Shield
SHIELD Agent Phil Coulson was in the (very) private office of Assistant Director Maria Hill finishing up the paperwork on the new team he was assembling. He was looking over their first interview with Agent Grant Ward when that same man walked in with his own paperwork.
Coulson chuckled to himself at something he read, then looked up at Ward. "Agent Ward, I neglected to congratulate you on your perceptiveness this morning."
"Sir?" Ward asked stiffly.
"When you said someone really wanted the initials to spell 'shield'," the senior agent answered.
Ward was politely puzzled. "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to be perceptive. I was going for sarcasm," he said with slightly veiled sarcasm.
"Oh." Coulson was politely disappointed. "So you didn't make a connection?" he offered, like a teacher encouraging a bright but wayward student.
"No, sir."
"Nothing about how SHIELD grew out of the SSR — the Strategic Scientific Reserve," he explained, when Ward still looked blank, but Ward just cocked an eyebrow in inquiry.
Coulson sighed. "That's disappointing," he said mildly.
Without looking up from her paperwork, Hill said, "Not everyone is a history nerd, Coulson." "Like you" was unsaid but not unheard.
Coulson nodded once and addressed Ward in businesslike tones. "The Strategic Scientific Reserve was a military think tank during World War II that, among other things, developed Project Rebirth — the Super Soldier Program."
Ward brightened in comprehension. "Right, the ones who Frankensteined Captain America."
Coulson wrinkled his nose in distaste at the phrasing, but agreed.
He pulled a photograph out of Hill's bottom desk drawer, where the "deceased" agent stashed a few treasures. It was an autographed photo of Captain America that Steve Rogers had left at Phil's memorial service and that the not-quite-dead agent had unabashedly filched.
Coulson touched the image with a careful finger and said, "The founders of SHIELD included some of the Howling Commandos, retired General Chester Phillips, Agent Peggy Carter and Howard Stark — Captain America's best friends. Of course they wanted the initials to spell 'shield'."