☑ THE SHADOW | Peter Maximoff

f i f t y

~ 𝐏𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫 ~

Peter had never felt grief like this before. He'd been to a few funerals before. Ones for people he barely knew, and kinda knew. Not one for someone so close to him. Not for someone he cared about so damn much.

He sat in a chair for most of the viewing. It was far enough away from the casket that he wouldn't get in anyone's way, but had the absolute perfect view of Amara. That was all he needed.

He didn't speak to many people. He knows that everyone wanted to know what happened, but he wasn't ready to share anything. He wasn't even close to ready.

His mom sat next to him the entire time, luckily doing most of the talking for him.

The person he had the hardest time looking at was Jean. She didn't get the opportunity to say hi to her best friend after over two months of her being missing. And while he got to come home, Amara was the one she'd never talk to again. He was honestly scared to talk to Jean. He wouldn't blame her if she got mad at him. He wouldn't even blame her if she never wanted to speak to him again.

When the room got quieter because most of the people left, and his mom excused herself to go to the restroom, Peter finally stood up. He briefly noticed that the room cleared as he sat on the table that held Amara's casket, but most of his attention was stuck on her.

Peter couldn't get over how gorgeous she looked. Her makeup was perfect; exactly the way she would have it, with the darkest blacks surrounding her eyes, large cat liners to make them look even longer, and probably tons of concealer and foundation to hide the scars she obtained at the Remedy base.

Her outfit was incredible, too. She was dressed in a tight black one-piece with a cape that draped out of the casket and along the floor. She had her signature pair of knee high black boots, while her hair curled beautifully all around her with delicate white flowers decorated within them. Her skin was almost as pale as the flowers, and that's what told him that he still wasn't dreaming. This was still happening. There was no chance of her coming back.

"They're going to bury you tomorrow," he finally said, though he had to clear his throat afterward. His voice was all scratchy and weak; he had done so much screaming and crying, followed by not talking at all in the past few days, that he guessed it forgot how to work properly. "You know, I'm not going to forgive you for this. This was a lousy way to get out of paying for a haircut."

He reached his hand up to his hair and ran his fingers through it.

"Which, it is shit, by the way. You made it sound like you didn't do that bad of a job. I had to tell my mom Remedy did it for experiments when she asked why it was so uneven."

He swallowed thickly, reaching into his pocket.

"I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to make a small trade with you." He pulled out a small bag and opened the drawstring, then fished inside for the contents. It was a ring. A gorgeous ring, he thought, despite how simple it was. It was a silver ring, with a small, oval shaped diamond in the middle, and two much smaller diamonds on either side of it. "It was my grandmother's engagement ring. My mother told me when I was a kid that I could use it for the girl that I was going to marry when I got older. But, I, uh... I think it might look better on you."

He was gentle as he unclasped Amara's hands from each other. He did his best to stop his shaking as he felt just how cold they were.

There was one finger he realized that Amara never wore her rings on - the ring finger. The one that she reserved for marriage, even though she convinced herself she was never talking to anyone for the rest of her life. He liked to think that she would want it on that finger. Maybe even say yes to him one day, if they were both to make it out of it.