Oh yeah, and @Morden Man, I wrote certain bits of my DD to counter yours. It's really what got me going back on DD, and I'd hate to see your run fizzle out.
Captain Nathaniel "Nate" Adam, known to the public as "Captain Atom"
| Origin & Backstory |
Nathaniel “Nate” Adam was born in Sedalia, Missouri in 1979 into a household of devout Southern Baptists. His mother passed away shortly after he was born and his father, Allen Adam, found God as a means to deal with his grief and remarried shortly afterwards. By the time he was old enough to think, it was clear that the answers the church provided Nate weren’t enough to satisfy him. There was more out there and he knew it. The answers lay out amongst the stars and he was determined to find them one day. Allen Adam had other ideas: he wanted Nate to follow him into the family business, trucking, and as far as he was concerned there was to be no debate about it. Nate’s grandfather had worked his fingers to the bone and risen up from a lowly truck driver to own his own depot in Sedalia and Nate’s father had followed after him. It was only right that Nate would do the same.
So Nate eschewed his dreams of a life outside of sleepy Sedalia and woke up early each morning, packed his and his father’s lunch, and endured the long drives to the depot with only songs of worship on the radio to pass the time. He was miserable, but it seemed to make his father happy, and that was all that mattered. Duty always came first with Nate, even from an early age, so there was no question of leaving home or running away. He would sit through the silent meals around the dinner table with his father, step-mother, and his step-siblings until he was old enough to get a home of his own, presumably also in Sedalia, and take over the trucking business once his father was too old to run it himself. The stars would remain distant and unattainable, whizzing past his window as if a constant reminder of what he was missing out on.
Or at least that’s what he thought would happen. One night he woke in the middle of the night to his father sat at the foot of his bed. He smelled of alcohol. Nate had never known his father to drink before, he’d even heard him speak of the dangers of alcohol at length over the years, but here was sat reeking of it. In his hands was a picture of Nate’s mother, the only one he ever kept, and he spoke aloud to it as if Nate could not hear him. Nate wasn’t sure whether his father knew he was awake or not and so laid perfectly still. He had let her down, Allen muttered, and he had let their son down by stifling his dreams and keeping him in Sedalia, keeping him close, for fear of losing him as he had lost her fifteen years ago. It was the first and only time that Nate had heard his father speak of his mother and would be the last. Allen fell asleep by the foot of his bed and in the morning when Nate awoke he was gone. When Nate left his room to prepare lunch for work that day his father appeared and told him they weren’t going to work that morning, they were going for a drive. He didn’t mention the night before and but it became clear that whatever realisation he had come to last night had changed things.
He knew Nate wasn’t happy, he knew Sedalia was too small for his son, and he wouldn’t watch by anymore whilst he wasted his life away doing something he didn’t love. They drove to Whiteman Air Force Base and Allen Adam signed the parental consent forms there and then that allowed Nate to sign up at seventeen. Though unusual, they even arranged for Nate to stay in some lodgings on the base until his basic training began. For the first time in Nate’s life his father gave him a hug, tears in his eyes, and told him that his mother would have been proud of him. Nate watched as he walked back to his truck and drove off into the distance. It would be the last time he would ever see his father alive. Within a few months he would be shipped out of Sedalia and never step foot there again.
Nate knew no one, he no longer had any family and he certainly didn’t have any friends, but that wouldn’t last for long. Though he wasn’t the most gregarious of all the recruits he quickly distinguished himself with his flying and made a name for himself amongst the other pilots. He wasn’t the best though, far from it, that was Carol Danvers. She was the envy of every man and woman in the Air Force and was clearly destined for big things for the very beginning. She was charismatic, opinionated, and strong-willed. She was the type of woman that every man wished he could have and the type of pilot every man there wished he could be, including Nate. Unlike the others though he had never been anything but courteous to her and that had endeared him to her far more than any of the other meatheads that pawed at her and diminished her achievements in the air because of her attractiveness. They were equals and he treated her as such. Had they met in any other occupation they would have been more than friends but Danvers refused to be defined by her relationships with men. And Nate was too straight-laced to pursue anything more than friendship to begin with. All he cared about was flying.
