What Happens in Venice...
"Try it now," called Gloria, leaning around the hood of Volcano.
Jacques hit the ignition again and the oversized van started right up.
Gloria hopped down from her perch and came around to the van's open door. Jacques revved the engine a few times and then switched it off. He beamed as he came down out of the driver's seat and patted her on the shoulder. "You fixed it so quickly! Gloria, I could kiss you."
"Really?" she asked, innocently enough. And with that she closed her eyes and leaned toward him, face tilted upwards and lips slightly puckered.
"Well all right." he said and put his hands on her shoulders and pressed his lips against hers.
Springtime in Italy. Springtime in what was considered one of the most romantic cities in the world.
When word came in from one of Matt's many sources that VENOM was possibly operating in Venice, he'd packed himself and Scott up and sent for Jacques LeFleur. It had been a long harsh winter in Quebec and the man probably needed thawing out.
And yes, VENOM was there, using some fascinating chemical that would turn water into a stiff gel, which could then be driven on or blown apart. With it they had achieved their goal of retrieving an ancient gilded barge from the mud beneath the Grand Canal, only to be thwarted by MASK at the eleventh hour. Though a price had been paid. Thunderhawk had been shot down by a missile, crash landing in the gelatinous canal. And the gel had a lifespan of but an hour, and before long it broke down, returning the canal to its normal aqueous state.
When that happened, Raven simply floated. Shark, with Gloria waiting inside for the reversal, simply swam right out. But Thunderhawk went straight to the bottom when that reversal came, halfway through its retrieval. Volcano finished the tow job, pulling the drowned car out of the Grand Canal ungracefully. It was quickly decided to simply crate up the wreckage and ship it home to Nevada and let Buddie sort it out.
Volcano had sustained some damage in the firefight with VENOM, but Gloria had been able to repair the worst of it quickly, which ended up with her and Jacques in this blissful moment.
But the kiss did not break. Instead it deepened. The Quebecois slid a hand down to Gloria's waist and spun her half a turn to pin her up against Volcano's front tire.
Her hands clasped his hips. One of his ran through her hair. What had started out as a playful gesture had somehow drowned in a wave of passion, from with neither participant wanted to surface.
And when they finally did, Gloria and Jacques stood a moment staring into each other's eyes, overwhelmed and breathless.
"Are you two done?" Matt's voice broke the spell of the moment. They turned to see him standing there staring, his arms folded over his chest. Calhoun stood next to him scowling. Even Scott and T-Bob were staring.
Gloria laughed in guilty embarrassment. Jacques looked equally ashamed. "I'm sorry, Matt," he excused himself in his thick accent. "It was a cold and lonely winter. I lost control of myself there."
Matt's eyes went to his accomplice. "Gloria?"
"Long and cold winter?" she tried.
"In Southern California?" Matt shook his head. He reached into his back pocket and got out his wallet. "Scott."
"Yes Dad?" The boy stopped staring and came up to his father.
Matt handed him some money. "Go get us some Cokes, and look around to see if there's a decent restaurant in the area for dinner."
"Okay Dad." And with that he and T-Bob were out the door of the rented garage. And the team leader's attentions turned back to his two flustered agents. They knew they were in for it when he sent Scott off on an errand, simply to get him out of the way. It had been foolish, letting themselves carry on like that, completely forbidden by the conditions of their membership in MASK, and right in front of Matt too.
"I'm sorry," Jacques apologized again. "It was my fault completely. I will hand in my resignation right now."
"No Jacques!" Gloria piped up. "I was the one who went too far. I should have known better." And surprisingly, she took Jacques' hand and gave it a comforting squeeze. "If either of us is to leave, it should be me."
Matt Trakker shook his head again. "Neither of you two are resigning over that." He stepped slightly closer to them, but not threateningly so. "Jacques, I know it's been a long cold winter up there—that's why I brought you to Venice. And apparently you've completely thawed out." His eyes moved again. "Gloria, I know you've been run a bit ragged lately, no thanks to VENOM and all the changes in the racing circuit these past few months. So I'm just going to say this." His arms folded back over his chest. The judge was about to deliver sentence. "We're leaving tomorrow after the business at the museum is finished. At that point, all this gets left behind and I forget it ever happened, and you forget it as well."
The two nodded sheepishly at him. "It won't happen again," Gloria assured him.
And then Matt turned away, going back to the shipping brace they were building around Thunderhawk.
Calhoun Burns groaned and picked up his hammer again. A slap on the wrist and a full pardon. Matt could be so forgiving at times—almost too forgiving. But why shouldn't he be? Gloria and Jacques were only human after all. They were all human. He gritted his teeth as he picked up a long board and a handful of nails. Why couldn't it have been him she'd kissed? He'd always treated her like a lady. He had always been a perfect gentleman toward her. A curse upon Jacques for his good looks and stupid accent and simply having happened to have said the right thing at exactly the right time.
-o-o-o-o-o-
Dinner was not nearly as awkward as expected. Scott had found a nice restaurant not too far away that as a novelty served chicken prepared in at least thirty different ways. As with most team meals, Trakker sat at the head of the table with Scott on his left, and T-Bob next to him. Gloria sat to Matt's right with Calhoun next to her. Jacques had the seat at the end of the table, opposing Matt. The dishes were huge and delicious, and Matt ordered two large bottles of Italian wine to go with the meal, despite T-Bob's protests that he didn't drink. Scott told Gloria and Calhoun all about his gondola misadventures of the day before and how he wanted to try again to teach T-Bob to pole one around the canals, and how much safer it would be with VENOM gone. Naturally, T-Bob had his own account of the story with which he kept supplementing the narrative.
