Chapter Text
The first time Pink Hearts met Max Hatter, she was ten and decided she was going to marry him.
It lasted exactly thirteen minutes.
That was roughly how long it took for the impossibly pretty boy with black-purple hair, bright brown eyes, and the sort of smile that looked permanently up to no good to convince her he'd brought her a rare Wonderland sweet imported from the Caterpillar's Tea Gardens.
Pink had accepted it with both hands.
She'd thanked him, cheeks flushed, blindly charmed in the same way every princess was written to be for their prince.
She'd taken one very enthusiastic bite.
It had been soap.
Not enough to hurt her, of course. Just enough to leave her spitting bubbles across the marble floors of Hearts Palace while Max Hatter doubled over laughing so hard he nearly fell into one of her mother's thorny rose bushes.
She wished he did.
And then she had cried.
For approximately thirty seconds.
Then she'd stolen his hat and tossed it to one of her many rosy flower-coated, very hungry flamingos.
"Pinkie!"
She turned just in time to watch Max emerge from the hedge maze, his hair sticking out in every direction, sprinting after the flamingo with all the dignity of someone who'd absolutely deserved this.
"Tell your stupid— pink thing— to give it back!"
"I don't have it!"
"It's your pet!"
"She's not a pet! She's my friend! And was trying to be helpful!"
"That's pathetic! And you're a liar!" He hissed with all the venom he could muster for a eleven year old boy of ruined pride, his hand shot out in the air, reaching just enough to brush against the hat before the flamingo craned its unnaturally long head and lifted the fabric out of reach, as if mocking him.
She gasped. Nobody ever dared to call her that— except Red, but it was always more lighthearted and not in a tone that promised an endless battle. "Prankster!" Granted, that may have not been the best insult ever— but she was ten and found the boy who made her chew soap deeply attractive.
"Princess!"
"Hatter!"
He stuck his tongue out.
She stuck hers out farther.
By the time Bridget Hearts and Maddox Hatter found them, the palace gardens looked less like the pride of Wonderland royalty and more like they'd hosted an extremely aggressive croquet tournament.
One card soldier— her favourite that always accompanied her when her mother couldn't— had somehow ended up dangling upside down from an apple tree trying to stop Max from chasing her flamingo.
Several rose bushes had been flattened.
Mr. Snuffles—the palace flamingo and newly appointed accessory thief—was still proudly wearing Max's favorite hat.
There was a very long silence.
"...Well," Maddox finally said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "That's certainly one way to spend an afternoon."
Her mother wasn't nearly as amused.
"Rose Hearts."
The use of her real name— one that she had never quite gotten used to nor sticked when her mother affectionately referred to her and her sister as the colours of her two favourite things: red hearts and the pink cupcakes she'd bake as a girl— was never a promising sign.
Pink clasped her hands neatly behind her back, doing her best impression of innocent. "Mommy, it wasn't entirely my fault."
"It was seventy percent your fault," Max muttered, staring at his now bruised knees as a result of tripping and dragging through the grass whilst chasing for the bouncing creature.
She gasped, her head sharply turning to him. "Seventy?"
"Eighty."
"You started it."
"You threw my hat to a flamingo."
"You gave me soap."
"I thought you'd notice!"
Her mother sighed the sort of sigh reserved for children whose combined talent for chaos surpassed all reasonable expectations, loud and grating. "Maddox."
"I know," he replied, already pinching the bridge of his nose again. "Max."
Max straightened immediately.
"Grounded."
His face fell. It almost hurt Pink to look at.
Bridget looked toward Pink.
"So are you."
Pink's jaw dropped. "But—"
"No buts."
"He—"
"No."
"He started—"
"Especially no. We don't throw blame— we accept responsibility."
Pink shot Max the sort of glare that promised future retaliation.
He grinned.
She decided, then and there, that she hated him.
It was, admittedly, easier than admitting she'd thought he was the cutest boy she'd ever seen.
Because back then, before everything became complicated, Maddox Hatter visited Hearts Palace almost every week.
Her mother and Maddox had been friends— him being her advisor— long before Red, or Pink or Max were born. She remembered endless afternoons filled with tea that somehow always went cold because the adults became distracted talking about impossible inventions, forgotten corners of Wonderland, and stories that sounded too ridiculous to be true.
Max always came with him.
Unfortunately.
He hid frogs in her shoes.
She replaced the ink in his fountain pen with glitter.
He convinced her one of the palace statues winked whenever she wasn't looking.
She told everyone he'd cried after falling off a teacup ride.
Neither story was entirely true.
Neither of them cared.
Their rivalry became something almost... routine.
