The minute Steve walked in the door, he was bombarded by questions from Uncle Coulson.
"So, did you make any new friends?"
"Well," Steve rubbed the back of his neck, "there's this girl named Natasha Romanov, and-"
"A girl," Coulson interrupted, "good."
"No, no," Steve laughed, "not like that. She has a boyfriend, Clint Barton. He's pretty cool. And man, can he use a bow and arrow!"
"How did you figure that out?"
"Gym. With him and Natasha. She's like a freaking spider on the rock wall, it's kinda crazy," Steve ranted on, getting over-excited.
"Anyone else?" Coulson continued to ask.
"There's Bruce Banner. He's kind of a science nerd. He's in chemistry with me and Tony Stark," Steve continued. "It's kind of a different class with them-"
Coulson cut him off, a look of what seemed to be shock on his face. "Wait, who is in your chemistry class?"
"Bruce Banner," Steve replied.
"No, no," Coulson made a forward spinning motion with his hand, shaking his head, "the other one."
"Oh," Steve grinned, "Tony Stark. He said he'd help me with science, and with decking out Bells, and-"
"I know his dad," Coulson muttered.
"What?"
"Howard Stark. I used to work with him. He works with the weapons development with SH-erm, with my company. He also worked with the government, with the military. Helped develop, well, you."
Steve sat in awe. "So, I'm working on chemistry homework with the son of... you mean to say that Tony's dad came up with this serum? The one that's coursing through my veins? But he said he sucks at chemistry!"
"I've heard that Tony is a child prodigy in physics. You know, robotics. Mechanical engineering. That sort of thing," Coulson noted. Steve relaxed a little bit.
"Well," mid-sentence, Steve let out a long, drawn-out yawn, "I think I'm going to call this a day. Good night, Uncle. Thanks for dealing with my new school shock syndrome."
Coulson nodded. "No worries, kid. Sweet dreams."
As Steve wandered up to bed, Coulson pulled out his laptop, and started up his video conference. A few seconds after it started up, the face of Nick Fury came into view. Coulson immediately saluted.
"Sir," he began the conversation.
"At ease, soldier," Fury's powerful voice said gently. "How is Rogers?"
"The good news is that he is befriending all the right people. There is this kid, Clint Barton, that's affiliated with Romanov, and then there's Bruce Banner. But I'm guessing they're good influences. Tony Stark and Natasha Romanov wouldn't be affiliated with them otherwise. They have-well, Romanov has-a good subconscious and first impressions of people."
"Coulson, I'm the principal of the school. Clint Barton is an ultimate archery protégé that happens to be one of the best in the nation, and also the deadliest. Bruce Banner isn't quite much of anything yet, but he's a genius. Top ranked in his class, number one in the running for his class' valedictorian, scholar, being given scholarships from every top engineering school in the country. Both of them are fine to have around Rogers," Fury assured him.
Coulson was still a bit on edge. "You've got to remember, Steve is one of Howard Stark's experiments, if you will. We have to be careful. God knows how many people out there want a sample of his blood."
"That's actually why I decided to contact you tonight. I have some news that should keep us a bit on the edge of our seats for the next few months," Fury replied, remaining in all his seriousness. "I've only heard conspiracies, but there are plans to either come into your house or come into the school and take him. Or part of him. Anything that has Steve's DNA is almost guaranteed to have the genetic code to the serum, so we have to be careful."
"That's exactly what I've been afraid of. Question:" Coulson continued.
"I probably have an answer," replied Fury.
"If Steve has these classes with all of these protégés and descendants of supergeniuses, don't you think you should have someone in the backdrop kind of looking over them?"
"I do," Fury said, his smile almost indiscernible. "The gym teacher, though he's like all the other high school gym teachers, is actually a highly trained hand-to-hand combat assassin. The chemistry teacher has been working in the chemical engineering department of SHIELD for over ten years now, helping in weapons development alongside Stark, so he knows how important Rogers is to keep safe."
"And, everyone else? Those are the only classes I've heard he has with the other supergeniuses and protégés. What about when he's not in chemistry or gym?"
The screen showed Fury moving his hand from the top to the bottom, telling Coulson to calm down. "The minute you said you would be sending Rogers to this school, I started preparing. Each of the security guards that roams the halls keeps the small prototypes of the ray guns that Stark tried to develop. Each one has been tested, they work well enough to stun someone. So, if the enemy gets past the other guards at the entrances-also skilled at hand-to-hand combat-we can stun him and bring him into custody to see what company he is affiliated with."
"I'm feeling like a bit of an idiot that I doubted Steve would be safe now," Coulson admitted sheepishly.
Fury somewhat chuckled, or maybe it was a small burp from dinner, Coulson couldn't quite tell which. "This school is the safest in the district. It's SHIELD run. If anyone was allowed to know that, we'd have to expand from how many requests we'd be getting for admission. Go to bed, Coulson. Sleep soundly; your 'nephew' is safe. I promise."
The laptop screen went blank, and Coulson shut it, putting it back in his briefcase and going up to his bedroom.
Steve was safe, for now. And for Coulson, that's what mattered.
