A/N: I'm upping the rating on this to T because of non-politically correct language to come. Warning that Steve will use a rude word in this chapter. He is quoting a taunt that was thrown at him. In no way do Steve or this author approve or endorse the use of racial, sexual or ethnic slurs.
Sorry for the late post. I got busy shopping for the Labor Day holiday.
Communication
"People get money out of the wall?" Steve Rogers asked.
"It is the wall of the bank," Leslie Reynolds admitted with a shrug.
"I don't have any money in the bank," Steve pointed out.
"SHIELD has provisions for refugees and defectors, people who come to us with nothing. For now, you're being paid out of that account," Leslie said.
"Does that mean I'm on SHIELD's payroll?"
"I'm sure Director Fury would like that eventually," Leslie admitted. "But you are not obligated," she said firmly. "In any case, you will have your own money soon. The Army owes you back pay, for one thing."
"I don't think they'll pay up when they still think I'm dead," Steve pointed out.
Leslie nodded agreement. "That will be a tussle for a later date. There is another bank account in your name. Hill is working to transfer the funds to your checking account."
"I've never had a checking account," Steve said, distracted by the term. "Only a savings account."
"You do now," Leslie assured him. "They're very common now. And they're not as restricted as they used to be." (When you couldn't cash an out-of-state check, or maybe even an out-of-town check.)
Steve was suspicious of free money. Money always meant obligations. "Where do these funds come from?" he asked.
"Howard Stark," Leslie answered, to Steve's surprise. "Howard always felt guilty about not finding you. He went out and paid for expeditions to find your crash site for nearly 30 years. SHIELD grew out of the SSR and Howard was one of the founders. He set up a fund to provide for continued searches, to pay for a funeral if your body was found and to provide for you if you were somehow found alive. Over the years, finding you alive seemed more and more unlikely, but Howard never changed the provisions. Various SHIELD administrators have tried to break the clause and absorb the funds into the general SHIELD account but Howard had the best lawyers and they locked it up tight. The money isn't part of SHIELD's budget, but it is administered by SHIELD. We know you're alive, so we can transfer that money to you. Maria just has to wade through the legalities."
Steve said, "It can't be much after all these years of expeditions."
Leslie coughed in disagreement. "Howard put cash and Stark Industries stock into the fund. The stock has been very profitable. You could easily live a life of leisure on the income."
"You call him Howard. Did you know him?"
"I met him. SHIELD was still pretty small when I joined, so I knew everyone at least by sight. But I say 'Howard,' because his son Tony is the 'Stark' we think of today."
Steve smiled to think of Howard having a son. Then he frowned. "Is Howard still alive?"
Leslie sighed. She couldn't avoid a direct question. "Howard and his wife were killed in a car accident years ago," she said. "Please don't ask me about anyone else. I promise I will tell you everything. I'll look up everyone you're curious about," Leslie said. "But not right now. My assignment is to get you acclimated to today's society and technology. We will get to history, but first we need to deal with practicalities — communication, navigation, provisions."
Steve smiled at her attempt to phrase things in military style. He saluted. "All right, Quartermaster Reynolds. Let's proceed."
Leslie patted his arm. (It was becoming a habit. It was a nicely muscular arm. Hey, she might be 60, but she's not dead!) "Let's start with the landline," she said.
"I don't know that word, but it's that phone, right?" he pointed at the one that Leslie had plugged into the wall.
"Yes. When cellphones became common, we needed a word for the old-fashioned phones that use wires and phone lines. In some ways, these are more secure than the cellphones, which send signals through the air like radios."
"So they can be intercepted." Steve was quick, and he thought like a military man.
"Yes. There's complicated math to keep the signals encrypted, but there are crooks dedicated to deciphering signals to steal information."
"It's like being at war," Steve said.
"The war on crime has always been around," Leslie said, getting a nod from the man who had lived through the criminal times of Prohibition and the Great Depression.
Leslie showed Steve how the landline worked. It had buttons instead of a dial, but the basic calling procedure was familiar. "You need to know the phone number you want," Leslie said. "There aren't a lot of telephone operators any more. And there are lots more phones, so numbers are longer than they used to be. We added an extra three digits called area codes back when I was in school."
When Steve was comfortable with the landline, Leslie opened her suitcase and pulled out the SHIELD smartphone that had been issued to Steve. It looked a lot like the one Melody Harris had used to distract Steve with pictures of her cats.
He took his new phone gingerly. "So that device Melody had with all the pictures — that's actually a telephone?"
"A cellphone," Leslie agreed. "Because there are relay towers all over the city — all over the world, really — and the zone around each tower is the 'cell.' There are simple cellphones that just make phone calls. Melody's phone and this one are called smartphones, because they do so many things. Drat," Leslie said crossly. "I'm going to have to explain about computers." Honestly, they were never going to get groceries at this rate!
"Computers are people who perform complicated math," Steve said.
"Right. In your day, computer was a job title. Today it generally refers to a machine that does that job."
"Huh, that sounds like what Alan Turing was working on during the war," Steve said, mostly to himself.
"You knew Alan Turing?"
"He was a friend of Peggy's. She took me to visit Bletchley Park a few times when we were in England. Peggy knew a lot of scientists," Steve explained.
"It was the Strategic Scientific Reserve, after all," Leslie agreed.
"It was all way over my head, but it sounded brilliant," Steve said. "Turing never got the support he was due because …" Steve hesitated.
