Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Previously on “Ashes of Us”:

Agatha clearing her throat, “Wanda. I’d like to formally ask you out. On a date.”

Wanda stared, wide-eyed.

Agatha turned to Rio, holding her gaze. “With your permission, of course.”

Rio’s mouth fell open. “What is even happening right now?”

Agatha arched a brow. “A very professional and emotionally mature polyamorous negotiation?”

Wanda laughed—a bright, shocked sound that quickly dissolved into nervous giggles.

Rio groaned and thumped her head back against the pillow. “I can’t believe my wife is asking my girlfriend out.”

The hospital room still echoed with the chaos of Agatha’s bold announcement. They had gotten Wanda back, Rio had threatened to handcuff her girlfriend, and her wife had made her girlfriend blush. In any other world, it would’ve been totally weird—but here, it ended in stunned silence and awkward laughter.

That was four days ago.

Now, Rio was being discharged.

Rio sat at the edge of the bed, one leg braced, crutches propped beside her. She stared at her socked foot like it had personally offended her. Wanda checked the discharge form for the third time, and Agatha stood near the door, unusually still, holding the overnight bag like it was her last claim to the space.

Rio cleared her throat, eyes flicking briefly to Agatha, then to Wanda, then down to the floor again. “So… I guess this is it.”

“Back home,” Wanda said with a smile. But even she could hear the hesitation in her voice.

The word home snagged in Rio’s chest.

Because now, home was two places.

One was the warm, lived-in apartment where Wanda left sticky notes on the fridge and curled around her at night. That home smelled like herbal tea and hope. It was lightness, healing, and—recently—a safe place to fall apart without shame.

The other was a townhouse filled with ghost memories, heavy with grief and echoing with the silence Agatha had carried alone. That home was shadowed. It had rooms that still held the shape of a child who no longer existed, and a marriage that had shattered under the weight of loss.

Rio wasn’t ready to walk back into that house. Not yet. Not until she figured out what it meant to carry both lives in the same skin.

She opened her mouth to say something and couldn’t quite find the words.

Agatha made a half-step toward them, then stopped. “Right. You’ll need help with the crutches and all, but—” She fumbled. “You’ve got this. I’ll… check in later. Text, maybe.”

Rio looked at her. Really looked. And Agatha looked like she’d just remembered how to lose something all over again.

Wanda watched them both. The silence stretched. The awkwardness grew.

And then Wanda sighed, loud enough to break it.

“Okay. This is stupid.”

Both heads turned toward her.

“You clearly don’t want to leave each other,” she said bluntly, gesturing between them. “And Rio can’t even balance on one foot without looking like a sad flamingo. I have back-to-back sessions tomorrow and a clinic case in the afternoon. So unless we want her attempting to microwave instant noodles on one leg, I vote Agatha comes with us.”

“What?” Agatha said.

“What?” Rio echoed, eyes wide.

Wanda raised an eyebrow. “Just until she’s steadier. You’re good with schedules and caretaking and managing chaos. And you clearly want to be around. So come.”

Agatha looked caught. “Are you sure? That doesn’t make things weird?”

“Oh, I’m counting on it being weird,” Wanda said dryly, then glanced at Rio. “But I’d rather weird than her falling down the stairs while texting you.”

Rio blushed and muttered, “It was one stair.”

“It was two,” Wanda and Agatha said at the same time.

A beat of silence. Then, unexpectedly, Rio laughed. Soft. Real.

Agatha’s shoulders relaxed.

“Okay,” she said, almost shy. “If you’re sure.”

Wanda nodded and took Rio’s crutches, steadying her. “Let’s go. The apartment isn’t big, but it has tea, heat, and a guest room that Alice spends way too much time sleeping in.”

“Sounds charming,” Agatha said with a smirk.

As they walked down the hallway—Rio slowly between them, leaning on Wanda, crutches under one arm, Agatha steadying the bag—there was still uncertainty in every step.

But not distance.

Not anymore.

Chapter Text

Wanda’s apartment was nothing like Agatha expected.

She’d never been here before. And stepping inside, following Rio’s slow shuffle on crutches, felt like crossing into a different universe—one not meant for her.

It was warm. Inviting. Lived-in in the kind of way that couldn’t be faked. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves wrapped the living room, overflowing with well-thumbed novels and dog-eared medical journals. The couch had a permanent dent, the kind made by someone who always claimed the same spot. Throw blankets, mismatched cushions, an overwatered monstera in the corner. It all smelled like cinnamon and rosemary and Rio’s shampoo.

There was laughter in the walls here. And comfort.

Agatha stepped in, her heels making the faintest click against the hardwood floor, suddenly too formal in a place like this. A stranger. An interloper.

She took in the details automatically—because she couldn’t help it, because it hurt and soothed all at once.

There were signs of Rio everywhere.

A guitar leaning against the armchair  just like the one she had at home. Sketchbooks spilling out of a tote bag by the door. A few hand-scrawled sticky note on the fridge in bright pink marker:

Buy oat milk! I finished yours sorry - in Wanda’s handwriting

Wanda, I ate your cookie. Sorry, not sorry.- Rio’s

Agatha used to know that feeling. Back when Rio’s laughter filled their shared house like birdsong. Back when she’d trip over her boots in the hallway or find her toothbrush mysteriously missing, only to discover Rio had “borrowed” it. Back when everything, every room, had Rio’s fingerprints all over it.

But now… those memories were behind a locked door. One Rio wasn’t ready to open. And Agatha wasn’t sure she belonged on the doorstep.

“I can stay somewhere else,” she said softly, pausing just inside the doorway. “If this feels too—”

Wanda turned to glance at her with a raised brow. “You’re here because I asked you to come. You literally proposed a three way relationship a few days ago. Don’t start acting weird now.”

Rio laughed quietly and limped toward the couch. “She says that now, but wait until you reorganize the spice rack.”

Agatha didn’t respond. Her eyes were too busy scanning the room—at the framed photos on the side table, at the little box labeled Emergency chocolate , at the sneakers tossed near the door, still a bit muddy from the last rain. This was Rio’s life. Built without her.

Wanda hung up her coat and turned back. “You good?”

Agatha nodded tightly. “Just… never been here before.”

Rio was already on the couch, watching Agatha with a careful, unreadable expression. “You okay?”

Agatha forced a smile. “Of course.”

But Rio could feel the tension. The uncertainty.

Because now that she had her memories back, home wasn’t a simple thing.

The word split in two in her mind—one part of it filled with Wanda’s warmth, late-night tea, and soft comfort. And the other?

The other was Agatha’s house. Their old house.

Beautiful and still, like a museum of a love that had once burned too brightly to last. That house held shadows now—grief, loss, silence. The ghost of a child, the echo of heartbreak. She remembered the layout of every room, and yet, it felt like a map of pain she wasn’t ready to walk again.

She wasn’t ready to go back there. Not yet.

And maybe… not alone.

Wanda saw the way Rio looked at Agatha. And the way Agatha tried not to look back.

So she cleared her throat and said casually, “Hey, Agatha. Do me a favor?”

Agatha blinked. “Yes?”

“Stay for the week. At least while I’m working. I usually leave Rio home alone, but now she’s got one good leg and a lot of bad ideas. You being here might stop her from trying to rewire the toaster or something.”

Rio gasped, fake-offended. “That happened one time.”

Wanda smirked. “One time too many.”

Agatha hesitated. “Are you sure?”

Wanda shrugged like it was no big deal. “Guest room’s clean. Alice crashes here all the time, so it’s comfy. Wi-Fi password is written there.”

Agatha looked to Rio, uncertain.

Rio, cheeks faintly pink, muttered, “It’s not a bad idea.”

And Wanda, turning away, saw it again—that same flicker of something heavy between them. Hesitation. Hope. Fear.

Two people who hadn’t figured out how to be in the same room again. But maybe, just maybe, didn’t want to leave it either.

Agatha stepped forward, her overnight bag still in hand.

“Alright,” she said. “If you’re sure.”

Wanda disappeared into the kitchen with a shrug and a wave. “One hundred percent.”

Rio leaned back against the couch, the soft pillows cradling her as she watched Agatha disappear down the hall.

Her home had changed. So had her heart.

But the past hadn’t let go of her yet—and maybe it never would.

Chapter Text

Wanda wasn’t usually the type to feel awkward in her own kitchen. It was her kingdom, after all- her territory of oat milk, herbal teas, and passive-aggressively labeled Tupperware. But this morning, with Agatha seated at the island counter and Rio limping in behind her on crutches, she felt… off-balance. Like a guest at her own table.

Still, she soldiered on, flipping pancakes with the controlled precision of someone who desperately needed something to do with her hands.

“Coffee?” she offered, already reaching for the mugs.

“God, yes,” Agatha muttered, her voice still hoarse with sleep.

Rio raised a hand. “Tea for me.”

Wanda smirked. “Of course. The tea goblin returns.”

“Goblin? Rude,” Rio grinned. “I am a connoisseur.”

Wanda side-eyed her affectionately and filled the kettle.

The air was… strange. Not cold. Not tense. But stretched. Like everyone was tiptoeing around something no one knew how to name yet.

Wanda glanced over her shoulder.

Agatha was perched at the counter like a well-dressed statue, back straight, sleeves neatly rolled. She looked painfully out of place among the messy kitchen and mismatched mugs. Her eyes flicked occasionally toward Rio—quiet, careful—before darting away again. And Rio… was watching her too.

Wanda didn’t miss a thing.

“I can chop fruit,” Agatha offered after a beat, already rising.

Wanda waved her down. “Nope. Sit. You’re the guest-slash-babysitter. You don’t cook.”

Rio scoffed from her seat. “I’m not a baby.”

“You literally tripped over a rug yesterday.”

“I was ambushed!.”

Wanda snorted and plated the pancakes. “Just sit still, both of you, and try not to make intense eye contact across the butter dish while I feed you.”

That got a surprised laugh from Agatha, who relaxed maybe a half-percent. “No promises.”

Wanda slid the plates across the counter, then finally sat between them with her own steaming mug. She noticed—pointedly—that neither Rio nor Agatha made eye contact again. And that their knees were almost touching under the table.

This was going to be a long week.

She bit into a pancake and chewed slowly, wondering—not for the first time—if she was absolutely out of her mind for letting this situation unfold in her house. Most people, upon hearing “I would like to enter a romantic contract with both of you by first taking your girlfriend out on a date,” would have said no. Or thrown something.

But Wanda hadn’t.

Because somewhere deep down, even amidst the chaos, she got it .

Agatha loved Rio. Still. Stubbornly. Stupidly.

And clearly crazily enough to proposition her as a solution to this mess.

“So,” Wanda said, breaking the silence like a glass underfoot, “what’s the plan for today?”

Rio blinked. “Uh… survive?”

Agatha lifted her mug. “Seconded.”

Wanda smiled, but it was tight around the edges. “I have a session starting at eleven, so you two will be alone for a while. Try not to get into a kill each other over the remote.”

Rio rolled her eyes. “We’re adults.”

Wanda raised a brow. “Says the woman who once declared war over the last lemon tart.”

“That was important .”

“Mm-hmm.” Wanda took a sip of tea and stood. “I’ll shower. Please still be in one piece while I’m gone ”

She padded down the hallway, but not before glancing back once more. Agatha and Rio sat in silence, staring at their pancakes like they contained answers to the universe.

Wanda let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

This was fine.

Totally fine.

Her girlfriend and her girlfriend’s wife —who happened to also be kind of hot in that high-powered, blazer-wearing, intimidatingly intelligent way—were just casually living under her roof. What could possibly go wrong?

She climbed the stairs slowly, the sounds of quiet clinking and soft murmurs drifting behind her. They were talking now, Rio and Agatha. Low and careful, like people handling something breakable between them.

Wanda paused at the bathroom door, fingers resting on the frame.

She loved Rio. That part had never been in question. But love, she was starting to realize, wasn’t always enough to guarantee a place.

Rio had a past Wanda could never compete with. A home, a marriage, a life built long before Wanda ever entered the picture. And now that past was sitting in her kitchen, wearing silk cuffs and making Rio laugh softly between bites of pancake.

Wanda had always felt like the center of gravity in Rio’s new life. But now, with Agatha in the house, she couldn’t help but wonder if she was becoming a satellite, circling something bigger, older, and harder to define.

