A month had gone by.
A month since the explosion in Nevada. Footage had been leaked and the press had gone nuts being able to tell their stories of dangerous explosions and monsters in the desert.
Bruce Banner had become a wanted man. Large sums of money were promised to anyone giving information that would lead to his arrest.
It had not helped though. Bruce Banner as far as anyone could tell. Had vanished into the ground.
And for Betty… From the outside it would look like her life had returned to normal. She had gone home, returned to her job working in a lab.
But it wasn't normal. On every street corner there would be a soldier following Betty from her home to work.
The cameras at her work could be accessed by the government and in her home everything was wired to the same security network.
A cage… Betty was in a cage of her fathers making.
It was for her safety they said. Bruce Banner was a dangerous man who's pride and ignorance had lead to the explosion which had mutated multiple innocent victims who happened to be in the vicinity. Only one had been found and able to deliver testimony. Sergeant Emil Blonsky now dubbed "The Abomination." by the media.
Bruce Banners Abomination. His creation.
And Blonsky was a media darling. Sitting in talk host chairs, pictures presented showing his former self who had been an extremely handsome man, put right next to his current grotesque form. Wet eyes and talk about how crazy and unhinged Bruce Banner had been.
And to top it off there was footage of the big green beast beating Blonsky senseless on the ground.
"I tried to stop him…" Blonsky informed. "I knew I had to stop that madman."
And the talk show host would sit there, tears in his own eyes and nod. "You are a brave man. Sergeant Blonsky."
And that justified the cage that Betty was now inside of.
A rainy evening Betty had gone out to eat. Even as she was at a restaurant eating, she could feel the eyes on her. At another table across the room a soldier.
Earlier in the day Betty had gotten a message, written by hand. Hand delivered by an unknown man the message read.
"Betty. Please forgive me for contacting you like this. I want to hear your voice. If it's only for a minute.
If you will grand me it. Come to Restaurant La Vien Rose tonight."
It was at that resturant that Betty was now eating.
"At 6:15 go to the bathroom. The only place the soldiers wont follow you. In there look in the cupboard, it will be filled with toilet paper. Look beneath it, there will be a phone. I will call that phone at 6:16 exactly.
Bruce."
It was 6:14 and Betty stood up from her table, she picked up her handbag and very visible started to shovel through it for tampons. Deliberately holding one up so the soldiers could obviously see. And she walked to the bathroom, locking the door behind her.
In there she rushed to the cupboard as asked and true enough found a pyramid of toilet paper she quickly dug through to find the hidden telephone which she picked up. Just in time for the phone to vibrate.
Betty gasped as she accepted and held the phone to her ear. "BRUCE!"
There was a few seconds silence and then the reply. "Hey Betty."
"Oh Bruce." Betty swallowed. "Are you okay?" she asked.
"I'm fine." Bruce replied. "Well I'm alive." he then said and Betty's eyes filled with tears. "How about you? How are you doing?" Bruce asked.
"This is the worst." Betty hissed. "I can barely even go to the bathroom without some guy following me."
"Well… Ross is afraid I would contact you. He wasn't wrong was he?" Bruce asked.
"Oh Bruce. What do we do?" Betty asked.
Bruce sighed. "There has to be a way to fix this." he said. "Betty… What happened to everyone. To Sergeant Blonsky. To Yuri, Samuel and all the others. It's my fault. I have to fix it. There must be a way to cure us."
"Bruce… It wasn't just your fault." Betty tried to tell him. "Doctor Sterns."
"Yes. Samuel was unhinged. But that's no excuse. It was never going to work and I didn't see it." Bruce sighed deeply. "Look. I still have some friends in the scientific world. At least I can try to contact them, figure things out. Reed Richards, Norman Osborn, Hank McCoy, Hank Pymp. Perhaps Doctor Curtis Connor."
"That's a very impressive friends list." Betty had to admit.
"Well, most of them are you acquaintances not friends." Bruce admitted. "What else is there to do though? They have to know what really happened."
Betty closed her eyes. "Bruce… Please be careful." she asked. "I'll do what I can. I'll try to research any notes I can get my hands on. But my dad is keeping information under lock and key. And probably to keep it away from me. He knows I want to research it, to figure out what happening."
"Please don't get into trouble." Bruce asked. "I don't want you to get hurt Betty I…. I love you."
Betty sucked in a breath then swallowed. "I love you to. Bruce." she whispered. "We'll figure this out. Okay? There has to be a way out."
"Yeah." Bruce breathed. "Betty… When the call is done. I need you to destroy the phone we are talking with. Take out the sim card, snap the card and snap the phone. Then throw it in the bin next to you."
"I understand." Betty whispered.
"Betty… Stay safe. Thinking of you keeps me going." Bruce whispered. "I hope I get to see you again soon. Goodbye Betty."
Betty closed her eyes. "Goodbye Bruce." she replied and the call ended.
Betty did what she had been asked to do. She pulled out the sim card, snapped it. Snapped the phone and put it in the bin then covered it with paper. She pulled the flush in the toilet making it all flush. Then she dried her eyes and finally went back outside and to her table.
Far away, was a single figure standing at a desolate and lonely road.
Bruce Banner was wearing an old worn out jacket and a cap shielded his face. He looked at the old worn out cellphone in his hand and then pulled out the sim card, snapped the sim card. Then snapped the phone itself and threw it on the road before he turned around and started to walk.
Walk across the very long and very lonely road.
A school class in New york were chatting excited as they walked around in the lab. Everywhere spiders were on display.
One young teenagers was grinning as he excited snapped pictures. Not even noticing the spider in peculiar colors lowering itself from the ceiling and landing on his hand.
"PETER!" A blond teenage girl shouted as she swapped the spider from the young mans hand only to hiss.
"Gwen!" Peter Parker shouted as the blond girl hissed. "What happened."
"Auw." Gwen Stacey cried holding her hand, waving it in the air. "Damn… I think that Spider was going to bite you. And then the little bastard bit me instead!"
"You all right?" Peter asked concerned and Gwen looked up as she nodded.
"Yeah." Gwen replied. "I'm all right."
Next story in "New Marvel Origins." coming soon.