#he has movie posters in his office for god’s sake | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

winterromanov · 5 years ago

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keeping all the promises (we made years ago) - a romanogers fic

Peter’s mixing a bad gin and tonic when Natasha and Steve finally come into the back. Her tiny frame guides him through the throngs of people as a The 1975 song plays in the background, crooning about skinny jeans and spare time and she’s got a boyfriend anyway. They disappear down the basement steps and Natasha must be a little drunk, he reckons, because the door is barely shut when they start kissing. And this—this, he realises, is the only narrative of the two of them that matters. (rock band au. chaos, man.)

/one

It’s Uncle Tony that gets him the job. Well—perhaps gets isn’t quite the right word, because get implies a bit of shuffling behind the scenes and handshakes when in reality Uncle Tony can get whatever he wants whenever he wants. He’s not even his biological uncle. Sometimes, Peter wonders if Uncle Tony just fancied having a nephew and saw him in kindergarten and thought, hey, he’s the one. May’s never told him how Tony ended up being his sort-of guardian, usually financially but sometimes otherwise. He’s just…always been there.

The always been there feels a little more literal now, ever since Peter mentioned that he might not want to go to college after all. Yeah, sure, the Princeton physical sciences program is like, the best in the country, but is that really all there is? He likes music and evening walks and the shitty little apartment he shares with May in the city. He likes the familiarity and the way it covers him like a safety blanket.

It wouldn’t be an understatement to say that Uncle Tony was pretty fucking pissed at the idea. Of, you know, not making the most of the thousands of dollars he’s invested in Peter’s education and not going to an Ivy. Nevertheless, there’s not much he can do about it. Even Tony Stark can’t force him to go to college, even if he looks at him with that disapproving glare every single goddamn day for the rest of his life.

(Uncle Tony’s disapproving glare is one of the scariest things Peter has ever seen, period. And Ned once made him watch all The Exorcist films in one sitting back in freshman year. Took him a good few weeks (months) to shake the paranoia and realise that, realistically, he probably wasn’t going to get possessed by some angry old spirit anytime soon.)

But Uncle Tony can ask him what he’s doing instead of going to college, and Peter quickly discovers that a nonchalant shrug of the shoulders is not an adequate response. He thought that maybe Tony would get him some sort of starter position in his company, but Tony isn’t the kind of guy who gives out jobs to anyone (even if they’re his sort-of nephew). No, if Peter ever wants a job at Stark Industries he needs a college degree first, and a good one at that.

“You need a taste of the real world, kid,” Tony had said, Peter idly spinning on the office chair in front of his desk. “And then you might think twice about giving Princeton the boot.”

And that’s how he ends up in front of Endgame.

Peter knows a hell of a lot about Uncle Tony, but also absolutely nothing at all. There are things he deliberately keeps hidden and Peter knows better than to ask about but he’s also ridiculously open, especially about how fucking rich and clever and sexy he is. May says it’s a confidence thing—that he must be hollow under all that blithe arrogance, but Peter has never met anyone more solid. He thinks. Tony cannot be anything other than whole, because he’s sure helped keep Peter’s foundations stable all these years.

He knows that Tony’s business is his life. That he’s a bit more…forward, with women than he should be, but it’s all talk because Pepper wouldn’t stick around if it wasn’t. He knows he prefers Turkish food over everything else and that he cares more than he lets on, always.

But he absolutely didn’t know that Uncle Tony kind-of owns a nightclub in the city; the super cool kind that has live bands and plays British indie rock and a menu with over fifty different kinds of cocktail on it. It makes so much sense, when he thinks about it. It’s exactly the kind of place he imagines Tony heading to after a day working non-stop at the tower.

It’s only three in the afternoon but the place is unlocked, Tony pushing open the double doors at the front with his shoulder. Inside, there’s a jarringly bright room with a bar and a stage that feels wrong not swathed in darkness or the muted glow from overhead lighting. A woman with long, brunette hair that falls down her back is mopping the floor off to the side. She looks up when she sees them enter.

“Wanda,” Tony greets, pushing Peter forward. The girl smiles bemusedly, shoving the mop back in a red plastic bucket. “Working hard?”

“As always, Mr Stark.” Her accent is soft, European. Peter likes the twinkle in her eyes. “You’ve just missed Nat, but Clint is still in the basement, if you’re looking for them.”

“Barton. Perfect.” He tugs on Peter’s arm, and Peter vaguely feels like some naughty kid being dragged around by their dad. This must be what that feels like, he muses, not that he knows much about the whole parent thing. “Come on, Peter.”

Peter rolls his eyes. Wanda catches him, and she laughs a little, returning back to the mop.

Tony drags him through a hallway lined with black-and-white checked squares and down a set of stairs labelled staff only, the walls covered in aggressive-looking graffiti which he assumes are song lyrics he’s never heard of. He likes music, but he’s the soft-spoken acoustic type. Not the mosh-pit type.

(Alongside Tony Stark’s disapproving glare and horror movies, he’s also kind of terrified of being swallowed by crowds. He doesn’t like the feeling of being lost or untethered. He likes being anchored to something. Someone. It’s kind of ironic, really, considering.)

Tony opens a door at the bottom of the stairs that leads onto what he assumes is some sort of staff common room, the walls all exposed brick and lined with tattered leather sofas probably pulled from a garage sale. Band posters either hang loosely with blue thumb tacks or, in some cases, in black frames—some scribbled with messy signatures. A makeshift bar stands in front of a small kitchen, lined with more liquor bottles than he cares to count. A coffee table is littered with vinyl cases and sloppily written notes, a wire charging an iPhone trailing all the way from the door. A man with brown hair and a strong jawline sits on the sofa nearest the back wall, Doc Martens kicked up on the table, scrolling through his phone. His eyes barely flicker when they enter the room, like he’s waiting for Tony to talk first.

“Welcoming as always,” Tony remarks, urging Peter to walk further into the room. The other man snorts.

“If you want a fucking parade every time you enter a room, Stark, you should stick to those dumb expo things you still insist on doing.” He’s still scrolling through his phone. “Who’s the kid?”

“I’m not a kid,” Peter can’t help but say, because he’s eighteen and a high school graduate, for God’s sake. Both Tony and the man raise an eyebrow, in that patronising way Peter is all too used to. Like, you’re basically just fresh out the womb, boy.

“You’re a kid until you stop thinking like one,” Tony says, and it looks like Peter is still going to be getting a lot of that. He gestures towards the man and back again. “Clint Barton, Peter Parker. Peter, Barton. He’s your new boss.”

“Half-boss,” Clint quickly corrects, “Nat would probably slit your throat if she heard you say that. Also…” Clint pauses, finally putting his phone down. He seems to examine Peter carefully, eyes flicking up and down. He feels oddly exposed. “Shouldn’t you, I don’t know, be doing AP Literature homework or something?”

Peter sighs, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I’m not in high school. I graduated high school.”

“I refuse to believe that. How old are you? Fourteen?”

“I’m eighteen!”

Clint narrows his eyes. “You sure about that?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I know my own age.”

Clint hums. He shifts his feet from the coffee table and to the floor, leaning forwards. “Don’t get me wrong, Peter, but are you sure you want to work here? Aren’t you better suited to…like, a computer science major? You just don’t look like the kind of guy we’d usually hire.”

Peter takes that to mean you look like a massive fucking nerd, moron. Well, Clint’s not wrong, but it’s always a bit jarring to hear someone say it actually out loud. He’s not the kind of person who works in a cool bar with cool people who wear Doc Martens and listen to the Arctic Monkeys.

“He’s hired because I say he’s hired,” Tony interjects, pressing his hands on Peter’s shoulders. “And because this little punk thinks that he doesn’t want to go get a STEM major.”

Clint smirks a little at that, like he’s gone from zero to just a touch of respect for him. “Teenage rebellion, huh?”

“No,” Peter replies, not that convincingly. “I just don’t want to go to college, alright?”

“Not right now, but a few weeks of working with these absolute head-cases will have you handing in your transcripts before you can say Ivy League,” Tony states and Clint chuckles, “You will be begging for the sweet release of the Princeton marching band and that compulsory calculus class.”

Peter looks over at Clint, who merely nods in a faux serious manner. “We’re special here, Parker. Absolutely one-of-a-kind.”

“Who’s one of a kind?” Another voice rings out behind them, clearly feminine but surprisingly low and sultry in tone. When Peter turns, he sees a petite woman with red hair that scuffs her shoulders, skinny jeans hugging her legs and a leather jacket over her shoulders. She clutches a shopping bag in her left hand, her nails painted the same shade as her hair. Her Converse sneakers are black and streaked with dirt, but like they were made that way, like it’s all staged.

He has to actively fight his jaw from dropping open. Because, Jesus—he isn’t blind. She’s the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen…and there’s something about her, a familiar quality he can’t quite place, like he’s seen her before in another time or place. She smirks when she finds him staring. Peter flushes, looking away, and thinks idly about beautiful gardens and being tempted in by a Devil.

“You are,” Clint replies effortlessly and, like that, Peter realises that there must have fucked at some point. Her eyes glint as she drops her bag on the counter.

“I assume you’re here for a reason, Stark,” she says, “If this is your new intern, I’m dying for a coffee.”

“Funny,” Tony shoves his hands in his pockets. “And as I was just telling Barton, this is your new employee.”

“As of when?”

“As of right now.”

When this woman assesses him, it feels more scathing than it did with Clint. Her eyes are slower, her expression less readable. Clint was clear in his uncertainty. It’s impossible to tell with her. Eventually, she halts, lips pursed. “Huh.”

“My sentiments exactly,” Clint responds. He’s back on the coffee table, like he’s bored by the whole situation.

Tony stands back, folding his arms. “You have an opening now the other Maximoff has moved on, and this moron needs a reality check. You lot are probably the worst people I could think of to give it to him.”

The redhead blinks slowly. She rests her chin in one hand, her elbow on the bar. She’s looking straight at Peter, green eyes blazing like exotic jewels. “You have any bar experience?”

“Uh…” Peter scratches his head sheepishly, “No?”

“You train him, Nat,” Tony says when Nat looks skeptical, “You train the hell out of him. Or get him to do the 4am bathroom cleaning shift. Your choice.”

“We have Clint for that,” she says, and Clint throws a scatter cushion at her. She catches it with ridiculously quick reflexes and dumps it on a bar stool before hopping onto it. Her shopping bag is exclusively filled with grapefruits. “Although, we do need a new bartender now Pietro has fucked off.” She pulls a knife from seemingly nowhere and points it in Peter’s direction, which gives off a threatening air that Nat looks all too comfortable with. Worryingly. “But no doing homework at the bar. It’ll ruin our image.”

“I’m not…” Peter starts, but Nat’s smirking again. So. He’s just going to have to accept the fact this is going to be a running joke, right? Anything that gets Tony off his back.

“You’re kind of adorable,” Nat says, looking over at Clint. “Steve will love him.”

“Steve will try and adopt him.”

“Steve will try and adopt anything that looks vaguely pained and puppy-like,” She chops a grapefruit in half, then into quarters. “It’s taking everything I have to convince him we don’t need a golden retriever right now. It’s exhausting.”

(At this point, he stands gormlessly and watches both Clint and Nat bicker back and forwards about this Steve, this guy that Nat must be dating, and nothing clicks. Nothing clicks yet. He feels like a bit of an idiot when he eventually does, though, because of course. That’s why Nat looks so familiar.)

“Well,” Tony interrupts in a tiny pocket of silence where Clint and Nat aren’t snarking at each other, “Consider Peter your anniversary gift. He’s every bit as charming as a golden retriever without having to pick up the shit. I think he’s already potty-trained. I think.”

Peter shakes his head out of disbelief. Not biological, but every single bit as embarrassing as a blood relative in front of anyone cool. Nat doesn’t take her eyes off the grapefruits.

“Our anniversary was last month, asshole, and all you gave us was a fucking star named after us. You know, one of those dumb certificates you buy online for about ten dollars.”

Tony clutches his heart dramatically. “It’s romantic, not that I’d expect you to understand. Imagine looking up at the night sky and knowing a little piece of you and Steve is up there, glimmering just for you, courtesy of me. That’s special, Nat. Money can’t buy that feeling.”

“Money can buy that feeling. You bought it for ten dollars. Fortunately for you, Steve is a gullible and the sappiest son-of-a-bitch we know so at least someone enjoyed the sentiment.” Natasha pauses for a moment, resting the knife down on the counter. “Now. You—Peter—how much, exactly, do you know about cocktails?”

There are things he learns incredibly quickly when working with Nat—facts, logistics, statements. Both Clint and Nat have known Uncle Tony for a while, but he’s not sure why or how. Tony helped Clint and Nat buy Endgame and he continues to invest in the business, taking a share of the profits. It’s been open five years, but Clint and Nat have known each other way longer than that. He’s not sure why or how. Actually; he’s sure why, because Clint and Nat are pieces of the same puzzle, irrevocably interlocked. The way they look at each other is haunted by years and years of shared history. You’d have to be blind not to see that.

Also—Nat mixes drinks with a speed and precision that is impossible to replicate. He watches hopelessly as she grabs spirits off a rack on the wall from memory, barely glancing at the labels. Wanda occasionally brushes past and Peter can see the amused look in her eyes, like she’s in on a joke he doesn’t know about.

She’s trying to teach him how to mix a basic mojito—not their most popular drink, but one of the easiest—when the front doors swing open and a man walks in, tall and broad-shouldered, blonde hair mussed from the motorcycle helmet that hangs in his right hand. His shirt is way too tight for his torso and arms but he looks so good anyway, in a way that Peter could only ever replicate in his dreams.

It takes Peter a moment to realise, when the man smiles at Natasha like she’s every good dream he’s ever had, that this must be Steve. And then it takes another moment once he gets a decent look at his face, that this isn’t just any Steve. This is Steve fucking Rogers. And Nat… Nat is Natasha Romanoff.

“You certainly took your time,” Nat says coyly as Steve sidles over to the bar. He reaches over and takes her face in his hands, kissing her gently and casually on the lips. It’s like Peter isn’t even here. It’s nothing too intimate, though; Nat seems aware of her privacy and what she wants other people to see. She seems to have a strict code on showing and telling. Peter isn’t part of her exclusive inner sanctum (yet).

(Clint struts in, then promptly struts out again, muttering something about letting someone else be the third wheel for a change.)

“Meeting overran,” he confesses, still curved over the bar, “Honestly, I keep telling them I’m retired.”

“Show them your birth certificate. Can’t possibly expect a man in his nineties to record another album.”

Steve laughs, and honestly, it’s like watching a scene out of a romantic movie. “For some reason, they just won’t believe me. They might believe you, though. You have a way of getting people to do what you want.”

Natasha pats his cheek gently. “Absolutely. Oh—and this is Peter, by the way. Anniversary gift from Stark.”

Steve’s eyes settle on him for the first time since he arrived, because it’s very clear that he’s the kind of guy who tunes out the rest of the world when his girlfriend is in the room. “I thought Stark got us a star for our anniversary. I love that star.”

“Of course you do,” Nat titters, “And Peter is filling in for Pietro.”

Steve offers Peter his hand, and he shakes it tentatively, because this is still Steve fucking Rogers. “Great to meet you, kid.”

“Oh,” Nat lowers her voice, “He’s not a kid. He just graduated high school.” When Peter’s mouth opens, she grins. “This is Steve. He hangs about here sometimes. Can’t seem to get rid of him. I have tried, believe me.”

“You’re Steve Rogers,” Peter breathes, dumbstruck, and it’s only when Nat and Steve share a bemused look that he breaks out of his stupor, cheeks flushed. He nervously looks at his feet. “Sorry—it’s just I’m a big fan.”

There isn’t anybody who hasn’t heard of Steve Rogers, as far as Peter is aware. He’s got all his albums on CD stacked on the shelves of his bedroom and he listens when he’s feeling particularly nostalgic, pressing them into the portable player May got him a lifetime ago and lying back on his bed. Steve is the Golden Boy of America’s pop music scene, his songs soulful and sad with a quiet, yet constant, lingering optimism. It’s the kind of music that reminds him of leaves in the fall and sitting alone on the subway. The kind of voice you could get lost in, but not in the unknown, terrifying kind of the way. It’s like he’s trying to guide you home.

Steve and Nat share a look and Peter fears that he’s made a bit of an idiot of himself. Again.

“Whatever you do, don’t ask for his autograph,” Natasha scrunches her nose, glancing up at her boyfriend. Steve looks mildly entertained. Like he’s used to it. “His ego is big enough as it is.”

Steve shakes his head. His hand reaches across the bar and squeezes Natasha’s shoulder. She softly runs her hand over his knuckles—it feels weird, to use the word soft to describe Natasha, because from what Peter has seen (in his admittedly limited experience) she’s never anything but razor sharp. “You’ll come to realise, Peter, that this woman never has a day off.”

Natasha’s smile is wistful, longing. “I don’t have time for days off.”

The room suddenly feels heavy and Peter can feel something lurking under the surface of their dialogue, something that’s not being said while he’s there watching. Steve looks away, smiling at the ground. Look—he’s not that into tabloids or dumb E! News twitter threads where their pictures are plastered about like incriminating photo albums, but he’s not totally unaware of it either. He knows Nat’s surname because he’s seen her red hair on the cover of magazines at the drugstore countless times, on May’s coffee table. Some of them have been holding Steve’s hand. Some of them are just Steve. Some of them are Steve with other women.

