It says a lot that Kathryn Hahn can’t talk about a new project without someone bringing up Agatha.
She’s out there promoting The Studio—a totally different story, a totally different character—and yet Agatha keeps coming up.
Quietly. Persistently.
Marvel’s been annoyingly quiet. No season two. No spin-off. Not even one of those classic “Agatha will return” teases. Lots of silence.
Except… Marvel UK posting their own Agathario edit… still not over that.
And the cast? Super duper careful. They’ve been told exactly how much not to say. Kathryn used to drop little hints—smiles, vague nods—but lately she’s been much quicker to redirect. Like someone had a word with her behind the scenes because they realized she was stirring up more interest than they planned for.
And that matters—because Agatha wasn’t just another Marvel character.
She was magnetic. Complex. Funny in a way that didn’t feel forced.
There was something lonely beneath all that flair. Something queer-coded without needing to be loud about it. And when Aubrey Plaza came in? That energy deepened. Instantly. Palpably.
Kathryn played her like she knew exactly who was watching.
And queer fans didn’t just see ourselves in her—we recognized her.
Maybe Marvel didn’t expect that. Maybe they thought it was just a silly little witch show. But honey, Kathryn turned it into something sticky. Something that stayed.
So even with no roadmap, no official word, no crossovers in sight—Agatha’s still here. In press tours. In fan posts. In the quiet, recurring ache of a character who struck something real.
Not every kind of visibility is loud and clear. Some of it lingers because it mattered.
Because someone—Kathryn—showed up, cracked open the role, and filled it with something weird and wonderful and just queer enough to feel like home.
Agathario AU | After five years away, Rio returns to find Agatha raising a son with her eyes + I’m 🍃
Agatha could never quite recall what made her notice Rio that night.
It might have been the way she leaned against the wall, dark curls falling over her eyes, looking both bored and ready for trouble. It might have been the slight tilt of her head, like she knew exactly how many people were watching and didn’t mind at all. Or it might have been something else, some instinct pulling Agatha’s gaze toward her despite every warning bell going off in her head.
She’d spent years learning to be cautious.
Growing up with a mother who sneered whenever Agatha showed a spark of independence had taught her that safety was never guaranteed, that loving someone often meant handing them a weapon they could use against you. But Rio made her forget all that. She made her forget every scar and cautionary tale.
They met in a bar, and the moment Rio walked up, Agatha felt a thrum under her skin, a tension too sharp to ignore. Rio teased her with slow smiles and half-lidded eyes, acting as though she’d already decided something Agatha couldn’t see yet. It was the first time in a long while that Agatha let herself be reckless. She kissed Rio hard, tasting the salt of her skin and the heady promise of someone who might be willing to stay. The next morning, Agatha woke to find Rio in her kitchen, wearing her favorite Yale shirt and rummaging for coffee with a familiarity that should have startled her. Instead, she felt something unlock inside her chest, something akin to hope.
In those early days, Agatha told herself not to get attached.
Rio was too confident, too secretive, too everything. Yet she spoiled Agatha in quiet ways. She’d slip a new novel onto Agatha’s bedside table because Agatha had once mentioned loving the author. She’d whisper in Spanish, half words Agatha didn’t understand, half sweet endearments that made her shiver. She’d surprise her with small gifts: a diamond bracelet, an unexpected bouquet of tulips, a ring that wasn’t for marriage but felt like a promise all the same. Each time, Agatha told her she didn’t need those gifts. Each time, Rio would shrug and say, “You deserve nice things,” like it was the most obvious truth in the world.
It wasn’t perfect. Agatha noticed Rio’s bruised knuckles, the phone calls she’d take in hushed tones. She noticed the tension in Rio’s shoulders after disappearing for nights at a time. She sometimes woke to find drips of blood on the nightstand, next to the keys Rio always forgot to put away. Those things terrified Agatha in a way she couldn’t quite name, but whenever she confronted Rio, Rio would pull her into a slow, languid kiss and say, “I’m just protecting us.” For a while, Agatha believed it. Love made it easy to ignore the danger. She told herself that if Rio ever wanted out, she could leave her shady connections behind. Agatha never realized that leaving would require cutting ties so deeply it might break them both.
