Fair warning, as you've probably already guessed, this chapter deals very heavily with grief and child loss.

Clint III: The Smallest Caskets are the Heaviest

It was Tony's first funeral. The only formal occasions he'd attended prior to this consisted of benefits and expos that his father put on or attended and dragged Tony along to. Regardless, he'd never been that comfortable in a suit and the reason for this occasion only magnified that discomfort. He'd known Clint barely a year, yet he still felt gutted, if not completely for himself but on behalf of all the people here closer to him. Remembering their first meeting, Tony pictured the kid watching Looney Tunes and giving him a hard time for not knowing about his hearing impairment. That's what Clint was supposed to be, a kid living his life as any kid should.

Tony glanced around the room at said people. Natasha clung to a woman's hand—most likely her mother's—her other hand clasped around her necklace charm. Steve was deep in conversation with a man Tony didn't recognize, Bucky not far from him. The two were rarely far from each other, Tony had come to learn. Nick sat with his mother and siblings on one of the pews, his cane folded up beside him. Tony supposed mingling in a dynamic crowd like this would be particularly difficult for him. Clint's parents, whom Tony recognized from that one morning at Gravesen on the day of Clint's scans, stood at the front, beside the small coffin, talking to the Weavers. Parker shuffled his feet just behind his dads, hands clasped behind his back. Bruce and Thor chatted in another corner, the former with his mother and the latter with his father beside them.

So much grief in one room, it was stifling. Tony didn't know what to do with himself, so he briefly stepped out into the hallway. Clint's family had set up a beautiful display outside, with pictures from every era of his life, a Mason jar next to a stack of cards and pens for people to share memories of Clint, and his archery target, a bulls-eye still sticking out of the middle. Tony teared up again looking at the pictures of Clint from before his cancer diagnosis. He was so young, and had been fighting this despicable illness for longer than he'd ever been free of it. Seven years out of eleven he'd been sick. God, it was so unfair.

"Hey, you okay?" a quiet voice called. Tony looked up at Parker peeking his head through the door and only then realized how profusely he was crying.

He quickly wiped the tears away and replied, "Yep."

Parker stepped fully out into the hall and looked him in the eye. "No you're not. And that's okay."

"Yeah?" Tony choked, and the tears started up again, with no hope of containing them this time. Parker approached and wrapped him up in a hug, and Tony reciprocated with all his strength. This was the first time he could remember Parker serving as his shoulder to cry on instead of the other way around, and he was beyond thankful to have a friend willing and able to return that favor.

"I know it's hard," Parker whispered. "But you'll be okay."

"It's just so unfair," Tony cried.

"I know."

They exchanged no more words. At some point, Parker started crying too, just in time for Tony to mostly compose himself. He didn't want to cry, nor did he want to see Parker cry, but he understood the necessity of it. Each tear represented a year Clint should have gotten. Tony hoped, wherever he was, Clint could see how they mourned for him, for it served as a representation of how much they loved him. The Avengers would never be whole again.

~0~

Steve had been to too many funerals. Well, not exactly. He hadn't gone to Logan's or Pietra's because he'd either been too removed or too far away, but he still felt each and every one of their deaths sitting heavily on his soul. The last time he donned this suit had been Carol's service, where he'd met the man who had gotten him through countless grief-heavy days in the wake of his friend's passing. Briefly, Steve wondered if Clint had a never-mentioned brother that would appear today. Then he shook his head at the stupidity of that thought.

The church was crowded, people milling about and offering condolences before the services began. He spotted Tony, Parker, Natasha, Thor, Bucky, Nick, and Bruce among the family and friends of the Bartons. Then, from across the room, Steve saw someone he never expected to encounter again. The man was talking to Clint's parents, so he took his time in approaching and waited until they finished before initiating a conversation. How wretched it was that this man now had to return the favor that Mr. and Mrs. Barton must have paid him all those years ago.

"Mr. Lang?" he called, speaking up just loudly enough to be heard in the bustling church. The man turned and his gaze immediately settled on Steve and flickered with recognition. Steve stepped up closer and attempted a warm smile.

"Steve?" he replied.

"Yeah. That's me."

"Oh my goodness, it's been so long."

"Yeah, it really has. I'm sorry we had to meet again under such tragic circumstances," Steve said. Mr. Lang tilted his head and sighed fondly. Steve admired his poise. This entire occasion must have reminded him cruelly of the loss of his own son, yet he appeared mostly composed.

"Well, a reunion's a reunion. Can I hug you?" he asked. Steve nodded, and the two embraced. Mr. Lang was wiry but strong.

"How have you been all these years?" Steve asked when they separated.

"Oh, you know. Surviving. Living every day for Scott."

Steve nodded solemnly. "You and the Bartons…have you kept in touch this whole time?"

