Chapter Text
It was incredibly common in Mechanicsburg for experiments to go horribly wrong. Explosions rocking the city? Just a normal day. Black smoke spilling out from the door of the bakery? The bar? The shoe-shine stand? Pretty standard. News of wayward experiments emanating from Castle Heterodyne? Almost a daily occurrence at this point. Mechanicsburg not only had a high population of Sparks, it was also home to the most famous trio of Sparks in Europa. So it was no surprise that sooner or later, something was going to go horribly, extravagantly wrong.
It started with a relatively small explosion of bright blue electricity.
Agatha had a headache. She was used to headaches, migraines, the horrible brain fog that eats away at complicated sentences, you name it. But this one was worse than all of those combined. She had to physically drag herself out of bed and to the washbasin. The water on her face helped a little, but when she looked up at the mirror, everything looked… wrong. Kind of grey. She took off her glasses and cleaned them, wiping away the greasy smudges her fingers always left. It was only a little better.
She pressed her palms over her eyes. It felt like someone was playing catch with her brain. Like a cat playing catch with its claws out. A talking cat.
What an odd thought. Agatha brushed it beside and dressed quickly, she hurried downstairs past her parents. Headache or not, she had to run or she’d be late to her meeting with Professor Beetle, and that would be worse than any headache.
She was, of course, going to be late anyways. It didn’t matter how much time she allotted to weave her way through the streets of Beetleburg, something like a mysterious magnetic force attacking the streets just always had to happen. It was no help at all that it led her to being accosted. And robbed.
Her headache spiked like she was trying to remember something, someone. The man who snatched her locket had seemed weirdly familiar, like there was a name on the tip of her tongue. She picked herself back up off the ground and brushed herself off. An odd sense of Déjà vu following her as she hurried to the University Laboratory. She felt distant, unworried, as if this had all happened before, as if having her locket stolen wasn’t that big of a problem. That it was maybe even a good thing it had been stolen.
How could that possibly be good? She reprimanded herself as she apologized to the professor. That was the only photo I had of my parents. But even that didn’t sound quite right.
She shoved everything into the closet when Dr. Merlot told her that Baron Wulfenbach would be visiting. It sounded like an important visit but she quickly got distracted fiddling with one of her broken little clanks.
Something wasn’t right. Not with the clank - those were always horribly broken and tended to explode - but with what was happening now. She let her mind wander around the lab while her fingers worked. It was all too familiar. The machine that the doctors made wasn’t going to work, but how did she know that? She had an image of Baron Wulfenbach standing in the lab but she had never seen the man outside of state portraits. Maybe she had a dream about the Baron coming to visit? The little clank stood up and started walking around the table. Agatha ignored it, her mind was elsewhere, dwelling on strange daydreams of being chased through the mountains by a sword-wielding green-haired lady.
All of a sudden, she stood up from the workbench. Someone is going to walk through the door. She thought, and then there was the sound of the door being pushed open.
Doctor Merlot and Doctor Glassvitch were already waiting by the door as it opened to reveal two tall metallic clanks, Professor Beetle, a Jaeger, and Baron Wulfenbach himself.
“You’ve had plenty of time, Beetle,” the Baron was saying.
Agatha knew he was going to say that. A memory of a giant airship emblazoned with the Wulfenbach crest flashed through her mind. She rubbed the back of her hand against her temples, it came away slightly sweaty.
Behind the Baron trailed another few clanks, a familiar looking assistant and -
“Gil?!” Agatha shouted. Her cry echoed around the room. Dr. Beetle froze in the middle of introducing Dr. Glassvich. She threw her hands quickly over her wayward mouth.
Gil’s jaw dropped, “Agatha! Thank the Storm King!” He bounded across the room towards her. Stopping just short of hugging her as the Baron loudly cleared his throat. His hands stilled on her shoulders and Agatha felt electric where they touched her.
It was Gil.
