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Chapter Text

2008

Blue smoke swirled in wispy clouds around the loud, pulsing nightclub, blanketing the air and its patrons with the smell of euphoric desperation. Agatha opened her arms wide as she danced amongst the sweaty bodies, sucking in a deep breath of the thick, tainted air, letting it settle in her lungs and light her body on fire. 

It had always been like this. Just her, flitting amongst the crowds like a bird in the night, taking what she could, who she could, and returning home to her pathetic one-bedroom apartment alone. No friends to go out with, no one to take home at the end of the night– just Agatha Harkness and her crippling, desperate need to never be seen . 

Barring, of course, the nights she and her purple keyboard set up camp in the local coffee shop. A switch flipped inside Agatha when she was performing, something that demanded the attention of everyone who could see her, something that made her feel so free . 

Agatha let herself get lost in the loud music, lifting her arms above her head and swaying her hips to the beat. The heat of three dirty shirleys swirled in her veins, loosening her normally stiff muscles. The lights were blinding in pinks and greens and blues as they strobed in time with the beat, so she closed her eyes, letting her body take control. 

It was only when a woman next to her pulled a joint to her lips, took a drag, and blew it right in Agatha’s direction that her attention was stirred from her drunken nirvana. When she looked to see just where the smoke had come from, she was met with a dark, hungry stare. The woman looked younger than her, though not by much. Her wide, brown eyes were hooded, her full, pink lips slightly parted until she bit her gapped front teeth into the bottom, tugging on it lightly. She looked Agatha up and down with an air of approval like she was seeing something absolutely irresistible. Long fingers reached out and hooked in Agatha’s belt loops and pulled, making the older woman squeak in surprise. 

“Forward, are we?” Agatha asked, dancing in time with the music and draping her arms around the woman’s neck. 

“Only with ladies as sexy as you,” she replied, wrapping one hand around Agatha’s waist and bringing the other to her mouth to take a hit. She seemed entirely unbothered by just how lame her line sounded.

Agatha rolled her eyes and stepped even closer, shoving a thigh between the woman’s legs. She could feel the beat down to her spine, buzzing up and down her body numbingly. “Is that really the best you can do?” 

The woman grinned widely before grabbing the hair at the back of Agatha’s head, tilting her back. She leaned in close and hovered just a breath above Agatha’s mouth. On instinct, Agatha parted her lips and Rio blew the smoke in without hesitation. 

It hit Agatha almost immediately as she inhaled, the relief flooding her body as her muscles relaxed and a lazy smile crossed her face. She leaned her head back and shook her long, wavy hair until it tickled the skin of her tailbone where her crop top was riding up from her jeans. The grip on her waist returned, tighter than before, pushing and pulling her hips in time with the music. 

“What’s your name, cowboy?” Agatha asked, leaning in close and tugging on the taller woman’s vest. It was cut deliciously low, her full cleavage on display, stopping well above her belly button at a sharp angle, leaving wide expanses of smooth, tan skin bare to the sticky air. 

“Rio,” she said with a smirk, grinding down onto the thigh between her legs as they danced. “Agatha, right?”

Agatha gasped, a faux surprise coloring her features. “Should I be worried, hon? I think I would remember meeting someone like you.” 

The younger woman shook her head. “Of course, you would’ve, I’m unforgettable.” Agatha scoffed a laugh. “But to answer your question, I saw you perform at The Greige last week. You were incredible.” 

This piqued Agatha’s interest and she pushed a hand through Rio’s chin-length, dark hair, watching as the strobe lights flickered across her cheekbones. 

“I’ve never had a groupie before,” she shouted over the thrumming baseline. “Maybe you can be my first.” 

It was Rio’s turn to roll her eyes now. “Don’t flatter yourself, Britney .”

Agatha pulled back, clutching at her imaginary pearls. “You did not ,” she warned, eyes dark and dangerous. 

The song changed then, the telltale ‘dum da da dum’ of the 90s popstar’s hit, an electronic voice cooing oh baby, baby , coloring surprise on Agatha’s face. How did Rio know it would play next?

Rio pulled her back closer until every inch of their bodies that could touch, did. “And if I did? What are you going to do about it?” 

Blue eyes flicked between brown, the challenge already accepted before she could decide for herself. Agatha tightened her grip on Rio’s hair and tugged her closer, their lips mere millimeters apart. 

“Depends, cowboy,” she murmured, nose grazing Rio’s, “on whether or not you can put those pretty lips to good use.” 

Without hesitation, Rio closed the gap between them, capturing Agatha’s lips in a searing, messy kiss. Hands immediately pulled at Agatha’s waist, digging into her bare skin and making her gasp. She bit Rio’s bottom lip, tugging it into her mouth before releasing it with a loud pop .

Agatha’s pupils were already blown, the blue barely a sliver of her wide, hooded eyes. Something about Rio’s hands tugging at the skin of her waist, about her plush lips, about the way she smelled of smoke and something warm and sweet, was intoxicating in the best of ways. Her head felt fuzzy as the high buzzed through her body, making everything seem so light, so fresh, so fun . 

She trailed a hand up Rio’s throat as they danced, bodies rocking against each other, thumb wrapping around one side, fingers pressing gently into the other. Rio’s chin tilted up under the touch, giving Agatha more access, more control. Agatha took it happily, digging her nails into the tender skin there, humming when the ends of Rio’s short-cropped hair brushed against her knuckles. 

“There is something about you,” Agatha murmured, leaning in close, head tilting as her eyes dropped to Rio’s lips, watching as they parted with quick, shallow breaths. “So pliant, so willing… You’re just the perfect little pet, aren’t you?”

The words shot straight to Rio’s core, making a moan slip from her as she felt Agatha’s fingers tighten on her neck and then released entirely to trail one long nail down the center of her chest, following her sternum to where the vest buttoned against her cleavage. 

Without hesitation, Rio leaned forward and kissed Agatha, hard and messy, pulling at her hips until their teeth clacked together clumsily with their efforts. 

“Hey, wanna get out of here?” Rio asked, pulling back, breathless and pupils blown. Her chest was heaving and her cheeks had darkened with a rosy heat.

Agatha tucked a piece of hair behind Rio’s ear and regarded her carefully. It wasn’t like her to leave with someone, usually opting for a quickie in the bathroom. But, something about the hungry enthusiasm in the younger woman drew Agatha in. 

She shrugged and quirked the corner of her mouth in that seductive way she always did when prey had just walked right into her trap. “Lead the way.” 

Rio’s apartment, surprisingly, was even smaller and shittier than Agatha’s own. The only saving grace was the abundance of leafy, green plants on every available surface and hanging from the ceiling. Agatha looked around as Rio fiddled with something in her liquor cabinet, seeing frame after frame of different people– all with the same, glowing skin and gapped front teeth. 

“Want some of this?” she asked from behind Agatha, now sitting at the makeshift kitchen table, using the lid of a pack of zigzags to crush and move a small pile of white powder into two straight lines. 

“I-I’ve never tried it,” Agatha said, though her interest was piqued. It wasn’t that she was against trying it, she just had never been given the opportunity. 

Which, honestly, as a 24-year-old musician, it was a minor miracle that she hadn’t been offered it before. 

Rio only shrugged and started rolling up a dollar bill from her back pocket. “No pressure, just makes shit more fun.” 

Agatha watched as she leaned forward and snorted the cocaine in one fell swoop like she had done it a million times before. Then, with her pinky, she collected the leftover dusting and stuck it in her mouth rubbing it along her gums. 

“Hmm?” she asked, finger still in her mouth, tilting the dollar bill in Agatha’s direction casually with that look on her face.  

Waiting only a moment to think, Agatha took it from her, bending over the table and letting her hair fall in waves around her as she plugged one side of her nose and let it rip. 

The high hit her almost immediately, making her perk back up with wide eyes and a giddy smile. 

“Wow, that didn’t hurt at all,” she said off-handedly as she rubbed at her nose, twitching it and clicking her tongue off the roof of her mouth. Then, she laughed a little. “That was definitely the wrong thing to say, huh? I promise I’m cooler than this.”

Agatha was entirely out of her depth, now, losing some of her suave charm as the new substance coursed through her system, lighting her body on fire. 

“Yeah, it doesn’t hurt like meth does. They cut it with that baby teething powder shit or whatever,” Rio said, standing back up and stifling a laugh when she saw the look on Agatha’s face. It was a cross between shock and being so far out of orbit she couldn’t think. 

It was a small mercy that she didn’t comment on Agatha’s other remarks.

“You don’t look like someone who does meth,” she said, blinking a few times in quick succession. Her body felt like it was racing against time like she could run a marathon. Her brain-to-mouth filter was failing spectacularly.

Rio only shrugged again, reaching out to gather Agatha into her arms. “You still want to do this, Agatha?” 

The younger woman was seemingly much more coherent than Agatha was feeling but she still had her faculties about her– and the one thing that Agathat knew for certain was if she didn’t kiss Rio right now she might combust. 

It was a messy, clumsy give and take of control as the two women tangled together in Rio’s sheets, pushing each other to the edge over and over and over again. Hands around throats, palm-shaped bruises on ass cheeks, teeth marks on collarbones, on thighs, under the soft tufts of hair trailing down stomachs– all of it made a night neither of them would ever forget. 

Rio, face between Agatha’s legs, teased her and brought her to the edge again and again and again until Agatha was shaking, begging for Rio to push her over the edge– a plea that should have never come out of Agatha Harkness’ mouth. She did not beg, she did not plead, she was never anything except entirely in control. But with the drugs and the high of being touched by this beautiful woman, everything seemed to change. 

And, when it was all said and done, Rio wrapped her arms around Agatha’s middle and refused to let her go. 

And, if Agatha was being honest, she wasn’t sure she wanted to leave. Something about this night, about this woman, anchored her in a way that she could not explain.

The sun had just started to peek over the horizon when Agatha felt Rio grab onto her with her still-trembling arms. How long had it been exactly since they left the club? Soft puffs of warm air hit her bare shoulder in quick succession as the younger woman caught her breath and Agatha couldn’t help but squirm under the casual intimacy. She craved to be here with Rio, to stay with this woman who had just unlocked an entirely new world for her, but it almost felt wrong. 

This wasn’t something that Agatha did, even if she wanted it. 

“When did you start writing songs?” Rio asked, voice hoarse and sleepy but still there, still pressing into Agatha’s spinning thoughts and grinding them to a halt. 

Agatha shook her head a little, trying to find her bearings. 

“What, is this your version of pillow talk?” she bit back, trying to deflect the question. 

Rio only squeezed her middle and bit her shoulder, making Agatha wince, not rising to the bait. “I could start asking about your parents instead.” 

“No, no, that’s okay,” Agatha immediately complied, turning a bit in Rio’s embrace. “I think I was in high school the first time. Like ten years ago? Had a crush on a straight girl, you know the drill.” 

Rio hummed empathetically and nodded against her shoulder. “I think that’s when I finally started taking my aggression out on my brother’s drumset. Magdalena Rubio, 7th grade. Made me so mad I needed to go all Animal on some toms.” 

“You play?” Agatha asked, mind still a little fuzzy from all that had happened that night. 

“A little. I’m better at guitar but it’s all just a hobby. I’m definitely not anything like you,” Rio admitted, kissing Agatha’s shoulder. 

Agatha turned until she was fully facing Rio on her side. She wasn’t sure if it was the drugs or the post-orgasmic high talking but she said, “Play with me.” 

A snort ripped through Rio in a decidedly unattractive way. “I’m pretty sure  I just did. For hours.” 

Pale hands pushed at Rio’s shoulders, shoving her back. 

“Not like that, you asshole. I mean your guitar.” 

Rio shook her head. “No way, I’m not going to embarrass myself like that.” 

“I’m serious, Rio. Please?” Agatha nearly gagged at the request, not a single bone in her body happy with her coming anywhere close to begging. “I can’t play at all, anything you do will impress me.” 

It wasn’t the full truth but Agatha had been looking for any reason to not have to keep lugging her keyboard to every gig she had. And, if she could get to see Rio (and fuck her) again out of it, she certainly wouldn’t complain. 

“I don’t know, Agatha. We literally just met. I don’t want to Wonderwall myself into lesbian bed death.” 

Agatha rolled her eyes and shoved at Rio again. “That isn’t how that works. I would have to like you enough to marry you first before that could happen. And, in case you didn’t know, they don’t give marriage licenses to people like us.” 

Rio gasped, scandalized. “One, that is exactly how that works. Two, there is still time yet, Princess. And three, it’s the 21st century now, it’s only a matter of time before it’s legal.” 

Long minutes passed between them, neither quite knowing what to say after their conversation got a little too real. 

“What will you give me if I play for you?” Rio asked, poking at Agatha’s side just as her eyes had fluttered shut, on the verge of sleep. 

She furrowed her brow and groaned at the interruption. “Rio, seriously? If you’re not going to let me leave this bed, you have to at least let me sleep.” 

“I’m serious! Make me a compelling offer and I will play for you.” 

There was something weaved in Rio’s words that Agatha was certain she could have figured out if she was sober but surely wouldn’t be able to make out right now. 

“If you play your guitar for me, I will give you my phone number,” she said, closing her eyes again, letting her mind drift back toward unconsciousness. 

“You were going to do that anyway,” Rio countered, poking at Agatha’s side again, more firmly this time. It took every ounce of her effort to bite back a giggle at the tickle. 

“Says who? I just picked you up at a bar. Means nothing.” 

“Says me. You’re still here, aren’t you? Not very one-night stand of you.” 

“Touche. But that’s what I’m offering. Take it or leave it.” 

Rio pretended to think about it. “Fine. In the morning. If you’re still here, I will play for you in exchange for your phone number.” 

Agatha let her eyes fall shut once more and burrowed into Rio’s embrace, head still swimming with the remnant of their evening, of the highs both new and familiar. Maybe in the morning, she would regret all of this. A secret, tiny part of her, splayed open by the mind-melting euphoria, hoped that she wouldn’t. 

The first thing Agatha noticed when she woke up was the pounding in her head. Even with her eyes closed, the sunlight beaming through whatever window was in this room was blinding, making her see flashes and bursts no matter how hard she screwed her eyes shut. Her heartbeat echoed in her ears and the sheets scratched against her skin like sandpaper– she swore they felt nicer last night. 

“Fuck…” she groaned, rolling over and letting her arm flop onto… cold, empty bedding?

Agatha wrenched one eye open and then another, blinking slowly until her two lines of sight blurred back into one. She was, indeed, alone in the bed. Panic, or maybe just nausea, roiled in her body as she realized she couldn’t just sneak out without Rio knowing and she sat up much too quickly. 

Nausea, it was definitely just nausea.

She barely made it to the bathroom just outside the bedroom before her hangover exploded into the dizziest, bubbliest stomach ache she had ever felt in her life. Without missing a beat, she fell to her knees and dry heaved, nothing left in her stomach to come back up. 

When Agatha looked in the mirror, she looked like shit . Her face was pale, the circles under her eyes dark and her hair was sticking up in so many directions, sculpted near perfectly by fingers that had tugged at it all night long. But then her gaze drifted down and lingered on her chest where a line of small, dark bruises were peppered across one breast and to another. She touched them with shaky fingers, memories of Rio’s mouth flooding back through her, at the way she begged for more . 

God, she was fucked. 

As she always did, Agatha just rinsed her mouth, shrugged, and moved on. Two steps out of the bathroom, though, she took a wrong turn and was smacked straight in the face with a giant monstera deliciosa leaf, making her sputter and swat at the plant. 

“God, what is this, a fucking greenhouse?” Agatha grumbled, still pushing plants away from her face. 

A shameless giggle echoed from just around the corner and Agatha startled, reaching up instinctually to cover herself before thinking better of it. Nothing Rio hadn’t already seen, right?

“So, do you fight all the plants you meet or just the ones in my apartment?” Rio asked, standing at the kitchen counter in only a t-shirt and pouring coffee grinds into a filter. 

“Just ones of the excessively large variety,” Agatha quipped back. “It’s just unnecessary, you know? No indoor plant needs to be large enough to plate a Thanksgiving dinner.” 

Rio laughed again, more full-bodied this time. “Agatha, what the fuck? Are you still high?” 

The older woman cracked a bit of a smile then. “No, just very hungover. Do you maybe have a–?”

She gestured at herself and Rio watched intently, eyelids hooding just as they had the night before at the club. Agatha rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips. 

“I’m serious, my clothes smell like cigarettes and fucking jungle juice. I don’t want to put them back on,” Agatha said, surprising even herself that she was willingly staying, asking for a piece of Rio to borrow. 

“The college kids are genuinely the bane of my existence. Who brings their own booze to the club? And then proceeds to just dump it all over the floor? God, I don’t miss it,” Rio lamented, reaching into a small closet and rifling around until she pulled out a long, silky robe covered in flowers. “Here, you can wear this. My sister got it for me and I hate wearing it but I feel bad getting rid of it.” 

Agatha felt the silky fabric, rolling it between her fingers before throwing it over her shoulders, and tying it at the waist. What was she even doing ? Why was she still here? 

“Don’t get flighty on me now, Agatha. I still have a promise to follow through on,” Rio said without looking up from where she was slathering peanut butter and jelly on pieces of white bread. 

“Not sick of me yet?” Agatha asked, grabbing a triangle of the sandwich and bringing it to her mouth, taking a bite. 

Rio turned to face her then, quirking an eyebrow. “Didn’t take you for the insecure type, sweetheart.” 

Discomfort crawled under Agatha’s skin, the way Rio was looking at her sloughed through the layers and layers of thick, callused skin until she felt flayed raw. She put on one of her wicked smiles to deflect, drawing herself closer to Rio by tugging on the taller woman’s hips. 

“I think I have more than proven myself to the contrary,” Agatha countered, pressing a sticky, sugary kiss to Rio’s lips. “Or do you need another demonstration?” 

Rio hummed and sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, staring at Agatha’s lips with a hunger that had never quite satiated the night before. But then, she pulled away just a bit and grinned, taking a bite of the sandwich that Agatha had been eating. 

“Maybe later, pretty. Right now, we need to get some bread in you to soak shit up– you still smell like vodka and grenadine,” Rio said, tapping Agatha on the nose. “Coffee?” 

She had already pulled away entirely, pouring two mugs full of the hot, dark liquid that had percolated while they were busy flirting. Agatha had half the mind to huff her indignance at being called pickled but the idea of caffeine was too much to resist. 

“Cream and sugar, if you have it,” Agatha supplied. “Just a touch.” 

Rio dug in her fridge and pulled out some cups of creamer branded with the local diner’s logo, splitting them open and dumping them into each mug in equal measure. 

“Brown or white sugar?” 

Agatha watched as Rio’s t-shirt rode up as she reached for the top of the cabinet, leaving her bare stomach and boxers on full display. Her fingers ached to touch but she didn’t, waiting for Rio to return to her feet. 

“Brown, please,” Agatha answered, letting her hand trail up under the hem of Rio’s t-shirt. “Always brown.” 

Rio crooked a brow at Agatha, scoffing slightly. “Are you trying to make a statement, weirdo?” 

Agatha rolled her eyes and pinched Rio’s side. “No, you asshole. I just don’t care for white sugar.” 

“Right, of course. Noted.” 

The banter seemed to flow freely between the two of them, so easy to volley from one thing to the next, to give each other hell with one hand and then affection with the other. Agatha took a long sip from the steaming mug that Rio handed her and then felt a hand on her back pushing her back in the direction of the living room. 

“Go get comfy, I will get Delilah,” Rio directed, already handing their plate of sandwiches to Agatha and bounding off in another direction. 

“Delilah?” Agatha dropped onto the couch, carefully putting everything on the TV tray that seemed to be a stand-in for a real coffee table. 

“My guitar, duh.” 

When Rio returned, she had a beautiful guitar strapped to her back, dark wood and opal-plated details. It looked well-loved like it had been played within an inch of its life for years and years. 

“Why did you name it Delilah?” she asked, taking another sip of her coffee, starting to feel her body come back to life. “Looks older than that new song floating around.” 

“ What’s it like in New York City? ” Rio sang in response, plucking a little at the strings to tune them. “Nah, it’s more of a fuck you to the Catholic school I went to growing up. If I’m going to do everything they always told me not to do, I might as well do it justice.” 

Agatha nodded, familiar from her own contentious childhood. “Power to you, hon.” 

Rio only smiled in response before starting to pluck out a beautiful guitar melody, much more intricate and skilled than Agatha could have anticipated after how she had spoken of herself the night before. But, to be fair, everything that happened after they got to Rio’s had been a bit of a blur. 

“I took my love, I took it down, ” Rio began in the sweetest, softest voice Agatha had ever heard. “ Climbed a mountain and I turned around. And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills ‘til the landslide brought me down .” 

She looked up to Agatha, eyes drifting to the pink blush spreading on her face, nodding once at the older woman until a look of understanding flashed by.

“ Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love? Can the child within my heart rise above? ” Agatha sang, picking up where Rio left off while she focused on the guitar part, letting it get a little more intricate. “ Can I sail through the changing ocean tides? Can I handle the seasons of my life? Mmm. ”

Then, as they swelled into the chorus, she let Agatha take the lead and slipped into a low, complementary harmony. Their voices blended perfectly as they sang the chorus, echoing the words of a woman heartbroken and in love and left to pick up the pieces after destruction. Stevie Nicks had always been such an inspiration to Agatha, kindred spirits from different generations. 

“You’re so talented, Rio, what the hell?” Agatha complimented after the song, scooting closer on the couch to watch as Rio picked at another, unfamiliar melody. “I thought you were going to frat boy me to death.” 

A beaming, brilliant smile spread on Rio’s cheeks like she had just been given the greatest gift. “Thank you, Agatha. That honestly means a lot coming from you.” 

“From me? Jesus Rio, I’m a nobody,” Agatha retorted, allowing herself a moment of honesty. “But maybe we could be something.”

The surprise on Rio’s face was undeniable. “What do you mean we ?” 

“Think about it,” Agatha said, tracing a pattern on the bare skin of Rio’s thigh. “We sound good together, you play guitar and drums, I play piano and already have a small following. Together, we could make backing tracks and create a real performance . We could be everything.” 

Rio nodded, letting the words roll around her head like marbles on a playground’s asphalt. “Is that what you want? To be everything?” 

Something awakened in Agatha at the question, a life behind her eyes sparking into a flame that hadn’t been there before. “Don’t you? Making music and performing it for hundreds of thousands of people, crowds screaming our names, singing every lyric, climbing to the top of every chart– wouldn’t it be glorious? God, we could be on top of the world.” 

The notion didn’t seem to strike Rio as hard as it did Agatha but there was something so intriguing about this woman, about her passion for this dream, that she said, “Fuck it, why not?” 

When Agatha left not too long later, ten digits and a lipstick print were left on a pad of notebook paper that was the beginning of everything.

Chapter Text

2025

Sunlight trickled through the budding leaves dotting the trees in Agatha Harkness’ backyard, casting a warm morning glow on the rippling blue water of her jacuzzi tub. She sat with her hair clipped in a curly, tangled pile on top of her head as the hot water lapped around her, dancing her fingers along the surface, watching as the tension pulled droplets up with every flick of her wrist. 

One, two, three, four…. One, two, three, and four.

She hummed along to a melody bouncing around her head as she counted the way her fingers tapped the bubbles, her voice soft and only for her ears as she worked through the weight that had settled low in her stomach for more days than she could keep count. 

One, and two, three-ee-ah, four… One-ee-ah, two-ah, three-ah, four. 

Just like it had every morning at exactly this time, Agatha’s phone lit up, vibrating on the glass table just outside her reach. She didn’t have to look to know whose face would be staring back at her. And, she didn’t need to listen to the voicemail to know exactly what was being said. It had all been said before, time and time again. 

And the answer, still, was no. 

Four, five, six… four, five, six… four, five, fuck. 

A small, tired voice echoed through the sliding door to her kitchen and Agatha scrambled out of the hot tub, haphazardly tying her robe around her bathing suit-clad body and hoping her feet would dry enough on the concrete that she wouldn’t eat shit the second she hit the black tile. 

“Mama, where are you?” a small boy said, his voice on the verge of tears. “Mama?” 

Agatha ripped the door open and stepped inside as fast as she could, seeing her sweet, six-year-old boy standing next to the island in all of his bed-headed glory, clutching his stuffed bunny to his chest in a white-knuckle grip. It always broke her heart to see her boy this way. 

“I’m right here Nicky, what’s wrong?” she asked, sliding the door shut and skidding on the pad of her left foot just a little too far for comfort. Her question was met with silence as the small boy looked toward her reading nook just to the left of the kitchen. 

“Mama?” Nicky asked again, turning his head just enough that Agatha could see what the problem was. 

But, before she could say or do anything, her right foot betrayed her and she slipped, thudding to the ground unceremoniously, catching the attention of her son. His watery eyes immediately crinkled at the corners just like hers as he stifled a laugh. 

“Mama! You fell!” he squawked out with a giggle, running closer to his mother as his previous upset washed away from him almost entirely. “You’re always supposed to wear flip-flops after the pool!” 

Agatha rolled her eyes affectionately and cracked a tender smile that was only reserved for her little love. She reached out and grabbed him by the waist, pulling him in so quickly that he tumbled into the puddle of water in front of her as she blew a raspberry on his neck. Laughter screeched out of his tiny body and set her chest alight with a joy she had only ever felt because of him. 

“Mama! Mama stop! It tickles!” Nicky pleaded as Agatha’s fingers poked into his sides and even more infectious giggles radiated from his tiny little body. 

After a few moments, she relented, sitting him on her knee as she regarded him carefully. His face was pink and splotchy with his laughter but she could still make out the tear tracks on his cheeks. She wiped at them before freeing one hand to ask, “Baby, did you sleep with your ears in last night?” 

Nicky watched her hand intently and his face fell immediately. He looked at his bunny, now being held dangerously close to the puddle, and nodded once. 

Agatha hooked her finger under his chin and tilted his face back up so he could see her. She wasn’t mad, not even in the slightest, but she could tell that her son had already convinced himself that she would be. With soft touches, she tucked his hair behind his ears, the brown tresses freed from his ponytail just long enough to reach. His ears were warm to the touch and more than a little pink as she looked at them. 

“Sweetheart, you know you aren’t supposed to sleep with them in. Why did you put them back on after I tucked you in?” she asked, keeping her voice even and her hands languid as she signed, wanting to ease some of the small boy’s anxiety. 

Big, brown eyes blinked up at her in a way that reminded her so much of… someone before he said, “Because you were singing last night and I wanted to hear you.” 

The words hit Agatha heavily and she pressed her lips together, pulling Nicky into her chest and kissing the top of his head. One day, this boy was going to be the death of her. 

“Well, let’s see if we can find a little magic something or other  to make your ouchy skin feel better, how does that sound?” Agatha asked, freeing both hands for some extra oomph to bring a smile to the little boy’s face. 

“Do we get to make a potion, too?” he asked excitedly, already hopping off the floor and running toward the bathroom, not waiting for a response. “Magic potion time!” 

It was something Agatha had devised after Nicky’s third meltdown as a toddler about putting anything in his ears. He had been born hard of hearing and after debating with herself for quite some time what to do about it, she eventually settled on both hearing aids and learning sign language. But, with hearing aids and a very rambunctious, very messy boy, Agatha found herself sometimes staring down a double-barrel ear infection with only her wit and a bottle of pink amoxicillin to fight against a raging, screaming toddler. 

And so, the magic potion was born. 

While it was nothing more than hydrogen peroxide, baby Aquaphor, and some of her rusty Latin from high school, the game of pretend turned an angry toddler into an excited witch-in-training who loved it when the magic potion fizzed in his ears and learned to tolerate the goopy, sometimes sticky magic salve that helped with the ouchies on his outer ear. 

In the bathroom, Nicky was already pulling up his step stool and washing his hands, squirting soap out of the Bluey bottle next to his matching toothpaste. Agatha wasted no time combing Nicky’s hair back with her fingernails and securing it with the damp hair tie on her wrist. She leaned in to get a better look at Nicky’s ears and noticed that it wasn’t as irritated as it could have been. Just a little extra protection should do the trick, so she opted not to break out the dial soap and alcohol wipes. 

“Baby, where are your ears?” Agatha asked, signing in the mirror once she caught his eye. “Are they charging now?” 

Nicky nodded his head vigorously, patting his hands dry and making a grabby motion for the jar of Aquaphor they had covered in stickers to make it their special potion . Agatha obliged and twisted the blue lid off, offering it to the small boy. He dipped his fingers in and started to scoop a much too big glob, so Agatha pulled it down, making him frown. 

“Mamaaaa,” the small boy whined. Agatha only raised an eyebrow at him and he immediately calmed down with a huff. 

With a reasonable amount of “special potion” on his fingers, he began to chant, “ Puer pulcher cum magnis oculis brunneis, te amo plus quam vita ipsa. ” 

It had nothing to do with ears or tender skin, not truly a spell at all, but a love letter to the tiny, beautiful boy who saved her life. Everything had and always would be for him. She imbued it into everything she did. Her son would never question whether he was loved, whether his mother liked him or just tolerated him, he would never know even a fraction of the uncertainty and pain that Agatha had by Evanora’s hand. 

How anyone could look at a precious, innocent child and not see a blessing deserving of the utmost care? 

Agatha shook her head, clearing her head of the thoughts she found herself swept up in. It did no one any good for her to ruminate on that which she couldn’t control. Change what you can and accept what you cannot, and all. 

“Mama, look!” Nicky said, pointing to the window behind them in the mirror. Outside, a sleek black car had pulled up on their cement driveway, parking without security having notified Agatha that someone was coming– whoever it was had the gate code, which meant it was only one possible person. 

“Shit,” Agatha hissed, grabbing Nicky under his armpits and putting him on the floor after wiping the leftover potion from his sticky fingers. “Go play outside, baby.” 

Nicky fixed her with a stern look, one that he couldn’t have gotten from anyone other than herself and her own stubbornness. “I want to say hi.” 

“You can in a bit, baby. I need to talk to her first,” Agatha tried gently, patting his head and trying to steer him toward the back of the house. 

He stomped his foot and dug in his heels, refusing. “No! I want to say hi!” 

Agatha closed her eyes and took a deep breath, in her nose and out her mouth. She crouched down to be eye level with the child and took his hands in one of her own– firm but gentle, loving. “Nicholas, do not talk to me like this. You know that being disrespectful will not allow you to get your way.” 

A bright red flush burned on Nicky’s cheeks and she knew that this could go one of two ways. Normally, he was a docile, even-tempered child, but with him likely not sleeping well last night and having sore ears, Agatha knew that he was primed for acting out. 

So, she started to take deep breaths, exaggerating with her shoulders until Nicky caught on and started to breathe with her. The redness faded to a dull pink and his little eyebrows unfurrowed bit by bit. 

“Mama has to have a grown-up conversation with her, first, because she didn’t let me know that she was coming. That usually means that there is either an emergency or there is something serious she needs to talk to me about, which is not good for little ears or little eyes that can read lips,” Agatha started, pursing her lips when she heard the doorbell ring. It was going to be one of those conversations– one that made her spare key policy a liability, not a privilege. “Once I know what’s going on, I promise to come get you, okay? Does that sound like a plan?”

Nicky, for all his stubbornness, still looked a little angry with his mom but he nodded anyway. He slipped a hand out of her gentle hold, and nodded as he signed, “ Yes .” 

Agatha smiled tenderly and kissed his forehead, standing and walking with him out of the bathroom, waiting until she watched him slip into the backyard before turning to the front door– the bell ringing for a second time. A sense of dread enveloped her as she thought about all of the phone calls she had been ignoring for the last month. It was almost too good to be true that they would have left it at that, of course, one of them would eventually show up on her doorstep. 

“What can I do for you, Wanda,” Agatha asked with a fake smile plastered on her face. It immediately switched to shock when she noticed the tall, lanky frame of Billy standing there, too. “Shit, Billy, you’re here too? Is everything okay?” 

Without fanfare, Wanda and Billy both let themselves into the foyer, kicking off their shoes and shrugging off their coats. 

“You haven’t answered the phone for two weeks, Agatha,” Wanda chided, not wasting time on pleasantries. “It’s one thing when you ignore everyone else for weeks on end but you know that I worry.” 

“Good morning to you, too, sunshine. Can I interest you in some coffee or tea before you rip me to shreds?” Agatha countered, rolling her eyes and entirely unbothered by Wanda’s evident irritation. 

“Actually, that would be lov–” Billy started before his mother cuffed him on the shoulder, shutting him up. 

“Seriously, Billy? You’re worse than your father,” Wanda said, pulling at Agatha’s wrist until they were all sitting at the kitchen island. “I don’t care what’s going on with you, you’re going to hear us out and then tell me why you’re isolating. You know you can’t do that, Agatha. It’s not safe.” 

Agatha huffed, already entirely aware of what was going to come next. There were dozens of voicemails from Lilia piling up in her inbox, more than their fair share from Billy and Alice, and even one from Jen . 

“It’s been more than six years, Wanda. You don’t need to worry about that anymore,” Agatha retorted, feeling her hackles rise at being treated like a child. “As you can tell, I have been more than successful at taking care of myself and my son.” 

“No one is saying that you aren’t, Ag,” Wanda placated. “You’re a great mom and you’re giving Nicky a great life. But you need to look out for you, too.” 

If Agatha rolled her eyes any harder, they might just fall out. She anxiously picked at her cuticles and waited for one of them to continue. 

“Where is Nicky?” Billy asked, looking around the main level of the house with long stretches of his neck. 

“Backyard. Unhappily, if I may add. So maybe let’s get this show on the road so that he can say hi before he implodes.” 

Wanda and Billy exchanged knowing looks and the younger of the two leaned forward in his seat, getting closer to where Agatha was standing with her arms braced on the other side. 

“We want to get the band back together. Just one tour. And we can’t do it without you,” Billy said bluntly, his days of being a tentative kid long past him. “So I’m here to convince you and I’m not leaving without you agreeing to come back.” 

Agatha turned her back to the young man and reached into her fridge, pulling out a pitcher of water and pouring herself a glass. “Well, then I guess make yourself comfortable in the spare bedroom because you’re going to be here a while.” 

“Please, Agatha? Just consider it for a moment,” Billy started, a look on his face that Agatha knew she needed to squash right in its tracks. 

“I don’t need to consider it because that decision was already made for me. Ten years ago, if I remember correctly,” Agatha seethed, her words jabbing in exactly into Billy’s ribs like she had intended. His face faltered for long enough that Agatha noticed and she counted it as one tally in her column. She would win this battle. “Why would I go anywhere that I’m not wanted ? You made that abundantly clear.” 

“That’s not fair, Agatha,” Wanda interjected. “Things are entirely different now.” 

“You don’t get a say in this,” Agatha said, pointing a sharp finger in the older woman’s direction. “This has nothing to do with you.” 

Wanda’s face heated and an anger settled over her, a calm anger, a dangerous anger. “If anyone in this fucking room deserves a say in what happens with you , it should be me. I’ve spent the last decade cleaning up your messes and supporting you as you got sober. I’m the godmother to your child, for fuck’s sake. I know better than anyone with a stake in this game what they’re asking of you.”

“If you know me so well, then why aren’t you telling Billy just how absurd all of this is? Every single person in that band, the band that I created, dropped me like I was a burning coal and left me to sink and drown! Why should I do anything for any of you?” 

Agatha could feel herself starting to spiral, that tight clenching control she always tied to tightly coming unraveled. She didn’t talk to anyone about this. Not Wanda, not her therapist, not even Nicky’s pet bunny that couldn’t even speak English. She had never felt a betrayal like when the band ended, like when the media ate her alive and no one tossed her a life raft. 

“Agatha, you know that isn’t what happened,” Billy tried. “We all tried and tried to reach out to you, especially after… But you wouldn’t let us close enough to make any difference.” 

“Oh, so it’s my fault now?” Agatha scoffed. “All it would have taken was one of you to say anything to the press to defend me, to take any of the heat off of me, to change the narrative. But instead, you left me to flounder and carry the weight of the ‘world’s greatest rock band’ being destroyed all by myself.” 

She used air quotes to show exactly just how much she didn’t agree with the designation they had once been given. 

“I got death threats, Billy. And not just stupid Instagram comments. There were people in my yard, they got my phone number, they sent things to my PO Box, they even tried coming after Ralph! Stupid, pathetic Ralph who has nothing to do with this was harassed for years . I’m surprised I didn’t just kill myself. I guess not for lack of trying, though.” 

A nauseous, guilty look crossed Billy’s face and he didn’t even try to cover it this time. This wasn’t something they ever talked about. Wanda knew because she was the only one who could wrestle her way past Agatha’s defenses, especially in that first year, but when Agatha decided to let Billy back in, it was a firm, unspoken rule that it would never be brought up. It wasn’t that he was entirely unaware of all of the horrible things Agatha faced in the media and all of the situations she found herself in because of it– but to hear it from Agatha’s lips for the first time in a decade, for her to mention just how horrific it was, to mention that night ? It made Billy’s stomach turn. 

“I regret not doing something every single day, Agatha. Please, you have to know that,” Billy pleaded, reaching out to grab Agatha’s hand before thinking better of it. “And I wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t important.”

“What, did Eddie dearest stumble into a gambling problem and now your only way to recover is to go on tour with a band you haven’t been part of for 10 years?” Agatha sneered, knowing she was being cruel, uncaring. 

This was why she had Nicky go play outside. 

“The fuck?” Billy was reaching the end of his rope now. “Don’t be this Agatha. You’re better than this.”

Agatha crooked an eyebrow, challenging him. “Am I? Awfully presumptuous of you. Isn’t this my whole thing?’

Billy went to respond and Wanda held a hand up, silencing him. “Baby, why don’t you go out to the playhouse and see what Nicky’s up to? I’m sure he’s chomping at the bit to see you.”

With hesitant movements, Billy stood from his stool and made his way to the backyard, Nicky’s squeals of excitement echoing through the doorway before it slid shut. 

“Come sit,” Wanda said softly, patting the cushion that Billy had just vacated. Agatha stood obstinately with her arms crossed on her chest. “Please?”

Agatha relented and slid onto the stool next to Wanda and even gave her the mercy of not biting her head off when a warm palm started to rub between her shoulder blades. 

“I can’t do it, Wanda. I can’t… I can’t do it again. I’ve not even performed since I got sober, let alone going on tour and seeing her again—“ Agatha cut herself off and shook her head. “It’s just not a good idea. And what will I do with Nicky? He’s in kindergarten, I can’t just pull him out of school indefinitely.”

“You know I would come stay with him until the school year is over,” Wanda countered. “And it would only be a month or so before summer hit and I could bring him to tour stops for you.”

“I’ve never been away from him that long,” Agatha admitted. “I don’t… I don’t like to be away from him. I need to keep him safe.” 

Wanda reached out and grabbed Agatha’s hands, rubbing her knuckles with her thumbs, blue eyes boring into sky blue. “If you decide to do this, I will protect that boy with my life. Nothing bad will happen to him. His life will continue as normal and I will bring him to you on the weekends as often as I can. I love him like he’s my own. I won’t let anything happen to him.”

This comforted Agatha, if only slightly. “But what about the rest of it? The cameras and the drugs and the drinking and the partying? What if I can’t resist? What if I ruin everything?”

“You won’t.” There was no room for argument in Wanda’s voice. “But it won’t be like that this time. You’re all older and have so much more going on in life. I can guarantee you that none of The Orchids are interested even a little bit in that. Maybe a night out dancing on occasion for Rio—“

“Fuck, what about her? She hates me!” Agatha whinged. “Is she even okay with all this? She’s the superstar, now. We all know she could easily take my place. Do it better, even.” 

“She doesn’t hate you, Agatha. She never has.”

“Out of all the lies you have ever told me, that quite possibly is the worst one. I don’t even think you believed it.”

Wanda fixed Agatha with an exasperated look, sighing in frustration. “Well, either way, she’s already on board and knows that there is no Agatha and The Orchids without Agatha. She knew what she was signing up for.”

“Mama, are you going to go sing for everyone like you sing for me?” Nicky asked with wide eyes, an out-of-breath Billy following hot on his heels. Agatha froze, straightening her spine mechanically until she was stiff and robotic. “Aunt Wanda!!” 

The small boy threw himself into his godmother’s arms and she caught him easily, lifting him off the ground and peppering him with kisses. 

“Sorry, I got carried away playing with him and he slipped away from me,” Billy winced, knowing that Agatha wasn’t ready for Nicky to know about this. 

She flipped him off behind Wanda’s back and Billy held up his hands in surrender. 

“No, baby, that’s just for you and me,” Agatha tried as Nicky looked at her with one eye squished against Wanda’s shoulder. 

A comically adorable pout frowned on Nicky’s small features as he slid himself off Wanda’s lap and immediately came to stand between Agatha’s legs, placing his little hands in her thighs like she had so often with him. 

“Everyone should hear you sing, mama,” Nicky insisted, about as serious as his six-year-old body could manage. “You do it better than everyone. Even the pretty lady Ms. Gwen plays during nap time on Fridays.” 

“And who would that be?” Agatha asked, more curious than anything what the kindergarten teacher was playing during nap time. 

“Rio! She was on Sesame Street with Elmo and Zoë and sang them a song to teach Elmo how to get along with Rocko. But Elmo still looked pretty mad at Rocko even when Miss Rio was done.” 

God, if it wasn’t one thing, it was another. 

“Well, maybe I will consider singing for Elmo and Rocko, then. Sounds like they have a very contentious relationship that can be fixed through musical numbers,” Agatha said through gritted teeth. “But that’s it!” 

Nicky didn’t even pretend to know what all of those words meant (though the signs always did help a bit) but a silly, lopsided grin spread on his face as he quirked his head to the side. “You’re so silly, Mama,” he giggled. 

“Now that that’s settled, why don’t you show Aunt Wanda and Uncle Billy your new treehouse,” Agatha suggested, trying desperately to shoo them all in the opposite direction of wherever she would hide for the next eternity. 

“I’ve already seen it,” Billy said proudly, though Agatha knew what he was doing. 

“Aunt Wanda! Please come see!” Nicky exclaimed, the sweetest puppy dog look coloring his features. 

It took all of two seconds for Wanda to cave and be dragged off with dirty hands grabbing at her linen sleeves. 

“What’s it going to take for you to say yes to this?” Billy asked, cutting to the chase. He didn’t take his mother’s stool this time, opting to loom ominously over Agatha’s hunched frame. “And don’t be an asshole. Give me a real answer.” 

Agatha scrubbed her hands up and down her face, wishing she could rewind time to when she was still soaking in the jacuzzi this morning. 

“I don’t know, Billy. This isn’t something I want,” Agatha admitted, feeling herself slump just a bit. “I have everything I could possibly need. Life is fine.” 

“That’s not true, is it?” Billy asked, both pushing and genuinely concerned, it seemed. “You really don’t want more from life than this?” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Agatha was growing tense and defensive, her words barbed wire. “Why wouldn’t I be happy being Nicky’s mom?”

If Agatha was being honest, there was a measure of truth to Billy’s words, to the assertion that she wanted more from this life. That was neither here nor there, though, because she had already decided that she would be Nicky’s mom and Nicky’s mom alone. There wasn’t room for anything else. 

“That isn’t what I said,” Billy retorted, hints of frustration in his tone. “You really are content just floating around this house like a ghost? Nicky isn’t here most of the day, that leaves you hours and hours of what? Jacuzzi and jazzercise and whatever fucking John Wick movie you swear you’re too sophisticated to enjoy?” 

“Alliteration, nice. Want to start rhyming couplets into your argument? Might make it more persuasive.” 

“I know what you’re doing and it’s not going to work.” 

“Aw, come on, Billy. You know Mommy Dearest had a degree in English Literature, this game was always my favorite.” 

It markedly was not Agatha’s favorite. Her mother was a degrading, violent monster who loved to do anything to humiliate Agatha, especially in public. She had often touted herself as a woman of “family values” as she campaigned for Mayor of Salem and the cruel, cold community seemed to eat up her authoritarian parenting style. It was different then, sure, but Agatha still didn’t know how no one clocked it as abuse. 

Billy only fixed Agatha with a glare that she knew he had only recently learned, something that he would have never dared ten years ago. It settled uncomfortably on Agatha’s skin, making it crawl ever so slightly. So much had changed since she had Nicky and this was one of them— she found it so much harder to ignore the way her words affected others. 

“This really is important to you, huh?” Agatha asked, almost impressed by Billy’s fortitude. “Why?” 

“It could be the last chance we get to do something like this,” Billy said, vague and unsatisfyingly. “I miss us. I miss our family. You and the girls were the most important people in my life once upon a time. I don’t want that to just become another memory lost to time.” 

“What, are you dying or something? Why does this sound so dire?” 

Billy seemed to be considering something in his head. “If I were dying, would that change anything?” 

Agatha’s mind raced a mile a minute as she searched Billy’s face for the hint that he was telling the truth, desperate for it to be a lie. But she saw nothing . She saw nothing and it was arguably worse than literally anything else. Her stomach sank to her knees as she felt a gravity settle there, a heaviness she rarely let herself indulge. 

She felt… guilty, almost. 

Was she really the reason that Billy felt this way? Like this important piece of his life being inaccessible was because of her? Twinges of anger prickled in her fingertips and she clenched them tightly in a fist. It was easier this way, to be angry instead of ashamed. 

“Why does this ridiculous little family have to include me? Sounds like you’re just making up reasons to be upset,” Agatha said, pursing her lips to try and keep in character, to not let her performance slip. 

Billy, finally , sat down on the stool next to Agatha. With large, warm hands, he unraveled Agatha’s fists and held her hands tenderly. She wanted to yank herself away but Billy only held on tighter. 

“Because it’s you, Agatha. Because I love you and you matter to me. You matter, Agatha. You always have, that has never changed. You are the heart of this family, no matter what you pretend to be otherwise to keep us at arm’s length. Our beating, bleeding, broken heart that we need to stay alive.”

“I’m not broken,” Agatha grumbled, not hating the analogy as much as she should. “Quit writing me poetry.” 

“No, Agatha, you’re not broken. But we hurt you, we broke your heart, and I won’t pretend that we didn’t. Please give us a chance, give me a chance to make this right. Just one more time. And if you hate it, I promise to never ask you again. Just one more tour.” 

If tears prickled at the back of Agatha’s eyes, that was between her and her pride. Billy’s words hit her like a wave, like the ocean’s tide sweeping her out to sea. She didn’t know it until right this second but she needed to hear those words. She needed to hear someone acknowledge that she wasn’t the only villain in this story, that they had hurt her just as much as she had hurt them. Ten years was a long time to carry the weight of guilt, of self-hatred, and disgust, to believe that the people who she trusted most in the entire world destroyed her without even blinking an eye. 

And when she looked up, she knew that Billy had won. The younger man smirked and he knew it, too. 

“Fine, I will try. But it has to be different this time… I can’t— I won’t put myself through that again,” Agatha said, standing her firm ground. 

Billy finally dropped Agatha’s hands to clap his own together once. 

“Yes! Amazing! Okay, I will get everything set up. It will be perfect, Agatha. Oh, and you might want to go shower.” 

“What? Why? I wasn’t expecting company!” Agatha defended herself, wrapping her robe around her bikini-clad body and realizing for the first time that she had this entire conversation nearly naked. 

“I need to get you to the studio by one for paperwork and preliminary interviews,” Billy said nonchalantly as if it wasn’t a major bomb to drop. 

“Today?!” Agatha shrieked, immediately jumping to her feet. “Billy, what the fuck! I need more time.” 

“Nope, you don’t. We are going today so you don’t change your mind. Plus, if production doesn’t start today, we literally can’t do a documentary on the tour,” Billy explained, making Agatha’s head spin. A documentary? “We’ve already booked venues tentatively for all summer and some of the spring. Once you’re signed on we can confirm and send dates/locations to marketing.” 

“I’m regretting this already,” Agatha trailed off as Billy pushed her by the shoulders toward the staircase. “You seriously are doing this to me today?” 

“Yep! I will let Mom know to stay here with Nicky. Wear something camera-ready.” 

2015

Sacramento, Night One

Agatha bent over the table in her dressing room, bright mirror lights shining on her face as she snorted her third line of cocaine. She leaned back in her chair and watched herself in the mirror, watched as the blue of her eyes nearly disappeared and the rush of euphoria flooded her body. Fuck, this was the good stuff. 

The crowd could be heard cheering even where she was tucked away in the stadium, their excitement energizing every inch of the space. Her face felt numb and her hands jittery as she leapt up from where she was sitting, needing to move. 

“Agatha, we go on in five,” Sharon clucked through the door without peeking in. “I need you backstage.” 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Agatha slurred just so slightly. “I’m coming.” 

The feeling of the drugs working her body over started to become overwhelming the longer that she stood in her dressing room, so she reached into the complimentary refrigerator and pulled out four of the tiny bottles of vodka, opening them all and downing them one after another in quick succession. If she was going to go perform, she needed to come back down to Earth just a little bit. 

With unsteady steps, Agatha made her way to the golf cart that would drive her to the staging area. She swayed as it turned corners, giggling relentlessly as the security guard’s hand gripped the back of her shirt each time she nearly toppled off the back of the moving vehicle. Everything was so funny today, she just could not figure it out. 

Everyone was already waiting for her when she arrived, varying levels of annoyance present on all of their faces. But Agatha? She didn’t care, not even a little bit. This was her band. What were they going to do about it? She could do whatever the hell she pleased and they just had to take it. 

“Agatha, my god, can you even stand?” Rio asked, immediately coming to her side to help her out of the golf cart. “Sweetheart, we have to do a show. How much did you do?” 

“Only three lines,” Agatha mumbled, the vodka really hitting her now. “I could have done more.” 

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Rio grumbled. “Shit, Agatha, were you drinking, too? You stink.” 

Agatha giggled again, finding Rio’s frown so cute. She touched her lips, smearing the lipstick Rio’s stylist had to have spent so long on. “Yeah, I was too high and needed to come back down to perform.”

She hiccuped as she stumbled her way through her words and Billy dropped his head in his hands. 

“Jesus, how much did you have?” Rio asked, not sure if she wanted to know the answer. She handed off her guitar to a tech and wrapped her arm around her wife’s waist. 

“A-all of it,” Agatha admitted easily, freely. 

“All of what , Agatha?” 

“The vodka in the mini fridge. It was so yummy, Rio. They had that whipped cream kind. Remember when we did belly shots of it in Vegas?” 

“I remember you throwing it back up all over our bed, too,” Rio grumbled, knowing that tonight was not going to be a good night. 

“Ah, good times. We should do that again.” 

“Is she going to be able to do this? She can’t even stand on her own,” Jen snipped, holding her bass and rolling her eyes. “We only have four shows left. You really couldn’t get your shit together enough to last that long? You have the rest of your fucking life to be a washed out has been. This is a job , Agatha.” 

“I can stand!” Agatha cried, stepping away from Rio and using all of her resolve not to stumble. She was standing… but just barely. 

“Great, because the countdown starts in ten and I need you at 100 out there, superstar,” Lilia said, taking the belt pack from a tech and clipping it onto Agatha’s outfit before plugging in her in-ears and sliding them on for the intoxicated woman. “You can do that for me, baby?” 

Lilia’s maternal warmth had always been a sticking point for Agatha, grounding her and pushing her to be better. She pushed the bedazzled microphone into Agatha’s hand and the younger woman nodded twice. 

“I can do it,” she replied, almost childish despite trying to be serious. 

In Agatha’s monitor, she heard the countdown— ten seconds until she stepped on the stage. She took in her outfit in the floor-length mirror— bell bottom pants, a shimmery, see-through top, smoked-out eye makeup, and her long, thick hair in waves with a scarf wrapped around her forehead. She looked like a rockstar and she looked damn good doing it. 

As she stepped onto the stage, the crowd roared and the lights burned onto her skin in that delicious way it always did. She gave big waves to the crowd, smiling widely and blowing kisses. But with one wrong move, the microphone went flinging out of her hand, crashing into the stage with horrific feedback screeching through the sound system before it got muted by the sound tech. Agatha picked it back up and pretended to dust it off, saying “Oopsie” into it, making the crowd go wild. 

“Hello Sacramentoooo!” she bellowed to the crowd, listening as they screamed her name and she gave her signature smirk. “Are you ready to have some fun tonight?” 

The crowd roared again and Agatha heard the click track begin, the others playing the opening notes of their first song. The bass rumbled in her chest, the drums pulsing through her bones. She felt like she could feel it all . And then, as she got wrapped up in the feeling, in the high coursing through her veins, the liquid honey slowing her muscles, she completely missed her count-in. 

She didn’t even realize it. 

Agatha danced around the stage with her hands above her head as the rest of her bandmates made eye contact, not quite panicking but certainly not in control of the situation. 

“Loop verse chords,” Billy instructed in his mic that was only fed to the in-ears. “She will catch on eventually.” 

Rio nodded once and stepped away from her own mic, playing the chords again and again as she made her way to her wife, dancing with her. 

“Sing, sweetheart,” she said once Agatha realized she was there. 

Agatha listened for a few seconds and immediately knew where she was, where she needed to start. She was a professional, after all. With the hit packed in her long, acrylic pinky nail, she shook her ass for the crowd as she snorted it and came in exactly on chord one. 

The show was officially off and running, and those first three words were the last thing that Agatha would remember from that night. Within moments, she blacked out and she wouldn’t come back to until she was sitting in a hospital bed, morning light streaming through gauzy curtains, and watching the news scroll as it said that the rest of the tour had been canceled. 

Just like that, Agatha had sealed her fate. 

2025 

Agatha tugged at her cream turtleneck as Billy pulled into the studio parking lot. After so much time, it normally didn’t bother her, but as they drew closer to a room full of all the people she wasn’t ready to see, she felt the fabric scratching the raised, red scar on her neck. It was an ugly scar, never quite concealed by makeup no matter how hard she tried. In reality, the cashmere turtleneck would do it no harm but because she was thinking about it, about how she got it, it seemed to come to life. 

“You okay?” Billy asked, looking over at Agatha as he put the car into park. 

“Peachy,” Agatha lied, throwing off her seatbelt and stepping out of the car. She wouldn’t let the kid see her crumble. She wouldn’t let anyone see her crumble. 

To say the studio was large would be quite the understatement. It looked like it was big enough to house multiple soundstages and Agatha was sure that it probably did. She walked into the door marked “MAIN” and was immediately greeted by the last person she wanted to see. 

“Agatha Harkness in the flesh!” Sharon Davis, once their tour manager, squealed in that signature nasally voice of hers. “Goodness, dollface, it’s been too long. How are you holding up? Are you still sober?” 

Before Agatha could even respond, Billy came swooping in, pushing Agatha forward by the small of her back. “Can’t talk, Mrs. Davis! Late for paperwork!” 

Fog rolled in through Agatha’s brain, dense and thick, and she began to rub at the space between her thumb and forefinger. She kneaded harder and harder, trying desperately to bring her mind back to the present. This was a bad idea. She shouldn’t be here. 

“You’re okay,” Billy whispered from behind her, pressing more firmly on her back. It was surprisingly grounding. 

“Shut up,” Agatha gritted back. “I’m three seconds from walking out of here and not looking back.” 

It was bad enough that Agatha had to live with the shame of her past, of the horrible things her addiction made her do, even the things she did without anything else to blame. But to have the first thing said to her when she came back to The Orchids be a question about whether or not she was really sober? God, it was humiliating. Agatha felt her cheeks burn and emotions prickle at her eyes. 

She wasn’t this person anymore. God, she wasn’t this person anymore. Could she even handle this? 

“Ms. Harkness, please come in,” an unfamiliar voice beckoned from behind an opening door. She was greeted by a woman with flaming red hair and a scowl that matched her own. “My name is Natasha Romanoff, but you can call me Nat, and I’m the executive producer and director for the documentary. You already know Tony, the head of the label, and Pepper, the Director of Touring and Live Events.”

Agatha entered the conference room and took the open seat, noticing that Billy had disappeared somewhere in the abyss. “Oh, the whole entourage just for little ole me?” she asked, turning on the charm. “I didn’t realize I was such an asset.” 

“Oh, I assure you, Ms. Harkness, you are of utmost importance to us in this production. We’ve prepared some contracts for you and hopefully, they will be up to your standards,” Nat said, almost too sweetly. 

She pulled the packet of papers in front of her closer and squinted at them, wishing that she had her glasses. With quick motions, she flipped through it, reading what she could– mostly the headings– until she came across a page with big, bold letters, “Code of Conduct”

“Of utmost importance or an uncontrollable liability?” she questioned, not remembering a single time before seeing anything like this. “Does this say no performing intoxicated? Is that for everyone or just special for me?” 

“This is in everyone’s contract, Ms. Harkness. It’s standard for all of our productions now,” Pepper said, barely concealing a wince. Agatha could infer when this became a necessity and she felt herself shrink ever so slightly. 

“You cannot convince me that Doechii isn’t high as a kite on stage,” Agatha retorted, feeling her hackles raise. This was targeted, she just knew it. “Her latest single is literally about how much she likes drugs.” 

“Agatha, your name was the highest-earning brand our label has ever acquired,” Tony interrupted, completely curving the conversation. “Having you back on this tour is vital to its success and we are invested in doing everything that we can to ensure that it goes smoothly for all parties. You’re sober now and nothing in this contract is anything you haven’t seen before. The Code of Conduct has been updated to include some protections for staff and talent alike. It’s not a trap and it’s not a punishment. Even with Rio on her own imprint, you are still our prized racehorse. So are you in or out, Harkness? Can we count on you to show all of our other talent what a real rockstar is, or are you going to go back into hiding in your mansion in the hills?” 

Tony’s words hit Agatha exactly where they were supposed to, igniting the passion and pride in her that had long been dormant. She was the best and she was fully aware of it. There was no one in the game today who could command a crowd the way she did, there was no one then who could even imagine keeping up with her charisma and star power. And Agatha wanted it – she craved to be back on top, to have that power at her fingertips again. 

So, it was settled. 

And on the dotted line, Agatha Harkness was signed back to Stark Records. 

Despite the fiery energy that enveloped her during her meeting with the execs, Agatha watched from behind a leafy plant across the large soundstage as Rio Vidal entered the production studio, having slid in after her solo interview. God, she was as beautiful as she ever was– the glints of silver in her hair and faint lines on her cheeks made her that much more stunning. Even after all of these years, Agatha’s breath caught in her throat at the sight of the woman she used to love. Years had gone by since she had seen her in person, been close enough to smell the warm, sultry perfume she wore like a second skin. If she closed her eyes, she could still remember the way it tangled with her almond shampoo in the mornings. 

A twinge of pain rocked through her stomach at the memory, making her clutch at it uselessly with a shaky arm. She was completely out of her element here, she hadn’t even dared to think of going back to The Orchids , of going back to her , even if just to apologize. Still, after all this time, the wound of their split was open and tender, pervasive and inescapable. And, just like 10 years ago, Agatha knew that this roaring chasm between them was entirely her own fault. 

Rio entered and immediately made her way to Jen and Lilia, giving them big, warm hugs and kissing their cheeks. It was as easy as breathing for her to walk into this space with them and it almost made Agatha ache for how things used to be. She watched as giant grins pulled on their cheeks at the sight of Rio, holding her at arm’s length to get a good look at her. It was obvious that they had stayed in some kind of contact over the years but out of all of The Orchids, Rio had stayed the busiest, the furthest out of reach. Studio album after studio album, tour after tour, guest appearance after guest appearance on talk shows, radio shows, TV dramas, movies, everything . 

For the girl who didn’t even want to be in the industry, she sure knew how to thrive in it. 

There was something to Rio’s persistence and ruthlessness that reminded Agatha of herself, of the woman she used to be. It almost felt like someone had taken all of the drive, all of the fire, all of the upward trajectory that Agatha had carved for herself and deposited it right into Rio as the older woman crumbled into her own demise. After years of rehab, outpatient treatment, and getting sober, Agatha finally left that path behind and put her wellness over the climb to power she had fought tooth and nail for her entire adult life. But she would be lying if she said she didn’t miss it, that she didn’t feel a little resentful for her ex-wife getting the life that she had built for herself in the divorce. 

Being sober and working herself to the bone until she came out on top just did not mix well. 

And, if she was being honest, the craving for more crawled under her skin and tickled the back of her skull just as much as it did for the drugs sometimes. 

But that was a lifetime ago, someone that Agatha had left behind. There was no use in fighting it now, not after everything that had happened. 

The other members of the band still hadn’t noticed her sitting in the back corner, partially hidden by a potted plant she assumed would be part of the interview set. But as Rio let go of Billy and Alice, her eyes scanned the room over and over with a worried look on her face until she landed on Agatha. 

She always saw Agatha in a way that none of the others did, that none of the others wanted to. 

Something flashed in Rio’s eyes before her face turned unreadable and perhaps someone who didn’t know Rio wouldn’t notice it at all– but Agatha did. She knew every single expression that could cross her face from joy to anger to devastating heartbreak and anything in between. She turned away from Agatha as quickly as she had spotted her, jumping back into the conversation Billy had started about starting a family with his husband. Her fingers at her side began to fidget anxiously, though, and guilt curdled in Agatha’s stomach because she knew that she was the one who caused it. 

“Agatha, what are you doing over there?” Sharon called as she walked into the room. “Come on, we’ve got a lot to catch up on before we shoot.” 

The last thing Agatha wanted was to go anywhere with Sharon even on a good day but after her little display earlier, Agatha was downright refusing to do anything the woman said. She would not give the pesky, irritating little insect of a woman the power to humiliate her twice in one day, especially in front of the group of musicians that already considered her their very own black sheep. 

“Mrs. Hart, hello,” Agatha cooed with as much fake enthusiasm as she could muster. “I was just waiting for things to get started, that’s all.” 

Sharon rolled her eyes and grabbed Agatha by the elbow, ushering her to where the rest of the band was gathered around Kraft Services. “Sharon Davis ,” she corrected, rolling her eyes but wasting no time in henpecking Agatha where she wanted her. “You know that, doll face. I’ve told you a hundred times.” 

“Yes, yes, my apologies,” Agatha said as she came to a stop next to Rio, the only open space left in the tight circle. Sharon stood to her right with a clipboard and Rio to her left, always to her left. Agatha resisted the urge to look over her shoulder at her ex-wife. Rio’s eyes were burning into the side of her face but she wouldn’t crack, she wouldn’t cave and look back. 

“Agatha, how great to see you again!” Lilia exclaimed, reaching out to wrap her in a firm hug. Agatha froze under the embrace. Had she always been this touchy? “You’re looking great.” 

Lilia had started working as a producer when Billy made the switch from music to acting to support his husband, Eddie. She had done it all in another life– breakout Broadway star turned musician turned middle-aged starlet that the world just couldn’t get enough of. Her personality was bigger than life itself and her eye for success was uncanny in its accuracy. To think that she had ever been a no-name, disgraced actor running a bar in Silver Lake just to pass the time… 

If Agatha had to guess, it was probably Lilia who was the brains behind this entire operation– of getting the band back together for a reunion tour, the documentary, all of it. She had an insistent and persuasive way of always getting under her skin, all of their skins, and all it would have taken was a hint from her that she wanted this to get the whole crew running back to her side. 

If things had been different, Agatha supposed she would have run just as quickly when Lilia called. She had always been fond of the woman even if they didn’t always see eye-to-eye and Lilia was probably the closest person besides Wanda to actually getting behind her walls once upon a time. 

Agatha forced herself to relax in Lilia’s arms and patted her back, making a quiet, unsure noise. “Thanks, Lils. You’re not too shabby yourself.” 

Over her shoulder, Billy was giving her a confused look, likely from the weird and new nickname she had given Lilia. God, she was out of her element. She widened her eyes and shrugged her shoulders, just as confused as he was at the new term of affection. 

When Lilia pulled back, Agatha could see how much she had aged in the last decade. Her eyes were more sunken in, her lines and wrinkles more pronounced, and an all-over level of exhaustion that was uncharacteristic of the energetic woman. She could tell that Lilia was looking at her with just as much scrutiny, taking in the way her face had changed, the new wrinkles and dark eyebags on full display. 

Lilia’s gaze flicked down to Agatha’s neck, the turtleneck doing a poor job of covering the thick scar everyone knew was there. She didn’t say anything– none of them would, this Agatha knew– but she could tell by the way Lilia’s face changed that this was perhaps the first time she had to truly grapple with what had happened in their years apart. 

It was a weird sort of grief that seemed to cross everyone’s faces when they were affronted with the fact that she had almost died, that she came this close to not being here at all. 

Uncomfortably, Agatha untangled herself from Lilia’s embrace, standing awkwardly on one foot and clasping at her elbow across her chest for security. 

“We’re glad you’re here,” Alice chimed in as Lilia stepped back to her spot in the circle. “It’s nice to put eyes on you again.” 

Agatha nodded once and flicked her gaze down to Alice’s hand that was absently playing piano melodies on her thigh. Stitch marks wove down the side of her hand and her ring finger was just ever so bent out of shape. Another reminder of all the damage and destruction Agatha had caused these people.

“It’s always great to be seen,” she said, putting on her bravado, as grandiose as ever. The few seconds of vulnerability she had allowed herself were now firmly over and she packed it all away in favor of the persona she had crafted oh so well. “Let’s get this started, huh?”

Jen rolled her eyes and cracked an amused smile. “You never change, Agatha.”

That burning, guilty feeling roiled inside her again but she kept her mask firmly in place, smirking at Jen and lifting an eyebrow. It wasn’t true. She had changed. But who would ever believe her? “That’s why you like me. I’m consistent.” 

Sharon guided the band through the open studio space to the stage where chairs and couches were set up strategically to look inviting and casual for their group interview for the documentary. Not wanting any surprises, Agatha stormed in first, taking the first available single chair she could find, lowering herself into it gently, and crossing her legs, closing herself off from the rest of the group. 

Billy, Alice, and Lilia all tucked themselves into the long couch and Jen took the loveseat next to Rio who had placed herself as far from Agatha as possible in the setup. She draped her legs across Jen’s lap who promptly shoved them back off with a laugh. Rio smiled, too, and it felt so natural between them, a bond that had only grown closer with time. 

Something dark and wanting tugged at Agatha, a jealousy she didn’t deserve to have, not anymore. She had long-forfeited the right to ask for anything from Rio. 

The cameras set strategically around the stage were already red and blinking, already filming them coming in for the B-Roll. Agatha looked around at them, finding her angles and figuring out which camera she would talk to when she inevitably had to do a bit to get the attention off of something too serious. 

It was exhausting always being three steps ahead. 

“Alright, ladies and gentleman, here’s what’s going to happen,” Nat shouted, headset already around her neck as she sat in her chair. “We’re going to ask some simple questions to warm us up and see where the conversation leads us. The goal of this documentary is to show an authentic version of y’all that the world has never quite gotten to see, so I don’t want to prescribe your talking points or corral you much more than necessary.”

“Aw, you don’t want us to play Wild Wild West for you, cowboy?” Rio teased, quirking an eyebrow at Natasha, making a lasso motion with her arm. Flirting came to her like breathing and it was a shock for Agatha to see it so openly on display like this. 

And, sharp, pinching jealousy flooded her at choosing to use that word, their word– the nickname that had started it all. It was a special name for them, something they had always kept for themselves as a reminder of that first night, of when something had changed so irrevocably for both of them that they could never be the same. 

It hurt to know that even that hadn’t been kept sacred of their love no matter how it ended– a true and burning slap in her face. It made Agatha feel even smaller and more worthless than she already had during this entire day. 

“Jesus, Rio, we haven’t even started and you’re already defiling the roll,” Jen lamented, pushing Rio’s legs away from her again. “They’re not going to be able to air this on cable!” 

Billy snorted from his spot next to Agatha. “Does anyone even have cable anymore? Just sell it to MAX or Netflix, if you ask me. Let Rio be Rio.” 

“Seconded,” Alice chirped up, raising a hand in the air. “She’s the comedic relief, we can’t stifle her spirit.” 

Rio blew loud, wet kisses to Billy and Alice, each catching them and pressing them to their chests. “This is why I love you, my babies. My freaky little gay babies.” 

“Ugh, I’m drowning in it,” Lilia said, waving her hand in front of her face and making a face. “Too much homoerotic tension, it’s too much!” 

