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Agatha isn’t very up to date about current events. Her job makes her work a 8-hour shift schedule regularly, sometimes having to stack said shifts on top of each other in a row, so she can’t be blamed for not having the energy to turn the TV on when she can use that extra time to do literally anything else, preferably on sleeping. Whatever she has to know, she’ll immediately be bombarded by several calls from her sister anyway, so what’s the point?
Superheroes are still a fairly new spectacle, though. Even if they’ve been around for, like, a year and half now, Aggie, Agatha doesn’t really see the appeal in them. She can appreciate their willingness to embarrass themselves wearing dumb costumes while doing some admirable things, but all that hero worship you see on the news tends to get old really fast when you start meeting assholes in the ER hogging spaces meant for actual emergencies; assholes who admit to deliberately getting in harm’s way and swoon over being rescued by the newest dork in town for it.
Whatever. Agatha grits her teeth and gets on with it, because she’s getting paid to tolerate this sort of thing. At least Sophie, who’s been flitting about five different superhero fan clubs ever since those assholes debuted, has a sensible girlfriend who keeps her head on her shoulders and would never allow her to do something as stupid as jumping off a bridge to get a hero’s attention. God bless Nicola.
The point is Agatha isn’t being obtuse on purpose. She’s heard something about needing to get off the train a stop ago because there’s been rumors of a planned villain attack on the 9th, but she also happened to have slept through her alarm — which means she’ll be late to her shift if she tries to go anywhere other than her usual route. She has to take the risk if she wants to get paid and hopefully not lose her job.
So here she is — clutching her bag, sitting next to a couple of fangirls who look like they’ve barely graduated out of middle school, bearing various superhero merch. Agatha tries not to cringe, being vaguely reminded of Sophie in middle school, as the automatic voice announces the next stop and the train announcer takes over to, well, make an announcement addressing the rumors of a recent villain attack—it’s true, apparently—and advising people near that particular area to take caution.
Beside her, someone squeals. Something about the area being Spider-Man’s territory, and then more collective shrill voices. Agatha worries for their future and resigns herself to greeting these kids in the ER later as she gets off on her stop.
Funny enough how all things turn out, huh?
One moment, Agatha is safely outside the danger zone where some superpowered assholes are actually throwing hands five stories in the air, the hospital in her line of sight like a benediction, and the next is —
Agatha realises, far too late to do anything else, that she's not just hallucinating her ominously growing shadow.
It’s the shadow of something big and heavy hurling in her direction. Behind her, she faintly registers screaming.
Great.
So this is how she dies. All because she slept through her damned alarm.
Briefly, she thinks of how stupid dying like this would be, and is answered by a wise revelation of that’s just how life is sometimes. It’s frighteningly close to immediate acceptance.
She thinks: Agatha Wardwell, died 22, collateral damage in a villain's bitchy fit in the middle of the street. A dutiful daughter and a beloved sister on her gravestone, but she knows Callis will probably have something much more morbid engraved in her memory. She hopes the Coven makes her funeral fun. Maybe Hester can telepathically hear her from hell and even let Sophie dress her up before they bury her six feet under.
She squeezes her eyes, bracing for some kind of impact–if the impact won’t kill her instantly, she thinks grimly–but it never comes.
Heavy feet fall on the streetwalk—heavy enough that the sidewalk in front of her cracks and she loses her balance. Suddenly, there’s someone in front of her that’s alive and breathing and probably holding whatever it is that just tried to squash her, and for a moment, she thinks, bewildered: that’s not possible.
“Are you okay?”
The adrenaline kicks in. Agatha blindly latches on the next thing her hands can find – a lamp post.
Then: oh, yeah. Superheroes exist.
Agatha braces when the cement underneath her cracks further, letting loose a barrage of curses. God, he doesn't even sound out of breath. “YEP. FINE AND DANDY HERE.”
She hears a startled, aborted laugh, and then somewhere to her right, what sounds like a suspiciously big chunk of cement, torn out from a building, falls to the ground. “Are you sure? You don’t look fine to me.”
“DON’T YOU HAVE A VILLAIN TO ATTEND TO.” Agatha asks calmly, still clutching the lamp post for dear life, and does her best to push aside a sudden bout of hysteria at the absurdity of her almost-death. For fuck's sake. Who cares if she sounds like a constipated giraffe right now?
The hero in question pauses. In the background, they can hear the villain of the week getting pulled away, screaming curses towards someone called Hawkeye and…
“Hawkeye’s taken care of it,” Spider-Man awkwardly says, and by some miracle of God, finally notices her clenched hands that would just not let go of the stupid pole. She closes her eyes and tilts her head up to the sky in a prayer. Hallelujah. “Uh. D’you want me to help you with that?”
Agatha doesn’t dare open her eyes, opting to keep them shut. She flexes her fingers and tries her best to recall one of inner peace technique - like taking several deep breaths - as Spider-Man approaches her, like one would do with a wounded, cornered animal.
She considers kicking him briefly. But he’s actually helpful — awkward, maybe, and standing far too close in her personal space, definitely, but he keeps word vomitting and gently prying her fingers off the lamp post until all the shock of her close encounter with death is replaced with the urge to choke a bitch, because.
Agatha scowls once the blindsiding panic rescinds. She's late to her shift. God forbid their boss from hell would accept almost-death as a fucking excuse.
“There,” he says, a small grin evident in his voice, unaware of Agatha's inner turmoil. “Not too bad, huh?”
“Mhm.” Agatha restrains herself from talking any further, because she’s not sure it’s legal to threaten bodily harm to the nation’s sweetheart. Even she knows that. She shakes her twitching fingers, wondering why he's still standing in front of her instead of talking to his big, screaming crowd of fans in the back. “Sure. Thanks, I guess.”
Spider-Man just tilts his head to the side at her, expectant. Expectant of what exactly remains a mystery. Agatha wonders just how much she can get away with blaming adrenaline if she just pushes past him, shaking body and all that, because if she looks over his shoulder—well, the hospital is right there.
"If that's all," Agatha thinly says, because she has never been a patient woman at heart, "I have to go. I need to be at the hospital right now."
“Why didn't you say so,” Spider-Man says, voice muffled, but most of the humor has already seeped out of his voice. He slides an arm around her waist and pulls her close before she can protest, and Agatha has a suspicious feeling that he did not understand what she meant. “Hold on tight then, princess.”
Unfortunately, Agatha only has a second to spare with her feet still on the ground, staring at him incredulously before she takes notice of the direction he's planning to swing in.
"What did you—FUCK!”
It turns out she did need the hospital. In both senses of the phrase. So now, Nicola’s here as the contact of her emergency contact, because Beatrix refused to let her do the damned job they all toiled for in nursing. Agatha grudgingly sits on the bed as Kiko patches her up, sinking deeply into the sterile hospital mattress as she listens to Nicola snicker at her phone.
She's not thinking of the extra shifts she'll have to pick up when she's deemed ready to work again. Definitely not.
It would be fine, really. If only her emergency contact didn't arrive fashionably late.