She stepped into the bathroom and closed the door gently behind her, the steam from the shower rising like fog.

In the silence, she whispered a single thought she hadn’t dared say out loud yet:

Where do I fit, if they still fit together?

Chapter Text

The morning passed slowly, quiet and oddly gentle with Wanda away at work. Sunlight filtered in through gauzy curtains, casting golden shapes on the living room walls. Rio sat curled on the couch, one leg propped awkwardly on a cushion, her crutch resting nearby. Agatha sat across from her, perched stiffly in an armchair that didn’t quite feel like hers to use.

It was the first time they’d truly been alone since the hospital.

Agatha sipped her coffee—black, exactly the way she used to drink it. Rio noticed that detail with a strange fondness and an ache she didn’t know how to place.

They spoke lightly at first: Wanda’s breakfast habits (chaotic but endearing), the impossible-to-program coffee machine, Billy’s newest attempt at turning poetry into rap. The room was filled with small things that gave the illusion of normalcy. But underneath it, something trembled. Waiting.

Rio paused. Something flickered in her eyes.

“Where are you staying?” she asked.

Agatha looked up, slowly.

“I mean,” Rio continued, voice softening, “you’ve been visiting the hospital, helping out here. But… I don’t actually know where you go at night. A hotel… or…”

Rio hesitated, unwilling to say our old home.

Agatha didn’t. “Our house,” she said quietly. “I’m staying at our old place.”

Rio blinked. “You went back?”

She nodded. “It was empty. Dusty. Cold. I think some of your old postcards are still on the fridge, under those terrible dog magnets.”

Rio let out a breath that sounded like a laugh and a sigh tangled together.

“I didn’t know where else to go,” Agatha said after a moment. “It was the first place I thought of when I came back. I guess I… I thought maybe you’d be there.”

She hesitated. The words felt fragile in her mouth.

“But it was just walls and ghosts. I cleaned. I stayed busy. I wiped down every shelf. Washed the curtains. Opened the windows. I tried to breathe life back into it.” Her voice dipped. “Back into myself.”

Rio was quiet. Then, softly: “That place… my memory of it is filled with ghosts too. Not the good ones.”

“I know,” Agatha said. “That’s what it felt like at first for me, too.”

“And now?”

Agatha hesitated again. Her fingers curled tight around the ceramic mug. “Now… it feels like it’s waiting for something.”

Rio looked away, eyes falling to the coffee table where Wanda’s favorite coasters sat, slightly askew. “I’m not ready to go back there. That version of home… it hurts. It reminds me of everything falling apart. I barely survived it the first time.”

“I get that.” Agatha leaned forward slightly, careful not to break the space between them. “But… the garden looked like hell.”

Rio blinked at her. “What?”

Agatha let out a short, quiet laugh. “The backyard. Everything was brown and tangled. I thought if I can fix that, maybe I can fix a piece of myself too. So I started there.”

Rio’s eyes widened in soft recognition. “That’s why I ran into you at the gardening shop.”

“Yeah.” Agatha gave a small, self-deprecating chuckle. “Old me would’ve hired someone. But I figured if I got my hands dirty, maybe the house would stop feeling like a mausoleum. It was the one place that still made me feel close to you.”

“You hated gardening.”

“I didn’t hate it. I just didn’t get it.” Her voice softened. “Until it was something you loved.”

The silence stretched, slow and full. Rio’s fingers twitched under the blanket in her lap, as if resisting the pull of old muscle memory.

Then Agatha’s voice cracked, barely audible.

“There’s something else,” she said. “Something I… I should’ve told you sooner.”

Rio’s eyes snapped back to her.

Agatha didn’t look up. “After you left… I found them. The letters. Hidden in the back of your dresser drawer. Dozens of them.”

Rio stiffened. Her breath caught.

“I—I didn’t mean to pry. I was cleaning out your things. I thought they were old receipts or something, but then I started reading…” Her voice broke. “And I couldn’t stop.”

She gripped the mug like it was the only thing keeping her upright.

“There were letters about everything. The grief. The loneliness. The way you felt like I left you long before I actually did. And then the last ones…” Agatha’s voice frayed. “The ones where you gave up. Where you said you couldn’t do it anymore. Where you said goodbye.”

She wiped her face quickly, almost angrily.

“I didn’t know, Rio. I didn’t know how far gone you were. I was so far up my own grief I couldn’t see you falling.”

Rio’s throat moved as she swallowed. Her eyes were wide, wet.

“I’m so sorry,” Agatha whispered, over and over. “I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’m sorry you had to write those letters at all.”

Silence. Just the sound of breathing and the faint hum of the world outside.

“And I know you don’t owe me anything,” Agatha added quietly. “But I… I spent the last few months writing replies. To every single one.”

Rio stared at her.

Agatha’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I didn’t know if you’d ever want to see them. But I needed to answer them anyway. So they wouldn’t just sit there unanswered. So you wouldn’t be alone in those pages.”

She finally looked up, her expression torn open, voice breaking. “If you ever want them…. if you ever want to read them…I’ll give them to you. But only when you’re ready.”

For a long, long moment, Rio didn’t move.

It was as if someone had peeled back the fabric of time, and she was standing inside the raw heart of her own past. The air felt thinner. Her fingertips had gone cold.

She remembered the letters now.

Not just the act of writing them, but where she was when she did. Curled on the kitchen floor, goinf to the rooftop, mindlessly heading to the car with a single aim. The humming silence of a house that felt like a grave. The echo of Agatha’s absence, so loud it felt like thunder. She remembered writing like it was the only way she could stay breathing. She remembered giving up.

And she remembered stopping.

And then nothing — for a long, blank stretch of time.

And now…

“You read them,” she whispered. Her voice shook.

Agatha nodded. “I—yes. I did.”

Rio flinched, like the confirmation struck something inside her. Her breath hitched, shallow and uneven. She pressed her hands into the blanket on her lap like she needed to ground herself, to stay inside her own body.

“God,” she whispered. “I forgot. All this time, I forgot. And now…”

She looked up at Agatha, her eyes wide with something like panic. “You saw me. That version of me. The one who didn’t want to be here anymore.”

Agatha opened her mouth, but Rio held up a trembling hand. “Please. Let me—just let me say this.”

She inhaled shakily.

“I have spent so long trying to be okay again. Trying to build a version of myself that could survive what happened. And now I’m remembering how close I came to disappearing. And I don’t know what to do with that. I don’t know how to look at you and not feel ashamed. I wrote those letters thinking no one would ever read them. Thinking I wouldn’t be here.”

Her voice cracked.

“I didn’t want to be here.”

Silence followed. Not judgmental, not heavy — just still. Holding the weight of what had been spoken.

“I’m not ashamed of you,” Agatha said gently. “I was never ashamed of you.”

Rio blinked, tears slipping down her cheeks. Her shoulders trembled under the soft weight of her sweater.

“I just—” she choked out, “I wanted the pain to stop. And now I’m remembering it like it’s happening all over again.”

She buried her face in her hands for a moment, trying to breathe through the storm. Agatha stayed still — not reaching, not pressing, just present. The same way she must have been when reading those letters, page after page.

Finally, Rio lifted her face again, eyes red-rimmed but steady.

“I don’t know if I can read your letters back,” she said hoarsely. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be strong enough to do that. But the fact that you wrote them…”

Her voice dropped to something achingly soft.

“That you answered me, even when I thought no one would…”

She looked at Agatha like she was seeing her not as the ex-wife who left, or the memory she couldn’t reach, but as someone who had chosen to stay.

“I think that matters more than you’ll ever understand.”

Agatha’s hands trembled in her lap.

“I didn’t know how to fix what I broke,” she whispered. “But I could write. I could sit with the version of you who thought she was unlovable. And tell her she was wrong.”

Rio wiped her face with the sleeve of her sweater. “You did. In a way, you already did.”

Rio closed her eyes. “One day… when I’m ready. I want to read them.”

Agatha let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Her hands, which had been clenched in her lap, finally moved. Slowly, carefully, she crossed the room.

She didn’t ask. She just knelt beside the couch and wrapped her arms around Rio, not like someone offering comfort, but like someone needing it too. A grounding, wordless kind of closeness. The kind built from wreckage and memory.

Rio stiffened at first — her body caught between instinct and overwhelm — and then she sank into the hug. Her head fell against Agatha’s shoulder, and a shudder ran through her. Her arms moved around Agatha’s waist, holding on like it hurt and healed all at once.

Neither of them said anything. They just stayed like that: breathing, shaking, holding on.

“I’ve got you,” Agatha whispered, voice thick. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me. But I’m here now.”

Rio didn’t respond with words. Just a small, choked sound in her throat as her fingers gripped tighter into Agatha’s shirt.

It wasn’t a perfect reunion. It wasn’t closure.

But it was the first time since the memories returned that Rio let herself be held in the aftermath — not as someone broken, but as someone loved through the breaking.

And in that quiet, golden-lit room, it was enough.

Chapter Text

By the time Rio had cried herself hoarse, she was half-asleep in Agatha’s arms.

The living room had gone quiet. Afternoon light stretched long across the floor, warm and lazy, dust motes dancing gently in the air. Rio’s breath had settled into a sluggish rhythm, though her eyelids fluttered from time to time , not quite restful, not quite awake.

Agatha sat with her still, curled around her on the couch like a protective shell, arms firm and careful. She didn’t want to let go, but Rio’s body had grown heavier against hers, limbs limp with exhaustion, her pain meds kicking in at last. When Agatha finally moved to ease her down onto the cushions, Rio made a soft noise of protest — a half-whimper, half-sigh — but didn’t wake.

Her throat felt tight, burned raw with everything she couldn’t say out loud. She pressed her lips to Rio’s hairline—one firm, aching kiss—and smoothed the blanket over her again.

There would be no more talking today. Not without tearing open something they didn’t yet know how to stitch closed.

A part of Agatha wanted to sit there for hours. Wanted to memorize every new line of Rio’s face, every change in her voice. But they were on fragile ground. A step too deep into the past and Rio might not surface. Neither might she.

So, for now, she did the only thing she could.

She let her go.

Carefully, Agatha stood. She placed a glass of water and Rio’s next dose of meds on the side table, then lingered at the threshold of the living room, arms folded as she watched her sleep.

Rio had one arm flung over her face now, her mouth open in the unbothered way only true, drug-induced sleep allowed. Her hair was a mess, her leg still slightly elevated, her breath a soft snore punctuated by mumbles of things Agatha couldn’t quite make out — ghosts of a life she was only just beginning to remember.

There was something oddly endearing about it. Agatha smiled to herself, bittersweet.

“Right,” she muttered, squaring her shoulders like a soldier bracing for war. “Phase Two.”

She moved swiftly down the hall to the guest room — her base of operations — and shut the door behind her with a quiet click.

Inside, everything was already in place.

Laptop. Notepad. Pen with good ink flow. On the desk, a sheet of paper labeled:

PHASE TWO – THE THROUPLE STRATEGY

was underlined twice.

Agatha clicked open her browser. First tab: the restaurant she’d already bookmarked. Second: a florist that specialized in “elegant but non-threatening” arrangements. Third: Wanda’s shared calendar, which Agatha was considering hacking into but had not yet morally committed to.

She leaned back for a moment and let herself breathe.

This was absurd. Terrifying. Doomed, possibly. But it felt right.

She was playing for love—not just survival.

And she was all in.

Reservations? Check.

Floral charm offensive? In progress.

Emotional groundwork? Laid with precision.

She was halfway through typing a note about potential neutral-date outfits when the front door clicked open.

Agatha’s head snapped up. Showtime.

She shut her laptop, straightened her shirt, and emerged from the guest room just in time to see Wanda stepping inside. She looked a little tired from work but still composed—blazer slung over one arm, grocery bag balanced in the other.

“I got oat milk,” Wanda said as she closed the door behind her. “Didn’t know if Rio wanted to try it again or if she was still mad about the last time.”

“She’s unconscious,” Agatha said. “You could tell her you bought a goat and she’d probably thank you.”

Wanda snorted and stepped inside. She was halfway to the kitchen when she paused, then turned back. “Wait. Are we—are we alone?”

Agatha gave a solemn nod. “The patient has gone to the land of dreams. I estimate we have approximately three hours before she wakes up confused and craving toast.”

