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.
The Cradle Will Fall
Chapter 9
It was an hour before they heard anything about Sophie, and Bucky saw Helen coming out of the room with a grim expression. His heart clenched in his chest, was his girl going to be alright?
"Sophie will make a full recovery, but I've got her on antibiotics to be on the safe side. I've just heard from the forensic team about the poison used to kill Larisa Dumitrescu, and it's not good." She said gravely, handing the files to Tony and Lila.
Bucky saw a grim expression appear on Tony's face, as he looked at the report and ran a hand through his hair.
"This isn't good, apparently the toxin that was used to kill Lilia us called Devil's Breath. It's a toxin combined with the blood of seven different species of spiders, and it killed Larisa within less than an hour." He said grimly, causing everyone to stare in worry.
"Well, we know Bobbi's got a degree in chemistry and she can make it, but how the hell would they get the blood of seven species of spiders from? Some of these spiders are from the Amazon rainforest, or from Costa Rico." Natasha said grimly, as Jemma came out of Sophie's hospital room.
"Sophie's awake, and she's stable." She said relived, everyone nodded, and they walked into the hospital room. Sophie was pale but awake and smiled weakly at seeing them.
"How are you, Soph?" Grace asked worriedly, holding Connor in one arm as she kissed her sister's left cheek. Bucky was holding her right hand as she sighed quietly.
"Well, the left side of my chest hurts ever time that I move, and I sigh but I'll live. Guys, she called me sister." Sophie said seriously, and Bucky nodded grimly.
"We know doll, and we're looking into it. We think HYDRA and the Red Room may have cloned a woman to look like your sister," Bucky explained quietly, Sophie nodded in understanding.
Lilia had decided to find out how the mysterious Red Room assassin had infiltrated the compound, with the help of Jarvis and David who provided assistance. She soon found out how the Red Room operative had breached the security cameras, someone had helped her hack into the security system.
Shit, this wasn't good.
"David, and Jarvis do a security sweep on all of the cameras here, I think someone's been helping the Red Room operative," Lilia said darkly, the two AI's immediately sweeping the mainframes.
While they did that, Lilia checked on Howard who was happily playing with a bunch of building blocks, Ragnar, Darcy's children and Joseph all happily playing with him.
She was deep in thought, as she saw a parcel had been delivered to her, and saw there was a note. She frowned, wondering who it was from and froze.
'To Lila Dumitrescu,
The whore who's sleeping with Tony Stark.'
There was no name, but she knew it had to be from Pepper, she swallowed as she looked at the box of chocolates. She sent them to Bruce and picked up Howard.
She wouldn't let Pepper frighten her.
With Sophie now unable to go on the next three missions, they were now without three teammates. Fury had given them a lead on Pepper and Jane Foster, they'd been sighted in France, Marseille.
Only, one of them had to go undercover and Tony had volunteered to go, this was personal for him. Pepper had threatened his team, threatened Lilia and Howard.
The bitch was going down.
Tony entered the room calmly as he spotted Pepper speaking with a blonde-haired man, and Jane Foster.
"I have eyes on Pepper, Clint." He said into the coms link, and he saw Clint up on the upper level. He was up there with Bucky, both of them watching his back with Steve who was in the crowd.
"Copy that, Tony. Lilia's running facial recognition on him, should have it at any moment," Clint confirmed quietly, Tony nodded and moved forward as he saw someone else speaking with Pepper.
It was Justin Hammer. What the hell was he doing here? He was supposed to be in prison.
"What the fuck is he doing here?" Tony muttered, remembering the attack on Stark Expo and the nightmare the situation created by Hammer and Vanko. Hammer had sworn revenge on not only himself but Pepper as well for his incarceration.
It had Tony wondering. Did Hammer smell blood in the water and come after the scent or had Pepper joined forces with him now?
"Tony, you okay?" Steve's voice was low in his ear.
