Behind the Veil

Tony made it to the bedroom to see Lola looking rather distraught. She got off the phone and began to grab some clothes from her bag ignoring the fact he was there. Her entire body shook and her mind was racing with guilt mixed in with panic.

“What are you doing?” Tony questions.

“I have to be somewhere.”

“You aren‘t supposed to leave.”

“I don‘t care. I shouldn‘t have agreed to go this far in the first place.”

“They get really touchy about breaking perimeter,” he adds for good measure.

“I moved to New York, so that I could get my mother into better care and a fresh slate from what happened with my father, ” Lola states with a sigh. “I need to get back to New York, that was the institution saying things got bad.”

“I‘ll get you there,” Tony finally responds. Lola looked at him shocked. “I‘ll get us on the red eye to New York.”

“I don‘t know what to say.”

“Just get your things together, and I‘ll get some dry clothes on.”

A wave of relief and appreciation came over her but she had to contain the want to give Tony a hug. Instead she gave a grateful smile and headed into the bathroom to change. Tony left the room feeling a little strange, he wasn’t really that used to being nice or selfless. Not even a half hour later they were speeding off in Tony’s car towards the airport. The agents set to watch them immediately contacted Agent Coulson to inform him that perimeter had been broken. Hours later they landed in New York and took a car to the hospital in the countryside of New York. She rushed into the hospital and was greeted by the check in woman.

“She‘s in the recovery room Lola,” the front desk woman states. “We don‘t know how she got anything sharp. So sorry--”

“Fine, fine,” Lola mutters as she headed towards the recovery rooms. On the way to the room, she ran into her mother’s main doctor, Dr. Keller.

“Dolores, we need to talk about your mother‘s condition.”

“I‘d like to see what condition she is in first.”

“She hasn‘t been responding to the ECT or benzodiazepines we‘ve been giving her,” Doctor Keller continued solemnly.

“I‘ve worked my ass off to pay for her to stay here because I was told you had the best facility, so don’t you dare pull this shit now, ” she snapped before walking around him. Doctor Keller shook his head and watched as she stormed off. He took notice of Tony coming down the hallway, taking his time in doing so to give Lola her space. Assuming that this man was perhaps Lola’s partner, Doctor Keller approached him.

“She’s a stubborn one, that Lola, sweet but stubborn. I’m surprised she brought a guest here. She tends to come alone, good to see she has some sort of support,” he states then takes in Tony‘s features. “Don‘t I know you from somewhere?”

The conversation was cut short when there was a shrill yelling that came from the room. Lola attempted to calm her mother enough so that the nurse could give her the right medication. She sat on the ledge of the bed and placed her hand on the side of her mother’s pale face. Soon Lola began to sing softly in Spanish causing her mother to stop thrashing about and look up at her.

“Matame, matame, por favor mi angel (Kill me, kill me, please my angel),” she begged in Spanish. Lola grew upset with her pleas and Lola knew her mother quite literally thought she was an angel at this point.

“No usted va a vivir. Te vas a reir y amar. (No, you will live. You will laugh and you will love),” Lola says confidently. The medication took its course and her mother slipped into unconsciousness. For a few moments Lola just stared at her before Doctor Keller spoke.

“We have to keep her on a simple schedule and life that is consistent. You doing this isn‘t going to help.”

“She doesn‘t even know who I am and hasn‘t acknowledged me as her daughter in years, if she has regressed that far, then hearing her first language should make her feel better,” she counters.

“She won‘t come back the same that way,” he argues.

“I don‘t expect her to be the same. Feel free to tend to other matters, I‘ll talk to you when you aren‘t pissing me off.”

“Dolores this is no-”

“I will go full on old lady on you Keller and pull you out of this room by the ear if you don’t leave now,” Lola warns. The older man let out a sigh and left the room. Sinking into the loveseat near the window, Lola leaned her head back with her eyes closed and one hand resting on her forehead. Tony entered the room and briefly looked at the woman on the hospital bed then went to sit next to Lola on the couch. He wondered if this was something she had to deal with often. “Sorry about all this, I know its not really your thing.”

“I could do with a little excitement in my life,” Tony replies causing Lola to briefly smile. “So what‘s her name?”

“Lydia,” she answers as she let her hand fall to her side and opened her eyes. “She suffers from catatonia, has been since my father died.”

“Does your brother visit her at all?”

“Not often, he preferred working in the field.”

“My parents were killed in a car accident when I was 19, so I get the responsibility you had to take on,” he found himself saying. Lola looked down at the hand that now rested on top of hers. A strange feeling welled up within her and she couldn’t quite pinpoint it.

