Chapter Text
This whole thing was absolutely insane, Dominik was convinced he’d officially lost his mind. Of every possible outcome, this was the one he’d never have considered in a million years. But sitting on the roof next to Bradley Ellington watching the sunrise, he couldn’t have been happier about it.
They’d been talking for about an hour, surprisingly light-hearted small talk considering the fact that just a little while ago Dominik was ready to end the man’s life. How was he so forgiving? If this were the other way around, Dominik wasn’t sure how he’d be able to look past any of what he’d done.
But Ellington -- no, Bradley, -- didn’t bat an eye at any of the questions Dominik had, personal or otherwise. Even when Dominik explained his domestic situation, all Bradley had to say was, “We’ll make it work.”
Dominik had a feeling it was going to be a lot more work than Bradley was expecting, but all of that could wait. For now, sitting here with him was the simplest joy he’d experienced in a long time. But in a silence that stretched on for a bit too long, there was still something eating at Dominik too much for him to ignore.
“Can I...ask you one more question?” he said, pulling his hand out from under Bradley’s to fidget with a loose thread on his sleeve.
“Anything, shoot,” Bradley smiled.
“Why...what made you think I was a good idea?”
Bradley threw his head back, laughing. Now that Dominik was marginally less afraid of entertaining those sorts of thoughts, he had to admit: the guy was gorgeous.
“I’m still not sure you’re a good idea,” he grinned.
Dominik’s face fell a bit, unsure of what he meant, and Bradley quickly fumbled to recover.
“No, no. I didn’t mean it like that. Shit. No, I just meant...you know. This is new territory for me too. But the risk is worth it, Dominik, believe me. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t.”
“But...why?” Dominik pressed. “I can’t imagine what about anything I’ve done made you decide you wanted to know me any better.”
Bradley chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment before answering. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I just...knew. I knew that I had to.”
Dominik supposed that was the best answer he was going to get.
-----
As surely as he’d expected it, coming home to a completely silent house still felt like a punch to the gut. Dominik almost wished he’d invited Bradley to come back with him, if only to alleviate some of the emptiness.
The second thing he noticed, after the deafening quiet, was the note Barbara left on the kitchen table.
Dom,
I’ll be away for a while. You’ll need to pick up the kids from school.
Dominik frowned. It wasn’t any less than he deserved, but after being married for 15 years he thought maybe a slightly longer farewell note was in order.
He wondered what she’d told Alex and Lizzie. Had she said anything? Did she just drop them off this morning and leave without a word? The longer he thought about it, the more certain he was that that was exactly what she did. After all, this was a mess he’d created. Why shouldn’t he be the one to explain it to them?
That was going to be an interesting conversation.
In the bedroom, the closet was now mostly empty. In the bathroom, the medicine cabinet was all but barren. Barbara had made a decided effort to completely remove even the memory of herself from this house.
It was impressive, actually, how easily she’d left without a trace. Living in one house for so long, it seemed like there should have been more evidence that she was ever there. But there wasn’t, not really. They’d never made a habit of picking up souvenirs from vacations, any pictures they took tended to be more of the children than of each other. Their home was full of necessity, and Dominik realized now that the only thing that ever made it inviting was her presence.
He sat on the bed and stared into the empty hollow in the wall where her skirts and dresses used to hang, feeling utterly at odds with himself. His purpose hadn’t been to love Barbara. His purpose hadn’t been to raise a family. At this point, he wasn’t even sure if his purpose had anything to do with Vergoldetschnauz Enterprises. He wasn’t remotely ready to consider whether or not his purpose had anything to do with Bradley Ellington, but he couldn’t hush the small part of him that hoped maybe it did.
And then he noticed something...odd. A seam in the wall the breadth of a hair, as if they’d laid wallpaper out in the back of the closet. But there was no wallpaper, just paint. And this seam.
Dominik stood, brow furrowed as he tried to get a better look. He ran his fingers over it, scraping it with his fingernail to get a better sense of its depth. It reminded him of...hmm
He began gently putting pressure on the wall in a few different spots until finally -- click . Half of the wall of the closet popped softly ajar.