Steve was laughing with a group of older gentlemen, of course he sought out men his own age, and trying not to glance over as he waited for Tony's answer.
"Yep," Tony told them. "But things just got a hell of a lot more interesting."
"That's –"
Tony cut Lilia off. "Oh, I know who that is."
With the disguise Tony had chosen, a bit of technology and some hair gel to turn him into his character, an eager if not younger entrepreneur who wanted to meet Hammer, seeking a job.
Making his way towards the group of them, he waited for Hammer to branch off from Pepper and Jane Foster's group. It didn't take long.
He stood there watching the interaction between the two of them long enough to pick up a couple of things.
Hammer had cut a deal with Pepper. They were working together.
Hammer didn't trust Pepper.
Well, he wasn't wrong.
Not wanting to take the chance that Pepper might recognize him anyway, that would be a disaster, Tony lingered around the groups looking like an awkward by-stander while Clint smirked at him from overhead, shaking his head. Tony flipped him off.
Then the group thinned, and Hammer was slowly making his way towards the exit. Perfect.
Pressing at his throat to make sure the vocal device was in place, he got right behind Hammer.
"Mr. Hammer?"
His inferior rival didn't stop but he did slow down. "What do you want?"
"Just a little of an expert's time for a weapons newbie," Tony blurted.
They were the magic words because more than anything else, Hammer wanted to be admired, idolized.
Hammer stopped, shoved his hands in his pockets and gave Tony the once over in a way that left him feeling like he needed a shower. He'd heard Hammer had taken up with a much younger man in prison. He hadn't heard, however, that Justin had made it out of prison.
It had Tony stopping for just a moment. He sure hoped he wasn't that much of an arrogant asshat on a daily basis.
"Weapons newbie, huh?" Hammer asked, grinning condescendingly. "What are you working on? I always keep an eye out for new talent."
Yes, because you don't have any.
Tony pulled out his cheap Android phone, the best part of his disguise in his opinion, and began to show him crappy, blurry images of random weapons that he'd taken with Rhode. And Rhodey had absolutely loved the idea of Tony being here undercover.
"Those are impressive." Hammer had barely spared them a passing glance as Tony knew he would. "So, are you looking for a job?"
Tony nodded. "Yes, I am. I want a job with the best and that's you."
Hammer's expression sobered. "Stark turn you down?"
"Ah, no," Tony explained. "I didn't ask him. Why would I? I'm a huge fan of Miss Potts and when she abandoned Stark Industries, so did I."
"So, you're loyal to Pepper Potts? I could use a guy with your skills, I'll call you in a couple of days." Hammer offered and Tony nodded eagerly, as he wrote down his fake phone number.
Tony watched him leave, and took a photo of the car license plate, before going to meet up with Steve and Clint. His mind was racing, as he tried to figure out a reason for why Hammer would team up with Pepper. Then it hit him, like a punch to the stomach. Hammer and Pepper hated him, so Hammer would have a perfect ally in Pepper. She hated him, and Lilia more than anything.
Christ, what was she up to?
Clint had followed Pepper into a drawing room through the vents, and saw her talking to Vijay Nader, Ellen Nadeer's missing brother who was an Inhuman and Victoria Hand.
"So, did you get anything from Michelle Jones, before Blake and you killed her? Because Fury, Hill and the Avengers are onto me and we don't have much time." Hand said angrily, Clint felt his stomach drop as he realized Hand had been behind Michelle's brutal torture and murder.
"I was able to hack into the Stark security system, and that allowed me enough time to kill one of the freaks. They called him, Quinn." Vijay confirmed coldly, and Hand nodded.
"Good, now we just need to get rid of the others and somehow find a way to make sure that Fury doesn't know I along with Fury gave the order for Morse and Gonzales to kill the children. They're dangerous and have no right to be here." She declared defiantly, and Clint felt hatred burn through him at that moment.
