Chapter Text
THE PRINTING PRESS in the basement of The Westview Chronicle was older than half the staff and still twice as temperamental. It rattled the floor every morning like a mechanical thunderstorm, shaking dust from the ceiling and reminding everyone upstairs that the newspaper was still technically alive, despite what readers may think.
Upstairs, it felt even more like a sinking ship. If that was even possible.
The phone rang every ten minutes, the callers armed with complaints and issues with the latest weekly issue. People weaved through the bleak office, desks arranged in right angles, the wood coffee-stained and dented from where individuals had smashed things into it. The paths between the desks were cluttered with towers of paperwork and unsold papers.
Rio Vidal had worked as the Chronicle's photographer for three years now, starting her career when she was only twenty-one. She emphasised that when she started at the office, the newspaper was well regarded and of high quality. She still hadn’t decided whether this office was going to be her big break or the thing that halted the rest of her progression.
She sat at her desk. It was the one that sat closest to the door, and hesitantly, the Editor-In-Chief’s office. She didn’t mind the job; it was the thing she had always wanted to do. Yet, something about the office felt like it was sucking the life out of her lifelong passion.
Rio whipped her laptop from her brown leather satchel, connecting her camera to it in one swift move. She had only connected her extremely expensive camera to her work computer once, the entire file from her work week corrupting almost instantly. She sighed against the wood, looking around the room and trying to figure out her procrastination options.
Her desk was connected to Wanda Maximoff’s. The redheaded youngster was the newest member of the team, and she wasn’t particularly thrilled by the prospects that the office offered to her, despite the promises made when she accepted the position. Rio heavily enjoyed bothering her at every opportunity she could.
“Important journalism happening here?” Rio teased, rolling her chair behind Wanda’s, weaving her office chair around the wilting plant that was begging for someone to water it.
“Yes.” She lolled, turning her head to meet Rio’s brown eyes. She had been chewing the lid of her pen for at least fifteen minutes by the look of the screwed plastic top, the paper she was scrawling on just filled with doodles of hearts and flowers.
Rio laughed, craning her neck to grab a better view of her computer screen. “You’re googling the Mayor's divorce again.” Wanda shot her a look before allowing a massive smirk to form on her mouth. Wanda had always been very thankful for Rio’s kindness.
When she first joined the office, she was sure that she was in the wrong place, but Rio took her under her huge wing, offering her a respite from the gloom of the office that seeped into everything the way ink bled slowly through paper. One look at Wanda’s overwhelmed expression, and Rio adopted her on the spot, sweeping her into conversations and introducing her to everyone. Rio’s laugh was contagious, and she would do anything and everything she could to make sure she wasn’t the only one laughing.
“It's background research.” Wanda insisted, but her eyes told a completely different story. An underlayer of mischief glazed over her irises.
“Love in the time of Municipal Corruption?” Rio jokingly offered, making Wanda full-on witches cackle, the kind that made her throw her head back and let loose completely. It was the Rio Effect. Everyone briefly looked up from their outdated computers, but when they saw where the noise was coming from, they went back to their work. This wasn’t an unusual occurrence.
She shut the tab, knowing all too well that Rio did not believe for one second that she was writing an exposé piece on the Mayor’s 60-year-old divorce. Once the tab had disappeared, the next was just as bad. Her shopping cart on a clothing website. She clicked the cross again, the next revealing thumbnail photos of interior design that she’d added to her Pinterest folder.
“Jesus, Wanda, do you do any work?” Rio teased once more, pushing her feet against the floor to roll herself back to her desk. She watched as Wanda made a face of mock innocence, her mouth agape and eyes wide as if Rio had personally offended her core beliefs.
“Do you?” She quipped back, throwing the pen that she’d been chewing relentlessly right at Rio’s face, hitting her square in the forehead.
“Ew, why is it so wet?” Rio frowned, making a face of disgust as she exaggeratedly wiped the space between her eyebrows. She picked up the pen cautiously between two fingertips, her bottom lip pulled far left in comparison to her top, the small gap between her teeth now vulnerable to the dull wind of the office, as she placed the pen back on Wanda's desk.
