a ghost's endeavour

by mynameisvaleria

1.

Hayley gawked. "Um… hi, Cap."

He flushed, and shrugged at his predicament. "I didn't have time to change. Mind if I borrow something really quick, if you have anything?"

"I do, actually," she chuckled, letting him into the door. Turning, she pulled a shirt and some pants from the depths of her drawer and handed it to him. There was something akin to dismay that surfaced, but nonetheless he took the clothes and headed to the bathroom.

Just as Steve Rogers emerged from the washroom, her stomach clenched painfully. There was something about him (or anyone, except for him) in those clothes that felt wrong. Someone— anyone— in his clothes made her slightly uncomfortable. Hayley's smile fell and something in her face faltered.

Steve frowned. "Are you all right?"

Her smile went back up. "Don't you mean, are you sure you aren't suffocating in those clothes?"

One day, I promise you I will have the body of Captain America's.

The smile dropped again, briefly, and reflexively, just for a moment. He chuckled at her question, and then asked, "Your boyfriend's clothes?"

Despite the memories that floated into her mind, she smiled at his (assumed) concern that she was taken. "Not exactly— more like ex-lover's clothes, but then we were never really together. It's complicated," she dismissed, looking away so she could disguise the downturn of her lips, and the sparkle of an emerging tear.

"I'm sorry."

Hayley turned back, a bitter smile on her face. "Don't be. it's all for the better."

"I'm sure you'll meet someone better."

She laughed, grabbing her bag and keys from the table, "Oh, I don't doubt it."

They stepped out the door in silence, and it took them a while until conversation started again. "I know I never explain anything when my past comes to play," she started, shaking her head, "but it's hard to admit the mistakes I've made, or the things I've let happen. But I promise one day, when I can manage to spit those words out, you will be the first person to hear them."

"Hayley," he sighed, "both of us, we have secrets that we don't mention, and that's okay. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"You told me anyway, because you trust me," she said, "and to be completely honest, I want to trust you but I don't think I can yet— not wholeheartedly."

He got on his motorcycle and she stood by him, watching, hoping he would not turn around so that she would see the betrayed expression on his face. Then he turned around, and said, "Come on."

She got on, smiling, and uttered the words that she regretted once they came out of her lips, because they were the same words that he said, and went back on: "Whatever happens, you mean a lot to me."

He didn't reply, but Hayley knew he had heard it, right before the motor came to life and they sped away to someplace that they would perhaps, someday, call their own.

"This place is beautiful," she breathed, looking over at him and smiling, "Where are we?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I found this some day when I was upset and decided to just drive. I got off the bike and looked down at my reflection in the lake and found peace. No one knows about this place so I made it my own."

"Well," she chuckled, "you're going to have to share because now it's mine too."

Steve watched her settle onto the dirt without concerns for her light coloured shorts as her eyes closed slowly. He wanted to sit down next to her but felt like he should not, so he stayed where he was, watching her chest rise and fall with each intake of air. For a moment, she was younger than she should be, and he wondered why but she made his heart slow down and all he wanted to do was to stay here with her even though her constant cynicism wore him down.

"Come sit with me," she said after what had felt like hours. Her voice was detached and somehow emotionless, but he obliged, not daring to voice his worry about getting her ex-lover's pants dirty.

She shuffled closer so their knees touched. "You make me feel okay, Steve," she whispered. "Like my nightmares don't exist."

"I'm glad," he replied, and hesitated to voice his opinion of her, but did it out of sheer responsibility. "And you make me feel… like I'm not alone."

She opened her eyes, and she aged five years in five seconds, "That's new."

He frowned, not quite understanding, "What?"

"Being wanted— being needed."

And then she closed those dark eyes and turned to the lake again, as silence fell once again.

. . .

"Sometimes I feel like I exist only to drive you places," he grumbled, pulling up outside her favourite bookstore.

She pulled her sunglasses over her eyes and sat down behind him. "Don't be grouchy, Steve, and I'll make you dinner."

"Deal— wait, can you even cook?"

Rolling her eyes, Hayley shot back, "Not without poisoning you."

And Steve laughed as they made their way to their complex.

"I'm moving out and back into my dormitory tomorrow," she brought up casually as she cooked that night. He looked up abruptly from his sketchpad that currently featured Hayley sitting cross-legged at the lake.

"What? Where?"

"NYU," she replied, then looking up to meet his eyes, "I'll still bring you brownies, you know. Nothing has to change."

He turned back to his drawing and smiled, because perhaps her cryptic and casual reassertion was more genuine than her direct confessions. "I know that."

A moment of silence was broken by her declaration that dinner was ready.

"I don't remember ordering anything so healthy," he wrinkled his nose at the bowl handed to him.

She plopped down on the seat next to him on the couch, and dug in. "Well," she shrugged, "I am vegetarian so you should have kind of expected that. Anyway, let's watch something, I'm bored."

He rolled his eyes. "Such as the one about the time-travelling doctor?"

"Well, you're not the only one who's out of his time."

There was silence.

"Shit, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that. I crossed the line," she apologised, looking over in regret, hoping that she did not offend him too much.

Steve shook his head. "No, you're not wrong."

"That does not give me a right to say it," she said quietly. She picked at her food, and then sighed, starting, "It's stupid, but there was this boy that I fell in love last year."

He put down his bowl, and listened, because he knew that perhaps this was all she had needed— just for someone to listen. There was a pause and she started again. "He got my hopes up. I finally realized that I could have feelings for someone and then that was it— at least we had a short five months together and I was happy, though not always. Then he left me feeling inadequate, and too small for my own good."

"Anyway, the rest of what happened will make your blood boil— either way, the truth being said is that I know of being in love, but not love," she finished, and then laughed, "I'm dramatic, I know, but really, I can't curb the way I feel."

He started to scoop the food into his mouth again. "I suppose we all hurt in different ways. Yet it's not to say we're eternally damaged."

"Well, I changed last year and I can't return to who I was. You changed when you were injected with the serum and you can't return to who you were," she paused, "the world has changed, and whether we regret it or not, there is nothing we can do to restore it. We just have to cope— and who's to say it isn't for the better?"