Now that was interesting.
He pulled it the rest of the way open to find what amounted to, well, another closet. There was nothing in it but a few shelves and a wire rack that looked like it might have hung shoes or hats. It wasn’t even big enough to walk into.
It must have been added by whoever lived here before them, so many years ago. Although the hinges were notably soundless. Wouldn’t they be rusty with age? Maybe they had been better protected, being hidden inside the wall. But the shelves were also curiously free of dust. After over a decade of disuse, they should be practically buried in it.
Nothing about this sat right with him.
Sitting back down on the bed, Dominik tried to make sense of it. The sole explanation that made any sort of sense was that Barbara had been using it. But what for? And why wouldn’t she have mentioned it to him?
He shook his head; he was being ridiculous. It was just some secondary storage she had probably been using to keep old things she didn’t wear anymore. Honestly, she may very well have mentioned it to him at some point when he wasn’t paying attention. That happened more often than he would have liked to admit.
Even so, wouldn’t he have seen her use it? At least once?
It was a mystery that would have to wait. For now, it was time to go get his kids and tell them why their mom had left without saying goodbye.
-----
There was still a lot that Dominik couldn’t even begin to try and process about the direction his relationship to Bradley Ellington had taken, not the least of which being how to spend any real time with him. It wasn’t like they could just go out for coffee. Dominik knew the VDA had their eye on him, but he also knew that Bradley had twice as much to lose if they ever found out.
So they reconvened the next day at the lair. Dominik had told his men to take the rest of the week while he rewrote his entire life plan...Bradley showing up to see him was completely unrelated.
“What did you tell them?” he asked, leaning back against the wall by the stairs where he sat.
“Just that she’d been called away by family, her aunt was ill and she needed to go visit. That she wished she could have seen them before she had to leave but that it was an emergency.” Dominik shrugged.
“So you lied,” Bradley said.
“Yes,” Dominik replied tersely. “They’re just children, they wouldn’t understand.”
Bradley shot him a dubious look.
Dominik huffed. “And what would you have said?”
“I would have said that I’d fallen hopelessly head-over-heels for the man of my dreams,” Bradley said with a wink.
“Please,” Dominik rolled his eyes. “I’m going to be sick.”
Bradley laughed again, reaching for Dominik’s hand. “Kids are more understanding than you might think.”
“Maybe,” Dominik shrugged. They’d seemed satisfied with the answer he’d given them, and if he was being perfectly honest, he wasn’t ready to explain to them that her leaving was his fault, regardless of whether or not they would understand.
He stared down at his hand in Bradley’s and felt thoroughly disconnected from it, like it belonged to someone else. At some point he assumed this would stop feeling so surreal, but for now… it probably didn’t help that he still hadn’t properly slept. Trying to sleep in the bed felt like lying on a pile of rocks, and the sofa was too short to stretch out on. Maybe he would just never sleep again. That was reasonable, right?
“I’d love to meet them,” Bradley said.
“No, no,” Dominik replied, pulling his hand away. There were a million reasons why that was an absolutely terrible idea. He wasn’t remotely sure where to start. “No.”
Bradley looked crestfallen. “Oh,” he said. “Forgive me, I didn’t mean to overstep, I just thought--”
“No,” Dominik said again, “you didn’t. It’s just…” he reached for any reason he could hold onto long enough to say out loud, but it wasn’t happening. He could tell him that it would look bad, right after their mother left, for him to bring someone else home. He could tell him it was too risky, if the VDA learned that they’d been spending time together off the clock, for Bradley to know that much about his personal life. He could tell him that he still wasn’t really certain he should put his trust in a VDA agent at all.
Or he could sit there, floundering in silence.
“You don’t have to explain,” Bradley shook his head. “I’m just happy to spend time with you.”
“Why is this so easy for you?” Dominik asked, brows furrowed.
