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The flat above the restaurant really is convenient.
Rio finds, more often than she thought she would, that she spends the night there in the bed she bought Agatha now more than a few months ago, cold nose pressed to the base of Agatha’s neck, hand cupped to her belly to keep her close.
It’s easy to slip upstairs and wait for her to finish her shift, or to take herself home with the promise to herself that she won’t miss Agatha, won’t need to go back there later when all the lights in the restaurant have been shut off, the hum of the bar fridges the only noise if you’re not listening for the soft creaking of the floorboards as Agatha pads around upstairs.
Rio frequently breaks this promise—her own apartment too lifeless now that she’s become so used to sharing space with a woman who has no idea how or when to be quiet. Not that she minds.
It’s harder in the mornings though—and not just because Agatha refuses to close her curtains when she sleeps—
(“I don’t like waking up in the dark. I don’t like feeling trapped.”)
—waking Rio up with the sun and the birds, but because it’s harder to keep where she’s been away from prying eyes.
She’s not sure how Agatha feels about the rest of the team knowing about them, and she’s kind of scared to ask at this point, which is why she’s spending many of her mornings sneaking out of the flat like she’s a teenager again.
And maybe this arrangement is fine with Agatha—she’s never questioned why Rio’s rarely there when she wakes up, has never done anything other than vehemently agree when Rio asks are we keeping things private? and so Rio resolves for it to be fine with her too.
The only problem she really has with it is that for the first time in her life, Rio has something she desperately wants to show off. She imagines telling that to the Rio she was before, the one who had only just met young, combative Agatha Harkness—and the thought makes her smile.
She knows they haven’t been together long—though Agatha insists this is her longest relationship to date—which would be a concern, mostly because it’s only been a little over three months, but at least she knows Agatha’s serious about her.
Which is good because Rio’s pretty sure she’s falling in love with her.
She’s pretty sure she’s been falling since the day she met her, which is something she’s sure Agatha’s ego never needs to hear.
But ever since they started dating, not just… doing whatever they were doing before, Agatha’s seemed to want to keep Rio around a lot longer. She’s stopped physically assaulting Ralph—well, on a regular basis anyway, she’s started taking Rio’s advice on her cooking—
(“Agatha, let me teach you. I could cook these blindfolded.”
“You have that blindfold lying around anywhere?”
“Why? Do you want me to prove it?”
“Not particularly. Might come in handy elsewhere though.”)
—and she’s even helped Rio replace the restaurant sign, taking it from Sag c th to Sage & Scythe like it belongs, even if all the help she provided was yelling at Rio from ground level while Rio stood precariously balanced on a ladder and tried to individually hang each of the letters in a straight line.
It’s things like these that have Rio thinking of the restaurant as theirs, and not just hers alone. If there was a way to tell Agatha that without scaring her off then she would but—fuck, that seems really fucking unlikely.
Rio tries to keep herself away from Agatha as much as she can in work, stays out of the kitchen unless necessary. It’s not as hard as it used to be—Agatha’s a much more trustworthy head chef, and Rio doesn’t need to step in like she used to.
It’s maybe worth mentioning that the less she sees Agatha, the more productive they both are, neither of them getting distracted by what they know they could be doing instead.
Which is why, as she heads to the kitchen, a pre-order form folded in her hand to hand to her head chef, Rio repeats the manta ‘do not look at her chest, do not look at her lips, do not look at her chest, do not look at her lips, do not look—’ over and over in her mind.
The kitchen is a buzz of noise—chattering and laughter layered over the music playing through the speaker. It’s rare now that Rio will push open the kitchen door and be greeted with an argument or the deafening sounds of pots clattering to the ground because they’ve been stacked far too high on the wire rack after they’ve been washed.
This really is a point of pride for Rio, and every so often she’ll say this to Agatha—the positive reinforcement definitely doesn’t hurt.
She passes Billy at the dishwasher, gives him a grin and a wave which he returns—unfortunately spraying water from the rinse arm everywhere until he notices, sheepishly unclenches his fingers from the hose trigger, cheeks flushing.
Rio tries to hold back a laugh as she makes her way further into the kitchen, seeking out Agatha.
