Wakanda. That word has so many meanings to different people. For me, it is home. My birth country. I grew up there from birth until the tender age of 9 when my father and mother decided to leave.

I didn't understand why until I was older.

In Wakanda, my father was lead developer in a resource that Wakanda thrives on, Vibranium.

I would say that we had it pretty well off when I was younger. My father, mother and I lived in the palace with the royal family. Mostly because, well my father was the lead developer and best friend to the King T'Chaka. Meaning I grew up with the King's children, T'Challa and Shuri. Shuri was a little younger so we weren't that close but T'Challa was my bestfriend back then. We did everything together.

Then one warm sunny day, I was helping my mother make a dress for Shuri's birthday when my father came into our chambers rushing around shouting at us to pack whatever we needed because we had to leave. That day broke my heart, I kept asking my father, 'What about T'Challa and Shuri?'. My father just ignored me and shoved my things into a bag and we left the palace.

We went three countries away to a country called Janabia. It was between Rwanda and Burundi. It was a small resource rich country. My father bought us a place away from the closest city. He had a research lab behind our house so he could work on his research.

Following up the months until my tenth birthday, my mother started to get sick. She would always say she was fine but I could see that she was tired, exhausted even. My father started giving her medications and IV's, it seemed like she was getting better. A short week after my birthday, my mother died. I felt devastated, she had been my only friend for the months that we lived in Janabia.

After my mother died, I watched my father slowly unravel like a ball of yarn. He went from eating dinner with me to not even coming into the house anymore. I was alone, he spent all his time in his research lab. At that moment in my life, I had no parents. I was on my own, I had found way to make money so I could afford food. I would walk to the nearest town which was 15 miles away and help out this older lady with her farm and animals.

For a while, I remember living like that and then everything goes completely blank when I try to think of what happened after that. I know that my father had completed his research and he wanted to uproot us again, which he did. To the United States.

When I turned 15, he started 'training' me because he swore up and down that someone was going to come after us. His training was different than the training that I had witnessed back in Wakanda. Slowly the years rolled on until I turned 18 and my father has started to become ill just like my mother. He said this is what his research was good for, he had liquidated Vibranium into a IV bag and said that would make him better. But it didn't. He died before I turned 19, he kept telling me people were going to come for me and I had two choices, fight or run.

I ran. From city to city, and state to state. My memory of Wakanda, Janabia and my first years in the states started to fade and soon I just blocked those memories all together.

Somehow, I ended up in New York. Hiding in the daylight, stealing at night. That's the way I lived for two years until Tony Stark and SHIELD found me.