“That’s what she said,” William added in a delayed response, a cheeky grin on his face as he laughed at his own joke. Wanda muffled her immature laugh into the sleeve of her shirt. Rio, however, seemed a lot less impressed, pressing her lips together and nodding in his direction.
William Kaplan was her favourite person to use for her own entertainment. Being the youngest in the office and the editor's assistant offered up a lot of opportunities for Rio’s antics. She pressed a finger to her lips, tugging at the skin she found there as she worked on her next procrastination routine.
“Hey, Will, can you take a look at this?” Rio questioned, watching as Wanda’s eyes looked up once again from her computer, her eyes peering above the screen. She clicked her finger against the trackpad a couple of times, trying to find the photo she was looking for.
He placed a hand against her desk, leaning over her chair as she swivelled her laptop around. The screen now displayed the most infamous photo in the office. William, mid-office Christmas party, a solo cup in one hand, eyes half closed, his hair ruffled from where he had been holding back his fringe as he threw up into a Christmas hat. Rio took this picture at the exact moment that William had decided dancing on the pub table was a good idea, with plastic elf ears attached to the side of his head.
William groaned audibly, the ever-weary assistant not quite believing he’d fallen for it again. “Front page?” Rio smirked, her eyebrows raised as Wanda exploded into another fit of laughter.
“God, you’ve used this so many times.” He mumbled, his face buried in his hands as he recalled all the situations he’d found this picture in: the bathroom, on his monitor, even mailed to his flat. “Obviously, it's not going on the front page.”
“Cmon,” Rio teased, “Santa’s elf caught in a festive frenzy?” The alliteration rolled smoothly off her tongue.
Now Wanda was really struggling, her eyes glistening as her cheeks grew redder from trying to contain herself. The office may be a sinking ship, but Rio certainly did her best to keep it anchored in place.
William laughed in a full sense of mockery, rolling his eyes so far back into his head they almost disappeared as he turned on his heels and headed back towards his cluttered desk, regretting even getting involved in the first place. “What about page three?” Rio added to his growing embarrassment, which he didn’t even turn around to entertain her.
Rio decided to actually click through the photos she’d taken this past week. A handful of grand openings, the same grey faced Mayor wielding a pair of blunt kitchen scissors, cutting through different shades of red ribbon. It was always the same ten faces, wearing the same suits, thinking they were so important for being on the governing body of an increasingly decrepit town.
She continued swiping through them. A charity bake sale. A dog show. A town marathon. God, it was all absurdly boring. Nothing ever happened here; she can’t remember the last time she took a photo for work that was even a tiny bit inspiring. That’s what the town needed. Inspiration.
Rio got up from her desk again. Her mind was numb from a mere ten minutes of work, but she didn’t want to sit and edit photos of dogs wearing bow ties as they paraded themselves behind their owners. Instead, she found herself hovering around the desk of Jennifer Kale, watching intently as she clicked through the papers' socials.
“What are you doing?” Rio elongated, her hands behind her back as she swayed in the space behind her chair. Jennifer was the entirety of the so-called marketing team, but just as the rest of them, was feeling as though this wasn’t the best project to work on for progress in her line of work. No marketing manager wants a failing town paper on their portfolio.
“We need content that drives engagement.” She said plainly, tapping her pen against her head as if she could manually conjure up ideas. “Our front page is currently the football scores.” The sigh that followed set the precedent for the conversation in one single audible groan.
“I’ve already suggested, like, twelve good ideas,” Alice remarked, her hands out to the side as she tried to prove that she was helping. Alice Wu Gulliver was the head journalist at the paper, her age giving her a sense of maturity within the youth of the office. Despite the pink streak in her fringe, she was fairly level-headed when it came to the failings of their work.
“Doing an analysis of the Mayor's birth chart is not a good idea.” Jennifer quipped, her eyebrows raising and falling in quick succession as she punctuated her point.
“I have an idea.” Rio piped up again, interrupting the underlying sexual tension between them, cutting through the thickness with another act of child's play. They both turned to look at her, awaiting a serious response in the silent anticipation of what Rio had purposefully created. “Crime.”