The night Rio vanished, she kissed Agatha with a surprising gentleness, like she was memorizing her taste. Then Agatha woke to a single text: I’ll be back soon. Don’t wait up. She waited anyway. Weeks became months. Months stretched into a year, then two, then more. Eventually, it felt like standing in the aftermath of a storm that had robbed her of everything she thought she knew. Agatha was left with echoes: the indentation on the pillow where Rio used to sleep, the faint smell of leather lingering in the closet, her vinyl collecting dust on the shelf. She never stopped longing for answers. What she got instead was emptiness.
Alone and aching, Agatha made a decision she never thought she’d make on her own. She found a donor whose features reminded her of Rio—dark hair, warm brown eyes, a certain kindness in his smile. Some part of her refused to let go of Rio entirely, as if by choosing those traits, she was tethering herself to the woman who’d left. Nicky was born two and a half years ago, and the first time Agatha held him, she whispered, “Your Mami would have loved you.” She meant every word. She never told him stories about a woman who used to kiss her breathless, who could light up a room with just her presence, who promised her everything but left her with nothing. She raised him to be strong, to be brave, to be seen. And in the quiet moments, she let herself believe that being a single mom was better than waiting for someone who wasn’t coming back.
But then Rio did come back.
Agatha got a call from a number she didn’t recognize, and her heart thundered the moment she heard that low, familiar voice. A meeting at a roadside diner on the edge of town felt fitting. It was somewhere half-forgotten by the world and a place where neither of them truly belonged. Rio walked in wearing a navy and nearly see-through dress that clung to her frame as though it was a second skin, her hair framing a face aglow with something Agatha couldn’t read. And Agatha hated that she still felt that pull, still wanted to close the distance between them and taste the salt on Rio’s lips. To touch her skin. To pull her hair.
Agatha took a deep breath and slid a crayon drawing on cream construction paper across the table before Rio even had a chance to say hello. A thick green sun, a tall purple stick figure with long, straight hair, and a smaller, bright green stick figure.
“He’s two and a half,” Agatha said, voice clipped, arms folded tight against her body.
She saw Rio’s composure crack for the first time in their entire history. Her eyes flicked from the drawing to Agatha’s face, then back again, as if piecing together a puzzle she hadn’t realized even existed. Her jaw tightened, and for a moment, she looked almost lost.
When she finally spoke, her voice was hollow. “I had to keep you safe,” she said, explaining that one massive job had taken longer than she ever intended, that sending letters would have led the mob straight to Agatha’s door. She finally explained everything. Her secret life. Her words tumbled out: how she wrote confessions by flickering motel lamps, how she carried a ring in her jacket for months, how she bought a run-down house and tried to fix it up, imagining Agatha’s laughter echoing in the hallways. Then, with trembling hands, she placed a bundle of worn letters onto the table. Pages stained with what looked like coffee rings and regret. Unsent. Unread. Unopened.
Agatha stood and grabbed them before she could change her mind, storming out of the shitty diner. Rio followed, frantic, calling her name. Outside, in the parking lot, Agatha opened the letters one by one, reading the heartbreak scrawled in messy ink. The stories of near-misses, of bribes, of close calls that almost ended Rio’s life. The confessions of how she hated herself for ever leaving. The vow that when it was over, she’d place that ring on Agatha’s finger and build them both a future that wasn’t tainted by fear. She still loved Agatha. She still wanted Agatha. She truly needed Agatha. By the time Agatha finished, tears blurred her vision, and she thought of all the nights she had cried alone, believing Rio never cared enough to return.
She turned to find Rio watching her, a tremor in her hands as if she was ready to catch Agatha if she collapsed from the weight of those words. Agatha could hardly speak, every emotion colliding inside her: love, fury, longing, grief. She pressed the letters against her chest and took a shaky breath.
