how she’s proud to be a werewolf and is so unapologetic about who she is and where she’s come from. She’s such a wonderfully crafted character, and I could really tell how much thought you put into her. It definitely shows. I loved the bit of world-building you did in your application about alphas, betas, and omegas, and I’m so excited to discuss and hear more about your thoughts on werewolf dynamics. As Roxanne’s mun, the part about Scar biting Roxanne and then making the decision to turn in Fenrir really gutted me. I can’t wait to see her on the dash! Your requests for SCAR to be a GRYFFINDOR SEEKER and a SEEKER FOR THE INTERNATIONAL QUIDDITCH JUNIOR LEAGUE have been accepted. Please send in your account to the main by twenty-four hours or send us a message if you need more time. Make sure that your theme is accessible and that your characters’ name, house, gender, year, and pronouns are stated somewhere in the description. Remember that your second character can be on a sideblog if you’d like, but we do not allow MUMU blogs. (Scar will be filling Roxanne’s werewolf connection.)

Congratulations, EM, you have been accepted for TEDDY LUPIN with the face claim of AVAN JOGIA! (Please note that Nymphadora Tonks was adopted.) Oh, man, did this one hit us in the heart. Sarah and I are so happy you decided to apply for Teddy in the end because we’re absolutely in love with him! I loved the personality headcanon so much —- his childhood section and his dropping out for a year because of what happened to Andromeda were so compelling and heartbreaking as well, but seeing why he was a Slytherin and how affected he is by his parents’ reputations and passing was so moving. Way to just club us in the heart with your gorgeous writing and character. Welcome to HOLOCENE, we’re so excited to have you here! Please send in your account to the main by twenty-four hours or send us a message if you need more time. Make sure that your theme is accessible and that your characters’ name, house, gender, year, and pronouns are stated somewhere in the description. Remember that your second character can be on a sideblog if you’d like, but we do not allow MUMU blogs.

#holocene admin #accepted

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mghiggins · 3 years

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night club musical act 078: see in red

1. [00:00] intro

2. [00:39] dash berlin & tate mcrae- you broke me first {north sea}

3. [03:16] chakra- home (gvn remix) {(earth music) armada}

4. [05:44] solr & sarah de warren- who we are {enhanced}

5. [09:58] embrz- echoes {endless drive}

6. [14:12] genix & zashanell- all I want {anjunabeats}

7. [17:40] linnea schossow & paul arcane- free love {ufo}

8. [21:38] husman- desire {rave culture}

9. [25:24] gxd & elle vee- best of you {armada}

10. [30:53] vadim bonkrashkov- remember the night {interplay}

11. [34:09] super8 & tab- black is the new yellow (emerge remix) {anjunabeats}

12. [38:12] noise zoo & caitlin stubbs- reverie (elypsis mix) {raznitzanmusic}

13. [42:12] roger sanchez & oliver heldens- another chance {(stealth) (sony) ministry of sound}

14. [45:34] lane 8 & kasablanca- run (kasablanca vip) {this never happened}

15. [48:27] phillip castle- deja vu {ava}

16. [52:42] maywave- paloma {euphonic}

17. [56:12] daniel wanrooy- run & hide {(armada) flashover}

18. [59:11] mark roma feat lauren nicole- need your love {caos}

19. [01:02:12] ewave- no more (marc benjamin edit) {heartfeldt}

20. [01:05:43] morgan page & gian varela feat fagin- lost (gareth emery remix) {armada}

21. [01:10:34] morgin madison- gamma {mau5trap}

22. [01:16:27] adrian alexander- yara {elliptical sun}

Check out this episode of dj bigdirty's night club musical

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luciochaves · 3 years

Video

youtube

Dash Berlin - You Broke Me First [Tate McRae] #Trance

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bigmacdaddio · 3 years

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The Jesse Owens story - 5/25/1935 - Big Ten Championships...

