A/N: Do you guys want to know sort of how I picture Ari, or would that ruin it for you?


The drive took a while. Bucky had no idea where they were going but they had the coordinates to follow so he wasn't too concerned. What did concern him was the missing agent—but that was a problem that would be dealt with at a later time. For now they had to focus on finding McGuire and safely bringing him in. If he had been in contact with Hoffman, Pierce, and other big HYDRA members in the U.S., then he might still be in contact with big HYDRA leaders in other parts of the world. At the very least he would know secrets about HYDRA that could be valuable to them. Bucky had noticed that the world was getting a bit more chaotic, a bit more restless, ever since the fall of SHIELD. There simply weren't enough SHIELD members around the world to stop the criminals anymore. He'd heard hints that Tony Stark was developing something to help fight back but no one quite knew what it was. Stark had holed himself up in his Stark Tower after the destruction of his home in Malibu and he wasn't seen in the public eye quite so much anymore. He had, in Steve's words, "gone a bit funny." Bucky didn't particular care—Tony Stark was more annoying than amusing to him and they'd had very tense relations in the past that Bucky didn't care to dwell on—but if the man was developing something that would help them fight HYDRA, then Bucky wanted to know. He just wasn't sure how to ask. His relationship with Tony was fragile and faint, partly good-natured but there was bad blood between them, even if no one wanted to address it.

Bucky had killed Tony Stark's parents, Howard and Maria Stark.

He hadn't known what he was doing. He hadn't chosen to kill them. He hadn't even been aware killing was wrong—or that right and wrong were even concepts. And this was why Tony Stark hadn't outright killed Bucky yet (as well as the fact that if he harmed Bucky, Steve would break his honor-code and get merciless revenge upon Stark). But the fact was, it had been Bucky's hands that had led to the Starks' deaths and this was something no one could dance around. Bucky still remembered the first—and only—time he had met Tony Stark, a month after he had regained his memories. His arm had been hurting and Stark had flown out to see if he could take a look at Bucky's arm (he'd had business in Washington D.C. anyway). He'd been curious about who Bucky was as he examined his arm (Bucky had seen the man's eyes light up at the sight of new technology; despite his fancy suits and billions of dollars, the man was simply an inventor, a brilliant mechanic, at heart) and Steve had been unflinchingly honest. Of course, he'd waited till after Stark was done tinkering with Bucky's arm because Bucky had already been tense about sitting down in a chair and having someone mess around inside him (it reminded him too much of the HYDRA scientists who worked on him like he was a robot to fix) and because Stark's temper was the kind that led him to make impulsive decisions. But after Stark was done re-setting Bucky's arm, which had been damaged from all the fighting and weeks in the wilderness he had spent, Steve had slowly and carefully broken it to Stark who Bucky was, while Bucky watched with a tense gaze. Steve had made sure to explain that Bucky had never been in control, had not realized what he was doing nor chosen to do it.

He had seen how Stark stiffened, how his mouth flattened. How the man strode to the window and spent a good few minutes staring outside in silence, a hard set to his shoulders. Steve looked worried; from what Bucky had heard of Tony Stark, stony silence was not his mode of dealing with stress and anger—so this silence was out of the norm. Finally, Tony Stark had turned around and given Bucky a very hard look and had made a cold, short quip that Bucky couldn't remember now and then he had left, vanishing out the door. Bucky hadn't heard from him in some time and then, one day, out of the blue a gift basket from Stark Industries had arrived at his doorstep. He'd been cautious at first, testing the food to see if it was poisoned—but it wasn't. He never got an explanation for the gift basket. He couldn't tell if it was Stark letting him know he forgave Bucky…or if it was Stark trying to take the high road (or perhaps forced to take the high road; from what Bucky knew, Stark's girlfriend was a force of nature to be reckoned with)… He'd also received just a few phone calls from Stark that bordered on cheerful yet threatening. Either way, his relationship with Tony Stark was strange. No one knew about it except for Steve and Ari. Even Sam and Natasha weren't privy to it, though Natasha somehow probably knew. Natasha knew everything. A fact that greatly irritated Bucky.