The group of them laughed, the old joke had gotten them through show after show of making absolute fools of themselves on stage for the audience. Well, everyone except Agatha, who was still sitting as pin-straight as she had to start, her muscles refusing to relax as the band settled into a comfortable swing of conversation. 

“See, this is why I don’t write too many questions, the gold is in the riff,” Nat said, more to her assistant than anyone else. “Alright, how about we begin with some introductions? Name and instrument or role in the band.” 

They went around, starting with Rio: guitar, and vocals; Jen: bass and backing vocals; Lilia: auxiliary percussion and backing vocals; Alice: keys and backing vocals; Billy: drums and occasionally stand-up comedy during technical difficulties, and finally, Agatha: lead vocals and official sponsor of Stevie Nicks-inspired tambourine accessories. 

The director smiled and nodded, pleased that they were already starting strong with chasing laughter, not needing to be coached into being less serious. With the cameras officially taping, Agatha could feel herself slipping back into the larger-than-life persona that she wore for the audience so well. She was their frontwoman, after all, a role she had always taken seriously. Rio was always center stage, always goofy and charming and flirting with the crowd but it was Agatha who commanded them masterfully, who led the charge into every interview, every music video, every anything in the way that made them absolutely irresistible. 

Agatha watched as Rio’s nervous fingers played with the ends of her hair, rolling them back and forth between two fingers. The younger woman had never been one for interviews or attention despite always capturing it so effortlessly.  She was actually quite well-known for just how awkward and funny she was in interviews at the beginning of her career, back when she and Agatha were both fresh faces on the scene. It was easier for her now but Agatha would always know her tells, would always be able to see the things that everyone else missed. 

“And what about you, Agatha? How are you feeling about being back?” Nat asked, noticing that she was uncharacteristically quiet. 

“Honestly? I never thought that I would be here with these people again. It’s a little surreal that we get to take another bite of this amazing thing that we created,” Agatha answered, her charm dialed to a thousand. “ The Orchids was such a huge part of my life and made me who I am. It’s great to be back and to get to make music again.” 

Jen scoffed but didn’t say anything, yet Agatha knew exactly what it meant– she thought Agatha was lying, that she was full of shit and just putting it on for the camera. And while maybe it was a bit of a stretch and she was laying it on thick, Jen had no right to be like this. 

The director noticed the tension and immediately plowed forward, not wanting to indulge in any conflict– at least not yet. 

“What about the music? Are you going to make new arrangements of your songs for the reunion tour? Have you given any thought to a set list?” 

The question was directed at Agatha but she felt herself clam up, knowing that this wasn’t her place to make these decisions anymore. “Gosh, I am not the right person to ask. I’m so rusty I will probably be following their lead for a few rehearsals.” 

“About damn time,” Jen grumbled and Agatha could feel herself start to boil over. She counted to ten to prevent herself from doing something she might regret, from doing what Old Agatha would have done. 

“Well, it’s great to see all of you, but I’m afraid I have a meeting I cannot miss,” Agatha lied, standing and dusting off her lap. “I assume someone will be in touch about next steps?” 

Rio’s eyes finally met Agatha’s after avoiding her for the entire interview and it was such an achingly familiar sight– disappointment that she only ever reserved for one, ever-disappointing person in her life. It pulled at Agatha’s chest, the old, sinking feeling she had thought she had forgotten. But no, there it was, as big and suffocating as it ever was. Agatha thought that she was going to crumble and so she plastered on her best smile, held her head high, and walked out as if she was the impenetrable force that she always had been. 

Starting now, that’s who she would be. Agatha would do what she always did– she would survive. 

Chapter Text

After the first day of interviews, Agatha was seriously contemplating what the hell she had gotten herself into. The morning light was already swirling through the gauzy curtains of her bedroom but Agatha would rather do just about anything except get out of this bed. Why, exactly, had she completely thrown away the life she had painstakingly built for the last 6 years? Because Billy asked nicely? God, she felt pathetic; she had gotten so soft in her old age. 

She threw an arm dramatically over her eyes and grunted in frustration. This truly was one of the worst decisions she had made in a while. 

But then she remembered Tony’s words, remembered the way it felt to be treated like she wasn’t just a ghost of who she once had been. She remembered the way it felt to stand in front of a crowd, arms spread wide and letting the heat of the stage lights tingle on her skin, the sound of their screams washing over her body like a balm, like cool aloe on a burning summer day. It was electrifying. It was everything.  

Maybe it was a mistake, walking back into this line of work after it nearly destroyed her. Maybe she let Billy and Wanda creep too far under her skin. But would she really be Agatha Harkness if she didn’t at least try? 

Agatha Harkness was meant for the stage. 

And so, she hefted herself out from under her pile of blankets and went rifling through her closet. 6:30 , half an hour before she had to wake Nicky for school; two hours until she would be meeting the band for brunch at a local pancakes and mimosas stop. Or, pancakes and pulp-free orange juice for the only sober girly in the whole group. 

God, this was going to be hard. 

She slipped on a linen set, leaving the buttons of the top undone enough for her lacy bralette to show just a bit. Not enough to scandalize the other kindergarten moms but enough to turn heads. 

And, importantly, it left the dark scar on the left side of her neck on full display. She touched it with gentle fingers as she looked in the mirror, reminding herself of how hard she had fought to get to this point in her life. Sometimes the mark bothered her but other times, like today, it empowered her in her sobriety to know that nothing could tempt her to make that mistake again. She could never risk her son like that. 

The ride to school with Nicky was filled with a plethora of questions about being a rockstar, Wanda having spent their entire day together regaling him with kid-appropriate stories of their time on the road. She sat with him in the back of their black Range Rover as Herb, their ever-faithful gardener-turned-driver, took them through the quiet LA neighborhoods to a private, state-of-the-art elementary school that overlooked the city on a tall hill. After all of the media debacles regarding Agatha’s residence, Herb lost his job at the landscaping company he was contracted with because they were no longer servicing her neighborhood due to media harassment. Though he had been offered the opportunity to move to a different subsidiary of the company, Agatha had felt bad enough that she offered him a spot on her permanent payroll as a driver– both a peace offering and a desperate plea to not be left alone in her mansion in the hills. 

Honestly, Agatha was almost certain he did it to keep an eye on her, too. He had grown quite fond of the woman when she first moved into her home during the end of her marriage. Soon enough he became a staple on the Wanda Care Team– an exclusive but treacherous club to be part of. 

“Mama, will I get to go on the road with you?” Nicky asked, playing with the fingers on her left hand absently. “I wanna go with you.” 

Agatha hummed and flipped her palm over, grabbing at her son’s small hand. 

“Well, I was thinking that you could join me when the school year is over, how does that sound?” Agatha asked, smiling softly at her son. “Kindergarten is very important, I wouldn’t want you to miss anything.” 

Truthfully, she also wasn’t ready to expose him to the world, yet. Right now, he was her little secret, more or less. Wanda and Billy knew about him and the school knew who she was to an extent but the small, close-knit community of parents and faculty had kept her secret since he was just a little guy going to preschool. It wasn’t that she was ashamed of him– the exact opposite, in fact. She just was not willing to let the media and the paparazzi eat him alive like they had for her. 

Nicky’s safety was worth more than anything. 

She knew that when word got out that she was rejoining The Orchids for their reunion tour, cameras would start following her again and the jig would be up. But until then? She was going to keep her little boy tucked as far away from everything as possible. 

“Yeah, I like my class. I don’t want to miss anything,” Nicky agreed. “We are learning songs for the Spring Fling this week!” 

“Oh, is that right?” Agatha asked, wrapping an arm around Nicky’s shoulders and squeezing him affectionately. “Are there any solos this year?” 

Nicky pouted a little, crossing his arms. “No, not until the first grade.” 

“Well, that’s a shame,” Agatha commiserated. “You were so perfect in the preschool show.” 

“That’s what I told them,” Nicky said, throwing his hands in the air emphatically. “But they told me no.” 

Agatha ruffled his long, brown hair and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “Next year, buddy. You’ll show them all.” 

Before they pulled into the school parking lot, Agatha checked his hearing aids, making sure they were charged enough after the debacle yesterday. She pinched his little cheeks and kissed his forehead before patting his back on the way out the door. 

“Be good today, I want to hear everything you’ve learned at dinner,” Agatha called after him, only getting a bright smile in return before his teacher wrapped an arm around him and guided him inside. 

The restaurant was bright and airy, letting the wind blow through the seating area from wide, open windows. As always, Agatha was the last to arrive. Sitting around the table were Billy, Alice, Rio,  Jen, and Lilia but not a camera in sight. At least, not until she looked at the corners of the restaurant and saw them nestled amongst furniture, trying to look as non-threatening as possible. A microphone was threaded under her shirt with a mic pack secured to her waist with a soft, bandage-like belt. Anyone looking at her wouldn’t be able to tell that they all were wearing anything other than their normal clothing but based on the distance all the other patrons sat at, Agatha knew that this certainly wasn’t impromptu or real . 

“Hey, Agatha!” Billy said as he watched her walk through the dining area, pushing her sunglasses on top of her head, her hair billowing around her face in a picture of glamour. “I saved you a seat!” 

He may be a grown man in his 30s now, but Billy still had that boyish charm to him that once upon a time had grated terribly against Agatha’s nerves. Over the years, it had grown on her quite a lot, though, and she had come to almost enjoy it. She still vividly remembered the first time they had met.

2010

Agatha was wiping down tables at Madame Calderu’s one Sunday evening just after the post-dinner rush had ended, waitress apron cinching her waist more tightly than necessary. Her hair was thrown up messily, held together by a chewed-on pen and tickling the nape of her neck as she moved around the quiet bar. A loud sound startled her and when she looked up, a lanky, teenage boy had just crashed into Rio with a full tray of empty glasses– none of which broke, a testament to Rio’s sheer willpower and nothing else. 

“You okay, baby?” Agatha called out, smirking as she watched the blush creep up Rio’s cheeks. 

“Just fine, sweetheart. Don’t worry about me,” Rio replied, raising an eyebrow at the kid. “I think this one is looking for you, though.” 

Agatha grimaced and rolled her eyes. She hated teenagers, even the bar-legal ones. “What can I do for you, kid?” 

As the tall boy grew closer, she noticed how he was wearing thick eyeliner and had a lot of ear piercings to match his dark, emo aesthetic. It was pretty cliche, honestly, but she could respect the audacity to look so visibly queer. 

“Are you Agatha Harkness?” he asked nervously, nearly bouncing on his toes. “I’m, like, totally obsessed with you and your band!” 

The flattery softened Agatha some and she brought her hand out to embellish her words. “One in the same, darling. It’s nice to see a fan out in the wild.” 

Agatha had only recently put together some semblance of a band– for a long time, it had just been her and Rio gigging together around LA and occasionally in NYC. They found Jen, first, at a house party when she had ripped the bass from some lousy white frat bro who was butchering Seven Nation Army– a true and genuine travesty according to the taller woman. Rio had immediately been smitten, sidling up to her and flirting shamelessly until she agreed to come play with her and Agatha sometime. The latter had been less than enthused with Rio’s methods, green-eyed envy prickling at her skin for quite a while after the encounter, but Agatha would be remiss to think Jen was anything less than a goddess on the bass. 

Alice had come later, as did Lilia. Gigs were slow and not paying enough for them to keep up with the travel, so Agatha and Rio both got jobs at a local bar, Madame Calderu’s , owned by disgraced Broadway legend, Lilia Calderu. There was open mic night twice a week and live band karaoke on Fridays, of which, Alice was the hired pianist. Whether on shift or not, Agatha always made a point to sing on karaoke nights, letting the praise wash over her like holy water and the extra tips pad her and Rio’s weed money for the weekend. 

Lilia had seen it first, the chemistry they all seemed to have, and it was Lilia who convinced Alice that with her, they could really have something. On open mic nights, Agatha, Rio, and Jen would laugh and bring Lilia on stage to play the zills or some other auxiliary percussion that would make the crowd go wild for their favorite local bar owner. And the first time they convinced Alice to come to rehearsal? They realized they had found the missing piece they needed. 

Well… one of them. 

With Alice and Lilia on board, gigs came easier and paid better– their energy was electric on stage and Agatha knew that it was exactly what she needed to climb her way to the top. 

“I’m here because I want to work with you,” the teen said, blurting it out inelegantly. “I–I play drums and I noticed at your last show at The Greige that it’s the only instrument you’re missing from being a true rock band.” 

Agatha regarded the boy carefully. He had to be what, 18? 19? Certainly not old enough to be this bold, especially with a 26-year-old woman. 

But what if he was right?

“Okay, kid. Show me what you’ve got,” she said, nodding toward the drumset that was still set up from karaoke on Friday– there had been an emergency and the musician hadn’t been back to pick them up. 

Perhaps it was a faux-pax to let the kid use someone else’s set without permission but who was Agatha to ever do things the right way? 

“Billy,” the teen said, hesitating only a moment before climbing up on the stage and pulling some sticks out of the bag attached to the tom. 

“Fine, Billy,” Agatha agreed before gesturing for him to get on with it. 

She felt Rio before she saw her come to stand next to her. “You’re really going to give him a chance that easily?” 

Agatha shrugged. “We are this close to having a breakthrough, Ri, I just know it. And if this is the thing we need to push us over the edge, why wouldn’t we try it?” 

With her history, Rio was able to pre-record some drum tracks for their performances but Agatha knew as well as every agent Lilia had managed to scrape off the cutting room floor that they would never be anything without a full band. 

Billy started slow, mellow, with something unremarkable but solid. Agatha bopped her head to the beat, listening. She supposed this could work. But, it wasn’t quite what she envisioned for their sound. 

But once Billy made eye contact with her, he must have seen her thoughts on her face as plain as day because he kicked it into high gear and played the perfect beat for their first original song, Down the Witch’s Road . Agatha looked to Rio with wide eyes and a brilliant smile only to be met with much the same. 

“It’s perfect,” Rio whispered, turning back to watch the kid play. “Are you sure he isn’t too young?” 

Billy got lost in the noise of it all, playing and playing while Agatha and Rio both stood there to watch, completely ignoring their duties. 

Lilia stepped out of her office, a stern look on her face and ready to berate her two most troublesome waitresses when she, too, was captivated by the young man. 

“My, my, what do we have here?” she asked, standing on the other side of Agatha. “This sounds an awful lot like the track Rio just laid for our show at The Greige.”

“That’s because it is,” Rio said, not mincing her words. “Only, Jesus, it’s so much better. This kid really has a gift.” 

“Yeah, and he’s barely an adult,” Agatha remarked, not sure that this was a good idea. Rio looked at her and Agatha only shrugged. “Hey, you brought it up first.” 

“That was before he got Lilia to come out of her office. Do you know how hard it is to get her to do anything except payroll on Sundays? The place could be on fire and she would still be in there with that fucking calculator,” Rio said, captivated by the teenager and his sound. 

Someone cleared their throat next to Rio, then, having snuck up on them. “He’s something, isn’t he?” the voice asked and all three women turned their heads to face the sound. “Wanda Maximoff, mother of two, heiress to the Maximoff fortune.” 

The woman, Wanda, held out her hand for Agatha, Rio, and Lilia to all shake. “I know he’s young but Agatha and The Orchids is the only thing he’s been able to talk about for months. I have connections and if you give him a shot, you might just find that this little project of yours can be taken to the sky.” 

Agatha’s mouth damn-near started to water at the prospect of it all– nepo-baby child with a smoking hot mom to get them connected and fund their early endeavors? It couldn’t be more perfect if she conjured it herself. 

26 was going to be her year, she could just feel it. 

Especially , with the Maximoffs on her team. 

Agatha slid into the empty chair next to Billy, bumping his shoulder affectionately with her own. It was another of the many, many things that had changed about her over the years of motherhood. She had become so much freer with her affections, even if they were imperceptible to the naked eye. Ten years ago, Agatha could barely bring herself to touch anyone who wasn’t her wife. Now? She had a handful of people she felt comfortable being close to in this way. 

Honestly, it was nice. 

She looked around the table and took notice of everyone. Jen was in her signature pink and entirely too invested in giving Agatha’s late arrival the side eye, Lilia’s crazy, curly hair was blowing into her red lipstick, Alice was laughing at a joke Rio had told, and Rio, god, Rio. She was absolutely ethereal. 

And, for the first time, she was looking at Agatha, too. 

Something must have changed between yesterday and today, something that broke down the barrier that kept Rio’s focus on anything except Agatha minus the first glance and that last, withering, disappointed glare. What changed, Agatha couldn’t tell, but she wasn’t sure if this was any better. God, it felt like Rio’s honey-brown eyes were burning holes into the side of Agatha’s face from where she sat across from her at the round table. 

So, Agatha did what she did best when she felt nervous and turned on the charm. 

“God, Lilia, you look enchanting this morning,” she said, leaning forward on her hands until she was right in Lilia’s space. It was not lost on her that Billy had ensured she would be nestled between the two of them. “Are you doing something different with your hair these days?” 

Agatha twirled a curl in her fingers, making Lilia roll her eyes and swat her away playfully. 

“You would know if you ever bothered to answer my phone calls,” Lilia replied lightheartedly, no venom or malice to be heard. “I’m an old lady now, Harkness. You’ve got to take pity on me.” 

“55 is not old,” Agatha countered, rolling her eyes. “And don’t take it personally, darling. I don’t answer anyone’s calls. Telephones are modern torture devices that I refuse to take any part in.” 

It wasn’t entirely the truth– Agatha loved that she had an endless supply of Nicky’s photos and videos available at her fingertips. But being constantly connected to everyone at all times had quickly become an impossibility for the singer after her downfall and she had never quite recovered from it. 

“Ugh, I hear you,” Alice agreed from the other side of Billy, making Agatha tense slightly before she forced herself to relax. “I finally handed off my work Instagram to one of the social media managers at the studio because I couldn’t handle it anymore. I’ve still got my private one for you guys but I just couldn’t handle the attention and the pressure anymore.” 

Agatha nodded, completely understanding what she meant. Something weird and fuzzy bloomed in her stomach as Alice spoke to her, something completely unexpected. Alice was trying to connect, she could see that, and it was the last thing she would have thought would happen.

Not after what she did… 

But of everyone at the table, it seemed like so many of them had forgiven her, so many were just so grateful to have her back in their lives, and she felt awash with gratitude. 

“Well, some of us certainly do have more to balance than others,” Jen poked, the underhanded comment not going unnoticed by Agatha. “Between my work with the foundation and keeping up with my continuing ed courses, I definitely struggle to keep up with my social media. But hey, you’ve got to keep up the brand, right?” 

After The Orchids, Jen had gone back to school to finish up nursing school– something she had halfway completed when the band got signed to Stark Records. Because of her level of fame, Jen had never been able to get back into working with patients, but she used her graduate degree to open a women’s reproductive health foundation that sponsored health initiatives, especially regarding Black maternal mortality rates. Her foundation’s TikTok account had nearly 2 million followers and they had funded at least two research studies that were published in a top-tier, high-impact medical journal. Her achievements were vast and astounding. 

When Agatha compared herself to Jen, much like when she compared herself to Rio or even any of the other Orchids, she felt woefully inadequate. They didn’t make awards for simply staying alive and not relapsing on drugs. 

“Honestly, Agatha, what have you been up to these last few years? Not even TMZ seems to get a snap of you lately,” Jen asked, swirling her mimosa in its flute before taking a sip. 

“Hey, let’s not,” Alice said, quickly coming to Agatha’s defense, once again surprising the older woman. “She’s here now and that’s all that matters.” 

“What? It’s just a question,” Jen replied, a vicious smirk on her face. 

Agatha looked at Jen, then Rio, then Jen again. It was no secret that Jen had gotten Rio in the divorce. It was also no secret that she was fiercely loyal and protective of her own. 

“No, it’s okay, it’s a fair question,” Agatha said, rubbing at the back of her left hand with stiff fingers. “Not all of us can be as extraordinary as Jen and Rio, can we? I mean, statistically, it’s an incredible improbability.” 

“I think you’re doing pretty well–” Billy started before Agatha stomped his foot with her high heel, knowing exactly where he was going with that sentence and making clear in no uncertain terms that talking about Nicky was off-limits. 

“Of course I am,” Agatha flourished, not missing a beat. “Water aerobics in my jacuzzi in the morning, homemade paninis and smoothies for lunch, afternoons reading books in my chaise lounger, evenings watching shitty rom-coms and keeping a journal of my own, secret Letterboxd-style reviews– truly I am outdoing myself with productivity. All signs of a life well-lived.” 

Jen scoffed and made the most disgusted face Agatha had seen from her in a while. “You know, I was giving you the benefit of the doubt in all of this, Agatha. Not answering any of our calls, completely ignoring any of our advances at connecting with you, I truly was allowing myself to believe that you must have been doing something important with your life that we couldn’t be part of. But that isn’t the truth, is it?” 

Irritation flared through Agatha as Jen made her assertions but Agatha kept her cool, knowing that there was no way for Jen to know what an absolute fool she was making of herself with these assumptions. What else was she supposed to believe when Agatha hadn’t told nearly anyone about her son, about her new life as a mom? 

But that feeling settled inside her, anyway, because just as she knew that she couldn’t expect anyone to know about Nicky, she knew that Jen hadn’t been expecting her to be doing something important with her life. For years , one of their biggest fights as bandmates was that Jen felt like Agatha was throwing her life away to drugs, that she would never amount to anything if she kept up the way that she had been. It felt personal, sometimes, but Agatha knew that a lot of the bickering had come from a place of fear– at least in the beginning. But then the divorce happened and everything changed. 

Now, Agatha knew that Jen’s barbs were as pointed and jagged as anything when they were hurled in her direction. She knew that Jen was doing it to upset her, it had to be out of some twisted sense of revenge for everything Agatha had put them through. She just knew it. 

“Important is subjective, though, isn’t it?” Agatha countered with the most sugary-sweet smile she could muster, condescension wrapping around her like a second skin. “I would say my own brand of sanity is quite important.” 

“Billy, how is Eddie doing?” Alice interrupted, changing the subject gracelessly and Agatha poked at the pancakes in front of her that must have come at some point in the conversation. 

“He’s doing so well! We think he might have a shot at an Emmy this season,” Billy bragged, swelling with pride for his husband. “After the tour is over, we are going to try for our first embryo transfer, too. He’s going to be such a great dad.” 

It had been like this for a long, long time, not just since the end of the band and the ensuing divorce. As Agatha spiraled further and further down into her addiction, the bickering had become nearly constant with every member of the band, not just Jen. She picked fights and lied, and was such a condescending asshole so much of the time– a fact that she couldn’t shy away from now, not while keeping her sobriety intact. 

The back and forth was familiar but not in the comfortable way that Agatha wished it was, how it had once been. She used to thrive on the banter, on the wittiness and sharp tongues. Finding her next insult or even crafting the perfect manipulation used to come as easy to her as breathing but now? It just didn’t quite feel right, it didn’t quite feel natural anymore. It almost felt like a performance all of its own. 

“I’m surprised we were able to get Agatha to agree,” Billy admitted, though to who, Agatha was unsure. Getting lost in her thoughts was certainly not uncommon for her but she usually wouldn’t miss entire chunks of conversations. “I thought it would take more bribing than it did but Mom and I seemed to get her to come around.” 

Agatha smiled softly at Billy, nudging him again. “You just said all the right words, kid. I’ve been itching to get back to performing again for years, honestly. It wouldn’t have taken much. And you’ve learned from me well, you’ve got all my tricks up your sleeves.” 

Billy beamed at the praise from Agatha, proud of himself but also proud of his friend, of his mentor who had taught him so much over the years. 

“I don’t think any of us thought she would come,” Jen said, inserting herself back into the conversation. “But it's not like Rio couldn’t have handled being the lead. She’s obviously great at her solo shows, she’s a real performer.” 

That same bubbling, flaring irritation grated on Agatha as the meaning of Jen’s words was not lost on her. It wasn’t overtly offensive or mean but it was just the right thing to say to get under Agatha’s skin and make her feel worthless, make her feel small and insignificant. 

“I don’t know about that,” Rio said, eyes flicking briefly to Agatha’s, expression unreadable, before looking back to Jen. “The Orchids is an entirely different animal to my solo stuff. I’m glad I won’t have to try and do it by myself.” 

Agatha blinked twice in rapid succession, not at all prepared for Rio to say that. She wasn’t quite coming to Agatha’s defense, that much was for certain, but she almost seemed to be extending her a kindness that Agatha wasn’t sure she deserved. 

“Oh, please. You know as well as I do that you’re fucking incredible. The last decade of your hard work shows for it,” Jen said, her words less for Agatha’s benefit now and more for Rio. “You’ve done amazing work all by yourself while trying to take care of Carmen no less. You’re a force of nature.” 

That name hit Agatha like a ton of bricks, making her nearly choke on the sip of juice she had just taken. Carmen . Yet another reminder of everything that Agatha had gotten wrong once upon a time. 

2013

“Your parents did what ?” Agatha shouted through the speaker of her phone as she drove down the 405 toward their shared home. “Where are you?” 

“Agatha, I swear to god, they had a fucking baby,” Rio shouted back, incredulity overwhelming her words. “Jesus Christ, they can’t fucking do this again. Who has a baby sister at fucking 27? This is not the 27 club I thought I would be signing up for with this job.” 

“Don’t even joke about that,” Agatha warned, low and dangerous. “You know how fucking real that is for this industry.” 

The thought of losing Rio made a pit drop in her stomach, cold and lifeless as she imagined a world without her favorite person. 

“I know, I know. I’m sorry, mi amor. I’m just…. I don’t even know what I am. This is quite possibly the most absurd thing to happen yet,” Rio said and Agatha could just picture the way she was running her hands through her hair over and over again until it was a tangled mess. “If it isn’t one thing, it’s another with my parents. 

Agatha scoffed. “Yeah, you got that right. I’m turning into our neighborhood now. Do you want to go straight to the hospital?” 

“Yeah, can we please? I need to make sure she’s alright,” Rio said, some relief bleeding into her voice to know that her wife was almost there. “They named her Carmen, you know? Carmen Magdalena Vidal.” 

“A beautiful name for I’m sure a beautiful little girl,” Agatha mused, punching in the code for their gate. “Come outside, I’m almost there.” 

2015

“Agatha, are you even listening to me?” Rio yelled, her face a bright red and her chest heaving with exertion. “Hello? Earth to Agatha? This is kind of an emergency.” 

The aforementioned woman looked up lazily, her eyes heavy as she fought to keep them open. If she was being honest, no, she wasn’t listening to Rio, not at all. Right before she walked into their kitchen, Agatha had just finished chugging a bottle of vodka to wash down the pills she had taken. The pills were new to her repertoire, only in the last few months or so had she started to experiment with them. But they felt good and she didn’t want to stop. 

“There are no emergencies in rock and roll,” Agatha slurred, reaching out for Rio with clumsy, grabby hands. “Come here, baby.” 

“It’s not about the band, Agatha. It’s Carmen ,” Rio hissed, pushing away Agatha’s unsteady hands. 

Her name almost worked to force some clarity into Agatha’s mind. The small girl had always had a soft spot in Agatha’s heart. But even the words Carmen and emergency in the same conversation weren’t enough to pull Agatha back from the depths she had just rocketed herself into. 

“What about Carmen? She’s just a baby . What could she have possibly done wrong to you?” 

Rio did a double take, turning on her heels to face Agatha. “What are you even saying right now?” 

“Every time you’re like this, you’re just trying to make me fucking feel bad for being drunk. But guess what, Rio? I don’t care! I’m drunk and I’m happy and you can’t take that away from me.” 

Long moments of silence passed between them as Rio just blinked at her wife, trying to absorb what was happening. “This isn’t about you, Agatha. Can you try for just one fucking second to think about someone that isn’t yourself? Maybe hop off the pity party express and be a functional human being for once?” 

“See, this is what I mean! I can’t ever do anything right with you so I don’t know why I even try,” Agatha rambled, her words all running together in sloppy, half-formed syllables. “Whatever, just leave me alone.” 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Rio seethed, her patience wearing so thin it could nearly snap right in half. “Do you know who you sound like right now? You sound just like them , the whole reason we are in this mess to begin with. Fuck I can’t do this with you right now, I need to go get Carmen. Either clean yourself up or make yourself scarce. The last thing she needs is to deal with another drunk fucking highon who doesn’t know her ass from her elbow.” 

“Hey, I know my ass from my elbow!” Agatha giggled, waving her elbow in the air. “Come here, let me show you!” 

Rio stepped closer to Agatha, crowding up in her space so that they were mere inches apart. She bent at the waist, dropping herself eye-level with her drugged-out wife. 

“If you can’t manage to sober up by the time I get home, I want you fucking gone, do you hear me?” Rio asked, poking at Agatha’s chest. “Go to Alice, go to Wanda, go to fucking Ralph for all I care but you will not be in this house acting like this when I bring a child into it.” 

Agatha pouted and crossed her arms across her chest. “You’re no fun. What happened to Fun Rio?” 

“Fun Rio died the day you decided that this was your new life,” Rio said harshly. “Try not to get too fucked up at the wake, you already smell like vodka is coming out of your pores. I will be home in an hour.” 

“And I won’t be,” Agatha singsonged, already knowing that she would rather crash on someone else’s couch and ride out the high than deal with whatever the fuck was going on with Rio’s attitude. 

A cold chill rippled up Agatha’s spine at the memory of Rio’s baby sister. God, she must have been 12 now, right? It felt like just yesterday that she was changing her diapers and helping Rio put her hair into pigtails on top of her head. Of all the things that Agatha got wrong, she feared that was perhaps the worst of them all.

But she couldn’t fixate on that, not right now, not with Rio still looking at her . 

She was a good mom. Nicky was loved and well taken care of. These were all things she knew to be true. 

With just the mention of Carmen’s name, it was like the whole world had zeroed in on Rio and Agatha. Something started to squirm under Agatha’s skin, crawling up and down her arms in a way she wished she wasn’t so familiar with. 

“How is Carmen?” someone asked, Agatha not realizing it was her own voice bridging the divide between them until she had already said it. 

Rio didn’t respond right away, seemingly lost in the moment, too. She blinked twice, smacking her lips together as she processed before saying, “She’s doing okay, middle school is hard, you know?” 

Agatha nodded, biting back a reciprocal anecdote about Nicky’s time in kindergarten. “I’m glad to hear that,” she said simply, not sure where to go next. “She’s a good kid.” 

“Huh,” Rio said, shoving her tongue into the corner of her mouth in that infuriating way she always did before a short, humorless laugh escaped her. “That’s new.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Agatha asked, taken aback by the response. Was she not being very cordial about all of this? 

“Oh, nothing,” Rio replied, shrugging her off with the same nonchalance she always had. “Nothing at all.” 

Agatha eyed Rio up and down, already feeling that signature way Rio could dig into all the right places to drive Agatha insane. “It’s never nothing with you, Rio. Say what you mean.” 

Rio squirmed in her seat, obviously not having expected Agatha to fight back, not after she had been so standoffish and on her best behavior up until now. But there was something about the way Rio could always get under her skin that made Agatha’s best efforts all be in vain. 

“Maybe what she’s saying is that she is surprised that the woman with the maternal instinct of a starving praying mantis would have any sort of feelings about whether or not her baby sister is okay,” Jen snarked, blowing completely past the almost-innocent jabs and into completely uncalled for territory. 

“You don’t know what you’re fucking talking about,” Agatha bit back, anger bubbling under the surface and seconds away from an eruption. 

“Don’t I?” Jen asked, taking the bait and rising with it to the surface, hook, line, and sinker. “Did you or did you not have a million chances to show even a little initiative with Carmen?” 

Agatha looked to Rio and to Jen, then back to Rio who looked like she was moments from having her own two cents to throw into the mix. 

“Why don’t we call this a morning, huh?” Billy said, trying to break up the moment as they all sat around the table with empty plates and empty glasses. “I’m sure we all have things to be doing this afternoon, anyway.” 

“No, absolutely not,” Agatha pushed, slamming her hand on the table and nearly making the china rattle in its place. “I want to hear what she has to say. What is it, Rio? Still have something left unsaid after all these years? Let’s fucking hear it.” 

“I just think it’s rich coming from the woman who is the legitimate reason I am still fighting for full custody of my sister, that’s all,” Rio said, not letting her cool demeanor falter for even a moment. “But it all worked out for the best, right? We all got what we deserved in the end.” 

It was a low blow and Rio knew it, Agatha felt it twist like a knife in her stomach as tears began to sting at her eyes. What did Rio mean? That she deserved to be alone? That she deserved to lose everything? That she deserved to almost die ? Or even worst of all, that Rio deserved to have this child in her life and Agatha deserved to have nothing ? 

Did Rio really believe that the world would be better off if Agatha never became a mother? 

That had been the kicker all those years ago– whether or not Agatha could ever truly be a mother, if she would ever put her selfish whims aside long enough to truly take care of someone else. 

“Fuck you, Rio,” Agatha said, voice quiet and watery. “Fuck you.” 

With unsteady hands, Agatha started to unhook herself from the microphone, pulling the wires out from under her shirt and putting it all on the table. 

“Agatha, wait, that isn’t what I meant,” Rio pleaded, immediately knowing that she had taken it too far. “I just meant that–”

“You meant that you got everything you wanted and I ended up with none of it,” Agatha supplied, finishing her sentence for her. “I know what you meant, Rio. You left me and your life exploded into glittering, beautiful color just like it was always meant to. You forced me out of the career I had dedicated my life to building and rode on the coattails of my success to stardom. Everything worked out for you just perfectly, didn’t it? And I sure got mine.” 

Agatha needed to leave and she needed to do it now . She needed to see her boy, her beautiful, brilliant little boy that she loved more than life itself, and hold him so tightly that no one could ever take him away from her. 

No one needed to know. Not a single person at this table deserved to know about the slice of perfection that Agatha had carved for herself out of nothing. She built herself back up brick by brick until she could stand on her own two feet again– until she could look herself in the eye and not be overcome with nauseating, all-consuming guilt, and grief. 

“Seriously, Rio?” Alice said, standing up from the table with Agatha and following her as she left the small restaurant. “What is wrong with you?” 

Agatha couldn’t get out of there fast enough and immediately started to hyperventilate as she pressed herself against the side of the building, hidden in an alley. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth as she took in a shaky breath, trying valiantly to not spiral into thoughts about what she had lost, of what was on the line if any of this went wrong. 

“Agatha, hey, I’m so sorry,” Alice said, immediately stepping in front of the taller woman and taking her hands in her own. “I don’t know why they’re acting like this, I promise you that the rest of us are so glad that you’re here with us and that you’ve decided to come back.” 

“It’s been ten years,” Agatha scoffed, blowing air through her lips. “Don’t they have anything better to do? Maybe I should just let Rio run the show. It seems like everything would be so much easier if I did.” 

Alice squeezed Agatha’s hand tighter and she could feel the way that her right pinky didn’t quite bend like the rest of them. 

“We aren’t Agatha and The Orchids without you, Harkness. You are the heart of this band, you are its soul. Everything we’ve done, everything we’ve built, it was all because of you . Your hard work, your vision, your fucking ambition to never let us quit until we reached the top.” 

“And I’m the reason that it all fell apart, too, or did you conveniently forget that part?” Agatha countered, a lot of the fight bleeding out of her now, her response lackluster. 

“No, Agatha, you’re not,” Alice said, shaking her head. “At least not entirely. Look at all of us– how many of us stayed in the industry? I’m writing in the studio but never performing, Lilia is back on Broadway and producing movies, Billy is acting with Eddie, and Jen started a fucking medical research foundation. Does that sound like a group of people whose hearts were in it?” 

Honestly, Agatha had never thought about it like that before. For the last ten years, she had been holding this immense amount of guilt over herself for being the only reason that all of their dreams stopped dead in their tracks. But what if that wasn’t the truth? 

“Rio kept going, what about her?” 

“She’s… different. I don’t… Listen, I don’t know her well enough anymore to make any kind of assumptions as to why she went solo instead of going back to making art or whatever the hell else she was doing when you two met, but I know for certain it wasn’t out of some undignified hope that we would come back to this one day,” Alice said, her words hard to hear but soothing all the same. “She’s just as fucked as the rest of us and she was just as done as the rest of us at the time.”

“Then why are we even doing this if everyone was so miserable in the band?” Agatha asked, still not sold on the entire thing. “Shouldn’t we just count this as a lesson learned in time or whatever?” 

“Because it’s been ten years , Agatha. You can’t tell me you don’t miss it, that you don’t miss all of us, even the grumpy ones. I know that I do. I miss writing with you, dancing on stage and singing our songs, and staying up too late on the tour bus making jokes that are completely incoherent by the morning. We have the opportunity of a lifetime right now, Agatha. We can rewrite our legacy .” 

The words rattled around Agatha’s head, echoing louder and louder until she felt it fill her chest with something akin to hope. 

“We can rewrite our legacy,” she repeated, a small smile spreading on her cheeks. “Start it all over again and do it right.” 

Alice smiled that beaming, inviting smile that always made Agatha feel like she wasn’t quite so alone, like she didn’t have to carry everything by herself, and she couldn’t help but smile, too. 

“So, are you in? Willing to try and strongarm those idiots with me into making this the best tour of our lives?” 

“You’ve always been too optimistic, Alice,” Agatha scoffed but her affections betrayed her attempt at being callus. 

“No, I’m a realist with an adventurous spirit and an unending desire to protect what’s mine,” Alice admitted, making Agatha roll her eyes. 

“You still want to protect me after everything I’ve put you through? Sounds like maybe you’re just an idealist with a death wish.” 

Alice dropped Agatha’s hands and punched at her shoulder, knowing that Agatha’s tolerance for vulnerability had well, and left the station. 

“Maybe so, but doesn’t that make life more fun?” 

Chapter Text

2014

The home that Rio and Agatha shared was a large, ostentatious mansion filled to the brim with plants, expensive art, and cat toys.  For as big as it was, it felt very lived in, very human . And, unfortunately, it was incredibly easy to get lost in its rooms, or in this case, stay hidden from sight. 

When Agatha wandered into the living room one Thursday night, a glass of sangria in hand, she cursed herself for ever wanting a home this big because gathered there were all of her bandmates, Mrs. Hart Sharon, Wanda, and some strangely tall man that she couldn’t quite recognize. This was an ambush and it happened right under her nose. 

Rio was standing the closest, fear written all over her face as she held herself, cardigan pulled so tightly across her body that Agatha swore it was the only thing preventing her from falling apart. Around the room, everyone was standing in various states of distress– Billy looked on the verge of tears already, Jen was pissed, Alice was worried, and Lilia looked like she was one wrong move away from wrapping Agatha in a hug. 

Wanda stood off to the side with the tall man. Fuck, who was that guy? Agatha knew that she was supposed to know this. 

“Oookay,” Agatha started, already feeling her hackles rising. “Who’s idea was this?” 

She pointed around the room, scanning and scanning until she landed on Billy who was shaking like a leaf. “It was you, wasn’t it? Of course, it would be you.” 

“Agatha, please, we just want to help,” Wanda interjected, stepping forward from where she was leaning against the arm of a white couch. 

“Want to help? You call this helping? You’ve cornered me in my own house!” Agatha nearly shrieked, feeling like a caged animal. 

“Okay, wait, we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot,” the tall man said, gesturing to a chair placed strategically in the center of the arrangement of sofas and armchairs. “Why don’t you have a seat here, Agatha? Then we can chat.” 

The man reached for Agatha to guide her gently to the chair and she yanked back from him as quickly as she possibly could. “Don’t touch me! I don’t know who you are!” 

“Sweetheart, yes, you do,” Rio said calmly, gently. “You remember Vision? Billy’s dad?” 

Agatha wracked her fuzzy brain for this information, for any recollection of having met him before. It had been what, four years since they met Billy? Had she never met his father before? Especially with how frequently she had spent time with Wanda over the years that wouldn’t have made any sense. Memories started to shift around the corners of her mind, covered in static and unclear, but there he was– a tall, blonde man with ugly glasses and an unsettlingly wide smile. He always seemed to have a hand on Wanda’s back when he was around but his visits were few and far between. 

“I know Billy’s dad,” Agatha retorted petulantly despite the entire room, herself included, knowing it was a lie. “I just forgot for a moment.” 

“It’s normal for memories to become unclear when you’re this far into addiction, Agatha. I am not offended in the least,” Vision said, trying to calm Agatha into sitting in the chair with his body language. 

She wrapped her scarf around her shoulders dramatically and plopped down in the seat. “I don’t care if you’re offended. That’s not my prerogative.” 

Vision nodded and sat in a nearby armchair, the others following suit until Rio was the last one standing, fidgeting on one foot and the other, bringing her thumb to her mouth to chew on the nail. Jen reached out and stroked her back soothingly, which made Agatha’s face twitch into a frown when Rio leaned into the touch and let herself sit down. She was still within reaching distance of Agatha, though, and Agatha figured she wouldn’t have had it any other way. 

“Well, why don’t we let you know ours, then?” Vision said, easily shrugging off Agatha’s hostility. 

“I know what your fucking prerogative is. You think I’ve never seen an intervention before?” Agatha sniped. “You’re going to tell me you’re so worried about me and that you think I need help, blah blah blah. But you’re wrong.” 

As she looked around the room, Agatha knew that there was no way out of this conversation. She could run but Rio would easily catch her. She could fight but Alice and Jen could take her without breaking a sweat. So, she would do what she always did– she would win . 

The purpose of an intervention is to convince the addict that there is a problem and to go to rehab, right? Well, there was no problem, not in Agatha’s mind, at least. So she was already halfway to her victory. Now, if she could just make sure she didn’t go to rehab , she could take her victory lap and claim her gold medal at the Narcotics Olympics. 

“We’re not wrong, Agatha. You’re killing yourself,” Lilia said, that infuriating, concerned mom look on her face. “Look at you! You’re skin and bones. When’s the last time you had a real meal?” 

Agatha quirked an eyebrow and looked to Rio, remembering the night previous. Perhaps if she had thought about it with a clear, sober mind, she would have recognized that it was the kind of tender lovemaking that you only do as an apology for the unspeakable– Rio had already been apologizing for what she knew would happen today. But with the cocaine and the pills and the fruity wine all swirling in her system, Agatha could only recognize it for its crass implications. 

“Nope, not doing that,” Alice interjected, seemingly reading her mind. “The point is that you’re more cocaine than you are human, Agatha. Your body can’t survive like this. Please, you need help.” 

The words slammed right into Agatha’s anger, wrenching at just the wrong place. “I’ve survived much worse. Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do. You don’t control me.” 

“You’re right, we don’t control you,” Wanda soothed, taking a page out of Vision’s book. “We don’t want to, either. We just want to show you that we care about you.” 

“If you really cared about me, you wouldn’t have ambushed me in my own home!” Agatha countered, clawing at any inch she could get. “What, do you not have any respect for the sanctity of my safe space?” 

“Those are some 50-cent words, Ags. I didn’t know you had that much to prove,” Jen pushed, though not unkindly. It was, honestly, exactly the right thing to say to Agatha, to the woman who had everything to prove but would never admit it. 

“I don’t have anything to prove! I’m amazing!” 

A long moment of silence passed amongst the group. 

“No, Agatha, you’re not. You haven’t been for a long time,” Billy said, his words slicing like sharp knives into Agatha’s chest. This was her little buddy, this was the kid who thought that she hung the moon and could do no wrong. “You’re spiraling out of control and it's embarrassing and heartbreaking.” 

“If I’m such an embarrassment, why are you even doing this, then? Why not just set me loose and let me crash and burn all on my own,” Agatha fought back, feeling so many feelings all at once that she couldn’t decipher them, that she didn’t even realize that she had slipped . She had admitted weakness.

“Because we love you, Agatha. We would never let you crash and burn if we could help it,” Lilia said, that maternal tone crowding in on Agatha again. “No matter how dedicated you seem to be to reaching that fate.” 

Restlessness settled under her skin, the drugs crawling up and down her nerves as they slowly recessed from her system. She needed more, she needed them now . 

“Everything is literally fine! You all can go now!” she insisted, standing from her chair. There was a gram tucked in the bathroom just down the hall if she could just get there–

Agatha was body blocked from leaving the room by none other than Rio, her wife’s arms wrapping around Agatha’s middle and pulling her in for a hug. “Sweetheart, please just listen to what they have to say. Please, for me.” 

Her hands were starting to twitch, now, her eyes flicking around the room with no semblance of reason, moving almost of their own volition as she tried to track every single movement in the large space. She finally looked at Rio and the single tear pooling on her water line was nearly enough to make Agatha break. It killed her that she was the reason Rio was upset, that she was the reason that Rio had this pathetic, miserable look on her face. 

That thought was enough to stop her in her tracks so that she could turn to face the others. It was a rare moment of true intimacy between the partners that the others hardly ever got to see. Sure, on stage, they danced and kissed and had fun but that kind of tenderness? That kind of love? That was something sacred, just for them, something they didn’t perform for anyone else. It left Agatha feeling raw and vulnerable like she was on display for the whole room to see. 

Agatha crossed to the window, threw it open, and lit a cigarette from a desk drawer where she kept them stashed. She hardly smoked them anymore, not liking the taste or the smell, but something about this conversation necessitated the sweet, sweet relief of nicotine. 

“So what’s the deal? Are you going to try to ship me off to rehab?” she asked, tapping her fingers on the windowsill. “Threaten to take away everything that matters until I comply?” 

“No, that’s not how we like to do things,” Vision said, turning to face Agatha. 

“Who’s we?” Agatha asked, annoyed with the vague statements. 

“I work for a mental health and addictions clinic here in the city. While I’m not their normal intervention specialist, I am trained in all the protocols,” Vision explained and things started to make more sense. Well, as much sense as it could as her brain was itching for a fix, the need slowly overshadowed every single thought in her mind. 

“Ah, so you brought your dorky fucking husband to come try and therapize me into doing what you want? “ Agatha countered, the vicious venom back in her voice. “Are you even qualified to be doing any of this? Addiction counseling licenses are just for losers who can’t be bothered to do the real thing.” 

It was a low blow and Agatha knew it. But she had to win somehow, right? And if she wasn’t going to be able to convince them that she was fine, she needed to destabilize the authority in this room. If she could convince everyone that Vision was a quack and that he didn’t know what he was doing, she could easily slide back in as their fearless leader, as their foremost authority. 

It was a foolproof plan. 

Unfortunately, a foolproof plan laid by none other than the fool, herself, was always destined to fail. 

Agatha rallied against them all for hours, pacing around the room as they plied her with niceties and their concerns, as they argued with her, as their patience wore thinner and thinner with her antics and her attitude. She was mean, she was cruel, she was damn near violent every time that she felt cornered by their logic, by their rationale. 

“This is the deal, Agatha. We go on tour in six months and if you aren’t sober or at the very least have some semblance of coherence, we can’t go through with it,” Sharon admitted, finally saying the part that no one else seemed to want to say. “We love you, we want you healthy again, and frankly, we don’t want to go on tour with such a big liability. So either we go to rehab tonight or we call the whole thing off.” 

The words felt… they felt… God, Agatha didn’t even know what she was feeling. Helpless, powerless, out of control, all of the horrible, disgusting things she swore she would never let herself be again. Her choice, her autonomy, her everything was being ripped from her hands. 

“You can’t– you can’t do this to me!” she cried out, throwing her hands in the air emphatically. “This is my band, this is my baby! You have nothing without me!” 

Rio sighed and rubbed her hands over her face before she crossed the room to sit on the windowsill with Agatha. She reached out and grabbed both of her hands, holding her so tenderly, so reverently even when she was acting like a complete and utter asshole. 

“Baby,” she started, rubbing the back of Agatha’s knuckles with her thumbs, “You know this band has been one of the greatest joys of my life. Hell, it’s been the best thing to happen to all of us in this room. I don’t want to throw it all away because you’re sick, my love. None of us want that. No one wants to take this band away from you. But we don’t want it to kill you. If I have to choose between the stage and my wife, I’m picking you every single time. So please, sweetheart, let’s get you some help so that you can come back bigger and better than you ever were before. Climb back to the top with me, my love. We will rule the world.” 

It was exactly what Agatha needed to hear, the right twisting of words and manipulation of feelings to make Agatha feel seen, to inspire her to want better for herself. She deflated and dropped her head to Rio’s shoulder, immediately being wrapped in a hug with strong hands rubbing circles into her shoulder blades. 

“I don’t want to go away,” Agatha whined, burrowing her head into Rio’s neck. “I want to stay here with you.” 

“I know, my love. I know. But you have to, okay? We have to get you better, you’re so sick,” Rio soothed, knowing that Agatha’s words were just as much a desperate plea for getting her way as they were her genuine feelings towards going to rehab. But who was Rio to deny her wife this comfort? 

“It’s somewhere up in Napa, away from all the noise and chaos of LA. You’ll be safe there and the facility is known especially for its discretion, so nothing will get leaked,” Sharon said, obviously the mastermind behind the actual logistics. 

“Fuck off, Sharon,” Agatha hissed, not wanting to hear any more from anyone who wasn’t Rio. 

No one else got it, no one else got her like Rio did. Everyone else was out to get her, trying to destroy her and her cushy, amazing life. But Rio? She would never do that to her. Rio would keep her safe. 

“I’ve already gotten everything ready for you, sweetheart. We just need to get in the car and we can go,” Rio said, drawing Agatha’s attention back to her. “Are you ready to go?” 

Agatha huffed and looked down at her hands. “Can I go to the bathroom first?” 

Rio regarded her warily but nodded, not fooled for a damn second even if everyone else was. “Sure, love. I’m going to come get you in five.” 

With that, Agatha stood and fled the room, not giving anyone else a spare glance. She ran frantically to the bathroom and locked herself in before searching the drawers for her secret stash. If this was the start of her new forever, she would go out on her own terms.

Powerlessness never came easy to Agatha. Honestly, she fought it tooth and nail and had for her entire life. But this? This was an entirely new sense of it that made her want to crawl out of her skin. 

On the way to school this morning, three distinct things happened: Stark Records announced the reunion tour, Agatha’s phone was swarmed with interview requests from every journalist in the country, and when they pulled up to the gate for the elementary school, three different photographers were waiting for her and Nicky to arrive. Normally, she wouldn’t think anything of seeing photographers in a wealthy part of LA but when she got out of the car and heard the telltale click of shutters and murmurs of her name over and over, she froze. 

So, Agatha packed Nicky back into the car before both of his shoes had hit the ground and made the executive decision that she would be spending her day at Stark Records making sure that they knew under no uncertain terms that her son’s safety had to come first. And, frankly, it was completely and utterly unacceptable that there was no warning before the announcement went live. 

This was how she found herself in the executives’ office, tearing off the head of not only the director, Natasha Romanoff, but Pepper Potts, the Director of Touring and Live Events, and Maria Hill, the lead counsel on retainer for Stark Records. It was only a small miracle that Wanda had miraculously been there to intercept her and Nicky before she could go on an entire tirade. Her best friend’s soothing words and reassurances were just enough to take Agatha from DEFCON 5 to a mild ecological disaster. 

“Tell me why I get to my son’s school this morning and have to bribe three separate photographers, who shouldn’t even know who he is, with more money than tuition at fucking USC to delete the photos of him because I didn’t know to expect them?” Agatha seethed, her voice angry and cold. She didn’t even care that she hadn’t shut the door behind her fully yet and Nicky likely heard her– she would stop at nothing to protect her boy. 

“Ms. Harkness, please, it was an honest oversight. We did not intentionally keep this information from you,” Pepper said, trying and failing to placate the irate woman. “You signed the paperwork so late in the process, that we must have missed processing you into our communications.” 

“You think that’s an acceptable excuse for putting my baby’s life in danger?” Agatha nearly yelled, barely controlling her temper for the sheer fact that she had promised herself when she became a mother that her violent days were long, long behind her. 

“Until this morning, we were not aware that there was a child to protect,” Maria said, looking over legal documents in front of her. “I’ve drafted up some protections and provisions that we hope to be up to your standards. Fortunately, we have been working closely with Ms. Vidal for years as she’s worked to get custody of her sister, so I have become quite proficient in matters involving children, as well. We have included everything here that we have used over the years for Ms. Vidal and additional protections considering your history of media harassment.”

There was so much to unpack with what Maria said, least of all the question of how she, herself, had let it slip through the cracks that she would need to tell the company about Nicky to keep him safe. She had spent so long keeping him a secret to keep him safe that it hadn’t even crossed her mind that the rug would be ripped out from under them both before she was ready. Guilt gnawed at her, at her own indiscretion regarding the most important person in her life. 

“Let me see those,” Agatha hissed, ripping the stack of papers out from in front of Maria and leafing through them. Had she been in the right frame of mind, she would have admitted that it was thorough and provided her with more than she could have asked for– extra security for when Nicky was at the studio or with them on tour, security for school and increased protections to try to keep cameras and journalists as far from him as possible. Interviews were not allowed to ask about Agatha’s personal life and the documentary crew was not allowed to include film of the child without Agatha’s explicit permission. There was more legal jargon that Agatha flipped through, too, that all seemed adequate enough.

Agatha, however, was not in the right frame of mind. She was angry– at herself, at the studio, at the media, hell, she was even mad at the plant that kept bumping into the window loudly from the air blown around the room by a ceiling fan. And so, she exploded. 

“Every single step of the way, your company and its inadequacy have shown me time and time again that I cannot trust you. Give me one good fucking reason why I shouldn’t pull out of this immediately.” 

A quiet knock echoed against the mahogany door, then, almost perfectly timed. The creak of the hinges was accompanied by the sound of squeaky sneakers on the polished floor. 

“Maybe I can help,” a sultry, smooth voice echoed, then, one that Agatha would recognize anywhere. “I think that perhaps we should talk.” 

Agatha whipped around on her heels to face Rio. “You want to talk? Or do you want to degrade me more without the cameras rolling? Really get in those juicy jabs you wouldn’t want to be documented on film.” 

Rio closed her eyes and hung her head for a moment, rubbing at the bridge of her nose. “Tell her the truth,” she said to no one in particular. 

Natasha stepped forward and held her hands out like white flags. “That was my fault,” she admitted, grimacing. 

“What do you mean it was your fault?” Agatha asked, glare sharp and cutting as she crossed her arms over her chest. 

The director took a step forward and had the decency to look apologetic. “The documentary needs to have a story to drive it forward, it can’t just be clips of you being a band. I want the story to encompass a human interest story. Your redemption arc, if you will.” 

“My redemption arc?!” Agatha shrieked, fury burning through her veins like wildfire. “What am I, just another fucking character for you to push and prod to make the most money? And let me guess, you’re going to just let me fall back to the wayside with no support when I am once again painted as the villain in this story? Oh, why didn’t the Orchids stay together this time? Agatha’s all clean and sober but no one can fucking stand her anymore so it still didn’t work .” 

“That isn’t why it won’t work this time,” Natasha said before freezing almost imperceptibly. She stuttered a bit before she rescued herself. “This is a limited contract. Just a reunion and accompanying documentary. Nothing more, nothing less. I don’t think any of you truly want to go back to this life, do you?” 

“So you don’t deny that I’m just here to be your antagonist? To be the juicy piece of meat to throw to the wolves so you make your millions?” Agatha’s chest was heaving considerably at this point, feeling overwhelmed by it all. “God, I won’t do this again. I won’t take the fall for this again! I’ve spent the last decade being your villain, I’m fucking done.” 

“Agatha, please,” Rio soothed, reaching out to lay a hand on her arm before immediately rethinking the touch and pulling away. She looked to the executives, making eye contact with them in a way that made Agatha uncomfortable. “Can we have a moment, please?” 

The executives all shared nervous looks, silently communicating for long moments before glancing at Rio who gave them a simple nod and held a hand out as if to say, “ Trust me, it’s okay”. They all stood and gathered their things, ushering themselves out of the room, leaving Agatha’s blood pressure to spike and her heart to race in her chest. It had been ten years since the last time they had been alone together in a room, ten years since Agatha’s heart had been broken irreparably into tiny, jagged pieces. 

2015

Sober was a strange feeling to Agatha. For the last week, she had been detoxing in the same high-profile facility that she had been forced into nearly a year ago, now. Resentment still stung beneath the surface after her intervention, at the way she lost her agency to their thinly veiled threats and barbed wire-covered care. She hadn’t tried then, not really, and she guessed that’s how she found herself in this mess once again. The call of the drugs was like a siren song for Agatha, something she couldn’t ignore. And, as always, it had nearly killed her 

Her left arm was held in a sling, though that was the only injury she had sustained during her latest display of true idiocy, despite her damnedest effort at putting everyone’s life around her in danger. It was a statistic, she thought, that the drunk driver always came out unscathed while everyone else around her would be broken and destroyed. She hadn’t meant to hurt anyone, she really hadn’t, but they say that the path to hell is paved with good intentions. 

Agatha shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. She couldn’t think about it, she couldn’t think about how much damage she had done to someone she loved . So, instead, she looked out the window and thought about the way her dislocated shoulder ached. That was a tolerable pain. Yes, she could live there for a while. 

An inexplicable amount of time passed this way, Agatha poking at her tender, bruised skin every time she felt her muscles twitch for another hit of cocaine until someone knocked at her door– probably a nurse, there were no visitors allowed outside of the common room. But when she turned her head to look, she was faced with her wife in all of her bare-faced, college t-shirt glory. 

“Rio? What are you doing here?” Agatha asked, feeling a bit disoriented. She looked at Rio with clear eyes for the first time in longer than she wanted to admit and noticed the dark circles, the red-rimmed eyes, the puffiness and and bite-swollen lips. “It’s not visitors day.” 

“I–I know. I pulled some strings because I needed to come talk to you,” Rio said, stepping closer but hesitating in a way that made Agatha frown. She patted the edge of her bed, holding out her good hand for Rio. The taller woman sat gingerly but didn’t take Agatha’s proffered touch, instead wrapping her arms around herself so, so tightly. 

“Is everything okay?” Agatha frantically searched Rio’s face for any clue, for something to soothe the anxious, twisting feeling in her gut. She had only seen Rio like this once before in all of their years together, a memory still burned in her mind like a trauma despite not truly being one at all. 

Rio played with the hem of her cardigan, pulling at a loose string until the hand-crocheted piece started to unravel. “No, it’s not.” 

A sniffle. A wipe at watery eyes. A bottom lip pulled between gapped teeth painfully. 

“Baby?” Agatha asked, reaching out now, needing to touch her wife, to comfort her. “Tell me what’s going on.” 

“Fuck,” Rio cried, tilting her head back and looking at the ceiling as if to will the tears back into her eyes. She laughed but it wasn’t joyful, it was sad and devastating. “God, everything is so fucked now.” 

“I know, I’m so sorry,” Agatha said, feeling a stab of guilt. “I’m going to get better this time, I promise.” 

Rio shook her head and looked back down at Agatha, letting her tears stream down her face. “No, I don’t think you will,” she said, though not unkindly. “And that’s the whole problem, Agatha.” 

The older woman’s defenses started to rise a little, feeling attacked by Rio’s choice of words. “You don’t know that, I’m really fucked up about all of this. I think I’m really scared straight this time.” 

It was all platitudes and they both knew it. Agatha would be here for as long as she needed to be to get square with Stark Records again and then she would be right back at it, band or no band. But she would do anything for Rio, say anything she needed to not to lose her. 

Unfortunately, Agatha didn’t know it yet, but she had already lost.

“The police came to our house while you were sedated,” Rio said, completely ignoring what Agatha had said. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Agatha, you could be charged with a felony .” 

“That isn’t going to happen. I’m a rich white woman in Hollywood, you know as well as I do they won’t blink at this,” Agatha said, her arrogance nauseating. 

“Yeah, but I’m not , Agatha,” Rio said, emphasizing her words by flexing her fingers. “Maybe you’ll walk away from this unscathed but I’m not going to.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“It means they took Carmen from me,” Rio said, fresh tears falling down her cheeks. “They’re taking her back to my mom and dad and Juan Luis is paying for their lawyer, now. They’ve gone underground.”

“What? Don’t be ridiculous Rio, they’re not going to give her back to your parents,” Agatha said, frowning and entirely displeased by the conversation. “You’ve proven over and over again that she’s better off with us.” 

“No, they’re not going to , Agatha. They already have. All that work, all the time and money I put into petitioning the courts to let me have her, and it’s all been scrapped because you got in a fucking felony-level drunk driving accident and nearly killed someone!” Rio yelled, her face turning a bloody red. “They deemed me unfit for parenthood because of your fucking addiction and she’s already been sent back.” 

Agatha’s stomach dropped to her knees. “What? That isn’t fair. This isn’t your fault. This is my fault. Let me talk to them.” 

“No, Agatha, you’ve done enough,” Rio said, putting a hand up to stop her. “I might never get her back.” 

“That’s absurd, Rio, you know that your parents can’t keep themselves out of trouble long enough,” Agatha said, feeling so sure of herself. “They’re fucking idiots.” 

“You don’t understand, Agatha,” Rio said, balling her hands into fists in her lap until her nails cut into her flesh. “This is what happened when I was a kid. They got caught once and then kept their cover so cool that they never got caught again when we got sent back. They’re insidious and they know what they’re doing. And with Juan Luis’ money paying for a lawyer? Fuck, Agatha, I’m going to be fighting for her for the rest of her life. This was my chance and I blew it because I was married to you .” 

Agatha froze, a chill ripping up her spine at Rio’s last sentence. “What do you mean was ? Rio, we are still married, I’m your fucking wife.” 

Rio laughed again with that same, lifeless sound that cut right to Agatha’s core. “Carmen is more important to me than anything, Agatha. And if I can’t fight for her safety as your wife, then I can’t be your wife anymore.” 

Fat, blubbering tears overwhelmed Agatha in a way that she knew wouldn’t have happened if she wasn’t fresh out of detoxing and in so much physical pain. But her hormones were so out of wack, her body entirely out of sorts as it tried to equilibrate again after so much abuse, and she couldn’t help the torrent of tears that immediately tracked down her face. 

“Rio, please, don’t leave me,” Agatha cried, watching as tears slipped down Rio’s cheeks, too. “Please, my love.” 

Rio sniffed again and wiped at her eyes. “I have to, Agatha. We are destroying each other. I–I can’t keep doing this. I love you more than I have ever loved anyone in my entire life but I can’t keep feeling like this. The papers have already been drawn and I’ve hired a lawyer. It’s done.” 

“No, it can’t be,” Agatha argued, reaching out desperately to touch Rio, to hold her, to do something to convince her that this wasn’t their end. It couldn’t be their end. “No. You’re it for me, Rio. This is it. I can’t live without you.” 

Tears fell hot and fast down Rio’s face now and she looked mere seconds from caving, from throwing herself into Agatha and apologizing and taking it all back. But she didn’t. She wouldn’t. 

Rio stood and put space between her and Agatha, who struggled to her feet and tried to catch her, nearly slipping in her grippy socks in her haste. She caught Rio’s wrist with her good hand, tugging her back as hard as she could, desperate and clawing. Rio slammed into her chest, almost toppling them both over. 

“Rio, I love you, please,” Agatha begged, using her free hand to cup Rio’s jaw. “I will do anything, baby. I will change. I will get sober. I will never do it again. Please, I love you. Please.” 

The taller woman tilted her head against Agatha’s, pressing their foreheads together and closing her eyes. “I know, Agatha. I know you do. And I wish you were telling me the truth.” 

“I am telling the truth! I mean it! I do!” 

Agatha’s desperation was utterly humiliating, the way that she begged and pleaded for the only person to ever love her not to leave her. Rio let out a soft sigh and pulled back, Agatha’s hand falling to her chest. She used both hands to cup Agatha’s cheeks and wipe at her tears. 

“I know you want to.” Rio smiled sadly. “I hope one day you really do.” 

Before she could think about it, Agatha stretched on her toes and pressed her lips against Rio’s for a hard, salty kiss. Her wife kissed her back, if only for a moment, and when she pulled back, Agatha watched as something unrecognizable slid into place– a stranger in the face of the person who knew her the best. And as Rio walked away, Agatha knew that she would never see her wife again. 

Rio was gone.

“I owe you an apology,” Rio started, wasting no time. “A real one.” 

Agatha waited silently, not trusting herself to speak, not knowing if she even could. Memories slammed into Agatha like a freight train, one after the other, of that last, devastating day. 

“Brunch was bad. Like cataclysmically bad. And it’s mostly my fault,” Rio admitted rubbing at the back of her neck. “I know it’s been ten years but I should have known better than to take Natasha’s bait. You didn’t deserve what I said to you– Jen, too, but we both know how fucking stubborn and protective she is.” 

Agatha huffed in agreement. 

“One apology isn’t going to be enough to fix things between us and I don’t expect it to. One apology isn’t going to be enough to convince you to trust me. But I am sorry. I’m sorry for the cruel things I said and I’m sorry that we’ve invited you back into this space that is still hurting you,” Rio said sincerely, extending an olive branch. “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to start over.”

Silence stretched between them as Agatha considered. Every survival instinct in her screamed to walk away, not bite the hand offering her peace. But she looked at Rio, looked at the way her long, dark hair cascaded around her face, at her soft clothes and smudged makeup, the fine lines around her mouth and on her forehead, she looked and looked and could only see the girl in a sweaty nightclub who rescued her and changed her life irrevocably. Her mask was down, she was showing Agatha her true vulnerability in a way she hadn’t been blessed with in over a decade, and Agatha knew without a doubt that Rio meant every word she said. 

“Okay,” Agatha agreed, nodding tersely. “We can start over. But I’m still pissed at you. And Jen.” 

Rio cracked a smile and shook her head almost affectionately. “I would expect no less. I think we can work with that. Nat, too.” 

Agatha crooked an eyebrow at her. “Be careful with all of that, wouldn’t want your apology to be for nothing.” 

“Even if you change your mind right now, it wouldn’t be for nothing, Agatha,” Rio said with disarming sincerity. “You deserve the apology just by yourself. It’s not a means to an end or a manipulation to get you where we want you. You deserve to be treated like a person with feelings.” 

“So what’s the deal, then? Natasha needs a story and I’m not okay with the shit you and Jen pulled even if I know it’s coming,” Agatha said, diverting the attention away from the squishy, vulnerable parts of her threatening to spill out. 

“You think we can’t cook up the drama all on our own?” Rio asked, a playful glint in her eyes. “I may have apologized for brunch but last I checked, you and I still have a decades’s worth of unresolved issues to work through. Plus, the band was in a terrible spot when it all ended, I’m sure there is still a bunch there to work with there, too. Hope is not lost for us yet, dramática .” 

Agatha scoffed and put her hands on her hips. “Who are you calling dramatic? I am perfectly reasonable, thank you very much.” 

“Right, and I’m the Queen of England,” Rio retorted, falling into an old banter that had once been so comfortable for them. 

“Ugh, don’t speak of the witch, you might wake all the dead,” Agatha grimaced, shivering a bit. 

The door creaked open and familiar red hair peeked inside. “I see you haven’t killed each other,” Natasha said before letting herself back in with Pepper and Maria. “So, are you still in, Harkness?” 

Agatha rolled her eyes and slid back into her no-nonsense, jaded persona. “Yeah, I guess. No more orchestrating drama, though.” 

Natasha held up her hands in surrender. “Fine, fine. But I need you ladies to deliver something to work with.” 

Agatha and Rio exchanged looks, ones that were knowing and devious. 

“That shouldn’t be a problem, boss,” Rio said, smirking. “We’re a messy bunch.” 

The clock struck on the hour and Agatha checked the time. She had been here for far, far too long. 

“Send me the updated contracts,” Agatha said to Maria, not mentioning her son out loud, not ready to share that piece of herself with Rio yet. “I will get them signed tonight and sent back.” 

“Understood, Ms. Harkness,” Maria said, nodding curtly. “Get them signed before the first rehearsal so that we can implement the new protocols, please.” 

Agatha didn’t reply and turned on her heel, leaving the room and looking for her boy. There was shuffling in the room as she retreated and vague mumblings about things like custody and apologies for the delayed meeting .

It didn’t take long for Agatha to find Wanda and Nicky, the two of them walking down the hallway toward the parking lot, too. 