The incredible Jesse Owens had THE single greatest day in track & field history (In my humble opinion) I could not get the article from Sports Illustrated to copy over so I just copied the textOn May 25, 1935, Jesse Owens had greatest hour in sports history -Four world records in three quarters of an hour! Not 45 weeks or 45 days but 45 minutes.More than 85 years ago on a Tuesday, at the 1935 Big Ten Track and Field Championships in Ann Arbor, Mich., Jesse Owens didn't rewrite the record book -- he tore it up.In less than an hour, the 21-year-old Ohio State sophomore tied the world record in the 100-yard dash and then set the world record in the long jump, the 220-yard dash and the 220 low hurdles.One year later at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the black son of an Alabama sharecropper became an athletic legend when he grabbed Adolf Hitler's toxic theories of racial supremacy and stuffed them in the fuhrer's face by winning gold medals in the 100 and 200 meters, the long jump and the 4x100 relay.Owens' dominant week in Berlin is part of American athletic lore, but his Olympic performances have been duplicated or surpassed. Carl Lewis won the same four events at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Speedskater Eric Heiden captured five gold medals at distances ranging from 500 to 10,000 meters at the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Games.Swimmer Mark Spitz won seven gold medals, all in world-record time, over eight days at the 1972 Munich Games. Michael Phelps won eight golds at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.But Owens' one-day blockbuster in Ann Arbor has no parallel, not only in track and field but in any sport. It is the greatest single day performance in athletic history, superior to Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point outburst or to the Redskins' Sammy Baugh throwing four touchdown passes and adding an NFL record four interceptions in one game.That Owens took care of business in less than an hour -- and with an injured back -- adds even more luster to a name that has always ranked near the top of American sports heroes."People are surprised at how competitive Owens would still be as an athlete today," said Robert Gary, the current Ohio State track and field coach and meet director of the annual Jesse Owens Track Classic in Columbus. "I don't think many people realize what a phenomenal athlete he was."Indeed, 75 years later, Owens still holds the Buckeyes' school record in the long jump.Owens' time in the national spotlight was short -- only about four years. He first drew attention when he tied the 100-yard dash world record of 9.4 seconds as a Cleveland high school senior in 1933. He followed with a record four individual titles at both the 1935 and 1936 NCAA championships (Owens scored 40 of the Buckeyes' 40.2 points at the '35 meet) and then exited track shortly after draping himself in glory in Berlin.But if Owens' career was abbreviated in years it was long on achievement, and never more so than at Michigan's Ferry Field on May 25, 1935.At the start of the day, Owens didn't know if he could finish even one event. He had injured his lower back falling down the stairs five days earlier while roughhousing with his fraternity brothers and was still hurting as he warmed up.After debating with Ohio State track coach Larry Snyder on whether to compete, Owens decided to take it one event at a time.And what a time it was.3:15 p.m. 100: After a slow start Owens' tremendous acceleration put him ahead at 30 yards. His official winning time of 9.4 seconds tied the world record, yet more than half of the race's official timers clocked him in 9.3, a new world mark. Rules of the day, however, stipulated that a runner be given his slowest time. The first official 9.3 100 would have to wait for 1948.3:25 p.m. Long jump: Owens needed just one leap to improve the world record by more than a half-foot to 26 feet 8¼ inches. Only Bob Beamon's legendary 29-2½ jump at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics has improved the long jump record by a greater distance. Beamon's altitude-aided record lasted 23 years. Owens' mark lasted 25. Seventy-three years later at the 2008 Olympics, Owens' 1935 jump would have placed seventh."The scary part to me always has been how good Owens was for the very little long jump training he did," said Jon Hendershott, associate editor of Track and Field News. "And the back problem restricted him to just a single jump at the '35 Big Ten. Yet he set a world record that lasted for a quarter-century. Pretty stunning stuff."3:34 p.m. 220: Until the 1960s, the 220 in the United States often was run on a straightaway rather than on a curve, and the sight of the smooth-striding Owens in full flight over a furlong must have been breathtaking. Owens ran 20.3 seconds to crush the old mark of 20.6. Because the 220 is more than a yard longer than 200 meters, Owens also received credit for breaking the world 200 straightaway record.Ohio State's Gary said photos of the 220 make it appear "like no one else is in the race."4 p.m. 220 low hurdles: Low hurdles stand only 2 feet, 6 inches (high hurdles are a foot taller), allowing Owens, who was not a gifted hurdler, to use his great speed between the barriers to defeat more technically superior opponents. He became the first runner to break 23 seconds with a time of 22.6 to win by five yards. He also received credit for the 200-meter hurdle record. The low hurdles event was discontinued at U.S. national meets after 1962.Owens had averaged a world record every 11 minutes. To find a similar scale of achievement one has to journey to the realm of art and think of Mozart needing only six weeks to compose his final three symphonies in the summer of 1788 or of Shakespeare writing Henry V, Julius Caesar and As You Like It in the same year.Owens, perhaps the smoothest sprinter of all time, was an athletic artist and with each record the Ferry Field crowd of 5,000 cheered louder. So many fans wanted to congratulate Owens after the meet that he had to leave the locker room through a bathroom window.He was a national story and would join boxer Joe Louis as the best-known black athlete in the country. His startling achievement impressed even those not normally associated with sports.Humorist Will Rogers observed: "Mr. Owens ... broke practically all the world records ... with the possible exception of horseshoe pitching and flagpole sitting."Honors and financial opportunities were slow to flow Owens' way. For all the talk of being snubbed by Hitler at the '36 Olympics (some reports say the German leader actually offered a small wave to the American champion), Owens always said he was more upset by never having received recognition from President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In neither 1935 nor 1936 did he win the Sullivan Award, emblematic of the nation's top amateur athlete.Only weeks after his historic triumph in Berlin, he was suspended by the Amateur Athletic Union for not competing in a minor track meet in Sweden. Owens preferred to get back to the U.S. to see his family and take advantage of endorsement opportunities that, ultimately, failed to materialize.White Olympic swimmers like Johnny Weissmuller and Buster Crabbe could play Tarzan in the movies. Such avenues weren't open to Owens. To make money he had to run in exhibitions against horses.Finally, in 1955, President Dwight Eisenhower honored Owens as an "ambassador of sport" and he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Gerald Ford in 1976. He also worked as a roving ambassador for Ford Motor Company and the U.S. Olympic Committee.A decades-long cigarette habit eventually caught up with Owens and he died of lung cancer in 1980 at the age of 66.Owens' records seem almost quaint today. Jamaica's Usain Bolt can run 100 meters about as fast as Owens covered 100 yards even though the metric sprint is more than 9 yards longer.Bolt, however, doesn't compete in the hurdles or the long jump. Unlike Owens, he doesn't run on dirt tracks or without the benefit of starting blocks.With prize money and commercial endorsements now permissible in international track and field, Bolt can train year round and doesn't have to work in a gas station as Owens did in college. Bolt can compete as long as his body allows him. Owens last raced when he was 22.One can speculate what Owens might have accomplished had he competed longer. Carl Lewis recorded his best marks in the 100 meters and long jump when he was 30.Maybe Owens would have run a 10.1 100 meters, which wasn't accomplished until 1956, or notched the first 27-foot long jump, which didn't happen until 1961.Yet considering how transcendent Owens was at Ann Arbor and again at Berlin, it would be like asking Michelangelo to touch up the Sistine Chapel or for Mark Twain to rework Huckleberry Finn.The masterpieces speak for themselves.As Hendershott noted, Owens' day of days in Ann Arbor "is likely never to be equaled, let alone beaten, in any sport."Ferry Field still stands. Outside the track a plaque commemorates Owens' record-shattering day. It is, perhaps, the ultimate compliment in college sports that a University of Michigan athletic facility continues to honor the achievements of an Ohio State Buckeye.Richard Rothschild is a longtime track and field writer and editor who lives outside of Chicago