“Well, a lot of people tell me that I’m just naturally very charismatic,” Bradley replied with a grin, earning himself another eye roll. “Really, it’s not easy,” he continued. “Being this good-looking is actually very challenging.”
“I have a lot of work to do,” Dominik said, trying to cover up a laugh as he stood from his seat on the steps. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“I wish I didn’t,” Bradley sighed. “I’m not entirely sure how to explain my miraculous escape last night.”
“I hope you’re not planning on lying, Agent Ellington,” Dominik said.
“You must be a bad influence,” Bradley shrugged, standing and re-capturing Dominik’s hands. “When can I see you again?”
Dominik’s stomach did a flip at the question, at the shift in his joking tone, at the feeling of their palms pressed together. “I’ll be here tomorrow,” he said. “Most of the day, probably.”
“Perfect,” Bradley said. “Tomorrow, then.”
He shouldn’t have had a right to be as happy as he was, all things considered. But maybe, he decided, it was okay to let it happen anyway. Just for a while.
-----
The best (though admittedly temporary) solution that Bradley had come up with to relieve the awkwardness of taking missions with Dominik’s name on them was simply to tell the VDA he didn’t want them anymore. After narrowly escaping Dr. Vergoldetschnauz’s lair with his life, he felt too emotionally compromised to ever go back.
It was a minor injury to his pride, he’d confessed to Dominik, but well worth it.
Dominik tried not to think too hard about what it meant that Bradley was actively allowing him to carry on with whatever destructive undertakings he pleased. Not that he wasn’t glad for it; it allayed the pressure of feeling like his very existence was in direct conflict with everything Bradley believed in. But if it wasn’t, then...well, that’s where it got confusing. And he didn’t have time to dwell on it.
A little more than a week after Barbara left, Dominik was able to get the first six consecutive hours of sleep he’d had in months. He awoke the next morning with an idea that felt like it had already planned itself out in his dreams, complete down to a visualization of the blueprint. He had another party to crash, and this time he would be unstoppable.
After a day of hashing out the details with his team and a phone call to Barbara’s favorite babysitter, Dominik stood outside of a local jewelry shop with four men and his sonic emitter pylons. During the day, Incurio Jewelers featured a ridiculous 50 carat diamond as the centerpiece of their display window. At night, it was carefully tucked away in a safe at the back of the building. Soon, though, it would find a home as the central power conductor in Dominik’s electroparalysis laser.
With the pylons set up, the alarm system was down in a matter of seconds, and in a few more seconds past that his men were inside the building. It would only be a few more minutes and they could abscond with the diamond as if they were never there.
Dominik waited around the corner from the back door, focusing on the twitching second hand of his watch. If they were quick enough, they could reasonably hope to be out of there before the VDA ever arrived.
A couple minutes went by. This was still the hardest part of not involving himself directly with smaller jobs, but he knew if he went in there all he would do was micromanage. He didn’t want to be that person, and he trusted his men. He had personally selected each of them, after all.
Another minute. To be fair, he never planned on theft being a huge part of any of his projects. Lock picking hadn’t been a skill he looked for in interviews. If they were struggling with a jewel safe, he was certainly willing to cut them a break for it.
Two more minutes passed. Despite trying to talk himself down, Dominik was beginning to get antsier than he could deal with. If he just stuck his head in the door, he was sure they wouldn’t mind. He wouldn’t try to rush them, but what if they needed something? He didn’t want to make himself un available.
Thirty more seconds crept by and Dominik made the decision. Sighing in resignation, he pushed himself off the wall and turned the corner towards the back door. Which was propped open.
Something was wrong. They knew better than to leave a door open without someone there actively watching it.
The interior of the building was dark, as it should have been to avoid calling attention to their operation, but it was eerily quiet. Not a shuffle of a foot, not a whisper, not a breath -- dead silence.
Dominik stood just outside of the gaping threshold, faced with a new decision: either walk into whatever trap was waiting for him, or leave his men to whatever fate had befallen them. He really didn’t want to explain that to the rest of his team.
