Agatha Harkness & Teen (part 1)
Agatha Harkness was a household name, at least among anyone who was anyone: both feared and revered for her ability to snatch anything out of your grasp, and be gone before you know what hit you. She was on every wanted list, offering rewards of millions of credits for her capture: something every respectable bounty hunter had tried to cash in on, only to be met by failure. For the right price, she was the greatest asset one could come across, for if she couldn’t do it no one could, but double cross her? Refuse to pay? Disregard her rules? Then there was hell to pay.
Agatha had three rules:
Pay the full cost, as agreed, on time: fairly expected, but she upheld it to a fault: the cost of an occasional cargo for the maintenance of her ruthless and harsh reputation.
Disclose every detail: a single thing left out, and the deal was off. She didn’t rat out people for their dark illegal secrets (although she definitely kept them hidden away in case she ever needed a favour) but she needed to know them, a rule that was a result of far too many poorly-informed jobs gone wrong.
No kids. Both her most unexpected, and most widely speculated on, term, it left no room for negotiation. A day under legal independence for a given planet, and it wasn’t happening.
Wanda Maximoff had once tried to violate this rule, in exchange for something-uncertain what- and paid dearly for it, though many were unsympathetic. Paying Agatha Harkness to ship your 10 year-old child to the Jedi temple against his wishes was frowned upon, even by the people used to the harsh environment of the systems Harkness worked around. A lesser known fact was that Maximoff violated the second rule as well: inevitably making it a dooming contract. Assumed to be a combination of these violations, and Harkness’ hatred of the Jedi, Billy Maximoff was never seen again. Some speculated he was taken to another planet, others that he was killed. In truth, both Billy Maximoff and William Kaplan died that day, a death followed by the emergence of a nameless child by Harkness’ side. Not that anyone really made this connection, except the occasional obsessive fan, or teenage politics nerd- and who believed them anyway?
Unknown to anyone, including Harkness herself, the child changed the woman, allowing her to, for the first time in her life, give and receive unconditional love. Not that she would ever admit to it: her exterior was far too carefully constructed for that, but he knew anyways, as he would eventually say to her, years later.
——————————————————————————————————————————
Agatha felt almost comforted by the familiarity of the routine: the ship was all in order, everything working as it should and they were running according to schedule, due to land on Corellia shortly. She was still anxious to receive the next job though, finding her time meaningless without the pressure of the hunt, or the run pushing her limits. It may have started out as just a job for her, but it had become her life- an all consuming passion to discover just what she could get away with. Admittedly, she had begun to be more cautious when Teen first arrived, but now at the age of sixteen, the boy helped her, rather than holding her back: not quite doubling, but certainly increasing the capacity of her operation.
“Ready to take on the new cargo,” she asked, without turning round, sensing Teens presence.
“I still don’t understand how you do that,” Teen replied, jumping slightly at her acknowledgment .
“You can take the woman out of the Jedi, but never the Jedi out of the woman,” she joked lightly, spinning the chair around to face him. Someday she would explain everything to him, but for now she would just continue as they were: teaching him what he needed to survive, no more, no less.
“The smuggling hatches are all clear and ready for the shipment, so we’re good to go,” Teen said, replying to her former question.
“When did you get so efficient?” she asked, relaying a hint of affection, silently remembering when the boy could barely open one of the hatches by himself.
“I’ve been trained well,” he replied with a grin. “Are we going to Alice’s?” he asked, failing to mask the hope in his voice.
“Yes, and normal procedure applies,” she added, code for allowing him to run off with Teddy while she handled the job. She may have chosen to live a fairly solitary life, but she wouldn’t begrudge him some fun while they were here anyway. She was prone to forgetting that he was still a teenager, and there was also a matter of how little freedom she had in her own teenage years that meant she tried to be overly-conscious of allowing him more freedom that he probably should have, where possible.
“Thankyou, Agatha,” he said gratefully, before running back out of the control room to do who-knows-what while she began the descent onto the planet’s surface. It was second nature at this point, running through the procedures and calculating the correct maneuvers until they were safely on the ground, and yet she still remembered the first time she left her home planet, barely able to operate her space ship of the time- one stolen from the Jedi order and abandoned as soon as she could afford to do so to minimise trace. She smiled slightly at the recollection of her first taste of freedom, something she had found herself doing a lot more lately.
——————————————————————————————————————————
When she walked down onto the cargo-ramp, she found Alice waiting for her, as she nodded at Teen to say he could go, a signal at which he practically ran off the ship, much to the amusement of both women. Alice then hugged her briefly in greeting.
“How have you been?” the other woman asked, earnestly.
“Business is good, Teen’s really been getting involved lately so I’m getting away with putting a lot more on my plate.”
“And you?”
“Same old,” Agatha smiled wryly at her old friend of just over twenty years. Alice’s mother had been one of her first clients when she got into the business at about fourteen years old, something she would forever be grateful for. Very few people were willing to trust precious cargo with an unknown fourteen year-old, but she eventually proved herself, something she would always in part owe to Lorna Wu. “How about you? Anything new here?” she asked, stepping off the ship and looking around.
“Nothing much,” Alice replied, shifting a couple of crates, as she prepared to load the cargo onto the ship. After the tragic death of Lorna, Agatha had renewed her smuggling agreement with Alice, who had been her friend since the early, less steady years.
“Just the usual?” she asked, nodding towards the crates.