If Pink was there, Max inevitably was too.
If Max was there, Pink inevitably found herself plotting increasingly creative revenge just so she could grab his attention— he'd hate it, then somewhat look amused that the "spoiled princess" had guts.
Everyone else learned to move the expensive furniture.
Then everything changed.
Maddox stopped coming to the palace.
At first it was only the occasional cancelled visit, accompanied by hastily scribbled notes apologizing for being "caught up in research."
Then weeks became months.
The servants whispered.
That Maddox was going, well, mad. About the word of an item she couldn't repeat because she was a child who couldn't bother with such a big name. A mythical pocket watch. Impossible changes.
Pink hadn't understood most of it.
She'd only understood that Max had started smiling less, Red would say he had gotten meaner— but Pink always that he looked more.. lonely. Lonelier than he probably wanted to say out loud.
And one day...
They were gone.
Banished to the Isle, her mother had declared.
Wonderland kept turning counter-clockwise in all its normalcy without them, and life, impossibly, settled back into something resembling normal.
Which, in hindsight, was where all of Pink's problems truly began.
The first Monday of the week after they had rescued her mother arrived with suspicious normalcy.
Students hurried through Auradon's sprawling halls, complaining about summer homework and impossible timetables. Pink preferred it that way.
Normal was good. Normal meant pretending everything was fine.
She was exceptionally good at pretending.
"... You know," Red said beside her, nudging her shoulder as they made their way toward History of United Realms, "you're glaring at him again."
Pink blinked. "I am not."
Red raised an eyebrow, leaning down to whisper in attempt to be subtle. "You've been staring at Max for the last thirty seconds."
"I've been glaring." She retorted, matter of factly.
"Mm." Red rolled her eyes, scanning the halls for the specific blue haired princess, swiftly sliding past rushing students.
"There is a difference." Pink added.
"If it helps you sleep at night." Red remarked, just as quickly.
Pink scoffed just as Max laughed at something Felix Facilier had said from across the corridor. "I sleep perfectly fine."
It wasn't even a particularly memorable laugh.
Just... his.
Easy.
Unrestrained.
Much like the laugh he'd burst out with when they were younger after he had swapped her shampoo with black hair dye— which resulted in Pink having black highlights for a week.
The kind that crinkled the corners of his eyes and made him throw his head back without caring who saw.
Sunlight spilled through the castle windows, catching in the purple highlights of his dark hair until it almost shimmered.
Pink's heart did something deeply humiliating, and she cursed internally.
Pink had always been quick to realize things.
She was quick to realize that her older sister— one who filled her childhood with tightly held hands and hushed whispers of stories they read together— had began tolerating her instead of enjoying her presence, that her mother, despite all her love, would always think of Red first when the word "daughter" was brought up, that her friends weren't in fact her friends but rather Red's friends, that she was nice and lovely but nothing to ever take seriously. That when she had said— in Max's attempt to help save her mother— he wasn't something trust worthy, she said it because she despised how much she truly was beginning to trust him.
She was also quick to realize that a few years surviving the Isle hadn't done nearly enough to dull Max Hatter's infuriating charm. If anything, it had only made him worse. Which, unfortunately for Pink, meant she'd inherited more from her mother than her pink hair, who had quite the note-worthy phase fixated on bad boys.
Red had followed her gaze.
Then she smiled.
It was the sort of smile that immediately made Pink sick because it was fine that Pink knew, but it wasn't fine that anyone else did.
"Oh," Red said softly.
"No." Pink countered, much more sharply and quickly holding up a pointed finger.
"I didn't say anything."
"You were about to."
"I was thinking it." Red admitted, shamelessly.
"Well, stop thinking it."
"You like him again."
Pink laughed. A little too quickly.
"Not again, silly! I never liked him." She had spoken with so much light hearted conviction she could almost fool herself into believing it. Almost.
"Oh yeah," Red droned on, nodding intensely. "Because carving your name next to his on the back of your drawings as a kid meant absolutely nothing."
Pink looked back across the hall.
Max had already disappeared into the classroom.
Good.
Excellent.
Perfect.
Because that meant he hadn't seen the way her pulse had stumbled over something as ridiculous as a laugh.
She'd had a childhood crush.
That was all.
People got over childhood crushes.
They certainly didn't spend years pretending to hate someone only to fall for them all over again.
"You're right." She exhaled, bravely facing her sister as they reached her locker. "It means absolutely nothing at all."
