shield | b. barnes

"Just...do yourself a favor and forget about me."

[Corinna]

"Watching you eat ice cream out of a cone is a weird sight." I say before giggling.

"And why is that?" Mark asks, raising his brow as he takes another lick of his strawberry ice cream.

"I don't know, it's just that a 6 foot man eating out of a tiny ass ice cream cone makes me laugh." I explain as I take a lick of my chocolate ice cream.

"Your sense of humor sucks." Marks replies, shaking his head with a small smile.

"Hey!" I retort, slapping his arm, "Stop being mean to me!"

"Okay, okay. Yeesh, no need for violence, C." Mark replies, rubbing his arm. "Remember, I'm not as strong as you are."

"Oh, shut up. You used me as a weight yesterday. You're not fooling anyone Marky poo." I deadpan. He gives me a look and I respond by giving him an innocent smile. He never liked that nickname, but he never complained about it either. "Come on, let's climb those rocks!" I say giddily, grabbing Mark's hand.

"What? No! I'm not done eating my ice cream yet. You can go, though. I'll watch." Mark responds as he takes his hand out of my grip. He walks towards a bench that faces the pile of rocks and proceeds to sit on it. One arm holding the ice cream cone while the other is casually placed across the back of the bench as one leg is placed on the other. 

"Of course," I scoff, shaking my head before walking towards the pile of rocks, "you know if you're scared, why don't you just admit it?" I ask, sneaking a glance over my shoulder.

 Mark continues to devour his ice cream as if he didn't hear me. I turn back around with a sigh before placing my foot on the first rock.

"You're going to climb that while eating ice cream?" I hear Mark ask from behind.

I turn around to give him a weird look. "Uh, yeah? I'm definitely not leaving my ice cream with you!" I retort. 

He shakes his head, scoffing at me before sitting back down on the bench. I stick my tongue out at him before turning around to climb the rocks.

The first few steps are easy, but as the pile gets higher and steeper, it gets harder to climb with one hand.

"Shit, I should've thought this through." I mutter to myself as I inspect the rocks in front of me. There are huge boulders ahead with sharp edges and flat, slippery surfaces. I carefully place my right foot on a tiny rock while reaching for the closest boulder, but the rock moves unexpectedly, causing me to lose my balance.

After a few ungraceful tumbles, I painfully land on the ground, my ice cream face planting the sidewalk as well.

"Shit! C, are you okay?" Mark asks anxiously as he turns me over. His face looms over my head as his eyes quickly scan my body for any injuries. "Damn it, C! You're bleeding."

I look down at myself and notice my jeans are ripped at my knees with blood oozing out of  the jagged tears. 

"It's fine, I'm okay." I mumble as I prop myself on my elbows.

"I'm sorry." Mark says suddenly, his voice sounding weird.

I look up at him with a frown. "Why are you apologizing? It's my fault I climbed the rocks."

"I'm sorry." He repeats robotically, his eyes looking at me blankly.

I open my mouth to say something, but the scenery changes and we aren't in the park anymore.