Abomination - Rehabilitation
Since canon gives very little about what happens to Blonsky after the 2008 Incredible Hulk movie aside from being caged by Ross, I've written a series of scenes which happen from the time he's under Ross's thumb, to the point just before the Avengers movie where he's sent back on the trail of Bruce Banner.
Abomination's Rehabilitation
Blonsky never learned of the Avengers initiative while he was in the care of one General Thaddeus Ross. Instead, he'd been tightly tied down to a table and kept in a catatonic state through liberal use of an IV and powerful medications that were sometimes experimental. A heart monitor beeped next to him, day after day, and this continued for nearly a month. He'd been vaguely aware of shapes moving around him ever since he'd woken in that drugged stupor after the attack on Harlem, but not much else could process. There had been a couple near-incidents, perhaps a dose had been weak, or a drug had not performed as expected, but he'd felt that new power he craved bubble up.
The infuriating sound of his own heart rate helped drive those moments, the tinny beeping irritating him to the point where he could drag that part of him from its lethargy, but never before a team of fastidious doctors came rushing in and sent him reeling back into hazy non-awareness.
Then something had changed. SHIELD had failed to acquire him as an asset and Ross had finally lost the fight to keep Blonsky under his thumb. The voices around him started to change, and he slowly became more aware of his surroundings. At one point, he could barely understand but knew he was leaving. There was a moment, a blessed moment where he felt what he could only assume was the sun on his face before he recognized the drone of a large aircraft. That was a sound he knew so instinctively he didn't need to be coherent in order to know what was happening. He was being moved. He had no idea where, but another two weeks later and he was finally understanding what had happened.
The British had won their fight for his return and now he was home, in what remote little corner of the country they could find to keep him while they began to wake him up. Each day was a little more clear and there was someone talking to him, addressing him, trying to get some reaction. One day, he finally did. He reacted. In fact he reached out, grabbed the doctor by the neck and hurled them across the room before attempting to fully free himself. That fight was quickly tempered by a heavy dose of sedatives, but he still smiled cruelly as he watched a stretcher take out his groaning victim before he truly slipped into oblivion for a while.
The next time the doctors had let him wake up, had turned into a near catastrophe. They thought perhaps letting him slowly wake up had been a mistake and instead let the sedatives wear off naturally and allowed him to wake up fully aware of his surroundings. Instead of a coherent soldier, they'd been greeted with a raging monster, and the Abomination had made an appearance before finally being subdued. Luck had played a large part since he didn't get a chance to remove his IVs before the emergency procedures kicked in. A potent cocktail of a serum recovered from America, Bruce Banner's attempt at a cure, and again, more sedatives saved many lives that day.
Blonsky's recovery later that day into a dazed but vaguely coherent state left him shouting nonsense at anyone that passed by. It was an off-handed comment by one of the security staff actually, that sparked a conversation among the doctors concerning Blonsky's treatment and recovery. A remark had been overheard that he looked and acted much like an addict, and perhaps that might be the way to treat him. He'd been a relatively stable, if cold individual before the entire situation over in America had changed him into a monster. Perhaps a certain level of addiction to whatever chemistry was present in his body was keeping him in a dangerously enraged state.
It was a very risky and sometimes perilous game of maintaining his conscious state to one where he was coherent enough to respond intelligently, and yet not respond with violence. The scales finally tipped in their favor when they received a visit from one of his former teachers, a high ranking official who had been an instrumental figure in his training back when he was a new member of the Royal Marines. Blonsky had responded almost immediately to the visit, he wasn't perfectly behaved but his etiquette had improved considerably, and he complied with his orders. Those orders included working with the doctors to get him back on his feet, and returning him to active duty. That incentive seemed to have the effect of giving him a purpose. He nodded, and for the rest of the day he was generally more cooperative than usual. There were a few relapses in behavior, but soon enough there was serious contemplation to removing his IVs and allowing him to move about the room.
He was far less irritable, and both treatments and therapy had been showing positive results. The day the green light was given to allow him to get up and move about the room was a tense one as everyone was on guard for the worst case. He was sore as he sat up, nursing wrists that had chaffed under his restraints for so long as he looked around calmly, noting the tense air about the room as both guards and doctors watched him carefully. He studied each of them in turn, letting the silence about the room hang thick as the color drained from a few faces.
