Avengers One-shots

J.B.B. - Sputnik

You know what book he's talking about, of course you know. The Winter Soldier's red book, the one Bucky gave you to keep safe because he trusts you with his life.

You're the only one that has access to it, but you've never even opened it because Bucky trusted you not to unless it was necessary. He chose not to destroy it for this exact reason, in case something inexplicable happened to him.

He himself has never opened the book, so it stands to reason that there are a lot of things he doesn't know about the Winter Soldier's programming.

You promised him you'd keep it safe and that's what you've done so far, but you also promised yourself you'd never open it and see the horrors even Bucky doesn't know they did to him. You certainly never thought it would be necessary, that's why you agreed to it.

But right now, as much as you hate to admit it, it's your best option.

You leave Bucky in Steve's care and go to your and Bucky's room. You go into the closet and remove the hardwood plank in the far corner and reach into it to take out a small safe.

It's Stark Technology, even Bucky wouldn't be able to get into it, if he even knew it was there. But he doesn't, he was very insistent on you being the only person that knew the book's hiding place.

You scan your thumbprint, then your retina and lastly say the voice command 'Jamie' and the light turns green. The safe opens and you reach into it, moving away the files about yourself you recovered from the Red Room after you and Natasha escaped, then the Hydra file Natasha found on Bucky and some other documents you have there before spotting the red leather at the bottom of the safe. You pull it out and hesitate before sighing.

This is necessary.

That's what you keep telling yourself over and over as you open it and start looking through the pages for anything about Bucky passing out.

Thankfully it doesn't take long for you to find it, and you're careful to put everything away the way it was before going back to Bucky.

While you were looking for an explanation, Steve and Sam moved Bucky to the medbay where Tony hooked up some machines to him to make sure he was still healthy, even if he's unconscious.

You enter the room and hesitate before walking up to the bed. You can tell everyone's worried, most likely because even the shuffle of bringing him here didn't wake him up.

"Please tell me nobody slapped him." you say quietly, half joking and half actually worried someone tried to slap him awake. When Steve shakes his head no, you let out a relieved breath and cross your arms in front of your chest. "I think I know what happened."

"You do? What is it?" Steve asks hopefully, although the tone in your voice doesn't prompt anything good.

"Apparently, Hydra planted a failsafe in Bucky's subconscious." Everyone's attention is on you, and you look at everything but Bucky. "It was made in case the Winter Soldier rebelled and they needed a quick way to shut him down."

"I don't get it, why didn't Shuri take it out with his trigger words?" Sam asks with a frown.

"She didn't know about it." You answer simply. "Bucky didn't even know about it..."

"If she didn't know it existed, she didn't know to look for it..." Tony elaborates and Sam nods.

"Does it say what the word is?" Steve asks you.

"The word is 'Sputnik'." You say while looking at Tony with a tight-lipped smile. You know it's not his fault, he obviously didn't do it on purpose and you know he understands you don't blame him, and neither would Bucky. "Good news is, the failsafe can only be used once." Everyone relaxes a little, at least there's the bright side that this won't ever happen again.