He’s got enough knowledge to know that this relationship mustn’t be…easy. Or conventional, at the very least. Not that he knows much about that. He knows about as much about romantic love as he does parental.

(Aka, not much at all.)

Wanda is the one who breaks the moment. “Nat, Clint is asking—oh, hi Steve!”

Steve smiles and the two share a quick embrace, because Steve definitely seems like the hugging type. Meanwhile, Natasha walks round the bar and beside him—Steve slings an arm casually round her shoulder, and it’s so comfortable and natural that Peter feels something shift in his chest. Wanda lets them know that Clint needs to run over the inventory before opening in a couple of hours, so Nat leaves Peter in Wanda’s capable hands while her and Steve head down to the basement together. Peter can’t seem to drag his eyes away from them.

“You too, huh?” Wanda remarks, one eyebrow raised. Peter blinks, not sure what she means. “They’re magnetic, right? And not just because they’re both ridiculously attractive.”

Peter flushes—for what seems like the millionth time since he arrived—and covers his hands with his sleeve. “I don’t—“

“We’ve all thought it, one time or another. There isn’t anybody else like them.” Wanda smiles softly. “They haven’t had it easy but they’re happy now, so. Every cloud, yes?”

Peter nods hesitantly. “What do you mean…haven’t had it easy?”

Wanda’s smile is still gentle, but there’s an unwavering nature to it. She seems to float past him, like she’s not quite real, an ethereal ghost. “That’s not for me to tell. But I can tell you how to make more than just a mojito, if that’s adequate?”

Peter feels himself relaxing, the tension vanishing from his shoulders. Wanda is a little less terrifying than Natasha. Her eyes are big and touched with melancholy, but there’s no bitterness there. “Yeah. Yeah, that would be really adequate, thanks.”

His first shift—well, his first shift is insane, and he completely and totally understands why Tony thought this place would cure his college related existential crisis. The bar is packed from the moment the door opens because even though there’s no live music tonight, Clint and Nat’s sick playlists seem to reel in people from all over the city and further out. A bearded guy in a Led Zep shirt drunkenly tells Peter that he’s come all the way from Toronto to listen to Hawkeye and Black Widow, and he’s really not sure what that means.

There are also people who are here when they realise Steve is about, from Twitter or whatever. He’s not exactly under the radar as he seems to spend a lot of his free time in Endgame (for obvious reasons) but as soon as the customers start coming in, he edges away, disappearing off into the basement while Nat, Clint and the rest of them work. Other than Wanda, there’s only one more employee who turns up—a tall, buff British guy called Thor who wanders in about fifteen minutes before opening time with hair off a Herbal Essences commercial. He slaps Peter on the arm and almost knocks the wind out of him.

By the time closing time hits Peter feels battered, bruised and a little like he’s fallen out of a top floor window, his shirt covered in shit tons of unnameable alcoholic combinations and his head beating like a bass drum. Clint, Nat, Wanda and Thor weave between people and the bar like it’s ingrained in them, grinning and laughing and seemingly knowing everybody. As the cool, 2am air of August hits his face like a slap round the face, Peter wonders if he’d actually been holding his breath the whole time, waiting for the storm to be over.

He almost throws up on the stairs. Almost. He kind of wants to go home, go to bed, and never come back here again. Everything—it just happens a lot, always. Maybe he is just a kid. Maybe he’s not ready for a life outside of education, like Tony had said.

He feels a hand curl round his shoulder and he starts, but when he turns he sees Steve, oddly reassuring and stable in this new world that makes no sense whatsoever.

“You alright, Peter?” he asks, warm and empathetic, “Maybe you should sit down.”

He doesn’t wait for a response, instead sitting on the damp, stone steps that lead up to the entrance. Peter sighs heavily, goosebumps bristling up and down his arms. Cautiously, he eases down next to him. Wonders how his life got to this.

“It can get pretty intense in there, huh?” Steve nudges him with his shoulder. “I thought that when I first started singing in public, like my heart was just going to rip out my chest. But it gets easier. Maybe you’ll even enjoy it.”

Peter laughs a little at that. There’s a scab on his left thumb and he picks at it out of habit. “I think Clint was right. I’m not the kind of guy they like here.”

“God, don’t let him hear you say that. Clint can’t ever be right. The universe would implode.”

Natasha appears at the front door from nowhere, as is the pattern, and it’s the first time Peter’s seen her all evening properly—she’s wearing a black lace camisole and leather pants that leave very little to the imagination, but Peter knows better (and is better) to let his eyes hover for too long. Her lipstick matches the color of her hair. She’s absolutely breath-taking, like a rebellious Hollywood starlet. It’s the first time he’s seen her tattoos, too; she has a spider on her left shoulder, an arrow on the other and there’s the smooth curve of a circle that peaks out of the waistband of her trousers. She hands Peter a paper cup filled with water. Come to think of it, not drinking anything all night was probably a bad idea, adding dehydration to a general sense of, you know, existential dread.

“It’s just your first day, buddy,” Steve says, “It’s new. That’s all.”

“I think you did pretty well for someone with no experience,” interjects Nat. Steve gives her an exaggerated look of shock. “Hey. I said pretty well. He’s still got a lot to learn.”

“Praise indeed! You should be proud, kid. Took her over a year for her to say anything remotely nice about me.”

“That, and also I’d take every opportunity to prove Tony Stark wrong about something.” Nat smirks. “You just got to get into the music, then you won’t be able to fucking wait to come back.”

“Yeah,” Steve smiles, looking up at her, “She’s pretty exceptional at making mixtapes.”

He’s entering yet another moment that feels like an intrusion just being there, another conversation without words. He’s been the third-wheel before—countless awkward dates at the Cheesecake Factory—but this feels like a whole other level of it, because the worst kind of couple to tag along with are the ones that use silence like it’s not silence at all.

“Am I…alright to go?” Peter asks quietly, folding the cup in his hands. He’s not sure how all this works.

Nat nods. “Yeah, seeing as it’s your first day. But tomorrow you’re helping with the clean-up.”

“How are you getting back?” Steve is already sifting through dollars in his wallet, “Get a cab on me.”

“Oh—Mr Rogers, I couldn’t possibly…”

“It’s Steve, and you absolutely can.” He hands him twenty, and Nat audibly sighs from behind him. “What? What is it?”

Natasha looks totally unsurprised. “Clint was right about something. You’re totally adopting our new bartender. He’s only been here a day!”

Peter has to admit, having Steve Rogers look out for him is hardly the most disastrous thing to come out of this shift. He half-smiles, mostly to himself, unfurling the twenty between his fingers. Steve just shoots Nat a withering, long-suffering look, because this is what Steve calls being nice.

“Thank you, Steve,” Peter says, standing up, “And thanks for the water.”

Steve salutes a goodbye and Nat walks down the stairs, filling the space Peter leaves. As he saunters down the sidewalk, he picks up snippets of their conversation:

“Which star do you think is ours? You know. The one Stark bought us.”

“Oh, shut up about that goddamn star. Stark will really try and buy anything, won’t he? Even bits of the universe. You’re supposed to—I think you should just leave the cosmos the hell alone. We don’t have to understand everything.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” A pause. “The science is neither here nor there for me. And Stark’s capitalist consumerist ideology aside…I just like to think the stars all come out for you.”

(He thinks about that all the way home, in the slow hum of the cab, the buzzing tinnitus in his ears. He thinks about loving someone so much you want the whole universe to exist just for them.)

The first thing he does when he gets home is Google them. He can’t help himself. He just—he has to know more. But as soon as he types in their names, and a ton of unsavoury articles mentioning other women and possibilities about Natasha’s past come up, he feels disgusted with himself. This isn’t the truth. This is just hearsay and shady sources and the edges of facts cobbled together with hyperbolic adjectives and PVA glue. This feels voyeuristic and weird, like he’s doing something explicitly wrong, like he’s listening to high school gossip.

He turns to Instagram instead. Natasha’s—predictably—is on private and he’s too awkward to send a request, and the blur of red on the icon might not even be her. Steve’s is a lot easier to find. He’s got almost three million followers and a blue tick, his photo an outtake from some shoot where he’s laughing like a maniac. His most recent picture isn’t even of him. It’s Natasha, caught off guard in the basement of Endgame, looking through the stack of records he’d seen on the coffee table. When he swipes along there’s another where she’s using a Bon Iver vinyl to cover her face, looking beneath her eyelashes at the camera. The caption reads though she be but little, she is fierce.

And this—this, he realises, is the only narrative of the two of them that matters.

The next day he wakes with a thumping headache. When he asks May if there’s any aspirin, she looks at him with a mix of disappointment and muted shock.

“Yes, I agreed with Tony when he said getting a job would be good for you, but really Peter?” she tuts, to Peter’s confusion, popping two tablets out of the tray and into his hands. “What was it, then? Beer? Rum? Vodka?”

Oh. Oh. She thinks… “Relax, May. I didn’t do anything. The music was just loud, that’s all.”

May doesn’t look entirely convinced, her eyes slightly narrowed, but it admittedly isn’t in Peter’s character to engage with any underage drinking (even though that’s what he’d probably do in college, if he was still going). Clint had slid him across a jack and coke with a wink at some point after midnight, but he’d let it go warm on the counter. The only time he’d ever really drunk was at Liz Allan’s New Year’s party at the end of junior year, and that was only to prove to that dumbass Flash Thompson that he wasn’t a pussy. His puke tasted like beer and then that just made him puke more.

“I just worry about you. I’ve never pictured you working in a place like that.” May sits at the kitchen counter, watching him as he swallows back the pills. “Couldn’t you send your resume to a bookstore or something? Bryony from Pilates says she’s looking for a new waiter at her place. Maybe that’s more your… thing.”

It’s quite likely that’s more his thing, but the told you so that would come out of Tony’s mouth is persuasion enough to keep on at it. Yeah, he feels like death and another night like yesterday is not going to make that any better, but surely he’ll get used to it. Right?

“I’m not quitting already. It wasn’t so bad. Plus, I got to meet Steve Rogers.”

May’s eyes almost bulge out of her head. “Excuse me? Steve Rogers as in…?”

“Yep,” Peter pops the ‘p’, grin tugging at his lips. His aunt isn’t exempt in the nationwide crush everybody has on Steve Rogers. “The manager—well, one of the managers—is his girlfriend. You know Nat Romanoff?”

“Oh, so she’s Nat Romanoff to you,” May chides, “Didn’t realise you two had got so close already.”

“Shut up. She’s kind of terrifying. So is the other guy who runs the place. But there’s a girl there—Wanda. She’s pretty awesome.”

May purses her lips, studying his expression. “Is she pretty pretty too?”

“No!” Peter replies a little too quickly, to May’s delight, “No—she’s… nice, but she’s a bit older than me. Anyway, I’ve told you before. I’m not looking for anything like that.”

(It’s been almost a year since Liz Allan tore his heart to pieces and he’s still not over it. It’s kind of pathetic, really. They were never really dating to begin with, but it all felt so real anyway.)

“Alright,” May hums, “Just…be careful, okay? I heard you come back late last night and I hate thinking about you walking about on your own.”

He wants to say that he’s eighteen and basically an adult and that New York City at 3am doesn’t scare him, but him and May have been so close his whole life and it must be difficult, her watching the little boy dropped abruptly on her doorstep all those years ago growing up and moving on. Other than Uncle Tony, who walks in and out of his life when it suits him, May is all he has. And she’s only got him. There’s a lifeline there that holds them indefinitely together and she hates watching it stretch, fray.

“Steve got me a cab,” he says gently, “And I’ll bring my bike tonight. I’m totally fine. I promise.”

She gets up, kisses him on the top of his head, between the curls that are still damp from the shower. It makes him feel like a kid, but not in the restrictive, controlling way Tony does when he’s pissed at him. It makes him feel nostalgic for the time where May would kiss his scraped knees better when he tripped on the sidewalk and make him peanut butter sandwiches with the crusts cut off for his lunch box.

“I love you more than anything,” May says, her mantra. You don’t have a lot, but you do have me.

Peter smiles. Blinks slowly. “I love you too, May.”

Just before he leaves the apartment for another round, a notification lights up his phone. He doesn’t recognise the number, but he opens the text anyway, and it’s a link to a Spotify page ran by username blackwidow. The playlist is titled for peter.

“You’ve looked them both up on Instagram, right?”

Wanda says this as she drops on the sofa next to him, propping her feet on the coffee table. Clint and Nat are bickering in the office adjoined to the kitchen and occasionally he can see one of them through the window—he’s almost certain at one point Nat had Clint by the throat, but Thor looks at him, shaking his head. You just gotta let them ride this one out.

“Uh…what?” Peter absent-mindedly replies, dragging his eyes away from the pot of pens that has just collided with the window. Wanda doesn’t react. It must be normal.

“Steve and Natasha,” Wanda elaborates, “I did. It’s the first thing I did, after I met them. You wanna know about someone’s life, you find their social media. Or lack of it.”

Peter sighs. Well, at least it’s not just him. “Yeah, I did.”

“I’m assuming you haven’t sent Natasha a request.”

“Nope.”

Wanda grins. “She’s meticulous. Natasha. Obsessed with privacy and who gets to see what. I’m surprised she has social media at all. I mean…it’s not illogical, considering, but she does not reveal her soul to just anybody. Steve, on the other hand, is an open book. Not very good at hiding anything. Which is usually a good thing, sometimes not.”

Peter tilts his head, taking Wanda in. She’s wearing makeup today, black smudged round her eyes. May’s right, she is pretty pretty. “You seem to know quite a lot about them.”

“I’ve worked with them for a while now. And anyway. They’re interesting. You see it, too. Sometimes it’s hard to look away when they’re together.” Wanda doesn’t flinch when another crash comes from the office. “You wonder how they work, because they seem so very different.”

Peter shrugs. She’s not wrong, obviously, but he doesn’t want to look too interested, like the creepy fans that leave leery comments on Steve’s pictures. “People do say that opposites attract.”

“People are stupid. And vague. What even are opposites?” Wanda’s laugh is low and sort of croaky. “I am just glad they found their way back to each other.”

“How did they even meet?”

Wanda’s smile is the same one he saw yesterday, like he’s encountered a dead end and she knows it. This is not her story to tell, like so many others. “I am sure you will find out eventually.”

Clint bursts out of the office, then, dabbing at a cut on his cheek with a napkin. He looks kind of like he’s been dragged through a hedge backwards, flustered and breathing hard. His eyebrows lift when he sees Peter sitting there, offering the two of them a quick greeting.

“Oh, and Clint!” Natasha calls out, appearing from behind the door, “Could you get me an iced latte?”

Clint considers for a second, before nodding. She throws him her reusable mug and he catches it with one hand before turning to leave.

“Don’t even try and get me to explain that relationship,” Wanda says, “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

Peter laughs under his breath. It’s like Nat said, in the conversation he shouldn’t have heard. We don’t have to understand everything.

At about 11pm that night he joins Wanda for a cigarette out the back fire door and for the first time, he feels kind of cool, watching as the end burns a tiny amber dot, ripping a hole in the black. He’d never smoke one himself—the fact that May is horrified by him consuming alcohol is bad enough—but he likes watching her, how oddly and decadently beautiful the smoke unfurling from her lips is.

At the bottom of the alley, a motorbike pulls up and a man that looks vaguely Steve-shaped jumps off of it. Wanda glances at him with a smirk, stubbing out the cigarette with the toe of her boot. His arms fold out, and a woman runs into them, their laughter echoing down the street. They obviously don’t know that him and Wanda are watching; it feels like a private glimpse that they’re not supposed to see, a privilege. Natasha’s legs wrap round his waist. They hold each other for what feels like minutes, hours.

He can’t take his eyes away the whole time.

“I told you,” Wanda elbows him, brushing past to get to the door. “They’re magnetic. You’re pulled into their orbit.”

“I just…I don’t know why,” Peter says, dumbfounded, “Maybe it’s the way they look at each other? Like the whole world could burn to ashes and they’d just…stand, in the afterglow.”

“You’re poetic, Parker,” Wanda muses, “But you’re not wrong, either.”

They’re pulled back into the heat of the club when Clint realises they’re not working, grabbing them both by the shoulders and violently shoving them back onto the bar. He’s not paying them to gossip about snapchat and heelies, or whatever the kids are into these days, apparently. And Thor can only handle so much attention before his ego combusts.

He’s mixing a bad gin and tonic when Natasha and Steve finally come into the back. Her tiny frame guides him through the throngs of people as a The 1975 song plays in the background, crooning about skinny jeans and spare time and she’s got a boyfriend anyway. They disappear down the basement steps and Natasha must be a little drunk, he reckons, because the door is barely shut when they start kissing.

It takes about two and a half weeks, give or take, for things to start to feel normal. The hours fuck up any semblance of a sleeping pattern, but he’s no longer waking up with a thudding in his skull like a second heartbeat and Wanda’s tip about earplugs help a ton. He arrives at about three, sometimes earlier, sometimes later. He’s usually off again by two unless Nat or Clint are feeling generous about clean-up. The bar is shut every Sunday and the freedom is near divine. He doesn’t get up until midday and spends the rest of the day in his pajamas, eating pancakes and watching shitty reality television about people who are paid to sing badly or hate each other.

