Faced with his daughter's tears, General Ross's heart was in turmoil. He was still a father, after all.
What made it worse—what truly stung—were the eyes of his men. This wasn't the old days; nobody here was stupid. This operation had cost them nothing. Not a single casualty, not a single bullet fired. A little fuel and a little over half a pound of sedative, start to finish. Compare that to every previous engagement, every soldier lost, every disaster—and the contrast was absolute. Why had it turned out so differently this time? The answer was obvious: command failure.
His enlisted men might be easy to manage, but the colleagues waiting for him back at the Pentagon—generals, undersecretaries, every political rival sharpening his blade—those were a different story. The favors he'd need to call in, the deals he'd need to cut, just thinking about it gave him a headache.
For a brief, wild moment, General Ross had the strangest thought: What if I just let the Hulk go? Keep the monster loose, keep myself relevant.
He dismissed it immediately. Releasing his own target would earn him a noose—probably live on national television.
"Move out! Bring her too!" His mood soured, and with Betty still sobbing in his face, he waved his hand and decided to take everyone.
"General, I have some expertise with sedation protocol—if you need—" Daisy volunteered herself.
"No need. Thank you both for your help. We can handle the rest." The old man cut her off flat. Please. If the military couldn't formulate its own specialized sedatives, they might as well disband and go home.
Daisy decided she'd done her part. She didn't push.
Everyone who'd arrived with a knot in their stomach left in good spirits.
General Ross was still mentally wrestling with the Pentagon fallout. Betty hadn't stopped crying. Blonsky was sulking because he'd never gotten his showdown. And Nick Fury was quietly running the numbers on how to justify keeping five-point-five billion dollars in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s budget. Those four had their troubles. Everyone else, including Daisy, was in perfectly fine spirits.
———
Parting ways with S.H.I.E.L.D., General Ross led his unit back to the Pentagon.
Betty Ross had cried herself hoarse. Her emotions were slowly settling, though several female soldiers were watching her so closely she couldn't move an inch—Bruce Banner, meanwhile, was under maximum-security lockdown.
Ross hadn't been blowing smoke. The military's chemical arsenal couldn't match Viper's, but it was nothing to scoff at either. They started by pouring in ten jin's worth of sedatives, then piled on every available restraint—a comprehensive spread. Watching Banner completely neutralized, Ross finally let himself breathe.
A harder battle was waiting: the interrogation by the Secretary and the full general staff. If he couldn't hold the line there, his best-case outcome was a quiet retirement. The old general had built his entire career on iron toughness, and he'd outlasted plenty of enemies—but he'd never felt this cornered before.
He had informants in other camps. They had informants in his. Word of the "three-hundred-dollar Hulk capture" was already quietly circulating—that was the phrase going around, and laughingstock was how many neutral observers described him. His political enemies were less generous. Their knives had been waiting for exactly this moment.
Betty Ross had no idea her father was facing an existential crisis. And even if she had, she probably wouldn't have cared right now.
All she wanted was to lose the two female soldiers stationed outside her door—both of them burly and hard-faced, pushing around 176 pounds (about 80 kg), built like they could arm-wrestle a truck—and then go find a way to free Bruce Banner.
She knew some self-defense. But she wasn't in the same league as trained soldiers. Democracy meant equality: your father being a general wasn't going to make anyone think twice about hitting back. The moment she tried anything, she'd have knuckles in her face.
Betty racked her brain for options and kept coming up empty.
She was still desperately staring at the mental image of Bruce being dissected on an operating table when the door opened. A middle-aged man walked in.
Betty vaguely recognized him—one of her father's men. Blonsky, was it?
"The General asked me to speak with her. You two, wait outside." Blonsky addressed the two female soldiers calmly.
The two burly, hard-faced female soldiers looked surprised—but Blonsky carried serious weight among the troops, and after a moment's hesitation, they turned to leave.
Thud. Thud. Two precise strikes to the backs of their heads. Already an elite soldier to begin with, and with the super-soldier serum on top of that, Blonsky's physiology far exceeded human baseline. The hit was sudden and precise; both women dropped without making a sound.
He gagged them, bound their hands and feet, then turned to Betty and gestured with a tilt of his head. Come on.
"Keep your expression neutral. Walk with me." He headed for the door at an easy, unhurried pace.
As General Ross's daughter, as Bruce Banner's girlfriend, as the future Red She-Hulk—Betty Ross had nerves of steel when it counted.
She walked out of the detention room beside him without a flicker of anxiety on her face.
The Pentagon corridors were still busy with staff. Two people dressed like they belonged drew no attention at all.
It wasn't until they'd turned two corners and stepped into the elevator heading down to the subterranean facilities that Betty finally spoke. "Why are you helping me?"
Blonsky didn't answer at first. Betty asked again. He said, "I'm a soldier. I want to fight him."
He'd managed to maintain a kind of detached composure before tonight. In his mind, the two greatest fighters in the world were the Hulk and himself—and the Hulk was just a mindless brute, which meant he was the true number one. Undisputed.
Then he'd watched Daisy tonight, and that worldview had cracked.
He didn't know anything about the Ice Bucket Challenge or internet trends—twenty years in military postings kept him well clear of all that. He was a soldier, pure and simple.
He'd written Daisy off as a government operative with nothing to do with him. Then she grabbed Betty and ran—and he knew immediately that he'd been catastrophically wrong.
Most of the soldiers hadn't clocked it in the rain and dark, but his serum-enhanced senses had. Daisy's speed had been far beyond human. With effort, he thought he might have matched her in a sprint. But she was dragging another adult and barely looked like she was trying. That was terrifying.
The realization hit: I might not be number one.
And then she'd slipped away so fast there hadn't even been a chance to issue a challenge. He'd gone back to the Pentagon, and all through the evening, that blurred high-speed silhouette kept replaying in his head.
He needed a fight. A real one, full-throttle, the kind that would either prove his worth or tear it down—something to reignite his warrior's heart.
So he needed to free Betty. Free Banner. Get the monster to stand across from him in fair combat. And then beat him, straight up, no tricks.
Betty was a little lost—she wasn't sure she'd understood what Blonsky was saying. But she wasn't about to refuse unexpected help. Free Bruce first, ask questions later.
The whole walk, Blonsky muttered under his breath in something like a waking dream, talking about his past experiences, stoking his own courage back to full. Betty watched him out of the corner of her eye the way you'd watch someone who'd escaped from a ward.