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Goldnose has had it up to here with Jim Blonde.
Every plot he ever has concocted have all been thwarted by the charming son-of-a-bitch that isn’t even blond. He’s a brunet. A brunet!
His international bank heist that took six months of careful planning? Jim Blonde swoops in and activates the security system. Goldnose spends a week in prison before another of Blonde’s enemies bails him out.
The mutation that was supposed to make a man ten times stronger than average? Blonde fought all ten of his willing test subjects and bested all of them in hand-to-hand without even ripping a suit sleeve. Goldnose can’t even clench a fist without busting a cufflink.
The infamous melted gold scandal? Fuck, that’s how Goldnose earned his actual golden nose anyway. That’s how they met, even. Goldnose invites the man to dinner, offers him a job within the shady business, and what does he get? Melted gold poured right on his face.
But now, oh, but now, there’s nothing between Goldnose and his long-awaited revenge…except union mandated work breaks.
It figures the moment he has Blonde right where he wants him—disheveled and afraid, strapped down to a table with a deadly laser just above him, crackling with energy reflected in Jim’s dark, rich eyes and ready to fire at the push of a button—that the work day technically ends and all his minions start walking out.
He has to walk away from his moment of victory and just…go home. What else is there to do? It’s what he’s always done.
She had been a modern-day catwoman when he met her. Now, she was the same plain woman he always came home to at the end of the day. His two kids greeted him with the same “Papa!” they always did, and she’d always have the same smile, the one that looked fake but she always assured him was real. They ate in near silence, the kind of silence that a family with young children knows, and spend the evening watching television.
That night, sitting in bed with his wife, Goldnose thinks about his life. More specifically, he thinks about his life since Jim Blonde became a part of it.
He can’t stop thinking about earlier that day. Blonde, strapped to the table. Blonde, hair still perfect, bow-tie still on right, only mildly mussed up. Blonde straining against the wrist-cuffs, muscles straining under a shirt yet to even be sweat-stained. Blonde, all dark eyes and witty lines, being wordless as he watched that laser spark up. Where was his comedy in the face of death? Jim always had a joke to make, even with a gun against his temple, why hadn’t he then?
Goldnose took a quick peek through a camera feed. Blonde was still there, asleep on the table. Goldnose was honestly surprised—surely Blonde should have escaped by now? Why hadn’t he taken the chance? He couldn’t actually be stuck with no way out, right? He was never really stuck. Goldnose had yet to find a situation Blonde didn’t know how to worm his way out of, using some form of wit or tool or charm.
Ugh, the charm was the worst. Goldnose could never explain it, but it always riled him up the way Blonde could easily seduce someone into doing what he wanted. And he himself, the big nemesis of Blonde, never got more than a one-liner while his schemes fell apart around him. Jim Blonde, the world’s biggest flirt, never tried seducing him! Not that it would work, of course. Jim probably knew that. Yes, he most certainly had to.
Goldnose was practically elated when the next morning came, sprinting down to his laboratory while fixing the pop of his collar and adjusting his buttons. He inspected himself in the chrome finish of his elevator, making certain he was…presentable. Yes, that’s the word he wanted. Today was a big day, after all.
This would be the day he killed Jim Blonde.
Jim was…actually still there. Goldnose couldn’t believe his luck, taking a few minutes to mock Blonde for not taking the opportunity, for failing his mission, standard villainous faire. Blonde met every remark with a heroic retort, as was tradition. Good man, that Blonde. Goldnose gave him the traditional villain’s monologue, too, just for good measure.
And then, the moment of truth was before him. His minion handed him the button that would end this entire game between him and Jim Blonde, once and for all. The air filled with the crackle of electricity as the laser kicked back on. Blonde struggled a little, to no avail, and turned to look Goldnose straight in the eye. Goldnose met his gaze and lifted his arm, sneering as he moved to press the button.
Blonde’s expression shifted ever so slightly, and Goldnose’s motion faltered, arm stopping just short of the kill switch. He turned away from Blonde, staring at the device in his hands. What was wrong with him? He could finally kill Blonde, and he was hesitating?
Red button for kill. Green button for release. Who had designed this switch? This was a horrible layout for a switch. Goldnose would have whoever designed this fired, he made a mental note of it.
Of course, his mind wasn’t really focused on the switch, but on the man on the table. He felt the weirdest flush to his cheeks as he thought of just the NAME Jim Blonde. A slight palpitation of the heart. Hint of sweat in the palms, on his bald head, under his jacket.
Suddenly, Goldnose made up his mind. He made extra certain to hit the release switch.
Blonde jumped up immediately, shaking sleep from his limbs as he took a fighting stance against Goldnose’s armed guards. They had guns, but they would still never defeat Blonde, Goldnose knew. He waved them away, and they obeyed, with confused glances between themselves.
He could hear the footfalls of Blonde’s escape all the up to the wall just near the door. Goldnose could not bring himself to look up from the floor, but he thought he heard the smack of flesh against cement.
The slide of a foot turning abruptly around. Then, Jim Blonde’s voice.
Goldnose turned to look at him, and Blonde was advancing toward him, a smile on his face that Goldnose soon replicated. They met in the middle of the room, bodies and lips crushing together and fusing like cooling metal. Goldnose’s minions had the decency to turn away as the spy and the mastermind finally realized what they had been wanting this whole time they played their little game.
Weeks later, sitting in bed with his former-enemy, now-husband, Goldnose smiled. Blonde peered through thin glasses at a book about espionage, and Goldnose settled in, eyes sliding shut in content.
Little did the happy couple know that exactly 338 miles away, his ex-wife watched through a spy camera in the bedside lamp, muttering an old phrase about Genghis Khan as she plotted her revenge.