A yawn stretched at her lips as the sound of her ringtone cut through her sleep. Her left hand rubbed at her eyes as her right tugged the quilt she was nestled under from over her head.

"Go back to sleep," she said in a whisper, feeling Bucky stir as she untangled herself from beneath his arm. Reaching over to her bedside cabinet her fingers scrambled around slightly before they closed around her iPhone.

"'Lo?"

"Do you always sound like this when Steve calls?" Natasha's voice echoed from the other end. She sounded like she was outside, her feet crunching on leaves and the wind whistling around her "Bored?"

"Try half asleep," Harper answered, suppressing a yawn as she tugged her dressing gown on and made her way through to the living room "You remember timezones exist right, Nat?"

There was a pause before Nat mumbled a "Shit," as she very obviously came to a stop "Sorry Harper, but someone's gotta keep you on your toes," she said, the usual teasing in her tone as she continued her walk.

Harper rolled her eyes, reaching up and rubbing at her left one "Was there a point to this call or did you just wanna say hi?"

"Are you this surly when the boys call?"

"Natasha," Harper whined. "The boys usually call me at a normal time, it is currently three in the morning and my head feels all fuzzy. Are you alright?"

Natasha sighed once again, coming to a stop once more and taking her time to catch her breath. "I need your help with something," she finally admitted "But you can't mention anything about it to Steve, Sam, Bucky...anyone."

Harper's brow furrowed as she sat down at her desk "Okay," she answered slowly "Where are you?"

"Oh I'm just checking the perimeter of our new place," Natasha shrugged off. "It's the only time I get to myself," she added in a grumble."You promise you won't mention this to anyone else?"

"Is that really necessary-"

"Please Harper. Just say it."

"Okay I promise," Harper caved before adding "It's nothing really bad is it?"

On the other end of the line she could practically hear Natasha's eyeroll "I just need you to check on something for me," she said "Or rather someone."

"Right," Harper answered, the phone balancing between her ear and her shoulder as she crawled beneath her desk to switch the computer on at the wall. She'd have to remind Bucky, again, that it wasn't necessary "And who is this person?"

"I can only give you a name," Natasha said, unhelpfully "And when I do I just want you to make sure they're alive and okay. No digging deeper."

"You're making this all too confusing," Harper said, smiling to herself at the sound of her computer loading up "Is this something you need immediately?"

"You may not be able to get the information immediately," Natasha said with a sigh "Just take your time, do as much as you can."

Harper frowned as she relaxed against the back of her office chair "Everything is alright isn't it Nat? You're okay?"

There was a smile to Natasha's tone as she replied "I'm okay, I just want to make sure someone else is as well," she said "No reaching out, no extra information, just let me know if she's okay."

"Sure," Harper nodded, opening up the notebook she kept on her desk. Reaching over she plucked one of the pens out of her stationary holder, hovering it over the paper ready "And the name?"

Natasha took in another deep breath "Yelena Belova."


Harper had stayed at her desk, staring into the bright light of her computer screen, until Bucky emerged from the bedroom an hour later. He'd been insistent she was to come back to bed, to rest and leave whatever it was she was looking into until the morning.

But she'd found that she couldn't sleep. The person Natasha had been interested in finding out about didn't seem to exist, definitely no social media and nothing on the basic websites she usually used to start her research.

But she'd been so worried about her, Harper had been able to hear it in her voice, that she was determined to find something out about her. To give Natasha a little bit of good news while she was out on the run.

"Here," Bucky said, a smile on his face as he handed her her morning coffee "You were restless after you came back to bed," he said with a frown of concern as he sat back down in the bed beside her "What was it Steve had you on last night?"

"Oh it was nothing," Harper answered before raising the mug to her lips and taking a sip "Once I get on something I find it hard to stop and I'm not used to having someone around to pull me out of it," she continued, leaning over and pressing a kiss to his cheek "Thank you for making me sleep," she said, though unsure how much sleep she actually managed to get.

He looked across to her with slightly narrowed eyes, not really sure if he believed her or not, before he reached up to push her hair out of her face "Are you sure you want to go out today?"

"Yes!" Harper answered, a little too enthusiastically "I mean...yes, of course," she continued, smiling up to him shyly "I'm fine, honestly."

"As long as you're sure," he said, his tone a little wary, before he placed a kiss on the top of her head "I'll go and get in the shower while you finish your coffee then," he said, sending her a smile before hopping off the bed and heading into the bathroom.

As he did her phone, sitting on the bedside cabinet, beeped and she reached over for it. A text from Natasha lit up the screen, asking her if she'd managed to find anything out.