"Because he was homosexual," Leslie said frankly. "It's not a secret these days. And it's not illegal any more, at least in this country. It's all ancient history, Steve."
"Is that what I am, ancient history?" Steve said sadly.
"No, you're covered in the modern history courses," Leslie said, trying to jolly Steve out of his sadness. "Of course, a lot of it is probably wrong," she added, deciding to take a risk. "Some of them suggest that you might have been homosexual."
Leslie wasn't sure what Steve's reaction would be. She didn't expect him to snort and say, "I used to get that a lot. They probably think Bucky and I were lovers, too."
"I've seen that theory," Leslie answered cautiously.
Steve chuckled at her surprise. "I was a little guy who liked art. Lots of people assumed I was 'a faggot.'" The way he said it was obviously a quote. Leslie explained the preferred polite term these days was "gay."
Steve nodded, committing the term to memory, though to him the word meant "happy." "I didn't mind if a guy made a pass and took no for an answer. Didn't like anyone who pressed too far, whether he was trying to make time with a man or a woman. I felt bad for Bucky, though, when people assumed we were together. Cost him a couple of jobs."
"Well, today it's not illegal. And discrimination against people based on their lifestyle is supposed to be illegal."
Steve caught the "supposed to." "There are always bullies, aren't there?"
"That's true," Leslie agreed, then she sighed. "It's so difficult to stay on topic with you, when there are so many topics to cover. Let's get back to computers. Computers started out as room-sized machines that used vacuum tubes as switches. When scientists found alternatives to vacuum tubes, the machines became smaller and smaller. Today, they're small enough to fit in your pocket." She tapped Steve's cellphone.
She showed him how to unlock the phone, put in a code and a thumbprint.
"What are all the little pictures?" Steve asked. "Is this the one to make a phone call?"
He touched the phone receiver icon, which opened the phone app. Steve yanked his finger away apologetically.
"That's exactly what it is," Leslie praised. "And that's exactly how you open it. The pictures are called icons. Each one opens an application, which is shortened to app most of the time."
She went through the basics of making a call and entering a number into the contacts. He successfully put her number and Maria Hill's in the contacts. Then he tried calling Leslie several times, by entering the phone number and by touching her name under contacts.
"The phone has GPS. I will explain how it works another time," Leslie said. "What it means is you can find exactly where you are at any time. She showed him how to use the maps and how to get directions.
"I don't forget very much any more," Steve said, modestly describing his eidetic memory. "I probably won't get lost."
"This is just in case," Leslie assured him. "Also, you can find places you haven't been — like the nearest grocery store — and get directions to it. One thing you should know, when the GPS is on, SHIELD can find you at any time. They have this phone number on file. That can be useful if you, say, find too many bullies to handle and need to call for help. But if you want privacy …"
"I understand," Steve said solemnly, but he had no reason to hide from SHIELD. "What else can a smartphone do?"
Leslie didn't want to get into email and Web browsers right now. That was a whole day's worth of discussion and a whole battlefield full of potential landmines. Instead, she showed Steve the games she had put on his phone. There was a jigsaw puzzle, a word game and a drawing program.
She had loaded a couple of her favorite classic books: Jules Verne's "Mysterious Island," Agatha Christie's "Mysterious Affair at Styles" and Edgar Rice Burroughs' not so mysterious "Tarzan of the Apes" and "Return of Tarzan" (because the first book is "to be continued"). All of those were books that Leslie liked and were old enough that Steve might have read them in his childhood. She added "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" just because.
At the last minute, she'd added "Fer de Lance" by Rex Stout. She thought Rex Stout's "Nero Wolfe" books would be good. The mystery series started before World War II and continued through the 1970s. Steve could learn a lot about attitudes (and fashion!) by reading the books chronologically.
When she found out what kind of stories Steve liked, she'd help him download more.
Steve was amazed to find music on the phone, as well. Leslie had mostly stuck with swing era classics, but she'd added a little Beach Boys and some Elvis, to move him toward the 60s.
"We can put movies on, too, but I didn't have time," Leslie apologized.
"Movies, too? This is amazing," Steve said honestly. He turned the slender rectangle around, impressed that all that could fit in something so small.
"Is this the camera lens?" he asked.
"Smart boy," Leslie praised.
Steve found the camera icon by himself and snapped a picture of Leslie, who posed in a campy pinup girl style — which looked really funny on a pudgy 60ish woman in slacks and a blazer.
Then Leslie showed him how to text the photo to her. When the picture popped up on Leslie's phone, Steve grinned.
"Bucky would love this," he enthused.
His grin faltered, when he remembered Bucky was dead.
Steve fought to keep from crying. He had always tried to be brave — for his mother, for Bucky, for Peggy, for the Commandos. But then he realized all of them were dead. There was no one left to be brave for,
His expression crumpled like a discarded paper bag. Tears began to run down his cheeks. "Bucky said we were going to the future. Now I'm here without him."
Leslie pulled him to her shoulder as he began to cry in wracking, gulping sobs.
"He's gone," Steve wailed. "They're all gone. I'll never see any of them again."
A/N: Banking was different in my younger days. Up until the 1980s, you could not cash an out-of-state check. My mother and sister were stranded in an airport because of a flight delay. They'd used up their cash and traveler's checks and had to persuade a cashier to cash an out-of-state check in order for them to buy any food. There were no ATMs then, no debit cards and even credit cards were not universally used. This was 1972.