Coulson's Team

"I don't know, May! I don't know! There's got to be something here! This means something! This has to mean something! The world needs us! HYDRA is out there! We cannot let them win! We we cannot let them define us! Do you understand that? We are not agents of nothing! We are agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and that still carries weight! It has to carry weight! After everything we've been through, that carries weight!"

- Phil Coulson

After Phil Coulson recovered from his injuries sustained before the Battle of New York, Melinda May put together a team to investigate the cases S.H.I.E.L.D. had not yet classified. When HYDRA came out of the shadows and into the light during the events of the HYDRA Uprising, they enacted Odyssey Protocol and erased all online proof of their existence, vanishing. The team was effectively dissolved when Coulson become the new Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., as they relocated to their new base of operations, the Playground, to begin rebuilding S.H.I.E.L.D. as the core members of the organization. The team was temporarily reassembled when Coulson needed Grant Ward's help to take down a HYDRA base in the Arctic, only to be permanently dissolved when Ward deserted them after the mission.

Coulson's Team
Some time after the Battle of New York, Melinda May assembled a team of agents to keep an eye on Phil Coulson's recovery for Nick Fury. Coulson, however, believed he had set up the small, highly trained team of agents to tackle the cases that had not been classified yet. The team originally consisted of Coulson, Melinda May, Grant Ward (a specialist to put down Coulson if necessary), Leo Fitz (a technician to reprogram Coulson's brain), and Jemma Simmons (to repair Coulson's body). They were first sent to investigate a superhuman, Mike Peterson, who was able to survive an exploding building, and a hacktivist group, called the Rising Tide, that seemed to have information. Skye, a member of the Rising Tide, met with Peterson to warn him about S.H.I.E.L.D., saying that they cover up superhero-based events and that she can help him, which he declined.

Later, Skye was abducted by Coulson and Ward and questioned on their plane. She did not cooperate initially, but eventually revealed what she knew. After visiting the explosion scene, Coulson's team was able to recreate it and learn that it was caused by another subject exploding due to Extremis. While attempting to get info to the team, Skye was kidnapped by Peterson, now on the run from the authorities. Coulson's team was able to track them down and subdue Peterson, without him causing mass damage, while stopping an assassin that was sent by Dr. Debbie. With Peterson in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, Coulson offered Skye a place on the team and they went to investigate an 0-8-4

Peru
"You used to have 100 men at your disposal...and now?" "A hand-picked team, and yes, they're that good."

- Camilla Reyes and Phil Coulson

Skye was integrated into Phil Coulson's team as a consultant and the team's next assignment was in Peru. Their mission was to track a "an object of unknown origin" or "0-8-4". The team arrived and quickly realized that the object was actually a piece of forgotten HYDRA technology powered by Tesseract energy. Coulson met with a former ally, Camilla Reyes, and brought her team aboard the plane.

While on the plane, Reyes betrayed Coulson and had planned to take the HYDRA weapon for herself, so she could destroy the Peruvian rebels. The squabbling team members banded together, utilized each of their talents, and took out Reyes' men. Reyes was taken into custody. Skye texted another member of the Rising Tide, confirming that she had infiltrated Coulson's team. Director Nick Fury later met Coulson on the Bus and scolded him for the damage to the plane and reminded him about the risk Skye poses.

The Asset
S.H.I.E.L.D. then searched for one of its assets, Dr. Franklin Hall, who was kidnapped by his former research partner and CEO of Quinn Worldwide named Ian Quinn. His soldiers used a gravity device on the S.H.I.E.L.D. convoy that was transporting him. Quinn wanted to use Hall to take control of the planet's gravity by building a giant Gravitonium generator. Phil Coulson and his team headed to Malta. Skye volunteered to infiltrate Quinn's mansion during his party so that Coulson and Grant Ward could rescue Hall. Skye tricked Quinn into believing she is betraying S.H.I.E.L.D. for Rising Tide to get his guard down. However, Coulson discovered that Hall perpetrated his own escape and wanted to destroy the massive device, believing that no one should be able to possess the technology. Coulson warned him that doing so would end up killing millions. There was a violent disagreement, which lead to Coulson being forced to leave Hall to die as he fell into the middle of the generator. Coulson ordered that the Gravitonium be placed under high security and off the books in the Fridge. S.H.I.E.L.D. did not notice that Hall was still somehow alive, but trapped within the Gravitonium.