One of the few people that could break through Adam’s stoicism was James Rhodes. Rhodes was almost twice as strong as Adam despite only being a few inches taller than him and was considerably faster than him. He was a physical specimen that pushed Nate to his limits throughout training and beyond. In the cockpit Nate had him beat, Rhodes lacked the imagination that he had when it came to flying, but there was a toughness to Rhodes that he envied. Most of all though “Rhodey” (as he insisted people call him) had a quick wit and a great sense of humour that had got the pair of them in trouble on more occasions than Adam could count. He was the perfect foil to Nate and pair were near inseparable. As with dozens of other pilots Rhodey had attempted to ask Carol out for a drink sometime and as with the other pilots she had turned him down, but she was fond of him too. The three of them became fast friends and saved each other’s bacon in the field more times than could be counted.
Everything would change after 9/11. The laughs became fewer and far between because the trio found themselves deployed in more dangerous situations than ever before. It was clear that their trio, for as close as they were, was living on borrowed time: Danvers was determined to make rank and all the loss of life seemed to wear Rhodey down, his easy exuberance seemed to wane with every deployment. Danvers was promoted and left the field and not long afterwards Rhodey took a position at Ferris Aircraft Company for a time then eventually on to Stark Industries. Nate wasn’t interested in making rank and had no interest in making money despite Rhodey’s repeated attempts to lure him into the private sector. Unlike the pair of them Nate had no life outside of the Air Force, outside of what he perceived to be his duty, and all he wanted to do was serve the country that had given him a chance to pursue his dreams.
It was meant to be a routine low-altitude air strafing run over Fallujah. He’d done it countless times before, so much so that he reckoned he could do it in his sleep, and Nate certainly wasn’t expecting much trouble. He was wrong. He came under heavy fire from insurgents and started going down, his cockpit engulfed in flames, completely unable to eject from it because of a malfunction. His life flashed before his eyes, memories of Sedalia, his father walking towards his truck, and the good times he’d spent with Rhodey and Carol. He shut his eyes and prepared himself for death upon impact. There was a loud crash as his jet came into contact with the dirt but no explosion. Against the odds Nate had survived the crash and so he opened his eyes and, though the world was spinning uncontrollably and he felt sick to his stomach, attempted to fight his way out of the cockpit before he burned alive inside. He smashed his way out and breathlessly fell to the dirt and lay there motionless for a few moments as the world around him continued to spin. Then he heard it. The shouts, the gunfire, and the sound of vehicles moving towards his location with haste. Nate scrambled to his feet and fumbled for his pistol as he saw the insurgents approach him, determined not to be taken alive, and began to unload on them. One by one the blurs went down, until suddenly his vision began to clear and he could make out from afar that they weren’t insurgents at all, they were US Marines. What had he done?
The father one of the US Marines was a five star general by the name of Wade Eiling. In the investigation that followed the incident he pressed to have Nate court-marshalled and sentenced to life in prison, despite Adam’s protestations of innocence. He pulled every string within his reach and called in every favour to attempt to influence the investigation to destroy Adam’s career and run him out of the military for good. Though the investigation couldn’t prove that Nate had purposefully killed Eiling’s son and the other Marines, the damage it did to his reputation was enough to ensure he’d never fly again. Rhodey spoke in Nate’s defence on several occasions but Carol was absent throughout. Rhodes fumed at her placing her ambitions above Adam’s freedom, but Nate understood why she had refused to speak up for him. The association would kill whatever future she had hoped for in the military or outside of it. Adam was done. The military couldn’t force him out but they did their best to make him feel unwelcome in their ranks and, with nowhere else to go in the world, the future looked bleak for Nate. Until Dugan arrived.
The world had changed, Dugan had told him, and it was time that the government’s response to that changing world was proportionate to the threats it faced. Superman, Martian Manhunter, and The Flash all possessed mind-boggling power and though they seemed benign enough in their intent, Dugan was aware that could change at any time. They had called in Captain America and were forming a team that would be answerable to SHIELD and they needed a heavy-hitter that could rival Superman. That heavy hitter didn’t exist. But they going to create one and they thought that Nathaniel Adam was the right man for it. He’d studied him from a distance for a long time, spoken to the right people, and knew that his loyalties were in the right place. SHIELD needed a metahuman that understood that the work they did wasn’t always pretty, that saw the big picture, and would place their duty to SHIELD above their own personal feelings. They called it “Operation: Atom” and if Adam agreed Dugan promised to have the incident in Fallujah expunged from the record but, most importantly to Nate, he’d fly again. Only this time he wouldn’t need a jet to do it. Nate agrees on the spot.
