Work Text:
Rio hates the open ocean.
It’s “we come from the earth, we return to the earth,” not, “we come from the vast sea and we eventually drown in it.” Doesn’t quite have the same ring.
Rio has had to venture to the open seas over the past several centuries for various reasons, for drunken sailors, for prisoners attempting to flee island captivity, for a great deal of raucous piracy. That last one was at least enjoyable, but Rio still tries to avoid the ocean as much as possible.
Yet here she is, on an unassuming warm Wednesday in April, boarding a brand new ocean liner, yet another entry in man’s futile quest to outsmart the elements. Their machines always try to best nature itself, each more embarrassing than the last. As if any man-made invention could ever stave her off.
Rio steps on board the RMS Titanic and feels that signature swoop of the stomach she gets whenever she leaves solid ground. Her embarrassing body can’t do anything as futile as age or decay, but somehow it’s still susceptible to innate human sensations, like lust and seasickness. She first experienced seasickness on a raft outside of the coast on what is now Panama in the 1300s, and she first experienced lust in the woods of Massachusetts a few hundred years later. But that’s neither here nor there.
Rio has made herself appear as a lowly third class passenger, loose wool pants held up by suspenders and a starched shirt with a few buttons undone, appearing to the untrained naked eye as some young man with a dream in his heart and a dollar in his pocket. She personally just thinks she looks great in the outfit. Maybe one of the ladies boarding the ship, with their elaborate hats and boring husbands, will try to have some fun before Rio has to work.
Rio isn’t sure what specifically the work will be, but her gut is stirring with more than just seasickness. It has been for weeks leading her up to this, drawing her to this ship like a moth to a flame. This happens sometimes, sensations and pulls telling her that she will be needed very soon. It’s the same way she has had this shiver for the last couple years that an immense war is on the horizon.
This ship itself does not reek of war, but it reeks of hubris, of man’s boastfulness, of how greed so often leads to destruction. Rio can’t pretend she doesn’t enjoy it.
She leans back against the railing, lets the wind mess up her hair, closes her eyes and enjoys the elements that are not her own for a moment, the heat of the sun, the rush of the breeze, the scent of the ocean she so despises.
Then it happens. A gut feeling that isn’t exactly seasickness and isn’t exactly lust and isn’t exactly the warning of imminent death, but a specific combination of all three that can only mean one thing.
Rio snaps her eyes open, scanning the deck rapidly. It doesn’t take her long to spot the figure she’s looking for, it never does. It’s not like looking for a needle in a haystack; it’s like looking for a dagger amongst butter knives—something your hand has touched, that you intimately know the shape of, sticking out boldly among the bland and uninteresting.
Agatha Harkness walks across the upper deck of the RMS Titanic the same way she walked a crooked path in the forest, the same way she walked through colonial mansions that she stole from unassuming generals, the same way she walked into Rio’s world those few centuries ago; like she owns it.
Agatha is wearing the garments that rich women of this era don, layered skirts and sharp edged sleeves and a broad brimmed hat, all in a deep violet. Rio almost rolls her eyes; Agatha is nothing if not predictable, despite what anyone says.
There is a gentleman on Agatha’s arm, so nondescript that Rio’s eyes can barely stand to linger on him. He’s whispering something into Agatha’s ear, and she laughs, her big fake one. Rio hopes that he is one of the reasons she was called here.
As they draw closer, Rio feels her whole body tense with that delicious tension that comes when she’s close to Agatha. God, it’s been at least a few decades since she’s seen her. A few decades that now seem dull and completely uneventful, because she hasn’t been in the presence at this woman.
Agatha finishes stroking the boring man’s ego, and suddenly her posture changes. Rio can see the same tension she herself feels in the way Agatha’s spine straightens, the way her hand reaches out into the air as if she senses Rio’s presence, her energy. Rio grins, thrilled at the thought that no matter how many threats and insults and punches that Agatha has thrown at Rio, she can still sense her, still can’t break that connection that Agatha claims is no more.
And sure enough, Agatha’s head tilts, her body turns, her eyes, as if drawn by a magnet, look up to meet Rio’s.
