I know I've been pretty inconsistent so far, but I think I have decided on an update schedule. Monday, Wednesday, Saturday mornings (Eastern Time) is what I'm going to try to stick to starting after this chapter.

Chapter 3: The Wake

This despair had been creeping up on him for months now. Guilt mixed with existential dread mixed with profound sorrow. Tony had been working on this project for years, and now that it had finally reached completion, he doubted whether he should've been working on it at all. Steve's death sent everybody reeling, but on top of the loss of a dear friend, Tony became consumed with wondering how he let his own selfishness drive his every move for so many years.

If he'd spent all that time and effort working with lungs instead of hearts, maybe he could've saved Steve.

The thought sat festering in the back of his mind every time he mentioned his upcoming surgery. With the device's design finalized, all that remained was to begin human clinical trials, of which Tony would be the first. His current VAD was reaching the end of its lifeline, so he had to schedule it much earlier than he would've liked. He hadn't even known about Carol May when he set the date, June seventh, and almost considered changing it once he learned Parker's baby was due the day before. But he ran the numbers, knowing early birth was more common than late, and decided to let it stay. He had no way of knowing that Steve would die a week before, and by that time it was too late to change. Tony tried, but his team warned him that the current device in his chest was pretty much a ticking time bomb at this age. He didn't dare risk putting his family through a second death.

Still, he hesitated to even mention it in front of them because it seemed crass to discuss his own life-saving invention when the best treatments medicine had to offer failed to keep Steve alive any longer. That dream he'd had, years ago back at Gravesen, came back to haunt him. Steve's punishing grip on his wrist and his choked, damning words: "You… could've… saved… us."

When he said his final goodbyes at the funeral, those same words echoed in his head, only instead of us Steve's voice said me.

Tony would never know if the words were true. He'd never even tried to save Steve, only himself. But he was Tony Stark, if he'd put the time and effort into it, he found it hard to believe that he wouldn't have stumbled upon a solution, or at least something to buy time. He'd made his choice. Tony would still be here in five years' time, and Steve wouldn't. There was nothing he could do to change that fact.

He kept expecting the other Avengers to figure it out and start resenting him, but they were nothing but supportive, asking if he'd need any help in the weeks following surgery. Tony didn't need or deserve their help, especially not when Bucky, when all of them, were so freshly grieving. He'd already made plans to stay with his parents. Mom was looking forward to babying him.

He spent that weekend after the funeral finalizing all the plans for surgery Monday. Not until Sunday night did even the slightest doubt creep into his mind. This might not work. Regardless of the specs of the device, surgery itself could go wrong and kill him. Tony hoped it didn't. He could only imagine the talking-to he'd get from Steve if he followed him into the beyond so soon.

~0~

Bruce hated himself for spending the majority of the funeral focused on Betty. Despite her bed rest orders—in effect because of a preeclampsia diagnosis—she insisted on coming. There was a lot of sitting up and a lot of walking and Bruce almost had several panic attacks when she grunted at a particularly strong kick or paused to catch her breath just a moment too long on the way to the cemetery plot.

Despite this, he kept his concerns quiet and whispered in Betty's ear so as not to cause a scene. For the past week, he'd had nightmares about Betty going into labor right here and ruining everyone's opportunity to grieve properly. Fortunately for both of them, no such drama occurred.

The baby was due on the twenty-first of June, and Betty's doctors told her it could be any day now. Now that the moment loomed so close, Bruce found himself experiencing the last emotion he ever expected at a time like this. Jealousy. The entire group got to celebrate the birth of Carol May. She entered a family beyond excited to meet her. And Bruce's kid, because they were conceived only a few weeks later, would be born into a family shredded by grief. There would be no triumphant picture of Steve holding his kid. Unless somebody spilled the beans, he'd never even known that Bruce was to become a father.

He and Betty had agreed that it was better if Steve and Bucky didn't know. They had enough to worry about without knowledge of Betty's condition, and Bruce would've hated to burden Steve with that kind of pressure. "Hey, you know that baby you're literally clinging to life to meet? Well, I'm having one too." There was no way to phrase it that wasn't either presumptuous or horribly self-deprecating. Bruce knew full well that he didn't have as strong a relationship with Steve as Parker did, so he knew it wasn't fair to expect the same treatment and would've told Steve as much if he told him about the baby. Still, he did know Steve well enough to know that he wouldn't have wanted to show favoritism that way, whether he could control it or not.

