Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A brisk late autumn day found Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, along with his childhood friend and fellow adventurer Theopholous DuMedd, trudging through the abandoned sewer system of what had once been the town of Passholdt.

More cautious individuals would have perhaps avoided the tight, dark, crumbling tunnels, and true enough, trudging through a filthy sewer was neither Gil nor Theo’s version of a good time. But there was a good reason they were there.

It was to seek out an inactive hive engine. Also an incredibly dangerous and foolhardy thing to do, but by Theo’s reckoning, two incredibly risky decisions in one day probably canceled each other out.

As they reached a dead end, they consulted a map very carefully.

Gil rifled through his bag and removed something that looked a lot like a small hand cannon with a suction cup on the business end. He employed it quite deftly to cut a circular hole through the wall, and as he removed the piece of masonry, stale air rushed out from the other side.

They threw their bags ahead and crawled through the hole, finding themselves in the sad remains of an abandoned lab.

“Here it is!” Theo said, voice hushed in the presence of the hive engine. It occupied the center of the room.

He emptied his own bag, setting lamps on the floor. He was going to light them and set them about the room, allowing them to see as they worked.

“Right where our informant said it would be,” Gil agreed, unpacking an array of instruments from his own bag.

“Well, yes. Did you think it wouldn’t be?”

“Considering the source… can you blame me?”

Theo shrugged, but didn’t disagree with Gil’s sentiment.

“Moving it is going to be a logistic nightmare,” Theo opined, starting to light the lamps.

“The important thing,” Gil said, approaching the hive engine, “is that we’re the first ones here.”

There was the sound of a lamp shattering.

“Tink again, sveethot!”

Gil whirled around. A Jäger, green and grinning widely, held a knife to Theo’s throat. The Jäger’s eyes were shining brightly, reflecting the lamplight. Another two were standing just a few steps behind, mostly obscured by shadows, but their grinning maws were visible enough even in the low light.

Theo stood stiffly, more indignant than afraid.

“Jägers,” Gil muttered unhappily.

“Goot eye!” the green Jäger said. “Now vhy don’t hyu come along nize und qviet like hyu vell-behaved friend here?”

Theo gave a long-suffering sigh, because he knew Gil well enough to realize there was no chance of that.

Gil dropped the instrument he was holding. There were only three Jägers, and if he was smart enough, he could take them. And it wasn’t hard to be smarter than a Jäger, in Gil’s experience. Or even three of them put together.

Unfortunately for Gil, the Jägers did not come alone. The moment he made to move, there was a strange sound, something like whomp!, and his feet became suddenly uncooperative. His body continued its forward trajectory and Gil fell face-first into the ground.

“What the—” He looked to his feet to see they were caught in some sort of sticky webbing.

“Hah! Successful field test on the nyar-gun,” declared a feminine voice, crackling with the tones of a Spark.

That was when Gil saw her, stepping out of the shadows. Sweeping dark green coat, long blond hair—Gil didn’t even need to see the trilobite at her throat to identify her.

Agatha Heterodyne.

She gave him one brief look, before turning towards one of the Jägers.

“They’ll be much easier to transport unconscious. Oggie, get on that.”

“Yez, Mistress!”

The next time Gil woke up, he was strapped to a table, which was the sort of thing he expected. The table was angled, holding him almost upright, but the bonds holding him were uncomfortably tight. Gil concentrated on taking stock of his situation.

The back of his head throbbed in pain, but getting punched unconscious by a Jäger could have that effect.

His coat, waistcoat and shirt were all gone, leaving him stripped bare to the waist. This was slightly more alarming, but still in the realm of what he was coming to expect from the new Heterodyne.

Theo was strapped on the next table over, just far away that whispering wouldn’t carry without being overheard. And Theo still had all of hisclothes on, but he looked confused, as if he’d only just regained his consciousness.

They were probably in one of the laboratories inside Castle Heterodyne. Given the amount of trilobites covering everything, that felt like a safe guess. There was equipment everywhere—medical in nature, Gil noted—but no obvious torture devices, besides what a motivated Heterodyne could improvise on a moment’s notice. And Gil had had ample warning from his father about what the Heterodynes could improvise. The Baron’s enmity with the Heterodyne Brothers was the stuff of legends, and had only really ended with William Heterodyne’s death.

There was a tray full of scalpels on a table to Gil’s far right. Out of reach, and probably about to become awfully relevant any moment now, but Gil made note of it as he planned his escape.

Moloch von Zinzer, the Heterodyne’s chief minion, was sitting in a chair in a corner, feet propped up on a table, as he cleaned his nails with a small knife. Gil knew, from a brief past clash with Agatha Heterodyne, that Moloch had been working for her ever since she crushed the Duke D’Omas’ army and pillaged his lands for all the gold and Sparkwork her minions could carry back to Mechanicsburg. Perhaps unsurprising that Moloch would decide to throw in with her, but it still didn’t speak highly of his character.

And Agatha Heterodyne was there too, of course. Half-turned away and looking down into a cage with a much too happy grin on her face.

“Aw, aren’t you cute!” she cooed at something in the cage.

“They’re awake, Mistress,” Moloch groused.

“Good,” Agatha said, her grin now twisting into something slightly more sinister.

She reached inside, and Gil braced himself for whatever twisted monstrosity of nature a Heterodyne would consider cute.

She pulled out… a weasel.

Gil was still apprehensive, but he took a closer look at the creature. It had more than the standard number of limbs for its species.

“That’s one of Doctor Bren’s wasp eaters!” he blurted out.

Agatha turned sharply, cradling the creature in her arm and petting its head.

“Yes!” she said. “So glad to see you’re finally awake. Oggie tends to be a bit heavy-handed.”

“What are you going to do to it?” Theo asked, staring at the weasel.

“I’m not going to do anything to it, Theo,” Agatha rolled her eyes. “Honestly, what kind of monster do you two think I am?”

“A Heterodyne,” Gil replied in a deadpan.

“Well, yes,” Agatha said. “But still.”

She approached Gil and held out the weasel. Gil tensed against his bonds, prepared himself for the worst—but the weasel only sniffed at him, its tiny nose wrinkling delicately, and then it chirped to itself happily. Agatha moved towards Theo, and repeated the process. The weasel reacted in much the same way.

“Well, this has been disappointing,” Agatha sighed. “Moloch!”

The minion hopped up from his chair. Agatha handed him the weasel.

“Take it to the menagerie,” Agatha ordered. “Find a comfortable enclosure for it, we’ll be keeping it for a while.”

Moloch kept the weasel at an arm’s length.

“Yeah, okay,” he said, looking at it warily. The weasel stared back, just as unimpressed by the scruffy man holding it.

As Moloch departed, Gil looked at Agatha with suspicion, but he’d been in this position enough times to know that Sparks could barely help themselves from telling their helpless prisoners all about their intentions.

Agatha did not disappoint.

“I was hoping,” she said, tinkering with something on a nearby workbench, “that I would get the opportunity to study one of those new Spark wasps, but it seems you’re both clean.”

Gil and Theo gave each other gobsmacked looks.

“Spark wasps?” Gil repeated.

“But Sparks are immune to the slaver wasps!” Theo said at the same time.

“Hmm, yes,” Agatha said. “Usually. It seems Snarlantz had some success expanding on that particular… limitation.”

She picked up a pair of wire cutters and held them up, as if inspecting their sharpness.

“I haven’t found out who gave him all those hive engines to study, yet, but I’m working on it,” she said. “Believe me, I’m working on it.”

“And when you find them?” Gil asked.

“Then we’ll have a very educational discussion on free will,” Agatha replied darkly. “And hopefully afterward there will be enough pieces left of them to have a new appreciation for the concept.”

“Uh…” Gil had rather been expecting something along the lines of Agatha keeping the hive engines for herself, but… “That’s… good?”

“Don’t rub it in,” Agatha sighed. “Anyway, since my plans for the day haven’t panned out, I’ll have to make my own fun.”

“What are you going to do to us?” Gil demanded.

“Oh, nothing to Theo,” Agatha replied, giving her cousin a contemptuous look. “He's family… unfortunately.”

“It would make things awkward at Christmas dinner, you know,” Theo told Gil. “More awkward than they already are,” he amended after a moment.

“So then, he’s free to go?” Gil asked.

“Yes, I suppose he is,” Agatha said. “Castle, if you please?”

“Of course, Mistress,” Castle Heterodyne’s voice rumbled from the walls.

The floor opened at the foot of Theo’s table. In the same moment, Theo’s bonds undid themselves and the table was tilted forward at a sharp angle, sending Theo falling through the gap and down a slide.

“My regards to Sleipnir!” Agatha yelled after him as the sound of his shrieking grew more distant. “When are you going to marry that girl?”

Alas, no answer came, though Theo’s shrieks ended in a splash.

“Where did you send him?” Gil asked, trying to crane his neck after Theo.

“Into the Dyne,” Agatha replied. “He’s a fair swimmer, I’m sure he’ll wash up on the shore somewhere outside of town. He’s not the one you should be worried about, anyway.”

Gil’s attention was drawn back to Agatha as she picked up something from the workbench. It was a hand-held device, squarish, with several knobs and six circular gauges at the top. It also had several long wires coming off the top, ending in electrodes. Agatha began attaching the electrodes to Gil’s chest.

“So that’s the reason you took my shirt off,” Gil said.

“…Sure,” Agatha said. “We’ll go with that. Now, Herr Wulfenbach, you may be wondering what I have in store for you.”

“Torture, I imagine,” Gil said conversationally, “maybe some light experimentation before dinner.”

“It does whet the appetite,” Agatha said. “But no, my goal today is a bit more concrete.”

She turned the hand-held device so he could better see it. The needles on the gauges jumped erratically, emitting faint clicks as they did. Gil couldn’t guess yet what they indicated.

“This,” she said, “is a little lie detector I improvised just for you.”

“Ah,” Gil said. “So interrogation, then.”

“You catch on fast,” Agatha said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “You see, I couldn’t help but overhear you and Theo back at Snarlantz’s lab. You mentioned something about an informant.”

Having finished attaching the electrodes, Agatha now adjusted knobs on the device.

