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“You know,” Detective Patch says when Vanya opens the door to her, “I could arrest you right now.”
“You could try,” Vanya says mildly, stepping by to let her in. Patch raises her eyebrows but walks through anyway.
“Really, you’d deserve it,” she carries on, examining her dull apartment and not being subtle about it at all. “Being this careless, staying in the same apartment, not wearing a disguise. How no-one’s caught you out yet, I have no idea.”
“Coffee?” Vanya asks. Patch huffs a laugh.
“One sugar, no cream,” she responds and Vanya goes to put the pot on, awkwardly gestures for the detective to sit down.
Patch carries on as she bustles about getting mugs out. Vanya doesn’t get many visitors and only really uses her favourite mug (Five got it for her ages ago, the World’s Best Sister faded away and the edges chipped, but she could never bring herself to get rid of it), so she cleans the dust out of one of the many unused mugs.
“Okay, but seriously, no-one has figured you out?”
“Diego told you?”
“Yeah, he is irritatingly casual about it.”
Vanya smiles to herself. The reactions from her siblings have been, for the most part, underwhelming; Allison had sat her down to talk about it and Luther had tried to physically stop her, but the others are more amused than anything. There are worst coping mechanisms, was Five’s flippant response.
“So even you didn’t figure it out, really,” Vanya points out, leaning against the counter as she waits for the coffee. “I look different, anyway.”
“You’re paler and your eyes changed color. You don’t even wear a mask.”
Vanya grimaces; she’d thought about it, but after spending decades wishing she could wear a domino mask like her siblings, now the thought makes her flinch. She’s tired of hiding.
Mask or no, Vanya Hargreeves and the White Violin are worlds apart. Unremarkable and frumpy as Vanya Hargreeves, otherworldly and bright as the White Violin. The White Violin is intimidating and dangerous, while no-one has ever been afraid of plain, timid Vanya Hargreeves in her entire life.
“It’s more than that,” Vanya explains, “If you didn’t know the truth, would you have guessed it, looking at me?”
The coffee is done, so she readies it while Patch considers this. She can feel her eyes on her as she stirs in the sugar. What Patch sees is a tiny, tired woman swallowed up by an oversized sweater. Nothing like the White Violin. Someone that no-one could ever been terrified of, begging for their life as she approaches, stalking forward like a predator as they scramble back, as she lists their crimes in low, menacing tones, their victims and their age. Judge, jury and executioner.
As a child, Vanya would insist on freeing bugs instead of squashing them. Once, she had a funeral for a dead bird she’d found in the garden.
No-one would ever guess that they’re the same person. Like a person can be only one or the other, furious or merciful. The White Violin is merciful when it counts. Vanya Hargreeves has been furious her whole life, even if she hadn’t realised it, numbed by medication. It’s not so simple, so binary. Allison had said this is not you, Vanya, and Vanya had laughed. Until recently, she had no idea who she was. It had taken her a soft-spoken manipulative man with a journal full of secrets to open her eyes. The first knife had buried itself in Leonard’s body and there she was, for the first time, awake and feeling. It is, Allison, she’d said, it really is.
“No,” Patch admits, reluctant but honest. “But I can see it.”
“See it?” Vanya echoes as she sets down the mugs on the table and sits across from her.
“You’re different, but— the same, in some ways. You smile when you’re the White Violin sometimes and you’re not as frightening, you’re you, all sweet and—”
“You think I’m sweet?” Vanya asks and can’t help smiling, even as she blushes and ducks her head.
“I think you’re dangerous,” Patch says, her tone suddenly serious, but she looks a little flustered, gripping her mug tight and avoiding her eyes.
“I can be both.”
“I know,” Patch sighs, frustrated, “You are, it’s kind of a problem for me.”
“Are you going to arrest me?” Vanya asks, ignoring the way her admission makes her heart beat double time. Eudora Patch is a good woman, honorable and steadfast, who deserves a whole lot more than a mess like her. So Vanya pushes aside the way sweet echoes in her ears, the curve of her mouth when she’s trying to suppress a smile and the way her steady gaze is devoid of terror, like she really sees her, all of her.
“No,” she says, “But Vanya— you need to stop this. They’ll catch up to you eventually and when they do, they won’t put you in prison, they’ll put you down.”
“You sound like my sister,” Vanya replies, smiling with fond exasperation, and then, her tone dry, “I like you, Detective, but what makes you think you can sway me from my, I dunno, evil ways?”
“You’re not evil,” Patch says. Vanya’s startled at how firm she sounds. “But what you’re doing, there’s are legit ways of going about it, legal ways.”
“Legal ways of murdering abusers?”
Patch huffs, “Of getting justice.”
Vanya sips her coffee with a wry smile. “You want me to go straight, Detective? Trying to make an honest woman of me?”
"It's either that or turn yourself in."
"I think we both know that's not gonna happen," Vanya says, forcing a smile as she wills unwanted memories of being caged away.
"I figured. I don't want that either," Patch says and Vanya, despite everything, despite being at odds with this woman, despite having no reason to trust her, believes her. "But those are your only smart options, Vanya. Please don't make this harder than it has to be."
"Sorry," Vanya says quietly. She is sorry, even though she believes in what she's doing, taking down those who the law turns a blind eye to, crimes that are deemed personal matters or family disputes. The law never stepped in to investigate or stop what her father was doing, after all. No, she can't stop, but Eudora's tired brown eyes make her wish it could be easier. Vanya wants to have coffee with her in a different context, but they are both headstrong in their beliefs and their beliefs are completely at odds.
Patch sighs, grabs her mug and downs her coffee. With no cream, it’s no doubt scalding, but Patch doesn’t flinch, only clenches her jaw and wipes her mouth as she puts it back down. Vanya tries not to smile, recognising the same stubbornness she sees in Diego. So different and yet so alike. It makes sense. Vanya decides not to examine how that makes her stomach twist.
“Think about it,” she says, standing up. “Thanks for the coffee. Take care of yourself, Vanya.”
Vanya doesn’t get up to see her out, just watches her leave and sips at her coffee.
“Hey,” she says as she’s just about to shut the door. Patch pauses in the doorway. “Thank you, Eudora.”
Looking back with something strange and tender in her eyes, Eudora smiles, thrown off but sincere. “Any time.”