The SHIELD Codex

The Shadows of Asgard

Synopsis:

Trapped by memories of his past and haunting his own present, Loki, the shadow king of Asgard, finds himself hunted by something far more deadly than any ghost. Without allies or any friendly word to help him, he must figure out why he’s not the hunter’s sole target - and what any chance of surviving his stolen throne might have to do with his buried youth.

Notes: On the one hand, it’s a stand-alone story set previous to the Codex and can be read without ever touching another Codex fic. On the other, I’ve built it into Codex canon and made it part of the basis for the final arc. Although this fic is about a brief, almost romantic part of Loki’s life, the resolution of this fic establishes that relationship as distant, conflicted, and probably platonic from here. While a character introduced will become recurring, the Codex will never change its listing from genfic to OC/Loki.

The Sand Knows Its Purity

Synopsis:

As Kamar-Taj's chief librarian, Wong feels love and responsibility for every sacred book in the world. Leaving the rural Chinese province of his childhood on the way towards safety for his latest rediscovered ancient artifact, Wong thinks a little about the past, about being lost, and about how much it all meant to his future.

Notes: A purely Wong-centric vignette themed after Journey To the West. Wong becomes a moderately important supporting character to the arc (I love Benedict Wong, okay?) and this fic introduces a unique character who returns in Turn the Page.

Fresh Ground

Synopsis: 

Where everyone knows your name is a fine thing if you're a middle-class drudge looking for a drink, Ted Danson, and a guy named Norm. But when you work in Stark Tower - or worse, are an Avenger - sometimes all you want is a coffeeshop that's going to treat you like a normal person.

Notes: Having never done a coffeeshop AU before, this is a coffeeshop short that accidentally ended up foreshadowing the next Halloween fic and thus became a Codex short.

The Ritual of Chud

Synopsis: 

The harvest season always brings with it a sense of ritual to pave the way for the future. It's with this in mind that Doctor Strange and Loki left Wong with a single gentle, but unusual, request: Throw a small Halloween party. Invite a handful of magical guests. Spend the evening telling tales and growing closer together. But why?

Notes: 2018′s Halloween Codex is another story within a story collection with several supporting magical characters (Wanda, Wong, Aggie Harkness, and introducing Pandora Peters of Loki’s WAND division) telling sad or spooky holiday tales. The overall story introduces the first clue to this arc’s set of villains - Ebony Maw.

Offhand

Synopsis: 

The season of greetings and merriment has come around - for Asgard, whose princes are still children easily bored by pageantry. But when Loki has to face a pack of bullies without his brother to back him up, he ends up beginning something that will change his life forever. Meanwhile, in the future, an adult Loki takes in some holiday cheer among his friends, and makes an admission he hadn't wanted to just yet.

Notes: The first winter holiday short fic since Bleak Midwinter, Offhand has a nice but standalone flashback to Loki’s troubles with the palace weapons trainer. There is some foreshadowing about what’s to come next.

Escape Velocity

Synopsis: 

When news comes to Wakanda of a mysterious cache of vibranium destined to hit the international arms market, King T'Challa realizes his efforts to reach out to the world could complicate his role in trying to stop disaster. Instead, he sends an envoy to SHIELD to help pick up where his warriors left off - and asks a reluctant Agent Everett Ross to assist them on his behalf.

Notes: The synopsis is a swerve. Set up as a standard SHIELD op, it ends with space battles and poor Ross helping to pilot a starship. As of 2020, he’s not the first new character to return from this fic - Captain Tam is introduced, Kara is hinted at, and more suspicions about the Children of Thanos are set up. The Grandmaster is also revealed to have ties here, a plot built up from the original arc’s Darwin’s Dragon.

Cat Dads!

Synopsis: 

Minding his own business one spring afternoon, Loki finds himself approached by Nick Fury, who brings with him a most curious situation in need of advice.

It turns out that Goose is carrying a whole, uh, kit and caboodle of trouble inside her.

Notes: Arguably the most popular Codex short whether you read the series or not, Nick Fury as a cat daddy was an irresistible setup. This fic introduces flerkens into the Codex, though, with both Loki and Nebula gaining flerkittens that will become part of later stories.

