anti-hero ━━ peter parker

04. glenn talbot

chapter four
stark tower, nyc
(tw — needles)

That Friday came like any other—and with it, Glenn Talbot.

     Dr. Helen Cho was one of the only people Brenna could stand. She'd worked closely with Bruce in the past, and didn't infantile her or tiptoe in her presence, so she counted that as a win.

     Brenna was laying on one of Helen's exam chairs, sleeve rolled up to her shoulder. She hated giving blood. It was exhausting and stupid, but Helen had the snacks Bruce never let her eat. "No food in the med bay," he always told her. Or the lab. Or anywhere other than the kitchen.

     "Alright—flex real good for me." Helen was leaning over her, readying the needle. Her gloved hand carefully turned Brenna's arm over, feeling at her skin just beneath the elbow.

     Brenna made a fist, squeezing her eyes shut and concentrating. It wasn't hard to find something to be angry about. Once Peter Parker's punchable face popped into her head, the vein Helen traced turned green and protruding. "Hold still," she said softly, pushing the needle into the vein.

     "Ow," Brenna winced.

     The door slid open with a sharp pop. Glenn Talbot strode in, tablet under his arm. A visitor's badge was on a lanyard around his neck.

     "Sorry, traffic." He dragged a stool over with his foot and sat. Placing the tablet in his lap, he unlocked it and made a few notes. "Proceed."

     "Hi, Lenn," Brenna turned her head towards him, mostly so she didn't have to watch green blood fill the syringe.

     "It's Glenn, and you know that." He gave her a pensive look, crossing one leg over the other. Glenn was always in uniform when Brenna saw him, but nothing about him screamed 'military'—not really. Glenn's hair was a little less unkempt then it should have been, a five o'clock shadow just starting to show on his face. He was young, but had the eyes of an older man.

     Just another Ross boot licker—and a walking migraine.

     "Any plans for the weekend, Lenn?" Brenna's smile was devious, to say the least. "Maybe Ross'll let you clean his office."

     He ignored her, attention on Helen. "I'm prepared to document the extraction." He started to type something into his tablet.

     "I'm prepared to document the extraction," Brenna mimicked. "What's the matter with you today, Lenn? You sound—ow!"

     "Sorry," Helen say gently. She'd moved Brenna's arm to rest on the edge of the exam chair. "Just keep it elevated."

     Brenna hated how Glenn stared at her—not that it was just to him. She was a freak, an experiment. A freak with freaky green blood that had to get tested.

Helen carefully transferred Brenna's blood from the syringe to a sample tube, one that blocked radiation, capping it and putting it in a weird looking metal box. Tony had described it as a of microwave. It would send out pulses to capture the radiation levels in the sample. If they were too high, well—it meant she'd gotten really pissed recently.

"Results pending," Helen mumbled.

A holographic screen popped up above the box. Waiting for the results was always a little jarring. Glenn liked to type on his tablet just to make her sweat, and Brenna could do nothing but hit and wait as Tony's microwave decided her fate for the week.

"Here we go." Helen expanded the screen with flick of a finger, studying the graph in the center. "Mm. Normal, normal—slight spike. Wow," she marveled. "It's crazy how Tony's improved this tech leaps and bounds. It wish—"

     It was like something got caught in her throat. She cleared it uncomfortably and busied herself by sending a copy of the results to Glenn's tablet.

     Wish that what? Brenna thought bitterly. Dad was here to see it?

     That was unfair—Helen didn't have a bad-intentioned bone in her body. That didn't mean it didn't sting all the same.

     "Thank you, doctor. I can take it from here." Glenn nodded curtly at Helen, who couldn't help but hesitate. She gave Brenna's hand a comforting squeeze before closing the graph and slipping out down the stairs.

Then Glenn took out his reading glasses, which Brenna thought he looked like an absolute idiot in. "Right..." He peered at his tablet, before spinning it around and showing it to Brenna. "Let's talk about whatever this was." He tapped the spike on the graph.

The blood test worked as a memory bank. Somehow, her body remembered spikes of adrenaline, resulting in higher levels of gamma radiation showing up on the chart. Which, of course, was bad. To Ross, anyway.

"Nothing happened," Brenna said quickly, snatching a pen off of Helen's desk and starting to fiddle with it.

Glenn eyed her over the edge of his glasses. "Right. You were doing nothing. It's an error and I can get home in time to catch the Oz reruns." He leaned forward on his stool. "What happened?"

     She had run it back over in her head a few times now, but it was fuzzy. All she could remember clearly was that moment, the feeling of Flash trying to wriggle out of her grip.

"Someone at school pissed me off. I got mad, that's all."

"That's all?" Glenn echoed, with just an air of disbelief. He would never take her word. He always had to poke, and prod, and—

The pen burst in her hand, cracking and spattering ink everywhere. She dropped it, and when she tried to look and see Glenn's reaction, he was stoned faced.

He gave it a few moments, the room falling silent. They were left staring at each other to the tune of Tony's lab equipment humming.

Glenn cleared his throat. "Right...so what happened?"

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