“Where do you think you’re going, little man?” Agatha asked, a false authority in her voice that always made her boy giggle. She knew that he wouldn’t be able to hear her as clearly without being able to see her signs, so she spoke slowly and enunciated well. 

As expected, the little boy turned to face her and giggled a little. “Are you feeling better, Mama? Auntie Wanda said that you weren’t angry with me, just scared.” 

There it was, that knife in her stomach, again. She lifted the little boy and sat him in the already-open backseat of their Range Rover so they would be closer to eye level. 

“Aunt Wanda is right, baby. Did you think I was mad at you?” she asked, touching his knees to ground both him and herself. 

Nicky looked down at his hands before looking back up at his mom. “A little. You wouldn’t have been mad if they didn’t take my picture.” 

Agatha smiled sadly and kissed Nicky’s forehead. “I wasn’t mad at you, baby. I would never be mad at you for something like this. But I was mad at the photographers because they were making it dangerous for you. Do you remember what the most important thing in the entire world is?” 

“That I stay safe and healthy and loved,” Nicky repeated back like a mantra he had been hearing his whole life. 

“Exactly, my clever boy. So when someone does something that makes you unsafe, I have to protect you,” Agatha explained. “But sometimes that’s going to make Mama mad, like a bear with her cubs. Remember that documentary we watched?” 

“Yeah! That mama bear was growling so loud,” Nicky said, lighting up at the memory of the nature film. “She needed to keep her babies safe from the hunters!” 

“Just like I need to keep you safe from anyone who might hurt you,” Agatha said, cupping his cheek and rubbing it with her thumb. 

“Are the people with cameras always trying to hurt me?” Nicky asked, a little bit of trepidation bleeding into his voice. 

“No, sweetheart. A lot of the time, they won’t mean you any harm at all. But just like any stranger, you never know, so you have to make the safe choice just in case. You don’t need to be afraid of them, especially when you’re with me or Auntie Wanda or Herb or your teachers at school.”

“Okay, mama. Can we get ice cream?” 

Agatha rolled her eyes and pushed at his shoulders gently so he would climb further into the car, letting her and Wanda in. “Maybe if you eat all your veggies at lunch, darling.” 

“But Mama!” Nicky whined, making Wanda snicker. 

“Yeah, Mama!” she joined in. “We need ice cream when we play hooky.” 

Agatha rolled her eyes even harder, signaling for Herb to take them somewhere with ice cream with just a look in the mirrors. “You two are going to be the death of me.” 

With melting ice cream in hand, Agatha ushered Nicky and Wanda into the backyard half an hour later, sending her son off to play in his playhouse. 

“You’re so good with him, you know?” Wanda said as she settled into one of the chaise loungers under an umbrella. “You’re the best mom that kid could have asked for.” 

“I don’t know about that,” Agatha admitted. “I didn’t even think to make sure there were protections for him when I signed onto all of this. What kind of mother doesn’t make sure her kid is safe?” 

“You’ve been living a mostly solitary life since the day he was born, Agatha. This isn’t exactly something you were expecting to happen and it certainly isn’t in the mothers’ playbook,” Wanda said, wanting to comfort her friend. “Yeah, it was an oversight, but you can’t beat yourself up for making mistakes when you’re treading uncharted waters. You fixed it immediately, didn’t you? You’re still protecting him and he’s no worse for the wear.” 

Long moments passed between them as Agatha sat with Wanda’s words. She knew Wanda was right but that insidious, malicious voice in her head would eat at her for days and days about this until it swallowed her whole. She made a mental note to call her therapist tonight about all of this, knowing that she couldn’t face this new journey on her own unscathed. It may have been years since she talked to her therapist but after the whirlwind of the last few days, Agatha knew that she needed to protect herself so that she could protect her son, too. 

“Why did you want me to do this so badly?” Agatha asked Wanda, breaking the silence. “You’ve been so vocal about how much healthier I have gotten without the band. What changed?” 

Wanda turned to face Agatha, putting her empty cup on the table between them. She bit the corner of her lip before speaking. 

“You were drowning in this house, Agatha,” Wanda said sadly. “Nicky is your world and that’s wonderful but you need more than him. You float around this mansion like a ghost haunting your own home. I know you missed music and when Billy came to me with the idea, he made a good case.” 

Agatha pursed her lips. “Then why not just take me to the studio or get me to finally finish that solo album I never got around to finishing? You had to have known this would be rocky.” 

“I did,” Wanda agreed, nodding. “But I also know that, despite it all, this was a group of people that loved you through all the bad. You need people, you need community, and you’re still so afraid to get out there because of what happened to you after the split. I had faith that they would come around to you and maybe this could be good.” 

She regarded Wanda carefully, looking her up and down. There was a niggling feeling in the back of her head that there was something Wanda wasn’t saying, something that she didn’t know, but Agatha wasn’t sure that she wanted to. For all she knew, it could be something Agatha really, really didn’t want to hear about herself. 

“Well, they seem pretty slow to warm up to me,” Agatha lamented, laying back on the lounger and throwing her hand over her forehead. “I don’t know what the fuck to do.” 

Wanda reached out and grabbed Agatha’s hand, holding it tenderly. “You’ll do what you always do. You’ll charm the socks off of them, take your rightful place on the throne, and have a great tour.” 

“You’re too optimistic.” 

“And you’re too pessimistic. This is why we work.” 

Agatha pulled her hand back, annoyed with Wanda but not upset. “Have you ever thought about pestering someone else with all this cheeriness?” 

Wanda hummed and then snatched Agatha’s hand back. “Nope. You’re my favorite kind of grumpy. Very entertaining, you are. And you come with a cute kid.” 

Nicky, currently, was swinging so high on his swingset that he was about to rip the darn thing right out of the ground. Agatha sat up and made a gesture with her hands until Nicky caught sight of her and calmed it back down, smiling at her sheepishly. 

“So this probably isn’t a totally terrible idea, then?” Agatha asked, more to herself than anyone else. 

“Probably not,” Wanda agreed. “You deserve a little happiness in your life, Agatha. Specifically from something that is just for you , before you start arguing with me again.” 

“I should have just taken up painting or some shit. A lot less stress than facing my family.” 

Wanda smiled a slow, knowing smile, but didn’t say a word, didn’t draw attention to Agatha’s little slip. Agatha either didn’t notice it or was too proud to admit that she had called the band her family . But she had, and it was true. No matter what had happened over the years, no matter the ignored phone calls and glaring mistakes, she knew that these were her people. And maybe, just maybe, this was her opportunity to go home. 

She hoped against all hope it would be true.

Chapter Text

Rio’s words circled Agatha’s mind like water around a drain, around and around and around it went until it was just the last drop. Then, the faucet turned back on, and the tub filled again until she was enveloped wholly by its warmth. You deserve the apology just by yourself. You deserve to be treated like a person with feelings . It was the antithesis of the story she had fed herself for years about Rio, about their marriage, about all of it. Agatha had made her peace with being the villain of the story, of being the monster that could only be handled . Rio’s apology, her tender words, and the gentle care she used to talk to Agatha? Just those few minutes changed everything for her. 

For ten years, only two people had ever acknowledged Agatha’s pain for what it was, and one of them was on her payroll. One apology isn’t going to be enough to fix things between us, and I don’t expect it to. I’m sorry that we’ve invited you back into this space that is still hurting you. I’d like to start over . Rio had so easily said the ugly part out loud– that the band was something that hurt Agatha then and was still hurting her now. Had she known the truth the whole time? 

Fuck.

Had she known the truth the whole time and still left Agatha completely alone? 

Agatha rubbed at her forehead. This was too much to consider, too much to chew on when her mouth was already full from biting the hand that fed it. She knew that she should be grateful for this opportunity, not stewing on whether or not Rio had spent the last decade thinking about her as much as she had Rio. But how could she think of anything else now that her ex-wife had asked her to start again? 

Maybe Rio hadn’t meant it like that. Actually, Agatha was certain she hadn’t meant it like that. Rio had left her, Rio had given up on her, Rio, Rio, Rio. The choice had always been and would always be Rio’s. But this time? If it’s okay with you, I’d like to start over . Was there room for Agatha to have some agency this time? Had this woman finally carved out space for Agatha’s voice in the narrative? 

It was too much to think about, too much to consider. Agatha pushed the thoughts away, vowing to ponder them some other time, even though she knew it was a lie. For the last decade, Agatha had been stewing on her life until it hurt, and then locked it up in a box in the back of a closet she never visited again. Running from her past, her problems, seemed to be a much easier alternative than actually sitting with reality. 

Who cared what anyone thought? Who cared what Rio thought? A decade of silence proved that no one had earned a spot in Agatha’s house of cards. The only thing that mattered was Nicky, and that boy loved his mama like life itself. He would never leave her. He would never make her wonder if her love was enough. 

The new rehearsal studio was quite a bit bigger than the one they had used back in the day. The walls were a bright color and covered with aesthetically pleasing but functional art to optimize the sound as it bounced from one surface to the next. Billy’s drumset was already set up behind a plexiglass wall, glittering blue paint shining against the lamp light. A keyboard was set up to Agatha’s left as she looked past the doorway, along with Lilia’s table of auxiliary toys and gadgets. To the right were instrument stands that would no doubt be filled with Rio’s guitars and Jen’s basses. And, of course, in center stage was a microphone stand with a tambourine hooked against it with the same whimsical fabrics hanging from it in long ribbons. 

Agatha blew out a breath as she stepped fully into the space. She was the first one to arrive and certainly did not plan it to be that way. It was bad enough that her thoughts had run away from her on the ride over, but now she had to sit in this silent room, ruminating on just how long it had been since she had performed, since she had made music with anyone besides herself. 

Her hands grazed the lid of a grand piano tucked in the back corner, away from the rugs and wires of the band’s setup. She rounded its corner and let her fingers linger along the keys, hearing the mechanical drop of the hammer but not letting any sound ring out. The clock on the far wall read that she was still likely 30 minutes earlier than any of the other members would arrive, so she grabbed the padded, leather bench and pulled it out, settling herself on it like she belonged there. 

A familiar melody started one note at a time, dancing up and down the keyboard before it broke into chords, into bass lines, into countermelodies. She hummed along quietly at first before growing and getting lost in the words that she crooned for the first time so many years ago. 

2015

“I’m not doing it,” Agatha hissed, crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t care what you say, I’m not doing it. I’m not doing it ever again. That part of my life is over.” 

Wanda sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. This had been a battle she had been fighting with Agatha for weeks now. First, it had been a month of banging on her door nearly every day until the woman relented and let Wanda inside. Then, it had been months of trying to get her to tell her what had happened. Finally, after everything had settled and there was a signed, sealed, and delivered copy of a finalized divorce tucked away in a desk somewhere in her new home, Agatha broke. So, it was no surprise that this would be her next land to conquer in her war against Agatha’s damn stubbornness. 

“You have been singing since the dawn of time, Agatha. You don’t honestly expect me to believe this, do you?” Wanda asked, her accent dripping into her words because of the late hour. The two had been watching movies alone, Vision off on some European adventure with his friends. 

“Watch your tongue.” Agatha jabbed a finger in her friend’s direction. “You’re older than I am, so let’s not get talking about the invention of dirt.” 

“I’m serious, Agatha. Are you really going to let that bitch take this from you?” It hurt Wanda to regard someone who was once her friend so callously, but she knew she needed to meet Agatha where she was, and right now? Agatha was firmly planted in resentment. 

“She’s not taking anything from me. I’m choosing to let this go.” 

“No, you’re hiding because your pride is hurt.” 

Agatha’s nose flared as she sucked in a harsh breath, anger shadowing her eyes. “Pray tell, what am I supposed to do with a mob of cameras watching my every movement if not hide? Or did you forget that my life has become a fucking circus?” 

“There are no cameras here, Agatha. What are you so afraid of?” 

If anyone else had asked, Agatha would have firmly planted her feet in the ground and fought back until they bled for anyone who dared assume that she was afraid of anything. She was the formidable, untouchable Agatha Harkness, things feared her , not the other way around. But this was Wanda. Wanda, who, despite any better judgment, had decided that Agatha wasn’t a lost cause. Wanda, who had meticulously pulled every fragment of truth from Agatha’s mind that she could and still saw her just the same. 

So, she took a leap.

“Music has always been my escape from the world, it has always been how I survive. I survived my mother by taking piano lessons with a teacher who would hit my knuckles with yardsticks until they bruised so I could learn the right way. I survived college without a trust fund like everyone else by busking and playing low-end weddings. I survived poverty by offering my landlord’s children free lessons and doing song commissions for birthday parties in the hills. 

“But when I met Rio? Music stopped being about survival. The first day that I met her, I sang with her. I fell in love with her between verses of songs. It was something beautiful and vibrant and incredible when I was with her. And I don’t know how to use it to survive anymore. Nothing is beautiful. Nothing is vibrant. Everything is miserable. I don’t know how to make music like that anymore. I can’t– I can’t go back to how it was before.” 

Wanda pressed her lips in a firm line and scooted closer to Agatha on the couch. She wrapped her arms around her friend and squeezed, ignoring any protests until Agatha relaxed into her embrace. It wasn’t that Agatha didn’t appreciate the comfort, the affection, but it felt so suffocating to receive it when her mind was doing mental gymnastics like this. 

“It doesn’t have to change, Ag,” Wanda said, smoothing down Agatha’s frizzy hair with one hand. “Music can still be about love. Hell, it can even be about your love for Rio. You don’t need to make it a weapon again. I’ve got you, now. I will be your weapon.” 

Agatha snorted. “You’re about as dangerous as Tickle Me Elmo,” she said, though she found one of Wanda’s hands and squeezed it appreciatively. 

“Many shoppers died on Black Friday trying to get their hands on one of those back in the day,” Wanda retorted, smiling at her friend. “I know how to destroy a life or two.” 

“I can protect myself,” Agatha argued. 

“I know you can. But you don’t have to. At least, you don’t have to do it alone. We can take care of this media debacle, just have a little patience.” 

“And the Rio thing?” 

“Why don’t we go try to sort it right now?” Wanda suggested, nodding her head toward the piano room she knew would be at the end of the hallway. “You’ll feel better if you do.” 

Agatha frowned at Wanda, feeling like she had just completely ignored everything she said. “Didn’t I just tell you I’m not doing that?” 

“Yeah, and I don’t believe you,” Wanda said, smug and cocking her head to the side. “Just one song? For me?” 

Enough air to knock over a small cottage sighed out of Agatha before she aggressively untangled herself from Wanda’s embrace. She straightened the non-existent wrinkles on her flannel and stole the last gulp of wine from Wanda’s glass before stomping off down the hallway. 

“Well, let’s go, your highness. You’re only getting this out of me once,” Agatha said, though they both knew it was a lie. If Agatha opened this particular door, there would be no going back.

And maybe, just maybe, she didn’t want to go back.

At the piano, she opened the cover with just a little too much force, hands clumsy as she settled herself on the bench. Wanda meandered into the room some seconds later, not in nearly as much of a rush. She dropped herself into a reading chair in the corner– one she had insisted Agatha buy while furnishing the new house. 

“What should I play? I’m not really in the mood for any of the usuals,” Agatha grumbled, her whole discography dead and buried with the rest of The Orchids in her mind. 

“I don’t know,” Wanda said, waving her hand dismissively. “Play from the heart. Go where the music takes you. You know the drill.” 

Agatha huffed and fixed her with a mean glare. “You’re the one who asked me to do this. Why don’t you show a little enthusiasm, huh?” 

Wanda only raised an eyebrow and waited in silence for Agatha to begin. 

The keys felt so foreign now. She had dabbled here and there over the years as she wrote songs for the band, but she hadn’t played just to play since well before Alice joined the band and took the instrument from her. It had been so freeing to just be able to sing on stage, to work the crowds, and let it all wash over her without being stuck behind a keyboard. But now? She felt stripped bare in front of the instrument that started it all.

Agatha started with some scales, wrists lifted and fingers curved in perfect posture, going faster and faster until she made a mistake– but the mistake never came. Muscle memory would never let her forget the things she had been broken to learn. The rigid, mathematical execution of the notes slowly but surely shifted into something melodic, something full of feeling, pulsing and moving as her emotions spun around her. 

Notes turned into chords turned into patterns as Agatha let herself feel all the hurt, the anger, the pain, the resentment that she had been holding onto for months and months and months. She played for her grief, she played for her love, she played for all the regret that had been building and building and building with every bad decision she made that led to her demise. 

“Hmm,” she started, hearing the shaping of a story sculpt itself in her mind. She hummed along to the chords she was playing, letting her voice travel from end to end until she found a comfortable middle. She jumped and slid and ground her teeth into the meat of the noise as her hums turned into non-syllables into words. Words shaped into sentences, into sentiments, into heartbreaking, devastating truths that she could never speak aloud. 

Chapter Text

Before she left the house that morning, Nicky handed Agatha a picture he had drawn in school. On the white paper were two stick figures with bright smiles: a taller, purple one with long hair and a shorter, orange one with what she assumed was a bunny in his arms. The sun was high in the sky, and the grass was bright green below their feet. One cloud, one butterfly, and three too-perfect music notes floated in the sky (which may or may not have been the teacher’s handiwork). When he gave the drawing to her, he said, “It’s you singin’, Mama. Look how happy it makes the world.” 

If her eyes watered a bit, that was between Agatha and her gods. 

With the paper folded into four and tucked into the inside pocket of her blazer, Agatha felt a measure of comfort as she climbed into the SUV that would be taking her and the rest of the band to their first interview for the tour– a segment on a Stark-affiliated radio station downtown. Rehearsals had been going a bit more smoothly since that first one, but Agatha certainly wouldn’t say they were ready for the stage. It was a small mercy that their first foray into media wouldn’t include a televised performance of any kind, just a sit-down talk about the tour to get some good press. 

That didn’t make the idea of doing an interview any easier for Agatha to stomach. She had done very little press since the band ended, and none of it in the years since Nicky was born.  Her hands had a slight tremble in them as she tucked them into her armpits, crossing her arms on her chest as she slid into the backseat of the car. Behind her were Jen, Alice, and Billy; Mrs. Hart got passenger privilege because of her self-proclaimed seniority, which left Agatha and Rio to sit together in the middle with Lilia on the other side of Rio, stating that she needed to be sitting near the window for carsickness. Perhaps in another life, Agatha would reach out to hold Rio’s hand or sit closer so that she could lean against her to quell her nerves. But this was now, so Agatha wrapped her arms around herself tightly and stared thoughtfully out the window. 

Agatha could feel Rio looking at her before she turned her head to catch her gaze. What she saw staring back at her was something unexpected and familiar. Rio’s lips were curved down, ever so slightly, her eyebrows furrowed like she was trying to solve a puzzle. Dark eyes looked deep into Agatha’s blue, and she had to look away, unable to handle the weight of being seen. 

Could Rio still see her after all of these years? 

“This should be a simple interview, everyone,” Sharon said, breaking the aimless chatter in the back. “Just some talk about dates, stops, getting the band back together, things like that. Shouldn’t be too invasive or uncomfortable. A warm-up interview before we start the big hitters.” 

Agatha raised an eyebrow and said, “And what exactly are we saying about getting the band back together. I’m a little unclear, myself, about why exactly we are doing this.” 

Next to her, Rio and Lilia shared a look, and Billy cleared his throat uncomfortably. The air shifted around Agatha in a way that she could not explain but felt acutely. She unfocused her eyes as she listened around the vehicle, noticing when Jen shifted uncomfortably in her shimmery skirt, when Alice sniffed, when Sharon hummed and smacked her lips together, she heard all of it. What weren’t they telling her? 

“We wanted to get together as a group while we still could,” Lilia said, interrupting whatever Sharon was going to say. Something in the back of Agatha’s mind perked up at her words, latching onto what she said and how she said it. 

“There was so much potential there that you never got to tap, and when the opportunity arose, you couldn’t pass it up,” Sharon continued, nodding her head resolutely. “Good enough?” 

Before the band could reply, the driver slammed on the brakes so hard that Agatha had to brace herself on the seat in front of her, an arm shooting out to stop Rio from sliding into the empty space in front of her. A loud, screeching sound echoed around them, and horns started to honk. Somewhere ahead of them, the distinct sound of metal crushing metal rang out, and Agatha immediately froze.

2015

No one had seen the other car coming before Agatha’s Porsche was smashed into by a semi truck, sending it rolling off the road and into an open field in wine country. The sound of metal crashing into metal, bending and snapping and crunching together was something that Agatha wouldn’t forget for the rest of her life. Alice was screaming in the passenger seat for only a few seconds before she went terrifyingly silent, Agatha panicking as she felt her collarbone snap under the force of a locked seatbelt. 

“Alice!” Agatha shrieked as the car rolled to a stop. She couldn’t move; she was stuck, the door was shoved into her side, and everything tingled. “Alice, are you okay?” 

Her screams were met with silence, only the hissing of the engine giving any sign that Agatha’s hearing was still unharmed. 

Agatha turned her head, slowly and painfully, to try and get a look at Alice. Tears sprang in her eyes as the fractured bone jostled in her shoulder, and she used a shaking hand to unbuckle the belt, nearly screaming when she realized the belt had been holding it together somehow, and burning pain radiated through her whole arm. When she finally faced her friend, she was nearly vomited at what she saw.

The pianist’s body was contorted in ways that Agatha didn’t know that bodies could bend, blood pouring out of her nose and dribbling out of the ear that she could see. Her hand was mangled in the crushed remnants of the door, shattered glass sticking out of her flesh– or was that a bone? Oh god, that’s bone…

Agatha turned away, about to be sick, screwing her eyes shut as she breathed through the pain and nausea. What was she going to do? Panic gripped her mind like a vice, grinding all of her thoughts to a creaking halt. Was Alice breathing? Where was her phone? Fuck, she needed to call for help. 

A trembling hand patted around Agatha as she searched for her phone, desperately trying every nook and cranny she could reach from where she was pinned, but not finding anything. 

“Fuck. Fuck! I need to get out of here!” she cried out, squirming in her seat as she tried to free herself. She was making so much noise that she didn’t hear the footsteps coming up behind her or the man clear his throat before looking through Agatha’s broken window. 

“Are you ladies okay?” the gruff voice asked, startling Agatha from her panic. “Help is coming, I just called.”

“No, I don’t know if my friend is breathing. Can you check? Can you please check? Oh my god, did I kill Alice?” Agatha pleaded, squinting her eyes to get a good look at the man. Adrenaline was coursing through her veins, but she could feel the fuzzy incoherence coloring the edges from the drugs, from the alcohol. 

She really hadn’t had that much, she had driven so much worse and made it just fine. Why was this time any different?

“Fuck, are you Agatha Harkness?” the man asked, eyes going wide. “Oh god, I hit Agatha Harkness. I’m going to be fired. Fuck.” 

“I don’t give a a single fucking shit about your god damn job,” she hissed, looking at him with as much malice as she could manage in her state. “Go fucking check on my friend before I make sure you never fucking work again.” 

The truck driver mumbled incoherently before running around to the other side of the car. He looked at the destroyed door and seemed not to know quite how he was going to manage the feat of checking on Alice. 

“Now, Beauford! I need to know she’s breathing!” 

Without skipping a beat, the man reached into the car and felt for Alice’s pulse on her neck. “I feel something, but it’s barely there.” 

“What does that mean?” Agatha barked, trying and failing to turn back to face Alice. 

“I don’t fucking know, I’m not a doctor!” 

A guttural, frustrated growl tore from Agatha’s throat. Before it could get much farther, flashing lights shone from behind her, and sirens screeched as the emergency response drove closer and closer.
*
The next time Agatha was conscious, she came to in a hospital bed with wires attached to her whole body, a cannula in her nose, and her left arm in a sling. Vague shouts were echoing from down the hallway, and shoes were squeaking on the linoleum floor as someone ran closer and closer to the room. Agatha’s head was spinning a bit, like she was hungover. 

“ Princesa ,” Rio cried as soon as she stepped into the room, immediately attaching herself to Agatha’s good side, holding her hand and pushing her hair out of her face. “Oh my god, you’re okay. I thought you were dead.” 

Tears were running freely down Rio’s face, her eyes red and puffy, her lips bitten and raw. Agatha squeezed Rio’s hand, and tears flooded her eyes. “I’m okay, my love. I’m okay.” 

Rio leaned over and kissed Agatha’s forehead, long and tender. When she pulled back, Agatha tilted her head up, feeling the strain in her sore neck. She blinked twice, and Rio leaned down obligingly, giving her a salty, firm kiss on the lips. 

When they pulled apart, Agatha patted the bed next to her, silently asking Rio to sit. The younger woman hesitated but eventually caved, sitting on the small section of the bed that Agatha was not occupying, wrapping one arm gently around her back so she wouldn’t jostle her shoulder. 

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Rio said, kissing Agatha’s shoulder. “You scared me, Agatha. Like, actually terrified me.” 

Guilt gnawed at the back of Agatha’s throat. “I’m sorry.” 

“Has anyone updated you about Alice?” Rio asked, tightening her grip on Agatha, dropping a comforting hand to her thigh. 

“No, I haven’t really been awake, I don’t think,” Agatha replied, feeling panic try to grip at her chest. “Rio is she?” 

A firm, comforting hand turned Agatha’s face to look at Rio directly. “She’s alive, Agatha.” 

Something released in the older woman, then, and a sob ripped from her chest. She brought her hand up to her mouth, pressing her knuckles against her lips as she cried in relief. 

“But she’s not well, mi amor .” Rio’s voice was solemn, like she didn’t want to be telling Agatha this. “She– she might never perform again.” 

Agatha gaped at her. She wasn’t sure what she thought Rio would say, but the truth felt like a hot branding iron shoving down her throat. 

“Her hand is so broken, the doctors don’t know how much function she will get back, if any. She has like six broken bones and a concussion, and they don’t know if there is any damage from her losing consciousness at the scene. And, she’s been in surgery because the seatbelt did something to her intestines or something? I don’t know. But she’s lucky to be alive with how bad the crash was. We’re so lucky she’s alive.” 

The full truth sat heavily with Agatha. Had she really almost killed one of her best friends? She had done so many bad things, made so many wrong decisions, but this? This took the cake. 

“God, what have I done?” Agatha asked, swallowing harshly against the lump in her throat. She rubbed her good hand over her face, squeezing at the bridge of her nose. 

Something shifted in Rio, then, but it wasn’t unkind. “Seriously, Agatha, what were you thinking?” 

“What?” she replied, shaken from her stupor. 

“Why were you and Alice in wine country? And why were you driving that drunk?” Rio asked, fury and heartbreaking love swirling together in tandem. “You can’t– Agatha, you can’t do that. It’s one thing that you’re putting your own life at risk with the drugs and the partying, but now Alice, too? Where will it end?” 

Defensiveness bubbled in Agatha, but the guilt and sorrow tamped it down, pushed it away from where she could use it to bite back. “I’m out of control,” she admitted, letting that cold, horrible feeling wash over her. “Maybe I need help.” 

Rio nodded and rubbed Agatha’s back. “You do, mi amor . You can’t keep going like this, it isn’t sustainable. I can’t– I can’t lose you, not like this.” 

Agatha swallowed again, guilt roiling in her stomach. She knew exactly what Rio meant, exactly the promise she had made her all those years ago. Rio’s life had been marked by addiction, tainted and ruined time and time again because of her family. Of all of her siblings, she was one of the only ones who had actually made a name for themselves. Of the two who did make it, she was the only one who didn’t use drugs to get there. Sure, she indulged every so often, she was not immune to the pressures of it being available since she was in single digits, but Rio was the odd one out, she was the one who could live without it. But the pain of being loved by addicts, the trauma of being neglected in the name of pursuing a high, of being abused because of drug-induced rage– she wore it all heavily. 

When they met, she and Rio had been one and the same. Both liked to have fun, liked to let loose, maybe a little too much, but they mostly kept themselves together and didn’t need it to function. But as time went on and more were being thrust in their directions, Agatha fell down the rabbit hole, and Rio stayed ever the same. Maybe, even, she pulled further and further back because the gaping black hole that was Agatha and her mess left nothing for anyone else. 

“I made you a promise, Rio,” Agatha said, unsure of her convictions, unsure if she could deliver on the one thing Rio had ever asked of her. “I– I will try to get better. I’m going to try.” 

The words tasted like ash on her tongue, like a fire that had burnt to ruin. But what else could she do? This was her only option. 

Rio stopped rubbing Agatha’s back and wrapped her arm around her again, holding her so close. Warm lips brushed against her temple, welcoming her home into Rio’s dark, rich scent. It enveloped Agatha like a blanket, reminding her that this was her safe place, that this was the one person who was her calm in the storm. 

“Remember the facility you went to last year?” Rio asked, voice gentle and cautious. “It’s not too far from here, maybe we could get you a bed.” 

Agatha froze with Rio’s words, remembering the way she had been strong-armed into rehab the first time. Resentment still lingered in her despite the time that had passed. Her agency had been stripped from her, cornered and trembling by the people she trusted the most. 

“Rio…”

“Just hear me out, baby,” Rio said, resting her chin on Agatha’s shoulder as they sat together on the bed. “It’s completely your choice, no intervention this time. But we can’t keep going like this. I miss my wife. I miss our love. Don’t you miss when things weren’t like this?” 

“Weren’t like what?” 

Rio shifted carefully on the bed so that she could look at Agatha fully, holding her hand between them as her hip pressed against Agatha’s knee. 

“Sweetheart, when’s the last time we went three days without fighting?” Rio asked, squeezing her hand. “Hell, when’s the last time we made love?” 

“We just fucked in green room last night,” Agatha grumbled, furrowing her brow. 

“That’s not the same thing. When’s the last time you and I tumbled into a bed and touched each other just because we wanted to, not as a means to an end?” 

Agatha closed her eyes and let out a deep breath. Rio was right. She couldn’t remember the last time they had spent any quality time together that wasn’t tinged by anger or betrayal or hurt. 

“I miss you, too,” she admitted. “What if I say yes to rehab? What happens then? We’re still on tour. We haven’t been to Portland, Seattle, or Los Angeles. This is one of our tiny arena gigs. We still have stadiums to fill!” 

Rio shook her head and smiled affectionately, but sadly. “The tour has been cancelled.”

“Fuck, of course it was. I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking,” Agatha said, smacking herself in the forehead. Hadn’t Rio just told her about Alice? This was what everyone was talking about, wasn’t it? “Okay, so I just go? And that’s it?” 

“I will come to visit you as often as I can,” Rio promised, moving to sit in a chair near Agatha’s bed, almost-thirty not doing her back any favors. “We can talk about how long you’ll be gone, or you can just go in and stay until you and your team decide you’re ready to leave. It’s entirely up to you, princesa . I want it to work, I want it to be right for you.” 

Agatha nodded solemnly, reaching for Rio’s hand again, feeling empty without it. “You know I love you, right? Like, so incredibly much. You’re my entire world.” 

“I love you, too, Agatha,” Rio said with so much sincerity that it made Agatha’s chest ache. “I want to do life with you, I want to love you forever. Please, mi amor , please let me.” 

Her heart split wide open at Rio’s confession, at the way her wife so easily splayed herself open for Agatha. How could she say no to Rio, to the love of her life, to the one person who she knew would stand by her side no matter what? 

“Okay, you can call the rehab,” Agatha agreed, pulling Rio’s hand to her lips to kiss. “I’m so sorry I’ve done this.” 

Rio nodded and pulled out her phone. “We’re going to get you help, Agatha. You’ll have the biggest comeback of them all.” 

Agatha smiled at that, her wife knowing her so well. “I’m going to come home to you, my love.” 

With the car screeching to a halt, Agatha felt hands dropping onto her from all around– a gentle hand on her arm and a scarred hand on her shoulder. The touch was startling but familiar, surrounding Agatha with a warmth that was so foreign after all of these years. Both Alice and Rio, the two most devastated by Agatha’s destruction, were reaching for her in a moment that reminded them all of such a horrific experience. 

For just a moment, she let herself bask in their touch, but then shook Rio off and patted Alice in thankful dismissal. She didn’t deserve their kindness, not after everything that had happened. 

“Everyone okay back there?” Sharon asked, turning in her seat to check. Vague noises of assent echoed around the vehicle. “We’re almost there, just a couple more blocks. Sorry for this.” 

Agatha rubbed at her collarbone, the phantom pain of her accident wearing on her as the remnants of her panic, of her vivid memory, tried to clear from her mind. 

The radio station was exactly what she would have expected from an entity of Stark Records– or were they calling it Stark Industries now? Everything was ostentatious and of the highest technology possible. Even the interns were working on the newest company-issued MacBooks. Honestly, it made Agatha roll her eyes– it was all for show, and she knew it. 

“Agatha and The Orchids, how wonderful to have you!” the host said as she welcomed the band into the studio. “My name is Yelena, I’m sure you’ve met my sister Natasha?” 

“Oh, yes, she’s lovely,” Sharon said, ushering the band into their seats. She would sit in the back listening, ensuring everything went to plan. 

The band sat around a table, Agatha at one end and Jen at the other, Rio, Lilia, Alice, and Billy filling in the rest of the space. Across from them sat Yelena and her co-host Kate, pages of notes sitting in front of them. 

“And that was The Ballad of the Witches’ Road by Agatha and the Orchids, one of my favorite songs from recession-era pop,” Yelena said, making them all laugh. “You all had quite the formula back in the day. I feel like all of my best childhood memories were with your music playing in the background.” 

“Yes, remember the music video for Black Heart ?” Kate added, pointing between Rio and Agatha. “I think that was my gay awakening, if you know what I mean?” 

Agatha did a double-take at the host talking so freely on a huge radio station about queerness. Times really had changed. 

“Oh, that is one of my favorites,” Rio said, twirling some of her hair in the nervous way she always did during interviews. “We really were one of the only bands making music like that, then. And with Lady Gaga’s amazing music videos, we really were given such a wide range of sets and plots to work with to encapsulate the vision.”

“You really were able to showcase the reality of falling in love with another woman in that era. So much joy and passion and tension,” Yelena said, gesturing vaguely in the air. “But also the fear and the caution that you had to take. It’s bands like yours that helped pave the way for the amazing musicians we see today, like Chappell Roan and my personal favorite, MUNA.” 

“It was always important to us as a band to be our authentic selves to try and eliminate some of those barriers for the musicians that would come after us,” Agatha said, feeling emboldened as they spoke about the love song that she had written for Rio all those years ago. “It’s one of the most fulfilling things I have ever done in my life, and I think I can speak for us all when I say that being able to make a difference has been such an honor.” 

All the band members down the line nodded in agreement, even Jen. 

“Speaking of,” Kate continued, “I hear that you’re going on a reunion tour. Tell us more about that.” 

Lilia cleared her throat before she began speaking. “We’re going to be on the road all spring, summer, and into the fall for 40 dates around the U.S. and a few international stops. Speaking of your favorite, Yelena, we will be supported by MUNA, as well as Fightmaster, Fletcher, and Renee Rapp in rotation.”

“Wow, what an incredible selection of bands. Fightmaster isn’t a name I’ve heard. Tell us more about them,” Yelena prompted, Billy launching into a full explanation of how they had picked what acts to promote this tour. Thankfully, this was something that Agatha had been a part of, discussion-wise. She, actually, had been the one to suggest Fightmaster, a smaller band that she had fallen in love with when Nicky was small, after falling in love with them when Wanda would babysit and put on trash television. 

The conversation traversed quite a few tour-related topics between songs, which Agatha was relieved to only have input for a few of. This might be her band, but she still felt so out of her depth with all of this. 

Toward the end, though, the questions started skewing more and more in an uncomfortable direction, leaving Agatha on edge. 

“It’s truly such a blessing that you have pulled Agatha back out of retirement,” Yelena said to no one in particular, something unsettling in her tone. “Has it been hard coming back together after everything?” 

“Everything takes adjustment, no matter the history,” Rio said, trying to keep things neutral. “But we’ve found our stride in rehearsals, I think.” 

“And that must have been such a hard decision for you, Agatha,” Yelena pressed. “I know that after everything that’s come out about you and the end of the band, the media was relentless for a long time. I’m not sure that I would have dared to brave that kind of scrutiny again.” 

Agatha’s mind immediately went to those first few months after the divorce when the media had gotten ahold of the video footage of the fight between Agatha and Rio backstage after their last show. It wasn’t a good look for her, not at all. So, after the months of rehab, the weeks of court appearances to settle the dissolution of her marriage, all that time of the media just speculating about what happened because no one would give them an answer, TMZ leaked the video before Agatha could decide to come forward about anything herself. 

She didn’t know why no one else said anything, she didn’t know why Stark Records, itself, didn’t say anything. And because of the silence, once any hint as to what happened came out, the media and the public latched onto it like a dog with a bone. 

It started with an explosion– reporters flashing cameras in her face and surrounding her the moment she left the building where she signed her divorce papers. The noise was overwhelming as they shouted at her. What happened in there, Agatha? When is the band getting back together, Agatha? Do you regret everything now that you have nothing, Agatha? When did Rio really leave you? Is that why the band broke up? Are you still sober? Why didn’t you care enough to get sober when your wife still loved you? 

The attention that started that horrible, terrible day didn’t stop for almost a year. For the first months, paparazzi camped outside of her new home in Los Feliz, sometimes even climbing the fences to get a closer look. They infiltrated the neighborhood to the point that police had to set up barriers around her home, and her neighbors started harassing her for disrupting their peaceful, quiet neighborhood. Agatha couldn’t leave the house without an entourage following her and yelling at her like she was just a piece of meat. 

And social media? If she thought that the cameras in her face were bad, the things people would say on Twitter, on Instagram, hell, even YouTube comments were exponentially worse. She received death threats daily, she was called every name in the book, and torn apart piece by piece until she was shredded into nothingness. Her new address was doxxed, and her house was surrounded by angry fans, especially Rio defenders, which brought back the swarms of cameras to document in real-time the mob in Los Feliz demanding her retribution for destroying the world’s favorite rock band. 

Agatha couldn’t sleep. The screams leaked into the dead of night, and even when the crowds cleared, she could hear them. She could hear them chanting that she was responsible, that she ruined their lives, and that she should die. 

Agatha couldn’t eat. Every time she tried, it came back up, and she felt ill in the bathroom for hours. 

Her fingers twitched and her limbs ached as she craved the release of drugs. She had promised Rio she would try. But Rio wasn’t here, was she? She left Agatha to the wolves to fend for herself. So what did it matter if she did? Everyone wanted her dead, anyway, so what was stopping her from living her life the way she wanted to? 

After that first year, the attention slowly faded to what could be expected an A-list celebrity. But with every camera flash, with every shouted question, with every screaming fan (though their numbers were dwindling with Rio’s rise to success), she flinched, she prickled, she lived in abject terror all of the time. 

Because maybe this time they would mean it, and she wouldn’t get the choice to live another day. 

And so, Agatha drank. She drank and she drank and she drank until the vodka smell rolled off her in waves, until she could taste the liquor in her sweat, in her tears. It wasn’t enough, it was never enough, it never would be enough to make her forget, to make the violence in her mind silence itself into quiet. Then came the cocaine, the pills, the anything to make it stop hurting. 

It was a minor miracle that Agatha went on as long as she did without almost killing herself. 

But that was a memory for another day. 

So, she clenched her fists on the table and looked at Yelena in the eye as she said, “I don’t think this is any of your business.” 

“Oh, come on, Agatha, don’t you want to share your side of the story?” Yelena prodded, Kate looking at her with an air of concern. “I mean, we did already get to see how you handled it all. Maybe you could humanize for us the way you spun out after the band’s breakup. That was so embarrassing for you, wasn’t it? I don’t blame the band for not wanting you then.” 

Red hot seething rage boiled on Agatha’s skin, her face flaming with color. She looked down the line of faces next to her, waiting for them to say anything in her defense, for even one of them to say that they did want her. 

Nothing came. 

Not even Billy said a word. 

Fuck this. Fuck them. She didn’t need them. She didn’t need their god damn validation. She needed nothing from them or from fucking Stark Industries. 

“You think I’m the only one in this industry with problems like this?” Agatha seethed into the microphone. “What happens in my private life belongs to me. Not you and not any of the other cockroaches on the internet who made my life a living hell for years. I’m here because they asked me to be. So don’t get it fucking twisted. I’m done.” 

With that, Agatha stood from her seat in a huff of dramatic flair and stomped out of the room, fixing Sharon with a glare. Why didn’t she stop this before it could happen? Why wasn’t it in the script to leave Agatha’s past well and truly alone? 

Agatha felt like a god damned fool. She felt like an idiot for ever agreeing to do this. The signs had all been there that this was a bad idea, that something was wrong, that there was some kind of ulterior motive for them to bring her back. But she fell into their trap, enticed by the idea of getting to have it all, of getting to have this life back, of getting to have her music back. 

She made her way to a back alley behind the studio, far from prying eyes and cameras, and dialled her emergency contact, the one person she knew would show up for her no matter what. The phone rang and rang until she hit voicemail, making her sigh shakily. 

“Hey Wanda, it’s me. Can you come get me from downtown? I, uh, I know you’re close by. Please.” 

Agatha dropped Wanda a pin of her location and then tucked herself into a shadowy corner, hoping to stay out of sight. But before she could get herself into some semblance of comfort, the emergency stairwell door banged open against the back wall, and Rio came rushing out, searching frantically for Agatha. 

Why was it her who came looking? Why was it always fucking her?

“Agatha, I know you’re out here,” Rio called out, still looking up and down the alley. “Please, we just want to talk.” 

Out of breath and considerably more slowly, the rest of the band came out of the stairwell. 

“Why the fuck didn’t we say anything?” Billy panted, hands on his knees. “Christ, she’s probably long gone.” 

“You know why,” Jen hissed. “We just need to find her.” 

They know why? What was that supposed to mean? 

Just then, the flash of LED headlights turned down the alleyway as a familiar Audi came screeching to a halt in front of the crowd of musicians. Wanda. Wanda was here. 

A flurry of red hair came bolting out of the driver’s seat, and there was an anger on Wanda’s face that Agatha had never seen before. 

“What the fuck did you do?” she seethed, getting up close and personal with everyone standing the group, leaving them no room to breathe. “I thought I told you that this could not happen again.” 

The last comment was directed more to Billy, the understanding between mother and son was deeper and richer than it could ever be with the rest of the band that had abandoned them. 

“It–It wasn’t supposed to! We agreed–” Billy cried, his voice filled with panic. “That wasn’t– she went rogue! Yelena went rogue!” 

God, how much of Agatha’s return had been prescribed by everyone in this band except for her? Did she even have any say at all in her own fate? 

Agatha stood from where she was hiding and crossed to the crowd with a confidence and a fury that hell hath none to compete. 

“What exactly is going on here?” Agatha demanded, looking at the crowd of faces that seemed more relieved than frightened to see her again. “And don’t feed me some fucking bullshit again. I want the truth.” 

The band exchanged nervous glances, as if they were deciding what to tell her. It wasn’t a long pause, but it was enough to keep Agatha’s anger at a rolling boil. 

“Fucking tell me!” 

Of course, Rio would be the one to step forward first, hands up in apology. “That wasn’t planned, Agatha. Please. You have to know that we wouldn’t corner you like that.” 

A well-deserved snort of disbelief came from Agatha, then. “Do I? Do I know that you wouldn’t corner me like that? It seems like that’s all you did for the last year of the band was corner me and make me feel fucking insane.” 

“Things were different then,” Alice said, piping up from where she stood next to Jen. “You’re not, you’re not the same person as you were before.” 

“Damn right I’m not the same person! I’ve been sober for almost seven years. Seven years . Do you know how hard it is to stay sober for that long? To never once relapse in all of that time? And yet all of you are still treating me like a goddamned addict! Like one wrong glance and I’m going to start twitching and spouting off reasons why you should give me money to go buy more fucking blow.”

The rage that had been thinly veiled was on full display for everyone to see. Agatha wasn’t holding back, she wasn't going to let this happen again, she wasn’t going to cower away as they tried to humiliate her. No, she was going to stand her ground and it was going to feel damn good, too. 

“Agatha, we don’t see you like that,” Lilia tried. “This is an adjustment for all of us. We got this one wrong.” 

“This one? You got this one wrong?” Agatha hissed, taking a step back from them all to get a better look. “You’ve been getting this wrong for a fucking decade. So you know what happened when you all went silent? When you all left me to fend for myself? They threatened to kill me!” 

“We all get death threats, Agatha. That’s the nature of the job,” Jen said, always sliding in to kick her when she’s down. “You’re not the only one who was hurt in all of this. We all were, and we did what we could with the resources we had. You have to know that. “

“Well, if that was your best, it isn’t fucking good enough,” Agatha said in a laugh. “I can’t keep doing this. I won’t keep doing this with you. I have too much at stake.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rio asked, looking Agatha up and down as she regarded her. It wasn’t said aloud, but Agatha heard the rest anyway— you’re the only one of us with nothing left to lose . 

Defensiveness broke through every barrier in Agatha’s mind, the bear in her screaming to lash out, to fight tooth and nail. 

“It means that I won’t subject my son to the fucking vultures that you all left to pick me apart until I was nothing but a fucking carcass!” she yelled, the entire group going deadly silent. “I let this consume me once because on some fucked up level I knew I deserved it. But Nicky doesn’t. He is the sweetest, gentlest, most beautiful little boy, and I won’t let you ruin him like you ruined me. I’m done.” 

“Agatha…” Rio whispered, reaching out for her. “We didn’t– I didn’t know.” 

Another humorless laugh dropped from Agatha’s lips. “You shouldn’t have needed to, to treat me like an equal or even like a human being who deserved the bare fucking minimum of respect.” 

“Please, let us fix this,” Lilia pleaded, eyes watery with unshed tears. “It doesn’t have to be like this.” 

Agatha shook her head. “No fucking way. I don’t know what your prerogative is here, what all of this has been about, but I don’t like it. I don’t like any of this or who any of you have become.”

“Let us explain–” Rio started, but Agatha held up a hand, silencing her. “I don’t want to hear it. No explanation necessary. This isn’t the family I thought it was. It’s okay. I don’t love you, either.” 

The lies were acrid on Agatha’s tongue. She needed to say something, anything, to make them hurt as much as she was, to make them regret as much as she did. Rio’s face dropped along with everyone else’s, and Agatha took that as her cue to leave. 

“Please take me home, Wanda,” she said before climbing into the passenger seat, leaving The Orchids in stunned silence as they pulled away and drove back to Los Feliz. 

The drive back to Agatha’s mansion was silent, not even the stereo making a sound as the drive through the traffic and into the hills of the LA neighborhoods. Agatha tapped her fingers along the door frame, fingering the lip where the window could retreat to let fresh air in. But she wouldn’t, she needed both of them to rot in the stagnant air of what had just happened. 

As Wanda pulled into Agatha’s driveway and threw the car into park, Agatha finally broke the silence. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t believe you sent me into the lion’s den,” she said, low and precise. 

Wanda closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath. “Because I didn’t know this would happen,” she said. “There’s… there’s a lot more at stake here than I think anyone ever told you. More than even I know. I wasn’t one of you, I didn’t get to be part of the NDAs. But Billy’s heart was pure, and so was Lilia’s, that much I know for certain. I don’t… I don’t think it’s The Orchids that are the problem.” 

Agatha scoffed. Of course. “Can’t you just own up to a mistake for once in your life?” 

“What is that supposed to mean?” 

The defensive, angry tension in Agatha was burbling over, casting a black sludge over everything she touched, over every word she said. She didn’t even know if she meant any of it, but it came pouring out of her anyway. 

“That you got this one wrong. Billy lied to you and you believed him because he’s your golden child who can do no wrong,” Agatha said, not yet regretting a single word she was saying. “Would you have sent Tommy back?” 

Wanda froze in her seat. Agatha crossed a line, and she knew it. She knew it, and she wasn’t going to back down. 

“Leave him out of this,” Wanda said, gripping the steering wheel harder and looking straight ahead. “This has nothing to do with Tommy.” 

“What? Can’t face the consequences of your own actions?” Agatha taunted, cracking the toothpicks that held their science project bridge together that Wanda had built so painstakingly over the years. “He was never the same, was he? I know why Vision became a mental health and addictions counselor. You both just hope that one day your vagrant little boy will come home and ask for help, don’t you?”

“Agatha, stop. You’re just angry. You don’t mean this,” Wanda said, keeping herself together only by a thread. 

Tommy was a sore subject for Wanda, Billy’s twin who got lost in the money and the fame and got sucked into the appeal of drugs just like Agatha had. Billy excelled; he soared high above the clouds and left his twin brother to grovel in the dirt like the dirty shame that he was. Life in Hollywood, in the 1%, was more pressure than could have ever been handled by kids, and Wanda knew as well as Agatha that she could have and should have done more to protect both of them. They had bonded over it in those early years as Wanda tried to earn Agatha’s trust. When Nicky was born, Wanda took to him so easily, and Agatha started to understand that there were moving pieces at play that she had no control over that led Tommy down the wrong path. 

But either way, Agatha was raging, and this was an easy, soft spot to dig her teeth into. 

“Maybe. But what I do know is that you’ve made me your pet project, your broken little woman to fix and make shiny and new again,” Agatha said, relenting only a little because she couldn’t stomach the thought of bringing Tommy any further into this. She was a mother, too. “You can’t fix me, Wanda. You never could. The only reason I’m not six feet in a grave with Stevie Nicks’ sinuses is because of that little boy in there. I was never meant to be Agatha Harkness again. I was never meant to have everything I wanted. I’m Nicky’s mom, and that’s all I will be for the rest of my life. It’s time you stopped trying.” 

Wanda sighed once more, pinching the bridge of her nose. “If that’s what you want, Agatha.” 

“It is. That’s what I want,” Agatha reaffirmed, ignoring the way her stomach squirmed. It was about time that she finally gave up on Agatha. There was nothing left to salvage and the radio host today, the band’s silence, all of it pointed to her being a lost cause, forever the Agatha Harkness who was too high and almost killed her best friend. 

Agatha opened the door and stepped out, nearly shutting the door behind her when Wanda croaked out, “Am I still taking Nicky tomorrow?” 

Perhaps Wanda had broken Agatha’s trust, perhaps they were standing in quicksand about to be sucked under, but Agatha would never take this from her son. 

“Of course, you’ve never been anything but perfect with him,” Agatha said, some of her anger finally dissipating. “He loves you.”

“I love him, too.” Wanda finally turned to look at Agatha again. “And I love you, Agatha. You’re my sister.” 

Agatha pressed her lips into a thin line and nodded, not able to say the words back. Everything felt so overwhelming, much too swollen to let even a fraction of her true, vulnerable self out. 

“I will see you tomorrow.” 

Up the driveway and through the front door, Agatha shed herself of her jacket and shoes, listening for the sound of her son’s giggles. As if on cue, a loud, shrieking laugh echoed through the halls, one that she knew he only let loose when his hearing aids weren’t in. It made her smile to hear him so openly joyful, so sweet and giggly. 

Agatha climbed the stairs until she found Nicky and his nanny, Maggie, playing with blocks in his toy room, signing manically at each other, telling each other stories. She stepped with extra force into the room, catching both of their attention, and waved. Nicky’s face lit up even more, and he ran into her legs for a hug. Without missing a beat, she swept him up into her arms, resting him on her hip.

“I’m back early, you can go home, if you’d like,” she signed to the nanny. Agatha had hired her intentionally because she was deaf to teach Nicky how to sign fluently. Though she didn’t have many work engagements over the years, she made it a point to have Maggie around often so that Nicky would learn– and Agatha, too. 

“Sure, Ms. Harkness,” Maggie replied, standing up easily before signing to Nicky, “We will finish this story next time, okay? I need to know what happens to Buzz Lightyear in space.” 

Nicky nodded and gave Maggie a high-five before burrowing into Agatha’s neck for a cuddle. He was a sensitive little boy, always so in tune with his mom’s emotions. 

“Mama sad?” he asked, wrapping his arms around her tightly. 

Agatha swallowed and carried him down the stairs, heading for the living room. “Yeah, Mama is sad today, my baby.” 

Nicky frowned and then kissed his mom’s cheek. “We can watch Encanto?” 

This startled a laugh out of Agatha. Of course, he would recommend Encanto, he had been obsessed with it for so long when he was 5. “Yeah, we can watch Encanto.” 

“Good, it will make you smile,” Nicky said, squirming to be let down. 

Agatha sat Nicky on his feet and watched as he bounded into their cozy living room, pulling his dinosaur blanket and her witch blanket out of the basket in the corner, setting Agatha’s in the corner of the L-shaped sectional and his right in front. 

“Do you want popcorn?” she asked, waving her hand to get his attention before signing to him. She knew that he could hear okay without his hearing aids in, but she never wanted to take chances. It would hurt her heart if Nicky ever felt like she was purposefully trying to ignore his disability or make him struggle unduly. 

Nicky’s smile brightened and he nodded. Something caught Agatha’s eye and she drew closer, getting on her knees to pull Nicky in front of her. 

“Mamaaaa,” Nicky whined, but let her pull him by his shoulders anyway. 

“Smile for me, my love,” Agatha said, tears springing in her eyes when he did. “Honey, is your tooth loose?” 

Nicky poked at one of his bottom teeth and gasped when it moved. It had been sitting crooked in his mouth, which was what caught Agatha’s attention, and he managed to push it back in place. 

“Mama! I’m going to lose a tooth!” he cried excitedly. “Does this mean the Tooth Fairy will come?” 

Agatha laughed at Nicky’s enthusiasm and ruffled his hair as she stood. “When it falls out, we will put it under your pillow and hopefully the Tooth Fairy will bring you a gift!” 

Something mischievous glinted in Nicky’s eyes, but Agatha knew her boy well enough that she would have to wait until whatever plan he was hatching was in action to ask any questions and expect real answers. 

So, instead, Agatha made her way to the kitchen to pop some popcorn and grab a sparkling water for herself and a juice for Nicky. He was partial to apple these days, but who knew how long that would last with that kid. 

“Ah ha!” Nicky exclaimed from the other room, and Agatha gathered up the bowl and their drinks to investigate. 

“What’s up, squirt?” she asked as soon as a hand was free. If it were any other kid, she would have just yelled from the kitchen, but she liked that she had to come to Nicky to talk to him when his hearing aids weren’t in. 

“I did it!” he said, bloody mouth on full display as he smiled widely. 

And Agatha be damned, there was a gap where a tooth had just been. 

“Did it hurt? It didn’t look ready to come out yet, baby,” Agatha worried, reaching for a tissue in the box on the coffee table to clean up his face. 

“I was ready to see the Tooth Fairy!” he said simply, as if there was no other answer. Agatha shook her head affectionately at her chaotic little boy. 

“Well, she won’t come unless you’re asleep, so you can’t see her,” Agatha said, making Nicky pout. “Why don’t we take your tooth up to your room to keep it safe, huh?” 

Nicky thought for a moment before nodding and running up the stairs, a happy giggle on his lips. Agatha followed dutifully, helping him rinse off his tooth and then place it on his bedside table. 

“Okay, don’t move it until bedtime, okay? We will put it under your pillow together.” 

On the way out of the room, Nicky hesitated before grabbing his hearing aids and putting them in. 

“You know you don’t have to wear those, right, baby? Mama has her earplugs,” Agatha said as they settled into the couch, her nestled firmly in the corner and Nicky pulled up against her chest, bracketed by her legs. Only one blanket was draped over their laps, Agatha’s purple one propping up the popcorn bowl next to them because Nicky couldn’t be trusted to hold it with how squirmy he was. 

“Yeah, but you’re sad, so I want you to be comfy,” Nicky said, pressing back against Agatha until she wrapped her arms around his belly and kissed his head. “That’s what love is, right?”

Tears sprang in Agatha’s eyes at Nicky’s words, falling even more in love with the sweet, kind, thoughtful little boy she was raising. He was everything to Agatha, her entire world. Nothing could ever compare to the amount of love she felt for this boy, this tiny human with her cheekbones and her dimpled smile. 

“I love you so much, Nicholas,” she said, feeling overwhelmed by her emotions, feeling so grateful for him. “As long as I have you, I will be the happiest person in the world.” 

Agatha pressed play on the movie and sat happily as Nicky danced and sang along to the movie they had seen so many times before. In this moment, with her son happy and healthy in her arms, none of it mattered. He was safe and he was warm and he was singing at the top of his lungs. In the pocket of her jacket was a portrait drawn by his own little hands with wide, happy smiles. Tonight, she would break out the sparkles and gel pens to write him a note from the Tooth Fairy, accompanied by a $5 bill. How could she ever ask for more? 

Chapter Text

Agatha felt weary down to her bones. After weeks of navigating the landmines laid for her with the band, the tour, the documentary, she felt like she had been wrung dry. She watched from the window, blanket wrapped around her shoulders, as Wanda backed out of her driveway with Nicky tucked in the backseat, jabbering away about their trip to the aquarium. The dreary February sky mocked her as her reflection came into focus against the onslaught of grey skies and drizzling rain.

She looked terrible. 

Her eyes were still red-rimmed and puffy from her late-night crying. With the Tooth Fairy’s note to keep her mind occupied, she had lasted well into the night before her walls finally crumbled around her. Agatha, for all of her strength, felt like she had just fought the losing battle in a war she never should have started. Her muscles felt heavy and laden with molasses, her lungs filled with water threatening to rip her apart and make her drown.

Agatha had often pondered what would be the most painful way to die– by flame, by water, crushed or flayed, or even betrayed by one’s own body. She had toed the line more than she cared to admit, her recklessness taking her into the depths of despair and back again to live another day. Sometimes, she wished her recklessness had taken her a step too far, but now she had a reason to feel blessed that something, somewhere, knew that her story wasn’t finished. 

Today, despite it all, was one of those days. 

Exhausted and spent, nursing a cup of tea under the cover of Nicky’s dinosaur blanket, Agatha couldn’t bring herself to regret any of it. She had caused so much pain to so many people; she had punished herself for so long, had let the violence of others wreak havoc on her life out of some misguided notion that she deserved it. But after spending so long fighting against the raging, molten lava trying to suffocate her from the inside out, against the hunger that ached in her throat for just one more hit, she was still regarded the same. 

Yelena and her pointed, hideous questions broke something in Agatha yesterday. 

But she was not breaking apart, she was breaking free. 

There was no amount of atonement Agatha could do that would ever satisfy them . The band, the media, the fans, they would always see Agatha as the strung-out, one-person wrecking ball she was a decade ago, and there was nothing she could do to change that. 

And, it was damn time she stopped trying. 

What was the best-case scenario here? That she crawled on her hands and knees for years, apologizing and self-flagellating until she was raw and wounded for the world to see? It obviously didn’t matter that she had changed, that she had grown, had learned from her mistakes. If they couldn’t mock her and humiliate her, profiting off of her pain, it was never going to be enough.

Starting today, she was releasing the chains she had tied herself up in, setting free any belief she held that her worthiness was still hinging on her ability to make up for all of the things she had broken. 

Today, Agatha Harkness was ready to find the life where her fulfillment was not dependent on her redemption.

A knock at the door startled the tired woman from her musings. 

“You can still use your key, Wanda,” she called out, assuming Nicky had forgotten something. 

The knock resounded again, and Agatha threw off the blanket from her lap, huffing as she went to answer the door. Fuck, she needed to fix things with Wanda. 

But as she opened the door, it wasn’t Nicky or Wanda waiting for her but all five members of The Orchids staring at her with hesitant, pleading faces. 

“Oh hell no,” she said, already moving to slam the door shut. 

Perfectly manicured, black fingernails slid between the door and the frame, halting it with a strong grip before it could shut completely. She would know those hands anywhere. 

“Please, just hear us out,” Lilia tried, her voice echoing through the crack. “If you still want us gone after we have a conversation, we promise to leave you alone.” 

A black, leather boot slid into the doorjamb to replace Rio’s precariously close-to-crushed fingers, keeping the door propped open. 

“Why should I?” Agatha barked back, already frustrated with the whole scenario. “None of you have bothered to give me the same courtesy.” 

“We know and we’re so sorry for that,” Alice added from somewhere Agatha could not see. When she peered out the crack, she was met with none other than her ex-wife, who seemed to immediately scan her features for any clue as to what she was thinking. “Please, Agatha. Please let us in.” 

Agatha weighed her options, wanting more than anything to slam the door in their faces and tell them never to come back. But as she looked at Rio, she saw a spark there that she hadn’t seen in so long that she almost didn’t recognize it– she knew by it, alone, that they weren’t going to leave her porch until they were dragged from it to make things right. 

She pressed her lips in a flat line and closed her eyes, forcing a sigh through her nose. When she looked back up, she opened the door just enough to get a good look at the group standing on the porch. Rio had a stuffed otter in her arms, Alice had what looked like a casserole dish, and Billy had her favorite brand of sparkling grape juice– the latter nearly making her laugh at the absurdity of it all. 

What kind of wine do you bring to someone in recovery? 

“Breakfast, mimosas, and a toy for my child?” she asked, eyeing them warily. “Is that your master plan?” 

“No, but we hope it’s our ticket in the door,” Jen said, surprising Agatha. “So, can we?” 

Agatha contemplated for another long moment. She was done. She was so completely and entirely done with all of this. She should shut the door even if they will wait out there all night. 

But wouldn’t it be nice to know the truth? 

And she knew Alice’s “Breakfast Glop” was to die for…

“Fuck, fine,” she relented, stepping back to allow them to enter. “Coats and shoes here, please. Billy, take them to the sitting room.”

In Agatha’s massive house with too many rooms, she kept everything important tucked away from sight. The kitchen overlooked the backyard, the living room, and the staircase attached to its walls. In the center was a large entryway with a chandelier and doorways in every direction. To the west was her music wing, and the west, a large room with too many windows and even more furniture that she affectionately called her terrarium. It was mostly for show, a haunted room for cameras to gawk into, unable to see past its doorway because of how the home was situated on its hill. 

Today would be the first time since Nicky was born that she closed the blinds.

There were no cameras outside today, a small victory considering the outburst she had on the radio show. So, she took her time grabbing plates and forks from the kitchen, straightening the pillows in the living room on her way, and picking specs of dust off the dining room table. Once she felt herself grounded, her breathing even, she took the dishware into the sitting room, not saying a word. 

Agatha silently placed her items on the coffee table, and then, one by one, she closed the gauzy curtains, obscuring them all from view. Still, shreds of light filtered into the room from the overcast sky. 

Seemingly on purpose, they had all gathered on one side of the room, leaving Agatha on the other to sit alone. It felt like she was the only soldier on her side of the war, enemies heading for her straight-on with no attempts at merciful evasion. No, they would come at her full force, leaving her to sink or swim. 

She waited patiently, watching as they squirmed under her watchful gaze. Her arms crossed over her chest, legs crossed at the knees, leaning forward as far as she could comfortably, protecting her softest flesh from attack. Agatha refused to be the first person to make a move. 

Billy’s knee started to bounce after 30 seconds, Lilia and Alice’s gazes immediately flicking to the movement and then at each other. Rio, tucked into the corner of a couch, had both of her knees pulled up to her chest– a pose that made Agatha’s chest ache with familiarity. Memories of Rio curling into the corner of the couch they shared year after year, waiting to be unfurled by Agatha’s loving touch, felt like a hot branding iron in her chest. 

“I– I don’t know where to start,” Billy admitted, surprising Agatha by being the first to speak. 

Agatha quirked an eyebrow at him, still not saying a word but communicating her displeasure clearly. 

“We have so much we need to discuss, but I think I need to go first,” he continued, wringing his hands in his lap, knee still bouncing. “I know if I hadn’t asked, you wouldn’t be in this position in the first place, and I feel terribly about it.” 

A deep breath sucked through Agatha’s nose, releasing from her mouth. Billy’s complicity in all of this couldn’t possibly be overstated. Without him and his pleading words and empty promises, Agatha would still be blissfully ignorant of all the pain that a dream that used to be the key to her vitality had woven in its very fabric. Without his intervention, she would still be daydreaming of the life she used to live with rose-colored glasses, knowing that she destroyed her own happiness, and surviving the consequences. 

“Agatha, I am so deeply sorry that I let this happen. I– I knew more than I let on, and I encouraged you to sign onto something not knowing the full picture, and that will never be okay. Things have gotten worse than I ever anticipated, and I promise that I would have never knowingly brought you back into something that would treat you like a piece of meat for the lion’s den. But I did know that Stark planned to try to milk our reunion for shock value to a certain extent, and I should have been brave enough to tell you.” 

Billy’s last statement intrigued Agatha– what did he mean by “be brave enough”? She began to tap the pads of her fingers against her thumbs, one after the other, grounding herself with the catch of a fingernail on each upstroke. The dull, scraping pain kept her mind grounded as the insidious thoughts that had always plagued her started to claw at the edges of her consciousness. Had the media storm always been intentional? Did Stark destroy her on purpose?

“After everything you have seen, everything that you and your mother have been through with me, I am absolutely astounded that you broke that trust,” Agatha said, speaking for the first time in minutes. “Why would you invite me to something to be exploited on any level?” 

Billy rubbed at the back of his neck and looked to Lilia, who only nodded solemnly, giving her permission for something Agatha couldn’t decipher. 

“There are a lot of things at play here, and I promise we will explain all of it, but this whole thing started because Lilia is sick, Ag,” Billy admitted, sending a shockwave of hurt into Agatha’s stomach. She frantically looked to Lilia, to the only mother figure she had really ever known, tears stinging in her eyes. 

“We– we don’t know as much as we would like to,” Lilia said, leaning forward on the couch, bringing herself closer to enemy lines. “I could have years and years, or I couldn’t.”

“What is it?” Agatha asked, sharper than she intended, but the fear creeping up her throat was breaking every ounce of restraint she had. 

“Multiple myeloma,” she answered easily, as if she had been practicing with a cool detachment. “Some people live for years with treatment when it’s caught early. I don’t know if we caught it early enough to matter.” 

“How are you going to go on a fucking reunion tour while on chemo, Lilia? Your body will be fighting for its life, and you’re going to go into arenas with thousands of germy bodies every night? Instead of resting?”

Agatha could feel her blood pressure rising with every passing second, protective anger surging through her body. How could Lilia be so reckless? 

“It’s not like that,” Lilia reassured her, finally reaching across the divide to hold her hand. Agatha couldn’t tear her eyes away from the way their hands slid together like a promise, like an echo of a bond that should have never been broken. “There are a lot of other treatments we are trying before resorting to chemotherapy. I’m on a few different milder side effect drugs right now that seem to be keeping everything at bay.” 

“Oh god, that’s why you looked like death at rehearsal, isn’t it?” 

“Yes, I was having bad pain that morning, but I was able to take some medicine to help. It’s not unmanageable right now, which I’m thankful for.”

Agatha looked up into Lilia’s dark eyes again, searching them for answers to a hundred questions she could never truly ask. 

“Were you ever going to tell me?” she asked, voice small and feeling that same worthless feeling she had been harboring for weeks with all of the secrecy. “Why does it seem like I was the only one not to know?” 

Lilia closed her eyes and took a deep breath, steadying herself like this was the question she was dreading the most. “I didn’t want it to impact your decision. You needed to decide to join us for yourself, and I didn’t want your guilt or a sense of impending doom to color your feelings. Because things aren’t dire, I promise I wouldn’t be doing all of this if it was.” 

“But what if it does become dire? What if you go on this tour and run yourself ragged, and it kills you, Lilia? I–I just got you back, I can’t lose you,” Agatha pleaded, not caring how ridiculous she looked. This was Lilia, the woman who loved her more than her own mother ever could have, who taught her so much about life and love, and who she pushed away almost violently as she self-destructed. 

God, she was never going to get those years back that she kept Lilia at arm’s length. The list of Agatha’s regrets was multiplying by the second, and she couldn’t pretend that her stomach wasn’t roiling with the idea that she put this distance between herself and Lilia.

“Hey, enough of that, darling girl,” Lilia chided, more tender than Agatha had ever seen her be with her. “I’m okay. I’m not going anywhere. I have a care team coming on tour with us. This is what I want. I want to do this beautiful, amazing thing with my family again before my body decides that I can’t.”

A wave of emotions swirled in Agatha at Lilia’s admission. How could she deny Lilia this tour now? How could she possibly say no? Nausea crept up her throat, rumbling low in her stomach and making her arms ache as she held herself.