“So I got curious. Who would know about the location of this hive engine and why would they give that information to you? And could they possibly lead me to the location of the Other?”

“You want to meet the Other?” Gil asked.

“Well, if you want to get technical, I’ve already met her,” Agatha said.

“Met… her? You know who the Other is?” Gil’s mind reeled.

“I do, unfortunately,” Agatha replied with a sigh.

The identity of the Other was still one of Europa’s most frustrating secrets. The Heterodynes had been eliminated from the suspects’ pool early on, but perhaps that had been too soon.

But no, there were no other female Heterodynes than Agatha. Her mother, the Lady Lucrezia, had died alongside the last Lord Heterodyne in what was speculated to be a lab accident, when Agatha was still an infant. The only other living Heterodyne might have been Barry, but his continued existence was a matter of debate. Nobody had seen him in almost twelve years.

Someone else, then. A member of the Mongfish family? But none of them had ever displayed the level of skill and sophistication displayed in the making of the hive engines.

Yet Agatha seemed quite confident she knew something. Assuming she wasn’t delusional—

Well, she was a Heterodyne, a certain amount of delusion seemed inherent in their genetic make-up.

But assuming she wasn’t mistaken about it, Agatha’s information could be invaluable. Now how to get her to reveal it, was the question.

“Be a nice boy,” she said, “and maybe I’ll even tell you all about it before I kill you.”

…Gil decided he would call that option Plan B.

“Now, time to start,” Agatha said, picking up a scalpel.

“I thought you said no torture!” Gil yelled.

“And believe me, I don’t want this to get messy any more than you do,” Agatha said, and had to pause for a moment as Gil stared at her in disbelief, “but the device is far more accurate when the subject is under some amount of physical or mental stress. Don’t be such a baby! A little pain is good for you.”

As the scalpel drew close (and she was going deliberately slow, he could tell, she was a twisted one), Gil actually started to get worried. He could feel his heart pounding hard and fast, and glimpsed at the gauges on the lie detector.

He tracked his physiological responses in time with the readings on the device. This required letting himself experience some mild panic, but he found that it helped him calculate faster.

He thought he had it now.

“Sturmvoraus!” he said, just as the scalpel pricked the skin on his collarbone.

Agatha paused, and her eyes flicked over to the device. The needles jumped, settling on a set of numbers. She frowned, very slightly.

“The name of the informant is Sturmvoraus,” Gil continued.

“You want me to believe,” Agatha said, tone low and dangerous, “that you got the information from Tarvek?”

She was clearly angry now. Good, Gil thought. She wouldn’t be thinking clearly.

“Yes, I very much want you to believe that,” Gil said slowly, “because I am under stress right now. A lot of mental stress.”

He watched the numbers change just as he calculated they would. He could tell the device was showing he was telling the truth. Which he was. Technically.

Agatha did not take to this information well.

Tarvek Sturmvoraus was a deceitful weasel. He maintained his veneer of respectability in public, of course. The ruling houses of Europa knew him only as the lawful, fair ruler of Sturmhalten. A fop, maybe, but one with some small amount of influence over the Heterodyne, which he ostensibly used to rein in her more destructive tendencies or act as a go-between for parties seeking negotiations with the House of Heterodyne.

Gil, on the other hand, knew Tarvek for what he was, and that was mostly as Agatha’s two-faced lackey. Far from being the apologetic and reasonable neighbor he played in public, he was Agatha’s ally, for all that even she was too smart to trust him completely.

“No,” Agatha said, and ripped the electrodes from Gil’s chest, “this is unacceptable.”

She stormed out the door, taking the lie detector with her.

Gil almost sighed in relief, until a couple of Jägers slunk in with nasty grins on their faces.

“Guess vot, sveethot!” one of them announced cheerily. “Ve iz guardink hyu!”

“Hyu iz lucky de Miztress still vant hyu in vun piece,” the other muttered.

“But dot’s hokay, lots ov odder fon ve ken haff together,” the first one continued.

Gil could see he would have to readjust his plans for escape somewhat.

Moloch crossed paths with Agatha just as he was returning from the menagerie.

“Done already?” he asked. “Should I get the mop?”

“Hm? No, no,” she replied distractedly. “That won’t be necessary.”

She was tinkering at something with a screwdriver as she walked down the hall in a huff. Its casing was half-stuffed in her apron pocket, a bundle of wires was thrown over her shoulder, and she was balancing several small components in the crook of her arm.

Moloch decided not to question it, he just fell into step next to her.

“Won’t be necessary yet, or at all?” he asked.

“Gilgamesh Wulfenbach is quite alive, for now,” she said.

“…And your cousin isn’t?” Moloch asked, just to make sure.

She stopped in her tracks, frowning thoughtfully.

“Now that I think about it, he never did like the water,” she murmured to herself, then shook her head. “No, he’s probably fine too. That’s the problem with being related to heroes. They’re very hard to shake off the family tree, no matter how hard you try.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Moloch said. “But if you’re not busy with those two, what are you doing exactly?”

Agatha sighed.

“Getting distracted, apparently,” she admitted, looking at the gutted device in her hands with dismay.

“What, you? Distracted? Noooo,” Moloch deadpanned.

Agatha threw him a quelling glance.

“Castle, is Tarvek Sturmvoraus still here?” she asked, glancing up at the ceiling.

“He attempted to leave earlier,” the Castle said, sounding smug, “but I took the liberty of giving him a tour of the Gallery of Razors instead, especially after what the prisoner told you.”

“What did the prisoner tell you?” von Zinzer asked.

“Lies, probably,” Agatha replied, glaring at the device in her hand. “But don’t worry, I have a plan for getting to the bottom of it. As they say, ‘Don’t trust, but verify’.”

Tarvek suspected he was on a very short list of people who would actually be relieved to see Lady Heterodyne stride towards them with that particular intent look on her face, but in his defense, he was currently being held against the wall by a blade at his throat. Since the armored clank holding the blade was not to be negotiated with, he would have to take his chances with Agatha instead.

“My Lady, how lovely to see you,” he said pleasantly.

“I hear the Castle has been giving you a tour,” she replied, just as conversationally. She didn’t call off the clank though, just leaned against the wall next to Tarvek, her arms crossed.

“Yes, it’s been quite an education,” Tarvek said, his eyes flitting to the clank. “Quite impressive.”

Castle Heterodyne made a pleased sound.

“Show-off.” Agatha rolled her eyes.

“Modesty is for tents,” the Castle returned.

“Anyway,” Agatha said, attention returning to Tarvek, “since you’re still here, how would you like to join me for dinner?”

She could see this piqued Tarvek’s interest.

“I’d be honored,” he said.

Agatha couldn’t tell if he was genuinely sincere or just that good of a liar, but that was a feeling she experienced at least once during any interaction she had with Tarvek Sturmvoraus.

“I’ll even get dressed up,” she said idly, “just for you.”

Tarvek was no end of pleased to hear this, especially since Agatha was usually more inclined towards practical clothing, like trousers and heavily reinforced corsets.

He had a good feeling about tonight.

They took dinner in the Dodecahedronal Room, which despite being as large and imposing as everything else in the Castle, managed to seem cozy. This might have had something to do with the numerous weapons on the walls and in tasteful display cases. Instruments of death accumulated over generations—everything from the simple bludgeon, to the classical sword, to the ever practical death ray—all of excellent craftsmanship and destructive potential. Agatha seemed quite at home in this setting.

And true to her word, Agatha had even put on a dress, something emerald green and festooned with trilobites. Not the kind of thing Tarvek would have chosen for her, but it suited her well.

Dinner itself was delicious, if perhaps featuring some things that would not be considered food outside of Mechanicsburg. Tarvek took the opportunity to regale Agatha with stories of his time spent in Paris, which she found charming.

“I should really visit one day,” she said, sighing dreamily.

“You’d cause quite a stir,” Tarvek said.

“Mm. And maybe I’d even leave most of it intact afterward. We should go together! If you survive the poison, that is.”

Tarvek froze with a glass of wine halfway to his mouth. He very carefully placed the glass back on the table.

“…The poison, My Lady?” he said.

“Not in the wine, silly,” Agatha replied, swishing her own glass. “The food.”

“Might I ask why you decided to poison me?” Tarvek said evenly.

Either because Agatha made some unseen sign or because it had been pre-arranged with the Castle, one of the walls of the dining room swung around, and a table laden with chemistry equipment slid into sight.

“So you can make yourself an antidote, of course,” Agatha replied. “You know I like watching you work.”

She grinned at him, a tiny bit playful but mostly just terrifying, and Tarvek had to accept that this was the price to be paid when flirting with a Heterodyne.

He rose from his seat and shrugged off his coat, and began rolling up his sleeves. He felt the roiling enthusiasm of Spark work overcoming him already.

“I’ll get started right away, then, shall I?” he said, matching his grin with hers.

Agatha looked delighted. She settled in to watch him with rapt attention.

First, diagnostic. He mixed a rudimentary poison detection mixture, and pricked his finger for a drop of blood.

“Ah! Auntie Mehitabel’s Natural Causes,” he concluded. A slow-acting poison. Maybe she did like him after all!

“Mm, yes,” Agatha said, walking over. “And I’m sure you know how to make the antidote, too.”

“I’m familiar with the process,” Tarvek said, already preparing for it. He could feel Agatha peering over his shoulder.

“But first,” Agatha said, and pressed her body against his back, her arms coming around him, palms against his chest.

Tarvek froze in place, half not believing his luck and half suspecting this was some terrible trap. Her body was very warm, solid and still somehow soft. It was the most physical contact he’d ever had with Agatha, and it had come on so suddenly, that it was making him a bit dizzy.

Still, if he misread the situation, it could end very badly for him.

“Agatha?” he asked softly, testing.

“I have some questions for you,” Agatha said against his ear, before her voice turned hard on the next words. “And if you want to live long enough to cure yourself, I suggest you develop an honest streak, fast.”

A trap after all.

“Yes, My Lady,” he said.

“Now. Who else did you tell about the hive engine in Passholdt?” Her nails were digging into his chest, not quite enough to be painful, but Tarvek took it as a warning.

“Nobody,” Tarvek said.

“Then how could somebody else have found out about it?”

