#adjustment protocol

Being from an affluent family in Philadelphia and growing up during Prohibition, Ben’s access to drugs and alcohol was significantly limited until he was in his teens and early twenties. The ‘memories’ he had of his youth were more like flashes of pictures like polaroids that manifested whenever he tried hard to recall anything past the age of 25. But from those memories, he could recall walking past his father’s study and seeing his old man with figures cloaked in shadow and charcoal suits and not long after, having shipments containing barrels of whiskey, and the occasional cask of wine for his mother.

He remembered begging his father to allow him to be involved in his business dealings, to mold him into the heir of the Rutherford steel mill empire. But, Ben had the misfortune of being sired by a cold-hearted and aloof man who was more interested in polo, drinking, gambling, and whores, than his one and only son. Who wouldn’t be fucked up by that kind of treatment, Ben thought. As his own little rebellion against his neglectful father, and complacent mother, Ben would sneak sips of his fathers drinks, often finishing them off once the old man had fallen asleep, usually still in his armchair. The bitter and burning was unpleasant in the first drinks he’d tried, but as his resentment grew, the less he noticed the burn—the more he missed it on nights when his father drank to the dregs.

That was Ben’s introduction into the world of mind altering substances, and his addiction to them.

It was only after enlisting in the second World War and becoming one of the first successful test subjects of Compound V, did Ben truly start drinking in excess and began dabbling in illicit substances. 

At first, it was just drinking, testing the waters of his newfound metabolism. When he discovered that alcohol only got him so faded, he sought out drugs, particularly weed and cocaine. Only once mixed all together, totalling enough grams and fluid ounces to kill an elephant, did Ben finally find that sweet high that had him forgetting his own name. And, like many drug addicts, he’d been chasing that high ever since. 

At first it was the rush of doing something that had, for so long, been forbidden; it was undoing all the strings from his straight-laced youth, indulging in all the taboos and vices that were now practically delivered to him on a silver platter. Booze, drugs, girls. All of it was practically spoon fed to him. Now, looking back, he could see and recognize that it was to keep him content, complacent and agreeable to everything they asked of him.

Then, it devolved from a novelty and indulgent luxury, to more of a necessity. Spurred by his fathers disapproval and downright dismissal following his homecoming at the end of the war, the vices became a crutch. That need for a crutch was only exacerbated by all the fucked up shit he and his team, Payback, did in the 70’s and early 80’s. Granted, not that he’d ever admit it to anyone, Ben wasn’t exactly refusing what was asked of him.

He’d already stood on an unstable foundation of prolific and habitual substance abuse, but then the final nail in the coffin was set: His team, the people he thought revered and loved him, betrayed him. What surprised him the most was the fact that Countess, who he loved and could have had a future with, had led the pack. And the shit cherry on top of the shit sundae? They’d turned him over to the Russians. What followed was decades and decades of ‘experimentation’, which was a fancy way of saying ‘torture. All of that created all the makings of a perfect storm that left Ben untrusting, hypervigilant and in a freefall as that unstable foundation crumbled to nothing. 

So when Butcher and his motley crew of would-be warriors released him, the first thing Ben had gone in search of once he got back to America, aside from clothes and a hot shower, was to get fucked up. 

He’d been on his way to The Legends’, ready to get a nose full of cocaine when he’d had his first bout of what they now called PTSD. Back in his day, they just called it shellshock. They slapped probes onto your noggin and zapped you until you felt better, gave you some Valium and sent you on your way. Ben much preferred that method, sans the electroshock therapy, to the psychologists and the chaise lounges and the talking about his feelings. But the episodes, they kept on coming.

There were ups and downs, like anything. But the downs never ended well. What pissed him off the most was that despite his best efforts to avoid what he could tell triggered the episodes, there were still times where the oppressive feeling of doom and panic became too much, overriding his system. 

But, on the bright side, he had passed the phase of blacking out and shooting beams of radioactive energy from the nuclear core in his chest every time the feeling came over him. Instead, he found himself on the verge of tears, and in cases even rarer, letting them fall while he sat alone and not daring to make a sound. 

