Hulk by Peter David (e reader manga TXT) 📕

one of the men said, “All right, doctors, thank you for your thoroughly professional update. We’ll be evaluating the data and giving our recommendations.”

Betty stifled a laugh. Oh yes, their recommendations would be ever so helpful. Why, it might open up entirely new directions that never would have occurred to them in a million years. Or, at the very least, more trees would die in vain so the board members could expend paper upon their recommendations. But Bruce, unflappable as always, just nodded and said, “Thank you. We’d appreciate that.”

Moments later they were in the hallway, and Betty was looking incredulously at him. “‘We’d appreciate that’?” she asked.

Bruce just shrugged. “Why wouldn’t we?”

“Bruce! They’ll have nothing of use to contribute! You know that. They’ll suggest things we tried six months ago. Their idea of advice is laughable.”

“Very true,” Bruce replied. “But laughter is beneficial in a variety of ways, and anyone who provides the opportunity for others is to be appreciated.”

She tried to have a comeback to that, but instead all she could do was chuckle when she saw the mock seriousness on his face. She bowed slightly and said, “I am dazzled by your intellect and insight.”

“As well you should be,” he said gravely.

“You coming back to the lab?”

“In a few minutes. I want to go to my office, make a few calls. You go ahead, if you’re so inclined. Or perhaps you want to take the rest of the day off to recover from our—what is it again—”

“Dog and po—”

“Right, right, dog and pony show.” He looked askance. “So would I be the dog or the pony?”

“The latter.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve always wanted a pony.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it. He smiled in spite of himself, and then gestured in the general direction of his office as he started to back away. “I’ll . . . be making some calls. . . .”

“I’ll be in the lab, blowing up frogs.”

“Betty,” he said reprovingly.

“I’m hoping to work my way up to blowing up other things. Like alligators.”

Bruce stared at her appraisingly. “Okay, now. That was a joke, wasn’t it?”

With a flounce of her hair, Betty said, “Drop by the lab and find out. You may want to bring your galoshes.”

And as she walked away, she heard Bruce mutter behind her, “Galoshes? Who says ‘galoshes’ anymore?”

She stopped briefly at the snack machine, gave it a solid punch in exactly the right place, and scooped up a bag of Doritos. So practiced was she that she barely had to pause for more than a few moments before continuing on her way. She nodded to workers as she passed, one of whom pointed at her in congratulations and said, “I heard you killed at the meeting.”

“I wish,” she said cheerily.

She rounded a corner, and a voice called from behind her that she didn’t recognize instantly—but only because she didn’t want to.

“Betty,” came the voice, “Betty Ross!”

Her mind turned it over and over, refusing to believe it. Slowly she pivoted on her heel and stared. “Glen?” she said.

Sure enough, there was Glen Talbot, almost exactly as Betty remembered him. His face was a bit more full, but it added maturity and even a bit of character to him. His hair had grown out since the army-reg do he had sported back in the days when they were dating, but that canniness in his eyes—and that way he had of taking in the entirety of her with a glance which she found ever so slightly chilling—that was still there. What she was most surprised to see was that he was wearing a sharply styled blue suit, crisp salmon-colored shirt, and what appeared to be—yes, she could see the initials—a Pierre Cardin necktie.

She had no idea what to say, having had no warning that he was going to be showing up, and no clue why he had done so. In many ways, she felt as if no time at all had passed since the last occasion on which she’d seen him, and parted with him, under less than cordial circumstances. That odd sense of “just having seen him,” combined with the obvious physical evidence that time had passed was very jarring. The first thing she wanted to say was, “Well, this is awkward,” but that hardly seemed like an appropriate opening gambit.

Grasping at conversational straws, she commented, “What happened to your uniform?” She promptly started kicking herself mentally and walked into the lab just to distance herself from him.

Talbot looked surprised, as if she’d come up with a complete non sequitur—which, to a degree, she had. Then, smiling gamely, he stepped back, put his arms out to either side, and turned in a small circle like a model on a runway. That way Betty could admire his sartorial splendor. “I switched over,” he said, following her into the laboratory. He glanced around appraisingly. She definitely didn’t like the way he was looking things over. It made her want to toss drapes over everything to shield it all from view. “Still work with your dad, but you know, the military’s subcontracting out all the most interesting work, and I can’t argue with the paycheck. I basically run all the labs on the base now.”

She in fact hadn’t known that at all. It wasn’t as if she chatted regularly with her father—or at all, really. For some reason she suspected that Glen was fully aware of that, but had chosen to appear oblivious to the strained relationship she currently had with her father. In the meantime, acting as if he had just thought to assess her demeanor, he gave her a quick look over and said heartily, “Hey, you’re looking good.”

Betty inclined her head slightly, acknowledging the compliment. No reason she couldn’t be cordial, particularly until she learned just what he wanted. “So,” she said, “why are you here?”

But the neutrality of her reaction and the lack of enthusiasm she bore for his sudden reentry into her life were all too evident to Talbot. Voice dripping with sarcasm,