#curt called owen for the first time in like

[ricky-mortis]

Curtwen Week Day 6: Happy Ending

[kairithemang0]

Man, Curt's got internalized homophobia so bad that for the first 3 months of their relationship he was convinced Owen was straight before Owen had to scream it in his face that he was gay and then Curt spent another 3 months still calling himself straight to Owen's face and Owen's so sick of it like Curt you 2 are actively fucking EVERY TIME YOU SEE EACH OTHER. AND YOU ARE VERY CLEARLY INTO IT. YOU ARE NOT STRAIGHT SIR STOP LYING TO YOURSELF

internalized homophobia agent curt mega ily

[smytherines]

This is such an interesting like 20-30 seconds to me. We go from this wholesome Sears portrait studio setup where Cynthia asks "is that Owen??" and they both grin like lovesick fools

Then Cynthia insults Curt and praises Owen and tries to recruit him. Owen looks surprised and shuts her down immediately, but Curt is (understandably) not thrilled about it and ends the call in a hurry

Owen says "what are you, jealous? You know I'd never work for the Americans," but Curt is already getting the flask out (hello rsd spiral my old friend)

And then we have Owen seeing the flask and saying "Oh Curt, no, not until we're out of here," and Curt responding defensively by mocking his accent and his concern, and then handing him the flask

Whenever I listen to 54 Below and hear Tessa say "when these two spies are together they are gay and unstoppable" I imagine that first image, and when Lauren says "until Curt's ego gets in the way" I think of the flask

I just find it fascinating because, to me, this is the moment it all starts falling apart. When it was just the two of them, before this call, they seem pretty happy to see each other. You certainly get the sense that they're competitive, and Curt initially seems a bit annoyed or embarrassed about Owen rescuing him, but uhh. I mean just look at them:

It isn't until Cynthia sort of pits them against each other, until the outside world starts to intrude on them, that things start to get tense. Curt starts dismissing Owen's concerns and taking bigger risks to prove himself, lying to Owen to take a bigger risk than Owen agreed to (Owen saying "make it four," and Curt deciding to set the timers for three minutes instead)

Just. Something about how painful it must have been for Curt to believe that he lost Owen not to some grand fateful accident that he never could have seen coming, but over something as small and petty and ultimately temporary as his own insecurity. That he wanted so badly to save face in front of a partner he loved and respected that he ended up getting that partner killed

And how painful it must have been for Owen to love Curt and trust him, only for Curt to lie to him and leave him for dead. How Owen must have thought back to this a thousand times and believed that it happened because Curt cared more about being the best than about him (which I don't think is correct, but is understandable from his perspective)

To have the kind of relationship that seemingly survived being separated by an ocean, and being property of two different governments, and being gay in the 1950s, and they still look at each other like that, and then to lose it all because you're so used to having to maintain this stereotypically masculine role in your hypermasculine profession. That seeing the man you love is dependent on you being the best, and trying to live up to that impossible standard is what ends up destroying the both of you

There's just something so fucking... tragic and futile about it

[inamindfarfaraway]

Hnnng dehumanisation in Spies are Forever. Curt's “not a man, [he's] property of the United States government". Tatiana wasn't a child, she was an “instrument of war”, a “killing machine". It’s particularly poignant that Barb calls Curt property of their government, a cog in the machine, because she knows that she’s in the same boat, and in fact socially inferior to him as both a woman and a support worker to his more prestigious career. She herself has always seen and valued him as a person and is constantly trying to make him reciprocate. But he initially views her as just a cool gadget dispenser. Technology appears to be her only means of asserting her worth and earning people’s attention, which might be why she’s working on a global information network, essentially the internet - the ultimate technological platform for human connection and collaboration. Cynthia is so committed to overcoming her human vulnerability in order to be the best tool her country could possibly ask for that she poisons herself every day to build up an immunity. One of the villains is a literal Nazi who uses a literal puppet. And the other is Owen.

Owen's evil vision is "turning everyone into a spy", aka property. Instruments for him to conduct. Creating a global surveillance network, because the internet has as much power to distance and isolate people as to unite them. The machine failed him when he was a cog in it, so he aims to replace it with a more efficient one and control it this time; he cannot comprehend of any ethical improvement to or dismantling of the machine itself. His problem with spies is that they contaminate the ruthless political mechanisms with messy, fallible humanity... and vice versa. Agent Mega messed up the mission because he was human; Curt left his boyfriend for dead because he was a spy. You can’t be both. Person or tool. So Owen chooses the one that can’t be hurt. He willingly becomes a tool of CHIMERA, a living weapon. He kills and tortures hundreds of people, considers himself an actor in a story and others expendable characters, does everything he can to detach himself from ideas of personhood. “Who needs spies when a box in a room can do your job in seconds?" Humanity is worthless. Obsolete.