“You’re a riot,” she tells Agatha, much to the immense animosity of her fellow victims next to her — one of which was definitely someone from the same train a couple hours back, looking at her like she’s offended her personally. It is also one of Nicola's many rare talents to ignore Sophie bellowing AGGIE! from outside the ER. "Sometimes, I end up thinking the two of you are secretly social experiments ran by a top university."
"Thanks." Agatha shifts in her shock blanket, and listens to Sophie throwing the door wide open, the distinct harsh sound of her sister's heels slapping on the floor growing closer with every passing second. “Yep, that's me - comedic genius extraordinaire. D'you think I should change my career?"
Nicola starts eyeing her like she's actually considering the pros and cons of Agatha in copious amounts of clown makeup, before Agatha makes eye contact with her sister through the glass doors.
Her sister, who tears through the lobby like a hurricane of glitter and pink from hell.
“That’s your sister?” Kiko whispers furiously to them both, tending to Agatha’s vitals.
“Oh, let me handle it.” Agatha makes to shoo her off, while Nicola responds absentmindedly, my girlfriend, actually, to Kiko's horror. She can do her own damn job herself. Beatrix doesn't know what she's talking about. “She’s not actually here because she’s worried about me, you know.”
“Of course, I'm not!” Sophie barks behind Kiko, currently too stunned to speak, like a nightmare come to life. “You’re Agatha Wardwell. I’d be damned if you ever let something as stupid as a chunk of rock kill you.” She turns the glare of her unholy wrath on Kiko. “Move.”
Kiko lets out a squeak of terror, and bolts.
“You— “ Sophie attempts to muster her wrath on her again, pointing a finger at her, the razor-sharp edge of her nail glinting in the cold fluorescent light, but it’s pointless — it’s immediately disarmed by the sight of Nicola by her bedside, “—Nic, darling! What are you doing here?”
Nicola waves her phone at her in greeting, and lets Sophie land a kiss on her cheek in return, without so much as a smile to offer back, but Sophie doesn’t take it personally. Probably why they’ve been going strong for the past five months now — with Sophie’s grand gestures of love comes Nicola’s legendary tolerance for much of the shit that comes with Sophie's Sophie-ness, which in itself was a grander gesture of love. That, and they love pissing each other off. Intellectual battles, or something like that.
“Saw the entire thing online and came by to check in on her,” Nicola informs Sophie, and holds up a hand to stop her in advance when Sophie’s brow subtly twists in concern. “Don’t worry about me. The station was just a couple of blocks away.”
Sophie takes a seat beside Nicola, fuzzing over her for long enough that Agatha deems it alright to slip out of listening to their conversation as she prods at her vitals.
Ugh. Couples. Agatha involuntarily shudders.
And because her week hasn't been hard enough, Sophie’s gaze sharpens in her direction once again.
“You.” Sophie hisses, with feeling.
“Me.” Agatha snorts. “Yeah, don’t mind me, will you?” She turns to Nicola. “You said there's a video of me online?”
“Yeah,” Nicola says, as if Sophie isn’t beside her, gradually turning red with anger. “You went viral. Wanna see it?”
Sophie snatches the phone out of her girlfriend's hand, and stands over Agatha, who holds her hands up in surrender. Nicola doesn't bother taking her phone back, choosing to sit and watch Sophie seething in rage.
Once upon a time, Agatha would be one of the many people falling for Sophie’s intimidation factor — if she hadn’t seen Sophie develop the technique in real time. Also, many people have probably never witnessed Sophie throw up and cry over a mangled Ken doll she saw on the road when she was like, five, because he’s too pretty to die, Aggie!
“On second thought, I don’t actually want to see it.” Agatha informs her, doing her best to channel her inner Anadil in order to avoid snickering in Sophie’s face. “Might be best to forget traumatic events and all that.”
"Maybe you should remember this, then." Sophie viciously shoves it into her face, and a good portion of the ER goes quiet when she presses play. Mostly because Nicola openly lets out a laugh even before Sophie plays the video, and it’s very, very tempting to do the same while staring Sophie herself in the eye.
WHERE ARE YOU GOING, Pixelated Agatha roars in Spider-Man’s ear, audible from three stories up in the air. Nicola’s muffed laughter grows louder. THE HOSPITAL’S IN THE OTHER WAY, IDIOT— MEANING IT’S BACK THERE—BEHIND YOU, MOTHERFUCKER!
“Oh, that,” Agatha says, not even bothering to properly hide her snort behind a yawn. “Yeah, I remember. I was right there when it happened.”
She catches Sophie’s livid expression, and rolls her eyes.
“Look, I said sorry, okay? It was just the adrenaline talking. None of you—“ she pointedly tells everybody else around her, “—need to be mad on his behalf.”
When Sophie starts screeching like a banshee about how she’s an embarrassment and bitching about being related to her while she hauls Agatha to her car, Agatha joins Nicola in cackling loud enough to disturb several of her coworkers on the way out. Sophie wouldn't mind — probably won’t even hear them for a while above the sound of her own voice.
After all, siblings had to have something in common. Outside of their father, nobody really saw any similarity between them until they hit college, and unfortunately for everybody else around them, it was the capacity of their lungs.
And that was supposed to be all there is to it.
Agatha thought she had the Incident of Two Weeks Ago firmly put behind her.
Really. It’s not like she’s dead. Almost close to it, but not quite, as Callis had said after a fuming Sophie brought her home from the ER, and then proceeded to trap her in the house for the rest of the week before Agatha escaped and ran for her apartment, which was two hours away.
Callis then cornered Agatha in the supermarket the next day, and made her promise— threatened her on the spot, more like— to call regularly and actually listen to the damned news for once. Behind her mother, Sophie had smiled at her, teeth bared.
Honestly. Whoever thought Sophie was anywhere near to being an angel was dead wrong.
The news of her not-death reaches the Coven, too. After the supermarket incident, she comes to find her apartment occupied — Hester sat on the couch, looking angry as hell, and to be fair, when isn’t she angry as hell, and Dot, who worried over her for a while until Anadil came home.
“I’d say you pissed off Hester by almost dying,” she dryly told Agatha, dumping a couple of sweets on the table. Distinctly, Agatha remembers that those are her favorite kind of sweets. “But to be fair, she’s just mad you got to call the asshole an idiot in front of a camera, and made it to national television.”
”That.” Dot had said, and pulled a cake box from underneath the table. “And you made us spend money on your congrats on avoiding your imminent death! cake.”
Agatha had looked at her, to Anadil and then at Hester weirdly. “Or, here’s an idea: you didn’t have to get me a cake to celebrate my almost-death,” she mildly suggested, because she’s not touched. Not at all.
“Shut up, all of you.” Hester had barked, getting up from the couch. “Ugh. This is so embarrassing. Congrats on not dying or whatever. Just take the damn cake.”
Fun times, the past two weeks was. Happy times.
Apparently, this peace only lasted until she chose to take a shortcut through a couple of alleys one Thursday night, because according to the masses of delusional fangirls out there, Agatha is among one of the lucky couple hundred civilians that get to meet Spider-Man once in their lives, and coincidentally, she just so happens to be lucky enough to be the only one to see him unmasked too.
