A lush green lawn.
The guards led the two into the back garden. Bruce Banner and his girlfriend Betty Ross approached. He was slightly thin, with curly hair and a scholarly demeanor. His expression was a mix of excitement and apprehension, like someone in a desperate situation who has found a glimmer of hope but fears that hope might not exist.
"Dr. Bruce, I've heard your name for a long time."
Ron, who had just thrown the frisbee again, turned his head and smiled faintly.
"King Ron, hello."
Upon seeing Ron, Bruce Banner was so stiff he didn't know what to do. He looked at the guard, hoping for a hint on what etiquette to observe.
"Sorry, Your Majesty, I don't know what kind of etiquette to perform."
Should he bow or kneel on one knee?
Betty covered her face, feeling a bit embarrassed.
"No need for formalities, Dr. Banner."
Ron smiled and waved his hand, declining. This Dr., who would become violently angry and want to destroy everything when transforming, was mostly silent and shy in his human form—a genius in the laboratory, but a midget in daily life, not good at dealing with people.
"Oh, what's that!"
Betty Ross suddenly looked into the distance in horror.
Thump, thump, thump!
The sound of giant, running footsteps approached. An ugly, yellowish-green giant, with a frisbee in its mouth, ran back. It had found the frisbee thrown a mile away.
"Betty, stand behind me."
Facing the ferocious monster running with its two thick, powerful legs, Banner hurriedly pulled Betty behind him, his heart pounding faster and faster in fear.
He desperately pressed his chest, trying to suppress himself from transforming.
He didn't want to cause any more destruction or injure anyone, especially not in this country where he might find a way to cure himself.
"Don't worry, it won't hurt anyone."
Ron reassured them.
However, facing the Abomination, such an ugly and fierce monster, the two simply couldn't let go of their worries.
The Abomination quickly ran to his side, immediately squatted its massive body, and lay on the ground like a dog, offering the frisbee from its mouth.
Red light emanated from Ron's palm, sweeping over the frisbee. The scorching plasma energy evaporated all saliva and grime. He then casually threw it into the distance again.
Like a dog trained by its Master, the Abomination sprinted after it again.
"This..."
The two looked at each other in shock. Such a ferocious and massive monster being trained by Ron like a docile hound was an incredibly impactful scene, astonishing and shocking them.
"King Ron, I... may I be so bold as to ask, where did this monster come from?"
Looking at the humanoid monster quickly disappearing in the distance, Bruce Banner asked hesitantly, his tone filled with apprehension.
Aside from the Hulk he transformed into, there had never been a similar creature on Earth.
Though he had never seen this monster before, it looked so familiar, and he inexplicably felt a sense of familiarity, as if it were... another Hulk?
"A few days ago, it appeared on the border of my country and caused some destruction."
After briefly describing the process, Ron smiled, "To atone for its sins, I trained it to be a good dog, to guard my home and protect my land from now on."
After Wakanda opened, Bruce Banner was immediately drawn to it, joyfully believing that Wakanda's advanced medical technology, capable of curing all diseases, might be his hope to get rid of the Hulk. He and his girlfriend Betty, with whom he had eloped, hurried to Wakanda, not going to New York to find his online friend 'Dr. Blue'.
But General Ross discovered 'Dr. Blue', who was secretly communicating with Banner online. The Hulk blood 'Dr. Blue' had obtained from Banner was confiscated.
Bronski, made extremely power-hungry by the Super Soldier Serum, secretly injected himself with Hulk blood and became the Abomination.
The battle that was supposed to destroy half a city block in New York between the two had not yet occurred.
"King Ron, have you investigated its origin?"
The yellowish-green giant ran back again, and Bruce stared at it in surprise.
He could guarantee there were no such native organisms on Earth, and the Hulk inside him seemed to react to this monster, as if it had encountered a 'mutated kin' it disliked?
"This brings us to your country, America. A few days ago, it sent people to infiltrate my country, trying to steal my nation's technological achievements, and they were captured."
Throwing the frisbee again, Ron seemed to answer every question, turning his head with a faint smile, "This monster was a diversion to attract attention."
An event that would undoubtedly cause a global uproar if revealed internationally was spoken of by him as casually as mentioning a trivial matter during a conversation.
"Ro... King Ron, is... is this something we should be hearing?"
Bruce Banner and his girlfriend Betty were so scared their smiles froze.
Such astonishing internal secrets and hidden matters between major World powers were perhaps not suitable to be told to them.
Moreover, this was America's doing, and they were both Americans. Betty's identity, in particular, was somewhat sensitive, and suddenly bringing up this topic made them uneasy and afraid.
"Oh, by the way. The general who led them, Miss Betty, you might know him."
Just then, he spoke again as if remembering something, looking at Betty.
"He's a powerful Lieutenant General in the U.S. Army, known as Thunderbolt General. His name is Thaddeus E. General Ross."
"Father?"
Betty gasped, covering her mouth. That name was more than familiar to her.
"King Ron, I assure you, Betty and I have nothing to do with this matter."
Hearing it was his old father-in-law again, Banner hastily explained. How could he always find trouble caused by his old father-in-law wherever he went?
He was here for treatment; he didn't want to be arrested as a spy.
"By the way, is he still alive?"
He asked cautiously and nervously. Although his old father-in-law disliked him greatly and tried every means to separate them and wanted to capture him for experiments, he was still his father-in-law after all.