Not yet she answered But I'll keep looking. I promise.

She settled back against her pillows once she had locked her phone and placed it back where it had been. With her fingers wrapped around her warm mug she thought about the day ahead, wondering if she'd find the time to sneak away and do a little research for Natasha away from Bucky.

They were heading to the big library in Wakanda to spend their morning off from the lab looking into Bucky's past. He wanted to make sure nothing would trigger him now the words were permanently out of his head, he wanted to look into the past before he had become The Winter Soldier, he wanted to relive some of the things he had done while he was the Winter Soldier...he wanted to cover all bases and knew the best person to help him was the one who had made a career about it.

It just meant, being in such a public place, that she wouldn't be able to focus too much on what Natasha had asked her.

The bathroom was free by the time she had finished her coffee so she took her chance to quickly shower and brush her teeth before she got dressed for the day ahead.

"Are you ready?" Bucky asked once she had changed out of her pyjamas and into a pair of leggings and the comfiest top she owned. Her hair was piled up on the top of her head and her glasses, ready and raring to go, were perched on her nose.

"I'm going full research geek on you," she warned, making a point of pushing her glasses further over her eyes with a smirk on her face.

"I won't lie, this look? Definitely working for me," he answered with a smirk, reaching out for her arm he tugged her into him.

She almost gave in, hypnotised by the striking blue eyes staring down at her, but ended up shaking her head "We have an appointment," she said, her tone a lot weaker than what she would have liked.

"Believe it or not, I'm looking forward to it," he said with a chuckle, not hiding his disappointment as she moved away from him. He watched as she reached for her messenger bag and slung it onto her shoulder "Are you feeling better now?" he asked, continuing when she sent him a confused glance "You seemed a bit off this morning after your middle of the night call."

"I was just tired," she said, hoping her smile was convincing enough. "The coffee you brought me sorted me right out," she continued, nudging his hip with hers as she passed him "Now come on, let's get this show on the road."

There was a nervousness to his smile as he nodded in agreement. Taking in a deep breath he paused for a second before he followed her out of the bedroom. With the shock of the trigger words being out of his mind slowing down he knew he had to make sure there was nothing else which could take him back to being the person he didn't want to be.

He needed to look into his past to sort through the bundle of memories in his mind.

And he was a little nervous about it.

"Come on," Harper smiled as he followed her out of the door, shutting and locking it behind him. Reaching out she joined their hands, lacing their fingers and squeezing a couple of times to reassure him "All good?"

"All good," he promised "And hopefully still will be by the end of the day," he continued with a wiggle of his eyebrows, letting out a laugh as she sent him a glare "I'm sure it'll be fine."

"I just don't want to put you through something that's going to hurt you," Harper said as they made their way down the main street toward the magnificent looking building toward the other end of town.

"I know," he answered, resting his shoulder against hers and pressing a kiss to the side of her head "But it's something I have to do."

"I know," Harper echoed, unable to stop the worry from squirming in her stomach. He had finally admitted to the physical pain he was feeling after losing his arm again and she didn't want to be the one to help bring any of the mental pain back.

He'd had the idea shortly after speaking with Steve on the phone. It had brought his memories of the past forward, filling his dreams with muddled up flashes of what they would get up to back in the forties.

It made him want to look into what had happened back then. When he was drafted and Steve had been altered, all the good they had done when they were in the Howling Commandos...and anything else after that.

He couldn't handle the confusion when he woke any longer. Wondering what had been real and what had been messed with when his memories were wiped over and over.

And he needed to know if anything that could be brought up from his past had the ability to trigger his mind.

The last thing he wanted was to be in the middle of a conversation and to be taken back to someone he wasn't any longer.

His attention was caught by Harper's fingers squeezing his. There was a wide smile on her face as she led him into the grand building holding all and any kind of information Wakanda had to offer.

The library was one of Harper's favourite places in town. Not only was there anything she needed to know at the tip of her fingertips but also fictional world after fictional world for her to get lost in whenever she needed it.

It was also large enough to hide from Okoye and Ayo when they wanted her to join the third training session that day.

"C'mon," she said, gripping onto Bucky's hand and leading him over to the large elevators across from the doors they had walked through "I called ahead, they said they'd have most things ready for us on the top floor," she explained once they were inside and the doors had shut behind them. Leaning over she pressed the button, pausing to make sure he was still happy as she did so.

The table was, as promised, set up and waiting for them when the doors opened once more. The librarian, Medea, had been more than happy to help when Harper had called ahead earlier on in the week.

She'd gone through the archives and dug out old newspapers the Wakandan's had saved for research and to keep track of where the vibranium taken from their country was in the world. They were covering the table, neatly organised in date order and waiting to be read.