Wanda laughed — not just amused, but warm, grateful. It was the first time they’d been alone since before. Before Rio’s memory had flooded back. Before everything cracked wide open.

The kitchen felt still for a moment. Familiar, but charged.

Agatha broke the silence.

“I just want to say,” she said, adjusting her sleeve, “I’m sorry. For intruding like this. I didn’t plan any of this. I didn’t mean to bulldoze into your life.”

Wanda gave her a long look. “You didn’t bulldoze.”

“I did.”

“Well… maybe gently steamrolled,” Wanda admitted with a grin. “But you wore very expensive perfume, so.”

Agatha laughed, shoulders relaxing. Wanda’s grin softened something in her — that gentleness that had always made her feel slightly off-kilter, slightly exposed.

“I’m figuring this out too,” Wanda said, setting the oat milk on the counter. “I don’t know what this is. But I see how much you care. And I know Rio needs all the love she can get right now. From both of us.”

Agatha nodded. “Exactly. Which brings me to… the next thing.”

Wanda blinked. “Oh no.”

“I’d like to formally ask you out on a date. Saturday night.”

Wanda blinked again. “You’re… serious?”

“Dead serious.”

“But why? I thought that whole crush thing was a bit. You were being theatrical.”

“I’m always theatrical. Doesn’t mean I’m not sincere.”

Wanda opened her mouth. Closed it. Then: “You’re asking me out. On a date. Like a real date.”

“Unless you’re into fake dates, in which case—no judgment, but I prefer my intentions clear.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Only sometimes. But listen,” Agatha leaned forward slightly, her voice mock-conspiratorial. “You don’t actually have a choice. I already made the reservation. It would be rude to waste it..”

Wanda stared at her. “Agatha.”

“I also may have called the restaurant under your name,” Agatha added casually. “So if you don’t show up, you’ll be listed as a no-show. Bit awkward for your reputation.”

“You’re threatening me with… dinner shame?”

“Dinner shame, mild social guilt, and the knowledge that I bought non-refundable flowers from a florist named Lucia who speaks in haikus. You want to disappoint Lucia ?”

Wanda covered her face with one hand, laughing. “You’re completely unhinged.”

“And yet incredibly well-dressed and emotionally available. You’re running out of excuses here, counselor.”

Wanda dropped her hand, grinning despite herself. “You are the most ridiculous person I’ve ever met.”

Agatha leaned in slightly, lowering her voice in a playful hush. “And yet… you’re considering it.”

Wanda opened her mouth, closed it, sighed, and gave her a look halfway between amused and defeated.

Agatha beamed. “That’s not a no. That’s a yes in stunned disguise.”

Wanda raised an eyebrow. “If I say yes, will you calm down ?”

“No promises,” Agatha said cheekily.

Wanda stared at her for a beat before turning to the fridge. “I swear to God, if you bring flowers, I’m going to throw them out the window.”

Agatha smirked. “You say that now, but you’ll weep over the flowers like everyone else.”

Behind them, a sleepy groan echoed from the living room.

“Toast…” Rio mumbled.

Wanda sighed, already reaching for the bread. Agatha smoothed down her blazer.

Saturday couldn’t come fast enough.

Chapter Text

Wanda stared at her reflection in the mirror, clutching a pair of earrings like they were her lifeline. 

“What am I even doing?” she muttered.

In the background, Rio was curled up on the couch, still in her oversized hoodie and one sock. Her injured leg was propped on a pillow. She sipped tea slowly, watching Wanda with an amused sort of fondness.

“You’re going on a date,” Rio said, as if announcing that Wanda had joined a cult.

Wanda turned, earrings still in hand. “With your ex- wife .”

“Well,” Rio shrugged, “technically she’s my wife. But you’re my girlfriend. So… I guess you’re dating your girlfriend’s wife.”

“That doesn’t make it better.” Wanda hissed. 

“It kind of does,” Rio said cheerfully ignoring Wanda’s mood. “Also, you look hot. Like really hot.  Wear the black boots. They make you look like a hot vampire counsellor.”

Wanda blinked. “Why are you okay with this?”

Rio tilted her head. “I mean… I thought I’d be jealous. But I’m not. I’m actually hoping it goes well. Huh.”

“Huh?” Wanda echoed.

Rio nodded slowly, as if discovering an unfamiliar emotion in real-time. “Yeah. I want you both to be happy. And if you can make each other laugh the way you make me laugh… well, that sounds kind of nice.”

Wanda stared at her, heart squeezing. “You’re really okay with this?”

“I’m not saying I won’t interrogate her when she comes home late or make fun of her for trying too hard,” Rio said, sipping her tea. “But yeah. I’m okay.”

Wanda smiled, a little stunned. “You’re weird.”

“Pot, meet kettle,” Rio said cheekily.

Meanwhile, across town, Agatha stood in front of her closet like it was a war zone. Half her wardrobe was on the bed. A blouse with dramatic sleeves hung from a lamp. There were three open shoeboxes and a fourth pair of heels she couldn’t remember buying.

“Why am I nervous?” she muttered to herself, staring at the mirror.

She was rarely nervous. She was composed, confident, always in control. But tonight, her eyeliner was shaky and her hands had fumbled a button twice. The last time she’d felt like this—heart fluttering, palms clammy—was over a decade ago, when she’d planned her first big romantic night with Rio.

And now she was dressing for a date… with Wanda.

It was absurd. And terrifying. And exciting.

She checked her reflection again. She looked good—no, great —but she felt like her heart had been stuffed with bees. Smart, anxious bees.

“Get it together,” she told herself. “You’re brilliant. You’re bold. You’re bringing flowers.”

She grabbed the small bouquet (dramatic, minimalist, non-traditional—very her), gave herself one last once-over, and marched out the door like she was going to a courtroom instead of a dinner date.

She had no idea what the night would bring. But for once, she wasn’t trying to win.

She just wanted to show up.

When Agatha rang the doorbell, she felt a bit ridiculous. But also determined.

Wanda opened the door, startled—and immediately a little flustered. Agatha looked like she’d walked off a movie set: tailored coat, crisp shirt, confident smirk, and a stupidly romantic bouquet.

“Hi,” Agatha said, offering the flowers.

“Hi,” Wanda said, blinking.

And then Rio appeared behind her, limping slightly on her crutches, eyes sparkling with mischief. She looked between the two of them and gasped dramatically.

“Oh my god. You are taking my girlfriend to prom.”

Agatha rolled her eyes. “It’s a date, not prom.”

“She has a bouquet,” Rio said, pointing. “And you’re picking her up at our house. This is so prom.”

Wanda just laughed, cheeks pink.

Rio hobbled forward a step, playing up the bit. “Now listen here, Harkness. I’m entrusting you with my sweet, innocent girlfriend. She’s got a bedtime. Midnight curfew. No funny business unless she initiates it.”

Wanda groaned. “Rio—”

“I’m serious,” Rio said, waggling her crutch like a cane. “I want her back in one piece. Or two, if she’s into that.”

“I regret everything,” Wanda muttered.

Agatha grinned, soaking it all in like sunlight. “Understood, ma’am. I’ll have her home before the pumpkins explode.”

Rio saluted. “Godspeed.”

And with that, Agatha offered her arm, Wanda took it (still flustered), and they stepped out into the evening together—two-thirds of something uncertain, chaotic, and possibly extraordinary.

Back inside, Rio stood at the door for a long while, watching them go. She smiled.

“I hope they end up liking each other,” she murmured to no one in particular. Then she turned and limped toward the couch. “Or at least bring me dessert.”

The restaurant was tucked away on a quiet street, one of those places that didn’t need a sign to be known. Warm light spilled through the tall windows, golden and soft, casting flickers of candlelight across polished wood and linen napkins. It was intimate without trying too hard—much like Agatha had planned.

Wanda couldn’t stop fiddling with her water glass. She kept glancing at the room, as if trying to catch the joke she was somehow part of.

Agatha, meanwhile, was the picture of composed. But only on the outside. Inside, she was spiraling through every conversation starter she’d rehearsed in the car.

“So,” Agatha began, the corner of her mouth twitching. “Is it weird if I ask what your favorite shade of blue is?”

Wanda laughed, surprised. “A little.”

“I’ll allow it,” Agatha replied. “But only because I panicked and I’m terrible at small talk.”

Wanda tilted her head. “You were a lawyer. Isn’t small talk your bread and butter?”

“Only if I’m trying to manipulate a witness. I like you too much for that.”

Wanda blinked. “You like me?”

Agatha looked her straight in the eye. “Of course I do. You make Rio laugh when I can’t. You held her together when I didn’t. And… you’re you.”

Wanda flushed, then looked away with a small smile. “Okay. You’re… not terrible at this.”

Dinner passed with more laughter than either expected.

The initial conversation was filled with shared anecdotes—stories about Rio, really. They laughed over her dramatic cereal preferences, her habit of singing off-key when she was focused, how she insisted on wearing socks to bed even in summer.

It was easy. Natural. Comforting, even.

But somewhere around the main course, as Wanda leaned in to share another Rio memory, Agatha’s smile faltered.

She put her fork down slowly and said, “Do you think this is all we’ll ever talk about?”

Wanda paused. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…” Agatha gestured between them. “Are we just going to keep orbiting around Rio forever? I don’t want to just… love the parts of you that love her.”

Wanda blinked.

“I want to know you ,” Agatha continued, quieter now. “The Wanda underneath it all. The TV show’s you like, the weird irrational hatred you probably have of some common vegetable.”

Wanda’s mouth quirked up. “Mushrooms. Slimy.”

“There it is,” Agatha said with a grin.

The tone shifted. The conversation unfolded into something more real, more vulnerable. Wanda talked about her childhood in the countryside, her long hours in grad school, her work. Agatha listened, completely focused, slowly realizing this wasn’t about saving a dynamic, it was about discovering a person.

Wanda asked about Agatha’s tattoo, the one just barely visible above her collarbone. Agatha explained it was spontaneous, done after a court case that drained her soul. “I wanted to feel something,” she admitted. “Anything.”

By the time dessert came, the laughter had faded into a warm, reflective silence.

That was when Wanda leaned back, eyes thoughtful.

“Can I tell you something?”

“Only if I get to finish this soufflé,” Agatha said lightly, then nodded. “Yeah. Of course.”

“I think you’re brave. And weirdly impressive for even suggesting this whole… situation. But I also think you’re trying to fix something that can’t be patched.”

Agatha swallowed.

“I care about you,” Wanda continued. “I really do. But I don’t think this— us —works just because we both love Rio. Love doesn’t work like that. It’s not a solution. It’s not a compromise.”

Agatha’s throat tightened. “You’re right.”

“I know.”

There was a long, soft pause. Then Agatha laughed—a low, breathless sound, almost like defeat.

“Why does being right feel so terrible?”

Wanda smiled, and this time it was tinged with sadness. “Because you’re not just doing this for Rio. You’re doing it to fix something in yourself. And I don’t think you even know what it is yet.”

Agatha swallowed and looked down at their hands. “I thought this would be easier.”Then, in a voice so small she almost didn’t recognize it: “Why does this hurt more than it should?”

Wanda looked at her kindly. “I think a part of you really wanted this to work, but love is not a contract that you sign to fix the problem that you see.”

Agatha blinked hard, drew her hand back gently, and reached for the bill. “Gosh you really are a therapist… but anyways, I’m the one who asked you out. You’re not paying for anything tonight.”

Wanda smiled and stood. “That’s fair. I guess I provided tips in the form of emotional breakthroughs and therapy”

Agatha stood too, and they shared a brief, wordless look. Something quiet. Something respectful.

She walked Wanda to the car, drove her home, and even opened the passenger door for her—because some habits of the heart were hard to let go of, even if the heart didn’t quite know where to land yet.

Wanda turned to her on the porch, smiling warmly. “Thank you for tonight. It was… more than I expected.”

Agatha nodded, her mask of composure gently sliding back into place. “Goodnight, Wanda.”

“Goodnight, Agatha.”

As Wanda disappeared inside, Agatha exhaled slowly, stared up at the night sky, and muttered, “Well, phase two is officially ruined.”

Chapter Text

Agatha fluffed the throw pillow on the couch like it had personally wronged her. For the third time.

Wanda was at work. Rio was recovering on the ottoman with her leg propped up and a half-eaten bowl of cereal in her lap. And Agatha… Agatha was spiraling into domestic warfare with a decorative cushion.