Steve is in the bar most nights and whilst he doesn’t always talk to Peter, he begins to miss him when he’s not there. He’s usually got a motivational speech or two in his back pocket, and it feels pretty fucking awesome that Steve Rogers seems to care a little about his wellbeing.

He hasn’t had the nerve to ask about how they met, yet. Wanda is still tight-lipped and Clint is borderline psychotic anyway, so each of them feel like a dead-end. He’s stuck with assumptions and watching them from his peripheral.

“You know, he wrote his last album about her,” Clint says in a rare moment of honesty, while they’re preparing for opening. Steve and Nat are tucked in a booth by the door, her knees brought to her chest, speaking impossibly close together. “It’s abhorrently adorable. Almost puked when I heard it.”

“What?” Peter says skeptically, “You mean the whole of See You In a Minute is about Natasha?”

“The whole goddamn thing. Sickening, isn’t it? I think the title is some sort of private joke between them.”

Peter doesn’t mention that Steve’s last album is his favorite, because he doesn’t need more excuses for Clint to bully him. Plus, he needs to push on. He needs to know more. “Have they always been like that? You know. Close.”

Clint pauses. He’s polishing glasses, but lays the cloth on the counter, looking over at him. “I’ve known Nat a long time. Long enough to know that it takes…a lot, to impress her. To pull her in. Even with me—and with Steve—it took her months to realise there was a mutual trust there.” He grins a little, showing the softer side to all that strident energy. “If you tell her this, I will violently murder you, but I love that girl to bits and I wouldn’t accept just anybody taking her away from me. But I accepted Steve immediately. So take from that what you will.”

It doesn’t really answer his question, but he supposes it answers a bunch of other unasked ones.

There’s a moment of silence. And then—

“Have you and Nat ever…?”

The look Clint gives him makes him realise he knows better than to finish that sentence.

(He brings up See You in a Minute on Spotify the moment he has time alone before opening, back on the leather couch in the basement. He figures the songs might have a new meaning now he knows who they’re about. His thumb taps the titular song—a slow, atmospheric ballad that sits in the recesses of his heart as soon as he hears the opening piano chords.

I have one last dance all saved up for you

He really wishes he wasn’t crying, but he just can’t help it.)

A band is playing that night called The Guardians who everyone but Peter seems to know well. They’re a six-piece retro rock band that the crowd goes wild for—they all have crazy hair colors and equally crazy names, apart from the lead singer, who’s messy brown hair is barely brushed and is weirdly also called Peter. They stay for a while after their set has finished, building up a substantial bar tab that Clint’s on their ass about. Peter Quill and his girlfriend Gamora (the other singer and guitar player of the band, her hair bright green and her lips painted black) sit on the stools and tease Peter (who they call Little P, hilarious) until closing time.

“Are you even allowed to serve alcohol?” Quill jibes, sipping a beer, “Isn’t there a rule against children being anywhere near liquor in public?”

Gamora pokes his shoulder. “Maybe it’s some sort of psychology project. He’s studying us for a paper.”

Peter can’t even be bothered to argue at this point. He still gets this same genre of comedy from Clint on a daily basis so what’s a couple more age-related jokes? He just smiles, mixing a cosmo for Gamora’s scary looking sister who silently glares at him from the stool next to her.

“You know what would be a fun psychology project,” Quill points a finger in Peter’s direction, “Nat Romanoff.”

Peter pauses for a second. “What makes you say that?”

Quill’s limbs are loose from all the drink he’s been downing before, during and after his performance, so his movements are all exaggerated and floppy. “Don’t tell me you’re not interested. Clint too. They both have shit in their pasts they don’t want us to know about.”

Gamora is decidedly more composed. She shakes her head, looking at Peter seriously. “All conjecture, of course. And none of our business.”

“I heard she was a spy for the Russian government,” Nebula casually mentions, her tone completely void of inflection. “She can slit someone’s neck with an envelope.”

All three of them look at Nebula, slightly aghast, but Nebula’s expression is so stoic and emotionless Peter can’t tell if she’s joking or not. Even Quill blinks heavily, knocked speechless.

“That’s…not what I meant,” Quill slurs, leaning in closer, “But there’s something there.” He taps the side of his nose. “Mark my words.”

“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Gamora says, “Having a past you want to remain in the past is hardly rare.”

Peter’s beginning to notice a pattern with his colleagues. They all guard their memories under heavily armored doors and it’s only in occasional moments of softness or weakness where anything is ever revealed, and rarely by the person themselves. Clint let’s something slip about Natasha, Wanda about Clint. None of them really know anything about him.

“How long have you guys known Nat and Clint?” Peter asks, before tentatively adding, “And Steve?”

Quill and Gamora smile knowingly, like maybe this is a question that’s been asked before. Gamora presses a hand down on Quill’s shoulder. Peter hides the urge to sigh at another dead end. “We’ve been performing here since they opened, but if you actually want to know anything about them we’re probably the worst people to ask.”

Quill nods. “They don’t talk. If you ever find anything out, though, feel free to let us know.”

Peter laughs disbelievingly. “As if they’ll ever tell me anything.”

“Have you asked them?” Gamora replies, and Peter’s expression answers her question. “Little P, if they didn’t think they could trust you, they wouldn’t have hired you. They don’t let just anybody into their inner circle.”

“My uncle got me the job—he’s like, an investor, or something. Trust had nothing to do with it. Probably the opposite.”

Gamora’s lip curve, unconvinced. “I think you know it’s never quite that simple.”

“I don’t…I don’t even know why I’m so interested.”

“That’s what everybody says,” Gamora says wistfully, sliding him a tip across the counter. “And we should probably leave before he makes a fool of himself.”

(The he in question is Quill, who has since disappeared to join the dancing crowds with his shirt off. Nebula’s eye roll is mechanical, like the rest of her. Peter wonders if Quill and Gamora are her Steve and Nat; two wildly different individuals that seem joined together by something no-one else can see, that no-one quite understands. She downs the rest of her cocktail and makes her way towards the couple, who have since started kissing in the middle of the dancefloor.)

Gamora kind of reminds him of Michelle. Clever, beautiful, existing on a plane that floats way above everybody else. He swallows hard. He’s not sure where that thought came from.

By coincidence, MJ actually messages him about a week later. He’s been so busy either sleeping or working that all his friendships outside Endgame have taken a bit of a back-burner, texts stacking in his inbox that he’s been too tired to respond to. Besides, the only person he really keeps in contact with from high school is Ned and he’s spending the vacation before he goes to college with his family in Hawaii—he’s kept updated with sunkissed snapchats from the beach, exotic flowers and drinks in coconut shells. He’s hovered over Michelle’s name a few times over the past few weeks, but she isn’t always the kind to message back. She flies off grid as soon as school is out. There’s no point in tormenting himself over her lack of read receipts.

But when she messages, asking if they want to meet at the mall, he types sure before he can properly think about it. It’s a Sunday, after all, and he’s been thinking an awful lot about the limited relationships he has lately. What he wants them to be.

(That’s definitely a bi-product of Nat and Steve. He can’t put it down to anything else.)

MJ is sat by the fountain in the middle of the shopping complex reading a copy of Marx’s The Communist Manifesto, making notes with a tiny wooden Ikea pencil. Her dark hair is long and loose and she’s wearing a plaid shirt with sneakers, casually beautiful in the way she’s always been. It takes her a minute to look up and actually see him standing in front of her and when she does, her mouth opens a little, curved in a bemused grin.

“Woah, Peter,” she says, closing her book, “Didn’t realise you were edgy now.”

(She’s talking about his new Doc Martens that Wanda helped pick out. They’re shiny black leather and extremely uncomfortable, but you know, he’s getting down with the culture.)

“I’m…not,” Peter says. MJ laughs at his awkwardness. “You should see the people I work with.”

“This your new job, huh?” MJ eases back into the bench, crossing her legs. “Now you’ve decided to fuck college. Is this the beginning of a crisis? I’m getting vibes, here. Smart kids who screw college to work in a nightclub are definitely going on some sort of downward psychological spiral.”

Peter shrugs, smiling. Trust MJ to be brutally honest about his life choices. “Do you wanna grab coffee?”

“Yeah, as long as it’s not Starbucks. I’m not using my limited finances to fund their crooked corporate empire.”

They trail around for a bit before they find a cripplingly expensive but decidedly independent coffee house, filled with mismatched vintage furniture and hipster-types crowding the front windows with their moleskin notebooks. Peter feels out of place but Michelle fills the space like she owns it, lounging in an armchair angled away from the counter. She closes her eyes and asks for a chamomile tea and a blueberry muffin which he—he just gets for her.

He returns with an Americano for himself, because for some reason he wants MJ to think he’s the kind of person who drinks black coffee now, when in reality he’d prefer something fruity and sugary that has him flying off the walls.

“So…” Michelle starts as he falls into the sofa opposite, “You’re definitely not going to Princeton?”

Peter folds his legs. Tries to get comfortable. “I’m definitely not going to Princeton.”

“Interesting. Even though Tony Stark will probably fund, like, all your tuition fees?”

Peter rolls his eyes. He hates her insistence on bringing up the fact he has Tony in his life, a handy billionaire safety-blanket, like he can’t complain about anything ever. Yeah, sure, Tony would probably fund his way through college—but he wonders how much of that is guilt money, the dollars his mom and dad would have scraped together if they were still alive. Not everything is about money. Tony Stark is the kind of person MJ hates with every fibre of her being, but… Peter still loves him, and not just because he’s rich as shit. Even when he’s being super annoying.

Michelle smiles sadly when he doesn’t reply. “I’m sorry, Peter. It’s just hard for me to get my head around, you know? I would commit homicide for someone to fund my way through college. Maybe I already have.”

Peter chuckles. Has a sip of his god-awful coffee. “Where are you even going for college? I don’t think you’ve ever said. In-state?”

“It’s what I’ve been meaning to tell you, actually,” MJ admits, “It’s a bit further out than in-state.”

“Oh. Right. Pennsylvania?”

“Bit further than that.”

“…California?”

“Not exactly.”

“MJ, are you going to make me run through every college I know about? Tony’s shoved just about every prospectus in my direction so we might be here a while.”

“I got accepted onto a philosophy program,” MJ starts, bringing her teacup to her lips. “At University College London.”

Peter almost spits his coffee out everywhere.

“I honestly didn’t think anything would come of it. The whole admissions process in England is completely whack, and they don’t have SATs and stuff over there so I didn’t think I had a chance. But—I don’t know. Something happened, and I got in. So I guess I’m moving to London.”

He’s not completely sure what she’s saying, just watching her mouth move and nothing but blurred, incoherent noise reaching her. She said London. MJ is moving to London, and that’s a hell of a long way from anywhere.

“You’re moving to London?” he just about manages to squeak.

“Yep. Totally aced it, dude. Time to live my English dream. You know. Try and abolish the class system they have over there and stage a revolution against their monarchy.”

A vacuum opens in his stomach, like he’s just now realising that he doesn’t really want to live in a country that isn’t the same as MJ’s. But she looks so happy. He doesn’t want to be, but he can’t help it. He can’t not be happy for someone who is about to do everything they’ve ever wanted.

Nevertheless, it’s an inconvenient epiphany. Wanting to hold onto someone as soon as they tell you they’re going to leave.

“Congratulations,” he says, hoping there isn’t a crack in his voice. “That’s…incredible, MJ. You’re awesome.”

“I know! And now you’re earning a proper wage like an adult, you can totally come and visit me over there. We can eat scones and laugh at how ridiculous British accents are.” She kicks him gently, grinning. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Peter says quietly. “Yeah, of course I will.”

“Cool. Now we’ve got that out the way…” MJ reaches into her bag, bringing out her little black copy of The Communist Manifesto. “Can I interest you in a dialogue with my new BFF, Karl?”

He sinks back into his chair, feels his whole body bleed between the fabric and through the floorboards.

He walks into work the next day and finds Steve and Natasha sitting in one of the booths. Steve has an acoustic guitar and he’s strumming chords while Nat is nodding along, pointing at something on a scrap of notebook paper in front of him. Occasionally, he’ll grab a marker and cross something out or scribble something down. When the door shuts behind him, the two of them look over. God. He’s got a running habit of ruining moments.

“Hey Peter!” Steve calls out in his usual, friendly way, “What’s up?”

He’s about to reply, but Natasha edges in first. “Come over here. Let’s talk.”

There’s something ominous in her tone but Natasha is impossible to predict, so a vague sense of anxiety haunts him as he sidles over to the booth and sits slowly in the space Nat has made for him. He wonders if she’s firing him but Steve looks chipper—surely he wouldn’t look that happy if he was about to lose his job, right? Maybe his not so discrete interest in their relationship has…got back to them? He’s already imagining the look on Tony’s face. I said you needed a reality check.

“Am I in trouble?”

Nat laughs. Even that is low and sultry, somehow sexy. Steve laughs too. “Peter—I know we tease you about it, but you do realise you’re not in school, right? And…calm, measured conversation isn’t usually how we deal with things here.”

He recalls the argument in the office a few weeks prior. Yeah, sounds about right.

“We just want to know about you,” Nat continues, “Because—I know a lot about the people I work with. But I don’t know anything about you, other than what Stark has said. And I trust his judgement about as much as I trust Steve’s.”

“Hey!” Steve says with a pout, “My judgement is perfect, thank you very much.”

“It’s the opposite of perfect, but okay, Mr I-trust-everybody-I’ve-met-ever.”

Steve shakes his head at him. “This is what I get for not being openly hostile all the time.”

“It’s got me and Clint this far. Anyway, I digress.” She nudges Peter gently. “Tell us something about you.”

Peter is mildly suspicious about the whole thing and doesn’t know what to say, so just stares vacantly at the two of them.

“Okay…well, at least we know you’re not a talker,” Nat murmurs, “So how about I ask you a question. Who was the girl you were with at the mall yesterday?” Peter’s jaw swings open like a door on a loose hinge. Nat half-smiles. “I saw you when I was coming out the Urban Outfitters. I’m curious.”

Steve glowers at her. “Peter, you don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to. She’s insatiable.”

“Oh, yeah. But if you don’t answer it you’ll be kind of answering it, if you get what I mean.”

Peter’s taken aback. For someone who is so private about everything, she’s appears to have no qualms investigating his private life. He coughs on nothing and shifts in his seat awkwardly. “Just a friend. From school. It isn’t—she isn’t…”

Nat laughs under her breath, looking over at Steve. “He’s right. It’s none of my business. But you two looked good together. That’s always a good start.”

“Is it?” Steve asks, and she sighs.

“I think so,” Nat splays her hands out on the table. He notices her fingernails are painted electric blue. “But, sure. It isn’t everything.”

“What is everything?”

The question catches both of them off guard and Peter instantly regrets asking, wishing he could catch his words back in a butterfly net and shove them back inside of him. The two of them are…they’re untouchable, Wanda and Clint have both made that equally clear. It’s something you find out, not something you’re told. But it’s too late now. Steve and Nat look at each other in a minute of an intense, burning eye contact and not for the first time Peter imagines being swallowed up by the seat whole.

“I guess…” Steve begins but trails off. Peter watches as his fingers inch closer to Natasha’s on a table, like they’re playing a complex game wherein they discover where their boundaries are, how far they can go while he’s still there. “I guess everything is when you’re sat in a room, and there could be just one person it or thousands, but it doesn’t matter because none of those faces are the one you want it to be. The only perfect room, the only one you’ll ever be happy in, is the one they inhabit with you. To leave it…or for them to leave, feels like you’re constantly just gasping for air.”

Natasha looks away. Somehow, Steve manages to drag his eyes away from her, after saying all that, and back to Peter.

“But sometimes everything is just knowing the favorite brand of ice cream they like to eat when everything is awful or the setting they prefer their washing machine on. It’s all about striking a balance.” He half-smiles. “Sometimes it takes a while to find it.”

Peter frowns. He likes Michelle, likes her more than he’d ever let on if the uncontrollable reaction his body had after she said she was leaving is anything to go by, but how can he know if it’s everything? What Steve is saying sounds suspiciously like soulmates, if they exist. That not being with them feels like dying. What he feels for MJ is blurry, inconstant; but it’s there all the same. He’s not sure if that flame is supposed to become anything more. Not that it matters.

“Michelle is moving to London for college,” Peter says desolately, then rolls his shoulders. “She’ll be living a whole other life over there. I can’t expect her to fit me into it, even if she liked me back.”

“Hey, Peter?” Nat says with a sympathetic smile, “Distance sucks, but you know what sucks more? Waiting too long. We know a thing or two about it, and I’d recommend quite heavily against it.”

“Oh, yeah,” Steve adds his two cents, “I’d give it a one star review on Amazon for being the worst ever. Not what I ordered, arrived broken, the lot.”

Clint enters and asks if they need a witness to sign the adoption papers and Nat throws a dirty washcloth at him, everything returning to normal. But there’s a warm feeling in Peter’s chest, because this is the closest he’s ever got. Maybe Gamora was right.