“It’s possible,” Tarvek said cautiously, “that my sources might have… split loyalties.”

“So other people did know about the engine,” Agatha said.

“Some, perhaps. Yes. But its exact location was not common knowledge. And nobody else had any immediate interest in Snarlantz’s lab— Agatha, did somebody else find that engine before you did? There shouldn’t have been anyone else there!” Tarvek couldn’t help himself from blurting out the question. There were some implications he didn’t like in that possibility.

Agatha sighed.

“Well,” she said, releasing Tarvek and stepping back, “you’re telling the truth.”

Tarvek turned around to notice she was consulting the readings of some hand-held device. In her other hand, a single wire with an electrode at the end hung from her fingers.

Tarvek looked down and noticed his shirt was unbuttoned. He hadn’t even felt her undo the buttons, much less attach it. Agatha was distracting, but she oughtn’t have been able to hook him up to a machine without him noticing. This entire thing was an embarrassment to his training.

“Or you’re an even better liar than I’m giving you credit for,” Agatha mused.

“I would never betray you, My Lady,” Tarvek said. “You know that.”

“Of course I do, Tarvek,” Agatha said, smiling indulgently at him. “You’ve seen first hand how many torture chambers I own.”

“…Yes, My Lady. But if I may ask, who gave you the impression that I would?”

“Wulfenbach,” Agatha huffed, crossing her arms.

“Baron Wulfenbach?”

“No, his son.”

“Gilgamesh Wulfenbach?” Tarvek’s voice rose. “That degenerate miscreant?”

Agatha raised an eyebrow at this unusual display of rancor on Tarvek’s part.

“Unless there are two of them running around,” Agatha said, “yes, that one.”

“You can’t trust a word that ill-bred libertine has to say about anything!”

“Oh, now I’m curious what exactly he has to say.” Agatha grinned and tapped her chin in thought. Seeing Tarvek getting so worked up was fascinating. He was always so controlled and deliberate in everything he did, she really did want to know what about Gilgamesh Wulfenbach angered him so.

“My Lady, this is a serious matter,” Tarvek said. “If he’s the one who found Snarlantz’s lab, then—” Tarvek cut off for a second and his brow furrowed in thought. “How did he find it?”

“We can ask him,” Agatha said. “I have him tied up in one of my labs.”

“Er, unguarded?”

“Of course guarded! I have Jägers watching him.”

There was a rumbling, as if the building was clearing the closest thing it had to a throat.

“Actually—” Castle Heterodyne started.

“He’s escaped, hasn’t he,” Agatha said flatly.

“Good guess, Mistress!” the Castle said, sounding much too cheerful for the news it was delivering.

“Why do I even bother?” Agatha pinched the bridge of her nose. “Where is he now?”

“Oh, he’s making good time, actually, even with all the lovely death traps I’m showing him,” the Castle replied. “Of course, his father would have already destroyed your lab, leveled half the town and been halfway to Castle Wulfenbach by now, but I suppose we must make allowances for his inexperience.”

“Where is he?” Agatha asked again.

“He’s fast approaching the Red Gate,” the Castle said.

“The Red Gate? The Red Gate?” Agatha snarled. “All the gates this place has, and he picks that one! Of course he does!”

“What’s wrong with the Red Gate?” Tarvek asked.

“Well, I never thought it was my nicest looking one,” the Castle said, “but I think the Mistress is upset because that’s the one they’re bringing the hive engine in through.”

Tarvek could see how that might be a problem.

“I’m going to handle this myself,” Agatha growled, stomping towards the door. When Tarvek made to follow, she stopped him. “You’re still poisoned. Stay here and keep out of trouble.”

“But—”

“I said stay here!” Agatha repeated, and opened a display case to remove a sizable death ray from it. She flipped it on and it made a high-pitched whining sound, sending off sparks. Tarvek decided in that moment not to argue.

She left, issuing orders to the Castle. Tarvek turned back to making the antidote.

If he worked fast enough, he would be able to catch up to her soon.

Vanamonde von Mekkhan could have lived his whole life without coming anywhere near a hive engine.

Unfortunately, being seneschal, he had to be there to oversee as they transported the awful thing through town and into the Castle. Everything had gone without a hitch so far, but they were stalled at the Red Gate, taking some measurements to make sure the hive engine fit through. If it didn’t, Castle Heterodyne could rearrange itself quite easily, but everybody had decided, unanimously and without much said, that an excess of caution was called for in this case.

Though that didn’t explain why a lot of Jägers were converging around the Gate all of a sudden.

“Iz vun ov doze fitting de round peg through de square hole problems, izn’t it?” one of them commented about the hive engine.

“Hopefully less complicated than that,” Van said. “Is something happening?”

“Chust de usual,” the Jäger shrugged.

Van was about to ask for details when he spotted Agatha walking towards him purposefully, dressed in a lovely evening gown and carrying a heavy duty death ray.

The usual. Right.

“Oh good, I see he hasn’t gotten here yet,” she said as she walked up to him.

“Who?” Van asked, bewildered.

“We have an escaped prisoner, I’m afraid,” Agatha replied.

“Ah. Wulfenbach, I presume.” Van tried not to sigh too loudly. The Wulfenbachs always made such a mess on their visits.

“Dun vorry, Mistress,” one of the Jägers said, grinning. “He von’t be able to sneak past uz.”

Before Agatha could respond, the sounds of crashes and explosions resounded from the Castle, drawing ever closer.

“I should hope not,” Agatha replied.

She armed the death ray and planted herself right in front of the doorway. The hive engine was several meters behind her, still strapped onto a wagon clank for transport.

“Wulfenbach!” she snarled, just as he rounded the corner and came into sight. “Stop right there!”

He did not stop.

Unfortunately for Gil, he was currently riding on the back of a Fun-Sized Mobile Agony and Death Dispenser, which was trying desperately to throw him off, and thus crashing itself senselessly into walls and plowing through everything in its path. A panel on its back had been removed, as Gil had done something to the cat clank, but evidently not enough to make it obey him.

There was visible panic on Gil’s face as he spotted the hive engine and realized that the out of control clank was not about to stop, not even with its Mistress in the way.

Agatha very calmly aimed, and fired. A blue-green beam shot out, bright and hot, and Gil did something to make the clank swerve, so that only the left side of its body was instantly melted to slag.

Gil jumped off just in time to avoid getting crushed to death by the rest of it.

He unfortunately landed in the middle of a pack of Jägers. A slew of additional Fun-Sized Mobile Agony and Death Dispensers caught up and poured out the Castle gate, growling and snapping as they hovered outside the circle of Jägers, waiting for their turn at Gil.

“Uh, is this the part where you tell me to give up?” Gil asked Agatha over the crowd.

“In a bit,” she replied.

The Jägers, happy that they would get to have their fun, roared all at once, before diving in to attack Gil.

While this was going on, Van signaled the gaping minions to move the hive engine away. The fight looked contained for now, but the hive engine’s proximity to it was making Van nervous. The operator of the wagon clank sighed, unhappy about the entire thing, but he adjusted a series of rear-view mirrors and started putting the wagon clank in reverse, careful not to bump into anything.

Gil, on the other hand, was holding his own in the fight against the Jägers, despite rapidly accumulating cuts and bruises. But having fought his way and escaped the tight circle of Jägers, he found himself cut off by Fun-Sized Mobile Agony and Death Dispensers again, one of which almost bit his head off.

“Had enough fun for one day?” Agatha asked.

Instead of replying, Gil dodged a clank, elbowed a spear-wielding Jäger in the face, and used the spear to vault over the immediate ring of enemies.

This made him land squarely next to Agatha. She started, but she was a bit slow as she swung around to aim her death ray. Gil closed the distance fast and clamped his hand over hers on the safety. Agatha pulled the trigger, but with the safety on, the gun merely made a dull grinding sound and refused to fire.

Agatha cursed whatever harebrained ancestor had actually decided to bother with installing a safety on his death ray. He was clearly a disgrace to the Heterodyne family name.

“This is cheating!” Agatha growled.

“I’ve seen your version of a fair game,” Gil retorted, and made to pull the death ray from her hands.

Unfortunately, he slightly underestimated Agatha’s strength; instead of letting go or pulling back the death ray, she angled it upwards and pushed, smacking Gil right in the face with the barrel, hard enough to split his lip. Then she pushed again, hitting him in the nose.

With monstrous minions and clanks rapidly closing in, and Agatha clearly unwilling to relinquish her weapon, Gil decided to change tack.

The third time she made to smack him in the face, he used her momentum against her, throwing her off-balance just long enough so he could shift his body behind hers. It was, he had to admit, a somewhat compromising situation, and usually he would never stoop so low as to use a young lady as a human shield, but with his arms around her and his hands over hers on the death ray, he had control of the weapon, even if she was still clinging to it like an angry, murderous barnacle.

She glared over her shoulder at him.

“How dare you—” she started, and cut off into a shriek as Gil fired the death ray.

She resisted enough that he could hardly aim, but still he managed to shoot a wide arc against the ground, making Jägers and clanks scurry back to avoid getting incinerated.

Agatha reacted by stomping on Gil’s foot and then head-butting him in the mouth with the back of her head.

Gil’s face was already bleeding profusely, so he tightened his arms around her, trying to hold her still. This was becoming a lost cause, as he was already tired and she seemed to only be getting angrier.

“I’m going to have you skinned, turned inside out and fed to the spiderroaches,” she spat.

“Still sounds preferable to this,” Gil shot back, then coughed as Agatha somehow managed to elbow him in the stomach without letting go of the death ray.

“Release her at once, you wretch!”

Gil and Agatha stopped struggling at once, Gil in disbelief and Agatha only slightly surprised.

Tarvek appeared, Jägers parting to let him through.

“Unhand the Lady Heterodyne this very moment!” Tarvek said warningly. He was carrying a large weapon, heavy and rough-looking, with an improbably wide barrel. “I will only give you one warning!”

“You won’t shoot,” Gil said, and tightened his hold on Agatha. Human shield sounded like a very good idea all of a sudden.

Agatha cackled.

“Oh yes he will,” she said, grinning so widely that Gil was instantly alarmed. “That’s Tympanus Heterodyne’s Chirper Grenade Launcher.