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kifu · 4 years

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New Nation: 3

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Kurt couldn’t stay still for more than a day after the incident in the castle. When he returned the following day, Dietmar, his sister, and his friend were gone. They hadn’t left any of their possessions – or Kurt’s – behind. Everyone that Kurt had methodically removed from action was also gone. It almost looked like nothing had happened in that large castle, but Kurt and the Nation knew better.

Whenever Kurt tried to settle down for the night, a small patrol disturbed him. They flooded Berlin and regularly ventured out of the city. Kurt knew that they had to be looking for him, for the timing was perfect. Not only that, but mutants with physical giveaways patrolled with them. Kurt had becoming high priority to the Nation leader in old Germany.

Back up didn’t exist. No one was fighting back against the Nation, so there weren’t any organizations that Kurt could fall back to so that he could receive some help. Instead, Kurt had to stay on his toes and keep moving. At times, his luck was so bad that the Nation would find him within hours, pulling him out of his nap. Exhaustion started to nip at Kurt’s body after only a couple days after the incident. The Nation and their searches were relentless, however, even though they had no proof that Kurt was around anymore. The blue mutant scared them. He was a threat that they hadn’t encountered in a long time.

What Kurt found funny was that he didn’t have the upper hand in Germany. He didn’t know the villains or the people. He’d been too far removed in the Americas and he could tell the longer he stayed on German soils. Actually, he didn’t think Germany was Germany anymore. They probably renamed it to something much sillier and moved the borders a few miles so that the worst of the baddies could have fair boundaries.

Kurt didn’t know who was in charge of former Germany. He couldn’t find them, couldn’t learn anything about them, and therefore couldn’t fight him. All he knew was that Magneto went back to his island off of Africa to rule peacefully, or so he claimed. News didn’t bounce around networks as well as it did before Alcatraz fell. Moving around at all was hard enough under the Nation’s influence. Air lines had been shut down quickly, sometimes forcefully by some super powered bad guy’s muscle flex.

Kurt continued his surveillance whenever he could, though he had to switch his timing back during the day. He acquired an over-sized hoodie to hide his features and kept his hands shoved into his pockets whenever others were around. He also found a pair of baggy jeans and a belt to hold them up so that he could more easily tuck away his tail. While his costume wasn’t perfect, it kept immediate suspicion off of him. He could partially roam the streets without raising alarm.

The weather threatened to dump buckets again one week after the incident in the castle. It was too early in the morning for him to return to where he stashed his meager belongings and call it a day, but every part of him didn’t want to stay out in the rain. Whenever the light furring on his body got wet, he had the hardest time getting dry again, especially without adequate shelter and a towel. He was thankful that cleanliness wasn’t high on anyone’s priority list anymore, instead switching back over to survival like before the Industrial Revolution. The only thing was, they had machines to make their life better, but the Nation’s rise negated many of their functions.

Kurt stayed high up on the buildings until drops began to break from the clouds’ bottoms. He scooped the hood of his jacket up from his back and over his ears, pulling the draw strings tighter so that it wouldn’t fall off. Not only was the rain wet, but it was cold. If Kurt stayed out in the weather for too long, he’d be wet for hours, beating himself up when he caught a cold. Getting sick wasn’t exactly what he needed at a time like this.