So: Thursday night. Particularly, it's the night when the Coven asks her out to drinks, and Agatha readily agrees after a particularly brutal 16-hour shift in the hospital, stacking it just so she has a free day to spend on sleeping before her Saturday shift.
It would've been fine, except sixteen hours of working nonstop tends to mess with your head, so Agatha ends up realizing way too late that she's late and probably will not make it in time, and decides to forego all common sense in favor of cutting corners and taking very reckless shortcuts in shady alleyways to make it to the train on time.
And then things go sideways after the third dead end she meets.
Agatha was only mildly swatting at her phone and waving it around to get some sort of signal for Waze to start working again, because she'd rather stick to her dire-looking plan than rely on her questionable wits at the moment, when she passes a section of the alleyway blocked by a chain link fence.
She's been ignoring it for the good part of the last twenty minutes. At the time, some delusional part of her head had hoped that whoever was on the other side wasn't feeling antagonistic or drunk enough to come at her with a knife or something.
So now, she's on the tip of her toes, straining to find a signal, shoulder pressing against the chain links, when she hears the damned dumpster on the other side move.
Agatha whirls around, barely stifling a yell.
This is it. She's going insane, staring at this stupid dumpster, her quest for a working, stable signal currently put on hold, and silently dares it to move.
The wheels of the heavy, rusted dumpster—permanently stained by dirt and other questionable things and dented by rough handling, a testament to all its years of service in this part of the city—shriek, and then the entire thing slams into the flimsy chain link fence.
Agatha jumps back, heart hammering in her chest. The chain link fence groans, but it holds, as the thing slowly pushes forward, intending on crushing her. What the hell is she meant to do?
(The sensible thing to do is run. But Agatha, in her sleep-deprived state and solely fueled by caffeine for the past 24 hours, freezes on the spot, because fuck.)
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
The dumpster gives up after five terrifying seconds, and goes slack. The rusted wheels slightly roll back from the force, but it's skewed now. Instead of being aligned with the wall, it rests slightly sideways, allowing Agatha to see through the narrow gap and see the other dumpster beside it.
Or, when Agatha's brain catches up with what she sees, the culprit of that stupid fucking prank.
Agatha has half a mind to start yelling at the bastard, because it's not fucking funny, except some instinct called curiosity that'll get her killed one day makes her go back to the tip of her toes.
She peers over the dumpster's edge, and sees brightly-colored spandex (for fuck’s sake) before her brain works out that the spandex also comes with a body.
A body that is not moving.
She goes still. In the ever-present noise of the city, it's never quiet enough, but she still strains her ears—and there.
He's breathing. Agatha's sure she can at least hear him breathing.
Her eyes slowly move up. In the dim streetlight and through her sheer will, she can make out mangled metal on a couple of fire escapes and a heavy dent on one of the brick walls above her. If you squinted, some pieces of warped metal could've looked like a ladder on some floors, or railings, in some places, before it got wrecked by an inept, flailing demolisher.
It's a very nasty fall, all things considered, Agatha distantly thinks. Enough to kill a person.
But Spider-Man isn't really normal people, is he?
Fuck. She squeezes her eyes shut. Hester, Anadil and Dot are going to kill her. Maybe not Dot, but still. Fuck.
Agatha raises her foot against the chain link, and kicks. She furiously slams her foot against the rusted gate of the fence, slightly above the latch, and then again and again.
Fuck. "Come on," she grits, kicking it once more before it thankfully gives, and she rushes right in.
"...Princess?"
She's not smug that he vaguely remembers her. She's not. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Spider-Man tries to sit up, hand braced against the dumpster, before his arm wavers. It takes him a while to register Agatha's presence, which is funny, because she’s mostly holding him up with her own strength and a prayer, with the asshole in her arms being built like a brick shithouse. "What—what happened?"
"Hell if I know. I should be asking you what did you in—can please you hold still." An impatient tap on a masked cheek, forcing him to turn his head. Agatha thumbs through her phone with her free hand, and turns on her flashlight. "Honestly, it looks like you took a nasty fall."
At his bewildered silence, she sighs and gives up on hauling him into a sitting position, going on to sit on the cold, grimy ground, her back against the dumpster. The things she does to uphold the Nightingale Pledge. "Look up."
"Oh." A pause before he tilts his head up, and winces. "That."
Ah, yes. Significant property damage; that. "Do you know where you are?" Agatha asks, partly because she has an inkling of what his most likely injury is, but mostly because she doesn't really know where the fuck she is either. Waze had failed her a mere twenty minutes ago, after all.
He hisses as she tries to shine the light on where his eyes should be, as helpfully illustrated by his mask, but it seems to work. He almost wrenches his jaw out of her hand trying to look away. "Ow."
Agatha looks up to the heavens in a silent prayer. God knows how much she hates the idea of saying it out loud but... "Spider-Man," she prods him, a touch more gentle than her previous attempts, and it finally makes him sit upright against the wall, shoulders pressing against each other. He's abnormally warm. She hopes it's not a fever. "I need answers. Do you know where you are?"
"...Might've been on m' way to a hospital," he slowly slurs. "Hospital's somewhere around here, innit?"
"Funny," Agatha flatly says. "You should try stand-up sometime. Does your head hurt?"
He slowly nods. "Don't worry 'bout me. I have a healing factor," he adds and winces, hand slowly inching towards the back of his head. "...something might be bleeding, though."
Agatha bites down on a goddamnit, but never quite manages it. If only the shitting mask wasn't in the damn way, Agatha vehemently thinks, and because she cannot think anymore, leans closer in an attempt to find whatever latch is on the back of his suit. She fumbles as she reaches around him to feel along the seams at the back of his neck for an opening or whatever it is superheroes used for their costumes, but there's no zipper there or whatever it is that separates the mask from the suit. What the fuck is wrong with superhero costumes.
Jesus Christ. He’s going to make her break out in hives. She pats him down, hand between his shoulder blades. Why is his back so stupidly broad, and where is the fucking zipper? Is he wearing a full-body spandex onesie, or something?
Both her and the last reserves of her patience are at the point of snapping, before Spider-Man with his head wound finally notices her distress, gets the hint, and makes to take off his mask.
In the morning, she’ll swear it’s the sleep deprivation that makes her sit back, and watch him reach underneath his jaw to pull the mask away. The amount of caffeine she had consumed in the past sixteen hours don’t help either, with her eyes intent on his.
She realizes, much too late, that they’re too close, because the first thing she sees are blue eyes. Very blue, and framed by long lashes, longer than they have any right to be. What the fuck.
Spider-Man squints at her as he tugs the mask off, blond curls falling in his eyes, a small smile tugging at his lips, and Agatha is stuck with a horrible, horrible thought that’ll last up until the morning, because why the fuck is she looking at his lips.
“Like what you see?” He smugly asks, like they’re not both lying right next to a dumpster, his head isn’t bleeding out and he’s not halfway on Agatha’s lap, but maybe that’s exactly why he’s such a smug bastard in the first place.
Forget medical ethics. She hopes he dies a slow painful death.