It would take some time. They weren’t certain the technology they would need to use to transform him was safe and Dugan knew that in Adam he had a man of true grit, with a real commitment to duty, and didn’t want to endanger his life by putting him through the change too early on. They needed to be sure before they went ahead with it. But Dugan left it too late, the attack on SHIELD’s hyper-maximum prison by HYDRA claims his life before Operation: Atom is enacted. His successor, Nick Fury, is less personable and trusting than Dugan but quicker to act: on his first day as Director of SHIELD he enacts Operation: Atom and Nathaniel Adam becomes something more than a fighter pilot, he becomes Captain Atom. Losing Dugan has a profound effect on Nate as much as it does SHIELD and he feels a great deal of guilt at having not been able to save him, knowing that had he enacted Operation: Atom before the attack he’d have been able to save him. He becomes even more belligerent, more aggressive, and more determined than ever not to allow inaction to claim the lives of innocent people as it had Dugan’s. Dugan had given him a second chance and though he hadn’t been able to save him, he’d damn sure do his best to avenge him.
Captain Atom is now an active member of The Avengers fighting against HYDRA and AIM alongside Captain America, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Ant-Man and The Wasp across the globe. Though Fury made good on Dugan's promise and expunged Nate's military record he has next to no life outside of being Captain Atom, having thrown himself fully into the role, and uses the alias of "Cameron Scott" on the rare occasions he ventures out into the world. He has neither spoken or seen to James Rhodes or Carol Danvers since becoming Captain Atom and neither are aware of his whereabouts or his fate.
| Attributes |
"Operation: Atom" bonded an alien metal that SHIELD uncovered to Nathaniel Adam's skin that has rendered him virtually invulnerable. The metal acts as a conduit that allows him to tap into quantum energy and gifts him the ability to absorb, manipulate, and project energy from any part of his person. As a result of the process he no longer needs to eat, sleep, or breathe and as such can survive in space or underwater unaided. Atom has strength that rivals that of Superman and the ability to fly unaided. As of yet Nate still doesn't understand his powers, the extent of them, or even the source of them, and so there is some indication he may grow more powerful still for having yet tested his limits.
| Character Notes |
James "Rhodey" Rhodes: Nate's oldest and most loyal friend. The two met in the US Air Force. Last Nate had heard, Rhodes was working for Stark Industries by way of Ferris Aircraft Company and seemed happy enough there. Only Rhodes spoke up for Nate at his military tribunal and his disappearance has caused Rhodey a great deal of discomfort. As with the rest of the world, Rhodey is unaware that Nate is Captain Atom and hasn't seen him for many years. Rhodey has spent a great deal of time and effort over the years trying to rack Nate down but having failed to fully adjust to civilian life, and the pressures of being Captain Atom, Nate evades them at every turn.
Major Carol Danvers: Nate's second oldest friend. Despite having been friends for nearly a decade during Nate's military tribunal Carol did not come to speak on Nate's behalf as Rhodey did and cut all contact with him, motivated largely by her perceived political ambitions and her desire to make "rank." She too is unaware that Nate is Captain Atom and the two have not spoken since before the tribunal. Nate thinks of her often though, as with Rhodes, declines to attempt to make contact with her out of fear of how he'll be received after al these years.
Nick Fury: Dugan's successor as Director of SHIELD. Though Fury trusts Nate given that Dugan had placed his trust in him prior to his being murdered there is still an underling tension between their relationship built around the fact that Fury himself did not pick him. Nate wonders at times whether Fury believes he acted rashly in enacting "Operation: Atom" so swiftly after Dugan's death and should have waited instead, vetting his own man for it, rather than equipping Nate with incredible power out of necessity rather than choice. Still, the two work closely together and Nate seems of all The Avengers the one that sympathises with some of the more utilitarian side of SHIELD operations.
Stephanie Carter/Captain America: Stephanie Carter represents an idealism, a hope, that Nate has long since lost. He at once respects her courage and earnestness whilst also resenting it. He'd grown up idolising Captain America, as almost all boys in America did at the time, but that Captain America had fought in a way, a real war, unlike this one. Nate wavers between wanting to believe in Captain America as a symbol whilst worrying that Stephanie's idealism will cost her and the team dearly one day. Despite this, he'd no sooner follow anyone else in their battle against HYDRA and AIM.