“She’s in the walk-in.” Wanda doesn’t even have to look at her, doesn’t even have to ask. Maybe Rio should fire her—mothers seem to know everything.
As to not give herself away so soon, Rio slows, leans a hand against the wall, acts very, very nonchalant when she says, “Who? Alice?”
Wanda doesn’t answer her for a moment, leaves Rio to awkwardly watch her season the chicken she’s cooking. Wanda’s lips are curved into a frown— too curved for it to be genuine, and Rio can practically feel the smile she’s fighting to keep from her face.
“Alice isn’t in today.”
Right.
Yeah, Rio knew that. Because she sets the rotas. And because they’re already four hours into the shift.
Rio clears her throat, feels heat rising in her face but is saved from having to scramble for an answer by someone barrelling their way through the swing door into the main part of the kitchen.
Or well—saved maybe isn’t the correct word.
There’s a brief shooting pain that is somehow both in the tips of her fingers and behind her eyes. On reflex her hand jerks away from the pain, doesn’t get very far until the door swings back into the frame and releases her.
So apparently not a wall that she’d been leaning on, but the doorframe. Rio holds her hand a little limply in front of her face, studying it. No blood—a good sign.
“Oh shit, Rio,” Agatha’s voice cuts through her inspection and she drops her hand down by her side, “Fuck, I couldn’t see you through the fucking door.”
Agatha’s hands are on her shoulders as she tries to put herself in Rio’s eyeline, mustn’t be convinced she’s okay.
Why doesn’t she look convinced? Rio’s fine.
“It’s fine.” She says, offers a smile that doesn’t have the intended effect because Agatha only frowns, wipes her hair back from her face. Rio’s never seen her so concerned so it must have looked bad. She feels okay now though. She verbally insists that she is, once more.
“Let me check your hand then.”
Rio straightens, glances down at her own hand where it remains by her side. It looks fine—maybe a little bruised but that’s all. She flashes it to Agatha briefly, “See. It’s fine.”
Agatha reaches for her hand but she drops it back down, ignores the flash of pain that sears through her fingers when Agatha intercepts the movement, catches her hand and holds it up to her own face.
“Rio, what the hell?” Her eyes are wide as she checks her over.
“I don’t think your fingers are supposed to look like that.” Wanda says from just behind Agatha, probably keeps her words and her tone level so as not to scare her.
Agatha does no such thing, “Your fingertips are out of their fucking sockets, Rio.”
And as Rio looks down, eyes actually focusing on her hand, she sees that, though Agatha is possibly a little dramatic, they’re both right—her fingers definitely aren’t supposed to look like that—the tips of her middle fingers off-center and bent at a weird angle, the quick swelling and bruising probably doing nothing to help her case.
And that’s when the blinding pain starts, builds up from her fingers and rushes to her head, leaves her ears ringing, and eyes blurry. Rio swallows down bile threatening to come up. Actually seeing her own injury seems to have cut any sort of adrenaline short, and she closes her eyes, tries to stop the sudden swirling of her vision.
“I need to take you to the hospital.” She can hear Agatha saying, and Rio shakes her head a few times before it makes her even dizzier.
“Nope, no hospital. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.” Agatha insists, sounds frustrated, voice close to Rio’s face like she wants her to look at her, but Rio can’t open her eyes, can’t deal with the disappointed look on Agatha’s face when she refuses to let her take her to the hospital. Or, maybe—conflictingly—even worse, is the fear that seeing Agatha like that will cut through all that, and she’ll agree to let her take her, will have to internally relive the worst day of her life on repeat.
Rio thinks that second thought might be worse. She hasn’t stepped foot inside a hospital since—well—since she lost her family, she supposes. She’s not in much of a rush to go again.
Especially not now she has none of them left, the true last surviving member of her family.
“Rio, I swear to god, let me take you.”
Rio forces her eyes open, looks somewhere just past Agatha’s face, “I’m fine. I’m sure it looks worse than it is.”
Even Rio’s not convinced.
Agatha huffs, drops her hands from her face, “Rio, your fingers are broken. Like, I’m pretty sure it’s not even a question. You need to get them looked at.”
Rio backs away, slips around Agatha, ignores Wanda’s piercing gaze, “Okay, well then I can go myself.”