So, she was involved in the murder of Zach, and the six other children? He felt like dropping down and killing her. She'd killed Grace's son, by ordering them to be killed.
He needed to tell Steve and Tony, and they needed to warn the others of what was going on.
It was dark when the others returned to the base, and Bucky was with Sophie who was still recovering from her gunshot wound. She had colour back in her face, but the wound was going to scar but Sophie didn't seem to mind. Bucky helped her get up, as she was still unsteady on her feet and still frightened about what had happened two nights ago. Seeing a mirror image of herself, had frightened her.
Bucky walked with her to the conference room, where Clint was with Grace, who had Connor sleeping in her arms. Lilia, Tony, Steve, Natasha, Bruce, Peter, May, Ned, Harry Osborn and Mary - Jane Watson were there along with Sam, Sharon and Thor, not to mention Helen and Loki along with Jemma.
"We've learnt that Justin Hammer is working with Pepper, and Bobbi Morse to produce weapons to take us down. Clint also overheard Victoria Hand and Vijay Nadeer talking." Steve said grimly, his expression grave as he looked at Clint.
Clint squeezed Grace's right hand tightly, as he started to talk about what he had overheard from his position in the vents. As he spoke, his eyes darkened with disgust and anger.
"Hand, Morse and Vijay are working with the Watchdogs to try and take out as many Inhumans, Mutants and Enhanced, they can locate. Vijay was the one who along with Felix Blake tortured and killed Michelle, and Hand was working with Gonzales and Ross when they kidnapped Zach and the other children. She gave the order for them to be killed." Clint said darkly, Steve nodded, and Grace held onto him tightly as she looked at him and Connor.
"So, Hammer and Pepper are working together, to try and bring down Tony?" Bruce asked concerned, Steve nodded and looked at Tony who was watching Lila and Howard.
"Yeah, but Hammer doesn't trust Pepper. We need to be careful," Tony said grimly, everyone nodded and decided to sleep for the night.
Will Adams felt sick, he felt nauseated and Christine Everheart had turned pale, as she read the letter that Larisa Dumitrescu had sent to them.
'To Christine, and Will.
If you're reading this, then Victoria Hand got to me. Give the USB stick to Tony Stark, and my cousin. I was working on a story, and I found out something horrible, please stop them.
Larisa.
Will drove them to the Avengers Compound, and checked the time, it was 10:AM, hopefully they would be up. They passed security and knocked on the door.
"Tony, please we need to tell you all something!"
The doors opened and Jarvis directed them to Tony's office. "Mr. Stark will join you momentarily," the AI explained.
"Mr. Stark, please forgive the interruption but there are two people here to see you saying they have urgent information from Larisa Dumitrescu." Jarvis said apologetically.
Tony watched Lilia's face turn white. They had information from her cousin?
"I'm on my way," Tony told his AI before adjourning the meeting.
Grace assured Lilia she'd look in on Howard and sent her and Clint off up the hall, catching up to Tony and Steve.
When they reached the waiting room beyond Tony's office, they all recognized the two journalists. Tony ushered everyone into his office, seating the two visitors before his desk and his Lilia, who was trembling and shaken behind it. Christine held out a letter to Tony Stark, her own hand trembling pretty badly. "Mr. Stark, Will and I both received the same letter from Larisa Dumitrescu. She's a colleague of ours. And a friend of mine."
Lilia nodded to the woman warmly, grateful she'd been a friend to her late cousin. Her gaze was riveted to the letter that Tony took from the blonde's hand. Bringing it back to where she sat in his chair, he read it with her.
Lilia dissolved into tears.
"You have the USB drive?" Tony asked calmly, handing the letter to Steve who read it with Clint.
"Yes," Will told him, pulling it from his pocket and handing it to Tony.
"Have you seen what's on there?" Tony's gaze was intent on the journalist.
The man hesitated for a long moment before nodding. "Wasn't that I was looking for a story to cover or to exploit Larisa in any way. It's a scary time to be a journalist right now."