While he mused on all this, the rest of the team dozed. He could see them struggling to stay alert at first—but after a few hours of simply driving across dead, dry grassland and rocky plains, he could tell they had rationalized with themselves that nothing was going to pop up out of the ground and attack them and most of them fell asleep. He thought it was somewhat negligent and stupid of them to fall asleep—a soldier never let his guard down on a mission, ever—but he knew they had less stamina than him and had been called in early in the morning.

Also, the drive was boring.

Even Ari fell asleep, after muttering, "I hate this scenery," to herself.

And Bucky drove on, getting closer to McGuire's location with every passing minute. He eventually found his way to a country road and from there onto a highway but he eventually had to get off the highway, back onto some country roads, and then completely off the roads and into the Texan desert. The scenery changed; it became drier, more rocky and dusty and pale with straggly, spiky looking brush and bushes popping up through the dry cracked ground and rocky, geometric mountain-type things rising from the land every now and then. They had long left the road and were well and truly in the middle of nowhere. Bucky was good at surviving and he could survive out in the desert for a while if he had to, but the others would perish more quickly and it occurred to him (not for the first time) that if McGuire's location was fake, they'd be lost in the desert for a while.

He drove for the better part of the day and Team Beta began waking up as evening began to fall. It had taken longer than Bauer had estimated for them to get close. She'd made it sound like McGuire was living on the Texas border and they could easily drop by, pick him up, and make it back to SHIELD in time for dinner. It turned out that he was hiding somewhere deep in the desert. Not a bad place to hide, actually. Bucky wondered how Bauer had gotten her tip-off.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Ari asked, leaning forward. Bucky started a bit and then looked around. The sky was a mix of deep blue and violet with streaks of fiery gold and orange shot through it and the land looked shadowy and dark and deep blue, a startling inky contrast to the brilliant sky. The scene looked saturated in color. It was beautiful but Bucky would never have noticed it if Ari hadn't pointed it out. He didn't often notice things like these, things that other humans had been cultivated to seek out and admire. He noticed other things—things like exits and entrances, weak points, survival tools, kill spots. He'd noticed how the shadowy land gave them good cover if they drove with their headlights off—but they had to drive with their headlights on, lest they smash into a rock formation in the dark, and so they could be seen from a mile away. He'd also noticed how there weren't many places to hide for cover if they had to.

"Yeah," he said, glancing at Ari's face which was bathed in weak orange light from the setting sun. Her irises looked almost white in the strange lighting. "Beautiful."

Finally, they were close enough that he switched their headlights off and slowed down a bit, using his enhanced vision (he could see better at night than most people) to carefully navigate through the desert towards McGuire's location. "Get ready," he called to the team, who were tense and silent. "We're close." Forty minutes later, he silently pulled the Jeep to a stop and said, "Look at that."

Everyone leaned forward and squinted. In the distance was a ranch-style house, one story and long, built in the middle of nowhere. They were too far to see any details about it but Bucky would have bet that the house was very run-down. Small pinpricks of golden light shone through two of the windows, which seemed foolish to Bucky—but then, McGuire probably figured no one would ever find him out here. "There it is," he called to the team.

"How do you wanna do this, Searg?" Kaplan asked, reading his sniper rifle.

Bucky studied the house carefully for a moment, narrowing his eyes and watching the house. Still as a jaguar and just as dangerous. The Jeep was silent and dark as the team kept their eyes on him but let him do his thing. A feeling of danger, of an oncoming fight, was building in the car and Bucky knew the team was gearing up to do what they did best. "I don't see any sentries," he finally said. He had been checking for the tell-tale signs of guards patrolling the area or posted around the house and had noticed no movement. No one was that still—except for him. "We go in slowly, low to the ground. I want to know how many people are inside. Where are the infrared goggles?"