“Thank you, for bringing me here,” Lola says as she placed her other hand on his cheek. She pulled his face to hers and kissed him softly on the lips. A small smile formed on her lips as she pulled away. “I‘m going to have a chat with Doctor Keller, watch over her in the meantime.”

Before he could react properly, Lola had already gotten up from her seat and headed out of the room. It certainly was not what he had expected and in many ways he liked it. In other ways he knew she was off limits according to Director Nick Fury. About twenty minutes later, the very person that had forbidden Tony from getting too close to Lola, entered the room. Nick Fury was indeed fuming but he remained collected on the outside.

“Where is she Tony?”

“Talking to one of the doctors I assume.”

Nick turned his gaze to Lola’s mother Lydia that lied motionless on the bed with bandages on her wrists. He let out a sigh, the guilt creeping up on him. Deep down he knew he should have given Lola more support after all that happened. Clearly he could remember his dear old friend Norman Novak and how much he loved his family. The memories stuck with him, they were the type of family people would invite to barbeques because they were so charming. Lydia always the first person on the dance floor regardless if there was a dance floor. Norman and Lola cracking jokes, cooking on the grill while Sal would assist. Each one having the contagious smile that often got everyone else smiling with them. The Novaks had everything but it was now ruined.

“She‘s gone,” Nick spoke turning to Tony. “Crashed all of our systems and cleared all the files we had on Marx.”

“Are you sure she wasn‘t trained?”

“There‘s no knowing anything anymore.”

“Where do you think she went?” Tony questions getting up from the couch.

“Where do you think? She‘s hunting Marx down.”

The information sank in and laid heavy on Nick’s mind. All he could think was that Lola was going to get herself killed. Three days passed with no word or sign of Lola, the agency’s system was wiped clean of any existence of Marx and the team couldn’t think of any possibilities. Tony kept thinking about his last moments with Lola, wondering if she was just manipulating him into being her lap dog. That’s how it seemed being that he just agreed to let her go without question while she literally stole the keys from his own pocket. They sat there until an agent showed up looking rather pale faced and anxious.

“Director Fury she‘s-”

“He’s got the picture, now go be useful and get more tranquilizers. I ran out on the way here and I don‘t want to risk having my brother wake up again.”

Standing there covered in blood, cuts and bruises stood Lola in all her glory with guns strapped to her thighs then an equally beaten dark haired man she held up. Nick Fury stood from his seat and looked at Lola in complete and utter shock. Steve Rogers stood up as well but opted to assist Lola with her unconscious brother. She gave a grateful smile then Lola turned to Nick pulling out a bracelet.

“Every bit of information Marx had in his database at his lab in Canada. Decrypt it, use it or destroy it, I don‘t care as long as you can find someone who can remove the micro chip embedded in Sal‘s neck.”

“Who are you?”

“You had five years to settle this. So don‘t give me that look,” Lola states as she unhooked the charm and opened it to reveal the memory card. “I swear this one doesn‘t have a virus on it.”

“What didn‘t have time?” Agent Phil Coulson retorts.

“Oh what was that Coulson? Destroy it? I‘d love to,” she counters as she set it on the table and balled her hand into a fist. Coulson quickly grabbed the memory card before Lola actually crushed it. She smiled broadly at him then her smile fell seeing that the other agent hadn’t brought the tranquilizers yet. “I‘m serious about keeping him unconscious, he‘ll destroy this entire area.”

“Alright they are on it. We‘ll take care of it all,” Nick says. “One question for you.”

“Yes?”

“What happened to Marx?” he inquires. Lola more or less ignored the question and poured herself a glass of water from the pitcher on the table. She didn’t say anything and just drank her water while walking back over to keep an eye on Sal. “Dolores what happened to Marx?”

“Oh sorry I thought that was a rhetorical question,” Lola says while giving him a bored look. She turned to look at Tony and gave a sympathetic smile. “Sorry I had to steal your car by the way.”

“Sure you are,” Tony mutters darkly.

“Right, well I‘m going to clean up,” she replies then gestures to Sal. “Blondie gets to take him down if he wakes up before you get the drugs in him, Marx left him on raging asshole mode.”

Lola left thereafter and headed towards the bathroom so she could wash off the blood from her body. It had been a long couple of days for her and she was tired like no other. Entering the facilities, Lola shut the door behind her then turned to find herself facing a stranger in the mirror. She stripped off her shirt and stood in her bra as she wiped the blood from her skin. Everything ached and her abdomen was scattered with bruises as well as gashes where she was cut by debris. Meanwhile Agent Coulson turned to Director Nick Fury with an incredulous look after opening the memory card up on a laptop.

