WHO IS BETTY ROSS AND WHAT HAS SHE BEEN DOING ALL THIS TIME?

By Derrick Ferguson

The Hudson Tower
East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania

She stared at the television set with something akin to disappointment. Despite the frightening images on the screen, she felt no horror. She had seen too much in her life to be frightened by scenes of slaughter and carnage. She neither felt surprise. Nothing that Bruce Banner nor his monstrous alter ego did surprised her anymore. There had been too many years of death and destruction. And she knew better than anybody else that this day would come. And now that it was here, all she could do was say a prayer for Seattle. It was sad. No doubt about it. But it was not a surprise. Not to her.

Betty Ross crossed her slim legs and continued to look at the TV as she spoke to the shadowed figure that sat in a corner of the living room. “How did you find me?”

“Give us some credit, Betty. We’ve been in control of Bruce Banner’s life for years now and as a result, we’ve also been in control of yours. But not to the degree that we felt in necessary to shape and alter the direction and course of your life choices. It was enough that you were a major influence in Bruce’s life. We’ve been content to simply monitor you. And finding you isn’t hard. You tend to overuse your Connelly and Tyler aliases. We can help you with that if you wish.”

Betty snorted in derision. “Why should you want to help me?”

The man sitting in shadow lit up a Berenger cigarette. Oddly, the flame from the lighter did not illuminate his face at all. It was as if he had pulled the shadows over him as a mask, obscuring his visage from Betty. She sat in a shaft of painfully bright sunlight. Almost like an interrogation light from Heaven.

“Despite what I’ve said about controlling lives, Betty, yours is one of those we’ve chosen to let alone. Believe it or not, the people I work for like you a lot. That’s why you’ve been Hands Off for such a long time.”

“So what’s changed?” Betty shifted in her plain, simple kitchen chair. Re-crossed her legs. She supposed she should have felt fear. But no. She had become numb to fear so very long ago.

“Bruce has changed. For years he’s been useful as a distraction. Diverting resources to pursuing him, the military wasting billions of dollars in trying to capture or imprison him. His usefulness has been invaluable for many years. But Seattle…” The man shook his head, wreathed in shadow and smoke. “We wanted The Hulk to be a public menace but this…this is just a little bit more than we wanted.”

“You must be joking. The Hulk has been killing people for years. Some of that blood is on your hands if I can trust what you’ve been telling me. Now all of a sudden you expect me to believe that you have a problem with that.”

“Actually, we don’t. But we’ve been very good at managing the collateral damage The Hulk has done over the years. The ‘misunderstood monster’ scenario we’ve foisted on the public worked better than we ever thought it would. But this is something that we can’t cover up.”

“Which brings me to why you’re here and what you want from me after all this time?”

The man blew out more cigarette smoke and tapped the ash off. The ash disappeared into thin air during its trip to the gleaming hardwood floor. “What I want is very simple, Betty. I want to know how you feel about all this.”

Betty Ross turned in her seat to look at the shadowed man in incredulous disbelief. “You have got to be kidding.”

“Why would I kid about something as relevant as your feelings? Don’t you think they count? Especially now?” The shadowed man gestured at the American Empire style furniture, the paintings hanging on the wall. “You’ve gone to a lot of trouble to make a life for yourself here. After so many years of being on the run. You got tired of running. Why, Betty?”

“None of your goddamn business.” Betty turned back to the TV. And the bloody, broken bodies being uncovered from rubble. Wasn’t there anything else happening in the world today? She pushed her shoulder length brown hair away from her face. She folded her arms and re-crossed her legs. She watched the TV.

The shaft of sunlight did not move. Indeed, it seemed to brighten.

“When was the last time you talked to your father, Betty?”

“I have no father.”

The shadowed man’s voice was full of amusement as he replied; “Oho! At last some honest emotion from you, Betty! You know, that’s the first thing you’ve said since this conversation started that I believe.”

Betty turned again to look at the shadowed man. “If we’re going to have a conversation you can do me the courtesy of telling me your name. You know mine.”

“Of course. How rude of me. My name is Achan.”