Rio, at least maintaining the illusion of composure, stays leaning on the railing and simply lifts a hand in a wave, wiggling her fingers. She grins at Agatha, smile only growing wider when Agatha’s face morphs from shock to fury, jaw clenching, teeth baring, pure rage being directed Rio’s way with only a few seconds of eye contact.
Rio winks at her.
“Do you know that person?” The man with Agatha asks.
“No, darling,” Agatha says, in a put on transatlantic accent with a hint of French that makes Rio have to bite her cheek not to laugh. “I just can’t believe they let scum like this on the ship.”
Rio does laugh then, startling the passengers around her, including Agatha’s beau.
Agatha clutches his arm, shooting daggers at Rio. “Come on, Quigg, let’s explore the cabin.”
She turns away with one last threatening glare at Rio. Rio watches her leave, transfixed.
It’s not until Agatha is completely out of sight that Rio realizes the ship has already taken off from the dock. She didn’t even notice.
Rio changes for dinner, shedding her third class clothes in favor of a tuxedo she finds in the cabin of some former military man who has fallen asleep from too much afternoon gin. Rio explores his cabin while she’s here. Rio likes his cufflinks, a deep emerald. She also likes a note she finds in his bedside table from another man on the ship, a Francis David Millet who writes to Archibald with the ease of a lover.
Rio grins into the mirror as she dons his suit, medals and all.She absently casts a glimmer that if anyone looks at her they see Major Archibald Butt in all his finery.
She shows up early to the dining room and shifts some placards with a flick of her wrist so that Major Archibald Butt is due to sit next to the new fiancé of one Quigg Edmund Baxter, a woman who no one has quite heard of, yet found herself here.
Then Rio waits, sipping on champagne and swallowing a few oysters like the lifestyle calls for.
Rio doesn’t technically need to eat, but she likes it. Likes to feel the flesh of what was once living in her mouth. Eating is like sex; so inherently human and disgusting, but Rio can’t deny herself a simple pleasure when the situation is apt.
The dining room doors open with an unceremonious burst of sound, and Rio turns to see the next thing she hopes to devour, Agatha descending the stairs in an evening gown that is just slightly more revealing than the current fashion calls for, cut just low enough for Rio to stare, to remember her mouth on Agatha’s bare skin, to remember the way Agatha held onto Rio’s head, the sounds she made, the pleas for more.
It’s a nice dress.
Agatha looks at her as soon as she enters the room, disdain on her face, eyes furious and gorgeous, her exposed skin flushing an angry pink. Agatha is the only one who sees Rio as Rio, yet she still plays whatever ruse she’s playing, bound to conventional society, bound to this man named Quigg. So she approaches the table, much to Rio’s delight.
Rio pulls the chair out for Agatha to sit in, ever the gentleman. Agatha sits, looking as pained as if there’s glass on the seat. Rio smiles sweetly at her.
She holds out her hand to Quigg Edmund Baxter and shakes it, introducing herself as Major Archibald Butt, before her attention shifts to Agatha.
“And who is this beauty?” She asks Quigg. “It seems you’ve done quite well for yourself, old chap.”
Agatha rolls her eyes.
“This is my fiancé, Berthe Mayné,” Quigg boasts, like this woman will ever be his.
“Pleasure,” Rio says, turning fully to Agatha. She takes Agatha’s hand from where it was resting on the table, and brings it up to her lips. Agatha’s hand is still as soft and strong and powerful it always has been. Rio can feel her magic in the tips of her fingers, and can also feel the phantom memory of this hand around her throat, in her hair, in her mouth.
She gently kisses Agatha’s knuckles, eyes locked on hers. She doesn’t miss the light flutter of Agatha’s eyelids when Rio’s lips meet Agatha’s fingers, an electricity passing through the touch with more power than the engine of this ship.
Agatha pulls her hand away quickly, turning back to her fiancé and away from Rio. Rio just smiles.
The champagne continues to flow and the dining room continues to populate as her companions talk of money and oil and steel and this great ship. It’s all noise to Rio as she watches Agatha put a piece of fruit in her mouth, as she sees how the champagne makes Agatha’s chest flush, as she watches Agatha lick her fingers.
