Chapter Text
1: Seekest Thou the Road
It began with a body. Agatha, or should we say Agnes, stuck in her little detective role. Dropped into her ordinary world: a witchy corpse that didn’t die in Westview.
–--
“Now get to the part I’m not gonna like,” Agnes told the mustached officer.
“Here I am.” The voice came from the door. The officer moved, and Agnes caught sight of Rio, dressed smartly in a bureau pants suit and badge. The witch whipped off her sunglasses. Her lips were almost a smirk, almost a grimace. Like this homecoming might’ve been painful.
Agnes' lips parted, closed. She pulled on her shirt, shifted in her chair. There wasn’t recognition, exactly. But there was something. “Okay.” A pause. An unsettled look in her eyes you couldn’t quite place. “Fancy dirt always attracts the attention of the Feds.”
There was an energy present, an energy that had manifested itself the moment Rio and Agnes had made eye contact. A thick and bubbling tension.
“Agent Vidal is an asset here, Agnes. More brain power and resources mean you get to the finish line faster. Strength in numbers. Teamwork makes the dream-”
“Eat my ass, Chief.” Agnes cut him off, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was staring at Rio, who laughed softly and humorlessly to herself.
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” he said, and departed. Even a muffled and bound Agatha scared ordinary humans.
Again, Rio flashed that almost-smirk at Agatha, moved around the desk like some sort of hunter, a long, elegant prowl. Her gaze swept around the office briefly before she dropped into a cheap couch covered in files. An arm around the sofa’s back, the other on the arm, legs crossed at the knees.
Her body language was confident, sure. But her lips pressed tightly together, her eyes darted around before she spoke. Her mouth opened, closed, and opened again, her eyes far away and almost strained.
“It’s been a long time.”
Agnes' reply was immediate. “What are you doing here?” She didn’t question how they knew each other, didn’t mention it or seem to consciously realize it. But her eyes - her eyes said something different.
“My job.”
Agnes nodded derisively, arms crossed. “You wanna take control of my investigation.” An accusation.
Rio considered this. “No.” Pause. “If you wanna be in control, you can be.” The force and jeer with which she said this did not match the current context.
Agnes did not respond. “She…the body was moved across state lines. Is that your play?”
Rio looked away in annoyance, disgust, pity, for someone so powerful dredged down in ordinary human affairs. “Is this really how you see yourself?”
Confusion from Agnes. Rio reeled herself in. “Sure. Let’s talk about the case.” She would be as patient as she could. Agatha was stubborn in everything - of course she would be stubborn even as Agnes.
“What are your theories? How did she end up in the ravine?”
“No drag marks. Thinking the perp carried her.”
“Uh, seems logical.” Rio moved languidly around the side of Agnes’ desk. “But you don’t really believe that because… oops.” Plopped a file of crime scene photos on the desk. “No tracks for the perp. Not a leaf disturbed before forensics showed. It’s almost like she just magically appeared,” she said, waving her hands in a magically suggestive gesture.
Agnes eyed her up and down in her close proximity, arms braced on the sides of her chair. She scoffed. “Let’s stick to reality here, yeah?”
Rio didn’t try very hard not to roll her eyes - as if this delusion had anything to do with reality at all!
“Sure.”
“If there’s one thing we can agree on, it’s that these cases are always about the place. The specific small town, the history of it, the people in it, the secrets buried beneath it. That’s where the answers lie.” She leaned in as she said it, as if she couldn’t help it, as if it was unconscious and natural to her to do so.
Some of Rio’s cockiness wavered as she noticed. She looked away and nodded for a beat too long. Jerked her head to the side, looking to the left beyond Agnes, as if brushing it off. “Well, who better to solve the mystery than one of Westview’s very own? Yeah, you’ve lived here your whole life.” She prodded at a thread of Agnes’s spell-deluded world. “Isn’t that true…Agnes?” She was unsmiling, serious. Somehow her words sounded like a taunt.
An unconvincing smile, a scornful laugh from Agnes. Then, like the tension had become too much, she stood abruptly and crossed to the door. “I don’t want you here,” she said, her tone irritated, baffled. She was uncomfortable, overwhelmed, but didn’t know why.
Rio looked down in disappointed acceptance before strutting to the door. She passed a little too close to Agnes as she exited, turning to make slow eye contact and a smirk. Not a carefree, teasing smirk, a loaded and intimate smirk.
“Te veo,” were her last words to Agnes.
Agnes, for her part, appeared as though she had just witnessed something uncanny and very baffling. Unsettled to her core.
---
Rio saw her next a few hours later, bearing pizza to her doorstep. She’d had to take a break. She hadn’t realized it would be so painful, seeing an Agatha that wasn’t quite Agatha. One that didn’t know what she did.
“What?” Agnes said, still swinging open the door as she spoke.