“Gilgamesh is this another one of your acquaintances from Paris?” The Baron uttered the words through gritted teeth.
“No!” He shouted back, not taking his hands or eyes off Agatha. “I mean – Yes Father, we met in Paris.” He squints at Agatha as he emphasizes the word.
She nodded enthusiastically at his words.
“But you’ve never been to Paris.” Muttered Dr. Merlot.
The Baron’s eye twitched. Dr. Beetle looked like he was about to fall faint.
Agatha suddenly realized that she no longer had a headache. The clarity was startingly stunning. And more than that, she remembered.
“Please tell me you already disposed of the slaver wasps.” Gil whispered to Agatha. One hand was still clutched around her arm even though the Baron looked about thirty seconds from the idea of asking one of the jaegers to remove her from the room.
Like that would work.
Shit. “I forgot?” Agatha tried. In her defense the memories had only just come back slowly. Almost certainly a result of the damn locket, she realized. She had run into Von Zinzer all over again and didn’t even remember him. She’d have to find him again, he made a very good minion.
“Do you have a plan?” Agatha could always whip something up, but the reunion with Gil and the sudden feeling of remembering everything had left her feeling slightly off balance. This wasn’t a day she particularly enjoyed dwelling on.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got it.” Gil said, stepping back towards his mildly enraged father. He had an oddly nervous energy about him as he spoke to the man.
Agatha took a step back, settling into the position she would have taken as a simple lab attendant in order to watch him work. She had missed him. The split second feeling of not-knowing him unnerved her. How could she ever forget about Gil? He was a third of her soul.
Shit. She realized again, Tarvek.
As much as she couldn’t remember the circumstances that led her and Gil to suddenly be sent into the past (Or, more likely, have their memories sent into the past, because she hadn’t run into a second Agatha anywhere) she couldn’t remember if Tarvek was there. For a millisecond she felt the fear of living in a world where Tarvek wasn’t theirs, before catching one of Gil’s glances. No, she mused, Tarvek will be here. We just have to get to him.
Gil’s solution to the slaver wasps apparently involved stumbling into the ‘open’ lever for Dr. Merlot’s cabinet of wasps. And then doing the worst impression of ‘shocked and horrified’ she had ever seen.
Dr. Beetle didn’t even get blown up this time. Although she had a suspicion that he’d just end up get sent to her castle. She had never fully reconciled the professor who had been her mentor with the man who had tried to throw a bomb at her. Maybe this time around I'll get the chance to, she thought as he was escorted out by one of the clanks and the jaeger.
Klaus tried to make off with Gil, but he somehow managed to slip away straight back to Agatha mere moments after they disappeared out of sight.
“Come on.” He said, grabbing her hand and tugging her out of there. His hand was warm in hers as he led her out of the mess of a lab and through the maze of buildings that made up Transylvania Polygnostic University. Together they made their way back to the gates and into the main city.
They held hands as they walked and Agatha stopped every once in a while to point something from her childhood out to him. She hadn’t seen these streets in years. They had never had the opportunity to really walk around a place where she had so many memories of like this.
"How long have you been back here." She asked him as they passed by her favorite sandwich shop.
"Just since yesterday morning." Gil answered, "It was hell trying to keep it together and not rush my father to Beetleburg any faster than we did once I figured out what was happening. I don't think I would have waited if it had been any longer." He squeezed her hand reassuringly.
“Do you happen to remember the experiment that led us to being here?” Agatha asked, picking up the pace a little. The streets were rather cold without her jacket, so she made do with moving a little bit faster.
“Of course,” he said, “You don’t?”
“It was the damn locket again!” Agatha threw her hands up, “It managed to suppress all my memories until, well, until you walked in.”
“Fascinating.” Gil said, “I didn’t realize it could do that.” She could practically see the gears turning inside her brain.
“Well if it can suppress my mother’s entire brain,” she grumbled, “It’s certainly within it’s abilities. I suppose you woke up with all your memories intact?”