Turn the Page

Synopsis: 

Torn from one nightmare and tossed into another, Loki isn't touched to discover he's Stephen Strange's first choice to run to when magical attacks strike the New York Sanctum. The goal of this assault? Reclaiming the Darkhold, held prisoner by Strange for the last few years.

Notes: The Darkhold has been the focus point of a sub-sub arc throughout the three series, from the very first Codex story, to Season of the Witch, and finally, at damn last, ending here. Aggie Harkness returns, and some old plot threads from The Janus Paradox get tied off in this one. The epilogue also builds on a hint from Escape Velocity and introduces us formally to another member of the Children of Thanos.

The Queen’s Gambit

Synopsis:

Long ago, Odin All-Father buried the secret of his first two children. Baldur, who tragically never left his crib, and Hela, who rose to power under a deadly shadow. Now an exile on the world that gave her its name, Hela hatefully waits for a freedom she suspects will never come - only to find that a visitor has somehow arrived after all.

Notes: 2019′s Halloween fic is themed after Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal and has Mistress Death swapping tales with Hela, herself a would-be incarnation of mortality. This fic builds on Odin’s tale as told at the end of Ocean Deep and Cold, and will return to importance in an upcoming fic.

The Family We Choose (ongoing 4/20)

Synopsis:

Loki has been contacted by Nebula, working on the fringes of the galaxy as an intelligence broker since the fall of Thanos, and he suspects that what news she has to share won't be anything pretty. But things begin to shift beyond his predictions before he catches up with her, as two human friends latch on for the ride.

Notes:

This is where previous plot threads are starting to pull together. Building on the events of The Shadows of Asgard, Darwin’s Dragon, Escape Velocity, Cat Dads, and the entire theme of Loki trying to rebuild his life as a whole person and not just a loner easily driven to madness, this fic is ongoing.

Upcoming:

All these listings are subject to future whims.

The One About Jotunheim - A civil war will threaten to tear apart the fragile peace Queen Farbauti has forged, while Loki, unmoored by the possible ramifications of that conflict, begins to work on another family alliance of his own. This is a tentative synopsis and may change.

1-2 possible shorts, including one with Captain Tam and Kara on Earth

The One About Kings - Odin prepares to pass on his crown at last, but as usual, there are intense conflicts.

The Children’s Crusade - the final showdown between Loki and the remaining Children of Thanos... and a few awful surprises.

The ‘Verse:

The Lion in Spring

Synopsis:

Recent events have left each Agent of SHIELD in emotional disarray, and Daisy Johnson most of all.  So when Coulson asks Loki to reach out and help her, he accepts... but in his own way.  A storyteller first and foremost, Loki reveals a story of old Asgard - the embattled start of love between Odin and Frigga.

Notes: Will spoil the end of Season 3 AoS. Is 90% a flashback tale.

Season of the Witch

Synopsis:

When horror engulfs a small Pennsylvanian town at the edge of abandoned Centralia, the Agents of SHIELD are called to investigate.  But when their strangest ally and agent, Loki, fast realizes he knows more about what's going on than he ever wanted to admit, the investigation takes a dark turn into understanding not only the history of the cursed region, but the birth of Chaos itself.

Notes: This is the Oct 2016 Codex Halloween fic, but also ended up paralleling AoS’s season 4 events in very strong and strange ways. Bookends with the original Codex fic, A Clear and Present Loki. Aggie Harkness becomes a recurring character and member of WAND, a magical division of SHIELD currently run by Loki.

Generation of Animals

Synopsis:

A phone call from an unexpected source puts Phil Coulson (along with his unlikeliest friend) on the hunt for a resurrected ghost straight out of the worst nightmares of world history - and on the way, Coulson must remember how to uphold the beliefs of his greatest hero, the currently exiled Captain America.

By punching Nazis.

Lots of Nazis.

Really hard.

Notes: I didn’t handle the 2016 US election very well, and honestly, come 2020, CAN YOU BLAME ME. This was one method of coping. Fortunately, it’s also a pretty rollickin’ story where Loki beats on an awful lot of awful people. The theme of making peace with himself and his place in Asgard and Jotunheim continues on from this story.

Riders on the Storm

Synopsis:

Loki and Doctor Strange are forced to work together to hunt what they discover is a cannibal - and maybe a killer. To pass the time, they share a couple of similarly horrible stories from their pasts, from a bleak ER encounter to Loki's first real battle with the demons and the flames of Muspelheim.