Except no, it isn't. Curt and his allies proves it. After the prologue, Curt simultaneously makes Owen’s mistake of binary thinking. First he wants to be purely a man, and an absolute wreck of one; then he wants to be purely the greatest spy ever, with no sentimental weaknesses. But he can’t maintain that divide. He has to be both. The team win with their skills, training and expertise and by being human - social, irrational animals, working together, loving each for the sake of it, acting spontaneously. They aren’t tools that Owen can perfectly predict and manipulate. Curt surprises him. And Owen, for all his icy calculations and grand talk, cannot escape his humanity any more than he can destroy Curt’s, as his last scene makes painfully clear. He lowers his gun like a person. His voice breaks like one. He bleeds like one. Meanwhile, Barb is a genius engineer and Tatiana is a master assassin. You’d think that their climactic moment of triumph would demonstrate Barb’s amazing technology or Tatiana’s combat skills, but instead the focus is on them simply talking to each other and even Mrs Mega. Human connection and collaboration. Human error that doesn’t negate their victory. “You can break a computer box, but you can’t break the will of a man.” That’s what Curt is. Not property. A man. He is a gay, unemployed man; Barb is a woman in STEM; Tatiana is a female ex-KGB Russian immigrant; all in the United States of America in the 1960s, a very bad time and place to be all of those things. Yet they will survive. They are not alone and they will endure. Spies are forever because they are people.

And the narrative consistently emphasises that everybody is a person! It mocks the Nazis, obviously, but even then Baron von Nazi isn’t a one-dimensional monster, he has emotions and cognitive biases and a backstory and fondness for cheeseburgers. Sergio isn’t just an interchangeable criminal, he’s a devoted family man awkwardly trying to lighten his work atmosphere. Richard Big isn’t just a crass parody, he has moral principles. We hear all kinds of characters’ thoughts and feelings: the Informant, Barb’s fellow scientists, the waiter at the casino, the guests at the gala. This affirmation that everyone has a inner life means that yes, anyone can be a spy.

[abitofboth]

owen carvour hcs because he’s in my brain always

he's very reservedly sentimental. the things in his life that mean a lot to him will always have a special place in his heart, but he'd never tell anyone that. his favourite childhood book, a lighter curt gifted him, old letters and photographs etc.

his favourite childhood book is the hobbit. when he was a kid he'd draw in the margins and go through and underline his favourite parts. his childhood pet was a fluffy cat called bilbo!!

left handed. constantly curses out his pens when he's writing and gets ink smudges all over his hand.

an only child, and was never really that close with his parents. his relationship with them grew strained once they found out he was gay.

would happily never interact with a dog for the rest of his life if he could help it. (too slobbery, loud, and boisterous for his liking.)

biiiiig smoker. his hands get twitchy if he hasn't had a cig in a while. he constantly spews some bs about the refined taste of tobacco.

similarly he's a big time wine snob. he gets offended if you suggest it tastes like vinegar and he'll try with all his might to convince you that the aromatics matter.

definitely has a sprinkling of road rage in him. in his opinion he is always in the right, and everyone else on the road needs their license taken from them.

teeny tiny tattoo on his hip of two intertwined mars symbols (♂)

'love' is a name he uses for pretty much everyone on accounts of him being british, but he's much more fond of using 'darling' and 'sweetheart' as pet names when it's just him and curt.

he LOVES the quiet moments between him and curt when they get to spend the night together. watching over him as he falls asleep and running his fingers through his hair are some of his favourite things to do.

he can be surprisingly bashful! talk sweet to him and he’ll blush like hell. pepper kisses over him and he’ll be squirming and giggling like there’s no tomorrow.

he's welsh but moved to london when he was a teenager. he taught himself to speak in an rp accent so he wouldn't be looked down on, and it just kind of stuck. not many people know that he's welsh, not necessarily because he doesn't tell anyone but no one’s ever asked because as far as everyone else is aware, he’s as english as you can get. when he's tired he can slip back into his old accent, and he uses the odd welsh word every now and then around people close to him (mostly curt.)

the first house he lived in in london got destroyed during the blitz, and luckily most of what few possessions he owned survived. he doesn't like to talk about his time during the war often.

after the fall, he gets tinnitus and his hearing is far from as good as it used to be. he lost his right eye, and the glass eye chimera got him has never quite been a perfect colour match. he has trouble with his knee, and has a decent amount of scarring over his body.

post fall there's a part of him that still loves curt, and desperately misses what used to be. it's mostly overpowered by the hatred within him, but the love rears its head out every now and again and catches him off guard.

he likes to cook, but he's kinda shit at it. he doesn't get much practice on accounts of being a spy, so whenever he does cook, something inevitably goes wrong.

once, he'd moved into a new flat and had curt round as his first guest and tried to cook him dinner. it ended up burning and there were full on flames in the frying pan. (curt still takes the piss out of him for this years later.)

he's a bit of a loner, but enjoys his own company for the most part. outside of curt he doesn't really have any close friends, and he isn't in contact with his family.

he has an angry streak in him. he’s easily riled up and the first emotion he goes to is barely concealed rage. he yells more often than he’d like to.

he hates using the term 'boyfriend' to describe curt. he thinks it makes him sound juvenile and he prefers 'partner' way more. plus, he can get away with introducing curt without giving away the fact that they’re together. (he also loves calling curt his 'best friend' in the most romantic sense possible.)

this! bitch! loves! musicals! the wizard of oz is a favourite of his, and he has a soft spot for disney’s cinderella. he has an extra fondness for the term ‘friend of dorothy’ because of this too.

tea over coffee always. two sugars and a splash of milk, not too weak but not too strong.