“Mostly,” Gil said, “I did first think that it was some kind of hallucination and acted accordingly.” He paused momentarily, looking over at Agatha with a sappy grin, “I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t go with the blowing-up-the-airship option.” He mused.
“Speaking of airships, what’s the fastest way to get to Sturmhalten? You came in on your father’s airship, he won’t mind if we commandeer it, right?” A little bit of fugue was starting to creep into Agatha’s voice. She wondered distantly if she’d have another breakthrough again or if her brain would play catch-up on its own.
A spark lit behind Gil’s eyes. “Oh, he definitely will mind. Remember those modifications we made to our airship? With the water reclamation system? Think we can do those again?”
Agatha grinned, the memories coming to mind as easily as if she was in her own timeline. “Do you doubt me?”
“You? Never.”
They turned the corner and suddenly they were right in front of her parents’ mechanic shop. “How do you feel about getting a second chance at a ‘meet the parents’?” She asked, gesturing to the sign above the door.
“As long as it goes better than the last time.” He admitted.
“That’s a low standard.” She replied, pulling him inside, “I’m going to go pack, why don’t you go introduce yourself so they don’t think you’ve kidnapped me!”
“Hi Adam! Hi Lilith!” She called out, making a beeline for the stairs. She pushed Gil back when he tried to follow her. “Go say hi.” She hissed.
“Agatha?!” Lilith called, coming around the corner. The upstairs door to her room slammed shut.
Gil turned around, putting on his best princely grin and charm that was not at all influenced by Tarvek. He placed a hand on his chest and bowed, “Lilith Clay was it? I’m so pleased to meet you and so sorry that Agatha dragged me in unannounced like this – perhaps this is best discussed over tea.”
Four minutes later she was hurrying downstairs again, where Gil was politely sipping his tea on the couch.
“Agatha?” Lilith gasped at her. She stood up from the couch and ran over to her, clutching both of her shoulders. She gave her a strong shake for good measure. “Do you know who that is?? Who his father is?” She hisses. “You’re not really going to run off with him?!”
Agatha attempted to peer around Lilith’s considerable frame. Gil was giving her an all too sly smile. “Um – No?” She guessed. Gil’s smile dipped. “Yes!” She changed her answer. “Yes! I have… Fallen madly in love with him! We are going to run off and elope to Sturmhalten right now!”
Lilith put a hand on her forehead. “Are you okay – oh gosh – do you have a fever? Have you been drugged? Agatha, where is your locket!!”
Agatha switched her fake smile for a frown. “Would you believe me if I said it was Heterodyne-Time-Travel stuff?”
Lilith and Adam glanced at each other across the room. Adam raised an eyebrow in her direction.
“Agatha, you know those stories aren’t…” Lilith began.
She sighs. She loves her parents, she really does, but, “Yeah, okay I’m not dealing with this right now. Gil? Please tell me you have that –“
Lilith and Adam slump over in unison.
“Handy knock-out juice?” Gil said, holding two newly empty syringes. “How do you think I got rid of my father so quickly?” He moved them both into a more comfortable position on the couch. “Although he will be waking up quite soon.”
He dusted off his hands before offering one to Agatha. She gratefully handed him her bag. “I hope you had a lovely tea before you drugged them.”
“Well, they seemed to like me quite a bit. Before I told them my name, that is.” He admitted.
“You couldn’t have passed on that?”
Gil met her comment with a grin. “Well, I didn’t want to lie, you only meet someone’s parents for the first time so many times! You know my father taught me not to even hold hands with a lady until I met her parents.”
Agatha squeezed his arm and gave him a peck on the cheek, “It’s not like you ever once followed that rule. I’m glad you got your second chance to make an impression, but you know Lilith and Adam love you anyways.”
“I know.” He said, smiling back at her, “Elope to Sturmhalten, though? Was that all you could think of?”
“Oh I could think of some other things.” She grinned, “But this one, well, it’s not entirely untrue. Or unpleasant.”