Chapter Text
Agatha slammed the car door shut with a huff. Bloody New Year, New Me .
Whoever had come up with that slogan deserved to be shot. Repeatedly.
What was it about the New Years that made the entire world collectively enter a state of self-delusion so intense that it bordered on psychotic? Honestly, why did people think that they’d be able to cure all their shitty personalities and habits on January 1st when they hadn’t managed it on any other day in their lives so far?
Sheer insanity.
An insanity that had unfortunately infected Agatha’s only best friend Wanda. Annoyingly cheerful Wanda, who had a borderline obsession with fixing anything or anyone she could get her hands on and a seeming inability to take no for an answer.
Which led to Agatha’s current predicament.
If she was being charitable, Agatha was more surprised that it had taken Wanda this long to harass her into trying a class at the studio she taught at, to ‘get out of the house and socialise - people aren’t so bad if you actually give them a chance Agatha’.
Agatha did not feel like being very charitable at that moment. Or at any given moment really. It wasn’t a feeling that came naturally to her.
She squared her shoulders as she looked up at the tall, warehouse-like building; one of those obnoxious neon light signs affixed to the front proudly displaying ‘Westview Aerial and Pole Dance Studio’.
Best to get it over and done with. One lesson, in and out in less than two hours, and she’d be curled up on the sofa at home with a bottle of wine in time for the latest episode of Real Housewives. Where she could safely judge other people’s terrible decisions from a distance and not worry about ever setting foot in this rather alarming building ever again.
How bad could it be?
****
Bad.
Turns out very bad was the answer to that question. Or awful . Beastly . Catastrophic . Disastrous . Excruciating . Frightful . Ghastly . Horrendous . …What word began with ‘ I ’ that would- never mind.
She could keep going through the dictionary but it probably wouldn’t have enough words with which to express the depths of her horror.
Opening the door wasn’t bad. That part was fine. Handled like a champ. Despite the very loud doorbell that taunted her with its cheery tune. Where were they? A tourist shop?
It wasn’t even particularly awful when Wanda spotted her and darted over to loudly greet her in front of the (presumably) other poor victims she had gathered for todays torture.
“Agatha, you made it!” Wanda exclaimed as she threw her arms around Agatha’s neck in an alarming and egregious display of physical affection.
“Whoa, down girl.” Agatha half-heartedly flailed her arms, but trying to dislodge Wanda was like unsticking a limpet. It was doomed before she even tried. Damn those aerialists and their pesky grip strength.
“Sorry, not sorry” Wanda replied cheekily, finally relinquishing her grasp. “I am amazed that you actually showed though.”
“I said I would, didn’t I.” Agatha said dryly. Wanda was enjoying this far too much.
“Still, Agatha Harkness actually deigning to set foot in the studio - this calls for celebration! I’ll be over with wine this evening.”
Ah yes. This was why Agatha and Wanda got on so well. They had an understanding. Not that Wanda had actually bribed her to come today. Despite her prickly exterior, Agatha liked to think that she might actually be quite a good friend to the extremely limited ones that she had.
No, Wanda simply understood that even being inside this building was a huge step outside of Agatha’s comfort zone. Or a gigantic leap off a cliff so high you can’t see the base. Take your pick.
And therefore, as self-appointed best friend and instigator of this whole mess, it was Wanda’s duty to supply Agatha with wine afterwards. Like a dog getting a treat for holding its paw to be shaken.
Oh god.
Is this how Wanda got them all.
All her friends whose lives she tried to improve like some Jane Austen character who has nothing better to do with her time then sit around and stick her nose in other people’s business. (The number of successful blind dates she had organised was frankly alarming… and maybe needed to be studied… in a mental institution.)
Maybe Agatha should just leave now before she got sucked into one of Wanda’s schemes. Further than she already wa-
“Agatha!”
Agatha did not jump. Both of her feet remained mostly on the ground.
“Mum said you were coming and I thought she was pulling some New Year's prank on me because there’s no way you’d be seen dead in here. I’m not hallucinating, am I?” At which point, Agatha’s arm received a rather harder than necessary poke. “Oh my God you are actually here!”
“Billy!” Wanda’s exclamation could barely be called admonishing - she was laughing far too much for that.
Agatha groaned. Of course Wanda’s teenage son was here to witness her humiliation.