“You have a head wound and a concussion,” she bluntly tells him, and grabs his chin with a touch more violence than she should have, since he can now apparently find the strength to flirt shamelessly at five minutes past midnight. She holds her phone higher to shine at his scalp, feeling along his hairline. “Can you—shut up for five minutes and fucking hold still?”
He grimaces from the sudden onslaught of light, hissing like a cat, and in the struggle, bangs his head against the wall.
Agatha curses, and pulls him back. His head graciously leaves a small crater on the wall, evident when he slumps forward, and almost passes out in her arms.
It’s going to be a long night.
“So.”
Agatha jumps, and wildly swears. “Jesus fucking Christ, asshole!”
She considers throwing her scalding hot coffee at him to make him leave her alone, but ultimately decides that it would be a tragic waste of effort: on both the barista’s part and whoever keeps tailoring his stupid suits after he rips them or gets blood on them. Sure, he may be funded by the government and his tailor is getting paid by the minute to remake each suit but still. It's about the principle of the matter. “Would you quit stalking me?”
”I’m not!” Spider-Man insists, like he hasn’t been following her for a while now. “You just happened to be in my line of sight tonight.”
Ugh. Agatha doesn’t nearly have enough caffeine in her system to deal with him, so she throws her head back and chugs all twelve ounces of it down. It’s what nursing school ultimately prepares you for: to help adults adjust into relying on a caffeine drip everyday.
She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, and drops the empty cup in a trash bin as she passes by. “Alright. What do you want?”
He falls into step right next to her. “Just to talk. And to thank you for last night.”
She side-eyes him. Is that really all, though?
It must've shown on her face, because underneath the mask, his jaw jumps before it relaxes. He still keeps his pace and his distance, as if he approached a topic that pained him to talk about.
“I’d have thought you had something to say about my—“ he gestures to his masked face, tone too casual, clearly trying to make light of the tense air he brought with him. “You know.”
Oh. Agatha slows down on her pace a little. So he’s not just here to be a prick.
It's a heavy thing to take part in someone's unwilling unmasking. It's even heavier because she didn’t even realize it was a violation of his privacy until she had gotten enough hours of sleep under her belt.
Simultaneously, she also remembers that she missed drinking with the Coven to hold his hand and make do with what she had in her bag while they waited for the healing factor to kick in, because he refused to actually go to the hospital and she refused to leave him alone because she didn't want to be held accountable for Spider-Man's possible death. Like he didn't have a government sanctioned hideout somewhere out there, probably stacked to the brim with actual medical supplies. Maybe the government-mandated nurse wasn't available at the time?
Then they argued for ten minutes over whether he should escort her to her place (arguably safer and faster) or let her go off by herself (why would she ever show a rando her place of residence), and by the time she won the argument, she had already missed both the train and the bus, and had to run all the way back to her apartment again.
“Actually, I have a lot to say: one of them being how you stained my clothes and now I'm on a laundry run on my day off,” she lifts the bag of laundry she has with her, and looks sideways at him. “The other is this: would it make you feel any better if I signed an NDA or something?”
The silence is very telling.
Agatha doesn't sigh, but it's a near thing. "Let me make this clear: last night was a medical emergency." An impromptu medical emergency on her off time, but a medical emergency all the same.
Spider-Man slowly nods. "Okay?"
Agatha puffs out an exhale. "I’m a nurse. I am legally obligated to withold confidential patient information unless I want to lose my job for some reason. And as much as there are many, many people who would love to know about your ugly mug, I don’t think you’re worth that much.”
Even if Agatha had considered it genuinely in the first place—which she hadn’t—it’s really not worth it. Definitely not worth jail time, getting sued out of her life's worth or possibly getting murdered by the government for trying to reveal his identity. She inwardly rolls her eyes. Nobody's that stupid. “Relax. You can rest easy.”
”Oh.” He visibly exhales, the line of his muscled shoulders losing tension, as Agatha turns the corner, and he turns with her. “That’s—that's nice to hear.”
“Is there anything else you need? Because I do want to use my day off.” Agatha impatiently asks, eyeing the opening ahead. Considering you stole last night’s drinks from me goes unsaid. She narrows her eyes at him. “Don’t you have lives to save and people to fight?”
”You could say I'm on a break right now,” he offers, because he’s unoriginal.
Agatha snorts. "Since you saw me? Two hours has been an awfully long time for a quick break."
"Yeah," Spider-Man says, throwing her off with how easy he says it. "You're that important, princess.”
For fuck’s sake. She roughly checks him with her shoulder as she passes but because he’s a man on steroids who can probably bench press a bus for fun, it does nothing to him. Agatha grits her teeth as she single-mindedly marches to the end of the alleyway, refusing to look at him, who easily keeps her pace. “Oh, fuck off. You can’t keep calling me that forever.”
He stops at the edge of the alleyway, letting her go ahead. Spider-Man good-naturedly shrugs as she passes him. “If you say so.”
Agatha doesn’t look back. Her cheeks are not burning.
The princess at the end of his sentence remains unsaid, but very much heard.
Less than a week later, Agatha gets a feeling.
It’s more like a premonition. A sixth sense, if you will. It happens when she enters Starbucks on an early Thursday morning. It's one of the rare days where she actually takes a morning shift, meaning she can actually make it on time before most of the morning rush today, but the general gist of that premonition is spelling out that she’s about to have a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
Probably because there’s somebody two tables behind her that keeps staring at the back of her head.
She bets he thinks he’s being subtle. What Agatha wouldn't give for him to choke on his java chip frappuccino monstrosity, or whatever it is he likes to drink.
”Tall Asian Dolce Latte for... Agatha?" The barista calls out. She's tempted to drag her feet every step of the way, but she has a job, so she mourns her quiet, beautiful morning instead.
She does tip, though. Just because she's about to have a bad day doesn't mean she'll be shitty to other people. Except for the tall, well-built, blond man that holds the door open for her when Agatha's about to leave.
It's the dumb smile, Agatha decides. And his stupid fucking dimples. There's also the fact that he's taller than her—and Agatha herself is taller than most people on average. It's like he's doing all of this on purpose just to spite her.
She exhales loudly, and feels a headache coming on. "You know, this is starting to be creepy."
His smile drops immediately, and he turns towards her in concern. So he is carrying a Venti java chip frappucino, and something about it gives Agatha the damning realization that maybe it isn't how he looked that made her recognize him; it's the vaguely charming way he holds himself that got her to see him. "Is it?"
"I understand the first two times. Those were coincidences," Agatha recounts, and pointedly stares at the sidewalk. "The third one wasn't, since you deliberately went out of your way to look for me."
"To thank you," he corrects, with his skewed, unreliable perspective of five days ago. "This one really was a coincidence, though—I would've thanked you earlier if it wasn't."
Agatha raises an eyebrow at him.
"I'm a regular there," he says, because of course he is. "'m not a stalker, princess."
"Oh, please." Agatha scowls, morning sufficiently ruined. "You don't have to call me princess. You already know my name." Probably has known her name for a while, with his secret government database and whatnot.
He clicks his tongue. "I don't think overhearing the barista call out your order counts."
She side-eyes him. "Well, what do you want me to do?"