"Yes. They've always been my biggest supporters. I…I couldn't have done it without them."

A little girl about two or three years old ran up and wrapped her arms around Mr. Lang. He ruffled her hair and smiled more genuinely than Steve had ever seen. "There you are," a woman said, arriving mere seconds after the girl. Steve vaguely recognized her, but he couldn't put his finger on where he'd seen her before.

"Steve, this is Cassie," Mr. Lang introduced. "Cassie, this is Steve."

"Hi," she said shyly. Steve noted that she bore a strong resemblance to Scott. She had the same smile and the same mischievous air about her.

"Is this your daughter?" he asked hesitantly.

Mr. Lang nodded, the reached out to grasp the hand of the woman. "And this is Hope. Funnily enough, she works at Gravesen, but I didn't know that until a few months after we started dating." Hope smiled and waved at him.

Once again, Steve wondered what happened to Scott's mother, how long before his diagnosis she'd left the picture. But he knew better than to ask that kind of question, especially here. Steve couldn't imagine the trauma of losing a child as a single father. When he imagined his own eventual death, he took comfort in knowing his parents would still have each other. Fortunately, Mr. Lang seemed to have built himself an incredible support system.

"How have you been?" Mr. Lang asked him. Steve noticed his gaze lingered on the oxygen.

"I've had some ups and downs, but for now I'm pretty stable. I might get listed for lung transplant soon, though."

"Wow. I hope that works out."

"Yeah, me too." Neither of them mentioned the fact that if it didn't work out, Steve would rest right up where Clint now stood. He thought the conversation might end there, but Mr. Lang continued.

"At least they're together now, right?" His eyes now brimmed with tears. Little Cassie hugged him even tighter. "Scotty loved Clint like a brother. When…when he was dying, he told me that if cancer had to take one of them he was glad it was him and not Clint."

Now Steve was crying too. These kids…far too young for the responsibility of dying with grace, yet they accomplished it. Though he didn't remember much of his visit with Scott towards the end of his life, Steve did manage to internalize his awe at the kid's grim acceptance of his fate. He didn't fight it, didn't cry that his life had to be truncated so pitifully short, just tried valiantly to hold himself together to ease his father's anguish. Steve had been dying slowly for years, and he only hoped that when his time eventually came he would embody Scott and Clint and respectfully lay down his sword instead of futilely slashing until the end or complaining that his battle had been unfairly difficult.

And, of course, he hoped to see them again someday.

~0~

It was Parker's sixth brush with grief, if he counted his parents as only one. Knowing it was coming didn't make it any easier. But having his dads here with him did. When he heard the news, they let him cry for as long as he needed, but they also made sure he ate and slept. Parker had hope that, after persevering through Carol's death, he'd be able to do the same for Clint's. His loss weighed heavy on his mind and heart, of course, but he knew now from ample experience that it was always possible to keep trudging forward, especially when he had a support system to share the load.

At the funeral, Parker acted as that support system for Tony, something he'd never done before. The older boy had helped him through countless near mental breakdowns, and it was about time he returned the favor. While Parker's parents talked to the Bartons, he noticed Tony slip out of the room. Parker didn't want him to be alone. Grief and solitude were a dangerous combination for some. They held each other for who knows how long, both crying until their hearts felt just a little bit lighter. He was forever grateful for the community forged at Gravesen.

That community transcended far wider than he'd ever known. Some of the newer patients he'd met at the end of his stay were there, including Monica and Miles. Parker said hello and offered hugs to each of them. Even some of the nurses and doctors he knew were there. He guessed they didn't often attend patients' funerals because that would be too many for one heart to bear and some level of professional distance was necessary for them to preserve their sanity. But there were here. Probably because they'd known Clint for most of his life instead of merely a short but sickly period of it. During the service, he also noticed a dark-haired young girl who sat beside a woman watching a sign language interpreter standing off to the side. Clint knew sign; Parker had seen him and Natasha use it a few times, and he figured he must have used it to talk to this woman.

At the first opportunity, he walked up to Happy and made sure that Clint's Xs on the gauntlet got moved to their proper place. "We took care of it," he said with a solemn nod. Parker nodded back. That was all they could do now. Take care of each other.

~0~

Nick was glad he couldn't see anything. Not the red-eyed, tear-stained faces of Clint's friends and family. Not the tragically small casket at the front of the room. Not the old pictures tauntingly reminding them of a time when he was healthy and whole. Nick didn't want to see a world without him in it, didn't want to witness the devastation his loss had wrought.

He could hear it though. The sniffles, the sobs, the snippets of conversation. They had arrived early and found their seats so Nick didn't have to navigate within the room with a bunch of people milling around. He was adept enough with his cane that he didn't run into furniture or anything stationary, but large groups of unpredictably moving people still presented a challenge and likely always would. Beforehand, he had his mom describe the display his family had set up outside. Nick ran his hand over the shaft of the arrow lodged in the target and could practically hear Clint's excited squeal. It sounded just like he did when they played darts in the common room and he demolished Nick and Natasha both.