“I–I don’t know if I can give you this, Lilia,” Agatha said, voicing her hesitation instead of internalizing it. She wouldn’t be pushed around, she wouldn’t be manipulated again. “This broke me the first time and it’s damn near doing it again. I can’t win this fight. I’m completely alone in a room full of all of you, and I won’t threaten my family’s life over this band.” 

The group all nodded sadly, understanding exactly what she was saying. 

“We don’t want you to be alone,” Alice said as Lilia released Agatha’s hands, sitting back on the couch with an almost imperceptible wince that Agatha would have never noticed before but certainly did now. “That’s why we’re here. We want to show you that we’re here, that things are going to change.” 

Agatha scoffed. “Those are pretty words. Give me one reason why I should believe you after the way you’ve hung me out to dry again and again since coming back.” 

“I meant what I said in Maria’s office,” Rio said, finally chiming in from her cocoon. “I don’t want to fight dirty with you, and neither do the rest of us.”

“Do I need to repeat myself?” Agatha hissed, her annoyance climbing out of the trenches of the bone-aching sadness from Lilia’s confession. 

“No, but I want to show you something,” Rio said, untucking her legs from under her chin and pulling out her phone. She tapped on it a few times until something crackled to life. Yelena’s questioning started to echo through the tiny speakers. 

“I’m not listening to this,” Agatha asserted, reaching to pull the phone from Rio’s hands and shut it off. 

“Just wait,” Rio replied, snatching her phone away before Agatha could get a good grip on it. 

“ No. Stop. Who are you to question Agatha like this? Who are you to have any opinion on what that woman has gone through to get here today? She’s sober, and she’s working harder than anyone in this room to reclaim something we stole from her. You can go fuck yourself.”

Agatha’s jaw dropped as she listened to her ex-wife defend her against Yelena, able to hear the way her chair slammed into the table and the squeak of her shoes as she ran after her. She didn’t know what to think of it, she didn’t know how to process that for the first time in ten years, someone cared enough to say anything to protect her. 

“Why now?” she asked, fingers tapping against her lips as she trembled. Something frightened in her was coming to life as she heard the words she had begged a god she knew didn’t exist for, in the dead of night, year after year, high after high. “It doesn’t matter now, does it? The damage has already been done.” 

Rio looked uncomfortable as she made eye contact with the others before crossing the divide and coming to sit next to Agatha on her couch. The older woman froze, muscles stiff and holding her breath. Long, manicured fingers twitched in Rio’s lap as she reached for Agatha, pulled back, and gripped her pants. 

“I know I have no right to ask this of you, but may I touch you?” Rio asked, gentle and hesitant. 

Agatha was taken aback by the request. She looked at Rio. She looked, and looked, and looked. She watched her for so long that she watched as Rio deflated, as she bit her lip, as she closed her eyes and hung her head in defeat, as she pushed forward. 

“Yes,” she replied just before Rio could speak, seeing something in Rio that felt like vulnerability, that tasted like truth on her tongue. “I don’t mind.” 

She wished that her own words felt real as she said them. The reality was that she did mind; the idea of having Rio’s purposeful touch on her skin, on her clothes, on her body in any meaningful capacity after all of these years felt impossible. The hatred, the longing, the love, the anger, all of it sat so precariously under the surface, under Agatha’s cool exterior, and one wrong move and it would all explode from her like a long-dormant volcano. 

But, she let Rio touch her anyway. She let Rio tentatively take her hand, and her breath caught in her throat. Her skin was still so soft, the tips of her fingers rough from years of playing her guitar. Rio pulled her hand to her face, pressing her fingers right to the point where bone met the soft, warm apple of her cheek. 

Agatha’s jaw tightened. She knew what this was. And, she knew that whatever Rio was going to tell her was going to be horrible. 

Rio had a tell, one that she could never train away entirely. When she lied, a muscle in her cheek twitched. Over the years, it lessened and wasn’t visible to someone who didn’t know where to look, but Agatha knew that it was still there, that she would still be able to feel it. 

The way she held Rio’s cheek could have been intimate, it could have been tender or even loving, but it wasn’t. It was her insurance policy. It was Rio’s way of promising that she wasn’t going to lie, not this time. 

“Do you remember the aftermath of your accident with Alice?” Rio started, fighting to keep eye contact with her ex-wife. 

“Of course I do,” Agatha said, furrowing her brow. “You leaving me was not exactly something I could forget.” 

Rio winced. “Okay, I deserved that. But do you remember what I said?” 

Carmen is more important to me than anything, Agatha. And if I can’t fight for her safety as your wife, then I can’t be your wife anymore.

“Yes, I remember every word,” Agatha admitted. It was a memory that played on repeat in her mind more often than she cared to admit. 

“Stark is the reason you weren’t charged with the felony,” Rio said after a pause. “You were supposed to be arrested and put on trial, and sent to prison. They were going to make an example of you.”

“What? How is that even possible?” Agatha asked, feeling nothing but the smooth path of muscles moving as Rio spoke, not a twitch or tremor in sight. “They can’t stop something like that.” 

Alice spoke up, then, drawing Agatha’s attention from her ex-wife. “It’s Hollywood, and Tony Stark is a billionaire. He can do whatever he wants, and that includes paying off the Napa Valley police and California State Police to keep you out of trouble.” 

“What does that have to do with all of this?” Agatha went to pull her hand back from Rio’s face but Rio held her there firmly, not letting her move. 

“The stipulation was that if he rescues you, the rest of us had to sign iron-clad NDAs that we would never discuss the end of The Orchids again, which included defending you in the media,” Rio said, a guilt washing over her face that settled like stone. “It was the hardest thing I have ever done.” 

Agatha did pull her hand away, then, still processing everything. “Who gives a fuck? Why didn’t you just let me get arrested? You left me to drown anyway, so what did it matter?” 

“Because of Carmen,” Rio said, sending a chill down Agatha’s spine in waves. “He said that if we didn’t make this go away while you were still my wife, I would never get her back. And I believed him. I needed him, I needed his lawyers, I needed his resources to fight for my sister. So I let him, no matter the cost.” 

Maybe Agatha had been the one to let them in the door, maybe she had been the one curious enough to ask for answers, but now that she had them, pain rippled through her in a way it hadn’t since the first time she realized that the love of her life would never choose her first. She looked around the room at all of the solemn faces. 

“And what about the rest of you? What did he hold over you?” she hissed, moving away from Rio but not demanding that she leave her side. 

“It was an all-or-nothing deal, Agatha,” Jen said, joining the conversation for the first time at the most inconvenient time. “We– we couldn’t let you go to jail. And we couldn’t let Rio lose Carmen.” 

“But didn’t she lose Carmen anyway? Isn’t that part of the reason you hate me? Because after ten years, she’s still fighting for her?”

Jen had the humility to suck in a breath. “We should have never said those things to you. It’s not your fault. It’s the broken system, Rio’s horrible fucking parents, her brother’s money, all of it. We thought signing onto this meant she would get Carmen back in a year, maybe two max. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” 

Agatha felt her emotions stop in their tracks. There was something there, something lacing underneath Jen’s words, under Rio’s words, a current running through all of them, if she was looking hard enough. Stark Records had a hold on all of them, didn’t it? The dots started to connect in her mind, point to point to point, and it all started to string together in her mind like a web. 

“So, to be clear,” Agatha said, pointing amongst them. “You hung me out to dry to keep me out of prison and then kept it going because Daddy Stark promised to get your sister back?” 

Rio nodded. 

“But you haven’t gotten your sister back, so I assume that’s still something dangling over your head. So when he heard about Lilia’s little pipe dream of getting the band back together because she’s sick, he pulled all the right strings until all of us were back under his control.” 

Rio nodded again. Agatha blinked slowly and tapped her finger against her chin, blowing air through her lips. 

“But that doesn’t answer how he got the rest of you,” Agatha said, looking at Alice, Jen, and Billy all sitting in a line on the couch. “You’re still a studio cat for him, so he probably just played the contract card. And let me guess, he’s a stakeholder in your little foundation, and it would only take a nudge from someone acting on behalf of your own personal bank account to join, yes? But you, you’ve got it all outside of here. The husband, the shiny new acting career, family planning, house in the hills, what could you possibly be missing that he could exploit?” 

A warning look flashed in Billy’s eyes, and Agatha knew that she was treading in dangerous territory. 

“Why can’t the reason just be that I missed it?” Billy asked, challenging Agatha and her slow descent into the cold, calculating strategist she had always been. Once upon a time, she could see all the angles, play all of her cards until she got exactly what she wanted.

Once upon a time, she knew the worst insecurities of every person in this room and wouldn’t hesitate to play on them to ensure she got back out on top. 

But she remembered her fight with Wanda, of that horrible feeling that she got when she brought up Tommy. There was no doubt in her mind that Tommy had something to do with Billy’s return, if not directly, then through Wanda’s willingness to go along with her plan. It all made sense now. 

“You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?” she countered instead, leaving Billy’s demons to lie sleeping and unharmed. “You’ve come into my home to bribe me back with what? The complete unravelling of Hollywood’s worst-kept secret that Tony Stark runs a vicious, ruthless company that exploits anything and everything it can to turn over another dollar? Genuinely, I couldn’t think of a worse plan.” 

It wasn’t enough to change Agatha’s mind. The sob story would never be enough to change her mind. She didn’t care about the mess they had gotten themselves into. She didn’t care about the inner workings of a man that she had no doubt, now, had completely orchestrated her downfall so that their profits could only increase from her pain and suffering. Maybe the others hadn’t said as much out loud, maybe they didn’t even realize it for themselves, but Agatha knew ambition, she knew greed, she knew ruthlessness. 

And, she knew that if she were in his position, she might have even done the same thing herself. 

“No, but we wanted to come clean,” Lilia said. “Last time around, I sat idly by and watched as the band destroyed you, destroyed this family. I watched it all and saw it coming, and I was too much of a coward to try and stop it. But I don’t want to do that this time. Whether any of us like it or not, Tony has his claws back in you, Agatha, and I’m not letting any of this happen again. And I think that if we work together, we can have this tour and we can fix this on our own terms.” 

Lilia’s optimism was sometimes nauseating, and this was no exception. 

“I appreciate your long-overdue come-to-Jesus moment here, Lils, but I still don’t want anything to do with this,” Agatha said, holding her ground. “Why would I want to be caught up in this?” 

“Well, you have already signed a contract,” Billy said, making Agatha shoot him a poisonous glare. “Technically, you’re already caught up in this.” 

Agatha waved her hand in his direction, dismissing him. “I’m sure there is a way out of it. The Maximoffs have that whole new team of lawyers now, don’t they? I could figure it out.” 

“Or, we could give this one more try, all our cards on the table,” Alice said, leaning forward, knocking on the wooden surface in front of her. “I know you miss this, I know you miss performing, and we all miss you.” 

The words didn’t settle over Agatha like Alice probably intended them to, her cutting glare shifting to Jen. Her question need not be asked aloud.

“I did miss you,” Jen said, though not entirely convincingly. “I know I’m a bitch and took sides in the divorce, yeah, whatever, but we were friends before all of this, weren’t we? This doesn’t feel right without you in it. I’m not stupid enough to ignore that.” 

Agatha looked from Jen to Alice, Billy to Lilia, and then to Rio, who was still sitting next to her. The dark-haired woman was fidgeting with her hands but was holding her head up, bravely looking at Agatha right back. There was no hesitation, no fear, just a curiosity in her eyes that betrayed that wheels were turning in that big brain of hers. 

“You’ve got something to say,” she remarked, pointing to Rio. “What is it?” 

Rio pressed her tongue into the corner of her mouth, taking a deep, steadying breath. “This tour is our chance to take back our agency.” 

“Hmm, go on,” Agatha hummed, intrigued by her angle. 

“Tony Stark has systematically exploited each of us for fifteen years, has he not? Even with you completely leaving his realm of control, your life was still a living fucking hell, wasn’t it? Maybe this tour was the worst decision any of us could make. Maybe it was reckless or overly optimistic to think that we could just come back and make some music and that be it. But what if we do this on our terms? We say fuck it entirely and we interview however we want, we speak however we want, we make our music however we want. Stark Records needs us. They wouldn’t have pushed Lilia’s idea if they didn’t. So we work together to figure out what the fuck the problem is and we take back our power.”

There was something so tantalizing about Rio’s words, her plan– Agatha would give her that. She hadn’t seen this side of Rio before– this was a Rio who was strategic and cunning and ambitious like Agatha was. It piqued Agatha’s interest enough that she sat forward, bridging some of the gap between them. Getting her revenge on Stark Records after everything she had been through, after everything they all had been through? It made Agatha salivate, it set the warm, sparkling butterflies in her stomach aflame with a desire she hadn’t known she was allowed to have. 

Tony Stark’s unilateral decision to leave her out to dry, to manipulate Rio and the rest of their family, completely destroyed her life, and she wanted to make him pay. 

Or, at the very least, she wanted to tell him and the rest of the world exactly who she was and take back control over her life, over her legacy. 

Fuck, was she going to do this? 

Was she really going to do this? 

“How do I know that things will change? For the last however many weeks, you’ve been treating me like I’m a child incapable of making my own decisions. This isn’t going to work if you guys can’t trust me,” Agatha said, letting her frustration out in short huffs. “I get that I let all of you down, truly I do. But if I’m going to ignore my better judgment again , you have to meet me there.”

“That’s totally fair,” Lilia said, nodding. “We have to trust each other if this is going to work. I think we can do that.” 

The band looked between each other and nodded. 

“Great,” Agatha said, finally sitting back in her chair and relaxing just a touch. “I want to be reinstated at the top of the call sheet. This is Agatha and The Orchids, not Rio and The Orchids or just The Orchids. From now on, we will work together as a team, but when it comes down to it, you will follow my lead. This is my band, and I want it back to its former glory. I want my glory. Deal?” 

Looks of hesitation passed among the members, but Agatha held her ground. If they couldn’t give her this, she wouldn’t do it. She would not come back as the timid, odd one out that she had been before, deferring to the others and trying not to step on toes in fear of all the pain and destruction she had once caused. No, if Agatha was coming back, she was going to be Agatha Harkness . 

A slow smile grew on Rio’s face as she watched these thoughts flit through Agatha’s eyes. She could always read Agatha like no one else, and she always loved this side of her like no one else. 

“Yes,” Rio agreed, easily and openly. “The last thing that Stark will want is for me to not step into the lead role after all these years of being a solo act. I’m his biggest name right now. We need to destabilize that sense of security he has in me.” 

Once Rio had agreed, the rest all fell into line behind her, willing to support this idea that they all needed to have something to lose before this could ever work. 

“There is one more thing we need to discuss,” Agatha said, crossing one leg over the other and holding onto it with her hands. “We need to talk about my son.” 

Billy nodded, and the rest waited, not knowing what to say. 

“I’ve kept him shielded from all of this his entire life. That isn’t going to work now, especially if we are going to try and make this ours again,” she continued. “So first and foremost, we have to protect him. No matter what, the media cannot touch him, even if he is with us on tour.”

“Done,” Jen said, firm and without any room for discussion. 

“How old is he?” Lilia asked, soft like she was asking for something she had no right to. 

The feral, maternal part of Agatha tugged in her chest. Part of her was soothed that even Jen was so easy to comply with her son’s safety. But overwhelmingly, she felt herself at war between desperately craving to give her son a family that he’d always deserved and wanting to keep him so far from the group of people who destroyed her. 

But did they destroy her? 

Was it really them? 

Or was it Stark? 

Because when it came down to it, these five people loved Agatha so much that they were willing to come clean. They were willing to break their NDAs, they were willing to fight to earn back her trust, they were willing to meet her where she was without expecting any more or any less of her than she was capable of. 

This conversation was just the beginning. There was a long path ahead of them, and Agatha wasn’t sure how she would fit along its paces. But it certainly wouldn’t go the way she wanted it to if she didn’t manifest for herself a happy ending. 

Just like she had earlier, wrapped up in a blanket and staring at her own reflection in the reflection of an overcast sky, Agatha was promising herself her happy ending by any means necessary. 

“He’s six,” Agatha admitted, holding back a wince as she watched realization dawn across all of their faces. “He’s my miracle boy.” 

2019

The bandage on Agatha’s neck pulled against her skin, tight and irritating, as she looked around the new rehab facility. She resisted the urge to touch it, to try and relieve any of the ache of the adhesive on her sensitive skin. Two weeks had passed since that fateful night, the night that would change everything for Agatha, and she still felt unsettled and disoriented as she stepped into this new life. 

Honestly, she was lucky to even be alive, let alone as close to perfect health as she was. With only a few speech and balance difficulties, she knew that things could have been so much worse. 

Agatha could have been dead. 

Two weeks ago, Agatha’s heart stopped beating for 2 minutes and 42 seconds. 

Two weeks ago, Agatha’s body was pumped so full of drugs that her kidneys were nearly failing, and she had to have her blood removed and cleaned by a machine. 

And so, Agatha counted her lucky stars that she hadn’t died for long enough for her brain to lose motor function entirely, that she hadn’t gone blind or lost her ability to speak. Those first few days, she wished that she had ended it all, if only to stop the pain coursing through her body as it exorcized itself of the toxins she thought she needed to survive. 

“Ms. Harkness, we will need you to pee in this cup for us so we can run your intake tests,” the nurse said as she pushed Agatha’s wheelchair into the room that would become hers for the next several months. 

“I’ve been in the hospital for two w-weeks, is that really n-necessary?” she protested, already feeling vulnerable and flayed open at being seen like this, of not being able to balance well enough to walk herself all the way down the hallway. 

“Standard protocol, ma’am,” the nurse replied, putting a sealed cup with an orange lid into her palm before pushing her into the large bathroom. 

Firm but gentle hands hooked around Agatha, helping her to stand and cross to the toilet. She braced her hands on both of the nurse’s shoulders as the nurse helped pull down the loose, soft pants down her legs and then lowered herself to the seat. 

The way back up was just as hard and humiliating, the nurse using a wet cloth to clean her hands before helping her to her feet, re-securing the drawstring of the pants around her waist, and helping her back into the wheelchair. Once Agatha was comfortable in her bed, she dropped against the pillows unceremoniously, wiping at her eyes with the backs of her hands. 

It was only a few minutes before the nurse returned, the on-site doctor with her, making Agatha scramble into a sitting position as best she could, steadying herself with her arms braced on the mattress. 

“D-did something h-happen?” she asked, already panicking. The doctor never visited unless something was wrong. 

“Ms. Harkness, we have run the standard tests and you’re still testing clean for all substances except those prescribed,” he replied, reading the clipboard with a detachment that Agatha did not care for. “But it seems your pregnancy test came back inconclusive. Could you provide us with the date of your most recent menstruation?” 

Agatha was taken aback by the statement. How the fuck could her pregnancy test come back inconclusive? The last time she slept with a man was… 

“About a month ago,” she answered, silencing her inner monologue, shoving it into a neat little box as memories tried to creep in. 

The doctor nodded and scribbled it into his notes. 

“Do you think you could provide us with another sample? We can bring in some water, if that would help,” the nurse said, stepping forward, ready to help Agatha to the bathroom again. 

“I think I can manage,” Agatha replied, not even noticing that her words were starting to come out clearer as her mind started to race in circles. 

Half an hour later, Agatha sat cross-legged on her bed, shirt pulled up and frail hands pressed into the soft flesh below her belly button. 

“What am I going to do with you?” she asked no one, everyone, anyone who was listening. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.” 

It was early, early enough that she had time to make a decision. Was she really in a place to have a baby? To raise a child? Rio’s last words to her echoed in her mind even after three years, the way that she all but told Agatha that she could never be a parent to a child, that she would never pull herself together enough to take care of herself, let alone a tiny human. 

Mercy would be to end this life before it even had a chance to be ruined by Agatha Harkness. 

Mercy would be to make sure that the poison that had coursed in her veins for years could never harm a hair on another human’s head ever again.

But Agatha pressed her hands into her tummy again, and she felt something she had never felt before in her entire life. She didn’t know how to describe it; it was like love, but it felt like something else, something more decadent, something that bloomed in her chest like a flower in the spring. 

This was a baby. This was her baby. This was a life that fought against all odds to survive even when her own weary body wasn’t sure it wanted to. They were hers so wholly and completely even now, mere minutes after she learned of their existence. 

She never thought she would feel this way about a child. 

Rio had always been the one more excited for parenthood in their marriage. It was something Agatha wanted, too, of course, but she had never seen herself as someone who would fall into motherhood like water in a river coursing downstream. But as she held this tiny, imperceptible child beneath the firm press of her fingers, she knew that something inside of her was completely and irrevocably changed. 

She had time. She didn’t have to decide today. But something in her heart told her that she had already chosen. 

The front door opened and closed harshly before the sound of little feet pattering through the house echoed into the sitting room where the band was gathered. Everyone froze, Agatha included. 

“Mama! I spilled chocolate milk on my shirt!” Nicky called out, little footsteps already running up the stairs to his room. “I’m going to wear my moon shirt now!” 

Agatha smiled to herself despite the conversation that she had been having just moments prior. Something about her sweet, goofy boy cracked her heart wide open in a way that couldn’t be stopped even by the strongest of forces. 

The door opened and shut again, this time much more carefully. It was only seconds before Wanda was hurrying into the sitting room, apology written on her face. 

“I’m so sorry Agatha, I saw the cars in the driveway and tried to convince him that he could just borrow a shirt from my house, but he insisted he had to wear his new shirt,” Wanda said, out of breath. “We were moments from DEFCON-5.” 

Agatha huffed a laugh and rolled her eyes. “Of course you were, he’s going through a phase. He probably saw all of the cars and got excited.” 

Tiny, thunderous footsteps came running down the staircase again as they spoke and Agatha braced herself for what was coming. There was no time to usher everyone out, so as she so often did as a mother, she prepared herself to fake it until she made it. 

“Mama! Why are there cars in the driveway?” Nicky shouted before skidding to a stop in the doorway of the sitting room, eyes going wide. 

“Because some of Mama’s friends came to visit,” Agatha explained, signing as she spoke just like she always did for her boy. They all looked over their shoulders to look at him– all except Rio who was looking only at Agatha. “Come here and introduce yourself.” 

The gregarious little boy was hit with a wave of shyness but he listened to his mom anyway, coming to stand between her legs. Agatha wrapped her hands around his waist and tucked her head on his shoulder, kissing his cheek. She gestured for him to introduce himself to the room. 

“Hi, my name is Nicholas Ángel Harkness and I am six years old,” he said, holding up six fingers instead of signing the number six. “It is a pleasure to meet you.” 

His pronunciation of words was still cute in that little kid way, but he was so confident and sure of what he was saying that it seemed to melt everyone in the room. 

Lilia broke first, reaching a hand out for him to shake. “Hi Nicholas, my name is Lilia.” 

“Lilia?” Nicky asked, his entire face lighting up. “Like Auntie Lilia on the TV? You’re Aunt Wanda’s friend. Mama says she doesn’t have a mama like me, but that you were kinda like her mom, too.” 

Agatha’s face burned a bright red as Nicky revealed way too much information. Before she could stop him, he continued on as the gears began to click in his mind. 

,“OH! And you’re Alice! You play piano like Mama, but you’re way more better at it. And you are Jen! I see you in pictures with Mama in her sparkly outfits in her music room,” he said, making both women take pause. 

It was obvious that everyone in the room was beginning to put things together, to understand that Agatha had kept them present in Nicky’s life even if they weren’t physically there. 

Then, he turned and his jaw dropped as he made eye contact with Rio. His cheeks burned a bright red, and he turned to whisper much too loudly to keep it a secret from everyone but his mom, “Is that Rio? From music class?” 

Agatha snickered, remembering their conversation all those weeks ago about how much he loved it when his teacher played Rio’s music for them. 

“Yes, baby. That’s Rio,” she confirmed. 

Nicky’s face pinched in the same way Agatha’s did when she was frustrated, and then his hand found her cheek, holding her the same way she had held Rio before. “You are friends with Rio and you did not tell me! Why did you not tell me!” 

Agatha held his hand to her face and said as honestly as she could, “Because Rio and Mama have not spoken in a very long time. I didn’t want to get your hopes up. But she’s here now, so why don’t you go say hello?” 

Filled with a new bravery, he left the safety of Agatha’s knees and stood in front of Rio, placing both his hands on her legs. He looked up at her with wonder, much like only a child meeting their hero could. 

“Hi Nicholas, it’s nice to meet you,” Rio said in that signature way she did with children, soft and gentle but full of respect. 

“You can call me Nicky,” he replied after a long moment, smiling widely. “You’re very pretty, Miss Rio. You look kinda like me.” 

Rio’s face shifted just barely, not enough for anyone else to notice, but Agatha did, and she knew in that moment that Rio had been thinking the exact same thing. 

“Okay, Nicky it is, then,” she agreed happily. Her eyes flitted to Nicky’s hearing aids and back before she asked, “Will you tell me how to say my name in sign language?” 

It was exactly the right thing to say, and Nicky bloomed under her attention, smiling widely and chattering while teaching her the letters for her name. 

After a few minutes, Wanda stomped on the ground a bit to get Nicky’s attention, startling everyone except Billy and Agatha. The little boy turned to look at Wanda with a brilliant smile. 

“Are you ready to go to the aquarium now? Your Mama probably needs to finish this meeting with the band,” Wanda said in that way that left no room for argument. 

“Mama, this is your band?” Nicky asked, eyes full of wonder. “These are The Orchids ?” 

Agatha nodded and ruffled his hair. “I promised you would meet them soon, didn’t I? Here they are.” 

Nicky looked at Wanda and then his mom again.  “Do you really need to keep having a meeting with them? I want to show them my toys.” 

This made the whole group laugh to varying degrees. 

“I promise that you can show them your toys next time, okay? We are discussing very important adult things that are not suitable for little ears,” Agatha explained. Nicky looked disappointed for all of three seconds before he bounded over to his aunt and took her hand. 

“Okay! Let’s go see the otters, please!” 

Wanda chuckled and guided the little boy back out of the house, leaving the band alone once more. 

“He’s a lovely little boy,” Lilia said, her face still fraught with emotion. “I– I didn’t know that he knew about us.” 

Agatha nodded solemnly. “He’s always wondered why we don’t have a bigger family, why it’s just me and him and the Maximoffs. So, I told him stories about the people who were the closest thing to a family I ever had.” 

Everyone was gracious enough not to mention that the only person Nicky didn’t know about was Rio, but it sat unspoken between them like a lead weight. 

“I know we have already said it, but I just want to say again just how sorry we are, Agatha,” Alice said, cracking first. “I think I speak for all of us when I say that we do love you and care about you and never want to see you hurting.” 

Agatha didn’t need to be told that Alice was referencing the outburst she had after the radio interview. 

“We have missed so much of your life, we have missed Nicky’s entirely, and I don’t ever want that to happen again. So if you are willing, I think we all would love it if we got the chance to start over and do it right this time,” Alice continued. 

Then, completely unexpectedly, everyone around the room echoed in with their own apologies, telling Agatha just how much they had missed her and how much they had always loved her. Rio’s was simpler, devoid of a lot of the sentiment of the others, but Agatha could tell by her words that she felt all of it, too. This was a family, and that could never be taken from them, no matter how much Agatha may have wanted it to. Rio was her family, too, just like the rest of them. 

But then Rio surprised her, pulling out her phone again. 

“We wrote you a song, back in the day,” she said, tapping at the screen and pulling up another recording. “We recorded it with Alice after hours and hoped one day that our paths would align enough to share it. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to play it.” 

Agatha nodded, unsure how to make sense of the emotion she was feeling. 

Soft guitars began the piece, filtering into piano and then bass in a melody that was haunting and warm. It was slow, it was gentle, every note wrapping around Agatha’s heart and holding it together like a bandage. The lyrics started simple, expressing their sorrow, their grief, the apologies they knew they could never say. As it swelled into the chorus, Agatha felt herself become overcome with emotion, the words reminding her that she is worthy of love and of being safe and that they hoped one day they could make all of this right; that one day they would see their girl shine in the ways they always knew she would because she was the reason any of them could burn as brightly as they did. 

The song was a love letter to the woman who brought them all together, to the woman who was fierce and bold and the glue that held them all together. It was an apology for everything that hurt her, for everything they did and couldn’t do. The melody followed her favorite chord progression, riffing the way only her voice could as she sang, and left enough empty, hollow space that she felt like she could hear that something was missing that no one would ever be able to replace. 

A single tear tracked down Agatha’s cheek as she listened to the agony they all felt at having lost her, at having to watch from the sidelines as their center spun out of orbit. Something broken inside her started to mend as she listened to the song, its sound speaking to her soul in a way that their words would never fully explain. 

This was her family. These were the people she loved more than nearly anything else in this world, even after all this time. 

Yes, Agatha was still hurting. Yes, she was still wary of them, unable to trust them fully or even truly believe them when they said that they would do things right this time. 

But this was the hole in Agatha’s chest that had been aching for relief for years. It had started to fill that first rehearsal when she sang her songs and was surrounded by the joyful noise of making music with others. And this? This conversation, this integration of her son with the life she led before him, this song that was so achingly beautiful, felt like the final plug being pulled to let the sparkling, luminous effervescence back into her soul that for so long had been dull and lifeless. Agatha couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t try everything she could to find this love again, to finally allow herself happiness in every part of her life, not only through her son. 

Maybe, just maybe, Agatha did deserve to ask for more.

Chapter Text

As a six-year-old was wont to do, Nicholas Harkness had decided that otters were his new favorite animal just because Rio had gifted him a plushy, which now lived in his arms. He took it with him everywhere to the point that Agatha had to deliver a very upset Nicky to school one morning because of her “no toys at school” policy. It had taken nearly half an hour of explaining that the rule was to keep his toys safe and that school was not the place to take his special toys, plus the promise of Saturday cereal for breakfast, before the little boy finally relented, tucking his new stuffed animal into his bed to retrieve later. 

It was Nicky’s newfound obsession with sea otters that ultimately led Agatha to how she was standing in the middle of the wardrobe department during a fitting, spouting off otter facts and getting a room full of stares in return. 

“Is this going to stay like this?” Jen asked, tugging at a pocket-shaped excess of fabric under her arm that was currently getting stuck in her bra strap. 

“You can keep snacks in there,” Rio snickered, smoothing her hands down the front of her jumpsuit. 

“Sea otters actually have built-in pockets in their armpits where they store snacks and rocks,” Agatha chimed in, thinking about Nicky’s enthusiastic ramblings at dinner the night before. 

Her words were met with a silence that stretched for a beat too long, so she lifted her head to find everyone looking at her with varying levels of confusion or interest on their faces. 

“What?” she asked, pinching her eyebrows together and grimacing. “Ever met a kindergartener? They’re full of useless information.” 

Rio snorted in agreement, the corner of her mouth turning up ever so slightly. “When Carmen was in kindergarten, she loved drawing butterflies, but she had no idea how to draw the wings, so they were just blobs on sticks with antennae. I think I was scrubbing blobberflies off my walls for weeks.” 

A snorty laugh ripped for Agatha unexpectedly, taking her and everyone else in the room by surprise. 

“What did you just call them?” she asked between wheezes, wiping at the corners of her eyes. Agatha could barely be bothered to be embarrassed by the uncharacteristic outburst because she was just tickled by the absurdity of what she had just heard. Maybe it was the fact that she had her own silly kindergartener at home, or maybe she just was getting soft now that she was sober, but it felt good to let herself laugh at something so ridiculous. 

“Blobberflies?” Rio asked, a chuckle starting to bubble under her words. 

Jen huffed a bit of a laugh, too, at hearing the word, as did the others puttering about with their fabrics, scissors, and tape measures. 

“God, Rio, that’s ridiculous,” Agatha said, taking a deep breath to steady herself. “Please tell me you still call them blobberflies.” 

“Only every time I have a reason to,” she replied with a cheeky grin, making something tingle under Agatha’s skin. 

After the conversation at her house, Agatha had been wobbling on unsteady feet when it came to the band, when it came to Rio. She knew it would be easier to just forgive them and keep moving forward, but she couldn’t, she wouldn’t . There was too much at stake for Agatha to ever let go of that last thread of control. But here in this costuming session, Agatha felt a comfort settling around her that had been missing even before everything fell to pieces because of the radio interview. Something about knowing the truth, about having her agency placed firmly back into her grasp. 

Agatha looked down at the outfit she was being fitted for: shiny, golden pants with a deep-cut top that reminded her so much of their first music video– the only difference being that it was cut to be modern, not retro-seventies rocker. She bent at the knees, pulling the fabric up her thighs to test how easily she could move in them, knowing that she was going to do the most dancing of them all on stage. That had always been her calling card– vibrant and full of life as she commanded the stage, getting the crowds worked up with her addictive presence. 

Part of her was a little resentful, if she was being honest, that this was the role she would still be stepping back into, that she was expected to perform after all this time. She knew that once she was on stage, it would come back to her like a fish to water. But right now, as she was being poked and prodded and fitted for her big debut? Agatha, more than anything, felt the itch of irritation at being just another tool for Stark’s wielding. 

But that wasn’t entirely the case anymore, was it? 

After the band had left and Agatha had settled Nicky into bed, worn out from the aquarium and snuggling his new otter tightly, she sat on her patio for hours stewing about what it all meant. The puzzle pieces were sliding together in her mind as she tried to dissect the web of control that Stark Records, hell, Stark Industries , had over the band. It hadn’t been hard to figure out where Tony had his hold on them all– Rio’s sister and her career, Jen’s foundation, Lilia’s work in television, Alice’s career post-injury, Billy’s…. Honestly, Agatha couldn’t quite put her finger on what Stark’s hold on him was. Was it something to do with Tommy? That would explain Wanda’s investment in this tour, too. Or was it Eddie’s career? Or was he still just the naive young kid he had been all those years ago, who just wanted to be part of something? 

Regardless, even with the light laughter and silliness, discomfort was gnawing at Agatha. 

A camera moved behind a rack of clothing, and Agatha fought the urge to roll her eyes. For a moment, she had almost forgotten that they were being watched. The boom mic was bobbing ever so imperceptibly above them as it caught every moment of the costume fitting on tape. She figured this interaction would make the cut in the documentary, showing a more human side of the band. 

If Agatha was being honest, ever since the conversation at her house, she had become even more impatient with the cameras and wished that the documentary wasn’t part of this process at all. There had to be something there, something more insidious as to why Stark wanted every little moment on film. Was it to keep them in line? Did he know that Rio could smell her freedom with Carmen’s custody battle brewing on the horizon?  

No matter the reason Agatha was stewing, she was figuring out exactly what she was going to do to exact her revenge on Stark. But first? She needed to lie in wait, she needed to watch, she needed to observe and find the cracks so that she could wiggle herself inside them, taking up more and more space until the fragile china exploded, shattering from the inside out.

“Ladies, ladies, can I get you to look here?” the photographer called from behind the camera, snapping his fingers in a vague direction to the right of his head. “Same focal point but away from the lens.” 

Agatha stood in the center of a formation, an arm crossed on her chest, elbow resting on her first with a lazy hand splayed in the air. She was the only one looking straight forward, Alice, Rio, and Jen around her, and looking off into the distance to create an air of intimacy between her and the audience. 

The full band had done some poses at the beginning of the shoot, and now they were doing some mix and match groups, trying to catch as much of the band’s essence as possible for promotional material, social media posts, merch, all of it. 

“Why don’t we try Rio in the center?” Natasha asked from behind the camera, scribbling something onto the clipboard she insisted on carrying everywhere. 

Tallies were scratched in the walls of Agatha’s mind as she counted how many times Natasha tried to make Rio the focus of the shoot, trying to force Agatha out of her rightful spot as front woman. Six, now? But only if she was counting today alone. 

“Without me, right?” Agatha pushed, watching as Natasha sighed. “Because the marketing strategy was to highlight me as, you know, Agatha , right?” 

Natasha dropped her clipboard and pinched the bridge of her nose. “We’ve been over this, Harkness. Rio is a multi-platinum solo artist and one of our biggest names at the label. We need her at the forefront of something if we are going to suck her younger fanbase in.” 

Agatha made eye contact with Rio but only fleetingly– the younger woman seemed to find something exceedingly interesting with the hemline of her jacket, instead. Much to Agatha’s surprise, this wasn’t the first time that Rio had reacted similarly in the face of Natasha’s pushback, especially when her status at the label was mentioned. It seemed like a conditioned, unconscious response, something that she wasn’t quite in control of. More notes scrawled into the log of observations running in Agatha’s mind:

Rio is acting strangely– what did they do to her?

“When did you ever see Tom Petty on the corner of a Heartbreakers photo shoot? Joan Jett? Stevie Ray Vaughan? Florence Welch? This isn’t Fleetwood Mac, despite your best efforts to be as fucking messy as them,” Agatha countered, sharp and pointed with her frustration for Natasha wanting to exacerbate the conflict between her and the band for the documentary. 

“Agatha, please,” Natasha grumbled. “Just one set of photos with Rio swapped in, okay?” 

If it were any other scenario, Agatha imagined that she would have no problem giving Rio the spotlight. Hell, back when the band was still “together”, Agatha actively pushed to get Rio more time in the spotlight because she knew that her talents weren’t being appreciated enough. But now? Knowing everything that she knew? Feeling everything that she felt? Her stubbornness was rearing its ugly head. 

“Not going to happen, doll.” 

A sound of frustration slipped from Rio behind Agatha, making the older woman turn to look again. She was still looking at her jacket but her bottom lip was sucked between her teeth, red marks undoubtely blooming beneath her dark lipstick. 

“Why don’t we do some duos, then?” the photographer asked, obviously uncomfortable with the direction this conversation was going. “Let’s start with Billy and Lilia, yeah? They’ve been sitting out for a while.” 

With a ceremonious flip of her hair and a huff, Agatha left the set and beelined for the kraft services table, immediately grabbing a water bottle. Her nails clinked against the glass, and she immediately knew that it was going to be some disgusting infused water that just tasted like a hangover and regret. 

“If you’re trying to get under Nat’s skin, I think it’s working,” Rio said, sneaking up on Agatha, making her clench the small sandwich between her fingers to the point her glued-on nails punctured the bread and got covered with chicken salad. “I’m not sure how effective it will be, though.” 

The microphones were still angled at the photoshoot, the wardrobe department insisting that they couldn’t wear body mics for the shoot because it would “ruin the outfits”, so Agatha knew that she had a bit of leeway with what she could get away with. 

“Wasn’t this your idea, Vidal? That we make their lives a living hell?” she asked, quirking an eyebrow at her ex-wife. 

“Sure, but I don’t think that driving Natasha to utter madness is the right way to get what we want,” Rio whispered back, hunched with her back to the rest of the room. 

“Pray, tell, what is your idea, then?” 

Rio searched Agatha’s face for a moment, and what Agatha saw staring back at her looked haunted and unfamiliar, like something she had once seen on her own face staring in the mirror but never once in Rio’s. 

“I– I don’t have an idea yet,” Rio admitted, rubbing at the back of her neck. “Just drop it this time? Please?” 

Agatha scoffed and shook her head. Of course, Rio was asking this of her. “Are you seriously asking this of me? Were you lying at the house?” 

“No! No, I wasn’t!” Rio immediately replied, almost panicked in response. Almost. “Please, Agatha, you don’t know what you’re dealing with. Not yet.” 

A long moment passed, and Agatha flicked her gaze to the cameras. They weren’t looking, not yet. She drew in closer to Rio, their faces only inches apart. “What could they possibly have held over you that you’re afraid to step out of line? You were so brave in my sitting room, Rio. Where did she go? Is this the real you? A coward?” 

The moment the words hit Rio, she flinched, and Agatha knew that she had hit exactly where she wanted to. Rio Vidal was many things, but a coward was not one of them. Even through their divorce, she sat there day after day to face Agatha’s heartbreak when she could have just sent a lawyer in her place. She survived years of abuse by her parents that no one seemed to see until it was much too late. Hell, she stood by Agatha’s side for years despite just how painful it had become to even be in her orbit. Rio was brave, and that’s how Agatha knew that this wasn’t her Rio– and maybe she would never get to see that Rio again. 

“That’s not fair, Agatha,” Rio said, watery tears stinging in her eyes in yet another unexpected reaction. She stepped away, then, leaving Agatha to stew in her thoughts. 

There was something so unsettling about the way Rio was out of her element, about the way she was reacting to everything around them. Agatha chewed on the inside of her cheek, watching as Rio was called over to Natasha. She brought herself closer, nearly tiptoeing to not make a sound as she stood behind a clothing rack, eavesdropping. 

“ Rio, do I need to remind you of what exactly we are doing here?” she heard Natasha hiss. “ You are our star, Rio. Tony wants you in the forefront, and if you can’t do that, you have to answer to him. I don’t care if you still have some kind of misplaced feelings of guilt over what happened to Agatha; we need you in control. Not her.” 

There was a shuffling of feet, like Rio was bouncing on her toes or shifting side to side. 

“ I’m not in control of what Agatha does and I never have been, ” Rio replied, though Agatha could hear the shake in her voice. There was her girl. 

Wait. 

Fuck.

Now was not the time for her bone-deep irritation with her ex-wife to give way to some misdirected sense of pride. What was there even to be proud of? God, who was Agatha turning into? Motherhood was making her soft in some of the worst ways. 

“ I know for a damn fact that isn’t what you told Tony this morning,” Natasha countered, a venom seeping into her voice that not even Agatha in all of her insolence had heard. “Y ou know what his expectation is.” 

“ If you want her to back down, you’re going to have to handle her yourself. And you can tell Stark that, too. I will take whatever it is he will throw at me for it, but I cannot be the one to tame Agatha Harkness. It’s ridiculous of you to expect me to do it, too. ” 

Agatha replayed the words in the back of her mind as she slipped away unnoticed, leaving them to their conversation. What did she mean, “whatever Stark threw at her”? The wheels in her mind started turning as the pieces began to slot into place. For years, Rio had been chained to Stark Records as their prized show dog, sitting, staying, and begging on command. But how could anyone have gotten so far into Rio’s head to make her do any of the things she had done? 

If Agatha wasn’t mistaken, it would have taken years of a concerted effort to diminish Rio Vidal into the woman who avoided eye contact at the mere thought of conflict. But that was just what had happened, wasn’t it? Stark had wrapped her up into his little mind game by severing her from her wife, by promising her custody of her sister, but for some reason, never following through after even a decade. So what was going on behind closed doors? What was Tony Stark doing to beat Rio into submission so that when the day inevitably came that his hold on her weakened, she wouldn’t know how to walk away? 

Two glaring, red signs started flashing in Agatha’s mind: 1) this was Stark’s weak point– whatever he was doing with Rio had to be where the cracks were forming if his insistence on her center stardom meant anything; and 2) it was incredible hard to unsee what she had just uncovered through these observations and it felt impossible to stay irritated with Rio. Agatha didn’t trust Rio, sure, but as Agatha drew closer and closer to the meaty truth of the last ten years, something whispered to her that maybe, just maybe, Rio had been a victim in all of this, too. 

“Could we get some of just Agatha and Rio?” the photographer asked, stirring Agatha from her thoughts, from her scheming. 

Agatha caught Rio’s eyes and pursed her lips, waiting to see how she would react. Rio only raised an eyebrow, an invitation if she’d ever seen one. 

“Sure you want to tempt fate by putting the two of us together?” Agatha volleyed back to the photographer, not lifting her gaze from Rio’s. “Might start a cat fight.” 

Rio rolled her eyes, some of that confident contrarian Agatha knew so well bleeding back into her body ounce by ounce. “You’d be so lucky, Harkness.”

Agatha strode back toward the set, propping herself against a chair

“Me? Lucky? You think quite highly of yourself, Vidal,” Agatha quipped, feeling Rio’s hands settle on her shoulders from behind as the photographer posed them together. “You’d last all of two seconds against me, sweetheart.”

It wasn’t hard for Agatha to slip into character, to find that banter with Rio they had always reveled in. She tilted her chin up and pressed her lips together until she felt like the picture of power, of a woman to be envied, to be praised, to be worshipped . The camera shuttered around them as Rio leaned down, whispering in Agatha’s ear:

“Let’s have a little fun with this.” 

With a soft hand extended in Agatha’s direction, Rio bowed ever so slightly to beckon her closer. Agatha’s heart leapt; she recognized this game, she loved this game. Without hesitation, she grabbed Rio’s hand and let herself be pulled from the chair, spun in a circle, and into Rio’s arms. The flash of the camera was nearly blinding as the photographer worked to keep up with them. 

Natasha wanted tension, wanted a fight? Well, she could have this instead. 

“I can play pretend,” Agatha whispered against the shell of Rio’s ear after being pulled close. “Is this your big plan?” 

Rio pulled back and grinned wickedly at Agatha. It never took much for Agatha to read her mind, to know exactly what she was thinking in times like this. Even after all these years, if there was something Rio wanted her to know, Agatha could hear it clear as day, and she didn’t know how to feel about that. 

It was a good plan, if Agatha was being honest with herself. The entire pitch of this documentary hinged on Agatha and Rio being at each other’s throats. Angst is what sells, not fluff, not in this market. There was too much collective strife and unease for anything except pain and suffering, and overcoming to sell. But what if Agatha didn’t give them that? What if Agatha refused to engage in the theatrics? 

What if she refused to put her pain on display and perform her own punishment for the world to see? 

Maybe Rio thought about all of this, or maybe it was the easiest way for her to fight back while still protecting herself, too. Agatha couldn’t know if Rio thought about all of this, couldn’t possibly predict if her care for Agatha extended so far as to allow her dignity to stay intact. But what Agatha did know was that this would be so much more fun than fighting. 

And, she knew that when Rio grabbed her hand, her skin still tingled under her touch. She knew that with their faces so close that she could smell the cinnamon gum on Rio’s breath, something inside her twinged and creaked into motion– it came alive in a way that she had never expected that long dormant part of her to ever be again. 

“Okay, ladies, let's get some subdued shots. Line up face to face, I want your profiles to show us everything you’re not saying out loud,” the photographer directed, completely ignoring the direction Natasha was trying to give him. He had caught the vibration of whatever Agatha and Rio were sending into the space around them, and he wanted to play . 

“Yes, just like that. Now, can we get a slow descent into madness? Small touches, just your fingertips, yes, yes . Okay, grow it, give it to me.” 

A knowing smile was shared between Agatha and Rio, the two women immediately moving in tandem. One foot kicked out, arms wrapping around a waist, and a firm push against a sternum to send Agatha falling out of balance, a startled, joyful giggle scrunching her entire face as she went careening to the floor. But before she could fall, Rio’s grip firmed on her waist, stopping gravity from carrying her any further. Long, dark hair dangled behind her, inches from brushing the floor, and as blue eyes met brown, she felt like Rio couldn’t have looked happier. 

And for a moment, she let herself feel that way, too. 

But then she tapped Rio’s shoulder, letting herself be heaved back into a standing position, schooling her face back into her controlled calm, pushing any emotion back into the recesses of her mind where no one could touch them. Natasha may not be entitled to her anger or her pain, but Rio certainly wasn’t entitled to her joy, even if in this singular moment, she may have been the cause. 

Anything Agatha felt, good, bad, or otherwise, was hers alone to keep, hers alone to feel and breathe and bury deep. 

“I think I’ve got what I need,” the photographer said, flipping through the last shots with a look of contentment on his face. “Yes, I think these will work perfectly for what we need. You ladies are perfect, I can’t believe–”

The photographer immediately cut himself off, looking up from the screen with wide eyes and regret. Rio tensed next to her, afraid of what would come next. 

Agatha, though, was sick of tiptoeing around this issue. So she looked at Rio and extended as much of an olive branch as she ever could. 

“It’s hard to stay in love when you’re one foot in the grave and the other is shoved so far into your mouth, you can’t help but hurt everyone around you,” Agatha said with a shrug, taking more blame on her own shoulders than she ever really had, acutely aware of the cameras still rolling. “That doesn’t mean the chemistry wasn’t real or that the care ever really died. Rio and I are two ends of a very, very long string that got knotted and frayed, but at the end of the day, I don’t think it will ever truly break. It may be unfamiliar and complicated, but it’s still there.” 

She only allowed herself a moment to look at Rio, to catalogue her reaction. Relief, understanding, and maybe something more that Agatha didn’t want to see were tangled in the way Rio’s eyes softened and her shoulders relaxed. 

Agatha bristled and excused herself from the set, feeling too exposed, feeling like she just handed everyone in that room the key to a back door in her heart that she never intended to open again. 

In the green room, a girl with long, dark hair sat in the chair Rio had been occupying on and off all day. She looked in the mirror, and Agatha could tell immediately that she was looking at the reflection of Carmen Vidal, Rio’s baby sister, who had won her love in the end. 

Agatha shook her head and looked away. She was a mother now, she knew that it was so much more complicated than her broken, painful memories allowed for. There was no one in this world Agatha would ever choose over her boy, there was no scenario in which she would allow her boy to suffer the way she knew that Carmen had, especially not for love. But it still stung worse than she had intended to see the little face she once knew grown into something fuller, something older, something so indicative of all the time she had missed. 

She wondered if something inside her would always resent the young girl for something that was never her fault. 

Dark, nearly black eyes flicked up from the game console in her hands and immediately narrowed as she caught sight of Agatha. There was a sneer that only a seventh-grade girl could truly pull off, and Carmen’s was aimed directly at Agatha. 

“Hey, Carmen,” Agatha said simply, not one to ignore a kid even when the kid seemingly wanted to be left alone. “Waiting for Rio?” 

Carmen's face shifted into something even nastier, her brows furrowing and her mind going a mile a minute to come up with what she would say. “What else would I be doing, genius? I don’t exactly like to hang out in dressing rooms that smell like broken dreams and desperation for no reason.” 

Ouch. That one actually stung a little. Middle school girls truly were another breed of evil. 

“Alright, well, I will see you around,” Agatha said, grabbing her clothes to change in the bathroom. 

“You know you broke her, right?” Carmen said when Agatha’s back was turned and it halted her in her tracks. “I don’t know what the fuck you did to her but she won’t even look at another woman because she’s so traumatized.” 

The older woman turned on her heels and schooled her expression into one that was stern, maternal. “You shouldn’t speak on things you know nothing about, Carmen. What happened between us is something that happened between two adults.” 

Carmen rolled her eyes and finally turned her body to look at Agatha dead on. 

“I don’t need to know everything to know that you’re the reason my sister doesn’t believe in love anymore. You ruined her. And if you know what’s good for you, you won’t do it again.” 

Agatha did a double-take. “Are you threatening me?” she laughed, taken aback by the sheer audacity of the young girl. “You know I’m not afraid of 12-year-olds, right?” 

“Maybe you should be,” Carmen shrugged, turning back to her game. “If they put me in juvie, my record with be sealed when I turn 18. Yours will follow you forever. Or don’t you already know that, Drugatha?” 

Without another word, Agatha left the dressing room and fled down the hallway, locking herself in the bathroom. She changed as quickly as she could before bracing her hands on the sink, looking at herself in the mirror. Tears stung at the back of her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall. 

It wasn’t that Agatha was blind or delusional, she knew logically that what she did to Rio hurt, that what she did to Rio probably fucked her up just as much as the reverse. But to be faced with that truth dead on? From the mouth of a child? God, it hit Agatha harder than she could have ever prepared for. 

The high of the photoshoot, of playing with Rio, of letting herself get lost in the performance of it all, immediately took a nosedive, plunging her back into the ice-cold waters of the guilt that had gnawed at her for nearly a decade. She wanted to say she couldn’t believe that Rio hadn’t ever fallen in love again, but the truth of the matter was that she hadn’t, either. In all ten years they had been apart, Agatha had only slept with a few women during a period of self-destruction long before she got sober, never once trying for anything more. And since Nicky? Dating and even sex had been the furthest thing from her mind. 

Staying sober and keeping her baby safe had taken all of her energy; until recently, there had been no room for anything else. This band was truly the first time Agatha had done anything for herself that wasn’t directly connected to her child. 

But that also meant that she had never taken the time to try to move on, to try and heal all of the wounds her marriage with Rio had left behind. Sure, she had worked through so much of it in therapy, but there is a certain amount of heartache that you can’t truly leave behind, a certain unease that you can’t fully shed until you’ve learned for yourself that love isn’t going to hurt again. And Agatha, she wasn’t sure she would ever give herself that chance. 

Agatha wiped at the corners of her eyes, sucking all the emotion back into the depths of her chest. Now wasn’t the time for her to get lost in the intricacies of her own psyche. She had spent the better part of the last six years, especially since Nicky started going to school, nitpicking her neuroses and placing her dissections in neat little boxes– she didn’t need to keep doing it now. 

And so, she gathered herself and walked out of the bathroom, not looking back when Rio called her name, and let herself be taken far, far away from this place. 

Every third Tuesday of the month was Family Dinner Night at the Harkness household. Over the years, the time she spent with Wanda and Billy had ebbed and flowed as their careers took more or less time, but the one thing they never forewent was this one night each month. Tonight was spaghetti night, Agatha trying her hand at a full three-course meal, starting with caesar salad and ending with bakery-bought cannolis that she knew Nicky would love. 

“Mama, can we use the stringy machine?” Nicky asked, grabbing onto Agatha’s lavender apron that had flowers embroidered on the chest and pockets. Her hair was tied up in a messy bun, long locks of dark hair still framing her face, and large, square-framed glasses sat on her nose. 

“The stringy machine?” she asked as she measured the flour to pour onto the island counter. “Go grab your stool, baby. And wash your hands when you’re done.” 

Nickly excitedly pattered to the pantry and grabbed his little step stool, setting it up right next to his mama and then ran to the bathroom to wash his hands, not quite tall enough to reach the one in the kitchen yet. He probably could have used his stool for the kitchen sink, but Agatha wasn’t going to question the method of a six-year-old’s madness. 

Once he returned, Agatha set to carving out a valley in the mound of flour. “I’m going to crack the eggs into this dip, and then we get to make a little mess to squish it all together, how does that sound?” 

“Okay, mama!” Nicky said excitedly, watching as Agatha cracked the first egg into the nest. She did a couple more and saw out of the corner of her eye that Nicky was getting wiggly. “Can I try one?” 

Agatha looked at the puddle of eggs below her and then to the egg in her hand, considering. “Let’s do it together this time, and then next time, you can try by yourself. Fair?” 

Nicky nodded resolutely. “Fair.” 

So, she stood behind Nicky on his stool and wrapped her arms around him, helping him hold the egg in his tiny hands. Usually, she didn’t like to speak to him where he couldn’t read her lips for help, but she knew that the hearing aids paired with her close proximity would make it relatively easy for her miracle boy to still hear her clearly. The doctors still didn’t know if his hearing would devolve from “hard of hearing” status to more profound deafness, so she tried to be mindful of treating Nicky in a way that wouldn’t change if his hearing ever worsened. 

“You have to hold it firmly enough that it won’t slip, but gently enough it won’t crack,” she started, holding her hand over Nicky’s with the exact right pressure. “Then you’re going to hit it against the counter the same way. Firmly, but not too much. You just want it to crack a little.” 

Agatha brought their conjoined hands down against the lip of the counter once, twice, three times until small lines cracked across the white shell. 

“Woah, Mama! It didn’t break!” Nicky said, in total awe of what he was watching. 

“That’s right, buddy. Now this is the tricky part, are you ready?” 

The small boy nodded enthusiastically. Agatha held out her palm, and Nicky instinctively laid his hand in it, just like their other hands were pressed together. 

“To get the egg out of its shell, we have to press very carefully with our thumb into the crack,” Agatha said, bringing their hands carefully to the egg. “But when you do this, if you press too hard, the shell might crack too much and fall apart, dropping pieces of shell into the eggs we have to fish back out.”

“What if it’s too small to get back out?” Nicky asked, turning his head to look at his mom. 

“Then sometimes you have to eat them. But they’re kind of yucky, so we don’t want to do that.” 

The small boy nodded, understanding as best he could. Together, Agatha pressed his small thumb into the crack, making it expand little by little until she pulled the two pieces of shell apart, dropping the egg and its yolk into the collection of the rest of them. It landed with a little plop, and Nicky started to bounce at the knees. 

“Can we do it again, Mama? That was so cool!” 

Agatha laughed and carefully took the two halves of the shells from his fingers, tossing them in the garbage she had pulled out for this exact reason. 

“Hands,” she commanded, and two egg-sticky hands thrust themselves at her. She used a damp cloth and wiped them off. The last thing she needed was another set of stained pants to fight with in the wash. 

With a fork, Agatha whipped the eggs into a scrambled mix, and once she was done, she looked to Nicky and said, “Ready for the fun part?” 

The little boy nodded, hair slipping from his ponytail and falling into his eyes. With a gentle touch, Agatha pushed the strands behind his ears before cupping his cheek, rubbing the gently with her thumb. In moments like these, she was reminded just how much she loved this little boy with his big, hazel brown eyes and brilliant smile. 

She grabbed Nicky’s wrists in both of her hands and then smashed his hands into the pile of flour, pushing it into the flour and making him laugh raucously, the giggles nearly clacking his teeth together with the force of them. 

“Mama! You’re making a mess!” 

Agatha laughed, too, and kept using Nicky’s hands to push flour into the mix of eggs, partly because it was making him laugh and partly to make sure there wasn’t more of a mess than strictly necessary. Once the liquid was mostly contained in the flour, she let him go and started to knead alongside him, showing him how to push and pull just right as it molded into a ball of yellow dough. She separated a small ball of it from the rest and let him knead it to perfection alongside her, chatting endlessly about why flour and eggs make dough– a science lesson she certainly wasn’t prepared for this long after college. 

As Nicky wished, he got to use the “stringy machine” to help Agatha make the spaghetti while the meat sauce continued to burble on the stove. It was an old family recipe, one of the only things she could remember from her Nana, the only family member she had ever really forged a relationship with. Evanora’s stepmother was the only grandma that Agatha had ever known, and she only spent limited amounts of time with her, but during those times, they always cooked together. Now, it was something she loved to share with Nicky, too. 

“Nicky, where are you?” a familiar voice called out as the sound of someone letting themselves in the front door echoed in the halls of the large home. “I brought someone for you to see.” 

“Auntie Wanda!” Nicky exclaimed, running out to the foyer without cleaning his hands. 

Agatha smiled to herself as she heard the distinct sound of him being caught before grubby hands could ruin an outfit, and then a stunned silence. 

“ You know Mama doesn’t like surprises ,” she heard Nicky chastise Wanda as she wiped her hands on a towel. 

“ Your Mama loves surprises. Remember her last birthday when we took her to the islands? ” Wanda countered. Agatha could help but nod, that was a fair argument. 

“ Well, I don’t think she will like this one. No offense, Ms. Lilia, I like that you are here. ” 

Agatha froze at the sound of Lilia’s name. Before her thoughts could get away from her, she heard the sound of Nicky’s delighted giggles grow closer until Wanda stepped into the kitchen with him, holding his wrists way above his head, making him walk with clumsy steps. 

“This little monster is trying to get my new shirt all dirty, can you believe it?” Wanda asked, making the little boy laugh even harder. “Billy couldn’t make it to dinner tonight because Eddie had a last-minute event at his studio, so I brought Lilia instead. I hope that’s okay.” 

Agatha’s left eye twitched as she curved her face into a forced smile. “I suppose it has to be, hmm?” 

She didn’t mind that Lilia was here, not in any real sense of the word. But she didn’t like that there was no chance for her to prepare for the company, and that she had no choice in the matter. It grated at her already frayed nerves that another decision was made for her without consulting her. But of all the things Wanda could have done, Agatha was glad it was this. There was so much time she would never get back with Lilia, so how could she be upset about making it up now? 

“Sorry to come by unannounced, lady, but I brought a peace offering,” Lilia said with her normal exuberance. In her hands was a bouquet of Agatha’s favorite flowers in shades of purple, lavender, and white. “Would have brought wine, but I don’t think it would be as appreciated.” 

Agatha chuckled at the joke and gladly took the bouquet, reaching for a crystal vase in one of the cabinets, filling it with the flowers and water in equal measure. 

“Thank you for these, they’re beautiful. Nicky, can you use two hands and take this bouquet to the table?” she asked the little boy, knowing that he loved to help. 

Only recently had she been able to trust the little boy with more delicate things, and she knew that in front of unfamiliar company, he would be extra careful in transit. As he made it to the center of the dining table, Lilia helped him push it to the center of the blood red tablecloth. 

“Well, aren’t you such a careful young gentleman?” the older woman praised, patting his shoulder as he beamed up at her with pride. “I bet you make your mom so proud every day, don’t you?” 

Nicky nodded enthusiastically. “Mama tells me she’s proud of me every day. And she says I’m so smart and so strong and so creative and very polite and very kind, which are all the best ingredients in making little boys into good men.” 

Lilia snorted, smiling widely at the little boy. “Your mama would say that, wouldn’t she?” 

Agatha looked up from where she was plating the salads to watch as Lilia interacted with her boy, her heart swelling three sizes at the sight. 

“Billy mentioned that Carmen was at the shoot today. I thought maybe you wouldn’t mind some mother-daughter time,” Wanda said, earning herself a glare from Agatha. She held up her hands in surrender. “I know, I know, not your mom. But you know what I mean. She’s a tough kid with an even harsher grudge against anyone who does her sister wrong. One time, she bit Billy’s head off for calling Rio a swear word when Carmen was 8. I don’t think she let it go for a month.” 

Agatha’s chest clenched at the mention of the tween, at the mention of all the heartache she had been reminded of with the one, short interaction. 

“I’m glad you brought her,” she said, bumping her hip against Wanda’s. “And I’m sorry for the other day and everything I said. I… I was entirely out of line. I should never have brought up Tommy like that.” 

Wanda waved a hand in Agatha’s direction. “I know you’re sorry, Agatha. It’s okay. Well, it’s not okay and you better never fucking do it again. But what’s going on right now is extraordinarily extenuating circumstances, and I know you better than almost anyone. I know that you bite first and apologize later. Just take care of yourself, okay? Let’s get through this together.” 

In an uncharacteristic display of affection, Agatha wrapped an arm around Wanda’s waist and pulled her into her side. 

“And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry, too. I know I’m complicit in this whole mess, and while I didn’t know everything at the time,  I still feel terribly for how it has all come undone.” 

Agatha kissed Wanda’s cheek and let go of her. “Let’s just go have dinner with our family, yeah?” 

Wanda smiled a soft, knowing smile and nodded once, grabbing the bowl of cooked noodles to carry to the table. 

And there they sat, the four of them, eating dinner and catching up on all the lost time. Lilia told stories of her time as a movie producer and of her few stints back on the stage in New York; Agatha told stories about raising Nicky, and Nicky chimed in with his own anecdotes from the playground or from his nanny. Things started to slot back into place, and Agatha, for the first time since this whole thing started, felt some semblance of peace wash over her. 

These people, this room of love was like a balm, like cool water running through Agatha’s frayed, burning hot nerves. 

Hope was on the horizon for Agatha, and today proved that. Maybe it would be messy, maybe it would be painful, but today she found her way in. Her plan was slowly forming, her collection of information and observations filling in the edges and allowing her to press her thumb into the delicate cracks of this tour, of this record label. Soon enough, it would split in two, and all of the glorious, delicious filling would come flowing out for her to take. 

In this moment, Agatha felt the tables shift, and oh, what a powerful feeling it was. 

Chapter Text

Agatha couldn’t remember the last time she was in a recording booth– both figuratively and literally. About a year after the band split up, she tried her hand at producing a solo album, but nothing ever came of it because she couldn’t handle being sober enough to record anything of quality. Back in that first year, Agatha couldn’t leave her house without being swarmed by cameras and screaming paparazzi. Headlines were still ripping her apart, following her every move, cataloguing every single mistake in their pursuit of why she ruined everyone's favorite rock band. 

So, while she knew that going to the studio was logically something she would have done at this time, there was not even a crumb of conscious memory tied to that shoddy attempt at going solo. With memories of the only woman she ever loved burned into the walls of every recording studio, even the ones in New York she had never stepped foot in, Agatha couldn’t face them without a little liquid courage and more than her fair share of fine, white powder and wide, yellow pills. 

Today, they were laying down tracks for the performance material– layered harmonies, click tracks, cues, extra instrumentals, and sounds they couldn’t all perform live. That meant, however, a long day in the studio. 

It started with Agatha, Jen, Lilia, and Alice in neighboring isolation booths recording harmonies that would play as their intro– a haunting melody over bare bones instrumental that would grow and grow until it became something loud, something happy, something bigger than any one of them alone. Billy would come out first, filling in the missing drum track, then Jen on her bass. Lilia would follow with her tambourine, with Alice hot on her heels to slide behind the keyboard. The four would play for a full minute as the backing track pushed them higher and higher into the stratosphere until it broke on a gritty, full power chord struck on Rio’s signature Gibson, her and Agatha rising from under the stage on a lift, back to back. Then, Agatha would say, “Did you miss me?” The crowd would go wild, and they would start The Ballad of the Witches’ Road . 

Hours wound together, and Agatha found herself actually enjoying being back in the studio more than she anticipated. There was idle chatter as they all waited for their turn on various tracks. By the end of the day, Agatha knew that there was only one set of recordings left– the in-ear mix with a click track, and cues. Typically, the studio would hire voice actors or studio cats to do it and send the band home, but none of them seemed ready to leave, so they all stayed huddled in the lounge just down the hall while Agatha, ever the perfectionist, stayed behind to listen. It didn’t take long to get through the tracks for Billy and Lilia, Jen’s taking a bit longer, and Alice’s was already set from an off afternoon she had the week prior and laid it herself. Still, she let her mind wander back to where this all began. 

2011

The first time that Agatha stepped into a professional recording studio, she was still an undergrad with rose-colored glasses and an idealistic optimism that hadn’t yet been beaten from her body with ruthless kicks and punches. It had been something small– background vocals for a local band who promised her $100 and free tickets to a show on their next tour. She had always known that she wanted to be a musician one day, that she wanted to perform for huge crowds, but that day in the studio, she realized that she couldn’t imagine her life going any other way. The way her mind settled from chaos into a calm control the minute she stepped behind the microphone was near irresistible. 

Agatha would go back to recording studios many times over the years between that first visit and when Stark Records finally picked up Agatha and The Orchids when she was 26. Sometimes, it was to record for others but more often than not, she would scrape together as much money as she could from her waitressing jobs to rent the booth for a day or two, laying down tracks for their EPs and demos to take on their little local tours she booked for the group as it grew. Making music in the studio with feedback thrumming in her ears was Agatha’s happy place. 

So, when the band needed to record performance tracks for the first time, Agatha was absolutely giddy with excitement– and it made Rio happy, too. They walked into Stark Records together, hand-in-hand, chatting relentlessly as Agatha’s mind ran a mile a minute and Rio tucked loose hair behind her girlfriend’s– no, fiancée’s– ear and kissed the crown of her head. 

“Can you believe we are really here?” Agatha asked, letting her hand run along the wall at her side. “I mean, I know we recorded the album, but it’s real now. It’s not just some fantasy where we can only hope for the best. We’ve gotten the best, and now we’re taking it on tour around the country and Europe. It’s surreal.” 

Rio stopped Agatha in her tracks, halting her quick steps to pull her as she rested her back on the wall. Agatha’s hands instinctively lifted to Rio’s shoulders as she felt soft hands wrap around her hips. The distinct sound of Rio’s head thumping against the wall was followed by a light, brilliant laugh that Agatha felt through her entire body. 

“You really did it, huh?” Rio said, looking at Agatha like she hung the stars. “You told me the first day we met that you would climb to the top of the world. I believed you then, but I am still just as stunned today that all of your hard work has gotten us here. You’ve made it, my love. You’ve gotten everything you’ve ever wanted.” 

Agatha’s smile was slow as it spread wider and wider on her cheeks. God, she was right. Here she was, about to record for a headlining tour, held by the woman of her dreams, so deeply in love that she could die. 

“You know you’re part of that, too, right? I said that we could be everything. I couldn’t have done this without you,” Agatha admitted, a rare moment of honest vulnerability. “You’re everything to me, Rio. I can’t wait to marry you.” 