Witchcraft.
It could've been nothing else. It's only through the miracle of witchcraft that the git manages to convince her to swap numbers. This fact does not set in until she's on her break, seven hours later into her shift, and ends up staring at her phone.
Agatha ends up breaking into fits of laughter that just do not stop, long enough that Beatrix has to come to the break room to drag her back out. Spider-Man gave her his number. What a hilarious joke. Sophie and so many other dedicated fangirls—hell, fucking supervillains—would've broken necks for this kind of information, and Agatha doesn't even—doesn't even—
Her face drops and she abruptly freezes, abrupt enough that it makes Beatrix bump into her in surprise, because shitting hell, you scared me and are you okay, Wardwell?
She doesn't know how she chokes out a stiff yep, I'm fine, because she's not. There's a new dilemma on her hands.
Agatha doesn't even know his name.
Sophie's minding her business in her studio when her personal cellphone rings.
She doesn't bother looking when she picks up. Everybody who has her personal number knows that they can't bother her with stupid things.
Unless it's Nicola. To be fair, nothing's stupid when it comes to Nicola, so she doesn't count.
Before she can pleasantly greet whoever just called her, she gets immediately interrupted.
"Don't laugh," Agatha calmly says.
"Aggie!" Sophie's brow rises. She rarely gets any calls from her sister. Sometimes, trying to get her to talk is like pulling teeth. "How are you?"
"You have to promise me you won't laugh."
Honestly, with Agatha channeling the deathly seriousness of a twelve year old about to admit to a crime, Sophie's tempted to laugh out of spite. But since she's a good sister, she compromises. "I'll decide if it's worth laughing about. Now, go on, Aggie—you know how much I value my time."
"Fine." Agatha huffs, like she didn't decide to call Sophie in the first place.
The silence stretches on, long enough that Sophie suspects the other's thinking of hanging up instead of actually talking, but to her surprise:
"There's a—guy," Agatha abruptly starts, words suddenly bursting out of her like a dam. "I met a guy in Starbucks. I have his number and he has mine but I don't know his name."
It takes Sophie an embarrassingly long amount of time to make sense of those words in the exact order they were said. Aggie? Met a guy? That has her number? Without getting his face torn off?
"THERE'S A GUY?" Sophie squeals into the phone, abandoning her studio. And she has his number? This is gold. "START TALKING. IS HE CUTE?"
"THAT'S NOT IMPORTANT." Agatha bellows just as loudly into the phone, conveniently avoiding the last part of her question. "THE IMPORTANT PART IS I DON'T KNOW HIS NAME, AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT."
Sophie stays silent for a while lest the neighbors file another complaint against her. "Well, do you like him?"
"I—" Agatha makes a couple of distressed, incomprehensible noises from the phone. "Sophie. He's just—some mildly attractive guy I met."
Oh. Maybe this is something different. "Aggie," Sophie gently says, taking her place on the love seat. "Was he bothering you? Do you need me to beat him up for you?"
Silence, and then Agatha makes this weird barking laugh, like she found the idea funny. Sophie frowns at her phone, tucking her legs underneath her. "You know I mean that, right?"
"Yeah, I do." Agatha awkwardly replies, in the same way she sounds like a particularly constipated giraffe when she doesn't want people to know that she's touched by the sentiment. "I didn't mean that, though. We're barely acquaintances, I guess. I just—I feel bad for taking his number when I don't even know his name."
"Uh-huh." Sophie nods. "Do tell me more."
"Fucking hell, no." Agatha's glower is evident through the phone. "Sophie, you can’t seriously think—"
"I didn't mean him," Sophie smugly tells her. "But if you want to, then by all means—"
"Sophie," Agatha grouses, and she relents, laughing.
"Alright, then. Have you asked him for his name?"
"...Why would I ever ask for his name?"
Oh, dear. That speaks leagues louder about the situation than Agatha ever could. "So you don’t know him, but he gave you his number before he gave you his name?”
"No! I guess—we kind of know each other. Maybe. But why would he ever give me his name?"
Because he was interested enough to give you his number? Sophie has half a mind to yell that into the phone, if not for the fact that Agatha sounds genuinely scandalized, like knowing some guy's name was taboo, somehow. "Well, I wouldn't know how to help you. Do you have a picture of him? Something you mentally call him, at least?"
"I call him an asshole—sometimes. Does that count?" Agatha says, because, well, she's Agatha, and pauses. "Sophie, why the hell would I take pictures of some guy—"
"You're no fun, Aggie." Sophie rolls her eyes. "Look—you have his number, right? Why don’t you bait him into revealing his name in text?”
That was Agatha's main strategy in college, after all. That was how she remembered Belle's name, and all their professors' names. It was also how she conditioned herself to misremember Radley's name back then, too.
Sophie shudders. Oh, Radley. What a dark, dark period in her life.
"I just might." A pause. "Don't you have some rule back in college about not texting first when you have somebody's number, though?"
Sophie bolts up. "Wait—wait. He gave you his number but he hasn't messaged you yet?"
11:08 PM
20+ NEW MESSAGES FROM stupid git !
agatha
this is starting to feel mildly unfair
what was your name again
stupid git
oh?
agatha
did i stutter
stupid git
wait you're. you're actually serious?
agatha
am i even allowed to call you by your other name here
or will your government agents kill me on the spot
stupid git
for some reason i can't actually imagine you seriously saying spiderman out loud
aside from that one time
agatha
we don't talk about that night
stupid git
i mean? if you want to call me by my name, then go for it
it's not like i'd stop you
also: government agents?????
agatha
OBVIOUSLY you wouldn't know
they'll keep that a secret from you
anyway, that is not the point
stupid git
okay...?
so what is your point princess
agatha
do you want me to keep calling you variations of bastard?
i can get real creative if you want me to
stupid git
i mean
it is funny
but seriously
??? you've already seen my face???
agatha
and what exactly does your ugly mug have to do with your name...?
stupid git
well. okay
the name's tedros, princess ;)
agatha
okay?
[Seen 11:12 PM]
agatha
why are you phrasing this like you think i'll make a big deal out of it
stupid git
well maybe i do think so. a little
obviously i stand corrected
agatha
points for self-awareness, i guess
but really. don't worry
stupid git
oh i know i don't have to
i'm just a little. huh.
brb
Tedros.
There's nothing special from the name other than it sounded like it was from a storybook of some sort, and yet.
The knowing of it—of this—gives her a rush, somehow.
Sometimes, Agatha thinks he's a fucking madman, telling this to a civilian, like he's betting on too much. Tedros. It should make her feel a little sick. That kind of trust means a lot, but it doesn't feel heavy at all.
Agatha doesn't bother changing his display name. Named or not, he's still kind of a stupid git, so it still fits. Besides, it's funnier this way.
1:19 PM
3 NEW MESSAGES FROM callis !
callis
https://www.camelotcourier.com/headlines/20XX/07/03/2198812/attack-on-xxx-street
You better not land yourself in a hospital again
I'm too young to have a heart attack and we can't afford two hospital beds in this economy
agatha
thanks for your confidence in me, mother dearest
and no worries, i know
i'm on a different route today
callis
Just checking in
You know. Because you never kept up with the news
agatha
excuse me
i actually am keeping up with the news, and i’m only doing so on your orders, ma
as is my filial duty
callis
Really?