Christine's eyes were shiny with tears as her gaze locked with Lilia's. "Larisa was my friend. I knew she was working on something big, but I had no idea about the… danger. I know she hasn't been at this as long as us. I would have tried to stop her, or I would have advised her to come to you before her life was in danger.
"She had dinner with Tony and Lilia the night they got to her," Steve told her. "It may have been what prompted them to kill her."
"What am I going to find on this?" Tony held it up, hazel eyes darting from Christine to Will.
"It's awful," the blonde told him. "She'd learned about human experimentation that HYDRA is conducting."
That got Steve's attention immediately.
"They've set up a new facility and are applying spider DNA to test subjects with pretty gruesome results," the woman explained. "She had evidence of one subject that managed to survive and the mutations they generated were a lot like that guy Venom's."
Steve's gaze locked with Tony's. So, they hadn't taken much of a break at all.
"Are they experimenting on the enhanced?" Steve wanted to know.
"Maybe," Christine told him. "Her evidence is centred around several regular people they've experiment on. Most of them… didn't make it. The pictures… I had to stop looking at it."
"You didn't tell them the biggest part," Will interjected. "They have some interesting help in their experiments that you should know about."
"Who?" Clint asked with a sense of foreboding.
"Victoria Hand and Justin Hammer," Will finished.
Hammer, Tony thought. The plot thickens. Steve's gaze met his.
Swiping at her tears, Lilia shook her head. "I knew she was involved with something dangerous, Tony. I should have brought her back to the compound with us. Why didn't I do that? She would be alive. We could have protected her."
Tony blew out an exhale, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "This wasn't your fault," Tony whispered in her ear. "Let's finish up here, and then we'll talk."
"Is there anything else you can tell us?" Steve addressed them calmly. "Anything Larisa might have told you about the story she was working on?"
Will and Christine considered that for a moment.
"She said that it had something to do with Inhumans and Enhanced individuals, who have been going missing. We would have stopped her if we knew about this. I'm so sorry, Lilia." Christine said regretfully, Lilia nodded in thanks as Christine and Will were shown to the guest bedrooms.
Tony wrapped his arm around Lilia, wishing that he could do more for her as she wiped her eyes shakily with a tissue. At least she knew who was responsible for the brutal murder of her cousin, and she would make them suffer for what they had done.
Bucky could sense the grim atmosphere as he and Sophie arrived at the conference room, where Steve and the others were waiting. The room was filled with anxiety, Lilia looked pale, and her eyes were red from crying but she kept her composure as Tony uploaded the file onto the screen and everyone stared at the photos in horror.
Some of the test subjects didn't even look human, one had a gaping, bloody hole in the middle of his chest. He shuddered, as Tony clicked onto a video and they saw a group of doctors injecting six people with a serum.
"We have the blood samples from the surviving children, who were conceived in the Widow Ops Program. We also have a surviving blood sample from Zach Melnychenko Drăgoi, who was Crossbones and Grace Melnychenko Drăgoi's son. So, far we have had success with three of the Enhanced individuals. However, the Inhumans have proven to react violently to the spider DNA, and two have died." A scientist informed Victoria Hand, and Justin Hammer, Hand looked displeased, but Hammer didn't seem to care.
Bucky watched in horror as a black like spider slithered over a man's face, and a strange like black substance began covering his whole body. It was like something straight out of a horror film, he felt his stomach roll in nausea.
"Jesus Christ, anyone else getting Alien vibes from this?" Adrian asked disturbed, Wanda had turned pale next to him and Lilia looked nauseated. Sophie, Grace and Natasha had all turned pale, and Bucky wrapped an arm around her, as something started moving inside of the man's chest.
The man started making groans of pain but fell silent as his face transformed into Venom. He sat up and roared as the video stopped recording the experiment.
Lilia couldn't stay in the room anymore, she just couldn't and left with Howard who was asleep.
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