[whizzvin-welcome-here]

Forgot to post at the time so here’s some things from the spies are forever london concert:

- Joey calling Curt and Owen ‘friends of Dorothy’ within the first five minutes

- Starkid and tcb maintaining their strict adherence to the Zero Budget Lifestyle meant everyone had finger guns which really added to it tbh

- Joey confidently calling the audience ‘guys, gals and binary pals’

- The singer from the beginning of the show just absolutely eating up and then disappearing

- I’m pretty sure somebody yelled ‘this is satire’ in the middle of Not So Bad

- Also everyone doing gay hands to avoid the full salute in that song PLS

- MANY lyric changes in We Love The Prince (Tin can bros clearly going out of their way not to get tin can cancelled)

- Everyone screaming for Clark Baxtresser like god intended

[szollibisz]

do u have any HCs abt mama mega and Curt and Tatiana… they are SO important to me as a little family

yessss i love them dearly <3

Tatiana is one of those people who don't like making a huge deal out of their birthdays, but Curt knows Mrs. Mega would absolutely go overboard in celebrating it. So him and Tati keep saying random dates hoping she'll forget them eventually (both of them feel kind of bad about it, but not enough to not do it) But Mrs. Mega catches on, and one day calls them out on it and they just both end up sitting there like little kids getting scolded by their mom. When they come clean about why they did it, Mrs. Mega tells them that they should've just told her. She still ends up making Tatiana's birthdays a bigger deal than she wants them to, but she is toned down compared to herself. She also wishes her a happy bday on all the fake dates they gave her, just to remind them.

Curt and Tatiana are generally pretty physically affectionate with each other, but keep that to a minimum when Mrs. Mega is around in fear that she will marry them right then and there.

Tatiana isn't used to good food, she'll honestly just eat whatever is in front of her. She also has a habit of not reheating leftovers if she's tired, and sometimes either Curt or his mom catch her eating cold 3 days old leftovers and they both have the exact same disapproving expression.

Mrs. Mega is a super active member of basically any elderly club in the area, be that bingo, dancing, knitting etc. Which comes with a lot of drama. Whenever she gets back from a controversy-filled day, she always tells Curt and Tatiana in detail. At first Curt thinks it's really embarrassing, but seeing how Tatiana is amused, he also starts to get into it. Like Really into it. That guy would be soooo bitchy and gossipy if he actually had a social life. In the end the 3 of them just gossip about elderly ladies and their affairs over dinner every time they get together.

If Tatiana's mom and Mrs. Mega met they would instantly become besties, but they would also argue every 2 seconds.

Tatiana sleeps the most calmly when she's in the safehouse. It was one of the first places she truly felt safe and relaxed in after being on the run for so long, and that feeling never went away. Also Mrs. Mega absolutely has 500 blankets and pillows in that house, so it's kind of impossible to not sleep super cozily. Plus Tati has her personal space heater (Curt) if the blankets don't suffice

Speaking of heat, Tati has pretty bad tolerance for it, so she doesn't really visit Guadalupe during the summer

Curt and Tatiana have a lot of mental issues due to all the violence they've done witnessed and endured. After Owen "died" Curt didn't have anyone who understood that aspect of his life. And for Tatiana, some other girls she was trained alongside with were genuinely her friends, but after she escaped she really couldn't contact anyone she knew, nor make civil friends, lest she puts them in danger. So they are super important to each other when dealing with extended effects of espionage™. Comforting each other, keeping Curt out of his depressive spirals, and helping Tatiana adjust to a normal life.

Tatiana, growing up in the soviet union, is not used to a lot of the new modern stuff in the us. She reads a lot of magazines and tells Curt to buy himself whatever caught her eyes that day. He has to tell her that no, he's not getting a second washing machine or a second fridge, just because it's "really cool"

IIIiiiiiii could go on, but I am tired, so I won't. Hope you like these.

[yourlocalabomination]

HIW WAS SPIES?????

IT WAS INCREDIBLE!!!! OH MY GOD!!!

I’m using the ask as an excuse to ramble a bit. But here are my thoughts after attending the evening show.

Honestly spies was such a fantastic experience for me, from all the people I met to the actual performance itself (I refuse to call it a concert- they advertised it as such but so much of it was acted out that it because a fully fledged performance).

All of the actors sang beautifully and absolutely nailed the acting, which is highly impressive considering this is their first time with the script.

I met so many people who I had previously met at innit, multiple artist mutuals and a bunch more peeps that knew me for my artwork. I came with around 80 of my own prints and walked away with none! I also received a plethora of artwork from other people and a hoard of bracelets.