For the memory jar, Nick talked about the time they played hide and seek at Gravesen and Clint literally hid up in the vents and had Jake write it down for him. He didn't know if Clint's parents even knew that had occurred, because they all kept it a secret to avoid getting in trouble, but hopefully they'd find joy in reading it.

Natasha also showed up rather early and asked to hug him. "I don't want our trio to be a duo now," she sighed in his ear.

"Me neither," Nick replied. "What's the use of having a blind guy on our team if we don't have a hawkeyed deaf guy to balance it out?" That comment at least elicited a chuckle, but he could feel her distress in her posture when they embraced. Natasha and Clint had a bond that Nick had never hoped to penetrate. He couldn't imagine how she must feel, losing a best friend like that.

~0~

Mama had agreed to let Natasha go back to the US to be with Clint in his last days, as long as she got to come along for moral support. Natasha sat with him almost constantly, reading storybooks and recounting some of her favorite memories of him in Russian. For the most part, he slept, his waking moments most often filled with confusion and distress. The last time he woke up had been particularly bad, and Natasha tried valiantly alongside Mrs. Barton to calm him as he drifted back to sleep, never to wake again.

They arrived at the funeral rather early, due to Natasha's insistence they leave early in case they got lost on the way to the church. Fortunately, they did not. Natasha first laid eyes on the display outside the room, a beautiful tribute to Clint. She looked at all the photographs and compounded them with the image of Clint that lived in her head. Every so often, she graced her fingers over the arrow necklace around her neck, just to remind herself it was still there. That piece of him would always be there. For the memory jar, she wrote about Clint giving her that necklace, how it made her feel wanted in a way she'd never been wanted before. She knew reasonably that this collection of memories was more for his family than for Clint, but she chose to believe that he could read them too, somehow.

Inside the room, the only person she recognized besides Clint's parents was Nick. She approached him briefly before offering her condolences to Clint's parents. As she looked into their tear-filled eyes, she couldn't help but think they were looking back at her thinking, "Why was it him and not you?" Natasha had asked herself that question thousands of times since Clint told her he was terminal, yet she never found an answer. As with many things, it was more than likely there wasn't one.

"I am so sorry," she told them.

"Thank you, Natasha," Mr. Barton told her. "Thank you for coming all this way. I know it really means a lot to him." Eyes brimming with tears, Natasha nodded. Then she hugged Mrs. Barton too. "You keep fighting the good fight, yeah?" she instructed.

"Always," Natasha said. "And now I fight for both of us."

She began to walk away back towards her mother. A girl around her age and an adult woman took her place and Clint's dad started speaking to them in sign language. Natasha turned away to avoid eavesdropping. That must be Kate, Clint's fellow neuroblastoma fighter and fierce darts competitor, Natasha reasoned. She wondered if Kate felt the same survivor's guilt that currently overwhelmed her. Before she pinpointed her mom in the rapidly growing crowd of people, she felt a tap on her shoulder.

"You must be Natasha," Kate said.

"Yeah."

"It's nice to meet you. Clint told me all about you."

"Really?" He'd told her about Kate, but she hadn't expected he did the same about her.

"Yeah. He clearly has a type when it comes to friends," she said with a chuckle.

"What's that?"

"Girls who could beat him up."

Natasha laughed, the last thing she expected to do at a funeral. "I guess you are right."

They chatted for a few minutes while Kate's mom continued to talk to Mr. Barton. Natasha wished she could sign that fluently, but she needed a lot more practice before she got to that level. Before they parted ways, Kate asked for her number. The request surprised, but also thrilled her. Without Yelena around, she was sorely lacking in female friends her own age. She knew she would treasure both the connection to Clint and the knowledge as a cancer survivor that Kate possessed.

As more people started to arrive, she held Mama's hand. Despite being too old for it, she needed the physical support. With her free hand, the reached for her necklace, pinching it between two fingers and letting the sharp point of the arrowhead poke at the tip of a third. The sensation helped ground her. She watched all her friends from Gravesen support each other as they always had. It reminded her of the group therapy session after the loss of Pietra.

Natasha appreciated nothing more in life than the camaraderie she'd found among her fellow Gravesen residents. It surpassed even the bond she'd forged with the girls she'd danced with her entire life because it was forged in tragedy, not success. Clint's loss ripped a hole in their group, and while at first a hole would seem to weaken a structure, that wasn't the case with them. Because they reached out to each other across that hole—not to fill it, for it could never be filled—but to reinforce it. In supporting each other through their many hardships, they constructed immovable bridges between them. And for that reason, the Avengers endured.