Recollection ★ Bucky Barnes

Can't You See I'm Working?

To say that every aspect of who Marlena was had changed drastically within the last three weeks was an understatement, even for an organization such as Hydra. The day after Rumlow decided to completely wipe her memories, he began the process of training her to become one of Hydra's most notorious assassins.

For the past three weeks, Marlena had been following a very strict schedule. Rumlow was doing everything he could to ensure that Marlena was to become Hydra's most lethal weapon. That meant waking Marlena up everyday at four in the morning and doing some aspect of training with her for the next fourteen hours. It was an every day thing for Marlena—she wasn't even allowed to have weekends for relaxation. It was nonstop training, and it had become sort of a routine for Marlena, a routine she had grown used to fairly quickly.

Marlena was stuck in a continuous cycle. Her "work" days started on Sunday, and from then on she was given specific instructions on what was to be covered that day. Every other day she would work diligently on her combatant skills, while the days in between she would either work on gymnastics, precision training, or her weaponry skills.

It had only been three weeks, yet Rumlow was more than proud of what had become of Marlena. She had been making exponential progress, progress that far exceeded that of even Hydra's finest agents. Rumlow's boss had been right about Marlena, and he was thrilled that he had taken the chance with her. Although the skills her father had originally taught her when she was younger were almost nonexistent when they first began the training process, Marlena seemed to have shown an existing knowledge for the art of combat. She was a quick learner and could adjust to any situation as quickly as it was forced upon her. If she were to fail, however, she would be punished for it, and that was one of the main reasons she pushed herself so hard to master her skills.

Rumlow had come to think of Marlena as some sort of prodigy and had even resorted to such lengths as to address her by the name Prodigy rather than her first name. To him, Marlena was a natural and he could almost begin to compare her developing skill set to that of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s and Hydra's highest level agents—most Hydra agents could begin to. He believed this to be what she was meant for, although he could recall Marlena telling him she was the type of person who could never even hurt a fly. Because of that statement, he was glad that he had decided to wipe her. She had no recollection of who she was in her past life, and so fighting and Hydra was all that she knew.

Or at least that's what Marlena had led Rumlow to believe. . .

For some reason unbeknownst to Marlena, the machine that was meant to free her of her memories was not as effective as Rumlow or the rest of the laboratory workers believed it to be. Marlena had discovered that shortly after recovering from the pain the machine had inflicted. Her memories were still very much in tact, and she hadn't a clue why. She decided to use it to her advantage, though, and further incorporated the situation regarding her memories into the plan she had been conjuring up.

Marlena needed to make Rumlow believe that she had no recollection of the person she used to be; she needed to make him believe that she was on his side—on Hydra's side. Her determination and her need to better her abilities stemmed solely from her need to get back to her family and Bucky. They were the reason she was doing what she was doing; they were the reason she spent fourteen excruciating hours a day throwing knives, somersaulting over the hard floors of the enormous training center, or sparring with countless Hydra guards to better her already-lethal combatant skills.

It was no secret to Marlena that she had been subject to some very dramatic physical and emotional changes during her short time at the Hydra facility. She was still very much in touch with herself, but it was now only to a certain extent. Her personality had hardened drastically over the few weeks she had been held captive by Hydra. She wasn't sure whether or not the change had to do with the activities she was now partaking in or the fact that she wanted to make Hydra pay for everything they had done to her and were still doing. And, no matter how much she didn't want to accept it, Marlena was not the same little girl Rumlow had snatched away from her home back in Washington.