“Director Fury, this is incredible she got everything. It‘s all catalogued and in perfect condition. Being able to get access on this size of a network is a hacker’s nightmare. Everything was password protected at the last lab we took over, it was months before we could sift through it.”

“She didn‘t hack it,” he states looking over Agent Coulson‘s shoulder. “She obtained the passwords.”

“She would be a great addition to our agency,” Agent Coulson says.

“Let‘s not get ahead of ourselves Coulson.”

“I‘ve already got a job, one that pays well and I don‘t get shot at,” Lola responds as she walked back into the main room holding a paper towel to the cut on her side. “Speaking of, could you take care of Sal? I have to put together a major proposal for this new product line this week that I really need to haul ass on it.”

“Shouldn‘t you rest a couple days before doing anything?” Bruce Banner questions.

“That is if things are done here.”

“Are you actually going to follow our protocols and let us debrief you?” Nick counters looking at her in surprise. Lola burst into laughter causing the pain to increase at her core. Squinting up at Nick, she attempted to get her last laughs out then stopped immediately when he gave her a serious look. Lola stood up straight and attempting to cover her laugh by a cough.

“My father gave me that same look when I dated someone who didn‘t like Led Zeppelin.”

“I‘d appreciate it if you go through protocol, Dolores, there needs to be some sort of order around here.”

“I‘ll trade my words for a large pepperoni pizza, six pack of Guinness and a lap top so that I can work while things are taken care of with Sal,” Lola says.

“You‘ve got a deal if you tell us everything.”

“Define everything.”

“Dolores,” Nick scolds causing Lola to give a growl of seeming agreement.

“Fine, as long as you stop calling me Dolores, its getting old,” she mutters.

“Deal.”

“So, yeah, you should get that food first, I haven‘t eaten for almost two days and I’m running on false energy here.”

“It baffles me that you are even alive,” Nick states shaking his head at her. She let out a soft chuckle and looked up with a smile.

“You‘re not the only one that‘s surprised, but considering my life up until this point I think I‘ve managed my lifelines fairly well.”

“Glad you‘ve managed it this far kid.”

An hour or so later Lola had finished retelling the tale to the assigned agents and found herself gorging on the pizza she was promised. After she had a significant amount of the pizza in her stomach she began to drink the beer whilst she began working on her presentation. Her eyes focused on the screen as she typed away furiously on the keyboard until that was she felt someone‘s presence near the doorway. Tearing her eyes from the screen she turned to see Thor standing there. She let out a sigh and rubbed her eyes. Somehow she knew what he was going to ask.

“This Emily, does she have a male suitor?” he questions.

“Just buy her some sunflowers and read her some Jane Austen simple as that,” Lola states.

“What is this Jane Austen?”

“An English novelist from the 1800s, she wrote works of romantic fiction. It’s a sure way to Emi’s heart.”

“Hmm, I will see about this Jane Austen,” Thor states gruffly then paused looking at Lola. “And you? Do you have many male suitors?”

“I‘d rather save what‘s left of my sanity than bothering with suitors,” she answers honestly. He gave throaty chuckle and smiled brightly at Lola.

“You have great humor and fearlessness Lola.”

“My biggest downfall my friend.”

“I could not help but notice you gazing at the man of iron, will you not risk sanity for him?” Thor questions.

“It is one thing to face your enemies, another to give into your emotions. As fearless as I seem, there are some things I cannot risk, ” Lola says before taking a drink of her beer. “I really wish the best in your efforts to woo my friend Emi. But if you hurt her I‘ll beat you beyond recognition. Understood?”

“Understood.”

“Good, well then I should really get back to doing this presentation. Hopefully I was helpful.”

“You were indeed very helpful,” he replies. Lola turned her attention back on the computer whilst Thor left her alone. Staring at the screen for what seemed like forever she let out a frustrated grunt. It hadn’t occurred to her that there was some sort of attachment to Tony. The kiss wasn’t supposed to mean anything, after all she was stealing his car keys. But she could have acquired them without the kiss yet she kissed him in that moment anyways. She panicked when she kissed him and stole his keys so she could leave. It was a frustrating emotion, being attached to someone so obviously self-centered and arrogant. Taking a deep breath she decided to not dwell on it any longer than she had to. Exhaling she began to do her work once again. Before she knew it she had finished and sent the presentation to the server at her work. Closing the laptop she got up from her spot extremely exhausted and headed to find out if things went well with Sal.
Lola was lead to the room Sal was resting where she was told he would be fine. Eventually she left headquarters back to her small apartment hoping normality would be restored.