She knew he was also a keen aerialist and poler, like his mother he seemed to live in the studio - when he wasn’t bothering Agatha far more than any neighbour surely had the right to, that is. This was an unfortunate oversight.
“Teen.” She scowled over his head at Wanda. “What a pleasant surprise. Are you here for the children’s class?”
“You know adult classes are 16+ right?”
“Yes precisely, so you’re in the children’s class?”
“Come on Agatha, you know I’m 17” Billy groaned. “You were literally at my birthday party!” He shook his head in mock exasperation before barrelling on, unbothered. “Man, this is going to be so fun. You’ll love Lilia’s class, she’s the best.”
“Wait, Lilia? Who’s that? I thought you were teaching the class Wanda?” Agatha didn’t think her scowl could get any deeper, but she put in a good effort.
“Agatha, I did say we would be doing the class together. And despite how much you pretend to not care about what I do, I know you know I teach Hoop and Trapeze, not Aerial Yoga!” Wanda finally took some pity on her, reaching out with a gentle nudge, her voice softening a smidge. “But hey, me and Billy will go either side of you and help you out. We won't let you embarrass yourself. Promise.”
“Yeah because needing help from a child and your own personal teacher in a group lesson isn’t embarrassing at all.” Agatha muttered. Although the thought of Wanda and Billy flanking her in class like personal bodyguards did reassure her a little.
Not that she would ever admit it. She would rather chop off her own-
All thoughts of bodily mutilation were abruptly thrown out of the metaphorical window as a wild cackle echoed around the studio, hitting Agatha’s eardrums like one of those beautiful blasts of thunder that come with a particularly vicious lightning strike.
The kind that hits so close and powerfully you can feel the storm seeping into you, cleaning you out with the freshest breaths of air and filling you with the raw electricity of nature. Her favourite.
The shrieks that followed did nothing to dampen the lightning that had struck into her soul and infiltrated her veins. Nor did the vision that greeted her eyes, as she turned for the first time to look through the wide arches of the waiting area into the main studio.
Several pieces of brightly coloured fabric were hanging from rigging on the ceiling throughout the room, long ribbons that reached all the way down onto large blue crash mats on the floor. Maybe Agatha had inadvertently paid more attention to Wanda and Billy’s constant ramblings on all things aerial and pole than she thought, because something in her brain distantly identified them as ‘silks’.
It barely registered as a thought though as her eyes were drawn, as if by magnets, towards the deep green silk at the side. This one didn’t seem to have a crash mat. And it was this one that the cackle had clearly emanated from.
Well not from the silk itself. Rather the woman dangling upside down about a third of the way up, green silks running between her straddled legs, crossing over behind her back, and held in place by her armpits as they came around in front of her again to dangle down to the ground.
She had clearly just landed in the position after dropping from much higher. Her eyes sparkled with exhilaration, head thrown back in near hysterical cackling, each note hitting Agatha like a small aftershock as she gazed transfixed at the woman.
She had raven black hair, messily fixed back in a low, loose plait, and warm olive skin that Agatha could see was strongly defined with muscle even from across the room.
So much muscle .
Her abs were clearly on view despite the best efforts of the matching green sports bra and leggings that nearly blended with the silks. Silks that she was now taking into her hands to wrap further around each knee before placing the ends back over her shoulders.
Agatha watched transfixed as, with a quick swing, the woman flung herself up and forwards; her head, arms and torso sailing through the parting of silks above her to land suspended horizontally facing the floor, as if she were in a parachute harness.
Without missing a beat she reached down, gathering the parts of the silks that were hanging below her up into her arms. When there was only a very small tail left, she started swinging it round in a slow circle below her, speeding up as the action caused the whole silk to spin, faster and faster until she was whipping around so fast Agatha couldn’t make out the details of her face.
The cackling had faded away before the spinning began, but now a loud whooping started up as the woman dropped the bundle of silks she had been holding and curled up tight in a ball. Somehow she began spinning even faster and Agatha was cheering in her head …or was that cheers from other people in the studio? She couldn’t tell.
Just as abruptly the woman sprang out of the ball, spread-eagling as she slowed slightly, before commencing the execution of a series of moves that as far as Agatha could tell could only be termed as contortion.
It was mesmerising.
Watching her flow from one shape to another, her speed ebbing and flowing as she moved from wider shapes to narrow and back again. Agatha was hypnotised.
Hours could have passed, months or years even, and Agatha wouldn’t have noticed, caught in the spell of the beautiful performance.