History of United Realms occupied one of the oldest buildings on Auradon Prep's campus, tucked between an ivy-covered clock tower and the east gardens where enchanted roses climbed impossibly high stone walls. The classroom itself still carried remnants of every kingdom that had helped build it. Stained-glass windows filtered the late-morning sunlight into patches of sapphire, emerald, and gold that stretched lazily across polished wooden floors. Ancient tapestries depicting treaties and coronations hung between shelves overflowing with books that occasionally shuffled themselves into alphabetical order whenever they felt like it.
Pink had always liked this room.
It smelled like old parchment, cedarwood, and faint traces of magic.
It reminded her of Wonderland.
"... Oh my hearts, No."
Red, halfway through pulling a notebook from her bag, paused. "What?"
Pink's eyes remained fixed on the seating chart nailed to the front wall. "My seat."
"...What about it?"
"It isn't my seat."
Red followed her gaze.
"Oh."
Professor Grimm was already arranging a stack of weathered textbooks behind his desk, seemingly oblivious to the small crisis unfolding three rows away.
Pink inhaled sharply before marching forward.
"Professor?"
Grimm hummed absentmindedly, his eyes remaining on his organized desk.
"My seat appears to have...wandered."
"It has." He confirmed with finality as he looked up, taking a sip of his coffee.
"I'd like it back." Pink murmured lowly with a smile tugged forcefully on her face.
"I'm afraid the seating chart disagrees."
She folded her arms. "I disagree with the seating chart."
"Noted." He bleakly retorted.
"...You've put me beside Hatter."
He turned his head to glance at his chart, widening his eyes and parting his lips to express a mocking shock. "It seems I have!"
"...Intentionally."
His expression dropped, placing down his cup. "I did."
Pink stared at him for several long seconds, waiting for the joke.
None came.
Behind her came an equally offended voice.
"...You've got to be kidding."
Pink turned.
Max stood in the doorway, one hand still gripping the strap of his bag while the other loosely held an iced coffee that had seen considerably better days. His once neatly tucked tie loosened despite it being barely nine in the morning, a lace undone on his shoe as if he had simply rolled out of bed with his barely kept hair, forced his feet into his shoes without care and rushed to class. Pink figured his alarm clock had something to do with it.
His eyes flicked between the seating chart...
... then her ...
...then back again.
"No."
Pink nodded. "My thoughts exactly."
He pointed dramatically. "I object."
Professor Grimm didn't even glance up.
"Noted."
"I haven't explained why yet." Max countered.
"I suspect it isn't original." Grimm sighs, as he gathered a stack of paper.
"It isn't."
Luis wandered in behind Max, taking one look at the two of them and immediately grinning. "Oh, this is going to be fun."
Felix, with Robbie trailing hot on his feet, peered over Luis' broad shoulder. "They're sitting together?" He actually looked impressed, and Pink almost heard the grin in his tone. "I give it until lunch."
"Lunch?" Luis laughed. "Optimistic."
"I was trying to have faith."
"In them?" Robbie raised a brow.
"In the fire extinguishers." Felix said, matter of factly.
Pink shot the three a look.
"We're perfectly capable of acting like mature adults."
Max looked genuinely offended and appalled. "Don't drag me into this."
"You literally just objected to sitting beside me."
"I object to a lot of things."
"Actually bothering to put yourself together in the morning appears to be one of them." Pink retorted, crossing her arms, turning her head to eye him up and down.
"It depends on the day— and hey, if you wanted a guy who wakes up early and spend hours getting ready, you're barking up the wrong tree. That's more of a.. HK thing." He grinned.
Grimm finally cleared his throat. "Mr. Hatter."
Max sighed dramatically enough to deserve applause before making his way toward the desk.
He dropped into the chair beside Pink with theatrical reluctance, letting his bag fall to the floor with a heavy thud.
For a brief moment...
Neither of them spoke.
It was strange.
Pink had spent years imagining what it would be like if Max ever came back from the Isle.
She'd imagined grand confrontations.
Perfectly rehearsed insults.
Maybe even an apology.
Instead...
He was sitting beside her complaining under his breath because the chair squeaked.
Somehow, that felt far more like Max than anything she'd imagined.
Grimm began the lesson, enchanted maps floating lazily through the air as tiny glowing dots shifted across their surfaces to demonstrate changing borders over the centuries.
Pink uncapped her fountain pen.
Max lasted exactly forty-three seconds before abandoning all attempts at taking notes.
Out of the corner of her eye she watched his pencil wander aimlessly across the page.
A top hat.
Another.
A smaller one.
A rabbit wearing one.
"... Really?"
Without looking up, he answered. "What?"
"You're drawing hats."
"I'm brainstorming."
"They're hats."
"They're different hats."
