Chapter Text
They say hindsight is 20/20. And in hindsight, Glenn Tyler was a parade of red flags.
The blond crew cut. The perfect fit of his polos and V-necks. But he was always behind that camera, its lens a colossal wet black eye. It reminded her of an insect with its little clicking noises. The kind of sound you can hear above the noise of crowds, probably as the result of years of evolutionary pressure to avoid the kinds of creeping, crawling things that eat away at flesh and fabric.
Bruce had been gone for three months. Three long, agonizing months where Betty oscillated between being afraid he was dead and hoping he was because at least then he would have a good excuse for the radio silence. Either of those two would be better than the third option; that he was still that monster that ripped its way out of his clothes and his skin. She tried to shake off the image of Bruce, eyes bulging out of his skull, face contorting in pain. The way he screamed…she had never heard Bruce so much as raise his voice, so to hear him scream like that, guttural, like an animal being killed, was as bizarre as it was haunting.
Once, Betty had begged Bruce to not be so restrained.
“Don’t you ever just want to scream? To let it all out?”
He seemed to consider this seriously and then he said, “Sometimes. But then I think that if I start screaming, I’ll never stop.”
Now, she had no job, no place to stay and her father’s thugs sniffing around the broken remnants of her life. And she had to handle it all without her partner in work and in life.
Betty was certain of two facts which chased each other around her head the minute she stopped working. One was that if the general found him first, Bruce would be dead. The other was that if she found him first, she was going to kill him.
She was running through one of these fantasies when she heard the click-clicking of a shutter snapping. In an instant she was transported back to her seat at the little cafe outside the campus library. She heard it again and turned to see a huge man crouched like a big cat behind a camera a few feet away.
Her face reacted with all the hostility forming behind her next words. “Excuse me?”
He lowered the camera and looked up at her with deep set eyes. “Sorry. It was the tanager.”
“What?”
He pointed behind her and she turned around to catch a flutter of dunn wings disappearing behind trembling foliage.
“The bird. A summer tanager.” The man said.
Betty blinked. “Summer? Isn’t it a little early?”
The man smiled with braces-straight teeth. “ They're the first of the season. The males have these super bright red feathers. The females are less brightly colored but just as beautiful.”
She narrowed her eyes a little.
“Sorry. That sounded totally weird, oh man.” He looked away and scratched the back of his head.
“No, it’s alright.”
“No, it’s totally not, I am so sorry. I did not mean it like that.” His grin widened with embarrassment. “It’s just …I just moved here and I’m trying to meet some new people and I can only seem to talk about birds.”
“No, it’s ok I totally get it.” said Betty. “In my line of work talking about your passions is like the main way people socialize. Are you a photographer?”
“Amatuer. But yeah.” Glenn continued. “I’m trying to build a portfolio, maybe go pro. Here.”
He handed over his camera and pointed to a button on the back to parse through the photos saved to the memory card. He had indeed captured the bird before it had a chance to fly away along with a few other animals in trees or bushes in motion. There were a few close ups of flowers in bloom as well, brimming with color.
“These are good.” She remarked, studying them. “I took a photography class in high school but I didn’t stick with it. I didn’t have time when I started taking advanced courses senior year.”
“Advanced courses? Like college courses?”
“Yeah.” She glanced back up at him. “Chemistry. I majored in medical science.”
He nodded. “Wow. I’m guessing that’s what all the books are about.”
He gestured to her stack rented from the library inside.
“Oh yeah. A colleague of mine actually wrote this one.” Betty handled the copy of The X Particle by Robert Bruce Banner.
“Cool.” Glenn nodded with a surprising level of genuine interest. “ So like finding new treatments for diseases, stuff like that?”
“Exactly. It’s pretty dense, even for the subject matter, but it’s the earliest thing he published and it’s not bad it’s just…”
“It’s just you could do better, huh?”
This got her to smile, a little awkwardly. Internally she wanted to say ‘Yes.’ But at the last moment she felt self conscious about it, muttering a half-hearted “Maybe.”
There was a tremendous crash from a few feet away and Betty jumped.
To her left she saw a waiter apologizing and picking up a dropped tray and the largest chunks of what used to be glasses full of water.
When the commotion settled, Betty became aware that Glenn was talking. He mouthed something, possibly ‘Are you ok?’ but her heart was beating too loudly to hear.
He reached a hand forward to her shoulder and she cringed away from it.
Not here, she thought, not now damn it.
“I’m sorry. I have to go.” She sputtered and ducked away towards the bathroom.
There, she locked herself in a stall and leaned her head against the cool surface of the door, swearing. Betty tried to force herself to breathe evenly and drag her mind away from the memory of that night. That creature…
The national news reported on it a few times before abandoning the topic for more updates on the war. Blurry pictures, eyewitness accounts from those who saw it at a distance. The “Hulk” as they were calling it.
Nothing from anyone who watched it…him tear apart a condo as if it was made of cardboard. Screaming, bullets flying, bodies crumpling, and glittering pieces of broken glass everywhere. Betty was the only one there who’d be able to leave the ER in the morning.
And none of this was the worst part. The worst part was the look in his eyes. Glazed over and confused as much as angry. She had seen it before in Bruce’s eyes during one of his episodes. She had met the Hulk before. Which meant, logically, that the radiation didn’t do this to him, at least not all of it. If Bruce could come back from that state before, he could do it again. Everyone was looking for a monster that had once been a man. None of them were looking for both. None of them were looking for Bruce. That’s why she was going to find him first.
Clinging to this thought, she regained control of her breathing and exited the restroom.
At the table, Glenn was gone. Pinned under her glass of half finished lemonade was money, enough to pay for her drink plus tip, and a note scribbled on a napkin. Beneath the ring of condensation was his phone number and a note; Call Me - Glenn.