"Dr. Hanson? Captain Rogers is here to see you. He says it's very important."

His breathless receptionist is peering around the doorway when Doug Hanson -the head curator of the Captain America exhibit- looks up from his paperwork. Tammy's curly brown hair wisps lightly after her face as she jerks her head toward the lobby, dark eyes wide, and silently mouths it's Captain -fucking- America!

He blinks at her, trying to process that, and comes up empty.
Tammy Sutherland is a smart young woman, and she's been the full-time admin assistant and receptionist for his office for the past four years. Tammy started as an American History grad student on work-study roughly -forever- ago, and she did her goddamn graduate thesis about Captain America's impact on the country, and how we approach war and international conflict. She's been working tirelessly on an application for a Research Librarian position in the Library of Congress for the last several weeks.
The thing is, Tammy is bright. She knows the history on this subject backward and forwards… so she knows precisely why that's not possible.
What could shake her up enough to fall for such an obvious prank?

"Tammy…" He starts gently, setting down the paper in his hand, "Captain America is dead. You know that. He died decades ago-"

"-Actually...," A sardonic-sounding blonde man's head suddenly appears above Tammy's shoulder, startling them both, and Hanson has to do a double-take.
He glances between the framed Time magazine cover over his desk (July of 1944), and the man in his doorway. His mouth goes dry. Holy hell, it IS him… "-I just took a really, really long nap." the man who can only be Captain America finishes with a shrug.

The Captain has the bearing of a man who'd rather be just about anywhere else, as he carefully wedges himself through the doorway around Tammy and approaches the desk. He stiffly holds out one hand to Doug at waist level. "Steve Rogers, Captain America, former Howling Commando." Is it his imagination, or did that sound just a tiny bit petulant? "Nice to meet you." It comes out sounding like the Captain would rather be having a root-canal.

Hanson stares between the extended hand and his assistant's face, waiting for her to let him in on the joke. Any minute now, she'll crack up and this guy will pull off his mask or whatever and-
and…
and…
And, no... this is really happening.
After a few seconds without any hidden cameras bursting out of his filing cabinet, he stands dazedly and takes Rogers' extended hand, pumping it perhaps a little too enthusiastically. The Captain looks like he's trying hard not to sigh.

"It's… it's an honor to meet you, Captain Rogers… Please, make yourself comfortable…" Doug quickly indicates a padded chair just in front of his desk. Rogers doesn't even glance at it.

Hanson looks back at Tammy, who seems exceedingly pleased with herself ...and like she's about to vibrate out of her skin with excitement.
TOLD YOU! Tammy mouths triumphantly, smirking just a little tartly at him, before turning to cast a radiant smile at Rogers. "If you need anything else, Captain, I'll be at the front desk where you found me. Don't even hesitate to ask."

The tall man nods and gives her a wan smile back, and then Tammy's vanishing back out of the room, quietly shutting the door behind her. Rogers continues to pointedly ignore the chair that's directly to his left, so Doug doesn't sit either.

"I'd like to talk to you about the exhibit you have up about me right now." Rogers informs him flatly when he turns back, arms crossing firmly over his chest like he's expecting a fight on this. The man's back is ramrod straight and his massive shoulders are crisply squared beneath a neat khaki jacket.
The curator swallows hard, thoroughly intimidated. Living history is standing in front of his desk - and it looks pissed. "Yes. ...Right. Of course."
He fumbles out a note-pad and a pen and slaps them down on the surface of his desk, wincing a little as the awkwardly loud noise echoes around his uncomfortably silent office. "So… uh… W-what did you think?" And if there's a hint of hopeful pride and just a the tiniest bit of fishing for praise laced into his voice? Well, he worked hard on this. What of it?

"Um… well, honestly-" Rogers looks exceedingly uncomfortable for a moment. "- It's awful." he says, his hard stance breaking down a little. He reaches up to rub a hand awkwardly up and down the back of his neck.
Hanson resists the urge to stare. His entire world just shattered in the space of that sentence, and here's Captain -fucking- America is making an 'aw gee shucks' gesture in his office. Does Captain America even do that?! He swallows hard again. The thin note-pad in front of him suddenly seems very, very inadequate.

"I… I see." There's a long, uncomfortable pause, during which neither of them speak. "Could you… I mean… what's wrong with it? Did we leave something out? I know some of the photos are old and grainy, but-"

"It's not just the photos-" Rogers interrupts quickly, "although ...it's definitely weird seeing my baby pictures behind a glass case…" The Captain's hand is still fidgeting with the nape of his neck and Doug is near mesmerized by the motion. "But you got everything really wrong-" Rogers breathes out in a huff. "Just… everything."

"Oh." The curator sets his pen down and tries to remember how to breathe properly. He's just been told -twice now- that his life's work is a failure, -by his life-long idol, no less, and the subject of his PHD …Yeah, he can totally handle this.

… He's handling this.
… He's not melting down. He's not.
Not in front of Captain America he's not.

"You alright?" Rogers has stopped fidgeting and is now leaning a little bit over the desk, looking concerned.

… Nope, nope he was wrong. He can't handle this. -But he can maybe salvage it.

Hanson clears his throat.
"Captain, I apologize for any mistakes we've made in our representation. We did our best with the information that was available, but there was so much propaganda surrounding you and your command and-" He stops himself from whining and defending before he really manages to embarrass himself, and changes course. "Is there - ahem- is there any way I could convince you to help me bring our information up to date and fill in some blanks for us? To correct whatever we got wrong? I'd certainly like our exhibit to be as accurate as possible, and you'd... be a huge help…" He trails off. Rogers is smiling.

...Sort of.

Rogers' lips have definitely quirked up one one side and his eyes have softened slightly. There's a hard, bitter edge that never quite leaves his face, but he doesn't look pissed anymore, so that's progress.

"Sir," -and yeah, the weak proto-smirk thing is widening into a very thin smile. "I would be happy to do exactly that. Do you have some time right now?"

Doug immediately has Tammy clear absolutely everything else on his schedule for the afternoon. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and he does not want to be interrupted.

A/N: Awww, look at Steve. Already making new friends in the future. ... Sorta.