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cabinetofquriosities · 12 days ago

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Everybody Wants to Rule the World || Chapter 2

Agatha x Rio || Warnings: Violence, Smut for later chapters

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———————————————————————Agatha traveled back and forth to Westview for a week and a half. She and Chief Jones worked together to create the most accurate timeline possible leading up to the discovery of Herbert Potts’ body. He had been seen earlier that day playing golf up to the twelfth hole. He then had dinner at the club with a few friends who all had solid alibis. After that, he went home alone and was killed between 4-4:50 when he was discovered. It was likely closer to 4:50 given that the killer made their exit while Arthur Hart was in the house.

They questioned his friends, neighbors, and everyone else who knew him in the community. Each person had the same things to say about him. He was kind. He would give you the shirt off his back. He was too heartbroken to date after losing his wife. He adored his daughter and never recovered from losing a child to estrangement. Apart from her and Tony Stark, everyone liked him.

The forensics told them no more than what they ascertained at the scene. He had been alive for the majority of the time he was being cut apart.

No fibers, no prints, no DNA.

After work every night, Agatha would go to the gym. She normally went once or twice a week, but found herself there much more often. She told herself that it was just to blow off steam, but always kept an eye out for the playful brunette with the bleeding heart.

She was there nearly every night at ten like clockwork. Agatha would spend time doing her warmups and catching up on audiobooks until the other woman would walk in.

At first, the two made comfortable small talk. However, a rapport was established between the two by the third night. They became workout buddies. Agatha stopped hiding her smile whenever Alison arrived and Alison stopped keeping herself at arm’s length, pulling her into a hug every time she said “hello” or “goodbye.”

Agatha would go stiff, but Alison would wait until she relaxed into the embrace. Affection was always complicated with her. She paradoxically wanted so desperately to enjoy physical displays of affection while also feeling at a loss of how to operate when it would finally happen. It discouraged a lot of exes and friends from trying, but Alison was like Wanda in that she understood that Agatha actually needed it. She just had no idea how to exist comfortably while receiving love of any kind, whether it be romantic or platonic.

One night, Alison didn’t show up for her usual workout. Agatha waited for a while, but finally gave up. She didn’t know Alison long enough to be familiar with her work schedule and decided that Wednesdays were probably her off-days.

She walked out to the parking lot, having exercised regardless of her new friend not being there. Her thighs and calves burned from pushing herself thirty minutes further with cardio, due in no small part to hoping that the other woman would walk in at any moment. She called Wanda from the car as she settled her gym bag on top of a pile of takeout remains.

“Well, hello stranger,” said a wry yet posh voice on the other end.

“Long time no see.”

“Or talk, or anything…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Sorry. I’ve just been slammed at work,” Agatha sighed.

“Try again. You’re always busy at work, but I usually hear from you at some point.”

“Well, what do you think this is?”

“I normally hear from you every few days. Is everything alright?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” said Agatha in a frustrated tone.

“You don’t sound it. What’s going on?”

“It’s a rough case. That’s all it is.”

“You sound out of breath.”

“Oh, I was in the gym.”

“This late? I practically have to lure you in there with promises of post-workout wine. Wait, are you working out because you’re dating again?!”

Agatha groaned as she could hear the smile on Wanda’s lips. She sighed, running her hand through her hair.

“I’m not dating,” she said.

“…but you like someone?”

Agatha always hated how Wanda seemed to get in her head. She always recognized Agatha’s methods of lying by omission. She waited a moment, which turned out to be a moment too long.

“Who is she?” Wanda asked.

“Fine. Her name is Alison,” she said.

“How’d you meet? Please tell me she’s not a witness or something.”

“No, geez. She goes to my gym,” Agatha said.

“Ah, so you’re working out to see her, then,” Wanda said, “When are you asking her out?”

“I don’t even know if she’s into women.”

“And you won’t find out unless you ask.”

“You say that like it’s so easy,” she said.

“It’s easier than whatever you have going on now. Have you even taken one rest day since you met her?”

“…no.”

“So, either you ask her out or you become a gym rat who’s sore every day.”