Rio’s cheeks heated at Agatha’s words, and Agatha could tell that she was basking in it, in this sense of joyful love and promise. Over the last three years, Agatha had painstakingly weasled her way into Rio’s soft, gooey center, and that was something she didn’t take lightly. Her fiancée was not someone who let people in. After the way she was raised, Agatha didn’t blame her at all. For all of Evanora’s cold, callous isolating neglect, Rio’s parents were burning fire, relentless and insidious as they broke her heart over and over and over again with their anger, their addiction, their violence. Together, Agatha cooled some of those burns, and Rio, in return, thawed the parts of her she had thought long lost to a never-ending winter. 

So, to give Rio this love? God, Agatha could bloom under her gaze and never question which way to face the sun. She was already right in front of her with a gap in her teeth and freckles across the bridge of her nose, spilling onto her cheeks. 

“October,” Rio replied, the date memorized the moment they had chosen it. “You’ll be mine forever.” 

Agatha stretched to press her lips against Rio’s softly, tenderly. “You already have me, my love.” 

Rio’s front teeth sank into her bottom lip as she bit back another smile. She pushed herself back off the wall and tangled their hands together once again, pulling Agatha down the hallway to their destination. 

“I have an idea,” Rio said to Agatha many hours later, watching as Billy and Alice worked on some percussion tracks. 

“Oh, that’s always dangerous,” Agatha replied, laughing when Rio shoved at her shoulder. “Not going to hurt yourself, are you?” 

“Shut up.” Rio rolled her eyes and shifted in her seat to face Agatha more fully. “What if we record each other’s cues?” 

Agatha pursed her lips and furrowed her brows, already nodding along as her eyes crinkled in delight. “I like the way you think, Vidal.”

“We’ve never had in-ear mixes like this before, so we might as well take advantage of it,” Rio continued, not realizing that Agatha had already agreed. “Wait, you like the idea?” 

A pale hand slipped across the seats to grab Rio’s. “Why wouldn’t I? Hell, when do I ever hate an idea you’ve had?” 

“You weren’t so fond of that time I–” Rio’s words were cut off by Agatha’s hand pressing firmly over her mouth. 

“Not here, you menace. There are like… four straight men in here. They don’t need to hear that.” 

Rio smiled wickedly under Agatha’s hand and licked it, making Agatha drop it as she cackled. 

“That’s pretty sappy, though, isn’t it? Having my girlfriend’s voice keeping me on track?” Agatha asked, playing with fire. “I didn’t take you for a romantic, Vidal.” 

“That’s fiancée to you, Harkness,” Rio replied without even thinking, the game already well played, even though the rings on their fingers were still shiny and new. “Sappy is my new middle name, you know? Just for you, though. Always for you.” 

Now it was Agatha’s turn to blush. Open, freely-given affection was a foreign language to her, but it was a welcome balm on her bruised ribs all the same. Her heart had always beat too hard in its cage, growing closer and closer to breaking free as it turned itself black and blue to try and keep a vice-like grip on her emotions and the vulnerability that put her in danger. But Rio learned this early on, noticed that while Agatha would brush her off and squirm under the discomfort of being seen, of being loved , her cheeks would always burn a bright pink, and her icy eyes would soften in a way only Rio could see. It had become a norm in their relationship, and Agatha truly couldn’t imagine anything better. 

“Alright, ladies. Have you decided if you want the male or the female voice actor on your cues?” one of the sound engineers asked as Billy and Alice came back into the gathering area. 

“Could we do them ourselves?” Agatha asked, squeezing Rio’s hand. “I would really like to have my fiancée do mine.” 

A distinct gagging sound could be heard from the duo drawing closer. “God, you two, could you not with that for like five minutes? You’re making me sick.” 

“You’re just jealous, Wu-Gulliver,” Rio fired back, sticking her tongue out at her friend. “Let us be in love in peace.” 

The sound engineer sighed deeply through loose lips. “Yeah, that’s fine. You first, Vidal. I’ve already got Agatha’s track script on the stand.” 

Rio jumped to her feet, smiling in that unsettling way at the man, making him take an unconscious step back. Without hesitation, she slid behind the microphone and put the headphones on. 

The booth mic clicked on. “Alright, Rio, mic is live, let’s see how this goes.” 

“Ready, sweetheart?” she asked, looking only at Agatha, unknowingly recording the two words that would play in Agatha’s ears before every show as a mantra, as an oath. 

Agatha could only nod, knowing that this was exactly what she needed. 

When she finally stirred from her thoughts, it was because it was her cues being recorded by the very kind man reading from an iPad. Agatha gripped at her chin with her forefinger and thumb, sucking in a deep breath through her nose. It all sounded so wrong, and she couldn’t put her finger on it. 

“No, we need to do them again, this isn’t right,” she said, twirling a finger to tell the sound engineers to roll it all back. “Let me try.” 

She made her way into the sound booth, taking the headphones from a man whose name she could not remember. His voice was lovely, probably made him lots of good money in voiceover work, but she just couldn’t focus on the very sapphic songs she would be performing with him telling her what to do next. It felt wrong, and she couldn’t quite explain why. 

For the next fifteen minutes, Agatha trial and error tested different variations of “1, 2, 3, 4” and “Go”, not even getting to the fun cues before she growled in frustration. 

“Why isn’t this working?” she barked into the microphone, more frustrated with herself than anything else. She’d spent the last 10 years listening to her own voice more than nearly anyone else’s, so why did it sound like nails on a chalkboard to her today? 

Through the mirror, she could see Alice sitting there with her legs crossed, a thoughtful expression on her face that made Agatha squirm. 

“Because you’ve never done it this way,” she answered simply, though her words clawed deeper. “Do you want to try Ri–”

“Don’t. I can do this on my own,” Agatha bit back, grimacing in apology. “Again.” 

The click track started in her ears, and she closed her eyes, centering herself before recording the count-in for The Ballad of the Witches’ Road . 

“Verse 1… one, two, three, four,” she dictated into the mic, feeling a bit better about it. Agatha Harkness was a completely capable musician, she could make her own click track cues and not be a diva about it. 

But when the recording played back again, her stomach turned, the acrid taste of discomfort crawling up her chest just like it had every time before. It was almost like she had been conditioned against anything but her ex-wife’s voice leading her into her performance. Her shoulders slumped, and she pinched the bridge of her nose in resignation. 

“Fine. Fine. Can someone please call Rio in?” Agatha asked, knowing that she was still with the rest of the band in the lounge, waiting for her turn. 

Without a word, Alice stood up and poked her head out the door, Rio walking through with a blank expression moments later. Agatha hung the headphones on the hook and walked back into the booth. If the discomfort at hearing the wrong voice in her cues was distracting, the way her insides clenched at the thought of asking Rio this made her want to be sick. 

Rio’s face gave nothing away, but Agatha knew that it was a front, a protective barrier to what could possibly be coming next. She didn’t blame her, not one bit. Agatha knew that she wasn’t exactly the easiest person to work with in the studio– she was meticulous and perfectionist with exactly the way each track should be laid on any given song. Agatha could hear everything in her head the way that she wanted it and wouldn’t stop until it was an exact replica of the melodies, of the layering, of the energy that she heard in her head as she wrote their songs. 

“I–” she started, choking a bit on the lump in her throat. “Will you please record my cues? I can’t… It doesn’t… It’s not right.” 

The taller woman relaxed visibly, a small, knowing smile spreading on her lips. “Of course.” 

A gentle hand lay on Agatha’s shoulder, squeezing comfortingly as Rio passed by, and Agatha felt a tingle ripple down to her fingers, and her breath caught. Shaking it off, she dropped back into her seat next to Alice and watched Rio steady herself in front of the microphone. Even after all of these years, Rio still had wisps of that hesitation she had always carried back in the beginning. Being recorded had always been the hardest part of Rio. Performing live was easier because she could feed off the energy of the crowd, absorbing their joy and their enthusiasm as she powered through each verse, each chorus, each crunchy harmony. But here? Behind the glass? It was just her and her mistakes for everyone to pick apart until it was right. 

It was hard for Agatha not to remember all the nights after recording where she would press warm, tender kisses into Rio’s skin, reminding her of just how perfect she was. Praises were interspersed between the lave of her tongue on sweat-slicked skin as she worked Rio to her peak over and over again, as she turned her wife into something boneless, something languid, something that left no room for doubt or insecurity as truth played over and over and over on a loop from Agatha’s lips. 

When Agatha locked eyes with Rio through the window, she could tell that Rio’s mind had wandered back to those nights, too. She gave Rio an encouraging nod, saying everything she never could out loud with one simple motion. It’s okay, you’ve got this, you’re doing great.

Rio looked sheepish for a second, like she was considering something that she couldn’t quite decide on. But then the sound engineer clicked his mic on, announcing that they were recording, and she stuck her tongue in her cheek in that way Agatha knew so well. 

“Ready, sweetheart?” she cooed into the mic, making Agatha’s chest clench. 

Agatha could feel Alice tense beside her, immediately starting to whisper, “We can cut that out, it’s okay,” but Agatha brushed her off, still looking at Rio, a single tear stinging at the corner of an icy blue eye. 

“Always,” she said, though she knew that Rio couldn’t hear her, nodding as she said it. “It stays in.” 

When she finally looked to Alice, there was a shock of confusion written on her face, but an underlying understanding. “Are you sure you want it?” she asked, reaching out to touch Agatha’s arm, her scars on full display, pinky finger permanently bent. “You shouldn’t torture yourself for tradition, Agatha.” 

The younger woman shook her head. “I want it.”

And it was true, Agatha couldn’t imagine doing this without Rio, no matter how much she hated it or wanted it to be different. Something was shifting within Agatha, slowly but firmly sliding back into a mechanism long rusted over. It felt thick, viscous like honey, sweet and sticky and so, so warm. She didn’t want to let it in, she wasn’t sure she was ready for things to come back together, but she could feel it dripping into all of her cracks, into all of her misplaced and misshapen pieces. 

It felt inevitable.

Once the music was recorded, the click tracks mixed, and rehearsals well under way, the band started to meet with choreographers and stage the show. Most of it had been started before Agatha signed on, which still annoyed her to no end, so the stage design, the schedule, all of the things that took significant amounts of time had all been settled long before she was ever approached. The only thing that kept her from getting truly upset with it all was that she genuinely couldn't care less about those details. Nicky would be with them on the road once his school year was over, so even the scheduling didn’t bother her much. The less she had to deal with the logistics, the better, she figured. That had been part of her downfall initially, hadn’t it? The schmoozing and partying and doing whatever she needed to secure gigs, funding, award nominations, all of it. 

It hadn’t taken long for the band to decide on a setlist once Jen felt like enough of their bass-heavy songs were included and Agatha had successfully championed for there to be a “surprise song” section for deeper cuts, solo songs, unreleased songs, anything that would make a true fan lose their mind. Three albums over two hours was more than enough time to keep everyone happy. So, all that was left was practicing exactly how they would do it. 

“Agatha, tell us about what it’s like to come back to performing after so much time away,” Natasha said as the singer sat in a confessional-style setup, long hair pulled back from her face and dressed in active wear that the wardrobe department had picked for her. “What are you doing to prepare for the physical demands of the show?” 

“Thankfully, I’ve kept in pretty good shape over the last few years,” Agatha replied, fighting against rolling her eyes at the ridiculous questions. “I’m not too worried about the physical demands, but I can’t say I’ve done much dancing in the last decade. Is it possible to forget how?” 

She cracked a smile, making Natasha laugh a little from her place behind the camera. “I’m sure that you will take to it like a fish in water. You were always such a natural on the stage.” 

Agatha knew that she should smile at the compliment, so she did. “It’s going to be interesting to see how we all mesh together after all this time. I’m sure Rio has developed a sense of her own performance style as she headlined her own tours, and the others bring so much to the table with the different endeavors they set upon. There is potential for something really special to happen here.” 

Natasha nodded approvingly, and Agatha knew that she had said all the right things.

“And you’re not worried about Rio’s decade of experience outshining the rest of the band?” Natasha asked, though Agatha could hear the real question– was she worried that Rio would outshine her ?

“No, I’m not,” Agatha answered honestly, challenging Natasha with a smile on her face. “Rio has always been a team player and she’s never been the one to threaten the integrity of our band.”

“So there is someone who has threatened the integrity of the band?” Natasha probed, wanting to bend Agatha, see how close she could get before she snapped. 

Agatha wasn’t going to let her win. “Oh, I would certainly say that in this industry, there is always someone or multiple someones who are making the wrong decisions and asking the wrong questions in pursuit of a bigger profit. It puts any band, any artist in danger of losing sight of the real reason we are all here.” 

“And what is that reason, Agatha?” 

“For the love of the music,” she said simply, waving her hand in front of her face. “Every single one of us on that stage started out as a young person in love with the way music made us feel, with the escape it brought us, with the way it gave us a medium to express ourselves when it felt impossible in any other. Music tells a story, it speaks the language of souls, it reaches inside everyone, no matter who you are or where you came from. That’s why we’re here. That’s why I am here. And that has to be enough.” 

Agatha thought about her sweet, miracle boy as she walked back toward the rest of the band and how close he came to never being able to experience music like she had. It was a small mercy, she thought, that even if one day his hearing worsened or was lost completely, these first years of his life were filled with memories of sharing love in a language so dear to her heart. His life would not end, it would be no less vibrant or full or wonderful, Agatha wouldn’t allow that to happen. Her perfect, beautiful boy would still smile just as brightly, he would laugh just as loudly, he would be the beacon of brilliant light that he always had been. No ifs, ands, or buts. Nicky would always be whole and complete, no exceptions. But to be blessed with sharing this with him now? She didn’t know what she did to deserve it. 

Just as they had planned, Agatha and Rio would lift from under the stage in a blast of lights, backs pressed together as Rio hit each chord and Agatha struck her signature pose, one arm lifted in the air, the other clutching her mic close to her lips. The songs would progress forward, building to highs, sinking to lows, and journeying with the crowd through lust and love and heartache. 

“Agatha, Rio, how do we feel about dancing?” the choreographer asked, hands on her hips as the backing track for one of their hotter hits played in the background. The guitars were heavy with reverb, they keys smoothed into something full and dark, the lyrics burning a fire low in Agatha’s stomach. 

“We’ve been dancing all day, so pretty favorably,” Agatha snarked, making Rio roll her eyes and Jen let out an exasperated sigh. 

“Easy, tiger,” Alice warned, making Agatha freeze in her tracks. This was the first time any of them had been comfortable enough with her to react this way, she got like this. Her jaw dropped ever so slightly as she turned to look at Alice, who only had a look of challenge on her face. 

“Who, me?” Agatha asked, putting on her sugariest voice. “I’m not doing anything wrong.” 

It was part of the game they had always played, a game that was so familiar to Agatha it made her ache. Everything about this week of preparation seemed to make her ache for the days long before. 

“Yes, you, you absolute nightmare,” Alice replied, following the script that had been set all those years before. 

Being called a nightmare should make Agatha see red, it should make her shut down and walk away from the choreography altogether, but it didn’t. The affectionate smile on Alice’s face, the way her kindness seemed to bend around the words in her mouth, all of it was so mind-numbingly comforting that she almost felt her world shift off-balance. When she was so sick, these words, this affectionate teasing had started to feel like personal attacks, the drugs warping everything until she was a victim, like she could do nothing right, like the world was against her for no reason at all. 

But today? Today, the dynamic nestled deep in her chest and broke something wide open– a victory in her recovery that she hadn’t even known to look forward to. Seven years clean, and she was still healing. Seven years sober, and the monsters creeping in the recesses of her mind, waiting to strike, finally were silent. 

Agatha could cry, she was so relieved. She wouldn’t, not here, not with these people. But the joy bubbling forward was something she could handle. 

“Fine, fine, I suppose I can be normal for long enough to get this done,” Agatha acquiesced, making everyone laugh a little at her antics. “What kind of dancing do you have in mind?” 

The choreographer cracked a tiny smile, well aware of what she had walked into with this band, and then joined Agatha and Rio at the center of the stage. 

“This song is one of the ones that skyrocketed you to fame and changed the tide on what it meant for queer lust to be written for the woman’s gaze, yes?” 

Agatha nodded along, as that was exactly what the song was for. It was rich and horny for anyone except for the straight men who had previously held the corner of the market filled with queer women’s sexuality. She wanted a song to dance to, to kiss to, to fuck to, that wasn’t just some rip off of the same old “I kissed a girl, I hope my boyfriend won’t mind it” that had overwhelmed the music scene back in those days. Sapphic love was theirs, and she wanted to take it back. 

“On your old tours, you and Rio would dance together as she played and you sang. I want to bring this back, but I want to expand ,” the choreographer explained, gesturing emphatically and catching Agatha’s attention. 

“Say more,” Agatha probed, intrigued. 

The choreographer brought her over to where Alice was standing at the keyboard. “One of your openers has a song like this, so we need to be careful not to copy, but I want you to dance with Alice before you dance with Rio. Start here on her right, pull her hair over her shoulder like this, and rock your hips with her as you dance together. I want you close enough that you are almost touching skin as you sing. I want your microphone tickling her shoulder.” 

Agatha followed direction, using her left hand to tuck Alice’s long hair behind her ear and then tuck herself over her shoulder. They started to sway together in time, and the choreographer clapped. 

“Yes, you’re seeing my vision,” she praised. “As the tour goes on, feel free to have some fun with this.”

“Fun how?” Agatha asked, stepping back away from Alice, feeling shy. 

The choreographer only quirked an eyebrow. “You’ll know it when you feel it. Now cross back over to center stage for the second verse, strut a little, give the crowd a bit of a show.” 

Long strides brought Agatha back to her mic stand, her hips swaying as she let herself get lost in the motion. 

“Rio, I want you to meet her here. I need it to be tentative at first, like you don’t know whether to approach. The crowd is going to eat this shit up, you’re going to be TikTok sensations,” the choreographer continued, showing her how she wanted Rio to spin with her guitar. 

“And what do I do?” Agatha asked, still bouncing back and forth with the song. 

“You’re going to ignore her for a measure, and then I need to see you being drawn to her against your will. Sidelong glances, then your hips start to mimic what hers are doing. Yes, just like that, ladies, perfect! As the song swells into the prechorus, I need Agatha to circle back behind Rio. You’ll be taller in the heels, yes? I want you to use that height to your advantage and tuck yourself over her shoulder like Alice, but this time I want your hand on her waist.” 

Agatha gulped but followed the direction– it was just choreography, it didn’t mean anything. It didn’t have to be anything more than it was. But when her hand slid along the curve of Rio’s hip, guiding her movements, she heard Rio’s breath catch. No one else could hear it; it was just for her, and she could feel the tension in Rio’s muscles as Rio fought not to freeze under her touch. 

“Are you sure this is okay?” Agatha whispered in her ear, and Rio simply nodded. Despite it, Agatha kept a distance from Rio’s body, enough room for a book to fit in the space between her front and Rio’s back as they danced. 

“Okay, and when the guitar cuts out right here, I want Agatha to move to walk away and Rio to reach out and pull her back. Time it over a count of four so that when Rio’s guitar comes back in, Agatha is magnetized. Hands in her hair, transfixed as Rio pushes into her solo.” 

When Rio’s hand wrapped around Agatha’s wrist, her heart skipped a beat. It was what she had begged for in her dreams– for Rio to reach out and tug her back as she floated away and not let her go. Agatha shook her head, trying to steady her breathing as she reminded herself that this wasn’t real . The choreographer continued to encourage them, but Agatha could tell by the look in Rio’s eyes that she caught it, that Agatha hadn’t slammed her walls down fast enough, and she accidentally gave that piece of herself to the only woman who had ever known her well enough to see . 

Rio’s hand dropped from her wrist, and then she quirked an eyebrow, already moving forward. Agatha could have thanked her for it, but instead she stayed silent. 

“I don’t know if my knees will like it, but I have an idea,” Rio said, looking at the choreographer with a glint in her eyes. Then, she dropped her knees as she noodled through some bare-bones version of the guitar solo. Agatha followed as she dropped with her eyes, heat rising on her cheeks as memories slammed into her at full force. 

Agatha, though, let her body move with Rio’s, reaching down to cup her jaw as her hips kept swaying in delicious circles, like she was feeding Rio on her knees until she, too, was crouched low enough that their faces were aligned. Just a few inches and their noses would be touching, just a few seconds and she could be singing into Rio’s open, glistening lips, but she hung back, kept the distance. 

“Brilliant, Rio,” the choreographer said, causing Agatha to wrench herself back to standing.   “Yes, if your knees can handle it, I want to see that every show. But if not, can we do something similar from standing?” 

Rio nodded. “Yeah, that shouldn’t be too hard.” 

With the guitar leading her steps forward, she crowded in on Agatha just enough to make it seem purposeful, but that same three inches kept them apart. Her body rolled toward Agatha’s, making the same spectacle that it had on her knees, and Agatha tipped her head forward, creating an intimacy that the audience would eat up. 

Agatha could hear her heartbeat in her ears, pulsing wildly as she pulled away, breaking the spell that had wrapped around them, pulling herself as far away from the look in Rio’s eyes as she could. A rush of cold flooded her body as she realized what was happening, as she realized just how dangerous this moment was, of what this could be. 

Even after all of these years, Rio Vidal still could pull her into her orbit.

All this time later, she could see Rio was feeling it, too. 

She shoved that thought as far down as she possibly could. That wasn’t going to happen, they weren’t even friends , let alone anything else. Agatha had spent enough of her life ruining Rio’s, the last thing she wanted was to step back into that mess. But when she looked back across the stage, saw the way that Rio’s chest was heaving, the way her lips were parted as she tasted the tension between them like sugar on the rim, Agatha felt that tug in her chest, that desperate craving for the woman she once knew. 

There was a time in her life when Agatha swore that she would never feel anything but hatred for Rio Vidal. Around the same time, she also harbored a secret, leeching hope that one day Rio would turn back, that she would stop as she walked down the cold hallway and turn for one last look at the woman she loved and would change her mind. But that day, Rio hadn’t looked back, and Agatha knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was for the best that she never would again. 

Heartache slid inside the wide, gaping center that just moments ago had been flooded with warmth, with joy, with the promise of her future. It never ceased to amaze Agatha that even without the drugs, without the booze, without the demon on her shoulder, her mind so easily could take the bait of emotional devastation and ride it all the way to the surface, letting its blistering sun cover her skin with tender, oozing burns that she didn’t know what to do with. 

“Alright, let's go over some basic ideas for the rest of the set, and then we can get out of here,” the choreographer said, ignoring the way that both women standing center stage were free-falling from a moment they had never thought would be theirs again. 

Agatha put on her bravest smile until the music flooded her system once more, pushing out any feeling that wasn’t her overwhelming joy at performing with her band again. And Rio? Agatha watched as she fell right back into line, as she, too, pretended that her skin wasn’t still aching from where Agatha had touched her, that this was just another normal rehearsal like the hundreds she had done over the last decade. 

The band was scheduled for a pap walk on Friday evening, something Agatha couldn’t get out of despite her very valiant efforts. Late enough that the flash would catch against the dark sky, early enough that it seemed like a perfectly normal bonding experience for the reconciling band as they prepared to embark on their tour. Only a week left, now, until opening night, and they would finally be bringing to life this labor of love. Which meant, unfortunately, they needed to get the media stirring with whispers about the band, about their dynamic, rejuvenating those same long-told rumors that fueled the band’s sales even long after they were laid their graves. 

Agatha was already bracing herself for what the media would say about her, for the old skeletons they would inevitably dig out of her closets. And, for that, she had started having conversations with Nicky about fame and what it meant that his Mama was a rockstar. 

“So you have to go out tonight with The Orchids because the cameras need to see you together?” Nicky asked as they waited for Wanda to meet them at the park. It was secluded and private, something still theirs , still untainted by the press. He would be going with her for a sleepover tonight while Agatha worked, something the older woman was more than happy to do. Wanda loved Nicky like he was her own. 

“Yes, which means there will be pictures on the news and on the internet of Mama, too,” she replied, holding his Paw Patrol backpack on her shoulder while she held Nicky’s hand. They were walking toward the swingset, one of Nicky’s favorite places to play, and Agatha wasn’t going to take any chances. Before, she had an easier time giving him the freedom to play, but today, something in her demanded she keep him close. 

“But what I see on the internet isn’t always true, so I should always ask you before I believe something,” Nicky repeated from the mantra they had been working on for weeks. Agatha ruffled the hair on his head affectionately. 

“That’s right, sweet boy.” 

Agatha knew that one day, there would be a larger conversation to have with her son about who she was and who she used to be. It would probably be hard and sad and shake their foundation. But that wasn’t for today. Today, he was six years old and nearly a kindergarten graduate; the burden of his mom’s addiction was not something that he needed to carry. For now, he would be the carefree, bubbly child he had always been. 

Nicky climbed up onto the swing and started to propel himself forward and back, wasting no time at all to climb to heights that made Agatha’s stomach turn. It wasn’t that long ago that he was still begging her to push him higher and higher, giggling wildly every time her hands pressed into his warm back and he soared toward the sky. Her little boy was growing up right before her very eyes. 

When Wanda walked into the park, her security lingered at the entrance like it always had, but this time it seemed to blend in with the guard that Agatha had demanded Stark hire to keep her son safe after the fiasco in front of his school. She was talking on the phone with a stern, frustrated look on her face, but Agatha wasn’t close enough to hear. It was that same look that she recognized from all the times that Wanda had rescued her before, all the times that Wanda had to pick up her pieces when she knew that she shouldn’t have. 

So, when Wanda finally hung up, Agatha beat her to the chase.

“So who do you have to go rescue?” she asked, not letting Wanda even catch her breath. 

A long sigh escaped Wanda, making her lips puff out with the force of it. “No one, not really. But I do have a question to ask you.”

“Me? What could this possibly have to do with me?” Agatha asked, screwing up her face in confusion. 

“The long-short of it is that Rio has Carmen for the weekend unexpectedly and can’t get her babysitter on this short of notice, so they’ve asked if I can watch her, too,” Wanda explained. 

“Isn’t she 12? That’s the legal age to stay home alone in most states.” 

“Sure, but Rio is this close to winning her custody battle with her parents, and she doesn’t want to take any chances. The last thing she wants is to have child neglect put on her file because someone catches Carmen home alone.” 

Agatha nodded, rolling her eyes because she knew that there was only one reasonable answer to Wanda’s unspoken request. 

“Fine, but I don’t trust that kid,” she said under no uncertain terms. “Nicky is too young and innocent to get tied up in all of this.” 

“Have you even met Carmen? She’s perfectly lovely when she’s not participating in one of the many absurdly weird hobbies she picked up from her sister,” Wanda said, eyeing Agatha up and down. 

“Yes, briefly after the photoshoot. She’s not a fan of mine.” 

Wanda hummed, pieces clicking together in her mind. “She gave you a piece of her mind, didn’t she?” 

“You could say that, yes,” Agatha answered, keeping it vague. “I was less than impressed. That girl has a mouth on her.” 

It didn’t escape Agatha that Wanda was talking about Carmen like she had met her before, like she had been part of her life in any meaningful way. Agatha knew that she had won Wanda in the divorce, but she also knew that Billy’s allegiance often fell in more places than one. Wanda hadn't stayed Rio's friend, of that much she was certain, but that didn't mean that Billy hadn't still brought Rio and Carmen around for parties or gatherings. She wasn’t quite sure what to do with this information, but it stung just the same to know that this was yet another piece of their intricate lives that Agatha hadn’t been invited to. 

“I will have them meet us here, okay? You can watch her interact with Nicky for a while, and we can be a united front about making sure she knows that Nicky is just a baby and needs to be treated with that level of respect.” 

Agatha huffed and waved her hand at Wanda, signalling that she was done with the conversation as the older woman texted an address to Rio. 

They didn’t have to wait long before two eerily-similar-looking sisters came walking into the park, the younger looking dark and sullen while the older grateful and relieved. It took longer, though, for Carmen to look up and catch who exactly they were walking into. 

“Rio, you didn’t say she would be here,” Carmen hissed, not quite quiet enough for Agatha to miss. “I don’t want to be here.” 

The taller woman looked down at her sister with a mix of frustration and seriousness. “Carmen, you cannot be serious right now.” 

“What? Like you have no idea what I’m talking about,” Carmen replied, chewing her gum in one cheek and pulling her lips to match. “She’s awful.” 

“Oh, absolutely not,” Rio reprimanded, sliding effortlessly into the maternal role she had played so often with her baby sister. “You are not going to stand in front of someone and disrespect them like this. You don’t know Agatha, and you certainly do not have the right to speak to her this way. Apologize to her. Now.” 

Carmen looked Agatha up and down before crossing her arms. “And if I don’t want to?” 

Rio touched Carmen’s shoulders gently before turning her to face her. It was an interaction Agatha remembered so well from the nights when she knew sneaking up on Rio would send her into a full-fledged panic. 

“Look at me, Carmen,” Rio started, not caring that they still hadn’t properly greeted the two women still watching the interaction. “There are things in this life that happen that are out of our control. And, there are things that happen that don’t become clear until our brains finish developing because they’re just too complex. You’re a smart girl, we both know that. Don’t diminish that by refusing to look at all the angles. How would you feel if Agatha’s sister walked up to us and started talking down to me like you’re doing right now?” 

“That’s different, you don’t deserve it.” 

Ouch.

“Maybe to you, from your understanding. You’ve only heard bits and pieces of what happened, entirely from my point of view. Don’t you think that maybe there are things I have left out? You saw what happened when our brother got divorced. It was messy and painful for both of them, wasn’t it? You’re smarter than thinking I was the only one hurting, too.”

Wheels were starting to turn in Carmen’s mind, and Agatha could see it. Certainly, this wasn’t how she would talk to Nicky about this subject, but she could tell that perhaps this was the only way through to a girl who had seen more in her short life than she should have ever had to. 

“Okay, fine, I get what you’re saying,” Carmen replied after a moment of thought, though she still rolled her eyes. “I still don’t trust her.” 

“And I’m not asking you to,” Rio followed smoothly, not skipping a beat. “But I am asking you to treat her with human decency and apologize for being hurtful.” 

Carmen turned to look at Agatha, and the glare in her eyes was entirely that of a twelve-year-old scorned. “I’m sorry for being a jerk.”

She didn’t mean it, not really, but Agatha didn’t care. “Thank you for your apology, Carmen. It means a lot to me.” 

The tween rolled her eyes again and looked back to Rio. “There, happy now?” 

“One more thing,” Wanda chimed in, catching Carmen off guard. “I’m watching Agatha’s son tonight. His name is Nicky and he is six, so you need to be on your best behavior. None of this can come into my home, not while he is around.” 

Carmen furrowed her brow, not quite following what was going on. Rio, thankfully, jumped right in. 

“You can’t be mean to him just because he’s Agatha’s and you can’t say mean things about Agatha to him,” she explained. “He’s just a little kid, and you need to treat him that way.” 

“Why would I be mean to a kid?” Carmen asked, all the venom falling away from her tone. “I don’t– You know I would never do that to someone else.” 

Rio nodded solemnly and pulled Carmen into her side in a quasi-embrace. “I know, hermanita , I know you wouldn’t.” 

Agatha could piece together the conversation the two sisters were having that couldn't be heard. It was obvious that Carmen had a soft spot for kids because of her own childhood, just like Rio always had– and she’d like to believe that it was Rio’s influence on her that made her that way. 

“Speak of the devil,” Wanda said as the crunch of sneakers on mulch came closer and closer. “Nicky, this is my friend Carmen, and she’s going to be staying with us tonight, too.” 

Little hands pressed into the back of Agatha’s thighs as Nicky peered around her hip shyly, though it was unclear if he was hiding from his crush on Rio or the new, scary-looking girl. Agatha cupped the back of his head gently and pulled him around until he was standing in front of her. 

“That’s Miss Rio’s little sister,” Agatha introduced, which made Nicky relax slightly. So it was the scary-looking girl making him nervous, she thought to herself. 

Carmen looked at him for a moment, taking in his long hair pulled into a ponytail and the dirt scuffs on his knees. Then, she dropped to her knees without hesitation and started to move her hands slowly, clumsily. 

“My… friend has those, too,” she started, signing the first two words before floundering and pointing to the hearing aid in his ear. 

Nicky perked up at the gesture, at meeting someone who didn’t see his hearing aids as something weird. Agatha looked to Rio, who only shrugged. 

“Do they look like mine or do they have the circle, too?” Nicky asked, pointing to the spot on his skull where a cochlear implant would connect– something he learned from his friends at the playplace his nanny took him to sometimes to play with other deaf/hard of hearing children. 

Carmen nodded. “She says that it makes the noise for her ears because her ears don’t work right. Is that different from yours?”

“Mine just makes things louder so I can hear them better,” Nicky answered, nodding thoughtfully. “I’m not fully deaf, but the doctors told Mama that they don’t know if that will ever change.” 

“Maybe then you’ll get to wear the same hearing aids as my friend,” Carmen said with a shrug. “Then you can be twins .” 

This made Nicky giggle, which warmed Agatha’s heart. “Yeah, maybe. I don’t know how that works, but I do know that we can’t be twins because we aren’t the same age!” 

Wanda smiled fondly as the two kids seemed to hit it off, still chattering incessantly as she looked to Agatha for her approval. “Think I can handle it, boss?” 

“Yeah, I think they’ll be just fine,” Agatha replied, feeling a bit soothed by the kind, genuine interaction between Carmen and her baby boy. She passed off the backpack on her shoulder to Wanda and watched as the group of them moved further into the playground, Carmen immediately listening to the instructions that Nicky gave about what game they were going to play. 

“Well, I can’t say I expected it to go that smoothly,” Rio said after a moment, breaking the silence and turning to leave. 

Agatha followed along and let the sound of her son’s squeals of laughter fill her cup as they left. “Carmen isn’t much of a people person, I take it?” 

“You could say that again,” Rio snorted. “But she does have a soft spot for things that are lost and overlooked. Maybe she could see a bit of that in Nicky when she saw his hearing aids. I’m sure that he doesn’t always have an easy time making friends, if kids are anything like they were back in our day.” 

Agatha prickled a bit at Rio’s words, but she knew exactly what she was saying. And she was right, Nicky was already dealing with feeling like an outsider sometimes because of his disability but she was so lucky that she had found the right elementary school for a kid like him because they made it part of their curriculum to talk about physical differences and he had said on at least two separate occasions that his teachers and his friends never made him feel bad for being different. 

“Nicky has definitely had his fair share of struggles with adjusting to social settings and other kids,” Agatha answered honestly. “But his school has done a really good job with him, and he’s acclimated pretty well. I assume Carmen has had issues, too?” 

Rio nodded, picking up speed as they fell into line with the security hired to follow them for the evening. “She’s always kept to herself and preferred her own company to that of others. Which I get, I was like that, too, at her age. So I’m glad to see her connecting with Nicky, she needs some kind of friend that isn’t me, even if it’s a six-year-old.” 

“She said she has a friend with a cochlear implant. Are they close?” Agatha asked. 

When they reached the parking garage, there was only one dark SUV, and Agatha could have cursed herself for not calling for Herb to pick her up. Rio opened the door and let Agatha slide in first. 

“Yeah, she has two friends at school that she’s close with, but I don’t know just how close they are. I’m hoping that when she’s with me full time, she will invite them for sleepovers or something like normal middle schoolers,” Rio admitted, shutting the door behind her. “But until then, I’m just letting her do what feels safe. There will be plenty of time for everything else later.” 

It was more than Agatha anticipated hearing from Rio, if she was being honest. Part of her ached to probe, to ask another question, to tell Rio that she could confide in her, but Agatha knew that that wasn’t true. This wasn’t her place anymore, this wasn’t her story to hear. Maybe once upon a time, Agatha would have deserved that right, but instead, she let the car fall into silence as they crossed the city to some venue downtown that would be crawling with paparazzi ready to eat them alive. 

And eat them alive, they did. By the time they reached the end of the journey, they had picked up all of the other band members, shoving them into seats until their body heat could be felt around the cabin. Rio stepped out first, holding a hand for Agatha to take as she climbed out – strategic and getting the attention of the photographers right out of the gate. Their hands fell to their sides nearly immediately, putting space between them, but the screams didn’t stop as fans and journalists alike fought for their attention. 

And, Agatha's palm didn't stop tingling for the rest of the night.

This was the beginning of a circus that Agatha wasn’t sure she would ever be ready for, but at least now she knew that the people walking behind her were her coven, that they wouldn’t let her falter this time. At least, that was her hope. And for some strange reason, Agatha actually wanted to believe them.

Chapter Text

“Mama, can I come with you tonight?” Nicky’s small voice asked for the tenth time since she had woken up that morning.

Agatha ran a comb through her damp hair, fresh out of the shower with her floral robe cinched tight around her waist. She took a deep breath and placed the comb on the counter, squatting to Nicky’s eye level. 

“Baby, we’ve been over this. You have to go with Auntie Wanda tonight. There is going to be too much going on and it won’t be safe,” Agatha reminded her son, knowing that with the early hour and the repeated disappointment, they were probably minutes away from a meltdown. 

As if on cue, Nicky’s round cheeks started to flame a bright red, and tears started to collect on his waterline. Agatha fought back the urge to roll her eyes, knowing that it would do nothing but make her sensitive little boy feel even worse. Instead, she stayed squatting in front of him and waited patiently for his next move. 

This was one of the hardest parts of parenting for Agatha— fighting back the urges she learned from her own mother. Agatha had never been allowed to have emotions, even from a young age, when it was nearly impossible to regulate them on her own. If she cried, her mother always, always looked the other way; if she started to wail or beg or plead or yell, her mother’s face would turn stone cold and berate her until she stopped her theatrics, banishing her to her room indefinitely with reddened, nearly bruising skin. It wasn’t safe for Agatha to have her emotions then, and she still struggled with expressing them now, which on mornings like these made her unending patience for her child pull taut in her chest and fray at the edges until it rubbed her raw. 

So, as always, she took deep, steadying breaths and reminded herself that having these emotions was completely normal for a six-year-old whose brain was still forming. It could have been so easy for Agatha to shut him down, to shame his emotions until they stopped just like hers always had been, but that wasn’t the kind of mother she wanted to be. 

Honestly, Agatha didn’t know that she could ever stomach hurting her miracle boy the way that she had been by her mother. 

People always said that she would have a better understanding of Evanora when she had children of her own, that she couldn’t possibly understand the stress of parenting a baby Harkness but every day since she learned of Nicky’s existence, she understood less and less of why her mother treated her the way that she had. There wasn’t a universe where she didn’t treat her son with tender, compassionate love. He was just too beautiful, too innocent, too pure to ever be corrupted by that kind of pain.

Evanora had always said that she was born evil, though, so perhaps that was just it— Agatha wasn’t born soft and lovely like Nicky had been, at least not in Evanora’s eyes, so of course, she wouldn’t have wanted to protect Agatha like a mother should. 

Sometimes, Agatha wondered if maybe Evanora was right. She had certainly played the villain so willingly in the lives of so many people who never deserved it. 

“You’re a mean Mama!” Nicky cried, voice thick with emotion as the tears started to trail down his cheeks. “I hate you! 

Nicky’s words struck like red-hot pokers in Agatha’s chest, making her breath catch and her heart nearly skid to a halt as her ribcage folded in on itself. It had been a long morning already of this back and forth, Nicky growing more and more upset with each round, but this was the first time that he had ever said those three words. Agatha wasn’t prepared for the way that they would land like a physical blow, needing to steady herself with a hand on the sink so she didn’t fall over. 

“Nicky, that isn’t how you speak to me,” Agatha chided, keeping a tight grip on her emotions as she felt the frustration and heartbreak starting to bubble over. 

“I don’t care!” He screamed back, his anguished cries transforming into anger. “You don’t love me!”

”Nicholas Angel Harkness,” Agatha started, stern and commanding as she stood back up, hovering over her son like the authority figure she was, but not raising her voice, never raising her voice. She hoped that Nicky couldn’t see the way her hands trembled as she signed along to her words. “You do not yell in this house. You’re allowed to be upset with me, but you are not allowed to yell.”

”I have to!” Nicky carried on, his voice thick with snot as he continued to be overloaded with emotions. 

Agatha knew this mood, knew intimately what was happening in her little boy’s head. 

“I know it feels that way, but no, you do not. Would you like to breathe with Mama, or would you like to go to your room to calm down alone?” Agatha asked, keeping her temper in check, giving Nicky a choice instead of commanding him on what to do. 

Nicky made a frustrated noise and stomped his foot. “No!” 

She passed by him in the bathroom, exiting into her walk-in closet to start picking her clothes for the commute to her morning engagement. Nicky followed along dutifully, still wailing. 

“Mama!” he cried, thoroughly upset that she wouldn’t play along with his tantrum. 

“I’m here, little love,” she reminded him, laying a dress on the decorative armchair in the corner that she wasn’t in love with. “Would you like to breathe with Mama, or would you like to go calm down in your room?” 

Nicky sniffled and began to whine a little, seemingly starting to wear himself out as the effort of screaming and crying caught up to him. 

While she waited, Agatha slipped her underwear up her legs and fought to put her bra on through her robe, knowing that she wasn’t going to get a moment’s peace to dress alone. At least, not in a timely manner, not when Nicky was this dysregulated. The small boy stayed sniffling and crying with his hands folded over his chest for long enough that Agatha was fighting with the zipper on the back of her dress when he finally spoke. 

“Wanna breathe,” he answered after a while, stepping closer to his mom hesitantly. 

With a sound of victory, Agatha pulled her zipper the last inch to the top and then immediately sat in the chair, beckoning him closer. Nicky stood between her open legs, and she placed both her hands on his little shoulders, his hands touching the exposed skin of her knees. 

“Very good, Nicky. Thank you for telling Mama what you need,” she said, starting to breathe deeply, exaggerating her movements so that Nicky could follow. For several long moments, Agatha and Nicky breathed together, and she watched as the color drained from Nicky’s face back into the pale, olive-toned shade it normally was. 

“Nicky, why did you yell at me?” Agatha asked after a while, giving her son plenty of time to cool off. 

“Because I’m mad and that makes my tummy hurt,” Nicky said, a little soft, a little sad, and a lot guilty. “I was bad.” 

Agatha smoothed her hand over Nicky’s hair and pursed her lips. “Misbehaving doesn’t make you bad, darling boy. You got overwhelmed and made a bad decision, but that doesn’t make you bad. You are a good boy, Nicky.” 

Nicky looked at his shoes, and she recognized so much of herself in the little boy who felt everything so deeply. If she did nothing else, she would honor those big feelings and make sure he never felt shame for having them. 

“Then why can’t I go?” Nicky asked, lip pouting. 

Strong hands pulled at Nicky’s waist, lifting him to sit on Agatha’s lap. “Is that why you’re upset? Because you think you’re not being good enough to go to the concert?” 

Nicky nodded his head and refused to meet Agatha’s eyes. “Carmen did a bad thing, and now she is not going.” 

Pieces were starting to come together in Agatha’s mind, whirring into overtime as he tried to think about what kind of conversation he would have had with the older girl that made him feel this way. 

“Do you remember what punishments are?” Agatha asked, waiting for Nicky to give an indication that he was watching her free hand, too. 

He nodded solemnly. “When I don’t pick up my toys, we don’t watch movies.” 

“That’s right,” Agatha said, rubbing his back a little. “Carmen is bigger than you, so that means that she gets to do more things, like going to concerts with her sister. She’s probably been to many concerts before, right? So when she misbehaves, that is a reasonable punishment. It’s something she enjoys doing that she cannot do anymore, does that make sense?” 

Nicky nodded, but Agatha could tell that he still wasn’t understanding why he couldn’t go. 

“You’ve never been to a concert before, my little love, so we don’t know if you like it. Mama not letting you come to this one is not a punishment, it is me keeping you safe. This isn’t just something fun like when we go to the aquarium– this is my job, so I will be working. And if I’m working, that means I can’t keep an eye on you. How would you feel if things got too loud and Mama couldn’t help you?” 

“That would be really scary,” Nicky said, finally looking up at his mother, understanding dawning on his little face. “My ears make bad noises when it is too loud.” 

Once, they had been caught in a situation where his old hearing aids had started to malfunction, and it had sent Nicky into a crying fit because he didn’t know what to do, and why it hurt. 

“When Mama is working, I can’t come help you unless it is an emergency,” Agatha explained, and Nicky pursed his lips in thought. “Because tonight is the very first concert, there are too many unknown variables– too many things that I don’t know– that I can’t guarantee that you will be safe and happy without me watching you. Once Mama has done this a few times, I promise you will be able to come. Remember how we talked about spending the summer on the road?”

Nicky perked up, smiling a little bit. “Yeah! I’m staying with Auntie Wanda until school is out, and then we get to come with you!” 

Seeing him start to feel better made Agatha’s chest start to loosen a bit. 

“Exactly, so you will get to see so many concerts this summer. I promise they will be just as fun.”

The wiggles had started to infest Nicky as he sat in Agatha’s lap, and he climbed down, though he didn’t get far because she wrapped a hand loosely around his wrist to stop him. 

“Mama?” Nicky asked, already on the move to the next thing. 

“We still have something to talk about, sweetheart. Do you remember what you said while you were angry?” Agatha asked, Nicky’s mood immediately souring again. 

“You said I wasn’t bad,” he pouted, not wanting to talk about this anymore. 

“I know I did because it’s true, you’re not bad,” Agatha replied, keeping her tone even and smooth. “But you yelled at me and said mean things, and that hurt my feelings.” 

Nicky’s face fell, and his chin started to wobble, but he kept himself composed, something Agatha wasn’t expecting from the little boy.

“I said that I hate you and you don’t love me,” he said, looking at the floor, surprising Agatha. She definitely thought this would need more explanation. 

“Yes, you did, and that hurt Mama’s feelings. I love you so much, baby, and that doesn’t change when I tell you no. And I would hope that you don’t really hate me, either.” 

Nicky shook his head and looked up, immediately grabbing Agatha’s hand and resting it on his cheek just like they always did when they needed to say something important and honest. “I love you, Mama. I don’t hate you, I was just mad at you.” 

Agatha kissed Nicky’s forehead. “Thank you for saying that, sweetheart. Is there anything else you should say when you hurt someone’s feelings?” 

“I’m sorry that I was mean to you, Mama,” Nicky supplied easily. This exchange was something they had been working on since he was in preschool. 

“I forgive you, baby,” Agatha replied in kind. “Now give me a hug and go pick out your clothes for your sleepover with Auntie Wanda.”

The small boy flung himself into his mom’s arms, hugging her so tightly and giving her a slobbery kiss on her cheek before running back off to his room. 

Agatha knew that if she had yelled at her mom like that, she would have been smacked on her mouth and belittled until she cried. She knew that this impacted the way she parented Nicky, often choosing the more difficult path of trying to reason with a six-year-old instead of taking away his toys or putting him in time-out. Both of those things did happen when necessary. Agatha wasn’t afraid to punish her son when it was appropriate, but she also knew that a lot of the time, when he was acting like this, it wasn’t malicious. He had big feelings that he didn’t know what to do with, and she would rather err on the side of caution than punish him for physically being unable to regulate himself. 

She wasn’t a perfect parent, not at all, and she was sure that handling it in this way wouldn’t always work. She also knew that sometimes she would lose her temper, handle things wrong, and have to apologize to Nicky for hurting his feelings, too. But it gave her comfort to know that she was willing to make those mistakes humbly and address them head-on instead of letting Nicky believe he deserved it when Agatha was the one in the wrong. 

Evanora was never wrong, and even so much as questioning her would lead to a world of trouble. Agatha refused to be that mother. The cycle stopped with her. 

With Nicky safely packed away to his favorite auntie’s house, Agatha could finally take a moment to breathe. Tonight was going to be her first performance in over a decade and to say she was nervous would be an understatement. It was hard enough to swallow the fear of being on stage again, to be the center of everyone’s attention after so long away, but to have the added turmoil of fighting with her son to the mix, Agatha felt unsteady and unprepared for the long day ahead. 

First, they would be going to record an interview for a talk show that taped in LA, running live for promotion of their opening night. Then, the band would be doing sound checks at the stadium, more interviews for other written news outlets, and finally opening their tour to a sold-out crowd at So-Fi Stadium. Altogether, it was shaping up to be an absolute beast of a day, and Agatha wasn’t sure there was enough caffeine in the world to get her through it. 

She tried not to ruminate too much on the fact that this was literally day one of an entire summer tour with stops around the country and even some abroad. 

“Are you ready, Miss Agatha?” Herb asked as he drove her Range Rover down the busy highway, trying to navigate the rush hour traffic at the early hour. “Big day today.” 

Agatha snorted and crossed her hands over her chest, flicking her gaze up to meet Herb’s in the rear-view mirror. “As ready as I will ever be.” 

Herb nodded once and went back to driving, not forcing conversation but also leaving room in the air for Agatha to keep talking if she wanted to. He knew that it was a give and take with Agatha, sometimes the woman was a chatterbox with endless things to say, and other days she stayed silent as she lost herself in thought and worry. Today, seemingly, was going to be the latter. 

The traffic stayed heavy and fast until the moment Herb turned onto an exit, freeing them from the hell that was driving on a major thoroughfare in LA. On the smaller streets, though, he became bold. 

“If I may say, I am really proud of you,” Herb started, making Agatha’s attention snap from staring out the window to helplessly glaring at him. The words hit her chest in a way that she did not appreciate. “You’ve been through so much since all of this began, and I didn’t know if we would ever get to see you do this again. The world has been stacked against you, Miss Agatha, and you’ve shown us time and time again that you won’t be kept down. You’re a fighter, and I’m glad that I’ve been around to see it.”

Herb’s words stung in Agatha’s eyes, making her tear up in a way she wasn’t expecting. Through all of this, Agatha had felt like it was her duty to keep carrying on, like there was nothing valiant in putting one foot in front of the other. But to hear it spoken back to her so plainly, to have the fact that she had fought for where she was now recognized by someone who, largely, had no real commentary on her life’s dealings, it hit differently. Truths from strangers had always felt more honest than truths from loved ones to Agatha, which is why she had always taken everything with the media so harshly. Sure, Herb wasn’t a stranger to Agatha— he had supported her for the greater part of a decade, and they had come to grow quite fond of each other, Agatha even sending presents for his family home with him on the holidays— but he wasn’t a friend or a confidant. Herb didn’t get to hear her inner thoughts, didn’t get to see her fears and failures like Wanda had, so his opinion settled more heavily in her bones. This wasn’t just her best friend echoing back what she needed to hear to get through, this was someone who had formed a genuine opinion and thought to share it. 

Normally, Agatha would have hated to have her life commented on like this, but today that feeling was just what she needed to hear. 

“Thanks, Herb,” she said simply. “But if you keep getting soft on me, I’m going to have to replace you with an upgrade.” 

Herb only chuckled and pulled into the parking lot for the studio. “Of course, Miss Agatha. We wouldn’t want that.” 

When Agatha was dropped in front of the stage door, there were cameras with big flashes poised and ready to snap every moment of her eight foot walk from the SUV to the entrance. She tilted her head down, grateful for the large sunglasses covering her face as she walked past them. Inside, she was immediately confronted with Sharon Davis, their manager, shooing her into a room where Rio, Jen, and Alice were getting their hair and makeup done. By the time she was done with the poking and prodding, her wild waves had been tamed into a low ponytail and her face was covered in a thin, subtle layer of television makeup. 

“You doing okay, Agatha?” Lilia asked from where she was lounging in an armchair in the back of the room. 

Agatha looked up at her through the mirror as she stood with her arms crossed over her chest, having just smoothed down her skirt for the seventh time. 

“Yeah, just a long morning,” Agatha admitted, shrugging. “You know how kids can be.” 

Rio snorted from across the room, everyone listening in on the conversation due more so to the size of the room and less the desire to eavesdrop. “You can say that again.”

“Was Nicky having a bad morning?” Alice asked curiously, turning around to face the younger woman. 

“You could say that, yeah,” Agatha replied, rubbing at her temple. “He’s really upset that he can’t come tonight, and there really is no reasoning with a six-year-old who has made up their mind about something.” 

“He’ll get to come this summer, right?” Lillia asked, already chomping at the bit to see the sweet little boy again. “I don’t know how I will survive an entire tour without my dinner date buddy.” 

Agatha smiled softly at the memory of Lilia coming to her house for dinner and the way Nicky had taken to her like a duck to water, imprinting on her like a surrogate grandmother with just the one true interaction. “I don’t think I could keep him away, he’s so excited. Honestly, I think it’s the only reason he was able to let it go long enough to get packed away to Wanda’s this morning.” 

“Are you worried about leaving him behind for this first part of the tour?” Lilia asked, motherly and warm.

Agatha weighed her options: would she tell Lilia the truth in front of everyone, or would she play it off? 

“I think it would be insane not to be a little worried,” she answered honestly, though not sharing all of her thoughts. “I’ve not had reason to be away from him for this long before, so I think it will hit both of us harder than we are anticipating right now.” 

In reality, Agatha was terrified to leave her baby boy behind as she started the tour. Just this morning, Nicky’s tantrum was a bit of an eye opener about how much was changing so quickly for her little boy, and she was so worried about how he would handle it. Plus, Agatha couldn’t stand the thought of being so far from him. What if something went wrong? What if he needed her and she didn’t show up? What if her absence made him feel unloved? So many anxieties were swirling in her mind at any given time, with all of this and her fight with Nicky this morning did not help matters.

Lilia, darling Lilia, of course saw right through Agatha and nodded knowingly at her. Sometimes, it really felt like no time had passed between them at all, and she was still the same mother figure who henpecked Agatha every day in her twenties. 

“It’s only for the last couple weeks of school, and then he will be with us all summer. I’m sure it will take some adjusting, but he’s a kid and kids are resilient,” the older woman said before standing to cross the room and place a comforting hand on Agatha’s forearm. “You’re a good mom, Agatha. He knows that.” 

Agatha turned away from Lilia, unable to accept the affection and reassurance, though it felt so nice and calming to hear Lilia tell her that she’s a good mom. It’s not that Agatha thought she wasn’t— she loved her son so much, and everything she did, she did for him. There was no part of Nicky’s life that wasn’t carefully constructed around him and making sure he grew into a happy, healthy, well-adjusted little boy. Perhaps she spent too much of her attention on him, considering that she had little to no personal life, and this was the first thing she had truly done for herself in seven years. 

The lights on the soundstage where the band was settling into chairs after their performance of The Ballad of the Witches’ Road were bright and blinding, making Agatha squint as she got used to being on camera again. It was part of their media campaign— performing their hit song that was back at the top of the charts after a decade, and then promoting the tour with a 15-minute segment on live TV. 

For the first time in all of the interviews they have done— for the documentary and otherwise— Rio sat herself right next to Agatha this time. It was weird and unexpected, but Agatha couldn’t say that she minded. Something amicable and weighted had settled around them, now, something that reminded Agatha of what it was like to make a new friend. Still a little uncomfortable, but there was hope and promise in the dynamic all the same. 

Maybe Rio felt the same? 

“Wow, what a performance!” the news anchor commented as the red light flicked on the cameras, ushering back in the live audience. “Welcome back to Good Morning Los Angeles, we are here with the band Agatha and the Orchids to kick off their reunion tour this evening at So-Fi Stadium. Here, sitting with us, we have, of course, Agatha Harkness, Rio Vidal, Jennifer Kale, Alice Wu-Gulliver, Lilia Calderu, and Billy Kaplan. Tell us, Agatha, what’s it like being back on that stage again?” 

Agatha smiled widely, gracefully accepting the attention at the start of the interview. “It feels incredible, I’ve missed this so much, I’ve missed this band so much.” 

Murmurs of agreement echoed around the cluster of bandmates, each nodding and smiling, too. 

“The feeling is very much mutual,” the anchor continued. “Your band was one of the highlights of my college years, I swear I heard your songs everywhere back then. Parties, the gym, the grocery store, in the stadium during football games, it was like you had taken the nation by storm.” 

“It was so surreal,” Rio chimed in, the whole band looking back on their catapult to fame. “It was like one day we were just doing gigs at local venues and the next we were signing to Stark Records and hitting the Top Ten charts.” 

“Was it hard to adjust to that severe of a change?” The anchor asked, looking at the whole band, but his eyes eventually landed on Agatha in a way that seemed pointed. 

Agatha steeled herself, already wary of where this line of questioning might go, but she knew that with the live cameras, there wasn’t much she could do. 

“The majority of us don’t come from performance or fame backgrounds,” Jen said, taking the lead because she was one of the only members of the band who didn’t stay in the entertainment industry. “I think I speak for all of us, though, when I say that the learning curve for this level of fame was a steep learning curve.” 

“Being on Broadway definitely didn’t prepare me for being launched as hard as we were into the stratosphere,” Lilia continued, echoing Jen’s sentiments. “But I think we all did the best we could with what we had at the time. Those five years were tough on all of us, but I think it made us do some of our best work.” 

“I can only imagine,” the news anchor commiserated in that false way that show hosts always did. “Most of you stayed in the business, though, so it must have been a good fit? Billy, your acting career has really taken off with your husband’s. What’s it been like coming back to music?” 

Billy shifted in his chair a bit, excited by the question. “I don’t think I would consider it ‘coming back to music’ because I don’t feel like I ever truly left. There is a drumset in my house and I’ve come to lay tracks with Alice when she’s asked. Acting has been a great outlet, especially because of how much closer it brings me to Eddie, but music has always been a core part of who I am. I think a lot of us would say the same.” 

“What you all have been up to since the split has been incredible to watch. I mean, Jen is heading a foundation that’s trying to eliminate maternal mortality rates for women of color, Lilia is producing some of the best films in the industry, Billy has been nominated twice for Golden Globes, Alice’s team at Stark Records has produced three of the Best New Artists at the Grammy’s in the last decade, and Rio has taken home countless awards for her solo work. I loved Azaleas, by the way, I was so happy when it won Album of the Year and Record of the Year.” 

Agatha looked to Rio, then, watching with a proud smile as a blush dusted her cheeks. She hadn’t listened to any of Rio’s solo work, only catching glimpses of it on the radio or muffled through the door to Nicky’s playroom when she relieved the nanny early. But, she knew that Rio was easily one of the most talented musicians she had ever met, infusing her soul into everything she performed, everything she wrote, so it was no wonder to Agatha that she had received such acclaim as a solo artist. 

Perhaps at the beginning of all of this, she would have been resentful and jealous to hear about Rio’s successes in the face of her own failures, but right now, all she could feel was happiness for this person who deserved everything. Agatha was becoming increasingly aware of the way that her anger and hostility toward Rio, to the whole band, had sluiced off her like falling water, and she was left with a gentle thrumming of joy and gratefulness beneath the layers of her anxiety and unease with being interviewed again. 

“Agatha, though, we haven’t heard a peep from you in years. Those first three years after the split, it was like you were everywhere, but then you disappeared into thin air. Would you like to catch us up on what life has been like for you?” 

Her body froze as the question washed over Agatha, not sure what she should say. The truth was off the table, no one was getting a peep out of her about Nicky and how she had spent the last seven years growing and then raising the most perfect little boy. She decided to play off of what the media did know about her, though.

“What, you didn’t get sick of seeing my face everywhere you looked?” Agatha joked, a bit of venom in her words to warn the anchor away. 

If he heard it, though, he didn’t take it and just laughed and pressed further. “You certainly kept my job entertaining, that’s for sure. But I don’t think any of us would say that your silence was welcome, especially after everything that happened.”

Agatha knew exactly what he was talking about— the OD, the insistent press coverage of her dying body plastered on news sources across the globe as she tried to survive the worst moments of her entire life. When she was released from the hospital and transferred to rehab, she was sickened by the lack of respect the media had for her and felt like her autonomy had been stripped from her again and again as the news cycle repeated updates on her recovery that she had long since stopped sanctioning. 

Once the world knew that she had survived, Agatha went dark. 

Everything else that the media latched onto were public records, rumors, and metric tons of speculation until interest finally faded. 

“I had to put myself first,” Agatha insisted, not willing to be pushed around by another interviewer. “I came back when I was ready, and that is always going to be enough.” 

The news anchor nodded, backing away from the topic at hand, though not pivoting entirely. “We never saw you with any of your bandmates, either, even before you disappeared. Did you really abandon all of them after breaking up the band?” 

“Agatha didn’t abandon anyone,” Rio interjected before Agatha could even think of a response. “And you can’t place the blame for the band ending solely on her shoulders. That is unfair and entirely untrue.” 

“Almost none of us stayed in music,” Jen added on, immediately coming to Agatha’s defense, too. If she weren’t on live TV, Agatha may or may not have welled up at the thought. “Of course, Agatha played a part in the band splitting up, but no more so than the rest of us. We all wanted different things and needed the space and time to explore them.” 

“It’s also presumptuous to think that just because the media never got their hand on photo evidence of Agatha spending time with us, that it never happened. That’s just juvenile in reasoning and reductive of what constitutes a celebrity’s ‘real life’,” Lilia finished, slamming the door firmly shut on any further prodding into Agatha. 

The woman, herself, was overwhelmed by the way that her band had jumped immediately to her defense, even Billy and Alice looking like they were locked and loaded with their own ammunition to protect her, despite not getting the chance. Agatha felt something big, something she couldn’t ignore, building in her chest and stirring in her stomach. Her family had actually come through with their promise, they didn’t leave her out to dry, they didn’t let her drown. 

For the first time in a decade, someone finally admitted that it wasn’t her fault that the band ended.

For the first time, Agatha finally felt free of carrying the burden of their downfall. 

The interview was a bit stilted after the tense exchange, but easily slipped into conversation about the tour, about their music, and about the possibility of a new album from the band. 

“I never say never,” Agatha answered with a shrug. “It’s not something we’ve talked about, but who knows what may come of this tour. I don’t think these concerts are the end of us yet.” 

The rest of the world didn’t know that Agatha was talking about the documentary they would be releasing after the tour, but what harm would it do to stir up some good publicity with the rumors of new music from The Orchids? 

“Well, it’s been a pleasure chatting with you all, and have a great show tonight!” The anchor signed off. “Tickets are on sale online for Agatha and the Orchids’ reunion tour now, with dates running through early fall. It’s going to be a witchy summer as the band goes down the road, so don’t miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime to see them at the end.” 

The cameras cut off, and Agatha rolled her eyes— Maya in marketing really was going to be the death of her with the corny puns. The news anchor strolled up to where Agatha was standing near craft services, plucking at a pastry in her hands, feeding herself each bite with pinched fingers. 

“Hey, I hope you’re not upset with the interview. It’s just my job, you know?” He said, smug and schmoozing like he probably had hundreds of times before with ever other celebrity fuck up on the show. 

“Sure, it’s just your job to humiliate grown women on live TV where they can’t tell you what a chauvinistic pig you are without ruining their reputation,” she spat back, unimpressed by his audacity and unwilling to let it slide for even a moment. 

The man, however, just chuckled a condescending, snide laugh. “Oh, Agatha. You think you have the power here? That’s cute.” 

He turned and walked away before Agatha could respond, and an unsettling pit formed in her stomach. What did he mean by that? She looked around the room and noticed that all of the other band members were making their way back to the dressing room to get changed and leave— all except for one. Rich, light brown eyes were fixed on her like a hawk, watching her with a vigilance that only made the feeling settling in her gut worse. Rio knew something that she didn’t. Rio knew something and Agatha was pissed.

Agatha shook it off and left the room, moving with a speed and grace that left no misunderstanding in why she was fleeing. The sound of Rio’s heeled boots echoed after her, and Agatha didn’t stop when she heard her name called out. She didn’t stop when Rio followed her into the dressing room and looked at her with frustrated, captivating eyes. 

It was just the two of them in the dressing room, everyone else had seemingly vanished in the time it took Agatha to be accosted by the overbearing news anchor. Only Agatha’s and Rio’s things were left in their chairs, something that didn’t go unnoticed by Agatha. 

Rio clicked the door shut behind her and leaned on it, trapping Agatha in the space with her. 

“What did he say to you?” Rio asked, voice firm and unrecognizable to Agatha. 

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” Agatha replied, not quite playing along. “No hard feelings, it’s just my job, etcetera, etcetera.” 

Rio arched an eyebrow. “And what did you say?” 

“What does that matter? I don’t need PR training, Vidal. I handled it.” 

“No, Agatha. You don’t understand. Tell me what you said to him.”

Agatha furrowed her brow and crossed her arms over her chest. “ You tell me what you know first.”

“That isn’t how this works, Agatha. Please, just tell me so I can try and intercept what’s coming.”

“If you’re trying to get me to drop this, you’re doing a terrible job.” 

Rio huffed and dropped her head into her palm, pinching the bridge of her nose. She knew she wasn’t winning this. When it came to Agatha, she rarely did. 

“Why do you think we did our first television interview today in LA instead of flying to New York for any of the big morning shows?” Rio asked, throwing Agatha through a loop. 

“I—I hadn’t thought about it,” Agatha admitted. It had been so long since she was in the game, it didn’t seem abnormal to be starting their press tour locally. 

“That news anchor is on Tony Stark’s golf team every year for the Father’s Day scramble,” Rio started, watching Agatha’s face for reaction. When one didn’t come, she continued. “You know, the group of uber-powerful white guys who spend all day smoking expensive cigars, drinking Scottish whiskey, and plotting to take over the world.” 

Agatha did a double-take, cocking her head to the side and pursing her lips. “That guy? Really?” 

“Mhm,” Rio nodded. “Tony needs his hands everywhere, and what better way than to invite the most attention-hungry to one meaningless event a year? Make them feel special, like they have an in with America’s hottest billionaire, and in return, they keep Tony in the loop on everyone in his circle like the ass-kissing, boot-licking spies that they are.” 

For quite a while now, Agatha had been putting the pieces together about what exactly Rio had been hiding from the rest of them, so it didn’t surprise her to learn this about Tony Stark. 

“I take it you’ve found this out the hard way?” Agatha asked, taking a step forward, closing the distance between her and Rio. 

The taller woman hummed and nodded, not needing to say anything more to make her point. 

In another life, Rio wouldn’t have hesitated to tell Agatha the full truth, to tell her the gory details of what she had gone through. But now, this admission had to be enough.

“So, me calling him a chauvinistic pig probably is going to cause us a problem,” Agatha asserted more than asked.

She could see Rio visibly gulp as her eyes widened. “Yeah, that’s not going to be great for us. Shit. Okay. I can handle that, that’s definitely not the worst.” 

Rio was putting on a strong front, and Agatha could see right through it. Maybe to anyone else, it would be believable, but Agatha knew where to look. She knew that when her fingers started to push through her hair, when she gripped at her elbows like she was holding herself together, that something was bothering her, that something was scaring her. This was a Rio she remembered, a Rio that she grew to love over the weeks and months they spent becoming the duo that preceded every iteration of Agatha and The Orchids. 

This was a Rio she desperately never wanted to see again. 

2008 

Rio graduated college Magna Cum Laude from the University of Southern California only three months after that first night Agatha spent with her and they realized they had something real between them. Since then, Agatha had spent all of her free time helping the younger woman prepare for her final exams, even getting her hands dirty to help with her honors thesis project when Rio needed more hands.

So, when the day finally came to watch the girl who had captivated her attention walk the stage and become a first-generation college graduate, Agatha didn’t hesitate to show up. They weren’t together, not officially, but Agatha just knew that she would walk to the ends of the Earth for this girl. 

Early on the morning of commencement, Agatha showed up with a bag of breakfast burritos and mimosas at Rio’s shitty apartment. How she could afford a one-bedroom as a student was beyond Agatha, but she learned early on not to question the methods of Rio’s madness. She knocked on the door with a wide grin on her face, already so proud of the brilliant woman, but when Rio answered the door, Agatha’s heart sank to her knees.

Standing before her was a splotchy-faced, puffy-eyed, distraught Rio with a cell phone pressed to her ear. Agatha quickly came in, locking the door behind her and following Rio to the kitchen, where she was pacing in front of the fire escape, speaking in quick Spanish. Agatha didn’t know much, but what she could catch of Rio’s side of the conversation was more apologies than anything else.

“Mami, please,” Rio begged in English, turning away from Agatha, tears thick in her voice. 

The voice on the other end of the line grew louder, angrier, and Agatha had to fight not to pull the damn thing away from her and hang up on her mom for her. Instead, she carefully set their breakfast on the small dining table and then started to trail soft circles into Rio’s back with her fingernails. 