"You're sure about this?" Harper asked as they approached, a few headlines from his Winter Soldier days jumping out at her as she cast an eye over the material.

"I'm fine," he insisted with a smile, one she couldn't quite read, before pressing a kiss to her temple. "Honestly H, you go and look at what you need to."

She paused for a moment, as he let go of her hand and made his way over to look at the different articles and reports. Her eyes stayed on him as he bent over the table, his hand reaching out every now and then to move a piece of paper to the side.

He had been insistent on doing this on his own. She would still be in the room of course but working on something of her own.

"I wanna get some stories straight in my head so I can bore you with tales of the old days," he'd said the previous with a chuckle "And I can't tell you the stories if you're reading them over my shoulder," he'd added, poking her scrunched up nose before he'd pulled her in for a kiss.

The Bucky in her memory was a lot more relaxed than the one she was looking at in that moment. His jaw wasn't clenched and his shoulders not tense, his brow hadn't been furrowed and his eyes narrowed.

It had been a long time since she had seen the Bucky who was standing in front of her, oblivious to her still watching on.

Letting out a sigh she turned away from him, sticking to her promise and leaving him alone with his thoughts and memories to head over to the computers in the corner.

She picked one with the screen facing the wall, pulling the seat out and making sure she could still glance up and see how he was easily. Switching it on she logged in with her usual username and password before leaning down and plucking her messenger bag from where she had dropped it onto the floor.

Digging through it she swore beneath her breath before her fingers finally brushed against the USB drive she had been looking for. She knew she needed to focus on the project she had given herself not so long ago but, as the data loaded, she couldn't help but open up the programme Shuri had given her and input a different name:

Yelena Belova

Natasha had sounded so worried about her over the phone a few nights previous and Harper couldn't help but feel slightly intrigued.

She would keep her promise of course, she wouldn't look into Yelena more than she had to, but she still found herself wondering who she was to the usually secretive Natasha.

It took her a while, digging through record after record and unlocking report after report, before she found her. Alive, well, and in hiding.

Stretching up in her chair, pushing her glasses from the bridge of her nose to the top of her head, she glanced over to check on Bucky once again. His head was bent over the table, his shoulders still tense, as he read over something clutched in his hand. He looked deep in thought but still comfortable so Harper sat back, tugging her phone out of her pocket.

Natasha answered before the phone had finished it's first dial, a curt hello followed by the closing of a door behind her.

"You can talk?" Harper asked her.

"Yeah I can talk," Natasha confirmed "You've found her?"

"I can send you her location right now."

There was a half sigh of relief before Natasha spoke again, quickly "Wait, she is-"

"She's fine," Harper reassured her "Alive and well," she continued as she balanced the phone between her ear and her shoulder, reaching forward to swipe across a few keys and click her mouse a couple of times "I've sent you her location. You can see for yourself."

"You've told me all I need to know for now," Natasha answered, a smile and a lightness in her tone "Thank you Harper, you've put my mind at ease," she said before continuing with suspicion in her words "But you didn't-"

"I didn't look further than that," Harper promised "I know it isn't my place."

"I owe you," Natasha said "If there's anything I can ever do to help you."

Harper found her mind wandering to her own project, the one milling in the back of her mind begging her to focus on "Be careful Natasha, I may just keep you to that," she warned, keeping a teasing tone so as not to invite further questions.

"I'll be there," Natasha said earnestly "I mean it Rhodes," she continued before finally letting out that sigh of relief "I better get back to the boys, we'll call you if we need anything."

"Anytime," Harper answered, frowning to herself when she realised Natasha had already hung up.

Pushing herself to her feet she stretched her arms above her head, leaning her neck from one side to the other as she tried to untie the knots she'd acquired since sitting down. A yawn crossed her lips as she placed her glasses back in their case and dropped them into her bag, rubbing at her eyes as she followed them with her USB stick.

"How's it going?" she asked as she slowly approached the table Bucky was working at "You know Medea said you can take whatever you need right?" she continued as she stood behind him, her hand gently resting on his back as she leaned over his shoulder. He was reading an old newspaper article about the Howling Commandos, a light smile on his face.

"She did?" he asked, sounding as though he had been pulled out of a deep dream. He blinked his eyes a couple of times before he turned to look up to her.

"All of these are copies," Harper said as she took the seat beside him. "I just thought the quiet of the library would be best for you when looking over them," she explained as his eyes followed her "All good?"

He nodded once before he answered "All good," with a smile. His gaze left her to look back over the piles of paper he had been sorting through "Lot of information to get through."