The sky opened up further, sending freezing drops cascading to the ground in bursts of waves. They weren’t particularly big drops, but Kurt could feel them hit hard against the fabric of his sweatshirt. Below, most of the people outside scrambled to get into buildings, dashing far and wide to get to where they lived. Hanging out anywhere but where you called home could easily bring problems. Only one person stayed behind, but not by choice. She didn’t look like she had a place to go, for she huddled up as tight as she could against the cold brick wall. Even though she made herself as small as she possibly could, it wasn’t enough to keep away from the penetrating rain. Small puddles accumulated fast all around her, and if anyone were to rush by, she’d suffer the spray from the splash.

Kurt leaned forward onto his hands, looking in every direction to see if Nation patrols were near. When he saw no one, he continued his projection downward, gripping onto the walls with the handy mutant stickiness in his hands and feet. He appreciated whatever caused him to adhere to walls.

„Are you alright?“ Kurt asked once he reached the ground. He hopped down to his two legs for the final couple feet.

The girl was already to her feet when Kurt arrived, hugging a bag close to her side. Her features were sharp and hallow, the color in her face nearly a ghostly white. Her eyes fixated on Kurt’s face, searching for his eyes. She also didn’t look afraid or alarmed to see him, which was not very common anymore.

„Miss?“ Kurt prompted.

„Ah, yes. I’m fine.“ She looked defeated under a mop of heavy wet hair and didn’t move to leave.

„Do you have anywhere to go?“ Kurt asked.

She broke eye contact, staring down at her feet for a heartbeat. When she raised her gaze again, she didn’t find his eyes. „No. You’re not Nation, are you?“

„Nein,“ Kurt confirmed. „I am independent.“ She didn’t look uncomfortable, but she didn’t offer further conversation. „Would you be interested in somewhere dry to wait out the storm?“ he offered. „I can see if I can get us in this building.“ He thumbed over to the wall that she had tried to take shelter against.

„I really don’t want to inconvenience you – “

„No inconvenience!“ he insisted. He searched the streets again for signs of Nation. They were clear, but visibility was low. Rain poured hard and fast, throwing up thick mist making it hard for anyone to see. „If you don’t mind physical contact …“

She found his eyes again, but her brow was furrowed. „Entschuldegung?“

Kurt didn’t bother with explaining. He wanted to get out of the rain before he was not only soaked to the skin, but cold to the bone as well. He took a step forward, placed a hand on her shoulder, wrapping his fingers lightly around the curve of her physique, and aimed to teleport inside. He relied heavily on his spatial awareness so that he and the girl didn’t end up in the middle of anything on the other side of the wall.

The girl broke away from him, pushing away with a hefty shove. She immediately bent over, holding herself tightly over the chest. Staying low to the ground, she gradually got her bearings. Teleporting with Kurt wasn’t a very pleasant experience. While Kurt was accustomed to the violent means of travel, and had gradually built up the strength to teleport with passengers without feeling exhausted afterwards, that didn’t mean other people were. Whoever this girl was, she was now subject to the subsequent nausea and sudden drain of energy.

„I’m sorry,“ Kurt apologized quickly. „I should have warned you and waited for your permission.“ He sat down beside her and lowered the hood of his sweatshirt.

„What just happened?“ she asked. „Where are we?“

„We are inside the building,“ Kurt told her. „It’s no secret that I am a mutant thanks to my dashing looks. I don’t just look the part, but have the ability to teleport as well.“ He held out a hand over his chest for her to take. Even though he had scared her and probably made her feel like her stomach would fight her, she didn’t balk at his presence any more than when he first showed his face. She took his hand lightly, revealing just how cold her fingers were. Kurt held back an exclamation as he introduced himself: „My name is Kurt. In costume, I was known as Nightcrawler.“

„You were part of Excalibur, is that so?“

Kurt felt a little piece of the puzzle lock into place. Could she not have panicked because she already recognized his face? Even so, Excalibur was not that public of a team. They didn’t do much more in England than the X-Men did in the Americas.

„That is true,“ Kurt confirmed. He raised the corners of his lips in a soft smile, though he dared not bare his teeth in a large grin. She was comfortable with him now, but he had pushed hard enough for such a short period of time. „It has been a long time since then.“ The fact that it had been so long raised another question. This girl looked like she was no older than her early twenties, yet she recognized Kurt’s face from an old, dead team? Kurt had spent years back in the Americas after Excalibur broke up, and it had been at least another year since the Nation took over. What young teen was so vigilant in keeping up with a small superhero team?

„I wanted to be like you when I was little. I knew I wasn’t a mutant, but I wanted to do good anyway.“ She sighed and dropped her eyes to the ground. She looked ashamed more than anything. „Now look at me.“

„Like me?“ Kurt asked.