Notes: 2017′s Halloween fic is a longer work that contains substories, similar to We Lived in Castles. Strange and Loki’s aggressive frienemy-ship continues to build. 

The Liminoid Space has a Self-Checkout Lane

Synopsis:

Loki's having a day. The sort of day that makes him long for an era where sacrifices to the Gods were still a thing. Instead, he's in a big box store buying cheap shirts and animal crackers and crappy coffee, and he's none too happy about it.

Notes: Like some vignettes in the original arc, this one doesn’t connect to anything. It does have a nice but short flashback to Loki being a dumb kid too smart for his own good.

An Ocean Deep and Cold

Synopsis:

Having uncovered the trail of even more buried family secrets, Thor turns to his brother to help him puzzle out what he believes may be a secret of his own lineage - but Loki's weariness with Odin's faults means he is at first unwilling to help.

When he does give in, the brothers together must face what the Realms have to offer them for all-new struggles, from Earth's intrigue to Alfheim's bureaucracy... and they must also share the weight of their own fraught relationship.

Notes: The finale of the shorter ‘Verse arc, Loki finds himself finally making a kind of real and lasting peace not only with his brother, and with Odin’s bizarre way of parenting, but also with his heritage. Farbauti has a strong role here that will come back up in the next arc, and this fic lays out where Hela is in the Codex continuity.

Additional Works:

All Our Dawns

Synopsis:

Young Thor has a problem, a suddenly sickly and withdrawn Loki who won't confide what's troubling him. With nothing else to do but turn to their mother for help, it's up to Frigga to find a way to help Loki walk out of the dark - not only for the sake of his childhood, but his future.

Notes: This short predates Generation of Animals and was part of the same coping mechanism - looking for hope in darker times.

Run, Black Rabbit

Synopsis:

A quiet tribute from a trickster to a storyteller.

Notes: A very short fic written on the day I learned author Richard Adams died. Watership Down has an important but understated role in some of the Codex stories, as Loki gradually recognizes both the fragility and strength of littler creatures - and also his own parallels with El-ahrairah, the Prince with a Thousand Enemies.

Black Spot on the Sun

Synopsis:

When Thor and Loki are sent ahead of a war party to warn a village of a coming attack, the young princes discover they're too late and need a new plan. Loki's wits and Thor's steel have to find a way to defend the people long enough for them to survive - but is Loki's solution Asgard's way?

Notes: Another short fic and something of a trial run for the next one. Written in bursts over the course of a long and difficult month, I was proud to be able to finish it on the day the first Thor: Ragnarok trailer dropped.

Let Me Tell You About the Time I...

Synopsis:

Loki has been here before.

Enough that not only does he have opinions on what he's going through, but plans.

The ‘Verse:

The Lion in Spring

Synopsis:

Recent events have left each Agent of SHIELD in emotional disarray, and Daisy Johnson most of all.  So when Coulson asks Loki to reach out and help her, he accepts... but in his own way.  A storyteller first and foremost, Loki reveals a story of old Asgard - the embattled start of love between Odin and Frigga.

Notes: Will spoil the end of Season 3 AoS. Is 90% a flashback tale, and also bookends much later with The Shadows of Asgard.

Season of the Witch

Synopsis:

When horror engulfs a small Pennsylvanian town at the edge of abandoned Centralia, the Agents of SHIELD are called to investigate.  But when their strangest ally and agent, Loki, fast realizes he knows more about what's going on than he ever wanted to admit, the investigation takes a dark turn into understanding not only the history of the cursed region, but the birth of Chaos itself.

Notes: The fic that induced brain trauma in me. This is the Oct 2016 Codex Halloween fic, but also ended up paralleling AoS’s season 4 events in very strong and strange ways. Bookends with the original Codex fic, A Clear and Present Loki.

Generation of Animals

Synopsis:

A phone call from an unexpected source puts Phil Coulson (along with his unlikeliest friend) on the hunt for a resurrected ghost straight out of the worst nightmares of world history - and on the way, Coulson must remember how to uphold the beliefs of his greatest hero, the currently exiled Captain America.

By punching Nazis.

