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Death comes and goes. It does her job, finds entertainment for her boredom and, very occasionally, allows herself to be seduced by an extraordinary mortal.
Many times Rio thinks that loving Agatha was as inevitable as the sun rising, that everything changes and that Death finds them all at the end of the road.
Agatha Harkness is curious, she is smart, she is powerful and she is reckless. An unstoppable object with a thirst for life that leaves chaos, destruction and death in her wake. How could the original Green Witch not love a woman like that?
She knows her as he knows all living beings as a brief thought in her consciousness, on the threshold of life and death that is birth and that tells her that she might be needed to claim the soul of the mother or the child, sometimes both.
She is guided first by an accidental invocation that made her ears ring, and then by the bodies fallen in circles around a shocked woman who laughs and cries at the same time, but takes a deep breath and gets up.
That's when Rio decides she wants to meet this witch. And she never, not once regrets it.
If Agatha ever regrets meeting her, Rio selfishly hopes she never regrets loving her. The thought tortures her like nothing else since she began her existence. She doesn't like Agatha's hatred, but she'll take it much more than her indifference, hoping that one day she'll forgive her.
Rio and Agatha flirt, insult, seduce and fight. They revel in each other's power, skill and cunning. There is never a dull moment with Agatha and Rio finds herself never wanting to let her go one night as she lies on the forest floor in her arms.
It's funny. Rio is feared, even hated, but Agatha holds her tightly and lovingly against her warm chest. Agatha cradles death as if she were something precious, her heart beating rhythmically beneath her ear and Rio traces patterns on bare skin, words known and forgotten that all mean the same thing.
I love you, I love you, I love you .
Agatha leaves bodies wherever she goes. Out of self-protection, out of fear, out of anger. Rio sometimes thinks they are an offering. She likes her job and she likes chaos and Agatha always provides both even if she doesn't see her. Rio is always on her trail, claiming the bodies Agatha leaves behind and waiting for the moment where she will give herself away.
Her love is afraid of dying, she is afraid of facing the dead, she wants to live and be worthy of living with a destructive passion, willing to do anything for her own survival, broken by the same hands that should have protected her.
And that's where it happens. Rio's weakness, Agatha's love. And a child fiercely loved in life and in death.
The bodies Agatha leaves behind feel more than ever like sacrifices, like a silent prayer for more, more, more time, please. It's not something Agatha can extend, or Rio can delay. Not a second time.
Seven years.
And Rio stays away from Agatha for the first time since she gave him her name in that clearing surrounded by death. She doesn't want to see that fear and desperation in her love's eyes again. Her heart can't take it.
Nicholas has always been a sickly child. This is a consequence of the difficult birth, of the life that Agatha leads, since he has a body and a soul that has always belongs more to the hereafter than to the world of the living, tied by the great love that both of them have for him and for each other.
Agatha never forgives her. Rio pursues her as she has always pursued her, this time motivated by pure anger at Agatha's attempts to ignore her, as if Rio's presence did not always surround her.
She acts like Rio wants her destruction, when she just wants her attention, her love. She ignores all the pain Rio could cause her if she really wanted to, that more than once Rio has appeared solely to warn her of the threat coming for her and her only reward is watching Agatha fight and destroy her enemies, always leaving ten more behind her, and looking gorgeous while doing it.
There are no more kisses, no more smiles, no more a warm body against her. Only waiting and pain and the small comfort that is Nikkie at her side.
And then Agatha is gone, hidden from her . And her anger is deep and furious. Someone has stolen her love, hiding her from her eyes.
It takes two years for Scarlet Witch's magic to begin to fade after her death, Agatha's consciousness finally emerging enough for Rio to find her. She then begins to pull, pushing away Agatha who was already fighting tooth and nail to get back to her .
And then there's the boy.
An abomination. The son of the woman who took Agatha from her. The boy Agatha looks upon so softly, and who drove her to beg him with the same desperation she did so long ago.
Rio wants him dead because it's his job, because it breaks the balance because he can't stand him holding a part of Agatha's heart like she and Nikkie do .
She offers Agatha a deal in private. Then she extends the deal a little further in the boy's presence. One stays, one goes. She's already worked out with Agatha which is which.
But it destroys her to know that Agatha has not forgiven her, that she will never forgive her, that she does not want to see her even in the moments that Rio has taken from her by force.
They say time heals all wounds, so why does this scar refuse to heal?
Rio looks at Billy Maximoff, waiting for the boy to make the final move. He's already agreed to give himself up, though he's now paralyzed by the pain of betrayal. She wishes Agatha had waited a little longer for her to finish. The boy has proven to be as annoying and stubborn as the ghosts and she needs him to give up both souls.
Then Agatha does something she rarely allows herself. She turns around. Her hands—warm, raw from centuries of work and hurt, familiar and beloved—are on her face, pulling her close. Rio sighs—in relief, in need, in love—and her mind goes blank.
There is only her and Agatha, together for the first time in decades. Their lips moving together in a desperate, yearning rhythm, filled with the feelings and unspoken words that run between them, that unite them inexorably, that will never leave them.
Rio cups Agatha's face and pulls her close as she tastes her, feeling how dying of thirst probably feels and knowing she'll never get enough of her love. Agatha still tastes the same, but Rio's memories were a pale imitation and cold comfort.
The electricity between them grows. Something tugs at Rio's core. Her heart tightens—with pain, with betrayal, with understanding—but she doesn't stop kissing her, knowing… knowing that this is the last time.
Rio's power cannot be stolen or contained by any mortal creature. Trying to do so would have been their own death sentence. Agatha has already decided that she doesn't care, that this child's life is worth more.
Rio kisses her harder, wanting to extend this moment, to be able to hide Agatha inside her where nothing will hurt her and Rio will always have her. Agatha kisses her back with the same ferocity.
A small moment that lasts an eternity and ends too soon.
Agatha's grip loosens. She is pulled away by the stolen power, her face calm as she looks up at the darkening sky and she falls to the ground on a mattress of leaves. Her last breath is a silent sigh and all Rio can do is watch. Watch and respect her last wishes and the deal she herself had offered.
The sun rises. The ground blooms. She lets the boy go.
Agatha Harkness, witch-slayer and mistress of deception, has even managed to trick Death herself.