Alice laughed, Jen didn’t. “We don’t control crime.” She exasperated, the tiredness in her voice leaking through like wildfire.
“We could lightly encourage it.”
“Go away.”
“Yes, Sir,” Rio admitted defeat, hanging her head in mock offence as she dragged her feet along the carpeted floor, overreacting to her dismissal.
Just as she found herself back at her desk, one of the last pieces of the workplace puzzle emerged from her office. The door swung open in her usual eccentric fashion, the faint smell of incense dissipating around the room with her.
“Hello gang.” She announced, commanding the room with more enthusiasm than gained, the tired eyes of the office looking up in her direction, including Rio, who spun on her chair to face her. Lilia Calderu was the Editor-in-Chief of the depression years of The Westview Chronicle. She had been whisked in from the city and placed here temporarily when the old editor left. That was fifteen years ago. She had accepted her diminishing fate in a true dismissive fashion.
“Gather round, I have a very important announcement.” She proclaimed, arms spread wide, her voice echoing through the walls of the office. While this appeared to be something exciting, the office was used to her grandiose management style. This announcement would be just as dull as the rest of their workday; therefore, nobody made any effort to gather around anything. “We have secured the coverage of-
The phone rang.
Everyone ignored it; it was usually answered within a couple of seconds.
“We have secured the coverage of-”
It kept ringing, insistently now. It gave off the illusion of getting incredibly louder and louder until it forced the entire office to the reception desk, but the chair sat empty. “Where on earth is Agatha?” Lilia asked, everyone looking between themselves, unsure of her whereabouts. Rio looked at Wanda, a puzzled look on her face, hoping to find an answer in a silent look, but to no avail.
Lilia’s eyes narrowed on the offending device, her eyes just as confused as everyone else's. Agatha Harkness was never late; that was a fact as plain and simple as a graph showing the decline in their readership.
“Rio?” Lilia asked, “Have you not heard from her?”
Rio shook her head honestly, then Lilia’s eyes flicked to Wanda, who reacted similarly, a blank look across her face. Lilia continued her announcement, and as expected, they had only gained the coverage of another town event, taking the rights to the advertisements.
“Seriously, where is Agatha?” Wanda whispered over the top of her computer towards Rio. She shrugged again, trying to appear unbothered by her absence from work that morning. Agatha was her favourite procrastination pastime, often lingering longer than necessary around the receptionist's desk.
As if summoned, Agatha Harkness ran through the doors of the office, her face flushed, her handmade scarf hanging loosely around her neck. She had her usual tote bag flung over her shoulder, skidding to a halt at the reception desk, offering the crowd a breathless smile that somehow managed to instantly calm the room.
She hung her brown trench coat up on the hook by her chair, immediately running her hands through her frizzed brown hair that sat gently beneath her shoulders. The half-up, half-down style already slipped slightly as two strands of hair fell effortlessly in front of her face.
The fluorescent lights hummed over their heads, casting everything in a dull grey glow that made the entire office feel stuck on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. It made everything so incredibly depressing. Apart from Agatha. Rio thought that she could withstand the lighting of any room, her eyes brightening up any space she stepped into. Even in chaos, Agatha radiated perfection, and Rio wanted nothing more than to make sure she knew it, because she always acted as if she didn’t know how amazing she truly was.
Rio spun slightly in her chair, pretending to focus on her laptop, though her gaze lingered. Somehow, Agatha made the monotony of the newsroom feel alive. She couldn’t contain herself; the small pout on her puffed-up lips from being out in the cold tugged hard on Rio’s heartstrings.
She got up from her desk, sauntering over to the reception desk, slamming her hands hard on the counter, making Agatha jump as she settled down in her office chair. “Miss Harkness,” She began, her voice the perfect imitation of Lilia’s eccentric tone, “Care to explain why the entire office nearly collapsed without you this morning?”
“Oh, Miss Vidal, I’m terribly sorry,” Agatha whispered dramatically, pressing a hand to her chest as if delivering a heartfelt confession. A guilty smirk tugged at her lips as she leaned slightly closer, wanting to make sure she wasn’t heard. “I was driving this morning when my car skidded right off the road.”