Akela Amador
After a series of thefts throughout the world that were almost impossibly premeditated, Phil Coulson and his team investigated and uncovered the identity of the thief: his former protégé Akela Amador.

Coulson had presumed that she was dead and did not believe that she was capable of turning on S.H.I.E.L.D. The team nearly caught up to her, but she managed to evade them. Melinda May took matters into her own hands upon finding Amador's hotel room. Coulson caught up to her and found out she was being blackmailed through a Backscatter X-Ray Eye Implant. The device also had a fail-safe bomb in case she rebelled.

Coulson took her to the Bus and hijacked her feed so Grant Ward could take over her new mission. Ward broke into the Todorov Building and discovered an image of a mysterious chalk drawing. Leo Fitz took out the bomb while the others worked to remove the camera from Amador's right eye. Coulson caught up to who he thought was the mastermind behind Amador's thefts known only as the Englishman, but the man was quickly killed through a similar device to Amador's. Coulson and Ward were left to wonder who was behind her thefts. Amador was taken away by S.H.I.E.L.D. officers.

Centipede Project
When Index-registered pyrokinetic Chan Ho Yin was kidnapped from his Hong Kong apartment by a woman named Raina, the team was sent to investigate.

Chan was brought to a nearby lab where Debbie managed to harvest the fire-resistant platelets in Chan's blood. The platelets allowed the Extremis element of the Centipede Serum to be stabilized without the explosive after-effects. Having gotten what they needed from him, Debbie ordered Chan be drained, killing him.

But before that could happen, Chan was released by a S.H.I.E.L.D. extraction team led by Phil Coulson and Agent Quan Chen. Unfortunately, Chan (now going by the name "Scorch"), was tired of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s interference in his life, and killed Quan. Chan then confronted Debbie and Raina. Raina abandoned Debbie, leaving her to be incinerated by Chan. Raina escaped, but the lab was destroyed when Chan detonated from an Extremis over-dose.

Before the destruction of the lab, S.H.I.E.L.D. consultant Skye managed to extract a few files from the building's mainframe, enough to give S.H.I.E.L.D some new leads on their activities.

Battle of Greenwich
After the Battle of Greenwich, the team was sent to London for cleanup. The pieces of Dark Elf technology left behind after the battle were collected by S.H.I.E.L.D., and the damage was cleaned up overnight. After the cleanup, the team was called in to investigate a report of a strange artifact discovered in a Norwegian pine tree that was dated at over 5,000 years old. The artifact in question was a piece of the Berserker Staff, an Asgardian weapon that granted the user superhuman strength. It had been stolen by a couple belonging to a paganist hate group. (Basically, they were obsessed with anything Asgardian.)

The team consulted a professor of Norse mythology, Elliot Randolph. It was he who took them about the powers of the staff. (Including the granting of strength to the holder, the staff also "shone a light into your darkest places," meaning that it would dredge up memories of things that the user had tried hardest to forget. An example is when Agent Grant Ward picked up the staff, he remembered visions of his childhood and brothers.) They also learned that the staff had been broken into three parts, which sparked a race between the hate group and Coulson's team to find all three pieces.