“And drive with which hand, Rio?” Agatha stomps after her, which she should have expected, really.
“I’ll be fine!” She speeds over to the first aid kit, pulls it down with her left hand—her uninjured hand, and starts rifling through it for the medical tape, rips it open with her teeth and starts crudely wrapping her fingers together, grits her teeth through the pain.
“That doesn’t look very fine.” She ignores Billy’s mumbling when she turns round, not a single person has gone back to what they were supposed to be doing.
“You’re my head chef. I need you here.” Rio hopes she sounds more confident that she feels, looks Agatha in the eyes like it’ll help convince her.
Agatha takes a few steps towards her, “Yeah, and I’m also your—” She cuts herself off.
Your—
Rio doesn’t have time to think about it.
Not when Agatha looks embarrassed. Agatha never looks embarrassed.
Rio sees her glance around at her coworkers, her friends, and doesn’t want them to know. Their private relationship suddenly feels more like a secret.
“Okay, well,” Agatha doesn’t meet her eyes, leaves Rio feeling desperately like she’s done something wrong, but doesn’t know what, “Someone should drive you. It,” She swallows thick, “It doesn’t have to be me.”
And then she leaves, practically speed walks away, slams through that stupid fucking swing door again, is probably heading to the back door for a smoke.
Rio hates that she’s pushed Agatha away, hates even more that Agatha is so uncomfortable with anyone knowing about them—especially given Rio’s own feelings.
And so she doesn’t chase after Agatha.
She just stands and stares at the now still door, unaware of everyone’s eyes on her until Billy breaks her out of her trance, “I could drive you.”
“Billy—” Wanda starts.
“I’m a good driver!” Billy whines like a child. A child who will possibly drive Rio to her death even before she reaches the hospital—she has no intention of actually getting in the car. Her fingers might not heal the same but that’s fine—she’s not a chef anymore, “And it’s gonna be busy tonight, who else is gonna go?” He challenges Wanda with a look, “Didn't Rio say yesterday you'd have like, twenty starters on pre-order?”
Twenty five now, Rio stares down at the crumpled order form now by her feet.
Rio, head still pounding and feeling like if she gets involved she might throw up, stays silent, watches Wanda stare him down as she weighs up her options.
“Fine.”
She only looks away from Billy to sharply glance at Rio, then makes a beeline towards her. Rio doesn’t react fast enough and really—she should be able to fire Wanda because the other woman grabs her by the collar of her shirt in one hand, snatches the first aid kit with the other, and marches her out to her own office, leaves no room for argument, calls over her shoulder to Billy, “Bring your car around.”
“I can walk, Wanda.” Rio mumbles like she isn’t Wanda’s boss.
Wanda doesn’t answer, gently forces Rio down into her desk chair, “I’m retaping these.” She says, makes Rio present her hand.
Rio supposes there’s no real getting out of this and so complies.
It’s silent for a bit as Wanda starts retaping her fingers—much better than Rio between her mouth and one hand had been able to do. She wonders if she’s had to do this before—if Billy, or more likely Tommy have ever hurt themselves like this.
The thought spirals—what if Rio’s own child broke a finger on the playground? Would she freeze up? Deny them the care they so obviously need because of Rio’s own feelings?
And it is obvious now looking at her fingers out of the heat of the moment. They look fucking horrible. They will not heal properly on their own.
If she doesn’t do this now, how dare she bring life into the world without every capability of taking care of them fully?
How would she even go to doctor’s appointments with Ag—fuck, fuck, fuck, she really needs to talk to Agatha.
“Why are you pushing her away?” Wanda says, interrupts Rio’s sickly swirling panic. She doesn’t need to ask for clarification on who Wanda means.
“I’m not.” Rio says like she doesn’t know that’s exactly what she’s done.
“You are,” Wanda’s clearly not in the mood to appease her. It’s the first time Rio’s truly experienced this first hand—her protectiveness over Agatha, and she’s glad for it in a way, knows this is Agatha’s family, “I thought things were going well between the two of you.”
Rio finds it hard to swallow, hopes her face doesn’t give anything away. She knows they’re being careful now— Agatha and her, but there’s a chance this is all just assumption based on how they were before. Why has Agatha changed so much?