The infrared goggles were used on stealth night missions. They used thermal imagining by capturing the upper portion of infrared light spectrum, which was emitted through heat and showed up as different colors on the heat map spectrum. Human bodies emitted much more heat than a lifeless, dead landscape or house around them would and would glow in a different color (yellow or orange) than their background. The infrared goggles SHIELD had leftover were of the most powerful kind and Bucky knew he'd definitely be able to detect if there were other people inside McGuire's house.

He heard someone rifling around in the supplies in the back and after a moment— "They're not here," said Tate.

Bucky stiffened. He slowly turned around gave Tate a look that made the man wither slightly under Bucky's gaze. "Check again," Bucky said. "Madden, Chang, help him." Both Ari and Chang dove into the search, rifling through supplies and weapons in the back, in the bags around them. They spent a frantic few minutes simply digging and tossing out random supplies ("Ow!" hissed Kaplan as a heavy flashlight smacked into his shoulder. "Watch where you throw your shit!") and finally Ari looked up and helplessly said, "No goggles, Sol—Sergeant." She and Bucky tried to keep things professional while on missions because neither of them wanted to seem like they played favorites, though both of them knew deep down they very much so did. They both slipped up every now and then, betraying their friendship (which wasn't a secret to begin with) but Bucky knew they had to at least try to act like simply field agents when out on a mission. Nothing more. Nothing less.

He swore under his breath and then he swore again, out loud this time. No one in the team had packed infrared goggles—along with other bulky supplies—because they'd assumed they'd be supplied with them in the awaiting Jeep. The goggles were supposed to be in here. But then again…so was a SHIELD agent. And he was gone, along with the goggles. All he'd left behind was some dried blood. Had something happened to him that had prevented him from stocking goggles in the Jeep? Bucky could only assume so and his senses went on extreme alert.

"Alright," he said, adapting quickly. "We go in one by one. Timed three minutes apart. I go in first, then Tate, then Chang, then Madden, then Kaplan." He was keeping their second best agent last just in case someone needed help. It wasn't a good idea to send in all the best fighters in first, in case there was an ambush. He got out of the car, opened the trunk and yanked out two flare guns, tossing one to Tate. "Tate and I will be inside and we'll check the house, make sure it's all clear. If there are any problems, we'll shoot a flare up through the roof or out the window, so keep an eye out."

"And if there are problems?" Chang asked a bit cryptically, crossing his arms and staring at Bucky.

"Turn back and get out of here," Bucky said.

Kaplan stiffened. "Those aren't our orders," he said.

"Screw Bauer's damn orders," said Bucky. "Listen. Everything you've heard about me? It's true. So you can be damn well sure that if someone got the jump on me, you don't stand a chance in hell. If you see flares, head back and get the hell out of here. Get back to SHIELD and come back with reinforcements. We're no use to SHIELD if all of us are dead. Got it?" Kaplan was silent and stared at Bucky with a slightly mulish expression, as if he wanted to argue. "Got it?" Bucky repeated threateningly. "That's an order, agent."

"Fine," Kaplan replied tersely. He didn't like the plan but there was nothing he could do about it. Bucky wasn't too fond of it either—he didn't want to let McGuire get away—but if someone managed to trap him, he didn't want the rest of his team walking into the same trap. Not if it meant their deaths. Bucky was trying to avoid innocent deaths now. In his HYDRA days he would have thought nothing of leading a HYDRA team into certain death—after all, they'd made their own choice and he could care less if they lived or died as long as they completed the mission—but he wasn't HYDRA anymore. Human lives matter, he reminded himself. People matter. And it was his job, as the leader, to make sure his people continued living for as long as possible. Good people deserved to live.

Evil people, however, were a different story.