“So how did you two meet?” Rio asks during a lull in the conversation.
“Oh, Berthe is a performer,” Quigg says. Oh, she sure is. “I would go see her night after night and couldn’t resist.”
You and me both, Rio thinks. Aloud she says, “How charming.”
“Quigg was smitten from day one,” his sister chimes in from across the table. “And we all just love her.”
“How could one not?” Rio says with a grin. “Say, Berthe, will you gift the rest of us with a song?”
Agatha sneers at Rio before smiling a sickly sweet smile at the rest of the table. “Oh, I couldn’t. The musicians here are just too wonderful.”
“Maybe once the drinks are flowing,” Quigg suggests with a wink.
Rio laugh, overly loud.
Agatha, for her part, runs her hand up Quigg’s arm, eyes never leaving Rio’s.
“It was love at first sight the first time Quigg came to the club,” Agatha says. “I’ve never felt for anyone what I feel for him.”
It’s the most obvious lie, made up to only to incense Rio. But Rio, despite it, is still incensed.
“Unbelievable,” she grits out.
Agatha smiles then, a real one, her sharp grin that makes Rio’s heart stall.
After dinner, the men retire to a smoking lounge, but Rio excuses herself.
“I believe I need a walk around the deck, fine sirs,” she declares. “Miss Mayné, would you like a chaperone back to your cabin? I hear there are vagrants on the deck. Scum, even.”
“I think I’ll manage,” Agatha says, but Quigg interjects, “that would be just grand, Major. I do worry about her safety.”
“I’ll get her home safe,” Rio says, and offers her arm to Agatha.
Agatha has no choice to take it, to wrap her perfect fingers around Rio’s elbow, just like the old days.
Rio leads her out of the dining room, stopping to nod at the fellow passengers.
“You truly don’t need to walk me back,” Agatha says, still Berthe, still too public to do whatever she wants to do to Rio. “My Quigg is awfully trusting. I wouldn’t want some strange man taking advantage of me.”
“Trust me, Miss Mayné,” Rio says calmly, “You’re not Major Butt’s type.”
“Oh, I’m sure,” Agatha says sarcastically, as Agatha again. The disdain on her tongue is so familiar that Rio melts a little.
“And if my memory is correct,” Rio says quietly, leaning in to whisper in Agatha’s ear. “I believe last time it was you who took advantage of me.”
Then suddenly, in a flash, they are no longer in the dining room, but on a secluded upper deck of the ship and Agatha is pressing Rio to the railing, her hands on Rio’s wrists. Agatha is Agatha fully, no airs, magic bubbling up from her fingers, where they touch Rio’s flesh. Oh, how Rio has missed her.
The sea breeze contrasts with the heat of Agatha’s fingers as Agatha presses her into the railing so forcefully that if she pushed in just the right way, Rio would fall into the roaring ocean below.
“What are you doing here?” Agatha grits out. “What part of ‘I never want to see you again’ don’t you understand?”
“The ‘never’ part,” Rio answers easily. “What are you going to do, throw me over? Hope that I drown? You know that wouldn’t work.”
“At least I’d get to see you fall,” Agatha says. Her magic crackles.
“You do love to look at me,” Rio says, grinning. “Like the suit?”
Agatha lets out a frustrated groan. She drops Rio’s hands and steps back, eying Rio’s getup.
“You look like you’re playing pretend,” Agatha says.
Rio looks damn good and she knows it. So does Agatha.
“Oh, playing pretend, Miss Berthe Mayné?”
Agatha rolls her eyes. “Please. This is nothing. Just another day.” Her mouth turns into a smile. “What would be embarrassing, though, what would be really pathetic, Rio, is playing pretend, putting on your little tuxedo, your little glimmer, to go deep into the Atlantic, when you so despise the sea, just to catch a glimpse of me.”
Rio’s eyes narrow. “I’m not here for you.”
“Aw,” Agatha says, mocking. “You’re not here for me? So you just happened to be on this little ocean liner at the same time as I am?”
“I’m not,” Rio grits out. “I’m here for work.”