The logic of his actions didn't make keeping the secret any easier. Bruce had told only Tony and Thor, because he felt closest to them of any of the Avengers, and Natasha, because he trusted her to keep a secret. Anyone else that asked after Betty during those months, he made up a lie. But there was no hiding her condition at the funeral. Those who hadn't already known offered them congratulations and smiles juxtaposed on their tear-stained faces. Bruce worried that they might be angry with him for keeping it a secret, especially Bucky, but the reaction he got from the man was the opposite of what he expected.

"I, uh…I already knew."

"What? How?!" Bruce had taken every effort to ensure this didn't get out to Steve and Bucky.

"Tony accidentally let it slip when Steve was in the hospital."

Bruce's heart clenched in his throat. "Did…did Steve know too?"

Bucky shook his head solemnly.

Oh no. No. On top of everything else, Bucky kept that secret? "I'm so sorry you had to hide it from him. I didn't plan for either of you to know because I didn't want any hard feelings."

"Shh, it's okay," Bucky cut him off. How he was the more composed one in this situation both baffled and ashamed Bruce. "To be honest, there was so much happening that I practically forgot I was even keeping a secret."

"Okay. Do you think I did the right thing by not telling him?"

Bucky hesitated. His gaze drifted towards the casket at the front of the room, then back to Bruce. "Yeah, I think you did."

"Good."

"Send me all the baby pics when the kid gets here, okay?"

"Yeah, I will." Bruce started to walk away, until he saw the minutest tremor start up in Bucky's hand. He wasn't done here. "Do you need a hug?" he asked.

Bucky started blinking faster and his voice rose an octave or two. "Yeah."

Bruce didn't hesitate to wrap the younger man in his arms and let him cry into his shoulder. "He would've wanted to meet your baby just as much," Bucky hiccupped.

"I know."

~0~

Parker never thought it would be possible to feel such conflicting emotions simultaneously. Carol May's every move brought him insurmountable joy, but every time she slept and gave him a moment to think, a wave of grief knocked him to the floor. He alternated between the highest of highs and the lowest of lows practically on the hour and it was exhausting.

His days consisted of endless cycles of feeding, rocking, diaper changes, laundry loads, running errands for MJ, dishes, napping, visiting Bucky, and crying. He and MJ switched off driving upstate to join in the gathering that Wanda set up so the other could stay home with Carol May. Luckily for them, she'd convinced her bosses to give her paid maternity leave. Parker kept himself together in the presence of their friends, but every time, without fail, he cried the whole drive home.

Each time he lost someone, he'd despaired and convinced himself, "This is gonna be the one that finally breaks me once and for all," but every time he'd proved himself wrong. After everything and everyone he'd had to say goodbye to, he was still here and relatively in one piece. But this one hurt differently. Every joy that his daughter brought him was one he'd never get to relay to Steve, who'd wanted to know her probably even more than Parker and MJ did. Parker had watched him fight like hell just for the chance to hold her once, and he did it, but that encompassed the entirety of their relationship. It might've been everything to Steve, but to the baby it was nothing. He and Michelle would raise this kid and, instead of sending cute pictures of her to Steve, they'd show her old pictures of him because it was the only way she'd ever remember his face.

Sometimes, when he thought about it long enough, his throat swelled with grief and the words refused to come. Parker hadn't lost his voice since his first months at Gravesen, but he could feel it slipping away in the weeks after Steve's funeral. He desperately willed for it not to go, because when MJ went back to work, he'd be the primary caregiver for Carol May and therefore responsible for her language development.

And it wasn't just the words abandoning ship. His appetite fled too. His and MJ's lives revolved around Carol May's eating schedule, not their own, so he figured it was common for new parents to struggle to get three square meals in every day, but even when they found time to sit down and eat, he couldn't bring himself to do more than graze. Food didn't trigger him anymore, but all the thoughts and emotions whirling about in his head and in his gut made everything taste sour. The only thing he could reliably finish off was a glass of chocolate milk.

~0~

The only time Nick thought of his disability as a burden to his friends and family was when they had to drive him places. Natasha took it upon herself to take him to Steve and Bucky's house every day that week before the funeral. Every time he tried to thank her, she shrugged him off with a curt, "Don't mention it."