And then talk turned to some sort of practical use for the strange gel-creating chemical and the logistics of using it, as well as the hazards of such a substance. And then the wine set in and the talk degraded into amusing and mischievous misuses of the same.
Gloria Baker kept wanting to glance down the table at Jacques, but Calhoun was always in the way. Jacques found himself in a similar spot, only with Matt always right there facing him. And she was wearing that cute little blue and white dress, the one she'd been wearing in Acapulco on their first mission together. She had even grasped his hand for a moment in the garage today, accepting more than her share of the blame for what had happened, trying somewhat to keep the guilt off of him. Why did she have to be so attractive with her mask off?
As the dinner plates were removed and dessert menus handed out, Gloria invited Scott to take a gondola ride with her around the canals, guided by a real gondolier. "This is my first time in Venice, so I have to go for a ride, and T-Bob might learn how it's done."
Scott Trakker agreed. And so after dessert they left together, found a gondolier who spoke excellent English, handed him a wad of cash, and told him to take them around to all the sights, or at least until the money ran out. "Out with your ma'ma?" the gondolier asked as he first pushed them out into the Grand Canal, the scene of this morning's action.
"Oh, she's not my Mom," Scott laughed. "Just a friend."
"What's that?" the gondolier teased. "Your girlfriend? You should be proud to have such a lovely young lady for a girlfriend."
Scott kept laughing. "No, she's not my girlfriend."
"Your sister?"
"No!" Scott squealed. "She's here to keep me and T-Bob out of trouble, I think."
"Ah, in the old days, rich parents would never send their children out without a chaperone, even their grown up ones." Gloria suppressed a giggle. Who was chaperoning whom?
"Hey, would you give T-Bob a lesson in driving the boat? He wants to become a gondolier."
"You want me to teach your robot to be a gondolier?"
The man laughed, his straw hat waggling. "Fancy that. I'd be the first gondolier replaced by a robot. I had better not, to protect my job."
The gondolier took them through the city, through canals full of lively shops and bright lights, and through places dark and mostly forgotten by the passage of time. T-Bob soon dropped into sleep mode. And when Scott's own energy and enthusiasm waned, he sat down on the thickly cushioned bench next to Gloria and smiled sleepily, watching the scenery go by like some gentle amusement park ride through history. "So how come you kissed Jacques today?" he asked her, pulling the provided blanket up over their laps.
Gloria was a little surprised he had asked that. "It just kinda happened. Your dad was mad about it."
"Did you get in trouble?"
"A little bit. But your dad's a good guy. He told us just don't do it again."
"Do you like Jacques?"
"I guess I do...a little bit," she lied. He had been on her mind constantly from the moment his lips had first touched hers. It had really been with the Canadian in mind that she had come on this lazy boat ride, but that wasn't possible. At least she could dream. She could close her eyes and imagine it was him there with her, seeing the sights of this ancient city. Love? Infatuation? Lust? Loneliness? Did it matter what name her feelings went by? All she knew was that she wanted him there.
They looked up as the gondola glided silently under a wide bridge, the cooing of the pigeons roosting beneath it the only sound.
"Someday, would you teach me how to kiss?"
She was even more surprised. "I thought you wanted me to teach you how to drive."
"Buddie's teaching me to drive. But I don't want him to teach me how to kiss, and I'll have to learn sometime."
Gloria laughed a little. "I'm not sure I should, not after having gotten in trouble today."
"We don't have to tell my dad."
Scott didn't last much longer past that. He soon fell asleep on Gloria's shoulder, as he had many times before, completely exhausted by the events of the day.
"They're both asleep now," she said quietly to the gondolier. "Better take us back to the Hotel Moresco now."
He nodded and changed his route. "Would you like a song? It's traditional for the gondoliers to serenade their passengers."
She nodded. "All right."
And even though he sung in Italian, which she could not understand, it was a clearly a love song. She sighed, feeling Scott's warm cheek upon her shoulder, wishing it were Jacques leaning up against her. Other gondolas went past, filled with giggling and kissing couples, drinking champagne and enjoying themselves. It really was a romantic city—but such a shame she could not enjoy that side of it.
The gondolier pulled up at the pier of the Hotel Moresco and kindly carried the sleeping boy into the hotel, draping him on a couch inside the lobby. The desk clerk called up to Trakker's room and momentarily Matt was down for his son. Gloria was leading in a groggy T-Bob in by the hand. "Have a nice time?" Matt asked.
"We saw just about everything...Piazetta di San Marco, the Doge's palace, the Rialto Bridge, the Phoenix Theater, the Santa Maria della Salute, some of the places they've filmed movies around here."
He smiled at her as he collected Scott off of the bench and carried his son to the elevator. Gloria led T-Bob along, who was still fighting not to come completely out of sleep mode. The bells of a nearby church began ringing ten o' clock just as they stepped into the elevator. Gloria pushed the buttons marked 2 and 3.
As the carriage began to rise, Matt leaned close and whispered. "He's upstairs in his room. Probably not sleeping. Probably lying awake thinking about you," he said quietly, conspiratorially. "But remember—what happens in Venice, stays in Venice."
The elevator door opened on the second floor and Matt gently shoved T-Bob with his foot into the hallway. He turned back to look at Gloria, winked, and the doors closed in front of him.
-o-o-o-o-o-
M.A.S.K. and all related concepts, characters, worlds, and events are property of DIC Enterprises, Inc and Kenner Toys. Original characters and story elements are property of E. Potter, writing under the pen name of Miratete.