Agatha stops in her tracks. Rio wishes she could take it back. They’ve done this before, done it again and again, back in each other’s orbit, circling each other with barbs and insults and tension and delicious thrill, until the reminder comes. Until the unspeakable wedge comes between them again. Until Agatha looks at Rio the way she’s looking at her now, the poorly masked hurt rising to the surface.
“I…” Rio starts. But she doesn’t know what to say. She can’t have this conversation again. Not when it ends with Agatha walking away. Not when it ends with them apart for decades.
“Well, good luck with that,” Agatha says briskly, brushing aside some hair that has come loose from her elaborate updo. “This ship’s supposed to be unsinkable.”
Rio snorts. “Since when have we ever believed in the claims of man?”
Agatha steps closer to her, points a finger to Rio’s chest.
“We are not a we,” she hisses. “Don’t bother me again.”
Then she walks away. Rio sighs out a breath. She looks over to the dark waters below. Maybe she should jump, just to make Agatha come back.
She shakes her head, walks back inside. This journey is supposed to last a whole week. She can work with that.
Rio releases the image of Major Archibald Butt back to his gin and his lover. She spends the next few days trying on new perceptions, new embodiments. She doesn't know when she will have to begin her work, so might as well have some fun in the meantime.
The next morning, Rio becomes a deckhand, mopping the floor right when Agatha is about to walk over it.
She tips her cap and says, “pardon me, Miss,” and Agatha rolls her eyes at her.
Rio masquerades as one of the rich bureaucrat’s wives, gathering for tea with the other ladies, including Agatha.
“Husbands, am I right?” Rio says to the group. “Call me crazy, ladies, but I think the world would be a lot easier if we ditched the men and married each other.”
“Edith, you are bad,” one of the women says and they all laugh.
Rio looks long and hard at Agatha. Agatha holds her gaze for a few delicious second, then quickly looks away.
Rio slips on the role of the pianist during dinner. She chooses to play Mozart’s 41st Symphony, tickling the ivories until she sees Agatha recognize the tune, her eyes shooting to Rio behind the keys, and glaring at her with a combination of annoyance and memory.
They went to the symphony together give or take a century ago, sharing a box and listening to the music, watching the crowds below so awed, their small minds slowly being expanded. Rio had reached under Agatha’s skirts at the time, had waited till the movement got to its peak to take Agatha to hers. It was a good night.
Rio stares directly into Agatha’s eyes as she plays the familiar melody and Agatha doesn’t look away this time. She sips her champagne slowly. When she’s done, she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Rio stares so long that she forgets to play the piano, until the band leader not-so-gently prompts her. Agatha laughs at her, a more beautiful sound than Mozart could ever dream of.
On the fourth night of the voyage, Rio is back in her third class clothes, hands in her pockets as she wanders the lower decks. It’s a rare moment where she’s not actively seeking out Agatha, instead surveying the passengers, curious about who are the ones she will be seeing imminently. It’s coming soon, she knows it, feels it in her bones. She assumes, knowing how things go, that the people down here will go before the rich. The families, the young people in pursuit of a better life, will see no life at all if circumstances go how Rio’s gut is saying they will. Such is life. And death.
Rio walks through winding hallways, running her fingers along the walls. The things that man crafts will always kill him. Rio used to be surprised that they never learned. But now she understands that never learning from their mistakes is the most human thing of all. To go back to what hurt them, to try again and again even if they know they will fail.
Rio rounds a corner and almost runs right into her own mistake. Agatha is dressed down but still beautiful, a silk dressing gown wrapped around her, hair pinned up as if for sleep.
“Well, well, well,” Rio says, crossing her arms and smiling. “What brings you down to mingle with the scum?”
“I’m not here for you,” Agatha says haughtily, in a way that makes Rio think she’s definitely down here for her. “I just needed to escape that man for one minute. I thought I could find some peace and quiet down here. Apparently not.”
Rio raises an eyebrow. “Peace and quiet? Not exactly your style.”
“I could be a changed woman,” Agatha challenges.
“But you’re not,” Rio says softly.
Agatha ignores her. “You don’t know how aggravating that Quigg Edmund Baxter is. I would actually prefer quiet to his incessant talking about hockey.”
