Chapter Text
It isn't even the fact that this smug secret agent (they're all smug, Dr. Dominik Vergoldetshnauz has never met a secret agent that wasn't smug) shows up at exactly the wrong moment and ruins his hypnosis caper after he spent weeks putting that shit together. It's that he shows up in some kind of slubby sweater, like this whole thing interrupted his weekend plans and he couldn't be bothered to change. The machinery goes up in smoke and the governor is ushered away without a scratch on him and Dr. Dominik really, really would like to rip that smug sweater right off the agent and tear it into fluffy bits of yarn. Because he's angry. He wants to rip it off because he's angry. Anyway, he's too busy evacuating himself and his undamaged supplies. Never mind the sweater.
The next time Dr. Dominik encounters him, it's at the ambassadors’ ball, where he's just about to walk on stage and announce the presence of his bomb under the banquet hall. The agent steps out of a dark doorway and says “So we meet again,” because sure he does. Is there a class in agent training academy on how to say that exact phrase in the smuggest possible tone? This guy must have passed with flying colors.
“Agent Bradley Ellington,” the man says, which is great because Dominik definitely did not ask.
“Dr. Dominik Vergoldetschnauz,” he sneers, “as I imagine you are aware.” He's at least dressed like he meant to be here this time, which is an improvement. It's not even the usual agent monkey suit, this is a full-blown tuxedo; he must have been attending the ball on his assignment. Well. It looks better than the stupid sweater anyway.
“Give it up, Dr. Vergoldetshnauz," Agent Ellington says coolly, even pronounces it correctly. Dominik grants the guy a single nod of acknowledgement before he snaps his fingers and his hidden goons grab Agent Ellington. The man saves the ambassadors’ ball anyway, of course--teach Dominik to leave his henchmen to handle a captured agent--but for a second there the look on Ellington’s face is priceless.
(He vents to Barbara when he gets home. She's very understanding. Barbara is always very understanding. It's not her fault. “You know I want you to follow your passions,” she says, “but leave it at work, okay? The world domination thing, it's fine, just not in our house. For the children's sake.” He gets that. He does his best.)
It goes on like that for a while. Pretty soon it seems like Ellington is the only agent he ends up meeting anymore, which is fine with Dominik. One nemesis makes it much easier to predict and foil. Not that, y’know, he's done a lot of foiling thus far, but he's working on it. Ellington, meanwhile, mostly seems to be working on his one liners and, weirdly, excuses to wear a tux. Whatever, it's not a sweater. (Dominik starts keeping an iron at work to touch up his collar on his uniform.) They have a lot of mid-caper chats flavored heavily with wry sarcasm and hand-to-hand combat. Well, sarcasm on Dominik's part. Ellington seems more fond of puns, and he delivers them with a self-pleased little twinkle that makes Dominik have to remind himself not to smirk.
---
The night it changes is on the radio tower.
They're grappling over a remote control, and Dominik’s foot slips on a rain-wet ladder rung. And maybe there's a tiny part of him that figured this would be how it happened, nothing but his nose left identifiable in the mess it would leave on the pavement, and he's sorry to leave little Alex and Lizzie but he's sure Barbara would make up something nice--
Ellington grabs his wrist. Their eyes meet and the agent looks as surprised as Dominik feels, but then he grits his teeth and reaches out with his other hand too. He pulls Dominik back onto the ladder, and they both hang there, panting, staring at each other, rain dripping off Dominik’s nose, gathering in Ellington's eyelashes.
Dr. Vergoldetschnauz presses the button on the remote and a yacht in the harbor explodes. Agent Ellington looks even more surprised. He just hangs there looking surprised, even as Dominik’s getaway helicopter finally shows up and airlifts him out.
Dominik is furious.
Agent Ellington has to die.
---
Barbara doesn't understand. She tries to. For a while she pretends she does. He starts sketches on his death ray and she tries to comfort him, encourage him, something. He knows she's trying, but he can hear the distance in his voice as he reassures her without looking up from his sketches. She goes quiet and turns out her light, turns over.
Dominik wonders suddenly if there's someone on the other side of Bradley Ellington’s bed who didn't understand the story of the radio tower either. His chest hurts like he fell off the tower after all and the tip of his pen goes through four pages of sketchbook.
Dammit.
“This is getting unhealthy,” Barbara tells him a week later as he's doing laser calculations after dinner. “You need to at least be there for the kids, Dom, even if you're not for me.” It's sharper than usual and he looks up.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he snaps, as though he doesn't already know. He almost says “as if you ever talk to our goddamn kids, at least I--” but no, that's not fair, that isn't the point. “He's got to go,” he says instead, and returns to his notes.
“That much we agree on,” she says, and goes to bed. She'll feel better once he's dead, Dominik thinks. We both will.
---
The death ray requires some supplies from a government research laboratory, so Dominik pulls out an old sonic disabling field generator for the errand. It's not Ellington's purview, but he's not that shocked that he shows up. (He's not shocked, but his heart stutters anyway.)
“What's this one about, hmm, Doctor?” says the agent, as Dominik and his henchmen walk out of the lab, arms full of equipment. “Who dies this time?” His eyes are challenge and… hurt?Still sore about the yacht, Dominik notes distantly. Funny, he’d already forgotten about it himself.
“Wouldn't you like to know,” he says, voice flat, and activates the sonic pylon behind Ellington. He walks away while Ellington falls to his knees, clutching his ears.
---
It's finally ready.
His henchmen are more worried about him at this point than Barbara is, although anymore it feels like that's not much of a stretch. He's sure even the kids have picked up on some of the tension stretched between their parents, despite how hard he's worked to keep it from affecting them.