The second piece was recovered by Professor Randolph in the catacombs of Seville, Spain, but was then stolen by the paganists. It was during this search that Agent Ward picked up the staff and was subjected to its effects. The professor was taken into custody by Agent Phil Coulson, and under interrogation, discovered that Randolph was the original Berserker that first wielded the staff. Randolph also revealed the location of the third and final portion of the staff, which was in a monastary in Ireland. When the team arrived with Randolph in tow, they realized that, once the location of the piece was revealed, the paganists had beaten them to the spot. The leader of the paganists stabbed Randolph in the chest, and a fight between the two groups broke out. After the fight ended with Agents Melinda May and Ward victorious, the team shipped the staff off to the Fridge, and stayed in a hotel for a few days before returning to the Bus.

Kidnapping of Phil Coulson
Edison Po was broken out of Havenworth Federal Penitentiary by a squadron of Centipede Soldiers. They took him to the new Centipede lab in Oakland, California, where Raina updated him on the project's status. Po determined that S.H.I.E.L.D. presented a threat that needed to be taken care of. He set a trap for S.H.I.E.L.D. with three Centipede soldiers laying in wait.

However S.H.I.E.L.D. had recruited the Centipede Serum-powered Michael Peterson. Peterson's presence turned the tide against the Centipede soldiers, but it also gave Po and Raina the inspiration for a plan of action.

Raina kidnapped Michael's son Ace and threatened to have him killed if Peterson did not obey her instructions. Believing that Centipede wanted to exchange Peterson for his son, Phil Coulson accompanied Peterson to the exchange site in Long Beach, California. Seeing no other way to save his son, Peterson betrayed Coulson to Raina. After seeing to his son's safety, Peterson tried to make up for his actions by returning to rescue Coulson, but he was seemingly killed in an explosion.

Raina escaped the scene with Coulson by way of helicopter. Upon leaving the scene, Raina explained to Coulson that their true interest was in the nature of Coulson's mysterious revival after his "death" before the Battle of New York, as this is seemingly the key to "Stage Three" of the Group's unknown plans. S.H.I.E.L.D. left no stone unturned in their search for Coulson. A sting operation performed by Coulson's team under the direction of Agent Victoria Hand netted the international criminal Vanchat, who had had dealings with Centipede Project in the past. Between the intel gained from Vanchat, as well as an independent study of Vanchat's finances by Skye, S.H.I.E.L.D. determined the locations of several Centipede operations around the globe, as well as Coulson's location in the Mojave Desert.

While S.H.I.E.L.D. teams struck simultaneously at multiple Centipede locations across the globe, Coulson's team headed to Mojave to rescue Coulson. After subduing a cadre of Centipede-powered soldiers, Coulson was located and Raina taken into custody.

The Guest House
After the events of Phil Coulson's kidnapping, S.H.I.E.L.D. became interested in finding the Clairvoyant. Coulson's Team boarded a train in Italy on which a Cybertek security group were shipping a package to Ian Quinn. Skye and Leo Fitz tracked the Cybertek package to Quinn's mansion, where, in the basement, Skye was confronted by Quinn, who revealed that Mike Peterson is alive, having been kept in a Hyperbaric Chamber. The Cybertek package contained a high-tech prosthetic leg which Quinn then fitted onto Peterson's amputated right leg. Quinn then shot Skye twice in the stomach and left her for dead while Peterson escapes. S.H.I.E.L.D. then raided the mansion and Quinn was arrested. Skye; however, was left near death and was temporarily sustained by being placed into Peterson's hyperbaric chamber.

Skye was rushed to a S.H.I.E.L.D. Trauma Zentrum to save her life. The doctors were only able to stabilize her, which forced Coulson to bring her to the S.H.I.E.L.D. location where he was revived. Agents John Garrett and Antoine Triplett boarded the Bus in order to claim Ian Quinn but instead helped Coulson's team in recovering the drug that revived him from the "Guest House", which was a former top-secret storage facility at a classified location that was previously affiliated with S.H.I.E.L.D. Coulson, Grant Ward, Garrett and Fitz entered and found the place rigged with explosives after they took out the only two guards. Fitz was able to find the drug, while Coulson found a room marked T.A.H.I.T.I. Fitz got back to the Bus to deliver the drug while Coulson explored the room. Inside, Coulson found more of the drug as well as discovering that the drug is coming from the upper half of a blue-skinned humanoid corpse.

