Summary: As the team try to come to terms with Michelle's death, a new terrifying threat is looming over them. Clint and Grace are forced to confront their darkest fears and enemies, as they prepare for their baby's arrival. Co – Written With snowqueen79. Clint/Grace, Bucky/Sophie and other pairings.

Even though I haven't seen Avengers: Endgame, I've read the spoilers and I am heartbroken over the two deaths in the film. If anyone wishes to discuss the film with me, then PM me and do not post spoilers in the reviews.

The Cradle Will Fall

Chapter 8

"Gracie, I'm not going to let anyone, or anything take me away from you or my little guy here," Clint assured her, pressing a kiss into her hair. "I can promise you that."

Grace shook her head, frustrated with the tears that kept spilling from her beautiful eyes.

"You can't promise me that," her voice was choked by her emotions. "You know you can't."

"I can," Clint told her. "I don't think you understand, baby."

Grace handed their son to his father, angled herself on the bed so she could see Clint's face, looking into his beautiful eyes. How could he not understand her fears? She never expected to end up with anyone half as wonderful as the beautiful archer and their beautiful son.

Wouldn't it be just like fate to cruelly take them from her too?

Clint's gaze was filled with determination. "Gracie, Thanos and HYDRA? They took everything I had away from me. You know what that's like. I found out Laura wasn't who I thought she was. I was a fool who never suspected a goddamn thing. If I had, what if I could have saved my children? What if they aren't here because I was blind."

Now her tears were coming on strong and she wasn't fighting them. "Clint, don't –"

"I am," he argued. "I didn't see a way forward when I lost Lila and Cooper. Nat managed to hang onto me, the team. My friends. It wasn't the same. Not until you came along."

Clint cuddled Connor against his chest, his gaze on their sleeping son even though his words were for her.

"Grace, I have the love of my life," he whispered, his intense gaze lifting to her face. "I have a love I could only imagine before. And you gave me Connor. I want you to give me more children. I want this life with you so much. And I'm going to fight for it."

Her hand slid to the muscular length of his thigh.

"I have everything I ever wanted and if that's not worth fighting for, I don't know what is, Gracie," he whispered, his eyes suspiciously shiny. "No Watchdog, or HYDRA agent, or any random evil motherfucker is going to take me away from you. So, I want you to please just accept this for now. Take care of our son. Be here when I get back from missions and give me a reason to fight harder."

Grace nodded, her gaze following her amazing man as he carefully rose from the bed with Connor and tucked him into his bassinet by the window.

"Clint," she whispered as he headed back to the bed, "how can I not want to fight? I want to fight for you and our son the same as you want to fight for me."

"I know." Clint crawled to her on the bed, stopping to run a hand through her beautiful hair. "My fierce, beautiful girl, I know. But Connor needs you right now. I know you love him as much as you love me. Do this for him."

Grace knew he was right. Of course, he was right. "I'm just… scared, Clint. What if me or Nat sitting out is the difference between the team being victorious or failing? We've seen so many missions where one person and their actions made all the difference."

His mouth claimed hers in a gentle kiss, soft and full of promising heat. Grace was in a daze when he pulled his head back to gaze into her eyes.

"Honey, the will of just one person can also be that deciding factor," he explained, stealing another heated kiss from here. "If I know Steve, he'll be ready to fight as fiercely as I am. He has a couple of important reasons. Like I do."

Pressing her back onto the bed, Clint smiled down at her before lowering some of his weight onto her. "You didn't see Nat worrying about it, did you?"

Grace had to grin at that. "But I'm not Nat."

"No, you're mine."

Their lips crashed together then, their hearts pounding together as they kissed in the cool silence of their bedroom. Clint's hands slid over her hair, her shoulders. When he let her come up for air, tantalizing her with kisses across her jaw and neck, Grace wound herself around him like a vine, rolling her hips beneath him and finding his hard as stone.

Grinning at her, Clint took a deep calming breath. "Slow down, woman. I want to enjoy this."

"So do I," she whispered. "Love me, Clint. Make me forget everything for a little while."

"Love to, sweetheart," Clint said lowly and pulled her into his strong chest. He started pulling up her t -shirt and began cupping and kneading her bra covered breasts. Grace closed her eyes and leaned into him heavily.

Clint pinched her right nipple and unstrapped her bra as he watched her pull it off and her t -shirt. He leaned down to kiss her and pressed her up against the bed.

"Mine," Clint said roughly as he nuzzled her neck. He started licking the skin and gently pressed bites to it. His hands slid into the waistline of her jeans and slid into her grey lace panties.