Lots of Nazis.

Really hard.

Notes: I didn’t handle the 2016 US election very well at first. This was one method of coping. Fortunately, it’s also a pretty rollickin’ story where Loki beats on an awful lot of awful people.

Additional Works:

All Our Dawns

Synopsis:

Young Thor has a problem, a suddenly sickly and withdrawn Loki who won't confide what's troubling him. With nothing else to do but turn to their mother for help, it's up to Frigga to find a way to help Loki walk out of the dark - not only for the sake of his childhood, but his future.

Notes: This short fic predates Generation of Animals and was part of the same coping mechanism - looking for hope in darker times.

Run, Black Rabbit

Synopsis:

A quiet tribute from a trickster to a storyteller.

Notes: A very short fic written on the day I learned author Richard Adams died. Watership Down has an important but understated role in some of the Codex stories, as Loki gradually recognizes both the fragility and strength of littler creatures - and also his own parallels with El-ahrairah, the Prince with a Thousand Enemies.

Black Spot on the Sun

Synopsis:

When Thor and Loki are sent ahead of a war party to warn a village of a coming attack, the young princes discover they're too late and need a new plan. Loki's wits and Thor's steel have to find a way to defend the people long enough for them to survive - but is Loki's solution Asgard's way?

Notes: Another short fic and something of a trial run for the next one. Written in bursts over the course of a long and difficult month, I was proud to be able to finish it on the day the first Thor: Ragnarok trailer dropped.

The Shadows of Asgard

Synopsis:

Trapped by memories of his past and haunting his own present, Loki, the shadow king of Asgard, finds himself hunted by something far more deadly than any ghost. Without allies or any friendly word to help him, he must figure out why he’s not the hunter’s sole target - and what any chance of surviving his stolen throne might have to do with his buried youth.

The SHIELD Codices: A Clear and Present Loki

Synopsis:

Loki is forced to see that all permutations of his future ultimately end at Ragnarok, and like so many iterations before him demands his own chance to unbind himself from an unwanted destiny. The odds are worse than terrible, but one path might be found in the company of his enemies: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. currently busy with enough troubles of their own.

Notes: Season 1 of AoS. Drama and horror themes. Was not originally written with a longer arc in mind despite setting up the roots of the whole thing. How innocent I was then.

Rolling Thunder

Synopsis:

Director Coulson's first months in his new role are not destined to be easy ones. When a new threat from an old source sets out to make SHIELD's recovery more difficult than ever, Coulson needs every ally, every tool he can get to draw his opponent out - even if they come at risky costs.

Notes: Pre Season 2 of AoS. Technothriller SF. The arc ‘formally’ begins here, but is one of the most skippable of the bunch if it doesn’t grab you.

In the Bleak Midwinter

Synopsis:

'Tis the season! To celebrate, Coulson brings his team (and the mildly baffled Loki) together for one night's holiday party. Eat, drink, and reminisce for the days gone by and to think on hopes yet to come.

Notes: Starts the traditions of one-shots between longer works and occasional holiday specials. Arc-wise, mostly only serves to soften tensions between Coulson and Loki.

An Honest Man

Synopsis:

Since his struggle with not only the Darkhold but his own nature, Loki has found a strange new path in life, and grudging allies of a sort he'd never expected - but it's not an easily kept path. Now, accused of the greatest monstrosity of his life and awaiting the most final of consequences, Loki needs at his side the one thing he himself has never been - an honest man.

Notes: Smash together a legal thriller and a jaunty space opera featuring Rocket and Groot, and you get this. Personal favorite. Major arc work preparing for a new SHIELD Agent, Loki, with a character introduction that pays off in multiple later stories. Was the point I realized how screwed I really was.

Stitched

Synopsis:

In between leaving Asgard and the start of a new duty are the odd little moments of trying to fit in to a new place. This is three of those brief moments - boring paperwork, a stressful encounter in the lab, and a lesson on what starting over could really mean.

Notes: Vignettes, mostly fluff, establishes becoming an Agent and certain emotional issues important to later arc.

An Agent of Chaos

Synopsis:

What starts as a gruesome handful of murders across the US East Coast becomes something far more dangerous when the truth behind them is revealed.  The Agents of SHIELD find themselves entangled in an international incident that could not only wipe them off the map, but possibly destabilize the entire world.  Only Director Coulson’s team and two of SHIELD’s most notorious agents can possibly change the odds.