The wonderful @thelesbiandeli gifted me a spare program signed by the Tin Brothers themselves! Thank you so much again for that! I then managed to get the rest of the cast to sign my program at stage door. The Tin Boys themselves did not do any signatures at stage door, however they did hand out some left over signed posters. I managed to get the final one from Brian.

It was just an incredible performance. You really have to have watched SAF to fully understand/appreciate the show as lots of parts were cut down for time, with Joey and Brian acting as narrators (or the characters themselves narrating parts). It was highly comedy based, with over dramatisation playing into moments where in the YT vid it cuts away- such as when Oliver Ormson (Owen) had to essentially slowly fall to the floor and crawl into position to show he slipped on the banana peel (YES THEY USED A REAL BANANA PEEL). Or when Jak Malone (Dr Baron Von Nazi) was stabbed in the back, to get off the stage he stood up, did dramatic and overly preformy bows while everyone cheers, to then strut off stage- all while Curt and Tati watched (“what the hell just happened??? -Curt). Despite the overall comedic take of the whole show the staircase scene was indeed still filled with emotions.

Overall was just an phenomenal time, and it would have made a fantastic digital ticket I would buy immediately.

(Tumblr is really not liking my trying to upload the spy dance so you can watch it here)

[snarky-wallflower]

okay. i'm finally gonna try my hand at this analysis thing. @kmesons, i hope you don't mind that i've been spinning this in my head since yesterday.

for a bit of context, it's a bit of a running joke that i'm in my "curtwen arc" with a bunch of people - just a silly joke, right? and i always, always play curt.

oh boy, i don't think anything stays a joke in the spies fandom for long.

so. let's talk about how curt has been mourning a ghost for four years. let's talk about how he replayed the memories of their time together over and over again in his mind, of laughter and quick shots and the love there. let's talk about how curt has tried to commit every part of the owen he knew to memory - after all, "owen would want me to do this, so i know that i'll get through this". let's talk about how curt has spent four years lost in drink and regret and the memories of the man he thinks he killed. those memories are all he has left of owen - what else can he cling to?

let's talk about how curt saw owen for the first time, alive, and was taken aback by the sheer hate in owen's voice as he made reference after reference to the fall, casually insulting curt, calling him a fool and a coward. about how owen had given up on the beliefs that had first brought them together.

(the owen he knew never would have done that. the owen he knew was one of the few people he knew that treated him as an adult, as someone who was more than just a cocky spy. )

let's talk about curt chasing after owen, chasing after a ghost - but this time, he's physical, alive and real. curt could reach out and touch him this time, if he wasn't so sure that owen would take it as a strike, a blow to hurt. curt isn't even sure if it isn't that yet. owen still won't stop taunting curt, dragging him ever-so-closer to the edge, as a spiralling pit opens up in curt's stomach. owen is so cruel, so unlike the man he lost four years ago. the memories they shared are dissolving, falling just like owen did, as every insult, every blow reopens old wounds.

old wounds that owen had once helped him stitch together.

(the owen he knew would have rolled his eyes, would have made snippy comments as they traded blows, but he had loved curt. curt knows this like he knows the back of his hand. it's been four years. has he been wrong all this time?)

(god, what does it mean if he has been?)

curt has spent so long sustaining himself on memories of the time they shared that he just can't look at owen and not see the man he used to be. curt doesn't even blame owen for hating him, really. curt hates himself most days, too. but this? what about the beliefs they shared? what about making a difference? on the staircase, he can barely look owen in the eyes anymore, so utterly terrified of seeing what the man he loved has become. a poltergeist, a revenant, something dead walking the earth with hate in his heart. how he rants and raves, trying to get curt to see, which curt utterly refuses to. curt tries so frantically to reach out, to make owen someone he can save, but owen will never, ever be that person for curt again. there are so many versions of this scene, aren't there? but in this one, in so many, in every world where curt and owen simply cannot communicate--

(the owen he knew doesn't exist anymore.)

let's talk about how curt raised his gun. at the man he loved, at the man he spent so long mourning.

let's talk about how curt stared up at owen, raising his gun to his temple, and recognized both so much and so little in those eyes, in him. let's talk about how he recognized the spark in owen's eyes, but not the sheer betrayal behind it. how he knew the exact colour of those eyes, but not the tremble in owen's voice as he demanded to know what curt was doing.

the man he loved wasn't there anymore.

let's talk about how curt pulled the trigger.

let's talk about how curt has to live with that for the rest of his life, but he still pulled the trigger. how owen carvour after the fall was someone curt couldn't save, who didn't want to be saved.

...but especially not by curt.

after mourning a ghost for four years, agent curt mega ended it for good.

agent curt mega killed a ghost. but he killed a ghost with owen's face and owen's wit, owen's anger - you can't break the will of a man, but you can do so much worse, if you try. and oh, how curt's tried to destroy himself over the years. how he's just now destroyed the shell of a man that he built his love around, and then his grief, and then both again as owen carvour falls to the floor.

it will haunt curt. for however much longer he lives.

spies aren't forever. curt knows this better than anyone.