He got his gun ready and then headed out, moving quickly across the land and ducking low to avoid being seen (though if someone had glanced out the window at the right time, they'd easily see him; this part was pure chance and luck). He made it to the house and pressed himself against the wall. He signaled to Tate that he had gotten there, hoped Tate had gotten the signal, and then crept around the house, ducking beneath the windows and sticking to the walls. He slowly reached out and gently, slowly, turned the door knob of the first door he reached—and he swung open easily, silently. It was unlocked. His suspicions kicked in. Why was this door unlocked? Surely a man as paranoid as McGuire wouldn't leave his doors unlocked…unless his remote location had made him lazy and complacent in his security?

He stepped into the house, holding his gun at the ready and slowly, silently, began prowling around the house, looking for any signs of life. A few lights were on, throwing a bright golden glow throughout the rustic, ranch house which was furnished in a very bare, empty sort of way. A layer of dust covered everything and everything was neat and clean. He heard Tate enter the house below as he went upstairs and entered every room, swept them all completely clean. Every room had a bed and simple furniture with no belongings. Some clothes—dark colors, large sizes—hung in some of the wardrobes but they smelled stale, as if they hadn't been worn in a while. Bucky swept back downstairs to see Chang entering. Tate looked at Bucky and said, "All clear, but I'm going to sweep the cellar outside."

"Chang, back him up," said Bucky. Chang nodded and followed Tate outside. Bucky stood at a window and gazed outside thoughtfully. The lights from above made it hard to see into the darkness outside. It was clear no one had been here in a while—so why were the lights on? Or was someone still paying the electricity and keeping the lights on in the hopes the house would look inhabited? Why would anyone do that? And what kind of stupid tip off did Bauer receive? There was nothing to find here and presumably no other buildings for miles.

They'd come all this way for nothing.

Ari entered just as Tate and Chang reappeared, Tate saying, "All clear."

"What's going on?" Ari mouthed to Bucky.

"Wait," he mouthed back.

They waited for Kaplan to come in. A few minutes later he appeared from a back door, saying, "Thought I'd do a quick perimeter check—no around the house for a couple hundred yards."

"House and cellar are all clear," said Tate. "And the place looks dusty. No one's been here in ages. What now, Sergeant?"

Bucky suppressed a sigh. "Bauer got a bad tip-off. This place is empty. We're going back."

"So McGuire isn't here?" demanded Chang, looking suspiciously around the house. "Damn. We came to the middle of nowhere for nothing."

Not nothing, thought Bucky. I'm going to tell Bauer to fire whoever gave her the tip-off.

Bucky suddenly heard something, his sharp ears pin-pricking: a fast-approaching rumbling noise, the kind of noise multiple engines made and then eerie sudden silence. He only had a split-second to yell, "DUCK!" and throw himself forward, tackling Ari to the floor before the walls, doors, and windows of the house blew in and exploded in a sudden storm of rapid gunfire. Dust and sand and smoke billow in, glass shards exploded inwards and blew everywhere, bits of the wall and the furniture ricocheted off everything and Bucky could only squeeze against the floor, holding Ari down, and try to hope the rest of his team had gotten down as well. He saw two bodies on the floor near him but through the dust clouds he couldn't tell if they'd ducked—or if they were dead.

A trap. They'd walked into a neatly made trap and fallen right for it, like stupid children going for a glossy candy in the middle of the road. But how…?

Bucky didn't have much time to think about it he heard rapidly approaching boots and feet from all directions, heavy and thundering, and then the gunfire stopped. He waited one split second and then he leaped to his feet, reading his gun and clicking the safety off. He heard Ari give a startled cry and he immediately pointed his gun in her direction, waiting for the dust and smoke to clear. He heard his team crying out, noises of shock and alarm, and grunts of other voices, voices he didn't recognize. The house around them was mostly destroyed.

The smoke cleared and the dust settled and he found himself surrounded by men wearing all black and armed to the teeth. Each one of his team was being roughly held by two men each and their weapons had been rested from their hands. They all also had guns pointed towards their heads by men standing further away. There were three men surrounding Bucky and pointing huge machine guns at him. His mind did some quick calculations; he could definitely overpower these idiots surrounding him—it would be child's play—and he could probably free one or two members of his team as well…but not the rest. Some of his people would die. And Tate was actually closest to him; he'd have to save him first and then Ari had a good chance of dying.