He reached into his coat, securing a grasp on his laser gun.
“Whatever this is, I can’t say I’m terribly interested in participating,” he said into the darkness. “Why don’t you come out? We can talk about this like professionals.”
Nothing. Well, it was worth a shot.
He shut his eyes for a moment, already regretting this. “Fine, have it your way,” he sighed, pulling his gun out and stepping through the doorway.
It took a moment for his eyes to completely adjust to the change in lightning, but once he was able to get a look around, the first thing he noticed was a foot sticking out from behind a desk. It was the only sign of life he could see, but it confirmed what he had suspected: his men were down.
Well this was certainly not how he’d planned this excursion to go. In his mind, he sifted through the few explanations he could come up with, but nothing really made any sense here. It wasn’t the VDA; this was not remotely their style. They preferred the hot-shot guns-blazing approach. No, this was far too subtle. There was a slim possibility he was unknowingly in some rivalry with another villain. He hadn’t had a lot of close encounters with anyone else in the industry yet, though. Or maybe he’d coincidentally planned this robbery the same night someone else had. Unlikely, but not impossible, he supposed.
Whatever the explanation was, he wasn’t going to leave without that diamond. He took a few more steps around the shelf on the back wall toward the safe and the door slammed shut behind him.
Shit.
Suddenly he wished he’d kept a pair of the night-vision goggles he’d given his men. It was completely black without the streetlight spilling in from the back alley, and now there was very likely someone between him and his only way out.
“It’s nice to finally meet you,” he said, if only to mitigate the uneasy quiet. He cautiously slid his finger over the trigger of his gun.
Then, the only sounds he’d heard since entering the room: a single footstep and one muffled gunshot. It took place over just a few seconds, but Dominik could have sworn it happened in slow motion. He returned fire as soon as it registered, but felt the searing pain of a hit to the shoulder. He staggered back, watching the door swing open and a lithe figure dart out before he was again swallowed up in darkness.
He couldn’t even tell if he was bleeding. He assumed he had to be, but the fact that he’d been hit at all was a little distracting. It was too late to figure out who had shot him, much less retaliate -- he had to get that diamond, if it wasn’t gone already. Otherwise, all of this was for nothing.
Turning back towards where the safe was supposed to be, he crouched down and fumbled blindly for anything that felt like a combination lock. But the more he fumbled, the harder it was to hold on to his focus, and eventually he conceded to sitting on the floor, just for a moment. Just until he’d collected himself. He leaned back against the wall by the safe, certain now that yes, he was definitely bleeding. He just needed a second, then he would try again. Just.
One second.
-----
Dominik opened his eyes in his lair, laying on the metal gurney that once held Bradley Ellington under a death ray. It wasn’t the coziest place to lay, but if he felt uncomfortable he knew it wasn’t because of that.
“Do you remember what happened?” a voice asked. One of his scientists, he determined.
“I wish I didn’t,” Dominik answered, grunting as he tried to sit up. His shoulder protested the move loudly, and he let himself fall back down onto the gurney. Someone had patched him up rather expertly, and he made a mental note to ask who did it later. Maybe it would be prudent to think about keeping someone on as medical help, especially if this sort of thing was going to keep happening. “Did we get the diamond?”
The reply wasn’t immediate, which in itself was enough of an answer for Dominik.
“We lost all four men,” the scientist finally responded.
Dominik sighed, bringing his hand up to cover his face. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“We believe it was an ambush, sir,” another voice chimed in. Cooper, Dominik decided.
“Oh? Why’s that?” he asked, a little less than enthusiastic to hear the answer.
“We feel reasonably certain that whoever it was, was already there before you arrived.”
“So we walked in on another heist?”
“...Not exactly, sir.” Cooper said. “Nothing else was stolen. If we’d walked in on a regular burglary, they would have taken a lot more.”
“Nothing else?” Dominik said, pinching the bridge of his golden nose.
“Nothing except...the diamond. Sir.”
