Path to Protection (BuckyBarnes x OC)

Puzzles

     "Steve..." My mouth started mumbling on its own since I was still a little dizzy. "James..."

     "We're here, Willow. We got you," Steve assured me and gripped onto my side a little tighter, making sure my bleeding side didn't come in contact with the mud. Meanwhile, James held his hands under my head, so it didn't fall to the ground.

     I managed to divert my mind from the exploding inferno that was still going on behind us to the soldiers that began to surround us. Exhaustion, injuries, and general anger seemed to be a commonality with everyone, but they were still content they were alive. James looked especially happy to be reunited with his war-buddies, shaking hands and exchanging encouraging words with everybody. I was extremely glad that he was alive after I'd spent two months gradually making myself believe he might've been dead. It was a surreal feeling with him being right next to me; I almost didn't believe that it was true. I didn't even know what to say to him.

     "There you are! Boy, we thought we'd never see your faces again!" Dugan tapped Steve's back as they encircled us.

     "You don't have such luck," I joked and cringed immediately after the motion of talking sent another stinging wave of pain through my right side.

     James flinched when he remembered the bloodstain spreading across my stomach. "She's hurt! Quick, is there a medic here?"

     "I can help!" One of the men in the back jumped to my aid. He worked fast and efficiently. When he failed to unzip the broken zipper of my jacket, he tore it apart and inspected the wound.

     "How's it looking, Johnson?" Dugan asked.

     "The wound's not too deep. Something must've blocked it," Johnson concluded and searched my pockets. His eyebrows furrowed as he pulled out the transponder I kept in my right pocket; it had a fresh bullet hole in the middle of it. "I don't know what this thing is, but it just saved your life."

     Steve chuckled upon seeing what stopped the bullet while Johnson patched up my wound. Steve proceeded to search for the device in the pockets of his jacket, but, after tapping through every pocket, he looked at me with a stern expression and said, "I think I lost it."

     "What are you looking for?" James asked.

     "My transponder. It was supposed to give our location away to Howard Stark and Agent Carter, and they were supposed to fly by to pick us up," Steve explained, still frantically searching for the device.

     "You must've lost it inside when you jumped," James half-whispered.

     "We're on our own," Steve concluded.

     "Did you find anything insightful when you went to look for James?" I struggled to ask.

     Steve crouched down by my side and pressed a finger on my lips. "Hey, relax and don't speak. We need to patch you up first."

     I rolled my eyes. Yes, I was injured, but it wasn't like I was dying. I remembered the papers that I gathered from that mysterious, running man in the facility. I shifted and pulled them out of the inside pocket of my jacket.

     "That's what I found," I stuttered and handed them to Steve who inspected them curiously. "Can you tell what they are?"

     James peeked over Steve's shoulder to glance at the papers himself. I smirked when I saw his confused expression and furrowed eyebrows. "They're plans of some sort. Blueprints," he said.

     "What for?"

     "For... machinery, vehicles, weapons, and a bunch of other stuff powered by a source called the 'Tesseract'," Steve read. "What is that?"