“Why are you doing this, then?” Rio asks, curiosity taking over. “You were never the type to marry a man for his money. Flay him, maybe, but marriage? It’s a lot of work for… whatever it is you want.”
Agatha rolls her eyes. “Please. I’m not actually going to marry that twat. He’s just convenient.”
“Convenient?”
Agatha sighs, long suffering, like talking to Rio is the most self-sacrificing thing one could do. At that moment, a couple third class passengers pass them in the hall, giggling and free. Pour souls don’t know what’s coming.
Agatha eyes them with disdain and then, to Rio’s delight, grabs her hand, dragging her away from the general population.
Rio gladly lets herself be taken outside, onto one of the lower decks, which is empty, given the hour. The sea roars at them, restless and dangerous. Rio looks out at it, a little restless and dangerous herself.
“If you must know,” Agatha says, brushing some hair from her face nonchalantly. “Quigg’s sister is who I’m after.”
Rio prickles. Agatha seducing a man is one thing, but her seducing a woman makes something ugly and hot unfurl in Rio’s chest.
“She has power,” Agatha continues. Rio breathes out. This is familiar Agatha territory. “All the women in his family do. Some know it, some don’t. So I’m going to help them harness it.”
“Sure you are,” Rio says with a grin.
Agatha grins back, like she can’t help herself. Just like old times.
“Besides, I look stunning in the clothes he buys me,” she adds.
Rio can’t argue with that. She leans against the balcony, enjoying the cold sting of the air, enjoying the way Agatha’s robe slips to the side to reveal a smooth shoulder.
“So I’ll be seeing you soon?” Rio says, too much hope coming through in her voice. “When you’re done with them?”
For a moment, Rio thinks she’s said the wrong thing again, brought up her job when she shouldn’t, but Agatha throws her head back and laughs, a real one.
“You are doing such a terrible job at staying away from me,” she says through laughter. It’s almost fond. “God, Rio, you think you’d have better self-control.”
“No one’s every accused me of that,” Rio says, with a smile that she can’t help blooming across her face. She steps closer to Agatha, brings a hand up to brush across her face. “You know I’ve never been able to control myself around you.”
Agatha breathes into the touch, eyes dark and dangerous.
“It would be easier if you would just stay away,” she says, voice low.
“I don’t do easy, baby,” Rio whispers. “You know that. She puts a finger under Agatha’s chin. “If I did easy, then maybe…” She stops herself, the wound too raw.
Agatha looks at her, hard, as if deciding whether to push her overboard or stalk away again. Instead, her back straightens and she steps closer to Rio. Rio shivers, not just from the cold air.
Agatha once again takes one of Rio’s wrists in each hand and pins her to the balcony. But this time, it’s slow, deliberate. It makes Rio ache all over, the firm touch of Agatha’s thumb on her pulse point, the delicious feel of Agatha holding her in place.
“Admit it,” Agatha says, breath hot on Rio’s face. “You came aboard this monstrous ship for me.”
Unlike Agatha, Rio does not deal in the art of lying. But she heavily considers it for a second.
Instead she shakes her head.
“Really?” Agatha says, growing closer. She hold Rio’s wrists tighter, nails digging in.
Rio nods, unbound.
“But I would,” she lets out, more of a breath than a sentence. “I’ll follow you anywhere.”
It’s apparently does the trick. Because Agatha grins, hard and predatory.
“You’re pathetic,” she says, and lets go, stepping back.
Rio’s wrists smart and her desire hurts even more, to be given this closeness just for it to be taken away.
She pushes herself off the railing, and flips them quickly, so Agtha’s back is pressed agains the cold railing. Her hands are on Agatha’s hips, digging into the silk of Agatha’s robe. Agatha gasps at the movement, at how quickly Rio is taking control. The noise brings back memories that crawl into Rio’s skin.
“Admit it,” Rio says, leaning closer, whispering in Agatha’s ear, echoing her own words. “You’re thrilled I’m on this ship.”
Agatha huffs, the breath warm on Rio’s neck.
“No,” she grits out. “Seeing you here makes me sick.”
Rio can always tell when Agatha’s lying. She’s the only person who can do that, she thinks.