The team was able to get out before the facility exploded, but Coulson raced to prevent Fitz giving Skye the drug, based on what he has seen in the T.A.H.I.T.I. room. Fitz managed to give the drug to Skye quickly enough to save her.

Return of Lady Sif
S.H.I.E.L.D. was summoned to investigate an energy reading in the desert consistent with the imminent arrival of an Asgardian. They encountered Lady Sif, who had come to Earth seeking Lorelei, an Asgardian criminal who had traveled to Earth seeking to enslave humanity.

Phil Coulson's team and Sif traveled to a biker bar Lorelei was using as a hideout, but after a short battle, Lorelei enthralled Agent Grant Ward and escaped with him. The pair traveled to Las Vegas, where Lorelei learned much of Earth's governments from Ward, and used this information to formulate a planetary takeover. However, Ward informed Lorelei of the threat posed by his team, and together, the two infiltrated the Bus in an attempt to kill them. Lorelei enthralled Leo Fitz, who in turn isolated the rest of the team while Ward took control of the plane. However, Lorelei's plans were ruined before they could even begin, as she underestimated the threat posed by Melinda May, who distracted Ward from Sif as Lorelei dueled her. Sif bested Lorelei in combat, silencing her with the collar. The enthralled were freed from Lorelei's control immediately.

Sif took Lorelei back to Asgard, where she most likely returned to imprisonment.

Hunt for the Clairvoyant
After Agents John Garrett and Antoine Triplett were attacked in a S.H.I.E.L.D. safehouse by former S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Mike Peterson (now going by the name Deathlok), Phil Coulson invited them, Victoria Hand, Felix Blake and Jasper Sitwell to the Bus to hunt for the Clairvoyant. The agents were split into teams so that they could pursue leads on different Clairvoyant candidates. Before Sitwell could take part in the mission, he was ordered by Director Nick Fury to go to the Lemurian Star.

Felix Blake and Melinda May were sent to a Tranquility Bridge nursing home to search for Thomas Nash who was a catatonic man who claimed to be a psychic. The pair however encountered Deathlok and Blake was critically injured by him. Before Deathlok escaped, Blake managed to tag him with Tag Rounds. S.H.I.E.L.D. concluded that Nash is the Clairvoyant because of Deathlok's presence along with the falsifying of his nursing home records. A S.H.I.E.L.D. team converged on Deathlok's next location which was an abandoned horse racing track. Meanwhile Triplett and Jemma Simmons stayed behind at the Hub with Hand.

The team encountered Deathlok again, but he fled into the sewers soon after being engaged. The team however discovered a hidden room where Thomas Nash who was a vegetative man on life support who had to speak through a computer, was hiding. Nash surrendered and boasted that as the Clairvoyant, he would always be watching them. When he said that Centipede Project will kill Skye, Ward shot him in the chest, killing him. Ward was detained for his actions and accused by Coulson for working with the Clairvoyant by shooting Nash to misdirect away from the Clairvoyant's true identity.

HYDRA Uprising
Coulson's team started arguing among themselves after Phil Coulson and Skye figured out that the Clairvoyant was actually a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent with a high clearance who was predicting people's actions because he had access to their S.H.I.E.L.D. files. When Leo Fitz discovered Melinda May's hidden phone line, he told Skye who told Coulson as he was interrogating Ward. May tried to incapacitate Fitz with an I.C.E.R., but she was trapped at gunpoint between Coulson and Skye. As they argued by their secrets and loyalties, Victoria Hand redirected the Bus towards the Hub to kill them.