“I waited for you,” she whispered. “I really waited. But you never came. I had to move on. I had to live.”
Rio looked away, eyes shining. “I’m sorry,” she said, voice cracking. “I know it’s not enough.”
Agatha thought of Nicky, of the beautiful boy who reminded her every day of the woman she both loved and hated. “You left me with nothing,” she said. “And I had to become a mother on my own. I did it without you.”
Rio stepped forward, tension radiating from her, but she stopped just shy of touching. “I can’t fix what I broke. But I swear to you, I’m not leaving again. I want to know him. I want to help. Let me earn my place in your heart again, please.”
Agatha weighed the letters in her hands, felt their fragility. She saw the bruises of regret beneath Rio’s bravado. For a single moment, she let herself remember how Rio smelled in the morning, how she laughed with her whole face, how she whispered in Spanish when she was on the brink of losing control. Then she swallowed hard and said, “If you walk away this time, I’ll never forgive you. Nicky can’t handle that. I can’t.”
Rio’s voice wavered. “I won’t. I promise.”
Agatha gazed shifted as she thought of everything she’d done to survive Rio’s disappearance. She thought of how her heart still squeezed at the sight of that face, how the letters told her a truth she’d never imagined. A tear slipped down her cheek as she turned back to Rio. “I’m still angry,” she whispered. “And I’m not saying I’ll trust you right away. But… he deserves to know you, and maybe… I do too.”
Rio nodded, stepping in, not quite touching her but close enough that Agatha could feel the warmth of her body. “I’ll show you I’m done running.”
One Year Later…
The rain tapped softly against the windows, a gentle reminder of how much had changed and how much still remained the same. The old house smelled of new paint and warm meals. Outside, puddles dotted the driveway, but inside, everything felt safe.
Nicky’s laughter filled the living room. Rio sat on the floor, cross-legged, letting him clamber into her lap with a picture book. She was a natural with him—patient, playful, attentive. Her dark curls bounced when she tilted her head to catch his eye, and she wore the softest smile whenever he started babbling about dinosaurs or spaceships or whatever else had captured his toddler imagination that day.
“You so silly, Mami,” Nicky said. His tiny fingers poked the dimple in Rio’s cheek while she feigned a gasp of surprise.
“I’m silly? You’re the one who thinks Tyrannosaurus Rex could beat a pirate ship in a race to the moon,” Rio countered, laughter thick in her voice. She opened the book and began reading, her Spanish slipping in now and then. Nicky leaned against her, enraptured by her playful tones and animated expressions.
Agatha stood in the doorway, watching them. A year ago, she never would have believed Rio could be so gentle and yet so instinctively protective of their little boy, as if she had always been part of Nicky’s life. But here she was, reading silly stories and kissing the top of his head when he giggled at her cartoonish voices. Agatha felt warmth unfurl in her chest at the sight of them together, a deeper kind of love than she ever thought she’d know.
Nicky yawned, and Rio closed the book gently, lifting him into her arms. “Bedtime, chiquito,” she said. “We can read the rest tomorrow.”
He clung to her, nuzzling his face into her shoulder as she carried him upstairs. The entire way, she whispered about the fun they’d have the next day, promising him pancakes and more stories. Agatha followed quietly, a soft ache in her heart. Every time she saw Rio holding their son like he was the center of the universe, she found herself inexplicably turned on, wanting her even more for being exactly what Nicky needed.
When Nicky was tucked into bed, he reached out for Rio’s hand. “Stay ‘til I sleep?” he asked, voice already drifting into drowsiness.
Rio smiled, stroking his curls. “Of course, mijo. I’m right here.” She glanced at Agatha in the warm glow of the night-light, eyes filled with a devotion that made Agatha’s pulse skip.
By the time Rio joined her in the hallway, Agatha could hardly keep her hands off her. She pulled Rio close, tangling her fingers into those dark curls, pressing her body against hers with a fierceness that hadn’t faded despite the year of domestic bliss they’d built. She kissed her like she’d been waiting all day because, in a way, she had.