“Thank you.” His voice croaked as he uttered those two simple words and while the tension didn't abate much, everyone seemed to let out a breath of relief. For the first time in a long time, he was starting to think clearly again. He felt more whole in body and mind than he had in what seemed like years. He could pinpoint the start of that spiral back to the first injections, but for the time was trying to ignore most of that period. He'd been consumed by rage and madness, and privately he chastised himself for being so easy to lose control. Up to that point he'd been the epicenter of calm in every conflict, perfectly calculating and rational even when hell itself was descending on him with no backup because he'd been sent in alone.
He tolerated the lessons in self-control and meditation exercises they put him through, if only because he knew they couldn't understand he was back in control, that his past experiences in theater had taught him to temper his rage and analyze a situation before it spiraled out of control. Ross had been too eager to offer Blonsky a new lease in his career, and Blonsky, still star-struck by the awesomeness of Banner's monster, had agreed without completely understanding the true implications of the decision. It'd be a lie to say he was no longer obsessed with that power, but he used the sessions to work on channeling it in his own ways, turning it toward productive ends. Ends that one day might allow him to see the light of day again, and return to doing what he did best. He was a lifelong Marine, and in the very end what he wanted most was to go back to work. He knew his value as a soldier, and knew it had only increased since he became truly one of a kind.
Every new step was a tense one, the first day he was allowed to weight train again it hardly seemed worthwhile, but it did allow him to vent many of his frustrations. Stepping outside had been an unpleasant first, surrounded by his peers pointing weapons at him, and literally collared as the sun hurt his eyes. After a time though, he was eventually given more and more freedoms. The day they began discussing a re-evaluation of his ability to qualify for the Royal Marines he'd smiled, truly smiled. Being allowed access to weapons however, turned out to be a greater challenge than allowing him those first steps outside the facility door. Eventually, he re-qualified for his position and it seemed that he might finally have a chance to return to his past life.
They set him up with a new team, babysitters really, to train and prepare for a return to the field. It seemed everyone was content to acknowledge the real reason he was even given a team, and they were at least intelligent enough to give him his space to complete his objectives without putting them on edge and wondering if he was going to lose control.
It was a simple, stupid accident that nearly put him back in chains. They had just finished making a practice run for a raid and were piling back into their vehicle when one of the soldiers accidentally closed the door on Blonsky's hand. No one realized until they noticed he was taking a deep breath before looking up at the one who had closed his hand in the door. He barely managed to keep his voice calm, a slight snarl creeping into it as he asked for the door to be opened. Immediately his hand was freed and he shook it out, flexing the fingers and looking for any damage. It was while he was nursing the quickly abating bruise that he noticed the entire vehicle was deadly silent and everyone was watching him, ready to make a quick exit. His face split into a smile, that old predatory look he got when he realized he was putting people on edge, but then he laughed, dismissing the incident as an accident. He never saw that soldier on site again, and it was probably for the better.
If anything that incident seened to have improved the general opinion of his self control, and soon he was being flown off to distant locations. Reasonably, his missions started off simple; low risk situations which would test his reaction to gradually increasing levels of stress. He excelled, of course, and soon was being sent into more difficult locations, situations that were more demanding on his new skillset. At long last, they were content to send him out with little more than a tracking beacon, enough ammunition and food for the mission, and a situation where only someone of his inhuman abilities could succeed. They taxed him, pushed him to the brink, but did their best not to give him a reason to change. Even he understood the consequences, that his hard-fought freedoms would instantly be revoked and he'd have to rebuild from whatever ashes were left after the Abomination had finished.
That wasn't to say he didn't find himself tapping into the power, but every time he did, he recognized that it was a slippery slope if he let himself go too far. It was like taking one hit, and then struggling to find the discipline to stop before he took another, and another, until he completely lost control.