Tarvek shot off a single grenade. The moment it hit the ground, there was a subsonic boom, just barely less overwhelming than the sound of the Doom Bell ringing.

Gil felt it like a cannonball to the chest, or maybe like getting punched right in the soul with a steel glove made of despair. He staggered back, releasing Agatha in the process, and fell to the ground.

Agatha, on the other hand, seemed completely unaffected, and whirled around, aiming her death ray at Gil with the same wide, manic grin on her face.

“Now this is much better,” she said, and obviously she was preparing herself up for a good gloat. But in the next moment, she looked up and over Gil’s shoulder, and her entire demeanor changed.

Now that Gil noticed, everybody was looking in the same direction with horrified expressions. What could be behind him that would cause such a—

Gil very slowly turned his head.

The wagon clank carrying the hive engine was overturned, its operator curled up on the ground with hands over his ears.

The hive engine itself was cracked, or maybe just open, but either way…

There were hive warriors pouring out.

To her credit, Agatha didn’t waste a moment turning the death ray from Gil to the warriors. Unfortunately, as she squeezed the trigger, nothing happened. She squeezed the trigger over and over, and nothing kept happening.

“What did you do?” Agatha hissed at Gil.

Gil sheepishly raised a hand to show the component he’d surreptitiously removed from the death ray.

“You idiot!” Agatha said.

“You would have shot me,” Gil retorted.

“Now I can’t shoot them!” she said, and quickly ripped open the side of the death ray.

She cranked up a dial, and the gun started emitting a strident whine. Agatha threw the death ray into the wasp warriors, and it exploded, taking out half a dozen of them.

“Now look what you made me do!” Agatha said, pointing an accusing finger at Gil.

“You would have shot me!” Gil repeated.

“I’m still going to!” Agatha yelled. “As soon as I can arrange it, you are dead, Wulfenbach!”

Jägers loped past Gil, for once ignoring him in favor of engaging the hive warriors.

But the swarm was building. More warriors poured out of the engine. The exploding death ray seemed to have only drawn their ire. They were headed straight for Gil and Agatha.

Gil, perhaps displaying more instinct for heroism than for self-preservation, jumped to his feet and threw Agatha over his shoulder, running as fast from the hive engine as he could. This unfortunately meant running through the Red Gate and right back into the Castle, but considering the alternative, Gil felt he could make an exception.

The doors slammed behind him, and Gil looked around to see that several minions and Tarvek Sturmvoraus had also had the same idea and were now inside.

Agatha gave Gil one final kick before he let her down.

“Look at the mess you made!” she said, gesturing wildly towards the door.

“It’s hardly my—” Gil started, but Agatha turned sharply away.

“Castle! Quarantine the engine. Make sure nothing escapes into the town.” As she gave this order, she threw a baleful glare to Gil; it was clear who she would blame if anything did escape into town.

The ground already rumbled as the Castle complied.

“And where’s Van?” Agatha demanded.

“I think the seneschal is still outside, My Lady,” Tarvek answered.

Agatha was appalled.

“Castle?”

“He is, Mistress,” the Castle confirmed. “But still alive, it seems.”

“Well, I better move quickly,” Agatha sighed. “I don’t want to have to break in a new seneschal.”

“What are you going to do about… him?” Tarvek asked, referring to Gil.

“I don’t care,” Agatha scoffed. “We’ll pick this up again another time, I have more important things to do right now.”

Gil was both relieved and mildly insulted.

“Wait,” he called out to Agatha just as she turned to leave.

She stopped and gave him a frosty look. Gil could feel she was rapidly dwindling on patience.

“You know who the Other is,” Gil said. “That information could be invaluable. If the Other ever returns, you’ve seen first-hand what that means. If you—”

“Tarvek,” Agatha said suddenly, and pointed to the grenade launcher he was still carrying, “is that thing loaded?”

“Ah—yes, of course—”

“Shoot,” Agatha ordered.

Tarvek complied immediately.

Gil did the smart thing and ran away very, very fast. The grenade exploded just as he rounded the corner, sending small shockwaves of doom throughout the corridor. Some of the surrounding minions winced, and Tarvek shook his head uneasily, but Agatha looked more annoyed than anything.

“Ooh, Mistress,” the Castle said, “I still have a few traps he missed the first time around! May I?”

“Have fun,” Agatha replied.

“I do hope your friend is alright.”

“I wouldn’t worry about Gil,” Theo said, looking up from his tea. “He’s the resourceful type.”

“Still, just imagining poor Gilgamesh in the clutches of that depraved creature…” Anevka Sturmvoraus sighed and shook her head in sympathy.

“I don’t know, your brother seems to handle her quite well,” Theo pointed out. Family sentiment spurred him to mount some sort of defense of his cousin, but that was about as much as he could say on that front.

Anevka gave him a slanted smile. Considering who her brother was, she probably had some idea of how Theo felt.

“Birds of a feather, as they say,” she replied, before daintily sipping her tea.

“Either way, we should thank you for the tip,” Theo said. “Even if it didn’t pan out quite the way we wanted.”

“I hope this incident doesn’t start me off on the wrong footing,” Anevka said. “I was hoping our future relationship to be a productive and mutually beneficial one.”

“I’m sure it will be,” Theo said. “You can hardly be blamed for circumstances outside of your control. Your information was perfectly accurate.”

Anevka smiled.

“How kind of you,” she purred. “With such allies by my side, I am sure my brother—and his pet Heterodyne—don’t stand a chance.”

Theo drank his tea, unsure why he felt uneasy all of a sudden.

Chapter Text

“You're not seriously trying to convince me to let this slide,” Agatha said.

“I'm only trying to suggest that perhaps razing the entire town of Nagybánya to the ground is a bit rash, my lady,” Tarvek replied.

Agatha walked at a brisk pace, and Tarvek had to follow just as quickly, even if it made him look like a puppy on his mistress's heels.

“Tarvek, they refused to pay tribute.”

“They merely asked for an extension until they could get it together.”

“And in the meantime, I'm not getting paid my tribute. And when someone doesn't pay the tribute, they know what happens.” Agatha stopped, and turned towards Tarvek. “If I just let them get away with it,” she said reasonably, “it wouldn't be fair to all the others who actually pay their tributes on time and in full. And I think I've been nothing but scrupulously fair until now, don't you agree?”

“Until now,” Tarvek repeated, sounding more argumentative than he'd intended.

Agatha stared at him, and Tarvek thought that she might order the Castle to flatten him on the spot. But he was committed to it now, so he didn't backpedal.

“There have to be consequences,” she said finally.

“Yes, of course,” Tarvek said. “You could demand interest. A late fee on the tribute, as it were.”

Agatha scoffed.

“If they can't pay this much now, I doubt they can pay more later,” she said. “I want one of their galvanic cannons.”

“One of their--”

“As a late fee,” Agatha said, looking like she was warming up to the idea now. “For me to study.”

“The galvanic cannons are the backbone of their town defense,” Tarvek said. And if Agatha studied them, she would undoubtedly find a hundred different ways of counteracting their effects, or even using them to her advantage. She would certainly find some way of improving them and adding them to Mechanicsburg's already bloated defenses.

“Yes,” Agatha said. “And maybe if they hadn't poured all their resources into developing those cannons, they would have no problem paying the tribute, and we wouldn't be having this conversation. They'd better learn to readjust their priorities after this incident, because they're only getting away with it once.”

“So you won't attack Nagybánya?” Tarvek asked warily.

“Not unless I'm especially bored,” Agatha said.

Tarvek frowned.

“Oh, fine,” Agatha said. “Don't make that face at me. I'll leave them alone as long as they're prompt with the next tributes.”

Given the grin on Agatha's face, she was clearly convinced they would be. Until they developed some new weapons, they'd be defenseless against her, and that could take a while.

“Excellent plan, my lady,” Tarvek said. “I'll write to the town as soon as possible and present your terms.”

“Yes, alright,” Agatha waved dismissively. Tarvek started making his goodbyes, when something seemed to occur to Agatha. “Oh wait, you're not leaving right away, are you?”

“Not if you need me, my lady...?” Tarvek tilted his head curiously.

“Don't worry,” Agatha said, and grabbed his arm. “I just have a surprise for you!”

Tarvek tried to squelch the feeling of impending doom those words inspired in him. With Heterodynes, surprises were usually extremely bad news. But Agatha hadn't put him through anything truly terrifying for a while now, Tarvek thought. Surely he would at least be safe.

Agatha dragged him along unfamiliar corridors on the lower levels of the Castle. Not quite underground, but with a dank and ominous aesthetic sensibility anyway.

“Here we are!” Agatha said, coming to a stop in front of a solid set of double doors. “You'll love this.”

She pushed the doors open and swept into the room, and Tarvek followed, somewhat more cautiously.

Well, it wasn't a torture chamber, at least. It looked like a reading room, well lit and not at all dank, though finding any room in Castle Heterodyne which wasn't at least a little bit ominous was something of a lost cause from what Tarvek had seen.

The two occupants of the room turned their attention to Agatha, and Tarvek stopped in his tracks.

“Aren't they lovely?” Agatha said, gushing a bit. “I found them with a circus, of all places!”

The two Muses regarded Agatha with coldly defiant gazes. And there was no doubt in Tarvek's mind that they were true Muses; after years of poring over every description of them, and every account he could find, seeing them in person now, Tarvek felt a pang of recognition.

One of them, mouthless and seated in an elaborate chair, had to be Moxana. Her sister, by the colorful dancing garb she was wearing, might have been Tinka. They clung to each other, Tinka leaning protectively over her seated sister, holding Moxana's head to her chest. Even scared, they were still the picture of elegance, as if posing for a tableau.

Agatha rounded on the Muses, and her approach made Tinka and Moxana leery. The Muses tracked Agatha's progress around the room as one might track the progress of a frightful predator. Their discomfort reached a peak when Agatha stopped next to Tinka and grinned at them.

“I managed to take a closer look at them,” Agatha said, “after some... initial mishaps. And they really do seem to be Van Rijn originals!”

“You found two of the Muses,” Tarvek said, awed.