But first one of them will have to be convinced to not kill the other.

Notes: Tom Clancy gets weird with the introduction of Latveria as a global threat. Features Natasha Romanoff. Sets up several major details paid off in the finale.

Sleipnir

Synopsis:

A necessary visit to Asgard brings with it not only the rediscovery of lost fragments of Loki's past, but a reminder that curiosity has costs that he might not have wanted to pay.

Notes: Another character short. Importantly, it introduces Farbauti, the new Queen of Jotunheim.

The Janus Paradox

Synopsis:

When an implausible crime strikes the home of Doctor Stephen Strange, he unexpectedly reaches out to a recovering SHIELD for help in solving the mystery behind it.  But Loki - still one of Coulson's most unusual allies - thinks there's much more to the riddle presented than the Sorcerer Supreme is letting on.

Notes: Returns to the eldritch horror of the original Codex fic, reintroduces an important character from Honest Man, and goes all the way to a random Agent of Asgard cameo as it sets up the coming showdown with Thanos.

We Lived In Castles: A Codex Halloween

Synopsis:

Loki's investigation of a series of break-ins, a fire, and subsequent frightened locals at a closed-down youth reformatory somewhere in the heart of New England becomes a short series of tales within another tale of his own.  As he discovers the unlikely squatter in the old facility, he allows the figure to accompany him as he sorts out the boundaries of what actually happened in the halls after night fell.

Notes: A longer holiday special and the major stand-alone fic in the bunch. Read it whenever you want. Close contender for personal favorite. I wrote it in four days before Halloween and nearly died. Do not do this.

Mr. Fix-it

Synopsis:

Long nights often lead to old doubts and not even the Director is immune to the ghosts of a past that never quite leaves him alone.

Notes: Short work, Coulson-centric with no Loki, sets up some important details about Lola used next fic.

A Snake Came Crawling

Synopsis:

Thor's visions and Loki's warnings combine when the God of Thunder confesses his fears about a great and final doom gathering around Asgard.  But Ragnarok's legend is known - the twilight of the Gods coming at the end of a great war, and the betrayals of Loki.  A destiny Loki has refused.  

If he will not attempt to bring the cycle of the gods to a close - who will?

Notes: In which we write a version of Thor: Ragnarok that bears no resemblance to Thor: Ragnarok, but heavily sets up the board for the series’ equally incorrect version of Infinity War.

Darwin’s Dragon

Synopsis:

In the wake of Asgard's near-destruction, deals need to be made and plans set into action before Thanos strikes again.  But that doesn't mean those preparations can't be a little fun.  In a fit of whimsy, Loki takes Fitz to a galactic arena to observe a title fight between mecha warrior and implacable beast.  But is that really all he's up to?

Hint: The answer is 'No.'

Notes: Curiously predicts The Grandmaster, is a backdoor Pacific Rim homage, sets up several important details for the big show next.

When the Man Comes Around

Synopsis:

When Thanos strikes a distant Nova Corp outpost with the power of his newest Infinity Stone in his fist, Loki and the Agents of SHIELD know that time has run out not only for them, but for the entire universe.   All hopes now rest on Loki’s closely held, mysterious plan to halt the Titan’s advance - but for many, the question will forever linger: Can he be trusted?

Notes: 12 fics pay off to this three-part epic monstrosity, in which Loki’s loyalties are tested, his ties to Thanos are revealed, how Thanos will never deserve a Father’s Day card from anybody, and there’s a part where The Hulk punches Thanos in the face. Third contender for personal favorite, which is pretty good considering the context.

With Postscript to Follow

Synopsis:

Loki comes to his friend's side one more time, and then finds good cause to celebrate all that has gone before.

Notes: When I wrote this, I wasn’t sure I’d be writing more Loki/Codex style fics. I did, and sometimes still do. They’ll have their own masterpost. This is a melancholy but hopeful piece. It caps off the Codex arc and everything it meant to the characters. All other fics written after this point try to bear this finale in mind. It’s up to you if you read it after WTMCA or if you leave it for some later date, perhaps for when there are no more Loki stories.