“Same as,” Alice replied, as they both picked up crates and began loading them into the smuggling compartments. She could just lift them with the force, but the heavy lifting brought a certain satisfaction, the strain of her arm muscles and beads of sweat at the edges of her sleeveless top grounding her in the moment. Besides, she kept her ‘abilities’, as some called them, hidden to most as to not cause a spectacle: even Alice didn’t know the full story, or the full extent of what she could do as a result of her Jedi training, both with the order and alone.
They worked like a well oiled machine, having been completing the same routine semi-regularly for years, and finished after just under an hour, stepping back to admire their work: now invisible beneath the sliding metal plates of the compartments.
“I don’t want to disappoint Teen too much,” she commented, noting their efficiency. “Drink?” she offered, as they sometimes did after their loading session.
“Sure,” Alice agreed. “Teens getting so big, wouldn’t want to deprive him of his freedom,” she joked.
“I can’t believe it,” Agatha agreed, “It was only yesterday that he was this high,” she added, indicating about her waist height, “ and I’d just taken him in off the failed Maximoff job,” she reminisced, not caring that she sounded every bit the caring mother.
“Motherhood looks good on you, Agatha,” Alice pointed out with a smile.
“I’m not his mother,” she sighed, but with no real malice. “He helps me out, I help him out,” she corrected. “But I would miss him if he wasn’t here,” she conceded, following Alice into the bar filled with loud, lively music, and dangerous-looking people.
They’d been there for a while now, and while deep in conversation with Alice, she was keenly aware of a pair of eyes on her, just out of her sight.
“Just so you know, you’ve got someone watching you,” Alice warned her, leaning in and whispering, gesturing to the man, who was standing on the edge of a large crowd watching some time of competition.
“I know,” she replied with a small, cryptic smile.
“Of course you do,” Alice laughed, all too used to her unexplained ways.
The man eventually walked over to their table, pausing nervously when he got there. “So you’re Agatha Harkness?” He said, with less confidence than he clearly intended.
“Your point?” she replied bored. That seemed to snap him out of it.
“I need help handling Maximoff you in?” he said, bluntly, catching her attention. No way in hell was she going near Maximoff, but he could have an interesting story.
“Say I was…” she began slowly, knowing she would never agree. She worked alone (bar Teen), and she stayed away from Maximoff (again because of Teen). “What's in it for me?” she finished.
“Name your price, alongside the knowledge that you took down Wanda Maximoff: think of what that would do for your reputation.” Wrong more, she thought to herself.
“Look, Hunter,” she said, condescension seeping into her voice.
“Bohner, Ralph Bohner,” he interrupted, making her laugh loudly. What kind of name even was that?
“I don’t need you, or Maximoff, or money, and my reputation is fine on its own, so in less you can convince me in the next few minutes that you are someone of interest to me, get out of my sight,” she continued dismissively, but an idea was forming in her head that almost made her snort out loud.
“Look, I have good resources and good money, I can get you anything you could possibly want at the end of this, just help me with this one job.”
“Okay…” she replied, pretending to mull it over, tilting her head to one side slightly. “Beat me at that and I’m in,” she offered, nodding at the crowd surrounding the arm wrestling competition. “If You win, I help you out, If I win, I never have to set eyes on your ugly little face again,” she decided, causing a flash of offense to cross his face, before standing up, gaining the attention of the room. She always enjoyed performance- it was part of the job, but also a little hobby of hers. Pushing around grown men and crushing their egos was always entertaining.
“Okay,” he replied standing up. “Easy,” he smirked. Men and their Egos, she laughed to herself. They never learn, she thought, pushing through the crowd, which parted for her upon recognition.
“Agatha Harkness, good to see you again,” the bar man greeted, announcing her identity to those who hadn’t figured it out, causing a light murmur of voices, as she sat down.
“Good to see you too, Herb,” she replied to the familiar barman, sitting down and lounging back in the chair offered. Ralph Bohner sat down opposite her, clearly not an easy opponent, but no match for her. Anyone who didn’t know of her would put their money on him, easily: it would be entertaining to say the least.
“Okay, ready?” Herb asked, looking at her, fully knowing she was about to obliterate Ralph, as they rested their elbows on the table, and she aggressively gripped his hand, taking him by surprise.
“Go!” Herb called. She stayed there for a moment, the crown holding their breaths as their hands remained steadily in the middle. She even let it tip slightly in Ralph’s favour for a few seconds, causing him to grin smugly at her, thinking he’d won. After waiting a little bit, she raised her eyebrow at him before turning away, making eye contact with the crowd, and slamming his fist into the metal table in a way that was sure to break a few fingers. A loud cheer came from the crowd, and money changed hands, while she took in the power she had over them like energy.
“See you never, hunter,” she whispered to the man cradling his damaged ego, before locating Alice in the crowd, and indicating for her to follow her out.
“Always the theatrics, Agatha,” Alice sighed, knowingly.
“I couldn’t not,” she replied, looking back at the crowds pouring out of the bar. “We should probably get going,” she notified Alice, with a nod.
“See you next cycle,” the other woman called.
“See you, she replied,” heading off to collect Teen.
Whether her knowledge of his whereabouts could be credited to the force, or simply how well she knew the boy, she was unsure, but as suspected, she found him with his head resting on Teddy’s shoulder out in the shipyards. She waited a moment, smiling slightly at them, giving them a few more moments before interrupting.
“Time to go Teen,” she called, gently. “Good to see you Teddy,” she greeted the other boy, nodding in acknowledgement.
“You too, Agatha,” he replied, before leaning over to whisper something to Teen, causing the boy to laugh.
“Bye Teddy,” Teen called, as he followed Agatha back to the ship.