The air surrounding Marlena was warm. The brunette sat quietly on the small bed Alena had so generously provided for her. She was still weak from the suppressors stripping her of her energy, but she was nowhere near as weak as Alena believed her to be, and Marlena had plans to make sure her she knew that. She needed to get back to her family—her children. She'd lost them once and she refused to lose them again, especially at the hands of her sadistic reflection. She thought after dealing with Thanos she'd have at least a few years of quiet with her family, but as usual, fate had other plans for her.

Marlena stared wearily at the wall, focusing on the thoughts zooming through her aching head. There was a lot on her mind, including her family and what they were now going through due to her absence. It'd just recently occurred to her that she had no idea how long she'd even been gone. She was sure it couldn't have been too long, but she had no memory of falling unconscious after being taken by Kellan. Her lonely cell didn't exactly provide her with much help either. There were no windows to allow sunlight and absolutely no means of determining the time. It made her wonder where she truly was, as the familiarity she experienced upon first waking up only seemed to make her more and more uncomfortable as the seconds passed by.

A loud beep removed Marlena from her thoughts, and she turned her head to see her cell door opening. Alena walked in with a grin on her face and a much different aura about her. She almost seemed thrilled, which was the complete opposite of what Marlena had seen from her since she'd been trapped.

"Good morning, Marlena," Alena greeted half-heartedly. "How do I look?"

Marlena raised a brow as she looked over Alena's appearance. She wore a pair of black skinny jeans with a long sleeve grey shirt and black ankle booties. Her hair was longer, and the color was more of a chestnut brown than it had been. Alena looked more like Marlena than she did the previous day, which was something she didn't think was possible. The only thing that bothered Marlena, aside from Alena's presence, was the fact she recognized the clothes she wore. The grey shirt was her own, or one she'd borrowed from Natasha, and she frowned. The jeans were Marlena's as well, and she knew this because of the hole she'd torn in the knee months ago. Marlena wasn't exactly sure what Alena's plan was, but she already hated it.

"Why are you wearing my clothes?" Marlena asked her quietly.

"Because I have a family to go home to tomorrow, and I thought it'd be much easier to do that if I looked less like me and more like you," Alena answered, walking over to the small table against the wall to grab Marlena's glasses. "There's just one more thing I need to complete the look..."

Alena placed the glasses onto her face but quickly took them off, as the prescribed lenses were not at all meant for her eyes. "Whoa..." Alena put the glasses back down and looked back to Marlena. "You should probably look into getting some contact lenses..."

Marlena wanted to be annoyed with the remark, but all she could focus on were Alena's previous words. They'd left her with the most unsettling feeling. "What do you mean you have a family to go home to?" Marlena asked a little forcefully.

"Exactly what I said," Alena answered. "I told you yesterday I couldn't just sit back and act like you didn't get everything I wanted out of life. Everyone around you adores you—your family, your friends, sometimes humanity when you and Wanda aren't murdering civilians..."

The warning glare on Marlena's face went ignored by Alena, who only continued on with her rant.

"I've wanted that for years, Marlena..." Alena walked slowly over to Marlena, the sound of her boots echoing loudly against the walls of the small compartment. She leaned down to meet Marlena at eye level, finishing off her sentence with, "And what better way to finally get that than through you?"

The implications being made were making Marlena sick to her stomach. From what she could already determine, her relationship with Alena would not at all be a typical twin relationship.

"It'd also be nice to officially meet Sergeant Barnes," Alena continued with a smirk on her face. She knew the words would bother Marlena even more, despite knowing her romantic relationship with Bucky ended with his death years ago. "I hear he's single now, and I just so happen to be his type."

"Stay away from Bucky!" Marlena warned. If Alena had plans to actually carry out everything she was implying, which Marlena didn't doubt, she would ruin everything. "Better yet, stay away from them all! There's no way you're going to be able to convince any of them you're me."

"That's the thing, Mar..." Alena smirked and pulled her long hair into a ponytail, leaving her fringe to frame her otherwise flawless face. "I don't need to convince anyone of anything. Unlike you, the rest of your family is very susceptible to mental manipulation. If I need to go in and rewire anyone at all, all it'll take is a simple flick of my fingers and the only version of you they know will be me."