Maybe, now that this is more real—now that they’ve passed the marker for Agatha’s longest relationship, she’s beginning to get bored. Maybe the thrill of being with someone older has lost its spark, and that twists the knife further. What if Agatha wants to end things when Rio’s falling in love with her?
It’s only been a few months and Rio already can’t separate any thought of marriage, of children, of family from Agatha.
(She chooses to ignore the part of her brain telling her this isn’t a recent development—that she’d been having these thoughts when everything really was casual between them.)
Rio’s never had this thought. She can’t tell if her brain is simply opening up to new thoughts, or if she’s panicking enough to stop it from working at all.
“Rio?”
She shakes herself out of it, “She’s a better kitchen manager now, yes.”
Wanda glares at her. Rio can’t tell if it’s playful or not, “No, Rio. Romantically.”
“Romantically?” Rio’s laugh is crazed, “There’s nothing romantic going on.”
Wanda finishes taping her fingers, checks over her work, glances at Rio again and again as if willing her to change her answer before she does it for her.
“So Agatha calls you baby and you stay here more nights than you don’t because,” She waves a hand around as if trying to find the right words, “You’re just friends.”
Right. So Wanda knows.
“You know.” She doesn’t bother making it a question—there’s probably no point.
“Was it supposed to be a secret?” Wanda cringes as her eyes track Rio’s probably pitiful expression, “If so, I’m not telling you any of mine.”
Rio stops and starts a couple of times, and then, “Does everyone know?”
The way Wanda’s mouth pulls to the side as she thinks over her answer tells her everything she needs to know.
“I think I fucked up.”
“Oh, you think?” Wanda’s laugh is entirely mirthless, “Why don’t you want people to know?”
“Why doesn’t Agatha want people to know?”
Wanda’s responding laugh is actually filled with amusement this time, “The same Agatha who finds any excuse to touch you in a room full of people? That Agatha?”
Rio taps the fingers of her uninjured hand against the desk, catches her bobbing a leg up and down in a way that definitely doesn’t make her look full of anxious energy. Has she really been spiraling for no reason? Have they really been hiding for no reason?
The truth—the only real truth—is that if there’s a future to be had with Agatha, she can’t let it manifest without sorting out some shit first.
Which is why, when Billy flings open the door to the office, looking a strange and worrying combination of scared and excited, Rio only feels the slightest bit of hesitation when following him out to his car.
(It’s probably a good thing that Billy’s already peeled out of the parking lot when he says, “It’ll be good for me to get more driving experience. I’ve never been this far out without my mom before.”)
✦
As confirmed by the doctor, Agatha was right—she had broken two of her fingers.
And it’s probably worth sitting through Billy’s constant jabbering in the waiting room to have them put back in place. Looking at the x-ray that had been done hadn’t filled her with much hope of her using those fingers for anything precise ever again.
Rio’s mind is a traitor because she doesn’t think of who she’s been for most of her adult life. She doesn’t picture the elaborate dishes that had once been her greatest pride, plating up meals with tweezers, delicately placing herbs and flowers atop dishes her staff at Sage & Scythe would never have even heard of.
Instead, Rio pictures the notes she sometimes leaves for Agatha when she has to leave her still sleeping in the morning—pictures how she wouldn’t be able to hold a pen in her dominant hand, not for a long while. How she never wants Agatha to not know how much she cares for her, but—if she was stupid enough, wouldn’t be able to crouch beside their bed—Agatha’s bed, lean on the nightstand and scrawl notes to her while she watches Agatha’s hand reach for her in sleep.
Rio imagines a future where she lets the bone heal into place where it had been broken, her thoughts overlapping the doctor’s words about the stiffness, about the difficulty moving it, about pain that she doesn’t need to feel. She thinks about a child—her child, thinks about them asking for help with arts and crafts that she should excel at, stuck between knowing what she’s capable of and actually doing it.
Ultimately, this is when she knows she’s making the right decision.
✦
On the drive home, Billy continuing his yapping from earlier—she now knows way too much about Eddie—Rio realizes she needs to talk to Agatha. Maybe it’s too soon to have this conversation, but she thinks a little honesty might do them some good.
She intends to speak with her tomorrow but the hesitant side eye and grimace Billy sends her way tells her he’s not driving her to her apartment.