He started rubbing her wet throbbing clit, causing her to gasp. She buried her face into his neck, but he made her look at him.

"Clint," Grace moaned, burying her hands into his hair.

"What baby? What?" He asked smirking.

"Touch me, make me forget," she whispered looking at him with dark blue eyes, and his cock twitched. She looked so fucking beautiful. She was just perfect in every way possible. But when she looked at him like that...it was a while other ballgame.

"With pleasure," he replies huskily, effortlessly lifting her into his arms.

She laughs as he her on the bed and he towers over her, leading down to kiss her once more. As he does, his hands make quick work of the zipper on her jeans, and he pulled them down slightly to see her grey panties.

He places his hand in there and continues doing what he was doing before, only a bit rougher, and a bit faster.

She moans, throwing her head back on the pillow, her light blonde hair splaying out on the sheets.

"Clint," she moans as he sticks two fingers inside her and begins to move them in and out. "Clint," she groans, her hands clutching to his back.

"Gotta dirty mouth there. Gonna have to fuck that outta ya," he says roughly. She moans at the thought.

"Please do," she whimpers slightly to him, looking at him with her dark blue eyes.

He smirked then. He could tell she was coming closer and pulled down his jeans. He kissed her lovingly on the mouth and watched as she came on his fingers, gasping and moaning his name like a prayer.

"You taste so good. Taste like wild roses," Clint said roughly as he leaned over her. She ran her hands over his dark chest hair. He leaned on his elbows as he looked at her, before pressing his lips to hers.

Clint lowered his lips until they brushed her own, gentle at first, before she leaned further into him, and he kissed her back with a gentle passion that sizzled into a more desirous fervour.

She was hugged closer to him as he teased her mouth with his tongue, and she set her lips apart as their embrace deepened. When abandoning her hold on his neck, she began to tug at his shirt while his hands had grabbed her by the thighs and propped her up on the bed, and then pulled the sheets over them.

Both pulled away as they tore at each other's clothing, and Grace was fidgeting almost hopelessly with his belt. Clint put his hands on hers and steadied her movements in the heat of their aching longing, and in moments he was exposed entirely. He then pulled her jeans off and tossed them onto the floor, and her underwear followed soon after.

Clint placed kisses down her body, until he reached her stomach, and nuzzled her for a minute.

"I want to show you, how much I love you," he murmured hotly against her folds, and it sent a tremor of pleasure through her body, seeing him lay there between her thighs. Then he brought a finger against the sensitive skin, rubbing her slowly, almost as if it were a feather. The gradual increase in pressure made her moans grow louder with every few movements, making her beg for him.

Clint's mouth abruptly enveloped her, while his fingers explored her wetness, stroking harder, and the waves of her pleasure were crashing more roughly within her. She came against his hand as he continued to work on her, unable to vocalise her pleasure save but her cries and calling out his name like a prayer.

Clint moved up again and swallowed her cries, as she wrapped her slender, long legs around his waist, and he held her so she wouldn't be uncomfortable. He knew she was still healing from Connor's birth, and had no intention of hurting or causing her pain. His hands gently stroked and squeezed her breasts, before taking her left nipple into his mouth.

Lifting his head, he waited for her to meet his gaze. He loved her blissed out and sprawled out for him. "You okay, sweetheart?"

Grace looked dazed as she nodded at him.

"I'm dying to be inside you, beautiful," he whispered. "But I don't want to hurt you."

But then the solution was clear. Sliding his arms beneath her, he rolled them until he was on his back and she straddled him, her gaze looking disoriented enough to make him chuckle. His girl couldn't be more gorgeous, more precious to him.

A wide grin split her face. "This works."

Grace didn't waste a second, gently taking him in her hand and lining him up with her entrance before slowly lowering herself down on him.

Clint wasn't chuckling now. The way she felt, squeezing around him, took his breath away.

"Are you okay?" Grace grinned down at him, her hands planted on his chest and her beautiful breasts squeezed together in a way that had him drooling.

"You… are so… damned tight," he growled out as she pushed a little further down. "You're squeezing the hell out of me. I… love it though."

That's all he needed to tell her. The mischief on her beautiful face had him even harder if that was even possible. His Gracie didn't tease him often but when she decided to…

And if she was happy? She could do anything she wanted with him.

When she'd finally reached the bottom, her eyes slid closed and she took a luxurious breath like she just wanted to take a minute to enjoy how he felt. How he filled her. Then she started rolling her hips. It was a delicate, sinuous movement that was sexy as hell to watch.

