Hulk by Peter David (e reader manga TXT) 📕

new place, the better to identify any potential threats. His eyes widened when he saw Betty; he was clearly taken aback by her presence. She wondered if he was considering her some sort of traitor, perhaps having given aid and comfort to an enemy, because the way he was looking at Bruce clearly indicated that he thought of Bruce as just that. But Ross recovered quickly, clearing his throat and saying to one of the MPs nearby, “Mitchell, escort my daughter out. I’ll join her shortly.”

My daughter. Not “Dr. Ross,” not “Betty,” not “the young woman.” No, he had to establish right up front just who was in possession of whom, that she was a piece of his property. It rankled Betty no end, and she started to say, “But—”

“Now!” Ross interrupted her. “Betty, this is serious,” he said, and he was sounding far more like a father than he was a general.

She looked to Bruce, determined to stay by his side if she thought for even a moment that her continued presence would be of help. She was perfectly prepared to force them to drag her out if she had to.

But then Bruce said, very softly but firmly, “I’ll be okay.”

Bruce’s condition at that moment seemed far removed from any reasonable definition of “okay.” However, when Betty still exhibited reluctance to leave, he nodded in a more firm manner, which clearly indicated that it would be best if she left.

She cast one final, contemptuous glance at her father—just to let him know whose side she was on, and that she wasn’t leaving because he desired it, but because Bruce did—and then she walked out. It wasn’t anything that could remotely be called a moral victory, but she reasoned she had to take what she could get.

He could see Betty in Thunderbolt Ross’s face.

Bruce thought that was amusing. After all the times that Betty had spoken so angrily about her father, had expressed again and again the belief that they were nothing alike, Bruce could nevertheless instantly see the family resemblance. Oh, granted, Betty was far prettier. But around the nose, the general shape of the face, and the eyes—lord, they had the same eyes, including that inner conviction that they were absolutely right about, well, everything. In Betty, he chose to find it a charmingly endearing feature. In her father, he found it . . . less so.

Ross had something in his hand behind his back. For a heartbeat, Bruce wondered if it was a gun. Was Ross so far gone that he was prepared to shoot Bruce right then and there, that he was just waiting for Betty to leave the room so he could do the deed?

“Bruce Krenzler?” asked Ross.

It seemed an odd thing to ask. Obviously Ross had to know who he was. He wanted to play some little game with Bruce. A sort of cat-and-mouse thing. Mentally, Bruce shrugged. The man’s capacity for showing off his strength in a situation seemed boundless, but if that’s what he wanted to do, Bruce wasn’t going to prolong it.

“Yes,” he said flatly.

“My, my. So this is Bruce Ba—” Ross paused deliberately, apparently looking for some sort of reaction from Bruce as he “caught” himself saying a different surname. Bruce’s poker face remained immobile. “Krenzler,” finished Ross, and there was a fleeting look of disappointment on his face. Bruce hadn’t given him what he wanted, and that failure didn’t bother the scientist one whit.

But Ross wasn’t finished. Indeed, he’d barely begun. “I think you left something at your lab last night.” He held up the torn seat of Bruce’s jeans; from the ripped back pocket, Ross produced Bruce’s wallet. Then he said nothing, just looked at Bruce and waited.

Bruce simply stared at it, inscrutable. He could see what Ross was up to. Some people, when faced with an awkward situation accompanied by silence, would blather out explanations and, in doing so, make things worse for themselves. Ross clearly was hoping that Bruce would try to come up with some way of explaining why parts of his clothing had been found back in the laboratory. Three or four explanations immediately occurred to Bruce that would seem nice, reasonable, “normal” rationalizations of this odd happenstance, but none of them would be the truth, since he wasn’t entirely certain what the truth was. Furthermore, it would just give Ross an excuse to start hammering away at everything Bruce was saying, and that would be of no benefit to Bruce at all. So, instead, he kept his silence.

Several long moments passed, and then annoyance flickered over Ross’s face. “Keep him under observation,” he snapped at the MPs. “I’ll be back.”

Ross turned and walked out of the room. Banner looked mildly at the MPs, whose faces were so serious that they could have been etched out of marble.

“I’m sure he’s very sweet once you get to know him,” Bruce deadpanned.

Their expressions suggested otherwise.

When Betty Ross was a little girl, she’d always felt as if her father could read her mind, that no matter what she was thinking, somehow those eyes of his could just bore straight into her head and pick out whatever bits of information he wanted. So as Betty approached her car, the little girl within her jumped when she heard her father call to her from behind. Her adult mind assured her that there was absolutely no way her father could discern what she was thinking at the moment—that she possessed information to which he had no access.

Nevertheless she did freeze for a moment, with the knowledge of what she was going to do and whom she was going to seek out uppermost in her mind, and she worried, however unreasonably, that he was going to be able to tell.

You’re an adult. Act like one, she thought as Ross came up behind her. She drew in a deep breath and turned to face him.

“What?” she asked.

“Stop and listen,” he said. He started to reach out to take her by