“Did you know that it is a universally acknowledged truth that a lady cop cannot be good at her job and have a healthy personal life at the same time?” She said, a lazy smile on her lips. This reminded her of the old days - poofing onto Agatha’s doorstep with some temptation in hand. “Hungry?”
Agnes let her in, despite the strangeness of their earlier encounter. It was one constant aspect about their relationship - they couldn’t quite stay away from each other.
Agnes was chattering on about her delusions. Boring, and not to the point. But Rio was almost content to bask in it. Almost. Time with Agatha would be rarer and far more complicated when she remembered who she really was.
“So she’s a rookie, granted, but I say to her, ‘Has the suspect been seen in the last 24 hours?’” Agnes worked on a beer cap as she spoke, and Rio couldn’t help but watch her every movement. She handed the drink to Rio, who took it, lounginging in a plush armchair. “And she says, ‘Only on TikTok.’ And then I say, “Well, did you learn anything?’ And she says, ‘That I was totally using the wrong foundation brush.’” They laughed and Agnes pulled on her own beer.
“Anyway…I have a lead in the case,” she said, losing the momentum of her small talk.
Rio gazed at her- it had been so long since she’d been this close to her Agatha. “That’s not why I came over. But go ahead.”
“There was a car wreck, about an hour before time of death,” She said, musing.
“Where?”
“Eastview.”
“Eastview? See, I thought you turned into a pumpkin that far afield.” Rio smiled, poking at Agnes’s boundaries again.
The woman was affronted. “Hey, I travel. I’m worldly.”
And because Rio knew it would stump her, she asked, “Where have you traveled?”
Agnes stared. The question dredged up a far away look in her eyes, a confusion.
A confusion that couldn’t be resolved yet.
“Okay, so what about the car wreck?” Gentle prodding, gentle direction. Agatha was lucky – Rio didn’t much like being gentle. But for her…
“Bloodstain in the back seat,” Agnes told her.
“You think that’s how they moved her?”
“Front two airbags deployed.”
“Maybe two perps?”
“Maybe.”
“But you don’t like it.”
Agnes shook her head. “My gut tells me they’re related, but I can’t shake this feeling I’m seeing it wrong.”
The threads were beginning to unravel. Rio leaned forward slowly, elbows on her knees. “Can I ask you something?” Her tone was curiously deflated, resigned.
“Yeah.” Apprehensive.
She made eye contact, asked it slow: “Do you remember why you hate me?”
Agnes looked at her, her lips parting. Her eyes flicked around, searching for a reason for the very clear emotion. “No.”
“Are you hiding evidence?”
“No.”
“Well, you’re only lying to yourself.”
Glass shattered in the other room and Agnes leapt to her feet to find the source. Rio let her go, watching her move closer to the truth with a small smile.
—---
She met a triumphant Agnes for the interrogation of the bandit she had caught.
“Well, he won’t give his name and he’s not in the system,” Agatha mused.
“First offense,” Rio concluded. “He take anything from your place?”
“No, but not for lack of trying. I think it’s time for a good old fashioned chat
with Edward Scissorhands in there.”
She smiled with anticipation. It would soon be time. “Go get your perp.”
—---
Rio knew where Agnes would end up. Logically, when questioning this reality, she would seek out the solid evidence: the body.
She watched the confused woman from the shadows as she entered the ‘facility.’
“There was a body,” Agnes muttered. “I saw the body.” She looked frantic. “I’m not crazy. She was there. She was there.”
The body wasn’t there. She closed her eyes, shook her head. “She was in her late 20s, green eyes, 5’7″.” Opened her eyes, and there was the covered body.
She approached it slowly, unsure. A lock of crimson spilled from under the white sheet. “Hair the color of…scarlet.”
She drew closer, looking at the tag tied to the dead woman’s toe. As she watched, a name appeared in red ink. She gazed incredulously at it.
W. Maximoff.
It was time for Rio to make her presence known. “Case closed, then?”
Agnes turned to her, a tear on her cheek. “How did she die?”
Rio scoffed, hands in her pockets. Come on, Agatha. “Wrong question. That witch is gone. And all of the copies of the Darkhold with her. Leaving you trapped in her distorted spell.”
Agnes pulled at the neckline of her thick sweater, never looking away.
“But you don’t have to stay there, do you?” Rio asked her, ready, waiting.
Agnes groaned softly, extricated her neck from her scarf. She panted under the force of the memories trying to force their way back to the surface. “Is it hot? Are you–?”
“Yes. Claw your way out,” Rio told her. Her eyes looked under Agnes’s skin; there she felt Agatha’s strong heat.
Agnes pulled off her coat, revealing a purple sweater. “I’m hot. Is it hot?” She untied her hair, letting it fall over her shoulders. Her arms raised in unison, a gesture that seemed to be almost familiar to her.