Does this have anything to do with the fact that you've started to avoid other heroes' territory?
Hmm?
agatha
ma... i think you're talking to the wrong kid
that’s sophie’s thing, not mine
also. since when do you keep up to date on superhero news
callis
We're Asians, Agatha
Keeping tabs on people for my kids is my sole maternal duty
Especially when one of them is an idiot my daughter called out on national television
Also, get off the bus now
You're gonna miss your stop
agatha
don't know how you knew that, but you know what
i’m not even gonna ask
thanks ma
callis
Better stay safe!
Surprisingly nothing much changes, aside from her schedule. Her schedule changes to accomodate another person in it, because Tedros refuses to be anything other than a nuisance in her life. He wanders into the same Starbucks at 8AM every Thursday, even when Agatha isn't taking the morning shift. He pays for her drinks, Agatha grudgingly shows him how to accomplish some essential life skills in his line of work, such as making a splint, because of some stupid stunt he pulled last Tuesday, and he dubiously announces he has to go every 11AM for his day job.
Probably. Agatha still hasn't figured out if he's serious about that. The government has to be paying for him, with all the passive income he brings in to the country as fans from around the world flock to this city just to have a look at a pop culture icon.
She brings this up once when he makes a stop at her apartment, bearing the groceries she asked him to get from an Asian supermarket store that was just too damn far to be worth the energy.
Agatha had meant it as a joke, had meant it as a throwaway line from a rant mere days ago, but Tedros bought it for her anyway.
It's getting progressively harder to ignore the warmth he brings with him, butterflies fluttering in her stomach. Months ago, he was just a faceless man, miles and miles away from Agatha's own life. Now, he has his own set of slippers for when he visits, his own chipped mug in her cupboard, a coat he left behind once gathering dust in her closet. All those little things taking up space in Agatha's usually empty home.
Agatha is very much aware that she has a problem. It is, however, a problem for future her. Hopefully, she'll figure it out one day.
To her regret, he laughs, his voice considerably muffled underneath his mask as they bump shoulders. "I would've never bet on you being a conspiracy theorist, princess," Tedros breezily replies, feet swinging underneath him. Agatha's known for a while that getting him to stop calling her princess is kind of a lost cause, so she lets him have that one. "I'm not registered like Black Widow or Hawkeye. The government doesn't even like me."
That's new to her. She considers bringing up his status as the nation's sweetheart thing as a counter argument, except he already has an ego the size of Texas and it is Agatha's moral duty to prevent him from getting too big-headed. It is always morally correct to knock him down a peg or two.
"I mean it." He swears, at the look of doubt on her face. "I pay for the suits and everything I have right now. At best, they just tolerate me because of all that passive income I bring in."
"So you're a vigilante." Agatha remarks, leaning against the railing he's sitting on. "I guess I get why they still let you run around freely. Do you think they have government agents on you, though?"
"Oh, definitely. I bet they have someone close right now." A pause, and then, nervous laughter. He holds his hands up in surrender, slowly drawing away from her. "Joking—I'm joking, princess. Like I'd let them bother you."
"Ah, yes. My privacy. It's nice that you remember." Agatha sighs in the face of his sincerity, and really, what else is she meant to do other than look away from it? "Well, aren't you such a Prince Charming?"
Tedros grins at her, face hidden underneath his mask. She couldn’t have known about it, seeing he’s got a mask on, but he’s a weirdly expressive person. Before she knows it, Agatha has another damning thought: one of the many somethings that weren’t there before, as he leans closer. “Am I really?"
"No." She pushes away from the railing, refusing to look at him. It's warm. "Go do your damn job, will you?"
The second time she gets caught up in a villain attack, it doesn’t happen in the places she imagined—somebody breaking into her home, having followed Tedros the multiple times he’s been there; a gun to her throat at some street corner over her knowing Spider-Man. The paranoia’s irrational, Agatha knows. Doesn’t mean it’s not a firmly ingrained fear rooted in her thoughts.
But this time, Agatha isn't actually at her apartment or some grubby alleyway. She's just at the platform of the train station during some Wednesday afternoon, waiting for her train as everybody else around her is, when an Iron Man wannabe with a jetpack breaks through the ceiling.
"Where's Spider-Man?" he howls at the masses, holding two comically huge rayguns. It would have been funnier if he hadn't started firing like a maniac into the crowd. "Come out, ya bastard!"
The answer is probably not underground with them, since Spider-Man's brand is all about swinging and swinging with his webs requires him to be somewhere above ground. Ultimately, nobody answers his question, what with the masses screaming and running for their lives. All Agatha can do is throw herself at the walls, hugging them in an effort to avoid being killed by the stampede as she edges upward, pushed by the crowd.
Beside her, a suspiciously familiar woman grimaces as she smacks her shoulder against the not-so pristine wall of the subway station, having the same idea as her.
“Move!” the woman barks at people around her, but it really doesn’t matter — she leaps up on the narrow stair railings and sprints, avoiding hands, heads and other susceptible body parts that could've been crushed flat by her heels, before aiming a gun at Jetpack Guy’s jetpack.
She barely misses Jetpack Guy, bullet chipping the jetpack. The slight change in balance almost makes him piss his pants in terror, looking back at the offending gun, the bullet imbedding itself in the wall behind him.
Agatha, in her flight mode of panic, distantly registers that it’s not meant to be a killing shot—rather, a warning. Among the panicked masses, Agatha can see her in the corner of her eye, still aiming her gun at him. "Stand down."
Black Widow doesn’t seem to be the type that'd miss a shot if she didn’t want to, and it seems that Jetpack Guy has enough brain cells to put that together, at least. Flinging curses at her, he soars back out the hole he made, and into the main station.
She rolls her eyes back in disdain, and draws another gun out of nowhere—this time with a grappling hook—and swings right up the hole.
By the time Agatha makes it upstairs with a copious amount of bruises on her, Jetpack Guy is already down for the count. When she looks up the footage of the fight later, she'll find that Jetpack Guy was barely a problem, because it took Black Widow less than three minutes to disable his jetpack and knock him out with her tasers.
Giving credit where credit is due, he did cause a very big problem. At least.
The main station is pandemonium, except for a spot cleared out and barricaded: where a hole in the ceiling and on the floor of the main level reside, and where Jetpack Guy is currently out for the count. According to the loud babble of a couple reporters outside of the station, the guy's name was actually… Jetpack Barry.
Even the cat in the frame of the news segment looked unimpressed as they throw him into the back of a van. Probably ran out of time to think of a brand name. The more you know.
Agatha slumps against a tree, finally outside. The amount of emergency services sent out to maintain public order here is shockingly a lot for someone who went looking for Spider-Man outside of said hero's territory.
She lifts the ice handed out to her by medics, and holds it to her shoulder. In one blink, somebody materializes out of thin air, and if it weren't for the fact that Tedros was guilty of doing the same damn thing, forgetting she doesn't have his enhanced senses, she would've jumped, and knocked herself out on the branch above her head.