“Agatha called while you were in there.” Is all he says, and it’s all he needs to—Agatha doesn’t leave much room for argument.
✦
The big speech she’s half prepared falls flat when she opens the door to the flat above the restaurant—now with her own key cut due to how often she’s there—Agatha meets her at the door with a glare, doesn’t so much as say hello before she’s storming away from her to the bedroom.
“Agatha—”
“That was so stupid, Rio.”
“Yes, I—I know.” Rio nearly trips over her own feet in her bid to follow.
Agatha slips into an unmade bed—and god, it’s so stupid for Rio to have thought she doesn’t know Agatha because it only takes a second for her to realize she doesn’t want Rio to think she’s been waiting up for her, even though Agatha’s the reason she’s here—she’s asked for Rio.
Rio doesn’t know what else to do with Agatha staring silently at her from bed other than to get undressed herself. Agatha huffs and rolls her eyes when she sees Rio struggling, fingers in a splint, pushes herself to the edge of the bed to help Rio out of her clothes, eyes not softening even once.
She pushes Rio away once she’s helped her into a loose pair of boxers to sleep in, settles back against the pillows.
There aren’t any more words spoken between them as Rio readies herself for bed—she doesn’t know if talking will make things worse right now.
In fact, there aren’t any words spoken until Rio’s slipped between the covers next to Agatha, the fingers of her good hand twitching to reach for her, Agatha switching off the lamp on her nightstand and dousing the room in darkness.
“What would have happened if I wasn’t there, Rio?” Agatha’s voice sounds more vulnerable in the dark, she sounds younger, less sure of herself when it’s just her voice—not her exaggerated movements and facial expressions that are sure to distract anyone from her true feelings, “What if it was more serious? Would you even have told me?”
“I don’t know.” And those words were definitely the wrong ones—Agatha immediately turning away from her, Rio feeling the loss of connection even in the dark, “I mean—I was thinking about it. Or something like it when I was in there.”
She hears Agatha suck in a breath before she feels behind her, reaches for Rio, “I don’t want to talk right now. I want to know you’re here. Safe. But I don’t want to talk to you. Not yet.”
So Rio carefully wraps an arm around Agatha, mindful of her fingers, “We can talk in the morning.” She mumbles against Agatha’s back.
It takes a second for her to respond, “In the morning.”
✦
Agatha isn’t there when Rio wakes.
She’s only half surprised.
She slips out of bed, dresses herself in loose pants and a t-shirt—her fingers are not in any position to do up shirt buttons or a tie. Maybe the restaurant isn’t the only thing Rio should have been thinking of as theirs. Her clothes are in Agatha’s dresser, a toothbrush in the glass on her sink, her heart, she thinks, stays here in this flat with Agatha when she’s supposed to be at home. But where is home really if not with Agatha?
It’s this thought and the one that tells her not to stupidly waste her time anymore that has Rio padding downstairs in a pair of slides she absolutely wouldn’t have turned up to work in—so far from kitchen safe, ironic since that’s what’s got her here in the first place.
She’s early enough that when the door closes behind her, when she makes her way around the bar to head to the kitchen, that Alice is coming in the side door to start her prep shift.
They both stop, stare at each other. Rio can see the way Alice’s eyes roam all over her body and she forces herself to appear more confident about this than she really is.
“So you’ve stopped hiding your relationship now?”
Oh great, so everyone does know.
“We weren’t hi—”
“Yes, you were,” Alice says, no room for bullshit. It’s ridiculous really for Rio to act as though they weren’t, but now knowing everyone knew anyway, she feels embarrassed, “It’s weird. You know we’ve known about you guys since forever, right?”
There’s a sort of stalemate in which Alice’s face tells her she’s realizing Rio did not know.
“I, uh,” She swallows, eyes darting in the direction of the kitchen, “I need to talk to her first.”
“I’ll give you fifteen minutes alone if you clock me in from now.”
That’s not a hard decision, “Done.”
Alice raises two fingers in a salute, already backing her way up to the door she came in from, and Rio makes her way to the kitchen, tries not to fall over in her slides with the speed she's going, hopes Agatha’s actually there since she wasn’t supposed to be on shift until later in the morning.