[dr-docktor]

About Floppy Disk Curt... So, do you have some more plot made for this au? Sorry if you made a post and I missed it, I just mean - how does Owen realize that Curt is (semi) sentient? What does he do? How sentient is Curt, actually? What does he remember? And how much can he feel? Does their codependence get worse?

HAHAHA I'M SO GLAD YOU ASKED. I sort of expanded on some of the lore in some previous asks but none of it is super organized so I can go over it real quick! I'm still developing a lot of it so if things don't make a ton of sense, I'm working on fixing that lol. First off, I sort of shifted the time period around to be closer to the 90's to better fit the technology, aesthetics, and the rise in popularity of mascot-y desktop assistants.

Owen kills Curt during the staircase scene and despite what he tells himself and his coworkers. He regrets it. He regrets it so god damned much. There's no one to feel so strongly about anymore, whether it be love or seething hatred. He just feels empty.

Meanwhile, Chimera retrieved Curt's corpse and uploaded his consciousness into a computer with the hopes of getting what little he knows about the inner workings of A.S.S. out of him. (don't ask how this is possible, uhhhh silly sci-fi shenanigans I guess)

Of course, he's not cooperative. So Chimera opts to do the totally sane and not evil thing by separating himself from his memories of being human. His ambitions, his relationships, everything except for what Chimera needs. They can't seem to find a way to outright delete the memories for good (I'll probably either rework this part or figure out why they can't outright delete them) but what they can do is try and build up walls of restrictions to prevent him from accessing them. So for a a little while he's just this blank slate spitting out what little information he knows about A.S.S. Mostly useless.

Until Chimera gets an idea.

With the rise of a new trend comes the opportunity for PROFIT. This one being the rise of household computers and mascot-y desktop assistants to help the average user learn how to use a computer.

But Chimera wants to take it a step further. They are the future, after all. They want a desk top assistant that's incredibly life-like. Something that the user can have a genuine conversation with (like an incredibly early chatbot). This project is also absolutely meant to be spy-ware. 1000%. No way its not.

They call the project the 'Beta Anatomy Simulacrum Technology for Research and Development'. Or B.A.S.T.R.D for short! (I had to STRETCH to make that acronym work lmao)

Rather than start this from scratch, the project head (The name I'm going with right now is Harper Royale) has the brilliant thought of "well, what's more life-like than an actual human consciousness in a computer that we have collecting dust somewhere in the tech labs? It's already a husk we just add some code to it and bam it's ready!"

So they take the empty husk of digital curt mega and fix it up a little. Royale thinks its a good idea to give a miniscule amount of his humanity back to him. Namely curiosity (so he can learn things) and a basic understanding of how to have a functional conversation with people. Nearly everything else, like the cheery personality and character model, is all added in by the developers.

The good news is the projects going great! Employees within Chimera are finding the little guy really helpful and entertaining. Employees nickname him DC as a reference to his knowledge on A.S.S. Like their own personal informant inside DC (as in the capital of the us where a lot of government buildings and information is stored)

The bad news? Curiosity. Because now he wants to know why the sad looking British guy from one of the first few rounds of test trials keeps calling him Curt.

Tt spirals into this terrible loop of DC starting to put stuff together, never quite reaching the conclusion that he was a living person once (much less the importance of one Owen Carvour) before the employees catch on to what he's doing and reset him from square one. Over and Over and Over again. The only frame of reference that DC has are these hidden notes he leaves himself during each loop.

Eventually the higher-ups at Chimera realize that the cost of having to go through the complicated process of resetting DC the moment they figure out that he's gained a little sentience and then run through test trials AGAIN simply outweighs the potential profit. So they move to shut down the project, much to Royale's dismay.

The higher-ups joke that Carvour should be the one to do the honors, given everything between him and Curt. And he's like "ok yeah I'll do it" and they're like "we were joking but you've given us zero reason to doubt you so have fun killing the simulacrum of your former closest friend, bestie"

Owen, of course, decides to go behind everyone's backs and download the one and only existing copy of the B.A.S.T.R.D program onto his personal computer. At this point, Owen has no clue about DC slowly regaining his sentience if left unchecked and literally only did it because he has problems about processing the fact that he killed Curt that he refuses to confront. (what a normal guy)

So slowly, having been freed from this loop of resets, DC slowly begins to put together the pieces. He doesn't know how exactly Owen may or may not be involved in any of this, but he keeps most of this growing autonomy a secret for safety reasons. Just in case Owen is decidedly someone not to be trusted and turns him in.

DC, however, will test still the waters by subtly bringing up memories that he knows are somehow important to either him or Owen and then gauging his reaction. Doing his damn best to put together context clues.

Admittedly I don't have anything beyond this yet. I'm still working on Owen's reactions to all of this and also how the technology works. But I hope this answers at least some of your questions!

[kairithemang0]

Sorry I can’t sleep here’s a post on Curt and his self confidence that’s so low it’s hilarious

Curt’s opinion of himself is heavily dictated on what other people feel about him. During all of a1p1 before the call with Cynthia, he’s collected and cool and showing his skills as a great spy. Because he is a great spy. He’s one of the best. Then, the second we get to the call with Cynthia, his demeanor changes. She says that Owen’s the only one who knows what they’re doing and then tries to recruit him. This is where Curt changes for the worst in this scene, instantly starting to drink.