“I did!” Agatha said, laughing. “And that circus master tried to fool me into thinking they were just really good acts! Well, they were fantastic acts, because they're the genuine article.”

“And what do you plan to do with them now?” Tarvek asked.

“I wasn't planning anything, I just thought I'd give them to you,” Agatha replied.

“...Really?” Tarvek said, gobsmacked.

He'd been already thinking up ways of trying to talk Agatha into letting him have the two Muses, even if it was going to take a long time and he would have to make any number of concessions to keep them intact. But once again, Agatha's strange Heterodyne whims had given him whiplash.

Tinka and Moxana's gazes slid from Agatha to Tarvek, and he felt strangely nervous for it.

“What would I even do with them?” Agatha shrugged. “All they do is cower. This might sound surprising, but it does get old after a while. And this one,” she added, tapping Tinka's shoulder, “electrocuted me.”

“Ah,” was all Tarvek could say to that.

“Good thing I was wearing my work boots at the time,” Agatha continued. “I hardly felt it. Still, it occurred to me as I was regaining consciousness that they might be more trouble than I'm willing to put up with.”

“My lady,” Tarvek said, “has it occurred to you that the reason they might be so uncooperative is because you kidnapped them?”

“Oh, please,” she said. “That's a terrible excuse. I kidnap people all the time, it's nothing to make a fuss about.”

“Of course, my lady,” Tarvek said as neutrally as he could. “Still. May I have a word in private with them?”

Agatha folded her arms and looked distinctly unimpressed.

“The Castle can hear everything you say even if I leave the room, you realize,” she said.

“Yes,” Tarvek said. “Which is why I am especially grateful for your discretion.”

Agatha actually laughed at this transparently manipulative statement, and shook her head. But she left the room without saying another word, and gave a playful punch to Tarvek's arm as she passed by him. Tarvek refrained from wincing.

It really didn't make much difference if she asked the Castle about what he was going to say or not. He wasn't planning to say anything truly compromising anyway. It was for Tinka and Moxana's benefit most of all, both of whom relaxed visibly once Agatha left the room.

But while they seemed quite definitive about how they felt towards Agatha, they seemed less certain about Tarvek, and he could work with that.

Agatha lingered in the corridor outside, busying herself with fixing a blown-out light fixture. She was fiddling with the poisonous gas dispenser hidden behind it when the Castle spoke.

“I must say, Mistress, while I commend your efforts, they're hardly necessary,” it said.

“I think they are! By the looks of it, gallows mites have been laying eggs in this fixture,” Agatha said, cleaning out the delivery tube with a screw driver. It was filled with disgusting purple gunk. Agatha was glad she was wearing gloves. “They've clearly become immune to the usual pesticides. I'll need to come up with a new mixture and fill it straight into the gas canisters.”

“I appreciate it, Mistress, but I was talking about your young man Tarvek,” the Castle said.

“What about him?” Agatha asked.

“While I understand that elaborate gifts are part of the courtship process, I could just drop him into the seraglio and keep him there. I think he might even be amenable to the situation, once it became clear to him that he may not leave.”

“This again?” Agatha scoffed, screwing the light fixture back in. “For the last time, I'll get around to popping out as many little heirs as you want, when I get around to it. Your constant nagging is only going to make me delay the entire thing even more. And anyway, what's your fixation with Tarvek?”

“My fixation?” the Castle repeated incredulously. “You're the one coddling the boy and offering him toys.”

“The Muses are hardly toys.”

“Which makes it all the more strange that you wouldn't keep them to yourself. Especially considering--”

The double doors opened, and Agatha made a quick sign for the Castle to be silent. Tarvek looked effusively happy as he exited the room, and he beamed as he approached Agatha.

“It's wonderful,” Tarvek said, grasping Agatha's shoulders. “They're wonderful. I can hardly believe this. Thank you!”

And on and impulse, surprising both himself and Agatha, he kissed her cheek. Agatha blinked, momentarily stalled by shock, but Tarvek immediately released her and took a step back.

“I'm sorry, Lady Heterodyne,” he said, looking horrified by his behavior. “I don't know what came over me...”

Agatha let out a nervous huff of laughter and passed a hand through her hair as her cheeks turned red.

“You don't have to apologize,” she said stiffly. “I'm glad to see you express your gratitude.”

This in turn made Tarvek blush, and Agatha went over her last words in her head and wondered what she'd just been implying. Had she been implying anything? No, the Castle's pushy talk about courtship was just getting to her head.

Well, but she really did enjoy seeing Tarvek express his gratitude. So much so that she could do with a little more of it.

“And anyway,” she said, “don't you think it's about time you started calling me Agatha?”

Tarvek looked outright flustered now.

“If you insist, my lady. Agatha.” He said her name with a mix of trepidation and delight that Agatha found especially pleasing.

Ah, she was actually flirting with someone, Agatha realized. And it involved a lot less bodily harm than she'd been led to believe it would. She might actually be good at this!... Though admittedly, she'd probably be pretty good at the type involving bodily harm, too.

At any rate, Agatha counted it as an unexpected victory.

Moloch could hear Agatha approach the lab by the humming. It sounded that she was working herself up to a proper froth, which usually meant days of sleepless work and experimentation. Moloch was suddenly glad he sneaked in that nap earlier.

“Look alive, Moloch, we have work to do!” Agatha declared as she burst through the door.

“You're in a good mood today,” Moloch said. He prepared her tools, setting them out on the table. “So that Sturmvoraus fella, he must have been proper grateful, huh?”

“I keep telling her,” the Castle interjected, “I don't think he'd mind the seraglio at all!”

“Focus, please,” Agatha said, putting on a heavy leather apron. “We are here to do science, not to discuss the tawdry minutia of heir production!”

“Maybe you'll work your way up to the tawdry bits if you give him another doll to play with,” and Moloch tilted his head towards the wall that Otilia was tightly shackled to.

“No, I really do want to keep one for study,” Agatha said.

“So you pick this one?” Moloch asked.

There was the sound of suffering metal as Otilia strained against her bonds, a look of loathing plastered across her fine porcelain features.

“She pretty much said she wants to kill you and watch your grave for the rest of time,” Moloch pointed out.

“Exactly!” Agatha said. “We already have a rapport.”

“I'm starting to doubt I know the right meaning of that word,” Moloch said faintly.

“Anyway, she's more durable than either Tinka or Moxana,” Agatha said. “She'll hold up far better under experimentation, I think.”

Otilia's expression went strangely blank for a second.

“You,” she whispered, low and angry. “What did you do with my sisters?”

“It's not them you should be worried about,” Agatha replied, approaching Otilia with a tool brandished in her hand, something long and angular and sharp. “Your sisters should be safely up in Sturmhalten by now.”

“In the hands of your loyal servant,” Otilia noted with disgust.

“Tarvek's first loyalty is to himself, I assure you,” Agatha said. “It's what makes him interesting. But he's also a bit sentimental where the Muses are concerned, I'm afraid.” She punctuated this statement by tapping Otilia's trapped hand with the tool. “He has this quaint little dream of finding all of you, and rebuilding you. They're probably as safe as they're ever going to be, under his protection. Like I said, you should really be worrying about yourself right now.”

Otilia searched Agatha's face for any sign of lying. Agatha took no notice of this as she removed the chassis from Otilia's forearm and inspected the insides.

“But why would you let them go?” Otilia asked. “What kind of trick is this? Whose doom are you planning?”

“Oh, I don't know,” Agatha shrugged distractedly. “I'm sure something will occur to me eventually. It always does.”

This, at least, stemmed Otilia's confusion. She could more readily accept that a Heterodyne was planning something nefarious than that she might have done something selfless.

“I still think you just like him,” Moloch muttered.

“Science, Moloch. We're doing science now,” Agatha reminded him.

“Yeah, yeah.”

Chapter Text

The lab was dimly lit, impractically so, leading Klaus to conclude that it was purely for atmosphere. Barry Heterodyne worked with a single lamp on the table, and its light cast deep ominous shadows on his face. Klaus couldn't see from this angle what the Heterodyne was working on, but if he couldn't escape the straps soon, he'd be finding out anyway, and then his night would turn out even worse.

Klaus was contemplating possible routes of escape when he saw the lab door slowly swing open, then close, apparently on it own. He could only see the top half of the door, so he was puzzled for a few moments until he spotted a little blonde girl in a white nightgown padding up to Barry Heterodyne.

The whole scene felt surreal to Klaus. The girl, looking no older than four and clutching a clank plush to her chest, reached up to tug on Barry's shirt.

“Uncle Barry,” the little girl said.

Barry turned around in his chair, looking down in surprise.

“Agatha! What are you doing up this late, sweetheart?” Barry asked, as he picked the girl up and pulled her onto his lap.

Well, at least this clarified a lot of things for Klaus. Keeping track of the Heterodyne family tree was something of a difficult endeavor, with how closed off Mechanicsburg was from the rest of the world. He'd heard William and Lucrezia's child died, but hadn't known until now that they'd had a second.

Undoubtedly she'd be something to worry about in a few years, Klaus thought cynically.

But the girl rubbed her eyes and yawned, and even Klaus felt a paternal twinge of tenderness towards her. She was... deceptively cute for a Heterodyne.

“Can't sleep. There's a monster under my bed,” she reported grumpily.

Barry sighed. Yes, Klaus remembered this sort of thing well. Though Zeetha's usual reaction to being spooked by imaginary monsters had been to try and convince her parents that she was not too young to sleep with a blade under her pillow.

“Is it Olaf again?” Barry asked.

“Yes! He's eatin' nyar-spiders! He's crunching 'em, Uncle Barry! An' it's real loud an' gross!” She shuddered at this.

Oh. A literal monster. Now Klaus just felt foolish.

“Did you tell him to go away?” Barry asked.

“Yes! An' he keeps sayin' he's gonna be just a minute but then he never leaves!” Agatha said crossly. “An' I said please an' everything so he's bein' rude, right, Uncle Barry?”

“Yes, he is,” Barry said. “We're going to have a talk with Olaf.”

He turned to Klaus and gave him an apologetic smile.

“Hope you don't mind, old friend,” Barry said. “Kids need their sleep, you know.”

“Of course,” Klaus said agreeably.