The shame cleared up to sheepishness. „Maybe not you you.“

„I see,“ Kurt said. His voice was heavily laden with amusement, but quickly switched back to a more serious tone. „I do not, however, see why you should be ashamed of your state of being. While gifted, or cursed, as I am, I am not much better off than you.“ He paused in speech, coming up with a rather small idea. To even the playing field a little more, he pulled his hoodie over his head, wiggling his arms to release them from the clingy fabric. „Would you like my pullover?“ he asked her. He handed the clump of material over, hoping it wasn’t too wet to keep from helping. „You felt cold when I shook your hand. I have a little more insulation than you.“

She took the hoodie carefully, weighing it in her hands before throwing its arms over her shoulders, using it like a small blanket. It was a start, at the very least. „Danke schön.“ She let the silence hang for a moment before she continued. „I don’t see it that way. You are still out saving people like me because I can’t even take care of myself.“

„I wish it were as simple as that,“ Kurt countered. „I am currently being hunted. I do not know if there is a capture or a kill order on my head, but I know the Nation is looking for me. You are not safe around me. I don’t know how well I will be able to protect you. A hero does not endanger others. He protects others. I am barely holding it together. I am operating on little to no sleep and I cannot remember the last time I’ve had anything to eat.“ He stopped. He didn’t need to dump his problems on this girl. She didn’t need that. He finally had an ear to listen for the first time in months and he was abusing it. If anyone was to vent, this girl had more right. She looked like she had been alone for far too long and she was struggling to hold on anymore. „I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.“

„I have a chocolate bar in my bag,“ she said. She ducked away to dig through it. Kurt hadn’t noticed it beside her earlier. It was small, but it appeared very handy.

„No, no,“ Kurt refused. He held up his hands as a barrier. „I cannot take from you.“

„I insist,“ she pursued. She pulled the candy out from the depths of her cloth bag, turning around to shove it into his open hand. „Please? It would make me feel better.“

Kurt saw the emotion swimming in her eyes. When she said she aspired to be like the superheroes of tale, she meant it. How horrible was the world to crush those noble feelings. There weren’t many people out there like her, yet she was left clinging to the edge of the building with no one and nothing. She wasn’t as much of a fighter, but the world didn’t need so many of those people, at least not without as much heart as this girl possessed.

„Thank-you,“ Kurt said quietly. His posture dropped. Finally, after days of trying to stay strong and together since the castle, he could drop his guard. The Nation would eventually find him – that much was inevitable – but for now he was at peace with another soul.

He softly grabbed the candy bar from her, holding it but not opening it. At the very least, he would not divulge himself in front of her. „I never caught your name.“ He knew very well that she had never offered any personal information, but he would stay civil.

„How rude of me!“ she gasped. „I am called Leonie.“

„Nice to meet you, Leonie. Perhaps not under the circumstances, but it is very nice to have another friendly person to talk to.“

„Likewise.“ She snuggled deeper into the hoodie, pushing her chin into the hood’s wrinkles to better keep warm. Kurt wished he had something else to offer to her, but all that was left to him were the clothes on his back and the chocolate that she had given him. „It’s a little sad to realize how much of the world before was polite formalities,“ she commented absently. She immediately had Kurt’s undivided attention. What did she mean?

„Ja?“ he prompted.

„I mean, it was rare to find someone so openly with an aggressive attitude. Now it’s commonplace.“

„I think I’ve noticed that from when I watch over the people. It’s difficult to tell from so far away, though.“

Leonie nodded. „No one really talks to anyone anymore unless they have to. I don’t have what other people need, so I am forgotten and pushed aside. On the bright side, it’s kept the soldiers from noticing me as well.“ She leaned into him, pressing her shoulder against his. She still felt so cold to him. He was surprised she wasn’t shivering and her teeth chattering. „Thank-you for not leaving me there.“

„Honestly, there is no need to thank me. Chatting with you is thanks enough.“ It made him feel weak to admit it, but he needed a friendly conversation. He was slowly breaking down without it. Kurt was a man of interaction built on social needs.

„Does that mean you are alone?“ Leonie asked.

„I am,“ he admitted. „I have been since I came back to Germany. Since the rise of the Nation, most people regard me with fear or anger. Your friendliness is new.“

„I’m sorry,“ she sympathized. „I find that surprising.“

„Why?“

„I don’t know. I guess I always assumed that where there was one hero, there would be another. Heroes in stories aren’t alone.“

„I am not a hero,“ Kurt said firmly. She spoke like she was schooled and well-read, but she clung to the fantasy of the world being full of heroes. She was still childish after all, further causing Kurt to guess her age to be so young. He was curious, but he wouldn’t ask. He needed to get into her head that he was not some fictional character. It could put her in danger if she thought that he was all powerful and good. Kurt was still human, despite his looks. He had failures and he had his selfish moments. „I have fought for what I believe is right, and I have been a part of a couple teams of mutants, but we were not heroes.“ Technically, Kurt and his team had saved the world from certain destruction multiple times, but those efforts were generally unknown by the populace. He wouldn’t bring them up.

„You sound like a hero to me,“ she persisted.

Kurt sighed and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. Her skin was beginning to shiver; the cold was finally getting to her. Kurt would do the best he could to keep her from getting too chilled, being the fuzzy blue teddy bear that he was.

While Kurt knew that it would be better if Leonie didn’t idol him at all, so long as she understood that he was not perfect, did he really have to shatter her world? Could he not let her believe that there was still good out there? She was already so beaten and downtrodden. Did she really need Kurt arguing with her?