“You know,” Rio said, lazily stabbing a soggy marshmallow, “there’s a difference between being productive and emotionally assaulting our home décor.”

Agatha turned, affronted. “I’m not assaulting it. I’m maintaining order and structure in this house.”

“You’re moping,” Rio said, her tone matter-of-fact.

“I’m resting,” Agatha replied, a bit too quickly.

“Uh-huh. So we’re calling this grumpy little performance resting now?”

Agatha glared. “You’ve been horizontal for five days.”

“I had surgery. You got rejected by a hot therapist. There’s a difference.”

Agatha narrowed her eyes but didn’t take the bait. Instead, she gave an exasperated sigh and flopped into the armchair, dramatically brushing a curl behind her ear like a silent film star.

Rio grinned into her cereal. “You know, Wanda said it was a good date. She said you were charming. Brave. Weirdly into mushroom trivia.”

Agatha’s eye twitched. “I was engaged. It’s called being interested in your conversational partner.”

“She also said you took the rejection well.”

“I did.” A beat. “I am.”

Rio arched a brow and made a sweeping gesture toward her. “You sure?”

Agatha cracked a reluctant smile—then buried her face in the nearest throw pillow. “I feel ridiculous.”

“Because you got turned down?”

“Because I didn’t think it would get to me.” Her voice was muffled. She lifted her head a little to look at Rio. “It wasn’t even about falling in love. It was about… proving it could work. The three of us. I thought if Wanda and I got along, then this whole thing wouldn’t be a disaster. But she said no. And she was right to.”

Rio softened. “It still sucks.”

Agatha nodded, the motion barely perceptible. “I just thought that if I gave it everything, really tried…. then I wouldn’t get left behind.”

That one landed like a dropped stone.

Rio set her cereal aside. “Is that what you’re scared of?”

Agatha didn’t answer right away. Then, softly: “I left you, Rio. You were the one I walked away from. And I lost you. And then you built something good with Wanda. You love her. So what choice do I have? I can’t rewrite history. I just… thought maybe if I opened myself up to it, I could make space for her. Because I’d rather share you than lose you again.”

Rio reached over and nudged her gently with a toe. “That’s a lot for one person to carry alone.”

“I’m selfish,” Agatha admitted. “I thought I could control this, strategize my way through it. But then I met her properly that night. And I…” Her voice faltered. “I didn’t want her to say no.”

“Do you think you like her?” Rio asked, her voice gentle.

“I don’t know,” Agatha said. “That’s the worst part. I don’t know if I like her or if I just want to win. But I do know that when she turned me down, it hurt. More than I expected.”

Rio nodded slowly “You know… if you do end up liking her—like, actually, truly falling for her, I’d be happy.”

Agatha looked over in surprise.

Rio shrugged, small and sincere. “I love you. And I love her. I don’t know how to make this work either. But if you both fall in love too? That’d be… easier, in some ways. Maybe messier. But also… good. Because then I wouldn’t feel split in two. Am I selfish too then?” 

Agatha studied her, something unspoken moving behind her eyes. “I don’t know… and I can’t promise anything.”

“I’m not asking you to,” Rio said. “I’m just saying… you don’t have to pretend this is only about strategy. You’re allowed to feel things. Even dumb ones.”

Agatha groaned into the pillow. “God, this is humiliating.”

“It’s human,” Rio corrected, smiling.

Agatha let her head fall back, sighing. “You’re enjoying this too much.”

“You’re moping like a tragic poet but still too polite to mess up someone else’s furniture. Of course I’m enjoying it.”

They both laughed, quietly, the air around them softening.

“God,” Agatha muttered again. “I got rejected and now I’m bonding with you over emotional vulnerability. How far I’ve fallen.”

”How far you’ve come. I remember a time where you talking about feelings was like pulling teeth!” Rio smirked.

“If you’re not a patient now I would have thrown this pillow at you” Agatha warns. 

“You’ve changed Agatha. ” Rio says softly, all the snark and banter gone. 

“Well… I’ve lived and loved and lost. Had the lowest of lows, went for therapy, and here i am not only trying to get my wife back but also apparently actually crushing on my wife’s girlfriend.” Agatha says genuinely. “We are so fucked up” 

Rio raised her spoon like a toast. “Welcome to the club! For all the fuckery and tears. We cry and we use coasters. That should be on a t shirt” 

Chapter Text

The quiet lingered between them, gentle and full of unspoken things.

Rio balanced her spoon on the edge of her bowl. Agatha stared up at the ceiling, sunk halfway into throw pillows like she might disappear into them if she stayed still enough.

Then Agatha said, like it was nothing, “You could help me, you know.”

Rio blinked. “Help you what? Throw the pillows out the window?”

Agatha turned her head. “Help me with Wanda.”

Rio blinked again, slower this time. “You want me to help you date my girlfriend?”

Agatha didn’t flinch. “Technically, yes. Or… I don’t know. Maybe. If I’m not totally misreading everything.”

“You just said maybe,” Rio said, narrowing her eyes. “That’s not very convincing.”

Agatha sighed. “I know. I’m not sure how I feel yet. Not completely. But I do know I didn’t want her to say no. And I do know I want to try again. Properly.”

Rio sat up a little, watching her carefully. “Try again as in…”

“As in… I want to get to know her. For real. Not just for you. Not just to prove I’m not a disaster. Because I like her. I think.”

There was a beat, and then Rio leaned back, eyes thoughtful. “So what? You want me to… what? Be your wingwoman?”

Agatha gave her a pointed look. “You do have a certain amount of insider intel.”

Rio grinned. “What, like her favorite flowers and how to emotionally disarm her?”

“Yes. And also her ideal date snacks, preferred walking speeds, conversational weak points, and any childhood stories I could tastefully exploit to appear endearing.”

Rio laughed—fully, shoulders shaking. “God, you’re terrifying.”

“I’m committed.”

“I can tell.”

They fell quiet again, but this time it wasn’t heavy.

Then Rio said, softly, “You’re really serious about this, huh?”

Agatha didn’t answer right away. Then: “I think I might be. Not just for you. For her. For… whatever this could be.”

Rio leaned back, arms crossed. “Alright. Step one: no more power suits. You’re trying to date her, not cross-examine her.”

Agatha groaned. “You’re going to make me wear pastels, aren’t you.”

“Soft colors. Gentle lighting. Vulnerability. I want romance, not résumé.”

“I hate this already.”

Rio smiled. “You’ll live.”

Agatha watched her for a moment. “You’re really okay with this?”

Rio hesitated—then nodded. “Yeah. I think I am. If you’re doing it for the right reasons.”

Agatha’s voice softened. “I want to be part of what you two have. I’m not trying to take anything away. I just… want to be let in.”

Rio’s expression shifted—quiet understanding, the kind that only comes from shared history and long, jagged love. “Then let’s do it right this time.”

Agatha let out a slow breath, like she’d been holding it for years. “Okay.”

They shared a look—something almost conspiratorial, almost tender.

Then Rio picked up her phone and said, “Alright. First step: sending Wanda a picture of you not looking like a haunted Victorian widow.”

Agatha gasped. “I will have you know this sweater is tastefully understated.”

“It’s charcoal,” Rio said, deadpan. “You look like grief on a Pinterest board.”

Agatha tackled her with a pillow. Rio shrieked and kicked at her with her good leg.

The apartment filled with laughter, soft jazz, and the beginning of a second chance disguised as a terrible idea.

Chapter Text

Agatha was hunched over the coffee table like she was building a war plan. Three markers were uncapped and bleeding onto sticky notes.

She was halfway through drawing a flowchart titled “Operation: Win Wanda Over (Again?) ” when Rio plopped down beside her, a bag of kettle chips in hand.

“She hates flowcharts,” Rio said, crunching loudly.

Agatha didn’t look up. “No one hates flowcharts.”

“She said they remind her of emotionally unavailable men in therapy.”

“…Okay. So, no flowcharts.”

Rio shrugged. “She prefers lists.”

“Great. Lists are sexier anyway.”

“Are you hearing yourself?”

“Always.”

Agatha grabbed a marker and scrawled across the whiteboard:

Step One: The List. Wanda Edition.

Rio pointed with a chip. “She likes lavender. Not just the scent but the color, too. But not the fake stuff. It has to be that muted kind. Like grief and softness had a baby.”

Agatha blinked. “That is the gayest thing I’ve ever heard.”

More bullet points followed.

— Lavender

— Rainy mornings

— Good socks (texture matters)

— Harmony in songs, dissonance in people

— Dark chocolate with sea salt

— Secretly loves Hallmark movies but will lie about it under oath

Agatha leaned on her elbow, grinning. “What else?”

Rio considered. “She organizes her books by mood. Not author, not genre. Mood. Like, ‘melancholic but healing’ goes next to ‘quietly furious.’”

“She’s a librarian of the soul.”

Rio adds: “Also, she loves those awful motivational post-its you hate. Don’t throw them out.”

Agatha groaned. “I already called one of them ‘emotional malware.’”

“Then you’re already on thin ice.”

They both laughed again. Agatha added a doodle of Wanda with an exaggerated eye-roll and a quote bubble: “Breathe. Hydrate. Repress Later.”

“You’re going to hell,” Rio said, cackling.

“What else?”

“She hates flakiness.”

“Okay, so never cancel. Got it.”

“She once broke up with a girl because she forgot Wanda’s dog’s name.”

“…She had a dog?”

“It was a metaphorical dog. But still.”

Then , they started doodling.

Wanda with giant glasses. Wanda giving side-eye. Wanda holding up a “Stop projecting!” sign like a traffic cop.

It was unhinged.

It was… familiar.

And when Rio laughed so hard she snorted Diet Coke through her nose, Agatha reached over to hand her a napkin and said, “God, I missed this.”

Rio met her eyes. “Me too.”

The air shifted slightly—but they both let it pass. Left it floating, unspoken, like everything else.

Because then came the sound of keys in the door.

Wanda stepped in, shaking off her scarf, pausing just inside the apartment. She spotted them at the coffee table, snacks everywhere, ink on their hands, the whiteboard behind them gleaming with marker and madness.

For a moment, she just watched. And smiled.

They looked like two kids on a sleepover high, tangled in a mess of plans and potato chips.

“Hey,” she called softly.

Rio jumped, surprised that time flew by so fast .”You’re home.”

Agatha tried to discreetly slide her body in front of the whiteboard. “Hi.”

Wanda walked in, smile lingering. “What are you two up to?”

“Nothing,” Agatha said too quickly.

“Talking,” Rio added, even worse.

Wanda tilted her head, amused. “Mmhm.”

But then her eyes snagged on the board behind Agatha. One step. Two. And there it was:

Phase Two: Soften Her With Shared Interests. Then Pivot to Emotional Honesty.

List of Acceptable Teas. Backup Compliments. Emotional Weak Spots.

Do Not Cry During Hallmark Movie Unless She’s Already Crying First.

She went still.

The smile faded from her face like someone had dimmed a light.

“…Is this me?” Wanda asked.

Rio paled. “It’s… not what it looks like?”

“…Seriously?” she said, quietly.

Agatha froze. “Wanda—”

“Is this a joke?” Wanda’s voice was still even, but it had gone cold at the edges.

“It’s—” Rio tried. “It’s stupid. We were being—”

“Playful?” Wanda supplied. “Strategic? Cute?”

Neither of them answered.

Wanda’s gaze swept over the mess again—her favorite tea written like a tactic, her quirks charted like mission objectives.

“I’m not… a puzzle for you to solve,” she said.

“Wanda, that’s not what we meant,” Agatha said, standing. “It was just…”

“A distraction?” Wanda asked. Her voice didn’t rise. It didn’t need to. “Because that’s what this feels like.”

She looked between the two of them. At their shared laughter, their comfort. The bright and familiar joy she hadn’t seen from Rio in weeks. It wasn’t jealousy—it was clarity.

“You’re not trying to get close to me,” Wanda said. “You’re trying to use me.”

Rio’s face fell. “That’s not—”

“You want to repair what’s broken between you two,” Wanda said, voice shaking now. “And you’re using me to do it. As a way to avoid actually dealing with it.”

Agatha stepped forward. “That’s not fair—”

“It is,” Wanda said, steel in her eyes. “Because I am the therapist. I can see the pattern. This—” she waved at the board, the snacks, the chaos “—this is a distraction. From grief. From guilt. From each other.”