There was no way in hell Bucky was letting that happen.

"So sorry to do it this way." A man in an expensive black suit (albeit one that was covered in dust and debris now) stepped through his men and stood a few feet away from Bucky, his hands clasped behind his back. "I'm Brett McGuire. HYDRA." He cocked his head and looked at Bucky. Bucky remained silent, staring coldly at McGuire. He refused to play this game with him. McGuire had short bristly silver-blonde hair and very pale blue eyes, almost like cloudy ice chips. He held a cane in one hand and his gaze seemed sharp and blank all at once. It was like he was staring into Bucky but also right through him. It took Bucky a second to realize that McGuire was blind.

"Never mind," said McGuire, sounding disappointed. "I had a feeling you wouldn't play along. But you're the Winter Soldier. I admit, I'm curious to see what you really look like—but I can see enough. The defiant set of your shoulders. Your clenched fists. You have spirit, that much is totally clear! Please put your gun down, Winter Soldier, otherwise I'll be forced to shoot your people."

"But you're blind," Bucky said, startled. "How do you know my fists are—" He stopped himself.

"Ah, great question!" said McGuire and he sounded genuinely delighted. "Take a look, Soldier!" He opened his eyes wide and turned slightly on an angle. "Look into my eyes. What do you see?"

Bucky didn't want to do anything McGuire asked of him but he was too curious not to. He narrowed his eyes and peered at McGuire's pale eyes. Behind his irises, he saw a metallic glimmer, a silver ring that went around his irises… "HYDRA modified your eyes," he said, partly horrified but also partly numb. Why was he shocked? This was what HYDRA did, rip people apart and sloppily stitch them back together with senses and features they were never meant to have.

"Exactly," said McGuire. "HYDRA gave me the greatest gift anyone has ever given me: the gift of sight. Mind you, I can't see exactly as you all can—I see more blurry shapes and outlines in varying shades of black, gray, and white with a flew vague splotches of bright red and bright blue thrown in. Kind of like…hmmm…very messy x-ray vision. But it's better than nothing, right?"

McGuire's strange cheer was starting to sound seriously creepy. He was nothing like the other HYDRA members or leaders Bucky had ever encountered. They had always been overly-serious madmen. While he had no doubt McGuire was also a madman, he seemed slightly too chipper and polite. It was almost as if he genuinely liked talking to Bucky. A fact which did nothing to assuage Bucky's fears that McGuire was completely out of his mind.

"So what is all this?" Bucky spat. His eyes kept roving around the room constantly, looking for a way out, a way to take every single threat out without getting one of his team members hurt—and he couldn't see one. He'd killed Lewinski because there was no other choice but he wasn't about to voluntarily do something that would most certainly mean the death of one of his teammates…not unless the situation became extremely desperate. Right now it was only moderately desperate. Bucky had been in worse situations. "A trap? How did you even know we were co—"

Almost with an audible sound, it suddenly all clicked together in Bucky's mind. Neatly, easily, the pieces fell into place and he almost let out a groan at how obvious the plan was—and how stupid he had been. He should have suspected this the moment they realized the agent meant to drive them here was missing. He should have called Bauer right that very moment to confirm what he had just realized, because—

"The agent who gave Bauer the tip-off," he said slowly, "was the agent meant to drive us here."

"Very good," McGuire said, his eyes shining as if this were all one big game to him. In some ways, though more gentle and less overtly threatening than Gavin Hoffman had been, he was scarier than Hoffman. Because Bucky couldn't tell what McGuire's next move would be, whereas Hoffman had been an open book of spittle and spite and rage. "And…?"

Bucky closed his eyes for a moment, silently cursing himself for being so foolish, and then he opened them and snarled, "And that agent is HYDRA."