Rio pulls back a little just so Agatha can see her disbelieving smile. She brings a hand to Agatha’s hair, and slowly begins to pull out each one of her hairpins and throw them into the ocean. Agatha doesn’t pull away, doesn’t protest. When Rio’s nails rake Agatha’s skull, Agatha closes her eyes, lets out a small moan.
“I know you’ve missed me,” Rio purrs. “I know you missed the thrill.” She takes the last pin out, runs her fingers down Agatha’s neck. She can see Agatha’s chest heaving, breathing heavily. “I know you’ve missed this.”
She presses her mouth to the side of Agatha’s neck, tasting the sweetness of her skin. Agatha moans again at the contact and Rio smiles against her skin.
“I haven’t,” Agatha says still, even as she melts into Rio’s touch.
It’s a bold faced lie and they both know it. Rio removes her mouth from Agatha’s neck and looks her in the eye, challenging her. Agatha looks back. She’s flushed and breathless and exactly where Rio wants her.
“I haunt your dreams,” Rio says, embolded. “I know it.”
Agatha juts her chin out. “I don’t think about you at all.”
“I don’t believe you, Agatha,” Rio taunts.
And then Agatha, in a move even Rio couldn’t predict, leans her head forward and spits in Rio’s face.
The saliva hits Rio on the chin. Rio just blinks for a second, shocked and impressed and painfully turned on. Agatha stares back at her, looks down at the wetness on Rio’s chin. Then, she slowly leans forward and licks her own spit off Rio’s chin.
The warm rough press of Agatha’s tongue on Rio’s face causes something in her to break, a dam filled with more water than the Atlantic. Rio moans, loud and unburdened, then grabs Agatha by the hair to move Agatha’s mouth up.
Agatha complies easily and then they are kissing, mouths open and eager, loud and desperate. Rio groans Agatha’s name in her mouth, lets her tongue taste every part of her, bites down on Agatha’s lip, breathes in the smell of her.
It’s painful how much Rio missed this, how much the urge to touch this woman takes over her whole body. Her hands pull apart Agatha’s robe, desperate to touch the skin she’s been denied for so long. Agatha’s only wearing a thin slip under her robe, and if Rio was capable of coherent thought right now, she would wonder if Agatha came down here wearing almost nothing just so Rio would do this.
But Rio can’t fully think right now, instead cupping Agatha breast through the barely there fabric of her slip, thumb pressing into her nipple, hard from the cold air and the hot touch.
Agatha lets out a satisfied exhalation at the contact, hands pulling on Rio’s suspenders, bringing her closer. Agatha’s back arcs in pleasure and Rio follows the movement, pressing even further into her. The top half of both their bodies are now leaning over the railing. If one thing were to shift, if one movement went wrong, they would both fall into the icy cold water below.
Even if they did fall, even if Rio was submerged in the ocean, further from her beloved land than anyone should be, Rio would never stop touching Agatha.
In the past, when this was a regular occurrence, Rio would revel in dragging this out, on making Agatha wait, but this is not a regular occurrence. This is more of a miracle than over 46,000 tons of metal carrying over 2,000 people in the middle of the ocean. So when Agatha puts her own hand over Rio’s, moving it down to her thigh, Rio complies instantly and eagerly.
She pushes past the bottom of Agatha’s slip, delights in finding out she's bare under there, that there are no more barriers barring her from Agatha’s skin. Her fingers tease at the crease between Agatha’s hip and her thigh.
“Please,” Agatha whines, and the word sends a sharp jolt down Rio’s spine.
It takes a lot for Agatha to beg, to give up control. Agatha saying please means that she’s just as desperate as Rio.
“Please what?” Rio teases, mouth hot on Agatha’s ear.
Agatha wastes no breath, no pleasantries, no games.
“Fuck me, Rio,” she says.
Rio has always liked it when Agatha tells her what to do. Without ceremony, she complies, not wasting a second before her fingers press inside of Agatha. She’s rewarded with the feel of her, the singular sensation of Agatha wet and needy on her fingertips, like she’s been waiting decades just for Rio to touch her like this. She curls her fingers in the way she knows Agatha likes it, and is rewarded with Agatha yelling her pleasure into the open air. Rio hopes everyone on this ship hears it.
