The pain in Marlena's head was almost unbearable. It was far worse than any other headache she had ever experienced, and for someone who received quite possibly the worst migraines from time to time, that was saying a lot.

Her eyes fluttered open and she was met with almost immediate darkness. The surface she lay on was cold, cold enough that she could feel it through her leather jacket. She grunted and pushed herself into a sitting position, doing her best to ignore the lightheaded sensation wracking her body. She looked around the room in an attempt to figure out where she could possibly be and why she was where she was, but she couldn't see anything through the darkness.

As the pain in her head began to subside, her thoughts became easier to comprehend. A wave of fear swept through her body as she remembered what had happened, and the first thing to come to her mind was Bucky. She was now more than aware that Hydra had taken her, but the only thing she cared about was Bucky. She feared that they had found him and taken him too, and that was possibly her worst fear at the moment.

She didn't want Bucky to be forced to live the life of the Winter Soldier again—she didn't want Hydra to take his life away from him again. He was just now getting it back, and she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she let them take it away again. She would sooner turn herself over to Hydra if that meant Bucky was able to be free from them. He deserved better than Hydra, and Marlena was willing to do whatever it took in order for him to have it.

"I was beginning to wonder when you'd wake," a voice sounded, startling Marlena. She backed herself into a wall, irritating her semi-healed spinal injury. She looked around the dark room once more, but saw nothing and no one.

"Who are you?" Marlena asked, her eyes darting through the darkness for any sign of movement.

She heard a deep chuckle come from the opposite end of the room, and the next thing she knew she was blinded with light from what seemed to be coming from the hallway. The large metal door hit the wall behind it with a bang, the loud noise making Marlena jump slightly.

"You don't recognize me? I'm so hurt," the man chimed as he stepped further into the room.

Once Marlena managed to get her vision back under control, she focused her attention on the man in front of her. His face was covered with what looked to be burn marks, his dark hair looked to be slightly singed, but it was styled flawlessly nonetheless. Marlena assumed him to be close to or in his mid-forties, but the scars on his face made it hard to determine. Also, his body structure suggested that he was much younger, but Marlena knew enough to know better. Because of the army, her dad had acquired a rather built body structure—much like the man in front of her—and because of that he looked much younger than the forty-year old man that he was.

Marlena did recognize this man, though, but the first time she recalled seeing him he was without the scars. It confused her and frightened her all the same.

"You're the guy who hit me in the head with the gun," she stated, rubbing the tender area where the weapon had made contact with her head.

The man chuckled again and leaned against the wall. "Yes, I am."

"You look different though," Marlena said warily. "You didn't have those scars on your face when you showed up at my house."

"That's because I was wearing a shit ton of makeup, darlin'," he informed her. "It was to prevent frightening whoever answered the door at your house."

"What's your name?"

"Brock Rumlow," he introduced himself. "Lovely to meet your acquaintance, Miss Claire. Enough of the small talk though—we have work to attend to."

Rumlow walked over to Marlena and pulled her off the floor. Marlena whimpered at the abruptness of the action, as well as the amount of strength he was using just to restrain her. She was roughly three times smaller than him, so she didn't understand why he felt the need to use such force on her. It was almost the equivalent to the unnecessary force he used when knocking her out with his gun but without the unbearable headache.

"Where are you taking me?" Marlena grumbled as she tried to pry her arm out of Rumlow's grasp. He only tightened it in aggravation as she continued struggling.

"Stop struggling or I'll break it," Rumlow snapped.

Marlena ceased her actions immediately, knowing that he would surely follow through with his threat. She was experiencing enough pain as it was, and she doubted she'd be able to handle the pain of having her arm broken.

"Can you at least answer my question then?" Marlena questioned.

"We're going to meet a few friends," Rumlow said with a smirk.

Marlena gulped, slightly afraid of what his words could possibly mean.

What friends could he be talking about? My friends or his friends? Are Bucky and Steve here? Did they take Steve too? What about Mason? Oh, God, not Mason, please not Mason. . .

Marlena's thoughts were torturing her. It scared her to think about Hydra getting a hold of her innocent little brother, as did it scare her to think about them taking Bucky and Steve.

Rumlow pulled Marlena into a large room, attracting the attention of the many Hydra workers. It looked to be some sort of highly advanced laboratory, and the countless instruments and fluid-filled vials sitting around only further proved that it was in fact a laboratory. It scared Marlena, as she wasn't sure why Rumlow was bringing her here. She didn't see Bucky, Steve, or her brother anywhere, so that was a bit of a relief to her, but she still couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was about to happen to her.

"What am I doing in here?" Marlena asked, her voice shaking with slight fear.

Rumlow rolled his eyes at her incessantness and roughly sat her down in front of a table. Marlena shifted in her chair and looked at Rumlow, waiting on an answer. She watched as a man in a lab coat handed Rumlow a folder, and Rumlow sifted through it for several seconds before throwing it onto the table and sliding it towards her.

"Y'know, it was pretty amazing just how much information on you we were able to dig up in only a day," Rumlow chuckled.

Marlena was slightly relieved that she had only been here a day rather than several, but at the moment that was the least of her concerns.