“I’m feeling…”
She gazed in shock at Rio, who stood waiting, encouraging.
“Good,” Rio coaxed her.
Agnes tugged at the sweater, wrenching herself free. She spun around to reveal a black zip up and sweats. Rio smirked as she read the ass: Naughty. For Agnes, that was a very Agatha choice.
Agnes continued to desperately claw at her outer layers. White sneakers, purple leg warmers, pink leggings. She stumbled to the mirror to see her large curls and blue headband. “What?” she said, affronted at this appearance. She bent down and when she came back up her hair was straight and shiny, a neat blouse and smart skirt completed by buckled shoes. She stumbled backwards, flailing, pulling at the collar of her shirt. She fell, crashing to the floor. Rio watched as Agatha dragged herself upwards using the cadaver table. She was now in black and white, her hair tightly curled and bobbed, her plaid dress old fashioned.
“There are two Jane Does in this case, and you know her name,” Rio prodded. Agnes looked up at her, her hand fluffing her curls. “So, what’s yours?”
Agnes’s smile faded, her hand falling away from her face. She viewed the card on the cadaver once more. Purple letters appeared:
AGATHA HARKNESS.
The witch raised her hands in that telltale magical gesture once more. She spun around, the light in the room swinging as her world spun.
A faint smile rose to Agnes’s lips as she began to unbutton the collar of her dress. It was a sight to behold, this witch freeing herself.
The purple witch exhaled loudly as the buttons popped off and the room was bathed in white light.
Rio faded away. Her job here was done. She let the witch come to privately - she would come to call shortly.
In that small and cluttered home Agnes’s clothes melted away along with her delusion. Her closed eyes opened, and there she was, hair wild and free, standing there fully naked, in all her witchy glory.
Agatha Harkness screamed.
—--
Agatha, clad in a hastily produced robe, frowned at the teenage boy tied up in her closet.
She shrugged, waved her arms. “So that arrest was maybe more of a kidnapping,” she mused. Then a realization hit her. “But if you’re real,” her eyes darted about the room, “and not a figment of my imprisoned mind,” her stomach curled and jumped, “then that means…”
Her suspicions were quickly confirmed. A loud explosion sent the front door flying inwards. Agatha was lifted and slammed against the wall by the force of the blast.
Rio stood before Agatha, clad now in more suitable attire. All black, a hood, solid boots, a marvelous belt. Her makeup was dark, lipstick nearly black.
Agatha peered over the top of a table, her face twisted.
Rio’s first real sight of the Agatha Harkness. It almost made her pause. But she was itching to do what she did best. Fight, and play.
Rio’s hands flicked, air whooshed, and Agatha screamed as Rio hurtled towards her. Agatha’s hands moved to stop Rio’s small curved blade from piercing her chest, her back to the wall, their eyes locked.
Rio laughed. Always formidable. Always violent. “I’ve missed you,” she said, and despite Agatha’s mistrust she knew the words were true.
“I hate you,” she hissed, back pressing into the wall, knife driving ever closer to her heart.
“How long has it been, Agatha?” Rio asked, face hard. She knew exactly how long it had been, exact to the day. But Agatha didn’t need to know that.
“Not sure.” A lie. There were tears gathering in Agatha’s eyes. Rio tried to ignore them.
“Since you acquired the Darkhold, you hid behind all that dark magic, but then you lost it. And now…” Rio raised a second hand to her knife, used the added leverage to bring it closer to Agatha. The very tip drove into the skin above her collarbone, a measured, restrained act. Blood ran down her chest towards the opening of her robe and she winced.
“Touch,” Rio breathed. “You’re vulnerable.” She smirked, as if this was amusing to her.
One of the tears had been unwillingly released, Agatha’s right eye craving honesty. The rest of her protested. “Only physically.”
Rio knew if that were true, she wouldn’t be crying.
Agatha grabbed Rio’s head, slammed it against the wall. They struggled over the knife and Agatha used her momentum to drive it down and to the side, embedding it in the wall.
Oh, how Rio loved fighting this witch. But Agatha was no match for her without magic. She reached for Agatha’s throat and slammed her leg into the woman’s torso, sending her flying backwards.
Agatha’s bathrobe flapped as she crashed into the ground and Rio didn’t try to look away from the woman's bare form as she flew. She wrenched the knife from the wall as Agatha scrambled on the floor for a defense. She flung it at her but was deflected by a baking pan. The knife tumbled to the floor between them and both women dived for it.
Rio reached the knife’s handle before the other witch, who grasped wildly at the blade. The metal dug into Agatha’s palm with a nasty squelch as she refused to let go.
Rio watched on all fours, smirking. “Do you remember pain?”
Agatha panted, trying to grab the knife with her other hand and glaring.
