Ghost of You

t h i r t y - n i n e

I hate being pushed off the phone. I guess it's fair to assume that nobody particularly enjoys it, but it's a particular pet peeve of mine. It's right about up there with those dentists that try to talk to you while they're in the middle of cleaning your teeth and your mouth is full of foam and pointy metal objects.

I was having a really hard time forcing myself not to snap at Tony, who was on the other end of the line assuring me that everything with Peter is fine and to stop worrying so much. I want to remind him that I wouldn't have to worry so much about Peter, if he hadn't sent me half-way across the world.

"Like I told you before, Peter is fine." He says in a tone of forced calm. "We hit a little snag with Coney Island but everything worked itself out."

I'm not sure if a crashed plane and an all out fight between Peter and a man with access to alien technology and happens to be the father of his date to Homecoming qualifies as a "little snag". If it does, I definitely don't want to know what would qualify as a big snag.

Ever since Tony sent me to Wakanda, tensions between Peter and him had been growing. He had even gone so far as to take Peter's spider-suit away from him. Despite the disaster of Coney Island, both Tony and Peter seemed to be in a better space so I didn't want to push the matter too hard, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't still on edge. If I had been there I might have been able to stop it from happening. I just feel so useless here, thousands of miles away in an office building in Wakanda, and not in New York with them.

The buildings here are crazy beautiful, with intricate, modern deisgns. Everything in this building has its place and purpose. Everything is a finely tuned system. It's very different to the organized chaos I'm used to.

I was currently standing in the common area at the edge of a large marble counter-top island, next to one of the many large floor to ceiling windows that cover this entire floor.

"Please don't let this happen again Tony." I speak into the phone as I stare down at the street below, taking in the view. "I know you're my boss and I can't tell you what to do, but you put me in charge of him and when I left you promised nothing would happen to him."

As I'm finishing my sentence the door to the common area swings open and James Buchanan Barnes Jr. walks through and starts making his way over to me. I can only imagine what Tony would do if he knew who was in the room with me, and that thought immediately triggers a wave of guilt to rush through me.

"Nothing's going to happen to him." I hear Tony reply. "I have to go, just keep focusing on your own job and I'll take care of things over here, okay?"

"Okay." Is all I manage to get out before Tony hangs up.

I let my hand fall to my side, dropping the phone from my ear. On the street below I watch as a little girl runs circles around what I assume must be her parents. The woman is laughing as the girl continues to skip in circles and the man puts his arms around her. It's hard to tear my eyes away from the scene, hard to see anything else even. Even so, I can feel James Buchanan Barnes Jr. move next to me.

"Home again?" He asks, leaning against the edge of the island.

I nod, but am still staring out the window, transfixed. The father and mother had broken apart, each grabbing a hand of the little girl. Every few seconds they lift her up into the air together, and she jumps as high as she can, laughing as she hits the ground and bobs up and down until they swing her again.

"They're all going to be fine." He says softly. "I know you feel responsible for them, but you can't be the fix to every problem."

I take a few steps back from the glass, tossing my phone onto the island and leaning next to him on the same counter. Given the circumstances, I had kept the majority of what was going on back in New York separate from him, but even so, he had managed to get the general sense of things.