He sends Michelle a text that night, asking if they could maybe meet up again. She doesn’t reply. Maybe she never will, because that happens. But he’s not waiting too long. It’s not what he ordered.

They have an evening off a couple of weeks later because it’s Nat’s birthday. Apparently it’s tradition that whenever her or Clint turn a year older they fuck potential profit for a day and spend the night drinking whatever they can get their hands on. Instead, Peter’s invited to a small party that is hosted at Clint’s apartment across town—he’s still dragged to the bar a couple of hours before, however, to roll kegs of beer and various bottles of multi-colored spirits from the storeroom to Clint’s car for the occasion. He vanishes back home to shower and change before returning, May hastily shoving a bottle of wine into his hands as a gift as he leaves. He’s pretty sure he’s never seen Nat drink white at all, but hey. He’s only little. He doesn’t know much about liquor.

Clint buzzes him in and he follows the drum beat in the corridor to his top-floor apartment; the door is open so he just walks in, but is surprised when he sees nobody about. The speaker is blasting music into an empty room and if it wasn’t for Wanda entering the kitchen, he’d assume he’d come to the wrong house.

“Peter!” she says excitedly, squeezing him into a tight hug. Her dark hair is loose across her shoulders and she’s wearing a burgundy dress that floats above her knees. He can’t help but smile at her. “So glad you could make it!”

He leans out of the embrace, putting the wine on the counter. Glasses are spread out without any clear design, interspersed with opened bottles of various drinks. As far as he can see, there’s no non-alcoholic alternatives—May would probably freak out. “Where is everybody?”

“Did Clint not tell you? We’re on the roof. I’m just off to the bathroom but if you go through the door off the kitchen and up the fire escape you won’t miss it.”

She bounds away so he slowly makes his way up as per Wanda’s instructions. As soon as he opens the door he can hear chatter and laughter, and upon reaching the top he finds an area covered in strings of white fairy lights and odd chairs from jarring furniture sets. A bar runs along the edge near the wall where Clint is mixing drinks, rows of glasses filled with a very generous amount of vodka and garnished with olives. There are people he recognises—Steve and Natasha are tucked into a loveseat, finally comfortable with the eyes on them, with Thor perched on the edge—but mostly people he doesn’t. A man with white hair sits comfortably with a brunette woman, while two unknown men stand deep in conversation off to the side. Nobody notices him straightaway and he feels little odd, the youngest there, but Clint dramatically fist-pumps the air.

“Parker!” he exclaims, walking over and clapping him ferociously on the shoulder. He wonders just how long the drinking has been going before he arrived as he tries not to cough up his lungs. “No extra-curriculars tonight? Lacrosse, maybe?”

“Leave him alone, Clint!” Natasha says, to Peter’s surprise, but then— “He’s way too little for lacrosse. I think he’s more of a mathlete.”

“Who’s kid brother is this, then?” One of the men he clocked earlier calls out before heading over, “Could be Rogers, I suppose. You both have that needy white boy look about you.”

Peter sighs, stretching out his arms. “Should we just get all the insults out the way now? Then we can move on with our lives.”

Needless to say, the insults don’t decrease with time—if anything they continue to spike as more vodka is consumed and less fucks are given, which are outstandingly little to begin with. Sam—a friend of Steve’s from his touring days—is by far the most scathing, not letting him rest for a second. Peter kind of likes it, though. It’s the way a lot of them show affection for each other, brutally kicking the shit at every opportunity. Steve’s other friend is Bucky, someone from childhood, and the white-haired guy is Wanda’s brother Pietro who left Endgame for music management somewhere. Maria and Phil work in legal and know Clint and Nat from wherever they were before Endgame. A good-natured yet authoritative man called Rhodey turns up later, who Peter recognises from Tony’s offices but has never actually met. Maybe Tony and Pepper will turn up at some point. Maybe they won’t.

Clint offers him one of Nat’s Special Birthday Martinis. He’s on the edge of turning it down, but everybody is laughing and he kind of feels part of this, so why not. The taste is bitter and awful and Clint laughs at him for a very long time, until his eyes water and he has to go and sit down. He talks to Wanda and Pietro, about their life in Sokovia before civil war ripped it to pieces, and Steve mentions how he took Nat out for Chinese food and champagne.

Steve brings in Natasha’s cake and Nat flushes—just a little—as she sees the candles flicker in the relative darkness, like Steve is holding a fire in his hands. Her eyes flutter closed as she blows out the candles and Peter muses on what she wished for, or if she wished at all. The alcohol makes his stomach feel warm, and the people make him feel warm, and he thinks this little party in this pocket of New York City may be one of the happiest moments of his life.

As the hours lull into the coolness of the morning, guests in various states of drunkenness either leave or continue on into Clint’s apartment. Peter takes a minute to steady himself, his heady heart and clouded head. He clings onto the metal railings until his knuckles turn white, staring out over the city. His city. He can’t go to college because he can’t leave here, all the lights and the heat and the music. New York is him and he is New York. This is something that cannot be ever taken away from him.

He hears footsteps and instead of you know, staying, like a normal person, Peter’s instinct is to duck behind the bar. He’s not ready for anyone to see him yet. He just wants a couple more moments alone with the world—plus he feels a little drunk, and being drunk is the best right here.

The footsteps come to a halt barely feet away from him. He’s not trying to listen as this is weird enough as it is, but it’s difficult not to. It’s Steve and Natasha.

“Another year, another one of Clint’s illegal martinis.” Steve’s voice. “Or two. Or several.”

Nat laughs lightly. “I’m going to go with several. I better not be holding your hair back while you puke tonight, boy. It’s my birthday.”

“Well—technically it stopped being your birthday a few hours ago, Nat, but I’ll let it slide because I love you.”

“You love me, huh? That’s certainly a new development.”

“Nah, it isn’t. Loved you the moment I saw you.”

“You fall in love with everybody.”

“Not in the way I love you. God, Nat. Do you actually realise what you do to me? Every time I look at you—you rip all the air out of my lungs.”

“That sounds pretty painful.”

“Oh, yeah. It’s agony. But it’s worth every second because…because you’re you. After everything. You’re you.”

There’s a few seconds of quiet. Peter wishes he’d just gone because as much as he wanted to know about them, to feel closer to them, this isn’t…this isn’t it. This is too private. Maybe if he edges along, he could sneak…

“Marry me.” Steve’s voice hangs in the night, like one of his songs. Poignant. “Marry me, Natasha.”

Nat is quieter than Peter’s ever heard it. It’s quiet, and it cracks in the middle. “Is that Clint’s martinis talking?”

“No. No. This is me talking. Marry me. You know—you know I’d be happy, forever, with what we have now. But I want to. I really, really want to.”

“Steve…” her voice is barely a whisper. Peter’s hand balls into fists. He’s here and yeah, he shouldn’t be, but he’s goddamn invested at this point. “I’ve been told that I can be pretty hard to deal with, sometimes. I’m reluctant to inflict that on somebody forever.”

“For you to inflict your inconstant, confusing, ridiculous self on me forever would be a privilege, Romanoff.”

“You really do have an answer for anything, don’t you? Insufferable asshole.”

“I’m your insufferable asshole.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up.”

At that moment Peter’s leg just…involuntarily spasms. His foot collides with a nearby chair and it shifts across the concrete loudly, his cover completely blown. Shit. There’s no hiding now, so he peeks round the edge of the bar, finding Steve and Natasha stood with their arms around each other.

“Hello,” Peter says sheepishly, pointing towards the door, “I was just—“

“Parker, you’re not going anywhere.” Nat grabs him by his shirt and pulls him up, but there’s no malice on her face. Instead of violently throwing him off the top of this very high building for perving on their proposal, she drops him on one of the sofas. Steve hands him a nearby martini, amused by the whole situation if anything.

“You’re sitting there, and I’m telling you everything you want to know.”

#marvel cinematic universe #mcu #avengers #captain america #black widow #steve rogers #natasha romanoff #natasha romanov #stevenat #steve x natasha #peter parker #mcu fic #fanfic #romanogers fic

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angelofberlin2000 · 6 years ago

Link

@HadleyFreeman

Sat 18 May 2019 09.00 BST

“Hey, I’m Keanu,” he introduces himself – unnecessarily, of course, and yet very Keanu-ishly. Despite being so famous his surname has long been superfluous, Keanu Reeves has always given the impression of being utterly unaffected by his own celebrity. He is regularly described by his co-stars as “kind” (Winona Ryder) and “humble” (Laurence Fishburne) and it is easier to imagine him walking on the moon than knocking back champagne with other celebrities on a yacht in St Barts. After all, the most famous paparazzi photo ever taken of Reeves was of him sitting alone on a bench, eating a sandwich out of a plastic bag. Hard to imagine Leonardo DiCaprio doing that.

“I’ll sit anywhere you want me to. This OK?” he says, taking a chair and offering me the sofa in the London hotel room where we meet. At just over 6ft, he is taller than I expected – also unusual for an actor – and dressed in a very Keanu outfit of dark shirt and trousers with sturdy boots. Despite being recently announced as the new face of the high fashion label Saint Laurent, Reeves has long been the patron saint of normcore, decades before it became a fashion statement. And I know this all too well because, from 1991–99, I had at least five posters of him on my bedroom walls modelling said look.

The 2010 photo of Reeves on a New York bench that sparked the Sad Keanu meme. Photograph: Splash News

Should one ever meet one’s teenage crush? Up until this week, I’d assumed I was long past the point of being starstruck – I’m a 40-year-old woman, for God’s sake! But now here I am, sitting opposite Reeves, now 54, the beard more grizzled than in my posters and the forehead suspiciously smooth, but still, most definitely Keanu. There’s that devastating smile he flashed at Sandra Bullock at the end of Speed, and there he is saying – and this is where I nearly lose all vestiges of professionalism – “Excellent!” while playing air guitar. Listening to the tape of our interview later is not an edifying experience, as I hear myself – Oh, dear God – flirt with Reeves (because, clearly, a heavily pregnant mother of two is the dream woman he’s been waiting for). Happily, my mortifying giggling soon abates, thanks to Reeves’ management of a situation he has presumably had to deal with every day of his life for the past four decades. And as he does, I get an insight into what it takes to be Keanu Reeves.

We are meeting today to discuss his latest film, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. It will unquestionably boost the more than $3bn Reeves’ movies have grossed over the years. When he made the first John Wick film in 2014 – directed, as all the Wick films are, by Chad Stahelski, Reeves’ stunt double on the Matrix films – few expected that a movie about a former assassin avenging the killing of his puppy would amount to much. Despite starring in some of the most successful and seminal movies of the past 30 years – from offbeat hits like Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and My Own Private Idaho, to blockbusters like Point Break, Speed and The Matrix – Reeves has been in at least as many damp squibs, including 2013’s 47 Ronin, one of the biggest box office flops of all time. Yet Wick, a stylish, brooding, ultraviolent revenge fantasy, was an unexpected hit with critics and audiences, and is now a mega-million dollar franchise, giving Reeves his first mainstream hits since the Matrix movies.

Part three – sorry, Chapter 3 – is larkier than its two predecessors, including one incredible scene in which Reeves offs some bad guys using an actual horse as a weapon (rest assured: the horse escaped unharmed). As a testament to the success of the franchise, there are more celebrity co-stars, including Halle Berry, and despite the naysayers when it comes to Reeves’ acting, he is terrific as a man still mourning the death of his wife. (She died at the beginning of the first John Wick film, from that terrible terminal disease, Convenient Plot Device.) “We certainly didn’t know when we started on John Wick that it would become like this,” says Reeves. “We’re only getting to tell these stories because of the audience. So thank you.” He salutes me in thanks, as representative of all the Wick audiences. (If you are imagining this is one of the times I giggled at him, you are correct.)

One of the canniest things about the Wick films is how they riff on Reeves’ public image. Once dismissed as an airhead by those who confused the Bill & Ted movies with reality, for the past two decades Reeves has been seen as a melancholic loner. The famous 2010 photo of him on a New York bench sparked what became known as the Sad Keanu meme, but it only struck a chord because the assumption already existed that Reeves – then in a career slump – was, well, a bit sad. Reeves, with polite firmness, denies that this echo is deliberate – “No, no, I don’t think about that” – although it is hard to believe it wasn’t in the film-makers’ minds as they shot endless scenes in John Wick 3 of Sad Keanu wandering alone through rainy New York streets, empty hotel corridors and a desert.

It quickly becomes clear that polite firmness is Reeves’ modus operandi when it comes to nosy questions: he will give the impression of being up for answering anything while, in fact, saying very little, or nothing at all. (Sample exchange. Me: “Was there ever a moment, maybe after Bill & Ted, when people started reacting differently to you and you realised your life had changed?” Him: “Um, no.” Me: “Really?” Him: “No.”) What this distancing tactic might lack in conversational intimacy, it makes up for in shutting down any embarrassing flirtations from women who should know better. You can’t kid yourself you are soulmates with someone who is building such protective walls against you.

So I’m surprised when he volunteers that Wick’s melancholy possibly has a connection to some of the most painful moments in his life. One other big reason the public perception of Reeves shifted from comedy stoner to faintly tragic figure was because, in 1999, his long-term girlfriend, Jennifer Syme, gave birth to their daughter Ava, who was stillborn. The couple broke up soon after, and two years later Syme was killed in a car accident. Reeves has never married, had any other children or even been reliably linked to other romantic partners since. He has also never spoken publicly about their deaths, and who can blame him? But given that the heart of the Wick films is about him mourning a lost love, the resonance is hard to ignore.

“With any character, the way I think about it is, you have the role on the page, you have the vision of the director and you have your life experience,” he says.

Did he bring his experience of bereavement to the role? “Oh yeah, I thought it was one of the foundations of the role for John Wick. I love his grief,” he says, visibly perking up at the subject.

What is it about grief that interests him? “Well, for the character and in life, it’s about the love of the person you’re grieving for, and any time you can keep company with that fire, it is warm. I absolutely relate to that, and I don’t think you ever work through it. Grief and loss, those are things that don’t ever go away. They stay with you.”

Has he been thinking more about the people he has lost as he’s grown older? “I don’t think it’s about getting older. It’s always with you, but like an ebb and flow,” he says.

Anyone in particular? “Lots of people,” he says, bricking those walls right back up.

***

Keanu Reeves was born in Beirut, Lebanon, the son of an English mother and Hawaiian-Chinese father. (His first name, as all Reeves-ologists know, is Hawaiian for “cool breeze over the mountains”.) With his sister Kim, the family moved around the world, from Australia to Manhattan, before finally settling in Toronto when Reeves was six. I reckon you can often spot an adult who moved around a lot as a kid, I tell him. “Oh yeah? How?” he says, intrigued.

They tend to have a sense of detachment, self-sufficiency, maybe loner tendencies and a strong sense of independence, I say. “Yeah, I clinically belong to that. I definitely have a bit of the gypsy in me,” he agrees.

Reeves’ father left the family when Keanu was three, and disappeared entirely from their lives when he was 13. He and his sister had multiple stepfathers.

That’s a pretty hard age for a parent to vanish off the scene, I say. “For sure, I think it’s definitely traumatising. But it’s hard to know how [it affected me] because I don’t know what the other life would have been, you know what I mean?” he says.

Did his father ever contact him again? “Yeah, in the mid-90s, but I didn’t reach back out,” he says.

This was after his father had been convicted for selling heroin? “Yeah, but that wasn’t why I didn’t get in touch!” he laughs.

So why not? “I just didn’t,” he replies, and that’s the end of that. But I can’t help but think of one of my favourite scenes of his, from Ron Howard’s 1989 ensemble comedy Parenthood, in which Reeves’ character muses about paternal figures: “You need a licence to buy a dog, or drive a car. Hell, you need a licence to catch a fish. But they’ll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father.”

Often the class clown at school, Reeves liked sport and loved acting, and got an agent as a teenager after being talent-spotted in a play. He dropped out of high school before graduation. “I feel really fortunate in a way, because I knew what I wanted to do, and a lot of kids that age don’t. But I had a creative ambition and I did it,” he says. After some early television work, Reeves started getting film roles, most notably in the cult 1986 teen drama River’s Edge, followed by Bill & Ted, and from there the work never stopped.

Back in the 1990s, he was the go-to pin-up for all teenagers who wanted a beautiful, gentle and safely asexual boyfriend (hi!). But his acting, if not his looks, has been a more debatable subject. “Is Keanu Reeves a Good Bad Actor or a Bad Good Actor?” a reader wrote in to ask the New York Times’ film critics in 2011 (the answer was, “Neither! A good actor, period”). Writing in the Guardian, self-professed superfan Joe Queenan put him in a small category of actors so beloved they are beyond criticism: “In most of [his best] movies, Keanu plays a character the audience views more with affection than with reverence or idolatry, like a kid brother who has bitten off more than he can chew and may need outside help to survive.”

Today Reeves has a good riposte to the criticism that he doesn’t, or can’t, act. “I certainly never got it from any of the directors I worked with,” he says, checking off some of the most respected in the business, including Bernardo Bertolucci (Little Buddha), Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break), Francis Ford Coppola (Bram Stoker’s Dracula), Stephen Frears (Dangerous Liaisons), Gus Van Sant (My Own Private Idaho) and Richard Linklater (A Scanner Darkly). “It’s not like I went to meet Kenneth Branagh [who directed him in 1993’s Much Ado About Nothing] and he was like, ‘Excellent, dude!’ You know?” He chucks in a little air guitar to boot.