Neither of them answered.

“And what about me ?” she continued. “Did it occur to either of you how this would feel? Coming home and seeing this? My likes, my habits, my emotions… dissected like strategy points.”

Agatha opened her mouth. “It was meant—”

“I know what it was meant to be,” Wanda snapped. “But that’s not how it landed.”

Silence bloomed heavy in the room.

“I’m not angry that you care,” she added, voice quieter now. “But I’m hurt that you’re using me to avoid the real conversation you need to have.”

She turned to Rio. “You finally remembered, and instead of working through that with Agatha, you’re helping her seduce someone else. Me.”

Rio winced.

“And you,” Wanda said, facing Agatha. “You’re trying so hard to fix everything, to build something new , that you’re not acknowledging the grief still hanging between you. It’s not gone just because she remembers now.”

Agatha’s throat tightened.

“I’m not a balm,” Wanda said. “I’m not your next chapter. And I’m not a thing to be traded in for closure.”

Her voice didn’t waver. It was steady. Heartfelt.

And it hurt because it was true.

“I think,” she finished, gathering her bag again, “I need some space.”

She turns away from them and goes upstairs to her room.

The door slams, leaving only silence.

Chapter Text

The door slammed.

Silence fell like a curtain—thick, smothering.

Agatha sat down hard on the edge of the coffee table, elbows on her knees, hands in her hair. “God,” she muttered. “I keep doing this. I keep screwing everything up.”

Rio stayed standing, her face pale and stricken.

“I thought I was being clever,” Agatha said, bitterly. “That if I could just… make her laugh, make you laugh, maybe we could all pretend this wasn’t a mess. That I wasn’t a mess.”

Rio moved slowly, lowering herself beside her. “You’re not a mess.”

Agatha huffed a humorless laugh. “I turned the woman I admire into a mood board, Rio.”

“We both did.”

“But I started it.” She ran her hands over her face. “God, I liked doing it. I liked feeling like we were in sync again. Like we could just… team up and be ridiculous and maybe fix everything with charm and bullet points.”

“Me too. I thought it was harmless,” Rio said sadly. “I thought—if she saw us getting along—it would make things easier.”

“You wanted to make it feel normal,” Agatha said softly. “So did I. We just forgot to ask if she was okay being in the middle of it.”

Rio rubbed at her temple. “She looked so hurt.”

“She was hurt,” Agatha said. “And we didn’t see it because we were too busy trying to… recreate something.”

Rio’s throat tightened. “I just wanted to be useful. Helpful. I didn’t know how to face… all of it.”

They both sat there, lost all over again. Agatha had fingers clenched in her lap. Rio felt her heart ache low and sick in her chest.

“I should go talk to her,” she said quietly.

Agatha nods. “I’ll… clean this up.”

Rio stood, her hands cold with nerves, and climbed the stairs like she was walking toward something sacred—and fragile. The hallway was dim, the door to Wanda’s room half-lit by the late afternoon sun.

She knocked softly.

No answer.

She knocked again. “Wanda?”

Still nothing.

She tested if the door was locked, it wasn’t. So she tentatively stepped in.

Inside, the light wasn’t even on.
God , she really messed up didn’t she.

She found Wanda sitting on the edge of the bed,staring into space.

Rio stood near the door, suddenly unsure where she fit in this space.

“I’m sorry,” she said as she sat next to her on the bed, but not touching her even though she wants to just give her a hug.

“I’m really sorry. Wanda look at me please” Rio lifts her hand to cup Wanda’s face, slowly turning her towards herself.

Wanda looks at her, tired. Her eyes have unshed tears in them.

Rio continues:  “You were right.”

“Which part?”

“All of it.”

Rio strokes her cheek “You’re not… a tool. Or a plan. Or some magical buffer between me and Agatha. And I think I knew that. But it felt easier to joke. To play. To pretend.”

Wanda’s expression softened—but only slightly. “Because pretending means you don’t have to choose.”

Rio flinched. “That’s not fair.”

“No,” Wanda said quietly. “It’s not. But it’s true.”

Rio looked down. “I don’t know what to do. I remember so much now and it’s all—loud. I’m so used to avoiding everything that I thought I could just … not talk about it. And I got too caught up with this whole thing because I didn’t want to lose either of you.”

Wanda’s voice, when it came, was low. “But you might.”

Rio looked up, startled.

“Because I can’t be here while you and Agatha pretend I’m the way back to each other,” she said. “That’s not love, Rio. That’s using me as a lifeboat.”

Rio’s eyes brimmed. “I’m not trying to use you.”

“But you are,” Wanda said. “Because you haven’t really asked what I want.”

Rio was silent. Then, quietly: “What do you want?”

Wanda studied her face. “I want honesty. I want to know that I’m not some halfway point between the past and the future. I want to feel like more than someone you’re scared to lose.”

Rio nodded slowly, throat tight. “You are. You’re so much more.”

Wanda’s gaze flickered down, her lips pressing together in a tight line, as if she were trying to hold back the emotion threatening to spill over. “I don’t feel like it,” she murmured, her voice small, quiet, a shadow of the woman who usually stood so strong. “I feel like I’m always just a… pause between things.”

Rio’s heart clenched, the words cutting deeper than she expected. “You’re not a pause,” she said firmly. “You’re not some halfway point. You’re everything I’ve been looking for, Wanda. Everything.”

Wanda shook her head slightly, as if the words couldn’t quite reach her. “Then why does it feel like I’m the one who’s always holding this together? Why does it feel like I’m holding everything, trying not to break, while you and Agatha… I don’t even know anymore.”

Rio’s chest tightened at the raw honesty in Wanda’s voice. She pulled Wanda close, her arms wrapping around her, offering what words couldn’t. Wanda stiffened at first, then let herself relax into the warmth of Rio’s embrace.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I’ve messed this up. I should have done more. I should have been better for you.”

She leaned in, her lips brushing softly against the tears that still clung to Wanda’s face, kissing them away one by one. The tenderness in her touch was a silent vow, her actions speaking louder than any words. When she pulled back, Wanda looked up at her, her breath unsteady, but a flicker of something fragile and hopeful in her eyes.

“I want to prove this to you,” Rio whispered. “Every day, I want to show you that you’re not just a place to land. You’re my home.”

Wanda’s hand trembled as it came up to touch Rio’s chest. “How?”

Rio smiled softly, her fingers brushing through Wanda’s hair as she kissed her once more—gentle, unhurried. A promise. Wanda melted into it, her hands sliding up Rio’s back, pulling her closer as if trying to pull the love she’d been longing for from Rio’s very soul.

When the kiss finally broke, their foreheads rested together, both breathing deeply. Rio’s fingers traced Wanda’s cheek, caressing her like she was the most precious thing in the world.

“I’ll fix things, I promise. With you, with Agatha, I won’t avoid it anymore,” Rio whispered, her voice steady but full of warmth. “And I promise no matter what happens, I’m not going anywhere.”

Wanda closed her eyes, her hand slipping into Rio’s. For the first time in a long while, she felt the weight of uncertainty lift. In Rio’s arms, in her touch, there was something solid, something real.

Chapter Text

Agatha stood in the kitchen, rinsing a mug she hadn’t drunk from. The house was still in that echoing kind of quiet that came after something broke—not into shards, but into understanding.

The creak of the stairs was soft, tentative. Then Rio appeared, barefoot, sleeves pushed up.

Agatha didn’t look up.

Rio lingered in the doorway for a second before stepping in. “She fell asleep,” she said, voice low. “We talked.”

Agatha finally glanced over. “Is she okay?”

Rio gave a small, tired smile. “Not really. But she will be.”

Agatha nodded.

A pause stretched between them, and then Rio pulled out a chair at the table.

“Can we talk?” she asked.

Agatha gave a dry little laugh. “Isn’t that all we ever do these days?”

But there was no bite in her voice.

Rio pulled out a chair and sat. “I’ve been thinking,” she said, folding her hands on the table. “About… everything. About what Wanda said.”

Agatha stayed by the sink, listening.

Rio glanced down. “She’s right, you know. About us. About how we’ve been using everything else—her, the garden, even laughter—to keep from looking at what’s really between us.”

Agatha didn’t speak.

Rio met her eyes. “And part of that is on me. Not just now. But from the start. When I lost my memory… everyone around me acted like I was fragile. They were so careful. It was as if they were guarding some locked box they didn’t want me to open. Like the truth might crush me. And I told myself they were the ones keeping it from me—Wanda, Jen, Alice, even Lilia.”

Rio paused, as if readying herself.

“But the truth is, I was hiding too. I wanted that box to stay locked. I acted like I was looking for answers, but I wasn’t. Not really. I was terrified of what I might find.”

Agatha’s brow creased. “Why?”

Rio’s throat worked. “Because it felt like stepping into a pitch-black room full of broken glass. Because I had this instinct, deep in my chest, that whatever was behind that door… it hurt. It destroyed me. I could feel the shape of the grief, even if I didn’t have the memories. And I wasn’t ready.”

Her voice cracked. “And maybe part of me thought—if I just never opened that door, I wouldn’t have to break again.”

Agatha’s expression softened—something fragile flickering in her chest.

Rio shook her head. “And so I used them. I let myself believe they were keeping the truth from me. That they were the reason I didn’t remember. But the truth is—I didn’t want to remember. I chose not to look.”

A pause. “And that was my choice. Not theirs.”

Agatha’s voice was barely audible. “But now?”

Rio reached across the table, resting her hand over Agatha’s. “Now… I want to face it. All of it. The grief. The loss. The love. The crash. Nicky. Us.”

Agatha sucked in a sharp breath at the mention of his name.

“I want to remember both the good and the bad,” Rio whispered. “Even if it hurts. I want to look at the ruins without pretending they aren’t there.”

Agatha’s eyes brimmed with tears.

Rio swallowed. “And it wasn’t just Nicky’s death”

Agatha stiffened.

Rio didn’t look away. “It was you. What happened between us. What I did, or didn’t do. What you left behind.”

Agatha’s lips parted, but no words came.

Rio’s voice was soft now. “I know you left. I didn’t understand it before. But I remember enough now. And even without all the pieces—I felt it. You leaving… that tore something in me.”

“I didn’t know what else to do,” Agatha whispered. “I couldn’t breathe in the same house as you. You looked like him. Every time I looked at you, I thought—why him?”

Rio’s breath hitched, but she reached out across the table, sliding her hand over Agatha’s.

“I get it,” she said gently. “I hated myself after the crash. Heck, I hid behind memory loss. But I’m ready to stop hiding now,” Rio said. “To remember and grieve Nicky together. To understand what we lost. And to talk—really talk —about what happened between us. We can’t keep avoiding this anymore.”

Agatha gripped her hand tightly. “Are you sure?”

Rio nodded, voice thick. “Not just sure. I need to. Because if we’re going to move forward—even as just friends, even as anything—I don’t want it to be built on silence.”

Agatha squeezed her hand so tightly it almost hurt. “Okay,” she said, voice breaking. “Okay.”

And in the quiet kitchen, they sat with their pain—not avoiding it, not running from it, not trying to patch it over with laughter or games or distractions.

For the first time in a long time, they just let it be.

Side by side. Fingers tangled.

And somewhere in the distance, the sun was beginning to rise.

Chapter Text

In the morning, Agatha had given a suggestion.

“How about,” she began carefully, “you come home with me. Just for the day.”

Rio looked up.

Agatha continued, tentative but steady. “Just… to see. I’ve cleaned it up. A lot. And if we’re going to face this together, maybe this is a place we should start.”

Rio’s eyes dropped to her shoes. She was quiet for a beat too long.

Then she nodded. “Okay.”

Which led them to the present where they stood outside Agatha’s house— their house once, but Rio hadn’t called it that in a long time.

The sky was dull with the soft hush of afternoon, clouds thick like held breath. Rio shuffled her feet on the sidewalk, hesitant. She looked smaller somehow—uncertain, like her body didn’t quite know how to belong here anymore.

The door creaked as it opened, softly, not ominously, like the house had been waiting without blame.

Agatha stepped in first. The scent of lemon oil and old wood filled the air. Gone was the mustiness that had clung to the walls like grief. The place had been cleaned, reorganized. Lived in again.