She reached out to grab the brown manila folder and her face twisted with confusion as she studied the foreign words printed onto the front. The heading read Дело № 18. Beneath it were the symbols Марлена Элизабет Клэр, and although Marlena could not understand the language, she knew enough to know that it was her name. What she didn't know, however, was what the symbols above it meant.

"What is Дело № 18?" she asked Rumlow.

Rumlow smirked and crossed his arms. "It's what you are."

Marlena furrowed her eyebrows in confusion and opened up the folder to see if she could get any insight on what he could've meant. Inside was a picture of her from her senior year of high school clipped to a bunch of papers. Each and every single one of them held some sort of information about Marlena, even information that she didn't know herself, such as her blood type, her time of birth, and the fact that she was apparently allergic to latex.

The folder gave her no insight into Rumlow's words. All it did was raise her suspicions regarding Hydra's intentions for her. She wasn't surprised that an organization as powerful as Hydra was able to obtain all this information on her, but she wondered why they seemed to need it. She thought the reason they had taken her was to get information from her about Bucky's whereabouts, not information about her.

"What is this and why is it written in Russian?" Marlena asked as she closed the folder and slid it back over to Rumlow.

Rumlow smirked and crossed his arms over his chest. "That is Case Number Eighteen, and it is written in Russian because you are in Russia. You see, I had originally planned to kill you if you refused to give us information on the whereabouts of the Winter Soldier, but when I brought you here my boss seemed to have a better idea, and I agreed with it after I learned his reasoning for having it."

Marlena raised a brow. "What might that idea have been?"

"You're the great granddaughter of the third most famous Howling Commando," he started, catching Marlena's attention. "Your grandfather and your dad were also in the army, and it has been brought to our attention that when you were little they trained with you."

Marlena shrugged and sat back in her seat. "They did, but I don't understand what that has to do with anything. I never ended up using what they taught me. I couldn't even hurt a fly," she chuckled dryly.

"Well, now's a perfect time to start," Rumlow chimed.

Marlena gaped at him, unsure of where he was going with the conversation. "What are you talking about?"

"My boss sees a certain potential in you, Marlena Claire," Rumlow stated. "He wants to use you the same way we used the Winter Soldier. In fact, he wants to make you the Winter Soldier's partner—that is if we manage to locate him, which you are going to help us do."

Marlena's mouth fell open in shock and fear, and she shook her head violently, ignoring the pain pulsing through it. "Is that why I'm here in the lab? Are you gonna inject me with that Super Soldier serum the way you did with Bucky? Are you gonna cut my arm off and give me a metal one as well?"

Rumlow shook his head and stood up, grabbing the file off the table. "Not exactly. Your skills are going to stem from your mind, which is what will come from our mysterious little concoction over yonder. Your physical skills, however, can only be enhanced through physical training, which we will start here as soon as possible, after you've had all of your tests done," he explained to her.

"The mind? Tests? What does that even mean?" Marlena asked frantically.

"I guess you'll find out," Rumlow answered with a smirk.

Before Marlena even had the chance to respond, she was being pulled up from her chair. She looked up at the beefy man with fear in her eyes. He was leading her over to a lab table, which was set up with several tubes of a mysterious blue liquid, as well a few syringes.

Marlena's eyes widened as she looked over the area, and she attempted to pull herself away from the guard, only to fail. She didn't know what they were about to do with her, but she knew that she wanted no part in it.

"No!" Marlena screamed. "Let me go! Don't do this to me! Please!"

She struggled and struggled to get free, and when the guard grew tired of it he picked her up, holding her to his side as if he were holding a football. She only continued struggling, but the man was far too strong for her.

He practically threw her flailing body down onto the lab table and held her down tightly as lab workers shuffled to restrain her.

"Let me go," Marlena squeaked as she pulled on her restraints. She eventually gave up when she realized trying to break free was a dead end.

The workers shuffled around, placing six of the blue liquid tubes into their appropriate stations on either side of Marlena's head. Her breath quickened when she realized what they were trying to do, but she could do nothing about it, no matter how desperately she wanted to.

"No, please!" she pleaded once more.

The workers ignored her and proceeded to tinker with the machine behind her head. The whir of it startled Marlena and she closed her eyes as she felt something metal lowering itself onto her head.

"Open your mouth," someone commanded her.

She was too scared to protest, so she obliged and opened her mouth. She could feel the cold metal against her tongue as the mouthpiece fell into place, and she bit down on it, still not exactly sure why.

The machine behind her whirred again. The machine wrapped itself around Marlena's head and locked into place, sending a wave of pain flowing into Marlena's body. She wasn't even given the time to react to the small amount of pain before an even more intense wave wracked her body. A blood curdling scream resonated throughout the enormous laboratory, and it was now that she understood the reasoning behind the mouthpiece.

She had never felt such a pain in her life. Her migraines, the hit to her head with the gun, or even her spinal fracture could not compare to such pain. She felt as if her brain was being engulfed in world's brightest and bluest flames—it was almost as if her mind itself was melting away into oblivion. The pain made it impossible for her to even process her thoughts, but, as she lay there screaming, a single thought managed to find its way to the surface:

She was glad it was her and not Bucky.