battle | b. barnes

"I'm not brooding,"

The sound of a light drizzle of rain fills my ears as I tug on my black baseball cap. A small frown sits on my face as I observe the gravestone in front of me.

In loving memory of

Corinna Chen

Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

May 16, 1986 -  May 16, 2015

There's a sinking feeling in my stomach as it dawns on me that I died on my birthday.

29 years old on the dot.

I take a deep breath and briefly look at all the gravestones around me.

I wonder what their stories are. Hopefully it's not as tragic as mine.

"Thought I'd find you here," a voice says from behind me.

I look over my shoulder to see who it is.

Devon Walters.

"How'd you find me?" I ask, turning to face the grave again.

"Jay told me you might be here," Devon replies as he stands next to me.

I turn to look at him and notice his all black attire easily fitting in with the gloomy weather of the city. But then again, I probably blend in too.

"You never told me how you two met," I comment.

Devon shrugs, the corners of his lips curving up.

"Hunter brought him along to one of our jobs. We needed a getaway driver."

I raise my brow in disbelief. I'm surprised that Hunter trusted Jay enough to bring him along given that HYDRA's programming is still swimming in Jay's mind.

"It was an easy job. Just had to retrieve some data," Devon explains. He juts his chin out to my gravestone. "That is oddly unsettling."

A humorless smile forms on my lips.

"Tell me about it," I mutter.

A few seconds go by without the both of us saying anything, lost in our own thoughts.

Devon is the only person on this planet that was there that night when everything went down between Brock and I. Of course, he was tied to the chair and severely beaten up. But still, he saw a good majority of the action before shit hit the fan.

After a few months of recovery, I asked Hunter to help me find Devon. Turns out it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, because Hunter and Devon used to run jobs together back in the day when they were starting out.

"Are you sure you want to do this, Corinna?" Devon finally asks, turning to face me.

I keep my face on my grave, my hands turning into fists in my pockets.

"Yes."

He sighs.

"I actually came here because I got a lead on Rumlow," Devon admits.

My body freezes, a strand of my hair gently blowing across my face in the breeze.

"Who?" I ask, turning to face Devon.

He's a few inches taller than me, so I have to squint my eyes as I try to stop the raindrops from falling into my eyes. He's giving me a somber look, clearly not happy about my decision of going after Rumlow.

"He's some newbie. Rumlow's trying to hit the Institute for Infectious Diseases in Lagos, Nigeria so he's putting together a team. Tanya actually hooked us up. He said to meet him at Josie's Bar."