"Bingo, we have a winner!" McGuire cried. "Agent Avery, please step forward."

The men holding Chang and Tate in tight grips stepped aside to let a woman with curly dark hair shove past them and step into the small half-circle Bucky, McGuire, and the men training their guns on Bucky made. Tate and Kaplan all made noises of rage while Ari stared on in confusion. Chang, on his part, couldn't keep his mouth shut and spat, "Seriously, Avery? HYDRA? Damn, I knew you were a backstabber—don't think I've forgotten about what you did to Upton at the Academy—but I didn't know you were this much of a turn-coat!"

"Oh please, Eli," Avery said cavalierly, scornfully. "Don't be such a loser. We all have our parts to play. You're the typical Asian computer nerd who talks too much and who dies second to last—and I'm the one you guys never suspected."

"Traitor and a racist to boot," Ari said, her eyebrows rising. "Wow, I'd say I was impressed—but you're pretty disgusting."

"Who the hell are you?" Avery asked, surveying Ari with clear distaste. "I've never seen you before."

"Never mind the little lady," said McGuire. Bucky saw Ari grit her teeth at the patronizing term. "Tell the Winter Soldier how you laid this beautiful trap."

"I'm not known as the Winter Soldier anymore," Bucky broke in, speaking sharply.

"I know," McGuire said mildly. "But that's what I'm going to call you. You were HYDRA's crown gem, you know. Their greatest glory. And with the right persuasion… Well, that's for another time. Right now I'd like Avery to tell you just how she did it, since I'm sure it's driving you crazy."

Avery shrugged and said, "It's not really that cool," but her wide, smug smile betrayed her true feelings. She was feeling very pleased with herself. "But if you really want to know… It was pretty easy, actually. I just didn't out myself as HYDRA when SHIELD fell. A lot of us were outed right away or chose to out ourselves—but a lot of us chose to keep pretending to be SHIELD. We were interested in what happened next. Maybe our SHIELD covers could still be useful."

Bucky closed his eyes for a moment, just one moment. Avery was right—there was really no legitimate way to vet every person who claimed to be a SHIELD agent, even now. And there were still HYDRA moles. Everyone knew that…but they'd gotten sloppy. They'd assumed that the majority of those who said they worked for SHIELD now actually were SHIELD. It had been a dangerous assumption to make, obviously.

"I was stationed here in Texas anyway," said Avery. "I've always been stationed here. We'd heard that the Winter Soldier was working for Bauer or whoever in D.C. now so I came up with a plan, weeks ago, actually."

It all suddenly slid into place in Bucky's quick brain. He could have almost—almost—smiled at the simple beauty of it. It really was such an easy, neat little trap, almost too simple…but it had worked like a charm, simply because they'd never expected a trap this basic. "Let me explain," he said, wanting to take Avery's smug glory away from her. "You planned this weeks ago so you drove the Jeep with the supplies and coordinates programmed in—purposefully, of course, to lead us to McGuire's 'hiding place'—to the regular meeting spot weeks ago as well. To save time? Because you're lazy?" He didn't wait for a reply and barreled on. "That's why the blood on the Jeep was old. You tried to make it look like there was a struggle but the blood was old. I was wondering about that. There was also a very thin layer of dust and dirt on the car. Poor planning on your part, but…" He shrugged, feeling the cold end of a gun poking into the back of his neck, mid-center. "We bought it, so I guess you count that as a victory. You called in a 'tip' to Bauer and pretended like you'd found where McGuire was hiding. She, of course, sent our team in right away. We followed the coordinates here and entered the house. Of course you guys were…" He thought for a few seconds and then it hit him. "The infrared goggles," he said quietly, almost marveling to himself. "They were missing from the Jeep. Right. You all were…off in the distance. Far enough that we couldn't see or hear you. Waiting in the darkness. You took the goggles for yourself and you all used them to watch for us entering the house. Once you saw all of our bodies were inside…you made your move."