Their drives to and from upstate were despairingly silent. Nick had no cues except the sound of her breathing and her monotone answers to his questionable attempts at conversation to read Nat's emotional state. He had no idea what was a suitable topic of conversation for the drive to and from their recently-widowed friend's house. Neither of them was the type to openly share hard feelings with each other, but it felt almost disrespectful to talk about anything with less gravity.

At the house, there was no fault of conversation. The whole point of the occasion, as Wanda had explained, was to distract the bereaved and prevent them from being alone in the space which they once shared with their lost loved one. Unless he could hear other people, Nick always felt alone in a space, hence why he found these car rides so difficult.

His mom and siblings all came to the funeral. Mom sat with the other cancer moms in her support group, who all knew Sarah Rogers via Winnifred Barnes. Nick heard so many unfamiliar people talking in such a short time that he ended up asking Dawn to introduce herself when she started talking to him and he mistook her voice for another new one. Just like Clint's funeral, he found himself glad he couldn't see the heartache painted on everyone's faces. However, his other senses were sharper now than they were then. He could feel the faint tremors when Bucky hugged him, hear deeply personal conversations not intended for accidentally eavesdropping ears, smell the freshly dug earth in the cemetery.

Nick worried about what might happen to the Avengers without Steve. Yes, they each had independent relationships with each other, some stronger than others, but Steve was the one person they could always count on to bring them all together, whether he was the orchestrator or the reason they were gathering, as with this occasion. Nick had looked forward to Steve's birthday party every year because it was the one day a year that everybody got together.

None of the other Avengers knew this, but Nick's actual birthday was also July fourth. As a kid, he'd never wanted to celebrate his birthday and a holiday in one, so he got presents and had parties for his half birthday instead. Whenever anyone asked—anyone who didn't have access to the correct information—about his birthday, he told them January fourth. In fact, the only person at Gravesen besides the staff who knew the truth was Carol because she had a habit of snooping in people's charts. Nick had to beg her not to tell everyone on the ward that, "Fury shares a birthday with Rogers!"

Steve's birthday was less than a month away. For the first time in five years, Nick didn't look forward to the day. At the same time, he knew he couldn't allow this amazing group to drift apart now that their central piece was missing. Nothing was more important to him than keeping this team together.

~0~

MJ worried about Parker. She'd been worried ever since they found out about the baby. Once they'd told Steve about her, she worried so much that it kept her up at night and she had to ask her OB if it might hurt the baby. MJ knew none of them would take it well if he died before Carol May's birth. For months, whenever she had a quiet moment alone, her thoughts spiraled into nightmare scenarios of going into labor at a funeral or Parker blaming her for not having the baby soon enough and leaving. Logically, she knew both scenarios were unlikely, but that didn't stop her from thinking about them.

Despite the knowledge that she had no control over the situation, MJ couldn't help but feel responsible for ensuring Steve got to meet Carol May. Many of her conversations with the unborn child inside her consisted of, "I hope you're as excited to meet us as we are to meet you. In fact, if you wanted to come a bit early—but not too early—none of us would mind." Sometimes she swore Carol May kicked her harder after she said that, as if answering in the affirmative.

The drive home from that magical and terrible last visit gutted her. Parker started crying again two minutes out, then Carol May started crying, and by the time they got home all three of them were fully cried out. Steve died the morning after holding their baby, removing any shadow of a doubt that he'd been holding on just for her. MJ didn't know whether to feel honor or guilt.

She had to leave her six-day-old daughter with her parents so she could make it to the funeral. MJ hoped that the closure provided by the ceremony would help Parker, but his symptoms continued to worsen. He wasn't eating and the number of words he said plummeted by the day. Sometimes she could only get "yeses" and "nos" out of him. She wanted to talk to him, but every time she decided to broach the subject, Carol May interrupted, either by crying or blowing out a diaper. MJ didn't want to have this conversation while actively caring for their daughter, but the longer this went on the more she worried the right window wouldn't present itself until it was too late. And she wasn't willing to wait until then.

~0~

Thor booked a flight when he heard about Carol May's birth. He'd hoped he'd be coming to the States to celebrate the birth of a baby, but by the time he actually touched down, Steve had died, and the happy occasion for his visit turned into the complete opposite. Thor didn't even get to meet the child. Parker and MJ switched off visiting the house while the other stayed behind with the baby.