How it felt? Jesus. Clint's hands were grabbing the sheets at his sides, he didn't want to distract her from what she was doing. Now when she was doing it like that. All he could do was hold on, letting her take the pleasure she wanted from him, letting her control the movements.

Her sweet cries filled the room and he couldn't help it, he began to thrust up into her gently.

"Clint, you feel so good," she told him, her hands sliding over the muscled wall of his chest as she worked him. "So good."

"That's it, sweetheart," he whispered, his hands sliding up to those beautiful breasts – he couldn't take it anymore – and caressing those as she devastated him. "Ride me. I want to feel you come around my cock."

Grace hummed above him, the motions of her hips gaining strength and then he was fighting to hold his own release off until she could reach hers. Putting his thumb in his mouth to wet it, he gently brought it to her clit, using it to stroke the small bundle of nerves with gentle precision.

Grace tightened around him at that in a way that almost had him losing control but somehow, he held on. Her cries grew sharper, the tension in her body as she rode him increased in a way that let him know she was close.

Keeping his touch on her clit delicate, Clint began to thrust up into her harder, wanting to see her unravel. It was a beautiful sight. Her hips lost their rhythm and when she threw her head back, her eyes squeezed shut, he knew he had her.

"Clint!" The orgasm shook his girl, the tight clutch of her walls around him as they pulsed, pulled him right over with her and Clint fought to breathe as she moved on him for just a moment more before falling forward onto him.

He caught her in his arms, he always would. The only sound in the room now was the harsh sound of their breathing.

His gaze moved over to the bassinet by the window. Connor had slept through everything and that made Clint happy, particularly when his girl was heavy and sleepy in his arms. Pressing a kiss into her hair, he whispered, "I love you, Gracie."

"I love you," she whispered back.

"Did that work?" He teased. "Did you forget everything?"

The cadence of breath made him think she'd dozed off. Just when he thought about slipping off into sleep himself, he heard her mumble, "May need another reality check later."

"Yes, Ma'am."

Grace laughed at hearing that and cuddled into him, as Clint turned on the baby monitor, so they could listen to Connor. Clint felt her curl into him, and he held her tightly as they both fell into a dreamless sleep.

Clint buried his face into Grace's soft blonde waves, smiling as he held her tightly.

Sophie had woken up to see it was only 1:AM in the morning, Bucky was still asleep and had his right arm wrapped around her. She curled into him for a minute, before getting up and went to get a glass of water from the kitchen. Everyone in the compound was fast asleep, she smiled quietly and poured herself a glass of water. She sipped from it for a while, when she sensed something.

Then the alarms sounded off, and she came face to face with a young woman with blonde hair, that looked like her. She stood in shock for a minute, as the woman stared at her coldly.

"Hello, little sister." The woman greeted coldly, and Sophie felt her stomach drop in shock at the woman's words. She was her sister?

"I already have sisters, one of them is dead because of what HYDRA and the Red Room did to her," Sophie soft disgusted, and the woman glared at her as the alarms went off.

She swiped at her with her knife, but Sophie dodged it by leaping onto the wall, and threw spider webbing at her. The Red Room assassin melted it with her hands.

She then shot her in the chest, causing Sophie to lose her grip on the ceiling. She landed hard on the ground, clutching the left side of her chest in pain as the woman loomed over her.

"Consider this a warning, Сестра. Next time, I will kill you." The woman said coldly, and left Sophie bleeding out on the living room carpet.

Bucky had woken up early to see that Sophie wasn't in bed next to him, he frowned and went in search of her. He looked around, and his blood ran cold as he reached the living room. It looked like a fight had taken place, one of the chairs was lying on the floor, and there was blood on the floor. He felt his heart pound in his chest, as he searched for Sophie and that was when he found her.

She was lying on the floor, her skin pale and blood staining the white fluffy carpet. He ran over to her, and put pressure on her gunshot wound, and found a pulse.

"Jarvis, wake up the others and get Helen!" He shouted desperately, Jarvis called out an alarm that woke up everyone. He cradled Sophie tightly, as her eyes flickered.

"Buck...Bucky...it was the Red Room. She said, she said that she was my twin sister..." Sophie gasped, as Helen and Jemma ran over and got her onto a stretcher.

Bucky saw Adrian, Grace, and the others hurry over with Steve, and Natasha looking horrified. He couldn't speak, as he saw the woman he loved being taken away.

"Bucky, we need to take her straight into surgery." Helen said gently, Bucky nodded numbly and watched them go as he stared at the spot where Sophie had been bleeding.

