Cable Car
Steve was riding the elevator up the main clearance level of S.H.I.E.L.D. Central with increasing apprehensive the closer he got. This idea seemed so strange to him. He hadn't been in school in a very long time, and even when he had been it wasn't taken terribly seriously. As a kid he had bigger things to be concerned with during the Depression years. Steve exited the elevator when it finally arrived, and walked to the main reception.
"Good morning ma'am," Steve greeted.
"Ah, Captain Rogers sir, good morning. Here is your temporary clearance pass. It will remain activated for as long as you're participatory in the program. It will give you access to the 10th floor, which is the Research Services department for S.H.I.E.L.D. I'll just need your signature and initials on this document for security purposes. Feel free to take your time to read it over." The receptionist explained.
Steve nodded at the woman and looked over the document. It was all relatively straightforward information. Basically just stating that anything Steve saw or heard about while at S.H.I.E.L.D. was considered classified and he'd be in a lot of trouble if he were to ever repeat any of it. However, it had a small clause about information he acquired through his academic endeavours, stating that information was not within the privacy agreement.
"Well that would defeat the purpose now wouldn't it…?" Steve mused as he signed the document.
Steve handed the document back to the woman, and retrieved his security pass. It had his official S.H.I.E.L.D. photo on it with CAPTAIN STEVE ROGERS written underneath it. He clipped it onto his belt and turned back to the elevator.
"Oh, Captain Rogers! When you get to Research Services, take a left. You'll be expected in the library." She called out after him.
"Thank you ma'am. Have a good day." Steve smiled at her and went back into the elevator, taking it up to the 10th floor.
His pass let him through the secured opaque glass doors, and he noticed how different Research Services was from the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. He was used to a lot of people always running around like they were already late for something. This seemed more relaxed, like a normal office space. Steve went left and began looking for the library. He came across another set of opaque glass doors with Research Services Library inscribed on them, and once again used his security pass to gain entrance.
"Now this is more familiar," Steve thought.
It was as if S.H.I.E.L.D. had used an entirely different architect and designer for this part of the building, or that it had been left over from whoever owned the building previously. Nothing was in the usual matte grey scale, and not everything was constructed in metal. The library was not entirely huge, but big enough to fit one row of ten stacks on either side, with five work desks down the middle. Everything from the stacks to the desks was made from what Steve guessed was mahogany. Each desk had two sets of the green classic bankers desk lamps, which was good because the library had no windows.
"First time here?"
Steve's attention was drawn to a man on his right, sitting down at the rather small circulation desk. He's an older fellow, old enough to be his father.
"Or grandson, depending on how you count…" Steve thought.
"Yes sir, I'm expected here. I'm Captain Steve Rogers," Steve replied.
The librarian stood and extended his hand out to Steve, which he immediately shook.
"Of course Captain, I've heard of you. It's great to meet you; I'm Iverson Hughes the head librarian here at Research Services. Feel free to come and go as you please. Circulation isn't always open, but you can use this space whenever you like."
"Thank you very much Mr. Hughes," Steve said.
"No need for formality here, just call me Iverson," He replied.
Steve nodded and made his way over to the third desk, situated in the middle of the room. The two desks furthest away were already occupied, and being too close to the entrance could be distracting. Steve removed his brown leather jacket, and slung it over the back of his chair. He took a seat and pulled out his sketchbook. He decided to draw the green classic bankers desk lamp in front of him while he waited. It was only 8:48am, so he was technically still early.
Apparently he wasn't far away enough because he heard someone come into the library.
"Or maybe they're just loud…" Steve thought as he looked in the direction of the loud intrusion.
Steve saw a very lithe woman with very short hair enter the library, carrying a tray with three travel coffees.
"Dr. Harrison! Good morning!" Iverson greeted the woman.
"Good morning Mr. Hughes, I remembered your coffee this morning! Does this mean that we're square with the late fees?" She inquired.
"Yes, we are even now. Just don't do it again, you should know better!" Iverson scolded her playfully.
"Yes yes I know: I am terrible! But I keep you in hot caffeinated beverages, so I can't be all bad," She called back to him as she walked past the circulation desk.
"And it's Iverson!" He called after her.
She waved her free hand in the air as an acknowledgement, but was busy walking directly toward Steve. She had a wide smile on her face as she extended her hand to him.
"Hello Captain Rogers, I'm Dr. Harrison your tutor." She greeted.
Steve sat there for a moment just sort of staring at her before he stood up and shook her hand, almost forgetting his manners.
"Nice to meet you ma'am, and please call me Steve." He replied.
"Oh, please no ma'am business. I'm either Dr. Harrison or Roberta, whichever you're more comfortable with," Roberta replied.
