2012 - Washington D.C.
They cover Steve's fateful flight on the Valkyrie and his abrupt reawakening 75 years later, right off the bat; largely because Hanson won't shut up about it until they do. Steve explains that he's not really allowed to give the museum Director Fury's contact information to ask more questions, but he might be able to convince the Director to contact them instead. His own doubt on that front must carry in his voice, because Hanson is quick to assure him that that won't be necessary.
Once the 'how' of Steve's unexpected survival is squared away, they get to the crux of the biggest thing Steve had hated about the exhibit: the godawful, bullshit representations of Morita and Fallsworth - and the utter lack of representation for Jones.
Morita is, for some bizarre reason, treated like a whiney, chicken-shit agitator. Every disagreement the team ever had is somehow attributed to him. There are even suggestions that the other Commandos secretly loathed him; and Steve is absolutely seeing red the first time he reads that.
He can't even count how many times Jim saved his life - how many times he saved the lives of the entire team. The Commandos worked as a unit. They protected each other each and every day in the field. There were no bad eggs in the bunch.
The exhibit even goes so far as to describe Morita as being 'shifty' in one panel, and 'difficult' in another. Steve is breathing fire by the time he's done addressing that.
The rotten depiction starts to make more sense a little later, after he does some reading about Jim's post-war life, and the activism he got involved in. It's no wonder people wanted to discredit him.
Jim Morita was never one to be quiet about what he thought and he didn't take discrimination lightly. He'd have made himself heard, and the powers-that-be obviously hadn't much liked what he'd had to say.
Steve doesn't give a good goddamn what the powers-that-be like. He makes sure the Smithsonian team knows exactly how damned brave and resourceful Jim was; how well loved and respected by his brothers in arms. He makes them scrub every nasty, gossipy word about Morita out of the exhibit before he's satisfied. And he makes sure they include every sincere, honest fact that he gives them instead.
"Go talk to any of the Commandos or their families if you don't believe me!" becomes a refrain. He realizes too late that there aren't any other Commandos left alive for the museum to talk to.
Fury already told him that his team has long sinced passed away… it just hasn't sunk in quite yet.
At least Fallsworth's depiction isn't so much malicious, as just… flat and incomplete. The man is portrayed about as dry and as boring as a saltine cracker - and that just ISN'T Monty. James Fallsworth was a serious man, but he was also sharp and clever, with incredible integrity, courage, and a wickedly sly sense of humor. Monty was an amazing man and a better friend, as well as an absolutely vital part of the Commandos. Steve will happily destroy anybody who wants to try and convince him otherwise.
Hanson, wisely, quickly stops making weak protests in favor of his inaccurate facts and just starts scribbling frantic notes instead, while Steve talks him through the (myriad) mistakes around the Commando's portion of the exhibit hall.
For reasons Steve can pretty easily guess, they've got next to nothing about Jones on display at all. He's in the background of a couple of photos and his name's on the team's roster - mounted on a small brass plaque near the door- but beyond that he may as well not have existed at all. There is no mention of his lengthy service. No mention of his unflinching loyalty and courage. No mention of the vital field-medic skills he brought with him, which saved everyone on the team's lives at least once, at some point or other. No mention at all of him successfully completing that last fateful mission in the Alps, despite Steve's utter failure to do so, and his steady presence helping to ground the team after the loss of Sergeant Barnes.
Steve is absolutely appalled.
He's apoplectic with the entire mess, honestly; a sight which is apparently pretty damned intimidating. Once he gets going, nobody argues with him - though one intern lets out a frightened squeak when he starts ranting at full volume, and he has to forcefully remind himself to bring it down a notch. These people didn't know any better when they set this farce up, and his scaring the hell out of them isn't really helping... even if it IS a little cathartic.
There are at least twenty-six pages of notes before he's quite done complaining about the absolutely ridiculous exclusions, though, and he adds with barely restrained anger, that he expects them to find some good goddamn photos of all of the Commandos to put up in here. And they'd better stop kissing his ass and focus on his team because they did most of the goddamned work! He didn't win the fucking war by himself, for god's sake! These puny and/or blurry newspaper shots are not doing it.