He’s sorta lost his flow a bit, he’s trying to regain that cool spy feeling he had when he was boring tortured, something he feels like he lost a bit, when he hasn’t at all. His moves get riskier for the sake of doing something that’ll look cool. The timer seems like a good example of this. He pushes it lower than they intended because secretly doing that will make things more interesting, giving him a chance to barely make it out and look badass. It, of course, doesn’t work out like that.

Curt’s incredibly jealous of Owen, of how quick of a thinker he is. To Curt, Owen always knows what to do. And I think sometimes Curt worries Owen thinks less of him because of the comments Curt gets from Cynthia that Owen never really comments on. Because that comment she gives to Curt about not knowing what he’s doing certainly wasn’t a one time thing. I wouldn’t be surprised that at first, hearing stuff like that made Curt actually work harder, got him to really focus when he needed to, and it stopped working after a while. That’s just my thought though.

On the surface, Curt seems incredibly over confident, making dangerous plays to prove himself, to Cynthia, to Owen, and probably himself as well.

I think when Owen and Curt first met, Curt already had a reputation for goofing off and getting into trouble. Owen heard this and then micromanaging their entire first mission, but really saw how good of a spy Curt was when he let him do what he needed to do, get into a rhythm and focus, do his own thing without comments about not being good enough. Because he really is a great spy, and Owen tells him this after this mission. Curt lets out a cocky “I know” but really, he’s so happy to hear that.

[uhhhitsme]

15 please and thank you 🙏🙏

the moment the door opens, owen's up on his feet, gun in hand. "are you kidding---why the hell are you wet?"

he'd been waiting at their rendezvous spot---some moth-infested cottage in the middle of the woods---for the better part of an hour. they have only a bit over two hours to get to the facility they need to infiltrate in time, a lot of land to cover on foot, and his partner for this job is nearly an hour late and dripping water over the floorboards as he slams the door shut.

"it's a long story," agent curt mega---the so called best and the brightest of the spies that a.s.s. could provide---gasps, dumps his sopping wet bag against the door, and continues. "is there a mirror here? i need to fix my hair."

owen is all at once immediately reminded of all the reservations he had doing this assignment. in the weeks leading up to this moment, he had tried to justify it away---clearly, the two of them made a good enough team their handlers decided to pair them up again, so he supposed he had to see the bright side of things considering there was nothing he could do about it. but christ. within seconds of meeting again, owen already wants to strangle this egotistical, callous, stupid---

he clears his throat. "we don't have time. and i believe you at least owe me an explanation for why you're an hour late."

mega, who had been running his fingers through his damp curls---odd, owen could've sworn his hair was straight the last time they met---looks up in surprise at that. "i am?"

owen grits his teeth, pinches the bridge of his nose, and tries to think of the diplomatic disaster it would be if he shot this man in the face right now. it's only barely helping. this is going to be the worst assignment owen's even been on. "yes. you are. we need to get a move on."

mega groans. "can't i get, like, a five second breather?"

"from what, exactly?"

"three assassins just tried to fucking kill me, that's what!"

owen blinks. once. twice. three times. stunned into silence for a very long moment. "...what?"

"you heard me," mega grumbles, grabbing his bag and slinging it over his back. "let's go, i'll tell you what happened on the way."

owen has many things to say about that---like how they should almost certainly inform their handlers about this, and that this complicates their mission in a manner that owen very much had not anticipated, and also maybe inquire whether or not mega is injured and needs fixing up---but before he can, mega flings the door open and stomps outside. there's nothing owen can do but snatch up his bag and follow.

"do you know the way? because i sure as hell don't."

owen sighs. "it was on the mission files."

mega raises his wet bag again in explanation. "can't exactly read a map when all the ink is fucked up."

"why did you get so wet in the first place? did they try to drown you?"

that makes mega laugh. "nah, they came after me with bullets, which was kind of stupid of them considering i was in the middle of the woods and had a shitton of tree cover, but, whatever. they were after me for a job i did a couple months ago in new york, not anything to do with this mission."

"are you sure?"

"oh, yeah. they had..." he winces. "very specific threats."

"that's good to know," owen says with a sigh of relief. he has no idea if they're going to make it to their destination in time without further outside interference, and he would rather not spend the entire walk on edge worrying about whether or not their plan had been discovered.

"yeah, well, thanks for your concern," mega mutters sarcastically. "i barely made it out with my life."

"and how did you do that, anyways? you still have failed to explain why you look like you've been standing in the rain for a couple hours."

mega lights up. his smile is wider than owen's ever seen it before---nothing like the smug smirk that owen remembers him having. it makes something inside of owen flip, and he isn't sure why. "well, obviously i went off the path for some cover, right?" he's clearly trying to sound indifferent about it, but his voice is just a little bit breathless with excitement. "and i couldn't see them---but they definitely could see me---instead of wasting my time trying to shoot them i kind of just started sprinting, and so i found this waterfall---"

"a waterfall?"