"Miss Wardwell?" Black Widow stands before her, in all black in the summer heat, not a hair out of place in her braid. “Can I borrow your phone?”
Usually, there’s not a lot to know about top spies, given that their job requires them to be nameless — but the Black Widow is a different league, being a hero registered under the government, so most information about her is in the public domain.
She’s a woman named Reena, from Pasha Dunes, but nobody actually has the balls to call her by her real name. According to Tedros though, she was a ruthless woman, knowing that she wasn’t just their organization’s best, but the best; a mean woman with a meaner streak, who’s never lost a single case in her career in fighting crime.
Well, she's paraphrasing. Tedros called her a hardass, but in a way that implied respect and also fear, before leaving it alone.
"Uh." Agatha blinks. "You… want my phone?”
”Yes.” She doesn’t even blink. She just has her palm open expectantly.
And then, she remembers—oh yeah, government agents. On Tedros’ tail. That's exactly what the Widow's job is, but Agatha can’t deny the Black Widow if she valued her life, so.
This is a dilemma.
“Not to worry,” she waves off, in the midst of Agatha’s shifty silence. “I’m aware you have his number. That’s why I’m asking you for it.”
“Oh, sure then. Hopefully, I didn't lose it in the stampede.” She sticks her free arm in her bag, rummaging through it, and manges to come up with her phone. "Here you go."
The Widow takes it. It doesn't surprise her that she bypasses her password almost immediately. "Not even asking what I'll do to him? Or how I know about this?"
"The guy was looking for him. I think he can manage a couple of hours sorting this out downtown." Agatha ignores the second half of her sentence. Privately, she thinks Tedros can't actually handle whatever the Black Widow throws at him, but here's a rare win for positivity.
Black Widow looks at her. It's not a smile, but it's close enough. "As for how I know, well—I’ll tell you, anyway. He talks a lot, you know. Especially when the topic of interest is about civilians."
There are a lot of things to unpack about the statement that Agatha cannot handle right now, so she opts to move the ice from her shoulder and down to her arm instead. Talking about a civilian to his coworkers? Taking about her to his coworkers. What is he, an Asian auntie?
More importantly, what the hell does she say to that?
”Sure am glad that calling him an idiot on national televison endeared me to him,” Agatha says, mildly stupefied in place.
It seems to be good enough of an answer because the Black Widow smirks, and quirks her head towards the phone. "I'll be taking this call. Have a nice day, Agatha."
There’s a shady sleek black car a couple hundred meters from the scene of crime that's been parked for a while. While the car model and the way it's parked haphazardly screams rich people, which is odd enough, bringing something this expensive downtown, that's not the only suspicious thing about it.
The windows may be tinted, but Agatha swears that whoever’s behind the wheel keeps staring at her.
The hero sighs behind her, and nudges her shoulder. “Just get in.”
Looks like a nice car to die in, Agatha thinks. Maybe it’s all black to hide the bloodstains. “Thank you...?"
”Oh, please.” She rolls her eyes, and hands over her phone. “It's Reena to you, now. Tell Tedros he owes me one.”
Agatha still has the irrational paranoia of this being a death trap—except it's just a really nice one for complying easily with Reena. But hey, who is she to question the Black Widow?
She raps her kunckles against the door: once, and then twice. The window rolls down, and she's met with a view of a frazzled blond man with slightly smudged make-up on his face, clutching a half-empty Starbucks cup in his hand, the other impatiently drumming fingers on the wheel.
Agatha stares. He’s holding a Trenta.
It's not cute. Not at all.
"I just got back from my day job, okay?" He grouches at her, except he drops it way too easily as he opens the door for her, letting her slide into the seat beside him. His brow furrows in concern, following her arms. "Are you alright?"
"Just bruised," she slams the door shut behind her, careful not to let the melting ice in her hand drip on the nice leather seats. "Also, Reena says you owe her one."
“It appears I do.” He sighs, slouching against his seat as he sets down his drink in the cup holder. "But I'll take it."
5:28 PM
2 NEW MESSAGES FROM hester !
hester
just a heads up
sophie's going to murder you
agatha
well that sounds horrifying
since you're concerned enough to bring it up
what did i do to her now
hester
how do you not know
oh shit
i think you don't even have social media
agatha
HEY i’m not THAT technologically illiterate
hester
never mind that
hasn't sophie called you yet?
left a million annoying voice mails or something?
agatha
no?
hester
nothing at all??
ohohohoh. well well
it's not often i get to know about shit faster than the witch herself
agatha
hester what are you talking about
hester
your secret boyfriend
from that jetpack guy incident yesterday
if the royal rot is to be believed, your fiance actually
man forget sophie your mom's gonna kill you
agatha
my secret WHO
and the what. what do you mean by the royal rot
what the fuck is a royal rot
hester
a really popular tabloid? the one that sophie pays 8 dollars a month for?
how the fuck do you not know this
agatha
do you have any idea how little that narrows it down
sophie always pays for premium subscriptions
how am i meant to know which one of those i should be paying attention to
hester
good GOD woman it's a theater arts tabloid
because? you know? sophie's hot guy #7?
tedros pendragon? west end debutant and broadway sensation? won an emmy, starred in so much bullshit?
your secret boyfriend?
agatha
he’s NOT my boyfriend
NEVER MIND THAT. HE’S A WHAT
hester
oh. of course you didn't know
doesn't sophie drag you to watch broadway shows with her like every other week
you know what. sending you the link would be so much easier
cheers. happy readings agatha
https://www.theroyalrot.com/headlines/20XX/07/28/2198876/tedros-pendragon-broadway-sensation-and-his-secret-fiancee
"Tedros Pendragon, huh?"
The man in question hesitates as he drops down on to her tiny balcony, in rumpled casual clothes. "...Yes?"
Agatha doesn't look at his direction. The sound of her chopping keeps getting more aggressive. "You had an entire episode of Camelot: Behind The Scenes dedicated to you, and an Emmy award, and you didn't tell me?"
"In my defense," he weakly returns. "I really did think you were kidding, princess."
She eyes him, setting down the knife in her hand. She takes the pieces of sliced potato, and puts those through a masher. "Since when would I ever joke about that."
He winces, as she roughly tosses salt and other spices into the mashed potatoes, and mixes them with a touch more violence than necessary.
"I'm not that mad." She is, and both of them know it. "Just—sit down, will you?”
He does. Tedros is doing his absolute best to not squirm on the spot as Agatha roughly shoves snacks in his direction. Doesn't matter if she's pissed, she'd die, cursed by her own ancestors, before she turned into a shit host.
“So let me get this straight: you deal with fans on your day job and you do the same during your night job.”
Tedros slowly nods, gauging for her reaction.
"I can't tell if you're lucky," she shakes her head, and drops the potato mixture into a plastic wrap. “Or unlucky.”
"Lucky that someone hasn't figured me out, actually,” Tedros tries to add something light to the conversation, but it falls flat, as he lowers his gaze. “I didn’t even mean to go public as Spider-Man, so. Mostly, it feels like both."