Hanson nods meekly along the entire time, brow furrowed, writing and writing and writing until he's bound to get a cramp. Ms. Sutherland, his assistant, follows along with a tablet aimed steadily at Steve, soaking up every word with rapt interest. She refused to be left out of this, once she caught wind of what they were doing, and neither Steve nor Dr. Hanson really wanted to fight her about it. Steve respects a lady with grit, and Hanson is just too bowled over to fight anybody at the moment. Some poor sucker new-hire apparently drew the short-straw to watch the front desk while she's away. He was amusing himself with some little pocket gadget the last Steve saw him, typing furiously on it. He doesn't much care what about.
Steve glances back at Ms. Sutherland, who looks like a little kid at Christmas. He's pretty sure at this point that he could bellow in her face, and as long as it was about the Commandos, she wouldn't even blink.
He's not really sure how the 'tablet' thing she's carrying works, but he takes the curator's word for it when he explains it's recording everything he says and does, just like a camera. Why not? Steve's in the future. Sure, he'll buy that this thin slab of … whatever metal that is- with a little screen set in it, can capture all of his ranting.
Fine.
Great.
Whatever gets this travesty fixed faster, he'll run with it.
Surprisingly, the museum actually didn't do too badly with Dugan or Dernier. He adds a few fairly minor notes about both men, corrects a couple of inaccurate facts, and then turns his attention to the monumental task of fixing Bucky's sorely lacking mention - a subject which will be a rant in and of itself.
Bucky, who is loosely acknowledged as Steve's close friend from childhood in a very small plaque near the exit. Who is in the foreground of several pictures, but is barely spoken of aside from a name, an age, a rank, and a label of 'the team's sniper, Sgt. James B. Barnes'. Bucky, who amounts to a handful of (woefully inaccurate) facts on a small, dingy poster behind grubby plexiglass in a forgotten corner. Who is really only talked about in any detail as the only other Commando known to die during the war. They have a little "R.I.P" plaque and some dusty fake flowers mounted on the wall beside a small newspaper clipping of Bucky's obituary from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
They don't even try to capture Bucky's charm, his brains, or his courage. They definitely don't mention the personal hell he fought through to be where he could watch Steve's back… though Steve's not really sure that part is anybody's fucking business but his and Bucky's.
The exhibit doesn't acknowledge anywhere how invaluable Bucky was to the Commandos, nor especially how invaluable he was to Steve. How much he supported, guided, and protected Steve out there. How Steve Rogers wouldn't have entered combat at all if he hadn't been looking for his best friend, missing in action. How Rogers really came into his own as Captain America when he raided that Hydra compound in Azzano, hell-bent on finding Bucky.
Most astonishingly, they seem to have that particular act of rebellion down as an authorized 'secret SSR rescue mission'. As if he had full approval -even implying he had orders- for his one-man suicide assault. Steve actually breaks into a dark chuckle at the thought and shakes his head.
Colonel Phillips would be turning in his grave if he could see that nonsense.
… Probably after giving Rogers hell for failing to report after the crash of the Valkyrie. A hard-ass through and through, that guy.
Steve shrugs off the now-familiar cold, disconnected feeling that forms in his belly and rubs wearily at the bridge of his nose to ground himself. He's been thinking a lot about Phillips lately.
He hopes the colonel did alright after the war. There isn't a whole lot of mention of him once S.H.I.E.L.D. was founded, and Steve has no idea what happened to the man. There's nobody he can shout at to get answers, that's for sure - the information simply isn't there. He looked. He has little choice but to let it go and hope that no news is good news...
This exhibit however… that he can man-handle a bit. That he can fix.
Most everything in here is Steve, Steve, Steve. Or more accurately: it's all about Captain America.
That's going to change.
"Dr. Hanson," he says, pausing in front of a grainy group photo of the Howling Commandos, his eyes lingering on his best friend's black-and-white face, "Let me tell you about Sergeant James Buchanan 'Bucky' Barnes." He feels his face creasing into a wan, bitter-sweet smile as he glances back over his shoulder. "...You might want to grab a bigger notebook first."