She leaned slightly closer despite herself. "...That one has a bow." She couldn't stop the smile that pulled at her lips.
"Exactly."
"So revolutionary."
"I know."
His pencil paused.
"You've been looking at my notebook for almost a minute."
Pink immediately straightened, facing her head forward once more.
"I have not."
"You have."
"I was observing."
"Sounds suspiciously like looking."
"I was making sure you weren't accidentally drawing the lesson."
He laughed.
It escaped before he could stop it.
Soft. Easy.
The kind of laugh that belonged to the eleven-year-old boy who'd once hidden soap inside a piece of candy just to see if she'd fall for it.
Her heart gave an irritating little flutter.
Absolutely not.
She refused.
She had survived Wonderland.
She had survived watching Max stand on the opposite side of everything she believed in before eventually finding his way back.
She was not—
Under any circumstances—
Going to develop another ridiculous childhood crush.
Again.
"...You're frowning."
Pink blinked.
"What?"
"You do this thing." Max gestured vaguely toward her face with his pencil. "Right here."
He tapped the space between his own eyebrows. "When you're thinking too hard."
"I do not." Pink murmured, brows furrowing as she turned her head to fully look at him.
"You've always done it."
"I knew you when we were kids.. for a bit," he said matter-of-factly. "Trust me."
She hated how casually he'd said it.
As though all those years...
All those memories...
Still belonged to both of them.
As though he'd never stopped carrying them, either.
Pink looked away first.
Because suddenly paying attention to Professor Grimm seemed significantly safer than looking at Max Hatter for another second.
Pink kept her eyes firmly on the chalkboard.
Or, more accurately, she kept them in the general direction of the chalkboard.
Professor Grimm's voice drifted comfortably through the room, calm and measured as enchanted maps floated overhead, kingdoms shifting across parchment whenever he tapped the air with his wand.
"...the formation of the United Realms was not simply a political alliance, but a cultural one. Traditions that had once been isolated to individual kingdoms became shared—"
Pink dutifully wrote that down.
Then paused.
Her pen hovered over the page.
She glanced sideways.
Max wasn't taking notes.
Of course he wasn't.
He'd somehow managed to balance his chair precariously on its back two legs, one boot hooked beneath the desk while his pencil wandered lazily across the margin of his notebook.
Hat.
Hat.
Rabbit.
Hat.
Another rabbit.
"...You're hopeless." Pink blurted, without thinking.
Without so much as looking up, he answered, "I've been called worse."
"I can imagine." Pink nodded, turning her head to look at him.
"You've called me worse." Max reminded, tilting his head. "Frequently. And creatively."
"I take pride in my work." Pink hummed, flicking her hair off her shoulder lightly with a manicured hand.
A corner of his mouth twitched. "I noticed."
Pink looked away before the smile threatening at the corners of her own lips could fully materialize again.
No.
She refused to enjoy talking to him. Cross that out. She didn't enjoy talking to him.
Professor Grimm continued explaining trade agreements between kingdoms, blissfully unaware—or perhaps entirely aware—that two of his students had quietly resumed a decade-old argument using voices barely above a whisper.
"...You know," Max murmured after another minute, "you're writing with purple ink."
Pink blinked, looking down. "...I am."
"You hate purple."
"I don't hate purple." She looked back up.
"You said it was an 'offensively indecisive colour' when you were ten after you saw I had the same colour in my hair."
She stared at him. "...You remember that?"
He looked over once more. "...You said it while throwing paint at me." He reminded.
"... Right."
"You ruined my favorite coat."
"You ruined my birthday cake."
"It was funny."
"It was my birthday."
"It was still funny."
She opened her mouth.
Closed it.
"...You laughed." Max reminded, pointedly.
"I laughed after."
"You laughed." He emphasized.
"I was in shock." Pink hissed, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Still laughed." He grinned, tilting his head mockingly.
For reasons she couldn't begin to explain, that conversation settled somewhere warm in her chest.
Not because it was particularly meaningful.
It wasn't.
If anything, it was spectacularly stupid.
Yet there was something strangely comforting about discovering he remembered the same ridiculous moments she did.
Not the important ones.
Not grand adventures.
Not royal ceremonies.
Paint.
Cake.
Soap.
Flamingos.
The tiny, insignificant pieces of childhood everyone else forgot.
"...Miss Hearts." Professor Grimm regarded her patiently.
Pink's head snapped forward.
"If you would be so kind as to answer the question."
"...Absolutely." She blurted. Paused.
Silence.
She had no idea what the question was.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Max lowering his head suspiciously quickly.
His shoulders shook.
