Clint's whole body was ridged with grief as he hunched over the remnants of his family. Heat burned around his swimming eyes. Shuddering sobs tearing through his body.

A second, pitiful wail joined his and his head snapped up.

"Pietro!" His youngest was still here, alive. He staggered to his feet, cursing himself for not running to the boy immediately. For leaving him. For forgetting him in his grief.

The cry abruptly cut off. Cold fear stabbed through Clint, his heart seizing. "No, God, please no," he gasped as he thundered up the stairs, slamming into the wall as he made the turn at the top. "Please, please, please…." He wrenched the doorknob and threw open the door so hard it jolted into the drywall behind it.

He froze.

A tangle of emotions snarled about him, rooting him to the spot. Relief and joy because Pietro was there, with his thumb in his mouth, wide blue eyes watching him solemnly.

Terror and rage because his son was tucked into the arms of someone he'd thought was long dead.

"Put. My son. Down," he growled, whipping a knife from his belt. "Or I'll kill you."

The intruder grinned thinly. "It's a pleasure to see you too, Agent Barton." The man's green eyes flicked up from where they had been focused on the child in his arms.

"Loki," Clint warned, shifting his grip on the knife. He wasn't as good with knives as he was with arrows, but he still liked his odds. If it hadn't been his son in that monster's arms…

Loki gave a weary sigh. "Peace, Barton, I'm not here to harm your offspring. Quite the opposite in fact." A flash of pain ghosted over his features as he gently bounced Pietro in his arms.

"My family, what did you do?" Clint's words dripped venom.

"Though I doubt you'll believe me, nothing. I am not to blame for their deaths." What might have been guilt sparked in his eyes. "At least, not directly."

"Put, Pietro down!" Clint bellowed.

"I can't!" Loki snarled. Pietro began to cry and Loki shifted his focus from Clint to bounce the child and stroke his wispy hair.

The strange gentleness of it so startled Clint that he didn't take the opening while Loki was distracted.

Loki continued more softly as Pietro settled. "I can't put him down or he'll be culled like all the rest. My magic is the only thing obscuring him from Thanos' reach."

"Who the hell is Thanos?"

Loki's lip curled. "The monster who just wiped out half the universe at a whim. A creature of insanity and power," he drew in a shaky breath, "my murderer."

Clint merely stared, the knife slowly lowering to his side. Eyes still narrowed he settled himself against the dresser. "Talk."

Eyebrows creeping toward his hairline, Loki blinked rapidly. "You're willing to listen? I would have thought…"

"My world just," Clint swallowed the unsteadiness in his voice and schooled his features. "My world just shattered and you're holding the only piece of it I have left. If it means I can protect him, I'll listen, even to you. I'll do anything to protect him." The emphasis on the word anything left little doubt as to the lengths he would go if he thought Loki intended to harm his son.

The Asgardian glanced away, his gaze conjuring dark things only he could see. "I know something of broken worlds and desperate measures."

"Don't care. Explain what the hell is going on. Now."

"It began with the invasion…no, I must go further back." He stared into the middle distance as he explained aspects of a world Clint never knew existed. He explained it all. The stones, his fall from the Bifrost, Hela, the destruction of Asgard. Clint of course already knew of the invasion, knew that Thor had thought Loki died during the whole convergence incident.

He hadn't known of Thanos. He had suspected during his time as Loki's puppet that the alien wasn't the top man. He'd always imagined whatever backed Loki had to have been worse than he was, but S.H.I.E.L.D. had never dug up any more information and once back on Asgard, Thor had said Loki became tight-lipped about the entire affair. As time passed and no further interstellar threats came, Clint began to think they were beyond the reach of whatever power had sent Loki through the tesseract's portal.

He couldn't have been more wrong.

Thanos made Loki sound practically sane. Mad Titan indeed. He thought himself some kind of savior by wiping out half of all life? And the monster had done it. Against forces galaxies away, against what remained of Asgard, against the Avengers—he had won.

Author's Notes:

I want to be perfectly clear up front, this story will not actually get into confronting Thanos. Think of it as a bridge between the Infinity War and the final confrontation with Thanos. This is merely my take on dealing with the aftermath of the snap and setting up for the final confrontation (as well as addressing some of my questions dealing with Loki's actions in Infinity War).

I'm also breaking my habit a bit here to get at least the first section out ahead of Endgame, but I don't actually have this story finished like I normally do, so this is far rougher than I normally like and I can't promise to be on an any kind of update schedule as I try to piece together and flesh out all the parts of this I have already completed. I'm thinking it will be fewer than ten chapters, and mostly shorter ones at that.

For those of you coming back because you read Monstrous Purpose, hi! Don't worry, I still have plans for that universe. For new readers, welcome! And if you want more Loki goodness, have a gander at Monstrous Purpose; it's a completed, novel length story and I'm right proud of it.