Work Text:
“We did a great job with him, didn't we?”
The words out of Rio’s mouth are quiet but heavy enough to sink in the warm sand by their feet. Quiet, but honest enough to resist the summer breeze and sit right there, between her and her ex-wife as they watch their little boy giggling as he comes down the slide — look momma, mamá!
‘We did a great job with him, didn't we?’ is a sentiment that has been getting stronger inside her chest, day by day, week by week — as time passes, and Agatha learns that staying with the house where they once lived in means rewriting the absence of Rio (and everything that was hers) as the presence of something else. Of change, of a fresh start. As the space shrinks, and Rio settles in her place downtown (learns to call it her house and tries to make a home out of it), redefining the lasting bruises of their turbulent past.
‘We did a great job with him’ is the thought that reverberates in their mind in a frightening synchrony when they reorganize schedules and try to make it work. Splitting weekends and holidays; having weekly dinners and movie nights. Talking about things they wouldn't because Nicky needs them to communicate, to understand. Keeping each other's close enough for him to be able to hug them at the same time, but not enough to hurt one another.
‘Didn’t we?’ is the deaf need of reassurance that plagues them both. It's the ghost of Evanora Harkness that hides in Agatha's closet and keeps her awake at night. It's the mummies of the Vidal's old farm, stuffed under Rio's bed and poking her through the mattress whenever she lays down.
(‘Didn’t we?’)
Is the tactless turn towards vulnerability none of them would've cogitated if the divorce hadn't been signed — well, probably wouldn't. Doesn't matter now.
(‘Didn’t we?’)
Is the family events they haven't given up on; [it] is the necessity to paint a good picture Nicholas will be proud of remembering when the sun sets. Something he'll keep dearly in his memory as he grows taller and wiser — maybe enough to understand why it didn't work; maybe enough to stop asking why Rio won't stay after dinner; maybe enough to look at both of his mother's and say he gets it. (And with the same simplicity he now tells his friends he has two cool bedrooms in the west and east of town, he'll smile at them and say he sees it clearly now — love isn't a full meal, just a good seasoning. It is not enough sustenance, but it makes it so much better when you can taste it between bites — sometimes even hours after.)
Agatha turns to her then — glowing, as always. Wearing a white button-down, plaid black trousers, cut out heels and a slight tilt on the corner of her lips. “Yeah…,” she drags it out, looking directly into Rio's eyes, “I think we did pretty great.”
She nods almost immediately — as if there was never space to disagree. In her mind, the echoes of the words are a lullaby to every ugly doubt that had been lurking in the shadows waiting for the right time to hit her in the ankles and celebrate her fall.
“Good,” she mumbles, blinking multiple times until she's able to escape the hook that pulls her in the direction of Agatha's ocean eyes. Her gaze falls to her feet pretty quickly, searching for something she still can't determine. “I thought we had… messed it up pretty badly when we first told him. I didn't expect him to be all understanding — he's just six.” She isn't sure how she speaks when her jaw is so tight, but she tastes every single word that comes out of her mouth. They aren't the most pleasant flavor for a nice summer afternoon at the park. “I thought he'd react a lot more like I did when my parents told me they were getting a divorce — and I was twice his age.”
“Nicky is a smart boy. He listens. He wants to understand.” Agatha says carefully — she knows these are not easy threads to untangle. One wrong push and she could rip apart the whole tapestry. Rip apart the whole landscape Rio has been trying to build on her own since she was small enough to believe the tooth fairy and the lines of a hopscotch. “He knows we meant it when we said it didn't mean we liked him any less.” Or each other. He knows we meant it when we said this was for the better — out of respect for each other and our family. “And you had aggravating circumstances. Nicky doesn't have siblings, and we don't have a cattle to divide.”
Rio slowly raises her head, a chuckle dancing on her lips and brightening her features. A sense of relief washes over her, and this time, when those crystalline waters try to take her in, she lets it. As always She follows it. And she thanks whichever part of her being that has allowed her to grow up and have this.
To keep this.
The lightness when Agatha would look at her with so much love in her pupils it made her want to dive deep, heading to the bottom and swallow as much salt as her body take. The crushing pressure and the relentless tides into her lungs until she suffocates.
The lightness when Agatha looks at her now and she accepts to take only small gulps of it — diving; touching the ooze and the clay in the ocean floor and coming back to the gulp of air. Walking to the beach and going back to the sea after a few hours.
The neverending admiration with which Rio would loo at Agatha — skin, scars, curves and crevices — and how she'd feel like the luckiest motherfucker on Earth for having met this woman at all. For ever even had her in her arms, waking up in the early morning with hair in her mouth and her warm hand right above her heart.
The neverending admiration with which Rio still looks at Agatha — skin, curves, scars and crevices — and how small, insignificant moments like this, she feels like the luckiest motherfucker because Agatha still is the best part of her being part of her lifeecause there's a certain honor in having been in love with Agatha Harkness; because there will always be honor in loving her still.
