As I Was

Thirty

The road was long and dark as they zoomed down it, the car - the target - in their sights up above. Her fingers gripped on the handlebars of her motorbike as she glanced to her left. It was time to begin the mission...

"It wasn't them! Hydra was controlling their minds!"

Bang!

A gasp passed her lips, burning at her already sore throat, as she sat up. Scrambling around the bed she found herself on Harper frowned as she took in the room she was in. Machines she didn't recognise emitted loud beeps from where they sat at her beside and the bright light above hurt her eyes.

"Hey, hey," a voice she recognised immediately cut through her panicked breathing. From beside her Steve Rogers was standing up from the chair he'd been sitting in, his hands raised in an attempt to calm her "Harper, calm down."

"Where am I?" she asked breathlessly, the room was alien to her. Far too clean, too bright and very unfamiliar "What happened? Where's Bucky?"

Steve smiled, reaching down and taking her hand "We brought you, both of you, to Wakanda," he explained, watching as Harper's head quickly turned to look out of the window on her other side "They have technology beyond anything we could ever think of. King T'Challa has promised to help Bucky."

"Why?" Harper, still feeling a little fuzzy, asked "He thinks Bucky killed his father."

Steve shook his head "He was there in Siberia," he explained and Harper brought the memory of her spotting T'Challa suited up in the corridors at the centre back to the forefront of her mind "He caught up with Zemo, the man who brought us there, while we were...fighting. Zemo explained everything to him, it was him who organised the bombing disguised as Bucky."

Though she nodded she felt as though all the information being thrown her way wasn't really taking "And Tony? He's...?"

"Tony's fine, back at the compound."

"Pity," Harper scoffed before she frowned and settled back against her pillows "Sorry," she continued, reaching up and pinching the bridge of her nose with the fingers Steve wasn't holding onto "Sorry, I didn't mean that."

Steve smiled "It's okay if you did," he said with a shrug of his shoulders "He is the reason you have that painful looking bruise on your face."

"I'm okay," she said, unable to stop the wince as she reached up to once more to press her fingers across her skin "So, how are they planning on helping Bucky? What's going to happen to him?"

"He's going back under Harper," Steve explained in a slow and careful tone "Cryogenic sleep. Shuri, she's the princess and...well and the whole reason this country is as advanced as it is from where I'm standing, she's going to - Harper!"

Without bothering to listen to his explanation Harper had pulled her hand from his grasp, swinging her legs over the other side of the bed she swayed as she pushed herself up onto her feet "I'm fine," she insisted as Steve appeared by her side to catch her "I need to see him."

"And you'll get to but you aren't rushing off and ruining my good work before you do."

The voice was different and Harper glanced up to see a new person, clearly the Wakandan princess Steve had mentioned, had entered the room "Work?" she asked, her gaze following the younger girl as she fussed around the machines around her, pressing buttons and musing over the readings on the screens.

"You're a level two super soldier Miss Rhodes," the princess said, her tone distracted as she worked "Not as high as Captain Rogers or Sergeant Barnes but still up there," she explained, making notes as she began removing the wires snaking from Harper's body "I just had to have a little play up here once I fixed your broken jaw," she continued, wriggling her fingers near Harper's temple with a smirk on her face.