There was one mission later on which went terribly wrong, and it had nearly ended in a relapse as he found himself tearing through the location like a madman, taking down anything that moved. He'd come with a team this time, the threat level high enough where he had even considered asking for the backup until it had been voluntarily offered. An old face, one of his handlers from the earlier missions was along and when Blonsky found himself staring down the soldier's barrel, a tranquilizer loaded, he knew he had a choice at that moment to lash out and lose everything, or step down. He'd been breathing hard and could feel the monster fighting its way out. A few gasping breaths and he'd let the rest of the team take over the mission. He was on edge the whole way back home, as were the rest of his team but he didn't betray the real struggle until he'd returned to his barrack, a lone building that was little more than a modified camping trailer where he could be isolated. Just trying to regain control, he'd nearly triggered the restraining mechanisms which would have lowered the small mobile building into a bunker below.
Two weeks later they wanted to give him leave since there weren't any pressing missions coming up, thinking he could use a chance to calm down and he took it without argument. Any refusal would only concern them, but it was while he had been packing his rucksack that there had come a knock on his door. A sealed mission brief was presented to him and he eyed the American agent warily as he opened it on the only small table in the cramped space. What spilled out onto the surface was a face he hadn't seen in a long time, and with it came a rush of memories and adrenaline. He felt that excited spike in his heart as he looked back up at the visitor. Was this for real, or was it a test? He couldn't tell as he picked up the mission details and gave them a quiet survey before finding his voice. It was gravely and low as he narrowed his eyes at a recent picture of Bruce Banner.
“Are you certain this is a good idea?” He raised an eyebrow at the agent before looking back down at the profile again. He wanted to take on Banner again, the drive was so strong that he could taste it as he ran his tongue along the front of his teeth.
“Your people tell us that up until recently you've had a clean record, it's been over two years now. We were going to recruit you for this when you came back, but we thought we might give you a little time to cool off first.” Blonsky tilted his head as he picked up Banner's picture. Specific details of Harlem were vague, but muscle memory left him tense with the power of the monster.
“It's a bit of a risk, don't you think?” He looked up again, forcing down the excited lump in his throat as he maintained a studied look of calm he'd perfected over those two years.
“A calculated risk. People are impressed you've gone this long without an incident. Even Banner couldn't manage that. They think you can handle this.” There was a notable pause as the agent raised an eyebrow. “Can you?” Blonsky couldn't help the cruel smile that crept onto his face as the question was asked.
“Yes, sir.”
Abomination's Rehabilitation
Blonsky never learned of the Avengers initiative while he was in the care of one General Thaddeus Ross. Instead, he'd been tightly tied down to a table and kept in a catatonic state through liberal use of an IV and powerful medications that were sometimes experimental. A heart monitor beeped next to him, day after day, and this continued for nearly a month. He'd been vaguely aware of shapes moving around him ever since he'd woken in that drugged stupor after the attack on Harlem, but not much else could process. There had been a couple near-incidents, perhaps a dose had been weak, or a drug had not performed as expected, but he'd felt that new power he craved bubble up.
The infuriating sound of his own heart rate helped drive those moments, the tinny beeping irritating him to the point where he could drag that part of him from its lethargy, but never before a team of fastidious doctors came rushing in and sent him reeling back into hazy non-awareness.
Then something had changed. SHIELD had failed to acquire him as an asset and Ross had finally lost the fight to keep Blonsky under his thumb. The voices around him started to change, and he slowly became more aware of his surroundings. At one point, he could barely understand but knew he was leaving. There was a moment, a blessed moment where he felt what he could only assume was the sun on his face before he recognized the drone of a large aircraft. That was a sound he knew so instinctively he didn't need to be coherent in order to know what was happening. He was being moved. He had no idea where, but another two weeks later and he was finally understanding what had happened.
The British had won their fight for his return and now he was home, in what remote little corner of the country they could find to keep him while they began to wake him up. Each day was a little more clear and there was someone talking to him, addressing him, trying to get some reaction. One day, he finally did. He reacted. In fact he reached out, grabbed the doctor by the neck and hurled them across the room before attempting to fully free himself. That fight was quickly tempered by a heavy dose of sedatives, but he still smiled cruelly as he watched a stretcher take out his groaning victim before he truly slipped into oblivion for a while.