“Is that your real name?”

“It’s a name, Betty.” Achan finished smoking his cigarette and flicked the butt into the air. It described a short arc and like the ash, faded from sight. “Why do you say you have no father, Betty?”

“Because I don’t. General Thaddeus Ross cared about everything else except for having a wife, a daughter, a family. Do you know how my mother died?”

“Heart failure is the official cause.”

“Close enough. Her heart failed because it got tired of beating for a man who didn’t know what love is. My mother worshipped General Thaddeus Ross as if he were a god on earth. What she got in return was neglect. Nothing was more important in life to him than being ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross. Nothing. Not his marriage, not his wife and most certainly not his daughter.”

“He loved you enough to try and keep you away from Bruce Banner. You fought him tooth and nail on that one.”

“It was the only thing I had left to fight him on. He sent me away to boarding school and I hadn’t seen him for years. When I saw him again, he was in charge of The Gamma Bomb Project. Bruce was his personal dog to kick. Even though Bruce was the Civilian Director of the project, you’d never have known it. He visibly cringed every time my father came within ten feet of him.” Betty stood up. “Look, I’m going to get something to drink. Can I get you anything?”

“Already have my drink, thank you.” Achan held up a tumbler containing scotch and ice. Where that had come from, Betty had no idea as he hadn’t left that chair once. But it wasn’t a surprise to her. In a world where men and women moved from one alternate world to another as easily as she walked to the kitchen, what difference did it make? Betty walked to the kitchen and opened the fridge. Selected a container of milk and poured herself a tall glass and returned to the living room.

“Y’know, I was in therapy for a while after Bruce and I had been married for a while. I made the mistake of going to Leonard Samson for treatment. And when I say mistake…” Betty lowered her glass of milk and wiped away her milk moustache, chuckling softly. “…I do mean mistake.”

“Is it safe to say that Doctor Samson overstepped himself?”

“Oh, I don’t suppose I can put it all on Len. It was a pretty wild and unhinged time back then. Bruce was switching back and forth between being a Hulk that was intelligent as he was and one that was dumb as a rock. The Leader or The Abomination was popping up almost every other day. Everybody and their mother were sucking down gamma radiation like it was Coors, trying to get super powers. Rick Jones was getting in my way every time I turned around…”

“Sounds like you didn’t care much for Rick.”

“Should I have? If he hadn’t taken his dumb ass out there to the testing ground on a dare then Bruce wouldn’t have went after him. He wouldn’t have taken that blast from the Gamma Bomb and there wouldn’t have been a Hulk. I tolerated Rick Jones because he and Bruce shared a secret. Rick and Bruce were friends. But I can’t honestly say we were ever the close.” Betty took another sip of milk. “And I suppose after a while I just gave up, said ‘what the hell’ and went as crazy as every body else.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“What do you think I mean? I got involved with three men who were just like my father. None of them knew a goddamn thing about anything except themselves and what they wanted. All they knew was that they wanted power and they all went about getting it. My father was too busy hating Bruce. Glenn was too busy hating Bruce. Bruce was too busy hating himself. Len got his rocks off studying everybody like they were lab rats and making his stupid notes. And no matter how many times I slept with them, none of them could focus on anything else except what they wanted.”

“Was it so important to you, Betty?”

“For a while, it was.” Betty finished her milk and walked back to the kitchen. She washed her glass in the sink. “And at the end of it, when I realized my marriage to Bruce was a farce and my marriage with Glen was even worse and I got tired of Len sleeping with me purely as another way of proving to himself what a man he had become, I simply said fuck it and ran.” Betty walked over to the window. Haloed in the bright sunbeam she looked down at the quiet late morning street.

“Because after awhile that’s the only option left, you know. You try making a life when you have The Leader capturing you every time you turn around. Or being turned into a gamma irradiated harpy by M.O.D.O.K.” Betty laughed. A surprising delightful laugh free of the bitterness in her speaking voice. “You know what the scariest thing about M.O.D.O.K. was? Seriously? The smell. When he gets close to you, you can see something like dirty cheese caked in between the wrinkles and it smells like nothing you can imagine. All that power and he can’t do anything about the smell.”