“Fine. I’ll ask her to hang out.”

“No… you will ask her to go out. On a date. None of that unlabeled nonsense.”

“I will ask her out on a date. Happy?”

“Thrilled.”

—————————————————————

As Agatha was on her way to Westview, she received a call from her boss. She answered as she drove in a flurry of snow down the highway.

“Agatha, are you in Westview yet?”

“I’m halfway there.”

“Well, you are going to need to turn around and drive north.”

“To where?”

—————————————————————

Agatha drove back up to Massachusetts, passing through the Berkshires to the town of Cheshire. The scenery was picturesque with mountains dappled with the first snow of the winter. She saw fields and produce stands fly by her window.

While stopped at an intersection, she saw a decoration left over from Halloween. Just outside of the fence surrounding a farm was a painted wooden cutout of a classic witch stirring a cauldron. Despite how progressive it became, Massachusetts would always decorate itself with caricatures of its gruesome past. The witch looked like a cartoon, green and smiling out at Agatha with a pointed black hat. She rolled her eyes and kept driving.

She looked for the turn to Mount Greylock, slowing down to find signs pointing to one of the summits of the Appalachian Trail. Her eyes fell on a small statue of a wheel of cheese. She squinted to look at the lettering. “CHESHIRE’S MAMMOTH CHEESE, 1235 LBS, Presented to Thomas Jefferson, January 1, 1802.”

“I don’t even wanna know…” she muttered to herself as she took the turn.

She pulled up to the Veteran War Memorial at the top of the mountain. The view was breathtaking. Frosted peaks and valleys stretched across nearly a hundred miles in every direction. She looked at a plaque listing three states that could be seen from the highest point in Massachusetts. Vermont, New York, and New Hampshire.

Agatha was normally an avid hiker and she knew this beautiful spot would be ruined by whatever she was about to witness. She took a moment to appreciate the beauty before moving towards the very thing that would tarnish it.

The veteran memorial looked like a pawn from a chess board. It was a tall, sloped structure built from granite with an orb at the top. Slumped near the bottom arch of the tower was a brutalized corpse. The man was 75. Lonnie Duncan. His form was tall and lanky. His cheeks were sunken in from age and his silver hair was stringy, the ends falling to his shoulders.

His head was tipped forward, causing strands of his hair to fall in front of his face. A dark streak of blood stretched above him. Small trails had rolled down the curve and dried between lines of granite blocks. The effect was a geometric design of interconnected red-rimmed rectangles reaching down below his body.

An older, middle aged woman approached her. Going off of her uniform, Agatha could tell she was in charge. She looked like a sturdy, tough woman. Her thick, strawberry blonde hair was loosely held by an elastic. It puffed out in the back and fell like a squirrel’s tail. Her stature was tall and slightly wide. Agatha could tell she was hiding bulky muscles. Her skin was wind blown, a cranberry hue topping her round cheeks. She uncrossed her arms and extended one out to Agatha.

“Chief Mona Wentworth. Thank you for coming.”

“Agent Agatha Harkness. Hello. I would say good morning, but that would be a little ridiculous here,” Agatha said, testing the waters with the other woman.

Mona didn’t crack a smile. She also didn’t act irritated, but it sent a clear message to Agatha about what sort of woman she was. In truth, it was the type of person she worked best with.

“Yes, well, this is an unusual situation for us. We find bodies off of the trail, but they are typically inexperienced hikers who fell or were victims of fatal accidents. Intentional murders are few and far between.”

“But you have seen them before?”

“Yes. Some were premeditated spousal murders and others were drifters who were either perps or victims. The last was a few years back. It was a couple who was killed and robbed by an unwell individual living in a makeshift camp deep in the woods. We caught him soon after.”

“Could this be something similar?” Agatha asked.

“Not likely. Lonnie is not someone who had enough bad blood to make anyone a clear suspect.”

“All it takes is one.”

“His family members are scattered in different states and he kept to himself beyond a casual conversation,” the Chief said, “No chance for his loved ones to be here at the time of the crime.”

“Alright. What do we know about him?” Agatha asked.