Rio followed slowly. Her gaze swept the entryway, then the living room. Her fingers brushed the wall where a framed photograph used to hang. “You took it down,” she murmured.

“Just put it away,” Agatha said. “Nothing’s gone. I just… wasn’t ready to look at it every day.”

They moved slowly through the house. Each step was a quiet reckoning. Then Agatha paused at a hallway cabinet, opened it, and pulled something out.

Nicky’s old soccer cleats.

Rio let out a breath like a punch to the gut. “He hated those.”

Agatha laughed, softly. “He said they made him run like a duck.”

Rio smiled—really smiled this time—and crouched down, taking one shoe gently in her hands. “He refused to wear them after one week. Said they had bad energy.”

They both chuckled, and for a second, the heaviness lifted.

Agatha stepped back into the hallway and beckoned Rio toward Nicky’s room.

The door was still painted the same pale blue. A faded sticker of a cartoon sun clung stubbornly to the edge.

Rio hesitated at the threshold. “I haven’t seen this room since…”

“I changed the sheets,” Agatha said gently. “But everything else is the same. I thought—when you were ready…”

Rio nodded, and together they stepped inside.

The room felt frozen in time. The shelves were still cluttered with little dinosaur figurines. A corner fort made of old pillows sagged quietly in the corner. There was a sketch taped to the closet door: a lopsided drawing of the three of them, with “FAMLEE” written in big crayon letters above their heads.

Rio stared at it for a long time, her hand flying to her mouth. “I forgot this.”

Agatha leaned against the doorframe, arms folded across her chest, eyes misty. “He made us promise to keep it up forever.”

“He said it was our magic protection spell.”

They sat on the bed, shoulder to shoulder, not speaking for a while. The room had gone still around them. Rio’s fingers lingered on the sketch taped to the closet door—crayon lines slightly faded, corners curling with time. The drawing wasn’t perfect, but it was unmistakably them. Happy. Whole.

Agatha shifted beside her and cleared her throat softly. “I didn’t know if you’d ever come back,” she said. “But when I started cleaning, it felt like… like I had to try. Even if it was just for me.”

Rio turned to look at her.

“I started with the garden,” Agatha said, her voice quieter now. “You remember how bad it got.”

Rio’s brows lifted slightly. “You mean the jungle it turned into?”

Agatha huffed a small laugh. “Worse than that. But I cleared it out. Bit by bit. I bought new gloves. Tools. I even went to that shop you used to love.”

Realization flickered in Rio’s eyes. “That’s why you were there.”

Agatha nodded. “I didn’t know I’d see you. I just… wanted to get my hands back in the dirt. To feel like something could still grow.”

Rio swallowed hard. “Can I see it?”

Agatha led her outside through the kitchen. The back door creaked open, and Rio stepped into the late afternoon sun—and into something that took her breath.

The garden was far from perfect, but it was alive.

Beds of newly planted herbs lined the path. A wild tangle of flowers—sunflowers, zinnias, marigolds—reached for the light. The apple tree they’d planted with Nicky still stood at the back, its branches pruned, young fruit already budding. A tiny wind chime tinkled near the fence. And in the corner, just beside the stone birdbath, was Nicky’s old patch of earth—his “worm kingdom,” now marked with a painted rock that simply read: You Are So Loved.

Rio pressed a hand to her chest. “I used to sit here every morning,” she whispered. “When he was sick. Just to breathe.”

“I remembered,” Agatha said. “That’s why I kept it. And I planted more lavender there. You said it was the only scent that ever helped you sleep.”

Rio blinked quickly, throat tight.

They walked the garden slowly, neither rushing the silence. Agatha reached down and brushed dirt from the base of a rosemary bush. “He tried to grow tomatoes once. Remember? Got mad when they came out sour.”

“He said it was because I sang to them off-key,” Rio said, smiling despite herself. “Which was rude. I was giving them jazz. ”

Agatha laughed, and then grew still. “I thought if I could fix this place, maybe it would make the rest bearable.”

Rio reached for her hand. “It does. It really does.”

Later, when the garden had faded into dusk and the sky turned the color of old postcards, they wandered back into the house. The air smelled faintly of soil and lavender. Agatha brewed tea while Rio thumbed through the photo album Agatha had left on the coffee table—a quiet invitation.

They didn’t speak much as they moved through the small, familiar routines. It felt like walking through a memory softened by time.

It was only once they curled up on the couch, a mug between them and Nicky’s faded Spiderman blanket draped over their legs, that Rio finally broke the silence.

“Agatha?”

“Mhm?”

Rio looked down at her hands. “I used to be so angry.”

Agatha didn’t answer, but her body stilled beside her.

“I hated that you left. I didn’t understand how you could just leave like this, leave everything behind. Eventually, I couldn’t even look at this house. All I felt after the anger was emptiness.. ” Rio continued, voice soft. “When I lost my memory, I don’t think I really fully forgot that anger and hurt. The ache—it was always there. The guilt I couldn’t place. The love I couldn’t name.”

Agatha swallowed hard.

Rio turned to face her. “And then I remembered. And it all came rushing back. How you left. How it broke me.”

Agatha’s breath hitched. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“I know,” Rio said. “You left because I reminded you of him. Because you were drowning in grief, and I was too. And we didn’t know how to hold each other without breaking more.”

Tears pricked Agatha’s eyes. “I hated myself for leaving. Every day.”

“I know,” Rio said again, and this time her voice was steadier. “ And I forgive you .”

Agatha looked up, startled.

Rio nodded. “I forgive you. Not because it didn’t hurt. Not because it didn’t break me too. But because… I get it now. I really do. We lost everything, and you were just trying to survive.”

Agatha let out a shaky breath. “I didn’t think I deserved to come back.”

“You do,” Rio said. “And I want you here. Not as a replacement for what we lost—but because we’re still here.”

The quiet between them was thick and warm.

Rio reached down and adjusted the edge of the blanket, tucking it around Agatha’s feet. “Remember how he used to insist on this one? Even when it was too hot?”

Agatha smiled. “He said it made him feel ‘super safe.’”

“I get it now,” Rio murmured, resting her head on Agatha’s shoulder. “I feel safe here too. With you.”

They sat like that for a long time. No need to fill the silence, no more pretending that moving forward meant leaving the past untouched. Underneath Nicky’s old blanket, surrounded by the echoes of the life they’d built and lost and were beginning to rebuild again, they finally—finally—slept.

Together.

Home.

Chapter Text

The morning light filtered in soft and gold through the gauzy curtains. It touched the worn corners of the house, the picture frames on the wall, the stray toy truck still perched on a shelf—like the house had exhaled overnight. Like it had been waiting for them to come home.

Agatha stirred first, blinking slowly as she felt the weight of Rio’s head still nestled on her shoulder. Nicky’s Spiderman blanket had slipped halfway to the floor. The house was silent but no longer aching.

Something inside her felt… lighter. Not fixed. Not whole. But loosened. Like a knot finally given permission to uncoil.

Rio stretched, yawning into her arm. “God. I forgot how much this couch sucks.”

Agatha chuckled, rubbing her neck. “It used to be your favorite nap spot.”

Rio smiled faintly. “Only when Nicky climbed on top of me and declared it a ‘nest.’”

A beat passed, nostalgic and bittersweet before Rio sat up, legs tucked beneath her.

“Hey,” she said softly, “I was thinking… I want to bring Wanda over. Like… tomorrow.”

Agatha blinked. “Tomorrow?”

Rio nodded. “I know it’s soon. But that night, she fell asleep crying. And I held her, and I realized she’s held me through so many of my darkest moments, and I’ve never let her into the bright ones. Never shared this part of me. Of Nicky. Of you.”

Agatha stilled.

“She knows all the sad parts of me,” Rio continued, gently. “The pain, the breakdowns, the therapy sessions, the grief. But she’s never seen this. She’s never known the version of me who danced barefoot in the garden with Nicky. Or who built Lego castles and cried from laughter at his dumb knock-knock jokes.”

Her voice wobbled slightly. “I want her to know that part of my life. I want to share it with her. Not as proof of who I used to be, but… as a part of who I still am.”

Agatha didn’t respond at first. Her fingers trailed along the edge of the mug in her hands, tracing the rim over and over.

She’d always been so fiercely protective of her memories with Rio and Nicky—had hoarded them like precious stones, too personal to share. Too sacred to be touched.

But now, hearing Rio’s voice tremble with love and hope, something cracked open in her too.

“All right,” she said. “Tomorrow.”

Rio let out a breath, smiling in that soft way Agatha remembered from so long ago. “Really?”

Oddly, Agatha found herself nodding slowly.

“I always thought I’d be angry at the idea,” she admitted. “Sharing you. Letting someone else see the parts of our life I held closest.”

Rio watched her quietly.

“But now… I don’t know. Maybe it’s because Wanda already knows the worst of it. Maybe it’s because she stayed. Or maybe it’s because she loves you in a way that doesn’t take from anyone else.”

She hesitated, then added, “And maybe, deep down, I kind of want her to know him too.”

Rio blinked. “Really?”

Agatha nodded. “He was the best of us. If someone else is going to carry a part of your heart… I don’t mind if they carry a piece of his too.”

Rio gave her a look—grateful, tearful—and leaned in to hug her. Agatha held her back, arms strong around the woman who used to be her wife, who might be her family again in a new form neither of them had imagined.

After Rio left the room, Agatha lingered in the doorway, her hand brushing the photo frame of Nicky with ice cream on his chin.

She exhaled, shaky but unafraid.

The idea of Wanda coming here into their sacred space no longer felt like intrusion. It felt… right. Like someone turning on a lamp in a room long left dim.

She found herself wondering what Wanda might say when she saw Nicky’s old Lego castle. Whether she’d laugh. Whether her smile would crinkle at the corners the way it did when she talked about Rio.

And to her surprise, the thought didn’t hurt.

It warmed her.

Not everything that bloomed in this house had to be born from grief.

The next morning arrived gentle and bright, with the kind of weather that made things feel possible.

Wanda showed up wearing a cardigan too big for her frame and holding a tin of lemon muffins that smelled like childhood. Her eyes were cautious, but her smile was real, if a little unsure.

Agatha opened the door before Rio could, already two mugs into her coffee and, to her own surprise, strangely at ease.

“Hi,” Wanda said.

“Hi,” Agatha replied. Then, after a pause: “You brought muffins.”

“I panicked,” Wanda said, holding them out like an offering. “It felt like the polite thing to do when you’re meeting your girlfriend’s ex-wife in the house they raised a child in.”

Agatha huffed a small laugh. “Well, you’re already ahead of me. I clearly did not prepare anything when I went to your place”

Wanda’s shoulders relaxed a little, and Rio slipped between them like gravity, linking arms with both. “This is going to be weird,” she said, grinning. “But like… good weird.”

Agatha gestured them inside. “Come on. I’ll show you the kitchen. And then…” Her voice softened. “Then we’ll show you the rest.”

The tour wasn’t formal. It unfolded the way memory does - sudden, scattered, tender.

In the kitchen, Agatha pointed to a faded mark on the counter. “That’s from the time Nicky tried to make ‘lava soup’ with every spice in the cabinet. We had to evacuate for two hours.”

Wanda laughed, covering her mouth. “God, that sounds awful.”

“It was,” Agatha said fondly. “But he was so proud. He named it ‘Destruction Stew.’”

Rio leaned her head on Wanda’s shoulder. “He made us taste it. I swear I hallucinated for three days.”

They moved next to the hallway where childish drawings still clung to the wall in faded frames. Wanda stopped in front of one—stick figures labeled Mommy , Mama , and a very dramatic NICKY with a scribbled cape.

“This was his superhero phase,” Rio said, her voice catching. “He told everyone at school his moms were witches who saved the world.”

Wanda turned, her hand brushing the glass. “He must have loved you both so much.”

The quiet settled again- heavy, but not sad. Just full.

Later, they found themselves in the garden. The earth was still soft from spring, and the rosemary had come back with a stubbornness Agatha respected.

“This was his favorite spot,” she said, pointing to the patch beneath the lilac tree. “He’d drag his blanket out and make us sit through his ‘science experiments.’ Usually involving dirt and glitter.”

Wanda sat cross-legged on the grass, eyes closed, letting the sun hit her face. “You can feel him here,” she said softly.

“You can,” Rio said.

Agatha watched them both, Wanda, serene in the sunlight; Rio, gently brushing her fingers across the grass where her son once played.