The idiot was trying not to laugh.
"...Mr. Hatter," Grimm said smoothly, "seeing as you seem equally invested in this conversation..."
Max looked up, his smile falling.
"...Yes?"
"Perhaps you know the answer."
"..."
"..."
"... I have a fifty percent chance."
"You have a one hundred percent chance of disappointing me."
Hazel snorted loudly from somewhere behind them, lifting her boot up and kicking the back of Max's seat, and Pink visibly saw his struggle in trying not to turn and glare at her.
Even Felix abandoned his notes long enough to hide a grin behind his sleeve.
Max rubbed the back of his neck. "... The second treaty?"
"The question," Grimm replied, infinitely patient, "was what year it was signed."
"... Ah."
"I appreciate your confidence."
"It comes naturally." Max shrugged, crossing his arms.
"I've noticed."
Pink pressed her lips together. She wasn't going to smile.
She wasn't.
The bell rang before she could. The room instantly burst into movement.
Books slammed shut.
Chairs scraped across the floor.
Someone near the back complained dramatically about homework already being assigned on the first day. It was one of the Smee twins, which resulted in a smack on the head by Hazel.
Professor Grimm merely reminded everyone that reading two chapters hardly constituted cruelty.
Pink slid her notebook into her bag, stuffing every last pocket with junk Red had always considered "unnecessary".
She'd almost made it to the aisle when Max leaned down beside his desk, frowning.
"...Have you seen my pencil?"
Pink looked at him.
Then at the empty desktop.
Then very deliberately at the pencil tucked behind his ear.
"... No."
"Hm."
He crouched to look beneath the desk.
"Thought I left it here."
"You should keep looking."
"I am."
"I think it's hiding."
"It usually does."
She bit the inside of her cheek. "... Maybe check behind your ear."
He froze.
Slowly reached upward.
His fingers closed around the pencil. "...Well."
Pink folded her arms. "Found it?" She tilted her head, putting on a bravado of concern.
"I choose to believe someone enchanted it." He shrugged, rising to his feet.
"You choose wrong." Pink scoffed, glancing down at her nails.
He sighed dramatically.
"I walked into that one."
"You sprinted."
"I don't do that." Max corrected. "At most.. I jog."
Before either of them could continue, a familiar voice interrupted.
"Max?"
Both of them turned.
Chloe stood in the aisle, hugging a stack of books against her chest.
Her blue covered attire was perfectly put together—as always—but there was a softness about her expression that hadn't quite been there before Wonderland. Not sadness. Just...care. The sort that lingered after surviving something difficult with people who had seen you at your worst.
"Oh—hey," Max said, straightening a little too quickly.
Pink noticed.
She hated that she noticed.
Chloe smiled.
"The library still has your project proposal."
"My..."
"The one you forgot to collect before break."
Recognition flashed across his face. "...Right."
"I figured you'd want it before someone reshelves it."
"Oh." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Thanks."
Chloe smiled, amused. "It wasn't any trouble."
There was a brief, comfortable silence.
Not awkward.
Just...easy.
Chloe shifted the books in her arms. "I was heading there now, actually. If you're free."
Max's eyes brightened almost imperceptibly. "Yeah. Sure."
Pink looked away. She told herself it was because she suddenly remembered she also needed to stop by the library.
It definitely wasn't because she'd caught the tiny smile that crept onto Max's face before he could stop it.
It definitely wasn't because that smile hadn't been aimed at her.
"Pink?"
She blinked.
Red had appeared beside her, somehow balancing three books, an apple, and a rolled-up timetable without dropping any of them. "You coming?"
"Hm?"
"The library?"
Pink looked between her sister...
...Max...
...and Chloe already walking toward the hallway together, chatting about overdue books and professors as though neither of them had noticed the way Max kept matching his pace to hers without thinking.
"...Yeah," Pink answered after a beat, adjusting the strap of her bag. "Just... give me a second."
Red followed her gaze.
She didn't say anything.
She didn't have to.
Instead, she simply bumped Pink's shoulder with her own—a silent I'm here—before wandering after Chloe.
Pink lingered behind for another moment.
She stared down at her notebook as she tucked it into her bag.
A loose scrap of paper slipped free.
She caught it before it hit the floor.
On one corner, half-hidden beneath today's history notes, was an absentminded doodle she'd made sometime during class.
A tiny heart.
No bigger than a coin.
Crossed out so many times the paper had nearly torn.
She crumpled the page in her fist before anyone else could see it.
"...Get a grip," she muttered to herself.
The paper disappeared into the nearest rubbish bin.
Unfortunately...
The feeling didn't.