Morning light filtered through the curtains, bathing the room in a warm glow. Ben felt Odessa’s sleeping form beside him, one constant he’d let into this new life he’d carved out for himself. Warmth radiated from her through the sheets; her light and even breathing was the first thing he always checked for, along with her equally steady heartbeat. 

But something was off, but not with her—in his head. A heavy, peculiar feeling settled over him as he fully came to consciousness. So it’s gonna be one of those mornings. 

Frustration joined the cocktail of unpleasant and unwanted sensations already flooding over him, weighing heavy. The full body ache, the nearly unquenchable need to punch something. Ben tried to ignore it, push through it. He tried to focus in on the sounds of Odessa sleeping beside him, taking in and blowing out slow breaths, honing in on the room around him. Odessa had tried to explain to him the concept, calling it ‘grounding’. She’d tried to teach him some methods to try and cut back on the drug use. Sometimes it worked. But the majority of the time he ended up seeking the familiar buzz of a stimulant, sniffing it up his nose. 

The urge to slap himself upside the head grew as he mused how pathetic he was, the fact that he needed to get high to deal with his feelings. Men aren’t supposed to have feelings. That was his father talking. A haze had bullied and pushed out every coherent thought, replacing it with the stubborn fog that made it a conscious effort to just think. 

When he was able to let thoughts slip through, they were the things he’d rather not think about. The utter loss of control as Mindstorm kept him busy, the smell of charred flesh as Countess’ fireballs singed his hair and parts of his skin. The mask the Russians had strapped to his head, forcing sterile smelling chemicals into his lungs to keep him asleep when they weren’t testing him.  The cold metal barrel of an AK-47, tasting sharp as they rested it against his tongue firing bullets down his gullet. The even sharper, sour like bile before you throw up, taste of fear every time they tried something new. Despite all of that, the sensation that stuck the most, was the empty, unavoidable void of not knowing what came next.

Ben’s entire body trembled, his hands clenching into fists. A hot, silent, tear slipped down his cheek, and before he could stop them, more followed. Eyes fixed on the ceiling, Ben followed the endless track of the fan, spiraling again and again. His cheeks quickly grew damp, the tears soaking into his beard and traveled down his neck in a way that made his hair stand on end. It was a foreign feeling, to cry. Tears had practically been forbidden, and for the longest time, Ben wasn’t sure he was even physically capable of crying. The Russians had proved that theory to be incorrect.

Ben eased out of bed, shrugging on the lightweight robe he kept on a hook mounted on the nightstand. He swiped angrily at the residual tears with his knuckles, wanting the physical evidence of his inner turmoil to be gone. The ghost of his father’s rough voice rang out through the steady stream of his thoughts downward spiral. The disapproval Ben just knew his father would harbor, joining the rest of his self loathing, each thought floating past slow enough for it to sting but moving on just as fast to let the next one in. 

And like a broken record, the cycle just restarted and he couldn’t stop it. It was maddening.

As soon as the reefer and coke were in his grasp, Ben made his way outside onto the balcony, grasping tightly to the frigid railing. The early morning air pulled pinpricks onto his bare skin, fog still clinging to the high-rise buildings. He took a deep, shuddering breath, pulling the chill into his body, feeling the ‘now’. From below, the streets were already busy as the inhabitants of Midtown mulled about like ants on their way to work.

An ache bloomed in his chest, a longing sense of grief as he observed the monotony of Thursday morning. A lifetime ago, he would have been down there, going to work or oversee the steel mills. After, he would have gone for drinks with the men he worked with, who he would have considered brothers. 

It seemed like all the people around him had their groups. Odessa, while often staying home, still went out clubbing, which was an activity Ben had little interest in taking part of. She had her few friends, including a few of the Supes on Billy Butcher's team. The Brit himself had his own makeshift brotherhood of misfits and outcasts. And, depressingly enough, that was where the list of Ben's contacts ended. All of his “friends” were either dead or had their own families and friends that they deemed more important than him. 