The simplicity of the moments they've made theirs — stolen and kidnapped from the universe and their own selfish memory — and the ferociousness with which they'd hold onto them to keep each fragment warm and nurtured.
The simplicity of the moments they refuse to let go of, and the ones they're desperate to create — stolen and unlawfully detained. Nothing else is allowed to reach this version of them. No one else is to witness how much they still care for it.
“So…,” Rio starts, “how’s everything with Wanda? Are you still seing her?”
Agatha smiles, just a little bit. Looking at her hands for a moment — at the rings, at her knuckles — before turning back to the woman beside her. “Yes. We– We have casual dinners. Sometimes. Usually when Nicky stays over at hers to play with Tommy and Billy.” She pauses. “We only have wine and talk. Nothing… nothing much.”
At first, the blueprint drawn by Rio's heart is supposed to be a sketch of resentment and jealousy walking hand by hand in a circle.
(It's expected, of course, that she'd dread to hear her ex-wife talking about another woman, and that she'd portray some of the pitiful reaction she used to have when they were still together. The inherited degradation known to coat her words and throat whenever they'd have an argument because Rio had big insecurities and a shortage of sentences for it.)
The circle would go on and on and jealoousy would take the lead whenever her resentment tried to cross the circle and stop in the middle, leaving the other to carry itself while they both boiled under the sun.
(It's expected, too, that she'd sigh and twist her nose because Wanda Maximoff isn't new in their lives — they've known each other since Nicholas was very young. Possibilities could come to mind, and the venom could easily twist the meanings under her tongue and take the aim straight to the heart.)
But none of it happens.
When Rio's heartbeat makes the outline of the sketch, there is no resentment or envy. She doesn't feel heavy, and she doesn't mean any harm. (She just looks at the other, and she offers a similar curve of her lips.) She's amicable — she couldn't mean any harm, not to Agatha, not to the love of her life.
“I’m glad to hear that. Nicky says she makes the best cakes he has ever had.” A pause. An exhale. “And it's good to know you're… you're on your way to open up.”
It's not a jab — Agatha's emotional minefield has always been a fact.
Back when they were still together — and naive enough to believe it would be that simple — Rio liked to play with the explosives. Dig them out and try to disarm them.
Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't.
Sometimes Rio's hands would be bloodied and shattered, and she'd have to patch herself up and wait until Agatha came to her with bandages, iodine and apology kisses.
Sometimes Agatha would break down in her arms, loud and messy, and beg her to leave this endless warfare before a life threatening injury tore them apart.
And sometimes…
Sometimes Rio would sit with Agatha in her lap — staring right at the ruined land that smelled like gunpowder and death — and tell her they'd build a garden someday. Even if it was only big enough for them to lay down comfortably at night, they'd build a garden. She'd use Agatha's favorite flowers and she'd make sure that it would last a lifetime.)
“I’m… Nothing is happening. Not yet. Her boys are still getting used to the idea that Jarvis isn't coming home anymore. We didn't want to rush things and hurt them. Or Nicky.” It's serene, and so casual. And if anything hurts right now it is for the faint voice in the back of her mind wondering why things weren't this simple when they lived under one roof and shared equal halves of a heart.
“This is going to sound stupid, but I'm glad you're taking… tortoise steps.” Agatha chuckles at that, nudging her shoulder and never actually pulling away. “I've seen you two together,” it's small, but distinguishable, “you smile more now, and it doesn't seem like a disguise. I– You have good taste, Harkness.”
Agatha's brows furrow for a fraction of a second. Her hand moves to Rio's bare knee without her even noticing — the short denim overall she wears stops mid thigh. Her skin is so unbelievably warm.
At first, she also expects this to be awkward — minimum.
She expects the words to fight the current that leads them out of her mouth, and she expects to find in Rio's face the silent devastation that would make her eyes watery and her chin wobble.
She expects to find the lies holding Rio's words together, and she expects the guilt to make her feel unbelievably sick when a third woman's name is thrown in their conversation. She expects it to get nasty. She expects it to be a dirty card pulled to scar one of them — a mark on their skin that only the other would be able to signify.
But no.
No.
They're not like that anymore.
And…
Yeah, ok. It's still bittersweet to see that they've become infinitely better with each other once they've ran out time. It still makes her a bit dizzy when she thinks that they could’ve had everything if they had just allowed themselves to be be better. Together.
But that's beside the point now — they cam't reach those versions of themselves anymore.
They're doing great — they're older.
They're walking their own paths in parallel, and even if they never get to meet again, it's okay — it's okay, it's okay, it's okay. Nicky had been their intersection, and that's just close enough for them to see each other's face and, sometimes, even hold hands.
“What about you, huh?” Agatha looks down and, when she squeezes her knee, she feels it awfully close to her own heart. “Last time we talked you said you had a date with a firefighter?”