Eventually the spinning did slow to an end. With the very last of the momentum, the woman twisted around in the silks, before wriggling through some loops, ducking and diving, limbs flying around in a magical rhythm until suddenly she was dropping gently to the floor, landing in a feline crouch.
“Holy shit Rio! That was insane!”
Billy’s voice was alarmingly loud next to her, joining in with various similar calls from around the studio, cutting through the fog in Agatha’s brain.
She blinked.
What had just happened .
As some semblance of feeling returned to Agatha, she realised an unfamiliar sensation was wrapping itself around her insides, spiralling up through her at a slow crawl to where she could feel heat rising in her cheeks. It was battling with a much more familiar sensation - panic.
Agatha didn’t do strange unidentified emotions that caused her body to react in pleasant horridly peculiar ways. Nope. Absolutely not.
She should leave.
Yes. That was exactly what she was going to do. Just as soon as her eyes could be convinced to break away from this jaw-droppingly gorgeous woman.
This ‘Rio’.
Who had clearly been dropped right in front of Agatha from some otherworldly heavenly dimension. Who was making Agatha feel like she was going to claw her way out of her skin. And not necessarily in a bad way . This Rio who-
“Thanks Billy!” The sound struck Agatha in another bolt of lightning. She was barely recovered from the first sent her way from-
This Rio who was now very decidedly staring directly at Agatha.
A flicker of.. something, crossing her face as her eyes darkened. A third bolt of lightning struck Agatha as their eyes connected. Which was ridiculous because everyone knows lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice.
Let alone three times .
Nevertheless it felt like a bolt of energy connecting, drawing a tether between them, crackling and sparking. Whatever was going on in Rio’s head seemed to match perfectly with those swirling feelings kicking up a storm in Agatha. Is what Agatha would have thought if she had feelings.
She categorically did not .
Damn the Teenager to hell and back for standing next to Agatha while drawing the attention of the divine creature who was single-handedly ruining Agatha’s life without even trying.
She needed to get out. She needed to leave this building and never return. Get in her car and keep driving until she ran out of road. And then keep going until she ran out of land. And then keep going some more. Or maybe she should just walk out into the road. Preferably into fast oncoming traffic. Anything to remove her from this cataclysmic, emotional hellscape she-
Rio smirked.
Agatha stopped breathing.
Rio was fucking smirking at Agatha.
She had stared deep into Agatha’s soul, poured electricity into her veins, made Agatha want to rip herself apart. And then smirked .
Agatha was burning up. She was sparking on the inside, fire licking up through her as she tried not at all she did not try the slightest bit tried desperately to tear her eyes away and sever this connection.
She was going to combust. She was going to-
Rio winked and a gasp ripped through her.
Oh. Oh.
She had forgotten to breathe.
Oxygen flooded back into her as the fires started to cool. If you could consider a gentle redirection to the already flaming beacons on her cheeks as ‘cooling’.
Once again time had become meaningless to Agatha. But this time she was sharing that space with someone else.
Not that Rio was just ‘someone’. It had been all of two minutes and it already felt wrong to consider her in that way.
They hadn’t spoken a word to each other. Agatha didn’t even know for definite if Rio was her name (she very sensibly didn’t make a habit of listening to Teen too closely).
But something about Rio called to her. Struck at her relentlessly with all the force of a hurricane, the havoc of the storm and the fresh breath of new life that comes afterwards all tangled up together.
It was too much. Rio was too much. She was-
She was turning away.
Turning away, going back to her confusing, terrifying, awe-inspiring silks. Not looking back again as she stretched her stupidly, stupidly toned arms over her head, leaning from side to side briefly to stretch out her back muscles.
Her back muscles .
Agatha stopped breathing aga-
Rio was turning away from Agatha like it was the easiest fucking thing in the world. Like she could just carry on with her day, carry on with her life, her death-defying stunts, like it was nothing.
Scaling deftly back up those ridiculous verdant silks and starting to wrap herself again in a complicated set of knots Agatha bet she would look fantastic wrapped up in only the silks like she hadn’t just tied an unravelable knot between the two of them akin to some sort of twisted thread of fate which Agatha absolutely did not believe in.
Wanda and Billy were talking at her side. Probably trying to speak to Agatha, but she was incapable of processing a single thing besides the infuriating woman who still had not looked back at her.
There was no doubt.
This was the worst day of Agatha Harkness’ life.