Hand believed that Coulson's team were sleeper agents for HYDRA, because the HYDRA Uprising had begun, and in the Hub with her were only four other agents she found loyal. John Garrett had two S.H.I.E.L.D. UAVs chasing him, but he called Coulson who piloted the Bus and saved him. May was knocked out and put in detention with Ward as Garrett boarded. They assumed that Hand was the Clairvoyant when Skye discovered a secret message telling HYDRA agents worldwide to attack. When Coulson's team arrived at the Hub, they decided to find Jemma Simmons and Antoine Triplett because they were sent there as consultants on Deathlok. Triplett and Simmons proved their loyalty to S.H.I.E.L.D., but Hand was adamant that Coulson was a traitor. Ward convinced Coulson that if Hand was the Clairvoyant, she should not be allowed access to the secrets and weapons they had procured from their various missions; therefore, Skye created an encrypted hard drive with the information. The team separated into Ward and Skye and Coulson with the others and Garrett to free Simmons and imprison Hand.

Garrett accidentally revealed that he was the Clairvoyant and a HYDRA agent as he pushed Coulson to kill Hand by showing that he knew information about him and Raina that Coulson revealed to no one. As Garrett attempted to have May and Coulson killed by other HYDRA loyalists, Skye and Ward ignited an explosion that saved them. Hand had Garrett arrested.

As she was taking Garrett to the Fridge, Victoria Hand was killed by Grant Ward, another sleeper agent.

Ward freed Raina from her imprisonment as Coulson's team was assessing the losses of S.H.I.E.L.D. to HYDRA. Glenn Talbot called to send peacekeepers to the Hub, so Coulson's team fled and ultimately found Providence, a secret base Nick Fury had. They met Eric Koenig as Garrett and Ward raided the Fridge for its weaponry and to free its prisoners, including Ian Quinn and Marcus Daniels. When Koenig told Coulson's team that HYDRA captured the Fridge, Skye told Ward the location of Providence. Ward and Garrett learned that Raina couldn't access the Hard Drive, so Ward went to Providence to retrieve the pass codes or Skye herself. Coulson's team separated to pursue Marcus Daniels; May left because Coulson did not trust her and Ward and Skye stayed with Koenig in order to find other escapees. Ward killed Koenig to keep his loyalty secret, but Skye discovered the body. She boarded the Bus with him anyway, knowing that he was a HYDRA agent because she wanted to know his motives. She discovered that he wanted access to the hard drive.

Meanwhile, the others battled Blackout and learned of Coulson's relationship with Audrey Nathan, the cellist and Daniels' obsession. After they defeated him, they found the Bus and the others gone.

When Fitz found the body of Koenig and Simmons did an autopsy, the teammates deduced that Skye was abducted and Ward was a traitor. Just then, Glenn Talbot came to Providence with the peacekeepers, led there by Maria Hill. After conversing with Coulson, Hill decided to help Coulson's team to escape Talbot and to retrieve Skye. Both were accomplished, but not before Ward and Deathlok got the codes they wanted from the hard drive.

The next morning, Coulson's team decided to raid Cybertek to learn all they can about Deathlok. In the Cybertek Corporate Headquarters, May and Coulson learned that Garrett was the original Deathlok. They also learned of the Barbershop Headquarters. Going to Cuba, Fitz and Simmons found the Bus at a separate place from the Barbershop, but they were captured by Ward. Aboard the Bus, Fitz attacked Garrett with an EMP, nearly killing him, but angering Ward to the point of ejecting Fitz and Simmons from the Bus into the ocean in a Medical Pod. When the rest of Coulson's team attacked the Barbershop, HYDRA Agent Kaminsky awaited them with the Berserker Staff and a team of Centipede Soldiers.

Battle at Cybertek
Coulson's team ultimately escaped Kaminsky and destroyed the Barbershop Headquarters when May took the Berserker Staff and destroyed the building's support columns. The team used a program written by Skye to find the Centipede Project in New Mexico and led an assault against them there. Meanwhile, Nick Fury rescued Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons, before he went to help in the battle by providing Coulson with the Destroyer Armor Prototype Gun. After defeating Garrett and Ward and freeing the hostages, including Ace Peterson, Coulson's team was given a new mission by Fury: rebuild S.H.I.E.L.D. with Coulson as Director and the Playground as their headquarters. As Coulson rebuilt S.H.I.E.L.D., the team ceased to exist and was folded into the larger organization.