Adrian, Natasha, Wanda and Grace, who'd grabbed Connor and a bag for him, went with Bucky to medical, wanting to be there for Sophie. Once again, the compound was filled with terrified faces and their tentative peace had been disrupted.

Clint was still wiping sleep out of his eyes, intending to go to medical himself when he walked by the open door of Bucky's and Sophie's apartment, spotting Steve there surveying the scene.

Steve glanced up as he walked in, the set of his face grim.

"What we're dealing with is a lot worse than we imagined," Steve said quietly.

"What do you see, Cap?" Clint had known Steve long enough to know it was best to let him work through a situation. The team's leader was a master strategist. When he was allowed to analyze a scene, he often had better answers than any elite forensics team.

"Sophie's right-handed, isn't she?" Steve asked.

Clint had to think about it but nodded.

"Judging from the injury, someone about her size shot her," Steve explained. "They were left-handed."

Taking a knee next to the blood stains on the rug, Steve seemed lost in thought.

"Jarvis," Steve commanded, "can you review footage from this room and show me Sophie's assailant."

"Of course, sir," the AI said.

Instantly, a large screen materialized before Steve and Clint, showing them darkened rooms in rapidly moving time-lapse footage. The image slowed to normal time when the light in the kitchen flipped on. They saw Sophie pull a glass from a cabinet in the kitchen and fill it with water from the dispenser on her refrigerator.

Leaning on the counter in the kitchen, Sophie looked preoccupied as she slowly drank her water. So much so, she never saw the perpetrator drop from the ceiling in her catsuit and long blonde hair. There was something eerily familiar in the way the woman Sophie never saw coming moved.

When the assailant on the screen said "Hello, little sister," Clint's blood ran cold. She circled around Sophie in the kitchen, a knife tucked behind the wrist of her left hand. Sophie could be surprised, hell, they all could, but the terror that formed on her lovely face broke Clint's heart a little.

There was more to the exchange and then the assailant took a swipe at Sophie with that knife he spotted. Sophie jumped to the wall, shooting webbing at the mystery blonde who easily melted it. It wasn't until the woman pulled a smaller handgun from the back of her belt, she already had a silencer on it and aimed it at their teammate that Clint got a look at her.

The woman looked exactly like Grace.

"Holy shit," Clint muttered, scrubbing a hand down his face.

She shot Sophie, then stood over her smugly. "Consider this a warning, Сестра. Next time, I will kill you."

The footage froze at that point and both of them considered the pool of blood where Sophie had laid after the attack.

"How long was she here before Bucky found her?" Clint was thinking out loud.

"Sergeant Barnes became aware of her absence approximately nine minutes after the shooting," the AI told them.

"Thank God he woke up then." Steve shook his head. "Clint, Sophie supposedly had a twin according to HYDRA's files, right?"

Clint nodded. "But she was supposed to have died a long time ago."

"She's either not dead after all," Steve slowly as he rose from the floor. "Or someone has created a clone."

Clint's looked to his captain in question.

"HYDRA played around with twins back during the war. Their scientists favored twins to experiment on. One twin, they would subject to their tests, the other would remain untouched so they could measure their results. The experiments were cruel, inhumane…"

"What's that got to do with the fact that Sophie's double was left-handed?" Clint wanted to know.

"HYDRA also had a clone program," Steve explained. "Fortunately, it wasn't successful."

"Because it would be so much easier to breed an army than to recruit one," Clint told him.

Steve nodded. "Their frustration with twins, particularly the identical ones, was in trying to tell them apart. If there were any confusion, their experiments could be ruined. So the idea of producing clones for experimentation purposes was to produce mirror-image twins, opposites, so they could tell them apart."

Clint had heard of mirror-image twins. "So that's a clone?"

"Possibly," Steve told him. "It might also be the twin she thought was dead."

"Jesus." Clint shook his head. His girl and her family couldn't catch a break. "We'll figure it out, Cap. Sophie's going to make it through this, and we'll figure it out."

Steve nodded but his mind was going a hundred miles a minute. "Helen can hopefully pull her through this. Bucky loves her. God help us if she doesn't make it."

Steve saw the forensics team waiting for their turn outside the door and Clint followed him out. It was a sobering thought, but he agreed with Steve. Bucky had finally found some measure of happiness in decades of misery and he deserved it. Anyone who took that away from him? The Winter Soldier would seem like a fond memory.

Enjoy, and review :)

Translations:

Сестра - Little sister.