“It’ll all be over today,” he says to Barb, hoping he doesn't sound like he's trying to convince himself. If she notices, she doesn't comment for once. She just gives him an uncertain smile, and kisses him off to work.
It's almost hilarious how easy it is to lure Ellington out. He sends a casually traceable countdown clock to the headquarters and Ellington is there by evening, just this side of unshaven and in an immaculate tuxedo for no reason whatsoever.
“Here to put a stop to my latest destruction, Ellington?” he smirks, as the Agent struggles against a goon on either arm. “Would you like to see at last the results of my little science project?”
“What are you going to use it against?” Ellington demands. “What was the countdown for?”
Dr. Vergoldetschnauz laughs. “How uncharacteristically modest of you,” he says, and waves at his henchmen to bring in the table with the cuffs. “Who else would it be for?” Ellington’s eyes are wide and surprised when they grab him.
“Wire in the jacket, sir,” says one of his men as they wrestle Ellington to the table.
“Get rid of it,” Dominik says. This is a private moment. (Except for all the henchmen, that is.) He turns away to the controls and wonders again if Ellington has anyone who will miss him. He thinks about asking, guised in some jibe about a next of kin, but no smart agent would answer that truthfully. Dominik doesn't get to know that, dammit, he doesn't get to know anything worth knowing.
He snatches the remote from an assistant. This is over now.
The end-of-shift buzzer rings and the henchmen disperse.
This is over tomorrow.
---
Barbara knows as soon as he walks in the door. She's silent through most of the dinner and goes to sleep without so much as a goodnight. Dominik hardly notices. He lasts to just a few minutes after Barbara goes to sleep. Fuck the union, fuck overtime pay, he can't wait to do this in the morning. (It has nothing to do with Agent Ellington on a cold metal cot all night, nothing to do with the woman lying next to him facing the wall all night.)
The death ray fires up again, the current glowing lurid pink in the cables above them. Ellington is scared to die. It's plain in his face, in the fruitless struggle he can't help but make against his bonds. Dominik stares at his fear, transfixed, until Ellington tears his gaze from the machine and locks eyes with him.
“Doctor!” he says. Dominik looks down quickly at his two button remote. Who designed this shit? This is not what he specified. This is why nobody's getting overtime pay for this. “Dr. Vergoldetschnauz!" Ellington says more urgently over the crackle. He turns away, refusing to hear.
“Dominik?” Ellington says this time, and his voice is quieter, more unsure.
“I seem,” says Dominik in what is meant to be his absolute wryest banter voice, his back to the ray and the man beneath it, “to have fallen for my nemesis. Isn't that the best joke you’ve heard all week?” The bantering tone is cracking at the edges.
He pushes the green button, and the restraints open. He doesn't watch as Ellington makes his retreat, just orders his men down.
He's fucked, is what he is. Well and truly. Professionally, personally, domestically. He's fucked. Part of him is afraid Ellington will never take another mission with Dr. Vergoldetschnauz's name on the folder, but part of him is afraid he will, god, wouldn’t that be humiliating…
Behind him, Agent Ellington clears his throat.
“Interesting,” he says hoarsely, “that you assume I wouldn't reciprocate. What was your phrase? Uncharacteristically modest of you.”
Dominik turns around slowly. Ellington is smiling, nervous but hopeful, and Dominik starts to feel a matching grin growing on his own lips.
---
“I’m not even German,” Dominik says.
They're sitting on the roof of his lair, the sun just starting to pinken the horizon. He's sent his henchmen home to their families, and the death ray in the basement is unplugged, cold and inert. They are sitting with their feet dangling over the edge, and Ellington’s--Bradley’s--hand over Dominik's on the cement between them.
“Well,” Bradley smirks, “it sounds good anyway.”
Dominik casts a sidelong glance at Bradley’s white shirt and black bowtie. “Okay, here's one I'm wondering. Why the tuxedos?”
Bradley looks down at it himself, biting his lip over a smile. “I was under the impression that you liked the tuxedos.”
Dominik gives a bark of surprised laughter. “That was why?” He grins slyly at the other man. “You know what I liked? That thing you wore the first time we met. The sweater.” Bradley groans and covers his face with his free hand, and Dominik laughs. “Yes, the argyle number!”
“That was so embarrassing,” Bradley says from behind his hand. “They called me up while I was having lunch with my--”
“I knew it!” Dominik crows triumphantly. “I knew you'd been interrupted. I doubted the agency had casual Fridays.”
Bradley chuckles, shaking his head. “It was so unprofessional of me.”
“Nah,” says Dominik. “Like I said, I liked it.” He pauses. “Lunch with your…? Sorry, I interrupted you.”
“Oh. Lunch with my mother, actually.”
“Ah.” Dominik fidgets. “So not your… You're not…” He licks his lips and tries again. “You don't have a…?”
“A…? Oh! No,” says Bradley, smiling again. “No, I'm… single.” Dominik nods, looking out at the growing dawn and looking pensive.
“I have a wife,” he says. Bradley's smile falters.
“Oh.”
“And two kids.”
“Oh god.”
Dominik glances at him and chuckles ruefully under his breath. “I guess we already knew who was the bad guy between the two of us anyway,” he says.
Bradley squeezes his hand. “We’ll figure something out,” he says. “We’ll make it work.”
They smile at each other. In a few hours Bradley Ellington will go back to base to report the threat neutralized. Dominik will go home to find Barbara’s side of the closet empty and a note on the kitchen table about him picking up the kids from school. In a few hours this will all become confusing and complicated, but for right now it's not.
For right now, they’ve made up their minds and they know themselves perfectly.