She surprised herself by speaking. “Sometimes I used to think if I told anyone about the good times, they’d disappear. Like saying them out loud made them more fragile.”

Wanda opened her eyes and looked at her. “But they’re not.”

“No,” Agatha said. “They’re not.”

Rio leaned back between them, her head resting against Wanda’s knee, her hand seeking Agatha’s. They sat like that for a while. No timeline. No past or present. Just the three of them, tethered by memory and love and something new being built between the roots.

Agatha didn’t know what name to give this yet.

But she didn’t need one.

She only knew that, for the first time in years, the house felt full.

Later, while Rio disappeared into the garden to water the herbs—muttering something about “plant therapy”—Agatha lingered in the kitchen, rinsing out the old teapot. Wanda stood nearby, still barefoot from the lawn, gently drying the mugs.

“I didn’t know you’d be like this,” Wanda said after a moment. “Warm. Kind. Generous.”

Agatha glanced over. “You thought I’d bite?”

Wanda shrugged, smiling slightly. “I wasn’t sure. You were a myth for a long time. I saw your name in Rio’s tears before I ever saw it in her smile.”

Agatha paused, then set the teapot down. “That’s fair.”

They stood in a pocket of silence, steam rising gently from the sink.

“I used to imagine you,” Wanda said, more softly now. “When she talked in her sleep. When she cried. I’d build this picture of the woman she lost. Sometimes I hated you. Other times, I felt sorry for you.”

Agatha didn’t flinch. “I deserved both.”

“But now I’m standing in your kitchen,” Wanda went on, “and it’s strange, because… I get it. I get why she never stopped loving you.”

Agatha turned, truly looking at her. “Do you?”

Wanda nodded. “You’re not what I expected. But you’re exactly what she needed back then. And maybe still does.”

Agatha laughed softly, a bitter edge to it. “She always said I made the chaos feel like magic. I think now I just made it harder to breathe.”

“You both did,” Wanda said gently. “That doesn’t mean it wasn’t real.”

A beat. Then Agatha asked, her voice quiet and raw, “Why did you just accept all of these so easily? I can’t help but feel bad to you”

Wanda looked up. “Because you’re not the enemy. Don’t feel bad for me. I’m here because I love her. And because she loves you . I’ve tried leaving once but clearly that didn’t work…” she tried joking

Agatha’s hummed. “I don’t think I would be that generous, if the roles were reversed. I would have kicked you out with a broom, or cursed you with a voodoo doll”

“You would, wouldn’t you?” Wanda said with a grin. “I can totally see that happening”

Agatha smirked. “Please. I’ve got three voodoo dolls in a drawer upstairs. One of them’s labeled ‘general nuisance.’”

“Oh good,” Wanda deadpanned. “I always wanted to be immortalized in yarn and resentment.”

Agatha sipped her tea. “Don’t flatter yourself. That one’s actually for the mailman who keeps folding my packages.”

Wanda chuckled, setting her mug down. “You’re a lot less terrifying than I expected.”

“I’m pacing myself,” Agatha said. “Gotta keep the mystique alive.”

There was a beat of silence before Wanda added, “Seriously though… I didn’t just accept all of this. It’s not like I grew up thinking, ‘You know what I’d love? To be in a romantic triad with my ex-client and her very sexy chaos ex-wife.’”

Agatha raised a brow. “You think I’m sexy?”

Wanda narrowed her eyes playfully. “ That’s what you took from what I said? Don’t let it go to your head.”

“Too late,” Agatha said smugly.

They both laughed this time, the kind that rolls up unexpectedly and eases something tight in the chest. When it settled, Wanda leaned against the counter and looked at her, a little softer now.

“I don’t know what this is going to look like,” she admitted. “But I’m willing to try. Because Rio’s not the only one worth knowing here.”

Agatha blinked. “Was that… a compliment?”

“Your head is going to be so inflated ”

Agatha smirked. Then after a pause: “But thank you. That means more than you probably think.”

Wanda nudged her shoulder gently. “Don’t get mushy on me.”

“Oh God, no,” Agatha said. “Next thing you know I’ll be knitting you a matching sweater.”

“I’ll set it on fire,” Wanda said.

“You’ll look great in ashes,” Agatha shot back.

They grinned at each other—still wary in the way people are when they’ve only just begun to trust, but trying . And trying was everything.

At that moment, Rio wandered back in, dirt on her hands and a flower tucked behind one ear. She stopped when she saw them, brows lifting.

“You two bonding or plotting my demise?”

“Both,” they said in unison.

Rio blinked. “Honestly? That’s fair.”

Chapter Text

In the weeks that followed, something unexpected began to settle around the three of them—something that looked suspiciously like a rhythm.

Rio started spending her afternoons at Agatha’s house. She’d bring over tea blends Wanda had curated, or half-dead plants she insisted were “just sleeping.” Sometimes they’d cook together, which mostly meant it ended up in disaster and they had to get takeout. Wanda came over whenever she can, as they spent time in the garden or just chilled in the living room. 

Then, every evening like clockwork, Rio would head home to the apartment she still shared with Wanda and somehow, Agatha would end up there too.

At first, it was innocent. A forgotten book, a shared dinner, a “stay for a bit” that turned into “stay the night.” Then it just… became normal.

Wanda would fall asleep with her hand in Rio’s, Agatha curled on the other side of the couch reading some old book until one of them decides its time to go to bed before that backs giveway. Rio loved it when they were all on the couch together, she would be somewhere in the middle, tangled up in limbs and warmth and the soft sounds of people who had learned how not to be afraid of love anymore.

They never declared anything. But there were toothbrushes left at each other’s sinks. Tupperware swapped back and forth like trading cards. Agatha grumbling about Wanda reorganizing her spice rack (even though she secretly liked it). Wanda teasing Agatha about her collection of “emotionally constipated antique cups.”

There was laughter. There was still grief, sometimes. But mostly, there was something gentler blooming—something domestic and strange and holy in its own right.

Agatha started adding Wanda’s favorite snacks in her pantry without thinking. Wanda started referring to Agatha’s house as “the other place.” Rio began to say home and mean two different addresses, and somehow both were right.

They hadn’t planned for this.

But it was happening anyway.

It hit Rio one night as she stood in the doorway, watching them from the kitchen.

Agatha was sitting at the dining table, sleeves rolled up as she sorted through a box of old photographs Rio had found in the attic. Wanda was beside her, legs tucked under her, squinting at a particularly water-damaged one and arguing lightheartedly about whether the blur in the corner was a ghost or Agatha’s bad photography.

“No way that’s my fault,” Agatha said flatly. “That blur has haunted energy. It was probably a ghost.”

“You have haunted energy,” Wanda replied without missing a beat. “Also, your thumb is in half these shots.”

“Artistic framing, or the same damn ghost” Agatha sniffed.

“Sure. This ghost must love you so much to appear in all the photos you take.”

Rio bit back a laugh, leaning on the doorway as a warm, fizzy feeling bubbled up in her chest.

They didn’t realize it yet, but they’d skipped past all the awkward parts, past first dates and nervous text replies and pretending not to care too much. They were already living the part most people spent years trying to build toward. The comfortable domestic chaos. The easy rhythms. The “your thumb is in every photo and I love you anyway” kind of love.

She didn’t need to decide between them. That was the old version of the story. This one? This was something else. Something better.

Wanda reached for a second photo, and when Agatha tried to steal it from her, she gave her a look—firm, level, calm. “You’ve already hoarded the others. Share.”

And to Rio’s quiet delight, Agatha immediately huffed and handed it over without another word.

That was the other thing she noticed. Wanda never raised her voice. Never demanded space. She just… took it . And Agatha—chaotic, guarded, sharp-edged Agatha— listened . And Agatha never just listens. But she did with Wanda. Not in a resentful way. In the way you listen when someone earns your trust.

It made something warm pool in Rio’s stomach.

Because Agatha brought out this playful, snarky version of Wanda that Rio didn’t get to see often. The one who grinned with all her teeth and leaned into the mess of things. And Wanda brought out this quiet tenderness in Agatha that softened even her worst moods—made her laugh when she didn’t want to, made her listen when she didn’t have to.

They were so different , and yet they moved around each other like planets sharing the same orbit.

And Rio? Rio got to watch it all unfold. Got to witness the people she loved most slowly learning how to love each other, too.

She grinned to herself, quiet and smug and filled to the brim with a joy she didn’t quite know how to hold.

Eventually, they’d realize it.

Eventually, one of them would look around and say, Wait a second, are we… living together? Are we doing this?

And when that happened, Rio would just smile and say, You’re a little late, babes. We’ve been doing this for weeks.

She padded into the room and dropped a handful of freshly picked lavender onto the table.

“What’s that for?” Agatha asked.

“Our pillowcases,” Rio said innocently. “So we all dream nice things.”

Agatha snorted, but Wanda was already reaching for the lavender. “I love it,” she said simply.

And Rio sat down with them, her heart loud and light in her chest.

This was never the life she imagined.

It was better.

Chapter Text

The apartment was quiet that morning, too quiet. Wanda was already gone by the time Rio woke up.

Rio moved through it like she always did on this day. Not cautiously, not sadly. Just… gently. There was no Wanda curled into the couch. No morning hum of the kettle boiling for her. Just stillness, soft and sacred, like a chapel after everyone has left.

She didn’t worry.

She knew where Wanda was—or rather, where she wasn’t. And that was enough.

Every year, on the same date, Wanda disappeared.

No explanation. No location. Just silence.
It was the anniversary of Pietro’s death.

Rio had learned to read the warning signs . Every year, she saw Wanda brace herself when this date is nearing, quiet and distant for days beforehand, as if the air itself turned heavier. Saw it in the way she kissed Rio’s temple just a little tighter the night before, and in how she rose before dawn without making a sound.

Rio never stopped her.

Some grief wasn’t meant to be witnessed. Some losses didn’t need comfort, they needed solitude. Just like how Rio dealt with Nicky’s death. 

So Rio let her go, year after year. And when she returned late at night, eyes red and voice hoarse, Rio would already have tea waiting. No questions. No words. Just arms open, lips pressed to Wanda’s hair as she held her.

It had always been like that. Since the beginning. And Rio never pushed. 

It was their unspoken ritual. One of the few things Rio never tried to fix.

So when Agatha arrived, expecting breakfast and banter, Rio already knew the questions would come.

“Where’s Wanda?” Agatha asked after a beat.

“She’s out,” Rio said simply.

Agatha’s brows knit. “Did something happen?”

Rio shook her head, placing the knife down. “It’s her brother’s death anniversary today.”

Agatha’s face softened immediately. “Pietro…”

“She disappears every year on this date,” Rio continued. “Doesn’t tell anyone where she’s going. She just… vanishes for the day. Comes back late. And I don’t ask.”

Agatha blinked, clearly thrown. “You don’t ask?”

“No,” Rio said, pouring tea like she’d done a hundred times. “She doesn’t want company. She doesn’t want to be found. She just needs space.”

There was a quiet tension as Agatha processed that.

“And you’re okay with that?” she asked finally.

Rio blinked, then nodded. “Of course. I love her. I trust her. She trusts me. It’s not about where she goes, it’s about what she needs.”

Agatha looked away. “I wouldn’t be able to do that.”

Rio tilted her head. “Why not?”

Agatha hesitated, then set the mug down with a clink. “Because I am her. Or—I was. The running, the isolation, the vanishing without a trace when everything feels like it’s cracking. That’s how I survived, Rio. You stay, always, no matter what. But some of us learned that vanishing is safer.”

Rio stilled, eyes narrowing. “You think she’s running ?”

Agatha didn’t flinch. “I think she’s doing what she knows. What I know.”

“That’s different,” Rio said sharply, tension creeping into her voice. “Wanda comes back.”

“So did I,” Agatha said quietly. “Eventually.”

“No, you left ,” Rio snapped, louder now. “You disappeared. You abandoned me. You didn’t come back with tear-streaked cheeks needing space. You came back after years , Agatha. You left me drowning in silence and you never once reached back.”

Agatha’s throat tightened. “Rio—”

“Don’t you dare put that on Wanda,” Rio said, voice trembling. “Don’t drag her grief through your excuses just to make sense of what you did.”