“You know,” Agatha murmured between kisses, “watching you… it drives me crazy.”
Rio chuckled, sliding her hands under Agatha’s sweater, fingertips grazing warm skin. “Yeah?”
Agatha nodded, eyes dark with longing. “You have no idea.”
Rio kissed her again, slower this time, savoring the shiver that ran through Agatha’s body. “Let’s go to bed,” she whispered. “I can show you how good crazy can get, mi amor.”
They made it halfway to the bedroom before they started stripping each other’s clothes off in the hallway, giggling when they nearly tripped over a stray toy car. Once inside, Rio pressed Agatha to the bed, her gaze hot and possessive. Agatha’s breath caught, and she arched into Rio’s touch, her skin flushed with anticipation.
Rio moved over her with a languid purpose, leaving a trail of kisses down her throat, her collarbone, then lower. Every brush of her lips and tongue was a deliberate promise, a reminder of how much she had to give and how far she’d come to be here. Agatha let her head fall back, gasping softly when Rio slid lower, hands parting her thighs with tender ease.
“You’re so beautiful,” Rio murmured, voice husky. “I never get over it.”
Agatha groaned in response, heat coiling in her core as Rio’s mouth found exactly where she needed it. The rhythm was slow at first, building, drawing out every breathy moan. The softness of Rio’s tongue alternated with gentle pressure that made Agatha’s fingers curl into the sheets. She murmured Rio’s name like a mantra, and Rio responded by going deeper, hungrier, the devotion in her eyes enough to make Agatha’s heart clench.
When Agatha finally broke, she cried out Rio’s name, her body trembling as waves of pleasure rolled through her. Rio held on, riding it out with her, pressing soft kisses to Agatha’s thighs, her stomach, her lips. They ended up tangled in the sheets, chests heaving, cheeks flushed with satisfaction.
Agatha breathed in the scent of rain and Rio’s familiar warmth. Her voice was still shaky when she spoke. “I mean it. I love watching you with him,” she said, bringing a hand to cup Rio’s cheek. “You’re… you’re so perfect with him.”
Rio’s gaze softened. “He makes it easy. Everything about us makes me want to be better.”
Agatha’s heart twisted at that. She brushed a strand of hair away from Rio’s forehead, letting her fingers linger. “You already are.”
They lay together, the steady rhythm of their breathing filling the silence. The sound of raindrops against the window lulled the house into a peaceful hush. As Rio’s hand found its way back to Agatha’s waist, pulling her closer, Agatha closed her eyes and let herself feel safe, cherished, and utterly, irrevocably in love.
She thought of Nicky, asleep just down the hall, and smiled against Rio’s lips, whispering, “Don’t ever leave.”
Rio’s hold tightened. “Never again,” she promised.
And this time, Agatha believed her. They drifted off with the taste of each other still lingering, secure in the knowledge that tomorrow would be just as bright, and just as safe, in the home they’d finally built together.
I’m compelled to believe that Agatha gets to see Nicky in the afterlife - in whatever the weird veil is between our world and the beyond, Nicky runs up to his mama and Agatha cries tears of joy to be reunited with her beloved son. He’s just as she remembers. Agatha is crying, hugging her son and he starts telling her he’s been on so many adventures — “we did this” and “we got to do that” and it takes Agatha a moment to try and understand who this we is? And then, she’s there too. Rio. Death itself, just beyond, watching the reunited pair just beyond the trees. Agatha realizes Rio has looked after her Nicky in the afterlife, cared for him, nurtured him. Loved him as her own, despite her job. It turns out, Rio had two exceptions. Agatha and Nicky.
My main problem as a writer is that I don’t write because “I have a story to tell”. I write because there are worlds I want to visit, ideas I want to explore, people I want to meet, conversations I want to hear, emotions that I want to express, and impossibilities I want to make real.
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