The next time the doctors had let him wake up, had turned into a near catastrophe. They thought perhaps letting him slowly wake up had been a mistake and instead let the sedatives wear off naturally and allowed him to wake up fully aware of his surroundings. Instead of a coherent soldier, they'd been greeted with a raging monster, and the Abomination had made an appearance before finally being subdued. Luck had played a large part since he didn't get a chance to remove his IVs before the emergency procedures kicked in. A potent cocktail of a serum recovered from America, Bruce Banner's attempt at a cure, and again, more sedatives saved many lives that day.
Blonsky's recovery later that day into a dazed but vaguely coherent state left him shouting nonsense at anyone that passed by. It was an off-handed comment by one of the security staff actually, that sparked a conversation among the doctors concerning Blonsky's treatment and recovery. A remark had been overheard that he looked and acted much like an addict, and perhaps that might be the way to treat him. He'd been a relatively stable, if cold individual before the entire situation over in America had changed him into a monster. Perhaps a certain level of addiction to whatever chemistry was present in his body was keeping him in a dangerously enraged state.
It was a very risky and sometimes perilous game of maintaining his conscious state to one where he was coherent enough to respond intelligently, and yet not respond with violence. The scales finally tipped in their favor when they received a visit from one of his former teachers, a high ranking official who had been an instrumental figure in his training back when he was a new member of the Royal Marines. Blonsky had responded almost immediately to the visit, he wasn't perfectly behaved but his etiquette had improved considerably, and he complied with his orders. Those orders included working with the doctors to get him back on his feet, and returning him to active duty. That incentive seemed to have the effect of giving him a purpose. He nodded, and for the rest of the day he was generally more cooperative than usual. There were a few relapses in behavior, but soon enough there was serious contemplation to removing his IVs and allowing him to move about the room.
He was far less irritable, and both treatments and therapy had been showing positive results. The day the green light was given to allow him to get up and move about the room was a tense one as everyone was on guard for the worst case. He was sore as he sat up, nursing wrists that had chaffed under his restraints for so long as he looked around calmly, noting the tense air about the room as both guards and doctors watched him carefully. He studied each of them in turn, letting the silence about the room hang thick as the color drained from a few faces.
“Thank you.” His voice croaked as he uttered those two simple words and while the tension didn't abate much, everyone seemed to let out a breath of relief. For the first time in a long time, he was starting to think clearly again. He felt more whole in body and mind than he had in what seemed like years. He could pinpoint the start of that spiral back to the first injections, but for the time was trying to ignore most of that period. He'd been consumed by rage and madness, and privately he chastised himself for being so easy to lose control. Up to that point he'd been the epicenter of calm in every conflict, perfectly calculating and rational even when hell itself was descending on him with no backup because he'd been sent in alone.
He tolerated the lessons in self-control and meditation exercises they put him through, if only because he knew they couldn't understand he was back in control, that his past experiences in theater had taught him to temper his rage and analyze a situation before it spiraled out of control. Ross had been too eager to offer Blonsky a new lease in his career, and Blonsky, still star-struck by the awesomeness of Banner's monster, had agreed without completely understanding the true implications of the decision. It'd be a lie to say he was no longer obsessed with that power, but he used the sessions to work on channeling it in his own ways, turning it toward productive ends. Ends that one day might allow him to see the light of day again, and return to doing what he did best. He was a lifelong Marine, and in the very end what he wanted most was to go back to work. He knew his value as a soldier, and knew it had only increased since he became truly one of a kind.
Every new step was a tense one, the first day he was allowed to weight train again it hardly seemed worthwhile, but it did allow him to vent many of his frustrations. Stepping outside had been an unpleasant first, surrounded by his peers pointing weapons at him, and literally collared as the sun hurt his eyes. After a time though, he was eventually given more and more freedoms. The day they began discussing a re-evaluation of his ability to qualify for the Royal Marines he'd smiled, truly smiled. Being allowed access to weapons however, turned out to be a greater challenge than allowing him those first steps outside the facility door. Eventually, he re-qualified for his position and it seemed that he might finally have a chance to return to his past life.
They set him up with a new team, babysitters really, to train and prepare for a return to the field. It seemed everyone was content to acknowledge the real reason he was even given a team, and they were at least intelligent enough to give him his space to complete his objectives without putting them on edge and wondering if he was going to lose control.