Tony graciously offered to let Thor stay in the tower and hitch a ride with him upstate every day, an offer which Thor accepted. The first time they showed up, he automatically headed towards the backyard without passing through the house, only to realize that the reason for the "no dogs in the house" rule no longer existed. Still, out of habit, he checked in with Bucky first.

"Can Korg come in?" Bucky had repeated, sounding almost shocked that Thor would ask such a question. Thor watched his mouth move to form the letter "N" for no, but then his entire face crumpled.

"Sorry…I shuh…uh…ouldn't…have asked." Thor found that his speech had worsened since he came here, but he didn't know if it was grief or jet lag or something else entirely.

Bucky swallowed forcibly. "No, it's okay. I guess he can. Thanks for asking."

Thor knew he should say more, something comforting or warm, but Bucky walked away before he could get a single word out.

Korg had taken a little longer than Valkyrie to pick up on Thor's pre-seizure cues, but by now he could pretty reliably alert at least five minutes before it happened. Thor was more thankful for this skill than ever, because the last thing he wanted was to make a scene here of all places. Fortunately, he made it through each day at the house without more than the occasional absence that forced him to ashamedly ask whoever he'd been speaking with to repeat themselves.

He had one big seizure his last night at Tony's, within a few hours after the funeral. Korg started whining and pawing at him when he got out of the shower, so he quickly climbed into bed and waited it out. About a minute after he laid down, a faint aura began. Thor didn't always get them before a tonic-clonic, and they were never consistent, but he'd definitely never had auditory symptoms before. This time he swore that he heard Steve's voice whispering to him as the darkness dragged him under.

~0~

Natasha hadn't missed a shift since she started at this hospital fresh out of nursing school. That first week of June, she cashed in all her vacation and sick days at once. Together, she and Wanda ensured that Bucky was never alone in that house for long. As far as she knew, the only time it wasn't filled to the brim with visitors was the dead of night, and even then, Josiah was staying in the upstairs loft for the week. Despite the somber nature of the gathering, hardly any tears were shed in the Barnes-Rogers household during that week before the funeral. Those that did fall were usually happy tears as people told funny and uplifting stories about Steve.

Natasha hadn't cried once. That was probably unhealthy, but she didn't know what to do about it. She couldn't force herself to cry, short of staring ahead without blinking for a long time or purposefully introducing a foreign body. Instead, she chose a different—arguably more dangerous—outlet. Natasha moved the coffee table in her apartment's living room aside, threw on music, and started dancing.

It hurt. She'd been offered medication for the chronic pain in her ankles on several occasions, but refused it every time. The ache grounded her, and served as a reminder to sit down when she'd spent too long on her feet without a break. It also ensured she never forgot her time at Gravesen, and along those lines helped her feel closer to Carol and Clint…and now Steve. She didn't leap or do anything that she knew would shatter an ankle, but she went further than she'd ever dared go before. It hurt, but at the same time it felt amazing.

She'd never needed the outlet of music and movement as much as she did now. Natasha chose the saddest playlist she could find, filled with songs of heartbreak, loss, and love. Her downstairs neighbors would probably complain about the noise, but she didn't care. She'd been hitting the boxing gym every chance she could to deal with the stress since Steve was hospitalized for pneumonia, but even the heavy bag couldn't compare to this. While dancing, Natasha felt more comfortable with her grief than she ever thought possible.

When she finally collapsed from exhaustion and genuine fear that her feet might give out, that's when the tears came. The dance had stripped her of whatever subconscious reservations prevented her from crying in the first place. She'd never imagined that something so painful could feel so necessary.

Natasha had lost track of time when the tears eventually slowed to a stop. She took a shower sitting down to give her ankles a rest, threw on her most comfortable pajamas, and watched the most recent remake of From Russia with Love, which she saw for the first time with Steve the weekend it came out in theaters. She laughed at all the subtle references to previous Bond films, because the entire theater had reacted with a 'Whoa" for each one, leaving Steve, who hadn't seen many of the other movies, rather adorably confused. He'd made Natasha explain each and every one to him on the way home. She took a deep breath and braced herself for returning to work tomorrow. After so long away, she was anxious to be back helping kids. Now, she wouldn't just be doing it for her, to honor all the nurses that helped her through her own fight with cancer. She was doing it for Steve.