It would have been pretty funny if Branagh had said that, though. “Of course! But the pigeonholing just comes from journalists and, yeah, that happens a lot. I generally don’t read the press but when I do I’m like, ‘Oh, OK, you’re doing that again,’” he says with a shrug.

I’ve never really understood the criticism. OK, he might not have been perfectly cast in Much Ado and acting opposite John Malkovich and Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons when he was only 24 was never going to be a fair fight. But he has always been a far more varied actor than the snarkers allow. He proved his superlative comic timing and endearing charisma in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and, when it comes to drama and sci-fi, no one is better at maintaining an inscrutable blankness. That quality is precisely what has driven so many directors to cast him, often as a messiah-like figure in movies such as Little Buddha, 2005’s Constantine (one of Reeves’ favourites), 1995’s Johnny Mnemonic and, of course, The Matrix. And of all the improbable actors who became action stars in the 1990s – Alec Baldwin, Nicolas Cage – Reeves seemed the most at home in the genre, in the still deliciously enjoyable Point Break and Speed, which he made in between smaller indie fare. So did he do the big movies in order to fund the smaller projects?

“Honestly, I try not to do anything I don’t want to do. But I guess those movies were in reaction to each other. It wasn’t as thought out as, OK, I finished Point Break, so now I’d better play a street prostitute. It was more like, OK, I finished this, now I want to do that,” he says.

“That” refers to 1991’s My Own Private Idaho, in which he and River Phoenix play street hustlers. Reeves had already met Phoenix through the latter’s girlfriend Martha Plimpton, with whom he had worked in Parenthood. The two quickly became friends, and it’s not hard to see why: both were young actors on the rise with a love of music and a pronounced lack of interest in the glitzier, red carpet side of their job. They were the anti-Brat Pack, and Phoenix, along with Alex Winter from Bill & Ted, were, Reeves says, “definitely my closest friends from that era. We shared an artistic sensibility. River was just so down-to-earth, spiritual and a unique artist. Yeah, I miss him,” says Reeves quietly. When Phoenix suggested the two of them make My Own Private Idaho, “I was in right away,” he says.

They had something else in common, a shared experience suggested in the now almost unbearably moving scene where the two sit by a campfire and talk haltingly about their childhoods.

Mike (Phoenix): If I had a normal family, and a good upbringing, then I would have been a well-adjusted person.

Scott (Reeves): Depends on what you call normal.

Mike: Didn’t have a dog, or a normal dad. Anyway, that’s all right. I don’t feel sorry for myself, I feel like I’m, you know, well-adjusted.

Scott: What’s a normal dad?

Phoenix’s dysfunctional childhood, growing up in a rackety family who for a time belonged to the Children of God cult, has been well-documented. Reeves’ was different, but no slouch when it came to potential trauma. Was that another thing that drew them together?

He ponders the question a full 10 seconds. “Certainly our histories played a role in that movie and in that scene. So I’ll say yes to that, yeah,” he says.

Two years after My Own Private Idaho’s release, the actor who desperately wanted to avoid every Hollywood cliche died the most cliched death imaginable, of a drugs overdose on Sunset Boulevard in 1993. Plenty of his contemporaries were also caught out, either self-destructing or becoming victims of their own success. Reeves adamantly refused to do either. When I ask how he avoided falling victim to drug addiction as Phoenix did, he says, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world: “I just wasn’t into that scene.”

It’s hard to tell if he’s being blithe or defiant when he insists he still lives his life totally normally, unaffected by fans. But if Leonardo DiCaprio went into a supermarket, there would be hysteria, I say.

“Yeah, but Leonardo has fame and fans that I don’t have in that way. Definitely. I don’t know what his experiences are, but I think someone from the outside would think [going shopping] might not be easy for him. Whereas I can, which is good,” he says.

Come on, surely fans bother him all the time? But the worst he can come up with is someone quoting Point Break at him in the airport the other day and someone, once, quoting River’s Edge when he was queueing at an ice-cream van. “And that’s fun!” he says cheerfully.

In the 1980s and 1990s, he was offered every hot young part under the sun, including the lead in Platoon (which went to Charlie Sheen) and Val Kilmer’s role in Heat. But when I ask if he regrets turning any of them down, he smiles and instantly replies, “No.” He also turned down a $12m pay cheque to make Speed 2 because he, rightly, thought the plot was nonsense, which resulted in him being shut out of 20th Century Fox films for the next 11 years (and no, he doesn’t regret that, either). He is about to start shooting Bill & Ted Face The Music, in which the now fiftysomething duo have to write a song so good it will save the universe. “There has to be a reason for making a movie, and the writers have come up with a good ‘why’ for telling the story,” he says. When I ask what gives him an ego boost, given that he’s not driven by money or fame, he is so baffled by the idea of his ego needing a boost that he is silent for a full 28 seconds before finally answering, “The work.”

Maintaining his privacy has been a major factor in helping Reeves retain his sanity, yet away from the press he can be extraordinarily open and laid-back. By a weird fluke, I have two friends who, separately, spent time with him in the 90s and both still talk about his generosity: he took them for rides on his motorbike and stayed in touch (yes, I am furious with them for not including me in any of this). There are legions of stories about Reeves’ kindness: buying his stuntmen motorbikes, renegotiating his Matrix contract so that the crew got a better deal, at a personal cost of millions of dollars. Shortly before we meet, Reeves was on a flight between San Francisco and Los Angeles that was grounded due to a mechanical fault. Instead of pulling rank with some “Do you know who I am?” A-list entitlement, Reeves encouraged his fellow passengers to board a van with him so they could drive to LA, keeping the mood up by sharing fun local facts and playing music from his iPhone. (Needless to say, footage of this quickly went viral.) So his four decades-long reticence with the media might well be Reeves’ most brilliantly sustained performance.

How we made Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure Read more

But he bristles when I mention these stories. “I’m pretty private, so when that stuff doesn’t stay private it is not great,” he says.

Because he worries it will look like he’s just doing it for show? “No. Because it’s private,” he says with emphasis.

Ah well. I have accepted by this point that we probably won’t ride off together into the sunset on his motorcycle. But if the price of Reeves still being so recognisably Keanu-ish is him retaining a firm grip on his privacy and at least a pretence of normality, that feels like a fair trade-off. I assume doing this interview has been a torturous experience for him, so as we get up to leave I ask how he’d have preferred to spend the afternoon, in a dream scenario.

“Oh, I don’t know. This dream ain’t so bad!” he says, and gives me that full end-of-Speed smile again. And reader, I giggled.

• John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum is in cinemas now.

If you would like a comment to be considered for inclusion on Weekend magazine’s letters page in print, please email [email protected], including your name and address (not for publication).

#keanu reeves #the guardian

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godzilla-kingofthemonsters · 6 years ago

Text

GODZILLA wiki

Godzilla From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article is about the monster. For the film franchise, see Godzilla (franchise). For other uses, see Godzilla (disambiguation). "ゴジラ" redirects here. For other uses of "Gojira", see Gojira (disambiguation). ‹ The template Infobox character is being considered for merging. › Godzilla Godzilla film series character Godzilla '54 design.jpg Godzilla as featured in the original 1954 film First appearance Godzilla (1954) Created by Tomoyuki Tanaka Ishirō Honda Eiji Tsubaraya Portrayed by Shōwa era: Haruo Nakajima[1] Katsumi Tezuka[2] Hiroshi Sekida[3] Seiji Onaka[3] Shinji Takagi[4] Isao Zushi[5] Toru Kawai[5] Hanna-Barbera: Ted Cassidy (vocal effects)[6][7] Heisei era: Kenpachiro Satsuma[8] Millennium era: Tsutomu Kitagawa[9] Mizuho Yoshida[10] Shin Godzilla: Mansai Nomura[11] TriStar Pictures: Kurt Carley[12] Frank Welker (vocal effects)[13] Legendary Pictures: T.J. Storm[14][15] Designed by Akira Watanabe Teizô Toshimitsu[16] Information Alias The King of the Monsters[17] Gigantis[18] Monster Zero-One[19] The God of Destruction[20][21] Species Prehistoric amphibious reptile Family Minilla and Godzilla Junior (adopted sons) Godzilla (Japanese: ゴジラ Hepburn: Gojira) (/ɡɒdˈzɪlə/; [ɡoꜜdʑiɾa] (About this soundlisten)) is a monster originating from a series of Japanese films of the same name. The character first appeared in Ishirō Honda's 1954 film Godzilla and became a worldwide pop culture icon, appearing in various media, including 32 films produced by Toho, three Hollywood films and numerous video games, novels, comic books and television shows. It is dubbed the King of the Monsters, a phrase first used in Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, the Americanized version of the original film.

Godzilla is depicted as an enormous, destructive, prehistoric sea monster awakened and empowered by nuclear radiation. With the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Lucky Dragon 5 incident still fresh in the Japanese consciousness, Godzilla was conceived as a metaphor for nuclear weapons.[22] As the film series expanded, some stories took on less serious undertones, portraying Godzilla as an antihero, or a lesser threat who defends humanity. With the end of the Cold War, several post-1984 Godzilla films shifted the character's portrayal to themes including Japan's forgetfulness over its imperial past,[23] natural disasters and the human condition.[24]

Godzilla has been featured alongside many supporting characters. It has faced human opponents such as the JSDF, or other monsters, including King Ghidorah, Gigan and Mechagodzilla. Godzilla sometimes has allies, such as Rodan, Mothra and Anguirus, and offspring, such as Minilla and Godzilla Junior. Godzilla has also fought characters from other franchises in crossover media, such as the RKO Pictures/Universal Studios movie monster King Kong and the Marvel Comics characters S.H.I.E.L.D.,[25] the Fantastic Four[26] and the Avengers.[27]

Contents 1 Overview 1.1 Name 1.2 Characteristics 1.3 Roar 1.4 Size 1.5 Special effects details 2 Appearances 3 Cultural impact 3.1 Cultural ambassador 4 References 4.1 Sources 5 External links Overview Name Gojira (ゴジラ) is a portmanteau of the Japanese words: gorira (ゴリラ, "gorilla") and kujira (鯨クジラ, "whale"), which is fitting because in one planning stage, Godzilla was described as "a cross between a gorilla and a whale",[28] alluding to its size, power and aquatic origin. One popular story is that "Gojira" was actually the nickname of a corpulent stagehand at Toho Studio.[29] Kimi Honda, the widow of the director, dismissed this in a 1998 BBC documentary devoted to Godzilla, "The backstage boys at Toho loved to joke around with tall stories".[30]

Godzilla's name was written in ateji as Gojira (呉爾羅), where the kanji are used for phonetic value and not for meaning.[citation needed] The Japanese pronunciation of the name is [ɡoꜜdʑiɾa] (About this soundlisten); the Anglicized form is /ɡɒdˈzɪlə/, with the first syllable pronounced like the word "god" and the rest rhyming with "gorilla". In the Hepburn romanization system, Godzilla's name is rendered as "Gojira", whereas in the Kunrei romanization system it is rendered as "Gozira".[citation needed]

During the development of the American version of Godzilla Raids Again (1955), Godzilla's name was changed to "Gigantis", a move initiated by producer Paul Schreibman, who wanted to create a character distinct from Godzilla.[31]

Characteristics

Every film incarnation of Godzilla between 1954 and 2017 Within the context of the Japanese films, Godzilla's exact origins vary, but it is generally depicted as an enormous, violent, prehistoric sea monster awakened and empowered by nuclear radiation.[32] Although the specific details of Godzilla's appearance have varied slightly over the years, the overall impression has remained consistent.[33] Inspired by the fictional Rhedosaurus created by animator Ray Harryhausen for the film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms,[34] Godzilla's iconic character design was conceived as that of an amphibious reptilian monster based around the loose concept of a dinosaur[35] with an erect standing posture, scaly skin, an anthropomorphic torso with muscular arms, lobed bony plates along its back and tail, and a furrowed brow.[36] Art director Akira Watanabe combined attributes of a Tyrannosaurus, an Iguanodon, a Stegosaurus and an alligator[37] to form a sort of blended chimera, inspired by illustrations from an issue of Life magazine.[38] To emphasise the monster's relationship with the atomic bomb, its skin texture was inspired by the keloid scars seen on survivors in Hiroshima.[39] The basic design has a reptilian visage, a robust build, an upright posture, a long tail and three rows of serrated plates along the back. In the original film, the plates were added for purely aesthetic purposes, in order to further differentiate Godzilla from any other living or extinct creature. Godzilla is sometimes depicted as green in comics, cartoons and movie posters, but the costumes used in the movies were usually painted charcoal grey with bone-white dorsal plates up until the film Godzilla 2000.[40]

Godzilla's atomic heat beam, as shown in Godzilla (1954) Godzilla's signature weapon is its "atomic heat beam", nuclear energy that it generates inside of its body and unleashes from its jaws in the form of a blue or red radioactive beam.[41] Toho's special effects department has used various techniques to render the beam, from physical gas-powered flames[42] to hand-drawn or computer-generated fire. Godzilla is shown to possess immense physical strength and muscularity. Haruo Nakajima, the actor who played Godzilla in the original films, was a black belt in judo and used his expertise to choreograph the battle sequences.[43] Godzilla can breathe underwater[41] and is described in the original film by the character Dr. Yamane as a transitional form between a marine and a terrestrial reptile. Godzilla is shown to have great vitality: it is immune to conventional weaponry thanks to its rugged hide and ability to regenerate[44] and as a result of surviving a nuclear explosion, it cannot be destroyed by anything less powerful. Various films, television shows, comics and games have depicted Godzilla with additional powers, such as an atomic pulse,[45] magnetism,[46] precognition,[47] fireballs,[48] an electric bite,[49] superhuman speed,[50] eye beams[51] and even flight.[52]

Godzilla's allegiance and motivations have changed from film to film to suit the needs of the story. Although Godzilla does not like humans,[53] it will fight alongside humanity against common threats. However, it makes no special effort to protect human life or property[54] and will turn against its human allies on a whim. It is not motivated to attack by predatory instinct: it does not eat people[55] and instead sustains itself on nuclear radiation[56] and an omnivorous diet.[57] When inquired if Godzilla was "good or bad", producer Shogo Tomiyama likened it to a Shinto "God of Destruction" which lacks moral agency and cannot be held to human standards of good and evil. "He totally destroys everything and then there is a rebirth. Something new and fresh can begin."[55]

Godzilla battles King Kong in King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962). This film has the highest Japanese box office attendance figures in the entire Godzilla series to date.[58] In the original Japanese films, Godzilla and all the other monsters are referred to with gender-neutral pronouns equivalent to "it",[59] while in the English dubbed versions, Godzilla is explicitly described as a male, such as in the title of Godzilla, King of the Monsters!. The creature in the 1998 Godzilla film was depicted laying eggs through parthenogenesis.[60][61][62]

Roar Godzilla has a distinctive disyllabic roar (transcribed in several comics as Skreeeonk!),[63][64] which was created by composer Akira Ifukube, who produced the sound by rubbing a pine-tar-resin-coated glove along the string of a contrabass and then slowing down the playback.[65] In the American version of Godzilla Raids Again (1955) entitled Gigantis the Fire Monster, Godzilla's iconic roar was substituted with that of the monster Anguirus.[31] From The Return of Godzilla (1984) to Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991), Godzilla was given a deeper and more threatening-sounding roar than in previous films, though this change was reverted from Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992) onwards.[66] For the 2014 American film, sound editors Ethan Van der Ryn and Erik Aadahl refused to disclose the source of the sounds used for their Godzilla's roar.[65] Aadahl described the two syllables of the roar as representing two different emotional reactions, with the first expressing fury and the second conveying the character's soul.[67]

Size Godzilla's size is inconsistent, changing from film to film, and even from scene to scene, for the sake of artistic license.[55] The miniature sets and costumes were typically built at a 1⁄25–1⁄50 scale[68] and filmed at 240 frames per second to create the illusion of great size.[69] In the original 1954 film, Godzilla was scaled to be 50 m (164 ft) tall.[70] This was done so Godzilla could just peer over the largest buildings in Tokyo at the time.[2] In the 1956 American version, Godzilla is estimated to be 122 m (400 ft) tall, because producer Joseph E. Levine felt that 50 m did not sound "powerful enough".[71] As the series progressed Toho would rescale the character, eventually making Godzilla as tall as 100 m (328 ft).[72] This was done so that it would not be dwarfed by the newer, bigger buildings in Tokyo's skyline, such as the 243-meter-tall (797 ft) Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building which Godzilla destroyed in the film Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991). Supplementary information, such as character profiles, would also depict Godzilla as weighing between 20,000 and 60,000 metric tons (22,000 and 66,000 short tons).[70][72] In the American film Godzilla (2014) from Legendary Pictures, Godzilla was scaled to be 108.2 m (355 ft) and weighing 90,000 metric tons (99,000 short tons), making it the largest film version at that time.[73] Director Gareth Edwards wanted Godzilla "to be so big as to be seen from anywhere in the city, but not too big that he couldn't be obscured".[74] For Shin Godzilla (2016), Godzilla was made even taller than the Legendary version, at 118.5 m (389 ft).[75][76] In Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters, Godzilla's height was increased further still to 300 m (984 ft).[77]

