His eyes finally landed on her, as bits and pieces came back to him. He vaguely recalled seeing the brunette at the street market. In fact, Magna's face was the last he remembered before everything faded into blackness. He remembered the concern in...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
»»————- ✼ ————-««
Her eyes focused on the great cathedral before her.
It was vast, and every bit as intimidating as she had feared. Magna felt the anxiety growling within her, hungry and she considered walking around the block once or twice to calm down, letting the nerves build before setting them free. She knew better. Steve needed her. A quick glance at her watch confirmed she was barely making it on time. The funeral was about to start.
Agent Peggy Carter had left her Washington D.C nursing home and gone back to her home country, where she died in her sleep. The morning sky was a strange shade of grey, mirroring everyone's emotions. In a way, it was almost as if the clouds covering the firmament were Nature's mourning over her death.
A shudder rippled down from her neck through her shoulder blades to the base of her spine. Her mouth opened in quick breaths, and Magna whispered soothing words to herself, loosening the buttons of her black coat. The wind played lightly with her dark hair as she quickened her pace for the front of the cathedral. Her hands slung in her pockets, shoulders down, a look of melancholy in her stance.
Magna stopped for a moment before entering and closed her eyes. Her own image appeared in her mind's eye in soft focus; her image two years ago, the hair down, the flirty smile, the ease. Releasing the breath from her lungs, she mounted the stone steps and moved herself into the building to the smell of candles and light incense and was startled by the crowd in the church's lobby. She scanned every surrounding figure -Steve's wasn't among them- and then moved through the sea of unfamiliar faces to the coat rack in the rear. As she slowly removed her coat and hung it she looked at herself in the small mirror on the wall. A tired, sad face looked back at her, certainly not the face conjured moments before. Turning, she noticed a long line of people streaming into the pews along the aisle. Her emotions rang together like church bells and she realized that she may not be prepared for what was to follow.
After waiting for the organ music to swell and the muted rustle of everyone rising from the pews to mask her movements, she slipped into the very last row.
— Honey, look at all the people. I didn't expect so many..- a woman whispered to her husband. Her British accent was thick and she spat when she spoke, and she was struggling desperately to try to keep her old black straw hat from falling down around her face.