She paused, widening her eyes with theatrical sincerity, “So naturally, I abandoned the car and ran the remaining four miles to get here.”
Rio stared at her for a moment, trying to keep a straight face as she admired the blush on her forehead, “Four miles?” She repeated slowly, watching as Agatha faked that same adorable pout that she usually donned. “In those shoes?”
Her gaze dropped pointedly to Agatha’s heeled ankle boots, both of their eyes fixed on the small bow that was placed delicately right over the toes. “Well, that’s incredibly brave of you, Miss Harkness. Truly heroic.” She leaned a little closer against the desk, lowering her voice to match Agatha’s cautious whisper, “I must award you with this for such dedication.”
With that, Rio pulled last week's copy of the paper that she’d tucked into the waistband of her trousers, whipping it out from behind her back and handing it to her like the most prized possession.
“Oh my,” Agatha exclaimed in pretended excitement, her hands on her face as she took it from Rio, rolling it up in her hands and thwacking her hard in the arm, to which she acted seriously wounded. Naturally.
Even amongst all the theatrics of their usual playful style of conversation, Rio couldn’t help but notice the way the dim light shone gorgeously against her face. It cast a perfect shadow along the curve of her cheek, the rest of the dull, grey office reduced to the background, finding the colours she wanted in the face of the woman she had instantly fallen in love with.
Rio used to think ‘love’ was too strong a word to use for a woman who simply enjoyed her company, but as the years passed, she realised that this was a feeling she had never felt before. That feeling not once faded, never softened into something that she could be content with being one-sided. If anything, it had grown, like wilted ivy that kept pulling her closer to her.
Then slowly, and not without reluctance, Rio came to understand that the word she had been avoiding all along was the only one that could half describe how she felt about Agatha.
That feeling was love.
“Your car didn’t really skid out right?” Rio asked, standing up from the desk and leaning her back against the side now, turning and tilting her head down to meet Agatha’s.
“No, you idiot.” Agatha scoffed, shaking her head at her gullibility. “Me and Ralph overslept, again. Honestly, since moving in with him, I have been cutting it closer and closer; it was bound to happen.”
Ralph. Every time Rio spoke to Agatha, she would forget he even existed.
Ralph Bohner was the Head Printer at The Westview Chronicle, and if Rio was being completely honest, he was the absolute epitome of a white man. Not only in looks, while he donned broad shoulders and large arms, standing tall at 6ft 3, his personality was also equally as monotonous. When Rio would insult him to Wanda, she did not share the same view. Most people liked Ralph, but Rio didn’t.
While she convinced herself that they just weren’t the type of people to interact amicably, it was quite clear that it was a combination of jealousy and hatred for the way he treated Agatha like she wasn’t his entire world and more.
“Oh, right.” Rio forced a smile, tucking her shoulder-length hair behind her ear as she tried to work out how to swivel the conversation from her god-awful boyfriend "Everyone's going for a drink after work, you should come!”
Agatha never had to fake a smile. Her teeth shone as she nodded, “I would love to.”
Rio lingered for a little longer, making up excuses to talk to her before eventually realising that she had procrastinated her real work for over two hours already. So she walked as slowly back to her desk, stretching out the three metres between the reception desk and her own as much as she could before slumping back into her chair.
The office door clicked open once more, and Agatha’s eyes widened at the sight of Lilia harshly walking toward her. Rio looked up from her laptop again, watching out of the corner of her eye as Lilia approached Agatha.
“Miss Harkness.” She started, “Care to explain why the office nearly collapsed without you this morning?”
Just as predicted.
Agatha couldn’t help it; she looked over to Rio, who was laughing silently into her jumper. As she tried to compose herself to answer, a small snort laugh erupted from her nose before she disguised it under an overdramatic cough.
Rio shot her a serious look, tracking exactly how the skin above her nose crinkled, trying to hold back a smile. After a moment, Rio’s face softened once more, the corners of her mouth betraying her. She loved making her laugh. Out of all the small things that she did to fill her workdays, that one was her ultimate favourite.
✶· ─ · · · ─ ·
“I’m telling you,” William insisted, pointing his glass at Wanda, “the pigeons in this town are plotting something.”
