Ghost of You

t w e n t y - t h r e e

The only solace I had was that things within the organization were better after I left, than they had been before I had arrived. I had a hand in helping the group function, the changes I had implemented, the strong infrastructure we had built helped turn them into a proper team. It was the one thought I could hold onto that gave me any sort of peace, that it hadn't all been for nothing. 

It was easier to think of this then of the man who had forced me to leave in the first place. I had blocked his number and deleted his contact, so I have no clue if he had even tried to contact me in any way. It felt a little drastic, even for me, since I'd never blocked anyone's number before, but I needed to heal. I couldn't do that if I still had access to him and he still had access to me. If that moment in Steve's room had taught me anything, it was that I couldn't trust myself with Steve Rogers. In fact, I still felt like I had a lot of work to do on myself before I'd be able to trust myself in front of him again. 

I had given him my heart, he had held it in his hands with such care, only to crush it with his words. When I left his room in the moments after he had called me her name, I took the first piece of my heart back. I took another when I deleted his number from my phone. Eventually, I'd have most of it back, although I don't know if I'd ever have all of it again, not in one piece. Once you give your heart to someone, it's hard to ever fully take it back. So long as you have one good memory in the time you had shared, one small piece of you will always remain with them. 

As much I was putting myself back together again, I couldn't help but feel entirely unprepared for the situation ahead of me as I followed Secretary Ross two hours later, out of the office and into a black hummer. By the time we had pulled up to the familiar compound, my anxiety had built up so strongly I was sure someone outside the vehicle could have seen it despite the military-grade tinted windows. Of course, I did my best to hide it. My expression remained neutral and my hands motionless in my lap as I resisted every urge to fidget against the leather seat. 

When the door to the car slid open, Ross stepped out first. I took the moments reprieve from his watchful eye to shut my own, taking a steadying breath. Almost immediately after I exited the hummer, I saw an identical car pull up behind the one I had just climbed out of. The door to the back row opened and a familiar man stepped out of the vehicle. He made his way towards me and wrapped his arms around me.

"I thought I might see you here today." He said, keeping his arms on my shoulders when he pulled away, shaking them bracingly. "Good to see you, kid."

I nodded. 

"You too, Dad." 

Looking back into his eyes I could see they were radiating with pride, the way they had been ever since I had walked away from the Avengers. It felt weirdly strange to see him this way, staring at me with such fondness and contentment. Pretty much all I had ever wanted was to make my parents proud. I would have done anything, no matter the personal cost. But now that I had it, it didn't feel like it really mattered at all, now that my father was staring at me like I was a bright young star in a dark corner of the universe, I felt nothing. 

Reconciling with my father had happened fairly quickly after I started working for Ross. My phone had blown up with apologetic messages, begging me to meet him for lunch and I had agreed. I hadn't exactly forgiven him for the scene he had caused at my old work, much less the words he had said to me that day. But for some reason I found my head nodding along in acceptance at lunch that day anyway, listening to him rattle on about how he hadn't really meant what he had said and he was sorry he had let his work come between us. I knew that my father's apology had been contingent on me quitting my old job, I wasn't blind to that fact. It was just much easier to move on from this than to hold a grudge. And it was much too hard to look at the man who had given me everything when I had nothing and admit that a part of me still resented him. That all of the good memories from my childhood surrounding my father were plagued by nightmares so strong that they had seeped into my present. That I had been holding onto the hope that the man who had taken off a day of work just to take me to the Museum of Natural History would return, that I was doubting if he had ever truly existed. I just wanted him to come back to me, and to come back to my Mom. She was the other reason I had chosen to work things out with him. I was tired of seeing the toll my Dad and I's feuding was having on my her. This worry was escalated by my growing concern for her health, which seemed to be having an uptake of issues lately.