It's a ripple effect for sure; Frank starts snorting and then Clint starts laughing and then Frank starts laughing, and then they're a pair of god damn jokers in the back, laughing like idiots right up until the moment it stops being funny anymore. And his heart sinks, because he knows when the switch flips, he knows when Clint starts spiraling down, and it tears at his chest in sympathy — or is it tearing his own pain out of him? Because Karen- Karen- and the goddamn kids, they were kids, they're just fucking kids. Kids he loved practically like they were his own, kids he may have been transplanting just a few too many feelings onto after the loss of his own children, and now they're gone and it's like losing Lisa and Frankie all over again-

Nat takes Clint's hand. Frank throws an arm over his shoulders, reeling him in tight, into some private space between their bodies, blocked off from the rest of the crew by broad shoulders and a ducked head. Not that it does much, because this sadness is a ripple effect, too. Banner's head hangs, face in hand. A tear streaks down Natasha's cheek, though she's holding it together better than the rest of them. Thor's got a full-blown stream happening that he doesn't even bother trying to disguise. The posture in Steve's shoulders is so rigid, so tightly laced, it's a wonder he doesn't explode from the density of it all. Even Rhodey seems grim, lips pulled into a pained grimace that none of them can see from back here.

It's a fucking mess, and it's all Frank can do to hoarsely murmur, "I know man. I know. I know-" like that accomplishes a single fucking thing.