“They’re pigeons,” Wanda replied flatly, taking a sip from her wine glass and swallowing it louder than necessary.
“Exactly. Suspicious.”
Laughter rippled around the table, Agatha leaning into Rio slightly as she wiped tears from her eyes. She hardened her shoulder, allowing her to rest her head there. She always revolved around Rio when she was laughing, it felt natural to lay her head against her shoulder, and Rio was not at all opposed to that habit forming.
“Maybe we should run it as an investigation,” Rio added. “Westview’s Feathered Menace.”
Wanda shoved her slightly, rolling her eyes as she captured the sight before her. Agatha and Rio were her bestfriends. There was something wholesome about the way they made each other feel, like it was something beyond natural.
The door of the bar swung open behind them.
Ralph. He strolled in like he’d just stepped out for air instead of keeping Agatha waiting nearly an hour. Rio coughed as she cleared her throat, grabbing her pint and taking a massive glug, managing at least a quarter of her beer in one mouthful.
Agatha straightened a little in her chair. “Oh, hey.”
No apology. No kiss. He barely glanced at her before pulling out the empty chair and dropping into it right between her and Rio. She leaned back slightly as his elbow bumped the table, Agatha’s drink overflowing onto the table.
He put his arm around her immediately, as if claiming her, pulling her uncomfortably close to him. Rio shuffled more into Wanda’s space.
“Be nice,” Wanda whispered, the entire atmosphere that they’d created suddenly shifting at the expense of his arrival. Rio shot her a sharp look, her eyebrow raised, she’d put up with him for long enough; she was sure that she could handle another hour sitting in a dingy bar, even if it meant she got to talk to Agatha a lot less. She always became more distant in conversation when he was here.
They sat and drank similarly for another half hour before Jen mentioned a new position that she’d seen come up, in marketing. “Agatha?” She asked, to which Agatha shrugged Ralph’s arm off of her shoulder, leaning in to be able to hear her over the natural buzz of the bar. “You wouldn’t be interested in this would you?” She handed her a printout of a job post, “It got sent to me, and I thought you might wanna go for it.” Jen added with a smile.
Rio craned her neck over Agatha’s shoulder, reading the A4 paper at the same time. It was a job post for a role involved in script writing in the neighbouring town, something that everyone knew Agatha had always wanted to do. She only took the job as a receptionist to be close to journalists, which she was going to use to eventually get into any job that involved writing.
Rio caught the smile that fell on her face as she read it.
“Script Writing?” Ralph laughed, downing the final drips of his own pint as he snatched the paper from her hands.
“And what's wrong with that?” Agatha protested, snatching the paper back so she could fold it up and put it into her bag.
“Well, it's not very stable, Aggie.” He retorted, putting his glass back down on the table, “People always need receptionists, not people to write scripts.”
Agatha looked slightly annoyed at his dismissive nature, but Rio looked absolutely abashed by the humiliation that he had just placed on his girlfriend. Wanda grabbed Rio’s arm, squeezing it slightly so she could feel grounded within the chaos of it all. Agatha eventually softened again, offering a weak smile as she also finished her drink.
Rio wanted to tell her to go for it. She would tell her to go for it when she had the chance. Now that the conversation had moved on, she wouldn’t want to bring it up again, but she would, the next time they were alone.
Another hour went by, and the table was littered with empty glasses.
“Would you like another?” Agatha asked Ralph as she planted her hands against her chair, trying to get up. He stopped her, placing his hand on her shoulder as he got up instead.
“I’ll get it.”
Then he coughed, then coughed again. Agatha looked up at him with confusion; she could see the tipsiness behind his glazed eyes. Despite being an hour late, he’d drank way more than most. Rio’s grip tightened slightly around her glass.
“Actually, this is as good a time as any.” He remarked as the conversation around the table slowed to an eventual stop. He reached into his jacket pocket, grabbing something that protruded slightly from the outside of the fabric.
Then Ralph stepped back from the table and dropped down onto one knee. The chair legs scraped loudly against the floor as Agatha instinctively pushed back, startled at the suddenness of the entire affair.
“Agatha,” he said, holding the box out toward her, his words slightly thick, “Will you marry me?”