“Say goodnight to Klaus Wulfenbach, Agatha,” Barry instructed, rising up and settling Agatha on his hip.

“Nighty-night!” the girl called out, waving over Barry's shoulder.

“And just look at this, you walked all the way here barefoot!” Barry grumbled as he disappeared through the door. “You've got slippers for a reason.”

Klaus turned his mind back to escape, but contrived to be very quiet about it. Kids really did need their sleep.

Chapter Text

“You! What did you do?” Agatha growled. She grabbed Gil by the collar of his shirt and pushed him against the airship's wall.

Gil smirked, which only infuriated Agatha further. It was a good thing he'd thought to set the autopilot, because she didn't look inclined to let him handle the controls at that moment.

“Sealed the entrance and smashed the key, obviously,” Gil replied. “By my calculations, it's going to be another three hundred years before the stars are properly aligned to open the door again, and by then I'm sure the Gallapitians will have rebuilt their defenses well enough to repel any Heterodyne incursion.”

“Why?” Agatha shrieked. “They were going to invade Europa anyway! What does it matter if I beat them to the punch?”

Gil's expression grew sober. That was true. Without Agatha's help, he never would have escaped the Dread Summoning Pit or managed to foil the plans of the High Priest, and the Gallapic Empire would have used their coal-eating warlizards to burn Europa to a crisp. It felt very odd working with Agatha instead of against her, but it was an illuminating experience in many ways and (Gil couldn't believe he was actually thinking this) it had actually been fun in parts.

But that didn't mean it was right to let Agatha have a go at the now defenseless Gallapitians.

“It probably matters a lot to the innocent people who would have been caught in the crossfire,” he replied.

Agatha actually shrieked in frustration.

“What exactly in the Wulfenbach genetic code makes all of you incapable of minding your own business?!” she yelled.

“I think it's called basic decency!” Gil yelled right back. “You wouldn't know anything about that. I think it was bred out of the Heterodyne line a long time ago!”

“This truce is over!” Agatha hissed, her fist tightening around his collar.

“Yes, it is,” Gil said right back.

They were both overheated and breathing heavily, partly out of anger and partly because of the haste with which they'd had to board the airship as the ground gave out from under them. But their faces were very close together now, and they became aware of this fact at the same time. Very, very close together.

“Good riddance,” Agatha said, but softly as the anger seeped out of her voice.

“My sentiments exactly,” Gil replied; there wasn't much feeling behind his words either.

They remained frozen in place, staring as if seeing each other for the first time. Gil's mouth went dry as he noticed the exact shade of green Agatha's eyes were, and the warmth radiating off her body.

For a short while there, working together, she hadn't been awful. She'd been brilliant, and fierce, and amazing. She'd even saved his life, though it would have been easier for her to just let that giant lizard eat him. Why couldn't she be that person more often? Why couldn't she be like that all the time?

If only she weren't so evil, he could--

He'd--

He'd what? What was he just thinking about?

Agatha's frown gradually smoothed over into a look of wonderment. Maybe her thoughts were just as strange as his at the moment.

Gil drew in a shaky breath, getting ready to say something, though he wasn't sure what.

In the same instant, Agatha raised herself up on her toes and pressed her mouth against his.

She looked just as shocked as Gil felt when she pulled back a second later. Then she kissed him again, this time an even lighter touch of the lips, and over just as quickly. Gil still didn't know what to say, except a panicked portion of his mind insisted that maybe he should be saying something.

Agatha was looking at him like he was an interesting specimen she'd never considered before.

The third time she kissed him, it was deeper. Gil recovered enough of his wits to reciprocate, but once he did it wasn't enough.

A dam seemed to break. They surged against each other, Agatha's arms going around Gil's neck to hold him tight. His hands found her waist, and he pulled her closer. When they kissed now, it was hard and hungry, almost painful. This felt right, this searing intensity, anger and lust bleeding into each other. Gil's whole body thrummed with heat. He needed more of this.

Agatha's fingers dug into the back of his neck almost painfully, and she growled, just as desperate as him. She pushed against him, like she was trying to crush him against the wall, but she felt so warm and solid and alive against him that Gil couldn't even mind.

She managed to tear herself away from kissing Gil, her hand gripping his hair to keep him from catching her mouth again.

“Just so we're clear, I still hate you,” she said, looking him straight in the eye. Her cheeks were flushed and voice was thick and she looked gorgeous, the way she was glaring at him.

“Fine,” Gil replied, squirming. “Good. Hate you too.” He did. Hating her felt so good. Everything felt good just then, even the way she was gripping his hair a bit too tightly.

He didn't know if this answer was satisfactory or if she simply gave up, but she resumed kissing him, and that was all Gil wanted. He would have let her have her way with him against that wall if she tried. He didn't care about anything or anyone else.

Maybe her mouth was starting to ache, because she was less rough after that, taking her time. The frantic heat of the first few minutes leveled off, and Gil could think again, could enjoy the sensations without feeling like he would drown without them.

Agatha mapped out Gil's body with her hands, sliding them down his arms and over his chest appreciatively, then across his back. Then they slid lower, where she squeezed, making Gil stop and gasp.

Agatha smiled thinly, looking up at Gil with eyes half-lidded with satisfaction.

“Take your pants off,” she requested. She didn't exactly purr the words—she really wasn't the purring type—but Gil dry-swallowed as his imagination got away from him.

“I--”

The airship controls started beeping just then, and the airship shuddered around them.

“Oh, we're-- We're docking,” Gil said unnecessarily. He'd set the autopilot to take them to the nearest airship dock, at a trading outpost some way down the mountain. He must have lost track of time at some point, because they arrived sooner than expected.

But Agatha was undeterred, and she grabbed Gil by the lapels, pulling him away from the wall, turning him around and pushing him into the pilot's chair.

Then, with an 'I see I have to do everything myself sigh', she began taking his boots off.

Gil was completely dazed, gripping the armrests of the chair as he watched Agatha. Done with the boots, she began tugging his pants off.

“This is all moving a bit fast,” he said, nervous and hiding it poorly. At least he didn't blurt out 'I've never done this before', though if she carried on like this, he was afraid he'd end up saying it anyway.

Agatha's expression was unreadable. She threw his pants to the side and in one fluid motion braced her knee against the seat cushion, squarely between his legs.

“That's okay, it's not going there anyway,” she said.

“Oh.” Before Gil could fully figure out what she meant, she grasped his chin, tilted his head up and kissed him. Still different from before, slow and deep.

It was probably a good thing she did, because otherwise Gil knew he'd babble. It wasn't her, he just didn't feel ready for this. It wasn't the right time. It wasn't with the right person—she was the Heterodyne, at what point did he forget she was his enemy? What was he doing here? What was she doing?

Well, he got the answer to the last question, at least, because there was a loud click of metal, and suddenly Agatha stepped back, leaving Gil cold and at a loss. When he moved his hand, he heard the rattle.

She handcuffed him. She handcuffed him to the pilot's chair.

“What--”

“Well, I don't know about you,” Agatha said lightly, “but after the day I've had, I can't wait to get home.”

She picked up Gil's discarded pants and neatly folded them over her arm.

“You're leaving me like this?” Gil asked, tugging against the shackle. It was the same he'd been wearing when he was brought before the High Priest, though he couldn't imagine why Agatha decided to keep it. Probably for an occasion exactly like this one.

“You're a smart boy, I know you'll figure some way out of it,” Agatha replied, and turned around to leave.

“And you're taking my pants?” Gil yelled after her.

She waved over her shoulder.

“Pants are for people who let me invade lost civilizations,” Agatha replied, not even looking back. Gil heard the sound of the hatch open and close again as Agatha left the airship.

He stayed tense and alert for a long time, not quite believing she'd leave, not quite hoping she'd return. But it was quiet for a long time, and there was no sign of Agatha anymore.

Gil slumped back in his chair. He was alone and handcuffed to a chair in his underwear, but what vaguely distressed him was that, at that moment, he was missing Agatha more than his pants.

Chapter Text

It wasn't like Gil was in love. He didn't think he was, at least.

It was all a matter of building pressure. All of Gil's more recent encounters with Agatha tended to be fraught with strange emotional weight which hadn't been there before.

If she at least tried to take advantage of this aspect, Gil would have perhaps been more guarded against it. But she didn't. She didn't purposefully try to distract or confuse him. She acted as if this was natural, as if this was merely something new to incorporate into their interactions, and did so without being torn up about it.

When they came to a draw, she caught his mouth in biting kisses, brief and impatient. When she strapped him into some new death trap, she'd kiss him slow and gentle, like saying goodbye every time. And when he did something that really angered her, when he won and she had no more moves to make, she'd push him against the nearest hard surface, or grab his hair, and she'd growl before kissing him with as much rage as she felt, like the first time on the airship. And she would leave after that, not a sign of regret as she did.

There was never time for anything more, not the way they interacted. There was always fighting or running or shooting or narrowly escaping certain death involved, and you couldn't build a relationship on the scattered moments of passion in-between.

But the next time they worked together—and there was a next time, because there were dangers in the world even Agatha wasn't willing to allow continue—it was all a matter of building pressure, and that pressure finding ways to escape.

When neither of them had to run away, when instead of moments they had a stretch of hours, of possibly days together, when the kisses became conspicuous through their absence, he was the one who reached for her.

It felt almost normal to hold her, kiss her like they knew each other in a different way. He kept his eyes closed tight at first, afraid that if he looked at her, he'd remember who she was and why he shouldn't do this. But at no point could he forget who she was, even if he didn't look at her. Face buried against the curve of her neck, he moaned her name, involuntarily, like it was dragged out from somewhere deep inside.

He expected gloating, perhaps, but when he met her gaze, there was a startling warmth in her green eyes. He wasn't sure he could believe it was affection, but it felt like it was meeting him halfway, and she leaned her forehead against his. He took her hand in his and laced his fingers with hers and later he would pinpoint that as the exact moment when he fell, completely and without recourse.

But right then, right there, he had Agatha, warm and soft and with him. She drew him closer, drew him in, no sign of nervousness but the shakiness of her breaths. She was almost sweet, as much as she was capable of it—“Okay?” she asked, and Gil wasn't sure whether she meant if he was okay, or if this was, but he nodded either way, he wanted it too much to turn back now.

