Holy Shit. Holy Fudging Shit. This Is So Good And Poetic. WTF. Do You Have Golden Fingers Because This

Holy shit. Holy fudging shit. This is so good and poetic. WTF. Do you have golden fingers because this is amazing. WHAT THE ACTUAL HECK THIS IS SO GOOD? AHHHHHH??!?! Dude i- i just... i... THE WAY YOU USE WORDS IS AMAZING DUDE I WISH I COULD WRITE LIKE YOU

Last Rites. Zemo. Angst. His fate is inevitable; no matter where he goes, he is driven by loss.

Two roads diverge and in one moment, Zemo and the Baron split apart. There’s Zemo on one side of the great divide, watching his whole world crumble around him. There’s the Baron who said fuck the mission and took his family on holiday someplace far away and quiet; he hears the breeze sighing in the long grass and holds his wife just a little closer.

What could’ve been. What could’ve been. What could’ve—

It’s a sigh like a dying curse and Zemo hears it every moment of every day. It flavors his coffee and wraps around his ankles to bind him in his cell. It tells him listen, when she said she felt so scared, what did you say?

(I’ll be home soon)

But there is no home, not anymore, not since he stood on the threshold of the end of — not the world but his world— and saw the ruin of everything. What is a man without a country? What is a man who smiles despite the knife in his gut?

The Baron watches the seasons change across the wasteland and he sees his son grow up. He says all of this is yours, every stone and every blade of grass. He hears about the city’s fall and is somehow unsurprised; Avengers are synonymous with ruin, with trails of destruction left behind while they retreat to their tower and lick their wounds. The Baron says all this is yours, every smear of blood and every shadow; when I die— not if, but when— don’t follow. Build a better world. He says— he says— but all his words are wasted.

Our father, who art the source of malice, gathers every thread and pulls us close. We pray the devils take us, for they at least are honest; they at least have made no promises.

And here comes Zemo with a face like a summer storm, wild and torn by thunder, all his ghosts around him like a mantle and if he smiles it’s only because he senses his nearness to the other side. He walks like a man who has nothing to lose because he doesn’t — his heart is gone, all the bones of his dear ones buried in the earth far from home because the family crypt was crushed and all its many sleeping dead thrown about like so much straw. Here comes Zemo with his gloves and his coat and even if he hides his face his eyes are still there, dark and piercing, every blink an indictment and every tear a curse.

Here comes Zemo, the trinity of ghosts: father, son and spouse; he sees the other side and doesn’t wonder why couldn’t it be that way because there is no time; he sets his plans in motion and shepherds them to the outcome he wants (the outcome he needs; he has the grief of love, of lovers, of someone who’s only ever known violence as a tool, who doesn’t fear death or pain but only the shards of his shattered heart that pierce through him)

Our father, who shows us the back of his hand, who curdles our milk and picks the lashes from our eyelids, our father, who shows us a door that’s locked and barred—

The Baron sees his people scattered, broken; he traces the threads of their dissolution back to the source, which is the Tower; he hears their cries for mercy and for aid and somehow, somehow, he is the last of their royalty, the last one with enough pull to do something (enough money squirreled away, at least, and the implacable cruelty needed to show no mercy). He says I’ll be home soon and goes to carry out his duty. If I let it go, if I let it go,

(We’ll be together)

We will never know peace. We will never know the satisfaction of looking at the stars without wondering who will descend to tear us apart.

When the Baron returns with blood on his hands (how they fought, but cleverness and tech and all the money in the world are no match for the calculated rage of a man who kills to protect, who will ruin angels to tear their prying eyes from those he loves)— when the Baron returns—

(I’m home)

—it’s to a quiet house and blood on the walls; the last of those he loved now dying on the floor and there’s a message. There’s always a message. You couldn’t protect us. So many dead, and when we looked to you, you’d fled. And then you left to chase your dragons, but the wolves slipped through your door. The Baron doesn’t cry. He can’t cry. He buries his dead and closes up his country house; he will find those responsible and share his suffering.

Our father, who maketh us to lie in green fields, who draws the stars down to drive them through our flesh. Our father, who pulls fate’s threads and cuts them free. Our father, king of filth and decadence.

Zemo lets his beard grow and thinks about what could have been. It’s a petty, weak indulgence and it makes him ache; it makes his hands twitch with the need to hold a gun again, to act, to move. He reads, he listens to the radio, he waits. He pushes the sleeves of his hoodie up and leans against the bars.

Zemo has a visitor. He sees his way out and he smiles his crooked smile.

Our father.

Daddy Issues

Zemo, as a young man, is frequently neglected by his father. When he grows up, he is extremely receptive towards approval from men older than him and subconsciously chases after their stray bits of affection.

---

Helmut finds that he converses more easily with adults. He leaves his peers behind, waits for them to leave the classroom before he goes up to the podium where his professor was arranging his papers. He tiptoes up to rest his elbows there, tips his chin up to smile at the man. The professor, Mr Weber, looks down at him curiously.