"But you did it," Harper smiled, reaching over once again to squeeze his knee "And with no triggering," she continued, her eyes searching his face.

"No triggering," he confirmed with a chuckle "So you can stop trying to look into my brain," he said, reaching up and playfully pushing her face away "I think it's helped me though, get a few things sorted in my mind."

"Well I can't wait to hear all about it," Harper said, pressing a kiss to his cheekbone before getting to her feet "We're due in the lab soon though, are we gathering some of this stuff up to take with us?"

They ended up leaving ten minutes later, piles of paper shoved into two folders supplied to them by Medea clutched in their arms. There were articles Bucky wanted to reread, reports he hadn't got around to and pictures he wanted to make sure he had to show Harper later on.

"Well you two have been busy," Shuri greeted them with an arch to her eyebrows as the two of them wandered in through the lab main door.

"Research," Harper answered, throwing her nose in the air and smirking across to her friend.

"Research? Without me?" Shuri said in an offended manner, placing her hand over her heart "And I thought we were friends," she continued with a tut.

"My fault," Bucky said, holding his hand up innocently once he had dumped the folders he had been holding down on Harper's desk "She had to keep her eye on me while I delved into the past."

Shuri's eyebrows were back in their arch as the corners of her lips turned down slightly "And how was that?" she asked, her eyes flicking between the two of them.

A smile came to Bucky's face as he tapped his fingertip on the top of the folder "Great," he answered "I have so many more stories to tell you now," he continued, letting out a laugh at Shuri's over the top groan.

"Come on," she said, gesturing to the spare chair sitting beside hers "Show me what you got," she continued, turning to Harper as Bucky sat down "And you? Did you get a chance to look at-"

"No," Harper answered with a shake of her head, cutting through Shuri's sentence "I had something to do for Steve, Sam and Nat," she explained quickly as Shuri sent her a look "I promise I'll look at it when I next get a chance," she said, rolling her eyes as Shuri let out a disbelieving noise.

"I'll believe that when I see it," Shuri said beneath her breath as she turned to join where Bucky was sitting. "There are a few reports on your desk about the outreach programme I wrote today," she said as she sat in her chair "Could you look over them please?"

"Of course," Harper smiled, watching for a few seconds as Bucky began shuffling through the papers in front of him. There was an excited look on his face at the thought of being able to tell Shuri more about his past before the winter soldier.

He had been so worried that looking into his past would trigger something in his mind that seeing him relaxed and wanting to talk about it made her heart flip.

She spent the next few hours running her eye over the reports on the different possible locations the programme could spread to. With her red pen in hand she edited and added where necessary, glancing at the computer every now and then to double check what she was scribbling in the margins was right.

As she worked Bucky and Shuri moved into the training room, getting him used to moving with his new stature. In between working Harper also kept an eye on the monitor Shuri used to watch her when she was in there.

He looked at home in the battle situation, despite only having one arm, ducking and diving, shooting and shielding. He was much more comfortable in the simulation room as well, eager to get her back in there with him to restart their competition now they were on a more even keel.

Her attention was pulled away from watching him and Shuri on the monitor by the arrival of someone in the lab. Turning her chair around, a smile came to her face when she spotted T'Challa making his way over "My king," she greeted him, bowing her head slightly, as he reached her.

His eyes narrowed as he reached out to swipe the top of her head teasingly "How many times must I insist-"

"You know I'm only teasing," she said as she got to her feet, greeting him this time with a hug "How are you?" she asked, stepping back to take him in.

"Good," he answered "And you?"

"Can't complain," Harper answered with a shrug, the sound of the simulation's doors opening distracting them from their conversation.

"Ahh, the almighty King finally decides to grace us with his presence!" Shuri exclaimed when she caught sight of her brother "I was beginning to think you were too good to hang out in the lab any more," she said as she approached, reaching out and bumping fists with him.

T'Challa raised his eyes to the ceiling "She talks like we don't eat dinner together most nights," he said, jabbing his thumb over to his sister as a cackle left her mouth "I've actually come to speak to the two of you," he continued, turning to Harper and Bucky and ignoring Shuri's tut of disapproval at being left out.

"Oh?" Harper asked, stepping closer to where Bucky was standing. She knew, deep down, that they had a home for life in Wakanda but still couldn't stop the swirl of concern in her stomach at the serious look on T'Challa's face "Is everything okay?"

To her relief he smiled "I have a proposition for you."


Sorry I missed yesterday! It was my birthday on thursday, I've been off work all week and tbh all the days have merged into one!

Hope you enjoyed, thanks for reading :)

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