Steve wasn't quite sure what he was more comfortable with. This whole situation was odd to him. So instead he simply smiled back at her, and she took that as a sufficient response because she took a seat and began unpacking her things from her dark brown satchel. Once she had her belongings scattered across the desk, she looked back up at Steve who was still standing.
"…Is something the matter Steve?" She inquired.
Steve finally realized how awkward he was behaving and sat back down.
"No Dr. Harrison I just uh, I wasn't expecting a woman. Not that there's anything wrong with being taught by a woman. I just—"
"Oh don't worry about it. Sadly Steve even in the 2000s some people are still surprised that a young woman could have a doctorate. So we'll temporarily excuse you, since you've got about 70 years give or take to catch up on things." Roberta interrupted.
While seemingly quite friendly, Steve knew not to underestimate her. She was direct and vocal, and appeared very professional particularly in comparison to himself. She was dressed quite a bit more formally than he was. Steve was wearing a blue plaid button down shirt, tucked into a pair of khaki pants. Dr. Harrison, however, wore black high heels, a white button down blouse that was tucked into a high waist black pencil skirt.
"Though technically she is supposed to be at work…"
Secondly, he suddenly felt very aware of his lack of education. Roberta Harrison had a PhD, in what Steve didn't know, but she had one. Maybe even more than one? Steve had barely finished secondary school. He wasn't intimidated, in fact he admired strong women, she just reminded him of his own lack of education.
Steve was snapped out of his thoughts when one of the coffees was nudged toward him.
"I wasn't sure if you drank coffee, but I brought you one as well. I didn't want you to feel left out. I wasn't sure what you'd want, so I played it safe with black," Roberta said.
"Oh, well I drink it, but I don't really require it. My increased metabolism doesn't really let caffeine affect me," Steve replied and began drinking his coffee.
"Oh yes that's right. I should've remembered that." She replied.
"Remember?" Steve inquired.
"When I got the job, and after filling out about a thousand privacy agreements, S.H.I.E.L.D. gave me your file. They thought if I better understood you, I could better cater my lessons to your needs," Roberta explained.
"And what did you learn?" Steve asked.
"That we're going to focus on the Cold War. I only have a six-month contract with S.H.I.E.L.D. so I didn't want to waste any time with pre 1945 history. I figure why teach that part of history to a man who experienced it first hand." She replied.
Steve was mildly impressed. Dr. Harrison was brand new to S.H.I.E.L.D. and yet she seemed totally at ease with the concept of the man out of time.
"I suppose after what happened in New York nothing would surprise most people anymore," Steve thought.
"So to begin, you're going to check out We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History by John Lewis Gaddis. I want you begin by reading chapter two… shouldn't you be writing this down?" Roberta questioned.
"Oh gosh, um… I didn't bring anything to…" Steve was embarrassed that he came so unprepared.
He remembered his sketchbook, so he opened it to a fresh page and scribbled down what he could remember. Roberta looked over at his words, and continued on.
"Yes, by John Lewis Gaddis. So I want you to begin with the introduction through to chapter two, here today. If you feel like you can, also read three, seven, and eight. We'll get to them either today or tomorrow. I want to start off a little slowly, just to get an idea on how we're going to pace these lessons."
Once Steve had written down the necessary information he began looking in the stacks but didn't recognize the classification system. Steve walked to the circulation desk to find a happily caffeinated Iverson.
"Iverson, I am having difficulty finding this book," Steve begins, handing him the piece of paper, "I don't understand this system."
"Ah yes, we use the Library of Congress system here, you're likely familiar with the public system. Let me show you," Iverson replied.
Iverson stood from his desk and gave Steve his piece of paper back. Steve followed the librarian, feeling like a child back at school.
"Here you are Steve. The call number is D843.G24 1997. The D is for the subclass History, so you'll likely be in this section quite a bit," Iverson informs him.
Iverson pulls the book from the shelf and hands it to him, and gives him a quick pat on the arm before returning to his post at the circulation desk. Slightly embarrassed Steve returns to his seat with his book.
"Here Steve, I've written down a list of things you'll need. I noticed that you didn't know what to bring today, and that's completely fine. I do suggest you pick this stuff up this afternoon after we're done," Roberta says.
Roberta hands him a piece of paper that has an intimidating long list of items. She notices his eyebrows raise and his eyes grow larger as he scans the list.
"Don't fret, I'm sure S.H.I.E.L.D. will compensate you for this stuff, they are sort of forcing you into all this," She says.
Steve smiles, "You think so?"
"Well you should certainly try. I would," She said while smiling back, but Steve somehow knew she was being very serious. "Now start reading and take notes. When you're done we'll discuss."
