Toolbox

"What is it?" "Toolbox, to help you build it back up."

- Phil Coulson and Nick Fury

The Toolbox is a compact digital storage device that holds a collected database of classified S.H.I.E.L.D. files, and additional information, privy to any acting Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. The device serves as its own independent computer system, projecting a holographic user interface. Nick Fury gave the Toolbox to Phil Coulson with the purpose of helping Coulson rebuild S.H.I.E.L.D. after an infiltration by HYDRA left the organization fractured.

History
Following the discovery of a vast infiltration of HYDRA sleeper agents among S.H.I.E.L.D.'s ranks, Director Nick Fury went into hiding, where he eventually encountered Agent Phil Coulson and his Team. Due to his trust and respect for Coulson as one of his former top agents, Fury appointed Coulson as the new Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and gave him the Toolbox to help him gather the remnants of S.H.I.E.L.D. and rebuild it from the ground up. The Toolbox gave Coulson the coordinates of the Playground, which Coulson made his new headquarters.

As Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Coulson regularly consulted the files in the Toolbox, keeping it stored in a secret compartment in his desk. The device continued to prove a valuable asset, giving Coulson information on potential resources and personnel as he continued to rebuild. When S.H.I.E.L.D. became caught up in HYDRA's hunt for a decades old artifact that S.H.I.E.L.D. had recently lost, the Toolbox provided files from the Strategic Scientific Reserve revealing the object was the first 0-8-4, an Obelisk that Peggy Carter confiscated in 1945.

Following a string of missions under Coulson's direction that left some of his agents questioning his leadership, two of his agents, Alphonso Mackenzie and Bobbi Morse, began searching for the Toolbox. Mack reviewed the blueprints of the Playground and, using a device hidden in a gift for Coulson that scanned for the Vibranium in the Toolbox, discovered that it was in Phil Coulson's office; he told Morse that everything was proceeding on schedule.

Lance Hunter, having become suspicious of Mack and Morse, confronted Mack demanding to know what they were up to, only for Mack to retaliate by taking Hunter prisoner. Mack revealed that he and Morse were attempting to take the Toolbox under orders from Robert Gonzales, the leader of a separate S.H.I.E.L.D. faction. Gonzales resented Director Nick Fury's previous leadership methods based on secrecy and compartmentalization and denied Coulson's right to be Director as Fury's successor. Believing in the ideal of transparency, Gonzales sought the Toolbox in order to put all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secrets out on the table and continue its leadership under his faction.

While Alphonso Mackenzie provided a distraction, Bobbi Morse stole the Toolbox from Coulson's office. Despite the best efforts of Melinda May and Jemma Simmons, she delivered the Toolbox to Robert Gonzales, who asked Phil Coulson to open it for him. He believed it contained information on individuals and objects of great power whom Gonzales planned on tracking down and eliminating. Coulson refused, so Gonzales passed it on to Anne Weaver to crack.

Robert Gonzales and Bobbi Morse went to Jemma Simmons and Leo Fitz to ask for their help in accessing the Toolbox. When Morse said that they would not be imprisoned if they refused, Fitz refused and resigned from S.H.I.E.L.D.. Simmons later helped Fitz smuggle the Toolbox from the Playground while she remained behind and pretended to work on a counterfeited duplicate.

Capabilities
The Toolbox is a small, pocket-sized, cube shaped block that functions as a compact digital storage device. The device serves as an independent computer system, projecting a holographic user interface that projects files, including written documents, pictures and videos, in independent windows on a large holographic framework that the user can manipulate with hand motions. The Toolbox contains a collected database of classified S.H.I.E.L.D. files, and additional information, privy to any acting Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., including files dating back to the Strategic Scientific Reserve, files from the highest levels of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s former compartmentalized system, and even secret files that were maintained outside of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s record keeping system. In order to protect its valuable secrets, the Toolbox's outer shell is composed of a Vibranium alloy and its interface is encrypted so that only authorized individuals can access it.

Appearances

 * Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
 * Season One
 * Beginning of the End
 * Season Two
 * Shadows (mentioned)
 * Heavy is the Head
 * Aftershocks
 * Love in the Time of HYDRA
 * One Door Closes
 * Afterlife