Agatha hadn’t learned much about Rio’s past yet, much like how Rio hadn’t learned much about hers. From the sounds of it, though, Rio may empathize more with the plight of being the daughter of Evanora Harkness than Agatha had anticipated. There was a fire in the voice of the woman on the other end of the phone, though, that Evanora had never quite mastered. Evanora was frigid, and even her violence stung like frost in the winter, not like a blazing inferno. Agatha could tell by the wicked desperation in Rio’s voice that perhaps Robert Frost was right when he asserted that it would be better if the world ended in ice. 

“Hang up the phone, sweetheart,” Agatha whispered over Rio’s shoulder as she tried to comfort her with touch. 

Rio shook her head, placing her hand over the microphone. “I can’t, she will kill me.” 

Agatha huffed and pulled the phone away from Rio’s face, giving her a stern glare as Rio clung to it. “Baby, she’s hurting you. Don’t let her ruin your special day.” 

Then, without hesitation, Rio relented and Agatha didn’t hesitate to snap the phone shut, hanging up on her mother without second thought. 

“Rio, what’s going on?” Agatha asked, but before she could get any sort of answer from the woman, panic flitted across her face. 

“Oh god, what did I do?” Rio started, voice already shaky. “Fuck, she’s going to come here and she’s going to bring my dad, oh god. I need to call her back.” 

Rio reached for the phone, but Agatha held it out of her reach. 

“Give that to me, I need to call her back,” Rio demanded, but Agatha didn’t relent. 

They may not have known each other for very long, but Agatha knew in her heart that letting whatever that woman was doing to Rio continue was the absolute wrong thing to do. 

“No, sweetheart. I’m not going to give you the phone back. Let’s go sit on the couch, maybe roll a joint, and you tell me what’s going on. Whatever it is, we can handle it.” 

Brown eyes widened almost comically before Rio’s face pinched into a deep frown. “No, I can handle this. You don’t need to be in this. Just let me handle it.” 

Agatha had never seen Rio like this, had never seen panic grip her so tightly at the mere mention of needing to handle her parents, to handle whatever situation she had found herself in. It broke her heart in a way that she didn’t know was possible, and she didn’t realize it at the time, but that was the day that she swore to herself that she would love Rio so hard that she would never let these people hurt her again. 

“I’m sure you can handle this, but you don’t have to. Let me help you,” Agatha insisted, sliding the phone onto the kitchen counter, away from Rio, before pulling her into a firm hug.

Rio resisted the hug at first, but Agatha didn’t let go. She held on tightly until she felt Rio wilt in her embrace, and hot tears slid onto Agatha’s neck, dampening the collar of her t-shirt. 

“Oh, my baby,” Agatha said, the pet name a first between them, but it made Rio melt even further against her. “Come on, let’s go sit down.” 

Agatha pulled Rio to the couch, grabbing the bag of brunch just in case, situating them on the soft cushions so Rio was folded into her lap and Agatha could rub her back and kiss her hair. 

The sheer fear in Rio’s body was enough to make her tremble as Agatha held her. For all intents and purposes, this should have scared Agatha away, but it didn’t. She wanted to wrap Rio up and protect her from everything in this world that could hurt her. She wanted to honor this vulnerability that Rio had gifted her, even if she didn’t know how she could ever give it to her in return. 

Today, as Rio fell apart in her arms, Agatha knew that she was going to fall in love. It was going to be deep and messy and irrevocable, the way that she would love Rio, but there was no turning back now. 

“I got taken from my parents once when I was six,” Rio said, seemingly out of nowhere. “I thought that maybe my brothers and I would be safe, now. But somehow, they were able to get us back by promising the courts that they had changed. A few parenting classes, a few months with no arrests, and boom, these three helpless Puerto Rican kids were sent right back to their worst nightmare instead of being protected. The system couldn’t have cared less about whether or not we were safe. The only thing that changed was my parents learning how to hurt us in ways that no one else could see. They still grabbed us sometimes, still left bruises under our clothes on occasion, but all of their violence had turned into screaming, manipulating, belittling, anything they could do to mold us into the perfect little punching bags. The drugs never stopped, they just got smarter. They got off on being able to control us. I thought that going to college would be my ticket away from them but somehow I just keep getting sucked back in. It would be so easy to just block their numbers and never speak to them again, but I can’t bring myself to do it. They’re my parents, I love them, I want them to love me, too.” 

Agatha’s heart shattered as she listened to Rio share, as she held her closely and kissed her hair and thanked her for her truth. She couldn’t empathize, not really. Her mother’s control didn’t make her afraid, it didn’t make her desperate for her love. Her mother’s abuse made Agatha cold and closed off, it made her uncaring of those around her, it made her refuse to let anyone close enough to hurt her. But Rio? She wanted to be loved so deeply, she wanted to be wanted in ways that Agatha could never imagine for herself. Agatha craved power, she craved fame, she craved admiration, and it wasn’t until she met Rio that she could imagine a world where maybe she could love something else, could want anything else. 

Loving Rio would change Agatha fundamentally in ways that she could never undo, no matter how hard she tried. 

And so, she sat with her beautiful, tragic girl and hand-fed her bites of burrito and made her ridiculously strong mimosas. She reminded Rio of just how strong she was and how proud she was of her, of everything she had accomplished that would be showcased that day. 

And for once in Rio’s life, she believed it. 

Agatha didn’t know it yet, but it had been a gift that day when Rio shared with her this truth, had let her in to see the fear and the panic, to let Agatha save her from herself. Rio had never had a protector before, had never let anyone close enough to try despite looking for love and affection anywhere that she could find it. But something about Agatha made her want to try, and for that, it made Agatha want to try, too. 

When Rio crossed that stage that afternoon, only one voice cheering mattered. Agatha came with a bouquet of flowers that cost two nights of tips and made sure that her parents couldn’t come anywhere close to her darling girl, who was supposed to be having the best day of her life. 

And later that night, after they were sweaty and spent, Agatha held her as she cried once more because no one came to watch her graduate except the woman who was holding her together. Agatha had been ready to fight them back by any means necessary, but in the end, it hadn’t mattered, because they didn’t even bother to show up. 

“You’re mine now,” Agatha whispered against Rio’s hair as she slept on her chest, eyes still dripping slow tears onto her skin. “I’m never going to let them hurt you again. I will be your protector, Rio. I promise.” 

“What’s going to happen, Rio?” Agatha asked, concern softening her jagged edges. 

Rio shook her head, looking at her feet. “I don’t know. I could take a guess, but I don’t know. With Stark, nothing good. But I can handle it.” 

Agatha frowned. “What does that mean? You can handle it?” 

“It means that I have been doing this long enough that it doesn’t matter what happens, I can take it,” Rio said, steeling herself and shutting down. “You don’t need to worry. None of you need to worry about it.”

“That’s a load of bullshit and you know it, Rio,” Agatha argued, not sure if she was more angry or worried. “You’re not doing any of this alone, not anymore. There is too much at stake.” 

“I haven’t gone through a decade of his fucking torture for you to look at me and tell me I can’t handle it,” Rio seethed, voice low and so angry. “I have done what I had to do to keep everyone safe, and I will keep doing it until it’s taken care of.” 

“Is everyone safe, Rio? Are we really?” Agatha pushed, her own anger flaring beneath her cool facade. “Look at what happened to me, do you really think that Tony didn’t have his hands in the back pocket of every news outlet in the country for years to make sure that my fall from fame was as spectacular as it was profitable? And fuck, Rio, look at you ! You’re acting like the scared little girl you were when we first met. How did he do this to you?” 

“That’s none of your business.” 

Agatha bit her tongue, forcing the venom back into her mouth before it could escape. 

“It became my business when I made the stupid fucking decision to sign onto this tour at everyone’s behest. It became my business when I had to sign piles of paperwork to keep my son safe because no one else was going to. I don’t care if your pride is hurt, Rio, you need to tell me what’s going to happen because it impacts me and my family now, too.” 

Rio’s eyes got shiny with tears, but nothing dared escape. “He won’t do anything to you and Nicky, I won’t let him. He won’t touch any of you. I need you to trust me.”

“I don’t know how,” Agatha admitted, at war with herself on whether to bark and bite at Rio until she relented or to take a lesson from the young women they used to be and treat Rio with softness. “I don’t trust anyone, not with this, not with my son. Please, Rio, just let me in.” 

For the first time, Rio deflated, Agatha’s words ringing true in a way that she seemingly hadn’t expected. “It’s your first strike, it won’t be anything major,” she started, refusing to look at Agatha, her eyes flitting anywhere else. 

“What does that mean?”

“It’s how he starts, the small things. Maybe you’ll just get an email from PR. Something might be said offhandedly to the production team to be relayed to you. It won’t be kind, but it won’t quite be mean enough to notice– it will be in that sweet spot where you can’t quite figure out why it hurts. But because it’s you, because he has to start all over again, it will be small.” 

Agatha nodded along, listening intently as Rio explained. 

“And what will he do to you?” 

She wasn’t stupid, far from it. Agatha knew that Rio would be catching some kind of consequence from anything this band did wrong– it was how men like him operated. They found the weakest link in the chain, the one with the most to lose, the one hiding the biggest, weeping wounds, and wrapped them in barbed wire. Not only would they get hurt from their own indiscretions, but anything that rocked the vice-like grip he had on his victim would make them bleed, too. It was a steady power, insidious, an evil, manipulative, brilliant control tactic that Agatha had seen time and time again.  

It was the one thing she knew could bring Rio to her knees like this. 

“As long as he doesn’t show up tonight, it doesn’t matter,” Rio said, trying to brush Agatha off. 

Immediately, Agatha thought of the worst, anxiety sweeping into her chest. “God, Rio, he isn’t going to hurt you, is he? I will kill him. I won’t let him near you.” 

“No, no, he won’t touch me,” Rio reassured quickly and with a startled look on her face. “That’s not what he gets from me, thank god. I don’t… I don’t think I could have handled that. There’s just something about what he does that is a thousand times worse when he’s standing in the room with you, when you can see… Anyway, I’ve got a system and I know how to handle him, you don’t need to worry.” 

Agatha wasn’t convinced, but not because she doubted Rio’s reassurance that nothing would happen to Nicky. No, her worry had started to swarm into something big and looming as she watched the strongest woman she had ever known twitch and tremble under the thought of facing just one measly man. There should be no system, there should be no procedure for Rio to have to handle the abuse she was so obviously facing. There was nothing normal about this, there was nothing okay about this, and Agatha knew that she was only seeing the tip of the iceberg, she was just barely scraping the surface. But she knew, deep in her chest, that things couldn’t stay like this. 

She couldn’t live with the knowledge that the woman she once loved more than life itself had turned into this shell of who she once was, and that she had done it all in the name of protecting everyone else in her life. 

Who was going to protect Rio?

“Do you have a plan?” Agatha asked, turning the tables on Rio again, desperately needing to know. “When you get custody of Carmen, do you have a plan?” 

Rio nodded tensely, wrapping her arms around herself in a lackluster way to try and protect herself. “Just a little while longer and everything will be fine.” 

Agatha wasn’t sure who Rio was reassuring more, her or herself, but she let it be. She didn’t keep pushing or prodding, didn’t demand all the details of how Rio was going to get herself out of this mess. Maybe she should, maybe she should make sure that Rio truly had thought of everything, that she would be safe when she finally left. But she didn’t. It wasn’t her place, not anymore. No matter how deep in her chest her heartstrings had buried themselves and started to pull, Agatha knew that this was not and would never be her battle to fight. 

She could only hope that Rio knew what she was doing. 

But when they got to the concert venue that night for soundcheck and some documentary filming, something was undeniably off about Rio, and it wasn’t until she heard his voice that she realized why. 

“Rio, sweetie, how is my favorite superstar?” Tony Stark said, obscured from Agatha’s view by a rack of costumes in the hallway. “Let’s have a chat, shall we?” 

Chapter Text

But when they got to the concert venue that night for soundcheck and some documentary filming, something was undeniably off about Rio, and it wasn’t until she heard his voice that she realized why. 

“Rio, sweetie, how is my favorite superstar?” Tony Stark said, obscured from Agatha’s view by a rack of costumes in the hallway. “Let’s have a chat, shall we?” 

Agatha followed the sound of Tony and Rio’s footsteps down the hallway to a door conveniently cracked open, letting a sliver of light bathe the corridor. The sound of tense voices was already murmuring from inside. 

“What’s going on, Rio? Tony asked, his voice gruff in a way Agatha had never heard it before. “Didn’t we have a deal?” 

She could almost hear the way Rio swallowed nervously, the silence heavy before she spoke again. 

“I’m doing the best I can,” Rio replied, voice much too small for the larger-than-life woman.

Agatha slipped to the other side of the doorway, positioning herself so that she could catch just a glimpse of the pair. Tony stood looming over Rio, shoulders wide and taking up much more space than he should. Rio, however, looked like she was caving in on herself. Her arms were crossed over her chest protectively, her face turned to the ground, not looking Tony in the eye. 

“Are you, though?” Tony questioned, venomous and cruel. “From what I can see, it looks like you’re doing the exact opposite of what I’ve asked of you.”

Rio sucked the corner of her mouth between her teeth, chewing on it nervously. “I’m the only one trying to keep things the way you like it, Tony. You don’t understand what kind of women I’m rallying against here.” 

That was a lie, and Agatha clocked it immediately. Rio had been the first person to mention fighting back against Tony, of not letting him win. 

This tour is our chance to take back our agency. 

Stark Records needs us. 

So we work together to figure out what the fuck the problem is and we take back our power.

Was this Rio’s angle? Was she going to continue to sacrifice herself to get close to Stark? But if that were the case, why was she still so afraid of him? 

“You need to try harder,” Tony commanded, shaking a finger in her direction. “Unless you want to find out what its like to be fucking buried, you need to get this under control. I cannot have your ex-wife setting off like a rogue cannon everywhere we go. It’s bad for the brand, which means it’s bad for me, which means it’s bad for you . Or have you forgotten our deal?” 

“Our deal involved you getting my sister in my custody,” Rio pushed back. Agatha grinned to herself. There was her girl.

What?  

“And you will. You know how these things go, Rio. They’ve got all that extra income now because of your brother. What’s his name, Juan Carlos?” Tony asked, condescension dripping from his tone. 

“Juan Luis,” Rio corrected, and Agatha froze. That name. God, that fucking name 

2011 

“Are you sure you want him to come around again?” Agatha asked, throwing her hair into a messy ponytail as she moved around the bedroom of the hotel suite they were staying in. “Last time he was here, he just wanted money.” 

Rio crossed to Agatha with long strides, wrapping her arms around her waist, putting her chin on her shoulder as they looked in the mirror. Her long, dark hair was clipped behind her head, soft tendrils falling in her face around her strong jaw. Agatha had always been captivated by her, by her full, pink lips, by her dark eyebrows and that little gap in her front teeth. But this Rio? The one that only she got to see? The one that bloomed for her gaze? It was everything. 

“I know, but he says that he’s changed,” Rio said, tilting her head so it’s pressed against Agatha’s. “Has some new endeavor or whatever.”

Agatha put her hands on Rio’s where they held her close, rubbing her thumbs across her warm skin. 

“Isn’t that what they always say?” Agatha asked, frowning as she looked at Rio in the mirror. The younger woman sighed and pursed her lips, so Agatha rubbed her arms again. “I’m just worried about you, baby. I know you want to have your family around but I don’t like how bad they make you feel.” 

Rio’s family was something that they had argued about on and off for years. Agatha had left home at 18 and never looked back, Evanora’s presence in her life nearly non-existent after everything she had put her through. She couldn’t understand why Rio kept trying and trying to make a relationship work with her parents, with her older brothers, when they kept bringing her so much hurt and strife. But Rio insisted that it was worth it, that she wouldn’t let them go, so Agatha just did what she could to protect her. 

“I want to believe him this time,” Rio said, something hopeful in her eyes that made Agatha’s chest ache. A moment passed between them, and Rio’s face started to fall. “It’s stupid, I know. I shouldn’t even bother.” 

Agatha turned in Rio’s embrace, cupping her face. “It’s not stupid. Do I have faith that he will be different this time? Not entirely. But it’s not stupid that you want to have relationships with with your family. I think that’s brave.” 

Rio tilted her forehead against Agatha’s, closing her eyes so she wouldn’t have to look at the tenderness in Agatha’s gaze. 

“You’re just saying that because you have to,” Rio said, fingers digging into Agatha’s waist. 

Agatha pulled back and brushed Rio’s hair behind her ear. “No, I’m not. I do think you’re brave for fighting for your family. Do I think you’d have an easier time if you didn’t? Yeah, of course. But then you wouldn’t be the woman I fell in love with. You love hard, Rio, and it’s one of the most beautiful things about you.” 

Before Rio could respond, there was a knock at the door. The two women exchanged confused looks and went to answer. 

“Who got past security?” Agatha asked, already on edge. 

“Maybe it’s someone on the list.” Rio shrugged and looked through the peephole. An excited noise shrieked through her closed lips and she danced on her feet for just a second before flinging the door open. “Mano!” 

Standing in the doorway with a bag slung over his shoulder was a tall man with dark hair and strong eyebrows. His eyes were darker than Rio’s, and his hair curlier, but Agatha could tell in the slope of his nose and the way the corners of his eyes crinkled when he smiled that this was her older brother. 

“How’s my baby sis?” Juan Luis asked, throwing his arms open wide and enveloping Rio in his embrace, her face squishing into his shoulder with the force of the hug. 

She mumbled something unintelligible to Agatha, but whatever it was made Juan Luis smile. The three of them drew further into the hotel room, letting the door swing shut behind them. The siblings were chattering in something that was less clumsy than Spanglish but without nearly enough English for Agatha to keep up, so she just sat herself on a lounge chair in the sitting area and let them catch up. 

Agatha had met Juan Luis once before, about a year prior when he showed up at their apartment begging for a place to sleep. He had just gotten out of a few-month stint in jail for possession and had nowhere else to go. Back then, Agatha and Rio were still playing bars and local festivals with The Orchids and spending every waking moment they weren’t waitressing at Lilia’s, working on more songs to put on a demo to send to any and every studio in Los Angeles that would listen. It was hard and money was tight but Rio still opened their doors to Juan Luis, keeping a roof over his head and food on the table without asking for anything in return. 

When they got signed to Stark Records, that had been Agatha’s first rule: squatters had to go before they moved into the cute home they would buy with their new, livable wage. Juan Luis, of course, had disappeared into thin air once his little sister didn’t have anything to give him, but not without an intoxicated rant about how much Agatha was going to ruin her life. 

At the time, Agatha knew it was just because she wouldn’t let Rio get pushed around by her family like they were used to. But as time went on, those words would come back to haunt her for the unknowable truth they held. 

“Oh, and I brought you both a gift!” Juan Luis said, stirring Agatha from her reminiscing. She looked at him with narrowed eyes, not trusting the man as far as she could throw him. 

Rio, however, smiled brightly. “You did? Let me see!” 

Juan Luis unzipped the bag he brought with him and Agatha’s eyes widened comically as she saw what was inside. The sheer amount of drugs in the small bag was enough to get him sent to prison for a decade, she was certain. 

“I’ve got some of your favorite in here, and something for Agatha, too,” Juan Luis said, pulling out a baggie of cocaine and dropping it on the table in front of Agatha and another baggie labeled “Blue Dream” with at least an eighth of flower in front of Rio. “Sorry I didn’t roll it up for you, sis, but I know you like to get your hands dirty.” 

Rio blinked a few times, looking at the ziplocs in confusion. “Where did you get all of this?” 

“I’ve got a connection, now,” Juan Luis answered proudly. “We’ve come to an understanding, you know?” 

“Are you dealing for someone?” Rio asked, picking up the weed and rolling the buds in her hands through the plastic. “Fuck, you didn’t get in with Marcus, did you?” 

The older man shook his head. “No, nothing like that. I hate those fuckers. I will never deal for them again.”

”But you are dealing for someone?” Agatha asked, already dipping her pinky nail into the white powder and taking just a little for herself, just a hit. 

Nothing could surprise her when it came to Rio’s family at this point, except the look of betrayal on Rio’s face every time that they let her down. 

“Only for now. He said that if I could prove myself, I could get my own operation at some point down the line. I’m already pushing enough profit that I have an apartment and bought that car I was looking at when I was staying on your couch.” 

Agatha could only shake her head, not willing to let this man’s complete stupidity ruin the pleasant buzz swirling around her head and crawling down her limbs. Rio had already pulled her grinder out of her suitcase and was making quick work of breaking up enough to roll a joint for them. Rolling papers were sitting on the small coffee table like they belonged there. A manicured pinky nail dipped back into the bag and Agatha extended it to Rio, a silent offer that was taken with a less-than-elegant exchange over her handiwork. Agatha rubbed the leftover dust on her gums and wiped the wetness off on the t-shirt she was wearing. 

“Sounds like you’ve gotten it all figured out,” Agatha taunted, kicking back with her hands behind her head and feet on the table, making it shake. “That definitely won’t backfire at all.” 

“Mano, you know that they never mean it when they make promises like that,” Rio chided her brother, pinching a rolling paper between her fingers and meticulously spreading each crumb of the berry-smelling weed in exactly the right place to optimize the burn. This had always been her favorite part of smoking and often favored rolling and smoking joints over anything else. 

“No, I’m going to make it for real this time. You know me, you know I got what it takes.” Juan Luis rifled through his bag before pulling out a single, yellow pill and popping it in his mouth, swallowing it dry. “It feels like legacy, you know?” 

If Agatha could strangle any one person and get away with it, in this moment, she would probably choose Juan Luis. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re annoying? Like, ever? Even once?” 

Juan Luis rolled his eyes. Rio rolled the joint, licking it closed. 

“They give you a record deal and you think you’re untouchable, huh?” The man joked. “Some of us are still working for what you’re being handed.” 

“You’re gonna make your daddy so proud,” Agatha sneered, but it came off more sincere than she wanted it to. 

“That’s the goal,” Juan Luis continued. “I’m gonna do everything he couldn’t do just to prove that I’ve won.” 

Rio pulled the joint to her mouth and lit it with her green lighter she carried everywhere, taking a deep inhale. “God, why does the first hit always burn like that? That’s some good shit.” 

She passed it to Agatha, who followed suit. “Oh, wow, this actually doesn’t taste like dogshit. Good job.” 

Juan Luis rolled his eyes but smiled. “Your compliments always make me feel so warm and fuzzy, Agatha. But you get it now, right? This is actual, quality stuff and if I can move enough of it, I’m going to be fucking rich.” 

He had a point and Agatha and Rio both knew it. This wasn’t the same shit that they bought off Rio’s dad when he was in a pinch and needed some money, these were the kind of drugs you only gave to someone you trusted could turn the most profit off of it. 

“We’ll see,” Rio said noncommittally, taking back the joint after Juan Luis double-dipped. “Just keep yourself safe, alright? I don’t want to see you get caught up in this and end up dead because you didn’t use your brain. These people aren’t stupid, hermano, and you’re going to have to pretend you’re not, too, unless you want to end up on the wrong side of a .45. They can smell weakness.” 

Juan Luis shoved her shoulder playfully, making ash sizzle into the hotel room’s carpet. “Shut up, you know I’m smart.” 

Rio only hummed and bumped him back before crossing the room to sit in Agatha’s lap and kissing her, offering her the smoke that had already filled her lungs. “Looks like we have a new link, babe.” 

Agatha grinned up at her girlfriend, the euphoria hitting her hard and fast. “Fuck yeah, baby. Let’s have some fun.” 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, your dogshit fucking brother,” Tony interrupted Rio with cold, biting words. “He’s the reason we haven’t gotten your sister back, and you know it. So are you going to play along or will I have to pull out the big guns? It’s obvious you can’t keep Agatha in line. Hell, you couldn’t even do it when she still loved you.”

Tony’s words hit Agatha so hard that she had to bite her knuckle not to make a wounded sound. Her anger and hatred for this man was growing with each passing second and if she didn’t have to think about Nicky, she wouldn’t hesitate to take this arrogant son of a bitch off the planet.

Well, maybe she would hesitate. She’s too pretty for prison. 

But the thought still stood– Agatha wanted this man dead. Or, crashing down from his throne so hard and so fast that he never saw the light of day again.

She peeked into the crack in the doorway just in time for a wet tear to collect in the corner of Rio’s strained, bloodshot eyes. 

“Are you sure this is what we have to do?” Rio asked, nails digging into the skin of her forearms. 

“What, are you having regrets?” Tony taunted, a sickening smile creeping onto his face. “This is what you signed up for, sweetie, or did you forget that you chose this? You are the one that chose Carmen over Agatha. You are the one who abandoned her. If you wanted to protect her, maybe you should have thought about that before you left her. You made your choice and now you have to live with it.” 

And in that moment, Rio completely caved in on herself in defeat. Agatha watched as the fight drained from her and she slumped into the chair just behind her. Tony clucked his tongue and snorted in that condescending way he did when he knew that he had won. 

“That’s what I thought,” Tony said, slipping his sunglasses back onto his face. “Be a good girl and just do what you’re told, would you? It’s exhausting having to wrangle you still after all these years. You exhaust me, Rio.” 

Agatha rushed around a corner, hiding from view as Tony, smug and exuding the stench of abused power, left Rio in the small room. She waited several long moments for Rio to come out, too, but when she didn’t Agath slipped in the cracked door, shutting it behind her. 

Rio was slumped on a chair, hands pushing through her hair and letting out a trembling sigh. She looked up at Agatha but didn’t look surprised or ashamed, but like she had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

“How long has that been happening?” Agatha asked, not even trying to pretend she didn’t witness Tony’s assault on the younger woman. 

Rio looked everywhere but at Agatha before admitting, “More than ten years. Eleven, maybe?” 

A pit sunk in Agatha’s chest. Eleven years? That was while Agatha was still her wife, while she had still promised to be her protector. Guilt gnawed at her with vicious, cruel teeth. How could she have missed this? 

“Rio…” she started, voice soft and gentle. “I’m so sorry.” 

Brown eyes snapped up to meet blue. There was a level of disbelief staring back at Agatha that made her stomach clench, that made emotion swell in the back of her throat. 

“It’s not your fault,” Rio said, dismissing her with a wave of a hand. “You haven’t kept me here.” 

Agatha frowned. “It isn’t your fault, either, Rio. You know that, right?” 

A humorless laugh echoed in the space around them. “Is it not? I signed my soul away to the devil incarnate. This is quite literally the consequence of my own action.” 

Something pulled at Agatha, something deep and ancient that had nestled into hibernation and cemented itself so firmly that it had to rip itself from its confines as it bubbled up to the surface. It ached, it was raw, it was so unfamiliar after all this time but Agatha let it claw itself back as she pulled up a chair and sat directly in front of Rio. She didn’t reach, didn’t touch, but she leaned in close, elbows on her knees and looked at her in a way that demanded that Rio meet her gaze. 

And when she did, Agatha spoke slowly, with a sincerity that she reserved for only one other person in her life. 

“There is no justification in the world that makes what I just saw okay. I don’t care what you’ve done, I don’t care if you think you deserve it, Rio, because what that man is doing is vile and abusive. I know it and you know it, too. What happened to the Rio who wanted to end all of this? What happened to the Rio that sat in my house and made grand sweeping promises that we would weasel our way in and destroy this web of control?” 

Rio’s eyes turned glassy, tears trying and failing to rim along her lashes like she was fighting for her life to not let them fall. 

“I don’t know if I can be that person,” Rio said, voice shaky. “I’m– I am trying so hard to get the answers and to just bide my time until Carmen is mine. It’s easy to feel brave and like I can do anything when he’s not breathing down my neck, but that isn’t my reality. He can see that I’m pulling away, and he keeps gripping me tighter and tighter. I’m suffocating, Agatha, I can’t fucking breathe.” 

The feeling that had been burning its way out of the confines of the back of Agatha’s mind had finally escaped and was blazing an inferno as she watched Rio fall apart, as she watched what could have only been a fraction of the dejection the woman felt pour out of her like water. She grabbed Rio’s hand and pulled it to her cheek, pressing it firmly against her soft skin in an embrace they had perfected time and time again as they learned to accept truth from each other’s lips. 

“You are brave, Rio Vidal. I don’t know the full extent of what you’ve gone through these last ten years, but the fact that you have survived it all just so that you could save Carmen is nothing short of valiant and courageous. You’ve survived him this long, you can survive anything. Let us help you. We can get you out of this.” 

Rio tried to pull her hand away in a flash of panic, but Agatha held her there gently. If she tried hard enough, Rio could easily slip away, but the firm pressure kept her grounded. 

“I can’t ask this of you, Agatha. This isn’t your fight, I don’t want you to fight it for me.” 

Agatha shook her head just a little and let her thumb rub soothingly along the skin of Rio’s hand. 

“I’m not going to fight it for you. But I have a pretty big fucking bone to pick with the man that systematically ruined my career and made my life a living hell, so you’re going to have to accept that maybe I have a stake in this fight, too. You’re going to fight, and you’re going to win because you’re going to let all of us help you.” 

Rio’s eyes widened. “Please don’t tell the others. I know they know something is wrong, but I don’t want them to know how bad it is. Fuck, I don’t want you to know how bad it is, either.” 

“A little late for that, huh?” Agatha teased, though she knew without a doubt that there were things Rio hadn’t told her that were much worse than what she had just seen. “I won’t tell them, but you need to tell them something. You’ve already promised to keep me safe, right? If you can’t do this for yourself, then do it for your promise. We cannot protect ourselves if we don’t know what we are going up against. You have all the power in the world at your fingertips because you’re the one Tony has let too close out of a sick and twisted need to control you and hurt you. Let’s turn the tables.” 

Hope was sparking between the two women at Agatha’s words, forged and forced but itching to set itself ablaze all the same. Agatha knew who they were going up against, and she knew that the terror she saw in Rio wasn’t going to heal itself overnight. It wasn’t going to be easy, getting Rio out of this mess and exposing Stark for who he was behind closed doors, but Agatha had faith that they could do it and that Rio was going to be the perfect pawn in her game of revenge she had been hatching. 

And fuck, would it feel good, to finally see him go down for everything he had done to all of them. 

Agatha let the moment turn from something charged to something firm, a solid foundation that brought Rio back from the brink. The embers of a fire beginning to burn again started to sizzle in the way that Rio looked at her and Agatha could only grin as the Rio she once knew tried to escape. Piece by piece, Agatha knew that the two of them would rise from the rubble of destruction that Tony Stark had rained down upon their lives, and that knowledge was exhilarating. 

“Now let’s go put on a show, huh?” she said, putting Rio’s hand back in her own lap with a squeeze. “This is how it begins, right? You, me, and that guitar.” 

Rio’s face slowly split into a matching grin, nodding along with Agatha as her pep talk truly sank in. “Let’s fucking do this.” 

Agatha stood in the wings, out of sight of the crowd, letting the rich, scratchy sound of the bass and the harmonics of the synth wash over her as she watched MUNA’s set, tapping her fingers against her upper arm as she crossed them on her chest. Over the last ten years, she had spent a lot of that time falling in love with their music despite its departure from the sound she was most known for, despite the music being younger than her demographic, something about the way that Katie Gavin wrote their songs resonated so deeply with Agatha as she journeyed through her addiction and even into motherhood. It felt good to give them a platform like this, to know that when she called, they immediately said yes. 

The guitar player was chasing the bass player around the stage while they sang a song about giving up on love and wondering if they could have just grinned and bore it, would they be home by now? It made Agatha smile to herself watching the band dance and sing, having fun in a way that she remembered so fondly from The Orchids ’ early days. 

“God, remember when we were that young and full of energy?” Alice asked, sidling up to Agatha, dressed head to toe in her signature performance outfit, orange extensions clipped in her hair. “I would kill to have knees like that again.” 

“You can say that again,” Agatha snorted, turning to face her. “Not doing vocal warm-ups with Lilia and Jen today?” 

Alice shrugged and leaned into Agatha with her shoulder. “I did for a little bit but someone pretty important was missing and I thought I would come find her.” 

Agatha nodded once, looking back out at the stage, at the little groups of fans dancing and singing across the crowd. 

“What’s on your mind, Agatha?” Alice asked after a few moments of silence, seeming to read her thoughts. 

She sighed and pushed a hand through her hair. “That obvious, huh?” 

Alice looked at her knowingly, making a humorless laugh cough from Agatha’s lungs. 

“I’m just worried. I’m worried about the show, I’m worried about Rio, I’m worried about Lilia, I’m worried about me . What if I get out there and realize I can’t do this without the high? What if I completely fall apart out there?” 

“Okay, so, first thing— we’ve rehearsed this set to death, and it functions like a well-oiled machine. Those people out there have been waiting for this for over a decade. I promise it’s going to be great, even with mistakes.”

Agatha waved a hand in the air, dismissing her but not asking her to leave. 

“As for the rest, you’ve just gotta trust yourself, Ags. Trust us to carry you. You’re a born performer, more than the rest of us, even Rio. Maybe it will be hard to do it sober, but you will find your footing, I promise. You always were and still are more than the drugs. No matter what’s going on with the rest of us, we will always have that working in our corner, and it’s gotta be enough.” 

“That’s your advice? To just trust you all?” Agatha asked, blatantly ignoring the praise and the uncomfortable feeling it left in her chest. 

Alice shrugged. “That’s all you can do. Lilia is fine, she’s got her nurses back there with her as we speak to prepare. And Rio? God, I don’t know what’s going on with her, but that doesn’t change who she is on that stage or who we are as a team, okay?” 

“So you know something’s wrong with her?” Agatha pried, finally facing Alice again. 

“We know more than she probably thinks we do,” Alice admitted, rubbing at her collarbone with her right hand. “It’s not hard to piece it together. Stark has his claws in all of us to some extent, but he’s always had his eyes fixed on Rio, even back when we were a band the first time. He shows up here after you tell the news anchor to go shove it, and now she’s halfway catatonic in her dressing room? Yeah, we know there is something wrong.” 

Agatha pinched the bridge of her nose. “Do I need to go talk to her?” 

“No, not at all,” Alice said, soothing the spike in Agatha’s anxiety. “Jen has her, they’re steaming and getting ready with a dance party. I’m sure by the time we got back there, she would be put right back together again.”

“She’s going to tell us soon, I think. We had a talk after I saw her with Stark. It might finally be time, you know?” 

Alice nodded and squeezed Agatha’s forearm. “Thank you for doing that. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how much more your words mean to her than any of ours.” 

The feeling that flooded Agatha wasn’t necessarily an unwelcome one, but it certainly wasn’t something she’d like to feel again. It was the unspoken thing finally said out loud– that Agatha still mattered to Rio, despite everything that Agatha had told herself to keep herself safe from the pain of losing her. She didn’t know what to do with this information, with someone acknowledging out loud that maybe, just maybe, Rio had made a mistake. Or, at the very least, that she regretted what happened between them in more ways than she had said when apologizing to Agatha all those weeks ago. 

It was a curious little feeling, something that wouldn’t dare to hope but couldn’t stomach looking away. 

More minutes passed, and Agatha started to sway with the music, letting the upbeat pop songs loosen her up, loosen the vice-like grip her nerves had on her chest. During the last song, the other band members joined her and Alice, getting ready to take the stage in their choreographed entrance. Agatha made eye contact with Rio and nodded once, signalling for the two to make the trek below the stage. 

The crowd roared as the countdown began on the screen, louder than they had at any point before now, and something euphoric started to buzz beneath Agatha’s skin, something that turned her anxiety into pure energy. She locked eyes with Rio, a similar joy reflected back in the golden browns even in the dark shadows of the scaffolding. 

“You ready to do this, superstar?” Agatha asked, grinning widely and gripping her microphone with white knuckles. 

“More ready than I have been in years,” Rio replied, the words hitting Agatha heavily, the meaning of them not getting lost even in the hype of Jen’s bass and Alice’s keys.

Rio’s voice started to count down in Agatha’s ears, so she stood up straight on the platform, pressing her back against Rio’s, catching sight of the neck of her guitar out of the corner of her eyes. She tilted her head back, angling her microphone just right and closing her fist at her side, ready to thrust it straight in the air the moment she spoke. 

“ Lift in 5… 4… 3… 2…  1…” The click track echoed through Agatha’s monitors, and as it was jolted to life, the door above them slid open, and the small space was filled with the magic of performing. 

Screams echoed around the arena, thunderous even through the monitors protecting Agatha’s ears from the sound. 

“ Tell me, hon, are you ready for the magic? ” Agatha husked into the microphone like she had done it a million times before, and the crowd erupted . 

She looked out at the crowd, bracelets lighting up in the dark arena, signs bobbing, and phones recording. 

“ Oh, that can’t possibly be how you welcome me back, is it?” she taunted again, making the crowd go absolutely feral. 

A slow, wicked grin spread on her face as the spotlight flashed onto her and Rio, whose grin matched hers inch for inch. 

“ Oh, I think they’re ready. Let’s go for a ride. ” 

Agatha’s fist pulled down from the air just as Rio struck her first chord of the ballad, the grainy resonance thrumming through the arena. She stepped off the platform and to the front of the stage, crouching in front of the lip of the stage. 

“ It’s a long, dangerous journey, one that many have walked but none have seen to the end. No one, except me .” 

Alice took the keys, dancing up and down the melody, vamping as the lights rose over her. 

“ Tonight, I’m going to tell you my secret, the story of how I walked The Road and survived. ” 

The audience screamed, and Jen walked the frets of her bass, her solo dirty and full of life. 

“ Tell me, would you like to go…” Agatha trailed off, Rio’s voice counting in her ear as she started to sing, “ Down, down, down the road. Down the Witches’ Road.” 

Without hesitation, the crowd sang the lyrics she wrote all those years ago back to her, and it felt like ropes of glittering purple magic were slamming into her veins, filling Agatha with a kind of power she had never felt anywhere but right here. She tracked the stage, flirting with the crowd with every step she took, building the song higher and higher until the harmonies filled in behind her. Rio, Jen, Alice, and Lilia all stood behind their mics, playing their instruments while singing their lines, filling the song with so much sound. 

Agatha walked back to the center of the stage, a feeling of accomplishment washing over her body like it always had as she delivered the last line, “ To glory at the end”, and held her hands out wide, absorbing the applause like it was filling her with exactly what she had been missing for the last ten years. 

This was a feeling that she no longer knew how she could live without. 

Songs flowed from one to the next like water in a river, babbling from the ballads and running like rapids into the anthems. Agatha was high on the rush of the performance, of singing her songs again, of seeing the thousands of fans screaming her name. She did her dances with Rio, every last one of them, and even that didn’t feel uncomfortable or wrong like she had been afraid of. 

Everything felt so, so right. 

Rio stepped into Agatha’s space on the second verse of Violet Light . She played the lead guitar line like she had never stopped, like there had never gone a day without playing the notes that sang like sugary voices with each strike of her pick. Her hips rocked back and forth with Agatha’s, hands working in tandem to accentuate the notes that Agatha sang. 

And, just like choreographed, Rio sank to her knees, looking up at Agatha with those deep brown eyes, and something inside Agatha lit on fire. Smoldering, burning embers stoked with every thrust of Rio’s hips toward her. She clutched her microphone harder and started to move her hips in deep, sensual circles in time with the song. 

Nothing else mattered in this moment, not with Rio looking at her like she had all those years ago. The fans hushed to a dull roar, the clicking in her ear fading into static, and for just a moment, they were just two girls again, young and in love. But then those two girls shimmered and shook and broke right back into the women they were today, staring at each other with older eyes, and Agatha stepped away with the beat. 

Rio got up from her knees and winked at the camera as it went by, making the crowd shriek as it was played on the big screen behind their heads. 

And just like that, the concert fell into its rhythm, sweeping Agatha into that feeling once more that cleared her mind of any thoughts that weren’t where she was going next, what she was saying next, how she was going to reel the audience in for their next big surprise. By the time she was singing the last notes of the very last song, chest heaving, confetti flying around the arena in purple and silver flecks, every last one of them was on their feet, screaming until their throats were raw. 

“Thank you, thank you all,” Agatha said, out of breath and nearly delirious with the rush of a crowd cheering just for her. “I’m Agatha, and these are The Orchids. Goodnight!” 

She rushed off the stage with the rest of the band, and as soon as she was out of sight, she started to bound with energy, stomping her feet in a quick little dance. 

“Oh my god , that was incredible! We were incredible!” Agatha said to no one in particular. “We are so back, baby!” 

Rio sidled up to Agatha, a bright grin on her face but otherwise much more subdued. “I can’t believe there wasn’t a single technical difficulty. That went too smoothly.” 

“Don’t jinx it now!” Alice cried, pushing the orange-tinted glasses to the top of her head, one of the orange extensions threatening to come unclipped. 

The band walked together back to the dressing rooms, bumping shoulders and laughing in delight. 

“After party at Calderu’s?” Lilia asked, taking a pill from the kind woman with a stethoscope around her neck. “Place gets lively after a show, always has.” 

Agatha knew she shouldn’t. She knew that she should just pack up her things and head home for the night, kiss her boy on the forehead, and sink into a bubble bath. But it was like old times again, how could she let the rush of the night end just like that? She knew her limits, she knew her boundaries, she knew how to keep herself safe. 

It was time for Agatha to let herself live.

Chapter Text

Agatha couldn’t remember the last time she was in Calderu’s. The door still creaked when it opened, and the bar still smelled like grenadine and regret. But, seemingly, everything else had changed. Lilia had given management more control over the space a long, long time ago— acting more so as an overseeing owner than the hands-on leader she once was. The success of the band and her consequent step back into acting and producership had made Calderu’s a nostalgic piece of her history that she held onto instead of her last, desperate attempt at keeping food on her table. 

At just past 11 pm on a Friday night, the business was packed, but not with its normal patrons. No, it was filled to the brim with industry elites. In one corner, MUNA and Fightmaster were sharing celebratory drinks after their first show as openers. On the dance floor were singers, dancers, musicians, and young label executives jumping and gyrating to some pop song about crazy visions of LA. The bar was overflowing with names big and small alike, and all of these people were here for one thing— 

To celebrate Agatha and The Orchids. 

Something deep inside Agatha softened at the thought. Sure, these events were for networking and free booze, but the fact that their return to the stage was enough for something like this made her head swim in such a pleasant, brilliant way. 

“So, how’s it feel?” A familiar voice called over Agatha’s shoulder as she sipped on her Shirley Temple. 

She turned in her seat and came face to face with none other than Lilia herself, dressed down in something more comfortable than her overly sequinned performance outfit. 

“How does what feel?” Agatha asked, despite knowing exactly what Lilia meant. 

“This. All of it. Being back on stage. Being back here . It’s gotta turn at least one wheel in that big head of yours,” Lilia said, sliding onto the barstool next to Agatha. 

Agatha hummed and swirled the tiny red straw in her even redder drink. God, the bartender here was heavy-handed with the grenadine. 

How was she feeling after all of this? From starting her morning with a kindergartener’s meltdown to being picked apart on live television, finding Rio being verbally assaulted by Tony Stark, and then performing for the first time in over a decade, nothing about how she was feeling was straight forward or able to be condensed into something digestible for the other woman. 

“I’m sure my therapist will have a great time untangling it on Monday,” Agatha settled on, rolling her eyes. “I pay her the big bucks to fix all my problems, and yet, I end up doing all the work anyway.”

Lilia huffed a laugh and signaled for the bartender to bring her a glass of white wine. “It’s almost like she wants you to grow or something.” 

“Exactly, you get it. And it’s bullshit, if you ask me. Absolute horse shit.” 

The two sat in silence for a while, sipping their drinks and listening to the party bustle around them. The music was just a click too loud, the lights just a hint too dark, the air just a bit too hazy from the vape smoke that no house rule could ever truly keep away. Someone was doing poppers on the dancefloor, and a twink was pulling a man with biceps the size of Agatha’s head toward the bathrooms. 

“Do you ever wish it had gone differently before?” Agatha asked Lilia, lost in her own thoughts a little. 

“In some ways yes, in some ways no,” Lilia answered. The wine in her glass smelled dry and expensive, making Agatha grimace. “I don’t think any of us would be where we are today if things had changed. I don’t know if you would have gotten sober, I don’t know if Rio would have gotten Carmen sooner or never at all, I don’t know if I would have the resources to manage my illness– there are so many unknowns and I don’t want to find out what could have gone wrong.” 

Agatha nodded, swirling the straw in her drink. “Yeah, I get that. I don’t think I would change anything because then I might not have Nicky,” she admitted, turning her head to look at Lilia. “But I can’t help but wonder what it would be like if I didn’t spiral out like I did. So many people can just casually get high, and nothing bad ever happens. I mean, look at Rio. All that time, and she could always just drop it like it was nothing.” 

Lilia turned to fully face Agatha, taking her in– the way her painted nails clinked against her glass, one after the other, the way her knee bounced as her foot perched on the stool support, the way she gnawed at her bottom lip until it was raw. 

“It’s not fair, the hands we are dealt in this life. But I don’t think that you would be who you are if you were like Rio. In any of the ways you differ, not just this one.” 

Agatha tried to listen to Lilia’s words, tried to soak them in as they crossed the air between them, but the music was so loud . The lights were bright as they danced across the walls, the scent of haze and sweaty bodies overwhelming her until she was transported back in time, back to somewhere just like this. 

2013

Agatha always loved the after-party more than the actual Grammys ceremony. The red carpet, the stiff dress, the schooled look of appreciative disappointment when they inevitably lost to an industry plant– all of it fed Agatha’s ego, but was never enough. But the after parties? Oh, were the after parties so fucking incredible. 

Last year, after their first invitation to the ceremony, up for the new artist awards, Agatha had realized that the power of being a celebrity lay in having access to just about anything under the sun. There was no party she couldn’t score an invite to, no drug that she couldn’t buy, no back room that she couldn’t schmooze her way into for the right price. 

It was heady. It was larger than life. It was going to drown her alive. 

This year, the Grammys after-party was held at an artist’s mansion somewhere in Calabasas, complete with a waterfall pool, marble floors, and Swarovski chandeliers. Even after changing into something a little more comfortable to meet the dress code of the party, forgoing the floor-length gown that she wore as she accepted the band’s first-ever Grammy award, she couldn’t help but feel like she was exactly where she belonged. With Rio on her arm, things felt a little more grounded, but the extravagance filled her with a life she had never known anywhere else. 

“God, this place is amazing,” Rio said, filled with awe as she looked around her. “We’ve been a lot of places in the last couple years, but this is actually breaking my brain.” 

Across the entrance way stood Tony Stark in all of his glory, the man who had changed their lives, the man they owed everything to. It had been 3 years since they had been signed to Stark Records, but Agatha was still in awe of him each time they crossed paths. 

“Well, isn’t it my favorite superstar!” Tony said with a clap of his hands, beckoning the two women closer. “And Agatha, beautiful, brilliant Agatha, how are you tonight, darling?” 

He was dressed head to toe in something designer, a button-down shirt completely open and showing off his white tank top underneath. His blue-tinted sunglasses were perched on his nose, and there was a glass of something that smelled expensive in his right hand. 

“Couldn’t be better,” Agatha smiled, grabbing a flute of champagne off a passing waiter’s tray. “It’s not every day that the song you wrote wins Record of the Year. Or your band wins Album of the Year and Best Pop Performance. I still think we should have been in the rock category, but who am I to complain?” 

Tony laughed, and Rio pulled Agatha tighter against her side, swelling with pride and kissing her bare shoulder. “That’s right, our biggest money maker finally got their flowers.” 

“She’s amazing, isn’t she?” Rio cooed, the two women already halfway drunk from the drinks served at the ceremony. “My beautiful, incredible wife.” 

Agatha turned to Rio in the embrace, resting her elbow on the taller woman’s shoulder and tucking some of her hair behind her ear. “No, that’s you, sweetheart. Look at you.” 

It had been almost a year since they had eloped in New York City during their world tour, using a long weekend to go to city hall and get married in their finest white dresses. Honestly, Agatha was surprised when they both chose to wear dresses for the event, but she had never seen Rio look so ethereal. She was so in love with Rio, so fucking in love. 

“Want to celebrate?” Tony asked, pulling a gold tin out of the pocket of his trousers, cracking it open to show a little spoon and a heavy dusting of fine, white powder. 

Agatha looked to Rio, and the younger woman shrugged. “I could take a hit.” 

“That’s my girl,” Agatha said, following Tony to the corner of the grand entryway, tugging Rio by her hand. He didn’t stop until he found a huddle of other artists Agatha recognized as nominees, and then, one by one, they all took hits off the golden spoon. Laughter rippled around her, the world easing into that haze she was growing to love, growing to need . When the spoon passed back around with its tiny hits of cocaine, Rio waved them off, but Agatha took them again and again and again. 

She wished that were where the night ended, but the drinks kept flowing after that, her glass filled endlessly with champagne until it switched to cocktails, and she filled herself with ounce after ounce of vodka until it was seeping from her pores. 

“Rio! Baby! It’s our song! Come dance!” she cried out as the opening lines of Everybody Talks filtered over the speakers in the backyard. They ran giggling out onto the patio and started dancing, jumping in place, and singing so loudly in each other’s faces. Sweaty bodies crowded around them, all moving with the same lack of inhibition. 

“It started with a whisper! And that was when I kissed her!” Rio sang, eyes screwed shut as she leaned into Agatha’s personal space. She wrapped her arms around Agatha’s neck and pulled her in for a loud, wet kiss that was covered by the sound of the speakers. 

Agatha wrapped her arms around Rio’s waist and held her close, singing at the top of her lungs, dancing like nobody was watching. Joyful, giddy laughter echoed around them as the song switched and switched again, a party full of the industry’s greatest having the time of their lives. 

It was only when she felt sweat dripping down the back of her dress that she took Rio’s hand and pulled her away from the dancing bodies and to the makeshift bar where she ordered something a little fruity and an extra shot of vodka.

“Can it just always stay this way?” she slurred, hanging onto Rio like she might melt into the floor if she let go. “I love everything.” 

Rio laughed and rubbed her back, grimacing when she felt the damp skin. “God, babe, worked up a sweat out there, huh?” 

Agatha took the drink from the bartender and started mozying through the crowd, sipping on it until she tipped from pleasantly drunk to stumbling over her feet. Billy and Lilia were lounging near the pool, shoes off and splashing their toes in the water. 

“And that’s when I told her that if she came back into my bar again, I would hex her entire family, and she believed it!” Lilia said, making Billy bark with laughter, clutching his sides as he struggled to catch his breath. 

“You’re a witch, Lilia, and I fucking love you for it,” Billy said between giggles. 

“Who did you hex now?” Agatha asked, leaning too far to one side as she tried to sit next to them. Billy’s hands flashed up, steadying her with a grip on her waist. 

“Steady, Ags. You doing okay?” he asked as she thumped clumsily next to him, drawing her knees to her chest to unfasten her high heels. 

“Oh, I’m just peachy, Teen,” Agatha said, her voice thick and syrupy. “Nothing gets better than this.” 

Lilia leaned over Billy, looking at Agatha as she wrenched her feet free from their strappy prisons. She furrowed her brow and looked at the younger woman with concern. “Are you sure you haven’t had a little too much, babe? You’re not looking too good.” 

Agatha blew a breath through her lips, letting them flap noisily. “Please, Li-Lilia,” she started through a hiccup, “I could drive a car right now, I’m so sober. I’m not feeling a thing.” 

“Oh, there will be no driving of the cars for you,” Billy said firmly, grabbing one of Agatha’s shoes before her flailing hands knocked them into the water. 

“I am. Completely in control,” she argued, stuttering and blinking much too slowly. 

“Sure you are, darling. Sure, you are.” Lilia said, reaching behind Billy to pat her shoulder. But she let it go, they both did, and when Rio found her and helped her back to her feet, the two musicians just watched. 

Rio tugged her along to the bathroom, sitting Agatha on the toilet as she fastened the shoes back onto her feet. 

“Wait, I have to pee, you need to turn around,” Agatha whined, stranding back on wobbly legs and shimmying her panties down her legs. 

“Agatha, I see you naked every single day,” Rio huffed, much less drunk than her wife. “You peed while I was in the shower this morning.”

Agatha frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s different!” 

“How is that different?” 

“Because that’s when I wasn’t trying to be pretty for you.” 

Agatha’s voice was thin and pouty, looking up at Rio with those big, blue eyes. 

“You’re trying to be pretty for me?” Rio asked, an amused chuckle on her lips. 

“Mhm,” Agatha nodded, pointing to the door. “So you need to turn around.” 

Rio held her hands up and backed away slowly, seeing herself out the door with some vague agreements, leaving Agatha to her own devices. 

But when she was done, she slipped away from Rio, finding Jen and Alice tucked away near a giant display of champagne flutes, chatting amongst themselves and sharing small little smiles that were nearly unnoticeable. 

“Hey, ladies, howzit goin’?” Agatha asked, leaning against a shrub and promptly falling into it. Alice gripped her forearm and pulled her back upright. 

“We won a Grammy, so I would say we are doing pretty damn well!” Jen said before she noticed the way Alice was steadying Agatha on her feet. “Damn, girl. What the hell have you been doing tonight?” 

“We won threeee Grammys tonight!” Agatha corrected, shoving four fingers out in front of her before squinting, pulling them back to her face, and then pushing three back. “Stark gave me some cocaine a couple hours ago, but that’s worn off now.” 

Agatha leaned forward and stole a sip of Alice’s drink through her straw, screwing up her face at the taste. “Ew, what is that? Asshole flavored tequila? That shit’s nasty, Al.” 

“Well, then maybe you should just let me drink it myself,” Alice suggested with a laugh, though there was a hint of worry in her voice. 

“Pfft, that’s no reason not to share. Sharing is caring, Alice Wu-Gulliver,” Agatha said, reaching forward for the drink again, but Alice held it out of the way. 

“And you need to be cut off, Agatha Harkness-Vidal.” 

“Noooo, don’t tell anyone that name! That’s for me and– me and Rio alone. It’s not even on our passports. It’s just for us.” 

Agatha took a clumsy step forward, and Jen stopped her. “Easy, tiger. We don’t want you to get hurt.” 

“I just want to have fun, Jen!” Agatha’s voice slipped from slurred whines into something petulant, something childish and almost obscene. 

“You’ve had lots of fun today, Agatha. Why don’t we go find Rio and get you home, huh?” Jen continued, pressing a hand on her back to try and guide her back away from the champagne fountain. 

“No! I want to stay here. I’m staying here.” 

Jen rolled her eyes and took a steadying breath, trying to make eye contact with Alice over Agatha’s head but failing to before Agatha could see her face. 

“See! There it is! You hate me!” Agatha cried out, pointing her finger in Jen’s face. “I’ve always known you hate me! Everyone fucking hates me!” 

“Woah, Agatha, that’s not true at all,” Jen said, eyes wide and backing away with her hands in the air. “Where is this coming from?” 

“None of you ever wants me to have fun! And you are always whispering about me, I can fucking hear you!” 

“Agatha, no one whispers about you,” Alice tried, reaching out for her. 

The drunk woman pulled herself away from Alice’s grasp violently. “That’s bullsssssshit and you k-k-know it!” 

“It’s only because we care about you, Agatha,” Alice said, wincing as Agatha wobbled on her heels. “Take a deep breath, Agatha. This isn’t like you.” 

And it was true. Agatha wasn’t one to get blackout drunk at parties; she wasn’t the pathetic drunk girl yelling about her friends hating her, she wasn’t the one who completely lost control. But over the last two years, Agatha had slipped further and further into madness, deeper and deeper into what could no longer be called anything but an addiction. 

She tried to take a step forward, and her foot hit the ground at the wrong angle, her ankle rolling in her heel, making her stumble forward. Jen reached out her hands to catch her, but Agatha overcompensated, stepping to the side to try to catch herself, miscalculating with her drug-addled mind. 

It happened in slow motion, the way that she fell. 

Her arms flailed around her like they could do anything to save her, but just as quickly as it started, Agatha crashed into the display of champagne flutes, causing them to shatter around her as she fell. The sound was deafening, the way the crystal crumbled around her, the way the table cracked in half under the force of her fall. 

On the ground, Agatha couldn’t help but look up at Jen and Alice’s horrified faces. She was surrounded by the glasses that were still intact, the glasses that broke into large, thick chunks, the puddle of expensive champagne that was seeping into every inch of her dress. 

“Agatha!” Rio cried out, running across the backyard under the twinkling lights strung above them. 

Tears sprang in Agatha’s eyes as she tried to wiggle herself free, unable to find purchase to push herself up, her body too disoriented to do much of anything else. 

“Oh, my love, what have you done?” Rio asked, kneeling next to her while the rest of the party started to crowd around. 

Agatha shifted again, and it was just enough tension against a shard of crystal for her dress to rip, completely exposing her chest to the cool night air. 

Rio leaned over her and wrapped Agatha’s arms around her neck before grabbing her waist and hoisting her to her feet. The singer was drenched in champagne, the liquid dripping from her dress, her hair, down her face and arms in rivulets. 

“I’ve ruined everything,” Agatha cried, feeling pathetic and sorry for herself. “I’m so sorry, I’ve ruined everything. 

Rio scrambled to fasten Agatha’s dress back closed, walking uncomfortably to hold the fabric over her wife’s chest, trying to preserve what was left of her dignity. But the no-names in the crowd had already pulled out their phones, recording Agatha shamelessly. 

“Great tits, Harkness,” a vague male voice called from the crowd. 

A venomous warning sound growled from Rio’s chest. “Anyone who says another fucking word about my wife will fucking regret it,” she hissed, making some of the people in the front row take a step back. “I will fucking destroy you.” 

In that moment, Agatha thought that she had hit rock bottom. She had publicly embarrassed herself, destroying some famous person’s lawn and flashing her breasts to the entire party. But oh, how it was only just the beginning.

“Where’d you go just then?” Lilia asked, staring at Agatha with intrigue. 

“Just old memories,” Agatha said, stirring her drink and remembering when it used to have vodka in it, when it used to be just another way for her to float into the hazy abyss that quieted her mind and eased her pain. 

That itching, crawling feeling was rumbling under her skin, now, and she could tell that Lilia wanted to prod, but Agatha only shook her head, not ready or willing to talk about it here, never here, not surrounded like this. 

“Agatha! Don’t just sit there! Come dance with us,” Billy shouted, slurring his words, pupils blown with whatever he was high on, stumbling up behind her and saving her from Lilia’s attention. 

Agatha shook her head and gripped her Shirley Temple harder. The memories were flooding into her, the dam had been unleashed, and there was no stopping them. She just needed to get through her obligatory time at the party, and she could go home and decompress. 

“Not today, kid,” she returned, not seeing the appeal of doing it sober, anyhow. 

She hadn’t gone out since Nicky was born, not since she finally got clean for the last time. What was the point of pretending to be drunk when you’re stone-cold sober? 

“Live a little, babe,” Alice said, grabbing at her arm, tugging her from her stool, sneaking up on her in the loud room. “You’re allowed to.”  

Agatha sucked down the last of her drink, looking to Lilia for some kind of help. The other woman simply shrugged, smirking at Agatha like she would be no help at all. 

“Go have fun, girly. You deserve it. Trust yourself ,” Lilia said, patting her back as Alice and Billy pulled her by both hands to the dance floor. 

The music was loud, pumping with an energy that was no less than infectious. She could already feel the bass thrumming in her chest, rumbling her bones in the way she had always loved. It filled her with a euphoria she seldom felt anywhere else, loosening her tense muscles, flooding her weary mind with a buzzing, clumsy nothingness. 

It had been so long since Agatha let herself have this, let herself dance so close to the line of who she had once been.

There was strength, though, to be found in this freedom, in this trust she was placing in her own hands that she wasn’t sure she deserved. Years had passed since her last drop of alcohol, but she could still taste it in her mouth, could feel the ache for its sweet, sweet relief. 

Temptation niggled in the back of her mind, quiet but singing its siren song all the same. But what was louder was the memory of the little boy waiting at home, tucked in his gold and blue bedsheets, who would be anxiously awaiting the stories she would tell of her first night back as a rockstar when he returned in the morning. 

And so, she danced. 

She lifted her arms above her head, swaying with the beat as she let the music wash over her like something glittering and dripping in gold. Fuck, she had forgotten just how good this felt, how wonderful it was to just let go, to just be herself. 

In front of her, Alice was smiling widely, reaching for her hands to spin her around in circles. Even without a drop of alcohol, without the rush of drugs pumping in her veins, Agatha couldn’t help but smile, too. She felt like she was finding herself again, finding a piece of her soul that she thought died that day when her heart stopped beating. 

Oh, how wrong she was. 

The song switched to something low, something sensual and pulsing. Agatha closed her eyes and felt the bass, the guitar, the keys as they melded together into something dark and seductive. She swayed her hips, losing herself in the moment, tangling her hands in her hair, lifting it off her neck, and letting her sweat drip down into the low-cut back of her top. 

Bodies danced closer to her, and she felt the warmth of one, in particular, slide up behind her. In another life, Agatha would have swatted them away, would have demanded to see who dared touch her, but tonight? She wouldn’t. Tonight, she would just let herself get lost in the fantasy of who she used to be, who she could have been. 

The person behind her couldn’t have been much taller than her, if at all, and when she felt their hips slide into place behind hers, she could pretend that they belonged to someone else, to anyone else. Just for this song, just for these few minutes, Agatha let her body give in to desire. 

It was almost perfect, the way the person behind her could anticipate her next moves, the way their dancing was aligned with her own. They were a lifeline, they were a heartbeat, they were everything Agatha had denied herself for oh, so long. Her body moved with muscle memory, remembering the woman who had first taught her what it was like to feel so in sync with another human. Just for now, Agatha could allow herself to go back to that place, to go back to before, when everything felt perfect.

Warm, strong hands slid along her waist and pulled Agatha’s ass back into the seam of the their jeans. Agatha let her hair drop, spilling down her back in long, wild waves so that she could reach behind her, tangling her hand in long, soft hair that was swept back from their face somehow. They moved like this for several long measures, but when the person behind her leaned in close, ghosting their breath along her neck, Agatha turned. 

And what she saw stopped her dead in her tracks. 

“Rio?” Agatha asked, freezing in place, feeling like a bucket of cold water had just been thrown over her head, and she was drowning in it. 

Rio, for what it was worth, seemed to panic, too. “Agatha, fuck, I’m so sorry, I thought you were–” 

Just then, another woman with long, dark hair spun into their space. Agatha recognized her from the studio, some no-name producer’s apprentice, who in this light, in the dark haze of the dancefloor, looked just like her. Something passed over Rio’s face, something that Agatha couldn’t decipher, something that was so achingly unfamiliar. Was it longing? Was it guilt? Was it embarrassment? Was it anything at all? 

“Rio, there you are! Where did you go?” she asked, yelling over the thumping bass. 

Agatha let out a pathetic, self-pitying laugh as she nodded her head. Something in her chest twisted painfully, and the quiet whispers in the back of her mind begging for a sip of her look-alike’s drink turned into a dull roar, the crawling under her skin returning with a vengeance. She didn’t know what to think, didn’t know what to feel– she had no claim over Rio, not anymore, and she wasn’t even sure that she would even want it. But it felt so, so wrong to know that Rio’s hands were supposed to be on someone else’s body. It didn’t matter that the woman looked just like her; it didn’t matter that it was just dancing and obviously nothing more. The only thing that mattered was that Agatha was here, she was sober, and she would never be the woman who Rio held like that again. 

The only thing that mattered was that none of this was real . Agatha had ruined all of this over a decade ago, and she was foolish to pretend that she would ever get to have any of this back, even if it was just one night of a fantasy. 

Agatha left the dancefloor, slipping between bodies without another word and running far, far away from this place and the temptation it brought. And if Rio called after her, she would have never known.

Sleep didn’t come easily for Agatha that night as she tossed and turned in her bed, plagued with memories of before . Before Agatha was exiled, before she lost herself in the madness, before she lost everything that she had ever loved and had to start again. Performing had been such a rush, it had felt like she was sliding back into a life she should have never left, but everything else was weighing on her so, so heavily. 

Agatha hadn’t felt this tempted by the slithering snake of her addiction in many, many years. 

But she didn’t feel unsafe. As she lay in bed, thinking about all of the mistakes she had made, all the things she had lost, she couldn’t help but feel proud of herself because she knew that she was not in danger of relapsing. Even with the stress of the tour, of Stark, of Rio , Agatha still knew that she was going to make it another day without poisoning her body. That had to count for something. 

She didn’t hear the door open or the padding of little feet as they ran full speed into her bedroom, jumping onto the bed with enthusiasm and startling her awake. 

“Mama! Mama! You are a rockstar!” Nicky said, immediately clambering over his sleeping mother, who could only groan and throw her arm over her eyes. 

“Who let you in here, you little monster?” she grumbled, uncovering her face and reaching to tickle her boy into a fit of giggles. “Auntie Wanda wasn’t supposed to bring you home until lunchtime.” 

“It is lunchtime, Mama! You are so silly, still asleeping,” Nicky argued, sitting on her tummy, unstrapping his light-up shoes and throwing them off the bed. 

Agatha huffed as a trail of dirt puffed from their soles onto her clean sheets in their ascent. “Rockstars stay up late, sweet boy. They need to stay sleeping much longer than rambunctious little terrors,” she said, gently correcting Nicky and looking up at his big, brown eyes that were so full of wonder. 

“Ram-bunk-toss,” Nicky repeated, butchering the big word in that way only kindergarteners could. Well, an almost-first grader, now. “What does that mean?” 

“It means you have so much energy that you bounce off the walls,” Agatha supplied, making him bounce on her stomach a bit too aggressively for how long she had been awake. “Easy, Nicky. You’ll make Mama’s tummy sick.” 

“Oh!” Nicky said, immediately turning the dial down to one, barely moving but still making the bed jiggle with his energy. “You can’t be sick, you have to sing again tonight!” 

“Mhm, I do,” Agatha said, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and bracing her hands on the mattress, pushing herself into a sitting position so that Nicky was sitting in her lap. 

“You did such good singing! Auntie Wanda showed me and you were amazing ,” Nicky said, drawing out the last word like he was talking to his own personal superhero. 

It didn’t surprise Agatha that Wanda would already have concert footage from the night before– her TikTok addiction was bad enough to rival any teenager’s. 

“And is Auntie Wanda still here?” Agatha asked, prodding the boy for more information. 

Nicky shook his head so hard his little cheeks made a sound. Agatha grabbed them softly and hooked his hearing aids back over his ears, the devices starting to shake loose at his antics. 

“She said that I need more Mama time because you’re leaving soon,” he said, something like a pout and a smile pulling at his lips like he didn’t know whether to be sad she was leaving or happy that he was going to have an uninterrupted afternoon with her before that night’s show. 

“That Auntie Wanda of yours sure is a smart woman,” Agatha mused before tapping Nicky’s thighs to get him to move. “How about we pack a picnic basket and go to the park? After I take a shower and put some real clothes on, though.” 

‘Yeah, you stink, Mama,” Nicky said, plugging his nose and giggling wildly as he slid off the side of her bed. 

She followed right after him, throwing back the covers and chasing after him in her bare feet. Long, steady arms scooped him right up, and she shimmied her shoulders as she lifted him from the ground. 

“Oh no! I stink! It would be a shame if I got it all over you, too!” Agatha cried as Nicky laughed so hard his face turned pink and he squirmed in her grasp, kicking and begging to be put down. 

When Nicky was finally back on his feet, he immediately sprinted from the room in his socks, tucking into his room and shutting the door with an audible thud, tiny giggles still echoing through the wood. She picked up his tiny shoes and threw them towards his door with a firm, “Put those away, heathen,” that earned her another round of giggles, followed by just one hand flashing out the crack of a barely-ajar door to gather the shoes up. 

In the shower, Agatha felt something in her settle, something that Nicky had always been such a balm for. The little boy was like smooth, cool honey along all of her frayed nerves, sweet and sticking all of her broken pieces together without even trying. It had just been a long day, a complicated day, a big day, and that was all. With clarity and distance, Agatha could see that. 

With this self-care, Agatha knew that it was just the evil little voice in the back of her mind trying to convince her that she couldn’t handle this, that she didn’t want this. 