Dominik swore, gritting his teeth and pushing himself into a sitting position with his legs over the side of the table. “How the hell did they know what we were after?”
“Well, it was the most expensive thing in the building.” A third voice entered the conversation, and Dominik swung his head around to see Bradley Ellington, walking up with a goddamned glass of water.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Dominik frowned.
“We let him in, sir,” Cooper explained, somewhat nervously.
Dominik looked Bradley over. He was dressed in his usual semi-formal work attire, either about to go in or just off -- wait, “What time is it?” He pulled his wrist up, trying to interpret the time on his watch, brain still a little fuzzy. “Have you called Julia?”
“Yes sir,” the scientist said. “We followed your protocol, she’ll be bringing the kids to school this morning.”
“Thank you,” Dominik heaved a sigh of relief.
“Here,” Bradley said, approaching him with the glass extended. “Looks like you had a rough night.”
“It’s not the first time,” Dominik said curtly, reluctantly accepting the offer. The exchange lasted just a moment more than it probably needed to; his fingers brushed against Bradley’s as he took the glass and he felt his head spin a little more.
“Can I talk to you?” Bradley asked quietly, gesturing covertly to the rest of the room.
Dominik felt apprehensive, not really in the mood to spend what energy he had reassuring Bradley that he was fine. But after a drink of water, he nodded. “Give us the room,” he said to no one in particular, and what audience there was dispersed.
Once the shuffling of feet had stopped and the room was silent, Dominik watched Bradley’s expression soften. “Hell of an occupational hazard,” he said.
“You would know,” Dominik replied.
“I guess I would,” Bradley laughed, taking the glass of water back and setting it on a nearby desk. “You gave your men a good scare,” he said. “They weren’t sure if they were still going to have a job in the morning.”
“Well they’re not rid of me yet.”
“And they’re very glad to know it.” Bradley stepped back up to Dominik, taking his free hand and giving it a squeeze before releasing it again. “I’m glad to know it,” he said.
“Why are you here?” Dominik asked. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“The VDA showed up to your little stunt just in time to watch you being dragged into your own van. I came as soon as I heard. You’re lucky they didn’t follow you back.”
“It seems I’m lucky for a lot of reasons,” Dominik scoffed. “I just wish I knew who that was.”
“...I think we may have a lead on that, actually,” Bradley said. “There’s some new activity recently that the VDA has been tracking. A couple other grand theft incidents, casualties at each site.”
“Henchmen?”
“Not every time, but yes.”
Well that was curious. Of course, villains varied on how willing they were to kill outside of their intended targets. But killing off book got very messy, very quickly, and villains (successful villains, anyway) who killed without discrimination were significantly less common. Those who did were often regarded as disorganized, but somehow whoever this was didn’t quite seem to fit that description.
“This sounds like confidential information, agent,” Dominik said with a smirk. “Are you sure I have the proper clearance?”
“I want to find who did this,” Bradley shrugged, grinning back. “Call it ‘outsourcing’.”
“I’m sure the VDA would be thrilled to know about that.”
“Fuck the VDA,” Bradley said. Then, lowering his voice, “They were waiting for you, Dom. They didn’t choose that place by accident.”
“They were after the diamond, if that’s all they wanted then I doubt I’ll ever see them again.” Dominik said.
“And what if it wasn’t?” Bradley paused, seeming to realize that his tone had grown more serious than he’d meant. “I just want to be smart about this.”
“Are you coming along with me now, robbing jewelry stores?” Dominik asked scathingly. “Please don’t fret , I can’t stand it.”
Bradley was silent, looking Dominik’s face over. He probably hadn’t needed to be so sharp, but there was a lot he was less than pleased about at the moment.
“I’m sorry,” Dominik finally said, reaching for Bradley’s hand. “We’ll find them. Besides, it’s not as if I’m going out again soon anyway.”
Bradley accepted Dominik’s hand, bringing it to his lips for a quick kiss. “Don’t apologize,” he said. “I want to help you. You know that, don’t you?”