It was nothing but selfish desire on his part, but that was true of Agatha too, and she was more used to being selfish. She always took what she wanted—what she needed—and she wrapped her legs around him and met his every thrust with a cant of her own hips, demanding as she ever was. And when that wasn't enough, she guided his hand and showed him where to touch and how, and he watched the way she bit her lower lip, and memorized the sounds she made.

Gil didn't think he was in love; but he also didn't think he would be doing this if he wasn't. He didn't know which possibility made him a worse person.

Chapter Text

Ever since becoming a Heterodyne minion, Moloch's favorite part of a raid was right at the end, after all the enemies were crushed and their fortress stormed. Primarily because it meant nobody was actively trying to kill his side (and him by association), but also because of the air of celebration which always accompanied the looting.

There were Jägers and humans everywhere throughout the hallways of the latest conquered citadel, disabling traps, and going in and out of rooms, grabbing anything that looked even remotely valuable. Things like gold fixtures and fine rugs alike were loaded into carts, while smaller items were ferreted away in coat pockets or under hats.

One Jäger was hoisting around a painting, nervously trying to defend his choice by pointing out that the frame looked expensive.

The other Jägers were a bit dubious.

“Hyu could haff at least chozen vun vit sum artistic nudity,” one of them said, eyeballing the awe-inspiring mountain landscape within the presumably expensive frame. They were beginning to suspect their comrade of being a... connoisseur.

Moloch continued on.

He became aware that he was completely lost, but that hardly frightened him. With Heterodyne forces crawling all over the place, there was little chance he'd run into an unsprung booby-trap or a remaining enemy. And the hallways all converged on the grand hall, anyway, so Moloch found himself there after the next bend.

The grand hall was already stripped of anything even remotely worth taking. Now it was mostly empty, save for a group set up in a corner, working on depleting the alcohol supply before it could be packed up with the rest of the loot.

Moloch approached the group. They were raucous, about half a dozen, both humans and Jägers, and they were prodding on a four-armed jester, who was doing his best to juggle while various small objects were being chucked at him. Moloch spotted his brother Omar among the group. Not pleasant company, especially not when he was drunk, but Moloch was glad to see he'd survived the fighting, in the way family is usually supposed to be glad about that kind of thing.

Omar was red in the face with laughter, unsurprisingly. When he spotted Moloch, Omar waved him over and passed him a half-empty bottle of wine.

“Not dead, eh?” Omar asked, grinning. “What're you doing here, aren't you s'posed to be tied to Lady Heterodyne's apron strings?”

Moloch let the comment go and took a swig of the wine before handing the bottle back. It bothered Omar just a little that Moloch had the more respected position. There were plenty of bloodthirsty marauders in the Heterodyne army. There was only one chief minion in Mechanicsburg.

“She sent me off to find the library,” Moloch said. “Except there doesn't seem to be a library anywhere. Any of you come across a library?”

The assorted scoundrels in the group all shook their heads and murmured denials. Moloch had them pegged as not big readers, so it was unlikely a library would have jumped out at them anyway.

“Mebbe dis guy didn't haff books,” a Jäger suggested. Big and blue, one of the first friends Omar made in Mechanicsburg. Vole, Moloch recalled his name to be.

Vole picked up a bottle and threw it at the jester, who ducked just quickly enough to avoid getting brained. The bottle hit a wall and exploded into shards.

“Hoy, did ve say hyu could schtop?” Vole yelled, scowling.

Moloch had a sudden insight into why Omar got along so well with Vole.

“Wait, hold on,” Moloch waved Vole off and turned to the four-armed jester, who was collecting his juggling pins with a frozen expression of contempt on his face. “You know anything about a library?”

“As a matter of fact,” he said, tone frosty, “I used to be a librarian, before the Master decided to... redesign me.”

“Huh,” Moloch said. “Really?” Then, perhaps a bit rudely, “This looks like one hell of a demotion you got.”

The construct straightened up, raising his chin in cold defiance. Moloch became aware of how much larger an extra set of arms could make a man.

“The Master was not known for letting practical concerns deter him from pursuing an experiment. Or from anything else, for that matter.”

“Yeah,” Moloch said, “we kinda figured he was an idiot when instead of paying the tribute he sent a note back saying 'make me'.”

The jester gave a thin smile, perhaps recalling with fondness his Master's bloody demise earlier that day.

“But you know where the library is, right?” Moloch asked.

“Yes. It's concealed,” he said, “and the entrance is riddled with traps.”

“Great, come with me,” Moloch said.

The jester, who introduced himself as Boris, came along quietly. He ripped off the jester's hat along the way and dropped it on the ground, and looked more relieved when he did it than when Moloch took him away from the grand hall.

“So were you a good librarian?” Moloch asked.

“Very good,” Boris replied. “That wasn't why I was removed from my position, if that's what you're asking.”

“You boss was just a few planks short of a barrel, then.”

“You know the type, I'm sure. You do work for a Heterodyne.”

“Uh. Yeah, she's pretty spooky. She doesn't experiment on minions, though, she's got volunteers for that.”

Boris gave Moloch an incredulous look.

“Best job I've had, to be honest,” Moloch continued. “The work hours suck, but the pay is pretty good. And Mechanicsburg's just about the safest place to live, even factoring in the bloodthirsty castle and the Jägers everywhere.”

“Are you-- are you planning to take me to Mechanicsburg?” Boris asked, stopping in his tracks and giving Moloch a horrified look.

Moloch rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Look,” Moloch said, “ever since our last librarian got eaten, she keeps sending me to get her reference material. I'm not so good with books! And the Castle's version of helping mostly involves throwing 'em at my head.”

“You want to hire me as a librarian,” Boris said, clearly not believing a word.

“Well, I wouldn't be the one doing the hiring, but if you'd like a job and Lady Heterodyne agrees, there's a lot worse things you could be doing for a living.”

Boris had the contemplative look of a man who was already doing worse for a living, enough so that being in the employ of one of the most frightening Spark families in Europa actually looked like a step up.

“I've heard stories about the Heterodyne library,” Boris said, relenting only very slightly. “But you said the last librarian got eaten?”

“Not by the library,” Moloch assured.

“Then by what?”

“Uh... well...” Moloch thought about it. “I don't know. Nyar-spiders, maybe?”

Boris was not reassured.

“Or acid,” Moloch continued, nodding. “Could have been acid.”

Boris was even less reassured.

“The funny deaths kinda bleed together after a while,” Moloch shrugged.

“The depressing part is that I'm actually considering it,” Boris said.

Moloch patted his shoulder—the upper one—in sympathy.

“The more depressing part is that you get used to this stuff,” Moloch said.

Chapter Text

Agatha remembered quite clearly of her Uncle Barry that he'd had an almost unreasonable distaste for Lucrezia's family.

She'd never gotten an explanation for why. When Agatha was little, he always said he'd explain everything when she was older and she would understand. When Agatha was finally older, Uncle Barry was gone, and an explanation was not forthcoming from anyone else. But she still wanted to understand.

Agatha was ten by the time she met anyone from her mother's side of the family—really the only family she had left in the world—and that was when she and her grandfather crossed paths while attempting to raid the same Spark's laboratory for a much-vaunted piece of rare equipment. It was Agatha's first trip outside Mechanicsburg, and she had perhaps more Jägers with her than strictly necessary.

Doctor Mongfish was not so unwise as to pit his Sparkhunds against Jägers, and generously ceded the equipment to her, but more importantly, he invited Agatha to a Mongfish family gathering, so that she could meet her aunts and cousins, and he could get to know her better.

And Agatha, who was not lonely exactly, but had been keenly feeling Uncle Barry's absence, accepted.

“Honestly, Father, I'm surprised you didn't just nab the little brat on the spot and hand her over to Aaronev,” Demonica said as she swirled the glass of her customary before-dinner drink.

Lucifer Mongfish sighed through his nose.

“You mean the little brat accompanied by the veritable army of fanatically loyal Jägers?” he said. “Besides, I wasn't even expecting to meet her there. We have no idea what she's capable of.”

“She's ten,” Demonica said.

“She's a Spark,” Lucifer retorted. “Worse, she's a Heterodyne Spark.”

“Oh. That.” Demonica snorted. The Spark had missed her, unlike her sisters, and she took every opportunity to remind everyone that the grapes were sour indeed. “Well, it's not like she'll have Jägers with her today.”

“Still, I don't plan to die a fool's death because I underestimated Lucrezia's daughter,” Lucifer said.

“Mm, yes,” Demonica said, a sly smile spreading across her face. “Lucrezia's daughter. I do wonder how much she takes after her mother.”

“My dear Demonica, you're insinuating something,” Lucifer said.

“I am merely suggesting,” Demonica said, “that should we take little Agatha into our confidence, she might be amenable to continuing her mother's work.”

“You're suggesting we cut Lucrezia out of the plan,” Lucifer pointed out bluntly.

“You must confess, Lucrezia could be terribly... independent-minded in some respects. Perhaps Agatha will be more easy to work with?”

“You mean easier to manipulate,” Lucifer said.

“Goodness, Father,” Demonica put a hand to her chest as if wounded, “would it really be manipulation to show her the love and support expected from family?”

“On the contrary, girl, I quite agree with you." Lucifer patted his daughter's hand, his eyes glinting at the possibilities. “And I quite loved Lucrezia, but you are right that she could be difficult at times... may she rest in peace.”

Demonica hummed in agreement and took a dainty sip of her drink.

That year, the family was to meet aboard one of Doctor Mongfish's airships, one more suited to entertaining than experimenting, though of course, being owned by a Spark meant it was built for both.

After Demonica's family, the next to come aboard was Serpentina, accompanied by her son and, to Lucifer's displeasure, her husband.

Lucifer often lamented his inadequate parenting leading to Serpentina marrying a hero of all things, but he did have to confess that these little confrontations with Darius DuMedd kept him feeling young.

“DuMedd,” Lucifer drawled in greeting as he leveled an electric arc rifle at his son-in-law's head.