Because the reality was that she did want this. She wanted the music, she wanted the fans, she wanted the rush, she wanted the excited, giggling little boy’s overflowing pride, she wanted it all. And she knew that she could have it. 

Which is why she suggested they take a picnic to that park. The day after a concert debut was nearly guaranteed to be flooded with cameras and attention, and she needed to make her peace with that. If this was going to be her life again, she needed to be able to weave her son into the fabric of her reality on her own accord, by her own choice. She wouldn’t let his existence be ripped from her like a headline; she wouldn’t let her love for this little boy become tabloid fodder next time the news cycle was dry. 

So, today they would go to their favorite park, the location already good about protecting celebrities. They would take their security for protection, but they would still just be Mama and Nicky, having a fun day together without shame or fear. She would spoon-feed the media glimpses of her son and handle everything else as it came. 

Maybe it was unorthodox, maybe she should go into it with more of a plan, but Agatha was tired of being strapped down by so many things in her life– her addiction, her band, her industry, the media– it was all too much. So, if she could take this piece of her power back, to no longer let her fear of the cameras rule her life, she would. 

If last night taught her anything, it was that the things that scared her could not chain her, could not contain her. This was her future, and she was going to grab it by the reins for the first time in over a decade.

Chapter Text

Sometimes, Agatha wondered to herself how she managed to be so lucky as to get Nicky as her son. He was the most perfect sunshine boy that she could have ever asked for, and it almost felt like a fever dream, like something that couldn’t possibly be hers. 

After their park excursion during the opening weekend of the tour, the press had, indeed, gotten hold of some photos of the two playing. Only one gained any traction: a picture of Nicky smiling so wide at his mama. His hands were on her shoulders as he stood on a tall piece of playground equipment, and she looked up at him with pure adoration written all over her face. It wasn’t often that Agatha looked at her son and saw herself in his features, but in this photo with those twin smiles, it was undeniable that he was her little boy. 

The media, however, hadn’t quite figured that out for themselves, which was both a blessing and a curse. 

She had prepared Nicky to go back to school that Monday, helping him to understand what it meant to be seen in public with a celebrity. By the time he was old enough to start going to the park and the zoo, the paparazzi had all but stopped caring about Agatha, so the few times she did take him places, she was able to keep him mostly protected. 

And if she was being honest, she leaned on Wanda heavily for Nicky’s enrichment in the community. For a long time, she convinced herself it was the right thing to do, but now she couldn’t help but feel like maybe she hadn’t made the right choice. She didn’t regret it because she had done the best she could with the information that she had at the time, but she wished for more, wished she had allowed herself more. 

Now, she was riding with Nicky in the back of her Range Rover, chatting with him mindlessly about his show and tell this week.

“Yesterday, McKayleigh bringed–brought in the poster she got from her mommy, who went to your concert. You and Miss Rio are very pretty,” he babbled, pulling at the chest strap of his seat belt. 

“Thank you, baby,” Agatha returned, ruffling his hair before he swatted her hand away.

“And Riley brought a prop from his dad’s movie set. He’s going to be an Avenger!” Nicky continued like he hadn’t just made her heart explode out of her chest. 

“Has anyone asked you about the photo of us in the news?” Agatha asked, trying to ascertain how Nicky was feeling about everything that was going on. 

“Yeah, but they were just sad that I did not tell them my mom is famous, too,” Nicky replied like it was the simplest thing in the world. “I told them that I did not know, too.” 

“And that was all they said?” 

Nicky chewed on his bottom lip. “Marcus said that you were a bad person.” 

Agatha’s heart sank in her chest. That was exactly what she had worried about. 

“Was he mean to you? Did it make you feel bad?” 

“I felt a little bad, but then I told him that he was a liar and if he did not stop lying, I would make the teacher give him focus time. 

Agatha snorted a laugh. “Is that how you deal with bullies?” 

“Yep. No one is allowed to be mean to me.” 

Agatha’s heart swelled with pride. “That’s my boy. No one ever has the right to be mean to you. But you shouldn’t be mean to anyone else without good reason, right?” 

“Right, Mama. We are only mean to people who deserve it. Kindness is important.” 

Raising a child who was 50% her DNA was always going to be hard. Agatha knew that she was mean with a hot head and a sharp tongue. Her manipulative streak could rival a professional’s, and she certainly was not always a great example of kindness and gentleness for Nicky. She wouldn’t raise a little boy who let people step all over him and take advantage of him, but she also didn’t want him to end up where she did because no one put any kind of limits on just how evil she could be. 

“That’s exactly right, sweetheart. You’re such a smart boy,” Agatha praised him, kissing the side of his head. She kept a hand on his shoulder after she pulled away, not wanting to let go, and Nicky didn’t shake her off, letting her take the small comfort from him as she sought it. 

Tomorrow morning would mark the official beginning of the touring part of their tour, loading up the buses to start the trip to their first out-of-town stop on the schedule. Agatha had assumed they would be taking the Stark Records jet around the country, but someone with a particularly loud green thumb and big, brown eyes had convinced the tour managers that bussing would be more eco-friendly. So, today, she was soaking up every last second with her boy as possible. It would only be two weeks or so until Nicky and Wanda joined them on the road, but she was still dreading every second she would be without him. 

“I will be here to pick you up after school, okay, baby?” Agatha said as Nicky wrestled with his seatbelt and grabbed his too-big backpack to sling over his shoulders, already opening the door to the chatter of children entering the school. 

“See you then, Mama! I love you,” Nicky replied, giving her a sloppy kiss on her cheek before jumping out of the car before Agatha could return the sentiment in full. 

“Where to now, Agatha?” Herb asked, looking at her in the rearview mirror. 

Agatha watched as Nicky ran straight to his teacher and then was corralled inside the building by one of the drop-off aides, sighing and resting her chin on her closed fist. 

“Can we just drive for a little while? I’m not ready to go home,” Agatha settled on after a long moment of silence. Herb didn’t reply, just put the car in gear and pulled away, driving through the streets of affluent Los Angeles without much thought as to where or why. 

The further they went, the closer they drew to the more lively parts of town, the places where Agatha spent much of her time when she first moved to LA. She had come to California when she was only 18, accepted to USC for a degree in pop music, among other things. The last thing Evanora had wanted was for her daughter to waste her potential on a career that was bound to fail, but Agatha was nothing if not determined to prove everyone wrong. 

Once she got to the city, she immediately set out to make it her own. Agatha went and went and went until there was no room in her life to be homesick, not a single second that could be spared on missing the city where she was raised or the “friends” she left behind, until there was so much filling her brain at any given moment that her mother simply no longer existed. And in that frantic haste, she found that her favorite spot in the whole city was a tiny cafe called The Greige . 

It was one of those shitty little hipster spots before being a hipster had really taken off as mainstream. The decorations were cheugy and a little gauche, but the coffee was delicious, and tucked in the back corner of the building was a stage that was frequently filled with upcoming singer-songwriters, slam poets, and even the occasional Q & A with local authors. Agatha spent more and more of her time there, writing songs and learning through watching how she would network her way into getting her first gig. 

By the time she graduated from USC, she had a regular slot at The Greige that was well attended, where she debuted each of her newly written songs as they were finished and stacked up a lengthy repertoire of covers that she had made her own. After college, though, the cafe went from her favorite venue to perform at to one of the only ones that would take her. She didn’t have the right personality to fit in with the other singer-songwriters in LA, didn’t have the right aesthetic for the kind of music she was making, and didn’t like kissing the right asses to get any further than she was. So, when Rio came along and they learned that they had explosive chemistry together, Agatha knew that she needed to have her not only as a lover, but as a partner in her performances. 

2008

“Are you sure that we should do this?” Rio asked for the hundredth time that day, wringing her hands together as Agatha dragged their sound equipment into The Greige . 

“Absolutely yes. We have a song that we have written just for this project. This is the logical next step,” Agatha replied, not leaving any room for argument. 

“I just… I don’t know if I’m cut out for this whole thing. I’m so fucking anxious, Agatha, I don’t think I can go on that stage,” Rio admitted, making Agatha halt in her tracks. 

They had only been seeing each other for a few months when they finally had rehearsed enough and found their groove as a duo for Agatha to invite her to her standing performance at the cafe that had become like a second home. She was freshly graduated from USC and started working part-time with Agatha at Calderu’s while she looked for a job in her field. The economy was in absolute shambles, though, and finding anything had proven to be nearly impossible. 

“Honey…” Agatha cooed, immediately putting down the microphone stand and coming to cup Rio’s cheeks, smoothing her loose bangs out of her face. There was a tension there that Agatha wished she could kiss away. “I will be right there with you, you won’t be alone.”

The words did little to soothe Rio’s anxious nerves, though, and she still looked at Agatha with those worried, brown eyes. Agatha searched her face before grabbing her by the hand and gently pulling her to the bathroom, locking the door behind them. 

“Look at me,” Agatha said, holding both of Rio’s hands between them. It took a long moment, but Rio lifted her gaze to meet her girlfriend’s. “What’s really going on?” 

“This isn’t… This isn’t who I am. This is who you are, this is your passion in life. I don’t want to ruin this for you,” Rio said, holding onto Agatha’s hands tighter. 

“Why do you think you will ruin this for me? You’re an incredible musician, Rio. You’ve already made it this far.”

Rio shook her head, her bangs falling back into her face from where Agatha had brushed them away. “What if I’m not cut out for this? I’m going to get on that stage a choke and make you look fucking awful, and then you won’t even have this gig anymore, and then what will happen? I will ruin your entire career–”

Agatha cut Rio off by pressing her lips to hers, stopping her anxious babbling right in its tracks. She kissed her gently, tenderly, like there was nothing but the two of them in that moment. Rio mumbled against her lips before she melted, the tension seeping from her shoulders as long, delicate fingers smoothed at the sides of her neck in a soothing motion. 

As they pulled apart, Rio’s eyes stayed shut longer, only fluttering open as Agatha’s fingertips touched at her bottom lip. 

“Take a deep breath, baby,” Agatha said, cool blue eyes meeting fiery brown. “We’ve been practicing for this for months . If you get nervous, just look at me, okay? It’s muscle memory at this point, right?” 

Rio nodded. “We’ve rehearsed so much, the calluses on my fingertips have lost all sensation.” 

“Exactly,” Agatha smirked, so enraptured by the woman in front of her. “You’re incredible, Rio. And so damn brave. It’s just for tonight. If you hate it, you never have to do it again. Okay?”

Agatha’s gaze flicked from one eye to the other, scanning Rio’s face. 

“It’s just one night,” Rio repeated back, nodding her head, bouncing on her toes as she tried to pump herself up. “I can do one night.”

“That’s my girl,” Agatha said with a beaming smile, kissing her forehead. “Let’s go do this thing.” 

Hand-in-hand, Agatha and Rio went back to the main room of the coffee shop, the younger woman bounding with energy as she got herself ready to face her fears. 

Their setup was simple in the early performances, Agatha with a keyboard in front of her and Rio on a stool with two guitars next to her – an acoustic and a 12-string for when she needed that richer, fuller sound. It would evolve over time to include soundboards and drum pads, electric guitars, and an entire board of foot pedals, especially as they picked up more members. But, for now, it was just two young women, dressed in black mesh and lace, singing about falling in love. 

The crowd at The Greige was always full– some faces familiar to Agatha and others new during each gig. It seemed, though, that more new faces than not became familiar as the coffee shop was filled more and more every single time. The cafe was catered to the exact demographic of people who would be drawn to an alt-pop lesbian pop star, now a rising pop duo.  

“Hi, everyone! Lovely to see your smiling faces again!” Agatha called out into the microphone as she and Rio took their seats. “As you can see, it’s not just me up here tonight.” 

Gentle laughter and cheers resonated through the audience, already making Agatha’s chest bubble with that warm, excited feeling she always got. 

“Everyone, give a warm round of applause for my girlfriend, Rio!” 

Without hesitation, the crowd started to clap, a few of the more visible lesbians hooting and hollering at the mere mention of the word  girlfriend . 

“Thank you, thank you,” Agatha cooed into the mic, playing the audience like a fiddle. “Truly, it took so long to convince this one to come play with me on this stage.”

Rio laughed and rolled her eyes, some of the anxiety easing as her girlfriend made such an obvious effort to make her more comfortable. “You just batted those eyelashes at me the first day we met, and I was already agreeing to everything you asked of me.” 

The audience laughed at that, some murmuring in sympathy as they all seemed to know the struggle of being weak for a beautiful woman. 

“Tonight we’re in for a treat, folks!” Agatha said, smiling into the microphone. “We are Vidarkness !” 

Immediately, Agatha and Rio launched into their first song, making eye contact as Rio shook out her performance jitters. They sang through song after song that Agatha had written, Rio’s backup vocals and guitar bringing Agatha’s songwriting to a whole new level. It was only toward the end of the set that they debuted the song that they wrote together, the song that was written in both of their voices, that they sang together like there was no other way for it to be sung. 

“I didn’t think that love existed, but she changed my mind. This is falling, I am falling, I am falling so hard. I’ve tallied up 10,000 reasons I want her all the time. This is falling, I am falling, I am falling so hard . Want her to meet my mother, I’ll show her Arizona. How many times am I allowed to tell her that I love her? I’d move into the suburbs to have this one forever. I swear I’d spend my whole life showing just how much I love her. She’s my handsome. ” 

The crowd went wild for Agatha and Rio, for the song they wrote, for the set they performed, and when Rio looked at Agatha, sweat dripping down her brow, the smile there was bigger, wider than anything Agatha had ever seen before. They ran off the stage together, and Agatha wrapped Rio in a fierce hug, the two women jumping and giggling with the endorphins of performing. 

“You did it! Oh, my beautiful girl, I fucking love you,” Agatha said, not even hearing what she had said, what had slipped. 

Rio, though, froze. She pulled back from the embrace and looked at Agatha, searching her face just like Agatha had searched hers just a few hours before. 

“You do?” she asked, voice shaky and unsure. There was hope there, though, a fragile, tenuous hope that she didn’t know what to do with. 

Agatha sighed a gentle, affectionate, tender sigh and cupped Rio’s cheeks. “We just sang a song we wrote together about how we would move to the suburbs to have this love forever. Of course, I love you, Rio. Of course, I do, you silly, silly girl.” 

Rio barked a laugh, letting her head fall to Agatha’s shoulder. “I love you so much. We are useless lesbians, aren’t we?” 

Agatha rubbed her back and kissed her hair that smelled like almonds and rock and roll. 

“The absolute worst, but we have each other, right?” 

“Always.” 

Agatha didn’t even have to ask Herb to take her to The Greige , he just instinctively knew that she would want to go, and for that, she was grateful. It felt so good to know that the few people she had let into her life in the last ten years had taken loving her so seriously, had learned her and her quirks like it was nothing to ask of them at all. 

The coffee shop had expanded over the years, capitalizing on being the place that found Agatha Harkness and where Agatha and Rio had officially begun the journey that would result in one of the greatest bands of the 2010s and Stark Records’ most prolific popstar. After The  Orchids' opening weekend, Agatha would have expected the cafe to be bustling with patrons, but at 9:30 on a Tuesday morning, it was actually quite… quiet. 

It had been so long since she had been in that she recognized none of the baristas, not even the one with “shift lead” pinned on their apron. The walls were mostly the same, the color a neutral gray, but the photographs and artwork were filled with bursts of color— the only true difference was the wall celebrating all of the artists who had walked through these halls on their way to success. There, at the very top, was a picture of Agatha and Rio from that very first performance, and pictures of their first solo performances on each side. Agatha’s was her as a baby-faced college kid, Rio’s a photo of a charity performance from her first year as a solo artist. Balloons were pinned around the photos, no doubt for The Orchids’ return to the stage. 

Agatha stepped forward and was met with the only other patron, someone just a little taller than her with dark, bendy hair that fell between her shoulder blades. She was wearing a hoodie and matching sweatpants in a shade of soft green that reminded her so, so much of that first gig. Her thoughts wandered back to the weekend, to the way Rio had felt as they danced at the after party, to the way she hadn’t known it was her. How could she not have known? 

The woman in front of her shifted from one foot to another, head tilted down and engrossed in what Agatha assumed was her phone. She wondered if the woman came here often, if she had a regular order, if she, herself, had a photo on the wall of fame. A barista looked up from the dishes she was washing, and her face lit up. 

“Rio! You’re here!” she exclaimed, making the other woman immediately look up, her shoulders relaxing. “I saw your show this weekend!” 

Agatha stood back, sunglasses perched on her face, hoping to hide herself enough to decide what she wanted to do in this moment. Her breath caught in her throat. Of course, she would be here, that was exactly how Agatha’s life always went, wasn’t it?

“That’s awesome, Basil. What did you think?” Rio asked, stepping forward. 

God, she was so good with the fans. She always had been. Where Agatha was a powerhouse on the stage, working the crowd into a frenzy, Rio had always been the one who could connect with them one-on-one. She was warmth where Agatha was cold, fire where she was ice, love where she kept everyone at arm’s length. 

“It was amazing! You and Agatha, oh my god, the chemistry is still insane!” The barista started, already grabbing a cup and writing what must have been Rio’s usual order on the side. “Wait, shit, is she here with you?” 

Rio stuttered a bit, shaking her head in disbelief. “No, why would she be here with me?”

Fuck. Agatha needed to leave. She couldn’t be here right now. 

But as she turned to make her great escape, Basil pointed at her, and Rio turned on her heels, round, grey-tinted sunglasses on her face barely obscuring her surprise. Their eyes caught, and Agatha winced, putting up a hand in a tentative little wave. 

“I was just leaving,” Agatha said, grimacing when Rio took a step forward. 

A moment passed between them, Agatha not moving, frozen under Rio’s watchful stare. She was analyzing her, taking her in, trying to read the woman she had once known like the back of her hand. Agatha could feel herself shrinking under the gaze, under a knowingness that Rio should no longer hold. 

“Please don’t leave.” Rio held up her hands, like she was trying to convey that she meant no harm. “This is your place, Agatha. You’re here for a reason.” 

She didn’t know if it was the words themselves or the way that Rio said them that convinced her not to leave, but Agatha stepped right back into line behind Rio, ordering something with brown sugar and oat milk when Basil asked. 

Maybe she was just tired of running and running and running away.

“Can we–can we talk?” Rio asked, shifting from one foot to the other, hands shoved deep in her pockets as they waited for their drinks. “Maybe we could go for a walk around the old neighborhood? I’ve got my security outside.” 

Agatha pressed her lips together in a firm line, eyes narrowing as she took in Rio’s request. “Do we need to?” 

“I think we do,” Rio said, rubbing her hands together, thumb pressed into her palm and dragging it down to her fingers again and again and again. 

She was right, and Agatha knew it. They had barely spoken three words to each other off the stage since the after-party. It was childish, but Agatha couldn’t wrap her head around the way dancing with Rio felt, couldn’t grapple with the fact that she had no right to feel disappointed that Rio had been looking for someone else. She had no right at all. 

“Fine.” 

They gathered their drinks and immediately walked out onto the quiet sidewalk of the LA neighborhood. Silence stretched between them for a while, but it was Rio who broke it first.

“I’m sorry for the after party,” she said sheepishly, clutching onto her iced coffee with both hands. The crunch of the security detail’s footsteps could be heard behind them, and nothing else as Agatha waited to continue. “I– Honestly, Agatha, I had been drinking, and that’s no excuse, but I genuinely didn’t realize that it was you.” 

Agatha nodded, not surprised to hear Rio had been drinking. She always had a better grip on things, able to fall in and out of substance use without ever truly tipping into the side of destruction. 

“It’s really not a big deal,” Agatha said, though she only felt it in half. “No need to make it weird, right?” 

Rio hummed, not entirely convinced by Agatha’s performance, but willing to let it slide. “I think I’m going to dry out for the rest of the tour,” she admitted, her voice small like it was the first time she had ever spoken the words aloud. “I don’t– I don’t want to make that mistake again and ruin what we are building. You don’t trust me and I know that, but the last thing I want to do is go an entire city without speaking to you again. It’s not fair of me to ask anything of you, and I know that, but I can’t– I can’t lose you again, Agatha. Even if it’s just this. Especially if it’s just this .” 

The words hit Agath square in her chest, and she felt something heartbreakingly sad crunching in her chest. Especially if it’s just this . She couldn’t ask, she wouldn’t dare want Rio to elaborate. Agatha was certain that if she did, it would ruin the fragile peace that she had made with this scenario, with the last ten years, all of it. 

“We’re really okay, Rio. I promise,” Agatha lied, but only in part. Because it was okay, they were okay. They had to be– for the sake of the tour, for the sake of the band, for the sake of the everloving hell Agatha was going to rain down on Tony Stark the second she had enough ammunition. But how could Agatha ever be okay again, knowing that Rio’s body still felt the exact same pressed against hers? How could she ever be okay knowing that Rio had slotted the key into the lock of a box so far in the back of Agatha’s mind, it had fused into her very nervous system? 

It was full and heavy and so goddamned loud even with the layers and layers of teflon, of chains, of reinforced iron that kept every single feeling, every single memory of Rio locked so far away from the light of day. And Rio, beautiful, sweet, gentle Rio was prying it apart millimeter by millimeter without even trying, without even meaning to. 

Agatha didn’t know how she was going to go back to the way life was before, back to pretending that Rio Vidal did not exist. 

How could she start hating her again after a taste of freedom? Of relief?

“God, remember that first performance at The Greige ,” Rio asked, disrupting Agatha’s thought spiral, reaching through the moment like she always had. “I was so nervous I thought I was going to throw up.” 

“You almost did, and on my new Converse!” Agatha replied, an airy enthusiasm in her words. “Things were so much simpler then.” 

“Yeah, they were. But I don’t miss using Suave shampoo and having Top Ramen for dinner most nights,” Rio laughed, drawing a chuckle from Agatha, too. 

“I knew you were worried for nothing.” Agatha shook the ice in her drink, pushing the hair away from her face with a damp hand. “The crowd ate up every second of you playing that guitar.” 

“Only because I was with you. They already loved you,” Rio countered. 

The banter was so familiar that it ached. This was the way it always had been between them, something light, something witty, and then something that took their breath away. It repeated in a vicious cycle, the conversation flowing like it was on an unending track, an infinite loop that kept pressing onward, onward, onward. 

“You undersell yourself,” Agatha insisted, tilting her drink in Rio’s direction like an accusation. “Look at the career you’ve made for yourself, you’re a thousand times the pop star I was ever going to be.” 

Something flashed across Rio’s face, then-- something Agatha didn’t recognize, something that she couldn’t place. Was it pain? Regret? Humility? A long moment passed before the younger woman finally spoke. 

“You know, all I ever wanted was to be your groupie,” Rio admitted, laying more of her cards on the table than she likely intended. 

“That’s absurd, Rio. You’ve been with me almost the whole time.” 

Rio shook her head insistently. “You remember the night we met? When I told you I had just caught a gig at The Greige and was a new fan?” 

“Among many things that night, yeah.” Agatha huffed a laugh, remembering the dancing, the drinking, the fucking, the singing, all of it. It was a memory that was seared into her brain, permanently etched into the foundation of her being. 

“I may or may not have played off just how much I liked you.” 

Agatha stopped in her tracks, looking at Rio with a sheen of utter confusion. “Rio, we’ve talked about this night a million times. It’s been almost 20 years.” 

“I know,” Rio nodded, looking at Agatha like she mattered. “At first, I didn’t want you to think I was some creepy stalker fan, and then we turned into an us , so I didn’t think it mattered anymore. But it’s true, Agatha. Even from the very beginning, you were so incredible that I was ready to follow you around the country and push your CDs and maybe even grow out my armpit hair like a true 1970s hippie groupie.” 

“You ended up doing that anyway, you just wanted an excuse for it,” Agatha pointed out, knowing that they both had embraced the body hair-positive dyke icon status as early in their career as they could. 

“Fine, I will give you that. The rest, though, still stands. You were destined for greatness, Agatha. You still are. Don’t do yourself the disservice of pretending like you don’t outshine me in every single way. We… we got caught up in a truly fucked situation, and the same strings that catapulted you off your climb to success are the ones that pushed me further than I was ever meant to go. Hell, further than I ever wanted to go.” 

Agatha couldn’t do anything but blink at Rio. She was shellshocked by the vulnerability that Rio had just entrusted in her hands, by the genuine affection and awe that was laced in every single word. 

In that moment, something changed between them. The key that Rio’s shaky hands had been trying to slide into the lock on Agatha’s vault, scraping the varnish again and again and again, had finally slotted itself into its cylinder. The metal teeth were slowly, painstakingly pushing up the pins that had kept everything safe and far, far away from where Agatha could reach it. 

“Rio…” Agatha whispered, clutching her coffee so hard that the plastic of the cup crinkled under her grip. 

She wanted to say more, ached to say anything else, but before she could make the words come, a loud squeal resounded from behind them, making them both turn on their heels. 

A group of teenagers was walking down the sidewalk, and one with mousy brown hair and acne pointed in their direction, making the gaggle of girls start to scream and run toward them. 

“Shit, we gotta go,” Rio said, turning on her heel and grabbing Agatha by the hand. “I can see Herb parked two blocks up.” 

Agatha caught sight of her familiar Range Rover, and before she could process what was happening, she was running hand in hand with Rio through the streets of Los Angeles. A wild cackle sang into the air around them, the absurdity of it all mixing with the adrenaline to push them forward. 

Rationally, they could have stopped for the girls. They could have taken the photos and signed the photos and been perfectly safe, especially with Rio’s security hot on their tails. But Rio grabbed her hand without a second thought, almost protective with it, and just started pulling. Agatha couldn’t help but follow. 

Agatha ripped the back seat of the SUV open and pushed Rio inside, not waiting for her to argue, then pulled herself inside, too. Their chests were heaving as they made eye contact, and as soon as the security detail slid into the passenger seat with a thud, Agatha and Rio both burst into laughter, falling into each other like they had never fallen apart. 

“What was that?” Agatha wheezed, wiping at her eyes as tears started to form. “They were just teenage girls.” 

“I’m sorry!” Rio cried with laughter. “I just saw them start to run and fight or flight kicked in!” 

“Remember the first time that happened to us?” Agatha asked as she came down, clutching at her stomach. Her hand still tingled from the way Rio had held it. “I thought you were going to come unglued.” 

“Me? No, that was entirely you,” Rio argued as Herb pulled away from the group of girls trying to get them to roll down the windows. “You freaked out and yelled at all to back away. I just glared at them and pulled out that knife you got me for my birthday.” 

Agatha buried her head in her hands, the laughter starting again. “I should have never bought you that knife. You were on the front page of every gossip site for weeks as a secret slasher.” 

Rio threw her head back and laughed right as Agatha peeked out from behind her hands, and something clenched in her chest. The slope of her jaw, that infuriatingly endearing gap in her teeth, god, she never thought she would get to see Rio laugh like this again. It was like music to her ears, and she couldn’t convince herself to hate it. 

“Were they wrong, though?” 

“Rio! You’re not a murderer!” 

“No, but I am Lady Death.” Rio wiggled her eyebrows at Agatha, making the older woman scoff. 

“When are you going to let that go? It was one time . One fucking time, Rio!” Agatha crossed her arms and pointed at her with a certain firmness. 

“I think that scaring you so bad with my Halloween costume that you literally collapsed, hit your head, and blacked out for like 30 seconds deserves to be remembered in perpetuity.” 

“The worst part is that I was completely sober, so I couldn’t even blame anything but myself and that god damn scary movie we watched before bed.” 

“I’m an S-tier prankster.” 

“You’re an asshole, is what you are.” Agatha shoved at Rio’s shoulders playfully, no venom in her words at all. 

Rio beamed a smile at Agatha, and something cracked in her chest. She couldn’t help but smile back. A real, genuine smile with her crinkled nose and squinty eyes, too, not just the one she used to keep the world at bay. 

The car lulled into a comfortable silence as Herb kept driving, chatting idly with Rio’s security. Agatha should have felt uncomfortable, should have hated seeing Rio in her space like this, but she didn’t. God, she didn’t. She wouldn’t say it felt right or that Rio was supposed to be there, because she wasn’t. But for the first time in a long time, Agatha didn’t mind. 

“Come over tonight,” Rio blurted out like she was catching the last phrase of an entire speech that had been rolling around in her head. 

Agatha froze. “I’m sorry?” 

Rio’s eyes widened, and she backpedaled hard. “Wait, no, not like that. Just… Some of the band is coming over tonight for a sort of last-hurrah before we really go on tour, and I want you to come.” 

“The whole band is going?” Agatha asked, tense and starting to throw walls back up. 

“No, not the whole band. Just Billy, Alice, and Jen.” It was obvious that Rio was already trying to do damage control, even though nothing had exploded yet.

“Oh, I see, everyone except me and Lilia. You don’t want us there?” Agatha looked at her with narrow eyes, pressing her lips together.

“No! Not at all! We do want you there,” Rio insisted, holding out her hands like white flags. “You’re both just… Hard to get in contact with. I think Lilia is allergic to her phone.” 

“Everyone has my phone number, still,” Agatha argued, seeing right through Rio’s explanation. 

Rio looked down at her hands as she wrung them in her lap. “You still have my number blocked, and I didn’t know if you would want to see me after… everything.” 

The truth hit Agatha like a freight train. She had almost forgotten that before running into Rio at the coffee shop, she had been avoiding the guitar player like the plague. The last two LA shows had been tense backstage, an air of discomfort as Agatha flitted through the halls like a ghost, but no one was going to say anything to her, not this time. She still performed perfectly, still worked the crowd, and made it all flow together like the master entertainer that she was. So, when she felt that uncomfortable wiggle every time she saw Rio off of that stage, no one dared call her on it. 

“I’m sorry,” Agatha landed on after she tried to think of the right way to respond. “I shouldn’t– I shouldn’t have avoided you. I should have just talked to you and not made things so uncomfortable for all of us.” 

“No, Agatha, I’m the one that fucked up–” 

“No, Rio, you’re not,” Agatha admitted, even though it felt acid on her tongue. “It was an honest mistake, and I’m the one who behaved like a teenager.” 

Rio nodded, letting the car fall back into silence. Agatha pulled her phone out of her pocket and flipped to settings, scrolling through her blocked contacts until she found the one that she hadn’t touched in over ten years. She typed out a simple message and heard Rio’s phone ding in her hands. A small smile spread on the younger woman’s face as she saw what had popped up. 

Agatha: Can I bring Nicky?

Rio typed for only a few seconds before looking at Agatha with something so sickeningly hopeful that she felt herself begin to melt. 

Rio: Please do. Carmen will be there and so will her nanny, Nebula.

An olive branch. Maybe the beginning of something more than just a truce. Whatever it was, Agatha could feel like she had just made a decision that would alter the course of her life as she knew it, and there was no going back to before. 

To say Nicky was excited about going to Rio’s house would be a massive understatement. The little boy was nearly vibrating with excitement at the kitchen table as he did his homework that afternoon, tracing his letters and reading a picture book with his mama. Through his after-school snack, he had chattered nonstop about getting to go to a “real celebrity’s house” as if he didn’t live in one or visit his Auntie Wanda almost every week. The car ride, though, started strong with the excited ramblings of the six-year-old, but quickly petered off the closer and closer they got. 

“You okay, sweet boy?” Agatha asked, ruffling his hair as he looked out the window, taking in the twisty-turny roads of the neighborhood Agatha had once lived in. 

“What if Miss Rio and Carmen don’t like me?” Nicky said, quiet and unsure. 

Agatha frowned, pinching his chin carefully and turning his face toward her. With her free hand, she signed as she spoke, “They both already love you, baby. You know that. You’ve already spent time with them!” 

“It’s not the same,” Nicky pouted, looking up at Agatha with those big brown eyes that reminded her so much of a life she used to dream of. 

“How so?” 

Nicky wiggled his head until Agatha dropped her hand from his face and grabbed anxiously at the straps of his booster seat– not to pull them away from himself but just to touch, to feel the rough texture. 

“This is their house. There are different rules there,” Nicky explained, though Agatha wasn’t quite following. 

“Everyone’s house has slightly different rules, but that doesn’t mean they won’t like you anymore. You’re going to be kind and respectful, right?” Agatha prodded. 

Nicky nodded his head resolutely. “Yes, Mama. I will be a good boy.” 

“Then what’s got you so worried, sweetheart?” 

“It is a new house, and what if I get scared because something is loud or my ears hurt? No one likes me when my ears hurt.” 

Agatha’s heart broke a little at the admission, and she slid closer to Nicky on the bench seat of the Range Rover. Her hand fell to the top of his head, and she carded her fingers through his hair soothingly. 

“You’re scared because of what happened last week, aren’t you?” Agatha asked, and the little boy nodded at her with big, sad eyes. 

During the last rehearsals of the show, Agatha had been running on fumes more than she normally was, which meant that on Wednesday night, she hadn’t double-checked that Nicky’s hearing aids had been put on their charger like they were supposed to be. At school the next day, they struggled to keep up with Nicky’s rambunctious energy, and he tried to turn them up himself but didn’t know when to stop and overstimulated himself with too loud, too fast, which sent the poor little guy into a bit of a meltdown. 

His friends had been supportive and tried to help him, but they weren’t the only kids on the jungle gym at recess, so the ones who didn’t know any better ran away from him or made fun of him, and Agatha had to leave the venue early to go help him. He had been able to finish the day out after some cuddles and Agatha bringing him his backup hearing aids, but Nicky hadn’t quite let go of the feeling of his first ear-related meltdown in a social setting. Sure, he had done it at home or at the aquarium before, but never with his friends. And he had never been embarrassed by it before, either. 

“Can you look at me, Nicky?” Agatha asked, and Nicky complied immediately. “Miss Rio isn’t going to be afraid of you if that happens, I promise. Remember how she asked you to teach her how to say her name the first time you met? And Carmen is a big kid, too, so I bet she will just want to help. Remember when you played at the park together and she lifted you onto the monkey bars because you couldn’t reach?” 

Nicky nodded again. 

“See, they already want to help you and accept you for exactly who you are, don’t they?” Agatha asked, getting another, more enthusiastic nod in return. “There is no need to be afraid of new rules with Miss Rio and Carmen. You already know everything you need to know to be a good boy.”

The kindergartener seemed sufficiently soothed by his mother’s words and immediately started babbling again, making Agatha relax just a little as she slid back to where she had been sitting originally. She caught eyes with Herb, and he gave her a wink and a nod, a subtle but kind gesture of support. 

The house, for all intents and purposes, looked exactly the same on the outside as the day Agatha moved out. Tall, white walls, paned windows, too many plants growing out of every available inch. It barely felt like the mansion it was, and Agatha knew that it was all because of Rio, because of her comforting touch. As she walked up the sidewalk, Nicky skipping next to her, she noticed the new fence, the security cameras, the hedges that blocked the entire property from view. They were small details, but new details nonetheless. 

“Agatha!” Alice cried, swinging the door open before she could even knock. “Oh, and look at this little man! You look so dapper in your otter t-shirt.” 

“Thank you!” Nicky said very politely, dropping his mom’s hand to take Alice’s. “Auntie Alice, do you have any apple juice?” 

Alice laughed, and Agatha followed them inside, shaking her head as Alice said they would have to ask Carmen and Nebula what they had in the snack department. 

“Not too much sugar, please, his bedtime is still 8 pm even if we are here for a little while,” Agatha called out behind them before making her way to the living room where she knew everyone else would be. 

The furniture had changed some, but not entirely; the layout of the house was entirely the same. She followed the same winding path she had always known, that she had picked herself, and soon was face-to-face with the entire band, minus Alice. Billy and Lilia were sitting on one end of a couch, Jen on the other with a distinctly Alice-shaped jacket flung next to her. Rio sat across from them on another couch, and while Agatha could have chosen to sit in one of the solitary chairs, something inside her nudged her to go sit with Rio. 

“We have pizza in the kitchen if you’re hungry, Agatha,” Rio said as Agatha sat down, accepting a glass of water from the pitcher on the coffee table without question. “Nebula is making Carmen and Nicky some healthy sides, but we’ve hoarded the breadsticks in here.” 

Agatha laughed, looking at the already-decimated box of cheesy bread from Agatha’s favorite pizzeria. She reached down and took one, immediately taking a bite and moaning at the taste of it melting in her mouth. 

“Jeez, Agatha, have you eaten today?” Jen asked, laughing at her enthusiasm. 

“Gosh, Jen, have you taken your Xanax today?” Agatha fired back, sugary sweet and glad there were no cameras to be seen. 

This was the first time she had really been with them in a way that wasn’t orchestrated by the documentary. She hadn’t seen them, but she just knew they had been watching their every move at the after party and she wasn’t looking forward to seeing the footage back of her dancing with Rio and consequent storming off. Sure, they had come to her house without the cameras to apologize and beg her not to quit, but this felt different. 

For once, this felt like family. 

“Hey now, let’s not start with the drug jokes,” Alice said as she came back into the room, sitting herself much too close to Jen. 

Agatha eyeballed them warily. Was there something going on there? They didn’t touch each other, didn’t gravitate any closer than where Alice had started, but something about it felt different. 

Everyone had a beer or glass of wine in their hand, but when Agatha looked at Rio, she was just drinking water, too. She must have been serious earlier when she told Agatha that she was drying out for the rest of the tour. They locked eyes and Rio nodded at Agatha, like they had some kind of insider knowledge that the rest of the group wasn’t privy to. 

 Nicky’s squeals of laughter could be heard echoing down the hallway, coming closer and closer, before the conversation could continue. 

“Mama! Miss Nebula said you’re hiding the cheesy bread!” he said sternly, skidding to a stop right in front of Agatha. 

Behind him trailed a middle schooler with a shit-eating grin and what looked like a college-aged girl with bright blue hair, a couple facial piercings, and an exasperated fondness written all over her posture. 

“Sorry, Miss Harkness, the kid waterboarded the information out of me,” Nebula said, stepping forward and reaching out a hand for Agatha to shake. “I’m Carmen’s nanny when she’s with Rio.” 

“I’m too old for a nanny,” Carmen grumbled, stealing a piece of cheesy bread from Rio’s makeshift plate on her lap. 

Nicky reached out and took a bite from the piece that his mom was holding, making her gasp. 

“The audacity, child! How dare you steal my bounty!” she said, using her best old-English accent to make the little boy laugh even harder. 

“You’re not too old for a nanny,” Rio countered the sullen teenager. “Until you’re living in this house full-time with no strings attached, you’re keeping the nanny.” 

“But the law in California says–” 

“I don’t care what the law in California says,” Rio interrupted her. “My job is to keep you safe, right? So I’m going to keep you safe.” 

Carmen rolled her eyes. “You’re so impossible sometimes.” 

“Hey, don’t roll your eyes at me. Especially when we have company. Is this how you act when we have company?” 

Agatha watched as Carmen’s face started to bloom a frustrated pink. She did not envy having a teenage girl under her care. Not at all. 

“Nicky, why don’t you ask Nebula if she will show me where to find the pizza?” Agatha whispered to the little boy, wanting to shoo him out of the room before Carmen could really make things interesting. 

Nebula caught on easily and guided them on the well-known path to the kitchen. On the island were four different boxes of pizza, all with different toppings, and Agatha perused them all until she found her favorite– supreme. 

“How long have you been working for the Vidals?” Agatha asked Nebula as she plated herself some slices, grabbing a piece of ham and pineapple, too. 

“About 6 years now. I started full-time when I was 19, but I shadowed my mom as Carmen’s nanny since she was still in diapers,” she replied, handing Nicky a napkin as he settled himself on a stool and started to eat his food. 

Agatha hummed in thought. “So you’ve been working with Rio the whole time, then?” 

Nebula nodded. 

“You’ve got all the certifications, I’m assuming?” Agatha continued, poking and prodding at the woman who would be keeping an eye on Nicky tonight while he played. 

“Yep, Rio even paid for me to go to this nanny school when I turned 18 because I loved it so much. When my mom got sick and she couldn’t be with Carmen anymore, Rio offered me the job.” 

“And what do you want to do with your life? Is this the career you want forever?” 

Nebula chewed on her lip thoughtfully. “No, I don’t think so. Carmen is a special kid. I don’t think I have the personality to actually work with children.” 

Agatha huffed in agreement. Special was definitely an understatement for that child’s attitude and general disposition. 

“What are you thinking, then?” she pushed, wanting to hear the answer. 

“I was thinking of going to the academy for a while and becoming a police officer, but a few years ago, I really became disillusioned with the whole establishment and changed my mind. So, for now, Rio is helping me take gen ed courses at a community college until I decide what I want to go to school for. I’ve only got one semester left, though, before I will really need to transfer.” 

“That’s kind of Rio, I bet it’s not often that nannies are treated so kindly.” 

Nebula perked right up at that, smiling widely. “Rio is the most incredible boss I could ask for. She’s put my name on a credit card for the house, and it’s built my credit so high that once I am ready, I will be able to buy a house. She co-signed on a safe car for me to take Carmen around in, too.” 

Of course, Rio would be an amazing boss and take care of not only her baby sister but also the childcare provider she needed to make sure there was never a reason for Carmen’s safety to be questioned under her care. It made Agatha ache to think of just how many precautions she had had to take just to keep the young girl safe, to try and get her away from Rio’s god awful parents. 

“I assume you’ll be coming on tour, then, when Carmen and Nicky join us?” Agatha asked, holding her plate in her hand like she would be leaving the room at any second. 

“Yeah,” Nebula nodded. “Rio mentioned that Nicky’s nanny would be coming, too?” 

“Not his nanny, just his Aunt Wanda. She… helps,” Agatha explained, not wanting to go into the details about why Nicky never needed a nanny. 

“I’m sure we will get along great. I’m already fond of the little guy, and I’m sure that whoever had a hand in raising him will be just as great to be around.” 

Okay, she was definitely kissing Agatha’s ass, now. “You’ll make sure the teenager doesn’t pout toxic sludge all over my child, yes?” 

“Of course. She’s just testing Rio’s boundaries because she hates when she leaves. I will make sure she’s perfectly nice to Nicky.” 

“Carmen is always nice to me!” Nicky interjected through a mouthful of food. “She’s the one who told me to come steal your cheesy bread because Nebula gived us broccolis.” 

Agatha smiled warmly at her son, kissing the top of his head. “Oh, I don’t doubt that at all. Be good for Nebula, squirt. I’m just in the other room if you need me, okay?” 

Nicky nodded, and Agatha left the two of them alone, passing Carmen in the hallway on her way back. The teenager hissed at her, but she couldn’t be bothered to pretend to flinch. 

Back in the living room, Rio was sprawled on the couch, arm flung over her head. 

“How am I supposed to parent a teenager? God, I thought the terrible twos were bad,” Rio lamented, making the room erupt into laughter. 

“Oh, poor baby Rio, outsmarted and outsassed by a seventh grader,” Lilia said, poking fun at Rio. “When is your next hearing about custody?”

Agatha settled against the couch again, tucked in the same spot she was before despite Rio’s manspreading encroaching into her personal space. 

“This summer, during the break in tour. I told Stark that was a non-negotiable and I needed to be in LA no matter what,” Rio replied, sitting herself back up and pulling her legs back into her own little bubble. 

“God, I still can’t believe it's been ten years and you’re still fighting your parents for her. What do they want with her, anyway?” Jen asked, stealing a piece of sausage off Alice’s plate. 

Rio rolled her eyes, and it looked so much like the way Carmen had done so earlier. “It’s all about the pride of it all. They want control over their children, and they don’t want the shame of losing their daughter. Back when I was a kid, one issue with CPS was enough to scare their bullshit underground, but with Juan Luis’ money and lawyers, they’re damn near invincible.” 

Agatha winced at the name, chewing the bite in her mouth more slowly. She didn’t know if that name would ever get easier to hear. Not wanting to draw attention to herself, she tried to move with the same grace as she always did. 

“Are Stark’s lawyers even helping you at all?” Billy asked, obviously feeling the beer he’d been sipping on since Agatha arrived. “Like, how incompetent are they at this point to not get this signed, sealed, and delivered to you in a nice little package?” 

Rio froze next to Agatha, and Agatha immediately knew what was going on. She thought back to before the first show, the way Rio had cried, about the way Stark had treated her. The woman was no fool, she was a graduate of one of the best colleges in the nation with an actual degree, not just one in pop music like Agatha. 

She looked to Rio and found her already looking back, scanning her face for something, anything. Agatha only nodded, hoping this was the encouragement she needed. 

“I’ve actually been meaning to talk to you all about this,” Rio started, her voice quivering on each syllable. “There is something you don’t know about Stark.” 

Everyone leaned forward, and Agatha could tell by the looks on their faces that they all knew much more than they let on, but they were going to let Rio have this moment. They were going to let her come clean. 

Agatha wanted to reach out and rub her back, hold her hand, something, anything to comfort Rio as she admitted out loud to the people she loved the most that something was horribly, terribly wrong. 

“He’s been using my sister as a bargaining chip for the last decade to make me his perfect little popstar,” Rio started, not looking anyone in the eye. “In the beginning, I thought it would only take a year, maybe two, to get Carmen in my custody, so I went along with everything he said in the hopes that it would work out in my favor. Stark’s billions could buy the best lawyers in the nation, right?” 

Lilia hummed in disgust, already knowing where this was going. Agatha dropped her hand next to Rio’s thigh, not touching but close enough to feel the heat. 

“But for the last decade, they have pushed hearings and filed pointless motions that I didn’t understand, but by the time I figured out what he was doing, I was so fucking deep I couldn’t get out,” Rio continued, voice thickening with her emotions. “Once he had me in his grasp, he wasn’t going to let me go. He’s manipulated and controlled every aspect of my life down to the fucking costumes I could wear on my tours, the food in the green rooms, which vacations I took, what women I was seen with, all of it. He’s broken every single piece of my soul, and I didn’t even realize he was doing it until it was too late to save myself.” 

“It’s never too late,” Agatha said, jumping in before even Jen could say something comforting to her best friend. “He can’t keep treating you like this, Rio. We can help you.” 

Jen leaned forward and took Rio’s hands in hers. “He does not own you. Do you hear me? He does not own you.” 

Tears were shining in Rio’s big, brown eyes, and Agatha felt her chest clench at the sight. Seeing Rio fall apart never got any easier, and Agatha, honestly, was grateful for it. She hoped that there was never a day that seeing Rio this upset didn’t absolutely destroy her. There was no way she could live with herself if she ever reveled in the pain this woman felt, not even when she hated Rio would she have wished this upon her. Never. 

“Every time I think I can get out, he shows back up and sinks his claws in me, and I’m stuck,” Rio cried, letting Alice reach out to rub her arm soothingly while Jen still held her hands. “Fuck, he even wants me to make sure Agatha can’t get the spotlight she deserves. He doesn’t trust her, and he wants me to be the one to ‘keep her in line’.” 

Rio’s words were emphasized with air quotes, and despite hearing it herself the day she eavesdropped on Tony and Rio, it still hurt to hear. 

“Is that why you went along with the antagonist plot for the documentary before?” Jen asked, searching Rio’s eyes. “You know I will always back your play, but that was so out of left field for you.” 

Rio nodded, rubbing her face on her shirt sleeve because her hands were otherwise occupied. “He wanted to make the max profits, and he knows that lesbian drama sells.” 

“Ain’t that the truth,” Agatha groaned before sliding forward, not touching Rio but effectively joining the huddle around her. “So here’s the deal. We have an entire tour to make Stark’s life a living hell. This is how you sold this to me, how you got me to sign back on when I was ready to walk. So let’s get you to the finish line with your baby girl and then let’s ruin this fucker forever. You’ve got us now. He can’t abuse you and get away with it any longer. We’ve got you.” 

As if the world had been thrown off her shoulders, Rio sagged dramatically into Jen’s arms, not quite crying but making soft little noises that sounded something like grief and relief. They stayed like that for a while, and Agatha, against her better judgment, reached a hand out and let it rest between Rio’s shoulder blades. She didn’t rub, she didn’t move, she didn’t do anything except let it rest there as a soft reminder that Rio wasn’t alone, that they all cared so much that they wouldn’t let this go on for a second longer. 

“Okay, enough of that,” Rio said with a sniff, a grateful smile plastered on her face. “This is not how I want to spend our last night of freedom. Can we talk about literally anything else?” 

The group looked amongst themselves before Billy piped up. “My husband is auditioning for a Marvel movie next week,” he said, making the whole group groan. 

“Of course he is, that man never rests!” Alice said, her voice playful but so, so proud. 

And so, the group of them fell into easy laughter, conversation flowing endlessly as they finally, finally fell back together in a way that Agatha never thought they could again. Occasionally, they would slip back into talking about Stark, about the plan they were tentatively making to get Rio untangled from all of this mess, of finding the dirt they needed to bring the man to his knees and sink his fortune into the bottom of the Pacific. First thing was first: getting Carmen with Rio full-time so that no one could dangle her over Rio’s head for a single second longer. 

Nicky made his way back to the living room with messy hair and some marker on his favorite otter shirt, sleepy and soft, after a while. His bedtime was drawing nearer, or maybe it had even passed, and when he crawled into Agatha’s lap and started to sleep, she knew it was time to go home. 

She stood with the small boy wrapped around her like a koala, soft puffs of sleepy air hitting the skin of her neck, hair tickling under her nose. But, when she made to leave, Rio stood with her, walking her all the way to the exit of the home they used to share. 

“Thank you, Agatha,” Rio said with an honesty that Agatha couldn’t quite accept. “I don’t know if I would have ever been brave enough to tell them if you hadn’t asked me to.” 

Agatha smiled sadly at Rio, something stuck between empathy and compassion shining in her blue eyes. “You never have to thank me for that, Rio.” 

Rio shook her head before looking at Agatha with a tender smile on her face. “You really are something, you know that?” 

“Yeah, so I’ve been told,” Agatha said, hiking Nicky up further on her hip. “A handful, if  I recall.” 

That earned her an eye roll and an exasperated huff from the taller woman, which only made Agatha’s smirk grow. 

They stayed like that, idly chatting in the doorway like neither wanted to truly let go for far, far longer than they should have. But something shifted that day, something that felt safe and familiar, something that reminded them of exactly what had worked so well in the first place, the thing that drew them together in a huge, unmistakable way. 

And when Agatha left, clutching her heavy, sleeping boy to her chest, Rio’s hand fell to her forearm, just for a moment, and Agatha saw a vision flash before her eyes of another lifetime, another universe where this could have been their every day, where this could have been their family, their everything. It didn’t make her sad like she thought it would; she didn’t grieve for the things that were never hers to take. But, it gave her a taste of a future where Rio had a place in her heart, in her life, in this rag-tag group of musicians who made up the only family Agatha had ever truly known. Maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t have to live this life alone. 

Chapter Text

“Listen, I just don’t understand why we are taking a bus instead of flying,” Jen complained, holding a camera out in front of her face, capturing herself, Alice, and Billy all sitting on a couch on one of the band’s tour buses. 

Alice giggled, and Billy bumped her with his shoulder. “At least we are stopping at a hotel every night,” the drummer said, twiddling a drumstick in his fingers. 

“It’s fiscally and ecologically responsible,” Agatha mumbled, pen clenched in her teeth as she tried to find the right page in her little, purple journal. Jen turned the camera to face her, capturing her in all of her no-makeup, wild hair beauty. 

She was sitting next to Rio in a set of recliner-type seats, scribbling on a specific sheet of lined paper, while Rio played a video game on some brightly-colored handheld device that Agatha knew she would probably buy for Nicky one day. Lilia was lying down in the back of the bus, spending some time resting before the show that night, leaving the rest of them to keep themselves entertained on the journey from LA to Las Vegas.  

“Isn’t it nice, though, to be doing this the old-fashioned way?” Rio asked, not looking up from her game, tongue poking out of her lips in concentration between sentences. “It’s just like how it was when we started, before everything went off the rails.” 

“That’s easy for you to say,” Jen countered, finding a spot to prop the little vlogging camera on a counter, capturing all five of them in the same shot. “You’ve been flying on the Stark jets for the last 10 years. The rest of us haven’t.”

Rio looked up from her game, locking it and sliding it back into the backpack next to her feet. She made eye contact with Jen, and the two women had a conversation without exchanging a word. Agatha watched curiously, wondering what exactly was going on. The moment broke, though, when Rio said:

“It’s just nice to have all of you around, that’s all.” Her voice was thin, like there was something missing, like there were details being left out. Dark eyes flicked to the camera and back, nearly imperceptibly, and Agatha wasn’t surprised. 

“Now, I will have unfettered access to bothering all of you,” Billy said with a bright, mischievous smile. 

“That’s a fifty-cent word,” Agatha snarked, smiling to herself as she continued writing in her notebook. “Learn that one on a movie set?” 

“Ha, ha, ha, Agatha, very funny,” Billy replied, rolling his eyes. “Whatcha writing?” 

Agatha looked up from her notebook, pulling her mouth to one side, like she didn’t know what to say. On the page in front of her were just some words scribbled, messy and disjointed, fragments of an idea, nothing special. But as four pairs of eyes turned to look at her, awaiting her response, something in her twisted into some kind of coherence. 

“Just… this song I’ve had stuck in my head for a while,” she admitted, thinking back to that day in her jacuzzi, the rhythms and melodies that had been spinning in her head before Wanda had shown up and completely turned her life upside down. 

“Can we… can we hear it?” Alice asked gently, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees like she couldn’t help herself, a little kid in a candy shop waiting to watch the chocolatier open the glass case. 

She wrestled with herself for a long moment. What she had was nothing, really. Nothing at all. Just an idea with a little melody and zero direction. It had been years since she had actually written anything of substance, but for months now, this line wouldn’t get out of her head. 

“It’s not much of anything at all,” Agatha warned them, turning her page back to the first where the original line that started all of this was notated with quarter notes and eighths, climbing up and down the staff. 

The notes hummed from Agatha, unsure at first but growing as Billy started to tap his foot and Alice’s shaggy hair bobbed around her shoulders, and her fingers tapped against her thigh like a makeshift keyboard. What surprised her, though, was when a soft little voice joined in from next to her in harmony. 

She looked to Rio, smiling softly when their eyes met, and looped the melody she had hummed, starting again from the top to see what the pop star would do. Her head started to kick back in this pseudo-head bang she had always done, that Agatha had always poked fun at, but had become something the fans latched onto over the years and loved, too. 

And this was it, wasn’t it? This was exactly what the song needed, and an idea fell into her lap. 

“Jen, can you do a bass line for me? Do this, but down the octave,” Agatha instructed, humming something punchy and aligned with her own vocal range. Jen’s smooth near-contralto was even deeper than her own alto voice, and she easily slid into the low notes, mimicking Agatha’s idea with near-precision. 

“Rio, can you go up to the fourth? I want Alice on the pedal note.” 

Like perfect little soldiers, Rio flipped up her harmony to something higher, a little more playful, and Alice slipped in with the sustain, humming on the same tone in rhythm with what Rio was doing. 

A door creaked behind them, and the shuffling of slippered feet on bus flooring brought Lilia into view, a piece of gauze taped to the crook of her elbow. The little acapella loop still sang in the background, but Agatha looked at the older woman with a stern look on her face. 

“Shouldn’t you be resting, Lilia?” she asked, her torso rolling gently with the beat of the music buzzing around her that sounded exactly like the inside of her brain. 

“Not when you’re having this much fun without me,” Lilia replied simply, shooing Billy closer to Alice on the couch and sliding into the space left in his wake. “Where do you need me?” 

Agatha’s smile was all teeth and scrunched crow's feet when she realized what was happening. This was her band, this was her family, her people, doing exactly what they had always done best. 

“Can you run the melody line on a consonant and vowel sound?” Agatha asked, exemplifying with her own doo-doo-doo, singing the melody she had written on loop until Lilia caught on. 

For the next ten minutes, Agatha tested lyrics, tweaked chords, and used her hands to build rhythm on top of what Billy had slid into naturally with his stomps and leg pats. 

“Hands up, I don’t have a gun, don’t turn this into a firefight,” Agatha sang, pushing Alice’s sustained note in different directions with gestures of her hand. “Hands up, shiver to your bone, frozen under the limelight.” 

Words spilled from her then, like they belonged to a soul she had long kept away from fresh air to breathe. Her mind was working in overdrive, deciding where to take it next, and then it was like her body worked on autopilot. She smoothed out Jen’s baseline into something rounder, she brightened Alice’s notes, giving her an arpeggio to pluck like the keys of her keyboard, Lilia’s melody let loose to become a counter melody, and then her eyes locked with Rio’s. 

“Follow me,” she commanded, leaving no room for Rio to do anything but nod. 

If anyone knew this feeling she was excavating, it would be her, Stark Records’ biggest star. 

The chorus shaped around them with a fullness of sounds that tickled Agatha’s brain just right, that made her chest rattle with how her lungs filled with euphoria. 

“Bring it down on us. Bring it down on us.”

Rio’s voice blended perfectly, in unison and splitting to harmony as each thought fragmented to its end. It was like she knew exactly where Agatha’s mind would take her next, an ultimate mind meld as they sang about the vicious, ruthlessness of being in the spotlight, of being torn piece by piece into bite-sized pieces to be consumed by the masses. 

Agatha’s hands bounced in the shape of an arrow, counting out her one, two, three, four, keeping time with the flick of a wrist, guided by her middle finger like a dancer or a puppeteer. She counted one measure, then two, then three, before flicking her full palm face-up, making the chord they all were singing freeze on its last note before she flipped back over, clenching into a fist, cutting off all the sound in unison. 

They sat frozen for a long moment, chests heaving in sync, basking in the magic they had just created. 

Billy broke first, giddy laughter bubbling from his lips just like it had the first time they wrote a song together when he was 18 and bright-eyed. He wrapped his arms around the women on either side of himself and pulled them in for a tight hug, their cheeks squishing against his own as they started to laugh, too. Jen draped herself over the puddle of musicians on the couch, body pressed against Alice’s back like it belonged there. 

Agatha and Rio devolved into laughter, too, and looked at each other, and what Agatha saw shining back at her in Rio’s smile set her skin on fire. God, she hadn’t seen that look on her face in a decade, and it made her heart skip a beat. The euphoria took shape beneath her skin, glittering and warm and everything . 

This was everything she had been missing. 

“God, Agatha, where have you been?” Jen lamented with a bright smile on her face. “I haven’t felt that in-the-zone in years. I had almost forgotten what that felt like.” 

The praise from Jen felt like a balm to Agatha, like she had finally earned some of the woman’s favor. 

“Honestly, I work with artists day in and day out, and I don’t think I have had a writing session feel like that in years,” Alice agreed, still tapping her fingers on her dark jeans like a keyboard, though her right hand looked a little sluggish. She must have noticed, too, and slowed her movements to a stop, but Agatha still let out a deep exhale at the reminder of where exactly she had been all this time, of why exactly she had been away. “You’ve got a gift, Agatha. I’m so glad you’re back.” 

A soft, shy smile pressed into Agatha’s lips, and she didn’t know why, but her first instinct was to look at Rio, who nodded in agreement, too. Something bloomed in her chest that she couldn’t ever imagine her life without again.  It wasn’t like the high of performing, it wasn’t like hearing the crowds scream her name. No, it was like a piece of her soul was melting itself back together, fusing back into a dynamic, synergistic connection with her body, with her mind, with her heart, to create a sense of belonging, a sense of home. 

She had denied herself this for far too long, and it felt like she had given herself a gift after all this time away. 

The bus carried on for several hours, making as few stops as possible as it shuttled the band across the desert and to the city of sin. Back in the day, Agatha loved coming to Vegas, always enjoying the easy access to all the things that she thought were fun. Now, though, Agatha was curious what the city would be like for her without the allure of drugs and alcohol. 

Honestly, she would probably just curl up in her hotel room and watch trash television, calling Nicky when he was out of school and harassing Wanda for updates every hour. 

But when they got to the hotel with everyone in their own suites on the top floor of a high-end hotel, Agatha could hear something through the walls. 

“It’s only for a few more months, Carmen. It’s going to be okay,” the muffled voice rang through the thin walls. “You’ve made it this far, you can hold out until it’s just us. You’re the strongest girl I know. Please, just keep your head down and don’t cause any problems.” 

Agatha huffed, certain that asking Carmen not to cause any problems was like asking a toddler not to have a tantrum or for a puppy not to eat your favorite pair of shoes. 

She probably shouldn’t have been listening to the conversation, but there was something in Rio’s voice that made her pause, made her wonder what was going on. It wasn’t that Agatha didn’t trust Rio to handle her own issues or emotions, but after learning the absolute hell that Tony had been putting her through, something protective started to flare in her chest for her ex-wife. Perhaps it was just the close proximity, or maybe it was her newfound maternal instinct kicking in, but it made her want to know more, to do more, to make sure Rio didn’t feel alone. 

So, against her better instincts, about 20 minutes after the heated phone call ended, Agatha grabbed the bottle of sparkling grape juice from the complimentary ice bucket in her room and padded down to the hallway to the door of Rio’s room. She knocked once, then twice, and when she was ready to turn around and give up, the door swung open to a dishevelled but smiling Rio. 

“What can I do for you, Miss Harkness?” Rio asked, but there was no bite to her voice. 

“I was wondering if you would, perhaps, be looking for some company before we have to go to the venue for sound check?” Agatha asked, meeting Rio’s playful formality with her own. She softened, though, and added, “Walls are thin and I can hear when a mom’s on thin ice from a mile away.” 

Rio huffed and grabbed the glass bottle from Agatha’s hands. “Fine, but if you expect me to lament about the trials of motherhood with you instead of drinking this entire bottle and bitching about this season of The Summer I Turned Pretty, you’re wrong.” 

Agatha laughed and let herself in, locking the extra locks on the hotel door behind her as Rio travelled further into the room. “I would expect nothing less.” 

They both dropped onto the king-sized bed, right on top of the freshly-made sheets, Agatha wrestling with the lid of the sparkling juice and Rio gently crunching the two plastic cups she had acquired from the ice box. 

“So, The Summer I Turned Pretty?” Agatha asked, curious about her ex-wife’s newly developed taste in television. “I didn’t peg you for a teeny-bopper romance show kind of gal.” 

“Honestly, I’m not, but something about this show is so addicting,” Rio replied, pursing her lips. “Carmen wanted to watch it, of all things.” 

Agatha hummed and poured her liquid gold into the two cups, sparing nothing as she filled them to the brim. 

“Agatha! Dude!” Rio cackled as her finger twitched and caused the juice to overflow and drip onto the white comforter. 

A bright, warm laugh met Rio’s.

“Sorry, sorry, I just got carried away,” Agatha wheezed, making her own cup spill just a tad. 

“Agatha!” Rio complained, bringing her own cup to her lips to drain it down, making it more manageable to hold. Agatha grinned and did the same. 

“You would think that with an almost-seven-year-old at home, I would know better by now,” Agatha chided herself. “Do you want me to go get a towel?” 

Rio looked down at the two dribbles of liquid, thought for a moment, and then wiped them away with her thumb, bringing the offending digit to her mouth for a taste. 

“Not necessary,” she said, licking her lips. Agatha’s stomach dropped to her knees at the sight before she blinked that thought entirely away. “Almost seven? When is his birthday?” 

Agatha leaned back against the headboard, kicking off her shoes so that she could cross her socked feet. 

“At the end of the tour, he’s my autumn baby. October 23rd.” 

“A little Libra,” Rio mused. “And so close to your birthday.” 

“A cusper, three hours later, and he would have been a Scorpio like his Mama.” 

The two women fell into comfortable silence as Rio turned on the large, flat-screen television and queued up The Summer I Turned Pretty, just as she promised. Agatha had never seen a second of this show in her life and was utterly intrigued by its love triangle by the end of the first episode she watched. 

“Wait, so, why did Belly stop dating Conrad? I don’t understand the Jeremiah of it all,” Agatha asked, not having seen any previous episodes. 

“Because he was a total asshole at prom,” Rio replied.  “His mom was dying and he wasn’t communicating, so he ruined her prom so she would leave him.” 

Agatha snorted. “Sounds familiar. So are you team Jeremiah, then?” 

“No, actually,” Rio said, taking another sip of the sparkling juice. 

“Is there some magic third love interest I should know about?” Agatha asked, her feet wiggling back and forth on the bed. 

“Well, there was this kid way back, but he’s irrelevant now.”

“Oh, I get it, so he is your choice.” 

Rio, honest to god, laughed. She laughed at Agatha, and it was full and round. Chaos erupted as they started to talk over each other, fully invested in what they were seeing. 

“Why do I have to have a choice? Can’t I just want Belly to focus on herself?--” 

“Oh, that’s never the Rio choice–” 

“-- Or, maybe find a nice girl to date–” 

“Yeah, that tracks. Makes more sense–” 

“Wait, what do you mean the ‘Rio choice’?” 

Agatha turned her head to face Rio, noticing for the first time that Rio had been watching her the entire time. 

“I mean that you’re a romantic. You’d never root for the girl to be alone in a show like this. She needs to have her grand, sweeping moment where everything connects and her heart is full, on and on ad nauseam.” 

Rio rolled her eyes at Agatha, then poked a finger in her direction. 

“Maybe I have grown! There is nothing sexier than an independent woman.” 

“Belly is like 12 years old.” 

“She’s 21.” 

“Still, gross.” 

“Fine, fine. You're right.”

Her voice softened, admitting defeat. 

“I’m Team Conrad.” 

It was just three simple words, but after learning about the story, Agatha felt its weight. She felt the way it settled in her chest– the choice for a second chance romance. Here Rio sat, looking at Agatha with those big, brown eyes, telling her that in a show about true love and happiness, she would pick the one who broke Belly’s heart over the guy who helped put it back together. 

Rio would pick the one who didn’t deserve a second chance. 

Agatha felt like all of the air had been sucked out of her lungs. 

“That seems like the reckless choice,” Agatha said after a long minute. “She’s built a life with Jeremiah; she chose Jeremiah.”

“Maybe at the time, she didn’t think she had another choice. Everything crumbled in a way that made it so Conrad couldn't be a viable option, and then he disappeared, so there was no chance for them to try to fix it.” 

“He stayed away for good reason, I’m sure.” 

“He stayed away to protect himself.” Rio's voice was certain, and there was something else lingering behind it. 

They weren’t talking about the kids on the television anymore, and Agatha knew it. 

“There is nothing wrong with protecting yourself when you’ve been through that kind of trauma. He watched his mom die.” 

Rio sucked her bottom lip into her mouth. “They all went through something awful and made the choices they needed to survive. But they’re not just surviving anymore, they’re trying to live.” 

“So you really think Conrad deserves a second chance?" Agatha asked. "That he’s the right one for Belly?” 

“I think that if she’s still held onto that love for him all this time, even as her world moved on without him, it means something.” 

The two women fell into silence for several long minutes, their not-conversation sitting in the air around them, untouched and incomplete. 

“Does Conrad’s hair always look that terrible?” Agatha asked, reaching into the bag of snacks on Rio’s bedside table. “I feel like he’s supposed to be a ‘90s heartthrob or something, but he looks awful.” 

And there was the laugh again, breaking the tension like a knife. It felt like a balm on Agatha’s frayed nerves. 

“Carmen is back with my mom and dad while I’m on tour,” Rio said, seemingly out of the blue, several minutes later. “Usually, I schedule my tours around her schedule so that I can bring her with me, but because she’s still in school for another few weeks, and we are so close to her court date, I had to leave her behind.” 

“And she’s not taking it well, I assume?” Agatha asked, shifting so that her body was facing Rio fully. 

“Not at all,” Rio laughed humorlessly. “She’s threatening to do something stupid.” 

“Stupid like getting a 19-year-old boyfriend or stupid like compromising the case?” 

“The latter. I don’t know what she’s planning, but I wouldn’t put it past her to do anything to get out of that house, no matter what it means for her case. She needs to just lie low and not poke any bears until she can be here with me.” 

Agatha chewed on her inner lip, thoughts running a mile a minute. “Do they do to her what they did to you?” 

A sharp breath is sucked through gapped teeth. 

“Yes. It’s different sometimes, but it’s just as bad.” 

2015

Agatha knew she had fucked up the moment Rio slammed the door to go pick up Carmen, but she was too stubborn to admit it. She fled to Wanda’s to ride out her high instead of facing the music of sobering herself up and being there for her wife. But she had miscalculated, because Wanda was just as angry at her as Rio had been. 