Dominik nodded, although he still couldn’t fathom why. He felt Bradley start to let go of his hand, and quickly tightened his grip to keep him there. “This is going to take time for me,” he said, gaze fixed somewhere in the distance. He wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by it, a request for patience, maybe. But he knew it needed to be said.
Bradley leaned down and planted another kiss on the top of Dominik’s head. “I know, darling. You’re going to have to try much harder than that if you want to scare me off.”
He wanted to say something in response, ask if that was a challenge or tell Bradley that he wasn’t trying but he could if he wanted him to. But he couldn’t find the energy to deliver it with any humor, so instead he resigned himself to silently appreciating the sentiment for what it was, letting the words hang uncontested.
-----
Dominik explained his injury to his children vaguely as an accident at work and apologized for not coming home that night, that he hadn’t meant to worry them. They were growing up too quickly, and pretty soon he knew they would start becoming suspicious of what exactly his job was. It had come up before for school projects, but Barbara had always handled it with some cagey language and a hand wave. Now that she’d disappeared, he was struggling to come up with anything even marginally plausible.
It had been just over a month since she left. That was another thing that was difficult to explain; he really hadn’t planned on her being gone for quite this long. The excuse that she’d gone to visit her aunt was losing credibility every day. He was either going to have to come up with another excuse or tell them the truth.
Seeing Bradley was also gradually becoming more and more difficult. Dominik suspected the VDA was beginning to wonder about the time unaccounted for when he was gone most days.
“You’re lucky,” Bradley said to him one morning as they sat on the roof of the lair, “being self-employed, making your own hours.”
Dominik let out a loud laugh. “You could be ‘self-employed’ too, but I’m not sure the line of work would suit you.”
Bradley laughed with him, a light, insouciant laugh that went all the way to his eyes and made Dominik feel like some of the charred parts of his heart were being scraped away.
“You don’t need to keep doing this, you know,” he said. “I’d rather only see you once in a while than risk… whatever will happen when they figure out where you’ve been off to every day.” The honesty of his own statement and the ease with which he’d said it surprised him, and he realized it was the first time he’d admitted to wanting to spend time together. Bradley was wearing him down, it seemed.
“Let me worry about that,” Bradley said, wrapping an arm around Dominik’s waist and pulling himself closer. The nearness felt more comfortable than he’d expected, and Dominik leaned into it.
A thought occurred to him, one he’d been pushing aside since the first time Bradley mentioned it, but now felt somehow less offensive. He chewed on it carefully, weighing the possible outcomes, the consequences. The potential for bad still markedly outweighed the good.
What the hell.
“Come over,” he said before he had the chance to stop himself. “To the house. Tonight.”
Bradley pulled back to look at him. “...Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Not really, but if he thought about it too hard he knew he was likely to change his mind. “...If you’re free, of course. If not, we can --”
“No, no, of course I’m free,” Bradley said, waving his hand to stop whatever train of thought Dominik was on. “Of course I’ll come over.” He placed a hand gently on the side of Dominik’s face. “I thought you’d never ask,” he said, grinning and leaning forward to brush his lips lightly against Dominik’s.
Dominik almost shrank back. It would have been a reflexive action; he was already on guard after taking the risk of asking Bradley over. Instead, he found himself frozen, not reacting in either direction.
Bradley retreated, obviously sensing the lack of response. “Sorry,” he said. “Sorry, I… I was just. I thought you -- I should have asked, I’m sorry. Are you --”
“Then ask,” Dominik said.
Bradley stopped himself mid-sentence, studying Dominik’s face cautiously. “...Can I kiss you?”
“...Yes.” Dominik felt his heart attempting to beat out of his chest and wondered if his answer could even be heard over it, but any questions he had blipped out of existence when Bradley’s lips were on his again. This time, he let himself fall into it.
Any fears or anxieties, suspicions or doubts were all completely forgotten. The VDA, the lair, Barbara... all of it seemed lightyears away. The only thing in the whole universe that was real, the only thing that made any difference, was this.