Special effects details

Suit fitting on the set of Godzilla Raids Again (1955), with Haruo Nakajima portraying Godzilla on the left Godzilla's appearance has traditionally been portrayed in the films by an actor wearing a latex costume, though the character has also been rendered in animatronic, stop-motion and computer-generated form.[78][79]

Taking inspiration from King Kong, special effects artist Eiji Tsuburaya had initially wanted Godzilla to be portrayed via stop-motion, but prohibitive deadlines and a lack of experienced animators in Japan at the time made suitmation more practical. The first suit consisted of a body cavity made of thin wires and bamboo wrapped in chicken wire for support and covered in fabric and cushions, which were then coated in latex. The first suit was held together by small hooks on the back, though subsequent Godzilla suits incorporated a zipper. Its weight was in excess of 100 kg (220 lb).[40] Prior to 1984, most Godzilla suits were made from scratch, thus resulting in slight design changes in each film appearance.[80] The most notable changes during the 1960s-70s were the reduction in Godzilla's number of toes and the removal of the character's external ears and prominent fangs, features which would later be reincorporated in the Godzilla designs from The Return of Godzilla (1984) onward.[81] The most consistent Godzilla design was maintained from Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989) to Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995), when the suit was given a cat-like face and double rows of teeth.[82] Several suit actors had difficulties in performing as Godzilla, due to the suits' weight, lack of ventilation and diminished visibility.[40] Kenpachiro Satsuma in particular, who portrayed Godzilla from 1984 to 1995, described how the Godzilla suits he wore were even heavier and hotter than their predecessors because of the incorporation of animatronics.[83] Satsuma himself suffered numerous medical issues during his tenure, including oxygen deprivation, near-drowning, concussions, electric shocks and lacerations to the legs from the suits' steel wire reinforcements wearing through the rubber padding.[84] The ventilation problem was partially solved in the suit used in 1994's Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla, which was the first to include an air duct, which allowed suit actors to last longer during performances.[85] In The Return of Godzilla (1984), some scenes made use of a 16-foot high robotic Godzilla (dubbed the "Cybot Godzilla") for use in close-up shots of the creature's head. The Cybot Godzilla consisted of a hydraulically-powered mechanical endoskeleton covered in urethane skin containing 3,000 computer operated parts which permitted it to tilt its head and move its lips and arms.[86]

In Godzilla (1998), special effects artist Patrick Tatopoulos was instructed to redesign Godzilla as an incredibly fast runner.[87] At one point, it was planned to use motion capture from a human to create the movements of the computer-generated Godzilla, but it was said to have ended up looking too much like a man in a suit.[88] Tatopoulos subsequently reimagined the creature as a lean, digitigrade bipedal iguana-like creature that stood with its back and tail parallel to the ground, rendered via CGI.[89] Several scenes had the monster portrayed by stuntmen in suits. The suits were similar to those used in the Toho films, with the actors' heads being located in the monster's neck region, and the facial movements controlled via animatronics. However, because of the creature's horizontal posture, the stuntmen had to wear metal leg extenders, which allowed them to stand two meters (six feet) off the ground with their feet bent forward. The film's special effects crew also built a 1⁄6 scale animatronic Godzilla for close-up scenes, whose size outmatched that of Stan Winston's T. rex in Jurassic Park.[90] Kurt Carley performed the suitmation sequences for the adult Godzilla.[12]

In Godzilla (2014), the character was portrayed entirely via CGI. Godzilla's design in the reboot was intended to stay true to that of the original series, though the film's special effects team strove to make the monster "more dynamic than a guy in a big rubber suit."[91] To create a CG version of Godzilla, the Moving Picture Company (MPC) studied various animals such as bears, Komodo dragons, lizards, lions and gray wolves which helped the visual effects artists visualize Godzilla's body structure like that of its underlying bone, fat and muscle structure as well as the thickness and texture of its scale.[92] Motion capture was also used for some of Godzilla's movements. T.J. Storm provided the performance capture for Godzilla by wearing sensors in front of a green screen.[14]

In Shin Godzilla, a majority of the character was portrayed via CGI, with Mansai Nomura portraying Godzilla through motion capture.[11]

Appearances Main article: Godzilla (franchise) Further information: Godzilla (comics) Cultural impact Main article: Godzilla in popular culture

Godzilla's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Godzilla is one of the most recognizable symbols of Japanese popular culture worldwide[93][94] and remains an important facet of Japanese films, embodying the kaiju subset of the tokusatsu genre. Godzilla's vaguely humanoid appearance and strained, lumbering movements endeared it to Japanese audiences, who could relate to Godzilla as a sympathetic character, despite its wrathful nature.[95] Audiences respond positively to the character because it acts out of rage and self-preservation and shows where science and technology can go wrong.[96]

In 1967, the Keukdong Entertainment Company of South Korea, with production assistance from Toei Company, produced Yongary, Monster from the Deep, a reptilian monster who invades South Korea to consume oil. The film and character has often been branded as a knock-off of Godzilla.[97][98]

Godzilla has been considered a filmographic metaphor for the United States, as well as an allegory of nuclear weapons in general. The earlier Godzilla films, especially the original, portrayed Godzilla as a frightening nuclear-spawned monster. Godzilla represented the fears that many Japanese held about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the possibility of recurrence.[99] As the series progressed, so did Godzilla, changing into a less destructive and more heroic character as the films became geared more towards children. Since then, the character has fallen somewhere in the middle, sometimes portrayed as a protector of the world from external threats and other times as a bringer of destruction.[100][101]

In 1996, Godzilla received the MTV Lifetime Achievement Award,[102] as well as being given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2004 to celebrate the premiere of the character's 50th anniversary film, Godzilla: Final Wars.[103] Godzilla's pop-cultural impact has led to the creation of numerous parodies and tributes, as seen in media such as Bambi Meets Godzilla, which was ranked as one of the "50 greatest cartoons",[104] two episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000[105] and the song "Godzilla" by Blue Öyster Cult.[106] Godzilla has also been used in advertisements, such as in a commercial for Nike, where Godzilla lost an oversized one-on-one game of basketball to a giant version of NBA player Charles Barkley.[107] The commercial was subsequently adapted into a comic book illustrated by Jeff Butler.[108] Godzilla has also appeared in a commercial for Snickers candy bars, which served as an indirect promo for the 2014 movie. Godzilla's success inspired the creation of numerous other monster characters, such as Gamera,[109][110] Reptilicus of Denmark,[111] Yonggary of South Korea,[97] Pulgasari of North Korea,[112] Gorgo of the United Kingdom[113] and the Cloverfield monster of the United States.[114]

Godzilla's fame and saurian appearance has influenced the scientific community. Gojirasaurus is a dubious genus of coelophysid dinosaur, named by paleontologist and admitted Godzilla fan Kenneth Carpenter.[115] Dakosaurus is an extinct marine crocodile of the Jurassic Period, which researchers informally nicknamed "Godzilla".[116] Paleontologists have written tongue-in-cheek speculative articles about Godzilla's biology, with Ken Carpenter tentatively classifying it as a ceratosaur based on its skull shape, four-fingered hands and dorsal scutes, and paleontologist Darren Naish expressing skepticism while commenting on Godzilla's unusual morphology.[117]

Godzilla's ubiquity in pop-culture has led to the mistaken assumption that the character is in the public domain, resulting in litigation by Toho to protect their corporate asset from becoming a generic trademark. In April 2008, Subway depicted a giant monster in a commercial for their Five Dollar Footlong sandwich promotion. Toho filed a lawsuit against Subway for using the character without permission, demanding $150,000 in compensation.[118] In February 2011, Toho sued Honda for depicting a fire-breathing monster in a commercial for the Honda Odyssey. The monster was never mentioned by name, being seen briefly on a video screen inside the minivan.[119] The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society christened a vessel the MV Gojira. Its purpose is to target and harass Japanese whalers in defense of whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. The MV Gojira was renamed the MV Brigitte Bardot in May 2011, due to legal pressure from Toho.[120] Gojira is the name of a French death metal band, formerly known as Godzilla; legal problems forced the band to change their name.[121] In May 2015, Toho launched a lawsuit against Voltage Pictures over a planned picture starring Anne Hathaway. Promotional material released at the Cannes Film Festival used images of Godzilla.[122]

Steven Spielberg cited Godzilla as an inspiration for Jurassic Park (1993), specifically Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956), which he grew up watching.[123] Spielberg described Godzilla as "the most masterful of all the dinosaur movies because it made you believe it was really happening."[124] Godzilla also influenced the Spielberg film Jaws (1995).[125][126]

The main-belt asteroid 101781 Gojira, discovered by American astronomer Roy Tucker at the Goodricke-Pigott Observatory in 1999, was named in honor of the creature.[127] The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 11 July 2018 (M.P.C. 110635).[128]

Cultural ambassador To encourage tourism in April 2015 the central Shinjuku ward of Tokyo named Godzilla an official cultural ambassador. During an unveiling of a giant Godzilla bust at Toho headquarters, Shinjuku mayor Kenichi Yoshizumi stated "Godzilla is a character that is the pride of Japan." The mayor extended a residency certificate to an actor in a rubber suit representing Godzilla, but as the suit's hands were not designed for grasping, it was accepted on Godzilla's behalf by a Toho executive. Reporters noted that Shinjuku ward has been flattened by Godzilla in three Toho movies.[129][130]

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CreateSpace Books. ISBN 1492790354. Edwards, Gareth (2014). Godzilla. Warner Bros. Pictures. Galbraith IV, Stuart (1998). Monsters Are Attacking Tokyo! The Incredible World of Japanese Fantasy Films. Feral House. ISBN 0922915474. Godziszewski, Ed (1994). The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Godzilla. Daikaiju Enterprises. Honda, Ishiro (1970). Monster Zero (English version). Toho Co., Ltd/United Productions of America. Kalat, David (2010). A Critical History and Filmography of Toho's Godzilla Series (second edition). McFarland. ISBN 9780786447497. Lees, J.D.; Cerasini, Marc (1998). The Official Godzilla Compendium. Random House. ISBN 0-679-88822-5. Perlmutter, David (2018). The Encyclopedia of American Animated Television Shows. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 1538103737. Ragone, August (2007). Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters. Chronicle Books. ISBN 978-0-8118-6078-9. Rhoads & McCorkle, Sean & Brooke (2018). Japan's Green Monsters: Environmental Commentary in Kaiju Cinema. 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tertiovitae-blog · 6 years ago

Text

— TASK 001. STATISTICS

BASIC INFORMATION.

Full Name: Simon Chun, as far as federal documentation says.

Nickname(s): Sy, if he has any beyond that, he doesn’t know about them.

Age: 32

Date of Birth: September 22nd, 1986

Hometown: New York, NY

Current Location: Dertosa, CA

Ethnicity: Korean

Nationality: American

Gender: Cismale

Pronouns: He/him

Orientation: Purposefully emotionally unavailable tbqh

Religion: Raised under a Presbyterian mother and an apathetic father. Currently swings between atheism and agnosticism: he’d like to believe there’s some higher power but fails to see much evidence for the presence of one - at least in the form most modern religions teach. There’s no proof in Simon’s eyes of a God that’s both powerful and benevolent.

Political Affiliation: Independent. Mixed liberal and conservative attitudes.

Occupation: Former assistant district attorney in Suffolk County, MA, current owner of Pulp Kitchen and Pulp Vintage, his side business in the rare book & documents. PV specializes in early editions, maps, signatures from significant persons predating the 21st century, and the ever-popular vintage movie posters, as well as a few specialized items (architectural blueprints, maps, letters) from Dertosa’s history. Only a handful of these precious items he actually displays: in the very back of the store, close to his office and locked behind a delicate metal gate. Walk-in purchases are not welcome, though interested customers may contact Simon through PV’s website or by phone to make an appointment to examine the collection in person.

Living Arrangements: The second floor of Pulp Kitchen is dedicated to Simon’s living space, accessed through the stairwell connected to his backroom office, which also empties out into the alley behind PK. He likes the simplicity of an all-in-one building (as well as the feeling of security afforded by elevation and insulation from other people and structures). He’s managed a mish-mash aesthetic of spare industrialism and coziness: exposed brick walls and steel beams, a dark floor but the living room popping with a deep goldrod-yellow carpet and anchored on a large, buttery, reddish leather sofa. There’s a knit throw blanket tossed over the back of just about every seating surface that isn’t the chairs at the kitchen island. All doors are sliding and usually left open for the feeling of greater space. The apartment is blessed with the same wall-to-wall windows of the cafe downstairs and Simon enjoys having his morning coffee with a chair pulled up to them to soak in a little sun and watch the street wake up below. There’s a surprising lack of bookshelves considering the man himself, but less surprising considering the abundance of them downstairs.

Language(s) Spoken: English, Korean (less frequently than he knows he should).

Accent: Fairly neutral American, a very clear, well-enunciated way of speaking.

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE.

Face Claim: Steven Yeun

Hair Colour: Black, slightly wavy, usually brushed back or curling over one side of his temple, just a little too short to tuck behind his ears. It tends to not bother him enough that he lets it do what it wants

Eye Colour: Dark brown - call it coffee.

Height: 5′9

Weight: 145-150 lbs

Build: Closer to slim than wiry or bulked, he pushes himself to stay in shape but he ain’t out to get buff.

Tattoos: N/A

Piercings: N/A

Clothing Style: Man’s got a big spectrum. Take your normal urban book-keep stereotype and add a few more colors and much nicer shoes. Almost always in a collared shirt of some kind, sleeves rolled up above the elbows and leather bracelets on his wrist, or maybe under a well-cut blazer with a discreet watch. You’ll never see Simon in a simple t-shirt if he’s got any choice about it, but at work he’ll range anywhere from this level of fancy jacket to this level of relaxed everything. If he’s going to go casual, it’s definitely in a hoodie with a some kind of weird reference plastered on the front.

Usual Expression: Neutral and a bit removed, he tends to look ten levels deep in daydreaming even when he’s just sorting shelves or making a cappuccino. There’s pretty clear tells as to whether was he’s thinking is upsetting or pleasant: pinched brows or the smallest upward quirk to his lips.

Distinguishing Characteristics: A rigid scar above his left hip from the struggle three years ago that nearly cost him his life. Simon thanks the bullet scraping his side for giving him the panic-adrenaline to even survive it. A single dimple in his left cheek. Oh -- and we can’t forget the goddamn glasses. He felt like a jackass at first with fake lenses in, but over time he’s learned that they generously contribute to his fulfilling a certain stereotype within this new identity, and he’s now happy to hide behind the thin extra layer of protection granted by longer hair and a useless pair of wire frames.

HEALTH.

Physical Ailments: None.

Neurological Conditions: His move to Dertosa came with a government-recommended psychologist, though Simon only met with her for a month before dropping out of his appointments with the stubborn belief it was better to take care of himself. There’s a bit of a self-stigma in Simon’s mind regarding mental health: depression and paranoia are emotions from his point of view, not conditions, and he expects himself to manage them like an adult, regardless of whether or not that’s a realistic goal.

Allergies: Lower level lactose intolerant, but the kind who just pops a lactose pill, says ‘fuck it’, and has his latte anyways.

Sleeping Habits: A pretty solid seven to eight hours a night, in bed before midnight and out before eight 90% of the time. Structure is something Simon actively works for, in the hopes it’ll encourage stability.

Eating Habits: Somewhat of an accidental vegetarian, his typical diet skirts close, but he lacks the moral rigidity on that particular stance. He’s weak once a really good smell hits his nose, meat be damned. Tries to keep his eating habits as regular as sleep, breakfast is a cup of coffee and any fruit he can grab and take downstairs, lunch is grazed from whatever’s on the menu at PK, dinner thrown together before after seven and before nine, always with some sort of fresh green veg involved. It’s tempting sometimes to revert to old college ramen-and-microwaveables habits, but he’s grudgingly taking care of his body with the full knowledge that the work of cooking is worth pushing him for.

Exercise Habits: Swims laps for an hour and half at the YMCA three times a week and tends to bike or walk for groceries, errands, ect.

Emotional Stability: Mmmmm, let’s say 6, 7? There’s plenty of emotions tugging at Simon’s sleeve, but he’s simmered down to a more stable center as time has passed and he’s proven to be good for better or for worse at systematically approaching, sorting, and stuffing down what he thinks is useful to acknowledge or not. He purposefully tries to keep away from situations of high emotion, he knows himself well enough to know once he is propelled to extremes, it’s hard to get himself down from them.

Sociability: Simon definitely needs his alone time to refuel and recenter, but he also needs the stimulation of other people or he’d go stircrazy. He keeps an arm’s length, but he’s also too curious about what’s rattling around in other people’s heads to be a true isolationist and can be very warm with the right crowd. It’s a pleasure to have social connections, as long as he can keep the frame of mind that they can only go so far as PK’s front door.

Body Temperature: Cool-natured, there’s a reason he can get away with wearing suit jackets in summer.

Addictions: Lil bit of a hoarder of sentimental objects. Does not matter is the memory is positive or negative and he doesn’t need to be able to lay eyes on it, just to know it’s within his care.