Agatha recoiled, as if slapped. “This isn’t about me and you—”

“Isn’t it?” Rio snapped, stepping forward. “Because it’s always about your need to do something, fix something, prove something. And now you think you can just waltz in and decide what Wanda needs?!  I’m the one that’s been here, Agatha. I’ve been the one waiting at home. I’ve been the one holding her when she came back in tears. I’m the one that fucking stays.”

Agatha’s face went still. Pale. Her voice came smaller, but strained: “Are you ever going to forgive me? Or will you always hold this over my head like a noose?”

Rio flinched like she’d been cut. Her fists clenched at her sides.

For a second—just one—they were too close. Too raw.

And Rio took a step back. Her breath shuddered as if she’d narrowly avoided striking something she’d never be able to take back.

Agatha’s voice broke the silence. “I’m not trying to replace you or intrude. I just… I know what it’s like. To say you want to be alone and secretly hope someone doesn’t listen. Billy did that for me. After Nicky. I thought I wanted silence too, but I wanted someone to barge in. To see me when I was hiding.”

Rio didn’t look at her. Her voice was quiet now, but iron-edged. “So you’re going to force that on Wanda, too?”

“No,” Agatha said, carefully. “I’m saying maybe she’s like me. Like the me you used to love. The one you couldn’t save, because I wouldn’t let you try.”

Rio’s lip curled. “Don’t romanticize it. Don’t stand there and pretend that breaking me taught you something noble.”

Agatha’s mouth opened, then closed.

A beat passed. Then she tried again, gentler now. “I’m not trying to fix her. I just… I think maybe she doesn’t want to be alone today. Not really. Not deep down.”

Still, Rio didn’t move. Her arms were crossed so tightly it looked like she was holding herself together.

Agatha took a step forward, not pushing—just present. “This isn’t me trying to erase what you do for her. Or who you are to her. But I recognize something in her silence. It’s not about me. It’s not about you.”

She let that hang in the air a moment before continuing, softer now. “And… for however many times you want me to say I’m sorry for leaving, for breaking us—I will. I’ll say it again and again, if that’s what it takes. Because I meant what I said, Rio. I’m here. I’m not running. And I’ll prove it to you every damn day, for as long as it takes for you to believe it.”

She watched Rio carefully. And for the first time since the argument had begun, something in Rio’s posture slackened. The tension in her shoulders loosened. Her fists uncurled, slowly.

Agatha stayed still, her voice low but steady. “ I’ll be here, trying. Because I never should’ve left the way I did. And I know that hurt doesn’t just go away so easily.”

Rio’s breath hitched. Her eyes dropped to the floor. “You did hurt me,” she said quietly, as if confessing it to herself more than to Agatha. “You hurt me so deeply I thought it would swallow me whole. And I know you didn’t mean to but it’s still there. I’m still… carrying it.”

Agatha nodded, her throat tight. “I know.”

A silence stretched, but this time it wasn’t sharp. It was tentative. Tender.

Rio inhaled, then exhaled shakily. “But I can’t keep holding that over you forever. If I do… we’ll never move forward. I’ll never move forward. And I don’t want that either.”

She looked up, and for the first time, really looked at Agatha—eyes red-rimmed but steady. “I’m sorry too. For what I said earlier. I was cruel. I was angry. And maybe I had the right to be angry, but I still shouldn’t have thrown it at you like that.”

Agatha blinked, startled. “You were hurt. I get it.”

Rio gave a bitter little laugh, wiping at her eye. “Doesn’t mean it was fair.”

They stood there in the quiet, the air between them no longer crackling with fire, but heavy with something else. Mutual grief. Mutual effort.

Rio cleared her throat. “Wanda’s at the beach. Near the pier. She goes there on Pietro’s anniversary.”

Agatha exhaled, relief flickering in her eyes. “Thank you.”

She turned toward the door, then hesitated.

Rio spoke again, gentler this time. “If you go to her… don’t try to fix her.Just hold her. The way I wanted someone to hold me.”

Agatha paused, the words hitting her square in the chest. She turned, eyes soft. “I will.”

And then she left- quietly, purposefully, into the weight of someone else’s silence.

Chapter Text

The waves were quieter today.

Wanda sat at the far end of the beach, huddled inside a windbreaker, her hood pulled low, her knees drawn up to her chest. The sky above was smeared with soft greys and streaks of gold, a tired sun lowering into the sea. She barely noticed.

This was her place.

The place she came once a year to let it all break.

Footsteps crunched behind her.

She didn’t turn. “I don’t want company,” she said evenly, her voice just loud enough to carry over the wind.

A pause. Then the soft, deliberate sound of someone sitting down in the sand behind her.

She didn’t have to look. She knew it was Agatha.

Wanda clenched her jaw and stared out at the surf, willing herself not to feel anything. But she did. The pressure. The tightness in her chest. The rising ache in her throat.

Wanda exhaled sharply through her nose. “You can go now.”

A pause. Then: “I’ll just sit.”

She didn’t move closer. She just sat, her presence quiet but unwavering.

Time passed. A long while. Maybe an hour. The light began to shift, softening into amber.

Wanda’s shoulders shook, though she didn’t notice. The cold had settled in her bones.

She didn’t realize how badly she was shivering until a warmth wrapped around her from behind.

Agatha’s voice was low. “Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m just giving you warmth.”

Wanda tensed at first, resisting even the touch. Her muscles locked.

But Agatha’s arms were steady. Patient. They didn’t demand. They simply offered.

Eventually, slowly, Wanda leaned back. Just enough. Her body curled into the warmth like a flower tilting toward sun. She let herself be held.

They sat that way for a while—silent, close, the waves breaking steadily in the background.

Then, Wanda spoke.

“I used to think he was invincible,” she said quietly. “Pietro. He was always running ahead of me, taunting me to keep up. Like the world would have to catch him before anything could hurt him.”

Agatha listened.

“We grew up in a war zone. Lost our parents. But we always had each other. He made the worst things bearable. It was like… us against the world. And then it was just me.”

Her voice cracked.

“I hate this day,” she whispered. “I hate how the world keeps moving like he was never in it.”

Agatha’s grip around her tightened.

“I don’t know how to be just me without him.”

Wanda said as she finally collapsed into Agatha crying— like an exhausted wave breaking on the shore. Her fingers clutched at Agatha’s sleeve. Her face pressed into her shoulder.

Agatha stroked her hair slowly.

No explanations. No advice.

Just presence.

“I didn’t want anyone to come,” Wanda finally spoke again, when her tears were no longer free flowing. “I thought I needed to be alone.”

“Sometimes you do,” Agatha said. “And sometimes… you think you do until someone stays anyway.”

Wanda exhaled a shaky breath. “How did you know?”

Agatha hesitated, then pulled back just enough to look her in the eyes. “Rio told me about today. Said you always disappear. Said she lets you have your space.”

Wanda nodded. That much was true.

“But I’ve felt it,” Agatha continued. “That ache. That desperation to vanish because it’s easier than feeling everything. That’s how I survived too. I know what it’s like to hope someone will find you—and be terrified they actually will.”

Wanda stared at her.

“I almost fought with Rio,” Agatha admitted, smiling faintly. “She was trying to protect your boundaries. But this wasn’t about her. Or even about me. It was about you. And I couldn’t not try.”

Wanda blinked through tears. Then nodded slowly. “Thank you,” she said, voice hoarse but full of something real.

Agatha didn’t answer.

She just looked at her—really looked.

Wanda’s eyes were glassy and wet, lashes clumped together. Her cheeks were red, her lips trembling. But the light of the setting sun caught her just right, painting her skin in gold and rose, the sky behind her soft and streaked like watercolor.

Agatha’s breath caught.

“You’re beautiful,” she said, barely a whisper.

And then—before she could stop herself—she leaned in and kissed her.

It was soft. Barely a brush of lips. Like a question.

Agatha pulled back almost instantly, eyes wide. “I—I shouldn’t have—”

But Wanda didn’t let her finish. She leaned in and kissed her back.

This time it wasn’t soft. It was sure. Certain.

The waves whispered. The sky held its breath. And in the hush of grief and the hush of love, they kissed again—tear-streaked and salt-swept, two souls finding something new in the ruins of everything they’d lost.

Chapter Text

By the time Agatha and Wanda reached Rio’s place, the sky was soaked in amber and fading blue. The light was on. It was always left on when someone was late and the front window glowed with the flicker of movement inside.

Wanda hesitated on the step, her fingers twitching as if unsure whether to knock or flee.

Before she could decide, the door swung open.

Rio was there instantly, like she’d been standing just beyond the door for an hour with her ear pressed against it. Her eyes darted between them. Her brows lifted. Her mouth opened. Then shut. Then opened again. She swallowed visibly.

“I wasn’t pacing,” she blurted.

Agatha raised an eyebrow. “You absolutely were.”

Rio ignored her. “I trusted you to take care of her.”

“Bet you looked out the window like thirty-seven times,” Agatha added dryly.

Rio waved her off and turned to Wanda, eyes softening immediately as her worry returned in full force. “Are you okay? You’re okay, right? Do you want to talk? You don’t have to talk. Do you want to scream? Cry? Sleep? I’ll scream with you. Agatha said that you might not actually want to be left alone. You know what? I can get the pillow we scream into. Or we can eat cake. Do you want cake? No, soup. Soup is healing. Blanket! Where’s the—”

“Rio,” Wanda tried gently.

“Here!” Rio said, as she wrapped a fluffy blanket around Wanda’s shoulders like she was burrito-ing her in affection. “Sit! Sofa! Hot chocolate. I’m making it. With marshmallows. Too many marshmallows. You’re going to feel so loved you’ll want to throw up.”

Wanda blinked as Rio fussed around her, tucking a pillow behind her back, adjusting the blanket for the fifth time, pushing her gently onto the sofa like a well-loved doll.

“Do you want socks?” Rio called from the kitchen. “I have the fuzzy ones. The emotionally-supportive ones!”

Agatha leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching it all unfold with quiet amusement.

“Rio,” she said mildly, “chill.”

Rio’s head popped out from behind a cupboard door. “Excuse me?”

“She’s already wrapped in a blanket and emotional safety net. You’re making hot chocolate and preparing a sock ritual. I think she knows you love her.”

Rio narrowed her eyes slowly.

Then her gaze snapped to Agatha with the precision of a heat-seeking missile. She stepped into the living room with the slow, deliberate energy of a detective about to deliver an interrogation.

“I knew it,” she said, pointing a stirring spoon like a wand. “I knew something was off. You’ve got that smug glint in your eye. That tiny twitch at the corner of your mouth.”

Agatha blinked. “What twitch?”

“I can feel the smugness radiating off you like…like cursed cologne. What did you do? ”

Wanda sank deeper into the couch, amused and a little embarrassed.

“We kissed,” she admitted softly, a flush creeping up her cheeks. She was someone that was clearly unable to ever lie to save her life. 

Rio dropped the spoon for the second time that night.

Then, dramatically, she pointed at Agatha as if accusing her of murder. “ You kissed her?! On her grief day?! You absolute predator!”

Agatha recoiled, deeply offended. “ Predator?! What the hell! I gave her my coat!”

“That’s how it starts!” Rio gasped. “First it’s ‘here, take my coat,’ next thing you know she’s falling into your arms and you’re like shh, baby, cry into my arms. Classic seduction.”

“I literally didn’t even speak to her for an hour!”

“Exactly! The strong silent type. Oh my god… textbook grooming technique! ”

“Oh my god, you’re unhinged.”

Caught in the middle, Wanda finally cracked and laughter spilled out of her like sunlight. Loud, clear, unrestrained. It hit Rio like a lightning strike; she paused mid-rebuttal, stunned.

“I… I made you laugh?” she asked.

Still giggling, Wanda nodded. “You two are ridiculous.”

Rio blinked slowly. She looked at Agatha. Then back at Wanda. She sat down beside her, a bit dazed, and finally let out a sigh of pure, bewildered relief.

“Well, if it got you to smile on today of all days,” she muttered, “then I guess… maybe I won’t curse her.”

“Gee, thanks,” Agatha deadpanned.

“But I am keeping an eye on you.” Rio pointed two fingers at her eyes and then at Agatha.

“I’d be insulted if you didn’t.”

And just like that, for the first time on the anniversary of her brother’s death, Wanda wasn’t just surviving.

She was smiling. Wrapped in warmth, laughter, and more love than she could carry alone.