Don't You Worry Child

All Rise

Chapter Summary: In the aftermath of Fury's death, agents and Avengers alike mourn for their fallen boss; the case against Samantha goes ahead in Boston; questions are asked that no one seems able to answer.

Soundtrack: All Rise by Blue

 Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' theory states that there are five definitive stages of grief, other psychiatrists put it at seven. Either way, it starts off with shock and/or denial and ends in acceptance. The phases in between are just as important and we go through them at different stages. Grief occurs in many different situations: divorce, terminal illness, trauma and in the aftermath of death.

Denial sees itself manifest through the refusal to accept, often as a result of shock. This was the phase Samantha Stark found herself stuck in. She could not allow herself to accept that Nicholas J. Fury, the man who had recruited her to S.H.I.E.L.D, who had allotted her weekly meetings to make sure that she was okay after her apparent return from the dead, she wasn't willing to believe it and so, for the first few hours after discovering what was apparently his body, she carried on as usual, interrogating her suspect who was, unfortunately, giving her nothing and trying to catch up on what she had missed while out on suspension and sick leave.

Steve Rogers chose bargaining as the stage he remained in for a while. He wasn't entirely sure what he was bargaining for – was it Fury's life or was it for Samantha to stop denying that it had happened? He couldn't quite tell yet; either way, he knew that he was bargaining and he wasn't a big fan of it.

Guilt consumed Coulson. For a while now, the roles between Fury and Coulson had been reversed – Coulson was Fury's boss and yet he hadn't noticed anything odd, had never questioned any of his actions and yet, he knew that he should have realised earlier on that something was wrong, something should have indicated that the Fury who worked for them wasn't the Fury who had worked with him, who had brought him back from the dead all those years ago.

Natasha Romanoff had skipped denial and gone straight onto anger. Rage filled her as she punched the punching bag in front of her repeatedly, hoping to get some semblance of inner peace – meditation had never been her thing, she preferred to kick the living crap out of something instead and that included when she was in the throes of grief, whether she realised it or not.

Dr Bruce Banner was the only one who seemed capable of accepting Fury's death. Doing the autopsy on the slowly decaying body did that to a man – even if that man had a tendency to turn into a green rage monster when severely angered or afraid. No, Bruce believed in science and science told him that Nicholas J. Fury, former S.H.I.E.L.D. director and director of the Avengers Initiative, was unfortunately dead.

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The grounds that surrounded Harvard University were nice, very white with snow, small patches of dark green grass were visible while cobbled pathways created a way through for the intellectual elite who attended this college and trees were dotted around creating shade for those who chose to read or study under them. Sometimes Samantha regretted having deferred this place in favour of UCLA, other times she didn't.

She removed Miranda Fury's picture from the pocket of her leather jacket and scanned the area for the daughter of her late boss. It was premature, she knew, Miranda's lecture didn't finish for another few minutes minimum, but for the five that ended late, one always ended early, Samantha knew that from her own experience of college life.

Eventually, Samantha saw the girl leave the lecture theatre, her black hair straightened and tied up in a bun, her slender figure wrapped up warm in a woollen jumper and leggings under a leather jacket not too dissimilar from Samantha's. Samantha called out to her and Miranda looked around, recognition dawning on her face when she saw Samantha approach her "You're Samantha Stark, right?" she asked and Samantha smiled gently, almost teary-eyed as she saw the girl's father in her eyes.