“You’re exquisite,” Rio whispers in Agtha’s ear as she fucks her, overcome. “I’ve wanted to do this since I saw you on this ship. Been desperate for it.”
”I know,” Agatha says, between heavy breaths. She’s already close, Rio can tell. Can tell by the way she shifts under Rio’s hand, can tell because she has memorized how Agatha’s movements, knows each of her tics.
“Rio,” Agatha moans, loud and uncontrolled. “Rio.”
Agatha saying Rio’s name in the throes of pleasure does something visceral to Rio. She presses harder into Agatha, with both her fingers and her palm right where she knows sends Agatha spiraling. She leans her further over the balcony, teeth sinking into her neck.
Again, if Rio were capable of rational thought, she would notice a commotion on the bridge, she would think it’s odd that two women having loud semi-public sex in 1912 aren’t being clocked by anyone else on the ship. Perhaps, she would even sense the looming iceberg several yards away.
But Rio only notices the curve of Agatha’s neck, the speed of her breathing, the beads of sweat on her breast, the sounds she’s making, the warm feel of her enveloping Rio’s hand.
“Almost there, sweetheart,” she whispers in Agatha’s ear.
Agatha only moans in agreement, pressing her hips faster again and again against Rio’s hand, gripping the back of Rio’s neck, eyes wild and beautiful, panting and breathing and yelling until it finally Rio feels Agatha tense under her hand and—
There’s a deafening scrape from below as the no longer impenetrable iron hull of the ship hits pure ice, hardened and timeless, as nature outdoes man once again. And Agatha Harkness comes at Rio’s hand.
Two equally historical events, if anyone were to ask Rio.
There is a cacophony above them and around them, blind panic and harried chaos. Rio just stands on the balcony, watching Agatha come down, panting and radiant. She has a faint smile on her lips, which temporarily morphs into pleasure again when Rio removes her hand. Rio smirks.
They stand there, not speaking, listening to the voices. Rio feels the deck slightly shifting below her feet. She hears someone already fling themself over the deck with a scream. Well, fuck.
Agatha raises an eyebrow at Rio.
“Seems like you’ve got work to do. Pity.” She ties her robe back up.
Rio growls a little.
“You know,” Agatha says, immensely self-satisfied in that way she gets after sex, “you should really look into a line of work that lets you have more free time.”
”You know it doesn’t work like that,” Rio says, frustrated that the bodies are about to pile up and she hasn’t even gotten a chance to have Agatha on her mouth.
“Such a shame,” Agatha says, gleeful. She straightens. “Well, I’m off to find a lifeboat. Being the fiancé of a rich man does have its perks, you know.” She winks at Rio.
Rio hears another body hit the water. Ugh.
”Who am I to judge,” Agatha says, “but it seems awfully callous to make a whole ship hit an iceberg just so you could see me again.”
”That’s not what happened!” Rio snaps, childishly. Also, it’s not like she wouldn’t do that.
“Sure,” Agatha says. She pats Rio on the cheek. “Have fun, darling. Please don’t cause anymore disasters on my behalf.”
”Because you still hate me, right?” Rio says, deadpan. This is not their first time having this conversation.
“That’s right,” Agatha says smoothly. “See you never.”
”We both know that’s not true,” Rio says, but Agatha turns around so it’s more like she calls it to Agatha’s back.
Agatha just waves her off with her hand, at same time she magics her outfit into something far less sultry and far more feminine and wealthy, someone begging to be let onto a lifeboat. She’s good at what she does.
Rio sighs, watches Agatha leave. People are screaming now, in a full panic. There’s already at least a dozen overboard. It’s going to be a very busy night.
Hours later, she finds herself back in Major Archibald Butt’s cabin, now undersea. Archibald lies side by side with another gentleman, Francis David Millet, their hands clasped together as the water fills their lungs. Rio just looks at them for a second before getting down to work.
She takes them together; it seems only right. Some lovers are not built to be separated by trivial things such as oceans or death. Some of them come back to one another again and again.