“We know he grew up in New Hampshire. He was an accountant for forty one years following his time serving in Vietnam. Came out here to retire.”

Agatha looked up at his blood staining the memorial.

“One hell of a way to honor a vet.”

Once they had ladders set up, Agatha and Mona ascended for a better look. His button down shirt had been opened to show the killer’s handiwork. Carved into his sunken chest and abdomen was a letter and two numbers. The cuts were relatively fresh, with the excess blood wiped off after death to more clearly show the writing.

Agatha wrote the numbers and letter down in her mind. Her attention was then drawn to the man’s extremities. The cleanliness of his torso was the only self restraint the killer seemed to have. Agatha felt a sense of deja vu at the sight of the jagged slices mutilating every inch of his arms and legs until they were barely recognizable as body parts. She couldn’t find a larger fatal wound. It made her wonder if he had simply been left - or forced - to bleed out from the veins opened up on his wrists or inner thighs. Any one of the countless cuts could have caused a slow death.

“He wasn’t killed here,” Agatha said.

“The blood?” Mona asked with understanding.

“Not enough of it. Just enough for him to he bleeding slightly, but not enough to have him bleed out up here.”

“Could he have been killed in town?” Mona asked.

“No… Too much blood was wet enough to smear and drip down. Not a lot, but enough that his body was still warm when he was lugged up here.”

“The killer must’ve been strong. Carrying dead weight up a ladder like that,” she said.

“You’d be surprised at just how many people know how to handle one correctly. Could the killer have caught him hiking up here?”

“In the middle of the night? No. He had some issues with his leg too. There’s no way he’d be able to hike this high alone and his car isn’t nearby,” Mona said.

His face, much like Herb’s, was a portrait of horror. His mouth hung open and his cloudy eyes stared dead ahead. Frost had crystallized over his hair, eyebrows, and lashes. It looked as if the terror of the man’s final moments were frozen into a mask.

“Huh…”

“What is it?” Mona asked, having a great deal more composure than Westfield’s chief.

“The cuts… gashes… look a lot like some I saw on another victim a couple of weeks ago. And another a few weeks before to that.”

“Wait… so this may be a serial killer’s work?”

“I can’t confirm that. Not yet,” Agatha said as she climbed back down to the ground.

Mona descended and moved over to her, slightly into her personal space. Agatha leaned back just as far out of instinct.

“Do I need to be on alert for a serial killer?” she asked calmly in a low tone.

Agatha could see the concern in Mona’s eyes. She recognized the fear so many felt when they were responsible for a newly traumatized community.

“Look, if it is connected then it won’t happen again in your town. The other two were states apart. I just….” Agatha sighed, “I am going to ask that you keep the idea of a serial killer away from any conversations surrounding this death. Unless we have proof, it will only serve to scare people more than they need to be.”

“Fine. But we cannot keep this murder quiet. Lonnie is a well known person here. I won’t lie about what has happened to him.”

“I’m not asking you to. I just don’t want the rest of the police force wasting time panicking about a larger vendetta while they could be focusing on the crime at hand. You will be the first to know if anything changes,” Agatha assured her.

Mona nodded and walked off. Agatha sighed, a cloud of breath escaping her. She hoped against hope that she was right about the killer not returning.

—————————————————————

Agatha tried to shake the memory of a butchered veteran out of her head as she pulled up to the gym. She needed something to help her leave the day behind before she had a chance to bring it home. Other agents used hobbies, alcohol, or their families to flip that switch. Agatha now used exercise. She found herself escaping more and more often as the job seeped into her mind.

She wasn’t thinking about anything but sweating out the memories as she trained with weights. She felt her arms burning by the time her other reason for her nights at the gym strolled in. She caught her eye as she stood up from the bench, taking a swig of water from her bottle.

“Well, hello there,” Alison said as she walked up to her.

“Hey,” Agatha said back, now feeling even more short of breath than she had been before, “I didn’t see you yesterday.”

“Yeah, I needed a rest day,” she said, “But I’m flattered you noticed.”

Agatha was sure her face was bright red. Of course she needed a rest day. Normal people who weren’t waiting for their gym crush every night took days off.