Agatha sets aside the plastic wrap. She takes her time washing her hands, silent and shadowed by the dim, wavering lights in her apartment.
"I don't know how you can balance both, so I guess I can't really blame you for being so protective over it," she admits, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel. "However, I'd like to be given notice in advance if I'm going to be engaged to a theater kid."
Tedro's head snaps up, almost in panic. "We’re what?"
"According to the Royal Rot, anyway." Agatha tilts her head. Panicking for what?
"The Royal Rot?" he repeats, bewildered. "Princess, nobody listens to the Royal Rot. Can we please go a sentence back?"
"Oh, I knew that," Agatha scoffs, like a liar. She holds up her phone, displaying the headline of the article at him. “Exactly as you say. I mean, the idea itself is ridiculous.”
A pause. Too quietly, Tedros asks: “What is?”
”I gotta admit, it is funny, you know—us dating. Us engaged.” Agatha snorts. She scrolls through the article, lone saccharine smile on her face. She peers back at him, at his slack disappointed expression, the corners of his mouth drawn down, and frowns. “What’s got into you?”
He fidgets in his seat, looking away from her. “Would it be so bad?”
Agatha slightly narrows her eyes at him. “What would?”
“You know.” Tedros mumbles. “Dating me.”
Agatha holds her narrowed gaze on him for two seconds, before she crumples in a laugh.
Her head spins. He can’t be serious.
“I can already hear millions of hearts breaking all around the world,” she wheezes, refusing to look at him. “What a pick!”
"Agatha," Tedros starts, standing up from his seat. Distantly, Agatha registers her name being called—he’s never called her by her name alone.
“Seriously.” She turns from him as he rounds the corner of the counter. “You know, I get people who don’t believe in the Royal Rot now, I really do. Could've had the pick of literally anybody else and—"
"So what?" His voice grows irritable, but his hands loosen. "What about everybody else?"
Well, for one thing: there is her personal, selfish desire to not die at the hands of his fans, or get caught between the people he throws hands with on a daily basis, but sure, what about everybody else?
“Agatha,” Tedros repeats, fingers lightly grasping her wrist. “Don't answer the question, because the only right answer to that would be they’re not you. I like you, not them.”
I like you. It's so ridiculous and so Tedros and it shouldn't have made Agatha's cheeks color as she turns around to meet him. What are they, ten years old? She snorts. "Okay?"
"Okay?" Tedros echoes in disbelief at her response to his groundbreaking declaration of love, and narrows his eyes at her. "You—you don't think I'm being serious."
"Well." Agatha starts, and shuts her mouth, because really, it is funny. It's so absurd, the idea so unthinkable, that a pretty face like him, with his earnest grins, the impossible spectrum of expressions he can convey while wearing a mask, his stupid invincible skull, and two accomplished public careers under his belt, would risk it for someone like—like—
"Stop thinking," Tedros tells her, suddenly too close for comfort, with one of his arms on the counter, cornering her. She can’t tell if it’s an accident, or not.
"Someone has to think for you, you know."
"Haha." He rolls his eyes, and something in Agatha's chest burns. "Very funny."
So are you, but she bites down on it, setting her phone down on the counter. “I don’t get you,” she decides to say instead, shaking her head. “You’re so weird. I’m just somebody you met while concussed two months ago.”
”It is an unconventional meet-cute,” he softly offers, as he leans closer.
Agatha almost grimaces, remembering the cracked concrete in front of her and her fingers clenched around a pole and the overwhelming urge to kick a bitch, and then finding him against a dumpster the next night. “A meet-ugly, more like.”
”Maybe to you, princess—but not to me.” Tedros amends, and he says the next thing like it’s one of the simplest things in the world to him: “I think you’re worth it.”
She’s already red. There’s—no possible way to be more red, but miracles happen.
“Worth the concussion?” Agatha chokes out, laughter bubbling in her throat again, more out of mirth than disbelief as he draws closer, and her other hand finds his chin in her palm, like she’s done so many nights ago. "I knew you were crazy."
"Crazy for you." The lighting in her apartment is lacking in many ways, but it doesn’t stop her from seeing him rest his cheek on her open palm, softly smiling at her, eyes crinkling at the corners. "Yeah. You're worth it," he repeats like it's a deeply rooted conviction, like it’s a perfectly acceptable answer to anybody who doesn’t eat bullets or something as equally ridiculous for breakfast.
Maybe he's just used to taking risks all the time—always the dumb ideas with stupidly high chances of killing him. She supposes it comes with the territory of being a superhero.
But this is a different type of risk, after all.
He also says something like, can I kiss you, a last-minute display of chivalry that ultimately doesn’t matter, because their lips are halfway there, and—Agatha finds that his lips are soft.
Of course he moisturizes. She nips at his bottom lip, fire in her blood, and kisses him hard. Agatha’s hand slips from his cheek to grasp at the curls on the back of his neck. His fingers run up her arms before falling to her hips, burning her as they go; chests pressing closer until there’s nothing in between; mouths slotting together like a prayer fulfilled, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
A ear-splitting drunk rendition of Material Girl blaring out of nowhere makes Tedros bite down on her bottom lip a little too hard in surprise.
“Fuck!” Agatha swears as they break apart in shock. “Ow—shitting hell—“
“Sorry,” Tedros says on autopilot, born from some distant time in the past where he hadn't thrown hands at people on the street and probably possessed some manners, before his brain catches up with his mistake. His eyes grow as wide as saucers, crowding Agatha against the counter in his panic. “Shit—shit, Agatha, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
”Yeah, yeah.” Agatha waves him off, as if to calm her fluttering heart at the sight of his rumpled shirt and his earnest eyes because her reputation is on the line. Absent-mindedly, she runs her tongue over her lip. No blood, at least. “Don’t worry about it. Now what was that again?”
“It was the phone,” Tedros faintly gestures, his cheeks filling with color as his gaze darts to anything else but her. To her satisfaction, she watches the stained red of his mouth as he finds a target, and glares at the audacity of the offending phone, like he’d manifest it into exploding into bits and pieces if he wished it so. “Princess. Your phone is ringing.”
Agatha rolls her eyes hard enough that they roll to the back of her head. She doesn’t need to check to know who called, and chooses to turn it off. “Do you really want me to take a call right now?”
”No.” Tedros hastily says, too fast to be coy. In an effort to save his ego, he grabs her by the waist, pulls her close and smiles rakishly at her. It almost works. “Wanna go for round two?”
What a fucking dork. He’s gonna be the death of her. The city is doomed at his hands.
"I’m not going to dignify that with a response," she says, clearly responding in turn, and yanks him down by the collar of his shirt. She kisses him again for good measure.
Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to leave Sophie’s calls unanswered, because someone busts the door open, and it is only through Tedros’ sixth sense (she’s not calling it his spidey-sense just because they’re kissing, what is she, a brand bootlicker) that he manages to catch whatever Sophie had thrown at them in her anger.
”TEDROS PENDRAGON?” Sophie roars. “WHAT THE FUCK, AGGIE. YOU’RE ENGAGED TO TEDROS PENDRAGON?”