Clint Barton/Hawkeye: Clint reminds Nate of Rhodes. Quick-witted, jovial, and always at ease. He respects the way that Clint and Natasha have turned their lives around since being apprehended by SHIELD and Clint's easy-going manner, as well as his seeming lack of fear, despite being one of the least powerful members of the team keeps Nate grounded.
Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow: Nate respects Natasha's resolve and of all the Avengers it's her efficiency he thinks the most of in the field. They do not speak much and Nate at first had his misgivings about her when he learned of her past as a Russian spy but he knew that Dugan had given her a second chance, and that Stephanie trusts her, so has come to trust her too. He places his faith in Natasha to do what is necessary more than anyone else.
Hank Pym/Ant-Man: Pym possess a genius-level intellect but can be precious at times. Nate worries that Pym places his role as a scientist above his duties as an Avenger and that he lacks the fortitude, if it came down to it, to pull the trigger in crunch situations. They are by no means close but Nate is forced to spend more time with Pym than any other Avenger because of the constant tests SHIELD mandates that he go through so they can better understand his powers and the quantum energy within him. At Janet's insistence, Nate tries his best not to lose his patience with Pym.
Janet Van Dyne/The Wasp: It's Janet of all Atom's teammates that he feels the most affinity towards. Nate is baffled as to what Janet sees in Pym. She's a brilliant scientist and an infinitely kind person. She takes more time to inquire after Nate's life before he became Captain Atom than anyone else on the team and is concerned at what little life Atom has outside of Avenging.
General Wade Eiling: Nate accidentally shot Eiling's son in a bout of pilot spatial disorientation brought about when he crash landed in Fallujah. General Eiling went out of his way to push for the harshest possible sentence and when the tribunal didn't return it pulled in favours to wreck Nate's career in the Air Force. He is unaware that Adam is Captain Atom but, yet to move on from the accidental death of his son, has spent years trying to track Nate down to exact his own justice.
| Character Goals |
I thought it would be nice to play a character that would allow for a fair amount of interaction, how better to do that than by applying for an Avenger? I played King Faraday on the old Guild and had some plans for Captain Atom in that game that never really came to fruition, so I thought I'd give it a go here, obviously I've had to tinker around with the concept a little but for the most part the character has remained the same. It'll be interesting to play a character with incredible power at his disposal that's surrounded by people much weaker than his is and to see how he deals with that. "Captain Atom" dominates Nathaniel Adam's life and what little life he had beforehand is all but gone, so again it'll be interesting to see how he copes with that and eventually what type of life he attempts to build for himself when he's not Avenging.
| Sample Post |
Nathaniel Adam sat alone at a bar staring at an untouched bottle of beer that rested on the bar in front of him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d drank. “Captain Atom” didn’t need to drink. It didn’t matter anymore that Nate used to enjoy a beer from time to time or some whiskey every now and then. No matter how much he drank he couldn’t get drunk. He could leap into a swimming pool of whiskey and he wouldn’t even get close to being remotely tipsy, let alone drunk. He wouldn’t even need to come up for air anymore. “Captain Atom” didn’t need to breathe. Dugan hadn’t told him that when he signed up for Operation: Atom, SHIELD hadn’t seen any of this coming, but the process had changed him in more ways than one. It had swept away Nathaniel Adam and in his place built a superhero with no need to drink, breathe, eat, or sleep. After a lifetime of needing to do those things it was more than a little jarring to wake up one morning and realise you don’t need to anymore. He was barely even human anymore. At least that’s how it felt.
It was even worse before Nate was capable of retracting his metallic skin. For the best part of a year he was stuck in that form, unable to change back, to see his face without the reflective alien metal that encompassed it. The SHIELD scientists had worked day and night trying to figure out a way to get his appearance back to normal so that Adam could have a life outside of Captain Atom. They worried he’d be driven insane by being constantly awake, not drinking or eating, and looking in the mirror and being unable to see the face he’d called his own for nearly three decades. They were wrong. Nate dealt with it, as he dealt with everything else life had thrown at him to date, by simply embracing his new identity and pushing his old one to the side. He policed the world night and day in search of HYDRA and AIM without stopping for a moment’s break. Eventually after enough testing from Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne he worked it out. You’d think being able to see his own face would make him feel more human but it didn’t change a thing. He wasn’t the same anymore. Life wasn’t going to the same anymore. He’d have to accept that.