„I do what I believe is good,“ Kurt agreed. He was careful with his words. „I do not believe that makes me a hero. I made some grave mistakes, but I will not keep that from continuing to fight injustices.“

Leonie didn’t answer verbally. Instead, she leaned in closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder. Her body twisted around to further tuck in against his torso. Kurt didn’t know if she was hearing him or not, but he wasn’t sure if that was going to be a problem anyway.

„Are you okay?“ Kurt asked.

„Yeah.“ Kurt was about to ask a confirmation question before she spoke again. „Cold. Tired. Really tired, actually.“

„Let’s warm you up and then we’ll look into fixing the other problem, right?“ Kurt suggested. He held out his other arm to envelop her into a full hug, pulling her forward the few extra inches so that they could share more body heat. Kurt switched from a crouch to his knees for better balance, whereas she sat flat out on the ground. Her legs pulled up against the back of his arm, her face tucked neatly against his shoulder. Despite the intermittent shivers, he could feel her relax into the contact.

Kurt was lucky he wasn’t feeling the cold. It wasn’t winter in Germany, not yet at least, but it was getting there. The days were getting significantly shorter as autumn wore on, and with it, the temperature was steadily dropping as well. Before long, the heavy showers and storms they were experiencing would turn to heavy snow storms.

While their conversation was temporarily halted, and Kurt was using his body as a miniature space heater, he finally got a good look around the building they were in. For some reason, their surroundings weren’t as important after the initial teleport inside. Nothing got teleported inside them, so all was good.

As was typical with the times, the space was very grungy. A thick layer of dust covered the ground, making it difficult to tell exactly what kind of surface they were sitting on. The building was long and narrow with one wall separating the front half from the back half they were huddled up in. The light they were using to see was coming through the door in the wall, which had a good view of a giant store front window. The window was dirty, so Kurt wasn’t concerned that a random passer-by would spot them out of the corner of their eye. Someone would have to be looking hard to see them. As it was, Kurt couldn’t tell if it was still raining or not. The sound of the rain was instantly muted the moment they were inside the building.

The front half of the building appeared to be an old store, though what kind of store was up in the air. Empty shelves lined the walls, as well as one more spanning the length of the middle of the room. A counter reached across to stop just before the door. The area where Leonie and Kurt were sitting in looked to be more of a storage room, where the store would keep their extra merchandise. The shelves were deeper, more industrial, and taller than those in the front of the room. A couple boxes rested permanently on the shelves, but otherwise it was just as empty as up front.

None of the surfaces looked to be especially comfortable or soft. Though if Kurt wasn’t very accustomed to having a soft place to sleep anymore, Leonie probably wasn’t very far off. She was resigned to the fact that she would be sitting out the storm at the edge of the building, getting rained on nevertheless.

Leonie’s tremors slowly disappeared as she tapped into Kurt’s heat. Her contact felt less like clinging and more like cuddling. „Leonie?“

„Hmm?“ Her voice was already getting a little drowsy.

„Where have you been sleeping?“ Kurt had the rest of his stuff, which included another hoodie and a new notebook and pen, stashed at an old apartment above a Berlin outskirts store, much like the one they were in. He hadn’t actually spent the night there and he probably never would have. He liked to stay further away from the city at night, just in case.

She mumbled for a second before shifting ever so slightly so that her face wasn’t pressed against the nook of his shoulder. „In alleys, mostly.“

„This whole time?“ Kurt exclaimed. She didn’t strike him as a street urchin.

„No, no. I only recently got out.“

„Got out?“ Kurt echoed. She wasn’t being as helpful as she was just a few minutes ago. She was obviously warming up if she was comfortable enough to fall asleep.

„Yeah. The slave house.“ Kurt wasn’t sure if she sounded like she was stating the obvious because that was what she meant to get across or if she was having a hard time controlling the tone of her voice from fatigue. Whatever it was, Kurt did not know of any slave house.

„You were a slave?“ He was finding it difficult to control the tone of his own voice.

„Yeah. The Nation’s slave. No one wanted me for real work; I was too small or too meek.“

„Leonie, could you show me where this slave house is tomorrow?“

She whimpered ever so slightly, Kurt almost didn’t catch it. He did, however, feel her squirm so her legs were a little tighter against him. „I can. Are you going to save them?“

As much as Kurt insisted that he was not a hero, he couldn’t just let a bunch of people stay slaves to the Nation. While it was bound to happen, it sparked up too much fury from some unknown place within him to ignore. Of course the Nation would turn to slave labor. „I won’t make any promises,“ Kurt insisted, „but I will definitely scope it out.“ He felt her arms snake around him just enough to give him a tight squeeze, though they didn’t return to their initial position from around her own self.

„Would you mind if I fall asleep? Right here? Right now?“ she asked.

Kurt couldn’t help but smile softly. He felt his brow pull tight in a worried expression, but it wasn’t her fault. He understood her need for another human’s contact. He would be lying if he wasn’t feeling better from how close they currently were. They barely knew each other, but they also weren’t at each other’s throats. „I wouldn’t,“ he assured her.