Drug Use: None.

Alcohol Use: Strictly self-enforced as social. He doesn’t bring booze into his house unless it’s for cooking or a guest. No point in tempting a bad habit.

PERSONALITY.

Label: The Advocate, The Enduring, The Cynical

Positive Traits: driven, educated, perceptive, disciplined, curious, conscientious, discrete, generous, steered by an inner moral code

Negative Traits: dogmatic, detached, stubborn, overly self-reliant, impulsive and bold in matters of principle, deeply buried vulnerability to self-criticism, and the capacity to be truly venomous

Goals/Desires: Stay in his own damn lane while making a life for himself he can actually enjoy.

Fears: Having to start over again, any form of his past biting him in the ass, having an opportunity to do something just but being rendered unable to because of his situation, forgetting the past.

Hobbies: Cultivating Pulp Vintage’s collection is as much hobby as work, swimming, snapping up new posters for the wall of the cafe, listening to podcasts, reading, handheld puzzles, volunteer work. He hasn’t been back to his self-defense course since his first year in Dertosa but his teacher is slowly attempting to wheedle him back into other classes at the gym. Monthly trips back to Dertosa’s legal indoor gun range to keep himself sharp.

Habits: Cleaning those useless glasses as a way to stall a conversation or action, drumming his fingers, the two-handed mug hold, reading behind the cash register, skimming the paper every day from front to back and impulsively checking the news bar on his phone, covering his mouth with his hand while laughing, doing the lazy half-tuck with a shirt, tapping his foot when he’s jazzed up.

FAVOURITES.

Weather: Daytime summer rain, that perfect crisp winter day when the air is frosty in his lungs and the ground is coated in snow. Real winter is one of the big things he misses about the Northeast.

Colour(s): Green, blue

Music: He started playing classic jazz/oldies in PK for the sake of that bookshop aesthetic, but he’s gotten genuinely into a lot of it. Nina Simone, Cab Calloway. Longtime listener to The Black Keys, Red Hot Chili Peppers. Vivaldi, Andrés Segovia.

Movies: Clever comedies or character studies, psychological thrillers, old Hollywood experimental movies, all the campiest of 80s horror. ‘Nightcrawler’, ‘the Exorcist’, ‘Metropolis’, ‘In the Mood for Love’.

Sport: Basketball & fencing. He was a pretty damn good at the latter in high school and he’s entirely self-aware of just how pretentious a thing a boarding school fencing team is to be an alumni of.

Beverage: Water with a few lime slices, sue him for being boring. Guilty pleasure is those stupidly sweet matcha green tea lattes from Starbucks.

Food: Hit him with that spicy shit. Fuck it up with savory flavors. Finish it with good n’ sweet. There’s definitely love for Korean, but he’s big on Thai and Southwestern cuisine as well.

Animal: Panther. Just about any big cat, tbh.

FAMILY.

Father: Jeong Yung-sik, aka Howard Jeong. Incarcerated since 2003, age 67. Eligible for release 2249.

Mother: Jeong Su-jin, aka Sujin Jeong. Deceased as of 2015, aged 56. Official cause of death: craniocerebral ballistic trauma aka a gunshot to the head.

Sibling(s): Jeong Min-chul, aka Erik Jeong. Deceased as of 2002, aged 16. Official cause of death: exsanguination aka prolonged and fatal blood loss.

Children: None, despite liking kids he doesn’t realistically see a future where it’d be wise to have them.

Pet(s): His cats Darlene and Mister Meowgi have the run of Pulp Kitchen, the first named after a character from Mr. Robot, the second by an ex-girlfriend. The pun stuck; Simon still can’t bring himself to rename him. He had to give up his boxer, Odin, when he moved to Dertosa and he misses that damn dog every day.

Family’s Financial Status: Raised very upper class, currently a comfortable upper-middle. Technically, he has none of the money left over from his family’s generous supply, but some of his earnings from his work as an ADA came with him to start him off in Dertosa and fund the opening of Pulp Kitchen.

EXTRA.

Zodiac Sign: Virgo - reliable, practical, critical, seeking goodness while expecting disappointment, prone to overthinking

MBTI: INFJ, ‘The Advocate’ - creative, decisive, perfectionistic, incredibly private, “INFJs have strong beliefs and take the actions that they do not because they are trying to advance themselves, but because they are trying to advance an idea that they truly believe will make the world a better place”.

Enneagram: The heart of Enneagram 8 (the Protector) under a strong shield of Enneagram 5 traits (the Observer) - a conflict between the desire to be confrontational and assertive in issues of justice and protecting the weak and the knowledge that oneself is the person who must be protected first, as well as tendencies towards hoarding and intellectual pursuits.

Temperament: Melancholic - thoughtful, schedule oriented, economical and perceptive, interested in the philosophical and poetic

Moral Alignment: Neutral Good - belief in the intrinsic rights of all beings, drive to help the innocent, desire for justice but a willingness to defy the law and do usually immoral things in order to see that justice happens

Primary Vice: Wrath

Primary Virtue: Charity

Element: Water - evolving, inward, empathetic

#tcrp.task #* MUSING #this picture is a lie simon shaves every day of his damn life #and now after peeping over my shoulder for way too detailed research my father is convinced i'm interested in law school #the things we do for love

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zebraslovescupcakestoo · 7 years ago

Text

The Visit of Bendy De Mon.

In our little two-bedroom home on the suburbs of California, it was a nice afternoon day of April showers. The sound of the rain drops hitting on the windows calms me as I worked on the animation drawings in my personal art studio.

If anyone haven't guessed who I am, apart from my name alone, I'm Mickey 'Mouse' Disney. Yes I know, I'm that 'famous' poster boy for my father's animation studio and our company.

Many people would think why would I live here in this 'humble' house when my 'actual' home in in the higher class neighborhood? Simple, I'm working from the bottom to the top to earn my position. It was my choice to do so.

But that's a story for another time, I can tell you for now however, I'm not like the others who had their parents paved the road for them to get whatever they want.

I picked up my red pen and I continued my drawing of a dalmatian puppy. At least one OF them. I was reading a kids novel book on 'The hundred and one Dalmatians' one time at the book store to see if I can animate more stories to life. I really loved the story of what Dodie Smith have wrote and I believed it can work as a movie animation. When I personally called her, she was thrilled to hear me and shrieked when I wanted to meet her in person. We had brunch at a very nice cafe while we talked about negotiations on the permission to make her novel into a movie. I wanted to assure her that we will put her name in the credits and that we can still 'own' the animation. She told me she was delighted when I said that. Not to mentioned that her other novels are also good like 'I capture a castle.'

We had a pretty good meeting and I was very happy that I granted her permission to used her story in our animation. I tried to make most of it by my own two hands because of how much our spending goes with other animation projects like 'Sleeping Beauty.' If I can prove to my peers and my seniors that I can become a great animator like my father and the others, maybe I might take over our animation someday.

But for now, I must work hard to make it happened.

I then heard some metals clanged and someone I knew very well cussed in his Chinese dialogue. I put down my pen and went to see him if he's hurt. I opened the door and I see my big brother picking up some empty cans. It must mean that sound I've just heard means he might have dropped them when he carried a bit more than usual.

“You know, you could have ask me to help.” I told him. He tsked as he was picking up the empty. “Aren't you busy with your dalmatians project?”

“Not when someone needed help. Here, I'll carry this in your workshop.” I said as I held some of it and carried them to his personal work shop at the end of the hall.

That person I was talking to was my big brother, Oswald 'Lucky Rabit' Disney. He's actually my half brother, but I don't care even if it is true and he's always has my back just like I always have his since we were little. He's a really good mechanic, a mixed martial art expert, and many more talented guy even I cant barely compete! I wish people would see his as himself instead of him being related to either me or our father... I admit that sometimes I got that too when my father was mentioned, but my brother got it a bit harder than me.

But at least some people have started to recognized him as himself!

I put down the empty cans on an available table that wasn't cluttered. “Oswald, mine might not be the best example of 'tidying' his own project room, but you might considered to organized your tools and parts in a bin or boxes. Do you need my help to find some and organized?”

He gave me his usual serious, poker face and responded. “Whenever I did let you help me, You'd get either confused with the monkey wrench sizes, getting tangled in the wires, mix up oil with ink, misplaced some bolts and then had 'completely' forgotten where it go.” He pointed out my past mistakes and put his along with mine.

I sighed at that. “I was just trying to help you getting more organized and save you some time on searching what you needed instead of rummaging this pile of metals. Speaking of which, are those gonna be the paint bombs or smoke?”

“Which ever you made recently. It would be best to stock up as much as we can if ever 'you know who' started to act up suspicious again.” He grabbed his gloves and goggles to put them on so that he can get started on them. I quickly got back to my studio and grabbed a big jar of my 'special' paint I personally made myself. If you're a bit confused, let me explained on what I can tell you now.

Me and my brothers aren't JUST an animator and a mechanic... we have our 'other' identity when there's trouble... but for now, I cannot say more than I should. I entered back in his workshop and placed my 'special' homemade paint at the center of the table. We then hear some sort of a long car honking noise and some tire screeching outside of our place. We looked at each other and we can tell from our expression and our gut feeling that it might be someone we would NOT expect on a day like this. He immediately took off his goggles and gloves while I took my 'special' paint, hid it in a green barrel, covered it with some metal sheet of paper and then covered it again with a stained table cloth. I hurried to my studio to hid my sketches of the dalmatians and the book in my hidden safe behind a framed picture I've made of the characters we were named after. I then rushed down stairs and looked through our living room to see who it was.

I noticed an expensive black and white car model of an Alvis speed twenty SD drophead coupe. I only knew one person who can afford and own this type of car. It was obviously written on his license plate: Bendy De Mon.

Oswald yelled from the kitchen. “What the heck does that bèndàn want from us now?”

“SHHH! Oswald! He might hear you!” I hushed him and scolded.

“He doesn't understand Chinese, remember? Now keep him busy while I 'had' to prepared something.” He fired back.

Even if we don't like him very much, it's not polite to say rude things in that person's presence. Bendy might not be one of those people that I wish would be a bit more nicer, but I need to be on my best behavior.

Our 'friend' had sounded our doorbell and I took a deep breath to calm myself. It's just a visit, right?

I went to opened the door, but then he flung it and nearly hit me when I did.

“Nickel Mousey!” Bendy exclaimed with his personal 'grand' entry. He was wearing a mauve fedora with a black ribbon and a turquoise brooch. He had a mauve vest that was covered by a big, black fur coat that covered from his neck to almost his sock level. He also had his best black and white Stacey Adam’s shoes. He was also holding a dark grey cigarette stick like the ones some of he high society uses to look even 'dignified.'

“Why Bendy Dr- De Mon. What an unexpected surprise. I didn't know you were in California today.” I politely greeted him. “How are you today? I hope the weather didn't spoil your mood.”

He then started to talk like one of those high class tones.“Oh, I'm miserable, dear squeakers. Perfectly wretched! I was fine with the weather but I had to stop by at your father's small potatoes of a studio just to see you and the other bunny. I just 'had' to meet you two at least once in a while aside from whenever I 'visit' your deconstructed amusement park.” He puffed out a smoke and it's scent spread the whole living room. That scent... I really don't want to.

“I'm sorry that we took a day off and that our new amusement park had a few unfinished rides that needed to be either get finished or fixing. But we're doing the best we can and I hope you didn't had a hard time finding us.” I tried to explained him, but he was sort of busy looking around, passed by me and said. “Yes, yes. There's always some excuses. Now where's your studio?” He then demanded as he went upstairs quickly. Doesn't he knew he can take his shoes off here? I followed him as quickly as I could and I joined him in my personal art studio, rummaging and making a bit of a mess in my 'used to be' organized art supply. “Where are they? Where are they?” He demanded as he rummage through my papers. “For devil's sakes, where is it?” He raised his voice.

“Where is what?” I confusedly asked. He came up to me and furiously said. “Your 'secret' project! Don't you dare play games with me this time, Swiss cheese! I heard it from one of your slaves back at that puny excuse of a studio. You were doing some sort of a animation movie separate from the one that the others are working on.”

He heard that? Gosh! I had to think of something to distract him from it. “I really don't have anything new.” I tried to get him out of there. “You mean about this room? I would expect at least a 'dignified' painting instead of that lame @ss cartoon picture of that stupid mouse and rabbit over there.” He pointed out. “I'm sorry if not everyone liked the idea to have a chandelier hanging from his or her office like you do. We have some-” He cuts me off as he rudely pushed me aside. “Yes yes, some small break I needed after what I saw in here. Too much 'cutesie' for me, banana shoes Mickey's pants.” He went out and descended back downstairs as I followed.

God, please lend me your patience.

He looked around the living room again but this time, he took his time. “Seriously Micks, why on earth did you gave up that free position of the head company just to do grunt work? You could have lived in a much grander mansion instead of this 'bearable' shack.” He puffed another smoke from his cigarette holder.

“My old home is very nice, but I would rather earn it rather than gave it to me. Besides, there are some kind seniors I wanted to be approved too. COUGH!” Bendy puffed another smoke in front of my face.

“My dear, naive, stupid, cheese friend. If you want to be on top of the world, you need to do anything necessary for what you want. Nobody will be like you or your fairy tales rip offs. That 'humble' image of a garbage can you put yourself up will not cut it with me and other who wanna be like me around in this business.” He lectured me. “Just look at the way you're dressed today. White rolled up shirt. A red tie, suspenders with yellow buttons attached to your large red carpi pants or shorts, and are those socks? My my, I completely 'forgot' to take off mine when I came in with 'excitement.'” He devilishly smiled. “Too bad I only stepped in water today.”

“Bendy, aren't you a bit too warm to wear that black fur coat? That looks expensive too.” Didn't you have two others already?

“It's a gift from my one true love, dear mousey. He hunted a big black bear on one weekend with a friend of ours. Killed it with his own bare hands and he skinned it. I had to ask my personal tailor to made it just for me, but I 'kindly' reminded him to leave that 'bloody' scent.” He took a good whiff and widely smiled like he was in love. He always had that odd fascinations with pain and blood. “Asides from women, isn't there any 'dignified' man in this wretched world who doesn't?” He then settles down on the double couch.

“Well I admit, it does look nice, but I'm sure there are many other things-”

“Sweet, simple Mickey. Hahaha! I know, I know!” He then hit the coffee table in front of him with his two feet as a resting stool.

He opened his arms wide. “This 'humble' horrid little outhouse is the REAL Disney castle.” He laugh it off. Then my brother came in to the room with a tray of tea set for three and three cupcakes I've made this morning. Did I forgot to mentioned that I can bake pastries in one of my spare time? I enjoyed doing so and I even shared with my co-workers too to help with our team morality!

He grinned maliciously at my brother as he settles it down in the centre of us, smacking his shoes to get them out of the way. “I wondered where was the better half went. Is that a hipster jacket from that new 'rock 'n' roll' upstart singer, Elvis Presley?” Oswald just rolled his eyes and lifted up, but he then got horrified when Bendy groped his butt. “Did you worked out even more recently, or is that just your normal body part that YOUR mother gave ya? It started to look nice, juicy and tempting.” My brother did not have a lot of patience with his harassment towards him and he shows it by attempting to smash his face into the wall with his karate kick. It was so fast that I barely saw it to react. He dented a mark on the wall, but Bendy has ducked it just in time. “Oooooh! You even got good strong legs. Very useful...” He playfully taunted. I immediately broke them up. “Guys, please. No fighting in this house. Oswald, thank you for the snacks, you can sit down over where I was.” He growled and glared at Bendy, but he did as I suggested.

“Would you like my triple chocolate cupcake? I've made them today.” I handed it out to him because it was one of his favorites when we were teenagers and hang out a lot. He made a scorned expression while he took one last puff before me crushed his cigarette in the cupcake I tried to offer. “If it's after twenty minutes fresh from the oven, it's thrash like those stupid cartoons shorts you've made.”

I was a little hurt on the inside, but I tried hard not to be upset as I settled down the now ruined cupcake. “But Bendy, don't you like it even if it wasn't?”

“When you want to make it big in this world, you need to make crucial choices. The right product and marketing makes ALL the differences. Besides, I now like them that way.” He playfully twirled with his cigarette holder with his right hand and rested his chin on his left hand.

“But they're still good even if it was. Why are you being mean to us lately? You weren't like that back then.” I tried to get to the bottom of his saltiness towards us and maybe the image he keeps putting up.

“I'm just telling the basic facts as a 'friend.' You're as soft as ever, unlike your half brother...” He looked at Oswald again with malicious intent as he looked back with a glare, saying 'don't you even think about it, devil shrimp.' look.

“I wondered what else he's hiding underneath those rags... He's actually not that bad looking for a half Chinese. I wondered if I can make him 'dropped' his poker face 'mask' when I'm 'toying' with him...” He whispered to himself. I froze up. Excuse me?!

I tried to offer some tea to forget from what I just heard. “Won't you have some green tea at least?” He got up and then started to head out. “I wish I could stay and 'tolerate,' but I already have my reservation at a more 'refined' restaurant in a couple of hours and the waiting line is horrid. However, before I leave and forget, I will be sitting next to you two at the Oscar award next month. I wanted to have the closest seat to the carpet for when I received the award.”