"Don't be nervous, both of you."
On the grass, Ron chuckled, "I brought this up simply to tell Miss Betty that she can go see her father."
After Betty and Banner eloped, they probably hadn't seen each other for a while.
His implied meaning was that General Ross was, of course, alive.
After Betty was led away by a guard to visit General Ross in prison, Bruce Banner's face was tense and he hesitated, looking as if he wanted to speak but couldn't.
"Dr. Banner, is there something you want to say?"
He smiled bitterly, "To be honest, Your Majesty Ron, my purpose for this trip is..."
Bruce Banner stated his purpose: to cure the 'Hulk' disease within him. But he had nothing to offer in return; he was here to ask for help.
And now this had happened.
"I am very sorry for the trouble General Ross has caused Your Majesty."
He clutched his chest, sincerely bowed in apology, and, gritting his teeth, pleaded, "Your Majesty, can I still have a chance...?"
He had finally seen hope, and he truly didn't want to give up. Even if he were coldly rejected, he wanted to try. He had been tormented by the Hulk for too long.
"Yes."
"What?" Bruce was surprised, unable to believe it.
"He is him, you are you. There's no need to mix the two together."
Ron chuckled, indicating that he could stay there and seek a cure for himself using Wakandan technology.
"Thank you so much, Your Majesty Ron."
Banner was overjoyed, unable to believe it, his face flushed with excitement.
The Hulk within him had troubled him for a long time, turning him into a fugitive who had to hide for ages, almost causing his girlfriend to fall into another's arms, and making it impossible for him to even be intimate with her. He was truly fed up.
Just when he thought hope was shattered, he saw new hope.
"Dr. Banner, control your emotions. If you turn into the Hulk here, my garden will be destroyed."
Facing the ecstatic Banner, he smiled faintly.
"Sorry, Your Majesty Ron, I'm just too excited. I've been searching for a solution for so long."
Realizing his loss of composure, Bruce Banner hastily suppressed his racing heart and explained incoherently.
After Bruce Banner expressed his gratitude repeatedly, Ron called a guard to take him for a physical examination, beginning the first step of the attempted treatment.
The Abomination ran back, once again carrying the frisbee in its mouth.
"Abomination..." Ron looked at the Abomination, whose eyes were dull and whose memory had been cleared and brutally brainwashed in a short period.
"As a dog, it's still a bit too weak.
A large amount of Hulk's blood, I wonder if it can turn you into a second Hulk?"
During the Battle of New York, the Abomination was once able to suppress the Hulk because the effects of the drug made it extremely difficult for Bruce Banner to even transform. Later, as he gradually regained some strength, the Abomination was quickly dealt with.
He wasn't very satisfied with the strength of the Abomination as a big dog; it at least needed to catch up to the Hulk.
The Abomination came to Wakanda mainly to improve its strength. General Ross told him that Wakanda's advanced biotechnology might lead to new breakthroughs with the Super Serum and Hulk blood, making him stronger.
Ron promised to make the Abomination stronger, and he would not break his word.
...
A dilapidated underground boxing ring.
Thump, thump, thump.
A tall, muscular man, with a hint of melancholy and confusion in his expression, was sweating, his hands wrapped in bandages, continuously throwing hooks at a hanging sandbag.
"They say you've spent every day like this since you woke up."
Nick Fury walked in, sat down by the side of the platform, and slowly said, looking at the figure, "Are you preparing to return to the battlefield?"
"Officer, I missed a dance, and when I woke up, the World was seventy years later."
He frowned, speaking as he continued to punch.
"This helps one avoid thinking."
Past experiences kept surfacing in his mind, memories left in the old era that found no familiar counterparts in the new era. Some people had passed away, some had grown old, and only he was 'outdated'.
He didn't want to think anymore; he just wanted to keep punching to numb himself.
"If you keep punching like that, the sandbag will break soon."
"People in this era seem to be accustomed to replacing things when they break. Actually, after breaking, they can still be used if patched up."
The tall veteran replied in a deep voice without turning his head.
"And... I bought seven or eight spares."
"You should go out and see the new World," Nick Fury said, looking at the man who was once a spiritual symbol for a generation of Americans.
Bottling things up like this wouldn't be good.
"When I was asleep, the World was still at war. When I woke up, the war was won, and this country became stronger."
The man once known as Captain America stopped punching, walked over, and untied the sweat-soaked boxing bandages from his hands, his voice low.
"But too much has changed; it's become a bit unfamiliar to me."
He wasn't referring to material changes like phones that could be casually carried in a pocket or the internet that allowed people to chat freely from all corners of the Earth, but something else...
"It's impossible for everyone in a country to think exactly alike."
Nick Fury raised an eyebrow, "Some people inevitably made mistakes along the way." He paused and added, "Some... even very recently."
He didn't have many people he could use at the moment, so he could only activate this 'veteran'.
Hearing that meaningful remark, Steve looked up at him, put the bandages in his backpack, and said in a heavy, serious tone, "Do you have a mission for me, Officer?"
He didn't want to be idle now, lest he fall back into the confusing and painful memories that were just recent but also seventy years ago.
"To rectify a mistake some of us have made."
Fury said.
"A war?" Captain America frowned, asking. Before he fell asleep, his memory was of endless wars.
"No." He shook his head, but remembering the rigid instructions from those in Congress, he hesitated, "Perhaps there will be a little conflict."