Avery's cheeks were pink with anger and she snapped, "Why do you sound so disappointed?" Her fists were clenched and trembling.

Bucky knew he was winding her up. This was what he wanted. "The old blood," he said casually, not betraying any of the anger or fear that was building inside of him—anger at himself, anger at SHIELD, and fear over what was going to happen next. "The dust. The missing goggles. There were so many places where you messed up."

Avery's eyes widened as if she couldn't believe what he was saying and she looked incredulously around at her men, as if to say, He's crazy, amiright? "But you fell for it," she said, her words short and clipped and triumphant. "You fell for it anyway, so who're the real idiots?"

Bucky knew she was technically right. No matter what mistakes she had made, they…no, he…had fallen for them, which was all that mattered in a game of life and death. But he also knew that people with huge egos—whether "good" or "bad"—tended to trip-up and make mistakes when someone questioned or threatened their authority. That's when they launched into long-winded rants and soliloquies about their plans, whether nefarious or good-intentioned. And that was when they got distracted and made mistakes—that was when they were usually defeated. Bucky had never used this tactic before (he hadn't been the type of soldier to stand around and wait for someone to finish their rant; he was more the type to put a bullet through their temple and wash his hands of their nonsense) but he'd heard of other agents using it. So he was trying it now.

Unfortunately, it didn't really work. Had Avery been alone…well, had Avery been alone there wouldn't have even been need for this tactic. He could have incapacitated her in a split second. But they were surrounded and even if Avery was getting flustered and angry, no one else was—least of all McGuire, who was watching Bucky with amazed eyes, as if he were some sort of amazing treasure that had just been discovered.

"Well, that's all well and done with," McGuire said slowly. "I'm glad we've cleared the air on how you all were captured. Now I'd like to talk to you all. However…our current…" He hesitated and looked around at how all of Bucky's team was being held at gun-point with angry and sullen expressions bordering on panic and fear. Chang's forehead glistened with sweat and Ari, despite trying to look calm, was white as a sheet (which Bucky knew meant she was beyond upset) and looked rather like she might vomit (a year of going out into the field simply wasn't enough experience for her to ever be ready for being captured). "…situation isn't very conducive to discussion," McGuire said. Bucky wondered why McGuire was keeping up this friendly ohoho-aren't-we-chummy façade but he didn't have any guesses. "So let's head downstairs, shall we?"

The house didn't have a basement. Bucky didn't say anything, merely looked at McGuire, eyes narrowed slightly, trying quickly to think of what McGuire meant. What could he possibly mean by—

"The cellar," Tate said suddenly, looking a bit frantic. "You're going to lock us in the cellar?!"

"Now, now," said McGuire. "No need to panic. We're all going down there. And if you all cooperate, there's no reason why you shouldn't emerge unscathed and well."

"And if we don't cooperate?" Tate asked, his chest rising and falling a little more quickly. Bucky couldn't help but feel disgust at the man's obvious and palpable fear. Ari, Chang, Tate…with the exception of Kaplan, Bauer really had stuck Bucky with all the newbies and weaklings, hadn't she? (No offense to Ari, of course…but there was no way around the fact that she was much less experienced than other agents.) Normally his strengths as the Winter Soldier would have made up for ten normal agents—but he hadn't expected an ambush. Stupid of him. His reflexes were getting slow. He made a private vow to himself that he would go on one of those weird zen hiking trips Sam was always suggesting where one wrestled with bears and pythons or whatever it was that kept the reflexes sharp. If he survived this, of course.

"Then you die," McGuire said. Simple. No veiled threats. "But we want to avoid that, right?" He motioned to the men behind Bucky and one of them shoved his gun forward into the area between Bucky's shoulder blades, making him stumble forward a step. Bucky resisted the urge to disarm the man and then rip his head off. If he did that, someone else would open fire and his team would die.

"Off to the cellar," McGuire ordered. "We have some things to discuss!"

It seemed that, for now, Team Beta was royally screwed.