The two of them ended up running on treadmills next to one another. Every time Agatha looked at her, she would forget how to speak. She did everything possible to keep herself from acting so affected by her. She kept herself staring ahead as they talked.

“…and then we were denied a permit for our rally,” Alison sighed as the soles of her sneakers pounded away at the black rubber of the machine.

“I mean, that is a dangerous part of Springfield. I wouldn’t want to see what would happen to y-to anyone if something went wrong.”

Alison was about to retort when Agatha’s reply fully processed in her head. She smirked before pressing the speed down.

“Don’t worry about me. I’m a tough cookie,” she said.

“Find, fine… but let me know if you ever need someone to back you up.”

Alison gasped dramatically, resting her hand over her heart.

“My own personal guard cop?”

“Agent.”

“As sweet as you are for that, I can’t be at a protest about over policing with someone from the FBI. Even if you would make a beautiful Kevin Costner.”

Agatha shut her mouth and nodded. She did wish she could go to one of her protests, but there was no way she was able to with her job. Even with her support of her fellow law enforcement officers, she knew the system was fundamentally broken and nurtured certain types of dangerous people within it. Every industry had corruption in it, but not every job had life or death stakes with protection against any consequences. While she didn’t always agree with every assumption made, she was happy there were activists like Alison out there.

Once they were finished warming down, they made their way to the locker room. Alison bypassed the lockers and tugged her shirt up. A muscled form was revealed underneath, leaving her in her sports bra. She shed her shorts, leaving them on the bench beside Agatha. Not far from them was a cold dunk tank. Alison climbed in, hissing through her teeth as she lowered her body into the ice water.

Agatha took her time opening her locker. She got her own combination wrong twice. She looked shy beneath her gruff exterior. Each time she gazed at Alison, she would be entranced by a new detail. The shifting of her muscles in her shoulders. The beads of sweat at her temples. The small curl of her baby hairs at the back of her neck. The goosebumps erupting across her skin.

Alison looked up at her, causing the other woman to panic a moment and look back into her locker. Alison’s eyes stayed fixed on her. Wanda’s voice stubbornly stuck in her mind.

“Agatha?”

Agatha closed her locker and turned to look at her, steeling herself.

“Do you want to.. do something together…” Agatha stuttered, “Outside of here.”

“Sure,” Alison said with a little smirk, “What did you have in mind?”

“I mean… we could hang o- uh, go out to dinner?”

“Is that your final answer?” Alison said, arching her brow.

“Yeah, sorry…” Agatha said with a forced laugh and shake of her head.

“Don’t apologize,” Alison said with a serious expression.

She stood up in the cold plunge tub, her eyes fixed on Agatha’s. Agatha swallowed, unable to keep herself from looking. Her gaze raked over Alison’s muscular form that shone with the ice water. Droplets forms and ran down the curves and muscle-cut lines of her body. Her bra and underwear clung to her, soaked from the bath.

She stepped out of it, stalking toward Agatha. She stopped once she was toe to toe with her, her smile now softened.

“Ho ahead. Ask for what you want.”

Agatha was flustered for a moment, scrambling to recover any type of composure.

“I want… to take you out on a date,” Agatha said more clearly and confidently than before.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” she asked.

She leaned in further, her front pressed to hers. Agatha’s breath caught in her throat, her lips parting as all vestiges of her earlier spike of confidence fell away. Considering her slightly masculine attitude, she was normally the type of woman who took charge while pursuing other women. She held the doors, pulled out the chairs, and made all of the first moves. She wasn’t used to being the one rendered speechless. She wasn’t the type to become flushed or nervous.

Alison reached behind Agatha into her locker, her eyes never leaving hers. She took the other woman’s phone. Still pressed against her, she opened her phone with a 0000 password and put her number in. She stepped back and handed it to her.

“Make sure to change your code. For an FBI agent, your phone was way too easy to unlock,” she said, pulling a towel from her own gym bag, “Text me the details.”

She walked out, heading to the showers. Agatha was left with her phone and a mind that was completely melted.

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