“Cassandra,” Rio utters, scratching the back of her neck. “She's the Deputy Fire Marshall. We have been to a few dates.”
“And…?”
A shrug. “She's cool. She has some pretty crazy anecdotes from work.” Agatha raises an eyebrow at her. “What? She is cool. And she likes action movies.”
“Are you dating her?”
“No,” comes too quickly. It almost makes them both laugh. “We just…,” she poorly gestures the words that are yet to form, sighing when it doesn't help her to get her phrases out any faster. “We're kind of fooling around. I want to know her but I don't think I can do it now.” Agatha nods shortly but attentive. “I think I lost the grip of how to do it — to know people.” ‘We were together for so long, I didn't think I'd ever have to put myself out there to meet someone knew’ would be the best complement to her sentence. It's inappropriate, she knows — and for knowing it, she tries to make it sound somewhat natural when she opens her mouth again. “We both had been together for so long. I have known you for so long. I feel like I grew just tall enough to hold hands with you.” A pause. “I thought I'd only have to know you forever and it would be fine. I would be fine. We would be fine. It would just work out.”
“I know.” It's soft. It's late. It takes the other three whole minutes to voice it before she moves her hand again, this time looking for Rio's own. “I feel like that sometimes, too.”
Their hands touch. Agatha's fingers still remember where to go, and Rio's still know exactly how tight to hold. There is immediate recognition when skin meets skin — an unshakable amount of mourning when the upper layers recall that their current cells do not recall this junction at all.
It kinda tingles.
Rio's moving her fingers to lock their knuckles in a dead knot. Agatha's too distracted with the silky sensation of the other's palm on hers — wondering if the lines there would still complete her own; if they're still perfectly mirrored in one another's.) It makes them look deep in each other's eyes and say — with an annoyingly youthful tone — ‘hey! I've known you before! You're everywhere I go. I'll know you forever. I'll always remember”.
“But it's… it's great. She's great.”
“I don't doubt it.”
“She's funny, and she has been staying over.” She looks down at her lap. At their hands. Squeezes it. “I enjoy company sometimes — just company. It's… nice.”
“I'm glad.” Agatha squeezes back. Three times. One for each word they won't say out loud anymore. She means it. “Your place is too big for you to be alone.”
Rio snorts, “it's an abandoned studio turned into a loft.”
“Yeah, with three bedrooms and a small room that could be an office.”
She rolls her eyes. “One of the rooms is our son's. The other is filled with bookshelves and my old drums.”
“See, plenty of space. You could even get a dog.”
“Pets aren't allowed.”
“A bunny, then.”
And… well, something shifts just right at that moment.
Maybe because Rio's eyes glow as she looks at Agatha, body vibrating with laughter and hand refusing to let go of their hold. (Maybe it's the melodic sound that's sweet in her lips and so familiar to Agatha's ears, so provocative to her heart.)
Maybe because the sound is enough to catch their son's attention and make him sprint towards them with a golden beam on his face — hair loose and waving. Calls of ‘mom’ and ‘ma’ clearing his path. (Maybe it's the sentiments that have been patiently listening to their conversation. Stirred by the ruckus, and strong enough to cause a similar echo on both of their chests.)
Maybe because the bunny is a joke only they're able to understand. (Maybe it's the sudden realization that they have actually changed. They're not the same. They're older. Nothing will ever be like it once was. They're better — in some ways. They're different.)
Maybe because when Nicky reaches them, they're already leaning forward, waiting for him with arms wide open.
“Momma! Mamá! Can we go for ice cream? Please?” His words almost trip over each other. Cheeks flushed and gaze shifting from one to the other as a not-at-all subtle pout starts to form on his lips. “Pretty please?” He emphasizes his request by placing his right hand flat on his chest, moving it clockwise.
The sentiment — the thought; the need — stands with its feet still sank on the sand: we did a great job, didn't we?
Rio grins. “I'm sold if I get a kiss on the cheek.”
Agatha nods, trying to keep a serious face. “The deal sounds compelling. I'll allow ice cream if I get a kiss, too.”
Nicky giggles. Kisses both of them twice — something he has started to do since Rio moved out, and something he had once justified to his Mamá as compensation. ‘Momma is not here to kiss you anymore, so one kiss is mine and one is hers.’
She cried herself into her bathroom rug like a scolded dog when she first heard it.
It still makes her want to burst into tears when she feels the second kiss tickling her skin.
One's mine and the other is hers.
“So… can we gow? Ice cream?”
And it's something that makes her certain that, yes, they are.
They are doing something right.
(He's a lovely boy, and he's thoughtful, and sweet, and this big smile of his is…
He's growing up just fine.)
“Yup,” Rio pops the word. Drops Agatha's hand before standing up. Their gazes meet one last time.
We’re doing it right, aren't we?
Agatha smiles, standing up and taking Nicky's right hand in hers as Rio takes the left.
We are. We're doing alright.