Temporarily Reunited
"This is great. We finally got the team back together."

- Grant Ward

Phil Coulson wanted to rescue Deathlok from HYDRA and find the Scepter so he reunited Grant Ward with Melinda May, Leo Fitz and himself to sneak in and lead an Attack on the Arctic HYDRA Research Facility. Jemma Simmons volunteered for the mission, saying that her medical skills would be necessary since HYDRA was disassembling Deathlok; she had the ulterior motive of wanting to use a Splinter Bomb to kill Ward. Skye left Afterlife, with the help of Gordon, to join the team so that she could rescue Lincoln Campbell who was also captured by HYDRA and was at the Arctic HYDRA Research Facility. Upon Skye's arrival, Ward noted that Coulson's Team was reunited. However, tensions were extremely high; Ward attempted to give a debriefing about how Sunil Bakshi was his mole in the facility, but he was afraid to turn his back on the others as he spoke. He explained that he was apologetic for his actions and sought redemption; no one believed him. Coulson split the team into two parts: one for rescue, the other to disable the base for Robert Gonzales to attack.

During the assault, Simmons accidentally killed Bakshi with her Splinter Bomb when he defended Ward. Coulson and May had words as Coulson snuck off to access HYDRA's computers to locate the Scepter. Peterson and Campbell were both rescued and brought to the Playground.

Meanwhile, Ward disappeared; he later called Coulson and said that he did not want to be imprisoned again.

Reviewing Ward's Life
Phil Coulson took each member of the original team to the interrogation room of the Playground and interviewed them; he wanted to know every minute detail that he could learn about their experiences with Grant Ward after he assassinated Coulson's girlfriend Rosalind Price.

Purpose
The team's goal is to deal with superhuman cases that S.H.I.E.L.D. has not classified and are usually called upon to deal with cases involving superhuman or supernatural events. The team also had a secondary purpose assigned by Director Nick Fury and known only to Melinda May: the observation of Agent Phil Coulson after his resurrection.

Skills
Each member of the team has their own special skill set that contributes to the team. Antoine Triplett and Melinda May being the team's combat specialists, Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons the Scientists, and Skye self-proclaimed "Hacktivist" of the team.

Allies

 * S.H.I.E.L.D. (First Incarnation)
 * Nick Fury † - Director
 * Maria Hill † - Deputy Director
 * Victoria Hand †
 * Felix Blake
 * Quan Chen †
 * Eric Koenig †
 * Billy Koenig
 * Streiten
 * Shaw
 * Anne Weaver
 * Tyler
 * Mack
 * Jazuat
 * Davis
 * Sif
 * Akela Amador - Former Enemy turned Ally
 * Archaeologist
 * Elliot Randolph
 * Deathlok - Enemy while under HYDRA coercion, now Ally

Enemies

 * HYDRA
 * Jasper Sitwell † - Former S.H.I.E.L.D. Colleague
 * Centipede Project
 * John Garrett † (Clairvoyant) - Former S.H.I.E.L.D. Colleague turned Enemy
 * Grant Ward † - Former Teammate turned Enemy
 * Raina †
 * Ian Quinn
 * Debbie †
 * Englishman †
 * Scorch †
 * Edison Po †
 * Kaminsky
 * Policia Militar de Perú
 * Camilla Reyes
 * Perez
 * Lopez
 * Nahui †
 * Cusi †
 * Vilca
 * Norse Paganists
 * Petra Larsen
 * Jakob Nystrom
 * Cybertek
 * Sofia †
 * Carlo Mancini †
 * Luca Russo †
 * Tobias Ford †
 * Donnie Gill
 * Seth Dormer †
 * Lorelei
 * Marcus Daniels †