“Agatha,” the older woman hissed, red hair piled on her head. “You mean to tell me that your wife is at home with her baby sister after picking her up from the emergency room, and you’re not there with her? What the ever-loving fuck is wrong with you?” 

“If I wanted to be berated by a tall, scary woman, I would have just stayed home.” 

Wanda stalked closer to Agatha, bending at the waist to bring her face just inches from the other woman’s. 

“You’re going to sober up. I’m going to get you a banana bag, you’re going to come down, and then you’re going home to your wife to make sure that she’s okay.” 

Agatha’s hands were already twitching at the thought of the substances being flushed out of her system. She couldn’t get sober, not now; her body would go into shock . 

“I can’t. She doesn’t need me there, making things worse.” 

Older knees cracked as Wanda lowered herself to the floor, kneeling between Agatha’s open legs. Her hands gripped her knees firmly, sending a clear message. 

“You are delusional if you think that woman doesn’t need you,” Wanda said, anything gentle thrown out the window. “Do you love her?” 

“Of course I do,” Agatha retorted, anger clouding her high. “How could you even ask me that?” 

“Because you’re not acting like it, Agatha. You’re not acting like a wife.” 

“Don’t tell me how to act like a wife. Our relationship is nothing like you and that loaf of white bread.” 

Wanda didn't rise to the bait. “Agatha, your wife needs you. Don’t make her go through this alone because you love being high more than you love her.” 

Something rotten and insidious curdled in Agatha’s stomach, hitting her right where it hurt because she knew Wanda was right. She wasn’t a good wife; hell, she was barely a wife at all. Agatha had become a prisoner to her addiction, and she knew that it was Rio who suffered the consequences. 

“She doesn’t need me, she doesn’t even want me.” 

Wanda scoffed, a humorless laugh bubbling from her chest, mocking Agatha in her drug-induced stupor as she sat on her couch. 

“I don’t know why that girl wants you, not after everything that you have put her through. If you were my wife, I would have left you a thousand times over for this bullshit. But Rio? She has never even flinched when it comes to you. She carries you out of after parties, she deletes your drunken social media posts, she holds your hair back when you get sick, and never once has she asked anything of you except to love her. And this is how you repay her? By walking out on her when she needs you the most?” 

Anger stewed in Agatha's stomach, Wanda’s words slicing her already fragile emotions. 

“Fuck you, Wanda, she told me to leave.” 

“No, Agatha, she gave you a choice . And you chose to hide, to flee, to stay in the clouds instead of coming back down and showing up for her. She practically begged you to choose to stay, to show up for her. And what did you do? You fucking laughed in her face. You’re pathetic, Harkness.” 

Hot tears stung in the corners of Agatha’s eyes. 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she protested, fists shaking in her lap. “You don’t know anything.” 

Wanda only laughed again, the sound making Agatha feel so impossibly small. 

“I know enough. And I know that you would rather hide on my couch than face the consequences of your actions. You’re a coward, Agatha, and your wife deserves better.” 

Wanda was right, and Agatha knew it. Rio needed better, she deserved better. 

But could she be better? 

“I can’t do it,” Agatha whimpered. “I can’t be what she needs.” 

Hands tightened their grip on her knees, and Wanda’s voice softened. 

“Yes, you can. You just need to try, Agatha. Try for her. Try for the woman who would move mountains for you. Be brave, Harkness. For once in your life, be brave.” 

Those were the two words Agatha needed to hear, two words delivered like a challenge. 

Agatha Harkness was not a coward. She wasn’t. Her entire life had been built on being brave, on taking her life by the reins, on doing what she had to, no matter what. 

She could be brave for Rio, for her wife. 

Wanda pulled her up by her hands, off the couch, and into the bathroom, sitting her on the counter under bright white lights. Having the kind of wealth that was afforded by the Maximoff fortune meant having the supplies on hand to help stave off a hangover, to bring Agatha back to the ground the best that she could. Practiced hands slipped an IV into the crook of her elbow, feeding a banana bag with hydration and vitamins into her veins, bringing her some semblance of relief from the excessive vodka in her system, at least. 

The pills would be a different story. 

But this was a start. 

After a shower, a change of clothes, and an apology kiss to her temple, Wanda sent Agatha back to the home that she shared with Rio. 

Hands trembling, she let herself into the house and was met with the sound of a screaming toddler, making her wince. She brought herself further into the house, finding Rio in the kitchen, bouncing the not-quite-two-year-old on her hip while she stirred something in a pot on the stove. 

The sight took Agatha’s breath away. 

Carmen’s hair was in two little pigtails on top of her head, her pajamas were black and green with skulls on them, but blooming across her head was a throbbing, purple bruise. Her small, little arm was wrapped in a white splint, and fat, hot tears were pouring down her face. 

“Shhh, mija, it’s okay,” Rio soothed, bouncing her gently. “I know it hurts, but once your big sister gets this mac and cheese in you, we can take more medicine, okay? I’m sorry we couldn’t get it sooner.” 

Agatha knew that word, knew enough Spanish to know that Rio had already started seeing the small girl as a daughter, not just a sister. Maternal warmth wrapped around the baby girl so effortlessly, like there was nothing to do except be what she needed in that moment. 

“Is she okay?” Agatha asked quietly, startling Rio from her reverie. 

“Does she look okay?” Rio shot back, obviously frazzled and at her wits' end. 

It took everything in Agatha not to bite back, knowing that their normal routine of arguing would not be welcome. 

“No, she doesn’t,” Agatha relented. “How can I help? Want me to finish the dinner?” 

Rio looked Agatha up and down, really taking her in. 

“You’re not drunk,” she observed, furrowing her brow. 

“No, I’m not,” Agatha said softly. “Can’t say there aren’t still some pills floating around in my system, but I’m here.” 

A beat passed between them, full and fragile. 

And then, “I’m making mac and cheese and chicken nuggets for dinner. Will you stir it up while I go sit with her on the couch? Her medicine is wearing off, and I can’t give her more until she’s had dinner.” 

“Of course, Agatha said, taking the spoon from Rio and kissing her cheek and the side of Carmen’s head that was unmarred. 

Rio turned to walk away, but her footsteps halted, just for one moment, reaching out to squeeze Agatha’s free hand. 

“Thank you.” 

Two simple words, but Agatha could hear everything unspoken. Thank you for choosing us. Thank you for coming home. Thank you for being brave.

And it made Agatha’s chest ache with something she knew that wouldn’t go away for a long, long time. Because she didn’t mean it, not really. The call of the drugs was still itching under her skin, her throat burning for another drink. 

Maybe today she was brave, but she wouldn’t be able to stay away forever. 

Honestly, she wasn’t even sure if she wanted to. 

Memories washed over Agatha, of those early years with Carmen before Agatha had ruined everything, but also of how Rio used to speak about her parents– about how they were physically abusive until they got caught and then they got smart, hurting Rio and her brothers in ways that couldn’t get clocked by an empathetic kindergarten teacher or the social worker who made regular visits. The same thing had happened to Carmen, she assumed– that night with the bruises and fractured arm had started a shit storm with custody battles and the Department of Child Protective Services, and once they had gotten Carmen back, they stopped being so reckless. 

“Do you think that it will go your way this time?” Agatha asked cautiously, taking in Rio’s expression. 

“I’m really hopeful, but I don’t think I will believe it until she’s safe with me permanently.” Rio twisted pieces of her hair in her fingers, listening to the crunching sound it made. “Tony’s lawyers and his connections have dragged this out so long, found every loophole they could to make sure that I couldn’t have my sister. I don’t trust that he won’t find a way to do it again.” 

“We won’t let him keep getting away with this,” Agatha promised, reaching out to squeeze Rio’s forearm. “You’ve been through enough.” 

Rio nodded, and Agatha could tell that she was trying to hear her, but just couldn’t quite make it stick. 

“I just feel so fucking stupid, you know?” she said, still playing with her hair. “I should have never trusted him. If I had just done it myself and found a lawyer myself, and made the right choices for myself, none of this would have ever happened. She’d be safe in her bed in my house every night.” 

There was an ache in Rio’s voice that Agatha wished she could take away. 

“I can’t imagine how hard it’s been.” 

Soft brown eyes lifted to look at Agatha. “You have no idea.” 

Thoughts warred inside Agatha– should she invite Rio to open up? Give her a space to talk about these feelings? Or should she keep that distance, keep that wall up despite their tentative steps into a newfound friendship? 

Agatha was leaning toward the second option, knowing that it would be best for both of them if she kept her distance. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. How could she not? This was Rio, her Rio. 

Fuck.

No. 

She wasn’t her anything. 

Rio was just another ghost of all the good things Agatha destroyed. 

“Maybe?” Rio said, though it was more of a question. “Every time I leave her there, I’m convinced I’m going to come back for her and she’ll be in a foster home where I can’t find her.” 

“Has that happened before?” Agatha asked, afraid to know the answer. 

“Once.” 

The moment settled between them, and Agatha didn’t push, didn’t ask for more. She knew that if she said the wrong thing, Rio wouldn’t say what was on her mind, that she would pack it all up and say that it was fine under the guise of not wanting to be a burden. Silence stretched between them, only the faint sounds of Rio’s strands of hair rubbing against each other in that soothing, repetitive motion filtering through. 

“It was after they transferred you from the hospital to rehab, I went home to change my clothes and take a shower, and I decided to stop by and see Carmen, make sure she was doing okay. I hadn’t seen her in a while. When I got there, they said that she had been taken away by the State and wouldn’t tell me where they took her. I called and I called and I called, but I couldn’t find her because I wasn’t one of her legal guardians. I panicked.” 

The dots were starting to connect for Agatha; all the unknowns that she had stewed over for years after the divorce were finally being uncovered. 

“That’s when you called Tony.” 

Guilt was written all over Rio’s face. “I didn’t know what else to do. He had always been so kind to me, and he had more money than the Maximoffs and the Kaplans combined. It was naive, but he promised to help me, and I didn’t know what to do.” 

“You made the best choice you could with the information that you had at the time,” Agatha said. “That’s all you can do when you’re a parent.” 

It went unsaid that Carmen wasn’t the only person who was affected by these choices, that she wasn’t the only heart on the line, the only life on the line. But Agatha couldn’t begrudge her that, not anymore, not now that she knew what it felt like to have a tiny human whose entire life depended on her, a tiny human she loved more than anything. 

“I just don’t want anything bad to happen to her while I’m away. I need her to be safe.” 

Agatha knew there was nothing she could do or say to make Rio feel better, to promise her that her sister would be safe, that everything would be okay. 

But what she could do was sit here, be with her, and watch trash television so that she wasn’t alone. 

Even if it was a bad idea. 

Even if it was reckless. 

Even if she was setting them both up for disaster. 

Agatha could choose to stay.

Chapter Text

Vegas was absolutely sweltering in June. Sweat dripped down the back of Agatha’s neck, making the baby hairs at the nape of her neck curl around the monitor cords as the rest of it was piled on top of her head. She could feel the way her pale skin was starting to revolt against the blistering sun despite the copious amounts of sunscreen that Sharon had plied her with before going out for sound check. 

“Outdoor venues are the bane of my existence,” Agatha grumbled, hitting her starting pose, ready to run sound and rehearsal. “Why do we have to rehearse before every show? Last night went just fine.” 

“Because it’s important,” Lilia said, ever the voice of reason. “If I can be out here and not complain, so can you, Harkness.” 

Agatha rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, glaring at the older woman like she, herself, invented UV radiation. 

“You don’t get to pull your cancer card every time you think I’m annoying.” Agatha pointed a finger in Lilia’s direction.

“Oh yeah? Watch me.” 

A chorus of laughter rang out around the stage, and Agatha could feel it in her bones, the way it tingled and made a small smile pull at the corners of her mouth, despite being hot, grumpy, and probably a little sunburnt. 

The show that night went perfectly, better than Los Angeles. As Agatha slid onto her knees in front of an already kneeling Rio, she reached out, sliding a hand onto her waist– safe but something– and the crowd went wild. Rio stretched on her knees, rising taller than Agatha, and when she looked down at her, she winked. 

God, she winked. 

Applause erupted around the stadium as the closing notes slid off the guitar, ringing through the walls of the stadium, Agatha and Rio standing side by side, hands punched in the air like they were leading the cavalry through war. 

“Thank you, Las Vegas! Goodnight!” Agatha shouted into the space around them, blue eyes glimmering with that joy that she so rarely could find in her life. 

The band bowed as the crowd screamed, posters bounced, and confetti burst from the canons, raining down on the stage, on the fans, on everything. 

God, Agatha would never get tired of this. 

They all rushed backstage, and Billy placed his hands on Alice’s shoulders, jumping into the air and making her laugh. 

“Get off me, you freakishly tall slime ball,” Alice shrieked as Billy’s sweaty skin wiped over her shoulders and the back of her neck. “Fuck, weren’t you supposed to grow out of this by now? You’re not 18 anymore.” 

Billy rolled his eyes and shook out his damp curls in her direction, dripping sweat onto Jen in the process, who immediately screamed and ran into her dressing room. 

“Not all of us get to stand there looking pretty with a keyboard, Al. I’m going full on Animal from the Muppets back there half the time. It’s a workout even when it’s not 110 degrees outside in direct sunlight.” 

Agatha snort-laughed and shoved at his back. “Leave Alice alone, she’s not used to boy stink.” 

“I am adding this to my list of reasons that Nicky is the best thing to ever happen to this planet,” Billy said fondly and sincerely. 

Softness flickered over Agatha’s face, clouding the high she felt from being on the stage. But then Billy’s arms stretched out wide, coming at her for a hug, and she was immediately sobered back to the moment. 

“Hell no, dude,” Agatha chuckled, ducking and weaving around his attacks on his new victim. She slipped into her dressing room and slammed the door behind her, causing the younger man to grumble and stalk away. 

Deep, heaving breaths were still pushing from her chest, half from the performance and half from Billy’s shenanigans, but when she looked in the mirror, she felt more beautiful than she had in years. Even with a flushed red face, burnt shoulders, and sweat sticking her wild waves to her face and neck, there was a glow about Agatha that she hadn’t seen in years. Getting sober, becoming a mom, they all had their own radiance that she had one by one recognized in herself. But this? Returning to the passion she had long believed dead? She hadn’t anticipated how it would look on her. 

There was nothing that could have prepared her for realizing that right now, in this moment, she had gotten almost everything she had ever asked for. 

A knock resounded on her dressing room door, and she called them in, sitting in her chair to start taking the makeup off her face. She twisted her hair into a clip on her head just as the knob twisted, and by the time she looked in the mirror to see who was entering, there was a big bottle of aloe vera being shoved in her direction. 

“Use this, we can’t have you peeling on stage,” Natasha said, camera crew just around the corner. 

Agatha groaned and rolled her eyes, taking the aloe from her outstretched hand. 

“Aloe won’t prevent me from peeling,” she snarked, giving Natasha a glare in the mirror. “If my skin cells are dead, they have to come off. It’s science.” 

“Yeah, I’m not a dermatologist, I don’t care,” Natasha said. “But I need you looking your best out there, and this will help.” 

With a deep breath, Agatha reached for a makeup wipe and started dragging the dark eyeliner off her face, hissing when the scratchy cloth dragged on her pink hairline. Natasha stood there expectantly, as if she wanted to watch Agatha put the aloe on right that minute, and she could not give a single shit about what that woman wanted. 

“Get out of my dressing room,” she hissed, making direct eye contact with the camera crew. 

“I’m serious, Agatha, I don’t want you peeling on camera.” 

“And I seriously don’t care what you want.”  

Natasha left the dressing room with a huff, and Agatha grabbed the bottle of green gel, squeezing some onto her shoulders, the bridge of her nose, her cheekbones, and her hairline. Despite wanting to do everything in her power to make sure that Natasha’s life was difficult, Agatha knew that if she didn’t get aloe on her burn, it would be that much harder to take care of later. 

Agatha slipped into some comfortable street clothes– stylish but still soft enough not to restrict her tired body after one hell of a performance. She slung her bag over her shoulder with a wince and fished out her phone from her bag, pulling up Wanda’s contact information. 

The line rang twice before a scratchy, “Hello?” caught through. 

“Hey, Wanda, how did the night go?” Agatha asked, needing to check in on her boy. “I’m sorry I couldn’t call before bedtime.” 

Wanda paused thoughtfully. “He misses his Mama.” 

Agatha pressed her mouth into a thin line and puffed a breath through her nose. “That bad?” 

“It could have been worse,” Wanda supplied, and Agatha could imagine the way she was chewing on her bottom lip. “He understands that you have big responsibilities now that you’re working again. I think he just is going to struggle through the transition like any normal six-year-old who hasn’t spent much time away from his safe parent.” 

“Yeah, but I still feel so guilty. I don’t want my boy to suffer because of my choices,” Agatha said, letting herself out of the stage door and into the SUV that the other band members were piling into. 

“He can’t be attached to your hip his entire life, Agatha. That’s not how you raise a healthy human,” Wanda pushed gently. “This will be a struggle for both of you, but he needs it. Honestly, you probably do, too.” 

 Alice and Lilia squeezed into the SUV with Agatha, shutting the door behind them. 

“I know you’re right, but I still feel bad,” Agatha said. “And I miss him like crazy.” 

The conversation Alice and Lilia were having halted as they heard Agatha speaking into her phone. 

“Tomorrow is Saturday, and I promised he could call his Mama as soon as breakfast was done. We will FaceTime, and it will help, I promise.” 

Agatha nodded even though Wanda couldn’t see her. “Yeah, it will. I will talk to you tomorrow, Wands.” 

“See you then, Aggie.” 

“Don’t call me that.” 

“Love you, too,” Wanda replied, hanging up the call before Agatha could continue the banter. 

Silence fell around the car as they pulled into the late-night Las Vegas traffic. 

“Was that about Nicky?” Lilia asked, breaking the tension first. “Missing his mom?” 

Agatha nodded. “Yeah, we haven’t spent many nights apart since he was born. It will be an adjustment for both of us, I think.” 

“Were you able to talk to him today?” Alice asked, prodding gently. “I know that we had that massive backup with the dress rehearsal.” 

“No,” Agatha shook her head. “He was in school until the rehearsal started, and then when he was out, we were fighting with tech and getting fucking sunburnt.” 

Lilia chuckled. “Didn’t Sharon put sunscreen on you?” 

“Don’t be ridiculous, of course she did,” Agatha scoffed. “I’ve just got delicate skin.” 

Alice chuckled. “Yeah, that’s one word for it.” 

Agatha rolled her eyes fondly, very familiar with the band’s many, many jokes about just how pale she was. 

“We are thinking about going to the casino in the hotel tonight, do you want to come?” Lilia asked, knocking Agatha with her shoulder. 

“The very public casino in the lobby?” Agatha asked, eyes narrowing. 

It was Lilia’s turn to roll her eyes, now. “What do you take us for? Of course not. We’re going to the sub-basement where only the VIPs are allowed.” 

Agatha mulled the idea as she watched the neon lights of the Vegas strip pass her by. It had been a long time since she had gambled, had been around the sounds, the smells, the energy of a casino floor, pumping that pure oxygen, engineered to bring the maximum dopamine possible. But Agatha learned about this in rehab all those years ago. 

Gambling was just as dangerous as drugs or alcohol, the wins hitting the brain’s pleasure center just like a high did. 

And Agatha? She couldn’t be less interested. 

It was one thing, going to the party at Calderu’s after opening night. She made the decision to go celebrate with her band after the beginning of something she thought she would never get to do again. Back where it all started, in that bar where Billy, in all his baby-faced glory, slid into their empty space and brought with him a world that would change their lives forever. 

But just going to a casino, a place she had never really enjoyed, and testing her sobriety just for the fun of it?

“Not tonight,” Agatha answered Lilia, pursing her lips. “I think I have something better to do after that scorcher.” 

Lilia and Alice both laughed, understanding exactly what Agatha meant. 

“We will miss you,” Alice said, reaching to clap Agatha on the shoulder, but stopping short when the woman nearly hissed at her. “We like having you around.” 

Agatha didn’t think she would ever get used to hearing that. Even before the band broke up, it had been so long since anyone had genuinely enjoyed her company, and now it felt foreign. It settled uncomfortably under her skin like it didn’t belong there. But it still felt nice. 

Back at the hotel, she made her way up to the top floor instead of down to the sub-basement with the rest of the band, slipping into her hotel room and immediately ridding herself of her sweaty, aloe-stuck clothes and slipping into a blood red bikini that she had packed for just in case. 

If anyone could convince a front desk worker to let her into the pool after hours, it was Agatha Harkness. 

She looked down at her body, at how it had changed over the years. Her fingers grazed the pale ripples on her lower stomach, proof that once upon a time, the entire world was growing inside her body, nestled away and safe. As she looked at the mirror, her gaze caught on the scar on the side of her neck, too, makeup long gone from covering the raised, pink flesh. Memories were engraved in her body like an homage to the life she had lived. 

Freckles peppered the bridge of her nose, her chest, her shoulders, and with them, constellations of kisses were burned into her skin that she would never forget. 

Shining, silver-gray hairs tugged at her temples, reminding her that she had made it farther than she ever should have. 

Teeth marks bit into her bottom lip, skin caught on the cuticles around her nails, calluses rounded out the knuckles of her fingers where her favorite pen sat as she wrote her feelings into song lyrics. 

Everything about her, the places that she knew she was supposed to hate, they all made her think about how lucky she was to be standing here, in this place, in this time, under these exact circumstances. 

Her therapist called it practicing gratitude, this way of sitting with her body and thanking it for everything it had done, everything it had brought her through. For years, she couldn’t understand its use, how it could possibly make anything better. But she did it anyway. She did it because if it meant that she could show up for her son, her miracle boy every single day as the mother he deserved, it would be worth the squirming discomfort. 

And now? She found herself doing it without ever meaning to. She did it without even thinking and she believed it without needing to lie. 

The lobby was mostly empty as Agatha trekked in a pair of sandals and a robe to the front desk, her wild hair pinned in a messy ponytail, bun, something on her head. The kid sitting there couldn’t have been older than 19, still covered in angry, red acne and holding their glasses together at the joint. 

“What’s your name?” Agatha asked, low and saccharine. 

The worker looked up and immediately gaped, eyes going wide. “M-me?” they stuttered, and Agatha nodded. “Mika.” 

“That’s a beautiful name,” she said, leaning on the desk with her elbows, letting her robe fall open just enough to show the cup of her bikini top. “Did you choose it yourself?” 

They nodded, and Agatha smiled, reaching a finger out to point at them, but not quite hooking it under their chin. “What do you think the odds are of you letting me go swimming, Mika?” 

To their credit, Mika laughed a little and nodded. “Pretty good, Ms. Harkness,” they said, coming out from behind the desk and grabbing a key fob off a hook. 

Agatha snorted and followed after them. “Really? That easy?” 

Mika nodded again. “That easy.” 

“Well, sheesh,” Agatha whistled. “I thought I would have to work harder than that.” 

The pool was indoor but enclosed with glass walls that you could not see in, but could easily see out. And with a swipe of a key fob and the click of a lock, Mika let Agatha into the pool. 

Immediately, it made sense why it had been so easy to get the young worker to let her in. 

There, in a black, full coverage bikini and board shorts, was Rio swimming laps, toned arms cutting through the water like she knew exactly what she was doing. 

“Are you stalking me?” Rio asked, popping up at the edge of the pool, dark hair slicked back from her face and dripping onto her shoulders. She folded her arms on the cement, resting her chin on her wrist. 

“Didn’t you want to go to the casino with the others?” Agatha asked, dropping her robe to one of the chaise loungers. 

Rio, for what it was worth, was trying very hard not to look. 

And Agatha, despite her better judgment, wished she would. 

She took careful steps down the stairs into the cool water, wading out until her stinging shoulders were fully submerged, and she let out a groan. 

“You’ve always been so sensitive to the sun,” Rio commented, floating a little closer, droplets still dripping from the tip of her nose, from her eyelashes, from the curve of her chin. 

Agatha huffed. “Tell me about it,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Remember that time I got sun poisoning in San Juan?” 

Rio nodded, and a little smile tugged at her cheeks. “I told you to use sunblock.” 

“I meant to! I just… forgot,” Agatha admitted sheepishly, the same way she had every single time they had talked about this since it happened. 

“‘I’m going to just even out my tan lines a little bit,’ she says, ‘I will put some on in an hour,’ she says,” Rio mocked, her gapped-tooth grin coming into view. 

“Shut up!” Agatha said, splashing Rio. “It would have worked if I actually remembered to put it on an hour later.” 

“Sure, sweetheart, sure it would have.” 

The pet name slipped from Rio’s lips so easily, so freely, and Agatha felt something flutter in her stomach, something dangerous and forbidden. 

“Whatever. Not all of us can be blessed with sun-kissed melanin.” 

A flash of something passed over Rio’s face, something that made her cheeks tinge rosy. 

“Do you still have the scars?” Rio asked, clearing her throat and schooling her features back into something that resembled normal. 

Agatha nodded, tendrils of her hair tickling the places where her skin was still bumpy, where the skin needed extra exfoliation to stay smooth, where the freckles wanted to bleed together but stubbornly stayed put, keeping her safe. 

The water around them rippled, the only clue that Rio was moving closer, inspecting the skin under the faint lights in the pool house. 

“Those were some of the worst nights I think I had ever gone through up until that point,” Rio said softly, gently, like she was speaking to a ghost. “That first night you wouldn’t stop shivering, but your skin was so hot I could feel you from across the bed.” 

“My body was in shock,” Agatha supplied. “I thought I was going to chip a tooth with how hard my jaw was chattering.” 

Rio ghosted her finger over the pink skin, still tender from the sun it had gotten that day. 

“Is it safe for you to be burned again?” she asked, hands twitching like she was aching to touch. 

“It’s not really that burnt,” Agatha said, huffing. “It will be normal in a couple of days.” 

“It won’t blister?” Rio asked, concern bleeding in her voice. 

“No, not like before.” 

Memories flooded Agatha, and she could see in Rio’s eyes that she was reliving them, too. The way Agatha had to sleep on the couch, sitting up and protecting her skin from the fabric with a clean, white sheet; how she had to peel it from her body each morning and patches of her dead skin would be stuck on the linen behind her; the blisters, some as small as thumb tacks and others as big as 50-cent pieces, mottling her skin like a river delta; all of it was as vivid in their minds as they day it had happened. 

“It killed me, changing your dressings,” Rio murmured, still lost in thought. “You were so strong, you didn’t complain at all, you just stood there and let me put on your burn cream without making a sound.” 

It was true, even on the worst pain day, Agatha didn’t make a sound. Hot tears streaked down her face against her will, the physical pain overwhelming, but she didn’t make a sound. She didn’t get mean, she didn’t complain, she didn’t bite back. And through it all, Rio held steady, making sure that she had everything she needed, even booking them into a hotel with air conditioning despite the island having so little of it available. 

That was one of the first times that Agatha knew that what they had was real. 

“I felt bad,” Agatha admitted. “It was a stupid decision I made, and I was so reckless, and you were the one who had to deal with the consequences.” 

Rio shook her head. “No, that’s not true. You were the one bearing the brunt of the consequences. I was just there to make sure you weren’t doing it alone.” 

Silence fell between them again, full and heavy. The water lapped with the rise and fall of their chests, breathing through the moment, filling both of their lungs with something fuller than just air. It was soft and familiar, like the first time you visit home after moving far, far away. It’s not home anymore, not in the way you once knew it, and it never would be again. But somehow, someway, it still felt like yours in an aching, mourning kind of way. 

But still, the water between them never turned cold. It stayed warm and surrounded them both as they rested in the water, soothing their aching muscles after several long nights of shows in the sweltering desert heat. 

It was enough. 

Seattle was dreary, but not in the Grey’s Anatomy way, not with light drizzle and grey skies. No,  it was dark and stormy, water pouring down from the sky in droves as thunder cracked around bursts of lightning playing tag in the sky. It was the first night of three and four songs before the finale, Agatha was drenched from head to toe, hair pasted to her head, and makeup fighting to stay in place until even the strongest of eyelash glues couldn’t stop the strip from travelling to her cheekbone. 

Rio, of course, strutted by with her guitar and flicked it away, making the crowd go wild. 

“Make a wish, darling,” she said into Agatha’s microphone, and Agatha blew it off her finger with a wink to the crowd. 

When the lightning started, though, just one song later, they had to end the concert and evacuate the venue. Canceling a show, even when most of it was already finished, alway made Agatha feel a little guilty– these people had paid their hard earned money to come see her, see them, and she could remember a time when she was waiting tables at Calderu’s after college and every cent she saved to go see live music felt like a fortune, a choice between ramen and collective effervescence. 

For Agatha, the choice hadn’t always been obvious, and still today, the choice between letting the rain pour on them and sheltering away from the lightning hadn’t felt as easy, either. But decisions like these weren’t in her hands, and before she knew it, she was getting loaded into the tour bus, hair dripping on the back of her neck relentlessly. 

Drip. Drip. Drip. 

Water slid down the back of her t-shirt, cooling her overheated skin from being adhered to her outfit for an hour before the lightning started. 

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The sensation was at most irritating, but Agatha couldn’t focus on anything except the way it landed in the exact same spot, every single time. A towel was thrown at her at some point, and she dried her hair to the best of her ability, but even in its clip, its steady drop after drop slowed but never relented. 

So, when the tour bus hit a pothole and blew a tire halfway to the hotel, leaving Agatha, Rio, and the rest of the band stranded in the middle of a torrential downpour, it felt only natural that Natasha wanted to film for the documentary. Which meant, once again, Agatha was standing in the pouring rain, her hair sopping wet and dripping on that same goddamn spot. 

“You’ve gotten your shots, you’ve got your drama, so how are you getting us to the hotel?” Agatha shot back after Natasha tried to insist on one more angle of re-shoots. “We cut the last three songs from our set because it’s dangerous out here, but you want me and Rio to have some kind of squabble about flat tires? I’m just really not in the mood.” 

Natasha reared up to fire something back, but Rio stepped in, instead, and said, “Listen, Nat, I know that you’re just doing your job. We are also just doing our jobs. But it’s freezing out here, the rain is going to make us sick, and Agatha doesn’t have to explain to you about weather safety, right?”

Eyes narrowed in Rio’s direction, taking in the way that she had diffused the situation, how she had taken Agatha’s side despite what Stark had been telling her to do, despite what they agreed to do for the film. “Fine,” Natasha relented. “But we can only take three at a time to the hotel. Everyone else has already made it there.” 

Agatha and Rio, of course, were in the last set of cars to the hotel, an obvious punishment from Natasha for daring to push back against her artistic vision, from the narrative that Stark wanted to sell with this documentary. And, of course, it meant that they had to get sopping wet again as they put their bags into the car service and were driven the extra couple of miles to their lodging. 

“What do you mean there’s only one room left in the reservation?” Agatha asked, hands on her hips as she and Rio stood at the front desk, not a single other tour representative in sight. 

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but there is only one room left for Stark Records,” the woman behind the counter said. “We’ve checked in the rest of your party.” 

Rio took a deep breath through her nose and rubbed at her temple. This was the last thing either of them needed today. 

“I will just go stay in another hotel,” Agatha said, already pulling out her phone and tapping out a search for last-minute accommodations. 

“What? Agatha, you can’t. All of our security is here. You can’t be alone out there,” Rio argued, immediately stepping closer to her. “Let me do it. It will be safer for me.” 

The rain poured harder outside, coming down in a cacophony of thunderous applause, as if God himself was begging for more of this absolute shitshow of a day. 

“I don’t think you should go out in that,” the desk worker said softly. “It’s supposed to let up by morning.” 

Agatha looked to Rio, felt water drops slide down her back in that same single rivulet that was driving her insane, and said, “Fuck it. Fine. We can share, can’t we?” 

Rio looked at Agatha, startled by her sudden outburst. 

“Seriously?” Rio asked, face screwed up in surprise. 

Agatha’s hair dripped onto the back of her neck again. And again. And again. “You act like we’ve never shared a room before.” 

“You know why,” Rio said quietly, low so the worker couldn’t hear. “You don’t have to do this, Agatha. I can bunk with Jen.” 

“And listen to her boning Alice at 3 am when they can’t sleep? Or Lilia’s snoring? Or Billy’s blatant disregard for his lactose intolerance?” Agatha countered, eyebrow raised. “It will be fine. We will have our own beds; we’re adults. It will be fine.” 

Agatha didn’t know who she was trying to convince more, Rio or herself. But if she didn’t get this mop of wet hair to stop dripping within the next five minutes, she was going to spontaneously combust. 

There was a moment of hesitation before Rio agreed, something lingering in her eyes, but then Agatha fidgeted with her sopping wet shirt again, and whatever it was that was holding Rio back relented. 

“Fine. Okay. We can share.” 

Agatha stuck out her hand for the room key, wasting no time from the moment it was placed in her hand to stomp to the elevator, suitcase rolling behind her. With an amused huff, Rio trailed after her, making it in plenty of time to catch the car despite her much more lackadaisical pace. 

“Do you want to shower first?” Rio asked, making Agatha stop chewing on her inner lip. 

“Yeah, actually. That would be nice,” Agatha replied. “Thank you.” 

In the room, however, Agatha couldn’t even think about taking a shower because not only was it not a suite like she was used to, there was only one bed. 

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Agatha said, pushing her suitcase into the far corner of the room. “I’m not sleeping on the floor.”

Rio stepped in after her and let a breath through her lips. “You don’t have to sleep on the floor, Agatha.” 

“What, so you’re going to play the shining knight routine and curl into that chair like it won’t completely fuck your back?” Agatha shot back, knowing that how frazzled she felt was making her meaner than she wanted to be. The guilt of ending the show and the frustration of being caught in the rain three separate times was wearing on her. 

But Rio took it all in stride, much like she always had. “That’s the plan, yeah. You know I don’t mind.” 

Agatha took a deep breath. And another. And another. Her hair dripped on the back of her neck again, and she fought the urge to bite something. 

“You don’t need to do that,” she said slowly, carefully. “This isn’t ideal. This sucks, actually, but we don’t need to make ourselves miserable because we used to be married and now we’re not.” 

It was the first time Agatha had acknowledged it out loud, she thought. All these weeks, months of being around Rio again, she hadn’t mentioned their failed marriage to her face, no matter how often she thought about it. 

Something in Rio pinched, the corner of her mouth getting sucked between her teeth in that way Agatha remembered oh, so well. But she couldn’t comment on it now, could she? She couldn’t comfort her, couldn’t soothe away whatever was eating at her, because it was oozing from Agatha, too. 

Every reminder that they once were in love felt like a vice gripping at Agatha’s chest, squeezing until her heart just could not beat again. 

“Right, yeah,” Rio said after a long silence. “We can share. It will be fine.” 

Agatha was standing in front of the full-length mirror fixed to the wall and smoothing cool aloe gel onto her shoulders when she heard the water stop running in the bathroom. A few muffled expletives were muddled by the door before Rio stepped out, wearing a big t-shirt and boxer briefs, damp hair dangling around her shoulders– a contrast to the way Agatha had meticulously blown hers dry after her shower and clipped it to the top of her head. 

“Do you need help with that?” Rio asked, eyeing Agatha’s project warily. It was obvious by the healing of her pink skin that there were some places that Agatha just could not reach on her own. 

“No, it’s okay, I’m okay,” Agatha said, pushing her hand further down her shoulder and not quite succeeding. 

Three small steps, and Rio was standing right behind Agatha, looking over her shoulder in the mirror. Pink shoulders were on full display as Agatha stood in a tank top and pajama shorts, green gel only extending as far as her long fingers could reach. 

“Let me see,” Rio prodded gently, reaching out a hand for the bottle of aloe. “You know it will be easier to sleep if you let me help.” 

And fuck, Agatha knew that was true. She knew it was true down to he bones that she should just hand the bottle of gel to Rio and let her help, let her take care of her for just one fleeting moment. But something in her held its breath, like it was six years old and hiding in a cupboard as someone else ran around the house, trying to find her in a game chase, but she was the one determined not to be found. 

“You don’t have to do this alone,” Rio offered softly, crossing a line that neither of them remembered drawing in the sand first but had been glaringly bright as it flashed its neon warning lights at them since the moment Rio first walked away, from the moment their eyes met again at that first day of filming all those months ago. 

Agatha knew she should disagree. She knew she should fight back, should insist that she didn’t need anyone to help her, that she should bite and scratch and kick at anyone who got too close. 

But Rio was looking at her with those soft, brown eyes, and it took her breath away. How long had it been since someone looked at her like that? 

Why was it always those same brown eyes that could bend her to their whims, no matter who or what was asking? 

It was a softness that haunted Agatha, less in the beginning and more so every day since Nicky was placed in her arms for the very first time and blinked up at her with that same unconditional love that she thought she had lost forever. 

Her hand was moving before she could even think, relenting and giving the bottle to Rio, not looking her in the eye as she did it. But, without missing a beat, little dollops of green gel were squeezed onto her skin and warm hands smoothed them in, giving her burnt skin a moment of sweet relief. 

“These look almost healed. You should be back to normal by Dallas,” Rio remarked, almost absentmindedly. Her touch was steady and firm, languid as she took her time rubbing smooth circles into Agatha’s shoulder blades, into the skin by her armpit that she had no hope of reaching on her own. 

The rest went unsaid, but when Agatha dared a look up in the mirror, Rio’s face said it all. Brow furrowed in concentration, she was looking at Agatha’s pale skin like it was a canvas, like it was something precious, and when their eyes met in the reflection, she could hear the words in her head clear as day. 

It’s tough doing it on your own. I’m glad I’m here.

Rio’s hands pulled away from Agatha long before she was ready for them to, and the older woman took the bottle back and scurried back to her toiletries to pack it away, giving herself some kind of task to keep her hands busy. Agatha braced herself on the bathroom sink, taking a steadying breath. 

Why had that been so hard? 

Why had that felt like her entire world had shifted on its axis? 

When would Rio touch her like that again? 

By the time she returned to the main sleeping area, Rio had crawled into the bed and was nestled against the edge of the mattress, leaving a valley of empty space between their bodies when Agatha slipped inside, too. They were so close, close enough that Agatha could graze her hand if she just reached, but still so far apart. 

“You don’t– you don’t have to be that far away,” Agatha said, voice rough and unsure. “You’ll fall off if you stay over there.” 

Rio turned her head to look at Agatha, taking in the way she stared at the ceiling before shifting just an inch closer. 

“I don’t want to crowd you. I know you like your space.” 

God, what a fucking lie that was. Agatha liked her space about as much as she liked her silence– it was fine and she preferred it from most people, but once she had broken that barrier with someone, she never knew how to stop craving it again. 

But she couldn’t tell Rio that with every puff of air from her lips, she wished that she could feel it on the back of her neck just one more time. 

Agatha clenched her fists under the blankets, digging her nails into her skin in some kind of effort at punishing herself for even thinking that. 

That would never be her reality again. She had barely survived trying to be Rio’s friend again. 

What they had was good. 

Better than she ever deserved. 

Maybe better than either of them deserved. 

“Yeah, I do,” Agatha agreed after the long moments of warring with herself. They both knew it was a lie. 

Hazy white clouds drifted into a dreamscape, opening on the theme song of a show Agatha had seen a thousand times by now. She drifted above the scene, watching as Wanda wrapped her arms around a crying Agatha, hands supporting her wide belly. 

“It’s okay, love. He’s going to be perfect. You haven’t hurt him,” her soft voice cooed in Agatha’s hair, tucking her long, dark hair behind an ear. 

“He–he is going to have something wrong, and it’s going to be my fault that he’s hurt,” Agatha whimpered, holding the onesie to her chest that she had been refolding and reorganizing for the third time that week. “He shouldn’t suffer because I’m a fucking drug addict. That’s not his fault.” 

“Agatha, I need you to listen to me,” Wanda insisted, pinching her chin and making Agatha meet her eyes in the mirror they stood before. “You are clean. You haven’t used since he was conceived. You’re doing everything right.” 

“But the drugs were still in my system. I poisoned him,” Agatha cried. “How will he ever forgive me?” 

“He won’t need to because he’s going to be born healthy. The doctors say that he’s measuring on track, his genetic panel came back clean, his scans are perfect every time. Your miracle boy is going to be okay. And if he has something we can’t see yet? Then we love him fully, we embrace it, and we don’t make him feel like his life is anything less.” 

Agatha put the onesie down on the dresser below her hands and moved to press her palms against Nicky’s little feet kicking up a storm. 

“We?” she asked, as if she didn’t know the answer. 

“I’m right here, Mama. You’re not going to raise this boy alone. I will be here every day that you need me.” 

The thought made Agatha squirm in Wanda’s embrace, but Wanda held on tighter. 

“I will move into your guest room if that’s what you need. You will not drown. No matter what the world throws at you and your little boy, you don’t have to do this alone.” 

Scenes flash by in blips, sweaty foreheads and newborn squalls, sore nipples and diaper rashes, spit up and blow outs, and the scent she could only find at the crown of his little tiny baby head. A year of Nicky’s life, and through each moment, each memory, his Auntie Wanda was right there, catching his mom, not letting them fall. 

When they found out that Nicky was partially deaf and could potentially lose all of his hearing one day, Wanda was there holding her hand. 

When his little baby tummy just couldn’t get the gas out and he was colicky, Wanda was there to take turns soothing him while Agatha slept. 

Morning breakfasts had a distinct smell, now, something Sokovian and warm tinging everything she ate. 

Sometimes, even when everything felt like too much, Wanda would wrap her arms around Agatha like she had that day in the nursery when all of the what-ifs were threatening to eat her alive, and her breath would hit the back of Agatha’s neck in that way that had always comforted her. 

And on the best days, she would take little videos of Agatha singing to a small Nicky, his body high on her shoulder, ear pressed to the rumble of her throat as she soothed him with the lyrics that had spoken to her for years: 

“They say I must be one of the wonders // God’s own creation // And as far as they see, they can offer no explanation // Ooh, I believe, // Fate smiled and destiny // laughed as she came to my cradle // know this child will be able // laughed as my body, she lifted // know this child will be gifted // With love, with patience, and with faith // He’ll make his way // He’ll make his way”

The first thing Agatha noticed when she woke that morning was the scent of almonds and jasmine flooding her senses. She was pressed against something warm, and in her sleepy haze, she snuggled in closer, comfort and contentment washing over her. 

“Mmm, baby,” Agatha’s tired voice mumbled, still somewhere between wake and sleep. 

But as her arms tightened around the source of warmth, a startled gasp shocked her fully awake. A flurry of dark hair comes into focus as Rio pulls away from the way Agatha is embracing her, falling to the ground with a dramatic thud. 

“Fuck, fuck, no way,” Rio murmured to herself. “Fuck, is she awake?” 

Rio’s brown eyes peeked up over the lip of the mattress, immediately connecting with Agatha’s confused, blurry blues. 

Had she been holding Rio while she slept? 

Was that why she dreamt of the only people who had brought her comfort in the last decade? 

And did Rio realize Agatha was holding her and throw herself away so hard that she thudded to the ground?

Fuck, something was aching in Agatha’s chest now. She had no right for it to ache; she knew that this was the only reasonable response to waking up in your ex’s arms. 

But my god, did that hurt. 

“Agatha, I’m so sorry,” Rio started, holding her hands up in surrender. 

“What? Why are you sorry?” Agatha asked, furrowing her brow in confusion. 

“I don’t know… don’t you want me to be?” 

Agatha threw the covers off herself, suddenly feeling too suffocated by their weight. “Rio, you can’t just apologize because something weird happens.” 

But she knew why Rio was apologizing. She knew the words Rio wouldn’t say out loud. It was embarrassing to wake up to someone throwing themselves far from you. Watching the only woman you’ve ever loved literally hurt herself to get away from you was a special kind of pain. 

“I didn’t want you to see that,” Rio finally said after long moments of tense silence. “It’s not your fault, you’ve always been a cuddler.” 

“Right, yeah,” Agatha replied, quiet and introspective. “God, who would want to wake up with their ex-wife suction-cupped to their back?” 

Forced, uncomfortable laughter tickled around both of them. 

“Yeah, definitely not the most normal morning I’ve ever had,” Rio agreed. “Don’t worry about it, though. It’s really not a big deal.” 

Agatha scoffed. 

“Okay, that’s just a load of bullshit, Rio,” she countered. “You woke up and threw yourself onto the floor. That’s the definition of a big deal.” 

Agatha tried not to let the hurt bleed into her voice. She knew it wasn’t fair, that she couldn’t ask for Rio to have woken up as comforted by the familiar scent, the familiar weight draped against her back. 

Of course, Rio wouldn’t have felt the same– Agatha had singlehandedly ruined her life. 

But then Rio crawled back on the bed, sitting next to Agatha against the headboard. 

“That’s not… Agatha, that’s not how it was,” Rio started.

This was the part where they started to fight, Agatha knew that. Years and years of disagreements and misunderstandings told Agatha that this was where everything devolved between them, and they damaged the fragile peace they had found in their relationship.

The script of their old life told Agatha to fight Rio, to assume that she knew Rio’s thoughts and intentions, placing upon the younger woman this sense of guilt and disgust that Agatha had already ascribed to her in her mind. 

“Tell me how it was, then.” Agatha’s response surprised even herself. It’s an olive branch, it’s a life preserver thrown to someone already treading water. 

Rio didn’t hide her surprise well, but she recovered with soft, gentle words. “I was worried about how you would react. It wasn’t because… I panicked, I wasn’t upset.” 

Agatha took in her words, letting them rest in her chest. “It wasn’t because what?” 

A long silence stretched between them, like it had been caught between the moment of should or shouldn’t, of leaning in or pulling away. 

“It wasn’t because I didn’t like it,” Rio admitted softly, like she was confessing to a crime. “I just didn’t want you to wake up and be upset that we were so close. I know that this is hard for you.” 

There it was. The silent part said out loud. 

“We still don’t know how to be around each other,” Agatha agreed. “It’s not just me this is hard for, I know that Rio. You don’t have to act like I’m the only one who needs to be handled with care.”

“It’s not… It’s not the same,” Rio pushed back, grabbing the sheet and wringing it with her hands. “I got to have my closure, you didn’t.” 

“Was it really closure, though? You showed up to my rehab and told me we were getting a divorce because they took Carmen away. We didn’t get to fight it out. We didn’t get to make decisions together. Stark poisoned you into making a decision, even if it was the right decision.” 

Silence fell around them so full that you could hear a pin drop on the carpet. 

“The right decision…” Rio echoed, her voice laced with a heaviness that Agatha couldn’t quite place. 

“We were destroying each other, Rio. You know that as well as I do.” 

Dark eyes lifted, boring into Agatha’s face. 

“You think it was the right decision?” 

Agatha knew that this was the approval that Rio was desperately searching for, that this was something she likely had been carrying for years and years, through all of the pain of what Stark was doing to her, through all of the loneliness and isolation. 

“If you had asked me a year ago, I don’t know how I would have answered, but I can tell you that us splitting up unequivocally brought us to where we are today. I would have never had Nicky if you hadn’t left. I may have never gotten clean. Who knows what would have happened to you or your career, or your sister. We both know that it was the love we were never going to get right, and you don’t need to keep beating yourself up over saving yourself. You saved yourself, Rio.” 

Rio wrapped her arms around herself, much like she had in the facility room the day that she left Agatha, the weight of the world threatening to tear her apart limb by limb. 

“You don’t know how much I needed to hear you say that,” she said, wiping her eyes for tears that weren’t falling. “I’ve hated myself for years for hurting you like that.” 

“I hated you for it, too,” Agatha said. “But I think I’ve hated myself even worse since I got sober and realized just how much I hurt you.” 

“You didn’t deserve what I did to you, though, Agatha,” Rio argued, still trying to punish herself. “The only person you trusted left you completely alone. I turned my back on you.” 

“I turned my back on you long, long before you left. You were alone in that marriage, while I had an affair with coke and narcos. There is no reason for you to keep beating yourself up over this, just like there is no reason for me to keep doing it, either.” 

“You sound like my therapist.” 

“I sound like my therapist, Jesus, I need to pay her more.” 

“So what do we do now?” Rio asked, rolling strands of her hair between her fingers. 

“I think it’s time we forgive ourselves, and maybe forgive each other, too,” Agatha suggested. “What we’ve got going here is good. We’ve finally found stable footing in the band. Maybe that can be enough.” 

Rio nodded. “Yeah, I think that could be enough.” 

Agatha didn’t go back to sleep that morning, but she didn’t run away, either. They ordered in some breakfast and went together to the gym, staying far enough apart that they couldn’t touch but close enough to whisper jokes to each other as they navigated this new ground that had been forged between them. 

Each moment was like a mark on the map, each sentence whispered like codes written into the legend, teaching them how to read this new landscape. Maybe it wasn’t like it was, and it likely never would be again, but this was different, and it was good.

Chapter Text

The smell of Agatha’s favorite barbecue hit her nose before she even heard the knock on her dressing room door. It was one of her favorite things about Texas– that, and the entire city of Austin. Dallas, though, was pretty nice all things considered. 

“Come in,” Agatha called out, pinning her freshly-waved hair away from her face. 

The door creaked open, and she watched in the mirror as Rio snuck in with two boxes of take-out cradled to her chest. 

“I convinced Nat that it would be fun for the documentary if I got to sneak away from the venue to get some barbecue. Do you want to share with me?” Rio asked, shutting the door behind her. 

“Oh god, you’re the fucking best,” Agatha said, turning in her chair and making grabby hands for the styrofoam box that Rio was already stretching in her direction. “You might be the best friend I’ve ever had.” 

A laugh startled out of Rio, her gapped teeth on full display. “Don’t tell Wanda, I think she would have me murdered.” 

“The way to my heart is through my stomach, what can I say? I love Wanda, but I can only handle so many of her Eastern European stuffed cabbage disasters.” Agatha plucked a stolen Kraft Services fork from Rio’s hand. “This, though? God, you can’t get this in LA.” 

Rio took a seat next to Agatha, watching as she immediately stabbed her fork into a pile of homemade mac and cheese. 

“Are your shoulders feeling better?” Rio asked, only then opening her own container, poking at her pile of greens for a first bite. 

Agatha shrugged her silk robe off one shoulder, letting it pool just below her scapula, showing off her freckled but healed skin. 

“Good as new and hopefully safe for a while with the indoor venues.” 

Rio’s eyes dragged over her exposed skin, humming thoughtfully. Agatha watched as rich brown eyes traced over the curve of her shoulder before flicking back up to her face, taking only a respectful amount of time to look at her offering. 

She definitely was not disappointed by that. Not at all. 

Why would Agatha want her to look even more? 

Since that night in Seattle, the morning they woke up tangled together and finally decided to forgive themselves and each other for the end of their marriage, things had been different between them. Agatha found herself seeking Rio out more– backstage, on the bus, on the jet, in the hotel, it was like someone had turned a magnet on between them, and Agatha was helpless but to pull to its north. 

Last night, Agatha had heard Rio on the phone with Carmen again, but instead of knocking on her door with sparkling grape juice, Rio actually turned up at hers with a bag full of gas station snacks. 

“If you dip that Taki in your chocolate ice cream, I’m going to throw you out my window,” Agatha said, crunching on her own salt and vinegar chips. “That’s absolutely disgusting.” 

“You wouldn’t know good taste if it smacked you in the face,” Rio retorted, looking Agatha dead in the eye as she stuck the spicy chip into the pint of Ben & Jerry’s she had painstakingly softened with a spoon exactly for this reason. “This is a delicacy.” 

“It’s a crime against humanity, is what it is.” 

Rio took another bite of her greens, and Agatha couldn’t help the little niggling of worry in the back of her mind. 

“Is Carmen okay?” she asked softly. “She’ll be coming soon, right?” 

“Yeah, she’s meeting us in Orlando,” Rio said, chewing on the corner of her lips. “But I really don’t know if she’s okay. I’ve not been able to talk to her as much as I’d like to.” 

Agatha nodded, knowing that feeling intimately. “Do you want to talk about it?” 

“Not really,” Rio said. “I need to get in the headspace to perform, y’know?” 

Another thing that they had always shared in their years touring together– having pre-show rituals to try and make sure every show is a good show. A small smile crossed Agatha’s face at the thought. 

“I forgot we used to do this,” Agatha said, crossing one leg over the other and scooping a piece of juicy brisket into her mouth. “Pre-show dinner.” 

“God, and it would piss Sharon off so bad because you would end up with sauce on your costume or in your hair or you would smudge your makeup,” Rio laughed. 

Agatha laughed lightly, lips pressed into a line as she held herself back. “No, I think that was you. You’re a human wrecking ball.” 

Rio lifted her fork to protest, and a piece of gooey macaroni landed splat onto her white t-shirt. She gaped at it, offended that her own dinner would betray her like this. 

“Okay, that doesn’t count. That was misplaced trust in my emotional support noodles,” Rio grumbled as Agatha’s little laugh devolved into something a little fuller, a little louder. 

“No, that’s an accurate depiction of what you look like when you eat anything.” 

Rio huffed and set her container of food on the counter in front of the mirror and stole a makeup wipe from Agatha’s stash, making the older woman squawk and try to bat her hand away. 

“No! You have your own! Those are precious resources!” 

Laughter rang out between them, warm and full as they slipped into something neither of them was willing to say out loud. 

“Rio?” a voice called in the hall– Jen, maybe? Or Alice? “What the fuck, where are you?” 

“You know exactly where she is,” another voice said, definitely Jen this time. “You just don’t want to admit it.”

Three soft knocks echoed through Agatha’s dressing room before the door cracked open and a shock of orange and black hair peeked through the crack. 

“Hey, your phone has been going off like crazy,” Alice said, holding the offending device as it vibrated in her hands. 

Rio rushed across the room and took the phone from Alice’s hand, slamming the door in her face and answering on the third ring. 

“Carmen? What’s wrong?” Rio asked, frantic and already pulling her fingers through her dark hair. 

Agatha could hear the distinct sound of sobs coming through the speaker despite the phone being pressed tightly to Rio’s ear. It was guttural, the sounds that were bleeding into the room in that fuzzy, tinny way. Carmen was crying so hard that she was starting to heave, her chest clenching up and making her breath come in ripping staccatos. 

“Mija, respira,” Rio said firmly into the phone. “I need you to breathe, honey. You’re going to hurt yourself.” 

More aching, frantic sobbing echoed through the phone, and Agatha watched as Rio sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, biting hard to keep the tears shining in her eyes from falling. 

“I know, sweeheart. I know. We are so close. But I need you to breathe,” Rio echoed to deaf ears. “No, you’re not bad. You’re not bad, love. You’re perfect.” 

Agatha’s fingers ached to help, twitching to reach for the phone and ask if she could try. 

“Carmen, no, don’t do that. My love, please don’t do that,” Rio begged, growing more desperate with each word. “No, sweetheart, you’re okay. You’re okay.” 

The look in Rio’s eyes when they finally connected with Agatha’s was devastating, like she had no idea what to do or how to help her baby sister. 

“I can’t come, baby. I’m across the country. I can’t get to you. Respira. Respira.”

Agatha couldn’t take it and crossed the dressing room, putting her hands on Rio’s arms, squeezing. 

“She’s having a panic attack,” Agatha said. “Let me help.” 

“I know she is. I can’t fix it, Agatha,” Rio cried, overwhelmed and panicking herself. “She needs help, she needs someone to hold her. I can’t hold her.” 

“You need to ground her,” Agatha countered, trying to reach Rio through her panic. “Don’t let the panic win. If you don’t get it together and help her, you’re letting your parents win. Do you want them to win?” 

“No. They can’t win,” Rio said firmly. “They can’t win.” 

Agatha reached for the phone again. “Put her on speaker. I think I know a trick that might help if she needs to be held to regulate.” 

Rio nodded once and put the phone on speaker, holding it between them with shaking hands. 

Carmen’s sobbing could be heard in their full, guttural, retching heaves now. 

“Hi Carmen, can I try to help you?” Agatha asked gently, knowing the teenager was not her biggest fan. 

“Fuck you, Agatha,” Carmen stuttered, exactly like the older woman had anticipated. 

“I know, I know,” Agatha said, keeping her voice calm and steady. “I’m the worst, and you’re allowed to hate me, but I also know how to help. Will you let me help you?” 

Shaky, hiccuping breaths echoed through the speaker before a miserable, “Okay,” came through. 

“Good, you’re doing so well, Carmen. Are you sitting down?” 

“Y-yeah. I’m in my closet.” 

Agatha took a deep breath, blowing it through pursed lips. God, she knew that feeling so well. 

“I want you to cross your arms over your chest. Put your right hand on your left shoulder, your left hand on your right shoulder. Tell me when you’ve done that.” 

More gutwrenching sobs rang through the phone as it jostled before she let them know she had done it. 

“What you’re going to do now is pat back and forth. Tap your right hand, then your left, back and forth just like that as firmly as you need to feel it, but not hard enough to hurt.” 

“What? That’s stupid,” Carmen argued, but Agatha could hear that there was motion on the other end of the line.

“Keep doing it, Carmen. Just do it.” 

Rio looked at Agatha, gaping at her no-nonsense tone. “What are you doing?” 

“Trust me,” Agatha said, shaking her head. “She needs firm, she needs her brain to find its boundaries again. This is something I do.” 

There was no elaboration, but Agatha could hear the sobs starting to gentle on the phone. 

“Carmen, do you think you can breathe with me?” Agatha asked, now that she seemed to have marginally more control over herself. 

“P-p-please,” the young girl begged.

“Okay, Carmen, I’m going to breathe in for five, hold for five, exhale for five, hold for five. You’re going to keep tapping while we breathe.”

Carmen made a noise of acknowledgement through her tears, so Agatha began. 

“In, two, three, four, five. Hold, two, three, four, five. Out, two, three, four, five,” Agatha counted, on repeat, for long, long minutes. 

Rio started to come back into herself, cooing to her sister little encouragements as the moments passed. 

“You’re going to be here so soon,” Rio said, soft and warm. “Wanda and Nicky are going to bring you to Orlando, and then you will be with me forever, okay? They’re going to bring you to me, and then we will win your hearing, and you’ll never have to see them ever again. They will never hurt you ever again.” 

Carmen whimpered, and Agatha could hear the young teen clutch the phone tighter. “You don’t know that. You don’t know that.” 

Something heavy wrapped around them as they stood in Agatha’s dressing room. 

There was nothing Rio could say to soothe her, to soothe herself. Carmen was right– Rio didn’t know for a fact that things would go their way this time. She couldn’t guarantee that the judge wouldn’t rule against their favor, that the lawyers wouldn’t file another motion to prolong the case, that her parents, her brother, her boss wouldn’t reach into the inner mechanisms of this thing and grind the gears to a halt. 

“You’ve got to have faith, mija. There is nothing we can do but have faith that it will go our way this time. If we lose faith, they win. You have to believe it. You have to believe that things will get better.” 

Agatha watched with a fond affection as Rio slipped back into that parent mode, back into the protector, the beating heart that she had always been for as long as Agatha had known her. 

“I want to be with you. I don’t want you to go,” Carmen whispered, sadness laced in her every word. 

“I know, baby. I know. You’ll be here so soon,” Rio soothed, making no promises not to hang up, knowing that there were only minutes before they had to start the process of putting on this show. “I love you, hermanita.” 

“I love you, too, Sissy,” Carmen said, the term of affection that obviously came from when she was much, much smaller. “Call me tonight? Please?” 

“Of course. As soon as I can, my love. I promise.” 

The phone call ended, and Agatha couldn’t help but bear witness to the way Rio’s soul was melting into the room around them, haunting and defeated as the shell of herself ached in monochrome. 

“What happened last night, Rio?” Agatha asked, unwilling to allow it to remain unsaid. 

“I don’t fully know,” she admitted, chewing on the corner of her mouth. “My parents are starting to feel how close they are to losing it all, and it’s making them lash out. They’re doing everything they can to grasp for control, and Juan Luis isn’t doing anything to stop them.” 

There it was, that name again. The name that made Agatha wince, that made her teeth clack together with the force of her jaw snapping shut. 

“Why is he paying for their lawyers? Doesn’t he remember what you all went through? Doesn’t he remember Tomas?” Agatha asked, mentioning the brother that Rio never talked about, the one who had truly fallen into the depths. Juan Luis and Rio both made it out– one becoming an affluent drug dealer, the other becoming a world-renowned pop/rock star. But Tomas? The Vidals’ middle child ended up in the depths, falling victim to addiction and getting lost amongst the unhoused of Los Angeles County. He was in and out of jail, stints in prison, never quite able to acclimate to normal life each time he was released. Agatha wasn’t certain how true it was now, but back when they were still married, Rio didn’t know where he was, or even if he was alive. 

And Tomas, truly, had gotten the worst of Rio’s parents in a way that Rio and Juan Luis hadn’t. 

Agatha feared that the same was happening to Carmen now. 

“He’s the oldest,” Rio said simply, as if that alone was enough to explain it. “His allegiance to the family, his loyalty, keeps him trapped in it all. In his eyes, Tomas and I got to abandon the family, so someone had to stay behind and pick up the slack. It isn’t about what is or isn’t good for Carmen. For him, it’s about what’s good for the family, but only in his fucked up version of it. My parents poisoned him.” 

Static crackled over the venue’s intercom, Sharon’s voice announcing that it was 5 minutes to showtime, effectively ending the conversation in its tracks. 

“Thank you, Agatha,” Rio said before she turned to leave. “I couldn’t handle hearing her like that. I don’t know how you do it.” 

Agatha shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess it’s just a mom thing.” 

Something flickered in Rio’s face. Agatha’s words hit her wrong, and she could tell. But Rio let it go, turning to retreat to her own dressing room. 

That night, Agatha couldn’t sleep, tossing and turning as she thought about Carmen, about Rio, about everything that had happened in the last 24 hours. 

How could she do anything but wonder about just how much of this could have been prevented if she hadn’t made an absolute catastrophe of their lives all those years ago?

Agatha was complicit in this, too, and it was gnawing at the walls of her chest, biting into the place that had become more tender every day since her miracle boy was born.  

Nicky came screeching down the tarmac as he dismounted the Maximoff private jet, running as fast as his little legs could carry him straight into his Mama’s arms. Agatha caught him with the wind knocked out of her, pulling his much-too-big body onto his hip as she pressed kisses all over his little face. 

“Oh, my miracle boy, I have missed you so much,” she cooed into his long, soft hair, burying her nose in the smell that was uniquely Nicholas. “How was your last month of school?” 

Nicky’s face lit up, and he pressed his hands into Agatha’s cheeks, smooshing them with all of his kindergartener, no first grader, affections. 

“I missed you lots! But Auntie Wanda made me yummy breakfast every single day, and her chef came to the house and packed my lunch every single day, and all my friends said that my Mama was being the coolest singer in the entire world!” Nicky said, hair flying in his face as the Orlando wind whipped around them. 

“I’m sorry I missed your kindergarten graduation, baby,” Agatha said, genuinely remorseful, and tucking some of his hair behind his ear. “Mama really, really wanted to be there.” 

Nicky shrugged. “It wasn’t that cool anyway. They played a really boring song, and we wore smelly robes. Aunt Wanda took me home early and gave me ice cream.” 

Agatha looked at the older woman disembarking the jet, a sullen teenager climbing down the steps right behind her. Her heart tugged as she saw Carmen, the way her long hair hung limply around her face, and her clothes were baggy around her lanky frame. She filed that observation away, turning back to the small boy she had missed so, so, so much. 

“Did she now? Auntie Wanda seems to have a knack for doing that,” Agatha said, smiling at her friend as she came closer. 

“Whatever Auntie Wanda did, no, she didn’t,” Wanda joked, giving Agatha a hug around the child in her arms. “We missed you a lot, Ags.” 

“Are we still going to Disney World?" Nicky asked, bouncing excitedly on Agatha’s hip, making her smile, too. 

“Tomorrow, baby. Tonight we are just going back to the hotel and having some dinner and lots of cuddles. Sound good?” 

Nicky nodded enthusiastically, watching as Carmen walked past him and straight into her sister’s arms. 

Their reunion was much less boisterous, no screaming giggles or loud, smacking cheek kisses. Rio simply held out her arms and let Carmen melt into them, holding her tight like she was the thread holding her baby sister together. 

“I’ve got you,” Rio whispered into Carmen’s hair, pressing a long kiss into the side of her head. “You’re safe now. I’ve got you.” 

The teenager’s shoulders started to shake, her fingernails gripping Rio’s back like she would get pulled away at any given second. It made Agatha’s heart clench, seeing the way they latched onto each other. 

“Carmen has been really sad,” Nicky said, fingers playing in Agatha’s hair. “Auntie Wanda invited her over a couple times. Her mom and dad kept saying no, though. She only got to come play once.” 

Agatha had to take a deep breath to steady herself, closing her eyes and trying to remember her calm, her center. 

“Were you nice to her when she came over to play?” she asked the small boy, setting him back on the ground– her 40-year-old back could only take so much holding anymore. 

He looked up at Agatha with his big, brown eyes and nodded resolutely. “We made cookies together and I taught her how to play Legos.” 

“You taught her how to play Legos?” Agatha asked, putting her fingers in his mop of unruly hair. 

“Yeah. She didn’t know that you could actually build things like flowers,” Nicky answered, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “She had only ever seen the big blocks like for babies.” 

“Carmen didn’t know that there were Lego sets to make different things?” 

“Nope. I showed her. She made flowers for Miss Rio.” 

“Did she bring them with her?” 

“No, silly! She left them at our house so that Miss Rio can come get them when we go home.” 

“Oh, of course,” Agatha said, knowing without a doubt that it was Nicky’s idea to leave them so that Miss Rio would have to come over. 

His crush on her truly made her feel like she was in the Twilight Zone sometimes. Her six-year-old son really had an obsession with the only singer in all of Hollywood that she was once married to. Couldn’t he have picked someone easier? Maybe Olivia Rodrigo or a Jonas Brother or literally anyone else. 

But no, Nicky seemed to come by his affections for the only woman who had ever held his Mama’s heart as naturally as he came by the gap in his front teeth or his sweet little voice as he sang lyrics to his favorite songs like they were telling a story only he could hear. 

“Is Carmen coming to Disney World with us? And Miss Rio?” Nicky asked, eyes hopeful as he bounced on his knees, not quite registering the heaviness of the homecoming happening just a few feet to their left. 

“I don’t know, baby. Carmen’s been having a really, really hard time without Rio. They might want to just relax together at the hotel,” Agatha said, wanting to temper the boy’s expectations. 

Disappointment crumpled Nicky’s face, his lips pursing just like Agatha’s would when things weren’t going her way. 

“But it will make her feel better!” he protested, eyebrows furrowed and crossing his arms over his chest. “It’s a happy place!” 

Agatha tucked some hair behind Nicky’s ear and rubbed his cheek with her thumb. “It’s a happy place and will make you feel happy, but that doesn’t mean that Carmen will feel the same. She’s her own person with her own feelings.” 

“Yeah, I guess,” Nicky relented, scuffing the tarmac with his light-up sneakers. 

Rio was still murmuring comforts to Carmen, the teen quiet and calm in her sister’s arms, face buried in the crook of her neck. But then something happened, something that took Agatha’s breath away. 

Carmen pulled away from her sister, eyes red and watery but not crying, and took the four steps to stand in front of Agatha. She looked so much like Rio, so much like the pieces of Agatha’s heart that walked outside of her body. Big, round, brown eyes, a deep cupid’s bow, soft cheeks, and strong eyebrows barely obscured by her long, dark hair. She wore a sweatshirt with a television reference that Agatha didn’t understand, sweatpants that had little silver chains looping from them, stacked necklaces and bracelets with a hint of eyeliner that could have been intentional or just leftover from another day. 

She was the picture of what Agatha liked to think Rio looked like at her age. 

“Thank you. For the other day,” Carmen said, stilted and unsure, like she didn’t quite know if she could trust Agatha yet, but wanted to. “You really helped me.” 

Agatha smiled softly, in that way only a mother could. “You’re welcome. Any time, okay? I know you don’t like me, but that doesn’t mean I will let you drown. You’re Rio’s, and that means you’re ours. Every single person on this tour has your back, including me.”