After quite some time Steve reached the end of chapter two. It had taken longer than usual because he took a lot of notes. This was his first real introduction to what he missed after the War. He'd been told some things, and caught other bits of information through osmosis. However, this was his first truly educational introduction into what he had slept through.
"First impressions?" Roberta inquired.
"Well, it was very enlightening. It was a lot to take in, but I have to say I thought it was great. It was straight forward but informative," Steve answered.
"Okay, can you give me any examples? I saw you wrote a lot down,"
"Well from this I got the impression that the Cold War was basically inevitable. That the Soviet Union was trying to impose communism by coercion, and that the U.S. was trying to stand up to them to help others," Steve explained.
"So the United States influence was welcomed by other nations but the Soviet Union's was not?" asked Roberta.
Steve was unsure where this was leading, "… According to this, yes."
"Why was American influence better than the Soviet's?" Roberta pressed.
"Because the Soviet's were oppressive," He answered.
"So the United States was acting selflessly?" She questioned him.
"I suppose so,"
"What about when it is stated that: 'Just because Roosevelt wanted the United States to enter the war and to become a world power afterwards does not mean that his actions alone made these things happen,' from page 35?" She asked.
"Well like it says, his actions alone didn't make those things happen." Steve said.
"But it wasn't without a reason was it? Wasn't without the incentive of something to gain was it? The United States had as much selfishness behind their actions. Both wanted ideological influence, dominance, and power—"
That triggered something in him, and Steve finally lost his temper.
"But you gave me this book! Why would you ask me to read this if you felt this way about it? You're my teacher—"
"Because I want you to think. Yes I am here to educate you. Yes I am your teacher. But I want you to think. To not just accept information blindly because of where the information is coming from. Mr. Gaddis is one of the most well respected Historians, but those with the authority are not always right," Roberta explained.
"Then why am I even here? Why should I even listen to you then?" Steve asked exasperated.
"I'm your qualified tour guide Steve. I want you to question me, question what I teach you, and question what you learn. Never stop questioning. I want you to learn how to think for yourself. That is the purpose of education. Anyone who tells you otherwise has ulterior motives or thinks that he or she already has all the answers. At least that's what I've learned." Roberta explained.
"No disrespect ma'am, but I don't think that this was such a good idea. I appreciate you putting in the time and effort here but I should get going." Steve said as politely as possible.
"Oh dear, back to ma'am and giving up that quickly are we?" Roberta observed.
Steve didn't answer her, but began to collect his brown leather jacket and sketchbook before turning to leave. As he began to walk toward the library doors he heard the clicking of heels following him.
"Steve!" Roberta called after him.
Steve stopped and sighed. "She's persistent… I'll give her that."
Steve turned around, prepared for politely decline her services again, but was surprised to see her extending his forgotten coffee out toward him.
"You forgot this, I don't want it to go to waste," She said.
"Oh… thank you ma'am," Steve said.
He waited for a moment to see if she was going to say anything else, but she only gave him a lopsided smile. Steve suddenly felt guilty and embarrassed.
"I'm acting like a child… When did I become so disrespectful?"
"Same time tomorrow Dr. Harrison?" Steve finally asked.
"Steve… you don't need to come because you feel obligated to. You should be here because you want to be here, because you want to learn. You'll be wasting our time if you don't want this. I'll be here at 9:00am again, and if you don't come I'll inform S.H.I.E.L.D. and our lessons will be discontinued. If you do come, I'll expect you to stay the duration of the 3 hours and to be prepared. Take today to think it over," Roberta said.
Dr. Harrison was giving him an out, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to take it or not.
"That seems more than fair. Have a good afternoon Dr. Harrison," Steve replied.
"Oh, before you go, take this," Roberta said handing a piece of paper to him. "Here is a quick list of things you'll need if you do decide to continue with our lessons, if you don't already have them."
Steve took the paper and put it in his pocket. He nodded politely before heading toward the library doors again. He made sure to stop and say goodbye to Iverson on his way out. The man smiled and said goodbye as well, but looked almost sad to see him go. As Steve took the elevator back down to ground level he detached his clearance pass from his belt and tucked it away into his pocket. He had decided, just in case, not to return it just yet. He felt the paper inside the same pocket, pulled it out, and took another look.
"Oh wow…"
He had forgotten what had been on it.
Steve stepped out of the elevator and into the lobby and approached a man at the main reception desk.
"Hello sir, may I please use your telephone?"
The man gave Steve an odd look, but nodded and placed the telephone within his reach. These days everyone had a mobile phone, but Steve still refused at this point to purchase one. Steve dialed a familiar number and waited.
"Stark? It's Steve. Are you in New York at Stark Tower? I need some help with something…"
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