Alena's words angered Marlena. She wanted to stand up and face her as she'd done before, but she knew she couldn't. Not yet at least. A plan to escape had also been heavy on her mind, and in order to make sure that plan was successful, Marlena needed to remain focused and composed. "You can't just take my family from me," she told Alena, who had no plans to take her seriously.

"I'm not so sure you have a choice in the matter," Alena remarked, her brow raised. She walked back over to sit down on the single chair inside Marlena's holding cell. "Besides, the only reason you have your little family is because of me."

"What?"

"I told you Stark's been protecting you from me for years," Alena reminded her. "After finding out about you, I spent years trying to get to you and I never could. The closest I came was 2014, when Rumlow brought you to Russia for the first time—before you'd even met Stark."

"Wait—" Marlena was clearly shocked by her words. "You were there?"

"I was."

"I don't understand this," Marlena replied with furrowed brows. "Rumlow never mentioned you to me. In fact, he never even acted like he recognized me."

"Oh, he knew you alright—well, he knew your face." Alena chuckled dryly. "He took you on his own accord and originally planned to use you to help lure Barnes back to us, but after he got you to Russia and rumor of Hydra's newest arrival spread to me, things changed."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I thought it was a beautiful coincidence the world happened to put you in the exact same place as me, and there was no way I wasn't going to take advantage of that," Alena answered with a smug expression on her face. Marlena wanted nothing more than to smack it off. "It was super easy to convince Rumlow's CO that you'd be a worthy asset to the organization. At that point in time, I was already one of Hydra's best agents, and you had the face to match. That's how you came to be Prodigy."

"How come I never saw you?" Marlena's voice was quiet; she couldn't believe the words she was hearing. Her mind was working overtime to process it.

"Because no matter how powerful I was, Hydra still controlled everything I did or didn't do." Alena seemed agitated as she thought about her time with Hydra, but she certainly wasn't the only one who shared a deep resentment for the sadistic organization. "I was told I could meet you after your memories were wiped, but Rumlow—being the narcissistic moron he always was—unlocked your powers first, which rendered the wiping useless, so I decided on my own to remain in the shadows until I could figure out how to get to you myself. Then Barnes showed up and ruined everything."

"How unfortunate," Marlena muttered.

"Oh, it was!" Alena rolled her eyes and began picking away at her nails. "And let's not forget what happened at Stark's Halloween party. I wasn't sure I'd ever get another chance after that, but as fate would have it, here you are with me, back in the very place it all began."

Marlena's mouth fell open slightly at the sound of her words, and she began glancing around the small compartment as if to make more sense of her surroundings. The discomfort associated with the building's familiarity was still heavy on her mind, and Marlena believed she'd just discovered the reason why. Her stomach turned as the torturous memories of Hydra wreaked havoc inside her head. Even after so many years it was impossible for Marlena to let go of such a traumatic experience, an experience that was more-or-less responsible for constructing the foundation of what would become the rest of her life.

"Please tell me we aren't where I think we are..." Marlena quickly swallowed the lump in her throat, desperate to keep the contents of her stomach down.

"You're exactly where you were always meant to be, Marlena," Alena replied with a smirk on her face. She wasn't aware disclosing something as simple as location would bother Marlena on such a colossal level. It was amusing to her.

Marlena shook her head quickly once the words met her ears, and she closed her eyes. She wanted to go home—she needed to go home. She needed to get back to Steve and the twins and Bucky and Mason and everyone else she loved so much. Instead, she was 5,000 miles away, trapped in the very building she'd lost three months of her life in once before. And from what Marlena could determine, Alena had plans to keep her there much, much longer. That was something she couldn't allow to happen.

"No! I'm meant to be back home with my friends and family," Marlena remarked, her tone filled with noticeable aggravation.

"And you will be, but as me instead." Alena stood up and headed slowly for the cell door. "Is there anything I need to know before I go? Steve's favorite color? Mason's favorite video game? Charlie's favorite candy? Wait, I actually know that one—it's Nerds."

"Go to hell."

"I'm way ahead of you on that one, сестра (sister)."

Alena winked and quickly left the room. Marlena groaned and sat back against the wall, pulling her knees to her chest and staring off at nothing. She couldn't wait to find a way out of the mess she'd gotten herself into and get back home. She'd been conjuring up a plan, though she now wondered how she was supposed to pull it off. Things had just gotten so much more complicated than she expected them to, and she needed to be prepared for what that meant when she finally found her way back home. She could only hope in the end she wasn't too late.