Betty sighed and left the window, returned to her chair. She reached for the remote control and changed the channel. Something on The Food Network with Rachel Ray cheerfully chopping up a chicken. She was going on and on about something that had nothing to do with what her hands was doing. She de-boned the chicken as if she did it every day. And come to think of it, she did, didn’t she?

“You could have stayed.”

“For what? You don’t seem to get the point, Achan. None of them were interested in me as anything except a trophy. For Bruce, I was a way to get back at the humiliation my father inflicted on him. For Glenn, I was a way to prove he was better than Bruce. And Len…well, he’s got issues that no woman is going to be able to help him work out and no matter how much he pumps up with gamma radiation.”

“Glenn Talbot always struck us as being a very capable officer.”

“And he is. But I’ve met donkeys smarter than Glenn. He’s a wonderful man with a generous spirit. But he’s stupid. How else do you think he came under my father’s influence? Ol’ Thunderbolt wanted a son-in-law who would only do two things: keep me under his thumb and do what Ol’ Thunderbolt said. And for a time, he had him. Glenn stayed with the Army because he didn’t have the brains to do anything else.”

“You don’t like the Army, I take it?”

“What’s to like?”

Achan swirled his ice around in the tumbler. It clinked rather loudly in the suddenly quiet room. “What was it you wanted from Bruce, Betty? From Glenn? From Samson?”

“I’m damned if I can tell you. Back then I thought I had it all figured out. I thought that love alone was going to cure Bruce and make everything all right. I even went back to school and got my degree in biochemistry so that I could help find a cure for Bruce. That was before I realized that Bruce doesn’t want a cure.”

“That’s not what he says.”

“You seem pretty knowledgeable. You know how many times Bruce has been cured? Hell, there was even a time when he and The Hulk were separated. Bruce led his own life and The Hulk led his. But Bruce found some bullshit reason to join with The Hulk again. Just like he always does.” For the first time, Betty looked directly at Achan with fiery hate in her eyes. “Every single fucking time Bruce got cured he found a reason to reclaim The Hulk. Every time!”

Betty picked up the remote control and pointed it at the TV, went back to CNN and the holocaust that was Seattle. “That was always going to happen. Some day, some how it was going to happen. It was just a matter of time. It could have been any city. Seattle was just the unlucky one. You say that you’ve been manipulating Bruce for years. Okay, let’s say I buy that. But there are some things you can’t manipulate. And one of those is that Bruce had more than his share of chances to let go of The Hulk and he didn’t.”

“You may have something there.” Achan finished his drink and let the glass go. It disappeared before it hit the floor.

“You know that I entered a convent for a few years?” Betty laughed, leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees as she looked at the shattered skyscrapers on the screen.

“We knew.”

“I was looking for meaning and like most people who have lost all hope; I thought I’d find it in God.”

“And did you?”

“The only meaning I found was this: if there ever was a God he’s long ago left this world to men like my father. And Bruce Banner. And Victor Von Doom. And Reed Richards. And Tony Stark. And The Leader. And the dozens of other ‘geniuses’ out there in the world who think they’re God. He gifted them with intelligence far beyond what human men should have and how did they repay him? They used their intelligence to gift themselves with powers and abilities and then they kicked Him out of the driver’s seat and set themselves up as knowing what is best for this world.”

“We have some part to play in that as well, Betty. Many of those same men have served our interests for years. Some knowingly. Some unknowingly. Don’t put the blame all on them. And what were we supposed to do? Sit back and trust that God will work everything out on our behalf?” Achan laughed. “The height of irresponsibility is to have power to change the world and not use it.”

“Well, The Hulk used his power. Ask the good folk of Seattle how that worked out for them.”

Achan leaned forward out of the shadows and for the first time Betty could see him clearly. He was dressed in a simple black business suit and highly polished black shoes. His red tie and white shirt were so clean looking it almost hurt Betty’s eyes to look at them. His slim hands looked almost feminine, fragile. His thick black hair was slicked back and shone almost as brightly as her waxed and polished hardwood floor. Achan’s eyes were completely red. No pupils, no irises, no sclera. Just bright crimson orbs.