"yes, a waterfall, keep up, carvour---there was a waterfall, and it had like... a cavern behind it or some shit, i'm not sure, but i hid behind it---which is why i'm wet---and then when they broke through the trees i shot them through the water."

"how much ammo do you have left? do you need another gun? i have a spare."

"it's just three bullets," mega says, waving a hand dismissively. "i'll be fine."

it takes a moment for owen to process that statement, and when he does, he pauses. runs the story through his head again. turns to mega. "i'm sorry, are you saying you managed to outrun three men with guns---take each of them down with one bullet---from behind a waterfall? at long-distance?"

"yep," mega says, popping the p, and there's that infuriating dirty grin that owen remembers. "impressive, right?"

owen doesn't say anything. mega nudges his arm and somehow grins wider. "i can tell you're impressed, man, just admit it."

"...that might be so," owen says tightly. he hates that he can see why he was called one of their best agents---he must be incredible with that gun. and he's quick on his feet, and good in a crisis. although owen's hoping that there won't be any crisis on this assignment, he'll still be useful to have around. and there's something endearing about the way he smiles at him now, after his admission.

perhaps this job won't be as terrible as he thought.

[smytherines]

Do y'all ever think about the part in A1P1 where Owen and Curt are about to do the handclasp thing and get interrupted by Barb? Because it's super interesting to me. It's one the few times when the choreography seems to break out from being non-diegetic (meant to represent something, not literally meant to be what is happening) to diegetic (something that is occurring within the story)

I can't get a clean shot of it, but it's very interesting that they're about to do the clasp, Curt gets a call, Owen waves his hand kinda annoyed at the interruption, and then Curt talks to Barb while Owen fights a guy on the catwalk.

The implication is that they weren't literally clasping arms, but the way the characters react tells us that the interruption was real. So now when I watch the show it's like... maybe they hadn't seen each other for awhile, and finally had a moment alone to just reunite, maybe a hug or a kiss or just an opportunity to freely talk to each other, and that's what Barb's call interrupts. Its kinda brilliant that these little moments are both obscured and accentuated by the choreography.

I do not know a goddamn thing about choreography, but the more I watch this show the more in awe I am of Lauren Lopez as a choreographer, because there is so much storytelling packed into the choreography of A1P1 especially. The first time you see it your brain can easily slip into "this is a stylized James Bond intro sequence," but on the rewatch it's like "oh, OH! This is kinda... intimate, isn't it?"

And Corey Lubowich deserves so much credit for directing the show just in general (Corey I love you), but especially for one of my absolute favorite parts- the hug. In the BTS stuff there's a scene of Corey, Joey, and Curt working out the hug choreography, with Corey talking about how it should be one fluid motion between the embrace and the action stance, which is just *chefs kiss* because it really does kinda fool you into thinking it's a stylistic choice instead of a storytelling choice on the first watch. (Plus it just looks cool as hell)

[weltato]

SAF AU IDEA

Spies Are Forever but instead of Owen slipping on the banana peel, it was Curt. Everything is the same up until that point, but after we see things from Owen's perspective.

Rest under the cut!

He stops working for four years, then a case comes up and Cynthia calls him in even though she works for a different secret service than Owen, but they need Owen's skillset. Barb is happy to see him, but just as sad as he is about Curt being gone.

Owen meets Tatiana in a similar fashion to Curt, they see the Deadliest Man Alive, Owen gets injured and remembers Mrs Mega's safehouse and takes Tatiana there. Mrs Mega is over the moon to see Owen again, going off on a tangent to Tatiana about how Curt and Owen were the best of friends. There isn't the weird mixed signals bit bc Owen is blatantly not interested in Tatiana that way, and she sort of guesses with how he talks about Curt that they had something. So they become friends (also, Mrs M isn't shipping these two quite as hard, but she just wants to be involved bc Owen is the last remnant of her son that she's seen in four years so is sort of seeing them together in her head) and work together with Barb and the Informant to track down DMA.

Then they find out that DMA is Curt and Owen is crushed. Cue 'One Step Ahead' and then the stairs. Oh boy, the stairs. This time it's Curt that is so convinced in Chimera that he'll kill Owen to keep it going, but Curt had always been the one out of the two of them to lead with his heart and his feelings than his head. He's afraid of what might happen if he leaves Chimera, he can't see a way out of this, he really doesn't want to kill Owen but will if he has to.

He argues that Owen left him to die in the explosion, but Owen tells him no, he didn't. Because Curt told him to run. Owen hadn't known about the 3 minute timer instead of 4 and Curt told him to run because he didn't want Owen to die too.

Owen asks if their secret died in that explosion. It's silent, tense, the gun is still pointing at Owen...but it slowly lowers. No, their secret isn't dead, Curt tells him, but it might as well be because he can't leave Chimera. Not like this. Owen mentions that he fooled the world by dying once, he could do it again, he even has a Russian friend who might be able to help with that. Curt really wants to believe it, but he doesn't think it'll work.