“But Bendy, Nobody knows who will win this year yet.” I tried to tell him, but he ignored. “Now, don't forget to dress differently this time! I don't like to be seen with a pair of 'common' folks. See you next time, Dorkly Brothers.” He said as he exited the living room and slammed the door. We watched him as he got back in his luxurious car and then speeds off. I sighed and flopped on the double couch.

“What a 'pleasant' surprise HE was!” My brother crossed his arms. “I'm sorry that you had to put up with him because of me.” I apologized to him.

I already knew that he and Bendy have started to hate each other. Well, my brother hated him actually. Bendy has that weird method of taunting... But not in a good way.

“It's not your fault and you shouldn't apologized for him.” He pointed out. “One of these days he'll get what he REALLY deserves.”

“I just wish I knew how he changed so much since then. Sure, he used to be a bit of a trickster, but we still stick together like best friends... Do you think... it's because of the wealth and fame that came in for him?” He did started to act pridefully and snobbish after he took over the Joey Drew Studio the Third. I wondered if I did the same choice as he did with his father's company... Would I be no different from him?

“I can tell from your expression of your face that you were thinking about the choices you would have made.” I looked at my brother in surprised expression. “How can you tell?”

“I known you more than half your life, remember? Even if we grow older, you're still that same cheerful kid who wanted to bring joy to the world. You and Bendy are NOTHING alike.” He tried to cheer me up.

“Thanks Oswald.” I smiled a bit.“Can you opened the windows a bit? I can still smell Bendy's cigarette smokes.”

He opened slightly the window so that there's some fresh April shower scent can cover all of that cigarette's. “Speaking of smokes, how's that quitting therapy?” He asked about my health.

“I'm doing great so far. I've already confessed only to you a few months ago, but since we discovered about our dad's health, I've only had two. But now, I found a new way to ease my smoking craving whenever I was really depressed. Bubble gum!” I reached in my pocket to grab one, but I haven't found it. Maybe it was in the other one? Nope.

He got up and walked next to me. He handed out one of my bubble gum. “And here I was thinking you had a sugar craving again.”I grabbed it and pouted. “I still remembered to eat healthy and brush my teeth, ya know?”

He chuckled. “That's because I keep reminded ya, now, I think I'll throw this one into the garbage since we don't want to poison the birds with his cigarette.” He took out the cupcake I've tried to offered to Bendy earlier and went to the kitchen.

I looked at the hole in the wall from his attempt earlier. This will be a evening project that can wait on Monday... Luckily it's not a big patch job like last time Bendy was here....

“Do you mind to just sweep up his cigarette's ashes? I'll do the mopping after.” He asked me.

“Sure! Mind if I play that record you've bought the other day? That Jailhouse Rock song?” I asked for his permission to used one of his music. I heard it the other day and caught him singing and doing those dance moves... Did you know that my brother had a really wonderful vocals and dance moves? He should try it on the stage! It was amazing!

“Why ask my permission? Just play it!” He agreeably yelled from the kitchen.

I set it up, placed the needle and I let it play as we started to clean up from this afternoon visit. And you know what? I was feeling better already that I didn't needed my bubble gum.

The warden threw a party in the county jail The prison band was there and they began to wail The band was jumpin' and the joint began to swing You should've heard them knocked-out jailbirds sing

Let's rock everybody, let's rock Everybody in the whole cell block Was dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock.

THE END.

----- Author’s Notes:

I did a two day writing for the one year anniversary of the BBTIM blog.

This little parallel but plausible story was based from the 101 Dalmatians scene where Cruella made her first appearance in the movie. I did some fun facts I’ve added in the story like I got from the Wiki and stuff.

I know I’ve wrote it in Mickey’s point of view, but I wanted to explained Bendy’s plausible behavior toward one of his chief animating competitors, despite they might be the same age and used to be friends. Plausibly.

Bendy's high class attitude and Boris' looks reminded me so much like Cruella De Vil when combined. Guess why I picked this story board.

I hope you enjoy my little side story, dear users.

BBTIM Characters Bendy, Mickey and Oswald belong to Marini4.

#bendy before the ink machine #bendy #Mickey Mouse #mickey #oswald the lucky rabbit #oswald #fanfiction #marini4

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waddlesdpig · 6 years ago

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The Lego Movie Franchise Retrospective ( Or how to build Masterpieces)

The following is a opinionated review on the “ Lego Movie” franchise as a whole, spoilers and bad jokes ahead.

Its kinda crazy if we’re being honest here, in the five years since it’s creation the “ Lego Movie “ franchise has made close to a billion dollars domestically and probably more than that total internationally. All for what is essentially a series of really long commercials, albeit very entertaining and ( mostly) heartfelt commercials. No matter how you look at it however, these films on a whole have been a grand success worthy of artistic recognition ( WB has left chat).

This trend of profitably praised pictures seems sure to continue, with the soon to be released fourth installment in the “ Lego Movie” franchise “ The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part.”

( A sentence as redundant as me writing reviews on Tumblr.)

As a lover of the original “ Lego Movie” this sequel comes like the missing brick in my Lego heart set that i didn’t know existed. In that same breath however, i can’t help but feel anxious over how the movie will turn out. Early reviews have skewed favorably for the film and yet there is a disturbing trend in the Lego franchise that one cannot ignore. Each Lego Movie has had diminishing returns in terms of quality ever since the first.

Don’t get me wrong, the animation, production, and voice work for has been ( mostly) top notch for every installment. No when i mean quality, i’m talking about the strength of each films script and the way they are constructed. This problem is far more reaching than the common “ It wasn’t as funny as the first” comment one might make concerning the latter two Lego movies. Although i would be remiss to suggest that the humor isn’t itself a issue.

“ The Lego Movie” is filled to the brim with weird wacky comedy that still holds up five years later, but is coupled with satisfying storytelling that complements the silliness. Out of everything that could have been taken away from that original film the sequential Lego flicks focus is firmly placed on the hijinks and shenanigans. Much like a child who stacks his Legos as high as he can without any regard to building a solid foundation, Lego Batman ( to a lesser extent) and Ninjago lives or dies on the strength of it’s humor, often times tumbling because of that fact. So to help illustrate my point i would like to go back to the beginning and exam why each film worked or failed.

THE LEGO MOVIE

Out of all the things this film is praised for, the animation, the comedy, the amazing cast, i hardly ever hear anyone talking the story structure. While nothing shakespearean, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller masterfully employ the monomyth ( or hero’s journey) to lay the emotional foundation for the film, using it quite literally to a T’.

After setting the movies conflict into motion with the “ Piece of Resistance” and the “Krangle” we flash forward 8 1/2, enter Emmet Brickowski, your average abnormally normal citizen of Lego City Bricksburg where everything is honky dory. Following him throughout his day we come to find that Emmet is so average that he has fallen into the background of the collective consciousness of those around him. Only by chance does he comes across the Piece of Resistance literally calling him to adventure.

Now melded with the piece of legend, Emmet now bears the name “ The Special” which he is hesitant to hear at first, as he faces persecution from Lord Business forces, who is H’ E’ double hockey sticks’ bent on gluing the entire universe into place.

Through shenanigans he teams up with local DJ Wyldstyle, warms up to the idea of being, and i quote “ the most important, most talented, most interesting, most extraordinary, mostest most person in the universe.” The two escape from his capturers and crosses the threshold, by also literally crossing into another realm.

Duding it up in the Old West, Emmet’s lie is exposed like me on Omegle, earning him the disdain of his would be love interest. Trying to decipher next with the piece, the duo finds the wizard Virtuvius ( MVP of the film) who after finding out Emmet’s quandary determines to mentor him to be a Masterbuilder.

More shenanigans, Batman shows up, Emmet experiences cuckolding with Bat’s and Sty’s blockholding, ( seriously this is supposed to be a family film for krangle’s sake!) they all take a road trip to cloud coo coo land, group meets “ OC do not steal” and the other Masterbuilders to come up with a plan to take down Lord Business and stop his TAKOS! Surprise surprise Bad Cop rolls up to the club and the Masterbuilders aren’t ready to jam so they get sent to the slam. Emmet and crew manage to escape only by hiding in this absolute masterpiece.

Now beaten and bruised Emmet rallies the troops, and together as a team they set to enter the dragon’s lair that is Lord Business office building. ( Nightmare of college dropouts and unpaid interns everywhere) The story comes to a head as Virtuvius loses his, the piece of resistance is thrown into the abyss that is my grandma’s purse, all the masterbuilders are captured and Lord Business has set up an overly elaborate death trap to get these dang kids off his lawn. In this moment of despair the ghost of Virtuvius appears before Emmet assuring him that cat posters hold the secrets of the universe. Motivated Emmet bids a tearful farewell as he sacrifices himself to save the other Masterbuilders.

On the other side of the abyss, Emmet haves an out of body experience and has a face to face with the pink sausaged-eagle-squid creatures that serve as the lands God’s. It is here that he finally becomes equipped with the Ultimate Treasure: believing in yourself! Now ready to face the odds Emmet is sent Homeward Bound back to the Lego world.

He returns, Reborn as a Masterbuilder. Emmet confronts Lord Business and stops him by extending him his hand ( claw-grip thing?) in friendship, helping Lordy realize that he doesn’t have to be bad and that in reality we are all the Special. The two reconcile and the story wraps up with the world at peace until the immediate sequel bait.

There’s a reason many a tale uses this storytelling device, when done properly it works to enact growth and change in the protagonist, resulting in a compelling and satisfying character arc. The Lego Movie not content to rely on this alone also explores “ The Chosen One” trope, as well as themes about creativity vs conformity. There is quite a surprising amount of depth once you start deconstructing this film brick by brick, something that would be sorely missed in it’s spiritual sequels.

THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE

Without a doubt there is a lot to like about “ The Lego Batman Movie,” they managed to kick the already amazing animation up to 11, on a whole it is a very funny movie ( giving birth to probably one of my favorite scenes ever. Kazow!), and it joyfully revels in the Batman mythos and world. In addition to that, it’s story tackles a very interesting premise not often explored with the Caped Crusader. Yet in my mind, there is a distinct issue which holds the film back from being as solid as Batman’s ninepack, this being pacing in the third act.

Batman is one of the rare characters in pop culture that require almost no real introduction, as it can be assumed that most will in one way or another have some basic idea of his mythos. Using this to their advantage, the people filming choose to focus on a intrinsic part of the Dark Knight, that of lose and fear of losing. Building on “ The Lego Movie” interpretation of the character, we have here a extremely egotistical, selfish Batman who exhibits these qualities in order to close himself from anymore emotional pain.

This is plainly stated in the first act by Alfred, “ Master Bruce, you live on an island figuratively, and literally.” It’s the same reason why he can’t admit to Joker being his greatest enemy, because even if the relationship is hateful in nature, it is still a connection to another person. So Batman’s gotta learn to open himself to others, great! A good premise and character arc that the film executes fairly well, up until the beginning of the third act.

See throughout the story we see Batman nudged and guided into becoming a better person by those around him, particularly Alfred and Barbara in the first act. Come the second act, Batman has stubbornly enacted his own plan to stop the seemingly harmless Joker, after succeeding he is berated by Barbara “ You can't be a hero if you only care about yourself.” Batman’s plan backfires giving Joker the means to unleash every villain from your local bar’s trivia night. As such Fatman rectify his mistakes by teaming up with his loves ones to make wrongs right.

Though hesitant to the idea at first, Bats warms up to his new superhero buddies only for him to push them away as soon as he realizes their importance to him. This is where the problem of pacing really begins to show itself. After sending away the Bat-lites, Batman immediately confronts Joker, only for the Joker to recapitulate something that was just clearly shown to the audience “ I'm not your greatest enemy. Your greatest enemy is you.”

Joker then banishes Batman to the doom dimension where he is greeted by a literal judge of right and wrong, who then plays a highlight reel showing just how big a betty batty’s been. The thing to note is this all occurs within a span of five minutes, stopping the story completely just to point at something that’s already solidly established in the story.

The real shame is that all this guilt dog-piling undercuts a great moment. In the doom dimension Bat’s gets a peek of the situation to find his friends returning to help him, there he sees Robin emulating Batman’s reckless attitude, and it is there where he is finally able to recognize the harm he’s bringing to others with his selfish actions. A moment i feel could’ve been the emotional pillar of the movie if it had been better builded towards and executed.

To be fair the movie from then on picks back up rather quickly, Batman learns his lesson, forms the “ savi-cide squad,” and in the end is able to save Lego Gotham by literally making connections with others and bringing everyone closer to each other. Capping what is undeniably, despite it’s flaws, a very fun movie. If only i could say the same about the last film here…

THE LEGO NINJAGO

The Lego Ninjago movie was always going to be in a peculiar situation, it’s branding and world aren’t well enough established in the minds of the average movie goer to solely create a story based on in-world lore. Nor is it enough of a clean slate that one could be free to do whatever it wanted if the story ala “ The Lego Movie.” And as such it creates this disjointed hodgepodge of elements borrowed from the two previous entries. This particularly can be seen through the journey of the protagonist Lloyd.

By the time the movie chooses to introduced Lloyd we are already informed that he as the Green Ninja along with the others have already time and again defeated and repelled the big bad Garmadon. In a way Lloyd as already undergone his own hero’s journey, meaning they’ve already skipped any satisfaction that could be gained from seeing a powerless boy becoming a hero and vanquishing that which threatens his home.

Bah whatever, origin stories are overdone and boring. Who’s with me?! Let’s get right into the good stuff. And to the films credit it does just that, right off the bat we are introduced to what will be the main conflict of the story, Lloyd and his relationship with his father. However here too “ The Lego Ninjago” movie stumbles. Lloyd as a character is defined solely by this conflict. During nearly the entire first act you will rarely find a scene, or piece of dialogue featuring Lloyd that will not involve Garmadon or the fact that he is Lloyd’s father in one way or another.

But hey he’s also the leader of the Ninjas and does a great job of, uh, telling people what to do? Now let’s quickly compare how the “ Lego Batman Movie” handle this. In the opening moments of that film we spend time with Batman before the grand conflict is set into motion, we see he’s egotistical, a showboat, selfish and willfully ignorant to any flaws he might have. Having established his personality, ( what a notion) the story is able to show how that feeds into his fear letting people back in and colors his character arc for the film.

With the “ Lego Ninjago” movie failing to this, it leaves Lloyd as just sort of a blank slate with daddy issues. It’s probably why they have him from the start with a fully assembled team of fun personalities to bounce off of and carry the load of protaganizing, oh wait. Oh boy, we got Flame Fella the spiky hair one, Dirt Dude who is essentially Flame Fella, Wa Wa Womah ( she’s the water element cause she’s so good at retaining water), and the only two with any semblance of personality Jay and Zane.

Without trying to disrespect fans of the original series, you know where they actually mattered, the other Ninjas here are little more than filler. Functionally they have no real role in the story except to bolster Lloyd’s in-world importance by making him leader, as well as holding him responsible after he unwittingly unleashes destruction upon Ninjago. Towards the start of the third act, our blockhead Ninjas haphazardly realize that all they to do was believe and only now is there any hint of development for the group. Way too little, way too late to have any significant impact on the story.

Leaving us with the “ Father/Son” plot to essentially carry the whole film. To the movie’s credit it does a serviceable job in accomplishing this. While far from masterful, there is some satisfaction in two opposing fractions learn to work together and eventually reconcile. However even here the film fails to execute on this idea. After spending the entirety of the second act building up this relationship between the two, Garmadon literally asks Lloyd to join him and rule the galaxy together. Green bean rejects the offer because what else would you expect him to do, and Gar once again pushes his son away from him. Less than five minutes later, the climax of the movie ends with Lloyd talking to his dad through a cat and the two finally reconcile as family.

In this way “ The Lego Ninjago Movie” fizzles out, leaving a lackluster ending and Jackie Chan to close out an already underwhelming story.

Finally some more miscellaneous criticisms.

They reuse a lot of shots in the first act, Lloyd’s dragon cannon being of the more obvious examples.

There isn’t as much effort to establish “ Ninjago” as a Lego world, often times you see Lego structures mixed with what is supposed to be natural foliage. This is a huge issue in the second act as the majority of the scenery is composed of non-Lego elements. And the stuff that isn’t Lego’s don’t look to hot, the water effects being the biggest offender in this case.

Jackie Chan as Master Wu is probably the weakest performance in the movie, i don’t know if it’s because of the voice director or because Jackie just wasn’t feeling the powah.

The movie’s live action intro and outro is just bad.

But hey Garmadon has a “ Shark-Shooter” gun! 8/10 movie

CLOSING THOUGHTS

In conclusion, the thing that worries me most from the last two movies is the lack of thought and care into execution that the original “Lego Movie” had in spades. Pacing, strong character work for the whole cast, attention to story structure, all of these things have been mostly stepped on in favor of cramming as much hijinks as possible. And as a result leads to painful lackluster conclusions that try to be heartwarming but fail due to poor build up.

As much as i sound like a negative nancy right now, with “ The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part” being helmed by the dynamic duo which created the first, i am confidant that this will be a return to form for the Lego franchise.

Thanks for reading this monstrous mess.

#movies #the lego movie #lego ninjago #Lego my precious franchises

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