Rio grinned, goading her. “It kind of tickles, doesn’t it?”
Agatha let go of the knife abruptly and struck Rio on the face, the force sending her crashing backwards.
“Coochie coochie coo,” Agatha taunted in return, raising herself from the floor.
Rio yelled and slashed at her with the knife; Agatha dropped to the floor again and dived for Rio’s torso, pinning her to the ground. One arm clutched Rio’s throat, while the other pinned down the hand with the knife. They kept eye contact as Rio reached for the hand at her throat.
“You can’t kill me,” she told Agatha, grinning up at her. Her voice was teasing, assertive.
“You can’t kill me,” Agatha said, rougher, angrier. “It’s not allowed.” Her words were a growl.
Rio grabbed her shoulders and smashed her head into Agatha’s, who stumbled backward, groaning, holding her face. Rio magically raised herself from the ground, arms above her shoulders. She directed her magic at Agatha with a forceful gesture that sent her flying into the air and against a cabinet on the wall. Wood and decorations smashed on the floor along with the purple witch. She was on all fours, face bent towards the ground. Moans tumbled out of her mouth as she stretched her arms forward, trying to stand in the rubble.
“Maybe I can’t kill you,” Rio told her, standing four feet before her, “but I can make you wish you were dead.” She bent down and picked up the knife
Agatha yelled, struggling to her knees. “Wait, wait, wait,” she pleaded, her bloody palm raising in a stop gesture. She panted loudly.
“This isn’t what you want,” she said, now placating, sweet. Her lips pressed together as she smiled. “Me without power,” she laughed, looking around the destroyed room. “This is…undignified.” She stood, facing Rio with a desperate smile. “Don’t you want me at my best?” She flipped her hair, a cocky look on her face. “Admit it. You prefer me–”
Rio interrupted, knife still raised. “Horizontal,” she paused, her eyes flicking to the side, “in a grave.” The words were a challenge, a hint, a memory.
Agatha ignored them. “Formidable.”
Rio shrugged. “So take my power.”
Agatha’s laugh was small and annoyed, her eyes lowered. “That’s cute. But you know that would kill me.” Her eyes found Rio’s.,“Just let me get my purple back,” she pointed lazily at Rio, “And then come find me.”
Rio exhaled a small laugh, shook her head. “I am not the only one that wants to see you dead.” She stared Agatha down. “Wants to see you burn. Or hang. Or drown.”
“There are no new options?” Agatha said, almost jokingly.
Rio looked at her knife, looked back at Agatha. “I could just sit back and watch.”
Agatha tilted her head, voice sultry. “Come on.” She drew closer. “You love it.” Rio looked up at her, grip on her knife loosening. Agatha always knew how to…push her buttons, so to speak. “The anticipation,” she finished, searching Rio’s face, now two feet away.
Rio stared, forcing her eyes to move from Agatha’s lips to her face. “Okay, Agatha,” she said, lowering the knife. She closed the distance between them. She couldn’t help her hand from going to Agatha’s face, brushing against her cheek. The touch was slight, but clearly disarmed the purple witch, who broke eye contact, her lips pursing. There was still a tear track on her face. “But I’ll be sure to tell them where to find you.”
“Who, specifically?” Agatha asked, not looking at her.
“Mmm!” Rio said, looking at her as much as she could. “The worst of them. The Salem Seven.”
Agatha’s eyes met hers again as she said it.
“I expect you’ll see them at sundown,” Rio continued, looking down, her voice darkening. Her eyes focused on where Agatha’s bathrobe began, shifted to her injured palm. “After all these centuries,” she said, taking Agatha’s hand. Agatha couldn’t seem to take her eyes away from Rio’s face. Rio, admittedly, loved disarming her in this way. She held the witch’s palm tightly, drawing it upwards as she spoke. “Agatha Harkness will finally meet her end. Ugh! It really warms the heart.”
“You don’t have a heart,” Agatha told her, quiet but angry.
Rio came even closer. “Yes, I do,” she said, inches from Agatha’s face, serious now, no longer teasing. “It’s black.” Agatha’s eyes flicked to their hands as Rio drew them higher. “And it beats for you.” She didn’t break eye contact as she licked Agatha’s palm, tongue lingering slowly from the base of the wrist to the fingertips. She tossed Agatha's hand down with force, drawing away.
The purple witch didn’t look angry anymore - she looked heartbroken. She looked down at her palm, the cut there healing and disappearing with Rio’s magic.
Rio chuckled, and Agatha turned to the door.
“Te veo,” she said, and she left.
Agatha’s eyes closed, her brow furrowing. Her head whipped to the singular witness: the tied up teenage boy whose mouth was duct taped shut. She was really fucking glad for that duct tape right about now.
Rio, Rio, Rio.