That part of the world hadn't changed since he was a boy. Society still revolved around brotherhood and connections. Sure, he was still the infamous Soldier Boy, which granted him and Odessa access to high profile events and parties, but there was no real connection. He thought he was used to the two-faced behavior, growing up amongst socialites and deal-making men, but technology and the tabloids only exacerbated the issue.

Fuck, I need to get high

The first drag off of his blunt filled his lungs, and not two seconds later a sense of calm and ease replaced the melancholy and the unsettled anxiety. A line of coke followed, coating the insides of his nose and further wiped his mind clean of all the things he'd rather not think about or feel. A satisfied groan escaped his lips as Ben slumped into one of the lounge chairs situated on the balcony, facing the sunrise. His eyes fell closed, though, as he took another long drag off the blunt.

Not long after Ben had finished off the 3rd roll, the rustling of sheets from inside cued him into Odessa waking up. He listened to her roll out of bed, the soft tapping of her bare feet as she walked through the apartment.

“D’you save some f’me?” Odessa stepped through the open sliding glass door and outside beside him. 

She didn’t give Ben a chance to answer before she plopped herself down, sitting sideways on his lap. Odessa plucked the reefer from between his fore-finger and thumb, inhaling the weed deeply. 

“Well good morning to you too.” Ben greeted, adjusting his position to better accommodate her perching on his lap. 

He wrapped a steadying arm around her waist. Odessa’s body, still warm from sleep, helped stave off the chill. It was a comforting weight centering him to the now. She had thrown on the matching dressing gown that she’d bought them not long after moving in together. The silken material was smooth under his fingers as he trailed them up and down her sides. It was silent, both of them trading the reefer between them until only the roach was left. It was only then did Odessa finally speak again.

“Was surprised when I woke up and you weren’t there.” Her voice was soft from where her head was tucked between his jaw and his shoulder. 

“Couldn’t fall back asleep.” 

“Should’a woken me up then.” Odessa murmured as she pressed a kiss to the side of his neck. 

“Dess.” Ben whispered, his hand on her waist tightening. 

On a normal day, to anyone else, that combination would have been a green light. But as soon as her nickname slipped off his lips in a less than enthusiastic plea to halt, Odessa ceased her motions, pulling back from where she’d been pressed up against his torso in order to look at him better. There was no pity in the way Odessa took him in, but the amount of understanding in her gaze wasn’t much better. Ben had accepted long ago that he would have and still do anything in order for her to not have the level of understanding of his situation as she did. 

Despite that understanding, Ben still had to resist the urge to squirm under her questioning and analyzing eyes. He was trying not to shut her out. Really, he was. And her patience equal parts confused, frustrated, and placated him. It was a hell of a mix to swallow and digest. 

“Ben-”

“Can we just sit here and enjoy a fucking moment?” Ben cringed as soon as the harsh words came out.

“Excuse the fuck out of you.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Ben relented, sighing as he dragged a hand down his face, shame creeping in.

Truly he hadn't meant to snap at her. It was like every little thing set him off, and there was no way of telling what it was going to be or when, and her prying was just not gonna fly. Slowly, but surely, he was patching things up, becoming open to talking about these things; the things named and unnamed that felt wrong to address both to himself and out loud. It felt especially wrong to tell her about them, old habits and customs beaten into him were harder to unlearn. 

Soon, he would patch himself up enough to talk about it more. But for right now, what he needed was some goddamn peace.

“Not right now, Dess. I-” Again, the emotions threatened to overflow into tears despite the drugs  he’d ingested to prevent this from happening. Ben swallowed them back, clearing his throat before continuing. “I can't right now. I don't even know what's going on to tell you anything.”

She was silent, and that look on her face never ceased. That understanding, that x-ray vision that saw beyond the mask he was trying so hard to take off. Soft, safe. He’d never known safe but with her, he’d learn

“But someday?” Odessa said quietly, running her knuckles down his cheek.

Ben nodded, tucking her back against him.