Her head shift again so that her neck was more comfortable. It didn’t take long from then for her breathing to even out, signaling that she had temporarily left him. Her arms slackened their hold around his middle and her legs shifted limply against the floor. Kurt let his legs take most of her weight, but he kept his arms around her. He didn’t have any plans to leave her, but he also didn’t plan on sleeping either. Especially now that she was under his wing, he needed to make sure the Nation didn’t spontaneously find him. He had watched as they entered every door along a street and presumed that the search was for him. He expected this door wouldn’t be much different than any of those.

Once the ambient light from outside faded, there wasn’t much left to see by inside the building. Kurt had a feeling that it was only his superior night vision that allowed him to see anything at all.

His legs and knees began to get a little sore not long after the day retired, more from the pressure than anything, but he refused to shift. His physique allowed him to sit at a crouch and run with all four of his limbs, unlike other people, but it didn’t do much to alleviate the burden of being a human bed. Eventually, the minor annoyance reached a level where he didn’t feel anything at all.

#kifustory #xmen #x men #xmen fanfiction #kurt wagner #nightcrawler #nightcrawler fanfiction #nnchapter #writing #fanfiction

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solivar · 7 years

Text

WIP: Shōgatsu

aka the sequel to I Heard The Bells

aka everybody wants to know what’s in the box (spoiler: it’s not Gwyneth Paltrow’s great-granddaughter’s head)

aka the one where Reinhardt really surprised me by choosing to become a POV character right off the bat

Now with a significant text upgrade for the evening crowd!

The surgeries took a total of fourteen hours -- five for Hanzo, nine for Jesse -- all of which Genji Shimada spent in the corridor between the two operating theatres despite the best efforts of everyone to pry him out of it.

Reinhardt was the first to make the attempt: he was already there when the Orca landed at Watchpoint Gibraltar, coasting on the fumes as Lena promised and relying heavily on its solar-powered propulsion systems on the final leg of the journey. He and Brigitte reached the base before anyone else, departing Gothenburg via telestation to Berlin, Berlin to Madrid, and then the red-eye hypertrain to Malaga, the last stretch accomplished at breakneck speed in a rental car along the scenic old coastal highways that linked the two cities together. Angela pulled into the Watchpoint to find a full breakfast waiting for her in the communal recreation center, a room in the personnel quarters block cleaned and prepared for her use, and a capable assistant in the form of Torbjorn’s eldest daughter when it came to preparing and restocking the surgical suites in the medical bay. It was thus that the rest of the team arrived, late in the evening on Christmas Day, to Reinhardt and Angela waiting on the platform next to the VTOL landing pad, Angela already in scrubs and ready to take the emergency life support pod containing Jesse in hand and Reinhardt manning a hovercart containing freshly brewed carafes of coffee and tea and an enormous platter of fresh cinnamon buns nearly as tall as himself because he was, at the best of times, a stress baker and never more so when legitimately unable to do more than wait.

Unfortunately for both his nerves and his good intentions, the only member of the rescue team desirous or capable of partaking of that largesse was the pilot, who rapidly consumed three buns and two cups of coffee, having just spent nearly twenty hours at the controls and who needed the stimulants solely in order to stagger upstairs to bed. Zenyatta did not, of course, need to eat, having no actual nutritional requirements answerable by sugar or caffeine. Jesse was not in a condition to do so nor, as it turned out, were Genji’s brother and Dr. Emily Corbin, who had spent the majority of the flight stabilizing the same and who disappeared with him into the second surgical suite within minutes of their arrival. That left Genji himself, who should have had something to eat and drink, and was absolutely neglecting the remaining needs of his organic body for rest and nourishment in favor of pacing a course that would, eventually, send him right up the walls. Literally.

Reinhardt permitted this folly to go unanswered for the full eighty-five minutes it took to relocate the hovercart to the kitchen, unload it, use the terminal there to obtain a proper medical reference vis a vis Genji’s daily nutrient intake requirements and thereafter prepare him a properly wholesome breakfast. He selected breakfast because he knew, beyond a shadow of any doubt, that at no point during the mad telestation enabled dash from Nepal to Washington, D.C. had any member of that trio spared more than a passing thought to the concept of a meal and, seeing as it was 1:45 am in Shambali at that very moment, it was officially both too late and too early for dinner. A boiled egg, a small fruit salad of sliced bananas and hothouse strawberries, a glass of apple juice. Genji’s body required little in the way of protein intake and too much could, in truth, harm him if he did not manage it carefully and the fruits to satisfy his sweet tooth in a healthful way. It was with a warm sense of satisfaction for a job well-done that he rang the public communications panel in the medical bay hall and announced, “Genji, your breakfast is waiting in the kitchen! Come and eat!”

He was humming cheerfully to himself as he laid the dishes out, folding the napkin into the form of a snowy white rose and settling the fruit salad bowl in the middle of its petals, adding a straw to the glass of juice, when the kitchen terminal chimed a response. “Thank you, Reinhardt, but I am not hungry.”