Yet here he was sat in a bar alone pretending to be a normal person. The ID he brandished read “Cameron Scott” rather than Nathaniel Adam, but what was in a name? For an hour or two he’d hoped he could sit here, watch the baseball, and pour alcoholic beverages that had no effect on him into his mouth in the hopes that it would make him feel a little more human. He had planned to do that alone until he heard the door to the bar open and Clint Barton, better known to the rest of the world as “Hawkeye”, stepped through and took a seat beside Nate. Without so much as a hello Clint leaned forward and ordered himself a drink, which came a few moments later, and gestured towards Nate’s drink as he took a mouthful of his own.
“Are you going to drink that thing or sit there and look at it?”
Nate sighed.
“What difference does it make? I can’t get drunk anymore.”
“Have you tried absinthe?” Barton said with a smile that went unreciprocated. “It’s not all bad though, I think most people would trade hangovers for the ability to fly unaided and shoot energy out of their hands. I know I would.”
He didn’t understand. How could he understand? Barton was a lot of things, confident, quick-witted, swashbuckling, and brave more than anything else, but his was still a human being. He still got to go home at the day end of the day and lay his tired body down to rest after a hard day’s work. He could drink himself into a stupor, shovel down handfuls of food and feel bloated, and get sick. Nate could do none of that. As much as he might try to make light of the situation or empathise with him he’d never know what it was like to be a walking nuclear bomb rather than a person.
“What are you doing here?”
“What do you think? I followed you.”
There was a cheer from the television screen positioned above them as the batter made contact with a pitch and sent it flying across the stadium. Barton took another mouthful of his drink as Adam shook his head, clearly unimpressed with Barton having followed him.
“Why?”
Barton shrugged.
“You looked like you could do with the company.”
“You should know by now I’m not one for conversation.”
Clint downed what was left of his drink and then made a noise that sounded more beast than man as the alcohol hit him. He placed his glass down on the counter and slid it towards the barman and then gestured to him for another drink.
“Fine by me,” Barton smirked. “You sit there not getting drunk and I’ll do all the talking and drinking for both of us. How does that sound?”
The wry smirk on his face remained there as Nate looked in his direction blankly for a few moments. He knew what Clint was doing. He was worried about him. Was the whole team worried about him? Did they whisper about his lack of sleep? How little time he spent with people? Nate wouldn’t have been surprised. Outside of Janet he’d done little to reach out to his other Avengers since he’d joined the team and he was aware how close some of the other members of the team were. Stephanie and Natasha were like sisters, Clint and Natasha were almost inseparable, and Janet and Hank obviously had a bond that outweighed all of them. Only with Janet did Nate consider himself close. Outside of Hank he didn’t dislike any of the rest of the team, in fact he thought in their own way they were each pretty spectacular, but he’d had trouble bonding with people since the process. What was the point? He wasn’t even sure if he could die. He didn’t want to have to watch the ones he loved wither and die and the best way to ensure that didn’t happen would be not to get close to anyone.
For tonight though Nate would allow it. He was many things but impolite was not one of them. Clint had gone out of his way to follow him here and the least he could do is sit with him for the night. Only because he would be impolite to send him away and not because he was quite fond of him, of course.
“It doesn’t sound like I have much choice.”
A small but sincere since appears on Nate’s face as Clint pats him on the back.
“That’s because you don’t.”
Clint took another hearty mouthful of his drink and, without looking away from the baseball on the television screen, pushed the untouched bottle of beer on the counter towards Nate. Without thinking Nate picked it up, pressed it to his lips, and poured a mouthful of beer down his throat with an appreciate nod. Maybe he’d never be able to get drunk again, maybe he’d never have a hangover or make a drunken mistake he barely remembered the next morning, but these moments, taking in a ball game with a friend, these were the moments no one, nothing, could ever take from him. These were the things that reminded him he was human.
Not bad, Sir Gowington (I didn't forget your actual surname). Also enjoyed it. Interested to see specifically how it's developed, though. Not that the present portion is dissatisfying.