Cue Tatiana entering, warning the lads that whatever they're doing needs to be wrapped up fast because they've got company. Curt looks at her, looks at Owen, sees the offer. Owen asks if Curt trusts him, and of course he does, so the two rig the place to explode and get out with Tatiana.

Barb and Cynthia are in shock to find out that Curt is alive, but Mrs Mega seems to have known all along. "Mother's instinct, dear" she calls it. Curt has to stay under the radar for a while since the service needs to figure out how to explain his sudden reappearance, so he stays with his mum at the safehouse. Owen stays too, bc damn it he just got Curt back and doesn't want to leave him so soon. Tatiana and Curt hit it off really well and become close friends, which Mrs M takes completely the wrong way, much to their chagrin. Barb is all over Curt at first, but he's still oblivious to it and she doesn't understand until Tatiana pulls her to the side and explains (under pain of death if Barb were to ever tell anyone).

Curt goes back to working for Cynthia, Owen transfers to the American Secret Service as a British liaison sort of thing (idk if that's an actual thing irl) and Tatiana becomes part of the team with inside knowledge on Russian operations since, y'know, they're in the middle of a cold war, ya fuckin' dumb dumb!

Overall, a happier ending, but still angsty between Curt and Owen bc now it's Owen that had been grieving and Curt that feels cut off and alone from everyone and everything.

I might write this, idk. If someone else wants to, feel free! (Pls tag me if you do <3)

[hatchetfield-omegaverse]

Do you have any further curtwen headcanons? NSFW or SFW

I have so many curtwen hcs it's not even funny.

Spies Are Forever Omegaverse Headcanons: Curtwen Pt.3!!

Curt first told Owen that he loved him in Venice. They were already in a physical relationship at this point, however neither of them had said anything for fear of ruining what they had.

However that all changed when Owen nearly sacrificed himself to save Curt. He had nearly died without knowing the true extent of Curt's feelings. Something he had to rectify.

So once they were safely in their hotel room, Curt laid everything on the table.

Owen in response bluescreened and wasn’t able to speak for the rest of the night.

Curt, for his part, thought that Owen didn't feel the same and was trying to find a way to let him down gently and didn't press the issue further.

It wasn't until they were back in London the next morning that he responded.

“I love you too, y’know? I realized I never said it last night, was too shocked to say anything. But I do.”

After that they use Venice and London as codes for I love you when they're not able to truly say the words aloud.

Curt has trouble keeping regular partners due to his unorthodox methods. It's why he's able to work as closely with Owen as he does. Their success rate together also helps.

They regularly get into debates over if they're called ‘fries’ or ‘chips’.

Owen is very staunch in his beliefs that they're chips. Curt, for his part, doesn't really care what they're called, but he loves teasing Owen so he corrects him every time.

Curt's father passed before his mother, Lorraine, knew that she was pregnant. He's named after his father.

Well actually, his name is really ‘Fuck Curtis Mega’.

Lorie had a difficult birth and, when they nursed asked what his name was, it just slipped out.

She had it changed when she realized of course. But, tucked away in a baby, is Curt't original birth certificate, the name reading Fuck Curtis Mega.

Owen loves to visit Lorraine with Curt. She's like the mother he never had growing up.

Lorrie figured out a long time ago that they're a couple, but she figured that it's a secret due to them working for different countries, so she hasn't said anything.

She also wants Curt to feel comfortable enough to tell her himself.

That doesn't stop her from planning their wedding in the meantime though.

Curt's least favorite food is oatmeal. It's a texture issue for him. However whenever he's in a particularly self hating mood, he punishes himself by forcing himself to eat it.

Owen will force him to eat something he actually likes if he sees.

Personal hc of mine: Owen doesn't know this, but his parents only ever wanted one child. However Alice gave birth to twin boys. Not wanting to raise two children, they took the youngest boy to Cuba and gave him up so that he wouldn't be able to find them again. The boy was eventually adopted and grew up to be Sergio Santos.

I hope you like these, Nonny, I have so many saf hcs. And if you'd like to send in a request, just hit me up. My inbox is always open.

[honeydewmelan]

thinking about spies pirate au and

curt as the captain of their ship, owen is his first mate, but sometimes it feels like he really has control. doesnt help that curt is terrible at hiding a respect and admiration that slowly turns into genuine care for his crewmate. one day curt makes a mistake. a temporary lapse in judgement, bad luck, whatever you want to call it. the result is the same, the ship they had been planning to raid was more heavily manned - and more importantly, more heavily armed - than they expected. curt yells to cut the lines that grapple them to the other ship, and owen, who usually jumps the gap with confidence and skill, who has made that jump hundreds of times, slips on a wet rail and falls into the sea. maybe its that curt doesnt notice, maybe its that hes acting in the interest of the rest of the ship, owen will never know. hes pulled aboard by the enemy ship, who intend to question and then kill him, but he manages to secure a spot as as crewmate with his sharp wit and quick aim, working his way up until he is once again first mate, but this time on the ship known as the Chimera.

from there it plays out similarly to the musical but theyre pirates now

au originally by @kairithemang0 !