"Helmut, is there anything you'd like to ask me?"

Hearing his own name, a slow curl of warmth settles into his belly. Helmut resisted the urge to giggle- it would be unprofessional. This was already toeing the line as it is, he shouldn't try his luck. Instead, he handed Mr Weber his worksheet.

"This question, I don't understand it," he said softly as one does when they are savouring a moment. Here, he didn't have to be loud to be heard, didn't have to shout halfway across the manor to match his father's booming voice, didn't have to entertain any guests.

Mr Weber takes the worksheet, looks carefully through Helmut's calculations. His eyebrows are scrunched up in concentration, a single strand of hair slips out from where he's tucked it behind his ear. Helmut breathes out slowly, matching the rise and fall of Mr Weber's shoulders.

His professor frowns. "Helmut, we went through this in class yesterday," he chides. But there's no disapproval in his voice, no harsh rebuke, and Helmut preens under the tone like a flower facing the sun. He shuffles a little on his tiptoes, rubbing one foot on the other, wringing his hands. Sheepishly, he asks if Mr Weber could go through the question again, and his teacher complies with a fond sigh.

"Come a little closer," Mr Weber says, and Zemo complies. Standing almost side-by-side, his teacher is taller than him by a head, maybe even more. Helmut looks up in blinding adoration, but his eyes dart back to the worksheet shyly as Mr Weber starts explaining with that calming, instructional voice.

You could tell me to do whatever and I'll do it, Helmut thinks breathlessly.

He tries to understand the best he can, and gets it quite quickly when he actually listens. Mr Weber had taken him under his wing and taken a liking to him, as Helmut slowly worked his way down to one of the assistance-required and remedial-required students. He liked it, to be honest- it was a guilty pleasure to know that his teacher would take care of him, would give special attention to help him. He'd find himself leaving little careless mistakes on the paper every now and then, just so that he could hear those words - Helmut, you'd do so well if you would just check. Be more careful next time, alright?

At home, he must be tall and proud and stick out his chest. His voice must be like a bull's roar, it must be like rolling thunder. His father expects him to be a man, when all he wants to do is stay a boy.

But here, with someone else, that is what he can be.

He can be short. If he didn't wear high-heeled shoes, he would receive pats on the head from other men tall enough to rest their elbow on his shoulders.

Here, he can be stupid and dumb and slow on the uptake. If he wasn't manipulative or cunning, he would be confided with the small little trinkets of their secrets and feel oh so warm on the inside.

Zemo smiles easily at older men, for they give what his father denied him.

---

When he joins EKO Scorpion, he takes a shine to one of the older, more compassionate commanders, a man of 6 foot of solid muscle. Commander Muller. But now, twenty-three years old, it is time to be a man... even though he's never really received the nurturing love that would guide him out of childhood.

---

Helmut is a Baron, after all. He joins the political ring, plays coy games with a foreign ambassador twelve years older than him. Mr Lanto, he remembers. It makes the conferences bearable. He must be cold, cunning, ruthless. He speaks into the microphone with a sharp growl that makes the speakers tremble. But under the table, one of his gloved hands is clasped over the other, drawing slow circles on his wrist in the parody of a grounding touch.

---

Helmut marries. His wife is sweet and kind, her skin smells like flowers. She wants to have two children. He wants to be a better man than his father.

But sometimes, it's not what you want, it's what you know.

And when his first child is born, a beautiful boy with his wife's eyes, he panics. Helmut leaves to rejoin the military and EKO Scorpion, goes back to the days where he can stop thinking, where there are only barked orders that he needed to follow. The innocent, starved flower within him had erupted into a raging inferno, an animalistic craving.

Helmut stays faithful. But when he returns from the civil war, he brings back a determination that has doubled. This time, he gives his son the love that his own father denied him. He makes sure that his precious boy would never have to seek out warmth in the arms of another older man.

---

Sokovia comes and goes.

---

Helmut is broken out of the Raft by a group called the Thunderbolts. John Walker has broad shoulders and hands that can crush a man's skull. He is attentive and instructional when he points at the map and lays out their plans of attack. He challenges and provokes, so much so that Helmut gets dizzy trying to keep up.

The moment he realizes is on one winter day- when John drapes an arm over his neck, and he could feel the warmth of the man burning at his side like a furnace. Helmut's breath hitches, but John doesn't seem to notice.

The boy in him rears his head for the first time in years, and Helmut thinks- oh god.

Interviewing Helmut Zemo, Prince of Sokovia

Written under the discord prompt: bird, peach, leave 🍑🦅🏃‍♂️

I had the great honour of interviewing - no, even being in the presence of Sokovia's Prince. He is rather fondly addressed as the Boy King by his fellow attendants, and Teufelchen (Little Devil) by his playmates.