“You’ve more than made your point, Betty.”

“Have I? You haven’t begun to understand what makes me tick or why. So don’t think that an hour’s worth of conversation entitles you to pat me on the shoulder and whisper sympathetic words in my ears. Who are you and what do you want from me?”

“I told you. I represent an organization that has in been in control of many, many events in this country and around the world for a long time now. Sometimes we step back and let things progress naturally. Other times we directly or indirectly influence those events. And other times we make them happen exactly as we wish them to happen.” Achan stood up and walked over to the window, looked down at the sun-splashed street.

“Another world-conquering secret society, I take it. What do you guys do, meet at the same union hall and compare notes?”

“I assure you we are far from world-conquerors, Betty. The aim is not to conquer but to control.” Achan turned his crimson orbs on her, his lips stretching into a smile. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to talk to someone this honestly, Betty. Thank you.”

“You can thank me by getting to the point.”

“What’s the key to getting rid of The Hulk, Betty?”

“That’s easy. Get rid of Bruce Banner.” Betty turned back to Rachel Ray who appeared to be having orgasms at the way her baked chicken had browned so nicely. “It’s a solution so simple that nobody ever thought of it. But that’s the way it is with geniuses. If the anti-matter reactor doesn’t work, first thing you do is check to see if the damn thing’s plugged in.” She chuckled.

“The Hulk isn’t the problem. Bruce Banner is. Because as long as you have Bruce, you’ll have The Hulk.”

Achan slowly walked over to where Betty sat and held something out to her.

A Browning Hi-Power automatic.

Betty looked up at Achan. “You can’t be serious.”

“And who better to deliver this world from the curse of Bruce Banner and avenge the dead of Seattle but you, Betty? You were there at the beginning. You were there before the beginning. You have seen into the heart, the mind and the very soul of Bruce Banner in a way nobody else has, can or will. Can it be denied that there is no one else on the planet uniquely suited to bring him to justice?”

“I’m not a killer.”

“And I’m not asking you to be one. I’m asking you to do what you know needs to be done.”

“And become an agent of your organization? Is that the point of all this?”

“Whatever you decide to do, Betty, you will never see or hear from me again or my organization. We will monitor you no longer and we will not interfere in your life in any way. I will leave the gun and let you decide what to do.”

Betty looked deep into those so very red eyes. “Damned if I don’t believe you.”

“I’m a lot of things, Betty Ross. But I’m not a liar.” Achan knelt down in front of her and placed the gun in both of her hands. “There’s nothing left for Bruce now. You know that. My people will no longer manipulate the public, the government or the military. Bruce has placed himself out of any help any of us can give him. There’s only one thing left. Now you can do it or somebody else can do it. But believe me on this; it will be done. Bruce Banner will die.”

Achan stood up, adjusted his suit jacket. “But whatever you decide, Betty, be sure it’s what you want to do and it’s what will make you happy. You deserve that.” Achan walked to the door, opened it part way and paused as one final thought occurred to him. “May I ask you one last question?”

“Sure.”

“Who are you, Betty Ross? And where have you been doing all this time?”

Betty laughed before answering. “Who am I? I’m the daughter of General Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross and the ex-wife of Bruce Banner. And where have I been all this time? Trying like hell to forget how much I love the both of them still.”

The door closed softly. Achan was gone.

Betty looked at the gun in her hands, looked back to the television. Somehow the channel had changed as it was back to showing the Seattle disaster. Betty watched it with a heart and soul that felt nothing.

The shaft of sunlight disappeared as a thick cloud obscured the sun and the living room was suddenly dark save for the images on the TV.

And Betty Ross finally felt something; she felt her love turn to ashes and she knew what she was going to do.

NEXT: Bruce Banner calls an old friend for help. The nations of the world put a bounty on The Hulk’s head. Wait till you find out how much it is and who’s lining up to collect it!