Syncretik wrote: ↑Thu Jul 06, 2017 5:49 pm
'Ronan was born in England to two geneticists, Aurelie and Alexander. Life was good in these early years; even though his parents were extremely dedicated to their work, they always managed to find the time to show him how much they loved him.
Not long after he turned 8, his parents were head-hunted for a new cutting-edge research project in Switzerland; there was never really any question in their minds, the bleeding-edge was where they thrived. Even though it meant leaving all of his friends behind, the transition was a fairly smooth one for Ronan, he was still young enough to be fairly mutable, and Romandy was his mother's place
of birth - he'd grown up learning to speak French just as well as English. Things quickly settled back into a happy rhythm, with Ronan spending many a day dreaming about growing up to lead the UN, bringing the world together, united in peace and prosperity.
No project lasts forever, and his parents eventually ended up back doing more "mundane" work. Then, in Ronan's 14th year, a new opportunity presented itself, this time in the 'States. This transition was a little rougher, he was older, for one, and the US featured a number of strange concepts like legally restricted road crossing, armed police, and some genius in American history who decided it would be a great idea for inner and outer legwear to have the same name. Sooner or later things settled down, as they always do; friends were made, time moved on. Then, stumbling back home in the middle of the night from a friend's 18th, HYDRA took him. In his alcohol-fogged state it barely even registered. He never found out what HYDRA was doing in that alley; whether the attack was simple opportunism, or whether he was specifically targeted for some reason. Under the gentle ministrations of HYDRA, such questions quickly became irrelevant; beatings, electrocution, injections, surgery - all became commonplace as the HYDRA scientists tried anything and everything to imprint the power of the Tesseract into him. The brief interludes when he was allowed to sleep, and attempt to patch himself up, took on an almost reverential aspect in his perspective; sleep a blessed relief, bandaging his injuries an almost meditative process.
Suddenly, several months later, something finally "took". There was a bright flash, blinding pain, and then nothing. He eventually regained consciousness to the sound of alarms, and the somewhat panicked movement of what must of been most of the base's personnel. Later he learned that the moment of annealment had released a burst of energy sufficient to reduce a 30ft. sphere of the base to nothing but dust, with the final damage toll being much greater, as the sections of the base nearest the blast collapsed due to structural instability.
Despite the destruction, the surviving HYDRA scientists were ecstatic that they had finally succeeded at their goal, and a new training program was quickly implemented in order to determine the extent of his new capabilities. The excitement was short-lived, however, as the scientist quickly found themselves unable to deduce the cause of the success; many of his fellow prisoners were used and discarded in the following months, as their ever-more frustrated efforts to solve the riddle took their toll. As for his powers, whilst he was never again able to reproduce the level of energy he output during his first moments of power, they soon discovered that energy projection was just one of his new abilities; flight, teleportation, and telekinesis all featured, and, incredibly, he even appeared to be able to create matter out of thin air, although they later figured out he was actually performing some kind of controlled energy to matter conversion process - a no less incredible feat.
This all went on for many more months, until one day he found himself awake in a way he had been in a very long time. He didn't know what was happening, but their was a strong undercurrent of fear in the air; in their state of panic, it seemed someone had given him an insufficient dose of the drugs they used to keep him docile. The drugs were strong, so it still wasn't enough to let him use his powers, but now he was aware and alert; just waiting for an opportunity to finally free himself. The opportunity came the very next day - as he was being escorted back from the containment facility where he was tested, the supervising doctor completely forgot to administer the drug cocktail, too distracted by whatever new crisis had arisen from the crumbling edifice that HYDRA had become in the aftermath of the [Winter Soldier] events. Trying as hard as he could to act dopey, he let himself be led back to his cell, and waited for the guards to leave, then gathered his power and unleashed it at the wall of his cell. The effect was like introducing an avalanche to a sheet of wet paper - the destruction was total. Stunned by the force of the blast, Ronan looked around dully, and noticed the last surviving test subject - James? - lying in the debris, unconscious or dead, he couldn't tell. He never stopped to find out either, as at that moment, an entire platoon of soldiers came charging around the corner. He blasted the fist few guards, and then the ceiling above, and then ran, never looking back. He kept right on running until he collapsed from exhaustion.
The SHIELD squad sent to investigate the base found him a few miles from the away, and recognizing him as a HYDRA prisoner from the garb he wore, took him in for rehabilitation and questioning. During this process several strange anomalies that occurred in his vicinity led them to suspect that he might be something more than just another test subject. They brought Doctor Jennifer Hunter in to investigate. A trained doctor and psychologist, as well as a SHIELD agent, she was the ideal person to both help Ronan re-adjust, and find out who, or what, he really was. It took her a long time, but eventually she broke through to him, and found out what had really been going on in that facility. After a great deal more time, he even let her take blood and skin samples, and gave her a small demonstration of his powers (all of which was part of the Index-ing process, although she was forbidden from disclosing that information, for fear of how he would react).
Some time later he was finally cleared for release, and by his request, brought back to his parents. They were, of course, ebullient, having assumed him dead; there had even been a funeral. With the help of SHIELD, his return was kept relatively quiet, and, once again happy in a way he'd forgotten was even possible, Ronan set about attempting to assemble something resembling a normal life. To that end, he got himself a place at Harvard, studying theoretical physics; now that his mind was no longer flooded by drugs and pain, his scientific interest had resurfaced, along with a driving curiosity about the nature of his powers.
Over the next six years, he completed both his degree, and then a doctorate, through all of which he never stopped seeing Doctor Hunter, her skill as a councillor proving invaluable in helping him deal with the long term consequences of his imprisonment. Eventually, not long after he received his Ph.D., she gently suggested to him that they had gone about as far as they could with conventional counselling methods, and he were to ever put aside his past, it might be helpful to actively use them to help people, replacing the trauma they were tied up in with much more pleasant associations. Ronan was distinctly unsure about this proposal, given the potential consequences of revealing himself to the world, both with regards to the public/media, and any stray HYDRA agents that might still be lurking around. After a couple of months pondering the idea, the decision was abruptly taken from him – out on a run one day he passed a building on fire, initially he paid it little attention, the fire brigade was already present and appeared to be handling the situation. Suddenly he noticed a lump of burning debris about to fall on a pair of foolish onlookers who had got to close. Instinctively he thrust out a hand to save them, materializing a protective dome over them as he did so. Quickly remembering where he was, Ronan turned his head away from the crowd and hurried off, but more than one person had seen his reaction, and it didn't take a genius to put two and two together. For better or worse he had been “outed”.'
*****
I've left the ending blank for the time being, I didn't know whether you'd prefer if he was drawn into the new team via Doctor Hunter (and thus has not yet revealed himself/his powers to the world at large), or if you'd prefer him to be brought back to SHIELD's attention via the sort of incident previously discussed.