His childhood was one of those that's fast disappearing, one of those mythical golden periods that can only happen in small town America. He was born to a farmer and his wife in rural Missouri. It wasn't absolutely idyllic, but it was close. Just about the 20th century version of some boyhood story of Twain's. He fished on the banks of the Mississippi, rode his bike down tree-lined streets to the town square. But…increasingly poor, as commerce passed it by.
As he passed from childhood into adolescence, he began to yearn for a wider world. As safe as a small town childhood was, it seemed too remote, too trammelled for an adult who longed to do something other than farm or cater to farmers. But there weren't many options - college was just out of reach, in terms of money, and honestly, he wasn't all that drawn to any particular field of study. So, the pitch from the Marine recruiter who visited his high school seemed increasingly appealing. Steady pay, travel, adventure, a chance to escape and see the world. He signed on the day he graduated. His parents were dubious - far from blindly jingoistic, even though Henry joined in a time of peace and prosperity, when minor peacekeeping operations were the order of the day, Clinton ill-disposed to pitch American soldiers into much, after the fiasco in Somalia.
After the initial shock, Henry took to the Corps like a duck to water. He was….utterly unremarkable, not standing out among his mates in any particular way save for his bizarrely even temper, and unblinking fearlessness. It made more than one of his DIs take notice…some praised him for what they perceived as courage, but some of the older ones, who'd weathered Vietnam, were wary. Fear is necessary for survival, they warned him, and winced at his bland incomprehension.
He rose steadily through the ranks of the Marines. And then came September 11th, and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The barren moonscapes of the mountains beyond Kabul, and the desert wastes of the wilder parts of Iraq were utterly alien to a boy raised in the lush heartlands of America. And to his hidden pleasure and relief, he didn't falter when it came to real combat. Even when the first bullet to zip past his ear with the buzz of a furious hornet, down the streets of Fallujah. Fear was ever a little slow, but sheer survival instinct kicked in.
He earned a reputation as one of the best of the snipers and scouts, taking down targets through the long hot days and still nights. It all seemed strangely distant to him, even as he ran on adrenaline, sweated off pounds spending hours crouched on sunbeaten rooftops, the world narrowed to the crosshairs before him. Strangely easy, inasmuch as war ever can be. He weathered the loss of comrades in arms, wept soundlessly in the airless tent that was his room on his base, and rose up to take up his rifle again, and continue the hunt.
Mortal men against mortal men. AKs versus sniper rifles. Careful treads, and paused convoys to deal with the threat of IEDS. A completed tour, back to the States, where the Misssissippi rolled on slow as it always had. Life in the states, leave, seemed oddly pallid. The sunlight without color and power, compared to previous golden summers. And then transfer to Afghanistan, air cold enough to burn the lungs, and the exhilaration of combat. Though the futility of that particular fight was brought home to him the day he sought a position to be able to fire down on a suspected Taliban supply route, and turned his foot on what seemed to be a pale, worn stone. It rolled, clattered down the mountainside a few feet, stopped, and offered a jawless grin, empty orbits. Henry stared, turned to his Pashtun guide, stammered out a question. Who was that? "Angrezi," returned his guide, casually. "English soldier." A memento of the Empire's perpetual attempts to swallow and absorb Afghanistan, and their eternal failure. Henry shrugged it off, and settled to crouch.
Again, a dreamlike visit to the US. He spent nights unable to sleep, jet-lagged, climbing up to the rooftree of his parents' house as he had as a child - gazing west across to the prairies, east over the river. Mute in the face of their questions, concern. Unwounded, unscathed, but also rendered inarticulate. Impatient with civilian life, though still gentle with what seemed like petty foolishness.
They sent him to Iraq again. This time was different. Without even the faintest hint of welcome - the Americans not liberators but occupiers. But still business as usual. Until he met Raj Singh. Or rather encountered - no polite introductions there. He found the telekinetic tearing up a lost US convoy, one of the first to rush to rescue, abandoning a carefully obtained sniper's nest at the orders from his spotter and partner. And stopped short, leaving all his training as he gawked like a backwoods yokel at his first sight of a carnival elephant. This was impossible, an escapee from childhood comics. Not something he'd ever expected to encounter. They don't train you to fight the Hulk, even in the Marine Corps.
He survived it, though his frantic from-the-hip shots did little damage. It was the first (and only, thus far) time Henry completely succumbed to panic. He was very nearly put away on a mental discharge, save that the other survivors of the convoy affirmed his bizarre account of monstrous powers. But that chance meeting had sparked an insatiable curiosity. What was real? What could for something inhuman? His eyes open, Webb began to notice it, here and there.Traces, usually carefully hidden, but there if you looked. A fellow sniper literally faded into a background of a stone-lined alley, like a chameleon. An Iraqi insurgent had dust-devils do his bidding. He kept careful notes in his own personal code, and spoke little to his superiors of it. But his noticing had not gone unnoticed, in turn. And he was taken aside by men, in uniform, but with a curious lack of insignia. He wasn't to speak of what he'd seen, but more would be explained to him. He knew a spook when he saw one, and mutely nodded.
Rotated back to the states, ostensibly to do some time as a DI. But this time it was men in suits, and they offered him another option. He'd leave the Corps, but still serve. Fight and capture not insurgents, but those strange powered people. Not all of them, but the threats. He'd be given a cover story, work for an agency of such rareified secrecy there were no acronyms, no alphabet soup. Nominally, he'd be a civilian. Live two lives. It galled him, this need for deception. But he understood. HE agreed.
And the next day, the Bomb. Henry stared in mute horror at the spectacle of New York as a literal ground zero. The secret he'd kept - publically displayed, now. It only heightened his resolve. This threat would be dealt with, by any means necessary. He signed his papers, took his discharged, and slipped seamlessly into his new life as a Company agent. Just another veteran come home to try and sell paper products.