There is not one person in America who has not heard about the great nation of Sokovia. The mammoth cereal brand Sok-Oats comes to mind, as well as Washington DC's obsessive mania over the gigantic feathery dreamcatchers that are infrequently gifted to them as a show of solidarity. I myself have one hung over the bed as a mantlepiece. However, this is not all.

Rather interestingly, Sokovia is one of the two remaining nations with a population of over 80% winged-folk. The other is a small island a few miles off to the north of Ireland, Jarthun Landon. Its size comparable to the Vatican City - the size of a pea compared to the likes of the USA.

Sokovia is a different story. Though less industrially developed than the USSR in 1917, it still resisted both the alluring grip of Communism and our very own Marshall Plan in the aftermath of the cold war, a near impossible undertaking. What resulted was a country ruled under a rather democratic-leaning monarchy (not nearly as tyrannical as old British imperialism).

Wilhelmina Zemo was a Queen who carved her name onto to the wall of fame in history, lying beside the likes of Germany's Otto von Bismarck, China's Sun Yat-Sen, and Britain's Winston Churchill. After taking the throne of Sokovia, she sent the country into a transition into statecraft (ie. strategies for securing national interest in the international arena). In eight years, she had built up a missile defence system modelled after Israel's Iron Dome.

However, the world was encountering another change. With a slippery launch into the 21st century, wings were starting to be seen as clunky, primitive contraptions rather than the sky-soaring, apex-predator tools as they once was. What was once regarded as a second limb for us had now become a burdensome weight, lead weights rather than a propellor. To quote the infamous poet Allen Duten, "Wings are the tools of destruction, of anarchy. They are unnatural. They represent elitism, classism, every antithesis to meritocracy. Would we turn those with chicken wings into poultry? Would we give a gun to every eagle-winged and tell them- 'off you go, this is what you were born for'?" Mr Duten's concerns were understandable, given that he himself had been born with the wings of a dodo bird.

Eons ago a kilometer square of air space could safely hold no more than twenty free-flying avian-folk. Now, it can hold three planes, and one plane can hold three hundred.

Additionally, after WW2's atrocities with Nazi Germany, it was understandable that eagle wings fell out of style as fast as the toothbrush moustache.

Wilhelmina's son, Heinrich, anticipated this change and prepared Sokovia for a long hibernation of isolationism. The monarchy was determined to preserve the avian-folk. While the rest of their world's wings grew small and brittle and shrank (suffering a fate similar to the tailbone), citizens of Sokovia preserved their original lifestyle and never underwent a similar change.

Currently, this country the size of Singapore, faces a slow population decline. Today, I will dive deep into the heart of Sokovia and figure out some of the most controversial questions involving this nation.

Heinrich's son, the sixteen year-old Helmut Zemo (aptly named after his grandmother - both their names translate roughly to helm or protection in Germanic) has reached out to me to hopefully answer some of those questions.

--------

As soon as arrive at Sokovia, I was escorted in a black military truck to the palace. Sokovia forbids all filming, so unfortunately no footage was captured.

A young man greets me. From the photos, I already knew what to expect - yet he still took me by surprise. He had no suit nor tie nor fur collar coat, nothing but a wide-brimmed hat and liquorice curls of amber-brown hair below that. Yet this young man had all the makings of a young royal - his eyes were nearly black in their intensity, and the catlike curl of his lips graced him with an enigmatic, inscrutable air. He gazes at me like observing an exotic creature, then steps to the side to converse with the guards in hushed whispers and minute gestures.

Of course the second thing I noticed about him were his wings. The Sokovian aristocracy was a long line of Eurasian magpies. And before this, I had never known that a magpie's feathers had that iridescent shimmer, now magnified to match the scale of a young adult, which shifted from purple to green to blue with every rustle and twitch. A joyful fluttering of the wings by the young prince revealed a stark white underside.

"Come with me," he says, and walks into the shade of the palace gardens, his feathers fading in their colour, a layer of vibrating black oil spilling over his shoulders and down to the back of his calves. It is times like this that I wonder whether we as a species were rather foolish to lose these magnificent gifts of nature.

"Did you enjoy the journey here?" The young prince asks me. His voice is clear and sweet, with the compelling style that is distinctively crafted for nobles and royalty. Faced with this gentle question, I felt a sudden urge to both reassure and impress him.

"I thoroughly did. Sokovia is even more beautiful than the pictures," I added, feeling rather pleased with my lie.

Much to my surprise, the young prince let out a silvery peal of laughter. "Nonsense. As soon as you came out of the airport, we stuffed you into a windowless shuttle bus for three hours. You must be tired."

He left me in the dust, completely bewildered. This was not the innocent cherub of a young prince that our media depicted him as.

"You're different from what the papers depicted," I told him dryly, feeling very foolish from stumbling into his trap.

The little prince slowed his pace and narrowed his eyes (although I spied a dangerous little smirk dancing on his lips). "Well, you're here to set the lies straight, aren't you?"

It was at this moment that the nickname Teufelchen started to make sense to me.