It was a simple, stupid accident that nearly put him back in chains. They had just finished making a practice run for a raid and were piling back into their vehicle when one of the soldiers accidentally closed the door on Blonsky's hand. No one realized until they noticed he was taking a deep breath before looking up at the one who had closed his hand in the door. He barely managed to keep his voice calm, a slight snarl creeping into it as he asked for the door to be opened. Immediately his hand was freed and he shook it out, flexing the fingers and looking for any damage. It was while he was nursing the quickly abating bruise that he noticed the entire vehicle was deadly silent and everyone was watching him, ready to make a quick exit. His face split into a smile, that old predatory look he got when he realized he was putting people on edge, but then he laughed, dismissing the incident as an accident. He never saw that soldier on site again, and it was probably for the better.
If anything that incident seened to have improved the general opinion of his self control, and soon he was being flown off to distant locations. Reasonably, his missions started off simple; low risk situations which would test his reaction to gradually increasing levels of stress. He excelled, of course, and soon was being sent into more difficult locations, situations that were more demanding on his new skillset. At long last, they were content to send him out with little more than a tracking beacon, enough ammunition and food for the mission, and a situation where only someone of his inhuman abilities could succeed. They taxed him, pushed him to the brink, but did their best not to give him a reason to change. Even he understood the consequences, that his hard-fought freedoms would instantly be revoked and he'd have to rebuild from whatever ashes were left after the Abomination had finished.
That wasn't to say he didn't find himself tapping into the power, but every time he did, he recognized that it was a slippery slope if he let himself go too far. It was like taking one hit, and then struggling to find the discipline to stop before he took another, and another, until he completely lost control.
There was one mission later on which went terribly wrong, and it had nearly ended in a relapse as he found himself tearing through the location like a madman, taking down anything that moved. He'd come with a team this time, the threat level high enough where he had even considered asking for the backup until it had been voluntarily offered. An old face, one of his handlers from the earlier missions was along and when Blonsky found himself staring down the soldier's barrel, a tranquilizer loaded, he knew he had a choice at that moment to lash out and lose everything, or step down. He'd been breathing hard and could feel the monster fighting its way out. A few gasping breaths and he'd let the rest of the team take over the mission. He was on edge the whole way back home, as were the rest of his team but he didn't betray the real struggle until he'd returned to his barrack, a lone building that was little more than a modified camping trailer where he could be isolated. Just trying to regain control, he'd nearly triggered the restraining mechanisms which would have lowered the small mobile building into a bunker below.
Two weeks later they wanted to give him leave since there weren't any pressing missions coming up, thinking he could use a chance to calm down and he took it without argument. Any refusal would only concern them, but it was while he had been packing his rucksack that there had come a knock on his door. A sealed mission brief was presented to him and he eyed the American agent warily as he opened it on the only small table in the cramped space. What spilled out onto the surface was a face he hadn't seen in a long time, and with it came a rush of memories and adrenaline. He felt that excited spike in his heart as he looked back up at the visitor. Was this for real, or was it a test? He couldn't tell as he picked up the mission details and gave them a quiet survey before finding his voice. It was gravely and low as he narrowed his eyes at a recent picture of Bruce Banner.
“Are you certain this is a good idea?” He raised an eyebrow at the agent before looking back down at the profile again. He wanted to take on Banner again, the drive was so strong that he could taste it as he ran his tongue along the front of his teeth.
“Your people tell us that up until recently you've had a clean record, it's been over two years now. We were going to recruit you for this when you came back, but we thought we might give you a little time to cool off first.” Blonsky tilted his head as he picked up Banner's picture. Specific details of Harlem were vague, but muscle memory left him tense with the power of the monster.
“It's a bit of a risk, don't you think?” He looked up again, forcing down the excited lump in his throat as he maintained a studied look of calm he'd perfected over those two years.
“A calculated risk. People are impressed you've gone this long without an incident. Even Banner couldn't manage that. They think you can handle this.” There was a notable pause as the agent raised an eyebrow. “Can you?” Blonsky couldn't help the cruel smile that crept onto his face as the question was asked.
“Yes, sir.”