Everything came to a halt for several moments as Reinhardt stared in blank incomprehension at the communication screen. Then he crossed back to it, opened communication again with rather more enthusiasm than was strictly necessary, and bellowed, “WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU ARE NOT HUNGRY? YOU HAVE NOT EATEN IN AT LEAST TWELVE HOURS.”

“Please, my friend.” Genji’s voice, when he replied, was soft but not enough to disguise the pain in it. “I...do not wish to leave Medical right now.”

“I understand.” And, so saying, he packed the meal onto the hovercart, walked it down to Medical, and waited patiently while Genji, captive to his own better nature, ate every bit of it. “Now, was that so terrible?”

“It was not.” Genji admitted, dabbing the corner of his mouth with the unfolded napkin. ��I am not going to leave. My brother -- Jesse -- I cannot.”

Reinhardt patted his shoulder comfortingly. “I do not expect you to do so...yet. But you must rest at some point, Genji. You will be no good to anyone if you do not.”

“At some point, yes.” He agreed.

Four and a half hours later, he had, in fact, stopped pacing when Reinhardt stirred from his own very necessary nap to come check on him, instead sitting in half-lotus position next to his mentor, floating serenely a few inches off the ground. His body’s lights were noticeably dimmed and it took him no small amount of time to notice that they were no longer alone, an impressive lapse of awareness given the circumstances. “Reinhardt -- is something wrong?”

“Do you remember when I said that I think you should rest sometime?” Reinhardt asked, in a tone that strongly suggested that time had clearly, obviously come.

“I do. It was not that long ago.” Genji raised his head with a physical effort. “I -- “

“Your friend has a point, my student.” The omnic -- the monk -- Reinhardt remembered belatedly that his name was Zenyatta -- remarked delicately. “You have expended a great deal of your strength in a short period of time and you must replenish it properly. Neither of your brothers would wish you to bring harm on yourself for no reason.”

Reinhardt thought that was giving at least one brother slightly too much credit, but also recognized the better part of keeping such sentiments to himself. “Your teacher is a wise being, my friend. You must rest, even if only a little while. You are, as they say, running on empty.”

“It is not -- “ Genji began wearily and at just that instant the indicator panel over the left-hand surgical suite flicked from sterile-sealed-red to green and, a moment later, the door hissed open in a wave of antiseptic-scented air.

Dr. Corbin stepped out, shaking the coppery-red braid out of her surgical cap, and Genji rose on unsteady legs to greet her. “Doctor?”

The doctor -- Reinhardt thought he recalled her name as Emily -- smiled a tired but reassuring smile at him. “Shimada-san. Your brother is in recovery and I don’t mind at all telling you he is a very lucky man, in several respects.”

Genji closed his eyes and, for a moment, the emotions that crossed his face came too rapidly to distinguish one from another, ending on a fragile species of relief. “Thank you, Doctor.”

“You’re welcome.” She stepped more fully out into the hall and keyed the door shut behind her. “Briefly, he’s lucky that whatever hit him wasn’t a few inches further to the left, because I strongly suspect the force of impact he absorbed at that point would have broken his sternum and pulped his heart and we wouldn’t be standing here having this conversation if that were the case. As it stands, it broke the right second through fifth ribs in multiple places and tore loose the sternal cartilage in a discrete segment, badly enough that I thought it best to repair it surgically, both for its own sake and to prevent any further damage to the lungs. Both lungs, but particularly the right, were contused, the right lacerated in several places, the myocardium contused but he somehow managed to avoid serious damage to the thoracic aorta, which is frankly pretty miraculous given the extent of the compression injuries otherwise. He does, I have to warn you, look fairly awful just now -- he’s on ventilator support and will be for at least the next several days while the nanocolonies finish the soft tissue repair of the internal and external lacerations and there are all sorts of pulmonary hygiene tubes coming in and out of his chest to assist in excess fluid removal and prevent any sort of infection from setting in. I have him on a therapeutic level of sedation and analgesia because there’s nothing about any of this that isn’t miserably uncomfortable and, frankly, it’s best if he sleeps through the worst of it. If you want to see him, you may, but no more than a few minutes.”

“Please.” Genji stepped forward, knees wobbly; Reinhardt caught him by the elbow and they went into the recovery pod together.

Reinhardt was, in all honesty, not certain what to think as Genji sank wearily down onto the stool and reached for his brother’s bloodlessly pale hand -- one of the hands that had, by his own admission, once tried with some substantial measure of success to take his life. He was not certain what he himself had been expecting to find when finally confronted with the elder Shimada sibling in the flesh, flesh clearly compounded as fragile and mortal as any man’s, attached to machines now helping him to breathe and suffer no pain. Wondered, unkindly, if the effort were truly even worth making for his own sake and found no answers in the still face beneath the intubation apparatus. Very little about this situation made any fully coherent amount of sense and he suspected it would not until all of its participants were awake and capable of speech and perhaps not even then. For now, he kept his uncharitable judgments to himself, for the sake of the young man whispering quiet exhortations in his mother tongue to his senseless brother, and resolved to stand guard as best he could over that perhaps foolishly forgiving heart. It was the very least that he could do.

#WIP Shogatsu #Listen to your badass German grandpa Genji Shimada

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