Rio hears a thud from further in when she pushes the kitchen door open, seeks out the noise. There’s no usual smell of Agatha preparing sauces in the morning, has no idea what she’s even been doing if she’s not cooking, until—
Rio’s body is stunned into standstill as she watches Agatha wrestle one of the swing doors—one of the ones she got her fingers trapped in—to the ground, muttering to herself as she does, probably cursing Rio for forcing her into this.
“Hi.” She says, instead of anything close to how she wanted to start speaking to Agatha.
Agatha drops a screwdriver to the floor from shock, gathers herself and the screwdriver, “I’m doing a great job, thank you very much,” She says, even though Rio hadn’t said anything about the door, “I googled it. It’s recommended that two people take a door off, so I’d say that’s testament to my skill.”
“Of course,” Rio says. Agatha’s very capable at anything she puts her mind to, would never doubt her, “I’m just impressed to see you doing manual labor.” She says, thinks back to when Agatha got her new bed delivered and lounged around on the sofa waiting for Rio to build it for her. Thinks back to when she built her new nightstands from flatpack instructions after Rio’s aunt’s ramshackle one spontaneously collapsed in on itself.
“I—” Agatha stands to full height, screwdriver clenched tight in her fist like she might stab Rio with it. She might even deserve it, “I don’t want you getting hurt anymore,” And then, a lot more reluctant, “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Rio takes a step closer, feels a lot more confident when Agatha doesn’t back away, doesn’t break eye contact, “I think I’ve done more of the hurting lately,” And when Agatha’s face drops from its hardened front, she knows she’s right, “I had no idea you wanted people to know about us. I thought—” Rio looks up like there’s anybody up there who can help her, “I thought you didn’t want me the way I want you.”
“Yeah, well,” Agatha tries to run a hand through her hair—as she always does to try and soothe herself, obviously forgetting about the screwdriver in hand and huffing, red faced as she has to untangle it, “I was trying to be respectful of your boundaries. You’re a pretty private person,” And then, as if she’s only just heard Rio, as if she’s had her own speech planned, “The way you want me?”
“I—” Rio feels herself losing track of her thoughts the more Agatha speaks, which isn’t great when she’s trying to reassure her.
Agatha gets there before she can, “If the way you want me isn’t the same way I want you, then you can keep it,” She starts, arms crossing over her chest, “If you don’t want this. If you don’t see a future with this—with us, then tell me now,” Then she takes a few steps forward, levels Rio with a look, eyes holding the depth of the ocean, “Because I’m all in, Rio.”
And when Rio speaks it’s without the thought even fully forming in her mind before it leaves her lips, words tumbling out, completely unable to stop them, “I don’t imagine any other future. I imagine you, and I imagine us, and I’ve never pictured my future so much as in the time I’ve known you. I don’t want us to be a secret,” She pitches forward, comes close to Agatha, and when she doesn’t pull away, brings her uninjured hand to cup Agatha’s face, smoothes a thumb over her cheek, “I want you to be my family, and I want—” There’s no point in stopping now, “I want our family to be more than just us. Eventually. That’s what I want.”
Agatha’s eyes are open wide, lips parted and it takes everything in Rio to stand with her words, not back away. And it’s worth it when Agatha leans forward, captures Rio’s lips with her own. It’s worth it even when partway through the kiss, Agatha pulls back to punch her in the arm.
“Don’t you ever do that to me again, I swear, Rio, I will leave you. I lo—”
Rio is stunned into silence, thinks she knows what Agatha was about to say from the way the blush in her cheeks suddenly looks more put there out of something other than anger.
Before she gets a chance to respond though, Agatha continues, “Why the hell would you do that?” She punches her once more for good measure before wrapping a hand around her neck, keeps Rio close.
It’s probably time, Rio supposes, and so takes a deep breath and says, “Can I tell you about my family?”
It’s then that the door squeaks open, “Alright, break it up.”
Agatha seems reluctant to let her go, even with Alice’s arrival. She kisses Rio once more, just briefly, “Tonight?”
“Tonight.” Rio says with a nod and a smile.
And Agatha is there waiting for her when she finishes work. Rio has a feeling Agatha breaking her fingers may have just changed her life—much like Agatha herself has already done once before.