“Father-in-law,” Darius DuMedd drawled right back, holding up a humming field-generating gauntlet. Given the slight distortion in the air, it was activated and probably shielding him already. Lucifer still debated shooting. Maybe the shield had a weakness.

Their expressions were identical masks of polite lack of amusement.

“Honestly, Father, must we do this every time?” Serpentina sighed, and walked up to Lucifer, kissing his cheek.

“I hoped never to have to do this even once, Serpentina, yet you persisted on this match anyway,” Lucifer replied, kissing her cheek as well.

Serpentina rolled her eyes and nudged Theo along. The boy, fourteen and in the gangly grips of puberty, politely greeted his grandfather.

While Lucifer and Darius were busy with their stand-off, Serpentina greeted her sister as well, who was lingering in the corridor behind their father.

“Why aren't we undocking? Are we expecting anyone else?” Serpentina asked.

“Nobody told you?” Demonica said, smiling mysteriously.

“Obviously nobody feels the need to tell me much of anything these days,” Serpentina sighed in exasperation.

The sound of the hatch opening again didn't so much interrupt Serpentina as the way Demonica's eyes widened ever so slightly.

“Oh goody,” Demonica said, voice a bit wooden, “she did bring Jägers.”

Serpentina turned around to see a Jäger with his arm casually resting across her husband's shoulder, grinning with a bit too much zest at how he was making Darius sweat. Two more Jägers were watching the spectacle, similar grins on their face, as well as a relatively unremarkable blond young man with a flatly disinterested expression, and a little girl fingering a death ray, looking hopeful about getting the opportunity to use it in the near future.

Serpentina grabbed her sister's arm.

“Demonica, is that--”

“Oh, yes, Agatha Heterodyne,” Demonica replied. “A new addition this year. Father's doing.”

“I thought they were keeping her hidden away in Mechanicsburg,” Serpentina said, stunned.

“Ah--” Theo looked uncertainly to his mother. “Is Father going to be alright?”

Serpentina rather thought so; the Jäger looked more interested in tormenting him, and he had to be alive for that.

“He'll be fine, dear,” Serpentina replied, patting Theo's shoulder. “Let's go meet your cousin.”

The stand-off between in-laws was eventually resolved, or at the very least moved to the dining room. The Jägers agreed to be relegated to the airship's galley, where they would be allowed to stay only as long as they did not disrupt the cooks.

And then there was the matter of Agatha's human companion, who Agatha introduced as Higgs, and indicated that was only an inconsequential Heterodyne retainer. Serpentina wondered why, then, he would be brought along, but she wisely decided to keep that question to herself. She dreaded the answer was interesting, and Serpentina had her fill of excitement already.

Theo was only too happy to chat with Agatha, who, unlike the rest of his cousins, hadn't had the opportunity to torment him yet.

The real surprise was how attentive Demonica was being, hovering around the edges of Agatha's conversations and acting like she was completely taken with the girl. Which was possible, Serpentina thought, but much more likely was that Demonica was plotting something instead.

And Agatha--

She looked like she fit in with the rest of them, another darling blonde girl with a mind sharp as a knife, but there was a certain bluntness to her as well that had to come from the Heterodyne side. She was nothing like Lucrezia, which Serpentina found refreshing. One Lucrezia was about as much as the world needed, in her opinion.

Chapter Text

Agatha found herself feeling gratified by how startled Tarvek looked when he walked into his study and discovered her at his desk, casually perusing through his paperwork. Startling him had in fact been the entire point of sneaking in.

“Agatha,” he said, closing the door behind him and keeping his voice light. “I could swear I set up the boobytraps before I left.”

Agatha smiled at him.

“You did, actually,” she said. “You have some very nice traps, Tarvek.”

She actually spent a surprisingly long time on deactivating them, and she suspected a few were armed with very interesting poisons that she would like to study one day. Finding and decrypting his papers turned out to be even more of a hassle, especially since she didn't find anything really interesting in the little she managed to read. Trade agreements and alliances, spy reports on neighbors, boring assessments of the political landscape in the area, some very bland blackmail material—nothing juicy enough for her tastes.

Yet there had to be something there worth the effort, because Tarvek was very carefully trying to mask his concern. He was not bad at it, but Agatha had learned by now how he looked when he was convinced she had a reason to kill him.

She expected him to conspire against her, of course. It was part of what made him so interesting in the first place. And she did enjoy watching him squirm.

She reached for one of the stacks of paper on the desk at random, and saw the almost imperceptible signs of relief in Tarvek's body posture when he saw which. This one wasn't even encrypted. She read the first few lines. A fascinating account of strange phenomena in a nearby mountain pass leading to sheep being turned inside out.

“Is there a specific reason for your visit?” Tarvek asked, slowly rounding the desk.

Agatha shrugged.

“I'm bored,” she said.

“Weren't you excited about testing that new clank today?” Tarvek said.

“Yes,” Agatha sighed. “I let it loose on the countryside.”

“And?” Tarvek said.

“And Gil stood me up,” Agatha said, scowling and flinging the report back onto the desk. Not even the graphic descriptions of the mutilated sheep could make her feel better.

“You... wanted Wulfenbach to be there?” Tarvek asked, frowning in consternation.

“Of course I did,” Agatha replied, crossing her arms and slumping back in the chair. “What's the point of terrorizing the populace if someone doesn't show up to stop me?”

“There is no point...?”

“Exactly.”

Agatha felt the twinge of completely unfamiliar frustration with Gil. It wasn't as if he hadn't had misgivings since the very beginning of their romantic entanglement, but when he said he wasn't going to 'do this anymore', perhaps she should have asked what 'this' was referring to. She was perfectly happy to continue antagonizing him in a purely platonic manner if his conscience didn't allow him to go any further. She was not fine with the way he seemingly dropped off the face of the earth.

Agatha did not miss him. She was not mooning over a boy who rejected her. She did miss the sex, but that was the easiest part of their relationship to replace. The world was teeming with willing men. But where was she going to find someone else to challenge her and keep her sharp? What was a Heterodyne without a worthy opponent to crush?

As she was sullenly glaring at the desk top, a word jumped out at her from a page. Mongfish.

Could that be what Tarvek didn't want her to see? She reached out, now curious to see what he would do. Attack her? Make excuses? Tearfully beg for mercy?

Instead he grasped her hand. Before she even touched the paper, he took her hand into his, holding it gently but firmly away from the incriminating report.

“Perhaps I could help entertain you, my lady?” he said huskily.

Oh. Distract her. Yes, that was more his style.

Agatha looked up at Tarvek, considering. His thumb was caressing slow circles over the back of her hand, and though his expression was carefully neutral, the way his gaze lingered on her lips was suggestive all on its own.

“Maybe you can,” she said, deciding to let him have this one.

She removed her hand and hooked her fingers in his collars, pulling him down to her. Perhaps he hadn't expected his gamble to work so well, because he seemed surprised for a split second, but when their lips met, he didn't hesitate.

He kissed her so deliberately and with such intensity, that Agatha had the fleeting impression he'd been thinking about this for some time. When they parted, she gasped for breath, and felt her heart pounding much too fast.

Oh, but he was very good at distracting her. She'd have to employ him more often. Not that she was done with him now.

She grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the sofa.

“That one isn't boobytrapped too, is it?” she asked, grinning at him.

“No, it's fine,” Tarvek replied, dazed and a bit red in the cheeks.

She took a seat and tugged Tarvek down next to her, settling comfortably. She planned to be there a while.

“Now, where were we?” she said.

Tarvek's dazed look melted into a hungry one as he leaned over to kiss her again.

Chapter Text

Tarvek expected for Agatha to drape herself across his chest the moment their exertions were concluded and lie there for as long as she pleased, because that tended to be her habit. But to his surprise, she actually had the courtesy to untie his hands first. She reached up and in a few tugs he was free of the curtain rope tying his hands to the headboard.

She sprawled herself half over him after that, smiling like a smug cat, and turned one of his hands over to inspect the inside of his wrist, where the rope had dug into his skin and left an angry band of red.

She made a pitying tsk sound.

“I didn't even notice,” he said, because he hadn't, he'd been too distracted by all the things she was doing to him at the time.

“Still,” she said, and kissed the inside of his wrist. She did it playfully, but it still struck Tarvek as an affectionate gesture. Wishful thinking on his part, most likely.

With his free hand, he brushed her hair back, so he could better see her face. Then he ran his hand through her hair a few more times, for no other reason than to indulge in it.

“Next time, we'll have to do a better job with the knots,” Agatha said.

“Mm.” Her hair was very soft. Tarvek liked to watch the way it reflected reddish-gold in the soft light of the bedroom.

“Or,” Agatha continued, looking entirely too pleased all of a sudden, “maybe I'll be sloppier with the knots and we'll see if you can turn the tables on me.”

Then she leaned up to kiss him and something tight and hot fluttered in his chest. Agatha was unselfconsciously demanding in bed, to a degree which sometimes shocked Tarvek, but she didn't usually like being the vulnerable one in any situation. She enjoyed having the upper hand, she wouldn't give it up so easily. This was... new.

“You're in a very good mood,” he said after she finished kissing him.

“Well, you were in fine form today,” she replied, grinning.

Tarvek wasn't sure what to say to that. 'Thank you' seemed a bit too self-congratulatory. The exact words on his mind were 'You're beautiful' but that would have been both off-topic and embarrassing. Unfortunately, his thoughts took a downward spiral into maudlin after that.

He stared at her for a very long time, enough that Agatha raised an eyebrow.

“Tarvek?”

“I love you,” he blurted out, and flinched when he realized what he'd just said.

Agatha was stunned silent for a few seconds.

“You really shouldn't,” she said once she recovered. Even she sounded concerned for him.

“I know,” he said.

“It's not very smart of you,” she added.

“I realize that,” he said, with as much dignity as he could muster. He kept his gaze to the far wall of his bedroom, taking a sudden interest in the wallpaper.

She kissed his cheek.

“But I don't mind,” she said.

“Oh, flattered, are you?” Tarvek said, attempting a smile.

“Fond, maybe,” she replied, and the smile tugging at the corner of her lip was more sincere.

Tarvek didn't know how to respond, other than kiss her. Fond. He already knew he'd settle for even that much.